Standing On The Edge Of Some Crazy Cliff

The setting is a perfect replication of the megalopolis.
Your character can infinity jump up into the air.
Items and upgrades are obtained from NPCs in exchange for solving problems.
An icon in the corner hints at the solutions, and burns to remind you when you stray from your task.

Collect enough upgrades and a story takes shape, a subtly hinted quest for something hidden in the city, mirrors arranged like the compound eyes of the fly god, a remnant from the jungle the city was built over.

Mentions of these things seem exciting at first, but I quickly got tired of the boring, repetitive mini quests, and decided to infinity jump my little character into the sky.

Street sounds disappear and the buildings start to shrink.

The screen basically looks like a zoomed out map, task icon throbbing and my character puffing himself. Almost identical things became inspiring in distance.

I decide to drop my guy somewhere east of the city center, over the river that borders the wards. It took 11 seconds to fall.

“Ow!” my flattened character said, popping back into shape.

At the meeting of two narrow residential roads, potted plants stood to my left in front of a three story apartment. At the end of the road an old lady passed. Power lines, stuffed over and in-between buildings, extended into the distance, taller residences standing like fortresses. My task icon throbbed more violently than ever.

Tim, watching me play, started to speak. I was waiting to hear his insightful comment.

“It’s really interesting how…”

My brother Giovanni watched us play the game silently, patiently hoping that we would let him play, excited to be in a room with the big boys. As always, his smooth, child’s legs were bare on the couch, shining and hairless. His tighty-whities were soiled – he refused to ever change them or to wear pants. His baby blue t-shirt was faded from frequent washing.

****************************************

I was proud of my small understanding of Esperanto. My mother and sister saw me as an alien satellite: different, but rotating in a close orbit.
Tim, on the other hand, was totally out of the solar system.

My interactions with him had been tense and critical. I’d seen his intelligence and knew he was better than me. Not just intelligence, but reckless, wild beauty, playing the Ondes Martenot in his poncho and sombrero, strategically expanding his consciousness with brain drugs, always taking off into some corner of the night, in alleys, tunnels, and sometimes over fields, strategically managing how other people perceive him, his video game analysis being his field of specialty.

I hadn’t known the depth of his knowledge of Esperanto. His Neocities page was full of pictures of him covering his face in his hands, turning his back, edging through doorways, body contorted.

He was always neglecting something, like he was turning his back on something, like it was his last step on earth.

All the pictures were accompanied by text in Esperanto, of a level so expert I wondered if he were a native speaker. After all this time, difficult phrases and nuances of Esperanto once again threatened and taunted me – I had to look up words in almost all of his captions, read them again and again to myself until I felt like I understood them.

In one black and white photo, his buried his face in tomato sauce on a plate of spaghetti, his vein-y hands clutching the grainy wooded table. The caption (my translation):

“Dads are airplanes in suits, smiling in the air, selling to and buying from other suited planes. Mom and kids are the humans below, huddling over the wet, shifting lava.”

In another he seemed to be about to jump out of his bedroom window. In the yard out the window, a treehouse and forest were visible:

“I’m high and exhausted. It’s late and my head hurts. Nothing is nearly enough. There’s more to come. I’m already behind. I must do so much more, or everything will get worse, and that’s okay. It’s cold. God sweeps me off of my heels at the speed of the earth rotating around the sun.”

In another, he stared at a light bulb balanced on his palm, his thus illumined face seemingly stunned in dumb awe.

“Suspended over a field of shit on fire, we are lifeless, barely breathing, each carried by our own tiny fairy of light, sweating out soul-beads, fraying wings of ether, celestial faces torn in pain, determination unto awful death, carrying our bodies and minds over degradation. We’ve already lost— these fairies could never carry us, the only difference is how long before we fall— the pure light of being, suspended over wastelands.”

As long as Tim wasn’t around I could pretend to be someone like him, because in a limited world I was the closest thing to him.

