THE HIVE MIND
A collaborative short story by Muhammad Azhar Naqvi, Arnab Ray, Aiman Hyder, Shegufta Reina Alam, Ghadeer Al-Safi, Affan Siddiqui, Elvis and Fariha Khan
Rule #1: Each person writes a chapter of the story based on four words. The actual words do not have to be included but the chapter must be written thematically. The next author would work from the previous chapter’s ending. Improvisation is the key.
Rule #2: Each person writes a chapter based on a specific genre. The person is free to choose whichever genre he wants, with the exception that the genre has not already been used. The genres included in this story are thriller, fantasy, mystery, body horror, humor, adventure, war, philosophy and erotica. See if you can find them all!
Rule #3: The final chapter of this story will be written by one of the previous writers based on votes. The person who gets the most votes, will get to write the final chapter. If there happens to be a tie, then each chosen writer will write his/her version of the finale. The group will read each version and vote respectively for their author.
Acknowledgements
As I publish this post, I would like to take the time to thank the contributors of this short story. The story wouldn't have been possible without your patience and effort. This one is dedicated to each one of you.
-Affan Siddiqui
Co-author
Table of Contents
Chapter
|
Author
|
Page #
|
Retained & Stained
|
Muhammad Azhar Naqvi
|
3
|
Reflections
|
Arnab Ray
|
7
|
Jamais vu
|
Aiman Hyder
|
10
|
Through Jaded Eyes
|
Shegufta Reina Alam
|
13
|
Disturbance
|
Ghadeer Al Safi
|
16
|
Fusion 101
|
Affan Siddiqui
|
19
|
Verklempt
|
Elvis
|
23
|
Psyche
|
Fariha Khan
|
27
|
The End
|
Muhammad Azhar Naqvi
|
31
|
Chapter 1: Retained & Stained
By Muhammad Azhar Naqvi
Source: http://blog.advocate-art.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/4.11986.512.couple-in-forest-LIC.jpg
The moon shone down, through the rain, on the hilly forest through the scantily clad trees and onto the ground where Klievkui reentered reality from bizarre dreams, of men, somehow, using deadly fireworks to kill each other, when the crackling of a few twigs and rustling branches sharply scraped his senses. In his familiar paranoia, he quickly assessed his surroundings.
A recently carved musical instrument sat in his lap, his axe and cutting tools spilled out from a rucksack to the side and, to his horror, a track of his own footprints leading up to where he was resting. ‘Oh, no!’ anguished Klievkui, realizing his cloddish error. And sure enough, a girl of ten appeared at his foot.
‘I don’t want to play hide and seek anymore!’ cried the girl, stamping the earth. A hollow wind whistled. Hiccuping a faint, ‘Sister!’ burrowing his face into his palms, he wept aloud. ‘Look at me!’ came the desolating holler; as Klievkui conformed to, with trepidation, let in all that he had turned a blind eye to, decades ago. The ground below the child glowed hot, steam rising from it, and soon enough had begun to dissolve her. Klievkui, with all his might tried to get up but, somehow, felt branches tighten around his waist, incapacitating him; making him an unwilling spectator to a repressed memory manifest.
Klievkui’s sister oozed from every orifice a most vile, yolk-colored, phlegm-textured secretion that soon became a puddle fused in with the gurgling lava. The gooey mixture, then, spread all over, instantaneously, flooding and metamorphosing the woods into a grotesque, living forest, where branches were arms splaying all around. The ground composed of gangrenous human and earthly flesh, from which rose a wall that had adorned on it varying anatomies. The many mouths curled up in sneers, their tongues wagging around to take in the raining blood, to eventually bark in unison, ‘Age has failed you, Klievkui!’, to which Klievkui protested with prayers.
‘Come now, Klievkui, give it up, like you should have long ago, like your sister.’
‘I’ll never give up! Even if it kills me!’ shouted Klievkui as the gangly human tree above him took in indulgent whiffs of him with all the noses it had sprouted.
But then he saw the hands, razor-sharp nailed, slice away at his leg; Klievkui was too numb down there to feel much; the belt around tightened to the point of tearing him into pieces.
‘In death, you’ll be a part of me. Unluckily for you, I’m not a fan of self-mutilation’
‘EVIL WON’T WIN! YOU’LL.. BE.. VANQUISHED.. BY GOD!’
‘IMBECILE! I.. AM.. GOD!’
With that Klievkui felt his distraught being eradicate, eviscerated by hands; all the agony summed up could’ve lasted more than a lifetime, and indeed, it did awake Lee again, screeching. Sweating, he yelled, finding himself lying on his stomach; numb waist-down. But before he could flail about, a few arms and hands had already subdued him, violated. In the ceramic wall in front of him, Lee saw something cleaver-like rise and then land, with a sickening thud, into what must have been his flesh. All turned black.
A few weeks later
‘How are you Lee?’
‘Peachy!’ replied Lee, looking out the window.
‘Are we ready to talk about the incident?’
‘Dunno.’
‘Lee, as your psychiatrist, it’s my duty to help you. I know it isn't eas-’
‘Yeah, doc, it ain't. It’s not easy waiting, patiently, for years and for what? Nothing but loss. Not easy thinking that the reason why I lost my leg wasn't a bomb or gunfire bu-’
‘A traumatic fall in the field that activated the latent tuberculosis in your left leg’s bone, causing it to disease beyond repair and leaving only the option of amputation.’
A silence followed, Lee looked onto the courtyard where a few children played.
‘Lee, talking helps.’
‘Alright, then, doc, let’s talk. What do you wanna talk about first? About how I was foolish to forego the general anesthesia for the spinal one? I sure was, and to think I thought it was a nicer way to bid farewell to my trusty leg. Y’know, to not just slip into a void and wake up a relative minute later to discover that half of my body’s performed the fucking vanishing act. I only wanted to experience time a bit more realistically. If that hadn't happened, I wouldn't have fallen asleep to that..’
‘Bad dream? That caused you to wake up mid-surgery?’
‘It was more than just a bad dream, doc.’
‘Tell me about it?’
‘I was this.. other guy from.. I dunno.. long ago. It was vivid and.. visceral being him, as though I was him, that I’d lived his life; that I’d run away from what he had run away from as a child too. Sometimes, I even think that he knew about my life, that he’d seen it, somehow. It’s giving me a hard time, doc, I can’t stop thinking about him.’
‘What did he run away from?’
‘I don’t want to talk about it anymore, doc.’
‘Hmm, have you had better sleep after that?’
‘Hardly, my imagination’s killer, doc, sometimes I’m like a merman in my dreams, ain’t that hilarious?!’
‘The phantom pains?’
‘Not good either, but y’know.. I actually find that pain.. exhilarating, it’s somehow, the only way I feel like I still have the leg, like.. y’know.. I’m still.. complete!’ Lee said, his voice finally cracking.
‘You are complete, Lee, you’re still the same person!’
‘Thanks, doc, but that’s dumb. Do I look the same to you?! No, everything’s gone to hell. And don’t give me that philosophical “immutable self” mumbo jumbo, alright? ‘cause I feel I’m missing a lot!
‘Okay, okay! Calm down. Hmm, so you think you’re not your old self anymore, then who are you now?’
‘There, doc, you've got me stumped!’ said Lee, his laughter rising into mania, tears running rampant, as he fell down from his wheelchair, ecstatic, thumping the floor.
Chapter 2: Reflections
By Arnab Ray
Source: http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02781/e-cigarette_2781811b.jpg
‘I am pleasantly surprised you called me back. I was waiting to hear from you.’
‘Are you there at your usual spot?’
‘Oh my! I like men who don’t beat around the bush, though I would like it if you played around my bush a little longer.’
‘I will be there in 30.’
Amy Winehouse was only her stage name. Somehow when she started working at the age of 17, it was the only apt name she could think of, when her client asked her name. She had the same anorexic figure while her back had a tattoo of an elven archer. There was a spiraling Sindarin scripture inspired from Lord of the Rings that was inscribed on her left hand. She wished her mom would have reacted negatively when she came home with the tattoo for the very first time. Unfortunately she was too high with her boyfriend to even care. She decided she wanted to take a shower before Lee actually got here.
The fun is actually from the foreplay. Somehow there is this seductive and prevalent idea that sex lasts for hours, primarily stemming from the fact that a boy’s first sex education comes not from text books but porn videos. But then actual truth is far from what we see in these unrealistic portrayals of sex. Lee could remember the first time that he had visited Amy, it was probably at some point in the middle of January. The weather was abnormally cold, Lee was struggling to navigate through the snow. He saw a skinny girl scantily clad just looking around right at the corner of a T-shaped inter-junction. He thought about walking past her, but he noticed her olive green eyes. As beautiful as they looked, it reflected back a feeling that he was all too familiar with, being broken.
Amy slowly removed every article of clothing from Lee carefully. Once completely unclothed, she started at his forehead and started working her way down using her tongue with deft precision. She could sense his anger and she knew it was her role to calm this raging beast. But by the time she reached his stomach, she felt a hand on her head which pushed her down even further.
He walked to his usual meeting spot right at the edge of the forest. It had become a ritual to meet every fortnight when there was a half moon. There was enough light to navigate through the trees without the need of fire torches but dark enough to ensure that he would not be easily noticed. He was unusually excited, though he was not surprised as to why that might be the case. Klievkui sat on the tree stump and hoped Gwînherth would not notice the protrusion below his belly.
Gwînherth was an elven archer that lived in the Forest of Mythos quite close to his own village. She came from the shadows as always, as quiet as the wind. She sat beside him on the grass and smiled benevolently. Mesmerized by her looks, Klievkui could only gape at her for a moment. The limp he carried beneath his pants felt somehow justified.
‘I see you are as stunned as always.’
‘I was just surprised by the elegance of your arrival’
‘Only my arrival?’ teased Gwînherth.
