Episode 71 - Effect Part 1

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Welcome back to the podcast, to a glimpse of a world that maybe should have been forgotten. But what is it to forget something? It means the record no longer includes that entry, right? The title or name is lost to time, and we think that’s all that matters. We think that specific detail is so important that it is the end all, be all. We think that’s all that matters. We focus on that and what it means for us and how it relates to our own fears about our cosmic insignificance. Our vision narrows in on that specific thing. That’s all we can think about. That’s all we can dwell on. And while we fixate on those more obvious facts, other details fall away. Namely, the effects. The title or name of something is removed, but it forever haunts the ledger through the actions that it undertook, the effects that it had. Those are there, and so it is there forgotten or not.

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There was an unmistakable tension in the air, a thickness that made it hard to breathe. Jade did not seem to react to it. Her face remained as blank as it had always. But the world around her began to twist. Once straight lines began to bend as if they were starting to buckle under the weight of the moment, of the heaviness in the air. 

The woman remained in the doorway, scowling. The lines of her face digging themselves in deeper with every passing moment. The anger that radiated off of her seeped in through the screen, reaching out into the audience, to the viewer, to the children sitting on the other side with a distressing sort of ease. Time and place would caution against such a thing. But she didn’t care. Would any character in the worst sort of stories care about how they are perceived to that silent and distant audience?

If they knew they were in a story, of course. That’s the sort of thing a character never finds out. It’s not like anybody really knows when they are in a story. That’s not the sort of thing someone can predict.

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It’s not that everything is connected, but… Well, the butterfly effect was a super popular… pop culture thing a couple of years ago, right? But if you missed it, the butterfly effect is this idea that small things–like the flap of a butterfly’s wing–can influence whether or not a storm develops on the other side of the country. But the butterfly is never noted in the history books. It can’t be. How is anyone supposed to know about it?

Or another example. In theory, the coffee I poured myself this morning will affect whether or not I get the job I interviewed for later in the afternoon. But that one makes sense. Coffee can make or break someone’s day. It can change the way I am perceived by giving me something to be happy about or it can give me the worst possible start to the day, ruining my mood for all who meet me later. We understand that causality, that relationship. We’ve experienced it for ourselves.

But what about all those we haven’t seen or known? The schematics and frameworks that make up the world around us but remain out of our sight. What about them?

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The woman shifted her weight from foot to foot. Her eyes were staring at Wyatt. Her focus was locked onto him, specifically the back of his head as his eyes scanned each inch of the room for something, anything. His goal or target was not conveyed in the silent darts of his eyes, but they could be assumed. After all, he was easing himself close to the chair, to the small square of cloth left on the arm rest of that chair as if its owner had just stepped into the other room and would be back any time now.

The silence between them continued on, thickening the air and worsening the twisting of the world. The thick miasma could not be contained by the television screen or anything, really. And yet, Wyatt was so distracted by something else that he couldn’t see it.

Meanwhile, Jade looked about, searching almost desperately for something to do, something she could do to make the situation better. Not that she really knew what better would be, per se. She was just searching for something different. Because different had to be better. That’s how bad it all was.

All the while, Jade clutched her marker in her hand. It was the same one that had revived the wagon wheel, that had given her a sense of agency in the first place. But that feeling of power and indestructibility was gone now. In its place, there was just the emptiness, a sense of dread, weakness seeping into her body and forever influencing who she would be.

(Music fades out and new music fades in) 

Can you forget something you’ve never known? Those hidden mechanisms and structures that you never even saw? I guess, you wouldn’t know if you’ve forgotten them. But then again, if you never really knew them, are you even forgetting? 

That shifts power away from you, doesn’t it? It takes you away from all that. It takes so much from you, and yet, it leaves you there. You are still there, drifting in the winds, once butterfly wings yourself, now something wholly unrecognizable. 

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“How did the two of you meet?” Wyatt asked.

The moment had dragged on so long that someone else might have forgotten what the conversation was or had been about. The pretenses of the moment might have slipped away. That common ground that brought them together crumbling to dust. The man they had once held in common, now gone for all time. It was as if he had already been… Well, not wiped away from the record. But the page had been turned. The conversation had moved on, and he couldn’t follow it. Death will do that to you.

The woman, however, didn’t miss a beat. 

“We were set up,” she said. “By my brother.”

“Oh?” Wyatt replied..

It was hard to know the full breadth of thoughts that were swirling in his head. His reaction was there, present beneath the surface, but it was carefully masked. 

The woman noticed. She had her own thoughts, but they were also carefully hidden, obscured deliberately and as a part of her quest for control. So she only nodded, confirming what she had already said and giving nothing else away. Wyatt would have to offer more in exchange.

“How did they meet?” he asked. 

Another question. At the surface that didn’t betray anything, but it suggested interest, investment, care and for the woman, that was enough.

“Through work,” she said.

No specifics and most of all, no love. 

(Music fades out and new music fades in)

I am okay with being forgotten. But what would I be taking with me? Unwritten stories, yes. I have many ideas. Hundreds of ideas. It’s the opposite of writer’s block, and it’s a different sort of curse, I have to say because I doubt that I’ll get to everything on my mind before my inevitable end. It’s alla question of logistics, really. One idea is acted upon and four more rise to take its place in the inventory of my head. The math does not work out in my favor. 

But those are the fictional ones. What about the structures I can see, the ones that other people don’t? What about the butterfly wings I know about? How can I take those with me? I shouldn’t. I know as much. And I have some time, although no one ever really knows how much. I know so very little 

But I also know that wasn’t the point of this show, this season, this anything. 

But I can’t bring myself to say anything else until I say that. So what else am I supposed to do?

(Music gradually fades out)

Aishi Online is a production of Miscellany Media Studios. It is written, produced, performed, and edited by MJ Bailey with music from the Sounds like an Earful music supply. If you like the show, please leave a review, tell a friend, or post about it on some mysterious online forum. You do you.