The Silhouette (Alan Quinn and the Second Lifes)

by Thomas William Shaw

CHAPTER SIX

 

  Of all things, I did not need something like Andrew Lathon assisting me with the search for my Dad. I was still not wholey convinced that he actually existed, but I could not get him to disappear no matter what I tried. “If he is real, he may be dangerous,” I said to myself. This would have been the perfect oppurtunity for Dad not to have run out on us.

 

  I backed away from the talking figment of my imagination to check on Mom whose eyes had rolled into the back of her head. I shook her gently at first with a chorus of Mom! and Oh, my God, my imagination is talking, but she laid still, projecting enthusiasm better suited for a turnip.

  Andrew said, “She is alive, barely.”

  I could hardly allow myself to have a conversation with him, much less believe a word he said. I sighed with relief when I felt for Mom’s pulse on her neck and found it without struggle.

  I said, “What did you do to her?”

  Andrew walked over and hunched over my mother. His body was paper thin like a cardboard cutout. He said, “Me? What did you do to her? She was perfectly fine until you got home.”

  I held on to Mom a little tighter, trying my best to pretend the Silhouette wasn’t there. I have to say it was difficult when he wouldn’t quit talking. If Mom were a little more conscious, I could have gotten her to prove I was just losing my mind. I gave shaking her awake another chance.

  Andrew placed a hand on her shoulder, slowly expanding into 3-D. He said, “You can shake her all you want. All you are doing is providing her with an unpleasant backache to deal with once she reawakes from her untimely stupor, but go ahead and try it your way. I find it quite entertaining.”

  In an attempt to remain mature about the situation, I lifted one of Mom’s house shoes off the floor and tossed it at Andrew’s body. To my astonishment, the shoe didn’t pass through his body but in to his body. I said, “You’re nothing like them.”

  “Nothing like who?”

  “The creatures my dad talked about.”

  When I said the word “creatures” I could feel the tension of an awkward silence pass over the room. Andrew stood up and backed away from my mother. I couldn’t handle it. I pulled Mom on to the couch and brushed the hair out of her face.

 

  I said, “Did I hurt your feelings, Andrew?”

 

  “You will come to find through age and experience that no man held in years of captivity prefers to escape only to find he is not accepted anywhere he goes.”

 

  My heart was contented to hear my mother snoring. She mumbled to herself about grapes and turned over on her side. I turned my attention to Andrew who had taken on a hazy black form. He slowly began learning how to use his fingers—wiggling them at first before snapping his finger and thumb together simultaneously making a fire appear in the fire place.

 

  He said, “I missed this place so much.”

  I said, “What place?”

  “Earth.”

  “Let’s start with basic stuff,” I said, “How do you get around?”

 

  “How do you mean?”

 

  “You were on the trees and now you’re in my house.”

  He said, “I think that is a personal question, do you not?”

 

  When I refused to budge, he pointed at Peaches who had passed out in the corner of the room from all of the excitement, “If you must know, your furry companion over there puked me on to a memory stone. The Silhouettes do not have the same reactions to it as humans do. Example A: your mother.”

 

  “The rock Darius brought in the house?”

  “Precisely. The stone tapped into the memories of your mother when you left the house. Add in the stress of living without the man she loves and trying to manage a wayward son who talks to his imaginary friends and that stone very well could have wiped her mind clean. But, being Maggie Quinn has its perks.”

  I had to sit down. Memory stones? Silhouettes? It was enough to make me want to scratch my eyes out. I took a seat at the kitchen table and twiddled my thumbs. “I am going insane. Aren’t I?”

  Andrew laughed, “I would amount it closer to waking up, but every kid has their own interpretation.” His hands, having formed into a completely solid mass, lifted a picture frame off of the mantle. “I never doubted Reese would adapt to ground floor life but I did not know it would pan out so well.”

  “Why do you keep referring to my parents like you’ve known them forever?”

 

  “Considering we are going to be spending quite a bit of time together, I say we save all of the big questions for when the answers are most useful.”

  A map that felt like a ten pound sheet of metal in my arms appeared out of thin air. Glowing under the kitchen light, I noticed it didn’t contain a map of the United States or any of the other countries in the world. In fact, I didn’t recognize any of the locations on the map. Eight tiny pictures of houses were in the middle in parallel rows of four. Each house looked like minature cabins. Putting that image into perspective made me think of a ghost town in the middle of cowboy film set.

 

  I said, “What is this? What am I supposed to do with this?” I dropped it, “Andrew?”

