Partnershipping with Parasites

If you have ever visited the forest of Hatuga, you know what a miraculous place it is – a place where the bird speaks lyric and the human twitters in the trees, a place where waterfalls flow upstream and apes lend books to man and beast alike. There is an order to the forest to the tune of mutual existence; the beings that live here rely on each other. They do so, not with the animalistic instinct calling them to be herds or flocks, but with complete conscious compliance with their own need for community, for fellowship. However, just because a relationship between beasts might be necessary, does not always make it a good match. There are some relationships that clearly favor one side over the other. This usually happens because one side would rather allow itself to be taken advantage of, than be deprived of the company.

In the heat of the jungle near the bank of the Euphrates shuffled about a complacent Capybara. Now, our Capybara was not complacent when it came to her meals, no; only the finest juiciest melons for this rodent. Nor was she complacent when it came to her resting spots, no; sleep came to her only in patches of grass from which sprouted a certain balance of coolness and warmth. In all of these, the Capybara was extremely selective, never settling.

Our Capybara was only complacent by vice of the friend she kept. That so-called “friend” was Buffalo Leech, an enormous worm who remained joined to Capybara’s hip through thick and thin. Quite literally, whether its host liked it or not.

She tended to like it.

“How am I so lucky,” the Capybara gushed to the Leech, “to have a friend as loyal as you?”

“Stop your squirming already,” muttered the Leech with its mouth full of hip, “or you’ll make me lose my grip. What good would that do either of us?”

For the Capybara, this Buffalo Leech constantly showered her with attention and words of encouragement. She did consider it her Leech, since the worm never seemed to take stock in anyone else. But by drinking her blood, it seemed to know exactly what he was feeling.

“You need to chill out, and don’t have such high expectations,” the Leech would say, when its rodent would start to stress over the mess in her territory or the flavor of her water. “It’s not like you can do much about it, anyway. But you can make your blood taste better by relaxing, so why don’t you do that for me, huh?”

The Capybara never felt alone with the Leech, and was grateful to her companion for its good advice and constructive critique.

Such as, when she was feeling sad for no reason:

“There’s no need to feel depressed. It’s all in your head! Depression is just the disappointment you feel when you wake up and remember that all you are is just a really big rat.”

Or, when she couldn’t quite nail the steps for a new dance she was practicing:

“Oh, wow, you’re doing great. It’s never too late to learn a groovy dance. So it won’t really hurt if you put it off, try it again tomorrow or something, right? Spend some time with me instead…I’m feeling pretty hungry.”

Or, if she had eaten one too many melons for lunch:

“Whoa, there, large Marge. Let’s not get too excited and eat the whole forest, m’kay? What will folks think if they see me hanging around a fat rat who has no self-control? They’ll think I have no self control, either.”

All the while, never ceasing its perpetual slurp.

One morning, however, the Capybara felt…off. She felt like something was weighing her down, breaking her back, sinking her steps. And there was! The Buffalo Leech had grown more than a foot long, weighing thirty pounds full of its host’s blood. The Capybara could live with that, for she was still physically solid on the outside. But on the inside, the Leech’s words had worn her down.

“Man, aren’t you a late riser,” yawned the Leech. “Not like you’ve got anyone waiting for you, or any big plans, though…so I guess it’s all right. Why don’t you hang with me again today?”

The Capybara nodded, used to the routine. But, as the Leech was taking its morning swim in the murky river, she suddenly had an enlightening thought: to run away, and leave the Leech on its own! How foolish it would feel, to look around, and not see its friend anywhere in sight? That would teach the squirmy wormy to weigh me down, thought the Capybara. Worse, teach it to enjoy weighing me down, if it insists on treating me like a pack mule.

The Capybara rose to her feet to follow through with the threats running across her brain. She turned, poised to run…and buckled. Before her was the vast expanse of Hatuga, the steamy jungle that promised only the uncomfortable humidity of loneliness in its tangled brush.

The Capybara felt absolutely awful. She was the worst! How could she ever treat a true friend like that?

“Well, are you going?”

Her heart skipped a beat as he whirled back to the river. Did the Leech bear witness to her traitorous turn? Was she about to get chastised, or, worse, lose a friend?

“Hoo-wee! Aren’t you the jumpy kind? I like that, means we got something in common!”

The Capybara felt something infinitesimally small leap across her ribs, up her back, around her neck, and DINK! Right on the end of her nose!

“You and I will get along just fine,” said a good-natured Flea. “I LOoOoOVE to jump! Don’t stop on account of me, new bounce-buddy! Lessgo!”

