Historia, Part XXVIII

Perhaps believing that he could think away his problems was a premature notion. He’d slept in relative warmth through the night, but when he awoke the following morning the snowstorm had intensified and had blown into the fallen statue. His pathway up was now more precarious than ever.

Far below him, at the top of the statue, he heard a knocking sound. Immediately, though, he dismissed it as a most likely a dog seeking shelter from the storm.

He brushed the light amounts of snow from the steps and began climbing once more. As he neared the bottom of the statue, the top of his climb, the snow grew thicker. Each cleared step was wasted energy.

The eight-story climb was proving to be easy in much the same way moving the moon closer to earth is easy. Clifford was tiring out very quickly, such was the effort of moving the piled snow on each stair. By the time he had cleared off four of the eight remaining flights of stairs he was physically exhausted and mentally he had checked out three flights of stairs ago. His mind had occupied itself with creating new song combinations. He’d thought of playing “I Can See for Miles” while sings “Imagine” but he’d given up that game when he realized the lunacy of it all.

After what felt like days of climbing, but was truthfully only little more than an hour, Clifford Jenkins emerged from the top of the bottom of the statue. The snow continued to fall in the early morning light. The knocking sound in the statue seemed closer. He could actually feel it reverberate through the metal walls.

The statue had broken at its base and had fallen over face-first. Clifford emerged from what looked to have once been a big toe. The ragged edges of the statue base and the statue itself were truly one enormous jigsaw puzzle with only two pieces, something it would take a god or at least something bigger than Clifford to reassemble.

Clifford stepped out onto the top of the pyramid, ignoring the knock that grew closer. If it was a wild dog it could probably smell the food he carried. He toyed with the notion of tossing a single piece of dried meat back down the upside-down stairwell. And then he looked around. The whole of Historia stretched out in all directions from him. He could see all the things he’d passed on his journey, and he could even make out the path that he and Jamie Conner had taken coming off the mountain in the East.

Away to the north stood the gold-domed Vat-a-Can, while to the South was the cathedral-building of the wild dogs. The black marble wall with the engraved names and the seated-clown statue glistened in the scant flashes of morning sun. Clifford breathed a massive sigh of relief.

One day he’d been sitting in Timey’s bar in Nostalgia when the urge had feel on him to go to Historia. He had never been able to place why he’d knew that he had to go, but he had gone. His mission, especially since the flood in Lithe, had been to reach the pyramid. And now, not only had he reached the pyramid, but he stood atop it, victorious. He had conquered Historia.

And that’s when the floor gave way beneath him.

He tumbled into the dark, reaching out for anything to grab hold of and slow his descent. During the mad flailing for safety Clifford noted that the surface he slid along was smooth, which meant that either God or nature was smiling on him and giving him a comfortable death, or he’d been standing on a trapdoor on the roof. Of course, that last option seemed far too deus ex machina-ish for him, and with that thought it hit him that he had no idea what a deus ex machina was, and it would’ve surprised him beyond measure to learn that, essentially, his entire life was one big slaphappy deus ex machina playing out in the heart of old Nostalgia.

He pondered this as he slid, and he slid until he plopped unceremoniously down onto a very plush bed. He fought the urge to go back to sleep and forced himself to sit up and take in his surroundings.

The room was huge, but the ceiling had a rather large hole in it. The hole, Clifford surmised without much doubt, was the trapdoor he’d fallen through. The bed was huge, easily four times larger in all dimensions (including the fifth) than any bed Clifford had ever seen, much less slept in. And after the grueling exercise of sweeping snow off of upside-down steps that tilted at a better than twenty degree angle, Clifford’s body really wanted to sleep.

He continued to survey the room. It was decorated much like Clifford thought a king’s room would look. And slowly it dawned on him that he was in Father Time’s bed room.

To his right was a large purple chair near a window. The window was broken out, and Clifford realized that it was the window he’d seen smoking pouring from when he’d stood on the mountain to the East of Historia as Jamie Conner deserted him. At least now he knew what direction was East.

On the thickly carpeted floor near the chair was a pile of ashes and Clifford would say that the first thought to cross his mind was that Father Time had spontaneously combusted. It was quickly realized, though, that the pile of ash was just that. Apparently someone had decided on building a bon fire in Father Time’s bedroom. Possibly Father Time himself.

To Clifford’s left was a large cabinet, and through the open door of this cabinet Clifford could see a recklessly compiled wardrobe and more than a few empty bottle of alcohol. The floor in front of the cabinet was littered with paper and dirty clothes. Clifford listened, but he heard nothing. The room was empty, save for him. The knocking in the statue hadn’t followed him.

He rolled off the bed, and for the first time thought of his guitar. It was broken. Scratched, smashed, dented, dinged, ripped, torn, beaten. It was gone. All that remained was a broken wooden body and neck and six loose strings. He laid the guitar on the bed gently, almost as if it were a fallen comrade. He closed his eyes and rested his hand on the scratched neck one last time.

When he opened his eyes and turned around he was met by a man dressed in khaki slacks and a white T-shirt, with mussed up brown hair and a wild look in his eye. Father Time.

Clifford vocalized that thought. The Father Time part, not the physical description part.

“Right! I am! Name’s Ted.”

Clifford swore that Schrodinger had mentioned that at some point, that Father Time was named Ted. And that he was dying, but no one knew why. Also he was only a year or two older than Clifford, although Clifford would bet that, even though Father Ted Time looked like crap and death warmed over had had a love child, he probably looked far worse for wear.

Clifford cleared his throat, “I’m Clifford Jenkins, from Nostalgia.”

Father Ted Time grabbed him by the shoulders, “I know you are!”

Clifford leaned back. Ted’s breath reeked of whiskey, or vodka, or most likely both. He blinked for a moment as Father Time released his grip, “So...”

Father Time grabbed him by the shoulders again, “I only have one question for you, Cliff!”

“Okay, go ahead.” Clifford suddenly felt like something bad was about to happen.

“It’s the only question I got, and then we’ll talk for a while.”

Clifford nodded, “I’ll try my best to answer.”

“Okay, here goes. Golly, I’ve been waiting a while to ask this.”

Clifford shrugged Father Time’s hands off his shoulders and stepped back, “Will you just ask already!”

Father Time smiled, “Did you bring Granpappy’s will?”