The Myths That Weren’t

Last time it was winfry’s time to put his arm around a quivering and teary isa. Holding isa was like holding your most favorite stuffed animal from infancy, with a splash of sexual teasing. But like all wonderful things, isa eventually looked up. For a moment they smiled at each other and winfry foolishly felt he had to talk.

“So are there two quilaire? The one you have now and the one with your dead body? … Oh why did I just say that?! I’m so sorry, isa, so sorry. I’m so socially awkward. If I were normal, I would have said how sorry I was or at least tried to be comforting. Oh god. I am such an idiot.”

Contrary to winfry’s pained expression, the world was not falling over and in fact isa’s face slipped back into a smile. But winfry wouldn’t have even dared notice; he had pushed back in his chair, arms folded and still felt he was too invasively close to isa.

“You are too sweet mr. winster. You know that?” isa replied in a voice that should have warmed winfry up to himself if he weren’t so stubborn.

But when winfry did chance a glance to see isa smiling, he saw her smirking, in his eyes, which made both his eyebrows and self-esteem sink further.

isa, on the other hand, had regained at least some of her confidence and composure because she stretched out her fingers to winfry’s shoulder saying, “I’m serious winfry. You have certainly been extremely kind and comforting to me just now. Sincerely.”

When winfry first felt isa’s fingers on his shoulder he instinctively tensed but as she spoke, he eased up his eyebrows and let down his shoulders.

“Thank you. Thank you, winfry, for listening to my story, - for listening to my story without laughing in my face. Thank you for putting your arm around me.” For a split second, the two looked at each other’s lips before, isa continued, “And most of all, thank you, thank you for believing me.”

Wait. Did he believe her? My guess is that until just then that question never crossed his mind. But when he did think about it, he knew questioning his belief in her would have been like questioning why there is something rather than nothing, which is to say possible but a real mind-twister and an utterly futile one at that. But how did she know before he knew?

“How else? The quilaire.”

“You mean you’ve been reading my mind?!”

“Well, not exactly. Right now I am very much a novice, and a novice without an instructor at that. So I can’t really do much and it’s not so much mind-reading as seeing through time. Ever since we left the library, the idea that you would believe me nested in my brain. But it’s definitely not my own idea; it feels very foreign and I can never, well… yes, never completely accept what the quilaire puts in my mind.”

“So you can always distinguish between your thoughts and the quilaire’s?”

“I suppose so, if you can call what the quilaire does thinking, but it took me a about four months of dissociative fugue, before I started figuring it all out. From how you looked this week, I imagine you went through something similar this past week”

“You mean you had to deal with that for a month? Oh god. How did you not go insane?”

“Well, I was crazy… I… I lost it. It wasn’t until I met the first, well third, person I was sent to help and I finally convinced myself that I was a guardian angel that I started to regain a bit of sanity. I mean that’s what my parents thought I was but it is only now that I can recognize how much I helped them. At the time it was too traumatic to latch onto anything.”

Of course winfry’s head was a buzz of questions all trying to fly out, but he was actually much more socially adept than he gave himself credit. Instead of falling into that inquisition, he leaned in, took isa’s hands in his and said, “isa, I’m so sorry for everything you’ve had to go through. Even knowing I would believe you, it must have been extremely stressful to tell me all this. Thank you. Thank you for trusting me. I’m honored; really I am. And please know… please know that I care a lot about you, isa, and, and that you can tell me whatever you want to get off your chest.”

isa looked up into winfry’s eyes and this time he did not feel he had to talk. Maybe the quilaire was helping, maybe.

“Well, I’m sure you must have a zillion questions for me. What else would you like to know?”

“Well, hmm, where to start? Well, how similar is you quilaire to the ones in the phylanx saga? Do you have to eat with your quilaire? Is your stratus in the sphere of the psyche, the physique or the temporal? Will you die if you lose your quilaire? … Sorry that was a lot.”

“Don’t worry about it. I get annoyed with people who aren’t curious. I suppose my quilaire is like a cousin to those in the phylanx; there’s some overlap but it has quite a lot of its own unique quirks. So I don’t have to eat with it (having it around my neck seems to be sufficient); it never talks to me; it doesn’t absorb moonlight; I’m actually able to divine, not very well, but still a little bit, in all three spheres; and I’m not planning to find out what happens if I lose it.”

At this point even if winfry remembered the rest of his tea it was far to cold to drink.

“So what kinds of things can you do? How did you figure it out? Has anyone ever seen you?”

