Search for Saturnight's Day (pt. 1)

-1-

With one just word reality constructs itself.

Without myself, he thought, nothing is constructed. Within the walls of his apartment, a frictionless, barren room, he poised himself to construct his new project. To him, few still revered the mystery of creation as mystery. Yet, he still believed. Yes, he, Mardoon, had a good word to make something, mystery withheld. In one way, the good word he thought he had was tied up with ideas whose unravelling would reveal something, or another. The work had already begun, and he flipped through his notebook, pen in hand.

As he stood in the room, he marked changes to preexisting notes, wrote new ones, and scratched out old ones. He would correct a sketch here, or a metric there, trying to balance every aspect of what the finished product would be. Mardoon loved creating. But lately, he no longer preferred to do the things he once loved or, maybe it was that he no longer loved to do the things he once preferred. Yet, he found himself doing them anyway, either way. He was a bit confused, but it had been this way for a while: at least since this morning, he thought. Reflecting further, Mardoon couldn’t tell if he had felt the same way yesterday, or if that was just today’s yesterday, colored by current emotions.

It didn’t seem to matter—to Mardoon, at least, who told himself it did not. On this new day, the same old sun that had risen countless times before cast its beam onto his desk, illuminating the tools he would use to create something. Today, Mardoon knew what these tools were, and exactly how he would use them.

Now, Mardoon was ready to begin. But first, he clasped his fingers together and stretched his interlaced hands outward, palms facing away from his body, releasing a satisfying crack from his joints. He had once understood the magic behind this—a release of gas bubbles in the synovial fluid—but now he only remembered the science: always project palms outward, never toward someone else, ensure the dark, negative energy inside isn’t released into others. Hands, after all, are the focal point of scientific energy, the conduits through which all experiments are conducted.

“Oh hey, it’s you,” a voice crept out from a small crevice between two plywood panels in the wall of Mardoon’s room. Mardoon, who had been on the verge of beginning his work, turned toward the crevice. He paused, then reassured himself that this was normal. After all, he did have a rather eclectic neighbor, the kind who often entertained equally eclectic guests at odd hours of the night. Or morning, as it were, Mardoon supposed. And, as eclectic people tend to do, he (the neighbor) delighted in showing off his peculiarities—both of himself and his possessions.

“Hey,” the voice said again, “wanna come over?”

Ah, Mardoon thought, he must be on the phone. He turned back to his work.

Mardoon was making something, and he knew exactly what it was going to be. He had told no one about the project—not for any superstition reason or out of some nebulous fear that sharing it might sap his motivation, but simply because it wasn’t necessary for completing the task.

•knock•knock•knock•

Mardoon turned his head back toward the crevice. He was not annoyed, he told himself, letting the phrase I am not annoyed ricochet inside the rubber walls of his mind. Absolutely not annoyed. Yet he sat in quiet anticipation, bracing for the possibility that the knocking might come again.

This neighbor, he recalled, was a noisemaker. On weekend nights, Mardoon would hear him and his guests singing, laughing, gossiping, moving chaotically from one activity to the next. Their revelry grew louder and looser with every drink, drag, pill, and more substances he couldn’t quite name.

Once, Mardoon had been there, too, he recalled.

•knock•knock•

“Yes?”

“C’mere,” the voice beckoned.

Mardoon, who had been sitting at his desk since dawn, consumed with ideas for how he would begin his project, glanced at the nearly organized assortment of objects before him—the tools and pieces he would use to construct his product. But now, he’d been beckoned. The voice lingered, tugging his attention, pulling him away.

Mardoon went over some of the thoughts which had been spurred on by this call. I won’t §8as∂¶ª≠∆∫˜å he thought. Because sometimes Mardoon’s thoughts didn’t need to make sense to anyone but him, and that was fine. He knew he understood them. And but, in this moment he felt undeniably pulled toward this call, he wanted the satisfactions of knowing what this beckoning call could bring. Then, having carefully considering his options, Mardoon turned to leave the room. He placed his right foot in front of his left, then his left in front of his right, moving steadily toward the door of his apartment. The project will remain, he assured himself.

In this way, he moved through space and time worrying about the status of his project, how long it would be before he could get back to it, and so on. He had started to consider whether he ought to just report a noise complaint, as he had often considered in the past. Never seriously of course, but absent a reasonable explanation, he thought, maybe then would be the right time. At some point, in the midst of his thoughts, he found himself face-to-face with his neighbor. The neighbor’s presence now juxtaposed Mardoon’s… and it was all he could do to restrain himself from immediately demanding why this call had been issued and to what end.

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click here to read pt. 2