June 28, 2009
Hey guys,
Even though the caffeine withdrawal has mostly passed, I’ve had a difficult time sleeping for the past couple weeks. The discovery of Clive’s journal has left me with a burning curiousity, an itch I haven’t been able to scratch. Along with a heaping spoonful of summer swelter, it’s the perfect recipe for insomnia.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, the store’s air conditioner broke down and I’ve been working in a jungle. It’s been so hot the DVDs are practically sweating. In need of a distraction, I reached deep into our catalogue and hit upon Phone Booth with Colin Farrell. It’s the perfect movie to watch at the store because it manages to cook up an inviting buffet of suspense with a single simple ingredient (the phone booth), so there’s no need to worry about customers disrupting the action at some crucial point. It turned out to be a good choice, because that day, around four o’clock, came the mother of all interruptions.
First, I noticed the light grow dim as though God was preparing us for the feature presentation. The clouds gathered and curdled into a dark, spongy stew. Then, for half an hour, it was monsoon season. I’d never seen volumes of water like that. Soon the drains were backed up, puddles grew into lakes and the street became a swollen river. That’s when our toilet erupted and water rushed out of the bathroom and down the aisles of the store. I will admit to you, dear readers, that I was scared; scared that the store would be wrecked and scared that our customers would be shocked and horrified and depart for our more sanitary, functionally mass produced, sound-plumbing-equipped chain-store competition.
I leapt into action, elevating the extension wires, setting the shop-vac on autopilot and grabbing the mop. I worked furiously to stem the tide but another tsunami spewed from the drain. By then I was totally exasperated. I just stood and watched as the water swept across the floor.
My feet were sopping wet and my clothes were drenched, but I was too tired to care. I leaned on the mop and drifted off, imagining myself as a modern day Noah, building an ark and saving two copies of every DVD from drowning in the flood. My voyage came crashing to a halt when a customer, an earnest, bespectacled, vest-wearing college student from somewhere in the Midwest, burst through the door. He tossed aside his tattered umbrella,
“It’s raining cats and dogs out there,” he informed helpfully, “mind if I wait in here for the storm to pass?” Then he looked around and as though truly seeing me for the first time gave a long, slow whistle. “Gee, this place is a mess!”
I offered him two free new releases if helped clean – a generous offer he gladly accepted. Using a dustpan and broken DVD cases we managed to scoop the water into buckets, and by the time we finished the sky had cleared and there was a vivid and beautiful rainbow for us to admire. Amid all the excitement, I missed the ending of Phone Booth. But no matter, I’m sure everything turned out alright.
According to Clivicus the faithful historian, these floods are nothing new. He recorded a similar incident in July of AD 1989:
There was a huge storm the other night. Around 5 o’clock the rain began. First it made a dull rapping on the windows. Suddenly the rapping became a deafening barrage. Water was dripping from the light fixtures on the ceiling. One of the girls who works at the shoe store down the road was stuck here waiting for the rain to finish. I decided to give up cleaning, lock the store and light up a joint. We stayed relatively dry sitting on the counter and we put on some music. It was a magical evening. We had both spent a few summers on Prince Edward Island near Summerside and even went to the same camp! She also liked the local band American Devices. We had been to some of the same shows too! She was a close talker, and I took the chance and kissed her. She kissed back. For a few moments we were seriously making out. She pulled away and looked outside. It had stopped raining. She said she had to get going. The next time I saw her, she pretended that nothing had happened between us. I guess it must have been the flood.
When I got back to my apartment that night, I felt totally drained. Besides the frenzy that afternoon, my investigation wasn’t getting anywhere and I began to question my burgeoning relationship with Geneva. The last time I saw her, she didn’t really want to talk with me. I was worried – about our future together, but also about her sanity. I decided to give it a chance, and knew that I had to respect her wish to wait until the exhibition was over until getting in touch with her again. Then I would see if she had come back down to earth.
I made myself a tuna sandwich and put on David Lynch’s Dune. It turned out to be decent despite having been knocked around by the critics. Yet the movie didn’t hold my attention very well and I found myself wondering about Clive. I had so many questions, but no worthwhile leads. It seemed like the guy had disappeared into thin air.
I dozed off, dreaming of him walking some distant planet, crusading for justice. He was able to harness the power of giant creatures to help him on his quest. But how did he get there?
Here’s an entry written less than a year before he vanished.
9 December 1991
Juliette invited some people over for a kind of a ceremony on the 20th. One of them will be the movie star preacher from the Astral Doorways. I wish I could remember his name, something like Howard Hornbill or Tavish McGill. She’s been talking about this day for a while, saying that it is one of the most spiritually fulfilling of the year. I hope her spirit is fulfilled on that day because she’s been pretty stressed lately and been holding out on sex. She’s saving her energies for the ceremony and thinks I should do the same.
