Sally’s Book Launch
It was a strange guest list for a random Wednesday night. Five women, all gathered under a single, dusty roof of an apartment complex. The quintet of ladies in attendance were not all alike– one was a single mother, the other was older and married, one was a recovering addict, another was a bit of a cat lady, and finally, there was the youngest of them, still a freshman in college. When they arrived at Sally’s home, they knew that something unusual was afoot. Though some of them had known each other in the past, none of them were particularly friendly with one another, yet somehow Sally had seen it fit that each and every one of them would be here for her special event.
She had swept the floors and tidied up her coffee table, clearing the whole house of clutter and stuffing it away in her closet. She fluffed the cushions on her couch so they would be extra comfy, and she had even provided light refreshments in the form of canned water and a box of bagged potato chips. All this was for what was ostensibly a book release, though to the ladies there, it felt more like the prelude to a Tupperware party.
She was intent on making this an exclusive affair and a night to remember, though truthfully, there were not many more people she knew outside of these five who would have actually taken the time out of their day to show up. She understood that each of these women had access to a sector of the community that she was intent on reaching. Her appearance had come as a shock to them all. She had lost so much weight since she had begun drafting her opus and had thusly acquired a gaunt, bony appearance and a frightful, intense visage, a witchy countenance compounded by the frazzled state of her dark black hair. She had dimmed the lights in the living room. Having assembled this small group of five, she was ready to delve deep into her carefully practiced sermon.
“Friends,” she began with a frail voice, “I am so honored that you have come here today for the release of my book: On the Dynamics of High-Frequency Concentrations.” She lifted a book from her pocket, a shiny blue paperback with a generic, self-published sheen. In a small monochrome square was a molecular image of some abstract biological structure. “Shall I read from the beginning?”
“In a sea of stagnated momentum, a molecule of water, colliding with a barely-perceived transference of kinetic energy, to our human eye would amount to little more than a drop in a bucket. Yet one must understand that this ripple can tear at the very fabric of reality, producing the ailments of an untenable disaster. It is my hypothesis, nay it is my theory, that these new laws of physics, science, philosophy, and religions of which I will posit in this book, that a new series of perpetual variables can be manipulated and controlled through the awesome force of the telepathic spectator, given that their environment is controlled. To produce these effects, I will refer to MCE, which is a molecular cataclysmic energizer. In this book, if you can follow my dense but salient methodology, you will come to understand how the chaos of the universe can be used to attain the Agalma as it was described by Plato centuries earlier.”
As she went on with her indecipherable presentation, the air between the women in attendance suddenly grew tense. It had become clear to them that this was no ordinary book launch. More accurately, it was like an open-wake funeral for Sally’s grip on reality. Years of disappointments, failures, and betrayals had rendered her into a pseudo-scientific, quasi-mystical quack. They all tried to make faces of support and intrigue at her talk, but the concern was so very palpable among them.
After her presentation had concluded, she provided them each with a cardboard box of two-hundred copies of her book, of which she had instructed them to each sell their copies and split the revenue with her. “I have chosen you all as my disciples, now we must all go out there and revolutionize the galaxy!”
Afterwards, she went up to each and every one of them and spoke on a personal level.
Sally went up to Molly, the single mother of two. She suddenly took on a high-pitched happy tone, like that of two girlfriends reuniting after years of not catching up. “Hi Molly, thanks so much for coming, it means a lot, truly.”
“Of course, I’m glad you’re doing… ok”
“Oh, I’m not ok.” Sally chuckled, “but at least I’m onto something, don’t you think.”
Molly thought about the Sally she used to know back in the day, and how deeply it contrasted with the woman she gazed upon in this instance. She was such a smart and articulate high-schooler. Sally was the girl who always had something interesting to contribute during the socratic seminars of their IB comparative values and beliefs class. She suddenly recalled how the teenage boys would always either totally ignore Sally or openly mock her in front of her better-looking friend.
Sally and Molly hugged it out before Sally went up to the older, married mother, Belinda. Belinda was in a way like a surrogate mother to Sally. Belinda used to be Sally’s manager at the Juice Shop, one of her first jobs when she first began college. Belinda didn’t have much to say to Sally, she only listened to her as she prattled on more incoherent nonsense. She pondered internally over how much of Sally’s current state was her fault. Had she steered her into somewhere estranged for recommending she read all those mystical, esoteric books? They were supposed to be motivational pieces for a troubled young woman.
After their interaction, Sally approached Lisa, the recovering addict. Lisa and Sally met when Sally had been forced to do mandatory community service after shoplifting from Target for months and selling the merchandise on the cheap to college students. Sally insisted that what she did was not a crime, since physical objects were nothing but molecules organized into unusual configurations. The judge did not seem to agree. Needless to say, Sally and Lisa got along quite well while they both picked up litter on the beach. There were cold windy breezes brushing against them as they did their mandatory tasks, and they spent many an hour talking about how sick their surrounding society was while picking up empty beer bottles and discarded condoms from the sands on the shore. Lisa had a few missing teeth and her tired eyes made her look older than her actual age. Yet she was great company. Lisa, like the rest, could not make any sense of the nonsense she spewed earlier, but of the ladies present that night, she was the one who was most excited about selling the books. She was always supportive of Sally and all her ambitions, and she always appreciated her for her friendship and kindness.
Sally then went up to Carly the cat lady, who was also her co-worker at the job where only a few months ago Sally had been fired. Apparently, the customers at the arts and crafts shop did not appreciate it when Sally would go on these long diatribes about the nature of reality while scanning their items. Sally and Carly, though not having much in common, got along fine. Carly had a tremendous laugh that she always unbelted when she saw a particularly funny internet meme or a cat video, which she always shared with Sally. The two hugged and greeted.
“That was some speech,” Carly told Sally.
“Yes, yes, feel free to sell these books at the shop,” Sally replied.
“I’ll see what Barry thinks.”
Carly was also quite dismayed by how much she had changed in a matter of months. Though already appearing quite rail and unpredictable back then, she had not fully submerged into a life of enigmatic quirks. Though, in retrospect Carly thought, she should have recognized the signs. Sally was always dozing off from work, going into the backroom trying to configure various wires and beads into the shape of cubes, mandalas, and three-dimensional stars. “I’m trying to reconfigure geometry here,” she would retort, before huffing back to her duties at work.
Finally, Sally went up to Elizabeth, the young college student. Sally had only actually met her a week ago while the two were waiting in line for a public speech by a noted internet guru. Though their views of the world were quite different, Sally was pleasant enough to strike up a potential friendship with the young woman, and saw her presence at the event as a good potential for her to reach a young demographic with her philosophy.
“What did you think of my presentation?”
“It was… really interesting, yeah,” Elizabeth replied, “but listen I gotta head back, I’ve got some finals I still need to study for. Super cool catching up with you.
Elizabeth was the first to go, then the rest didn’t wait too long after. In fact, of all the women who attended, not a single book was sold, and all those cardboard boxes ended up just sitting in a corner somewhere of their individual homes, collecting dust, forever remaining testaments to the deteriorated state of this once bright young mind.