Travel Bug (51 page)

“Will she ever be saved?” Harold asked.

“I don’t know, Harold.”

“She’s at a crossroad, Andrew.”

“That is certain,” I answered.

“She needs to be redeemed and only the beast can save her now.”

“Yes, I know, Harold.”

She didn’t hiss, she was in a deep state of hibernation and we both suspected a deep dream like state of utter denial for her actions. She might get saved from her sins someday, however unlikely. It would take a long time with many a hallucination and revelation throughout time for her to turn things around. It would be a long time. The woman from Rapture Tennessee would have to almost be literally born again. As a matter of fact, the real rapture might have to occur, given enough time, for Jezebel Eden to finally embrace her own redemption.

TRAINS

“We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love.”

—Jonathan Swift

This train never comes late; this train is always on time.

“Our last vision, son, our last supper, if you will…”

“Were we or were we not just in the belly of the beast, a moment ago?”

“Yes, but we ate all the last of the bug meat, and this will be our last bug trip.”

We were indeed at a train station, literally, Harold loved trains and so did I. Always and for no good reason, I would stand at the tracks, knowing I was surely on the right side of them and look on, unassumingly, into the future…

The train really was on time. Harold and I were not on very long before we reached our destination. We got off of the train and stepped out into this brave new world. What was name? New York City, in the not so distant future, I thought. I wanted to break out the champagne and celebrate. This was the place of second chances……

“All I see is people here, Andrew. No Morlocks.”

“Hey, sorry H.G. Wells.”

The people just walked around, not quite smiling constantly but not frowning either. The melancholy faces of the totalitarian dictatorship’s so called citizens had vanished. It was almost worth every descent into hell to see these innocent faces of goodness. The people were not afraid of the future or more importantly themselves…

“I don’t see any books being burned here, son.”

“Just pleasant people getting off the train, they look lucid and productive.”

“Yes,” he said.

The darkness seemed to be evading us in this wonderful new place. This America, a place of good intentions and finally it appeared good actions as well.

“I really like it here, Harold.”

“So do I, son.”

There was a lot to like. People seemed not merely happy but there was so much more than that. These folks didn’t look like they would be fooled by the people’s president. The masquerade ball of mass killers was finally over. Murder is not hope and genocide is not the path to human equality.

“This place is familiar and remarkable at the same time,” I said.

“My goodness, yes it is,” Harold agreed.

Those faces were splendid to look at. All of them, the young, the old and the children were all beautiful to me… I recognized real hope. I was no longer haunted by the memory of those locked in chains…

The trains were on time. Our fellow citizens were lucid, alert, hardworking and dear God do I dare hope… free?

“I hope the days of power struggles are over, Andrew.”

“So do I, Harold, I really do.”

“I know, son.”

In some ways, in many ways perhaps, every human’s life is filled with dread, pain, misery and despair. Still, we, as a nation had made bloody sacrifices time and time again so we could be exceptional. I don’t mean that we were necessarily better than other countries; I mean that we wanted the lives of our children to be better than our own, time and time again. What Harold and I had seen in our other visions was nothing less than a complete puritanical or Orwellian nightmare. The future had no hope. As a matter of fact, the more I saw the future or at least visions of it, I was beginning to root for Jezebel. Do the villains of our stories even deserve a second chance, dear reader? What do you think?

“There is little justice in this world, Harold.”

“The world is not very long on kindness either, son.”

“No.”

“No, certainly not,” Harold said.

“So in that sense…’

“You got it, kid, we’re all Jezebel…”

“Yes, sir…”

That was a true statement, assuming that there was any such thing in the world as truth at all.

“What next?” I asked the old man.

“Damned if I know, son.”

All of these stories that we tell, all the tales to be told, fairy tales, granted of the darker sort but still works of dark fiction to be sure. It’s almost as if the Jinn themselves asked all of us to make a wish and we blew it. We fucked up so bad that it was almost, God Damned near the ultimate experience of humiliation……

“The trains are running on time, old man.”

