Thorod Ashstaff
First Post
alsih2o said:
Oy! I picked the wrong week to give up smoking...in a dress...
Ceramic DM- The Renewal ( Final judgement posted)
Oy! I picked the wrong week to give up smoking...in a dress...
NiTessine
Explorer
alsih2o said:
I'll point the accusing finger to World of Warcraft. Alas, there's nothing quite like one's first MMORPG addiction, nor the places where your mind goes when ailed by sleep deprivation, caffeine overdose and deadline stress.
Congratulations, FireLance. You'd better go on to win this thing.
Macbeth
First Post
Forget
By Sage
This is nothing like the island of Dr. Moreau. They wanted to be human, they tried to be noble, and they had an evil Doctor playing god.
We don't want to be human, we don't want to be noble, we just want to forget.
Just like all the rest of you, we just want to forget.
Ever since Eve ate of the fruit, you've all been trying to forget the knowledge you gained. Trying to forget good and evil, or hide it. Drugs, entertainment, sex, lies, its all just ways of forgetting one bad meal.
And that's all we want too. We just want to forget what Dr. Groveger made us learn.
That's the problem. Groveger gave us knowledge, gave us good and evil, and now all we want to do is forget it.
We also want to get rid of the constant headache. Animal skulls were not meant to carry brains this large, and the result is living with a never-ending migraine.
It started like any creation, with a mad god. Dr. Groveger was a biologist, or a chemist, or a creationist, or something like that. He sat on the mountain top and toiled away with experiments that you can only get away with on deserted islands in international waters. He never told us how he got the money, how he payed for us, how he bought our souls. He just started working in his complex, and one day, he succeeded.
And like any other mad creation god, he had a sick sense of humor. He was well read, and thought of himself as a Moreau done right. We had no similarities to beasts, we never regressed, we were more like the pigs from Animal Farm then the animals of Dr. Moreau. And in the spirit of Dr. Moreau, he set us up on the other end of the island, living in a little village, living a 'perfect' life.
He even gave us history. A collage of images, all of them fakes, that give our little town a history. Like Rockwell with animals. A perfect history. Dog-men and frog-women having a sock hop, lizard children sledding on a snowy slope (as if it ever snowed here), the whole thing. A whole history of propaganda, images that always show the noble spirits of his man-beasts. Policemen-dogs watching over the children, a perfect image of our 'nobility.'
And that put us where we are now. In another endless meeting over how to make ourselves perfect.
“But civil law should be free of religion.” That's Mr. Jefferson for you, his chipmunk cheeks and bushy tail conceal a dogmatic ideal modeled after the declaration of independence.
“And what of the positive values provided by religion?” And that's the inevitable responses from Father Gregor, the only one of us to consider himself a priest. I'm sure the Catholic church never ordained a crocodile-man, but he insists on his religious rights.
The only problem with being so human, so non-Moreau, is that we have this burden. The burden of caring, the burden of being perfect. We just want to forget.
“And what do you think, Mr. Edgar?”
Great, now they want my opinion.
“I think we've come too far.”
Every pair of eyes in the meeting room turns to me. For dramatic effect I stand up and pace around the room, my hooves making a clopping sound on the finely polished hardwood floor.
“Have you ever thought about the outside world? How Groveger and his people live? I found this on the beach.” I pull out the advertisement, an image of two girls, their hair intertwined, but still as happy as we could never be. An image of the carefree life our knowledge had denied us.
The room drops to a silence as they all take it in.
Mr. Hever is the next to speak. He's one of the 'pures,' the creations that still look like animals, but have human level brains. Mr. Hever is a seagull with the brains of a high school graduate. “They... They all live like this. The people like... like Dr. Groveger, they don't care. They're not like us, they don't have to worry, they don't have the knowledge of good and evil. I flew to... to another island yesterday.” Mr. Hever's word elicit a response from the crowd. Leaving the island is strictly forbidden, but before anybody can object, Mr. Hever continues in his squawking voice. “There... there was a girl there. She didn't care, there were... animals around her, not like us, the dumb ones. And she looked so happy, so without worry. She didn't need to know if she was good or evil, if she was right or wrong, she just looked happy.”
The crowd burst into sound as Mr. Hever finished.
“But we're privileged by our knowledge...”
“Was she really that happy...”
“How?”
“Isn't leaving the island evil?”
With a stomp of my hooves on the ground I stop the discussion. “Gentlecreatures, I know this sounds odd, but Dr. Groveger has wronged us. We were simple, we were happy, and he gave us all of his problems. Our images of happiness come from children, from advertisements, from those with no worries of right and wrong. We have been forced to live a life of horrible choices, of a struggle between good and evil. Are not our more simple cousins, those untouched by Dr. Groveger, more happy? I ask you, who here has ever seen a sad animal? Not one of use, one of the trues beasts.”
The room is silent.
“Exactly. An animal, even one in a desperate position, is never so sad as we are, they always have survival, not morals, on their minds. We should be the same.”
Father Gregor's voice leaks into the silence. “But we are blessed by the knowledge.”
“Blessed? Father Gregor, what is the story of original sin? And what has Dr. Groveger done to use?”
And with that, Father Gregor sits back down, silent.
“Gentlecreatures, we have a chance unique to ourselves. Eve and Adam could never purge the meal they ate, but we can. We are Dr. Groveger's creations, and so he can uncreate us. We can do what thousands of years of drugs and philosophy could not do for the outside world. We can become stupid again. Are you with me?”
Slowly, one after another, the heads in the room nod. We have united in our desire to become stupid again. We are the masses, and we demand our opiate.
“Good. We march tonight. Gather your families, and anything you could use as a weapon. Meet me in the square in an hour.”
Seeing the entire number of Dr. Groveger's creations at once is like seeing an explosion in a zoo. The square is a mess of cloven hooves, tails, wings and horns.
“Are we ready?” I say, trying to conceal my terror and delight.
Every head nods in slow agreement.
“Then we march.” We are legion, a gestalt of dozens of men and dozens of animals in a slow march to the mountain.
As we approach the gates of Dr. Groveger's compound, the guards come into view. Dr. Groveger keeps all of the men we meet in strange dress, to obscure any facts about the outside world. The men at the gate wear orange and blue striped suits, and carry weapons that are intended to be used on animals. Two stand at either side, with an especially tall one in the middle ready for anything.
As we approach, the guard in the center steps out to great us. “What do you want, creatures?”
“We want to give back your 'gift' to us.”
“What?”
“Your knowledge, you can have it. We want to be free like the animals of the field.”
“I'm sorry we can't do that. You know now, and you always will.”
If we're going to be beasts, we may as well act like them. With a snort and a grunt, I lower my head, and charge the center guard.
My horns pierce him, and I twist my head, throwing him into the wall. And with that, our rise to our natural form starts. We may still know what we do is wrong, but we don't care, not now.
Like a firestorm of sulfur we rip through the complex, and we start loosing our numbers. By the time we reach the center office, it's only me. Every one else lays dead or dying in the hallways.
With a swoosh the door swings open, but he's not there. Moving to the desk, I find a note. He's out. We finally make our move, and Dr. Groveger is out collecting species for the next round of his experiments.
It's down to me to kill him. As the sun comes up, I thrash through the forest, moving to the beach to find Dr. Groveger.
When I find him, he's knee deep in water, with the smoke from the complex rising in the distance. He looks into the bushes, and sees me thrashing forward, my hooves and horns covered in blood.
“I was wondering what happened at the complex. I guess it was you. Since you've probably come to kill me, can I ask you why?”
“Because you made us like you. Because now we have to deal with the knowledge you gave us. We never wanted this, we wanted to be simple. Now it's my turn: why did you start the experiment? Why make us into this?”
“Cause that's the way it is. Your simple life doesn't exist. I made you see the world the way it is.”
“And how do you change us back?”
“I don't. I can't. This is the way the world is, and I can't change it now that you know. Your in the same boat we're all in. Welcome to the human race.”
He's not right. He can't be. Rage fills my vision and so I level my horns and charge. Fear flashes across his face just before my horns rip through his chest.
His blood runs red into the ocean, and I walk out to drown myself in the sea, in my sorrows. He may have been right, but now the only person who would know how to turn me back is gone, and I don't have anywhere else to go.
As I walk into the sea, I try to forget my knowledge, forget what I did to try to forget. In the end I could never forget.
By Sage
This is nothing like the island of Dr. Moreau. They wanted to be human, they tried to be noble, and they had an evil Doctor playing god.
We don't want to be human, we don't want to be noble, we just want to forget.
Just like all the rest of you, we just want to forget.
Ever since Eve ate of the fruit, you've all been trying to forget the knowledge you gained. Trying to forget good and evil, or hide it. Drugs, entertainment, sex, lies, its all just ways of forgetting one bad meal.
And that's all we want too. We just want to forget what Dr. Groveger made us learn.
That's the problem. Groveger gave us knowledge, gave us good and evil, and now all we want to do is forget it.
We also want to get rid of the constant headache. Animal skulls were not meant to carry brains this large, and the result is living with a never-ending migraine.
It started like any creation, with a mad god. Dr. Groveger was a biologist, or a chemist, or a creationist, or something like that. He sat on the mountain top and toiled away with experiments that you can only get away with on deserted islands in international waters. He never told us how he got the money, how he payed for us, how he bought our souls. He just started working in his complex, and one day, he succeeded.
And like any other mad creation god, he had a sick sense of humor. He was well read, and thought of himself as a Moreau done right. We had no similarities to beasts, we never regressed, we were more like the pigs from Animal Farm then the animals of Dr. Moreau. And in the spirit of Dr. Moreau, he set us up on the other end of the island, living in a little village, living a 'perfect' life.
He even gave us history. A collage of images, all of them fakes, that give our little town a history. Like Rockwell with animals. A perfect history. Dog-men and frog-women having a sock hop, lizard children sledding on a snowy slope (as if it ever snowed here), the whole thing. A whole history of propaganda, images that always show the noble spirits of his man-beasts. Policemen-dogs watching over the children, a perfect image of our 'nobility.'
