“Do you like him dearest? I gave him my eyes. Well, I gave him eyes *like* mine to be specific. Buttons, see?”
Sarah jumped off the ground, turned toward the muffled voice speaker. She tried not to gasp at the sight. After all, Our Second Lyfe is full of strange avatars. But this one seemed different… realer. Scarier. “I’m… so sorry… miss. We didn’t, we didn’t…”
“See a green dot at the trailer?” Mid-Hazel completed Sarah’s thoughts, the counterpart to Al, the love of his life by now, even though she may have to be put in “storage” again until he can figure out how to get to the wedding part. He’s committed to a future date, though — whenever it can occur. “Thought you were alone at the place? Yeah, I just pop in now and then. Coincidence, we’ll call it I’m here when you’re here. Serendipity. *Synchronicity*. Are you aware of that term my dear? Do you know the meaning?”
“Yes,” she spoke, brushing her hair away from her blue eyes and trying to make herself more presentable to the… whatever it was she was facing. Old Hag? Witch? Maybe a combo of several archetypes… yes, another term she learned in her college psychology classes, Jung touched upon here there and there.
“Then you’ll know this is *fate*, this meeting is.”
Al appeared from behind some bushes. He’d heard voices but he had to finish his tinkle, nature being the harsh bitch she is (he was thinking at the time). Both turned toward him.
“Ahh, and the *man*. Always a man lurking around for a pretty thing like yourself, honey.”
Al walked up, confident that they had a right to be here because of the orange trees and because of what they found beneath them. More orange. Pumpkin orange. “I assume this is your land, um…”
“Hazel,” spoke Mid-Hazel. “The central one. Two on the end,” and she extended both arms and looked at each “hand” that wasn’t there, “but I’m the most important. They say if you’re in the middle that sometimes you’re simply in the way. And so it is.” She collapsed both extremities onto her heart to indicate herself, the center, the void in middle of it all — no hands to mask. Mid-Hazel, Witch Hazel to some, especially if you’re from the West Coast. “We were just talking about eyes, young man; my kind of eyes,” and she indicated the larger pumpkin creature again.
Suddenly Sarah was teleported about 10 yards away and then quickly walked back, thinking she did it to herself somehow. But she didn’t. She was simply standing a bit too close to him and he didn’t like it, this mustachioed fiend of the night.
(to be continued)
Sunklands 