2 - Fablemyr

2

Fablemyr

On the ocean that hollows the rocks where ye dwell,

A shadowy land has appeared, as they tell;

…The golden clouds curtained the deep where it lay,

And it looked like an Eden, away, far away!

Gerald Griffin

With shock and bewilderment, Justin examined himself.  He was draped in an oiled leather duster, walnut brown.  The rainwater was beading up and sliding off his shoulders.  He felt windstrings hanging around his neck and took off the hat to examine it.  A Stetson?  A real cowboy hat with a band of braided horse hair, which wrapped around the base of the crown.  The band had a silver Concho star on the front.  The hat was the same walnut brown as his duster.

                Underneath he was wearing a white tombstone shirt with a tan vest and sandy frontier canvas pants.  Around his waist was a tough cowhide belt, lined with silver studs, top and bottom.  The buckle was a large silver oval with a white longhorn atop a deep brown leather.  The belt had three silver crosses, one on each side and one center of the back.

                Looking at his feet, he saw oiled leather boots, silver plated with shiny spurs – sharp and glinting.  The cuffs of his duster were bracers, silver studded with a silver cross on each.  Fingerless gloves adorned his hands.

What in God’s green earth was going on?  He replaced his hat without thinking and looked back over his shoulder.  Behind him, a sheer cliff face rose up in jagged outcroppings.  Up and up it went, into the sky, up and away towards misty mountaintops far above.  He was on the edge of some kind of valley.  The snow-capped mountains encircled the forest like a jagged bowl.  Rain continued to pelt off the brim of his hat. 

“That tree branch must’ve hit me harder than I thought,” he murmured. 

One thing was for sure, this was not East Lansing.  This wasn’t even Michigan.  Michigan had no mountains.  So if he wasn’t where he should be, the only logical explanation was that he was dreaming.  But… he could smell peppermint, feel the cold wind, hear the rainwater pattering off the rocks and muddy trail.  He could see clear as day the valley before him.  So he couldn’t be asleep.  He had to be hallucinating.

That was it.  He had come from a party and someone must’ve put something in the beer, or at least one of his drinks.  Yeah, that was it.  Something in his drink.  Otherwise this craziness might frighten him.  But he wasn’t scared at all. A sure sign of a hallucination… or that he was still drunk.

As he approached the foot of the sludgy trail, thunder crashed above, echoing across the gloomy sky.  A large hulking oak tree, gnarled and twisted, rose menacingly before him.  Despite its grand size, the tree looked sickly.  It hovered before him like a diseased monstrosity, on the verge of shivering to life and seizing him with knotted limbs.  He stayed back a few paces, eyeing it warily.   Nailed to the trunk, a weatherworn sign read:

North Lies Dreyton

               

A single word was smeared across the sign in dark stains, which looked disturbingly like dried blood.  It read:

Cursed

His eyes fell from the sign to the trail that disappeared into the shadowed wood.  Alright, if he was hallucinating, this was a pretty convincing hallucination.  He had no intention of going back to the party right now anyway, so he might as well entertain his delusional mind by wandering around for awhile.  Who knew what other insanity might await him?  He cast one last glance at the darkening sky, squinting under the brim of his hat and started forward.

               

                Pale white elms spiraled up like pillars of mother nature.  Elms did not grow this way, nor this color – but the bark and the leaves were without a doubt, elm.  So curved and looped were some of the trunks that he could see clean through some of them, especially the ones that looked like pallid tendrils twisting up out of the earth.  The pallid trees pulsed with soft light, setting the whole forest aglow.  Nestled between the elms were odd looking silver maples, which glistened and sparkled as if covered in dew.  The smell of peppermint was strong now.  Moss and lichen of varying shades of green covered the tree trunks and large rocks embedded in the earth, brightened by the glow of the white elms.  This place was amazing!  Absolutely surreal.  Beyond the white elms and silver maples, thick broad oaks towered like dark wooden sentries, massive and gnarled, ancient watchers of an ancient place.

                The winding path wove its way through the majestic dreamscape, hidden occasionally by lodged boulders and tall brush.  He rubbed his throbbing temples groggily as he walked.  Hallucination or not, his headache was real enough.  The heavy scent of mint, the thick mist and the glittering trees created an environment that dazzled and disoriented.  His balance was off.  He felt light-headed and winced with each throb in his head.  He stopped to rest for a minute and noticed one of the white elms had a hollow in its trunk. 

A childhood memory struck him of just such a tree.  When he was a young boy, he had played a computer game called The Black Cauldron.  In the game, there had been a tree with a hollow.  Inside the hollow was an item.  He couldn’t remember what.  Before he even realized what he was doing, he walked over and stuck his hand in it.  He fished around for a moment but only felt dry leaves and dirt.  What a dumb thing to do.  He pulled his hand out and his fingertips brushed something smooth and cold.  He eyed them to see if they were wet, but they were not.  Mildly confused, he reached back in, dug near the entrance and removed the object, examining it in the glow of the trees.

                It was a key.  A dark bronze key.  The end was ornately designed with circular wiring, forming perfect patterns.  It looked Celtic, oddly enough.  He pinched it between his fingers for a moment then he pocketed it.  Why not?  It obviously opened something, perhaps even a thing nearby.

