Kaleidoscope

The Kaleidoscope was a huge joke. It started as some new-year’s resolution between Flynn and me, and still it took me months to finally use it. Flynn sent me a link, asking me to buy one for each of us to track our running routes. I think what caught him most was the fact that you could own running routes as long as you were the last one who ran them. Until someone else took them. 

The watch came in a handy box, pretty and posh. The gadget was quite expensive, but we’d do a lot to reach our running goal. Ten kilometres a week, we agreed on. Either at once, or two times five. And as always, Flynn was a little ahead of me, his feet way too designed for this to not make me jealous. 

The first time we used the watch, we planned a five kilometre route through the forest. After the first, Kaleidoscope began cheering at us, a smiley twisting inside a huge party popper, telling me I was on a good way. The smiley then walked along the route on the display, my vital data in the corner, the step count rising and rising, making me proud of myself. 

We reached a four-legged tree after 2,8 kilometres. Some people said this tree is some attraction, but since we were no tourist, attractions right next to our neighbourhood seem like jokes to us. We sat down on one of the benches, drank a huge gulp of hydrative, the watch asking us if we were doing a break. I clicked on the yes-button, while Flynn told me to let it be. “The watch doesn’t care, man.” 

“Well, I care.” Better get a good relationship with your watch, even though it’s no real person. It will accompany you through your next successes as well as hard times. 

“Let’s get going.”, Flynn stood up, as the watch started making some snoring sound. 

“What the –“ I saw him aggressively clicking on the screen. 

“It says I’m a lazy pig.” 

I don’t know why I started laughing, but probably because at that time I expected all of this to be ironic. 

“Don’t you laugh, this is it.” But as he showed me the display, there was nothing, just the question if he’s doing a break. 

So we continued. 

Kaleidoscope also took records of our runs. It gave me a summary of my first week and told me how proud it was of me reaching twelve kilometres in only three days. Of course, I was more motivated than ever, ready to run around the whole world. 

Flynn didn’t even look at the diagrams. He was down every time I asked him for a run, but he always appeared in the same clothes as before, not having washed them or anything. This guy really needed some preparation. 

We chose a route of seven kilometres this time, but our devices showed different ones. 

“I think yours is just the same, only the other way around.” 

“You think?” I was not really sure, we selected the same one after all. 

“This is the church, but it is at the end of my route.” 

He was right. “Doesn’t matter, right? We will just take yours.” 

As we started, Kaleidoscope was asking me where I’m going, but this time I couldn’t click any answers. So I let it be.

For two hundred metres, before the vibrations started. 

My former watch vibrated when someone sent a message. This time, it was the watch itself sending me something. But the message was empty, the display just black. 

And the vibrations intensified. 

“Are you coming?” 

I didn’t realize how slow I have gotten. I hastily clicked something, bumped on the watch, but nothing happened. It was rather that the vibration even intensified with every touch. 

“Come on.” 

“What are you doing there, Emmett.” 

I just let it be, again. At least I tried to. But the more I ran, the more my watch vibrated, as if it rebelled. Against me taking a different way. Why did it matter this much? 

“What’s happening with this thing?” 

We reached a traffic light, which was perfect, since it forced me to actually stop running. 

“The watch is shaking like hell.” 

“Is there some message? Because mine told me I reached my peak time this week.” 

 If I reached some peak, it was my lowest speed this week rather than something else. 

“I think it’s because I’m on the wrong way.” 

“But who cares?” 

That’s the thing. Relief flooded me as he said it. Of course, why should this matter?

“I’ll still go home. Maybe my condition is just not good.” 

The traffic light turned green, but Flynn didn’t even see it. He held his ear to the watch, which was still pressing against my skin. “I hear it as well. At least you’re not imagining things.” 

But at this point, maybe this could have been better. 

Our ways parted and I went home. Finally, the watch stopped and my arm felt numb as if I lied on it for a whole night.

On the watch it said I ran 4.2 kilometres. Sure, man. Lie to me as well now? 

We went again three days after. Looked that we had the same route on our watches. 7 kilometres, up a small hill, then through the city centre and into part of the wood. Home again. This time, we started at my home, avoided all the traffic lights and just hoped that our watches would show us the same pathway. They did. This time, we were on track. 

“Weather’s a hell for this.” Flynn said as soon as we started. My feet hurt for whatever reason, although I hadn’t run the last days and my last run was interrupted by the vibration. Still, the disgusting feeling kept lingering on my arm and with every glance at Kaleidoscope I just wanted to make sure that the watch was pleased. So, that’s what our world had become by then. 

