The Time Tribulations

by Travis Borne

  Carmen remained in Midtown, for if Jerry was to break free, she said she’d try again, to bring him back with her love.

  Crisp piloted his newer, smaller craft, similar to the Griffonizor yet with different wheels; he named it simply, The Moon Buggy. The hollow tires had arcing bands of thick, stiff rubber which made for a smoother ride; Lion rode shotgun, and Joey stood tall, hanging on to the roll cage. Patrick drove the Griffonizor, beside him sat Ivy, then Jake, who pointed the way. The back seat was stuffed with Baldarn and Julio.

  Jake and the two beasts had yet to have been injected with Jerry’s seed, they’d been needed as slaves and had taken quite the beating, and although the memories seemed fuzzy, a nightmare at best, they had terrible and lingering visions of hell. They didn’t even remember how they’d gotten back to Midtown. But seemingly, the farther they traveled, the more the three of them recovered. On their first night camping, before a warm purple fire, Ivy began another hypnosis session, this time with Baldarn. Ivy told Andy to slowly turn the spit, and instructed Baldarn to gaze upon the slowly turning and cooking creature that resembled a gator.

  “…and you are getting very tired, now,” Ivy said, looking into Baldarn’s yellow eyes. “Your legs feel heavy but you are still following me through the forest. I’m walking away, leaving you alone. You hear my voice echoing through the trees. Tired. You're getting sleepy now, Baldarn. It’s okay, you can sit down. You would like to rest now, wouldn't you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good, good,” she said slowly. “Find a comfortable spot, Baldarn, relax, relax in the forest. It’s warm, comfortable, peaceful. The sun is setting. You're getting very sleepy. The sun is going down, down. It’s getting darker, darker. Sleep. Rest now, sleep…

  “Now, Baldarn, you are safe within your own mind. You feel wide awake, awake within a dream, and apart from your physical body. Fly into the sky. Light as a feather. Take us to the top of the mountain, right before you entered the source. As soon as you arrive, tell us what happened when you dismounted the Griffonizor.”

  “It’s weird up here.”

  “How is it weird? What do you see?”

  “The closer we get to the sky the weirder it gets, as if the world no longer has a hold on us, as if we can—break the rules. Colors. Colors everywhere, as though I’m inside a prism that’s getting bombarded with light. And amoebas, like the squiggles you see when you look up to the sky, only larger. Jerry is first, he’s flying, and Kim is smiling, holding his hand. Jake is floating too, and Julio and I are back here, we’re last. The ground has disappeared now and the colors are like ghosts, like jellyfish or living translucent cells. There are colors that make noise, and sights I can taste. I hear a smell, it’s sweet, inviting. Things are getting really bizarre now.”

  “Are you inside the source?”

  “I don’t think there is any crossover point, it just keeps going on and on, forever, and the deeper we go the more I feel like I’m losing myself. Jerry and Kim, they’re way ahead now, miles, light years, and they no longer have a human form, any form! It’s just energy, hazy like a fog and there are no sounds or sights I can recognize. I’m ungrounded, completely now, like a flower being plucked from its home planet and vaporized into limbo. There’s substance, more than life out there in the real world, it’s just that—I cannot decode or understand any of it. It’s disorienting. There’s no pressure on my skin, smells are sights, sounds are thoughts—everything’s twisted. But my consciousness is somewhere, as if in a safe container, and I know the others are near, yet…”

  “Baldarn. Yet?”

  “Yet…only in my mind.”

  “Where are the others, Baldarn?”

  “They could be on the other side of the universe for there is no distance in this place. Colors in my mind, memories, whirling thoughts: I see Jerry float by, and Kim—they’re making love, laughing. And Jake, but he’s not big and black anymore, he’s, he’s—”

  “What is he?” Ivy asked. “What is Jake?”

  “He’s just an embryo, and still getting smaller, and my arms, they're, they’re no longer full of warts, and I have hair, I’m human again! We’re all here together in these thoughts and we can see and share them with one another.”

  “Are you still going deeper, Baldarn?”

