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Previously: Deshawn meets an old lady in the Ren Faire's forest. She seems to have clues as to where Deshawn's parents might be.
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gender-fluid internet Obama reggaeton
He repeated his mantra as he followed the gypsy to her shack. She creaked open the door, which wasn't much more than a few slats of wood nailed together at different angles. Deshawn stood outside while the gypsy faded into the shack's murk.
"My, my, isn't it dark in here?" he heard her say. Then he heard the sound of a match being struck. A golden hue now emanated between the planks and sticks that made up the walls. "Come in, boy, come hither."
The image of a bony beckoning finger passed through his mind.
Deshawn took a step into the doorway. Then he stopped himself and averted his eyes. What the heck was he doing? Inside the shack were probably dozens of visual cues which could induce genre-possession: scrolls, tarot cards, potions, crystal balls, herbs, velvet curtains – that kind of stuff.
"Come boy, I'm receiving something, something from the ether. It's about your mother. I sense she is near."
"Where?"
"I know not. Draw nearer. Your presence is required to properly attune to her essence."
Deshawn steeled himself as best he could:
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He stepped in.
He was surprised at how bare the candlelit room was. It was small – hardly big enough to fit both him and the gypsy – and completely undecorated. There was only a table with a red sheet over it. On either side of the table were two rusty wrought-iron chairs. Wouldn't someone playing a gypsy at this festival have prepared something more elaborate?
Something was off. In his years of yearning to attend the RenFaire, Deshawn had read everything about it online. A lady like this one would have been trying to justify higher rates for "psychic readings" by decorating her shack. Maybe she was just well-known enough to do a more minimalist thing?
"I know it's austere," the woman said, sensing his line of thought. "But I am but a poor, old gypsy. Ah, here, I've found some incense." She lit it and the scent of jasmine filled the room. "That's better. Here, sit." She indicated one of the chairs.
Deshawn sat.
"Give me your hands."
"Why?"
"I need to know more about you in order to answer this question of yours. What was it again?"
"Where are my parents?"
"Yes, good. Your hands please, palms up."
Deshawn held out his palms.
The woman pulled them close to her. She closed her eyes and ran her thumbs along his hands. "Very interesting. Very interesting. You don't like being here, do you?"
Deshawn looked around the shack. The candle cast long shadows across the walls. "I mean, it's a little bit spooky here at night and all."
"You misunderstand me. You don't like being here. In the world. The world is a dangerous place for you."
He gulped. "Yeah, I mean, with Psi and everything––"
"No. You've been like this for years. Maybe for your entire life. What happened to you? What made you reject the entire world? Ah..." She seemed to find something new in his palm. "But that's not whole truth, is it? You're not like the others, are you? Most who reject this world block it out, numb themselves. You, on the other hand...you can't help but to take it all in. My, my, what a sensitive little boy you are. That must be very overwhelming."
Deshawn looked down. "Yeah. Yeah, it is." No one had ever noticed that about him before, except his gran.
"How lucky you are to have been deeply loved," she continued. "Very, very lucky. If not for that, wow, someone like you would not survive in this changed world. You would go mad. What a rare privilege."
Changed world? The phrase caught Deshawn's attention. Someone with Ren Faire genre-possession should have temporary amnesia about the Opening. Maybe she was referring to how this year's Ren Faire saw a level of craziness that was almost certainly unprecedented.
For a moment her eyes flicked open, wide with genuine shock. "What's this?" Her eyes closed again, straining with concentration. "My, my! I see...worlds. There are worlds inside you, boy. And yet you are outside of them. It is as if you've cut the whole world up and put it into little boxes. Like a vast cabinet of curiosities. How odd. What an interesting way of denying the world. I need to know more. Tell me."
No adult had ever been interested in his maps. "I like to make maps of things," he said. "Like, of memeplexes."
"Memeplexes?"
"Yeah, like subcultures and political ideologies and genres and stuff. I make maps of them."
"Really?"
"Oh, religions too. And art movements."
"Tell me more. About these memeplexes. I sense they are important to you."
"A memeplex is like – I don't know, I forget the technical definition. I sort of just know one when I see it. It's like a bunch of interconnected beliefs and behaviors and ways of dressing and stuff like that. Diets, how you talk – stuff like that. Social structures too, like who gets to be on top and who does what. Actually that jester guy before – I don't know if you were there or not..."
The woman fluttered her eyelash extensions. "I was...and yet I was not."
