Notes from the Future: Felonious Monk, Part VI

"You there! Stop in the name of the Prophet!"

Sssssnap, CLICK

Gunshot

I open my eyes. Standing Me is gone, but just outside the door is a clean-shaven guy dressed like a lumberjack who has just fired at the spot where Standing Me was moments ago. He's staring at me like I'm a shaved orangutan.

I'm not a shaved orangutan and ... I'm not dizzy.

Not dizzy at all.

Holy shit, was it the gunshot? The surprise? Or was it just going to happen because we were awake in the same place? I'm me. I'm whole. I'm not dizzy and split anymore. The snap and click noise I heard (felt?) was me clicking back in. Socketing back in. Felt like a hip socket popping back into place, only deeper. Somehow. Weird feeling. But good, now.

Fresh-faced Lumberboy skedaddles, and I can hear him in the next room, no doubt exclaiming; it's what religious freaks do, they exclaim:

"Mighty Prophet, there was a man in the Interloper's room!" He exclaims. See? "He was ... he was ..." His voice trails off and I hear some quieter talking, some almost reasonable tones of voice. I don't remember the Prophet speaking in a reasonable tone of voice when I was passing out on the ridge. How long ago was that? How long have I been out?

The voices in the next room are too low for me to understand, and I really have to pee. Have I just combined the contents of two full adult male bladders into one? I start looking for a place to pee. I'm getting a little frantic and wait but now I, well, I'm peeing. I'm peeing and it just doesn't feel the same.

I reach down, carefully. Oh what joy, I've been catheterized. I hope it was the hot redhead who did it.

This voice raises in the next room:

"I was told by Iron Rachel to come in the back way and check for fleeing Rachels for the dairy --"

"What happened when you were in the building?" Ah, the Prophet is back on form. Superb.

But what is the dairy that lumberjack guy is talking about. Can I get a milkshake. Wow, suddenly, I crave a real milkshake. From Val's, in Hayward. Ten minutes from here, before the quake.

I can hear the younger man talking again, he sounds like he's panicking:

" ... passing the Interloper's room when I saw a figure standing near his bed, Prophet. I looked in and it, it, well it was like he had a twin, Prophet. He was lying there in bed in his hospital gown, and the other man was leaning next to him, reaching out a hand. His right leg was in a cast, same as the Interloper's. Then he stopped, he didn't touch the Interloper. I raised my rifle, shouting, and he disappeared --"

There's a yell or a snarl and a scream and it sounds like some equipment is knocked over and there are people coming down the hall, the lumberjack is still talking. I close my eyes.

Wow, I am still peeing.

The lumberjack is saying, "He may have disappeared before I fired, Prophet. I am ... not certain. I don't really know what happened, Holy One." And now they're in my room and I'm listening with my ears wide open.

 Unfortunately for me. Because it sounds like someone stomps to the left side of my bed and I get to hear this:

"How?! How do you do these things?! Who sent you?! Who gave you Godspeak?! Wake and tell me now, I kill kill kill you --" 

Rustling, like he's searching his pockets or flapping his arms. Then silence. Does he know I'm awake?

"Where did you get that? Where, Whore?! Did he appear and give it to you? Is he here? Is he in this room? Tell me now!" 

"Your name is Torvald Mayberry," I hear Veronica! It's Veronica! We're here in the same room at the same time and I can't hug her, can't tell her I love her because, well, the Prophet sounds like he's in a murderin' mood. I think I twitched when I heard her voice. Did anyone notice? I try to focus on what she's saying: "You are probably wanted for sex crimes, and you are not a Prophet at all," she is so confident when she says this. Like Zoe on Fierfly.

I hear men gasp. More lumberjacks, no doubt. 

There's a sound that makes me think of stripping a turkey, and a wet noise like someone squeezed an orange wedge onto the bedsheets.

Veronica says, "Torvald Mayberry, false Prophet, you have no power. You didn't know about the rabbit, you didn't know I had the scalpel. You are a sorry, weak man."

"No power?! No power?! See my power, Whore!" The Prophet is doing that keening, screaming thing he does. Must carry for miles, where did he learn --

My bed lurches forward, veering to my right and I open my eyes in time to catch a glimpse of a girl with a badly beaten face and some bearded lumberjacks before my bed crashes through some French Doors, something tears out of my right arm and the bed is being forced up over a small landscaped hillock amid little birch trees. This seems familiar.

Oh. Oh! I need to go! I need to go now! I have to get Chauncey!

POP

I slam into the wall of supplies in my tent, praying I didn't crush the bunny. Ah, no: there he is, right across the tent near the zippered door. I flop down onto my back and pat my belly.

"Come on, Chauncey," I say.

He sits staring at me, whiskers twitching. 

My junk feels funny. I look down, pulling my gown aside, being careful, but it doesn't matter: the catheter is gone. Maybe I can market this to people who don't want it yanked out by GlauGlau the Night Nurse.

Waste of time. Focus! I don't have time for this. I'm desperate. I can feel something building in me, and a kind of ticklish humming in my forehead and behind my eyes. Should I grab him? Seems counterproductive. It may be what I have to do. But before I commit to another bunny lunge, I decide to try the Veronica tactic:

"I will give you lemon leaves and pine cones, Mister Bunny. Please hop onto my belly," and even before I'm done with the word "belly," he's hopped onto my tummy and is sitting there looking at me, all rabbity and intense.