“Well, like I said before I can’t do very much right now and I don’t exactly know how I figured what I can do out. Generally, the first time I do something new, I have to have a very strong need for it – like, when I was having severe menstrual pains in the woods and really needed ibuprofen, yeah… I was crazy remember. Anyways I just do whatever it is without thinking and I can sort of remember how I did it afterwards and then I try to retrace my steps and do it again. Sometimes it takes months for me to refigure something out, like changing other people’s minds, but other times it only takes a few seconds (controlling earth elements was practically instantaneous) . And please don’t ask me how I do any of it because I have no idea how to explain that. So like I said, I’m really good at getting earth elements to do what I want, like creating quicksand, causing minor earthquakes, bending trees and…” isa picked up the vase with a wilting tulip, glanced around her shoulders and stared at the poor flower. And slowly, slowly the flower picked up its head, smoothed out its wrinkles and redid all of its make-up: complete rejuvenation.

After recovering from the magical realism and closing his mouth, winfry chuckled. “That’s pretty cool. I’m sure it would be real popular at parties, granted I don’t go to many of those, but that’s kind of the point… What else can you do?”

Surprisingly, isa seemed to follow winfry’s sense humor which is saying something because I still don’t get it, and I’m winfry’s maker. So she was grinning when she responded, “well, I can sometimes see through time and space but I still can’t really do that on command. Everything else I can do is a lot more shaky than my earth bending. I can also do some stuff with wind, air, fire and light. And I can dabble in the sphere of the psyche, like changing people’s minds, but don’t worry not yours,” she must have seen winfry’s face drop, “and seeing people’s souls, which is really hard to explain by the way. And I guess lastly, I can create things out of nothing but that’s extremely exhausting. The best I’ve managed is a necklace and I had to take a 12 hour nap to recover. So I guess that about sums up all I can do.”

“Wow. That’s a lot of things to keep track of. So I guess I’m back to my first question, which you probably can’t answer but I’m still curious; are there two quilaire?”

“I honestly have never thought about that. I’d guess that there’s only one quilaire that transported itself to my new body and I don’t know why I said new body because I don’t really know about the body thing either. But that’s what I’d guess, I guess.”

Actually, she was completely correct. And this is one of the things I actually know. You see it was one of my personal curiousities. To make a long story short, I found out that at isa’s wake there was much commotion caused by the mysterious disappearance of her quilaire. Moreover, in pictures I recovered of isa, she had a mole on the left side or her neck, which my sources say caused her much distress during her early adolescence. Curiously the isa winfry knew had no moles on her neck. So my conclusion, from this and other quilaire lore, is that isa’s soul fled into the quilaire before her body died. Once inhabiting the quilaire she was able to use it to transported herself, during her wake, into the stratus where she reformed her body and then swam back to reality. My conclusion is flawless.

“So, what are you supposed to be helping me with?”

“I was hoping you would be able to tell me. It doesn’t really matter, it’s probably better if I find out myself because generally the help I give is different than what the people think they want. So even if you feel up to telling me what you need help with, it’s probably better if you keep it to yourself.”

isa looked back to see the owner returned to sweeping the front half of the room for the third time. “Well it looks like the owner is trying to close up. So we should probably head out.”

“Yeah I guess we should.” winfry looked out to see the dark street as he pulled on his tweed jacket. “I’ll walk you home, if you don’t mind. With all these murders in the news lately I don’t think we can be too cautious.”

“Thanks,” isa said as she finished buttoning her jacket and then leaned forward to take the flower out of the vase and put it in winfry’s jacket’s front chest pocket, “your such a gentlemen and these days they are such a rare commodity.”

And with that they left café luminot into twisty old frambigue alley.

Yeah, that first ending, from that last post, I lied.

What? Haven’t you learned to stop trusting me.

In an Ancient Chest

Latvia returned to her home in a rage.

The sun was just beginning to rise over the Coralendian countryside outside her window, reminding Latvia of how much valuable time she had wasted on Estonia. The moment Latvia suggested going out to rescue Lithuania, Estonia flew into a passion. It was ridiculous, she had said. Probably the most retarded idea Latvia could come up with. Two girls, absolutely untrained in the arts of combat and war, going out into the unknown to rescue a capable and competent pilot of the Foggistani Helo-Fleet—it was absurd. Lithuania could take care of herself—Latvia and Estonia would only encumber Lithuania’s mission.

