Miss Bibliophile

The last light of day watches over the man. Hours passed by before he reached the thick forest surrounding the mountains. Great and round, the trees have branches that get larger the further under the canopy he ventures. Sparse numbers have the beauty of a flourishing sampling. Many try to reach out hungrily towards him to draw blood. He comes prepared for the journey: a hatchet of unnatural strength to clear out these wretched and greedy branches, food and water to last a week, a harpoon as long as he is tall, and clothes made of material harvested from mithril and steel. He pauses at the sound of groaning wood. It becomes louder as he stays still. After the sound gradually silences, he retrieves a book from his pack. A little thing wrapped in weathered animal hide, bound with a sap mixture strong enough to make a demi-god struggle, and written in his own thin writing. The silence pushes down around him. He opens to a page, careful not to break each fragile piece of vellum, messily detailing the plans laid out; preparations for harvesting beasts, ways to steal into coveted hoards, and possible scenarios of death. None brought a chill to his spine. Not the obstructed way he came through to enter the forest. Not the somber drumming of unnatural sounds seeping up from beneath every tree. ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ Time is lost in absence of light. Despite an ache in his bones, the man travels over damp earth and through shallow ponds. The only hint of life surrounds him in a dull hum. How long has he trudged? How long ago since he last ate? Thinking of it brings up a rumble from below his chest. He pauses to find the driest place to rest, and then takes out a limp bag. The tie meant to keep creatures out gives him some difficulty. All of his effort to finally open the bag reveals how fruitless he has become. What nibbles are left leave a chalky sensation at the back of his throat. A quick drink should be enough to moisten it, and for what little he has left suffices. He takes time relieve himself next to a tree. The sounds of the forest suddenly turn into deafening silence. As it lingers, the man rushes to retrieve something from his pack. Smooth, milky transparency, and cool in his fingers - the stone is held above his head. He focuses on gazing through it. The stone grants him some vision of the world outside the canopy. Pale in comparison to the shadows below. A weak disc of light glares at him before it is eclipsed by a large shadow. Branches lurch under a heavy wind that follows the shadow’s appearance. As soon as the world above is visible once again, the wind calms. A warning rips through the canopy. The guttural distortion has been amplified and sharpened. It sounds more familiar. The depth of it is enough to send short tremors through the earth. This close to discovery, the man hurries to sort up his pack, and makes for a marked trail ahead. ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ The moon is queen now. Her open shawl of dark blue hues and sterling detail replaces the view of constricting branches. It is almost time for the intelligent life to set up a safe haven for slumber. The man, however, is determined to complete this stop of the journey. He wearily walks along a sharply formed wall of rock. His vision teters slightly to the left every other step. One hand braces against the solid earth for support. At this leg of his journey, the effects of starvation pick away at his fortitude. His dismissals are strong enough to tame hunger for a while. Until a savory smell of cooked flesh beckons him. It begs him to walk several feet further. Further until a dip in the solid rock gives way to a tunnel. At the entrance, his eyes drink up the sight of a freshly extinguished fire complete with a half-eaten carcass. The hog’s flesh is whole. Bits of skin, charred and shredded, sway with the calm night breeze. Embers of the fire simmer. Their hissing barely a threat to anyone. The man drops his pack and lunges for the remaining chunks of animal meat resting on the ashes.

sitting alone in a bare bones house the only light in a far corner of the room barely illuminates the area inhabited by the only creature in silent pains that no one can see but can hear in the complaints - ignored after hearing them for so long it has been the same thing but while they say they want to help they give up because it is useless to tell them the same thing over and over again just like the pains expressed by the suffering deep inside no one understands why it is a plague of the mind, an uncontrolled variable given control by medications that can help or worsen the disease but to refuse so-called miracles is taboo as a decision detrimental to the individual's health that is looked over by words repeated by an outdated script many can't help but follow down familiar road and method instead of simply being there to hold the pain until it is gone is not worth the time of those reading the script because all that is played is a loop in their mind the pained are in need of help with medications to drown out all that they don't know the solution to even though no one knows how the mind works a cry for help is not answered by others but by the crier it is struggled to reach the end of the suffering is a state of mind a state of mind which can only be achieved by the strong-willed the weak-minded on medications when simply talking it out does not help what do you want me to do is what is asked when nothing can be done to help the ones that refuse the medications that dull the pain what do you want is asked when nothing else can be said and it only makes things worse because there is no real solution to stopping the pain and going numb there is no desire to leave this world that has so much to explore for the rich and the poor places to explore experieces and people to find a never ending rollercoaster of explanations and mysteries for everyone to one day seize the choice to fight for life and light that illuminates in the corner of the room where we sit alone in a bare bones house

