BUBBLES ON FIRE

Rob sat pondering the many things happening just beyond that door, and many other things besides.
Tim’s exasperation as he fell back into his seat, sighing, deeply, was not lost on Rob.
Finally, Tim looked over. “Look, I’d really like to apologize,” he said, shedding the wrapper off the Fireball candy he had extracted from his desk drawer. “Patterson’s usually not this edgy.” He popped the candy into his mouth. “He’s stubborn, plain and simple. Let’s just say he is not very open-minded when it comes to new methodologies in the arena of microbial genomics.” Tim shook his head. “Also, the rumor going around is that he’s started drinking again. His wife left him last month, see.”
Tim crinkled up then flicked the cellophane candy wrapper, landing it on the desk. Rob’s eyes were greeted with the words on the wrapper in front of him: Atomic Fireball. “Ah, but you, of all people, if you don’t mind my saying, must know how messy things can get between family members…” His eyes met Rob’s.
Rob saw the bait for what it was, and went for it anyway.
“Sure, I guess I know a thing or two about family feuds,” Rob conceded, fighting but failing to prevent the upwards curve of a smile.
Tim said, “Lori is your sister?”
“Twin sister, in case you didn’t notice.”
Tim nodded. “I noticed something else, too. Now, it’s not because I mean to pry…”
“She’s mad at me. Not talking to me. At all, anymore.” Rob straightened. “She’s upset over certain decisions I have made which she’s described as ‘sucking balls’—” Tim froze in mid-suck; Rob’s pun was however unintentional. He went on: “Anyway, so, I guess the reason why I’m still here instead of packing up all my cleaning supplies and heading on home is because—”
“Of Lori,” Tim said, tapping his fingers on the desktop. “Yes, your sister did mention about having a twin, and that she was having a bit of a dilemma, even, in regards to him.” Tim stopped tapping. “Didn’t offer much in the way of details, though. She never even told me your name. She must have wanted to handle the situation on her own.” A troubled look darkened Tim’s face. “She should have sought me out for further advice. And she wonders why she’s only an Intermediary.”
Rob raised an eyebrow. “Intermediary?”
Tim coughed. “Anyway, my recommendation to her was that she test her twin brother.”
Rob flinched. “Test me? For what? What are you talk—?”
“I’m talking about you. And Lori. And how she had whispered in your ear about coming back here. That’s why you are still here.” Tim leveled his gaze. “Right?”
Rob eased back into his chair. “You heard, then.” Leaning forward, he said, “See, with Lori being my twin sister and all, I’d really like to get things patched up with her. Even since Mom and Dad died years back in that car accident, she’s the only family I’ve got.” Rob grew melancholy. “I hate to say this about my own sister but...” Rob swallowed “...she’s been acting like a regular b-i-t-c-h, lately. I mean, cutting ties with her own twin brother because of a career change? It’s not like I’m drunk all the time or have taken up a life of crime or whatever.”
Rob knew of another reason why he had for staying put. Namely, how had this Tim person known about those “fires” that would flare up whenever Rob experienced his bubble revelations? Also, why testing? For what?
Rob wanted so desperately to know; yet something inside of him seemed to prevent him from asking the question directly. Afterwards, would Rob consider that it was a full-on Solstine Proliferation that had prevented him from asking, to draw out the conversation to allow Rob to make a more fully informed decision about joining the fire club.
“Yeah, Lori…” Rob said, deciding to speak on about this subject that was really no business of the project manager’s but which might prove to be the small talk needed to fill in the time until Lori’s return, “was pretty peeved after I told her I’d be ditching my job as insurance agent to clean carpets.”
Rob entertained a glance out of Tim’s window; however, his sights were snatched away by the SpongeBob doll reposing in the window’s foreground with its legs dangling over the sill. It seemed to beckon him.
“I guess,” Rob said at SpongeBob, “it’s because we’re twins, and all of our lives we have been pretty much, well, inseparable, that Lori’s taking the whole thing personally. She said I wasn’t living up to my potential, that I was a shame to the family, blah, blah, blah.” Rob shrugged. “You know, that sort of thing.”