Now Latvia was back home, without Estonia’s support, and losing valuable time. Frustrated, she knocked a glass of water off her dresser—regretting the act as soon as the glass hit the floor and shattered. She cursed, looked outside, then turned from the window and clutched at her hair. Estonia couldn’t see what Latvia could see. She couldn’t feel—couldn’t know what Latvia had known. Something had happened to Lithuania, and whatever it was, it had caused her to start using…

Latvia looked at the blackened door knob of the door to the black room, and sighed. Things would have been simpler had she never entered that room—had she never discovered what she discovered, and done what she did. She still didn’t understand how everything fit in with her family’s mission… Why the hell she was even bound to her family’s mission anymore…

Ever since her parents’ mysterious disappearance, Latvia had begun to doubt all the lessons they had instilled in her. Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania—they were crucial to the development of the Foggistani mission on Coralende—at least that’s what their parents had told them. But all Latvia knew of her “Foggistani mission” was that the Starr family line had settled in Coralende over two hundred years ago, long before any Foggistani spaceship had revealed itself to the Coralendians. Their mission had been to instill goodwill among the people—not to enter the planet as human aliens, but to blend in as Coralendians and slowly work from within. It was an ambassadorial endeavor, one that clandestinely placed members of the Starr line in strategic positions of power throughout the planet, in preparation for the Foggistani arrival.

The mission worked, somewhat. Governments, the media, activist groups—all had been infiltrated by the Starrs, and all had started promoting more explorative intergalactic policies. Movies about space invasions, which were normally enormous hits at virtual reality theatres, fell into a mysterious decline. In their place rose films about space exploration, space colonization—films about the wonders of interacting with the long lost humans they had all originally come from—about reaching the farthest ends of the galaxy, and even the universe. Politicians who favored interplanetary colonization began garnering impressive support. More and more children wanted to grow up and become space explorers. The scientific community aspired more and more to interact with nearby, human-populated planets—some even longed to find the lost humans from space, those from whom all Coralendian inhabitants had descended, and who presumably were in possession of some of the most sophisticated technology known to man.

One hundred years into their mission, it seemed the Starrs were succeeding. The planet appeared prepped for the arrival of Foggistan, and if all went as planned, the people of Coralende would regard Foggistan with excitement, reverence, maybe even awe. Ever since the Great Digital Fire, the catastrophic virus that devoured all of Coralende's historical records, the people of Coralende had been longing for some clarity as to their past—some recuperation of their history, and an understanding of how all the people of Coralende were connected. If Foggistan could use its own records to rebuild Coralende's history, then the Coralendian people would be forever in their debt. Coralende's actual reception of Foggistan, however, turned out to be just slightly different than expected.

“Damn it,” said Latvia, opening the door into the black room. She looked up the dark staircase, trying to decide whether or not to use the crystal orb so she could find Lithuania on her own, then remembered she had accidentally smashed the orb against the wall. Still, the black room had chests and crates full of occult implements. A new orb was bound to be lying around somewhere.

Latvia walked up the creaking old stairs and into the black room. Against the far wall and underneath the room’s single circular window were the bits of glass from her shattered orb. She started looking for a new orb in the crate nearest her. Books, books, and more books. Nothing but a bunch of ancient family photo albums, diaries, classic novels... The next crate just had more of the same. All interesting stuff she had yet to explore, but not what she needed right now. Then she looked inside a dark wooden chest. It was filled with small cardboard boxes, shoeboxes, jewelry boxes—she opened them one by one, unwrapped tissue paper from various trinkets and seemingly magical objects, found jewels, medals, amulets, a rabbit’s foot—again, all interesting stuff, possibly even family heirlooms, but nothing she actually—

And then her eye was caught. A tiny, rectangular red box in the corner of the chest. There was something familiar, curious, rather quaint about it… It was obviously too small to contain a crystal orb, but Latvia pulled it out and opened it up anyways. More tissue paper surrounded a small, slender object. It looked like another piece of jewelry. Carefully, Latvia unwrapped it. It was a silver necklace, very thin and frail looking, lying on a bed of cotton. It was remarkably clear and bright, as if just polished, and as she picked it up, it slithered in Latvia’s hand almost liquid-like.

With a peculiar sense of foreboding, Latvia slowly extracted the necklace from its box. Half of it was still concealed under its bed of cotton. And then, as Latvia drew the entire thing out for full view, the necklace’s pendant was revealed.

“Oh my God!” Latvia gasped, letting the necklace and its box drop to the ground. She clasped her hands over her mouth, her stare locked on the pendant. The glittering silver—the size and lightness—the shape—It was unmistakable. Even the best of replicas couldn’t capture the allure, the mystery, the sublime beauty of the real thing! There was no doubt about it!

In a tiny red box, at the bottom of a chest, hidden away in a mysterious room that had only recently been discovered, lied a family heirloom Latvia could only have dreamed of finding; a quilaire.

