—Darkness as metaphor. Yin to the Taoist, in the absence of Yang. This is a result of a long, dark winter finally turning into light. A rumination of months without sun. Personify if you must.
Not really suitable for young children. —R
Do you know what it is like to float outside of yourself, to find yourself pushing through a layer of clear gelatin? Well, this is how it was for me on this one particular day. I looked down upon myself from my floating vantage point at the ceiling. My living room was a swimming pool. I was suspended on the surface of that swimming pool, a bubble trying desperately to break the surface and swim to the bottom. I would join myself there as I performed my daily chores and routines. From that ceiling vantage, I watched as my own body would separately drink coffee and eat food. I was separate from my brain and body. I was a person at a table next to me. There was a pain that throbbed inside the base of my neck, and squarely behind the eyes. My eyes were gummy and hard to blink. Even on this peculiar night, my dog, Lobo, had to stare at me for what seemed an hour before his telepathic talents managed to reach me and tell me of his doggy need to go outside.
While waiting for Lobo, I stood on the lawn. As I gazed into the starry night, the cold moisture seeped through the toes of my cloth shoes. That awareness of cold and wet brought me back to my physical body. Still, I stood there on the lawn. I simply watched my old friend Orion chase the mighty bull, Taurus, across the warm, clear sky. On that evening, the only visible parts of Taurus were Aldebaran and the Pleiades. The rest of the bull was hid behind the giant Butternut tree which grew on the western border of the lawn. Perhaps, Taurus was out of sync like I had been earlier. Or maybe, Taurus was just hiding. Both canine hunting companions, the well-heeled Canis Major and the high-flying Canis Minor, both pursued Orion in the open sky. The hunting party was still intact.
Lobo and I walked restlessly through the entire village that night, walking across Main Street, down past the Stumble Down Inn, through High Point Park, down by the water treatment plant on Utility Street, and then up to the part of the village conveniently hidden behind Old Turntable Hill. In our little hamlet, it was the hiding place for the debris of the forgotten, trampled by time and human progress. Even in the disheveled state of this part of the village, I felt more at home than any other place during the day. I could tell Lobo was not amused; his ears laid back on his head while his hackles stood erect on his neck and back between his shoulder blades. There was even a flared tuft of fur on his tail forming a ball. But even though the beast remained unsettled, he stayed by my side. He was unwilling to leave his listless master while his master played a game among the collected piles of the remnants of a once and future day. A game of the mind which I would play often in the twilight under the street lamps. A game where a town’s past would come to life and play out on the street in front of me. One section of town devoted to sleaze and drinking. And another devoted to business. Yet another filled with families and laughter and trees. I stared long enough into one area that I almost actually saw the long-removed turntable complete with steam engine. The table was turning and the engine was moving, spreading its steam about the freight buildings and depot of yesteryear. We walked, my dog and I, among the ruins and other leftovers of history and condensation until we came to stand in front of the once elegant, now neglected gray and peeling, Victorian Hotel. Seventy-five years ago, The Victorian was the place to stop for any honest, traveling salesmen and gather for the village elite. As Lobo and I stood in front of the place, I could hear the conversations of those who had once stayed there, the plans that were made for the village, traveling commerce, and the great society beyond. I could hear the warm laughter wrapped around clinking glass and smell the sweet flavor of pipe and grassy cigar smoke wafting on the wind. But that was all before the shuttering, all before the removing of steel rail, wood ties, and iron turntable, long before the abandonment of this chunk of village. I exhaled a draft of cloud as we, Lobo and I, stood and looked.
As we stood and looked, Lobo and I noticed a light beam shoot out from the cellar of the Victorian Hotel. The light ran across the yard like a little field mouse trying to hard to not become known as prey. It was so fast that I imagined the beam slammed into an old root cellar entrance, knocking itself senseless. Though, it was hard to imagine the rotten half-shack, outhouse structure would hold up to such an impact. As I examined the full shaft of the concussed beam a long, lone shadow appeared frozen on the side of that hiding hill. It seemed a jailhouse escapee caught by a large searchlight. The shadow began to move among the trees of the Old Turntable Hill. Perhaps, the shadow moved because something or someone was moving about an old damp casement of a once glorious hotel from the other side of the street. I wanted to stay and investigate, but there was a crash and a bang, followed by a howl of an alleycat interrupted on his prowl. It made me leap out of my skin. And it brought my heart into a loud and rapid pounding that almost sounded as if it was saying, “I’m not going to stay.” Lobo sprang into action with a loud woof and a snort. And I could do nothing more than join my pulling dog. We were attached after all. So, we past the once grand Victorian Hotel.
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She liked the night. She would sit for hours and stare up into the stars. She would watch as Orion hunted the Great Bull Taurus, followed by his two canine companions, well-heeled Canis Major and, the high-spirited Canis Minor. She watched as the Big Dipper and the Little Dipper do-si-doed to twist old Draco into a tight spiral. She bayed encouragement to Celeste, as Celeste rose off the eastern horizon and leapt across the sky like a dancer who would only rest in the cradle of the west. If things would have been different, she might have been up there instead of on the ground watching. She would have been an astronaut, or at least an astronomer. Instead, she was all brush and paint. She was all pen to paper, word and note. She was all grace and beauty, moonlight on a lake. The night was her time. It was quiet and peaceful; she did not wish to disturb. She wanted no more interruptions from her neighbors. No sir. So, as a barred owl called off in the distance, she finished the last of a cigarette she held in her hand. She looked out upon the old Victorian Hotel and mused about the shadow in the basement. She mused about the man and his dog out for a late night stroll. She watch the two drift off into the oblivion of two- and three-story obstacles. She began to quietly hum to the sweet, thin fog of warm, light-filled music. She closed the balcony door, and grabbed the half-filled wine glass and took a sip. The red of the Merlot dribbled down her front. She shrugged at the stain that would inevitably not quite go away.
She stared at the canvas and noticed its texture and color, and then sighed. It was unsatisfactory, too much hue, not enough tint...not enough shadow, not enough mystery, too much form. She had been at the painting for hours, perhaps days, but somehow the subject would not reveal itself. She took another sip of wine. Then, she placed the glass on top of one of the many jars of color that populated a crowded folding table. The table lived next to her easel. Then, she turned to face the MP3 player which came to a rest on the rail of her easel. She forgotten she had turned it on when she started on the canvas oh so long ago. She hadn’t even noticed that she was humming the same tune that was playing. She closed her eyes to let the music in; she began to sway. As she did, she grabbed her dancing companion, wine glass off the small table. She moved about the space near the easel. When the song ceased, she quickly hastened her dancing partner into the small kitchen of her studio apartment. The wine glass clinked to attention on the counter. Then, she grabbed a green, long-necked bottle to pour. Luxurious red liquid rolled out of the green bottle and fell into the waiting body of her clear, long-stemmed glass. It was a dark red waterfall descending into a pond. She shook the bottle twice to make sure every drop had been emptied into her hapless dance partner. Then, placed the green container into the sink with a light thunk. She reached out next to her red-filled glass and grabbed a hand-sized rectangular package. Tapping the package on the heel of her palm, she slid a cigarette out of the aperture and placed it in her mouth. With an automatic move, she ignited her butane lighter and put flame to her cig. With a long, luxurious inhale followed by an equally considered exhale, she contemplated the color, line, and form staring into her kitchen from the easel. And then abruptly, she grabbed her wine and danced her smoking cigarette back to her easel to the ever-changing attitude of her MP3 player. There, she gently placed her wine glass on the utility table after an easy sip. She moved easy in the open area of her studio apartment, next to her easel. And while she danced, she grabbed, then wiped, an idle paintbrush standing in a mug of turpentine and striped it through some midnight blue that was gathered on her palette. Then, she lightly slid the brush across the canvas. The dark blue brush stroke smeared heavy on the painting. It dripped from the turpentine. She took the same brush and dipped it into a blob of light, metallic grey. Suddenly, she pressed the brush hard on the canvas and smeared the glittering paint into gesso and oil-covered cloth as if it was a knife meant to tear. She felt angry without knowing why. The anger buzzed through her veins as she pull the silver down the canvas. Then, she threw the brush into the mug of turpentine sending tiny splashes out on to the surroundings. She almost rubbed tears from her eyes, but stopped as she noticed the paint covering her hands. All the smudges of so much time, and the smell of turpentine among her nails. Feeling both angry and now sad, she stepped away from her canvas and moved to the balcony. She needed to breathe in the fullness of the moon Celeste. She closed her eyes to concentrate on the wisdom that the pale white Goddess often spoke in the night. But sitting on her cold balcony, the only thing she heard was a kind of music that currently shrieked out from the MP3 player. She squeezed her eyelids tighter, trying to bring herself to a whole different dimension from the balcony and that space called a living room. She inhaled slowly, and then exhaled into the calm of a new tune. She inhaled a cold sip of wine from the glass that she had grabbed on her way out on to the balcony. She leaned against the cold rail. She did not care if she was nearly naked, wearing only a slightly wine-stained top and panties. She did not care that the night air caressed and tickled her curves to goosebumps. She simply wanted peace, and that painting would certainly not be her train ticket to serenity on this very night. So, while leaning against the railing of her balcony, in her underwear and holding a glass of Merlot in her hand, she exhaled a cigarette cloud. With the cigarette smoke, her thoughts drifted out and back down the hill to that ancient, neglected hotel. And then again, she thought upon that late night man and his dog. She paid no attention to the shadow alive in the bushes up the hill. She, then, turned to the stars and tried to chase after Orion and the great hunt in the sky.
