AMERICAN PIE

When you’re lost in the universe, sometimes it just takes some old fashioned teamwork to get you back home again.




AMERICAN PIE

One blazing summer day, collective reality in the United States of America snapped suddenly shut like a Denali Bear Trap. Although I admit to no understanding of the physics of the phenomenon, I now believe that I understand the dynamics, abstract as they may be. I was once Lucille Keller, simple homemaker, wife of Henry, and mother of Tawny and Samuel, plodding through a life of unrealized dreams and broken promises to myself. I am now so much less, but somehow, so much more,

If there is a world outside my own reality anymore, I am no longer connected to it. What exists for me, is now locked tightly inside my own personal reality sphere, having only fleeting interface with all other individual realities swirling around me. Still, even with the state of the universe in it’s present form, I hold out hope for my children, and my children’s children. If we can only find each other again, I know we can regain the dream with which we all began.

***

The great collapse occurred at the end of a series of events that shoved the American people over a precipice, both physical and emotional. It was a long drop.

The "American United Depression", as it was gamely called, and it’s aftermath, ushered in an era of as close to a complete loss of liberty, as the United States of America had ever seen or imagined, all under the ruse of keeping it's citizenry safe. Anti-gay, anti-gun, anti-obesity, anti-carpool, anti-baby sitter, and various and sundry other anti-laws were passed, until finally came HR 875, The Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009, designed to prevent Americans from locally growing our own food. The spin was designed to make us believe these new provisions were for our own good under the guise of protection. The result; multinational agribusiness took complete control of the production and distribution of our food supply. Monsanto and her cronies never had it so good.

“No more farmers markets.” Madeleine Skeller, my next door neighbor, and best friend remarked woodenly.

“They can’t do this! Who do they think they are?” Arlene Kidd, mother of Brooke and James.

What do you mean no more farmers markets? Surely those will be allowed, they’re inspected by the government. GO RYAN! HIT that ball and GO!” Screamed Elaine as her son planted a hit on the pitch, sending it hurling toward center field.

“No ladies, farmers markets are on the list, I read the list!” Madeleine again.

“Well, I’ll just plant that garden I've been procrastinating about,” I laughed, eyes glued to the action playing out before me.

“Luci, you just aren’t listening! It’s against the law now to plant food on your own property. Health hazard.” Madeleine snarled.

“Health hazard? What could possibly…Tawny! RUN! RUN!” I shouted, jumping up to cheer my daughter on, as her little brother leaped to his feet and began to clap his hands over his head.

“Well, they’ll have to lower prices so people can eat” Arlene countered, before turning her attention back to the game.

“We should have a meeting,” said Madeleine, “Fight this.”

“How could we ever fight this? It’s government! Sam! Don’t put that hotdog in your mouth, you just dropped it in the dirt!" I grabbed for the soil smeared dog as his mustardy fingers snatched it out of my reach.

“We could march.” Madeleine, always the activist.

“I can’t march, I’ve got kids!” I said, eyes rolling, but still on that dog.

“So do I honey, but if we don’t, who will?”

“How long is this game going to last? We’ve got a soccer game at noon.”

“Soccer mom’s unite!” Madeleine snorted, not without sarcasm.

As food prices rose, the “Garden Unit” was created, to publicly arrest heads of households for covertly growing vegetables to feed their hungry families, and often the quiet calm of a neighborhood afternoon was broken by the sound of shattering glass and splitting lumber as greenhouses and gardening sheds were beaten in by bat wielding members of what began to be known as “G Force”.

People finally took to the streets. Madeleine among them. The national guard soon rallied against the same citizens it was sworn to protect, in order to squelch the revolt. Things real got bad after that, but by then, most people were too busy scratching out a living, to join any revolutions. I don’t know when it first began to happen, it may have been just after they began to burn the cd’s containing the protest songs, the Dixie chicks going up in smoke once again, but at some point, “dissenters” began to disappear.,

“Good evening my friends, I am pleased to announce that ten more Enemies of the State have been detained, and will be held under the patriot act until they are deemed to be no longer a threat to your community!” Announced a throaty voice from the speakers in the corner of my living room. It was rumored that Guantanamo, and others of that ilk were now filled with “American Provocateurs,” soccer moms gone missing. Madeleine was now amongst them. Neighbors spoke in hushed tones on the subject, until someone discovered a microphone embedded in the digital cable box issued by the government when the analog system went silent, after that, private dissent was effectively squashed also.

