Synthesis

Chapter 5: Help Me, Rhonda

The days drift in and out of focus, and time does and does not behave the way he suspects it should. He knows, for instance, that it is 7:32am on a Saturday morning. He also knows that Wanda enjoys strong coffee in the mornings, and tea in the afternoons, but as he opens and closes the cabinets, in search of mugs, the layout of the kitchen is off, as if, on a whim, the house swells and shrinks every handful of days. It takes four more minutes to discover a tin of coffee in the second to last remaining cabinet of his search, and it is only after he procures a coffee mug that Vision feels himself glance at the calendar. September 15 . He feels, occasionally, there is something else missing, something imperative to help situate them in a specific setting, but whatever else should be on the calendar sits just outside his periphery, and with every failed attempt to remember why it matters, the more he seems to forget why it is necessary.

He turns back to the task at hand, setting the kettle on the stove and turning on the gas burner. He frowns a little as he does this, although he is not sure why. He enjoys making Wanda coffee, it is something he inherently knows, and yet, the meaning of the act, the history of his muscle movements and knowledge, like so many things since coming to WestView, eludes him. It is in moments like these that he seeks Wanda out, in dire need of a distraction, for her direction. She seems the center of his orbit, somehow, and it feels as if on some days the meaning of it all does not begin until she is awake, as if the world does not quite matter until she is there to witness it. Then, the frame fills with life and purpose, his actions suddenly making sense in a way they hadn’t mere moments before.

And it is so once more, as he carries the steaming mug up the stairs, choosing to gently levitate to avoid it from spilling, and he is met with the image of his wife, just beginning to stir. His timing, as always, is impeccable, despite the fact that the exact how and why are shrouded in confusion. Gently, he sets the mug down on the bedside table, and smirks at the recently-transformed beds. In a dramatic moment of theatrical fear, Wanda had brought the two twin-sized beds together, which had resulted in the desperate and passionate joining of their bodies last night as well. It is nights where they are entangled in one another when their minds are one and he’s not sure where his body ends and hers begins, that he feels the surest. That he is enlightened with a sense of purpose. He is here for her, he knows this, and this knowledge placates him, stark assurance amidst an otherwise gnawing emptiness of what is inherently unknown.

Then, his wife’s eyes are blinking awake, and she offers him a little smile, rubbing the sleep from them and breathing in the aroma of the coffee. She sits up a bit as he leans forward from his place sitting next to her, and their lips gently meet.

“If I didn’t already worship the ground you walk on, I’d start,” she murmurs after the kiss ends, picking up the mug and sipping slightly, but then she notices his fully-dressed attire, a crisp white shirt and gray slacks. Vision watches as his wife then glances down at her own almost completely bare body, hair mussed from sex and sleep, and she blushes, pulling the sheet up a little more discreetly around her arms.

“Suddenly modest, are we?” He asks through a devilish grin, and she only blushes, through a roll of her eyes to mask her shyness, before taking another sip of coffee.

“We are in two very different states of dress,” she points out, gesturing to his outfit before a wide grin breaks out on her face. “Please tell me that’s part of the costume.”

Vision nods, suddenly feeling mildly apprehensive, as if he was the one still naked in bed. 

“I intend to commit to the role as enthusiastically as possible, although I admit I feel… somewhat ridiculous,” he says, and Wanda shakes her head.

“You look enchanting, dear, although….” she drops off, before her eyes go wide with excitement, waving her hand in the air to summon a black silk top hat, which lands on his head. 

“There!” She says through a laugh, and he shakes his head as his eyes flit up to the monstrosity on his head. When he agreed to all this, he had no idea of the extent of the fanfare and commitment to the theatrics Wanda had in mind, and yet he is here, in his willingness to appease her. Wanda seems to have a way of doing this, to bring him to the very edge of his window of tolerance, to the perimeter of what he deems comfortable, and then just gently nudging him over the line, sometimes to experience something new, sometimes on a dare, but always with his wellbeing in mind. Although in the moment he cannot fathom how pretending to be a magician and pulling Agnes’ rabbit out of a top hat is supposed to help his social or emotional development, he knows, at this point, not to question it. 

“You,” he murmurs, running a hand through her hair for a moment, before pulling back, “get ready dear, and I’ll,” he says, before kissing her cheek, “keep practicing.”

“You know the whole show inside and out, Vizh. What could go wrong?” Wanda asks, and he sighs as he stands, plucking the top hat off his head and gripping the brim. 

“I never considered myself much of a thespian,” he murmurs, and she only smiles at him, sliding on a silk robe that had been discarded from the night before and standing herself, the hem of the robe barely brushing the tops of her thighs. 

