Perfect Pitch

Around the corner, of the most happening place on a Monday night, a shifting bunch of ruffians loitered about on the sidewalk.  They were all heedless of the shaking heads of upstanding citizens who rolled by them in an abstract wash of traffic.  When the sky opened up, and it began to pour, a few of the idlers wandered around the corner, across the street, or down the sidewalk in zigs and zags.  Only two scruffy looking no-gooders were left standing on the sidewalk under an overhanging roof which had been purposed to provide shelter for anyone but the likes of them.  It was a sidewalk, meant for walking, but Ferguson and Tyson had been standing, leaning against the wall for the last ten minutes.  If it had been a bus stop, perhaps their presence would be more excusable, but they had no business just standing where they were.  No business other than demonstrating a flagrant disregard for the law.   

“Dude, you should roll a joint,” Tyson cautioned.  “Smoking that pipe is hella sketch.”  He peered down the glossy street of Pahoa, wary.  Even in the rain, a blue light atop any police vehicle would stand out, obvious enough to spot in the night.  At the same time, it seemed an unnecessary hazard to chance being forced to stash Ferg’s enormous pipe.  It was the type of pipe that couldn’t be palmed or easily tucked back in Ferg’s backpack.  That, and there was perfectly good weed that would be wasted if the bud was lit up and cherried in the bowl.  If they needed to get rid of it in a hurry… ugh!  This was so dumb.  There was no reason to risk anything like this.  

Tyson had never before imagined a place in which people could be so brazen, lighting up in the heart of town.  Considering himself a resident, having be-bopped around Puna a few months, he still had the willies when Ferg did this, firmly believing that there were certain ways to go about smoking in public, and joints were sensible.  Joints, not pipes--especially ones like Ferg’s monstrosity.  

Besides, joints tasted better.  The last person on rotation wouldn’t be left to inhale butane and ashes.  Unlike pipes, joints intensified after each draw with an oily resin working its way down into the sticky roach end.  A roach could always be pocketed for later.  With a little paper crutch, rolled in the place of a filter, fingers wouldn’t be burnt on the end of a joint.  Nothing would go to waste, delicious to the last puff.  With a pipe, inevitably there’d be some unlucky schmuck handed a tragically cashed bowl.  The last hit would taste like sweaty socks and defeat.  Tyson could think of so many reasons not to smoke out of a pipe in public.  

“It’s weed, homie,” Ferguson pontificated, tamping down a bud into the pipe with his thumb.  “The cops here are cool.  They don’t want to see anyone smoking meth, but we’re just getting irie.  No one cares.  The war on herb is over.  This is my medicine, brah, relax.”

Tyson wasn’t convinced, but that didn’t stop him from accepting the pipe when it was passed over.  The music from the open mic drifted around the corner, as did a few scraggly characters, reeled in by the skunky aroma.  All were expecting nothing less than a toke, and then disappeared again, happy to bestow their stoned attention on whoever was on the mic.

“Does anyone have a nickel bag?” asked Bart, ragged looking as he lumbered up.  It was less of a despicable question than his usual one--an endless loop of groveling about a dollar someone might be willing to part with.  As was to be expected, Bart’s eyes were black holes of insatiable need as he looked to Ferguson.  

“A nickel bag?” scoffed Ferguson.  “Scrape up twenty, and maybe, but five bucks?  Come on, man.  I’m not risking jail time for five bucks.  It’s kind of insulting that you would even ask for a nickel bag.  If I start selling nickel bags, people will be calling me little Nickie, and I can’t have that.  I ain’t little Nickie, Bart.  Ask Derek.  I got an eighth if you come up with a twenty.”  Bart looked unsatisfied with the answer, so Ferguson explained, “I just loaded some dankness in my bowl.  You’re gonna like it--frosty goodness.”

“Derek said he was out,” Bart said, in that sickening F minor of dreariness which dominated his personality.  Dreariness and longing comprised Bart.  He scuffed about the art of living, trying to cop anything he could, like a city pigeon in an outdoor food court.  

Charlie thundered down from the gas station, his skateboard wheels howling with a ferocious sound, like the roar of a jet engine, until he tried to hop up onto the curb.  He almost made it, but almost doesn’t look pretty on a skateboard.  The green wall was there to greet him, not giving as he flailed off the board and thudded into it.  No one asked if he was okay.  They took his moaning as a sign that he’d live.  

“Come on Ferg,” Bart tried to bargain.  “I shared that bottle of Mickey’s with you the other night.  Five bucks for just a gram.”  His eyebrows were pressed up, begging, and Ferguson looked away.

“At wholesale, yeah, maybe I’d do a gram for five bucks.  But anything less than twenty, no way.  Not worth it.  You gonna bail me out of jail if I get caught?  Didn’t think so.”

Tyson shook his head, thinking it was an absurd stance to take, more than hypocritical as Ferguson passed over his beast of a pipe to Charlie.  Ferguson was asking to be caught.  Still, there were no blue lights down the street.  Even if no one else cared, Tyson would be the self-designated lookout.  He deemed it his responsibility give the six-up cry, if he saw trouble headed their way.  

“Well, how bout just a little pinch, then?” continued Bart, persistent in his pursuit to acquire a crumb of weed.  Bart hovered, floating in like a mosquito returning to circle an ear after being swatted away.  Ferguson felt a loathing.  Bart didn’t buzz, but he sure as shit was a buzz killer.  But, being the irie fella Ferguson thought himself as, he chose to drop some knowledge of irie living.  

“Brotha Bart, why do you always gotta be asking for this, asking for that?  We’re smokin’ a

bowl right now.  Try to live in the moment, and enjoy what I’m loading.  It’s on me, brah.  For free, so be irie, not needy.  Give thanks.”  Ferguson gave a benevolent nod for Charlie to pass over his glorious pipe to Bart.

“But I wanna have some for the morning, just a bowl,” whined Bart, even as he clasped his dirty paw around the pipe.  

Ferguson was ready to smack him up side the head for tainting his headspace.  He was a patron of the open mic, here to surround himself with positive vibrations, but a dark cloud clung to Bart, permeating the space of all unfortunate enough to be in his immediate proximity.  Ferguson had a bit of a mean streak, but checked his temper, and bit his tongue.  

Through the drizzle, an enormous truck was grumbling up the orange lit street.  No one looked until it stopped in the middle of the lane, and a white floodlight from the passenger door caught them all in a terrible beam which was so bright it felt hot on their faces.  

“Got you now, fakas!” bellowed a deep and angry voice from the truck.

Ferguson, and the rest of the sidewalk urchins, began shielding their eyes, blinded and unable to see who was addressing them with such hostility.  The truck’s engine revved, and then it sped away, an enormous belch of diesel smoke left lingering behind like a stinky ghost.

“Bart, were you holding my pipe like that the whole time?” Ferguson demanded.

“What?” Bart asked, with a vapid expression, never being the quickest to put things together.

“Do you guys smell something funny?” Tyson queried.  “I think they released some gas or something.  I swear, I smell something.”

“Come on dude, that’s diesel fumes,” Ferguson quipped, then turned back to Bart, outraged, and scolded, “I can’t believe you stood there with my pipe held out in the open like that, you dumb fuck.  You know they must have been videoing us, right?”

