A low and dry hisssssssss set a quiet background to the frequent interruption of loud pops and crackles from a blazing campfire eviscerating tight packings of stripped sticks and kindling. The fire’s volume was the sole source of light giving sight and casting dancing wicked shadows on the trees and leaves surrounding. Cassian sat opposite the entrance of the grove, surrounded on left and right by his temporal companions, of whom only few he knew beyond acquaintance. His breathing was purposefully deep and steady, but was crippled by a sunken chest that, alongside his single eye, rendered him different from the men that joined him who all, insofar as Cassian could note, repped unmarred vessels. Amidst them, Cassian sat differently, and drew his focus inwardly with knees planted in cold dirt, and interlaced digits held firmly against his chest meditatively.
Hitherto Cassian’s eye never left the fire, when open, as their pulsating glow that formed out of a foundation of oaken cadavers illumined graciously across each iteration of chromatic flame. He was altogether absorbed—enthralled—with the ritual, trapped by a pounding, wrapping headache reaping auras and auditory disruptions that drew him in and held him tight, as if by way of restraints. Whether it was the violent imagery of their medial focus, or the sense of shared connection with his counterparts, Cassian thought to himself, “I’m here, we’re here, you did this, just breathe…” and knew he could wait it out, and learn to love it.
However, Cassian nonetheless found himself feeling imprisoned, icy without wind nor cold, and whirling as if circularly, suffering looping thoughts exuding anxiety, a fear of sleep from which not to return, but not death, distinct from death, a unique evil. He failed to find the words to describe it to himself when a worrisome Roch, who had since been too deep in conversation with another to say anything beyond ‘Welcome!’ at his arrival, placed his hand on Cassian’s right shoulder, and lowered himself down onto one knee to level with him.
As Cassian looked upon him, Roch’s face seemed to shift awkwardly, his flesh balling as if being pushed by a long thin tool, or hand, clockwise. What of his features Cassian could discern, he detected only concern, and babbled out, “It’s nothing, im okay…” to which Roch inquired, “Are you alright? Take a hit, you’ll feel better.” His suggestion accompanied his right hand gripped around the neck of a colourful bong he pulled nearer.
“No, it’s not that—not quite that.” Cassian dismissed the offering, and took a calculated breath in an effort to relieve his vibrating hands that wrapped around and into themselves as if to shirk a bitter chill. As he drew in the air he did so with a deep haste to call it to the base of his lungs, and in doing so called forth a ripping heterogeneity of smoke, weed, and oxygen that clawed down his throat.
His vision devolved into a red mass, and his trachea felt tight, like he was being choked, and he gasped for air time and time again to no avail. It was only when Roch, with arms wrapped around Cassian’s chest, dragged him back for momentary reprieve.
His attention was redirected to a nearby bracken flush with nocturnal life. The respite was immensely relieving, and the cool air grounded Cassian, freeing him from the red devil grasping at his throat with its claws, yielding a level of previously unforeseen tranquility onto his psyche that translated into the cessation of flex, and resumption of steady breathing.
He sealed his eye and gazed upon the gulf of the surround. Twisting fractals of coloured scent laying waste upon the darkness placed themselves before his eye. His hands arose unprompted to wrap and grasp the bark of the nearest tree. Cassian drew himself close and lay his head upon its flesh, falling forward with ease into a comfort alike home. He drew his hands then in, and clasped at the air of his chest.
“Why did I do this?” He spoke without speaking. He watched an endless mirage, and awoke with a fright, a wave of anxiety, that cast him free from the infinite opportunity. His eye, once open, cast away the panic as if like a lamp, fresh with oil, bringing hell unto darkness.
Roch arrived with the returning calm, and with a guiding hand brought him back into the enclosure, returned to his medial seat.
“I apologize.” Cassian insisted, only to be met with familial refusal, and assurance of his welcome among their number. In return to this he could only smile, feeling filled with joy, regardless of his expectation of it, a thought that he let loose into the myre within which his mind thrashed in its effort to find a riverboat saviour. A raft upon which to drift into the sun without tedium.
Cassian knew that his chance had passed as he resurfaced gasping in a sudden shift of presence, tightening his body into a coil that loosened slowly back into a lounge against a soft pack packed with clothes and baubles. He ached something terrible down each limb, while his stomach cried pressure and his cranium throbbed with a seeping headache. He said to himself with a voice in mind that held on each word ‘what the fuck have I done’, to which he had no response. He knew what he’d done, and he knew his sequent fears were unjustified.
