Deep Pression Artist

By Travis Lewis

Julien feels confusion when waking with no warmth in his bed. Freya was supposed to be there because earlier they fell asleep together, and this is where the story begins.

Freya is the daughter of John. John is the owner of the nameless corporation, which has more than ninety percent of their city-state's wealth. The city-state their country, which in turn owns most of the world's resources in other lands. John is even a minor character, in a maze of persons and leaders he does not know, and they run his actions as invisible board members. Freya wants to change the entire dynamic of the city-state, and that is when Julien must decide whether she or the state should be followed, as he searches for her in the middle of the night.

DEEP PRESSION ARTIST centers around one simple conflict: the individual or their or ideals.

• Language: English
• Publisher: A New Word
• Release date: Dec 1, 2019
• ISBN: 9781393075493

Book preview

1

There are no trees, so wind sways instead of leaves as many things slide across the street as signs of the city. Ahead of him high in the sky the city buildings fly in the skynight. The tall buildings and every other thing stand over the people who try to motion feelings in themselves, and then to let those feelings out as a world while under the tall buildings which stare down at them.

On the avenue. On his right, bags sit against a wall waiting to be picked up, while a sweep of wind walks trash on his shoe. Anyone seeing the useless on each corner would think to themselves there too many things scattered. Too much here and over there and everywhere.

Julien. Under the tall buildings sights the street and the many cars and many shops and stores scattered on every side. He stares from the middle of the street {at the center of many cars passing him} as headlights flame his eyes. He sees the night lit drive of the road run forever as the cars go by and think to where his feet further him down the line of traffic sights.

__________________________

Julien mixes into the many faces who are a friction for each other. They knock elbows, or shove shoulders, even clap full contact into one another as two hands do when slapping. It could have been football. Inside the mall he knows a few of the workers and they know him. The workers can’t smile, although a woman attempts a smile, but then gives up grimacing.

There too much movement. Every person around him tries to get to someplace. He isn’t sure, even if all of them had ten thousand years would be able to figure out where to, and there is the pain, the not knowing; the not seeing; and the reasons for not being able to cohere either.

He stands in the center of the many to figure out for them where they are going.

Going into work, a voice. Here . . . You know who I am.

What are you doing, Julien finding a man behind him, and winces, as though to see him better or as if his eyes sting from the sight of him.

So you do know me.

You know I do.

Julien points to the ground, Why are you here.

The man steps closer to him, What. Did she tell you to be angry with me.

Julien turns away toward two white doors. Never mind.

Do you know where she is.

Julien turns, staring at the man. Do you.

I wouldn’t be asking you if I did.

Then there is no point; is there? for us to be speaking.

On the other side of the white doors some security guards are on break. Others are working, grabbing coffee, and others cookies, which are on a table next to the wall. Another set, watch video monitors showing the huge mall, sitting in chairs; one of them a woman looking away from the monitor to Julien, coffee in her hand, steam-white-rising from her black cup.

She stares back at the monitor, as she drinks the steam from her cup.

You said you weren’t coming. Why you here, she talks into her cup of steam.

Has Freya come in.

You can tell her if you ever see her, she no longer works here.

Julien turns to walk right out the two white doors he came through.

And we need you to get extra hours tonight, cup near her mouth; eyes on him.

Julien, I’m not repeating myself.

She raises her head away from the cup staring at him.

Do you know what’s been going on today.

No. Why would that matter.

It matters, her cup down on her knee. That parade going on at the center of the city is also getting into this mall. All day. These, she says, kids, want the whole metropolis dismantled, but not to be replaced by anything – no, but to disband altogether; say people will go right along without it. That everything will be okay after all the systems built go crumbling.

Julien. You said things were going bad here. In what way.

All day they have been coming in. First the younger ones, the teenagers, then the older and angrier ones, the twenty-somethings, and they come in yelling, brawling, stealing – but enough about that, what about you.

What are you talking about.

I’m asking. Is it good to leave systems. Should we get rid of it, and live in our shacks.

People wouldn’t even begin to know what to do after. That’s what I think. Is that enough of an answer.

She sips from the cup and stares at him. Her eyes seen but her mouth hidden behind the black cup. You know, if you refuse. To work I mean. I’m going to have to let you go. Since you’ve come in you have no reason not to be here, in her chair ready to take a last sip.

Julien doesn’t see her drink the last bit as she swallows the coffee from her cup.

He has seen it so many times before he can feel the way she does it. Practiced for many years in one way and so he starts to walk on easy and disappears out the two white doors.

As if he knows he will not need his cell phone ever again, drops it into the garbage as the doors close behind him.