Oppression weighed on America like a moldy rotten blanket. According to Pirate Radio, ours was wasn’t the only place where citizens were weighted down by intimidation. We were pressed to keep our distance from one another. All over the country, this sign appeared:

“A visitor should depart and not always be in one place.
A friend becomes a nuisance if he stays too long in the house of another."

Neighbors and friends began shutting themselves off. I missed the barbecues, the coming together of people. I longed for the meaty aroma of broiled hamburgers lingering in the mid-summer air, the high-pitched echo of “Marco, Polo” bouncing off gleaming pool tile, even the scrubbing of margarita stains from Henry’s favorite Hawaiian shirt.

Gone was the cascading waterfall of children’s laughter wafting through open windows,

“Bet you can’t eat this green thing,”

“Bet I could!”

“Who’d want to?” the voice of reason from a peanut gallery.

“Chicken!”

“Who’s a chicken?”

“I’ll eat the stupid thing… ‘gimme it!”

“Yuc-ky!” all in unison.

“The stock market has only two more points to drop before all holdings become property of the state. It’s expected to reach fallout sometime this afternoon, and for those of you who still have money in the Big Ten, the World Bank thanks you for your donation! This is Russo Garber, for ZTGST government radio.”

I snapped off the car radio. In the back seat, Tawny and Sam, wrestled over a “Winko” game. Winko was an acronym for “We Invest in New Knowledge and Order,” The catch-phrase for “The New World Order.” It taught ‘vocabulary’ by touting the buzz-words of the day.

“Babies can‘t play, and you‘re a baby!” Tawny taunted, twisting the box out of Sam’s hands. I felt myself overloading again, and my irritation grew as I thought again of what the world had become.

“Give it back to him Tawny or I’ll throw the damn thing out the window!”

“Moth-er!” they both whined in unison.

“And now, please enjoy this little tune, called…”

As the curtain of consciousness fell, we three plunged into darkness. I found my self alone, in small spherical universe that fluttered at the edges. It was as if the solid world had ended, leaving me trapped in a soap bubble with all my demons, and they were terrifying and dark. Distantly, I heard my children crying.

“Mommy! Mommmeeeeee!” I felt for them through the blackness.

“Mommy, where did you go? Please… it’s DARK!”

I groped frantically for any body part. Had we been hit by a train?

“Tawny, Sam, I’m here… keep talking!”

“Where are you mommy?” The wavering continued, and opaque walls vacillated as if bounced backwards after an impact. Suddenly small hands poked through a jelly-like film. I grabbed them, and yanked. Hard.

What transpired from that point is a blur now. Thinking back, I remember the interior of the car gone. I could vaguely see both my children, but we were divided into three different realities, theirs, as terrifying as my own. Each of our greatest fears physically swiriling about us, contained within three unstable spherical worlds. We resembled three egg-shaped ‘Jigglers’ with people trapped inside like slivers of pineapple. Nightmare delectables from a Cosby world born somewhere south of the Twilight Zone.


“Come to me, now!” I ordered, but they couldn’t get through. We howled, each in our separate universes, until the wavering walls fluttered and began to overlap, and we came together at last, but not fully. Never again fully. The fabric of reality that had held us all together as a society had come crashing down all at once, and everywhere, weighed down by collective despair. Our new separate realities were far too different to mesh completely anymore, and they now held us prisoner.

