Final Chapter of Stewart and Joshua's Story begun 11-24-09

Here is the final installment of Joshua and Stewart's story.  It's been a long time in coming, I know, and I have appreciated your patience and support as I have written my way through to its end.  It is my hope that you have enjoyed the crazy little journey I, they, and we have been on.  I welcome your comments, insight, and thoughts about the ending, the story, the proces, etc.  For those new to the blog, this story began on 11-24-09 and ends here.  Please use the tag cloud to navigate back to the beginning and read from there.

Without further ado...


Chapter 14 - Freedom

Before he knew it Joshua had run right into the heart of the chaos filling the hall. There were people dressed in orange bio-hazard suits carrying black boxes on straps and wielding long black wands over a pile in the middle of the floor. The air was filled with an irritating clicking that grew in intensity the closer a wand was brought to the pile. Near the door, the door he wanted so badly to reach, were police officers and paramedics, several of whom were in the process of putting on orange suits.

On instinct Joshua headed for the nearest doorway and pressed himself into the shallow depression. The door behind him had been shut, but not latched and, as he pushed back to avoid the searching eyes of the men who had been chasing him, the door gave way and he stumbled backwards into an office. The door swung slowly shut, but stopped short of closing, coming instead to rest on the latch and leaving a thin window between the doorframe and the door.

Joshua looked quickly around himself. The office held a desk, a file cabinet, a computer, and a several chairs, all of which were turned this way and that, one was tipped over completely. There were papers on the desk and also on the floor beside it. The handset of the desk phone was dangling off the edge of the desk and making nasty buzzing sounds over and over again. He felt Stewart wrap his body tighter around his neck and patted the salamander on the back.

Shouting out in the hall drew the boy back to the door and he peered out through the crack left by the latch. Across the hall was another doorway, the familiar male stick figure on a black square posted next to it. People in orange suits were walking in and out, some carrying the black boxes and wands, some carrying red bags with white crosses on them. Eventually a silver cart with silver wheels and a mattress on it came into view and was steered into the men’s room.

All around his door Joshua could hear the voices of men and women, all of them speaking fast and a bit too high. Someone in regular clothes walked by and then another person, a woman, stepped up to the door.

“We can talk in here,” the woman said and Joshua watched in horror as the doorknob began to turn. He stepped back but there was no where he could dart to hide.

The woman took a step into the office and caught her breath as her gaze fell on Joshua in the stolen lab coat. “You…” she whispered.

Joshua swallowed. It was the woman who had grabbed him the other day. He decided that he would run right at her and kick her in the shin to get away.

“John,” she said and turned her head to look over her shoulder, “there’s not enough room in here for the officers. Let’s try the conference room instead.”

“Yeah, all right,” a man answered.

The woman turned back and looked at Joshua. “I imagine the emergency crews want us out of their way while they take Mason out to the ambulance,” she continued. “The conference room would be better.” She held Joshua’s gaze and then whispered, “Leave the coat here and wait until they take him out.”

“What did you say?” the man asked.

The woman started to close the door. “I said the coast will be clear once they take him out.” Her voice grew softer as the door came back to rest against the latch.

Joshua let out the breath he had been holding. She hadn’t told on him. She had looked right at him and then left without telling. His knees felt weak.

“Gggggoooo lllloooookkk,” Stewart growled from under Joshua’s chin.

The boy walked back to the door and peeked out the slit once again. The silver cart was sticking out of the men’s room door and two paramedics in orange suits were holding on to it. The one nearest the hall stepped on a pedal near one of the cart’s wheels, then both paramedics disappeared into the bathroom. There was a lot of scuffling and grunting before they reappeared, each one carrying one end of a stiff board with someone lying on it.

“Careful…up and over…” someone said as the board and person on top of it were lifted onto the cart. There was a thump as they set it down followed by a deep groan.

“Mason,” one of the paramedics said, leaning close to the head of the person on the cart. “Mason, can you tell me where you are?”

“Hell,” came the weary reply.

The paramedic looked up. “Let’s get him out of here.”

The other paramedic finished fastening straps across the man lying there and then flipped the pedal near the wheel with his toe. The cart started to roll and the two orange-suited men maneuvered it out into the hall.

After the cart came clear of the bathroom and they pushed it down the hall toward the outside door. Joshua caught a glimpse of the man lying on it as it passed. His face was white with red patches on it and his mouth was hanging open. The sight of him sent a shiver all the way through the boy, one so deep that it made his stomach turn. More people in orange suits came out of the bathroom. The ones that didn’t have the clicking black boxes were carrying other things: pieces of clothing, a pair of shoes, one had a clear plastic bag that had a wallet and some loose change in it.

All of these people turned and headed for the outside door as well and the hall grew quiet. Joshua opened the door a bit wider and looked out. The only people left were near the door at the end of the hall. He could see the flashing red and blue lights on the police cars and the ambulance just feet beyond it. He took a tentative step out when Stewart hissed in his ear.

“Lllleeeevvvv tthhhhhe ccccoooooattttttt.”

Joshua pulled his foot back into the office and let the lab coat fall from his shoulders. He put his hand over Stewart’s back to make sure the salamander didn’t fall and then he peeked out the door again. Now the hall was silent and empty. He stepped out and started walking fast for the outside door.

“Hey!” a gruff voice rang out behind him. “What the hell are you doing in here?”

He took another step.

“Hey you! Who the hell said you could come in here?”

Joshua peeked over his shoulder. A policeman was just coming out of a room at the far end of the hall, his face stern and angry. “This isn’t a playground!” the cop shouted.

Joshua swallowed hard and started to take another step.

“Rrrrrruuuuuunnnnnnnn,” Stewart growled in his ear and the step became a leap and the leap turned into pumping legs.

In less than twenty feet Joshua was out the door and dodging through orange-suited bodies and surprised cops. The summer air hit him like a wave, filled his nose with the scent of fresh grass and car exhaust. Adults shouted at him as he ran, but he didn’t stop. With his hand firmly over Stewart he ran flat out until he could no longer hear the angry voices, until he could no longer see the flashing red and blue lights, until he could hardly breathe for the stitch in his side. He ducked between two dumpy houses and skittered across the alleyway behind them, rounded a corner and slipped through a thin copse of trees. In front of him was a pond that he nearly fell into. He slid to a stop and sat down hard on the bank and breathed in great gulps of air.

Stewart uncurled himself from around Joshua’s neck and looked out at the lake from the boy’s shoulder. He lifted his glossy black head and smelled the warm air. Satisfied, he crawled down Joshua’s arm and stood on the boy’s knee.

“This might be a better place to live, Stewart,” Joshua said as he regained his ability to speak.

“Yyyyeeeeesssssss,” Stewart hissed.

“I don’t think they’ll be able to find you here.”

“Ssssaaaaaffffeee.”

Stewart climbed down off Joshua’s leg and made his way through the grass to the waterline. He stepped into the pond, felt the cool, soothing water as it caressed each of his six legs and then turned and looked at the child, his child.

“Ttthhhhiiissssssss iiiiisssss gggggooooooodddddd. Ggggggoooooo hhhhhooooommmmmme. Ccccccoooooommmmmmeeee bbbbbaaaaacccccckkkk.” He turned and faced Joshua, rearing up on his hind pair of legs, his tail curved in the water behind him for support. “Ppppplllleeeeeeesssssseeee ccccoooooommmmmeeee bbbbaaaccccckkkkk.”

Joshua smiled and nodded at the salamander. “K. Don’t get eaten before I can get back here.” Stewart stared at Joshua for several moments, his bright red eyes unblinking and clear.

“Iiiiiii wwwiiiilllllll bbbbbeee ssssaaaafffeee. Ccccoooommmmmeeee bbbbbaaaccccckkkkk.” Then he lowered himself into the water and swam off.

Joshua watched the expanding wake as the salamander slipped away. After ten minutes or so he tossed a few handfuls of ripped up grass and twigs into the water, then he wiped his eyes with the back of his hands, the dust on them mingling with tears and leaving brown smudges on his cheeks. He stood up and looked out over the pond.

