The Rembis Report And Other Fascinating Topics - Volume CXXXIV

This essay is the third in a weekly series about the personal nature of thinking, thought progression, dreams, and ponderings on the subject of quantum entanglement.

I recommend reading this from the beginning.

CLICK HERE for Albatross - Part I

CLICK HERE for Albatross - Part II

I just found out that the island of Pianosa is a real place.

It lies in the Mediterranean Sea eight miles South of Elba. That is how Joseph Heller describes it in the beginning of Catch-22. I recall that passage because Catch-22 is one of my favorite books and I have read it at least four times, maybe five or six, I am not sure. Anyway, for a long time, I thought that Pianosa was fictional. Because when I looked on paper maps to find the island of Elba, off the Italian coast, it was right there, but no Pianosa. It was just too tiny of a dot to include.

Imagine my surprise when I found an article about Pianosa on CNN. It exists. The island that Heller wrote about, commandeered by Allied forces in World War II is a real place. But somehow, I thought it was not. I thought it was a cool name for a fictional island.

Then I started reading the article and remembered something. I remembered that I had already found this out years before, too. In the interim, I had just forgotten that I already knew it. Somewhere along the way, I had the same fun surprise once before, and did the same research to find it on the internet, and looked at photos of it and said “Wow.”

How did I forget that? What else did I forget? What do I really know about things that I do not realize that I already know? I always like to think that I have a great memory, because I do have a lot of recall about a lot of different stuff, but somehow, this memory eluded me until I jogged it around my cranium for a bit. Now, I know for sure that I knew this already.

So, why the surprise? How did that memory get compartmentalized, shelved in the library of my mind? What else is on those shelves?

I am confident that I am not alone in this. I know lots of people who have forgotten things that I remember. Sometimes, when you try to remind them of something they should recall, like a solid memory you have of - you name it - and they don’t, how did they lose that memory?

I don’t know that we are ever going to be able to answer that question, so I will leave it as something to think about.

The same question applies to dreams, perhaps more so. You may recall a dream in waking life, and tell somebody about it, and then forget you told them. Then, one day, for no particular reason, that person may remind you about that one time you told them about your dream, and you can’t recall it. Memory has a way of being selective. Why? Some answers may be more scientific than others, but they all carry equal weight. Nobody really knows.

So, even though I recall a great deal about Dreamland Four, the Mall City, I don’t remember everything. There are gaps. There are questions I can not answer. I can’t replay a dream exactly and slow it down and put on captions like I can on a TV set. There is a lot I am not going to be able to tell you. But, what I do know about Mall City is that it thrives.

There is a lot more going on there than just what is happening to me. Just like in waking life, I pass people by, see them only once, and know nothing about them. They have their own lives that I am not part of.

Dave Chappelle made this point in his most recent Netflix special, The Dreamer. No real spoilers here, but he used the term “dreamer” to identify a person aspiring to and living their dreams, as opposed to dreams in sleep. He notes that sometimes you are part of another person’s dream, like the audience is part of his dream come true, or when somebody else is having the best day of their life, you may be part of that person’s dream.

This makes me wonder about the people I pass by in Mall City. Do they notice me, too? Is it as real for some of them as it is for me? If so, does that make Mall City a real place on some ethereal plane we can only reach in our sleep?

Again - questions I can’t answer. But let me tell you what I do know about Mall City. I will start downtown. Sometimes I go there after work.

The streets are clean. I do not recall litter or graffiti. That does not mean there isn’t any, it just means I don’t recall it. From here forward, anything I do not recall, I won’t mention. Just know that I am only reporting what I actually remember.

It is usually late afternoon, going into dusk when I visit downtown. I go there to shop. I buy lottery tickets. I parallel park on the street and sometimes plug a coin into a meter. Sometimes, my dear, sweet wife, Ellen is there. We have drinks at one of the bars, which are usually on balconies, two or three flights up. The whole downtown area is situated like this. Buildings connect with foot bridges and there is a lot of indoor shopping. In waking life, I have lived in or visited urban areas like this, but in Mall City, it is like you can go anywhere in a ten block radius without stepping outside. In waking life it was a bit like this in Spokane, and I think I recall similar setups in Chicago or Boston or Atlanta. When it is raining or snowing (I have seen both in Mall City), no matter where you park, you can get right inside and walk hallways and bridges through a maze of shops, restaurants, and bars, on your way to where you are going.

Sometimes I meet up with other people I work with. I am not sure if the bar is always the same one, but it feels like I visit a few different ones, and the people I meet are not necessarily from the mall where I work. I have some friends downtown, and a couple specific bartenders, who are always welcoming, and I get the sense that they are people that I worked with in my past, not from my current job.

It is a comfortable place.

It always was. Until I started looking for Mrs. Song.

