Lumen and the Thistle

by EJ Wozniak

  “This is a lot to take in. . . Do I have the option to not?” Lumen asked.

  “To not what?”

  “To not go and learn to be an Eauge. Wait, Eauges master water, correct?”

  “Correct, and of course you have a choice. This isn’t for everyone. You’re right, this is a lot to take in. I know you though, you want to learn, you want to do more than what you’re doing now. This is your opportunity Lu! You may not be saving lives as a doctor but you will be saving lives. Lots of them, I might add,” Alec said.

  Lumen put his head down, lost in deep thought.

  “Seems like a lot of responsibility, I need to think about this, Alec,” Lumen said concernedly.

  Alec smiled and nodded his head.

  “I understand. I have a meeting with Al and Janis in a little while. I’ll get out of here. I think you have some new puzzles over there.” Alec pointed to the kitchen table.

  Alec waved his left hand and opened up a window with the lights. He winked at Lumen and walked through. The window closed, and the lights dispersed. Lumen stared at the spot Alec left from for a moment before walking over to the kitchen table. He looked down and saw two new puzzles. One was of a baseball stadium filled with fans who all looked the same. He thought that would make it difficult.

  He picked up the other puzzle. This one was called “Savannah: The city of New Beginnings.” This one was of the city of Savannah’s skyline. It looked a bit less challenging. Lumen chose the Savannah puzzle. He ripped off the plastic, took the lid off the box, and dumped the pieces out. His mind began to race, just as it always did when he opened a new puzzle. He felt like he knew what he had to do. He was about to begin when his mother walked in with the pizza.

  “Hi, boys! I got some breadsticks as well. They didn’t have the marinara sauce, so I just have the garlic sauce and some ranch.”

  Alice paused for a second when she saw Lumen working on a new puzzle.

  “Oh! You found the puzzles. Is everything all right?” Alice had a concerned tone suddenly.

  “Yes, mom. I just needed a break to think.”

  “Where did Alec go?”

  Lumen thought of a lie as quickly as he could.

  “Uh, his mom called. Said he had to watch his siblings for the day.”

  Lumen thought about how he would have to lie to his mom all the time if he left to the other side for class to become an Eauge. He still didn’t know what that meant entirely.

  “Well that’s too bad, more pizza for me and you, I guess. I’ll get you a plate and leave you to the puzzle. Don’t forget about your medicine, young man.”

  Lumen rolled his eyes but told Alice he would take the medicine. Another lie, he thought.

  Alice set down a plate with a couple slices of pizza and a breadstick with some ranch. She also brought him some water. Lumen thanked her and almost immediately zoned into his puzzle. He had a method for completing them as fast as possible. He turned all the pieces over so they faced upwards. He separated all of the edge pieces into one pile, the pieces with the skyline in another pile, and the sky behind the city in another pile. Next, he sorted those piles into smaller piles according to color. After he had all the pieces separated, he began to assemble the border. The border took him almost no time at all. He chose the first piece at random and built off of it. The piece he needed always stuck out to him like a sore thumb. He finished the border and transitioned to the upper left-hand corner as he worked his way across and down. The sky was almost all one color but Lumen had no problem finding the next piece to fit. Once he had that part finished, he moved on to the city. This part was even easier as there was more color differentiation. Two hours, three minutes, and two thousand pieces later, Lumen was finished. He realized he only ate a bite of his pizza. He sat in his chair, finished his food, and drank all of his water. He continued to sit and think for a few moments. He had decided.

  * * *

  Lumen was going to do it. He decided he would at least try out a couple of the classes, and if it seemed too crazy, he would tell them he wasn’t interested any longer. He wanted to tell Alec but didn’t know how to reach him.

  He walked into his room to think about what to do next. He decided he would just talk out loud. These people were listening and watching for a while now apparently, maybe they are now, he thought.

  “Okay, I’ll do it. I’ll become an Oosh or whatever.”

  Nobody answered him.

  “Hello?”

