1,778 words (approx.)
(Last edited on 7/29/08)

INTERSTICE
by
beadlety

Between the water and the air, step into a world unlike any you have ever known, where the old places of the world have receded and where the new places have yet to be born.



The forest stood large and proud and rotting in the quiet misting rain that draped itself softly over the isolated peninsula. All sound was dampened into a fearful pall of mute life. No animal was seen darting along hidden trails of the forest’s design, nor were birds seen fluttering in the maze of the canopy. The silence was peaceful and lulling, meant for the lost at heart, for those who shunned the warmth and light of humanity, the hearths of gold and the scent of bread, for the scent of gray-blue pine and the cold, dead caress of the mist.

The stillness was a veiled threat and a blessing, a fey summons to enter nature and leave humanity behind.

Clovis waded through the mucky confines of what had once been the majestic forest, destroyed by the gray and misty weather that had suddenly appeared seven years ago. The perpetual rain that fell on Fenich Village and the peninsula made the lives of the villagers a constant struggle against the wet and the cold. For as long as Clovis had lived, this was the way of the gray peninsula, and there was no other.

The boy’s bare arms flashed starkly between the trunks of trees like fragments of bone in the earth. He splashed through the rivulets that ran between the trees like a labyrinth weaving and blending and dissipating into the mist ahead. For Clovis, this forest was the birth place of many adventures of daring knights, of damsels in distress, of dragons, of wizards, of dreams. He crowed with joy. A sweet red lollipop rolled between his lips and danced on his tongue, a gift from the confectioner’s shop that was a few blocks away from his elementary school.

Though he had left his jacket on the mantel at home and his arms were exposed to the cold air, Clovis felt relatively warm and happy, elated at the thought of being free from the torments of school and his mother.

“Come straight home after school, ye hear?” his mother had admonished him that morning before school, “Stan Hopkins said a squall will be comin’ in later today.”

Clovis didn’t put any stock in the old fisher who drank more than a sailor and caused twice as much trouble. Hopkins was known more for his ability to drink and wreak havoc than to sail.

Clovis landed heavily in a puddle and felt his shoes squelch deeply into the soft mud beneath the water’s rippling surface. He pulled a face when he tried to wade out and found himself stuck up to his ankles in the mud. For a moment he stood there puzzled before simply stepping out of his oxfords, leaving them imbedded deeply. He pulled off his drenched, muddy knee socks, laid them carefully across the roots of a tree, and continued into the forest.

Unaffected by the icy chill of the air and the omnipresent water, Clovis moved freely through the forest unfettered. His brown hair, slick from the light misting, could be seen easily bobbing through the gray of the forest. The light dust of freckles on his round cheeks was stark against his pale skin. The boy’s woolen short pants afforded him the ability to move easily through the forest, and his crisp uniform shirt only gave him minimal trouble.

Then he finally heard it--the delicate sound of small waves.

Giving a whoop of joy he broke into an all out run, ducking and weaving through the underbrush like an animal of the wilderness that he climbed through. The forest faded into the thickening fog and Clovis found his feet powdered in sand. The beach.

He could hear small wavelets lapping at the shore from where he stood, making as little noise as the trickling forest had.

The boy giggled happily and pulled his lollipop out of his mouth, surprised to find that he’s scarcely gotten anywhere with it, despite the fact that he’d been in the forest for a good while. He shrugged and popped it back into his mouth and headed for the water.

The fog billowed and wavered around him as he moved, and the sad call of a lone bird echoed through the stillness like a tolling bell. Clouds of gray morphed, twisting around his form as he padded toward the water, calm and serene. As he walked, he dug his hand into his pocket and pulled out a little faded newsprint sailboat that he had made, oiled down to a fine sheen and sea worthy. The sounds seemed to fade away as he continued to the shore, focused on the little boat in his palm, crafted by his own hands. There was silence. He plodded on toward the shore, he’s feet slapping wetly against the-

Suddenly Clovis froze. Something was not right. Not a single sound could be heard except his own breathing and the beat of his heart. Limbs stiff, he slowly turned in the sand, eyes unseeing in the dense whiteness.

Never had the fog been so complete and absolute.

