So when Hal joined me for lunch today I asked again what we should do for dinner. And again he suggests ordering pizza. Is there no happy medium between ramen noodles and going out? Since Max and I were already texting on the subject, I let her know. In a moment of brilliance Max suggests we make our own pizzas. Someone'd have to stop by the store and make sure we have pizza crusts, but then have each of us bring our own toppings and we can make put em together at Hal's.
I've never made pizza before, the only one's I've ever had were ordered out anyway or eaten at the pizza parlor. And generally not at home. So I wasn't sure what to do, but Max reminded me of that pizza joint that offered mashed potatoes as a topping and said I couldn't go wrong. I still wasn't sure, so while I could get away with it I did some research on my own and decided to grab an onion, eggplant, garlic, and some herbs and spices.
When Hal picked me up after work I let him know what we were about. So we stopped by the grocery store and picked up ready made pizza crusts. Max had said she'd get the sauce so we didn't worry about that. I grabbed the items I wanted, and Hal grabbed Canadian bacon and pineapple. It seemed odd to me, and he was amused to find out I'd never had a Hawaiian pizza before.
Dinner turned out really well, we each did half a pizza our own way, and then the other half mixing ingredients. That way we basically had six different half pizzas. Max had grabbed Italian sausage and mushrooms as her toppings, and then in addition to the marinara sauce, she brought an alfredo sauce and shredded cheese mix for pizzas. I have to admit, Hal's Hawaiian pizza was surprisingly good. And I liked the eggplant, but the other two shied away from it. They dutifully tried, but that was all they had. More for me.
Anyway, while we were making the pizzas Max dove right into our conspiracy talk. She mentioned an item she'd come across that didn't make the news. Instead, it was making the circles in the conspiracy communities that she keeps up with. What caught her attention about it is that it actually seems to be genuine. A photographer was out at Commons Park trying to photograph the tree and caught something about a block away. Normally when someone 'catches' something they turn up with blurry pictures, which Max finds to be a telling sign. Most cameras these days are high speed enough that even while moving they can take fairly clear photos. She then brought up the images she'd grabbed, which clearly show a very short person standing next to a car. I say very short because he's not much taller than the tire. And while he could, probably easily, pass as a child, his body is in adult proportions. Which actually makes this even more strange, usually people who have some form of grown stunt, "short people," their bodies seem out of proportion to their height. Their arms and legs look relatively bulky, as though they were meant to be bigger, but the person never grew. This particular person looks every bit in proportion to how small he is.
Max, every the skeptical one, did point out that with tricks the photo could be made to happen with a full size person to look as though they were only so tall. But she was sure the photo itself hadn't been manipulated. That left perceptual visual effects, like having the guy stand far enough away from the car to have his picture taken looking like he's only so tall. But there'd be visual identifiers showing the distortion, and she didn't find any. A zoom lens could make it happen, but would have a smaller field of view. The picture in question looks like it was taken with a much larger field of view, suggesting it was taken closer to the vehicle with no clear zoom. This makes the persons short stature impossible to miss.
Even more importantly, there are other people in the photo, all standing around and looking at the little guy. Max said trying to coordinate an illusion like that would be a nightmare without after effects used on the picture, which as she said she found no evidence of.
The story included with the photo tells how the photographer heard some shouting, and saw a flash of light. Next thing he knew there was this little guy picking himself up off the ground right next to the car in the background, he actually used the tire to help stand up. The photographer had to move to get a clear picture of the little guy and only had time to get one such shot. He had taken other pictures, which he shared, but none of them show as clearly the little guy that had everyone's attentions. And this more than anything is what convinced Max. One image, cleverly done, could be made to give the illusion of extreme lack of height. And any of the other photos in which the short guy isn't apparent would be something she'd expect to be submitted. But together, they paint a picture that this did happen.
The photographer reports that shortly after taking the one picture, while he was trying to get another shot, the little guy just disappeared. Which caused no small amount of panic among the crowd. Max had tracked down the date of when this happened, Dec. 23rd, and matched it up with some police reports indicating a small incident happening about a block from the tree.
Of course, as soon as he heard the date, Hal checked that against his own notes and reminded both of us of the attack I'd had that same day. But my attack, as he had recorded, was at 2pm. This happened later in the day during sunset. Hal admitted we had a point, but I can tell he won't let it go.
As we pulled the last pizza out of the oven, Hal's Hawaiian, he brought up his frustrations with Tim. Tim's really his only contact with the illuminati, and his training had been left up to Tim. But according to Hal, Tim's been so focused on the growth on the tree that Hal feels he's been completely ignored. Except for the occasional request to find out more about Melia Floros. But he's been keeping up with Melia's social network, and the website that airs her interviews. Hal's not finding anything about her that might suggest she's more than just a passionate conservationist. The only thing he's happy about is that it's given him freedom to spend time with family and go tubing with us.
Speaking of tubing, his black eye looks so much better. It still looks pretty nasty, but it's been healing well.
But since he was talking about the illuminati, and I didn't have anything to add, I asked him about the Jane Doe story he'd picked up on. He filled Max in on what he'd told me while we were at the hotel, but he said there hadn't been anything new since. Like Hal, Max doesn't know about Candace, so they both shrugged and called it interesting.
With nothing else to go on, and since we'd been eating the whole time. Max took off early. I did make sure to walk her to her car, and gently asked if everything was okay. Max admitted that the reason Robert was so pissed the other day was because she'd called out Sam's name while they were in coitus. She'd had a few days to let the shame ware off, and made me swear never to tell Sam. But her and Robert are done, which was just as well. She had been looking and sounding much better all night, so I'm glad for her.
Still, it made me more than a little self conscious about what I was doing as I spent the next few hours properly thanking Hal and tending to his black eye.
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