Carpe Diem

by Michael Loring

inquired, swinging his arms around the rope to lean against.

  Bud nodded. “Yes. Nothing cool here,”

  “Want to have a go?” James asked nonchalantly.

  “What?” Bud raised a brow.

  “C'mon. I'll show you how fun it can be to fight for sport!”

  “I'd rather not,”

  “C'mon!”

  Bud huffed. “Alright, what do we do?” he relented.

  James grinned as he stood straight and put up his fists. “We fight. Usually we have gloves, but I don't see any in sight so-”

  Suddenly, James' hands became wrapped in bright red boxing gloves. His eyes widened as he felt their extra weight appear on his fists. He looked up and saw that Bud was wearing a matching blue pair.

  “These?” Bud was smiling again.

  “How did you do that?”

  “So, what now?” Bud dodged the question without breaking a beat.

  James, still slightly dumfounded, answered, “Well...we fight. You know how to fight right?”

  “Of course,” Bud said, taking a stance. His arms were protecting his head, and his knees were bent while his feet shuffled back and forth.

  James grinned as he too took the stance. A silence befell the ring as an imaginary clock counted down the seconds until the fight.

  A ding went off in James' head and he charged. He was a brash fighter, and didn't have the patience to stalk his opponent. He went in for the kill.

  Bud seemed shocked by the sudden attack, and was hit hard on the side of his temple. He stumbled, but stood as James moved back and prepared for the next strike.

  Bud, now aware of the fight's start, dodged swiftly under James' hook and drove his fist deep into James' gut.

  James gagged as the wind was knocked out of him. He hadn't expected for Bud to be so strong, and was paying for it when he gasped for breath and tumbled back holding his stomach.

  “Got you!” Bud cheered merrily as he smacked James across the chin twice with both hooks. He felt the world spin, but he tried for a grasp and stepped back to steady himself.

  Once oriented, James hardened his features and dipped in to kick out Bud's feet. But the plaid wearing man jumped back and, as if copying James, sent forward his foot to smash into James' outstretched leg, thus knocking him off balance and onto the ground.

  With stars in his vision; James looked up at the cheery Bud who stood over him. “I win?”

  James nodded sourly. “Yes, Bud, you win.”

  “Sweet,” The gloves were gone, and James was hauled up to his feet.

  “So...where to now? I'm tired of this place.” James grumbled.

  “This way, sore loser.”

  “What was that?” James growled.

  “Nothing!” Bud laughed as he jumped over the edge and disappeared into the darkness that hazed around the tiled floor around the cage.

  James looked over and saw Bud opening a hatch under the stage. He waved for James to come over and stood straight.

  Jumping over the side, James landed and inspected the tunnel that stretched out into sheer darkness. “I thought we were going up?”

  “This is a special level,” was all Bud said.

  James sighed as he got on all fours and began to crawl through the tunnel. It was cramp, but he just barely fit snugly.

  He crawled into the darkness, all traces of light disappearing after a certain point. It was creepy, being in this small, dark space where anything or anyone could be lurking. At any moment he could run face to face with a dangerous animal, or someone who was stuck and needed his flesh for food. That thought especially scared him, because James was still teetering around the idea that this may or may not actually be Hell.

  He gave it some thought. Having been beaten up by this strange, possibly insane man who keeps bringing up the past. How was James to know that not all the bugs portrayed some negative emotion? Or that the reason he saw his once broken Soldier action figure and old TV set was to remind him of the bad things that had once happened in his life?

  As he crawled, he began to worry what may be at the end of this trail. For all he knew; fire and brimstone may actually be what awaits him. That was terrifying. James was about to turn and confront the man on the other side when he noticed a light beaming into his face.

  Following the light, he found himself crawling out the trunk of another tree. For a split-second he thought he was in that field full of buzzing bugs again, until he looked around and saw that it was not the lush field, but a dirt desert.

  James stood and dusted off his clothing before turning and looking up at the large tree. It was the one he'd see before! The one he'd seen off in the distance.

  “Holy...”

