1.12 Glimpse

Dustin gets back from an admittedly long day and is happy to have his amazing wife at his side. He decides not to tell her anything about his run in with Mister Cupp just yet, it's still too soon to say it'll be an issue and he's not about to say anything that might stress her out, even in the slightest. He's a bit concerned about it of course, but he knows that hard work has gotten him this far and it he firmly believes it can take him all the way.

Meghan gets his attention by taking his arm and leading him into the game room. The energy is good to see. She must be feeling better.

Then again as he turns around he notices it. Something is off in a big way. Meghan is not herself, but not in a way he's seen before. There has always been an intelligence in her transitions to other personalities, but this is something altogether different. Could it be brought on by the stress of her pregnancy?

Needless to say he's at a complete loss for what to do. She's an animal this time. A kick of panic hits him as he realizes he has no way to help her, no way to snap her out of it.

When she is Andrea there are words, phrases, things he can say that will bring her back to herself. If he brings up the existence of Meghan, Meghan comes back.

There are only a few personalities within Meghan after all. Andrea, the child, Malcolm, supposedly a pre-teen boy who is smart and confident but doesn't talk much unless he's upset and another who has no name that he knows of who probably represents her mother. That one mostly just mumbles and is incoherent, and occasionally repeats a few key nonsense phrases. But until now he has never seen a dog.

He tries to calm himself down. Is this really any different from how he is when acting on stage? If he could see it that way... but it is different, he never deviates from himself, he doesn't need Element, Element is completely made up and needs him.

But right now Meghan is nowhere to be found.

“Meg. Meghan.” No response. “Mung-bean?” Her nickname. Nothing.

How could something so cute be so utterly terrifying? “Meghan, you aren't yourself.” He tries to be direct, but she responds with some sort of yapping.

He tries to time the episode in his mind. She's been at this for a few minutes that he's known about, but was she like this before he came home? Is she going to hurt herself one day because she's lost? What if she ends up being an animal for most of the night?

He decides to observe, and not say anything else for a few moments. He needs to learn how to handle this.

Finally, before too long her eyes uncloud, her expression sobers and her back straightens. He sighs in relief. She's back. Or something human is.

Please be Meghan Please be Meghan! He inwardly chants.

“Dustin?” She asks slowly and he breathes a sigh of relief.

“Yeah, I'm here Meg. Are you... feeling okay?”

She frowns guiltily when she sees the tightness around his eyes. “Who was I?” She asks in a quiet voice.

His face darkens.

“Dustin. Tell me. You said you'd always tell me.”

He makes a face and shakes his head. “I don't know. This was something new. You were an animal or something. Like... a dog, I guess?” He tries to say it softly but she winces. He never should have made that promise. “What do you remember last?”

She stares mutely for a minute, working it out, blinking back her feelings about it. “I was out pulling weeds, I think. There was some sort of small animal that ran through the yard, I went to chase it out of the garden and well, I don't know what. Then you came home, I guess.”

“About what time were you out pulling weeds?”

“Just a few minutes ago I think. I don't know?”

“And you feel okay?”

She nods quickly. “I've been different things before, I think. Kids in class used to tell me I made weird animal impressions sometimes. I used say it was an impression of them, sorta worked as a dumb joke but... I just wish you didn't have to see it.”

“I want to see you, no matter what.” He quickly tells her. But, do you think there's anything you can do about this? Have you changed your mind about finding a therapist?”

She bites her lip. “I might.. see one. I just don't want to spend money, and I don't want to go on drugs either. Being a VPP (Vivium Plantae Personae) was pretty scary, and I'm glad I got treated, but this is different, what if they tell me I can't function in society and make me ...stay somewhere to be observed?”

She was still afraid of being locked away somewhere again. Understandable.

He takes her hands in the middle of her rant about it and smiles at her. “Nobody can take you away from me. I'll always be here to protect you.” He says it as if it's natural, and to him it is. “This is why I'm here, isn't it? If you do want to go sometime I'll help you, but I won't ever let you be taken away okay?”

She nods obligatorily, looking utterly unconvinced. So he goes with quiet honesty next. “I need you, I hope you know that.”

A little blush creeps over her cheeks and she nods. She takes a moment to reply with, “I'm sorry I worry you so much all the time.”

He shrugs. “Nothing's ever boring with you is it?” He mutters. "It's okay. I'm sorry I can't be home more often. But let's make it count when we're together.”

He hums some music and they dance a little, it lets her forget for a moment. But she does want to get... better isn't the word. She needs to get to the point that she can actually live with herself. It's not easy for her mind to complete with all these complicated worries and fears, intelligent as it is. She knows there's nothing physically wrong with her, so how can she vanquish the phantoms planted firmly in her mind? More terrifyingly, does she want to risk making things even worse?

He comforts her as best as he can, and spins her into a suave kiss.