Under the Concrete Tower

“Felix!” Lithuania cried, her hands over her mouth. She remained immobile, thrilled at the sight of him but refusing to move any closer. It didn’t befit her role as First Commander of the Foggistani Helo-Fleet to express too much delight. Felix, with a very clear give-me-a-break expression, walked towards her, placed both his hands on her shoulders, and pulled her in for a big and hearty bear hug. Lithuania stiffened at first, then sank into his embrace—a mixture of relief and gratitude rushing through her veins. Felix was tall, broad-chested and strong, and for a moment, Lithuania felt like she no longer had to live up to her role of First Commander. For a moment, Lithuania felt like she could give in to what she felt—seek protection in Felix’s burly arms, melt away and let someone else take care of her, and for once, just sit back, relax, and—

Lithuania stiffened, then politely withdrew. “I’m really happy to see you,” she said, avoiding eye contact for fear Felix might notice the welling tears.

“It’s good to see you too Lithee,” said Felix earnestly, his voice a deep bass. “It’s good to know you made it out of that chopper alive.”

Lithuania bit her lip and held her breath. She was feeling a little too emotional to talk about who had and had not made it out of the helicopter alive. “I was the only one Felix,” she blurted, looking everywhere except into Felix’s eyes. “My entire troop—and Marco—” she choked. Her eyes watered. If she uttered one more word, she would break into sobs. Felix moved in to hug her again. She let him, but remained rigid in his embrace. She would not cry. She couldn’t.

“It’s OK Lithuania,” he said soothingly, smoothing her hair. “You don’t have to be in character all the time. You can let it out.” Still, Lithuania would not cry. Felix, meanwhile, was absorbing the blow he had just been dealt: Marco’s death. He had been hoping, praying, from the moment he saw the chopper erupt in a brilliant flash of fire and light, that his friends had made it out of there alive. He had been stationed at his communication post near the edge of the woods, once again attempting unsuccessfully to establish communication with Foggistan, when he heard the dull drone of a helicopter approaching through the storm. He stepped outside of the wooden cabin, hoping against hope to see the Foggistanis coming at last, only to see the chopper spinning out of control, then explode inexplicably just a few hundred meters above the opposite end of the woods. Still, the dismay he felt at that moment was negligible compared to the shock caused by what he witnessed soon thereafter. The chopper multiplied—from one falling wreck erupted dozens more, all dropping to the earth like scorched flies, and then—all but one chopper vanished, and the one that remained crashed in a terrific roar, at some indeterminate point at the other end of the forest.

To think that Marco had died in the explosion—that his carcass was there, in the wreckage, no longer carrying his soul, his spirit… To think that he truly was gone, the friend who had been there right from the start, right from the beginning of Felix’s military career—

Felix pressed his face against the back of Lithuania’s head. He rather wanted Lithuania to start crying, just so he could feel stronger—so he could comfort her, and deal with her pain, and not have to think about his own. He wasn’t even sure what he felt at the moment. It certainly was pain, but he had no urge to cry. It was like being confronted with a truth that doesn’t actually hit home until witnessing it yourself. In theory, Felix was sad. In reality, Felix was pained. But he half-expected to be feeling sorrowful, and that emotion hadn’t quite kicked in yet.

“Lithuania,” Felix said. “None of this is your fault.” Lithuania withdrew, blinking the wetness from her eyes away. “I saw your chopper go down. It exploded for no reason whatsoever, before hitting the ground.”

Lithuania narrowed her eyes at him. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Well it’s what I saw—and that’s not the only thing. Come, follow me.” Felix led Lithuania through the woods. Over the past week, with communication between his post and Foggistan severed, he had gotten to know the terrain pretty well. As he and Lithuania walked back towards the useless radio tower, he explained how he had seen the chopper whirling out of control, explode, then turn into a dozen more choppers, all of which vanished except for one. Lithuania then explained her strange encounter with the trumpeting monster, the sudden and inexplicable wave of pain she felt, hearing Marco’s voice—

“Really, Felix,” Lithuania said, “What the hell is going on around here? It’s like everything in LusciousLocks is suddenly on crack!” Felix smiled to himself.

“We’re here,” he said. They had reached the end of the woods, and before them rose a solid, four-sided concrete tower, about eighty feet in height, with a bright red light flashing intermittently at the top.

“I thought this thing was busted,” Lithuania said.

“It isn’t. Something’s blocking our signal out of here.” He pointed up into the dark swirling clouds. “You see that hint of red over there, behind the clouds?”

Lithuania nodded. “Styx.”

“Yeah, Styx. Whatever’s blocking our signal, it’s coming from there. I just don’t know what—or how, it’s doing it. I mean, we’re known throughout the universe for the quality of our communications technology—I don’t understand who could have developed something powerful enough to counteract it.”

