Will-o’-the-wisp: Chapter 2

The sun was shining in through the skylight above my bed when I awoke. I had overslept and judging from the angle of the sun it was already mid afternoon. As I sat up and brushed the hair out of my eyes, I lazily tried to reconstruct the events of the evening before. What was it about Ilias, I wondered, that made me this way? I’d been with other guys, included a few that I didn’t care to remember, but this was unlike anything I had ever known. It wasn’t a butterflies-in-the-stomach sort of feeling, or a basal sexual yearning. When I thought of him, nothing else mattered.

Of course I was also afraid; I was clearly losing myself to some unhealthy obsession. Logically speaking, I should have labeled my feelings as unremarkable trivialities. What reason did I really have to feel so strongly for him? I had spent so little time with him, and knew next to nothing about him. Then again, fixating on a nonexistent obsession could be equally problematic.

I’ve been in love before, right? It must be different, with him.

Sure, I could have known a little more about him, but what would mundane details really change? Would learning about his life in the chains of the world of men really change the way I saw the colours of his soul? I knew that there were things, of course, that a person could do in the waking world that would matter to me; but I could not see him committing those sorts of crimes. I forced myself to believe that his detachment was similar to my own, that he was merely struggling in this “reality” of ours.

If only I could find a way to reach him.

I conjured up a flimsy image of the wretched shadows that lie in wait, behind his eyes. Even the flat replica that lurked in my memory gave the impression of an unspeakable horror, one that could easily devour an army of men; but this was a pain that he managed to endure. Surely we were not all that different, but then my pain was not one that had a basis in this world. What if he had experienced some great trauma, one that left him inexorably bound to our shared waking dream? Though I had experienced things that were enough to produce profound anxieties in others, I knew that my “madness” was an intrinsic characteristic. But what if he were just a fiend, lying in wait, ready to consume me the moment he had the chance? I caught myself over-analyzing once again, exhaled sharply, and forcibly cleared my head.

As I experience my fear, my paranoia, I acknowledge that I am merely a witness. These thoughts of mine are not me. We have the ability to choose what aspects of our environment are worthy of self-identification.

After I had finished my morning primping routine, I slothfully descended the narrow flights of stairs to find that the Master had long since opened shop.

The sunlight lazily dribbled in through the clouded basement windows on the storefront. The Master was leaning against the counter, smoking a sweet-smelling variety of his favorite pungent herb rolled in blackened tobacco leaves. When the Shop smelled of marijuana and cloves it was always a good sign; I lit a bit of the Old Lady’s sandalwood incense near the door, and propped it open to let the place air out. Considering that the fishy smell of the city never managed to find its way inside, this may have been a futile gesture. The smoke blew through the sunlight, casting fleeting beams of shade through the air around me.

“What, so you’ve got to go and cover up my beautiful smell?” the Master joked stupidly, throwing a billow of dank musk my way.

Insert incoherent grunting here.

“You know, you really shouldn’t smoke that in your place of work.” I flipped my hand, as if to brush his complaint away as I chided him, then thrust my arm to my hip menacingly.

“Hm!” He exclaimed, pretending to contemplate the seriousness of it all, before giggling to himself yet again.

After taking the obligatory hit from his pipe, I filled a pot from the electric kettle and steeped some breakfast tea, yawning all the while. Sometimes when one dreams deeply, it takes time to reconcile with reality; as if there were actually a distinction between our “self” and the endless sea of memories that comprise it.

Unfortunately, as I couldn’t even begin to recall the dreams of the night before, that was hardly a valid excuse. Still, I was overcome by the sensation – like a powerful spell of déjà vu – that I had just been born into this world for the first time; as if some god somewhere had just now decided to dream me up out of oblivion. I ran through arbitrary memories of my life, and realized that I happened to be incidentally reconstructing myself in the process, rebooting webs of memory from an idle state. I decided that in the worst case scenario, I myself would have to be that author.

Would my two parallel selves actually affect each other, or could it just be some endless cosmic dance? Would we endlessly refine each other, or in the end be destroyed? And as for free will… Nothing like confounding a circular flow of thought with the question of determinism to start your day. How could I – why would I want to ask: which of us is “real?”

“Whoa, it’s after noon and you’re brewing Yorkshire. You must be feeling terribly groggy.” He said, prodding at me as he drifted by, leaving a thick trail of smoke behind him.

the Master and I both preferred green teas. Their subtleties were better suited to unadulterated enjoyment, but nothing knocks your socks off quite like a thick black English tea. I must have laughed to myself, realizing that even my choice of tea had long since begun to carry meaning for him.

Here it comes, creeping our way.

That man, Kevon, walked into the store just as I began to strain the tea leaves. He nonchalantly tossed his hideous briefcase onto a nearby table, and threw his arm around the Master’s shoulder in some semblance of a greeting. I had always assumed that they were lovers, but had yet to see the two of them so much as kiss.

Kevon called the Master by his first name, an act which seemed vulgar to me. The Master nodded his head and waved vaguely, apparently indicating that they’d like to have some time to themselves. He handed me a lilac shoulder bag as I passed through the veil of sandalwood to the street above. From the weight, I guessed that he had managed to pack my tea for me. He must have flashed a guilty smile as I grumbled, waved, and walked away.

“Have a safe trip.” Kevon had called after me, squeezing out all of the gentle formality he could muster.

I thought of the Ethereal Beastie, and it smiled at me from nowhere.

I hit my reset button again and forced a smile as I made my way down the street. There was something wrong with Kevon, but it was still beyond my ability to see. I felt guilty for my private disdain, but whenever he was around I was completely overwhelmed by that sort of unpleasantness. I assumed that it came not from myself, but from him.

I once had a teacher who was an art therapist – a legitimate, licensed clinician – who worked with men who battered their wives. They painted in order to learn to understand and express their emotions properly. The program was run by the same organization that provided safe refuge to the victims of those “patients”. Obviously the men were all criminally ill, but the idea behind the program was probably to rehabilitate them. For a person to be driven to such behavior surely required some degree of internal pain, but was there really any hope for real “rehabilitation?” Some of the men had been beating their spouses for years, and for most it was not their first abusive relationship. Still, they weren’t just going to disappear from the world, so the people who ran the program probably did their best to help them with the hope that they could minimize the suffering that these men were sure to inflict in the future. Even beyond the pragmatic side of it, part of me wants to see a world where everyone can be helped, no matter how despicable they might be.