“And yet here you are,” she says through a sly smile, and he laughs a little.

“Here I am, indeed,” he sighs, glancing at the clock on the far wall, even though he inherently is aware of the time.

“I could meet you downstairs in twenty to do a whole run-through. Would that make you feel better?” she asks, before tugging at the collar of his shirt, and he feels himself nodding.

“Very much so,” he murmurs, and her eyes stay alit with a knowing passion, as she leans in for another kiss.

—

It dawns on him, too quickly, in a largely painful and abrupt sort of way, that his supposed hope of making headway regarding security by joining the neighborhood watch is all for naught, and that whatever this is, the safety of the suburban life of Westview, New Jersey is not at all a top priority. 

The idea to go to the Neighborhood Watch gathering was in part to truly investigate last night’s commotion. The sound of static electricity, as if lightning were perpendicularly attacking Westview’s airspace, should be troubling, even if Wanda had discovered the rattling to only be a tree branch banging against the siding. At the time, he took this explanation to be the truth, becoming much more occupied with his wife and their new sleeping arrangement, but now, outside of the house, he realizes how preposterous it would be to blame the noises on a tree limb, unless said the deciduous plant had the ability to also make the air feel metallic with electrical current and shake the very foundation of the house. Of course, he doubted the neighborhood watch would offer much in the way of answers, but it was doing something over doing nothing, which offered him his second excuse for attending: bide his time until curtain call, and try not to grow nervous.

But now, as a man named Herb snickers to the rest of the men about how some man named Johnson’s attempt at building a treehouse was prefabricated and the men pass around danishes, he wonders if he has made a mistake. His only social encounters have been from Wanda’s own determination to give them a life outside of the home, like the bowling league, and he is quickly finding that his own temperament suggests he is not one to engage in breezy conversation. He’s also always skipping lunch at work, he realizes, and missing the important hour on the clock where social interactions between his colleagues are more frequent. 

This is why, as Norm talks of Arthur’s bowling trophies, Vision finds himself desperate for any bit of gossip or information that might not only bide him time here, but, under that, a sudden urge to fit in, to be a part of, even if, statistically speaking, it might be entirely impossible. He has no gossip though, no news to share, and he wishes Wanda were here, because she would know what to do, but since he’s on his own, he thinks of the most ridiculous, most preposterous idea he can think of and picks the man sitting to his right. 

“I, too, have some top secret gossip to share,” Vision speaks up. “Norm here’s a communist.”

Ever single man around the pushed-together tables raises their eyebrows, up into their receding hairlines, and what Vision knows about nonverbal communication, of what he can understand and recollect, shows that he’s made a mistake. He begins to sputter through a thought experiment to backpedal his abysmal attempt at talking gossip, but Norm is suddenly laughing out loud, they’re all laughing, and he realizes, quite late at the moment, that they assume he was making a joke. He finds himself laughing too, entirely pleased with himself. 

“Vision, you’re a real cut-up!” Phil says, slapping his thigh.

“You know I always thought you were kind of a square,” Norm says through a laugh.

“Me? No! I’m as round as they come,” he says, hoping that settles matters. And then the man named Herb is offering him chewing gum, and Vision eyes it, as if it is the key, the answer to all of the problems that have been stirring in his mind since arriving in Westview. 

“Well, hold on there a second! Didn’t you hear the man? He doesn’t eat food!” Norm reminds Herb. 

“Is gum food?” Phil asks, and suddenly Vision wants to keep up the jovial moment, wants to fit in, wants to perhaps be something other than Wanda’s constant, so he accepts the offered stick of gum, ignoring the faint warnings in his own mind.

“Well, my understanding is that it’s purely for mastication,” Vision explains, and he fiddles with the silver wrapper. 

“No, uh, I don’t do that,” Herb mutters, and Vision only shrugs his shoulders at the man, wondering why he wouldn’t masticate if he’s carrying around chewing gum. 

“Oh, well, when in Westview. Cheers!” he says before putting the hardened rectangle in his mouth, attempting to not become immediately repulsed as he chews again, and again, until it becomes softer, not entirely sure up until this moment if he even would have the synthetically-produced enzymes in his saliva to break down the polyol coating. They’re saying something about how he’s funny, but he’s still disoriented by what he’s doing, wonders why anyone would do this, and it takes all of his concentration to abstain from spitting the disgusting bolus out of his mouth, when Herb pats him on the back, hard, and... and. 

