by K. G. Duncan
“This ain’t no laughing matter. I would never hurt nobody—not even Julia. But other folks—well most other folks, I mean. They can’t know about this. They just can’t! I’m serious about this…”
“Damn right it’s serious!” Olivia interrupted. “You went all dragon mode in front of the whole class and half the population of the Garden District! Them police wanna talk to you.”
Abby ignored her last remark, and yammered on, “No, no. That can’t be right. I didn’t make the change. Not complete, anyway.” She grasped Olivia’s arms again and looked straight into her eyes. “Tell me. Tell me if you saw anything!”
“Ow!” Olivia extricated her arms from Abby’s fierce grasp. “Hold your horses, now. I bruise easily.” She rubbed her arms and pouted.
“I’m sorry,” Abby said, and she really was. “I just need to know what you saw. Please…” She gently reached for Olivia again and looked imploringly into her eyes.
“Okay,” Olivia said a bit huffily. “No harm, no foul. I might have been exaggerating a bit.” She smiled weakly, still rubbing her arms. “I didn’t see no dragon wings or no claws. No breath of fire.” She snorted again softly. “We just heard you screechin’, and then the table got knocked over and everybody went flying like a sound grenade went off in the middle of the patio. Then you run off like you did, and there I was, covered in mustard sitting on top of Balt Luster, who was, by the way, bawling like a little baby. I didn’t make that part up. And Julia? Well, she was really scared. I ain’t never seen that look in her eyes before. I would die a thousand times or more just to see that again. It really was a beautiful thing to behold!”
“So,” Abby began hesitantly, “so I… I didn’t turn into a giant lizard—at least not what you could see?”
“Naw,” Olivia replied. “And I’m a might bit disappointed, too. You told me that I could see the change. Only I thought it would be under different circumstances.”
“Well,” Abby smiled. “It’s your lucky night!” She pointed up to the top of the dome. “I was just about to get a “dragon’s eye” view of the roof of the Superdome. I’ve been waiting all day for the right moment. This is it!”
Olivia gasped and then squealed in delight. “For real? You gonna make the change right now?”
“Well, I was just about to when you so rudely interrupted me.” Abby smiled, and nodded back at Olivia. “What happened earlier today,” and she paused to shake out her hands, pop the kinks in her neck, and look up again at the top of the dome. She appraised it for several moments. “Well, let’s just say you ain’t seen nothin’ yet!” She pointed at the bench where Olivia was first sitting. “Have a seat and watch the show. You are about to see what no other living human being this side of Mesopotamia has ever seen before!”
“Meso-potato-what?” Olivia laughed, then quickly she followed Abby’s orders and scuttled over to the bench and sat down, her hands clasped expectantly before her.
Abby nodded once more, then turned and walked over to the side of the Superdome, turned around, placed her back against its smooth surface, then slowly allowed herself to slide down to a seated position. She closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths.
“Hey!” Olivia called over from her bench. “You ain’t gonna wanna eat me or anything like that… once you go dragon mode, right?”
Abby opened one eye and smiled. “Don’t be giving me any ideas, now.” She closed her eye again and smiled, before taking a few more deep breaths. “Relax. I only like fish. And I’m still me even after I make the change. Dinner is not the thing that is most often on my mind!”
Several seconds went by before Abby suddenly opened her eyes and perked up. “Oh! And if you see a Black homeless guy named Stump come by with a baseball bat? Don’t worry, he’s a friend.”
“Okey-dokey,” Olivia shrugged. She waited and watched for several moments as Abby closed her eyes and took several deep breaths. Gradually, Abby’s breathing slowed, and she sat very still. Olivia realized that she was just as still and needed to take a breath, too.
Abby opened her eyes again and smiled. “You okay seeing me naked? I will need you to mind my dress. After. I mean after it happens. I’m not used to having somebody here to watch me.”
