Art by Meddygon

(originally written 2004-2005)

Chapter 3
Dreams

The rest of the day went as usual and the evening just as well. I left the dock when the sun went behind the buildings and I could no longer paint with any natural light. My back was sore from sitting on the stool for eight hours after lunch, and I found myself wanting Nandin with me to carry my bags. I was fine without him, though. The short walk was one I made every day that it wasn’t raining. Oh how I wished for some rain right now, some excuse to not go out tomorrow. If I ever ran into Nandin again I would say, “Oh, I wasn’t at the dock because it was raining that day.” It would be something he could verify and understand and not in the least bit suspect that I was avoiding him. Oh, for some rain tomorrow.

I dropped my bags inside and informed my cat that he wasn’t the only man who loved me anymore. He didn’t care in the least bit, all he wanted was some food. I dumped a can of some off-brand cat food into a bowl for him and proceeded to undress. I needed another shower after today. The sun was out in full force and I never take off my jacket while out. I’d rather sweat in the heat than let the merciless sun burn my fair skin. Smelling for a bit was a small price to pay to prevent damaged nerve endings and lobster-tinted arms.

In the shower my mind wandered again. I thought of what it would be like to have a man around. To have someone in the shower with me who would wash my hair, and I his. We clean each other and exit the shower to return to the bed and make love. We’d sleep and wake up together, and spend the day at the dock together, then go out at night to dance together. I deeply desired the companionship of someone who’d love me unconditionally and I would love in return. Both voices in my head agreed on this sentiment.

A question arose from this—was Nandin worth loving? He was one of the cultists, which, to others, would be unacceptable. He was taller than me by at least a foot. How would that work out in bed? With me doing all the work or staring at his chest all the time. I chuckled at the thought. I’d only known him two days and I was already considering what sex with him would be like.

His motives for loving me suddenly sprung into my mind. He desired me because of a prophecy—his father told him that the girl on the dock would be his wife. Did he ever question it? Or did he just go along with it and assume that his father’s word was law and he would make me his wife without ever once considering how I felt about the matter?

I exited the shower and turned on the television. The late edition of the daily news was going to be on soon, and I wanted to catch what was going on in the real world while I spent my life on the Dock. There was nothing unusual, however. The crime report stated that the western part of the city had another robbery, car jacking or murder. Another drug dealer was caught tonight, and a woman from the eastern section of the city was interviewed for her opinion. Her mouth spilled forth shit as if she had diarrhea of the face. First she exclaimed her concerns that the crime lords from the west would be invading the east, and then she blamed the increase of hostility between the citizens on the cultists. Finally she sobbed a story about her children and how all she wants is for them to grow up in a happy world where everyone gets along.

How on Earth can she think her children will live in a peaceful world when she adding to the gap between us and what she always referred to as ‘them.’ I suppose she wants us to kill off everything that isn’t the same as her. I hated her and anyone like her and wished upon them any form of death God, Karma, or the River chose fit. But no, I chided myself for these thoughts. It was women like her, with money and time to spare, who were my best business. They were the sort who’d drop fifty dollars in my hat for fifteen minutes of my time. All I had to do was draw her pudgy-faced children and make them look good rather than the fat-assed little bastards they were. It’s a good thing I never had to draw anything realistic about them—I doubt I could get them to keep the fudgesicle out of their mouths long enough to get a good view of their three chins.

My dislike for others made me dislike myself. If what my mother said was true, that the river only loves those who love others, then I was certainly doomed, as well as the rest of the city. But how could it be true? The state of relations between citizens and cultists and between upper and lower classes has been the same for all my life, and most likely for longer. We should have died off years ago from the rage of the River.

I sighed and turned off the television after the weather report said there was no chance for rain tomorrow. I twisted and cracked my back before laying down on the mattress on the floor. My cat snuggled between my ankles and purred himself to sleep. He never had to worry about anything other than when I was coming home to feed him. I envied him so much.

My dreams were nothing out of the ordinary; vivid, colorful escapes from reality that plunged me deep into a fanciful world of espionage or some other adventurous role. Tonight I found myself as the second wife of a man much too old for me. I was in a large building; a mansion. I found it difficult to navigate; the architecture of dreams was far too outlandish to analyze and understand. To get to certain floors you had to first go up, then down, then up a flight again. None of the stairwells were straight up or down. The walls of the place were mostly an off-white with wooden doors. The only floors with any real significance were the fifth and third. My room was on the fifth and it contained everything I, whoever I was, owned.

