(GE Copy)

Chapter 21: Intuitions Comes Slowly (Part 2)

“...Anyone can develop themselves, learn a hobby, do it quicker and with more pieces, as was outlined, and only to what was outlined. Seldom do they learn what they can actually do with that knowledge, and seldom yet question what it is that they actually learned.”

They continued along the grassy field as it bent around, overlooking the stream. It’s slight slope was covered in large rocks, all the way down to the bed, and they split off for the sight of a purple glimmer back a ways behind them. Beside the stones and boulders they followed a tiny deer trail that rested at the gravel shoreline.

Over the shallows of the creek, as it split into many small weaving waterways, Aaron walked up to the massive petrified ivory of sun bleached bone. They finally made it to the basin that they spotted earlier. It’s massive rib cage stood a hundred feet above them, spawning veins of crystalline secretions up and down the grain. The glistening gems flowered out horizontally from the seams like tree fungus, and plateaued a thin ladder. Aaron gripped firmly, testing it’s strength, but the handholds cut off every twenty or so feet until another seam much further apart. Maybe these stones would hold some power to protect him, or be fashioned into a weapon of some sort but they seemed benign as all the others. Aaron frowned sorely at another failed deposit. Perhaps one day he’d find something useful for once. These gems felt to have a strong friction that gripped into his hand, but it seemed unpredictable when, and in what direction that friction was applied. Aaron sighed, and collected them anyways, hoping he could be wrong about it in the future.

Bundling up, Aaron could feel the chill glaze over the skin of his arms, and he rubbed them for warmth, still feeling the function of his muscles work moderately unimpeded for now. He tucked away what few stones he could retract from the bone without proper tools and placed them beside the plastic tubs, or in them, he wasn’t sure how to stack it. Aaron organized his pack a little, making room for the large purple plates, trying to fit everything in. He needed a mobile storage dropoff, and the thought of it inspired him. It would be so simple, but where? Heck, even here would be a great place for a return point, directly beside his resources. Then. it dawned on him, a stroke of genius.

Aaron firstly dug around the basin of the bone, fitting a hole that he could place his plastic return point. After sizing it, he set it in the soil and rocky gravels, primed it with water and buried the lid on top of it. It would take nothing to lift the hidden cap on this particular patch of earth, and once through, he wouldn’t have to worry about it’s upkeep with wildlife around until he left through it again.

Aaron looked around, studying the land and it’s curvatures, contemplating the dynamics of such an untouched land and it’s opportunities. His imagination flourished with unreasonably possible ideas and dreams that shined to life before him.

Poor lad never lifted a shovel for more than half an hour, that’ll be interesting.

Anywhere was at his finger tips. It was what he wanted when he started, and no one could take it away from him. He felt safety in the shadows of whatever reticent realm he could create, and rejoiced. “If it took the bastard two hours to track me down from my house, that means that he was there when I slipped through the portal, and has no idea how to get these waterways to work. So if a pestilence like that can’t track me down, we’ll never have to worry again.” Turning to Felicity, “Dawn your blade, we’re making a log cabin.”

The more he considered how to assure it’s secrecy, the more Aaron wondering just how many secrets and trails were hidden in his own neighbourhood, just as he would hide his own here. Perhaps those scenes in shows and movies about hidden contraptions and entrances weren’t just fabricated intrigue after all. This place was far enough to reach in a day’s walk if anything ever happened to his portal container, and undisturbed enough to tuck away many treasures from anywhere the water reached.

With a cut of his folding shovel, Aaron tore the moss carpet from the hillside. Felicity refused to use their sword in such a degrading manner, and pulled the fallen logs out from the forest instead. They laid them in the hill bound ditch that Aaron dug, setting them from rolling down the hillside. Upon the sides laid two forty five degree angles that bowed the three medium length logs out from the paralleled slope. It took plenty of digging, and reorienting the unequal logs, cutting if reluctantly, and fixing them back a third or fourth time until level. As the sun set over the hills behind them towards west, or whatever direction reality had distorted itself to this time, their hours ran short and they gave it a shallow roof. For now.

Aaron laid in under the cover, looking out through the wooden bars to the thin distance between them and the forest wall. He had used the patches of moss from the slope to conceal the man made obstructions but stopped half way, tired, and collapsed within his hut to rest.

