JUNE MARTIN

ASPIRATIONAL CRANIOMETRY

 

            Gently, gently, Austin brushed Riley’s wavy hair off of their forehead. Luckily, they were a deep sleeper and didn’t so much as twitch as Austin did so. Still wary of making any sound, Austin raised his calipers to Riley’s head. Well-oiled, no fear of any squeaks as he drew the prong close. The real danger was Austin’s shaking hands, excited as he was to get this final measurement. In the dark, he could only see the little screen on the digital calipers, but Austin had been in this room many times before. Beautiful paintings of Riley’s own creation adorned the walls, a gorgeous vintage loveseat was set against the wall behind Austin with shiny and soft orange upholstery. Apparently Riley had just found it one day. Someone had thrown out this incredible item and Riley, in their good fortune, had just happened upon it. Except, no, no. Not fortune. Luck was not real, Austin chided himself. Reality did not just happen, chaos unfolding and refolding. Minds created the flow of reality around them, surging and calming that flow by emitting energy. And Riley’s mind emitted the most powerful energy he’d ever seen. The screen on the calipers lit up. 172mm. Smaller than average. Maybe, Austin thought, there was a question of potency, of concentration.

            Austin crept out of the room, closing the door most of the way but not entirely. 172mm, he reminded himself. Riley would think they’d left the door cracked. Their mind, constantly shaping the world around them, had never been concerned with little material details. 172mm. As Austin retreated to his room, taking deliberate heel-toe steps to make as little sound as possible, he wondered what would happen if his mind became more like Riley’s. Would the apartment become a complete mess, 172mm, with both of them unable to lower their gaze on the simple facts of cleaning up and throwing away trash? It was worth the risk to gain the effortless joy of Riley’s life.

            Flipping the light on in his room, he scrambled toward his desk and wrote down “172mm” on a piece of paper. Now that the number wasn’t drawn in the wet sand of memory he could relax. Austin wrote it again, above a sketch of a skull, in profile to the left. He set it next to another drawing, of another skull, which had “177mm” written in the same place. His skull. Now that he knew all the numbers, he could compare the two. It appeared, with Riley’s shorter skull, that it was wider relative to length than Austin’s. This, he reasoned, could perhaps be creating a more spherical flow of energy. His own skull, narrow in width but long, could be creating a more focused bolt of energy. The intensity of it might be disrupting the flow, making reality jagged around him. With this evidence, Austin could not blame reality for stabbing him. After all, Austin had been stabbing first all of this time.

            But, like the flow of reality around him, the shape of his energy was malleable. Not easily, not directly. Austin pushed away from the desk and wheeled his chair over to the side with a number of little kicks. He stopped when he had positioned his head between the jaws of a huge vice, bolted to the wall. Of course, if the landlord ever found out about this, he would immediately revoke Austin’s security deposit. If not worse. But soon, Austin could be sure that reality would protect him. He rotated the jaws until one sat against the back of his head, and the other dangled in front of his face. Turning the knob on his chair, Austin lowered himself until his eyes were clear.

            177 to 172. It was going to be quite a journey to get there, but Austin expected improved energy shape even in the intermediate stages. The only risk would be if he accidentally worked himself into a cylindrical energy flow, drawing in disaster like the funnel of a tornado. That, of course, could be avoided with care. Austin cranked the vice and soon felt the metal jaw cold against his forehead. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, clenched his teeth and cranked it further. First, pressure, like a hand pressed against his head. Then more. His breathing quickened, not correct, deep breathing maintains calm and calm is essential and he made it tighter. Pressure had become pain and he wanted nothing more than to escape, release himself from the metal grip, but he held his hand still on the lever. It wasn’t time yet. He had to wait, and endure.

            The timer on his phone went off. An hour. It was over. Arm shaking, he released himself from the vice. As soon as his head was free he slumped forward, and only his hand gripping onto the armrest stopped him from tumbling forward. It was so much worse than he thought it was going to be. The pain wasn’t even gone now that he was done. It still coursed through his head from the twin poles on the front and back. Maybe this was a mistake. His head felt swollen, so obviously this wouldn’t be the moment to take another measurement. Instead, he took a deep breath and tried to quiet his mind. Maybe, maybe, he could feel if his energy had changed at all. Most people couldn’t feel their energy, of course. They didn’t know it existed, they didn’t concentrate on it and, most crucially, natural changes in skull shape happen so gradually that it’d be impossible to notice it changing. And without change, what would there be to notice? It would be like asking a fish to notice  water.

