ARWIN
Love is an adventure, so they say. You know what is also an adventure? Leaving the world you know and entering a new one.
One Saturday, in a bit of a blue funk, Arwin tried to distract himself by helping out around his parents’ house but quickly grew restless and put them aside. His breakup with Kelli had hurt worse than anything he’d ever experienced. In the time since, he’d been miserable, depressed, angry, and lost. His confidence had been crippled, his hope for a good future dashed. He’d drifted through all of this while trying to process it, but he hadn’t managed to get past it.
Darkly, he was sure he was the only one going through this. He imagined Kelli completely unaffected by the breakup, entirely wrapped up in her job and her new relationship. Sociopaths have it so much easier. When they don’t really care about others, they don’t have to live with the consequences of having their heart broken.
Arwin was filled with gloom. He didn’t know how to move forward, but he was sick of feeling this way. He wanted to be healthier. He wanted to be himself again. He wanted to be positive about the future once more. He wanted to move back out of his parents’ house again because a thirty-something should have their own place, especially if he was ever going to try dating again. But how to achieve all that when he felt so blue?
It was very tempting to give up, but deep down, he knew better. He didn’t really want to give up on himself. He couldn’t just drift along like this forever, hoping things would sort themselves out. They might never do so. Like his father has advised, he had to be the agent of his own change and find a catalyst that would help him heal.
Feeling blah but trying to do something to change his mood for the better, he strolled into the living room where his father was watching a movie and asked, “Would you mind if I borrowed your car? I just, I dunno, want to go for a drive and get some air or something.” Maybe it would help clear his mind enough to figure a way back to being normal and happy.
“Sure.” His supportive father handed him the keys, no questions asked.
Arwin got into the car, started it, backed out of the driveway, and headed towards the main road. Without even really planning to, he found himself leaving the suburbs and aiming toward the highway out of town. Beyond was the vast and quiet countryside, nature everywhere. It was completely opposite to the crowded and busy city that housed the agents of his misery. Escape was just what he needed. Leaving the buildings behind, he felt his mood lighten.
He drove down the open highway, and a limitless stretch of straight road stretched out as far as the eye could see under a sunny sky that stretched from one horizon to another. It was all very stretchy. With each passing kilometre, he began to feel a little better. On either side of the road lay vast fields of golden wheat and bright yellow canola, punctuated with tractors and irrigation systems. And there were cows, of course. Looots of cows.
On impulse, he took a quiet, little-used exit, intending to park and simply sit for a while and enjoy the quiet and solitude. He drove down a gravel road. On one side of him was a wheat field and a forest beyond. On the other was a muddy cattle ranch full of lazy cows. Ok, that wasn’t fair. Surely, only a few of them were lazy. Others were probably very productive at…whatever it was that cows did. Make cow pies? Guess it was difficult to have much ambition when your existence was restricted to a small, fenced-off ranch with nothing to do and nothing that could be done. Poor cows. He knew how they felt.
Yeah, he was still in a negative headspace.
He turned a corner, making his way past a small copse of trees and found himself speeding towards a giant pink dragon lying across the road. It wasn’t far from a large pile of fresh-cut flowers, the kind you see as tributes left at a place where people have recently died. The dragon was monstrously large, with darker pink scales on its back and its wings, fading to light pink and then white on its underbelly and throat. The beast was munching on a freshly charred cow, smoke wafting from blackened beef. The dragon raised its great head and gave Arwin a stern look with large reptilian eyes.
Arwin’s blue-green eyes went wide, and he gasped, “What the maple syrup?”
A little pink baby dragon waddled out of the tall grass next to the road. Arwin saw it at the last second and swerved the car. Desperate to avoid the creature, he shot right off the road at full speed and barrelled towards the copse of trees. The air in front of him shimmered.
One moment, Arwin was driving his car through cattle-filled ranches and fields of golden wheat in his native prairie homeland.
The next moment, he was off-road, careening through a bumpy field of tall blue grass. It was literally blue: vivid, deep, royal blue. And instead of the sound of crushing vegetation, as he rocked and rolled through the blades, the grass made soulful music.