It hits me hard. If time is tangible, what form does it flaunt? An elephant squatting its derriere on a Taco Bell Diablo sauce packet? A support beam crashing through a glass ceiling into a calm pool of water? ‘Bejeebus, what’s wrong with my mind?’ I glance around. Good, no one around to be smart. The moment of reflection dies as quick as that hot sauce packet is depleted by the buttocks weighing a ton. What time is it? How much have I already spent running only gods know how far from the groping vines? My unspoken questions receive an answer in the form of another rose blossoming below the sign furthest away. Or, I think? Two more gradually bloom. A cluster of three: one red, one pink, one white. The choice of colour and flora species raises the creep factor a little. Just a little. Is this place of fog and vine-covered walls trying to court me? Or is there something or someone else around? Toying with my nerves and feeding paranoia. The Queen is vulnerable: check. The wind kicks up. Sounds of life come into focus the longer I stand still. Morning doves call out to each other. The serenade slowly dies, and I watch as a fourth rose blooms left of the first three. The pink rose melts away - literally, I can only describe it as candle wax bubbling and dripping down. Another rose blossoms next to the other. The white one melts. It appears that with each new bloom, an old one decays. My heart and feet kick into overdrive once more as a greater cluster appears; just as many decay, and then become ash. The fresh roses turn around the corner - down the path heading left. It’s a trap! Right? Right? @&$!% this shit! Whatever I need to do to get out of this maze. No way am I waiting for whatever to happen in an hour. Careful to not touch the walls, I follow the blooming and decaying path of roses. Red fades to white to black. First left, then right, left at a fork, and straight on toward an unknown compass direction. I long forget about the time as I am lead either deeper into or further away from the end of this labyrinth. The roses turn a third - maybe fourth - right before they decide to stop. I freeze immediately once the roses have all melted to ash. My path is straight. All of the fog has stayed constant in color and thickness throughout. So why have I been stopped? The fog before me begins to recede to reveal several more feet in front of me. A bear. Large. Brown. In a harlequin tutu. Sitting on a tiny bicycle. Holding a matching umbrella, and looking nonchalant - seemingly unaware of my presence as much as I am very aware it blocks my path.

One, two, three… I count to ten in my thoughts before deciding whether or not to open my eyes. The smell is not the only change that has me worrying over what is reality and what is not. How did it go? Said Alice, ‘Nothing would be what it is…’? There are no sounds except for a wind. It blows through, softly and quietly, on the lightest of cat paws. A quick smack against my cheek by something hard and curved jolts me to full awareness. Now I can see exactly what kind of dream I am inside. It is not what I was expecting. The ground beneath is nothing more than earth, brown with patches of clovers struggling to stay alive, but it mimics the firmness of the bed I fell asleep in not but a few hours before. My pillow has disappeared - though before I noticed what had replaced it the curiousness of the foggy surroundings catches my eye - and where I was resting my head, instead of a down pillow in a cotton sack, is a rather large red flower in full bloom with a yellow center peaking through; the perfect size for my head to rest upon. As I question out loud with colorful vocabulary what I am looking at, I rise to my feet at a full height of someone who needs at least one step of a stool to reach the kitchen cabinets overhead. Not only do I notice the ground, fog, flower, and stench. My clothes are the same as before I fell asleep: long cotton pants decorated boorishly with black and white sheep, and a black “Dodge Ram” tee-shirt two sizes too big for my small stature. There is no explaining what I was dreaming. This new experience gives me reason to question my sanity. Is this even still a dream? Maybe aliens have abducted me and, realizing how utterly useless of a human being I am, dropped me off at the first planet they had access to after Earth. At least it is nothing like Dagobah with fathomless swamps that may or may not contain swamp monsters. It is as I look around for a star or satellite - anything to source direction from - when I realize that not only am I not in my bed, but a place between two extremely tall walls of engorged vines. Only left or right - or up - are directions available for moving around. I look left. Five feet of visibility before the white fog begins to thicken. I look right. Five feet of visibility before the white fog begins to thicken. I look up. The fog settles over the top of the walls to prevent me from gauging true height of the structures. As I question more profanities to myself, one of the engorged vines begins to move. I take a few steps forward as I witness the rapid growth of a stem into a red flower bud. The flower bud gradually blossoms into a miniature rose: the exact same appearance as the plant that replaced my pillow. It is different, however. More pungent. The smells of warm, wet flesh permeate heavily from the petals. I bring my face inches closer as my curiosity mounts. It violently sneezes golden pollen directly at me. I yelp with arms flailing to fan the pollen away, and hit my back against the other vines behind. They begin to slither apart. Smaller ones achingly reach for an ankle and already have one of my elbows in a slowly tightening grasp. ‘Oh, hell no!’ The words burst out faster than I can blink. My adrenaline finally kicks into overdrive, and I pull myself away from the vines. Fight or flight reflexes are wonderful. Until you stop after running down one direction for who knows how long; which direction I gave no care to think of because damn it all if I was going to let some Goblin King’s vines consume me! At this point, I am convinced this is a reality. Everything is too real to be a simple mishmash of memories and repeated mechanic body functions. Where I have stopped appears to be a circular corridor. Hanging from the vines equal distances apart are four identical signs in silver lettering: “You have one hour. Don’t touch the walls.” ‘No shit, Sherlock,’ comes out of my mouth in shallow breathes.

The lady smiled as if she found something charming about his bewildered state. "Mister Hawthorne, I am Catherine. You look like you need a drink. Why don't we introduce each other over one?"

Once I felt everything was safer, I eased the tension in my muscles. My arms felt limp resting over my knees. After I rubbed the stress from my face, I stood up to return to my desk. The rest of the night I needed to attempt a letter.