I was a mother—no, a step mother. There were two boys, not mine, but my husband’s. I don’t think he was dead, no, he was certainly still alive, and I desired him for protection. I was constantly in fear when my husband wasn’t home. I felt the boys did not want me as their mother. I was less than ten years older than the elder son. The boys were eighteen and fifteen, or somewhere around there. They never called me mother, except when their father was around or they were saying it sarcastically. They knew that they frightened me, and they’d tease and torment me when my husband was gone.

I was constantly searching the mansion. It was such an interesting piece of architecture, and that’s why I loved it. The boys thought I loved it because it had a secret. If it did, I didn’t care for it. All I wanted to see was every room at least once (which, I supposed, contained a secret). There was something preventing me from this, though. On the fifth floor, which contained my room, there was a locked door the size of a cupboard’s. I’d drawn up plans of the entire house from what I’d seen, and, if I were correct, this door should lead to the third floor, which I’d yet to see completely.

Perhaps it’s a ballroom, I’d think, and he’ll take me dancing . . . I would stand in front of the small brown door and think of all the things that could be behind it. I closed my eyes and saw the stairs leading down, down to the third floor. How odd, the stairs didn’t reach the floor, and there was a five foot drop to the floor—if you can call it a floor. It wasn’t yet finished, but they were working on it. I could see that it’s supposed to be a wooden floor, large, open ceiling extending into the fourth floor—so it was a ballroom! Or a music hall! The windows in front had just been installed. Yes, there they were putting in the final touches to the beautiful stained glass. I saw my husband standing there, along with another woman. They’re admiring the new glass just as I am.

It all happened so fast. I didn’t know how to react. I shrieked as the pane fell from the workman’s hand and onto the woman. She tried to jump out of the way, but all that did was expose her neck. The glass shard fell straight to her left side and sliced her neck open.

Someone’s called my name. I turned to see the younger of the two boys, the one who knew his mother less and me more. He didn’t love me, but he didn’t not care for me.

I told him I was all right, just having a bit of a daydream. As I said this, the elder son came, carrying a key. A bit of paper attached to it was painted with the design of a setting sun. He handed it to me, and said, “This key is to the room that our father wished to give to our mother.” He said the final word with bitter hatred and shoved the key into my hand. He guided his younger sibling away, and left me there.

I turned over the key in my hand several times, and finally pressed it into the lock. The stairs were just as beautiful in the vision—the walls were painted in a panning view of a sunset. I looked at the signature on the paintings, and they were by my husband’s first wife. I continued down, and reached the unfinished bottom of the stairs. Everything was left as it was before—the floor unfinished, the glass covered. There was dim light coming in through one small hole in the window where a pane of colored glass was missing. It also made the room quite chill. I jumped to the unfinished floor and walked across support beams toward the window.

Her blood was still there.

“This room was her design,” the elder son said, still on the stairs. “In fact, the entire house was. She always had grand designs in her head, and she married my father to be able to afford them. Ten years ago, and I still remember it as if it were yesterday.”

“I–I know what happened,” I said. “I’m sorry you had to see it.”

I awoke to the sound of a car alarm in early morning. It was still dark. My first thought was how that troll of a woman would blame it on someone traveling east to rob the affluent. Not even my dreams could force out my bitterness tonight. I scratched the cat’s head and laid back down. Tomorrow I’ll have other things to worry about.

(I have considered heavily revising and possibly removing the dream chapter, or at least the dream portion of the chapter.)

(Originally written in late 2004)

 Chapter 1
The Chase

The river was beautiful. It was as clear as filtered and processed water, but it was natural. The sky reflected perfectly making it the brightest blue. Not even the riverbed could dirty the water. The water flowed smoothly in some places, and had small rapids in others. Rafting the river was a common pastime.

It was the belief of the townspeople that they were the chosen ones because we were blessed with this perfect river. This city was the only one on the river. It was odd, so very odd. Others tried to start ports along the riverbanks, but the river would switch it’s course slightly to engulf their wharves, or it would rain and the runoff would flood the river and the town. The river seemed to refuse another city to be built on it.