“Bye, Stewart,” he whispered and walked back the way he had come.

~ Peace and completion

Chapter 13 of Joshua and Stewart's harrowing tale started on 11-24-09

Chapter 13 – Hello, again

Joshua’s heart was in his throat. He had no idea where the gravely, hissing voice had come from, but it had been too close to his ear and it scared him. When it said to get out he had wasted no time fleeing from the room he had been hiding in. When it said run he had run, down the hall and into the first room he found with an open door. He held his hand over Stewart, terrified the salamander would fall to the floor and die. Images of those bright red eyes staring down at him from high above his mother’s head filled him with fear.

Stewart. Stewart was here, with him, in this crazy building. He should be out in the pond where he had left him a few weeks before. Joshua stroked the salamander through the collar of the white shirt he still had on.

The room he had run into had a short twisting hallway that ended up being a bathroom. There three toilets, each with its own little room, and two sinks backed by a long mirror. Two towel dispensers hung on one wall and there was a tall mirror that reached from the floor to the ceiling beside the dispensers.

“It’s a bathroom, Stewart,” he told the salamander. “There’s water.”

Joshua walked over to the sink and turned the faucet on. The water was icy cold, but as he added hot to the flow it grew warm and comfortable. He reached over to the towel dispenser and pulled a handful of paper towels out, stacked them together and then held the stack under the water until they were soaked. He squeezed the extra water out and then set them on the counter between the two sinks.

“Stewart,” he said and patted the salamander. “Come out and get wet. The towels are warm. You need the water or your skin will crack.”

He could feel the salamander uncurl himself from around his neck, Stewart’s tail and claws tickling as he moved. In the mirror Joshua could see the broad glossy black head rise up under his chin, the bright red eyes staring out at him.

“It’s okay, Stewart. Come and get wet.”

The salamander blinked and then crawled back down Joshua’s arm the way he had climbed up, tickling and wiggling as he wormed his way down the shirt’s sleeve and onto the back of Joshua’s hand. He stopped at the end of the sleeve, his head out, his front legs on the back of Joshua’s hand and looked left and then right before he pulled the rest of his body out from inside the sleeve.

The salamander had grown a lot. He was nearly as long as Joshua’s forearm and it took several seconds before his tail cleared the end of the shirt sleeve. But it wasn’t the length or breadth of him that startled Joshua and made his mouth open in wonder. It was the extra pair of legs that had grown between the front and rear pair.

“Stewart,” Joshua whispered. “You grew two more legs.” He reached out and gently touched one of them. Stewart glanced back at him and then walked onto the counter and sniffed the wet paper towels. He placed a tentative front foot on the wet pile and then, satisfied that they were safe, crawled onto the stack and lay down, belly flat on the moist towels, legs, all six of them, stretched out along his sides, and his tail flat out and hanging over the edge of the pile. If he had been in a tank of water he would have seemed to have been swimming.

“Do they hurt,” Joshua asked, stroking the other extra leg.

“Nnnnnnoooooo,” Stewart said, his head barely moving from the towel’s surface.

Joshua snatched his hand back. He stared at the salamander and then looked up, into the mirror, afraid someone had walked in when he wasn’t paying attention. There was no one there. He looked back at the salamander resting on the warm, wet paper towels with his eyes closed.

“Did you just say, no,” Joshua whispered.

“Yyyesssssssss,” Stewart hissed.

Joshua stood there, his mouth open, his eyes wide, warm water still running in the sink, and stared at Stewart. Slowly he reached his hand out and let the water run over his palm. He cupped some of the water and gently let it spill over Stewart’s back.

“How’s that?” he asked.

“Gggoooooooddd,” Stewart replied.

Joshua gently laid his warm, wet hand on Stewart’s back and could feel the salamander humming with pleasure.

“That’ really cool, Stewart. That you can talk.” He stroked the long smooth red spotted skin. “That’s really cool.”

Stewart opened his eyes and looked at Joshua. “Yyyesssssss,” he hissed.

The intercom crackled in the ceiling above them. “Access to the south entrance temporarily restricted. Please use alternate routes,” a woman’s voice told them. “Access to the south entrance temporarily restricted. Please use alternate routes.”

Stewart stood up and looked at Joshua. “Dddaaaanngggrrrrooouussssssss,” he hissed. “Gggeeetttt ooouuuutttttt.”

“You said that,” Joshua nearly shouted. “That was you back in the other room!”

Stewart put his front feet on Joshua’s right hand. “Gggeeetttt ooouuuutttttt.” Then he scrambled back up Joshua’s arm under the shirt sleeve and curled himself back around the boy’s neck.

Joshua laid his hand along Stewart’s back. The salamander was warm and damp from the water, but his grip on the boy’s skin was sure and firm. Without really thinking about it, Joshua grabbed the wet paper towels off the counter and tossed them in the trash and walked quietly down the twisty hall to the doorway.

The main hall was empty, though quite a bit of noise was coming from his right, where he thought the door to the outside should be. He looked that way for a long time and then decided they had better go left instead and try to find another door. He took several steps down the hall in this new direction when three men turned a far corner and came rushing towards him. Joshua froze for a second and then Stewart’s gravely voice filled his ear once more.

“Rrrrrruuunnnnnnn.”

Joshua turned and ran back down the hall, the three men right behind him. He held his hand over Stewart’s back and headed for the place he thought the door should be – just a little further and then down the next hall.

Behind him he heard one of the men call out.

“Hey! This area is restricted! Didn’t you hear the announcement?”

Another voice joined the first.

“Stop, damn it! You’re heading right into the hot zone!”

Another man appeared around the corner Joshua was headed for, his eyes wide and filled with confusion as Joshua ran at him.

“Grab him,” another man shouted from behind. “He’s going the wrong way!”

As Joshua ran past him, the man who had just appeared reached out and snagged the lab coat Joshua was wearing, pulled the boy towards himself and reached out to catch him in his other arm. Joshua felt the floor shift under his feet as he lost his footing, felt the fabric of the coat go taut and pull against his forward momentum. Along his throat he felt the pressure of Stewart’s body, felt it vibrate and the salamander’s head rise up under his own chin. He stepped down, put his free hand on the rising ground, let his other arm slip free of the coat, twisted to the left and spun out of the shirt. Beneath his chin Stewart opened his mouth, the bright flame red of his mouth and throat flashing at the man who had grabbed them, and hissed as loud as he could manage.

The man jerked back at the sight and sound of Stewart. “What the hell is that!?” he shouted and threw himself against the wall.

Joshua righted himself and rounded the corner. The door outside was where he remembered it, right there at the end of the hall – a hall filled with people in orange suits and uniforms.



~ Peace and courage

Chapter 12 of the Stewart and Joshua story started on 11-24-09

Chapter 12 – Suddenly

He had barely reached the next depression, barely caught his breath when another voice called out.

“Stewart!”

For an instant Stewart panicked, fear gripping his entire body. Now the voices knew who he was. Then, from somewhere deep in his mind he realized…he knew that voice. He opened his eyes and forced himself to look in the direction his name had been called. There, beneath a long ledge, behind shining silver sticks and branches, was the child.

The boy shoved some of the shining sticks aside. “Stewart!” he said again, his eyes wide and compelling.

Before he knew what he was doing Stewart turned and ran at the child. He no longer cared about the long whiteness, or the disembodied voice, or the people running around carrying things. Here was his child. Here was the one he wanted to find. Here were warm hands and kind eyes. Here was home.

The child reached down, spread his fingers on the floor and Stewart found speed in his legs that hadn’t been there before. His front feet touched the child’s palm, carried him up the boy’s wrist, and pulled him under the long white cloth that covered the rest of the child’s arm. He ran upwards until he found the child’s neck, to the warm, soft place where the boy's shoulder made the perfect spot to sit, and there Stewart stopped. He pressed himself tightly against the child’s throat, wrapped his body, his tail, everything, around the boy’s neck and clung to him.

He could feel the child’s heartbeat, could feel every breath the boy took, and the warmth, the safe warmth of him through his skin. The child reached up and laid his hand on Stewart’s back.

