At Least He's Not On Fire: A Tour of the Things That Escape My Head

by Philbrook, Chris

  BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

  Why am I sitting in the coffee shop? Where is that infernal beeping coming from? Why does this latte taste like old chewed meat? Or is that a sock I taste?

  BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

  Oh Hell, that's my alarm clock. Coffee shop is just a dream. Oh Hell, it's bright out. Damn it, my hand is asleep again. Fingers are number than ever. I'll be fumbling with this shut off button for five minutes now. That Indian asshole in the apartment above me is going to start screaming again.

  BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

  I'll cast a spell. I know that cantrip well enough, and my fingers can be as numb as they want.

  BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

  Abe sat up on the edge of his worn mattress and addressed the phone sitting on the milk crate he used as a bed stand. The air stirred slightly as the young man gathered his thoughts to cast the spell. There was some magic in the air here in his apartment, his sanctum. On the mantle of the nonfunctional fireplace, he'd organized semi-precious stones that had mystical powers. There was always the scent of incense on the nose. Scents had power.

  I'm ready. Abe gestured with his tingly, stiff fingers at the touch screen of his cell phone, still sitting a couple of feet from his hands on the plastic crate. He slid his finger in the air and spoke a word laced with arcane power: "Commoveo."

  Abe watched as the image on the phone glitched. The LCD screen didn't feel the touch of his spell in the same way it would've felt a finger made of flesh and blood. He sighed at his newest failed attempt to mix technology and magic. The tingling in his fingers had abated, but he couldn't abandon the spell.

  BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

  Fucking thing. "Commoveo," he said again, sliding his fingers through the air, this time with more emphasis and focus. Abe felt a surge of energy come from somewhere and fill his word and fingers with a different tingle altogether.

  The red button reacted. Jumped. It slid across the screen smoothly to the other side, silencing the horrid alarm.

  BEEP! BE—

  "What the hell?" Abe said aloud, running his hand through his thinning black hair. He looked down at his fingers, his palms, turning his hands over several times, trying to find the source of the sudden energy he'd somehow tapped into. He stood on creaky morning legs and looked about his apartment for something new. Perhaps some creature or artifact that Mr. Doyle had perhaps slipped in while he was asleep.

  But there was nothing. Just empty pizza boxes, clothes in need of a washer, and Magic the Gathering cards.

  His phone elicited another electronic bleat and Abe had a sudden pang of failure. But he was wrong. This was just the ringer. He picked the phone up with living fingers and looked at the caller ID on the screen. It read simply: Mr. Doyle.

  Abe thumbed the answer button over and lifted it to his ear. "Mr. Doyle?"

  An older British man's voice came back, "Abraham."

  "Yes, Mr. Doyle? What can I do for you this morning?" Abe asked quickly. Mr. Doyle didn't like it when he hesitated. Mr. Doyle said men who wanted to learn the art of magic should always act with confidence.

  There was a pause on Mr. Doyle's end. Is he at a loss for words? Has the apocalypse come?

  "Abraham, I think you need to call in sick to work. Someone else will need to tend to your company's accounting today. In fact, you should phone them that you can no longer work for them. Something rather large is afoot in the world and your time needs to be redirected to more appropriate tasks." Doyle sounded somewhere between ecstatic and horrified. Abe had never heard him speak in such a way.

  How the hell will I pay rent? "How the hell will I pay rent, Mr. Doyle? I can't afford to quit my job at the firm." Doyle was an accountant at a large law firm. Emotionally, it was a dead end position, but financially it was a homerun, despite the contrary evidence of the décor of his apartment. Abe looked down sadly at the milk crate again.

  "Abraham, I can afford for you to be in my employ. Many of my earlier years home in The United Kingdom were fiscally bountiful. I shall replace your salary in its entirety. Sack yourself via the telephone and come to my brownstone immediately."

  Abe smiled. This was what he had wanted all along. He'd been an apprentice to the old British mage for nearly two years now, and all he'd learned was three minor spells and how to read ten ancient and long since dead languages. By this point, if the magic thing didn't work out, all he had left was counting beans in a cubicle.