So, off they went. It was relief to the Capybara, knowing she could leave the Leech behind, yet still have a friend whispering encouragement in her ear. And what a stark difference in language between the Leech and the Flea! The Flea was full of pep, full of optimism, always wanting to hop along and do the next fun thing. He constantly prodded the Capybara along, never allowing her to stop for a moment, to rest and get mired in worries over what Buffalo Leech was up to.

After a short while, though, Capybara began to realize that the Flea was full of more energy than she had the energy to dream she could have. But she pretended like she wasn’t worn down, sluggish, unable to scratch that persistent itch that demanded she get up and follow the Flea anywhere he wanted. For, at the end of the day, the Capybara would sacrifice her comfort to ensure she at least had one animal there right beside her against the wilds of Hatuga.

It was the Flea’s patience that snapped first.

“Hey, what gives?” barked the Flea. “I thought you were this fun girl who liked to do fun things, not some sad sack of a sorry squirrel! I think I’ll have to hop along and find some friends who can keep up with my company. Call me again when you decide to pull your sticks out of the mud, m’kay?”

And, with one last jeer, the Flea abandoned friendship in the lifeboat of a passing wallaby.

“Oh, no…” moaned Capybara, already feeling the daunting emptiness well up inside her. “What am I going to do without Buffalo Leech or the Flea? I’ll have no one to talk to, no one who relies on me. I’m all alone!”

“I can help you out,” replied a slinky voice in the mud beneath her feet. Tapeworm rose up on its paper-thin body until it was eye-level with Capybara. “But I don’t trust just anyone. I’m very vulnerable, you see, and I need to make sure a friend of mine has a strong constitution.”

That sounded reasonable to the Capybara. The rest of her afternoon was shared with a swapping of secrets, trying to find the next story that they could both relate to. By the time the moon shone through Tapeworm’s translucent body, both had decided that they could trust each other completely as friends. Capybara was content, and they curled up together in a perfectly chosen patch of grass to commemorate the new companionship.

When morning came, Tapeworm was nowhere to be found. Capybara searched and searched, but it was like Tapeworm had vanished into some dark recess somewhere it could never be found. All Capybara had left was a sinking pit in the depths of her stomach, as if the potential of this new friend had created an abscess in its absence that ate away at her last sliver of strength. Capybara was certain that she and Tapeworm were compatible. After all, they had shared so much together in just one night! Why would it just up and disappear like that? There was nothing Capybara could do, now, except wallow in pain and loneliness, wishing on a star that Buffalo Leech would find its way back to her.

A carefree twitter floated down in response to her sobs. Starling landed on her back with the lightest skip, hardly noticed at all until he came to perch near Capybara’s ear.

“No need to squeak around all sorrowful-like, buddy. Tell me what ails ya, and lemme see if I can’t do something about it.”

After listening to her sob-story, Starling had nothing but the realest of sympathies.

“That’s what happens when you surround yourself with parasites. A bunch of little creepy crawlies whose only purpose in life is to suck the energy out of yours. But don’t you worry, naw-ah! Starling’ll keep you company for a little bit. But then, buddy, you gotta learn how to live on your own. Think ya can handle that?”

Capybara sniffled and felt like protesting, but deep down she knew that whatever protests came out were just leftover manipulations from Buffalo Leech, the Flea, and Tapeworm. Starling sang agreeably as she nodded, and she felt his song lift a little the burden of her heart.

Over the next week, Capybara slowly but surely recovered the life sucked from her by those nasty parasites. First the blood drawn by Buffalo Leech returned to her, then the itching to move prompted by Flea vanished, and finally the deep feeling of longing caused by Tapeworm passed through her. Starling was a pleasant and well-rounded conversationalist, never dominating, and always interested in hearing about Capybara’s current state of thinking or feeling. He was, for a season, a good friend.

But he was not hers, having a family to provide for, and she was okay with that. When they parted on good terms, Capybara felt refreshed, confident she could now stand on her own four legs. She still was worried about being alone, but that was natural – Friends made or lost, they were not made forever. Neither were they made to be exclusively hers. But at least she now knew that any friend who felt like a bloodsucking parasite was no friend of hers. She would feel no remorse in cutting it off, even if it meant her search would continue.

Such a selective Capybara has never looked healthier.

The Lonely Scavenger

The forest of Hatuga sometimes acts outside its nature. It is not unusual to get a sunburn in the middle of Winter, or be buried under snow six feet deep in the high time of Summer. But, if a thing occurs without interference from circling elements, is it not anything else but natural? True, that thing might first strike us as bizarre or strange, but this does not discount it from being a natural thing at its root. Nature can be quite contradictory, after all; the only excuse is when a thing tries to become that which it flat-out cannot be. Then, it becomes truly unnatural.