                He became aware of  the sound of rushing water – a faint roar.  He now realized how thirsty he was – not that he’d drink from a pond, but maybe a stream if it was clear.  Clear water meant it was probably okay to drink, right?  His alcohol-dulled mind didn’t seem to think anything was wrong with putting it to the test.  He quickened his pace.

He passed a large boulder that jutted up like a giant spearhead, covered in evergreen moss, and stopped to gaze through the trees.  He could see the edge of a small lake, calm and clear.  The surface of the water sparkled under the stars like a shimmering blanket of diamonds.  A circle of taller white elms ran along the edge of the lake, like columns of marble.  A thin set of waterfalls dashed down from a slick set of smooth stepped cliffs, spilling down into the lake.

His eyes moved to a figure that sat at the lake’s edge.  He stepped forward, squinting in the pale moonlight.  It was a girl, with long dark hair.  Her head was in her hands, her shoulders sagged and shaking.  She was weeping.  Something about the scene made the hairs on the back of his neck rise, his heart pounding in his chest.  But slowly, the longer he listened to the weeping, the more relaxed he became.  He started to wonder if the hallucination was wearing off and he had now found someone, like himself, who had run here to escape her sorrow.

As he approached, nervous and wary, he could hear her sniffling.  Her voice was fair and echoed strangely, as if they were inside a cavern.  That’s weird, he thought.  Her hair was impossibly long, spilling down all around her, like a draped sheet of night pooling around her knees.  Her skin was white as the moon and her face hidden in her small hands.  Still she wept, seemingly unaware of his presence.

Lingering behind the last of the trees on the edge of a lake, one hand resting on a boulder, he moved to step forward.

“Are ya cracked?!”

His heart launched into his throat.  He jumped backwards, nearly choking.  Standing on the boulder where his hand had just been, a tiny figure stood with arms crossed and head cocked - six inches tall, at best.

Justin stared with an open mouth.

“Ugh,” the little man uttered with disgust, “Daft - by the look ‘o ya.”

The miniature figure was clothed in bits of dry leaf.  His skin was muddy brown and a shock of orange hair was atop his head, pierced by two little goat horns.  Disproportionately big round ginger eyes narrowed with suspicion.

Justin was completely at a loss for words.  What did he say to a… um, whatever this thing was? 

“It’s a trap,” the little man said matter-of-factly.  “Meant for muppets like you.”  He stabbed a finger at Justin.  “Even brownies do not go near her.”

Brownies?  Justin blinked stupidly.  This guy didn’t look like the little dudes from the movie Willow.   

The brownie snorted, glaring at him with indignant disbelief.  “Ya haven’t got a clue where ya are, do ya?”

Justin felt the overwhelming urge to unload his current dilemma to this newcomer, but then realized he was talking to a six inch faerie.  So instead, he muttered, “No.”

The brownie shook his head and sighed.  “This is Fablemyr Forest, lad, oldest wood in Athyria.  Ya’ll be calling me Twig.  Really we aren’t supposed to talk to the likes of ya - I’ll have the worst of an argument with Eolande just for lettin’ ya see me.  But many’s the fool that wandered witlessly to her aid.”  He gazed sourly at the weeping woman.  “Upon my word, you’ll get the price ‘o yer trouble for seeking to help that one… spiteful wench.”

Justin eyed the weeping girl who seemed to be trying to compose herself.  “She doesn’t look spiteful.”

“Well why don’t ya saunter over there and find out, then?” Twig snapped, stomping his foot.

“Fine,” Justin retorted, “I will,” and he started to walk.

“No, ya moron!  That was a rhetorical question!”  The brownie scowled impatiently.  “Are ya trying to meet yer end tonight?”

Justin looked back to the weeping girl, but now there was no one there. The air about the lake was quiet once more.  “Hey - she’s gone!”

Twig looked around warily.  “Small drop ‘o comfort.  She’s a frightful spirit, she is.  Ya have to use yer ears.  It’s the only thing that gives her away.”  He tapped his pointed brown ear.

Justin thought for a moment.  “The echo?”

Twig’s ginger eyes widened.  “Yer more clever than ya look.”  Then he frowned.  “But that’s not sayin’ much.  Ya look like a muppet.”  He turned and pointed back towards the trail.  “Don’t go wandering off the foot path.  Yer more than likely to get yerself killed.  There’s goblins about.”

Justin laughed.  “Are there lions and tigers, too?”

Twig snorted.  “Idiot.  I’d like to watch ya laugh when a tree wyrm wraps its coils about ya and squeezes the guts out of yer skin, or stumble over a patch of Gortha grass and hear ya shriek as it devours ya.  But ‘o course, we wouldn’t want ya dying before ya do what yer meant to do.”

Justin examined the brownie curiously.  “What do you mean meant to do?”

Twig waved his little hands impatiently.  “Akralon only brings people from yer world when they are meant to do something.”

“Akralon?”

Twig spread out his arms to indicate the land around him.  “This world.”

“I thought you called it Athyria.”  Justin was surprised he even remembered that.

“Athyria is the realm, what ya might call a country.  Akralon is the world.”  Twig was tapping his dirt-caked foot with growing impatience.

Justin’s head hadn’t ceased throbbing and he found he wasn’t feeling very patient either.  “How do I get out of here?”