Too stunned by the sudden change to react in time, he didn't see the tree in front of him until it was too late. His car thundered into it and came to an abrupt halt with the fender, hood, and engine wrapping around the immovable trunk like the car was giving it a big, metal hug. Blue spruce-like branches rattled the hood and roof of the car, each branch thick with blue moss in the shapes of various types of facial hair: French forks, Van Dykes, Xaén Dovéts, hulihees, goatees, ducktails and many more.
From out of a little door, high in the tree’s trunk, stormed a tiny man. He was about the size of a squirrel and sported a lengthy blue beard. He wore 17th-century French aristocratic clothes: padded cobalt tunic and navy tights under a fur-lined cape, the royal-blue fabric embroidered with gold thread. A gold chain and medallion hung around his neck. He rattled off a string of blue language in Arwin’s direction, the little man’s face blue with the effort. Then he spun on his minuscule heel and vanished back into his abode.
Arwin turned his gaze in all directions, peering out the car windows. He shook his head, bewildered. Musical blue grass? A bluebeard tree with blue beards? A miniature man resembling the fairytale character of Bluebeard? But how could a man be only a handspan tall? What the hell was going on?
He unsnapped the seatbelt and climbed out of the car. Dazed, he looked around. "Where am I?"
All around, the scenery had completely changed. Endless prairie had been replaced by a small, blue field surrounded by towering, dense forest. Some trees he recognized, while others were completely foreign, like the bluebeard tree. And what he guessed was probably called a sandalwood tree. After all, the leaves were all shaped like sandals.
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He took a closer look, narrowing his eyes with suspicion.
No, they were sandals, growing out of the branches. How was that even possible? He took a few steps through the knee-high, blue grass. A gust of wind came down out of the sky to tickle the rounded, blue leaves and a mournful wave of notes played through the meadow.
Arwin put his hand on his head and groaned, "I’ve lost my mind.” He checked his scalp for blood. "I must have hit my head. I'm delirious. Hallucinating." He stepped backwards, and his foot landed on something hard. A despondent cry arose from below. Jerking his foot away, he looked down.
It was a blue stone. A rock. Coloured blue. And it appeared to be sad. How a rock could possibly have, let alone communicate, emotions struck Arwin as rather impossible, yet there it was. When he had stepped on it, the rock must have made that sad sound. Then he got it. The rock was feeling blue. That was — literal.
Arwin tried to wrap his head around his current situation.
He had been driving along, and everything had been normal. Well, until he’d taken that side road and nearly run into a freaking dragon. A pink dragon and its baby. As if colour makes the fact that there was a real, live dragon any more exceptional! He’d swerved so he wouldn’t hit them, then gone off-road.
His head rose. Wait. The air. He remembered it shimmering for a moment. Some kind of portal?
He took a deep breath and tried to steady his whirling thoughts.
Looking around, it seemed that maybe he wasn’t even on Earth anymore. Pink dragons, little blue men, sandals growing on trees: all were impossible.
…right?
He shook his head. It was no use. The situation refused to be wrapped up so readily in his mind. He continued to look around, hoping things were just his imagination, but the odd world in front of him continued to remain in place. No matter how many times he pinched himself, he refused to wake up from whatever this was.
He turned back to the car, the one piece of familiarity that he could find. Seeing the vehicle that he’d borrowed from his parents in good faith now resting in shambles, a fat stone of guilt weighed down his gut. He had recently been hit hard by misfortune and deep depression. Despite Arwin being thirty-one years old, his parents had gladly taken him in to help him recover. They’d loved him and supported him, doing what they could to help him get back on his feet. Just that morning, his father had entrusted his car to Arwin so that Arwin could get out of the city and get some fresh air in the countryside. And how had Arwin repaid that kindness? By destroying the vehicle.
The evil insurance company was doubtlessly going to milk his father for this by doubling insurance premiums. Crap. He sagged a little.
Looking at the crumpled front end, if the car wasn't a total write-off, then the evil repair companies would then charge his father half the price of a new car to fix it, money the family didn't have to waste. Double crap. He sagged a little more.
The repair company, of course, would probably sic their untrustworthy mechanics on the car, who would then do a half-ass job, and his father would then be forced to return three or four times to fix all the little mistakes they'd carelessly left behind in order to charge him even more money. Triple crap! He slumped to his knees in the grass.