When I thought of Kevon and the Master together, it was like seeing one of those dysfunctional couples. I pictured Kevon thrashing about on the ground, repenting for his sins and begging for some god’s forgiveness. The Master would lay his hand on the man’s back and softly tell him to let it all out. Kevon would embrace the Master in a fit of tears, attempting to mask the darkness that still swirled inside of him. As they went through this process repeatedly, Kevon would become unsure of his own intentions; no longer knowing whether he was there to hurt or heal, losing track even of the object of his actions.

Still, I couldn’t see the Master consorting with an evil person. Then again, I didn’t really know that people could be evil. Evil actions could be explained away by sickness, by misconception. Could it be the same for spirits, too? Were there gods that had false-consciousness and inferiority complexes? Either way, “morality” is a bitch.

A brown rat darted across the alley before me, exposing its scaly tail to the bright light that beamed down directly from above. The rats were getting brave, as the neighborhood – and the world – seemed to be declining.

Industry had gradually ceased to require the laborers of the last era, and the idiotic masses of the “first world” were still taking time to adjust. They spent their days filling out meaningless paperwork, fouling the air, and killing each other in the meantime. Other parts of the world were still “modernizing,” enveloped by the “advanced” cultures that they served. Some people even managed to see the seemingly impossible transformation from pastoralism to digitalism firsthand. The whole process was foolish, but I had come to feel that hating them for it would be even worse. I wish that I could live with the faith of a technocrat, but despite their promises, none of our advances are actually changing the rules of the game. In the end, no matter how the world might have grown in size or complexity, we haven’t managed to free ourselves from the bonds of our own power.

Even if I could hate “them,” who were they? Would I hate the small minded plutocrats who believed that they had earned their wealth? The laborers who bought into the system in order to survive? The impoverished souls who lacked the ability to feed themselves, let alone organize a revolution? I always liked to imagine the “enemy” as the ill-defined group of immoral players in our world-game, but I couldn’t really justify hating them either. When you meet someone “bad,” they’re usually full of hate. To revenge against them would probably be meaningless, if not evil in and of itself. “An eye for an eye leaves the world blind”; Besides, it’s too hard to split people you don’t know into clear cut groups.

Sick of pondering my Master’s obligations and the state of the world, my thoughts returned to Ilias. His hair, his voice, his eyes, and his pain. Before I knew it, I was once again dangling my feet of the side of the rickety old pier; I could feel the faintest sensation of someone’s soft lips pressing against mine. I sat there, for a while, dreaming of crafting a brilliantly selfish personal paradise, and drank a bit of tea.

Am I just another self interested actor in this world of ours? What gives me the right to pretend moral superiority over an abstract group of nobodies, while I continue to participate in this system?

A conveniently timed wind blew just the right way, and the huge red crane creaked behind me. I turned my head to the right, contemplating my destination. A ghostly visage of Ilias stroked my neck with the wind, tracing the angle between the protruding tendon in my neck to my collarbone, tugging at my shirt. I shuddered as the wind died down, dropping airy bangs over my right eye.

The Crane was a short way from the river, two streets past the Shop. It was the first time that I had really taken a close look at the building, and it occurred to me that it being unfinished might actually improve it. As I approached I surveyed the area around it, determining that there was absolutely no one in sight. The street was strangely deserted for the time of day. Unsurprisingly, no one was working on the building itself. There was no door at the entrance, nor windows in the walls; just a strange hunk of concrete and metal, a complete waste of labor. As I ducked through a hole in the fence, the bag on my shoulder began to weigh me down. I stepped inside the husk and looked up to follow the walls until they stopped abruptly halfway up the building’s skeletal form.

The sun was creeping along so slowly; it seemed as if it had become fixed to a single point in the sky. I tried to take a look at my phone, but it claimed that only twenty minutes had passed since I had left the Shop. I was mysteriously out of service. How typical, that I lose reception in the middle of the city, whilst gazing at the sky.

There was a ladder that went all the way up the finished portion of the inside wall, giving easy access to consecutive levels of steel beams where the floors would have been. I climbed three stories then stopped to take a sip of tea. The sky was full of fluffy clouds, trickling along as the wind picked up. I crossed over to the center of the structure, and climbed another few stories to the crane.

It was mounted near the top of the skeleton, with one of those bizarre adjustable climbing contraptions that would normally be reserved for much larger structures. Surely no one could have even considered building a skyscraper on this side of town? They had started the work only a few months ago, but the place had the taste of something that had been forgotten by the ages, the sense of an ancient ruin hidden deep under whistling sands. But no, this was definitely the city.

I swung my legs over a steel bar, and leaned against the crane’s control cabin. Down in the city below, a pack of teens came out of the bookstore owned by one of the Master’s many acquaintances. They looked like they were laughing about something, enveloped in their collectively blissful ignorance; one particularly lanky girl was left behind. She seemed to be staring hard at a shivering shadow on the ground. I imagined her trying desperately to remember something. Suddenly, she spun around to look straight at me, her hair flipping around in a whirly-wind jerk. Though moderately unsettled, I blankly returned her gaze for a moment. She waved; her hand was carelessly suspended in the air, and remained completely still for a breathless moment. In another awkwardly swift motion she turned and ran to catch up with her group, turning a street corner out of sight.

As if to remind myself that this brief interaction was a strong indicator that I had likely yet to fall down the rabbit hole, I gulped down the rest of my tea. The clouds of steam billowed out of my thermos into the dry air around me, whistling a strangely nostalgic chord. They sang to one-another, not of desert sands, but of a lush green that was miles away and yet right beneath my feet.

A high altitude wind blew down from the heavens, the only evidence from my vantage point being that a cluster of clouds above me suddenly burst apart; from a bubbly puff of cream to a set of conspicuously smooth wisps. The clouds and sky cracked apart, and out came the Crane.

