Fiction on the Fly is a new segment of Novel Idea. The premise is taken an idea and writing a short fiction narrative from it, without drafts. Just write it and post it. It is, in essence, what the writer wanted to accomplish, before they let themselves get in the way with editing and re-writing. I hope you enjoy.
*****
Title: Leader?
Inspiration: Handlebars by The FloBots
*****
It was bleak. That was the outlook of major economists, political advisers, pundits, news anchors, and pretty much everyone else in the country. Financial despair gripped the nation, causing panic in the streets and riots in most of the major cities. New York was under martial law for a time and, according to the last transmission from WGN, Chicago was powerless and ruled by street gangs, most of the people had fled.
Then he'd come along. He was once the CEO of a major corporation, marketing major from at least two college, multiple degrees, and a master of the microphone. His company had once dealt in computers and microtechnologies, now he headed into office. As much of the nation as could voted had essentially unanimously elected him. He had been handed unlimited power.
And somehow things got better. Financial institutions rose from the ashes of the old order, and the cities once again throve. The politicians that had been blamed for the previous depression were gone, and a new group had come to power. And they were loved nationwide.
The people once again had money. Jobs were more secure than they'd been for decades.
The leader stood in Chicago, looking over the rebuilding. The city had been retaken. The leader turned to the microphones in front of him, and to the gathered media standing in a rugged semi-circle around him. This broadcast was big. It was global.
"Look at me, nation. Look at me, world. My cause is noble. My power, that you gave to me, is pure. This nation, this tower of strength, is secure once more. We've handed out millions of vaccinations to combat the latest disease. We've overcome the power outages in the northeast and midwest. We've overcome."
At this even some of the media clapped. They loved him, and who wouldn't? He's assembled a team that had solved all of our problems. He'd almost single-handedly ended the economic depression. The violent street gangs had fallen into obscurity under his administration. He was all that was good in the world. And he kept talking.
"I can keep us safe, if you trust me. You all knew that our problems wouldn't be solved so easily. Some other things will have to happen to keep us safe." This isn't right, our problems are already solved. What's he talking about? "So I will cut to the chase with you, nation, world. To solve our problems some more changes will be made at the higher levels, and eventually at your level." Did he just insult us? Our level, what's that supposed to mean? "We will have to isolate. Our nation is no longer open to outsiders, and it will be so for sometime. The governt will be put under my control for at least two years. I'm doing this for you, nation. I'm doing it for the world. To solve our problems, we must keep our people at home. Unfortunately, the liberties you enjoy will be scaled back." What in God's name is he doing? We didn't vote for this...
"We need your help in this. If we are to survive this crisis, then we have to unite under one banner. You have to trust me that I have it all under my command. I can bring us back."
His image vanished from the TV screen, and at that moment I heard police sirens for the first time in over a year. They had stopped in my driveway, and were approaching my house with guns drawn.
12/31/2008
A New Year of Reading
2009 promises to be a decent year for reading, at least for me. Unless I go blind, or somehow lose brain function, I'll probably read more in 2009 than I did in 2008. And that's saying something. I'm fairly certain that I read at least forty or fifty novels in 2008, and that's not counting academic reading.
I could go down the list of books I read, but that would be boring to anyone who isn't me. Instead, I'll talk about what I want to read in 2009.
The list is actually shorter than I expected, only 14 so far, but it will likely grow exponentially as the year progresses.
James Rollins:
The Judas Strain (currently reading)
The Last Oracle
Sandstorm
Neil Gaiman:
Neverwhere
Good Omens
Anansi Boys (read it once)
JRR Tolkien:
Lord of the Rings
The Silmarillion (I try to read some of it every year)
CS Lewis:
The Chronicles of Narnia
The Screwtape Letters
Matthew Stover:
Star Wars: Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor (horrible title)
Stephen King:
Dark Tower V: Wolves of the Calla
Dark Tower VI: Song of Susannah
Dark Tower VII: The Dark Tower
(I just read these last year, but they are that good)
I'm hoping you have your own list of reading to do in the New Year.
I could go down the list of books I read, but that would be boring to anyone who isn't me. Instead, I'll talk about what I want to read in 2009.
The list is actually shorter than I expected, only 14 so far, but it will likely grow exponentially as the year progresses.
James Rollins:
The Judas Strain (currently reading)
The Last Oracle
Sandstorm
Neil Gaiman:
Neverwhere
Good Omens
Anansi Boys (read it once)
JRR Tolkien:
Lord of the Rings
The Silmarillion (I try to read some of it every year)
CS Lewis:
The Chronicles of Narnia
The Screwtape Letters
Matthew Stover:
Star Wars: Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor (horrible title)
Stephen King:
Dark Tower V: Wolves of the Calla
Dark Tower VI: Song of Susannah
Dark Tower VII: The Dark Tower
(I just read these last year, but they are that good)
I'm hoping you have your own list of reading to do in the New Year.
The Book Reviews
Starting tomorrow I'll be posting a new book review everyday for January. To celebrate the nerd that is me, and yeah, it's my blog, so I can do that, I'll be reviewing Star Wars books for the first month.
The breakdown is quite simple. Each book review will hopefully contain an image of the book cover, a synopsis of the book, and two different scores: Re-readability and Final Grade.
Re-readability scale:
1-3 : It was good for one read, but nothing more
4-6: It'll do in a pinch
7.0-7.9: Easily enjoyed the second time
8.0-8.9: even more enjoyable the second time
9.0-9.9: You almost want to read it again immediately after finishing it
10: You actually re-read sections of it while reading it the first time
Final Grade:
F or lower: I wouldn't even recommend it to people I don't like
D- to D+ : Not so great.
C- to C+ : Doing better, but still not amazing
B- to B+ : Could become a movie if the right people are used
A- : I would recommend it to anyone
A : It will become a movie someday
A+ : Why isn't it a movie already?
The breakdown is quite simple. Each book review will hopefully contain an image of the book cover, a synopsis of the book, and two different scores: Re-readability and Final Grade.
Re-readability scale:
1-3 : It was good for one read, but nothing more
4-6: It'll do in a pinch
7.0-7.9: Easily enjoyed the second time
8.0-8.9: even more enjoyable the second time
9.0-9.9: You almost want to read it again immediately after finishing it
10: You actually re-read sections of it while reading it the first time
Final Grade:
F or lower: I wouldn't even recommend it to people I don't like
D- to D+ : Not so great.
C- to C+ : Doing better, but still not amazing
B- to B+ : Could become a movie if the right people are used
A- : I would recommend it to anyone
A : It will become a movie someday
A+ : Why isn't it a movie already?
12/29/2008
Historia Part X through Part XIII
Clifford walked for three hours before deciding to stop for the night. According to the moon, there was about four hours of darkness left. He dug into his old travel bag and found a think blanket. Nestling against a fallen tree, he covered himself up and went to sleep. Schrodinger sat up as a watch against whatever animal or man might try to interfere in Clifford’s slumber.
Clifford stirred at first light. He brought out some of the remaining turkey meat he had, and ate that cold with some cheese, drinking water from the uphill-flowing river. He gathered his things, the guitar, old travel bag, and, with bundle shouldered, he started walking again. Schrodinger slept most of the time in the bundle.
Clifford walked, leaving Brigadier General Israel Putnam and the mysterious King’s Valley far behind. The land he traveled through gradually changed. The semi-desert-forest he’d encountered when he’d met Putnam (felt like days ago, was only the night before) gave way to a full-fledged forest. The Forest, after only an hour’s walk, became sparse and Clifford Jenkins, no longer sure if he was anywhere near as sensible as any man of 40 years, found himself in a meadow.
He crossed it at a brisk pace, wanting to reach Historia as soon as possible. Glancing behind him, toward the Mountains of Antiquity, he saw the snow-capped peaks rising above the forest. Somewhere back there was his family, wondering where he’d gone. Luckily he’d never married. Just never felt like it. He could see the sun glistening off the icy white tops of the mountains, and he was glad he’d come the way he had. The King’s Valley was infinitely easier to cross than the mountain pass would ever have been.
It was midday when Clifford tapped the bundle-stick and caused the mouse to scamper out, “What?”
“Look.”
They stood atop a high hill, and below them, in the dale, was a large farm, windmill turning slowly in the breeze, green grass turning to brown before their eyes. Schrodinger gasped. Clifford glanced at him, and then looked back at the farm.
The mouse jumped off the stick and onto Clifford’s shoulder, “This must be the farm of Pepperidge.”
Clifford unshouldered the bundle, dropped his old travel bag, and sat down in the grass, ready to play guitar for a bit and break the monotony of his journey, “You know, this land keeps getting stranger and stranger.”
Schrodinger settled onto his haunches next to Clifford and grinned (I know, I’ve told you that a sighing mouse is hilarious, a grinning mouse, though, is quite possibly the most serious thing ever seen. It’s anti-hilarity.) The mouse ran a fore-paw through his whiskers, “So what’re you going to play? Know anything Celtic?”
Clifford blinked, searching his own mind, “What’s Celtic?”
Schrodinger waved him off, “Nevermind. Play, my boy. Play.”
Clifford strummed once, a D-minor, and then began singing softly,
“Fill to me the parting glass,
And drink to health, what may befall,
Then gently rise, and softly call,
goodnight and joy be to you all.”
Schrodinger sat in silence until Clifford’s chorus was over, “You know that’s Celtic, right?”
Clifford leveled the guitar in his lap, “I know that it’s how we say goodbye to those we lose in Nostalgia. Tradition, I guess.”
Schrodinger laughed, “I think we should get going, Clifford. We can probably get some food at Pepperidge. Historia isn’t much farther.”
Clifford stood up, got up his things, and started walking again. His path took him to the farm, just as he knew it would. Somehow, he knew deep in his mind, he couldn’t avoid the farm. He could walk all the way around it, and over the next hill, and there the farm would be, waiting for him. Strange land.
On the porch of the farmhouse sat an older white man, “You need somethin’, boy?”
Clifford frowned, “Why does everyone keep calling me boy, I’m forty years old.”
The old man stood, grabbed a cane, and hobbled to him, “I’m Henry, but you can call me Hank if you want to. Some do, some don’t.”
“Clifford Jenkins, from Nostalgia.”
The old man grinned brightly, “Nostalgia, huh? Margaret, did you hear that? Nostalgia!”
A woman who looked to be in her late sixties came out on the porch, “You’re from Nostalgia? You have to eat with us tonight and tell us about it? Last I heard Nostalgia was a ghost town. That’s what Jamie said, and he’s a mail-boy from Historia, he wouldn’t lie.”
Clifford sat his travel bag on the porch, “The town isn’t deserted, trust me. I won’t say your mail-boy lied to you, though. He may have been told wrong.”
Henry looked at Margaret (Clifford assumed they were married) and said, “Go on and fix supper. I’m gonna show the boy around, then we’ll eat. Make some cookies too.”
She retreated back into the house. Clifford stepped back, leaving his travel bag and bundle on the porch, but keeping his guitar on his back. He looked up at the house, a two-story white building with little doghouses on the roof. Henry stepped off the porch and took Clifford by the elbow, “You didn’t run into Old Put, did you?”
“Who is Old Put?” Clifford, asked, realizing halfway through his question that Henry was referring to Israel Putnam, “Oh yes, I did.”
Henry stepped forward heavily, his cane sinking into the think grass, “He tried to recruit you for his war against the Valley, didn’t he? Took two of my boys out there. Said Historia needed them to fight back the outside, whatever that means.”
Clifford nodded, “We passed through the King’s Valley, and got no trouble while we were there.”
“Who’s we?” Henry asked.
Clifford suddenly thought of the bundle, and was about to move for it, when Schrodinger moved, revealing himself to be on Clifford’s shoulder. Clifford pointed up, “This is Schrodinger, the mouse.”
Henry offered a polite wave, then pointed to the guitar, “You play that thing, Cliff?”
Clifford nodded, “Yup. Been playing since I was nine.”
Henry smiled, “Great. That’s our after-supper music, then. Now, let me show you the rest of the farm. Oh, and you’re mouse may want to hide when we reach the barn. I got eighteen barn-cats would love him for dinner.”
Clifford chuckled and looked over at Schrodinger, who wore a horrified expression. Clifford lifted a finger and lightly poked the mouse on the side, “What’s wrong, Schrodinger? Cat got your tongue?”
Schrodinger’s expression went from horrified to downright offended, “That’s a horrible thing to say, Clifford Jenkins. A cat actually got my uncle’s tongue. It’s not a pretty sight. He can’t talk now.”
Henry was tapping his cane on the ground, “Did your mouse just talk?”
“He’s not exactly mine, if you take my meaning,” Clifford said, “And yeah, I was shocked when I found out. Turns out he’s pretty smart.”
Henry pointed to the barn, “Don’t I know it? All eighteen of my cats can talk.”
*****
The largest cat, a light-brown-dark-brown furred feline, stood on the hitch of a wagon, looking out over the other seventeen cats, “The Council is called to order. I am Slagthor the Great, hereby starting the meeting.”
Henry pushed open the barn door, “Mittens. Come here, Mittens.”
The cat on the hitch winced (not nearly as funny as a sighing mouse) and jumped down from the hitch, “I’ve told you, Mittens is my human name.”
Henry picked up the cat and stroked his back, unleashing a rather fierce purr, “Yeah, I know. But I called you Mittens before you talked, and I’ll call you Mittens till the day one of us dies.”
Mittens finally noticed Schrodinger sitting on Clifford’s shoulder, “You brought us a mouse, eh?”
Clifford spoke, “Actually, he’s with me, and no, you can’t have him.”
The cat glared at him, “I think you’ll find that we cats get what we want.”
Clifford shook his head, “I don’t think so.”
Mittens purred, “Okay, fine. He’s with you. Hear that, cats, no touching the mouse, no matter how delicious he looks.”
Henry motioned Clifford back to the barn door, sitting down Mittens, “They like to have ‘council’ meetings in here. I let ‘em, figure it can’t hurt.”