And that put us where we are now. In another endless meeting over how to make ourselves perfect.
“But civil law should be free of religion.” That's Mr. Jefferson for you, his chipmunk cheeks and bushy tail conceal a dogmatic ideal modeled after the declaration of independence.
“And what of the positive values provided by religion?” And that's the inevitable responses from Father Gregor, the only one of us to consider himself a priest. I'm sure the Catholic church never ordained a crocodile-man, but he insists on his religious rights.
The only problem with being so human, so non-Moreau, is that we have this burden. The burden of caring, the burden of being perfect. We just want to forget.
“And what do you think, Mr. Edgar?”
Great, now they want my opinion.
“I think we've come too far.”
Every pair of eyes in the meeting room turns to me. For dramatic effect I stand up and pace around the room, my hooves making a clopping sound on the finely polished hardwood floor.
“Have you ever thought about the outside world? How Groveger and his people live? I found this on the beach.” I pull out the advertisement, an image of two girls, their hair intertwined, but still as happy as we could never be. An image of the carefree life our knowledge had denied us.
The room drops to a silence as they all take it in.
Mr. Hever is the next to speak. He's one of the 'pures,' the creations that still look like animals, but have human level brains. Mr. Hever is a seagull with the brains of a high school graduate. “They... They all live like this. The people like... like Dr. Groveger, they don't care. They're not like us, they don't have to worry, they don't have the knowledge of good and evil. I flew to... to another island yesterday.” Mr. Hever's word elicit a response from the crowd. Leaving the island is strictly forbidden, but before anybody can object, Mr. Hever continues in his squawking voice. “There... there was a girl there. She didn't care, there were... animals around her, not like us, the dumb ones. And she looked so happy, so without worry. She didn't need to know if she was good or evil, if she was right or wrong, she just looked happy.”
The crowd burst into sound as Mr. Hever finished.
“But we're privileged by our knowledge...”
“Was she really that happy...”
“How?”
“Isn't leaving the island evil?”
With a stomp of my hooves on the ground I stop the discussion. “Gentlecreatures, I know this sounds odd, but Dr. Groveger has wronged us. We were simple, we were happy, and he gave us all of his problems. Our images of happiness come from children, from advertisements, from those with no worries of right and wrong. We have been forced to live a life of horrible choices, of a struggle between good and evil. Are not our more simple cousins, those untouched by Dr. Groveger, more happy? I ask you, who here has ever seen a sad animal? Not one of use, one of the trues beasts.”
The room is silent.
“Exactly. An animal, even one in a desperate position, is never so sad as we are, they always have survival, not morals, on their minds. We should be the same.”
Father Gregor's voice leaks into the silence. “But we are blessed by the knowledge.”
“Blessed? Father Gregor, what is the story of original sin? And what has Dr. Groveger done to use?”
And with that, Father Gregor sits back down, silent.
“Gentlecreatures, we have a chance unique to ourselves. Eve and Adam could never purge the meal they ate, but we can. We are Dr. Groveger's creations, and so he can uncreate us. We can do what thousands of years of drugs and philosophy could not do for the outside world. We can become stupid again. Are you with me?”
Slowly, one after another, the heads in the room nod. We have united in our desire to become stupid again. We are the masses, and we demand our opiate.
“Good. We march tonight. Gather your families, and anything you could use as a weapon. Meet me in the square in an hour.”
Seeing the entire number of Dr. Groveger's creations at once is like seeing an explosion in a zoo. The square is a mess of cloven hooves, tails, wings and horns.
“Are we ready?” I say, trying to conceal my terror and delight.
Every head nods in slow agreement.
“Then we march.” We are legion, a gestalt of dozens of men and dozens of animals in a slow march to the mountain.
As we approach the gates of Dr. Groveger's compound, the guards come into view. Dr. Groveger keeps all of the men we meet in strange dress, to obscure any facts about the outside world. The men at the gate wear orange and blue striped suits, and carry weapons that are intended to be used on animals. Two stand at either side, with an especially tall one in the middle ready for anything.
As we approach, the guard in the center steps out to great us. “What do you want, creatures?”
“We want to give back your 'gift' to us.”
“What?”
“Your knowledge, you can have it. We want to be free like the animals of the field.”
“I'm sorry we can't do that. You know now, and you always will.”
If we're going to be beasts, we may as well act like them. With a snort and a grunt, I lower my head, and charge the center guard.
My horns pierce him, and I twist my head, throwing him into the wall. And with that, our rise to our natural form starts. We may still know what we do is wrong, but we don't care, not now.
Like a firestorm of sulfur we rip through the complex, and we start loosing our numbers. By the time we reach the center office, it's only me. Every one else lays dead or dying in the hallways.
With a swoosh the door swings open, but he's not there. Moving to the desk, I find a note. He's out. We finally make our move, and Dr. Groveger is out collecting species for the next round of his experiments.
It's down to me to kill him. As the sun comes up, I thrash through the forest, moving to the beach to find Dr. Groveger.
When I find him, he's knee deep in water, with the smoke from the complex rising in the distance. He looks into the bushes, and sees me thrashing forward, my hooves and horns covered in blood.
“I was wondering what happened at the complex. I guess it was you. Since you've probably come to kill me, can I ask you why?”
“Because you made us like you. Because now we have to deal with the knowledge you gave us. We never wanted this, we wanted to be simple. Now it's my turn: why did you start the experiment? Why make us into this?”
“Cause that's the way it is. Your simple life doesn't exist. I made you see the world the way it is.”
“And how do you change us back?”
“I don't. I can't. This is the way the world is, and I can't change it now that you know. Your in the same boat we're all in. Welcome to the human race.”
He's not right. He can't be. Rage fills my vision and so I level my horns and charge. Fear flashes across his face just before my horns rip through his chest.
His blood runs red into the ocean, and I walk out to drown myself in the sea, in my sorrows. He may have been right, but now the only person who would know how to turn me back is gone, and I don't have anywhere else to go.
As I walk into the sea, I try to forget my knowledge, forget what I did to try to forget. In the end I could never forget.
Journey into the Mountain of Fire
maddman
It was a bright and cheerful Tuesday morning when our group arrived at the Gentleman Explorer's Society. This was an ancient institution, dedicated some five hundred years ago to exploring the unusual and unexplained in the world. Though it was called the 'Gentleman' Explorer's Society, these days there were female members as well. The club's founding was made in less enlightened times, but tradition keeps the old name.
It is fortunate for us, because one of our members is a young lady, and quite talented. Cherish is quite knowledgeable about the natural world and its spiritual properties, having been raised by African Bushmen after a lion mauled her parents while on safari. I had met her during one of my expeditions to try and find the Lost City of Klathu, when I was beset by an army of angry baboons. This young girl made a few gestures and grunts at them and the beasts left me be. I led her back to England to join the society and we've been fast friends ever since.
Some readers may doubt the veracity of my claims about Cherish's powers. They should likely abandon this tale before I get to Klaus. He was the victim of a Nazi experiment in the second world war, where the Third Reich was attempting to understand genetics and how they determined one's form. He has the ability to transform himself into any manner of beast, or even Chimeric combinantions of part one thing, part another. It has been a talent that has gotten him out of many rough spots before!
And the last of our merry band of explorers would be myself, Adrian Crown. I've no special gifts like my two friends Cherish and Klaus I'm afraid. Just my pistol and skills as a pilot to get us where we're going. Its been said that of our team, Cherish is the heart, Klaus is the brains, and I'm the brawn.
In any case, we walked up to the Society, eager to see what new missions the Elders may have cooked up for us. The guards still wore their traditional uniforms, and Cherish can't help but giggle a little when she goes in. Every time. You'd think the joke would get old after awhile, but for the young everything always seems so fresh.
We entered the lush common room, where explorers of all varieties and nationalities sat reclined in rich leather funiture, sipping scotch, and in deep conversation about archeology across the globe. I went up to Edward, the venerable Chairman who told us what was what. "Hello Edward - I got your telegram. What's the big mission?"
The stoic man cleared his throat and dropped a photograph onto the table. "This is Dr. David Thorpe, an associate of the Society. He's been studying the ruins at the base of the Manahana volcano in the South Pacific. He'd sent a telegram indicating that he'd discovered the tomb of King Yellani, something that scientists had been searching out for ages. He'd said he was worried that the volcano may become active before he could study the tomb. I'd like your team to travel to the South Pacific to find Dr. Thorpe and see these ruins for yourself."
I took his maps and the photograph with a grin. "Travel halfway around the world to find a missing professor inside a tomb at the base of an active volcano. And I thought you were going to ask me something hard!" Cherish giggles, and Klaus gave me a reprimanding look. "I'll get the plane ready to go and plot our course. Klaus, I'm used to hunting down lost treasures, not people. Maybe you should talk with Fritz before we leave?"
"Excellent idea, Adrian. I'll meet you back at the airport tonight!" Fritz was a good friend of Klaus's, and had been part of the same experiments. Fritz liked to play around with his powers, and the normally reserved Klaus would get in on the act with him. I was glad I managed to snap a picture they day the two of them put on dog heads and started chasing birds in the park! I don't think I'll ever let Klaus live that one down.
We got together later that night. The plane was ready to go, Cherish had our bags packed, and Klaus had some good ideas from his buddy at Scotland Yard. Fritz had suggested that Klaus don a bloodhound head as he had that day in the park. He could then track the professor down like a bloodhound!
The plane took off, travelling from country to country until finally we set down in a field a small distance from Mt. Manahana. Dr. Thorpe's camp was there, but no sign of the good professor. Klaus gave some of the man's clothes a good sniffing, and immediately led us toward the volcano.
We soon arrived at the base of the volcano right on the beach. The trail led right behind a large boulder, there was no way we could move it. Klaus thought maybe the professor was caught in a cave-in, but the bare footprints in the sand told a different story. I was guessing that this is the entrance to the tomb and someone had trapped the professor inside. We had to find a way around that boulder.
