“Cut it off,” said Tara, rubbing
the sudden phantom pain from her pinky finger.
“This is getting out of hand;
we’ve been stuck here in this cave for hours
and the Gods only know where it is.”
“Would I mislead you?” the handsome boy
with face pale as milk, smooth,
shiny dark hair and dark eyebrows,
and eyes darkest of all, so dark
they did not reflect the moonlight.
She never failed to find them unnerving,
for these eyes could easily find their way
into the dark, secret passages of her mind
and run off with her memories so swiftly
she wouldn’t even notice, or plant new ones
so skillfully she’d never find them..
“Yes,” Tara laughed. “You have before.”
“We weren’t lost; just taking
an unplanned detour through
some of the more scenic parts of Hell.
Think what fun we’ve had!”
She felt like arguing,
just to be contrary,
but the boy was right.
She’d had the time of her life
since arriving here; better,
because there had been no Centaurs,
bands of Blue Monkey thieves, Griffins,
Basilisks, lavender Elephants, living puppet theater
and large, shaggy forest Creatures
with antlers and bulbous noses
and heavy chains they dragged behind them
back where she’d come from.
Ever since she’d died it had been like
she stepped through a mirror into fairytale land.
At first she’d been terrified, delirious,
about to crack up and completely lose her mind
but then she realized that she wasn’t alone here.
There was the strange boy in piebald, patchwork clothing.
He carried all of his worldly possessions
in a red sack on a stick, and at his heel
was a white aardvark that delighted to sing
operatic arias, filk tunes, sea shanties and trinklieder
anything, everything, at all hours, even when the two tried to sleep.
The black-eyed boy wouldn’t say where he’d gotten it
or anything about his past really, though he had many
invasive questions for her. She found some of these
not just rude, but painful, especially as time wore on
and the memories began to fade into shadow and smoke.
She’d struggle and struggle to come up with some
obscure detail, and by the time she was done
she had nothing but frustration and tears
to show for it.
When that happened, rather than comfort her,
the boy would get a somber tone flecked with sadness,
and say, “We must hurry Tara, you haven’t much time left.”
He never said why, or where they were heading,
but everything in her soul told her to trust him,
and so far that had turned out pretty ok.
Except times like this, where they were huddled
in a cave to wait out a sudden storm
(who knew it rained in the underworld?)
The boy was tossing a red rubber ball
off the wall of the cave for the aardvark
to chase and sometimes catch,
and the sound of it was severely irritating,
especially when the aardvark gave victory whoops.
“I know you can’t tell me anything about the destination,
but how about what happens when we get out of this cave?”
“If,” he corrected, without a hint of the jollity
she’d gotten used to in his voice.
“Fine, there are four paths open to you.
Each will have benefits and consequences
the others do not. When the time comes,
you will only be able to choose one,
and the rest will be cut off to you,
each a life you will never have the chance to live out.
Choose wisely, Tara, when the time comes.”
“Well, that’s some shit.”
“I didn’t make the decree; I’m just messenger.”
The rain let up, and the four ordeals began the following day;
in the end Tara choose unwisely.