High above the munros of western Hatuga soared a thing that many called “unnatural.” That thing was a bird of prey, a magnificent Bearded Vulture, who went by the name of “Ivan.” It was a name he had to remind himself of multiple times a day, since there was no one around to call him by it. Yes, Ivan was quite the friendless flier, as Bearded Vultures are a species whose sentence is solitude. He tried his talon at chumming it with the rest of the animal kingdom, but never did it dawn on him how frightened they were by his ostentatious display. Not even Ivan’s naïve entreaties could break that natural bond between his visage and terror itself. But he assumed they had somewhere to be, and refused to hold it against them.

Bearded Vultures take great pride in how they decorate themselves; Ivan was no exception, rubbing his ruffles with rust from the soil. He took pride in preening, a laborious effort until his naturally white feathers burned a sunset orange. Plucking up a few choice bones from the ossuary he called nest, Ivan flung on the rib-cage of a chicken as a mask and the skulls of mice as rings, then set off to once again to impress the neighbors in vain with his gaudy attempt at compensating for those secret flaws that no one would educate him on.

Alas, what did the poor bird expect? The same result, no matter how many months he tried to achieve a different result. Off would bolt the neighbors, bird and mammal and reptile, scared to death of his rattling across the skies – lest they end up the next decoration, some sort of bracelet or crown! After five hours of searching for new friends (or even acquaintances) in vain, Ivan landed in a valley for drink. His imposing stature, bright makeup, and sharp beak shone on the surface. The more he stared at his reflection, the more frustrated he grew. These animals didn’t flee before him in a hurry to meet prior arrangements! No…he knew the real reason now. He was disgusting.

The more Ivan though about how disgusting he was to his neighbors, the more disgusted he found himself. The more disgusted he was with himself, the more he felt like…no, he truly did begin to cry. Why wouldn’t he? He was so alone – an unnatural existence staining Hatuga’s munros. The thought frightened him: was to be spurned by all truly the natural order for a Bearded Vulture like Ivan? There was no way a lonely, disgusting creature like himself was strong enough to defy nature.

Stripping off his heavy bone jewelry, washing away his heavy iron stains, Ivan quietly cried to himself until he passed out from weariness at the bank of the pond.

Ivan slept almost peacefully through the morning. When it had almost entirely passed, he awoke with a start to find himself in the midst of a heard of mountain goats. They grazed about him, completely unafraid of the scarlet eyed raptor in their midst. Not wanting to break the peaceful spell, Ivan just sat.

“Excuse me?” Ivan’s eyes refocused down below his enormous wings, where a small, dewey-eyed goat whispered to him. “Are you going to eat that patch of grass?”

“So that’s what it is,” Ivan realized in his head, keeping the revelation to himself. “These goats don’t realize what I am! They think I’m a goat, too, which means…”

Ivan smiled, bent his preened and polished neck towards the dirt, and began to munch on the grass. The small goat smiled back, and stripped a root nearby. Ivan almost cried again – this time for joy.

A week went by, and Ivan did his best to blend in with the herd of mountain goats. He continued to eat the same grass they did, and felt his strength fading fast. Of course, he was beyond himself with happiness at finally being accepted, so the growlings in his gizzard could be stomached if it meant being a part of community. But that wasn’t the only discomfort. The mountain goats, insisting that his painted scarlet feathers were absolutely atrocious, forced him to scrub out all the fashion he prided himself on until he was his natural state of blank. This meant that the filth acquired by wallowing on the ground instead of flying through the sky was all the more apparent.

When mating season commenced, the male goats invited Ivan to join them in their annual ritual. This ritual involved fierce duels, for which Ivan was not equipped unless he absolved his guilt in gouging them with his talons. But he was worried he would be exiled if it came to that, and so was gouged himself, his feathers turning purple and blue as the rival goats stomped him with their hooves and battered him with their horns. He also failed to climb mountains as the other goats did, his awkward knees not built for crawling up a cliff face as their powerful legs and seasoned hooves. Ivan’s talons scritched and scratched, losing their edge, and with nothing to show as he struggled to find purchase that would carry him to the heights of the rest of the herd. But he was one of the goats now, and could not bring himself to use his wings against their kindness, for the sake of his own inclusion.