‘Perhaps a little bit more, but enough of this trivial talk, what news do the pigeons bring from the realm of Pyros.’
‘The dark elves have joined forces with the orcs and they are planning on sieging the fortified stronghold of Thaleus. Without the archery mastery from the dark elves, Thaleus was impenetrable, but now I am not so sure.’
‘What is Thaleus’ response to this danger?’
‘Tûg Lagorúth cares little about war, all he is concerned about is amassing greater wealth by trading with those vile goblins.’
‘If Thaleus falls, it will open the corridor for an attack on the rest of the Western world.’
‘So it would seem.’
Klievkui stood up angrily and started punching the tree next to him with great till he started bleeding.
Lee asked Amy to stop and asked her if she could help him get dressed. Besides the phantom pain on his left leg, his knuckles had started to hurt all of a sudden. I knew writing all those proposals for 6 hours would take its toll. Besides the mess in his personal life, his professional life seems to heading nowhere as well it seems. There were rumors that his investment and security firm, KQ Jorgans was facing a possible merger with Sear Bearns. He was against the whole idea, since Sear Bearns had already invested into risky commodity which he felt was doomed for failure. However his boss Hames Simon felt otherwise. Funnily enough, while a lot of employees would be sacked as a result of this merger, Hames would be earning a big fat money boost from this merger. Lee had been busy writing proposals trying to avoid this merger before he had decided to visit Amy. He felt extremely annoyed at his current situation and told Amy that he would not require any assistance on leaving the premises. He left the brothel with the flickering neon lights behind him and did not look back. The neon lights for the brothel spelt out the word: Mythos.
Chapter 3: Jamais vu
By Aiman Hyder
Source: http://images.fineartamerica.com/images-medium/crow-on-window-sill-dennis-krull.jpg
It was irritating, the constant noise, like the sound of someone gargling their mouth with air, penetrating through the wooden walls. ‘This place is nothing, but crap!’ Lee grumbled, as he tried to sleep with his back facing the ceiling, under the dusty headboard of his mother's bed.
His father built this house after Greg was born, with exactly no knowledge of construction fundamentals of course. This is why you hire contractors. Greg was their first child, unplanned. The deal with having unplanned children, is that you have to plan a lot after they announce their arrival. Lee’s father opted for a low-budget construction plan, so the contractors decided to conveniently omit adding rockwool to the walls for insulation.
Lee turned around to look at the ceiling, and his thoughts started to wander. ‘What if, I could go back in time? Won’t it be great if my death could undo my life, every part of my life, sealed and shoved into a trash can, recycled and forgotten like it never happened?’
Lee gets off of his bed, with his tiny feet and walks towards the door to open it. His mom was in the kitchen serving breakfast on the table.
‘Is your brother up? Go wake him up; I want you two here on the table right away!’
‘He isn't there’
His mom immediately glanced out the window, and ran out from the backdoor beside her in the kitchen screaming on the top of her lungs, ‘Gregory!’
‘Gregory! My boy where are you?!’
She looked around the wide open yard with no fences, as far as her sight could outstrip the tall trees at a distance.
‘Why are you out here again, Martha?’
‘It’s Gregory, he isn't in his room.’
‘I’ll go check with that imbecile, Stuart’s father.’
The kids didn't make it to school that day. After Greg was found in the forest with Stuart trying to hang him from a tree, Martha had decided to move out with the kids to her own mother's place. This led to a quarrel that got slightly physical, like every other argument. Their father got helplessly inebriated and locked her in the room and slept on the couch outside.
Lee’s father was a sales person for a small-scale, oil-based paint supplier company that didn't provide health insurance for mentally challenged children. Greg was given special attention at home to prevent any mishap that would exceed their expense beyond their capacity. But Lee often disagreed with his parents' concern. He stared at Greg smiling in his mother’s lap as she sang her 8 year old a lullaby with immense guilt and pity in her eyes. Lee believed that Greg was alright, as he’d jump onto his bed in the middle of the night and tell his younger brother stories of warriors and fighters and laugh at his younger brother’s fear on the description of the bloodshed.
____________________________________________________
The irritating sound of chalk on board finally stopped and Lee sighed in relief. He turned to his right side and stared at the faded table cover on the surface of the chopped tree. The sunshine reflecting the lake in his cavern impelled him to hop off his hammock and take a stroll outside. He looked beyond the mountain trail, it was as if the first time he had seen day light. The refreshing morning breeze floated by his long wavy hair, suddenly, he felt his eyes drying out so he rubbed them hard till his vision was clear.
He felt as if something wasn't letting him look ahead, he turned his head around to avoid the wind and noticed a person at a distance. He blinked several times to obtain a clearer vision while focusing on the person walking towards the edge of the mountain.
‘Stop! Whoever you are, don’t walk further. Have mercy on yourself!’
‘Stop! Whoever you are, don’t walk further. Have mercy on yourself!’
Being the aggressive man he was, it was rather unusual of Klievkui to commiserate with someone’s life. The lady had stopped on the edge and Klievkui ran and leaped as fast as he could towards her. To his surprise, it was that little girl again, slightly older. This time she stared in his eyes that looked quite similar to his own; there was reluctance and hope in her eyes.
‘Klievkui, you inspire me, I’ll see you again.” She smiled. With his focus on her eyes, she slowly stepped onto the air beside her and slid down in the open. Klievkui’s breath descends and a gush of screaming crows come at his face troubling his view as he covers to protect himself.
‘Haah!’
‘Klievkui, you inspire me, I’ll see you again.” She smiled. With his focus on her eyes, she slowly stepped onto the air beside her and slid down in the open. Klievkui’s breath descends and a gush of screaming crows come at his face troubling his view as he covers to protect himself.
‘Haah!’
‘Told you not to play with Stuart! Oh lord, that boy is a demon!’ Martha clenched Lee’s wrist with her nails.
‘Mother! What are you doing?’
Lee tries to open his eyes to see a hazy image of his mother’s face above him; he blinks rapidly to rid obstructions as her dark black hair touches his face, he shakes his head to get rid only to notice a crow flapping his wings over his face as it gears to fly away from him onto the dining table.
‘How on earth did you get in?’
A house, where a single soul only visits when it’s lonely.
Chapter 4: Through Jaded Eyes
By Shegufta Reina Alam
“…I feel I’m missing a lot!”
The bellows of a young boy behind closed doors of the psychiatrist’s room filled Sierra’s ears as she strolled past the corridors, navigating her way with her cane. She smirked as she placed the fingertips of her left hand on the wall, ever so slightly allowing her palm to maintain the balance, while she let her mind drift to the possibilities of the statement hollered by the boy behind the closed doors. She could not, however, allow herself to linger around much longer with the hopes of listening further.
“He probably is stuck in a dilemma concerning women, because not like anything else bothers men enough to drive them to therapy” she said to herself, whilst still smirking her way out of the corridor. She shifted her cane around, trying to determine whether she had reached the bench she was headed towards.
“Excuse my blindness and move over, if you haven’t already…please?”, she said out loud to nobody in particular. The lack of response proved that the bench was indeed, empty. Shifting forward leisurely, she took a seat and sighed. She had grown accustomed, and rather comfortable with the lack of response she got from people. It somehow managed to make her feel more … acceptable.
She wondered what her father would have to say about this. For one, he would certainly disapprove of her judging the troubles of the boy behind the closed doors.
“Pen down your own sins, for you have no ink to write of another’s”, she whispered to herself, as his words came back as little pearls of wisdom from her memory.
__________________________________________________
The trees swayed to the wail of the winds, making the leaves rustle in what would indicate a rather soothing piece of harmony. Agitated by the sound, Klievkui tore his way through the trees, rather hysterically. He halted for a few moments, hoping the sound would subside, only to get flustered as it grew louder. The adverse effect that any form of music had on Klievkui got him unhinged. He yelled into the winds in dire hope that they would oblige to his command, and shatter into complete silence. He waited miserably, constantly pacing back and forth; eventually, letting the rhythm play with his mind, yet desperately waiting for the sound that will sway his mere soul out of the misery.
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
The bus jerked over a pothole, snapping her out of her reverie. Sierra moved her head towards the right to where her sister was seated, while she felt the hand on her arm grasp it tighter, ensuring that she does not slide off her seat.
“I’m not going to fall off, you know. I’m deprived of sight, but I can still see”, she said as her lips curved into what could be considered the slightest form of a grin.
She could feel the presence of her sister’s gaze, and was certain she had a scowl on her face by now.
“Sierra, you don’t have to keep saying that all the time. Sometimes it’s hard conversing with you without feeling empty...”, her voice drifted off before adding, “… in spite of how cheerful you may seem to the naked eye”. Her tone was meandering somewhere between melancholy and amusement.
“Empty?”, Sierra asked in mock surprise. “If it really is so hollow, then I dare you to fit my entire world in a single sentence”.
She was certain her sister was gaping at her at the sound of the challenge. She smirked as she rested her head on her shoulder and basked in the comfort of a moment so rare, for she was unsure of when they would meet again.
Her sister was out of reach for prolonged periods with no justified reasoning. She could not quite place a finger onto what were her sibling’s musings or whereabouts.
Her mother’s negligence towards her sister and herself was not even bothersome anymore. Although it tore her heart to be aware of her mother not being tormented over her existential crisis, her heart had also begun to master the art of remaining unnoticed.
“Father would not have approved, had he been around”, she thought to herself as she recollected snippets of conversations she had overheard her sister having over the phone. She shook her head at the memory; Father certainly would have been livid. Sierra’s sister would not have ventured the courage to do the things she did now. She was allowing her demons to play with match sticks, forgetting that her soul was made of paper.
“Trace an eleven archer on my palm again”, Sierra requested her sister, holding her right hand outwardly, remembering vividly the descriptions she had received when that trace had became a permanent marking on her sister’s body.