“Don’t you mind me.” Olivia exploded into one of her trademark snorts.” I got you covered.” She watched as Abby closed her eyes and resumed taking deep breaths. “What now?” Olivia finally said after a few more minutes had passed.
“We wait.” Abby said quietly, not opening her eyes. She remained still, and Olivia sat just as still, watching her in obedient silence as the evening grew darker and the purple twilight skies slowly turned to the indigo of deep night.
“I don’t understand,” Abby finally said. It had been over an hour and nothing had happened. She sat there, quietly, and opened her eyes. Olivia was slumped over on her side, laying across the bench seat. She yawned and sat up.
“Well that was about as exciting as watching the paint peel off the side of my grandaddy’s barn.” Olivia stood up and stretched.
Abby groaned and slowly pushed her way to her feet. “I don’t ever have to wait like this. It usually happens right away, no fuss or bother. Snap!” Abby snapped her fingers. “And it’s done. I’m flying.” She sighed. “I just don’t understand…” Her voice trailed off as she dusted off her dress.
“Well,” Olivia offered, “Maybe it’s like you said. You’re just not used to having company when you make the change.”
“Maybe so,” Abby sighed again. “But I had all the signs. I could feel it. Like I always do. I should’ve made the change lickety-split. There’s got to be some kind of explanation. I mean, I could have made the change back there when we were dealing with Julia…”
“You mean attacked by Julia,” Olivia interjected.
“Right.” Abby paused for a few moments to collect her thoughts. “But somehow, some way, I stopped it. I knew I couldn’t go all the way.” She turned, looked directly at Olivia and smiled. “And that is something I ain’t never done before …”
She was interrupted by the sound of a wooden bat hollowly thumping the concrete in the distance. Soon the girls could hear the voice of a man, singing. It was a nice, clear voice—a strong baritone.
“I got a hole in my pocket, and my money keeps on runnin’ through!
I got a hole in my pocket, and my money keeps on runnin’ through!
Can’t see a silver dollar, but my baby darlin’ wants them too!”
The voice grew louder, and sure enough, Stump rounded the corner, swinging his baseball bat like a cane and thumping the ground to punctuate each verse. He stopped when he saw the two girls, grinned his big grin, and side-stepped his way over like a dancer on his stage.
“Funny thing,” he said as he came up beside them and spun around in a final flourish before halting to look both the girls over. “I sang my heart out and beat my bat upon the ground. There ain’t a single security person in this facility. Not a one.” He paused to look at Abby, then over at Olivia, then back to Abby again. “Ain’t no dragons flying around here neither.”
He smiled, and Abby smiled back at him. “Hi Stump!” She glanced nervously over at Olivia, but Olivia was grinning like she was the Cheshire Cat. “Umm, this is my friend, Olivia. My best friend. She found me here. Kind of. I mean, like she knew I’d be here. We’re kind of special and connected that way.”
She giggled and Olivia snorted and stuck out her hand. Stump took it very delicately in his own and smiled back at her.
“The pleasure is all mine,” he said. Stump sniffed the air once, then twice more a bit loudly. Both Abby and Olivia glanced at each other awkwardly.
Stump glanced at Abby, grinned, then returned his gaze to Olivia. His face crinkled into hundreds of wrinkles in what literally was the crack of a smile, and he announced with utmost sincerity, “I like a girl that smells like mustard
.”
From the Audio transcripts of Dr. Joanna Kinsey
Chief Psychiatrist, CHNOLA Northshore Center,
New Orleans, LA
Excerpt of Audio File Transcript #AR10089-40
June 30, 2022
Subject: A. B. Rubideaux. Female. Age: 11
Transcript of recording begins: 10:02 AM EST.
A.B.: You’re not a very good scientist, you know.
Kinsey: A.B., I’d like to stay on track, here.
A.B.: You let your emotions cloud your empirical observations. Now, don’t get me wrong—I think that’s a wonderful thing! It’s actually what makes you a superb therapist! Your ability to connect through empathy and an intuitive higher self. But just when I think you have finally come around—just when you are on the cusp of breaking through to an ascendant consciousness and a transcendent being, you slip back into the limitations of your training and procedural “best practices.”