Lithuania looked at Felix meaningfully. “Well we’ve got our theories…” she said.

“And we can definitely discount one of them.” Lithuania started. “Remember Prince Timoteo?”

Lithuania’s eyes darkened. “Of course, the older brother of the King of LusciousLocks, was passed over for the throne, disappeared a few years back, he’s one of the suspects behind all this—what about him? You obtain some intelligence?”

Felix smiled. “Oh, we obtained some intelligence alright. Follow me.” He led Lithuania around the tower, towards a massive, seemingly immovable door of black iron. For once, Lithuania willingly allowed Felix to be a gentleman and open the door for her. She wasn’t so sure she could have done it herself anyways. Felix lugged at the groaning door, its bottom scraping noisily against the rugged cement floor of the tower’s entryway, and led Lithuania in.

It was darker in the tower than it was outside. Somewhere in the darkness Lithuania could hear a faint dripping sound. Felix pulled out his flashlight and lit the way. “This way,” he said. The inside of the tower was no different from its exterior. Poured concrete walls on all four sides, and a rusted spiraling staircase winding its way up to the top. “We’re not going up,” Felix said. Behind the foot of the spiraling staircase was a metal trap door that Felix hauled open in a single heave. Lithuania peaked in, only to see more darkness. “After you, Miss Commander.”

“Oh shut up,” said Lithuania, elbowing Felix in the ribs. “Hurry up and lead the way.” Felix grinned, then dropped down into the square of darkness.

“You need a hand?” his voice echoed from below.

Lithuania jumped in after him. “No,” she said haughtily. Her eyes continued to adjust to the growing darkness. “So what is this place?”

“Communication towers in LusciousLocks. All interconnected below ground. Fantastically built set of tunnels, if you ask me.”

“And Foggistani intelligence didn’t know about this before we came in?”

“Surprising, isn’t it?” said Felix, leading Lithuania down the damp and humid passageway. “Seems there are a lot of things us Foggistanis don’t catch wind of.”

“But LusciousLocks are our allies.”

“And it should come as no surprise to you, then, that they are our allies only out of convenience.” Lithuania glowered. Though she was walking behind him, Felix could feel Lithuania’s expression as if it were in broad daylight. “Don’t go making illusions for yourself Lithee. Corneria does not and will not trust us any time soon.”

“Oh, yey, that’s the spirit.”

“I don’t mean to offend your family history, and the whole reason why you Starrs came to Corneria two hundred years ago. But it takes more than just a few pre-installed families to build goodwill on this planet, you know.”

“I know,” snapped Lithuania. “Still, at least we’ve made a difference.”

“No doubt,” said Felix, turning down a corner. “And there’s a lot more to be done to get on 100% friendly terms with this planet. But first, we have to show them we can help LusciousLocks out of this mess.” They came upon another massive door. “Here we are.”

He pulled the door open, and led Lithuania into a room consisting of rows after rows of prison cells. There were torches hung up on the walls, their large flickering flames casting a soft, yellow glow throughout the area. “No electricity?” Lithuania asked.

“My men and I haven’t been able to restore it to the underground areas yet. These tunnels seemed to have been in disuse for decades.”

“I can’t imagine why LusciousLocks would have had any need for them.”

“Yeah. Well they’re handy.” Felix stopped short. “Now about Timoteo.” He turned around to face Lithuania directly. She peered up into his eyes intently. “Only a few days after the disappearance of the King of LusciousLocks became public knowledge, and only one day after our station lost communication with Foggistan, an unidentified spacecraft tried to cross the LusciousLockian border. Now, with all communication down, and with the storms over the country growing increasingly worse, the last thing on our minds was securing the borders. Well, turns out we didn’t have to. The moment that spacecraft crossed the border, it suffered the same fate your helicopter did.”

“What?”

Felix nodded. “It didn’t blow up, or multiply—it was just dragged inexplicably to the ground, crashing down near a communication station not far from here.” Felix began leading Lithuania towards the prison cell at the end of the hall. “However, turns out this was just a one man flight. And you know who decided to climb out of the wreckage and make an appearance?”

Felix flashed his light onto a shivering lump, huddled away at the back of the prison cell. Lithuania squinted, pressing her face against the prison bars to try and catch a clear view of the man’s face. “Is that—”

Felix nodded. “That’s right.”

There was no doubt about it. The hooded man, shivering uncontrollably at the back of the cell, was the LusciousLockian prince who had disappeared long ago. It was the King’s older brother: Prince Timoteo himself.

