Dire Symbols

by W A Rowland

  “For a disembodied spirit, you are really annoying!” he growled out

  “Hey! Mean!” she chided, incredulous. “I’m an interplanar, astral being, Thank you very much! It’s not my fault that you have no sense of humor.”

  “Okay, ” he said taking a deep breath. “How about this, you call me Liam, and not Crazy, and I’ll try to be nicer in the future and laugh at your jokes.”

  Only together for half an hour and she’s already pushing my buttons and making me apologize for it. This must be hell. This is my punishment for my terrible life choices, he thought to himself.

  “It’s not,” she quipped happily from inside his head. “But I’ve been there too! Kinda warm this time of year. You wouldn’t like it, Liam,” she said, annoyingly intoning his name at the end.

  Liam hung his head. “Now, what do I call you?” His guide let out a musing “Hm” and went quiet.

  After much silent debate and many corny jokes on the bus ride home, Potential had decided to go by the name Lily. Apparently, she thought it was a pretty name and it worked for her.

  “Right, so is your name Lily Potential then?” Liam asked in his head, assuming some kind of surname.

  “No, that sounds stupid. It’s Potential Lily!” she responded brightly.

  “Wait…” Liam said the name through his head a few times, “you didn’t—”

  He heard a giddy giggle breaking free and knew he was right. “You picked the name so you could make a bad pun.”

  “Yes!” she squealed with joy. “Isn’t it great?!”

  “I really should have gone with Anarchy when I had the chance,” he quipped.

  “Nah! You’ll love me. Just wait and see,” she said cheerily.

  “Why the sudden personality shift?” he said, pointedly changing the subject. “I mean, right now, you seem super comfortable joking and laughing, but back at Joshua’s you barely made a sound and looked like you were about to break out in tears.” he asked curiously.

  There was a long silence as the bus rolled over some railroad tracks and shook a little.

  Lily finally spoke up. “The others don’t like me because I’m different, and Domination is mean to me a lot. Joy is ok, but he just loves everyone,” she said sullenly. “I think my existing kind of scares them though.”

  “How so?” Liam asked, now genuinely interested in the conversation for the first time.

  “They’re all fairly concrete concepts. They have established realms that they pull from. My realm is undefined, I can’t tell you exactly how to grow your aura, because I don’t know yet. I’m not based in the present, if that makes sense.”

  “Not really,” he replied.

  “Look at it this way, fear is something someone feels in the present. You can’t feel fear in the past or future; it just doesn’t work that way,” she explained.

  “But, what about fearing the future?” he asked.

  “Still in the present. Everything about fear is about what is happening in someone’s head at the present moment. Potential is based more around what someone could be or do. Someone may have the potential to be afraid, or in love, or happy. I interact with what may be, as opposed to what is,” she explained.

  “Wait,” he said, “so I’m supposed to grow somehow from what people may do in the future…”

  “Yes.”

  “That makes no sense,” Liam said.

  “You don’t say.” Lily deadpanned. “Try living it sometime. I mean, I’ve heard that humans sometimes have identity crisis, but at least they don’t have to try to rationalize themselves as an abstract concept.”

  Liam listened with interest now, the implication of that statement being that she hadn’t always been an abstract concept.

  “I mean, I actually can be any one of them given the chance. Domination? Sure, maybe not as big and scary as he is, but definitely along those lines. Desire? Hell, we’re twins technically speaking, I could wear that dress…err… eventually. Joy?—”

  Liam’s mind caught on something as she continued to talk, breaking his concentration. “Wait,” he interrupted, “you and Desire are twins? How the heck does that work? I mean you two are so different and she was so adamant that I not choose you.”

  “Big sisters can be like that. I think she’s worried that bonding with someone finally will ruin my innocence or something. It’s almost sweet. Though sweet and sexy are kinda her forte. You know, desiring things and all. Also, us being twins isn’t the same as it is for humans. We both are based in wanting something; she’s just more well defined than I am.”

  “I guess that makes sense. Weird imagining you two as twins though,” Liam retorted.

