Moonliner: No Stone Unturned (12 page)

Beau moves on to follow up on two more employers, getting the information that he needs and making solid impressions with all the right people.  His time is well spent.

He runs into Sidell in the hallway.

              “How’s day two going?” Sidell asks.

              “I’m rocking the house,” Beau replies; “and you?”

              “I just got here.  Are you staying for the closing mixer?”  Sid asks.

              “I can’t.  My train leaves at five,” Beau answers.

              “I hear ya,” Sid says.

              “In fact,” Beau says; “I might get out of here now.  I’ve pretty much done everything that I came to do.”

              “Well if I don’t see you, have a nice trip back and we’ll have to meet up in Seattle,” Sidell says.

              “Sounds good,” Beau replies.

They go their separate ways, Sidell into the tradeshow and Beau out the door.  Beau heads back to his hotel.  There, he sits in his room checking email and reading more news on his phone.  He then packs his shoulder bag and prepares to check out.  Once packed, he sits in silence, not wanting to check out until noon, or at least until he has something to do.

Noon nears, forcing him to head down to the lobby and check out.  He steps out onto the street.  It has rained, leaving the streets with a new sheen.  With nothing to do and hours before he needs to be at the train station, Beau wanders back down to the waterfront, where he stands in front of a massive cruise ship moored at a dock. 

The cruise ship appears to be brand new, decked with two rotating radars, a huge spherical water tank, a panel of satellite dishes, and a lot of the latest communication equipment.  The bridge sits high atop the entire craft like an Eagle’s nest, giving the captain a commanding view.  The thing is like a little city in itself.

Still with nothing to do, Beau calls Kendra.

              “Hi Beau,” she says upon answering.

              “Hey, I’m finished with the show and I’ve checked out of my room.  I’m just killing time,” Beau says.  “What are you up to?”

              “Oh I went back to bed,” Kendra says yawning.

              “Did I wake you?” Beau asks.

              “No, I was half asleep watching TV,” she answers; “I’m feeling so tired today.  It must be the clouds.”

              “Do you have any plans today?” Beau asks.

              “No,” Kendra answers; “I’m tired.  I had a hectic week and I’m just gonna take it easy this weekend.”

              “Sounds nice.  I wish I were already there,” Beau tells her.

The cruise ship’s horn sounds, echoing into the downtown.  Beau checks his watch; it’s twelve o’clock noon sharp.  The ship’s engines rev and the ship begins moving away from the dock with a deck full of waving passengers, probably off to Alaska.

              “So how was the tradeshow?” Kendra asks.

              “It couldn’t have gone better,” Beau replies.  “I met again with the people I wanted to follow up with and had good conversations with each of them.  Whatever comes of this trip, I think it was well worth my time.”

              “Good, I’m really glad to hear that,” Kendra says.

              “I should have grabbed a bus back though,” Beau says.  “There was a Quick Shuttle leaving early afternoon that would have had me home three hours earlier.”

              “Is the show finished?” Kendra asks; “you could go back there for a few hours.”

              “No,” Beau answers; “I’m finished with that thing.”

              “How far are you from the park?” Kendra asks; “because you could go leave a message under the stone for future guy.”

              “I’m looking right at the park, but it isn’t all that close to here,” Beau replies,  “I’m toting a pretty big shoulder bag too, and it looks like its gonna rain,” he adds.

              “I saw a weather report and I don’t think you’re gonna get rain,” Kendra says.

              “I’ll think about it, but I’m tired,” Beau says.

              “You don’t have to go the park,” Kendra tells him; “if you’re tired.  “I just thought it might be fun if you had the time.”  

They get off the phone to save roaming charges.  The soft tone of Kendra’s voice echoes in his mind.  Though she said so little, her voice spoke volumes.  She had completely given up on Beau putting anything beneath the stone, which tore at him little.  He knows it’s something he would have done eleven years ago, when they first started going out.  Time changes people.  Beau and Kendra have a strong relationship, but time has taken something from it, a kind of innocence that can’t be taken back.  Though love grows with time, passion wanes.  Whatever it is that Kendra hopes to find beneath the stone, Beau thinks, he had better not let the moment fade away.  If it’s that easy to put a little twinkle in her eye, why not?  

He unzips a side pocket on his shoulder bag, reaches in, and pulls out the NeoTech commemorative coin given to him at the tradeshow.  He takes another good look at it and smiles, slides it back into the bag, and starts walking along the seawall toward the park.  He passes a large waterfront lawn, several fine dining restaurants along the edge of Coal Harbour, beyond a marina full of yachts, and into the mouth of Stanley Park.  The sky grows even darker. 

He first comes upon a huge boulder sitting in the center of the footpath, obviously placed there to prevent vehicles from driving onto the path.

