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Angie cradled our son on her hip and cupped one hand over his ear. Tears smudged her mascara. I hunched my shoulders and turned to my blank manuscript paper. My hand cramped around the pencil. "If you want milk, get it yourself." "This isn't about the milk." She heaved a breath. "You stare at that paper all day. If you can't leave it for two minutes to look after your son -" I pushed the paper around with my pencil. "If you care more about a song you can't write than you care about me or Joey, get out!" I went. For days I busked while strangers hurried past, their hands in their pockets. I woke from nightmares filled with a silence so deep I was drowning. I crouched in deserted doorways and stared at that blank music paper for hours, then days. Easter came with a smattering of rain and a fistful of snow and I wandered deserted streets amid the flutter of disconsolate newspapers too soggy to fly, with the silence of the unwritten song crushing me. In an alley lined with shops, each dark and closed for the holiday, a light glimmered in one window. _Rag and Bone Shop,_ the hand-painted sign above the door proclaimed in letters as faded as dried blood. A green '78 Chevy sat outside. It was just like Dad's car, with yellow seat covers and a pine air freshener hanging from the rear-view mirror. I never saw Dad's car after the accident though I'd gone to the wrecking yard needing to find it, to say goodbye. It had always smelled of pine. The flesh curled over my spine like a snake slithering over my skin, looking for its way home. I stomped my feet to shake away the deja vu then opened the shop door and stepped inside. The doorbell chimed as I entered, an odd, low sound, almost sorrowful. The shop smelled musty, with the dankness of mice in the walls. Three shelves crammed with junk ran floor to ceiling against both walls and down the middle. Dust coated everything. I stopped at the nearest shelf. A teddy bear, missing both eyes, lay half hidden beneath a pair of hockey skates. Beside them lay a row of scratched padlocks just like the ones I used to pick when Dad tried to lock my bike in the garage. My guitar lay beside them. I touched it - my fingertips knew each nick and scratch in the soft wood. But I'd left my guitar in my hotel room. I stared at it. How could it be here, in a pawn shop littered with debris no one redeemed? Unredeemed. The word echoed in my head and I lurched back, dizzy. I grasped the shelf, but when I lifted my fingers they left no prints in the dust. Heart thudding, I glanced down the shelf. Light glinted from a watch band. I felt my wrist. No watch. I grabbed the watch and flipped it over to read the inscription on the back. _To Thomas on his 18th Birthday, love Dad._ My watch. "Hey!" I pushed through dangling cobwebs towards the counter at the back of the store. The old man behind the counter straightened as I approached. Wild, white hair drooped past his shoulders, half-hiding his face. His beard covered his jaw in a wilderness of mats that looked as if most of last week's lunches had caught in its strands. He stank of sweat and the ripeness of unwashed clothes. When he looked up, I shivered. His pale eyes stared through me as if seeing things that weren't there. I pushed my watch at him. "What's my watch doing here?" He spoke with a wheeze. "Everything's here because you're here." A cold draft blew through the shop. I glanced over my shoulder. No door or dust-rimed window sheets stared at the brick building across the alley. Instead, a many-paned Victorian window gazed onto a lawn where two trees' branches interwove. Red leaves dripped from them but the colours seemed faded, as if the land remembered a dream. I rushed to the window and pressed my hands against the glass. My fingers found small panes within wooden frames. The trees swayed. "You can't get out that way. I've tried and tried," the old man's reedy voice whined. "Only way out's through the shop." He jerked his thumb towards a beaded curtain swaying behind the counter. I rubbed my sweaty palms on my jeans. "Fine. Have it your way." I pushed past him. "But this is no way to run a business. No wonder you're stuck with all this shit." I thrust through the beaded curtain into a silence so intense it made the torture of the unwritten song feel as full of life as children's laughter. I couldn't breathe, and clutched my hands across my chest to keep from screaming just to fill the void with sound. Then the air changed to the sweet scent of wolf-willow in spring. Wind touched my face. Light began, like a sunrise, to illuminate my grandmother's kitchen. The old wooden stove crouched in the corner. The hand pump rested beside the kitchen faucets. A cow lowed, breaking the silence. It was not my grandmother's kitchen. Blank walls stood where there should have been doors. I swallowed the bitter taste