“They are but we’re not.”

“What do you mean?” I asked my great grandfather.

“I am going to die soon. How long can I cheat time?”

“Don’t know,” I answered the old man.

Well, I didn’t know but we both knew it would not be very long now. This was our final time journey together to be sure. Harold, a lonely widower looking back in time, remembering the future as the past, my beloved great grandfather would always live on but only in my memory.

“Let’s enjoy our time together while we are still here, Andrew.”

“Oh yes!” I agreed.

I could never repay Harold for all that he had done for me. Come to think of it, the whole world owed the old man a huge debt of gratitude for cheating nature and more specifically time. My great grandfather was a hero, I remember thinking. That old school humility kept me from thinking of myself that way. Besides, I could never have done it without him. Jezebel was too much of an adversary to defeat alone.

“I really do love it here,” he said. “The trains are fun to watch and I’m crazy about the little stuff. It feels free here, it feels different. It’s not just the return to our freedom loving republic going on here, Andrew. There is something different here…”

We walked behind the train station to look at some of the posters to find out what was playing on Broadway. There was a new drama that depicted the atrocities of the people’s president. It was called “The People’s Killer.”

“Oh, dear God, Andrew, I don’t believe my eyes.”

“I see it, too.”

You see, dear reader, in a truly free society, the horrors of genocide and the joys of idiotic laughter can both be enjoyed as entertainment choices. This is what’s known as the free market place of ideas. There was a hideous poster of the demonic dictator, ridiculously known as the people’s president. He had a crown of thorns and stood on top of… a Mountain of skulls…

“What a frightening poser,” Harold said.

“Which one do you mean, Harold?”

“Funny,” said Harold.

Right next to the frightening poster, the monument to man’s inhumanity to man, the mountain of skulls, was another poster. This was simply a tribute to man’s absurd need to laugh and pretend that we never leave our youth entirely. Women, they say are mature at 21, men at 48.

“Andrew, they picked a suitable actor for the lead.”

“Yes, the fans are dying for it, Harold.”

“Be the first one of us to say it out loud, son.”

“Party School, the musical……”

“Starring?”

“Ian Flick, of course,” I said.

“The cross, Andrew we can see it from here.”

“Indeed,” I answered Harold.

“We need to go to the cross,” said Harold.

“Are people more good than bad?” I asked Harold as we walked.

“Don’t know,” Harold answered.

“I don’t know, either, old man.”

“We need to search for truth, time is running out fast.”

“Yes.”

“Thank you, Andrew.”

“Harold, you don’t need to thank me.”

“Yes, I do. When I take your memory with me on my death bed, I will not die alone, thanks to you, son…”

“Looks like it’s going to be a beautiful church, Andrew, at least from a distance, you know.”

“I think so, too, Harold.”

“Good,” he answered me.

The sun was going down, sure symbolism of time running out for us. We had already lost my parents and the magnificent prehistoric unnamed species.

“Andrew?”

“Yes?”

“The travel bug was a beautiful creature.”

“Christ, he sure was, Harold.”

“Well, he still probably is. I think he’s still alive and choking…”

“Choking on Jezebel?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said.

We walked on. The sun was going down.

“Look,” Harold said.

“I see.”

“Andrew, I wonder if they run on time as well.”

“Harold, I’ll bet they do.”

“Yes.”

“I see no reason why they wouldn’t.”

“Neither do I, son.”

We peeked into a toy store along the way. There were many elaborate toy trains running back and forth with great ease. Children and many parents watching them inside really seemed to be enjoying themselves. We were enjoying ourselves as well. Then I looked at the old man and something strange came to me.

“Harold?”

“Yes, son?”

“Anything wrong, are you okay?”

“Well, as far as know,” he said.

“A prism, I saw a prism around you and frankly, Harold, I wonder if it is significant or not…”

“Don’t know, Andrew…”

“Are we outlaws, old man?”

“Don’t know, young man.”