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He lived in a halfway house at the top of the hill. Someone had to keep an eye on him. But he didn’t care. He stayed in his room most of the time and watched his neighbors. He liked to keep to himself. He catalogued everything that happened both day and night. He was a good observer. His doctor taught him everything he knew. He often sat in a window which was placed in the center of a box-shaped cut out. It was a great place to curl up and read a book. It was so warm on a cloudless day. It was also very comfortable. So, he sat in that window box. He found himself tapping on the window frame. He was nervous. He was waiting for results from his doctor. It had been a couple of hours. There was nothing on the streets to distract him, so he looked out into a starlit sky. He liked stars.
When he had gotten back from his appointment earlier in the day, one of the house staff mentioned that a friend had gone missing and asked questions about anything known. He didn’t know, but now he was doubly worried. Being worried made him anxious. His doctor told him that it was good to talk. So, he spent hours talking to an acquaintance he had known for years, an acquaintance who no one had ever seen or knew.
As he looked into the sky, his attention got drawn to a man and his dog. The dog seemed to be dragging the man through the village. He followed the two across the window until his eyes locked on a shape of a female who was leaning on the railing of her balcony. She seemed almost naked as she smoked and drank. She made him nervous. Women always had. He looked back down into the sill. He was trying to avoid the sensations he was beginning to feel. He tapped on the bottom of the box-shaped cut out. Feeling a strong need to run from his anxiety, he jumped into a conversation with a being that no one would ever see or meet:
“My friend Morpheus, the serene one, arose and complained of a restlessness. He is not an easy roommate with which to live. He did not notice the great hunt going on above his head. He could have joined the mighty Orion, but instead, he complained of electronics, noise, and neighbors. Monsters had taken over the world!
“He should have noticed the girl standing on her balcony. She stood out in the cold, nearly naked; I noticed her on this night. And I am still noticing her now. She is so beautiful, so curvy. She’s no monster. He says that he could watch Orion for hours; well, I could watch her for hours. I don’t know; maybe I have already. She’s just a short distance down the hill through the leafless trees. How can you not see, Morpheus? Maybe I should go to her. Maybe, she would slap me if I just said, “hi.” No, really, I want more. I want.... Aw, attraction, be my call. She leans there, waiting, wanting..... Ugh! Dreams without sleeping! There is no rest there. You can see it in the cigarette smoke that swirls, but that’s really okay. I have my vices, too. And if it is true, well...she will forgive. You will see. But, Morpheus has left. ‘Monsters have taken over the world,’ he said as he packed his bags.
“Huh? I just noticed; there are gaps in my days. It’s kind of like watching a marathon from the stands. Everything lunges by so fast that it blurs while you just sit with your popcorn and beer. Let’s see, fill in the gaps. That’s what he said. Draw inside the lines....okay, I remember wind. Of course, there is always wind; it’s just where I live. But the winds on this one day were so fierce that they snapped an ancient tree into two, just like when the stone cracked and freed Prometheus. I remember a murder of electricity, a laceration of copper wire. I remember, later on in the day, trees turned into frost-making rage monsters. It was a day of the invisible hand. It would hold hard, and press. It was a day that wires-turned-glass harmonicas sang out against the wind's attempt to censor the whole human race. The tone of the hum rang out into the village like a Banshee, while the tops of the trees waved at someone in the distance.
“I had just come back from the hospital, some stupid tests costing the amount of a used car to those who still had no insurance, in spite of things. I remember wind, and being tired of fighting, so I simply sat in my living room and watched television. I stared blankly into the yackety-yak box, drool on my cheek and shoulder. I occasionally blinked awake from gurgling, burbling cat naps. I was a mess. I was recovering, waking. But I heard Morpheus cry out, ‘Monsters had taken over the world!’
“Now, I remember. That's what adults were talking and yelling, parents. It was in that hospital. And then, there were others who talked while fueling their vehicles, in line for their coffees. Yes, that's it. Monsters had taken over the world. Morpheus was right. You could see it and hear it on the television; it was in the radio. Crowds of folks had taken to the streets. Salespeople, so rude. Politicians and Public Servants. Neighbors arguing, speaking of fears, blathering their anger. Injustice! The Man, the Boss, the System! You could even feel it in the pain of the rubble pile that was once a house. Natural disaster: crying, yelling. The yell of the indignant marching against wrongdoings. The folks sopping up, using old newspapers, could feel the immigrating marching monsters encroaching. Anyone, hell, everyone on the planet, knows it…except maybe me in my waking state, recovering while drooling in my own living room. Maybe a beast is terrorizing me, taking over my body. Maybe it lived in the dank basement, maybe it lived under those dark stairs. I suppose the monster called on his family and friends to come visit because he wanted an elegant pool party. Might as well pack it all in, clean it all up. Pile up the debris on the border, on the edge! Keep the rabble out!
“Oo, this tape on my arm is itchy. It holds a cotton ball in its place. There’s a tightness of the sticky bandage pulling on what little I had of arm hair. Oh no, it’s an entry spot. I shall have to do my best to stand free from the couch, holding tight because the world had placed me on a fast-moving merry-go-round...or was that the hospital? I, then, push hard toward the television. Reaching out with uncertain numb hands and arms, I find the button to silence the broadcasted mayhem, and with heraldic tones, the TV goes silent!
“Wait! I breathed in the quiet, but this can not be. My head is throbbing; my hands hold sticks. I want my bed; I want to lay myself down and pull up the sheets. But, Morpheus is not there; I glanced at his empty bed. I want to roll onto my side and pull my own sheets over my head. 10 days of business before I would know any results; waiting is the poor man's game. In my apartment sits a mound of this past month's ‘look at me's,’ ‘i.o.u.’s,’ a debris pile of wanton paper hussies. A studio apartment is not meant to be a junkyard of ‘To do's’ and ‘Have to's.’ And Morpheus is not there.
“And so instead, I sit, feeling the cold shake my bones, wet clinging to my hands. The moon beckons for me to come on out and join the world. Come out and play! And there she stands leaning on the railing of her balcony, cigarette smoke wrapping around her body. Not while there are monsters out there! I close my eyelids tight. I move through the brush on the hill, in my backyard, like a zombie, from the battlefield of my bed and the deadly parade of ennui. Monsters have taken over the world.
“You know, he could have joined Cassiopeia and Cepheus, Morpheus could. He is like them. He could have joined, communed as they watched Perseus fight the horrible Kraken and save their daughter Andromeda. She, too, leaned out and called, nearly naked, very beautiful before gnashing teeth and scratching claws.
“Here I sit, cloaked in shadow, watching as she calls, hearing her want. All the while, my friend Morpheus packed his things and moved out; he was not going to stay. He pressed past the grey Victorian Hotel down the hill, that grand old girl. He never noticed that old building and all those calling ghosts that lay within its peeling walls. He has no ears; monsters have taken over. I have ears; I hear all of that calling. That’s how I noticed her there, that naked one with her red wine and her cigarettes, leaning on her rail. I have ears to hear her leaning in her underwear, all beautiful, all curvy, all teasing. I have ears to hear, because she is the shining sun, and the blue sky is everywhere. And this is strange, for it is the middle of the night.”
And with that, he felt better. He gently rest his head against the cool pane of glass. He then closed his eyes and smiled.
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He clicked on the sun, the figure simply known as Blue. In that click of the light switch, the faceless figure among the mortals sent his shadow out upon Old Turntable Hill as a lookout on this evening. He had to keep watch on those who might spy, even if it was only an alleycat. No one could know. Blue searched in the dank and the mold and the dust. He panned through the molded and slimy black trickles that ran along the old, cracked concrete floor. Something was lost or maybe even abandoned, but it was some time ago, if only Blue could remember. It seemed important, and so he kept to it, his search.
Now, if you just happened to be nosy and were good and quiet enough, you would have witnessed the light that raced out from the limestone basement of the old Victorian Hotel. You would have seen the light shot into the night as if fired from a lighthouse beacon. Instead, it was one man and a dog named Lobo who did the seeing; they witnessed. But, old Blue was a trickster, all smoke and mirrors. It is always so hard to track down a cypher, especially without a face. You see, it was always said, but never proven, that Blue would often go floating around the old dead and miserable part of the village that lay hidden behind the Old Turntable Hill. He would go to dig where the railroad once had a turntable, and search among the deep, dark, rusty piles of discarded and forgotten history, fishing for something gone. There were also stories oft repeated, that Blue would be found clamoring over the roots of the old twisted and weathered trees in the village parks. Stories of leaning against stones, markers, and fresh turned soil of the old village cemeteries on deep, starry nights. Often, the villagers claimed to have seen old Blue prominently resting amongst the gnarly, twisted roots and shaggy, raggedy bark of the Witching Tree. If you believe that such things could said of High Point Park’s 250 year old landmark without hint of intoxicating vapors. Blue would be seen playing his alto saxophone while perching owls, with their haunting voices, sang out from among the tree branches.
