Salt Free

Everything is bright grey.

Bright grey?, I wonder to myself as I look through the bars of my cell. Is there even such a color as bright grey?

And what am I doing in a cell? I have never been here before, I know that much.

I look around and I notice that it's not really a cell at all- it's an apartment, one of many inside this building. Nicely furnished, soft furniture in dark colors.

Through the bars and across what is probably a street I see another building, the facing wall has been removed; I am reminded of the bombed-out buildings of Baghdad or Beirut, but there is no rubble or jagged edges- it's as if the wall were never there in the first place.

Inside the neatly-partitioned apartments people are moving.

Look: There's a fat man shaving. He's nicked his lip and he's desperately trying to staunch the blood with bits of tissue paper...it works on the third or fourth try, but it's a bit undignified to look at. I laugh, but I hope no one else does- I hate shaving cuts.
Good luck, Fat Man, I think. Rub your belly, maybe you'll get your wish.

Look: There's a woman undressing. She's talking to someone in another room as she pulls a sweater off over her head. No bra.
She looks over at me and we make eye contact, which is odd, since I am staring at her breasts. Oh, of course.
She's got eyes in place of nipples.
I've seen this before and it's not nearly as frightening as it sounds.
Her left nipple winks at me. It's OK to look, it says.
I blush anyway.

Look: There's a family of four sitting at a table, two adults and two children of grade-school age.
They are waiting for someone to pass the salt. There's untasted food on their plates and I can feel it growing cold from here.
Pass the salt!
Nobody is moving, all four are waiting.

I look around some more. I could use some rubble right now- I'd like to throw a rock at the family and get their attention:

" You haven't even tasted your food yet! How do you know that it needs salt?"

Christ, I wonder how many perfectly good meals have gone to waste because some fool waited too long for salt that wasn't needed in the first place?

Behind me, a man speaks.

"Is this what you're looking for?"

It's my friend Scoe. He's got a book in his hand. Scoe has given me many books in the twenty years we have been friends and every one has been a winner. I bet he can help me out.

"Damn. I'm glad to see you. I need a good brick and I left mine in my other dream."

"Here."

He hands me the book, which has become a baseball. I take it from him and I'm pleased to find that I still remember my two-fingered pitcher's grip. Oh, yeah, this thing was made to be thrown.

I go into my wind-up and throw a perfect strike into the family's dining room but they are gone already and my effort is wasted. The ball bounces off the inside wall and rolls back towards me, falls off the edge.

I hear a splooshing sound. I look down and see that there is no street between the buildings, only slow-moving dark water.
I wonder if baseballs float?
I wait, watching to see if the ball bobs to the surface.

It doesn't.

"Hey, man, did you see that? That family. Where did they go? "

But Scoe is gone too, and gone with him are the fat man and the woman with the winking nipple.
I'm alone now.
Below me, the water is visibly rising, moving thickly.
It's only a few feet below floor level and it's black as pitch.
I laugh at my own horrible pun and wish that I hadn't thrown my baseball into the water.

I reach for the bars in front of me.
They are made of smoke and the motion of my hands blows them away.

I steel myself, reach down and extend a finger into the dark , roiling liquid which is now just a few inches below. I expect it to be blood, or even the ichor of some long-forgotten demon, but it's nothing but cool, clear water.

The darkness is due to depth, not pollution.

Ka-pap! Ka-pap!

That's the sound of a baseball bouncing off concrete.
It's behind me. Has Scoe returned ?

I turn.

It's not Scoe. It's the woman with the chest that stares back. She's wearing one of my t-shirts. Why be modest now?, I wonder without panic, the water is rising and we are going to either swim together or drown apart; in any case , clothes aren't gonna help.

She reads my mind and smiles. The shirt is gone but she's got a clean white sphere in her left hand, tossing it up and down, following it with one eye while the other three study me.

That's mine but it looks good in your hand.

More telepathy and another smile, this time accompanied by laughter and a single word.

"Catch."