“What?” Bart blubbed.  “It wasn’t my fault.  I didn’t do nothing wrong.”

Ferguson winced, feeling pained to be in the company of such a moron, and then rolled his eyes up the road to where the truck had gone, expecting to see it loop back around.

“I didn’t see no one recording us,” Charlie mumbled.  He’d just recovered from the slam into the wall, rubbing his shoulder.

“That’s because no one could see behind that light,” retorted Ferguson.

“Maybe they used the spotlight thing to try and scare us,” said Bart.  

“You’d better hope that’s all it was,” said Ferguson.  “I wasn’t the one holding the pipe like an idiot.”

“Hey Ferg, its your pipe.  You passed it to me,” Bart complained.  “I didn’t do nothing but hold onto it.”

“You never think, dumbass,” Charlie joined in, standing next to Ferguson, as if he had some skin in the game.  “You stand around all day and mooch off us.  You’re too dumb to do nothing for yourself but sponge up what we score.”

Ferguson took his pipe from Bart, but he didn’t like being lumped in any category with Charlie.  The ‘we’ part of Charlie’s chiding caused him to take a step back, physically distancing himself from the two.  

Although the open mic would be going strong for a few more hours, Ferguson thought it might be wise to skeedaddle.  If the cops (or whoever ended up watching that footage which he was confident the truck had captured) did roll up, they’d be looking for Bart first.  No one would have to know it was Ferguson’s pipe.

“Shoulda rolled a joint,” Tyson maintained, in a told-you-so reprimand.  He rolled his eyes, and walked around the corner.  Ferguson didn’t appreciate being reminded that he hadn’t followed sound advice.  There was nothing in life more aggravating than somebody on their high horse who would run their mouth with a ‘shoulda this’ and a ‘shoulda that’.  Once the chips of any situation came to rest, it was a 20/20 perspective, worthless in the present unfolding of the Now.  A ‘shoula’ was usually from some broke-ass Punatic who needed to get his own affair in order, unaware Ferguson had his game on lockdown.  He heaved a sigh, not wanting to be stuck here listening to Charlie and Bart.  However, whatever girl, bless her heart, was singing her lungs out, she couldn’t hit a note.  The open mic’s speaker blared out the inharmonious subtleties, which were more than audible from around the corner where Ferguson stood.  

Pahoa had talent, but Ferguson had been cursed with an ear which would often inflict a psychological sort of pain when people sang off key.  A curse, despite that his high school music teacher had touted it as a gift, saying that his Perfect Pitch was exceptional, as it was rare.  Ferguson was no Mozart, so what good did being tortured by a note that was a little flat, or a tad sharp, do him?  Little to none, but with his irie medicine, it was almost bearable to be around the corner from any musician who couldn’t perform flawlessly.  Of course, no one could hit every note, but after a toke, Ferguson could listen without cringing.

In the meantime, Charlie and Bart were blah blah blahing.  Both of their voices were insufferable, grinding on and on about strains of weed, as if they were aficionados.  As if anyone around here (especially those two) would turn their nose if it was an indica, instead of sativa, which had been loaded into a bowl.  As if anyone in Pahoa weren’t a cannabis aficionado.  

Ferguson sighed, knowing that it wasn’t Charlie or Bart’s fault that they’d been equipped with sub-par mental faculties.  Just like Ferguson’s too-picky ears, their talents were hard to put to use, but much more difficult to point to.  Unless annoyance was a talent, Ferguson didn’t think either of them had much to work with.  Nature never claimed to be fair in distribution, but it was kinda sad, as they began to harp on about unjust laws prohibiting CBD oil, stating arguments they’d overheard and could now plagiarize, trying to appear informed as they talked over the top of one another.

However, Charlie and Bart’s imbecilic banter wasn’t at the root of Ferguson’s perturbation.  No, his discomfiture sprang out of the not-so-idle-threat of the truck returning.  He couldn’t shake the notion that if he deciphered his gut’s opinion correctly, and the pang of foreboding was an omen which he’d do well listening to, it was time to bounce out.  

“Come on, just a little nugget,” pleaded Bart, pulling on Ferguson who was looking up the street, apprehensive and brooding.  

“Hey dipshit,” Ferguson snapped, turning to the parasite.  “Unless you can come up with a twenty, fuck off.”

“Would you be down to do some bartering?  I got a fair trade.  How about some trade, Ferg?” Bart haggled, obtuse in his offer, completely unphased by Ferguson’s lashing words of rebuke.  But then he reached in his pocket and pulled out a smartphone.

“Whoa, where’d you get that?” Charlie asked, leaning in.

Bart didn’t answer Charlie and tried to pass the phone over for Ferguson’s appraisal.

“No way am I gonna touch that,” Ferguson said.  “Whoever that belongs to, return it now, before I beat your ass.”  

“No, it’s mine.  I traded it at Kehena for some shake,” said Bart.  It was a dubious claim.

Ferguson took the phone, tried to turn it on, but the screen remained black.

“The guy said it needed a new battery, but it works,” Bart insisted.

“What guy?” Ferguson asked.    

Before Bart could answer, a familiar rumble caused Ferguson’s head to pop up in alarm.  A big truck was headed toward them with a distinctive diesel chortling.  It might have been a different jacked up diesel monster, but Ferguson wasn’t about to stick around and find out.  He handed Bart the phone back, and stepped around the corner.  The wailing sound of dissonance (even the girl’s guitar was out of tune) didn’t register as anything but background noise to Ferguson.  All he perceived was the angry churning of the diesel engine around the corner, gurgling in the key of B flat major.

Just as he leaned against the wall, a spotlight flooded the sidewalk, further blackening the shadow in which he was hiding.  Ferguson listened to the truck’s doors open, followed by argumentative voices, ones full of complaint, hurling accusations in chaotic sevenths and fifths, then more diminished notes which were tight with indignation.  Ferguson listened to Bart protest, heard Charlie’s skateboard clatter on the cement.  It didn’t sound like a physical altercation, but Ferguson wasn’t swayed to move from the wall’s shadowy enclave.  He glanced over to Tyson who’d been leaning next to the open mic stand.  Tyson straightened, and took a step forward, but only a step.  The rest of the audience, which had been focusing on the brave guitarist, bleating her soul’s stirrings into the microphone, turned their heads, but no one could see what was happening on the sidewalk around the corner of the cinderblock wall.  No one ventured out to witness until it was all over.

After the truck’s doors closed, the spotlight was extinguished, and the truck tore away again, up the hill and out of sight beyond the gas station.

When the fumes cleared, Ferguson rounded the corner to inspect the scene.  On the sidewalk Charlie’s skateboard lay like an overturned turtle, belly up and quivering.  Ferguson looked down the street, thinking that Bart and Charlie must have bolted.  He scanned the vicinity.  Across the road, a schizophrenic ice-head was flapping his arms in the air, but Bart and Charlie were nowhere in sight.  They probably ducked behind the museum, Ferguson reckoned.    

“Dude, did Bart and Charlie just get kidnapped?” Tyson asked.  

“Oh my Goddess!” exclaimed Amanda, a freckle spattered dreadlocked warrior, her trusty ukulele hanging by her side like a short handled battle-axe.  “Who’s missing?”

“Charlie and Bart,” said Ferguson.