 

  I caught him rolling around on the floor with Peaches who had wakened from her brief nap. He said, “You humans really ought to learn a thing or two from your pets about having fun.”

  “Andrew, can you please just answer one question for me?”

  Andrew got up on all fours to challenge Peaches who took a run for him. She passed through him and appeared on the other side. The Silhouette had turned into vapor in the blink of an eye only to reassemble himself. Peaches, overcome with shock, ran behind my chair and ducked down, whimpering. Andrew said, “Poor girl would not last a second in the harsh landscape of Draio.”

 

  I said, “Harsh landscape? Hardly sounds like the world my Dad talked about.”

 

  Andrew hopped up, “Well, you can use the map as an example. Hey, do not roll your eyes at me. I heard you the first time you asked.” He pointed at the first house from the bottom left, “This right here is an observation deck. It was one of the most important buildings in the old world. It was left mostly untouched during the Great War.”

  “The Great War?”

  “Better than the Not So Great War. Did your Dad never tell you?”

  “I haven’t spoken to him in a long time. But, I heard his stories about the cages.”

 

  Andrew bounced back like I’d pricked his finger, “ I would appreciate if you could refrain from bringing those up into our little chats. Anyways, when the Second Lifes made up the majority of the population in Draio, the Silhouettes were demoted to house slaves. Though, I happened to be fortunate enough to be granted a life in politics. I was chief correspondent for the Second Life high council.”

  He began to strut around the living room, remembering and radiating with the happiness of a better time.

 

  I said, “You have a nasty habit of straying away from the subject.”

 

  He said, “Could not have said it better myself. Now, where was I? YES. The Great War and the explodey sadness of doom. You can imagine the Silhouettes who had populated Draio for so long did not adapt well to second class citizenry. It started with petty pranks and vandalism but it ended with genocide. The Silhouettes who survived the battles were—were—”

  I stepped away from the map, “It doesn’t sound like such a great place. I am sorry that happened to you. I am sorry—”

 

  “Apologies are not necessary. I only require that we will be the beginning of the end of that tragedy.”

 

  My head expanded with all of the new information. I thought of Darius’ pictures detailing the dragons and how terri
fying they would appear during a war, spraying men, women, and children with their flames. To think all of that was going on above my head while I was busy complaining about my silly excuse for a childhood made me feel like a speck of dirt.

 

  Andrew walked over and grabbed a hold of my arm.

  I said, “Where are we going?”

  “To explore. Your Mom needs rest and I need to get my mind off all of these sadly madly thoughts and explore the world.”

 

  I slapped away his hand, “There is a slight flaw in that plan. I have school tomorrow.”

  He danced around, “School? SCHOOL? You just heard there are other worlds out there filled with magic worth saving and you would prefer to let yourself veg away in social studies?”

  Numbness settling in all over my body, I got up and started off for my room, “I think I have discovered enough for one evening. I am going to bed.”

  Relieved to find he had no intentions of following me, I did a light jog up the stairs and jumped chest first on to my bed. Sleep had never felt so refreshing. Then my dreams set in.

  Most people can’t wait to dream once they’ve gone to bed. Dreams stood as a chance to break away from the normal. I would’ve been satisfied with normal since my dream world looked like someone suffering from dehydration’s worst nightmare. The ground was covered for miles upon miles with dark red sand. The sky above crackled with a roaring blaze. Excuse my lack of subtlety when I say it was actually on fire.

  There were a few buildings a mile ahead of me but they looked so run down that I couldn’t begin to believe someone wanted to live in them, much less study in them. They were in postions matching the dots located on that strange map that had appeared in my living room.

  A man appeared at the front of the town. He wore dark blue robes with a hood concealing his face. I could hear him talking like he was right next to me, “Do you like what you see?” It had a man’s voice but it sounded hoarse like it had been yelling for the past twenty years. “After all, Quinn, this is your fault.”

 

  I had to shake my earlobe to see if I heard him correctly. I said, “My fault? What is this place?”

 

  “Do not be so naïve, Earth dweller. You knew what this place was the minute you arrived. This is what you have been waiting for, is it not?”

  I blinked once. In the time it took me to shut my eyes and reopen them, the robed man had jumped forward and landed in front of me. The only portion of his face I could see was the bottom half of his mouth and it was covered in the worst kind of scars and wrinkles.

  He said, “Alan, this is Draio. Behold its glory.”

  I said, “It is kind of empty.”

 

  The heat radiating down from above made my skin begin to simmer. The worst part was I could feel it. You are not supposed to feel anything during a dream. That would only happen if it was—

  I said, “Is this really it?”