“Anyway, I see…”

“Yes…”

“Harold, we have made the laws, the moral law specifically. We are heroes, my man. That’s it. Nothing short of that, nothing else short of heroes…”

“Perhaps, sir but I’m not really sure about that. We did the best we could.” He paused and rubbed his hands. Then he smiled. “Heroes inspire great stories, not ridiculous hallucinations.”

Ah, yes. The stories…… all of them perhaps meant to teach or just left over oxygen in the brain. Let us forget about trains, enlightenment and the upcoming death of my most beloved friend, my great grandfather.

The first tale was hilarious. I dreamed of a world where philosophers would argue and actually get somewhere. They did not. They never do. It was a pretty good statement about the idiocy of Scientology, though. Well, hell, maybe a good cut to any religion, if one really wanted to be fair about it.

Then there was the one about the monastery. I felt a considerable amount of guilt about dreaming up that one. The best kind, the good old fashioned Roman Catholic guilt. Still, I felt like I had something had to say about perverts and pedophiles destroying and defiling the church that I loved so much and quite frankly lived for. It was my life’s meaning, pathetic or not. We wanted to move and still have faith, Harold and I.

We did.

A vampire who writes novels is typically written by an author who is not near as clever as he thinks he is. Holy hell, that doesn’t matter here. What can I say, dear reader? This was no more than the result of a time traveling hallucination and the decadence of reading too many horror novels as a teenager. Still, I must confess now…… Gothic horror novels and creature features on Saturday afternoons have provided infinite joy in my extremely strange, sheltered, horrifying, nature cheating, and bizarre life. Did Harold and I truly cheat nature?

We did.

The publishing business is as cut throat as any vampire is, I’m sure but not as ruthless as the men who made the Godley family not merely rich but actually…… wealthy……

Wealth, you say?

Yes, dear gossiping, hyper jealous reader…

Vampires, if they do exist (I have no reason to think that they do not) are more moral than rich, elitist folk. I could be wrong but… I’m not…

“Christ, Andrew.”

“What is it, Harold?”

“Andrew, you and me, we are almost like the trains.”

“Yes we are.”

Was the old man losing his mind just before I was about to lose him? Yes, trains were great but we were about to get on a serious subject here. I loved my mother and father and every kid thinks at some point their parents are fuck ups and hates them… at least… for a while. Well, until they love them and then ultimately lose them forever.

“It’s been great, Andrew.”

This terrible hallucination (or revelation) regarding parents was strong and interesting. Children swear they can see the evils that the adults cannot. They are aware and the parents aren’t. I would take it a thousand steps further. Not just kids or adults but most of the species… humanity itself is ignorant of the true nature of evil. The evil dictatorships and totalitarian regimes are just like a serial killer. They all sneak up on you after it’s too late. This can happen anywhere and anytime. Yet, in America, it happened on Election Day…

Eventually we can forgive mom and dad but not the deranged nor the delusional. Most of the crazy people in the world don’t wear their insane heart on their sleeves. In fact, they keep it a secret, mostly. It’s hidden!

“I love these toy trains, Andrew.”

“Yes, Harold, they’re great.”

Then if occurred to me that my beloved great grandfather’s time with me was really coming to an end and soon. I could see tiny bright prisms circling around the shape of his body. Then they did a little dance and vanished right before my confused eyes. I was so very proud of the things we did, proud of him. He separated the man from the boy and gave me strength.

“What a story we could tell, Andrew.”

The crew at the haunted hayride was nothing I could relate to at all. I was sorry that I had such a violent vision in my head. Perhaps the short tale of horror prepared me for my one live and very violent encounter with the witch. You see, dear reader, unlike the poor victim of that tale, I got my head cut off and… lived to tell about it.

“The prisms are beautiful, Andrew. They’re like little angels telling me it’s almost time to go. I can read your mind.”

That comment from the old man made me think of the other academic story. Whether or not it was a revelation or a hallucination, the two brothers showed their sheltered students death was coming. It wasn’t something that selected bad people to punish or good people accidentally. It’s not random chance, it’s merely nature itself. We all have it coming.