Vision2

by Brooks, Kristi

  Once the doors closed behind Tigaffo the President leaned back in his chair and contemplated the encounter. Having Firturro’s assistant in his pocket would help his cause. He’d thought he might have to trick the young apprentice, but Tigaffo had been so scared it had turned out to be far easier.

  He closed his eyes, listened to the meaningless tick of a human clock and hummed. If one didn’t take the time to properly think about their problems then they often made rash judgments. As some human had once said, “One can only see the truth when one is centered with the universe,” and he had never doubted the value of this statement despite its lowly source.

  When Darelle felt properly refreshed, he got up and exited the room through a small door hidden by the careful placement of his desk. A small, flat handle had been meticulously built into the surrounding wall and camouflaged so the door was not visible to the naked eye. To draw attention away from the passageway, he had decorated the walls with plush velvet tapestries.

  Darelle pulled back a corner of the drapery, gripped the handle, and pulled hard. The door slid open and he stepped through and closed it with another hidden pulley on the opposite side. The corridor was the same emerald green color as the rest of Obawok, but here the hall wasn’t lit at all for at least 400 feet. He neared the first lamp and saw the thick slime coating the walls.

  Darelle used this passageway so often he didn’t need to use his hands the guide him. The first lantern he came to signaled another pulley and door system. Darelle released the pulley and entered a cozy apartment. The entryway was decorated with an expensive Persian rug and intricate Indian artwork. Most Obawok may have been ignorant of the benefits of decorations, but he knew how important surroundings were, and he refused to live in blandness. Around the corner and in the living room there was also a wide array of human furnishings.

  A small piano sat in one corner while two plush velvet armchairs, taken from Victorian England, were carefully arranged on either side. Two bookshelves stood on the far right side of the room filled with bound works of the ancient texts and a few books of human world history and several on language. Four lanterns had been built into each corner and filled the room with light. Against the opposite wall, across from the bookshelves, there was a slightly younger version of Darelle sitting in a leather reclining chair leafing through a thick volume of ancient texts. He looked up as Darelle entered the room.

  “Hello, father.” The greeting was stiff and formal.

  “Did you finish memorizing the fourth volume of texts yet?” Darelle questioned.

  “Almost.” He looked back down at the book in his lap, grabbed a worn slip of paper that he used for a bookmark, and closed the book.

  “That’s good, Trulle. It won’t be long before you’ll be introduced to the council as my only son and heir to the presidency, and you’ll need to know the rules and prophecies by heart.”

  “I know. I just feel like I should be getting to know the council members and experiencing everything firsthand.”

  “That’s not the way things are done. I’ve told you that before, and I don’t have time to sit around and rehash the rules and procedures with you.” He went to his room, closing the door behind him and holing himself up in his dark quarters. There were too many things to think about, too many new possibilities to consider, and he didn’t need to add his son’s growing curiosity to his list of worries.

  Trulle watched as Darelle marched across the room and through a door on the other side, shutting it behind him with a sense of finality.

  “President Darelle has spoken, so shall it be,” Trulle mumbled under his breath, glancing at the closed door while settling into his chair and re-opening the hidden fantasy novel he’d been reading. The written works of literature produced by humanity always moved him. He was especially amazed by their perception in the areas of science fiction and fantasy. Not all of them were stupid; some of them saw glimmers of the other worlds surrounding them, and he was fascinated by these accounts. Some of his favorites were The Time Machine, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Dracula, and Frankenstein.

  When Trulle had started reading the history books about humans, he became more and more interested in what they thought and felt. His dad didn’t allow him to read human works other than history, so early on he had convinced one of the servant gnomes to bring him books from earth.

  He had to be careful when dealing with the gnomes since almost all of them were dedicated to his father, and most of them didn’t talk or have names, so it was difficult to distinguish them. It had been lucky that Trulle had found a sympathetic gnome. He brought Trulle a different book every month or so and took back the old one so there was a less likely chance of his father discovering his treasonous habit since Darelle checked his belongings.

  Trulle sighed and leaned into the chair, immersing himself in the book and another world that was drastically different from his own. Then again, he didn’t really know his world outside of this room.

  207

  Four

  They’ll be watching you….

  Roger awoke to the unmistakable sound of a door being unlocked. He squinted in preparation for the sunlight that would inevitably be streaming in the windows by now.

  “Bear. Here, boy.” He paused for a second, his head anxiously tilted, awaiting the onslaught of bad breath and obnoxious barking.

  “Bear? Where are you?” Where’s the sunlight for that matter? Roger wondered as he turned his head toward an unusual smell on the other side of the room.

  Something was wrong. And as the blurry edges of sleep cleared, he saw that he was in was a green room, and this disturbed him because there were no green rooms in his house.

  It was while staring at the wall that he remembered everything. He let his weary arms collapse underneath him, causing him to sink back onto the bed and watch as the door opened and a little green man hobbled into the small apartment.

  Roger slowly moved around until he was sitting on the side of the bed. He thought about the book and knew that he needed to ask Firturro a few things. There had been no pictures, images, or descriptions, nor did it mention whether he was in some kind of alternate dimension or on a separate planet altogether. The articles that did describe Obawok society were very basic and omitted anything not absolutely necessary.