            He ignored the pain and focused on his breath entering and leaving his body. One, two. Three, four. Austin drew his attention up from the breath, to the head. Ignoring the pain as well as he could, waiting to feel that motion which lay just beyond the senses. The motion guiding reality around him, through him. Nothing. He couldn’t find it. A fear arose in him, that by interfering in the natural shape of his energy, he’d shut it off entirely. Perhaps it’s not as simple as just shape, maybe energy is more fickle than he ever thought. Austin imagined his life as a ghost, with no energy, reality flowing through him instead of around him, obliterating any chance he had to shape his own life. But then, a whisper, a motion: he locked his attention onto it. Yes! It was spiral energy, flowing up wide from his head and coming to a point far above. Austin couldn’t help but laugh. This was a totally new shape to him. The sharpness of it at the top concerned him, of course. But rather than just jamming its point into the flow of reality, as his previous energy shape had done, it seemed to gather the flow of reality along with its spiral motion, and send it on its way.

            Austin returned to his desk, his head still in agony. If his theory was correct-- a placeholder thought he had, misplaced humility, it was correct and all empirical evidence confirmed that-- then this would possibly be an even better energy situation than Riley’s perfect sphere. He left the desk and flopped onto his bed. Never had rest felt so well-earned. Tonight, he would recover, and tomorrow, he would begin his new life.

#

            Thirty seconds after stepping onto the sidewalk, a bicycle hit Austin. No rider sat atop it, though one chased a block and a half behind. Austin didn’t see it coming, and it knocked him over. His coffee spilled onto the sidewalk right before his precious new skull connected with the concrete. Pain, as severe as what he endured the night before, shot through his head. His vision blanked out for a moment, then a blurry shape appeared above him before finally resolving into the cyclist who had now caught up to his bike.

            “Are you okay?”

            Austin blinked a few times and held a hand to the right side of his head. “I don’t know. I think so.”

            “That shouldn’t have knocked you over. It’s a fifteen pound bike.” The cyclist said with a grave look on his face, and lifted the bike up and down in his hands to demonstrate.

            Rather than watch more lifting, Austin flipped himself over and pushed himself up from the sidewalk. Perhaps this was reality sending him a message about meddling. Now, the skull, the sidewalk, he didn’t know what kind of energy he was dealing with.

            The cyclist wheeled his bicycle in front of Austin. “This is a very expensive bike. I don’t know why it knocked you over; it’s really light.”

            “Okay.”

            “I think you might have a balance problem. Have you gotten your inner ear examined? I just don’t understand how this light bike could do that.”

             Ignoring this man and his yellow-checkered biking leotard, Austin checked his phone. No time to go back upstairs and measure how much the fall had just shifted his energy. As he walked, he tried to feel his energy, but couldn’t overcome the distractions of people, of cars, of birds and trees and lights and the world. He approached his office, still desperate to feel even the hint of his energy. Just a nudge of energy and he would be satisfied, but nothing.

            Austin’s head ached, but walking past his co-workers, he put on a smile. People in this office were all about enthusiasm. They believed that a collection of positive attitudes, all held together, achieved good results. The fools. Attitudes, thoughts, none of these were real things. You had to look to the physical world, to see physical structures creating effects. Still, Austin recognized the value of not telling all of these people that the world was so much more, and so much less, than they thought. So he smiled and waved as he walked through the maze of desks, all out in the open. That woman had six cats, and talked about them constantly. That man liked boats. When Austin pressed him for more details, such as what kind of boats he liked, or what he liked about boats, Austin had seen a panic in that man’s eyes like a bear was running toward him. None of these people knew what it meant to take reality into their own hands, like Austin had. He sat at his desk and opened up his laptop. Each of them had their energy by chance, by genetics. Not him. Not anymore. Austin closed his eyes and tried one last time to feel it.

            “What, are you already taking a nap? You just got here.” Austin opened his eyes. His manager, a large, jowly man in his mid-50s, stood above him.

            “Sorry Bob. I’m just taking a deep breath before I get started.”

            “About that.” Bob leaned a hand on Austin’s desk and looked above his eyes. “I looked at the code you checked in yesterday. It’s... got some problems. I saw some errors popping up and I was wondering if you tested it at all.”

            “Of course I did.”

            “Of course. Of course. Anyway, just look at it again and reach out if you need any help, okay?” Bob tapped a finger on the desk a couple times, then walked away. Austin felt blood rushing to his face. He didn’t dare glance behind him to see if any of his co-workers were staring. They must have been. What could have prompted Bob to so cruelly admonish him in public? And undeservingly, Austin knew the quality of his work was unparalleled. For so long, he’d blamed these slights that he received from others on mere jealousy. And of course that was partly true. Many people could only understand tearing down their betters, rather than taking the example and building themselves up. Austin had once been like them, fighting to sabotage any co-workers who threatened his next promotion, just as they were surely thinking of how to sabotage him now. But he had found the true path to victory, which none of them knew. None of them would be able to compare to him.

            As he focused on the screen, Austin finally tracked down his energy. There it was, spiraling again. His bad morning must have been a holdover of the previous shape, the unfriendly reality still soaked into his clothing and essence. But now all was well. He settled in for a few hours of work, which passed uneventfully.