“Stewart, you’re so cold,” he said softly, his voice sending vibrations into Stewart’s body. The boy took the sheet he was wearing and pulled it up against Stewart and hid him from the cold air. “You’re too dry,” he said next. “You need water.”

He felt the boy look around, his chin brushing over Stewart’s head as he looked to the left and then to the right.

“There’s no water in here,” the child told him. “We’re gonna have to leave.”

At first Stewart didn’t say anything. He would stay or he would leave with the child. Where the child went he would go. As long as he was with the child the rest didn’t matter. Then he remembered the empty shadow and the man who had worn it. And he remembered the word the woman had used only moments before.

From deep in his throat he pulled the word out. “Ddddaannnggrrruuussssss.”

The child’s whole body went rigid. Stewart could feel the tendons on the boy’s neck stand out. He took another breath and tried again. “Ggggeetttttt ooooouuuutttttt.”

The child bolted out from under the ledge, shoving shining sticks in all directions. Several fell over and made a tremendous crash that rang painfully in Stewart’s head. The child stumbled forward, caught himself on his front legs and then got up and ran for the door, one hand held against Stewart, the other waving wildly in front of himself as he ran. A dozen steps and they were out in the bright white of the hall and Stewart closed his eyes in response to the painful light. He could feel the child look right and left and then run again. Running was good. Running meant leaving. Leaving meant grass, and fresh warm air, and water. Running meant life.

“Rrrruuunnnnnn,” he hissed and held on.


~ Peace and motivation

Chapter 11 - Where Joshua and Stewart are in a tight place - started 11-24--09

Chapter 11 – Red Spots

The cereal bar had helped. Joshua was no longer starving, but he still had to pee. He glanced around himself trying to figure out how he could take care of that pressing problem. While he ate he had figured out that if he risked sticking his hand out from under the counter and waving it quickly the lights would stay on. He had forgotten to do it one time and the room had gone dark. On instinct he had shot his leg out, the lights flashing back on with his movement and he had worried that someone in the hall would notice. Nothing had happened, however, so he relaxed a little and tried not to think of anything having to do with water.

There was no other way out of the room except the door he had come through. There were no other doors at all, besides the ones that fronted the cabinets above the counters along one wall. They weren’t going to lead to a bathroom. Cabinets never had bathrooms inside of them. There were windows on the back wall, but he couldn’t see the latches and didn’t think he could open them anyway. In desperation he pressed his hands into his crotch and squeezed his legs together. There had to be some place. He didn’t want to have an accident.

That’s when he saw it. Sitting on the floor between a counter and the front wall was a wastebasket. A round black can with a white plastic bag lining it and tied around the rim so it wouldn’t fall in. If he was quick he could pee and be back under the table before anyone came. He stuck his hand out and waved it frantically to keep the lights on, then pulled it back under the counter. The wastebasket was three counters away. And there were stools pushed in around them like a forest of silver trees.

Joshua leaned forward and rested on his knees. His bladder didn’t like this new position and he pressed harder with his hands to keep from going right in his pants. He stuck his head out and listened for anyone coming down the hall, but it was quiet for the moment. He pushed past the stool and realized that if he didn’t make a run for it he was going to be very wet and very miserable. He scrambled to his feet and, with one hand still clutching his crotch, bolted around the counters and ran for the wastebasket. He was so desperate that the urine hit the crumpled up papers in the can before he was fully stopped.

He thought about how angry his mother would be with him for peeing in the trash. Then he thought about how much angrier she would have been if he had soiled himself and decided this was a better choice. Besides, he wasn’t going to tell her that he had done it. She would never know.

“Code seven, south entrance. Code seven, south entrance.”

The voice startled Joshua so badly he missed the wastebasket and peed on the wall.

“Code nine, men’s room, south entrance. Code nine, men’s room, south entrance.”

Joshua stuffed himself back inside his shorts and then pressed his back against the front wall. There were footsteps in the hall coming closer. Women’s voices floated into the room as they passed.

“Code seven?” he heard one of them ask.

“Yeah, that’s for the HazMat team. Someone’s had some kind of biohazard accident.”

Their voices grew softer as they walked further along the hallway and he could no longer tell what they were saying. He stared at the counters and wished the women would leave. He wanted to duck down under the counters and hide, but he didn’t dare move. They were still out in the hall. They could come back and find him. Then that man would try to take him away again.

“Yes, but I’m alive and I plan to stay that way,” one of the women said, her voice growing louder and clearer as she walked quickly back past Joshua’s room. The other woman clicked past, too, and then the hall was quiet once more.

Joshua waited a few more seconds before he stepped away from the wall and peeked at the doorway. No one was there. He ran for the nearest counter and shoved his way through the stool legs and underneath. As he turned around so he could watch the door from his new hiding spot he saw something small and dark run into the shadow of the door, just inside the room. His heart thudded in his chest and he strained to see what it was.

He could just make out small red spots along a smooth glossy black surface. He squinted. There was a head, flat and broad, with big staring eyes, and a long glossy black tail tucked tight where feet should be.

Joshua leaned out from under the counter, completely forgetting where he was. “Stewart?” he whispered.

The glossy black head ducked and then turned slowly in Joshua’s direction bringing sharp, clear red eyes to look into his own.

“Stewart!”



~ Peace and surprise

Chapter 10 of Joshua and Stewart's adventure started on 11-24-09

Chapter 10 - Urgency

Stewart reached the end of the hallway and turned the corner. For a brief instant he was in the dark and then the entire world flashed into brilliant existence. Out of pain and fear he slammed his eyes shut and pressed his body to the floor. Nothing happened. He slowly opened his eyes and realized he was in another long, never ending whiteness. This one was a bit different, though. He could see several depressions along the sides that held tall pieces of trees with no branches and no leaves. He skittered along the floor toward the first one and slipped into the depression as a person came striding into view.

The person carried a bundle in his front legs and never looked down where Stewart was trying desperately to hide. He walked by so fast Stewart felt the breeze the man made with his back legs. Three heartbeats later the man disappeared into a different depression in the white wall and the hall was deserted once again.

Stewart lifted himself off the floor and peered in both directions. Just as he stepped away from his hiding spot a voice crackled through the air.

“Code seven, south entrance. Code seven, south entrance.”

Stewart looked frantically around to find the mouth the words were coming from, but he was alone. His heart raced and his legs shook with fear. Where was the voice coming from?

“Code nine, men’s room, south entrance. Code nine, men’s room, south entrance,” the disembodied voice continued.

Not knowing what else to do, and filled with an extreme need to run, Stewart scurried out into the hall and made for the next depression. As he reached it he heard the slap – tap of shoes coming toward him. He pressed himself into the base of the strange flat tree and tried to look like a rock. Two women passed by him talking to one another, their voices tight and clipped.

“Code seven?”

“Yeah, that’s for the HazMat team. Someone’s had some kind of biohazard accident.”

“At the south entrance?”

“I guess.”

“But there aren’t any labs by the south entrance. And what’s code nine?”

“That’s the medical team.”

One of the women stopped. “They’re going to the south entrance…”

The other woman turned and looked at the first. “Yeah, the codes are probably related.”

The first woman raised her hand and pointed in the direction they had been walking. “That’s the south entrance,” she said. “I’m not going anywhere near it.” She turned away from her companion. “I’m going back and head upstairs from the main tower.”

“It’s probably fine, Ann,” the other woman said. “They would’ve closed this section if it was dangerous.”

Ann shook her head. “Nope. I want children someday. I’m not taking chances. If you want to go this way, fine. I’ll meet you in Lab 38 in ten minutes.” She started to walk back the way they had come.

The first woman shook her head and then sighed. “Fine, fine, we’ll go the long way. You’re so paranoid.”

“Yes, but I’m alive and I plan to stay that way.” Ann walked quickly down the hall with her companion hurrying to catch up. Stewart didn’t move until the clicking of their shoes was gone.

