Photo: © Depositphotos.com/olly18
Written by JR Walsh
JR received the art above as part of Volume Ten, “The Challenge Edition,” in which contributors selected art for each other. He used it as the basis of his work.
“The jar was round upon the ground
And tall and of a port in air.
It took dominion everywhere.”
— “Anecdote of the Jar,” Wallace Stevens
It is significant that past tense will be used in this report.
All subjects were sentient. One subject was humanoid. Male pronouns have been assigned without consent of or discussion with the humanoid subject. Other subjects have not been assigned gender pronouns, but due to the sentience of other subjects, avoidance of most pronouns has been undertaken within this report and analysis. All subjects were placed in a jar. The jar was placed on seemingly endless sand. The sand was ashy with occasional flecks of coral. Cloudy swirls of peekaboo blue sky approached the sand in thick wisps. The horizon was elusive, untrustworthy.
Day One
The humanoid subject was clothed in stylish garments. A collared tunic. A denim pant-legged bottom. Both underfootwear and outerfootwear were provided. The clothing was judged nearly fashionable in its style. This was an approximation due to budgetary constraints and the judgment was based upon subjective opinion. One may seek to quibble over whether the styles were in fashion. The staff certainly did, hence the application of suffix -ish upon “stylish.” Members of the staff have argued for and against quotes and/or italics to appear on or around the word in all usages.
There was considerable question as to the relevance of these disagreements. The continuing discord escalated into what may be described somewhere on a continuum from donnybrook to melee. However, no one could argue with the ample injuries and minor bloodletting. These results were documented with holographic recordings. The recordings will soon be available for a nominal fee.
In a world which is post-scientific method, there is no control.
Day Two
Sleeves were added to the tunic as a peace offering. The staff agreed this was agreeable. The humanoid subject didn’t exhibit any signs of disturbance, nor did the garments. Unity was apparent. This evidence was anecdotal, but unanimous. Even with the most advanced models and calculations, quantification of an intangible like unity was impossible. The humidity and temperature of the jar enclosure were unaffected by the tailoring. Jars have been known to communicate in language patterns through condensation. The lack of comment was interpreted as neither positive nor negative.
An absence of light was added, thus sky and sand were erased.
The humanoid subject cycled through all five stages of sleep thirteen times. His breathing and bodily rhythms were within norms. In the twenty-four hour span, the subject and attached garments turned a full revolution four times. The torso of the subject tossed a maximum of thirty centimeters seventeen times. Eyes were opened fully thrice. This coincided with unscheduled full brightness checks outside the jar. It must be noted that the first was accidental. The subsequent checks were borne of research curiosity and the last two involved a strobing on/off on/off on/off pattern. After sixteen or forty minutes, the humanoid subject reached the final stage of Rapid Eye Movement again. A sun that rises and sets may be considered to test the myth of the circadian rhythm.
Most sweat glands and their need for expression had been neutralized by trained technicians using approved procedures. Ceruminous glands appeared non-responsive to treatment. These results may have affected hearing which, in this environment, should not be an obstacle. The ear wax was abundant and lavalike. The cocktail of synthetic depressants might have needed an adjustment, but Day Twos are chock full of possibilities. For a complete list of humanoid neutralizations, including nutrition and excretion, see Appendix 1: Ain’t No Worries.
The garments were wicking the less viscous substances, but have also provided at least one surprise. A ball of lint rolled out of a trouser pocket. The cause could not be determined, but the humanoid was scratching his crotch repeatedly during sleep. Alas, if speculation is half the battle, what is the other half?
Day Three
On the third day he rose again, and so did his garments. The humanoid subject breathed from his diaphragm like a singer. Sometimes from his chest like in a terrible children’s chorale. The garments had taken to mimicking him. Possibly mocking him.