The Scoop

café luminot. Ah yes. How I can remember that stylish institution on the west end of nilbmah citadel. Well, stylish if you are a bookworm. Nookish and narrow were, and hopefully still are, the essence of the café and a scattering of stain glass brimmed lamps accompanying lounge chairs and tiny tables compensated for the lack of daylight. Only the lost rays made it into café luminot. I don’t need to say it was a quiet crowd there. So isa and winfry’s conversation was practically a rock concert.

“So, I guess that’s all there is to it, really. Now that I’ve told someone it sounds even more out there. I really am a freak, winfry, a freak. Oh I’m so sorry for getting you caught up in this mess of mine. Please forgive me.”

By this time it was very nearly dark, which is to say completely dark in café luminot, and the lamp light splashed shadows across their faces, perfect for an aspiring artist’s profile picture. winfry smiled, took isa’s hand on the table and said, “There’s nothing to be sorry for… And, ah, I think they want us to leave. It’s 5 past closing.”

And with that they left café luminot into twisty old frambigue alley.

Wouldn’t it be hilarious if I stopped here?

Well, fortunately for you, I’m in a serious mood and have no time for such jokes. So here goes:

winfry ordered boring british breakfast, isa asked for a cup of jasmine tea with honey and they sat, winfry restrainingly expectant and isa awkwardly anxious, at a table tucked in a corner. They were both ¾’s of a cup through before conversation started.

“So…”

“So…”

Sips of tea.

At this isa was almost as uncomfortably self-aware as I am, almost. She looked down, she looked up, then down again; she opened her mouth, she closed her mouth, she bit her lip; she toyed with her hair, she toyed with her tea, she tore up her napkin. She began, “Ok. I might as well get started and then things should get easier, right?” She finished her tea. “Well, as you probably already suspected, all this has something to do with this,” she held up the little spoon that hung over her chest, “In fact, it has everything to do with this. It has been in the family for years. My family…” sigh “I guess that’s a good enough place to start as anywhere else. The first Englewoods came to nighline from Foggistan 200 years ago – for the college, of course. And the engelwoods have been professors ever since. Somewhere down the line my great-to-the-fifth grandmother or someone or other acquired this quilare and it made it down to me. Like most of the alleged quilaire scattered around the high society of nilbmah, it was nothing more than a fancy teaspoon. When my mother bequeathed it to me on my 18th birthday, I had nearly forgotten that it was said to be a quilaire; for me it was I sign of adulthood, maturity, coming into my own right. I wore the heirloom so much out of habit that I had practically forgotten about it on the day it happened…”

winfry didn’t dare disrupt, isa’s silent stare into the wall. Only the occasional changes in facial expression showed that she was still conscious.

Finally, she took a deep breath and turned to winfry. “I was twenty-four when it happened. I had been out of school for a few years and I was working at a café and doing research for professor gilderwill. I had finally decided to finish my studies abroad and fall in love with some foreigner. That was the plan. It was all so silly really. Isaac had been suffering from clinical depression for 2 years and it was only getting worse and all I could think about was fleeing nighline. Isaac was only 20. Isaac was my brother by the way. My only brother. What could have been so bad? Why couldn’t I have figured it out? I just closed myself off. God damn me! How could I have been such an idiot!”

isa’s sudden outburst almost made winfry fall out of his seat. When he regained stability, isa’s face was in her hands, catching her tears. winfry shuffled his chair closer to isa and tried to put his hand on her shoulder but second guessed himself two inches away.

Through her hands, isa murmured, “I found the note on his desk. I don’t remember why I even went into his room. It had been years since I even dared look at the door of his room let alone enter his room. The note said he was going to do it at the pier on walvine pond. I didn’t believe it. I couldn’t. But I did. I drove like a maniac. It was raining. I smashed into a tree and killed myself. Killed myself – doesn’t that sound sublime. walvine pond didn’t give Isaac the guts to kill himself. My death did. Neither of my parents lasted the year.”

A new series of sobs and second guessing.