Cherish went over to the beach as sat down, pulling some bread out of her pack. "If you're going to ask a favor, you have to do a favor first." she explained. In no time at all, several birds landed in a circle around her. She gave them each a bit of the bread, and looked them in the eye and made gentle chirping sounds. Suddenly the entire flock took off and landed up the slope. She started scampering up after the birds, with me and Klaus right behind her warning her to be careful. Once we got up on the slope, we could see that the birds had landed on a small shaft that was not visible from the beach. We had found a passage into the tomb!
I struck up a torch and we climbed down the passage to the ancient tomb. There were carvings and inscriptions all along the walls. It was pretty dark, but we could see that the passage led up to a large room that was lit, and we could hear and eerie chanting from there as well. We slowly progressed forward, anxious to see what was happening in the torchlight up ahead.
It was a terrible sight. I spotted Dr. Thorpe right away. He was tied up on some kind of altar, right next to a skeleton! A woman with a dark red robe on stood over him with a knife in hand while half a dozen people in black robes were doing the chanting. Her voice rose to a crescendo in the rough-cut stone room, "King Yellani, Lord of Darkness, return to your people to crush your enemies and all defilers!"
I cried out - "I don't think so, sister!" and fired a single shot from my pistol, knocking the dagger from her hand. The cult members turned on us with murder in their eyes. But Klaus had other plans for them. He rumbled past me in the form of a huge bear, and started batting the cultists down like flies.
The Woman In Red was furious that her little sacrifice was so rudely interrupted. She uttered a dark and obscene sounding word and gestured toward Cherish. The most bizzare thing happened next - I don't blame me if you don't believe this one. I wouldn't believe it either except I saw it with my own eyes. Cherish sort of split, like a reflection pulled itself out of her body. First her arms, then her head and torso, and her ponytail last of all. A perfect match, right down to the braces. Her new twin was not as funloving as our Cherish, and wrapped its hands around her throat! The two of them went down and started wrestling, the young girl fighting for her life. I had my pistol out, but there was no way for me to tell which was the good Cherish and which was the evil one!
I turned toward the cult leader. Maybe I could break her hex or whatever it is to save Cherish! She'd ducked behind the altar and was digging for her dagger. I ran across the room, decked one of the cult members who thought he'd stop me. I got across the altar and put my gun in her face. "Don't even think about it!" She wisely dropped the dagger. "Now take that hex off of Cherish!" With a gesture, the magics faded and the evil Cherish was gone forever.
Klaus had herded the cultists into a corner, and I gestured their leader to join them. I cut Dr. Thorpe free while Cherish tied the cultists up. Dr. Thorpe quickly explained what happened. He was exploring the tomb when the cult jumped him. They'd been searching for it for ages, and revered Yellani as some kind of dark god. They planned to sacrifice Thorpe to bring the old King back to life."
The cult leader was furious. She cried out "Yellani needs blood to form new life, and blood he shall have! She started chanting in indescipherable gibberish, while the cultists surrounded here. Klaus started digging into find her, but it was too little too late. We felt a deep rumble under our feet - the volcano was going to erupt!
We decided to leave the cult to its own devices and headed toward the entrance. A huge rumble shook the entire corridor, and a look over my shoulder showed a river of lava heading right towards us. Klaus said "There's no way we'll get up the shaft in time - we'll have to move that boulder!" He shifted forms into a huge bull, lowered his head, and charged full tilt right into the boulder that blocked his way. It was just enough, and the way was clear. We all jumped up to high ground while Klaus changed into a bird.
We made our way back to the plane to return Dr. Thorpe to England. "I'm ever so grateful to you and your group Adrian. Its just so frustrating that I finally found the tomb of Yellani, but don't have anything to show for it."
Cherish pulled up her pack and said "while Klaus was wrestling with those cult guys I stuffed these old papers in my pack. Will they help you out Professor?"
Dr. Thorpe looked at the ancient parchments and his eyes widened with excitement. "My dear girl, these are the Scrolls of the Afterlife, detailing the religious beliefs of Yellani's people! They are a most valuable piece of history. I can't thank you enough."
I smiled at the two of them. "Hey, we keep her around for a reason. Now let's get back home!"
maddman
It was a bright and cheerful Tuesday morning when our group arrived at the Gentleman Explorer's Society. This was an ancient institution, dedicated some five hundred years ago to exploring the unusual and unexplained in the world. Though it was called the 'Gentleman' Explorer's Society, these days there were female members as well. The club's founding was made in less enlightened times, but tradition keeps the old name.
It is fortunate for us, because one of our members is a young lady, and quite talented. Cherish is quite knowledgeable about the natural world and its spiritual properties, having been raised by African Bushmen after a lion mauled her parents while on safari. I had met her during one of my expeditions to try and find the Lost City of Klathu, when I was beset by an army of angry baboons. This young girl made a few gestures and grunts at them and the beasts left me be. I led her back to England to join the society and we've been fast friends ever since.
Some readers may doubt the veracity of my claims about Cherish's powers. They should likely abandon this tale before I get to Klaus. He was the victim of a Nazi experiment in the second world war, where the Third Reich was attempting to understand genetics and how they determined one's form. He has the ability to transform himself into any manner of beast, or even Chimeric combinantions of part one thing, part another. It has been a talent that has gotten him out of many rough spots before!
And the last of our merry band of explorers would be myself, Adrian Crown. I've no special gifts like my two friends Cherish and Klaus I'm afraid. Just my pistol and skills as a pilot to get us where we're going. Its been said that of our team, Cherish is the heart, Klaus is the brains, and I'm the brawn.
In any case, we walked up to the Society, eager to see what new missions the Elders may have cooked up for us. The guards still wore their traditional uniforms, and Cherish can't help but giggle a little when she goes in. Every time. You'd think the joke would get old after awhile, but for the young everything always seems so fresh.
We entered the lush common room, where explorers of all varieties and nationalities sat reclined in rich leather funiture, sipping scotch, and in deep conversation about archeology across the globe. I went up to Edward, the venerable Chairman who told us what was what. "Hello Edward - I got your telegram. What's the big mission?"
The stoic man cleared his throat and dropped a photograph onto the table. "This is Dr. David Thorpe, an associate of the Society. He's been studying the ruins at the base of the Manahana volcano in the South Pacific. He'd sent a telegram indicating that he'd discovered the tomb of King Yellani, something that scientists had been searching out for ages. He'd said he was worried that the volcano may become active before he could study the tomb. I'd like your team to travel to the South Pacific to find Dr. Thorpe and see these ruins for yourself."
I took his maps and the photograph with a grin. "Travel halfway around the world to find a missing professor inside a tomb at the base of an active volcano. And I thought you were going to ask me something hard!" Cherish giggles, and Klaus gave me a reprimanding look. "I'll get the plane ready to go and plot our course. Klaus, I'm used to hunting down lost treasures, not people. Maybe you should talk with Fritz before we leave?"
"Excellent idea, Adrian. I'll meet you back at the airport tonight!" Fritz was a good friend of Klaus's, and had been part of the same experiments. Fritz liked to play around with his powers, and the normally reserved Klaus would get in on the act with him. I was glad I managed to snap a picture they day the two of them put on dog heads and started chasing birds in the park! I don't think I'll ever let Klaus live that one down.
We got together later that night. The plane was ready to go, Cherish had our bags packed, and Klaus had some good ideas from his buddy at Scotland Yard. Fritz had suggested that Klaus don a bloodhound head as he had that day in the park. He could then track the professor down like a bloodhound!
The plane took off, travelling from country to country until finally we set down in a field a small distance from Mt. Manahana. Dr. Thorpe's camp was there, but no sign of the good professor. Klaus gave some of the man's clothes a good sniffing, and immediately led us toward the volcano.
We soon arrived at the base of the volcano right on the beach. The trail led right behind a large boulder, there was no way we could move it. Klaus thought maybe the professor was caught in a cave-in, but the bare footprints in the sand told a different story. I was guessing that this is the entrance to the tomb and someone had trapped the professor inside. We had to find a way around that boulder.
Cherish went over to the beach as sat down, pulling some bread out of her pack. "If you're going to ask a favor, you have to do a favor first." she explained. In no time at all, several birds landed in a circle around her. She gave them each a bit of the bread, and looked them in the eye and made gentle chirping sounds. Suddenly the entire flock took off and landed up the slope. She started scampering up after the birds, with me and Klaus right behind her warning her to be careful. Once we got up on the slope, we could see that the birds had landed on a small shaft that was not visible from the beach. We had found a passage into the tomb!
I struck up a torch and we climbed down the passage to the ancient tomb. There were carvings and inscriptions all along the walls. It was pretty dark, but we could see that the passage led up to a large room that was lit, and we could hear and eerie chanting from there as well. We slowly progressed forward, anxious to see what was happening in the torchlight up ahead.
It was a terrible sight. I spotted Dr. Thorpe right away. He was tied up on some kind of altar, right next to a skeleton! A woman with a dark red robe on stood over him with a knife in hand while half a dozen people in black robes were doing the chanting. Her voice rose to a crescendo in the rough-cut stone room, "King Yellani, Lord of Darkness, return to your people to crush your enemies and all defilers!"
I cried out - "I don't think so, sister!" and fired a single shot from my pistol, knocking the dagger from her hand. The cult members turned on us with murder in their eyes. But Klaus had other plans for them. He rumbled past me in the form of a huge bear, and started batting the cultists down like flies.
The Woman In Red was furious that her little sacrifice was so rudely interrupted. She uttered a dark and obscene sounding word and gestured toward Cherish. The most bizzare thing happened next - I don't blame me if you don't believe this one. I wouldn't believe it either except I saw it with my own eyes. Cherish sort of split, like a reflection pulled itself out of her body. First her arms, then her head and torso, and her ponytail last of all. A perfect match, right down to the braces. Her new twin was not as funloving as our Cherish, and wrapped its hands around her throat! The two of them went down and started wrestling, the young girl fighting for her life. I had my pistol out, but there was no way for me to tell which was the good Cherish and which was the evil one!
