Infinite Chapter 2

 Infinite chapter 2

30,000 BC — THE VALLEY. 

His tribe called him Long Hair. He was the artist, inventor and doctor of the tribe. He was officially a male gatherer, and not a hunter. What Long Hair lacked in strength for hunting, he made up for in intelligence and wisdom. He organized the meals, and made beautiful cave art.

But, alas, Long Hair couldn’t protect his tribe from the attacks from the Fat Nose Tribe. The fat nose tribe was a rival tribe in the valley. Long Hair belonged to the Long Nose Tribe. They were sophisticated and cultured compared to the Fat Nose Tribe. The fat nose tribe were a brutal and mercilessly violent set lead by their leader Fat Nose. He was a dark man with a bulky head and a swift, ruthless attack style. Upon several confrontations with the long nose tribe, fat nose couldn’t help but notice the sophistication in their tools and materials. The innovation in their engineering.

Eventually both tribes would come together after a savage war. Fat Nose married a daughter of the Long Nose Tribe and impregnated her and a new Golden Age of The Valley would commence.

When the child of Fat Nose was born, it had the most curious appearance. The infant boy did not have a fat nose like his father, nor a long nose like his mother, but rather a long nose and a fat nose together.

The child was given everything. For the first time in the history of the Valley, a tribe member in perfect physical condition did not hunt nor gather. Instead he was spoiled with affection by his parents; it made him arrogant; it turned him into a rascal. He intimidated fellow tribe members. He became a prankster, rude, a pest.

Fat Nose, who had presided over a population boom in his tribe and saw the expansion of his people and transformation of his society, grew tired of his son’s antics and one day reprimanded him before the tribe with a swift blunt stroke to the head which humiliated The Child more than it even pained him physically. The child murdered his father in his sleep that night.

The tribe would never be the same. The tribe would eventually fall apart, fracturing into smaller tribes, and many which would leave the valley took all the memory of the Valley in its former glory with them.

They made quick work of killing the Child of Fat Nose. Long Hair was part of the faction that disposed of his body into the ground. He would grow much wiser than he already was after experiencing this saga of his tribe.

He wanted to tell the story of what happened. He wanted to recount a history of the marriage of the two tribes, and the falling apart. He went into his cave to make one final work of cave art with a message and a story for future explorers. He wanted to tell the story of the fat nose, so he drew a circle to represent the fat nose. Then he wanted to tell the story of the long nose tribe joining with him, creating the child that was bring the apocalypse. So he drew a line representing the long nose, imposed over the circle of the fat nose. This circle with a line through it represented the child.

Long Hair would soon after die, leaving behind his opus, his legacy and memory…

********

The black nerd with coke bottle lenses had the last page of a phone book opened so he could use the blank space to draw a circle with a line in it.

‘So you can see here,’ he said to Ramon, ‘we went back in a loop of time, and we are a copy of our original selves.

The young man buried his head in his hands and groaned. ‘What is happening.’

‘I just explained it to you’, the nerd said.

‘Do you really know? I bet you don’t know Jack shit.’

‘Maybe we could be in a computer simulation; a matrix.’

‘See you don’t know anything!’ Ramon got mad. He looked up at the infomercial on TV. ‘Turn this off!’

The phone then rang. Ramon and the nerd with coke bottle lenses stared at eachother until it rang again. ‘Answer!’ The nerd yelled. Ramon jumped to the other side of the room and grabbed the surreal 1980s rotary phone receiver. 

‘Hello? Hello!’ He called out.

‘Hello,’ a laid-back sounding male voice answered. ‘Please don’t panic. I am here to assist you.’

‘Okay,’ Ramon gulped.

‘Can you give me your name please?’

‘Ramon Atila Junior.’

‘Age.’

‘32.’

‘Parents’ names?’

‘What?’

‘Please just bear with me,’ the caller pleaded. ‘I need the first and last names of your parents.’

‘Ramon and Yolanda Atila.’