Finally, isa raised her head and looked winfry in the eyes. “Yes, winfry, I’m dead. Or I should be. In the high before dying I latched on to my desire to help so tightly that I forgot about Isaac. I just knew I had to, absolutely had to help someone, anyone. I couldn’t die. I couldn’t. So I didn’t. But I did. I woke up in a void with the quilaire glowing around my neck. I somehow figured out how to swim back into reality in time to see my parents die in the hospital. When they saw me, they thought I was an angel guiding them to heaven. Maybe I was. Maybe I am. I don’t know. I try not to think aobut it. All I know is that after my return to reality, I have been controlled by an overwhelming desire to help people. The quilaire always finds them. People to help. It’s very peculiar; I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing but I know what to do and then, eventually, I find the person. I may not know anything about them but I know they need my help and even more than they need my help, I need theirs. You are the fifth person. Before you was a joanna delmin, a suicidal business lady, who now has a faithful husband taking care of her. But you’re different. Yes, very different. You… well, the main thing is… the quilaire never affected the others. That’s what’s been scaring me. I know the quilaire can control me. That’s ok. That’s fair. I owe my existence to it. But not you. You shouldn’t have to. Why can’t I control it anymore? Oh god, why!”

isa sunk back into her hands. This time she gave no signs of resurfacing anytime soon. After about 26th guessing himself, winfry guessed right and wrapped his around isa’s shaking shoulders.

The Woods

Lithuania opened her eyes.

Her back was sore, her hands were cold and numb, and she felt like she hadn’t showered for days. Sleeping all night in her wet clothes had left her with an uncomfortable feeling—like she had just woken from a fever. She had finally made it to the woods and found a nook between two massive tree roots where she could spend the night. But the night was indistinguishable from the day. She looked around her in the hopes that she might catch some sunlight, somewhere, perhaps trickling its way down through the thick canopies of the trees above. There was nothing—only darkness, gloom, and a peculiar sensation that something was not right. To make matters worse, her watch, her GPS, even her compass, all had gone haywire since the crash landing into Luscious Locks.

Lithuania sat up, bearing an uncomfortably heavy feeling in her chest. A depression of sorts— a discomfort at remembering that she was in fact awake, and alive, unlike everybody else in her troop. Unlike Marco.

But comrades died all the time when in battle. There was nothing unusual about it, at all. She should have known that. But that was just the thing—she hadn’t been prepared for battle, at least not when she set flight for LusciousLocks. She had expected difficult weather, aimless LusciousLockians drooling at the mouth—she had expected to prepare the citizens for intravenous feeding, to prepare the country for all the foreign aid it was about to receive. To investigate why contact had broken between Foggistan and the troops who were already there. But she hadn’t psychologically prepared for death.

And least of all the death of him…

Lithuania closed her eyes tight and took a deep breath. She was master of herself, and she could overcome this feeling. Though all she wanted to do was lie down between the tree roots and disappear, rot away like the autumn leaves, get eaten away by the worms and disappear forever—though an existence without Marco seemed to border along an existence without water, without air, without light—she had to keep on going, for the sake of Foggistan. For the sake of Coralende.

She rose to her feet, contrary to her body’s desires. She had no idea where to go, she had no idea what to do, and she knew there was hardly anything she wanted to do. The thought of Marco being alive, back when she heard his voice at the encounter with the trumpeting monster, had set something rushing through her. It had given her hope. But that glimmer of hope had quickly been pitched against Lithuania’s reason, and lost. Now all she felt was weight. Gravity. Heaviness.

She trudged along. Without the guidance of the sun, or the stars, and without any of her gadgets, her sense of direction was severely hampered. Not to mention the hunger, which she had until now suppressed. Still, she had been trained for situations like these. She knew there were several leaves out there she could feed on. She knew that if there were rabbits nearby, she’d be able to hunt them. Plus, the air was moist, and the rain so frequent, it wouldn’t be difficult for her to collect water using some of the larger leaves from all the nearby tropical plants. And she could possibly get a rough idea as to what direction to head in by observing what side of the trees the moss was growing on. Determined, she pulled out her knife—

“Lithuania!”

Lithuania whirled around, her knife ready for the kill. For an instant she felt the world blur around her—she felt her spirit float, or detach itself from her body somehow—and a second later all was normal again. The world regained its clarity, and standing before her was a Foggistani foot soldier.

“Lithuania, are you OK?” he asked, approaching her cautiously. Lithuania lowered her guard, and shook her head confusedly.

“I—I must be hungrier than I thought, or something,” she stammered, clearing her eyes.

“Hungry?” His tone suggested he had seen Lithuania suffer more than just a headrush. “Are you aware of what just happened to you?”

Lithuania looked at his helmet-covered face, perplexed. “I crashed into LusciousLocks?”

“I mean right now. You just blurred, or something. Like you were disappearing—or splitting into two, I couldn’t really tell. Are— Are you alright?”

Lithuania looked at him seriously, doubting whether he was really OK. “Remove your helmet so I may see your face,” she commanded, regaining her composure. Though she was thrilled to see another Foggistani, the knowledge of her reputation and title quickly overcame her.

The man removed his helmet.

It was Felix Sombrero.