I turned toward the cult leader. Maybe I could break her hex or whatever it is to save Cherish! She'd ducked behind the altar and was digging for her dagger. I ran across the room, decked one of the cult members who thought he'd stop me. I got across the altar and put my gun in her face. "Don't even think about it!" She wisely dropped the dagger. "Now take that hex off of Cherish!" With a gesture, the magics faded and the evil Cherish was gone forever.
Klaus had herded the cultists into a corner, and I gestured their leader to join them. I cut Dr. Thorpe free while Cherish tied the cultists up. Dr. Thorpe quickly explained what happened. He was exploring the tomb when the cult jumped him. They'd been searching for it for ages, and revered Yellani as some kind of dark god. They planned to sacrifice Thorpe to bring the old King back to life."
The cult leader was furious. She cried out "Yellani needs blood to form new life, and blood he shall have! She started chanting in indescipherable gibberish, while the cultists surrounded here. Klaus started digging into find her, but it was too little too late. We felt a deep rumble under our feet - the volcano was going to erupt!
We decided to leave the cult to its own devices and headed toward the entrance. A huge rumble shook the entire corridor, and a look over my shoulder showed a river of lava heading right towards us. Klaus said "There's no way we'll get up the shaft in time - we'll have to move that boulder!" He shifted forms into a huge bull, lowered his head, and charged full tilt right into the boulder that blocked his way. It was just enough, and the way was clear. We all jumped up to high ground while Klaus changed into a bird.
We made our way back to the plane to return Dr. Thorpe to England. "I'm ever so grateful to you and your group Adrian. Its just so frustrating that I finally found the tomb of Yellani, but don't have anything to show for it."
Cherish pulled up her pack and said "while Klaus was wrestling with those cult guys I stuffed these old papers in my pack. Will they help you out Professor?"
Dr. Thorpe looked at the ancient parchments and his eyes widened with excitement. "My dear girl, these are the Scrolls of the Afterlife, detailing the religious beliefs of Yellani's people! They are a most valuable piece of history. I can't thank you enough."
I smiled at the two of them. "Hey, we keep her around for a reason. Now let's get back home!"
orchid blossom
Explorer
Either this evening, or waiting until Wednesday evening. Tuesday is just bad, bad, bad.
MarauderX
Explorer
Marauder X vs. Thorod Ashstaff
Sara McKernan
”Why would we need to have a filter such as glasses to see things in the way that others want us to? Is what is depicted on the screen not what the director wants us to see? What if the universe needed a filter just like that?” Barry said. We sat in the overgrown field and he turned to look at me with his dark-colored movie glasses. His question was rhetorical as he was accustomed to asking, but made an impression and provoked contemplation, which he was probably really after.
“What do you really see Barry?” I asked. Barry was in his last year of study to receiving a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and I knew that asking him such an open ended question was an invite to let him talk for a while. He led the way into the metaphysical world that I think he lived in all the time, and this is what I had always liked about him. Barry had an honest appeal to most that was contagious and made others want to hang out with him if only to listen to some of his humorous interpretations of the world we live in.
I studied accounting, which made for Barry and me to be strange bedfellows, but all I can say is that we were kindred spirits. I was to graduate the following winter and join the accounting team of my father’s construction company. Barry hated the necessity of money though perhaps he understood the principals of how it worked to change people and events more than I did. He talked awhile and I lay down in the grass and closed my eyes to soak up his warm baritone voice.
I liked accounting because it dealt with numbers, and with those numbers there was an absolute solution, a correct answer that I could find given a little time to follow all the rules. Barry’s entire study was the antithesis to me, given that there were no numbers and no matter what the conclusion was, there was no absolute right answer. It bothered me at first, not knowing, but Barry had made it so easy to endure once I understood the fundamentals of philosophy.
I hadn’t said a word in half an hour, and repeatedly Barry eloquently led his discussion to support the interpretation of the world through various filters, likening each of our experiences to the cheap movie glasses in some way.
“Want to get something to eat?” I asked when he paused. He could tell that he had lost me a long time ago.
“What are you thinking of getting? I had tofu yesterday, but you know that, you were with me then. I am thinking I want beef tips, or Chinese, perhaps Szechwan pork with a bowl of egg drop soup. Oh, we order in and make the soup ourselves, its pretty fun actually.”
What I didn’t like about Barry sometimes was his lack of brevity. I had dated an accountant classmate once and now I know I took the long silences for granted. It was easy enough to listen to, but the focus was sometimes lost in the all the talk.
We made it back to Barry’s apartment to hear loud music playing through the open balcony door and we were pleasantly surprised to see Barry’s roommate Mike hosting an intimate party. The apartment itself was bare, as both Barry and Mike considered their tenure brief and neither spent much time there. Given that they were both students and the distant walk to campus, Mike stayed at his girlfriend’s often, and I stayed with Barry several nights of the week.
Several of Barry’s close friends were standing in the open second floor apartment when we saw Mike. I burst out laughing at seeing Mike dressed in a French maid’s outfit and smoking a cigarette. Mike was the type of man that wasn’t threatened by embarrassment but could not stand to have his sexual reputation tarnished, and here he was acting in his same burly fashion.
“What?” Mike asked, the cigarette jingling in his lips.
Barry had tears in his eyes from laughter, but it was apparent that it was not a complete surprise to him as it was to me. “When you’re done with the windows, could you help me wax my knob?” he asked jokingly.
“I thought that’s why you got a girlfriend!” Mike retorted.
“No, that’s why you got a girlfriend!” Barry answered, “especially for the windows. Everyone here knows you can do knobs yourself!” The small group of people continued to take pictures of Mike’s red face.
The two then explained that it was Barry’s birthday, and that since he didn’t celebrate holidays or birthdays, Mike still wanted to do something memorable for his long-time roommate. Barry had asked if for once Mike could take out the trash and be his maid instead of the other way around.
“Ask and ye shall receive, my friend.” said Mike, as he gave Barry a jovial hug, “and now you gotta drink like a fish! Happy Birthday Barry!” Everyone in the small apartment drank to that, and Barry made his way around to greet everyone. I met some new faces of Barry’s I had heard him mention, several of which were graduate philosophy majors that Barry had befriended. I had had no idea it was his birthday and was embarrassed to not even know he didn’t want gifts. He had only requested chocolate cake, but I knew that was to please me.
As the night wore down we ended up playing the maid servant to Mike after he had passed out on his bed. With everyone gone we watched Mike’s year-old half-puppy, half full grown dog Max chew on a plastic bottle. Barry showed me how to make egg drop soup, constantly stirring the soup while the egg was slowly poured in. It was salty and delicious and reminded me of the last time I had traveled.
“Hey, I want to take a trip before I start working,” I said, “to someplace I haven’t been to or even heard about.”
Barry narrowed his eyes in thought. “Then you will have to go to… well, I can’t tell you about it if you just asked me not to. Ok, we’ll take a trip, to a place you have never been, and I am sure that you have never heard of.” He smiled with a gleam in his eye and the promise of a new secret project for him alone to design.
* * * * *
Barry had graduated and took a job as a tree trimmer, climbing and clipping limbs near overhead power lines and up to seventy feet in the air. At first I was worried for him, but since he loved it and the crew that he was with, I grew numb to thinking how dangerous the job could be. I was alone again on campus, not really knowing anyone well enough to spend my free time with. I tried to concentrate on my schoolwork, but it was so easy to let my mind wander and dream of far away places that Barry could find to take me.
I heard about Mike occasionally, mostly from Barry. He had also graduated last spring and put his electrical engineering degree to use. He moved to the small town of Endicott, New York, where Lockheed Martin had their headquarters, and he was soon to help out with the Marine-1 contract the company had just been awarded.
The fall semester was over in a flash and my father was looking forward to the extra help in dealing with the end-of-year bonuses. Barry drove down a few days early to see me before graduation and my father and brother met him for the first time when we all went to dinner together. My brother talked a lot about his first semester at Penn State, laying out the vastness of the campus and the diversity of people and cultures that he had explored thus far. Though my father was full of conversation too, Barry was strangely quiet, giving answers that seemed curt, and asked only a few in return.
Desert came with a toast and a new bottle of wine for the four of us.
My father spoke first. “To my darling daughter, and her willingness to help out her old man. And to Barry, a fine man that we’ve finally got to meet, and hope to know better. Congratulations!” Glasses clinked and Barry stood.
“To all of us, and most especially to your daughter.” Barry began. “We will be leaving in the morning, headed for a final trip that I had promised her.”
My father’s question was written across his face and his eyes snapped to look at me for an explanation. “You won’t be long, will you? Where are you headed to, maybe I can help you out?” he said, keeping his voice lighthearted.
“She doesn’t know,” Barry said quickly, “it’s a surprise that we had talked about last spring. You see, she had asked that I take her to a place she had never been or even heard of, and that’s what I’ve planned.”
“And when will you be back?” my father asked again.
Barry shifted his eyes to me before answering. “Well, that’s still up in the air. Let me say that it’s up to your daughter.”
I was dumbfounded at that moment. I didn’t know what to say, other than I knew I wanted to go on this trip more than anything. I could see that my father was trying to be understanding, but the blood in his face showed that he was ready to blow his top at any moment.
“I’ll be back, Dad,” I said, “it’s not as if I’m going to die.” That’s all I could muster to try to stem the flood of emotion that was about to pour out of him.
“To die? Of course you’re not going to die, right? But, I hate to be selfish here, but… but it’s not like we’re an S-company and exempt from government taxes sweetie! Surely you understand that, that if we don’t zero-out by the end of the year we’ll have to pay, what, thirty cents every dollar to the government!”
“Forty.” I said.
“Yes! Exactly! You gotta understand kiddo, this means a lot of money to be handled, and the work has got to be done! You can take a vacation anytime, you’re my daughter, you would be working for me, you can come and go whenever you want!”