              “I hope to high hell that isn’t it,” Beau says under his breath.

A sign points him in the direction of Lost Lagoon and he begins walking toward it.  After a good ten minute walk into the park, he comes up on the lagoon.  Exhausted, he takes a seat on a bench by the water’s edge and pulls his memo recorder from his bag, then scrolls through audio files until he finds Cedric’s message.  He plays it again, fast forwarding to the part of the recording that gives the location of the stone.

“For real,” the message begins to play.  “The date is July 20, 2069.  If by any chance you are picking this up before the existence of the laserlink system, there’s a path southward from the southernmost tip of Stanley Park’s Lost Lagoon; follow it until you see that it has to go around a huge tree stump.  There is a stone that sits half embedded in the ground just beyond the stump.  You can’t miss it; it looks like the moon.  I doubt it’s been disturbed in decades, if not longer.  Please leave something for me beneath that stone.  This message will repeat itself,” Cedric’s voice again plays out.

Beau sits back and smiles at the things he does for Kendra.  Had they never met, he could in fact easily be in this city for this event, and even in this park, but he would never in a million years be putting something under a stone for some nut job with a radio transmitter.  Still, as Kendra pointed out, something about Cedric’s message sounds so serious, so real.  Why not play along?

A quick wind moves over the water, rippling its surface reflection into an impressionistic blur.  Beau is hit from different directions by rain drops blowing in the wind, though it still doesn’t seem to be raining.  The skies continue to darken as though night were quickly falling in the early afternoon.  A rainstorm appears imminent.  Beau gets off the bench, now convinced he has only a very short window before the storm hits the park.  He walks southward until he reaches the southern tip of the lake, where he spots what looks like the opening to a trail leading directly away from the lake’s tip, as mentioned in Cedric’s message.  The trail is not very well trodden and the entrance is overgrown.  Beau follows it into a heavily forested part of the park.  It winds between several massive red cedar trees.  A heron flies overhead on its way to Lost Lagoon, giving the place a prehistoric feel; they look like pterodactyls and Stanley Park is full of ferns and other Jurassic era plants.

Then suddenly, as foretold, the trail runs smack dab into a tree trunk, only this one is connected to the entire tree.  The trail is forced to circumvent it just as it is supposed to do the stump mentioned in Cedric’s message.  Just beyond the tree Beau sees a stone somewhat embedded in the ground.   It bears a strong resemblance to the moon.  Now he gets it; a tree in 2014, and a somewhat sickly one at that, which becomes a stump sometime before 2069.  Kendra will love this, he thinks and can hardly wait to tell her of the thickening plot.  He smiles at its intricacy and can’t help but wonder who’s behind it all; a serious sounding radio transmission from the future; a hidden trail to a moon-shaped stone tucked into a major city park.  It almost feels to Beau like he’s walking into some kind of elaborate reality show hoax, like someone might be watching him.  Then he looks around at the simplicity of the situation; an obscure path to nowhere in a seemingly endless park; it’s cold, dark, and wet; trash is strewn in places.  If there’s a reality show behind this, today wouldn’t seem like a good day to be filming.

He approaches the stone.  It has to be the
one
, he thinks.  The stone is neither too large, nor small.  It appears to be embedded in a good place to be left alone.  Beau kicks it around its edges until it loosens.  He leans down and works it out of its form fitted spot on the planet.  He notices when he turns the stone over that it’s not as spherical as it appears, being much flatter underneath.  It apparently hadn’t been turned over in years, if ever. 

Beau unzips the pocket on his shoulder bag and once again takes out the commemorative coin given to him at the tradeshow.  This seems to him as worthy a place as any too invest it.  He takes another good look at the coin, rubs it for good luck, and drops it into the small crater where the stone had rested.  He grabs his phone from his bag and snaps a couple of pictures to prove to Kendra that he had been here.

Beau carefully places the stone back into its original spot, leaving the coin beneath it.  He stands up and smiles, now happy to have found the place.  He takes one more picture of the stone with the tree framed into the picture just as rain begins to fall.  He pulls his hood over his head and grabs his bag.  A gust of wind whips through the trees as the rain suddenly turns into a downpour, leaving Beau stranded deep within the park.  He starts to walk toward the Georgia Street entrance, shaking his head.

              “Not gonna get any rain my ass,” he says walking away from the site of the tree.   

Part 3
: July 25, 2069 

Vancouver BC

Chimes can be faintly heard in the wind as Nikki sits silently alone on a fallen tree trunk, deep within a green forest.  She looks slightly puzzled but calm and at peace.  The setting is serene.  The vivid mid-summer greens look almost too beautiful to be real, a backdrop that seems custom designed for Nikki. 