As they closed the door Schrodinger spoke up, “Actually, cats are rather devious. You might want to watch over them.”
Henry took up his cane and they started walking back to the house, “I’ll remember that, little mouse.”
They made their way back to the farm house just as Margaret was walking onto the porch to call them to dinner. The table spread was fantastic, by far the best food Clifford had seen since leaving Nostalgia, and probably better than most he’d had living in Nostalgia. Ham and Turkey, buttered rolls, carrots, peas, corn, and chocolate cake for dessert. After eating Clifford and Henry went back out onto the porch.
Clifford picked up his guitar and began playing “Old Man River” and singing “Yellow Submarine.” Henry was notably impressed.
As Clifford went to put his guitar down a gunshot rang out over the farmstead. Both men looked up immediately in the direction of the King’s Valley. Moments after hearing the first shot, a second shot rang out. Mere seconds after that Brigadier General Israel Putnam came running out of the forest and down the hill, followed shortly by his men.
“Hide! The King’s Valley charged us and we couldn’t hold them back! Hide!” Putnam yelled.
Henry was already up and moving toward the door. He walked past it, suddenly not needing his cane, but moving rather sprightly. Clifford remained seated, in awe of Henry’s change. Henry reached back, grabbed his cane, and then tapped it three times on the loose board on the porch, right at the base of the wall.
The wall parted, revealing a stash of guns and ammunition, “I’ve been waitin’ on this day,” he said, turning and tossing a gun to Clifford. “Margaret! Get out here! War’s a-coming!”
Margaret rushed onto the porch, tying a strip of cloth around her head to keep her hair back. Clifford looked at his gun, unsure of how to use it.
“Just point and pull that little trigger, the gun’ll do the rest.” Margaret said, tipping over one of the small tables that lined the porch and kneeling behind it, “Oh, and find some cover. You’ll need it.”
Clifford dove to the porch, and as he did an arrow pierced the wall where he was sitting. He tipped over his own table and leaned around, looking for the enemy. It luckily wasn’t dark enough yet to conceal the barbarians of the King’s Valley.
He heard gunfire erupt from the far end of the porch, and looking down, he saw Henry crouched behind a tipped table and blasting away at the oncoming enemy.
Israel Putnam reached the porch and began directing his men to take up positions around the farm, all guns pointed back toward the enemy. The men did as directed, and the hill west of the farmstead became a killing field.
Schrodinger reappeared on Clifford’s shoulder, “We shouldn’t be here.”
Clifford snorted, “You think I don’t realize that?”
“No,” the mouse said emphatically, “We really need to go. Bad things are about to happen here. I feel sorry for the cats.”
At the precise moment the barn door burst open and all eighteen cats charged out, Mittens, or as he called himself, Slagthor the Great, at their head, “Go, Cats! For the glory of Kittendom, our time has come.”
Clifford was mesmerized as the kitten brigade crashed into the oncoming enemy. Some cats were cut down almost immediately. Another arrow hit the table behind which Clifford knelt. He raised the gun and popped off three quick shots.
From what he could tell, Putnam’s men were holding back the charge, rather amiably. He moved as quickly as possible toward Henry, “What do we do?”
Henry pointed to the door, “Go inside, upstairs, and use one of the doghouses as cover. Try and take out as many as you can. They’ve never charged like this.”
Clifford did as he was told. He pushed open the upstairs window and looked out as the battlefield. Putnam was pinned down behind a water-trough, his men scattered across the field. The cats were down from eighteen to just five, Slagthor still leading them, directing them.
Schrodinger sniffled, “I feel sorry for them. This isn’t their war, and yet they’re dying.”
Clifford raised his gun, “I’m trying to keep us from dying.”
Schrodinger jumped down onto the windowsill, “I’m only going to say this once, Clifford. Don’t think about the enemy. Think about anything else, but not them.”
Clifford was so puzzled by Schrodinger that when he looked up it took him a moment to realize that the enemy was gone, as was Israel Putnam, “What happened?”
Schrodinger shrugged, “You’ve a gift, Clifford Jenkins. You never saw the enemy in the King’s Valley, and now, the moment your mind is taken off of them, they disappear. Interesting, eh?”
Clifford slumped down against the wall, “But what about the dead cats, the dead men? Are they still dead?”
Schodinger looked out the window, “From the looks of it, when you stopped thinking about them, everything went back to where it was before they charged, probably even before we got here. Meaning that Margaret and Henry don’t know we’re in their house.”
Clifford stood up and walked to the door, “So how do we get out?”
Schrodinger was ignoring him, “This could be a problem, you know? This gift you have.”
Clifford pointed to the closed door behind him, “Do you hear that? Footsteps. Someone’s coming.”
The mouse leapt out the window, “C’mon!”
Clifford followed him, diving out the window and stepping quickly around the doghouse to hide from view. Henry’s head appeared out the window, “Anyone there?”
When Clifford didn’t answer, Henry closed the window and walked out. Schrodinger climbed back onto Clifford’s shoulder, “There’s a haystack over that way,” he said, point to the south end of the house. “You’re stuff should still be on the porch. We can grab it and run. Oh, and you still have the gun. Good thing. We might need it.”
***********
The farm of Pepperidge was now a day’s walk behind them, the King’s Valley even farther. After retrieving his belongings from Henry’s porch Clifford had started once more along the westward path to Historia. Schrodinger had scarcely shut up about Clifford’s ‘gift,’ which at this point was causing Clifford a rather significant headache.
About two hours after leaving Henry’s farm, Clifford had found an old road, which made the walking that much easier. When night had fallen he’d camped out just off the road, under the low branches of a willow tree. Upon awakening Schrodinger began ranting once more about Clifford’s ‘gift.’
“Okay,” Clifford suddenly cried, “Now, I get it. I have a gift. Big deal. How much farther is it to Historia?”
Schrodinger had started back out the stick to the bundle, “Not too far. We just have to go through the City of Lithe.”
Clifford paused for a moment, “The City of Lithe?”
The mouse was suddenly back on his shoulder, “Yeah, have you heard of it?”
Clifford was walking again, “No, I don’t think so. But I’m scared of it for some reason.”
Schrodinger went back to his bundle. It was a matter of two hours walking before Clifford saw the city of Lithe.
It was a mountain, or at least part of it was. The city started low in a valley and worked it’s way up the mountain. Some of the buildings leaned at awkward angles, some seemed to have been built upside-down. Others looked like large trees that had been hollowed out and then splattered haphazardly with windows.
Smoke rose from chimneys all throughout the city, even though, as Clifford thought, it was rather warm for early winter. That is, if it was still winter, the Constellation Hendrix was in the sky the night before, so it was the winter months. Were the Historians up to something new?
Up ahead on the road Clifford could see a wooden sign, slightly dry-rotted, but still very legible. He maintained a rather leisurely pace to approach the sign, his own misgivings about going through Lithe growing stronger.
The sign read, in large, gothic print: LITHE, City of Hell
It had a skull a crossbones painted beneath it. On the ground was either a rock shaped like a skull or an actual skull.
“Schrodinger, is there any way around this town?”
The mouse spoke up, “You remember that feeling you had about the farm of Pepperidge? How that there was no way to avoid it?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s what this is. If you want to go to Historia, you have to pass through Lithe.”
The old road wound down the hillside toward the valley, and as Clifford could now see, toward the walls of the city of Lithe. The closer he got, the more the sense of dread began to weigh him down.
The leaves on the trees around him changed color as they walked toward the city. The gold-and-orange display that had dominated the hills around the farm of Pepperidge were replaced by dark browns and, in some cases, black leaves. The ground was harder, as well. Far to the north, though not so far as to not be heard, roared a waterfall. Clifford hazarded the guess that it was the uphill river from the King’s Valley. All things seemed to lead to Historia.
Schrodinger sat on his shoulder the whole time as the approached the city. The road narrowed as it pointed the way to the main gate of the city, a tall, barred gate with two sentries posted outside the wall and another six inside.
Clifford walked cautiously toward the wall, fearing the city (for some still unknown reason) and doing all he could to muster the courage to pass through the gate and not turn back and run away. He suddenly feared that his voice would crack when he answered the guards, and that just wouldn’t look right for a formerly sensible 40 year old man.
“Halt!” yelled the first guard, “Who are you?”
“Tell them your name,” Schrodinger said.
“Cliff... Clifford Jenkins, of Nostalgia.”
The guard looked to his fellow sentry, then back at Clifford, “And why, O Clifford Jenkins of Nostalgia, are you coming to the great City of Lithe?”
Clifford fought past the sudden urge to vomit, “I am seeking Historia.”
The guard flicked his hand high into the air and the massive steel gate began to swing open, “You may pass, Clifford Jenkins of Nostalgia, but beware! Few ever reach Historia from this point.”
Clifford maintained his poise as he walked through the gate. He even managed to turn the corner around a large building and begin walking away from the guards before he had to find an alleyway and purge his stomach.
He looked up and realized the industry of the city. What he’d thought were chimneys with fires going were actually smokestacks over factories. He walked on, looking around, and looking to the inhabitants like a tourist.
As he walked through a secondary city wall he found himself in what he could only figure to be a market. There were stalls throughout, each one selling various wares. Guns (which Clifford already had one, and no one had asked him where or how he got it, and frankly, he’d almost forgotten how he’d gotten it), knives, foods, drinks, women, men, all was for sale in the great market of the great city of Lithe.
In the middle of it all was a man wearing a small sign around his neck, crying out in a loud voice, “Repent! The end is nigh! Gods be praised, repent, ye sinners and ye saints alike!”
Clifford walked past the man and stopped at a stall selling knives. His Swedish Navy knife was getting dull and he needed a sharpening stone. He pointed to a medium sized stone, “How much?”
“Forty-five, no less. But I’ll haggle if you must.” The old woman working the stall said. She reminded Clifford of the ancient thing that had confronted him at Carnacabidos.
Clifford picked up a smaller stone, “And this one?”
“Forty-five, no less. But I’ll haggle if you must.”
Clifford leaned forward, “You realize that’s the same price right? How much is everything on the table?”
“Forty-five, no less. But I’ll haggle if you must.”
Clifford moved on, and it took him a moment to realize that he still had the small sharpening stone in his hand. He turned to give it back and the stall was gone. He was fast growing weary of this land. But thankfully his sense of dread over the city of Lithe was diminished by the ambience of the market.
“Flood!” Someone shouted, “The river’s overfilled. Get to a high place, quick!”
Clifford went to move, but he was knocked back and forth by scurrying patrons. He reached for the central pole, which looked rather well founded, and began to climb. He could now hear the rushing water, but he couldn’t remember which direction the waterfall was in.
It was at the moment that a wall of water crested the nearest building, slightly behind him and to the right, and slammed hared into Clifford, pressing him against the pole. He clutched tightly, riding out the torrent. Then it was over. The flood had lasted a mere moment. It was devastating to the market. Stalls were overturned, patrons were digging themselves out from under rubble and flotsam.
“Well, that as something, wasn’t it, Schrodinger?”
No answer.
“Schrodinger?”
************
The City of Lithe is an impossible dream. It has been flooded more times than the engine of a silly 1970s British Leyland automobile (preferably the Dolomite Sprint, 1976 version), and yet the inhabitants refuse to move. The ground is so soft that most buildings in Lithe sink on average six inches a year, and because of this the city council orders the roads and streets dug lower. The city was actually built atop a mountain, but because of this sinking and digging out process, they’ve gradually, over the course of a couple of hundred years, dug their very own valley, which directed the river even more so at them.
As the valley grew deeper, the people of Lithe came to depend more and more on the talking Beavers to dam the river and maintain the water flow. Even then, though, the water was still too much for a group of Beavers to control.
The floods came irregularly, and there was always a moments warning from watchtowers built along the north end, river facing, part of the city. Because of this warning, Clifford Jenkins survived the eighty-fifth flood to hit Lithe that year. The previous record for most flood in a year had been a paltry sixty-seven, but that had been before the Great Drought had decimated the lands around Historia and had brought ruin nigh to Lithe itself.
Now, a drenched Clifford Jenkins was busily searching through the desolation that had once been a market. Some vendors were out once again restoring their stalls. Some were talking. He was piecing together bits of news about the city without even realizing it.
“They said that the bank just sank eight inches with that flood. We’ll be digging it out soon.”
“I heard that the north wall was damaged this time. They said that the Rigger may fall.”
Clifford kept searching, but asked in the general direction of those talking, “What’s the Rigger?”
The man tapped him on the shoulder, “Look here, mate.” He pointed to the north wall where, framed against a graying sky stood four massive towers, “Starting from the left there’s The Garrison, The Helmstaad, The Rigger, and The Morii. The watchtowers of the city north, named for the gods of Lithe itself. No watchtower has fallen in five hundred years. Now The Rigger might.”
Clifford turned back to the fallen stalls, “Sorry to hear that.”
The other man, the one who hadn’t pointed out the watchtowers, walked up, “What are you looking for?”
Clifford continued moving things, pushing back pieces of wood, flaps of cloth, “I lost my friend in the flood.”
The man knelt down and began moving things around, mostly stuff that Clifford had already pushed aside, “The talking mouse?”
Clifford stopped, “How did you know?”
“I don’t know. I just know that in all that water, in all that chaos, I saw a talking mouse. It screamed out something as it rushed past me.”
Clifford grabbed the man’s shoulders, “What did he say?”
“Go west.”
Clifford sat back, “Go west? I’ve been going west. It’s the only way to Historia.”
“You’re going to Historia?”
“Yes.”
The man offered his hand to help Clifford up, “I am as well. Jaime Conner, post-boy, although I am twenty-seven years old.”
Clifford couldn’t stop thinking about Schrodinger, “You were the one who told the people at the farm of Pepperidge that Nostalgia was a ghost town.”
Jaime looked confused, “Well, I do go to the Pepperidge farm at least once a fortnight, and the last time I was in Nostalgia it was nearly deserted. Only about fifteen left there.”