The irresistible thought surged into Rob’s consciousness: SpongeBob means something: he’s important. Tearing his sights away, and continuing to bide time with chatter, Rob went on, “In a rare moment, I got, then, all philosophical with Lori. I told her that there were bigger things out there, forever-type things, and it was these things I wanted to focus on and hopefully partake in by becoming, of course, a carpet cleaner.”
Tim placed his chin in his hand.
Rob blabbered on, “Oh, and also, and to try to bring the point home I was trying to make, I shared then with Lori some of the experiences I had had on the job with, you know—” Rob fastened his gaze “—the bubbles.” He shifted in his seat. “Anyway, so, that’s when Lori went totally off the deep end and stopped talking to me.”
Tim asked, “She hasn’t talked to you since?”
“Not until today.”
With his cinnamon candy continuing to brand the hollow of his mouth, Tim furrowed his brow. “These many things you’re saying are, gosh, certainly interesting. And for sure there’s something to be said about wanting to be a part of something bigger, as they say.” Tim sat up. He smiled, broadly.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” Rob said.
“The scientist in me has calculated that it is time, my friend.”
Rob blinked. “Time for what?”
“Lori woulnd’t mind, I don’t think. In fact, she’d probably want it this way, all things considered. Besides, I’ve got seniority.” Swiveling his chair around, Tim directed, by way of neck spasm, his visitor’s attention to the office wall behind them—which showcased a window and beside it a solitary diploma set in a frame.
Rob noticed it was a bachelor’s degree, which surprised him. His every expectation was that this individual would have been a PhD of some sort.
Tim said, “You’ll notice, and might think it strange, that this degree you see here is in elementary education.” Rob did think it strange, though not as strange as he might have was not the greater part of his brain still trying to wrap itself around Tim’s lingo about Lori, and seniority, and had not his sights since shifted sideways to the windowsill, and SpongeBob—
Which means something…
That doll, Rob mused. Plush, yellow, goofy smile, dangling skinny legs, a stuffed animal item plunked down into all of this highfalutin academia of books, beakers, quadratic formulas, Einstein posters…
“That’s me,” Tim said, weakly. He looked downright frumpy with his crooked smile on.
Rob blinked. “Pardon?”
Tim kept his eyes on the diploma. “Me. A teacher. Is who I am by trade.” Tim raised an eyebrow. “Had not fate intervened, I would right now be working as an elementary school teacher. Teaching is what I love. It’s my passion.” Tim paused. “But then…” He lowered his voice “…a certain screensaver with photo on it of Rocky Mountain National Park entered my life.”
In an even voice that belied his growing aggravation with the project manager’s incessant small talk and ability to at times not make any sense at all, Rob asked, “What’s all this you’ve been saying about your screensaver…?”
Shaking his head, Tim smiled. “I thought you would never ask.” He swiveled back around to face his visitor. “You see…and indulge me here for a moment, if you would. Even though I was certified to work with kids, and did end up working as a fifth-grade teacher, growing up I had been what you might call a science wiz, even though I didn’t care much for science. My senior year in high school MIT offered me a scholarship and I had to purposely flunk a physics exam to get the recruits off my back. I ended up majoring in education instead, got this diploma.”
Tim’s face shone with genuine pride as he craned his neck to behold his framed certificate of accomplishment. “Years passed, and even as I reveled in my dream job as a fifth-grade teacher, the thought kept at me that the world would be better served if Tim Sutton served as scientist instead of schoolteacher. That inner voice, that unction, kept at me. It wouldn’t go away.”
Rob scratched his head. “So, um, you’re telling me all of this because…it’s supposed to have something to do with a screensaver with a picture of some mountains on it?”
“Yes, Rob, yes. For, you see, not knowing how else to address that inner voice, as a token gesture I decided to replace the cartoon screensaver I had had on my laptop at the time with this more grown up—I guess you could say it was more grown up, that was my own thought anyway—natural-landscape themed screensaver.” Tim divided glances between his computer monitor, and visitor, until finally they settled on Rob.
“This token act was my message to that inner voice that I was ready to grow up, that I was ready to stop doing what I wanted to do and start doing what needed to be done; that if the world needed me to trade in my teacher’s ruler for an electron microscope then I’d do it. Soon afterwards, well, let’s just say things began to happen.” Tim tapped his fingers on his desktop. “Let’s just say, that a certain screensaver featuring some peaks and precipices topped with fire took it from there.”