In time, the children, unlike me, began to lose their terror. We soon found that whatever we could think or dream. came into being, but only individually. I imagined my house again, but the family I put inside it was a thin transparency of the real thing. My husband, a flicker of his former self. The richness of his personality, the things I’d loved, or complained about, the things that came from the parts of him never understood by me, were missing, our conversations flat and contrived. No chaos, no spontaneity. My two children, shadows of their former selves, came and went. Only my own perspective prevailed in my bubble, what was gone was the unique twists of individualism from outside influences that had so moved me to laughter or tears in the past. We could invoke food, shelter, alter our surroundings at will, but the human-ness, the interaction, was missing.

The children adapted more quickly than I, finding creative ways to surround themselves with worlds that were no threat, enjoying freedoms their young imaginations quickly and deftly created. I lapsed back often into my fears, filling my bubble with terrors so profound, I thought I might suffocate.

As time passed inside our personal reality shpheres, we found that we could converge, but it took two or more thoughts to bring our bubbles into sync, and only for as long as all parties held the intention. The minute my children’s attention waned, their bubbles closed off, and they were lost to me again. I drew maps to where I was, wrote memos which I placed in their pockets each time we converged, I tried desperately to keep them near.

“Think of clocks!” I told them. We’ll keep these clocks on our wrists! Aren’t they funny? No! Not watches, BIG, like CLOCKS! So you’ll be sure to see them!" And most days, we were able to overlap into a kind of stuttering cohesiveness, but only briefly, before fading once again into our separate realities.

I found Henry by accident one day. I was thinking of him in his orange swim trunks, just as he was thinking of adjusting them to impress a raven-haired beauty on a tropical beach. The kind of dreams men dream. Our bubbles converged that day, and on another few occasions, but it seemed with all his fantasies at his fingertips, he had no use for me anymore, and we drifted apart again.

I brushed against old neighbors and friends as our bubbles passed and randomly overlapped. I could invite them in, but what entered, was a flat version of the beloved characters I used to know. It was lonely out there in space.

One day, in a moment of deep regret, I sat forlornly at a table gnawing pizza at a Chuck E. Cheese of my contrivance, when suddenly both my children scampered in, and at once rushed me from both sides, glimmering as they came.

“Mommy!” They shouted in unison, lurching toward me. “You’ll never guess what we found!”

“What my darlings,” I asked, choking back a Pepsi-drenched sob.

“We found a field!” They were dancing with excitement.

“A field?” I tried to hide my disappointment. I was hoping for the keys to the universe. A way to make it end.

“A FIELD!” My little boy gushed after his sister. “That you can PLAY in, and it’s like, REAL!”

“Nothing will ever be like real again,” my mind murmured in reply. As if she’d heard my thoughts, Tawny gushed,

“No mom, REALLY, it’s a REAL FIELD, like we used to play in. And others are there too! And they play with us, for REALS!”

“Others?” An alarm bell rang. “What are you talking about?”

“Come with us, you’ll see!” Tawny chirped.

“Come on mommy, we’ll show you where!” Sammy was blinking the biggest pair of blue eyes my heart had ever seen.

Was it the fierceness of our collective intention? I’ll never know, but like three jello eggs dumped from their molds, we undulated our way through space until at last, responding to a gentle tug, I stepped out into a enormous void where lights, colors, and shadows flashed about me with bllinding intensity.

“Do you see it?” The small voice of my daughter whispered in my ear. Sights and sounds trampled me, I thought I might vomit.

“Do you see them?”

“See WhoM?” I emphasized the ‘M,’ fighting now for equilibrium.

“Markie and Madeleine!” my son shouted over the din in my ears. I was now at attention.

“Where?” I screamed above the roar.

“In the FIELD!”

I squinted, trying to focus. All at once, I knew instinctively where we were. We were standing in the Quantum Field. “Oh my God.” The words caved in on themselves and committed suicide deep in my throat. “Honey, we're not safe here. Too many possibilities!” I shouted.

“Mommy, the possibilities are all ours.” Tawny answered quietly, causing the din to cease, and the world to come slightly into focus.