in my throat. The old man stood beside me. "The only doors here are the ones you make yourself. Some lead up, some down. Depends on what you came to find, and how you go about finding it." He rubbed his nose and glanced at me from the corner of his eye. "What _did_ you come here to find?" My voice shook. "I don't know how you're doing this, but stop it." "Why? Where'd you bring us?" He peered at the stove, then at the shelves lined with jars of jams and jellies. I clenched my hands into fists and shoved them into my pockets. "I don't know what game you think you're playing, or what drugs you slipped me, but I want out now." "There's only one way out," he said. More cows lowed piteously, their udders painfully full. _There was only one day, all his life, when Grandpa was late milking._ The room exploded with light and I blinked, blinded by remembered tears. I sat on a chair in Grandma's kitchen, my tiny feet knocking against the rungs. The smell of roasting beef curled from the oven. From the potato pot came wisps of smoke, the potatoes burning, smelling bitter-sweet. Grandpa ran past with a coiled rope, his face ashen. I didn't follow him into the yard, to the old well whose mouth gaped at the sky. I pressed my hands over my ears until my ears rang but I still heard their shouts. After what felt like hours Dad came in and took my hands between his callused palms. His voice caught and he squeezed my hands too hard. Tears ran down his cheeks. "Why were you boys near that well? How many times have I told you not to play there?" I gasped, sobbing. I felt I was drowning, like my cousin Billy, my best friend, drowned that spring I turned seven. "Oh, Tommy." Dad lifted me. I pressed my face into his shoulder and clung to his shirt, shaking. His arms wrapped so hard around me I thought he'd never let go. "We tried. We couldn't get him." He lowered his head against mine and his chest heaved in a shuddering breath. "Grandpa's so angry at himself for leaving the well uncovered." He didn't see Grandpa walk in the door, didn't see how Grandpa stared at me. Grandpa died before I found the courage to tell him I pulled the cover off the well. I never told anyone that I dared Billy to walk the crumbling rim. I promised him my favourite car, the kind where you pulled the strip out and it ran on its own, if he could make it the whole way around. I wake from nightmares, my sheets soaked with sweat, my ears ringing with Billy's screams. My screams smothered by silence when his stop. The wolf willow-scented wind whispered around me. The cows were quiet. The old man stood leaning against the counter, watching me. I scrubbed at my face. The air was suffocating; my chest felt tight. "What the hell did you bring me here for?" He shook his head, not answering. "What are you going to do?" I closed my eyes. "I'm going back to sleep so I can wake up in my bed and forget this nightmare." "Is that what you really want?" His voice softened. "Remember, you came looking." "Not for this." "Then for what? You think you're the only one to look for a way up, or out? Shakespeare came through here once. Hendrix. Yeats, muttering about circus animals. So many. You wouldn't know their names." I opened my eyes. He crouched before me, so near his face filled my vision. I thought of the burning silence of the song I couldn't write, and how the door slammed when Angie threw me out, shutting away the sound of her crying. I pushed myself to my feet and fled across the room from him. "All I need is to write. That's all I've ever wanted. I just need space." "Really." Behind the old man a wooden door appeared in what, the moment before, had been Grandma's wall of jams. "What's through there?" I clenched my hands into fists. "I won't play your games." "They're not my games, but you don't have to go through. Exercise your free will." He leaned back and, narrowing his eyes, surveyed the room. "Though this isn't exactly where I planned on spending eternity." _Eternity. Like this. With him._ "Damn you." I stumbled across the room and yanked the door open. The old man followed me into the night-club where I'd played Saturday nights with my first band. Stale smoke hung in the air, tainted with the yeastiness of spilled beer. Chairs sat upside-down on the tabletops. The floor was swept of the usual crunch of peanut shells. "Your Mom and I want you to come home." I turned. Dad stood on the small stage beside me. He shoved his hands deep into his jeans' pockets and shifted from foot to foot. I plucked my guitar strings. "You didn't come for your Mom's birthday. We missed you." "I've got my own life now." I hummed a little and tried a couple chords, hoping he'd take the hint and go but he just stood there, watching me. I shrugged and tried again. "You don't need to worry about me." "I'm your Dad. It's my job to worry." I struck a wrong chord and cursed. "Just leave me alone. Let me