If I pop back to the compound, it means Veronica found the talisman. Amulet. Whatever. 

If I go somewhere else, well, we're fucked.

Tickle in my forehead and

POP

The hospital bed is coming down off of some small shrubs, coming back from a dangerous angle to something more manageable. I want to clutch the edges of the bed, but I need to hold Chauncey firm on my tummy. I'm trying to suck it in so I don't look distended, but my concentration is skewed a little by the Prophet's voice coming from right behind my head:

"Rachels and Ezekiels, the Reckoning is come to an end! Attend your Prophet and see! See the truth! See the Interloper come to meet his maker! See Satan's relish fall from his mouth like ashes of the burned vagina of the Whore of Babylon! Ebasagu, Ebasagu, ebanah-ebanah-ebanah-flerr-na-na-na-na-The Lord is Mighty!"

We're rolling over gravel and I can feel something warm and wet on my right arm. I must be bleeding. Ah, yes. The tearing I felt before I popped to the tent.

"I have discovered this Whore hiding among the healers! Spies! Spies and Interlopers in our midst! She -- this Interloper Whore -- she questions my power! She conspired with her DevilMan to create a double, to infiltrate us and steal our American way of life from us like the Unclean Mexican she is! Somewhere among you he may yet lurk! This man's twin in all things, even the broken leg! This man with stolen Godspeak come to deceive you with his dark magic! She questions my power because she thinks she can! Yet you all know I hold the power of Life and Death in my hands! See! Ezekiel, bring me the White Sheet! So saith the Prophet!"

"So saith the Lord," I hear some few voices shout.

I hear footsteps come running up in the gravel, the fluttering of cloth.

"Behold! I place the sheet and he will die at my command! So saith the Prophet!" And this guy is so creative with that So Saith thing, he must be proud. He sure seems to use it a lot. Like when a baboon discovers its penis.

"So saith the Lord," a few more voices this time, but all a little subdued.

I hear the furl and snap of a sheet of cloth and I feel a sheet settling down over me.
"Lo and behold, the Prophet did see that the man and woman were Of The Devil, and he did ask Almighty God for his thundrous hand to smite them down. And God did as the Prophet asked, so saith the Prophet?!"

 

This is some ridiculous bullshit. The words leave my mouth before I think:

"So saith your Mom!"

Peas and carrots, general hubbub from the culty populace. They don't seem to know it was me, so I pull the sheet from my face with what I hope is some amount of flourish.

Great gasp from the assembled cultists. I'm like Houdini, if Houdini was, wow, bleeding profusely from his right arm. 

Immediately I see Veronica. She cries, "Tad!"

 

I wink at her, devil-may-care fellow that I am. She's holding something in her hand. It looks like the amulet. Talisman. Thing.

Whatever it's called, to business: I address the Prophet.

"Hey there, fucko!" I call in my best how-de-do. He whirls like a pervert caught without his pants. Which, it appears, is the case. Wow, ugly dick on this guy. Looks like Ginger root. Tearing my eyes from it, I flash the pearly whites: "Feeling rapey?"

"Tell me now how you did it and I may allow your Whore to live! Tell me how you created your double!"

"Well, I can't exactly tell you that, Torvald Walter Mayberry. But I can show you, you false prophet and fucker of corpses! Would you like that, Mr. Twistydick?"
 

Some of the Culties laugh. They may not be all bad if they get my jokes. I hear Veronica laugh and I chance a glance her way. So beautiful, very pale. I'll bet she hasn't been eating.

My attention is brought back to the prophet, who has spun around and is waving at the big grey house with all the decks. He's pointing at me.

"Yes," he says. "Yes, do show us all, Foul Deceiver! Show us your Hellbane and Hemlock!" His arm is not moving.

I think it's time to go.

"No hellbane and hemlock here, Torvald," I say. "Just good, old-fashioned know-how," I steal a glance at my right arm. Positively gushing, as they say. Maybe that's why I'm feeling wobbly? I turn to Veronica and Mother Henrietta. "Do I need a tourniquet for this?"

"Yes," they answer in almost the same tone, same gesture. Both look like they want to smack me, hug me and bandage me. Mother Henrietta must be a Cancerian, too.

My eyes tear up a little. But I know what I have to do. I remember what Future Me told me to do: be bold, be daring, be her hero now.

I smile, charming as hell, and say, "Done, ladies. Honey, I love you. Hold on to that amulet." As an added touch, I kiss my hand and toss it to her, Cyrano de Bergerac style. Then I throw the sheet over my head again and as I feel it settle all around me I can't help thinking of the penultimate -- which means second-to-last -- moment in Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera. But I need to focus, so I hold Chauncey tight and I --

Wait, why am I holding Chauncey? I should leave him here, right? Isn't that the whole idea? Right?

Feeling a buzz and tingle in my forehead, I try to push Chauncey away without touching him, trying to twist and not have any contact with him at the same time, hearing a gunshot as 

POP

Notes from the Future: Felonious Monk, Part V

"Wow, totally not dizzy anymore," I say. "Hey, if I disappear any time soon, will you tell Veronica I love her?"

