JIMMY AND HIDEKI TALK IT OVER — KANA PHILIP
/Jimmy Bartleman held his finger to his lips.
“Shhh,” he said.
The machine clunked and whirred as it came on, lighting up three bright blue LEDs.
“I’m being serious,” Hideki said.
“I know. So am I.”
Hideki looked across a white meadow to the little beach town curling along the water and ran a comb through his black hair. “What I’m trying to say is, they have names for everything now. Know what I mean? Named it all, right down to the last bit.” He put the comb in his back pocket and made a chopping motion. “Extraterrestrial visits? Weather balloons, they analyzed the footage. Sea Monsters? We’ve been to the bottom of the ocean, nothing there. You got a new invention? Google it. Someone already had it,” he waved one finger in the air. “Ever tightening circles...”
“Shhh,” said Jimmy. “You hear it now?" He adjusted the machine and the LED’s spun faster. "I think I hear it!”
The wind pushed rows of nothing through the field.
“I don’t know,” said Hideki. He cocked his head.
Jimmy held his breath. His ears grew tired but he heard nothing. “I guess it’s gone.”
Hideki was combing his hair again, “It never was.”
In the distant town, tiny white gulls fought over McDonalds trash.
“Everything’s been figured out, Jimmy. No room.”
“That’s what you keep saying.” He shut the machine down and pulled his bike out of the tall meadow grass. ”I’m going home. You're depressing today.”
“It’s not me that’s depressing, its all this” Hideki waved his hands around at nothing.
***
Jimmy stood in the shower for ten minutes. He opened the bedroom window, sat on his roof and watched the lights of the little town blinking out in the darkness. A pale finger of reflected moonlight shivered in the ocean, pointing, pointing.
Kana Philip was born in the great state of Michigan. He currently splits time between up and down state New York, where he is the creative director and co-founder of a mobile media startup.