Just as my father took in a deep breath to continue, Barry interjected. “Actually, this is the only moment that this will ever happen, ever. It will never come again, and I’m sorry I had to cut it so close, but this is once-in-a-lifetime chance.”
Barry and my father stared at each other. I knew this look; my father used it on subcontractors when they were trying to charge him too much or made up an excuse why their work wasn’t on time or under budget. He had used it on my brother and me if we came home too late or fibbed about where we had gone. Now Barry was getting that look, and he defiantly stared back into my father’s eyes, his face placid. Suddenly my father’s eyes grew wide.
“You’re planning to elope! That’s what your plan is, isn’t it boy! Why, you want to take my daughter away somewhere and leave us behind! You got some nerve!”
Barry watched my father’s theatrics, watched him spring from his seat then sit down again. Barry and I listened to the lecture about marrying too soon, about having kids before we’re ready, about stealing me away, and he finished with a few words on us being irresponsible kids. My brother enjoyed his dessert and listened as if he were watching a TV soap opera.
“No, sir, I am not planning to elope with your daughter.” Barry said finally. “I want to show her the world, to see the ocean from a different coast, to let the moon shine down from another place, to let her see the sun rise and fall on different horizons. I want her to experience other places and to know that when she returns she will be happy working for you. That’s all. I worked all summer and fall saving enough money to do this, and if she doesn’t want to come, then that’s her choice too, but this is will only happen once, and I only hoped that she would join me because I love her.”
Again I was stunned. I had wanted to speak up, to put a stop to this much earlier, but now I’m glad I hadn’t. I knew that Barry cared about me, and that I was the only one he was with, but had thought he was standoffish for a reason. He was a free spirit, flitting from one thing to the next just for the experience of having tried it. I had always thought Barry would tire of me, that I didn’t and couldn’t hold his interest forever, and lived each day as if the next would the one when he told me he had to move on. Instead I hear about his feelings for me when he tells my father. I pushed my untouched slice of chocolate on chocolate cake away.
My father stammered for a second before his face hardened up and gave Barry the stare once more as he slammed through his cheesecake. “So you’re going to take my daughter on a cruise or something, and it’s entirely up to her to go or not, correct?”
“Ultimately, yes.” said Barry.
My father’s head swiveled to focus his stern gaze at me. I unconsciously cowered. “It’s up to you sweetie, whether you want to do this or not. Barry here says that it’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing, which I think is a crock of drek, but you know him a lot better than I do. It’s up to you sweetie, the job will be around whenever you get back, we’ll just have to make due if you don’t get back before the New Year.”
“Really?” I said. I sounded so controlled, as if my father had just given me permission. I realized that he was really hoping to guilt me into not going, but he was a man of his word and I knew he would hold to it and somehow make things work without paying an extra cent in taxes. “I really want to go, dad, it’s one of the only chances I’ll have in my life to do something like this, and I trust Barry more than anyone.”
“Except you, sir.” Barry added for me, which forced a grin to break his hard face.
“Yeah, well, whatever. Look, you gave me your word Barry, you’re not going to elope, so don’t even think about it. And keep her safe on this little trip or you’ll have to answer to me before I drag you hell myself. Got it?”
“Of course, sir.” Barry said.
* * * * *
Barry woke me the next morning by placing a set of blue glasses on my face. He said I had to wear them all day long so that I knew what it was to look through different filters on the world around me. The blue made my room look distorted and dull at first but I had grown rather accustomed as we left for the airport.
We took a plane the following morning to Tokyo. It was the longest flight I had ever taken, and was my first out of the country. Barry said we had a seven hour layover there, and insisted we explore the locality of Chiba via an express rail. We ate wheat noodle dishes before venturing into the first of many department stores to do some light shopping.
Angry rap music played lightly in the background as mothers tugged children onto escalators up and up into the building. The sun-lit interior was beautiful, and Barry squeezed my hand as he commented that the department store was so similar but still so much different. He lightly whistled the X-files theme as we ascended.
Time flew, and I told Barry that we only had an hour left and should be getting back to catch our next flight.
“What flight?” he said as he looked at my watch and slipped a different pair of glasses over my eyes. This pair was pink and cast everything in a pale rosy light.
“Aren’t we catching another plane?” I asked.
“Nah, not anymore. How does that make you feel?” he asked in return.
I replied honestly, “Well, nervous. I thought we were on a schedule, and missing a flight like that has got to cost a lot of money.”
“That’s exactly why I wanted to miss it. So what if it was the cost of a plane ticket? It wasn’t in this case, but so what if it was? We could have simply rescheduled or switched to go back home, or even bought another one. Why are you so worried about our schedule when you don’t even know what it is?” he asked.
“I just… get worried. I thought you had everything planned out, like along a timeline or something.” I said.
He laughed. “I know that’s what you thought. That’s why I did it.”
I didn’t like him anymore. Well, for at least that moment. I mean, what was he thinking? We were in another country, lost for all practical purposes, didn’t speak the language, didn’t know anyone, and didn’t have a plan. I was annoyed that he had laughed at me, that he thought I was so predictable, and that he didn’t have clue about what he was doing. He saw it on my face and grabbed my hand once again, this time towing me down a narrow corridor. I protested, asked him where he thought he was going, and then he pointed outward when we reached the end of the corridor.
Inside this building was a wood and rope walkway stretching from one side of an immense lobby to the other. On each side were giant flat panel screens showing a landscape of bare deciduous trees mixed with a few conifers. In the center of the lobby two tall maple trees grew, and their branches stretched out towards the bridge and filled the rest of the lobby between us and the bustling street outside.
I took several steps towards the Japanese family that was in the center of the bridge and felt it sway. Suddenly movement caught my eye and I saw the tops of all the trees on the screens bending slightly from a make-believe wind. Then the branches of the two trees in the lobby fluttered and moved and I caught hold of the rail before vertigo overtook me.
“Are you ok? I didn’t think you were afraid of heights.” Barry said.
“I’m not, it’s just so… amazing…” I said as I caught my bearings and moved to the middle of the bridge.
“I’m glad you like it. Did you see how the trees moved in time with the ones on the screens? They keep the trees on the screens in season with the ones in the lobby to keep the continuity and have the HVAC fans blow on the trees to create the wind effects.” he said.
“About not having a plan… Barry… I guess I was wrong and should just trust that you know what you are doing.” I said.
“How about just trust me. I may not always know what I’m doing, but just trust me.” He unsnapped my watch from my wrist. “Let me worry about timing and money for once, ok?”
* * * * *
We stopped in Shinjuku and Shibuya next where we saw the equivalent of Marti Gras and Halloween on a typical Sunday. Barry told me that we did indeed have another flight just as I was hoping we could find a place to spend the night. Instead he insisted that we sleep on the plane to our next destination.
We sat in the front row in the economy section of the plane and listened to an unhappy baby cry the entire flight from Tokyo to Bangkok. Neither of us slept and I knew that Barry was just as tired as me for having stayed up well past twenty four hours, only I was getting cranky at him for again not planning ahead for such things. But then how could he know that we wouldn’t get a nap on our ten hour flight?
In Bangkok we talked to the only cab driver that would approach us and realized he was probably asking twice as much as he should, but we were too tired to care. Barry whispered the location to the man and we arrived at a grand fifteen story hotel within minutes. Once there I don’t think I even looked out the window before passing out on the bed.
* * * * *
Barry woke me once more by placing a new set of glasses over my eyes. These were the sleek dark kind, wrapping around my eyes to dim my peripheral vision but light enough not to get in the way. They painted everything with a greenish tinge compared to the pink ones. We made our way to the pool where I saw the hotel’s logo and I couldn’t help but think how expensive it must be to stay there per night. My mind began working the numbers on how much Barry could have saved up from working for the last eight months and how this place must be truly hurting his wallet. I tried not to let it worry me as Barry surely knows already how much it was per night and was willing to pay for it.
My thoughts were interrupted when Barry asked if I was ready to go shopping. We left in the afternoon and he insisted I get a sleek dress for the evening and then a diamond necklace to match. But he didn’t have to, I kept thinking, he didn’t have to spend it on this, these extravagances, not for me. He could have saved that money, started investing it or at least spent it more wisely.
We took a cab back to the hotel and Barry asked if I could be ready by seven o’clock. My brow furrowed and he commented that it was hard to see what I was thinking with the glasses on, and that she should put on a new pair for the evening. He pulled a spectacles case from his jacket pocket and gave it to me before leaving.
At seven I was not ready. I had had a shoe emergency and ran down to the hotel to get another pair that worked better than the black flats that I had been carrying around. Barry was waiting at our hotel room door when I emerged from the elevator, still wearing the pair of sleek black sunglasses. He was dressed in a tuxedo, and for as much as I thought he hated it, he seemed comfortable and especially refined.
“I’m glad to see you’re almost ready.” he said as he spotted the pair of shoes in my hand. “Oh, did I forget to tell you? I’m sorry, you won’t need any shoes for where we are going. Wear your black ones, they’ll be perfect.”
I opened the case that housed the new glasses and saw that they were diminutive and clear. When I slipped them on they rested lightly and tiny diamonds at the hinges matched the necklace Barry bought me earlier. I shook my head, thinking that maybe Barry did have everything taken care of.
We strolled out of the hotel and into an awaiting limousine. The ride took us all around the city to see the sights as Barry told the histories of the monuments and buildings we passed. The limo circled back to the airport and we made our way to another large building and stepped out onto a carpeted walkway.
Inside the smell of cocoa permeated the air as Barry led me across the lobby and to the elevators. A bellman guided us up two floors and when the doors parted a world of energy flooded me. The smell of chocolate dwarfed all of my other senses, and looking around it was clear this was a chocolate convention of some fashion. Sure enough, it was a conference of chocolate chefs featuring Tish Boyle of Chocolatier Magazine, Chef Sharon Wang, and Parisian chocolatier Michel Cluizel. We made our way to our table in the large conference room and took each chocolate course of our meal in stride.
