“Best way to learn is by doing,” Doug put on a confident pose.
“I’ll give you another one, best way to die is by getting killed. What if you get killed?” I stood up after him.
“I won’t get killed,” he talked over me. “You might, but it’ll only make you stronger.”
“What kills you makes you stronger?” I made a lame joke.
“I suppose you could say that,” he gave a half-hearted laugh.
“Phew, okay, nervous,” I said out loud.
“Don’t be. When you’re nervous you can’t think straight, and if you can’t think straight, you can’t create straight.”
“In case you forgot I almost died there, and almost went deaf!” I followed him in. He was erasing all the comfortable furniture and modern cooking equipment that he created.
“Now now, just follow my lead and everything will be fine. If you can control Light under high stress you’re unstoppable.”
“What about teleportation?”
“We’ll be back to learn that later, and if not, I’ve answered all your questions. You learn that by doing as well,” he tightened and buttoned up his suit. “Are you going out like that?” he looked at me.
“Uh,” I looked down at myself. “I mean… should I wear hockey pads?”
Douglas was making his way outside. I followed along.
“Okay, I’ll just make a vest or something,” I said.
“Will a vest protect you from a laser shot?” he talked over his shoulder.
“Probably not,” I said. “Whatever! I’ll go like this then.”
“Get ready,” he ignited his jetpack. I had to create mine real quick, start it up, and we were airborne in seconds. Nervous wasn’t a word strong enough to describe how much I didn’t want to go there, but Douglas’ confidence didn’t let me chicken out.
We flew for quite a long time – he certainly took precautions when he took me far away.
In the distance, before we could even see it, we heard it. A murderous meat grinder of a war.
“Alright Raymond! Go all out you hear me!?”
“Got it!” I yelled back to him.
We charged right in. I spawned black metal orbs in my hand that would explode upon hitting the ground. I began throwing those around, and as soon as I did I won myself some attention. Lasers were getting shot at me. Doug shot an energy blast at me that pushed me to the side. I regained stability, but at least I was alive. I watched him move with cunning and flexibility in the air. His gun was shooting targets and actually downing them, instead of just shooting randomly and hoping it would hit.
“Okay, I can do this,” I kept my velocity to the maximum to make sure I didn’t give the enemy a clean shot. They were aliens, but there were more humane versions of them at the back next to the large spaceships. That’s where the lasers were coming from. If I got too close I’d be toast. Only seconds passed, and I already lost sight of Doug.
I was flying around aimlessly. I could keep shooting, but I didn’t feel like that would be productive. I had to do something different – I had to drop a nuke on their spaceship or something but there was no way in hell I could imagine one without something going wrong. That’s when an idea struck my head. I flew up high, and began my master plan.
As soon as it began, I had the enemy running the other way. Gravity already existed, and I was high enough to simply create the largest possible molten rocks and drop them down like meteors. The size of my meteors wasn’t anything to boast about, but create enough of them, and you’ve got some fireworks going.
The meteors crashed and burst into hot rocks flying all over. I felt safe this high… until the lasers shot at me. One such laser missed my face by a few inches and effectively knocked me unconscious. I was stunned, my jetpack was still on, and I was flying in various patterns on my way down.
I saw Douglas flying towards me, and I felt him catch me. We had uncontrollable velocity and were spinning in the air like mad. I was deaf, I couldn’t hear a single thing apart from the loud ringing in my ears. I saw him yelling something to me but I couldn’t make out a single word. My body refused to move – the fall was going in random directions from the jetpack still being in full ignition. I just remember Doug struggling to get the jetpack off of me, and then I went unconscious.
When I next opened my eyes, it was in my living room.
Chapter 10
I couldn’t move again, my face was glued to the floor and it felt like a truck was resting on top of me. No, it felt like a whale was resting on top of me. Every inch of my body was vibrating with unpleasant static. I had a splitting headache, numbness, and to some degree I felt sick in the stomach. I stayed motionless for what felt like a whole hour before being able to move a single finger. When I did, it hurt, in some weird way.
“Whyyyy?” I mumbled with a stiff jaw against the floor. In due time, I was sitting upon the couch. My phone was next to me, but it was out of battery. I gave it another good hour before I let myself get up and take care of things. I saw about a dozen missed calls and messages from Bob, and another few from my editor. One from mom, and one from… Emily. Okay then. Couldn’t wait to see what that one was.
According to the date on my phone, I was gone for three days. Damn, was it that long?
I dialed up Bob. While I was waiting for him to pick up, I checked the TV. Ninety one hours until the timer expired, not bad.
“Hello?” I said with a stiff jaw.
“Jesus Christ Raymond, did a bee sting your tongue?” he asked.
“No,” I moved my jaw around. “I’m here, I mean, how are things? What’s up?”
“I was planning to go see a movie with you two days ago but you weren’t picking up. Then I thought you were mad at me. So I went over to you and the door was locked. Then I knew you were mad at me. Then I thought what if you got kidnapped? Then I decided to call the police.”
“WOAH, you didn’t!” I put my free hand frantically over my head.
