Fourteen Steps to Nowhere

In the land of mint tea hospitality
the sands of time shift more slowly
under the feet of braying camels
and the scales of dancing cobras.
The azaan echoes over the Atlas,
and all bow to prayer.

This picture may or may not be of the Atlas Mountains in the Morocco. I don't know because I didn't take the picture nor do I stake any claims to it. All I know is that I find the picture inspiring enough to write from it and I wanted to share it with it everyone.

"Guess what?" said the man with the briefcase. "No, come on, guess. Guess what's in my briefcase. Three guesses and I'll give it to you. If you get them all wrong, I'll beat you to death with it. It's not that heavy, but I can still do it." The man sniffed some mucus back into his nose. "You doing it or what?"

"Well," I said slowly, "When given the option, I'd rather not risk my life. You see I'm perfectly content as I am." I started to walk away, but my heart sank a little bit as the man wiped his nose on his sleeve and grabbed me.

"Hey, mate, let me rephrase it for you. Guess what's in my briefcase." He smiled tightly for an instant and then began chewing his lips and held the briefcase behind his back and balanced on his toes like a child. I stared at him in disbelief for a long moment before he sighed. "Look, pal, I haven't got all day," he said and waved one hand in circle in a frustrated manner.

"Um, darkness," I said quickly. I could feel sweat on my palms despite the chill in the gray London gloaming. The man laughed and then coughed. He wiped his nose on his sleeve and spat loudly on the ground.

"Nice try, but I'm not a Tolkien fan." He told me. "You've got two more tries." I felt my eyes bulge a little in panic wondering if he intended to beat me in the open. Two the naked eye we appeared like two men merely talking, possibly doing some sort of business exchange what with the briefcase. "Come on!" He urged.

The white-blond twins' fingers flew at the keys on their respective keyboards, two pairs of pale blue eyes wide and unblinking.

"Come on, come on," they whispered in flawless union.

"I'm in!" Hissed the first twin.

"Me too," said the second and they shut their eyes and continued to tap their fingers against the keyboard.

"Boys, what do you see?" The professor asked. He looked nervous at the prospect of the two boys using their psychic connection to enter their mother's mind to bring her "home" from her own psychic flight, but it was their only option, and they did have the tactile sensation of typing to keep them grounded while they attempted it. The twins smiled, their eyes fluttering slightly underneath their eyelids.

"We see our mother," the boys said.

"She's crying." One stated.

"And she's cold." The other added.

"She doesn't have much time left - we have to get her mind back!" The professor thought about their mother crying and frowned. He blamed himself for her current state - he, after all, had asked her to try to break into the high security government files.

The professor blinked away the horror of screams when she had been seized by a high level psychic virus designed to protect the governments secrets. Unlike a virus that attacked the body this one drew her into her mind and preyed on memories and creative thoughts. It drew her deeper and deeper into herself, creating loops until she had no way out and merely went mad. It was his fault. He had wanted the secrets for his own scientific purposes - he had been able to taste the wonderful things he could create with what they held back, so he had dared to risk her life knowing that because she loved him she would deny him nothing.

He hadn't told her children.

"We forgive you, Professor," one of the boys said. The professor jolted back to the two children and the dire reality of the situation.

"Yes, Professor," said the other.

"It's what mother would want." They told him in unison. Clearly they had read him thoughts. Two pairs of pale blue eyes stared at him.

"Did you save her?" The professor asked breathlessly.

"No, we couldn't," they said. The professor felt his mouth go dry as the two children stopped their tactile typing. "It's all right, Professor. We forgive you." The boys repeated. The professor stared at them for moment, stricken.

"Boys, how can you forgive me?" The professor's voice shook as he spoke.

"Mother loved you therefore she would not wish for us to hate you." They explained. The three stood in silence for a moment.

"Boys, I need to do some thinking," the professor said and stumbled away like a wounded dog.

"Shall we try again?" One boy started to clack away at the keyboard and the other quickly followed suit.

"We're coming, Mother," the other boy said.

"We'll protect you." the boys whispered as their eyes shut and started fluttering back.

On a lonely drumlin hilltop
two figures stood
beneath the effulgent sun.
She whispered; he whispered,
and only the stream heard
and carried their love
on its wild waters
to the sea's open arms.

On a lonely drumlin hilltop
one figure stood
watching her love
cross the long seal road.
She cried and she sobbed
and only the stream heard.
The sea carried her love
on its raging waters
cradling him in its open arms.

On a lonely drumlin hilltop
one figure stood
facing the sunrise on a
newly found shore.
He stared and he mourned
and only the waves knew
and the sea kept his secret
rolling his love
on dark lost swells.

