Little Boy

Yesterday night I came across a boy on Waldorf Ave. It was no time of night for a child to be out, I thought to myself through the haze in bloodstream. Excuse me little boy, I asked, but what are you doing here so late at night?

The boy had very dark hair and very pale skin. He had huge black eyes and an oversized sweatshirt. He was crying without tears. I’m not a boy, he told me, I am a monster. If you know what is good for you you will live me alone. Surely you must have a family somewhere, I said to the boy, I’m sure someone must be looking for you, someone who loves you.

Nobody loves me. I am alone and I will always be alone… because I don’t belong in this world.

You know, I said, I don’t belong in this world either. I sat down in the street. I used to be a pilot, in the air force. I was in combat with my navigator. We were hit and it didn’t look like we were going to make it. We had someone on our tail. The sky was clear that day but I could see  a small patch of thunder clouds just in front of me. As we got closer it became clear that what I was looking at was a hole in the sky. The plane that was following us pulled up. We flew into through the hole and into a storm. We made a sea landing and a small fishing boat picked us up. My navigator didn’t make it back to shore. He had been hit in the neck. I tried to contact the base but nothing went through. When I finally got ahold of the United States air force they said that they didn’t have me on record. When I showed them my and my navigator’s identification they said it was fake. They took everything. I buried my navigator by the beach. As the years went on it became clearer that I was no longer living on the same earth I had lived on before. Almost everything is exactly the same, but there are a few unmistakable differences. The way my favorite restaurant makes its coffee. The logo on my favorite brand of cigarettes. I don’t have any family or friends in this place. Not any real ones anyway. Not anyone who would defend me when people call me a liar. I guess they just don’t have people like that here.

I, the boy began to speak, I had a family back home. They were nice. They took me in even though they knew that I wasn’t like the others. They taught me things and told me stories. I miss them. The boys mouth was a horrible frown. I could see the pain in his heart. I reached out for his shoulder. He jerked back and made an awful noise. He teeth seemed sharper than they should have been and I could smell blood on his breath. I pulled my hand away. Leave me alone. That was the last thing he said before he turned away. He ran away then. I wanted to tell him to wait, but I was afraid.

I was afraid because the way he moved through the darkness seemed more like a monster would move than a boy. I wonder what has become of him. I wonder what it was that separated him from his family. I wonder, will he grow into a monster or into a man?

Falling

Welcome back to the dream theatre, a sign buzzes at you in neon light. You travel through the labyrinth of corridors once again, eventually you arrive in an unfamiliar section of the theater. You are now sitting in the under dome. The credits are on the screen as one would expect. Music plays quietly in the background. The man sitting next to you has glasses that you cannot see through, because they chronically reflect the light. The woman in front of you has elaborate hair.

The lights dim. it is time for the feature presentation. The floor opens up. You watch your feet dangling above a giant hole. There is no seat belt on your chair. There is a jerk and a clank. There is another. There is a slow metallic creak. You cling to your chair. A shiver runs up your spine. You know what it is coming. The chairs fall. The ceiling recedes. The walls of the hall blur upwards as the theater seating continues to plummet. You can’t breath. Someone who can, screams. Your eyes stick to your dangling feet. There is no wind rushing into your face. You hear spasmodic laughter from the man with the glasses. You unstick your eyes to see him smiling behind his glasses. His teeth are sharp. He turns to stare at you while he laughs. Disquiet churns your stomach.

The fall enters into darkness. The man’s glowing glasses and sharp teeth fade to black. Somebody in the audience is moaning painfully. The man next to you appears. His face is lit red from bellow. It looks as if the light in his glasses is dancing. When you look away you can still feel him staring. Far below your dangling feet, red light swims. It slowly grows larger. You hear a sound like thunder, distant at first and then nearer. It is the sound of the flames that you are falling toward. For a moment, everything is hot and red, then the fire is above you. A malevolent sun in a pitch black sky.

The man with the glasses is no longer next to you. Strange patterns of white, blue, and purple light appear on the walls. They create lines that spin around the audience, or waves that slowly drift from side to side as the audience continues to drift endlessly, or large pulsing and oscillating shapes that dance and twirl erratically. The lights start to become more ordered and yellow. They begin to slow. Before you realize what has happened, you find yourself stopped, in the theatre, as if nothing has happened. You begin to wonder if it might all have been some trick of the eye.

In the corridors leading back to the lobby, you think you notice the man with the glasses walking into a restroom. You look down the hallway behind you. A strange ripple comes toward you as if you are in the middle of a slinky or an esophagus. The ground shifts under you as it passes and it feels like a wave pool in a water park. You watch the ripple pass around a corner in the corridor. You realize that you don’t quite remember how to leave the dream theater. There is no glowing exit sign to be seen. There is only the faint flicker of an abandoned snack bar. The lump in your stomach is not the sensation of hunger.