In the moment’s silence that ensued, Rob’s ears heard the back-and-forth rustle of footsteps out in the hallway, the feverish exchange of voices: I created that whole, wild, wondrous mess out there, Rob thought.
No, Tim’s eyes seemed to answer, it was your fire bubbles that did it. Just then Tim’s mouth said:
“And ever since they took it from there—the mountains, that is,” Tim folded his hands, “I rest content to develop ingenious solutions to the world’s antiviral needs. Otherwise boring stuff, in my opinion—that’s right, boring. And yet, because of something unexplainable, magical, that same boring stuff’s been transformed into a kind of wonderland for me.” Tim leaned back in his chair. “Then, this position was offered to me right here in Denver, the Mile High City, located at the very base of those Rocky Mountains. It was like the stars were all lining up.”
Rob shook his head. “We’re in Brighton, actually. Not Denver.”
“It’s the Denver area.” Tim grew still. “Sometimes, in my dreams at night,” he said, musingly, “I can see fire falling from the sky then landing on those mountains, the real Rocky Mountains, their snowy peaks all crowned with flame.” He breathed. “Before, I educated children by way of words. Now, I educate the world by way of discovery.”
Rob had an inkling. “That…” he said, “…cartoon screensaver, the one you had had on your computer originally, the one you exchanged for the more grown-up Rocky Mountain deal, it was—?”
“A SpongeBob screensaver, sure enough,” Tim said. “Perhaps you’ve noticed this little guy I keep parked on my windowsill here?” Tim swiveled around and pointed. “I keep him there as a reminder to myself of who I am, in contrast with what I am, which is an oftentimes over-appreciated and certainly overpaid laureate scientist.”
All very curious, but is any of this supposed to be making any kind of sense? Rob wondered? He had more questions than answers. Also, he wondered if Lori was ever going to return.
“But enough about me,” Tim said, raising an eyebrow. Are you ready now to clue me in on a little more of the hows, whys, and whats of your exploits out there on our shop floor this morning? Don’t you realize that your findings today might prove to save suffering larynges from here to Indonesia? I’d say that is worthy of a word of explanation.”
Rob was fairly sure he had shared a word of explanation already. Still, he could see the project manager’s point. Good, Rob thought to himself. He wants me to talk finally about the bubbles. Now we’re getting somewhere.
Video-reels in Rob’s mind spun into motion. They set his knees to shaking, and heart to trembling. With the tenor of his speech alternating between blithe and blustery, Rob recounted how over the course of that previous spring he had “rented one of those new industrial-strength Steam-o-Matic steam cleaners,” and how “Steam-cleaning had been just a part-time gig” for him at the time “to supplement my income at the insurance company.”
Rob took a deep breath. “Then, one day, the Steam-o-Matic began to bubble, and I’d become aware of stuff.”
“Aware of stuff?” Tim removed his glasses. “Like what?”
“Like, well, for example there was this time I was steam-cleaning this lady’s living room over in Golden when, all of a sudden, the thought struck me that something really important was hiding in the shed in her back yard. The vision was so strong I decided to share this premonition I had with Cheryl—”
“Cheryl?”
Rob swallowed. “That was the woman’s name. Anyway, sure enough, we sighted Cheryl’s long-lost wedding ring nestled inside of a pair of gardening gloves way at the back of the shed. She was so happy I even got a kiss on the cheek out of it.”
Rob told of how the bubbles had compelled him to, on a whim, flip the off switch on his Steam-o-Matic, sit down at a nearby piano, and how the bubbles then “used” him and his “total lack of musical ear” to perform a passable rendition of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata specially for ninety-one year-old Boulder resident Henry Fleming. “Only,” Rob put in, “I didn’t know it was for him. The old man had been upstairs at the time with his lawyer, about to sign the will that would bequeath his estate to his children instead of to the bureaucrats, when all of a sudden the old-timer’s heart began to buck, spasm, and fibrillate. I was told afterwards that the honeyed melody of my piano-playing he could hear coming up the stairwell from downstairs soothed his failing heart just long enough for him to put his signature on that will.”
Tim nodded, slowly, as if reverently.
