The Transmigration of Thomas F. Wilson

Plywood surface raped by armada of blue push pins - transmission of simony raped from below - commerce extracting wealth via ampoules of suggestive - emboldened projections held aloft by vibrant significatives - double-spaced incentives mesmerising in unquestionable deliverance - promises of guarantees hidden by otiose script - nonchalance winged by font hyperbole.

These are some of the thoughts that took nautical dive in Thomas F. Wilson’s mind as he stood various feet from the checkout of the supermarket, pointing eyes at a collage of white paper squares and brown veneer. This notice board, with its captivating snapshot of suburban life, was adequate in taking his mind off the impending situation; sufficiently capable of trampling his anxiety with two large hooves of preoccupation.

The wooden window fed him stories of incontinent octogenarians, no longer able to use their lawnmowers for fear of the vibrating mechanism causing a bowel-schism that’d result in a public spectacle best left to desperate MTV producers. Stories of basement shredders forced into the UV rays of the world by irritated parents wielding lists of chores and bills from all-night Bit Torrent binges; now offering guitar lessons to bouffant teenagers inebriated on Kirk Hammett. Stories of risky intercourse, unplanned pregnancy, and one recourse to the approaching financial terror; a customised automobile, once glued together by factory cut-backs, now sparkling with the sweat of Sunday afternoons, but now on it’s way to a bank trainee who knows nothing of internal combustions or hydraulic gearboxes.

It was here various days ago that Thomas F. Wilson first saw the advertisement. It was a ragged flurry of jotter integrity, lined with similes of authenticity and humming with the coruscating spillage of lukewarm coffee. The text referred to a misty semblance of clarity; its prose was both cryptic and enigmatic, but nevertheless reached out and harpooned his internal voice. Shrill requirements of free-thinking citizens; a seek for a man less and less opposed to law, morality and utilitarian ideals than average opinion would state. A man to be “a spectre in the insinuation of vouchsafement”, and “a widow of irredeemable nascence”, and “a counterpoint for the vivisection of arcane repression”.

Whilst he fathomed little of the syntactical gibberish, Wilson, since he was currently wallowing in the dumpster vocations of voice acting, opted for a shrugged ‘why not’. After all, the scribbled hieroglyphics did also promise a good dental plan.

So, he proceeded to call his shady prospective employers, CV in hand and initiative boiling his senses. An automated service answered his telephonic plea. The battered and worn croak on the other end fumbled around the limits of linguistic obscurity for a varied set of minutes, then a silence, whereupon Wilson was to state his name, address and head size. The first two proved simple enough, a quick glance to the upper-left and all was accomplished. The third, however, led to a playground sprint as he attempted to track down the fugitive measuring tape he told himself resided somewhere in the apartment. Aching of elderly trauma, he eventually found it below a VHS of Fire down Below; it positioned suggestively on a benign Steven Seagal.

But, alas, when he returned to the phone, he was met with only the monotone of a hang-up.

Another shrug, as was his trait, and he soon forgot all about the advert and the phone call; his wretched existence once again took orbit around reruns of shows reran to the extend that by some odd temporal phenomenon they had become brand new.

This was all until yesterday. The mailman had already slipped his societal foibles through the in-between, and so Thomas F. Wilson was surprised to find another shard of paper lying, straddling the area adjacent to the door. It read as follows:

The select commission hired in correspondence to the whim and postulate of the group hereafter known as OYSTER, have due intention to request your satisfactory completion of preliminary stages of the stratagem hereafter known as OPERATION Z’DAR. Be present at the area of initial disclosure tomorrow at 3pm, where you will be briefed by the agents.

And so, Wilson stood looking again at the plywood monstrosity that had been the keen initiate to this unusual situation.

The agents arrived by way of a rear checkout; seems they had taken this opportunity to do some grocery shopping, highly irregular as that was. Their sloganed bags crumpled under the weight of dolphin-less tuna, GM vegetables and low-fat lard. Wilson rose his tilting head from the porridge oats concealed by a canvas of panini, and looked at the duo. One wore a black suit, with chequered tie, silver cufflinks, creases in places where creases are wanted, shinned loafers, and a countenance of confident usury. The other was exactly the same; except he did not wear a suit.

The suited gent said, “You Thomas F. Wilson?” “I am,” replied the vestigial actor. “We are from OYSTER, which is an anagram for oyster,” bellowed the suited man, “and you have been hired as special witness to the systematic dislodging of egalitarian virtue from all subtle liberties. This may seem vague to you, I posit a for example: for many years now tap-water has emerged from the faucet upon the turning motion of the tap, and has henceforth dribbled southwards. We aim to alter this irreconcilably, first by allowing the trite flows to emanate through any gap they should so desire, and not just the physical recesses that we’re accustomed to; do not be shocked to see water flowing from a man’s own brow, or witness how washing one’s own hands becomes ever so easier when the water is coming from those very hands. This water will also not obey gravity, for that stale convention is absurd in itself.”

With head-scratching long nullified by acquaintance, Wilson said, “I’m happy to help, I guess.” “You are not happy!” interjected the suited agent, “happiness is now so dull and commonplace that we are going to replace it with a new synonym; as yet undecided, but we will probably choose ‘gyroscopically’.” Here the other suited man who was wearing no suit, let out a small cheep of jubilance. “We have your headgear with us,” continued the first man, “this item is essential to you completing your mission. Now take it and put it on.” The suited/non-suited passed the bulbous helmet from his bag to the hands of Wilson. “Our task is done,” spoke the suited agent, motioning towards the exit, “put the headgear on and it will do all the necessary actions; it should be adapted to your own physiognomy, so you need not do anything beyond wearing it.”

And they were gone.

Wilson stood holding the circular instrument. Grey, Giger-esque, phallic appendages roamed the circumference, with indentations along the apex filled with ceramic goop. The whole thing gushed with Pythagorean self-importance. Knowing not what else to do, he hoisted it above his head, and then descended it’s mass atop his skull.

This caused a massive outbreak of out-of-tune synth, strange tonalities excreting on time signatures from afar, grandiose harmonies wrecking hydrogen in the surroundings, lights negated by quavering oscilloscopes corrupted by nefarious deeds in antiquity. Then he realised that a child had climbed aboard a nearby Sesame Street kiddie ride and that the helmet had not even been turned on.

A moment of blind chance grasping later, and he had set the device to a reassuring electronic drone. Gone was the hyperbolic nonsense of the neighbouring adolescent stupidity, this was all low-fi subtly with minimalist buzz.

In a picturesque display of segmentation, with an underscore of inverse annihilation, Thomas F. Wilson found himself in a dimensional transferral. References and citations on post-it notes, palpitating like flames almost extinguished under neon cannons of irrigation. They hinted at mythologies as widespread as Hindu and Christianity, and as ostracised as the Seventh Day Dennehy Orienteers. Wilson traversed the void and the vacuum, and was victim to a transmigration. However, distortions of objectives transpired. The intention was for Thomas F. Wilson to transcend his regular human form, and to metempsychose into China; which would subsequently be the first country in the world to install hoses in bread crusts.

But no. Due to the lack of information concerning his cranial measurements, he ended up as some superfluous simplification in a logical analysis equation. The equation went something like this: ‘There is an entity c such that the statement “x is a muffin” is true if x is c and false if otherwise; moreover c is Pauly Shore.’ Thomas F. Wilson stands in for c until it is unveiled that c is in fact not he.