“Maybe it was the cops,” Tyson suggested.

“No way,” countered Ferguson.  “There are only seven cops on patrol in the entire district of Puna, and that’s not the way they’d handle someone smoking weed.  I’m thinking Charlie and Bart probably ran away.  I’m guessing that whoever was in that truck, stepped out to whoop their asses, but those two are fast.  They probably decided it wasn’t worth the effort of chasing them and drove away.”

“Then where are they?” Tyson asked.  Ferguson gave no answer, shrugging and bemused as he looked down to the bank, and then up to the glistening pavement to the gas station.  

“So, they were smoking weed out here on the sidewalk?” asked Amanda, in a D minor of disapproval.

“Yeah, and the truck shined a spotlight on us earlier,” Tyson said, filling her in.

“Why does everyone smoke out in the open here?” Amanda asked.  “People should smoke in the alley, not out on the sidewalk.”  

Ferguson and Tyson smirked.  Amanda--how new she was to the island, having flown in from somewhere in the midwest a few weeks ago.

“We’re not in Kansas anymore,” exclaimed Ferguson, a genuine smile lighting him up.  “You’ve seen the license plates; we’re over the rainbow.  That means the black and white world of the squares has no business boxing us in.  Not here.  This is Puna, and if some living meme of gentrification wants to draw a line between me and my freedom to be irie, they should ask me why I am partaking in the sacrament, my medicine, and I will explain myself.”  

Amanda swung her ukulele to her shoulder, shaking her head, incredulous.  “It puts unneeded heat on everyone here,” she argued.  “Now, look.  Bart and Charlie just got abducted.”

“We don’t know that,” Ferguson said, looking toward the museum.  “Why do you have to put dark energy into whatever it was that happened?  Be more aware of what kind of vibration you put out into the world with your words.”

“Dark energy?” Amanda laughed, and then grew serious and went on, saying, “I’m being real.  You should smoke in the alley, not out here.”  

“Maybe it was a SWAT team,” Tyson offered, having heard Ferguson’s spiel about his God-given right to be irie too many times.  Tyson knew he was about to launch into a sermon, so he tried to reroute Ferguson, asking, “Or maybe, like a DEA sting operation?  You know, like a special task force?”

“No,” reckoned Ferguson, relenting to the subject change, but shooting Amanda a defiant look.  “That was some gangsta shit, right there.  I’m gonna cast positive vibrations with my words now.”  Ferguson was looking out of the corner of his eye at Amanda, who was now spinning the neck of her uke like the nervous tail of a cat.  He declared, “Bart and Charlie got away.  It’s all good.”

The off-key girl on the mic ended her set, and there was a heartfelt applause and  gratuitous hollers of approval.  Amanda lifted her chin, and haughtily excused herself.  She was up next, so enjoy, and please smoke in the alley from now on.

Ferguson walked over to pick up Charlie’s skateboard.  He spun one of the small wheels, but it halted.  It could use some new bearings, he mused.

“Should we call the cops?” questioned Tyson.

“You can,” Ferguson replied, “but don’t mention me.  I’m out.”  

Tyson called out, as Ferguson skated down the center of the road, “Hey, what if Charlie wants to know where his board is?”

Without turning around, Ferguson shrugged, and gave another pump with his foot into the moist air of the night.  

Charlie never returned to ask about his skateboard.  The next day, Bart wasn’t at the Tin Shack begging for a dollar, as was his morning schtick.  The day after that, when neither of the missing transients reappeared, rumors began to circulate.  

Someone eventually went to police station, and reported them missing, but no one was sure where Bart or Charlie resided at night.  Tyson recalled that they’d both slept up in the baseball dugouts, but it had been weeks since anyone had seen them up there.  No one knew their last names.  It didn’t take much time for all the ultracrepidarian conspiracy theories to take shape.  For weeks, at the beach, the Natch tables, and along the sidewalks of town, there was little talk of anything else.  

Their absence was a trending topic of discussion.  As the wave of gossip rose, socialites who had never spoken a word to Bart or Charlie, surmised that it was queer--more than a little suspicious that neither of the vagabonds could be found online.  They were both millennials.  Most social media addicts surmised that they must have had accounts before their abduction, but now their accounts were deleted.  But where was the evidence?  No one could remember receiving a friend request from either.  Those in the community with the highest technological proficiency, purported that Bart and Charlie's Facebook accounts might have been deactivated, but they wouldn’t have been deleted, if they existed at all.  It was a moot point.  No one found any online photos, or any pictures, to plaster up on ‘missing’ posters.  

It was the CIA who captured them to work in a FEMA camp, reasoned a handful of flat-earthers, but no one took them seriously.  The truth was, no one was sure whether Charlie or Bart were missed.  No one knew a thing about their families, either one’s origin, and it became evident that they were each other's only friends.  Some said Bart had been around longer than Charlie, but no one recalled when either had arrived on the island.    

It wasn’t that he particularly missed Charlie or Bart, but Ferguson feared he’d be identified by the picture.  Or had it been a video they’d shot?  Maybe he’d been wrong about the truck videoing them, but then what had that spotlight been for?  Throughout the next couple of days, a panic would grip him when he detected the roar of a diesel engine, but with time, homeostatic normalcy set in, and the sound was a bit unnerving, but nothing to fret about.  

As for Bart and Charlie, Ferguson still preached that they ran, and didn’t stop running until they were in Kona.  Why not?  It was a positive reconstruction of the unknowable past, especially in contrast with some of the theories about their involvement with terrorist organizations.  If the right voice could bring up the Patriot Act, most heads around were sure to nod with solemnity.  

After a few months, the rest of the Pahoa loafers forgot that Charlie’s skateboard hadn’t always belonged to Ferguson.  Ferguson’s was the face people expected to see.  When the rush of skateboard wheels on pavement could be heard rolling down from the gas station, everyone knew it would be good ol’ Ferg.    

In the daily dawdling of the rest of the idle souls, which haunted Pahoa’s sidewalks, or slouched under awnings, festering up the place, nothing of consequence had changed.  In a succession of Mondays, the street dwellers would sidle along the side of less disheveled folks, all gathered around the open mic, like a warm hearth after sunset.  

As for Ferguson, he was humble in his concession.  Tyson’s suggestion about rolling a doobie had been solid.  Instead of bringing his custom blown, double-helix dragon pipe, Ferguson now sparked up joints--joints he’d prerolled to share on the sidewalk.   

After a toke, their foggy minds often traipsed down well worn and familiar paths.  Each stoned meandering would flip through its own unique set of possibilities.  What had happened to Bart and Charlie?  But no one spoke aloud what nobody could know for certain.  They hadn’t for weeks.  Every plausible scenario had been thoroughly exhausted.  New topics of discussion trended, but as for the missing?  Out of sight, eventually, meant out of mind.  The confused memory of the two nitwits faded like smoke curling up from the end of Ferguson’s medicine.  He passed the diggidy to Tyson, and spun a wheel of his skateboard, introspectively.  

He’d installed new bearings, and so round and round the little wheel went.  It was no longer encumbered by the friction of rust and street scum.  New was good.  And the skateboard had always been Ferguson’s, hadn’t it?  

