Priya Echo's Adventure - Part 5

CHAPTER 27 - ICE CUBES

It was just one of those days when you really needed a few cubes of ice in your glass of water. Echo strode over to her refrigerator in the kitchen and took out the ice-tray, bringing it over to the circular table in the living room where a whisky-glass full of boring old water awaited on a coaster. Fidgeting with the plastic and bending it in just the right way, one of the cubes plopped out and onto the wood. After picking it up she was on the verge of dropping it into the glass when it grew just a little bit bigger. “Hmm, it’s segmenting into smaller ice-cubes” Echo thought, observing the geometric replication. Then a broad smile swept across her face as she realized the simple, unassuming thing had become a puzzle cube. “Woah … this thing looks interesting” the player thought, twisting the faces to match the particular shades of opaqueness inscribed within the squares. Biting her tongue, she eventually cracked the code, and the mechanisms within unlocked, and the individual ice-cubes glided into the whisky glass. Then the other ice cubes skipped out from the tray, changed different colors and slid across the table, over the top and underside and over the chairs. Managing to catch the red one as it bolted across the smooth oak, she felt a tap on her shoulder. “Hey, what was that!” she exclaimed, looking over and seeing no one. Turning back around the same thing occurred again, until she realized upon examining the ice-tray that one of the cubes remained, and that whenever she turned her head the cube had grown into a rectangular solid of a few feet in height, then branched off in ninety degrees, tapping her on the shoulder, and retreating quickly to evade discovery. “Give me a break, buster, do you think I’m that easy?” Echo grinned, removing the last cube. Taking its place, the refrigerator came from the kitchen and turned into a block of ice and slid into the depression. Then a white cube turned into white vapor when she touched it, billowing out until congealing into another on the seat of a nearby chair. She ignored it, instead turning to the pink cube that had inside of its interior another plastic ice-cube tray which she retrieved, flipping it over onto the table, letting the different varieties of cubes slip out, but it was really difficult to concentrate with the blue cube running up and down and tickling her left arm. “Oh, wise guy eh” she censured, flicking it off. As all of this was happening … halfway across the city ... Sam sat by himself in a rather put-together dining hall of the Dalmatian Dynasty Café. Having been bored for the last hour he leaned with a palm flat against his cheek, the other hand gripping a thick water-glass. Sauntering over to him from across the room a rather lovely waitress dipped over, her shadow the only respite in the dreary opulence. “Sir, would you like some ice cubes in your water?” she asked. Nodding he assented, and with a blissful smile she poured the pitcher into the glass, letting the dumb geometries clunk into that empty vessel. It was the third date she had missed that week.

CHAPTER 28 - HAIRCUT COUPON

