As we walked along the bank of a brook, I thought only about what the Tree of Life told me. I’m dying? I’m lying somewhere right now half burnt to death? I didn’t want to believe it.
Is it true? I said to the Devil in my mind, hoping I would hear him respond. Answer me, you bastard! Where are you? But the Devil did not answer. I tried everything, even called him insulting names and taunted him with religious ramble, but there was nothing.
How could I be dying so young? I rarely drank except on special occasions and on Tuesdays when I’d go out with my best friend, Danny, to the bar. I was always careful with just about everything I did; always used my blinker when making a turn and never tried to beat the yellow light. I was as healthy as a newborn, did not smoke or take drugs, unless taking a whiff of the gas while filling up my car counted. I went to the gym...sometimes...when I would get a sudden fed-up with myself urge to do so, which usually lasted no more than a couple of months. Dying? It just couldn’t be true, but then again, that woman who lived next door to me in 52B was always smoking. She smoked so much that the entire fifth floor usually reeked of cigarettes. Once, I went over to ask if she would kindly turn her alarm clock off (it had been beeping for two hours) and when she cracked open the door, all I could see between it and the chain lock was a long, skinny cigarette poking out and a thin coil of smoke burning at the top of it. She let the long ashes fall to the floor without a thought.
She must have been the one, I thought. I bet anything that chain-smokin’ hag started the fire—I’m going to haunt her. I swear it; if I die, I’ll go back and haunt her.
I stopped and put my backpack on the ground. Then suddenly I started taking off my clothes.
“Oh, do spare us,” snorted Sophia. “Gross!” She turned away.
Tsaeb just shook his head.
“I can’t stand these itchy clothes anymore,” I said, tossing the wool tunic aside on a dead tree branch. I stripped down to my suit shirt and boxers; took the rest of my old clothes out of my backpack and eagerly put them on, feeling instant relief.
And when Tsaeb and Sophia saw Vanity’s Mirror as I moved it to the pocket of my trench coat, they knew better than to touch it. My threatening expression said everything that words did not have to. It was obvious it drove the both of them utterly mad not knowing exactly what it was and I had no intention in telling.
We slept there for the night, near the bank of the little brook under a few thin trees that lacked the leaves to cover them from the darkening sky above. And on this night there were stars, thousands of them animating the sky as though they had recently awoken from a dreadfully long slumber. And in my slumber, I did dream this time. I dreamt that I was back at home. My mother was there and she had fried for me two pieces of French toast, cut in triangles like she always did when I was a boy. I sat on the floor with my legs crossed and my plate in my lap in front of the box television with the crooked bunny ears on top. Saturday morning cartoons; I never missed them, and I sat down just in time for The Flintstones, still dressed in my Transformers pajamas that my Grandma Elouise bought me for Christmas the year before. I could hear my father typing away on a typewriter in the room next door, and outside the neighbor’s dog was barking behind the fence at the paperboy who liked to taunt it.
I was in heaven.
But then on the television, I saw the Devil wink at me with the Gerber baby’s eye. Then behind me, I heard my mother say to my father: “Your ribs are ready, dear.” And I turned around to see my father sitting at the kitchen table, a pool of blood glistening on the tacky linoleum floor all around him. His rib cage was on a giant plate in front of him. He was eager to pick the bones clean, a fork in one fisted hand and a knife in the other.
I awoke in a sweat, relieved for once that I was in Creation lying next to two sleeping, snoring demons that made me glad I never had kids of my own.
“Embrace the Truth and it will set you free.”
--
“MUST BE HAVING GOOD dreams; y’look peaceful laying there.”
My eyes popped open. At first, I saw only the daytime overcast sky, but then I turned promptly to investigate the unfamiliar voice that woke me.
“You,” said the enormous man with curved rams horns, “are quite alive, I believe. Not dead yet, but I smell it like it’s creeping up on you.”
