THE ISLAND OF CHARON
a novel in the series
"PLAYING ANOTHER REALITY"
CHAPTER 5. THE WISH TREE
5.5. DOES IT WORK?!
I was returning “home” in the complete darkness. As I had left the hut in the morning, I couldn’t suppose in advance of such a late come back, so I had no torch with me.
Suddenly the Wind arose, and the darkest clouds rushed across the Sky like in a fast-forward movie. I quickened my pace to get back before the tropical downpour, that had caught me at the staircase rock the previous time.
I remembered that night and the Giant Ship — with ghosts? — and I shuddered.
However, the wall of rain crashed down on me right at the doorstep, at the same time an ominous shadow approached me, growing up from behind…
Oh no!
…God!
…… Key!
………Hurry!!!
I opened the door frantically, rushed inside and locked myself in.
Thunder rumbled and lightning flashed…
I began to tremble. Maybe because of getting wet or in fear of the shadow chasing me. The Beekeeper?.. Or anticipating the upcoming magical night… Or maybe it was all at once?
I took my notebook and wrote down the events of the day…
“I woke up and jumped up like scalded, and looked around — the same hut. Ugh… thank God! The Beekeeper was just…”
When I finished writing the diary, I took out the red magic candle, hidden in the closet. I lit it and looked at the flame for a long time…
I slipped into my memories, no longer reacting either to the intensifying peals of thunder, or to the daggers of lightning, dismembering the Sky, or to the dancing of hellish shadows outside the window… which was suddenly knocked on!
I came out of trance…
Michael?
…Yanis?
……the Beekeeper?
My heart sank…
I glanced at the candle — it burned out only two-thirds… There was another knock, already on the door. I squinted, turned the key in the lock to the touch and cringed in fear…
“Hello, Alice!”
I opened my eyes and squealed with happiness,
“Hello-o-o!”
“Wow! It works!” simultaneously rushed through my head.
Michael, in his naval uniform, drenched from the downpour, took off his cap and some sort of a cape. Looking straight in the eye, he smiled.
“So…?”
I threw myself on his neck.
“I knew you’d be back! You couldn’t… couldn’t disappear without goodbye!”
“Only wives and husbands are exes. There are no ex-lovers…”
Finished hugging, he let me go and sat down at the table by the window, and I remembered about the potion.
“Where have you been?” I asked, taking out the magic bottle from the closet, and I suddenly discovered that the cork was no longer in it, and the bottle became…
EMPTY!!!
“In Intergalactic space,” Michael smiled. “Now, you see, I’m back on the Ship again. And what about you? Are you writing a new novel here?”
He glanced at my notebook on the table. I nodded.
“You’re doing it right, Alice. Just write with meaning. So that it goes immediately on the shelf… not just anywhere, but directly in the Library of the Universe! After all, this is the only thing that really matters…”
I left his words without comment and sat on his knees.
“Take me with you out of here!” I whispered, anticipating something extraordinary bad. “Please… Everything is wrong here…”
“And is here a bathroom?” Michael asked as if not listening to me, while biting my ear gently.
“The shower is there… Go first not to get ill, you are all wet.”
“Let’s go together! I’ll scratch your back. It must have missed me a lot, for so many years?”
“For so many years?” echoed in me. “No, this cannot be true! My God, how quickly time flies…”
Suddenly, I heard music… It was painfully familiar, shivering, from some movie, but… Where was it coming from?
“Yes, yes, yes, exactly!” Michael smiled. “The captain of an intergalactic ship is looking for a viable planet, but ends up in a Black Hole, where your favorite ‘room in the cube’ is multiplying, multiplying… Meanwhile the Time exists endlessly, constantly repeating, in a circle, at each of its points… And the captain falls into the past… Do you remember?”
I smiled and nodded, yes, it was my favorite episode.
“Time really doesn’t exist, Alice… Or rather, it exists always in every ‘here and now’. Come to me!”
He started stroking me tenderly and passionately, kissing my lips and neck, and the music overflowed in me like the Ocean, in which I wanted to drown…
And I began to breathe to the beat…
*Interstellar by Chr. Nolan