Ivan also came to terms with the fact that, although the community had accepted him, the individual goats did not. The little goat that grazed with him first never got past her meager greetings. The others, though treating him tolerably well, did not attempt to know him better or closer than if he was just a visitor. Maybe they did see that he was a vulture, and didn’t think it worth pursuing a relationship with him because his presence was of no use to the future of mountain goats? Worry compounded Ivan’s weakness, day-by-day, until he could hardly flap his wings to get off the ground anymore. His heart was just as grounded – and yet still it lied to itself, that this was better than being alone.

One morning, Ivan was roused by the feared bleating of the herd. A shadow flashed across the ground, a fierce shriek, the announcement of a Harpy Eagle as she terrorized the mountain goats with gleeful dive-bombings.

“Ivan,” shouted the herd, almost in unison, “You’re one of us, Ivan! Save us from that bully Harpy!”

van, his heart suddenly alighted by the opportunity to become useful, ignored all his prior fears and weighted wings and took to the skies. He would prove himself, and maybe they would finally accept him as a fellow mountain goat!

The Harpy Eagle didn’t know what hit her at first; she was not expecting an assault from below. Even less so from a fellow raptor, since she was the largest of predatory birds behind Ivan, whose size was closer to an albatross than to his own species. Truly a battle of griffons, talon-locked, crashing into cliff faces and shredding trees. Ivan gouged as best he could, but his claws just didn’t grasp like they used to, pared down to ensure he did not fatally wound his herd. His beak was also blunted, having been close to caving in after one too many collisions with the bony crowns of his bleating brethren. It was still a struggle for her, but Harpy finally slammed Ivan onto his back against a Munro Top. Panting and bleeding, they rested there, gentle winds ruffling their crooked feathers.

“I am surprised,” Harpy gasped, “That a big bird like you could barely put up a fight. There’s plenty to share, though, and I’m willing to cut you in if you can pull your own weight in a hunt better than you can in a duel.”

“I won’t let you hurt them,” wheezed Ivan. “That’s my herd down there. They’re counting on me to protect them.”

Harpy was dumbstruck until laughter struck her even harder. She croaked and cawed at Ivan as he lay on his back. He felt very small, and became aware of his weak wings and growling gizzard again.

“They’ve taken you for a fool, scavenger,” Harpy plainly stated, her expression now serious and unwavering. “Those goats, jealous of your power and your beauty, have pulled you down into the mud with them. They’ve tried to make you a goat, not only to use you, but also to make that which they envy look absolutely ridiculous.”

“They have not! They accepted me-“

“Have they?” Harpy extended her claw, helping Ivan back onto his feet. He towered over her, still, but in this moment she seemed much more empowered than he. What was it, Ivan wondered, that filled this solitary raptor with such conviction?

“I’m glad, even if we butted heads for a moment, that we ran into each other. I’m sure you know the feeling of loneliness that I do, and maybe it’s because you’ve felt it longer that you caved in and settled with sheep. But I ask again, have they really accepted you? Do you feel that it’s right, natural, even, for you to be grazing about down there? Or do you belong up here in the clouds, with me?”

Ivan was torn, and Harpy could read it in his dulled, scarlet eyes. It wasn’t just loneliness – he did not want to betray his friends.

“In three days,” she said, “I will return to hunt. Watch your so-called ‘herd,’ and let me know if they truly see you as a part of them as much as you think they do.” With that, Harpy leapt into the sky and soared, higher and higher on her unapologetically grey wings.

When Ivan returned to the goats, he was met with appreciative bleating and the stomping of hooves. But something new in their interactions with him became clear, some deep-seated resentment towards him. He had never noticed how they talked down to him and isolated him at the same time that they included him in their activities. He was there, but he was not really a part of them. Even their gratitude for chasing away Harpy was backhanded, questioning his ability and wondering why it took him so long to do what should have been natural to him.

The three days didn’t even need to fully pass for Ivan to finally see the mountain goats for what they were. They were miserable creatures, constantly fighting to prove superiority over each other, and eating nonstop to fill some sort of hole in their hearts. They envied Ivan, the individuality of his fashion, his ability to scale the Munro Tops by wing rather than by hoof, and even his sonorous voice. Every activity they included him in, though out of the spirit of community, was meant to break him down into just another miserable goat in the mountains.

Ivan flew to a Munro Top for the first time in a long time, to be alone with his thoughts like he used to be. And it was no surprise that all the thoughts waiting for him were terribly depressing first. Not only was his part in the herd built on lies, but the lies were multifaceted. The herd had lied to Ivan, for he was never really one of them and they had no intention of accepting him as one of them in the first place. Ivan had lied to the herd, for which he physically and mentally weakened himself in order to be accepted by them. And, worst of all, Ivan had lied to himself, and now must go through the withdrawal of separating himself from the goats he thought he had grown close to over the past month.

