Lost Things - a short story, Page 2

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LOST?

To say that he followed the same path on which he had carried Bulldog moments earlier, may be an apt description for what Chuck did next, but it overlooks an essential detail of Chuck’s inner being. He placed each foot into the exact spot where each had been moments earlier. He learned at a tender age that certain paths were safe and – after finding those paths - to use those routes exclusively. He knew the safe paths only inasmuch as he knew the safe steps. There was no need to experiment further. He made exceptions to this rule only when the path itself was changed or obstructed. A pile of firewood could force an adjustment, but a small puddle simply made for soggy steps.

The path once again led Chuck and his passenger to the chess room. Invisibility may not even be necessary this time, Chuck considered, as the two men were talking raucously between themselves. “Ya know, we have a lot of fun with the kids down in Pittsburgh,” Stu coughed a laugh. Stu and Lydia both worked in Pittsburgh, maintaining an apartment there, as well as this house in the hills three hours away. “Ya know, we’re there workin’ on the streets in the morning, and we’ve got it all dug up, but nobody takes their job too seriously for the first couple hours, so we have a good time with the little black kids on their way to school! When a couple of’em go walkin’ past, we use our shovels as stilts and we walk around on our shovels. That always gets’em lookin’.” His guest looked up slowly and couldn’t help but grin at the image this conjured.

“And we’ll ask’em what grade they’re in. If they say they’re in fourth, I’ll say ‘oh, that was my favorite grade! I loved fourth grade. I loved it so much that I stayed for four years.’ Which always makes the kids look at each other and their eyes get real wide and their mouths just drop open. Then I’ll say, ‘they kicked me outta fourth grade ‘cause I got too big for the seats!’” Reliving the moment, Stu was giddily laughing and grinning his way through the tale.

“I’ll look over at one of the other guys and say, ‘hey, Tom, this kid’s in fourth grade!’ and Tom, or whoever, will say, ‘Fourth grade! I loved fourth grade…spent three years there…they kicked me out because I was too big for the seats!’ and the kids will just look at each other and their jaws just come unhinged and bounce off the sidewalk.’”

“They all think we’re really stupid. Ya know, just a couple of water company ditch-diggers. But we walk around on our shovels like stilts – they really like that. We just stand on the shoulders of the shovels and we have races and the kids will be rooting for me or whoever. It’s really hard, too! And when the buses go by, I’ll put a traffic cone on my head and hold up some shovels and just start dancing like an idiot! You’ve gotta have some fun, ya know?” Stu was scarcely able to contain himself.

With all this going on, Chuck slipped easily through the room, employing his invisibility only briefly. Hopping up to the kitchen counter, he retraced his well-worn steps and placed Faerie beside Bulldog. Through a skillful combination of teeth and claws, Chuck quicklyunwrapped the bubbles and revealed the new surroundings to the faerie. “Very nice,” Faerie delighted, an entire soliloquy of gratitude expressed in two small words. “I love the sun. I can’t wait to see it again.”

Love the sun as she might, it was the night - this night - which would influence her most. Sitting before the window, Faerie and Bulldog, had been taking in the sounds and sights of the night. In a moment, they would be taking in much more. A strange energy permeated the atmosphere of mother earth, creating a tie-dyed bruise high in the sparkle-encrusted sky. Faeire and Bulldog watched as a narrow stream of the nearly-obliterated byproducts of matter and anti-matter combined to form an aurora of colors never before seen as it passed through the ionosphere, the magnetosphere and several other –ospheres before falling across the land. The pair exchanged comments on the magnificent wonders the world offered. Seconds later, through fate – maybe through chance – that narrow beam of strange energy passed invisibly through the window. The smallest fraction of a nanosecond later, it passed through Bulldog and Faerie. They hadn’t even noticed.

What they did notice was a world that seemed to fade – becoming less real slowly, but perceptibly. Colors faded. Solid things became less solid and, for some reason, all things – everything - bent archingly clockwise. Eventually, the arches became swirls of various shades of colorlessness – spinning into an useen funnel with an unknown receptacle. Magic was happening.

As their world was seemingly evaporating, Faerie noticed that the only part of her old world still intact was Bulldog. Unchanged, un-“funneled,” Bulldog appeared to be wholly whole. Somehow, whatever she was experiencing was being shared, and that gave her just enough comfort to maintain some composure. Bulldog had been looking at things in very much the same way as Faerie to this point. Neither had uttered any syllable since the metamorphosis had begun. Amazed, frozen, stupefied beyond fear, Bulldog had simply been taking it all in, but comprehending little. If I’d only kept my mouth shut…he thought.

“If only what?” replied Faerie, “if only you’d kept your mouth shut, what?” she asked him. “You’d be lying facedown, your nose buried in a smelly old place-mat wondering whether we’d ever get out of the box!” They both sensed a strangely commanding tone in her voice.

“I’d have gotten out,” said Bulldog, also sensing a strange feeling overcoming him. He was feeling the way that any alpha male would feel as he slid toward an omega standing in his pack.

Whatever they were approaching seemed to move closer to them at times and recede from them at others, yet it always appeared to them that they were accelerating rapidly forward.

“It’s like the whole universe is centered on us,” noted Bulldog, “it feels kinda good in a way.”

“Maybe it is,” added Faerie, “maybe...”

Neither had much to add as they journeyed toward something. What was at the end? Was it actually the end? Would they die? Could they die?

Chuck ventured back to where he had hidden his new friends. Back to the countertop and toward the refrigerator he deftly pawed his way, his feet once again mimicking the steps before.

He eased his head and forepaws between the window and refrigerator and onto the sill. It was a little dark. His heart broke more than a little. They were not there. Within the home, he had few friends beyond Stu, Lydia and some occasional guests. There was the odd bug which took up residence, but bugs always died quickly. The house mouse was certainly not talking to him anymore, because of the whole, “Whose cheese is it?” incident. These new friends had seemed very special. He set his hope on a wish that he may again find that magic combination which brought them together.

