One too many food references is woven into conversation, and an impromptu vote is forced. June spots a Chinese restaurant with parking right in front, and requests that we debark before she attempts to park. “I can’t park when other people are in the car,” she says. I admire her candor. Meanwhile, somehow we are no longer strangers.

An hour later, as we await the bill, a leaden digestive silence has settled upon us. I feel like it’s my turn to contribute something now; some small treasure from my past that my comrades will be able to relate to, and which will serve to illustrate, in the telling, just how clever I am. I find myself unable to dredge up any treasures however–a creative dry spell has rendered me completely barren of anecdote. But the ongoing silence is stifling, and while they demonstratively probe teeth with tongues for food morsels, I’m driven into a conversational coffin, scratching uselessly at the lid.

In a panic I blurt out the first thing that occurs to me, triggered no doubt by some cascade of neural misfirings. “What’s the deal with cornucopias?” To her credit, June considers the question seriously, though she offers no response. Meanwhile, toymaker has found distraction in a hangnail and doesn’t even look up from the task at hand.

I continue intrepidly. “When I was a child I had to peer over the crystal cornucopia to see my parents at the dinner table. This decorative monstrosity was at the center of a collection of several less remarkable pieces of table art: a salt shaker, a pepper mill, a brown crooked candle that my grandmother had made. I still don’t really know what a cornucopia is. Certainly nothing as docile as a mere fruit basket. Not with its lolling hingeless mouth. Every night the cornucopia’s fishy maw gaped at me like I was a cloud of plankton. But what manner of beast was this really? Two little glass ball feet, and a scorpion tail that curled up over its back–it was a celebration of decorative horror. It gave me nightmares! That doesn’t seem so odd, does it? I mean I had no experience with cornucopias, no point of reference. And something about that thing was just not right.”

The waitress arrives, and brings with the bill a tray just large enough for our fortune cookies. June hastily takes charge of cookie distribution. I mentally check the cornucopia story off in my head. Lesson: learned.

The fortune cookies prove compelling enough to wrench toymaker away from her private cuticle odyssey. “Ah,” she says, “best part of eating Chinese.” She sounds desperate to me.

June, having successfully snatched the check while distracting the others with the best part of eating Chinese, now hunches over the sheet protectively like a prisoner with a fresh plate of gruel.

I look at my cookie, and see it mocking me. “What’s yours say?” toymaker asks college. Telling the fortune of a writer in a rut requires no power, let alone the kind of universal forces commanded by the wily fortune cookie. June would have done better to have handed me a small gray stone instead. College reads his fortune. “Even misfortune can lead to opportunity,” he says dully. He’s not impressed, but toymaker gives a polite nod of acknowledgment.

I break the crisp grin of my cookie in half and eat the portion in my right hand–as is my tradition–before straightening out the thin pink slip of paper within the remaining portion. Toymaker recites her fortune from memory, “The spring of compassion can sustain multitudes.”

I look down at my fortune. “Are you ready?” it says. I turn it over in my hand, but the other side has only a small collection of Chinese pictograms in red ink. “Are you ready?” What kind of fortune is that? Is it even legal? I’ve never seen anything like it before, and I realize that I’m actually feeling a little bit cheated. What about my spring of compassion? How about a little opportunity for the blocked writer? But no. Just, “Are you ready?”

Pap.

A shiny red circle has appeared on my fortune. It’s definitely blood, I can tell that right away. It’s fallen right on top of the question mark, rendering my fortune “Are you read.” Before I consider the implications of that question my left hand goes instinctively to my nose. No one else has noticed the drama taking place on my side of the table, which is just as well. My nose is dry, and sniffing reveals clear passages. The question remains then… and I look up to the ceiling, feeling a little self-conscious about it. But of course no one else has seen, so I’m safe.

Aliens in science fiction books never suffer from minor ailments like hangnails or dyspepsia. On the other hand, their chances of having an appendage blown off seems to be impressively high. And they’re far more likely to be blown up entirely than to choke on a meatball. They don’t sprain their wrists, don’t wake up with grit in their eyes, and almost never drool by accident when they forget to close their mouths. Aliens in books always hear each other perfectly, and the straps on their underwear never need adjusting, and they never get paper cuts.

