With each step his distress was intensified until the solicitude ultimately deteriorated into an incontestable fear. The waypoint was finally reached. As they overlooked the lateral aspects of the two hills diagramed on the map, John came to the conclusion that his apprehensions may have been unfounded.
The sketched image was rather faded due to its age, and John was unsure as to how accurately the crash site had been portrayed by it. Going on the details Mr. Sanders had penciled in, it appeared that the fractured, cylindrical vehicle, having scraped away an extensive, narrow path for itself, was imbedded deep into the hill’s soil, separated at the mid-section, the aft portion resting at its side in an L-shape. At the time that the drawing was crafted, the local vicinity surrounding the unnaturally, freakish structure appeared to have been scorched and exfoliated. The hill, injuriously affected, would have been an extreme contrast to the surrounding landscape. But, from his and Sofia’s current perspective, it became quite apparent that the wounded incline had long been healed over, and was now painted green with the grass and vines, and decorated with the young, narrow saplings that had sprouted up with time.
Concealing away its scars, and along with it the lifeless intruder, it was instantly made obvious and relieving to John’s soul, knowing that the site could only be immediately discernable to those persons pre-possessed with the knowledge of the traumatic past of the planet.
“So, this is where we find the Food and Shelter,” John said with a touch of uncertainty and a dash of doubt. “What do you think of it?”
Looking out across the small valley leading up to the one hill that they had spent so many days searching for, Sofia could see that it was not the castle-like structure with golden arches and inviting aura that she had hoped would be awaiting their arrival. In fact, it did not even appear to be accessible without a bit of work on their behalf. From what she was able to gather from their lofty center of observation, it seemed as if the whole arrangement had been blanketed over by the hill itself in an attempt to disguise its hideous lesion from the Savior above. But, she concluded, this was their final place of rest. They were being granted a permanency that they never could have thought possible before today.
“It’s…” she said hesitantly, “… different.”
As they reached the base of their lookout hill, John and Sofia entered into the thicker trees of the valley. The realization that they were finally reaching the end of their pilgrimage made it difficult for them to cease with their giddy laughter.
What began as John’s earnest desire to travel eastward, to seek the land of the rising Savior, was detoured by the Unseen Forces that govern the events of the ages. Leading them instead towards the place where the Savior settles at the end of His daily march across the sky, Providence had given John an odd, but comforting, message, informing him that he did not have quite as much control over his and Sofia’s destinies as he once thought he had.
The events of the past week seemed but years ago. The world that they had left behind was as equally far, if not farther, from their minds as they were in distance to that terrible City. Moving his hands through a drape of dangling vines, John proceeded to push them aside, allowing Sofia to squeeze through the narrow opening between the trunks of the trees.
“Oh, John. Look,” she said, pointing towards something just out of his view on the other side of the tree line.
Hurrying through the natural threshold, John desired to see what had caught Sofia’s fancy so intensely. The world beyond was quite different than the lush green forest that they had been traversing. The grass was somewhat darker in color, almost emerald in appearance, and much shorter in length, while the trees, stubbier and relatively narrow in diameter when compared to the thick trunks of their older brethren, were thinly spread and far from maturity. Completely passing through, John let the curtain of vine fall back into place behind them.
Finding themselves standing in the center of the monumental channel that the flying craft had carved into the land before skidding to a halt upon the hillside, there was a sense of minuteness and inadequacy that befell the two of them that not even the tallest of hills, nor the expansive views of land that they had witnessed spreading across the planet, had been able to achieve.
Expanding for hundreds of meters ahead lay the unnaturally widened path leading up to the two portions of the vine and moss covered vehicle. Two mounds of soil protruded from the edges of the trench, forming fantastic walls of grass decorated with various colors of flowers, as if to form a majestic walkway for two weary travelers. The two halves of the air machine were massive in height and breadth, even at such a far distance. Their diameters were of relative length comparable to the medium sized buildings of Labor.
Pieces of metal debris, great and small, littered the landscape, creating an entirely novel world-within-a-world feel. Walking with a reduced pace in order to gather in the oddly formed environment by way of the many senses upon which it was affecting, they noticed that even the sounds emitting from the local area had a unique aural impression. The chirping of the tiny, grass-dwelling creatures was of a high intensity, whereas there had been only minor sounds generated by them in all the land of which the two had journeyed over. There were unique and colorful flying creatures, which appeared to sing among the trees. The flowers were of a deeper purple, almost to the point of blackness, and held a slight bend towards the Savior’s direction. Glowing, flying insects buzzed above the grass with illuminated bodies that sparked in intermittent flashes.
They had been directed to this magical place by a merciful hand. And the desire to give thanks to someone, perhaps Mr. Sanders himself, seemed in order. But, neither Mr. Sanders, nor anyone else for that matter, was available to receive their gratitude. It was just Sofia and John, alone but happy.