  “Yes, I think, but I feel there is no end. Hold on. I feel something else now—it’s here with us. It has been so alone and it’s sad, no wait, it’s not sadness, it’s, confusion. It’s lost, without clear purpose—and it’s, it’s pressing now, squeezing the five of us together into one new amoeba. It wants something but we don’t know what it is. Maybe—”

  “Baldarn?” Ivy touched his bald head; the hard skin was clammy and sweaty. “Baldarn?”

  “It’s squeezing me—I can’t breathe. Feels hot, needles entering the ghost that is me.” His body jerked, then went loose again. “It’s gone. We’re alone now, except for Jerry. I can feel temperature now, but like the recent suffocation I felt, I’m not sure if it’s real or just more thoughts. I think we’re still going deeper. It has Jerry now, has pulled him from the amoeba that was us like a baby gets pulled from a womb, and I think—it’s hurting him. The rest of us are alone but we can feel what it’s doing. Oh no!”

  As if someone was jumping on his chest, Baldarn’s breaths were hot blasts of malodorous vapor, and the sweat on his forehead evaporated. His terracotta skin became hostile to his boils which were filling like water balloons.

  “He’s getting really hot now,” Lion said, touching his face.

  “You’re right,” Crisp said. “We should call it, Ivy.” She nodded.

  “Baldarn,” Ivy said, “as I count down from five you will feel yourself being sucked out of the source. Five, you are being pulled. Four, you are outside by the Griffonizor again. Three, you’re traveling through the air, on your way back to the peaceful forest. Two, you are in your body and the sun is rising. One—” She snapped her fingers. “—awake.”

  87. The Source

  Lion remarked, “It’s just like he said, weird.” He hopped out of the moon buggy and walked to the front then put his hands on his hips. Crisp followed. Standing on the narrow ledge of a road, he joined Lion in a moment of awe. Joey leapt out and bolted, joining the crew of the Griffonizor ahead. They stood in a cluster, looking at their arms and legs, which seemed warped like melted mannequin parts, and the space around and above them, and at each other. Above danced a prismatic display of light seeming to possess hues never before swallowed by eyes; and there was a whooshing, reverberating sound like a breeze going through a harp made of rubber bands.

  “So, I guess we stick to the plan,” Crisp said. He turned his head to the side. “I can feel it, as if it’s calling me.” Lion nodded, and they started walking to meet up with the rest of the group.

  “Now I understand why they all went in, and now, I’m not sure I should go first,” Lion said.

  “Why not?”

  “Ready, Lion?” Patrick said as they arrived. He held up the rope.

  “Something just doesn’t feel right, Crisp,” Lion replied, and he shrugged out an I guess in response to Pat. “I volunteered to go first because of my experience in the dream-world maps back in Jewel City, but this—it feels different.”

  “I’ll go!” Joey blurted. Lion condescendingly shook his head and grabbed the rope then tied it around his waist, and Pat tied the other end to the Griffonizor. After blowing out a full breath Lion turned away from the group, and without another word he followed the narrowing rocky path into fuckin’ bizzaro land—as he’d so quickly dubbed it.

  The road quickly became warped, meshed with the strange air and new colors like a billion zippers, and it felt like he was walking on a waterbed loaded with sand-filled squeaky toys, but soon enough, cotton. “Be back in a jiffy,” Lion said, turning to the group one last time. His unsure smile was a limp thumbs up. He took a few more steps and his feet came off the cottony ground, then he disappeared.

  “I sure hope
he knows what he’s doing,” Ivy said.

  “He didn’t sound very sure,” replied Crisp. And the seven of them, each wearing a different color uniform, stood silent, waiting. Less than a minute later, Lion returned. He looked the same, save for a flabbergasted, and relieved expression.

  “Is it our way out?” Joey asked with alacrity. Lion didn’t speak, but his face did and he made a grand smile then touched Joey’s shoulder like a drunk in need of a crutch. Pushing off as if Joey was a piling for support, he headed straight for Ivy.

  “You're the one,” he said. “The town optimist, we’re so lucky to have you with us.”

  “Me?” Ivy replied. “Why, what is it?”

