CEREMONY

It was the Ceremony for Recognition, a celebration to commemorate the reentry of the Union.

Newman, and everyone young and old, even Grandma, was milling about seeking something. Suddenly the word “Molitar” bubbled up and broke the surface of Grandma's consciousness. Everyone knows Molitar. The children exclaimed, “Molitar!”

Newman was thrilled. No one held back at the Molitar stand. They popped them in their mouths.

The locals waved from their slowly passing tractor-pulled procession. Grandma nodded.

Newman watched, mouth agape, as the motorized single-seaters arrived from every direction, driven by the Large People, slower, more deliberate. The Large People didn't wave. Rather, they couldn't.

Newman never remembered a Ceremony such as this one.

“Hold my hand, I don't want to lose you,” Grandma said.

Some of the Elders looked around and forgot where they were, and of course they were less noticed. The Supreme Elder arrived asking for his wife.

“Where's Lois?”

The Supreme Elder couldn't fit his single-seater through the narrow passageway to the restroom.

He shouted, “Lois! Lois!” at Newman.

Newman didn't know what to do. Where is Lois? Who is Lois? Lois is not a familiar sound like Molitar. No one would have paid much attention to the Supreme Elder had he not demanded louder.

“Lois! Where are you? WHERE IS LOIS!”

The incident was disturbing. However, the name Lois became easier for everyone to remember.

Newman ventured through the crowd, looking up at the faces. So many faces. He could look at just one face for hours. He wondered if he could take one face aside and study it. Everyone passed him too fast, smiling, holding hands, looking everywhere, laughing. How wonderful they were laughing. What was everyone so happy about? It must have been the sound of everyone laughing that made everyone happy, thought Newman. The talking and laughing and cheering all rolled into one big sound, like a wave as tall as a mountain, expanding and rushing over and tickling everyone.

FORM AND PRESS

Newman left the Ceremony. He wandered through the gate and down the road, passing trees and wildlife. It was a perfectly sunny blue-sky day and the air was sweet after a long chilly rain.

Newman strolled through the neighborhood outside the Ceremony Fairgrounds. He wondered how there could be so many houses, each one its own special universe. He passed the old library, the post office, and a theater that had been converted to a wedding reception hall.

Farther down Main Street, past Pioneer Park, was The Fabulitch Center. Newman thought to himself, “That's where they must make Molitar.” He walked up to the front window and looked inside. Sure enough, there was a form and a press, and a conveyor belt with thousands of Molitars on it!

“What do you think you're doing there, young man?”

Newman froze.

“Just looking.” He turned to see a giant of a Man in formal dress, coat, tie, top hat.

“Well come on in and get a better look then!” The Man had a long bony face and shuddered with boyish excitement. He pulled out a long chain of keys and found the right one to unlock the deadbolt. The door swung open with a creak.

“Well?” said the Man. Newman carefully entered, his eyes wide. “Welcome to The Fabulitch Center.”

It was a very large operation. The ceilings were high. The Workers smiled at Newman as he passed by each station. There were machines for everything. Flavoring, coloring, texturizing, scrutinizing.

“It's a fine product,” said the Man with a convincingly resounding vibrato. The Workers were proud and privileged. At the center of the biggest room sat a tremendous metal vat with long tubes running in and out of it. “That's what we use to make every Molitar product. It's full of Molitate.”

EXPRESSION

One late afternoon Newman walked out the big creaky door and down the steps of The Fabulitch Center to the employee lot and jumped into his car. He drove along the long pipes to the pumping station at the far end of town. The pipes disappear into the ground there, next to the reservoir.

Newman turned left onto Lake Shore Drive and across the Molitar Creek bridge to the 24-hour drive-thru to order a Molitar Deluxe Meal Sandwich with special sauce and extra cheese. The Attendant smiled at him as she took the order. Newman searched for the perfect words as he searched his pockets for correct change, but he could only smile back when she returned with the bag. The moment had passed.

He fumbled with the radio. Classic 60s Rock. With one hand on the wheel and one holding his Molitar Sandwich, Newman drove down River Road, right on Industry and left on 25th Street to his apartment building.

In the stairwell he passed Mary, the blonde pipefitter who lived on the second floor and worked the graveyard shift.