"Of course, Edward," says Henrietta, taking the syringe from the redhead, who looks familiar somehow. "This may pinch a bit," she says, lifting my gown as I raise an asscheek.

POP

I slam to the ground, hard, gravel biting into my left knee, hip, elbow and shoulder. The wind is knocked out of me and I am gasping like a fish out of water, struggling to breathe or sob or cry out for help. It's dark, it's cold, and I can smell something coppery -- is that blood? My blood? Fuck. This has to be the worst feeling next to disembowelment. With luck, I'll never know. 

Finally, I can get a breath. This hurts, too, and seems to send alarm bells of pain ringing in all the parts of me that didn't hit the gravel directly: chief among them is my right leg which now feels like it's bleeding again. 

I can see where I am: I'm in the compound. I feel like I've been here before. I'm in the middle of a large, open area between the Hospital house to my right and a much larger, higher house with multiple levels of decking to my left. Behind me and to my right, I can see as I curl into a fetal position, is the barn where Veronica is (or was, or will be?) kept.

I could swear I was here before. Dizziness and a sense of impending déjà vu make it really difficult to pinpoint the memory. 

My password for my first e-mail address was radradagast. 

Where the fuck did that come from? That was on some ancient monochrome computer screen in, like, 1989. CompuServe? Wow. 

Okay, what am I doing here? 

I try to sit up and realize I've gashed my right hand open on the landing. Two cuts in the meaty, muscly parts: one below the thumb, one below the pinky. Both are bleeding freely. Well, there's nothing for it: I need to sit up. I put my right hand down to push myself up and it's caught on a string from the neck of my hospital gown, but I push myself up to my elbow anyway.

I feel something at my neck really pull, then give. The gown? This felt stronger. I ease myself onto my ass, and now I'm facing the barn. That doesn't feel right. I lift my ass in the air and try to pull my gown under me, but something jingles behind me.

I scoot around in a slow, draggy kind of way, grunting and gritting my teeth from the leg pain. It's too dark to see anything, so I feel around with my left hand. And there, under my left thigh and very close to my nutsack, is what feels like a round disk made of metal.

Bringing it close to my face, I realize it's one of the two copper discs I wear around my neck. On one side, a pentacle. On the other, the Sanskrit symbol for Om. Automatically, I check with my right hand, looking down to see that, indeed, the leather cord on which I'd worn this disc is broken. It's not surprising that it came apart so easily, I've been wearing this thing for years. 

I have to pee. Getting up and moving isn't an option. I pee where I'm sitting. It's soaking into the gown. I don't care. Realizing the disk is dirty, I put it into the stream of my urine and piss it clean. This strikes me as a very Teutonic cleaning technique and I giggle. There's a slight rumble deep in the ground and I wonder if the Norse Gods are angry with me. Then I realize that my right index finger is cut and bleeding as well, because I'm bleeding all over the talisman -- pendant -- whatever it should be called.

Bleeding. Blood and metal. That's what Future Me said would mark a place, bind me to a spot or a person. Anchor, he said. It works like an anchor. Gold is best. Would copper work?

Can't hurt. I squeeze my right index hard, pushing more blood out onto the disk. I cover it, front and back. It looks black and glisteny in the night. 

Youchers McOuchers, my head. Okay. That's, wow, that's painful. My vision is spangly. There's a dark patch in the gravel ahead of me, a small dark patch near my left heel. I reach and am not limber enough, so I toss the talisman and it lands a little low right of the spot. I shift my left heel to try to move it to the center of the dark spot, where it will be seen. Everything is spinning. I manage only to cover it with some dust and gravel, I'm going to have to 

POP

Dropping hard on my left side again onto a jagged claw of fallen branch, I feel hot sharp twangs of pain as the branches and wood tear into my chest, side and belly. 

I'm panting. It's dark, but getting light. There's a lump of dry brown grass in front of me that is rocking back and forth slightly. Oh, boy, dizzy. The rock, wait, lump of grass is turning. It's turning to look at me with a large, black eye and quivering whiskers and long brown ears.

I feel my eyes widen.

Chauncey.

I reach out with both hands.

"Chauncey," I say, as cheerily as I can. He hops toward me. I pet his nose.

It feels so nice to pet a bunny's nose and head when you're in pain. I smile, I pet him. He does that settling-in thing where he rocks back and forth, seeming to tuck his feet under himself and get a little fatter. I pet him some more, sliding forward over the log. He opens his eyes, whiskers twitching. 

I try to slide a little more forward but the branch -- I glance down -- fuck, it's a log -- the scrapy log is scrapy on my junk. I've had enough of that. No more junk scraping. All I want is a change of clothes. I want clean a bath and clean clothes, damn it! 

The dizzy amps up. Shit, this is getting to be a pretty clear sign. I'm about to pop. I focus on Chauncey, there are several of him doing wavery treetop dances. I grab the one closest to the middle and spook the one on the right, who tries to run away. I lunge, grab him with both hands and firmly hold him to my chest as I try to roll onto my back but oh shit the scrapy log is

POP

Whump. 