Aaron’s imagination ran wild with possibilities. Who was to say if he could or couldn’t place a portal within a hollow log where his arms could pull the container out of it from within the transpiring pond. Why stop there? Why not hide one in a shelf, or a drawer, or a cabinet? Under something, over something, perhaps he could even hide it in plane sight but never quite knew how until now. He would have to reevaluate the Penticton locations at some point, as he could easily imagine upgrading their secrecy.

Laying there pleased with himself, Aaron opened his mouth, “Even though it’s not finished, it’s exciting to think what it will be very soon...” feeling his words give out from him as he rested. He felt so tired afterwords, but the rest renewed him like no other. He began to remember just how tired he’d been for the last couple of weeks on end, wondering just how far back this exhaustion began. As he laid there, his body felt alive, he could feel his pulse like busy rivers imbued with fire, that overshadowed the rustling waters before them. The smell of earth, the moistness of plants, the chill layer of skin overtop a burning steam engine that was his sore muscles. Ears perked and there was peace in his mind at last. He breathed easy after his good work, until Felicity came by, complaining about the effort. “Sh... Sh-sh-sh-sh-sh...” Aaron hushed, “Not a sound....” Letting the silence return to him. “At the end of all the work, there is a satisfaction... Serotonin or something, might be dopamine, I’m pretty new to it. This is the first time I actually made a fort out of something other than blankets and kitchen chairs. It’s earnest, special, unimpressive yet dearly important to me... And it’s mine. No ‘take it down after supper’, no neighbours to come by and ask for a cup of sugar, no idiotic freaking game of pretend anymore... It’s crappy and it’s small and it took way too much effort, but it’s real and we made it with our own two hands. It’s a satisfaction that I’ve lost, and no one can discourage me now.”

“We spent two hours clawing away at the dirt like badgers.” Felicity moaned, “This is bullshit...”

“And my hands have the blisters to prove it... ‘Course... Would have taken fifteen minutes if you just loosened the damned soil for me...”

“I have pride, Aaron. Suudelma Järvestä is for kicking asses, and skewers to roast said asses over an open fire; not for someone else’s nine to five, otherwise I’d be ten miles up a logging road, laying the old forests to rest.”

“Is this why my folks warned me about learning from the TV?... Well, in any case, we can do better... Just... Wish it wasn’t so damned cold here. Be nice, couple of sleeping bags, little camp fire, make what me, Zack, and Sophie did on Giant’s head look like the side of the road... Which, it kinda was. You know, I really gave him a lot of trouble for that, but it’s probably the best thing he ever did for me. Just so happy to have this freedom. I’d probably still be home, playing on the old vector graphics console underneath the stairs, bored out of my damned gourd. Heaven forbid I start a comic book collection. Maybe I should grab some things, sneak out tonight, and come back here.”

Aaron took in the air, embracing it one last time before taking up his portal by the bones and offloading his treasures into the old cardboard box in the Garage. He laid an old blackened greasy towel over top of the cloth wrapped gems, and normal stones that separated them from contacting with another. Hidden, for now, but Paul didn’t use too much in here. His old man still hadn’t questioned the wet pickle jar that Aaron laid out behind the stack of parts, or the mysterious plates left by their hungry house guest. Aaron picked up the dirty porcelain and returned it to the sink with the others that would be washed that night. Seemed he was alone. On the table there was a note that read “Out for dinner, leftovers in the fridge.” Of course they felt like splurging when he wasn’t around. Oh well, it gave him time to pack up his things and offload the equipment before they returned. He spent that night watching nonsense with Felicity on the TV, just as he found him this morning.

Aaron waved his parents in around eight, listening to how he wasn’t around to join them, and they were tired of waiting to ask. His mother left him a piece of cheese cake, and Aaron felt glum as he filled his mouth with it. Of course, best laid plans, Aaron forgot a couple things he wanted to bring with him and he went to retrieve them; like the wind up clock to remind him when he’ll be wanted in the morning. He was away for a few minutes, then walked down to the Garage, then back up again. It was at this point that his parents had become suspicious that he was up to something. And he was. “Son,” His mother called out to him on his way up the stairs, and followed him as he refused to stop for a chat. “I need to talk to you for a moment...” Finally catching him at his bedroom door, Crystal began to inquire, “It’s about your girlfriend. She’s very unorthadox...”

“I’ve never known you to be religious...” Aaron returned, scooting the rock pick and the hammer in past the door casing, hoping to shake her from his growing outdoors stockpile.

“I mean she’s different, and has a quirk behind her eyes. I’ve seen those kind of girls before... You two weren’t doing anything inappropriate while we were gone, were you?”