“You’re completely mental, you know?”, her sister asked in hushed whispers, seemingly wary that passersby already drew enough attention to the girl resting on her shoulder.
Sierra arched her eyebrow as her lips curved into a half-crooked smile. She replied in a tone to match her sister’s, “In the hollow of my eyes, lie the grave of my sanity”.
Chapter 5: Disturbance
By Ghadeer Al Safi
Source: https://c1.staticflickr.com/3/2786/4432572185_7b67e8b125.jpg
Source: https://c1.staticflickr.com/3/2786/4432572185_7b67e8b125.jpg
Somebody sprayed nostalgia-inducing chemicals in the sky today and I could not stop thinking of her. I was ten. Mom had her pottery workshop going on in the kitchen and I was meant to be keeping Greg outside- for ‘some fresh air’- but we all knew it was mainly so she didn’t have to do any awkward explaining to her newly-found friends. We sat outside, an endless summer afternoon spread out before us. I miss that, how infinite time seemed back then. Greg skipped around until he wore himself out, then busied himself with digging an ant-hole. I had my super-hero sketch-pad open to a fresh page, but I couldn’t get myself to draw. I remember feeling sorry for myself, sweating in that pathetic heat, watching over my brother and listening to the silly giggles through the open kitchen window.
She walked by our front lawn, slow sure steps. I noticed how she had her eyes half-closed while she walked. She stopped right at the entrance.
‘Why are your eyes half-closed?’ I called out.
Her mouth broke into a grin. ‘I want everyone to know that I can’t see.’
I felt like I already knew that. I knew everything she would ever have to tell me. I walked to her with my sketch-pad, wanting to make things even.
‘I’m Lee. These are my drawings.’
She ran her fingers over each page like it made a difference.
‘That’s my brother Greg. I’m keeping an eye on him so he doesn't do anything stupid, like let Stuart hang him from a tree or something, which happened last week, and then Mom and Dad had a fight and they’re not sleeping in the same bed anymore.’
I paused for a breath, thinking of what to say next, how there was ten years’ worth of catching up to do.
‘I’m Lee. These are my drawings.’
She ran her fingers over each page like it made a difference.
‘That’s my brother Greg. I’m keeping an eye on him so he doesn't do anything stupid, like let Stuart hang him from a tree or something, which happened last week, and then Mom and Dad had a fight and they’re not sleeping in the same bed anymore.’
I paused for a breath, thinking of what to say next, how there was ten years’ worth of catching up to do.
‘I wonder where you are now, Sierra,’ I said out loud, peeking at the city through a gap in the curtains, although all I really saw was my own tired reflection.
‘Sierra who?’ snapped Amy. I shook my head slightly.
‘Are you coming to me or what?’ I looked at her. She was firing away at her third cigarette, ashes falling lightly on her bare thigh. I knew I didn’t want to see her again then.
‘Are you coming to me or what?’ I looked at her. She was firing away at her third cigarette, ashes falling lightly on her bare thigh. I knew I didn’t want to see her again then.
‘
‘Well, that’s something,’ the doctor said, looking up from Lee’s notepad. ‘Here’s a question: did writing help? Did you not feel it let you…put your thoughts in order? And would I go as far as to say-‘ he leaned forward and took off his glasses, ’-it even pushed you to make a decision?’
‘I guess,’ Lee mumbled.
‘Good,’ he handed the notepad back. ‘Keep writing.’
__________________________________________________
Seated in the bright-lit meeting room, Lee tried to focus at the slides on his laptop screen, nodding at the people coming in. ‘Morning,’ he chirped as Mr Simon himself trudged in, noting with satisfaction Mr Simon’s bigger belly.
‘Lee!’ Mr Simon patted him on the back, hard, before throwing himself on a chair. He put on a serious expression. ‘I consider myself a twenty-first century manager,’ he paused like he was expecting applause. ‘I pride myself on listening to the voice of my people, and today, Lee is going to tell us why he thinks I’m wrong. Go ahead, Lee.’
‘Well, I wouldn’t put it that way, I’m simply giving a presen-‘
‘Come on, come on, don’t keep us waiting,’ Mr Simon sang. Across the table, Jordan rolled her eyes and smiled encouragingly.
‘Right- well, I’d like to start with a bit of a background on Sear Bearns. Do we really understand their corporate culture, how incompatible-‘ he clicked on the first slide- and recoiled in horror. Displayed across the projector was a leg. His leg. His amputated leg, floating across a white background. Lee stared at it, and back at his poker-faced audience.
‘What’s the matter?’ Mr Simon asked, a small smile on his face. Was he seeing it too? Speechless, Lee switched to the next slide, and let out a cry.
It was a tree with a hanging noose. Simple tree, noose, white background. Lee turned to the rest of them, a voice stuck in his throat. What are you seeing on the screen, and who is it that’s crazy, is it me, or you, or all of us; but he could say nothing and they looked at him blankly, appearing more like puppet dolls by the second. Only Mr Simon’s face moved, the small smile frozen on his face.
‘Let’s try to prepare ourselves better next time, shall we?’ Lee heard his voice come from far away- a recorded voice merged with white noise. The white noise didn’t go away. It filled Lee’s ears, growing louder and louder, and Lee packed up his items and rushed out of the room with a racing heart. The last he saw before slamming the door were his colleagues, still staring at the tree and hanging noose.
It was a tree with a hanging noose. Simple tree, noose, white background. Lee turned to the rest of them, a voice stuck in his throat. What are you seeing on the screen, and who is it that’s crazy, is it me, or you, or all of us; but he could say nothing and they looked at him blankly, appearing more like puppet dolls by the second. Only Mr Simon’s face moved, the small smile frozen on his face.
‘Let’s try to prepare ourselves better next time, shall we?’ Lee heard his voice come from far away- a recorded voice merged with white noise. The white noise didn’t go away. It filled Lee’s ears, growing louder and louder, and Lee packed up his items and rushed out of the room with a racing heart. The last he saw before slamming the door were his colleagues, still staring at the tree and hanging noose.
___________________________________________________
Gwînherth cowered and waited. She could feel the rage of the forest around. The winds lashed at the branches. The moon frowned down at her. Gwînherth waited and whispered a prayer. It was a while before she heard him come in, his quick steps breaking twigs and burying dead leaves.
‘What have you done?’ he roared at her. Gwînherth stiffened. Klievkui’s pupils glowed red. His nostrils were giving off light steam. ‘Why did you interfere? It was not in your place to do so. You have made things worse.’
‘I only wanted the best for-’
‘It was not in your place to do so,’ Klievkui repeated, but softer this time. He was looking ahead in the distance, the redness in his eyes diminishing. Gwînherth followed his vision and saw the image of his sister, lit by flames, silently melting. She heard Klievkui’s slight trembles besides her and swallowed a lump of guilt. Together they watched the girl’s image fade.
‘I must return to the village,’ Klievkui said quietly. She watched him walk away and wondered if she will ever gear up the courage to tell him what had happened that day. Maybe some secrets should be taken to the grave.
____________________________________________________
Chapter 6: Fusion 101
By Affan Siddiqui
Source: http://cache.desktopnexus.com/thumbnails/1628433-bigthumbnail.jpg
“I get the feeling that someone’s following us…”said Amy
“You’re imagining things sis” replied Sierra.
“Careful now!” Amy exclaimed as she and her sister walked ever so cautiously on the sidewalk by the road.
“I’m fine sis. On the other hand, you sound a bit agitated. You sounded edgy on the bus ride as well. Is something bothering you?”
“It’s nothing. Don’t worry about it.”
“Did something happen at work…’Amy’ ?”
“I’ve told you multiple times not to call me by that name…”
“Why not? Sis, I do not judge you whatsoever on what you do right now. If you are happy doing this, then that’s all that matters.”
Amy let out a deep sigh. “Thanks Sierra, I know I can always count on you.” She caressed Sierra’s hand and let out a smile.
Sierra grinned and said “So it WAS something at work. Who’s the guy?”
“Damn, you are good. It’s this guy…he’s a treat to talk to plus he’s got some tricks on the bed. I just...just feel bad for what’s going on with him. He’s an amputee, he has lost his brother and his boss is against him. There’s so much I want to do for him but he just wants to be-“
“Alone?”
“Exactly. I think…I’m falling for him.” Amy held her thoughts for a moment as she saw two young boys playing soccer by the fountain. “You know what the weird part is….he said your name last night.”
“Really? Well now, you should be more careful with your customers then” Sierra snickered to Amy who just rolled her eyes away at that statement. “What’s his name, if you don’t mind me asking?”
Amy who was already in the process of dialing Lee on her cell replied: “Lee.”
Sierra stopped dead in her tracks. Amy looked back and noticed Sierra had a sense of dread on her face. “Was his brother by any chance named ‘Greg’?”
“Hello? Amy is that you?”
Before Amy could respond back on the phone or to Sierra for that matter, a black sedan rushed over the sidewalk and took Sierra’s body flying to the concrete pavement.
“SIERRA!!!!!!!” Amy shouted as she dropped the phone and ran to Sierra’s limp less body.
Amy cried as she could not feel Sierra’s pulse on her wrist. She was soon overcome by a shadow in the background.
“YOU….WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!!”
The man with the grey hair replied “What needs to be done.” He knelt down and stared at Sierra’s lifeless figure. “W-well W-well well, long time no s-see Sierra.”
Amy still aghast at the whole incident just could not help but stare at the exchange. The man stood up, turned his attention to Amy,
“I d-do not think we've m-met formally.” The man stuttered and continued “My name is Greg. Let’s go for a r-ride.”