Outside those two doors something strange happens over him:

The sky of the mall painted smoke: three cans flying: as gas sprays out from them in three curved lines as the cans fall down to the ground crashing. Screams rise from all sides in the street of the mall because the gas grows into a forest fire smoke. People run away from it. To it. Through it and all sides of it then coughing out the fumes because of the strength of it. Security guards run after three suspects who run toward Julien, and he watches, and never gets it in his mind that they should be stopped by him, and turns, making it easier for the three to get by. One security guard stares at him and tries to hit his shoulder into Julien. His entire body turns as though hitting his shoulder into a wall. Julien had seen his eyes, and readied himself.

The smoke curls. The white ribbons passing everyone. Julien does not cough or cry in it. It isn’t strong anymore. Behind him many people stare at the chase, and also behind him is that man from before, escaping the crowd of many faces, walking forward toward Julien, as the white lines of smoke surround the two men tying them together face-to-face.

It’s time for you to start listening to me, the man says.

Julien. Her disappearing. Doesn’t have anything to do with you does it.

You love my daughter.

Julien quiet, looking at him, feeling as though he should come closer to strangle him.

Then why? why are you looking for her, the man says.

Julien ignores him, watching people, where they have fallen to wait out the fumes.

Then Julien steps closer to him. Hear me. Her disappearing better not have anything to do with you. Because if it does, and if she is willing, I’m going to end this problem with you.

No threats please. The man raises his hand. They’re meaningless now. You need to get that. They have no weight; but what does have weight is what she’s told you – about me.

Worried.

No, but you should be worried.

I thought threats are meaningless now.

For me, but not for you. You should be careful now. You should be very careful, and if you find her you should get in contact with me. That won’t happen.

Julien turns and walks through the storm of people while the man talks on his phone speaking into it in a way funny. The man sweating, and the phone call doesn’t last, but the sweat stain stays on his face as he stares at Julien walking away. This man sights above him many faces on the second floor of the mall extending themselves over the railings to see. He feels the feeling of motion making sure his feet follow the path of the one man important.

The man follows Julien until the two of them through the glass doors of the mall.

Julien. Outside, in front of the doors, and lets out air from his mouth into the sky:

John, his voice a white wind as he talks, what are you doing.

I need you to know how serious this is.

So you’re going to follow me John, until I know how serious this is – is that it John.

No answer. Julien turns with his hands in his pockets and they look at each other. John. His hands at his sides with the one hand still holding the phone. Isn’t sweating anymore, drying, because of the cool air on the street and on the sidewalk wiping them, as those white wind breaths fly from Julien turning away again, standing there, facing and staring out at the street.

How about this. Don’t you follow me. You make me nervous.

Julien into the street and a wave of cars shine by and he disappears on the other side of the traffic. John. His thoughts in his face. He thinks real hard, then thinks some more, until his limo arrives stepping to it and then inside it, preparing a glass of scotch when his phone rings.

__________________________

In the light house the child’s eyes have and hold the night. Looking out the window from the third floor. Motion has stilled out there, but out there always alive to the eye. Julien on the street as the child follows the traces of this secret night man down there, and sees the stillness of the blacktrees, the branches hide the man for the moment, then he moves pass them over the street toward his tall house. The child feels something is wrong when the man looks up to him again, like earlier, but in no way can point to the wrong. Julien below has been seen many times, not a newcomer to this place, pacing down the road and turning back not wanting to go far or afraid to. The child walks out of the room and the little mind in the darkness pounds at thoughts to think out the problem, thinking the man a special figure like one reads in narratives.

Then a change runs through the child in the hallway. The house taps into tremors. But it is a trick. The shock not strong enough for an earthquake that takes people off their feet; so the child’s steps form into the steps of a mature person sure in their knowledge that they must find someone who can tell them what is happening and what to do.

In the parents’ room the parents stare. Their eyes wide and them motionless with much heavy breathing as though they are spent from running, and are tired, while the window lets a harsh amber light force itself inside into their room, covering the child, painted completely in the color gold, eyes on the parents’ who have and hold the whole of the outside with their eyes.

__________________________

Every time in the walk toward his house Julien would see it as too big and too grey and all too worthless under the moonlight. The wind no longer sways, no motioning, no waves of air, and everything external and internal to the house is stillness with no sound.

Upstairs in his room the television still on. He steps to the cabinet and holds the gun in his hands he wasn’t sure earlier he would need, but now, thinking it close to a necessity.

Screams. Out from the television screen. This time he watches and there are no threats; no stand-offs with the police; only a full on weapon to hand, hand-to-hand, nose to face brawl is televised from the very center of the city. Blood can be seen dropping from the faces of the people who fight officers and fight with the fervor of beast and the collective cohesion of a people stinking in fear, having no place to put it, so it makes them the more fierce or broken.

Julien turns toward darkness in his room, where the light of the television can’t reach, and lifts his gun to someone breathing – in that breath which tries to hide itself, becoming low, still, one with the night, but still heard. A dark shadow form of a man steps out, hands raised to his ears, How about, I just go along now. No harm between us; how about I just go.