  “Why? Because I’m not all boobs and curves? Geesh, men.” She snorted derisively.

  “No, actually,” Liam said. “Because your personalities just seem so different.”

  “How do you know? You only got to see her sultry side and my cripplingly insecure side.”

  The last part lingered for a second in his mind.

  “Ahh… so you heard that,” he acknowledged, embarrassed.

  “Not your best moment,” she answered.

  “Sorry, I was kind of in panic mode. The whole becoming a demigod thing had me wound pretty tight.”

  “Had?” He could almost hear a smirk in her voice as the question lingered.

  “Fine, it has me wound pretty tight,” he stated flatly.

  “Well I forgive you anyway,” she said cheerily. “Besides, it’s not like we can do anything about it now. Just have to keep on moving and make things better. Then I won’t be cripplingly insecure and you won’t be a donky’s butt.”

  Liam rolled his eyes and looked around the bus. Light auras danced amongst the few other passengers on the other end. Blue and yellow seemed to be the most prevalent of the colors with a few others mixed in. From what he was seeing, he guessed blue to be worry, and yellow to be… Contentedness? Happiness? He wasn’t quite sure.

  He continued to study the swirling masses of color for a few minutes. This is really happening, isn’t it? I mean, my life is never going to be the same after today.

  “No, Liam. It’s not,” came an assuring tone. “It’ll be better!”

  The bus shuddered to a halt at Liam’s stop and he made his way down to the street. I sure hope you’re right.

  Before all of this, I only wanted to survive the law firm long enough to get on my feet and finish my degree. Now, I don’t know what my goals should be. Maybe I could still keep that plan, but with everything that just happened, law school just seems a bit mundane. He proceeded up the stairs that lead to his small apartment.

  “This is nice,” Lily quipped as they climbed.

  “You haven’t been in many buildings before, have you?”

  “Not-a-one,” came the overly happy response. “This is my first apartment building, though from the bits jumping through your head, I’m guessing it’s not actually very nice.”

  “Bingo.”

  “Where do you live then?”

  “Third floor middle. Hot in the summer, cold in the winter, the walls are paper thin, and there’s mold growing in the air ducts,” he explained.

  Liam arrived at his door thinking about how much he wanted to move. He turned the key and entered the sparsely furnished space. When Anna had moved out, she had taken much of the furniture, bedding, decorations, books, dishes, and flatware. As he entered, Liam took a mental stock of his remaining possessions: an old worn out couch, a bean-bag chair, two bar stools, a pile of law books, no bookshelf, some Tupperware, and a bent skillet. In the bedroom, he knew he had his bed and two pairs of sheets, so there was that at least. He’d had to go out and buy some paper plates and plastic utensils the day she left just to have something to eat on. Though “eat” was a bit of an overstatement as all the food left in the apartment at the time was a quarter loaf of bread, a mostly used tub of butter, the dregs of a jar of grape jelly, and assorted half empty condiment jars.

  The carpet in the apar
tment was stained, the floors creaked, and none of the locks on the doors worked. Requests to have the owner fix anything were met with sudden rent hikes, and more than one of Liam’s neighbors in the time he’d lived here had found themselves on the receiving end of the landlord’s vindictive wrath. Liam was sure most of what Mr. Johnson, the landlord, did was illegal, but he didn’t have the time or energy to deal with it.

  He walked in and closed the door behind him as best he could before slumping onto the threadbare couch. He thought about watching some TV on the small 24” TV/DVD combo unit sitting on the floor opposite him. Not that would just run up the electric bill. Not like anything good is ever on the local channels anyway. Liam hadn’t even bothered to turn on the lights and sat in only the light coming through the windows.

  “Well, this is depressing.” Lily piped up in his head. “We really need to teach you how to decorate.”

  “Lily,” Liam said, suddenly feeling very tired.

  “Yeah, Liam?”

  “Bite me,” he said flatly.

  “Rude!” she exclaimed. “You really need to listen to Joshua on this one though, I’ve been picking through your subconscious thoughts about this girl, Anna. She was toxic dude. Like, grade A psycho. I’m kinda surprised you didn’t notice it yourself because your subconscious sure did.”