The brownie grimaced.  “I know what’s running through yer mind.  Yer not imagining me.  Ya aren’t dreaming, neither.”

Caught off guard, Justin eyed the brownie in bafflement.  He could think of nothing to say.  Then he glanced at his oiled-leather cuff, water beads still clinging to it.  “If this place is real – why am I wearing these clothes?”

“The world decides that,” Twig said matter-of-factly.  “Ya aren’t the first, ya know.  They’ve been coming from yer world for centuries.  Most of ‘em think they’re piss drunk or completely cracked.  I wouldn’t be bothered to care, but… there’s something about ya, stranger.”

“The name’s-” he started.

“Never use yer real name, moron!”  Twig snapped.  “Ya must take a new name – an Akralon name.” 

Examining himself again, a little more studiously this time, Justin wasn’t sure which was more ridiculous, the fact that he was wearing cowboy clothes and thinking of an alias, or that he was standing in a sparkling forest talking to a faerie.  He decided both were equally ridiculous.  Then he decided he’d always liked that Clint Eastwood movie, High Plains Drifter.  So, without much conviction, he uttered, “Just call me Drifter.”

“Quite suitable,” Twig nodded with satisfaction, “Considering yer wandering round witlessly.”

Justin’s swayed has his head spun uncontrollably.  Despite his intense dizziness, he somehow knew, deep in his gut, he wasn’t dreaming.  Everything was too real.  He could feel the cold misty air on his skin, the dampness of the rain, the rumble of distant thunder in his bones.  He could smell the peppermint in the air, hear the crashing waterfalls.  Also, nobody ever questioned reality in a dream, no matter how insane or impossible the scenario, you just  blindly accepted it.  If you were walking down a street and a pod of giant purple alien whales swam in front of you, you simply waited for them to pass before continuing on.

He turned back to the brownie, but now he too was gone.  Justin was alone again.  He looked at the lake, watching it and feeling uncomfortable in the eerie silence.  Then he returned his gaze to the muddy path.  He exhaled indecisively. 

If this wasn’t a hallucination, then how the hell did he get back home?  Maybe there were other people, like the brownie said, from the real world.  Maybe he could ask one of them.

Trudging reluctantly back to the path, he sullenly followed as it wove its way through the shadowy forest, as if directing him deeper and deeper into a dream.  He tried not to think about the fact that if he was lost, he had virtually no survival skills.  He grew up in the city.  He’d probably starve if he didn’t find someone or someplace soon.  He also tried not to think what kind of wild animals might be roaming the woods at night.  Michigan had no dangerous animals, save perhaps some snakes that bit.  The forests were mostly full of deer.  Who knew what lurked in the trees in this place...

A brook wound down from the high ground to his right, dashing over flat stones that jutted out like steps.  The forest floor leveled to his left and the waters swam quietly on their way.  Across the stream he could see where the path started up again.

                The occasional gust of wind would set the high branches moving, offering glimpses of the night sky.  With a weary sigh, he stepped forward and plunged his leather boots into the brook.  The icy waters spilled over the brims, dousing his feet and chilling his toes.  Damn, he shivered.  This water is friggin cold!  He heard his own teeth chattering as he waded across.

                On the other side he found a tall white elm where the ground was fairly dry.  There he knelt and removed his boots, emptying out the chill water.  As he tugged them back on, he caught the faint scent of smoke. There must be a town or something close by.

                The mucky path narrowed to a trickle, making it difficult to find at times.  When the land began to slope upward, he caught glimpse of a flickering light to his left.  Half-turning, he peered through the trees.  The light was golden and was reflecting off the trees and rocks, brighter now, dimmer now. 

When he turned to look back down the path, the pale-faced girl was standing ten feet in front of him.

He froze, everything but his heart, which pounded deafeningly in his ears.  Damn she was creepy!  Her eyes were white and stared straight ahead, as if unaware of her surroundings.  Dark oily tears stained her cheeks like ink.  He couldn’t move a muscle, not daring to rouse the statue-still figure, gowned in white.  He was even afraid to exhale, lest it draw her attention. 

He could see now that she was too pale.  Her skin had a bluish tone and her hair, though long and dark, wasn’t silky but soaking wet.  There was a puddle forming around her pale feet.  Oh god, he thought, is she...

Her head snapped up and she screamed so loudly that his eardrums felt like they would burst.  He clamped his hands over his ears and staggered.  Translucent veins bulged in her throat as her rotten-toothed mouth reared open further than what should be possible.  Her eyes were wide and white, devoid of pupils.

The shriek intensified so greatly, his hands doing nothing to soften the painful pressure growing in his skull, that his vision blurred and shook like he was suffering a personal earthquake.  He nearly passed out, staggering a few paces.  The movement renewed his vigor and with every last ounce of strength, he ran as fast as his legs would carry him, straight into the forest.

He ran until he could hear nothing but silence.  Then he ran some more.  His nose was bleeding and he thought maybe his ears were too, but it was too dark to tell.  He only knew that the world was spinning and swaying, like when a person spins themselves around repeatedly and then tries to walk straight.

