Carbuncle

From Betweenlines

The road is a long string of crunching leaves and off-rhythm drums beating out into the long brown distance. His forehead and his neck feel like they're on fire.

Snippets of conversation run in the background, the constant outpouring of the day's half-heard memories. One of them continues on too long, the end of some daytime TV court show (the inevitable) that runs out of his ears and stains the lawn with sick. The back of his head pricks and the road behind him lengthens into laughter and the sounds clarify into shapes.

He's about to ask a question when the gavel bangs and he realizes he's in a courtroom, standing in the middle in one of those speaking platforms that don't exist outside of movies. Some part of him thinks this is stupid, I could analyze this so easily but he notices people, people crowded around the room that he knows, and suddenly this all becomes very serious. He stands there and wrings his hands and waits.

The thing in the judge's seat looks like a muppet in yellow and purple, huge teeth and little googly eyes. It glares down and he feels somehow like his soul's been insulted by its very presence, so he looks down at his hands and worries a hole in his sleeve. Its mouth opens, and slurring speech flies out. He hasn't heard the voice before, and he is afraid.

"Who are you, anyway?"

His mouth won't open. He can't; there's something sticky all over it that smells like blood and fear. He shakes his head frantically- can't.

Snarling, the thing leaps at him, claws landing on the floor right in front of him- he leaps back and cries out. "Who are you?" says the thing angrily, its ringed stripes melting into something bigger than he is (and it feels so much bigger than that), a deformed Cheshire Cat wearing a powdered judge's wig. "Don't waste our time! Don't hesitate!"

He leans back against the bar and grips it; his mouth opens of its own volition, and outside of him someone else speaks.

A young woman in the jury stands up, beautiful in robes of pale green, says in a soft version of his voice:

"I am someone who's looking for something greater. I want to know what Wisdom is, and I won't rest until I find myself."

But she doesn't, because another young man in the audience stands up and objects, clad in red armor and brandishing his spear:

"Don't be stupid. I'm Alex- Alexander, uniter of continents, student of Aristotle, lover of men."

But there was a barking laugh from behind the bench, and the Cat turns- to see a giant white fox holding a mask-

"I'm a lot of things to a lot of people, and I'll choose which one fits the situation best if I want to- your moral crucible is boring me!"

But he isn't looking at any of them (all one of them),

Because in the corner there's a little flash of purple lightning, a crack ripping into his mind, pulsating and smelling of ozone and iron and something else, and he hears Jade's voice again, clear in every tone as always. A million things could come out of your head; and he knows that in a very very indirect way, this thing is the cause of that, and the cause of (he reads the words in reflected light shining onto him as a sheet of paper) precisely one fifth of everything bad that's ever happened to you, laughing.

Beautiful. It's horrible, and it's blasphemy, and he's afraid of it so badly, but it's beautiful, and looking into it he wants to be there and never leave and-

He screams as the thing's million little teeth sink into his arm and rip the flesh off, and he collapses to the floor.

There is a wet little slurp before it speaks. "Pay attention! I don't want to say this again!" It paces over to the bench and lays, licking the blood from its lips, and this has gone solid too long. "Answer the question- who are you?"

The absurdity of the situation hits him in the face like a wet towel, and with a flash of a changed theme he opens his mouth again to speak.

"Wh- why is that the question? Why do I-"

"ANSWER"

"I'm-" the world is still, and his arm is cold and it aches. He looks down to see it covering his hand, heavy like a spiked gauntlet-

And looks up, with the tiniest sliver of certainty: "It isn't about who I am, it's about what I'm going to do w-"

The world collapses around him before he can finish, and he sits up with a yell like a crashing gong.

It's still very dark in the room. His right arm still hurts- it feels numb. His thoughts arrange themselves back into patterns, and he realizes where he is and what he did. Again. He sighs; as if in response, soon the bedroom door opens and he looks into a shadowed face.

"Are you all right?" the older man asks, walking closer.

He pulls up the blankets and feels a little more exposed for it. "Think I- slept wrong. On my arm, and it hurt. Doesn't matter," he mumbles. A yawn catches him. "Uhm, what time is it? You're up..."

"Mmh. It's early. Go back to sleep, Alex." A hand running over his head. Feels nice.

"Classes. In the morning," he slides back down, stretching out a bit and pulling the covers up to his face. "Shouldn't've," he tells himself plaintively, under his breath.

"Don't worry about it; you won't sleep through anything important." He sees a grin in the half-light, and the man adjusts his glasses and turns back around. "Now rest. You look like you need it."

The door closes. He tugs at the hem of the pillowcase and worries about the words- it's always repetitions, always, so he doesn't have to remember, but they aren't and he does- until exhaustion takes him.

He remembers the touch he was given and floats off to happier things, a little problem given and a little taken away.


"...Instinct has never been particularly kind to me."
"And doesn't it teach you when it's done?"