I always made sure that he liked the things that I liked. Things that Tim liked and I didn’t like, I tried my best to appreciate. Whenever I was walking or sitting on the train I’d imagined I was Tim, amazing everyone with my intellectual and emotional depth. It’s thanks to Tim that I saw a bigger world.

****************************************

One day while eating spaghetti and meatballs at the table, Giovanni abruptly started talking with hesitation, as if he had waiting in trepidation for the right moment to speak, like the time I once asked Mom what sex was.

“We humans think that one thing is bigger than another, that one thing, being one thing, can’t be another, but what if the universe doesn’t think that way? What if the universe thinks a very small thing could be very big, I could be you, or a brain could be the universe?”

Giovanni glared with his swarthy six year old features, his underwear dripping with dampness, warm and ochre.

“Who could ever know what the universe thinks…” I replied after consideration.

Giovanni continued.

“What if there were order beyond time and space, if a metaphysical patterns exist objectively, beyond the notice of humans? For example, the proliferation of ideas throughout space, the action of humans, and how they reverberate, all formed a pattern, through which clear lines could be drawn, regardless of temporal and spatial distances? And this is of course only considering the world of humans. Humans can’t notice it because they’re caught in their own psychologies; they only care about themselves. But what if you could clearly draw and know these patterns? You could simply draw reality, and it’s not what we think of as science.”

“Well, I guess that’s what they call the supernatural… And, I guess such a thing as reality could exist, but how could we as humans ever know that?”

Giovanni considered my response, looking at me, then at his spaghetti.

“Imagine a land, 3000 nautical miles wide, that one might only see in dreams. In this place, we connect with the earth, dancing sacred dances with daggers at our sides. Picture a throne where the King of Haze sits, sunburned and powerful. In this vision, a goat is sacrificed, its blood staining the ground, flowers falling in response, and hundreds of eyes watching. The sacrifice isn't just an act; it awakens something deep within, something that calls to the flames. The people's voices merge with these flames, creating a powerful chorus.
Our blood boils, and as water meets rising flames, ancient gears begin to turn—a drama lasting mere seconds, yet carrying the weight of eternity. This isn't ordinary; it's a spirit, a shadow beyond dreams and reality. These gears, turning inevitably, bring us to a climax of ecstatic nightmare. Out of depletion comes abundance, as hopeful light rains into our vessels of death. It's a paradox, a paradise of flames or the movement of a holy wheel. In this cyclical dance, even clear speech can turn into a grim sobbing. The sacrifice goes beyond dreams, a silent successor, rising and falling. Is it paradise, or just another turn of the wheel? This pattern, this circle, continues endlessly, forever turning…”

Giovanni stared for a while at his spaghetti, then suddenly, picking up his plate, shoveled it all in his mouth, his eyes showing a desperate fear of suffocation, cheeks perilously stretched, and from his oval, widened mouth, tomato-sauce-covered spaghetti dangled, like the tentacles of a miniature monster emerging.

****************************************

Our office is in an entrance chamber punctuated by columns. Phones ring on each desk as typing keyboards drone. My phone is ringing constantly and notifications throb. I sit, stare at my computer screen, refresh and open pages.

Tim shows up outside the glass entrance and motions to me.
I really shouldn’t be talking to him during work, but I step outside the office.
“Hey, what’s up?” I ask in a normal voice.
“Hey, the documentary shooting is tonight, right?”

I had completely forgotten. Today was Tuesday; we’d be shooting the documentary about me and my sister. Tim was part of the sound crew.

“Yeah of course,” I reply.

“Okay, I was passing by so just wanted to make sure. See you later.”

“Okay, see ya.”

Tim left and went somewhere else. I admired the view of his poncho swaying from behind, his long, wavy locks like those of a golden god.

****************************************

My sister’s eyes were the size of beefsteak tomatoes, her face shaped like a watermelon, balanced sideways.

