The Disappearance of Rothko Ladhiffe: Chapter Five

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I use the flashlight to explore the cave, but find nothing but a few strange rock formations, including one that looks like an altar. An ancient culture may have used it for human sacrifices, but for now, it’s mine. I need to take a nap and recharge myself, so I climb up on it, and drift away. Rock is generally really uncomfortable to be on, but right now, it feels like heaven.

I wake up later and realize that I’m also extremely hungry. I even say it loud, forgetting for a second that I am alone, and have been for most of my life. As I’m heading back to where I first came in, I pass the rock formation where I found what I’ve now decided to call the Rothko Torch, submerged in water. The water is gone, replaced by a plate of bread and crackers. I hesitantly lower my hand into the basin and gently touch the bread with my fingers. It’s not a hologram. I touch it again. It feels like regular bread. “Is someone here?” I ask, spinning around in case somebody shows up.

I don’t expect anyone to answer. For some reason, the plate of food magically appearing out of nowhere is a more logical explanation than that someone, out of the kindness of their heart, just snuck in and placed it here for me. As it turns out, I’m half right. “I’m here,” comes a voice.

I spin again and settle on a rock formation that looks like a doorway that leads nowhere. A woman is standing at the fake entrance, hands resting in front of her, and smiling. “Who are you?” I ask.

“Hello,” she says, like an automated phone attendant. “My name is Porter. The Constructor, The Weaver, and I collaborated on this place as a refuge for the needy. It is a prototype, however...a proof of concept, as it were. Congratulations, you have been chosen as a beta tester for the program. Here you will find anything you need. If you would like something, within reason, simply request it out loud. We’re not mind readers, you know,” she adds with a smirk. “If the program is successful, we will be creating more—more advanced—places like this. Go ahead and try it out. Ask for anything.”

“I would like Rothko Ladhiffe.”

“I’m sorry, that item is not in my inventory.”

“Please send me Escher Bradley.”

“I’m sorry, that item is not in my inventory,” she repeats.

I walk over and try to nudge her on the shoulder, sure that my hand will pass right through.

But she isn’t a hologram either. “Please respect my personal space. We’ll all get along better if we’re civil.”

I nudge her again.

“Please respect my personal space.”

So she’s physically here, but she’s not real. They somehow figured out how to record her saying various things, which can be activated upon command. It reminds me of some MS-DOS text games I used to play on the computer. You can’t speak to them like a normal person, only responding when you type commands the right way. Porter is clearly a more advanced version of this, but you still can’t break her worldview by teaching her something she didn’t know when she was built. She knows what she knows, and that’s it. I try to replicate one of the features that not all of them had. “Porter, list of commands.”

“I’m sorry, I cannot do that. If you would like the user manual, however, I can provide that.”

“User manual, please.”

“Item is waiting for you in the item basin.”

I go back over and retrieve a book that’s only about a hundred pages long. As advanced as this system is, I expect it to be as tall as a skyscraper, or something. I guess I’ve gotten lucky. I start flipping through the pages, and testing a few of the features. “Porter, play music.”

“Selection.”

“Wagner.”

“Which piece?”

“Dealer’s choice.” Entry of the Gods Into Valhalla starts playing, and I can’t figure out where the speakers are. It must just be coming from the aether itself. “Lower volume, please. Shuffle Wagner continuously please.” I return to the manual, which tells me that the items I request can come from anywhere in the world; from any time in history; past, present, or future. “Porter, give me the first model of television ever built.”

“The history of television sets, is a complicated one. Exactly what qualifies as a television set varies when considering modern standards—”

“Give me a TV from 1947.” It appears. “Give me a TV from 2017,” I choose, remembering the future book I read in the library above. I expect to see a flatscreen TV, but instead it’s curved inwards. I don’t get why anyone would want that. “Porter, does this function?”

“It does, yes.”

“If I turn it on, will it show me a broadcast from today, or from 2017?”

“Which would you like?”

I smile at the notion of being able to do practically anything, but I don’t actually turn on the TV, because that’s not what I’m doing here. “I would like to speak with the real Porter.”