For the purposes of this story, I am naming her. Mrs. Song is a Chinese lady who runs a tea shop in my mall. She is elderly with stern Mongolian features. Deep brown eyes set in her flat, round face, make her seem wise. I don’t know that her name is Mrs. Song. I don’t really know the names of anyone in Mall City, but for simplicity and illustrative purposes, because this is all about the tea lady at my mall, let’s call her Mrs. Song. That name just seems to fit her.

The tea shop is located at the top level of the mall, a place called The Bazaar. It is fully secure from the outside unless you are a ninja who knows how to scale walls and climb roofs. Other than a few balconies that overlook the parking lots and distant mountains, the only way in and out of the bazaar is through the lower levels of the mall. It is a mostly open air space, partially covered with a half dome at one end that closes completely in winter. In good weather we have big canvas sails that cover most of it, but there are spots completely open to the elements. Birds fly freely. The style is that of an international street bazaar, complete with sunny, open air shops, tents, and food wagons. It is one of the most popular parts of the mall, one of the busiest corridors. Our best real estate.

I had a package for her. It was a brown paper thing, tied up crossways with a coarse rope. Didn’t weigh much, like a little stack of T-shirts. When I got to the shop it was empty.

Imagine my surprise to find her shop closed. Mrs. Song was in business for years. The tea shop was completely cleaned out. It was now the only vacancy in the bazaar. I was not informed that the shop had closed. When I checked on her neighbors, like the little bodega-like place with the food counter, they had not seen her lately. Everyone wondered where she went.

It wasn’t a simple one-old-lady shop, either. She had loads of inventory. Lots of teas and medicines and herbs and knick-knacks and decorations for sale. She had at least two employees, maybe three. But nobody saw them leave. They remembered her, but nobody noticed her shop being cleaned out and hauled away. It just was.

The dark, mustached fellow with the bald spot who runs the bodega served me a sandwich. He makes great sandwiches. I go there a lot. While I ate, he told me he thought she got kicked out. I knew that was not the case, and told him so. I checked with the noodle place down the way. I thought they knew her because they were Asian, too. They knew the store, but nothing about where it had gone.

Mrs. Song’s Tea Shop simply vanished.

So, I decided to look downtown for it, to see if she had moved. Vacancies are few and far between downtown. Just finding one would take a bidding war, I imagine, and for what she sells, and our clientele, the foot traffic in the bazaar is probably better than anywhere else in the city. If she moved anywhere, it could only be one reason. Cheaper rent. But the rents here weren’t that much lower, so I figured she must have split town.

Still, I had a package for her, and I committed to bringing it, so, I looked for her. I told my bartender pal about it. I don’t remember what he said, but he gave me a bad feeling about looking for her, basically telling me to forget it.

I went around downtown, looking for a tea shop. I asked people in other shops and offices. Whenever I told them who I was, where I worked, and that the tea shop went “poof,” people did not want to help me. I got a bad vibe. Cold shoulders. Crooked looks. Seemed that other people knew something about Mrs. Song that nobody wanted to tell me. I don’t know why it got that way. I figured that nobody would know her to begin with, unless they shopped at her store. It was a real surprise to mention her and have everyone know exactly who I was talking about.

I mean, any time somebody asks me about somebody else, I never seem to know them, and it drops. But Mrs. Song apparently had a reputation. A kind of reputation that you don’t want. I would not call it bad, exactly. People were wary of her. They were careful what they said they knew, and nobody said anything bad about her - but they never praised her either. It was always matter-of-fact. “Yes, I know her. She is not here. Haven’t seen her, don’t know where she is or where she would go. No idea.”

I surveyed several people over the course of a few days. She was nowhere to be found.

Then I got another package for her.

I was standing in the parking garage waiting for the blond kid to make the delivery. He always drove up in an old yellow two door sports car. It was a cool little junker, like a Barracuda or Javelin, with noisy exhaust. I think he meant for it to be loud. A couple times he tried tossing me the package when he drove by. Once he realized I wasn’t going to catch them, he stopped throwing them. I could catch them when they came right at me, no problem, but when they were more than a foot away, I didn’t even try. No way would I run for it. I made him back up, get out, pick them up, and hand them to me. Once he did that a second time he stopped throwing them.

They were always the same plain, brown paper package, neatly tied with plain, brown string. Always felt like T-shirts inside. When the kid showed up for the drop, he saw me handing him back the last one he gave me. He refused to take it. Said that he doesn’t know who gives the packages to him before he gives them to me. He has nobody to return it to. That we could not break the chain. I had to deliver it.

I told him about Mrs. Song and got no sympathy. He tossed the package out the window to the ground and drove away. Now I had two packages for Mrs. Song.

I don’t know why the kid always found me in the parking lot, why I could not avoid it, and find another place to park. Maybe it was the reserved spot in a shady place with easy access to the mall. An employees-only entrance by a loading dock. Reserved parking - that’s how they get you. To stay at your job, I mean. Let’s face it, once you have a reserved spot close to the door, do you really want to find another place to work? Of course not.