Instead of the rhythmic raising and lowering of the abdomen and torso, all garments began raising and lowering themselves in other bodily areas, giving him bulging biceps, swollen kneecaps, bellbottom pants, and an awkward crotch. Subtle manipulation of the garments’ fibers allowed for micro-inflations that provided textural differentiation. Hence, the topography could be manipulated to resemble pimples or veins or animatedly lapping oceanic waves, full moon neap tides, and an overwhelming tsunami. Though the staff had been instructed not to personify or make metaphors of these sentient garments, we concluded that humor is not limited to the humanoid. The ratio of puffy crotch time to all other inflated areas was five to one. All stitches were loosening and several had begun to unravel, joining the lint in textile tumbleweeds that began to fill up the jar floor.
“Gaaharh. Crrrpk.” It had become significant that words had not been installed for the humanoid subject. His eyes watered, skin wrinkling hard then going as wide as dairy cows on ketamine. (This was a staff-beloved observation done in this very same facility.) His unsettled discomfort would be even more apparent in that night’s recorded dreams which were, like his body, drenched in sweat and tears.
Among the staff of five, our levels of passive aggression were within norms – until they weren’t.
Management found that Observers worked better using employee codes instead of names, and even better still when provided with free Ketamilk. We had all agreed to use codes, but nobody did for 7130. He was always Rod, and we all emphasized his name enough to sprout a second syllable. Rod was convinced that all of his coworkers (including 4pp*, 3Q90, 225oh, and 5000) had it in for him. He also believed we were being observed, but he wouldn’t say by whom in case they were listening.
Day Four
The humanoid subject was, according to archival images and in scientific terms, the spitting image of 7103, our colleague Rod from fifteen, even twenty years ago. Hair that grew like wildfire, coiffed into a helmet for doing battle with corporate investors. His sleepy eyes had not a trace of disappointment or of lessons learned from mistakes. When he looked at something, he saw profit and possibility. His rosy skin was smooth as a stolen baby. Other Rod had the slight hunch of the sedentary ruling class, a curvature in his spine that made everyone look the other way on his nose which, head-on, leaned left. Original Rod still had that nose, but all the other physical details had grown ramshackle, patchy, baggy, or straight up fallen out.
The humanoid subject whom we probably should never have named Other Rod wouldn’t ever know the privileged fate of deterioration.
In the jar, in full absence of light, with maximum sedation, Other Rod was dreaming. In his dream he was reading a book. This was a problem.
Other Rod was not equipped with language learning capability. Not only did he have zero vocabulary, he was not mentally equipped to recognize written textual characters or even make associative sensory imprints from experience. The staff expected that he would either like or not like each personal experience to which he was subjected. We liked to think of our research as “Liking This or Liking That More.” Everything we did was rooted in the ipsative, the forced choice. It was the only method I’d ever used at this facility, so it didn’t help explain how or why Other Rod would have conjured “reading a book” in his dreams. Extrapolation was a dangerous omen. Literacy was worse.
The book idea must have been planted by the garments, if you could even call them that anymore.
The tunic was little more than a sleeveless halter bearing an increasing amount of Other Rod’s midriff and the denim pants had given way to short-shorts. No one could remember why these were called Daisy Dukes, though we all remembered that they were. The memory gaps of the staff seemed to be on an upswing. This conversation happened more than once a day. “What happened yesterday?” “It doesn’t matter, we recorded it.” “We can replay if necessary.” That conversation has already been written down three times, but edited out three times.
The unravelled textiles swirled about the floor of the jar and occasionally up along the curved sides of the vessel. They put on quite a show. Were they trying to communicate with each other in the various languages of their origin? No one in the lab had checked the origins of the garments, but Bangladesh and Moldova were thrown around as possibilities. The characters didn’t even look like letters; perhaps they were zeros and ones in a different code.
Finally, the twists and knots of former clothing fibers formed what twenty percent of us recognized as English:
AllThingsAllive–Spinoza.
One out of five of the staff can read cursive. The rest of us would have missed the joke completely. Spindozers had recently become an indispensable machine for putting people to sleep. Recent studies show that every household had at least one, and in a post-opioid society most of our relief stemmed from this kind of machine. As they say, though, laughter is the best medicine. Spinoza! Allive!
