Continuums

[Martin Hash]

CONTINUUMS
Written By: Martin Hash

Episode One (this one is the video above)
I didn’t know exactly which room they’d be in but I know’d they’d have the lights out so I just listened at the doors of the dark rooms until I heard shufflin’ around and talkin’. Took the first guy at the door when I knocked. Next two come to see what’s goin’ on and I do them easy. The last smuck was watchin’ the girl out the window. Heard me comin’ but the dork left his piece on the table. I’m always carryin’ – even in the john.

I always liked the work. Pop used to do it – that is until Mom brained him with the blow-dryer when he caught me and her wrestlin’. I don’t know what he was so hot about - we been wrestlin’ since I was old enough to know which end it went in. Fact is, Mom was the best wrestler ever. Not like them girls I had to put tape over their mouth.

I see the girl down the street… No shot.

Shit all over my piece: blood and spatter. I’ll have to wait until I get home ‘cause I got to build Mr. Johnson anyway. That’s what I call my snipe rifle.

Look like things are clearin’ up. I outta be done here in another five seconds.

Episode Two
Somebody’s following me. I gotta call my pimp, Hugh.

Ring! Ring! Ring! (phone)

Crack! (bullet going through glass)

What’s that?

Crack!

Someone’s shooting at me!

(cowering in phone booth)
How’d I ever get into this? They told me to stay away from that john, but he was such a nice guy. All the other girls wanted him - he liked me best. He runs his fingers through my hair when he’s talkin’ on the phone to those big shots. Those big shots who wanted to give me ten grand to walk away: I told them to shove the money. I never had a real boyfriend before. My stepdad liked me, but he liked me too much.

Hello? Hello? Who’s calling? (from the phone hanging free)

(talking into the phone, freightened) Hugh?

Is that you Marla? (from the phone)

Hugh? Help me!

What’s up with you girl? Where the hell are you? You got my money?!

Hugh! Somebody’s shootin’ at me! I went to see that john and now they’re tryin’ to kill me!

You high, girl? Get your ass back here ‘fore I beat you!

Crack!

(from the phone) What’s that! Marla? Marla! Girl you better answer me.

dial tone.

Episode Three
Bitch. She better get her butt back here pronto. I got enough problems of my own what with my rheumatism and all. (pill bottle)

What’s the world comin’ to anyway? If it ain’t hot as Hell, it’s floodin’ or hurricanin’ and shit. (dilapidated buildings)

Didn’t used to be like this - not ten years ago we had it real good here: me and Velma. (heart shaped locket)

Then the crack ate her up. Couldn’t even walk the streets no mo’. Had to get me some other girls. Kept Velma up as much as I could but a man’s gotta limit. Can’t be propin’ up ever’ ho’ that comes along: (siringe)

I don’t care if she done birthed my little boy or not. Kid don’t need a mother like that anyway. (rattle and coke spoon).

My mom, now she was a real winner. Got herself gang raped in a pool hall when she was thirteen. If ya ask me, she wanted it. (pool cue)

What’s all this about heads anyway. Bitch been holdin’ out on me I gonna beat her ass good. Hangin’ up on me like that. I think I’ll kick her ass just for good measure.

What’s this? This thing’s disgusting. Goddamn bitch been holdin’ out some real weird shit. Who’s she been wrackin’ up anyway? Jesus, I bet it’s that queer white boy. Maybe he’ll lay out some cash to get it back. God, I’d almost give it back, piece a shit like this.

I wonder if the head’s worth somethin’; I could use a little cash right now.

Bang! Bang! Bang! (from the door)

Who the hell’s that? I’ll kick ‘is ass.

Episode Four
The icy cold sweats had long since deteriorated into the shakes, and soon Enricho knew he’d be comatose if he didn’t get a fix right NOW. That’s why he didn’t even wait for the pimp to say anything before laying the guy down with a sock full of quarters. Pimps always had a stash for their girls, that’s what his brother Louis advised, and Louis had made it sixteen years in Folsom so he knew what he was talking about.

The walls smelled of cheap perfume and hashish. It was mostly empty so the girls must all sleep in one queen-sized bed. Enricho’s shakes were getting real bad. First thing he did was kick off the bed’s mattress to reveal three dime bags. The sense of relief he felt as he hastily shot up pushed all thoughts out of the way of the coming euphoria. The gratification was immediate and total. When Enricho stood up he sneered, thinking “dumb shits hide their stash like amateurs.” On the way out he disdainfully kicked the prone body at the door, catching sight of something clutched in the pimp’s hand. “What is it you people do?” he thought distastefully as he picked up the shrunken head.

Episode 5
That joker’s blockin’ my thoroughfare, man. ‘E looks zoned outta his freakin’ head: swayin’ ‘n stumblin’ around. Looks like he’s carryin’ a little, black shrunken head – bitchen, man. I’ll lift that on the way by.

‘ay been skiddin’ this highway all mornin’. No fellow thrashers showed yet. Wanna show off my new kickin’ – go two, two-and-half feet, sweet. If I had a new ride, I could maybe launch three feet. Gotta snag some change, maybe do a Scobby Snack, getta new ride, lope downtown for some real thrashin’ with the regulars.