A bit disoriented and not exactly awake, I lifted my head and rubbed my eyes firmly, blurring my vision. To the left of me, Sophia and Tsaeb slept soundly. The air smelled of roses and honeysuckle. The ground beneath me was blanketed by lush green grass, soft as pillow feathers, dotted by tiny white flowers that looked more like delicate little buttons. Clearly, this was not where we had fallen asleep. At least, I couldn’t remember it looking this way, so ethereal.
“You alright?” said the buffalo of a man.
“Still alive, if you want to call it that,” I said, slowly beginning to understand the man’s conversation. “How do you know about that— about me dying?” I lifted my back off the ground, dusting away the grass and leaves stuck to my shirt, and then I looked up, taking greater notice of the man. At least five feet taller than me, and certainly heavier, the man wore a coat made of several different kinds of fur. Just seeing him wear something so thick and heavy in a place so warm made me sweat. The strange man was clean-shaven, but his matted, dirty-blond locks were anything but clean, and so long they fell past his giant shoulders and stopped somewhere beyond his tree-trunk waist.
The question I had asked seemed less and less important as I looked about my surroundings more. I was still in the place I had fallen asleep, after all. Yes, I remembered the dead pear-shaped tree log to my left, and the brook that snaked along the base of the mountain, but also I could still see the Tree of Life and in the daylight, even part of Fiedel City in the distance through a sliver of trees.
“What happened here?” I said. Not so far deep down, I knew what had happened, that the same wonder that grew the Tree of Life so tall and what had made the filthy city sprout with color and fresh air was what I had done. The change was spreading, but by no means did I feel the need to take any credit for this. In fact, I was far from deciding whether it was a good or a terrible thing.
The horned giant bent over in a sort of bow and reached out his massive hand. “I’m Taurus,” he introduced himself, “and honestly, I’m not too sure what happened, but sure you had something to do with it, though.”
With a lot of hesitation, I accepted his help and went to my feet. It worried me how horrible Tsaeb was at being any kind of watchdog. Neither he, nor Sophia even, had stirred once, and the giant named Taurus had quite a booming voice even though he was not shouting.
“I take it you’re Taurus as in Taurus of the Zodiac?”
Taurus grinned wide. “The one and only—didn’t know I was famous, but I’m flattered.”
Taurus was Lucifer’s favorite until Scorpio came along....
I tensed suddenly, and then began to nudge Tsaeb with the heel of my shoe, but Tsaeb only moved with a grunt and faced the opposite direction.
“You should get a move on,” said Taurus.
“Why?”
Taurus laughed and his gargantuan shoulders bounced heavily. “Stay still in one spot for too long and you’ll end up like them.” He looked over once, toward the bank of the brook and then back at me.
I didn’t know what I was supposed to be looking at.
“Right there,” he said. “Probably came out of the city, but that was as far as they got—seen quite a number of people, maybe ten just in the last fifteen minutes.”
I walked closer to the brook. There were faces embedded in the trees, wide-eyed and wide-mouthed. I reached out my hand, touched what was once an eyebrow, and pulled away quickly with a hair-raising shiver. Then suddenly, it occurred to me. I went quickly back over to Tsaeb and Sophia, and just as expected they were both strapped to the forest bed by vines and tree roots. Sophia’s left hand had even disappeared up to her wrist under a healthy patch of brigh
t green grass. A little black beetle scuttled into Tsaeb’s exposed nostril.
“Wake up!” I said, squatting next to them and shaking them vigorously. “Get up, now! Tsaeb! Sophia!”
Tsaeb jolted awake first, almost immediately followed by Sophia. A mixture of panic and annoyance set in when they realized they could barely move. Neither of them hesitated to rip away the overgrowth. Sophia’s face soured when she pulled the grass from the skin on her hand, as her skin happened to come off a little with it.
“And I was worried about wolves,” said Tsaeb, pulling a stubborn vine from the sleeve of his shirt. He reached up, pressed a finger firmly against one nostril and blew hard. The beetle shot out of his nose along with a nasty ball of demon snot.
“Fortunately,” said Taurus, “it seems to be slowing down. It might spread a few hundred more feet, but I doubt any further than that.”
