Captain Nowhere (Part 4) (585 hits)
Category: Quotes & StoriesRating: 1.91 on 12 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Yes (View user info) at 2005-06-13 16:19:39 EDT
Captain Nowhere (Part 4)
Part 1: http://www.ubersite.com/m/68067
Part 2: http://www.ubersite.com/m/68145
Part 3: http://www.ubersite.com/m/68277
"How far is the circus?" I asked. We were in another forest. This one was made of tall glass trees with leaves of silver and platinum. It was fall, I guess, so the trees were shedding her leaves, and I liked the way they caught in the girl's short hair as we walked. There were no animals here, though—or at least no sign of them, and we'd been walking for quite some time. Earlier, we'd argued about how long we'd been walking. I said it was only a few minutes, but she insisted that it had been a week, at least.
"I don't know," she answered succinctly.
"I thought you knew all about the circus."
"I never said that," she answered. "You don't listen to me."
"You know I listen to you."
"Only when you want to," she told me.
We fell silent; there was no point in arguing.
"How did you get here?" I asked after a while.
She sighed softly. "I just... I just came."
"Where were you before here?"
She shrugged. It wasn't that she didn't know, she just didn't feel like talking about it. She exasperated me, but she was magnetic. The steady motion of her hips as she walked captivated me and sometimes made me lose my train of thought. I could feel sex radiating from her like heat—but God, she made me mad... but I was beginning to think that I was just too irritable.
"Well, why did you come here?" I asked.
She shook her head.
"Are you feeling okay?"
"No," she answered with a frown. "I'm scared."
She was right. There was a circus. And not only that, but it was packed with people.
I'd been expecting just some sort of big top, or a few tents on the lowlands, but it wasn't like that at all. The entrance was just a large, ornate gate over which hung a sign reading "The Endless Circus" and nothing else.
The girl was as fascinated as I was, and we walked around the gate together, looking at it. It looked the same from both sides—just a large, free standing gate.
What lay inside was even stranger. Once we'd gone through it, the gate disappeared, and we set out to explore the circus. We soon found that the circus wasn't actually the full extent of the town. The place looked a lot like Florence, with its narrow, cobbled streets, and winding avenues—but it didn't have austerity of that old city. It was raucous. Among the circus performers and street performers were normal people, who I assumed were "real" in the same sense that the girl was real—whatever that meant.
The town was planned as a number of concentric circles, at the center of which lay the fairgrounds and the circus proper. The streets were packed, and chaos was everywhere. Everyone was drinking, shouting, listening to music and just having a good time. I had to admit that I liked the place a great deal, even though I didn't think it should be there.
Great animal shaped balloons hung in the sky, watching mutely as the festivities raged on. I wasn't even sure how many of the balloons there were, but they swam and flew, wheeling around each other and every so often, they would call down to the crowds below, or act out a great battle in which some of them would be ruptured and disappear.
It was the middle of the day when we arrived, but the girl told me that we'd been walking for at least nine days. When I asked her why the sun hadn't set in all that time, she said that it just hadn't. I wondered again if she evaded my questions because she didn't want to answer me or because she just didn't know the answers.
As we turned onto another street, there was a loud inhuman cry from the air above, and I looked up to see a great balloon dragon crane its neck until its head rested on the street in front of us. Its balloon eyes regarded us thoughtfully as the girl stood still, fascinated by the huge beast. It snorted once, blowing plumes of smoke from its great nostrils, and then it reared its head back slightly and the girl threw her arms across her face to shield herself from the fire. She needn't have worried; the dragon belched out a maelstrom of streamers, confetti and assorted candies.
The girl reached out and touched its lower lip, eliciting a sound of saurian pleasure, and then with a beating of great rings, it ascended back into the sky with a beating of great plastic wings. It must have been a mile long.
As we ventured farther through the widening circles of the town, I marveled again that this place could be here without my knowledge.
"You're surprised?" she asked.
"I don't know what to say," I answered. "There were no books about this."
"I know," she answered. "You're tired, though—we should get some rest."
"I'm not tired; I'm okay."
"It's getting dark," she told me. "Let's get to bed, okay?"
She was right. The sunset was coming quickly, spreading shades of green and pink across the sky. The town's torches were lit, and the reveling continued. People drank and danced in the streets, and there was a frantic quality to the music that I couldn't quite put my finger on.