After what they perceived as a long time, the eye of the funnel was near. They assumed that it was near, because it now seemed so much larger than before. The eye nearly filled their views as they looked forward, but to their sides, the walls of the storm continued to churn the universe into grey goo. Though it seemed so near, both were surprised at how long it took to reach the eye. “It may be the end of our journey together, Bulldog. I just want you to know that I genuinely felt bad about the chip in your foot.” Faerie offered a final olive branch to the gruff dog. “I know,” replied Bulldog in a warm tone, “and you really didn’t bother me as much as I pretended.” As they crossed into the blackness of the eye, they said goodbye to one another repeatedly, wondering which of them would have the last word.

Blackness enveloped them. Darker than darkness, it was blackness – the shade of black which muffles sound. This dark void could be felt. As they continued to move forward through “the blackness,” it washed over them like a thick gel, but there was no sense of temperature or wetness – only a resistance much thicker than the air that they had once existed within.

In time – an unknowable time – the blackness suddenly turned into the gray goo, but it seemed to be unwinding, turning counter-clockwise away from the eye behind them.

As they moved along an ever-expanding funnel, they also felt their speed tapering off. The change was subtle, but they could not help but recognize it. There was silence between them. Toward what appeared to be the end of the universe unraveling before them, the twisting took on a surreal, but nearly recognizable form. At some point, the world ceased its contortions, and they found themselves sitting upon a familiar window sill, looking out on a familiar alley. They could hear the familiar hum of a familiar refrigerator behind them. Bulldog and Faerie began to wildly speculate on their circumstances. They were nervous, confused and thoroughly perplexed. Unknown to them, the familiar face of a large cat stared at them from behind with a stunned, uncomprehending look.

“Who the hell are you?” wondered the cat, without truly expecting to be heard.

Faerie and Bulldog, on hearing this, stared at one another quizzically. Surely he could not have forgotten his new friends so soon. “What, do you mean, Chuck?” asked Faerie.

“What do you mean, ‘Chuck’?” asked the cat in response.

“What do YOU mean, Chuck?” asked Bulldog.

“My name is not Chuck is what I mean. Why do you insist that it is?” asked the cat. Neither of our little heroes was well-versed in physics, but they each quickly deduced that something had happened to them that had never happened to them before. “You may call me Faerie, and my friend here is called Bulldog, Mister Cat,” replied the little winged one. “You can call me Sammy,” replied the feline in a friendly, ‘how-do-ya-do?’ tone .

“Hello, Sammy,” said Faerie, “you just remind us of a dear friend of ours,” she added. “All friends are dear friends,” pronounced the cat matter-of-factly.

A moment of silence and deep thought followed for all three as they considered the situation. “Are you magic,” asked the differently-named feline, “I saw you materialize out of the air…so I assume you are magicians.” Faerie laughed, but Bulldog kept silent. Eventually the tiny dog stated with some farcical authority, “Indeed we are magic, my furry friend.” Faerie would have shot him a scornful look had her porcelain face been malleable. Bulldog sensed her intent, but continued with his charade. “We came here from a nearly identical place. Our home is just like this. In that home, we live with a cat who is your twin to the finest degree…and there we call him, Chuck.” This was the truth, and not even Faerie could make him feel guilty for saying it. Sammy accepted this, but still wondered why two tiny magicians from an alternate universe would appear behind his refrigerator. Who could they be? They looked just like the two knick-knacks in the living room, but these were not them. In his experience, neither things nor beings simply materialized. If they did, he doubted that such feats were accomplished by common bric-a-brac.

“I may have a twin in your home, but the two of you have twins here in my home,” Sammy declared to the pair. “You mean that there are figurines just like us already here?” asked Faerie, not completely surprised. Her nonchalance aroused in Sammy a suspicion that they had purposefully taken the form of the statues he knew. Cats take nothing at face value, a trait which has served them well in this world and – apparently - at least one other. “You aren’t exactly like them, but you are certainly twins,” Sammy replied. “Could we see them?” asked Bulldog. “In time, perhaps,” Sammy told them, “Right now, I think we’d better get to know each other a little better.”

The three chatted the night away and trust was formed.

The next morning, the other Stu and the other Lydia milled about in their morning routine. From their hideaway, Faerie and Bulldog observed that this Stu and this Lydia behaved in nearly the same way as their Stu and their Lydia. The differences were in the subtleties. Taken as a whole, they felt very comfortable with the situation.

“That’s good coffee, where’d you get it?” asked Stu. “I thought it was better than the last time, too,” replied Lydia, “It’s a new brand that I had coupons for. Would you like another cup?” Stu looked into his empty mug.

“Sure, I’ll take another cup, thank you.” Lydia seized the mug from his hands, and peered into it.

“What’s wrong with this one?” she asked.

“What do you mean, ‘What’s wrong with this one?’” Stu contended, “There’s nothing wrong with it.”

“Then why do you want another cup?” asked Lydia, smiling broadly and cracking herself up for the most part.

Somewhere inside the little bagel dimensions of this universe, a rim-shot sounded from an ethereal snare drum, but Faerie and Bulldog took comfort in this.

Faerie and Bulldog had chatted with Sammy for hours; comparing stories of their respective Stus and Lydias. Because this looked like the cat they knew from home, they had to keep reminding themselves that he was, in fact, different. Sammy shared Chuck’s uniquely crooked tail, though neither of them noticed that the tail is bent in a mirror-image direction to Chuck’s. That aside, little else could be physically distinguished between them. With only minor differences, Sammy had been born and lived much the same life as Chuck. Both cats were affable though, and both radiated sincerity. Faerie and Bulldog trusted both easily. Neither Stu, nor Lydia, had noticed that Sammy was spending an inordinate amount of time sitting on the kitchen sill and apparently staring out at the alley - as he secretly shared tales with his new friends.

