3/21/2023

One room for rent was already taken when I phoned about stopping by to take a look. The other room for rent was large but the homeowner was a fucking creep. Plus he kept going on and on about liability, his lawyer, and whatnot. I told him, "Sorry for wasting your time" and left.

On the bright side I think my current day job is good for creativity. Wound up writing out a scene and I'm going to transcribe it here with minor revisions.

"Know what you're listening to?"

"Nothing."
It quite literally was nothing. Absolute profound silence. Earbuds nestled in her ears, volume was half-way on her phone, but it gave her respite from the noise of everyone on that packed train. The crying baby on his mother's lap wasn't even a bother even though she saw the kid's mouth was open like an air raid siren as tears ran down its fat cheeks. Somehow someone recorded silence. Stranger still, turning up the volume made it more profound.

"No, no, no. You are hearing something." The bum's eyes go wide with excitement as he leans into her to share his secret. "Vigintillions of mad, blind, idiot gods serenading the ultimate chaos with their flutes carved from the bones of the gods before them who collapsed from exhaustion working to keep the peace."

"Vigintillions?" She thought of Jan Brady looking out here window and waxing poetic about the jillions of stars she can see just before finding that locket from Alice the maid.

The bum smiled, "Well maybe not that many. Just sounds a whole lot better than saying 'a lot'. Now listen up. Each of those breaths blown through those flutes is the sum of what a single being breathed over the course of their lifetime just for a single note. Each note tooted from these pipes is wielded by beings ignorant that this here speck of dust suspended in a sunbeam even has life. Your sun could pass through the body of the flute and its shine wouldn't reach the sides."
"In an infinite universe these beings can keep up with the chaos's restless dreams, but while that ultimate chaos dreams it can hear and in its delight wants to hear more, bringing the chaos closer to the waking world. So they play harder. Faster."
"What is it they say? A secret chord to please the lord? Hasn't been found yet but they're damned well trying. Sometimes I go and wonder if we'd be better off with a million of your monkeys with a million flutes but that's besides the point."

Erika stared at the guy. He was black, with clear eyes, free of that nicotine yellow of other homeless people. Those clothes seem awful new but then again he might've just got them from a shelter since winter's around the corner. What troubled her most was the fact he didn't smell. No dirty ass. No booze on his breath. When his teeth flashed they looked perfect like a movie star. Someone must be running a con. A scam. But she couldn't help but listen and her thumb surreptitiously lowered the volume of the silence filling her ears.

"Now if that ultimate chaos wakes up," his eyes opened up even wider and seemed to have their own light, "Everything will end."

She blinked once for less than a second but the moment hung in eternity.

"Everything." He leaned back and ran his open hands down the parka over his chest. She noted his fingernails didn't have any shit under them. "Even me, the soul of that roiling nuclear horror at the heart of the cosmos. If that wakes up, the dream ends and everything vanishes."

"You're crazy." A young cop was holding vigil at the door between train cars at the end. He wasn't even keeping an eye on the crowd. Just looking up and probably counting the minutes 'til he gets off this train. The hours 'til he's off shift and goes home.

"Everyone who tells the truth is crazy, Erika." She didn't bat an eye that he knew her name. It was almost expected. "Only sane people lie because they fear the repercussions of failure. And..."
For a longer moment than the blink of her eye the man's voice dropped out of hearing range but his lips wrapped themselves around too many syllables.
Vigintillions of syllables?
But in half a heartbeat his ravings were audible once again.
"...waking up has the ultimate repercussions. The cosmos will fail."

"Leave me alone before I call a cop." She nodded and pointed with her chin at the cop.

"Go ahead," the bum laughed. "He can't see me anyhow." The bum's finger with a perfectly manicured nail prodded her arm, "Get Jen to listen to that track."

How did he know Jen? A memory from this morning flashed in her mind, Jen sitting crosslegged and barefoot on the kithen floor wearing those faded blue pajamas and hugging Pickles as he swished his tail with annoyance.

"Get her to hear it. She will tell you it's just static but it isn't. It's what you call the cosmic microwave background. To her it's static because she won't hear the melody. Jen lies to herself, just like she did to Rob and Tibi before she met you. She can't see, or hear," he tapped his temple and smiled "the big picture like you can."
"I like you, Erika. Anyone else and I wouldn't care if they went crazy and wound up a doleful D minor tooted as quickly as they lived. Delete that file!" His dark finger tapped the phone's screen, "Ditch that phone. Live out your blink of my eye while you still can." His gaze traveled over her face looking for some sort of acknowledgement.

"Is this seat taken?" A heavy woman with two overstuffed shopping bags loomed over her. She glanced to the left and the homeless guy was gone as if he was never there. The big woman took up a lot of space amidst the crowd packed asses and elbows on the car. There was no way her stranger could've gotten away without bumping into a few people but he was gone.

"Excuse me..." the large woman bent forward to enunciate in Erika's face like a distracted child. "...is thi..."

"No!" Erika jumped and the 'no' came out sharper than she hoped then softened her voice repeating, "No, no, no. Please..." as she patted the empty seat.
It wasn't warmed by the guy's butt. How many minutes was he there raving? Erika scooted a little to the right into the suit, feeling his muscular shoulder press against her then a sense of relief as the warm softness of her new seat companion fit herself in the open space. Absentmindedly, Erika touched her earbuds to make sure they didn't pop out then clicked start for the silence again.

"How long does this file play anyhow?" she wondered as the lights in the car flickered.

She missed her stop twenty minutes later because she didn't hear her station over the PA.