“I’m afraid that’s not possible.”

“She’s dead?”

“Dead...alive...time. Everything never will be and always was.”

“How cheerful,” I respond to the sudden quasiphilosophical musing. “Is there anyone I can speak to? This Constructor, or the Weaver?”

Porter stands frozen for a few strange moments. “I could potentially contact the Weaver.”

“Okay, do that.”

She tilts her head to the other side. “Placing call.”

A different woman starts to climb out of the item basin, even though it’s not deep enough for someone to fit. She looks around. “I’d forgotten about this place.” She looks at a watch on her wrist. “August 24, 2000. Porter, let’s see that GameCube that they announce today.” She looks back and takes a gaming console I’ve never seen before out of the basin. “Still works.” She outstretches her hand. “Hello, my name is the Weaver. How did you find this place? It was buried.”

“With a book, and this,” I say to her, taking what I’ve now decided to call the Escher Knob from my bag.”

Her eyes widen and she reaches for it. I try to pull it away, but realize she’s my best source of answers. “A new thing,” she says happily. “Porter, I need my continuum resonance imaging machine.” While still examining the Escher Knob, she reaches into the basin and takes out a wand-looking thing, which she waves around the knob. “Porter, project the image on this anachronism.”

The television flips on, showing a photograph of the knob. The Weaver is able to rotate and flip it at will just be dragging her fingers across the screen. She then pulls it apart to show a cross section. “Just as I suspected.”

“What?”

“This shape here is called the cylicone; a cone inside of a cylinder, with lots of other design quirks. I invented it. It allows any dipshit to turn an ordinary object into something that can manipulate time. My biggest regret is letting the instructions for this thing get out into the world. I’m sure if we took a look at that flashlight, we’d find a cylicone.”

“These two things are the only evidence I have that two people who went missing even ever existed.”

She shakes her head, “I’m not going to take them away. That’s not my right. I am going to ask you to be careful, though.”

“I can do that, if you can tell me where they are.”

“I don’t know, but you won’t find answers here. This was a failed experiment. Our testers started asking for more and more extravagant things, and we soon learned that no one deserved to live like this. This is what we in the business call Springfield Y2K. It can’t be stopped. The city is dying, and the only thing you can control is whether you’re in it when it’s totally gone.”

“I can evacuate everyone left.”

“Can you?”

No, probably not.

She goes on, “the people you’re looking for are gone, and from what we know of the future, they don’t come back. Best move on with your life. I’ll allow you to stay here, if you want. You seem like good people. Just know that the biggest problem our testers had over the years...was loneliness.” She opens her shirt to reveal a weird robotic vest thing with buttons on it. “See you in 2016.” Then she presses one of the buttons and disappears.

I do see her again sixteen years later, after all of Springfield has gone.

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Microstory 670: Unpredicted Devastating Solar Flare

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Like so many other things, many of the issues that plagued us in the past are exactly that, in the past. We don’t worry about hurricanes ravaging our homes, or energy crises, or sex robots being hacked to murder their owners. Included in this list are celestial phenomena, notably solar flares. Most people around the universe haven’t dealt much with devastating solar flares. They’ve happened on occasion, and have caused some minor disturbances, like malfunctioning electronics, but they’re not usually all that bad. Even for the ones that do happen, we’ve developed technology to predict them. Every solar orbital, satellite, and space vessel comes equipped with the necessary sensors; even the least advanced ones. We can’t predict them years, or even weeks off, but we can generally see them coming with enough time to engage countermeasures. Something was different in a little remote star system in the Casini cluster. Suddenly, completely without any warning, something known as a superflare erupted from a star called Doppel b. Within minutes, the flare had a disastrous effect on the two habitable planets in the system, Delena and Steroline. This caused the majority of both planets to go completely dark. They had no way of communicating with each other, let alone someone at an interstellar distance. They spent the better part of three days working tirelessly to reconstruct their communication capabilities, only to learn that the superflare was accompanied by a coronal mass ejection, which was in the middle of sending a stream of deadly plasma towards the planets. The inhabitants released multiple E285FF wide-spectrum distress beacons, but they were all too late. A nearby luxury ship arrived just in time to watch Delena and Steroline become consumed by Doppel b’s fire. Everyone died instantly, leading a few believers in the Light to question why the Sacred Savior spoke of the solar flare, when really it was the CME that they should have been worried about.