  He sat silent for a moment, but no one answered. Wrigley walked in and sat in front of Lumen.

  “Can you see them, Wrig? Where are they?”

  Wrigley barked at Lumen and then turned to the middle of the room. Lumen looked up and noticed several of the lights.

  “Oh right, I guess I can do this myself.”

  Alice walked into the room.

  “Hey Lu, I’m taking off to work. I left some money on the counter if you want to grab some food for dinner. There’s leftover pizza in the fridge. Please pick up your mess in the kitchen,” Alice said hurriedly.

  “Sure, Mom. Have a good night.”

  Alice smiled and walked out quickly. Lumen waited until he heard the front door close. He realized he would have to be very cautious with when and where he would do this. He had the night to himself now though, he could plan it out another time. He went back to the middle of the room.

  “Okay, okay, where to start . . .”

  Wrigley sat in the middle of the room. Lumen started to focus more on the lights. He put his hands out and pushed one of the lights aside. He didn’t have to touch them to move them. If he focused on one of them, he could just use his arm to indicate where he wanted the light to go. He started to use both of his hands to move the lights around. He separated them into three bunches. One was what he thought were the outer pieces of the window, one was the inner window, and the others were pieces that didn’t seem to fit in with the others. He worked with the outer pieces first and quickly made a border. He then filled in the window with the pieces that went inside. He put in the last piece, and instantly the window beamed.

  Lumen was nervous. He looked at Wrigley. Wrigley looked back at Lumen, barked and jumped through the window.

  Lumen was stunned.

  “Wrigley! Wrig! Come back!”

  Lumen stood in front of the window, yelling for Wrigley to come back. He couldn’t hear anything or see anything, just the colors of the window.

  Lumen shook his hands out, preparing himself to jump through the window. He took a step back and ran.

  He stopped just in front of the window, taking a deep breath and sticking his hand inside. He looked on the other side of the lights, where his desk was, but could not see his hand. Just then he felt that his hand was getting wet.

  Lumen took a deep breath, put his other hand over his nose, closed his eyes, and stepped through.

  Everything went white for a moment, and suddenly he was standing in what appeared to be a forest. He looked up, and the trees were bigger than anything he had ever seen before. They seemed to go up a mile. The bark was grooved and aged. Branches grew from all different spots along the trunk, all of which were covered with buzzing life.

  He looked back down and around and noticed how almost everything here was unfamiliar to him. The plants, the trees, even the dirt on the ground, it was all different.

  He was mesmerized by the vibrant scenery. He took notice of a vibrant purple flower and reached down to pluck it. After he picked it up, the petals unfolded one by one to reveal a neon green center. The color was so bright that it hurt Lumen’s eyes to look at it directly. He tossed it aside and continued to look around at his surroundings. He noticed a plant with leaves that were bigger than his entire body. Through the crowded tree branches, the sky seemed more blue than any sky he had seen. It was as if he were looking up at a sky blanketed by a bucket of royal blue paint. He decided this had to be real; it didn’t seem plausible to him for his mind to create what was before him. Lumen took a deep b
reath and the crisp air energized his body and mind. Lumen felt awakened.

  He felt some raindrops hit his face and suddenly realized he hadn’t seen Wrigley.

  “Wrig! Where are ya, boy?”

  Lumen looked in all directions through some speckled flowers and thorny trees before he heard a bark coming through the crowded trees. He took off, running towards it. He jumped and ducked through all sorts of shrubs and bushes, stepping over the tree roots jutted from the ground, sometimes as high as Lumen’s hips. The forest, or whatever this place was, wasn’t dark but wasn’t the most well-lit place either. It was as if it were lit by a few candles. The trees covered most of the sky above. Lumen could see some brighter light in the distance. He heard Wrigley bark again, but still couldn’t quite make out where it was coming from. The bark sounded closer; he was going the right way. He continued to run when an unfamiliar creature darted in front of him from one bush to another. The black blur moved very quickly and seemed to be moving on all fours. Lumen paused for a moment, scared of what kind of creature crossed his path, before running even faster.