But for her it's a freefall. The feeling of a lack of control. Not that she... wants to be in control. That's what this is about, complete surrender to someone else, even if that someone is of her own making. A prison of safety, where walls are made of people.

That's what it's like sometimes, when she transitions from one personality to the next. Not unlike now. Wait, who is it that's falling now? No, I'm not listening to that. I'm still Meghan.

That's right. Dustin is right here. She's going to be a mother.

Oh, she's going to be a mother! Her heartbeat increases and she nearly blacks out for a second, forgets everything. Will she be able to do it? How could someone like her- she's older now but feels like practically a child still herself!

Time slows. She waits for him to merely drop her, for her to fall, revealing that he was never there in the first place. Waits to confirm what she fears.

But he's there, lifting her back up. It's... disorienting. He was smiling at first before he notices her confusion. “Maybe don't... do that again without warning.” She mutters groggily. She needs a nap, a mallet, something. She needs to remember or she needs to forget. A headache builds.

“Sorry, sorry!” He helps her stand for a moment, holds her arm to steady her.

She shakes her head. Slowly, that's about the fastest shaking she can handle right now.

“Are you feeling better?” His voice is an echo in her mind. Is he also a figment of her imagination? She gets the feeling that she is mere link in a chain of unreality, hopping from person to person without being any one of them. It's suddenly chilly in the room as if an autumn windstorm took the roof right off the house and brought the cold straight into her bones.

“I love you.” She tells the phantom. Even if nothing here is real. Just to test the dream. She's still off being an animal somewhere probably. But the sound of his voice... it's like nobody else's.

“I love you too.” He says, snapping her back suddenly. There's no conviction in her internal voices, and those are almost never positive. He's real.

She tries to lose herself in being with him, it's usually so easy because she can't pretend his warmth isn't there. This is clearly real, and his embrace is one of the few things that confirm it. Things that happen when they're together she could never fabricate alone. It silences the voices, makes the concern vanish. Here is someone who loves her without making demands in return.

So long ago that wasn't... it wasn't...

Shit.

She's actually losing herself.

(“Who are you?”)

The warmth of the man's embrace evaporates. His hands slide gently down her arms and release them, reluctantly almost. She finds herself at arm's length. She feels like she met him a very long time ago, but doesn't know his name. “Kto si... ty?” He asks.

They don't even speak the same language, but he sounds so familiar.

The blast echoes into the muggy summer afternoon and is absorbed somehow into the marsh even as the afterimage of what was once there imprints itself on the mind of a single observer.

Well, perpetrator honestly.

Loki grins uncharacteristically. Living alone for years will do that to a person. They start to lose themselves a bit and become a society of one, reflecting on the pile of things they gladly talk to nobody other than themselves about.

It's something like a self-satisfied loneliness, if he could put it to words.

For example, nobody's here to tell him what to do with his stuff, and when he's had enough of something, he ends it.

Grateful to finally be rid of a nuisance, the blond inventor/ amateur radio host settles on his mediocre back porch with a glass of wine to toast the decision to simple eviscerate the old washer he'd bought with the place so long ago. He should have done that before but living on a strict diet of salad and canned soup, there was economic pressure to simply let it rust straight into the bog until it's dying day. Thank the maker that day has finally come!

Not really one to drink heavily, Loki's taken up the habit of having a bottle of wine on occasion, or normally when he misses his family. They never visit him in Twinbrook, and he can't seem to bring himself to travel out to an Aurora Skies in which his parents no longer live.

He probably should go and visit their graves for closure, but that just seems silly considering that aside from a quiet life with little misadventure that he truly enjoys now, his entire move to Twinbrook in the first place was about running away.

It'd be a shame to break the cycle of avoidance now.

Well bills are paid, so nobody can tell him what to do with his time at least.

His tinkering has given way to some good ideas, and he found a niche in the educational toy market after selling several items in the shops downtown. This has brought in just enough money for him to invest in better equipment and materials. He's been able to keep his head above water, but barely. Also he doesn't need to live on much, so he pours 90% of what he makes right back into his business.

A rare call from an old friend. He doesn't speak to Beverly a lot these days. Mostly because he feels guilty for not listening to her advice, but when she calls with an offer for a 'date', still meaning chess in the park and idle conversation, he finds himself looking forward to it. He just so happened to be downtown for once selling gizmos and taking photos for his personal collection (it's a less than weekly occurrence).

Her opening story is about how some people are too stupid to make their own pancake mix and buy it premade from the store (ie, everyone who isn't her). How difficult is a pile of flour with some leavening agents?

He doesn't bother to inform her that he's never flipped a pancake in his life, and half the time subsists on apples or canned soup.

He doesn't mind the culinary advice though (he's also going to ignore it), having finally figured out a great stew recipe. Water plus old things from the fridge, the result of which is usually a surprise. Edible, but a surprise.