The air is knocked out of me again. But I'm on my back, with Chauncey safely held in my arms. And even though I'm allergic to him, I'm gasping for breath and thrashing my legs around. I let go of him and he leaps off me to the left, his overlong claws tearing at my belly. 

"Je ... sussss," I sort of grunt, if by grunt I mean scream in my head.

Breath returns like a recalcitrant college hooker and I just lay here, cozy for the first time in a long time. 

I'm in my yellow tent. On my sleeping bag and sleeping pads. So cozy. The light is gentle it's warm. Fuck this race, I'm sleepy.

I close my eyes, breathing deeply. Okay. Time to sleep. 

I start to think about when I backpacked the Roosevelt/Solomons trail in 2009, starting in Hetch-Hetchy Valley and going up through mosquito-infested Tuolumne Meadows to head south along Lyell or is it Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile? That river. And mosquitoes everywhere because it was still July and the females were swarming. All I wanted was to be in a tent and cozy and there was nothing worse in that moment than those fucking mosquitoes all over the backs of my legs, biting through my socks and all over my face, constantly buzzing and flitting and whining at me like my ex-girlfriend. She didn't suck blood, but she may as well have sucked my soul through other means, and I was on those neverending switchbacks. All I wanted was to be in a tent, cozy and protected. And I'm here. And my leg hurts. But I think, if I just breathe ...

The softest feeling, or maybe a sound, of bubbles. Like I've lain back into a pool of big flouncy bubbles and some of them have burst but most are supporting me ... pop-pop-flounce-pop ...

I sigh, sinking into the pad. I feel better. Much better.

Feels good just to breathe ...

It's actually pretty nice, here.

Breathing ... heaving breaths, breathing sighs ... I chuckle a little ...

They're nice to me, I can tell. One of them even spent extra time giving me a sponge bath, a very thorough sponge bath that she had to clean up after.

Oh, I'm dreaming. This is ... can't get too excited, but ... wow, this feels like lucidity. Full lucidity. I move my fingers and I feel cloth, not sleeping bag material but cotton. I smell disinfectant.

I hear beeping.

Holy crap, I'm dreaming I'm back in the hospital bed. Wow.

And dizzy. I'm dreaming I'm dizzy. I'll crack my eyes to get a focus point on the tent wall. I ease the left eye open.

Standing to my left is me, in this torn, messy hospital gown. Reaching toward me. Reaching really, really close to me. Do I not know that we'll seize? Is this sill a dream?

The world seems to flip upside down for a moment, then rights itself. Um ... maybe I'm not dreaming.

I open both eyes a little.

"Tad," I whisper. He freezes, his hand over my chest, we make eye contact and he's staring at me out of my eyes as I'm staring at him out of mine and we're each looking at ourselves through the other's eyes and it's like a tunnel, sucking our minds together because I know that what I'm looking for as I reach toward me is both what I was looking for before when I did this after the dream, and also what I'm looking for now: whether or not I have the talisman with the pentacle and Om. I reach up with my right hand and show other me: "Only one. I'm Future Me. This doesn't seem like a dream."

"This isn't a dream. I need to find a way to click back in, so that we occupy the same place," Standing Me says. "This is the second time I've arrived at this spot, and now I know why I'm here. I think."

"Quick, give me a blowjob. It's not gay because we're the same guy," we say at the exact same moment.  We're laughing when someone shouts from the hallway.

"You there! Stop in the name of the Prophet!"

Sssssnap, CLICK

Gunshot.

Notes from the Future: Henrietta's Tale, Part VIII

"We hit them hard, we hit them fast. Rachels, use the Neurovascular Dynamics at close range. Non-force, non lethal where possible. Firearms are a last resort. I repeat, firearms are a last resort. Now move out!"

Everyone is moving around me and I feel like I'm in a dream, unable to run or move. Then Mother Henrietta is at my side, her arm through mine, smiling, grim but cheerful.

"Come along, dear: you're with us," she sings out, and my mood changes from lost and scared to bright, happy, purposeful. I feel like I'm part of something, like we're doing something. Even the smell of the smoke and the sound of the burning houses farther down the slope are brighter, better and inspiring. 

We move off to the northwest, down a trail below the garden and below the Tor. I haven't been up there since the day Nice Rachel showed it to me. I haven't seen Nice Rachel since the day Tad disappeared and I attacked Torvald Mayberry. A question comes into my head, and I can't stop it from hitting my lips:

"Where is Torvald Mayberry, Mother Henrietta?" Even as I say this, I realize it's something I've been shoving down underneath other thoughts and activity in the days since I attacked him. I've been afraid to find out if I killed him. Or worse, if I will have to do it again. Why do I feel like it's my job to kill this fucker? "If he's alive, how can he even function? I'm pretty sure I broke his jaw." I find it incredibly satisfying to say this.

"That's exactly what we're going to find out, dear," she says, putting her right arm around me and briefly squeezing my shoulders. "Now listen closely, and stay by my side, because there's a lot I have to tell you before we reach our destination."

The night is cool, the air is smoky but growing clearer as we walk, and though I can see and sense the light of the fires over my right shoulder, we have moved into a forest of Oak and California Bay Laurel; I feel protected, somehow. A fresh breeze blows clean air from the West and Mother Henrietta begins:

"Friar Rudel stood in the snow-whispered darkness with Hannibal the Talkative and the the two pack animals carrying his gravely wounded friend Father Robert and the mysterious girl who was chased through fire and time by the same beast that now pursued them from below. He was at a loss. He couldn't see a thing, the night was unnaturally black. Usually snow would make some things more visible, but tonight it was as though they were enveloped in a dark mist.