The wheel went round until a trilling voice wrapped around the corner, and Ferguson pinched it to a stop.  He had to look, and turned his back to the street to peer around the wall.  His jaw dropped.  She was new, a perfect face amongst the autumnal influx of other not-so-pleasant-looking travelers fleeing winter on the mainland.  Ferguson listened, pleasurable goosebumps raising the hair on the back of his neck.  Every note swept the air, flawless.  As the rain began to fall, he stood straighter, stupefied, with a lopsided grin of twitterpation.  Droplets landed on his shoulders emitting the smallest of interfering noises with their contact.  He stepped to the center of the sidewalk where the acoustics were triangulated.  

Ferguson inhaled the fresh smell which permeated the air, feeling rapturous.  While entranced, a spotlight illuminated his back, his shadow leaping forward into existence, long and black as the light was bright behind him.  He tuned out the diesel engine.  It was growling out an ominous melody in B flat major.  Ferguson was leaning forward, trying to soak up every bend and fluttering of the voice of this amazing artist.  Never before had he heard anyone who could belt out with such Perfect Pitch, floating up and down the scales of the melody like grace itself.  As big hands gripped Ferguson by the arms, pulling him to the street, he only stammered, grateful to be alive and witnessing this most irie of vibrations rise into the night.  

 

    

The Chosen One

“I must say that I feel a bit awkward,” Perseus admitted.  “At least you’ve had the chance to meet whats-her-name.  I won’t know anyone.  Not that we’re going there to meet and greet, but still.”  He twisted his grip on the steering wheel, shifting on the leather seat.  He had the window rolled open a crack, thankful that the fresh night air was cool and crisp.  

“You always complain about small talk never leading to anything real,” Scarlett reminded him.  “I might want to indulge in a little foreplay, but you can skip all the preliminaries.  Shouldn’t you be happy about not being on a first name basis with anyone?  I’m willing to bet that you’ll only have to smile, and the girls will be creaming themselves.  Who needs words?  Besides, Racquel said everyone there is about transcendence.  I’m not sure what that means, but I’m sure you won’t be bored to death.”  

“What if none of the girls are attractive?” Perseus asked. “Or what if some meathead makes me feel like I’m competing?  I don’t want this to turn into a competition or some sad little  bang-off exhibition.”  Perseus didn’t mind giving voice to his insecurities.  Openness and honesty were paramount to his relationship.  Vulnerability increased the quality of connection he formed with Scarlett.  It was true that these ideas had been Scarlett’s, but he’d adopted them, head over heels for her, and her lovely spin on life.

“Trust me, we wouldn’t be going if I thought Racquel would be letting anyone in that is below your standards.  We’re lucky we got an invite.”  Scarlett flipped down her sun visor.  The illuminated mirror reflected wide set, Disney green, eyes.  Some men, when trying to be complementary, had said she looked like a Russian seductress from a James Bond movie.  Her father was from Ukraine, but too many times people assumed that Ukraine and Russia were the same thing.  They weren’t.  The truth was, Scarlett couldn’t have cared less.  Why let slip a moment of her time discussing such a boring nuance?  Unlike Perseus, Scarlett didn’t mind some small talk, but she certainly used it as a means, not as an end.

“Perseus, you’re a spectacular lover,” Scarlett assured him.  He needed support, looking a tad fretful.  His sensitivity could be charming, a little neurotic with the whole claustrophobia issue, but charming.  Scarlett didn’t mind giving him encouragement.  The softness of character balanced his virile bounty of masculinity.  She was proud of being the one to teach him how to ditch his sensitive side, crumpled up like his boxers, when it mattered.  She smiled at the idea of him slamming into another woman.  Her little beast, Perseus, and she couldn’t wait to share him.    

As they pulled up in front of the mansion, they weren’t at all surprised to be greeted by a smartly dressed vale.  

“Good evening,” said the young man.  His smile was dimpled, and his eyes danced over Scarlett’s.  After handing them a ticket stub, he sat behind the wheel, and Scarlett raised an eyebrow over the top of the car.  Perseus smiled back.  

“Did you see that cutie-pie?” she asked, as she watched their Saab’s tail lights float across the white gravel.  

“I didn’t know the manikin thing was your cup of tea,” Perseus said.  “Nice tux, though.  Style points for whoever dressed him up like that.”  He stepped from the gravel up onto a slab of slate.

“I hope he’s on the menu,” Scarlett said.  “Shame to waste him out here.  He won’t have to be parking cars all night, you think?”

 Ornate and functional, flat stones were puzzle pieced together as a terraced path that led to the mansion.  They walked, elbows linked, up the steps and were greeted by a thin man with a pencil-line mustache.  His well manicured slender finger made its way down the guest list.  Standing next to him was an ogre, a gorilla sized bouncer with a bald head that shined like a bowling ball under the porch light.  He neither looked, nor acknowledged the couple.

“I feel like we’re on the set of some movie,” said Perseus.  The thick wooden door had an iron knocker above a thumb lever attached to a black ribbon handle, very rustic looking.  As the doorman found their names, and opened the door, they were bathed in dazzling light pouring out of an immense victorian crystal chandelier.  It was suspended twenty feet above them in the foyer, and a white gloved butler was there to take their overcoats.  He presented them with another set of ticket stubs.  

“Ever get people’s coats mixed up?” Perseus asked, a little cajoling to lighten the heft of the formal atmosphere.  

“No sir,” answered the butler.  He had spoken in such a cordial way that Perseus pressed his lips into a smile.  Deciding the nervous bubble lodged in his stomach should be kept from rupturing, and spouting out of his mouth into witless prattle, Perseus took a deep breath, composed himself, and gave a nod, trying to appear a man of culture and dignity.

“Should we try and find Racquel?” Scarlett asked when the butler walked away with their coats.

“I need a drink,” mumbled Perseus.

Before they could wander any further, a stunning woman in a miniskirt appeared before them.  It was a strange cut, for a miniskirt, with a train of lace and iridescent silk, orange and green.  She walked over, extending her red fingernails to Scarlett.  It wasn’t so much of a handshake as it was a gentle brush of fingers between the two women, and then she looked to Perseus.  

“Gloria,” she said, her smile unnaturally large.  “Everyone calls me Glow.”  Somehow, Glow’s smile grew even wider and she continued, “I must say, it is such a pleasure to meet you gorgeous young people.  You both look scrumptious.”

“Why, thank you,” Scarlett drew out the last vowel to an ‘oooo’, and the two women scrunched their noses in excited grins--exaggerated, of course, as one would expect in such a gaudy place as this.

Perseus rocked back on his heels, folded his hands behind his back, and told himself that he was charming.  He strove to convince himself of this.  Relax and breathe--that was all he needed to remember.  At least there was plenty of breathing space, but the extravagance of the place instilled in him a foreboding, a surreal gloom.  

“Would you like to follow me into the ballroom, or are you meeting someone?” Glow asked, her fingers probing in the direction she felt inclined to usher them.

“Is Racquel here?” Scarlett inquired.

“Oh, you know Rockie?”

“Yes, she said we might have some fun tonight.”

“With her personally, Rockie?” asked Glow.

“Well, we go to the same spa downtown.  I haven’t known her a long--”

“Heavens!” cried Glow, her grin angling maniacally.  “Don’t I feel the fool.  I didn’t know you knew Rockie!  Now I simply must get to know you better.  I suspect you wish to be on your way to meet her.”  Glow clasped her hands and tilted her head.  She was glowing.