Rob spoke of how on another occasion he was “cleaning this guy’s living room and saw a framed picture of his son on the mantel, and just seeing that picture I knew that the son, who was, like, five-hundred miles away at the time, was all alone in an auto-body shop pinned underneath a Mazda Miata—”
“Got it. I think I got it. Thank you.” Tim folded his leg over his other leg. “Now, as for these bubbles…”
“Okay, so…” Rob wet his lips, “just prior to those revelations I would notice my Steam-o-Matic would emit these mysterious, well, bubbles that are encircled by what looks to be fire…darty, reddish-orange flames. There’s no logical explanation for the bubbles, and certainly not for the flames I keep seeing on those bubbles. I’ve read the user’s manual and butted heads with the help-desk people at Steam-o-Matic, all who insist the Super II Series is not designed to, nor could it ever possibly, effervesce.”
Rob noticed his fingernails were like cat’s claws gouging into the leather of his armrest. Giving the chair a reprieve, Rob said, “Anyway, noticing the pattern of one, steam cleaning, two, bubbles, three, fire on bubbles, and four, revelations, finally I decided to purchase the Steam-o-Matic outright, quit my day job, and so this is what I do now. I clean carpets and wait for the bubbles, fire, and revelations which I know will follow.”
Rob observed that Tim’s expression was neither mocking nor incredulous. “Then, today, this very afternoon, the bubbles showed up again. There you have it.”
Tim’s smile grew, and grew, until out came laughter. Not mocking laughter, Rob observed, but of the mirthful sort, as if the project manager might not think Rob was completely out of his gourd.
“That’s a very interesting story!” Finally, Tim stopped laughing. He raised an eyebrow. “Have you come across anyone who believes it?”
“No,” Rob answered. He hesitated. “Except for the people whom I help, and only because they can’t come up with any other explanation for the solutions I give them. Also, the bubbles, and the fire, always seem to appear when no one is around. No one has seen them but me.”
Rob sighed. He felt nauseous. Spilling all the intimate details of the good acts he had done which in reality he had not done at all—it was the bubbles that had done it—made it feel like stolen valor. He was nothing special.
“Neither was Peter Parker. Nor Clark Kent,” Tim said, with a gleam in his eye. “It was what they came into contact with that made them special.”
Rob froze in his chair.
Tim smiled. “They were nothing special in and of themselves, is what I’m saying.”
Relaxing, Rob reminded himself not to allow his thoughts to reveal themselves so easily in his facial expressions. Then, Rob furrowed his brow, trying to remember what exactly his face had been doing that moment ago in the way of expression.
Straightening his glasses, Tim said, “As a scientist, Rob, and pragmatist, and optimist, I have come to conclude there are a great many things in this world that we label impossible but in reality are possible only we haven’t progressed far enough to understand them properly.”
It wasn’t that Rob didn’t hear, but that he wasn’t listening. The greater part of him just wanted to go home.
“You did what you did to help people, is that it? Or rather, to help the bubbles help you help people? That’s why you quit your job to become a carpet cleaning guy—to facilitate the bubbles, right?” Tim leaned back in his chair. “I understand.”
Rob grumbled in the affirmative then said, “Well, like I was saying, the revelations I had earlier about your medical research project have since faded. I can’t help you any more than any other carpet professional, at this point. Oh, and forget what I said earlier about the Lawrencium. That was post-revelation. I don’t know why I said it.”
“You said it because you’re just a rug-scrubbin’ feller who didn’t know what to say because his fire bubble revelations had since run their course.” Tim fell prey to another bout of laughter. Then, Tim stopped laughing, and winked.
The wink, especially, intrigued Rob, but not enough to prevent him from rising. “Well, maybe I should be going. If Lori wants to get in touch with me, tell her she has my number.” Rob walked in the direction of the door.
Tim jumped up; he scampered over then seized Rob by the sleeve of his shirt. “Please, don’t leave. There’s something else I want to tell you.”
Rob thought about it. He sighed then sat back down.
Gobbling another Fireball, Tim said, “Perhaps you’ll find what I’m about to say a bit difficult to believe...”
“I’m listening.” Wiggling in his seat, Rob wiped a layer of cold sweat off of his brow. “I guess.”
“You see…” Tim leaned back in his chair. “There was this time, not so long ago, that I learned to speak Russian—fluent Russian—over the course of a lunch break.”
Rob stretched a slow, sarcastic smile. “You did, did you? Tell me about it.”