  Lumen continued to run out of the forest until the land seemed to come to an end. He slowed down just in time. The dirt stopped to reveal a razor-sharp edge to a steep cliff. He stopped and slid to the edge, doing everything he could to keep his balance. He peeked over the edge without getting to close, but couldn’t see anything below except for some tree roots and vines dangling from the ledge. He leaned over some more and couldn’t see anything at all except for a few clouds. Wrigley barked again. Lumen looked left and saw Wrigley sitting a few feet from him.

  “There you are. I need to get you home.”

  Wrigley sat wagging his tail. He barked again, not at Lumen, but at something or someone to Lumen’s right.

  Lumen looked to his right where a familiar tall and peculiar-looking man had just appeared seemingly from thin air. It was Allister.

  “Hi, Lumen. Welcome to Mighty Falls Island.”

  “Oh, thank goodness someone is here. I thought I was lost. I swear when we were at your cabin it was snowing, and there weren’t any of these trees.” Lumen scratched his head.

  “Good observation, Lumen.”

  Allister smiled at Lumen.

  “Right, thanks. Uh. . . can I get my dog home? I don’t think he should be here.”

  “First things first.”

  Allister stepped toward Lumen, and put his hand on Lumen’s back.

  “Remember to focus.”

  Before he could open his mouth to say “what”, Allister pushed him off the side of the cliff.

  * * *

  Lumen felt the ground ripped from under him as his stomach dropped. He desperately reached for the tree roots and vines hanging off the side as he fell but couldn’t get a grip on anything. He was too scared to yell. He fell through the clouds in silence as they soaked him. He came out the other end of the clouds and could see more of the cliff. He was falling quickly as his surroundings became a blur. The cliff stopped, and Lumen continued to fall. Lumen looked up to see that the forest, or whatever that place was, was floating in midair. Lumen couldn’t think about that now. He was going to fall to his demise; he thought his life should be flashing before his eyes. He looked down and could not see much. The ground looked to be miles below. Lumen closed his eyes so that he couldn’t see when he would hit the ground. As he closed his eyes, he saw a light in front of him that seemed to be falling with him. He turned himself around in midair and saw more of them. He quickly pulled them all into one spot and worked frantically to put them together into a window. When he put the last piece in, the window beamed. Lumen swam toward it and, with all his might, thrusted himself through.

  He landed flat on his chest in some sand, still wet from the clouds. He had some sand in his mouth, but he didn’t care. He was alive. His body ached from the landing.

  “Great job, Lumen.”

  Lumen turned around to find Allister standing beside Wrigley.

  “Are you insane?! You could have killed me! I thought I was going to die!” Lumen was breathing heavily from what just had happened. He had never felt so alive and scared at the same time in his life.

  “Oh, don’t be ridiculous. It was a long fall; I knew you would get it. It was a test. Plus, Janis was down there just in case,” Allister said nonchalantly.

  “Oh, just in case, huh? That was the most insane thing that has ever happened to me. I don’t even know how I knew to make a window, I just did.”

  “In life or death situations, there are two types of people. Those who survive, and those who don’t.”

  Lumen thought that was an obvious statement. He shrugged that off and looked around. There was sand everywhere. As far as the eye could see, it was a dry and deserted environment.

  “Where are we now? What was that last place? I could have sworn that last place was an island floating in the sky,” Lumen said.

  “That would be an accurate statement. Follow me.”

  Allister and Wrigley took off. Lumen didn’t see anything in that direction but didn’t know how else he would get out of there. He took a few steps forward before realizing his feet were stuck. He looked down to see his feet sinking. He tried pulling one of his legs out of the sand, but they wouldn’t budge. He kept sinking.

  “Hey, wait up. I’m stuck, Allister. What the . . . could you help me out?”

  “That you are . . .” Allister remarked.

  Allister waved his hand, and a window opened up. He whistled for Wrigley to follow him, and they both stepped through the window. Lumen was alone.

