Monster - A. Lee Martinez [87]
The ground rumbled. A tsunami of facts and data raged around the house. The force of the storm rattled the entire structure, threatening to tear it to pieces and sweep it away. The house couldn’t hold out long.
“Shut the door,” said Lotus.
He did. Instantly, the storm died down. The house became quiet.
Monster cracked the door. The house trembled and groaned under the storm’s fury. He quickly shut it again, and the storm faded.
He was in a den. There was the usual furniture. Some chairs, a couch, a coffee table. A little overdecorated with knickknacks and framed photographs, but dry and inviting. Lotus sat in a recliner, reading a Life magazine from the 1950s.
He went to the window and looked outside. Everything was calm and sunny. No sign of the storm.
“Where is this?” he asked.
“It’s a happy place, most likely a remnant of a comforting memory,” she replied.
He surveyed the room. All around were photographs of people he didn’t know wearing clothes that placed them a few decades before he had been born. “I don’t remember any of this.”
“It’s not your happy place,” she said. “It’s just one that happened to be convenient.”
Though soaking wet, he wasn’t dripping. He tried ringing out his shirt, but the water refused to fall away from him. He didn’t even leave soggy footprints on the rug. He brushed his wet hair from his eyes and sat in a chair.
He wished for a beer, and one appeared. But it wasn’t a twist top, and he didn’t have a bottle opener. He tried wishing for one, but nothing happened. He went the manly route and tried to twist it off. The cap bit into his fingers and drew blood. More annoying, the cap didn’t come off.
“If you don’t expect it to open, it never will,” said Lotus.
Monster smashed the bottle against the end table. The table broke. The bottle didn’t.
“I get it,” he said. “This beer, cold and refreshing, is a symbol of my own personal happiness. And I can’t open it because I never expect to be happy, right? I always expect it to be just out of reach.”
“Something like that. You’re brighter than I imagined. Your exposure to the storm must’ve made you smarter.”
He tossed the beer over his shoulder. It shattered, spilling his metaphorical happiness in a puddle on the hardwood floor. “Lady, I’m stupider than ever.”
“Very good,” she said. “The wisest man knows he knows nothing.”
“Yeah, yeah. One hand clapping.” Another beer appeared on the table beside him, but he didn’t take the bait. “Why are you helping me?”
“I have my reasons.”
“Oooh, mysterious,” said Monster with every bit of sarcasm he could muster. “What now?”
“Now you wait for the storm to pass.”
“And then?”
“And then your mind rejoins with your body and you remain as ignorant as ever.”
“How long will that take?”
“In the world of flesh and blood, a few hours. Here, in this random astral scrapyard, who can say?”
He leaned back in his chair and made himself comfortable. After a few minutes of silence, he wished for something to pass the time. A television appeared, but it only played documentaries on the history of knitting. A deck of cards presented itself, but every card was the seven of spades. A game of Monopoly materialized, but it was missing the dice and the race car. He picked up one of the old magazines but found that the writing was in Japanese.
He didn’t know what was more frustrating, being bored or knowing that he was boring himself through his own subconscious expectations.
The grandfather clock by the door ticked away the moments. Its pendulum swung, but its hands didn’t move. Time didn’t move. Monster opened the front door, and the storm rattled the house’s timbers. He sat in the chair for ten minutes. He counted every tick, just to be sure. Then he opened the door and checked the storm again.
Still there, still threatening to sweep up the house in its merciless tide.
Monster decided he didn’t like astral planes, and that the collective unconscious could kiss