by Taki Drake
Thinking of something else he wanted to ask the man, Madrik ran over to the door and shoved it open. Outside the bar was a swirling mass of the gray stuff that Madrik had fallen down on his trip to the BHB. It filled the whole area and was impossible to see through.
The startled man had no desire to step out into that. In fact, he never wanted to touch that fog again. He could feel the BHB pleading with him not to go away. The combination of his desires and the bar’s pleas made him regretfully close the door. He would wait until the next day to ask his questions.
Just to address the uneasiness of his subconscious, Madrik shot the bolt on the door again before coming back to examine the foodstuffs that were spread out all over the bar top. Whether or not the fog would come into the bar, Madrik felt safer with the illusion of the door to keep it away from him. One trip through the clammy, swirling sense of chaos was enough for his lifetime.
Food was going to be his next objective. Now, to find a pan or knife or something. Otherwise, he was going to end up eating the food raw. He knew that it would not kill him, but it would be nice to have something that could be used to cook.
Chapter 7 – Images and Words
Madrik was getting frustrated. He knew that he was supposed to do something specific to help BHB understand what he wanted. But for the life of him, he couldn’t figure it out. He could feel echoes of his own frustration resounding along the bond. They were both trying to communicate, and it just wasn’t happening. Some important piece was missing, and he didn’t even know what shape that piece had.
Madrik had washed off the vegetables and fruits that Emesh had brought to get a break from his frustration. He was sitting at the table munching on a carrot when he felt a little spark of “Hmmm?” along the bond. BHB, do you know a possible way around this?
Instead of an emotional response, Madrik was treated to seeing exactly how the bar was supplying some of his needs. Arising from the floor on the other side of the table, was a shape that looked like a branch or root. It started as a slender root, stretching up to the height of about four feet, thickening to a column as wide around as his wrist. Once at that height, it broke into smaller rootlets that fanned out in an even distribution, creating a circle like a small table top.
Sitting on top of the roots was what looked like an old movie projector. The projector started to spin, and Madrik could hear the distinctive clicking sound that film made as it ran through a projector even though he couldn’t see any film. To his sight, the projector was empty, but the lights dimmed in the room, and a bright square appeared in the middle of the interior wall.
The projection had the appearance of an old-time movie display, the kind that was used when films did not have sound. The show had started, and Madrik settled to watch. In the back of his mind was a note to himself that they needed to get a popcorn machine.
The first thing he saw was a creature waddling across the ground on the screen. It was the image of the badger that the BHB had shown to Madrik before. When it reached the middle of the display, it looked directly at the camera and winked. Madrik laughed despite himself, glad that there was humor to be found even in such a frustrating situation.
The cartoon badger then proceeded to dig a hole in the middle of the ground. Dirt flew everywhere and piled up on the sides of the excavation. That pit was not perfectly round, instead showing edges that were jagged and realistic-looking.
The watching man found himself totally absorbed in the action. After a short time, the badger had completed digging his hole because he stopped his excavation and dove head first into the pit. Popping his head out once more, the badger looked directly into the camera and winked again, before slipping down out of sight. There was a brief pause where nothing changed. Then a large, brawny arm holding a beer stein popped up out of the hole and waved the drink around. Once again Madrik laughed.
Fading in above the arm and stein, a banner unscrolled with the words “Presents.”
Madrik could not stop a belly laugh. He now knew that the BHB was flamboyant and liked gestures. This was another puzzle piece connecting him to his friend’s mind. Friend. When did the BHB go from being a spirit that I was leery of to a friend? Madrik could feel the startled pleasure along his bond, and his connection suddenly morphed again. The strength of the BHB’s feeling in the man’s mind became clearer.
There was a clink on the table. When Madrik looked down, two more puzzle pieces had become linked, the coloring on them turning black and white with a tiny bit of red on one corner. Maybe this means it’s a piece of the Badger Hole Bar, Madrik thought.
The equivalent of a throat- clearing attention-getting sound buzzed along his mental connection. Madrik said aloud, “Sorry about that. I’m paying attention now.”
Turning his focus back on the wall, Madrik saw that a picture of a microphone had appeared on the left-hand side. He wasn’t sure when the badger had disappeared, and he wasn’t even sure where the beer stein had gone. Right now all that the projection showed was a plain white, black-bordered rectangle with the image of a microphone in the bottom left corner. It looked like a wireless karaoke microphone. Hopefully, the BHB was not suggesting that they start karaoke! Madrik did not think that he could stand the idea of drunken whatever beings singing in the bar!
The agreement from the BHB could be heard in the creaking of the stairs and the snap of the fire. Madrik was learning that his companion had many ways of communicating. Some were more heartfelt than others, but this one was simply an agreement response. Making a mental note, the man continued to stare at the wall.
Finally, a series of words popped up on the projection. They looked like a fill-in-the-blank puzzle mixed with something else. Madrik’s brain was having problems processing what he was looking at. It wasn’t deathless prose, and it wasn’t anything that would fit in with a movie. At first and second glances it looked like nothing more than bizarre poetry-driven karaoke. Important words were missing, but he thought that he understood the concept.