Seeing her face in the sunlight takes the weight of a thousand suns off Cedric’s shoulders, as if just finding her after a long, hopeless search.  The tension that has seized his spine for days begins to reverse.  He can even feel muscles in his face and neck beginning to relaxing. 

He approaches her cautiously, not wanting to lose her this time, then sits beside her on the trunk of the tree.  Something deep, deep within him is sending signals that this isn’t right; something’s wrong.  Cedric ignores them, now in a Zen-like zone, smiling, basking in the dappled forest sunlight with Nikki by his side.  He says nothing; he just sits there taking the moment in.

              “It really is you,” he tells her, finally breaking the silence.  She looks at him and smiles in response.  He wants her to speak, to say anything but knows intuitively not to disturb the alignment of the moment.  Not to coax her. 

              “I wanna touch you,” he tells her, now feeling his self-control begin to slip.  Nikki smiles warmly before a sudden look of confusion overtakes her face.  She looks down, then away from Cedric, which further shakes the delicate balance of the situation. 

              “I can’t touch you,” he says, now starting to put the puzzle together.  “I can’t touch you because we’re not here.  Not now.  And the moon,” he says as he’s suddenly overtaken by a deeply saddened look.  “What about the moon?”

Then comes that moment; the point when you realize you’re in a dream.  It’s a point of no return that sometimes grants us a few precious seconds at best before banishing us from the theater of our own minds.  If caught in a nightmare, it’s our saviour.  Cedric, however, is caught in a dream.  His nightmare remains on the other side, awaiting his awakening.

As his dream goes down the drain, Cedric tries with every morsel of his mind to drift backward, back into it, into the forest.  His eyes even roll upward, into their sockets but it’s no use.  She’s gone with the dream and he’s left with his harsh, stark, empty reality which seems to be darkening by the day.

Cedric wakes on his back, inverted on his sofa with his legs over the backrest and his head leaning over its front edge.  He rolls over flat onto the sofa and rubs his aching, kinked neck, which hurts like hell from falling asleep in such an awkward position. 

              “Time?” he asks Phaedra.

              “Eight twenty,” she replies.  “Good morning Cedric.  You have nineteen new messages.  Would you like to hear them now?” she asks.

              “No thanks,” he answers; “not today.”

On his sofa’s end table, a lowball sits next to a mostly empty bottle of Crown Royal.  He pours himself a generous shot and knocks it back without pause, wincing a bit from the unexpected burn of the day’s first shot.

              “That was a goody,” he says to himself; “that, was a goody.”

Cedric’s not an alcoholic by nature.  In fact, he views alcoholism as a personality problem more than a personal problem, and he has never gotten along well with alcoholics.  Frankly, he thinks they’re largely self-pitying idiots looking for more than their share of attention.  He has neither the time nor the patience for them.

This is different, however.  This he views as a temporary prescription for anguish.  Right now alcohol, regardless of its heavy toll, seems to be his only mitigating agent; the only thing that helps him forget it all; forget her; forget the moon.

Cedric’s hair is greasy and he’s unshaven.  He’s looked better. 

It’s getting hotter by the minute and easy to tell that it’s going to be another scorcher.  Chimes can be heard from a neighboring balcony as an abrupt, slight breeze sweeps across the ground.  Squirrels scavenge the bushes below while the sound of news playing on someone’s radio pierces the morning air.

“KDOT news, weather and sports.  On the hour.  On the dot (series of beeps)…

“In a move to relieve heightening tensions between Greece and Turkey over airspace control of the Aegean Sea, diplomats from both nations are meeting this week in Istanbul to discuss a possible agreement.  Though it is unlikely any official agreement will come of the meetings, the move is seen as a positive step toward resolving age old, complicated disputes between the two countries, and has been praised by leaders of several nations.

“Nicholas Norwood of Newport, Oregon found a message in a bottle while walking along the beach.  He was pleasantly shocked, however, to discover the note inside was from his very own grandfather, Michael Norwood, who passed away over four years ago at the age of 83.  The message simply read, “Warm wishes from another time.”  It was signed Mike Norwood, Lincoln City, but not dated.  According to his wife Jean, who still lives in Lincoln City, the note appears to be authentic.  To the best of anyone’s recollection, Mike had never mentioned the message.

“Temperatures are expected to climb well above average again, but cooler air may be in the long term forecast.”             

Moonliner
3:02

Aside from a few quick trips to the mini mart, mostly for alcohol, Cedric hasn’t been out much in the past several days.  Knowing how badly he needs to step from his cave, he decides to take a walk to clear his mind.

Cedric immediately realizes, stepping into the sunlight, how badly he needed this walk; the sun and its vitamin D; the oxygen; these precious, fundamental elements that keep us alive. 