I really love her and am still amazed by her all the time, but sometimes she upsets me and I am worried that she is relying too much on the Doorways. I wanted to invite Claude because, being very into philosophy and questions of life and the soul, I thought he would enjoy our attempt at transcendent group meditation. She flat out refused. She didn’t want anyone she hadn’t met yet. I wish she wouldn’t be so exclusive towards my friends at events at OUR apartment. Anyway, for this event especially, my mission is to hone my consciousness, to concentrate so completely that I may be on the same level as Juliette. I have to overcome my lack of focus. My mind may not be strong enough for them.
I have a bad feeling about these people. I need to dig deeper and learn more about this secretive group.
…
When I got to work the next day, a putrid smell hung over the shelves of DVDs. I borrowed some bleach from the Korean grocer and mopped every surface the floodwater had touched. I became dizzy from the bleach and went straight home after my shift.
That night Clive was back in my dreams. I was at his house. He was walking about quickly, then we were in the desert and he was dressed like a Bedouin shaman in a trance. He looked up and smiled out of the corner of his mouth. Did he smile at me or at something behind me? I looked around, seeing nothing but empty sand. Eyes were staring at me from all over the desert. Night fell. It was freezing cold and a strange force tugged at my soul. I woke up puzzling over what it all meant.
Comments:
mulletar: juliette and clive were into some weird stuff im think they got abducted by aliens.
always_right_princess: Incorrect. Like I said, they probably went to Haiti, leave it to Vic to find the link and stop making assumptions.
doctorphyllis_md: Your dreams sound interesting, Victor. I heard a story once about a young man who had dreams like that. It probably means that you’re in for a change in your life. The answer will come. You should be prepared for the unknown and don’t give up on Geneva.
SonofEbert: Phone booth! You have thousands of movies and you chose to watch Phone booth? Your taste in films is scoffable.
averagejoe66: Hey listen man, Phone Booth is a movie for real people. People who work for a living and want to relax. If you don’t like it you can go back to your little gang of suck-up phonies
June 28, 2009
Hey guys,
Even though the caffeine withdrawal has mostly passed, I’ve had a difficult time sleeping for the past couple weeks. The discovery of Clive’s journal has left me with a burning curiousity, an itch I haven’t been able to scratch. Along with a heaping spoonful of summer swelter, it’s the perfect recipe for insomnia.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, the store’s air conditioner broke down and I’ve been working in a jungle. It’s been so hot the DVDs are practically sweating. In need of a distraction, I reached deep into our catalogue and hit upon Phone Booth with Colin Farrell. It’s the perfect movie to watch at the store because it manages to cook up an inviting buffet of suspense with a single simple ingredient (the phone booth), so there’s no need to worry about customers disrupting the action at some crucial point. It turned out to be a good choice, because that day, around four o’clock, came the mother of all interruptions.
First, I noticed the light grow dim as though God was preparing us for the feature presentation. The clouds gathered and curdled into a dark, spongy stew. Then, for half an hour, it was monsoon season. I’d never seen volumes of water like that. Soon the drains were backed up, puddles grew into lakes and the street became a swollen river. That’s when our toilet erupted and water rushed out of the bathroom and down the aisles of the store. I will admit to you, dear readers, that I was scared; scared that the store would be wrecked and scared that our customers would be shocked and horrified and depart for our more sanitary, functionally mass produced, sound-plumbing-equipped chain-store competition.
I leapt into action, elevating the extension wires, setting the shop-vac on autopilot and grabbing the mop. I worked furiously to stem the tide but another tsunami spewed from the drain. By then I was totally exasperated. I just stood and watched as the water swept across the floor.
My feet were sopping wet and my clothes were drenched, but I was too tired to care. I leaned on the mop and drifted off, imagining myself as a modern day Noah, building an ark and saving two copies of every DVD from drowning in the flood. My voyage came crashing to a halt when a customer, an earnest, bespectacled college student from somewhere in the Midwest, burst through the door. He tossed aside his tattered umbrella,
“It’s raining cats and dogs out there,” he informed helpfully, “mind if I wait in here for the storm to pass?” Then he looked around and as though truly seeing me for the first time gave a long, slow whistle. “Gee, this place is a mess!”
I offered him two free new releases if helped clean – an offer he gladly accepted. Using a dustpan and broken DVD cases we managed to scoop the water into buckets, and by the time we finished the sky had cleared and there was a vivid and beautiful rainbow for us to admire. Amid all the excitement, I missed the ending of Phone Booth. But no matter, I’m sure everything turned out alright.