There was a flutter of wings, deceptively light, which Ivan craned his neck to see Harpy perched next to him. Harpy Eagles are patient, and she made no further attempts to reason with him while his wounds were this deep. He was nursing scars both self-afflicted and society-afflicted, and she knew she would not be able to find words that evenly healed both types of infections. He would need to sort through it himself. For now, she would hunt.

When the Mountain Goats had first found Ivan at the watering hole, observing his lonely shadow for some time, they thought bringing him into their herd was an ingenious way to both eliminate a potential foe and wield him as a weapon to keep their herd safe. They pleasured in how ridiculous he looked while trying to please them, laughing at his pathetic attempts to seek approval and even how he spurned his own natural gifts to adopt theirs.

They no longer laughed as Harpy tugged one of them straight off the face of a munro, sending them bleating until they were dashed on the rocks below. Not of fear, but pure jealousy of the natural talents of an eagle, and all those gifts that made her such an adept predator. They would be predators, too, if they could help it. But they couldn’t even help themselves as they scrambled to safety while Harpy was busy with her freshly fallen dinner.

The Mountain Goats conspired to punish Ivan for sitting out and refusing to sacrifice his dignity for the herd. How dare he, when they had done so much to include him in their mating rituals and mountain climbing! If he felt outcast before, they promised to double their efforts in making him feel both a part of and apart from the herd, and eagerly anticipated how despondent that mighty wyvern would feel in beholding himself to sheep.

Just when they were patting themselves on the back for their clever cruelty, a terrified baaa-ing sounded out from the outer fringe of their circle, carried up, up, and away into the night sky, then plummeting to a halt in the valley below. The sheep were struck with fear – had Harpy finished her feast already, and was back for more? They counted amongst themselves, but even the mountain goats as a herd could not keep track of their own, for the individual mattered very little when they all thought alike.

They realized their mistake as an enormous flap of wings alerted them to the dragon hovering above them – the vulture ready to scavenge the decay of their community. So excited and self-righteous was the mountain goats’ persecution of Ivan, that their vocalization had carried through the Munro Tops up to where he had been lost in thought. Now aware of the obvious truth, Ivan painted his feathers to their former glory, sharpened his talons and beak on a whetstone, decorated his magnificent frame with all his hard-earned jewelry, and filled his gizzard with the fulness of conviction and righteousness that he had been sacrificing at the altar of companionship. Freed from those chains that bound him to the ground, he took to the skies and returned to the herd. Not to join them, but to put them in their natural place.

For the rest of their days, the jangling of bones and the steady beat of wind thrust downwards filled the Mountain Goats with fear. They gnashed their teeth and stamped their hooves in rage and jealousy, but their horns did them little good as they were plucked up by the raptors preying on their insecurities. Ivan felt no joy or vengeance from his hunts – he had realized that to sometimes be alone was the natural state of things. And if there was one thing his time as a goat taught him, it was to not be ashamed of his gifts. There will always be a Harpy out there to complement them, if one searches the skies and not the ground.

“A Knock at the Door…Who could it Be?”

The essay prompt that spurred the bizarre beginning of a short story that got me into the Chapman University Screenwriting program. This is the unedited submitted copy, for all you folks trying out for creative programs at university.

The lesson is this, that there are three things you need to know how to deliver: entertainment, purpose, and expectations. Once you show that you can work with these three things, using them and giving them to your audience, you might at least get a shot.

That being said, it’s funny how unpolished my style was back then, looking at it now.

“Good evening! I was rather parched, so I helped myself to your tea. I hope you don’t mind?”

“GYAH!”

No sooner had I closed the door to my apartment and flipped on the lights was I met with the unexpected response of a voice that was coming from my empty rooms. Not only is my heart still beating from such a nasty shock, but the surprise also caused me to trip backwards and conk my head against the door handle. Jeez, that hurts…oh, terrific. Now I’m bleeding. Can this day possibly get any worse?

“Incorrect, my dear boy! Your day cannot get any worse!”

Wait, did the voice just…read my mind? Hah, yeah, like that’s possible. Who exactly is speaking to me, anyway? I’m really not in the mood to get toyed with like this.

“You are right; it’s not possible to read minds. I’m just…well, sufficiently educated, I suppose you could say. OH! Deary me! Forgive my impudence; please allow me to greet you properly. After all, I am a man of manners, if nothing else.”

