The Hill

Testing! Testing ! Testing ! My inner monologue screams. It is always something I swear. You knock down one wall, and then there is another. They say life is a test. Doesn't make it any better knowing that though. Oh well. At any rate I am currently outside, facing a cold, snowy hill. They said all I had to do was climb it. Seems easy enough, right? No ,it is a very, very steep hill, and heavy winds. So heavy that I am having trouble staying on my feet. I have to basically crawl to the top. I am cold, tired, and miserable. I want to give up, but something inside me is pushing me forward. I fall over. I am so weak at this point. But a little boy comes out of no where to help me up. He reminds me of Linus from the Peanuts comic strip. Striped shirt and everything. "Don't give up." He says to me. "You are almost at the top. And I'll be right behind you if you fall." I nod and continue my journey up the hill. He stays close behind the whole. Though in retrospect I wonder if he could have caught me if I fell. Who knows? At any rate, I reached the top of the hill. It did feel nice to accomplish that till I realized the boy was no where to be seen. Was he a stress induced hallucination? I didn't think so, but it also didn't look like he feel off the hill either. He was no where to be seen. Before I could contemplate the matter any further a door opened up. It was attached to what I thought was sky at the time. Turns out it was just a wall. I had no idea what was on the other side of this door , but I knew it was my time to walk through.

Patience Ain't Easy

I am the bird. I am the little birdy who wished to fly away. Fly fa,r far away. What's been stopping me? I guess my own mental restraints more than anything else. PARENTS OF THE BIRD. The invisible barrier. "Are you alright?" The Dean shouts to me as he snaps his fingers in my face. "Yeah, I was just deep in thought." "Well, come back to Earth. We need you." "Am I in trouble?" The Dean shakes his head. "No ,no, no. Quite the opposite." "Well what is going on?" "I am impressed by the work you and your friend did." "Have you been spying on me?" The Dean snorts. "No, I haven't the time to do that." "Then how do you know what happened?" "Because I told him." I turn my chair around. I see Jeff walking down the hall. "What are you doing here?" I ask him. "I work here. Surely, you had to have known that." I shake my head. " But I've been to your office." "That wasn't my office." "Then where was I?" I ask him. "We built a fake office to throw you off." The Dean explains to me. "Why?" The Dean adjusts his jacket. "Because you weren't ready yet." "Ready for what?" "I'm afraid we can't tell you that." "Damn it. What the hell is going on. I want to know now." Jeff laughs. "What the hell is so funny?" I ask him. The Dean interrupts. "It's you lack of patience that made us question your readiness in the first place." I take a deep breath. "Ok, I can be patient." The Dean smiles. "Very well. All you need to know right now is that more adventure awaits."

The Code

We tore the place the apart. Top to bottom. Jeff was no where to be seen. " I don't get it." I say worriedly. The wiery Urkranian man jabs me with the shotgun. "Stop stalling and fix your mess." "What do you want me to do?" "Put things back the way they were." I gulped and guided them into the room with the computer. Papers and garbage were thrown about the room. The only light in the room was the one coming from the computer screen. The wirey man laughed upon seeing the computer. "What's so funny?" I ask him. "Your computer. It's so old." "It's not mine." "Whatever I don't care. Just fix the problem." I sit down in the swivel chair and stare deeply into the monitor. "Now!" He shouts to me impatiently. I take a deep breath. I have absolutly no idea what I am doing. The driver cracks his knuckles while the wirey man positions his shotgun. I try the only thing I can think of. I type the words PARENTS OF THE BIRD, and hit enter. A short moment later a red light flashes and sirens erupt out of no where. The wiery man and his driver panic. "What the fuck did you do?" "The only thing I knew how to do." The floor around me sinks down. "Shit, shit, shit. Let's get out of here." The two men run away as I get pulled deep down into a sub basement. Eventually the chair stops descending and I am alone in the dark. I hear footsteps inching closer to me. My chest muscles tighten up. The lights turn on. " Well done!" I hear a familiar voice exclaim to me. It's the Dean I met months and months ago. "You passed the test. However, we still have much work to do."