“I just left Nostalgia about...” Then Clifford realized that he had no idea how long he’d been gone. He stood there looking at Jaime rather stupidly.
“I was in Nostalgia one week ago,” Jaime said, “That’s when I found out that Nostalgia was a ghost town.”
Clifford tried to reconcile the time difference in his head and found that he was completely unable to. He’d either been gone for far longer than he thought, or his “gift” as Schrodinger called it had conjured up an entire town.
Schrodinger. Poor Schrodinger.
**************
Clifford stirred at first light. He brought out some of the remaining turkey meat he had, and ate that cold with some cheese, drinking water from the uphill-flowing river. He gathered his things, the guitar, old travel bag, and, with bundle shouldered, he started walking again. Schrodinger slept most of the time in the bundle.
Clifford walked, leaving Brigadier General Israel Putnam and the mysterious King’s Valley far behind. The land he traveled through gradually changed. The semi-desert-forest he’d encountered when he’d met Putnam (felt like days ago, was only the night before) gave way to a full-fledged forest. The Forest, after only an hour’s walk, became sparse and Clifford Jenkins, no longer sure if he was anywhere near as sensible as any man of 40 years, found himself in a meadow.
He crossed it at a brisk pace, wanting to reach Historia as soon as possible. Glancing behind him, toward the Mountains of Antiquity, he saw the snow-capped peaks rising above the forest. Somewhere back there was his family, wondering where he’d gone. Luckily he’d never married. Just never felt like it. He could see the sun glistening off the icy white tops of the mountains, and he was glad he’d come the way he had. The King’s Valley was infinitely easier to cross than the mountain pass would ever have been.
It was midday when Clifford tapped the bundle-stick and caused the mouse to scamper out, “What?”
“Look.”
They stood atop a high hill, and below them, in the dale, was a large farm, windmill turning slowly in the breeze, green grass turning to brown before their eyes. Schrodinger gasped. Clifford glanced at him, and then looked back at the farm.
The mouse jumped off the stick and onto Clifford’s shoulder, “This must be the farm of Pepperidge.”
Clifford unshouldered the bundle, dropped his old travel bag, and sat down in the grass, ready to play guitar for a bit and break the monotony of his journey, “You know, this land keeps getting stranger and stranger.”
Schrodinger settled onto his haunches next to Clifford and grinned (I know, I’ve told you that a sighing mouse is hilarious, a grinning mouse, though, is quite possibly the most serious thing ever seen. It’s anti-hilarity.) The mouse ran a fore-paw through his whiskers, “So what’re you going to play? Know anything Celtic?”
Clifford blinked, searching his own mind, “What’s Celtic?”
Schrodinger waved him off, “Nevermind. Play, my boy. Play.”
Clifford strummed once, a D-minor, and then began singing softly,
“Fill to me the parting glass,
And drink to health, what may befall,
Then gently rise, and softly call,
goodnight and joy be to you all.”
Schrodinger sat in silence until Clifford’s chorus was over, “You know that’s Celtic, right?”
Clifford leveled the guitar in his lap, “I know that it’s how we say goodbye to those we lose in Nostalgia. Tradition, I guess.”
Schrodinger laughed, “I think we should get going, Clifford. We can probably get some food at Pepperidge. Historia isn’t much farther.”
Clifford stood up, got up his things, and started walking again. His path took him to the farm, just as he knew it would. Somehow, he knew deep in his mind, he couldn’t avoid the farm. He could walk all the way around it, and over the next hill, and there the farm would be, waiting for him. Strange land.
On the porch of the farmhouse sat an older white man, “You need somethin’, boy?”
Clifford frowned, “Why does everyone keep calling me boy, I’m forty years old.”
The old man stood, grabbed a cane, and hobbled to him, “I’m Henry, but you can call me Hank if you want to. Some do, some don’t.”
“Clifford Jenkins, from Nostalgia.”
The old man grinned brightly, “Nostalgia, huh? Margaret, did you hear that? Nostalgia!”
A woman who looked to be in her late sixties came out on the porch, “You’re from Nostalgia? You have to eat with us tonight and tell us about it? Last I heard Nostalgia was a ghost town. That’s what Jamie said, and he’s a mail-boy from Historia, he wouldn’t lie.”
Clifford sat his travel bag on the porch, “The town isn’t deserted, trust me. I won’t say your mail-boy lied to you, though. He may have been told wrong.”
Henry looked at Margaret (Clifford assumed they were married) and said, “Go on and fix supper. I’m gonna show the boy around, then we’ll eat. Make some cookies too.”
She retreated back into the house. Clifford stepped back, leaving his travel bag and bundle on the porch, but keeping his guitar on his back. He looked up at the house, a two-story white building with little doghouses on the roof. Henry stepped off the porch and took Clifford by the elbow, “You didn’t run into Old Put, did you?”
“Who is Old Put?” Clifford, asked, realizing halfway through his question that Henry was referring to Israel Putnam, “Oh yes, I did.”
Henry stepped forward heavily, his cane sinking into the think grass, “He tried to recruit you for his war against the Valley, didn’t he? Took two of my boys out there. Said Historia needed them to fight back the outside, whatever that means.”
Clifford nodded, “We passed through the King’s Valley, and got no trouble while we were there.”
“Who’s we?” Henry asked.
Clifford suddenly thought of the bundle, and was about to move for it, when Schrodinger moved, revealing himself to be on Clifford’s shoulder. Clifford pointed up, “This is Schrodinger, the mouse.”
Henry offered a polite wave, then pointed to the guitar, “You play that thing, Cliff?”
Clifford nodded, “Yup. Been playing since I was nine.”
Henry smiled, “Great. That’s our after-supper music, then. Now, let me show you the rest of the farm. Oh, and you’re mouse may want to hide when we reach the barn. I got eighteen barn-cats would love him for dinner.”
Clifford chuckled and looked over at Schrodinger, who wore a horrified expression. Clifford lifted a finger and lightly poked the mouse on the side, “What’s wrong, Schrodinger? Cat got your tongue?”
Schrodinger’s expression went from horrified to downright offended, “That’s a horrible thing to say, Clifford Jenkins. A cat actually got my uncle’s tongue. It’s not a pretty sight. He can’t talk now.”
Henry was tapping his cane on the ground, “Did your mouse just talk?”
“He’s not exactly mine, if you take my meaning,” Clifford said, “And yeah, I was shocked when I found out. Turns out he’s pretty smart.”
Henry pointed to the barn, “Don’t I know it? All eighteen of my cats can talk.”
*****
The largest cat, a light-brown-dark-brown furred feline, stood on the hitch of a wagon, looking out over the other seventeen cats, “The Council is called to order. I am Slagthor the Great, hereby starting the meeting.”
Henry pushed open the barn door, “Mittens. Come here, Mittens.”
The cat on the hitch winced (not nearly as funny as a sighing mouse) and jumped down from the hitch, “I’ve told you, Mittens is my human name.”
Henry picked up the cat and stroked his back, unleashing a rather fierce purr, “Yeah, I know. But I called you Mittens before you talked, and I’ll call you Mittens till the day one of us dies.”
Mittens finally noticed Schrodinger sitting on Clifford’s shoulder, “You brought us a mouse, eh?”
Clifford spoke, “Actually, he’s with me, and no, you can’t have him.”
The cat glared at him, “I think you’ll find that we cats get what we want.”
Clifford shook his head, “I don’t think so.”
Mittens purred, “Okay, fine. He’s with you. Hear that, cats, no touching the mouse, no matter how delicious he looks.”
Henry motioned Clifford back to the barn door, sitting down Mittens, “They like to have ‘council’ meetings in here. I let ‘em, figure it can’t hurt.”
As they closed the door Schrodinger spoke up, “Actually, cats are rather devious. You might want to watch over them.”
Henry took up his cane and they started walking back to the house, “I’ll remember that, little mouse.”
They made their way back to the farm house just as Margaret was walking onto the porch to call them to dinner. The table spread was fantastic, by far the best food Clifford had seen since leaving Nostalgia, and probably better than most he’d had living in Nostalgia. Ham and Turkey, buttered rolls, carrots, peas, corn, and chocolate cake for dessert. After eating Clifford and Henry went back out onto the porch.
Clifford picked up his guitar and began playing “Old Man River” and singing “Yellow Submarine.” Henry was notably impressed.
As Clifford went to put his guitar down a gunshot rang out over the farmstead. Both men looked up immediately in the direction of the King’s Valley. Moments after hearing the first shot, a second shot rang out. Mere seconds after that Brigadier General Israel Putnam came running out of the forest and down the hill, followed shortly by his men.
“Hide! The King’s Valley charged us and we couldn’t hold them back! Hide!” Putnam yelled.
Henry was already up and moving toward the door. He walked past it, suddenly not needing his cane, but moving rather sprightly. Clifford remained seated, in awe of Henry’s change. Henry reached back, grabbed his cane, and then tapped it three times on the loose board on the porch, right at the base of the wall.
The wall parted, revealing a stash of guns and ammunition, “I’ve been waitin’ on this day,” he said, turning and tossing a gun to Clifford. “Margaret! Get out here! War’s a-coming!”
Margaret rushed onto the porch, tying a strip of cloth around her head to keep her hair back. Clifford looked at his gun, unsure of how to use it.
“Just point and pull that little trigger, the gun’ll do the rest.” Margaret said, tipping over one of the small tables that lined the porch and kneeling behind it, “Oh, and find some cover. You’ll need it.”
Clifford dove to the porch, and as he did an arrow pierced the wall where he was sitting. He tipped over his own table and leaned around, looking for the enemy. It luckily wasn’t dark enough yet to conceal the barbarians of the King’s Valley.
He heard gunfire erupt from the far end of the porch, and looking down, he saw Henry crouched behind a tipped table and blasting away at the oncoming enemy.
Israel Putnam reached the porch and began directing his men to take up positions around the farm, all guns pointed back toward the enemy. The men did as directed, and the hill west of the farmstead became a killing field.
Schrodinger reappeared on Clifford’s shoulder, “We shouldn’t be here.”
Clifford snorted, “You think I don’t realize that?”
“No,” the mouse said emphatically, “We really need to go. Bad things are about to happen here. I feel sorry for the cats.”
At the precise moment the barn door burst open and all eighteen cats charged out, Mittens, or as he called himself, Slagthor the Great, at their head, “Go, Cats! For the glory of Kittendom, our time has come.”
Clifford was mesmerized as the kitten brigade crashed into the oncoming enemy. Some cats were cut down almost immediately. Another arrow hit the table behind which Clifford knelt. He raised the gun and popped off three quick shots.
From what he could tell, Putnam’s men were holding back the charge, rather amiably. He moved as quickly as possible toward Henry, “What do we do?”
Henry pointed to the door, “Go inside, upstairs, and use one of the doghouses as cover. Try and take out as many as you can. They’ve never charged like this.”
Clifford did as he was told. He pushed open the upstairs window and looked out as the battlefield. Putnam was pinned down behind a water-trough, his men scattered across the field. The cats were down from eighteen to just five, Slagthor still leading them, directing them.
Schrodinger sniffled, “I feel sorry for them. This isn’t their war, and yet they’re dying.”
Clifford raised his gun, “I’m trying to keep us from dying.”
Schrodinger jumped down onto the windowsill, “I’m only going to say this once, Clifford. Don’t think about the enemy. Think about anything else, but not them.”
Clifford was so puzzled by Schrodinger that when he looked up it took him a moment to realize that the enemy was gone, as was Israel Putnam, “What happened?”
Schrodinger shrugged, “You’ve a gift, Clifford Jenkins. You never saw the enemy in the King’s Valley, and now, the moment your mind is taken off of them, they disappear. Interesting, eh?”
Clifford slumped down against the wall, “But what about the dead cats, the dead men? Are they still dead?”
Schodinger looked out the window, “From the looks of it, when you stopped thinking about them, everything went back to where it was before they charged, probably even before we got here. Meaning that Margaret and Henry don’t know we’re in their house.”
Clifford stood up and walked to the door, “So how do we get out?”
Schrodinger was ignoring him, “This could be a problem, you know? This gift you have.”
Clifford pointed to the closed door behind him, “Do you hear that? Footsteps. Someone’s coming.”
The mouse leapt out the window, “C’mon!”
Clifford followed him, diving out the window and stepping quickly around the doghouse to hide from view. Henry’s head appeared out the window, “Anyone there?”
When Clifford didn’t answer, Henry closed the window and walked out. Schrodinger climbed back onto Clifford’s shoulder, “There’s a haystack over that way,” he said, point to the south end of the house. “You’re stuff should still be on the porch. We can grab it and run. Oh, and you still have the gun. Good thing. We might need it.”
***********
The farm of Pepperidge was now a day’s walk behind them, the King’s Valley even farther. After retrieving his belongings from Henry’s porch Clifford had started once more along the westward path to Historia. Schrodinger had scarcely shut up about Clifford’s ‘gift,’ which at this point was causing Clifford a rather significant headache.
About two hours after leaving Henry’s farm, Clifford had found an old road, which made the walking that much easier. When night had fallen he’d camped out just off the road, under the low branches of a willow tree. Upon awakening Schrodinger began ranting once more about Clifford’s ‘gift.’
“Okay,” Clifford suddenly cried, “Now, I get it. I have a gift. Big deal. How much farther is it to Historia?”
Schrodinger had started back out the stick to the bundle, “Not too far. We just have to go through the City of Lithe.”
Clifford paused for a moment, “The City of Lithe?”
The mouse was suddenly back on his shoulder, “Yeah, have you heard of it?”
Clifford was walking again, “No, I don’t think so. But I’m scared of it for some reason.”
Schrodinger went back to his bundle. It was a matter of two hours walking before Clifford saw the city of Lithe.
It was a mountain, or at least part of it was. The city started low in a valley and worked it’s way up the mountain. Some of the buildings leaned at awkward angles, some seemed to have been built upside-down. Others looked like large trees that had been hollowed out and then splattered haphazardly with windows.