“They rob me of my control at every turn and refuse to allow any healing.” His disgust was self targeted, but was nonetheless forgiving, which manifested in his tone and unmarred arms. Roch felt only the urge to smile, as he understood, through experience, the discomfort that currently wracked Cassian. It was a right of passage, so to speak, Roch had surmised long before, giving justification to improbable danger.
“I’ll brew us some tea while you sit. Would you like anything specific while I’m up? I’ve got fresh fruit.” Cassian nodded, smiling, setting off Roch to retrieve grapes, or an apple.
As Roch left the chamber Cassian was left alone with a sleeping lad he did not know. His stature was that of brawn, but the sheer lack of definition led Cassian to conclude his size was due to factors of birth, as opposed to any effort exuded to achieve bulk. He couldn’t remember specifically where he’d come from, or when he’d come, but Cassian was sure he had seen him at some point gathered around the bonfire during the ceremony, partaking in the same drawing as they all had, equally.
For the first time that evening, Cassian’s mind was silent. He rested his chin in one hand, with fingers splayed across his neck, and maw, while his free hand pleaded to give comfort to the stabbing in his gut. He kept this position for some peaceful minutes, and wished upon the wounded tissues of his psyche to knit themselves together again, before forcing himself to stand quite suddenly to exit the room. Cassian passed through an ajar set of sliding doors, crossing through a foyer, and into a small bathroom built below a grand staircase in the residence’s central hall. It was a meager space, enclosed by a low ceiling with little standing room between the toilet and the door.
A single riveting pain stretched from his throat to his pelvis that tore into the heart of his vessel’s essence as if gripped by razors. The sought relief removed some of the pressure in his abdomen, but did nothing to prevent the discomfort of the after effects of the journey. The experience itself was altogether unusual, considering the time that had passed since his last venture being nearly five years, leaving what memories remained of similar peculiarities dissociated.
Once finished, Cassian stumbled back the way he’d come, and in doing so realised he had passed a small grey and brown manecoon that batted its tail on the hardwood, and looked upon Cassian with wide yellow eyes. It had tucked itself in the space between a flowered support and an unoccupied cat tree, veiled in shadow and obscured from sight when exiting the foyer. He knelt down and studied its silken fur intensely, noting a particular shine that cascaded across distinct patches and alignments of fur shifting with the movement of the fixed position of his eye, guided by his form.
Once his curiosity had been sated, Cassian returned to the room he had awoken in, and was greeted by a grinning Roch. His friend placed an off while ceramic bowl on the carpet beside Cassian’s spot in which sat a stem of grapes, and half an apple, glistening in the low nearby light which refracted off of the droplets of freshwater dotting the surface of the fruit’s skin. Roch then assumed a position on a lounge between the sleeping man, and Cassian, who returned to his low post against his things, partaking forthwith of the citruses.
“So, Cassian. . .” Roch began, taking a seat on a tall footrest on rollerballs, shifting back and forth as he spoke, bracing himself by his heels. “Tell me. . . did she truly batter you mercilessly? I believe you spoke of a downhill stride amid its climax, slobbering and disheveled.” His voice pranced as if across petals, giving each word of import such stress as to be like a blooming flower, beautiful together, or alone.
“Perhaps I tried to strike it and lost, or missed?” Cassian started in reply, “It’s my hubris, Roch, getting the best of me at the worst of times, and my anxiety.” He shuddered, and shifted back, pressing his body into the sack. Closing his eye, Cassian inhaled, and sat with the breath for a moment, pulling in the air as if gathering the energy from the surrounding space, pulling it up, and in, through his centre mass, collecting spherically in his throat. When it grew so blubus as to pressure the muscles in his fauces he spat it out in a plume. He then opened his eye and looked over at Roch whose attention was drawn to the curtain of a far window that hung ajar a sliver letting in a thin line of sunlight that painted a lone streak across the opposite wall.
The light illuminated every individual floater, every speck of dust, and oblong particle, which cascaded aimlessly through the still air of the room, endlessly. It gave the otherwise unnoticed things a sense of life, and as they moved Cassian imagined them to be breathing, as he perceived their shifting as a sort of rattle representative of the rapid act of breathing. His eye followed the pieces as they reached the edge of the golden highway and disappeared into a void.
“Do you follow the star signs, Cassian?” Roch spoke without regarding his target, settling from the footstool to a large leather couch that lay behind it against the wall.
