Oculus

by S. E. Akers

  “All right,” he replied.

  This was a first. My head fell into a dubious tilt. “Really?”

  Tanner simply nodded and shifted his attention back to his plate.

  The casualness of his consent practically decreed a litmus test, and I had a mile-long list of questions ready to rattle off. “Okay,” I began, “Wh—”

  The Amethyst Talisman cut me off with a swift point of his knife and that familiar gleam of evasiveness glazing his eyes. “After breakfast,” he scolded, sounding all mentory.

  Ninety-five percent of me believed him. The other five boomed, “Yeahhh rrright” in my head. Then again, I wasn’t exactly a pillar of honesty when it came to reasons for secrets myself. But mine were your typical variety of Cover Your Ass. They weren’t laced with the possibility of bodily injury or even anyone’s death.

  We’ll see, I mused as I shoved a heaping scoop of eggs into my mouth. “Of course, Professor,” I mumbled through my snarly chews. “How silly of me. That’s when ‘the fun begins’,” I added with a theatrical bounce of my brow, perfectly recalling the downright misleading way he’d described my summer stay here, right outside Bea’s house before leaving my lips high & dry.

  My dig triggered a vibe that lingered throughout breakfast — holding steady at a solid “5” on the Richter Scale. I was surprised the crystal didn’t rattle. Since “nonchalant” was the game plan, I kept my eyes true to my plate. However his violet-churning stunners…oh, they studied me with each and every one of his bites. Yep. I felt ’em.

  It wasn’t long before our plates were clean. My mentor’s drawn out last sip of juice was quite entertaining, just to prolong the suspense because he knew I was sitting here champing at the bit. But his leisurely stroll to my end of the table won the prize. If there weren’t so many breakables in here, I would have whipped up a little something to move ole grandpa along.

  I tossed my napkin down on the table with a tight lock on my grin. Ass…

  “Ready?” he taunted, clearly unashamed.

  “Born that way,” I replied, giving destiny its shout-out and hoping to mash a few of my jitters.

  Tanner pulled out my chair. “We’ll see,” he grinned slyly.

  We were standing in front of the massive triptych within seconds. “That’s an interesting piece,” I remarked, trying to keep my nostrils from sneering too much at the last panel.

  “Interesting?” Tanner hummed. “I think it’s more impactful, if anything.”

  My bottom lip puckered out a grin. “I suppose . . . if you’re trying to inspire nightmares.”

  “Does it frighten you?” he asked.

  Still haunted by the vileness of the images, my eyes fell on a demon-like apparition drinking from a human skull. I guessed it was blood.

  “Yes,” I replied with a rasp.

  “Good. You should be,” my mentor advised, sounding as ominous as a cold whip of wind dusting an open grave. “But that wasn’t the artist’s sole intent when he painted it in 1581.”

  “Fifteen Eighty-One?” I echoed. Clearly the Renaissance piece reflected the movement of the times—natural realism—but its subject matter seemed more cutting edge than any of the florid and fancy paintings I’d studied during that period. I knew religion and mythology were some of its hallmarks, but I didn’t recall anything as cringeworthy as that last panel. Maybe a few more feathery cherubs and a lot less fangs?

  I shook my head. “Well, he had to be the Cézanne of his time.” Or Charles Manson.

  “Greater if you can imagine, but he died without any fame,” he revealed, sounding almost as sad as his words. “This was actually the only piece he ever sold.”

  I gave the expansive triptych a studious second-look. “You’re kidding?” All things considered, the artist was undeniably talented and by all rights it was an incredibly original piece.

  “Not at all,” Tanner assured. He positioned himself behind me, close enough to where I could feel his breaths tickling my neck. “So tell me . . . What does your mind’s eye conjure from what you see?”

  A nervousness swept over me that felt so foreign. Pop quizzes and questions had never bothered me before, but then again, I never had a teacher I was so keen on impressing. Needing to keep a tight lock on my composure, I rallied some focus and examined all three renderings with a diligent eye. A couple of high school art classes hardly stamped me an official critic, so with art as in life, I went with my gut’s first impression. I pointed to the picturesque scene painted on the larger panel in the center. “Paradise,” I began. “Then there’s ‘happiness’ on the left . . . and ‘horror’ to the right.”