live my own life." "I can't. Not when I see you cutting yourself off from everyone who loves you, your family, friends." "I can't live with you guys hanging on me all the time." "We're worried. We need you. Your Mom needs you..." I clenched my fist around the guitar's neck. "She shouldn't need anyone. I don't." "That's no life." He pointed to my guitar. "No job's that important." I jerked my head back. "It's not a job, it's who I am. What I am. How would you know, anyway? You're just some carpenter." He winced as though I'd hit him and fished blindly in his pocket. His voice cracked as he said, "It's early for your birthday but I wanted you to have this." He shoved a watch box in my hand and walked away. Suddenly aware of the memory replaying around me, I wanted to run and catch him and tell him I loved him, that I wanted him to be proud of me. In my head I screamed, _I love you, Dad. Don't go!_ Trapped in the memory, my feet couldn't move. I couldn't speak, and the door swung shut between us. I closed my eyes and saw again the hospital emergency room, no more than two hours later, green and cold with the antiseptic smell that reminds me of death. The police officer explaining about slippery roads and a gravel truck that couldn't stop. My Mom and sister clinging to each other, crying. The awful silence. The room faded to a lifeless cell with no windows, no doors. The old man stood beside me. I reached into my pocket and closed my fist around my watch. "You have to show me how to get out of here." "I can't." I turned on him. "Why not?" "I'm as trapped as you. We wander through memories until we go mad, or die." "I won't believe that. There has to be a way out." "Maybe there is," he said, then clamped his lips together. "What is it?" He was silent a moment. "Why did Billy walk the well's rim?" "What are you getting at?" "Why did your Grandpa take the blame for uncovering the well when he knew he hadn't?" "He -" My throat closed. My heart felt too big for my chest. "If you'd looked around instead of being so caught up in yourself you would have seen your Grandpa looking at you." "I did see." "Did you see his face, or did you just look at it?" "What?" "You make your own silence, Thomas. Now do something about getting us out of here. This room is too cold." He rubbed his arms and leaned against the wall, glaring at me. I turned away from him and tapped along the wall, feeling for any hidden seams that might be a door, letting my fingers do the work my unfocussed eyes could not. "Don't feel around like that," the old man growled. "You're locked inside your head. How are you going to get out? Not with your hands." I ignored him; he sounded far away. All I saw was Grandpa's face. Pursed mouth, clenched so tightly white patches gathered at its corners. Hands at his sides, held there so rigidly they trembled. His eyes, shining with tears, softening as he looked at me. His hand half-lifted as if he would reach out to me but he never did. Never did. Silence crashed around me, driving me to my knees, roaring in my ears as if it would devour me. My hands trembled against the floor but I didn't have the courage to lift them. The old man stumbled towards me, mouth moving, but I heard nothing. I pitched onto my face. Cold seeped through my clothes; the roar of nothingness swallowed me. _Angie!_ My stomach lurched. I fell and landed on a soft bed, a pillow under my cheek, Angie's lavender perfume in my nose, her skin soft beneath my fingers. The old man stood on the far side of the bed, past Angie. I closed my eyes. I was home. The old man didn't exist. Then Angie rolled and my hand touched her swollen belly. Joey still unborn. Another memory I couldn't change. I groaned. "You're coming with me today, right?" Her voice was higher, tighter than usual. "I can't. You know I hate hospitals." She stiffened. "You'll have to come when the baby's born. You may as well start getting used to them." I pulled my hand away. "Don't try to make me into something I'm not." She lifted herself on one elbow and stared down at me. "What're you talking about? Every father does this stuff. I'm not trying to change you into anything." "I'm busy today." "Doing what? Hanging with the band? You don't even have a gig tonight. Look at me." She caught my chin and turned my face until I stared into her eyes. They were so soft a brown I once thought they could envelop me, free me. "Thomas, look at me! I'm fine, the baby's fine. Nothing bad is going to happen to us. You have to start believing that." I shrugged away and sat on the edge of the bed with my back to her. A little cry escaped her, like a shout she strangled. "I can't keep climbing the wall that's going up between us. Stay, and help me with the baby." Her voice broke and she breathed heavily, swallowing tears. "If you can't handle it, go." I said nothing. Trapped in the memory, I couldn't move. I wanted to catch