Captain Nowhere (Part 6 - The End) (501 hits)
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Submitted by Yes (View user info) at 2005-06-15 13:02:19 EDT
Captain Nowhere (Part 6 - The End)
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
I sighed heavily. "I don't know. All I'm saying is that maybe you should try editing a piece sometime. I'm not dissing your style, or anything." I lit a cigarette, looked back at the awning of the hotel and shrugged. Elise was in a bad mood, and I knew it—her back might have been acting up again, or she might just be angry at me for something. When I'd come to pick her up at the hotel, I could see that she'd been crying, but she'd refused to talk about it.
"Then why do you say I should edit?" Elise asked, and I knew she was offended. Christ, this was going nowhere.
"In editing you lose the immediacy of the work," she commented contentiously. I kept walking as she dug in her purse for something. She'd told me she wanted to see Broadway, and it had been a couple weeks since I'd been over that way.
"That's not true at all," I told her, wondering why I didn't just shut up. "Anything can be refined. I refine my pieces until the form and the content are both at their most effective."
"But it's not about effect!" she sighed, jogging a little to catch up. It's about—Jesus, MIKE!"
I had enough time to turn and look at the car. I saw the driver's terrified face, and my hand went limp, letting my cigarette drop to the asphalt.
When the impact came, there was no pain at all. Time seemed to have slowed as the grill met my legs and I was borne up as if by an invisible hand, smashed into the windshield and hurled over the roof of the car. I felt every bone as it snapped, and when my head struck the asphalt, I felt my spine go with a wet pop.
I lay there for a moment, and time regained its normal flow. I could hear Elise screaming, and she knelt next to me as I lay still.
"No, no, no, no, no, NO!" she screamed. "Somebody call an ambulance—Mike, hold ON!"
The operation was lost in a haze, but it still seemed to go on forever. The pain was intense, and I fled from it—fled into the darkness below my mind. Once, I awakened to the sound of feminine voices, and I moved a finger—it was all I could do.
"...he's okay, though. He sent you a card. Do you want me to read it to you?"
Silence descended, and then there was the sound of weeping. Stacey turned and rushed to Elise, putting an arm around her. "It's okay," she whispered. "It's okay. He'll wake up. I know he will."
"No," Elise sobbed. "It's not okay! We were—we were arguing, and..."
And the waters claimed me again.
When I could see next, Elise was sitting desolately in her hotel room, alone. The curtains were drawn, and dusk had descended on Seattle, but she hadn't turned on any lights. She looked up at the ceiling and then looked at her hands, as they shook in the gloom. She made a face and touched the small of her back.
She turned and looked at the night table and picked up the bottle of percocet she used for her back pain and unscrewed the cap. She downed a few of them and washed it down with a swig of wine, and then she swallowed the rest right along with it. She lay back and took a deep breath, waiting for the feeling to hit.
We were back in the apartment.
I didn't even remember coming in, but we must have at some point. I looked over at Elise's sleeping form and swept her hair out of her face. She opened her eyes and smiled at me. "Was it like you thought it would be?"
"Yes," I answered seriously. "Yes it was."
"...All those people."
"Yeah, but what harm did it do? Nobody's dead, right?"
She laughed and pulled me to her. She ran her hand up the side of my face and pushed one of her fingers into my mouth. "Fuck me," she told me. "Now."
The circus was silent the next morning. The clowns were a little under the weather after the tornado, but people were trying to shake off the fear and come out of their shells.
Even the shoggoths were wary. Looking out from the balcony, I saw them come to the mouth of our street, and then just pass by after giving the balcony a look. They knew we were here, but they were afraid of us. For the first time, I thanked whatever god there might be for the inconsistencies in the Creation. Or maybe I was the only one responsible for that.
"You look upset," Elise told me, as she wrapped her arms around me from behind.
"Ran out of cigarettes," I told her. "That's never happened before."
"It happened all the time in the real world."
"I have to ask you something," I told her. "Did you... did you mean to come after me, or did you just want to die?"
She paused and shrugged slightly. "I don't really know," she answered. "I wasn't exactly thinking straight at the time. I just wanted my back to stop hurting, and I wanted everything else to stop hurting, and..."
"A bottle of percocet's some serious shit," I told her. "You're going to need your stomach pumped."
She shrugged again. "If we manage to get out of here."
"If they don't let us go back, I'm going to destroy the circus."
"But what about all the people? The children?"
I shrugged. "They'll be okay. They're going to have to make their decision tonight anyway, so I guess I'm just forcing them to make it a little faster. As long as we stay one step ahead of them, I won't have to rain down fire from the sky, or anything."
I shrugged and pulled another pack of cigarettes from my pocket. "Well, alright," I grinned and pulled one out. "What time is it, anyway?"
"I don't know. Six? Half past?"
"You losing sight of time again?"
"No, I'm okay. I'm just not so clear on minutes and hours—oh shit."
"What is it?" I asked, joining her on the balcony.
It was a beautiful sight, but even as I acknowledged its beauty, it frightened me to the depths of my soul. The sky had turned a burnished bronze color, and as we stared up into the heavens, the balloons exploded in bursts of fire.
The great dragon let out a mournful cry before exploding in a cloud of smoke and flame. Elise let out a sharp cry and pressed her hand to her mouth.
There was a sudden tremor, and the entire world seemed to list to the side. When it righted itself again, there were golden bubbles floating somnolently into the sky.
I turned my attention momentarily from the sky and looked down into the street. A man dressed in an expensive suit looked up into the heavens, and suddenly a golden bubble formed around him. An expression of bliss was etched into his features as he floated slowly past us and kept rising.
