The Real World

by Hat

Chapter 5

The autumn leaves were dancing in a small whirlwind in Huso’s street. Driving leisurely, he wondered if he could salvage a certain board game when he got home. It would be something to teach Dashie, and he had been missing having someone to play it with. Checking the rear vision mirror, he could see her napping. With no phone calls, it was quiet. Tapping his fingers on the steering wheel, he began sounding out a long-forgotten beat. He pulled into his driveway.

Bringing Dashie in her bag across to the front door, his tune subsided. A notice had been stuck on the wood; in large red print, ‘FORECLOSURE’.

Cold shot through his veins. Pushing his key to rotate, the lock stayed fast. I paid on time.

“Good afternoon,” came a man’s voice.

Huso spun around, eyes wide and wet.

“Easy now!” a policewoman said.

Their faces were friendly, but in their eyes lived the hunt—Huso knew it.

“What do you say about coming down to the station and having a little chat?” The policeman said, his partner nodding her head in support.

A police cruiser was parked around the corner. Huso could not have seen it when coming in to the street. It had room in the back.

“What do you say?” The policeman was squinting. His partner’s arm was obscured behind his body, but it was raised just slightly. “You’re being arrested for fraud.”

The cash—counterfeit. Barry!

They advanced a step. Huso’s legs started itching. He knew it, and he knew they knew it too. They smiled jokingly. Sliding on his backpack broke the dam. Side-stepping the lunging police, a pair of handcuffs jingled past his ears. Well-rehearsed in front-porch gymnastics, Huso launched from the stumbling policeman’s back. Sprinting all-out down the street, he stole a glance behind him—one in pursuit, the other racing to the car.

There was only one exit ahead of him—predictable. Scaling a fence, he landed in a neighbour’s garden. A fountain was trickling peacefully. He used it to climb the next fence, taking one of two directions. The policeman would have a hard time guessing which house’s garden he was in, but likewise would Huso risk running into his opponent by accident; he could not stay in this grid forever.

There was a treehouse in the corner. It might do; if he got desperate, he could pull up the ladder. Feeling Dashie kicking his spine, he let her down. The pack already being unzipped, she lept onto the grass. Without a word, she pelted forwards. Reaching a statue of an angel, she jumped and, pushing off from its wing, unfolded her own two and shot upwards. For the first time in his life, Huso sincerely gasped. Seeing a beast unleashed to reach its capacity, unimpeded through the strength of its determination formed in urgency, and reaching total freedom for one moment, he heard his heart’s alliance to it. Spurning the treehouse, he grabbed his bag and scaled another fence.

Dashie called down, “go left!”

Adrenaline flowing freely, his hands grasped the fence and pulled. Splinters rupturing his skin was met with amusement. Hitting concrete, he continued the run. A siren erupted road-side. It faded down a wrong turn. Over another fence, a kid pointing skywards with mouth agape. The library, Huso thought, zooming past. The next garden over, Dashie swooped down.

“Hold on,” she said.

They were at the end of the block. On the other side, footsteps were nearing rapidly. Huso’s long-neglected muscles were burning, yet so was his vigour. Waiting for the policeman to pass, he set himself like a spring-trap to sprint. Dashie was circling on the spot. Both were yearning to go. Unintelligible radio chatter came and went, and the footsteps died in the distance. Dashie flew up like a radar.

“Clear!”

The resulting speed was not the release of anger: it was like the opening of a lost treasure chest.

The sun had set by the time they arrived at Gullveig’s. The shop had an aura that repelled the uninitiated, late-night shoppers and back-alley thugs alike. Drawing in the bitingly cool evening air, Huso endured the discomfort, forcing the breeze down to touch the bottom of his lungs. His head was throbbing, slowly subsiding. He did not think to sit down. Dashie was beside him, swaying, content in breathlessness. There was no thought of the backpack. After recovering their senses, Huso knocked on the glass. He was half-surprised none of the dolls got up.

The windows on the upstairs floor were completely blacked out. It took several uncertain tries before Gullveig swung the door open. She hung in the frame motionless. Echoing down the street, laughter.

“We need a place to stay.”