Aaron clasped his head, and walked away from his stash, “Why does everyone keep thinking that?” Trotting down the stairs empty handed

“I’m only asking.” Crystal huffed, and walked off, avoiding a hasty collision with her husband.

“Wouldn’t matter where they are if they did...” Paul sympathized with his wife’s as he came out of the upstairs master bedroom. “It’s really irrelevant where and when it happens. We had our share of vexating my parents, as well as your own. I’m just glad your Father was city folk and didn’t own a thirty ought like mine did.”

“Can everyone hear the conversation or something?” Aaron lamented. “I’d really rather not have this conversation in front of our guests.”

“Well, it might be important that we do...” Walking down the balcony, “Seeing as it involves them but I can spare everyone the discomfort for tonight. You seem to be in a hurry for something, it’s practically dark outside, what’s up?”

Turning away from them, Aaron muttered until shaking his head. All his secrecy didn’t really matter, if anything his Father would probably appreciate the honesty. “I’m getting some things ready, I was planning on taking the tent and finding somewhere quiet.” After all, he’d clearly have proven himself capable by now, and he had company. “Besides, Felicity’s even better at camping than I am, really show me the ropes and all that.” And after all of his nights being a good boy for them, it was time to stand on his merits.

“When did we start accepting this kind of thing?” Paul returned, confused, “I sure wasn’t involved in that discussion. I told you I was tired of you always being gone, and never coming back until morning. What’s made you think that’s changed all of the sudden? Where were you today when we waited around the house hungry for an hour, waiting to invite you out with us?”

“And why do you always have a problem about it? Because it’s too dangerous a couple meters out of the back yard? I thought you were worried about cops and ambulances, muggers, ‘Okanagan’s full of crime’ stuff. You said you were proud of me going out to do something earnest, a respectable hobby, and now you turn on it?”

“If it were a couple months ago, I might have agreed.”

“So why now? I even have someone with me!”

“Because a month ago you were an honest respectable boy, but now you’ve grown intolerant. It’s easy to find excuses to justify the problems at hand. If you can prove to me that you’re not just trying to get your way, then I will know that you’re not doing this just to spite my for it. Every time I give you the benefit of the doubt, you’ve used it against me. Even if it’s not in spite, and I do hope so, you might learn that distinction within yourself, between the prideful and the earnest choices we make so you can start making the right ones. You broke that trust a while ago, it’s up to you to earn it again. That’s why it’s changed.”

“You think this is just some excuse? What about you? You went camping all the time, this is hypocritical. How many camps and secret bases did you have on the farm again? Hiding there while Old Man Skinner threw rocks at them wake you up for work? How the local wolves took roost in one of them, and you laughed when you told me that story. How can I have that trust in YOU?”

“Every Generation, something remain the same.” Leaving the leisure of his railing armrest “When I had an argument with my folks, I spent hours in a day trying to find a way to make what I wanted right and to shame them; to make them cry and regret a single moment of my discomfort. My anger wasn’t enough to spite them, and I wanted them to feel the pain, like it was their doing, their fault, their arrogance, their wrongdoings... It took me years to realize what I was really doing; passing blame, guilting them, condemning them. To me, I honestly believed I was innocent of it, the righteous one, the one being hurt the most while consciously inflicting it back tenfold and calling it not fair enough. The nights spent fuming in anger, planning the words I would use against them, reminding myself only of the pride I had inside like it were another log on the fire... And yet, somehow when I grew, I understood much different. Tell me how age turned that one around? You’re not there yet, so this is why I give you the break my parents never gave me. This lesson, you won’t be taught by anyone other than your old man, so take it with honour. It means I care more for you than you let yourself believe. I see the hatred in your eyes Aaron, I see the rebellion sparking like a fire against me right now where we stand, do you think I’m blind son? Why can’t you see it building within you? Will that retribution you seek actually solve the problems tomorrow hasn’t brought you yet? Or will it only stave the moment from you opening your heart enough to care in return?”

“You’ve made tonight really unpleastant, and you want to blame me for it? You’re the one causing a scene here, in front of our guest, rambling on. Nothing would have been any different but YOU turned this whole thing into a dumpster fire! How do you think Felicity feels sitting there listening to you go on like this? Huh? You ever think about the problems you’re causing?”

“‘You’re this’, ‘you’re that’ do you not even hear yourself fulfilling everything I just told you would happen? Do you have any other ‘you’s’ you’d like to add to that?”

