The Cranial Tyro Chronicles

Cranial tapped the pocket chronometer he kept in his left breast pocket. It can’t be right, he thought. Eight months?

But it had been. Much had happened since his last trip into the pocket reality he’d concocted for himself, carved out of the catacombs in the bowels of the nevernever. The daughter he’d drawn along the walls like some drunken hunter-gatherer in a caveman’s tomb had been born. Of course, it was a boy. Some of the transmissions Cranial had sent into deep space in the hopes of distant recognition and entertainment had been received–even retransmitted. In fact, our little Tyro had even begun filtering transmissions intercepted by a local publishing hub.

Most of all, of course, he had lost his occupation in the shared mundane reality where he usually resided. And because he had lost this, he had time to work on the longest transmission of all.

Finally.

Cranial held the small, thin flexi in his hands. Awe-stricken, he turned it clockwise, tilting it ever so slightly from side to side as though the pixelated image might float away from the semi-glossed view into the air above, turning and shimmering just inches from his widened eyes. Amazed, he began turning it counter-clockwise in the same vein.

He had never seen his baby’s image before.

Switching the view to the next image, Cranial began tracing the outline of his unborn child with his index finger, then zoomed in on her face. It was still too early to determine sex, but Cranial could already see her features beginning to form: the soft pout of his wife’s lips; the same inquisitive stare; even her gentle, out-stretched hands. The only characteristic his baby girl shared with him was her bald, shiny scalp.

Cranial rubbed his head, absent-mindedly tracing the subtle ridges of the webwork of circuitry just beneath his scalp. It would be years before his daughter would be able to get even the most rudimentary of Synneth Webs, assuming she would ever opt for the same digital experience her father had embraced and later abandonned. For now–and recorded in his Mind’s eye for all eternity–Cranial’s daughter was pure.

Cranial smiled as he held the flexi an inch away from the refridgerator and uploaded the images to its door.

She was his picture of Purity and Perfection, Wonderment and Beauty.

Once upon a time, Cranial looked at grocery shopping as a kind of game. More than that, it was a right of passage of sorts. A proof of maturity and test of skill, whether or not he could stretch a handful of dollars to pay for enough food every week. If he passed the test well enough, a case of hard cider or lager might find its way onto the list.

As he looked down at the list in his hand, Cranial’s heart sank further than it had in almost a decade. He could forget about any hopes for alcohol, because he’d already had to forget about much of his food. Gone were the days when making a good Mediterranian pizza from scratch was a substitute for cheap pizza from the local college-run pizza shop. Now a cheap cheese pizza–skimpy on the cheese, please–was the treat-of-the-week on the dinner list. The rest of the week would contain a mix of boiled potatoes, various frozen vegetables, and half a chicken breast. A night of fried ravioli would start the weekend with a whimpering, little bang.

“It’s the economy,” Cranial told himself as he put the broccoli back in the freezer. Its price had gone up over the last week, somehow related to the price of deisel. He scratched broccoli from his miniscule shopping list and made a note to get an extra dented can of corn.

As the cart squeaked down the aisle, complete with a wobbling left, rear wheel, he swore under his breath at the world, muttering something about worthless college degrees and the cost of student loans.

The scenery along US Highway 27 flowed past the truck window in a swirl of bright autumn colors. Cranial stared out the window, passing the minutes as Rico Suave drove them past the southern outskirts of Nicholasville. The drive through town had been occupied with the typical getting-to-know-you banter, the most notable moments surrounding the events of Rico’s romantic life. True to the Afro-Rican template, it ended with an angry girlfriend, a jilted wife, and a sledgehammer pounding into his car while he watched from inside the store.

“Fucking psycho-drama,” Rico had said, as though he weren’t continuing to see both women.

Both women, and another three. Cranial shook his head, attempting to dispell the thoughts about Rico’s several houses. He’d set them up throughout Nicholasville like a spy sets up a network of safe-houses, then moved a different woman into every one like a moron. “At least keep onefor yourself and nobody else,” Cranial had suggested. It just seemed like common sense, given the circumstances; but common sense seems as prevalent in Afro-Rican love geometry as the colors of bright autumn leaves in Florida.

And so the Cranial Tyro’s thoughts returned to the view passing by outside the truck’s window, his attention jumping from one fiery tree to the next.

“So you’re all done with training?” Rico asked.

Cranial shrugged at a blood-red tree. He’d spent his first few days as a new Customer Account Representative holed up in a computer room going through hours and hours of training videos and tests. On the fourth day, when he was finally qualified to leave the hole, he’d leapt at the opportunity to jump on the truck and repossess an old freezer. “All but the module on bloodborne pathogens,” he finally answered.

“You want to get on that,” Rico  said, nodding like a man who’d been to the clinic more than once about the issue. “Last thing you need is to die for this job. Know what I’m sayin’?”

Cranial shrugged again. It all seemed like common sense again. “I’ll make sure not to step on any needles or anything.”

“It’s cool,” Rico assured him. “It’s not like we’re picking up a bed or mattress.”

Cranial turned from the window finally, avoiding the new image that had merged with the reds among the trees. “Yeah,” he said. He turned the radio up a few notches and began to stare at the road ahead of them, wondering what he’d gotten himself into with this job.