Developing Elements Of A Land Surveyor
What else was there to do? Where had all the elements gone? The man of indistinguishable features entered his sparsely furnished apartment slumped over with fatigue. The place seemed smaller than usual in the dim yellow light hanging on for dear life from the already low calibrated ceiling, struggling with a singular purpose to illuminate the lonely interior. The sun, which was already setting behind the high hills was sinking rapidly, moving methodically below them in the not too distant fields of vision. The thin web like white curtains didn’t help much as they too swallowed up what little light there was left to the light of day.
Mr. Hyperion Quark was a middle aged man of median height and slender build, with large sunken eyes that saw what needed to be seen to survive under these prevailing conditions. He could not remember the last time he ate a meal. Food and taste had become foreigners from another place. He was also dead tired so he decided to collapse onto his undersized mattress on the floor rather than think about food and the accompanying agony that comes with it.
His face projected the same blank features whether he was awake or asleep. The thin straight lips never displayed a smile or a frown. They were simply two straight horizontal parallel lines situated below his narrow nose. When he opened his mouth to speak, which was rarely, he spoke in nearly inaudible fragmented sentences which may or may not have made sense to the common listener.
When morning came, as it always does, something unusual happened. The man realized his bed was gone and all of the furnishings went missing as well. The walls and ceiling were still there but the light bulb and fixtures had vanished. The floor was the only real feature of the apartment worth mentioning. It had originally come from a failed fishing boat docked after returning empty on one too many occasions. The wood planks made there way to their final destination and resting place as Mr. Quark’s floor. He was not really the owner. He was renting and the rent was way overdo.
The man had no time to worry about objects. In fact he had no worries or feelings on any matter as he had no feelings to speak of. Work was his life and his life was work.
When he stepped outside the sun and sky were there. He realized his neighborhood had changed drastically overnight. There were no trees or bushes anywhere. Most of the buildings and all of the vehicles on the street had disappeared.
Quark was a land surveyor by trade so you would think his vast experience in the field would heighten his senses to the events unfolding before him and would raise an eyebrow or two being that landscape and land were disappearing quickly. In fact the land and what it stands for is his very existence. His neighborhood was virtually gone. The lose would not be calculable by any known instruments, measurable devices designed or created. Others would have to figure it out these matters. It was time for work.
His masters degree in geography and land surveying were of little or no use to him at this juncture. He walked to work every day so transportation by motorized vehicles; be it bus, or cab or car were of little concern. The problem came as he approached the end of town at the city limit. He realized the city limit had become truly limited. There was nothing there. He could not make one more step beyond it because there was nothing but open space, open air and literally nothing beyond his final step there. It was exactly what blind people experience, which is absolutely nothing; no darkness, no light, just a blank landscape of invisibility.
In addition to this predicament, there seemed to be an invisible barrier preventing Quark from falling off the edge of the Earth or progressing to his destination. He was in a state of stasis that halted his egress from town. At first he didn’t realize it. He was trying to forge forward great force but his feet and legs could only go up and down in the one spot, in effect going nowhere fast. He was marching in place and it looked pretty silly the harder he tried.
His memory was still intact. In front of him on a normal day you could see two majestic hills covered in lush green foliage, yellow and red flowers dotting the land and a variety of oak, evergreens and birch trees scattered haphazardly about the rolling mounds. Black pitch and asphalt made up the winding roads that etched out a serpentine path along the way as far as the eye could see. Thick tall grass waved like flags on parade, coupled and brought on by warmer winds brought on by open seasons and far away sea breezes.
Beyond that were an extended row of gigantic sharp edged mountains of dark blue and gray with a white cap of snow where the bulky clouds lifted themselves silently off and away, to bring the sleeping solid giants more clearly into view. All of that was gone. Hyperion was never confused, especially when awake, but these events puzzled him in a counter intuitive way in as much as he did not know what to do next. Should he go back to his empty apartment? Should he try to contact the authorities? And what authority would be in charge of missing lands? He wondered if his office and fellow workers were still there or if they where somewhere or anywhere.