  Liam sighed and laid his head back against the couch. “Maybe I didn’t want to…”

  Just at that moment, Liam heard a loud shriek from a neighboring apartment, along with the sound of several pots and pans striking the wall.

  “What in the name of Morgan Freeman is that?” Lily asked, hearing the racket

  “That’s the Johnsons fighting again.”

  “Why are they fighting?”

  A banging was heard against a wall, and the sound of loud lovemaking could be made out from somewhere else down the hall. “Because Mrs. Johnson doesn’t want Mr. Johnson to get any ideas.”

  Realization dawned on Lily. “Ohh. gotcha.” If she had cheeks, she’d probably be blushing.

  Liam pulled a small throw pillow around his head and lay down.

  “Are you ready?” Lily asked after a minute of silence.

  “Ready for what?” Liam replied tiredly. “A nap?”

  “No! To find out what your power set is, Duh.”

  Liam perked up a bit at this, sitting up but still wrapping the pillow around his head. He could still hear Lily just fine with it there, so a perk of having a cosmic being inside his head was that he didn’t need ears to hear her. Granted, he was debating whether that would be considered a perk or not.

  “Wait, I thought we had to ‘grow a bond’ or something like that before I find that out,” he said.

  “That’s already happened, the bond will just get stronger now and it will affect how strong the powers are. But every demi-guide combo has a somewhat unique set and we need to figure out what ours are. It’ll also help with us learning to work together on things.”

  Liam lowered the pillow, the disturbing noises had stopped.

  “Ok, so how do we do that?”

  “Trial and error,” Lily quipped happily.

  Liam groaned.

  Liam spent the rest of the morning and most of the afternoon in his apartment, standing, sitting, lying, hopping, sprinting, and falling into and from various awkward positions. So far, he and Lily had crossed out teleportation, transmutation, super speed, flying, time travel, acrobatics, x-ray vision, laser vision, and shapeshifting. He did think he noticed a minor improvement in his strength, as he could now lift up the couch with one arm and very little struggle. But aside from that small victory, the whole day had been mostly disappointing. He was now sitting cross-legged staring very intently at a plastic cup filled with tap water. They were trying telekinesis, and Liam was on his last nerve.

  “It’s not working,” he said dejectedly, desperately wanting to give up and go to bed.

  “Focus,” Lily growled in his ear. She too was frustrated with their lack of progress. Her usually cheery demeanor had broken down a bit, revealing that she could be quite bitchy when brought down to it.

  “I am focusing!” Liam snapped.

  “No, you’re not. You’re thinking about pizza. Who the heck puts pineapple on their pizza anyway?!”

  “It tastes good!” Liam practically shouted.

  Lily snapped, “Focus on the bloody cup!”

  Liam snarled and went back to staring idly at the red cup. He took a deep breath and tried once again to quiet his thoughts and focus on the cup rising into the air. Then he felt something click, and he flicked his index finger up. The cup shot straight up from the table and flattened against the ceiling. Bits and pieces of plastic breaking off as water rained down around him. He jumped to his feet and let out a whoop, jumping up and down like a small child in a bouncy house, his energy restored. Lily even cheered back up and congratulated him, encouraging him to try another.

  Liam ran to the kitchen and grabbed a whole sleeve of the bright red cups, returning and laying out several in a row. He looked at the first one until he felt like he had a mental “grip” on it, and more slowly this time, he raised his index finger, levitating the cup. He then tried to levitate a second cup, succeeding after several tries.

  After an hour, Liam had six cups simultaneously in the air orbiting him like red polyethylene moons. He then tried some heavier objects like the TV and the couch. He found that these at least were just as easy to lift, but a little more dangerous. Fifteen minutes, a dented wall and broken window screen later, Liam set down the furnishings and smiled.

  “That’s great, Liam!” Lily cheered. “But you should probably take it easy, don’t want to strain anything on the first day.”

  “I think I’m going to go for a walk,” he said suddenly feeling like doing something he had never wanted to do before in his life. How very odd?