He staggered from tree to tree until the ghostly tone ringing in his ears began to fade and he could breathe easier.  The flickering light he had originally seen from the path was much brighter now.  He hadn’t noticed it while he was fleeing for his life, but he hadn’t really been focusing on anything other than not dying, either. 

Unsure what else to do, and most certainly lost beyond hope, Justin decided that following the flickering light was pretty much the only thing to do at this point.   He found that he had walked an impossibly long distance without seeing any kind of source.  It always looked as if it were shining just ahead, but when he got there, there were only more trees and boulders.  He followed it still, determined that he would figure this out.  He had no idea how far he had gone, or in what direction, but eventually he found himself standing between two marble columns, one broken halfway up.  Ivy crawled up and around both.  Through the columns he could see what appeared to be some kind of ruins.  The area was in a small clearing.  Along the circular edges, the columns rose to different lengths.  Most were broken low near the base, but a couple rose to their full height of ten feet.  Inside the circle, marble littered the earth.  There were shattered archways, broken pillars,  crumbled and overgrown walls.  Near the center, a dried up fountain sat alone, with a unicorn rearing up on its hind legs.  Its horn pointed straight to the night sky. 

The tall white elms around the ruins made a patchwork domed ceiling, allowing many slanting rays of silvery moonlight to dapple the ruined temple.  He guessed it was a temple, from the way the columns appeared, but really he had no idea.  Behind the unicorn was a another statue.

The cold stone gleamed under the starlight.  The figure was garbed in flowing robes, intricately designed bracelets hung from his wrists.  A spire-like crown adorned his head.  Long hair spilled over his shoulders and sharp ears rose up to the top of his crown.  His hands clutched a great sword, the hilt at his chest and the tip of the blade at his feet.  Two crescent shapes, shining like silver, adorned both ends of the handle, forming the pummel and the hand-guard, a design Justin recognized as Celtic.  The blade itself was a golden, translucent crystal.  Even in the moonlight, the golden crystal shimmered with yellow light - like the reflection of water on a cavern ceiling.  He was mesmerized.  Clearly, this sword was not marble like the rest of the statue.  One thing was certain, the amber blade was the source of the glimmering light flashing in the trees.  The light bent and slithered over the surface like golden syrup.  Even still, it made no sense that the light would bounce off the trees and reflect all the way to the path where he’d seen it.

At the base, where the statue’s pointed boots were planted, there was a slab of marble with writing engraved on it.  The language was unknown to him, but the letters flowed like liquid, spilling across the stone in perfect dips and swirls.   It read:

A findias tucadh claidhim nuadad.

Ni thernadh nech uadha.

O dobetha as a intig bodha.

Ni gebtha fris.

                What it meant he could only guess at.  Perhaps it was a poem about the statue.  Or maybe a riddle to win the sword?  It obviously had some importance or no one would’ve bothered to carve it there in the first place. 

The drumming of running footsteps and rustling brush sounded nearby, rousing him from his stupor.  The forest seemed to distort the sounds, making it impossible to tell which direction it was coming from.  He tensed, not knowing what to expect, glancing about and wondering if he shouldn’t find a safe hiding spot.  But before he knew what was happening, someone exploded from the brush and crashed into him.

1 - Justin Clay

1

Justin Clay

The pure serene of memory in one man,

A ripple widening from a single stone

Winding around the waters of the world.

Theodore Roethke

 [East Lansing, Michigan, USA]

                Change is often spoken of like a force of nature.  It can come without warning  - like a storm, from any direction, or all directions at once.  Change has no master.  It does not care whose life it alters or how, nor does it change its speed or intensity for anyone’s convenience.  It comes and goes as it wills - unpredictable, unrelenting, and unfeeling.  Hence the expression, the winds of change.

                For Justin Clay, those winds had begun to blow.  And though he had yet to recognize it, as he walked along the winding pathways of Michigan State University’s north campus, a sense that something was off had been growing in the back of his mind - like a single wildflower sprouting up between the cracks of broken cement.  The broken cement was his life – something once ordered and secure, but now shattered into slanted slabs, chipped and cracked and uneven.  All the portions of his life were out of sync.  His family was broken – ever since his father and mother separated.  His father had gone off to Afghanistan and never returned.  Justin had always felt his mother had run his father off, but she avoided speaking of anything to do with it.  She always had.

                His siblings were all in disagreement, as usual.  He was the oldest, so most of the responsibility had fallen on his shoulders growing up.  Gabriel was withdrawn, isolated.  He usually kept his thoughts to himself anyway.  Addy did everything she could for attention, from the time she could speak.  Now she was a showboat in high school.  Tristram never took anything seriously.  He tried to make jokes of everything.  Nobody seemed to deal with the problems except himself.  So he hadn’t spoken to any of them for some time.

                His academic life was a mess.  He had changed his major four times and was still uncertain what he wanted to do – where he wanted to go.  His mother was always pressuring him to make decisions when all he really wanted was for her to leave him alone – to let him find his own way.  Most of the classes he did take he found dull and uninteresting, which resulted in frequent skipping and low grades.  This was unlike him and drew more attention than he could deal with from the rest of his family.  So he had shut them out, too.