Microstory 669: Remake the Club of Death

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As the moment, there are hundreds of billions of people in this galaxy, but when our civilization first began, there were far fewer. Still, that’s a lot of people to keep track of. Since our whole reason for leaving our ancestors was to be independent and free, we didn’t exactly have any methods of monitoring all of our planets’ respective citizens, and still don’t. With all these people living separately, doing separate things, we don’t know for sure, but supposedly we know who committed the first murder here. It was carried out by a man named Giacomo. Again, the veracity of these claims remain in question, for we don’t even know what planet this occurred on, or who he killed. All we know is what he used; something now known as the Club of Death. The Club of Death seemed to be an ordinary wooden club, but the truth behind it came out soon after the murder. Through mysterious means, this club was completely indestructible. Obviously experts attempted to study this instrument, only to come up with no reasonable explanation for its strength. Mystical explanations have been offered, including that the Light of Truth protected it from any and all attacks. Upon learning this, Sotiren sought out Giacomo, and quickly recruited him to be one of his eidos. Though Eido Giacomo took a vow of nonviolence, and never killed a single person since that first murder, he continued to carry the Club with him at all times. We will discuss his reasons for this once his replacement has been chosen.

A few years following Giacomo’s beginning as an eido, survivors of his first kill executed their revenge plan. They stole the Club of Death from him, and jettisoned it into a star. This may or may not have destroyed the club, but regardless of whether it remained intact, it was forever irretrievable. The Sacred Savior wrote in the Book of Light that the Club of Death would have to be remade, and so an interstellar contest began, led and judged by none other than Vilis Samuels, before his first excursion to Lactea. As technologically advanced as we have become, most could not succeed in this endeavor. No matter what you try, wood is just too weak, and though other ingredients could be added to the instrument, it was required to be made primarily of wood. Vilis found a way to destroy every entry, every single time. Then something unexpected happened, as one should come to expect when predicting the nature of these taikon. Another murder was committed in Fostea, just one of many, but this one was special. It was perpetrated using a wooden staff that happened to be lying around. What they discovered was that this was the Unbreaking Branch, an artifact of lore from thousands of years ago on our origin world with similar physical properties to the Club of Death. Though it wasn’t technically remade during the taikon, it was rediscovered, something that no one was even trying to do. Taikon verifiers accepted this as a loophole, and the Unbreaking Branch was kept in a safe place in order to be given to Eido Giacomo’s replacement.

Microstory 668: The Arkeizen Culling

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In response to a group of irritants who came to our galaxy, looking to stir up trouble, the leaders of the Central Worlds decided to dole out some punishment. These people consider themselves to be noble freedom fighters, so harming them physically would do us no good. Their message could get back to their compatriots in Lactea, and then we could be in the midst of an intergalactic war. We certainly wouldn’t want to martyr them, and only act to further their cause. One weakness they did have, however, was for the Arkeizen thralls. Arkeizens survived on Earth longer than they should have, but their evolution was stunted. Someone—we’re not sure who—must have taken pity upon them, and placed them in a paradise. This prevented them from developing any survival strategies to pass down through the bloodlines. Their only use is to serve others, so that’s exactly what we gave them. We brought them to our worlds, and they have lived in peace with us ever since, working on our farms, and in our factories. We have our jobs, and they have theirs. They provide for us, so who would want to take that away from them? This is best for all of us. The Lactean irritants think that the thralls should have to fend for themselves, but they’ve not stopped to think about what that would do to everyone. If suddenly every thrall lost the protection of their respective jarl, they would be lost. They don’t have any skills besides what their jarls taught them for the tasks required. They don’t have any money, so they couldn’t contribute positively to the economy, which wouldn’t really matter, because the market would crash in a single day, sending the galaxy spiraling towards utter chaos. Our culture is built on the backs of these Arkeizen, and though they may not be capable of complex language, we know that they are grateful to us for this honor. In order to protect us from this devastation, the Central Worlds took it upon themselves to teach the Lactean irritants a lesson by decimating the Arkeizen population. This was a significant blow to our economy, yes, but it was nothing compared to what would have happened had the irritants had their way. This happened long before the taikon began, so it shouldn’t have qualified for them, but we honestly didn’t want to have to do that again, at least not until the Arkeizen numbers could be replenished. A council of Highlightseers began to meet shortly after the taikon began in order to discuss whether an exception could be made to the rule of order. Since being resurrected, Sacred Savior, Sotiren Zahir has been trying to stay out of the taikon himself, so as to not influence them too greatly. Nevertheless, he made an appearance at one of council’s meetings when he was nearby for a meet-and-greet with Vilis Samuels. After long discussions, he agreed to allow this single exception, and the Arkeizen decimation took its place in history as the earliest taikon event chronologically.

