Beyond, the Call
“Women are like slot machines. You put the money in and pray, but you know
you’ll always lose. Do you want your drink with or without the cherry?” the
bartender asked. He leaned over and
smirked at Homer.
“Without
the cherry… I guess I see a woman as a rose in a bouquet of roses. They are all
so beautiful yet all the same,” Homer said back. He shifted in the bar seat, once again
recognizing how small he was compared to other people. He’d been in the same life for fifty years,
and he knew his legs would always remain short with his slightly larger
torso.
“You are a
hopeless romantic,” the bartender said.
“I guess
I’m an old fool.” Homer drank the
alcohol too quickly. He felt his gut swell in the dim light, the twilight of
his fuzzy brain not helping anything.
“That makes
two of us,” the bartender said, agreeing. Already, he’d begun cleaning the
glasses and getting ready for closing time.
“Hey,
Clown-nose,” the bartender went on, “I’ll make that nose a cherry if you aren’t
out in five.”
“Alright,
sir,” Homer said.
“I do have
something that might cheer you up. We’ve
got one Hell of a lady around here. She’s cheap, too.”
Homer was
confused with what seemed like the bartender’s change of opinion. His body felt so heavy. He wanted to lay down. “I don’t think…”
“Ha,
Jennifer would be so sad if you didn’t. She hasn’t had a client for a week, and
she’ll let you do anything.”
Homer
couldn’t help but perk up. He hadn’t had
a woman in years.
The alcohol is doing this to me, Jack, don’t
blame me. Jack was his older
brother. His chest hurt when he
remembered Jack laid out on the dirt after a motorcycle accident.
“Alright,
champ, now that you’re loosened up and paid your tab, I think you’re ready for
a night in paradise,” the bartender said.
The casino
blasted music behind the bartender and Homer.
They came to a dog statue where the bartender pulled a lever. Homer saw a room of beads, rugs, and a soft,
heart-shaped, red bed with a beautiful woman in the center.
“Ah, ain’t
she beautiful?” the bartender asked Homer.
“Prettier
than eyes can see,” Homer said. He
recalled his past girlfriend, Andy. Her long, red hair accented with polka
dots, a cute, perky girl, and a liar. In
the end, he couldn’t take her running around with other men. When she did, he became an animal, growling,
and groaning.
“Men do not
have sway over my autonomy,” she said on judgment day.
“You hurt me
when you do that, Andy. I love you. I
want to be together.” Thunder echoed
outside. Lightning hit a tree. The old, dirty apartment he lived in shook
and trembled, not wanting to lose its roof.
“I need a
man, Homer. I need a real man.”
Homer tried
to fight the tears.
“Be selfish.
It’s always been all about you,” Homer said. He felt a mix of sadness and anger.
“Enjoy your food stamps and tramps,”
Andy said.
“I’m all yours,” Jennifer said. The
perfume reminded Homer of divinity. Her
soft, long, and blonde hair flowed down to her waist.
She can’t be over sixteen. I need to stop…
Jennifer began to massage Homer’s
shoulders, slowly intoxicating him with soft sounds and running her long,
plastic nails up and down his back.
Homer felt alive in a way he hadn’t
before. He closed his eyes and enjoyed
the touch and the arousal. He was almost
ready to flip her over when he felt a sharp prick, in his arm.
“What was that?” Homer asked as he
tried to turn around. He saw his grey
pants and blue shirt over a broken chair.
The distance between him and his clothing would inspire an epic.
I’m so embarrassed.
I, I, I…
The room
shifted. The lights went on and off,
illuminating strange geometric shapes.
“You are
entering the big universe, and it’s a banger,” the woman said. She was
different now. Her long tail twisted around his body, holding it up. Soon his clear blue eyes were level with
hers. She smiled with snake fangs, dark yellow, tinged with blood. Her tongue
began to slip out of her mouth. Homer
felt himself become squished more and more.
“Let…”
“Don’t talk
yet. You’ve always wanted to know,” she
said. “Ever since you read that line
about control, you’ve wanted it, and I saw you there tonight, and the thought
twisted around your head in hindsight, but I am going to show you there’s more
than where you are.”
“The
line?”
“After the
DMT, the drug where our worlds connect as one in dreams, too. Your masters try
to stop the pineal gland with fluoride, with an endless television buzzing and
humming, trying to keep the truth from coming out, ‘Keep ‘em dull and within control.’"
“Creation
is the purpose of consciousness,” Jennifer
said. Her name became a hiss to him, Hiss.