On their third night here, they asked Sammy again to take at least one of them to see their alter-egos in the living room. Sammy agreed to take Bulldog in first. Scooping him carefully into his jaws, Sammy carried Bulldog into the darkened room.

Bulldog’s first glimpse answered his first question about himself. “I knew it!” exclaimed Bulldog as he stared at his nearly-identical self. Atop the television, despite the darkness, Bulldog could plainly see the silhouette of himself – the silhouette he could have had; the silhouette he’d dreamed of many times – had he only been carved a bit differently. He studied his twin further and noticed that neither foot had been chipped, either. Although proportionate to the size of the carving, it was only the appendage of his fantasies that he could seem to focus on. “Take me over near him, please,” asked Bulldog, “There’s something I’ve gotta know.”

The cat strolled toward the lifeless statue, stretched his body up the front of the television screen - coating the glass in electro-statically charged cat hair - and placed Bulldog next to the bulldog.

“Who…the…hell…are…you?” asked the endowed one, completely unready to accept the obvious. Bulldog replied carefully, “I’m you.”

“What do you mean you’re me? Are you one of my brothers from the tree?”

“Almost, but no,” replied Bulldog, “I mean that I have come to your world from a different world. In that world, I am you, and I sit in nearly the same place on the very same television – but a different one, in a way. I came here with a porcelain faerie just like the one on the shelf behind me. Actually, we didn’t really come here so much as find ourselves here, but here we are and we really have no idea why.” Bulldog could not actually see if there was a faerie figurine on the shelf behind him, but he knew she was there.

“I don’t believe you.”

“I don’t blame you.”

“The resemblance is uncanny, to be sure, but I can see that you aren’t my twin in every respect, so I don’t believe you. This is a trick of some kind.”

A rush of anger and frustration overcame Bulldog, but he quickly repressed most of it. “I AM you in nearly every way, but my creator was more concerned with aesthetics than accuracy” shot back Bulldog.

“You aren’t kidding, are you?”

“I can’t remember being more serious, ever.”

“Amazing.”

In another part of space-time, two men were once again engrossed by thirty-two little figures on sixty-four retina-burning squares. Stu’s black Queen chased his friend’s king all over the board. The white bishop begged – silently to his player’s ears - to be brought into play as a black rook danced around him. “Have you seen any ghosts at your place lately,” Stu broke the silence once again, in the way that a lion would make small-talk with a three-legged zebra. “Nope,” the guest replied, “nothing lately, and I’m not questioning the silence.”

GHOSTS OF OUR PASTS

With an old house, comes its ghosts, and his was no exception. In its one-hundred forty three years, it had seen many people’s lives, as well as some deaths. Before moving in, he had made significant changes to nearly every board in the home. These were met with grave disapproval by the spirits who seemed to prefer things as they had been. The home’s resident spooks typically manifested themselves through fairly run-of-the-mill prankster-spirit activities; doors opened and closed, footsteps paced the hallways, all types of things disappeared without explanation and lights turned on and off – sometimes dimming and brightening. Cliché as it may be, Halloween was the preferred night for the spirits to make their presence known – once locking a female guest in the bathroom behind a door with no lock. All his friends knew that Halloween was the night for a party at his “haunted house” for strange occurrences were virtually guaranteed. The attic - a strange part of the house which even he did not like to visit - became the place for séances and Ouija adventure. The attic was more than just another part of the house. It was thick with foreboding and cold with unrest. Unlike the all the rooms below, the attic was unfriendly. A small window and dark hardwood floors were accented by beautifully worked built-in storage chests which also provided bench seating. The walls bent inward at steep angels creating two unusual rooms of varying head-space, separated by an ancient door which somehow retained it’s original finish and youthful beauty . A third room existed behind one of the walls – accessible only through a narrow, three-foot “Alice in Wonderland” portal. Upon her first visit to the home, after touring all the rooms, Lydia and a few others refused to see the attic. The attic was left to the spirits.

The primary ghost of the home, he regarded as very obviously female every time she appeared. Over time, the two developed familiarity and understanding. As more time passed, the arrangement had become comfortable. Eventually – and most oddly - it became a cooperative relationship in which the spirit would offer assistance, such as opening the basement door for him as he carried baskets of dirty laundry. The spirit also seemed to return lost things, although he always suspected that, when anything went missing, it was she who had taken it.

The renovations continued. While in the course of repainting the first-floor living room, he had covered the rose-colored walls with a green paint, quaintly dubbed “aged moss” to bring a warmer feel to the room. He had picked the color carefully to create just the right atmosphere for hosting guests. The very next night, while removing some old light fixtures to prepare the ceiling, however, he only had to drop the first corner of the first fixture to discover that he had not chosen the color after all. There on the ceiling, spared from a century of re-paintings by the large, ancient lights, was revealed the original color of the ceiling, and, presumably, the room. The two were an exact match. Hued exactly as the new paint. There are no coincidences, but if there were, this would still not be one of them. Having been unwittingly guided, he began to understand – and accept – his role in the history of the home. Activities all but ceased shortly thereafter – as did the renovations.

“I think that’s great,” Stu said, “I think it’s really, really great that you’ve been able to get along with a ghost.” His grin grew wide again with complete sincerity. “That’s a really exciting, special thing you’ve got there, I’ll tell ya,” he added. Exciting and special as it was, he would have preferred to have passed on the whole experience.

“It took some getting used to, no doubt,” said the guest.

“I would think that it would,” Stu sympathized.

“Yeah, but you know, sometimes, I start feeling pretty guilty about not doing more for her. I feel like I should help her just like any other friend. I’m just going to have to really learn the whole ‘step into the light’ routine and set her spirit free to wherever she should be going.”

“How do you do that?” asked Stu intently.

“No idea,” sighed his friend, “but I’m hoping I can learn it from books.”

At the same time, Sammy had been listening carefully to a most-unexpected conversation. The presence of an occasional mouse was about as interesting as things normally got for him. This experience, however, was completely new - as if that pesky little brown mouse had been randomly replaced by a green badger in a tutu. “Did you say that you came here with another “me”?” called the gold-winged faerie across the room. “I’m afraid that I did,” responded Bulldog. “Is she really annoying, too?” asked the bulldog of his twin in a low whisper. “Very,” was the one-word response.