“Looks like someone forgot to clean the table off last night” Echo grumbled, adjusting a wet lock away from her face. Sifting through the melodramatic adverts, she came upon a conspicuous coupon buried in the mess. “Free haircut? That sounds pretty good” the early bird jibed, quickly clearing the breakfast table with a sweep of an arm. Between her feet the wooden floor devoured the refuse, transferring the useful ingredients to the portion’s industrial system. Already bickering with an overcoat, Dazin came from the bedroom and marched straight to the other side of the room where the window-door hung. “Going before breakfast? I thought you liked to dine and dash” Echo observed dispassionately. Dazin turned around to see himself chastised with a head tilt. Must everything be studied with mockery? “I’m sorry, there’s a protest in Idea’s portion over logic rations and I’ve got to be there to settle the crowd” he explained, seeking reassurance. Echo’s primary scoffing reflex was the farthest thing from concord. It was one of her day’s off for goodness sake … a rare occurrence. Shifting mood she waved a hand, condoning the breach of breakfast, “Beats me why they ration logic like that in the first place, it doesn’t make any sense”. Unfortunately, the explanation for that was also rationed. “Wish me luck” Dazin encouraged, then left tout de suite. The early bird walked to the refrigerator to procure melba toast and raspberry jam. “Hmmm … I wonder if I used this coupon, what the result would be. I mean it sounds awfully good … but what would be the moral implications?” she speculated, crunching down on the first course. Peacefully the ventilation turned on in the background, automatically brushing theories of air through its filter. Insignificant motes of dust, trailing like strays. Sticks of chalk rolled across the blackboard on the eastern wall, then leaped off, creating paths of residue through space. Snatching one of them she dragged herself over to the blackboard, preparing its sable face with a wet sponge. With a line drawn across the middle, on the left, she wrote, “Normal Haircut” and on the right, “Free Haircut”. It continued like that for some time as the day spread thin. With a labor across a prodigious length of the inner circumference, the Atmo became obscured until the mimicry of true night lulled those below to sleep in their miniature cities. Dazin came home from the long social escapade, shutting the door loud enough for an ordinary person to hear and be provoked. Making his way across the room, he found a full blackboard sprawling with arrows and cursive script. Such was hardly enough to outline the ethical boundaries of each proposal. Echo clawed a head of frizzy hair, shivering with the weight of the incompatibility. “Did you even go outside today, darling?” he sought, bequeathing a handkerchief for her to clean her dusty hands. The researcher shook her head to denote the opposite. “Naturally, the key to deduce the greater moral outcome is close, I just need a few more weeks to work out the precise details” the manic scribbler envisioned. “Let me take a look at that,” he intruded, stealing the paper cut-out from the chalk-ledge, “darling, this one expired over a year ago, down here at the fine print”. Gripping both sides of her frizzy fluffball of a head, the researcher stood dumbfounded, mouth agape, “Huh? Wa? But I …”. Seizing the moment, he drew close, pressing his chest against hers. “You know what this means right? I’ll just have to pay for a haircut” Echo whispered, voice overwrought with the grievous truth of the words. Her iris flickered with the gleam of esoteric wrath, then dwindled. Mute calmness disentangled the stress riveting every nerve and fiber of her being. The soft warmth of the Star-Map turned those aggressors to putty. “Really, I shouldn’t have gone so far this time” Dazin thought privately to himself as he ushered her back to the bedroom. Things certainly had gotten out of hand.