“Happy birthday, Newman.”

“You remembered.”

“Of course. You're twenty-five today.”

“Yes, yes I am.”

“It's time to celebrate,” suggested Mary. She was wearing her work uniform, her hair tied back. In his mind Newman routinely traced the curves of her body under that uniform. “I’m off to work, but I’ll be back here at six a.m. It's Friday night. You don't work in the morning do you?”

“You'll be dog tired after working all night,” comported Newman.

“I slept all day. I bought some champagne and orange juice. Leave your key under the mat and I'll let myself in.”

“Okay.”

OUTSIDE

It was Springtime in Downtown Fabulitch and the Molitar Pear trees were blooming. The streets were full of people and Molitar stands. Newman and Mary were in the long line at the Molitar Slush booth holding hands.

Teenage Girls giggled and smiled at Newman as they passed. Newman tried not to look at the Teenage Girls when he was with Mary, but they had beautiful full lips and full breasts. They acted thirteen but appeared fully developed. He privately wondered what it would be like to be with one of them. Those thoughts made sex with Mary more intense, ten years into their relationship.

In and out, in and out, in and out again and again and again. Newman was on his back with Mary’s long blonde hair like a tent over his head. He put one hand on her tight young ass, the other feeling her Molitar breasts. Her lips so full. This is perfect, he imagined, a Teenage Girl riding him. Newman felt like a teenager again.

THE TIME

Newman had his grays colored. He worked out at The Fabulitch Center for Fitness. He cut back on Molitar Burgers and ate three squares a day of Molitar steak, fresh-caught local fish from Molitar Creek and Fabulitch Farm lean chicken. In the mirror he was thirty-five—with the bank account of a fifty-year-old man. Every month he drove the Fabulitch Freeway to Vegas where he could get what he wanted easier. Newman had a little extra spending cash, earned through his Fabulitch 401k retirement plan. His days were free, he owned a condo in Fabulitch Commons, he drove a silver Lexis. He did well betting on the horses and NCAA tournament sponsored by the Fabulitch Financial Corporation. He also liked to talk on his phone with old friends. (He upgraded his plan on the Fabulitch Communications Network.)

“Hello? This is Newman. Mary? I'll be there in thirty minutes.” Across the bridge over Molitar Creek, along Old River Road, the silver Lexis rolled. On both sides of the road Men dressed in black with blank expressions walked opposite Newman's direction. Down 25th Street and up to the second floor. Newman revisited the steps of his past.

Mary looked up at Newman, weakly extending her arm. She was watching The Molitar Show, a Fabulitch Production, on the Fabulitch Cable Network. Newman held her hand warmly. Mary forced a smile through her pain. She asked for her medication. Newman opened her prescription from the Fabulitch Pharmacy and handed her two Molitar pills with water, exactly as the label read.

“I don't want to die in Fabulitch Hospital, Newman. Is there another place you can take me instead?”

Mary's body was cremated using Molitate-branded crop desiccant, a subsidiary of Fabulitch Chemicals Corporation.

STATEMENT

The silver Lexis rolled down the Interstate, through a long tunnel and across a high bridge. Newman couldn't grip the steering wheel tight enough. He was losing his swagger. The line between pavement and embankment was blurred, especially downhill and around bends. His grip determined life or death.

There was darkness in the backyard, a black silence around the corner of the old house where Newman grew up. Down the stairs in the cellar he felt it too, an evil presence that sent chills up his spine. Newman tried to yell at the presence, but there was no sound. He was short of breath. He tried harder to take control and for fear not to overtake him.

Newman wrestled free of the presence and at long last emitted a cosmic roar. He worried he might startle the Others, but no one noticed. Newman glided out of the house and through the backyard to look for his lost keys and wallet among the chrysanthemums. They must have fallen out of his pocket somewhere.

EPILOGUE

He found himself around the bend at Grandma's house with the garden in back. He knocked but no one came to the door. He turned to the Neighbor’s house to ask if anyone had seen Grandma. He saw Oldman knocking on the Neighbor's door. Oldman looked lost.

“Have you seen where Grandma went?”

“No I haven't. But she'll be back soon.”

That was good enough for Oldman. Oldman nodded to Newman and left.