Compendium Effect : : Tolen's Trial

Fractal Paradigms

Fractal Paradigms

His name had left him again, but he forces himself off the damp, cold floor. Standing, he hears a noise coming from behind him that he knows instantly: a bite taken from an apple. He turns to face the sound and where there had been nothing but an inch of powdered dust in open darkness, stood a man; a doctor wearing green scrubs, his stare into the space, vacant, deep in thought, sending the scent of Honey Crisp into the surroundings with each, determined bite he took. His blue surgical mask laces dangled to one side of face and his five o'clock shadow has no doubt doubled since that early hour in this man's day. Of middle age, he is tall and of stout build. The hands, though strong are far too large for a surgeon. The nameless observer is puzzled at how he knows this, but is sure of the information. The doctor looks away from notes, muttering to himself. He takes another bite and turns around moving aside when he does. The remains on the slab are of a being the nameless man does not recognize. The doctor tosses half of his apple into the bin and washes his hands. He re-ties his surgical mask and puts on a pair of fresh gloves. He walks to a cabinet and removes an insulated box. Carrying the box back to the remains of the unknown creature, the doctor stops waking and squints in the nameless man's direction. He sets down the box and drops his mask again, moving in the nameless man's direction bending his body lower as he moves closer. Is that, you, T—"

"You've heard of the Mandela effect, surely," a voice behind him says.

The nameless man turns toward the voice, furious. "He was going to say my name," he says. The sign on the window of the shop read, Apples, New and Used.

The apple salesman is short and round. "Yes and he does not have the clearance for that—none of us do," he says.

"Used apples?"

"Ah. You're new here."

"Where is here?"

"Apples, New and Used, of course."

"Yes, but used apples?"

"It is a question of verifiable reality, my friend. Take this beauty, here," he says moving aside. Beside him on display, formerly hidden by his mass, sits a large, bright golden apple. "Your choices are two in an apple, and for you this riddle should prove especially simple, new or used—theory or real?"

"Theory. Of apples."

"You are quicker witted...than oth-ers."

"The doctor..."

"...is a used apple, everything he seems, pieces missing where his work has chewed his dreams away to uselessness...no magic left in him, no surprises, no more first-times for anything."

"Used. Apples."

"I got a market, if you believe it."

"And that one?"

"The last of my untouched stock, Friend. The very last one."

The apple appears in the nameless man's hands and he lifts it to his mouth, bites and he enters this iteration's nearest neighbor.

"Heard anything?" I ask while pick up a neon-blue cigarette case from the stand at the end of the stairs and open it. I walk into the breeze block pavilion. Fresh coastline air rustles past the fretwork window blinds and into the open bungalow. I peer through them, searching the monolith silver sea. I check my watch and drop the cigarette onto my lip, unconscious of the act. It isn't until I reach for a cigarette lighter that I realize I have, yet again succumbed to the avatar's chemical urges, without a single thought of the body's movements, resistant or otherwise. I crush the cigarette. Though I sense her presence, I do not see her until her white teeth flash from under her parting lips. The avatar she wears is Persian with intelligent, almond eyes bearing invitations deadly to the resolve of the mortal man. "I told you, Arcanon make shit avatars," she teases.