Then we took the elevator to the top floor where a dance floor awaited us. Lights swirled and the music was loud and fast, and dancing was the perfect remedy for the amount of sugar in my bloodstream. We left the hotel to go to Club Red where we saw a traditional Mor Lam group play and dance before leaving for a walk under the moon lit streets of the downtown city.
We talked about traveling more and Barry brought up how mad my father must have been. I told Barry that no one had stood up to my father in the way he had. I also told him how stressful it was for me to have to decide on the spot and never to do that again.
Barry changed the subject as we approached the limo and told the driver to take us to the best bakery in town. We walked up to the store, whose lights were on and at least three people were working inside. I saw a wall clock: 4:48 AM. A knock and a smile got them to open the door for Barry. We got two loaves of bread and leapt back in the car.
“We should have gotten butter, or jelly or something.” I said, feeling the warmth of the bread in my hands.
Barry nodded and tapped the seat, referring to the trunk. “I think we have that covered.”
The limousine glided to a halt along the street. We stepped out into the street and walked next to a gated wall. At one of the entrances Barry pulled out a small set of keys and unlocked the door. Inside, he punched a code in a keypad mounted on the wall and led me through the darkness to an opening on the other side.
“Alright, now comes the tricky part.” he said. “I am going to put a blindfold over your eyes. Are you okay with that?” I nodded and closed my eyes as he removed the clear glasses from my face. The cloth was a soft silk and smelled faintly of chocolate.
Barry lifted me over a railing and gently sat me down in a golf cart. He climbed over himself and used another of his keys in the cart. The electric motor hummed and we bounded over several hills on the golf course before coming to a halt.
“Take off your shoes, if you would please.” he asked, so I complied. “Good, now please step out.”
I felt the grass and the dew that had collected on it on my sore feet. It was soft and tingled and I couldn’t help but smile. I must have walked several hundred paces holding his hand while blindfolded and could feel that Barry was carrying the picnic basket he had taken from the trunk of the limo. He asked me to sit and I was surprised to find a blanket had been laid down beneath me. I was turned to face him.
“You know why I did what I did with the glasses? It was the filters, just like I had told you about months ago. I wrote a fair number of papers on it, using glasses as a mechanism for reexamining the world. I gave you the blue colored glasses to see the world in a drab manner, to see the average day in the way that you may live now. The pink was to lighten what you saw around you, to add a warmth when you were feeling frumpy. The green was to help you let go of how much you worry about money and the nature of income against cost of living. The clear was to take you back to your normal senses and let you experience the world for what it was, letting your other senses of taste and smell also have a say in what you experience. When you go back home, I want you to think about what responsibilities you have, how much money means to you and what it is to be free of all of it. And now you can’t see at all, at that was to let you focus on your feet and how good they feel against the wet grass. And now I want you to see the world in a new way, everyday, with me.”
I felt him move beside me and untie the blindfold. I looked up to see the sun rising over the horizon. Rays of sunshine broke through the trees to warm us and in front of me I saw a gleaming diamond attached to a platinum ring. Barry turned me to him.
“Sara, I want to experience the world with you, with or without glasses. I want to be with you no matter where we are or go. I love you. Will you marry me?”
“But, you told my father... Of course I will! But you told my father before we left, that you wouldn’t ask? I never thought you would…” I said.
“Your father only asked that we don’t elope. He never said anything about proposing.” Barry said.
I giggled. “Oh, he will be so mad when we get home! Barry, I love you!”
“Well, your father shouldn’t be mad, he’s known about the whole thing since we talked on that field. And it makes it pretty easy to zero-out for the end of the year with a few plane tickets and several nights in one of the best hotels. What does it mean to zero-out, anyway?”
“Oh you brat!” I said as I tapped his chest with my clenched hand and laughing.
We saw the dew rise slowly from the manicured golf course as we ate our fresh breakfast with jelly and steaming coffee.
* * * * *
We had spent the rest of the day and that night sleeping and more at the hotel. The following morning Barry told me that we didn’t have any flight schedule to get home, so there was no need to leave right away, and could stay as long as we liked.
“There are a few people that I might owe a favor, so I’d like to visit them as well, okay?”
Barry asked. I was fine with that and want to go with him to explore the vast city of Bangkok.
We stopped in a small merchant square and Barry took out his wallet. He pulled out a 300 Baht note and walked towards one of the merchant stores. I saw a dog out front, one that looked a lot like Mike’s dog Max. Barry dropped the note into the bucket the dog held in its mouth before going inside the store. I followed, thinking that 300 Baht must not be worth that much, maybe a dollar or two. When I looked up I was startled to see Barry hugging Mike.
“Why did ya give the money to the dog, he’s just gonna spend it on booze and women, y’know.” Mike said.
“Which is why I had to give it to the responsible one. At least he can find the women and hold his liquor.” Barry said.
“Ah huh, looks like he’s not the only one. And how are you girl?” Mike said as we hugged.
I looked at him slyly. “So you knew about this whole thing?”
“I did, I did. After all Barry would have blackmailed me into it with those French maid pictures if I didn’t.” said Mike. “Hey, I’m about to go meet that limo driver you got to pay him the rest that I owe him. You want to come along?”
We accompanied Mike to a place known as the Snake Pit. It was an open zoo that had snakes in one area, with covered pits to keep them cool. During the day handlers brought the snakes out to perform shows of daring and skill. As we entered a show was in progress and people had gathered to watch a man at the center release a king cobra.
“Isn’t that our limo driver?” I asked.
“It is.” Mike answered.
“You can see that far away? Wow, you really don’t need any glasses.” Barry said.
We walked down the steps and watched him from the railing as not one, but two king cobras flared their hoods at the man. He was a handsome Thai man, and in a flick he distracted both snakes with one hand and caught first one then the other behind their heads. Applause rang out as he smiled, bowed and gave thanks.
“Would you believe he’s also Lutheran minister? This guy can do anything.” Mike said, a cigarette jarring his lips as he spoke.
“Well then, let’s get married,” I said, “right here, in Bangkok. It would mean that much more and would save so much money for us and my father.”
Barry looked at me sideways and took off his sunglasses. “True, but your father would kill me. And why do you want to get married so quickly? Won’t you have to do that zero-sum thing again next year? Don’t you trust me to arrange the honeymoon by now?”
Sara McKernan
”Why would we need to have a filter such as glasses to see things in the way that others want us to? Is what is depicted on the screen not what the director wants us to see? What if the universe needed a filter just like that?” Barry said. We sat in the overgrown field and he turned to look at me with his dark-colored movie glasses. His question was rhetorical as he was accustomed to asking, but made an impression and provoked contemplation, which he was probably really after.
“What do you really see Barry?” I asked. Barry was in his last year of study to receiving a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and I knew that asking him such an open ended question was an invite to let him talk for a while. He led the way into the metaphysical world that I think he lived in all the time, and this is what I had always liked about him. Barry had an honest appeal to most that was contagious and made others want to hang out with him if only to listen to some of his humorous interpretations of the world we live in.
I studied accounting, which made for Barry and me to be strange bedfellows, but all I can say is that we were kindred spirits. I was to graduate the following winter and join the accounting team of my father’s construction company. Barry hated the necessity of money though perhaps he understood the principals of how it worked to change people and events more than I did. He talked awhile and I lay down in the grass and closed my eyes to soak up his warm baritone voice.
I liked accounting because it dealt with numbers, and with those numbers there was an absolute solution, a correct answer that I could find given a little time to follow all the rules. Barry’s entire study was the antithesis to me, given that there were no numbers and no matter what the conclusion was, there was no absolute right answer. It bothered me at first, not knowing, but Barry had made it so easy to endure once I understood the fundamentals of philosophy.
I hadn’t said a word in half an hour, and repeatedly Barry eloquently led his discussion to support the interpretation of the world through various filters, likening each of our experiences to the cheap movie glasses in some way.
“Want to get something to eat?” I asked when he paused. He could tell that he had lost me a long time ago.
“What are you thinking of getting? I had tofu yesterday, but you know that, you were with me then. I am thinking I want beef tips, or Chinese, perhaps Szechwan pork with a bowl of egg drop soup. Oh, we order in and make the soup ourselves, its pretty fun actually.”
What I didn’t like about Barry sometimes was his lack of brevity. I had dated an accountant classmate once and now I know I took the long silences for granted. It was easy enough to listen to, but the focus was sometimes lost in the all the talk.
We made it back to Barry’s apartment to hear loud music playing through the open balcony door and we were pleasantly surprised to see Barry’s roommate Mike hosting an intimate party. The apartment itself was bare, as both Barry and Mike considered their tenure brief and neither spent much time there. Given that they were both students and the distant walk to campus, Mike stayed at his girlfriend’s often, and I stayed with Barry several nights of the week.
Several of Barry’s close friends were standing in the open second floor apartment when we saw Mike. I burst out laughing at seeing Mike dressed in a French maid’s outfit and smoking a cigarette. Mike was the type of man that wasn’t threatened by embarrassment but could not stand to have his sexual reputation tarnished, and here he was acting in his same burly fashion.
“What?” Mike asked, the cigarette jingling in his lips.
Barry had tears in his eyes from laughter, but it was apparent that it was not a complete surprise to him as it was to me. “When you’re done with the windows, could you help me wax my knob?” he asked jokingly.
“I thought that’s why you got a girlfriend!” Mike retorted.
“No, that’s why you got a girlfriend!” Barry answered, “especially for the windows. Everyone here knows you can do knobs yourself!” The small group of people continued to take pictures of Mike’s red face.
The two then explained that it was Barry’s birthday, and that since he didn’t celebrate holidays or birthdays, Mike still wanted to do something memorable for his long-time roommate. Barry had asked if for once Mike could take out the trash and be his maid instead of the other way around.
“Ask and ye shall receive, my friend.” said Mike, as he gave Barry a jovial hug, “and now you gotta drink like a fish! Happy Birthday Barry!” Everyone in the small apartment drank to that, and Barry made his way around to greet everyone. I met some new faces of Barry’s I had heard him mention, several of which were graduate philosophy majors that Barry had befriended. I had had no idea it was his birthday and was embarrassed to not even know he didn’t want gifts. He had only requested chocolate cake, but I knew that was to please me.