  He moved into the living room just as Firturro returned from the kitchen with two cups full of hot brown liquid.

  “Here, drink this. It’ll help you wake up,” Firturro said, smiling.

  “What is it?”

  “Coffee,” he said, holding the cup out to the unsure Roger. “Go on, take it. I wouldn’t give you something we normally eat or drink.” He laughed. Firturro’s laugh had a warm, hardy presence to

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  it, and for a moment it looked like a wonderful array of colors had embraced Firturro’s dwarfish body.

  Roger rubbed his hand across his eyes and wrapped his tired hands around the large, oddly designed cup. When he looked up, he sighed with relief that the rainbow glaze was gone.

  “What are you drinkin’?” Roger asked, studying Firturro’s cup.

  Firturro smiled. “It’s a lot like your coffee, only it’s brewed using special dirt that’s collected from the surface. We call it Kalika.”

  “Oh,” Roger said, unconsciously scrunching his face into a look of disgust.

  Each of them drank their morning brews in comfortable silence. It was so quiet Roger could intermittently hear shuffling footsteps and muffled voices as others passed through the hall. Firturro’s violet eyes seemed even more welcoming than they had before. On earth the same eye color would seem too glitzy, but the bright colors didn’t seem extravagant on these creatures. Dark green skin, maroon and silver hair, violet eyes; this odd assortment actually made the colors harmonious.

  “Will you be able to answer my questions now?” Roger asked.

  Firturro’s eyes shone in the dimness, and it felt like there were cold fingers moving t
hings around in Roger’s brain. The chill spread through his whole body until Roger found himself clutching at his arms.

  “Some of them,” Firturro finally answered.

  “But not all?”

  “No, some things are for you to discover on your own. It’s an important tradition of the Mezoglike. We take tradition very seriously here, and sometimes it’s the most important detail.”

  “Whose tradition?” Roger asked, gripping the coffee cup even tighter.

  “The council’s. They reinforce the beliefs of the ancients.” Firturro scrunched his small face together.

  Roger wasn’t sure if Firturro’s disapproving expression was because of the council or the ancients, but Roger didn’t want to find out right now. Dragging out conflicts and angering Firturro wasn’t going to help him get answers.

  “What exactly is this Mezoglike?”

  “I told you last night, it’s a challenge certain humans are forced to undergo when they make no clear decisions about the impact of fate or freewill in their lives,” Firturro replied.

  “No, no, no. I mean, what is the test comprised of? Is it physical, mental, or knowledge based? What am I actually going to be doing?” Roger asked. He felt fairly confident he could handle a physical test. He hadn’t smoked in over four years, and he could run well; thank goodness he still played weekend football games with some of the kids in Mulray. Without that exercise, he didn’t know what kind of shape he’d be in right now.

  “It’s an equal mixture of all three aspects, but there is no specific paper or physical exam, and the knowledge part of the test assesses your ability to think on your feet.”

  “Why do you do this?”

  “Because the ancient text tells us that we must in order to maintain balance.” Firturro set his empty cup on the desk and looked at Roger expectantly. “Obawok must treat the scriptures as if they contain the absolute truths of all worlds. There is no way to question the texts, there is only acceptance.”

  “So innocent people are kidnapped and brought here to compete in a test they don’t understand and no one here can question why?”

  Firturro’s face dropped so quickly it was hard for Roger to believe he had ever seen him smile. Roger’s stomach clinched at the guilt on Firturro’s face.

  “Last night you refused to answer, but I need to know what my odds are.”

  “No one has ever survived.”

  “What?” Roger had expected some relatively bad news, like maybe only one out of a thousand make it, but for them to have been doing this for hundreds if not thousands of years and not have one human survive was horrible. His stomach was now clinched so tight he could almost taste the coffee creeping up the back of his throat.

  “Our histories tell us no one has ever survived. I believe this to be a true statement from my personal experience. Every human I’ve helped bring into Obawok has died,” Firturro explained.

  Firturro looked up, and his face was oddly serene and hopeful as he pushed his knotted hands into Roger’s and held them there for a moment. When he let go and moved toward the door, Roger noticed a small red whistle nestled against his pale flesh. He raised it to his lips and blew into it but was greeted by nothing more than an empty rush of air.

  “What’s this for?” Roger asked.

  “You’ll know when it’s necessary, but for now, it’s just between us.” Firturro placed his left hand on the small of his back and tapped against the stone door with his walking stick. “I have a meeting with the council. Tigaffo will pick you up soon, so you’ll need to get ready.”

  “Is the test today?” he asked as he twirled the whistle in between his fingers.

  “No, today you’re going before the council. It’s nothing to worry about as long as you answer the President truthfully. He can always tell when humans lie.”

  “How?”

  Firturro smiled. “They twitch.”

  He rapped three more times against the stone before gesturing good-bye to Roger. The door groaned as it swung open. Two Obawok twice the size of Firturro, both with black hair, entered the room and escorted Firturro back into the hall, shutting and locking the door behind them. Roger made them as the two that had watched him from the shadows yesterday afternoon.