            He arose for lunch, and wandered over to the break room. There, he spotted his favorite co-worker, Johnathan. Well over six feet tall, with broad shoulders and just the right amount of muscle to make him look solid and stable, without veering into gym freak territory. The sides of his head were buzzed, drawing a contrast with the medium length hair on top, styled to look smooth and lively, but never wet. It was a sign of care and precision that made clear Johnathan’s constant hint of a beard was a conscious and careful decision, rather than any sloppiness on his part. Austin approached, and Johnathan smiled. So far, so good. It was working.

            Austin said, “Hi,” and Johnathan’s face shifted to shock and displeasure, before reverting to a conspicuous neutral.

            “Oh hey dude.” Johnathan said, sounding short of breath. “Have a good lunch.” And then he walked away.

            Austin wondered what happened. Everything was going fine until the moment he opened his mouth. His mouth. Cupping a hand in front of his face, Austin breathed out pure poison. Far from any coffee or garlic breath, it was the smell of death. This no longer felt like a coincidence. Something was wrong. Austin cursed at himself as he returned to his desk. There was no time to stay and work, the situation would surely become more dangerous with time. He should have known, he should’ve noticed it was strange when he couldn’t feel more than a scrap of his energy at a time. Maybe the fall disrupted him. He burst out of the door and into the world. Every gust of wind, every bird flying above him, every one of the faces of the crowd he swam through were threats now. The spiral must have been an unstable shape, vulnerable to factors beyond shape due to its complexity. As Austin speed-walked home, his eyes darted all around him. Soon he’d reached the last intersection before his house, and the walk sign lit up.

            He paused.

            A car blew through the red light, colliding with one in the intersection. The vehicle spun through the crosswalk, sending a version of Austin who hadn’t waited just a second flying in the air and to his death. Austin ran across the street now that the accident was over, not sparing even a glance at the afflicted car. There was no time. He struggled with the lock when he reached his building, which frequently jammed, but once he was in he ran up the stairs and into his apartment.

            Austin ripped open the bedroom door, letting it slam behind him. Fumbling with the calipers, he sat down at his desk. He dropped it behind the desk. It was too heavy to move on his own quickly, and moving furniture felt like the kind of behavior he couldn’t risk in this moment. More detailed action would have to wait, the immediate danger was too great. He moved beneath the vice, took a deep breath, and tightened the vice around his head. Surely he was close, surely it would take little adjustment to fix the problem. But it had to be now, before greater disaster struck. He tightened it more and felt the pressure on the sides of his head. Not enough, obviously. He could feel his energy, still the same, still bringing all of reality’s evils swirling around him. He turned the crank again. It hurt, it hurt, but Austin clenched his teeth and stared forward. He would not be a victim of this energy, he would harness it and make reality flow around him harmoniously. No longer would the stream dash him against the rocks. Tighter. The pain was overwhelming. Austin could still see, but the room looked like nothing to him, smelled like nothing, felt like nothing. All he could feel was panic, his brain telling him stop stop stop stop but it wasn’t time to stop. So he turned it further and everything was worse.

            The rest of his senses may have been gone, but he heard the crack. It resonated through his entire skeleton, every inch of his body receiving the message. His hands dropped from the vice. He tried to free his head, but nothing happened. Austin couldn’t tell if he had moved and was stopped, or if he hadn’t been able to tell his body to do it. Maybe, maybe, uncranking it would work. He just had to get his hands up to the vice and they weren’t moving up. Instead they shook next to his body, useless. His legs. He had legs. Austin tried to stand, to push his way out. But as soon as his weight moved off the chair, his knees buckled but did not fall entirely to the ground. The vice held him in place, held his body dangling in an almost-kneel. Now the pain was worse, as the weight of his body pulled against his neck and his head, which sent immolation after immolation coursing through him. There was nowhere to go. Nothing to do. Austin could not summon the strength necessary to fight off this calamity which his energy had brought to him.

            Then, he heard some noise, he could still hear noise. Lively footsteps. It must have been Riley, making their way through the apartment to the kitchen. Austin tried to shout, but all that came out was a fragile “aah.” Again. He had to try again. Austin took a deep breath and agony came along with it, but he held the air. Then he screamed, with no sense of how loud he was but surely it was enough. More footsteps, coming closer. It had worked! Austin screamed again, to leave no doubt in Riley’s mind that there was danger, that he needed help.

            But the footsteps didn’t stop by his door. Riley was moving away, and Austin could hear them singing, “A little bit of Monica, in my life, a little bit of Jessica by my side, a little bit...” and Austin knew. Headphones. Riley had headphones on. Austin’s energy had, to the last, kept good fortune away from him. As Austin’s breathing grew shallow, and what little field of vision he had began to wash away, he had another thought. What if it wasn’t his energy that hadn’t stopped Riley from hearing him, afflicting Austin with yet more disaster. It was Riley’s energy, protecting him from danger. “Protecting him from me.”

June Martin resides in Pittsburgh, PA, where she writes stories, draws comics, and does good tweets @ImJuneFacts.