“We kept running into kids who wanted someplace to play together again. James found a bat that the food police left, so he kept it. Then he dreamed up a mitt to go with it, and he wouldn’t let it go. If it started to disappear, he’d think it back. Sometimes we had to help him. It took all of us thinking, and now it’s here for good… and then one day we found the field. It was just… here. We put maps like you did in our pockets, to find our way back. And clocks…we can really play here mom, REALLY play!”

“My God,” I repeated, as green grass grew distinct and spread to the horizon.

“Trevor found his mom sitting on a bench over there, crying, in front of the diamond,” Sammy recounted,” and then James gave her his bat. When she took it, she got real full of colors, not like you are now, but really full of colors. We all went out onto the field and he pitched her a ball, and first she missed, but then she hit it, real hard, and she got even brighter. Now she can find her way here every time. And other mothers too. And fathers… and… other people…” Sammy’s voice trailed off, afraid I’d chide him for talking to strangers.

“Mommy, do you want to hit a ball?” Tawny’s eyes spilled over like Niagra Falls, begging.

“Honey, no, I…”

“MOM. PLAY!!” Sammy commanded, shoving the bat into my hands. It felt… solid. As the kids ran for the outfield, I experienced a feeling of panic as they let go of my hand… then, out of the green haze, James stepped up to the mound.

“A’ BATTA BATTA BATTA,” I heard from the distance, in voices strangely familiar.
I blinked, trying to keep James in focus, and made a half-hearted swing as a fastball shot past my ear.

“STREEE-RIKE ONE!” a voice bellowed from the void. I hefted the bat to my shoulder again, fingering it’s grainy surface. Whiiiizzzz!

“STEEEE-RIKE TWO! WHATSA’ MATTA' BATTA'? GONNA RUN HOME TO MOMMY CAUSE YA’ CAN‘T HIT THE BALL?”

“Run home to mommy? I AM mommy! No… no one to run home to, no…where to run to… nowhere to hide…” my mind picked up a long lost melody…

James wound up, but paused long enough to stare me down, a hint of dare in his eyes, just before his right arm launched forward like a catapult, sending another ball hurtling through space. I connected with a crack so loud, the bubble surrounding the perimeter of the field shook like a jellyfish.

“RUN! RUN! RUN! RUN!” voices screamed from all sides, and I hurled myself off home plate and headed for first. The ball thrown from the outfield grazed my right ankle as I rounded the corner of the base and headed for second. Back at first, a strange boy scrambled after the missed ball.

“RUUUUUN MOMMY--- YOU CAN DO IT!” I heard my youngters shriek, and as I rounded third, I could feel my feet pounding solidly into earth, the color of my wrist, as I stretched my arm toward home plate, was a deep rich tan.

“AND SHE’S SAFE!!!” the voice boomed, as bodies took shape and poured out of newly defined bleachers. They rushed towards me cheering, hands reaching out to me.. Their encircling arms finding almost solid form. When the crowd cleared, I looked straight into the eyes of my long lost friend and beloved neighbor, Madeleine.

“Do you have time now?” She asked me.

We held the field a bit longer. The intention here is strong it seems. We spent the remaining time before fading back into our bubbles piecing and sewing leather balls together by hand, as the longer our group intention holds, the longer we can keep company. On these balls, the children draw maps, and we scatter the balls wherever we go. If we run out, we come back to the group consciousness for more. We grow more distinct as the group enlarges. What better cure for a nation of lost Americans than the lure of a good ole’ baseball game? It won’t be long before we have enough players to create our own dear America all over again, and this time, we’ll take better care of her.

I’ve got one last ball to deliver to make my new, very intentional reality complete. I’ve paid a native girl to deliver it with a Margarita, to a handsome balding man on a tropical beach.

And now, at long last, it’s time for me to go, biding my time, while the home-made apple pie I so lovingly placed in the oven, bakes, and my tiny slice of America finds it's own way home.


-© by taree Belardes 3/12/09
Final Round Story
NYCMIDNIGHT,2009
Short story competiton
Genre; Sci Fi
Subject; Neighbors
Word limit; 1,500 words
Time limit; 48 hrs.