The Kobalt Influx 8th Instalment

Norman felt his stomach swirl and gurgle, the pieces of bubble bread digested quickly.  That is what happens when one thinks about layer cakes and ducks.  His stomach was so empty that even thoughts of food stirred the gastric juices.  People pay for this experience, Norman was thankful that meals were included in the contract, he had thought that meals meant a table, chairs, meat and three vegetables.  

The man seated next to him radiated discontent that crashed into Norman like a wave crashing on a rocky shoreline.  Norman was surprised that he could feel the emotion.  He put the feeling down to the lack of food. That anyone who felt so strongly about the current situation and did not complain was strange.  Something, there was something about the man next to him.  A flood of warning swept over Norman, the man next to him was dangerous.

Norman looked at the picture, hoping for a safer option.  In the picture Norman noted that the garment of the man seated in the middle of the table touched the garment of left arm of the woman seated next to him, the pose, the artist was suggesting something, a close comfortable companionship, no the relationship was closer.  Even if the woman was leaning away from the man in the middle to politely listen to something a man holding a knife was telling her. There was a secret, he could feel the presence of a secret.  Was it the relationship between the two people in the middle?

I need food, Norman said to himself.  Now I’m seeing things that tradition does not hold with; how do I know things like that?  The picture is a reconstruction, the artist painted something for a patron. Norman closed his eyes, he seemed to have an antenna that was receiving transmissions from the picture.

A tide of waiters serving the next course flooded into the room, disrupting Norman’s thoughts about the picture.  Bowls of steaming liquid were placed in front of the diners.  Everyone had something different, his bowl looked like a green, purple and white lollipop and he wanted to lick it rather than eat it with a spoon.  Looking into his bowl of soup made his head feel light, as if it wanted to float away.  

Now that is just down right weird, thought Norman, I look at my food and my head wants to take off.  To check that it was his food Norman glanced at the bowl on his left, a greenish mustard coloured soup was in the bowl.  Feelings of bitterness and something Norman could not place, he wanted to argue, but did not know what the argument was about.  The emotion surprised and frightened Norman, he looked at his bowl and found that he felt he was floating, higher and higher, he had freedom.

Intrigued and cautious he took a squint at the bowl on his right hand side, the contents of this bowl were red, with a white centre, the mood of the bowl was heavy, there was a weight, something was  carried.  Am I going to survive this meal?  Norman asked himself.  I get emotions from objects and people.  This place is weird, but then people love to pay for the unusual, so far I would not be disappointed.

The silence was broken by a voice sounding like a booming bell, “Eat, this is your meal, this is the course you have chosen.”  

Norman picked up the spoon was next to his right hand, hunger was motivation to eat, but with the strange emotions running through him he wondered if eating the food in his bowl a wise choice.  He did not expect that the food would kill him, it might make me stronger, but that thought in itself concerns me.  Stronger for what?  Norman counted to ten and decided that he was too hungry to care.

7. The Kobalt Influx

from Wikimedia Commons

Silence patrolled the room like an eagle flying high over a field watching for the movement of a small animal, condemned for moving . The diners conscious of silence, patrolled the room with their eyes.  When a sound was detected they turned their eyes towards the place emitting disturbance, a rustle of garment or nervous cough, gave focus, cautioned, and begged the offending diner to cooperate, reminding the diner that silence is golden.  

The man next to Norman gulped his glass of water.  The man’s hasty drinking, turned heads, and eyes searched for the source of the noise.  Norman noticed the man vanished into his garment.  One blink of an eye was all it took, all that was left was a robe sitting in a chair.  

Not satisfied with just a robe, because garments don’t make a noise when on a hanger, and the diners, restless from silence and the slowness of service, settled on the nearest source to the noise they could find, that Norman did not have an empty glass in front of him did not seem to matter.

Norman could feel the stare of eyes.  His face and skin heated from blood rushing to the surface of his skin, blushing.  The feeling embarrassed Norman and encouraged heat to flush his cheeks again.  Norman did not need a mirror to know what was happening to him.  He wanted to say a few terse words to the man next to him, but that would mean breaking the rule of silence, and that was something he was not prepared to do.

