The Escapement Mechanism, Part 4

Notes and Introduction

Don’t it always seem to go, that you don’t know what you’ve got, at all. If something is important enough to hide, how do you figure out what it is, or does? What was the purpose of the pyramids? Were they a water park for the Egyptians? It sure would be nice if there was a standardized way of asking and testing predictions that would be able to help us out—maybe even an entire discipline devoted to such tasks. Alas, for today we will have to stumble around in the dark. Why does it take so long to even get to answering the question? Isn’t there a word limit, and an authoritative governing body to enforce it?

Wemly couldn’t sleep. She rolled the stone around in her hands. Technology, she reminded herself, but couldn’t stop thinking about it like a polished rock when she held it. Maybe that was the problem. She placed it on the back of her neck like her grandma had been trying to get her to do. It was warm, in sync with her breathing. Not just tied to it, but Wemly had the distinct sense that it too was breathing. That it had a life of its own, or that at least her life was braided together with it.

She tipped back over the armrest of her couch and collapsed onto the cushions, rolling the problem around her mind like she had the stone. Why had her grandma wanted the technology on her neck. The only answer that made sense was also the simplest: because that was how it worked. But what it was or what it did was a mystery.

An open family secret, or rumour depending upon who you asked, was that an accident at work had messed up Trudy’s memory. Even if it wasn’t true, Wemly needed to be careful with the unknown technology that had glommed on to both her body and breathing. But it was like trying to not get bit by a snake without knowing which end had the fangs, or if you were even looking at a snake. Maybe it was a gecko sleeping peacefully on her neck, breathing its lizardly comfort.

The stone sat so snugly in the nape of her neck that it was clear it had been designed for the purpose. And warm. Despite its reptilian appearance, Wemly was beginning to think of it more like a small kitten curled up under her hair. One with small retracted claws hat kneaded her neck while she contemplated what to do, as if they were both thinking.

Eventually Wemly rested her hand against the stone, and felt for where she imagined the light to be slowly fading in and out in time with her breath. Imagined the light burning through her finger. So intent was her focus, that when there was a small beep, barely audible—Wemly wondered if anyone would have been able to hear it, even if they were in the same room, as the sound seemed to travel from her spine through her jaw to the bones of her ear—she pulled her hand away with a start, and examined her finger.

It was fine, but a small wave of nausea washed over her. The room distorted, as if she were at the optometrist looking through the vision tester, and they were checking for astigmatism, each click of the imagined wheel twisting the room like a spiral until it snapped back into focus with a jarring normality that her stomach had not kept up with.

Wemly went to the mirror, and pulled her hair out of the way to examine the device. It sat as she imagined, still slowly pulsing with each breath, a phenomenon she tested by not breathing for a count of ten, and then slowly exhaling. Nothing seemed to have changed.

It was late, and she was tired, but the thrill of the unknown had Wemly wired. If she went to the lab now, maybe she could have an answer by morning of how the device worked. Or what it was for at the very least. She left the apartment in a hurry, forgetting her mitts and a scarf. She had imagined spending most of the winter with her laptop warming her legs, or under a blanket, or sitting next to a machine radiating heat in the lab, rather than making impulsive drives without pre-heating her car and having the lumpy fake leather of the seat chill and bite her thinly covered body.

The streets were mostly clear, and Wemly imagined her commute as a pleasant one if always undertaken after midnight. The stop lights and starry halos of street lamps and brake lights were like some painting that she was being brushed through, and she took it all in, the opposite of the tunnel vision that normally guided her to the lab. At the last light before she made the turn into the University complex, she saw a man pushing a hot dog cart.

He might have been closed, or Wemly had come at some lull between night activities that she wasn’t aware of. Night activities. How long had it been since she had gone out to someplace other than the lab? She hadn’t felt particularly hungry at home, but the idea of a warm hot dog and toasted bun instead of the icy steering wheel between her hands was enough for her to turn off into the empty parking lot of the all-night convenience store.

Wemly didn’t even need to get out of the car. A dreadlocked man, mostly hidden under a toque, leaned down to her open window.

“Watcha have?”

“Loaded.”

“Toasted?”

“Of course!”

The dog was in her hand, and then her mouth. The juices sprayed warmth that radiated to her entire body with each bite. She squeezed the bun, and the warm toppings oozed through the bread and between her fingers, and she swallowed, all time and cause forgotten. And then it was over. Wemly sat satisfied and stuffed, licking remnant grease and sauce from between her fingers. She tossed the last napkins to the pile of discarded wrappers that littered the passenger side floor, and backed her car out of the stall.