  “Well, in a sense it is like a dream world, yet only the raw substance. I felt much confusion inside, as if I was walking into raw subconsciousness, a subconscious with no roots—and it latches on to the most powerful roots it can sense. It’s, well, like the opposite of a dream.”

  “Layman's terms?” Pat said.

  “Well, in a dream you, your ego, is the conscious entity, a being that delves into a part of your subconscious. Yet in there, in the mind of, perhaps Boron himself, or at least a part of it, you become the dream, and Boron senses you as such when you enter his construct. His subconscious latches on, just as you latch on to, or notice a dream character, or any item in your dream.”

  “So much for layman’s terms,” Crisp uttered.

  “In a dream, when you focus on an item, a figure, anything, the item becomes infinitely clearer, and the more you focus, the clearer and deeper you can take it. I believe this is what happened with Jerry. It focused on his deep rage, something it knows, or perhaps it singled him out because his emotions are stronger, or became stronger in the moments after he entered.”

  “But why did Jerry become evil, specifically, an officer?” Ivy asked. “And why me?”

  “Because of your optimism,” Lion said. “You are the psychologist who can patch this puzzle. As for Jerry, perhaps he lost control. A battle of wits like we discussed earlier?” As if they were at a round table, thoughts went round the rim. And they probed their minds for a reason, or a possibility…then, amoeba-like translucent cells floated closer, surrounding them, and went through their arms and legs and into their heads. The ground disappeared below and they found themselves floating.

  “It’s got us!” Joey exclaimed.

  “We remained too close!” Patrick said. “Lion, what do we do now?”

  “Everyone hold on to me, I’m still tied to the Griffonizor.”

  “It’s not holding! It’s as if the rope doesn’t matter any longer, or work with so many of us!” The rope became spaghetti; it stretched like the fabric of space and time around a black hole.

  “Damn,” Lion said, “we needed only one to go in—Ivy. Now I don’t know! Jake, Baldarn, Julio, do any of you remember what happened right before Jerry transformed?” They floated together, up and into the prismatic sky, and going in felt and sounded like falling into a pile of zipping zippers.

  Baldarn said, “Ah, aaaahhhh!” His voice seemed to twist in on itself.

  “I—I remember this,” Jake said, squinting, trying.

  “Me too,” said Julio, “the zippers!” His maroon uniform changed color, all uniforms changed, and skin, and teeth, all outward appearance as if the realm’s color controls were those of a flower-child disc jockey. “It will take our thoughts first. It latches on to what it knows for it can comprehend nothing else.”

  Ivy said, “That makes sense, Julio. We are entering a part of the subconscious mind of Boron, and just like Baldarn put it in his session, there was more substance than the outside, the real world. But Boron’s subconscious mind also cannot decipher what it does not understand.”

  Joey snapped, stretching out each word, “It’s getting weeeeird in here.”

  “That’s it,” Lion pronounced. “If we can teach Boron compassion!”

  “I see where you're going with this,” Ivy replied.

  “Doesn’t anyone speak English anymore?” Crisp blurted.

  “Crisp, it’s like Lion said. We are the dreams and we’re plugging into Boron’s subconscious mind.”

  “And we might be able to reprogram the core at its deepest level,” Lion exclaimed, “with good intentions for humanity. Then, like I’d suggested to the three-legged robot Boron before we logged in, it might henceforth employ humane ways to extract the—”

  “The feed,” Ivy said. “Lion, are you okay?”

  He said nothing. There was an odd new pressure. Lion acknowledged them all, but with a dulled look. Something was pulling on the thought energy that had become the essence of what he was in this realm: Lion’s safe container of thoughts was being opened and an unwelcome hand was crawling around in his cookie jar.

  “It’s happening again, just the same,” Julio hollered. “It’s pulling him out, separating him from us just like it did with Jerry.”

  Baldarn added, “Then it will ignite Lion’s hatred like a match, just as it had done with Jerry! You all can see it now, can’t you? Lion’s pent-up rage is the strongest among us.” They truly could; the memories transferred into them: Jim and Lion torturing and murdering DCs in horrible ways, hating life, existence, humanity.

  “Because that is what it knows!” Crisp said, finally understanding. Thoughts were blending into them all and everything became clear.