  The tree was huge. Bigger than he expected. Stories high. The trunk was thick and a dark brown, and up above James could faintly see the outline of stemmed leaves.

  What was interesting though, were the flight of spiral stairs that jutted out of the tree. The steps were brown, like the ones he'd seen inside the hollowed tree in the field, but were wider and a brighter color than the rest of the tree.

  “Amazing, ain't it?” Bud was next to him, examining the tree alongside James.

  “I guess. Certainly ginormous.” James confirmed, still staring upwards.

  “Want to see the top?” Bud asked, smiling at James.

  James considered it, and nodded. “Sure, why not? Where am I gonna go if I don't?”

  “Well, there was the field of eternal pleasure and happiness. But you already chose this, so let's get moving. Long trip.” Bud began the trek up the stairway as James gawked at the man's back.

  “Are you serious?”

  “Come on slow-poke!”

  James took a 360 look around and, with nothing else in sight, followed after Bud up the steps.

  Looking upwards again James figured this would be an extremely long walk. It could take hours; days even to reach the top. Though, from how spontaneous Bud seemed, James didn't know exactly where they were going, or how long it would take.

  That sparked a thought. What was time here? James looked out over the sunless horizon and saw no movement at all other than him and Bud. Not even a leaf fell from the branches overhead. It was all still, as if time was frozen.

  So what was the spectrum here? How did time validate itself in this realm; the realm of his mind? How long ago did he even die? It could have been merely an hour ago, which is what he perceived, or it could have been a whole year ago, or even only a second ago.

  The concept of time was a solid issue. Impatience is really just you thinking of doing something else enjoyable or productive rather than waiting to do something enjoyable or productive. With nothing else for James here but to climb this tree how could he truly get impatient? What else could he be doing right now other than climbing this tree?

  I could be alive, He concluded, eating dinner and having a laugh with my friends like I had planned for the night before I died.

  It felt like the end of the world, because to him it was. The end of his world. He was dead. The simple fact was hard to really accept. He felt as if this was a dream, and that he wasn't climbing the make-shift stairway up a mysterious tree behind what could very well be-

  “We're here.” Bud said, interrupting James' train of thought.

  “What? Already?” James asked in bewilderment.

  It was true. The two of them stood on a wooden platform just under the lush green-covered branches. James looked about, and nearly fainted when he looked down. He could not see the ground at all; it was blocked out by a shroud of mist that wafted around the tree's middle section.

  “Holy crap! How did we get here so fast?!” James panicked. The platform didn't seem sturdy, and James feared with the wrong step he and Bud would fall to their deaths.

  Wait...I'm already dead...

  “Along the way is a portal. You didn't think I had the time to walk this thing did you?” Bud grinned.

  James furrowed his brows for the third time. “But...I did
n't feel like I did before when I entered a portal.”

  “That's because those portals took you to a separate plane, a different level. This one just took you higher. So no side effects.”

  “Interesting...” was all James could utter as he truly did not understand. The fact he was trying to understand the logic of teleportation in his own mind was unnerving as it was. “So what's this tree do?” he asked.

  Bud was smiling that smile again, striding over to the mass of bark. “This tree is probably the most vital thing in anyone's mind,” he explained. “This tree is the Tree of Memories. It holds within its roots all of your memories, all of your thoughts and imagination.”

  James looked at the tree in a different light now. This tree was holding his memories? 34 years of thoughts, images, ideas, all residing in this large oak.

  It was awe-inspiring.

  “How does it work, exactly?” James asked, following Bud closer to the tree.

  Bud placed his open palm against the brown wood and closed his eyes for a minute before opening them again. “Touch it.”

  James didn't argue. By now he has learned that arguing and constantly questioning leads him practically nowhere in this after-world. He slowly lifted his arm and tenderly touched the wood, waiting for the flood of memories to hit him in a single instant; like how it had with his emotions when he touched one of those bugs.

  But as his skin contacted the oak: Nothing happened.

  He was braced for the onslaught, but loosened up when absolutely nothing happened. James pressed harder against the tree, and yet still nothing came to him.

  “What gives?”

  “The tree doesn't just shoot you with memories. You have to request something and it will take