The towering cylinders, cloaked in vines and thick green over-growth which had seeped interiorly from between its cracks and punctured skin, dripped light-reflected dust from high above as John made the first step inside. The heavy creaking of the metallic floor shifting under his weight reverberated off the walls and into the inner chambers beyond his visual realm. A partition, designed to block further exploration into the deeper aspects of the vehicle’s body, was thwarted in its plan by its damaged, metal door that had apparently broken off during the catastrophic event. It was now solidly lying flat upon the floor, allowing access into the blackened room before him.
Stacked in an orderly fashion against the craft’s rounded walls, just outside the doorway were several small crates with the words Golden World Foodstuffs and Red Lights, Battle. The lids, previously broken off, had been lightly reset to allow for the ease of removal. Motioning to Sofia, who was peering in through the drapery of vine behind him, to continue to remain outside the vehicle, John lifted the lid off of one of the boxes. Reaching inside, he pulled out a cardboard case. It had the words Candy Bars written over it in a wide, bold font.
Tearing it open and revealing its contents, John found a food item of which he had never seen before. While most of the food products of Labor were generically labeled with blue writing on white paper composed in simplistic terminology, these were individually wrapped bars with colorful designs on the packaging, overwritten with dainty words regarding the nutritional value of the snack that was encased inside.
“I think I found some of the tasty food you were hoping for,” he whispered as he threw a single bar towards Sofia’s direction.
Clasping both hands around it as it sailed through the air, she immediately tore off the wrapper revealing a small, brown, rectangular edible. It gave off a sweet scent that was most inviting.
“Should I eat it?” she questioned.
John read the packaging to himself, “Choctacular Delight.” He then said to Sofia, “I have no idea what that means. I’m not even sure if that sounds good. But, it says here, ‘It’s a sensation to the taste buds’.”
Taking another sniff off the wavy top of the bar, Sofia said, “Oh, it smells wonderful, though.
”
“I don’t know, girl. I guess you might as well try it. Mr. Sanders didn’t say anything about there being food we should avoid.”
With her eyes closed, Sofia’s teeth sank into the creamy chocolate, biting off a portion of the bar’s corner. Allowing the succulent richness to fill her mouth, she hesitated to chew it at first.
“Well,” John inquired, “is it any good?”
Nodding her head in the affirmative, she continued to savor the moment, moaning with delight.
“So, what’s it taste like?” John asked with an expressed annoyance.
Opening her eyes, she took another bite.
“It’s so incredible. You just have to try it,” she spoke through a full mouth.
Pulling out another bar and simultaneously ripping the wrapper off and tossing it to the floor, John chomped off half of the treat in a single bite. With a grimacing brow, he chewed on the confectionary for a moment before suddenly opening his eyes wide and declaring, “This is so good.”
As the berries had affected them earlier in their escape, so now the sugary meal was accomplishing an awakening in their minds. With their feet dangling off the edge of the fractured structure, they sat together, just as they had often perched so many times on the edge of the rooftops of Labor. Holding onto the partially eaten candy in one hand and their other hands clasped one to another, they held off from further exploration in order to better the enjoyment of their newly found edibles.
“This is so strange,” John said. “I have this weird pressure around my head.”
“I wonder if it’s made of the same thing that’s inside the berries we’ve been eating,” Sofia responded.
“I think so, but these must be much more concentrated. I only felt like this after the first time we ate them.”
With four bars each eventually consumed, the accompanying nausea of overindulgence began to set in. Placing the case back inside its crate, John was more than glad to get the sweet bars out of his sight.
“I don’t think I’ll ever eat another one of those things as long as I live,” he said, holding his stomach.
Feeling a bit more comfortable regarding the safety of the vehicle, Sofia entered through the vine. The shifting of the metallic floor caused a lightly audible, vibratory sensation to roll through the vessel.
“I don’t think I’ll ever eat another one, either,” Sofia belched in agreement.
Placing the lid of the crate back onto its former place, John pulled the top off of the next wooden box beside it. Lifting out one of the small, brown boxes inside, he read aloud from the cover, “Red Lens Battle Light.”
“Battle light? Is that one of those lamps that the soldiers in the pictures are sometimes using?” Sofia asked.
“I believe it is,” he said opening its carton.
Pulling out an olive drab, cylindrical casing with a red lens-containing head that bent at a ninety-degree angle from the longer body, he turned it around in his hands inspecting its plastic construction. Depressing the black switch at its side caused the lamp to awaken. The interior of the vine-draped room suddenly lit up with a similar red glow to that which illuminated from the scanners outside the apartments of labor.
Shining the light into the doorway, John peeked his head in and looked around.
“What do you see?” Sofia asked with anxious curiosity.
Stacked from the floor to the rounded ceiling, and spread throughout the entire area, were crates of various sizes. There was a path that appeared to have been deliberately left opened between them, where a walkway had been left, leading around a corner and into the darkness.
“It looks like a storage room of some type,” he said, pulling her by the hand.
With the red lamplight casting bizarre shadows from their moving bodies, and the vine and roots of grass dangling overhead, Sofia couldn’t help but startle at the appearance of movement all around them.