The word dangerous sat in Stewart’s head like a sharp stick. He knew what it meant and a blurry image of the hunting rock crossed his mind. He swallowed and ran for the next depression.


~ Peace and urgency

Chapter 9 of the tale of Stewart and Joshua started on 11-24-09

Chapter 9 - Hunger

The room was still dark when Joshua woke up. He had no idea how long he had been asleep, though the ache in his knees and the cramp in his neck made him think it had been a while. He rubbed his eyes and grimaced as his stomach growled. It had been lunch the last time he had eaten. Now he felt famished and had no idea what time it was or where he would find food.

The hallway was filled with continuous noise. The lights just outside his room turned on and then off as people traveled the corridor. He could hear them, their shoes slapping or tapping as they walked, their voices carrying into the room in snatches and clipped sentences that didn’t mean anything to him as they passed. Eventually someone walked by with a bag of popcorn, the thick butter smell spilled into his room, and it was all he could do not to leave his hiding spot and beg for a handout.

And he had to pee. That realization came on fast and sudden as he tried to shift his limbs in the tight little space. How was he going to pee when the lights came on every time something in the room moved? And where? He stared out at the stools and counters and wished for an answer.

For several long moments he considered unfolding himself and running for the nearest counter. Doing that would set off the lights, but being under the counter would mean space and the ability to see better. His view from the tight little cubby was limited to the back third of the room and an awkward line of sight to the door. If he could see better then he might be able to figure out how to escape. He started to reach his foot out when the room lights flared on. A man had entered and began shoving a few of the stools around. Joshua pressed himself as far back into his hiding space as he could.

“Well crap,” the man shoving the stools muttered. “What the hell did I do with it?”

Joshua watched as the man glanced under one of the counters and then walked closer to the file cabinet.

“I could have sworn I left it in here…”

A drawer was pulled open on the file cabinet and then pushed shut. Joshua held his breath. Another drawer was pulled out, rifled through, and then shut.

“Huh,” the man muttered. Joshua could just see the tips of one of the man’s shoes. “Maybe I left it upstairs.” The man turned and walked out of the room and Joshua started to breath again.

After a few seconds of quiet Joshua peeked around the file cabinet. The lights were still on, but the room was empty. He unfolded his aching legs and stretched them out in front of himself, rubbing his knees and turning his head to take the kink out of his neck. The sounds of voices and shoes in the hallway sent him scrambling for the nearest counter and he pulled a stool in behind him. He was not hidden under the counter like he had been in the tight space between the file cabinet and the wall. If he moved too much at the wrong moment someone would notice and come take him away.

Shortly a woman in a long white coat walked past with an armful of books and papers. Joshua pulled his knees in tight against his chest and let the shirt cover his legs again. He hoped it would make him look like part of the floor. She never once looked into the room and after she passed he relaxed a little.

In the light of the room he was able to see the pockets on the shirt near the top and along the sides. He reached into one and found a pen and a small pad of paper. In another he found a tiny screwdriver, paper clips, and a black rubber stopper with a hole through its center. There were a few tissues in another pocket and in the last one he found a strawberry cereal bar.

Eating it was a challenge. Every time he took a bite or opened the wrapper a little it made crinkling noises. He had to stop each time someone walked by the room and it took almost ten minutes to finish it. In the end he sat with his legs tucked up, a smear of strawberry on his fingers, and an empty wrapper that he repeatedly dumped into his wide-open mouth hoping to get the last few crumbs still left inside.

~ Peace and sustenance

Chapter 8 of Stewart and Joshua's adventure started on 11-24-09

Chapter 8 - The long whiteness and the empty shadow

Everything was so bright. And cold. The sun was no longer the right color and it wasn’t warm like it should be. The ground beneath Stewart’s feet was wrong. It was too flat and too smooth. And there was nowhere to hide. He hadn’t noticed that right away. The light had been so sharp that he had stumbled through the sneaky hole several feet before he started to wonder what was wrong with the grass. With his eyes half closed to shade them, he could finally see there was no grass, just flat, bright white, on and on and on. He turned and looked back the way he had come. The man wearing the shadow was still thrashing about in the pond. Between the pond and the sneaky hole was grass and rocks and dirt. He looked forward again. Everything beyond him was…different.

In the distance he could hear slapping sounds, voices talking too fast for him to understand, clicks and buzzes and clanging. All of it made him nervous. All of it made him want to hide. The only place that seemed possible was a shady spot beside a tall, thin wall so he scurried towards it.

His claws made tiny clicking, scratching sounds on the ground as he ran. His tail swished back and forth with the undulations of his long, narrow body. Once he made it to the shade he curled up and watched. It wasn’t nearly as dark there as he had hoped. He still felt very exposed with no grass hanging over him and no dirt and rock to blend in to. He looked at his front foot. It stood out against the white ground like a deep red-brown clump of mud. He looked up, searching for birds. There weren’t any and that was good.

After resting a few moments he peeked out and looked further down the long whiteness. He breathed in and out and it irritated him. Breathing in the water was so much easier. The water just flowed into his mouth, over his gills, and back out into the pond. Now he had to pull the cold, dry air into his lungs and push it back out again. The more he moved the harder he had to breathe, and his gills were beginning to stick to his sides. He hated how that felt. He looked back at the sneaky hole. It was still open. He could run back out and hide, then scurry his way back to his pond and be safe.

The man from the high, clear place climbed out of the pond and started back. He was dragging the two nasty sticks behind him and water glistened off the shadow he wore. He was not walking very fast. His steps were heavy and each time he raised his back feet water sloshed out of his legs. As he got closer, Stewart could see his face inside the huge clear eye and it made him shiver. The man was breathing hard, Stewart could hear it, and every breath he took seemed to hurt him. The man’s mouth was a long, straight line and he had deep grooves over his eyes. He stepped through the sneaky hole and the wall slid shut behind him. Stewart felt a deep sense of panic as he watched the grass disappear.

The man took three more steps into the long whiteness, dropped both nasty sticks on the ground and began to peel the shadow off. He pulled the shadow’s head off his own and let it fall to the floor, then he pulled on a loose piece in the front and tore open the shadow from beneath his neck all the way to his back legs. The whole thing made Stewart shake. The man pulled the shadow from his shoulders and let the shadow fall to the floor in a heap. He stepped out and then walked slowly down the long whiteness, his back feet leaving small puddles of water with each step. He turned and suddenly disappeared into the wall.

Stewart looked from the wall where the man had been to the lump of shadow he had left on the floor. Curiosity got the better of him and he crept toward the shadow with slow, tentative steps, swinging his head from side to side to be sure he was safe. All of a sudden a part of the wall further down flew out from the face and the long whiteness was filled with voices. The woman and two men poured out and began searching for something. Stewart scuttled into the folds and hanging down places made by the shadow and hid.

“Mason!” the woman shouted. “Mason where are you?”

Stewart watched from under an overhang of orange as one of the men started down the long whiteness in his direction.

“Look, he left the biohazard suit.”

“Don’t touch it!” the second man yelled and the first one stopped ten feet from Stewart and his hiding place. “Natalie, call the HazMat team to come take care of it. One casualty is more than enough, Rob.”

The first man nodded and then glanced at the floor. “He’s gone in there,” he said and pointed to the place in the wall the man had disappeared into. “Call the medical team, too, Nat. Send them to the men’s room. He’s gonna need them in a hurry.”

The woman nodded and tuned back the way she had come. She pulled the broken piece of the wall back into place, leaving the men alone in the long whiteness.

“What do we do?” the first one asked. “He’s a dead man. What do we do?”

“We go in there and make sure he’s there, we don’t touch him, and we wait for the med team. They know what to do. That’s their job.”

“I’m right, though, aren’t I.”

“Yeah,” the second man said as he carefully stepped around the water on the floor. “He’s a dead man all right. He’s got maybe 36 hours at best.”

“Shit,” the first man hissed and followed the other one into the open space in the wall.