In their positions they face each other ignoring the screams in the room. Both wait for that moment when something happens, when either or both of them mess up and then what comes next is irrevocable, which won’t and can’t be taken back because time works that way.

The stranger. I say again. How about you let me go here.

I don’t think so, stepping forward. Just the fact of you being here is a sure sign of someone who knows what’s going on. So I want to know what you know – Hey, stop moving.

The man moves toward the door. Can’t do that, got to go.

The man leans slowly away with the same pace Julien uses to get close and then Julien goes faster. Julien grabs him knowing as soon as he did that it a mistake. The gun out of hand with an invisible strike and falls to the darkness on the other side of the railing down somewhere to the first floor. They grab each other’s collars fighting into the wall then going the opposite way, breaking the railing fighting each other falling or trying to hurt each other in the air – Julien sees a lamp coloring his eyes from the window as their bodies strike the ground.

One man gets up and tries to get away:

He stops because the other man holds him: he hits the man with his knees, one to the stomach, and another to the groin and then up to the face and makes the second man fall. The other man closer to the ground, elbows the standing man in the stomach and tackles him, breaking them both through the closet door in the hallway into black: the only light in here is the shadows outside the door frame where the door used to be with its broken-wood-edges.

They are on the floor with shoes and clothing in their faces as the intruder feels the distance between them and strikes his foot to the spot: the kick hits chest and pounds Julien’s back into the wall, then the intruder uses one hand to rise up, turning the other into a fist, drops a strike hard into Julien’s head. His head hitting the floor. On the floor he feels like there are five of him and they move through each other, as he views the intruder run out the closet into the hallway and out the back door. Julien feels the gun under him. Grabbing it. Flying to the back for the man running over dirt and grass. Julien full force exits the door and then jumps to the grass ground, but his feet do not make it. His eyes see each thing turn yellow, his back shoved hit by a much bigger body and he flying forward as his head and chest fist the dirt. He is blind a moment feeling warm liquid leave his head covering his face as his eyes blink from the dirt in them. He turns lying on his back viewing up. The house transformed to fire: wide as the house and to the height of the black heaven. A great wave of smoke pushing out on all sides riding air. Julien feels and becomes one with the many eyes of spectators viewing from miles around onto something like none of them had ever seen before. He lays there and stares at the flames.

FROM THE BEGINNINGS PART I

For us, this is a moment before.

Before ash and rain sand. In the middle of a desert landscape, all over the place, as we soldiers surround a woman at the center of the vehicle.

Her shawl on wrong.

It bothers her and she asked earlier if she could or if we would fix it. None of us could. Because of the grey haired Major set quiet as a mean stranger at the front right of the jeep.

So, she sits as a woman would after asking too many questions and afraid of too many beatings if she continued. I stare at her, and become mean and angry inside for no true reason. Haven’t any reasons to be angry. But that cloth, that shawl on her, bothers me. This group earlier said there wasn’t anything wrong with it. I knew. She did too. We all knew and could see very clearly that, that, wasn’t the truth. Hadn’t been true since we left the detention facility.

The sunshine from the windshields cut my eyes white. The sharp lines of light in my eyes sit everywhere and on everything when I look at them, even on the body of the Major.

The Major from his seat stares at me. Something wrong with you. You have some issue need tending to.

I’m silent staring at him. My head down but my eyes on his eyes, while wishing for a cigarette, and grab at my pocket to get one. Then I stop, remembering I quit. I ease my hand on my thigh while I view the eyes watching me. There’s always a problem, here, with you.

Some soldier from the circle grips his gun and turns his head to me burning.

You better stop that lieutenant.

The Major looking outside. You might, want to consider over what you’ve just said.

I already understand myself perfectly. I look at the soldiers: Hey. I quit smoking yesterday. But all of a sudden I’m feeling a need for it. I point. How about you?

You not getting anything from me.

The Major. Sure he is. Your fellow soldier is losing his mind. Better give him that cigarette – and if you say sir anything, it better be ‘yes sir’. The soldier was about to speak up and against, until the Major said, ‘and if you say sir anything,’ stopping him from siring the Major. Instead he gazes at me, and then his pocket, picking at the pocket with a finger as if to stall, then he realizes he is on a time limit – the Major counting – and throws the pack to me.

Need a lighter too.

The soldier stares at me, YOU Shut up. Give him it, the Major who stares at him to make the man understand there isn’t any jesting in the order.

He throws the lighter. I catch it and hold it up to him, I’m not giving this back.

His eyes go down, and away, and then he looks out the window near him.

The Major. So light up. Feel good. And tell me what you’re so rotten about.

The light from the windows hurt our eyes and we blink from the pain. I play with one cigarette and play a long time and look at it and turn it in the light from the windows.