Inspecting the labeling of the crates against a piece of paper on a clipboard hanging from the wall, John figured that the Sanders must have been organizing and cataloging the entire inventory of, what must have once been, a cargo ship.
To one area they had separated men and women’s clothing, out of which John found himself a new pair of shoes, along with various items, such as cases of books, appliances and medicinal elements from antibiotics, to creams and lotions from Golden World. While in another area there were stacks of boxes labeled Red and Raw that contained uniforms, boots, various crates of small arms and ammunition, mining tools and machines. The largest of the groupings was in the food department, where the crates were densely stacked to the ceiling.
Following along the labyrinth-like path among the wooden containers leading them to another doorway, of which they found the door having been previously removed and propped up against the wall, they entered in. Finding themselves in another room of nearly the same dimensions as the previous one, John and Sofia stood in awe at the sights before them. From floor to ceiling, with minimal space to move about, crates of food were so bountiful that there must have been enough to feed an entire army of men for many years. As the room was filled to capacitance, there was no way for them to continue further into the inner chambers of the vessel.
“It looks like they were using this place exclusively as a warehouse,” John said, moving the light from label to label. “There’s enough food here to last our entire lives.”
“More than enough,” Sofia interjected.
“But, if this is the storage place,” he looked inquisitively at her, “then the other half of this vehicle must be the place where they were planning on living.”
“You mean where we’ll be living? Let’s go see it.”
Snapping the lamp out from John’s hand, Sofia let out a taunting howl before quickly disappearing through the doorway, entering into the maze of crates leading back to their point of origin. Caught off guard by the suddenness of her folly, John was left standing momentarily dazed in the blackness with only a faint glow of light and her giddy laughter leading him out.
“Sofia,” he yelled, desperately running towards the faint glimmer of the lamp. “That’s not funny, you bad girl!”
Trying to keep within a suitable distance so as not to lose sight of the illumination completely, at every turn John bumped into the walls of the crates, occasionally tripping over the rope-like vine scrawled across the floor.
The corridors made by the stacks of boxes were not as easy to maneuver between with such a dim light illuminating his path. As the fear of falling too far behind was growing stronger with an inverse proportion to the strength of the glow of the lamplight, he suddenly found himself alone within the darkness of the vessel.
“Sofia! Get back here,” he screamed at her, but she was long gone from his presence.
With the last glimmer of the precious light cut off, along with her girlish squeals, groping blindly with his hands and feet, feeling his way along the walls, slow and steady, was his only option. Racing around with the youthful, imaginative thoughts of his mind, the frightful expectation of one of the forest’s hairy creatures grabbing him by the shoulder seemed inevitable. As the cool beads of sweat began to well upon his brow, the anxious stuffiness of the thick blackness engulfed his entire being. He felt the familiar, dull pain behind his eyes as he tried to hold back his tears. Against his resistance to do so, he succumbed to the childish urge to cry.
Minutes passed by, and, feeling his way around a sharp corner of crates, he finally caught site of that familiar glow of the lamp as it filtered through the doorway a few meters ahead.
Exiting from the darkness, he emerged into the red-lit room where he found the lamp standing on its end, propped up on the open lid of the candy crate.
“Sofia,” John whispered. “Where are you, you naughty girl?”
Pulling back the drapery of vine, Sofia peeked her head in, chocolate stained lips and all.
“Is everything alright?” she asked with an air of indifference.
“
That wasn’t funny,” he said to her delightful giggling. “And, besides, I thought you weren’t going to eat anymore of those things.”
She licked her lips then, one-by-one, she sucked the sugary smears from her fingertips.
“I wasn’t. But, hearing you cry made me work up an appetite.”
“Very funny,” he said, wiping the moisture from his cheeks, “I wasn’t crying. I was just concerned about you.”
Chapter Fourteen
Lifting his legs over the twisted, metal edge of the vessel, John held on tightly to a vine with one hand, and with the other he assisted Sofia with the climb. The lower half of the machine had been fractured off from the unexplored upper portion, and was situated perpendicularly to it, lying at the base of the hill.
Appearing similar to the storage half, the vine and thick moss and grass, overlaid the semi-embedded metallic hull with a cloak of living green. A peculiar tunnel of organically overgrown crates and scraps of torn metal had been previously arranged at the center of the rounded wall of what had once been the middle room of the vehicle when it was in its original state. Depressing the switches on the lamps that each of them now carried, John and Sofia cast their lights upon the entrance. A reflection returned back to them, bouncing off of the peculiarly set chrome décor dangling off of the steel hatch nestled at the distal end of the manmade cave.
Arm-in-arm the two adventurers cautiously moved in, pushing aside the sticky webs, blowing at the dust and flying insects that manifested in the lamplight. Carefully stepping over the contorted trails of vine that spread like thick, green veins upon the floor, they finally reached the decorated, hinged plate that hindered their further progression. Handing his lamp to Sofia, John grasped at the metallic, spoked wheel situated in the middle of the door, cranking it in a counter-clockwise fashion, grunting under the exertion.
The Lover's Parable Through A Seven World Journey Page 10