“It was all to quiet and please the dead,” said the smell of half-metabolized brandy.
“During the long, dark night, the saxophone and all,” concluded the partial glass of beer left behind at closing.
Those were the escaping tales that would leave the village bars, along with the patrons, at closing time. Nothing proven, just drunken myths and scary bedtime stories, which Blue loved to take in from the laughing crowds and exhaling bars. No one could blame old Blue; those nighttime stories were great to hear, especially from a drunken, laughing crowd.
Yet, somehow on the night that Blue had turned on the sun, one man and a dog named Lobo came meandering through the rotting part of the old village. They were lost in the disquiet of their lives, or doggy nature. Yet, both dog and man became aware of a restless shadow; they saw Blue in the limestone and fungi. But before that man and his canine could act upon their curiosity, there was a thin metal crash with an alleycat howl and spit. Lobo the dog knew exactly what he must do, and so, went on a restless quest through the darkness of a sleepy village. With the horribly out of balanced man in tow, they drifted away from the cellar light and Blue. Blue would have to thank Morpheus, that old alleycat, when all was done.
Blue hastily went back to his hunt, his manifest destiny, but his mind would find another purpose as his brain drifted, or rather, fell through space-time. Blue’s mind finally came to rest on a shattered fragment. It was a murky, clouded spot in a life of some ten thousand years, and at least, that many humans. Or so it felt. Fueled by the piquant odor of bloomed and stale mold, Blue found himself in a familiar sitting room where men gathered in small groups of overstuffed chairs and small tables, smoking cigars and drinking Cognac from big globular brandy snifters. The room that Blue’s mind had found was a remembrance of the now years-abandoned Victorian Hotel in its days of shine and polish. A time when the hotel was the center of importance to this part of the old village. There was a crystal chandelier hanging in the center of a high, white ceiling with touches of gold leaf and warm beams of cherrywood. The Victorian was alive with conversation and planning, scheming on the future, of life. There was a fire in the elegant, cherrywood hearth, and, a tin ceiling lined in cherrywood and matching cherrywood framing for the doors and windows. Amongst the groups of talking and planning, Blue leaned against the wall, unnoticed by everyone in the sitting room, watching the life, the vital energies, eddy and flow around him. This was Blue’s place, even if he was “hiding,” in plain sight.
But even through the laughter and conversation, one could feel there was a tension in the room. There was a collective holding of one’s breath. They anxiously watched the marching of time and stuffed or removed ticking mechanisms from muffling cloth. In this room, they all waited for something of great importance. No, wait. Someone. Nothing else could be worth so long a wait. Even Blue, who had been watching, could feel himself waiting. Bored, Blue tried to play with the serving trays as the hotel staff passed. But, in the ensuing confusion and bewilderment, one of the guests called out the word “butterfingers.” And then a laugh began to fill the room. There was a mention of Blue, messing and playing. Someone called for an exorcist to the delight of the entire room. Cheers and cigar smoke were offered up to the brandy flavored jest. Then, everything in the room stopped, a frozen tableau, even the dust particles in the room hung in suspension. Blue became stuck in that one moment. Stuck at the bottom of an hourglass in full pour. He could remember nothing more. Blue could not even remember his given name. Of course, he had forgotten that well before he found a newly fashioned Victorian Hotel. Blue was so very old. There was no desert large enough to hold the amount of sand that passed through an hourglass during Blue’s lifetime. It was good to remember, he thought to himself, even if it was only just a little grit.
Just a second of the flickering and buzzing of the 1970’s retro-fitted fluorescents brought Blue back to the old and potently molded basement. He took a moment to look out from a casement window sunk deep in the limestone. Blue gazed upon an apartment building just up on the side of a tree-filled hillside. It was only slightly hidden from the Victorian Hotel’s basement by the Old Turntable Hill. From Blue’s vantage point of dirt-encrusted windows, the apartment seemed like a living, breathing creature with multiple eyes and long lashes sitting on the back of a long-haired dog. Perhaps, it was a hiding flea. As Blue stood and looked out the small window, he became entranced by a dark, lovely, and curvy shape hanging out over the side of the box. The shape was illuminated in a wash of faint yellow light which glanced off a sliding pane of glass. Otherwise, it was cast in half-shadow and broken moonlight. The shadow stood immovable, uncompromising, female. Wisps of smoke vined up and off her curvy form, followed by small puffing clouds. The smoke stated quite adamantly: “Here I am. Like it or not.”
Blue stopped his search through the damp basement. In a split second, his search left his mind, just his ancient name. The female in the broken darkness was all he needed at that very moment. She was the one for whom he had been waiting, though he was almost certain that he was not. He looked away, embarrassed. He tried to collect himself. He tried to get back to his nose burning search of something lost in the fungi-filled stone, but only his hands remembered the searching. Blue looked out the window once again. He forced himself to avoid the curvy artist who was dressed in nothing more than panties, a Merlot-stained top, a little bit of paint spatter, and a smokey draped exhale of spent tobacco. But she was the one that everyone had been waiting for in that memory of a sitting room in an ancient hotel. He simply knew. Blue could feel every ghost that inhabited the Victorian Hotel look in her direction. Blue could not help, but give in to the gravitational pull of so much yearning and liquid courage. But Blue did not notice the eyes gazing in the wrong direction. He did not notice the thing in the bushes, the rustling shadow, just up the hill from the object of attraction.
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Finally, Lobo paused in the chasing of the old alleycat. The chase led us on a high-speed, meandering trek through the village until we ended up in a new section on a hilltop. There was no longer any doubt that I had returned to my body. The cold of the night had seared into my lungs. I had become incredibly grateful for the gloves and a coat that I wore. For, Lobo’s relentless pursuit of feline had yanked me through all of the clumps of sleeping, unkept lilac bushes. They lined numerous properties in the village. He was a great dog, so happy to be out and away from our little apartment. But Lobo often forgot his size, and his strength, which the red stinging lines on my face happily attested. I did not even want to look at my glasses at this point.
Lobo sat and tried to decide if he had become bored with his chase or if he had simply lost the scent trail. I hunched over a corner mailbox and took in the peace that filled the quiet hilltop. It was all in an effort to slow my respiration and ease my burning lungs. I looked upon the village in its silvery sleep, and then into the slumbering darkness of the village’s east side shadow. It was hard to imagine that the whole hilltop was the “old” section of town when, during the harsh daylight, you could see just how neglected the “lower” part had become. I looked up into the sky and noticed that Orion and his canine hunting companions had pushed the Might Taurus past the horizon and into hiding. Of course, the moon wasted no time in claiming her high-throne in the bull-free sky. She cast a time spell upon the little village and surrounding farm fields. With her nimble fingers, the moon changed the sodium vapors and white LEDs that lined the streets into gaslights. All the buildings from the old and new sections were once again new with a fresh coat of magical paint. I wondered where the time had gone.
However, Lobo gave no consideration to my musing. He simply tended to his “doggie business” after sniffing at a lamppost outside the Stumble Down Inn, a landmark we had previously visited. It was strange to find myself embarrassed by the volume of the sound produced by the peeing canine, but embarrassed I was. Still too winded for a physical journey, I tried to take a mental trip far away from my dog and his business. In my trip down memory lane, I realized that I often walked through my neighborhood in the cool of the night. Something about the combination of moonlight and the streetlights made every place seem new, full of promise, like stepping backward in time. Every place, even the Stumble Down Inn where Lobo and I now stood, would be clean and shiny. Of course, the villagers would claim that, even when the old Victorian Hotel was in full glory, the Stumbled Down Inn never was new, or clean. The villagers would only exhale and exclaim: “such a place.”
I jumped back into reality as Lobo sat directly next to me on the sidewalk and immediately began to sniff at the air. His ears went back along the top of his head, while the hackles on his neck and between his shoulder blades were at attention. Something stirred in the shadows, and Lobo did not like it. Nor did I; something was out there stirring in the shadows. Even if I did not see it, I felt it, and it was no alleycat. The canine made a bass rumble from deep within his chest that shook his entire being. I gazed across the hilltop and down into the shadow of the “new” section of town; my mind immediately went back to the shadow in the ruin of the Victorian Hotel and my civic duty to try to investigate. A shiver ran up, and then down, my spine. Yet, again, I was set in pursuit of a unseen predator, and we crept slowly down the hill and back toward the old hotel.
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She had closed her eyes, and simply felt the wind caress. She let herself feel the warmth of the dry red wine ooze down the back of her throat. It filled the inside of her body all the way down to her stomach. And then with a luxurious drag, she let the warm smoke of her cigarette tickle her throat and lungs. Suddenly, something bit her hand. She opened her eyes and found herself leaning against an overstuffed chair inside a room, not her balcony. As she looked to her right, she saw a full-length mirror, and in the mirror, she could see that she was in a bedroom with a small canopy bed with the thin lace curtains drawn. There was heavier burgundy curtains that draped down each corner of the bed like big heavy guards. Three tall, but thin windows held the same treatments as the bed, burgundy over lace. She contemplated the full-length mirror for a while. It was a time before she realized that the most obvious thing in the room was a young elegant woman dressed in a high-collared, midnight blue dress. Then, she noticed the woman was flanked by two young women. She puzzled at the image before her, only to realize that the elegant woman was she. The scene playing out in the mirror seemed frantic and chaotic; everyone was in a hurry, as if she had just arrived and was exceptionally late. The dress was open in the back, and revealed a corset that one girl was tugging hard at the laces, trying to tie it off at the correct point of squeeze. The young woman had applied a boot to buttock as she tried to win the wrestling match with the laces on the corset. All the while, the other young lady had struggled with a last minute wrist alteration on the dark blue dress. The needle had slipped and drew blood. The second young female hissed, then quickly tried to dab the small spot of blood on her thumb with a handkerchief in an effort to keep the blood off the rich blue fabric.