Of course, this symbolic crane was of the ornithic variety, the pieces of the fading cloud became its wings and it spread out into the sky before dissolving into nothingness; I followed closely behind it. Normally, when a person finds themselves in a dangerous situation, say they’re falling asleep while sitting on a steel beam ten stories above the ground, an alarm goes off somewhere. Fortunately for me, I rarely had time to worry about such things. I listlessly drifted off towards the world of the Crane.

At first the world around me resembled a strange directionless combination of a cloud and a pond. A pale blue seemed to transmute itself from the weightless waters into a dense fog and back again. Then came the green things, spinning everywhere around me. The Crane that had called to me from the heavens was now standing before me, suspended above the murky-clear waters on one leg. I, on the other hand, found myself thoroughly wet. They crane’s eye seemed to pierce into me, as it enveloped me with a soft calm. Its life force stop-started and gradually washed over my consciousness like a swift-chilling breeze. I sank into the waters, as whatever had held me up gently lowered my shell down into the deep nothingness.

*

I awoke once again, staring up out of the cubicle lords’ tower. Two of the inside walls were shrouded in shadow now, and the Master was staring down at me with a curious expression on his face. He was probably trying to decide if I was alright, but after a moment, he returned his usual silly grin to its proper place on his face.

Ulric was there, sniffing a homeless man who was sleeping with a violin case on his lap a few feet from where I had been. The Master deposited a wrapped parcel, presumably containing something edible, onto the violin case. He then offered me his hand, helped me up, and the three of us strolled back to the Shop. He whistled all the way. I thought about the homeless man, still sleeping there.

When we returned, I brought the delivery bag back to the Master’s desk, retaining the thermos under my arm. There were a handful of books that were usually out in the front room strewn over his usual work. This sent an unmistakable chill up my spine. There were a couple of psycho-pharmacological texts accompanied by a shoddy looking journal titled with nearly illegible Chinese characters. The words blended together to form a long cursive stream with a blunt beginning and a soft end. It appeared to have something to do with herbal medicine, but there were a few characters that I couldn’t make out.

“What sort of concoction are you brewing up now?” I cautiously called back into the main room.

“Oh,” he chuckled, “you’ll see.”

I shivered again; The last time I drank one of the Master’s “special brews,” I saw God. Either “God” or my internal representation of the sum of reality. Call it what you will. As with most things, the truth was probably neither, both, and somewhere in between.

Just think, me and my alternate self, constantly dreaming each other into unreality. We don’t exist, and that’s what makes it all so interesting…

As if the psychotic episode that was sure to come wasn’t foreboding enough, I would probably be bedridden and defenestrating vomit for three days after I came to my senses. Even so, those kinds of experiences can be indispensable.

If nothing else, they teach you to appreciate those days when you can eat solid food; speaking of which, I probably only have a few days to build up my strength.

“By the way,” the Master called slyly as I climbed the stairs to my room, “Guess who’s coming to visit?”

I made myself a light meal, brewed some Da Fang tea, and lit some rose incense. I spent the rest of the day puffing on a brass pipe, listening to music, and skirting the lands between dream and day. Images of noble leaders, lovely flowers, honorable laborers, and flowery loves filtered through my eyes, as I drifted in and out of a shallow meditative bliss.

©2011-10-15 Joseph Alexander Fournier

[to be continued...]

Will-o’-the-wisp: Chapter 1

The Shop was empty; I was left alone with my thoughts once again. The Master was busy in his study, neck deep in some mound of indecipherable texts, and had left me to care for our innumerable patrons. After spending hours surveying our very own little desert oasis I began to drift off into a trance. At first my hands drifted out of my flesh; soon I found myself staring down at my body. Who could say how long I floated there? The light of three thousand worlds poured through me.

My self returned, and I stared hard into an old replica of a famous woodblock print, my eyes dazzled by the countless simplistic strokes that formed so many leaves of bamboo.

An azure dream of the greenest of all things.

The pale blue image took my emotions on tour as my mind filled in the blanks.

How is it that a work – no, a single drop of paint – that is completely without depth, can evoke the impression of vibrancy and life?

Leaves began to wave as the stalks twirled before an imaginary wind. A shrouded black figure sublimated from the paint. The Ethereal Beastie presented me with his ‘side-way’s’ hand and grinned at me with benign fangs. My curious fear twirled out between us, pulling the world of the painting further away from the Shop. Hundreds of dark sparks called themselves into existence around us, reciting a silent hymn.

My phone spewed forth with a delicate progression of chords, indicating that the tea was ready. I had been called back home. I strained the leaves, and brought a steaming cup of Jade Mist to the Master’s study. Ulric – the Tea Shop’s resident laze-monster – arched his spine carefully as he looked up at me from the Master’s lap, before hopping down and strolling out the door behind me. A hazy image of the tom’s romantic interest sitting outside the Shop flittered by me. The Master took the cue, and looked up at me with tired eyes, over his thin, round glasses.

He smiled that miraculously compassionate smile of his, his crow’s feet straining the blood-blue flesh that trailed from his eyes. His lamp flickered, allowing setting sun beams to filter down on me through the study’s basement windows; I shivered happily.

“Thank you as always, Alex.”

“How goes the search for truth, oh beneficent one?”

He laughed softly, then turned back to his stained mass of pulpy sheets.

He’s reading Husserl. Again.

I emerged to the street above just in time to catch two twittering cat tails dart down an alley. Ulric was always engrossed in such joyous pursuits; he was right at home working with us. I popped piezo-discs into my hearing holes as I fiddled with my phone; soon the relentless sound filled me with light.

How does the she-meow’s love differ from mine, I wonder?

I thought about smoking a cigarette, but instead drew an imaginary dark green wind into my chest. The familiar tune unraveled before me, and I waltzed down the street in a cat-like ecstasy.

Ah, summer.

I was overcome by the notion that someone, I didn’t know who, had just decided to come to the tea Shop. Normally, that would be all it took for me to dash back to work, but it didn’t seem like they’d be there soon, so I just kept on walking along. My intuition tends to be spot on when it comes to those sorts of things, so I didn’t really worry about it too much. Then again, I had made mistakes before. Every minute decision we make is a gamble, but in the end all we can do is try our best to read the tea leaves.

