lemons

Eddie: Lemons.

Dani: Somebody stopped the clock in this place.

Eddie: My mom did antiques once.

Dani: To launder money?

Eddie: She liked old stuff.

Dani: People leave behind too much garbage.

Eddie: Right.

Dani: Where?

Eddie: Franklin, Tennessee, little ways from Nashville.

Dani: Never been.

Eddie: Whole town was antique. I dated a girl from there. She lived in a Victorian. Her mother made us “court” in the “courting parlor.” So, we had to sit on a stiff creaky old tête-à-tête and smile at each other while she sat there and watched.

Dani: Sounds like a cult.

Eddie: Where are we are?

Dani: Sebastopol.

Eddie: Sounds pretty far away.

Dani: It’s what you wanted.

Eddie: Right. What’s in Sebastopol?

Dani: Apples, mostly.

Eddie: Probably a good place for some pie.

Dani: We should find some.

Eddie: I think people want old stuff because it connects them to history. You can’t connect to the future.

The two walk without any apparent purpose through the postcard town. Eddie looks for signs of pie. Dani looks for something else.

Dani: If you had a machine that would allow you to do anything imaginable, what would it do?

Eddie: Teleportation.

Dani: Like in Star Trek.

Eddie: Yeah but, it would be land based and able to operate remotely. And it would lock on to the specific biosignature of anyone I inputted. So, I could just type in a name of a person and the location where I’d want that person to go and then they would just dissolve where they were and reassemble where I’d want them to be.

Dani: That’s uh, why?

Eddie: There’s an uninhabited island between Antarctica and Australia that’s nothing but bare rock mountains with extremely sheer drops to a rugged coast and treacherous seas all around.

Dani: Nice.

Eddie: All the authoritative leaders of countries, their enablers, the billionaire bros, the people who use religion to scam people or to fight wars, all the really bad people, all at once—they’d be zapped there, naked.

Dani: Why naked?

Eddie: Well, I don’t think the machine could do clothes.

Dani: The tech is good but not that good?

Eddie: Right. Besides, it’s more humiliating for them because I’d document it with a camera and broadcast it worldwide so the people could see what became of them but have no chance to rescue them because they’d have no clue where to look.

Dani: Who’d want to rescue them?

Eddie: Exactly. How about you? What machine would you want?

Dani: Easy. One that sends a shock through everyone to wake them up, makes the stupid at least recognize their own stupidity, humbles the arrogant ignorant, scares everyone so they forget their boarders and their differences and proves lethal to all the evil people.

Eddie: I like yours better.

Dani: That’s because it is.

Eddie: It’s getting late. We should find a place to stay.

Dani: Maybe that old man over there knows a good pie store. His belly’s big enough. Nah, he’s more of a biscuit, gravy and sausage guy.

They walk, never taking notice of signs or direction, until the sun sets and the quaint village falls silent as if someone somewhere flipped a switch and suddenly the place was turned off and put away for the night.

Eddie: Are we lost?

Dani: No.

Eddie: It’s just that we’re back where we started.

Dani: We’re waiting.

Eddie: Are those lemons real?