Kinsey: That’s quite perceptive. Let me think about that. So, let’s go back to the day Momma Bea took you out into the storm.
A.B.: See? You just did it again. The clinical psychiatrist’s mask.
Kinsey: Well, I am sorry, A.B.. I guess that’s just who I am. Old habits, I guess?
A.B.: (Snort.)
Kinsey: Tell me more about the tornado. What happened?
A.B.: Persistence and laser focus. Those qualities can bring you very far in this world. Yes. Let us continue!
Kinsey: By all means.
A.B.: Well, like I told you before. The tornado was just a collective perception for you mere mortals to behold. (Giggling.) The truth can’t always be revealed just like that (A finger snaps). I flew with the dragons. And no, that is not just a metaphor. I flew into the void. Into a higher plane of existence. The voice came into my head, filled me with warmth and comfort, and my fear was replaced with euphoria. It was an invitation, and when I accepted, I was transformed. And then we flew in a prism of color and light. It only lasted a few moments. But it was eternal at the same time. I had never felt so… so present before.
Kinsey: You flew into a multi-dimensional space, yes? The “Fold” that you have talked about before?
A.B.: That is correct.
Kinsey: A.B., do you know that you were missing for nearly three days?
A.B.: Time is relative. And an illusion. Do you think you can better control the world if you break it down into minutes and seconds? It’s all part of the separateness that humans have created. It is a flawed idea that only through objective and measurable means can we find comprehension. It is the source of our misery, and it will ultimately be humanity’s undoing.
Kinsey: I think you’ve changed the subject again, A.B.. As much as I would love to revisit your remarkable insights into quantum theory and the non-local “Fold,” could we please try to stay on track? I am trying to understand how a little girl gets sucked out of her mother’s car by a monster tornado, disappears into the void for three days, then comes walking back down the driveway with not even a scratch on her body. And you are telling me that it wasn’t an actual tornado but a multi-dimensional experience of euphoria that lasted only a few moments?
A.B.: Well, there… you see? I thought we had overcome the skeptical scientist thing, Joanna. I know we are getting closer to something significant because your heartbeat has suddenly accelerated. I think that acceleration and the sudden flush in your cheeks is caused by excitement. You are invested in this emotionally whether you want to be or not, Joanna. And that’s not very clinical, now is it? Wait! Wait. Let me finish. (Deep breath.) Have you not been listening to anything I’ve said in all of our sessions? All of it is connected. The tornado. My disappearance. What happened at school. My capture and subsequent institutionalization. The fact that all of this has led to my now sitting here with you… again! These things are not just incidental.
Kinsey: It’s not a coincidence.
A.B.: That’s right! Synchronicity has brought us together, right here, right now! In this moment. For a reason.
Kinsey: And that reason would be?
A.B.: That you need my help. And yes, I need yours, too.
Kinsey: I’m listening. Explain.
A.B.: You’re going to help me save humanity.
Kinsey: From what?
A. B.: From our imminent destruction. The futility, the fraudulence, and the baseless attempts by humankind to categorize, control, and ultimately to transcend nature. We, as a species, have severed the cord. And now we are drifting, alone, disconnected, and perilously close to causing the cataclysmic end of everything as we think we know it. That is the illusion. I am trying to tell you how to save yourself. You save yourself, and you can save the world. Like Gilgamesh. Frodo Baggins. Or Luke Skywalker. It’s the same story being told over and over. What else are we here for?
Kinsey: The Hero’s journey?
A.B.: The only journey.
45 Days Earlier: May 16, 2022
Three days doesn’t seem like such a long time to pass amongst the company of your friends. Unless you are homeless and living on the street. Then it seems like an eternity.