Smoke rose from chimneys all throughout the city, even though, as Clifford thought, it was rather warm for early winter. That is, if it was still winter, the Constellation Hendrix was in the sky the night before, so it was the winter months. Were the Historians up to something new?
Up ahead on the road Clifford could see a wooden sign, slightly dry-rotted, but still very legible. He maintained a rather leisurely pace to approach the sign, his own misgivings about going through Lithe growing stronger.
The sign read, in large, gothic print: LITHE, City of Hell
It had a skull a crossbones painted beneath it. On the ground was either a rock shaped like a skull or an actual skull.
“Schrodinger, is there any way around this town?”
The mouse spoke up, “You remember that feeling you had about the farm of Pepperidge? How that there was no way to avoid it?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s what this is. If you want to go to Historia, you have to pass through Lithe.”
The old road wound down the hillside toward the valley, and as Clifford could now see, toward the walls of the city of Lithe. The closer he got, the more the sense of dread began to weigh him down.
The leaves on the trees around him changed color as they walked toward the city. The gold-and-orange display that had dominated the hills around the farm of Pepperidge were replaced by dark browns and, in some cases, black leaves. The ground was harder, as well. Far to the north, though not so far as to not be heard, roared a waterfall. Clifford hazarded the guess that it was the uphill river from the King’s Valley. All things seemed to lead to Historia.
Schrodinger sat on his shoulder the whole time as the approached the city. The road narrowed as it pointed the way to the main gate of the city, a tall, barred gate with two sentries posted outside the wall and another six inside.
Clifford walked cautiously toward the wall, fearing the city (for some still unknown reason) and doing all he could to muster the courage to pass through the gate and not turn back and run away. He suddenly feared that his voice would crack when he answered the guards, and that just wouldn’t look right for a formerly sensible 40 year old man.
“Halt!” yelled the first guard, “Who are you?”
“Tell them your name,” Schrodinger said.
“Cliff... Clifford Jenkins, of Nostalgia.”
The guard looked to his fellow sentry, then back at Clifford, “And why, O Clifford Jenkins of Nostalgia, are you coming to the great City of Lithe?”
Clifford fought past the sudden urge to vomit, “I am seeking Historia.”
The guard flicked his hand high into the air and the massive steel gate began to swing open, “You may pass, Clifford Jenkins of Nostalgia, but beware! Few ever reach Historia from this point.”
Clifford maintained his poise as he walked through the gate. He even managed to turn the corner around a large building and begin walking away from the guards before he had to find an alleyway and purge his stomach.
He looked up and realized the industry of the city. What he’d thought were chimneys with fires going were actually smokestacks over factories. He walked on, looking around, and looking to the inhabitants like a tourist.
As he walked through a secondary city wall he found himself in what he could only figure to be a market. There were stalls throughout, each one selling various wares. Guns (which Clifford already had one, and no one had asked him where or how he got it, and frankly, he’d almost forgotten how he’d gotten it), knives, foods, drinks, women, men, all was for sale in the great market of the great city of Lithe.
In the middle of it all was a man wearing a small sign around his neck, crying out in a loud voice, “Repent! The end is nigh! Gods be praised, repent, ye sinners and ye saints alike!”
Clifford walked past the man and stopped at a stall selling knives. His Swedish Navy knife was getting dull and he needed a sharpening stone. He pointed to a medium sized stone, “How much?”
“Forty-five, no less. But I’ll haggle if you must.” The old woman working the stall said. She reminded Clifford of the ancient thing that had confronted him at Carnacabidos.
Clifford picked up a smaller stone, “And this one?”
“Forty-five, no less. But I’ll haggle if you must.”
Clifford leaned forward, “You realize that’s the same price right? How much is everything on the table?”
“Forty-five, no less. But I’ll haggle if you must.”
Clifford moved on, and it took him a moment to realize that he still had the small sharpening stone in his hand. He turned to give it back and the stall was gone. He was fast growing weary of this land. But thankfully his sense of dread over the city of Lithe was diminished by the ambience of the market.
“Flood!” Someone shouted, “The river’s overfilled. Get to a high place, quick!”
Clifford went to move, but he was knocked back and forth by scurrying patrons. He reached for the central pole, which looked rather well founded, and began to climb. He could now hear the rushing water, but he couldn’t remember which direction the waterfall was in.
It was at the moment that a wall of water crested the nearest building, slightly behind him and to the right, and slammed hared into Clifford, pressing him against the pole. He clutched tightly, riding out the torrent. Then it was over. The flood had lasted a mere moment. It was devastating to the market. Stalls were overturned, patrons were digging themselves out from under rubble and flotsam.
“Well, that as something, wasn’t it, Schrodinger?”
No answer.
“Schrodinger?”
************
The City of Lithe is an impossible dream. It has been flooded more times than the engine of a silly 1970s British Leyland automobile (preferably the Dolomite Sprint, 1976 version), and yet the inhabitants refuse to move. The ground is so soft that most buildings in Lithe sink on average six inches a year, and because of this the city council orders the roads and streets dug lower. The city was actually built atop a mountain, but because of this sinking and digging out process, they’ve gradually, over the course of a couple of hundred years, dug their very own valley, which directed the river even more so at them.
As the valley grew deeper, the people of Lithe came to depend more and more on the talking Beavers to dam the river and maintain the water flow. Even then, though, the water was still too much for a group of Beavers to control.
The floods came irregularly, and there was always a moments warning from watchtowers built along the north end, river facing, part of the city. Because of this warning, Clifford Jenkins survived the eighty-fifth flood to hit Lithe that year. The previous record for most flood in a year had been a paltry sixty-seven, but that had been before the Great Drought had decimated the lands around Historia and had brought ruin nigh to Lithe itself.
Now, a drenched Clifford Jenkins was busily searching through the desolation that had once been a market. Some vendors were out once again restoring their stalls. Some were talking. He was piecing together bits of news about the city without even realizing it.
“They said that the bank just sank eight inches with that flood. We’ll be digging it out soon.”
“I heard that the north wall was damaged this time. They said that the Rigger may fall.”
Clifford kept searching, but asked in the general direction of those talking, “What’s the Rigger?”
The man tapped him on the shoulder, “Look here, mate.” He pointed to the north wall where, framed against a graying sky stood four massive towers, “Starting from the left there’s The Garrison, The Helmstaad, The Rigger, and The Morii. The watchtowers of the city north, named for the gods of Lithe itself. No watchtower has fallen in five hundred years. Now The Rigger might.”
Clifford turned back to the fallen stalls, “Sorry to hear that.”
The other man, the one who hadn’t pointed out the watchtowers, walked up, “What are you looking for?”
Clifford continued moving things, pushing back pieces of wood, flaps of cloth, “I lost my friend in the flood.”
The man knelt down and began moving things around, mostly stuff that Clifford had already pushed aside, “The talking mouse?”
Clifford stopped, “How did you know?”
“I don’t know. I just know that in all that water, in all that chaos, I saw a talking mouse. It screamed out something as it rushed past me.”
Clifford grabbed the man’s shoulders, “What did he say?”
“Go west.”
Clifford sat back, “Go west? I’ve been going west. It’s the only way to Historia.”
“You’re going to Historia?”
“Yes.”
The man offered his hand to help Clifford up, “I am as well. Jaime Conner, post-boy, although I am twenty-seven years old.”
Clifford couldn’t stop thinking about Schrodinger, “You were the one who told the people at the farm of Pepperidge that Nostalgia was a ghost town.”
Jaime looked confused, “Well, I do go to the Pepperidge farm at least once a fortnight, and the last time I was in Nostalgia it was nearly deserted. Only about fifteen left there.”
“I just left Nostalgia about...” Then Clifford realized that he had no idea how long he’d been gone. He stood there looking at Jaime rather stupidly.
“I was in Nostalgia one week ago,” Jaime said, “That’s when I found out that Nostalgia was a ghost town.”
Clifford tried to reconcile the time difference in his head and found that he was completely unable to. He’d either been gone for far longer than he thought, or his “gift” as Schrodinger called it had conjured up an entire town.
Schrodinger. Poor Schrodinger.
**************
Historia Part I through Part IX
Clifford Jenkins, like any sensible man of 40 years, knew for a certainty that the world had been flat until the moment Columbus had jumped on board the HMS Beagle and set sail from Plymouth. Columbus, of course, could be blamed for pretty much every problem that plagued mankind. He’d introduced disease, war, and nihilistic Euro-fashion to the Japanese.
But Clifford Jenkins also knew that every ounce of that history was, well, just that: history. That was life, living in the small town of Nostalgia, a border province of Historia. Everything was over, and nothing could be done to change it. At least, that’s how it was in Nostalgia.
Over the mountains, in Historia, it was said, history was a living thing that constantly changed. Word had reached Nostalgia just that morning that the Vikings had launched an assault on Guevara’s guerillas. Of course, Clifford, like any sensible man of 40 years, doubted if Columbus or Europe had ever existed to begin with. Sometimes, when the world was crashing down the crapper, the people needed a scapegoat. Just so happens they made up Columbus.
And we all know that any good scapegoat needs a land to come from. The mythical Plymouth, smack in the heart of Germanic Europe (don’t ask me how a ship set sail from the heart of a continent, much less how the people knew that Europe was Germanic at the time, or even how they knew Europe was a continent) was created in turn, and had been home port to the HMS Beagle, the HMS standing, of course, for Huge, Massive Ship.
Clifford leaned against the high-backed chair that sat at the corner of the piano. He was playing guitar, strumming out the chorus to Auld Lang Syne, but singing the words to Silent Night, a local favorite. Timey’s Bar was crowded for a Wednesday night. Or maybe it was Friday, one could never tell what those idiots in Historia had done to the week.
“Cliff, play Old Man River!” That was Timey himself, of course he was more than intoxicated (a condition the locals called kershnockered).
“And what should I sing, oh great Timey?” Clifford Jenkins called back.
“Try Yellow Submarine...” Timey trailed off, a tendency among the kershnockered, especially at this late hour (4:15 p.m.) of the night.
Clifford began an upbeat “Old Man River” and threw in Yellow Submarine, with a short chorus of Lucy in the Sky, just to please the patrons. He looked outside and watched the sun setting over the mountains that separated Historia from the everything else. And it was at that moment that Clifford Jenkins, sensible as any man of 40 years, realized that he had to leave Nostalgia behind and journey to Historia.
***
The next morning, or night, again, you never knew what those idiots in Historia were doing, Clifford Jenkins gathered up his things. He packed the old travel bag (it had Samsonite imprinted on the latch, but that word had long since left the language) with a few changes of clothes, the necessary toiletries, and some assorted canned foods and dried meats. Like any traveler on the road in these days, he bundled a towel onto the end of a stick (he’d seen pictures of what the old timers called hobos carrying them, and then he noticed every traveler through Nostalgia had one, so he made himself one). In this bundle he stuffed a few extra guitar strings, a block of cheese wrapped in leafy-paper, and a pocket knife that had all kinds of extra do-dads on it. The elders called it a Swedish Navy Knife, or something to that effect.
He thought more than once about carrying the knife in his pocket, as it’s description would imply should be done, but then he wouldn’t have had room for Schrodinger, his mouse.
And so, with travel bag in one hand, stick-and-bundle across one shoulder, and guitar strapped to one back, Clifford Jenkins began walking toward the Mountain Pass that led from Nostalgia, through the Antique Mountains, and into the land of Historia.
So it’s here that you, the reader, should be told about Historia.
Historia rests between two mountain ranges, the Antiques to the East, and the Conveniences to the West. It is an arid rain forest whose capital is a pyramid crowned with what we know of as the Statue of Liberty. Of course, the Statue’s upheld arm was replaced with a cannon long ago, and it’s head no longer looks like a woman, but more like a fictional villain of some science fiction story (a black helmet, I think that gives it away with breaking copyright laws).
Around this pyramid is a city that looks like someone from our time chopped up a map of London, New York City, Washington DC, the Vatican, Ancient Nineveh, New Nineveh, and the small town of Buford, Georgia, United States (circa 2008), and then spliced bits and pieces of them together, radiating out from the statue-topped structure.
Historia was founded sometime before Europe realized that they had feet, or so said the Historians, as they called themselves. Their ruler called himself Father Time, but everyone knew his real name was Ted. Of that everyone, only a select few knew that Father Time was dying. Old age was ruled out immediately, as Father Time is only 42 years old.
But I’ve drifted away from telling you about Historia. The land of Historia is bordered on the south by a great Ocean (some say it was once the Gulf of Mexico, but no one knows if Mexico was a real place or not) and to the north by the glaciers. Historia is the name of the land, but also of the city itself.
Clifford Jenkins will eventually find himself in the city. And yeah, I know that takes away a lot of the suspense of his journey, and I could probably skip over that part in the telling now, but it would cause you, the reader, to miss out on a few fun and interesting people that Clifford meets along the way. And, I never said if Schrodinger the mouse reaches Historia safely or not. You’ll have to read on to find out.
*****
Clifford Jenkins slumped against the stump of a felled tree. The gnarled stump was dead, and would make good tender, but Clifford had built his fire from the dying grasses and weeds. Autumn was closing and becoming winter, making him rethink his decision to strike out for Historia when he did.
As he looked at the smoldering remnants of his fire, and began plucking Auld Lang Syne on his guitar, Clifford found his mind wandering back to when he was ten years old, and he pulled his first “death watch.”
In Nostalgia, it was tradition for a child to face a familial “death watch” as early as possible. The old timers said that it ‘toughened’ a child, and readied him for the world. And with Historia at their doorstep, the children of Nostalgia has to be toughened as soon as possible.
And so it was, that at the tender age of ten, Clifford’s granpappy had fallen ill of ‘the cough.’ Timey the Bar Owner had been an intermittent figure during that awful week, coming in and going out while Granpappy had grown steadily worse.