The sand underneath his feet had vanished, and there was only white. A gasp escaped his strangled throat, but his voice remained locked away. The fog roiled and curled slowly, like a sheet being caressed by a breeze. Cautiously he began to move forwards, certain he’d find water and would then be able to reorient himself. He started forward, confident but hesitant at the same time.

He walked for what seemed an eternity, his small heart pattering with fear and reluctant, reverent awe for this power of nature, a nature that he had always loved.

The urge to freeze struck him again.

Where was he?

Weather-seared, gutted architecture loomed out of the gray fog, as well as structures he had never seen before, curling and fluting in the faded light. The bird called mournfully again, a solitary cry that echoed emptily. He wandered in and out of the interspersed monstrosities, frightened at their silhouettes and jutting angles. Bones of birds rested perched where they had died, their flesh having rotted away while their bones remained fast. The silence weighed heavily, whole and unchanged.

He approached one monolith and stood gazing at its base. It was a veritable colossus and only one tarnished, fire-scarred, bronze foot could be seen in the obscurity. Overhead its darkness soared into the fog. Suddenly scared that it would move, he fled, whimpering in the ambivalent world of smoky, suffocating fog.

Clovis ran, eyes wide with fright and his masterpiece forgotten in his hand. His tears made icy streaks down the soft curves of his cheeks, and for the first time he felt the cold, gripping and terrible in its staid ferocity.

A white rabbit flashed through the fog before darting away, barely discernable even at its most prominent moment. Whether real or not, Clovis barreled through the fog, his breaths heavy. He wanted to call out but his voice was trapped in his throat like a firefly in a jar.

Exhaustion eventually slowed him and he came to a stop at the entrance to another ancient structure, heavily ornamented with massive domes and arches and vast, dark halls. The bricks used to build it were small and irregular in form, not the manufactured work of the present day. He climbed through large, rotted double doors, darkened by time and sagging from their hinges. Within and around the arches of the building hung terracotta pots with the tendrils of long-dead plants dangling over the sides. The roots of trees had burrowed through the walls, weaving themselves into the stone and becoming an integral part of the structure. For Clovis it looked like it would have once been a garden or a greenhouse, with flowers hanging suspended above the viewer. He envisioned being bathed in the opulent, natural beauty of draping flowers and sweet fragrances.

What was this place?

He remained there for a long time, imagining what had been and what could be in the hanging gardens. Slowly his thoughts returned to home. He wanted to go home more than anything in the world. He wanted to be safe and warm and loved and not stuck in this cursed, static world where change came in the form of a fading rot.

Stepping out of the large, slowly crumbling building he turned to look at it one more time. The word “Babylon” came unbidden to his mind, whispered by a soft, unknown voice, before he turned away from the hanging gardens and moved back into the fog. These decaying structures were the products of men, long forgotten and lost in this fog that engulfed Clovis. He looked down at his small, newsprint boat which had lain forgotten in his hand for so long. It was partially crushed and he lovingly straightened its bent edges. His own masterpiece.

The fog continued to move and shift but it no longer seemed violent or malignant. More towering monoliths came and went in the fog as he wandered and wondered at the meaning of this place. Of its purpose.

Some of the structures seemed almost new, like unborn inventions distilled out of the old, purified and brought to light in a new and powerful way.

The boy, though naïve, did not see evil, now but stasis, as though the fogged land were some kind of gap, where places got lost and were forgotten. And then recreated, melded into something new and unique, into a thought or inspiration to be passed on into the world of creating men-

The sorrowful call of the bird once more echoed throughout the tangle of white. It was time to leave.

He looked at his little treasure and the red lollipop in his hand and smiled a sweet smile of understanding and sacrifice in the blank world around him.



When the fog finally lifted, the boy stood in the cold, gray sand, soaked to the bone but satisfied. No longer did a cherry red lollipop hang between his teeth and his small masterpiece was only a memory. The sun was setting, dissipating the gray of the clouds and casting a rosy hue on the soft waves of the sea.

Clovis turned and returned home, to the world of humanity with its golden hearth.

THE END

--

There is also a less pleasant, more profound alternative ending, which I will be posting later at an unspecified time. A few things to establish:

1)Time period: 1910s
The clues would be the boy's name as well as certain choices in words.
2)The alternate ending is...interesting
3)Constructive criticism welcome!