Warning. Solid mass swallowed. Attempting to obfuscate. Obfuscation attempt unsuccsdfkjasl—-, another part of his mind tells him, and he begins to panic- Had this ever happened before? He knows he shouldn’t consume anything, but has he ever actually ingested anything on accident prior to this moment?— but the memories are absent, and then his vision blurs slightly, and he has to strain harder to hear, and he forgets why a part of his mind is shouting at him so he stops listening. And he’s glad he does because the jokes are funnier and his worries about fitting in subside and he thinks maybe he is a square and he just needs to prove to himself to be otherwise.

—

He misses for the third time in a row, but they still cheer anyway. Herb and Norm are enjoying a third round of beers outside the American Legion next door to the library and they keep laughing at what Vision is saying, and he couldn’t be happier with himself. 

“Vision, you can’t throw for nothing!” Norm laughs, knocking back the rest of his beer. Vision frowns in deep frustration, inspecting the stake in the ground, which is currently multiplying and dancing about, and he wonders when it became alive and who told the stake it was allowed to do that during his throw.

“If it would just stay still I’d be able to get one,” Vision murmurs defeatedly, walking back over to the table, and they all laugh again as Norm throws and also misses. 

“Good grief! I can’t catch a break either!” Norm mutters, trudging back over to the picnic table once more in defeat.

“Don’t get too down on yourself, Norm. You’re only human, and you’re intoxicated, which means, the stat-statistically likablehood is not on your side,” Vision says, clapping a hand on the shorter man’s shoulder, which forcibly pushes him a little too hard to sit down, and Herb snickers from the picnic table.

“Who knew we just needed to get a little beer in you to liven you up,” Herb laughs, and Vision frowns, staring down at his untouched plastic cup on the picnic table. 

“Yeah, how many have you had anyway? You might wanna slow it down. Isn’t that talent show soon? Weren’t you gonna do something with it, Vision?” Norm laughs.

Vision’s eyes go wide, and then he remembers, at that moment in not once before, that he was supposed to do something “with it.” Pull a rabbit out of it, or...something.

“It’s...what time is it?” Vision asks, even as Norm is picking up the horseshoes and Herb gets to his feet.

“Time for you to get to the town square, man. Phil left at 2:30 to play for them, and, hell, it’s a half past three now. You better skedaddle, or I bet you’ll have an angry wife on your hands,” Herb says, and Vision’s eyes go even wider in terror, about to tear off in the direction of the town square, before Herb looks him up and down skeptically. “Uhh...you wearing that?” 

Vision looks down at his sweater, and notices that, yes, he is wearing this, at least right now, and he wonders why Herb would ask him when it’s obvious what he is wearing. But then he slowly realizes...this was for now, not for later. And it is later. Talent show later, and suddenly Herb’s meaning becomes clear. 

“I’ll...be there... momentarily,” Vision manages, and Herb shrugs his shoulders, before heading in the direction of the gazebo in town square with Norm, and Vision pokes the exterior of his currently rumpled arrangement of atoms. He frowns, glancing around and, seeing nobody around, and closes his eyes. He tries to focus, just as his body rebels again with a grumble and groan, his atoms shifting to...something...resembling coattails. But when he looks down at his hands, he panics, realizing his human disguise has slipped and his skin is a suspicious shade of dark gray, so he closes his eyes again, and it shifts back to something more... surreptitious. But...the hat. He can’t craft a hat, not if he’s gonna pull it off his head and pull a rabbit out of it, so he stumbles forward, before his feet lift shakily off the ground. He hovers a few feet, before he sways in the air and plummets back to earth with a thud, tripping over his own feet and barely catching himself.

“What in all that is good andholy?” He mutters in frustration, trying again, and succeeding this time, praying nobody spots a man in coattails sloppily hurtling towards Sherwood Drive.

—

“So what have we learned about gum?” Wanda teases him as they begin their walk back to the house hand-in-hand, the sun now setting in against the trees and carefully sculpted lawns of their neighborhood. With the talent show thankfully over until next year and the debacle with Vision’s losing fight with chewing gum behind him, he finds himself finally relaxing, as he squeezes his wife's hand more tightly.

“That it belongs nowhere near my mouth,” he says through a breathy laugh. Wanda also giggles, and pulls him to stop.

“You’re lucky that you’re hilarious when you’re...in an altered state of mind, or things could have gone a lot worse,” she says, as they round the corner to Sherwood drive. 

“I could not have known, darling, that doing so would bring on the effect that it did. If I had known, I would have chosen a wiser plan of action,” he says through a smirk. 

“Oh, come on. Don’t you remember that time Tony dared you to-“ Wanda abruptly stops walking, shaking her head a little as she stares out at the homes nestled in the sleepy twilight. Vision frowns, confused as to why she’s stopped speaking and whom she is referring to, double checking that she did, in fact, expel the gum from his system. 