The Ladies’

Last time on the Chronicles of Coralende, both my characters were out of character and the episode ended with winfry waking up to the mess he had made. It took winfry two minutes to pick up the pencils and six minutes to pick up all the bits of his courage that had been shattered across the floor. After collecting his courage he dragged himself to the ladies’ room. He didn’t need to put his ear to the door to know that isa was in the stall crying. But what could he possibly do? He was most definitely the last person she’d want to see. So what could he do? But he had to do something. So there he stood, or rather paced, a walking contradiction: had to do something, couldn’t do anything.

That’s how mrs. weatherwood found him: a wound up bundle of anxiety and indecision. It was 5:12 and mrs. weatherwood was closing up shop. In her azalea patterned sweater and brown corduroy pants, the librarian, plump as a plum, rounded the corner into the corridor of the ladies’. She was a little taken a back to see winfry outside of the ladies’ of all places, but then on second thought, she wasn’t. In spite of her closing-in dementia, she was more insightful than she looked. From three stacks over, her hearing aid was just able to pick up on winfry and isa’s little spat and mrs. weatherwood didn’t need to venture up to the fourth floor to know hormone levels at the library were higher than usual. In other words, mrs. weatherwood probably had more of a grasp on the situation than winfry.

When winfry finally looked up from his pacing to see mrs. weatherwood waddling towards him, he just about sent himself to the ICU from the mental pummeling he gave himself. mrs.weatherwood stopped next to winfry, she looked at him, looked at the ladies’, looked at him again and smirked. But not smirk in a creepy way. No, no, no. No. Smirk in the these-youngsters-are-amusing-me way. For a moment winfry almost forgot that a few meters away isa was crying because of he was a swine, but he didn’t.

Maybe it was because she felt sorry for winfry or maybe it was because she wanted more spice in her life or maybe it was just her dementia kicking in, mrs. weatherwood gave winfry a hand. “For Pete’s sake just barge in there and kiss ‘er. It’s not like anyone else is going to go in; were closed… Oh and tell ms. englewood to finish closing up. I’m leaving.” With that and a wink, of the non-creepy variety of course, mrs. weatherwood turtled her way out leaving a gapping mr. winster behind with us.

Well, what choice did he have? There was no way around it; he would have to cast a side his discretion and enter the ladies’. He took a quick deep breath and headed in to isa heading out. It took them both a minute to catch their breaths.

But that’s not what happened. It was only what winfry was hoping would happen. What actually happened was winfry, like a 5 year-old stealing from the cookie jar for the first time, nudged open the door letting isa’s quite crying slip out; he didn’t look inside. Finally, he closed his eyes and let himself walk in. One step from the door, his eyes opened to see sinks with rose colored soap, a very nervous and uncomfortable winfry winster looking back at him, three stalls, all closed, and isa’s cute red mary janes at the bottom of the middle stall.

Silence. Isa must have heard winfry’s footstep. winfry turned his neck to look at the closed door behind him before looking back towards the stalls. His Adam’s apple trembled as he swallowed. “isa … Is that you in there?”

No response.

That was it. winfry’s limits were finally hit. After everything he’d forced himself through for isa, she wouldn’t help him! He was trying so hard and he wasn’t sure how much farther he could go. His voice stumbled with emotion as he spoke to interrupt the silence.

“isa, please. Please! Please talk to me, isa. I’m terribly sorry for anything I might have said earlier. Because… well, it’s just that I know it sounds really weird, but … isa, I think I’m going crazy. I’m so sorry for getting you into this whole mess. I seriously think that I’m going crazy. It’s just that I’ve been having these moments. And I don’t really know what I’m doing. I just do. I can’t help it. I just happens. I’m so sorry isa. I’m scared.”

winfry didn’t notice when isa stood up because his legs, with all the emotional drama, forgot their job and let winfry slip to the tiles. When winfry looked up, isa was at the opened stall door looking down at him with eyes of compassion and teary red frames.

“winfry, I owe you a confession,” isa began as her cheeks crimsoned. “It’s not going to be easy for me. I’ve never told this to anyone. I don’t even know where to begin.” Sigh. “I guess it all started…”

“Maybe, the ladies’ isn’t the best place,” winfry filled in from the floor.

“I guess not.”

“We could go to the café luminot on frambigue alley. It’s only a few blocks from here.”

“ok, that sounds nice. I’d like that... But first I think you’d better get up off the floor. I can’t imagine it’s too comfortable.”

That’s it. No more. We’re closed. Come back later.

PS The ladies’ was another room winfry had never been in.

PPS I love making you guys wait to figure out what the living room is going on.

PPPS FRUSTATION OH YEAH!