The breeze was picking up, slowly closing the door. Maybe this was a bad idea. The door had nearly shut.

“Gullveig? Are you there?”

It stopped swinging.

“Who is ‘we’?” She asked.

“Dashie and I.”

Lifeless silence.

“Come in.”

Following Gullveig inside, they waited as she locked the door. The place was in pitch darkness, and instead of flicking a light switch, she moseyed on towards the staircase behind the counter. Huso almost lost her, barely being able to see a single stride in front of him. Dashie was sticking close; her body heat, slowly declining, was brushing his right leg. Gullveig started ascending the stairs. Huso tentatively extended a foot onto the first step.

“Stop!” Gullveig whisked around.

He withdrew his foot. She plodded up the stairs, quickly vanishing. Nothing in the shop creaked. For all he could gather, nothing at all existed beyond this metre-wide radius. Standing there, he had already lost track of time.

“Dashie, you still here?” He whispered.

“Over here.”

Her voice bounced around the room, coming from all directions. Locating her was impossible, but at least she was safe. Safe. Reaching his arms out, Huso found the counter and lowered himself onto the icy, solid floor. His kneebone shivered, striking upon a heavy metal ring that was built into the wood. Bringing his eyes near, he realised he had hit a trapdoor handle.

Threading his fingers through the iron, he pulled up. It would not move. Scuttering like a crab to the other side of it, he got into a better posture for the weight. Pulling again, the door eked upwards and, suddenly becoming unstuck, flew open with a bang, nearly crushing Huso’s shins. An invisible cloud of dust engulfed him. Coughing, he thought he heard Dashie trotting behind, but a glance over his shoulder yielded nothing. Eventually, he extended a leg into the abyss.

There was a short series of steps which Huso descended before hitting ground. From the crunching and unevenness, the entire level was dirt, and the lack of boundaries—only pillars—indicated it spanned the entire underside of the building. With the gentle tingle of spiderwebs amounting on his face, he espied in the dark a stack of linen. Coming closer, an army of dolls was seen to be crowding it, beneath and on shelving encircling; they were in poor condition. These were the rejected ones, the ones who had been discarded for their deteriorating looks. Grabbing as many blankets as he could carry, he could feel the insult the dolls bore in their bonnets encapsulating him—as silly as it sounds. Finding his way back to the steps, a hairy spider dropped onto his pile of linen. At eye-level, Huso saw it raising its pincers, but he shook it off. You don’t know what you’ve gotten yourself into, Spidey.

He closed the trapdoor behind him. Back at the counter, he lifted one of the blankets from the stack. It was large, scratchy, and heavy—just the kind that was needed for the night. Patting his way to the edge of the counter, he called for Dashie and unrolled the blanket across the expanse of the shop. Then, feeling a tug, he reeled it back in, having caught a pony on it. Soon mummifying themselves in linen and beginning to warm up, they lay close to each other. Although in detail they remained cloaked, seeing the other’s breathing body was all that was necessary.

The space of floor began to seem as if it were between two worlds: half-dream, half-waking, and apart from everything. Here, nothing on Earth could intrude. No… distractions.

“Dashie,” Huso whispered. There was no change in her movement, but he knew she was listening. “What do you remember?”

Several minutes went by, without impatience. Without a measure, time had ceased to be metric, it had become relative to experience, and Dashie would respond exactly when ready—no sooner. Her eyelids opened slightly.

“I couldn’t see anything,” she said. “It smelled of hay. The sack.”

She continued.

“It was hot, but I couldn’t punch out. My head was hurting. I kept falling over from the jerky ride.” She paused. “I don’t remember anything else.”

As her words became a memory, Huso dropped a tear onto the floor. I want her to be happy. This thought stunned him, but he was starting to understand.

“When I came to this country, I was a teenager, just out of school.” He saw Dashie’s ears were up. “My first friend was Barry. I looked up to him, and he taught me how to be successful. By working hard, every week he had something new to show for it: a TV, a car, a surround sound system, and one for the car, too. I was always welcome to stay when I needed somewhere to study. He was even the reference for my job application to the insurance agency.

