Melono’s look of pity for Notmie increased tenfold as he spoke. She sat herself on the floor next to him, examined the place on his head where the door had hit him, then folded her arms in her lap and looked him over once more.
“Well, I didn’t immediately go with the change. Firstly, I didn’t think Larry should encourage him; after all, he’s only an eighth black. I mean, hell, I’m an eighth Native American, but you don’t see me calling myself something stereotypical and borderline offensive like Running Badger or Fighting Buffalo. Anyway, Larry finally convinced me that it was a necessary change in Quiche’awn’s progress, but I won’t deny that it took me a long time to get used to it.”
“Well, it couldn’t have taken you that long, I mean, here you are and you’re already used to it. And it’s only been, what, fourteen, sixteen hours?” Notmie chuckled.
“Sixteen days.”
“Oh.”
Part 16
Turkey in the Straw
Notmie stared passively at the wall over Melono’s left shoulder for quite some time before coming to grips with this reality.
“So,”—he paused and cocked his head slightly to one side—“that’s a long time. That’s… more than a week.”
Melono patted Notmie kindly on the shoulder. “Yes, Notmie, that’s more than two weeks.”
“More than two weeks!” His eyes bulged as he spoke, and his whole body began to shake.
“So, what did I miss?” Quiche’awn had entered the room, unaware of Notmie’s fragile condition.
Notmie’s attention darted over to Quiche’awn, who was knocked back a step by Notmie’s harsh look.
“What did you miss?” Notmie said. “What did you miss? The question is: what did I miss?”
“Oh, Notmie, Notmie, Notmie…” Quiche’awn’s serene tone surprised Notmie. “I’m so glad to see you’re finally awake. Mel, Larry, Sybil, and I have had such a pleasant past couple weeks, but we were beginning to miss having you around.”
Quiche’awn knelt down next to Melono to face Notmie, whose body had stopped shaking, but whose eye was beginning to twitch.
“Since when do you call Melono ‘Mel’ and who the hell is Sybil?” Notmie demanded.
“Oh, well, Larry’s mother, of course.” Quiche’awn didn’t let Notmie’s aggravated tone affect his own calm demeanor. “You didn’t expect her to be nameless, did you? Or did you just assume she went by ‘Larry’s mother’?” He chuckled lightly at his jest.
Notmie stared intently at Quiche’awn. The words he was saying seemed like ones that Captain Alex might say, but the way he said them did not. Why was that? It was like someone had taken all the sarcasm and offensiveness out of The Captain’s voice and all that was left was a normally functioning human being. And where was his cape? He wasn’t wearing his cape!
“Captain Alex! Come back to me!”
Now it was Quiche’awn who was shaking, but only because Notmie had taken hold of his shoulders and was jerking him back and forth as fast as he could. Certainly the Cap’n that Notmie knew would have slapped him across the face at least a dozen times by now, but for some strange reason beyond Notmie’s logic, Quiche’awn did nothing of the sort. Instead, he simply looked Notmie dead in the eyes and said six simple words:
“My name is not Captain Alex.”
And with that, Quiche’awn stood up and walked out of the room.
Notmie watched Quiche’awn leave before looking to Melono. “What was that about?”
Melono’s head was in her hands and she was slowly shaking it from side to side and making prolonged groaning noises. Slowly the noises began to sound like words.
“Why, Notmie? Why did you have to go and call him Captain Alex when I told you specifically to call him Quiche’awn?”
“Because that’s not his name, Melono! His name is Captain Alex, not Quiche’awn!”
“Actually, if we’re going to get technical, his name is Brodie, but you just call him Captain Alex now. You’re really wrong about what makes a person’s name. A person is whatever name the majority of the people he knows call him, and the majority now calls him Quiche’awn. Why don’t you like the idea of him changing his name?”
“Why do you like the idea?” Notmie countered.
Melono shrugged. “I don’t really like it or dislike it anymore because it’s not my choice, so I don’t really have an opinion on it. He felt that this was best for him to do, so he’s doing it, who am I to go against that?”
With an exasperated sigh, Notmie finally said, “Fine.”
There was an awkward silence in the room that only occurs on rare occasions when two people who have just known each other for a short time have learned way too much about each other in that short time to have anything left to say.
“Well, er, I better go check on Quiche’awn.” Melono stood up and started heading toward the door. “And he was doing so well these past couple of days… shame.”
“Doing well with what?” Notmie asked.
Melono stopped walking and turned to face Notmie again.
“He was doing so well with putting the days of Captain Alex out of his memory.”
“Why would he want to do a thing like that?” asked Notmie, wondering why someone would want to do a think like that.
“He doesn’t need it anymore. Those years were very painful for him, Larry tells me.” She turned to face the door again, then as if it was an unimportant side note, she added, “Plus, we have most of the information we need to know, so we can go try to reverse that curse properly now.”
She exited the room.
Notmie’s head felt like it was struck with something pointy and heavy, and then he realized that it was just the meaning of what Melono had said that had struck him.
The voices in Notmie’s head began to babble:
They know how to reverse this curse.
Was that thought just a rhyme?
Do I know how to rhyme?