She was extremely malnourished, way underweight. Yet she responded when I touched her, and smiled when I looked at her. She spoke with the voice of a tiny bird.

Sometimes, some other things would make her so angry or sad that her body couldn’t handle it. Despite emaciation she experienced emotions.

Even sick and weak people can move around and hold things.Often, even bedridden people can talk.

In this long, narrow chamber, 60 meters long and 20 meters high, almost a hallway, but not connecting anything, water slushed rapidly in hundreds of washing machines, making up every inch of the parallel walls as well as the floor and roof, splashing and cleaning masses of clothes in unison.

Our now old and decrepit mother was bent over her chair, watching us from a distance. She was so happy about us being chosen for the documentary, which would explore the unique relationship between me and my sister. Even now she was bent over and twisting her neck, smiling.

Soon the psychologist would visit and the camera crew would arrive, as they do every Tuesday. Unlike my enthused mother, I was skeptically resigned. I had no idea what my sister thought, behind her tomato eyes and her bone width arms. She often would seem happy, and suddenly become very sad.

She had enough nutrients to think and feel sensations.

The sound of all that water, twisting in the laundry, droned in a way peculiar to deep underground chambers.

****************************************

One night, Giovanni ran up to me in a sweat. His underwear, browned, threatened to fall down to his feet.

I was buying a can of yogurt soda from a vending machine at the bus stop near our house. It was 3 am in July and no one else was on the road. There was our house, the bus stop, and a road leading to darkness. Where we lived, no plants grew; the clay was hard and dry.

The only illuminations were the light on our porch and a small streetlight over the bus stop’s covered bench. Moths were going crazy all around this light above us, both the moths and the light making a buzzing sound.

I looked at Giovanni quizzically. He started talking desperately before he stopped running, words flowing out like pee as one rushes to the toilet.

“Śākyamuni held up a flower to the sangha. No one understood, except for Mahākāśyapa, who smiled. The smile signified a transmission outside the scriptures, the ineffable nature of tathātā. The true Dharma eye, marvelous Nirvana, form of the formless, subtle Dharma Gate, a special transmission!”

The cold can almost burnt my hand in the night heat.

“Here, want a drink?”

Giovanni slapped the can out of my hand and stomped the concrete with his bare feet.

“Shut the fuck up! How dare you you stupid fuck!”

Giovanni ran back to the house and paused at the door to glare at me.

“Fuck you! You ruined everything”

He rapidly slammed the screen door about twenty times before going in.

****************************************

One day my sister opened the door for me when I got home from work. Her eyes looked like they were about to fall out of their sockets.

I could see broken dishes and windows behind her. She had destroyed everything in our home, as she does periodically. There was incredible power in her body; she would shake as if moved by an external force. Collapsing into my arms amidst our home’s rubble, her voice escaped from her mouth as if it came from all of her insides, from foot to pelvis to head, eventually quieted to sobs.

“I… very… not… a…”

A distressed old lady was talking on TV, a news story about her home and family washed away by a wave.

“I…”

My sister mirrored the speech of the old woman. The two spoke in unison, voices one.

****************************************

Outside the mall, the whirling siren colored the night and the wide empty parking lot.
The fast food signs seemed alarmed by the flashing, taped-off police presence.

I, running at full speed, arrived to find Giovanni, hands cuffed, dressed as always in his blue shirt and underwear, surrounded by two fat, old, white police.

Rushing through the tape I screamed from afar, frantic and thrilled that I made it on time.

“Wait! Wait!”

The policemen turn to me defensively. One takes out his gun.

“Hands up! Get on the ground!”

“Wait!!!” I said angrily, getting on the ground.

One of the policeman came, pat me down, and applied hands cuffs, none of which I resisted.

After waiting, I spoke deliberately with feigned confidence.
“He had a reason to choke those people.”
In fact I knew nothing about why Giovanni had done this.
Right about that time Tim showed up on bicycle, and hopped over the police tape. He too was patted down and given his own pair of handcuffs. He left his bicycle parked on its kickstand in the middle of the parking lot.