Microstory 667: A Weak Man Made Strong

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Vilis Samuels was bullied as a child. He struggled in most of his classes, but had a fascination with history of the old world. He wasn’t the only one. We’re all very sad to say, but over the years, some of us have longed for the days when we were under the rule of the dirty communists. These defectors believe the communists to be all about equality and contentment, when really, they’re all about control. Of course these twisted thoughts would make people like Vilis outsiders wherever they went in the galaxy. Many succumb to their bad thoughts, and end up trying to return from whence we came. Vilis never likely gave up his childhood fantasies, but he did grow up to use his love of Lactea in the best way he could find, which was to help covertly keep track of their movements. What some people may not know is that, in order to maintain our secrecy against the Lacteans, we have to know what they’ve been up to. One of the longest-lasting organizations has been secretly returning to the old world, and reporting back. Vilis does not go on these missions, for it would be too dangerous to let him anywhere near people he may yet admire. It’s his responsibility to handle the reports from the agents in the field, making sure they’re filed correctly, and escalating any issues that may threaten our people. He is really just a clerk, and has never made much of an impression on anyone else. Upon watching the bulletin from the new Warriors of Mercy, however, he suddenly felt a surge of energy. This new power was physical, yes, with his muscles far exceeding the strength he had ever had before, but it was also more. Vilis became confident and self-assured, no longer allowing anyone to talk down to him. He demanded a promotion to field agent, which his superiors were helpless to decline. He’s lost his love of Lactea, and is shaping up to be one of the best intelligence agents the galaxy has ever seen. Only time will tell what comes of Vilis Samuels, but one thing we know from him, is that he never wants to be that same weak man he was before.

Microstory 666: Dawning of the Merciful Warriors

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Technically, this taikon began before the sixty-fifth one, but the Book of Light allows some wiggle room. The merciful warriors began out of necessity, as foretold in the taikon passages. Honestly, anyone in the galaxy could have taken this responsibility, but not everyone would be interested in this type of thing. From their perspective, their decision to transform themselves, instead of allowing some other group to change, made the most sense, partially because of their name. Once mercenaries for hire, they have changed their mission from that of profit, to that of justice. Following their rescue of a group of hailstorm refugees, they made an announcement on the Pangalactic Bulletin Board. This is what they said about their new line of work:

We of Dayspring Regis have chosen to begin traveling a new path. Not everyone in our regiment is as dedicated to the Light as others, but we all believe in the truth that it teaches. And we believe the existence of a force for goodness and justice is paramount to the survival of Fostea. No longer will we allow chaos to reign under the guise of freedom. We are the authority. We now decide who lives, who dies, and who wins. Our numbers are growing, and we will begin to install outposts across the stars. If ever you want to do something that harms someone else, you will first have to ask our permission. We are...the Warriors of Mercy.