  "Abraham, is this arrangement sufficient?"

  Shit, I must've gone silent daydreaming again. "Yes, Mr. Doyle. Sorry. Lost in thought. I wanted to tell you I was able to cast a cantrip a few minutes ago. It seemed far more powerful than anything I've ever done before. I think I'm getting the hang of it."

  "Dearest Abraham, something else is happening. Something large. Something that will certainly have rippling effects on the whole world, both mundane, and magical. Some of my most precious possessions in my study have begun to… awaken, shall I say. Clocks ticking, candles burning again, things of that nature. All roused by something, or someone."

  Abe started to wonder what that meant but caught himself. Daydreaming was unbecoming for someone who wanted to master magic.

  "I guess I'll quit and head over then," Abe said softly. I'll need to go in to get the stuff out of my cube.

  "You guess? I suggest you stop guessing, Mister Fellows, and start being confident and assertive. I haven't lived as long as I have to waste my time on someone who guesses at things. Come over when you are ready. And please don’t forget to turn your alarm off." Doyle cut the call.

  Abe let his hands settle in his lap. He looked around the room, wondering what had happened that made Mr. Doyle ask him to make such a huge change to his life.

  BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

  The beeping startled Abe, and he dropped the phone to the hardwood floor of his apartment. He reached down to pick up the smart phone and laughed as he thumbed the snooze button permanently.

  "How did he know my alarm wasn't off?"

  Chapter Two

  Tesser

  I am buried in earth.

  Tesser's body was immense. From the tip of his nose to the end of his tail, he was nearly one hundred and fifty feet long, fully half the length of a modern football field. Right now he was coiled in tightly, wrapped up to be as small as was physically possible. Tesser had no idea what modern football was though. Not yet at least.

  How did I come to be here?

  The earth holding Tesser's draconic body still was pressing down with enough force to crush coal into diamonds, but his ancient scaled skin held firm. Dragon flesh would not succumb to something so natural and primal. The mere presence of earth —no matter how crushing it may be– wasn't enough.

  I need to reach the surface.

  Tesser's eyes were already closed against the dirt and stones, but he furrowed his massive brows tighter and focused his mind. A swirl of sensations cascaded over his awareness as he opened up to all the information the world offered him. One by one each of the scales on his body registered what was against them, and precisely how much pressure existed. His nostrils, still sealed with a flap of scales to keep out the invasive sand, opened a slit and took in the tiniest amount of matter. The scent of organic matter told him his depth. Within seconds Tesser realized which direction was up, and how far he had to burrow to get to the surface.

  The muscles that corded the length of Tesser's body were unlike anything science had ever seen. Only the dinosaurs were comparable, but to compare a Tyrannosaurus Rex to Tesser was akin to comparing a garden trowel to a nuclear weapon. Both were capable of moving earth, albeit in a spectacularly different fashion.

  Tesser's enormous hand opened, the fingers as large as tree trunks and tipped with curving black scythes of claws. The black tips ripped through the earth smoothly, loosening it in handfuls large enough to fit a small car.

  Still too tight.

  The immobile body of a dragon might register as stone to a geologist. The bones and muscles are far mo
re dense and supernatural than simple flesh, and when several hundred tons of dragon chooses to move, anything preventing that from happening gives way.

  Tesser shrugged. The earth moved. Boston’s Back Bay felt it. The media that night reported a "minor tremor," a localized earthquake that reached 2.1 on the Richter scale.

  The earth below gave way abruptly. Tesser's massive arms and legs shot out and arrested his short slide. Several yards of stone, some of it shaped in an unnatural way, fell away below him. Tesser immediately opened his nostrils and inhaled for the first time in thousands of years. He was assaulted by foreign smells that caused discomfort. Primarily, he disliked the burning smells, sulfurous and unpleasant, that reminded him of the raw eruptions of volcanoes and the ancient pits of tar that swallowed so many creatures hundreds of thousands of years prior.