But I was tired. For the first time in memory, I was definitely tired. Maybe we really had been walking for nine days. I felt her take my arm, and then I nodded distractedly. "How long is this place open?" I asked.
"Always," she answered.
We found an apartment just off one of the side streets. It was a beautiful studio with a high ceiling and a balcony above the street where we could watch the circus performers and the other visitors to the circus. I stood there at the window, watching the madness for a while. I wondered why there were clowns down there—I was afraid of clowns.
The girl stood next to me, watching the street. I pulled her to me and slid an arm around her waist. She leaned her head against mine as we watched, and I turned to look at her. "You're crying," I said softly.
She nodded and pulled away to go back into the room.
"Hey, what's wrong?" I asked.
"This is no good; I'm leaving."
"What are you talking about?"
"I'm leaving you. You... I'm leaving."
"You already said that," I told her. "You mind telling me why?"
"Because!" she answered, her face crumpling with pain. "You walk around like nothing touches you, and it's because you just ignore everything. And you just... I can't believe you can ask me this."
"I don't understand."
"You wouldn't, would you?" she asked bitterly.
"What the hell is wrong with you? What do you want from me?"
"I want you to give me what I gave you. I gave you my body—I gave you everything!"
"You're acting like I'm the only one who got laid," I told her, and immediately, I felt horrible. I couldn't believe I'd said that.
"Listen to you," she groaned, real pain spreading through her voice. "You don't understand at all."
"No, I don't."
"I thought you'd see by now," she said desolately. "But you don't. I guess you really don't need anyone. I guess you lied."
"I never lied to you," I told her desperately. "I told you the truth. I said I didn't need anybody, and you just didn't listen. I'm sorry. Don't cry."
"What about all the things you said? What about when you told me you'd love me forever, and... and... you said if anything happened, you'd come back for me."
"What the are you talking about? I never met you before the beach—"
"I trusted you, and you're leaving me!" she gave a deep sob and hugged herself tightly.
"That's not true," I told her angrily. "I'm not leaving you. There's nothing I can do about it."
"There is. You can't hide forever, you know? You can't just decide not to decide, because it won't work. They're going to pull the plug. They're going to disconnect you."
"I don't understand."
"Mike, I swear to God. They told Stacey, and she told me. I don't know how long we've got."
"Look, you're only making yourself feel worse, and you're not making any sense," I told her. "Just calm down, we'll go to bed, and in the morning, if you still feel like leaving, I won't stop you, okay? Just calm down."
"Tell me you love me."
"You know I love you," I insisted. "I love you with all my heart, and you know it. You're not being fair, is all."
"It wasn't supposed to turn out this way."
I sat down next to her and took her into my arms. "It's okay. It's okay, I promise."
"You're a liar," she answered.
When we laid down, I tried to put my arms around her, but she pushed me away, crying hard. There was nothing for it but to stare at the ceiling and try to sleep.
User Reviews
Submitted by electrictoothsyndrome (user info) at 2005-06-30 14:28:34 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
WINNER! http://www.ubersite.com/m/69673
Submitted by Yes (user info) at 2005-06-15 13:03:33 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Part 1: http://www.ubersite.com/m/68067
Part 2: http://www.ubersite.com/m/68145
Part 3: http://www.ubersite.com/m/68277
Part 4: http://www.ubersite.com/m/68439
Part 5: http://www.ubersite.com/m/68502
part 6: http://www.ubersite.com/m/68598
Submitted by munkeypants (user info) at 2005-06-14 11:21:51 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Brdn_Nkd (user info) at 2005-06-14 08:29:29 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by SkyLaR (user info) at 2005-06-14 07:53:47 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Papajoe (user info) at 2005-06-13 23:25:40 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Glad I caught this one, so I can go back and read the whole series.
Submitted by JonnyX (user info) at 2005-06-13 17:31:41 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
I feel a big finish coming up..
Submitted by LadyPlural (user info) at 2005-06-13 16:57:42 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Wow. This is really really mind-bogglingly well-written.
Submitted by Snark (user info) at 2005-06-13 16:48:53 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Utterly captivating.
Submitted by wookie (user info) at 2005-06-13 16:44:05 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by nitty34 (user info) at 2005-06-13 16:44:02 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Phinch (user info) at 2005-06-13 16:32:16 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
beautiful.
coma patient?