The half-forgotten
Other half of my short life
In short story form

 
To the Castle
8-07-1998

I was on vacation with my family (mom, sister, cousins), attending a family reunion. Everyone was exchanging gifts, so my sister, my cousins, and myself went to retrieve them from our tent. In the process, I tripped over a little bag that started to inflate itself into this huge plastic rectangular bubble. My sister came in and went, "Eric! That was your present!" I handed her the other gifts and opened the bubble. Shirts. Tons of the ugliest shirts I'd ever seen. Several on top were all black, but had really stupid logos or colorful designs on them. The only one I considered keeping was the Chicago Bulls shirt, just cuz it would show those people (?) I wasn't from those parts (?). Underneath those shirts were some very colorful, even shiny, button-up collared shirts. Bleah. And underneath THOSE were some gaudy sweatshirts. I wondered who in Hell had picked these out, and hoped I could return them all for a shitload of cool clothing.

I made my way to the main group, but my mom converged on me buy the car, saying aunt-so-and-so needed a picture that wasn't stored on her digital camera. She (the aunt) was being a total bitch about it, so I told my mom I would search the car for it. I put on a robe and entered a space capsule among many other people. It was about the size of two parking spaces. Next thing I knew, I was in space, and gliding over the moon into some complex, down a large metal tunnel. I thought to myself, "This seems like the kind of thing that would happen in a dream of mine, because it's so unexpected. But this isn't a dream. Wow. This is amazing." The capsule turned and bumped into a wall. I figured the pilot screwed up, but then it continued to turn sideways and ram into a button on the wall, like an elevator. It settled onto the floor and the doors opened.

As I rose out of the capsule and into the hallway, I realized I hadn't brought any more clothing with me! I was standing there in my robe, and it was rather cold. Looking around, hardly anyone else had thought of it, either. Many of them also wore robes, while others bore shorts and t-shirts. Nobody was dressed for cool climate.

I walked down the hall, basically following the crowd. Our group met up with another group coming from another hall, and yet another, until we were this large group of people approaching this huge open passage to the outside. (Huge as in wide, but only as tall as the current hallway.) When I got there, and my eyes adjusted to the light, I saw a nice resort. People in bathing suits, lots of tiered swimming pools, sunny weather, music playing. I warmed up and removed my robe, walking around in my underwear, which would have to suffice as a bathing suit.

As I oriented myself, walking along the edge of the pools, a few people shouted things like, "THIS is where it is. America's nothin'. Neon is IT!" I figured it made sense for a city on another planet to be better than the rest, with no neighbors to compete with it, and new settlers to make it good. I walked along the edge of one of the pool tiers, where two kids were splashing each other. I was making my way towards this attractive woman I recognized. One of the kids tripped me, as I wasn't really paying attention to them, and I fell into the water in the pool below. I climbed back up and said, "Good one, kid," and sat down by the woman. She was completely naked, and I felt silly in my underwear, but I didn't want to take them off because of my bladder infection.

I don't remember what we said to each other, but it was a short exchange. Someone above started talking on a loudspeaker. The person above was explaining how the extra-pleasure sensors here worked. I thought it was a cool idea, and humored experimenting with this on the woman, but she'd vanished. I then suddenly knew that she was unpleasantly getting it on with some guy who was too "big" for her. Oh well.

I pet on my robe and walked into the museum. Most of the exhibits were not functioning, and I don't remember much about this part. One exhibit wasn't really an exhibit, but it was the room that house the colony's main gun defense system. Reading the label, it said it was designed by Dread. I figured it wasn't actually designed by him, but it just said that to honor his original idea, since he wasn't active anymore.

I walked across the street to a grassy field and overlooked a rocky, perilous gorge. I remembered how at one time, one could drive down there, but the path had since broken up. There was a jeep parked up there, and a man in the gorge below. I turned around and left before he saw me. I didn't feel like helping him if he wanted help. Another cocky person with a jeep.

I walked in the grass, along the road. Cars passed by. Someone narrated my progress, commenting how the single strip of unmown grass was the border between this and some horrible place. I crossed the street again. Two guys saw me from behind, and came running after me, going, "Wait wait!" With a single bound I hurled myself over the fence. The two guys caught up with me, exhilarated at the things they'd just seen in some big old house, the aforementioned horrible place. One of them ranted, "You should see this place. Up in this one room, there's..." I cut him off, "...a secret trap door up. Yeah, I know. I used to go to that place all the time. I've BEEN up there." "Really? What's it like?" We started walking back towards the house, cuz I suddenly had the urge to show them all the secret passageways and stuff. "Pretty fucking fucked up, man. It's freaky up there." We descended some stairs in the house, and I suddenly remembered another secret passage. I'd been here before in other dreams. "Oh, there's another passage down here under the stairs!" I remembered that that one took you to other worlds, and was a tight squeeze. "Oh, and over here, there's a long passage up, did you find that? See? It's hollow! You haven't crossed over to the castle?"

It wasn't just the three of us anymore. There was a large group of us, and we all were in this old castle that the secret passage afforded us. People were amazed by all the stuff around, like crowns and capes and carpets and paintings. I was bored. Two people decided to have a mock royal wedding, and everyone thought it was the sweetest thing. I went back to my car, and drove to the gorge, pondering taking a visit down there to see the inhuman inhabitants of the rift, but I decided against it. I turned my car around, almost backing it over the edge, and drove away.


posted by Phlegm at 11/24/2003