Los Angeles, California

BEN BRIAR

I am rekindled by fire. I screamed but nobody heard except for the flames that burnt silently through the night. I was tired of screaming so I rested, my pieces of organic matter connecting in swirling swaths of energy and light - kinetic and bright. The heat wound itself around me like a great hungry serpent, binding me as one item.

I laid in a foetal position atop a cluster of firewood. The bulk pads of the hazmat suit weighed me down but I managed to take off the helmet. A sauna is released from inside the suit - pressurisation to be exact.

An old man and his grandson gazed at me from outside the fireplace. I inched towards them. The elderly man was supported by a wooden cane which he now took upon himself to hit me with.

The boy muttered as my suit opened up, "Pap Victor. What are you doing?" Now I could feel the wooden cane against my head and side and back, no thanks to the malfunctioning otherworldly costume.

I turned to the window and the view outside was of a shaking sea under a falling sun and purple sky. I had made it back to my condo, but what were these people doing here? A wave touched by the iridescent sheen of the sky drew closer to the sand.

"Boy, call the police," Victor screamed as the wave passed the rocks, "tell them it's an intruder! Intruder!" The boy hurried to the kitchen phone. I gained my voice.

"Please stop," I said. When he didn't stop, I caught the wooden cane in my hand and threw it backwards into the fireplace. It mysteriously ignited by itself.

"Hello, there's an intruder in our home!" the boy screamed. I redirected all the anger I had mustered up for this old man towards caution.

"I'm not an intruder! I don't even know who you are. What are you doing in my condo?"

"Your condo?!" Victor screamed. "This is my -"

"Fairmont Miramar, room 237, please come quick," the boy said and slammed the phone down. Then I noticed the phone was wireless and was standing upright. It was smaller and could fit in the boy's hands easily.

I peered at the entire room, taking in the different furniture, decoration, objects, devices - details so miniature but unlike anything from the 80s or how I had left the condo. Even the dress sense of the grandfather and the boy were almost anti-futuristic. The grandfather's was sharp, and the kid's clothes were baggy and lazy.

Victor and I came to a mutual realisation, separated by experiences.

"Ben?!" the elderly man bellowed.

"Yes?" I said.

"Ben Briar?"

"Yes -"

"But - but - but how?"

"This isn't 1984 is it?"

"No, not anymore. Hasn't been in a long time."

"And you're Victor, the bellhop." He does a small bow.

"At your service, sir!" he bellowed. His back cracks when he straightens up and he massages it with one hand, his wrinkled-up face denoting soreness. "As you can tell, I am retired. But you - " He stepped closer within proximity in which I could smell his sour breath and wagged a finger at me. "You're famous."

"Me?!" I screamed. "Famous? For what?"

"Your findings. Posthumous. They found your journal at a camp. You were presumed dead. Along with a girl - Jennifer was it? And Val Cobuge, your partner. Once you went missing, countless search parties were sent to find bodies. They returned with nothing exactly as your findings stated."

"Pap! What's happening? Pap! Why are you talking to him?" the boy chanted.

"Nothing, nothing's happening - go to sleep little boy."

"But the police are coming for him. I called them just like you said, pap."

"Don't mind the police. I mean our guest here doesn't."

"I do," I said. "But I really want to know everything that's happened. Can I meet you anywhere tomorrow?"

"No, we speak of it tonight so you can sleep easy. I'll call the police to return to their stations."

*                        *                        *

He told them it was just a bird that had flown through the window and that his grandson had overreacted. He gave me fresh clothes from his wardrobe to change into while he conversed with the police. The boy peeked through a slit in the door of his bedroom, clearly upset and feeling humiliated.

We sat down at the kitchen bench which was the same white marble, unreplaced and enduring in this condo which was no longer mine to call home. White perplexion of perception. It was white with recluse marble. Did I mention that?

There was nothing more inviting than the white above the racket of heat and bonds - chemical, atomic - troubling as it was to the mind and soul. My hand traced a whisper of moisture lines upon the white which developed texture as bump marks.

They lingered before my cheek turned against the surface, revelling in coolness. I revel for I have returned to the idea of existence direct from my creation of imagination as a revelation.

Victor poured me a glass of rum which I enjoyed with flustered cheeks. So long it had been since my last glass of any fermented spirit. So far I had been from this glass of immature mannerisms and drooling hangovers. But the memory of headache hangovers brought me away from a second glass of gold ambition.

Victor said, gleefully, "You're gonna have to pay for my walking cane, ya know?" I made a motion of searching through my pockets and emptying air. He chuckled mischievously even though I didn't remember him drinking anything.

"Why'd you take," I said when shown a bottle of wine by Victor, "my condo?" I shook my head, meaning well but saying no.

"I hung onto hope that you would come back so I wanted to furnish it like a museum item!" he shouted at me, agitated by my question. "But I lost that hope and thought to myself that I might as well get comfy."

"Where are the kid's parents?"

"Passed away." Pearl-shaped tears rolled down his crusty cheeks from wide luminous eyes, leaving no smears or streaks. He had mourned for a long time and this was only normal. To remember, not the death but the person.

But he recounted the death anyways. "My son. He choked on a damn ham sandwich. He was playing with the boy, stacking a huge ham sandwich for fun. Then he took a bite and died. Right in front of the kid. He didn't know what to do but stand there. Mother won't take him, says the boy's too frightened to become anyone. Came down to live with me. I'm making him a man. Responsible. It's about all I can do for him."

He wiped away tears with his sleeve and considered taking a drink of rum from the bottle.