“Sorry, ma’am,” said the young woman a bit timid now. She held an open palm to her apologetic mouth while revealing the offending needle.
She barked in her deep blueness at the young offending seamstress, “You nipped me!”
She gazed hard into this mirror as the young seamstress stumbled back for a second, then stepped back into her work. She watched the two young ladies fight with her dress. And then, she looked at herself in the center of it all. This was not her, or any situation in her world. She was a painter with a wine glass, an MP3 player, and a pack of cigarettes. Yet, here she was in the mirror with hair up in a bun held by hair pins decorated by jasmine blossoms and two girls were fighting to lash her into the blue fabric confinement. It was odd to see herself with her hair and face all fancy and decorative. For a second, she thought of herself as a doll and the a prisoner. But then, she changed her thought. She was a suffragette who found herself in the middle of a barroom tussle, with blood trickling from her hand as proof. That was much better, stronger, even though she had not quite convinced herself that her first two observations were more correct. The two young girls fought to “finish” her up, but they were so slow and physically rough.
Finally, she pushed herself out of the tending cluster, and stepped closer to the mirror, which, in turn, stared back. There she was, all finished, a “proper” woman of great refinement. She looked amazing, even if this wasn’t her. It couldn’t be. She hated the clothes she wore. She could not dance or run with the wind. They restricted, and she hated restriction. But, boy, the color was good, midnight blue velvet with silver accents on collar, bodice, and wrists. Even the trim on the skirt of the floor length dress had just enough silver to give great flow and grace to her limited movement. She would kill it in a big city club. But then, she again noticed the two you woman, standing behind her. Both were beaming, proud of their hard-fought achievement. And then, she remembered the pain in her hand and the heavy scent of jasmine on the air. Suddenly, she felt like a prisoner being “prepared” for execution. The refinement felt like restriction, even oppression. She clinched her fists and gritted her teeth. Then, with both fists tightly wound, she slammed the frame of the looking glass with such violence that the the mirror teetered, then splintered with a loud crash on to the hardwood floor of the room. Hundreds of knife-edged, silver-backed glass shards and wooden frame chunks raced across the floor in the direction of the fall. The two young women instantly stepped backward from the violence, gasping with shock and horror. Both young ladies did their best to avoid the inevitable seven-years of bad luck that rolled along the floor. She then turned to face both the young girls. Then, she growled like an angry predator and lunged out of the small room. She ripped at the flowery wallpaper, which covered the unlit hallway in which she now found herself. The two girls tried to follow. They were too clumsy, slow, and afraid, and the hallway was dark.
She tore down the hallway in what seemed a blink of an eye and found herself just at the top of a grand staircase. Hiding in the dark hallway, she wheezed and leaned against the wall. Then, in a loud, long, and burning fit, she coughed as if her body had suddenly been taken over by consumption. She hovered just out of sight. Her heart raced. It was as if she was no longer seeing things through her eyes or hearing with her ears. It was as if she had become someone, or something, else. Through her rasping breath, she peeked around the hiding wall. She gazed down into a formal room of warm cherrywood, gold leaf accents, and white walls and ceilings. There were curtains which framed the windows on the wall opposite to the landing on which she would soon stand. The curtains were the same as the ones in the bedroom she just left, only taller. It was not the largest room she had ever been in, but its high ceiling gave the room an elegance befitting a grand ballroom of some very distant palace. It easily fit some 30 people, which she roughly counted in between her rasping. The room had heard her discomforting fit. All of the grand gentlemen of the sitting room were now standing and filling the room with heavy murmurs and cigar smoke. They were all waiting, though currently filled with concern. She could smell them. It made her hungry. She moved sleekly toward the grand stairs like a jaguar in the night. One she made the very top of the staircase, all those tuxedoes and dinner jackets with black ties bowed in unison and saluted. They had all been waiting...for her. The room began to spin. She closed her eyes and uneasily attempted to step down a tread of the grand staircase. However, something grabbed her from behind and twisted her around. And then, there was a hard bump to her chest and the sensation of falling.
She opened her eyes with a gasp. She could feel the sweat on her forehead and hands. She stared into the ceiling until she was certain that she was once again in her apartment. She slowly and painfully sat up. She had somehow falling on to the sliding glass track, stuck between outside and inside. Her back ached. She shook from the cold, and as she huddled against herself, she noticed a burn mark on the outside webbing of her left hand between her thumb and wrist; it was from a cigarette. She jumped into a standing position on the balcony and stood there in the cool night, squinting at Celeste and Orion. Something lurked; something hunted. She felt like prey. She found her spent cigarette on the deck of the balcony; it lay there dead. She anxiously flicked thing off the wood planking and out on to the tree-littered hillside lined with dark shadow and blue moonlight stripes, occasionally yellow or orange from the intruding streetlights. She gave no care to the cigarette’s final resting place, but went inside and closed the sliding glass. She turned off the warm yellow stripes which cascade out of her apartment on to the hillside. She was not thinking; she was numb, tired, even haunted. Distracted, she simply went to her bedroom and closed the door. She did not stop to notice whether she had locked that sliding door. She did not notice that shadow hovering and watching from the shadows. Nor did she notice the midnight blue and light metallic gray painting lying on her living room floor, along with the easel.
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He hadn’t heard. His doctor said it could take a week, but he hadn’t heard. He grew nervous, anxious. He got out of the window cut out and started looking for his acquaintance who had no substance. But he could not find him. He thought his friend Morpheus. His anxiety grew. He felt trapped. He had to leave. And then, he thought about the girl. Maybe, he could talk to her.
So, he left the halfway house. As he left the front door, he realized that he was fully bathed in fresh moonlight which always made him feel better. He skipped as he let gravity take him down the hill. He wanted to see the girl, but he remembered how he felt anxious over seeing her near naked body. He thought about the park. He liked how he felt when he would play on the swing. So, he decided that he wanted to play in the park. They never let him play in the park without someone from the staff. But as he skipped down the street, fighting with himself over destination, he heard a crash of a small wine glass, a simple crashing bell. He suddenly noticed where he was. He looked toward her apartment and noticed her balcony with an open door and a kitchenette light still burning. Then suddenly, she stood up, the girl he had earlier noticed. The nearly naked girl. She appeared so quickly, that it made him panic. He instantly moved to the bushes that lined the apartment’s property. He held on to the bushes tightly and closed his eyes. And then, he remembered how she made him feel as he looked at her. His discomfort came back, but other emotional friends also appeared. He became giddy with fear and aroused...and hungry. And then, he heard the balcony door slide shut. He opened his eyes to see the light go out. He suddenly felt cold and discarded. Fortunately, his non corporeal friend was sitting next to him at those bushes, and he could talk out his anxiety:
“She left. Turned out the light, and left. Just like Morpheus, she left... What do I do now? Orion, Celeste, Taurus, and the dogs are leaving, too. Just watch. There is no hunt; they’re all running. Monsters have taken over the world. It’s true. Morpheus was right.
“Now, I stand out here in the dark cold, nearly a ghost town, baying at her absence. They are all asleep, all those little boxes on the hill filled with dreaming of past and present shadows. Hmmm, life in the sack. Ha, Ha! Life in the old fungus and black mold. Monsters. Life in the old limestone basement. Dark, damp trickles of water tracking through the walls and creeping along gray cement floors. Escape little trickle, slip right out under the other walls. That’s where they live....Monsters...amongst the flickering and clicking of old fluorescent lights, buzzing like bad neon signs. Fangs over there. So, many um's, em’s, uh’s and er's. He is drinking chaos, smoking dread. Drink to the shadow of control, that made her fall! Salute, gentlemen! Salute to the nightingale in midnight blue. Salute to the mission should I accept it. Monsters. There are monsters, and they have taken over the world. Even I am not immune. It is simply one staircase, though a mighty flight. If I grab here, I can make it. And so, I do, steep as it is. And one rail... If I jump this, I step into my monster, the one waiting for me. He has been calling, a melodic ditty. ‘I can fix what ails you.’ That’s what he says. Over and over again. My doctors are concerned. Oh, friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears. Be not afraid of me. What we have to fear is fear itself. All’s well in space and time. I shall go to glory, all whole, all cured by my friend, the Epicurean Shadow. Shadow, meet your puppet; make me your tool. That’s what they all say; they all call me - tool. You tool! Such vehemence, such venom. My friend says that he can protect me from that, the venom. Stand strong against the snake. Go find your star, your constellation. So, Andromeda, I come. I slide this barrier of glass to one side, and I enter.”