“Could I meet her?” asked the Faerie, “I’d so like to meet another of my sisters.”

Once again whispering, Bulldog muttered to his twin, “Can you imagine the two of them in the same room?”

“Something tells me that I won’t have to imagine it for very long,” his likeness groaned.

“I’m afraid that we’ll need to ask Sammy if he is willing to oblige you,” said Bulldog to the unseen statue across the room.

“Of course you can meet her,” said Sammy cheerily to the bulldogs’ mutual dismay, “I have her hidden in the kitchen.” With this, Sammy made his way out of the room and returned a moment later with Faerie clutched delicately in his mouth. Deftly he made his way to the shelves and carefully placed Faerie upright on her narrow base near the golden-winged one. Immediately, both of the little princesses noticed the single difference between them and both softly sighed a nearly unnoticed sigh in relief.

“I have a question,” Sammy broke the awkward silence. “If all of you can speak, and I assume that you’ve been speaking to each other for some time, why haven’t you said anything to me before?” There was hurt in Sammy’s voice. It was the pain of exclusion.

“Why didn’t you say anything to us?” asked both bulldogs rhetorically in unison.

“I didn’t know that I could. I never even thought of it as a possibility before I met these two,” said Sammy.

“And neither did we,” said the gold-tipped faeire.

“And I’m not sure why we are talking now,” added the silver-tipped faerie, “Normally, we are forbidden by the laws of nature to talk to you. But I do know that Chuck, your twin, can talk to us. Perhaps you are gifted cats. Maybe there is a higher purpose to all of this, or maybe there is something different about the four of us.”

At this, several other of the statuary figures in the room, began offering their own theories, the room coming to life with the prattle of those who have never had life. Sammy heard none of this. Only when one of the bulldogs or faeries would speak could he hear. He therefore registered only disjointed fragments of the conversation, and made his frustration clear to the others.

“Stop it, all of you,” Sammy interjected strongly. “Who are you talking to?”

“Everybody,” said Bulldog. “…the goddess vase, the horse over there, the pewter French soldier…everybody.”

“But I can only hear the four of you.”

The room once again erupted into chatter as most of the bric-a-brac extolled their theories. An ugly argument between the French soldier and a brass goose arose - heatedly overtaking the room with increasing volume and vociferous personal attacks. Sammy heard none of it, but Faerie kept him apprised of the main points.

A ceramic Buddha had been sitting in his corner of the room, following the events, but contributing nothing. It was his way. Only ten inches high, he was a stoutly-made example of clay-work. Jade-green from the tips of his plump toes to the smoothness of his bald head, Buddha contentedly grinned into the dark, noisy room. None of the other statuary had ever heard Buddha speak, although there was an unnerving general concensus that he could if he wanted to. Truth is seldom in the general concensus for Truth is not something that the masses are typically willing to believe. Truth is often left unknown - just to keep things simple. Buddha knew this, but he wasn’t telling anyone.

“You hear only what you are meant to hear, what you want to hear and what you must hear. At times all three are the same, sometimes they are not,” offered Buddha to Sammy, and Sammy heard this. A gasp arose in unison from all in the room - surprised at the sudden lapse of the Buddha’s silence. “Oh, and there are no coincidences, either,” Buddha tacked on his pronouncement seemingly as an afterthought.

Far off, in a very similar home, Chuck smashed his already-flattened face painfully into the leg of a chair. He had been distracted by the normally-silent, ceramic, green figure of a portly Asian which announced, “Your friends are looking for you.”

Buddha’s words echoed within Sammy’s mind - pin-balling wildly between reason and madness. Likewise, the varied statues and dolls of the room considered the implications. If Buddha had chosen this moment to speak, there must have been a reason – and to a cat no less! All the figures wondered whether Buddha’s words were heard because each of them was meant to hear them; because they wanted to hear them; or because, at that moment, they must hear them. Maybe it was all three. On this point, not even Buddha knew the truth.

For the first time since he had begun speaking with figurines, Sammy felt unsettled with the concept. This, he knew, was magic and, of magic, he knew very little. He understood that nothing transpired here without meaning. If this were all just one interesting episode, with all of the strangeness disappearing tomorrow, what would have been the point of breaking the natural laws governing communication between the living and the not? There are no accidents and no coincidences. As Buddha had said – and he seemed to know what he was talking about – there was undoubtedly a higher reason for his befriending of statues – some of whom were from another universe. His task, it seemed, was in learning why. The cat’s stomach wrenched painfully, attempting to invert itself, followed only a few seconds later by his brain successfully completing the same trick.

The chubby statue’s words were not lost on Faerie. She found comfort in the idea that her bizarre voyage was not simply a random knot in the threads of fate. Her voyage with Bulldog was unprecedented so far as she could tell, which she took to imply that there would be a deeper meaning to the existence of this mass-produced porcelain faerie than she had ever dreamed. Not so long ago she had merely been hoping to get out of a box. “Why us?” asked Faerie, “Why two little figurines? What are we doing here? A few days ago, I would have been completely content to get out of my storage box and onto a nightstand in my own universe.”

Buddha, sat silently in the darkness giving no hint that he had so much as heard Faerie’s questions.

“You’re awfully focused on yourself,” objected the anatomically-correct bulldog. “Maybe it’s not about you and your friend here. Maybe it’s about me. Maybe it’s about your twin. Or maybe it’s about Sammy, there. Maybe it’s all focused on Sammy, or your Chuck. Why does it have to be about you or your dog?”

Faerie first had to admit to herself that all of these possibilities were, indeed, possible before she could acknowledge her vanity to the room, which she did in the form of a sullen grunt. Bulldog enjoyed seeing Faerie humbled. At the same time, however, he knew that he was just about to ask virtually the same question that the doll had and it could easily have been him facing the chiding.