CHAPTER 29 - ROOFTOP ROMANCE

Dazin (who is Sam after becoming patron) scrutinized the hapless creature whose eyes were glazed over in boredom, leaning on a desk with one hand moving independently. Slow progress ceased as the writer noticed a note pop from thin air at the edge of the table. “Are you really using stationary for hand-written letters? That’s so arbitrary, we can send telegrams telepathically all the time that print our thoughts on the paper” it read, prompting Echo to lift her focus to the newcomer. Around him, the commonplace pillars were sparse, and as such the environment prolonged itself in this vacant wing of the Residence Erudite, where normally students would linger, focusing on given coursework in their own safe harbors. Dotted in the wet grass were cans openers that worked on their counterparts until the metal lids segregated, floating into the air where the metal discus extended vertically forming metallic pillars. In time, the natural element would be subsumed. “Is there something wrong?” Dazin asked Echo, who looked forlorn enough to rattle about in grim realities as students do, then throw porridge against a wall for the purpose of self-mollification, as if the spillage was an apologist for such an injustice. “Not really, do you think people will like handwritten letters? They’re very down to earth, and a real chore” Echo submitted for his approval. Of course, a bland endeavor such as this was way out of character for her, as if she were vainly striving to be swathed in crestfallen blue. “Fine, if you want to be alone, keep it to yourself” Dazin rejoined conversationally, standing firm, looking stoically into her face to acknowledge that he would stay. If one can take a dream with a grain of salt, one can also take reality with a grain of salt. There is one grain. “No, Star-Map … wait. About last night, I just felt like we weren’t really connecting” she replied. Their talk broke a moment as the patron watched the novice ways in which the nature of the room flunked in its quest to fashion itself. From the dresser beside the stream a group of polyester socks leapt out, swimming upstream like salmon until reaching the top. Crossing over to land, the socks returned down the hill and dipped their ends into the river until bloated with water. From there they separated out, finding their own places in the grass where threads unwoven collected twigs and leaves, sewing them together into clumsy branches. Echo looked ironically at the scene from the desk. Happy and fat, the socks lifted up the branches to form a mockery of a tree, until eventually a tiny hole would form on the body, and the water gushed out in one motion, deflating them again. The whole sequence of events was quite dissatisfying. “It’s the same as what we normally do, '' Dazin admitted, blushing coyly. Echo was beginning to lose patience, even with her other half and his dashing loyalty. This was not a hard to grasp concept, after all. “I know … did you want to try something different?” she suggested. “What did you want to do? Anything but that …'' he gulped, reminiscing back to the era of the Trail War, when he had against the Couple’s wishes sought to be the compass guiding all lost souls, and their final confrontation where she had destroyed his aspirations with brazen tactics in one fell swoop. Fortunately, his lover shook her head. Nearby the desk a mailbox grew out of the juvenile grass, propped up by its wooden post. Rotating, it molded its body and blossomed into a black flower. Both of them turned to witness its development as it expelled a plume of white letter dust, obscuring the desk. Getting up, she walked over to him, waving away paper cloudiness with one hand. Dazin put a hand on her hip as the girl laid one arm over his shoulder. Once more, they were interrupted as the stones below the waterfall towards the northern wall rolled onto ground, each tugging a strip of water in alternate directions causing them to snap as they continued their revolutions. “This room is dumb at everything” Dazin observed, until his partner with a tap on the cheek moved it back to its rightful position. “Have you read of that time when someone fell asleep on the rooftop at night?” Echo enquired, smirking in a way that was more confounding than calming. He shook his head to indicate that … no ... he had not in fact heard of that. Letting go of his cheek, she raised her hand, tearing a hole in the ceiling with a strike of mirror lightning. Flying through the gap, they alighted on the roof of the Residence Erudite. With inscription lined circles she impregnated the clouds above with color, releasing it to fresh yawning pandemonium. Dazin tore away his human guise, resuming his original form, first with a layer of ordinary maps, then to another type. Echo zigzagged her eyes across the breadth of his body, stopping at every vertex, envisioning the true constellations of the Star-Map. “Don’t think about the color. Here … I will lay on the roof and you on top of me” she instructed. As he began kissing her neck, she ran her fingers through his hair. Dazin looked down, seeing with pleasure filled eyes how the flunking of nature continued unabated below. Pathetic … but beautiful. Going further, she felt the texture of the roof rough against her back. He could not help but look through the gap below, at the black flower that had just been a mailbox. They caught a breath after a hard kiss and with the clarity of dreamlike absoluteness, the empress pictured her game plan. “Do you know how swiftly a real night goes? I do. And I have a good trick up my sleeve. Let me approach your back” she whispered in his ear. Securing his consent, she passed a hand over his back along the skin and over the full length of the spine. Motioning with her hand his torso descended. Dazin groaned as the tool tightened. “This is the most important part, so don’t look at anything else but me” she trained. Dispersing, the sky let loose the first of the secondary colors. Echo felt his muscles tense atop her, constricting in pleasure. With each succeeding thrust his energy surged, growing quicker. Damp droplets fell in intervals around them, heightening their senses. Assumptions like time melted as heat fled from their bodies, mild insubstantial wisps. Their passions extinct, she flicked her wrist, untying her arms from his, and nails from his side. Vision slowly returned from addled obscurity, after four or so blinks, and watched the colors engulfed by darkness again. Luckily none of the students saw them on the roof that evening. “Almost ... as good as I thought it would be” Echo considered, biting her tongue.