“Well, this is our first night--our first time here,” Perseus explained.  He had stammered, just a slight stumble, never having met a woman who could smile like The Joker until this moment.  “Could you lead the way?”

“Sweetie,” crooned Glow.  “I can lead you anywhere you like.  Shall we?”

“Oh please, lead me into temptation,” Scarlett drawled, and Gloria laughed.  It was a laugh one might expect to hear at a high-society dinner table, gracious and almost sincere.

They followed her to the base of a wide white staircase that spiraled with an obtuse twist to the second floor.  Both Scarlett and Glow’s stiletto heels reverberated, echoing off the marble steps as they ascended.  On the second floor, the hallway walls were adorned with oil paintings.  They looked like originals, hundreds of years old, but there was no time to pause or comment.  It was all was superfluous--nothing but a frill of foam atop the excited wave of anticipation.  Perseus felt his palms growing damp as they turned down a hall that seemed to squeeze in.  They walked on and on, endless turns--hadn’t it been hours now?  Breathe, relax.  The corridors were connected to one another with labyrinthian frustration, and he felt a growing restlessness, shifting his weight from foot to foot, as they paused to wait for a small elevator.  He told himself he would be alright inside the hideous capsule, his nerves raw, but then he smiled as two topless girls in G-strings padded by, their bare feet silent on the ornate carpet.  An upswell of courage buoyed him, and Perseus knew he could step casually into the elevator now.

“Pers, you’re going to have some fun tonight,” Scarlett promised.  She’d noticed that he’d stood a little taller as the girls walked by.  His arousal gave her a smattering of warmth, a moist sensation accompanied a ravenous ache of primal longing.

The elevator opened to the third floor, and they walked down a narrow hall.  Perseus was in a space he’d created, a guided meditation.  He envisioned himself in an open meadow without walls.  Nothing but space from horizon to horizon.  Breathe, relax.  Through two mahogany french doors, they heard the sounds of chatter, and then moaning.  As they drew nearer, they realized the chatter wasn’t chatter at all, but a chorus of exaltations.  

“At midnight, I’ll be back around,” said Glow.  “Enjoy yourselves.”

Scarlett’s eyes went wide with wonder as Glow opened the doors for their entry into paradise.  There were bronze, white and black bodies--so many delectably sculpted men and women.  The room was a grown-up chocolate factory with a variety of treats to satisfy every palate.  Scarlett grabbed for Perseus’s hand and squeezed his four fingers which she’d found dangling limply at his side.  She hoped his mouth wasn’t hanging open, but couldn’t take her eyes from the utopia of carnality, the smorgasbord of sinful delights.    

Perseus smiled, feeling immensely relieved.  The room had a high ceiling.  It was bigger than the studio he’d rented in England.  It was an expansive space where he knew he could unwind and enjoy himself. “Don’t I feel overdressed,” he muttered.  

“Something will have to be done about that,” Scarlett agreed, nearly breathless.  When Glow shut the doors behind them, they spotted an attractive couple sitting on a white leather sofa.  Other than the couple, the room was replete with penduluming flesh, people smashing together as if the goal were to coalesce into a single organism.  They decided it would be nice to pretend it were a normal party, for a moment, before diving in, so they walked over to the couch to introduce themselves to the unengaged spectators.

“Hello,” said the girl, looking up precociously to Perseus.  She had her long legs crossed over the lap of her boyfriend, (one should never assume boyfriend in such a place).  Perseus’s eye caught on a glittering bit of jewelry in her navel, and darted down to the flaming red tuft below.  

“Hello yourself,” Perseus lilted, and graced her with his winning smile.  

“I’m Tiffany, and this is--what’s your name again?”

“Jared,” said Jared.  He was transfixed, absorbed watching the orgy’s progression on the far side of the room.

“Mind if we join you?”  Perseus asked.

“Not like that,” Tiffany said, twirling her index finger in the air to indicate Perseus’s suit.

Perseus took off his jacket, and began unbuttoning his shirt, but Tiffany stood up, and interrupted, saying,  “No, let me help you.”

She was tall, only an inch shorter than himself, and he immediately liked her fairy blue eyes, delicate limbs, and graceful movement.  

Jared got up and walked across the room to join a miasma of bodies using a purple loveseat in the corner as a fulcrum for leverage.  Four of the six girls upon it were flexible and innovative, perhaps former cheerleaders intent on constructing a pyramid, only this time, it was anything but sturdy.  None of the men seemed disposed to the gentler touches of lovemaking, and the loveseat rocked like a canoe off the coast of Chile.  Scarlett could see why Jared had headed in that direction.

“Is this okay?” Tiffany questioned Scarlett before reaching over to unbutton Perseus’s shirt.  

“Is it okay?” Scarlett repeated with a laugh which was both light and confident.  “Cupcake, don’t let me slow you down.  Just leave a little of him for the others.”  Scarlett had let her eyes wander over to Jared and the loveseat again.  She glanced at Perseus, who shrugged, permitting her to join in the rucus.

And then he was stripping down, grinning like a fool.  His suit was off in a flash, and what followed was intense and concentrated thrusting.  Scarlett had been right.  Words weren’t needed here, and introductions could lead to--well, this.  Long before Perseus came anywhere near climax, he heard Tiffany scream, her vaginal walls tightening in orgasm.  He realized that he was much closer to cumming than he’d thought, but was able to get out without spilling over.  That would have been tragic.  

“Mmm, you’re an animal,” complemented Tiffany.  After being flopped on her stomach over the arm of the white leather sofa, she straddled Perseus, and gave him a wet kiss with a darting tongue.  She pulled back, placing her hands on his shoulders and asked, “You wanna drink?”

“That sounds lovely,” Perseus said.  There was a stack of fluffy white wash cloths, and he guessed what they were for.  As he watched the heart shaped tail end of Tiffany make its way to the small bar in the corner, he toweled off his glistening member.  Then he licked his fingers and smiled at Tiffany’s taste.  

He looked around for Scarlett, and felt his heart leap in alarm.  She was in a sandwich, sucking as if her life depended on it, pounded from behind by a guy who was shiny with sweat, his abdominal muscles rippling with every pump.  Perseus felt a surge of outrage.  His shoulders tensed, and he took another deep breath which wavered as he exhaled.  

Scarlett had introduced him to this lifestyle, firm in her belief--a belief which presumed that the juxtaposition of morality and sexuality was laughable.  ‘Sex--good sex--is a positive and fulfilling act that harms no one.  It’s jealousy.  That green eyed devil shouldn’t be allowed to start whispering its nonsense into anyone’s ear.  You can choose not to listen; it just takes practice.’  

Scarlett and her friends believed in forces beyond the mind.  According to them, there were unbodied demigods and demons--incorporeal entities--that influenced and distorted cognitive  functions.  Tonight was to be an act of rebellion, of defiance to the dark controllers who instilled the deadly vices of fear based thinking.  It was also to be some sort of ritualistic offering to the transcendent ones, whatever that meant.  To Perseus, call it what you will, an orgy was an orgy.

