Phase V:

SCENE: A warm summer day in an ancient land unfamiliar to modern eyes. An old brickmaker slaps globs of red clay into wooden molding boxes as a young apprentice studies his motions.

SIN: You see, the origin of the grey geometry is rooted in the organic chaos of the universe.

(The brickmaker scrapes the excess clay from the top of the form.)

(The apprentice picks up one of the previously formed bricks and studies it as he speaks.)

UTU: But the chaos is derivative of order within itself. You are overtly aware that as you mold and build you make subconscious decision and calculate action. You acquire chaotic form to give order and purpose. A non cyclical gesture. This act alone is defining of the inevitability of stability of the form.

SIN: My boy, you remain but a child. Your boldness is endearing yet it surely proves your naivety. At base level, things bounce and crackle. Supercharged particles react only due to having things to react to. Without order, things occur for the sheer purpose of reaction.

(Sin lifts a new fistful of red muck from a pile and begins to manipulate it.)

You see a hand full of clay, old bodies of nephilim long dead. Dug up decay from the time before time eventually forgotten. Now an orb of mere earth from the Earth, shaped and trimmed, slapped into geometric form to join the masses of those which came before. This perception is indeed true. Therein lies the fallacy of which you must understand. Perception is itself illusion. These things exist because you perceive they exist. Form is dictated via perception. Because you may sense something that means it exists? Nonsensical at best. Thoughts manifest only to melt through the wrinkles of your brain and fill you with the understanding of what is. Desire for order is not dictation of existence.

UTU: Consider, you have found yourself here. You have a need for block to remedy your need for structure. One must learn a trade, as I stand before you now, to execute such a process of construction. To learn such a trade there is a requirement on some base level of knowledge accrued over time. To acquire said knowledge one must be present. To become present in space there is yet another sequence of events to dictate such a standard. And so on in such a capacity that a routine and schedule is deemed fitting. As chaotic as form may appear, form remains still.

(Utu squishes the formed brick in his hand then presents it openly toward Sin.)
Time then dictates these processes in a linear fashion. The actions of the past remain dormant perpetually to be undone by thought alone.

(Utu returns the deformed brick back to the pile of clay from which it originated.)

SIN: Ah my boy, this is where you are mistaken… Time… is… chaos.

(Sin violently slaps the newly shaped round of clay into the box.)

The fallacy is the author dictates what the audience may perceive. Consider this.

(Sin reaches into the seed pouch hanging around his waist.)
Life lies dormant.

(Sin removes a glassy black orb from the pouch and presents it expertly between thumb and index finger.)

SIN: A seed to sprout only when seen to sprout. A drop of rain to slip down a porous red clay and emerge with this ordered chaos you seem so fond of. Appropriate conditions must exist via randomness. Given appropriate care and order, the seed may sprout and the seed may not. Contrary to chance dictated through equation, at times, things will not be, no matter the effort. So, given a state of nurture and persistence, growth may still lie dormant. Such is the same for the lack of nurture. An idea, my dear boy, may sprout and emerge against all odds, take root in chaos, and thrive in such peril.

(Utu gazes at the strange orb and sees the entire universe within. Comets streaking across the glassy surface. It buzzes and crackles with purpose as chaos smites order in every occurrence. Grandiose gestures of the cosmos are no more than a blink as all existence explodes and reforms over and over at an increasing rate.)

UTU: Would you so willingly contradict your aforementioned point? There is form here. Amongst the boiling chaos within, the seeming lack of importance, still encased in spherical geometry at its perimeter.

(Sin laughs softly as a smile begins to permeate the rusty oxides smeared across his face.)

SIN: Sowing season it shall be then, my dear boy!

(Sin pushes the orb into the clay within the molding form and the old brickmaker and his apprentice erupt in shared laughter.)

END SCENE.


“This place looks like a shit hole.”