_____________________________________________________
“Then what?” said the psychiatrist
“’Then what? ’ … are you serious doc?” retorted Lee
“Lee we are doing this writing exercise for your own good. Do not take this as a police investigation”
“Well, it sure fucking looks like it”
“Lee I’m your friend here, remember. I am just trying to get those repressed thoughts out of your head. It’s a blessing that you were still on that call during Ms. Sierra’s murder.
“ENOUGH! I don’t like you intriguing into details of Sierra’s murder. It’s horrific to think of it right now as it is. What…does her body flying to the curb arouse you in any way? Does her tragic death bring some…some kind of humor to you…huh? I’ve seen how you react to my ‘mysterious fantasy’ segments here and there. Admit it, you sick perv!”
“You are overreacting. Just listen-”
“NO YOU LISTEN. I am done with this shit! These past few weeks have been a thriller for me and my….my psyche and not in a good sense! You have been nothing but a setback for me at most. It’s a constant war I am dealing with in my mind right now and you are just here taking it all in as an...an… adventure.” He then got up from the sofa, onto his wheelchair and spat at the philosophy degree hanging on the wall beside the door.
“Lee! Come back!” But Lee was already heading for the door at which point the psychiatrist said: “Greggie won’t approve of this, Lee.”
Lee halted and looked back. “What did you just say? There is only one person who called Greg by that name.“
“*Sigh* My surname isn’t ‘Magby’, Lee.” The psychiatrist wrote something on a piece of paper and stuck it on his left suit pocket. He knelt down to Lee so that he could read the name tag.
“Hello my name is:
Dr. William Magby Stuart”
__________________________________________________
“Narissa, stop playing with the flames. Come hither!” exclaimed Klievkui as he poked the fireplace he just created in front of the tree stump.
“Yes brother!
“I wonder where father and mother are at this moment. Surely it does not take that much time to amass deer hide.” Klievkui kept poking the fire in hopes that his mother and father will return back in time for their trip to the elf kingdom.
“Brother look! Horses!”
Klievkui stood up and veered his eyes into the distance. He was shocked by the sight of a man in black robes galloping swiftly towards them.
“Narissa Cometh!!!”
It was too late as the bishop took out an axe and cleaved Narissa’s head straight off.
“NARISSAAAA” Klievkui shouted as he woke up from his rest. Realizing it was just a dream, Klievkui rubbed his face and looked at the sun shining through his window.
“Oh mother, father, where are you? I require guidance from you so that I may bring justice to the foul bastard who took you both and…and Narissa from me. ”
A knock on the door made Klievkui get up from his prayer. Disgruntled and distraught from last night’s argument with Gwînherth, Klievkui was in no mood for visitors today.
“Yes, what brings you here messenger?”
“A message from our noble king Tûg Lagorúth, sire” The messenger replied as he handed the parchment to Klievkui
As he read the parchment Klievkui’s expression changed to a grim one. “War, it is then.”
Chapter 7: Verklempt
By Elvis
The forest was unnaturally calm, the animals that would howl and prey through the night were waiting, yes, they knew. Klievkui mused a saying; "the calm before the storm". He sat, sharpening his bow, thinking of reasons to live or survive. None. Just then, Klievkui, in apparent despair at the naivete of the situation, thought of the past. Something he, virtually, hadn’t done in two or three years - when a movement behind him woke him up from his stance of deep thoughts.
"So you have heard then,” Gwînherth said, dragging her feet on the ground, breaking the unnerving silence. “The biggest war is the one man has with himself, after the actual war. Before war he justifies the act of killing as diminishing some evil.
"But the win or loss is only for the power-hungry, there is no hero or glory in war. Lucky are those who die during it, dying for a cause is mighty but... killing is never a justified crime” he replied.
“Be quiet, do you hear that? Trumpets? The army has started marching,” Gwînherth said.
"But the win or loss is only for the power-hungry, there is no hero or glory in war. Lucky are those who die during it, dying for a cause is mighty but... killing is never a justified crime” he replied.
“Be quiet, do you hear that? Trumpets? The army has started marching,” Gwînherth said.
She stared avidly into the forest, as dreamers do. There were half circles under her eyes, and other, subtler signs of a troubled young woman. Nonetheless, no one could miss noticing her beauty. Her olive skin was lovely, and her features were sharp and most distinctive. Her eyes were nearly the same astonishing shade of green like the trees behind her.
It was then that Klievkui noticed her lack of clothes. She shifted her eyes to him waiting for some kind of reaction but Klievkui had resumed sharpening his bow. Hot tears spilled from her eyes. "I had to get naked for you to notice me, but now even that won't work". Her delicate hands cupped his face and guided it to make him look into her eyes but he averted her gaze. She stomped her feet, "and you know what a woman's war is? To love desperately and never get any in return", she quietly sunk back to where she came from and that was the last he would ever hear from Gwînherth. Klievkui continued sitting there, watching the noose on the white oak tree he had built next to his sister’s grave.
________________________________________________
________________________________________________
Lee's room had a single exposure. A two-story home standing across the side street—a solemn, rather aloof looking house that never came alive. The house had a huge unkempt lawn furnished with rusted children's swings and slides. At this hour, the sun was shining; over the roof and through Lee's room; unkindly, strong and blinding.
He kept swimming in and out of sleep and finally when he was fully conscious he could not bring himself to do his daily ritual, to "wish". Every day Lee would plead hard with the unknown just to go back in time, for a do-over. He would put all his strength and might into the prayer, but today was different.
Today was the day Sierra died. Even though he hadn't spoken to her in a few years, the heartbreak was strong. All anxiousness and desperation felt as the other man in his dreams paled in the face of this pain. He wondered whether the other man ever felt this much ache, he wanted to reach out to this man that he embodied daily in his sleep, he wanted to fall asleep but sleep wouldn't come.
‘Sierra.
Sierra.
My Sierra.’
He felt Sierra had deserted him. He thought she must have planned it all along, but no, she was killed. He grabbed the yearbook, and found her picture. In the photograph, she wore a frozen smile, her eyes half open- to a random person it would seem like an ill-timed picture, a flash that made her blink but not to Lee. To Lee, that was her in her essence.
‘Sierra.
Sierra.
Sienna colored hair Sierra.’
Remembering the night he let her go, because she asked him to, made him feel stupid. He woke up from the bed and wore his only suit which was, ironically, a tux, but it didn't matter to him. Her funeral was in his hometown which was an hour’s drive away, on the way he felt wronged. There was no justice in the feeling of loving someone and the possibility of them loving you back but unable to simply because they were dead. Once he reached the funeral, he walked to her open casket and whispered to himself, “Don't be dead, don't be dead.” He couldn't imagine a world without her. He couldn't see a world where he could recover the loss, he did not want to "move on."
When he saw her face his heart sunk and then suddenly like a mad-man started bellowing with laughter. The absurdity. The first thing that had popped up in his mind was a question he meant to ask her- "How do the blind dream, Sierra?"- He whimpered because he knew she wouldn't answer.
‘Sierra.
Sierra.
Rotting fleshed Sierra.’
Amy's heart churned when she saw Lee. For a moment she thought he’d come for her. ‘Foolish girl, this is Sierra's Lee. How could you have been so blind and oblivious? Surely, her Lee was not an amputee. Greg’s alive, why did Lee tell me otherwise, it doesn't make sense’, she thought. Her thoughts were interrupted by two children running towards her screaming "Aunty Gwen, Aunty Gwen".
Lee was caught off guard when he bumped into the children, losing his balance made him turn and spot Amy. He was pleasantly surprised but when he heard the children, his face grew worrisome.
‘It couldn't be. It couldn't be. Sierra. Sierra. Gwen/Amy's sister, Sierra.’
In that moment the world crashed around Lee. He suddenly drank in all his surroundings. He noticed, to his left, Sierra’s mum comforting a sobbing man, on his right, two children skipping towards their aunt and finally, straight ahead of him, pictures behind the casket. Pictures that were generic enough to be templates in frames: a happy family. In every picture was a happy-looking person named Sierra, seeming almost like a stranger to Lee. The Sierra that Lee didn't know.
‘Sierra.
Sierra.
Not my Sierra.’
He realized that Sierra was not his, in fact, nobody was anybody's. He had held on to her past tensed self. She hadn't changed in his head but that didn't prevent her from actually changing in real time. He was stuck with an image of her, who she was and expected her to be the same. But he was wrong. So wrong. He started to feel disgust for Sierra. It didn't make sense, how could she just move on and change? Within him arose a murderous rage. He rushed out of the funeral and drove back to his house.
Lee didn’t go inside, he crossed the street to the unkempt lawn, where stood an ancient tree with a tire swing. He untied the tire from the rope, turned the rope into a noose, used the tire as a stepping stool and tightened a knot around his neck.. and swayed.
‘Sierra.
Sierra.
Goodbye Sierra.’
Chapter 8: Psyche
By Fariha M. Khan
Source: http://www.diploma-degree.com/Degree/700-23069-Doctor%20of%20Philosophy%20Degree.jpg
Amy ran as fast as she could away from the alley. Panting furiously, she struggled to put her thoughts together. Greg had come back. Was this the innocent Greg Sierra spoke so compassionately about? She noticed the peculiar insanity he had in his grey eyes as he asked her to come in for a ride. There was no telling what he would do next- she knew she had to move fast, inform the authorities…Sierra! Her heart seemed to shatter into a million pieces as she thought about how she still lay on the street, her lifeless eyes still unclosed…
________________________________________________
Greg steered the Sedan into a sharp turn and speeded through the roads, reaching the highway so he could move far away from all the chaos, and leave everything behind. “She dd-eserved it.”, he stuttered and mumbled to himself repeatedly.
Years and years of memories seemed to surge in, rapidly going through his mind...
A young and beautiful Sierra was embracing Greg, trying to calm her with her soothing voice. Greg had been bullied again, a regular occurrence given his awkward stutter and thin, gangly appearance. Sierra always understood- she knew what it felt like to be an outlier, to be different.
