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Ouroboros
Category:
Fantasy
Publisher: lulu
ISBN-10: 0557609097
Type: Fiction
Pages: 291
Copyright: 8,2010
ISBN-13: 9780557609093
Ouroboros is a collection of illustrations and the short stories they inspire.
In Ouroboros, Adventures in the Matrix, we find illustrations accompanied by stories of multiple genres. There is everything from action to the occult, romance to pathos. There is sure to be something for everyone.
Excerpt
76
Rain
I am writing this down because I must. As much to make sense of it as to make a record of
what I truly believe to be one of the most incredible events in history, certainly in my life. This is
what happened, as best I can remember, for it all seems somehow surreal now.
The weather man predicted rain, such and such a percentage of a chance of rain, nothing like this though, nothing even close. When the rain started we didn't think anything about it. The occasional jokes about the weatherman always being wrong, the wife grousing about the rain, which she had always hated anyhow, but nothing much else. After the third straight day of heavy rain and the usual flooding in places that usually flooded, people started to notice. After a week of the same rain, a regular monsoon, people began to talk. We had never had rain like that around here, so nobody knew how to act. It was on a Saturday that I stood on the front porch watching the rain. I actually like the rain, that is, I did until this one, so I was just enjoying the power of nature, and the smell of the rain, when I heard it. I was somewhat startled by the sound of voices coming from the wood behind the house. At first I tried to pass it off as animals or the wind or something, but the more I listened, the more convinced I became that it was voices. Not loud enough to make out what they were saying, but definitely voices, childrens voices. Just then there was a blinding flash followed quickly by a loud crack and a rumbling of thunder that shook the old porch. The wife, who had always afraid of thunder, came running out onto the porch, buried herself in my back, and wrapped her arms around my waist. I turned and hugged her, kissing her softly, and said into her ear, "listen, honey, can you hear it?" She lifted her face from my chest and listened, staring intently into my eyes as she did. "What is it?" she asked, "sounds like voices". "Aahh!" I shrugged it off, "it's probably some goofy neighbor kids out playing in the rain". We went indoors and sat down for a minute, turning on the television to see if there was any indicator of when the rain might stop. She lit a smoke. As I watched the woman I love, I became antsy. It was really bugging me who could be letting their kids play in a storm like this. I popped up from the couch. As I headed for the door again Deena commented, "can't sit still can you? it's this rain" "Yeah, rain", I answered as I went back outdoors.
I marched down the steps and out into the yard, heading around the side of the house in the pouring rain. As I did, the voices stopped. When I stopped to listen, after a couple of minutes, they started again, children, laughing and playing, sometimes calling out, but always, just beyond the point of actual conversation. I followed the sound of their voices into the woods in back of our house, and as I rounded the path to the clearing that I knew was back there, a place where the wife and I had made love on a few cool summer days, I could still hear them. Every time I stopped to listen, they were there, taunting me, just loud enough as to not be intelligible. Just then the rain let up a little, then a little more, then reduced to a light, misty rainfall. The area became foggy, and a deep mist enshrouded the surrounding trees. Out of the mist the voices became louder but not clearer, and as I stood there, soaking wet from head to foot, two small children came skipping, hand in hand, out of the woods. The boy on the right appeared to be about five or six, the girl who held his right hand maybe a year younger. He was tow headed and dressed in a fairly common fashion, short overalls and t-shirt, white socks and little tennies. the girl likewise appeared normal, curly blonde hair and cute one piece jumper, also with white socks and tennies. They skipped together out of the fog and right up to where I stood, mouth gaping, stunned, stupid, and soggy. The two angelic waifs stood, looking up at me with playful
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smiles on their faces, silent. I stooped down to their level and said, "Hi". They looked at me as if they were visitors from some distant planet. "Where are you two from?" I queried. "What are
your names?" No answer. Without warning both children threw themselves into my arms, hugging me as if I were their long lost daddy. Now, I'm usually a hard case. It takes a lot to get through my thick hide, but, of two things that can melt my hard shell, the one that can tear me up in a heartbeat, is kids. I have a definite weakness for kids, and these two were playing on that weakness big time.
My wife, Deena, and I had been childless. We never talked about it, or made too big of a deal about it, we just assumed that it was the way it was supposed to be, but I knew that it was something that hurt her deeply, and yes, sometimes I even found myself longing for the thrills of parenting, and yes, someday, the satisfaction that I knew must come of having grandkids. It had simply never happened, which is why I could not understand why it was so easy to feel paternal toward these two.
I hugged them both as I asked, "where do you live?" No answer. "Where are your mommy and daddy?" still no answer from either of them. I scooped them up, one in each arm, as I stood, and carried them back down the wooded path to the house. As I walked the rain began to fall harder and harder. By the time we reached the back patio, one could hardly see the woods behind us through the rain. As I approached the back patio the children began to get anxious. I stopped on the patio and set them down as I opened the screen door to the back mudroom.