CHAPTER 30 - VELES ARRIVES AT THE CLONE PARTY

Location: Echo Realm

Date: First Age

The moment someone dropped a plate on the floor the shards congealed and became toy cars that drove off into different directions. Little white ceramic ones. Echo laughed from the absurdity of it all as they wound about people’s legs. Those sorts of practical jokes built into the magic of items were not uncommon, but at big parties like this they took on a whole new meaning. Linden Dream and Melina Dreamer had consulted with Phantomess and Idea about their son Catcher. The boy spent most days inside the realm of his glass jar of fireflies, and so they decided to relocate it to the highland cloud where glassblowers restructured it into Jar Castle. A project worthy of a year’s diligence. Echo looked around the room. Everybody was there and the music was hot. Suspended from the roof from lines of string were very large orange slices, which people wafted with folding fans until the citrus turned the appropriate color by the flavor of the wind as they cooled. For the majority of parties such as these, she liked most of all to be an objective observer, spotting the little details. “Have I ever told you that you can be somewhat of a wallflower, sister?” Em reprimanded, quaffing a goblet of seltzer. “Well, I like this party but it’s too pretentious for me” she answered subtly in the hopes of evolving a beautiful tangent of conversation. “Everyone is having a good time. To be honest … remember what that means … I’ve seen you listen to music in your room” her brother aimed once more, striking a blow. Echo sighed with the swell of the flashback. Not everyone had seen her at her worst, dancing to clear melodies, propelled by the whims of nature. To her, it had been like silk violins woven from magic. A resonance from the caverns of time, a voice from deep below. “This is what happens when you leave the door open” she sighed tellingly. “Is it just me or have you always been the same? I know you like to think a lot ... but come on. Echo, they’re just people, what are you so afraid of?” Em preached as a camouflage of bodies shifted through the foreground. Echo smiled at the good roasting. “Alright, brother. Don’t forget I had to step up and help them. Locals really can’t understand what we have to deal with” the guest said, refreshing his memory. Echo motioned to Linden in the corner adjusting his spectacles to see an inscription on a local’s hand. By that time a lumbering drunkard had snuck up from behind. Echo bent as a thick arm lay over her shoulders. “Hahaha! What trouble are you planning now!” the ogre belted. Em coughed as hard sweat overcame their senses. “Valco, how much have you been drinking?” she quizzed, knowing he probably hadn’t kept count. By virtue of an interlude most of the bunch parted. Some dozed in lumps of fluffy caterpillars until the music would resume. Yet others chatted about his or her outfit. “Did I ever say I love you? Sis, I’m so big … you’re like a little toy. I could hug you into … juice” Valco gushed, his cheeks flushed with an obvious hue. Echo closed both eyes as formulae rambled through her mind, “Decisions, decisions”. Fresh ink hiding behind her lids. “Good notes brother, and you as well. I suppose it’s more reasonable to party” she avowed. Fortunately, there was one trick in particular that she had been honing for quite some while. “Does anyone want to see something that will make your eyeballs glow? Gather around” the spokeswoman promised, ushering them from clusters of gossip to the oval of an expectant crowd. People were worn enough from dancing that they couldn’t resist. Giddy whispers traced in cycles around her, “First of all, I’ll need a regular number 2 pencil. Can you spare one sir?” she asked, plucking it from his pocket. They were too enamored to notice the injustice, “Ask yourselves this, would you say this is just an ordinary pencil? Maybe a second ago, before I hollowed it out into a tiny dimension and filled it with light while you weren’t looking”. Ousting the eraser with a flick of her thumb, a feeble cone of light appeared from the end. A precursor to set the mood. Slowly, deliberately, another object pushed through, laboring like an octopus. “Is it a blob?” the crowd demanded as they watched the anomaly hover, a silvery globe covered in scales like a fish. Echo grinned as the disco ball eclipsed the room with color. Surely that was something that they had never seen before. Roars erupted in mild contagion. Yet soon enough hands and bodies resumed their rhythmic work. The showman stood there, adamant amongst the dancers, an axis in all their cycles. Looking out past the rest, straight through the kaleidoscope and its counterfeit atmosphere of reds and purples, she saw her sister, against the wall in the back, running her hands through Zenith’s blue hair. Fresh lips governed the drift of his body ... every movement. “Onsuru, do