“Regardless of what this all means and who it is actually about, I still know that I have traveled through space and time to an alternate universe with Bulldog and we have met our twins and the twins of nearly everyone familiar to us. I am sorry if I cannot help but wonder why I came here – why we came here,” Faerie stated in her own defense.

Buddha broke his silence a second time at this, “Some journeys are longer than others. The question you must ask now is how far do you need to go?

In unison both bulldogs objected angrily to Buddha’s pronouncement. “What a bunch of mumbo jumbo!” they decried

“It is not ‘mumbo jumbo’ my dear bulldogs,” responded Buddha in an even, unflustered tone, “If it is an answer that you seek, then the proper way to pursue it is to ask the right questions. There exist many more questions than answers. If you follow the improper line of questioning, then you get the improper answer. Even worse, some lines of questioning never end in an answer. Some just return to the same place in which they started. Be very careful of the questions you ask. You may not like the solution you receive.”

“It seems, sir, that you have all the answers,” chimed in the silver-tipped faerie. “No,” responded the sage, “I do not.”

Faerie thought about what she had just learned. Although the room had fallen silent, it was abuzz with deep thought. It was Sammy who finally asked Buddha, “Do you have the answers to the questions we seek?”

“Perhaps,” replied Buddha, “what are your questions?”

Once again, there was only silence in the room.

Separate from all this, and in a world which was now missing one porcelain faerie and one carved, wooden bulldog, Chuck was sitting before a very heavy, but small ceramic figure of an ancient sage. “I just can't tell you how quickly I could tell that I liked them. Especially her,” said Chuck of his departed friends. “You just did,” said Buddha.

“But what happened to them? Why did it happen to them? Where are they now? Are they anywhere?”

“Which question should I answer?” asked Buddha.

“The first, I guess,” said the cat.

Buddha paused and then responded in a very slow and deliberate voice, “I don’t know.”

“You’re playing games with me!” exclaimed Chuck angrily, “You don’t know the answers to any of my questions!”

“Yes I do.”

“No, you don’t!”

“Yes…I do.”

“Which answer do you have?”

“The one you truly need.”

“Then which question can you answer?”

“The fourth. You asked if they are anywhere.”

“Then, can you tell me the answer.”

“Yes, I can.”

“Then out with it! Where are they?”

“That is a different question.”

“Ok, then, are they anywhere?”

“Yes they are. As I told you, they are looking for you, which means that they are somewhere.”

“But you have no idea where that is?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“What does that even mean? “

“I have an idea where your friends are, but I do not know where they are.”

“Then where do you think they are?”

“I do not think that I know where they are - I have a feeling, though, that they are somewhere.”

Chuck was frustrated with this cycle of questions and answers and felt the need to rest his brain. The Buddha intrigued him, despite the frustration he seemed to induce, so Chuck simply changed the subject.

“How is it that you know so much? How is it that you have feelings and intuitions? Why do…” he let his thought lie still-born, realizing that too many questions in a series would only complicate the dialogue.

“I do not know all that much, cat,” Buddha admitted, “but I understand what you are alluding to. You want to know why I know anything. Why is it that a ceramic statue can be speaking to you, teaching you, and hearing you. Is that correct?”

“Yes, of course,” said the cat.

“Buddha – the living man called Buddha – was a wise man. I am carved in his image. Buddha knew things which many did not. He did not know everything, but he was taught many of the things he did not know, by unseen teachers. He therefore could answer questions which he did not know the answers to. I am of Buddha. I am not a man, but one does not have to be man to be Buddha. As the symbol of Buddha, the representation of the man, I have access to the thoughts of the man, for the man still exists, as do his teachers. It is through these teachers that I have learned that your friends still exist. My teachers are in touch with another Buddha much like myself, and through him, they have learned that your friends are safe, at least for the moment. My teachers also tell me that this other Buddha is enjoying their presence immensely.”

“If I understand what you are saying, then,” postulated the cat, “the faerie is truly a faerie and the bulldog is a bulldog as well, because they are the representations of those beings.”

“In most senses, yes, that is correct.”

“Then the faerie is magical?”

“Yes, she is, but she has no idea that such is the case. In fact, it is the faerie’s magic which led to their disappearance.”

“Do you mean,” the cat continued to speculate, “that faeire caused them to disappear?”

The Buddha paused for a length of time. Chuck took this to mean that he was consulting with his teachers. “The magic of Faerie did not cause their disappearance, I assure you.”

“You’re talking in circles!” exclaimed the cat.

“Am I?”

“Yes, you are,” Chuck said in a damning tone. “You said that it was Faerie’s magic which led to their disappearance.”

“And that is the truth, I promise you.”

“And then you said that it was not Faerie’s magic which caused them to disappear. I have to say that I appreciate the help you have given me, but I swear that you are playing games. Now which is it?. Which is the truth?”

“Both are true, cat. Faerie’s magic did not cause your friends to disappear, as I have said. In truth, I do not know what caused that. Neither do my teachers. But I do know that they would not have dissolved before your eyes had you not taken them to the kitchen window. I also know that the reason you took them to that window, was because you overheard them arguing in the box. The reason you were able to overhear them, cat, is her magic. Therefore, it was because of her magic that they disappeared, but it was not her magic that caused them to disappear.”

“Could you repeat that?” asked Chuck, as he tried to process this information into some useful form.

“Yes, I can,” replied the Buddha, “but I don’t really want to and I really have no need. You understand what I am saying, or you soon will at the very least.” Chuck had only a few seconds to absorb this before Lydia trotted in carrying two boxes which had been stored in the upstairs hallway. Immediately, Chuck recognized them both. She placed them on the coffee table, though they did not fit as well as Stu’s oversized, neon board.

Opening the first box, she removed the straw place-mat and tablecloth to find emptiness where she had anticipated finding her beloved elven princess and a hand-carved dog. Digging further into the box, she found some place-mats, but no figurines. “Stu?” she called to him in the kitchen, “Have you seen my elf-princess and my bulldog?”