He began to read the words out loud, filling in the blanks as it made sense to him.
What he said out loud was,
“There once was a man so able,
That when he required some tables,
He created some rhymes
That specified times
And populated a bar with 12 tables.”
As he said the combination limerick and fill-in-the-blank verse aloud, a picture of the table that was directly in front of him flashed on the screen so that he was looking at the picture as he finished the rhyme.
There was a flash of gleeful triumph from the BHB and Madrik smiled in response, just before shouting in shock. All around him, evenly distributed on the barroom floor were 12 other tables. In appearance, they were identical to the one that he had been using. There had been no sound, no big effort on his part to do anything to materialize the furniture.
Instead, what he had done was to give the desire a form that the BHB could fulfill. Madrik was beyond thrilled. He felt like he had just won a major award, maybe even the lottery. The sound of the soft clicking of puzzle pieces made him turn his head to stare where he had left the pile of puzzle sections on one side of the table so that he could eat.
Two more puzzle pieces were now connected. The color patterns that were revealed were beyond Madrik’s ability to interpret, but he knew that understanding would come as more puzzle pieces became interlocked. For right now, he had his tables.
Curious and willing to experiment, Madrik decided to try once more. This time he repeated the same rhyme word-for-word and focused on the same table again. It works flawlessly. Another twelve tables materialized in the room around Madrik. Whew! I was worried that I could only use each rhyme once. I had better write these down so that I have them when we need more tables later. There is always some breakage in a bar!
At some point when he was focused on the creation of his tables, the projector had disappeared. Madrik was disappointed that he had not seen it leave but thoug
ht he would see many such arrivals and departures in the near future.
He was somewhat surprised to see that the branch which had grown up from the floor to support the projector was still there. It had changed its shape though, becoming less obtrusive. The rootlets that had been splayed out to form the small table had wound themselves around the top of the main stem, forming a spiraling knob.
Madrik thought that the slender pillar had an interesting shape, quite appealing actually, but that having it in the middle of the floor would be very inconvenient for the wait staff. Instead of the agreement that he expected from the BHB, a sense of anticipation trickled across his bond with the bar. Somebody’s got a secret. And he wants to spring it on me! I think I am figuring this out.
Smiling in the flush of success, Madrik started to search through his clothes, looking for the pockets that he was used to having. He had always carried a small notebook and pen with him so that he could make notes on things that he needed to remember. He wanted to write down the poem before he forgot it and there were things to look for tomorrow that they would need to operate the bar. Oops! No pockets in this outfit! I did not think to check before. I wonder what they do instead of using pockets?
The BHB sent a picture of his bedroom into Madrik’s mind. That is a suggestion, I believe. As the man pushed back from the table and began to rise from his seat, the floor seemed to writhe underneath him.
Flinging a hand out as a counterbalance, Madrik lurched and would have fallen, but managed to catch himself on the wooden staff next to his side. Holding onto the sturdy support, he waited for a moment to make sure that the ground had stabilized. Taking a deep breath of relief when no further movement happened, he straightened up, leaning on the staff just a little.
Staff??!!! Madrik stared at the stick in his right hand. Now he knew why the wooden pillar had remained and why the BHB had been waiting in gleeful anticipation. What on earth was he supposed to do with a staff? Numbly, Madrik stared at the long rod in his hand, his mind racing in circles. So many questions, too many priorities.
Spinning in the recesses of his mind, the man might have spent hours just vibrating in indecision, but a sharp poke from his companion broke him out of his daze. The image of his bedroom was pushed forcefully into his head. Shaking himself, Madrik realized that there was nothing to do at this point about the staff. Instead, he needed to work on what was immediate and what was necessary.
Obedient to that necessity, Madrik went in search of something he could write on and with, leaving the staff leaning against the side of the table. If he remembered correctly, there had been a small notebook and a pen in his dirty clothes. Hopefully, the garments had not been through the laundry with his stuff still in the pockets!
Chapter 8 – Gearing Up
Madrik felt like he was trying to complete a check-off list while carrying a heavy, awkward weight. Every time he turned around some surprise, some new thing, would hit him either in the head or the gut. Each change took energy to isolate, analyze, and accommodate. It was slowing him down and draining his energy more quickly than he considered acceptable.
The first roadblock occurred when he had run upstairs to his room. He had gotten all the way to the landing before he realized that he had come up the stairs just hitting every other step. It was like he was a teenage boy again. This for some reason made him feel immeasurably old rather than feeling younger. Shaking his head at his own sense of confusion, Madrik had sedately and slowly completed the journey to his room just to demonstrate to himself that he had control. As he approached the door into his suite, it opened by itself. Pushing an absent-minded “thank you” out to the BHB, he moved quickly from the hall into his sitting room.