Typical cryptic gypsy stuff. Anyway, Deshawn had more to say:
"Yeah so the jester guy...he was actually talking a lot about this type of thing. Memeplexes. Who does what roles and whatnot. Anyway, there are actually a lot of memeplexes we don't even have a name for. There are a bunch that we don't even have a metacategory for. Like, for example, I've noticed a bunch of dating subcultures on the apps that don't have names yet. Like, ways people write dating profiles with long sentences and wear certain shapes of eyeglasses. They don't seem to fall into any existing classification. The dating subcultures, I mean. I don't date or anything like that. I'm just on the apps to see what's going on."
Stolen novel; please report.
"Hmmm, indeed."
"But yeah, I was making maps like this since I was 12, but they've become a lot more interesting now, obviously. You know, with, like, all these new memeplexes popping up. And how cultures are acting more like people now. I mean, they were always acting sort of like people. But cultures acts like people even more now, if you catch what I mean, like they have mind of their own, and–– Yeah."
Deshawn cut himself off. He was rambling like that falcon guy from earlier.
"These maps..." said the woman, "They must help you navigate, yes? Give you trailmarks amidst the overwhelm of the world, yes? What a clever way to tame it."
"Uh, it's just my hobby, I guess."
"No, young lad. It is your destiny."
Oh no. Here we go, thought Deshawn.
But of course this was coming. Ever since he'd been assigned the role child of prophecy at the stake, the RenFaire wasn't going to let him escape without granting him a quest. Might as well let it happen.
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...he continued to repeat in his head. He didn't want to go crazy while the gypsy revealed his "destiny."
"Does my 'destiny' have anything to do with finding my parents."
"Oh yes, their fates and yours are intimately intertwined. As are the fates of all of us, all beings of this earth. These maps you make...yes, they do are part of something greater. Much greater."
He knew he should just play along. Instead he found himself saying, "I don't know about that. It's more just like a stamp collector situation. I'm just another hobbyist. I think of myself as being like those guys who just edit Wikipedia all day."
"But these maps...they have given you a rare view. A profound view. The view from above! No. That is your problem. You seek to be above. Instead you must seek the view from between. The view which is at once between and within."
"I don't entirely get what you're saying but I think you might have the wrong guy. I just kinda live my life, you know?"
"Yes, indeed! You 'just live your life' as you say. You do not aspire. You do not strive to fulfill the role of a hero, nor any role at all! It has been said that the emancipator shall be known not by their words, but by their way of being. It has been foretold!"
"My way of being is literally to just sit in my room in front of my computer all day and sometimes play guitar."
"This computer – is it some sort of sorcerous artifact?"
"Uh, sorta. It's––"
"Shh!" Urgently she held one hand to her temple. "I am receiving something from the outer realms. I must read the signs..." She took out a few twigs from a fold in the rags covering her body and scattered them across the table. "Very interesting.... Yes.... Yes! I see it now. This computer...it is a very powerful instrument for a wizard such as thee. Tell me, this artifact, does it connect its wielder to the world as a whole?"
"Mm, yeah actually, pretty much. Like, through the Internet. I use it to do my memeplex research, and to build my maps and all."
"Yes, this implement has great power. And you are a powerful wielder of it. A power user!"
Wait––did the old lady just make a computer joke? That shouldn't be possible if she was genre-possessed. Unless...
The old woman snapped in front of his face. "Your full presence is required for this message. It is the most important message you shall receive today. Do I have your attention?"
The woman caught him with her eyes. He felt that he could tumble into them forever.
Deshawn shook his head:
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The scent of jasmine filled his nose. Suddenly, its smoke felt suffocating.
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The woman did something with her hand. Her eyes were unblinking. "Hear me, young man. For your quest is knocking. And you must open the door." Her pupils seemed to grow and grow. Deshawn felt some force working its way into him through shared mindspace.
"Please stop," he said.
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"This computer – it connects you to the realm while it also disconnects you. It has swallowed you. The pulse of earthly connection can only be pointed to by our tools. You have followed the pointing. And so now you must commune with the world raw, unadorned by the blemish of words, unmarred by the veils of our contrivances. It cannot be known through maps; it can only be experienced as territory, through the felt textures of of its soil. Yea, one's hands must become filthy with its soil."
Deshawn tried to concentrate on his own thoughts:
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Hm. These sounds in his mind...what did they mean? Their rhythm was compelling. Jen-dur floo-id inturnet O bamma reg-a-tuhn.