Some day I will write a book that focuses only on minutiae. It’s something that I think about from time to time. When I write my science fiction story, my aliens will experience minor difficulties constantly, just to make up for the glaring omission elsewhere. An antenna will get caught between hemispheric brain plates causing a great deal of embarrassment. Or they’ll start cussing at random intervals, and break stuff that they really loved, and then regret it.

But I digress.

When I reengage my senses I see that we’ve picked up another person, a gay man with a shaved head and an immense goatee. He’s somehow managed to pack himself between toymaker and college student. We’re driving slowly through a crowded part of the city. The sun is setting and the randoms are strolling casually, enjoying the cool evening. College student is peering out the windows with interest, and I’m guessing he doesn’t often make it to this part of the city.

“And this area is known for leather,” goatee tells college.

June chirps a laugh. “Oh, don’t scare him.”

College makes a dismissive “tch.”

“No really,” goatee insists. “For about thirty years now leather has been really big here.”

Toymaker hasn’t been paying attention. Aliens always pay attention, but in real life you sometimes miss crucial parts of what’s going on. She tries to contribute something meaningful though. “Are you talking about the Mafia?”

Goatee is quick to put her on track. “No, dear, leather. We’re talking leather. It’s much more interesting.”

“Oh, you just haven’t met the right Family,” I say.

Outside my building I step off the curb, wait for the approaching car to stop, open the passenger door, and slide in comfortably, shutting the door after me. There is a young woman behind the wheel, a woman I’ve never seen before. As she pulls out she gazes thoughtfully over the road. Her hair stops me. I mean it could literally stop me, it’s so big. Much bigger than is now in fashion, and the fact that she doesn’t seem to realize this makes it that much more conspicuous. And I know that I’m not big enough a person just to let it go. “Your hair!” I exclaim, an edge of panic creeping into my voice.

“What?” Her thoughts have been elsewhere.

I make gestures in the general direction of her head. “I said, your hair,” I say.

Instantly she’s with me. “Oh! Yes, my hair,” she says. “I had it done.” An ominous bit of vagueness to be sure. The Mafia never used the phrase to such haunting effect. “What do you think?”

I consider for a second. “Mainly synonyms for ‘big,'” I admit. “They certainly… did it up, huh?”

“Yeah, it’s nice, don’t you think? I needed a change.” I think, you may also want to consider staying away from low-flying jets. I guess I should ease off a little bit. After all I don’t know this woman.

That I’m in her car at all is a matter of gestalt, which suits me fine. If anything maybe this will help to get me out of my creative rut. In the meantime she seems fine with the arrangement. “What are you called?” I ask.

“Hm? Oh. I’m June. You can call me June.”

“I’m Jeff,” I offer.

June looks over briefly and repeats, “Jeff.” She makes a wide turn around the new statue of Donald Rumsfeld’s colon. “You don’t mind if I pick some people up, do you?”

Just a little bit later we’re heading over the bridge, and I’m listening to the conversation in the back seat. Not to the actual words so much, just the general sound of it. June’s picked up two other people; friendly folks. One of them is a toy designer, and is now discussing a tourniquet kit she’s designed for preschoolers.

Words can spur the imagination. Particular words, certain phrases, different conversational patterns or just the existence of words at all. I’ll take it all, given the chance. But sometimes thoughts are like organs that the body rejects. They don’t take, whether or not I desire them. I’m my own victim and the casualty, in this case, is creativity. Not that it matters.

Meanwhile, they’re still talking. June asks, “Weren’t those the shorts that were flammable?”

The young man in the back seat lets out a surprised, “Whaaaaat?” He is a college student, I think.

“Yeah, there was a big hoopla,” June explains, “because someone wearing those shorts got caught in a fire.”

The toymaker puts in, “It was something about the material, I think, that made them extremely flammable.”

“Wow,” says college student, appreciating the horror of it. I smile not because I find humor in some mythical tragedy, but because I’m enjoying the concept of conversation. Ideas are being exchanged by modified sounds traveling through the air. I imagine people exchanging beads with one another. Drawing into temporary groups, transferring beads from one bag to the next and moving on.