“Yes, they’re very nice!” he called back. Feeling that Stu was unjustly being sarcastic, her faced reddened just a little. In fact, he had been completely serious and thought he had answered her properly.

“Stu! I’ve got two pieces missing from these boxes. I can’t find them anywhere. Have you done any unpacking?” Lydia asked, knowing full well the answer she’d be getting.

“I haven’t touched anything,” was the expected response.

Overhearing this, Buddha asked Chuck, “If you could tell her what happened to your friends, would you do it?”

“No,” was Chuck’s immediate response, “they wouldn’t believe me anyway, I’d guess.”

Lydia stared at now-empty box while sinking into a sticky quandary. Who had Stu let into the home during her absence, she wondered, and who would bother to take the little figurines? A dark voice whispered to her that it must have been a female for no male would have an interest in taking such things. But why would Stu have a female here, she wondered? “Do you think that maybe I should tell her what really happened,” Buddha asked the cat for some sign of approval, “It would sure get Stu out of some hot water.” “It’s best not to interfere,” replied Chuck, convinced that he briefly saw the fat green statue grin devilishly.

FOUND?

For days, Lydia looked around the house for the missing decorations to no avail. Eventually, she settled on the idea that they were “lost,” though the idea never settled all that well with her.

Time passed in the alternate world – the one with too many figurines – just as it had in the first. One day, while Lydia was away, Stu began the process of moving furniture from the living room and removing all the decorations from the room so as not to get them contaminated with dust and the other undesirable consequences of renovation. In the process, he chipped the foot of a small wooden bulldog although he had only intended to protect it from such a fate.

Faerie and Bulldog had been spending most of their time behind the refrigerator, only visiting the residents of the living room (via Sammy) late at night while the people of the house slept. At those times they had been consulting with Buddha, though he had actually offered very little. Still, he did possess an interesting array of knowledge from which they were able to glean small fragments concerning their current dimensional circumstance. Most of the time, though, Buddha reveled in offering up a charlatan’s brew of pseudo-intellectualisms. “Can a clock run counter-clockwise?” he would ask in his “zenniest” voice to the intrigue of the room’s characters. “If a tree falls in the forest, and no one is there to hear it, does that mean that the deer it fell on died silently? Did it fall on the deer because the deer had not heard the silently falling tree? What if the deer were deaf, and the tree fell in a near miss, then did it still not make a sound? If the tree fell on a deaf deer, could the deer briefly hear the crackling of his breaking bones? Can a deaf deer hear in the afterlife?” At other times, Buddha simply made up words to add another level of inscrutability. “We all wish to learn the ‘gramorphous’ answers to our ‘lebrubrian’ existince,” he was fond of saying.

Whereas he had once revered his life of silence and meditation; introspection and inspection, he was now an unstoppable, gushing fire-hose of silliness with a broken valve at the hydrant. He found long-repressed joy in the simplest of dialogues and the greatest happiness in his own words. The words dripped from his tongue, forming invisible, but audible, puddles of nonsense at his feet which crept into the air like a dry-ice fog – each thought swirling into the concept before it and blending into the idea that followed. Buddha! Buddha...Buddha...Buddha! Have you forgotten your long meditations on vanity?

As Stu began packing the items, it occurred to all of the statues that this was in line with the stories Faerie and Bulldog had told them. With all of the witnesses packed away, only Sammy remained to inform the visiting pair of the sudden turn. “Tell them, cat,” advised Buddha as he was wrapped in newspaper and packed safely away into a large brown box. Sammy knew that, in some way, history was repeating itself, although one had to look into the past of a completely separate universe to find the precedent.

The big yellow cat with the soulful flat face bounded to the kitchen, strolled along his well-worn trail of steps across the counter and poked his head into the small space where Faerie and Bulldog waited their days for an idea. “I have news,” he began. He related the turn of events within the living room - adding his theories on the significance of it all in the process. Listening closely, the two figures concurred with nearly everything the cat offered. They would wait on the sill for an expected sequence of events which, they hoped, would lead to their eventual journey back to the funnel. If all went well, they speculated, they would simply be sent backward once again to their starting point on a window sill which still seemed so very far away.

In their home world, they had been packed away into a dark box, much like their twins had recently been. Packed away from the rising and setting sun, they were unsure just how long they had been in storage. Faerie and Bulldog knew, however, that they would have to remain undetected on the sill for at least a while longer before any hope of transport was possible. Premature discovery would be the end of hope.

On a cold, clear night, one of very few in recent memory, a face familiar to Sammy stepped in the front door. Sammy heard him yelling something about having to head to the bathroom. Stu had spent nearly a week refinishing the hardwood floors of the living room. The guest was helping Stu move some of the larger furniture into the room, so Sammy thought it best to head upstairs to keep his sensitive tail safely away from the activity.

Unknown, to all on this world except for a few very interested astronomers and astrophysicists, a large meteor was heading for their planet. Unknown, even to these men of science, this meteor was the largest clump of anti-matter to approach the planet in more than sixty-five million years. They knew, though, that a collision – though unlikely - would bring extinction to man even more quickly than it had to the dinosaurs all those years ago.

In the hallway, from within the smallest of the boxes, Sammy overheard an argument between two familiar voices. “What’s going on in there?” he asked. His voice was stern, like a school marm’s upon finding two adolescent pupils in a broom closet. “Now I understand what my twin meant about her,” said the wooden dog with the dust catcher.

“What do you think about it, Sammy?” asked the faerie with the golden highlights, “I, for one, think that - since our twins were taken to the window sill in the kitchen – that we should do that as well.” Bulldog then boomed emphatically, “And I say, ‘No’ to it. I just don’t think that we have to follow the same paths as our twins did. I mean, look at what a predicament it got them into. Does history have to repeat itself?”