"'I can't see a rutting thing, Hannibal, can you?' he asked the former mute.

"'No, indeed, Friar Rudel. But --' There followed the sound of a smack on fur-covered flesh and a grunting bray from Abelard the Donkey, and Friar Rudel felt himself rudely pushed aside by Abelard who trotted past him up the steep, icebound trail, followed closely by Bluebell the mule.

"'Ah! The animals can see our path clearly! Well done, young Hannibal!' So saying, Friar Rudel grabbed hold of a pack on Bluebell's back and felt Hannibal grab hold of his tattered old cloak. Thus, donkey, mule, Friar and former mute made their slow progress up the steep, icebound trail. Somehow the animals' hooves never slipped and though both men slipped and fell at times, the animals simply pulled them along over ice and snow until they reached rock or rare bare earth and could right themselves.

"Still the howling grew closer, still the darkness knew no end and the cold bit deeply into their bones. Friar Rudel began to lose feeling in his feet. Hannibal the Talkative hardly said a word. They stumbled and slipped and fell and were dragged, but they never seemed to go anywhere. 

"Friar Rudel was losing his grip on the loose leather strap to which he clung, dragged over snow and ice that had already soaked through his cloak and robe; he could not get his hands to move easily. He called out, but could muster barely a croak. He took a deep breath, licked his lips and felt the icicles break away from around his moustache and beard. He called out again, and again it was weak. He took a third deep breath, gathered his strength to call to Hannibal and Abelard and Bluebell.

"What came instead was a burp. A loud, resonant, sonorous burp that, moments later, echoed around them, rebounding between the walls of the bowl of rock in which they now found themselves. 

"With a start, Friar Rudel realized he could see more clearly, and that the dark fog which had shrouded them was either gone or dissipated enough that he could see that they were in a long, deep bowl of stone edged by high, ragged, sharp peaks. Their path continued forward but was quickly disappearing beneath snow which fell fast and thick and heavy here. 

"'Light! We need light!' he bellowed.

"Turning, he saw Hannibal and the two pack animals staring at him.

"'Friar Rudel, that was quite a burp,' said Hannibal.

"'Yes it was, wasn't it. Did I offend the Donkey? I'll make it up to him when I wash his cock at the Abbey. Now get any wood we have, anything at all. I have oil, I know Father Robert has oil. We need a torch. We need our own light. Now, Hannibal!' Friar Rudel heard his shout echoing back from the high, thin, sharp peaks around them as he began tearing strips from his ragged cloak. These mountains did not look like the mountains they'd been in ... what was it, just a few hours ago? It felt like weeks.

"Hannibal the Talkative brought a clay jar. Then he handed Friar Rudel the one piece of wood they still carried: Father Robert's staff. It was old, dark hardwood. Burnished through years of use, carved with phrases in Latin and their native tongue. One phrase, carved around the upper end of Father Robert's staff, struck Friar Rudel as particularly appropriate. It read, in Latin, 'Ne transieris luminis orbes sto.' Friar Rudel began muttering it under his breath as he began wrapping the shreds of his cloak tightly around those words. At each layer, he gestured for Hannibal the Talkative to sprinkle the oil on the cloth. It was scented oil, smelling of cloves and cinnamon. Each man found it a comfort in the cold, dark night.

"The howling had stopped. Friar Rudel looked up. There, farther away than he'd realized at the edge of this great jagged stone bowl, the flaming beast crested the rise. How he could see anything so clearly at his age and this distance, through snow and dark night, was a wonder. Yet he had been able to see the sigils without the round stone. So this place, he reflected, was special.

"Then the time for reflection was at an end. Friar Rudel stood, shaky but sound, and planted the staff in the snow before him.

"'Hannibal the Talkative, this is where we make our final stand. Our friend may be dead of his wounds and exposure. It matters not. The girl who stepped through fire and time may be a trick meant to lure us here to our doom. It matters not.' Friar Rudel had the sense that the beast was listening to him. He began dragging the staff in a large circle in the snow, surrounding the animals with their injured friend and the mysterious girl, until he reached the point where he'd begun, then readied his flint and steel in his old, cold, numb hands and continued, 'That beast of rape and rage may devour our flesh and break our bones to pick sheeps' ass from the barb of his monstrous prick. It matters not! Because here and now, finally and together, we make our stand. And unlike that shitchunk spawn of Satan's cumrag,' -- Friar Rudel was pleased to hear a sharper growl erupt from the beast -- 'Ne transieris quicquid lucis in orbem!'

"With that, Friar Rudel struck flint to steel to send a shower of sparks to light the oil-soaked rags tightly bound to the top of Father Robert's staff.

"Only nothing happened. No sparks.

"'My Latin may be rusty, but my steel is sharp!' Friar Rudel was laughing as he said this, giddy in the face of doom.

"The beast began to come for them, then, chuckling its contemptuous, growling chuckle. Friar Rudel struck steel to flint again, harder, proclaiming, 'Ne transieris quicquid lucis in orbem!'