Our Tea Shop wasn’t really a source of income, it was more like a front. We weren’t dealing drugs or anything like that – at least not for a profit – but the Master did see a handful of regular clients. He wasn’t really a therapist either, although a relatively large number of the books that lines the walls of the Shop were indeed conventional psychological texts. At the time I wasn’t terribly sure about the nature of his real business, and he took care not to tell me things I didn’t need to know. Granted, he was lecturing me constantly, it’s just that the minor details of his everyday affairs were largely kept out of these discussions.

The Shop wasn’t really advertised either, and there weren’t a lot of commercial venues for a couple of blocks either. It was the very definition of a real hole-in-the-wall sort of place, crammed with old, worn furniture, odd artifacts, and the like. There was a small sign out front that read “Willow & Butterfly,” but it would be easy to miss for the casual passerby. I sometimes wondered if “normal” people could see it at all. This being said, there were still people who showed up just for the tea; but even the casual customers seemed to be quite beyond eccentricity.

*

The day he came it was very hot, at exactly thirteen minutes past six; the fishmonger’s smell almost managed to cross the threshold into the Shop. World-weary laborers and pop culture kids that moved in their unending kaleidokinetic dance were all drenched with sweat that day, but the beautiful hag glided into the Shop without so much as noticing the heat. Considering the heavy-looking robes she wore, that feat left me feeling particularly impressed.

Just before he entered the Shop, I imagined him outside, patting Ulric on the head as he stepped on a smoking cigarette butt. Streams of pale, flowing silk enveloped his slight, angelic figure. I saw bright eyes flash open widely before me; the weight of his presence pierced through me, and I felt that I had been born for that moment. Then he actually walked into the Shop, producing a bulging brown envelope from his messenger bag.

Ilias.

He smiled – so cutely – at me, with his dark blue eyes, and presented me with the package in a single beautifully fluid motion. I nodded as I took it, and could not help but to return his smile. I was instantly enamored, completely captivated, and enthralled by him.

The Old Lady blinked at me with a knowing smile – probably bemused by my sudden bought of dissociation – and waited expectantly.

“Ah, just a moment please.” I said, setting the envelope down on the counter as I bowed in a futile attempt to conceal my blushing face.

I steeped two more cups of Jade Mist, and led her to the Master’s study. It probably should have occurred to me to ask her what kind of beverage she’d prefer, but I almost never needed to ask. After a couple of weeks on the job I realized that no one really needed to be asked, and I always managed to pick out something that suited their tastes. People came at just the right time, and those that needed to pay managed to produce some appropriate clump of change without so much as a word. That’s just the kind of place it was. It resonated with some unearthly schedule, a place that seemed to be lying just beyond the edge of the world.

the Master was clearing off his desk, apparently in anticipation of her arrival, and without so much as a word handed me a lilac colored slip of paper with a short address on it.

“So you’ve arrived.” the Master muttered, clearly annoyed.

“I’m glad to see that you’re well.” The Old Lady replied, utterly unfazed by his impertinence. Her aura flared potently, but she was not even slightly angry.

Drawn in by the tension between them, I saw the Master in his youth; the not-quite-so-Old Lady was lecturing him furiously. He stared at his hands as tears pummeled the earth at his feet. I was overcome by a sensation that resembled the smell of blood.

“Alex, if you could.” the Master gestured to the door as he continued staring off into space.

I left the study, trying to force the smell of blood from my nose, and realized that I was actually the one bleeding. Scarlet drops plummeted from my face as my vision exploded into a haze of red and gray. Ilias leapt to my aid with a reddish handkerchief, clearly not expecting for it to be returned, then helped me to the washroom as I choked on my metallic tasting air-humor.

Once I had washed the blood away, I had to snap my mind back into a state of lucidity.

“We have an errand to attend to, it seems.” I sang to him.

“Wait, what?” He looked confused.

“I was under the impression that we were in the same line of work, but perhaps I was mistaken.”

Was it really all that odd to be sent somewhere by your employer, with absolutely no instructions whatsoever? I was already far too used to that sort of treatment, but it did mean that things were always interesting.

“I see,” He said, before pausing for a moment, “are you alright to be going out now?”

“Well, it seems to have passed.” I said, attempting to brush away his worry with a flippant hand gesture. “Let me just brew some tea.”

I stumbled away, briefly overcome with some vague anxiety, and quickly selected an appropriate brew. We were without words as we watched the careless steam curl up out of the tea pot between us.

After I began to pour our tea into a pair of matching thermoses, he brushed white-blond fluff from his eyes and interrupted me.

“Where exactly are we being sent?” Something about his tone seemed subtly feminine, whatever that means.

“I’m not quite sure.” I carefully presented him with the lilac slip, wondering how he saw me.

“Do you know where this is?” He asked, already plugging the address into his phone.

“Absolutely no idea, but it shouldn’t be hard to find.”

“Lead the way, then.” He closed his mobile and pocketed it, giving me a wry smile as he passed the note back to me.

I could sense some pain lingering beneath his mild mannered pleasantness, but let myself ignore it. We all have darkness lying in our souls, and to call it out needlessly only begs for trouble.

We emerged out onto the street above, carrying our tea with us; dodging pallets and the other junk that littered the pitiable alley of a street. The air was still a little dry. A tabby cat with a missing ear – probably an acquaintance of our Ulric – ran down the street, his destination already held clearly in his eyes. The pungent smell of fish hung on the wind, as always. We walked to the river in serene silence.

A kid rode by on his rusty bike, delivering dinner to a nearby patron. The sound of workers closing up for the night echoed to us on the wind with that unmistakable stench. A huge, ugly tanker’s horn blew in the distance, from somewhere down the river. A flock of gulls that had been hitching a ride took the the sky, in search of some calmer resting place. Ilias watched the birds, following them with awe as they flew beyond a huge red crane.

The crane had remained immobile, towering above our run-down corner of the city for the past few months or so. Hanging above the half finished cubicle of a building, the enormous machine seemed to be watching over everything. I closed my eyes for a moment, and tried to push my awareness in that direction. I could feel something unusual emanating from it but, strangely, I couldn’t feel it directly.

A couple of old men walked by, wearing casual work attire. They were your average middle management types, probably both planning for their retirement. What kind of life do they lead, I wondered; I already knew, and could hear echoes of their peaceful decline, but that was the sort of blindness that was all but incomprehensible to me. Go to school, work, retire, and die. This was the way of those who spent their days preoccupied by the world of man. I may fear and detest their way of life, but I still pray for their kind; it’s something about trying to feel compassion for all living things, I suppose.