“Who?” He asks, and she bites her lip, shaking her head a little bit more. 

“Nobody,” she murmurs, but it does little to reassure Vision, and he takes a step closer to her in concern.

“Is everything alright, darling?” He asks, running his free hand through her hair, and she only smiles up at him before sliding a finger over the brim of his top hat. 

“Of course, my dear Illusion,” she jokes, and her laughter melts his own confusion and they begin walking once more, now on the doorstep of 2800 Sherwood Drive. 

“Well, I have thoroughly learned my lesson, and I have you to thank for,” he pauses, moving to open the front door for her, “how do they put it, ‘covering our asses?’”

“Vizh! Language!” She says playfully, swatting his chest even as he phases out of the coattails and into his sweater from earlier, and, in a moment of impromptu wooing, twirls her through their front door. 

“Truly though, you were tremendous, Glamour,” he says, seductively winking at her.

“As were you, Illusion,” she says, and he smiles once more at her, before shutting the front door behind them. He tosses his hat to the floor, while Wanda walks towards the living room.

“I don’t know what I was so worried about. It wasn’t so hard to fit in after all,” she says, setting their hard-earned trophy down on the coffee table and settling down to sit on the couch, and Vision echoes her movements.

“And all we had to do was be ourselves,” Vision smirks, knowing full-well it’s a lie and a half. 

“Well, with a few modifications,” she teases, running a hand over his cheek playfully as he puts an arm around her. 

“And it was all…” Vision begins through a wry smile.

“For the children,” they both recite, and Wanda giggles.

“Well, I think the children need some popcorn, she says, and it’s a curious thing to say, because Vision cannot guess who she is referring to, until she stands, and, in the briefest of moments, the world falls off its axis.

“Wanda…” Vision murmurs, and he is slowly standing too, staring at her stomach, the bump that was assuredly not there mere moments before now round with meaning. 

“Huh? What?” She asks, spinning around to face him, and he can only keep staring before shakily gesturing toward her midsection. She finally looks down, and gasps, to the invisible but audible awwws of an audience. He finally brings his eyes up to look at her in amazement, and he ignores all logic, all impossibility— hadn’t they done these tests, known fully well that they would not be able to have children, that he lacked the essence of bringing about new life, that he could not procreate?— because he wants it to be real. It’s real, it’s real, it must be real. His wife continues to stare at him in awe.

“Vision, is this really happening?” She asks, and he takes both of her hands in his, as if doing anything else would make everything he’s known fade away once more.

“Yes, my love, it’s really happening,” he says, as he is supposed to say, but just as he leans down for a kiss, it strikes again. Thunder and loud electric whirring. He looks up in frustration and shouts out a threatening remark about the damn tree, phasing quickly before storming outside to the serene and stormless night. He walks to the edge of the property, confused, bewildered, as Wanda shouts after him, “I don’t see anything!” 

But then, they both stop at the sidewalk, a sound half-way up Sherwood Drive beckoning them, and they both watch as the manhole rattles. 

“What is that?” He hears himself saying, taking a step toward his wife, and, on instinct and instinct alone, wraps a hand protectively around her stomach.

“Wanda…” he murmurs, but his wife says nothing, and, as the manhole opens, an eerie swarm of buzzing fills the air. A lone man climbs up out of the manhole, insects swirling around him, an odd symbol on the back of his suit, and he stands, before turning his head, staring at them directly. Vision pulls Wanda a little closer to him, before he hears his wife whisper, “No.” He doesn’t understand, can’t understand why she would————

“Vision, is this really happening?” she asks, and he takes both of her hands in his. And he knows she needs this to be real, and that he needs this to be real, and everything will be right and sure with the world if they simply will it to be so.

“Yes, my love, it’s really happening,” he hears himself saying, before he leans down for a gentle kiss, and her hands squeeze his before they break apart, a gasp on her lips as her hand cradles the side of his face. He leans into it, slightly confused, until she smiles, and, suddenly, the room dances before them with red light, and slowly the names and concepts of hundreds of thousands of colors fill his mind, as grey turns to a rich maroon, and white turns to a cream, and black turns to midnight blue, and as Wanda spins with the changing room, she faces him, and he blinks, her hair now a strawberry blonde, her blouse a beautiful scarlet. He brings his hand up slowly, to see the light gray of his sweater blossom into a mustard yellow, the digits of his hand now a deep red. 

Yes, this is right. Yes, this is something from before. Something important. Yes, it has always been that way.

His wife smiles at him again, and he can only smile back, leaning in to gently press his lips against hers once more, as the music plays out its final chords.