Chapter 1
I felt vaguely uneasy, though I couldn’t say why. It did not seem all that unusual to be drinking with a White Rabbit, a short guy who resembled Bertrand Russell, a grinning Cat, and my old friend Luke Raynard, who was singing Irish ballads while a peculiar landscape shifted from mural to reality at his back. Well, I was impressed by the huge blue Caterpillar smoking the hookah atop the giant mushroom because I know how hard it is to keep a water pipe lit. Still, that wasn’t it. It was a convivial scene, and Luke was known to keep pretty strange company on occasion. So why should I feel uneasy?
The beer was good and there was even a free lunch. The demons tormenting the red-haired woman tied to the stake had been so shiny they’d hurt to look at. Gone now, but the whole thing had, been beautiful. Everything was beautiful. When Luke sang of Galway Bay it had been so sparkling and lovely that I’d wanted to dive in and lose myself there. Sad, too.
Something to do with the feeling… Yes. Funny thought. When Luke sang a sad song I felt melancholy. When it was a happy one I was greatly cheered. There seemed an unusual amount of empathy in the air. No matter, I guess. The light show was superb…
I sipped my drink and watched Humpty teeter, there at the end of the bar. For a moment I tried to remember when I’d come into this place, but that cylinder wasn’t hitting. It would come to me, eventually. Nice party…
I watched and listened and tasted and felt, and it was all great. Anything that caught my attention was fascinating. Was there something I’d wanted to ask Luke? It seemed there was, but he was busy singing and I couldn’t think of it now, anyway.
What had I been doing before I’d come into this place? Trying to recall just didn’t seem worth the effort either. Not when everything was so interesting right here and now.
It seemed that it might have
been something important, though. Could that be why I felt uneasy? Might it be there was business I had left unfinished and should be getting back to?
I turned to ask the Cat but he was fading again, still seeming vastly amused. It occurred to me then that I, too, could do that. Fade, I mean, and go someplace else. Was that how I had come here and how I might depart? Possibly. I put down my drink and rubbed my eyes and my temples. Things seemed to be swimming inside my head, too.
I suddenly recalled a picture of me. On a giant card. A Trump. Yes. That was how I’d gotten here. Through the card…
A hand fell upon my shoulder and I turned. It belonged to Luke, who grinned at me as he edged up to the bar for a refill.
“Great party, huh?” he said.
“Yeah, great. How’d you find this place?” I asked him.
He shrugged. “I forget. Who cares?”
He fumed away, a brief blizzard of crystals swirling between us. The Caterpillar exhaled a purple cloud. A blue moon was rising.
What is wrong with this picture? I asked myself.
I had a sudden feeling that my critical faculty had been shot off in the war, because I couldn’t focus on the anomalies I felt must be present. I knew that I was caught up in the moment, but I couldn’t see my way clear.
I was caught up…
I was caught…
How?
Well… It had all started when I’d shaken my own hand. No. Wrong. That sounds like Zen and that’s not how it was. The hand I shook emerged from the space occupied by the image of myself on the card that went away. Yes, that was it… After a fashion.
I clenched my teeth. The music began again. There came a soft scraping sound near to my hand on the bar.
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