For relief from the roaming eyes,  he focused on the painting, he hoped that the eyes would follow his gaze, and not stare at him.  The painting was a copy of a copy, but precious.  Norman remembered seeing a smaller version of this picture, it had been found in a library, but the library itself was a copy, the picture was originally painted on a wall in a refectory, similar to the room he was seating in.

Painting on the walls of buildings, inside and outside, was an ancient custom, only the styles and content of the art work determined the period, it was hard to make sense of the past.  The stories and records of the time before the catastrophic event that began time present was blamed on a flood.

He did not dispute that there had been a flood, there was evidence of flood and floods, the problem was deciding which flood was THE flood; so many stories, so long ago, something happened, but the trouble with stories that old is that they are like a layer cake that is hit by a ball, left for a while, then picked up and put back together.  A  very good chance that the layer cake is a lame duck, but still a layer cake, only the layers are harder to define.

3.

"Fifteen minutes."

"Yes Sir, and I do apologise Sir, but we need to leave now," said the man.

"Right now?"

"Yes Sir, I am afraid right now."

"What if I don't want to eat in fifteen minutes, and what if I prefer to eat here?"

Norman knew he was being difficult but he really didn't want to stay overnight.  He wanted to stay on the mainland, not on this manufactured rock.  He was planning to keep in touch with Samuel and the Museum, and was also hoping to keep his museum work moving.

"Sir," nudged the waiting man.

"Okay," sighed Norman, suspecting he was not free to refuse the invitation.

I must find out the man's name thought Norman as he raced after him.  He would never find his way back to the room, he had been working in. And why the rush?  Norman asked himself.  If he had been invited the host would wait, especially with an invite that seemed to be the meal start in fifteen be there or...what. Who issues invitations like that, a King with an axe that chops off heads if your late.

"Hurry Sir," the man said over his shoulder, not panting, Norman could noticed,  and disliked him for it, and the man's expectation of the speed Norman could sustain through unusual corridors, that deserved more than a glance, was cruel and unusual punishment.

Norman found himself jogging on a long runway of carpet, that would best be described as a corridor, a corridor that wasn't a corridor, because the carpet was a pathway between rooms.  He would have like to stand a study each room they passed through.  But when he did stop to take a look at a group of people who were sitting at a table with a white table cloth and plates of cakes and sandwiches, and women holding delicate cups, half way to their mouths.....

"Sir."

How could he know that I stopped, Norman asked himself, he must have eyes in the back of his head.  The pace lifted after that and the next rooms passed in a blur of brown, yellow, he was please of the pace through yellow, thirty seconds was enough to make him ill.  After that he noted, light green, purple, more green, he had to stop taking notes he was getting too far behind the man, and didn't want another 'Sir!'

Then the man took a sharp left turn and stopped three paces from the turn.  He should have ran into the man, Norman thought,  for stopping short around a bend.  The only thing that saved the man and accident,Norman  thought as he bent over panting, was his slowing to a sluggish need-to-stop jog.

Then, the man annoyed Norman even more, if that was possible, Norman was trying to regain his breath, and the man handed, no, shoved a garment at Norman, a garment that looked like something from his mother's wardrobe.  His mother wore her garment when she sang in a choir. Norman was never a fan of the clothing, but his mother had insisted that the audience wanted the choir to wear this sort of robe.  The ancients wore them when they sang their music.  Norman had said that one statue of a man holding something, the statue was damaged, and what looked like a music sheet was by no means confirmed.  His mother had said the audience thinks that is what it is, so that is what it is, and one statue is enough to confirm things for me.  That was the end of that discussion.  Norman hoped that he was not supposed to sing, he had no ear for reproducing melody.

He was going to have to have a talk to this 'Sir!' man, he did not like being dressed, and in a hurry, suited  Norman even less, there needed to be boundaries.  At the moment too many boundaries were being crossed.  Norman put his hands up, and shook his head, he did not want any more help, if some of the buttons on this robe were not done up, he didn't care.  The evening meal was, Norman suspected going to be a most of the night affair. And he was the last guest to arrive.