Gideon’ Sphere
2nd draft 5/4/07
A Really Good Richard Yates Short Story, 200
Civilization Empires, 500 page a game, 2 mill
Champions, 2 mill
Blue Jacket, Columbia, 200 books in
“Gideon,” he looked perplexed, “that’s my name.”
“Gideon,” he looked confident, being a shadow this could be called odd,“that’s my name, too.”
“You don’t look like you belong here.”
“I don’t belong anywhere.”
“Are you dead?”
“Time is fleeting.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
“Yes, it does.”
Gideon was the only person in the room with a shadow, an archaic thing, confusing for those unfamiliar with the process involved in a man’s own shadow speaking. Gideon’s shadow had evolved into something less benign.
The place was full of people, just standing in a circle, there eyes all white, no hints of any other color. They had a blackness of the soul that would make one sick if they looked close enough
But no shadows beamed to the sides of them, no clues as to whether they had a soul. Is the shadow a gateway into the mind? Or just a web of lies like anything else considered important?
“I feel to good to let some voice push me over the edge.” Gideon did feel good, even with the end in sight. He had led a life of being dead on his feet, and now he really was the last of the living for miles. He preferred chaos to the understanding that most people had about living.
He recalled that he had the damn shadow. Who heard of shadows addressing someone like they were a real person? He hated talking to himself; yet he did it anyways. Talking to his shadow bordered on lunacy; if he had been in the real world it wouldn’t have been a problem. Did shadows have real minds? Could they be evil? Were girls attracted to them? Were they republicans?
The kiss of the girl on Gideon’s cheek sent a rush through his body, like first understanding a poem that had left one confused for too long. He saw her eyes. The face was fine, beautiful really, but he understood, at that moment, this wasn’t the same girl he had seen jogging on the streets of the city at night and gotten a hard on over. There was nothing there, the eyes were like looking into a can of white paint: Gideon saw no signs of life.
He felt like throwing up right there. A possessed person had kissed him; this was almost as bad as talking to his shadow, and acting like it was real, and hoping against hope it wouldn’t disappear. The girl was far to pretty to just throw up in front of her, even if her mind was gone, she still had a body too balanced not to be stared at. He was aroused by the fact she was being controlled, but it sickened him, thinking of this girl as no different from his mother and his sister, and sex was all that he wanted.
And he could almost sense the sphere moving inside of her. It left her body, and it tried to enter his. He got the fist real glimpse of it, like something out of a movie, a small, black sphere object, with a power so strong, that he had to look away.
He heard a scream as the girl fell over – but it wasn’t the girl screaming – and he jumped back knowing he was no hero, he wouldn’t save anyone no matter what went wrong. Why didn’t the sphere take him like it did everything else? The scream had come from his shadow – the being who had the same name – it had forced the sphere back like a lion over its kill. He liked being fought over, but wasn’t sure this was the right moment for ego; he had done nothing but be the subject of possession. Still, he was curious as to why his shadow screamed.
He adjusted looking at the black spheres moving in and out of the people. No one knew where the Spheres came from, but his shadow had given hints. He thought, again, that he was the only one with a shadow.
“This is weird.”
“Wrong,” Gideon’s shadow replied showing pain, “it’s a hunt for those with the will to move on. Care If I explain?”
“Yes.”
“The spheres jump in out and out of bodies – you know that – just as easily as I become your shadow. The thing is, the Spheres have always been there. It’s like an extra toe on a cat, or sprinting past someone when you haven’t run in ages. You didn’t know you had it; but you always did.”
“What if its something sexual, an extra—“
“You make fun. I have the power to end you – and you make fun.”
“You’re too serious. I am here to have fun, and I don’t think a shadow is supposed to kill the person it depends on for survival. And why did it enter me if I already had one?”
“You never had one, that’s why you have me.”
Gideon looked back, realized the conversation with his shadow was about as formal as a dog barking at a cat, so he began to walk, the shadow in hot pursuit. He hated that part, was too young to realize he was doomed to have this shadow following him around forever. He understood few situations these days. The best he could do was play along, act like he understood, try not to ask to many questions.
“Why not believe? Why not? You believe in me.”
“It just isn’t some massive conspiracy. My mind, and I know this, isn’t reliable enough. And what do you want me to do?”
“I want you to care.”
There was the road, inconsequential except that, with the Spheres around, Gideon didn’t think he would last long. He had a strategy behind this. He was sweating hard and, as the moisture began to feel annoying, he couldn’t help but wonder if he was on the right road. He wanted to go as far away as possible; he had to escape the boring shadow explaining the mathematics of the Spheres to him.
He hadn’t realized that, behind him, the entire white-eyed group who he had been staring at before, were all following him. If he had looked, he would have seen them marching in unison, the black spheres moving in and out of them, not making any noise, and the beautiful girl leading them.
“Is any of it real? I feel so outside of myself.”
“Do you like mathematics, because we could just go in circles. There are no places anymore, Gideon. Have you ever seen Cube?”