The black nerd grew suspicious. He pointed his thumb at the window behind him and scratched his head. ‘I swear I heard someone say the name Yolanda outside.’

‘I have another question,’ the caller continued. ‘What can you recall before you woke up in the room you are in right now?’

‘I dunno,’ Ramon said. ‘I had a dream I was old after I had this long, successful life and then I died. But then I woke up, and I was 32 again, but only I was still in a dream and it was terrifying and real there was a giant spider but up close it was so scary.’ He started to hyperventilate on the phone. ‘But it was so real. And now I’m here. Please tell me I’m still in a dream!’

‘Excellent, so—‘

‘No, not excellent,’ Ramon snapped. ‘Tell me I’m still in a dream!’

The caller kept his cool. ‘I would be happy to assist you. I’m here to help you.’

‘Then help me!’ Ramon yelled. ‘Tell me what’s happening.’

‘What I can tell you is your whole concept of what is present day is all wrong, Mr Atila.’

‘What do you mean? I look in the mirror, I see I’m 32 still.’

‘Well you are 32 years old right now, but it’s not present day in—umm, how do I say this? Listen kid you were 32 years old in the year 2021 but it’s not 2021 right now it’s the year 1985, do you understand?’

Shocked, Ramon looked up at the black nerd, who smiled at him. ‘Did he just say it’s the year 1985 outside? Told ya.’

The man on the phone continued. ‘This is a time before you were born, Mr Atila. Right now there is no present day for you, ok? You are not you, kid. You are a copy of your 32 year old self. The real you lived til old and died. That wasn’t a dream you had, ok? We want to help you get back to where you come from. We don’t want to keep you here living in a fragmented reality. But it is not easy for us as it is a complicated process, alright? We’re going to need your utmost patience and cooperation.’

‘What do I need to do?’ Ramon asked. 

‘Mr Atila, I’m going to ask you under no circumstances do you leave your motel room, do you hear me? You stay there no matter what happens or else I can’t help you.’

‘Ok.’

‘If you think you’re going to go outside and start exploring and having fun you got another thing coming because outside this room I cannot reach you …and you will be lost forever. I have no control where you end up after that. For all I know you could end up in an infinite loop of getting eaten by tarantulas. Is that what you WANT?’

‘No.’

‘Okay good. So don’t you ever leave that motel room until I call you back. Alright now, goodbye.’ He hung up.

Ramon exhaled deeply and looked over to the nerd with coke bottle lenses. The nerd shrugged. ‘That’s why I wanted to watch some television. We could be here a while.’

********

A stolen Oldsmobile pulled up into the parking lot of the Sunny State Motel in Miami, Florida. Pablito parked and looked over to his partner Ramon in the passenger seat. Ramon clutched a sports bag in his lap.

‘First we have Lorenzo’s stock, then we kill Lorenzo.’

‘What if he finds you before you find him.’

Ramon Atila pulled a revolver out of his sports bag and inserted bullets into it. ‘Then if he finds me first I will kill him anyway.’

‘I will be back in 2 hours,’ pablito assured him. And then he let Ramon out and the man walked up the walkway toward his room. A young pretty cleaning lady was pushing her cart down the walkway in the opposite direction. Her and Ramon eyed eachother; she smiled at him. Her looked down at her name tag and noticed her name was Yolanda. Then he continued to the door of Room 8 , inserted the key and walked in. Pablito drove away.

Shortly after a Cadillac pulled up into the very same sport. Two gunmen with mullets and aviator sunglasses and excessive chest hair stared at the door of Room 8.

The second gunman cocked his gun. ‘The Colombian  Ramon Atila is trying to leave Miami with Lorenzo’s coke.’

The first gunman deaded the engine and drew his own gun. ‘You got the room key, right?’

The second gunman pulled out a small key with a tag with the number 8 on it. ‘Lorenzo said we don’t leave him or anybody else in the room alive.’

‘Let’s do it, then.’

The two men exited the car and headed to the room. The cleaning staff was gone. The coast was clear.

AtilA