  Tesser's opened his eyes. Larger by far than many eyes to ever have gazed on the world, these eyes were orbs of gold and slit like a cat's. He could see in any level of darkness, complete blackness if need be. Presently, he looked down through the hole he'd made to the strange passage below. In the oddly lit passage, he could see a uniformly wide channel with three metallic rails running along. One rail hummed with an invisible energy that was oddly reminiscent of magic. Tesser was intrigued. The opening was small, only a third of his length. He would have to shift to a smaller form to fit through.

  Tesser was not limited to a single form. The body he found most natural, that of a massive, winged dragon was not his only choice. Tesser could take on the form of any living creature should he wish it and right then he wished to be smaller.

  It was a form of magic, though not a spell. More ancient than the clumsy arts the tribal humans were just now grasping. Tesser employed magic the way a bird would fly, or the way a fish swam. It was natural and happened without thought. Tesser shrank down into a form that would fit through the hole below him, starting with his hindquarters first. As his tail and hind legs compacted down, he dug his claws into one side of the space in which he had been dormant, clutching tightly so as not to fall. Once he had reduced to a little less than a third of his original size, Tesser unclenched his still massive claws and descended down until he fell, straddling the channel in the strange stone passage.

  The sides of the fairly round tunnel were covered in small, straight shaped white stones that were uniformly smooth. Spaced every so often were images, clearly made by something that could write or draw. It took only a moment for him to realize there were strange images of humans as well.

  The images were massive, far larger than the humans he remembered. The largest human he'd ever seen was a savage in a cold village in the far north. He was nearly as tall as Tesser's largest finger and claw. He was a specimen and Tesser was glad to let him live after he threw a spear ignorantly at him. Needless death was not Tesser's way and the man would be good breeding stock to improve the human lineage.

  But these humans were a head taller than the warrior had been so long ago. That human came from a village that had only just begun to make markings on hide to remember things. But these images with the large humans…

  They have languages. And they are writing now. And some strange magic that allows them to capture perfect images of themselves. I must have slept a very long time indeed.

  Tesser heard the small sound of tiny feet moving from the darkness nearby. He'd heard the same sound before, and when he turned, he smiled. One of his favorite of creatures ever had come out to greet him.

  A dark-furred rat scurried out, completely unafraid of the massive dragon crouched in the alien tunnel. The rat had come from a hole in the white stoned wall and sniffed emphatically, wriggling its tiny nose and whiskers, taking in the powerful scent of the dragon.

  Another sound came from far off down the tunnel, and even though Tesser didn't know what the sound meant, he knew what creature it came from.

  A human. I need to observe. I need to see this new world. Unseen.

  Tesser shifted forms again.

  By the time the MBTA security guard arrived, Tesser had taken the form of a second rat, though his tiny eyes were still golden. He stood fearless, his nose wriggling as emphatically as his new friend's had been a moment before.

  The guard reached up to his shoulder and spoke. Tesser didn't understand any of the strange words and thought his manner of dress strange. He wore dark colors, none of which were the skins of an animal like the humans had worn when he was last awake.

  "Tunnel collapse, big time. We're gonna need to shut down the Green Line heading west between Copley and Hynes. Holy shit." The T was halted for several hours; unfortunate morning commuters were forced to find alternative routes.

  Tesser cocked his head and realized there was much he had to learn. He had all the time in the world in which to do it. As the other rat darted back into the hole in the wall, he decided to join him. The shrunken dragon would start with the lesson of the rat's tunnels.

  Rats always knew how to get around.

  Chapter Three

  Matilde "Matty" Rindahl

  Matty was on the phone.

  "Relax, relax, Matty. Your parents love you, and I know you're nervous they're here visiting from Norway, but there's no reason to be all amped up about it," Max said softly from the other side of Boston.

  Easy for you to say, Matty thought. "I know, Max, but this is the first time I've actually seen my mom and dad since the miscarriage, and since you and I stopped seeing each other. I guess I'm just freaking out for no reason. Maybe it's that silly little earthquake earlier. Stupid collapsed subway tunnel. Thanks for talking with me."

  "It's my pleasure, babe. You know I'll always be your friend," Max said.