The singsong voice finally manifested itself as a squat little man who had been sitting on my couch the entire time. Funny how I didn’t notice the voice coming from that direction. Then again, it was sort of echoing throughout the apartment. He bounced up onto the back of the sofa with a squeak of his shoes and sprang across the room to daintily land on my dining table with a second squeak. I finally got a good look at the owner of that strange, childish voice, and I must say that I have never seen anyone like him. If he stood next to me, I’m sure that his head would come to the bottom of my chest. He was astonishingly round…like a beach ball. I can hardly believe I’m saying it, but he looks like a beach ball. I mean, his legs and arms look about the correct proportion for his size, but…his body…A beach ball decked out in a grey suit and spats, with a tiny round bowler hat resting atop his gleaming, hairless head. His sideburns were bushy, running all the way down his hard-set, rectangular jawbones until they reached his chin, where they were divided straight down the middle. His thin, sharp moustache twitched with every movement of his scraggly eyebrows, which were positioned over beady, expressionless eyes. They were expressionless in that they were wide open, threatening to render his countenance as one of madness if his mannerisms weren’t so contrastingly jolly. Actually, only his right eye looked as such, since I can’t affirm what’s behind that misty, cracked monocle covering his left eye. When his feet touched the tabletop, he tossed his bowler hat onto the tip of his black, ragged umbrella and spun slowly on one foot.

“I am your Ferry Godfather! Your misfortunes have played sad melodies unto my ears, and I have sailed across the Space Stream with the answer to your plague of problems!”

Okay… either this guy escaped from a mental ward, or I unconsciously stopped by a bar for a drink on the way home.

“So, you’re my Fairy Godfather, huh? Is that your magic wand?”

“This is an umbrella, young man. And it is Ferry Godfather, not Fairy. If you are this daft, then I am now not at all ignorant as to why you are faced with such adversity.”

“Ho, yeah? What do you know about my adversity, old man? You could be in a lot more trouble than me if I call the police on you for breaking and entering.”

Ferry stopped twirling, but his foot didn’t return to the ground. He peered at me from the side, flashing a broad smile full of crooked teeth, and flung his hat from the umbrella’s point back onto his head. He started to wheeze profusely, and it wasn’t until he opened his mouth and let out several booming guffaws that I realized the old coot was laughing.

“My dear Mr. Niles, permit me enlighten you as to your current situation. Your parents have cut you off monetarily. This raises a problem since you are in desperate need of funds. Sadly, because you were fired from your job recently, you have hardly anything left to eat, and will also soon lose rights to this cozy apartment. The icing on the cake is that your girlfriend just broke up with you tonight when she discovered could no longer provide for her.”

I can’t believe it…he knows my name already, what I’m going through…

“How…how do you know all of this?”

Instead of answering my question, Ferry threw his umbrella into the air before thrusting it inches away from my nose. The enthusiasm of his motions was bizarre, especially since whatever nature his tone reflected never affected the wild look in his eyes.

“My dear boy, I have journeyed here to you with an opportunity. An opportunity to find what you are looking for. Your discontent is due to some fault within yourself, yes, but also because of the faults you find in the world. Shake my hand, and I will take you on a journey to find your ideal reality in the hopes that you might discover exactly what it is you need.”
“You’re talking idiocy. Just leave; all I want is peace.”

“Which you will never find if that is your pursuit. Peace is a byproduct, for it is never permanent for a single second. Besides…”

Ferry drew close and stared into my eyes, burning them with the paced wheezing of his putrid breath. I could almost swear that he was floating in midair.

“I thought you wanted to live a different life?”

He’s been following me home. There’s no other explanation. I said that in the streets…and how else could he have known about my breakup with Kylie? But, even so…this balloon-shaped man is making a pretty nice offer. The life that I want? It sounds too good to be true, but I clasped his outstretched hand anyway. Might be funny to watch the lunatic try.

“I doubt you can do it, but, if granting my wishes will get you out of my house, then go ahead and work your magic.”

The wind howled hard against the side of the building, as if with the intention of reducing it to rubble. Ferry’s grin stretched even further than before, his moustache’s tips pointing straight up and to the side in the shape of a “v.” In a single squeaky bounce, he flew across the living room and landed directly in front of the window. He spun the umbrella in his fingertips before gripping it firmly by the middle and cleanly swiping downwards beside him. The crook of the handle caught on some piece of fabric that appeared to be woven into thin air, and then…impossible…
“Come forth, dear Mr. Niles. It is time for me to ferry you across the Space Stream.”