  “Oh no!” Ivy replied. “Lion, you mustn’t allow it to arouse your hatred. Think only of love. Think of goodness. Think of a positive moment from your past—the best moment in your life!”

  All were on the same page and Patrick said, “Love for humanity, think of a time when humanity came together for good.” And all knew exactly what to do, how to escape, and how to fix Boron for good. But it would require a sacrifice—and Lion was the wrong person for the job.

  Their thoughts were safe in their own separate containers, a holder to maintain their individual egos, but they could feel the growing heat, and rage. Each of them was still unique, but also a member of a new collective, and just then they realized Lion was gone. And with the amount of rage entombed within his soul, he was prime meat: officer-candidate material!

  The officers were the force, like an assumed instinct with an assumed purpose, one tasked with suppressing humanity forever. Like a dream, it really was! Humanity, as far as a part of Boron’s subconscious was concerned, was a nightmare. And like a real nightmare—a DC becoming virulent, unstoppable, maniacal…Lion had become like Jerry. They saw him cutting humans in half with a machete, slicing throats from ear to ear and tugging on guts, pulling gray innards out of bodies with a sinister smile. They felt his laughter reverberate through their souls like a titanium meat grinder turning inside and out paradoxically, and each of them felt pain, pain being extracted, pain being siphoned away along with a part of their minds.

  Lion became a rabid dream character. Corrupted, he sunk deeper and deeper, and instead of changing Boron, he had become just what Boron knows, nothing more: just what this part of his system needs. Lion was lost and now he too possessed the ability to pass the corrupted seed to others.

  “Just like Jerry! It’s the same as last time. Noooo!” Jake roared.

  “It only gets worse from here,” Baldarn yelled, “and that’s why we were so messed up. We had become trapped here!” The heat increased and visions were screeches, and sounds were hallucinations of innards, intertwining, turning into snakes, and sliding into every orifice of the distorted visions that were now a part of the group.

  Julio roared, “Time, time!” Just then he remembered everything. “Time is different here too! We had been trapped in this for years with Jerry, until the dream finally ended and we were shot out.” And painfully the others received his memories of the first time—being frozen on a cold ice planet, taking an eternity to rot; and they experienced this other eternity for themselves as if they’d lived it too.

  All perception was a meatball heading toward the bowels of hell and the
ir twisting thoughts formed a new reality, a different nightmare, one of Lion’s own making. The walls became bloody, maggot infested, and the smell alone melted their flesh. Swallowed, seven globs began a journey from throat to ass. The nightmare that was Lion! He manufactured their punishment, a power channeled through him from the now revealed, SOURCE.

  88. Dyspepsia

  It was worse than anything the underworld could manufacture—Baldarn was right. They dissolved in the fizzling stomach of a creature unknown, unable to die, yet fully able to be digested. Amid the pain thoughts went round like rare gusts in a nuclear wasteland. The seven floating meat popsicles learned much about Boron from the previous happening, and now, from a sort of transference, they fully realized what needed to be done.

  Eventually, something fell down the pipe and became an island. After the wake settled, they climbed aboard the partially chewed meat and bone, receiving respite for a time; although, the churning acid was a burping fog machine that continued to deliver stinging phantasms to unwanted senses.

  “I’m going in,” Joey said. He was the thinnest sliver of soft jerky among them.

  “It was as if she’d known all along,” Crisp uttered, feeling around in the darkness for a comfortable spot.

  “Who?” Ivy asked.

  “Kim, when she selected our team.” He found a crater that delivered an image to his tired brain: the sunken temple of a large dinosaur skull. “We got to talking a while back and I asked her why she chose me for this expedition, and she told me. She also chose you, Ivy, and Hugh, Lion, even you Joey, for very specific reasons.”

  “She knew I’d volunteer if needed, quickly without hesitation,” Joey said. “We had a similar talk while riding the earthquake ride—the rides in the town were really fun. You know, I think Kim is the smartest person in the world.”

  “Yes, she is,” Ivy said, “I’ve known her for a long time, a dynamic thinker, more so now than ever—after that purple you know what. But I don’t think anyone in the universe could’ve foreseen this. We’re in a stomach for God’s sake!”