Clifford, looking at the smoldering fire, could see it as the fire in the small furnace in his granpappy’s death chamber, a small room on the back of every house in Nostalgia, furnished much the same, each with a mirror in it, most with a word inlaid into the mirror-sheen surface, usually Budweiser, a talisman of the old days used to ward off the evil encroaching from Historia like a disease. Like granpappy’s cough.
The bed was nothing more than a cot built up with a light mattress and pillows to make the dying as comfortable as possible. The old timers of Nostalgia had found chairs at some time in the distant past, each with a brightly colored emblem on it, most now sun-faded to the point of obscurity, but some could still be made out. Atlanta Falcons, Chicago Bears, Detroit Tigers. Clifford’s own granpappy, before ‘the cough’ had ravaged him, said that these were once great cities, and that the animals were the spiritual protectors of these thriving metropolises.
Granpappy coughed, a hacking, wheezing cough that brought a light spittle of blood to his lips. Clifford knew that the time was soon. Timey had returned with a pail of cool water and some dried meat.
“’Twont be long, Cliff,” he had said, putting a weather-worn hand on the boy’s shoulder.
From the kitchen of the house, Clifford heard his mother yelling at his father, “No boy should have to do this! He’s watching his granpap, your dad, die, and you’re sitting in here staring at the fireplace!” (Staring at fires was a habit of the Jenkins family.)
Clifford didn’t think twice about it. He had to ‘death watch.’ It was proper for a boy his age. It was the essence of Nostalgia, to strengthen against the blight of the Historians.
Clifford realized he’d long since stopped plucking the guitar and he had to almost physically remove himself from the twilight reverie. He reached for the bundle and pulled the block of cheese from it. With the Swedish Navy knife he cut off a chunk for himself and a sliver for Schrodinger the Mouse.
He pulled his collar up tight around his neck and scrunched as low as he could to protect against the cool of the night. He made it to the foothills on the first day. No small feat, considering that, with those idiots in Historia constantly futzing with the natural order, time was a lost concept.
He waited for Schrodinger to finish the cheese sliver, and while he waited he returned everything to its proper place in the bundle. Once the mouse was finished eating, Clifford lifted it up by the tail (he could sware that made the mouse giggle) and dropped it onto the stick-and-bundle. Schrodinger scurried up into the bundle and nestled between the cheese block and an envelope that Clifford carried at all times.
Clifford Jenkins, sensible as any man of 40 years, leaned further against the old, dead tree, and curled over for some sleep. He wanted to make it to the city of Historia by Boxing Day, which would be no easy task, as snow was already falling in the Antique Mountains overhead.
*****
Clifford awoke about an hour before sunrise, but it felt like a much longer night. As he shook his head to ward of sleep, he felt strands of matted hair hit the sides of his face. Perhaps the night had been years long, dang the Historians!
Time was when the people of Nostalgia never had to worry about Father Time and his minions causing trouble. They were, so the elders said, once a group of monks who just stared at clocks all day. The higher level masters of the order, it was said, could cause a clock to run backward just by looking at it.
Clifford had once caused a clock to run backward, but it was more the result of playing catch in the house with his older brother. And dang had his granpappy been mad about that. This was, obviously, before ‘the cough’ ever claimed Granpappy and forced Clifford into his ‘death watch.’
Clifford Jenkins pushed himself up off the dead tree stump and walked over to a small row of bushes. It was there that he did his business, as any man would in the wild. He walked back to his makeshift camp and sat close to the remnants of the fire. A little stoking and prodding brought forth a small flame, and Clifford warmed his hands over it before deciding what route to take that day. The mountain pass would be difficult, as the snows were already falling. The King’s Valley would be the easiest way, but Clifford really didn’t like the people who lived there. They walked funny, or at least that’s how is Granpappy had put it.
He reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and brought out two dice. He looked over that the fire again, “Alright, little flame, you’re my witness. Evens and I go to the mountain pass, odds and I take the King’s Valley.” He blew on the dice three times for luck and blessing, then cast them over against the dead tree stump.
Nine. King’s Valley it was.
Clifford stood and brushed off his pants. He pulled the jacket tighter around himself, forcefully thinking away the cool morning air.
He looked off to the west and saw the constellation Hendrix dipping to the horizon. Of course, in our time we didn’t call it Hendrix, we called it Orion, but mythology had been rewritten, lost, written, and then replaced by the people many times over from the time we first chronicled it to the time Clifford Jenkins awoke from a long slumber against a dead tree stump. The night couldn’t have been too long, because as he stirred Schrodinger the mouse scurried out of the bundle and looked on, anticipating a cheesy breakfast.
“Dang, you’re hungry, mouse,” Clifford mused, using the Swedish Navy knife to cut small slivers from the cheese block.
“Of course,” Schrodinger replied.
Clifford froze.
*****
“What’s the matter with you?” Schrodinger said.
“You can talk?” Clifford stammered, the Swedish Navy knife shaking clumsily in his hand.
“Yeah, well imagine our surprise at finding out humans could talk...” the mouse trailed of and turned his attention back to the cheese sliver before him.
Clifford stared off toward where the constellation Hendrix was crashing into the horizon, “A talking mouse,” he repeated several times, each in a slightly higher pitch of voice than the last.
Schrodinger scampered up onto Clifford’s knee after finishing his cheese, “Look, Cliff, we both know you’re shocked. But the King’s Valley isn’t getting any closer with us sitting here.”
Clifford swallowed and looked down at the mouse, “Yeah... you’re right... so, let’s... oh, for Pete’s sake! For a gall-dang talkin’ mouse!”
Schrodinger sighed (ad let me just say that if you’ve never heard a mouse sigh, you have no idea how funny it actually is) and jumped off Clifford’s knee, “Look, I’m getting back in the bundle, mostly ‘cause it’s warm. Now get up! We’ve got ground to cover.”
Clifford Jenkins, sensible as any man of 40 years, forced himself up from his sitting position and gathered his goods. The King’s Valley was a day’s walk if he maintained a reasonable pace.
* * * *
Clifford kept a less-than-reasonable pace, mostly because he was still reeling from the talking mouse episode, but he reached the entrance to the King’s Valley by mid-afternoon. Maybe those Historians were helping him out.
But as he looked out across the valley entrance, and the city of Carnacabidos (Anyone familiar with Egyptian history will know the names Karnak and Abydos, but let’s not kid ourselves, when the crapper-crashing world needed to scapegoat Columbus, they probably invented Egypt out of spite. Honestly, who in their right mind builds an empire in the desert?) Clifford Jenkins realized that it was likely that the Historians were rushing him toward his doom.
The valley wasn’t so much the lush oasis he’d envisioned from the stories of the old timers, of which only his Granpappy had been leery of the inhabitants thereof. The King’s Valley was a desert. Oddly enough, a dark blue ribbon ran through the desert. That’s the river, Clifford thought, Granpappy always said that the river lead to Historia.
Small cubes dotted the valley floor along both sides of the river, and it took Clifford’s brain a moment to work out the scale and realize that these small cubes were actually buildings. Some glittering in the mid-afternoon sun, gold plated if the ancient tales were true. (Who knew if any tales were true in these days.)
Clifford began to climb down the sidewall of the valley entrance. He could see the city of Carnacabidos, or rather what looked like the ruins of the city, below him probably three hundred feet, that would at least get him to the valley floor and further along his journey.
He stopped on a ledge, and just stood admiring the ancient craftsmanship that had built the city of Carnacabidos, and after a moment Clifford realized something that had yet to occur to him: there was no sound.
No people. No animals. No boats on the river. No birds. The King’s Valley was dead.
That’s when he heard the first explosion.
*****
The plume of smoke rose from a few miles down river from where Clifford stood on a rocky ledge. Schrodinger poked his head out of the bundle, “What was that?”
“An explosion.”
Schrodinger gave a puzzled sigh, “Right, you people haven’t been able to blow anything up for the last three hundred years.”
Clifford looked over at his furry companion, “And you know that how?”
The mouse withdrew into the bundle and Clifford began the slow, somewhat agonizing climb to the valley floor. They reached the bottom fairly quickly, and when Clifford looked back up the way they had come, he saw a rock wall far steeper than what they had climbed down. Just what were those Historians up to?
The sandy floor of the King’s Valley was, as Clifford noted upon reaching it, was a gradual incline, which surprise him, because the river ran uphill. He reshouldered his bundle and began trudging through the sand. The heat on the valley floor was oppressive, and the sun glare from the crystalline sand-grain was blinding.
It was quiet also, so quiet that Clifford thought he could hear his guitar strings contracting under the burdensome heat.
Ahead stood the ruins of Carnacabidos, once great city of the King’s Valley. Once ruled by the Historians, but free from their tyranny by a rebel leader the elders called Pharaoh. No other name was given for this ruler. Well, that’s how Clifford had leaned it at the only school in Nostalgia, The University.
Trick with the University was that there were no grade-levels. The youngest classmate Clifford had while attending had been four years old, the eldest thirty-two. You left the University when the teacher declared you ready to enter the real world.
Clifford Jenkins stopped on the outskirts of Carnacabidos, kneeling beneath a palm tree. He pulled some of the dried meat, the jerky, from his old travel bag and chewed on it vigorously. He drank water from the river, and sliced off some cheese for Schrodinger, who at least had the sheltering shade of the bundle to stay cool.
After this brief respite, Clifford began moving again, this time into the heart of the old ruins. He thought back to his life in Nostalgia, a life he’d left for no reason other than a sudden desire to go to Historia. He thought of his home. His mother and father, both still living, and probably wondering just where on God’s green earth their son had gone.
“I probably should’ve left a note, or something,” Clifford thought aloud. His statement responded to by none.
From far away, far beyond where Clifford Jenkins could see, another explosion echoed across the valley.
“What was that?” Schrodinger cried, emerging from the bundle and scampering to Clifford’s shoulder.
“Another explosion.”
“I’m telling you, Cliff, that’s impossible. Explosives are gone, dried up, kapoof under the sun.”
Clifford paused and examined the mouse out of the corner of his eye, “And I’m telling you that no mouse can talk, so what are you?”
Schrodinger snickered, “I... I am going back to the bundle. Have fun with your walk.”
Clifford waited patiently as the mouse clambered back into the bundle, “How did I end up with you? Little furry freak.”
“I heard that!”
*****
The most surprising aspect of the sandstorm was the suddenness of its arrival. Clifford took shelter in one of the ruined buildings. He could see nothing beyond the old glass windows except a sand-colored wall. For all he knew, the sand had completely covered the ruined city.
Schrodinger had left the bundle, and Clifford’s presence, presumably to handle his business, as Clifford knew a mouse would have to do. He decided, while waiting, to explore the building.
The first floor was empty, and the creaking wooden stairs that led to the second floor gave Clifford an incredibly uncomfortable feeling. He reached the top, and realized he could smell smoke, something that he hadn’t smelled since the campfire that... well, it seemed like a long time ago, but it was just last night. Come to think of it, the day hadn’t changed since he’d reached the King’s Valley. What were those Historians up to this time?
The smoke had to be investigated. One couldn’t stay in a burning building. He found a small fire burning in a fireplace, and before wondering who had built it, he wondered what fuel they had used. The only wood he’d seen was the stairs, wooden in a stone building, and they were intact.
“Hey!” The voice came from behind him. “What’re you doing here? The Valley’s closed. No one should be here!”
Clifford had spun upon hearing the voice, “I’m going to Historia.”
The voice belonged to a wretched old being, aged beyond the ability to distinguish male or female features. It pointed a fragile finger at Clifford, “You have to leave! The Valley is closed.”
Clifford scoffed, “It’s not a shop, old one. I can come and go as I please. How do you know my name?”
The old thing laughed, “I know much, Clifford Jenkins. Much that you cannot comprehend. I know that once great wars were fought across the entire world. I know that science once understood that everything came from nothing in one moment of pure explosive exquisiteness.”
Clifford shook his head, “Yeah, I learned those things at University. World Wars One through Eight, Creation. I know it all. Now I need to get back downstairs, get my things, and get ready to leave.”
“And go where, Clifford Jenkins?”
Clifford, who had already turned to leave, spun back around, “I told you, I’m going to Historia.”
The elder raised both hands, trying to scare Clifford into retreat, “No! Historia is closed to you. You must run away, Clifford Jenkins. You cannot stay here. The Valley is not yours.”
“Right, and who exactly is going to stop me from passing through the valley?”
The ancient thing moved closer, “You have no weapon to threaten me, Clifford Jenkins. Your Swedish Navy Knife is naught but a trinket.”
“He has me!” Schrodinger shouted, (again, a mouse vocalizing anything is funny, a mouse shouting, darned hilarious) leaping up onto Clifford’s shoulder.
The thing withdrew in abject terror, “A mouse. Progenitor of the Experiment.”
Clifford tilted his head like he’d once seen his pet dog Scruffy do. He was puzzled.
The ancient being continued talking, “I’ve read of you, demon mouse. In the Book Place of Alex and Rhea. One wrote of you, the genesis of the great experiment. You’re to blame, demon!”
Clifford left the thing to writhe in its own fear. He walked back down the steps, trying to figure out how to ask Schrodinger about that last exchange.
“Before you ask,” Schrodinger said, saving him the trouble of asking, “I know what that person was talking about. Years upon untold years ago, a fiction was writ about mice, stating that we had created all things as an experiment.”
Clifford nodded, “Makes sense.”
Schrodinger gave him the most puzzled look a mouse could muster, “Seriously?”
“No, not seriously! You’re a mouse, a gall-danged mouse! How is that supposed to make any sense?”
Schrodinger shrugged a little mousy shrug, “The Book Place of Alex and Rhea. Must be local gods, and the Book Place is what you would call a Library. But no book has been written for centuries.”
Clifford sighed, and looked outside. The sandstorm had passed. But the river still flowed uphill, he was still traveling with a talking mouse, and he still, for some ungodly reason, had to reach Historia.