When I tried to usher them inside in the hopes of getting them dried off and finding out where they
should be, they backed away, shaking their heads, with sad, worried looks on their faces. I told them to stay put, and ran in to fetch Deena. "Come here, hurry", I urged her excitedly, "You won't believe this". As she jumped up to follow me to the back of the house, she didn't even seem to notice that I was drenched, evidently because of my obviously agitated state, I continued, "it was kids, see, I told you. They were out in the woods playing. They're soaked, but they won't come in. See if you can get them to come in so we can find their folks, they need to dry off". When I swung the screen door open, holding it so that she could pass, what she must have surely seen through the screen was confirmed. There, standing side by side, were two beautiful children, soaked through and through. Deena ran out to them as she exclaimed, "oh my god, get in here now, what are you doing?" When she grabbed each child by the hand and attempted to bring them in they slipped their hands from hers and took two steps backward in unison. "Get in here now!" Deena snapped, trying her stern voice. With that, the two turned and ran back toward the woods. I started to run after them, but turned back to her, shrugging my shoulders, "guess it was time to go home", was all I said. Deena gave me a troubled look as I put my arm around her and led her inside. As we toweled off and changed into dry clothes I could tell that this was bothering her. I grabbed her and kissed her hard, holding her tight, and said, "it's not too late, we could still...". She cut me off, placing two fingers on my lips to shush me, "you know we are too old, and I'm too tired, and besides, it took me too long to get you housebroke, let's not talk about it now". With that being the final word, she turned and went back into the living room. I followed, and nothing more was said.
The next day, Sunday, was almost a replay of the day before, except that when I
tried to get the children into the car in the hopes of driving around to the other side of the woods and possibly finding out where they lived, they would have none of it. Likewise, Deena's
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attempts also met with failure, and eventually, once again, the pair skipped off into the woods and the foggy rain.
The events of that weekend were replayed into the following week, with minor variations. By Thursday we had tried everything we could think of. The two children would not come indoors, nor would they speak. They did not seem malicious, or evil, or anything, nor did they seem to be in any kind of distress. Always the scene would be the same, they would come to the house, play for a while in the rain, then disappear into the woods that they had come from. Meanwhile, at work, I was beginning to hear strange talk of similar events that others had experienced since the rain had come. Some of them had dead relatives return. Others enjoyed the company of someone they had longed for, but previously could not be near. Then the news coverage drove home the gravity of the situation. It seems that the terrible rain had inundated nearly the entire eastern sea board from Georgia, where we lived, nearly all the way to New England, and people throughout that entire area were experiencing nearly identical apparitions. When I got home from work on Friday the first thing I noticed when I entered the house, was the silence. The house was quiet. I set my lunchbox on the counter and proceeded to call through the house for my wife. "Honey!", no answer. "Baby, where are you!?" nothing. That left only one place she could be.
I went back to the clearing where I had first met the children, and there they were. Deena and the two youths sat upon rocks, around a larger rock, obviously having a tea party. When I approached both kids ran up to me and they each attached themselves to one of my legs, hugging, and pulling me in the direction of their makeshift dining area. Deena reached out a hand, beckoning me to join the party, which I did, hesitantly, not knowing just what to think of the whole situation. The evening gave way to darkness, and as it did, the rain again let up a little. I don't know how it was started, but we ended up playing hide and seek. I was it. "ninety-nine, one-hundred, ready or not, here I come!", I shouted as I opened my eyes and began to follow their footprints in the mud, like most kids, they weren't hard to track. As I approached the trees the tracks faded, and then, just disappeared. Just then Deena came bursting from the brush. "Don't bother", she said matter of factly, "it's what they do. They're probably home by now. They love to play hide and seek. It's always the last game of the day. Pretty good huh?" I had to admit, nobody could play hide and seek like those two. True to Deena's observation, that was the way we ended our play sessions each day, hide and seek.
The following Monday, upon coming home from work, and dropping off my lunchbox, I grabbed my digital camera on the way out the door. I thought that maybe I could circulate some pictures of the two children in the hopes of finding out who their family might be, or, something. As I approached the clearing where Deena was playing ring around the rosie with the two mystery babes, I raised the camera and clicked. I clicked again quickly before the flash was charged, then, when the little light stopped blinking, I pressed the shutter button again. As our eyes adjusted to the returning dusk it was clear that the children had gone. Not even their voices could be heard. Suddenly my wife got up and came to where I stood, fire in her eyes. "You chased them away", she nearly wailed, "why would you do that?" She stormed past me toward the house. Later, when I uploaded the card from my camera to my computer, my fears were confirmed. I opened the first shot, there, standing alone, arms out to her sides as if she were holding hands with someone on either side of her, stood Deena, alone. The next exposure was little different. In it my wife did a silly dance, again alone, as if she thought that she were holding
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onto two other persons who, according to the pictures, were imaginary. In each of the images, the two children that I had held and played with, were not to be seen, despite what I knew, that I had seen and touched them myself.