“Yeah, I hear they’re coming back in style actually,” the toymaker says thoughtfully.

June looks up into the rear view mirror, “Really?”

Then I say, “Yeah, like a phoenix.” And then I laugh the wrong way, and spend the next few minutes trying to clear my nose out. Humans are delicate creatures.

I don’t trust the cult at the end of my street. Last week that was the worst of my problems, and I wish it were still. For the past week I’ve spent my nights with my ear pressed to my bathroom floor… but I get ahead of myself. Perhaps some history would help to illustrate how things have taken a turn for the worse.

On the whole the little community down the block minds their own business, but this is a small town, and one’s personal activities always have broader social implications.

Their enclave is bordered by a tall wooden fence, and doesn’t fail to leave an impression. Oh, there aren’t any symbols or statues to tip off the idle observer. No Biblically-themed topiary or molar-shattering gongs, no hulking crosses or pipe organs. But to the astute observer it’s the lack of these things which draws the eye. Their facility isn’t ostentatious–not like, say, a stealth bomber hangar–because it’s much like the other houses on this block; your standard American Cult Compound style. It’s just much larger, like a bear in a dog costume: pretending to be a dog, but actually 20 times larger, and occasionally sitting on or mauling one of the other dogs. And they keep adding wings to it, out to the side, and stacked on top. So, “conspicuous” is the word, I guess.

The first time I really took notice of the cult was when they repainted their residence a year ago this spring. In the morning when I left for work I passed by the dark gray facility as usual, and observed a plain white van sitting by the curb outside the front gate. By the time I returned that evening their entire compound was at least two shades lighter gray. I nearly swerved off the road contemplating the zeal that it would require to complete such a job in a day’s time. What kind of diabolical operation was happening behind that fence?

I decided to pay closer attention, and couldn’t help but to cast a wary eye in that direction whenever I left my apartment. No one else seemed to pay them any mind however. When scores of plain-clothed men slung satchels over their backs and heaved them up the rear ramp no one batted an eye. But I noticed. When the drapes in their windows disappeared, only to be replaced by shiny silver ones, no one looked twice. But I noticed. And when the hot water in my shower began to peter out after only three minutes no one said a word. But I noticed.

And I wondered, might such an institution be in violation of local zoning statutes? I asked a friend of mine well versed in both architecture and public works, and the answer was both obvious and distressing. “In this area churches can’t occupy residential areas. That’s determined by the local Zoning Ordinance.” But then what about the huge church at the end of my street? “Well… either they’re in violation, or you’re living on holy ground, my friend.”

That was the day I began to pay more attention to my neighbors. Of course they wouldn’t raise a stink if they were all in on it. Or maybe they all belonged to their own competing factions, each one vying for dominance. It’s a cult-eat-cult world out there, and may the sweetest Kool-Aid prevail. Fourteen houses between my apartment and The Complex–14 little burgeoning cults. During the day my neighbors measured their carports, sized up their hedgerows, and expanded their porches. But at night…

The sound in my bathroom wasn’t like a drip. It was regular, but crisp like a ticking, and faint. There were nights where I heard nothing at all, and I thought I’d imagined the entire thing. But other nights the sound was undeniable, and was as close as a knock on the other side of the door. Last week I finally got up to see what was going on, and in the dark I followed the sound all the way down to my bathroom floor. The easiest assumption would be nesting possums, but I don’t know if I can make myself believe that. No, it’s the cults, I’m sure of it. They’ve grown restless, and – zoning ordinances be damned – something more primal is taking place.

I think they’re tunneling.

It can be said that Temponaut’s Stay–actually the rather elusive studio artist Tena–was known for three things. First and foremost must be the impossible virtuosity of her music, which was something entirely new to the ears of any first-time listener. Second must be the unprecedented response to her work, whether it was confusion, mass hysteria, or the most impassioned offers of devotion. But the third, and most recent reason that people came to know her is because of her disappearance just over one year ago.