“There are no movies you stupid fucking shadow! Why would I want to watch another stupid movie when everyone is going crazy, the whole town is full of mindless drones, and you bring up a movie.”
“It’s just that –“
Gideon kicked at his shadow, began pounding the ground beneath him, as though he were digging, and the deeper he went into it, the closer the group behind him came. He didn’t really notice that; didn’t really care. He intended to destroy something, so he began throwing dirt, and pounding at the shadow, until his fists were bloodied, his cotton shirt covered in filth.
He noticed. And he liked the fact they were closing on him; and he liked that they were going to take him.
“Ready! Take me to your leader.”
The spheres burst out of their bodies; they all shot towards him.
“You know,” Gideon’s shadow said, “that would have made most other people’s day, but didn’t quite fit with mine.”
“I think a shot is the answer to all my problems.” He was staring at the Black Spheres as they closed in on him, and he thought of his father, and his mother. Where were they in all this? Life just wasn’t what it used to be.
The spheres surrounded him, reflecting what little light the sun was still giving up. “Take me. I don’t really care.” He pulled out a small canteen, took a shot, fumbled in his pockets for cigarettes, and remembered he only smoked fifteen times a day.
“It’s like I told you, they cannot, but it won’t stop them from trying.”
“Well what the fuck is the point then Peter Pan? Where the hell did they come from?”
“Every question you ask is repeated several minutes later.”
“I still think,” Gideon said in the darkest of voices, “that if I end you they will end me.”
“We all have hopes,” the shadow responded.
Gideon shook his head, traveled through hills, small, empty villages. There was no denying his end was in sight; but how? Ever since he’d moved to this small town he had been enveloped by pain, by the technology. His shadow played a small part, seemingly growing stronger as he isolated more. His color drained from him; the shadow grew stronger.
As he walked, he tried to remember the points where he was having fun. Tried to decipher how he had gotten there; tried to repeat the process that had once made him happy. The possessed people continued to stay with him, and he continued to relent the anger on his shadow, and the spheres tried to enter his body, as they were checking to see if he could be possessed.
He acted upon his depression, even going so far as to ask his shadow to tell him about Cube. He had the tears in his eyes by that point, as though he was ten again. He wanted to pull out a glass, put ice cube in it, and down a screwdriver.
We all have dreams of a sort. Gideon dreamt of the end.
“Gideon,” he said out loud, “that’s my name.”
“I always knew your name.”
“Yet you decided to use my name. Why?”
“That’s what shadows do: steal.”
“Tell me a story. Tell me what I can do to end this curse upon the people. Is it aliens? Monsters? Republicans?”
“It comes from happiness, absorbing pain, watching and not living, questioning everything. It comes from our souls. I already explained this to you. Will you ever remember my answers? You will need them.”
“Will I ever understand?”
“Yes.”
#
Gideon once read in a comic book that all life was judged, naked to the world, in front of time. He read the comic ten times and never understood why the author had decided a comic was the place for such a story.
It led to his shadow. Something he didn’t understand. He rarely spoke to Gideon, as though he didn’t need to, as though he were already dead. He came up with his own story, bored, and decided upon giving the shadow his very own name. Once he trusted him, warmed up to Gideon, he could possibly tell him more about what this place was. He remembered no death, and death, he remembered, wasn’t always the end anyways.
He couldn’t pinpoint God in all of it, though something was behind the Spheres. Could it be God?
By the time he reached a church on the road, he saw the sky turning black, and his shadow weakening, in pain to try and stay with him. He shook his head, wishing the process would speed up. The shadow continued to press on, no doubt fulfilling its intentions of breaking him in for upcoming pain.
By night, as he sat on the church stairs (the door was locked) he began to remember many other points upon that, when in danger, he had asked for help. There were plenty of empty cars in the parking lot, even some convertibles, but the doors were all locked. Figuring no one in this town would need a corvette, he smashed a window in, more as an act of anger than desire, and jumped into the car. He remembered he was never good at stealing, even with all the talents of his shadow, and couldn’t quite make out much in the dark. He needed a flashlight to hotwire it and, being lazy, decided to break into the church instead. There would be light there, a chance for his shadow to lecture him on the Spheres again.
It wasn’t until he had lost the shadow, that he realized the shadow was like the girl with the empty eyes who had kissed him on the lips in that he both hated the idea of it, but felt alone without it.
“Needing something?”
Right on queue, the church light had been lit, and his shadow had returned. Where had this light come from? Whose voice was that? Before he could ponder some more, a door opened, and he heard a whisper telling him to hurry. He looked back, saw the damned people, the walking dead, and began to pace himself towards the church. His shadow tailed him the whole way and, if it could smile, that was what it was doing.
“Do you understand yet why they have changed?”
“I understand nothing.”
“Who are you talking to?” The priest whispered. “Are there more of you out there? Damned glasses couldn’t catch a dinosaur in broad daylight.”
“I am sorry, I’ve been cooped up to long, I tend to hold conversations with myself a lot.”
“We all do what we have to. I talk to myself when I’m not talking to God.”