“But what’s happening to these people?” I couldn’t help but scan the rest of the area while slipping my backpack on.
“Covered by the Light, o’course.”
“Oh, I should’ve known—better stay on your toes, you two,” I said, glancing over my shoulder. “I’m betting the blacker your soul, the more danger you’re in.”
Taurus nodded with a smile. “That’s right. S’why you don’t see me sitting down, though I’m not too worried. Last time this happened, the Light went after three of my sisters and my brother, Cancer, before it bothered fooling with me.” He threw his head back and laughed.
“OK, so we need to get moving pretty quickly then,” I said. I meant to leave as politely as I could without offending Taurus, or letting him think he could follow.
Taurus saw no harm in inviting himself.
“I sure do agree,” said Taurus, “Follow me and I’ll take you the quickest route out of here.”
“Thanks,” I said, “but I think we’ll be ok; besides, I have to go the way the—”
Taurus paused, listening. And he waited a few seconds longer until it was clear to him that I was strangely at the end of such an abrupt sentence.
“Yes?” Taurus inquired. “The way the what?”
“Oh yeah,” Tsaeb said from behind, “The uhhh, the way the guide told us to go back in the city.” Tsaeb knew immediately that I was trying to hide the fact that I was carrying Vanity’s Mirror. He had figured out what it was last night before we fell asleep.
Sophia laughed and stepped right up to the giant. She leaned her blond head back and looked up at his towering figure, which cast quite a large shadow over her. “Damn, mister, you sure are tall. I ain’t never seen anyone so friggin’ huge; and those horns. Do they get in the way?”
Taurus creased his brows and looked down upon her, his great hands resting upon his hips. “Get in the way of what?”
“I ‘unno, like anything.”
Taurus brought up his hand and scratched the side of his face in thought. “Nope.” And then he took Sophia under the arm and lifted her several feet off the ground. At first, she shrieked, but then saw how Tsaeb was looking at her and she decided to stop giving him reason to call her any number of things closely related to the definition of ‘wuss’.
“Hey! What gives?” she shouted.
Taurus smiled so hugely that it looked as though he could take her whole head off in one bite. He tossed her with ease over onto his left horn, where she sat comfortably in its curve. He patted her on the head. “Just lookin’ out for yah, kid.” He pointed to the spot where she had been standing and a tree root was snaking up from the black soil.
The Light was on the move again.
I turned around to face them all. I had been using the time Taurus took with Sophia to turn my back slightly and catch a glimpse of Vanity’s Mirror, which was still tucked safely down the front of my slacks. It was easier to see down there than in my coat pocket. How awkward it might’ve looked to Taurus if he had noticed me looking down the front of my pants with the other hand holding the mirror inside of them.
Unfortunately, the mirror didn’t reveal anything but my reflection, the only thing it had revealed at all since the Tree of Life had given it to me.
“You two coming, or what?”
I looked up and saw that Taurus was walking away with Sophia sitting on his horn, a spiteful, almost gloating smile on her face as she looked back at us. Tsaeb gave me a now-what-do-we-do sort of look, while I did the only thing that seemed right: I followed.
We walked for hours until Taurus was confident enough that we were all out of harm’s way. The landscape failed to blackness again. It was a strange disappointment to be fleeing something so beautiful, but I knew too that not even I was safe from the Light.
“So,” said Taurus, sitting down on a rock barely large enough to hold him, “when are you going to pull out that mirror of yours and put it to use?” He passed me a knowing wink, and I froze. Tsaeb looked back and forth between me and Taurus who wore the same surprised expression that I wore.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Sure you do!” Taurus laughed. “I don’t know what’s funnier, you thinkin’ you can lie about it with that rat’s tail hangin’ out of your mouth, or the way you look when you’re tryin’ to walk, like you got something’ stuck up that skinny butt of yours.”
Sophia jumped down from Taurus’ horn giggling; her effort to hold it back was as fake as her demeanor.
“How much do you know, anyway?” I said, leery and worried.
“I know just about everything.”
“Well,” I said, “I’m listening.”