Stewart stayed hidden for a few more moments before he realized just where he was. Slowly he crept out from under the shadow and then crawled onto its skin. He peered at the pile left by the man and he shuddered. There was nothing in there. The insides of the shadow were gone. No bones. No meat. No fat. Nothing. Stewart looked at the place where the sneaky hole had been and wished it would come back. He wished it would let him out. Then he remembered why he was in the long whiteness in the first place. The child. The warm hands and big eyes. If this is what the man had done to the shadow who knew him, what would he do to the child who didn’t? Stewart climbed down off the shadow’s skin and scurried down the long whiteness, hugging the base of the white wall as he ran. This was no place for a child. Not for his child.


~ Peace and spirit

Chapter 7 of Joshua and Stewart's dilemma started on 11-24-09

Chapter 7 - Decision

The pond was filled with a strange sucking, whining noise that hurt Stewart’s ears. It drew him out of another dream, this time about the hunting rock down in the beyond. The noise was just like the noise in his dream, the same eerie sound the hunting rock made when it had caught something and was eating it. He hated that noise. He wrapped his tail around his feet and pressed himself tight against the rock shelf.

The sunlight no longer filtered in through the algae. Now the surface was a dull green nothingness and the water below it was hard to see through. The sudden splash and descent of the nasty stick made Stewart bolt to the surface and into the hanging grass along the edge of the pond. The shadow was back and it was angry. It was growling and snarling as it jabbed the stick over and over into the pond. The horrible clicking box was there, too.


“You’ve got to move whatever it is blocking the outflow pipe, John. Now. The pressure’s building. The entire system’s bound up because of this.”

“Yeah, well who the hell missed the indicators, huh?”

“What was that?”

“I said, who the hell missed the indicators!” the shadowed yelled.


Stewart blinked. He had understood the words.


“Don’t yell at me,” a woman’s voice squawked back. “That was Mason’s job. Not mine.”

“You got the email just like the rest of them, Nat. You could have done something about it.”

“Me? Me? I’m trying to keep an eye on the kid! This is Mason’s fault! He’s the one who told me to grab the child in the first place! Hell, if he hadn’t forgotten to check the fence line the boy wouldn’t be hiding in the bio lab.”


Stewart blinked and cocked his head. He understood what the voice was saying. He knew what the growls meant.


“You know what,” the shadow snarled back, “I don’t want to hear it. All day long you people sit in there and mess with the conductivity of this and the electron balance of that and when the damn system you guys built starts sucking in things it’s not supposed to I have to come out here to the this mini hellhole you idiots created and fix it!”


“Mmmm,” Stewart tried as he pressed his lips together.  “Mmmmmeeeee,” he whined softly.


The shadow jabbed the stick hard against the bottom and yanked it back and forth.

“What ever it is down there it’s stuck good. You’ll have to reverse the flow and maybe then I can shift it,” it said.

“Yeah, that’s not gonna happen.”

“Excuse me?”

“We can’t do that, John,” a man’s voice crackled into the air. “The containment pond won’t be able to handle that type of flow and we have nowhere to send the backflow when the water level in the pond gets too high.”

“You’re joking.”

“Ah, not so much.”

The shadow backed up and leaned on its nasty stick. “Who the hell designed this system?”

“Mason.”


Stewart hissed and rolled his tongue against his front teeth. “Hhhhlllllll. Hhhhelllllllll.”


“Well you better tell Mason that his system is screwed.”

“John? This is Mason. Listen you have to unclog the outflow pipe. It’s extremely important.”

“Can’t do it.”

“Well you have to do it. Everything we’ve been working on will be affected if the system gets fouled.”

“I’m telling you that I can’t unclog it with this pole. It’s not possible.”

“Then get another pole! Get a pitchfork! Get something that will unclog it!”


The shadow threw the nasty stick on the ground and turned toward the high white wall. Stewart scurried forward and hid himself under a clump of weeds. It was harder to move on the ground. Not all of his legs seemed to work quite right. Swimming was much easier. Swimming was smooth and precise. Running was awkward and tiring. He watched the shadow disappear into the sneaky place in the white wall and then return with a new stick. This one was longer and thicker. It had two long claws on the end and the sight of it caused Stewart to press himself close to the ground.

“This is not going to work,” the shadow snapped.


Stewart watched the shadow pierce the pond’s surface with the new stick. It went through the same motions as before and got no where.


“How’s it coming?” the woman asked.

“How do you think? Are your readings any better? Has the pressure changed?”

“No.”

“Yeah, I didn’t think so. I told you it wasn’t going to work.”

“It has to work!”

“How? How do you want me to make it work, Mason?! Get an even bigger pole?”

“Get in the water and pull whatever it is off the grate.”

The shadow stood up and turned toward the high white wall. There was a different sort of hole up high that Stewart had never noticed before. He could see people there. A woman and two men.

“Are you out of your friggin’ mind?!?” The shadow threw its hands out to the sides, the new stick flashed in the late evening sun. “I’m not going in there! The radiation levels alone are too high, and the toxicity is off the charts! No way!”


Stewart watched as one of the men in the high up hole grabbed his head and turned in a tight circle.


“Shut the system down, Mason!” the shadow yelled. “If it’s that critical then shut it all down!”


“Ssshhhhtttttttttttt.” Stewart tried. “Ddddddwwnnnn.”


“I CAN”T SHUT IT DOWN!”

“WHY NOT?!”


One of the men in the high place looked like he was going to fall. His front legs were held in front of himself like he was trying to jump out of the high place, but he stayed right where he was. Stewart’s stomach grew taut waiting for him to fall and he couldn’t understand why he didn’t. Then he remembered. Before the pond there had been clear walls that kept him in one place. He had tried to climb them, but it hadn’t worked. He had been able to see everything around him, but he couldn’t get to any of it. Maybe that’s what kept the man from falling.


“Do you have any idea how much money this project is costing us? Do you know how much money this project will generate if it succeeds?!” There was a dull thud as the high up man hit the clear wall. “If I shut the system down it’s a complete wash. A complete wash! It can’t be done over! It can’t be restarted!” He hit the clear wall again. “CLEAR THE DAMN PIPE!”

“CLEAR IT YOURSELF!” the shadow roared and threw the new stick on the ground. It landed not five feet from where Stewart was hiding and he pressed himself as close to the ground as he could to keep from being seen.

“JOHN!”

The shadow turned away from the high clear place and walked toward the sneaky open place below.

“JOHN!” 

The high up man hit the clear wall again, the thud was louder this time, ringing and angry.


The shadow disappeared inside the white wall and the sneaky place slid shut. Stewart glanced up at the clear wall. The two men were thrashing their front legs at each other and the woman was trying to back away. He looked at her. He knew her. She was the one that had yelled the other day. She was the one who said she had taken the child. He remembered the angry, frightened screams. He knew those screams. He had heard them before. The child with the warm hands and the big eyes had made them. Those had been the hands that had put him gently in his pond.

Stewart looked at the place where the opening had been. The child was in there. He scurried towards the high white wall and ducked behind a rock that was resting against it. The sneaky place slid open again and the man who had almost fallen from the high place came out. He was wearing the shadow on his body and carrying the shadow’s head. He looked around and then put the shadow’s head over his own.

Stewart could see his face through the big, clear eye and he shuddered. The man’s eyes reminded him of the hunting rock. They were not right. The man walked to the new stick, picked it up and plunged it into the pond. He jabbed and jabbed and twisted and yanked. It made Stewart’s skin hurt to watch. Finally the man shouted and stepped into the water. He slid as his back legs lost their footing. When he stopped sliding he was into the pond to his middle and the new stick was thrust back into the water and twisted some more.

Up in the high place the woman watched and another man Stewart hadn’t seen before stepped up next to her. She gestured with her front legs and the new man shook his head. She put her front legs over her head and sat down. Stewart glanced at the man wearing the shadow and then made a decision. The man hadn’t closed the sneaky place. The woman had said the child was hiding in there somewhere. He was going to go find him. This was no place for warm, gentle hands.

Stewart took seven halting steps towards the opening, glancing between it and the man in the pond. When he got to the opening he was dazzled by the white light inside, but he blinked, half closed his eyes, and scurried inside.