The Book of Light predicts that the merciful warriors will bring about great change to the galaxy. It does not say how exactly, but that not everyone will be okay with these changes. It sounds like things are going to be operating a lot differently than before. Whether these new Warriors of Mercy will be able to maintain their control over the worlds for an extended period of time is something we’ve yet to know. They could be replaced quickly. The taikon foretells that they must be created...not that they must survive beyond that.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: July 29, 2144

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Come morning, Mateo and Leona met with a woman named The Officiant. She operated at a level of law that goes beyond humanity, and real time. As it turned out, she was the officiant at Horace and Serkan’s wedding. They had no idea at the time, assuming she was just a regular human. But the Officiant is always there for this purpose. She would later be revealed to have married Aura and Samsonite, as well as Horace and Leona in the other reality, though in male form for the latter.

She sat across her desk from them. They were in a Justice of the Peace-like office that could travel with her across time and space. Like Mr. Halifax’s graveyard, it apparently didn’t quite exist in this dimension. She regarded them curiously and sadly. “Normally, this the part where I start asking you questions about your choices. It’s my job to make sure you’re not rushing into this, and that you fully understand what this means for your future. Of course, these questions are extremely tough to answer when you’re a time traveler, especially if you’re salmon. Maybe you already do know what happens in the future.” She leaned forward and set her fingers in the snapping ready position, but didn’t snap them. “Or maybe tomorrow, you just won’t exist anymore. That’s why normal officiants don’t do what I do. I have a particular set of skills that are not easily replicated. They do not, however, cover the idea of forced marriage. That is not a concept that was in my personal linguistic inventory until today. I do not condone, and believe you me, Arcadia spent a lot of time and energy convincing me to even hold this meeting.”

“How did she do it...” Leona asked, “in the end?”

“Well, it didn’t hurt that the proposal has already been asked and answered. On the surface, it may seem like nothing more than a save-the-date issue. As you know, possibly only subconsciously, it’s more nuanced than that. The time between engagement, however long...however short, always allows a level of freedom. The point of no return does not come until the very end of the engagement. Up until then, you can always change your mind. That’s why making you do this is wrong, even while you’re already engaged. You should still have a choice to back out. Hell, you could do it at the altar, if you needed to. What she’s doing is removing your consent. Your full consent.”

“We understand that,” Mateo said.

“Then understand me. I’m powerful. I don’t have powers, per se, that I could use against Arcadia. But I’m revered. I have dominion over people’s souls, and that is a class of control that The Prestons could only dream of. If you want to put an end to this, I will back you. The full force of the covenant I made with time itself will act to protect you. I have never married anyone who doesn’t want to get married, so if we do this, you best be damn sure...because I will not sully my reputation. Not for Arcadia. Not for you. You have to want this, just as any other couple.”

Mateo tried to answer, but she shushed him.

“Write it down. Like a vote, as pedestrian as that sounds. I don’t want either of you responding according to the response of the other. You’ll write it down separately, hand your slips to me privately, and accept whatever the other one says, with no room for argument.” She removed two sticky notes from her dispenser. “Consider these banknotes, worth your life.”

Mateo and Leona took their respective sticky notes.

She leaned back in her chair, gently pressing the tips of her fingers together, exuding a quality of easy peace.

They left her office together, each turning to write their answers down separately. But before they could pivot all the way away from each other, they locked eyes. They stared at each other for fifteen seconds, then they walked back in to the office and simultaneously told her, “yes.”

She sported this strange smile-frown hybrid, and stood up. “Very well. I believe the venue is ready for the ceremony. Your remaining friends have been working on it all week, and then some. From what I understand, your next step is being fitted for your garments. I’ll start working on the plan. We’ll discuss what you want to do, but we won’t be rehearsing. You may wish to write your own vows as well.”

They had already decided to go with something known as a parity wedding. The ceremony drops a lot of practices that were denigrating to women. The father does not “give away” her daughter, since she’s not property to be transferred. The bride does not necessarily wear white, because sexual abstinence is a subjective moral principle, and a primarily religious construct. Sexuality is something to be treasured, and shared with love; not hoarded and stigmatized. People who’ve not had sex yet are not more pure than those who have. There is no way to compare the two, because there is nothing that classifies one but not the other. There are as many different kinds of people in the world as there are people in the world. While Mateo has remained Catholic throughout this ordeal, religion would be absent from the proceedings. His faith in God, and hers in science and people, were not relevant to the celebration of their love and family. One thing his mother, Carol once told him was ringing in his ears today. “My marriage to your father is just that, a covenant between me and him. If God wanted to be involved, then he should have proposed to me first.”