"Still nothing. The beast had closed half the distance in seconds. 

"'Great Fucking Mother of us All, help me!?' Friar Rudel cried, giving one last monumental strike of steel to flint and bellowing into the face of the beast, 'We stand in circles of light that none may cross!'"

Mother Henrietta gives the signal to halt, and the line of Rachels and Ezekiels behind us goes silent and still. Then she signals them to rest, a silent low hand gesture that reminds me of Tad training Max, and everyone sinks to a crouch or a sitting stance -- relaxed but always ready, focused, poised.

From cloth pouches people withdraw jerky, trail mix and other high-energy hiking foods. Tad really would love this place. I kind of hope I can get him away shortly after he wakes up ... 

Oh, wait. I'd forgotten. He's gone. Blinked out in an instant. Where are you, Edward Hightower? Where are you when all I need is a hug?

"You're missing your boys," says Mother H., handing me some jerky. I sigh, feeling a tear fall and quickly wiping my eyes.

"No," I say. Then I laugh. "Yes." More tears. Fuck, I hate crying. Crying is weak. I need to be strong.

"You know, there is strength in letting go," says Mother H., apparently reading the open book of my mind.

"I just ... I feel like if I let go," I breathe, trying to keep from crying.

"You won't ever be able to hold on again?" she asks, finishing the thought I didn't know how to complete. I look at her, kind of awestruck.

"Mother Henrietta --" I begin.

"Henrietta, please," she says.

"I know you want me to just call you by your first name, but to me you will always be Mother Henrietta. It just feels right. Is that okay?"

"Of course, dear."

"Thank you. Okay. So. What you just said. Is exactly. How I -- how it is for me. Exactly. You put it perfectly, better than I ever could, because I didn't know until you said it that that is what I worry about. How can I let go and cry, Mother H.? I feel like I'll never stop if I let myself start."

"Sometimes, Veronica, we work so hard to hold our tears inside and never let them out that they damage us. If we let them out we have a brief storm, maybe some flooding. But the waters recede and we feel better. If we keep them locked up inside, their unexpressed energy slowly fills us until we are drowning in our own unshed tears. That's a lot of salt. Too much to be healthy. We get sick and die from unexpressed emotion, dear." She pauses, looking out at the night. I focus on my breathing. "Better to lose a little control in the here and now than make an early departure to the sweet hereafter."

I look at her. She's gazing at me with her kind, wise eyes. Tad's mom, if Tad's mom were an Abbess. 

"So many people have died around me of late," I say, barely above a whisper. "I wonder sometimes if it would be better to give up, let go and go with them."

She's quiet for a time. Then:

"We all have such a short time here. Even if it's spread thin between time and events, any human life is still so very short. I've had more than my share of lifetime in this world, and I know that when I leave it will be the right time and the right place. I know it as surely as I smell the bay leaves from the tree above us and the sweet clear air mixed with the smoke from the fires. This knowledge doesn't come until much later in life. Your time is nowhere near us. I am as certain of this as I am that it is time, at last, to move on. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

I say that I do, but I'm not sure. It felt like there was something underneath her words, but I don't know what. A lesson of some kind. 

Mother Henrietta gives the signal, and we stand silently, stowing whatever gear we've used in this break. We move out.

The night is clear, silent and bright with stars. Mother Henrietta continues her tale.

Notes from the Future: Max II

I am here. I am here.

Stretch.

Sigh.

Snore.

 -- chasing kitties, chasing kitties, chasing kitties, they are everywhere how will I get them all? How to get them all?! Must chase, must chase those kitties, must chase them and play with them kitties are for chasing and playing --

Who.

Who? You?

YOU! YOU!YOU!YOU!YOU!YOU!

"Shhh, Max! Hold still."

YOU!YOU!YOU!YOU!YOU!

"Shhh, we have to be quiet now. Sit. Sit, Max."

Sit, yes. I do my job.

"Good. Now lie down."

Lie down, yes. I do my job. I listen. Yes.

"Good boy."

Treat? I lick my dogchops. Treat? Lick. Chops. 

"Yummy treat, yes, good; no, only one for now."

You have more treat. I sit. 
I listen. You have more treat. 
I watch your hands. Always more treat. 
I watch your eyes. 
Eyes means more treat.

"Shhh. I'm going to sit down here with you ... ouch, oh ... wow, that is still ... fucking painful ... holy crap, okay."

Ooohhh, you are next to me. Ooohh, you are near me. 
Good, yes. Yes, yes. Good. 
Sigh. Now rub ears. Yes? 
Yes, good. Mmm. 
Good rub ears time. 
Good be near now.

"Okay. Let's see if we can get cozy, here, Max."

I love rub ears. I see You. 
You.
I love You.

"Haven't found any effective painkillers, so, oh, a kiss, thank you, that's -- pfahw -- why do you always lick my tongue? Jesus."

Yes. Yes. Yes. You like kisses.

"Wait, shhh: there may be someone out there. Shhh, shhh, please God just sit still and listen --"

I sit.
I do my job.
Eyes only: look right, look left.
No smells. Yes smell: You.
You smell.
You smell strong. 
No other smells.
Treat now?