The words she spun seemed elusive from the start, with “Strange Phenomena” the whispered a cappella that began her first album, entitled Back. The sleeve notes say it all:

My sigh lends / once two wend

Four…

Eve enough lame / cane knots so stain
wend deep rive dove / sum vie tail ere

Sew wits sty I’m / foe rice took lows
eyes egg hood aye / air neck sheen oh zzzzzzz

And then something disarming happens: the second track begins. Electronic washes begin as a hint, like staccato noise but with the purpose of furious percussion. The crescendos, too, resonate in quite unexpected ways, the highs and lows splitting and seeming to form separate patterns that mingle and interlock and play. It’s been described elsewhere as the marriage of throat singing and didgeridoo, but sped up infinitely, past the warbles and clicks of the digital handshake, but with a palpable lucidity and richness. Alien cicadas, say fans and critics alike. But those descriptions don’t do the music justice either.

Then it’s her voice. Not angelic or even classically pretty, but simple, honest, and devastating in such a subtle way that you may not realize it until the disc has stopped spinning. It’s technical trickery, say some. Subliminal manipulation geared to elicit emotions… but who can tell? And who, finally, really minds it?

If any of this sounds like cliche now it’s only because by now it’s already been said of Tena’s work before. So what more can scamper.org contribute? Well we can say that we were the last publication of any kind to be granted an interview. The news reports started to come later that same day, when the accounts of a few of her team reported her missing, and unreachable thereafter.

The rest you’ll remember, but we submit for inclusion to the archives our interview with Temponaut’s Stay.

scamper.org – One of the things you’re most known for, apart from your music, is your playfulness during your performances. You divert from the script often, and insouciantly rework the music to fit your mood.

Tena – Ah hm.

s – Specifically, last night I noted several instances when you substituted words. “Tempest” for “sandman” in “Jejune Moon.” And I heard “lunch” for “god” when you sang, “that we become the daydream of the god.”

T – It did seem more appropriate at the time.

s – No, I liked it–I appreciate it. What I’d like to know though–what I think people want to know–is why? Is it a way of distancing yourself from your work?

T – Well… no. I don’t know what that means. I am my work, and so if I change something then I’m just reflecting myself. So… it’s never about myself versus my work; how we relate. On the other hand, if the audience hears something new and they say, “we don’t know what that is. What is this new thing?” then good. Who’s to say which version of the song is the true version–perhaps the album version was riddled with the substitutions, as you call it. Either way, are people getting to know me through my music? Or any music? I think they interpret a reflection of me, but the reflection isn’t static, and neither is their interpretation. It’s a dance.

s – So it’s more a statement about how you relate to your audience, the substitution, and the other changes you’ve made.

T – Well yeah, but it’s more too. It’s more about a conversation. What it is may be definite, but what it’s about is purely subjective.

s – Are you trying to duck the question?

T – No! [laughs] Not at all. Let me make it clear: So often freedom is given to someone – an artist, a partner in any relationship–only as a kind of reward. “First show me your limitations–show me how you’re vulnerable–and then I’ll give you your freedom.” It’s an illusion though. It’s just a long leash.

s – But isn’t that kind of the deal? Isn’t your popularity contingent upon approval at some level?

T – Well popularity, sure. Popularity is a byproduct though, or it can be. I didn’t know we were talking about popularity.

s – It’s sure to come up when talking with someone whose work has made such an impact.

T – Maybe, but no one is beholden to that approval, lest it strangle them.

s – You generally take a dim view of popularity.

T – Hey, I’m as guilty as anyone for riding that horse. But it’s really inconsequential to my work. It has to be, otherwise it becomes… glorified P.R.

s – There has to be real freedom for the work to be relevant.

T – Yes. I spend my time singing – in an ideal world. Or lately, touring. You spend your time listening to my music. There is no hierarchy though, and no contract. I’m a bird on your windowsill, singing my song as you wake up. Whether you listen is up to you, and how long I stay is up to me.

s – This independence figures heavily in your work, and people identify with that.

T – Sure.

s – So I have to ask you–this is something I’ve noticed, and heard again last night. There’s been talk on the Net about secret messages.

T – [laughs] Has there?

s – You don’t know anything about those.