He had a girlfriend, Mary, who had been his romantic escape.  He had found solace in their midnight meetings in the moonlit gardens.  He had found peace as they strolled along lamp-lit paths.  Autumn’s rain of leaves, red and gold, would swirl around them like living things, celebrating the magic of their romance.  But life, it seemed, was not willing to grant him happiness.  No – his romantic venture with Mary had died – abruptly, after one big fight.

As he made his way home, those winds began to blow stronger in his mind.  That single wildflower growing in the cracks of his life was just beyond the edge his conscious mind, yet he felt a mysterious presence inside himself.  Impossible to describe with words, he reacted the only way reasonable when such vague feelings were involved - he ignored them.

He lived on Kedzie Street, just north of Michigan State’s campus.  His house was white and old, like most in the area, which had all been around a long time and were continuously rented out to students.  He reached his house with the relief that nobody else was home.  He made his way up the narrow wooden stairway and to his room.  He slung his backpack onto his bed and slumped into his beat-up black leather computer chair.  After a quick and disappointed email check, he flicked on Starcraft, blinked numbly and stared at the monitor  watching the Starcraft loading screen.  Outside his upstairs room, the leaves rattled in the autumn winds of late October.  It was Friday afternoon in East Lansing.  He noticed an orange ladybug edging its way toward his keyboard.  He flicked it away.  Every year there was a seasonal assault of ladybugs.  They’d soon be infiltrating every home in the neighborhood.  Sure, they looked cute, but they bit - and they bit hard.  The game finished loading and his speakers crackled with the radio voice of the human space marines declaring their readiness to serve.  He had been playing a lot of Starcraft lately.  It was pathetic but true. 

His phone rang and he answered without looking at the number.  "Hello."

"Hi, dear."

"Hey, mom."

"How are you?"

"Fine."

"It's Friday!  Are you going out with Mary tonight?"

"No, mom.  Me and Mary broke up."

"What??"

"Yeah, so I just finished my last class-"

"Milton?"

"Yeah.  And I'm just going to chill today, I think."

"Please don't tell me you're going to spend the afternoon rotting away in front of your computer..."

"I don't have anything else to do, mom."

"You're in college, there's always something to do!  Anyway, what happened with Mary?"

"I really don't feel like talking about it."

"Okay, okay, so it’s finished then?  Was it your decision or hers?  Or was this a mutual thing?"

"Mom, I don't want to talk about it.  It's over, that's all that matters.  The weekend festivities at Michigan State are just beginning.  I'm sure I'll find something to do."  He was thinking he'd be drowning out his misery with Jack Daniels, but he wasn't about to tell his mom that.

"Well, you had a pretty fiery romance with Mary, Justin.  You even mentioned marrying her, so I just want to make sure you're okay."

"I'm fine, mom."

"It's just I never heard of you guys having any fights before."

"Yeah, well...  One fight was all it took, apparently.  So much for compromise.  Anyways, forget it, mom.”

“Okay, okay.  How are your classes going?”

“Fine.”

“That’s all?  Fine?”

“What do you want me to say, mom?  I’m a communications major.  We’re not devising a cure for cancer, drafting new laws or figuring a plan for world peace.  We write speeches and say them in front of the class.  That’s about it.”

“Well, what about your English classes?  Like Milton?”

“I dunno, mom.  I only picked it as a minor cause it was dad’s major.  I don’t have the patience for writing, like he did.  I don’t know what I want really.”

“Oh Justin, you worry me sometimes.  You don’t have much time left in college and you haven’t decided on any kind of job.  You’d better start thinking of something soon.”

“I know, I know.  I just don’t feel motivated.”

She sighed.  “You’ve been directionless and unmotivated the whole time you’ve been at  college.  You spend too much time watching movies and playing video games.  You need to start planning on the future.”

Justin felt himself getting frustrated.  “I don’t know what I want to do.  What else do you want me to tell you, mom?  Nothing interests me.  Anyway, I don’t feel like having the same argument again.  Not today.”

“Honey, I’m not trying to make things difficult for you.  It’s just, you’ve been unmotivated for a long time now.  Ever since…” Her voice faltered.

He grimaced.  “Ever since dad died.”

She was silent.  He knew she didn’t like discussing it, but he was angry now and he felt like lashing out.

“Maybe if you would’ve given him a break, just once, he wouldn’t have left.  Then he never would’ve re-enlisted and gone to Afghanistan.” 

“Justin…” he could hear his mother’s voice wavering.  “You know I tried.  He made up his mind.”

“You tried after he left!” he felt a surge of bitterness in his heart, “If it weren’t for all that – he’d probably be alive today.”

That was it.  He had dealt the blow he always told himself he wouldn’t.  He immediately felt ashamed.  But his anger would not subside so he did not apologize.  He just sat on the phone in silence.

He could hear his mother recomposing herself on the other end.  He knew he had to get off the phone or his guilt would overtake his anger.  “I gotta go.”

His mother paused before saying, “I love you, Justin.”

“Yeah… Bye.”

He hung up the phone.  He had had that conversation one too many times.  He didn’t want to think about it anymore.  He wanted distraction.  Time to change focus. 