That shrunken head thing might be karmic, man. Maybe lift me four feet just for thinkin’ ‘bout it. Little bump here… Ahh… Snatched it up slick. Freaky guy’s chassin’ me but he ain’t gonna catch my speed (snort). With this karmic head thing, I’m gonna rule this highway. Hell, I’m gonna rule downtown soon enough.

Episode 7
I can feel the doorway beckoning me, but alas, I cannot yet return for I have not destroyed Yagurt’s totem. I should never have given it to the girl to hold; it was my weakness for the desires of the flesh combined with her fawning adoration that compelled me in my benevolence to honor her such. I suspect now she is dead – a great pity and another dread responsibility added to my karma. I promise myself to remain firm in the eye of adversity, and not to let my own frail proclivities endanger the quest again.

Ah… I feel tendrils of the flux tickling, caressing me ever so gently. I see their brightness, I taste their warm substance. And if I do, so then too does Yagurt’s totem. I have but to wait at the opening of the gateway for the totem will eventually find this place also, drawn inexorably by the flux. Then I will strike, and this time I will execute my duty immediately, so that I can enter back into the womb of the Continuum.

Episode 8
When God or evolution created ants, he or it must have pictured the consciousness of a single individual divided equally across the 10,000 appendages that make up the physical body. Is this a higher life form? Could human beings eventually be transfigured or evolved where every cell splits from a single soft flesh in search of food? Might your eyeball set out on its own to start a fresh colony? And more to the point: does every ant feel the rapture of sexual congress? Does the honey eaten by the few affect the taste buds of the many? Does the pain of death ripple throughout the contingent when a ravenousness garter snake strikes the brood chamber? Or are ants not like us at all, not even evolved on this planet? Are ants a hive creature from another place, small enough to get through the tiny pinholes between that place and ours? Maybe so, or maybe ants are simply the first creatures from this place to visit that place.

Episode 9
Hope and naiveté are fey companions: for those who are sophisticated have little hope, while those most inexperienced abound with it. So did such dreamy notions entice Yocum Stein to establish a haberdashery in the bigoted years of the ‘50s. Yocum needed all the naïve hope he could get to offset the double curses of a coloured ancestry and a Jewish name. But Yocum persevered and succeeded where other men faced with lesser tribulations would have failed, even though he could not sit in his own shoeshine chair because of the pigment of his skin.

But hard work and a stoic lifestyle were to no avail during the race riots of ’66 when Yocum’s beloved store was looted then burned. Yocum himself felt the despair; a depression that lasted until thoughts of his new grandson’s future spurred him to rebuild. This time he proudly displayed his newly buffed and polished Wing Tips.

Fate is a hard mistress however, and the year before Yocum was to pass the shop to his now grown grandson, the excesses of a corrupt stock market this time took away all of the steamed felt hats and paten leather belts. If Yocum had but known about the wonders that were so close, of the door to another world – a portal to a place delightful and debaucherous. But Yocum had used up all of his life points, and instead, unknowing what awaited just outside the store’s front door, hung himself from the coat rack in the Large Men’s department.

Episode 20
I saw the horsemen gather: their smell, the dirt and oil in their hair, their foul breath and broken teeth are frightening. I admire their courage and ferocity but as they ride off to the battle I feel anxious.

I cannot see the battle directly because of a hillock but I can see the plume of dust and smoke that rises above the trees, and I can barely make out the clamor of vigorous contest.

Now the skyline clears and over the hill I can make out horses. Elated, I am pleased that they have won: relief washes over me. As the riders approach, things seem odd. Almost all of the horses are riderless, and the remaining riders are slumped down, bouncing in rhythm to the gallop.

The horses halt directly in front of me, frothing, hysterical and covered with blood. One of the remaining riders slips to the ground and lays dying. All others are dead.

Furtively, I look all around me, there is nothing but a black spec relentlessly approaching from the horizon.

Episode 21
Death has many names in many languages but its meaning is always simple and always the same. From the most prehistoric tribes to the most advanced civilizations, death’s significance is never undervalued: it is the total termination of life. Whatever the fanfare that surrounds it, or however ignominious its approach, death cannot be escaped, nor can it be bribed, or prayed away. Many kings have taken their retinue and retainers into death as company. Poppers have lusted after death as an end to their suffering. Religions frighten their congregations with stories of everlasting death. Some peoples ring bells to placate death; others burn incense, many grovel, most despair. The time and place determines how death will be described, to which there are a multitude. But in this time and in this place, death is nothing more and nothing less than a glimmering speck on the horizon.

Timeline
Hitman kills man in telephone booth
Pimp
Drug Addict
Driver hits Skateboarder with car
EMT from ambulance takes Driver to hospital
Nurse meets EMT from ambulance in emergency room
Doctor deals with Nurse
Priest’s Wife goes to Doctor about
Priest meets Wife in chapel
Rich man’s
Limo Driver picks up Rich Man’s Daughter
Rich Man rides in limo
Rich Man’s Advisor talks to Rich Man
High Priced Prostitute services Advisor
Political Hack tells Prostitute presidential secrets
FBI man arrests Political Hack
President’s Wife has affair with FBI man
President sleeps with Wife