“No, of course not, you think I have the balls to do that?” said Bob.
“Thank god,” I sighed with relief.
“So I just thought I’d keep messaging you until you picked up. Where were you?”
“Camping trip,” I immediately replied, “I was on a camping trip where they don’t allow technology, you know, oneness with nature and all that.”
“Great, so a bee did sting your tongue.”
“Haha, hilarious. We should go out later, but I need to see when my schedule is free.”
“Yeah,” said Bob, “yeah we should. You let me know.”
That was Bob taken care of, some things never change with him.
Next was mother – she merely sent me a picture of how her garden grew. I replied delightfully to her.
And then I opened my ex-girlfriend’s message. Emily and I were supposed to get married, that’s why everyone strongly believed I still think about her every day. She was a doctor, and I, a writer. It was the perfect couple, from some perspective. Of course that didn’t work out. She was too future-conscious, and being an author wasn’t exactly a stable career, depending on how you do.
Well, her message simply read, ‘Hey, how are you?’.
‘Fine, thanks!’ I replied.
I went over to the kitchen, kind of limping, and put a steak in my fridge to defrost for later.
My editor’s calls were the last ones I wanted to open. He took good care of me, but it always meant some kind of work.
I was brewing coffee and began wondering – why was I here? Did I die? I thought I remembered Doug catching me. I covered my mouth at the thought of Doug dying cause of me. That would be traumatic. I wish I could ask someone if he was okay.
‘Late reply! Hah, want to go out for some coffee?’ she replied quickly.
‘I don’t know, I’ll get back to you on that.’ I wrote back. I was over with her, the rest was friendship.
After getting my coffee, I paused, and I looked at it. Holy crap, it was real. I mean, it was m
ore real than the one I made. Look at all that detail – it wasn’t even an even brown if you look really close. There were so many little things about it that I failed to imagine. And that smell that hits you when you pour it, that’s supposed to be there! Amazing, I was blown away in some way as I casually inspected the steaming hot cup.
‘Oh, okay, let me know.’ She wrote back.
I called my editor.
“Hello?” I said.
“Raymond, you went hiatus on me!”
“Sorry I was camping,” I said.
“Couldn’t think of a story to write after all, huh?” he said.
“Oh shoot…! Uh, I mean, no, yeah, it didn’t come to me. I sat for hours and came up with something really boring so I didn’t even want to send it.”
“That’s okay, happens. It’s a shame, I hyped everyone up about you though. Maybe next time,” he made me feel a little bad.
“Yeah, next time.”
“Hope you didn’t forget the meet and greet,” he said.
“Yeah, I didn’t it’s on my calendar,” I had completely forgotten about my meet and greet. You sit there with a pile of your books and your loyal readers get a signed copy, then you walk around and meet people, and just be your best positive self for a few hours, that’s about all.
“Thanks to my undying efforts, this month’s sales were… phew, they were hot. You’ll love the numbers when you see them. You’ll be giving three interviews. They’ll be asking about your writing process, your thought process, your motivation, your inspiration.”
“Okay,” I nodded. It sounded a bit exciting. I’ve done it before, but it would be a bit more crowded around me this time. I’m only a little famous in the name, not the face. It would be quite cool to see my face on a bunch of websites.
“So that’s in two days, do not forget.”
With a few more formalities, we ended the call.
I went over to my messaging list, tapped on Emily, and wrote to her.
‘Now, let’s go.’
I got in the car, and drove off. I was comfortably dressed in a dark top buttoned pullover. I drove straight, past the flower boutique, past the pet’s store, past the café not far from my house, onto the main road, and straight towards Emily for about a ten minute drive. I turned left into her neighborhood, drove past the café, past the pet’s store, and past the flower boutique before parking right next to my house.
“… What?”
I sat in my car. My brain glitched or something. I know I drove into her neighborhood. Okay, I probably made some sort of mistake, right? Let’s pay attention…
I drove out again, past the flower boutique, past the pet’s store, past the café and out onto the main road. Emily’s street was straight ahead without any turns for ten minutes. I did exactly what I did last time – and oh, this time I ended up in the right place. That was incredibly strange. I had to pause everything I was doing, smack my head a few times to make sure I was alive and well.
I parked my car on the side, and got out. She was there – like a little flower rested upon the bench, with beautiful long black hair, a doll face, a small and slender body covered with a slim waist dark flowery dress.
“Hello,” I casually walked up to her.
She stood up and smiled warmly. We briefly hugged, and headed towards the car.
“Do you want to walk?” she said in a pleasant girly voice. She was well above thirty, but you could mistake her for a college girl if you didn’t look twice.
“Walk? Sure,” I actually needed the walk. My legs still felt a little bit numb, and so did my head, apparently.
“So,” she started, “how’s it going? Found a girlfriend yet?”
“I wasn’t looking,” I said. “I’m married to my books.”
“Yeah, you are, aren’t you?” she faked a laugh. “There’s a park on the left, if we walk through it the coffee place is right down the street. I’ll just have tea if you don’t mind.”
“Is that the one with the delicious rose tea?” I asked.
“Yeah! That’s the one,” she smiled.