His thoughts moved incoherently, suddenly a horrifying memory now surfaced to his mind, his older brother Lee’s lips locked with Sierra’s, and a sense of betrayal ravaged over him, and he began to think of the terrible incident that forever changed their whole lives. He pledged to move far away from Sierra and Lee, a decision he regretted intensely as he missed his elder brother years later. Sierra had been the cause of all of it. Sierra deserved to be hurt.
Greg was so absorbed in his thoughts that he did not notice the sirens closing up to him.
_______________________________________________
“Dr. Stuart, your appointment at Stafford Prison is coming up.”
William looked back at her new secretary. He had not been called by that name in a long while. He had specifically instructed all his staff to call him Dr. William or Dr. Magby. For years, he had been anxious to rid himself of his old identity. Unlike his peers, he was not induced into childhood nostalgia easily. But it was difficult not to think of the past upon the mention of “Stuart.”
“Stuart, Stuart, this hurts! Get me down!!” exclaimed an 8 year old Greg, as he hung on to the tree. “Stuart” enjoyed the sight with all his might. He did not believe the influence he had over little Greg. Greg feared him with a trepidation, because he was adept at teasing him with names, or making him do all his chores. Later, William moved to a boarding school when he was 13, where a strict disciplinary lifestyle reformed his old ways. He grew up to be a different, mature, educated man, and the first one in his family to receive a college degree. He quickly became known in the medical community for his intelligent and perceptive skills as a psychiatrist. But there were often times when he’d look back, immensely guilty about a boy he almost killed once by hanging him to a tree. He was hopeful that it didn’t affect Greg too much.
________________________________________________
Greg now looked strange behind bars. William noticed his tired eyes, and pale, sickly expression.
“Greg, when I met you couple of months ago, I had no idea you were capable of what you did to Sierra. In fact, what you did to her, will prove to be extremely detrimental to the progress I've been making with Lee.”
Greg could not meet William’s eyes. He was noticing a peculiar floor pattern below his feet.
“Greg, Look at me. You need to tell me what happened to you that day.”
Greg gave out a sigh, and spoke out for the first time since he had arrived in prison. “The truth is - I did not mean to.”
This confirmed what was on William’s mind all along. The police reported that they had found Greg severely stuttering and later found inebriated at the time of the deliberate car accident. William knew he was drunk right away because Greg no longer had speech impediments, as he worked on it for years to improve it.
“You saw her in the street by surprise. When you saw her again, it brought on loads of memories that you've been suppressing for a long time. I think you wanted to hurt her, not kill her. You were intensely deluded.”
Greg remained silent.
“When I met you several months ago to apologize, to conciliate our past, you asked me instead to meet Lee and help him. Your words still resound in my memory like it was yesterday – you said, and I quote- 'I think I may have done more damage than I intended.' The Greg I met then does not seem to be the Greg you are now. I see now that it is you I should’ve been helping all along. ”
Greg finally broke his silence. Looking into the distance with glazed eyes, he said, “How is he doing?”
“Consciousness is a strange thing, Greg. It is what compels me to work on my job every day. It’s puzzling, how Lee’s mind works. This has gone beyond trying to help you, I've taken a professional interest in this case. He was getting better- but I think now things may have taken a turn for the worse.”
“What do you mean?” Greg implored.
“I met Lee after he had his leg amputated. Phantom pains are common with these cases, but I felt that Lee’s pain had a deeper source. He struggled to find meaning in his life and his existential crisis was escalating. There is a very thin line between nihilism and depression. I’ve been watching him very closely to see where he was heading. And quite strangely, Lee started to recount to me certain dreams he was having. He embodies another person in his dreams, someone called Klievkui. His inner subconscious is rich with themes and motifs he is unable to process while he is awake.”
“What kind of things does he see in his dreams?” Greg asked, completely surprised.
“Klievkui has an interesting life. Lee’s work problems translate into this mystical realm that he lives in. And Klievkui is eternally anguished by the loss of his sister and parents. I am sure, that Lee never got over losing you or Sierra. Whatever incident you guys had, left a deep impact on him. He is waging a war with the world.”
Greg seemed to be at a loss for words. Throughout his life, he always knew himself to be the “different” one. It seems now that he is more similar to his brother than he ever knew.
“The truth is people are convinced of the reality they experience and remember, but that reality is rarely what we believe. A fundamental question of philosophy is this, what comes first, reality or consciousness? To Lee, Klievkui is a real person, living, breathing, in another universe. It is his reality, because the real one he lives in gives him little hope.”
“The last time I met him, I told him that it was you who asked me to see him, hoping that it would make his stance against you a little less harsh. He was of course, shocked to hear you are still alive. I haven’t seen him since.”
Greg’s pulse started to quicken. A peculiar intuition, one of impending doom came upon him.
William received a phone call at that moment. He received it with a grave expression.
“It was Amy, one of Greg’s friends. She says Lee’s door is locked and is worried. I have to go check.” William thought for a moment about her alter ego, Gwinherth. He wondered why he was rejecting her advances. Something seemed to annoy Lee about her. Maybe she chased him too much, or reminded him of Sierra, or he wasn’t ready for commitment yet. He didn’t have enough sessions yet with Lee to find out why.
Chapter 9: The End
Finale by Muhammad Azhar Naqvi
Source: http://www.loverofdarkness.net/LOD/images/gallery/main/b5/52_2cbb5fb305e5137472e2e5ec8d509587.jpg
Its weak form rudely desecrated, beak agape; the avian creature hovered over the puddle surrounded by its many feathers. Water dripped from the stalactites and halved occasionally when it met the bird’s bill. Lee, laid on a bed, stared into the abyss that was the crow’s eye facing him; from which leapt in waves darkness most revitalizing, coloring each and every atom of his being.
Getting up and off, he took in the sensations that crept upwards from not one but two sources. Two feet to feel the cold floor with somehow warmed him and brought a smile to his rusty face. With the wiry hammock swinging behind him, the wooden walls of the cave around him, Lee stood in the setting sun’s afterglow that had the lake set on fire beyond the crow and its puddle. Images of endless summers blazed across his mind as the sunlight poured on his face. He could hear the vehement wind move along tracheae, between the hollow walls around him, and into lungs that filled like bagpipes to produce a familiar guttural sound: a sound he heard, this time, with a different appreciation. What once agonized appeased him welcomingly now. Lee’s corroded face twisted and molded with how the sound embedded in the noise moved, providing a rush of blood to his head unlike he’d ever experienced.
After an eon of living off of nothing but the industrial sirens he’d knocked on the walls to harmonize with, he opened his eyes; the last tears made their way down the parallel valleys that their ancestors had cut through over time. Off his jaw they adventured onto what was now the lingering saliva of the growing lake. It had already dissolved and devoured the crow completely. Lee, with heavily permeated soles, moved along the narrowing patch of earth towards the mouth of the cave to exit.
Outside, the sun had risen once again, but not the same. Erupting across its surface, were voids that sucked in other stars,.Lee saw the ravenous sun bring about the end to the cosmic dance it had initiated long ago as it grew. Without a worry, under the alternating myriad of varying lights and darkness, he walked the waning mountainous trail. A little while later, he could see a few ceremonious-looking figures, in the distance, busied by hugs amongst themselves, set against the backdrop of an eerily convulsing forest. The now dying forest reeked, creaked and shrieked as it burnt down.
The closer he got, recognition increased: he had seen some of them before, known about all certainly at least and definitely knew of the preposterous trees behind them. Klievkui and his family already were facing Lee; their smiles grew fervent with proximity even though their features now starkly stood out in opposition to their former vessels’ physics, lit up occasionally by the cataclysms in the sky and mostly by the forest set ablaze. But then again, Lee reflected, he had noticed paling scales spread across his own feet; except for the toes that stayed jet-black, akin to the rest of him, even though they’d begun to curl forward.
‘I see you’re quite taken by how your external perception’s affecting your internal’, boomed Klievkui, Gaia-incarnate and Gaia-manifest; an androgynous entity, his/her once long wavy hair were replaced by cascading waterfalls raining back onto his/her back, composed of soil and various trees that stretched all the way down to the other earth. Foliage missed on the front, though, where exposed mountains for breasts lied plenty under the sluggish molten-lava it had for a beard with star debris strewn across. A little above where his face once resided a mirror had taken place reflecting Lee’s own “face”.
‘Don’t blame me, man.. or whatever you are.. ah, I mean.. Kliyuv.. uhm.. kuhweewee? Vi? uh’ said Lee incomprehensibly awkwardly, smiling what he thought came off as a bit of a smile or rather its equivalent at least, given his own seemingly expressionless appearance. With pitch-black eyes atop a nose that had from its torn tip protruded a different bone he came off like he had a cleft lip. Klievkui and his family laughed, Lee thought they did at least while he felt himself get drowsier due to the overload of stimulus (so much so he felt his subconscious mind not perceive other finer details to avoid blacking out, ironically).
‘It’s Klievkui, Klee-yev-koo-ee. But you can call me Bobby, Harry, Muhammad, whatever’s more common to where you come from, if you want. I’m sure you remember my sister, we’re thinking of naming her Krishna’, he, rather she, or rather it, pointed at a bundle that had comfortably warm within a clearly human-looking baby boy, held in the arms of an anthropomorphic tiger who had her head rested on the shoulders of an anthropomorphic horse.