~ Peace and determination

Chapter 6 - Joshua and Stewart's story from 11-24-09

Chapter 6 - The Beginning of Knowing


While he slept, the cool, thin water swirled around him, and Stewart dreamed. Dreams were new to him. They weren’t scary, like some unknown world suddenly dropped on him from the sky. And they weren’t terrorizing like the hunting rock, or suspicious like the shadow. They were new…and old…at the same time.

In his dreams he swam in his pond and caught his meals and thought about what was beyond the green algae ceiling of his home. In his dreams he remembered things. Like small hands and big eyes and a gentle touch. He remembered clear, hard walls and tiny rocks and the smallest pond anyone could ever have to sit in. And he remembered shouting, being lifted very high in the air, and the fear of falling. He remembered the small hands reaching towards him. He remembered wanting them to take him down from the high place and put him back by his tiny pond beside the clear, hard walls. And he remembered sunshine and warm green algae and deep water filled with all sorts of places to hide. No shouting, no high places, and…no more small, warm hands and big eyes. He didn’t feel good about the last memory. Something about it was sad.

Stewart opened his eyes and looked at the surface of the pond. It glowed a faint light green. The sun was up, but not very high so the pond was still cool from the night. He crept to the edge of his shelf and looked down into the beyond. Not much moved in the darkness. The water swirled in slow circles around him as it made its way to the hunting rock. He looked up and then side to side before he pushed himself from the shelf and into the center of the pond. He was still the biggest swimming thing in it, now that the carp was dead.

He swam slowly, all his legs pressed against his sides and the base of his tail. The water slid past him as his whole body undulated from side to side, his long tail propelling him forward. When he saw something edible he swam faster, cornered it, and then ate it. But there were less and less things to catch. Even though it didn’t move, the hunting rock was better at catching its prey than he was. After all this time Stewart was sure the nasty rock took up the whole bottom of the pond.

Throughout the early morning he swam in lazy circles and thought. He did this every time the cool, thin water bathed him. It was in the swimming that he came to realize that he knew. And it was in the knowing that he was beginning to appreciate the cool, thin water. So it was this morning as well. He swam and he thought. As he circled the pond he stopped off on the few ledges and shelves that lined the pond, resting and investigating them. He rarely found anything new. But sometimes something would be different. Sometimes something from above would fall in. Other times a new plant would have started to grow. And still other times the shelf or ledge would have changed. The rock that made the walls of the pond was not very strong, though it was very flat. If the hunting rock sucked the water down too hard, or if the shadow hit the pond walls with its nasty stick, then the shelves and ledges often became different.

Stewart glided onto a shelf and settled himself. It was big and flat and broad. Nothing grew on it and nothing hid there because nothing grew there. It was a good place for resting and watching other things swim past, so he rested and he watched and he thought. And while he thought he realized that he knew something. He knew one of the voices from the day before. The smaller, higher voice. This bothered him and he lashed his tail. The voice had been angry and afraid. He had heard it before. It had been scared and angry then, as well. Remembering made him anxious and he lashed his tail again. Remembering made him fearful so he paced on the shelf. A dull, muted snap sounded behind him and he could feel the rock he stood on tilt and fall away. The old fear of falling from a high place flooded back so strong and sharp that he darted through the water like a fish to his sleeping shelf. He remembered small hands reaching and big eyes wide and watching. He knew. He knew. Those hands and those eyes had been taken somewhere.

He backed himself into the tightest part of his shelf and wedged himself into the smallest space he could find. His heart beat hard in his chest and this scared him even more than the knowing. Where had the hands and eyes gone? Why had they been yelling so scared outside of his pond?

Stewart pressed himself flat against the shelf and tried to become the rock he lay on. Suddenly his home was not safe and he didn’t know why. Suddenly he felt grief and fear and confusion all at once and he had no idea what they were. He closed his eyes and tried to think of other things, any things, things that were not himself.

Below his shelf, in the deepest part of the pond, the shale ledge that had cracked and fallen from beneath him settled against the outflow grate. The draw of water through the out flow pipe slowed. The system drew harder on the rock to no avail. Inside the Wurton Biologic Research Facilities building a message was generated and sent to a dozen email accounts regarding water pressure, time elapsed, estimated damage within an estimated time frame. No one noticed the email. They noticed the irritating alarm that beeped in the main control room 12 hours later. It was another 30 minutes before anyone actually responded.



~ Peace and knowing

Chapter 5 of Joshua and Stewart's journey having begun on 11-24-09

Chapter 5 - Hidden


The darkness didn’t really bother him. At home darkness often meant security. No one could find him in the dark. If they couldn’t find him then they couldn’t mess with him. If they couldn’t mess with him then he could relax. And he did. The tight space beneath the counter, beside the file cabinet was just right for hiding. Joshua knew hiding places. No one would believe he could fit in here. He was good at fitting into tight places and disappearing. He disappeared a lot.

It wasn’t the dark that made him uncomfortable. It was the cold. At first the tight little space had felt warm, like the air outside. But the metal side of the file cabinet and the concrete wall he was squeezed between were cold and they pulled his body heat into themselves and gave nothing back. Goose bumps scattered over the skin of his arms and his legs. Shorts and a t-shirt had been fine outside in the summer sun. In here it was dry and air conditioned. He started to shiver.

He wasn’t sure he liked air conditioning. They didn’t have any at home. To keep cool his mother had bought a big fan shaped like a box and set it in front of the sliding glass doors to the balcony of their apartment. He loved to sit in front of it. The breeze it made was cool enough to feel better, but not too cool to make him shiver. He wanted to sleep on the floor in front of the fan, but instead of saying yes, his mother had chosen to scare him with horror stories of fans that fell on little children and pulled them into the plastic screen when their hair got caught in the fan blades. Her stories hadn’t scared him. His hair was too short to get caught and he knew it. But clothes could get caught in the blades. She had shown him that. It took him several long minuets to get the tattered t-shirt out of the fan blades. It was hard to pull the material out when the plastic grate was tight against your body. He never got close to the fan after that.

In the distance he heard a door shut followed by the clicking of the woman’s shoes. The lights in the hallway came on as she walked around the corner. She came to a stop in front of the room he was hiding in and stood there. Then she took two steps and the room lights came on, too. He watched as her shoes turned to go, turned back, and then turned and left, clicking their way further down the hall. Another door closed somewhere further along. When it grew quiet Joshua peeked out and looked around.

The room was mostly white and grey. There were four counters with stools tucked under them. There was stuff up on the counters, but he had no idea what the stuff was. There were cabinets by the room door and a big white thing on the wall. Someone had written a bunch of scribbles all over it. Next to it, hanging off the seat of another stool, was a white shirt. If he was quick and quiet, he could grab it and get back to his hiding place before anyone would know. The shirt would be warm. It would keep the cold air off his arms. If he tucked his legs up tight it might cover them, too. He squeezed out of the space and crawled as quickly as he could to the stool, snatched the shirt off the seat, and scrambled back as fast as he could go.

In the cramped hiding space he struggled to pull the shirt around his shoulders. He could hear the woman coming back, the door had opened and smacked the wall somewhere down the hall and her shoes were clicking towards his room again. He grabbed his ankle and pulled his left leg in as hard as he could. One of the shirt sleeves fell off his lap and into the lit space beyond his hiding place. She would see it if she looked. He reached out and jerked it, pulling it into his lap and holding his breath. Her shoes stopped in the doorway. They took a few steps into the room, stood quietly for a moment and then turned and left. Joshua held his breath, wanting the lights in the room to go out. Wanting the lights in the hall way to turn off. Wanting the darkness that would keep him safely hidden. A moment later the room went dark, and then the hall.

Joshua took a tentative breath. Nothing happened. He shivered a little less under the shirt in his tight little space and after ten minutes of silence and darkness he fell asleep.