Homer swam in the different colors
singing around him. He saw creatures of
bizarre and unknown origin. Every time
he thought he’d touched solid ground, the objects moved and shifted.
“A
flatlander, you see, has no idea he is on a sphere until he gets back to the
place he started. That is the knowledge
of humanity, with their droll shows and distractions. When you go around so many times, you become
dizzy enough to stop and lookup. Life
can be more than the surface world.
Geometry offers infinite dimensions.
Where would you like to go?” The snake woman asked. Homer called her Hiss more and more. She
could be called nothing else in those moments.
Homer thought of good and evil when
he looked at her tail, heard her voice, the cliche of things that slither and
talk. Neither definition could describe Hiss.
Above all, she seemed to have a sacred knowledge that titillated
him.
Is
knowledge good or evil? A random thought swept in and out.
“How about
we take off that skin?” Hiss said. Homer felt his skin tighten, loosen, then
tighten again. His arms were anchored to
his body... Like a baby learning to
walk, he twisted and turned. He pulled his chest up, falling down several
times. The skin peeled and peeled. His
right hand stretched the fabric of his being, and he tore off the dead skin
over and over again. It seemed a
never-ending task, but finally, he broke through.
The
discarded snakeskin was absorbed by the ground.
“What is
happening to me?” Homer asked.
“You shed
the old for the new. Where would you
like to go?”
Homer
paused, his mind racing. The forms below him threw him off. He saw his legs
fall down further and further into the shapes.
The light became stronger and stronger.
The
question rang in his head. He thought of
the universe, all the directions, how vast it was, and yet, his heart centered
on home.
“I want to
see my brother,” Homer said. His voice
quivered.
“The
familiar, I suppose,” Hiss said with
disappointment in her eyes. “I suppose
you don’t know how to go beyond the familiar yet.”
The colors
changed and Jack flooded up from the shapes below.
“Jack!”
Homer said. He rushed over to his
brother. The shapes began to combine and
the colors flooded to recognizable objects.
Jack didn’t
move. Homer placed his hand on his
brother’s shoulders. He rocked his
brother.
“Homer,”
Jack said. “Sorry, it took me a while to get here.”
“Where?”
Homer asked.
“To your
memory. I’ve been so busy lately with creation.”
“What?”
“Creation.
I’m helping to build the universe. It’s
what we do.”
Homer and
Jack embraced for a minute, and Jack disappeared again, at the speed at which
he had come.
Hiss came back into view. The tip of her
tail shined red with ruby light.
“Thank
you,” Homer said.
“Nothing
special.”
“What do
you mean?” Homer asked.
"Anyone
can dream up the familiar." She yawned. "I've invited so many
humans...
. I suppose you want to go back to the casino and play your
little game of life away, a moment of pain, a moment of pleasure. Then you do it all again as is the Flatman on
a sphere. Your brother figured it out.”
“He always
talked about the beyond, but I couldn’t understand. Just like I can’t understand what you mean by
something that isn’t familiar.”
“I’ll take
you back to the beginning.”
The shades
all around them morphed as strange rainbows engulfed the two. The tunnel of light led them on several
branches of time at once. They ended in
a dark place with no light.
Zap.
Homer shook
from the cold.
“HELLO!”
Homer yelled, trying to pull anything out.
“HELLo,
HEllo, Hello…” echos came back to him.
“Hiss, I don’t get it. Why did you take me here? Dark is familiar.”
“That gets
you to the point. You must go beyond.”
Where was
she?
Beyond, Homer thought. He walked forward
with his hands out. Is it physical? Is it mental? He tried to think of all the names for
beyond. Then he reasoned.
Maybe if I
call out again, something will come.
“Homer,”
Homer yelled.
“Homer,
Homer, Homer,” his voice replied in echos.
“I’m
echoing inside to outside,” he whispered to himself. “The past travels behind me. The present goes
into the future where I will go and have been beyond.”
The
future. There is beyond with me, the
call.
A hand smacked him across the face.
“Hey, junkie,” the bartender
said. “She took all your money.”
“What?”
Homer rubbed his eyes. He saw needles
all around him.
“Get out of
here, lowlife,” the bartender said. “You
ain’t got no business for me now. Scram.”
Homer stood
up and limped out of the casino with its lights mostly out, save for a sign in
front of him that read, “Vegas, Don’t Be Lost. Start here.”
He knew he’d never go back.
Kaela E.
Kaela E. published in the online children's magazine, "Bumples