Ilias and I hung our legs from an old wooden dock, one that had probably long since lost any practical purpose. Still, we had very little to say; fortunately we had our tea. I wondered if it was awkward for him, which had to mean something about how I felt about us sitting there in silence. I decided that there was no need for words, any small talk would only serve to depersonalize our fresh acquaintanceship; besides, I could feel that we were both in the same place at that moment, quietly waiting for our Masters to set our worlds in motion.

We were sitting there, sipping our scarlet robe oolong; until, without any warning whatsoever Ilias slumped over and rested his head on my shoulder, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. I collected myself and responded in kind, putting my arm around his shoulder.

“You smell like tea.” He said plainly.

“What a thing to say on our first date.” I said mockingly, eliciting a soft giggle from him.

“Is this a date? I thought we were out on business.” He didn’t seem terribly bothered.

“Why does there need to be such a clear distinction?”

He said nothing and cuddled up against me.

“Well then, you smell like sandalwood.”

“I would hope so.” He said before looking at his hands briefly.

I don’t believe in love at first sight, but sometimes it only takes a few words for you to feel like you can see a part of someone’s soul. It’s never really possible to know someone in their entirety, but if you listen closely, you can feel certain things. Somehow, we just knew that we fit together in some way. In discovering my newfound affection for him, I saw a great hole in my heart that I had never seen before; I knew that he had a similar gap, but also that we were not deficient for that. Our auras mingled, and the evening trickled away.

The smell of the impure water coursing beneath our feet enveloped us as the day began to draw to a close. The sun inched its way towards the horizon, threatening to draw the perfect day to its inevitable end. Though the air was still dry, I imagined a mist gathering up around us, secluding us there. I knew that there would be a deep fog that night; I longed for it to come, as if it could keep us there together.

The crane creaked in the distance, as if to remind us that our destination was already clear; yet I felt that tonight was not the best night for us to go there. It was rare for the Master to make a mistake, but not impossible.

Before I knew it, we were already stepping back down into the Shop. Ilias would have to leave soon, and I had no idea how long it would be before I could see him again; I didn’t know what to say, so I remained silent. The Master and the Old Lady were sitting in the front room, passing a long brass pipe back and forth. Ilias waved his hand in front of his nose, and I forced myself to laugh.

“If you’re going to smoke that in here,” I began, “you should at least close up shop first.”

the Master laughed loudly – he was completely stoned – and motioned for us to join them, but the old lady stood up abruptly.

“We do have some other business to attend to,” she coughed softly, covering her mouth with her robe’s sleeve, “so I’m afraid we’re going to have to cut our visit a little short today.”

Before I had the chance to let my head droop down and stare off into space, the Master began laughing loudly.

“Aw, poor Alex just doesn’t know how to cope with that news!” He exclaimed in a humorous tone. “And to think, you could have stayed out and found yourselves some real trouble to deal with.”

“Today wasn’t a good day for it.” I mumbled softly, before stubbornly re-lighting the pipe.

“Quite right,” he grumbled, as if acknowledging his own failure.

“I tried to tell him,” the Old Lady said as she made her way for the door, “but by the time I managed to, you two were already long gone. “

She glared at the Master, then said “Looks like your lad has some sense, at least.”

I felt insulted, but did my best not to let it show; I had to remind myself that it was a compliment. Besides, she seemed to have long since earned her right to chide the Master.

The Old Lady handed Ilias a hand bound book from the Master’s study, which he promptly deposited into his bag without a second glance.

I saw them out, and made a conscious effort not to look at his ass as they walked away. He turned back, smiled, and waved. I lit a cigarette after they had turned the corner, sighing dejectedly as I did so.

“Relax,” the Master said as I returned to the Shop once again, “They’ll be back before you know it. Oh, come to think of it, I have something else for you to do in the meantime…”

[To be continued.]

©2011-10-02 Joseph Alexander Fournier

Dragonfly Sex

[Note: Farcical flash fiction about alchemy and vulgar nautical intercourse.  One of my first attempts from last year.]

Back in the garden at last, it was all I could to do sleep. Curled up on the ground, I immediately drifted off; diving into my land of fairy tales. The sky was an exact replica of the garden-world’s, vaguely blue, concealed by an eternal mist, and somehow dynamically unchanging. I don’t really know what that means, either. The first difference that I noticed, was the apparent lack of an ocean. I appeared to be standing on a platform, floating in some fixed position in the sky. It was made of limestone, perfectly white and smooth.

The old man’s boat pulled up behind me, drifting on some unseen river. He was brewing tea, and I found that I was sitting in the boat with him. We were floating down a river, concealed from above by a great canopy. These were trees that I had never seen before; they had cone-shaped leaves, and were emitting some mildly sour odor. Somehow I heard them singing; it was a melancholic harmony, that twisted with the wind. Just when I thought a melody would be introduced, they pulled back. It was as if they were waiting for someone to give the signal, to fill in the gaps.

My attention had wavered for far too long, so of course, the old man was already long gone. This time, he left enough tea for me alone.

Just as I started to doze off again, drifting on that ethereal river, a dragonfly landed on the edge of the boat. Without giving me a moment to acclimate to his presence, he started to complain about his day. I was annoyed at first, but quickly began to relish in the company. The trees were practically ignoring me, there weren’t any fish, and pretty much everything else nearby seemed to be avoiding the “river” as we passed by.

Mr. Gripe told me that he hadn’t had a decent meal in days, his wife left him, and he lost his inheritance to his greedy bastard of an uncle. Was he making this foolish tale up on the fly, for my benefit? Really, when I decided to sleep back at the garden, the idea of finding myself wrapped up in some otherworldly being’s agenda was almost certainly the furthest thing from my mind.

Strangely, or perhaps not so strangely, the old man’s tea seemed to leave me feeling quite well rested, as if I had slept for several days. Besides, floating in an ugly red canoe in the middle of a vapid, yet beautifully lively world, was just what I needed. It would have felt so cathartic; The dragonfly went on babbling.