It was hard to deny Scarlett anything, but Perseus found it exceedingly difficult to quell the uprising of possessiveness.  The vice was swift to prod, presenting his ego with the notion that he was being wronged, unjustly so.  But hadn’t he just fucked Tiffany?  No, this was the mental trap of jealousy, and so he dismissed it.  His next breath revolved deeper in his abdomen, unfettered and smooth.  Unlike Scarlett, Perseus didn’t buy into all the witchy angel and demon telepathic stuff, but he tended to agree that jealousy and fear never served him.   

“I hope you like Jack and Coke,” Tiffany said as she returned, sidling up against him on the sofa.

“Anything to wet my whistle,” said Perseus, “Thanks.”  They clinked glasses.

“I usually go for Long Island iced teas, myself,” Tiffany said.  “But this adorable girl at the bar thought you’d like this better.”

Perseus looked up to behold a dark and brooding gaze leveled at him.  The adorable girl was latina, if he could guess.  

“I told her good things about you,” Tiffany said.  “Maybe after your drink, I can introduce you.”  

Perseus sipped his cocktail, trying not to focus on Scarlett in his periphery.

“You married?” asked Tiffany, noticing his distraction.

“No, I’m not the marrying type,” said Perseus.

“Why not?  Marriage can be wonderful.”

“It might be,” Perseus permitted, thinking that Tiffany had chosen a very odd topic to discuss.  She tilted her head, prompting him to explain the trace of reluctance in his voice.  He continued, “When I look around, most married couples seem to be having a rough go of it.”

“Nonsense,” dismissed Tiffany, with a small wave.  She sipped her drink and added,  “People in this culture are afraid of being vulnerable and honest about how they feel.  About what they want.  Unhappy marriages occur when people get stuck in self-made pits, illogically afraid of betrayal, convinced that pleasure with someone, other than their primary partner, is selfish and wrong.  It’s the idea of ownership which I find to be the problem, but marriage can be whatever you make of it.  It’s all about transcendence and evolution, but you know that.  I mean, you’re here.”

“If you evolve together, I suppose marriage could work,” granted Perseus, thinking Tiffany sounded like Scarlett, “but a union like marriage can be tricky when it comes to energy like money.  Especially when couples start out wanting the same thing, and then years later, they find they want something completely different.  People aren’t static.  Marriage could start out as a union between soulmates, but how often soulmates can shift into the bitterest of enemies, willing to fight each other tooth and claw.  Courts are a nightmare, and after hearing about it--well, let’s just say my buddy Pete’s hellish divorce strengthened my resolve.  Bachelorhood is good.  Pete had it rough.”

“Some like it a little rough,” Tiffany teased.  “Anyways, I’m glad you say you’re not the marrying type.  It would be a pity for some girl to hog you all to herself.  Especially tonight.  Who knows?  Racquel is taking a poll of who the ladies like best.  She has something big in mind for the winner.  You have my vote.  You got me closer to a transcendental awakening than I’ve been in a long time.”  Tiffany touched his earlobe, and he smiled.

Perseus finished his drink and thanked Tiffany.

“You want that introduction?” asked Tiffany, glancing over to the girl at the minibar.  

“I think I can manage,” Perseus said.  He stood up from the couch.  It felt strange being completely naked.

“Hey stud,” said the coffee and cream composed girl at the bar.  “I’m Candy.”

“I’m sure you are,” Perseus said, gallantly.  

“Is it okay if I invite my friend to join us?” Candy asked, and then added, “He’s a little shy.” She indicated a tall blonde man who Perseus hadn’t noticed.  He was standing against the wall with a drink in his hand, observing everything with a skeptical impassivity.  

“Not to be a prude,” Perseus said, “but could you specify what you had in mind?”

“Oh, nothing much,” Candy said.  “I just want his cock in my mouth as you fuck me.  Is that alright?”

The night carried on with introductions leading to what everyone was calling transcendental emergence.  At one point, Scarlett said she might be nearly finished.  Perseus wondered if he should permit himself to blow a load, but was having such a good time refraining, his libido holding strong and steady.  His ego was constantly being stroked by praises, and his spirits soared.  Here, he wasn’t a ball of frayed nerves.  He was a god and knew he could go all night.  Several girls claimed him as their favorite dish, a line had formed and he’d not let anyone down.  He double dipped, triple dipped, and felt that perhaps he should quit his day job and see if he could eek out a living in porn.   

“Do you want to visit the ballroom?” Perseus asked Scarlett, as he toweled off.  He was still breathing hard from a threesome which had ended with a girl--what had been her name?--who had screamed so loud that he thought she might be injured.  

“Racquel explained that only the most gorgeous people are up here.  Should we trust her?”

“Trust her?” Perseus said.  Scarlett had asked in the meek and tentative voice that she was so good at.  Sweetly naive, it was an impression that Perseus never grew tired of.  In truth, Scarlett was as quick as she was cunning, the most self assured person he’d ever met, and playful to boot.

“Trust no one,” Perseus said and winked.

They headed toward the french doors, and frowned.  They were locked.  

“Ah, it must be to keep the hamburger out and the prime beef in,” Perseus hypothesized.

“Well, Racquel used a different metaphor,” Scarlett remembered.

“What?”

“I forget her exact words, but it was something about finding the man who could help us transcend our mortal coils, or no--I forget.  Auditioning studs for--damn, what was it?  Something about the best of the best being chosen to lead us.”

“Did she really say, ‘mortal coils’?”

“Yes, but there was something else I’m forgetting,” said Scarlett.

She looked around to find Racquel.  She spotted her on one of the enormous beds in a pile of bodies, laughing and stroking everyone around her.  

“God, it seems rude to interrupt her,” Scarlett noted.

“Surely there’s something we can twist to unlock it.  There must be,” insisted Perseus.  He squatted down to look at the handles.  Like the front door of the mansion, the iron handles looked custom built.  There was a gaping keyhole, through which he could see down the hall.  The lock appeared to be a throwback design from the days of castles.  There was nothing to twist without a key, and Perseus hadn’t picked a lock in his life.

“I don’t remember Gloria using a key to let us in,” Perseus said.

“Well, what do you suggest?”

Perseus decided to walk over and introduce himself to the cuddle puddle.  

“Pardon me, Racquel?”

Her pupils were dilated, and in reply, she reached out her arms for him to join.

“No, I’m sorry to disturb you.  Do you have the key?”

She sighed, pouting at his refusal, and said, “Are you trying to escape me?  How could you possibly expect me to allow my top stud to leave the stable?”

Perseus smiled, and said, “I’ve had a lovely time, but Scarlett and I would like to take a stroll to the ballroom.  You know, mosey about and mingle a bit, if you don’t mind.”

In response, Racquel blinked as if he’d spoken unintelligible garble.  Perseus felt awkward with the five sets of eyes fixed on him.  Everyone on the bed looked to be in some sort of drug induced haze.

“Look, I don’t mean to be rude,” he said.  “But we’d really like to be free to move about, unencumbered by locks and such.”

“And what if I mind?” Racquel asked, a playful smile curving her lips.

Perseus looked over to Scarlett who was standing by the door.  Racquel waved her over.  Scarlett approached, and though she failed to make it look genuine, she smiled at everyone on the bed.

“Hey Racquel, do you mind unlocking the door?” she asked.  

“Where is there to go?” Racquel tittered.  “Come Scarlett, I won’t bite, unless you give me permission to.”