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Again, Blue stopped his search through the moldering limestone basement. He would never find that thing that he vaguely remembered needing. But he suddenly felt himself concerned. It was not a feeling to which he was accustomed. And he was not certain as to its object. He was alert like a predator, and he sensed his pray. Or perhaps, it went the other way. He went to the dirt-encrusted, casement window, and looked up the hill. There was no young woman, and no light shining down the hill from a balcony. All was streetlights and moon through the dark columns of shadowy trees. They were tiger stripes on the hillside. He rummaged through his pockets looking for something. He found a small wooden box in his suit jacket. He puzzled over it. It was obvious the piece was hand made. It had one hinge and, on the opposite side of the little block, one lock. Both were old browned brass, not shining and new yellow. The wood had been painted a light sky blue. Blue tried to open the small blue box, but it seemed locked or maybe simply sealed from the trickles of blood that, at one time, had dripped from the seam the two halves made. Blue slipped the box back into his pocket. He had no time for such trifles. But he continued to rummage through his pockets for an item he now needed. Blue puzzled at the familiarity and meaning he had felt for this piece he kept seeking. He also puzzled to the little, blue box in his pocket. He did not remember it being there. And he puzzled at his basement search of the Old Victorian Hotel which started it all in the first place.
In no time, Blue had discovered the item of his new search. He always felt he was searching. He supposed that was the nature of living. He had slipped his hand into the inside breast pocket of his fine, blue, three-piece suit and felt its slender form. Blue grabbed hold and slipped a small wooden flute out into the festering and flickering fluorescent-lit air of the basement. As he gazed upon the flute, he focused all his intention on to the thing. In some memory of an ancient forgotten rite, Blue could see a face of the old one who bestowed the flute on to him. That kindly old weathered face of a man who had walked thousands of miles on his feet, perhaps millions, wearing nothing more than a pair of moccasins. He was a great man of the earth, no horse for him, and a well source of great power. He was a great man of an ancient peoples who followed the great herd of mighty beasts who ate their way across the grassy plains. Blue knew no other mortal such as he, and the old man knew no other immortal. They both nodded to each other across the river of time. Blue squeezed the small flute in his fist, then, waved open the casement window and moved.
Outside in the cool moonlight, Blue moved like the fog, half flying, half floating. He floated past over a dog pulling his owner up a hill. The dog stopped just under the balcony of a young artist. With ears back and hackles up, the dog snarled quietly at her balcony; his master could only wheeze, bent over from a long, cold run. Blue only stopped when he lit upon the young woman’s balcony like a dust speck in the sunlight. He noticed the sliding glass door was partially cracked open. Through his feet, Blue could feel the lurking of a predator, a shadow out of place and time, so he raised the flute to his non-existent face and then meditated on the old kindly tribal man. Blue concentrated so as to hear the tune the old man would play on the flute. And like a good student, Blue began to play. The dog promptly sat quietly, hackles down, as Blue played the tune. This put the dog’s leash mate a touch on edge, as suddenly he noticed that everything in the surrounding neighborhood went silent. The dog’s owner could not hear the eerie woodwind music.
In the middle of the eerie tune, which only the spirits and any canine could hear, something dark moved inside the unlit apartment. It menaced through the space created by easel in the living room and sliding glass door. Blue could barely make out fangs and claws, but it was clear that a fire light snapped and flickered within the pupils of the monster’s blood-lust eyes. A moment previous, this horrible menacing seemed like smoke or shadow, but as it oozed through the doorway leading out on to the balcony, it drooled acid. The monster’s slobber burned and melted the wood and the ground below the balcony. Everything turned black in the shadow’s wake. It seemed pulled by the music of the flute. As the beast stepped into the moonlight, Blue could make out its indistinguishable shape of dark, hot paving asphalt. It breathed a putrid breath of a thousand dead mice. Old Blue could feel the anger, pain, and hate. It smelled like electricity and iron...and death. But Blue stood firm. Then, something caught Blue’s attention, something snagged in the creature’s sharp and horrible claws. It was light and graceful like a floating milkweed seed on the wind, and draped across the horrible claw like a delicate silk cloth. Even through the smell of putrification that emanated from the encroaching beast, Blue could smell the sweet scent of lillies, lupine, spring peas, and mint; it wafted off that delicate silk cloth. He thought for a moment and realized he was smelling youth. The dog leapt and snarled once again; his owner grabbed hard on the leash and pulled, trying vainly to silence the canine. The beast hissed, drooled, lashed, and spit, even lurching at the jumping dog. But Blue continued to play his flute, aping his old teacher. The creature stood trapped on the balcony.
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It had been a cold and relentless run for a prey that no one could see. We chased from the Stumble Down Inn, up and down several hills, through what felt like the entirety of the village. Then, Lobo just stopped. He planted himself directly under the balcony of one particular apartment and tilted his head as if listening to something. All I could do was fold myself in two and wheeze. I placed a hand on a utility pole for security. The the next time that darling dog of mine took off on me like he did that night, I was simply going to let go of the leash. He could find his own way home, damnit. As I spent a moment trying again to slow down my raspy breathing, I could feel a cold, dry burning filling my lungs. It was certain; my dog was trying to kill me. And as soon as the thought ran through my brain, Lobo stood up and started barking and snarling loudly. Now, my eyes had long adjusted to the dark. I could see well into the shadows of the trees, bushes, and little ravines that populated the village. But I could not see what got that fool dog ramped up. I tried to calm Lobo down, but he broke free from my grasp and started leaping. He seemed to attempt to use the balcony post to climb on to the balcony of the overhead apartment. I noticed some apartment lights flick on in the building. And then, I saw some houses around the apartment building come to life with lights. So, I tried to grab Lobo. In the ensuing tussle, I saw a jolt of light. And then, the world started to spin. I knew that I hit my head very hard against the beam that supporter the balcony above me. I started to hear wooden flute music. Odd, as I heard bells the last time I smacked my head. The flute music was floating about the neighborhood, echoing off the surrounding buildings. The music seemed creepy, or eerie. It made my skin crawl. But all I could do was hold my head; it hurt so bad. As I held my head, I looked up at the balcony. Above me, I suddenly noticed a blue figure with no face playing a wooden flute. But, the most astonishing and horrible sight I saw on that balcony was a dark, shadowy horror with long fangs and tearing claws. It drooled and lurched at the blue figure and even Lobo. Even from my distance, the snarling thing smelled like a thousand dead mice that had been stuck under the refrigerator. I noticed something light and delicate in one of the talons of the creature’s hand. Then, everything started to swirl, and it all went black.
When I came to, I was on the floor with the weight of someone on top of me; I, then, became aware that I was surrounded by a crowd of well-dressed gentlemen in fine Edwardian evening wear. They were lifting both the person who had fallen, and me, off an elegant carpet which I now began to notice. I gazed into the ceiling of an elegant room with golden accents and cherrywood beams and frames which appeared above the heads of the well-dressed gentlemen who encircled me. Once I was on my feet, I could feel a couple of hands briskly dust me off. The fine gentlemen determined I was fine and instantly abandoned me. I was a little insulted until I noticed the reason for my abandonment; a woman lay on the floor. She was a remarkable woman who had apparent been the source of my fall onto the carpeting and the weight on my chest. She was heaven in a midnight blue, high-necked dress with silver accents. My attention was broken when a man with a small round silver tray nudged me. The tray held one empty brandy snifter and several pieces and chunks of another snifter, further damage from the fall. He patted me on the back for encouragement and dusted off my back. Then he, too, went to the side of the fallen young woman. Only after it was determined that the woman was fine did the young man take the tray to the kitchen. There was a great concern for the woman. The entire room was on their fit and leaned in to glean the woman’s fate.
Then, one man stood up. Dejected, he dropped a bottle of smelling salts out of his hand. The bottle hit the floor. With a loud snap, it scattered it’s clear body and spilled its contents all over the floor. The gentleman looked at the pool of liquid and glass shards on the floor. He did not know what to say. He took a minute to survey the room. Finally, he slowly announced that the beautiful young woman was dead. The whole room fell back into their chairs with a collective sad sigh. With the silver tray of broken glass and an ammonia scented serving towel, I made my way back toward the kitchen, stumbling my way around a couple of turned over chairs. I felt superfluous. I did not belong. But as I awkwardly tried to leave the scene, I thought I caught something out of the corner of my eye. I thought it was something dark and shadowy sliding behind the wall at the top of the grand staircase. Maybe, it oozed. I looked about to see if anyone else noticed, but they noticed nothing. All those well-dressed gentlemen were consoling one another. It was their loss, after all. So, I set the tray aside, and I went to investigate. It was my public duty to discover that dark thing up the stairs and down a now-darkened hallway.
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After turning out the light, she grabbed one last puff and one last gulp. She dashed her cigarette in the ashtray and rolled over in her bed. Secure in her warm blankets, she stared into the wall by her bed. She watched the moonlight dance in patterns hidden on the textured drywall. The patterns turned into faces and animals that she watched float and hover. At one point, an entire landscape appeared in front of her face; she traced hillsides lined with trees and tracked tiny river beds that meandered among the hills. This all appeared on the walls and ceilings in her apartment.