  “A conventional assessment,” Tanner replied with a teasing twinge of professor to his voice. “But there’s a lot more to the artist’s perspective than that.” He pointed to the panel on the left that was bustling with life. “This is the world we live in, where the heart of humanity resides. It illustrates all its vast pleasures and every shred of its pain.” The Amethyst Talisman took ahold of my hand and steered it towards the scene. With a gentle sweep, he guided my fingers down the center of the canvas. A mesmerizing flash of blue-violet light charged the flat surface magically, breathing real life into the spirited scene right before my eyes. This wasn’t the first time I’d witnessed a mystical 3-D transformation like this, but the size and scope of the oddity was undeniably more impressive than Padimae’s deck of tarot cards. You could even hear the crowd’s gleeful laughter calling out like the roaring excitement of a carnival that never came to a close. Now this was truly “performance art”.

  “Everyone seems so happy in this one,” I remarked.

  “Do they now?” Tanner posed. “Because looks are often deceiving.” He pointed to a man guzzling something out of a large urn. The guy was actually drinking so much it was running down his cheeks and drenching his clothes, just before it made a wine-colored stream that flowed onto the foyer’s marble tile floor.

  “He’s an alcoholic,” I stated.

  “Yes,” Tanner confirmed. “Take a closer look at the mound he’s standing on and children at his feet.”

  A stone marker was jutting out of the ground behind the man. Suddenly the earth gave way to a more transparent image of a woman buried within the soil. Though her eyes were closed, their lids were painfully swollen and black. That was nothing compared to the way her frame lay in the earth contorted, leaving you with no doubts that her pretzel-like form had resulted from countless beatings — courtesy of the drunkard just six-feet above. Heart-wrenching wails cried out of the children’s mouths, mourning both their mother who had passed and a presently absent father.

  “There’s a fine line between good and evil with any pleasure,” Tanner said. “You can’t expect true joy when the feeling only masks your pain.”

  My peripherals sensed a quick burst of blue-violet light on the gruesome right panel. My eyes tracked the flash to an area where an unearthly wooly beast was ripping a man limb from limb. I slowly approached the section with a freakish curiosity. I glanced back at the other panel. As the animated image of the alcoholic came to a slow halt, the more ravenous the bloodthirsty creature on the last panel grew.

  “Shiloh, there’s a world that exists simultaneously with ours. It’s known as Caelum. We can’t see it, but we can feel its force all around us. It pokes at our senses all the time. A realm where paradise exists alongside the darkest abyss.” Tanner directed his gaze respectively between the center and right panels. “A veil of energy separates us from it. Its power is fed by the magic that makes up our souls . . . every human soul here on earth. Each and every one of them hold a force greater than they can ever conceive.” Tanner nodded towards the monster that was just starting to devour his dismembered victim. “The magic from these same souls can either strengthen the borders of The Veil, protecting us from these creatures, or they can wear it down by fueling this evil. And I’m afraid that the present track humanity is on will inevitably bust open its doors.”

  I stood there—
mouth gaping and mute—while the sounds of cracking bones scratched my ears. Seeing any trace of the man-turned-meal disappear through the creature’s last growly chews snapped me out of my daze.

  “How is that possible?” I muttered. Yes, there were supernaturals, and of course I’d come to the equally startling realization that monsters did in fact exist, but the notion that human souls were “magical” and played such a vital mystical role in the way our world turned left my brain scrambled with confusion.

  “Every being possesses some degree of Earth magic,” Tanner assured. “Some more than others, but the majority of people go their entire lives without knowing it’s there.”

  “This realm . . . ” I mumbled with a gulp, “This is where these creatures are supposed to go?”

  Tanner nodded. “Yes. We call it The Darklands. It’s just a small corner that exists within Caelum, the plane beyond The Veil . . . but its borders are swelling, even as we speak. This is where all the evil beings are born and must remain.”

