THE PINGBACK

I knew we had hit our stride, when on one fortunate occasion I found myself at the tail end of a leap that led me to a sacred alter—a great hall, embedded in lush gardens, and chaired by Twelve divine beings. They received me with great delight.

“The fact that you’ve even arrived at our gates, means a great deal,” One of the Twelve said. “The planet from which you came—Earth, you say—potentially possesses the esteem to hang in our archives. What else can you tell us? What else can you show?”

I had been leaping with the team a lot. For me, seven nights a week. Some of the other crew could only swing a few days per week, since their daily ship duties took most of their time. We needed to keep in Cap’s good graces, so I didn’t object.

But I had really hit my stride, leaping what felt like eight days of the week. At the aid of my helmet, I’d chart “stream-of-consciousness” courses through the Dew—the multiverse. One world would lead to the next, seamlessly, even if the two Earths I had connected were themselves altogether separate. My gravitational Thunderbird streak was the common black thread stringing together realities, like scissors gliding a slice across a crisp page.

Playing these worlds like notes on a musical instrument had struck a gravitational chord so to speak, one day—the day I landed on the Twelve’s doorstep. I had achieved some form of multiversal harmony, they would later tell me. And I had arrived on a sacred altar that you usually could only find, if you already knew how to get there. I was lucky, I guess. Or perhaps, more precisely: I was skilled, and prepared, and feeling the flow one eve, I shimmered the very fabric of the ether between worlds, the Dew itself, and broke through the fourth wall unto the Twelve.

“What can you show us about your origin world?” the leader of the Twelve eagerly inquired myself, still trying to get my bearings on this most foreign of destinations.

These were giant beings, compared to humans. They sat atop megalithic thrones, made of rich basalt that stretched many stories high to meet them. They thus towered over me, as I stepped up to their altar to respond. They had not received a visitor from my world, Earth, before, I could tell. This was an exciting encounter, on both sides.

“At the current era,” I said, yelling up to my giant inquirers, “we have a thing called ‘reality TV.’ Let me return the next night, and I will present to you a snapshot of the entire world, from one moment. From there, you’ll be able to extrapolate our entire existence, from down on Earth… this version, anyway. You’ll know our complete history.”

“That sounds grand,” He billowed down.

“Brilliant,” I said. And, like that, was flitting through the movierain multiverse, which the Cheshire crew and I had nicknamed “the Dew.”

***

“What are you going to show them?” the tavern leader asked me that next night, a Wednesday storytelling session. I had just delivered the same story I just told you to our Wednesday night club.

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I was hoping you could help me with that.”

This first part was, by far, my best story submitted to the Wednesday crew, thus far, but it needed an ending that would finish strong. I also needed to impress the Twelve, for the sake of our Earth. We all agreed—Kitty too—to take an entire snapshot of my Earth that night. I’d leverage my exceptional leaping abilities to bend time around the immediate atmosphere to a near standstill. I’d then tag the entirety of occurrence, we all agreed, however good, bad, ugly or otherwise. It was the objective Earth, of my version, and we were proud of Her. We wanted the Twelve to see Her in all Her splendor. Who were we to judge the rougher parts, we all thought.

I left early that Wednesday night to take up my high-octane mission. I became the ultimate reality TV cameraman that night. And, in one glorious act of existential cinematography, I wrapped the entire planet in a single shot, and carried it up to the Twelve.

First, I leapt up into the stratosphere, the face of the Earth at my feet as I ascended. Surfing on gravitational waves, I hung on the Van Allen belts of electromagnetiviy that vibed out from the planet’s core. On pure ethereal propulsion, I orbited the Earth at a curved velocity that increased exponentially. At impossible speeds, I maintained zen to the point that I stood still while the Earth Herself spun into a white-hot orb. And at that apex of encircling, I snapped a shot. I captured the entire Earth and all Her splendor, every consciousness, every dream, every opinion and every idea of the Earth dwellers below, in a single instant, packaged up neatly for the Twelve.

Thank God I remembered the way of thought, those harmonious chords to strike. And landed on their doorstep once again, albeit a bit out of breath. My idea of their place was fleeting. I knew it might be a while, and perhaps never again that I might see them. I made this chance encounter count.

They were pleased to see me and couldn’t wait to hear what I’d report. This was a relationship with divinity that I had established within this serendipitous, two-night act. It was certainly a friendship with these beings that I wanted to maintain and cultivate. I wanted to impress them too. Earth, in all Her splendor, was my offering to them that night.