  WALKABOUT

  Liam exited the apartment building and walked briskly down the street. As he went, he studied the people around him. Older Asian man, blue aura; young Indian woman, light green aura; a group of 5 or 6 children, sporting auras of every color. Liam stopped, seeing one of the children with a black aura, a young girl, maybe four or five years old.

  “Lily, what does that black aura mean? It looks…ominous,” Liam said, searching for the word.

  “Hmm?” She said, coming out of a thought. “Ohh, it’s a changeling.”

  “A what?”

  “A changeling. Didn’t your parents ever tell you children’s stories when you were young?”

  “No… not really.” Liam’s parents were a sore subject, and not one he wanted to get into while in such a good mood. “But what’s a changeling? I mean, it looks like a regular little girl, but something seems off.”

  “You’re seeing her connection to the astral plane now. You see, changelings are fairy creatures swapped for infants. They get raised as humans, and some never even realize they’re anything different.”

  “Wait, fairies? Those are real?!” Liam blurted out.

  “That surprises you. After everything you’ve seen today, the fact that fairies are real is what you stick on.”

  “It’s just hard to believe that these things out of mythology are actually around. Next, you’ll be telling me that werewolves, vampires, and magicians are real as well.”

  “Well…” Lily hedged.

  “Seriously?” Liam asked.

  “Not magicians. Magic is just silly, but were-creatures and things that go bump in the night? Sure.”

  “Wow, so is that what the black aura is then?”

  “Well, since they’re astral creatures from that plane, they have an aura, but it’s unreadable by humans. Your brain simply can’t understand the feelings or emotions of a fairy or fey, and they can’t understand yours,” she replied. “It would probably be similar if you could see my aura.”

  Liam opened and closed his mouth a few times, trying to think of what to say next when he noticed that his stopping in the middle of the
sidewalk and talking to himself while staring at someone’s child was drawing him some unwanted attention. There were stares from several people on the block, and one scowling woman with a green aura had out her cell phone, probably calling the cops. “I should probably practice talking to you without actually speaking more.”

  “You don’t say?” came her irritated reply.

  Liam suddenly felt the strong urge to be somewhere else.

  He took an immediate left on the next street, went up two, and over one more, walking briskly to put some distance between him and where the police would most likely be looking for a crazy stalker type. His fears proved true as he spied a police cruiser two blocks up, driving slowly while the cop in the passenger’s seat scanned the streets. The cruiser stopped, backed up a little, and then turned onto the street Liam was walking up. Panic rose in his gut.

  Shit. shit. shit. Liam turned up the next road, only having about 30 seconds till the police car came around the corner and spotted him again. He started to run toward some nearby apartment buildings, looking for a good hiding spot. “Lily, any ideas?”

  “Look, to your left, run between those buildings.”

  Liam looked and saw the small alley she was referring to. He bolted into the alley and rounded a corner to find a dead end. He turned and started to run back out, but heard the squeal of brakes and the thud of a car door closing.

  “I think I saw him run down the alley,” came a man’s voice.

  The police had found him. Liam was beginning to panic. He couldn’t go to jail. He wouldn’t survive in jail! He was a lawyer!

  In his panic, Liam had inadvertently started to levitate small objects around him. Despite only having learned the skill that afternoon, it felt like a very natural thing to do. He was walking in circles when he had an idea. “Lily, can I lift myself?” he asked quickly.

  “Umm… probably not. You seem to move things in relation to yourself; it would be the same as moving the planet away from you. Possible, yes, but you’d probably also start another ice age, though I also doubt you have the power yet to move something as big at the earth, so moot point.”

  Liam cursed under his breath, then spotted some cinderblocks piled next to a dumpster. “Never mind, I got this.” He quickly shaped the six blocks into a rudimentary set of stairs and started to run up them. Every time he stepped on a block, it would start to drop, and then swing around and make the next step up. He almost lost it once when he let his concentration falter at the sound of the cops walking up the alleyway, but he regained control and kept on moving up his magical fall-away staircase.