*****
Clifford gathered his things, hoisted the guitar and strapped it to his back, and then shouldered the bundle, complete with Schrodinger inside. As they started once again walking toward Historia, Schrodinger scurried down the bundle-stick and landed on Clifford’s shoulder, near his ear.
“What now?” Clifford asked, a trifle annoyed.
“I just want you to think about something that just happened.”
“What? The old guy... er, woman... crone... thing? The fireplace? The sandstorm?”
Schrodinger gave an exasperated sigh (I’m telling you, a mouse sighing, funniest thing on the planet), “You asked the person how they knew your name before they had said it.”
Clifford paused, then kept walking, “What about it?”
Schrodinger tapped on his shoulder with a rapidly moving paw, and for a moment Clifford couldn’t tell if the mouse was annoyed or it was scratching, “Clifford, how could he or she have known your name? And how could you know that they knew your name?”
Clifford Jenkins, probably a little less sensible now than most men of 40 years, tapped a finger on the bundle-stick, “I’m more concerned with you, my friend. Why was that person so afraid?”
Schrodinger started back up the bundle-stick and toward his makeshift home, “Stop under the tree over this next sand dune. We’ll talk in the shade.”
Clifford shook his head and began the climb up the fairly imposing sand dune. As he crested it, he saw the tree Schrodinger was referring to, a monstrous Evergreen, the sand around it littered with pine cones and needles.
He sat his belongings down and made his way to the river. He gathered some water in a canteen he’d brought along. Looking slightly up river (or is it down river... river’s aren’t supposed to run uphill, how the crap is one supposed to know where to go?) Clifford saw a bird drinking water. Clifford’s first thought was a brief thanks to whatever god or gods had seen fit to put a bird in his path.
It took a moment for him to catch the bird, which he realized was a turkey. (Let me say here that if you’ve never seen a 40-year-old man wrestle a turkey to the death, well, it’s on par funny with a sighing mouse.) It took him the better part of two hours to de-feather and clean the bird, before using the dried pine-needles to start a fire. He took the feathers and entrails (I know, ick!) and tossed them in the river, where they flowed downhill while the water continued flowing uphill. He thought this odd for only a second until his hunger got the better of his curiosity. He cooked the turkey and, using the block of cheese and the dried meat jerky he’d brought, prepared himself a small feast.
“What?” Schrodinger said, scampering from the bundle, “You’re not going to share?”
Clifford cocked his head to the side, more puzzled than ever, “If I know anything, I know that mice don’t eat meat.”
“And I can talk, something else mice can’t do. What does that tell you about me?”
Clifford nodded and slid some of the cooked meat over to his mousy friend, “So let’s talk?”
Schrodinger swallowed a bite of the turkey meat and rested back on his haunches, “Look around you, Clifford Jenkins. You are from the town of Nostalgia, which is in a mountainous area, trees like this, right? So how is it that a desert valley is less than a day’s walk away from you? How is a pine tree in the desert? How does a river run uphill?”
Clifford had stopped eating when Schrodinger started talking, “I don’t know. I mean, I’m trying to figure out what the gall-dang crap I’m doing out here. One night I’m sitting in Timey’s bar, playing guitar like usual, the next morning I’ve decided that I have to reach Historia come Hell or high water. I packed a bunch of crap that’ll run out in about two days.”
Schrodinger laughed (again, hilarious), “Have you not also noticed that this is still the same day as when you entered the King’s Valley? We’ve traveled probably eighty miles, three days walking, carrying the amount you’re carrying, and yet it’s only taken us a day and a half. We entered the King’s Valley only three hours ago, as the Sun reckons.”
Clifford looked up for the first time since entering the Valley and saw rain clouds overhead, “It feels like we’ve been here for days.”
Schrodinger quickly swallowed another bite of turkey meat, “Historia is in chaos. The parts of the city are rebelling against themselves. The Vikings keep pushing Guevara’s guerillas even farther back, the Inquisition has actually reached the Smithsonian, and the Vatican has been turned into a giant gift shop. Father Time is ill, he’ll probably die soon.”
Clifford finally broke from his thoughtful reverie (he didn’t know who the Vikings or the Guevara’s gorilla’s were, nor did he have any idea about an Inquisition, a Smith’s On Yan, or the Vat-a-Can, but he did know what a gift shop was) and grabbed another bite of the turkey before Schrodinger ate it all, “And that has what to do with me?”
Schrodinger popped another bit of cheese into his mouth, and after seconds of chewing, spoke around the bits still in his mouth, “Clifford, I have no idea. But if I had my guess, I’d say you’re not the only one making a journey to Historia for no apparent reason.”
Clifford leaned back against the tree and instantly regretted it, the sap momentarily gluing him to the trunk, “So let’s get back to you. What are you?”
Schrodinger had already started withdrawing to the bundle, “Me? I’m a mouse. Just a mouse. Oh, and I can talk. Big whoop. Let’s go. We’ll be out of the King’s Valley soon. Don’t be surprised if time goes all wibbly-wobbly on you.”
Clifford took the pseudo-warning in stride and began cleaning up his temporary campsite. The rainclouds finally broke into a torrential downpour that made walking along the sandy valley floor even harder. Clifford stopped at a rocky outcropping and rummaged through his old travel bag for a moment. He pulled out a hat with the letters NY on it, something his granpappy had given him years ago. Another talisman.
He trudged on through the mud. After hours of walking, he finally saw the high rock wall that made up the west end of the King’s Valley.
*****
The fact that he hadn’t heard an explosion since leaving Carnacabidos didn’t cross Clifford’s mind until an explosion went off about five hundred feet to his left. He was nearly to the high rock wall that marked the western end of the King’s Valley. (It also never crossed his mind that he had followed the river then entire way and had yet to come across any of the buildings he’d seen upon entering the Valley. He would remember this one afternoon sitting on a park bench in Historia, facing a thirty foot section of railroad track that was in the middle of a grassy field, unconnected to any other track.)
He rushed for the wall and found cover under it as another explosion went off near where he’d been standing moments before. Schrodinger scampered out of the bundle, “Was that more explosions?”
Clifford glanced sideways at the mouse, “I thought you said that humans couldn’t blow stuff up anymore?”
The mouse looked to be in deep thought for a brief moment, “Well, obviously I was wrong.”
Clifford waited for the explosions to stop, and then began looking for a way to climb the rock wall. He found what looked like rough-hewn steps leading in a haphazard way up the cliff face and a bit on an angle. The climb didn’t take as long as Clifford had figured it would, and he credited that to the Historians, whatever the crap they were doing.
At the top he found himself confronted by four men carrying guns. At least, Clifford thought they were guns. He’d seen pictures at the University of guns from different time periods, but these were either older or newer, Clifford couldn’t tell which.
“Stop! Who are you?”
Clifford looked at the man who spoke. His uniform differed a bit from the others. (I forgot to mention, they’re all in uniforms. We would instantly recognize them as the ragtag uniforms of soldiers in General Washington’s Continental Army, but Clifford didn’t know what the Continental Army was, or who General Washington was.)
“I’m Clifford Jenkins, and I’m going to Historia. Who are you?”
The man drew himself up into a regality that Clifford knew he did not possess, but was merely able to replicate by imitation, “I am Brigadier General Israel Putnam. I am tasked with war.”
Clifford pulled himself the rest of the way up off the stairs, hands raised to show he was not a threat. He took a quick inventory of his situation. It was suddenly night, when three feet below him it was bright as mid-afternoon. He looked at the tired-looking, rugged soldiers of Putnam’s camp. “And who are you at war with?”
Putnam looked indignant, “That Valley, obviously.”
“Well, I’d say you’re winning. The sand won’t put up much of a fight.”
A tiny voice sounded in Clifford’s ear, and he realized that Schrodinger was once again on his shoulder, “Um, Clifford, look behind you.”
Clifford turned and saw that the Valley below was lined with encampments. The soldier below wielded clubs, spears and swords, and were dressed in simple skirts and what looked like elaborate headdresses.
“Oh,” Clifford muttered, “That’s who you’re fighting.” He maintained his gaze at the valley, but spoke only loud enough for Schrodinger to hear him, “How did we not see any of that?”
The mouse replied, “I wish I could tell you.”
As Clifford turned around, he heard Brigadier General Putnam begin to bellow orders, “Alright boys! Load up another IckBem, let’s give those sandies what they deserve!”
Clifford watched as a cylinder was loaded onto a catapult. Along the side, in bright blue letters, was written ICBM. The catapult released and flung the cylinder far out into the Valley. When it struck the ground a plume of dust and sand shot up, but nothing else happened.
“Crap!” Putnam screamed, “Another dud.”
Then the explosion hit. The IckBem went off with terrifying brightness. Bodies flew into the air and sand went in all directions. Clifford even noticed the Evergreen tree he’d been sitting under earlier eating the turkey fly off into the night.
Schrodinger spoke, “I think we need to leave, Clifford. This is not a place we need to be.”
“I agree.”
Putnam spun on his heels, “You agree with who, Jenkins? Don’t think you’re leaving. You’re not a sandie, that means you fight with us.”
Clifford shook his head, “Oh, no! I’m not a sandie, but I’m not one of you either. I’m from Nostalgia, on the eastern side of the King’s Valley, unaffiliated with any but their own.”
Putnam picked up a gun and shoved it into Clifford’s hands, “I’d like to believe you, Jenkins, I really would. But we can’t let those sandies get out of the Valley.”
Clifford deftly avoided the gun, “But they can just leave out of the Eastern side, can’t they?”
Brigadier General Israel Putnam paused for a moment, “By golly, you’re right. We’ll need to form an expeditionary force to go to the east side and give those sandies the whuppin’ they deserve.”
Clifford blinked, “What did they do to deserve such a beating?”
The General laughed, “You don’t know? They walk funny, son. They walk funny.”
Clifford turned and walked away. The General’s face turned bright red, “Hey! No one walks away from Brigadier General Israel Putnam! No one!”
Clifford offered a genteel wave, which further incensed the General.
Putnam screamed, “I’ll see you again, Jenkins!”
Clifford kept walking, “And when you do I’ll be the one with the talking mouse.”
Putnam turned back to his battle, “Talking mouse? Gall-dang, that is one stupid boy.”
But Clifford Jenkins also knew that every ounce of that history was, well, just that: history. That was life, living in the small town of Nostalgia, a border province of Historia. Everything was over, and nothing could be done to change it. At least, that’s how it was in Nostalgia.
Over the mountains, in Historia, it was said, history was a living thing that constantly changed. Word had reached Nostalgia just that morning that the Vikings had launched an assault on Guevara’s guerillas. Of course, Clifford, like any sensible man of 40 years, doubted if Columbus or Europe had ever existed to begin with. Sometimes, when the world was crashing down the crapper, the people needed a scapegoat. Just so happens they made up Columbus.
And we all know that any good scapegoat needs a land to come from. The mythical Plymouth, smack in the heart of Germanic Europe (don’t ask me how a ship set sail from the heart of a continent, much less how the people knew that Europe was Germanic at the time, or even how they knew Europe was a continent) was created in turn, and had been home port to the HMS Beagle, the HMS standing, of course, for Huge, Massive Ship.
Clifford leaned against the high-backed chair that sat at the corner of the piano. He was playing guitar, strumming out the chorus to Auld Lang Syne, but singing the words to Silent Night, a local favorite. Timey’s Bar was crowded for a Wednesday night. Or maybe it was Friday, one could never tell what those idiots in Historia had done to the week.
“Cliff, play Old Man River!” That was Timey himself, of course he was more than intoxicated (a condition the locals called kershnockered).
“And what should I sing, oh great Timey?” Clifford Jenkins called back.
“Try Yellow Submarine...” Timey trailed off, a tendency among the kershnockered, especially at this late hour (4:15 p.m.) of the night.
Clifford began an upbeat “Old Man River” and threw in Yellow Submarine, with a short chorus of Lucy in the Sky, just to please the patrons. He looked outside and watched the sun setting over the mountains that separated Historia from the everything else. And it was at that moment that Clifford Jenkins, sensible as any man of 40 years, realized that he had to leave Nostalgia behind and journey to Historia.
***
The next morning, or night, again, you never knew what those idiots in Historia were doing, Clifford Jenkins gathered up his things. He packed the old travel bag (it had Samsonite imprinted on the latch, but that word had long since left the language) with a few changes of clothes, the necessary toiletries, and some assorted canned foods and dried meats. Like any traveler on the road in these days, he bundled a towel onto the end of a stick (he’d seen pictures of what the old timers called hobos carrying them, and then he noticed every traveler through Nostalgia had one, so he made himself one). In this bundle he stuffed a few extra guitar strings, a block of cheese wrapped in leafy-paper, and a pocket knife that had all kinds of extra do-dads on it. The elders called it a Swedish Navy Knife, or something to that effect.
He thought more than once about carrying the knife in his pocket, as it’s description would imply should be done, but then he wouldn’t have had room for Schrodinger, his mouse.
And so, with travel bag in one hand, stick-and-bundle across one shoulder, and guitar strapped to one back, Clifford Jenkins began walking toward the Mountain Pass that led from Nostalgia, through the Antique Mountains, and into the land of Historia.
So it’s here that you, the reader, should be told about Historia.
Historia rests between two mountain ranges, the Antiques to the East, and the Conveniences to the West. It is an arid rain forest whose capital is a pyramid crowned with what we know of as the Statue of Liberty. Of course, the Statue’s upheld arm was replaced with a cannon long ago, and it’s head no longer looks like a woman, but more like a fictional villain of some science fiction story (a black helmet, I think that gives it away with breaking copyright laws).
Around this pyramid is a city that looks like someone from our time chopped up a map of London, New York City, Washington DC, the Vatican, Ancient Nineveh, New Nineveh, and the small town of Buford, Georgia, United States (circa 2008), and then spliced bits and pieces of them together, radiating out from the statue-topped structure.
Historia was founded sometime before Europe realized that they had feet, or so said the Historians, as they called themselves. Their ruler called himself Father Time, but everyone knew his real name was Ted. Of that everyone, only a select few knew that Father Time was dying. Old age was ruled out immediately, as Father Time is only 42 years old.