"This is it," Elise whispered. "The circus is closing."
"Not much of an Endless Circus, if you ask me," I remarked, but my attempt at humor fell flat.
As the darkness deepened, the glowing bubbles shone in the gloom, and up in the sky, the face of reality warped and melted. The clouds coalesced into a great head and neck that slowly sucked the balls of light into its great mouth. The scene unfolded with an eerie grace, but it was an arresting and beautiful thing to watch. I couldn't take my eyes off the sky.
Elise clung to me. "Don't leave me," she whispered. "Don't. Please."
"I won't, I won't," I answered softly and stroked her hair as we stared up into the sky, watching the Great Visage suck the light into itself.
After a while, a wind blew up and tore through the streets, blowing leaves and trash before it. I looked down at the deserted side street and saw one of the shoggoths standing there. It seemed to be the one that had tried to arrest Elise the day before, but I couldn't be sure; they all looked exactly alike.
"You might have beaten us, but you can't escape that," he called above the sound of the wind as he pointed at the sky.
"What is that thing?!" I shouted back.
"No one knows! Maybe you should ask it when it gathers you!"
And the apartment house gave a heavy shudder that knocked both me and Elise to the floor. Elise bumped her head and cried out, and I pulled her to me as the building was wrenched from its foundation. Once the building was more or less steady, we rushed to the balcony and saw that just like the golden globes, we were floating lazily into the sky.
We weren't the only ones, though. All of the town's buildings were being ripped from the streets as the shoggoths stood, staring in wonder. There didn't seem to be anyone else inside the other buildings, but there might have been—the Endless Circus was truly that, and the town went on forever. It spread across the ground, its lights gone suddenly dark, and the fairgrounds were already bare.
As one, Elise and I turned our faces to the sky and saw the Great Face take the first building into its mouth. It had no teeth, and as each building floated into its mouth, it made a sucking gesture and the building liquefied, sliding down its vast gullet.
"My God..." I whispered, and there was nothing else to say. "My God."
"I won't let it take you from me," Elise whispered. "I won't."
Now all of the buildings seemed to be airborne. When I looked down at the ground, there were only the streets and the gaping holes that each structure had left behind. The buildings had started exploding now, a shiver running through them before they would explode in a shower of glittery sparks that would rain down on the desolate cityscape below.
When our own building shivered as if with pleasure, cold fear wrapped its fist around my heart, and I held on to Elise tightly enough to hurt her. The building made a mournful cry and shuddered once more before it exploded, raining itself back down toward the street.
"Elise, I'm so scared," I whispered as we continued floating among the spectacular explosions, and the Great Face lost some of its sense, looking more like a cloud formation the closer we came.
And it reached out a hand.
I didn't understand what was happening at first, but slowly I realized that it was pushing its fingers through the fabric of reality. Its whole right hand came through, and we stopped moving as it slid beneath us.
The face turned its cloudy eyes upon us and regarded us silently.
"We just want to go home!" I called. "We didn't mean any harm!"
"It was me!" Elise screamed. "It wasn't his fault—it was me!"
"No!" I screamed. "It was my idea!"
We remained floating in place as the Great Face reached down and pulled the world up in its fingers. At its touch, everything dissolved, and still the Visage regarded us. Soon we were floating alone in the empty void as whatever that thing was stood there, just looking. Finally, it reached up and balled us in its fist around us, and there was a feeling of intense movement. We were pressed back against the palm, and the force of the motion stole our breath.
Finally, we were released, flung headlong into the blackness. I was able to reach out and pull Elise toward me as we tumbled, and then we hit the water.
"Are you okay?"
I shook my head to clear it and smiled nervously. "Did you see that? I almost walked right out in front of that car. I really need to get a grip."
"You don't pay enough attention to the world around you," Elise smiled, and it seemed like her bad mood had finally flown south.
"How's your back?" I asked.
She frowned and gingerly rubbed the small of her back. "Earlier, it was killing me, but now I don't feel it at all," she answered. "Strange."
"Yeah, strange," I told her, and I pulled her to me and kissed her.
For a moment, I was struck with the realization that I was the most minuscule thing in existence, and then I shook my head and smiled. As long as I had Elise, then none of that mattered.
User Reviews
Submitted by Yes (user info) at 2005-06-15 20:09:01 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
I'm sorry Snark, not everyone writes 40+ part epics.
Submitted by SkyLaR (user info) at 2005-06-15 20:00:40 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Snark (user info) at 2005-06-15 19:54:29 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Bah,
Good show once again.
Submitted by LadyPlural (user info) at 2005-06-15 17:58:10 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
This wasn't my favorite way of ending a story, but it was nonetheless very good.
Submitted by Yes (user info) at 2005-06-15 17:02:30 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
glad you all like it.. this is actually a sequel of sorts (same characters - seven or eight years later) to Spilt Milk ( http://www.ubersite.com/m/35154 )
Submitted by Brdn_Nkd (user info) at 2005-06-15 15:59:06 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
What can I say? Aside from this being the end it was q uality piece just like the rest.
Submitted by Phinch (user info) at 2005-06-15 15:11:37 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
STANDING OVATION.
This would make a killer art film.
Submitted by JonnyX (user info) at 2005-06-15 13:57:29 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
very cool - well done!
Submitted by wookie (user info) at 2005-06-15 13:18:36 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Snark (user info) at 2005-06-15 13:03:15 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
You GO TO HELL!!!
I'm not reading this if it's the end!