The Damned Lies Project

Wherein I keep on truckin’

A friendly hand shook me awake.

“Mom?” I said groggily, wondering when my bed had become so uncomfortable and covered with faux leather.

There was a giggle and then a drawling response.  “I ain’t your mom, Sugah.  Don’t make me feel so old.”

I sat up and groggily returned to my senses.  I was still in the roadside diner in Oklahoma.  I had finished my very delicious burger and fries.  Audrey said she’d work on getting me a ride, so she let me sit down in the corner booth for a while.  Since it was late, she wasn’t sure when a ride would show up.  At a certain point, I had just gotten so tired.  I told myself I would just lay and relax for a few minutes, but I guess sleep overtook me.

I squinted out the windows and saw it was morning – just barely.  The sun was just barely over the horizon, the daylight much more gold than I had ever seen it.  If I hadn’t been so tired, my eyes so red, I would have enjoyed it more.  Instead I found myself searching my backpack to see if I had sunglasses.  No luck. Read the rest of this entry »

Wherein I muse about America for a while.

Overjoyed as I was at being back in civilization, that still left me in an uncertain position.  I had been dropped somewhere along Route 66.  For those not familiar with the intimates of American geography, Route 66 is a very long road.  It stretches from California through the middle of America and then up to Chicago (though some biased readers may suggest that it begins in Chicago and ends in California instead).  I knew that I was on it, but I didn’t know where.  Before my sojourn through the wasteland, I had thought that I was in Texas or New Mexico.  But after that dream-like experience of dark worlds and walking houses, all bets were off on where I ended up.  I wouldn’t be surprised if I was in Oz.

Lost with only a backpack full of meager possessions is in some people’s minds a very romantic way to get to know a place.  Having been there, I disagree.  Sure, if this were Paris, Rome, London or New York City, I might agree.  But when you’re on a highway at night with darkness as far as the eye can see, you are not very endeared to the desolate expanse.  I was tired and hungry, weary of travelling and wanting a bed where I didn’t expect a crazy person to wake me up with cryptic words in the middle of the night. Read the rest of this entry »

Wherein things come to a head.

The next night couldn’t come soon enough, yet I almost wished it never came.  I wanted to put my plan into action, to get back at the old man, but I was also almost paralyzed with fear.  From all of Emily’s allusions and half-dropped inferences, the old man was dangerous.  I didn’t know how dangerous.  Worse, I worried that he’d somehow know before I made my move.  He always seemed to know everything; I needed to make sure he wouldn’t know this.  I tried to avoid showing it on my face, and put up a mask of irritability all through the day.  But with his dark eyes, I wondered every second in his presence whether those eyes were staring through me to the truth.

Somehow I made it to nighttime without him mentioning anything.  He called me outside while he began preparations to enter the Dark.  While he had a backpack of stuff he didn’t have on our previous jaunt into the Dark, otherwise the ritual to enter was the same.  I questioned him about the trip while he was still preparing.

“So we’re going into the Dark to…” I prompted, which just caused him to stare at me as he measured an amount of powder from a pouch using his palm. Read the rest of this entry »

Wherein I come to a revelation.

I went to bed after the house stopped moving.  It lowered itself in a stretch of wasteland that looked very much like the last place it was.  Had we really gone anywhere?  Was this place all the same?  How could the old man tell we’re in the right place?

When I woke up the sun was already going down.  Days seemed very short in this place and nights seemed endless.  I had no real way to time them, since there was not a single clock in the house.  I had lost my watch long ago.  The only other way to keep time was to count in my head, and I didn’t care that much.  This left the passage of time so subjective amongst the other weirdness going on.

“We go into the Dark again tomorrow night.” Read the rest of this entry »

Wherein a house moves.

After my trip to and from the Dark, the old man retreated to his study.  When he freed me from my imprisonment in my room, I was told that the second floor was off-limits as well as a first floor room behind a heavy door.  It is this room he entered and then closed the door.  I guessed it to be a study, but in truth I had no idea.  The door was always closed.

