Vision2
Page 23
Roger raised the whistle to his lips and blew, his breath soundlessly tumbling through the empty plastic. “I want Firturro to help me,” he said, clamping his teeth around the whistle and speaking from the corner of his mouth.
Idrian raised his furry eyebrows, but said nothing. Roger jumped as he felt someone’s hand slip inside his own. The phantom hand grasped his own tighter, and for a second Roger was afraid that he’d made a horrible mistake. Then Firturro swirled out of the air like Idrian, but unlike Idrian, Firturro wasn’t quite as solid, but he wasn’t quite a shadow either.
“Sorry I got you killed,” Roger told Firturro. He didn’t think that his crappy apology made any difference, but he had to unburden himself somehow. “Pretty cool day for flyin’, don’t you think?” Roger asked, hoping that Firturro would understand what he was about to do.
Firturro nodded.
“What do you mean, flying?” Idrian asked as he moved forward, panic rising in his eyes.
Roger never answered Idrian; instead, he grabbed Firturro’s other hand, and together they ran for the black.
Right over the edge of the world.
And then they were falling through layers upon layers of eternity-filled nothing. For a brief second, Roger thought that he might have found that elusive section of the universe that lay beyond the brick wall, that he might somehow have found all the answers he’d so fervently searched for. As they fell, Roger felt Firturro’s hand being ripped from his own. His physical body seemed to float away from him, and he melded in with the murky world that now encapsulated him.
Images floated past him in circular flashes that rose and ballooned out through the darkness. They reminded him of those old movies where a fortuneteller or psychic would consult their glowing orbs. The camera would always zoom in on these orbs until they stretched out and filled the entire movie screen.
One such image showed the electricity billowing against the blockage while he and Trey ran across the vacant room. There had been no circuit breakers to stop the flow of current; nothing to diffuse the electricity that remained after they’d destroyed the pipeline. And, when it had nowhere else to go, it built up among the rocks, weaving its way blindly through the tunnels, causing the massive earthquake he’d witnessed. He saw the yellow sun pulsing through the sky, growing brilliant for a sheer second of eternity before being propelled back through time, through space, marking the final separation between the two worlds. It hadn’t been a mystical event that had caused so many deaths, but his hand.
In these brief glimpses Roger also saw Adenitril and Idrian bury Trey’s body with soft swoops of sand that dusted his face and poured into him until he was lost in the ocean of light green grains. He no longer had eyes to cry with, but he knew the tears were there, burning their way into his soul.
Another image showed the young Obawok that had killed the President organizing and rebuilding everything on the surface. The gnomes, women, and male Obawok were living together. The brief flashes illuminated several struggles and the efforts that it took, but in one bubble, Roger saw that gnomes were working alongside Obawok to build shelters. It looked hard, but there was also vibrant laughter and genuine smiles, and somehow it made the idea of Trey being buried in a sea of sand a little easier to digest.
Several other glimpses flickered in front of him as he fell, each one a little weaker than the one before it until everything he saw had the dark tint of a bad photograph, and eventually there was nothing more. For a while he thought he was alone again, and the emptiness tore at him with razor sharp talons. If he hadn’t felt Firturro’s presence reach out to him, his ghostly hand intertwining with Roger’s equally vaporous one, he might have lost himself. But their particles melded and combined into something different, something comforting.
They were falling into the black beyond the edge of his world, of their world, beyond the edge of understanding, and Roger was taking Firturro with him to the other side.
After an eternity of hours melding into a lifetime of nothing more than simple blackness, Roger felt his feet connect solidly with the ground.
No!
“Roger? Roger? It’s a healthy baby girl, weighing in at eight pounds, four ounces.”
Roger felt something being put into his arms, and even though he couldn’t make out anything but shadows, the compact, wiggling, weight fit easily into the crook of his arms, as if it was always meant to fit there.
What about the falling? What about Firturro? Whose baby is this?
Roger looked down and actually saw the perfect round face staring up at him. Its eyes half shut, its perfect little fingers curled into fists and thrust up into its chin. The black around the edges of the baby began to fade until there was a whole room surrounding him. There was a doctor standing right next to him, surgical mask pulled off to reveal his lopsided grin.
He looked up, looked at the bed where a sweaty-faced Mary Beth was holding out her arms.
It can’t be.
He shook his head to try and clear it, but when he looked back, she was still there.
“Give her to me, Roger. You can’t start hogging her already.”
Roger carried the baby towards her, still unclear about what was actually going on, still certain that this could end at any time and he would once again be falling through nothing with Firturro. But that was before their hands met.
As soon as he touched her, he could remember. They’d broken up that rainy night in April, and she’d intended to marry someone else. That had all still happened. But time seemed to branch out in two directions at the same time.
He could remember her wedding invitation and getting pulled through the mirror and everything that had happened in Obawok. He turned over his right palm, and sure enough, there were two puckered, circular scars right in the center of his hand.
But he’d also gone to see Mary Beth the day before her wedding. They’d ended up talking all night. He could remember telling her not to leave her fiancée, to enjoy a life without his worries and problems, all the while hoping she would leave and come with him. He remembered the next afternoon when she’d showed up at his house in her wedding gown.
“Marry me.” It hadn’t been a question but a command, a simple command that he had followed without hesitation. That had been a year and a half ago. They’d bought the service station from Roger’s boss when he’d had a heart attack six months after the impromptu wedding and decided his body needed the beaches of Florida to survive. His price had been fair, and they were doing well.
And now, now there was a baby. The little girl opened her eyes as wide as possible and looked right at Roger, and he found himself caught in her violet stare. “Such unusual eyes,” he muttered to himself, unable to think of anything else except for falling through the black hole, the foggy Firturro clutched in his arms.
“Yes, but she’ll probably grow out of it. Most babies’ eyes change colors as they age. You’ll see,” the doctor said.
But Roger didn’t think so.
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About the Author
Photo by Daniel Reynolds
Kristi Brooks grew up in Southwestern Oklahoma torn between the world she lived in with her family and the one she created in her head. Now, thankfully, she knows the difference between the two and has finally decided to translate one into a book. Vision2 has been making its way onto paper for over ten years and has finally found its way into print, marking a new chapter in Kristi’s life. She currently lives in Oklahoma City with her husband and their menagerie of animals.
About the Cover Artist
Carol Gravley was born in Abilene, Texas, but grew up in various parts of the state because her silly parents just couldn’t stay put. She’s been drawing, painting, and making sculptures out of strange objects for as long as she can remember—activities that lead up to her graduating from Hendrix College with a bachelor’s in art, plaster in her hair, and her hands covered in charcoal dust. She now lives in Oklahoma City with her partner Avery, three cats, and a r
odent army.
About PegLeg Publishing
Formed in February 2003, PegLeg Publishing seeks to provide opportunities for beginning and previously published authors that larger publishing houses aren’t able to provide. Vision 2 is the company’s first novel.
In addition to publishing novels, PegLeg Publishing also produces a literary e-zine entitled GlassFire Magazine
(www.glassfiremagazine.com) and plans to begin an annual writing contest. More information on PegLeg Publishing can be found at www.peglegpublishing.com.