Firing the cigarette makes me tighten my eyelids, the smoke rises into my eyes and then away from them and smoke the walls and the soldiers as I turn to her and think to do something.

And then something comes to me from some distant somewhere.

The surprise. Isn’t my hand in reach, over to her. Or the silence, when fixing her shawl. But how gentle I am in doing it. Delicate. As a lost lover would when coming home. Everyone. Including her, including me, have eyes for the occasion, staring, as the sun lights my fingers.

She sees my face and then stares around to the uncomfortable soldiers.

. . . ashes to ashes, dust to dust . . .

The jeep lifts in the air as an explosion blazes our listening and fire fires and the vehicle veers to the left in the air and affirms into the floor and crashes into the sand and the front glass shatters sweeping in the sand from the desert with everything inside warm from the fire.

I held her and free her standing and aid her out of the vehicle. Sand everywhere snaking the floor and in many long lines following the wind.

I close my eyes and the sand from the floor stings me in the face. I open my eyes and the woman in front of me stares at me. The shawl covers her head her features gone except for her mouth, nose, and eyes, as the sun burns her into light blinding her out. Lucky no scars.

I watch my feet and the heat of the wind rub blows over the sand into tides and curl coils the sand into circles surrounding us as a tornado, as she covers her eyes with two hands.

Why.

I cover my face and I can’t see her as she asks.

Just thought it the right thing; that’s all. No more of a reason than that.

Against your own, she questions my answer through the sand spraying on us.

She covers her eyes with one hand and the second hand points.

Together we view more soldiers like me. Crawling out and away from the jeep. Black fire with black smoke rising as the fire and the smoke clears in the wind.

Don’t think we should wait any longer, I start walking. She already walking and sighting the horizon. She looks back at me and then stares at the wall of the sun in front of us.

Don’t, she says. Don’t understand. I don’t understand what you are doing.

You know exactly what I’m doing. You’re the one, who . . .

She stares back at me. When you were interrogating me.

I look back at the soldiers, but where the vehicle lay, the men are no longer there.

The men have spread away from it and choose us as their target.

We need to keep going, I look forward. But. I don’t know where we can go.

We’re a few miles away from an old city, she stares at where we will run. Like a ghost town. It is like that, but ancient. We’re going in that direction.

Behind us the soldiers jog. So we quicken our walk into a slow run.

Are you sure this city is over there.

I’m very sure. Not sure about the distance, but it is no more than twenty miles. Her mouth open for breathing. We won’t make it without water though.

I have some, as I look back: and it’s late in the afternoon.

Traveling a small mountain layered a smooth substance feeling like cake crushed under our feet. We go fast the whole way up to keep the distance and she stays equal and even ahead of me; and given our speed, I think it possible we will keep from facing them for a while.

I am sure though: that won’t last. No doubt in me that even if we don’t get to that lost city the time will come when I’ll have to face something against me and see what can be done.

__________________________

I can imagine what they do, what they are doing. They glare, as we are beyond them. They call to each other using words to force themselves to go faster and get closer to the two people far off. In front is the leader. Of a grey peppered hair and a bulk of shoulders which would make any younger man worried and readied in mind just in case this older soldier decided to shrug.

He spits then gathers into the movement of his soldiers, who lack features and proportions, in a skip across the desert to get to where they’re going. The Major looks around himself noticing his soldiers in movement – shaped a curved crescent – and thinks and stay thinking of all he would do when it came time to do so. When it will be time to put hands on that idiot and conjure up everything he will want to do and be able to do to them to the fullest.

The sand doesn’t quit and the slowing doesn’t come while each muscle which works burns. Everyone understands clearly this ruining in their legs belong to everyone running, whether here or up there, where the two of them try hard to keep the distance distant.

One soldier slows and bends to one knee.

I’m sure for now this is the end of everything I can imagine:

That the others still fly over the horizon with the horizon bright with the slow descent of the sun. The two ahead of the team – the wrong soldier and the prisoner girl – seem to swim in the sun. Its light. That soldier on his knee fiddles with something, working some kind of communicator as he peers at these two separate teams – one at the rear, the other further ahead – and they fly fly high and hard as birds skipping water to strike the bronze of the sky.

__________________________

Is it fair? for me to be starving and then have before me something I desperately do not want to eat. In this cafeteria me at a long table, something brown smashed, something green splattered, and something blue melded with a plop on top sits there – all the very worse colors for food in combination. A very horrible thing when looking at food hungry and not wanting to eat it. One of the most horrible feelings of all. I’m not even sure if those colors are real.

I ready myself to eat it when the facility trembles.

Some soldiers walk in for the uglied meal. I touch the meal with my tongue before giving up and about the floor comes another set of soldiers.

On my left the windows are scarred desert sounds.

Everything out there a fog.

Confusion, many shades of brown. The shades swim