Blogs

a moment cracks dogs howl and the search lights sniff through. the inward eyes see.

"there is nothing more to say really. i know that's not what you want to hear. and i understand that."

his elderly grandfather reliving youth, peddling his experience with ice cream and a trip to the lake. his hands shake. and his grandson wonders will his shake the same? when he is that old?

"your planet will be taken. it has been decided. nothing further can be done."

murderer they called me, fiend, scoundrel, the headlines scattered across the nation on every newspaper, they had no pity nor spared any attack on my family. condemned to death i ran. into the forests through the forests of my youth. to the lake where we skipped stones. to a better time before all of this madness was all i knew.

smooth to the touch of my palm, cradled, a rounded stone. feeling the curves in my hands tossing it, flicking it just right. oblong stone through the endless reach of outer space. hurdling toward dear home.

the newspapers read, nothing can be done. an asteroid will impact with the earth and destroy all inhabitants. life will be extinguished. and this will be a dead world. i remember that day.

"the scientists claim nothing can be done. but we still have hope. i want to believe someone can do something. maybe if there's a God, God will do something." stamps lick envelopes close into postal purses for the longest of trips. stunned to find where they belong.

"you may now make your plea, the words will be recorded in the data file that will become the history of your planet, preserved in our records for all time."

it was all in the wrist he said, i remembered as i ran. the trick to skipping a stone. golden sunlight skipping over the waters. our limitations define us, but if we can remember who we are...

"Son, i'm not going to be here forever. comes time for everyman when he needs to go. get's called on to his next life." looking down on his grandson.

it was 10 years later, Emery. 10 long years feeling this alone. and you woke hard in a cold sweat, everything had changed but you never let go of that day. and your heart rotted for what you never forgave. but today, you'll drive out to that lake. and you will remember. in what time remains, you will never forget today.

"grandpa, where will you go?"

squating in the early morning stillness, young eyes catch the sun rise, and the dark valley comes to life, crystal blue water. an old friend, remembering, welcoming me home.

then a carried mist crawls over the water. and from the thickening fogs wafting, as the scattering light of daybreak fracturing through the solemnity of time space, like fingers through the canopy of the trees, oozing out distorting waves, a woman. emerging beautiful and blue. startled.

"what? who are you?" the teen rising to his feet, pulling away from the graceful blue form materializing from out of a dream.

"May i address the council?" The halls of the great galactic chamber uproar. whispering murmurs, hushed tones, the princess. the princess.

"It is the right of all things to seek out what they desire. and what greater desire is there but to live? to seek to thrive (then looking into the boy's eyes, holding his chin, keeping his gaze in hypnotic trance) to thrive. Is there any life left in these eyes? is there any hope? for all creatures and for one boy? can it be found? (turning to address the council) The will to Live. In the great cycles to which we are all beholden, the phoenix rises from ashes and decay. reborn into the sunlight. Could a princess be inspired by courage, would that she grant her royal decree, that the broken can once again be brave."

i hear the dogs barking in the distance. the threat of search lights, it won't be long before i'm found. but there is a cave. not far from where i am now. nobody knows about it. except for grandpa. can i make it? do i run? do i run?

scurrying through the heavy cover of the Oregon night. making ground on the cave. thinking he might just make it. the cave leads through a massive underground cavern, then exits to the ocean miles away. there, he should be able to disappear. 

In the belly of the cave he rests. a whisper wakes him, "what?!"

"Dont' move, son. they're coming for you."

"Grandpa?"

"Emery, take my hand. please, take my hand, do not be afraid." her blue ghostly eminence floating upon the fog, as firm to her as the earth. "there is always very little time. quickly, take my hand"

"Who's there?" fumbling around in the near dark dreamy with a slight bioluminescent algae growing on the rocks, "matches, where are the matches boy? if there's anything i taught ya was to always keep a pack of matches. you never know when you might be caught in the dark. alone" then, he remembered, his secret hiding space, with barely a squinting light lit the match.

"but, i'm not alone. am i?"

"Emery, the window is closing, the breaking day, do you see?" her finger pointing to the quickly rising Sun. "hurry." "your world still has a chance." and so, her head turning into the sunrise he saw the deepness of her brown yellow ringed eyes, as though galaxies themselves, and he felt something, faster than he could deny, his hand was extended and he was taken away.

"Council, even now, there is a possibility. The story moves to create an opportunity should we not allow the boy to stay and save himself? can we not allow the story to determine it's own path? will nothing of his world remain?"

"Princess, what you ask violates decency. he has no value nor part to play in the grand scheme of things. he is doomed as so his planet. Majesty leave this poor fool to die with what dignity left he has, to extinguish with the light of his birth."

"Let him play." turning to the boy, "he can find the way, there is still a chance."

"A slim one, Princess. but not enough to warrant-"

"I've made my choice. now let him choose his own."

"Princess, i don't know what to say. i'm not here to save myself, i'm here to save my people and my planet. you said there was a chance, but the council won't help me."

lighting the match reveals his grandfather. "but you're dead!"

"in this world, perhaps. but there are so many- me's"

"are you a ghost?"

"Nope. but you are." walking around the chamber reaches underneath a pile of rocks, "here, use this candle, you're running out of matches. bet you never knew this was here."

"i guess i'm not the only one with secrets."

"No one is hunting me for mine. now, Sit down. Listen to me. Do you remember the lake, skipping stones?"

"How are you even here? if you were alive all this time you couldn't come to me? told me something. anything? why didn't you help me? why!"

"not my choice. i'm sorry. we can't always have what we want. but we can be there for the moment when the need is greatest. and we can make a real difference."

"you sound like you're talking about the end of the world."

"Son, there's so very little time."

"What? first you're a ghost and now you're telling me the world is going to end? do you actually expect me to believe any of this?"