“I will. See, in between sips of the Dr. Pepper I had had with me that day, I sat here, at this very desk, chatting it up on this very phone with the director of the Russian Bureau for Infectious Diseases, who quickly connected me with the Kremlin. That’s right, the Kremlin! Imagine, if you would, Mr. Putin’s response when I began expounding for him, not in the language of chemistry, mind you, but of microbiology and environmental engineering—subjects of which I am competent, but hardly adept. I explained to him the, er, Volga River Dilemma—my name for it—about how that great Russian river had, at specified locales as specified by me, become a cesspool of cholera bacterium. Then I advised Putin—in fluent Russian, mind you, and with all the correct scientific terminologies—as to how his country might rid itself of these bacterium—an otherwise unorthodox methodology incorporating the use of dredges, mesh netting, shovels, electrolyzed CVS-brand shaving cream—the Mountains prescribe generic, go figure——” Tim shrugged “—and 7.44 kiloliters of a mystery catalyst I am not at liberty to divulge here, Rob—if you don’t mind, as a subcommittee from the United Nations has since swore me to secrecy.”
Rob blinked. “Catalyst? I’ve heard that word before. Come to think of it, I was using that word this morning. It has something to do with chemistry, doesn’t it?”
Tim folded his hands. “Putin, I couldn’t believe it, listened. Fast-forward, then, to a few months afterward when The New York Times published an article headlined Volga River Victory: Putin Creams Cholera. The Russian government had followed my lead. I was right.”
Rob scratched his head. “I do find that kinda hard to believe,” he said, the lines of his face scrunched up in thought.
Tim looked at that face hoping it might offer a constructive criticism or two in reply. It didn’t. It wouldn’t. It wasn’t ready.
Instead, Rob lamented, “Look, all of this sounds really intriguing, but I still don’t know what it is you’re trying to tell me.” And yet Rob wondered if maybe he did know.
“I had had no idea,” Tim swiped his hand. “None whatsoever. No prior knowledge of a cholera epidemic, nor of the curative properties of that crazy fix I had reciped up for the Russians, in Russian, that day on my lunch break. The ideas just came to me. They were ideas birthed by fire. As for my sudden ability to speak fluent Russian? Comrade, it left me the moment I hung up that telephone.” Musing, Tim swiveled his chair to allow for easier viewing of his bookcase with its miscellany of biochemistry, organic chem, particle physics, medical, pharmaceutical, and even a few astronomy titles thrown in for good measure. Tim pointed. “See that orange paperback at the end there, Complete Idiot’s Guide to Russian? Well, I bought that after the fact to see if I could recall any of the words and phrases I had used in my conversation with Mr. Putin.” Tim shook his head. “The Russian language—” he guffawed “—it’s all Greek to me! I remember nothing.” Tim swiveled his chair back. “That was just one of the many instances.”
His wits all a scramble, and not knowing what to say in response to all of this, Rob, instead, deferred attention to the bookcase. “That’s quite a library you got there. Amazing how some people can understand all that stuff.”
“Can you?” Tim raised an eyebrow. “Because I sure can’t.” Tim smiled. “I mean, sure, I took a few science courses in college, and have since self-educated myself…” He nodded at the bookcase. “Still, it’s so often I will get overwhelmed by the more advanced sciences. Ah, but then there are those times when I’ll open the books and understand it like I wrote the book myself, formulated the science, even. Of course, it is generally also at those times that my Rocky Mountain National Park mountaintops will be on fire.” Tim’s held Rob’s questioning gaze. “Like I said before, there are ways, too, the revelations can be prolonged and the fires light up more frequently, Rob. How do you think it is that I get through my workday?”
The two men looked at one another.
“That’s right,” Tim said. His eyes grew large. “I’m like you. I’m one of us. A Fire Watcher.”
“Fire…Watcher?” Rob echoed the words, softly, tonelessly.
“Now, you do realize…” Tim veered his neck, as if scanning the premises for eavesdroppers. “It is not just who you are that matters, but whether you’re where the fire is at. You think if I had elected to stay on as elementary school teacher that I would right now be a Fire Watcher? The answer is no.” Tim’s face shed itself of any sign of joking.