This was the kind of journey I was used to. No pain, suffering, conflict, or ethical confusion. Just meeting new life, and wandering aimlessly through a sea of stars. The dragonfly was telling me about this woman he had been sleeping with on the side, lately.

“She only appears in my dreams,” he said, “but she’s definitely waiting for me somewhere. The only problem,” he started griping again, “is that she might be a bird. Do you know what birds do to dragonflies?”

“Well, maybe you should try men,” I suggested, gesturing to some other buzzing creature as it flew by.

He sighed, then without asking, landed right on my teacup. After consuming some of my precious old man nectar (ew!) he transformed into a super sexeh hunk. (<3)

By the time I realized he was in the nude, he had me on my knees and bent over. I tried to picture what was surely a glorious MAN STICK, but when he inserted his slippery member into me, all functional thought on my part ceased.

It was some of the hottest, raunchiest, most jungle fabulous canoe sex I had ever experienced; which is saying something, because for a nature spirit, I’ve spent an inordinately large amount of time on my knees in some old geezer’s watercraft.

Mr. Gripe was a pro. Not only could he transmute six kinds of flavored lube from chinese black tea, but he seemed to know exactly where my pleasure spots (?) were. He was a real gentleman, too, and like all gentlemen do, he reached around and cranked me while he mercilessly pounded my ass like some kind of deranged debt collector hits the dusty accounting books.

I’ll never forget ol’ Mr. Gripe the dragonfly, not because of the way that he lovingly plowed me, because of my memories of him leaving his delicious seed on the side of my erection, because of the scars he left on my torso, or even because of the painful months I spent recovering from the clap. I’ll always remember him, because I absorbed a tangible portion of his soul, nutritious as it was. That, and most of his sense of self seems to be lodged in both my rectum (or perhaps just my long-term memory;) much harder to get rid of than any venereal disease. <3

I’ll never forget you, Mr. Gripe.

©2010-09-04 Joseph Alexander Fournier

Nameless

Rainwater gushed down through the storm drains. I was sitting in a puddle of water, against the concrete wall of some unidentifiable building. Sodium-orange light reflected off of a thin layer of oil as it slipped down into the sewers below my feet. My shoes were soaked through and my hair was dripping wet. I held my hand out in front of me, assessing my body’s relative level of discomfort, and I realized that I couldn’t remember where I was. It was as if I had been prefabricated with a lifetime of memories, and had only just been tossed carelessly into the world by some mischievous deity that had long since been forgotten.

How did I end up here, again?

I called up a few arbitrary memories – my name, my age, and the like – and decided that it was a Tuesday night. I had been working, went out for a drink with a coworker, and was probably just on my way home. Excessive drinking would have explained my aching stomach, ravenous thirst, and general sense of malaise.

“What a relief,” I thought to myself with a sardonic groan, “I know who I am.”

I put my hands together, closed my eyes, and tried to collect myself. Whenever I try to calm my mind, I feel like I’m trying to tell the ocean to behave and get into a drinking glass. Meditation is, as a rule, more like becoming chaos than commanding it. We bend ourselves to see harmony that is already there, and somehow this pitiable effort at discipline actually changes us.

In the end, I was able to calm myself, but still felt a little bit out of it. Maybe I was still drunk, maybe a little stoned. I imagined burrowing under my quilt, pressing myself up against the radiator, and making a nice hot pot of tea. The fleeting taste of a grassy brew and the sensation of soft paper fluttering under my fingertips was all of the motivation I needed to stand up. That, and my ass was cold and wet.

While I wasn’t entrapped by some inconvenient dissociative fugue, I still didn’t have a clue as to what was going on. Left with little else to work with, I put one foot in front of the other.

“I’m just a little bit out of it, right?”

I walked along, puzzled, trying to find a street sign or some other indication as to where I was. I patted my pockets to discover that I wasn’t carrying my phone, or anything else for that matter. Somehow, I wasn’t surprised.

Great, I’m walking through the city in the middle of the night, and I don’t even know the time. You’re so careless, sometimes. It’d be cute, but damn is it annoying.

By the time the sound of the splashing footsteps behind me registered as a potential threat, he had his arm around my neck and was pulling me into an alley. I tasted sweat as he clamped his hand over my mouth and dragged me behind a dumpster.

“Please be quiet,” he whispered, “they’ll hear you.”

I convinced my limbs that struggling would be pointless – he had completely overpowered me – and let my body fall limp against his. I could hear several pairs of footsteps. He slowly lowered us to the ground, the back of his shirt sliding against wet brick with an unpleasant sloshing sound. I realized that my thoughts should have been running a mile a minute, but they weren’t. I wasn’t quite frozen either; rather than being shocked it was like I was in a trance. Locked in his embrace, I found myself partially aroused.

Shit, is this the sort of thing that turns me on these days? No, it’s probably just a strange reaction to a strange situation. Come to think of it, am I tripping or something? Should I try to escape? I could bite his hand, but… is he running from someone?

It began to rain harder. Someone shouted. A figure darted past the alley, missing us completely. I couldn’t really see anything, but I somehow decided that ‘they’ weren’t cops. Not the kind of everyday police officers that I was used to, anyway.

I have a strange relationship with authority, and I always have. I’m not foolish enough to imagine them all as being a benign, helpful force of authority that acts by our collective will – come to think of it, I don’t know if I would trust any hand of our society – but they’re not all bad either. I’ve seen too many people get busted over petty things to love them, and had too many handsome uniformed gentlemen hold doors open for me to hate them. As with most difficult matters, I cop-out and take the middle ground. I see practically everything as a subtle variation of gray.

What is this guy going to do with me? I don’t have anything for him to steal… What am I supposed to be thinking about at a time like this?

As I watched my vision narrow down to a single point, I contemplated the way his body was pressed against mine. I could feel his heart racing, and hear its force travel through me. I toyed with the idea of dying there, in that strange man’s arms.

Would it really be so bad?

He finally took his hand from my mouth, before standing up and – as I imagined it – brushing himself off nonchalantly. I gasped for breath as my vision gradually returned, falling to my hands and knees.

“Ok,” I screeched under my breath “what the hell?!”

“Sorry about that hon.” He whispered as he walked a few steps away from me, before peering out on to the street. Everything around me seemed to be – don’t ask me why – enveloped by a faint coating of blue.