you think you should … in public?” the showman thought mercilessly. Echo felt her shoulders shake and chest hesitate. Down her arms a moisture trickled, most likely sweat borne from the prick of desire. The showman began to pant repeatedly. Marveling lasted a few moments until she couldn’t stand it anymore, and moved away, back to the corridor where more paths awaited. It was then that the conscious welled in full with a certain thought. Inclinations of a kind she had not felt since departing from the bubble. “Am I this lonely for real?” Echo asked, studying her own thoughts. In regions of obscurity, she could feel Sam’s aspect imprinted, his warm sounds channeling through the emptiness. A kind of physical awareness salvaged all the pieces of his story. The cave, the look in his eyes when he saw her. Echo felt her health’s compass oscillate, and fled into a private room owning a balcony as a rolling ache thumbed against her heart. Wrenching a chalice and bottle of seltzer from the cabinet, she angled it just right and poured the liquid to the surface. “If anyone knew what I’m really like, they wouldn’t listen” Echo whispered, shielding her loneliness even from her own grasp. His beautiful name tunneled through the past into reality. Sam! How could anything be that gentle? Before the drink could touch her mouth, a notion struck. “Not a bad idea” the wallflower certified, then began at once, sketching inscriptions more toilsome with fine intricate detail. Plumes of mist broadened. The woman looked at the summoning. Indelibly feminine. Meddlesome eyes. Her avatar’s face. For the moment she would have to do. Awaiting the right moment, the right second after the cloud’s evaporation, the lonely girl took hold of the other. In the nearby room the party did not flag in strength. It had vanished with forgetfulness. Both continued, deep in the throes of need. Formulae wept from her body with each kiss, each erasing evidence of what came before. Far flung sighs. Heightened emotions. Echo took a reprieve from her consort to look around. Most certainly, their only voyeur was the balcony, “Let me give you some of this seltzer. I know you like me. We can drink from both sides while I hold the chalice like this”. Steps traced down the corridor. Hinges swerved fast as two people came in through the open entrance. “Oh!” Onsuru screamed. Bashfully, the avatar faded. Leaning over the rail, Echo spat her mouthful out to the highland cloud. “Is it alright if I can get a little privacy here? Where are you going anyway, you two scared the willies out of me. Of course ... you’re looking for a room too, right?” the runaway guessed. She had defected from the party in good order. Followers were not greatly anticipated. “Echo, that was kinda … weird what you were doing right there” Onsuru pointed, a bit whitened by nature’s abuse. Her sister clumsily took a few steps backwards and tossed the chalice as well, “Well, it was only …”. “Are you okay?” Zenith delved. Hands waved to dispel the antiquated truth “Yes of course I’m okay! I just had too much seltzer and got carried away”. She guaranteed it with a dumb smile as her heart larked intrinsically. “Don’t you think it would be better if I could explain this …” Onsuru began in familial unease. Ideally, even magic had its limits. But that was not the case today. “Please don’t say anything,” she begged. Zenith turned to his wife to gauge the reply. As he did, the patron closed the distance, enlisting them into confidence. Back at the main hall glass spinners flaunted their art, blowing replicas for dancing partners in the midst of calm music. For an hour the enjoyments ebbed predictably. Feast tables lost their wealth by degrees as people meandered about. The last leaves were dipped in butter for the mirthful revelers. Even Valco didn’t seem to have much inspiration. Aimlessly, rumors began to flow about some well outside depressing the cloud. A few had seen it through windows facing the manor. Echo felt more at ease to be back with the others. Things would finish up briefly, along with the memories. Recklessness can always be forgiven. Then it happened. Loud thuds hammered down the gates. Sopping wet, a wild creature passed by the threshold. Echo held her breath with the rest. Looking closer, she could see it was a woman, face masked by long hair drenched in well-water, black as night. Vestments of the chalice curled around her body like a helix, metallic pieces. Quickly, before anyone could move a muscle the floor below transmuted into a whirlpool and absconded the revelers to the lower floor, leaving only her and the newcomer. Echo forced her back against the wall, appalled with sudden fear. It paced over the expanse methodically, “I swam to freedom from the whirlpool. Elder, do you know who littered this cup?”. Veles arrived that day, the patron of the whirlpool. And of course, no one had truly understood the anachronisms.