The Kedzie house, as they affectionately called it, had five bedrooms.  Downstairs, the two bedrooms were occupied by Len, the shady sports journalist and Mark, the wild rough-around-the-edges roommate.  Upstairs, Barry, the shameless lady’s man. had the small, closet-sized room – of which he often reminded them.  Justin and Carter, also called bigger-better-deal Carter, had the large corner rooms – or executive suites, as everyone else called them.  Every other weekend, Carter would have a party at their house.  More often than not, Justin wouldn’t be there.  The one time he had stayed, they had gotten a noise violation (called in by their neighbor) and he had been forced to chip in and pay it, much to his dismay.

This was a party weekend for them.  Carter was in a co-ed business fraternity and had invited the lot of them over tonight.  Barry and Len would, as usual, be on the hunt for ‘one-nighters’.  Mark’s girlfriend went to the University of Michigan, and it was his turn to visit her, so he’d be gone for the weekend.

The front door opened and closed downstairs, snapping Justin out of his thoughts.

“Come on,” whined Carter.  “Just go to Burger King before you leave.”

A wide grin crossed Justin’s face as he stared at his computer screen. 

“C’mon,” Carter persisted. “You go to Burger King like every day.  They know you by name.  And they always give you extra food.  Just go get some real quick.”

“Why don’t you go to Burger King,” Mark retaliated.  “I gotta get on the road.  Besides, I already went this morning.”

Justin stopped listening and refocused his attention on Starcraft.  His space marines were getting annihilated by the zerg.  He sighed as he watched another bunker explode, overrun by a wave of zerglings.  He preferred the protoss anyhow.  With a yawn, he closed the program.  It was beautiful outside and he really needed to do something out of the house.  Between Starcraft and Megaman Soccer, his unproductiveness was at an all time high.

He heard Carter coming up the stairs.  As he jumped out of his chair and slid on his sandals, Carter knocked on his partially opened door.

“Hey man, how was class?”  He wore his typical jeans and polo shirt.

Justin grunted, “Same old.”

“Yeah.”  Carter proceeded to enter his own room, blast gangsta rap on his stereo three times louder than it needed to be, and check his email.

Justin peered into Carter’s room.  Piles of clothes were scattered messily over the floor.  He recognized one of the shirts as his own – a blue Polo.  He had been looking for that shirt for a week.  It’d probably been lying on Carter’s floor most of that time.

That was another thing about Carter.  He didn’t mind lending his stuff to anyone else, so he automatically assumed that everyone else didn’t mind lending their stuff to him.  So he took whatever he wanted, oblivious to the fact that the person might want to know his possessions were being borrowed.  Justin shook his head.  Borrowed was the wrong word.  If you wanted your stuff back, you’d have to find it.

“You look different,” Carter remarked, checking his email.

“What do you mean?”

Carter shrugged, “I don’t know.  Like you’ve got a lot on your mind.”  He opened AOL messenger.  “I heard Mary’s coming tonight.”

Justin felt his spine tingle.  “What?  From who?”

“Jenny.  She’s got a class with Mary.  I told her to invite her friends – so.”

“So she invited Mary?  And Mary said she’d come?”

“Yup.”  Satisfied that nobody was going to message him on AOL at the moment, Carter turned from his screen.  “C’mon man, stick around. This moping stuff is getting old.”

“That bad?”

“Yeah.”

“Maybe I will.” Justin felt excitement welling in his stomach.  If Mary said she was coming, to his house – then maybe she was trying to find a way back to him – trying to find a way to speak with him through a neutral means.  Why else would she come to a party at the house that he and his friends lived in?  All his roommates knew the drama and had his back, of course.  And she knew that.  But she was coming anyway.  Maybe the misery could end. Maybe they could sort things out.  He missed her.  A lot.

“I’m going for a walk,” he muttered.

The chorus of the song blared, “M-m-m-m-make crack like dis!”  Carter turned around with a sheepish grin on his face. 

Justin laughed out loud.  “I’ll see you later.”

“Later.”

East Lansing’s Friday evening was aglow with the lights of house parties and filled with the sounds of rumbling music and deep booming bass.  The chatter of voices roamed up and down the streets, seeking house parties like moths to candles.  The sky was covered in dark clouds, as if a storm were hovering above, waiting to unleash, unbeknownst to all the partying college kids below.

As Justin rounded the corner to Kedzie street, he saw his own party had already started.  Several guys were sitting in lawn chairs in the front yard.  A couple girls were massaging one guy’s shoulders.  They were all drunk.  They tried to say something witty at him as he passed, but he ignored them and pushed the door open.

Inside, he had to shoulder his way through the sea of crowded people.  Some were dancing and jiving, holding their red plastic cups of beer high to avoid spilling them while they swayed their hips.  Others were talking, or trying to talk, their faces flush from alcohol.  He moved out of the living room and into the den, where Mark’s giant saltwater fish tank attracted the attention of a small crowd.

It took only a second before Justin’s eyes locked onto hers.  Mary was lingering next to the edge of the tank, a drink in her hand.  She was wearing a sleek black dress, casual yet sexy.  Her light brown hair fell neatly about her shoulders and her soft sea foam green eyes widened in recognition as she spotted him.  She smiled, “Justin?”

“Hey,” he said awkwardly, all other words failing him.

“Nice party,” she grinned, raising her eyebrows and glancing around, “Your crazy roommates sure know how to throw them.” Thunder rumbled outside.