  I scanned the entire panel from top to bottom. Frankly, there were far too many distinctly different creatures to even count.

  “They’re born there?” I questioned.

  “Yes,” he replied.

  For some reason I got a sneaky suspicion that the Facts-of-Life wasn’t a necessary guideline for any of these savage monsters with respect to their creation in this realm. At least I didn’t think there were any loving mommies and daddies literally making the beast with two backs to birth one of these things. Then again, old sayings come from somewhere.

  “How?” I asked, curious but fearing his answer. Hell, I was nauseous enough.

  “Our thoughts are magical forces of their own, born directly from our souls. Every one of them, no matter how slight, are absorbed by The Veil. Their energy has to go somewhere once it’s been conjured. Thoughts formed out of love and compassion live on in Caelum, the paradise you see in the center panel . . . and the ones kindled by bad intentions feed the creatures in The Darklands, whether humanity realizes they claim the power to do so or not. Their birth is another story. These unimaginable beasts are spawn from man’s most heinous acts. This is where humanity’s greatest sins take on a physical form.”

  I stared at the last panel struggling for what to say. The monsters were enough of a bomb, but now knowing that “our own world” was responsible for creating these things had mentally blown the wind right out of my ignorant sails.

  “So . . .” I finally began, “You’re saying every bad thought feeds these things in The Darklands? Magically?”

  “Yes,” Tanner nodded. Actually, he answered a little too quick & casual for my taste.

  “No matter how small?” I posed.

  “If any thought’s intention isn’t righteous, then how could the magic from it not cause harm somewhere? The power one’s soul harbors transcends our world,” he explained. “They all count, Shiloh. The tiniest thought or action may not give rise to a beast, but they can certainly tide its grumbles. Even something one would consider trivial, like a little white lie. They all carry weight with The Veil.”

  Well that one hit a little too close to home, but then again, supernatural-human was still human. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the monsters. “So all these things are a result of society’s decay?” I suggested, sounding enough like a theologian to make me want to down an entire bottle of Dramamine. “Me included?”

  “Yes,” Tanner confirmed with a blatant nod. “Along with every other Talisman over the years, including myself. No one’s perfect.”

  My conscience felt a little more at ease, but not that much. All the nasty sentiments regarding my dear, sweet mother whirled in my head. Though I’d never committed a bad act towards her, per se, the cumulative sum of our tumultuous relationship, disrespectful cracks, and a few of my more colorful vengeful-fantasies alone should have been enough to pop out at least one of the smaller critters I spied wriggling around the canvas.

  “Shouldn’t they know this?” I questioned anxiously. “EVERYONE?” Seriously? Magic souls and monsters? I never got that unabridged bedtime story in all of my child-rearing years.

  Tanner let out a laugh-like grunt. “Do you really think that would inspire some miraculous global Kumbaya turnaround? One announcement and leaves across the world would turn over with breakneck speed and stay that way . . . forever?”

  I had to admit in hindsight how far-fetched the notion sounded. After all, free will and self-gratification ruled the land. If a death penalty couldn’t sway a person from consciously killing someone, would knowing their act could give rise to a horrific creature off in some other realm that they may or may not ever see even make a dent? No matter how flimsy the door? I didn’t think so.

  I rushed to the crowded left panel and feverishly swept the entire scene. Surely there had to be one daggone soul who wasn’t a lost cause. My blurry baby-blues were starting to go cross-eyed from trying to distinguish the depraved from the devout.

  I turned to Tanner. “Exactly just how screwed are we?” I grumped with a sad huff.

  The Amethyst Talisman’s natural hazel eyes shot into a roll. “Don’t you ever watch the news?”

  “I’m being serious,” I protested.

  “See for yourself. Pick one,” my mentor suggested. “You know a picture’s worth a thousand words.”

