Zazen - By Vanessa Veselka Page 0,43

ran I could feel my blood vessels swell and my heart beat like it was underwater. I was halfway back up the hill before I realized no one was following me.

I was alone. My lungs hurt and I still couldn’t hear anything out of my left ear. I pulled out my phone. There was no reception. I couldn’t get back home without crossing the riot so I decided to try to make it to Rise Up Singing and call Credence and Annette from a landline. Concussion grenades still went off in the distance but only three blocks from the cemetery the day was filled with normal Sunday sounds. A little boy played in the yard of a partially remodeled house, balancing a rock on a can of Jasco and knocking it off again. Everywhere on Colony of the Elect were kids, sun wheels spinning in the breeze and hearty blonde neighbors helping each other out. The Dawn of Compassion had come. Suffering had ended. There were traffic circles and recycling bins. At one point the trees broke and I could see the river again. Puffs of tear gas like a gentle mist appeared then dissipated along the promenade.

Duct-taped to the door of Rise Up Singing was a proclamation from Coworker Franklin. It expressed regret at the recent bombing of the auto shop and begged people not to steal from COWORKER FRANKLIN because he was a PARTNER and a FRIEND of the COMMUNITY and often made them MACARONI AND CHEESE. At the bottom was a stick figure with open arms.

The meeting was in the garden. When I came through the gate the entire staff except Jimmy was standing around a table full of donuts and shots of Cuervo. Coworker Franklin looked nervous. No one was drinking or eating and sun made the glaze on the doughnuts shine.

I asked Mirror if I missed anything.

“Just fucking Franklin admitting he’s a sellout who should die, which we already knew. What time did you leave?”

“Around dawn. You were both asleep.”

“You know, that stupid cat never came back. I spent the whole morning shaking a bowl of Meow Mix like a fucking shaman.”

Coworker Franklin was talking about the sale of the restaurant, assuring everyone that a great new era was coming. That the people who bought the restaurant were enlightened. That there would be lotus chairs made by Real Tibetans and distressed wood platters of hewn hemp. The latest in neo-colonial fusion cuisine. A patio. Orchids. A bocce court and a koi pond where now there was only a rat graveyard.

“In this time of change,” Coworker Franklin waved vaguely at the world of bombs, malls and riots outside the garden, “it’s all the more important that we stay together, even if we’ve chosen to walk in different directions.”

Mirror passed me a folded up sheet of paper. Inside was her rendering of the figure from Franklin’s sign. Next to it was a huge salmon about to tear it in half over which she’d written “Stick-Franklin in the Afterlife.” Mitch took it and drew a four-panel strip of Stick-Franklin dissolving in lye.

“But like any birth process,” said Coworker Franklin, “it’s going to be hardest during the transition. There are going to be some new rules,” he looked around anxiously. “To start with you are all going to have to get your food handler’s cards.”

Mirror rolled her eyes, “No way, dude, waiting in that line sucks.”

“And…” said Franklin, “just so you know, they’re going to shorten the name to ‘Rise.’ Which I think is really very cool. I saw it on the new menus. They look great. Copperplate. It’s a nice font.”

I was the first to hear it. Tiny popping sounds in the distance, a quiet siren. Some dim chirping and a ripple of adrenaline went through the staff. What was it? One or two people glanced over the garden fence. More sirens and then I could feel the lift in energy. There wasn’t any fear, only excitement. Again I saw two rivers, each flowing through the same place, irreconcilable geographies. Reaching deeper, though, I found a third, cutting ever downward and pooling beneath the mermaid garden.

Coworker Franklin was talking about the schedule.

Police cars pulled around the corner and raced down the side street. Their blue and red lights reflected off the windows of the apartment buildings nearby and I saw it all differently. I saw the scene as it would be on another night. The same blue and red lights dancing on the koi pond, turning to rose