“Seriously Raq,” Scarlett said, ignoring Racquel’s reaching hand.  “Where are the keys?”

“Glow has them,” Racquel quipped.  “She’ll be back around midnight.”

“Oh come now!” Perseus exclaimed, his chuckle ringing hollow.  “Don’t be ridiculous.  What if there was a fire?”

“This building is equipped with a floor to floor sprinkler system.  Top notch, don’t worry about fires.  Where are you in such a hurry to run off to?”

“Racquel, could you please call Gloria?” asked Scarlett.

“I’m afraid I don’t have my phone in my pocket,” Racquel said, lifting her leg to expose her  nether regions.  A couple heads around her laughed.  

Suddenly, they all looked idiotic to Perseus.  He felt his mood shifting into something beyond annoyance.  He didn’t want to play the submissive role of a captive.  When it came to role playing, he was always in a position of dominance.  Dr. Rosenthal thought that it was a coping mechanism, but far less toxic than alcohol or substance abuse.  Perseus’s biggest fear was being shut inside a coffin--buried alive--but there was nothing he could do to keep the nightmare from rerunning itself, night after night.  The blackness of the box, the constricting walls, his fingernails clawing grid lines in futility. The difference between the horrors of unconsciousness, and the here and now, was that he could do something and effect change here and now.  This fuck festival couldn’t close in on him.       

“Am I going to have to call the police?”  The tenseness was in his chest and rose in his voice.

“Now, why would you go and say a thing like that?” Racquel asked, still aloof and toying.

Two men who had been sprawled listlessly against her sat up on the bed.  Perseus looked at the door.  At the moment, there was a lull in the sex, and most people were lounging about like iguanas on sun bathed rocks.

“Excuse me!” Perseus called out.  He had tried not to yell.  Almost everyone looked over at him, and now he felt that he should find his clothes.  “Is everyone here aware that we are locked in this room?”

People looked to one another, their expressions placid.  A few shrugged.  So they did know, and didn’t care?  

“Does anyone know where the keys are?”  His voice was beginning to shake, and he didn’t like the way he sounded on the verge of tears.  He wasn’t.  Was he?

“Darling, don’t worry,” Racquel patronized, “Glow will be up at midnight.  Why would you want to spend your last stretch of time in the third dimension with anyone but us?  Trust me, you won’t find better company.”

Perseus looked at her, rolled his eyes, and asked, “My last night in the third dimension?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” asked Scarlett.  Scarlett looked at Perseus and said, “That was her metaphor: a sacred space for the third dimensional leaves to fall away from the chosen one.”

“Chosen one?” asked Perseus.  “Chosen one for what?”

“At midnight, Perseus has a very special meeting,” Racquel said, looking to Scarlett as she spoke.  “Isn’t that right girls?”

There were a couple laughs, murmurs of agreement from the girls in the room.

Perseus frowned, and asked, “And what do I get?  What if I don’t want a fucking prize?  Huh?  What if I want to leave and don’t want to hear anything more about your voodoo transcendence?”

“Darling, calm down.  Please.  At midnight,” Racquel went on, her gaiety unthwarted by his venomous tone, “you’ll find that transcendence required not even the slightest amount of faith or personal volition.  Only consensus, and the votes have been tallied.  You are the chosen one, Perseus.”

Scarlett looked at Perseus, his face contorting, nearing a menace, and thought about telling him to breathe and relax.  It was a silly game, and no one else was reacting adversely to Racquel’s enigmatic proverb about the third dimension.  But it was difficult to tell if anyone off the bed was paying any mind to them, and Scarlett knew Perseus was beginning to feel the creeping grip of claustrophobia.  She knew how uncomfortable he must have been in the small elevator.  His therapist, Dr. Rosenthal, had recommended focusing on his breath, counting backwards from ten, but in this situation, he’d be humiliated if she reminded him.  

“Alright, now cut the bullshit, and open the goddamn door!” Perseus’s voice warbled like a heat mirage distorting a desert highway.  Whatever hocus pocus sex cult this was, he’d had enough.  The large room seemed small, cramped and suffocating.

Racquel laughed an awful laugh, and Perseus walked across the room to pull on his clothes.  Someone had folded them, and they lay in a neat stack at the foot of white sofa.  As he pulled on his boxers, a few men stood up and walked over.  Everything looked strange, slightly deformed as if seen through a fisheye lens or reflected by an ancient mirror, bent with time.  Perseus knew he was allowing his emotions get the better of him, but the room felt restrictive.  He looked at the men around him, almost yelling for them to back the fuck off.  He needed space.

“What are you supposed to be?” Perseus barked.  “Guards?”

They didn’t need to say what their eyes affirmed.  

Scarlett was looking over at him from the bed, her eyes troubled, a rare wrinkle in her typically fearless demeanor.  

“Don’t worry, Scarlett,” Racquel soothed.  “You’re not going anywhere.  Only the most virile male will be crossing over.”

Scarlett made a sour face, blurting, “Are you that fucking high?  Snap out of it, Racquel.  I know you must think this is all good fun, but please open the door.  I love you, but I’m sore, I’m tired, and I’d like to go home.”

“Midnight,” Racquel maintained, sounding serious, but affable, as if she were coaxing a child to show some patience.    

“What time is it?”

Racquel pointed over to a big grandfather clock which was facing out from the far side of the room.  It was 11:30.

“This is ridiculous,” Scarlett said.

Perseus thrust a hand into his pant’s hip pocket, felt his phone and thought about retrieving it.  He noticed that two of the three men’s eyes had followed his movement, and he decided not to risk it.  Nothing untoward had transpired.  Not yet, but there was an unmistakable air of hostility which made his stomach knot.  Now he did breathe, a deep sigh, and shut his eyes.  

“Good,” said one of the men.

“Just take it easy, buddy,” said another, his placating tone was stern rather than imploring.  

Green dots swam in his field of vision.  It dawned on Perseus that he was experiencing more than an alcohol buzz, more than agitated emotions.  He’d been drugged.  Not wanting to give himself away, he opened his eyes and smiled at the luddites around him.  Their eyes were full of suspicion, as if they were ready to lunge forward and hold him down if he made any sudden move.  But where could he run?  At least he was in pants.  They were naked, and he was wearing pants.  Somehow that counted for something, but the room seemed brighter, everything more vivid.  Was there water running down the walls?

“Well, what’s another half hour, huh babe?” Perseus called out, looking over to Scarlett.  His voice may have been tempered with an appropriate dose of social nicety, but his eyes were frantic.  He had intended the look to be a silent plea for Scarlett alone, but Racquel had caught his expression and began to laugh.  

“Perseus, my sweet champion Perseus.  Why don’t you take a seat?” Racquel caressed the air, her words floating across the room, hypnotically sweet.  

The oafs about him nodded in agreement.  Perseus decided that despite feeling coerced, he really would rather sit down.  

The light in the room was dim and flickered off the white walls, shadows crawling where there weren’t any before.  A balloon of giddiness arose in his chest as he sat.  The white leather was inviting, a cloud of respite, of comfort.  Now all three men were grinning, as was Perseus.  He felt himself edging onto a precipice, as if his mind were about to topple into a bottomless pit, making way for something--he couldn’t tell what.  