“Who was that, chasing you?” I asked, starting to feel brave.

“I could tell you, but then they’d have to kill you.” He said flatly, obviously trying to sound cool.

“Oh please, don’t try to feed me cliché bullshit. I’m not going to buy it.” I was beyond irritated. “Do you owe someone money, or what?” I was, of course, picturing some group of hired muscles (brainless, of course) acting under the orders of a sinister loan shark. One with a mean leather coat, a shiny sport car, and fat cigars. Naturally, he would be surrounded by cheap looking women, and…

“Wait a second, you’re a guy, aren’t you?” He sounded genuinely surprised. It was a common mistake, and yet I still felt myself flush. If I really cared, I’d probably put more effort into “manning up” my appearance.

He looked at me, peering with an angry dog’s eyes, and gradually allowed himself to display a curious half-smile.

“Obviously?” I blurted out after a long pause, still trying not to sound terrified. I really needed to keep my thoughts in check, or I would never live to see myself utter a timely response.

His green eyes managed to shine brightly under the dim light. He was good-looking; captivating really. Definitely not the typical thug mug that I expected when he grabbed me. I backed away from him as my stomach twisted itself into a cold, hard knot.

I should really be getting home, but…

“Come on.” He said, grabbing me by the wrist.

Alright, so it probably wasn’t my brightest moment when I decided to let some wolfish guy abduct me, but I followed him without resistance. Somehow, the way he tugged on my sleeve seemed to be beyond familiarity. Intoxicated by that warm, sweet nostalgia, I forgot that I had begun to shiver violently.

Possible drug use, illusions of déjà vu, and momentary oxygen deprivation, all connected by some strangely thematic sense of depersonalization; it was making for an interesting night.

It became increasingly obvious that he knew his way around, as we wound our way through a seemingly endless network of alleys and dimly lit side-streets. We must have been turning and worming our way through the least conspicuous places he knew, but in retrospect it seems more like we were careless strolling down one short bright path.

Part of me expected, perhaps even desired, for him to catch me off guard and suddenly throw me against the ground. Obviously, he would proceed to have his way with me, then leave me for dead. For all of their violent, erotic appeal, I knew that such experiences were far from pleasant. I knew that I couldn’t enjoy something like that in reality, and that there had to have been something terribly wrong with me for me to be fantasizing about it so. Given the circumstances, the healthy thing to do would have been to look for a way out.

I’ve never been one for pursuing the obvious course of action.

His apartment, a shitty little unfinished studio, was only a few blocks away. He began stripping off his soaked garb before we actually made it up three flights of stairs and through the doorway. I was gasping for breath, drifting in and out of our grand ethereal dream. It had been several minutes since he let go of my hand, leaving me with little excuse for continuing to follow him to my potential doom. I conscientiously averted his gaze, forcing myself to avoid the urge to take a long careful look at his body.

He tossed a t-shirt and a towel at my face, and I barely caught them; I was miles away, after all.

“Um,” I said, distraught by the sure blatancy of my discomfort, and asked “where’s your bathroom?”

He narrowed his eyes, forming an expression that shouted “idiot” from the rooftops. He gestured behind me with the shirt he was still holding, before stretching it over his head. It turned out I had been unconsciously backing away from him, and was already leaning against his bathroom’s door. Part of me wanted to laugh at myself, but I was too busy feeling like a complete imbecile.

Breathe.

“Can’t change around other guys, huh?”

“Well,” I tried to conceal my panic by speaking slowly, “I need to piss.”

“Right.” He said, brushing his still-dripping hair out of his eyes as he smirked to himself.

I closed the door and sank to the ground. Surprisingly enough, the tiny room’s tile floor wasn’t covered with grime; but the black and white tiles were old and cracked. I nearly smacked myself for becoming absorbed by trivial material details, when I still had absolutely no idea where I was.

This is not a date, you just followed some stranger home.

He tapped the door lightly, and called in. “Don’t take too long, princess. We need to get out of here.”

I washed my face and changed my shirt. I almost walked out, then remembered to flush the toilet. Yes, I felt the need to flush for show. Then, of course, I had to wash my hands again. I couldn’t have my abductor thinking I was unhygienic.

Man alive, am I tightly wound or what?

I spent a moment counting my breaths, wondering and hoping and dreaming for something I’d never bothered to define. When I finally left the bathroom, he was staring at me, waiting. Naturally, I jumped in surprise.

Am I acting for his sake?

He smiled wickedly before smacking one palm against the wall and leaning in towards my face.

“Are you afraid of me?” He asked in a tone one would normally reserve for a familiar lover.

I could feel his breath as it softly grazed my skin. The sensation trapped me halfway between delight and terror.

“Shouldn’t I be?” I stammered coolly.

He looked away, with a faint pain drifting beyond his eyes.

Surely, we aren’t both just playing a game? Is our world really so superficial? Is this all we are?

“Listen, I’d send you on your merry way, but I need your help. I need somewhere quiet to stay tonight.”

“Well, my roommate will be pissed, but we can probably go to my apartment.” I responded without thinking. “Where are we, exactly?”

He blinked. “Detroit and Nebraska.”

I must have looked completely and utterly bewildered, because he continued. “In Toledo.”

I slumped down to the ground, eyes closed. “My place might be a little far.”

“What were you doing around here tonight, anyway?” He asked cautiously.

“I’m not really sure. I may be coming off of something.”

“And here I thought I just made you nervous.” He grinned deviously. “Are you feeling alright?”

“Yeah. Those people… why are they following you?”

“You already asked me that.” He grumbled as he tossed me a bottle of water.

“Maybe I should leave.” I said, taking a step for the door.

He blocked my path. “And if you’re working with them?”

“I don’t even know who ‘they’ are.” I sighed.

“Have you ever learned something you were never meant to know?”

“Oh, please.” I snorted.

I walked over to him, and his entire body went tense. If I tried to leave, he would undoubtedly stop me. He was half a head taller, and unquestionably stronger than me. There was no point in trying a daring escape. Besides, he could practically materialize amenities from thin air. What could be more handy than that?

My vision blurred slightly, and I was overcome by the sensation that I had slipped into a dream. I heard a C major chord, and became aware of the sound of an old clock ticking away. I tasted metal, and could smell my own blood.