her hand and pull her close until her body pressed against mine and I felt our child moving within her. But I didn't. The room wilted into mist. I tried to shout Angie's name but silence stifled my voice. My heart thundered against my ribs. I wanted to rip the air, to tear the silence, but my hands fluttered before my face, tearing nothing. The silence remained. The old man leaned against a wall. "After this fight with Angie, you stopped being able to write." "How can you know that?" He shrugged. "If you're travelling through this nightmare with me and watching my memories as I see them, you can't know something like that. Who are you?" He backed away as I approached. "No one." "Why are you here?" "I'm trapped, like you." "Why can't you get out?" As I strode towards him, he backed into the corner. "Why can't _you_ get out?" he countered, pushing past my arm into the centre of the room. "You should be your only concern. That's how it's always been." "You're wrong." His eyes glinted. "'Players and painted stage took all my love, And not those things that they were emblems of.'" "Don't spout Yeats at me. What's that supposed to mean, anyway? Tell me who you are." "If you don't recognise me, you don't deserve to know." His lower lip trembled and he folded his arms across his chest. "I'm not doing this anymore." I backed against the wall, wishing it would dissolve and let me back into my life but it was cold and solid. I turned and pushed my forehead against it. "Make the silence stop," he said. "You have to make the silence stop. Then we'll be free." There was something familiar in his voice. Something in its cadence and pacing, despite how it wheezed and cracked. "I can't make the silence stop. Don't you think I'd write again, if I could? And what do you mean, we?" "Think about where you are." I turned. "What are you trying to tell me?" "Look where you are! Open your eyes and see something!" He glared at me from pale eyes faded with age - eyes that might once have been as blue as mine. Cold shivered up my spine and I backed away from him. He followed me, his mouth pursed in an expression I'd seen too often in my mirror. I turned and ran but the wall was shorter than it looked. The old man bore down on me. "I told you when you came in that everything in the shop is here because you're here. Everything belongs to you, is part of your memory. Even me. Except I'm your future, too." I couldn't stop shaking. "I don't believe you." "Yes, you do. Look at me." He pushed his hair off his face. "You look at people but you never see them. Look at me! Who do I remind you of? Don't see the wrinkles and the dirt, damn you, see me!" "I know your voice," I said. The confession felt like someone hitting me in the gut. My knees trembled. He faded like the wall, as if dust was shrouding him, or mist melting him away. "You trapped yourself here, you and your infernal silence." His voice, my voice, accused. "Silence is a choice, Thomas. Look what you've done to us." "No." My mouth moved but no sound came out. "Do something," he insisted. I felt I was fading, too, caught in the same mist that dragged at his clothes. His thinning skin outlined his skull. His mouth moved but the silence shut him away from me. I lunged to grab him, but he slipped beyond my grasp. I was alone. The day before Joey was born Angie had been looking in the mirror. "This is hard, having a baby." I thought she meant her aching back and swollen ankles and said so, but she shook her head. "Coming face to face with yourself. Who you really are, what you want. The illusions fall." I asked her what she meant but she shrugged and shuffled away. In this place where I was trapped, there were no illusions. Nothing to hide behind. "Angie, I need you," I yelled. The silence did not answer. I curled on the floor, my knees hugged to my chest, my eyes squeezed closed. I wanted to hold her, and Joey. Touch her skin, smell her perfume. Hear Joey giggle and watch her smile. Comfort Joey while he cried in the night. Go to the store for milk. I wanted for her to tell me what illusions she thought she saw when she looked at herself in the mirror. The sound began so far away, I wasn't sure I heard the fragments of notes, the jumble of harmonies floating on the air like a cacophony of unspoken ideas. The old man materialised from the mist. "You're still here? I'll always be here but I thought you'd have enough sense to go home." "What do you mean, you'll always be here?" I shuddered. "Aren't you me?" "No. I'm everyman, now. Whoever walks through the door. Though I used to be someone. I used to have a name." His voice faded. "I can't remember it now." I spat. "No one should have to stay here reliving other people's trash." "It's easier to throw away other people's trash. To face other people's nightmares." As he spoke, a wooden door appeared in the far wall but it looked the same as the door leading