Another aspect of the parity wedding is the equality of behavior. The man does not wait for the woman to come to him down the aisle, as if their life together cannot begin until she does. The concordants, as they are referred to in a parity wedding, walk down the aisle together, followed by their two chief attendants, and any honor attendants. This had to wait a little bit when little Dar’cy, who was growing up so fast, accidentally threw the rings onto the ground along with the flower petals. Her mother and a woman from another universe named Zoey, who had arrived late, and accidentally on the Colosseum battlegrounds, helped her find them so the ceremony could continue.

The concordants had to walk the whole way between the banquet tables in the Colosseum replica. The place looked beautiful, with the nicest table cloths, and padded chairs. Tasteful and elegant paper lanterns were hanging down in midair. Evidently a good version of Kayetan Glaston was merging them individually from different times and places all over the world. He would have to thank him for that later. Each and every centerpiece was unique, and handcrafted by their friends on Tribulation Island, primarily Darko and Marcy. They had apparently worked on them all throughout the interim year. It was too much, they shouldn’t have done all this for them. The audience of over 48,000 was overwhelming, and they all looked happy to be there. Why was this so important to everyone? Was it just a novelty? Afterall, there probably weren’t a whole lot of weddings in the real Colosseum, and this was giving a bunch of time travelers the chance to come together, and maybe forget about their problems. If this could do that for them, then Mateo was glad to help them, if only for a little bit.

Waiting for them on the stage was the Officiant. Behind them came Leona’s chief attendant, Horace, and Mateo’s, Serif. Her honor attendants were Lincoln and Marcy. Mateo’s were his once-father and once-brother, Mario and Darko. Paige was zipping around, taking photos of them. Someone he didn’t recognize was controlling the video drones overhead.

“I dig the outfits,” Darko whispered to him. “You’re owning it.” They were both dressed in salmon-colored wedding clothes. She was wearing a sleeved dress with a skirt that dropped just below her knees, and he was wearing a tuxedo, but no tie. They figured the powers that be would either get a kick out of it, or be made uncomfortable by it.

Ellie, who Mateo remembered from the Uluru tribulation, climbed the stairs from the back of the stage and smiled at them. “It’s pretty easy,” she told them. “When you want to project your voice, think about projecting your voice. When you want to speak just to the people in realtime earshot, think that instead. I am going to have to...invade your personal bubbles, though. It won’t hurt.” She reached up and placed the palm of her soft and cold hand over Mateo’s mouth. She smelled of cedar and milk. After a few seconds, she slid her hand away, and did the same to Leona.

“Now, we begin!” the Officiant said. Her voice boomed in the sky so that all could hear. “We meet at this time, at this place, to witness the marriage of two souls. This ceremony might seem strange to some of you. You may be from a time when weddings were done behind a barn, with little fanfare. You may be from a land where marriage simply is not common. Whenever, wherever, you live, you are here now. You are with Mateo and Leona on their special day. They met each other one-hundred and twenty-eight years ago. They’ve known each other for an indeterminate amount of time, due to special relativity, pocket dimensionality, and alternate timelines. They have seen the future, they have seen the past, and they are always in the present. Not all of their family is here with them today, but they will soon return to us. When they do, they’re going to come home to a stronger couple. I believe they would like to say a few words.” She nodded to Mateo so he could begin.

He cleared his throat, desperately hoping Ellie’s brief lesson on spacetime projecting was enough for him to understand. She was off to the side, still smiling, but now nodding to indicate that he was doing well. Finally, after an awkward silence, Mateo felt like it was time to just get going. “Leona Gelen Delaney-Reaver. When we first met, you threw up on me. You were just a kid, and I was waaay to old for you. But I was just starting this difficult part of my life. I was skipping time, and leaving everyone I loved behind. Or rather, they were living their lives, and I was the one who was left out. In less than two weeks from my perspective, you and I were the same age. And at that moment, you joined me. I did not want this for you, but clearly it was meant to be, because I could not have gotten through this without you. When we’re not together, you’re in my head...and my heart. You get me through my worst times. I want to thank you for all you’ve done, and I hope that someday, I’ll be able to repay you.” He wrote his vows down earlier in the day, but ended up changing a lot in the heat of the moment. He really shouldn’t have, though, because that felt awful. What was that about him not wanting this for her? God, that was bad. Maybe he screwed up further, and no one had even heard it, but Ellie was nodding still, so apparently he really had just humiliated himself in front of tens of thousands of people. And who knows who will end up seeing the drone footage...or already has.

