I was in an unfamiliar city. I was anxious, kinda frantic. I could feel that a lot was expected of me, there was a lot to do. I was wearing a white sport coat, a blazer, over a white t-shirt. The blazer was made of what felt like a line tablecloth material—smooth, thin, and synthetic.
I was with a group of people. We were all trying to accomplish different things. We were able to fast-travel to different parts of the city like in a video game. I could zoom out and see the city abstracted into exaggerated shapes and colors, some areas much larger in scale relative to others. I could then be in a newly selected area almost instantly. This created a sense of frenetic activity where I was often disoriented not only in my location but in time. It felt like the time of day would shift around as we moved around completing our tasks.
We were in an old industrial part of the city moving past large warehouses built many decades ago. I was carrying white boxes of different sizes. I had one in each hand. They were flat boxes like the shape of a box of chocolates, but they had no opening, or they had no discernible way of opening. I hold them upright like two white monoliths in my palms, nearly balancing them in front of me as I walk. I can walk very fast. There were lots of obstacles that I had to maneuver over, under, or around. Several times I had to fit myself through small spaces. The people I am with come and go as I move through different spaces.
There is a conversation going on with them. It happens in fragments when I see them. They are asking me about the Mclaren, which I had forgotten about. It felt like I had forgotten about it entirely, its existence, and when they bring it up I am quickly filled with worry as I don’t know where it is.
Throughout our time together we have been sometimes driving and sometimes fast-traveling. But now there is an issue with our car, we no longer have it. In my mind, I am trying to work out my overall car situation but I cannot remember if I have a car, or maybe a couple cars. The Mclaren is the only car I can remember with certainty. The conversation within our group is reminding me that the Mclaren was at The Shop. However, as we travel, as we move through spaces, balancing our boxes, and talking intermittently, it becomes clear that The Shop has lost the Mclaren. The Shop is a car collector’s club where I kept the Mclaren before I had a garage.
It is here that a previous history blooms in my consciousness, like a cloud shape inside which is the memory of a certain circumstance. The circumstance is that I had called The Shop many times and no one could figure out where the Mclaren was. They kept saying they would call me back. They gave me the impression that they might not have been the last to have it. I was enraged at this gaslighting, this attempt to escape responsibility for it. Others in the group were also upset.
We fast-travelled to large white house on a hillside in, what felt like, Los Angeles. The lighting was surreal, not exactly daylight, though we were outside; and not interior light either. It was like light filtered through many lighting gels, one of which was light green. The front of the house was made of floor-to-ceiling windows. We were all seated outside the windows on very plain cement patio, a slab, really. There wasn’t room for all of us. I sat off the slab in the tall grass and dirt.
We had a leader. He was slightly larger than the rest of us—larger in scale for the world, not just taller. He was sitting on the cement leaning back against the house. One of my cousins sat next to him. We were all resting here, we were taking a break. The leader explained to us, without words, that inside the house was a special opportunity. I could see through the windows into the house. There was an equally plain white room with no interior lighting. Inside the room there were a couple dozen people. They were paired up in two rows, perfectly filling up the shape of the room. They were young men and women, all with an odd alabaster skin and dark hair. They were naked. Various pairs were at various stages of intimacy. Some were just resting, looking at us through the window.
I was excited for what appeared to be a chance to participate. I assumed we were going to go in and get paired up. Then I realized that the male-female ratio wasn’t perfect and there were a few young men sitting, or leaning, against the back wall who were unpaired. I thought to myself, of course, and sort of rolled my eyes—mostly to myself. Then our group leader said things had changed and there wasn’t room for all of us to participate. It was understood that I, and a few others, would not be included. My cousin, being young and very beautiful, was definitely going to participate. He was already taking off his clothes and stacking his things neatly on the cement. This was the first time I saw rollerblades. I think he was taking off his rollerblades. There was a quiet assumption on my part that we were all wearing them, and had been.
The memory cloud was still expanding around me. The circumstance of the missing Mclaren was getting more complex as more of the memory faded in. I could remember many of the phone calls with The Shop and the uncertainty that the car was lost at all. They didn’t recall if I had it last, or they did. I also couldn’t recall—but I wasn’t admitting to that. I was heartbroken and desperate with depression because it was possible I’d parked it somewhere then forgotten I’d driven and went home by some other means. It could have been left behind months ago.
I then remembered that The Shop was owned by Liz Silver’s parent company. This filled me with hope. A couple of the others in my group said we should go see her and she would set this straight, she would make The Shop do the right thing. We discussed this as we sat outside on the cement slab in the odd greenish sunlight, the unpaired young men inside still staring at me.
