Guest
Writer
Hot
things on various burners
Mel
by Jess
Gulbranson
Our scruffy yellow-haired space-traveling hero
has been stringing us along through different dimensions and wearing
the same red sweatshirt since early last
year. Heres episode 20 ...
his
was Ordeal, and already Mel didn't like it. Just the sheer physicality
of it, how the streets dipped and intersected, then rose and dipped
again.
Everywhere things seemed to shine with an indirect
crimson lighting, but Mel could see no source. Top it all off with
a litter of strange metal shapes, and you got San Fran as done by
Salvador Dali. Clay seemed to take it all in stride, though, tugging
Mel along beside him toward some destination.
"Hey, chief, don't I get the grand tour?"
"Just a couple of blocks, Mel." Clay turned his head
just enough for Mel to catch a smirk.
Mel had seen what the Ordeal had by way of blocks, man-sized to
about a quarter mile long, and he wasn't reassured. Sure enough,
though, almost as soon as he thought it, Clay made a sharp right
and stopped. He let go of Mel's red hoody and gestured. "Bienvenido
a casa Escobar!"
Does every alien speak Spanish? wondered Mel. His first
glance at the house confirmed that it was just that, a fairly plain-looking
brownstone that would have been moderately expensive and nondescript
in Bridgeton. There was no such consistency here.
Clay's house (or Escobar's, or whomever's) was on top of a tall
hill. The hill was covered in a sea of grass, literally. Not just
grass waving in the wind either; Mel watched and the lawn crested
and rolled over the walkway, leaving behind greenish bubbles on
the concrete.
"I take it I'm staying here while I get cavity-searched, or
whatever your Ordeal is?"
"Whoa
no. Anything like that is going to be extracurricular
for you. Come on inside. I'll explain it to you over some coffee."
"Jesus, more talking," groused Mel. "I'd almost
welcome a vampire attack or some relentless beating."
Clay, still seeming amused, blinked and started up the stairs to
the house. "Sorry, I think I have a case of the grouses coming
on," Mel added. With no response, he followed.
At one point about halfway up, the lawn lapped over Mel's foot.
He looked down and saw an ant crawling along a blade of grass that
was dripping off his boot. Weird.
Mel made it to the top landing and followed Clay into the house.
It was well lit, the furnishings looking old and faded in the way
reused movie sets do. Hundreds of shelves filled corners and lurked
over furnishings. They held knickknacks and such, but were predominately
covered in all manner of stoppered bottles.
Around the corner was a kitchen, clean and with lots of tile and
chrome. It looked unused. Somehow, Clay had already started the
water and brewed the coffee. He was waiting at a bare table with
two steaming mugs. Mel sat and took a mug. "Are you a chemist,
Clay?"
Clay shrugged. "An alchemist. You know, lead to gold, people
to stone, that sort of thing."
He sipped and set his mug down again.
"Let's talk about why you're here. I'm not going to give you
the grand tour, because frankly, there's too much to assimilate.
So, the basics: You are a candidate for godhood, or at least someone
thinks so. The Ordeal is the basement of the world, where you're
expected to test your mettle against whatever it is you need to
face.
"Now, I should tell you that this place is owned by the DCB,
the Dean-Cheldelin Baraka. My former employers. They have some hot
things on various burners, and you would be best to stay away from
them, if possible. A few of my colleagues and a collection of others
run the testing portion of the Ordeal. Candidates get shipped in
from all over the place and wander around until they get killed
or become a god. I can't tell you what to do, but I can tell you
what no candidate has done yet."
"Stayed awake through the speeches?" Mel was actually
close to nodding off, but felt joking about it was more polite than
actually doing it.
"Very funny. No, what no one has done yet is infiltrated the
DCB and found the secret of their power. Just a thought. Now, before
you take a little nappy nap, let me ask you something."
"Shoot," Mel said. He was feeling more drowsy than he
ought to, and could only roll his eyes at the coffee he had half-finished.
"That's right, Mel. A little bit of sleeping potion in the
ole Java, to make things easier before you get on track. Now answer
me this; where is she?"
Clay reached over and above his head, removing an object from the
shelf there without even looking. He pushed the object into Mel's
blurry field of vision. It was a picture frame, and when Mel was
able to focus, he saw it was a picture of Anne. She was lying on
a blanket, hair down, body bare to the cleavage and probably just
as naked beyond the crop of the photo.
"Anne
"
"Is
that her name, Mel? Anne? She always told me to call her Queen,
though my friends thought she should be called Saboteuse. You know,
like a female saboteur? Fuck them," said Clay, with the strongest
emotion Mel had heard from him yet. "I thought she had chosen
you when I heard, but it looks like you and I are in the same lurch.
Let's help each other out, Mel. After you sleep. So sleep well."
And sleep Mel did, though by that time he was already on the floor.
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