“Mateo Gelen Matic,” Leona began, showing no hint that she felt the same way about his speech as he did. “I did want this. I didn’t fall in love with you when we first met, but it wasn’t long after that. I pulled myself onto this path, because upon learning that there was more to life than just college classes and movies, I couldn’t pass up that opportunity. This life isn’t easy, but we’re partners, and I would do it all again, if given the chance. We’ve been through so much together.” She paused. “We’ve been through a lot separately too, and those are the most difficult times. I don’t ever want us to be like that again. I don’t know what I would do without you. If we get married, promise neither of us will leave again.”

“I promise.”

Leona was silent, but the Officiant gave it some time before moving on, just to be sure. “Then through the power of time, I declare you bound in marriage.” Finally.

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The Disappearance of Rothko Ladhiffe: Chapter Four

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I don’t know how fast whatever force that is swallowing up the city is moving. So I just start running, at first as fast as I can go, but I gradually lose energy until I’m just back to a walk. I keep going, though, until I reach the bus stop. I take the next bus that arrives that’s also headed for the opposite direction of the oncoming nothingness. It takes me to the central hub where I take a second bus going straight for the original library branch. I carefully look around. Ever since the librarian suggested that I have some intuition about when and where things are disappearing, I’ve become paranoid. I need to keep my eyes open, pay extra attention, and take note of anything, anything out of the ordinary.

Okay, so the numbers she recited to me obviously belong to the Dewey Decimal System. In fact, they seemed to be the very last ones possible, likely not going higher than a thousand. After taking a few mental photos of my surroundings, so I can cross-reference them with what I see later, I enter the stacks, and head for the last shelves. I find myself in a section labeled Extraterrestrial Worlds. Really? Aliens? I guess it could technically explain what’s going on here. It’s kind of the go-to explanation for phenomena that don’t make any sense. Aliens are too easy, because they can do anything. Their technology can be at whatever level suits the story. You don’t have to figure out how the antagonists somehow managed to turn garbage into edible food decades, or centuries, beyond the technological level of the rest of the world. You just have to decide how much smarter, or further in development, an alien race is. Was this it? Was this what she the mysterious librarian was trying to tell me? She didn’t tell me to look for a book, she just said to remember the numbers. If she wanted me to read a book itself, would she not have just given me the title? Perhaps, perhaps not. Perhaps she didn’t know.

I run my fingers across the books, looking for the right number, even though I know it’ll be the very last one. I pull the book out. Hotspots: A Look into Places of Great Power on Earth, and Beyond. It sounds to have more to do with this planet, than any other, but again, the librarian didn’t mention anything about reading a book. Still, what if that’s exactly what she meant? I have to exhaust all my options during the investigation. I read the whole thing cover to cover, including the copyright page, which might have held the name of someone I should contact, or a code of some sort. I just don’t know what I’m looking for, so it’s all relevant, until proven otherwise.

The book actually turns out to be a rather fascinating read, especially since I now know all this to be possible. The writers put forth a theory that there are many locations around the world, and in other worlds, where time doesn’t behave. They use the analogy of river, which is common to use when explaining time. In the river of time, water continually flows forward, but there are obstructions in it. Rocks, bends, branches hanging down; they can all distort the water’s motion. These things create, sometimes permanently, a spot where the water has to find a way around, above, or under. It still keeps going, it has to, but it’s still a change. Now the important part is that, once the water moves past any given barrier, it comes back together, and continues flowing normally. It is only that spot that holds any significance. A river is easy, as these impediments are obvious, even if they’re not immediately visible. Temporal hotspots, on the other hand, are a bit harder to explain. Why they exist is not something the writers claim to understand, instead assuming them to be as natural physical phenomena as rainbows, or wind.