  “Are you kidding me?!” Lumen yelled.

  At this point, Lumen’s hands were in the quicksand. He didn’t know what to do at that point. He didn’t have his hands to move any lights.

  He was sinking quickly.

  “Who knew quicksand was so quick,” Lumen said aloud.

  The sand was at his neck. He took a deep breath before he became fully submerged. The sand seeped into his nose and ears. Lumen thought that this was it. He would die of suffocation. Lumen gasped for air only to inhale more sand. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t move. He thought of his mom for a moment and how devastated she would be.

  Everything went black, and he couldn’t see a thing.

  As Lumen was just about out of breath, he saw the lights. He wished he could move them. He visualized where he would maneuver each light. He pictured each piece coming together before realizing that he could move them with his mind! The lights began to form a window. How do I get to it now?

  Can I just try to move the window towards me?

  He focused on the window, and it moved toward him in the depths of the sand, in the pitch black.

  Just then, his head and arms popped out in a field of snow. Lumen spit some sand out of his mouth into the snow, still able to feel the rest of his body stuck back in the sand. He took a few deep breaths of air before he realized Allister and Wrigley were standing nearby.

  “Ah, there you are. Give me your hand,” Allister said.

  Allister grabbed Lumen’s hand and pulled him through the window entirely onto the snow.

  “Okay, that time I was for sure going to die. There was no backup plan there! Again, are you insane? Are you just trying to kill me?”

  Allister chuckled.

  “Most of the students don’t have this many questions and comments on the first day. You are a funny one, Lu.”

  Lumen was about to say something back to Allister when he saw Wrigley run by him after what appeared to be an extremely burly critter. It was small but very muscular with long ears, just like a rabbit. It was a dark gray and its short fur was mangled and dirty. Lumen could see the animal’s veins running through its legs and its teeth sticking out of its mouth.

  “Wrigley? Get back here! What is he after? Is that thing going to kill him? Wrig, wrig!”

  “Oh no, don’t worry. Wrigley won’t be able to catch that. If you recall, your first night here we had some wetchop meat. Well . .
.”

  “Right, wetchop . . .”

  Wrigley came trotting back, empty-mouthed.

  “Here ya go, boy,” Allister waved his hand again, and an ice cube fell to the snow. Wrigley jumped on top of it.

  “My mom says ice is bad for dog’s teeth. You shouldn’t give him so much.”

  “My apologies, Lu; I just want the dog to like me,” Allister said.

  “Yeah, well, I think he is starting to like you more than me. I need to take him home. My mom would be furious if I lost him,” Lumen retorted.

  “Don’t worry, my boy. Dogs are very loyal. I just want him to know we are the good guys.”

  Lumen nodded his head slowly.

  “Right . . . Anyway, where are we now? This looks more like the first place I came to,” Lumen said.

  “Right again. Alec did say you have a good memory.”

  “Okay, great,” Lumen answered sarcastically.

  They were both silent for a moment.

  Lumen cleared his throat and spoke again.

  “Okay, so what now?”

  “Oh, right! One last thing,” Allister said quickly.

  Allister waved his hand again. Lumen tried to move towards Allister but couldn’t. He was frozen inside of some giant ice block that encompassed his entire body. He couldn’t move, he couldn’t breathe, and felt unbearably cold. Lumen didn’t panic this time though; he knew what to do. He could see the lights in front of him and pieced them together to create a window and moved it toward him. The window moved over Lumen’s frozen body. Lumen, still frozen in the block of ice, plopped down on the floor of Allister’s cabin.

  “Croaky! He took the whole block of ice with him!” Janis yelled.

  “Well, at least he reacted quickly,” Allister said.

  Janis and Allister conversed casually while Allister held his hand above the block and snapped his fingers. It all turned to water instantly. Lumen hit the floor with a thud.

  “Okay, I have had enough!”

  Allister and Janis laughed loudly, each of them doubled over, trying to catch their breaths. Wrigley howled once. Lumen gave him an angry look, and Wrigley sat down with his ears back.