Tag Archives: SQUELCHED

August 30, 2022 · 5:16 am

row of red 02

“Okay Kenny, slow and easy. We know what animal we’re looking for now.”

“Dog,” Kenny said, repeating the last word of the old, confused man.

And then, just like that — so suddenly — there it was. “There!” Ken screamed almost as loudly as the killed lady in the house did before. Arthur squelched the desire to shoot him on the spot as well. Because he saw something too.

“Back up. I want to make sure.” Ken backed up one click.

“Okay, sloow and eassy — and no screaming this time.” He held one of his weapons to Ken’s head just to make sure. He could drive himself if push came to shove. And it might after this. One click later: still there.

“The bird is *attacking* the dog?” Ken said in as calm a voice as he could muster given the circumstances.

“One click more forward,” Arthur Kill demanded, not yet ready to answer any questions.

“Okay.” Click.

Arthur Kill looked at the spectacle that had moved more toward the back. The bird is far separate from the dog now.

“Indicating,” concluded Kill. “The bird was indicating the dog. We can go home now. But first…” *POP*

The dog replaced the man.

Abyss, The

“A boy 13 to 10 and back to 13 and over and over. Obviously this is TILE, W.”

“(Small) ‘e’ to (large) ‘E’,” she agreed. “5 to 8, gaining 3. Years in this case.”

“Yellow to blue.” He looked out at the sky, the suns rising over the horizon. Horizings.

“But what of the step-down?” she continued in this vein. “The 12, then the 11, back to 10 and then back to 13, over and over?”

“Children according to the TILE documents and creeds. Red and green. Gred. Or Reen.”

“Redgreen. I remember that place. A place of war.”

“7 and 6. Mixed up. Which is higher, which is lower? Confusion in the middle. And by extension…”

“At both ends. Hi becomes lo. Hilo.”

“But one thing we agreed,” he offered as a compromise. “The Abyss plays no role in the end game. Because the Abyss has no real power. Only illusion.”

“Like static.” She squelched the urge to tack on the state names of Tennessee and Kentucky to this. It would all play out.

Tennessee. And Kentucky.

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“I was on the Diagonal next to the Not Quite Gazebo, named so because it wasn’t (quite on the Diagonal). The moon was made of cheese. I try to transfer to the tower which I *know* is on the Diagonal but can’t quite reach the center (Diagonal). Instead: on one of the edge seats. The moon is not made of cheese. I wake up, still looking from the point of the Not Quite.”

“And then the lane,” spoke [delete name]. “Cherry Lane.”

“No, that was something different. In the land of Hana Lei.”

“Which is a catch all name for locations that you don’t want to list out.” Silence for a second, as if Jeffrie Phillips was checking this fact (he was). “Yes… but no. I mean, it wasn’t Cherry Lane on the Diagonal. Instead a path through a clearly haunted or haunting woods filled with wolves, especially at the bend where the path or trail leaves the Diagonal. That was before the Not Quite Gazebo. I wasn’t Peet Archer. I wasn’t wearing the tuxedo to indicate I was Young Kane who was never called that (strangely).”

“Go on.”

“I was…”

“Blue Thorn?” guessed [delete name].

“I can’t recall,” responded Jeffrie Phillips, thinking hard. He was pounding a fist into his skull three times. Then three more. He recalled. “Niagara. Peet Archer was at the top. I put him there. I was…” Again a stall. The 1898 room was powerful that way — squelched speech. He wondered again who was beside him in that room while he dreamed. Someone from Hana Lei perhaps.

“Go on, Jeffrie. Do you need some water? Do you want to continued another night? We can wake up at any time. I clap my hands three times, and then three more.” He clapped his hands three times and then three more.

Tag Archives: SQUELCHED

row of red 02

Abyss, The

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