He didn’t speak a word, and standing next to me, glanced as if this were part of some plan I didn’t know about.

The police lined Giovanni, Tim and me up against the car and, hands on hips, surveyed us as their new spoils.

One of them, after wetly and thoroughly licking his lips said, “Okay… all of you are coming to the station for questioning. Get in!”
The police started moving and motioned us into the back seat, into which we shuffled obediently.

Giovanni’s mouth hung open and lip drooped down as he stared at the car’s headliner, a bubble of the fabric hanging down from the roof of the car.

Tim’s face was taut, angry, yet patient. Lips pursed, he was waiting for something.

Now, in this taught, heavy air, smelling of trash and smoke, the atmosphere felt intimate, as if it were finally time for us to get to know each other.

The policeman in the passenger seat turned around slowly and stared at us with a self-satisfactory distrust. He micro-nodded repeatedly, continuously squinting and slightly smiling. He turned back around just as slowly, this time to the policeman driving, as if to share his carefully considered appraisal of us. Instead, he asked a question in a thoughtful voice.

“Dick, do you think the kids have gotten more cruel?”

Dick nose-exhaled and micro-nodded, hissing “ssshhhiiiit…” almost inaudibly.

“I don’t know Willy… it’s….”

Dick snorted and chuckled.

“…here, you’ve got a kid, strangling adults, other places, I’ve seen kids ring their friend’s doorbell, who they were playing with, just a couple of hours ago! And then, when their best friend opens that door, they plunge a knife into that friend’s face…”

Dick made a popping sound with his lips.

“…that was in Carolina…”

Willy seemed about to say something in response when Dick continued speaking. His turkey wattle puffed as he sprechgesanged vibratically.

“The way things are going now? A rift better rip right up through the earth, the way I feel! All these forces have got to go somewhere! This clay and this dirt better rip before me now!”

Outside the car, ants crawled from their homes, the now cool cracks in the moist summer asphalt, that during the day, became infernal caverns, now, in the night, airy portals to the moon.

Dick flipped on some music: “Imagine” by John Lennon.

A slurring, fat dragon slobbered from the speaker. The orchestra had a seizure and bows scraped the strings.

Passing over the city on a diagonally upward road, it seemed like everyone was evacuating. Somehow my mind made a connection to Giovanni’s crimes, but a child strangling a few adults wouldn’t be a reason for an entire city to evacuate. But if so, why did everyone seem to be on their doorsteps, saying goodbye to their homes?

We passed over the Imperial Palace, and in the Imperial Garden, servants laid out a velvet path, over which the Emperor’s wife and daughter walked, their hairstyles enormous, shaped like one the Imperial Garden’s countless trees, their thick woven dresses trailing tens of meters after them.

I recalled my mom and sister. Whatever strange thing was happening, they should be safe in their laundry bunker.

Tim finally looked at me and spoke.

“Didn’t you have some work to do?”

My heart sunk at the words; surely I was fantastically neglecting work; my notifications must be exploding— but, in the next moment I recalled, I was on vacation; I had nothing to do but be in this car, with these people here.

“No…” I responded.

Tim nodded and smiled at me, as if he had already known the answer, before he menacingly started to sing along to the radio, keeping his gaze locked with mine.

“Imagine there’s no heaven… it’s easy if you try…”

Giovanni rolled his eyes back to white as the smell of his latest shit permeated the patrol car. Dick and Willy didn’t seem to care.

Where were they taking us?
We took off into an interchange. Tens of roads branched off, all at different angles, and Dick spun from lane to lane at the last possible instant.
First we’d be about to go up, and then he’d veer us down, cutting off four lanes of cars all at once.

Willy’s and Dick’s police caps bobbed off their heads as we sped from the city into the semi-translucent horizon.
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