***

That was the first story that we—the Cheshire crew and I—decided to share with the Captain. If you can believe it, Kitty had one that would even top that.

Before we could compile our case for the Captain she became wise to our clandestine operation. I was distracted, at the time. I had already delivered my opus story to the guys the last Wednesday. Kitty was gearing up to tell hers the following week, at the tavern. We were treating it like her dress rehearsal before she had to present to Cap. Midday that Wednesday, before we all convened to Drop up into the Dew, venture down to the town tavern and deliver our findings—Kitty’s as the headliner—to the storytelling group, the Cap cornered me in my supply closet bedroom.

“The ship’s sensors have picked up some strange electromagnetivity emanating from your room, you know,” the Cap ever rarely opened conversation with a ‘hi’ or ‘hello.’

Without her knowing, she was referencing how I had warped space-time to create an entirely adjacent dimensional Drop under the hidden trapdoor in my supply closet. Beneath a forgettable throw rug concealed an entirely contrived world all of my own, where myself and select crew launched dimensional drops into the multiverse, the movierain. I wasn’t ready to admit this to her.

“Oh, that’s strange,” I say, as coy as could be.

“Is this why some of the crew have been sluggish on their day shifts?” she continued to cross-examine.

“Um, Kitty, myself, and a few other crew have stumbled on somewhat of a breakthrough,” I said. “We were going to present to you, but it’s not quite ready.”

“Bill, don’t forget: you’re still on thin ice with me, after what happened to Sully. Now, you’ve been doing good with your janitorial duties and have seemed to keep out of trouble since that mishap. But all that good progress can fly out the window, if you can’t be straight with me. We’ll leave you at the next checkpoint load station we encounter on our next ordained tagging mission, if we have to. Please don’t forget that.”

“I– I understand, Cap. I promise we’ll have an explanation for our nightly extracurriculars very shortly for you.”

“You have 48 hours. Then, I want you, Kitty, Jacob and Gabriel to report to my wheelhouse at 0900. There’s nothing on this ship that I don’t know about.”

Wait till she got a load of my Drop, I thought.

“Understood,” I said.

***

Later that night, Kitty met me early down in the Drop, before the others arrived to leap to the tavern.

“I don’t know if my story’s ready?” Kitty said, as we sat down into the lotus position.

“That’s why we’re doing a dress rehearsal down at the tavern tonight,” in my most reassuring tone as possible. “You have a good one. And I want the Cap to see the true potential of our leaping capabilities. Maybe she’ll even let us leverage these techniques on official Cheshire missions. We could be free of this mundane, never-ending government work.”

I could sense Kitty’s mustering her courage from within, centering herself in concentration atop the zen pillow, she controlled her breathing and gently closed her eyes.

“I just hope we can get the Captain to understand how important this is,” Kitty whispered. “If she forbids us from our hobby leaping, I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

“You have a good one,” I said. “That’s why you’re headlining tonight!”

***

Later on, the gentlemen told some lovely tales. Spirits were high, in the tavern that Wednesday night. And Kitty stood under the hanging bar lamp in the back pool room to hold the floor. The noisy, drunken chatter ceased.

“As you know, ladies and gentlemen,” Kitty held her hands formally, close to her stomach to accentuate the diaphragm and be heard over the din of the bar, “myself and my colleagues, led by Bill, have been leaping these past few months to then return and regale you with our adventures. We’ve had many a good yarns to spin here, but tonight I present to you perhaps my greatest experience among the multiverse, thus far.”

Gentle murmurs of anticipation peppered out from the dark crowd surrounding Kitty under a bright spotlight. She continued…

“I may look young,” she said, “but my mental age is much, much older. In fact, I could be considered an octogenarion, an 80-year-old, by the amount of cognitive time logged in my mind, though my astral self and physical body still resemble that of a twenty-something. You may ask, how is this possible? It’s because my tale tonight, begins on a low note.

“One night, not too long ago relative to this world, Bill and I embarked upon a tethered leap into the multiverse. Bill, the more experienced leaper of dimensions, had me on a short leash in my own Drop. No longer was I protected by his surfing sphere. I had my own, and he was guiding me through the movierain.

“I could hear him yelling to me from his Drop, ‘Maintain focus!’ Bill insisted. ‘But don’t fixate on any single drop in this movierain. Each is like a whirlpool that can suck you down into its world.’ ‘OK!’ I said, as I struggled still as a novice to leap like a lightning bolt, drop to drop. It’s quite a trying activity to leap between drops, a true test of one’s ability—to surf on so many drops that form the dew of the multiverse.