It's not a bad time out, but at the same time he notices the limits of what he can learn from Beverly. She was great with relationship advice, but doesn't go out of her way to teach him anymore, telling him instead to learn on his own. She doesn't want to be a crutch.

But love is complicated and women are either simple or impossible. He doesn't want the hassle, and his mom isn't around to remind him she wants grandchildren. Who had he been living for, all this time?

She interrupts his thoughts with a theatrical wave. “We have to get to the chess table before that old wretch Annabel from my quilting class hogs it for the next three hours! I can see her clomping around back there like a pregnant wildebeest!”

Loki raises his eyebrows but does not adjust his walking speed.

Away from his workbench he still finds himself hung up on the same ancient thoughts that answer nothing. What had he done wrong? Not that he could go back, he knows this, but if there were a way, he'd have to try. What was the moment where his life took this sharp turn away from what was an obviously easy and fulfilling course?

Yet another email he's not strong enough to write. He just wants to know what Andrea's been doing with her life lately. Has she been able to fund her research? Has she discovered and mapped more of the night sky? Is she with anyone now? Did she figure out what was going on with those flowers? Is she with anyone?

But he can't bring himself to find out. He regrets it, but feels like there's nothing to say. Not after... years. And there's the problem of him not knowing what he'd like to accomplish by talking to her, ultimately. He doesn't want to be back together, and he can't unmake his mistakes, so why does he feel so compelled to reach out sometimes?

He starts on an order bright and early the next morning, but still is unable to focus.

It's kind of pathetic, how he's still hung up on her, isn't it? But a part of him is sure that there's only regret because he doesn't know the defining moment that ended things. He wonders if their children would be with them by now, if they would have moved back to Aurora Skies. Would he have become a doctor, like his mother wanted, or a radio host like he expected he'd be great at, or an inventor in the end anyways?

He liked his work now but found his personal life remained in a dismal state. Perhaps if he'd stayed together with Andrea, he would be happy in his personal life now and hate his work, constantly wondering what would have happened if he decided to simply quit his career path in favor of designs and inventions.

Life is by nature ironic, so he's pretty sure he'd have something worthy of regret by now no matter what.

The only visitor he ever gets is his (far away) next door neighbor, who says he needs to eat better and brings over occasional leftovers to share. She's pretty and nice and brightens his day, not that he'd admit when he needs it.

She's kind of a busybody and he's almost 100% sure she visits for selfish reasons.

Her husband's running for mayor, or something.

She's pretty broken up about it.

Well, the part where he travels so much without her, at least.

Their afterglow conversations are short and sweet, usually she reminds him to vote.

He's sort of ...tired of hearing about it. He can't even handle a fifth of the effort it would take to invest in a real relationship.

This is probably because he's never had a real relationship (well aside from the one he'd prefer not to think about). Even this had started out unexpectedly. In the beginning he'd liked her and thought it could go places. Back when he believed she was visiting because she genuinely liked him.

Now he just counts the moments until she leaves.

Wham. Bam. Thank you, ma'am.

He wasn't callous in the beginning, but it was difficult to not be somewhat bitter. Especially seeing as how she'd waited until after they'd been intimate to tell him she was married. She honestly just thought everyone in town knew. Not everyone, he'd said.

Well, clearly. Is the callous response he received.

That explained why she always refused to stay the night.

Once again Loki proves how gullible he is in the face of romance. Maybe it's the women, they sense something vulnerable or mistake his self-assurance for worldly experience and beguile him. He ends up completely lost in the moment, consequences are ignored.

He tells himself it's the women.

Most of the women in this town don't really seem like relationship material anyways. This one is a 1/10 on the attractiveness meter, too. Looking at her makes him feel hives scratching their way into his skin. Assuming she isn't a figment of his imagination, which he's not ruling out by any means considering his messed up sleep schedule that keeps hims from having any actual social life. 

Plus, he's running a fever so she's probably not real. What do they call that again? Nuance? Semantics?

He calls it useless.

Another winter visits Twinbrook.

Then another Snowflake day approaches.

He remembers to hang lights, but hasn't remembered to host a radio show in quite a while. Maybe he is just becoming an inventor. He can live with that. Inventors have an impact on everyone who comes after them, even if nobody he knows now will ever remember his name later, he knows he is destined for some greatness beyond the work he does on any normal day. His work will one day impact all of the world, he's betting on it.

He takes more photos too. Here is drunk Jeni-Jones Brown. It's not a rare image.

DeAndre Wolfe and scenes from downtown decorate the other walls.

But still the simple things can be the most important, a moment captured in chemicals on the film...

A few electrons scattering into another molecule, repeating, cascading, until it happens billions and billions of times. And that's when the world changes.