"Whoo, it's cold, Max. How did you even get here? What are you living on? Do you have shelter here? Man. I hope you're warm at night, because in this gown I am fruh-huh-heeezing. Snuggle up to me. Cozy. Wow, you are warm. I might even be able to snooze a little."

Sigh.
Rest on you.
Paw. Leg.
You stay here.
Paw means here. Stay.
Sigh.
I sit stay. I do my job.
You sit stay now.
Sigh.
You sit stay here.
You.
I love you.
Do your job.
Stay.

>>POP<<

You?
YOU?
Where? You? Where? You? Where? YOU?! YOU?! YOU?!
Must run this way, smelling: YOU?! YOU?! YOU?!
Must run that way, smelling: YOU?! YOU?! YOU?!
Must check where you were: YOU?!
Must check perimeter: You?
... no You ...
Sigh.
Return to where you were.
Turn three times.
Sit.
Cross paws, lay head on paws.
Paw means here. Stay.
I do my job.
I sit stay.
You? Stay?
I am Max.
I love you.
Sigh.
Stay.
I am good boy.
I am Max.
I wait.

Notes from the Future: Felonious Monk, Part IV

With a flash like lightning, a blue-white symbol appears in the air above and behind this old monk, seeming to wrap him in its arcane lettering. We're all shading our eyes, trying to see him. He reaches out a hand, calling something to me, his eyes desperate.

Then he's gone. 

"What the fuck was that?" I can't help yelling it, but I only realize that I've yelled when Henrietta responds in a very soft voice. 

"I think I know precisely who that was," she says, turning to me. "But tell me now, tell me quickly: how are you here," -- she gestures to the bed -- "and also there?" 

"Wow," I say, rolling myself closer. I've never watched myself sleep before. While I knew this was me, I didn't really look at myself, yet.

"We're losing weight. What are you feeding us?" I turn, grinning at the nurses. They all look flustered, except for Henrietta, who levels a no-nonsense gaze a me that reminds me of a combination of my mother, Judi Dench and Cherry Jones. This is a formidable woman. 

"Edward, what you're doing right now is supposed to be impossible. Where did you come from? How did you get outside the back door? Are you aware that your fiancée is held prisoner not two hundred yards from this spot?" Henrietta is very together. Grounded. I feel a little like I'm in the Principal's office.

Then I realize where I've seen her name.

"You're Mother Henrietta," I blurt. "You wrote the letter to Veronica about Torvald Mayberry, former pastor of Three Square Christian--"

"Hush, now," Henrietta says, eyes wide. "That is not a name to bandy about at this time. How do you know it?"

I'm already dizzy. I blink a few times to clear my vision. It doesn't quite work.

"I read your letter. I'm ... look. I need you to do something for me. I'm going to be leaving, soon. I think ..."

"Edward, you're not going anywhere. You are in no condition to travel, and I would not be surprised if you pass out like your other self there," Henrietta is tolerantly amused.

"Just ... put extra pillows under me," I say.

Henrietta nods to the hesitating nurses and they grab pillows from inside a free-standing storage closet on the far side of the room. Things are getting wobbly. I'm not here much longer. One of the nurses starts to lean me forward and lift me.

"No," I say. "Not me. Him. Put pillows under that me."

"Won't he be uncomfortable?" one of the nurses, a pretty redhead, asks.

"Trust me, I didn't notice," I say.

The nurses set about putting five pillows underneath Bed Me, and Henrietta fixes me with her clear, professional gaze.

"Edward, you said you didn't notice. What does that mean?"

"Do you have any food? Anything? Some sausage, maybe? I'm famished for sausage, sounds kind of gay, doesn't it?"

At a gesture from Henrietta, one of the nurses leaves and returns with, of all things, three cooked breakfast sausages. They're cold. I eat one. It's delicious.

"Edward, what did you mean when you said you didn't notice?"

"It means that's Past Me. Or Present Me for you. I'm Future Me. But I'm dizzy because he and I are the same Me. I've got to ... ooh, God ..." I lean forward slightly. "Any chance of those painkillers?"

"Oh, of course! Rachel, the syringe?" Henrietta is genuinely distraught at having forgotten. The hot redhead nurse starts doing that flick-the-syringe thing that gives me a chubby, but Henrietta distracts me: "Edward. That man in this room. Do you know how he got here? Do you know the things he knows?"

"Who, Friar Dumberlindore? Hah, fuck, no. I have no idea," I am dizzy like the Teacups ride.

Then it's gone and I sit up straight.

"Wow, totally not dizzy anymore," I say. "Hey, if I disappear any time soon, will you tell Veronica I love her?"

"Of course, Edward," says Henrietta, taking the syringe from the redhead, who looks familiar somehow. "This may pinch a bit," she says, lifting my gown as I raise an asscheek.

POP

Notes from the Future: Felonious Monk, Part III

I reach again and can close my fingers over the knob. I turn it.

Locked.

Footsteps on gravel, near stomping, close to the left.

"Halt!"

