Je Pense Donc Tu Est! *

Another hour and a half until I can go home, it’s about time, all day long people have been giving me grief about their accounts. If they know so much about the financial market, why do they need me to handle their retirement funds, discretionary income, and two-bit investments? I swear to god as soon as I build up my clientele I’m going to move out of this city and never look back. Oh great, David’s coming over to try and hit on me again, this guy never learns.

“Hi Terri, what are you doing tonight? Feel like going out for dinner?”

“I’ve got work to do tonight Dave, and that’s all I’m willing to take home from the office, is that clear enough for you to understand?”

“Know what Terri, you’ve got an attitude problem. I’ve never done anything to you so why don’t you give me a chance? Just one dinner, that’s all I ask.”

As I respond I write ‘arrogant sleazeball’ on my ledger.

“That’s not all you ask and you bother me like this every week. I admit you have never done anything to me, but you also don’t do anything for me, so get lost. If you keep on bothering me like this I’ll report you to personnel, now please leave my office and close the door behind you!”

Thankfully he leaves without further disrupting my mental sanctity. Like many of the men I’ve come in contact with in the world David likes to imagine himself as the embodiment of feminine fantasies.

I’ve never once had any desire to be serviced on top of a copy machine, grab a quicky in the supply closet, or go down on the boss. But it’s not easy to get this concept across the y-chromosome’s formidable barrier.

It took me two hours to finish the backlog of accounts and organize the first batch of tomorrows outgoing transactions. I shut down my computer, picked up the disks and my laptop PC, and headed for the street. The illuminated numbers blinked on and off as I descended to the ground floor. When the elevator opened I saw the doorman shutting down the video monitors and turning off lights in the parking garage.

“Goodnight Jimmy, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Bye Miss Rapport, be careful on your way home.”

“Thanks, but I certainly know how to take care of myself.”

As I walk outside I’m assaulted by the frantic rush of sound and motion as the multitude, who mingle and intertwine briefly each day, commute from work to home. The skyscrapers block off the fading sunlight as I walk from the financial district towards the subway. I get on and manage to grab a seat ignoring my fellow travelers until I disembark at the Bleeker St. station. I walk up to the street level and head towards the Village and Gramp’s flat.

I still can’t bring myself to think of the apartment as my own, it remains fixed in my mind as grandpere Rapport’s home. Even as I open the door I anticipate his warm smile to come beaming towards me from beyond the threshold.

Like much of life the reality fails to meet my expectations. I make a White Russian and toast my dearly departed relative for leaving me his fixed rent apartment. I sit down on the couch and fire up the beta wave transmitter to monitor CNN.

I have to wait through the sports segment for the financial report barely paying attention to the scores when I notice something odd. The basketball scores were incredibly lopsided for every game, with one team slaughtering the other. The commentator was suitably amazed.

“Their calling it a freak of statistics but you can’t deny the facts, half of the NBA couldn’t score beyond two digits and the other half owned the hoops. Here’s a wrap up of today’s scores.”

Wait a minute, those first two sets of scores are the same as my birthday, what a trip! There’s something naggingly suggestive about these scores; all those numbers in quick succession remind me of the codes my brother and I used to make. We would create and pass notes in class so that the teacher couldn’t read them. I would bind a strip of paper around a pencil and write numbers across the strip then unravel the paper so the numbers appeared jumbled. When the strip was properly restored the numbers translated into letters, (K=1, L=2...Y=15, Z=16...A=17, B=18...I=25, and J=26) we never let anyone in on our secret, not even our parents.

My brother had read about this trick in the Encyclopedia Brown books and all throughout our childhood it had never been cracked by anyone. It’s strange the way life’s disjointed events can exhume buried memories.

The next day as I enter my apartment returning from work, I flip on the vision tube and start to put away my groceries, when the announcers voice attracts my attention.

“For the second day in a row the teams of the NBA have mystified their coaches, owners, and fans with the repetition of yesterday’s one sided victories. The NBA commissioner promises a speedy investigation of these odd occurrences.”

I walk out from the kitchen and watch the scores roll quickly by, amazed that the first set corresponded to my birthday again. “No fucking way!”; the last scores match my brother’s birthday! What’s going on, this can’t be real, life doesn’t go down like this, it must be Jean-Paul’s idea of a gag. But how did he pull it off, it’s way too complicated for a practical joke.

I need confirmation of the facts, so I go down to the street and buy a paper, sure enough, the scores were identical to the CNN report.

