Where am I?
And why does my head hurt? Oh please tell me I’m not… I am. The proof of it is in the cool grit of asphalt on my fingertips. I can practically feel the tiny individual pockmarks scouring its surface. Pavement. I’m lying on the pavement. Probably in a back alley somewhere. Perfect. Just perfect.
I groan and haul myself up onto one arm. I’m in a back alley. It’s dark. I’m lying on dirty pavement, in a back alleyway, in the dark. Wonderful. How did I get here? I can’t remember. I can’t remember and that bothers me.
There doesn’t seem to be anyone around. Just a small back alley, walled round on three sides with brick and iron. No windows. There’s a serious pile of refuse occupying one corner, about three feet away from an empty dumpster. Typical. I try not to think about what might be hidden therein. It looks vile.
Then the stench hits me. I’ve never smelled anything so intensely vile in my entire life. Gagging, I stagger back out of the alleyway, into the street. I round the corner and fall back against a doorframe.
God, my head! I breathe deeply, waiting for the throbbing to subside enough for me to think. It passes in a few moments, lessening to a sort of dull ache that rests in a vertical plane between my eyeballs.
Massaging my forehead with one hand, I squint out from my doorframe refuge. Here and there a streetlamp flickers, giving me some light to see by. I’m standing on one side of what looks like a wide boulevard. Not a street. Streets are things that take you from one place to another. From what I could see, this was a place streets led you to. A place to be.
Or at least it had been in the past. Doors, windows, boarded up and barred, glared at me from every direction. I step out of my doorway and begin walking. I go right. I always choose right. It just seems…the right way to go. Glass crunches underneath my feet. Glass from the broken neon lights that still hang, some by no more than a single link of chain, suspended over the boulevard.
A sorrowful breath of wind caresses my ear. It’s almost as if the wind whispers to me. I can almost make out…music. A voice on the wind, singing, “Madness, in the guise of gladness, overcoming sadness…” The voice trails away and is lost. I can’t tell if it was ever there at all. If it was just my imagination, or what.
One of the massive department store windows is still intact. In the feeble glow of the streetlamps I can just make out my reflection. I pause to take inventory. Everything seems to be in order: two eyes, not quite so blue as they used to be; one nose, sharp or aristocratic, take your choice of adjective; two lips, indifferent red (I smile involuntarily as the line of Shakespeare leaps unbidden to my mind); two arms; two legs; all seem to be in good working order. A smudge of dust greys the hair over my left eye. I leave it there, enjoying the rakish quality. Whoever said that basic black was the only way to go?
I tweak my collar and continue down the street. Is it my imagination, or does my reflection move just a split second slower than I do? A small laugh escapes my lips. Jumping at shadows now. Nonetheless, I quicken my step a pace or two.
The place seems utterly deserted. Or is it? From the corner of my eye I catch a slight movement in the shadows. It’s nothing. Keep walking. I see it again. It? He? Walk faster. No.
There’s a pool of light up ahead. I stop suddenly, right in the center. I hear two footfalls, very soft. I’m being followed. Shit. I was afraid of that.
I fumble in my pocket for a moment, pretending to look for something in the light. Not finding it, which is little surprise since whatever it is I’m looking for doesn’t exist, I move on.
I can’t quite make out the footfalls behind me. I hitch my step, as if there’s a rock in my shoe. There it is again. Is it just my imagination, or is it getting closer?
I stop abruptly. I can hear the footfalls clearly now. They are closer. Much closer! I bite my lip. Stupid instincts. Fight. No. Flight. No.
I walk a bit further, increasing my pace. There’s another streetlamp ahead, raining weak light down onto the pavement ahead. Fight. No. Flight. No. I burst into the light and whirl around.
“Show yourself!” I fling my challenge into the darkness. Silence answers me. Oh yeah, Michael, great time to indulge in overly-theatrical dialogue. Shut up, you!
I wait.
Hesitantly, the footfalls come again. Closer they come, and closer. They stop just outside the light.
“Michael?” The voice comes softly to my ears. I…I know that voice! Involuntarily, I step backwards. My foot finds no purchase and I slip, falling backwards into a bank of clouds, sunlight streaming all around.
Soft music teases my ears and I blink in the warm, golden light. The boulevard is gone, and I find myself resting on a bank of damask clouds heavy with the scent of roses.
“Az?” My voice strobes through the coiling mist.
There is a ripple in the cloud floating closest to mine. Someone is rising up from the clouds, sending little spinnerets of vapor curling off in the warm breeze. I blink. It’s a woman. And she’s naked. Gloriously, spectacularly naked.
“Ah!” She breathes. “A newcomer! Hello.”
At her words, a wave of desire, stronger than anything I’ve felt before in my life, hits me. I totter a bit and stare. I manage to gather my wits for a suave and witty greeting.
“Uhm, ah, hi.”