The day after Abby failed to transform into a dragon at the Superdome, Olivia decided to go home and take a shower—with a promise that she would be back the next day with a full report on the lay of the land. Abby was concerned about what had happened after the school lunch incident. So, after spending the morning with Abby and Stump, Olivia found a pay phone and made the call home. She didn’t want to get into more trouble than she knew she was already in. And besides, she was tired of smelling like a condiment rack, and she was even more tired of how Stump kept sniffing the air then looking at her like he had half a mind to stick her between a couple of buns and take a bite out of her.
But actually, Olivia and Stump had hit it off splendidly—just like they were old friends, and the two of them spent more time with their heads together giggling like a couple of schoolgirls than just about anything else.
For her part, Abby was a bit removed from the levity of her friends. She was pensive and tense, trying to figure out why she couldn’t make the change. Not completing her transformation had never happened to her before. It was always the same progression, the same sequence of physical, mental and emotional signs. She knew it and felt it like it were some kind of muscle that tingled and flexed. You know, like an athlete that missed her workout and then her body, and specifically her buttocks, would talk back to her in its own way. Hey! Work me! Work me! Stretch me out!
She looked down at her fingertips, flexed them, then rolled her neck to let out the tension and the kinks—the dragon signs were gone. Nothing to mark that the change was imminent. It’s like she had lost or forgotten something important but couldn’t remember what it was. Maybe what happened at the lunch tables with Julia and the rest had somehow unexpectedly altered the process. Maybe the unfamiliar concrete environment wasn’t right—she needed trees, and water, the smell of wet earth and moss. The promise of fresh fish. Maybe she just got cold feet, and she couldn’t go all the way with Olivia watching.
Olivia. When it was time for her to go, Abby had watched her head back down toward the city. She had half a mind to join her. She probably should join her. It had been over two days since she ran away from the mustard and catsup fight. Two days for Momma Bea to worry and fret. But something inside of her felt like it just wasn’t time to go back yet. Maybe it was the dragon, rumbling deep inside of her, telling her to wait. Maybe she knew deep down that it would be far worse back at home. Something was happening there right now, and it wasn’t any good! There was consternation brewing in the air, and Abby could feel it wrap around her like a second skin.
So, when Olivia left, she had looked over her shoulder one last time to look Abby in the eye. Olivia raised an eyebrow like she was asking: “You sure about this?” But Abby was resolute and just nodded once and shooed Olivia
off with an irritating wave of her hands.
Abby watched her go until she rounded a corner three blocks away. Then Stump’s hand on her shoulder squeezed gently, and it was time to go back to their little sanctuary and eat some lunch.
When they returned to Stump’s camp behind the hedge, Stump pretty much gave her the space she needed. He limped around, then announced something about “supplies,” and off he went, leaving her alone. But being alone maybe wasn’t the best thing for her right now. Their little clearing at the far end of the Superdome’s auxilliary lot C wasn’t exactly a day in the Park. It turned out that Stump wasn’t alone here, and there were in fact a considerable number of homeless camps nearby. But Stump was right about one thing: everyone seemed to do their sleeping in the daytime. She wondered then what that meant about the night time. Wasn’t that when the monsters and hobgoblins came out?
Abby kept to herself inside Stump’s camp, and Stump had told her that none of their neighbors would bother them during the day, but even so—it wasn’t exactly a restful or relaxing resort. And the cars above on the Pontchartrain Expressway were a ceaseless whirr of sound. At first, Abby imagined it could be the ocean, but after half the day had gone by it just made her feel antsy. The construction site a few blocks away didn’t help either. Construction workers had loud voices, and even louder equipment.
She also had an extreme need to relieve herself. Number one only, thank god! But it was a bit of a quandary to find out where. The other denizens in their camps below the expressway were either sleeping or looked like the kinds of folks that she ought to avoid interaction with. Eventually, she just followed her nose and found a small concrete water and power structure behind some dumpsters. There was no mistaking what the site was used for by people in the area, so she held her nose, glanced quickly around to make sure she was alone, and then with only the slightest feeling of guilt, she squatted and did her business.