But I’ve drifted away from telling you about Historia. The land of Historia is bordered on the south by a great Ocean (some say it was once the Gulf of Mexico, but no one knows if Mexico was a real place or not) and to the north by the glaciers. Historia is the name of the land, but also of the city itself.
Clifford Jenkins will eventually find himself in the city. And yeah, I know that takes away a lot of the suspense of his journey, and I could probably skip over that part in the telling now, but it would cause you, the reader, to miss out on a few fun and interesting people that Clifford meets along the way. And, I never said if Schrodinger the mouse reaches Historia safely or not. You’ll have to read on to find out.
*****
Clifford Jenkins slumped against the stump of a felled tree. The gnarled stump was dead, and would make good tender, but Clifford had built his fire from the dying grasses and weeds. Autumn was closing and becoming winter, making him rethink his decision to strike out for Historia when he did.
As he looked at the smoldering remnants of his fire, and began plucking Auld Lang Syne on his guitar, Clifford found his mind wandering back to when he was ten years old, and he pulled his first “death watch.”
In Nostalgia, it was tradition for a child to face a familial “death watch” as early as possible. The old timers said that it ‘toughened’ a child, and readied him for the world. And with Historia at their doorstep, the children of Nostalgia has to be toughened as soon as possible.
And so it was, that at the tender age of ten, Clifford’s granpappy had fallen ill of ‘the cough.’ Timey the Bar Owner had been an intermittent figure during that awful week, coming in and going out while Granpappy had grown steadily worse.
Clifford, looking at the smoldering fire, could see it as the fire in the small furnace in his granpappy’s death chamber, a small room on the back of every house in Nostalgia, furnished much the same, each with a mirror in it, most with a word inlaid into the mirror-sheen surface, usually Budweiser, a talisman of the old days used to ward off the evil encroaching from Historia like a disease. Like granpappy’s cough.
The bed was nothing more than a cot built up with a light mattress and pillows to make the dying as comfortable as possible. The old timers of Nostalgia had found chairs at some time in the distant past, each with a brightly colored emblem on it, most now sun-faded to the point of obscurity, but some could still be made out. Atlanta Falcons, Chicago Bears, Detroit Tigers. Clifford’s own granpappy, before ‘the cough’ had ravaged him, said that these were once great cities, and that the animals were the spiritual protectors of these thriving metropolises.
Granpappy coughed, a hacking, wheezing cough that brought a light spittle of blood to his lips. Clifford knew that the time was soon. Timey had returned with a pail of cool water and some dried meat.
“’Twont be long, Cliff,” he had said, putting a weather-worn hand on the boy’s shoulder.
From the kitchen of the house, Clifford heard his mother yelling at his father, “No boy should have to do this! He’s watching his granpap, your dad, die, and you’re sitting in here staring at the fireplace!” (Staring at fires was a habit of the Jenkins family.)
Clifford didn’t think twice about it. He had to ‘death watch.’ It was proper for a boy his age. It was the essence of Nostalgia, to strengthen against the blight of the Historians.
Clifford realized he’d long since stopped plucking the guitar and he had to almost physically remove himself from the twilight reverie. He reached for the bundle and pulled the block of cheese from it. With the Swedish Navy knife he cut off a chunk for himself and a sliver for Schrodinger the Mouse.
He pulled his collar up tight around his neck and scrunched as low as he could to protect against the cool of the night. He made it to the foothills on the first day. No small feat, considering that, with those idiots in Historia constantly futzing with the natural order, time was a lost concept.
He waited for Schrodinger to finish the cheese sliver, and while he waited he returned everything to its proper place in the bundle. Once the mouse was finished eating, Clifford lifted it up by the tail (he could sware that made the mouse giggle) and dropped it onto the stick-and-bundle. Schrodinger scurried up into the bundle and nestled between the cheese block and an envelope that Clifford carried at all times.
Clifford Jenkins, sensible as any man of 40 years, leaned further against the old, dead tree, and curled over for some sleep. He wanted to make it to the city of Historia by Boxing Day, which would be no easy task, as snow was already falling in the Antique Mountains overhead.
*****
Clifford awoke about an hour before sunrise, but it felt like a much longer night. As he shook his head to ward of sleep, he felt strands of matted hair hit the sides of his face. Perhaps the night had been years long, dang the Historians!
Time was when the people of Nostalgia never had to worry about Father Time and his minions causing trouble. They were, so the elders said, once a group of monks who just stared at clocks all day. The higher level masters of the order, it was said, could cause a clock to run backward just by looking at it.
Clifford had once caused a clock to run backward, but it was more the result of playing catch in the house with his older brother. And dang had his granpappy been mad about that. This was, obviously, before ‘the cough’ ever claimed Granpappy and forced Clifford into his ‘death watch.’
Clifford Jenkins pushed himself up off the dead tree stump and walked over to a small row of bushes. It was there that he did his business, as any man would in the wild. He walked back to his makeshift camp and sat close to the remnants of the fire. A little stoking and prodding brought forth a small flame, and Clifford warmed his hands over it before deciding what route to take that day. The mountain pass would be difficult, as the snows were already falling. The King’s Valley would be the easiest way, but Clifford really didn’t like the people who lived there. They walked funny, or at least that’s how is Granpappy had put it.
He reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and brought out two dice. He looked over that the fire again, “Alright, little flame, you’re my witness. Evens and I go to the mountain pass, odds and I take the King’s Valley.” He blew on the dice three times for luck and blessing, then cast them over against the dead tree stump.
Nine. King’s Valley it was.
Clifford stood and brushed off his pants. He pulled the jacket tighter around himself, forcefully thinking away the cool morning air.
He looked off to the west and saw the constellation Hendrix dipping to the horizon. Of course, in our time we didn’t call it Hendrix, we called it Orion, but mythology had been rewritten, lost, written, and then replaced by the people many times over from the time we first chronicled it to the time Clifford Jenkins awoke from a long slumber against a dead tree stump. The night couldn’t have been too long, because as he stirred Schrodinger the mouse scurried out of the bundle and looked on, anticipating a cheesy breakfast.
“Dang, you’re hungry, mouse,” Clifford mused, using the Swedish Navy knife to cut small slivers from the cheese block.
“Of course,” Schrodinger replied.
Clifford froze.
*****
“What’s the matter with you?” Schrodinger said.
“You can talk?” Clifford stammered, the Swedish Navy knife shaking clumsily in his hand.
“Yeah, well imagine our surprise at finding out humans could talk...” the mouse trailed of and turned his attention back to the cheese sliver before him.
Clifford stared off toward where the constellation Hendrix was crashing into the horizon, “A talking mouse,” he repeated several times, each in a slightly higher pitch of voice than the last.
Schrodinger scampered up onto Clifford’s knee after finishing his cheese, “Look, Cliff, we both know you’re shocked. But the King’s Valley isn’t getting any closer with us sitting here.”
Clifford swallowed and looked down at the mouse, “Yeah... you’re right... so, let’s... oh, for Pete’s sake! For a gall-dang talkin’ mouse!”
Schrodinger sighed (ad let me just say that if you’ve never heard a mouse sigh, you have no idea how funny it actually is) and jumped off Clifford’s knee, “Look, I’m getting back in the bundle, mostly ‘cause it’s warm. Now get up! We’ve got ground to cover.”
Clifford Jenkins, sensible as any man of 40 years, forced himself up from his sitting position and gathered his goods. The King’s Valley was a day’s walk if he maintained a reasonable pace.
* * * *
Clifford kept a less-than-reasonable pace, mostly because he was still reeling from the talking mouse episode, but he reached the entrance to the King’s Valley by mid-afternoon. Maybe those Historians were helping him out.
But as he looked out across the valley entrance, and the city of Carnacabidos (Anyone familiar with Egyptian history will know the names Karnak and Abydos, but let’s not kid ourselves, when the crapper-crashing world needed to scapegoat Columbus, they probably invented Egypt out of spite. Honestly, who in their right mind builds an empire in the desert?) Clifford Jenkins realized that it was likely that the Historians were rushing him toward his doom.
The valley wasn’t so much the lush oasis he’d envisioned from the stories of the old timers, of which only his Granpappy had been leery of the inhabitants thereof. The King’s Valley was a desert. Oddly enough, a dark blue ribbon ran through the desert. That’s the river, Clifford thought, Granpappy always said that the river lead to Historia.
Small cubes dotted the valley floor along both sides of the river, and it took Clifford’s brain a moment to work out the scale and realize that these small cubes were actually buildings. Some glittering in the mid-afternoon sun, gold plated if the ancient tales were true. (Who knew if any tales were true in these days.)
Clifford began to climb down the sidewall of the valley entrance. He could see the city of Carnacabidos, or rather what looked like the ruins of the city, below him probably three hundred feet, that would at least get him to the valley floor and further along his journey.
He stopped on a ledge, and just stood admiring the ancient craftsmanship that had built the city of Carnacabidos, and after a moment Clifford realized something that had yet to occur to him: there was no sound.
No people. No animals. No boats on the river. No birds. The King’s Valley was dead.
That’s when he heard the first explosion.
*****
The plume of smoke rose from a few miles down river from where Clifford stood on a rocky ledge. Schrodinger poked his head out of the bundle, “What was that?”
“An explosion.”
Schrodinger gave a puzzled sigh, “Right, you people haven’t been able to blow anything up for the last three hundred years.”
Clifford looked over at his furry companion, “And you know that how?”
The mouse withdrew into the bundle and Clifford began the slow, somewhat agonizing climb to the valley floor. They reached the bottom fairly quickly, and when Clifford looked back up the way they had come, he saw a rock wall far steeper than what they had climbed down. Just what were those Historians up to?
The sandy floor of the King’s Valley was, as Clifford noted upon reaching it, was a gradual incline, which surprise him, because the river ran uphill. He reshouldered his bundle and began trudging through the sand. The heat on the valley floor was oppressive, and the sun glare from the crystalline sand-grain was blinding.
It was quiet also, so quiet that Clifford thought he could hear his guitar strings contracting under the burdensome heat.
Ahead stood the ruins of Carnacabidos, once great city of the King’s Valley. Once ruled by the Historians, but free from their tyranny by a rebel leader the elders called Pharaoh. No other name was given for this ruler. Well, that’s how Clifford had leaned it at the only school in Nostalgia, The University.
Trick with the University was that there were no grade-levels. The youngest classmate Clifford had while attending had been four years old, the eldest thirty-two. You left the University when the teacher declared you ready to enter the real world.
Clifford Jenkins stopped on the outskirts of Carnacabidos, kneeling beneath a palm tree. He pulled some of the dried meat, the jerky, from his old travel bag and chewed on it vigorously. He drank water from the river, and sliced off some cheese for Schrodinger, who at least had the sheltering shade of the bundle to stay cool.
After this brief respite, Clifford began moving again, this time into the heart of the old ruins. He thought back to his life in Nostalgia, a life he’d left for no reason other than a sudden desire to go to Historia. He thought of his home. His mother and father, both still living, and probably wondering just where on God’s green earth their son had gone.
“I probably should’ve left a note, or something,” Clifford thought aloud. His statement responded to by none.
From far away, far beyond where Clifford Jenkins could see, another explosion echoed across the valley.
“What was that?” Schrodinger cried, emerging from the bundle and scampering to Clifford’s shoulder.
“Another explosion.”
“I’m telling you, Cliff, that’s impossible. Explosives are gone, dried up, kapoof under the sun.”
Clifford paused and examined the mouse out of the corner of his eye, “And I’m telling you that no mouse can talk, so what are you?”
Schrodinger snickered, “I... I am going back to the bundle. Have fun with your walk.”
Clifford waited patiently as the mouse clambered back into the bundle, “How did I end up with you? Little furry freak.”
“I heard that!”
*****
The most surprising aspect of the sandstorm was the suddenness of its arrival. Clifford took shelter in one of the ruined buildings. He could see nothing beyond the old glass windows except a sand-colored wall. For all he knew, the sand had completely covered the ruined city.
Schrodinger had left the bundle, and Clifford’s presence, presumably to handle his business, as Clifford knew a mouse would have to do. He decided, while waiting, to explore the building.
The first floor was empty, and the creaking wooden stairs that led to the second floor gave Clifford an incredibly uncomfortable feeling. He reached the top, and realized he could smell smoke, something that he hadn’t smelled since the campfire that... well, it seemed like a long time ago, but it was just last night. Come to think of it, the day hadn’t changed since he’d reached the King’s Valley. What were those Historians up to this time?
The smoke had to be investigated. One couldn’t stay in a burning building. He found a small fire burning in a fireplace, and before wondering who had built it, he wondered what fuel they had used. The only wood he’d seen was the stairs, wooden in a stone building, and they were intact.
“Hey!” The voice came from behind him. “What’re you doing here? The Valley’s closed. No one should be here!”
Clifford had spun upon hearing the voice, “I’m going to Historia.”
The voice belonged to a wretched old being, aged beyond the ability to distinguish male or female features. It pointed a fragile finger at Clifford, “You have to leave! The Valley is closed.”
Clifford scoffed, “It’s not a shop, old one. I can come and go as I please. How do you know my name?”
The old thing laughed, “I know much, Clifford Jenkins. Much that you cannot comprehend. I know that once great wars were fought across the entire world. I know that science once understood that everything came from nothing in one moment of pure explosive exquisiteness.”
Clifford shook his head, “Yeah, I learned those things at University. World Wars One through Eight, Creation. I know it all. Now I need to get back downstairs, get my things, and get ready to leave.”
“And go where, Clifford Jenkins?”
Clifford, who had already turned to leave, spun back around, “I told you, I’m going to Historia.”
The elder raised both hands, trying to scare Clifford into retreat, “No! Historia is closed to you. You must run away, Clifford Jenkins. You cannot stay here. The Valley is not yours.”
“Right, and who exactly is going to stop me from passing through the valley?”