“And maybe experience only made you realize how to lay a trap for someone just to get your way.” Aaron retort, turning away from his Father, “Felicity, you should probably head back.”

“I’ve taught you well, and yet you use the good in it to turn your cheek and walk away.”

“Maybe if it were true, I wouldn’t be able to misuse it...” Aaron climbed the stairs and headed for his room. His mother, who was watching the whole thing from the balcony, was nowhere to be seen.

In the distance Aaron could hear the lamentations of his Father, whos awe struck him for so long now it seemed nearly unrelated. “My boy, he really is just like me...” Paul proclaimed quietly across the house. Trying to block it out, Aaron could still hear the whispers that crept through the walls “I’ve failed you, Father...” and it struck him.

Aaron laid there, feeling remorseful for himself, until hearing a knocking on his window. Aaron opened it up to find Felicity crouched over the shallow porch overhang attempting to keep their balance. Crawling in, he announced, “Wasn’t sure what you meant earlier, but I figured you might want some company.”

“Took you long enough.” Aaron sternly whispered, “What else is ‘head back’ supposed to mean?” Flopping back on his bed. He laid there, turning to the side, distracted and unresponsive for a moment. “Been thinking of whether or not to go...” Before another silence and a false tough guy act, “It’s not like all the nights I tried to appease them actually did anything, might as well stop trying altogether.” Sinking his head into his pillow with clenched fists, muffled by it in a weary tone, “Not like I have the time to argue with them, with that shit gremlin, and the bounty, and everything in the world that wants me dead; as always, like it’s always been...”

Felicity could hear the snoz and tears through the down fill silencer, and sat down beside him, stroking Aaron’s hair. He leaned down so that his lips could speak softly into Aaron’s ears, and comforted him. “I will protect you...” Holding onto him.

And after a while, Aaron rose his head, and sat up. It was quiet as they sat there. Aaron withdrew the tub of water, and let Felicity through the conduit. He grabbed his last things and locked the door and window behind him before fighting against gravity. The brisk air returned, throwing his tools over his back. “Flashlight...” Aaron confessed, “Knew I forgot something.” Kicking the dirt before looking up at the crystal sky above. He took in a deep breath of intoxicating mountain air and sighed. “Mark it down,” Aaron asserted, “I’m tired of all this, and I just want someone to hear me for once... This is where I put my foot down. This is the real world, the one worth fighting to see. I can’t keep running from it. I can’t keep using my old life as a crutch. I need to become a man, and face it head long.”

A sleeping bag, couple blankets, a few necessities of home; Aaron laid out his bedding against the dirt and set up camp inside the wooden wind blocker along the hillside. Stars twinkled overhead through the windswept treetops. Their brightness was unmatched anywhere, even atop of Giant’s Head, or the smokey skies above the old family farm.

Something lingered in his mind, of what Simon said, to love his parents while he still had them, and it concerned him. He wasn’t sure why it seemed so burdensome though. He’d be back in the morning, they’d still be there, he’d still be alive all the same. The world wouldn’t change, yet his hand in it sure felt otherwise.

Aaron felt a hard lump under him, and a string attached. He lifted himself up and found the earbuds Simon gave him, in order to discover the way to Ahklama. Even in this darkness, they seemed illuminated by the stars, and Aaron wondered. He always needed a place to think of, in order to make the portal open, but, what if he already had something from the place it was meant to access. Aaron reached over to his backpack, waking Felicity by accident and retrieved his container. It felt like a long shot, but he dangled the ear pieces in the water tub. They probably wouldn’t short out, being full crystal, and it’s not like he could plug the wire to anything from his world anyway. Holding the jack end, Aaron pictured the sensation of the objects he held and focused on it. Soon, the ear pieces slipped through, and a destination was created. Aaron’s astonishment stunted him, and he wondered if he had truly found it. Somewhere that the pathes didn’t lead back to like the city A-tram. It had to be, as the ear pieces rippled against gravity on the other side. After all, he was ‘half way there already’.

Aaron stuck his head in the portal, finding a blinding light, and an open sky in the daylight, but there was no sun. He crawled through even more until finding himself upon an endless ocean. The horizon faded with the sky, with a large crease across the top of his sight. Looking below the surface was a perfectly clear waterbed that seemed endlessly deep. He could see the fish swimming hundreds of feet below, some rather large, even leviathan in size and Aaron felt uneasy at what could cause such a pure blue water to be darkened and black on it’s massive bottom. Could it have been the endless life still swimming? Or corpses piled on it’s ocean floor like stone? Or something inexplicably massive. He could feel the presence of something much larger than comprehension having it’s sight upon him, and Aaron frantically withdrew himself from the portal while it was still open. His knees dug into the dirt on the other side, withdrawing himself where his arms could scarcely reach to retreat against, but he was still tipped forward. Aaron felt a strong presence above him, as well as below, and he was too frightened to lend his eyes to either for what he might find staring down upon him.