“I don’t know…I’m not sure I feel comfortable going through there…”

I nodded to the giant, bluish-black void that seemed to be torn right through the stitching of reality. It pulled at my heart, like some giant vacuum. At my response, Ferry’s face darkened, but it was only for a brief second. His cheeks returned to their rosy color, and he laughed heartily.

“Please, Mr. Niles. I am more than capable of ferrying you across the Space Stream.”

“But…you don’t even have a boat!”

“Nonsense! Everyone knows that umbrellas are the most efficient way to travel!”
Ferry stuck his arm into his bowler hat and pulled out an umbrella. I tried to escape the ravings of this odd entity, but he latched the crook of it onto the back of my pants.

“You are now one of my treasured passengers of fate, Mr. Niles! Welcome aboard!”

With a grand flick of his wrist, the umbrella’s folds burst open, and I was dragged into that vast expanse; away from the portly ferryman and my apartment, bound for who-knows-where.

Fixation

Last night, I saw a demon.

It came to me in a garden touched by autumn. The leaves were browned with rot, a murky stream of fog flowing in-between dense hedge. Not much else could be seen, except that the sky was nearing twilight, all blackish orange. My vision faded in and out, in and out – synchronized with jagged breathing. Walking forward, I gradually realized with faint concern that I was not going anywhere at all; it was the garden moving past me.

The scenery remained the same, never-changing, those autumn leaves tinged in their rusty orange dimmed further by the fog and the choking sun. I was nervous, trembling nervous. Yet the garden kept walking, on and on into nothingness. I wished so desperately for it to stop, not because I saw anything frightening, not because I expected any terror from the faceless leaves, but because I could not control if I would eventually come upon something frightening or terrible.

It was a fear realized when I came upon the demon.

I cannot say how I knew it was a demon. Until this dream, I had never been in the presence of one. It appeared first as no more than part of the pitch nothingness at the end of the garden. But, as I drew nearer, its shape was defined by what was not there, and I became aware of a malicious consciousness lurking in a spiritual form. As my heart raced, my vision cleared, and I saw that the pitch was formed with purpose: the shape of a human, cut out like a paper man in the fabric of space, a black hole sucking the garden into itself. Sprouting from its head were two long appendages, an appearance like ears. There was nothing overt about it that would make one consider it a demon. Yet it was, simply because I knew it to be true as soon as I saw it. I classified it immediately by the feeling alone, before I even had the chance to mark its appearance.

The demon stood suspended, waiting for me to come. The clearer that empty form became, the faster my heart raced from fear. Those two ears twitched, as if hearing my pulse, and its own evil owner crackled like static, not from glee, but from the anticipation of satiated hunger. I do not know what exactly it was hungry for, but I knew that whatever it was was stored deep inside me. At first I knew this was but a dream – I was convinced this was a vision that could not affect me. But, the longer I stared into the infinite darkness of the demon, the less certain I was that this was certain. As my courage wavered, I was aware that the demon had some sort of physical body; bits and pieces of a describable appearance phased in and out of the darkness. I strained my vision to see those pieces clearly.

It was then I began to fear for my life.

I can’t tell you why. I’ve basically given up all possible explanations, and there’s no way of finding explanations when you’re trapped inside a nightmare. All I know is that the longer I stared into the demon, the more aware I became that I was going to die in that garden, at the feet of that demon. My whole body was wracked with hopelessness, the primal fear of promised doom.

I stared and the demon stared back. It had no eyes, , not all of the time, yet somehow it held my stare without break. My neck strained under that Hellish glare – my head jolted up and down – these were the throes of death, more violent the clearer my spectre became. I had to look away, or I would die there.

I could not look away. So I woke up.

I woke not on my own, but by the uncontrollable thrashings of my own body. They startled me out of my mind, and, even pulled back into the communal plane, I continued jerking about like one possessed for another minute. When the shakes subsided, and my head stopped its possessed bobbing, I was left exhausted, traumatized, sleepless at four in the morning. It was an epileptic seizure that saved me, but I was sure, if I were to see the demon again, it would be an epileptic seizure that kills me. Oh-so close to death in those waking moments, I wandered my apartment without a thought in my head for a while. Thoughts were replaced with terror, terror that every shadow behind every door concealed a devil determined to draw me back into the dream – to force me to stare into the demon until I finally succumbed to hopelessness. I sweated, fearful that a devious grin or a black form was waiting to propel me into fear again, behind the door, at the foot of the bed, at the end of the hall. This was neurosis speaking. But that neurosis revealed something to me: I understood the only way to avoid such an end was to force myself not to expect, and consequently peer into the demon. It was the demon’s unveiling, not its presence, that would prove to be fatal. Knowing this didn’t do a thing to quell my fears.