T – I haven’t really had time to surf lately.

s – Okay. But I took the liberty of writing down your substitution words, and I noticed something interesting almost immediately.

T – Insouciance?

s – Possibly! It’s the first letter of each word: “T H E T R A V E L E R D E P A R T S.” The Traveler Departs.

T – Wicked!

s – Now, on your first album, last year’s release, you had the track, “No Tense You Know,” where you refer to the Traveler’s play. Her game, so to speak. And the point of view is the first person. You are the Traveler.

T – A traveler. You are too.

s – Okay, but in that instance it’s you. Subjectively it’s you, and so if “the traveler departs” then what does that say about you?

T – Um. Well, that the interview is over? [laughs]

Excerpt from the eponymously titled track “Whispers”:

The pulses of buzzes
from hints to white whispers
they spin even faster, they come to the fore

percussive sharp clicks pick
like bristles on black spines
or grains of sand falling on panes of cold glass

Because of the intense form of autism I practice, I never was sure where to look when talking to people – or rather, when they were talking to me. I tried all the obvious possibilities, from staring just over their left shoulder to staring down at my own hand as it made a puppet mockery of the other person’s words. Nothing seemed right though, either to myself or to the person attempting to engage me. And that’s when I remembered a bedtime story my stepfather used to tell me when I was a lad.

The story was true – all of his stories were true, and that’s how he would always begin them. This is a true story. Some friends of mine – he said – adopted a cat because it looked like a cat that they had owned before.

[To the autistic, this practice – seeking relief through replacing a thing with a like thing – brings up many troubling questions. But those take me away from the story.]

While this cat very much resembled their former cat, its history was a mystery, and they noticed something odd about the cat’s demeanor soon after they brought it home. Oh it was friendly enough, and docile. But it had an unusual intensity about it, due to its unwavering focus on the eyes of whomever was nearest by. That is, it was a cat who stared. And the stare itself, it wasn’t something that one might have described as friendly, or even curious. No, this was one of those stares you usually only come across when you walk nude down the cell block at your local neighborhood maximum security prison.

A hungry stare then.

And this couple, they were real animal lovers, with big hearts and great patience. So they might have grown to accept the unwavering attentions of their new little friend were it not for one other behavioral quirk. Namely: the cat began to launch itself at their heads. This new practice didn’t happen often, but three or four sessions of flailing spastically to protect your head against a feral cloud of talons and teeth will begin to take its emotional toll.

Anyway, one fateful night found our couple entertaining guests. You know when you learn a lesson? Well you know how there’s always that time just before you’ve learned it? That’s this night. Only scraps remained on the plates, and everyone was enjoying banal conversation. Meanwhile, the cat was sitting at the edge of the Oriental rug staring silently (one might say longingly) into the husband’s eyes. Suddenly, and without provocation, the cat made a running leap at his head. But, having gone through this several times already, the man was already enjoying a heightened sense of awareness. Without pause the man swung his arm around like a bat and caught the possessed feline missile in the ribs, sending it crashing into the wall.

The cat died almost instantly, and the relationship between our couple and their guests was always kind of strained after that.

That’s the story.

So where does a cat look when you talk to it? Right into your eyes. And that’s where I’m going to look. It never even occurred to me before, but I think there’s been a lot that I’ve been missing.

In grade 3–that was 1977–I noticed a strip of seemingly random characters at the bottom of the test, small and already bleeding in that bluish ditto ink. I found these glyphs far more interesting than the test itself, and after staring at them for a bit I realized that there was in fact some correlation between them and the few answers I’d managed to figure out. It was like “A Beautiful Mind” where I suddenly understood the interconnectedness of all things, and I may even have heard a chorus of angels as I proceeded to decode the entire test.

Unfortunately, my enlightenment was soon doused by the girl next to me, who ratted me out to the teacher when she saw what I had been doing. I was horrified, but the disapproving look on the teacher’s face soon softened. “You shouldn’t have cheated,” she said, “but I’m impressed that you figured out how to do it.” And I was let off with a mere warning.

So my time as an unfettered genius was short, but I learned an important lesson that day. And I’ve been cheating ever since.

[Music swells.]

End Credits.