On a whim, I decide to try our code on the scores and see what will happen but It doesn’t work. Some of the scores are in the nineties while the losers scores rarely reach above fifteen. I try a few different variables and then it came to me that if I divide the winners’ scores by the losers’ it always works out to a numbers between one and twenty-six. This is too weird: I can’t be serious about this; it defies all logical explanation.

I try to reach my brother but his answering machine is on... “J.P., this is Terri call me as soon as you get in ok, it’s real important, bye.”

I turn off the T.V. and sit on the couch trying to get up the nerve to try out my idea. If I’m wrong I’ll feel stupid but relieved yet if I’m right...what if I am right? Where is this leading me and why did I think of our code after all these years?

After an hour or so of indecision, I decide to decode the scores. Taking up a pad of legal paper and a pen I set to work. “Let’s see, Dallas: 66 over Detroit: 3 equals 22 that’s an F. ...equals E, 51 to 3 Lakers equals 17, that’s an A. (etc...).

“Fear not, we are one.”

What is that supposed to mean? This has got to be some kind of put on. Maybe if I can get yesterday’s paper, it will shed some light on the mystery. I go next door and borrow my neighbor’s paper and quickly return to my room. Metro, View, Lifestyles, Food, Personals, ah here we are; Sports. Uhm, 15, 5, 11, 24, 17...

“Your kind have much to learn.”

Ok that’s it, jokes over J.P., I admit this is the best one ever, but come on ! “Your kind”, that’s pushing it beyond the limits of humo...

Ring, BrrRing, BrrRing.

“Hello, Rapport residence.”

“Hi Sis, what’s up, I got your message?”

“Real funny, Jean, I got your message too, and I don’t think it’s cool!”

“What are you talking about Terri, I didn’t leave you any messages?”

“Oh come off it! Who else knew about the code besides us.”

“Code, what code? You don’t mean from six grade do you? Terri are you still getting high? I thought you gave that up after college.”

“Don’t try this shit on me J.P., come clean. It was you wasn’t it?”

“I don’t know what your talking about, but you sound pretty freaked out! Do you want me to come over?”

He isn’t lying; I can tell because he always laughs or gives in when I confront him like this. “No, nevermind. I’m alright, I’ll call you later o.k.”

“Listen Terri, if something's wrong, I’m here for you so don’t hesitate to call.”

“Thanks Jean, I’ll get back to you, bye”

CLICK...hummmmmmmm.

I get smashed the next few days and avoid the news. With cable it’s easy, I watch the Discovery Channel and then turn on MTV.

I call in sick for the first time in a year and a half. I manage to get out of two days work and started to feel more grounded and in touch with reality. I go out to grab a bite across the street at the Mandarin Gardens as I head back inside I notice the mail is in. I open my box and pick up the envelopes, one of which is very thick. I look at the return address and see it’s from the phone company (in the middle of the month?). I open the invoice and see the bill is for over seven hundred dollars. I suck a chunk of lemon duck down my windpipe, nearly choking. “They’ve got to be crazy, I didn’t make these calls!” Then I notice the first two call charges are my birthdate, just like before!

“This is nuts, I must be losing it big time, I need some help fast.” A sense of displacement creeps up around the edges of my thought as a ringing tone set off in my ear. I reach out and clasp the edge of my sectional couch and steady myself until the feeling passes. I glance at the bill and notice none of the charges are over twenty-six cents but the bill is forty or more pages long. With a feeling of cold apprehension I view the first few lines of numerical text.

“All of your kind needs help, most do not realize it yet, there is little time to waste.”

“What’s happening to me, damn it, I can’t take this anymore!” My voice echoes in the empty room as genuine fear creeps into my mind, yet I read on.

“Be calm, why must your kind fear that which you can never understand, just accept what is. You get caught up in details and ignore the truth in front of your eyes.”

“Who are you, why are you doing this?” I feel nausea swelling in my throat.”

“I Am Nomad. I Am One Without Second. Your kind has always known me and felt my presence. You are unlike the others animals of this sphere. Your freedom has ill served you, and your kind has ill served my purposes!”

My sense of nausea increases and splotchy dots dance before my eyes.

“You’re trying to say that you’re God, as in Genesis?”

I feel a wave of heat overcome me and the apartment rushes away as I collapse into the welcome darkness. I’m not certain how much time has passed as my consciousness regains it’s hold. I return to the phone bill.

“If you’re really God how will I know?”

“I am the deity which is referred to in the books, but men are difficult to teach. I tried to utilize a group of authors once but they put as much of themselves in the books as my inspiration. Their influences corrupted the word. Still more men corrupt the word to further their own causes!