According to Clivicus the faithful historian, these floods are nothing new. He recorded a similar incident in July of AD 1989:
There was a huge storm the other night. Around 5 o’clock the rain began. First it made a dull rapping on the windows. Suddenly the rapping became a deafening barrage. Water was dripping from the light fixtures on the ceiling. One of the girls who works at the shoe store down the road was stuck here waiting for the rain to finish. I decided to give up cleaning, lock the store and light up a joint. We stayed relatively dry sitting on the counter and we put on some music. It was a magical evening. We had both spent a few summers on Prince Edward Island near Summerside and even went to the same camp! She also liked the local band American Devices. We had been to some of the same shows too! She was a close talker, and I took the chance and kissed her. She kissed back. For a few moments we were seriously making out. She pulled away and looked outside. It had stopped raining. She said she had to get going. The next time I saw her, she pretended that nothing had happened between us. I guess it must have been the flood.
When I got back to my apartment that night, I felt totally drained. Besides the frenzy that afternoon, my investigation wasn’t getting anywhere and I began to question my burgeoning relationship with Geneva. The last time I saw her, she didn’t really want to talk with me. I was worried – about our future together, but also about her sanity. I decided to give it a chance, and knew that I had to respect her wish to wait until the exhibition was over until getting in touch with her again. Then I would see if she had come back down to earth.
I made myself a tuna sandwich and put on David Lynch’s Dune. It turned out to be decent despite having been knocked around by the critics. Yet the movie didn’t hold my attention very well and I found myself wondering about Clive. I had so many questions, but no worthwhile leads. It seemed like the guy had disappeared into thin air.
I dozed off, dreaming of him walking some distant planet, crusading for justice. He was able to harness the power of giant creatures to help him on his quest. But how did he get there?
Here’s an entry written less than a year before he vanished.
9 December 1991
Juliette invited some people over for a kind of a ceremony on the 20th. One of them will be the movie star preacher from the Astral Doorways. I wish I could remember his name, something like Howard Hornbill or Tavish McGill. She’s been talking about this day for a while, saying that it is one of the most spiritually fulfilling of the year. I hope her spirit is fulfilled on that day because she’s been pretty stressed lately and been holding out on sex. She’s saving her energies for the ceremony and thinks I should do the same.
I really love her and am still amazed by her all the time, but sometimes she upsets me and I am worried that she is relying too much on the Doorways. I wanted to invite Claude because, being very into philosophy and questions of life and the soul, I thought he would enjoy our attempt at transcendent group meditation. She flat out refused. She didn’t want anyone she hadn’t met yet. I wish she wouldn’t be so exclusive towards my friends at events at OUR apartment. Anyway, for this event especially, my mission is to hone my consciousness, to concentrate so completely that I may be on the same level as Juliette. I have to overcome my lack of focus. My mind may not be strong enough for them.
I have a bad feeling about these people. I need to dig deeper and learn more about this secretive group.
…
When I got to work the next day, a putrid smell hung over the shelves of DVDs. I borrowed some bleach from the Korean grocer and mopped every surface the floodwater had touched. I became dizzy from the bleach and went straight home after my shift.
That night Clive was back in my dreams. I was at his house. He was walking about quickly, then we were in the desert and he was dressed like a Bedouin shaman in a trance. He looked up and smiled out of the corner of his mouth. Did he smile at me or at something behind me? I looked around, seeing nothing but empty sand. Eyes were staring at me from all over the desert. Night fell. It was freezing cold and a strange force tugged at my soul. I woke up puzzling over what it all meant.
Comments:
mulletar: juliette and clive were into some weird stuff im think they got abducted by aliens.
always_right_princess: Incorrect. Like I said, they probably went to Haiti, leave it to Vic to find the link and stop making assumptions.
doctorphyllis_md: Your dreams sound interesting, Victor. I heard a story once about a young man who had dreams like that. It probably means that you’re in for a change in your life. The answer will come. You should be prepared for the unknown and don’t give up on Geneva.
SonofEbert: Phone booth! You have thousands of movies and you chose to watch Phone booth? Your taste in films is scoffable.
averagejoe66: Hey listen man, Phone Booth is a movie for real people. People who work for a living and want to relax. If you don’t like it you can go back to your little gang of suck-up phonies
SonofEbert: For your information, I have no gang. I watch movies alone, the better to get a clear picture of their underlying meaning – of which offal like Phone Booth is completely bereft.
Keep up to date! You never know where this will lead…
The Man Who Came to Rent 