“I might have seen it if I were not so focussed on catching up to him. To cut a long story short, I found out he was involved in some nasty business. It was how he was paying for everything—not by hard work, but by cheating people. It made me angry. I knew I would never have as much as him, and, more importantly, I had lost something in the race. I didn’t know it, but I had become ambiguous, so I looked to my work for direction… I had no movement of my own. It was an addiction.

“I told my wife these were the sacrifices that needed to be made to pay for everything. It was not for lack of gifts that she left me. I just couldn’t accept that I had been conned. There had to be some reward for giving myself to the company. When you arrived, Dashie, I couldn’t ignore it anymore: my lost dreams, my fantasy… the magic. I couldn’t ignore it. For all these years, I had misplaced my loyalty.”

Hiding her face beneath the blanket, Dashie heard him. In a few moments, they fell asleep together.

---

Gullveig slammed the register shut. Leaving the counter to Huso, she went upstairs for a break. The next customer hurrying along was a well-built man carrying a medicine ball. Dashie signing it for his five year-old daughter, he struggled to maintain the smile within his moustache. With the shop being entirely full, he had trouble finding his way out.

The next person in line was a man buried under a collection of occultist items. The first person to buy anything unrelated to Dashie. The items clattered onto the counter in a heap, the whiskery man continuing to unload from the pockets in his stained brown coat. Glancing at the shelves, Huso saw that they were practically bare. He could smell strawberry frosting; sure enough, there was some splattered on the man’s neck.

“I need a bag,” he muttered.

Huso was pulling out a notepad to calculate the costs. “Please wait a moment.”

Word was spreading down the queue of the man’s large order. Jotting each item’s price, Huso sensed he was being stared at. Putting the pencil down for a second, he looked the man in the face. His mouth was curved down on one side, red puffs cushioned his eyes, and he continued to stare as if Huso had not even moved.

“I ordered from that site you visited,” he said.

Have I met this man before?

“Wasn’t a pegasus, though.”

There were veins in the man’s neck that were expanding, sending red into his face. His nostrils were gaping like two amazed fish, in and out, in and out, respiration audible. Huso slowly moved both his arms up towards Dashie, keeping eye contact with the man.

“How much?”

“She’s not for sale.”

“My runt took everything I had. It’ll happen to you too. If you won’t let me buy it, what can I do?”

Lunging forward, the man grabbed Dashie by the forelegs. Shooting out her wings, she began flapping fiercely over his head, causing a gust around the store. This was enough for Huso to hook his arms around her midsection, keeping her from being taken. Some in the queue ran up to harass the man’s effort by pulling on his arms. The scuffle stumbling across the counter, varying occultist items were sent smashing to the floor.

“What’s your problem?” Huso shouted.

“Magic!”

SCREEECH.

The man lost his grip, and Huso fell back from the counter holding Dashie. On his back, he saw Gullveig positioned on the staircase. Screaming broke out on the other side of the counter. Jumping to his feet, he went pale.

A large number of patrons were writhing on the floor, their bodies contorting into oversized fire ants. Several had made a run for the door but were stricken, skin turning to a brownish-red before all limbs thinned into stick-like legs and torsos reshaped into balls. Feelers and mandibles protruded from the head, and to the brain there were changes too, each prickly ant becoming aggressive to the nearest human.

The man, whom Huso had been fighting not thirty seconds ago, got up and ran. Not towards the door, but towards the nearest standing fire ant. He punched it in the pincers, collapsing it to the floor. There were no patrons anymore; all had evolved. Feelers wiggling, the ants converged on the man, who was apparently in for a different destiny than the rest.

Spotting an opening, Huso tightened his grip on Dashie and legged it to the door. Going around the side, Dashie began to feel heavier—she was slipping. He looked down. His arms were red. Dashie dropping with a thump, she bolted to the counter.

“Not that way,” Huso said, without volume.

His chest was compressing into his lungs. His teeth, rotating. The smell of burning permeated him entirely. With his blurring vision he saw a rainbow fly into Gullveig, toppling her.

The relief was instant. The spell was unravelling itself. Still breathless, he scanned the room. Nobody else was reverting, and the man was hitting slower, unable to keep up with the swarm.