  Don’t you mean “souls”, I groaned internally as I scrutinized the congested scene. My eyes homed in on a raven-haired woman sitting beside a clear-blue pond, simply minding her own business and looking into the water. The beam from her jubilant smile alone could light the darkest of skies. I gave the canvas a gentle stroke and took a confident step back to watch the scene unfold. I may have even mentally crossed my fingers that something would spark within the center panel’s borders of paradise. It turned out the woman was engrossed in something all right — herself. The longer she focused on her reflection, the more distracted she seemed, totally ignoring everyone and everything around her. The gruesome panel on the end came to life again. This time, a scaly serpent-like creature with stumpy legs pinned a frightened child to a cluster of rocks and then swallowed the youth whole.

  “Vanity has no place in paradise,” Tanner said. He singled out a regally robed man sitting on a towering pile of gold coins. He was cackling and sorting through his riches while a horde of people groveled on their knees at the bottom — all of them dirty, wearing tattered clothes, hungry, and extremely weak. Sure enough, I heard the makings of another monster’s grumbles coming from the other panel. I didn’t even venture a look.

  “Vanity comes in many forms . . . no matter the vice of choice. Excess and obsession are corruptive, even more so when its grasp affects the lives of others. But the man’s wealth isn’t the culprit. His love of it is,” Tanner elaborated. “True ecstasy only comes from loving your fellow man.”

  With a slight flush, I nodded towards a naked woman who was, to put it mildly, playing backyard Twister with around six different men. Correction — Seven. “She seems to be loving her fellow man a little too much.” I had to turn my head when that scene started to really unfold. My vanilla eyes weren’t ready to digest a full-on gangbang, especially not this soon after breakfast.

  “Yes, there’s even a fine line between love and lust,” Tanner stated. “If the woman truly loved herself she wouldn’t be in that position . . . and if the men felt the same about themselves and held more respect for others, none of the eight would give in to the temptation.”

  I whirled my head around back to the X-rated spot, my eyes locked in a squint. “There were eight?”

  Tanner motioned towards the one I hadn’t counted. Trust me. I’d easily mistaken his head for somethin’ else. Ooookay…

  “You can find every one of humanity’s aliments within the confines of this panel,” he revealed and then commenced with a clockwise visual tour of various offenses. “There’s envy, which does nothing but fuel a soul with resentment and can even breed a restless state of depression. If
a soul falls within the clutches of despair and cannot break free, their reluctance to engage with their destiny ultimately traps them in a prison of sloth. And then there’s wrath. It comes in many forms, from the most tireless bouts of war throughout time to something as petty as gossip, sarcasm, and ridicule. Something as simple as a harsh word can bear the sting of a thousand knives . . . most of the time unknowingly.”

  I surveyed the panel again, feeling like I’d stumble across a red & white striped Waldo before I would happen upon a pure, selfless soul.

  “I’ll help you out,” Tanner remarked as he directed me to a man steering his horse-drawn wagon. “Before you pop any more brain cells.”

  Once my scowl had relaxed, I touched the spot on the canvas. The man stopped at one of the tents lining a marketplace and began unloading his crops. Instead of selling all of his goods, the man climbed back onto his wagon and then guided the horse towards the miser who was still sitting atop his riches. The man motioned to the hungry crowd still lingering at the selfish man’s feet and let them take whatever they pleased. None of them, no matter how desperate, took a smidgen more than they needed. Not a second later, a blinding beam streaked out of the sun shining above the tranquil piece of paradise featured in the center panel and then landed on a spot in the green grassy field. Suddenly a root broke through the earth and sprouted before my eyes. Within a matter of seconds, a lush and leafy bush took form, flowering the most beautiful roses I’d ever seen. Their petals were a peachy-color that faded innocently into white on their perfectly curved ends. The sweetness of their fragrance wafting in the air alone was undeniable. I’d honestly never sniffed a perfume that came close to smelling as heavenly — Kamya’s ruby and pheromone blend included.

  “See how powerful a virtuous soul can be,” Tanner remarked.

  I stared at the breathtaking image of Caelum, both enamored and disappointed by what seemed like an unattainable utopian dream. “This was the type of world the Guardians wanted here on earth,” I said.