Gideon felt a hand on his shoulder.
He jumped. It was her again. The sphere was outside of her now. Her eyes wide. Mouth pulling in air. She was no longer controlled by the sphere. He noted that her bangs had turned white. She was shaking.
“What is happening? Why was I following you? I can’t—“ The Sphere entered her body again, and Gideon began to run. He went inside, past the priest, straight to the bathroom to throw up. He heard the door to the church lock, and looked back from the bathroom, through the door, to see the glint of a weapon touching against the white of the priest’s collar.
“I didn’t think priests would have weapons.”
“And I haven’t seen another person who talks to himself in years. Things change.”
“But they’re being controlled. We can’t just kill all of them.”
“You must.” The shadow, shooting past the holy water at the front of the church, had grown strong again in the dim lighting of the church.
“Your shadow. It speaks!”
“It’s been like that since the Spheres have come. I used to talk to it, but it never responded before today.”
Gideon pulled out his canteen, watched the eyes of the priest as he took a gulp, and handed it to him. “My last vice,” the priest said, eyeing the liquor, I gave up cigarettes.”
“I’m down to fifteen-a-day.”
#
“See, what I think is the spheres came from another planet. Like something out of the 50s movies, and, instead of taking us out, it just takes us. I don’t think there is a plan, other than chaos, behind any of it.”
“Yet they control just about everything,” Gideon replied. “Why follow me? Why was I led here? It’s as if they have some plan.” Gideon looked out a crack in the boarded up windows, a feature he liked about the fort/church, and saw her standing, surrounded by men, in the garden out back.
“Have they killed anyone?”
“No.”
Gideon’s shadow returned. “Yes, they have. Animals. Animals are disappearing.”
“I’m not about to listen to a talking shadow.”
If the shadow had eyes, Gideon presumed he would be looking at the priest in a less than pleasant way.
“Are you one of those priests who believe in God?”
“Hmm, seem to have touched a nerve. I don’t talk to mad constructs.”
“I have a plan.”
“Speak.”
“I am listening,” the shadow said, Gideon still unsure if it could read his thoughts.
He told them, the priest shaking his head from the outset, the shadow not saying a single word. “So if we take her out of the equation,” Gideon said towards the end, “and figure out what these things are, we just might be able to slow them.”
Gideon had been right about a few things. The Black Spheres were centralized around the girl who had touched him, as though they had a leader, something that was the eyes and ears, while the others were helpless drones.
As power is at the center of everything, Gideon had thought he could beat the Spheres. Had they spread across the world? Was this is minor occurrence? Gideon wasn’t sure. Really didn’t care either. He sought an escape for one person, and if he found out the shadow was dead, and the priest died after shooting off his gun, then so be it. He had to act cold in life; warmth wasn’t a luxury, life not a quest, it was all reality.
He walked to her. She just stood, the eyes as white as the moon, cutting holes in his chest. He noticed more about her this time: the white hair matched the eyes, the hands were clenched (she was ready to fight) while the others were the drones. Did these things think? Could they decipher what he was about to do?
He closed in. Heard it. Saw it. The movement behind him was what came first, and he wasn’t’ sure how he sensed this, and why his shadow was all of a sudden gone. He turned in time to see the gun flash, to hear the priest yell out, and see a flood of Spheres head towards the man who spoke with God. It would have been a fitting ending for Gideon, for he was never on top of things, had no faith, no reason, really, to move forward in life.
But the flashes of red came next. A new flood came: Red Spheres began storming down from the skies, intercepting the Black Spheres before they reached the armed priest, who was letting off shots and screaming proverbs as they came at him.
“You were going to kill me.”
Gideon really couldn’t believe his eyes – it was the girl’s shadow. “I can’t control it, but I held it off when I could. And you were going to kill me.”
“How do you know that? Are you sure? I intended to attack the beast within you, but I’m no hero, if it came to your death so be it.”
“Gideon.” The lights had all ceased, and the priest was talking to him, and he wasn’t sure why he was still alive. Part of him worried about his shadow, another about the girl with a gun to his head. “Gideon there all gone!”
He analyzed her shadow, saw a game had been played on him.
“I really wasn’t going to kill you. I give you my word.” The shadow looked at him, he felt the pain in his arm, something fighting to be released inside him.
He felt his shadow return, the smirk on its face, as the sun began to call out again, and he thought that, maybe, he could hear some birds chirping. All good signs.
“I doubt we will ever understand.”
“Your plan was a disaster.”
“It was a sound plan.”
“It would have never worked. Cut off the head and three more …”
He looked up, could have sworn he saw something moving in the clouds. He wasn’t sure what the Spheres all meant, why some had attacked others, like a big mistake had been made. He saw that the others were all passed out.
“I’m done.” One would think Gideon would have had something better to say. “I’m not one to change, never was, really.”
“It was a happy ending, Gideon.” The priest moved towards him. “Son, I think change will come.”
If there was an ending, it could be found in the way he began to march down the road, trying, as always, to outdistance his shadow.
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