A lapse in thought, like radio silence, prolonged Cassian’s answer as he tussled momentarily with a pinching discomfort in his upper chest. He jammed his thumb, bent, into the spot until it faded, and permitted instantaneous consideration.
“The stars and the planets—space—doesn’t care about us. The stars don’t care about us, nor think about us. We’re nothing to them.” Cassian tightened his brows as he spoke, and shut his eye with a certain firmness that caused the muscles of his face to tighten. The essence of his elucidation rotated about him with an air of comfort that wrapped his soul, and dispatched care to Roch, who received his words with hospitality.
“Yeah, I see it. I can see it, but nonetheless this night has been an adventurous experience for me, and I cannot help but to feel as though it came about with intention.”
“You feel like it was all meant to be as it has become?” Cassian queried in search of clarity, however he said to himself he knew what Roch meant, considering his thought on the matter too ignorant of the prevalence of coincidence. Coincidence, where coincidence is a natural correcting factor realigning things with the Way; an expression of the Way.
“Exactly!” He exclaimed, laughing, “I'm sorry Cassian, my stomach won't stop turning. Excuse me for a while.” Roch stood, exeunt towards his bedroom, vanishing around a beam.
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A huff and the sound of creaking wood grabbed Cassian’s eye, The sleeping man who remained yet an alien to him rotated his hulking carcass and slipped his head in between two loose pillows, much to his pleasure.
“Man, I don’t get it. How can you sleep?” Cassian spoke softly enough to avoid risking his arousal, but instead posed the question outwardly to himself. As he spoke he ran his fingers down the length of his face from forehead, to chin, and spent particular time pressuring softly into his eye. It relieved him of some of the pangs that gripped his skull.
Cassian wanted to stay, but he knew he couldn’t. It would be unfair to Roch who so graciously welcomed him into his home. Who so happily invited him to partake for nine brief hours. So, in pain Cassian elevated himself and crossed the room to collect his coat from a nearby chair. He recalled distinctly Roch taking it up in a huff, and moving it away from his seat. Cassian then returned to his satchel, and took it up, slinging it over a single shoulder tightly.
Once he was sure, triple checking, that he had all of what he had brought, a wallet, leatherbound, geometrically tooled, a multitool, and some cash loosely folded in an inner pocket, fifteen meager singles, he made his way through the central foyer, and to the door, letting himself back into the world.
The open air into which Cassian stepped embraced him without hesitation. It slithered along his skin, up his arms, and legs, and found itself within his chest, about his heart, and lungs. It was a tremendously needed experience to feel the warmth of the early morning sun beating down upon him, and the freshness of air yet untainted by the mob of morning drivers.
As his foot collided with the pavement marking the base of the steps from the house, he turned to his extreme left, and cascaded his sight in an arc to his extreme right. His eye danced across waves of colour, and found fixation upon the nature of the solids, the points which separated the things from their backgrounds, and gave them definition. With incredible detail his mind was flooded and experienced a sensation of love.
Cassian outstretched his arms at each side, and rotated his hands to allow his palms to take in the sunlight. His head tilted back, but his eye remained open, shielded from the sun by streams of shadow dispatched by an amalgam of twisted branches and leaves. He directed the whole of his conscious attention to the sounds of a waking city. The birdsongs were yet free from an overshadowing of roaring machines, and iresome Humans ignorant of the living, breathing, remaining facets of the all-womb.
Their disregard shunted Cassian into a moment of displeasure, which spawned a discomforting, sick feeling in his abdomen reminiscent of a desire to puke. He lowered his head till his eye leveled with the street, and his arms fell to strike his sides and wrap his core for warmth. He sighed, and spoke to himself, “Come on, man, come on.”
“Should I call myself lucky for having wished to live this life?” He paused only to glance, and ensure the street was clear before crossing to the door of his sedan. “Who would wish to live in a world like this, to simulate a world like this?” He tapped the frame above the handle, and six characters illuminated in a soft red. He tapped in a code, six characters in length, and opened the door to slip inside.
The cold leather seats seeped ice through the thin fabric of his joggers, and scathed his flesh. He inserted the key into the ignition whilst shuddering, and sent the engine roaring to life, casting air through a great many ducts, and heated seats arising con brio. At this Cassian eased himself into a recline, and placed his hands within his lap in wait for the coming release from the worldly pain via calefaction.
