Chapter 5.
Dark Fantasy, Sweet
Breath flows, connects, transforms. Herman's exhaust was on the frosty air, in front of him he draped a stillness over the swollen creek and humming highways nearby, peace and quiet he thought, found it.
A goose getting goosed from the blast of it honked overhead. Herman looked up, flashed by, getting to the sky and tracked back to a big gorgeous owl looking down on him from a tree, frowning.
That can't be right owls don't frown. Still the bird looked displeased.
"Herman," he boy bird thought in his ear, "I am a sad owl."
Herman liked where this was going. Owls were good creepy. Connected as they are to the underworld, the vault of the sky, the future and the past. Lethal and refined, their acoustics and optics, remarkable.
"Let me speak Herman hear what I say." Just as the big bird hop hopped on the branch closer to the trunk then stepped up and out, it's great spread fanned about and cupped the nothing between them. The long sharp talons folded over the perch of a stump closer to Herman. Herman stepped back. The owl tucked in and settled, the footed blades hidden under a brown feathered girdle. Herman stepped again, stumbled and rump thumped a stump of his own. His eyes never left the owl's, four big round staring eyes. Freeze or run.
Herman let out his second breath when he remembered to breathe again. He sat there for some time, blinking and breathing and listening.
Buck up, Herman thought and the owl said. "Well fed and hungry, soon to sky soon to fly who."
The owl blinked, eyelids squeegeed liquid and slow. "Soon to sky soon to fly (who) Hoo am I."
Herman smiled. "Hey Hoo," he said aloud, surprised to speak owl.
Hoo trained his focus on Herman's eyes. You are a hoot human, not why Hoo is here.
So the owl was frowning felt the voice in Herman's head. He wondered how Hoo the owl knew his name, then tied to the tail of that wondered if Hoo knew his wonders. He let the silent darkness at the end of wonders stretch the moment. Herman guessed not. He pinched his flesh and felt no pain.
Hoo spoke. "Soon to fly, Hoo am I."
Part Two
The Alien, neither singular or plural, more on that l8r, thot it was needed, an intervention, to be effective, that is be heard, a genetic modification required to us, in us, whatever. The Old Slow ran out of time, waiting for the few to become the many to become the all. Too much to do so little time.
A culling speck from the Alien's bag of specks introduced in a meat market, worked before thought It, worked again. A receptor for an ingredient slipped in to the inoculation and boosters for expediency and saturation. Then: Is this thing on? Can you hear Me at the back? Back of the room, back of your head and it starts as static then dials in on this red lit alien snicker.
Our hero is not naive. He negotiates his intermediation with Shadow and suffers the provocation. But what if the best spin is the correct spin? With this he has no argument. And because of this around him people die. The resistance to interfacing with an alternate consciousness is proscribed if that means forbidden by ancient texts and told worn stories. Maybe why the secret's secret is that's how it's preferred kept.
Drilling down, descending, toe prodding bottom found but standing up means drowning. The crust on the muck won't hold your weight. Stand up. Bottom's a ways off yet.
Choice, Herman up to you while there is choice the chosen choose. Discern discriminate prejudge presume.
Open up said the Alien like it was in a box, paper wrapped and string tied next to a box of down. Go away said Herman. For he was busy getting old and tired.
Herman bought a synthetic, strategically layered foam bed-in-a-box and waterproof breathable wrappers for pillows and mattress, some of it antimicrobial and fingers crossed that makes the whole thing so.