Our city was only on one side—we tried to expand but the river allowed no bridges. Several were tried, but each time the wood and workers were swallowed by the river, never to be seen again. These attempts led to the gradual building of bridges, but each time the bridge went more than a third of the way out, it was destroyed. No further attempts to build bridges across the river were made, and instead we erected ‘The Dock’—a large boardwalk that extended to the bridge cutoff point. The river never swelled to swallow it. Instead, the river gave life to the wood, and it grew solid.

Gardeners kept it neatly trimmed so people could still view the river from the Dock’s growing branches. The Dock looked like as if it were a fallen tree that began growing again. There was no indication that it was man-made. The only way the younger generations knew that it was constructed by the citizens was from the photographs of its creation.

The city grew, as all cities do with time, and no one forgot the river. Extra care had been taken in every construction of towering skyscrapers to make sure that the river would not suffer. No pollution, no disruption of natural events. In all this effort, however, buildings still fell. The river attacked the creations as it attacked other cities. It was content with us being a small village along it’s western bank. The people felt left behind. Cities in the distance loomed over the people when they chanced to visit.

It became habit of one architect to consult with the river when something was to be built. He would go to the end of the dock and lower himself to the river. After he was close enough to the water and still able to bring himself back up with no trouble, he’d open up a copy of the blueprints. He’d then place it face down on the water’s surface, holding it still, and explain to the river what he was building and why it was being built. Some thought he was crazy for doing this, but not a single building of his fell. Other designers tried speaking to the river. Some were successful, some were failures. The successes, however, were always necessities: housing, stores, food production.

Forty years before my life began there came a small religious group. They were not from our city, but claimed loyalty to the river. We allowed any outsiders so long as they didn’t hurt the river. The cult lived peacefully among us for years. They didn’t force their rites and teachings upon us, and their practices never interfered with our daily life. They were accepted everywhere, and no one formed any false judgements about them. They bathed in the river with no ill effect, so we assumed the river loved them. They only oddity about them was that they never ventured on the Dock. They always entered the river from a clear patch of bank to the south of the Dock.

That was why, one summer day, so many people stood and stared as one of the cultists walked along the docks. It was twenty-one years ago. My mother was pregnant with me, though she did not know it at the time. She watched silently with my father and the others as the man, clad from head to toe in flowing purple and black robes, walked along the Dock. His head was shaved smooth and his skin was tanned from the sun. He continued along the dock, never stopping until the end, where he lowered himself to speak to the river. No one near heard him say anything, but when he returned he was smiling.

His return walk went uninterrupted until he reached a point some ten feet from the beginning of the dock. He turned to his left, looking for something, yet not quite finding it. He looked all around until he found himself looking in the face of my mother. He approached her directly and spoke softly, “The river loves only those who love others. Teach her this.” He left immediately. My mother thought nothing of it at the time. Who was she supposed to teach that to? And what did it matter?

It mattered so much that our city was destroyed for forgetting it.

In one week’s time, the cult had constructed a monstrosity in the river’s center, just south of the dock. Their temple resembled their robes in structure and hue, and was an abomination in the townspeople’s eyes. There were holes in the side where the cultists now slept, exposed to the elements, and they performed their rituals atop the spire. The citizens exclaimed their new distrust, and in some cases hatred, of the cultists. How dare they obstruct our river’s flow for their own purposes? It was a slap in the face – we accepted them and they mar our beautiful river in return.

That was where we went wrong. ‘Our river.’ It was never ours, we belonged to it.

The cultists never changed their habits. They were still peaceful and cordial to us. However, they were now greeted with snide remarks and bitter statements in return. Twenty years later, nothing had changed. They were still a mark for ridicule, and never once had they retaliated.

I worked as a simple artist, painting and drawing for those who would pay, along the Dock. Whenever I had no customers, I would paint the nearest object of beauty or obscurity. My eyes were often drawn to the monstrosity south of the Dock. The river had pushed land along it’s base now, splitting itself with an island around the temple. The towering structure now resembled the Dock in that the river gave it life. It was like a tree growing in the middle. It looked so natural and yet so unnatural with it’s purple-tinted bark and bright violet leaves. The cultists still slept in its branches, and still performed rituals at the top. The top remained devoid of branches, and many times gardeners could be seen trimming the tree keep it that way.

