A DARKNESS PALE

TRICKS

…Dec found Irie and lost everything else…

Tricks

Kanha - staring at him now with frantic eyes like the last time he’d been with her, when she was giving birth to Irie and knew something was wrong. When she was dying. Irie’s mother’s eyes darted around the room. “Can I take your coat and hat? Can I get you water, or anything?”

“Water.”

Left alone Dec thought, this is what I have to do. He’d gotten as far as he was going to get. Kahna was trying to trick and distract him. But he’d figured out the real trick. All these worlds were nothing but distractions. The way you tricked the trickster and broke free was to meet the distractions head on. Dive in and become intentionally lost, just like the kid said.

Everyone was lost. Irie was lost. Where was Irie? Where was Piglet? There was nothing. All he could do was drop a message in a bottle. He turned his attention to a smudgy window. A blurry vista of a dying sun struggling against purple smog and rain. Silhouettes of palm trees.

Kanha came back with water. “Dad, I’m so glad to see you. But, uh how did you find me? What are you doing here?”

Tricks. Trying to keep him tangled up in his memories. Dive in. Where were the vibrations? He looked around, as though they might have become visible. There. A tingling, like the electric tickle on a nine volt battery on the tip of his tongue.

Who was he? Where was he? He was here for a reason. All he could think, all he could say to the lady was, “Message.”

“Are you okay? Do you need my help?”

He recognized her. Kanha. The lady with the dope farm in the jungle outside of Ratchaburi. The house on stilts. The humidity. The sweat on her back, always wearing those linen blouses. The incense and rolling around on soft mats. No walls. She’d been a means to an end. She’d been a means to the ganga, and in the end she’d also given him Irie.

“Irie.” He felt pressure expanding from within. The world was pressing itself flat. “Birthday… Key.”

“What?”

“Source Orchard.”

Done. He’d done it. Irie was lost but now the message was in the bottle and that was that. He’d gotten as close as he could. He tricked the tricks. Be gone, and don’t drink the water. He placed the glass on a trunk that was filling in for a coffee table. He stood up. Where was he? Good. Who was this women in the room with him? He had no idea. Excellent. Get willfully lost, someone had said that. He could feel the vibrations, palpitations against his knuckles. 

“What? You need to use the bathroom? You hungry? I could make you some eggs.”

When you were lost there was only the truth. He felt a surge and tried to explain. “My daughter. I wasted my life not loving my daughter.”

“Huh?”

“I was seeking immortality. Selfish. She was seeking love. Love is the destination. Love is the gift and the prize. I devote everything to giving my daughter love. The Source Orchard.”

The woman’s eyes were bulging with terror. She squeezed her eyes shut. She trying to shut something down.

“If you see her tell her I love her so much. I accept everything coming my way.”

“What’s coming?”

Dec looked around. Very slowly and deliberately, he said, “Darkness. Nothing.”

And the room shifted, and he was in darkness. An empty room. Skinny rats scuttled across the floorboards. Ripped plastic, roughly stapled into the window frame. Hot night air blew in. The hum and vibration was more intense. He could feel it dancing across his forehead.

Where was he? Who was he?

The room shifted again, and a middle-aged lady stood before him with her eyes squeezed shut. Her hair was short like a mans. She was thick and had broad shoulders. She was strong. He had no idea who she was.

Time to move.

He found a set of stairs that led him to a lower level were two doors faced each other. One of them opened to a concrete courtyard, the other to somewhere else. The courtyard seemed familiar. Familiar was backwards. Backwards was the wrong direction. He went through the other door, into a wide open space, some former meeting hall. Dense smells of mold and dirt. Blocks of cold blackness. Glimmers from phlegmy streetlights cut through the cracks in the boarded windows. Outside, the soft sound of rain. His eyes adjusted to broken wooden benches, tables turned over and piles of rubble. Some kind of church.

“Dad! Dad!”

Someone was outside, calling through the darkness. He stood very still. He didn’t know where he was or who the person was. They sounded frantic. He was sure it was another trick.

…To the Milk Man’s mansion… Backwards is forwards…