‘Right, uh, I guess so. And yeah, I’m Asian by origin, Lee’s already taken. So, how about Woo? So everybody knows y’all folks are always ready to party, heh! Not being racist, y’all just.. look the type.. to party, that is, y’know, “wooh!”?.. Uh, anyway, that would have been racist if I weren't Asian, so it’s alright, it isn't, I think. Wait, am I Asian? Was I, I mean, and wait, you’re not humans, so.. what.. race.. you’re a.. what.. uh.. I don’t know what I mean.. what am I.. th-’, he stopped, blinked hard at his slowly changing reflection in Klievkui’s face and coughed, ‘hnngah! This shit’s getting way too weird, man, like a fucking baaaaad trip’, Lee resonated with growing perplexity, shaking his head rapidly, at the ground as it birthed powdered poppies with petals eerily shaped like tiny gopher skulls.
‘It’s okay, it’s okay! Calm down! Talking about names was just a red herring to remi-’ Klievkui began to reassure him when he got cut off.
‘A red herring? Ain’t that a rabbit or something? Wait, no, it’s a fish.. a fictional one.. meant to distract.. right? But nothing here seems.. not fictional, y’know? So.. does the definition of a real red herring apply here?! Man.. what.. just.. what’s with y’all and animals?!’ Lee half protested and laughed in a bit of a panic, beginning to hyperventilate.
‘Listen! Lee! Try to calm down and listen, you’re here, it is done. It’s time for you to realize that your past & its affiliations: they don’t matter, in fact, they never did. Here, where you are now, this does matter though and this, right here, is a great vantage point to see exactly that from. We’ll have plenty of time to discuss what’s “real” and what isn't because, well, there’s no going back. In a way, though, you are back. Back to where it all started, at least’ Klievkui finished speaking as it, itself, began to turn its attention back to its own body, or planet, or whatever it housed now, Lee thought.
Hearing those words should have devastated Lee and his ideas about reality but considering he didn’t exist in one he could truly affiliate himself with; he felt a strange accommodating relief. Only to realize the relief was related to what Klievkui pointed to last, the dreaded forest.
‘I was hoping you wouldn't remember that, at least, but I know you do and I’m sorry to point you to it’ came Klievkui’s message to Lee’s mind, water crawling down the mirror from his scalp.
‘Well, how could I forget.. that.. no offense meant and all of course.. ‘cause it was where I first met.. became you, rather. So it’s not you, it’s the weird.. man-killing.. living god-forest.. thing’ spoke Lee, hearing the pitch of his voice increase slowly, though his nerves were calmer than before.
‘Unfortunately, yes. I would have preferred you to have become me for the first time when I played the flute or something. I wasn't half bad, really’, returned more deceptively telepathic-seeming words from Klievkui whilst, with hilly fingers, it combed a few of the marine creatures from its swimmy head back onto the land on its neck.
‘I appreciate that, Kl-uh, guy.. wait, you’re not a guy. Okay, whatever. Anyway, I’m afraid I want a lot more than just that now, as you might have guessed’ replied Lee, staring in horrified fascination as his face sprouted towards its reflection, soon it would threaten to perhaps even tap it.
‘Yes, yes, I’m sure you have a lot of questions. I’m well aware of the human need for resolution and closure. Though, honestly, I am glad you’re feeling composed enough to think inquisitively. Anyway, before we start, do you want me to look away?’ came Klievkui’s concerned voice, as some lava began to run down across its beard and into the craters in its chest.
‘Doesn’t matter I suppose since I’m..’ Lee paused, and then laughing, continued, ‘..surely dead, right? I hope there’s no limit or anything on the amount of questions I’m allowed because that one was just.. daft. I guess I just wanna hear it, hmm. Makes it.. more absorbable, y’know?’
‘I’d say that’d be more of an absurd question, actually, than a “daft” one. I mean, don’t you feel like you aren’t “dead”?’ Klievkui completed whilst looking above at the melting skies and shrugging.
‘You’re right, I do, I’m actually surprised at how much I’ve even been able to say, even though most of it was just gibberish, but considering how overwhelmed I feel.. Hmm. Y’know what I think? Everything is off! Just so off, y’know? But I guess.. it’s because everything is off, together it gains a sense of normalcy on its own. It feels valid, for all its weirdness and its bizarre, upside down, nature- it just seems right in its own space and time. Is this Earth, though? Is “the end nigh”?’ Lee pondered and wondered, to himself and to Klievkui, who had turned to its family and gestured them to move towards the forest. Lee noticed that by the time Klievkui’s parents had reached the edge, they’d already started walking on four legs instead, conforming to their animalistic sides, and had set the baby’s bundle on the earth.
‘For a lot of things, yes, the so-called end is here. But, fortunately for you, it isn’t’ Klievkui confirmed to Lee and grabbing his arm, followed after its relatives.
Lee suddenly lurched forward as his back pushed him ahead; he fell on the ashen ground and writhed as he saw a falling tree reach for him. In doing so though it only lost a limb. The stump oozed charred crimson, at which the bark’s dried tongue desperately tried to lick at as the maladjusted eyes frenzied about in each and every socket. The forest made lesser noise now, most of the mouths had filled with pints and pints of the sooty blood; hence, along with the torment of burning down, the sound produced only added up to pitiful gurgles for help.
‘If you hadn’t taken so long to get here, you’d have seen it all’, Klievkui complained as he picked up Lee from the ground and washed his hands with a fringe.
Lee couldn’t see himself all that well in Klievkui’s face now, the fire and smoke behind him made it all disproportionately distorted. When he dared to look down at his hands, his fears were confirmed; he had sprouted quite a few feathers, especially under his armpit. Following next was the spectacle of Lee’s fingers and their move outwards, producing the revolting sound of bones breaking and forming, growing as they decayed. Some broke through the skin, which itself felt like it meant to dangle lower and lower, leading to the hissing sound of blood escaping fissures in a fountain. The outgrowth soon weaved together with materials including more bones, marrow and membranous flesh. Lee went into a seizure induced by the sheer torture.
Fluttering images slapped against the tired screen of his mind, he saw and heard agitated figures he thought resembled his elder brother and an old friend. Minute in nature, a rapture took middle ground in his being; he felt as though he was being torn apart at the seams by voices begging him to come back. He couldn’t understand which way he was supposed to go, where did salvation even lie for him? Lee wept in heartache and pain but by the time the boney and flappy skins had been covered by a stream of nightly feathers, he was able to get back on his feet.
‘What’s happening to me, god?! Why is it happening?!’ cried, still reeling from shock, rather squawked, Lee, feeling his apparent cleft lip further tear as his holey nose’s grave widened to let out the beak in its entirety; Lee felt as though his brain were strolling outwards, both halves, hell bent on ripping him in two; but the pain was subsiding, only the pressure of the metamorphosis remained.
‘To fulfill your new covenant, you’ll need to fit the part, Lee. Tell me though, why did you call me god?’ asked Klievkui, as he let molten lava leave his body and join the lake of fire that dissolved the remains of the now dead forest.
‘I dunno, but seeing that the old one’s been destroyed, I guess there’s been a change in management? I’m not complaining though, I know exactly what.. that was’, Lee cawed as his body compulsively curtsied in agitation, with legs that twisted thinner and thinner.
‘What was it? Just so we’re clear’, asked Klievkui, as its family and it exchanged glances of happiness, watching on as the cesspool in front of them started to eat into the so-called earth.
‘An egoistic deity, favorite form of appeasement being child sacrifices. Brutally took away your family from you: your sister in a child sacrifice and your parents.. he had another way for them, I suppose. After you ran away, after we ran away I feel like, the high priests had your parents executed in your stead, for being disgraceful in not fulfilling what was asked of you’, Lee completed saying, shaking his head slowly and offering gestures of condolences to all around him as he swung his shoulders back and forth feeling the air pass through and between the feathers of his newly grown wings.
‘True. Wonderful, how the hive mind operates perfectly. Even here, that is. And your new form’s already giving you the clairvoyance you’ll need as the incumbent messenger, considering how the previous died along with its lord’, Klievkui announced as he moved back to face Lee.
‘Hive mind?’ asked Lee earnestly.
‘We’re all inspired by a single consciousness, we all share in it; it is why when in existence, living life, we experience so much, of varying natures, some “normal” and some “surreal”, so collectively and at times simultaneously. The hive deepens with every chamber leading into another, some sweetened with rewards while others not so much. Like a dream within a dream, if you were to think about it from an outer perspective, you’d realize we’re all just minds within minds. Minds working with other minds, accompanying each other as they experience differing chambers, differing tastes; together in a moment yet so far apart in individually driven fluxes; caught in a stasis of change, from one part of the hive to another.
Understanding this helped me with the one-dimensional forest god. I confused him about whether I was an escapee in his consciousness or he a prisoner in mine. Knowing a mind is multi-faceted, it’s never an easy trick to even decipher if one is present in the subconscious or conscious side, let alone realize which mind. In your case, for example, you were lead to believe that I was a figment of your subconscious but au contraire, au contraire. Although, I’m sure you realize you’re in the depleting subconscious of the old shell right now, not for long though’, answered Klievkui with equal vigor but it perceived Lee grow discordant with understanding.
Reflected better now, Lee saw himself in Klievkui to admire the nearly morphed physical being he was laced with now. His body started to lift off the earth as it shrunk further; his wings shafted and collected enough wind beneath them.
‘The transformation’s not complete, yet, I know that. Unlike my parents’ as you can see’ Klievkui pointed at the tiger and horse as they rested near Krishna, the baby boy.
‘I don’t understand, still’, Lee admitted, rising higher above the ground.
‘My father’s horse sacrificed himself to try to save my mother’s and his life, he’s merely returning back to Earth to serve as one of their kind to express gratitude. Alas, though, my parents were torn apart by tigers, so Mother supposes she could return as one of them to lead at least some of them away lest they be manipulated by humans furthermore to act as heinously agonizing torture devices. And my sister, ah, well.. she just deserves another childhood, I think. She wanted to be a boy, this time, though, just so she could pee while standing as per her, now his, request’, laughed Klievkui.