The decision was made that a couple of us would go to Liz’s house. This was an intense journey up the hillside. The path was both foreign and familiar. In certain sections of the trip I recognized that I’d traveled this many many times. At one place, there was a single dirt trail with tall grass on both sides. Across the trail was a hastily made wooden construct—a few old weathered boards nailed together to block the trail—save for a small opening at the middle. In the past, many times, I was able to easily get through the space. This time, it was clear I would not fit. I was still balancing boxes in my hands. It was not possible to crawl through the opening and hang onto the boxes. I essentially had no hands for this trip. I could not use them without setting down the boxes, and setting them down was not an option. In this way, we had to find a route to Liz’s house that did not require using our hands. We went down several paths only to have to double back.
It was getting very late and very dark. The air was warm and dry. Liz lived in an enormous old mansion at the top of the hill. We made our way to one of her overgrown gardens in the dark, traveling through the occasional pool of light coming down from the house above. The garden was surrounded by an old wooden fence, half of which had collapsed into the tall grass. There was a terraced wall made of countless individual round stones. It was like the base of a pyramid. We were able to climb it taking large steps up each level while still holding our boxes. There were only two of us now. My remaining partner in the journey was very large. As we climbed toward the top I started to worry about having brought him. There was so much fervor when this plan was being discussed, but that was a while ago and now it was very late at night and the mood was quite different.
We made it to the outdoor veranda, a sprawling terracotta tiled patio. The outside flowed into the inside without doors or walls. My friend stayed on the veranda, he was too large too comfortably fit inside the house. I was standing in front of a half open door that faced the veranda. Inside the room I could see a faint blue light in darkness. I was afraid, very afraid, that Liz was asleep and we’d be waking her. Her house assistant appeared next to the door. I knew her assistant and we exchanged knowing nods to one another. The look on her face communicated that it was okay for me to be here.
Liz came out of the room. She had been working, not asleep. I was immensely relieved, but at the same time made more aware of the precariousness of the situation I had created. I was here in the middle of the night to ask a favor—a favor that now seemed petty. It would certainly seem petty to her. She stepped out into the light and I could see that she was much older than last I saw her. She smiled and I smiled back. Without saying anything, I communicated that I needed to talk to her. She and her assistant moved past me and down the hall. They were discussing something.
It became clear that we were going to sit at a table and eat. To my right, and on the landing below, there was a pagoda. Inside the pagoda was a perfectly square white table made of porous marble or stone. The table’s surface was sunken with ornate black carvings in the surface. It reminded me a game table, but for a game from another country, presumably an asian country. The table was floating, as if on water.
Liz’s mother and father appeared, then her sister and brother. Some other family members and friends joined us. I realized quickly that I needed to have a certain seat next to her at the table if I wanted to ask the favor. Someone took the optimal seat around the corner from her. I had to take a seat on the opposite side from her. I was grateful to get that seat as this was all happening quickly. The table sat four people on each side densely packed in. I no longer had the boxes in my hands. Liz’s sister was to my right, her arm pressed against mine, both of us looking at each other’s hands as they were awkwardly forced to be in front of us. We were too tightly against one other to lower our hands. We were all sitting on a continuous wooden bench, like a breakfast nook but with no open side. We all had to step down into it to take a seat.
I was chatting with Liz’s sister. Each time I looked at her she had something different in her hands. At first it was a tiny pastry that she was happy to have. When I looked at the table it had a few things on it. It felt like a tea service. When I looked back to Liz’s sister she had a tiny tea cup filled to the absolute top with what appeared to be a perfect espresso shot. The cup was the size of a thimble. She was holding it with the tips of her fingers. When I looked again to the table it was absolutely filled with every delectable thing you could imagine—all so tightly packed together that it looked, at a glance, like a colorful tapestry.
The table was indeed floating on water. We were all sitting in water. The table would occasionally jostle, as would the bench. The entire structure felt like it was floating down a river and we’d hit a rough patch. I looked at Liz’s sister again. Her espresso had spilled onto the tiny white saucer and splattered on her shirt. She was laughing quietly, though, and having a nice time. I looked down at my white linen jacket and saw that I too had splatters of expresso on it. I also saw other colors of splatter on it that I realized must have already been there. I was embarrassed for the state of my jacket, but I was also happy for the circumstance that we now all had messy jackets. Every time we were jostled and jolted and espresso would splatter, Liz’s sister was more delighted. Her joy was infectious. I started to feel very grateful for being in this company, adopted into this strange family despite being an obvious misfit.
I looked at Liz across the table. She and her mother were talking about business. I could barely hear them over the sound of all the other conversations and the rustling water.