"no, Emery, i expect nothing from you. but you must choose. the council doesn't believe in you but i do. i know there is good inside of you, i know you want to do what's right. but we can't always have what we want, sometimes we have to do what the moment requires and be there when the need is greatest when we can make a real difference."

"Okay, princess, i choose. i choose to find a way to save my world. but i don't know what to do."

"hold out your hand. This amulet is my people's greatest treasure. take it."

"what does it do?"

"it has the power to bend reality like a skipping stone. and right now, there is a very large stone heading towards a very small planet of water. skip the stone."

"Skip the stone? how do i do that?"

"Right now, your grandfather is speaking to you in a cave."

"My grandfather? how can that be, i'm here and he's dead?"

"No, Emery, there are many of each of us, only one version of you is here. when i brought you here through the fog. at just the right moment, where you grandfather died of a heart attack 10 years to the moment to the day he died. the exact moment i would be allowed to slip through the secure fields that surround your planet in quarantine. the moment the machine my father built could transport me back through time to save his planet."

"Why are you helping me, Princess? i don't understand any of this."

"you always told me you'd say that. but i never believed you."

"i've never met you before today."

"i'm here because you're my father, or at least a version of you will be. You always regretted this day, the moment when you ran. when you took the Council's offer. the day your planet was destroyed."

looking within myself, "i wrote a story when i was a kid, i always wanted to travel through time and space. i wrote adventures in my journal, i made sketches of a geometry i saw in a dream."

"Do you mean this Journal? this journal is the basis of the machine."

"i'm a time traveler?"

"place the stone to your forehead."

"son, listen to me now. i know you done wrong. killed a man. i know times were tough. and ya got lost. i know when i died your grandma fell apart. and you grew up alone. sure you had your cousin but they was already on their way, had their own plans in life and they had no time for ya. but a youngin got to let that go. because i need you to remember the lake, remember skipping them stones."

"But, Why? what good will any of this do?"

Sighing deeply, can you feel him. you do, don't you Emery? "who's that speaking?"

"close your eyes and empty your mind."

You spent all those years lost, but you're recognizing my voice. it's me, it's your voice. but from another time, another place. where things are different where i was a king on another world. on a planet i was spared.

The Princess looking on, "focus on the stone."

i regretted the day i turned, you turned your back on the world. in my time, the earth is gone. but you can save her now. please, save her. you'll never live down this day, your heart will ache for eons. but it doesn't have to be this way. i made a device.

"Grandpa, what's going on here?"

"Son, i'm not your grandpa, time to come clean. i'm you. King of the Planet Hyrule, i am over 10,000 years old. and feeling it i might add. the machine we made, well i tried it out on myself first. appeared over 90 years ago on this planet. missed the mark abit. heh. i searched for the family but couldn't find them. until one day i realized there never was a family. i made the story up. so i made the family."

"how is that possible?"

"well, you're alot more clever than ya give yourself credit for and where there is a will there is always a way."

The King, continuing to channel his essence through the stone, as the princess guides you from the council into the machine.

"you were 8 years old and we played a game. skipping stones. remember the game i taught you? Exquisite Corpse? it wasn't a game. at least not like anything you've ever known."

"council, the choice has been made. make way with the preparations!"

"i realized it was me all along. when i met your grandma, i didn't recognize her, we look so different when we're young. but there was a familiarity there. as i didn't look old then. on my planet, i was suspended in a youthful age for all so long. there, once you reach maturity, no one ages anymore. but when i came back to earth, the old cycles picked up again. and now, well you can see. i'm not spring chicken anymore."

"Council, i am taking the boy to the machine."

"But, Princess, if you succeed in this madness, you will cease to be, none of this will ever have happened?"

"We can't always have what we want... besides, we don't know what will happen. and our family is nothing if not adventurers, and this is a mighty adventure."

strapping him into the device, she places her palm on his forehead, searching for the coordinates of the memory. "there it is. now i want you to remember skipping stones. if this works the asteroid will skip across the waters that will be imagined over your world."

"and we will never have met?" the massive rings above the chair of the cockpit begin to whirl, light pouring from the ceiling and as the floor fades into an eerie cool translucence The Princess looks up from the control panel smiling longfully.

"Father, always remember to play. everything lost will find it's way," pushing a final button the rooms fills with light blinding you. and disappearing until the next thing you see...

Back in the cave, i open my eyes and stare across the chamber finding the elderly man.

"you're highness." causing him to stand.

"You're highness."

i was a boy skipping stones. "i know what to do."

"Hurry, there is little time." and so i make my way away from the chamber hurrying to the entrance of the cave, but before i did. i ask, "what will happen to you, to me, to all of us?"

"all i can say is what i learned all those years as ruler of Hyrule, to my daughter, when sadness over took her and the hour was bleak or the road was tough. remember to play. everything lost will find it's way. "

"For what it's worth, i love you." then i ran. faster than i knew i could, feeling the end of the story was only sentences away. faster and faster. the dogs somehow hearing me, chasing me down. but it was too late. there, there's the lake. the dogs find me but just then Grandpa appears out of nowhere, how did he get there, the scent is the same, and they chase him away.

and i kneel in from of the lake with my eyes closed. and i remember when i was 8.

skipping stones across the lake. an urge comes over me, and it is at that horrifying moment that i wake.

but in my sheets i find a stone, glowing. glowing and know this stone. it has a story, whispering through the many worlds of mind.

like something out of a dream. or a story. a place i've been that was never real and a moment like a memory for a moment i never felt more awake. and a thought comes to me...

it was all in the wrist he said, i remembered as i ran. the trick to skipping a stone. golden sunlight skipping over the waters. our limitations define us, but if we can remember who we are...