“That’s right,” cood a mustached chaperone, nodding as Perseus looked up.  Perseus felt his smile refolding itself, bending up at the preposterous angles Glow’s had.  His eyelids were fluttering.  

It was only a camera flash of time, a fraction of a second, but the mustached man’s pupils filled his eyes--eyes which had grown big as mason jar lids, and then he reverted back to the form of a naked man with a normal head.  But everything was crawling, complex systems of veins and roots creeping up the walls now.  

Reality and time convoluted, and fluctuated with his breathing.  Perseus succumbed to bouts of inexplicable laughter, and bizarre intervals where he could hear himself babbling.  It was his voice, but not his words.  People’s heads were morphing, expanding and clarifying.  Nothing was is as it should be.  A deep and troubling awakening seemed to be tearing at his ineffable core.  Wordless instances of rapturous bliss were accompanied by convulsions of soundless shuddering, and then more foreign words, which held no meaning or connection to anything whatsoever, tumbled from his lips.  He could feel their meaning, but only as they were uttered, and then the words would be erased, gone from a mind that was no longer his own.

The gong of midnight, as the hands on the grandfather clock aligned, filled the room with a vibration that stripped away the remaining undergarments of the third dimension.  Perseus was in a black room, its dimensions etched with green grid-lines like plaid, geometrically precise.  There were right angled walls which were more rigid than was possible on earth.  It was the coffin of his nightmare, but wasn’t a coffin at all.    

Around him, where there had once been humans, Perseus recognized his comrades.  He was a member of a hyper-dimensional alien race.  Alien, but not extra terrestrial, for his kind had been on earth since the dawn of time.  As was the nature of mortality, his human incarnation had wiped Perseus’s knowledge of the nature of reality away, and he’d forgotten who he was.  Awareness was coming back in glimpses, for he was awakening, almost fully present in the cube.  

Regrettably, part of his consciousness had formed an attached, clinging onto the Perseus he’d recently identified as--the panicking human afraid of being trapped inside the coffin alive.  His ego was stubborn and resistant to the transition, terrified and pleading for reason to prevail.  The thing he was slowly awakening into, scoffed at his attachment to the residue of humanity.  The other aliens suggested that his unease and astonishment were nothing but the emergence from a dream, and Perseus would soon be able to dismiss the illusion for what it was.  

Perseus knew these alien creatures were in complete control--had always been in control.  As his consciousness found footing in the new perspective, his amazement fell away.  Then, like the dawning of an ironic star, an understanding of the third dimension, as a series of carefully constructed lies, presented itself without room for any possible refutation to be made.  He could see that his essence had been muddled up in stories which both he and society had told himself about himself.  No longer himself, his perception was growing clear, and Perseus was able to transcend.  It was as if he’d spent his entire life looking at shadows and imagining color.  No wonder he’d spent so many years feeling like there was a vice around his chest.  Without air, he could finally breathe freely.

Throughout the remaining years of Perseus’s life, Scarlett brought him flowers.  Once a week, in the first months, but she could only manage his birthday in the last decades.  He couldn’t see the bouquets.  She was certain of that much.  His vacant stare fixed on things she could only guess.  

Money would never be a concern of hers again, and she knew she was being paid off for being complicit and keeping her mouth shut.  The flowers were an oblation to help alleviate her guilty conscience.  But with time, she was able to reduce her cognitive dissonance, finding ways to lay the blame elsewhere.  At last, there was no one to blame, and no one to miss.

That night, so long ago, when Perseus first started to babble that strange gibberish, Scarlett knew something was wrong.  Racquel insisted that it hadn’t been a drug, but some sort of prearranged encounter.  She kept saying transcendence, never defining the insanity of it all.  And then her Perseus was just… gone.  

The hospital bed was of the finest quality, as was the staff, and everything else in the facility in which Perseus resided.  The mansion paid for it all.  Racquel said it was the least they could do for Perseus.  He would be helping them, and what’s more, he wasn’t gone as Scarlett feared.  He was everywhere--couldn’t she feel him?  

Scarlett never voiced her questions, never broke down in tears, except for the first hour when Perseus had been in transition.  The truth was, Scarlett couldn’t afford not to move on with her life.  Like all the other of realities inconsistencies, ones that did not fit her paradigm, she discounted what had happened.  Except for his birthday, the memory of Perseus was stowed in the back corner of the furthest shelf of her mind.  Why let slip one moment of time worrying about what one couldn’t change?  The past was best left to brood about itself, or so Scarlett had decreed, even before she left the mansion that horrible night.  She was a woman who lived in the present.  Besides, there was no turning back the clock--that hideous grandfather clock.  

On the end table, she laid the flowers next to the old man’s head.  Happy birthday.  But what was another year and lifeless boquete to the shell of a man who had once been her beast Perseus?  How the ravages of time had let her down, as they had this liver spotted glassy eyed poor soul.  Scarlett knew he was locked inside a prison of decaying flesh, and in her heart of hearts, she wished he’d die.  For his and her sake.  If he would move on, her life would be a little more bearable.  Neither Scarlett or Perseus had much longer to live, but too often the vision of him, babbling as he did in the mansion, would slip from that shelf in the furthest corner of her mind with an intolerable crash of rushing emotions, predominantly hopelessness.  Just die Perseus, let go.  She walked out of the hospital, resolved to keep him from entering her mind for the next 364 days.   

As for our hero, with his large gray head and black bulbous eyes, Perseus peered into the workings of Scarlett’s mind from his hyper-dimensional vessel.  The cube in which he abided was static, fixed in between here and not-here, but he and his shipmates were boundless in their reaches.  Like falling Tetris pieces, they pulled up minds, yanked on synapsis, and jostled fraying dendrites into a flurry, resulting in an inescapable chain reaction, chunks of thought falling into place.  Perseus’s crew was busy with the chemistry of consciousness, inciting passions, assuaging fears, and inspiring technological and artistic innovations.  Above all, the transcendent ones were careful to hide all traces of their craft.  

Perseus no longer remembered the avatar he’d used--the human he’d once been.  Having expanded into human consciousness as a whole, his role was strictly influential.  Individual souls were similar to strands of thread composing an enormous tapestry.  The cloth of time was colored with glorious patterns of bonding, uniting, and splashed with warfare, always revealing itself to be simply perfect in every way.  

From time to time, a thread would begin to loosen, and Perseus, or another member of his team, would effectively stitch it back down, guiding the soul with subtlety.  The work of thought manipulation was delicate, and it was important that each human incarnation feel at least some degree of autonomy.  If the work went smoothly, everyone would believe that the world was as it appeared.  Rare individuals could detect Perseus.  For the overwhelming majority of his charges, the scripts of code didn’t even register as vague notions or fleeting thoughts.  However, there was one individual Perseus wasn’t at all subtle with.  He broke the rules to try and get through to her.

Sadly, she never remembered him upon waking.  Scarlett and Perseus often met one another in the mansion.  It had been crafted by Perseus in a dimension between here and not-here, visited at the times when Scarlett’s pupils darted beneath the blanket of closed eyelids.  Perseus’s virtual mansion was everything it had been that night and more.  If only she remembered, for when Scarlett slept, she could perceive Perseus and herself, and their souls would intwine, coalescing into a single organism of transcendental awakening.