The Escapement Mechanism, Part 3

Notes and Introduction

Working with memory, but ultimately being at its mercy. Familiar thoughts like holes punctured in clouds. More words poured into the forms set by the first part of the visit.

Occluded Connections

Wemly managed to free herself from her dumbfoundedness, and was just pushing herself off the vinyl chair, arms slick with sweat in perfect facsimiles of her hands, when Trudy succeeded in removing the locket. She splashed it into Wemly’s palm, the spray of the chain shooting high like surf breaking on rocks and then drawing itself smooth across her arm.

A smile—relief, Wemly realized—spread across her grandmother’s face. Trudy closed her eyes, exhaustion flooding in like salt water contaminating a fresh spring, but the clarity wasn’t gone, not completely.

Wemly knew the locket. It was one of the few things to survive the transition from childhood memory to the nursing home. It held a picture of both her grandparents before they were married, but after they were both living on the military base. There is always a war, Wemly’s grandfather was fond of saying. In the black and white photo, they both wore military issue, garbed in fashionable wool that no longer existed.

Her grandfather still had his hair, and it was dark and cropped short. His half-smirk smile seemed to gloat, to say—no scream—Look at who is on my arm! And even in, or maybe because of the uniform and her pulled back hair, the beauty of Trudy Garland (née Gunn) transcended the photo. And though hidden under years and the scars of dementia, it was once again leaking through in Trudy’s gaze.

The gaze that was rapidly losing purchase, but the beauty of the the person, the fullness of her grandma, had permeated the room. It hung heavy like the perfume Trudy used to be fond of before it was forbidden by nursing home rules. If nothing else, that was what the nurses would have noticed, even if they had only come to change the sheets. It was unmistakable, the overflowing of a person, their presence, their beauty.

Wemly examined the locket when after great effort her grandma lost her grip and fell back into the pillow and the murk that had held her for so many years. Wemly slid the friction clasp and looked at the picture inside. In her memory the picture was so clear, but seeing it again in reality, Wemly realized she had only seen it a few times during her life. Her memory had diverged from the version in front of her at some point in the past, especially that of her grandfather. The knowing smirk of memory was reduced to awkward geeky smile in her hands. The extent of his fortune in being with Trudy was only heightened by reality.

Another difference was the picture in the locket had swung forward on a hinge, as if lifted off of its setting by a thumbnail, but instead of the picture falling out it had moved to reveal what was hidden behind it. The secret compartment was something Wemly was unaware of. Working as intended, she thought.

A smooth black rock, its material so obviously foreign and polymerized that it could only have been forged in a non-geological process, sat perfectly contained by the locket. A fit so snug it gave the impression that one was designed for the other.

As Wemly watched, a red dot formed at the center of the stone. Its formation so slow that she at first dismissed it as a visual artifact. But the intensity of the red grew between blinks and shakes of her head until it ripened to a red so brilliant Wemly looked away. It faded out just as slowly, until Wemly wasn’t sure whether she was looking at the dot or the after image.

She turned the locket over above her palm. The stone held. She have it a flick with her finger. The stone held. Finally, Wemly manager a nail between the stone and the back of the locket, and it fell into her palm. Polished obsidian. Or glass. Cool, then warm, in time with the pulsing. It was obviously technology, and it resonated with something fundamental inside Wemly. She watched transfixed as the period of the waxing and waning light changed and adopted the rate of her own breathing. She took a deep breath and held it. The light glared back at her. She blew out the breath, and the light dimmed, only the blackness of the stone remaining as she forced herself not to breathe.

Wemly closed her eyes, feeling compelled to. Visions of her own death sparked into existence. Drowning. House fires. Car crashes. And just as quickly they vanished. She shivered and opened her eyes to find Trudy nodding along, eyes once again hooked into her own, fighting against the body that contained them like a fish fighting to get off a line.

Trudy had worked in research for the military until her memory went. The official word was early onset Alzheimer’s disease, but it wasn’t just conspiracy theorists who found it unlikely that her work in memory technology was unrelated to her current condition. There were whispered accounts of a laboratory accident, which the military of course denied. And Trudy was in no condition to resolve any disputes.

But this, a tenuous connection to her grandma. Wemly felt like there was an answer barely hidden, as the stone itself had been, and all she had to do was blow the dust off. Whatever it was she was holding had a deep connection to her grandma. It had also begun to itch, a predicament that Trudy seemed to understand.

Trudy tried to speak, but it came out as an indistinct sound. The frustration of this was evident in their locked gaze, which remained unbroken. Trudy began slapping the back of her neck with one hand, and pointing to the smooth stone Wemly was holding. This motion took an enormous effort from Trudy, her whole body twisting to accommodate the motion. Eventually it was too much, and Trudy collapsed back into the pillows, fully spent, the tenuous connection to Wemly severed.

Wemly shook Trudy gently, “Grandma?” she asked. And then again, louder, when there was no answer.

But it had been clear what Trudy had been trying to communicate. Wemly placed the smooth stone against the back of her neck. The itching immediately stopped. The stone felt sticky. As Wemly moved her head, it pulled at the soft hairs of her neck, as if affixed with glue. When Wemly removed her hand, the stone stayed in place. She needed to pry with her fingernails to get it off again, and was surprised to see no remnants of glue or adhesive on the device.

Wemly’s mouth was dry. Her hand holding the warm stone had started to itch again. She placed it back in the locket, and as she did noticed an inscription on the inside of the shell that she had missed in her initial excitement. It was a twenty five digit string, separated every five digits by a dash. Wemly had no idea what it meant, but it reminded her of an activation code for software, from back in the days when purchases were verified in that manner.

A nurse poked her head in. “Strange, right?” she asked, and then noticed Trudy sleeping. “Is she doing okay?”

Wemly could only agree.

“Was she able to say anything?” asked the nurse. “She kept trying. Her eyes were so alive. So awake.” The nurse seemed to consider, than added. “We even brought her a paper and pen, but it was futile. She couldn’t make anything more than scribbles.” She shook her head. “I never really get used to the swings.” And then the nurse was gone, on to the next room and the pattern of her shift.

Wemly wiped her eyes with the back of her sleeve, stood, and leaned close to give her grandma a kiss. “I’ll figure it out,” she said. Trudy had been trying to tell her what the stone meant. Wemly had no idea, but she wouldn’t let her grandma down. She hadn’t been this motivated since the beginning of grad school.

The problem gripped her mind, warmed her, cut through the cold and deflected the snow that had started to fall. When Wemly arrived home, she was only aware of the temperature because her hands were barely able to turn the key in the lock. Our environments break us all differently, but we decay to the same end, Wemly thought, and entered the inner warmth of her apartment.