After wiping the drool off my pillow and cleaning the sweat off with a shower, I fixed some coffee and watched The Autopsy of Jane Doe. It was a frightful film, but I had chosen it in particular because I wanted to check something: to see if the nightmare affected my experience with the movie. It helped feed the dark atmosphere, certainly, but my thoughts were untinged by the evil in that movie. It was posing as evil, a watered-down replication of the darkest malignance, which I had borne witness to. The film even proved to be a welcome distraction, entertaining me and drawing my thoughts away from thoughts that would otherwise make the morning drudge along in fear of every dark corner.

When the film finished, I looked online for explanations of that nightmare. Some people propose to be experts at reading visions, and most opinions online are free (some of the traumatized love to relieve their fears to connect with others of the same thought or experience). However, all I could find were mentions of “dark men” with “black hats,” furry beasts, or your Slenderman types; hardly any were recognized as the demon that I came upon. There were records of possessions that lead to epileptic seizures, but barely any provided descriptions of the demonic culprit. Moreover, none had mentioned that singular despair of looking into the figure – how that figure fashioned from void material clenched your gut with the feeling that life was on the line. As far as I could tell, I was the only one writing about it. It was my fear alone.

I noticed something over the next few weeks. I noticed that the people around me were not privy to fear. Anxiety, yes. Depression, yes. Wariness, most definitely. But true, unadulterated fear is not something present in most college students’ lives. True fear is founded on the precept that all things are about to end, and that there will be no chance for recovery because there will be nothing to build from. Just one ruined shell of what was once a being, laid low by forces outside their control. That is death. That is the fear I woke to in those dawning hours. Their numbness was not born from courage, but rather imperceptibility. They had not faced death – there is no way they could no what fear felt like.

Yet the fear only lasted through half the day. My mind became preoccupied with other things, and what I thought I saw in the demon was discounted as a nightmare, brought on by subconscious thoughts that I could not be bothered to untangle. My fear was irrational, heightened by the certainty that I knew what I had been looking at, when I really did not. But, as I considered the impact of fear on my peers, I became more relaxed with the idea that whatever would come, would come. Only One has the power to stop it, and I prayed, but I was unafraid because I knew the demon could only take my life, not me.

Within a month, I found myself returned to the twilight garden. It had been some time since I stopped philosophizing fear, content with the answers I found. I did not fight the hedges and the fog as they rolled onwards, but focused rather on confronting what would be at the end. It took longer than last time. Much longer. Perhaps it only seemed longer, since I was now aware, but the garden appeared to have grown while I was away. My nerves were steeled in preparation, but they loosened with impatience as there was no break in the orange-black foliage in sight.

Only then did the demon manifest. At the end of the garden, wherein it only seems to continue on towards nowhere, did the demon finally manifest through its spatial tear. My body was transported by spasms, and I gasped for the courage to stare my reaper straight in its faceless eyes. The longer I held my gaze, the clearer the demon seemed to me; likewise, the longer I held my gaze, the more violent my spasms became. The waiting, the journey through the garden, had sent me to slaughter, wearing down all my reassurances by forcing me to stand at attention until it arrived at the proper point. And now the demon had the upper hand.

But still I gazed, and still I picked apart the demon’s existence. As its body became clear to me, I realized it was not made of parts familiar to corporeal sight, but felt in the mind’s eye. The more I picked it apart, the less I saw, and consequently the more I feared because the demon was made of fear itself, and had tricked me by its stillness into believing I could stare directly into it and not be afraid. Its ears twitched. They were not ears at all, but antennae detecting the worry in my heart and manipulating it into possessive fear. I had fallen for the demon’s unassuming nature, and my body was now beyond my control.

Unable to look away, unable to run away, I had no choice but to look into the depths of that hole as I was drawn ever nearer. Closer, closer, death approached. The garden soon brought me to the demon’s feet, and I realized that we had reached the end. As I collapsed to the ground, trembling from seizures, I stared unflinchingly up at the demon. Its gaze seemed to look past me, as if I were already lost and thereby not worth further attention. My vision faded in and out of blackness, as the twilight was slowly fading into night. On the cusp of death, I realized that this figure, this demon, though made of fear, was not frightening at all. It was the fear I saw in it, and what I feared that meant for me, which brought me nearer to death. It was fear for loss of control, not the loss of control itself, that convinced me that hope was now just a dream, and this nightmare a reality.

In that dawning thought, I found strength. In that strength, I found peace.