Convincing the Captor

With the shotgun to my back I was forced int the back seat of the black SUV. The man at the other end of the shotgun was wirey and sweaty. He spoke with a nervous Ukrainian accent. " Do you have any idea what you did? Did you have any idea what you fucking did?" He screams at me. "Obviously not if I'm here." I respond. "Don't test me. Don't you dare test me." He shouts while pointing the shotgun at me. I choose my words carefully. " I din't mean any harm." He psychotically laughs. "You didn't mean any harm? That's a sweet thought." "What is going on?" I ask. He adjusts his leather coat. "You adjusted the natural order of things." "So?" "So, you brought nothing but chaos." "Chaos isn't always bad." He smirks. "Oh I know about the joys of chaos, but only to bring about a much needed change." "Maybe a change was in order." "You don't understand." "What don't I understand?" He clenches his fist. "You are messing with things you don't understand you just... You can't do this." "But I didn't." " Who then? Who is responsible for all this?" "He's with you isn't he?" "Who?" "Jeff, I don't know his last name." He inches the shotgun closer to me. "Listen, I don't know what kind of shit you are trying to pull, but there was no one else in the house." "What?" "You heard me, nobody." "Then someone else must have gotten to him first." I try to explain. "Who?" "I don't know." He speaks to his driver in his foreign tongue and then turns to me. " I have a problem." He explains to me. "And that would be?" "I really want to kill you, but you may know something. So we will go back." He snaps his fingers. The driver turns the car around. He squints his eyes at me. "Let us see if we can find this Jeff"

The Chase is On

No time to worry. No time to think. Just time to run. Run as fast as I can. I should be running in the opposite direction, away from the scene of the crime. But I am not an asshole. I should at least warn him about any possible danger. I zig and zag through the neighbors backyards and gangways. I hope that I have confused my stalkers. Though I am not sure, I can still hearing the black SUV speeding in the background. Eventually I reach the backyard to Jeff's ranch house. I try not to look too suspicious as I creep up to kitchen window and slide it open. I hop inside. The lights are off and it is eerily quiet. I turn on the lights. "Jeff, we need to get you out of hear." I listen carefully. I hear voices talking in the other room. Someone is here. I grab the closest thing I can find for protection. It is a wooden spoon, but it will do. Clenching the wooden spoon tightly, I gather all my strength and head into the living room. It appears to be vacant. The voices I was hearing were news anchors. They talk about a tragic train derailment. Apparently the train derailed right after taking off from the local train station. I place my spoon on the ground and pause and reflect for all the poor souls on the train. That's when I hear the the cocking of a shotgun. An angry voice cries out behind me. "Stay right where you are!"

Coexisting Realities

Everything is bright. Everything is beautiful. The sun is out, summertime creatures are scurrying around, and the neighbors and passer by's dumbfoundedly scratch their heads as they stare at the sky. They wonder how exactly the weather can go from one extreme to the other. I watched how it was done and I am still in disbelief. I don't get it. I don't understand it, but like it. Yes, a little sun and warm weather does seem to take one out of the dull drums. And when one feels better, thinking dramatically improves. Though the more I walk through the outdoors, I feel there is something off. I listen closely. There is a humming. A vibration that is going on. It buzzes and seems to get louder and louder the more I notice it. "Don't pay attention to it." You might say. Much easier said than done. Much like a cut in one's mouth. As soon as you notice it, it is impossible not to. So the buzzing becomes louder and louder. It is almost like Jeff did not change the weather at all, but rather put an existing program on top of the previous on. So right now we basically have two realities intermingled with each other. This does not feel good. This does not feel good one bit. I have to get back to Jeff. Tell him what he did. Maybe he can fix it. I start to rush back to to the house. It is then that I notice I am being tailed by a black SUV. "That plot thickens." I think to myself. I run off the sidewalk and take a detour through a neighbor's lawn. No time to waste.