Crystal City, Arlington - 1985 18th Street - John Elliott's Apartment
The ceiling fan spun slowly overhead, a cyclical shadow falling over the middle of the upper-class apartment befitting a man of John's trade. So long as there were laws, there would be lawyers; there was always another case to be solved, always more money to dump into empty trinkets and furniture. A few potted plants, wilted from carelessness, decorated the windowsill. Arlington, and Washington DC, expanded below the high-rise building, just across the Potomac river. The center of so much pain and strife meant nothing to the apartment's tenant, who currently lay on the couch, staring blankly upwards at the rotating fan with wooden, dead eyes, thick black glasses slightly askew on his stone-carved face.
A discarded copy of Auster's City of Glass lay on the floor, a half-empty glass of ice water resting on the coffee table beside the brown-red couch. John could not recall how long he'd been staring at the fan, thinking of nothing in particular. His mouth was dry; he thought to reach for the water, but decided against it, embracing the stillness that had become his life. How many hours had been spent staring at the fan, twirling languidly up above? His legs hung over the side of the sofa, dangling slightly above the floor of his home. He paid no attention to the state of his surroundings - he was breathing, but dead.
The sound of music echoed in his mind, snapping him from his self-imposed coma. It started off as a small hum, a tune he barely recognized at first. He sighed, then rose, smoothing back his brown hair and glancing at the newspaper on his table, next to the now-warm water. He ignored the humming, once again running his finger across the headline: Reynard returns to duty; pushback from public?
The music became more crisp, the delivery sharper; whoever had the tune stuck in their head had begun to remember the words, the beats, the lyrics. It was David Bowie's Space Oddity, now remembered just as well as the recording. He did not tune out the thought, for John Elliott was not capable of something like that. Mentis could focus in on a single sentence, picking out murderous impulse in a crowd at a whim. But John had to listen to everything, as he'd given up on confining his own thoughts to the world around him. Perfunctory hellos and goodbyes became a thousand times more notable when the thought behind them was clear enough. Language had no meaning to him, only instinct; in that way, there was no boundary between himself and the outside world. John Elliott had no identity, for he had no thoughts of his own; he was an empty vessel, filled by the musings and desires of so many others whose pensive existences he could not restrict. He'd abandoned legal practice in person, the uncontainable guilty thoughts penetrating the veil he'd erected so meticulously 'tween himself and his clients, for how could a man defend another whom he knew committed the crime, for how could he be good yet aid and abet evil, for their legal system had been flawed, yes, and how he now could do nothing but lay for he was empty for he was John yet not John for all that constituted his mind now were the thoughts of others-
Ground control to Major Tom, he echoed, blinking as the music inexorably filled his head. Ground control to Major Tom. Take your protein pills and put your helmet on.
How he wished to be himself again, to filter out the thoughts, to live his own life free of what others demanded or wished or needed or felt or feared. He knew it all, sitting in that apartment in Arlington, unable to focus, the dozens of streams of consciousness passing through his head as water passed through an estuary. He was a collective consciousness, a repository of fleeting feelings inconsolably concentrated amongst all those of Northern Virginia. What emotions might a man have who uncontrollably experienced all that of his surroundings at all times? He was on both sides of every breakup, understanding what it meant to be loved and to be unloved and uncontrolled and sad and wanting to die yet needing to live and desiring nothing more than to be understood but how could anyone when none might perceive how it might be to hear anything and everything thought simultaneously and overwhelmingly as a mosquito buzzed in the ear of a man downtown who swatted at it and as it passed from this world John heard a child cry out in distress as they felt so alone and he knew how it felt to be alone yet he was never alone for he was all.
He rested his tired head in his hands, squeezing his head. Mentis would have no issue dealing with the pressures of a thousand men. Mentis was strong where John was weak, focused where John was receptive to all. Mentis had a concept of self. How ironic it was, that the masked crime-fighter, a disguise for the psionic John Elliott, had a greater sense of identity? Mentis existed in his own world. He had hopes, dreams, desires; John had all, and thus, none. Mentis could focus, could think; John simply existed, a receptacle of lost memories. Words were nothing to John, only placeholders for emotion. Words had meaning to Mentis.
Commencing countdown, engines on, he heard, opening his eyes. Whose thoughts were these, so crisp, so clear? He could hear the song as perfectly as one listening to it. Had it been something original, something he'd come up with himself? He could not say. He stood, peering around the room. Nobody was there. He blinked rapidly, then swept aside the table with a flick of his hand. It crashed into the wall, glass shattering, water spreading across the floor. His eyes were wide open.
Check ignition, and may God's love be with youuuuu
He knew what he had to do, inspiration striking as lighting did in the center of a thunderstorm. No other thoughts, none but his own. No more John, an empty man. Inspiration took him; was it Reynard's return, or the fall of the city in Nebraska? Was it altruism which drove him, or a sense of self? The song continued happily in his head, the ever-present mix of melancholy and monotony drifting away as he realized the true nature of his condition. John was nothing, for he was everything everyone else thought; John was unfocused, without identity, without goal. He would live only to die. Yet he had something else, something to be. John could be Mentis again.
The mask fit over his face as snugly as it had in 1997, with it coming a smirk over his square-jawed face. Clarity at last. He opened his eyes, breathing deep. He heard nothing, the silence more beautiful than any woman or novel he'd chosen to experience in the past twenty years. Was this how it felt, to be alone with one's thoughts? Why now, all of a sudden? Mentis looked down, to see he was wearing his costume, his muscular physique naturally retained over the decades he'd been inactive. He flexed his fingers, the black gloves squeaking ever so softly. Closing his eyes, he grinned, seeking out the source of the song.
It played in his ears as the window aside from his desk opened, papers threatening to flutter away. His writing, his creativity, they meant nothing now; he was pure experience, a stream of consciousness of his own. What might he do? What might he not do? Mentis smiled, stroking his chin in thought. Crises had sprung up across the Earth, no doubt - they'd have to be tackled. A media appearance, perhaps, might serve his ends; he'd lent his name to charities before, encouraging others to donate. It was never about attention, he'd told himself. Perhaps the best course of action might be to roam, to leave the apartment, to find what he must do.
Ground control to Major Tom, your circuit's dead, there's something wrong-! Can you hear me Major Tom? Can you hear me Major Tom? Can you hear-
He chuckled, tuning out the thought of the music. He remembered it was intrusive to listen in. It was possible to lose one's self in another's thoughts, to become formless, an identity-less husk which could do nothing but be. Language was a barrier, but one which kept a person sane. To lose language in telepathy was to lose the self. Mentis couldn't afford that. He had work to do.
He flew from the apartment, mind carrying him high into the sky at speeds unimaginable. A cone of super-heated air enveloped the mental shields around his body, hands at his sides. He rose higher, threatening to breach the atmosphere, a laugh on his lips as the universe turned red around him. Mento-vision; how extraordinary.
"I'm alive," he said, only to himself. He closed his eyes, so happy, so proud to have returned; he felt as though another was controlling his body, dictating his actions, yet he were in control, capable of doing anything he pleased at the same time. Cognitive dissonance; how could he reconcile it? Through great exploits of quantum-psionic power, perhaps. He closed his eyes, repressing tears of joy. Heroes didn't cry - they fought evil, saved the world! Now was his chance...beyond being a good guy, he could be.
Mentis laughed, and whispered to himself.
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