Well, I must know how to rhyme if I suddenly know how to write poetry in my sleep.
Oww… my head still hurts. I wonder if it’s bleeding again.
They know how to reverse the curse.
Is anyone going to help me off this floor?
My feet are cold.
No, no one was coming to help him off of the floor; he realized that now. He braced on the bed behind him and pulled himself into a very stiff standing position. Now all he had to do was find where the others were.
He walked slowly out of the room and found himself in the same hall as his original bedroom, though he seemed to be further down from the stairs than before. The stairs. He would simply find the stairs, walk down them and surely the others would be easy to find after that point, right? Well, it was worth a try.
As soon as he had gotten down the stairs—it sounds simple, but in all reality he was still dizzy from blood loss, so when he lost his balance and tripped over what appeared to be a cape lying on one of the steps, he hit his head on the railing (“My poor head!”), which immediately made his knees buckle (“How does that work?”), which made him roll down seven stairs before finally hitting the floor down below (“Will the pain never stop?!”)—he heard voices, which he followed through a cozy den that led into a quaint kitchen where Larry, Quiche’awn, and Melono were sitting and chatting over coffee.
“Have a nice snooze?” Larry asked, greeting Notmie with a jovial smile. “Come, have a seat.”
Larry motioned at an empty chair between him and Melono, and Notmie, deciding his head was feeling a tad bit on the hellishly painful side, decided to take him up on the offer and went over to the chair and carefully sat himself down.
There was already a warm cup of coffee waiting for him on the table. He couldn’t tell whether it was something for which Sybil had foreseen a need or whether Melono had simply told Larry to warm up some after she left the room. Whatever the case, he decided to drink it.
“You all right, Notmie?” Melono asked, as Notmie prepared to take his first sip. “You
seem to have a few more scrapes on your head and arms now than you had when I left you.”
The coffee was hot. Way hot.
Notmie’s tongue burned like fire as soon as the liquid touched it. He flinched, spilling half the cup of coffee on his lap. Yelping in pain, he stood up and began tugging his pants away from his skin to avoid third degree burns in an unpleasant region.
“How do I keep spilling scalding coffee on my crotch?!”
Quiche’awn and Melono quickly jumped up to grab napkins and assist Notmie in any way that they could. After a couple minutes of sopping and yelping and general chaos, things were back to their normal state, except for Notmie’s pants, which now had a large brown splotch on the crotch. “These pants must be unlucky,” Notmie said as soon as he saw the damage done.
“Is it just me,” Quiche’awn said, seeming to have forgotten how mad he was at Notmie, “or do you seem to hurt yourself more than the average person?”
“Well, I think I do, and I think it has something to do with the untimely deaths in my family.” Notmie paused to take a sip of what coffee remained in his cup, but Melono grabbed his arm to stop him before he could burn himself again. “Eventually one of my accidents will probably kill me,” he continued. “But I seem to be sturdier than the average person. For example, I fell down the stairs on the way down here, and a normal person might have been knocked out from such a fall or at least have broken a bone, but I’m not too bad off, just a few scratches. I’ve often wondered why this is, but no one’s ever been able to explain it to me. I don’t know who I could ask that would be able to give me a satisfying answer to my question.”
Melono chuckled. “You know what they say: ‘The answers sought are in your head.’”
As soon as the words escaped her mouth, Notmie, Quiche’awn, and Melono froze, confusion on each face.
“Why did you say that?” Quiche’awn demanded after some time of silence.
“I don’t know.” She looked like she’s just been stunned. “It just came out.”
Larry was lost. “What’s the problem?” He looked around at his three visitors, waiting for some explanation.
“I don’t know what their deal is,” Notmie began, “but I heard Melono say that exact line in my dream last night… or rather, sixteen nights ago.” Notmie stared at the other two, waiting for them to explain themselves. After all, it was probably some inside joke they had developed while he was unconscious.
Those lousy friends, having fun without me.
But to his surprise, they said nothing about an inside joke.
Instead, Melono said, “I… I remember dreaming that, too.”
Quiche’awn nodded. “Yeah. Same.”
“Whoa,” said Larry. “So, let me get this straight.” He looked around at the faces in the room. “You all heard that same line in a dream?” Nods. “Are you sure it was the exact same wording?” Tentative nods. “So, what do you suppose that all means?” Blank stares.
Suddenly Quiche’awn snapped to and pointed at Melono, “Quick, what was the next line in your dream?”
Without needing a second to think, Melono replied, “Some things are made to break apart.”
“Can you really do cartwheels?” Notmie asked.
“No,” Melono replied.
Silence.
“Who can remember the entire thing?” Melono asked, looking skeptically at the other two.
Both raised a hand. Both immediately felt silly for having raised a hand.
“We need to write it down.” There was urgency in her voice, and the other two acted upon it, searching the room frantically for pen and paper.
“I can’t find a pen anywhere!” Notmie threw up his hands in frustration.
“There’s magnetic poetry on the fridge, maybe you can use that,” Larry suggested.
“That’s such a stupid idea!” Notmie replied.
“Well then, can you find a pen?”
Eventually, Notmie realized that there was no writing utensil around.