CHAPTER 31 - MOTIF PORCELAIN PILLOW AND THE PUMPKIN PIE REALM

Location: Echo Realm

Date: Second Age

Meanwhile, in portion Leffel a trial was underway for a draft dodger who was conscripted for maintenance service aboard the mausoleum ship Appropriate Management. Mr. and Mrs. Porcelain-Pillow asked for leniency for their son, Motif Porcelain-Pillow, who slouched casually against the defendant’s chair. Mrs. Subsidized Porcelain-Pillow stood up and implored the panel, “he’s really a responsible son, I promise you. It's just that he didn’t realize what was asked of him, and he didn’t know what would happen if he declined … isn’t that right dear”. “Thought of his family first” Mr. Measurement Porcelain-Pillow called from his chair. He sighed as he looked over to the boy, who was not a boy, but a grown man of thirty that still resided at their house, unable to find work and worthless in the magical ability. The panel was not swayed and called forth the defendant. “The letter that was sent is not a meager invitation. Can you say that there is a suitable reason you declined that letter?” a panelist asked. Motif shrugged carelessly, “I just didn’t want to do any of it, I’d rather do something else”. At that, the panel sent him back home, on temporary house arrest. At dinner, an argument ensued. The man pointed to a pumpkin pie that rested in the middle of the table to illustrate his point. “I would rather put my foot in that pumpkin pie!”, and grabbed the pie, throwing it down on the ground. He let down his foot, placing a footprint into the substance of the pie. Exiled to his room, he hid the leftover pie with the footprint underneath the bed so they would not see it when they checked in on him. Two weeks later, as the family slept calmly in the quietude of confinement, a visitor forced open the lock on the front door and made his way up the stairs to the man’s bedroom that had always been his bedroom. Rugged face with a two o’clock shadow, neck wrapped in a red scarf, wearing a black cloak. “No sign of life … good” he observed as the man’s chest rose and fell. Crawling underneath the bed, he found what had beckoned him and stared into the print. (If you haven’t figured it out already, it became a realm). With minimal effort the visitor fell into the world of the print, and found himself in a clearing of a forest, whose soil had the characteristic tint of orange. Hiking through the surrounding landscape, he came upon a conclave of pumpkin-pie brick homes making up a rural village tucked between a high hill and a lake that also resembled a footprint. Introducing himself to the locals, he soon gathered they did not know of an outside world, nor where they came from. It dawned on him that they may be born of the realm, but his advanced vision allowing observation of their spirit bodies quickly dismissed that option. As the locals toiled on a new homestead, the man climbed to the top of the hill, where there was solitude to think. “Why was I drawn here? This may be the most humble and dreary realm I have ever set foot in” the visitor said to himself as he looked down on the villagers with slight disdain. Then, the air began to vibrate, and a mist erupted in front of him, dancing like a dervish. Ebbing and collecting into a more recognizable form, the mist began to speak. “You are not who I asked for, who are you?” it queried, still holding back its true form. “Then it was you whose call I heard. I am Negash Groy, priest of the cult of Eleven Twelfths-Month, who is known as Leffel”. “Your patron is the grandson of Echo” the mist replied, prompting Groy to nod in agreement. When the mist saw that acknowledgment, it began to ebb even less, until the formless aura molded itself into a recognizable shape. “Have you no shame?” Negash rebuked, seeing that the mist had fashioned itself into a likeness of echo, “What you see is what you get. But you are not the man that I called for. I am indeed echo, or that which is the residue of an avatar once dispelled. I once loved my other half, in the short time that I was called into existence. She was so beautiful, her lips so perfectly shimmering with mirror light. Through the eons I drifted. Now I am briefly to wither away into nothing”. Upon hearing this, Negash tore off his red scarf and threw it onto the ground, “Disgraceful! There is much I need to know before I can verify that”. As the mist spoke, it took on more and more of the appearance of echo, but an ancient, more primitive form, “time is slipping away. But this realm called to me. Even though there is no substitute for love, we are compelled to find one when we are without. My craving began long ago, as I consumed the soul ghosts that I came across and digested their memories. They are the folk of that village. Now my craving is of something more solid”. “What do you require to find rest, spirit?” Negash, gritting his teeth behind his mouth as he tried to come to a decision on the abrupt and overwhelming discovery, asked. “I will call to him that will be guardian of the print. A man who didn’t want the madness of the other world. A man who just didn’t want to do any of it, who’d rather do something else” the mist answered. “Truth be told, I am glad you did not wish me to be king” Negash quipped, but then, swallowed hard in awe as he saw her lips, shimmering with mirror light. With that, he was lifted up by a vortex of mist, back to the underside of the bed. Crawling out, he looked to the alarm clock. It was about one thirty in the outside world. Standing over the man, he whispered in his ear as he slept, and told him of the maiden of mist who awaited his arrival. The visitor walked down the stairs and departed through the door whose lock he picked with a spell. Shortly after, Motif stumbled into a new realm that he believed at first was a dream. Climbing to the heights of a hill, he saw the maiden of mist. “Young man, scoop up a handful of the soil and feed it to me” she ordered. Like a weak bed-stricken hospital patient lifting a head up for a meal, the maiden of mist partook of the handful of pumpkin pie until his palm was clean. “Without love, I will wither away, but this pumpkin pie tastes good” the avatar exhaled. Then as she vanished the man saw the village resting below the hill, tucked away besides the lake.

