kaolin fire presents :: writing :: fiction

"Evolution"

words

George woke up feeling well rested, tingling with life. He lay in bed for some time, not moving a muscle, bathing with his eyes closed in the radiation that was pouring in through his window. When he tried to open his eyes, though, nothing changed. He tried to sit up, but couldn't move. George wasn't the brightest of folks, but he could tell that something was wrong.

He racked his mind for some memory of what had happened. He'd come home late after a night of bowling with the other guys from work. He pictured himself getting a beer out of the fridge. It was a Bud Light. The silver bullet of the can fixated in his mind. He could remember drinking it slowly while watching a football game on the tube. Then he'd climbed into bed, and gone to sleep. Today was his day off, so he hadn't bothered to set the alarm.

That definitely didn't explain the current predicament. George aimed his considerable willpower at straining to make out the shapes beyond the distortion of his eyelids. The more he thought about it, the more he could see. With a final erg of effort, his bedroom came through to him clearly.

The view was a little disorienting. He was getting information from every direction, which didn't make much sense. To boot, everything he could see was glowing in strange ways, especially his alarm clock and the wall outlets. He could see everything in his room, except -- no, that was the mirror, so that had to be him. He looked like a small, glowing ball of fire.



Time passed quickly as he stared in the mirror at his reflection. If his senses weren't deceiving him, well, he was, for starters, a brilliant shade of purple. Aside from the tendrils of energy gently licking about his form, he figured he was a perfect sphere, about a foot or maybe a foot and a half in diameter. He couldn't see what he was seeing with, or any special bumps that would qualify as a limb to move himself along with. On the other hand, he was just floating in the middle of the air. Finally, his mental gears squeaked back up to a low whirr.

Maybe he could move the same way he could see. He'd never been praised for how quickly he could think, but he was stubborn as a mule. If all it took was concentrating, he'd be able to move just fine. Without quite knowing what was happening, he started to drift through the bachelor's pad into the kitchen. He always had a beer when he went to bed, and always had a beer when he woke up. It was one of life's little rituals.

Staring at the fridge, though, George started to wonder. It really felt like it was his body that wanted the beer. The same body that had somehow disappeared some time during the night. Maybe it wasn't such a good idea to have a beer. There were several reasons not to. There was no telling what beer would do to him in his peculiar condition. Secondly, his mind was more than fuzzy enough at the moment. And most importantly, he had no clue where to pour the beer, assuming he could get first the fridge and then the bottle open. Especially without breaking the bottle. Beer spillage was sacrilege. He'd have to wait on that until he'd gotten more of a clue how to operate.

The next stage of his daily ritual was the television. As soon as he thought of it, he heard a snap of thunder and the television was surrounded in an oblong nimbus of light. His first thought was that it had exploded, but the light continued to radiate around it, and after a bit of concentration he could make out various parts of it that were probably related to the picture. Somehow he'd turned the television on.

Unfortunately the standard morning shows weren't on. Nothing was on. Just thinking of a channel switched to it, but it was no use. Every channel either showed static of some sort, or the after-hours test pattern. On the other hand, that in itself was more information than he'd had. It wasn't good information, but it was something to think about. No reporters. No television stations. No one was in control. Either they didn't exist anymore, or they hadn't figured out how to control the equipment. In either case, he realized that he wasn't an isolated incident. Something had happened across the globe.

He noticed that his... skin, for the lack of a better word, seemed to be trying to tune in with the television. It tickled some, although it felt good in a way. He had an odd sense that he was feeding off of the television. Uncertain of what was happening, he thought it off.

Stage three of the morning ritual was to go in to work on work days, or go to the park on his days off. He liked to sit at the park and stare at the birds. He went there whenever he had a problem to mull over, also. He'd sit on a bench and stare at the birds until his mind had come up with a solution to whatever was bugging him. His mind had a lot of work to do right now, far more than it was accustomed to, and he really hoped that there would be birds there. How'd he be able to think if they'd all turned into little specks of sizzling energy?

George glided across the living room to the door out. He gave it a good and hard stare, but nothing seemed to happen. He moved a little closer, and gave it a stern mental shove. Suddenly, the paint began to blister and burn; he backed off hurriedly. Maybe he could figure that out later. Meanwhile, he always left the bathroom window open. George flitted out, ignoring the fact that he was exiting on the third floor. He didn't fall.



The day was amazingly bright out. There were streams of color flowing through the air of every description, every color of the rainbow and many colors he was sure he'd never seen and had no names. Some flowed and some roared, some were so small that he could barely sense them and some seemed to take up the sky. It was a cacophany of energy, and he wondered where it all came from.