I halt, laying here on my stomach, trying to keep weight off of my right leg, right hand clutching the doorknob that won't turn. Does it matter what I do right now? Future Me is intact, if improperly healed. Maybe I can just stop trying, give up. Submit to the Prophet. Maybe everything will be okay; after all, I survive no matter what, right? All of this occurs to me in a moment as the footsteps come closer and the stepper of foots speaks:

"You halt in the name of the Prophet, Whore, and learn what Price is paid by Whores in the Night," he says, and I hear the click of a flashlight and see my shadow on the door in front of me. "Turn over, Whore. Spread your Unclean Parts for my Inspection."

I can't help it. I laugh, once. Almost a grunt, really, and you'd think this guy would notice the deeper tone. He doesn't. 

A crunch and pain. Sharp, hot, dull pain. He must have hit my leg. My vision is swimming and I'm hearing him whisper intensely about how I'd better turn over or he'll break my other leg because I'm such a whore.

I try to lift my left leg over my right. I'm woozy. I kick my right leg, it hurts like hell, if hell were white hot pincers tearing into that nerve that runs up the center of the leg. I scream.  Why didn't I scream before? Why can't I get my leg over my other leg? I turn my head slightly and, of course, he's pressing the butt of his rifle down on the spot where he hit my right leg. These assholes didn't have guns at the roadblock on Bollinger. Why now?

He's chuckling softly. 

I bend my left leg, try lifting it to get it over my right, it thumps against my cast but then slides over it and I'm able to use this awkward motion, supporting myself now with my hands, to turn over onto my back. 

Thing is, to do this I have to lift my pelvis into the air. And I'm in a hospital gown. So when the gown pulls away because it's pinned under my left hand and this Ezekiel is leaning in, pressing on my leg with his gun, there's my junk about half a foot from his face.

He's staring at it, stupid in confusion. I see him blush in the light from the windows behind me -- were those on before? -- and experience some unexpected self-consciousness.

"Sorry," I say. "Cold night. Shrinkage."

His face screws up in disgust and anger, he rears back, raising his rifle. To beat? To shoot?

The door supporting my shoulders and back yanks open behind me --

"Ezekiel! What do you think you are doing?"

-- and I collapse backward, right leg slamming to the deck. I howl. From somewhere far away I think I hear barking, but a voice is speaking above me and it's a stern woman and I listen closely because, am I going to die now?

"Why have you taken this man from his hospital room? He's a prisoner. And he's injured! What kind of Ezekiel harms an injured man? What kind of Ezekiel sneaks a prisoner out of the Hospital House?" The silence that follows this is the thick, Canadian Bacon kind of silence.

"I was -- he was outside -- I found him --" the Ezekiel is stammering.

"Oh, I saw and heard you threatening to rape this man," the woman says. "Rachels, seize him."

I think I'm going to be seized, but then I see Rachels in white nurse uniforms appear from the darkness around the Ezekiel and one of them has a syringe and injects his neck and he slumps and they easily lift him and step into the house over me, carrying him. I'm in so much pain, I don't even think to look up their skirts. This is how dire my situation is. Surely at least one of these nurses is going commando, and here I am in too much pain to care.

They're gone into the house and I hear rustling cloth and open my eyes as the woman with the firm voice kneels next to me.

"Hello, Edward," she says. Her eyes twinkle. "My name is Henrietta. I'm chief cook and bottle-washer here in the Hospital House. Glad to see you're up and about," she says this all very matter-of-fact as she's taking my pulse and listening to my heartbeat with a stethoscope. She looks me in the eyes. "Though I am surprised to see you here, because I just came from that room across the hall, there, where -- at least two minutes ago -- you were in bed, unconscious."

I'm staring at her. This is very interesting.

"This is very interesting," I say. 

"Yes. You have a fever, young man. I thought we'd gotten that taken care of; come along," and with the help of two nurses who arrive at that moment, I am lifted into a wheelchair. "Now you just sit tight while we get you something for the pain," she says. They move purposefully in three separate directions.

A flash of blue-white light comes from the room closest to me, the room across the hall where she said she'd last seen me. I'm alarmed by the light, it look electrical. I'm opening my mouth to call out when someone in that room shouts:

"Bon Dieu, où l'enfer suis-je? Hannibal!"

I'm trying to maneuver my wheelchair around the corner and into the room as Henrietta and the other two nurses materialize, all carrying some implement of medicine, striding toward me -- and, it looks like, the room -- with purpose.

I manage to get the wheelchair to turn so I can see into the room just as the three women arrive. 

There is a fat old monk standing there, mostly bald with a white beard. He has snow melting on his shoulders. I can smell cold night air on him. 

Seeming to sense us, he whirls. And freezes, staring at me. He has very bright blue eyes.

"Robert?" he asks, his pronunciation French but sounding like old, old, old French. I don't know how I know this. 

He looks from me to the hospital bed, and back to me. He points at each of me at the same time, shakes his head, laughs a little.

"Robert ..." he says. "Vous devez revenir. Il ya plusieurs d'entre eux. Nous ne pouvons pas survivre. Nous avons besoin. Comme il semble y avoir deux d'entre vous, peut-être que vous pouvez épargner au moins un ... ?" 

With a flash like lightning, a blue-white symbol appears in the air above and behind this old monk, seeming to wrap him in its arcane lettering. We're all shading our eyes, trying to see him. He reaches out a hand, calling something to me, his eyes desperate.

Then he's gone.