The mist stirs again, and another figure rises from the mist. A man. Also naked. He looks, if anything, better than the woman. Naturally. Why shouldn’t he?
“What have we here, Amara?” His voice rings out. It sings of sex. Like everything else around me.
His voice turns my knees to water. A second wave of desire hits me. I’m drowning. My vision swims with pink and gold sparks. I…I…it’s too much. So hard to think. I have to get out of here before my brain melts. My brain, or some other significant part of my anatomy.
“This young man just dropped in. He looks lost.” She stretches languorously.
He looks at me. “So I see.” He runs a hand caressingly through her hair.
She looks at him, and then at me. “Do you think he’d like to sport with us?”
“You could ask him,” the man replies huskily.
Another wave crests over me. I fight my way to the surface, like a drowning man clutching at a straw. “Ah! Ah! That’s quite alright, thank you!” I interrupt. “I really should be going…”
I stand, hoping that the cloud won’t suddenly notice that I’m not sinking through it and falling towards the ground. I step the edge, but can’t see anything below but a limitless expanse of white, with small flickers of light here and there, like streetlamps on the boulevard I’m standing on.
What the hell is going on here!? One minute I’m here, standing on the boulevard, pavement under my feet, the next, I’m standing in a bank of clouds that are busy trying to coalesce into excessively erotic formations!
Voices chime out from behind me. I blanch.
“Look, Amara, he came back.”
“So I see.”
I look down with dread. No, not dread. Expectation. Excited expectation.
“Do you think he changed his mind?”
“We could ask him I suppose.”
No. I don’t turn around. I don’t look. I don’t even yelp. Instead, I step backwards, and find the boulevard under my feet. Just like I thought. Every time I move, I end up back in…in the X rated version of DisneyWorld. Damn, those are some nice rides… No! Focus. Think. Every time I take a step, I end up either here, or there. Wait. If I can’t take a step without…
“How do I get out of here?”
I groan and sit down to think, my mind a confused welter of images. This will never do. I need some peace, some serenity. I straighten my spine, erect but relaxed. Legs cross, arms drift gently down to rest upon the knees, eyes close. Breathe. In. Draw in peace, serenity. Out. Expel worry, strife. In. Out. An endless cycle. Meditating on a dirty boulevard. Meditation upon, rather.
The trance settles on me easily. I’ve certainly had enough practice. Slowly still the mind; bring the thought to a diminuendo. Slowly, bit by bit dissolve into tranquility. One by one my thoughts slip away, fading like ripples on a pond, until I am left with a smooth, unbroken sheet of water, as flat as glass. Then I let that too drain away, until I hold nothing in my mind. The pinnacle or the nadir or both. All is one and one is nothing.
From nothing, I begin to build. Here I create a leaf, there a branch. One by one, I conjure them in my mind’s eye: the scent of loam; the murky twilight; the vast boles of ancient trees rising upwards; oak; ash; thorn. Silent woods fill my mind. Slowly, achingly slowly I coax out the symphony of life from the silent woods. The soft shirring of the wind through the leaves. The creak of the branches. The glissando of kestrel, lark, and wren. The forest takes on life and song.
I sigh. Peace, tranquility, serenity. I hold them in my mind, hold them entwined upon the wind I’ve woven through the branches of my mind. Slowly, I prepare myself to open my eyes and look afresh on the problem before me. The boulevard. The bed of clouds. Cleaving to the calm I’ve built myself, I brace myself. Peace. I breathe. Tranquility. I breathe. Serenity.
I open my eyes. The boulevard is gone. The bed of clouds is gone. My serenity, also gone. The forest remains. I close my eyes. Forest. I open my eyes. Still forest.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake!” My exasperated outburst disturbs several small birds. They flutter off in a rush of wings. I am left in the clearing alone, save for the ancient trees looming over me.
Well, I suppose this is marginally better than shuttling eternally back and forth between an abandoned boulevard and the land of the lust. At least here the scenery is familiar. I stand, brushing dirt and twigs off my jeans and glance around the clearing.
Peering through the eternal twilight, I can’t help but smile. There’s a strand of mistletoe, twining lovingly about a massive old oak; over there, a small hedge of raspberry bushes circling around an ash tree; and over at the very eastern edge of the clearing, a hawthorn tree. I wander over towards it and run my hands slowly up and down its trunk, minding the thorns. The tree is in blossom, and the heady scent of it tickles my nostrils.
A thought strikes. If this forest is an exact replica of the thought form I built in my mind, then… Closing my eyes, I step carefully around the hawthorn, never lifting my fingertips. As I do so, I prick one of my fingers on a thorn. A sudden sharp pain, but one I was expecting. Slowly I trace three circumnavigations of the trunk and then stop. I open my eyes and look down.
My feet rest upon a thin track. I let my eyes speed along it as it meanders through the wood, until it disappears where the twilight falls into true darkness. I pat the hawthorn briefly in thanks, take a deep breath, and lift my hand from the bole of the ancient tree. The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. I step.