“Breathe. . . let it pass.” He stated in a softly commanding tone of voice, reminding himself of an often forgotten means of ease. Cassian inhaled slowly, and steadily, and took in air as to bring his lungs to capacity. Therein he held the air, and kept himself unmoving, his vision affixed through his windscreen on a singular turbulent fir whose central mass curled curiously, forming a twirling column rich with burls. As the pressure surmounted his will, Cassian released a steady stream of air through pursed lips, and allowed a sense of magnificent relaxation to wash over him. As it did, and his eye remained affixed, he suddenly blinked, and lifted slightly from the back of the seat. Cassian became awash with surprise, and glanced to his left, and right, in rapid succession, before looking again upon the tree that’s edges shimmered in the rays.
“Woah. . .” He mumbled, feeling along his chest and abdomen with his hands, moving slowly down along his thighs and over his knees where they gripped, and held still, absorbing the feeling of the loose cotton around firm bone, and musculature. There he remained and waited for a layer of visual turbulence to fade away. Like looking upon a distant oasis in the desert, his sight was broken, and rocked as if mutated by the immense warmth of the air.
“Fuck me man. . .” Cassian released himself from his pose, and shifted the car into gear in one smooth motion. “I’ve just got to relax, I’ve just got to relax, I can make it home.” With a quick mirror glance, and some self-assurance of the lack of an oncoming vehicle, Cassian turned onto the street, and proceeded towards the nearest roundabout. With some faint mental strain he pondered the quickest route back to his home, taking the I-3 east. . . exit fifteen, or sixteen, depending on whether he wanted to risk driving past the nearest constabulary to shave eight minutes off his trip.
He pondered his most significant risk with the assistance of his rear view mirror, which gave him clear sight upon his own pupil which sat wide, and flat, like an imposing saucer. The light it absorbed worked two fold to ameliorate the lush city verdure, and to render the road, and the many moving gears of the early morning streets, difficult to navigate. Thus, displeased, Cassian resigned to travel two blocks east towards a dive.
The going was slow, and the blocks long, lined with a variate of soldier trees tall, and lean, casting low shadows over the road, and shielding Cassian’s weary orb from extra pressure. As he passed the final boilerplate house, sickeningly plastered with faux brick, and stone, faces supported by cream, and ivory synthetics. It repulsed him, who so readily judged the style as lazy, cheap, and pathetic.
Nestled between the final of the cookie-cutter homes, and a wide divided avenue decorated with high-hanging lights, lie the Golden Chalice, an old concrete box painted thrice over with black that remained stained by years of drunken piss, and puke, and the musings of artistic street scum, so to speak, as they are so frequently referred to as by the local badge. A bar-parking-only sign guarded the street out front of the establishment, and Cassian parked his car right beside the notice.
A thick metal door with a sliding latch at eye level, and no exterior handle, served as the only visible entrance. Cassian approached, but only after nearly tripping over his own feet, and rapped the door twice, falling upon the wall beside it for support. He waited there for five slow minutes before the latch slid open, and during that time Cassian stood and stared deep into the cracks of the cement sidewalk, taking in the silence of a forenoon nightlife-street. Never was there a time otherwise that this place was so peaceful, Cassian thought, than the time of day when those who dwell here sleep away their drugs and drink.
“Whadda’ you want?” A gruff voice spat through the crevice. The light of the street shined through and gave sight to an unseemly shadow grasping pursed and fractured lips decorated with fierce age lines. The firm frown that followed his question led Cassian to doubt the ease with which he presumed to find entry, but nonetheless his joviality carried on.
“I’m here for Leopold—im Cassian, if he’s menshh...” Cassian trailed off as the viewing port slammed shut, and a series of rollerballs, and latches, slid about and came undone, and the bastille door creaked open. The man behind stood cloaked in darkness, and shot his arm back, with a thumb out stretched, to usher Cassian inside with a singular, “Go.”
Cassian slipped between him and the frame speedily, and scurried around a stack of chairs on tables. The bar floor was a mess of dust and shattered glass with the ways cleared of seating for later cleaning. The main room was fairly large, and dominated the majority of the ground floor. It boasted no serious stylization save for a collage of ‘who’s playing’ and ‘check this out’ posters from decades ago painted onto the wall by the door. A raised ramshackle platform sat across from the bar and served as a DJ booth with two towering rods adorned at the head by multicoloured spheres. The bar itself was J-shaped, and its tail left space for entry into the rear stockroom that contained a stairwell to the small upstairs office.
