Chapter I:
Setting The Stage
Dust motes shimmered. The angle of the setting sun sent a shaft of light through the battered windowpane. Leaning back against the crumbling wall of forgone paint, he laid a hand on his bruised knee. To the knee, the warmth of his hand seemed inexplicable. As though a power greater than he used the opportunity to query his vexed mind.
Never could he remember a time without it, as though it had always been there. Inexplicable. Dauntingly unspeakable. Where were the words? Had they overlooked something when piecing cognizents into language? Perhaps they were too busy dealing with everything else.
Inwardly he caught himself chuckling. Outwardly, his face set into firm resolve. Questioning the facts would take a lifetime at least. The lingering knowledge of his vision haunted him. Impertinent, it demanded of him. A nameless wonder had shown itself for but a moment, but it had changed him. Now there was nothing of going back to the way life was. He was sure of that as anything he had come to know.
"Barack, it's time to go."
Glancing up from is moment of reverie, he saw her standing where the door would have been, had it been closed. A faint smile played across her face.
"The time ripens, and there is much to be done." Alice gently reminded him.
"We've been through this." Barack shot back, with a touch more bitterness than he had intended. "I'm not what you think."
Freely she laughed, and soo quickly that he was reminded of how close she was paying attention.
"You've more in you than you suspect." was all she said, as she turned and left.
In the distance, a dog howled. Once... Twice... Thrice. Before the sound had faded, he knew it was true. It was time to go.
"?" Barack muttered. "How is it supposed to happen?" he wondered aloud, as he pulled himself upright. Already gone, he didn't expect her to answer. The only answer came from the crumbling room, as though it was relieved to be left to it's own thoughts as well. Silently, it wished him luck, if you could put such a thing to words.
The night was warm and thick. The low clouds did more than simulate dreaming... They hinted at a primordial time when the world was content with a little less atmosphere. When the grip of strange creatures was a little more firm. Strange creatures. Oddly he felt more akin with strangeness than the hum of the city life encircling him.
"Where are we going?" he asked when he had caught sight of her again.
"We go." was all she had to say.
Somewhere, the sun shone, the rocks spun, and there was nowhere left but forward. Widening his stride, he was soon at her side. Stealing a glance of her umbrella, he stiffled a shiver. No matter when or where he looked, the damned thing was always changing color. Not exactly changing, as far as he could tell. Though he assumed there was a transition somewhere, he had never witnessed it. It merely was a completely different color whenever he looked, acting as though it had never been any color but the one it showed.
Absently, he kicked a rock off the edge of the curb.
"So, let's say we do this. And by some off chance, people take to refining themselves more than oil. What then? Propagate and die happy?" Barack lobbed the query, more interested in her style of response than any concrete assurance of their plan.
"Sure." she said. The humor had left her tone. "Though, first... a place to be."
With that, they strode firmly into the night. An unspoken agreement lingered beside what was spoken. He knew that whatever might come, they would act together, as one. Her mind was leaning forward into action. He could feel it. Like a man caught in a tree, with nothing but the ground to look forward to, his fate was sealed. Some secret part of himself welcomed the absoluteness of it all. But there was something else. Something on the surface of his mind. An insidious doubt masquerading as surety. Like a film, it all but obscured his deeper instincts. How could he sit in a darkened theatre and see the screen beyond the movie?
She looked sharply over while he was gently stroking his darkness. In an instant he saw himself raise hackle. An old habit, defensive of his illusions, he felt the tendons just next to the bone tighten ever so slightly. As tension hit his realization, he paused.
As though changing lanes, he dropped it. Barack dropped the cloistered opaqueness faster then he realised he'd had it, and walked on.
With a smug grunt of satisfaction, she carried on as well.
In a desert, half a world away, a whirling dervish puts on his accustomed garments.
"This place to be, shall we find it, or make it?" Barack asks as they walk from one streetlamp to the next.
She lingers with her response. A full two lights glide past before she quietly replied "There is nothing made that is not found."
"Hmf..." He grunted. Pushing his hands into his pockets, he shrugged his jacket a little more comfortable.
The city around them went on about it's business, as though there was nothing strange about the pair of them. Wives and husbands drove towards or away from each other, absorbed in the thoughts only a city would think. Bikes carried children withersoever they would go. A plump housecat gazed down from above, content behind it's glass window, while an emancipated alley cat howled it's heat across the way.
Near an ocean, a woman placed food in front of her revered deity, only to remove it and offer it to another.
"Which would you have?" Alice asked of him, not bothering to mask the amusement in her voice. "Debate or decision?"
Barack glanced at her, and it turned itself into a gaze. Her eyes shown with a knowing he couldn't quite fathom. When the left of his mouth twitched into a smirk, he found the words. "Leave the debate for the others."
His smirk found it's way to her face. "A town that weathers the storm is a town that requires a norm."
"True enough..." Barack sighed. "But evolution favors the strange."
"In days of old, a kercheif was enough to send a knight along." Alice quipped. "Shall we content with a roof to sleep under and a labor to keep it so? Many a truth was wrought from humble beginnings."
"Wise beyond your years, as they say. I conceed. Do you fancy a place?" He asked.
"I am but a yolk if this world be an egg." The tone of her voice showed that much was meant to be left unsaid.
With that, the two went off into the night. In the shadows of a nearby stair, a man in rags lay on his cardboard bed, staring off into space. He had caught the last bit of the conversation, and now lay thinking thoughts he hadn't had the day before.
Chapter II:
Mastering A Door
Janet pulled off the freeway just as the stereo found room for one of her favorites. By the time she pulled into the parking lot of where she worked, she was singing and almost giddy with excitement. She knew the words, she knew the pitch, and the tone was no mystery. A glimpse of the dashboard told her she need not rush. A full fifteen minutes before they expected her, Janet sat in her parked car, singing and dancing in her seat as she let the song run it's course. When it had finished, she collected her coffee and lunch and headed indoors.
Deep in the bowels of the earth, a bit of super-heated lava swirled together, forming a clenched fist. Satanfist, created fist first, eventually smiled as the rest of him slowly took shape.
Janet smiled and waved to Linda, the receptionist. Linda had done her hair up into a bun, and had her usual librarian spectacles. Nice once you knew her, she had a strange detatchment most the time. The office quietly attributed it to her past fling with some cults. She did her job quite well, and seemed to bring the tension level down a bit, so they kept her on.
Satanfist began ascent from just to the left of the exact center of the earth. This is what he thought.
"winds whisper more than roar?"
"sure, they didn't have medicine like now, but to go around poof-ing it away isn't sustainable. It's the point of fact: investment of powers"
"if a cave's in a boat, and intentions to float, a course must be set, lest nowhere you get."
Janet flipped on the light to her office, everything where she had left it. She set her purse next to the computer and opened her coffee cansiter as she sat down. Always a go-getter, her inbox had a warm welcome for her. She felt needed.