A minute later, we took a turning into the park.
“You seem awfully… thoughtful,” said Emily.
“A lot of things have been going on lately,” I replied.
“Like what?”
“Long story,” I nodded. It was strange, I had an automatic drop of enthusiasm every time it came to her.
“Is it that long, really?” she exaggerated her way of walking into a cute doll-like walk with her hands locked behind her back.
“A few weeks ago I think it was, I decided to blow my wallet on buying random things from the store and going around gifting it to random people.”
She laughed a little. “Why? Charity?”
“Not even. I just wanted to feel better, so that was my way of doing it.”
“Oh,” she looked up at me.
“I know you make people feel better when you treat them, and I make them feel better when they read my stuff, but when it’s tied to money and jobs it loses that feeling of selflessness. I have to try to be selfless from time to time to stay true to that ideal.”
“I agree,” she said, “I should do something like that as well sometime.”
“Did you know that in the Second World War tobacco and coffee were scarce – they made coffee out of acorns lying around. So they’d brew bitter acorn coffee in their old metal cups, roll up a cigarette, sit outside and have five minutes of peace with a smoke and a coffee. That would make their entire week.”
“I did not know that, doesn’t sound like something they’d mention in history class. Is that what you’re writing about?” she asked.
“No, I just happened to meet an old vet,” I kept my eyes forward, and she kept looking up at me.
“No way! That old?’
“Old enough to tell the story. I told him I used to eat acorns to survive in the forests when I would get lost. The hardest part was opening the acorn.”
“Who is the man?” she asked.
“Douglas,” I replied. “He lost his wife to an artillery bombing, almost shot himself after he found out. Decided to keep on living.” No matter how much anyone would try to convince me that Doug was some imagined soldier part of a movie, he was as real as anyone to me.
“That’s a dark story,” she said.
“Those kinds of stories don’t come every day. I think we should appreciate them as they are – light, or dark.”
“Well I’ll contrast it with a light story then! Remember our cat Bites?”
“How could I forget?”
“She has kittens now!” she sang that sentence.
“Oh, how many?”
“Four. We’re naming them Strawberry, Cupcake, Miracle and Pebbles.”
“If I was part of the naming process I’d let you name three, and name one Doom.”
“Doom?!” she almost jumped when I said that.
“Doom,” I confirmed.
“Why Doom?” she opened her palms out when she asked.
“To tick you off, obviously,” I smiled for the first time this whole conversation. She punched my shoulder lightly.
“Hey Cupcake, Pebbles, Strawberry, Doom, your food is here!” she made fun of my name.
We got on a bridge above a narrow lake and rested our elbows on the railing, staring out into the distance.
“How’s work?” I asked.
“It’s exactly the same as before,” she replied bluntly. “How’s yours?”
“Busier,” I said.
“So that’s good? A busy writer means it’s good,” she nodded.
“Depends, I have a busy schedule,” I looked down at the ducks passing by under us.
“What are you doing besides writing?”
“That’s the long story part.”
Emily sighed. “If you were a novel you would be in the detective mystery genre.”
“I prefer fantasy, but okay,” I nodded my head, then took the initiative to keep heading toward
s the café. We reached it in no time – it was right there upon exiting the park.
We sat on a table by the window, I had rose tea, and she had peach black tea.
“Do you ever get pestered by your friends with questions like, ‘do you miss him?’ or ‘has he called you?’ or something like that?”
“All too often,” I said. “It’s only natural that they’re curious, but since there’s nothing to gossip about you just shrug them off.”
“That was an oddly mature answer,” she said, hiding her grin by tilting her head lower.
“I have a meet and greet at Prime Publishing House in two days,” I leaned back with a sigh. “I almost don’t want to go, yet I do.”
“Thanks for telling me, I’ll definitely come see you.”
“Oh no…!” I swayed my head away, “no don’t make it any worse,” I laughed a little.
“What do you mean worse?!” she had a surprised look.
“Nothing,” my grin maintained for a while longer.
“I’ll have you know it would boost your ego to have a beautiful girl standing next to you while you walk around!”
“Is that how it works?”
“Isn’t it?”
After a moment of silence, she asked me, “do you live alone?”
“With whom else would I live?”
“I don’t know, maybe Bob moved in or something.”
“No, I live alone. Why?”
“Just curious,” she smiled innocently. “Are you eating well?”
“You’re not asking that question without reprimands anymore,” I shook my head left and right.
“What reprimands?” she tilted her head to the side.
“Well a bonk to the head for one.”
“Bonk,” she bonked herself on the head. “There, I did it for you.”
“Thank you,” I bowed my head.
“We’re such children,” she shook her head left and right, gazing out the window.
“Speak for yourself,” I replied immediately.
“Excuse me!” she slapped the surface of the table with both hands.
“That’s right,” I stuck my tongue out at her.
“I hate you,” she sipped on her tea like an aristocrat.
Through the window, striking golden hair caught my attention. Red lipstick, a beautiful outdoor dress, and exactly her face. I mean, exactly! I got up without a word and ran outside.
The Portal Page 12