Then some part of Deshawn realized his error: he'd forgotten to fill in the words of his extreme modernity mantra with content. Now they were just sounds without meaning. Ut oh.
He focused whatever remained of his will on resisting whatever this gypsy lady was trying to put inside him.
"Now, boy," the woman held out a necklace with a pendant, "Take this magic amulet. Wear it."
"No!"
"This world you reject...which you think has rejected you. This world...it needs you. Nay – it wants you. Your fellow souls in this realm...you want them too, but you don't yet know it. Yea, you are too too cowed by their shadows to see their light. Too frightened by their thorns to see the rose.
"Will you drift through the mists of caution your entire life? Will you not thrive within the dance of the flame, the heart of the storm, the ocean both serene and tumultuous?"
"OK yeah I get the metaphors, can you please stop."
The old woman paused. "All right, fine. I'm bored by them too, tbh."
Deshawn blinked. Tbh? It was an acronym, and definitely not one from medieval Europe.
"Just let me give you one more thingy, OK?" The old woman raised one hand in a spell-casting gesture – or, rather: a gesture meant to make him believe she was casting a spell.
Deshawn mentally pressed against it. "Where. Are. My. Folks?" he strained out.
"God damn, kid, you're stubborn. What kind of teen turns down a grand destiny? And––ugh, how do women wear these – they're so uncomfortable." The old woman pulled off each of her false lashes.
But this person was neither old nor a woman.
As St Lenny rubbed off his mascara, St Lenny realized that his costume hadn't even been very convincing to begin with. Hadn't he had a bunch of wrinkles though? No, the guy's face had been the same the entire time. How had Deshawn fallen for it?
"Here's the thing, Deshawn––"
"How do you know my name?"
"Oh, your momma wouldn't stop hollering it: 'Deshawn! Deshawn! Bring me my boy, you fuckers!' Golly, the mouth on that lady!" St Lenny straightened his spine. He began to unbury himself from his costume's rags. In mindspace, Deshawn felt as if St Lenny was a snake shedding a used-up layer of skin. "I told your momma, 'We don't have him. Your kid is too good at escaping.' Little did I know how true that was...in more ways than one! Yes, little did I know..." he said, seeming to swirl the words on his tongue.
Deshawn stood from his chair. "What do you want from me?"
St Lenny looked up at him. "Isn't it obvious?"
"No."
"I already told you. I want you to fulfill your destiny."
"I'm not interested in your ideas about what I should do with my life."
"That's the thing – me neither. You shouldn't let anyone dictate your destiny. That's a recipe for ugliness. But you know what's even more ugly? Someone who is doing everything in his power to avoid his destiny. Yuck!"
Deshawn cycled through his maps. What cult did this guy belong to? What ideology was he trying to impose? If Deshawn could figure that out, he might be able to get a handle on this situation.
"It's not about a set of ethics, kid. It's a sense of aesthetics. I can't stand to see what you're doing to yourself. To watch a kindred spirit twist himself up so tightly. It's just so...unsightly!"
"Get out of my head!" Deshawn found himself yelling.
"Oi, I got him to bark! Well that's a step in the right direction. I'll try not to take too much credit. Oh! But maybe...maybe I should! Hm. You know what you might need, D?"
"No!"
"You need...a lifecoach! A mentor! Hey, don't take this the wrong way, but I'm looking at you right now and...well, you're just not gonna get there on your own. I can't let you stay locked in your room with your little compooter, being all sad and unpotentialized. I just can't. And by that I mean I won't. Here, take this amulet," he held out the necklace again, "It will help us keep in touch."
"I'm not going to take your amulet."
"Wow you're really not gonna let me help, are you? Hm, a pickle...." St Lenny pounded the table then pointed at him. "Say, let's cut a deal."
"No deal! Give me my parents back!"
"But you haven't even heard the terms! The terms are as follows: As your new lifecoach, I get what I want: to watch you become great beyond your pea-sized imagination. And in return, you get what you want. You parents will be free to go. Physically speaking."
"Physically speaking?"
"Yes. The rest will be up to you."
Deshawn thought back to the scene in the clearing. The arrow poking a hole in that man's neck. Blood gooping out. The longer he stalled the bigger the chance that something like that might happen to his parents.
"Fine, whatever!" he shouted. "Just tell me what you want me to do!"
St Lenny grinned. "Just one thing: Open your mind."
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Read ahead at Psychofauna.com