~ Peace and security

Chapter 4 of the Joshua/Stewart tale from 11-24-09

Chapter 4 - Escape Inside



The skinny woman who had grabbed him first held her right hand in her left while she ran behind the man who carried him now. Joshua had tried to bite the man, too, but the man’s coat was too thick. He knew it pinched, though, because the man had growled at him to knock it off or he would throw him in the pond. And even though the woman glared at Joshua as she pulled the door shut behind them, she had snapped at the man and told him to watch his mouth.

Since biting and kicking and screaming hadn’t worked, Joshua tried a new plan. He hung as limply as he could in the man’s grasp. His older sister had told him about a game she had played at a sleepover called “Light as a Feather, Stiff as a Board”. She said the stiffer a person was the easier it was to lift them off the ground, even using only fingertips. She said it had worked the opposite way when they tried “Heavy as an Elephant, Limp as a Noodle”. Joshua imagined himself heavy like an elephant and made himself loose like a piece of cooked spaghetti. It seemed to be working because now the man was growling about how hard he was to carry. Suddenly he was dropped on the cold floor of the narrow hallway.

“What are you doing?” the woman snapped at the man.

“He’s too hard to carry this way,” the man snarled back. “I need to get a better grip.”

That was all Joshua needed. He got to his feet and ran down the hall.

“Hey!”

“You idiot! You couldn’t have made it another twenty yards? He’s what? Four? Five? You’re an adult! How can you not hold on to him that much longer?”

“Shut up, Natalie! You should talk! You had him first! I shouldn’t have had to come out there!”

“HE BIT ME!”

Joshua could hear the smack of the man’s shoes against the floor and the high click of the woman’s in between their shouting as they ran after him. He passed two doors that were closed and then a third. The hall seemed to end in another hall, but it was dark and he wasn’t sure he could get there before they caught up to him.

“Mason! Open the door! The kid’s loose!” the man yelled.

Joshua swallowed and then sprinted for the end of the hallway. A door on his left began to open and he tried to dodge it. A second man appeared in his peripheral vision.

“Come here, you,” the second man snarled, his hand brushing Joshua’s skin, his fingers just missing catching Joshua by the arm.

Joshua jerked his arm in to his chest, lost his balance for just a moment, nearly fell and then righted himself and scurried around the corner. The new hallway lit up as the lights were triggered by his movement. There were more doors in this hall. This time most of them were open. He darted through the second doorway, triggered another set of lights, and found himself in a room filled with counters and high stools. He could hear the first man screaming in the other hall.

“Close the door! He’s getting away! I can’t get through unless you close the damn door!”

Joshua looked around the room and saw a tight, shadowy place in the far corner and scrambled on all fours toward it. He heard the door in the hall slam and running feet. Just as the man reached the room, Joshua pulled his legs in against his body and held his breath.

The man stopped in front of the doorway. Joshua could just see the tips of the man’s shoes from where he was hiding. The man was breathing hard. He coughed twice like he needed a drink. There was a quick click, click, click outside in the hall and Joshua saw the woman’s shoes join the man’s.

“Mason said to leave him alone,” the woman said quietly. “He said the sensors will keep track of him. And he can’t get out. He doesn’t have a pass card.”

“You know, this is Mason’s fault. If he would have walked the fence line like he was supposed to this wouldn’t have happened…”

“Rob,” the woman had dropped her voice so low that Joshua could barely hear her. “Sensors, remember? This isn’t private.”

“Yeah, alright. Let’s go.”

The shoes turned and went back the way they had come. A few moments later the room light went out, another minute passed and the hall light went out, and the room Joshua was hiding in became pitch black.



~ Peace and sanctuary

Chapter 3 - the beginning of this strange little tale starts on 11-24-09 and is titled "What Joshua Doesn't Know Won't Hurt Him"

Here's the third installment of the Joshua/Stewart story.  I am beginning to see where this might go, though only time and the writing of it will tell if my inkling is correct.  Comments?  Thoughts?  Concerns?  I promise not to send you to the hunting rock if you're brave enough to post.  :)



Chapter 3 - Shadows and New Water


There was a loud echoing clang, deep and round. Stewart opened his eyes and looked at the edge of the shelf he was resting on. Another deep metallic clink rang out and then the familiar sound of water moving away. He looked towards the surface. The shadow was there. The one that helped the beyond rock hunt.

Stewart moved to the back wall and followed it to the surface. The water moved here, too, but he could easily out swim the current. Through the green ceiling of algae he watched the shadow shift. He could hear the muted growls it made, low and irritated. He allowed his eyes to slip past the surface’s edge, to break the connectedness of the green film and peer out from behind the hanging grass at the edge of the pond.

The shadow was orange. It had legs before and behind and a head with a strange single, giant eye. There was no tail. Something near it rattled off a series of insistent, infuriating clicks and snaps. They made Stewart’s head hurt with their constancy. The shadow turned and looked at him. He froze. Stopped breathing in the water. Didn’t move. Not a muscle.

The eye was filled with a face. There were two more eyes and a mouth. The inside eyes were not looking at him, though the giant eye seemed to see past the grass and right into him. Stewart wanted to sink back into the water, slide below the green layer and hide on his shelf. But he couldn’t. His body wouldn’t move.

The orange shadow moved along the far side of the pond dragging its behind legs, pulling a stick, long and mean, with it’s before legs, grasped in its claws. Then it growled. Against his best thinking Stewart lifted his head just a bit more above the surface and his ears popped as the water ran from them. The growl became clearer, meaner, sharper.

“John, clear the outflow pipe. The suction’s building, but we’re getting very little water.”

The shadow hit its shoulder.

“Copy. Give me a sec.”

It leaned on its before legs and crept close to the water’s edge. The giant eye peered into the green slime and then it pulled the long stick in front of itself. Stewart’s legs grew tense, the claws on all his feet dug into the wall and he made himself ready to bolt. The shadow pushed the stick into the water and stood up. Stewart ducked back into the pond and stared at the stick as the end of it disappeared into the darkness beyond. It was headed straight for the hunting rock.

The stick stopped descending and instead began to move from side to side, back and forth. Stewart could hear the distant slurp and suck of the rock and his skin twitched in remembrance. The water around him began to move faster and down. The stick began to rise and he stared at the great clump of things that had been held tight to the rock and been killed in the beyond. The wire was there, caught between dead leaves and twisted bodies.

He surfaced as the stick was pulled out. The shadow banged the mass against the ground; all the lost, dead things fell away. That was how it had happened with the carp. Too close to the rock, caught and unable to escape. Couldn’t even breathe well trapped that far down for so long. The shadow had come. Had growled and shoved its nasty long stick into the water and stabbed the old carp clean through. Stewart had seen it. He had felt the pain of the piercing.

When the stick rose that time the water had swirled towards the beyond so rapidly, so furiously, that Stewart was sure he would die in the jaws of the hunting rock. He had clung to the walls at the back of his shelf and hoped that it would stop. He had watched the surface of the pond creep towards him, his entire home being drawn into the mouth of the nasty rock below.

Before the surface had reached him, before it had left him helpless and obvious above the water and beneath the hanging grass, the water had stopped moving down. The shadow had roared and then the water had stilled. Stewart hadn’t understood anything that had happened. Moments later the water began to rise and he was surrounded by a cooler, thin, faster water. Water he hadn’t felt in a very long time. The next day he had felt more knowing than the day before. He had felt more aware. And he knew, somehow, it had been the new water that had done that.

Now he watched the shadow beat the dead things off the end of its stick and glance around itself. Stewart raised his ears out of the water again and he listened.

“Hey, Rob.”
“Yeah.”
“Tell Mason he’s got to do something about the damn fence. Kids been in here again.”

The shadow moved to the carp’s rotted body.

“How do you know?”
“There’s a dead fish. A big carp from a previous clean out…it’s been beat to hell.”
“How? The gate’s locked ain’t it?”

The shadow looked away and then back at the carp.

“Yeah, it’s locked. But you don’t need to use the gate if there’s a hole in the fence.”
“John! This is Mason. What hole?”

Stewart watched the shadow move off toward the woven wires that surrounded the pond. It leaned down and yanked on the wires.