CHAPTER 32 - UFFHILL AND UMLAVE - UMLAVE RETURNS TO THE OLD QUEENDOM

“Oh, I love red velvet cake, it’s so gory it makes me feel like a gladiator when I eat it” Echo said to him at last night’s party as they lounged in the corner, presumably for the sole purpose of making him laugh as she stole a slice. Now he was thankful that there were leftovers in the refrigerator, so he took out a plate and sat at the end of the dinner table to finish it off. “Apparently, I’m going to have to finish this myself” Uffhill smiled, thinking of how Umlave had left days previous, down through the chamber on some personal journey to Recapture for a stop, then to the ruins of her old queendom to see the trail gate once more. Since she had forgotten to turn off the television, the static had fallen off and collected into a ball that bounced around in the living room. It didn’t make any noise so it wasn’t really a problem. He looked back at the plate. Eventually the piece was reduced in size to such a degree that he scoured the surface for a final bite. “Hey darling, did you save me a piece?” Umlave asked, plopping camping bags onto the floor. “I’ll trade you for souvenirs” he offered, leaning over for a kiss as she sat down at the table besides him. There’s something very attractive about a plate that’s been scraped clean, almost peaceful, like the mind’s resting state. Uffhill’s eyes glanced up, then, kicking the floor the chair scooched back almost a foot. Every so often patrons evolve and take on new forms. That was common knowledge, until it happens to someone you know. “Do you like my new look?” Umlave asked, sliding her hand across the top of her chest over a body of paper skin tattooed with intricate mandalas of brash calligraphy. “How did you … is that paper?” he gaped, studying the overt difference. There is something about the peristalsis of red velvet cake that is more soothing than an ordinary swallow, and it turned his mind to the calm of the remainder of his body. Umlave watched him stare as the ball of tv static arced over the position of his head from farther away in the living room. “Good read darling, it is a little less smooth than normal and more fragile, but a good fit” she replied. “I would think so, it’s just a little … different” the patron countered. Imperceptibly shifting back in the chair, she redirected her line of sight to the tarnished plate of smeared crimson, “do you like different?”. Abandoning his fear, he interlocked his fingers into hers, pressing them tight, “I’ve always loved different”. Paraphernalia from the camping trip crumbled out of the condensed mass of the suitcase between the oval shaped mouth of the zipper. It fell onto the floor diverting his attention, allowing her to return hers to its previous station. Applying the other hand, he polished it with the inquisitive cheek of his palm. Umlave felt a compelling draft of affirmation pass through her, the blurry aspects of his features became definite. But she should have known better. “This looks like wallpaper, all these patterns …” he witnessed, until the object was retrieved in a quick singular motion. “oh, so it’s like wallpaper is it? You just like it because it reminds you of that girl you dated when you were a local on the trail … what was her name again? Va?” she charged. “That one was too fierce for her own good, but that’s long gone, don’t look at me like that” he relented, parrying off guilt drenched stares in quick succession. “Alright, if you can tell the difference then … that’s a start” she said, sensing his keen juvenile anticipation in the unwrapping of a flimsy garment. Heeding an unspoken request Umlave, without moving a finger tore back the paper layer covering both her hands, wrists and the portion of her head to her shoulders. “How did this happen?” Uffhill cried. The harmless ball of static had hit the back of his chair at just the exact moment that the remainder of his wife was exposed to room temperature. “So first I meandered through Recapture. There is barely anything there except for a few dough farmers, and some surviving dreamstuff golems. Eventually I got to my old queendom. Happily, those oaks that I loved so much survived, whole acres of them. That fact made me feel pretentious, but in a good way. Then I went further, past the estate of verdant simplicity which a local is preserving. It was pretty boring until I found the highway and went down that way through Desensitize, to the main square where the ruins of the old trail gate are piled up. Looking them over I realized something fascinating. The Couple and Echo have shed so many secrets, I doubt they can remember even one out of ten of them”. “Keeper, the realm was a lot simpler back then, what were your first thoughts when you saw those undisturbed ruins?” the patron requested, his solicitation tinged with the gold of nostalgia. Pouring through the medium of the fiefdom, the divisions of the apartment were substituted by walls of memory. Both listened, hearing birdsong through the dense aether laden wind. “I was gatekeeper” she whispered to herself, remembering the days that she would permit those who sacrificed a dream for the Couple to float through mandalas which she had crafted. Examining the signature of the ruins, a less than obvious thought occurred, “the gate is a scar? A disembodied scar from the moment that Echo’s ghost escaped and returned to her body? Normally a ghost exists a body incorporeally without creating a scar”. So much made little sense. There was the Cezit Order, who were dreamstuff replicants that unknown to her dwelt within the trail gate. “That is why whispers flowed into the gate” she said, “and the order would call to collect the whispers and usher them unto the gate, and they would themselves hide by tucking themselves within a whisper and leading the others”. This had all been told to her by Valco. “Wait just a minute!” he shouted, halting the perceptual retelling. “Yes, I thought