“But the weather is fine, isn’t it?” 

“I think these clouds form a thunderstorm very soon.” 

I hated that he was right. Flynn was right too many times, although he wasn’t even a meteorologist. Honestly, I saw nothing in these clouds. A face, maybe. But as the first raindrops hit me after two kilometres, I knew I had lost my imaginative betting game of who is right this time. Like I always do. 

As we reached the city centre, the rain had become heavy enough for me to want to quit. My socks made soaked sounds with every step and also Flynn was concealing how much he didn’t like it. 

“Well, we can’t take a shortcut, right? Kaleidoscope won’t like it.” 

He was right again, for sure. 

“Then let’s go through it.”

And we actually made it to the forest. The light was obscured enough there, the trees shielding it as if creating our own little cave. Still, the ground was so muddy, my shoes sank in with every step and we got slower and slower. 

“I want to go home. Just get this done.” 

“Chill, Em. We’re doing fine enough.” 

But this time, he was not right. We still had three kilometres on the watch and even though we passed the hill, the last metres just went upwards as well. It was a mess. 

My body went stiff, when I felt Kaleidoscope vibrating against my arm again. My eyes darting across the display. “Wrong track”, it said. At least it told me what it wanted. But we were right. 

At least I thought, before I saw Flynn before me, holding his arm as well. 

“At least you believe me now.” It didn’t leave my mouth in the jokey manner I intended. 

“It says we should head right.”

“What, now? We cannot do deeper into the forest.”

Flynn examined the display closer, apparently his watch told him more than just the wrong way. “It changed the route and wants us to do two whole kilometres extra.” 

“What?” Cold crawled through my veins. We were dependent on this watch. 

“Take it off.” Yes, this could be the only solution. As long as we had the watch, we could only go a specific way, but we must leave this forest. Before the storm hit. But as I looked at the bracelet, the rubber was suddenly melted together, like one piece of plastic, no latch, no separate pieces, nothing. Then the lightning hit behind me.

My head hit some rock as Flynn pulled me down with a sharp tug on my arm.

“Man, what are you doing?“ For a moment I thought there were tears, but it may just have been his always watery eyes. Was it that close to me where the lightning hit? There were at least no traces on the ground. “We have to get out of here.”

We sat on that ground for what must have been an hour. Silence was our new friend, although it felt like an enemy nevertheless. I wish I could tell my thought in those moments under the trees, as dusk settled, but it was so meaningless, I just forgot. How I will never again wear a watch, or if I was in some weird movie or any reality show. Or maybe similar thoughts. My head hurt, from whatever reason. And still, we jogged home the rest of our route. Better safe than sorry regarding that we had a bossy watch around our wrists. And yes, we took it exactly this unserious when we went home. After an hour on wet soil, our clothes looked like after the apocalypse, there was not other way than to make the best out of it.

Before I sat on the floor of my shower, crying until I recognised where I was and what I was doing. What a picture I must give, although there was nobody else around.

And I was still wearing the Kaleidoscope. It gave a twisting and turning all overly happy smiley face, telling me how committing I am with my runs. I wanted it to fuck off, but instead I removed it after drying my scruffy skin. Whatever happened during this shower, it made my watch have a latch after all.

We swore to never use the Kaleidoscope again. I put it back into the box and threw it in our bin outside, feeling a sweet relief, which made me think I earned a day off.

“Can we do another run? Have to overplay my memory of the last one”

But apparently, Flynn’s plans crossed mine. And so we met again, at his house. I saw Kaleidoscope around his write before I could even wave hello.

“Why are you wearing that?”

“Nice way to say hello. The shorts are a little tight, but my others were too dirty after we kneeled in the mud,”

“It wasn’t mud, and also do I mean the watch.”

The empty expression told me he was surprised himself.

“I didn’t know I put it on.”

“This watch is freaking dangerous. Why haven’t you thrown it away?”

“Well, Em. Guess what, I have. Why haven’t you?”

And we both stare at my wrist in Kaleidoscope’s rubber grip.

Normally, you select the sport you want to do, then the distance if you need one and afterwards the programs spits out the best route for you. But this time, our watches just synced and showed a route we’ve never done before. At least, it was the same on both of our displays.

“We can’t do this. It will lure us away again.”

“Yes, it will. But what should we do, remove it?”

I tried this, but apparently the latch only shows when the watch finds it appropriate.

“We can go inside and just forget about it.”