  His sincerity was sickening. He probably always would be her friend, despite their past year of awkwardness and pain. There had been physical pain as well as emotional pain. Matilde and Max had been engaged to marry, and she pregnant with their baby boy. Money was accumulating in their joint savings account for them to buy a condo in Boston near Boston College where Max was an assistant professor in the psychology department. Matty was a promising grad student with job offers lining up. Matty was a fair-skinned, dark-haired beauty with bright green eyes; Max was tall and lean and handsome. Their lives looked bright and full of inevitable happiness.

  The fairy tale unraveled in the morning sun late the summer before when Matty awoke to find a large slick of blood between her legs. Max had rushed her to the hospital, and after the emergency room did everything it could, she was told her baby boy would never draw breath. She had miscarried.

  Try as they might, they could not conceive again. A fertility specialist, paid for by Max's family's wealth, told her that she was no longer able to have babies. She was devastated. Max's dream had always been to be a father, and she knew that with her his life would never be complete. There were more than a few tears, but in the end they agreed it was best to go their separate ways, wishing each other love and good luck.

  Max returned to work, and soon after, met Amanda, a beautiful grad student not too unlike Matty (though blonde), and they were forming what looked to be a good life. Matty had returned to grad school, this time at Boston University instead of Boston College, and was about to graduate. The reason for her family's visit from Norway was for that graduation.

  She realized Max had said something. "What, Max? I'm sorry. I'm all discombobulated right now."

  Max laughed, "You should've studied linguistics. You love all those big words. I just said that Amanda and I would try and stop by the graduation tomorrow. I'd like to say hello to your parents if there's time."

  Matty winced, "Max, I'm not sure my father is up for that. He's still a bit resentful about the breakup after we lost Aiden." Aiden. It would've been such a pretty name for a young boy.

  "I thought you'd talked to them about it? Explained the whole situation? That it was mutual?" Max sounded genuinely disappointed: more evidence of that sincerity that made her queasy.

  "Yes, I did expl
ain everything, Maxwell, but he's my father, and no matter what I say, you'll always be the man that left his daughter after her baby died. If you cured cancer, he'd still never shake your hand again."

  Max sighed. "I understand. That's sad. I guess maybe we'll just mail you a congratulations card instead. I'll pick you up a gift certificate to Legal. Can you tell your mother I said hello at least? Does Lindsey hate me too?"

  "No, she understands far more than my dad does. I'll pass along your good wishes, Max. I've got to go shortly. I need to drive to Logan to pick them up. Their flight was delayed a little, but I don't want to hit traffic on the way over."

  "Yeah, the Storrow will be a bit of a bitch at this hour. Why don't you just take the T over?"

  Matty had to swallow a laugh. "My father shouldn't have his slacks dirtied by the seats in Boston's public transportation system. Besides, I want to drive my new car over and show them how well I'm doing. He'll appreciate the new car."

  "How is the new job? I was pleased to hear you got the job ahead of getting your master's."

  Matty's inner-joy surfaced. "It is outstanding, Max. I love working in the lab, and culturing all the cells, and running all the experiments and trials and all that nerdy stuff. Plus, the money is ludicrous. If I can save like I think I can, then I'll be a very early retiree."

  "Take that Italian vacation we talked about. That's terrific, Matty. Well go get your parents. Tell your mother I said hello, and your father too if he doesn't curse me out too much."

  "I will, Max, and tell Amanda I said hello," Matty was as sincere as Max. She wanted him to be as happy as he could be, even if that meant it was without her.

  "I will. Good luck tomorrow, and toss that cap as high in the air as you can!"

  They said their goodbyes and Matty ended the call. The long-legged young woman walked around the island in her new Beacon Hill apartment and spied all the boxes she'd not yet unpacked. Emptying the boxes would be golden busy work for her father. She'd also intentionally left some Ikea furniture unmade; he’d start tackling it all as soon as they walked in the apartment door. That'd give her and her mother time together. She missed her mother fiercely since her and her father had moved to Norway. Her dad had missed his native country fiercely, and her mother was looking for a new experience anyway.