It was through this rear space that Cassian walked, taking a moment to peruse the shelves for a bottle to swipe. He selected the first port he laid eye on that wasn’t cracked or caked in dirt. At the top of the stairs he passed through an open threshold, and set his eye and smile upon Leopold who sat lounging behind a wide wooden desk topped with leather that’s edges cried with stained and faded once-gold tooling.
Leopold was an archaic man, grandfather at least to the unsightly fellow at the door, and dressed conservatively in a grey button-down and black trousers. He had kicked off a pair of derbies onto the desk, revealing a high set of black socks with embroidery over the toe: ‘LG’.
He decorated his office with an assortment of modern artwork depicting amalgams of colour ill defined by their creators. To Leopold, however, they were gold, and a means of attaining enlightenment through his drug use—a portal into cosmic curiosity—and a fearsome endeavour Cassian shunned. The idea of becoming ‘lost’ on a trip instilled within him a deep fear of possible insanity.
The term carried immense weight, regarded by Cassian as a tipping point between continued existence, and something alike suicide. Life is worth living insofar as one can experience what it has to offer, however, to Cassian, experiences are only sincere for the sane man, and life otherwise is a life unworth.
Leopold jolted to his feet at Cassian’s arrival, and he rounded the desk to greet him with open arms, drawing the boy into a heartfelt hug tight against his chest. “I expected you last night, what happened?” He whispered, still holding Cassian against him, and dug the tips of his fingers faintly into his shoulders.
“With Roch, and uh, company?” He paused, reflecting. “I took something and spent the night. My father’s to expect me hungover, and I suspect he will regardless.” He tried to sound genuine, but couldn’t help but feeling he came across as a little dishonest, neglecting the severity of his experiences from only hours ago, hoping with time alone he’d heal past them, and that his persistent ignorance would continue to lag behind just far enough to ever avoid impact.
“Regardless of what?” Leopold returned while pulling back, and spinning off to the left to approach a short refrigerator. While retrieving two chilled glasses he adopted an expectant visage, and shot it across at Cassian as his silence continued, awkwardly.
The two moved away from the door and over to a set of studded chairs around a low table and fireplace that sung softly crackling warmth unto the surround. There they sat, and Cassian popped the cork on the port, and they toasted to reunion.
“I guess it’s just my gut paying dues for a difficult trip.” Cassian took a slow and steady sip from the glass, easing the wine down his sore throat. “I think I said… ‘I feel like I’ve just rolled down a really long hill.’”
“You were pulled through a trial, one of the trials, as it has been said, and as I would suppose Roch worded it.” Leopold set his glass aside and brought his hands together from the arms of the chair. “I would imagine that you were caught in a loop, oozing into your surroundings and suffering a repetition of glorious discomfort, weight, and darkness cycled through brief moments of lucidity. A frightening wheel alike drowning. This is the peak of the difficult journey failed, Cassian, but it is nothing to fear, and nothing to hate. It is an exercise in your education, and you will, in time, and reflection, use this newfound knowledge to better your future sojourns.”
“How long will it take me to begin?”
Leopold licked his lips, leeching the loose and lingering tid-bits of wine, and held still for some contemplative seconds before standing, and crossing the room with Cassian tagging along at his gestured behest. He led the boy to a painting that had been present in his office since its inception, or so Cassian had been told, one part of a few like it that made up his original collection, a series of works by Felicjan.
“Like the red…” He extended his right hand and splayed out his fingers, trailing faintly along the canvas’s right upper corner, where a large and amorphous series of brush strokes appeared to have formed a waterfall-like blotch of reds, “…you arise out of the gulf, and come upon the green, separating innocence, from growth, from becoming again like a child.” His hand dropped slowly, and his fingers drew in to form a point that generalised the middle of the work, where a triangular formation of greens separated blue, purple, and grey all topped mercilessly with spots and heavy lines of white.
“Be like the grey, and absorb your experiences into your psyche, but do not allow yourself to become tainted, or unworthy, as both rags, and crowns, befit the head of no man.”
As Leopold finished speaking he had turned completely to face Cassian, whose body remained affixed on Leopold while his eye admired the work for its kaleidoscopic value. He hadn’t really been listening.
“Cassian.” He barked, and the boy affirmed his attention immediately. “If you don’t relax, you’re going to shred your soul—you ghoul.” He gripped his shoulders, and rotated, planting his left foot back for support to throw him into the painting. Cassian blacked out.