But I should have known how we couldn’t outsmart the watch. The pig face appeared before I even had to voice my doubts. Calling us a lazy pig, the face danced around, so ironic I almost had to laugh. Was I getting mad at this point already?

When the vibration began, Flynn ran. Took me a minute to find out why he was so eager. Right before the volts hit my wrists and I started to scream. My hand seemed to be burning away from my body, its skin only a big pile of pain.

“I will do it. I will do the run.” I don’t know who I said it to, maybe whoever or whatever was listening. Finally, the electricity stopped and my hand got numb. I still did what I promised.

Flynn was not hard to find. Normally, he was the fastest runner I knew, being ahead of me and mockingly turning around only to wink at me in a Kiss my air manner.

This time, his steps were unsteady, not elegantly dancing around the sticks and stones on the ground. “How’s your arm?” I ask from behind, for a second even daunting it is him.

“Fine. Let’s just get this over with.”

Nothing happened for the first two kilometres, but that’s how it always was before. The route led into a deeper forest, trees so close to each other, there wasn’t even a track anymore. Kaleidoscope was still so exact, we knew where to go. And if we had to squish between two thick trees, it was still the right way. Because, and this seems to be obvious to me now, but probably did not at this point, Kaleidoscope does not want us on the normal track. It wants us somewhere where no other runners were around. And this was a tree graveyard.

Like a clearing, the place was logged from all the trees, only that their thin, white stems lied around, piled onto each other, making a mess of wood and dirt.

“This is sad.” Flynn, stripped from all emotion, recognised. “Didn’t expect to come across this.”

“Maybe it should tell us something.” I looked at the watch, but it only indicated that this was the right way. That there was one kilometer left that would lead us even further into the forest.

“So, what are we doing here?” But Flynn’s possibility to answer was taken away by some rumble in the ground as the earth split in two.

The ground shivered under our feet, as the earth moved, cracked open and let the dead trees fall down into the slit that just opened. It all happened as if to somebody else, me just standing there, anmazed and only noticing now how cold it suddenly was in my shorts.

“Fuck, we need to get away.” Flynn took my hand, pulled me out of my stare on this crack. And together we ran through the trees. It felt harder than before, me just stumbling along Flynn, who, like always, was way too quick for me. Also, the trees seemed to be denser than before, arranged in such a tight pattern that normal human beings had no possibility to pass. And at one point the trees were even so dense, their roots could by no chance be grown like this. And this was when I realised that we are trapped.

“Let go. These are no real trees.” Flynn dropped my hand, letting me inspect the leaves, that directly crumbled to ash under my fingertips. “The hell?”

A crow started flying above us, then the people irritated me. I don’t know where they came from, only that Flynn held my hand again, pressing it so hard I had to turn around and see what he saw. People marching towards us, so many that counting was impossible. All of them held one arm up to the sky, as if carrying a torch, when all it was they held on that hand was their watch. The Kaleidoscope.

And together they marched in our direction. And since they came from every single direction, we were trapped. Again. I remember us falling on the ground. Flynn burying his face between his legs, putting his hands on his ears.

And then, Kaleidoscope began vibrating. “Who’s the fastest runner of you?” it asked

Flynn. He’s freaking fast. But the watch should know this by now.

Either way, Flynn was no paying attention. I had to do something. “Me” I screamed. “It’s fucking me.” Can’t blame Flynn for anything. Although he bought this watch, I was down for it from the beginning on.

“Sure?” the watch asked before playing a song. A song, in the woods, surrounded by a circle of people all holding their hand up. By now there must have been sixty of them and still new people were coming. Put your hands up, the lyrics were telling and as Kaleidoscope began vibrating, I understood and put my hand in the air, just like everyone else.

And for a moment, the lightning hit. Right in the middle of us. I saw the electricity flow through us, from the circle to me, enlightening the whole area for a minute. Then everything went dark.

When I woke up, I was alone in the woods, my left arm burned with severe marks. No watch. My clothes ripped apart, my skin covered in goosebumps. And no trace of Flynn.

The police checked the software. But apart from the fact that Flynn never sent me the link to buy the watch, they found no important trace. There must have been similar cases already, the sixty people must come from somewhere, but the police won’t tell me about other investigations. Although I told them everything about my story.

The still believe I killed Flynn. And some nights, in my lonely cell, I almost believe it myself. I remember being mad at him for always running way too far ahead. Because imagine a thunderstorm and your friend is already ahead, leaving you alone in the woods. Horrible.