We laughed and laughed at the lack of accurate spellings. Some of us may have declared, “Stupid Garments! They all spall awfall.” We thought if we owned these sentient garments we’d declare that we’d been ripped off and hang really nasty comments all around the town square. And then we’d misspell those!
Our hysterics were so intense, we almost forgot about dealing with the whole book-in-the-dream fiasco. Rod sprinted into the guest lavatory swearing because he’d pissed himself laughing. This was highly irregular, since the remainder of the staff had our waste neutralizers firmly engaged whenever we were at work. Excretion breaks were from another generation, but Rod was looking rather oldentimey, especially compared to the Other Rods.
Other Other Rods were exactly what would kill Other Rod’s illicit dreams of literacy. “A jar is no place for uprising.” A digital projection with this slogan was a good reminder to us all. This statement projected on the back of the door as soon as it closed behind us. We could not figure out where the projector was, but we were always reminded of our duty as employees and patriots.
Rod was missing it, having snuck out probably to change into clean pants. The quashing had begun.
First the humanoid holograms – simulacra created in the image of Other Rod – were installed outside the jar. Each of these Other Other Rods was visibly unhappy with a book in their hands – the very same tome from Other Rod’s dreams copied in exquisite celestial detail as if by monks. The OORs sat, stood, lie propped upon an elbow, and dangled in the crook of a sycamore tree, all reading, all of them miserable with tears or furious scowls. Then a giant hammer crushed one and then another until they were all sticky, red messes of mucus and blood – little wet piles of holographic innards. Though the pre-loaded program wasn’t our design, word around the office was that the viscosity was created from images ketchup or catsup (no one could remember which) that, when added to actual human snot, would provoke the right response in an observer. There was much retching, dry heaves for days. Or what seemed like days.
Other Rod’s nausea was tempered chemically. His heaves erased with the light. Thanks to an increase in his sedatives he fell into sleep right away, though he woke up screaming several times and did not achieve a full sleep cycle more than once. Other than the image of striking hammers, there were no dreams worth reporting. Brain activity does not guarantee a narrative.
Day Five
They didn’t observe Day Five. The absence of light around them remained. It was evening or else they were mourning the day in black. If they’d had clocks, those too would have been smashed.
A battle in the observation chamber caused the destruction of the previous days’ recordings. Mortality was also an issue, the punishment for which voided their financial bonuses.
Something had gotten into them. A violence they could not explain.
Day Six
If hammers could talk, they’d deny culpability. The hammers were tested for sentience. Negative. These hammers weren’t smart, nor connected. They were simple objects not subjects, but they were studied anyway in the pursuit of answers.
No one knew where they came from, but now they were covered in blood. This was true of the hammers and the humanoid subjects. This was not the manufactured blood of the OORs and especially not Other Rod in the Jar (as they were referred to by the humanoid subjects). No one believed Other Rod had any blood at all. Original Rod, aka 7103, 4pp*, 5000, 3Q90, and 225oh are now unable to observe or write reports. Their final actions had redecorated their observation chamber in sanguine streaks, splatter, and some old amateur neo-abstract impressionism. They really put themselves into it blood-wise. The wounds were too many to mention, but the requisite autopsy will commence in two days time. Bleeders one and all; some were gushers, but it’s all rather moot now.
The hammers were fabricated from an experimental pre-patented material which unconfirmed and often redacted reports have included wurtzite boron nitride from head to claw with Hercules multipump laser sighting. The possibility of a graphene handle has been rumored. Holographic periodicals will soon be published solely about these life-changing hammers and their accompanying lifestyle crucial to survival, protection against dilapidation, self-esteem, and national identity.
An order blank has been included to the right: _______________
A thumbprint will suffice for payment. Thumb up or down. Any thumb will do. No background check. No list. No wait, other than for us to complete testing the hammers. If you wish to fast-track this process, you may sign up for beta testing at one of our observation centers.