“The one at the bottom of the west panel.”
“How big is it?”
“Kid sized.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah. And there’s a boy playing in the park.”
“Shit.”
“John, it’s Rob. How many kids?”
“Just one.”
“Adults?”
“Ah, no. I don’t see any.”
“Okay. I’m sending Natalie out to get him. Stand by.”
“Copy.”

The shadow stayed still beside the woven wires. It clung to it with both before legs, sat on the haunches of its behind legs, facing away from the pond. It was very hard to see. Stewart raised himself up every so slightly and blinked once to clear his eyes. Somewhere beyond the woven wires there was a yell and another. The shadow stood up on its behind legs and gripped the wires.

“John, she got him?”
“Yeah. He’s fighting her though.”
“Damn it.”
“He’s bit her! Now he’s trying to run.”

There was another series of yells, the distant banging of metal on metal. Stewart’s heart began to beat faster though he didn’t know why.

“Mason?”
“Yeah!”
“Rob’s got the kid. He and Natalie are headed back inside.”
“Thank God. Finish your work and get the hell back in here, too.”
“Yeah, alright.”

The shadow turned and headed for the far side of the pond and the annoying clicking thing. It grabbed it up and headed towards a high white wall.

“John?”
“Yeah.”
“Lock the door. You got that?”
“Yeah, I got it.”
“Out.”

Stewart watched the shadow disappear inside the white wall through a sneaky hole that was hard to see. First it was not there, then it was there, then it was gone again. Only a subtle hint in the wall told you where it was hidden. He narrowed his eyes and shuddered. Around his lower legs he could feel the swirling cool water that always followed the shadow’s departure. In the morning he would understand more. He had come to accept that. In the morning the new water would gift him with more knowing. He sunk back into the pond and let the new water bathe him.


~  Peace and portents

Let's call it Chapter 2 for now

Since I have had some encouragement to see where this weird little tale is headed, I sat myself down at my computer and let my fingers fall on my key board where they may.  I do not know why or who or what will happen, but am willing to take the ride if you are.  So, without further ado...



Below - Chapter 2 of the "Joshua" post

Stewart watched as the twisted wire slowly sank beneath the green muck that was the pond’s surface. The ripples of its entrance created a brief sunlit window under the water. It made him blink. Light that intense rarely made it through. Things swam past him, fleeing the light and the wire’s decent. He grabbed for one of them and stuffed the wriggling thing in his mouth. You didn’t let a meal get away. You never knew how long you would have to wait for the next one.

The wire continued to fall. It was silent, like most inanimate things, and emotionless about its new location. For a moment it hovered even with Stewart’s eyes and he started to reach out and catch it. Then the moment passed and he watched it fall away into the deepening green black of the bottom of the pond. He didn’t trust things that fell in from above. There was pain and fear and agony whenever something broke the surface and invaded his world. More than that there was removal and permanence. He had seen what that had done to the carp that lay rotting beside the pond. Removal meant death. Death was permanent.

Slowly Stewart turned and swam for the shelf he used as a resting place. He settled himself and watched the green ceiling of the pond mend itself, shutting out the bright and painful light. He let bubbles slip out the corner of his mouth. It took them many seconds to rise to the surface and once there they lay caught against the slime, trapped and unable to release the carbon dioxide they contained into the air only millimeters away. Eventually the water would reclaim the gases. The swirling algae would grow a bit lusher where the bubbles had stopped.

At the surface the algae regained its uninterrupted mass; the only evidence that it had been disturbed was a strange swirled line where the wire had cut through, a darker green scar among the lighter green mat. Stewart looked down. The wire was no longer visible. Not because the light was so dim, Stewart didn’t really need much light to see his world, but because it had fallen beyond.

Once in a while he would swim down. Down where the light was less. Down where the water was heavier. Down where it was thicker and harder to breathe. He remembered the time he had swum so far down that he had found a strange rock filled with holes. It had been flat and smooth and tasted like the pipe near the surface where cool water sometimes seeped in. The rock had been very far down. The water had been heavy and thick and hard to swim in. He felt the holes in it more than he saw them. It was when he had his face, his cheek, resting against it that it had grabbed him.

A tremendous weight pressed him tightly against the rock, pulled the heavy water against his other side and past his face, further into the beyond. He struggled against it. Pushed with all his strength to get away. He could feel pieces of himself tearing away and slipping with the water through the retched holes.

He knew death. He had given it to many smaller creatures in the pond. He knew permanence. He knew both these things were hunting him now. And then, for no reason he could understand or decipher, he was allowed to escape. All the weight was removed and he swan hard for the green ceiling of his home. He had never been afraid of anything before. He had never worried about anything before. The pond had always been his. Now it belonged to something else. Now he worried.

The places on his side where the grate had allowed the outflow to pull his flesh from his body tingled with the memory. He shuddered in the security of his cove and peered into the darkness of down. The wire was probably resting beside the weird rock that waited for its meals. It would stay there a very long time. He wasn’t going to get it.


~ Peace and continuations

Into each life a little darkness creeps...

The dreary days are getting to me.  What better way then to write to scatter the darkness from my thinking.  Will this chase you away or will you stop in again and see what I've come up with?



What Joshua Doesn't Know Won't Hurt Him

Joshua poked the eye of the dead carp with the twisted wire he had found. He was near the edge of the pond, resting on his haunches, his five year old knees tight against his chest, one arm wrapped around them for support while the other worked to remove the milky, sightless eye. The fish stank. And it was huge. Joshua had never seen such a big fish in all his life.

Considering how rotted it was he was having quite a bit of trouble getting the eye out. He knew crows liked the eyes. This eye had been against the ground before he had flipped the fish over. The other side of the carp was mostly bones and scales. There had been maggots crawling around inside and flies buzzing and hovering just above the decayed flesh. But this eye was in good shape. He was sure that was because of the flat stone the carp had been lying on.

He watched as a fly landed on a small wet spot on the grey stone, walked the centimeter length of the patch and then walked onto a dry place. It walked in a weird little circle and then its legs gave. In less than five seconds it went from alive and searching to dead and shriveled. A hornet swooped down, landed on the fly and then picked it up and carried it away.

Joshua didn’t like the stone. He was sure it had something to do with how the fish had died. He watched another insect, a sow bug this time, wander across a dry patch of stone and then stop cold, curl in on itself and die. He flicked the little bug off the stone and then gently waved the wire in the air to keep the other flies from landing there accidentally. Eventually he started picking at the eye again.

It was like the eye was tied into the fish’s skull with a string. He’d just about get it out and then it would slip back into place. He nearly reached out with his other hand to hold the fish still while he tried again, but he thought better of it. Too close to the stone. Too close. He raised the wire in the air and held it there for a second. With force he brought it down on the rock with a sharp crack.

The bugs scattered. They had tolerated his presence before; his slow, methodical poking hadn’t disrupted their own marauding so they had stayed. But this unexpected movement, the violence of it, the sudden wind his swing had created, sent them flying.

He hit the stone again. Crack! Then, why he didn’t know, he hit the fish. Once, twice, three times he hit it in rapid succession. Scales and rotted skin and muscle flew off. The sound of the impact was dull and wet and not nearly as satisfying as he expected. He hit it one last time across the head and the skull gave. The eye exploded and the carp’s cheek split from chin to eye socket. Maggots spilled out and writhed on the ground. Those that touched the stone died. The ones that fell on the grass simply wriggled further into the darkness at the roots.

The strings that held the eye in place, the nerves and tendons, hung out of the socket like tiny hands reaching for a lost toy. The eye was gone. Frustrated and losing interest, Joshua shoved the dead carp with the end of the twisted wire until it no longer lay on the grey stone but in the grass beyond it. There were words carved in the rock, but Joshua couldn’t read them so the warning went unnoticed.

“Caution: Radioactive containment pond. Absolutely no swimming. Absolutely no fishing.”

Joshua stood up and threw the twisted wire into the still water. It floated on top for several moments before slowly sinking through the green ooze that covered the pond’s surface. Without a second glance he climbed back through the hole in the chain link fencing that surrounded the pond and ran off to the only open swing in the playground.



~ Peace and knowledge