The ancient thing moved closer, “You have no weapon to threaten me, Clifford Jenkins. Your Swedish Navy Knife is naught but a trinket.”
“He has me!” Schrodinger shouted, (again, a mouse vocalizing anything is funny, a mouse shouting, darned hilarious) leaping up onto Clifford’s shoulder.
The thing withdrew in abject terror, “A mouse. Progenitor of the Experiment.”
Clifford tilted his head like he’d once seen his pet dog Scruffy do. He was puzzled.
The ancient being continued talking, “I’ve read of you, demon mouse. In the Book Place of Alex and Rhea. One wrote of you, the genesis of the great experiment. You’re to blame, demon!”
Clifford left the thing to writhe in its own fear. He walked back down the steps, trying to figure out how to ask Schrodinger about that last exchange.
“Before you ask,” Schrodinger said, saving him the trouble of asking, “I know what that person was talking about. Years upon untold years ago, a fiction was writ about mice, stating that we had created all things as an experiment.”
Clifford nodded, “Makes sense.”
Schrodinger gave him the most puzzled look a mouse could muster, “Seriously?”
“No, not seriously! You’re a mouse, a gall-danged mouse! How is that supposed to make any sense?”
Schrodinger shrugged a little mousy shrug, “The Book Place of Alex and Rhea. Must be local gods, and the Book Place is what you would call a Library. But no book has been written for centuries.”
Clifford sighed, and looked outside. The sandstorm had passed. But the river still flowed uphill, he was still traveling with a talking mouse, and he still, for some ungodly reason, had to reach Historia.
*****
Clifford gathered his things, hoisted the guitar and strapped it to his back, and then shouldered the bundle, complete with Schrodinger inside. As they started once again walking toward Historia, Schrodinger scurried down the bundle-stick and landed on Clifford’s shoulder, near his ear.
“What now?” Clifford asked, a trifle annoyed.
“I just want you to think about something that just happened.”
“What? The old guy... er, woman... crone... thing? The fireplace? The sandstorm?”
Schrodinger gave an exasperated sigh (I’m telling you, a mouse sighing, funniest thing on the planet), “You asked the person how they knew your name before they had said it.”
Clifford paused, then kept walking, “What about it?”
Schrodinger tapped on his shoulder with a rapidly moving paw, and for a moment Clifford couldn’t tell if the mouse was annoyed or it was scratching, “Clifford, how could he or she have known your name? And how could you know that they knew your name?”
Clifford Jenkins, probably a little less sensible now than most men of 40 years, tapped a finger on the bundle-stick, “I’m more concerned with you, my friend. Why was that person so afraid?”
Schrodinger started back up the bundle-stick and toward his makeshift home, “Stop under the tree over this next sand dune. We’ll talk in the shade.”
Clifford shook his head and began the climb up the fairly imposing sand dune. As he crested it, he saw the tree Schrodinger was referring to, a monstrous Evergreen, the sand around it littered with pine cones and needles.
He sat his belongings down and made his way to the river. He gathered some water in a canteen he’d brought along. Looking slightly up river (or is it down river... river’s aren’t supposed to run uphill, how the crap is one supposed to know where to go?) Clifford saw a bird drinking water. Clifford’s first thought was a brief thanks to whatever god or gods had seen fit to put a bird in his path.
It took a moment for him to catch the bird, which he realized was a turkey. (Let me say here that if you’ve never seen a 40-year-old man wrestle a turkey to the death, well, it’s on par funny with a sighing mouse.) It took him the better part of two hours to de-feather and clean the bird, before using the dried pine-needles to start a fire. He took the feathers and entrails (I know, ick!) and tossed them in the river, where they flowed downhill while the water continued flowing uphill. He thought this odd for only a second until his hunger got the better of his curiosity. He cooked the turkey and, using the block of cheese and the dried meat jerky he’d brought, prepared himself a small feast.
“What?” Schrodinger said, scampering from the bundle, “You’re not going to share?”
Clifford cocked his head to the side, more puzzled than ever, “If I know anything, I know that mice don’t eat meat.”
“And I can talk, something else mice can’t do. What does that tell you about me?”
Clifford nodded and slid some of the cooked meat over to his mousy friend, “So let’s talk?”
Schrodinger swallowed a bite of the turkey meat and rested back on his haunches, “Look around you, Clifford Jenkins. You are from the town of Nostalgia, which is in a mountainous area, trees like this, right? So how is it that a desert valley is less than a day’s walk away from you? How is a pine tree in the desert? How does a river run uphill?”
Clifford had stopped eating when Schrodinger started talking, “I don’t know. I mean, I’m trying to figure out what the gall-dang crap I’m doing out here. One night I’m sitting in Timey’s bar, playing guitar like usual, the next morning I’ve decided that I have to reach Historia come Hell or high water. I packed a bunch of crap that’ll run out in about two days.”
Schrodinger laughed (again, hilarious), “Have you not also noticed that this is still the same day as when you entered the King’s Valley? We’ve traveled probably eighty miles, three days walking, carrying the amount you’re carrying, and yet it’s only taken us a day and a half. We entered the King’s Valley only three hours ago, as the Sun reckons.”
Clifford looked up for the first time since entering the Valley and saw rain clouds overhead, “It feels like we’ve been here for days.”
Schrodinger quickly swallowed another bite of turkey meat, “Historia is in chaos. The parts of the city are rebelling against themselves. The Vikings keep pushing Guevara’s guerillas even farther back, the Inquisition has actually reached the Smithsonian, and the Vatican has been turned into a giant gift shop. Father Time is ill, he’ll probably die soon.”
Clifford finally broke from his thoughtful reverie (he didn’t know who the Vikings or the Guevara’s gorilla’s were, nor did he have any idea about an Inquisition, a Smith’s On Yan, or the Vat-a-Can, but he did know what a gift shop was) and grabbed another bite of the turkey before Schrodinger ate it all, “And that has what to do with me?”
Schrodinger popped another bit of cheese into his mouth, and after seconds of chewing, spoke around the bits still in his mouth, “Clifford, I have no idea. But if I had my guess, I’d say you’re not the only one making a journey to Historia for no apparent reason.”
Clifford leaned back against the tree and instantly regretted it, the sap momentarily gluing him to the trunk, “So let’s get back to you. What are you?”
Schrodinger had already started withdrawing to the bundle, “Me? I’m a mouse. Just a mouse. Oh, and I can talk. Big whoop. Let’s go. We’ll be out of the King’s Valley soon. Don’t be surprised if time goes all wibbly-wobbly on you.”
Clifford took the pseudo-warning in stride and began cleaning up his temporary campsite. The rainclouds finally broke into a torrential downpour that made walking along the sandy valley floor even harder. Clifford stopped at a rocky outcropping and rummaged through his old travel bag for a moment. He pulled out a hat with the letters NY on it, something his granpappy had given him years ago. Another talisman.
He trudged on through the mud. After hours of walking, he finally saw the high rock wall that made up the west end of the King’s Valley.
*****
The fact that he hadn’t heard an explosion since leaving Carnacabidos didn’t cross Clifford’s mind until an explosion went off about five hundred feet to his left. He was nearly to the high rock wall that marked the western end of the King’s Valley. (It also never crossed his mind that he had followed the river then entire way and had yet to come across any of the buildings he’d seen upon entering the Valley. He would remember this one afternoon sitting on a park bench in Historia, facing a thirty foot section of railroad track that was in the middle of a grassy field, unconnected to any other track.)
He rushed for the wall and found cover under it as another explosion went off near where he’d been standing moments before. Schrodinger scampered out of the bundle, “Was that more explosions?”
Clifford glanced sideways at the mouse, “I thought you said that humans couldn’t blow stuff up anymore?”
The mouse looked to be in deep thought for a brief moment, “Well, obviously I was wrong.”
Clifford waited for the explosions to stop, and then began looking for a way to climb the rock wall. He found what looked like rough-hewn steps leading in a haphazard way up the cliff face and a bit on an angle. The climb didn’t take as long as Clifford had figured it would, and he credited that to the Historians, whatever the crap they were doing.
At the top he found himself confronted by four men carrying guns. At least, Clifford thought they were guns. He’d seen pictures at the University of guns from different time periods, but these were either older or newer, Clifford couldn’t tell which.
“Stop! Who are you?”
Clifford looked at the man who spoke. His uniform differed a bit from the others. (I forgot to mention, they’re all in uniforms. We would instantly recognize them as the ragtag uniforms of soldiers in General Washington’s Continental Army, but Clifford didn’t know what the Continental Army was, or who General Washington was.)
“I’m Clifford Jenkins, and I’m going to Historia. Who are you?”
The man drew himself up into a regality that Clifford knew he did not possess, but was merely able to replicate by imitation, “I am Brigadier General Israel Putnam. I am tasked with war.”
Clifford pulled himself the rest of the way up off the stairs, hands raised to show he was not a threat. He took a quick inventory of his situation. It was suddenly night, when three feet below him it was bright as mid-afternoon. He looked at the tired-looking, rugged soldiers of Putnam’s camp. “And who are you at war with?”
Putnam looked indignant, “That Valley, obviously.”
“Well, I’d say you’re winning. The sand won’t put up much of a fight.”
A tiny voice sounded in Clifford’s ear, and he realized that Schrodinger was once again on his shoulder, “Um, Clifford, look behind you.”
Clifford turned and saw that the Valley below was lined with encampments. The soldier below wielded clubs, spears and swords, and were dressed in simple skirts and what looked like elaborate headdresses.
“Oh,” Clifford muttered, “That’s who you’re fighting.” He maintained his gaze at the valley, but spoke only loud enough for Schrodinger to hear him, “How did we not see any of that?”
The mouse replied, “I wish I could tell you.”
As Clifford turned around, he heard Brigadier General Putnam begin to bellow orders, “Alright boys! Load up another IckBem, let’s give those sandies what they deserve!”
Clifford watched as a cylinder was loaded onto a catapult. Along the side, in bright blue letters, was written ICBM. The catapult released and flung the cylinder far out into the Valley. When it struck the ground a plume of dust and sand shot up, but nothing else happened.
“Crap!” Putnam screamed, “Another dud.”
Then the explosion hit. The IckBem went off with terrifying brightness. Bodies flew into the air and sand went in all directions. Clifford even noticed the Evergreen tree he’d been sitting under earlier eating the turkey fly off into the night.
Schrodinger spoke, “I think we need to leave, Clifford. This is not a place we need to be.”
“I agree.”
Putnam spun on his heels, “You agree with who, Jenkins? Don’t think you’re leaving. You’re not a sandie, that means you fight with us.”
Clifford shook his head, “Oh, no! I’m not a sandie, but I’m not one of you either. I’m from Nostalgia, on the eastern side of the King’s Valley, unaffiliated with any but their own.”
Putnam picked up a gun and shoved it into Clifford’s hands, “I’d like to believe you, Jenkins, I really would. But we can’t let those sandies get out of the Valley.”
Clifford deftly avoided the gun, “But they can just leave out of the Eastern side, can’t they?”
Brigadier General Israel Putnam paused for a moment, “By golly, you’re right. We’ll need to form an expeditionary force to go to the east side and give those sandies the whuppin’ they deserve.”
Clifford blinked, “What did they do to deserve such a beating?”
The General laughed, “You don’t know? They walk funny, son. They walk funny.”
Clifford turned and walked away. The General’s face turned bright red, “Hey! No one walks away from Brigadier General Israel Putnam! No one!”
Clifford offered a genteel wave, which further incensed the General.
Putnam screamed, “I’ll see you again, Jenkins!”
Clifford kept walking, “And when you do I’ll be the one with the talking mouse.”
Putnam turned back to his battle, “Talking mouse? Gall-dang, that is one stupid boy.”
Groundwork
Welcome to Novel Idea.
This blog exists for the sole purpose of books and literature, and things pertaining to books and literature. It exists so that I can talk about the books I like, so yes, it is essentially an ego-booster.
But I hope it becomes more than that. I hope that, through this blog, I can foster in you the reader the same love of books that I have. I've seen these new electronic books that have come out on the market, where you can download a book and, when finished, erase it from the memory and put a new book on the hard drive. While I applaud the technology, I am saddened at the attempt to take the textile feel of books away from a generation.
The smell of a musty old library can never be replaced by a downloaded copy of War and Peace. The feel of an old, crinkly page cannot be overcome by a mere flick of a stylus.
And yes, I realize that an internet blog essentially does just that, but my sincere hope is that you'll read the books that are talked about here. You'll research the authors and see what you think. And maybe, just maybe, you'll comment on your own favorite authors.
The rules for commenting are simple:
1. Limited profanity. If you must swear, please remember that this blog aims to be a family site, so let's be as genteel as possible.
2. No spamming.
That's it. I am moderating the comments, but unless you break cardinal rule 1 or 2, your comment will appear on this blog.
Enjoy.
This blog exists for the sole purpose of books and literature, and things pertaining to books and literature. It exists so that I can talk about the books I like, so yes, it is essentially an ego-booster.
But I hope it becomes more than that. I hope that, through this blog, I can foster in you the reader the same love of books that I have. I've seen these new electronic books that have come out on the market, where you can download a book and, when finished, erase it from the memory and put a new book on the hard drive. While I applaud the technology, I am saddened at the attempt to take the textile feel of books away from a generation.
The smell of a musty old library can never be replaced by a downloaded copy of War and Peace. The feel of an old, crinkly page cannot be overcome by a mere flick of a stylus.
And yes, I realize that an internet blog essentially does just that, but my sincere hope is that you'll read the books that are talked about here. You'll research the authors and see what you think. And maybe, just maybe, you'll comment on your own favorite authors.
The rules for commenting are simple:
1. Limited profanity. If you must swear, please remember that this blog aims to be a family site, so let's be as genteel as possible.
2. No spamming.
That's it. I am moderating the comments, but unless you break cardinal rule 1 or 2, your comment will appear on this blog.
Enjoy.
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