  “Now what am I supposed to do?” Roger muttered. As he was turning it over his thumb ran across a mar in the plastic. He turned it over and noticed a crude message etched into the bottom.

  207

  Five

  How does the defendant plea?

  Carved into the red plastic where one would expect to find a legend like “Made in Taiwan” were seven tiny carefully printed words. When Roger was finally able to out what they said, he immediately had to reread them.

  A child’s reality is all that matters.

  Roger gripped the whistle for a long time, running his thumb back and forth across the words, muttering them as if they were a mantra. He wasn’t sure how long he sat there on the couch, but eventually he went to the bathroom to get ready. As he was brushing his teeth, he searched the small room until he found a blue sweat suit, a pair of boxer shorts, two mismatched socks, and some underarm deodorant. Even though the clothes smelled clean, he tried to decide how many others had used these items and whether or not it they were sanitary. Then he shook his head when he realized that he was worried about germs when he was probably going to die soon anyway, and he laughed so hard his sides hurt. When he stopped, he shucked his dirty clothes, washed himself off with a damp rag and changed.

  Roger was retying his shoes when he heard the door open. He turned just as Tigaffo ducked through the door, the two large Obawok Roger had seen earlier flanking him like bodyguards. Just like the day before, Tigaffo began shifting his weight from one foot to the other while staring at the well-worn dirt floor and his lumpy green feet as they moved up and down.

  Roger stifled his urge to laugh. “Hi, our introductions were cut short yesterday.”

  He was careful to extend his hand in a manner that could only be interpreted as a simple handshake. Tigaffo flinched before reaching out his hand, mimicking Roger’s gesture. Roger saw that Tigaffo was coated in a greasy substance and managed to refrain from pulling back his hand, but when their hands touched, Roger almost

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  wished he had. Tigaffo’s hesitant flesh was cold, slimy, and impersonal to the touch, like he was grasping a handful of room temperature liver. The thought of touching liver made the bile rise in his throat, just when he thought he might actually retch the handshake was over.

  “Follow me. We’re going to the council,” Tigaffo ordered.

  Nothing else was said on their journey through the winding tunnels to the entrance to the council chamber. There was a beautiful, intricately carved picture of a meadow with the sun’s rays touching down on the surface of the wooden doors. The picture was meant to be warm, welcoming even, but Roger’s insides clinched in an icy, suffocating fear when he saw them.

  They stood in front of the doors, motionless. The fear had almost driven him into a panic state: his eyes were watering, his hands were clammy, and his skin itched. He looked at Tigaffo, but he wasn’t moving.

  “Why aren’t we goin’ in?” Roger questioned, his pulse pounding so loud in his ears it had become a thunder that raced through his veins, driving him, commanding him to run, to flee. Somehow he managed to keep his feet steady even as the drumming reached a crescendo behind his eyes.

  “When they’re ready, the doors will be opened by the servant gnomes.” Tigaffo’s voice was flat.

  Roger glanced down and noticed a pair of gnomes standing on either side of the entryway. He absently ran his finger over the painful welt in the palm of his hand. There was a small click as the doors were unlatched, and both of them swung outward in unison. When they were fully opened, Roger bit down on his tongue and followed Tigaffo inside.

  Inside there were close to thirty Obawok, and at least fourteen of the ugly little creatures were seated in a bl
ockish semi-circle around very large desk. The one in the center had shockingly silver hair and wore thick satin-lined velvet robes. Those seated around him had deep blue hair, directly contrasting with the dark maroon hair of the nine others that stood in the back of the room. As Roger was pushed to the front of the group he sucked in a lungful of cold air and started to cough when he was suddenly confronted with another human not ten feet away.

  Then, as quickly as they had led him in, a group of Obawok led the other man out. The man was obviously in his early twenties with a short crop of stark blonde hair, crystal clear eyes, and a tan that made his teeth stand out in stark contrast. Beads of sweat stood out on his dark brow, and the smile that played across the stranger’s lips was so tightly wound that Roger thought it might actually break and fall off the young man’s face. The guy nodded toward Roger.

  Roger found himself nodding back despite his astonishment and watched as the doors closed on his only link to humanity.

  After staring at the door for a few seconds, he let out a pent up whoosh of air and looked around the room. As he did, he was surprised to notice that while most of the maroon haired ones appeared to have healthy skin, most of the blue haired ones had large brown grease spots covering their hands and checks.

  A shaky breath escaped between his chapped lips in a low whistle, and he looked around the room and took another deep breath. Thick pieces of deep red fabric had been tacked to the walls, but the floors and ceilings had been painted a slightly mismatched shade of red. There were large areas where the paint had chipped away revealing the dark green earth.

  A loud scraping of chairs shocked Roger out of his revere, and he felt every nerve in his body clash. All of the Obawok were standing as the silver haired Obawok waited for complete silence before he clucked his tongue three times and held his fat, pale green palms up and out over the desk and wiggled his pudgy sausage fingers. The room was gripped by a silence so deep it was like a blanket.