From deep within another box a nearly-maniacal Asian voice chimed, “Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it, ha ha ha ha….” Buddha’s laughter hinted at the giddily euphoric state he had entered into of late. “He’s really not that much help anymore, is he?” asked the golden faerie rhetorically, for it was more than apparent to all that she needed no answer.

“If their plan works, wouldn’t the two of you be stuck with the two of them on the other side?” offered the cat, “Wouldn’t that simply leave this very problem in the other world? Remember, over there, the only window of opportunity that we know of for crossing between worlds has already passed and we still don’t know what it really is. I don’t think that it’s a good idea. I’m sorry.”

If possible, the golden tips of the faerie’s wings would have drooped and tears would have run down her cheeks. For the same reasons that their twins had described, and which they now faced, she dreaded the thought of spending an eternity in this box. It was a prospect she simply could not accommodate into her view of her future. She was reasonably sure that the two figures on the window sill would travel to somewhere, and that whatever happened, it had to be an existence better spent than in a box.

“We belong here,” snorted Bulldog. “Whatever our fates may be, they are intended for here. Not there.”

“Que sera, sera…whatever will be will be,” from his box the chubby green man who sat in the eternal lotus position serenaded them non-sensically. In as much as he now preferred speaking over silence, so he preferred singing over speech.

“Is that so,” sniped the faerie, ignoring the off-key silliness. “Obviously, the fates of our twins included a little inter-dimensional travel, so why shouldn’t ours?”

“Because you’re not them,” added the cat. “Similar as you are, you’re still different. Separate and unique. I’m pretty sure that you have separate destinies.

“Maybe so,” retorted the faerie, “but maybe this part isn’t meant to be different. Maybe the difference lies on the other side.”

Once again a muffled song erupted from the next box, “Whooooo are you? Who? Who?…Who? Who?”

“It’s not our place to fiddle with magic,” argued the bulldog. “Look at my foot! We are on the same path as they were. This time, though, we know what will happen if we go there, but we have no idea what will happen if all four of us are there! In this box, though, we have a better chance to understand our destinies.”

“Do you believe in magic…in a young girl’s heart…..”

“We’d be tampering with the unknown,” the bulldog continued, “and the natural order of things. I hope that their wishes and plans take them back to their home world. I really do,” the dog had never been more sincere, “You know, ‘restore the balance’ and all of that. One each per world...”

The faerie was silent, but was determined to follow what she believed to be her destiny. Even a place on the nightstand would no longer be enough to appease her spirit. “Sammy?” she asked, in a saccharine tone, “would you at least take me to them to say ‘goodbye’ one last time?”

Sammy and the bulldog knew that she was up to something, but also understood her Venutian compulsions for such occasions. “I guess that I can’t see any harm in that,” said the cat, all the while trying to figure out why it felt like such a bad idea.

A large white, orange and yellow paw plunged into the box, a small claw snagging a single bubble of the faerie’s wrapping. “Goodbye,” said the bulldog, “and good luck.”

“Could you unwrap me?” asked the faerie of the cat, “I’ll be fine without it, and besides, I can’t see from in here.” Sammy gently began gnawing the tape which held the bubbly plastic securely around her porcelain skin. A deft swipe of a single claw cut the final bit of tape cleanly allowing him to unroll the faerie to freedom. He placed the wrapping back into the box, carefully hiding every corner of it from view. Snatching up the faerie into his mouth, the big feline trotted down the stairway toward the room where the two humans were engrossed in some game which involved pushing tiny statues around a piece of wood. He went into ‘invisible mode’ as he passed unnoticed into the kitchen.

Hopping up to the counter, he made his way to the sill and placed the golden faerie next to her silver-tipped twin. “What are you doing here?” asked Bulldog, in a mildly unfriendly tone. “You’re going to mess up everything!”

“You don’t know that,” said the intruding one, “I only wanted to come and say goodbye to the two of you,” she said. There was a wry slyness in her inflections that none of them missed. Bulldog was the first to express it. “That’s not why you’re here, and you know it just as well as all of us. Now, get out of here before something goes wrong!”

Faerie understood her twin well. She knew the anguish of being stored away in the box and could empathize with her sense of adventure. Still, she feared that recent events had already poured sand into the wheels of time and that the less meddling they did from this point on, the better. “You want to go with us, don’t you?” asked the silver one in a soft, soothing voice.

“Yes, I do…I really do,” implored the golden faerie. “I want to see your world. I want to meet Chuck. I want to see what Stu and Lydia are like in your world. I want to see the funnel…to see time and space wrap around me the way you said it does. It’s my destiny. I know it.”

“You realize that it may not work?” asked the silver one.

“Yes, I do.”

“And you realize that it may be something unimaginably awful?”

“Yes, I do.”

“It may be the end.”

“I don’t believe in endings,” stated the golden one steadfastly.

Bulldog could see where this was going. “We can’t tamper with things! If you two switch places, that could mess up the formula! No way, no how, no sirree. No. Nope,” his voice trailed off as he realized that he was helpless to stop them. “Not a chance, absolutely not…”

“Sammy,” asked the silver elf princess, “would you please…?”

Sammy picked up the silver girl and placed her near him, then gently moved the golden one into her place, carefully placing her in the same footprints as her twin. Sammy well knew the importance of recreating footprints. “I swear, if this doesn’t work, I’ll haunt you for all eternity,” warned Bulldog with tenuous acceptance. The golden one quipped, “If this doesn’t’ work, I have a feeling that I’ll be haunting YOU for an eternity,” a sweet, delightful, absolutely charming giggle punctuated her words. Some magic sends travelers on fantastic journeys across the ethereral. Some magic makes rabbits appear from hats. Some magic, though, is the sole province of Venus, an art practiced only by the Venutian sisters. That infectious laugh of this new faerie sent Bulldog into orbit – a blissfull satellite destined to circle around her into perpetuity.

Sammy smiled warmly - knowingly. The silver princess would have as well. “Take care of yourselves,” she said.