“Stop fighting,” Huso called. “You’re only enraging them!”

The man found time for a rude gesture before being overcome, tackled from behind by a large ant with a moustache.

Getting the proper use of his legs back, Huso returned to the counter and found Dashie. Gullveig was lying on the staircase muttering. Under the sound of a thousand little legs, Huso lifted the trapdoor, letting Dashie in first. The ants were picking up on the new attraction, and he could see that they would not spare their creator. Clutching Gullveig by the shoulders, he pulled her down the steps and shut the trapdoor.

Ant legs were sliding through the gap, trying to pull the door open. More were adding to the effort by the second. Huso started shaking Gullveig. Her eyelids fluttered open.

“Gullveig, reverse the spell! What are you doing?”

“What for?” She asked, sitting upright. “Isn’t this wonderful?”

She raised her arms in wonder. Dashie was searching the area for a way out. So far, no luck. That man hated magic. But all Gullveig knows is magic.

“I was like that customer once, the one who hated magic,” Huso said, catching Gullveig’s glare. “I existed without possibility. Gullveig, you live just in possibility. You have no regard for current existence.”

Her mouth went into a scowl. Huso felt sweat on his forehead. I should have stuck to shaking her.

“I thought you were on my side,” she growled.

Huso did not turn his eyes from her. Without warning, a pulse of electricity ran through him, stopping his heart. Hunching over, Gullveig raised herself. She stared at him from above, walking towards the steps. Huso’s face hit the dirt. Dashie came running back.

“It’s alright,” Huso said. “Listen.”

The scittering sound had ceased; familiar silence had returned. Huso’s heart began beating again and strongly, making up for its brief retirement. The reverse spell had been cast—he must have been in the way. Rolling onto his back, Dashie helped him upright. He climbed the steps into sunlight. Sunlight. Gullveig had opened a window.

She beckoned over. A breeze was filling the musty shop. Picking up Dashie, he indulged her request. Standing with Gullveig at the window, Huso thought he saw the corners of a smile in her crinkled features. Then, something caught his eye. A long line of red ants were exiting over the windowsill.

Without a word, Huso and Dashie walked briskly out of the shop.

---

The city roads were collecting cars for the home-time rush, and clubs were filling up for those who liked to linger. Strolling through the buzz, he was allowing Dashie to stick her head out of the pack to take in the neon nightscape. Many people saw her, but Huso did not mind. They’d all be called crazy anyway.

For the last time, Huso arrived in the dock. He was hit with the stench of discarded fish; the greeting for this hour. Entering the shipping warehouse, Dashie ducking out of sight, he called up a worker who was busy sealing a package.

“Oh, hey Huso!”

“How are things? Listen, Barry sent me to get something from his office. It’s rather important, and he’d prefer not to drive all the way back in this traffic. You know his forgetfulness, right?”

The worker laughed. “Barry sure is forgetful alright—don’t tell him I said that. Come with me to the security desk, we’ll get the keys. I’ll vouch for you.”

Huso was left to be inside Barry’s office, the worker resuming his duties downstairs. A new chair was at the desk; four legs, no swivel. After letting Dashie out, he walked into the back room. Recalling the sight-he-had-rather-not-seen during Barry’s guided tour, Huso extracted a file cabinet from the lowest shelf. Flicking to the second-last file before the end, he heard the rustle of a plastic bag. In all this time, he had not moved it. He pulled out the cache of passports. Huso was still a Kenyan citizen.

Cutting a photo from his wallet to size, he looked at Dashie. She was watching him, a smile on her snout. Inviting her over, she rest her head on his lap. He put the scissors down and picked up a glue stick.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t find your home, Dashie.”

Dashie punched his leg. The pain throbbed through muscle.

“I am home.”

Comments

[Hat]

Thank you Not_A_Hat for providing feedback on an earlier version of the story.

[PresentPerfect]

I find myself at a loss to really summarize what I just read. It was certainly a good take on MLD, though!

[Hat]

5763858 Thanks for the comment, and I'm very glad you found it worth the read!

[Nickyboy5038]

I do not understand anything in this story.

Nice job!