On the top of one of those hillsides stuck on her wall, she noticed a small, well-lit village. And soon, she found herself flying like a barred owl into that little village. She liked the flying. It felt good. There were no restrictions, freedom. She leapt out of the trees. She silently sailed over the heads of all those stuck on the ground by gravity. She was celebrating. But something was wrong. She could feel it in her wings. Something buzzed in the air around the hotel. So, she lit upon a limb of an old tree sitting outside a Victorian hotel. She was on alert. She cast her gaze upon all movement, both inside and out. And then, she heard it, the breaking of glass. She fluttered and moved to a better vantage point.
Upon gazing inside the hotel through the window, she saw a figure in midnight blue hissing at two younger, cowering figures. The figure left the room as if it had been sucked out with a vacuum and into a darkened hallway. Even though, the lights were not lit, the owl could easily see into the darkened hallway and was shocked at the speed in which the figure flew. It sped down the hall faster than any living thing the owl had ever seen. Abruptly, it stopped on the edge of the wall, just before the hallway came to a landing on top of a grand staircase. The sound of a thousand living things, writhing in pain and anger, emitted from that dark thing in the hallway. The owl had never heard that sound before, not even in the deepest and most ancient of forests. The dark shape convulsed violently as if it was a poisoned rat. It was a reaction to the lights from the room at the bottom of the stairs. And then, there was a violent coughing followed by a wrenching. And then, through cellular division, two figures stood in that hallway. Though they were both very dark, it was apparent that one of those figures was a human. A tussle started between the two figures at the top of the stairs. And just as quick, there was a push, and then, a falling. Hiding just out of sight, it was clear that the non-human form had ripped something off, or out of, the falling figure. The piece ripped or torn seemed light, silky, and sparkled. As the owl, she began to sob. The dark thing noticed the bird and threw a mirror out the window towards the owl, just as a male figure in a vest made the top of the stairs. The owl, being quick in reflexes, leapt out of the tree and away from the hotel.
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He wasn’t feeling like himself. His acquaintance had persuaded him to enter the open door. Now, he found himself straddling her in her slumber. His acquaintance had instructed him on how to gain something very precious from her. Something that would stay with him forever. So, he did as he was instructed. And now, he held it in his hands. He got off the bed and marveled at the sparkling, glowing thing. He stumbled into the living room.
“So, pretty it is. So light, so amazing. Even in the draping, it is so graceful. It’s like cloth. How could one know. Morpheus! See the pretty! Oh, yes, you are gone. Monsters have taken over the world...
“I remember so long ago. I would try to capture the pretties; I would practice and practice. So, lovely, but I would never them right. Not perfect! Damn my hands! They would always escape, flee. Monsters have taken over the world.
“The court had gathered, placed me in the corner with a frame covered in cloth. Paint, they would say; capture, they would say. So, I would use my wand and swipe it across the cloth. Dip it in the paint and wipe. Dip it in the paint. Wipe. All night, the court planned, the court plotted, and I would sit. Sorry, I would be allowed to sit. I would practice. Dip the wand. Wipe. I would simply try, even if my hands were incapable. All the while I tried so hard to catch the pretties, they all sat in that great big room, waiting for their own pretty. All of them, those fine men in tuxedoes and dinner jackets, the court. So I could sit among them, someone dressed me...like a child dressing a doll. I looked fine in my monkey suit. All the while, practicing. The organ grinder’s monkey with a wand of non-working magic. Trickster oil of rainbow spectrum like glue in the right hands, they could always paint perfection. But here the monkey sits, my hands...so... Swirling, twirling colors, dancing on the cloth, except for me. Too many things to see, too many things to paint. So, I took the courts money and tried to make it look like I could do, and was doing, but magic bottles, genies with long brown or green necks kept appearing on the table next to me. And then, large snifters, big glass bells. Hello, Mr. Alexander Napoleon; it is so nice to meet such a magical being. So, I drank, but it did not help. Still could not capture the pretties. Hands started to shake. Monsters have taken over the world.
“I tried to stay out of the way, and just do. Practice makes perfect. But pushed into the corner with bumping trays kept pushing. Bumping into my wand, into my easel!! No hope of perfection, Oaf!... Monsters..... Snarling looks from the court. Disruption of their ultimate importance. They did not like noise. Threatened my courtly appearance, my person. Have my monkey’s suit. But no. I sat and waved my wand. Histories on sandpaper cloth. And then she came into the room, dark blue and hints of silver. They all stood up. I stood up. She tried to fly, you know. Morpheus, she tried, but they all held her so high. She was so pretty. Andromeda hanging in the sky. But she fell. She fell and broke. Down all of those stairs. It was not her fault; she was sick. She coughed it, into the room a certain...smoke, haze. Her dad was sick, too. He coughed it and exhaled it. He made her sick, Captain on the deck! You could tell he was sick, because he had that talking stick he kept pounding. Kept ruling, demanding. Her dad gave the poison to her. Over time, that sickness venom turned her insides out, darkness. It was a dark haze about the room, and I inhaled it. Then, finally coughed it. When I coughed, it came out tar from the lungs. Oozing, thick. Monsters have taken over the world.
“It was a dark that I coughed out, that I inhaled in. I hated the dark. I had to hurt the dark. Monsters do not get to take. That monster took both father and daughter. That monster, who was father, Captain’s Courageous, took his daughter. And now, at the bottom of a grand staircase, she lies broken. A monster in the puddle. One of the servants, a guy in the vest, tried to defend his princess, but she was monster like her father. And so, vestments aside, uniform of fool, he, too, breathed it in. The haze, the smoke. And then, he exhaled the tar, the venom that eats from the inside. Then,
Maitre D sat on a wall.
Maitre D had a great fall.
All the king’s horses and all the king’s men
couldn’t put Humpty...Maitre D...back together again.”
Suddenly, he stopped talking and exhaled a very loud laugh. And now, the acquaintance without any substance answered with a chorus of voices speaking in unison.
“And then, something happened.
“Red all over.
Dad all over.
And The world ran red.
And the day became night,
And night became starless.
“Just like Humpty Dee and all his pieces and king’s men, the painter tried to save her, but he was too weak. And so was that waiter, so weak on the bottom of the pile. But they both tasted so good. Andromeda of the sky, laid at the bottom of the stairs so she was broken. They all stood as she plummeted from her high and mighty pedestal. And she was so tasty, just like her father. And then, she was gone. I made her that way. I felt the anger burn like whiskey and filled my belly. And oceans turned red. The artist stopped being. I got inside. For I am the venom. Now, I speak in tongues. Hmmm....Andromeda left. All the pretties left, scream for me my pretties. Morpheus left. Orion. Because I am the monster. And I have taken over the world....”
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In a thousand years, the ritual had never before taken so long, but this horrible darkness had planted its roots deep and they needed to be pulled. It wasn’t that he couldn’t pull, but this weed was fighting back. As well as spitting and hissing poison directly into his face. Still, Blue knew he had to follow the ancient directions given to him by his mentor, the elder statesman of his tribe. So, he played on. Then, Blue noticed the creature was playing with something. It resembled a shiny piece of fabric. The shadow held tight in its claws. It had drooled on this fabric, causing it to lose its shine where the drool had hit it. Yet, it still twinkled each time it caught the moonlight. Blue recognized the shiny fabric and immediately searched his left vest pocket. Without finding his needed item, Blue closed his eyes and wished for it. Abruptly, he pulled a small pipestone disc from out of that pocket. It had slightly browned and ancient markings carved into its red body.
Blue abruptly stopped playing the flute. The monster lashed at him. Blue dodged the sharp talons and promptly placed the flute on the reddish disc. He held both flute and disc in one hand while the flute began to “sing” on its own. The vile shadow of smoke reacted as if paralyzed in the spell, trapped against the rail on one side. Blue fumbled through all of the pockets in his blue suit again and found a piece of sidewalk chalk of the very same color as his suit. Then, with great solemnity, he knelt down and began to draw some arcane markings on the boards of the balcony. With the blue sidewalk pastel, Blue surrounded and trapped the dark and smoky beast. The creature lash and spit. Blue dodged as if floating on a dance floor and thrust the disc and self-playing flute in the creature’s direction. The monster fell back on to the railing. Giving Blue a chance to finish the intricate markings of the chalk spell. The beast spit and lunged at Blue only to be stopped by an invisible wall.
Blue contemplated. He placed the disc with the singing flute on the floor of the balcony. He absently searched his suit pockets, but almost immediately felt the distinct dimension of the blue-painted box he had found earlier. He pulled it out into the night air. Blue noticed the moonlight made the box glitter in the cold. He also noticed the seal of blood that locked the two halves of the cube together had become hard and brown. At the appearance of the light blue box, the creature lunged and hungrily grabbed for it. The creature’s claws smoldered and emitted the smell of rotten eggs as they crossed the chalk markings. The creature screamed in the voice of a thousand screams. It was horrible and unearthly, made all the more horrible as it echoed off every tree and building in the neighborhood. The beast threw itself against the magical barrier with an increasing fire in its blood-lust eyes. Blue pulled back as the creature caught his hand. The painted box flew out on to the hillside somewhere. The monster cried out again and fell into a heap on the balcony. The dog, who had earlier been obediently listening to the flute, went to find the fallen box. Blue, at once, took the moment to slip inside the apartment.