I am patience incarnate and love all things. Your kind kills each other, over these names, these words! You ignore the truth that is living all around you! Your cities are killing your offspring! Your ideas slaughter millions! We are One, but you deny this in your every action!”

“What about proof: show yourself to me; let me feel your presence; reveal your true nature; if you’re here now create a sign; perform a miracle or something!” I have gone beyond the fear to elation and read on hungrily obsessed with my newly coveted secret.

“You still make the mistakes of the rest of your kind. This is not for you alone, it is for all of you, living together on this sphere. You must tell them what I say. A lifebearer should feel in her rhythm the truth of creation and the beat of the earth! She is alive, different from your life, yet the same. You are destroy that which you can not recreate.”

“What do you want from me? I’m a nobody, pick on the President or the Pope, anyone, but not me!”

”I Have selected you, only you can do my work, here, now. The fate of your kind rides with you, how can you deny your responsibility.”

“Oh sure, lay a guilt trip on me, perhaps you are God after all.”

“Your kind has systematically destroyed eons of growth in creation. Whole branches of species on a continuously upward evolvement set back by your desires for leisure and ease! Your kind are unnatural, that is your only sin, your fatal flaw, the clay that dampens your higher sight.”

“Leave me alone, I don’t want to hear anymore, get out of my life, let me have peace damn you!”

I toss the phone bill across the room the pages floating to the ground to remain undisturbed. I expect the voice behind the numbers to speak to me, or compel me to read on, but I feel nothing. I drink three kamikaze’s and stumble to bed, uncertain of my state of mind, and unwilling to entertain the possibilities.

I call my work the following morning and convince them I feel well enough to return a day early. As I leave my apartment I dump the bill into the incinerator, laughing to myself at my dreams ability to possess me to the point where I believe they are real. I’m sure J.P.’s practical joke must have suggested the elaborate nature of my dream to my subconscious, yeah that’s what it is, a dream.

I welcome the press of people, the stares of indifference fill me with gratitude, I am safe here. They could not invade my thoughts and try to subvert my will. I arrive at my office building hardly returning Jimmy’s salutation in my rush to bury myself in my work.

Everything was going perfectly as I sent out memos and talked to my clients on the phone, then I turned on my computer to begin my purchases for the clients. My primary entry word doesn’t access the drive “That’s odd I better enter the backup code.” Even as I hit the enter button the fear hits, my secondary code is my birthdate, the computer hums to life.

I stare into the screen in disbelief and watch the stocks plummeting “Oh god, no!” The blue chip stocks, as hallowed as any relic, fall from two hundred and forty plus to a paltry fifteen or twenty-six. The yells of my co-workers confirm the reality of it all with sickening clarity. An hour later the exchange shuts itself down and shareholders demand to remove the automatic computer trading program. I was busy printing out the prices on the screen. I knew the only way to prevent the collapse of the whole market was to read what was being sent to me through the world’s economic structure.

”Can you deny me now? Can you deny yourself? The future generations need you to protect them from harm. I have given you everything you need to enjoy your lives, why do you throw it away?”

I feel my anger rising, driving me to rebellion. “Why don’t you do something about it!
If you can fuck with the exchange why don’t you straighten it all out. You could appear over the United Nations and demand that the world comply with your bidding. Freak somebody else out and leave me the hell alone!”

It dawns on me what I’m saying and who I’m saying it to, once said however, my pride refuses to retreat from it’s position. I continue to translate the numbers but the next thirty or so ‘letters’ come out as gibberish. I dare to hope that I convinced it to leave me alone, until the letters begin smoothly flowing from behind their numeric camouflage.

“I am giving you the chance to do something to save yourself and your species. That is more then your kind deserve, do not presume to ordain my actions or motivations. This whole planet is but a fraction of my manifested spirit, but I am fond of it, and I want it to survive!”

I switch off the computer severing my link to this invading presence.

I determine to escape from the realm of possible contacts with the Deity, pick up the phone and dial.

“Hello Jean-Paul, it’s Terri, I’ve decided to take you up on your offer. I’ve been working too hard and I think I need a break from the city. Could I use your cabin up in the Adirondacks?

“You mean up in Long Lake, it’s going to be real cold up their in a couple of weeks. If your sure that’s where you want to go, fine, consider it yours.”

“Thanks Jean, by the way do you think you could have the phone bill come to you. I’ll send you the money. You will great, I just don’t want to deal with it!”

* I think therefore you is!