“What we’ve come to consider is that upon the directives set forth by some…mandate, law of the universe, divine rule, and issued by what could classify as divine, cosmic, even trans-dimensional in origin, examples of which might include: God—the proverbial Great Flame Thrower in the sky—gods, ancient aliens, a trans-dimensional meddler, some advanced technology we are not yet aware of, some cosmic anomaly, or quantum glitch—who can say for sure who, or what, the Great Fire Starter is, or isn’t, or was. I mean, take me for example—” Tim gummed an obsequious smile “—I’m neither a philosopher, nor a theologian, nor a cosmologist, nor for that matter a scientist, when you get right down to it; I’m just a former elementary school teacher who has experienced fantastic things and who has mind enough to reason and heart enough to believe. Anyway, what we have come to conclude is that these fire revelations which reveal to us, in us, through us, these secrets such as you have shared with me just now, grant us participation with the great and inestimable Solstine Powers—Solstine, that’s a word you will become very familiar with, Rob. And now let me be very clear—these fire demonstrations, well, they seem to materialize only when a person does a very specific something, which is very often, it would seem, to perform an act of personal sacrifice; and yet—” Tim reached for his desk drawer “—not for its own sake, but sacrifice only in the sense that it gets us to fall in line with the thoughts, wishes, and contrivances of the Solstine.”
Tim fumbled around his desk drawer. “Consider your own instance. Your choice to assume a carpet career was a sacrifice made against your every inclination and stood contrary to the approval of friends and family. Or consider me in assuming a science and technology career in lieu of teaching.”
Tim asked if Rob would like an Atomic Fireball. Rob accepted the candy. Tim pushed the drawer closed. “So, that’s what we’ve come to conclude is the secret to, and methodology of, the fire demonstrations, in their relation to we, the Fire Watchers.”
“We?” Rob asked, his voice trembling.
“There are more of us, if that’s what you’re wondering.”
Rob cleared his throat in an effort to remove the baseball-sized lump in it. “More of us,” he said, dazzle-eyed. With his heart and mind set ablaze by Tim’s off-the-wall ramblings, Rob all of a sudden had so many things that he wanted to ask about, and yet some shyness suggested his confession had been overlong already. However, one question begged asking: “I, um…” he said, “couldn’t get my Steam-o-Matic to bubble up for me after those first few times. A sixth sense told me, though, that if I left my job as insurance agent and became a full-time carpet professional, the machine would bubble for me again. So I did. And so it did.”
“You followed the fire to the one place in your own instance where it would meet with you: a carpet-cleaning career. For whatever reason, that was where it wanted you to be. What do you get in return? Revelations, by which you are allowed to influence the course of world events.” Tim’s eyes lit up. “Rob. Carpet guy. Fellow Fire Watcher. You should see the view from this side of the desk right now. The flames. Oh, the flames!”
Rob started. “Flames?”
“On this computer screen of mine that I keep telling you about. Come, see for yourself.”
Fighting back his excitement, Rob stood then walked around to the business side of Tim’s desk and indulged a look over Tim’s shoulder. That was when he saw them. He exclaimed, “Your snowcapped mountains are on fire.”
“For the last minute or so.”
“Fancy new screensaver?”
Tim looked at Rob. “When was the last time you saw a screensaver with actual—”
“Watch out!”
A jet of fire shot out, like a party favor, catching Tim in the forehead. But Tim was fine. “They don’t hurt,” he said.
Together, silent, spellbound, like kids in front of a campfire, the two men sat watching the mountains and fire on Tim’s computer. “It’s really…” Tim said after a long pause “…wonderful, your being here like this and all. Besides yourself, nobody has been able to see these flames. Except for…oh yeah, Lori.”
Rob stiffened. He knitted his brow.
Tim smiled. “You think I’m kidding. I’m not.” Tim leaned back in his chair. His smile fell off yet still his eyes were smiling as he raised his voice in the manner of announcement, “Seeing, then, how she has not arrived just yet, allow me to speak on behalf of the both of us in saying that…we’re sorry, we had to do this to you.”
Tim shook his head. He said, in his usual tone of voice, “Lori’s acting job though, wasn’t it just off the charts? I mean, didn’t you get the real sense she was mad at you, at your bubbles-inspired career choice?” Tim chortled. “Brilliant. Just…brilliant!”
Rob walked back to his chair. “What are you talking about?”