With all the thousands of years he remembered, Blue never had to set foot within a mortal dwelling while it still breathed with life. That also included his mentors dwelling. They always met outside. But there he was. He found a shrine of photos which were stuck on to a windowless wall with clear tape. He looked among the pictures and noticed a memorialized mixture of old folks and young and moments of time in space. He took his time, devouring what he could of the mortal’s arbitrary and mechanical measures of time, of death and dying. Blue suddenly felt his hand. He looked and noticed that it was becoming dark. The creature’s poison was starting to set in. Blue began to feel a hunger, which he would discover would grow in time. He thought of mortals and their souls. Blue moved to the bedroom and grabbed the inert body of the young half-naked woman. He had little time.
Blue placed the woman’s body on the floor of the balcony, opposite side from the beast. The creature lashed out again, making contact with Blue’s shoulder. Blue immediately reached into his right side vest pocket and grabbed an obsidian spear head. He threw it directly into the foot of the beast who howled and screamed with an unearthly sound. Blue immediately took the chalk and drew more ancient markings around the young inert female body. Just as Blue finished with the task, the creature lashed out at Old Blue again. He threw himself backward against the outside rail of the balcony in an attempt to avoid the claws, the fangs, and the poison. Blue fell backward over the railing in the process. The flute still played, but now hovered above the disc on the balcony. A chanting began to emanated from the pipestone disc. The creature tried to grab and tear apart the flute. Its claws simply passed through the floating flute, as it was no longer on this plain of existence. The creature snapped and snarled in frustration, trying to tear the balcony apart.
In the meantime, Blue felt he was growing weak and tried to push himself off of the ground under the balcony. Having found the small wooden box, the dog obediently dropped it at Blue’s feet. He reached over to the dog petted its head with great difficulty. The dog bark at Blue. Blue looked at himself and realized he was losing his color. He was confused at his turning gray. He was immortal, or so his mentor told him.
“Even darkness can reach you, my immortal friend,” he remembered the old shaman saying to him. “You must be prepared. You must be vigilant. The darkness is persistent. It will hunt your soul, even after you have forgotten it. You have the strength, just like all things on this planet. The Great Spirit has given it to you.”
His mentor’s kind and smiling face faded. He knew what he must do, and he must do it quickly. Blue stiffly reached for the box and struggled to stand up. He also tried to climb back on to the balcony, but the monster lashed out again. Blue’s hand slipped off the rail, and he fell on to the ground once more. Blue had never felt pain, except as a passing thing. When he helped those pass into the Next. But this pain was different. It wanted to stay, just like the darkness. And with that, the chalk markings on the balcony began to flicker. If flicker is the right word. The creature could feel the crack in the spell and began to ooze its way toward the motionless body on the balcony. The flute and chanting still continued, keeping some control over the beast.
With the help of the dog, Blue struggled to position himself under both the creature and the young lady’s body. The creature still oozed toward the lying female on the balcony. It drooled and frothed, dripping venom along the way. Blue did his best to avoid the raining mucus. While dodging, he placed the small blue box, sealed with blood, in the dirt in front of him. Then, he folded his legs into a lotus position. From three of his light blue suit pockets, Blue quickly pulled various necessary items. One was a strangely marked, solid rectangular cube of Black Walnut which he placed directly on the ground in front of him. Another was a small, slightly green-tinged, flat soapstone dish with an ancient face upon it, which he placed on the ground next to the cube. And finally, a bundle of white sage, which was placed on the soapstone dish. Each item was a comfortable reach between his legs and the blue-painted box. The creature snarled and spit at Blue and the arcane piece Black Walnut, which was directly under it.
Blue closed his eyes and then extended his left hand as if to reach the floating flute above him on the balcony. Even though he was weak and turning gray, Blue concentrated hard on the old, friendly weathered face of his friend and mentor from a past time. The monster was gaining power over the spell and was able to reach the woman. The horrible beast tore into the lifeless flesh of the young woman. Focusing every molecule, every atom, Blue extended his right hand over the soapstone face. It came to life with chanting to join with the pipestone disc. The oily shadow pulled back from the woman and shrieked. The white sage in the soapstone dish began to smolder, sending a column of smoke up to the balcony. The blue box with the lock and blood seal began to pound out with the rhythmic concussions of drums at an ancient bonfire dance. The chorus of chanting voices originating from the pipestone disc grew stronger with the reinforcing elements. An ancient and forgotten language now echoed as far out as the farm fields which surrounded the little village.
The spell grew strong. The beast screamed an unearthly howl and dripped and oozed, trying to tear apart the balcony and the young woman. Blue kept reaching for the flute and pipestone disc in spite of being showered by the monster’s poison. The chalk markings on the balcony and carved markings on the Black Walnut cube began to glow green, blue, and red, offering a ghostly light. A breeze began to swirl about the balcony, deep inhalations and exhalations of the surrounding trees. The light and sage smoke encircled both the creature and the inert female on the balcony. The creature stopped its awful rampage and shrieked out as in pain, as it slowly turned from shadow and smoke to oil and tar. Even though Blue was losing strength, he kept to his concentration. He mentally adding energy to the growing chant while he now pressed the soapstone dish into the soil.
In the immediate area of the apartment, all the electrical lights went out. All mortals had fallen asleep. Even the mortal who was dragged to the apartment by a pulling dog was unconscious. Except for the small area surrounding the balcony, all was quiet. Yet, the exhaled breeze had now become a small tornado, swirling loose soil, rock, twigs, plastic bags, wrappers, and other debris with great force. The lights of the markings flashed and pulsed with the strength of great bolts of lightning. The monster grabbed the railing and spit horrible blobs at Blue who seemed not to notice that he was almost completely gray. Certainly, no mortal noticed.
Then, slowly it began. The very local storm of wind, chants, and light transformed the beast into a mound of ash and cinder. Small bursts of light leap out of the body of the nightmare and race out into the night air in the tortured metamorphosis, along with a shriek of a thousand souls in pain, a thousand souls inflicted by war. Finally, the shriek was little more than a wailing of a child throwing a tantrum, trying hard not to leave. As the chanting continued from the disc and dish, the flute played, and the neighboring trees breathed. A green ghost fire sparked upon the balcony. The body of the creature continued to degrade through its black soupy state and begin to powder, as parts dripped on to the ground under the balcony. When the soupy thickness hit the ground, it hissed. Steam rose out of it, leaving a sulphuric hole in the ground. Fortunately, the black walnut with its weird carvings was absorbing most of the odorous mess.
When the beast had finally reached its charcoal state, the final light bursts broke free from the monster. The whirlwind slacked to a gentle swirl. There was just the hint of blue in the sky as the moon had travelled well into the west, preparing to bed down for the day. The small pulses of light danced about the balcony the air and around Blue on the ground. They filled the sky as lightning bugs would fill the wild long grass fields around the village. They swoop and swirled in the breeze, dancing in celebration of their newly acquired freedom. Then, they disappeared into the bluing sky. The drumming of the blue box and the chorus of chanting all went silent as the beast had turned into a pile of spent, white ashes. There was a final snap and collapse from the lump of charcoal beast, as if it were a campfire extinguishing itself. Four white globes puffed up out of the charcoal and hovered for a moment. The four white globes watched the yellow, green, and blue chalk and carvings slowly stopped flickering. Then, the four orbs of light floated like milky weed seeds over to the shreds of flesh. Three landed on the remainder of the woman who possessed an easel. They sank into what was left on the balcony. One orb continued to the ground under the balcony and found its way into the unconscious man who had been dragged by a dog. The dog barked approvingly. Anything left of the beast was blown off the balcony, scuttled into the sky and far away from the unaware village by a dying breeze. A smudge was left on the balcony along with a semi-glittering piece of cloth which seemed smoke damaged. Two reminders of events that would not be remembered. After the scurry of airborne ash, ghostly images started to rise out of the bodies that absorbed the spheres of light. Out of the still pet owner’s body, a non-corporeal waiter stood, who looked around his surroundings confused. And out of the body of the young female artist, three phantoms hovered over the balcony, a former painter who could not capture the “pretties,” a woman in a dark, high-necked dress, and a barred owl. The barred owl quickly took to flight to land on, and then disappeared into, the dog, who made a circle around Blue and laid down.
Aware the flute no longer floated and was silent, Blue opened his eyes. He felt drained, but, being immortal, still alive, though perhaps a bit grayscale. He solemnly pocketed the soapstone dish and strangely marked cube. Then, after slowly palming the beating blue box, Blue struggled into a standing position. The dog got up and nudged Blue to make sure he was okay. In the distance of a wooded hill on the edge of town, a barred owl called out as if to warn the sun is not so far off. Blue reached down, with difficulty, and gave the dog a pat on the head to say thank you and all was okay. The dog gave Blue a lick and then padded over to his inert human with the hovering ghost waiter. Blue, then, struggled to climb on to the balcony, but managed. He gathered the wooden flute and pipestone disc, then rested next to the inert and torn body of the young woman. The ghost in the high-necked dress managed to grab the smoke damaged fabric before a finally exhale of trees knocked it off the balcony. She handed the cloth to Blue as he struggled to sit.