into the night-club. I crossed my arms across my chest. _I'm going in circles, as stuck as this old man._ "I'm not going through another door to relive a past I can't change." He shrugged. "It's your nightmare." "All I wanted was to write a song. How many doors are there?" "How many do you need, to find what you're looking for?" "How should I know? This fucked-up place is your world, not mine." "It belongs to all of us who flounder in the bowels of what has been, rooting through the muck, looking for one glint of something that might light our way out." "What the hell are you talking about?" He turned away, shaking his head. "You never know what you've got. Not till you lose it. It's a sad way to live." He added, as if to himself, "It's how I've lived." A few notes jangled discordantly in my head. If I could write, I'd write about him. An old man who lived in junk piles sorting through other people's trash, his life experiences borrowed from strangers. I snorted. People would think I was writing about some homeless junkie. They'd never guess the truth. As I watched him, a second door appeared. It was brass and framed by two carved trees with their limbs intertwining. A bronze ring hung in its centre. The old man stared at it, his eyes round. "Two doors?" I asked. "What does that mean?" His pallor accentuated the tracery of veins beneath his eyes. "The brass door's mine. To my nightmare." He half-lifted his hand but his fingers trembled and he snatched them back. "It can't be worse for you to face your memories than it is for me to face mine," I said. He appeared not to hear me. The brass door began to fade. "Come on," I yelled. "If you've got a chance, go for it!" His door paled until I could barely see it. He stood rigid. All but the bronze ring vanished. "Go!" I lunged and grabbed the ring, pushing the door open. My momentum carried me through it into darkness. "Stop!" His voice was high and frightened. "You don't know what might be waiting for me." I tripped and landed on my knees on rough cobblestones. The old man fell beside me, his breath rasping in his throat. Light grew, revealing a castle wall. The old man stumbled to his feet and faltered towards it, feeling his way as though blind. He stood tall, with broad shoulders and muscled arms - a man not past forty. Grit from the cobblestones pressed into my palms as I pushed myself to my feet. Sounds carried: hooves in the courtyard, hammers in a smithy. The shouts of men. "You brought me here? Why?" The old man rounded on me with his fists clenched at his sides. A sword hung from his hip. The rising sun glinted from his chain mail. "How should I know? I don't even know your name." His eyes unfocussed. "My name was Brant. I remember now. Quick, you have to find another door. Take me back! I can't face this. Not again. I stood here and watched him come over the hill -" Brant's voice trailed away. Sunrise flashed from armour as an approaching army crested the last rise before the castle wall. "The usurper." He clenched his hands into fists. "They were too many. We fell back behind the gates but the traitors - my own men! - opened the portcullis. He butchered my men, my wife, my children." His face twisted and he scrubbed at it with his palms. "He kept me alive, though I wanted to die. Tried to die. Oh, my Catherine." Brant looked up at a dark-haired woman on the battlement. She stood with a baby cradled in her arms and her head raised. My throat went dry. I wanted to say, my songs are more important than this. I don't want to be caught in your nightmare. What if you get out and I'm stuck? If you die but the shop needs a keeper and I'll be it after you're gone? "Maybe I'll find my way out." Brant stared at the approaching army. "For that possibility, I'll face his tortures once more. Or maybe this time I can die with her. Catherine." He looked at me, his eyes burning. "Find whatever you're looking for. Don't stop until you find it." He rushed towards his enemy, leaving me alone. I ran away, until a stitch burned my side and I couldn't get a proper breath. Though I descended the far hill and the castle disappeared behind me, I still heard wounded men shrieking, swords clashing, steel cracking on armour, arrows thumping into earth, and flesh. I ran through a stream whose waters dragged at my clothes, over another hill and down into a second valley. The sun traced a path up the sky and down into the west but I found no doorway, or window, or portal. Desperation crushed my chest until I thought my heart might stop with the pressure. I felt sick. This was Brant's nightmare. I couldn't make it end. I leaned over with my hands on my knees. The sun sank. Grey fog covered the grass. I wished Angie were here. She'd know what to do. I wanted to see her again, hold her, taste her. I locked my arms around my chest. If she was here, what would she do? What if it was Joey in that