“Hold on.” Tim pulled out his phone; he punched at some keys. He waited. “Yeah,” Tim said into his phone. “It’s me. Yeah, he’s still here. We’re ready. Are you coming over or what?” A pause. “Yes, he knows. I just told him.” A pause. Longer this time. “No, he doesn’t appear to be upset or otherwise bowled over. I don’t think. Here, let me ask him…” Tim set his phone down.
“Would you say you are at this present moment experiencing any signs or symptoms of severe emotional distress, seeing as how the project manager whom you thought was a scientist turns out to be a Level XV Liege, and the twin sister you thought despised you in fact gazes at fires in her free time and is a Level IX Intermediary; and who, together, project manager and twin sister, have been pulling your leg for months on end—or at least Lori’s been pulling it—” Tim took a deep breath “—and as a means to, first off, Rob, test the verity of your claimed experiences with the bubbles, because there are so many fakes and wannabes out there; and assuming you were the real thing, to test your resolve and belief in the unseen, in the impossible.”
Tim picked up his phone, drew it closer to himself so that it, too, could hear “…and who, together, we, project manager and twin sister, have unofficially recognized you, Robert Denkins, as an honest-to-goodness entrant into the Solstine Ring of Fire Gathering, and by which entrance you may, along with us, and those friends of ours scattered across the globe, help change the world.”
Rob sat blinking. “Holy Halloween,” he said. “Is this for real?”
Tim smiled. “It’s not Halloween. It’s Christmas. Christmas on fire. Now, come.” Tim beckoned. “Come join me in watching this marvelous celestial spectacle while we wait for the third member of our little triad.”
Rob padded over to watch the fire on Tim’s computer screen as it danced, alighted, and projected outward in literal 3D flames.
Tim shifted about in his chair. “I like…how they cantilever outward at perfect ninety-degree angles.”
“I like…” Rob offered, “the colors, how bright and vivid they are, and how very real the flames themselves look.”
“There are any number of us.” Tim’s gaze wandered off to the bookcase, to the wall, to fathomless points beyond. “The fire, and more specifically, the revelations, are to us a sacred thing. What we do is on the level of charity work only on a much grander scale, and achieved only at a great personal cost to ourselves.”
Rob sat mesmerized, staring at the flames.
“To some, the fire comes in one way. To others, in another. Possibly it is dependent upon the individual’s personality, their history, their capacity … who knows? Within the life and times of the Fire Watcher everything means something. Still, there is so much we don’t know. In fact, whoa—” Tim exclaimed, abandoning his thought as he wheeled back his chair.
“Can’t even see the mountains anymore, flames are everywhere.” Rob exclaimed, his curiosity moving him to reach and touch one of these flames spitting rapid-fire out of Tim’s computer screen, the shortest of which extended nearly a yard in length. A literal inferno, it was.
“It’s happening,” Tim breathed. “It’s here.”
Rob retracted his fingertips, the skin bearing no sign of burn. “What’s happening?”
“She’s here.” Tim squinted eyes that were brimming with wetness. “Your sister, you, me, is what is happening. The power potential generated when two Fire Watchers get together is one thing, but three…?”
They heard the office door swish open. Lori stepped in.
After what could have been seconds, or whole minutes of stare-down eye-contact, inside of which whole conversations might have been passed between Lori’s shrewd glance and Rob’s inquiring one, Lori, disrupting the electric silence, said, “Rob, listen—” she swiped back the hair off of her forehead “—there’s something I’ve been wanting to talk to you about since when you first came to tell me about your fire-bubble revelations. And then, not five minutes ago this same thought came to me right after the big boss threatened to fire me as follow-up to this outlandish idea that you, Tim, and I, are in some kind of conspiracy with one of our competitors. Then Patterson took it back, but not before I told him, ‘Hey, looks like I’ve been fired already, dude, and if not, well, then, I quit!’ Now I’m out of a job.” With steady strides, Lori glided her business-casual pumps across the carpet of Tim’s office. Halting in front of her brother’s chair, she nudged him, “Got a question for you, Bubble Master Rob.”
Rob raised his chin at his sister. “You’re out of a job now? That’s not good news. You should be upset. You don’t look upset.”
“Fortunate for me I’m out of a job,” Lori answered. “And fortunate for you. And for the whole world.” Lori slumped her shoulders. “You’re thinking so low-level, bro. Your expectations need to be, well, bigger.” She looked at Tim. “Maybe he’s just a Level Two, after all.”