I printed out the photos and took them into the living room. Kneeling beside the recliner where Deena sat with the remote pointed at the television. I looked at her face for a long moment, tracing each feature with my mind, loving her like never before. finally I gently laid the photos in her lap. She took one look at each and then threw the lot at me side hand, got up, and stormed from the room. As I followed her toward the rear of the house I could hear her sobs. At the back door, as I reached for her arm, she spun on me and started pummeling my chest with her fists. "You bastard, why would you want to take this from me?", she stopped hitting me and looked up into my eyes with tears filling her own, "I don't know what is going on here, but it's not hurting anyone, why can't you let me enjoy them while they are here?" "Honey, I know what this means to you, but look around you, something is not right. I come home and the house is dark, there is no food on the stove, they aren't real, what the hell is wrong with you?" She didn't reply. She just turned her back to me and leaned against the doorjamb, watching the rain come down. I wrapped my arms around her from behind and kissed her neck. She turned in my arms and wrapped hers around my neck, stood on the tips of her toes, and kissed me passionately. I knew that there was nothing more that could be said. I would just have to let her have this, and wait, and see how things would play out.
Sometimes I would let myself be swept away with it, and other times I would find myself just watching her interact with these wonderful wraiths, trying to make sense of it all. The second and third weeks of the rain were maddening. I would come home from work, do a few chores, then join my wife and my adopted mystery children playing in the rain.
By the middle of the third week I began to notice a change in Deena. She was becoming more and more distant. She had lost a lot of weight, too much weight. Her face was becoming hollow, her skin had lost its luster and hung from her frame in a most unattractive way. Her hair was un-kempt and she seemed to be wearing the same shorts and tank top every night when I found her in the woods.
Thursday of the third week, after we had played our now familiar game of hide and seek with the
children in the woods, they had done their usual disappearing act, and we were in the bathroom after having our shower. I looked at my once pleasantly plump wife and could take it no more. "Have you looked in the mirror lately?" I asked, innocently enough I had thought. "Fuck you!" was her reply. I snapped. Grabbing her by her now skinny neck I spun her around to face the vanity mirror. "Look at yourself will you, goddammit, honey, you're wasting away. Our home is a mess, there is no food in the fridge, it rotted and I tossed all of it last week. the laundry's not getting done, and pretty soon I'll be living with a goddam skeleton. What the fuck is going on here?" Her lip started trembling, then she broke down, bawling like a baby with great heaving sobs. I held her close, and rocked her in my arms until her crying subsided, then walked her into the bedroom and put her to bed. I stayed up for a while, standing at the back door, listening to the rain.
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Friday of the third week I came home from work somewhat depressed, knowing what to expect. As I came in the back screen door I swore that I could smell shrimp boiling. When I went
to put my lunchbox on the counter my suspicions were confirmed. There on the stovetop was a pot of boiling shrimp, she knew I loved shrimp. On closer inspection, there was garlic bread in the oven, and Cajun crab salad in the fridge along with cold cokes and beers. I hollered for her. No response. I walked through the house yelling for my wife, fully expecting to find that my she
had decided to rejoin me here in reality world. No answer. I changed into my shorts and headed for the clearing in the woods where we seemed to live these days.
As I had expected, there they were, all three of them, my wife and my two mysterious waifs, but, something was different this evening. As we played the rain seemed to be easing up, little by little. As the day gave way to dusk, we knew it was once again time to play our game of hide and seek. For some reason, as we all sat on our little rocks, around the big rock that often had served as a table in our play, I did not want to play hide and seek. I wrapped my arms around my three soggy charges and hugged them as tightly as I could, rocking back and forth, crying like a baby as they all hugged me back, stroking my hair and patting my back.
When I woke up it was getting on toward morning. I could tell by the position of the moon overhead. The sky had cleared and it was no longer raining. I sat slouched on my rock, alone. Deena and the children were gone. Assuming that Deena would be in the house I rose stiffly from the slouched position I had slept in for I don't know how long, and headed for the house. Inside I dried myself and slipped into my shorts. As I wandered through the house calling for my wife, I could tell that something was wrong. For one thing the shrimp that had been cooking on the stove, now lay in a hard brown mass, burning, at the bottom of a dry pot. Wisps of smoke rose from the oven. It was clear that dinner was ruined. "It's the thought that counts", I said aloud. I turned off the range and oven, then continued my search for my spouse. The last place I looked, was the downstairs bathroom, actually, more from personal need than anything else. I opened the bathroom door, only briefly thinking it odd that it had been closed, which it rarely was, and as I entered, there in the tub I found my beloved. I knew immediately that she was gone. I didn't even need to see the single edged razor blade that lay on the side of the tub, the faint frozen smile on her face, the stillness of the crimson water, her breasts not rising or falling with breaths she would not take. I knelt beside the bathtub and cradled her lifeless body, and cried until there were no more tears left to cry. Why would she leave me here alone? Where did they go? What will I do?
The broken man finished writing and laid the pen beside the yellow legal pad. He reached into the second left hand drawer of his desk and withdrew the pistol that hid in the back of the drawer. As he passed the pistol from left hand to right a strange smile overtook his face. "So", he thought to himself, "it's hide and seek then, is it?" He raised the pistol as he pushed his chair back slightly from his desk, saying aloud, "ready or not, here I come".
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