Remember the good old wisdom: a man with a hammer can hammer all day long. A woman with a hammer can build a home. You don’t even need to declare a gender to hammer. Together, we support everyone’s fundamental right to hammer. Stop the thieves that want to take that away and join with powerful friends who believe and have faith in building the future. Bad people everywhere are trying to take away what’s yours. It’s time to hammer home your message. You won’t be struck down. A down payment will be automatically debited; the rest will be collected upon delivery.
Once you have one of these effective hammers, the most, best, good, terrific, satisfying, and effective hammers in the world, you will be in control. No one is going to nail you to the wall.
Remember, only if you have one can you use one.
Day Five
To be redacted in favor of marketing materials:
It’s possible that they didn’t remember, since all humanoid subjects are subject to complimentary daily hippocampus scrubs and cortexual polishing to avoid bias in the reports, but they were indeed wrong about Other Rod. He, too, was full of blood.
Other Rod woke up in his jar. The light had returned. The sand and sky were omnipresent and unreachable. A hammer nestled in his hand.
The only remaining garment on his body had shrunken to athletic supporter size. Now a deadbeat ball shawl, the skimpy garment continued its crotch-level action because something had to do it, either for the continued commentary on the humanoid’s state of being or as a means of freeing up other stitches, so that they too may communicate toward filling the jar with their own creations or collaborations. The remaining strands and fibers of garments were communicating with each other in a level that transcended previously documented language. Transcending the humanoid subject’s English, they had developed their own operational language, giving new meaning to the word TEXTile.
From outside the jar, visual contact with the humanoid subject was lost. He had disappeared into a flood of strings and strands and threads that were always moving, always reinventing shape, color, and meaning for each other. The sand and the sky must’ve been blotted out for Other Rod. His sedatives were not applied.
How could anyone understand this new crowded jar? Every loose end had become connected around the humanoid subject, but their purpose was unclear. But an unknown catalyst often intermingles fear and hope in sentient beings. An audio transcript revealed several voices from the observation chamber saying, “Let this play out.” Nods were not captured on audio.
Respiration, blood pressure, and pulse rates all skyrocketed in the humanoid subject. There was no way to measure the conditions of the sentient ocean of textiles or the jar. They knew how they felt. The glass was clear. The lid showed no signs of popping off. Several minutes of constant movement followed. Three occasions where human skin pressed against the glass. A shoulder, the right buttock, the left foot. There were five gentle clinks of hammer on glass as the interior of the jar swirled about clockwise, then counterclockwise. All movement stopped on the sixth clink. Eternity or thirty-three seconds trudged along. Maybe it skipped.
The glass streaked with red and the jar shattered, but not into glass shards. It disintegrated into tiny particles of sand and lid fell clear away. The sand absorbed the new reddish hue. So did the sky.
The strands formed a robin’s nest, but big enough for the humanoid subject. Then up from the sand, a woven net emerged and it raised the carcass of the humanoid, wrung out without his liquids. He was placed into the nest and there he lay crumpled in a ball, to begin his own unraveling, disintegrating, returning to his elemental structures and fusing with all of the textiles.
These sentient beings did not need corporeal form. A unification was happening, a sorting algorithm. A beautiful recalibration. The wad of human tissue that remained was raised into the sky and wrapped in strands of deep rose, forming a brilliant sun hanging in the sky. Trails like stitches connected the clouds. They felt no pain and everything felt something. Dry particles of the humanoid fell like ash down into the sand and wet particles evaporated into the blue.
After spinning for a time in the sand, the tin lid rolled away into the sunset to look for the hammer, for music, perhaps for love.
***
JR Walsh was born in Syracuse, New York and lives in Boise, Idaho. He received his MFA in Creative Writing from Boise State University, where he teaches English as a Second Language. He is the winner of the 2009 Esquire Fiction Contest. His poetry and fiction are in Alice Blue, Juked, Alba, The Citron Review, Grey Sparrow Journal and B O D Y. He is a previous guest editor of Out of Stock, Issue Nine.