The crater where the forest existed once grew immensely deep, the mountains had nearly all turned to sand, dissolving alongside, as the sun became even more familiar; it was getting darker and darker as it closed in.
‘Wow, hmm. So, is this all happening inside my mind? Or yours? Who’s the mind? And, if it is in one mind, am I talking to myself? I mean the whole thing about the.. “hive mind”. Does that have anything to do with how everything and every one of us got here, and by here, I remember, you said “even here” when speaking of that hive mind’s functionality, what sets “here” apart?’ asked Lee, half his previous size now and perched on a small mound of sand.
‘I’d say there really isn’t an answer to your first question, considering the amount of mind laundering that’s occurred. Who knows who’s the mind? I don’t, at least, maybe I’ll find out one day but one thing is for certain: everything and everyone is part of a Grand Soliloquy, that’s the answer to everything, in my textbook at least: One mind, One Soliloquy. And yes, it has everything to do with it, of course. “Here”, is nowhere, Lee. All around you is an illusion, a ploy, a facade, a farce. And why you’re here is because, well, basically, I’ve just grown fonder of you from the lot, you always begged for a re-do too, didn’t you? Always wished to relive, well, here’s your chance’, answered Klievkui still facing Lee as the vines from its toes erupted forth and climbed upwards to derive what seemed like make-shift boots.
‘What? Illusion? Fonder of me? What “lot”? You gotta be clearer than that, c’mon!’, Lee protested, turning to using his wings more to stay at the same height as Klievkui’s.
Klievkui sighed, instructed its parents to leave with the baby and they followed suit.
‘Look, I’ll try to be concise about this. I imagined and created you, your life, the ones around you and the so-called reality to make you all feel at home. Didn’t you ever notice certain loopholes around you? One second you’re in a time where tuberculosis is dangerous enough to cause you to lose a limb, next you’re talking fan fiction from a book that came out a decade later with a girl named after a celebrity that came after half a century or so. But I learnt how to distract you, I suppose, it was crucial to meet the ends I’d set’, said Klievkui as it bent down and tore apart a hole in the earth to lead its relatives down below into another dimension, or a deeper level at least.
‘I saw you die though, how did you ever even manage all this?!’ Lee confronted Klievkui.
‘Lee, the forest grew with every child it consumed, but I wasn’t a child, let’s just say the forest god bit more than it could chew. Even though I had roots holding me into his entity, he couldn’t digest my spirit. Instead, I developed a symbiotic relationship with him, I fed on his powers; even though it had a.. well, a malicious aftertaste, let’s call it, but I’m trying to manage the costs’, Klievkui went on, looking down on itself, back and then front, admiring down at the growing greenery on the lower front. It continued, ‘Anyway, once I’d taken back enough from the forest god, including the insights I’ve shared with you, I tore away from him and ran, ran until I found safe haven. Since Gwinherth betrayed my location to Lagoruth, which is why the forest god caught up with me in the first place, I couldn’t turn to her; or whatever that remained of her, at lea-’
‘But didn’t she love you? And how did Lagoruth summon the forest god to have you killed?’
‘She did, I didn’t. And the cunt had me killed for the sake of puerile spite!’ fumed Klievkui, Lee noticed true anger being represented in its being for the first time, but just as soon as the lava had nearly started to burn away its recently cultivated grass on the bottom-front, Klievkui calmly went on, ‘Lagoruth used me as a rogue assassin, his lapdog, in return for my continued freedom; he had found out about me running away from the ritual as a child and had also under his employ the so-called “high” priests. But I guess, “old habits die hard”, as they say on Earth nowadays, ‘cause I quit killing for Lagoruth. And well, you can connect the dots, for my treachery, Lagoruth set the high priests and the forest god on my path. I don’t regret it though; it had become a cursed existence anyway.. elongating my life by taking others’. Hmm’, said Klievkui, sowing the fresh fields it had carved in its abdomen with seeds and fertilizing it with ash.
‘For a fancy ol’ god from a fancy ol’ time, you speak an awful lot of English and its jibber jabber!’, mocked Lee, trying to hover to stay reflected.
‘Really? You’re seriously asking me that, Lee, you’re better than that. You know you’ll always only ever be able to perceive me with whatever biased fashion of thinking you’ve inherited from the life I let you have to train within. I know you didn’t mean to ask me that, certainly “daft”, question, but why do you take offense over Gwinherth, am I not the victim? And, funnily enough, don’t you realize the parallel? Amy? You?’
‘What? I loved Sierra, but you took her away, I guess you’re the one who gets the blame for all the shit now too. Hey, it comes with the job, don’t it? All the hallelujahs forevermore come with baggage! And.. if you really want to know why I’m, possibly, speaking nonsensically.. it’s because I’ve just been told my life wasn’t anything but a repeated joke with no novelty, a bad joke. But wait, how does that ploy even work?’ Lee retorted, not being able to hide his perplexity.
‘Sierra, we’ll come to that in just a bit. You make me laugh, though; I didn’t say I was god, did I? No, god’s dead and all its bastards are too. I’m merely the remnant of that cosmic fantasy, somehow alive not to rule but to hang around and kill time, really. Although yes, I do intend to kill time in a way that’s beneficial to others and if that sense of responsibility makes me god and liable for everything then even you were and are a god like any other person with an iota of empathy out there in the universe. The only difference is that I’ve found a better way, to spiral out, and I’m hoping you will too; seek your true capacity and grow. Although, and you’ll soon find out what I mean, you’ll find that a lot of your new-found self’s purpose is clearer and doesn’t need much innovation’, Klievkui said, as it walked Lee down by the side of the crater towards a lake of silky-looking water.
‘You say my purpose now is clear yet I still don’t know if I had any in my previous.. incarnation’, Lee sighed as he flew aside Klievkui, finally asking, ‘You mind if I sit on your shoulder, first time flying, getting a bit tired now, to be honest.’
‘Sure. You see, in order to vanquish the forest god, I had to use his own devices against him; his vanity and greed especially. I was powerful enough thanks to my time in the living forest and with the help of a trusted friend of mine, who helped me uncover the runes of time to use in manipulating the evil around, I was able to create an alternate reality quite akin to my personal life. It was rightly designed a distraction since I knew that the forest god and Lagoruth had realized about my escape from the nether realm. And, of course, they needed to be dealt with. Now, how? Well, go back to Lee’s life and think about it; Hames Simon, your dictator boss, he was fashioned after Lagoruth, Amy was done so after Gwinherth. Those are just two examples of the many I’d placed around you, you, whose life was designed with mine kept in mind. Though, some of them, including you at times, did, extraordinarily bend the envelopes they were placed in to become more than just. I suppose, everyone starts out as a bad copy without any substance of its own, a cheap imitation; some figure out how to buy novelty though- it serves as a constant reminder to me of the extents to which the human experience can be stretched. Anyway, the end result was that the forest god, unable to decipher between us, came for you and had you roped in, forgive the unintended pun, but what’s worse than devouring a fully grown man? A fully grown illusion of one, leads to.. well.. heartburn’, Klievkui went on, chuckling, as he picked up the lake and threw it into the crater to crystallize the molten lava sludge.
‘You created me in your image? Ha! Ironic! Anyway, I do remember, clearly, feeling as though I were surrounded by marionettes and puppets of sorts, time and again. What about Sierra, sweet Sierra, lovely Sierra.. and my brother, Greg and my psychiatrist? What about them?’, asked Lee as he looked around to not find any other living being in sight; only dust and rising heat.
‘Well, sadly, as I told you before that I needed to distract you; I created some utterly baseless folks to make the illusion not seem too conspicuous. Sierra, I’d say, was my greatest creation in that right, and she worked according to plan. It worked; you, feeling a strange interest with her from the get-go, inspired by the one I held for her, got heavily invested in her- so much so you got disillusioned, ironically, but fittingly. Sierra, one of my first completely original creations, thoughts, was always looking for something or someone that could help her feel a bit whole; it is why she willingly fed on the people around her, why she’d be anyone but herself. How does anyone be nothing, without turning into it, anyway? I can’t say the plan worked the same as it did for you for those three, of course not. You see, it’s the people, or ideas if you want, who experience existence for the first time, their first incarnational meeting with life, it is them who suffer the most amount of crisis and angst when it comes to reconciling with the all too absurd notion of suddenly popping up in strange vacuum. I’m not saying that people like you don’t have problems but at least you don’t walk around feeling like you’re utterly disadvantaged. Oh, I’m sorry, I guess you did, but hey, only literally. Sierra did, more than just literally, poor girl, Greg and Stuart still do, poor them too. But, to get to my point; it is these people with more questions about existence and purpose that are harder to fool into the sweet lullaby that is living for the sake of it. Hence, obviously, most of them end up going insane because sane people are secretly too busy with fulfilling their 2nd or 11th covenant, whatever sanity is’, it finished, whilst raising its face towards the sun, slowly. The sun would have come precariously close to looking like it’d pop like a balloon if a pointy skyscraper was in the way but here, nothing was.
‘I do feel a gaping hole in me ‘cause of her, which means she succeeded in becoming a part of me. I feel sad ‘cause of my brother.. but knowing everything had, or rather has, a purpose, a meaning; nothing’s in vain, at least. But, you could re-imagine, could bring my Sierra back, right? Right? Please? I’m ready to fulfill the covenant. By which you mean the terms and conditions agreed to for a new life that’s leased out, right? So, you’re basically a contractor? Like an annoying real estate salesman?’ Lee squawked, taking to the air again to cool itself by flying for a bit round and round around Klievkui.
‘Why do you think I’ve already given you the form before you, overtly, agreed? ‘cause I knew and know, like how you will too, soon. As long as you respect my intellectual property, don’t create copies in poor taste of my conception of Sierra when you become more used to your new self and its capabilities; you will be awarded the real one. Words of a really good “real estate salesman”, here’s this life to you then’, agreed Klievkui as it began to reflect back the sun, becoming a focal point by sucking all of its light and bringing it to one source to return from to its origin.
