Stories

During her morning walk, Gwen was surprised to notice one of the large boulders behind the house, in the place where she usually gathered the eggs every evening, was missing.
Its empty spot looked unnaturally hard and flat, and upon closer observation, Gwen noticed, to her great bewilderment, that it was a poured concrete foundation.
“Oh,” No. 7 spoke from behind her, “I see they finally took it for repairs. I thought they were going to put that off until it completely crumbled.”
“Who’s they?” Gwen asked, feeling like she’d just fallen on her head.
“The tech crew, of course,” No. 7 mentioned.
“But,” Gwen whispered, suddenly embarrassed, “I thought we were here alone, all that talk about being lost, not being able to find the way back, all of it?”
“I’m sorry, dear, we thought you were the new actress. We’re not supposed to get out of character. We never suspected…”
“What the hell do you mean?”
“We’re filming a reality show, Ultimate Survival. You must have seen it, it’s been running for a very long time, very good ratings.”
“A reality show?? I’ve been stuck here forever!”
“They stretch these things as far as they can, at least the popular ones. This is season thirteen.”

“What do you mean, I don’t understand,” Gwen mumbled.
“Well,” No. 6 responded, “we know you went to Sunday school at some point, and have been taught this. Rejoice, you were chosen.”
“Chosen for what?” Gwen jumped to her feet.
“Just chosen. How lucky are you?” No. 1 joined the conversation. “Why aren’t you happy?”
“Is this improv? Is it?” She looked around for a telltale glance. “Are we veering off the Greek tragedy sensibility and venturing into the fantasy genre?”
“Gwen,” No. 4 approached her, with his usual kindness. “Please believe them. They are telling you the truth. Don’t you wonder how this,” he gestured broadly towards the surroundings, “all of this, is even possible?”
“Of course I wonder! That doesn’t mean I’m going to entertain preposterous beliefs to fill in the gaps.”
“Preposterous? Isn’t this your faith?”
“The Revelation is supposed to be allegorical, not literal.”
“And you are so sure of this because, what, you’re educated?” No. 7 mocked.
“For one, there’s no way y’all are angels.”
No. 3 stood up and left, visibly offended.

“Ok, class, remember what we talked about, everybody must stay together now, we’re going to visit the archeological dig, you can take pictures for your scrapbook but always stay on the path,” Mr. Deerfield raised his voice above the unruly group who moved around him, agitated, like a tiny Lilliputian army.
‘Breathe, man,’ he told himself, already baking in the unforgiving desert sun. ‘Just breathe. We’re all going to be fine. All you need to do today is bring all the kiddos back home in one piece. She’s crazy, and she’s going to end us all one day,’ he directed a sharp arrow of bitterness in the school principal’s direction, the daring spirit who saw fit, in her infinite wisdom, to send him to this devil’s armpit with eighteen nine-year-olds in tow to gawk at rocks.
“Jack, are you listening?” he raised his voice a bit more to impress on the habitually hyperactive youngster the importance of paying attention to his words. 

“What was that?” Gwen lost her footing, surprised as she was by the unexpected appearance.
“Just keep walking, you’ll be fine,” No. 7’s usual rotten mood soured further, if that were even possible.
Gwen didn’t want to get him started and have to listen to hours and hours of ranting about idiocy generously seasoned with phrases in languages she didn’t understand, but the sight, if real, was too shocking to leave unanswered.
“If I didn’t know any better, I swear I saw…”
“Oh, shut up, will you?” No. 7 turned around, with his usual curmudgeon persona proudly on display. “Let me guess: you think you saw an alien,” he mocked, mercilessly. “Boo-hoo!”

The smoke was so thick Gwen couldn’t gather herself enough to understand where she was at first. She could feel the gentle touch of her guide’s hands on her shoulders, but she was still deep inside an inner world she couldn’t bear to leave.
The contours of the house, so familiar to her by now, began to dissolve, putting her into a deep panic, no doubt enhanced by the effects of her ‘traveling’ tea.
“Gwen,” a voice as if from very far away enticed her, “you have to come back now, return to your life, to those who need you.”
‘Who is this and what on earth is he talking about?’ Gwen tried to gather herself. ‘This is my life,’ she watched, with increasing anxiety, how the thick walls of the house kept melting and morphing and changing colors.
‘I’m high,’ she thought, calm. ‘I must have ingested some of that toxic looking green brew somehow,’ she continued her musing, aggravated her psychedelic experience was so humdrum.
“Listen to my voice, Gwen,” the discarnate voice insisted. “Find the door. Look for the door.”