Some people believe in a collective consciousness. An awareness that, when held by one individual is shared, without their intention, to every other being with an intelligence like his own. Then everyone knows that same thing at different levels, they just don't know that those around them are all a part of it too. The mob mentality, the hive mindedness of simnation.

Maybe that's why he made this machine. It took him years, too. All he ever did it seems like is create, work himself into exhaustion, cut himself in moments of carelessness, set fire to his projects because of the errant pass of a torch poorly tended, and what little money he made was put right back into the scrap yard. He should have just bought the whole place for the time he spent there, for the scrap he'd had to purchase when he had rush orders to make.

But still for all that he knows he doesn't have the answers yet. What he sees isn't the future or the past, not really.

It's the collective consciousness of what everyone believes the future will be or the past once was and can be. An interesting journey, but not the truth. It's not answers. It has no place in his time, because it doesn't truly exist in any time. It is thoughts, feelings, and actions as they were, are likely to be.

Not one man's individual escape route, but the whole picture of where all men can go. Loki involuntarily shivers. It was more the journey inside the mind of a madman than the hopeful lift of a balloon into the sky on hydrogen's wings or the whirring of a propeller separating feet from soil, lifting man into the sky.

It does leave him with a few images that stick in his mind, seeming nonsensical, but there they are nonetheless. Some recur as he sleeps or in daydreams as he works, slowly coloring and infesting his imagination. Some may be clearly nothing, others have a weight, the feel of a pivotal pinprick, they reek of everything. The machine shows him possibilities for him, or is it activating a normally unused portion of his brain, taking him to places he will never be able to go?

No, a journey into consciousness is nothing like the thrill of flight he'd expected it to be. He's not even sure there's a way to market a bundle of discordant thoughts. 

He sighs, despite the awesomeness of finally finishing this invention. Yet another thing that will never make him any money.

“Do you really think.. I can handle it?” She asks when she finally calmed down, and back to speaking in the normal simlish. He rests his hands lightly on the small of her back, relief making him mute for a few seconds. He knows he can't hesitate here, but he wants to be honest with her too.

“I think we can do better than you think we can.” He counters. “We can be great parents, let's just take everything one day at a time, okay? Don't try to force yourself so much.”

"Who, me?" She asks with a slight wince at the words she found herself saying. Of course he'd noticed she was losing it back there. She can practically feel the cold wind leaving, putting the roof back in its place one square at a time. He was here to ground her, and more than that, she knew who she was again.

“Yes, you.” He chides, giving her a playful pinch on the side and releasing her from the embrace. "I'm going to start dinner, you get some rest alright?”

“Alright.”

She watches him walk away as if everything that happened didn't matter and he wasn't worried. It's impressive how his mere presence in the room brings her back to herself. At the same time she doesn't like to be coddled, but he let her go somehow right before her patience wore too thin.

Weirdly it makes her want to spend more time in her lab- she knows her research could truly impact the world. Dustin proves the effect that one person can have, what if she could impact hundreds, or thousands of others with the right discovery?

She truly could change the world, if she could help people understand it the way Dustin understood her.

He takes a moment to freshen up before dinner and tries not to focus on it. He'd almost lost her to someone else a few times there, but was able to sort of... handle it. Did she realize that they only came out when she was unsure of herself? At least it seemed that way to him. She normally projected so much confidence that noone would know the difference. It seemed like the pregnancy was going to be a challenge.

He pauses. The pictures, come to think about it did she even hang them up or buy them? Probably not.

There's something disturbing there that he can't place. Is Andrea trying to send a message to Meghan with these, or is it simpler, a little girl buying girly things? Andrea wasn't one to waste her time or her effort.

Then again these could have been from someone else? Unlikely.

“I just need to go make dinner...” He mumbles to himself. He starting to pick up Meghan's habits of overthinking things. Enough is enough.

He gets it in the oven and manages to work in a backrub just to confirm that she's okay. This one scared him a bit. He didn't like seeing her not in control at all.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Answer: You'd still be an inventor, your name is Loki Beaker after all. So the ghost is legitimately a part of the town in one of the junkyards- kind of cool but I never noticed her before! Her grave is up against the wall in the yard closest to the swampy side of town.

PFFT. Mung-Bean. I'm sure there's a gardening origin story for that nickname. I ain't wasting time writing it. I promise I'm not going to beat the MPD thing to death here either (those translucent shots are really hard to take in game, so I can't really even if I wanted to). The pictures in the bathroom for some reason are worth staring at, so they made it into the story. I'm not sure why, so I figured it was something Meghan was doing without knowing about it.
Dustin basically just stared awkwardly at Meghan throughout her whole 'I'm an animal' display. He looked pretty terrified actually.

In case you were wondering (and you weren't), “Wham. Bam Thank you Ma'am” is something my old Kotokan (kind of like Karate) instructor used to say.