After some time he returned to his apartment. His residence and building were no longer there. All of the buildings in his neighborhood had also gone missing. As a natural reflex he reached for his cell phone to report his findings, mainly because he needed some place to sleep. The phone was no longer in his coat. He checked his wallet. Someone or something must have stolen it. Quark did not care. He was never much of a caring or people person. Sure, there was an estranged wife and some sons and daughters out there carrying on the name and elements of the what was and what is nature of culture. There was nothing of that now. It all ended years ago in an existence not remembered. His wife left him and ran off with an automotive claims adjuster. The government took the kids from him for non payment of support money. All of that is in the past now. Perhaps they and the government are among the things evaporating in the ether.
Quark stopped worrying years ago and took up existing for a living. It looks like his land surveying job might be in jeopardy and coming to a sudden end. Science and experience tell us that the world is round, however, recent events indicate something different and might lend credence to the flat world theory. When you find your world coming to an abrupt end at the end of town, it might give you pause to stop and consider something else. None of that matters. Work was always slow for Quark. Now there was no job at all; no food, no apartment, no family, no walls and no wallet. His feet are still on the ground. There’s that. Nothing fancy. He is alive. Perhaps that counts for something. Things might get better but don’t count on it as math too seems to have less significance here in this changing environment.
When in trouble there is always sleep. The best part of waking up is falling back to sleep. Hyperion knows full well the nature of rest. Sometimes he dreams of Hyperons and exotic particle quarks embedded deep in the center of proto-neutron stars as the fifth state of matter becoming Hyperion quarks in the center of it all; so dense, so heavy that motion and atomic weight itself almost comes to a complete stop. Black holes should be so lucky to be in the company of such exotic matters.
Being awake helps him to think clearly after he has had a relaxing sleep. He remembers a sink hole opening up in downtown on one busy sunny day last year. It swallowed up two large cars and a business store’s front entrance to the building. Holes can accomplish a great deal with very little effort. The hole in Quark’s heart will never be filled in so he was indifferent to the event as it unfolded in front of him. The earth trembled furiously, sending the town’s people into a panic, running frantically, fleeing in a frenzy, scrambling about to save life and limb. Black holes devour more planets and stars but his empty cavity is just as magnificent; a chasm, a cave of vast dimensions unfathomable and just as deadly in it’s indifference.
The next day came in dark as a weird stranger, even stranger than the previous day. The man woke up hungry as usual realizing his surroundings had been altered significantly, had been depopulated down to almost the number zero but he remained. The only one left in this diminishing world. He appeared to be the only person alive. All signs of humanity, technology and civilization had been erased. On top of that the world shrunk down to a lower common denominator, nearly unrecognizable as he witnessed the void first hand closing in on him.
From his perspective and vantage point, the Earth consisted of 4 city blocks in dimension in all directions. From his spot on the ground he could see nothing more beyond those coordinates. Perhaps the distances were imagined. Visibility was easy because there were no objects or obstacles to block his view. No telephone poles, no street signs, no sidewalks, no buildings, no concrete walkways and no more asphalt streets. What used to be a blue sky was now a thin film of gray matter.
Quark decided to stay in place. He sat in his spot without moving about. He knew that he was utterly alone because there were no sounds coming from nature or from the ordinary noise pollution created by people and their machines. There he was in downtown where the loud sounds could drive you mad at this time of day. There he was with the void closing in with silence on its side.
He became perplexed by another observation. The sun and moon were no longer hanging in the sky; No birds, insects or airplanes either. No clouds, no weather getting in the way of things. Why should they? The great reduction was under way. Right before his eyes he could see the world in front of him evaporate, grow smaller and smaller, diminishing block by block like magic tricks without the smoke and mirrors. His mind too began to fill up with the void, emptying out so many thoughts and memories in the blink of an eye. His eyes remained until the end, still large but more sunken than ever, along with the thin lips fixed in their parallel lines stretching out more defined on the horizon of his face, both going off into infinity at great speed, perhaps in different directions for good measure, without a smile, without a frown, just two straight lines leaving without a sound.
What else was there to do? Where have all the elements gone to and who will record the echos of the universe once its gone?
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