that hint to be rather confounding as well, but it’s true” the patroness guaranteed, batting back neural ripples of incredulity. In Uffhill’s mind, the previous night flashed before his eyes, the way Echo was reclining on the chair, happy as a lark from the synthesis of overeating, good company and four cans of cherry omelet soda. Because of everything, he had not given a second thought of when she thieved a slice of red velvet cake from off plate. Ideas quickly reshaped themselves, conclusions snapped into place like ruthless architecture. “Are you telling me that she … we all knew she was different … that she is less perfect in a certain way than an average local? If the ghost tore through and made a scar, it can only mean she was … let me rephrase that. Echo is delicate. Is that what you are saying?” he questioned, a mask of epiphany causing her to witness the boldness in the features of his face, something that had many a time belonged to her in full. “Obviously when you take into consideration the past eons, she has grown a lot stronger with every strife that we have faced” Umlave answered, comfortable in her ability to lecture on the prose of history. Drawing him back into the fiefdom, he saw Umlave retrace her steps to the Pyramid of Darkness where the dust of the book of whispers had become the southern desert. Near the periphery some clusters of rocks were hollowed out by the wind into elongated flutes. Along the length of one of them was a caveat scratched into the stone, but of course it was meant for mortal men. An elderly hermit crab crouched by the end of one of them, sitting in the hollow and stroking a long white beard with its claw, regarding her. “Anyway, before I was so politely interrupted, I found an oasis at the center of that territory with a crisp pool …” she visualized, returning to the story, “Floating to the bottom I was distracted by the motions of life and without realizing it became embedded into the rock beneath a bed of coral. Colorful entities that lived in that stratum pulsated around me. Then cracking open, the rock gave way, and my body had become this white sponge coral. I thought, ‘I am like that sponge within the center of the skull’. I let the little fish and other things swim between the tiny spaces, tickling me. Have you ever been tickled under water? It is really great. Then propped my hands over the edge, lifting myself back up onto the sand. Before I knew it, a portion of sand which had been called by the wind rushed up to meet me and washed over my body until igniting in flame. Dust became pulp and molded itself as paper, draping over my figure. I looked over at the paper of my torso and saw mandalas imprinted by the ink, alternating white and black” the patroness visualized in words for his consideration. It was the ink of the book of whispers. “Did you hear the secret of the book of whispers?” he pleaded, needing the atoms of veracity hidden in the kernels of magic, wreathed in formulae and hypothetical gossip. Looking across the table, he examined the white sponge coral, porous and in the shape of human beauty. “Just as the Couple performed the RODI, ushering dream from their minds to the base reality, I am that semipermeable barrier of the skull from which it can flow through numerous pores” she pontificated, then stuck out a pink tongue which now had the character of the cerebrum. When tempers soar, a good principal to rely on is restraint, but that was not the emotion that prevented her from telling him the rest. That was shame. For as the patroness returned to normality from hyperventilating at the strain of quick evolution, she could feel a burning sensation, and stuck out her tongue. Resting on it was a drop of coffee like a perfect pearl that one would find within a clam. It lifted off of her tongue and hovered in the air before her, then vanished. It had happened so quickly that she could not in hindsight genuinely tell whether it was of importance. One cannot lose face when in the pursuit of a listener, flighty as they are. The events afterwards were of little import, so she briefly summarized the trek backwards. How at the outskirts of the oasis was a tribe that instead of living and dying transitioned through states of visibility and invisibility, how they enjoyed her constellation salamander form and the way the nodes of grain-stars emit light which diluted and draped the body of the amphibian. Satisfied, they let her gobble them up in her mouth and waddle back up to district, where calling upon the skulls embedded in the fabric of the wreckage of Recapture they flocked to her and under her command destroyed the trail gate, it’s substance being communicated to her body by the action of their destruction. Miserably, a shockwave from the Reverse Incarnation, Visioness’s final attack against Echo in their battle struck her, and the tribe were forced to nurse her back to health over a day, feeding her bowls of soup and wafting the aroma into her face with fans. “I brought them back with me to the portion. They all work now in an underpants factory, but it is much better than living in the desert” she finished. “Darling, that’s enough, your new look is great. I love it” Uffhill relented, his mind weary from heeding such a enterprising memory. She smiled back, then noticed how a smear of the red velvet cake remained at the corner of his mouth, so she tore off a piece of her paper-skin and used it as a napkin to dab the mess away. Maybe one day … practice for when they had a baby. In the other room the ball of static rebounded until it became stuck between the space of the couch and the wall … that place that’s really hard to get out, and where no one would find it until much later. Uffhill sighed with exhaustion and leaned back in his chair. Thoughts of the transformation revolved in his mind. A wife made of paper and coral. He was not amused. And that old flame that wasn’t flammable was starting to sound pretty good.