[RiddleRose]: 298.Gold Dust - NaNoWriMo '07.Chapter five

Chapter five.

Abruptly he woke up, jumping mightily, and knocking over the now room temperature chai tea, and found that he had a terrible headache. He wasn't sure whether this was from the weird angle his neck had been at while he was asleep, or because of the total insanity of his current situation. He bought himself a coffee, which helped slightly, and then took an ibuprofen, which he found in a pocket.

The headache got significantly better after a while, when the painkiller kicked in, and he felt up to his next deal. It was a pretty easy one, even though he was still a little groggy from his strange dream. It wasn't a personal one either. This time he left the bottles in a little hollow created by a loose brick. In the hollow waiting for him was a suitable amount of money for the two bottles, which he took, stuffed into a pocket, and left.

He managed to get home somehow, even though he was freezing, and, despite the cold air, still groggy. He fell asleep again after taking more ibuprofen and stashing the extra bottle of Gold Dust away in a hiding place.

At first his dreams were relatively normal. Girls, deals, friends, the usual. There were a few weird ones, but nothing significant. The monkey with the fish and the girl showed up briefly, but then he fell off a bridge, so that was all right. 

He was cold in all of his dreams. At some point he halfway woke up and realized that all of his covers had fallen off, so he pulled them back up, and then he was warmer, though still a little chilly.

In his next dream he was riding a six legged horse down a street in Manhattan, with a bevy of police officers chasing him, all of them yelling about how six legged horses were illegal in Manhattan, and he would have to register it with the proper authorities before he was allowed to own it at all, much less ride it in public. 

But the next second this was no longer an issue, as he was now riding a gigantic flying motorbike. For some reason only the kids seemed to get really excited about this, because they all started following him, shouting something he thought contained the word “serious”. He couldn't be sure though, because it also sounded like some of them were shouting something about feet. It was all very confusing, and then the bike made a sharp turn all on it's own, and he fell-

On and on and on and on and on and on- and suddenly he wasn't falling anymore, but jumping, and holding- something like a guitar maybe, but it seemed to be emitting sparks. He was wearing long sparkling robes, and when he put his hand up to his head, a very large pointy hat with sequins all over it. There was a huge crowd in front of him, screaming and chanting, and singing along with-

Another wacko in robes and a wizard hat, and suddenly Wren realized that he was a performer in a wizard rock concert, and he simply HAD to find his staff, which he seemed to remember had a very large knob on the end of it. “This is too ridiculous” he said loudly, and suddenly found himself in a large redwood tree, having a deep philosophical discussion with Gandhi, who was also in the tree, and was slowly phasing through all of the colours of the rainbow while he was talking.

“I think therefore I am” said Gandhi, turning an eye shocking shade of neon green.

“God does not exist,” said Wren in return, watching with interest.

“You cannot prove that god does not exist,” said Gandhi, fading from neon to lime.

“But I cannot prove that he exists either, and thus he does not,” said Wren, sure, in the dream, that he had the perfect argument.

“Touché,” said Gandhi, fading again, until he was palest mint.

Emboldened, Wren began to soliloquize on the existence of zebras, their stripes, and whether black was actually white or not.

“No,” said Gandhi, gently turning light sky blue, “with thinking like that you'll get killed at the next pedestrian crossing. Black is not white. Black does not exist. Black is no colour at all, thus black does no exist.”

“Touché,” said Wren, deflating a little. Gandhi turned a bright sky blue as they both ruminated on the fact that black did not exist.

“That parrot is dead,” said Wren after a few long moments, during which Gandhi progressed all the way through the blues and made it to royal purple.

“That parrot is not dead, it is merely asleep,” said Gandhi, turning a bright purple.

“No,” said Wren, “I can see that it has been nailed to that branch.”

“That parrot does not exist,” said Gandhi, bleaching slightly to a lighter violet.

“What do you mean?” said Wren in confusion,

“I can see it! It does exist.”

“No,” said Gandhi, with a smug lavender air about him, “by your own argument, that parrot is dead. Thus, the parrot cannot think. Thus the parrot does not exist. QED.” 

Wren watched in amazement as the obviously dead parrot promptly disappeared in a puff of logic. Gandhi turned magenta in celebration. 

“It is clear,” he proclaimed, “that we have entered the age of reason and logic! In a side note, hot pink does not go well with my glasses, and in just a few seconds, I shall be back to a more manageable hue, simply rose. In a final word of advice, do not attend wizard rock concerts, or this could happen to you too. Good morning!”

And with that he fell off the tree on a bungee cord, plunging towards the floor of the forest, and then springing back up again happily, yelling more philosophy as he went. Wren shook his head, but the motion reminded him that he had a terrible headache, and in trying to put his hands to his head, he toppled off the branch he had been sitting on, landing in the middle of a cornfield. The scarecrow from the wizard of oz blew a trumpet and announced the arrival of visitors from outer space, to be arriving shortly, all new, extra extra, come see the aliens folks!

Wren's headache got worse, probably the result of the trumpet blaring away in his ear. He crumpled to the floor whimpering. “What's wrong honey?” asked a motherly voice in his ear. It was immediately soothing to his head, and he looked up with streaming eyes to find himself in the middle of an airport full of people in austere business suits, all of whom were staring at him.

“Um,” he said, registering the fact that he had to think of an excuse, quick! “Um, it just hit me. I'm sorry. It's just, I'm pregnant. And I'm only seventeen. And I don't even know where I want to go to college yet, much less what I want to do with my life...”

The airport erupted in a flurry of sympathetic handkerchiefs, friendly advice, and shouts for a doctor. Wren was briefly confused as to why they actually believed him, since he was quite clearly male, when suddenly he was being carried away in a stretcher, but then the stretcher was actually the seat of a spaceship. Acceleration was giving him an awful headache, and the person beside him was saying seriously, “Black holes, apparently, swallow up entire universes, planets, and galaxies! Isn't it wonderful?”

Wren noted with horror that the person was wide eyed and smiling. He groaned, partly from the headache, and partly from the knowledge that he had been saddled with a complete dunderhead for this mission. They'd never get to investigate section ZZ9 plural Z alpha this way! And there were supposed to be the best bars there too. Wren wasn't clear on what a bar was, but it had sounded good when he had read the blurb, so he had decided to sign up to lead the mission. They were to investigate and report back in a few galactic years.

Then, with a bump and a start, the spaceship landed and Wren woke up. His headache continued though, and he was still cold. He got a cup of coffee together, and wrapped himself up. He couldn't get warm. Shit, this meant he was probably sick. Wren hated being sick. It meant he had to go stay with Neil, as per an agreement made back in tenth grade. 

It wasn't that he minded Neil, it was just that Neil smoked a lot, and Wren was always coughing when he was there for long periods of time. Neil tried to be considerate, but when in the middle of writing, he often forgot, and just lit up without thinking. Wren was a guest, and didn't feel comfortable just taking the cig away from him, and Neil would only snap if he interrupted the flow of words. It was actually the only bad thing about staying with Neil. The rest of the time they tended to either ignore each other or enjoy themselves a great deal.

Also, Wren got to sleep on one side of the enormous bed, which was always fun. The bed was soft and firm at the same time, and very warm. Also, Neil did not snore or kick in his sleep, which meant that they never even had to acknowledge the other's presence if the didn't want to. Usually they watched a movie, or planned out strategies for evading police, or just talked until they fell asleep. Occasionally they played the odd video game, but after Wren had won the first few games,they would quit to save Neil's ego from imploding.

So Wren picked up the phone with a minimum of dread, knowing that despite the smoke, the overall stay would be all right.