The Gyroscope and the Experimental Elixir

Ted clipped the microphone off from his polo. He held it out past the counter as I walked up to him. I took it out of his left hand.
“Let me tell you something guy, you’re going to have a lot of fun with that recording,” Ted said.
“I think I’m going to have a lot of fun with everyone’s.”
“Is there anything I can get you?” he asked.
“I’ll take a vodka tonic, hang out here for a bit. I need to see Penny too, you know.”
Ted made my drink quickly and I paid for it and turned to look for a table.
Luther saw me turn towards the seating area and he said, “I’ve got to go to the bathroom.”
I sat down. I took out my journal and started sketching an abstract design. It started off with an infinity sign. I drew x’s through the circles. I drew diagonal lines shooting out from the x’s, making a cross-hatch near the top and a sun above it. I decided the drawing represented humanity.
Penelope walked by the table with the other three and I said, “Penny!” as she neared me.
“Is it over now?” she asked me.
“It’s ending.” I only have to get the pieces back from you, Lu, Charles, and Marcus.”
She clipped off her microphone. “Well you can remove me from that list.”
“Are you pleased with what you’ve recorded?” I asked her for curiosity’s sake.
“Maybe it was just because I knew it was part of something greater than just my life, but it was a very strange week for me. Maybe I did some things I normally wouldn’t do because I was being recorded and I wanted to be an ‘interesting character,’”
“You are an interesting character. I was lucky to run across someone like you.”
“Well, glad to participate. I mean, I may not be the most sympathetic of the people you surveyed, but I don’t have any regrets. I did what made the most sense to me.”
At that moment, Ireena walked into Uncommon Grounds, saw Rory, and sat down at their table. Luther came walking back to their table and said, “I’m gonna go outside, smoke a cigarette,” and Rory said, “I’ll join you,”
Penny walked back to the kitchen, and I walked over to the other table.
“Hey Hey!” they all enthused in a mock-cheer.
“How’s the project coming along?” Spencer asked.
“Oh, it’s so great, I just can’t wait for it to be over though. Charles, can I get your microphone?”
He clipped it off his ear. “You’re very lucky that I decided to participate in your project,” he said, “I hope you have fun spending a year trying to come up with funny situations to contextualize my dialogue within.”
“To be honest, I’m not looking forward to that part,” I said.
“I am happy. I am free. I am no longer subject to your analysis, your criticism. You’re going to lose. I can talk about whatever I want now, and yet you are going to be stuck living in the same week for a whole year. What a fate you have in store for yourself.”
“I’m going to comfort myself with the thought that, this is not all in vain. Immortalizing the week is as worthwhile a pursuit as living in the transient present.”
I went back to my table and finished my vodka tonic. I dropped the glass off in front of Ted at the counter.
“You think you’re evil, but you’re not,” I said to Ted, quoting Black Flag, wondering if he would get the reference.
“No, I don’t think I’m evil. You just wish I was,” he correctly pointed out.
As I began to walk out, I asked the other table, “See you all at the Brain later?” and they said, “Yeah,” in different individual ways. I opened the door to leave and Luther and Rory walked in as I held the door behind me. I knew it was him and I could have talked to him then but I decided this would be one thing that would be better to put off until later. He might record some interesting dialogue if I waited.

RECAPTURE OF THE PAST TO EMPHASIZE FEAR

This is what Luther and Rory talked about while they were smoking their cigarettes outside in front of Uncommon Grounds:
L: I’m in trouble.
R: Why are you in trouble?
L: I don’t want to give up my microphone yet.
R: Why are you so afraid to give it up?
L: It gives me meaning; it gives me purpose.
R: It’s an encumbrance.
L: You know what it’s like to be alone.
R: I do.
L: You know how it can all too often become depressing.
R: I do. It is glamorized. Though there are advantages.
L: Yes, but when it is pervasive.
R: It is depressing. I agree.
L: Once you begin to experience very long periods of being alone, it’s like you’re invisible, you don’t matter anymore, and your experience is invalid because it’s atypical.
R: Let’s not go overboard.
L: Okay it is still authentic, but there is something lacking in it that is a totally normal everyday thing to 96% of the rest of the population, and because you are in that minority, and because you are strange in those same ways, you are made to feel like you’re not allowed to be treated as well, because you’re different from everyone else.
R: What the fuck are you talking about man?
L: Come here (he puts the cigarette in his mouth, holds Rory on the shoulders directly across from him, lifts off his right hand to hold the cigarette with) Do you feel the same abyss I feel opening up tonight?
R: There is definitely something mysterious in the air tonight, but I don’t feel an abyss of any kind.
L: I’m off the subject. The point is, I feel like my experience is meaningless. It’s very easy to affect an existential pose in this circumstance. When this microphone was clipped onto me, it was like I suddenly mattered. Like, it was the first time I really had to consider every word I was saying. I didn’t want to sound like some kind of dimwit. Maybe I’ll come off as that, I don’t know, it’s just if this is really going to be the last night of my life, I want as much of it to be documented, you know?
R: I don’t know how many delusions you carry on however many subjects you just mentioned, but whatever, as long as it gives you something to think about.
L: See! Right there, you just did it! You make me feel like my experience is inauthentic!
R: Maybe you’re just not explaining it well enough.
L: It’s too embarrassing to talk about.
R: Well if you don’t tell me your embarrassing stories who do you tell them to?
L: These are my embarrassing stories. The only people that hear them are Penny and you. (He tosses down his cigarette)
R: You going to read anything tonight? (He tosses out his)
L: I didn’t bring anything with me. I don’t want to make any kind of dramatic performance on my last night. This tape is all that matters—this is the performance. (They walk back into Uncommon Grounds)

“Are we almost ready to get going?” Luther asked the table upon returning.
“It’s not going to take us that long to get there. We can get there early if we leave in like a half hour,” Ireena said.
“I don’t want to have one more drink here,” Luther said, “This place is dead to me, there’s nothing happening here. There’s just a bunch of pseudo-yuppies drinking expensive drinks and laughing about their private tie-ups and public gossip.”
Penelope came by their table.
“Can we get our check?” Luther asked her.
“I’m still not cut yet,” she said, “you’re not going to wait for me?”
“I’m just getting really fucking sick of being here, sorry,” Luther said.
“I thought you ‘loved’ this place? I thought this was the first place you came to get a cappuccino on cold nights when you came back from a month of shooting in California?”
The reference was lost on most of the others at the table, but Luther was not unmoved.
“Look, this is nothing personal. I just don’t like the attitude this place has. It thinks it’s the Ritz Carlton. It’s a coffee shop that happens to serve drinks. Now, if they sold marijuana, that would be something else,” Luther mused.
“I’ll wait here for you,” Ireena said.
“I’m going to stay with my dear Ireena,” Rory said.
“I’m down for leaving,” Spencer said.
“Yes, I’m rather eager to see the performance space. I’ve brought the latest chapter in my personal history along with me,” Charles said.
“Is it cool with you if I go?” Luther asked Penelope.
“Sure, I just thought you wanted to spend as much time with me as possible on your ‘last night,” she said.
“We’ll have plenty of time, from ten o’clock on until the end of the night at least.”
He said back to her.
“Okay, we’ll I’ll see you there.”
And so the faction split in two. And our only microphone left in that group was Luther’s.