The track is easy to follow, surprisingly. I had expected it to be more difficult. The day is beautiful, for all I cannot see the sun. It’s cool beneath the sheltering boughs, but not too cool. It’s the temperature of the first day of spring, the first day of true spring that is. Just the sort in which to revel as one walks. So I do. The forest is breathtaking.
The light, the birdsong, the trees…Is that tree…smiling? I pause. The smile is gone. Or is it? Damnit, why can’t things be easy? I mean, I’ve already dealt with, well, never mind what I’ve had to deal with today. I look at the tree again. No smile.
Fine. Be that way. I can wait. And wait. And wait. Finally I sigh and continue on, seeing nothing. Trees surround me; oak, ash, and thorn. A stray bit of poetry seems to be running around, teasing at the edges of my mind. One of those things that flit about but can never be pinned down exactly. After a moment of chasing it, I shrug and continue on my way through my tulgey wood.
Odd. I could have sworn I’d seen this tree before. I frown at it. It smiles at me. Perfect. Just what I need at this point, some tree that thinks I look funny. As if in answer to the tree, a wry smile steals across my lips.
“I’m going in circles, aren’t I?”
The smile detaches itself from the tree and floats a bit closer. “Yeah, youse are. Round and round you goes, and wheres you stops, nobody knows.”
“Wonderful.” I reply. You know, now that I think on it, that’s not so much a smile as a smirk, and a decidedly feline one at that.
No sooner thought than done. The smile gets a head. If I was keeping score I might even deign to say it got a head in the game, but I’m not, so I don’t. You know, I don’t know why people discriminate against puns. Even the weak ones are kinda punny. Heh. Punny. I allow myself a smile.
The cat smirks back. The rest of his body appears, slowly phasing into view. He’s a grey tabby with four white socks, and a patch of white fur showing through his half-zipped black leather biker jacket. He’s got a small black leather biker cap on as well. I think better of exclaiming on his cuteness. Cats rarely respond well to gush.
I smile in bemusement. He smirks back. The underbrush rustles in the background. Something deep within the trees whiffles as it passes by.
The cat looks amused. “Ya knows what yer problem is?” he asks.
“No. What?” His cap is perched at a rather jaunty angle. I decide I like it.
“Ya can’t sees de forest for de trees. Dat’s what. Dey’re in yer way.”
I’m only half listening. Something is bothering me, and I reach out and put my finger on it.
“How can the underbrush be rustling? There isn’t any underbrush. If there’s no underbrush, there’s nothing there to rustle,” I think aloud.
The cat smirks. “Yeah, dat’s right, stand dere in thought, all uffish like. Dat’ll get ya where ya needs to be.”
This cat talks like a bad gangster film and dresses like James Dean. Uffish thought? Why does that sound familiar? Behind me I hear a burbling. I look at the cat and swallow. He’s vanishing, slowly. I swallow and feel sick.
“Eyes of flame?” I ask weakly.
The cat’s head, what was left of it at any rate, smirked at me. “Yeah. Dey’re dere all right. Ya might wanta get on that forest from da trees ting.”
His smirk vanished with a faint Pop!, punctuating his sentence. My mind raced. Forest? Trees? What the hell am I supposed to do with that moth-eaten old platitude? The underbrush rustled again. No way. No fucking way! I am not turning around!
Forest from the trees, forest from the trees. What does that mean? I hear the whuffling sneak closer. It’s taking its time. Well, small blessing…damnit! Now is not the time for more platitudes! Focus! Breathe. In. Out. Forest. See the forest. Do not see the trees. Nothing. See the forest. No trees. Ignore the whiffling. See the forest.
My vision wavers briefly for a moment. I blink and my depth perception returns. No trees, just forest. My eyes shift focus again. I shake my head and blink several times. No trees, just jabberwock.
Holy Hell! The eyes of flame! The jaws that bite! The claws that catch! I can feel the jabberwocky’s hot breath as it whistles through fangs dripping with acidic ichor. I know it’s acidic because it sizzles as it hit the ground. Oh yeah, way to go, eye for detail!
I blink again. Everything is flattening, losing depth. My body rocks as a wave upon the sea and the wood flattens into two-dimensionality. The jabberwocky disappears. I’m sitting at a bar, my nose pressed closely to a wall mural.
“Dat’s da forest dere, see? Now, aren’tcha glad ya saw the forest through da trees?” A voice floats over my shoulder to my ears. The voice snickers. Yeah, I recognize that voice. “Although I do believe dat da jabberjoik ain’t too pleased wit’cha.”
I turn. It’s the cat. He’s sitting on a bar stool with one paw on a snazzy cocktail glass. A sprig of catnip peeks out over the rim of the glass. The cat smirks at me.
“Welcome to Shades’ Astral Bar and Grill, buddy.”
The fuck?
To Be Continued…?
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