“Yeah,” he half-smiled.  His heart was pounding.  Where did this sudden nervousness come from?  He had been anticipating this moment all day, and now that it was here, he couldn’t concentrate on a single coherent sentence.  What was it he wanted to say?  More importantly, how did he say it without sounding like a love-struck idiot?

“So how’ve you been?” she asked, her eyes sparkling.  “You look good.”

He scratched his curly dark hair as he often did when nervous.  “Ah, not bad.”

“Working on any of your crazy projects?”  She observed him thoughtfully. 

Old feelings rose up like a tidal wave in his chest, against his will.  He cocked his head slightly, “Yes, actually,” he lied.  “A big project.  The biggest one of my life, you might say.”  He was completely unaware that he was actually telling the truth, he just didn’t know it yet.

“Really?” she smiled big again, excitement on her face.  “What kind?”  She had always been intrigued in his projects.  Could she really be interested now?  The windows flashed with the light of the storm’s lightning.  Rain began to patter over the glass panes.

“I can’t really say, yet,” he answered.  “There’s a lot of details to be worked out.  But uh… I think this one has the most potential of them all.”

“That’s mysterious sounding,” she teased.

“Well, I promised not to give anything away.  It’s sort of a group project, you see.”  Again, he was oblivious to the truth behind his words.

“Ohhhh, I see,” she said with mocking intrigue.

Wow, she was beautiful.  Her soft green eyes kept sparkling, and the greenish light from the saltwater tank illuminated her in a sort of enchanting way.  Her cute button nose and big smile melted his heart.

“Hey, babe,” a deep voice uttered.  A squarely built guy pushed through the crowd with a beer in each hand and came to stand next to her.  It hit him then.  She had come with this guy.  She had come to his party with a new boyfriend.  And she thought this was okay.

                “Lance, this is Justin.  Justin – Lance.” She introduced them, chirping happily.  She took her second drink and giggled giddily.

                Lance nodded, sizing him up.  He was wearing a tight pink polo shirt. Justin grimaced.  Gay.  He was a tad taller than Justin, and held his arms forward to make his chest stick out more.  Justin’s navy friend had called this behavior  ‘invisible lat syndrome’.  Mary obviously didn’t mind and was looking at him with red cheeks.  That’s when Justin realized he recognized the guy.  This was her friend from back home.  The guy who had visited her for an entire weekend, a few weeks back. 

                Justin’s heart veered off a cliff and nose-dived into oblivion.  His knees went weak.  He felt nauseated.  What a fool he had been!  This guy had been edging in on her when they were still together.

                “Lance is visiting from Ohio State,” Mary continued cheerfully, “I’m just showing him the sites of MSU.”

                “Not a bad place,” he said with a smug laugh, “Comes in a close fifth or sixth to Ohio State.”  Justin frowned.  What a jackoff.

                Mary elbowed Lance playfully, a smile on her lips.  Justin felt contempt for her.  This was his party!  His house!  And she had shown up with this douche bag??  He felt sick to his stomach.  His jaw was clenched again.  “I better get back to the party,” he forced the words out.  “Got friends to see.”

                “Best let him on his way,” Lance joked, “Guy looks like he needs a drink.”

                “Are you okay?” she asked suddenly, still acting oblivious to the irony of it all.  Justin grimaced.

That was it then.  It was truly, totally, over.  And she was acting like it was ancient history already.  Like none of it had meant anything at all.  He felt bile in his throat.  “Fine.”  He couldn’t keep the look of disgust from his face as he brushed past them and moved toward the kitchen.  Thunder boomed again, temporarily drowning out all sound.

He heard Lance mutter something and chuckle.  His fists clenched but he didn’t turn.  He wouldn’t give her the satisfaction.  No, in his mind, she didn’t exist anymore.  She called out something, but he didn’t answer.  He just kept edging his way to the kitchen.  His friend Jack Daniels would help him erase her completely.

He went straight to his cupboard, pulled out his fifth of Jack Daniels and downed the last glassful.  He smiled as the burning sensation trailed down to his stomach, warming it like a furnace.  He slammed the empty bottle down and belched loudly.  Then he grabbed the two largest cups he could find, jumbo Burger King cups, and headed downstairs.

He ignored the line, pushing straight to the front, cutting in front of some chick, and began filling both his cups with whatever piss-water beer his roommates had gotten a keg of.

“Hey man,” some guy called out, trying to show off to the girl in front of him, “The line goes back to the stairs.”

“Does it?” Justin smiled, chugging an entire cup in front of them, letting it pour out the corners of his mouth. 

As he started on the second cup, the guy moved forward and grabbed his arm.  Justin jerked it away and began refilling his cups.

“Hey man!” the guy said angrily, getting ready to get physical.

“What’s the problem?”  It was Mark.  He towered over everyone else in the basement.

“This asshole just cut in front of the whole line,” the guy snapped.

“Yeah,” the girl echoed.

Mark caught sight of Justin and grinned.  “This asshole lives here and doesn’t have to wait in line.”

The guy frowned, but said nothing else.  The girl glared at him with disdain.  Justin belched again and started refilling his fourth cup.

“Come on, buddy,” Mark put his arm around him, “Let’s go for a walk.”

Mark guided him upstairs, through the crowded kitchen and outside into the open night air of the backyard.  Barry was cooking chicken on their grill, safely underneath the patio awning.  Rain pattered fiercely atop it.  He nodded at Justin as they passed.