‘Hmm, thanks for the idea, though I won’t, of course’, laughed Lee naughtily, ‘Well, then, why’d I want to be a crow? I don’t remember having a say in that either’, asked Lee.
‘The time to enjoy partiality isn’t now, Lee, trust me though, you’ll have plenty of time to prove your worth to me. You should, at least, you owe it to me. You are to be my messenger, my personal Hermes.. among other things. Every so-called guardian needs one, and every reality that deals in “tenants”, needs someone to make sure the numbers are in check and that there aren’t any.. illegals. Hey, you chose the metaphor’, smiled Klievkui, as the sun and everything around them discombobulated to usher colors deserving of a supernova.
The pseudo-reality disseminated in a whirlpool all the way into nothingness until only Klievkui and Lee remained standing in an all-encompassing black hole. Then Klievkui, with the help of a jagged rune, carved into the emptiness and tore open into light that blinded them.
‘It’s time for a new beginning, Lee. We’d better get on with our covenants’, Klievkui echoed as it descended purple skies and landed on a barren land. Lee felt his wings turn automatically towards his next destination, as he saw Klievkui sink his feet into the new land and bring forth life to the entire planet; and in a moment Lee saw it all; the future. Many civilizations would come and go, of varying species, mostly unnoticed but all in unison kissing the helm of Klievkui’s various interpretations.
Power corrupts.
There is no novelty.
Time is a flat circle.
And it’s all so very absurd.
Ah, such a sad state of affairs.
‘He might be dead but he isn’t gone, Stuart!’ shouted Greg, banging at the door from inside his room at the sanitarium.
‘Listen to yourself, Greg, do you even know how unreasonable you sound? It’s like you’re regressing back to your childhood self’, William replied, shaking his head, deeply disappointed, from outside looking in through the tiny window.
‘Your idea of reason is wrong! I wasn’t wrong as a child, I know now; I saw it in Lee’s dead eyes when I held him, isn’t it then reasonable to return to a thinking that, even if intuited as a child, was right’, Greg tried to explain.
‘Greggie, please, have some rest. I know the stories you used to tell Lee when he was a child, he wrote them all down for me as part of therapy, about the warriors, violent gods, elves, this that. Don’t you hear how juvenile that sounds? Why and how in the world do you think your brother’s crossed over or whatever?!’ asked William, as he recollected his belongings from the security guard.
‘I.. I don’t know. But I feel it, I knew him as a child, I saw the world around us unlike him. He was always so sure about everything, so practical, like he knew where he was heading even if he didn’t really know, Sierra and I couldn’t be like him. You’re not like him, either, doc! Or you wouldn’t be here, listening to my apparent nonsense. The hive mind, it has us all figured out, it has written our stories over a few months, that’s all it took it to mockingly record our so-called lives with the help of just a few busy-bodies with word processors and imaginations of their ow-’ babbled Greg, crying loudly as he did and scratching at his face in sheer disbelief at his profound realization until he got cut short.
‘SHUT UP! JUST.. gah! I’m sorry, I’m sorry Greg, I can’t do this anymore, I just can’t, I have failed you, to make sense of you and your stupendous claims, I can’t help you, I’m so sorry but I can’t. I don’t think anyone can. This is farewell; I already have to counsel Ms. Amy from now on thanks to your madness among many other things. Take care of yourself, somehow, god be with you!’ William curtly replied as he scurried off down the corridor in an incredible rush and pushed through the exits.
‘I’m not mad! Sierra deserved death! She deserved to be set free! She suffered and I ended her suffering, wouldn’t you do the same if you loved her and were me?! Don’t go!’, Greg shouted but to no use.
Greg whispered, frightened, ‘Please don’t leave me’, and turned, slid down to the floor with his back to the door, eyes wide open in shock. He could hear the tapping of keys grow louder and louder in his head, the loudest they’d ever been, but it felt as though the sound came from the room nearby.
‘STOP IT! STOP TYPING! PLEASE! END THIS! DON’T DO WHAT I KNOW YOU ARE THINKING OF DOING, I DON’T WANT TO DIE! PLEASE!’, screamed Greg but the fingers on the keyboard kept dancing, every tap now hammering along with his heartbeat; so fast, so stressed.
Greg started seeing me; sitting in the corner of the room, staring at his face as I typed away, all he could do was gawk back in blatant horror. But this is the way it was supposed to be, there is no other way to conclude this story. I don’t much care about how long it has been since all this started but to finally come to be in the same room with my own creation is oh so exhilarating and deserved, I feel like Klievkui might have felt when seeing Lee, after all I’ve invested of myse-
‘Oh, god! Just end it, finish this, I can’t tak-’ Greg begged me as the guards standing outside pounded the door and told him to shut it. All I had to do now was to beckon the crow to land on his windowsill.
‘You know what that means, Greg?’, I asked him as I sipped from my cup of tea.
‘I do, it’s from one of the stories I, I mean, you.. or maybe someone else made me tell Lee when I was a child, yes, yes, it wasn’t me, never was, it was somebody else’s stories. I can’t be the one to have inspired so much pain and anguish. Even though I only shared the truth, but oh..’, Greg replied, crying, staring catatonically at the floor, the crow cawed and pecked at the window; Greg couldn’t avoid seeing its shadow, I can’t let him, the story must end, after all.
‘It’s more of a myth, yes, go on’, I instructed him to.
‘It represents death, in many cultures the crow has been a sign or omen if not taken as the “angel of death” itself’, Greg finished, as he moved his head up towards me.
‘In the words of Karl Marx: “Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.” Which is it that you are, Greg?’ I inquired him with surgical interest.
‘I’m not sure. I’m not sure of anything, anymore. But I have a growing feeling that I was the tragedy; the fountain of insanity my brother had a swig from as a child. Unless, death’s more tragic than madness, I could be the farce. Oh god’, he replied, gagging.
‘I didn’t plan to make an appearance, but I thought a true deus ex machina was definitely in order with the amount of work you’ve put into deciphering all around you. You deserve closure, so here. Bravo, you are most certainly mad, but.. you’ll find solace in knowing that you are right, at least. Now, anyway, off you go’, I confirmed to Greg with a warm smile and gesturing towards the window.
‘I’m not the only one who’s mad, considering that you’re here too, in this room with me, talking to me!’ Greg laughed wryly.
‘I’m not in this room, I’m only projecting myself into it from another; the one I can sense with the senses that I have at least. Anyway, I created your world, and then handed it off to friends to have a go at; in a madly governed world, the mad are obviously the sanest. That goes for the both of us, I suppose’, I told him, somberly.
‘Hmm. I appreciate your honesty, at least you aren’t patronizing me for not being real enough’, Greg got up and walked towards the window to open it, admiring the crow with strangely resolved eyes.
‘I know you know what I think of what’s real’, I replied, stretching my back sitting in a really uncomfortable old chair, starting to perspire a bit.
‘Yes, everything is nothing but a grand soliloquy, so yes, I know. And you don’t have to say a word, I know what the crow means. It is my brother, he’s the new angel of death, working for Klievkui the warrior.’
‘Wow, to be fair to William, you sound completely ridiculous, y’know’, I chuckled, paused, and then continued tapping, facing left to keep Greg within sight.
‘I suppose so, ha!’, Greg blinked hard, shaking his head, to continue, ‘Would you have appeared to me if I hadn’t figured out that I was going to kill myself? That you were going to kill me?’ he finished, frowning in interest.
‘Trust me, you’re killing yourself. I’m only the reporter. Even though I have an active hand in directing you to do it, I would do so over and over if I had to; but consider that a compliment, really, since I find you to be rich enough a homo fictus to die in character. You are as real as real gets for me, friend. Goodbye’, I nodded, feeling, peculiarly.
‘I wouldn’t be able to live knowing what I know now and make it an authentic existence anyway’, Greg said, petting the crow and then moving away from the window to gear up.
‘Ah, well, sorry. Deus ex machina, as I said, both fortunately and unfortunately for you’, I laughed.
‘Well, here’s hoping I can make a comeback sometime soon, maybe as a cat or dog? Don’t you writers lot like staying indoors a lot, with your “pets”?’ Greg rhetorically inquired.
‘That’s quite stereotypical of you to say so but I suppose you’re mostly right. I’ll talk to the others about “Greggie the Guinea Piggy”, I like guinea pigs personally, maybe one of them would be interested in writing about your next incarnation’, I reassured him.
‘That’s good enough for me, well then, goodbye insanity.. or at least weird form of sanity! Hello running on a wheel over and over, wait.. isn’t that the same thing?! Ah, jeez, let’s just get this over with’, he shouted, growled, then ran, jumped, crashed into the window’s upper closed half and fell into a white void outside beneath I haven’t cared to imagine the details of.
I looked at the crow as it stared down, scratching itself.
‘What was all that about?! The guy nearly killed me, fucking sanitariums, I’m done with taking a shit around here, flipping freakazoids’, the crow cawed and then took flight off to I don’t know where ‘cause it doesn’t matter.
With
the story now completed, the “set”, constructed by 8 of us minds, loses purpose
and hence dissolves into the white, much like that of an empty page. At least
for now, it does. Since I’m here, it would be quite rude if I were to leave
without a few words. Apologies for the incredibly awful length of a chapter,
now, teasingly titled “The End”, but as I’ve said before, there was no other
way for me, representing all of us and the multitude of ideas, contributed
amazingly and acting like precious raw materials for this finale to be produced
with; I’d write the finale like this, same length, over and over if I had to.
Thank you for giving me this opportunity, it has been a lot of fun, hard too
but the fun obviously outweighed how hard it was, and I hope it has been so for
you too. Anyway, I’d better get off this page now.
The End.