He walks beneath the Skytrain tracks, along a ravine and into the downtown area.  People are walking and cycling all around him, enjoying the sun.  He makes his way onto the Granville Bridge, high above False Creek.  There, he sits in the privacy of one of its pillar’s lookout tower, looking down at the steadily flowing water.  A boat slowly passes beneath the bridge so far below. 

              “I told her everything was alright,” he says to himself with an uncontrollable hand gesture, “How could I…?”

“Time,” he thinks to himself; “time will heal these wounds.”  It has to.  Aside from Crown, it’s all he’s got.  Represented in physics with a T, time is an essential component in many equations that simply cannot be factored around.  It interrelates the universe.  Physical processes are subject to it.  Cedric understands this and knows he’ll have to wait the pain out.  Standing on the bridge’s edge, however, for the first time ever, he imagines himself taking one more step.  He’s one small step from taking time out of his equation.

Somewhere off in the distance, he can hear the soothing sound of a steel drum piercing the hot summer sky.  It’s nice, and takes Cedric mentally away for a moment as he sits on the bridge watching boats go by beneath, entranced by the steel drum sound. 

After some time, he decides to make his way closer to the source of the sound, somewhere beneath him along the waterfront.  There’s something drawing him to the sound.  He’s heard steel drums many times before, but maybe he’d never really listened.  As he gets closer he sees the drummer; a young, free spirited woman.  She’s scantily clad with tattoos over most of her visible skin.  Her face is pretty with a perpetual smile.  She’s enjoying her day immensely. You can hear it in the sound of her drum.  She’s beautiful through and through, certainly in her unique style, and she seems so happy too.  It’s refreshing for Cedric to watch her play, and to hear her drum.  He sits subtly by, listening and occasionally glancing over at her, decompressing to the live music.

For Cedric, the music is therapeutic.  He’s been in an existential loop since the crash, trying to find meaning to the universe.  Meanwhile, the universe has been consuming him.

After several minutes, the young woman finishes her final set.  She takes a long swig from her water bottle and begins packing her drum into its gig bag.  Cedric, one to sometimes tip good musicians, locates her gratuity line and anonymously beams her a few bucks. 

              “Thanks for the wonderful music,” he tells her as he walks past her.  “I can’t tell you how good it sounded to me.  I really needed it.”

              “Thanks so much.  That’s so kind.  I can see that in your aura,” the young drummer tells Cedric.

              “You can?” Cedric asks, naturally skeptic but willing to indulge the woman just the same.  “Can you see anything else in there?” he asks.

              “A trouble,” she answers, “a problem of some kind.”

Cedric is then hit with another very brief but profound moment of deja-vu.  The woman sees him pause to stare off into the distance for a few seconds.  She asks if he’s alright.

              “Yes,” he answers.  “Do you ever have moments of deja-vu?”

              “Sometimes,” she replies.

              “Me too,” he tells her.  “It’s been happening a lot this summer.  Anyway, it just happened again while I was listening to you.”

              “That’s so connected,” she responds.  “I’ve gotta get to my class but I’ll be around,” she adds.

              “It was good meeting you and hearing you play,” Cedric replies.  “Good luck and I’ll see you around too!”

She smiles genially, then gracefully walks away.

The euphoria of the moment fades as the sun moves into a late afternoon phase.  The day rolls toward the night as this dense, massive blue planet continues to rotate.

Moonliner
3:03

Night is rolling in and Cedric is feeling a lot better than before.  His appetite has returned.  He finds himself again in Blue Sumie, looking for some dinner. The place is packed tonight, unfortunately, and Cedric is told that it may be up to an hour before he can get a table.  He opts to wait in the lounge, where he’s welcome to order appetizers and start a tab.  He sits near the end of the bar, next to an older Korean couple and orders himself some maguro and a Bourbon Betty.
[7]

The Koreans at the bar don’t seem to speak much English but are friendly and look happy to have Cedric sitting next to them.  Although they mostly speak between themselves, the couple periodically engages in some friendly small talk with him.  The night rolls on.

Cedric orders a little tempura and another drink.  Time seems to slow almost to a standstill.  The food tastes so good and is definitely doing him some good.  He hasn’t eaten much of anything since the crash.  He just hasn’t felt like it. 

For Cedric to call it an evening at this point would be to have the perfect night; a little fine food, beverage, and light conversation with good people.  Just what the doctor would have ordered.  Cedric, however, orders his third drink, now starting to think he can’t get enough of a good thing.  As minutes tick by, he sinks further into his buzz, no longer talking with the couple.  He just silently looks around the room, trying to observe others without staring at them, allowing his mind to roam.