Taurus cleared his throat and made a gesture with his hand. “You’re half alive, half dead, half in Creation, half in that delusional world of yours influenced by my dear ol’ dad. And I smell...” he stopped and leaned over sniffing the air around me, “...middle-aged man who was molested by his father at the age of ten.” Then he sniffed my right arm. “Hmmm, interesting, a gladiator slave, killed by a Senator after the slave was caught servicing the Senator’s wife. And the other arm...the Senator!” Taurus laughed and shook his head. “The irony!”
I was about to speak, but Taurus stopped me. “Now wait just a minute and let me finish.” He took my hands into his and turned my palms up. “Wow, very delicate; a soft, young woman that loved to sew, but the irony in that is she was recycled with the hands of a man who murdered sixteen people because violent death got him off—you must masturbate a lot.” Taurus leaned back up and seemed finished with being so investigative. “The rest of you, nothing interesting at all.”
What I had wanted to say before was that my father never molested me, but it soon became obvious that Taurus was only revealing what sorts of people I had been recycled with.
I refused to comment about the masturbation.
“I know exactly why you’re here,” Taurus went on, “and what you’re supposed to do, so it would be wise to take out that mirror and let it tell you which way to go because you need to get there.”
“Whose side are you on?” I said.
“I wouldn’t trust him,” said Tsaeb from behind. “I wouldn’t trust any of the Zodiac, Norman.”
“Taurus is nice!” growled Sophia.
Tsaeb snarled at her, but did not give her the argument she probably wanted.
“I’m not the one of my brothers and sisters you should worry about.”
“Who should I worry about, then?”
Taurus smiled. “All of them...well, except maybe for Aquarius. He and my sister Virgo are more like myself and want you to succeed, but Virgo can be easily swayed. Mum’s probably already working on her now, knowing you’ve made it as far as you have. But Aquarius, he hates mum and would kill her if he had the opportunity.”
My mind was spinning. I thought about my own sign for a moment and wondered if being a Sagittarian had anything to do with, well anything at all, though I wasn’t sure how even to inquire.
“I’m Sagittarius...well, my sign is anyway.”
Taurus reached out his massive arm and
patted me on the shoulder. “That sister could give two shits less about you being born in her sign. In fact, she doesn’t care about any of this, about this war between my mum and dad, about the End of the Beginning, you, what you’re here to do. But she’ll kill you at the drop of a hat if you get anywhere near her children, no matter who you are, or what your intentions.”
“Why are you on my side? And really,” I paused, debating whether to go on, “what makes you think that in the end, if I even make it that far, that I’ll choose to bring on the End of the Beginning.”
Taurus gave me a dangerous look.
“I’ll kill you right here and now if that’s the case,” he said rising into a towering stand. “I want to be at peace, to frolic in the daisies, to drink from the waterfalls of Eden—to deny me peace is a death sentence.” He came toward me rigidly.
“Now wait a minute...wait just a minute. I didn’t say that was the case, I’m only trying to figure you out, is all.” I was less frightened than I thought I should’ve been.
“Alright, I’ll try to figure this damn mirror out.”
I took Vanity’s Mirror out of my pants and carefully peered into it. I reached up and scratched the side of my face seeing how much hair growth I had acquired. I wished for a moment that I had brought the shaving kit from Ronan’s bathroom along with me.
“Hmmm, it still only shows my reflection—this is dumb. She should’ve just given me a map; you know, one with little veiny roads and symbols, or better yet, one with a big fucking red X that tells me where I’m supposed to go.”
Tsaeb stood with his arms crossed. He said nothing, but the look on his face clearly said that he completely agreed with me.
“You know, Norman,” said Taurus, “it is called Vanity’s Mirror for a reason. Why don’t you try not looking at yourself so much.”
“Huh?” I looked up at Taurus.
“Try looking behind you.”
For a second, I thought about being back in the park and reading the note. I regarded Taurus with a suspicious look and saw Sophia from the corner of my eye, standing next to Taurus and holding onto the tail of his big furry coat.
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