All this because Arwin hadn’t reacted better and had blundered carelessly into whatever was going on now. Life sucked. It was too overwhelming and disheartening to think about how miserable it all was, yet it was all he could think about. Arwin’s shoulders drooped. How could he have let this happen? He was such a terrible son! Tears welled up in his eyes.
He rose and walked over to a nearby pine tree and leaned heavily on it. That poor car. It would no doubt end up being junked. He was going to miss it so much. Thinking about never seeing the car again was agony. A tear trickled down his cheek.
Giving up on everything, he closed his eyes and let himself slide down the rough trunk of the pine tree until he lay on the ground, needles poking into his back. His whole situation right now felt so glum. Everything had already seemed hopeless, and now here he was, screwed even more, stuck in some stupid, alien world. After all that he’d been through these past weeks, now this freak, unfair episode had made things even worse. He sighed, defeated. He felt so...blue.
At that thought, his eyes flickered toward the blue grass.
Ok, it was totally normal to feel down given the circumstances, but to feel this much sorrow so suddenly? This wasn’t like him. The field itself couldn't be having an effect on him, could it? He looked around more closely. What did he see? Blue grass, a sad blue stone, a blue bird whistling a melancholy song while perched in a nearby limb of a blue spruce with drooping branches. He’d leaned against a pine tree and then begun to pine. Coincidence? Maybe not.
He spotted a nearby bush covered in deep blue berries. Perhaps a test was in order? He walked over and popped one into his mouth. It burst with sweet, ripe juice. He swallowed and immediately felt his sadness deepen. Blueberries that made you feel depressed.
Arwin smacked his forehead with sudden insight. They were puns! Things really were literal here.
Maybe just being here in this blue meadow was causing his feelings to worsen. The idea couldn't be any odder than everything else he'd already seen so far. Turning on his heel, he headed away from the blue grass and didn’t stop until he was inside the edge of the forest.
Sure enough, the change of scenery brightened his mood considerably. Negativity melted away. He was able to stand straighter again and even, as hope returned, smile a bit. All he'd needed to do to feel better was get out of the bad place he'd been in.
Now, looking back, he had a very different perspective of the crash. The car looked so silly and incongruous out there under a bearded tree. Arwin actually managed to chuckle. Looking at things from this new angle, he could see that everything he'd experienced so far had been pretty crazy and worth a laugh. After all, he was pretty relieved to be alive after hitting that tree so hard.
Feeling better, he turned his thoughts to how to proceed. He muttered to himself, “We are definitely not in Kansas anymore.” He thought about checking under the car for a wicked witch who had been accidentally flattened but then realized he’d prefer to live in ignorance and hope no angry witch sisters came looking for him.
Another thought occurred. This world was probably where that big, pink dragon had come from. So, um, yeah, likely more of those around, right? His head swivelled in all directions, eyes scanning the field, forest, and skies. No dragons. At least not in sight. Still…
Arwin pulled out his cell phone. Not really surprised, he saw that there was no cell service. He was on his own. A brief survey of the land told him that there were no nearby roads, no signs of civilization at all. The gravel side road that he'd been on had completely disappeared. There was only the car and a line of tire tracks leading back across the blue field until they vanished into the forest on the opposite side.
Staying with the car didn't seem to be very helpful because no one was going to come looking for him there. He could follow his tracks back the way he’d come. Perhaps he could find whatever dimensional door had allowed him to come there. He might be able to find his way back home to the familiar, comfortable world that he was used to. He reflexively took a step in that direction but stopped after a pace and two-thirds of another.
Hmmm. Actually, on second thought, returning didn’t seem as appealing as it should. For weeks, he’d been in a pit of melancholy and despair, with his soul shattered into a million painful shards. He’d felt like he’d lost everything. He’d struggled just to keep going, to keep waking up from one morning to the next. Events aside, there were also reasons why he wasn’t excited about a future there, why he felt like he didn’t entirely fit in. So why go home?
Here he was, in a completely foreign place, with all kinds of mind-boggling things to see. New experiences, and perhaps new people, might be waiting for him.