  The robed man stood very still. “I have brought you here this once and only this once. I mean to give you a message.”

 

  I said, “I’m listening.”

 

  His arm shot up and his hand took a hold of my left shoulder. His grip was too powerful to escape from. He said, “To shut it. You will return to your waking reality and tell that fool of a traitor to take any thoughts of returning to Draio out of his head. And you, if I ever see your mug on the main level again, I will handle your permadeath myself.”

  Breathing became difficult. I could feel a bruise forming on the spot where the man was grabbing me. It was all too real to be a dream. I said, “Whose the traitor? Andrew? I have only just met him.”

  He reached into his pocket and pulled out a piece of parchment. A puff of smoke streamed out of his ancient lips, covering the page. Gold letters formed on the page but the man crumpled it up before I could see what it said. He stuffed it in my jeans pocket, “Open it when the time feels right. Not a second sooner, understand?”

  I slapped his arm away, “I’m sorry. What is it that I am supposed to be understanding?”

  “Right now?” he said. “Right now you are supposed to be waking up. You have a long journey ahead of you. Until we meet again, Alan Quinn.”

  The robed man placed his other hand on my adjacent shoulder, lifted me up over his head and threw me up into space. I struggled to break free but it was no use. I had already been thrown towards my fiery doom.

  Usually, if I have only been asleep for a few hours, I feel slightly refreshed. My venture into deep sleep only felt like it lasted ten minutes, but my body might as well have been dumped in a bag and beaten with sticks for how awful I felt.

  And, like a cherry on top of the sundae, the Kansas sun was searing into my eyelids. It was time to get ready for school and unless my clock was wrong I only had twenty minutes before the bus would arrive. I quickly leapt from my bed and barely dodged Peaches who had made a bed for herself with my dirty laundry. I wrestled a passably clean Spider-Man t-shirt out from under her lazy body and grabbed a pair of jeans out of my dresser drawer. Peaches could not have been less bothered.

  I opened up my door and rushed downstairs, completely free of the excitement from yesterday. I thought, “Maybe it was all just a big dream, right?” All of the evidence pointed in that direction when I heard an egg beater whizzing to prepare my morning breakfast.

  The problem was Mom wasn’t known for her cooking abilities. I typically started my school day with a bowl of cereal.

  “Mom?” I called out to no answer. “Mom?”

  I ran down the stairs, hoping my mom had recovered from her episodes to make me a warm meal. On my way into the kitchen, it peaked my curiosity that the map and stone were absent. Another victory. I said, “Mom, I don’t know what the occasion is but I like the new you—”

  There was definitely a person in my kitchen, making a scrumptious breakfast. They were dressed in an apron decorated with roses, but missed a few necessary components that would have made them Mom: skin, a body, a bottle of wine.

  It was the shadowy body of Andrew Lathon, slaving away at the stove. He said, “For someone who was so jet set on completing their school work before saving the world, you certainly have a funny way of showing it. Now, go get your shoes on, the eggs will be ready any second.”

 

  I said, “Get a lot of experience making meals on Draio?”

  “Some one has to do it.”

  Even with the limited amount of time I had left to scarf Lathon’s food down, I had to admit it was pretty delicious. It also had the pleasure of being the only thing that kept me from turning a vacuum on Lathon and sucking him into space. I didn’t quite have my head wrapped around the ramifications of what his existence meant, but I could not shun a good meal.

  With only ten minutes left before I would miss the bus, I crammed the rest of my breakfast into my mouth (complete with bacon and Nutella crepes, yum!) and grabbed my satchel in preparation to run out the door. The problem lied with the Silhouette who decided he was going to be my personal escort.

  I said, “Can we have an unspoken agreement that you are not to follow me everywhere I go?”

 

  He mused, “We are speaking about it now, are we not? As soon as we are done talking, I will be more than happy to oblige.”

  His three dimensional form disintegrated into a vapor and slithered into my bag like a hungry snake. “Head off to school, Einstein. I cannot wait to hear about how what you are going to learn today is infinitely more important than Draio itself.”

 

  Holding my bag upside down didn’t do much for getting Lathon out. “Fine. You can come with me to school as soon as you explain what you have done with Mom.”

 

  “Ow!” The satchel swung around my neck and hit me in the face. “What was that for?”

 

  He said, “You are b
eginning to sound like a broken record, which in turn is really annoying me. Maggie is fine. Do not worry about where she is and quit blaming me for your predicament. Now, get on that bus!”