Dandy Chase finds himself standing in front of an old dilapidated brick building. The voice at the other end of the receiver most certainly was not Dave. Yet, here he stood, right where he had been instructed by the anonymous utterance on the telephone. He can’t seem to remember where was last night and the rent remains past due. Still, here he stood.
This case was turning out to be one of those big smelly ones and this place smelled like a real shit hole.

Chase walks up to a rotting wooden door fabricated long ago. He gives a few hard thumps with closed fist. No response. He gives a few more that go unanswered. Dandy, befuddled, steps back to study the entryway.

Ornate designs of floral patterns and spear points transcend the surface gesturing toward delicately carved cherubs and devils. Bestial faces resting amidst etchings of clouds laugh at the futility of the fat entities fighting over fruit brushed with pigments now faded. After scanning the surface for a moment, Dandy Chase finds his eyes planted on a jagged knocker in the center of the gate like a metallic tongue jutting outward to catch snowflakes.
He can’t seem to remember where he was last night but he does recall a sequence the anonymous voice gurgled as he grabs hold of the tarnished brass chime.

Tick! Tick!

Dandy Chase slams the door knocker hard against itself.

Tick! Tick! Tick!

The thought of poachers extracting rhinoceros horns from leathery faces enters his mind.

Tick! Tick! Tick! Tick! Tick!

The heavy door swings inward revealing the remnants of some sad excuse for shelter.

“Ooowee! I say, look at thisss fresssh fisssh come swimming along…”

An amorphous blob sits behind a counter licking his lips. His features are obscured by the oily glass barricade separating him from Dandy Chase. Chase considers the putrid, makeshift stained glass a welcomed feature due to pustule and boil littering the round face of the attendant. Beady eyes are magnified by thick lensed glasses perched at the tip of a fat, pockmarked nose. The blob flares nostrils as he sucks in breath and tastes the air with a gross short tongue.

“Oh… oh my… a fellow connoisseur of scent! I can smell it on you, oh yes!”

“What is this place?”

“A place is a place is a face in disgrace. To exist in a time out of time is the truest of form. The smell of it… lingers though. Brick… by… brick…”

The blob wheezes nonsense in response to Chase’s inquiry before letting out a spit filled giggle.

“A dream. A mere pause for where yooour going private dick, uh huh uh ha ha har… You’ve got all sorts of stink littering your path. I got the call.”

“You talked to them?”
“Instructed and booked! It’s only process. Don’t get those little panties too warm yet. Order in chaos as it may be. As expected, here swims in thisss fresssh fisssh. And you do smell… fresh.”

The blob can barely control his excitement as the words dribble down his set of chins. He pushes a dusty clipboard with roster and key attached toward Chase, still licking his quivering grotesque lips. His magnified eyes suddenly dart away from Chase to seemingly stare at nothing.

“Sign the line!”

The blob’s unsettling interest in Dandy Chase evaporates in a bipolar steam. He drags a deformed finger across his upper lip, sniffing and slurping at it, before sharply pointing his untrimmed claw toward an elevator a few feet away.

“Sixth floor!”

Dandy Chase gives one last glance to the disgusting blob, unable to remedy the malcontent that has contorted his features. The oafish creature seems to have fallen into a trancelike daydream as Chase signs his name to the previously presented paper and pockets the room key.
The elevator whirs as it moves upward, each light illuminating as it passes the corresponding floor. A buzzing begins as the lights within the mechanism start to crackle and strobe before all together dimming completely, save a glowing red number six encased in circular glass.

The chime begins but the doors remain shut.

DING! DING!

With each sound the red glyph flashes.

DING! DING! DING!

The soundtrack of chirps amplifies the feeling in his gut that any good detective can trust in a bind. A bead of sweat begins to traverse the length of Dandy Chase’s nose. 
Something is off. 

DING! DING! DING! DING! DING!

The elevator buckles.

Chase braces himself. 

Time begins to pass in frames.

The bead of sweat drops from the tip of his nose just before the elevator plummets downward.