In a quiet ritual, Blue held both the fabric and the box over his head. He, then, opened the lid of the blue box, which was no longer sealed. The light blue box pulsed with light, a light still beating out a drumming rhythm. Blue closed the box and wrapped it in the light and delicate fabric. Then, he placed it on to the stomach of the inert body. He then placed the pipestone disc and flute on to the gaping wound on her head. He took the soapstone dish with the ancient face and placed it over the middle of her chest. The disc started to glow, as the flute began to play and the soapstone dish began to sing. It was a quiet haunting lilt, if only in one’s mind. Once the disc went dark and the music faded to silence, Blue grabbed everything and placed them all in the outside right coat pocket of his blue suit. He would find them there, if he remembered. Then, he offered his hands. The ghostly figures of a resident painter and a once anticipated lady in midnight blue helped Blue into a standing position. The elegant lady then extended her hand to the waiter standing below them, who floated up to the balcony and took her hand. And then, as an orange ray of sunlight kissed the scene, the painter resident, elegant lady, dapper waiter and Blue faded into the morning, just as the stars did.
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My first conscious thought was that of a migraine. It felt as if my head was split in two by a profound hangover. I did not remember drinking, though the sharp light piercing the darkness of my room said otherwise. My second conscious thought came to me as I realized I was in bed...wearing my clothes. It would not have been the first time, but it would have been the first time I had gotten fully dressed while sleeping since I was a very young child.
I slipped into my kitchenette. The sun eked into my living room via a crack in the curtain. It hurt my eyes, as I grabbed for a cabinet door. So, I hid in the door’s shadow to save my head. I grabbed the coffee and the bottle of ibuprofen sitting alone on the bottom shelf. Stretching hurt my entire being. I opened the bottle of pills and shook a couple into my hand. After popping them into my mouth, I quickly moved to the faucet and cupped a quick hand of water. I felt the coolness and watched the water swirl before popping it into my mouth as well. As I did this, the sun caught my eye and I winced, causing me to mis-swallow. It felt as if those pills were sharp-edged cubes, excruciatingly ripping my throat as they slid down my esophagus. I reflexively repositioned the open cabinet door once so I could endure only one horrible torture. Then, without thought, I grabbed a warm cup of caffeine to nurse me back to wellness.
Once I finished in the kitchenette, I slipped into the bathroom for a shower. I gazed into the mirror on the vanity and noticed that I had acquired a large lump on my forehead and started to remember a dream, well, several dreams really about having to hold my innards with a silver tray while I was being slashed by a horrible cloud. I also remembered a dark inhale, and trying to kill something. It was at this point that I started to think that I had been drinking the previous night after all My self-loathing always kicked in when I would drink. I tried to wash away whatever happened to me last night while I stood in the warm rushing water of the shower, though the water did little to relieve me. As I stood under the water, I stood outside under a balcony with a angry cloud or a figure in blue. I stepped out of the shower and tried to towel all the thoughts out of my head. It caused my world to spin a little as I did so. So, I abruptly stopped to keep myself from falling into the bathroom wall and moved to the bedroom to apply some clothes to my aching body.
With a bit of difficulty, I managed that task. Eventually, I moved back into the kitchenette when I heard the coffee pot give its last gurgle of the hot water through the beans. By now, the ibuprofen had started to do its job. So, the warmth of the cup of mud added a bit of joy to the day. I went to the front stoop of the little upstairs/downstairs duplex where I lived to take in the morning. Mrs. Piccadilly, my landlord, was coming in from the grocery store. This was odd since the roundish 70-something-year old did not leave until one o’clock in the afternoon.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Charles. Nice to see you could finally join the living,” she said with a little disapproval in her voice.
“Um...good afternoon, Mrs. Piccadilly,” I said a bit bewildered.
“I sincerely hope that you are not the one that the police are looking for,” said Mrs. Piccadilly.
“I sincerely hope not either,” I tried to reassure.
“It appears that a young woman was attacked in her own home last night. It was one of those half-way house people, I’m sure of it. You know, the mentally ill ones up the hill on Sumter Street? I told the village board that place should not be allowed in our village. Trouble would come of it. Anyway, they found him next to the girl on the balcony. She looked like he hurt her badly. Police think that someone saw something, but left the scene before they could arrive. I sincerely hope they find him or that he comes forward with the information police need. And I sincerely hope that your dog, Lobo, is not digging in my azaleas again,” ranted Mrs. Piccadilly.
“Um, no. Lobo is not digging, I assure you. And I hope the young woman is okay,” I said, unsure if Lobo was or was not digging.
“Yes, I should hope so. On both accounts. Now, I have to put my groceries away.”
As Mrs. Piccadilly passed by me on the steps, she muttered something about the “horrible” halfway house. As she did, I could swear I saw black smoke come out of her mouth, but I chalked it up to residual gloom from my unhappy sleep. It was then that I realized I had no clue where my dog had gone. I decided I had better try and find him, before he got into trouble. But instead of going into my house right away, I decided to go to the backyard, in case Lobo was digging in Mrs. Piccadilly’s azaleas. Finding no trace of him on the back lawn, I decided Lobo had to still be in my apartment, missed in my headache rendered funk, so I went back inside.
Once I got inside, the room began to swirl again, so I sat down on my couch until I could stand up without the spinning sensation. Except for some really weird dreams, I did not remember too much about the night previous. Though, I almost remembered a long pursuit of an unseen alley cat that my dog had tried to use to nearly kill me. I called for Lobo, but he did not appear. But I noticed something on one of the deck chairs on my back landing/deck. I went outside to find a cat curled up and enjoying the sun. On its collar, it had a county pet tag, a rabies tag, and a name tag marked Morpheus.
I quickly went to the phone and called the police. I asked if they had reports of a dog running about the neighborhood all by himself, and then gave a description. They said no. Then I mentioned about a cat named Morpheus which I found on a chair on my back deck. The officer asked if I wanted to keep the cat, at least for a while. It seems the cat was owned by someone from a halfway house, and as the owner had been taken to a hospital for a while, I could keep the cat...at least, until he got back. But he was certain the fellow would not return. He would not elaborate any further. I told him I would think about it, but took down the number for the animal control guy just in case.
After I got off the phone, I went looking for Lobo, and worried that he had gotten into big trouble. I headed to the “scene of the crime” as a hunch to see if I could find my dog. I searched for twenty minutes before I came to a balcony on the back of an apartment that looked very familiar. The ground under the balcony looked as if it had been pelted by a heavy rain and little craters were left behind as evidence. And directly under this balcony, in front of the erosion, totally oblivious to the entire world around him and focused entirely on the young lady sitting above, was Lobo. I called to him. He casually looked over at me and wagged his tail.
The young lady leaned over and called down, “Is that your dog? Cuz, he’s been here since this morning. Neighbors were going to call the cops.”
“Yeh, sorry if he was causing trouble,” I said, noticing the young woman had bruises on her face and arms and a cut on her lip.
“Oh, he wasn’t causing any trouble, really. A bit odd having him sit there and stare at me like that though. He was like a statue,” she said.
“Sorry, I don’t know what got into him,” I said.
“Better keep him on a leash. You might not have him much longer if the villagers have something to say about it,” she said.
“Yeh. Thanks for keeping an eye on him for me. Say, you know anything about police looking for someone?” I asked.
“Yeh, just something happened last night,” she said, dismissively as she took a puff of her cigarette and reached for a glass of red wine sitting on a little table next to her.
“Sure. Um....I’ll just grab my dog and be on my way,” I said, reaching for Lobo.
“‘Kay. See ya,” she said, sitting back down on her chair on the balcony, sipping her wine.
“See ya,” I said, grabbing Lobo. As I did, Lobo grabbed a big chunk of dark wood lying under the balcony.
I told Lobo to leave it, but he would not. Finally, I grabbed it from him. The wood was finished and stained and looked like it could have been a part of a piece of furniture except for some weird carvings on it. I threw it into a dry run which ran down the hill along side of the apartment. Lobo chased after the piece of wood. I yelled at Lobo to leave the wood chunk and come to me. As Lobo would not come, I had to go the edge of the ravine. I quickly and secretly looked back at the balcony to see the young woman smile at Lobo’s selective hearing. Lobo had the piece of wood in his mouth and was digging a hole when I reached him. I convinced him to finally leave the wood alone. We went home, where both he and the cat curled up next to one another like old pals. They took up most of the couch, leaving me no room.
A couple of nights later, Lobo and I were back to our usual treks through the village. This time, we were joined by a cat named Morpheus. From the door until we got back home, the cat would just follow, without a lead. It was a glorious, clear moonlit night. In fact, it was quite warm for the time of year. While passing High Pointe Park, and then again, passing Maple Ridge cemetery, I was certain that I caught sight of a figure in blue, and I was also certain I heard saxophone music, or maybe a wooden flute. But you can never be sure of such things in the moonlight, out of the corner of your eye, or as the bar stories go. Besides, the dog and the cat were quite happy simply walking. So, we walked until we got home. In all of the midnight walks through the village from that point in time since, the forgotten, ancient part of the village near Old Turntable Hill was never on the itinerary. It was a place for forgetting and fading history, any way. Nothing to dig up without mold and fungus.