The park was a block a way. Something buzzing around his head told him that he'd find his answers there. George was afraid that that buzzing something was desperation. The tingling he'd felt in front of the television had come back again, stronger than before. It was making him dizzy and the world fuzzy. He had the strong impression of being a bucket of paint shaken around in a mixer, only more erratically. Forcing down his panic, he concentrated. Round. I'm a round, tight ball. I'm not falling to pieces. This isn't natural. I am. I am. My name is George. I am. I am not falling apart. I'm -- I'm in a large fluorescent pink cloud!

George dove back towards the ground and hid behind a tree. It wasn't a rational reflex, but his life-long learned reflexes hadn't begun to start catching up with his new existence. On the other hand, he noticed that the tree really did keep the pink cloud at bay somewhat. The canopy was a shelter from the electromagnetic storm. He was beginning to understand how people got cancer from standing out in the sun too much. Correction. How people used to get cancer from standing out in the sun too much.

What strange diseases would people come down with now? Where were all the other people, for that matter? He'd had at least one close call with death already as far as he could tell. How many other ways were there to die? How many people had simply ceased to exist before they realized their new existence? Well, he wasn't one to give up. He'd get answers. Somehow.

Suddenly his attention was caught by a rapidly moving energy being. His attention was dragged in circles as it followed a ball of cotton candy repidly darting around a small green ball of yarn. He'd swear the cotton candy was a cat. No... too uncoordinated. A dog? Maybe. Or maybe they were just people, like him. He felt that he really ought to help the green, fuzzy ball, one way or the other.

George steadfastly moved towards the duo. Images of old westerns flickered through his mind. This was a showdown. He did his best to remain certain of himself. He'd been a fair fighter with his old body, but he didn't even know how to hurt someone like this. The other guy apparently did, though. The ball of yarn was definitely losing cohesion.

Cotton candy whizzed up to the top of what George could only guess was a telephone pole. George fought the instinct to chase after the pink fuzz. Instead, he rushed over to the ball of yarn. There wasn't anything he'd describe as characteristic of an old-time brawl. The green ball of yarn had no substance -- it couldn't be ripped, torn or bruised. However, it was obvious that the ball was damaged. Aside from its erratic, drunken movement, it had no definite outline. The yarn was slowly fading off into the surrounding morass. As he stared at it, it flickered momentarily into definition like the gasps of a dying heroine in a poorly acted movie. There was nothing that he could do but watch. And hope that he could handle the pink energy being now that he'd gotten his silly self into this mess.

The cotton candy was quick to return. With the green ball of yarn down for the count, George found the pink fuzz larger and more intimidating. Sparks were flying off of it in all directions. Then it began to make sense. The pink being was feeding off of the energy running through the lines. It was overflowing with energy, barely able to contain it.

George mentally shut his eyes, dashed through the pink, fuzzy energy being, and lost consciousness.



He came to, suddenly, without any of the vagueness of awakening. He came to, suddenly, with all the pain of having existed at the center of a star, being burnt alive for a split second of eternal nightmare. That hurt! Cotton candy was rushing after him, sparking more profusely than ever. Apparently it had hurt him as well. It looked like George's trick had worked so far.

George spiraled up around the telephone pole, dodging the globs of energy flying off the power lines. The pink punk behind him was ignoring the globs. One after another they pummeled into the punk, apparently fueling his rage. His movement was speeding up with each jolt, but also becoming more erratic. George didn't know what to do but run and hope that his guess was right.

He continued flitting around high-energy areas, teasing the pink ball for all he was worth. The pink punk was looking decidedly less and less controlled. The dense clouds of his aura were beginning to swell and quiver. Suddenly, a gush of pure energy ripped around George, twirling him this way and that. His earlier sense of being burnt was overwhelmed by the primal forces, numbing him from further pain.

Once the storm abated, he found himself surrounded in a turqoise cloud. Carefully, he floated over towards an edge and peered out, ignoring the itching sensation he was getting from the cloud. Cotton candy had literally burst from his anger, his energy too agitated to remain within the conscious form. It was safe to leave the cloud.



George finally located his favourite park bench, and set himself hovering above it. He felt a great warmth shuffle through his body as he noticed a pair of pigeons courting a short bit away. They were completely oblivious to him. Seemed there were still pigeons and seagulls rooting through the trash. Lots of animals had grown accustomed to such left-overs. He wondered what would become of them, with trash no longer a by-product of humanity. Maybe they'd evolve too.

-FIN-