Dreams and Shadows - By C. Robert Cargill Page 0,29
ghost trees wondering if they hungered, if they had any desire to scare anyone, or if, as ghosts, they simply wanted to feel the slightest touch of sunlight again. As Abraham stared at the ghost trees’ sultry moon dance, he felt time slowing to a crawl, the whirling spin of the world reduced to a slow-motion stutter as he fell out of the time stream entirely, able to look in at the captured moment, waiting, paused for him, beyond the thin veil of reality.
Yes. The mushrooms had finally kicked in.
If he wasn’t going to get laid tonight, he might as well have the trip of a lifetime. So once again he raised his eyes and took in the splendor of the moon. Larger and larger it loomed, until it could come no closer and it too began to shimmer, shake, and finally lose the tension that held it together. Slowly the moon melted before his eyes, first with small, single droplets forming on its craggy surface before streaking, then in waves as entire patches buckled and ran down the front of the sky, vanishing. Shocked at the sudden loss of the moon, the stars took photos, winking in and out as they captured pictures of the strange turn of events.
With the moon gone, the stars had a full-blown freak-out, each spiraling through the night on a panicked carousel, screaming, wailing for help before several thousand of them collided, exploding in the center, together forming a brand-new moon so the earth would no longer be so alone. Everyone needed a partner. Everything needed a friend. Nothing in the universe wanted to be found sitting alone on a rock in the middle of nowhere wondering why they weren’t allowed in the tent. Everyone should be allowed in the tent. After all, that’s all the world was: one big tent for us all to fuck in. But not Abe. Abe wasn’t allowed in that tent either. No, Abe was destined to spend the rest of his life outside that tent, outside of time, outside of himself, looking back in at a moment when he would be left alone forever.
Dallas, Carly, and Stacy hadn’t taken this many mushrooms. They wouldn’t be able to step out of time like this. So they would stay at the camp, trapped inside the thin walls of reality, unable to see what Abe saw. And that made him even more alone. Alone.
Alone.
Psst. Over here.
“What,” mumbled Abe. Or at least he thought he mumbled what. Did he? Had he really said anything? He tried again. “What?” That time it worked. The word came out. Or did it? “What,” he repeated again. Or maybe he hadn’t repeated it at all.
Come here.
Okay. That wasn’t really a voice. That was all in his head. He wasn’t really hearing anything.
“Come here, silly.”
Abraham looked up, saw a shadow in the tree line behind him. The voice sounded familiar. Feminine. Sexy. Carly.
“Carly?” he asked in a shouted whisper. “Is that you?”
“Yeah, sweetie. It is.”
“How did you get out of time?”
“What?”
“Time. How did you escape it? You didn’t take as many shrooms as I did.”
She giggled. “Time isn’t all that hard to get away from. Like you.”
Abraham tried to spin around on his rock. It wasn’t working. His head merely flopped back and forth on his neck. “What do you mean?”
“You wouldn’t know hard to get if it walked up and hit you with a brick.”
“Hard to . . . hard to get?”
“Yeah.”
“You were playing hard to get?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
“You’re good.”
“You’ve got to be,” she said with a wry smile.
“Why’d you wait so long?”
“I wanted to make sure you weren’t a creep.”
“Oh. Am I a creep?”
“No, but your friend is. Do you know what he wanted me to do?”
He thought for a moment about the dozens of stories Dallas had told him, about all the things he’d gotten women to do. “Probably.” It wasn’t hard to imagine how he’d chased Carly off. “I can guess, I mean.”
“Well, do you have any ideas about what you could get me to do?”
Abe giggled a little. “I could think of something, I suppose.”
“Well then, what are you still doing on that rock?”
“I can’t really move.”
“Yes, you can.”
“No, I mean, I’ve become one with it or something.”
“No, you haven’t. I’m not coming over there. You’ll have to come over here. So summon the strength of the earth or the ancients or whatever you have to do, but get your ass off that rock and over here. I want to show you