They stood at the edge of the awning’s shelter. 

“Let me guess,” Mark said as they found a spot with a little space around it, “Mary?”

Justin laughed.  “She’s here drinking beer with her new boyfriend.”

“That didn’t take long,” Mark grunted.

“Nope,” Justin agreed, chugging another cup.  “I thought you left already for U of M?”

Mark shook his head.  “She went to visit family this weekend.  Anyway,” he looked through the windows, “Who is this guy?”  He smiled, “You want me to kick his ass?”

Justin frowned.  “Nah.  I’m gonna go for a walk.  I need to get the hell out of here.”

Mark nodded.  “Don’t give her that much power over you, man.”

He glanced through the window and grit his teeth at the sight of Mary embracing Lance, sliding her slender arms over his shoulders and planting a continuing kiss on his lips.  He held her tight and returned it fully.

Justin threw his cup in the dirt and took off.

Echoes of light flickered amidst the churning storm clouds above.  Now and again lightning would streak across the night sky.  Thunder cracked so loud it sounded like the sky was breaking.  Justin marched on, undeterred.  His sights were on the far end of campus.  Some place quiet.  He needed to think.  Anger was already overtaking reason.

The whole scene was old.  He was tired of the same pointless conversations, the monotonous daily routines and the overall sense of directionless drifting.  And Mary…

Everything he had done for her – every gift that took weeks to create, every gesture that was unique and tailored specifically to her, every word that was filled with thoughtful sincerity… all for nothing!  Pain seized his chest, burned in his eyes and throat. 

The heavens opened up and rain fell in sheets.  He grit his teeth and squared his jaw.  It was better this way.  Good riddance to bad rubbish.  That, however, didn’t change the fact that he how had gaping holes of time in his day and nothing to fill them with except feelings of loss and loneliness.  Through the torrential downpour he could see the beginnings of the forest.  Soaking wet, ignoring the stinging waves of rain, he started running towards the shelter of the trees – fast as his legs would take him – as if he could somehow outrun his life, escape all his problems…  leaving them all behind with the dorms and classes and students and traitorous ex-girlfriends.  Before he knew it he had crossed the entire campus, passed the gardens and was crunching through the woods.  He had run so far into the trees that now he didn’t even know where he was and it was so dark he couldn’t tell which way he had come from.  The wind howled and twisted the treetops; branches flapped about madly.

Thunder and lightning crashed and flashed in unison.  Dark clouds swirled overhead.  He grit his teeth.  What kind of torturous existence had he been cursed with?  Betrayal and failure, disappointment and sorrow.  How could she do this to him?  He slowed down, stopping to clutch his knees and pant for breath.  What the hell was he doing – running into the woods?  He didn’t really know.  But he didn’t want to go back, he knew that much.  No, he’d stay with nature for a bit.

Lightning flashed with an unnatural brilliance.  He was blinded.  He clenched his eyes shut, but that white-purple glare remained.  He stumbled blindly, hand outstretched.  Thunder smashed his eardrums and he cringed, deafened and stunned.  He staggered groggily, bumping into a tree.  Was the storm attacking him?  As soon as he opened his eyes, searing light flashed again, burning.  He shouted in pain and squeezed his eyes shut in agony.  Thunder cracked and split and pounded, leaving his ears ringing.  He faltered, tumbled a few steps forward and caught himself on a rough pine.  Images of Mary’s beautiful face filled his mind.  Her laughter, her smile, her sparkling eyes.  There she was, standing in her sleek black dress, holding her red cup next to the saltwater tank – and then she disappeared into darkness.  He clutched the bark as spasms of pain wracked his heart.

A branch bowed and broke, snapping with a violent crack.  The leaf end caught in the other trees and the broken end swung down like a club, slamming into the back of his head.

Justin tumbled forward, hit the muddy earth hard and went rolling down a hill he didn’t even remember seeing.  He felt the earth spinning around him dizzily, as if his whole life was being swept away in the storm, spiraling away into a vortex of oblivion. 

He slipped and slid and came to rest in a heap of moist dirt and musty leaves.  He lay there for a few moments, dazed and groaning.  The wind seemed to have died down some.  The trees were not shaking so much, and now the thunder seemed distant, far off.  For long moments he laid in the mud, unmoving.  As he blinked the numbness out of his face, pain lanced through his skull.  He winced as it continued to throb, anger burning in his chest.  Damned tree branch!  What the hell kind of day was this?  Even nature was kicking his ass.  He ground his teeth and shifted to a sitting position.  The first thing he noticed, as his vision cleared, was the forest.  It wasn’t…. the same.

He blinked in befuddlement, trying to fathom what he was truly looking at.  There were still some familiar pine trees, but mixed among them were other trees – trees altogether different from anything he had ever seen.  They were… white?  They looked tall and slender – like elms.  White elms. 

He pushed himself groggily to his feet, taking a moment to regain his bearings.  He smelled a tinge of peppermint in the air that made his head spin.  A streak of lightning split the air, flashing across the stormy sky, illuminating his dark silhouette.  His shadow didn’t look right either.  He wasn’t wearing the same clothes.  His shadow was wearing a cowboy hat.