castle? _I didn't even try to help Brant. I left. That's what I do. I run, and silence follows me._ I stomped my feet and pulled my jacket tighter around my shoulders. "No music is more important than the people who love you." I heard my Dad's voice as if he were whispering in my ear. "People need you, just you, as much as you need your music." Maybe Brant couldn't get out because he couldn't make his nightmare change. Maybe he needed someone else to change it. I turned before my brain realised what my body was going to do. It was long past dark when I got back to the castle, and hours passed before I found an unguarded portal and slipped inside. Dark stains marred the flagstones. High, hard voices rang down the corridors - the sound of many men getting drunk. The air stank of excrement and blood. I descended a stairway winding into the castle's bowels and found Brant by following the shrieks of what sounded like a wounded animal. The woman from the battlement stood outside his cell with her arms hugging her chest. Beneath her cloak, her dress was torn and spattered. She stared through the grill in the door as if her will could reach Brant within. I stopped beside her. She drew back, coiling her skirts protectively around her legs. Inside the cell Brant thrashed, screaming unintelligible words. His head lashed back and forth. Blood matted his hair and spattered his clothes, soaked his leggings. He writhed against the bonds holding him to a wooden chair and the chair toppled, throwing him to the flagstones. His eyes stared, wild with madness. The room stank of vomit. I lurched back. _What the hell do you think you're doing? All you wanted was to write a song. Run!_ But I couldn't. Not now. "You should get out before you get killed," I told Catherine. Her forehead puckered into ridges. "The usurper has what he wants. He stole Brant's kingship and his manhood and killed our children. I'm nothing to him." Silent tears slipped down her cheeks. "He said Brant was selfless, so he'd send him where only a selfish man could redeem him. Aren't I selfish enough?" "You should go," I repeated. "I won't leave him." She glared at me and the muscles clenched at her jaw. Angie got that same look sometimes. I knew better than to argue. The padlock was big and unwieldy, but no worse than some Dad bought when I was a kid. He never did find a lock I couldn't pick. I wonder why he never gave up trying. "If you're staying," I said, "give me your broach." Frowning, she undid the broach fastening her cloak and handed it to me. The pin was long. I slid it into the lock, feeling my way until the lock clicked open and the padlock clattered to the floor. I stood and lifted the bar from across the door. She touched my arm. "Be careful. The usurper tore his land and his people from him, his children. He's dead without them. His heart still beats but his soul is dead." Like I was without the music. No. Without Angie and Joey. Without them I was less than nothing. Unredeemed. A wave of dizziness made the room swim and I leaned heavily against the wall. Catherine grabbed my elbow. "Are you ill?" I rubbed my eyes with my sleeve and thrust myself up. "I'm all right. I know what I'm doing." I opened the door. Brant did not move. Spittle drooled into his beard. With my pocket-knife I cut the ropes holding him. He leapt up like a wild man, his hands clutching for my throat. I grabbed the fallen chair and thrust it between us. "I'm Thomas, Thomas, remember me?" I squeaked. "This is just a memory. It's not real." He lunged and, with surprising strength, wrenched the chair from my hands, throwing it to the floor. Its joints shattered; splinters spewed across the cell. I scuttled away but he leapt on me and I fell, the breath knocked from me, crushed between his weight and the flagstones. His hands squeezed my throat. I croaked, gasping for air. Catherine dashed through the door and, snatching a shattered chair leg, struck Brant behind his ear. He slumped over me, senseless. Tears ran down her face. "Whatever you're going to do, do it quickly." Angie'd had a similar look on her face when she threw me out. I'd thought it was anger. I didn't see behind her tears, to the grief. Or the love. I dragged Brant's arms over my shoulders and carried him. Catherine followed. He was heavier than I'd imagined and I was soon stumbling. Harsh, drunken laughter echoed through the corridors. My heart thundered in my chest. At every turn I expected to hear shouts behind me, or feel an arrow in my back. I found the unguarded postern where I'd entered and slipped outside. Icy rain fell, drenching me. Brant began to struggle. I laid him down and leapt back, ready to run. His eyes roved, bewildered. He saw me and frowned as if trying to capture a memory. Then he saw Catherine. His mouth worked. "Alive. He told me you were dead." Catherine knelt and caught his searching hands. "I'm here. I'm