A few minutes later, that same singing began emanating from the room, filling the house.  I wasn’t sure the acoustics, but there was not a room in the house you could not hear it well.  I’m not sure if there was some resonance, but even the pots, pans, and metal strangeness hanging from the ceiling of each room seemed to resonate with that sound.  It was all a little too weird for me and it made my head feel funny.  I retreated to the deck.

There was one admonishment that the old man had said before secluding himself in that study.  He said not to leave the deck or the house.  That was fine with me when he said it.  There was nothing for miles around, and all that was left from our foray into the Dark was the smoldering embers of a fire pit.  But now with that weird vibration, I wanted to go for a walk and get away.  Instead, I stood on the deck, leaning on the railing and staring out into the wasteland.

I sensed her before I heard her, that latter probably impossible, since she moved with an amazing silence across the planks of the deck.  Emily came around the deck from the back side of the house.  At first I didn’t turn to face her.

“Climb out a window or something?” I asked, referencing the fact that there was only the single door to the house. Read the rest of this entry »

Wherein there is the Dark.

It was nighttime when we began.  The fire was burning, offering a wavering heat against the cold and windy night.  The old man sat cross-legged on the ground near the fire.  He had just finished grinding something with his mortar and pestle when he beckoned me over.

“Sit.  I need to paint your face so that the hound cannot see you.”

I reluctantly sat.  I hoped that he was painting my face with something cool, like the face paint from KISS.  Only not the Cat or the Star Child.  Those would be lame.    I’d want the Demon or Space Ace.  I wonder if he had one of those frilly rocker wigs. Read the rest of this entry »

Wherein I learn about the Dark.

“Of course it came for you,” the old man said.  He said it so matter-of-factly when I asked, like I was stupid to ask.  He didn’t even turn to look at me as he continued his preparations.  “You’ve been marked.  He sends his hounds after you.”

“So it was a dog!” I said, obvious relief in my voice.

He paused and turned to look at me with a smile.  “No,” he said, shaking his head. Read the rest of this entry »

Wherein I have a strange conversation with a strange visitor and I hear the barking of a dog.

I’m not sure how I really knew.  The room was silent except for my breathing.  I woke up from sleep into near darkness, but somehow I still knew that someone was in the room with me.

I searched the room, my eyes finally resting on a shape I could make out by the light spilling under the door.  It wasn’t the old man; the silhouette was wrong.  The faint light gave the suggestion of blonde hair and a smaller build.

“Who are you?” I asked.

The figure immediately tensed.  “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be here.”  A nervous female voice. Read the rest of this entry »

Wherein a strange man treats my wounds.

While I did not die out in the desert that night, I do not remember well the next few days.  I shifted in and out of consciousness.  I remember being dunked into icy cold water.  I remember my skin burning and something rubbed on my wounds.  I remember a sound like pots and pans being banged together, the tinkle of wind chimes, and the howl of the wind.

I remember a man sitting over me, singing something like a Native American song as the acrid scent of incense filled the room.  I remember the beat of drums and the somber sound of breath passing through a flute.  I remember snakes hissing and crawling up my legs.  I remember a pale, blonde woman looking down at me.  She reached to touch my face, and I remember the touch was so light that I didn’t even feel it.  I remember a laughing, howling man in a mask and a many colored jacket who held the world high up in one hand as he danced under a blanket of stars.

My first real memory was of waking up in bed.  I heard the sound of his mortar and pestle before I opened my eyes.  Read the rest of this entry »

Wherein we get back to the adventure and this goes on for a while.

Metaphorically, many have walked across a desert.  They talk of trudging through a wasteland, often before, after, or during a long dark night of the soul.  Along this journey, they question aspects of themselves.  Perhaps they find themselves broken.  Perhaps they are walking towards rebirth.  Other times, they are just letting go, leaving their internal possessions on the dry earth behind them as they move forward.

Very few people have actually walked across a desert.  It sucks.  Really, when you’re walking across it, the last thing you’re thinking about are your soul, the state of your life, or all the things you want to leave behind.  Well, possibly the state of your life, but in a very specific way.  As in, “What the fuck choices did I make that brought me here, walking across a fucking desert in the summer without water?”

I missed water most of all. Read the rest of this entry »