As the night wore down we ended up playing the maid servant to Mike after he had passed out on his bed. With everyone gone we watched Mike’s year-old half-puppy, half full grown dog Max chew on a plastic bottle. Barry showed me how to make egg drop soup, constantly stirring the soup while the egg was slowly poured in. It was salty and delicious and reminded me of the last time I had traveled.
“Hey, I want to take a trip before I start working,” I said, “to someplace I haven’t been to or even heard about.”
Barry narrowed his eyes in thought. “Then you will have to go to… well, I can’t tell you about it if you just asked me not to. Ok, we’ll take a trip, to a place you have never been, and I am sure that you have never heard of.” He smiled with a gleam in his eye and the promise of a new secret project for him alone to design.
* * * * *
Barry had graduated and took a job as a tree trimmer, climbing and clipping limbs near overhead power lines and up to seventy feet in the air. At first I was worried for him, but since he loved it and the crew that he was with, I grew numb to thinking how dangerous the job could be. I was alone again on campus, not really knowing anyone well enough to spend my free time with. I tried to concentrate on my schoolwork, but it was so easy to let my mind wander and dream of far away places that Barry could find to take me.
I heard about Mike occasionally, mostly from Barry. He had also graduated last spring and put his electrical engineering degree to use. He moved to the small town of Endicott, New York, where Lockheed Martin had their headquarters, and he was soon to help out with the Marine-1 contract the company had just been awarded.
The fall semester was over in a flash and my father was looking forward to the extra help in dealing with the end-of-year bonuses. Barry drove down a few days early to see me before graduation and my father and brother met him for the first time when we all went to dinner together. My brother talked a lot about his first semester at Penn State, laying out the vastness of the campus and the diversity of people and cultures that he had explored thus far. Though my father was full of conversation too, Barry was strangely quiet, giving answers that seemed curt, and asked only a few in return.
Desert came with a toast and a new bottle of wine for the four of us.
My father spoke first. “To my darling daughter, and her willingness to help out her old man. And to Barry, a fine man that we’ve finally got to meet, and hope to know better. Congratulations!” Glasses clinked and Barry stood.
“To all of us, and most especially to your daughter.” Barry began. “We will be leaving in the morning, headed for a final trip that I had promised her.”
My father’s question was written across his face and his eyes snapped to look at me for an explanation. “You won’t be long, will you? Where are you headed to, maybe I can help you out?” he said, keeping his voice lighthearted.
“She doesn’t know,” Barry said quickly, “it’s a surprise that we had talked about last spring. You see, she had asked that I take her to a place she had never been or even heard of, and that’s what I’ve planned.”
“And when will you be back?” my father asked again.
Barry shifted his eyes to me before answering. “Well, that’s still up in the air. Let me say that it’s up to your daughter.”
I was dumbfounded at that moment. I didn’t know what to say, other than I knew I wanted to go on this trip more than anything. I could see that my father was trying to be understanding, but the blood in his face showed that he was ready to blow his top at any moment.
“I’ll be back, Dad,” I said, “it’s not as if I’m going to die.” That’s all I could muster to try to stem the flood of emotion that was about to pour out of him.
“To die? Of course you’re not going to die, right? But, I hate to be selfish here, but… but it’s not like we’re an S-company and exempt from government taxes sweetie! Surely you understand that, that if we don’t zero-out by the end of the year we’ll have to pay, what, thirty cents every dollar to the government!”
“Forty.” I said.
“Yes! Exactly! You gotta understand kiddo, this means a lot of money to be handled, and the work has got to be done! You can take a vacation anytime, you’re my daughter, you would be working for me, you can come and go whenever you want!”
Just as my father took in a deep breath to continue, Barry interjected. “Actually, this is the only moment that this will ever happen, ever. It will never come again, and I’m sorry I had to cut it so close, but this is once-in-a-lifetime chance.”
Barry and my father stared at each other. I knew this look; my father used it on subcontractors when they were trying to charge him too much or made up an excuse why their work wasn’t on time or under budget. He had used it on my brother and me if we came home too late or fibbed about where we had gone. Now Barry was getting that look, and he defiantly stared back into my father’s eyes, his face placid. Suddenly my father’s eyes grew wide.
“You’re planning to elope! That’s what your plan is, isn’t it boy! Why, you want to take my daughter away somewhere and leave us behind! You got some nerve!”
Barry watched my father’s theatrics, watched him spring from his seat then sit down again. Barry and I listened to the lecture about marrying too soon, about having kids before we’re ready, about stealing me away, and he finished with a few words on us being irresponsible kids. My brother enjoyed his dessert and listened as if he were watching a TV soap opera.
“No, sir, I am not planning to elope with your daughter.” Barry said finally. “I want to show her the world, to see the ocean from a different coast, to let the moon shine down from another place, to let her see the sun rise and fall on different horizons. I want her to experience other places and to know that when she returns she will be happy working for you. That’s all. I worked all summer and fall saving enough money to do this, and if she doesn’t want to come, then that’s her choice too, but this is will only happen once, and I only hoped that she would join me because I love her.”
Again I was stunned. I had wanted to speak up, to put a stop to this much earlier, but now I’m glad I hadn’t. I knew that Barry cared about me, and that I was the only one he was with, but had thought he was standoffish for a reason. He was a free spirit, flitting from one thing to the next just for the experience of having tried it. I had always thought Barry would tire of me, that I didn’t and couldn’t hold his interest forever, and lived each day as if the next would the one when he told me he had to move on. Instead I hear about his feelings for me when he tells my father. I pushed my untouched slice of chocolate on chocolate cake away.
My father stammered for a second before his face hardened up and gave Barry the stare once more as he slammed through his cheesecake. “So you’re going to take my daughter on a cruise or something, and it’s entirely up to her to go or not, correct?”
“Ultimately, yes.” said Barry.
My father’s head swiveled to focus his stern gaze at me. I unconsciously cowered. “It’s up to you sweetie, whether you want to do this or not. Barry here says that it’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing, which I think is a crock of drek, but you know him a lot better than I do. It’s up to you sweetie, the job will be around whenever you get back, we’ll just have to make due if you don’t get back before the New Year.”
“Really?” I said. I sounded so controlled, as if my father had just given me permission. I realized that he was really hoping to guilt me into not going, but he was a man of his word and I knew he would hold to it and somehow make things work without paying an extra cent in taxes. “I really want to go, dad, it’s one of the only chances I’ll have in my life to do something like this, and I trust Barry more than anyone.”
“Except you, sir.” Barry added for me, which forced a grin to break his hard face.
“Yeah, well, whatever. Look, you gave me your word Barry, you’re not going to elope, so don’t even think about it. And keep her safe on this little trip or you’ll have to answer to me before I drag you hell myself. Got it?”
“Of course, sir.” Barry said.
* * * * *
Barry woke me the next morning by placing a set of blue glasses on my face. He said I had to wear them all day long so that I knew what it was to look through different filters on the world around me. The blue made my room look distorted and dull at first but I had grown rather accustomed as we left for the airport.
We took a plane the following morning to Tokyo. It was the longest flight I had ever taken, and was my first out of the country. Barry said we had a seven hour layover there, and insisted we explore the locality of Chiba via an express rail. We ate wheat noodle dishes before venturing into the first of many department stores to do some light shopping.
Angry rap music played lightly in the background as mothers tugged children onto escalators up and up into the building. The sun-lit interior was beautiful, and Barry squeezed my hand as he commented that the department store was so similar but still so much different. He lightly whistled the X-files theme as we ascended.
Time flew, and I told Barry that we only had an hour left and should be getting back to catch our next flight.
“What flight?” he said as he looked at my watch and slipped a different pair of glasses over my eyes. This pair was pink and cast everything in a pale rosy light.
“Aren’t we catching another plane?” I asked.
“Nah, not anymore. How does that make you feel?” he asked in return.
I replied honestly, “Well, nervous. I thought we were on a schedule, and missing a flight like that has got to cost a lot of money.”
“That’s exactly why I wanted to miss it. So what if it was the cost of a plane ticket? It wasn’t in this case, but so what if it was? We could have simply rescheduled or switched to go back home, or even bought another one. Why are you so worried about our schedule when you don’t even know what it is?” he asked.
“I just… get worried. I thought you had everything planned out, like along a timeline or something.” I said.
He laughed. “I know that’s what you thought. That’s why I did it.”
I didn’t like him anymore. Well, for at least that moment. I mean, what was he thinking? We were in another country, lost for all practical purposes, didn’t speak the language, didn’t know anyone, and didn’t have a plan. I was annoyed that he had laughed at me, that he thought I was so predictable, and that he didn’t have clue about what he was doing. He saw it on my face and grabbed my hand once again, this time towing me down a narrow corridor. I protested, asked him where he thought he was going, and then he pointed outward when we reached the end of the corridor.
Inside this building was a wood and rope walkway stretching from one side of an immense lobby to the other. On each side were giant flat panel screens showing a landscape of bare deciduous trees mixed with a few conifers. In the center of the lobby two tall maple trees grew, and their branches stretched out towards the bridge and filled the rest of the lobby between us and the bustling street outside.
I took several steps towards the Japanese family that was in the center of the bridge and felt it sway. Suddenly movement caught my eye and I saw the tops of all the trees on the screens bending slightly from a make-believe wind. Then the branches of the two trees in the lobby fluttered and moved and I caught hold of the rail before vertigo overtook me.
“Are you ok? I didn’t think you were afraid of heights.” Barry said.
“I’m not, it’s just so… amazing…” I said as I caught my bearings and moved to the middle of the bridge.
“I’m glad you like it. Did you see how the trees moved in time with the ones on the screens? They keep the trees on the screens in season with the ones in the lobby to keep the continuity and have the HVAC fans blow on the trees to create the wind effects.” he said.
