voices differ are the insides such amounts different? As I measure the curve of the roadway I walk. How do I measure the thoughts and the memories, the feelings and the dispositions, the matter and dismatter in the other than I? Some are like waves, but can be predicted easily while others are like the night sky with endless amazement. Is your reality the same as mine or is that the point?
My emotional state rebounded as I jaunted down the station’s stairs into the city, trying to whistle the songs I’ve heard from birds throughout my life, trying to calm myself and blend into the coming dawn.
I had thought everything was getting better.
Saraswati sent me on an expedition to find her friend. She said we could share his friendship, a perennial somewhere south of I—90. He is said, said Saraswati, to be one of the wisest, most powerful in all the world— the ancient Ganesha. I was to find him inside a large obsidian colored cube between the city and the sea with history inside.
Crossing the boarder of I—90. Returning one again to the apocalypse of ancient decay I was immediately sad by the state of absolute abandon. Everything was red with neglected, alone, it hurt to walk through with no way to offer change.
Buildings are meant to be lived in.
I heard a roar from the havoc of what was once apartments and suddenly a beast the size of a dozen dogs leaped from the iron scraps. The beast chewed on iron rust from the collapsed ancient carapace. Mid—mastication it looked up and noticed me. The beast roared and I ran while wetting my pants. The apples Saraswati sent with me tumbled to the ground. The beast crushed them with hoofed feet and so much force they burst like the explosives they used in the old world; magnalium mixed with strontium, potassium perchlorate, 33 and… and… what else?
Fire burst as the stomp of the beast exploded the skin of the apple in all directions.
I fled through an iron curtain of rusted mist that seemed to emanate from the back of the beast; I ran as fast as I could.
The beast followed.
I ran.
I could
feel
the monster, heavy gravity was all around me, come hot and powerful and ancient, like a rocket piercing through the sound barrier, that wrecked clouds and mountains alike. The beast was not from this world— it devoured it, showing me true destruction up close and in progress. The quadruped forced itself towards me with destruction meant to stop flowers from blooming, children from dreaming, life from living. Mist flowed off its back like a cape dissipating towards the horizon.
The monster was anti—love with a sly, indicating smile.
Passing through a thicket I entered a glen, a hole of peace somehow placed between the corpse—shells of buildings on all sides, and music 34 was playing. The glen was accompanied by several plastic climbing tubes that children once played on surrounding a dinner table. The music seemed to emanate from every direction.
“Hello, friend, don’t mind me.” A small human—like creature hummed.
“I’m… I’m…”
“Running, I know. Covered in sweat. Out of breath. Lost your apples?”
“My apples… I need those… where are we?”
“This place is mine. Nobody enters here without my knowing, my approval. I saw you chased by that horrible beast, I helped you.” All at once: completely weasel, man, horse, tiger, dragon, and woman. The only thing in common between the creature’s shifting forms was a spider—like movement and deep red paint covering its body like clothing.
“Thank you.”
“You are my guest. Have a seat,” itsaid pointing to the table made of ancient wood surrounded by chairs uncomfortably close together, none matching, with a smattering of chipped, broken, and pulverized vitreous, translucent ceramic material resembling the shell of a cowrie spread across the surface.
“Won’t the beast follow?”
“No.” It said while running fingers through porcelain dust.
“How can you be sure?”
“I can be, yes.
David Hilfiker, Marian Wright Edelman
Dani Kollin, Eytan Kollin