“I would set him at level four, after hearing some of his story.” Tim shrugged. “Who knows. That’s for the council to decide, inevitably.”
“Well, this is not just story time. It’s real life.” Clearing her throat, Lori petted the carpet with her toe of her shoe. With uncharacteristic shyness, she said, “I was wondering if you might have room for another employee, an extra hand to help out with this Bubbles Incorporated deal you got going on right now? All those customers, if you know what I mean.”
Rob squirmed in his seat. “Wait a minute. But I thought you said—”
“Desk jobs, don’t get me wrong, are fine and good for what they’re worth.” Lori smiled at her brother. “But it’s just that there are bigger things out there.”
“Mountain-sized big,” Tim put in.
“Though fulfilling in their own way, and necessary in their place, budget reports are not much compared to the reports received by us and because of us from these benefactors of the Solstine Proliferations. We have the opportunity granted us to change the world!” Lori twisted her lip. “Or at least Denver.”
“Actually,” Tim interjected, slanting a smile at Rob, “we’re in Brighton.”
Lori smiled, too. “So, you get your bright on, little brother, and get big sis a job so she can get her bright on and together we can get down to the business of starting some fires! Besides,” Lori said, shifting from one foot to the other and folding her arms, “the arrangement could be mutually beneficial in other ways. While you train me on the finer points of carpet stuff, I could train you on the finer points of…”
Standing beside the seated Tim and Rob, her arms crossed, Lori was, to Rob, at that moment, the spitting image of her nine-year-old ponytailed self again, Rob’s childhood best friend.
“I’ve seen them, too, Rob. The fires. The Flames of the Solstine that inspire and direct us, the Watchers. Oh, and there are powers, opportunities, and contrivances, the likes of which you cannot begin to imagine. Sure, snuffing out lost wedding rings and such is pretty terrific, but just you wait.” Lori stilled herself. A shadow flitted across her face. “But know, too, there are forces in this world, other forces, dark forces, some even in the form of inhibitions and doubts that will arise within your own self seeking to counteract, to prevent, to so much as destroy, those plans and purposes as revealed to you by your fire-bubbles. You must keep vigilant, then, if ever you are to become, and remain, a Fire Watcher. That’s why also…” Lori dropped her eyes, “I was assigned the task of testing you, per protocol—” She looked at the project manager “—and per Tim’s suggestion. I’m sorry about that.”
Rob scoffed. “You should be.” He smiled. “You don’t have to be sorry, Lori.” Jostling in his seat, Rob looked at Tim. “I have a question. With this plant manager guy mad at me and stuff, will you still be able to implement my bio-pool-or-whatever-I-called-it solution idea?”
Tim smiled, wryly. “What you and Lori maybe could do is to propose your idea, say, to Johnson & Johnson, Cyteck, or one of the other big pharma companies also at work on the would-be vaccine.”
Rob swallowed. “That wouldn’t offend you?”
Tim shook his head. “It would not offend me, Rob.” Removing his glasses, Tim wiped the sweat off of his brow then replaced his glasses. “Look, Lori, Solstine Flames, some of them over a yard in length.”
“Yeah, I noticed that. Oh, wow, I’ve never seen them that big before!” Lori shuffled over to get a good look at the flames jettisoning inferno-style out of Tim’s computer screen. While they sat and watched Colorado on fire, Lori made the passing remark that one day she might even get around to showing Rob a certain bracelet that she wore on occasion.
Rob furrowed his brow. “Is it fourteen-karat? Did someone give it to you? Is it really nice or something? I don’t get it.”
“It’s fire,” Lori smiled.
“Coolest thing ever.” Tim’s smile was to the moon. “You’ve just gotta see it.”
Under the spell of some kind of ecstasy, with fire in his eyes, his countenance like lightning, Rob reached for his sister’s hand. “All right,” he said. “I’m in. I have no idea what happens next, or how, or why. All I can say for sure is that, well, I’m in, no turning back.”
“It’ll be historic.” Lori squeezed her brother’s hand. “It’ll be fun! We’ll set the world’s pants on fire. It’ll be like…like…”
“Fireworks,” Tim said, leaning back in his chair.