 

The heat outside was palpable even with the air conditioner running at full blast and I glanced warily at my grocery bags in the back seat of the cab. The meat delivery hadn't come to the restaurant that day, so I had gone to the finest butcher and bought as much beef, pork, chicken, duck and lamb as I could afford. Now, stuck in traffic, I grew concerned.

I watched pedestrians sweat as they walked by, shoulders slumped as the heat sapped them. Down a side street I could a fire hydrant gushing into the sky and children dancing under it. Even adults stood under its rain in this heat.

The cabbie's cursing brought me back to the reality in the taxi, and I watched him blare down on his horn. We hadn't moved an inch in fifteen minutes. I watched as his right hand suddenly moved from the wheel towards the control panels.

My mouth dropped in horror, "What are you doing?" I demanded. He stopped and looked at me blankly for a second.

"Lady, the car's overheating," he said and turned the car's air conditioning off and the heat on.

"You fucking maniac!" I screamed at the cabbie.

He averted his eyes for a second, swallowed, and calmly said, "Madam, unless you have a better way to prevent the engine from overheating I must do this. It will draw the heat away from engine. I will open the windows to make the ride more beareable." The windows buzzed open and, like a wall, the heat crashed into the car.

I felt it drawing away my breath for the first horrible instant and turned around to stare at my bags of meat trying to estimate how long they could last if I tried to find another cab, or worse yet, if I tried to walk the rest of the way to the restaurant.

"You don't understand," I said desperately, "My bags are full of meat!" I gestured towards the back. "I have to get it to my restaurant for tonight." I told him.

Angela stared at the car with a blank expression on her face. She tried to remember what she written down: eggs, milk, laundry detergent...? Dammit! For the first time in months she had written a shopping list and she had left it sitting on the counter next to her cell phone. She couldn't even call her son and ask him to list items off to her.

Her blank expression of concentration turned to one of anger. Angela had made the list as an earnest attempt at budgeting. Every time she went to the grocery store she ended up overspending her budget because she didn't have set plan and just bought whatever sounded tasty - ice cream, pickles, peanut butter, and of course whatever she thought she needed.

Angela took a deep breath and stared at her reflection in her car's window. She had bags under her eyes and her roots were starting to show, but right now she couldn't afford to buy hair dye; making sure her son had something good to eat was more important.

Angela tucked a piece of hair behind her ear and resolutely walked away from the car towards the store. Her heels clacked over the asphalt as she walked and thought about the money in her purse and how far she could make it stretch and if she could remember what she needed.

"Damn the list," she said softly, "I can do this." The store doors hissed open softly and Angela walked in.

There was no sign of a body of water anywhere. Jan stared at the map in confusion, her forehead wrinkling. A small pond or a creek, she could understand that not making the final cut on a map, but a lake didn't normally disappear. Jan sighed deeply and pushed a few strands of her graying hair out of face; perhaps she had read the compass wrong. The lack of visual landmarks due to the fog hadn't made navigating easy.

Jan reached into rain jacket's front pocket and pulled out her compass and watched it quietly. A few raindrops splattered against the compass' plastic top and she flipped her jacket's hood over her head. The wind picked up slightly and her map flapped in the breeze loudly.

"The lake should be right here," Jan said to herself. She looked around at the deepening fog and then back at her map, her worry and confusion only growing.

Abruptly, a snarl tore through the air. Jan dropped the compass and the wind snatched the map from her hand as her head jerked up. A small cry of terror scratched its way up her throat at the black beast before her. Shaggy and wolf-like in appearance, a dog stood six feet in front of her, its eyes lanterns in the foggy afternoon. Foam and specks of dirt dripped from its mouth as it growled and the fur on its back stood straight up.

It took all of her self-control not to break into a straight run. Jan held her breath for a long second and tried to think of any sane, any viable option. She thought about what she knew about dogs and remembered a fact she had heard on TV: one way dogs showed dominance was with eye contact. The black dog, the strange growling menace, clearly had its eyes on something else.

Following its gaze, Jan noticed the dog's eyes seemed to be locked on something in the grass. She chanced looking down and noticed the compass.

"Is that it?" Jan asked the dog. She motioned to the compass with one hand and strangely, almost trance-like she lifted her foot and shattered the plastic compass.

The dog stopped growling and barked happily, dancing small circles and wagging its tail near Jan and leaving deep pawprints on the side of mountain. Jan stared at it in bewilderment and then at the shattered compass.

"How will I get off the mountain?" She whispered. The dog stopped dancing and walked over to Jan. It leaned heavily against her side and whined quietly. The two stood in silence for a moment and Jan shivered slightly in the chilly afternoon. "Let's get moving," she said.

The dog barked, and it led Jan further into the fog.

***

Months later the investigators closed the case. Jan was never heard from again nor although several other hikers saw her earlier that day. The police investigated the rumors of a drifter living on the mountain killing and they found him, but there was no sign of a body.