In his hurry to look for a notebook, he only peripherally noticed the changes that had occurred in the main room. Madrik realized that the room was lighter, but he hadn’t seen any lights turned on. His delayed curiosity kicked in as soon as he had entered his bedroom, so around he turned and went back into the sitting room. Oh, my God! We have windows! And there’s light coming in. What the hell happened?
Walking over to the new windows, Madrik looked out onto an enclosed courtyard, complete with a small pond and comfortable benches. It looked like it had been carefully tended for a long time, but he knew it hadn’t been there before. This was a new expansion of the bar area, and it messed with his mind in a totally different dimension.
The now totally confused man had expected to see the swirling fog that had filled all of the areas around the BHB itself. Now, he could see that the wall of fog had been shoved away from the building, leaving the new real estate. It was an intriguing thought, and one that he knew would have a lot of ramifications.
He had just gotten accustomed to the idea that the BHB could modify the bar. Either his companion’s power was bigger than he thought and his reach further, or there were other entities like the BHB that existed in the same area. Of course, the other option was that the BHB was growing in power as the two of them bonded more closely. Madrik knew that his awareness had changed and that his ability to interpret the bar’s desires was getting better every day.
An ephemeral pat on the head and emotion that could be interpreted as “good human!” was all the feedback he got from the BHB. Laughing, Madrik knew that this was just another thing for him to investigate. He stored the clue in his brain and went back to the bedroom to look for his dirty clothes.
Of course, the dirty clothes were nowhere to be found. However, garments that looked very similar to the ones Madrik had been wearing were neatly folded and placed on top of a low dresser. Another piece of furniture that he had never seen before. Once again anticipating his needs, the BHB had created a new piece of furniture for the things that he needed to put away. And equally important to their working relationship and to their friendship was that both he and the bar seem to have the same ideas of neatness.
Madrik searched through the clothes but was unable to find either his small notepad or his pen. Unsure of what he should do about it, the human queried his companion as to their location. His mental connection allowed him to push an image of his notebook and pen to the BHB and he added on a sense of questioning. The BHB responded with a clear image of the room that he had thought would be his office.
“That makes sense!” he said. Giving the BHB a mental hug, Madrik took off for the other side of his apartment with a spring in his step.
He burst through the door of the office at a rapid pace. That momentum immediately came to a screeching halt. The office chamber was very different then it had been before. First of all, it wasn’t in the same shape or configuration. The office room was at least tripled in size and had gone from a rectangular shape to that of an L.
The walls were still covered in shelves, but there were many more of those shelves available. The library space had more than doubled, and intriguing cabinets and drawers had appeared in spaces that separated banks of shelves. Obviously, this is going to take him a while to investigate.
The desk, couch, and chairs that he had envisioned for this room were there. The furnishings were such a close match to what he had visualized that it was almost scary. The BHB had recreated his vision so completely that even the pattern on the chairs matched. Even more frightening was that his companion had shared enough of his vision that the large working desk was arranged in a perfect spot and thick pile rugs had been placed on the floor.
The room had a comfortable atmosphere that was intensified by the cheerful, crackling fire in the fireplace. Madrik stood in place, amazed at what he was seeing. His feet were sinking into the thick, softness of the rugs and knew that should he pull his shoes off the cushioned floor would be a gift to sore feet.
The desk was perfect, but something was missing. Madrik laughed as he realized that the mental picture that the BHB had used had not included a chair. That omission had cost him since there was no office chair for him to sit on. Just another thing that I have to remember to do. I bet I have to make up a lime
rick or two. The BHB sent gentle amusement back up their connection. It was mixed with agreement, so Madrik knew he was stuck with more poetry.
Madrik moved over to the desk and saw a neat pile of identical notebooks sitting there. Piled up next to them was a variety of pens ranging from quills to slender objects that look like no pen or pencil that he had ever seen. Vowing to investigate them later, the man grabbed one of the more familiar-looking pens and had immediately started to make frantic lists.
He knew that he would be less functional if he didn’t get all of the things he had to do written down and he needed to have his wits about him. Therefore, he better keep up. It was a bit awkward standing beside the desk and leaning over to write in the notebook, but the minor discomfort did not even come close to outweighing the sense of relief he got from finally being able to document his needs.
Then it was back downstairs to see what he could do about furnishing more of the bar. It took him four tries to get chairs for the barroom, which was frustrating to him. However, he learned a lot in those attempts.
First of all, he had to keep the image of what he wanted clearly in his mind for the BHB to pull out. When he didn’t, the result was erratic. Although he knew that the BHB could recycle the things that they had made in error, some of the mistakes had produced results that he didn’t want to be destroyed.
One particular case was a chair that had come out looking like a bizarre form of a three-legged milking stool. Madrik remembered taking Rachel to a working museum, one that showed children how people used to farm. His little girl had been obsessed with cows. He thought when she saw the real farm that her poor city nose would be offended by the earthy odor of a farmyard, but she didn’t even appear to notice the smells.