“About not having a plan… Barry… I guess I was wrong and should just trust that you know what you are doing.” I said.
“How about just trust me. I may not always know what I’m doing, but just trust me.” He unsnapped my watch from my wrist. “Let me worry about timing and money for once, ok?”
* * * * *
We stopped in Shinjuku and Shibuya next where we saw the equivalent of Marti Gras and Halloween on a typical Sunday. Barry told me that we did indeed have another flight just as I was hoping we could find a place to spend the night. Instead he insisted that we sleep on the plane to our next destination.
We sat in the front row in the economy section of the plane and listened to an unhappy baby cry the entire flight from Tokyo to Bangkok. Neither of us slept and I knew that Barry was just as tired as me for having stayed up well past twenty four hours, only I was getting cranky at him for again not planning ahead for such things. But then how could he know that we wouldn’t get a nap on our ten hour flight?
In Bangkok we talked to the only cab driver that would approach us and realized he was probably asking twice as much as he should, but we were too tired to care. Barry whispered the location to the man and we arrived at a grand fifteen story hotel within minutes. Once there I don’t think I even looked out the window before passing out on the bed.
* * * * *
Barry woke me once more by placing a new set of glasses over my eyes. These were the sleek dark kind, wrapping around my eyes to dim my peripheral vision but light enough not to get in the way. They painted everything with a greenish tinge compared to the pink ones. We made our way to the pool where I saw the hotel’s logo and I couldn’t help but think how expensive it must be to stay there per night. My mind began working the numbers on how much Barry could have saved up from working for the last eight months and how this place must be truly hurting his wallet. I tried not to let it worry me as Barry surely knows already how much it was per night and was willing to pay for it.
My thoughts were interrupted when Barry asked if I was ready to go shopping. We left in the afternoon and he insisted I get a sleek dress for the evening and then a diamond necklace to match. But he didn’t have to, I kept thinking, he didn’t have to spend it on this, these extravagances, not for me. He could have saved that money, started investing it or at least spent it more wisely.
We took a cab back to the hotel and Barry asked if I could be ready by seven o’clock. My brow furrowed and he commented that it was hard to see what I was thinking with the glasses on, and that she should put on a new pair for the evening. He pulled a spectacles case from his jacket pocket and gave it to me before leaving.
At seven I was not ready. I had had a shoe emergency and ran down to the hotel to get another pair that worked better than the black flats that I had been carrying around. Barry was waiting at our hotel room door when I emerged from the elevator, still wearing the pair of sleek black sunglasses. He was dressed in a tuxedo, and for as much as I thought he hated it, he seemed comfortable and especially refined.
“I’m glad to see you’re almost ready.” he said as he spotted the pair of shoes in my hand. “Oh, did I forget to tell you? I’m sorry, you won’t need any shoes for where we are going. Wear your black ones, they’ll be perfect.”
I opened the case that housed the new glasses and saw that they were diminutive and clear. When I slipped them on they rested lightly and tiny diamonds at the hinges matched the necklace Barry bought me earlier. I shook my head, thinking that maybe Barry did have everything taken care of.
We strolled out of the hotel and into an awaiting limousine. The ride took us all around the city to see the sights as Barry told the histories of the monuments and buildings we passed. The limo circled back to the airport and we made our way to another large building and stepped out onto a carpeted walkway.
Inside the smell of cocoa permeated the air as Barry led me across the lobby and to the elevators. A bellman guided us up two floors and when the doors parted a world of energy flooded me. The smell of chocolate dwarfed all of my other senses, and looking around it was clear this was a chocolate convention of some fashion. Sure enough, it was a conference of chocolate chefs featuring Tish Boyle of Chocolatier Magazine, Chef Sharon Wang, and Parisian chocolatier Michel Cluizel. We made our way to our table in the large conference room and took each chocolate course of our meal in stride.
Then we took the elevator to the top floor where a dance floor awaited us. Lights swirled and the music was loud and fast, and dancing was the perfect remedy for the amount of sugar in my bloodstream. We left the hotel to go to Club Red where we saw a traditional Mor Lam group play and dance before leaving for a walk under the moon lit streets of the downtown city.
We talked about traveling more and Barry brought up how mad my father must have been. I told Barry that no one had stood up to my father in the way he had. I also told him how stressful it was for me to have to decide on the spot and never to do that again.
Barry changed the subject as we approached the limo and told the driver to take us to the best bakery in town. We walked up to the store, whose lights were on and at least three people were working inside. I saw a wall clock: 4:48 AM. A knock and a smile got them to open the door for Barry. We got two loaves of bread and leapt back in the car.
“We should have gotten butter, or jelly or something.” I said, feeling the warmth of the bread in my hands.
Barry nodded and tapped the seat, referring to the trunk. “I think we have that covered.”
The limousine glided to a halt along the street. We stepped out into the street and walked next to a gated wall. At one of the entrances Barry pulled out a small set of keys and unlocked the door. Inside, he punched a code in a keypad mounted on the wall and led me through the darkness to an opening on the other side.
“Alright, now comes the tricky part.” he said. “I am going to put a blindfold over your eyes. Are you okay with that?” I nodded and closed my eyes as he removed the clear glasses from my face. The cloth was a soft silk and smelled faintly of chocolate.
Barry lifted me over a railing and gently sat me down in a golf cart. He climbed over himself and used another of his keys in the cart. The electric motor hummed and we bounded over several hills on the golf course before coming to a halt.
“Take off your shoes, if you would please.” he asked, so I complied. “Good, now please step out.”
I felt the grass and the dew that had collected on it on my sore feet. It was soft and tingled and I couldn’t help but smile. I must have walked several hundred paces holding his hand while blindfolded and could feel that Barry was carrying the picnic basket he had taken from the trunk of the limo. He asked me to sit and I was surprised to find a blanket had been laid down beneath me. I was turned to face him.
“You know why I did what I did with the glasses? It was the filters, just like I had told you about months ago. I wrote a fair number of papers on it, using glasses as a mechanism for reexamining the world. I gave you the blue colored glasses to see the world in a drab manner, to see the average day in the way that you may live now. The pink was to lighten what you saw around you, to add a warmth when you were feeling frumpy. The green was to help you let go of how much you worry about money and the nature of income against cost of living. The clear was to take you back to your normal senses and let you experience the world for what it was, letting your other senses of taste and smell also have a say in what you experience. When you go back home, I want you to think about what responsibilities you have, how much money means to you and what it is to be free of all of it. And now you can’t see at all, at that was to let you focus on your feet and how good they feel against the wet grass. And now I want you to see the world in a new way, everyday, with me.”
I felt him move beside me and untie the blindfold. I looked up to see the sun rising over the horizon. Rays of sunshine broke through the trees to warm us and in front of me I saw a gleaming diamond attached to a platinum ring. Barry turned me to him.
“Sara, I want to experience the world with you, with or without glasses. I want to be with you no matter where we are or go. I love you. Will you marry me?”
“But, you told my father... Of course I will! But you told my father before we left, that you wouldn’t ask? I never thought you would…” I said.
“Your father only asked that we don’t elope. He never said anything about proposing.” Barry said.
I giggled. “Oh, he will be so mad when we get home! Barry, I love you!”
“Well, your father shouldn’t be mad, he’s known about the whole thing since we talked on that field. And it makes it pretty easy to zero-out for the end of the year with a few plane tickets and several nights in one of the best hotels. What does it mean to zero-out, anyway?”
“Oh you brat!” I said as I tapped his chest with my clenched hand and laughing.
We saw the dew rise slowly from the manicured golf course as we ate our fresh breakfast with jelly and steaming coffee.
* * * * *
We had spent the rest of the day and that night sleeping and more at the hotel. The following morning Barry told me that we didn’t have any flight schedule to get home, so there was no need to leave right away, and could stay as long as we liked.
“There are a few people that I might owe a favor, so I’d like to visit them as well, okay?”
Barry asked. I was fine with that and want to go with him to explore the vast city of Bangkok.
We stopped in a small merchant square and Barry took out his wallet. He pulled out a 300 Baht note and walked towards one of the merchant stores. I saw a dog out front, one that looked a lot like Mike’s dog Max. Barry dropped the note into the bucket the dog held in its mouth before going inside the store. I followed, thinking that 300 Baht must not be worth that much, maybe a dollar or two. When I looked up I was startled to see Barry hugging Mike.
“Why did ya give the money to the dog, he’s just gonna spend it on booze and women, y’know.” Mike said.
“Which is why I had to give it to the responsible one. At least he can find the women and hold his liquor.” Barry said.
“Ah huh, looks like he’s not the only one. And how are you girl?” Mike said as we hugged.
I looked at him slyly. “So you knew about this whole thing?”
“I did, I did. After all Barry would have blackmailed me into it with those French maid pictures if I didn’t.” said Mike. “Hey, I’m about to go meet that limo driver you got to pay him the rest that I owe him. You want to come along?”
We accompanied Mike to a place known as the Snake Pit. It was an open zoo that had snakes in one area, with covered pits to keep them cool. During the day handlers brought the snakes out to perform shows of daring and skill. As we entered a show was in progress and people had gathered to watch a man at the center release a king cobra.
“Isn’t that our limo driver?” I asked.
“It is.” Mike answered.
“You can see that far away? Wow, you really don’t need any glasses.” Barry said.
We walked down the steps and watched him from the railing as not one, but two king cobras flared their hoods at the man. He was a handsome Thai man, and in a flick he distracted both snakes with one hand and caught first one then the other behind their heads. Applause rang out as he smiled, bowed and gave thanks.
“Would you believe he’s also Lutheran minister? This guy can do anything.” Mike said, a cigarette jarring his lips as he spoke.
“Well then, let’s get married,” I said, “right here, in Bangkok. It would mean that much more and would save so much money for us and my father.”
Barry looked at me sideways and took off his sunglasses. “True, but your father would kill me. And why do you want to get married so quickly? Won’t you have to do that zero-sum thing again next year? Don’t you trust me to arrange the honeymoon by now?”
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