“Do you believe her?” Jen whispered to Ted, eyeing the young woman with the gaze of a skeptic. She’d been a ranger for fifteen years, and during this time she’d heard her share of tall tales, although, she had to admit, not one that could hold a candle to this gals’. 
Really? That was the best lie the woman could come up with? That she got lost in the desert and spent an untold number of years living with a mysterious philosopher colony? 
Even as feral as she looked, with matted hair and dressed in dubious rags, there was no way their rescue had spent more than a week in any place lacking the trappings of civilization: she didn’t look malnourished, had no signs of physical trauma and, honestly, she didn’t look old enough to have spent many years anywhere, not to mention the wilderness.

“Where are we on Act II?”
“We’re still considering options.”
“Do I need to remind you it’s two months to curtain? What options? We need Act II!”
“And do I have splendid news for you! We opened it to the public and sponsored a contest, which was very well received. We have thousands of scenarios! I’m telling you we should do this more often.”
“You opened it to the public!” The director got instantly aggravated. “So every Tom, Dick and Harry can opine? What for do I need you, then?”
“Don’t get upset,” the playwright didn’t react. He’d been working with the director for a long time and knew the latter could be a bit of a primadonna. It didn’t phase him. “We have to stay with the times. Have you seen the social media trends? Everybody is into live, interactive content now.”
“God forbid we’d have professional standards!” The director was on a roll. “Call aunt Millie! I’m sure she has a story. We’ll make a movie!”
“You know it’s not like that,” the playwright defended his argument. “We need passion, fresh thinking, different perspectives.”

“Whatever possessed you to do that?” No. 6 asked Gwen, with an appalled look on his face. The storm clouds had started gathering on the horizon, darkening the sky in the middle of the day to a dusky, stark intensity. 
Here and there thick ropes of lighting put out a spectacular display, made even more impactful by the contrast with the gloomy background.
“Do what?” Gwen replied, and the puzzled expression on her face confirmed she had absolutely no idea what the fuss was about.
“You broke it!”
Gwen looked around and wondered what she could possibly have broken in a landscape which consisted entirely of rubble. 
“I don’t understand!”

“What’s up?” No. 1 climbed on top of the flat boulder where Gwen had retired in search of solitude. To anybody else, she would have looked like she was meditating, but not to him.
They were sitting cross-legged, a good height above the desert, and from their elevated viewpoint, they enjoyed the beautiful panorama of it at dusk.
Gwen put a long pregnant pause between the question and the answer, one which, to be sure, would have garnered applause in any theatrical performance, and then declaimed, with the pathos only afforded to the young.
“What is the point of all this!”
“Meaning alert!” No. 1 yelled at the top of his lungs, loud enough to reach every eardrum within range. “Gather round, everybody, we have an emergency!”
“The point? Of this?” No.5 mumbled, irritated because he was woken from his afternoon nap. “Whatever gave you such a silly idea?”

The next morning the room was an appalling mess: every object in it had been moved from its place. There were empty cups and glasses everywhere and above it all, the chickens roamed, agitated and making a racket.
‘It’s not even Tuesday,’ was the first thought that popped in Gwen’s head, and she examined it with detachment, surprised at how different one’s habitual thought patterns became to fit the context. 
That connecting Tuesdays with chickens was not in the range of thought processes sane people accepted proved to her the psychological normal was not a matter of clear mental standards, but a majority rule: you're normal if most of the people think like you.
“Who ate all the bread?” a voice, which she recognized belonged to No. 8, boomed over the chaos.
“Sorry,” No. 3 sheepishly confessed. “That tea can build quite an appetite.”
‘What happens if whatever you intend to convey is so foreign to your fellow humans nobody resonates with it? Do you not say it, then? And if you do, does it have any more meaning than a nonsensical poem?’