Drifting

I thought I was underwater.

Maybe I still am....

It feels like it.

My eyes are closed, as if weighted with lead

Maybe I'll never open them again.

It would be so much more comfortable than to move.

No sight...

Just darkness

I know I'm underwater now from the pressure on my chest, and the tinny ringing in my ears...

drifting...

Still blackness. What water is this inky? How long has it been?

Where is this?

no....

i don't care if I ever know...

so warm

the floating is soporific

hm....

soporific... why does the word conjure a face? and why is it so pale... still... waxlike...

dead?

the friend... taught me the word soporific i think

and much else.. not so very long ago.

two centuries maybe

how to read the map in the stars...

water... we were on water then too and the world was burning...

but how could he be dead?

oh.

a human

... where am I then, to be living among humans?

oh. no.. oh no...

i remember.

i remember it all now...

my realization... failure to change the past and wipe away the events that led to my birth...

for some reason I feel guilty at my relief, to live.

I was ready though.

to stop being.

but then...

when.

when am I?

hm

the ringing is in a receeding slightly...

i can hear breathing now

not my own...

but how do you hear breath underwater?

and...

ugh.

what in the name of... that smell!

My eyes blinked open... leaden and resisting to see amber eyes staring right back. I started at the closeness...

and could not move.

How did I become wrapped in blankets? Why was there a spring digging into my back? What was I doing on a decrepit sofa? Where was this anyway? Was that a cat on my chest? In the name of the River, what was Epimetheus thinking when he created such a monstrous creature? It was huge and grey striped, with disproportionate ears and the worst breath I have ever had the displeasure of smelling.

Ok. So I'm not underwater. That's a definite. But I can't move, probably due to the restrictive coverings and that cat. Somehow I've taken an instant dislike to the thing. Why is it lying on me anyway?

So.

What had happened...

I quickly reviewed times I knew I had traveled out of.

My own time... the times of chaos and death and wars...

Then into a world of music and painted smiles. A world where battle was a game; if you died of the sport on the street you would fall to the gutter. And the humans would turn elaborate heads in the opposite direction. Ladies would lift skirts to avoid touching the filth, (though for all their facepaint they were pervaded by that filth) and step farther onto the sidewalk. A stranger looking in my mind would see, perhaps, so much reflection and notice of death, illness, war... I am not obsessed as one might think. It's just all so foreign I can't help noticing and trying to understand. Growing up in Death, living surrounded by it... I still makes no sense to me. I fail to comprehend it every time. Every time I have encountered It in my eight hundred years traveling I stare as I did the first time. What is this... oubliette... you speak of? I feel a child. My mind whines over and over... I don't understand!!! Desperate. But I speak of a fleeting moment in so many words as to seem ridiculous. And do I not have an eternity of sheer blankness ahead, in which to contemplate as I languish in exile? Now...

Oh yes. I was in a cage... With the child of dead eyes. Then we got out... As frogs. Ludicrous, true, but it was the first thing that had come to mind, and I was slightly nervous about what would happen if I messed up transforming her. She was being extraordinarily quiet afterwards.

darnit

That... that... street! It was awful. All roaring and screaming. So big! But the body I had chosen was able to make it almost to the other side. Then there was a monster. Looming huge, it had roared up out of nowhere. Such unnatural colors too. But after that? It was just pain followed by more of such pain as I have never know until I had mercifully slipped into the blackness. Ow. The pain was still there. Dimmer, but still burning cold. All right. condition check: pain. sight.(fuzzy but there) pain. hearing. more pain. smell certainly. pain. eww. that cat had just sighed in my face and it stinks of rot.

ok. next question. voice... is there anyone around? Did Whisper get killed by the monster? I hope she didn't. Even if she is a bit evil. I opened my mouth tentatively

"Hello?"

It came out as a strangled gurgle. My throat was so dry. I tried again, and this time it was close to recognizable, certainly louder. But probably not audible to anyone other than the cat. Really rather pathetic considering the thing was probably three inches from me. Ow.

It was hard to breathe even without taking into considering the cat. And the thing felt like twenty pounds. I swear it was gargantuan. Like a Titan cat. Alright. Third time lucky...

"HELLO?"

there. that sounded nearly normal. Weak yes, breathy and rather weak but coherent.

There was instant response; Whisper's head popped up from where she had apparently been sitting on the ground behind the side of the sofa. What had she been doing sitting there on the ground for the long minutes I had been awake? And silent too. The speed combined with her absolutely flabbergasted expression would have been comical had her face not been rather grimy and obviously tearstained. Crying for what? I got my mouth, full of questions, open perhaps halfway before the noise started. The next minute or so was a blur. A very loud and somewhat painful blur. Guess silent doesn't apply anymore. The most I remember thinking is how could merely two mortal beings possibly make so much sound? The cat yowled as Whisper went into something resembling a siezure, alternately yelling at me and grabbing the cat to hug it. The creature did not enjoy the attention, escaping as soon as she rounded on me. Escaping to my leg actually. Let me tell you that hurt beyond belief. My leg that is. There was so much mix up with me voicing my pain and my questions in a hoarse voice punctuated by coughing, Whisper truly shrieking, the cat hissing and yowling...

To make a long story short, after much ado the three of us- I was informed the cat was named Laney, even though it was male. I didn't even want to know why- were settled on the couch. Laney on the arm behind me as grumpy pillow, Whisper at the very end, and me pretty much squashed between them.

She then proceeded to explain that I had pretty much died being run over by a trolley, and that between the loss of a leg and the complete squashing of my entire right side I shouldn't be among the living. It was too much to take in, much less accept. So I just let her words wash over me. There was somethig that felt wrong with the story though. My arm was very sore and a bit lacerated, breathing was slightly painful and my leg hurt so much it felt numb. But my leg shouldn't have been there right? I untangled the blankets, noticed I was missing my shirt. My trousers were still there- filthy but there- and I definitely had two legs. Whisper just kind of blinked a bit. It hit me then, and the extent of my stupor- that I hadn't remembered!- made me laugh out loud. But it hitched up somewhere in my throat so it came out more as a disbelieving gasp. Then, clear and more easily than before, came the sentence that heralds greatness and idleness and all the glory of this Earth.

"Would you like to hear a story?"