Clicking his feet together, Felicity finally took the hint and pulled him out from the portal. Aaron felt the pressure that overtook him cut away with each inch from the waters. Aaron felt horrifyingly light as he fell back from it, panting dry like his mouth was pure ethanol. After a few moments, he returned to his cognitive abilities long enough to spit out a cursive regard for what he saw and let himself unwind. “House rule, no one opens portals to unknown realms. I have no idea where I was rebounded to, but is sure as fuck wasn’t Ahklama.”

Morning came, dawning it’s bright sun through the trees and the hills far away. It came earlier than Aaron intended, and he grit himself unable to fall back to sleep until his alarm triggered. Aaron sat himself up, removing Felicity’s arm from his chest and breathed deeply. He rubbed his face, but nothing quite shook him from his tired state and he simply willed his body up from the earth once more.

He hauled his things through the portal he made last night, then poured the liquids back into his jar before returning his last tub this paycheck back into his backpack. Aaron yawned, feeling a numbing shiver that tingled his every fading sense, then stood fully. Felicity was still cranking out some hard Z’s but Aaron was ready to head back and woke them. “Come on,” Felicity returned, “You kept me up all night, let me sleep.”

Aaron shook his head, “I don’t know how you slept through my alarm clock.”

“Shove the insolent alarm clock under a festering cur...” Felicity retorted lazily, “I’m not getting up or so damn me to Hades, blood will be drawn from the very stone that ring’eth the accursed bell!” Felicity cursed, laying there, sinking their head into the stuffing. Aaron signed, sitting next to them until Felicity finally returned, sitting up “Damnit, I’m bloody awake!”

Finally relinquishing their rest, Aaron staggered back with him, carrying their things out to the primary portal.

“You’re not like... Turned off from hopping back through the portal after last night, are you?” Felicity questioned, “I don’t really feel like walking home this morning.”

“No... And I’m not sure I have the time to worry, either...” Aaron confessed, “I realize it’s just a stumbling block, probably just my panicking making it seem worse than it actually is. What would something so massively huge ever want to do with me in a sea brimming with life anyway? There’ll be good things we find too. Just chalk it up for experience, and keep moving I guess.” Kneeling down by the water’s edge. Aaron remembered his night, and how quickly the portal seemed to open, until withdrawing his wires to stair at. He tried it again, lighting the portal with the thoughts of home instead. Near instantly the conduit between him and the water opened. Aaron lowered his head to see where it lead but refused. Impressive as it was to work so quickly, he couldn’t dare himself in on the recent memory of the ocean’s terror. “How about you check it out, see if it worked?” Soon answering the questioning pause from Felicity “It’s not that bad, just let me know if it’s home or that ocean. I’ll... Pull you out if it is. Worst case you just see a cool place, and we can go back to the old way.”

Hesitantly Felicity lowered his head down, expecting to see some kind of demon king, or celestial being descend from the sky. “How come I get the feeling it really is much worse than you’re letting on?” His head landed briefly, until peeking in fully, and pulled out quickly.

“You’re not gonna kill me with suspense, are you?” Aaron moaned.

“It’s your bedroom...”

Aaron sighed a sigh of relief, before heading through. In his hands, held a shortcut to travelling, not that he couldn’t do it without. It was just convenient, a tool of sorts. He still had no idea why it worked, only that it did, and that Simon claimed it would help him understand one day; whenever that’ll be. At least it didn’t go back to the water realm.

Out of all the fear of being there though, something about the magnitude, and the difference of emotion reminded him of what he used to enjoy about discovering the unknown. Something about feeling something that he never knew; something they never had in Stagalnia. He was parted between the intense adrenaline, and the mystery of where he managed to end up, but for so long he seemed to run from it. Perhaps, things weren’t so bad after all, and he could relax, even in the great infinates... After all, it would take a hell of a lot to top the scary shit he just experienced. Given enough time, maybe he’d come to understand why Simon wasn’t in need of Aaron’s waters. The pathways, that he couldn’t see, and the things that had always been.