His knowing eyes flickered as my hand glided from his shoulder to his cheek.

“We have to hurry.” He looked away, and sighed.

I wanted to call work and give them some lame excuse about a family member passing away. I didn’t have my phone with me, I would explain, and I would need to take the rest of the week off. The thought of returning to work at all seemed like an unpleasant dream to me, but something inside me compelled me to fulfill my obligations nonetheless. I worked for a small research firm, but even so, the staff was large enough that my absence would not be too problematic. They would just chalk my absence up to the unavoidable, and make a neat little note in my file. I was just another resource to them, and yet I felt guilty about the whole ordeal. I had to remind myself that I was inconveniencing actual people, with my inexplicable escapade. My coworkers would probably wonder how I had just disappeared from their lives. What exactly did it mean, for me to work there anyway? I tried to remember the last woman from the firm who passed away, but somehow couldn’t quite picture her face. Even if it were remotely possible that he would let me make a call, I was far too tired to ask.

He insisted that we take the fire exit, and we dove down a chain of ladders to the city below. We darted this way and that, and it quickly became apparent that he was looking for an opportunity, rather than mapping a route of escape. Once he found a vulnerable looking vehicle, I realized that we wouldn’t be able to experience the typical delight of sewer diving, or any other such grandiose cliché. Besides, I doubt that the sewers of such a small city would have been fit for that.

He tore through the console, wired in a specialized terminal of some sort, and had the car running all in under five minutes. It was fascinating to watch him work, guiding his practiced hands through the routine. It was a skill I could easily develop, and yet I had never even bothered to consider that I might need to steal a car one day. He could have been a thief extraordinaire, or a terrorist. I didn’t care much either way, but I imagined that he was labeled by his adversaries as a vulgar compromise between the two.

As we sailed north on the highway, I contemplated the moral implications of car theft. Some poor sap was sure to rise early for his daily commute, only to find that his fine vehicle was simply not where he left it.

Now this is truly a blow against the bourgeois, we’ve hacked the legs off of one of their mindless little lambs…

I wondered why he couldn’t tell me what kind of trouble he was in. Of course, I also continued to question my own judgment; what kind of fool would just hand themselves over to a stranger like that? It wasn’t really all that different from my usual romantic encounters, admittedly, but that was probably strange too. How is it that we are born into a world of our own, infinitely isolated from each other, and still come to grow dependent on each other? How can we trust, let alone love, the people around us? What do we ever truly know? He was probably just taking advantage of me, but I could only see one path before me.

“Hey,” I said, as if I were sending the word across an unending sea.

“Hm?”

“Why are we traveling together, right now?”

He was silent for a moment. The street lights seemed to blur together into one ghostly mass, as I stared out ahead of us. I had driven this highway at least twice before, once in the middle of the night, but I felt as though I had never been here before. With each bend, my attention bounced and twisted from one detail to the next. I was swept up by invisible currents, and the long winding road became my consciousness. Each light we passed delivered a pulse of information that flowed through me. The rhythm of the lights transformed me into an endless, silent song.

“I know I’m imposing,” he began, drawing me back down to our phantom earth, “I know I’m dragging you into this, but I do need your help.”

I didn’t respond, and was overcome by the sensation that we had become lost together in some alternate reality. It was as if we were enveloped by the road. Then I wondered if he was experiencing anything remotely similar. I could ask, but I would never really know for sure. Where did I get the idea that we were here together at all, anyway? Would it really have been surprising for him to have been a figment of my demented imagination? I pictured myself wrapped up and locked away, and shivered.

Will he abandon me when he has what he needs? What does he need, exactly?

“Do you ever feel as though you’re looking at the world from outside?” I asked.

“Not really.” He responded. “I’ve heard people say things like that, and you see it in movies, but I always just wonder how there could be an ‘outside’ to look in from.”

“Hm.”

“If there is a ‘beyond,’ I have no way of knowing what it would look like.”

Not an unusual response, I decided with resignation.

“You know, it’s not just that. Have you ever ‘seen the world,’ when you were meditating? Who am I kidding, you’ve probably never meditated. Have you dropped acid, or smoked pot, at least?”

“Yeah.” He replied.

“Both?”

“All three.”

“So you know what I’m talking about?”

“I’ve never ‘seen the world,’ as you put it, but I’ve met people who’ve said things like that.” He sounded a little sad.

“Mm.” I responded.

“It’s a truly beautiful idea.” He conceded.

“But to you, it’s just an idea.” I sighed.

“Pretty much.” He was silent for a moment before he continued. “You’ve considered that the ‘world’ you see inside of yourself actually exists inside of you, right?”

“It doesn’t feel that way at all, and it’s not just me. Even if it is inside of me, why shouldn’t a part of the world contain the whole?”

“That’s always seemed like an absurd notion to me.” He said flatly. “I might be able to buy the ‘universal harmony’ bit, but the world I see around me is not some divine expression of unity. While you’re deluding yourself with your naïve fantasy of compassion, there are people out there killing each other over things you’ll never even begin to understand.”

“I realize that.”

“Do you?” He took his eyes from the road, and looked into mine for a moment.

“Does it bother you?”

“Hm?”

“That I can live in the same world as you, and see a world that is essentially good? That I see the entirety of our existence as a manifestation of our collective love?” I bit my lip, trying to hold back any further attempts at selfless grandiosity.

“Religion is always the same.” He muttered.

“Calling my philosophy, as I’ve presented it to you thus far, religion would be a stretch.” I said, as if bemused by his harsh attitude.

“So, do you believe in a god?” He asked lazily. How many times had each of us had a conversation like that before?

“Not really.” I said, before sticking my tongue out.

He laughed, but said nothing.

“What about you? Are you religious?” I asked.

“You can’t guess?”

“What about spirituality, then?”

“I’m open to suggestions.” He said this in a sarcastic tone, but I imagined something far more suggestive.

Overcome by a pulse of hormones and still in a hazy, disabled state I blindly succumbed to a pure, simple urge; I put my hand on his. His hand remained idle on the shifter; I could feel him relax as I locked my fingers in his.

© 2011-09-29 Joseph Alexander Fournier