“Bill is a much stronger surfer than I. I kept trying to emulate the ease by which he was effortlessly skipping from droplet to droplet with such purpose, but inevitably I was thrown off balance by an errant world that flew into view, splashed me in the face and sent me plummeting under the torrent. I flew too closely, uncontrollably into the gravity of one drop, which then sucked me down into its dimension.

“The world was an Earth not unlike this one, but in a time that resembled the 1980s here. I fell for what felt like forever, my astral self, down, down through the atmosphere of this world, until I could see land, and trees. I flew overhead of these, as they zoomed by, until I reached a city by the bay. I flew over the water there, the city’s skyline grew larger and larger, until I flew directly into a building. It turned out to be a hospital. And I soared, as an errant soul, into the body of a baby and her mom giving birth. And I was born again, in an entirely new physical body, on this version of ’80s Earth.

“I didn’t look like myself, after I was born into this new body, on this foreign Earth, which made it rather difficult for Bill to retrieve me. I grew up with my new parents, moving through all the childhood developmental stages. Each year, I forgot more and more of my extra-dimensional origin, until I had no recollection of my former life as Kitty. But Bill never forgot. He’d leap in an out of ’80s world at pivotal points in my life down there, dropping breadcrumbs. It wasn’t as simple as swooping in when I was too young to comprehend dimensional leaping and picking me up. This would have been an effort in futility, and Bill knew that. So he waited patiently. And he let me grow back into a 20-year-old, when I’d be ready to receive the news of my much more real, eternal soul.

“He arrived one night, outside of my college dorm room, perched outside my window like a friendly vampire. The well-placed breadcrumbs throughout my life to this point had done their job, and I wasn’t scared of this strange entity at my sill. I invited him in, this dark, dimensional leaper with a shiny black helmet, with big, lit-up eyes, one red and one green, and a painted on beak like a hawk. I remember, at the time, it felt like the man from my dreams was now physically hovering outside my window. So I let him in, and he completed my orientation that night to return to the Cheshire.

“‘Are you ready to return to the mothership, Kitty?’ Bill said, in that echoey, ominous voice when he wears his helmet. ‘Who’s Kitty?’ I said, still not completely recollecting my former life. ‘She’s the person you truly are,’ he said. ‘I’m here to carry you back up to your greater, astral existence, and fully reunite you with your eternal soul. You must trust me.’

“And I did. I somehow did trust him, though I could still hardly believe what was happening in my quaint little college dorm room. And with that, Bill conjured up a dimensional bubble, the torus upon which we surf. He picked me up, and we leapt back up to the Cheshire, landing in his Drop. When my butt hit the zen pillow, I experienced a complete memory recall. The origin of this most recent Earthly existence flooded back into my mind. And I lived to tell the tale to all of you this fine night.”

Cheers erupted, as Kitty finished delivering her gem of a story.

“Wait, is this one you’re gonna tell your Captain,” the ringleader wasn’t trying to steal Kitty’s thunder, but was generally concerned for the well-being of our current state of leaping. He knew what hinged upon the reception of our leaping tales, up on the Cheshire deck.

“That’s why I’m choosing to tell her this one,” Kitty said. “It demonstrates that, even under the most dire of circumstances where I was almost lost forever to the multiverse, Bill possesses the ability to save us. And we’re all getting better at leaping, each night we practice. Yes, these leaps, even down to the tavern here, are unsanctioned, but we’re trying to prove to Cap that it’s safe. We’re utilizing an ancient leaping technique in conjuring the trinity of Sun, Earth and Moon’s black hole to leap into depths that the UU could not comprehend. And we want our Captain’s blessing. Bill and I think this may, once and for all, get us out from under Danny V.’s thumb.”

“Well said,” I said.

“We’re pulling for ya,” the ringleader added.

The dress rehearsal was a success, but we all knew the Cap would be a tougher audience. Still, we were confident in our dimensional leaping and storytelling skills. It was all we had.

***

NEXT UP: But the best story was entitled, “The True Tale of Bryan Florian,” about what would become of him, told by the man himself. He knew how Bill ended up on the Cheshire. He was there, or he would be. And wouldn’t the Captain want to know? Bill and the rest of the crew were curious. So they submitted his account as the third tale to tell Cap. The timing was good too—to get Cap on board. Danny V. was cracking down, with no end in sight. And the Cheshire crew needed a Hail Mary.

***