collectors

Collectors

I had too much to dream last night. Too much to dream.

Linoleum heard the scratching of a needle on a plastic disc, then the song. She smiled. It was a favorite from the family collection. But...

“Wait. What?”

She lifted her head and took in the room. The soft yellow and blue glow of an ancient juke box lit the corner by the dance floor.

Booths on the far wall disappeared into the dark. Perfect for a bit of privacy with a friend.

In front of her, under soft spot lighting, the familiar bar. She rubbed her hands over the slick burled oak rumored to have been harvested on Earth. How did she wind up in her favorite seedy imbibery at The Pit Stop At The End Of The Galaxy?

“Hi, I’m Charley. Steady, now?”

The voice surprised her. The man behind the bar wasn’t her familiar drink-bot.

“How much did I… Where’s Naugahyde? How did...How?

“You’ve had a potent concoction, Miss Linoleum. Your brother, too. This isn’t The Pit.”

“Of course not. We were salvaging antiques.”

“Ancient Earth pieces from abandoned freighters in the Meebus zone?”

Linoleum rubbed her face, talking into her hands as she massaged. “I told you about that?”

“The prizes you’ve lived to find. Your legacy. That’s the way I hear it.” Charley reached under the long wooden slab and grabbed a bar towel. “The old family tradition of drenching yourselves in the surroundings of the American Mythical period? Quirky.”

“Well if Uranus ain’t just a moon. What else did I share? And, if this isn’t The Pit Stop, where am I?”

“I know your fears.” Charley wiped the surface in front of Linoleum and smiled. “You’re not very logical in how you structure your respect for those fears. You feared being caught traveling into the forbidden Meebus zone. You feared the unknown of what was there. Were the rumors true? All of them? You feared responsibility for talking your little brother into going for the prize. But you did it anyway.”

“I did.” Linoleum traced a swirl in the wood grain at a spot still wet from the swipe of the bar towel. “It was all there. More than we hoped for. Paintings on velvet of dogs playing poker, Hula Hoops, Beanie Babies, Lawn Darts, Pink flamingos, you name it. We’re going to make a killing at the flea market on Teflon.”

“But no console TV with rabbit ears?”

“There’s plenty abandoned haulers in the zone. We’ll go back.”

Charley hiked his thumb toward a door behind the bar. “I’ve got a sort of replica in the back room. Like to see it?”

“A replica? What… Wait, did you say where it was I am?”

Charley laughed. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard the combination, ‘where it was I am,’ in a sentence before. You are aboard The Chrysalis.”

“Where are we heading?”

“Oh, that’s a tricky one… heading.” Charley crossed his arms and squinted toward his shoes while he thought. “It’s more like we don’t go anywhere. Everything is coming to us.”

Linoleum pondered the words, then grinned mischievously, as if she were allowing the bartender to lead her into a joke. “You’re saying you have a tractor beam that can pull in the entire galaxy?”

“That’s not it.” Charley’s serious expression showed he was not joking.

“What is it, then?”

“You know the universe? It isn’t out there. It’s in here. Inside The Chrysalis.

Linoleum couldn’t form a question, but her slack jaw and tilted head were enough to prompt Charley to clarify himself.

“Please,” he said. “If you let me show you the console.” Again, he hiked his thumb over his shoulder toward the door.

“You have a replica of a console TV? Circa 1950’s-1960’s?”

“It’s just a hutch I use for storing my navigation viewer. I velcroed an old, dead flat-screen TV on the front and stuck rabbit ears on top for ambiance.

“So, it’s a rabbit hutch.” Linoleum giggled at her little joke. “It has a viewing device?”

“Follow me.” Charley went through the doorway and Linoleum followed into a warmly lit room filled with relics from Earth’s mythical period. Leather sofas, lead glass decanters, filled with real wine, a river table with the surprise of a miniature Atlantis at the bottom of the epoxy water. Shaded lamps caught her attention right away. They were popular items at the flea market.

“Is any of this for sale?” Linoleum couldn’t take her eyes off one lamp in particular. Could it be a legendary Tiffany?

“Forget that old stuff.” Charley walked over to his hutch and lifted the rabbit ears, exposing a leather hide covering a round bump beneath where the rabbit ears once sat. “If you want to see, come here,” Charley called, as he put the ears on the floor. “Lift the flap and look inside,” he invited. “This is how we can put an entire three-dimensional construction inside the Chrysalis. Even one as big as you call the universe.”

Linoleum hovered above the porthole, then leaned quickly down until her eyelashes almost brushed the surface. “Beautiful.” Her head moved left and right, trying to get new perspectives. “It’s another dimension?” she asked, after shutting her eyes and stepping back from the hutch.

“It’s the doorway.” Charley clapped his hands. “You should feel honored. Many a mathematician has proven this existence by crunching numbers, but none of them can visualize it. You’ve seen it and don’t understand the numbers. They should envy you.”

“I don’t know what I saw.”

“So that brings me to Descartes and the thing you need to do, right now.

“Descartes?”

“His quote. ‘I think, therefore I am.’ Keep that in mind.”

“I think, therefore I am? You’re scaring me. Should I be scared?”

“Thinking cap is on your head now. I have three options for you to ponder after the lights go out.”

“Before what?”

“Consider A: Perhaps your spirit has been cut from your flesh. A concoction of the brain that eases the dying moments is giving you this vivid dream. Your dream will soon fade to black.

“Or B: “We are the Meebus, too small to see us. We download memory banks with a bite and fester a concoction in the blood. We consume invaders from the bottom up. Is it us? Look at your feet. Do you still have feet?”

Linoleum looked down to check her feet but, as promised, the lights went out. “You said three. You said there would be three options.”

“Yes, Linoleum. Consider this: Both are A and B are true and you are safely harvested for processing aboard The Chrysalis.”

“Have I faded to black?” Linoleum waited for an answer. Charley? Charley!

Alone, she finally answered her own question. “Faded to black? No. I think not, therefore I am.” She laughed nervously into the dark, thoughtful, and therefore, so far, she was.