Kids hang out in that area a lot, half the time it seems, popping wheelies on bikes and riding skateboards. As long as they don’t build ramps, we are okay with it. We had to confiscate ramps and word got around, but we made it clear they could skateboard all they wanted at the far end of the lot over by the woods. Just no ramps allowed. This is one of the areas of Mall City I visualize extremely well. This section is adjacent to the main garage at ground level and opens up to the woods on three sides. There are plenty of spots to park, but almost nobody parks here. It is really close to the vacant theaters entrance that people have stopped using. The doors are open, but nobody walks in or out that way anymore.

The blond kid was staking it out, catching me as I exited my car, to drop package after package. We had nearly the same conversation every time.

“Mrs. Song is gone. I have no place to deliver this to.”

“Not my problem dude. I deliver to you. As long as I deliver to you, my job is done.”

“What if you can’t find me? What then? And what am I supposed to do with these packages?” I asked.

“You need to find out where the old lady was taking them, and take them there.”

“I thought they were for her.”

“Maybe. All I know is we are not supposed to break the chain. I pick up packages and bring them to you, that’s it. You do your thing, and that’s not my business.”

He handed me another package and drove away.

And this isn’t just one single dream. This goes on for weeks. I have all sorts of other interactions in Mall City; with Ellen, and the people in our house that may be our kids, and my friends at bars and restaurants, and all over the mall where I work. I carry a clipboard around sometimes. I wear a tie. I like wearing ties.

Every once in a while the kid tosses me another package and Mrs. Song is still gone and the tea shop is still vacant. Then, so is the noodle shop. They suddenly closed up, too. I did not know them so well.

Now, my car trunk is stuffed with these packages. Like twenty of them. I have boxes and shopping bags filled with them. I drive a sedan, four doors. It is tan. Plain. Like a Buick or Ford. Plenty of room for more packages.

My hunt for the whereabouts of Mrs. Song continues. Same old thing. It is the top of my awareness now in Mall City. This is what I am doing. I search for Mrs. Song. I tell everyone about it and nobody knows how to help. And the packages keep piling up.

Do I dare open the packages and find out what is inside? No. Not once. Are they drugs? Maybe. The less I know, the better, I think. Ignorance is bliss, so I just carry the packages around in the trunk of my car, hoping I find out where she went, so I can deliver them. That seems to be my mission.

I have a good relationship with the security force at my mall. They know who I am and we always nod and wave in the hallways. Over by my parking spot, I sometimes hang out with one of the guards who parks over by the edge of the lot, by the forest, where he smokes cigarettes. I do not smoke in waking life, yet, when I speak to this guard, I join him over there and sometimes have a smoke myself.

He told me I should go to city hall and look up public records to find Mrs. Song.

That seemed like a good idea. The next time I was downtown, instead of driving uphill to city hall, I took the bus. I don’t know why. Maybe parking is worse up there than it is downtown. City hall sits on a cliff a few hundred feet up. The bus ride is not far, and as you go up the hill, coursing hairpin turns, you can look straight down. If a bus ever crashes it is going to be a disaster.

I weave through the busy corridors of city hall looking for a records department and start asking questions about the tea shop. I get no answers. Nobody can tell me anything about Mrs. Song or where she went, but more than one asks “Why do you want to know?”

My answer is that I need to find her, and I leave it at that.

Being unable to find her through civic channels leaves me with a bad feeling. Was she kidnapped? What should I do with all the packages? What about the kid, who said we were not supposed to break the chain? What is that about?

Now, the kid is the only one with any kind of answer for me, because without Mrs. Song, I don’t know what she did with the packages. Was she not the final destination? Was she just a way station, a carrier, like me and the kid? What are in the packages and where is the final destination?

The bus ride back downtown felt extremely long. There were a lot of stops for new passengers, it got crowded, and I had to transfer and wait for a new bus.

When I finally got back to my car, it was night. I looked in the trunk at the packages. I thought about opening one, but did not. I went into the building where I was parked, and soon, found myself sitting with Ellen, and the young blonde women, who are sometimes in our home.

We ate dinner. Nice and relaxing. I get a stronger impression that these are our daughters. I can visualize the older one better than her sister.

I don’t mention anything about Mrs. Song, missing tea shops, or my trunkful of questionable packages that are probably some kind of contraband that nobody should mess with. I have a cocktail in hand and am enjoying myself and my family.

Then, I am told that I am being watched.

It wasn’t a feeling I had. Somebody warned me. Like a subtle whisper, but I’m not sure who said it. Maybe the bartender. Or a busboy.

I sense danger. I scan the crowd, looking for confirmation of my dread. I think I see somebody, but then I blink, and they are gone.

Like an albatross flying through wispy clouds, who spies a tiny spit of land below, before drifting through a cloud again, and then being unable to find it.

It was like that.

CLICK HERE to read Albatross - Part IV

Thanks for reading.

If you are new to the Rembis Report and would like to read any of the previous issues, PLEASE CLICK HERE to access the archives. To read it from the beginning, PLEASE GET A COPY of The Rembis Report: An Observation.

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