with you." A ladder appeared suspended on the hillside, so tall its top disappeared into clouds. Neither of them appeared to see it. A doorway. I should take it and escape. He had his wife and a memory redeemed. I had no song, no Angie. Nothing. "There they are!" someone shouted from the castle walls. "Catch them!" I turned and ran towards the ladder. Catherine hauled Brant to his feet and they ran after me. I reached the ladder first and laid my hand on a rung to begin to climb, but glanced at them. He was watching her, his eyes shining, his free hand trembling as he touched her lips, her throat. She clung to him with her fingers laced through his hand as if she would never let go. Neither looked afraid. An arrow struck near my feet. Another thudded into the ladder and stuck, quivering. Every instinct told me to climb and my legs trembled with needing to, but I couldn't. I'd found - what? Angie, by seeing Catherine in his eyes. I let go of the ladder and pushed Brant to it. His eyes met mine. "Thank you." "Go, so this can end." He pushed Catherine up the ladder. As he climbed, the ground under me paled. The ladder's base faded until Brant and Catherine appeared suspended in air. A haze swallowed the castle walls. Catherine thinned until I could almost see through her. I turned for one last look at the castle as an arrow screamed through the air. Its impact threw me to my back. Pain seared my chest. I couldn't breathe. Brant started to climb back, his eyes wide with horror. I tried to wave at him to go on, but my hand wouldn't move. Silence rolled over me, so intense it stopped sight, and sound, and sense. Yet in that darkness words and melodies floated, waiting to be captured, to be set free. "_Even when I'm down you're beside me._" Life whispered in my veins. Words caressed me. The silence broke and shattered as the syllables spilled over me, drenching me. "_When I'm all alone you're there._" A chord, D minor, brooding, then a guitar riff to the highest register, intense, almost too hard to listen to. It would cascade down but cadence on D major, bright, not sad. "_In the darkest night you're with me, baby, caring when nobody cares._" I smelled the dankness that comes from too many mice in the walls. Sunlight glowed red through my closed eyelids but quickly faded to the dusty dimness of the pawn shop. I lifted my head. The red brick building across the alley was wet with rain. The shop door stood ajar and the wind smelled of spring. I staggered to my feet. Where I'd lain, the dust swirled into mounds. The shelves stood empty. No curtain swung behind the counter. I reached into my pocket, found my watch and pulled it out. A paper tag, tied on with a string, fluttered from the watchband. I flipped it over. In thin scratches, as if written by a shaking hand, it read, _Redeemed from R & B Shop._ I stumbled to the door and pushed it open. Spattering rain kissed my face. I stepped outside and the door clicked closed behind me. On sudden impulse I tried it but it was locked. Faded 'For Lease' papers plastered the windows. The hand-painted sign and the '78 Chevy were gone. I turned towards Angie's apartment and tried to keep from shouting her name as I broke into a run. .-. .-. / \ .-. .-. / \ / \ / \ .-. _ .-. / \ / \ `-------\-------/-----\-----/---\---/-\---/---\-----/-----\-------/-------' \ / \ / `-' `-' \ / \ / \ / `-' `-' \ / `-' `-' The Neo-Comintern Magazine / Online Magazine is seeking submissions. Unpublished stories and articles of an unusual, experimental, or anti-capitalist nature are wanted. Contributors are encouraged to submit works incorporating any or all of the following: Musings, Delvings into Philosophy, Flights of Fancy, Freefall Selections, and Tales of General Mirth. The more creative and astray from the norm, the better. For examples of typical Neo-Comintern writing, see our website at . Submissions of 25-4000 words are wanted; the average article length is approximately 200-1000 words. Send submissions via email attachment to , or through ICQ to #29981964. Contributors will receive copies of the most recent print issue of The Neo-Comintern; works of any length and type will be considered for publication in The Neo-Comintern Online Magazine and/or The Neo-Comintern Magazine. .-. .-. .-. .-. .-. .-. .-. .-. .-. .--/---\---/---\---/---\---/---\---/---\---/---\---/---\---/---\---/---\--. `-' `-' `-' `-' `-' `-' `-' `-' `-' `-' ___________________________________________________ | THE COMINTERN IS AVAILABLE ON THE FOLLOWING BBSES | |~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| | TWILIGHT ZONE (905) 432-7667 | | BRING ON THE NIGHT (306) 373-4218 | | CLUB PARADISE (306) 978-2542 | | THE GATEWAY THROUGH TIME (306) 373-9778 | |___________________________________________________| | Website at: http://www.neo-comintern.com | | Questions? Comments? 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