They list all of the hotspots they knew about at the time of publishing, including Stonehenge (of course), Ayers Rock in Australia, and Easter Island. They speak a great deal on Kansas, claiming that the borders were drawn in order to protect the entirety of it. This theory has some holes in it when you consider that parts of Kansas City, Missouri apparently belong to the same category as all of it, but they just attribute this to political complications. The most interesting part of the book is the section on Springfield, Kansas. It talks about its connection to another world; one that is dark, unnamed, and void of all healthy life. Words, sentences, and even entire paragraphs in this section are completely blank. There is clearly meant to be text, but it’s been erased, likely by time itself. This much I understand, so it can’t be what the librarian wanted me to see.

After I finish reading it all the way through, I start flipping back through it, needing refreshers on some of the information. Besides this dark world we’re supposedly connected to, there’s also a planet that’s eerily similar to our own, but located in a galaxy nearly three million lightyears away. It also talks about Atlantis; how it’s located both on Earth, but also not. They consider it to be their greatest challenge, and hope to publish a second book, one dedicated exclusively to the mystery of Atlantis. Whether they end up doing this is anyone’s guess. This first one was released in...holy crap. How did I not see this before? I thought I read every word, but I somehow missed this. The book hasn’t even been published yet. It’s listed as being from 2017. How does a book travel seventeen years in the past? And why? And why here?

This was all very helpful, assuming any fraction of it is true, or rather at least will be true. Though I know that something is going in, I don’t know that these writers understand the reality more than I already do. I still have to continue looking for answers, and trying to find out how far the librarian wanted me to go. I pull a few of the other books off the shelf, and feel around. I’m searching for a note, or a safe deposit box key, or something else. There’s nothing there, so after taking stock of my surroundings to make sure they haven’t changed since I arrived, I decide to look into the catalog cards. I do the same here, in the drawer that would have led me to the Hotspots book, hoping to retrieve anything that can point me in the right direction. What I end up finding is something I don’t understand at first. In the back of the drawer is a hole, and there’s something sticking out from it. At first, I pull my hand back. I’m not a huge fan of spiders or snakes, so sticking my hand in dark spaces is never something I would do otherwise. I put on a brave face, though, and reach back into it. A young boy stops flipping through his own drawer to look at me funny.

“I think I lost my watch in here,” I lie.

He nods, then just leaves.

As I’m feeling the metal protrusion, I realize what it is. It’s a door with its knob removed, so all the guts and moving parts can be accessed. Back when I was searching for Escher Bradley, I ended up finding a doorknob in the invisible house that he disappeared from. This is it. How the librarian knew that I had this knob I don’t know. I’m just glad that I keep it with me at all times, rather than in my car, which no longer exists. I look around again, not checking my environment for changes, but just to see if anyone’s watching me. I don’t know what happens when I install this knob, but it’s best to keep it from public view.

The knob snaps onto the catalog door like a magnet, no screwdriver required. I look around one last time, then turn the knob. Either the entire catalog and I flip over a hundred eighty degrees, or the world itself does. It certainly feels like I’m standing on my head, even though my feet are still firmly planted on the ground. I soon learn that I am the one who moved when I notice where I am. It’s a cave corridor. Water is dripping upwards from a stalactite next to me. As soon as I remove the knob from its place, I fall down to the cave floor, slowly and safely. As extraordinary as what just happened was, now it’s done. Now I’m just standing in a wet cave, with no apparent place to go from here. It’s about half the size of a gymnasium, but I don’t see any corridors. But then a light begins to shine from a pool of water. I squint and approach it carefully. I think maybe it’s a magical alien tractor beam, but when I reach into the water, I discover that it’s just a flashlight. I pick it up to look for a way out, but something else catches my eye. I shine the light on the cave wall, trying to reflect it as much as possible so I can read the label on the bottom. RL. This is Rothko’s flashlight.

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