“Ugh! I hate magnetic poetry,” Notmie yelled as he headed for the fridge. “Why didn’t your mother just tell you to bring a pen into the kitchen?”
Quiche’awn quickly joined Notmie and helped gather all the words they needed.
Things got heated and stressful right off the bat when Notmie ran into some difficulty finding the words “hefty” and “transcend.” He was just about to throw an assortment of words across the room, both figuratively and literally, when Melono grabbed his wrist and showed him the scissors she held in her hand.
He changed his tune immediately. “Whoa there, Melono, no need to get crazy… put the scissors down slowly. Slowly, now.”
“Notmie, you dummy, I’m not going to stab you with these; I’m just giving them to you so that you can cut the magnets to get letters for words you can’t find.”
After the genius idea of cutting up the individual letters, the trio complete the song in no time, mostly because of Notmie’s memory, which seemed to have been best preserved by his sixteen-day coma.
They stared at the fridge, but no one spoke immediately.
“So.” Quiche’awn looked tentatively at Notmie and Melono. “When y’all heard the song, was it to the tune of… ‘Turkey in the Straw’?”
“Yep,” Notmie answered.
“I knew I recognized that tune from somewhere!” Melono added.
“Phew, okay, good, just making sure. Because I know mine was most definitely ‘Turkey and the Straw,’ and it was just a little disturbing to me that of all the tunes that would be the one that it was sung to.”
Notmie didn’t hear Larry walk up behind them and had no idea that he was so close until he spoke from directly behind Notmie. “Oh, I get it. Well that’s not a hard message to pick up at all. You three should figure it out just fine without my help.”
Notmie whirled around. “Figure what out?”
“The riddle.”
“What riddle?”
“The one on the fridge behind you.”
“You’re on crack,” said Notmie. “That’s not a riddle that’s a song that we all had the exact same version of in our drea—ohhh. I get it. It is a riddle. But what could it mean?”
Notmie would have really appreciated it if Larry had just told him what it meant, but unfortunately, Larry decided it would be best for Notmie to figure it out on his own, and unfortunately, Larry didn’t have the foresight of his mother and hadn’t been warned by her either, because if he had, he wouldn’t have asked Notmie to do such a thing, knowing what might result from such strenuous thoughts surging thought Notmie’s mind.
Notmie’s knees buckled and he fell limply to the ground.
“Ow.”
Part 17
Internal Bleeding
Notmie couldn’t help but wonder if this knee-buckling thing was going to become routine for him or if it was just a phase. Obviously he hoped it was just a phase, but if it wasn’t, he then hoped that it would at least become commonplace enough for the others to get used to it and help him off the floor rather than stare at him in useless amazement like they were at that moment.
“Notmie, are you all right?” Melono finally extended a hand to him to help him up. She pulled him to his feet and inspected him for cuts and bruises.
“I think I’m going crazy,” he said, mostly to himself.
“Probably, but we don’t blame you.” The compassionate tone of Quiche’awn’s voice didn’t make what he said any more comforting to hear.
“Nah,” said Larry. “If anything, I think Notmie here is getting saner by the second.”
“Hmm…” Notmie considered the statement. “Apparently I’m not the only one going insane. Larry seems to be catching up to me.”
Larry chuckled, but quickly got back to the task at hand. “Notmie, do you remember what you were thinking before your knees collapsed just a second ago?”
“I was thinking about…” Notmie’s face contorted as he tried to remember, and if you had seen it yourself,
you would have been amazed how remarkably un-unearthly beautiful (not ugly, just not unearthly beautiful) it appeared on him. “A riddle? Yes! A riddle! I remember now!”
“Did you have any particular thoughts on this riddle you’d like to share with the rest of us?” Larry narrowed his eyes at Notmie, waiting for a response.
“Yes, actually I do. I believe—that is to say, I think—I figured it out.”
“You what?” Melono’s jaw dropped.
“I figured it out.”
“Come again?” So did Quiche’awn’s.
“I figured it out.”
“So you mean—”
“I figured it out.”
“Did you really—”
“What, figure it out? Yes, I think I did.”
Larry chuckled at the astonishment of the others. “Well, Notmie, are you going to enlighten your poor friends? They seem to be utterly lost.”
“Sure. Should I start at the beginning? I guess that’s as good a place as any. Or maybe the most exciting place is the best place to start. Really, though, wherever you start has to be the beginning, doesn’t it? Wow. This is getting heavy, and by ‘this’ I mean my body. I think I might fall over. You know what? I think I’d better just sit on the floor again.” He squatted down and sat himself on the kitchen tile before lying all the way back. “Yes. That’s much better. I feel much safer now.”
Quiche’awn was growing impatient, and, sounding an awful lot like The Cap’n who Notmie used to know, he said, “Get on with it, Notmie!”
“Right. So, basically the first part is referring to a meeting of some sort. What could that possibly be?” Notmie waited for someone to answer.
“Please,” said Melono. “Stop talking down to us, Notmie.”
“I’m not. I’m talking up to you,” he corrected from the floor.
She sighed exasperatedly. “Just because you’re suddenly acting smart doesn’t mean you really are.”
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