One day while painting a likeness of the tower, I caught the eye of one of the cultists. I could tell he had been staring at me for some time, though I never noticed until now. He still looked at me, and I looked back. He was situated somewhere around midlevel. the others in his area were busy reading or writing. I returned to my painting after about a minute, and didn’t look in his direction again until I chanced to see some sudden movement out of my right eye. I looked at his chamber, and he was no longer there. He was now in the water, swimming toward the dock.

I quickly packed up my equipment. The painting had no time to dry and was smeared in my panicked escape. I had no idea why I was suddenly stricken with a fear of this cultist reaching me, but I felt the need to leave immediately. I was at the edge of the dock, where it meets the paved road when I heard a man’s voice call after me, saying, ‘Please, wait!’ There was an urgency in his words, and a nervousness. There were many people on the street in the middle of the day, so I ignored him. I walked on and tried to lose myself in the crowd. I didn’t turn back at all. I didn’t know how close he was, and I didn’t care.

I ducked around a corner and into a store. I sat down and sighed. Unfortunately, I wasn’t as safe as I’d thought. This was a corner store that had two entrances. I heard some yelling at the other entrance, informing someone that he wasn’t allowed in with wet clothing. He responded in an urgent voice that he needed through, but I didn’t hear much more. I was out the door, hopefully before he could see me.

I went home, but in a roundabout way. What normally was a five minute walk home from the docks became an hour-long stalking of corners and alleyways. I was nervous and paranoid the entire time. Mid-afternoon I found myself back at my apartment building, ready to open the front door to a cozy studio with a cat and computer. A simple home to house my work and self.

He was there already. He sat in front of my door on crossed legs and eyes closed. He jumped at the sound of my satchel and easel dropping to the floor. He stood as I stared bewildered. He was a full foot taller than me, and his head was shaved like the other cultists. His robes were still drenched and he had left a puddle on the carpeted floor in front of my door.

“How,” I stammered, “How did you find…?” He looked just as lost for words. His mouth opened several times, but he never spoke. He fidgeted, clearly nervous and unsure of what he had just done, as if his decision to follow me was just as much of an impulse as my choice to flee.

He moved toward my bag with a sudden movement that caused me to jump to the side, tripping over the easel. He deftly caught me by the wrist while holding my bag. He pulled me to my feet and said, “Let me help you with your bags,” even more nervous than I could imagine anyone ever speaking. His cheeks were scarlet and he purposely failed to make eye contact.

I was completely at a loss for words. He still had his hand around my wrist. I tugged my arm a bit and he let go, his face getting redder. I pulled my keys from my pocket and opened the door while he grabbed the easel. The carpet sloshed slightly under my feet as I stepped inside. The water from his robes had seeped into my apartment. Upon seeing this he hid his face. He looked so embarrassed and ready to leave immediately. I was in no mood to stop him.

He set my bags down and I thanked him. He turned to leave. I felt the urge to ask for his name, but I remained silent. I didn’t want him to think I wanted him to stay or return. I wanted nothing to do with him, though I couldn’t explain why. I felt violated by his pursuit and presence. He left, his head hanging in shame. I shut the door and grabbed some towels from the linen closet. The movement disturbed my sleeping cat, who then yawned and stretched.

“What a strange day,” I said to him. He jumped down from the shelf and purred at my feet.

One must understand that in this profession there is a likelihood of hearing firsthand a man’s descent into madness. It is not often that this is heard, however, as most patients are brought to us already gripped by insanity’s claws, their conscious mind torn by their subconscious nightmares. A man submitted himself to our care today, fearing that the uneasiness he suffered mirrored that of his wife, whom he some months ago left in our care after she attempted her life. I will not give names as it is not in our practice to give away details without an estate’s consent, however, as no from their estate has seen or heard from this couple in some time, they will not know this story to be theirs.

Our first meeting with this man, for our purposes we shall call him Adam, was a half year or so ago. He brought to us his wife, whom we shall call Eve. She was a shy, quiet woman nearing her thirtieth birthday and looking not a day over twenty. She bore no outward appearance of being as mad as Adam described her to be, which he did so as if she wasn’t even in the room.