From the living room, Stu’s voiced echoed clearly, “…And when the buses go by, I’ll put a traffic cone on my head and hold up some caution signs and just start dancing like an idiot…”

Bulldog and Faerie each recognized this as one their final memories from their own world. The window of opportunity, if it was to come, would be here soon. “Goodbye, Princess,” said Bulldog. “Thanks for the ride.”

“Goodbye, Bulldog,” Faerie replied, “I guess we just weren’t meant to be, huh?” It was clear to Bulldog that she was referring to the slight, but significant difference between silver and gold.

“We were closer than I would have thought, though,” he replied, alluding to those same gleaming, glimmering, glorious details. “Thank you, Sammy,” continued the dog, “We are all in your debt. I’ll be sure to tell Chuck that he’d be proud of his Siamese twin. You’re both good souls.”

“Tell him we need to lose some weight,” chuckled the cat.

“Come on Sammy,” interrupted the silver one, “we need to get out of here before we get caught up in whatever is about to happen.” With that, Sammy scooped up the porcelain doll and turned round on his rear legs. Bulldog and the faerie listened closely, but neither heard him jump to the floor.

Seconds later, with only a stained glass toucan hanging in a window on the far wall as a witness, two figurines began to fade into a grayish, translucent state before disappearing altogether. Being somewhat translucent herself, the toucan felt a short-lived camaraderie.

HOME IS WHERE THE ART IS

As planned, Sammy delivered Faerie back to the box. The bulldog could not see the silver wingtips as the porcelain doll was pushed into the darkness. He did not need to see what he could so easily sense. “I figured it would be you,” said the bulldog - the tone of his voice more welcoming than his words. “What happened to your foot?” asked Faerie.

As our golden faerie had hoped, space and time did indeed swirl around, as if everything – everything – which once composed the universe had been drawn into a whirlpool. Bulldog strained to maintain his composure, hoping to impress the dainty porcelain girl with his mask of nonchalance, as if he were an old salt who often did this sort of thing. For her part, the faerie postured herself as if she were flying headlong toward whatever lay ahead. In fact, she found freedom and a sense of liberation in it all. This was the first time she actually had control over her posture. Aside from being carried by Sammy, bumped, or being occasionally picked up for a dusting, movement was a concept very foreign to her. It exhilarated her. Watching her joyous revelry, Bulldog quickly followed suit.

The faerie began fixing her own flight to certain points along the twisting walls of the funnel. Matching her movements to those points, she could, for fleeting instants, glimpse those points in time. In snippets, she observed clear images of places and things she previously could never have known to exist. The dreamiest of dreamers could never hope to see what she was seeing. Certainly she, a simple figurine, had never allowed herself such indulgent fantasies. Fantastic as it was, though, this was no fantasy. After a time, they passed into “the blackness” of the eye, losing sight, but not sense, of one another. As the unseen goo’s dry wetness washed over them, Bulldog began to explain to his new, golden faerie that the darkness would give way to space unwinding, but cut himself short – fearing that he had begun to sound too much like an annoying celestial tour guide.

Darkness did give way to unraveling space. Once again, colors blended to form impossible new variations as bits of reality moved in directions just as undreamt. They viewed their surroundings with silent awe as the swirling, twisting, twirling, shifting universe slowed until it became recognizable once again. Once again, they were on a familiar windowsill, with only one question resonating between them.

In a stark cardboard box at the top of the stairs in a wholly separate - but nearly identical - world, the faerie and the bulldog both lay faced upward. Since the first moment of her arrival, the bulldog had really only one underlying question – why did she agree to stay?

There was no hesitation in her voice - no thoughtful consideration given. “She and I are nearly identical, and not only on the surface. Inside, we are pulled by the same strings. We hear the same music and we dance the same steps. When I was in another box much like this, my greatest fear was to never see the sunlight again. To be entombed and forgotten. When I finally did escape, I traveled beyond my dreams. If I lie in this box for all eternity, I will have still traveled further than any soul could ever truly hope. My sister could see in me just what was possible, if only she could get out of this box. Only one of us could go, and it was her turn. I had no right to deny her the chance.”

The house was silent. Nothing stirred. The alleyway outside seemed familiar to both Bulldog and the faerie, as they peered through a well-known window. They expected as much, but it told them little. Lacking necks or any other means for turning their heads, they could see little of their environment. It was the same outdoor scene and the same smudge on the window. Identically the same. Which world were they in? The silence of the house offered no clues. The refrigerator hummed the same in both worlds. Birds gossiped joyously, in both worlds, at the identical, annoying pitch. So alike were the twin kitchens that the goose-neck faucet of the sink dripped like-sized drops and droplets to the same rhythm.. “I should be more surprised to see the two of you again, but, after seeing you disappear, nothing really surprises me,” intoned a feline voice to their left.

“Chuck? It’s you, isn’t it?” asked Bulldog.

“Of course! What do you mean, ‘is that you?’ I should be asking that question,” protested the cat.

Bulldog chuckled. “It’s me, Chuck, I promise you.”

“It’s not me, though!” the faerie rejoiced in the shroud of mystery she had wrapped herself within. She briefly considered that it fit more comfortably than bubble wrap.

Bulldog jumped to clarify this for Chuck. “Chuck, be on your best behavior as I’d like you to welcome a new faerie princess to our world.”

“I’ve heard good things,” said the faerie politely.

The cat’s ears stood erect, though it went unnoticed, and his eyes narrowed in suspicion as he peered at their backs.. Bulldog heard the unease in Chuck’s silence, so quickly he added, “It’s true, Chuck, I swear. Take a look at her, she’s painted in gold.”

Chuck peered in and saw that she indeed was detailed differently. “Okay, enough of it!” protested Chuck, completely uninterested in such silliness. He had bigger questions. “So she got a new paint job! I saw you disappear before my eyes. You just faded away! After that, I don’t think it’s so hard to believe that she was repainted.”

“In my world, your tail is bent the other way,” said the faerie, realizing that this offered little proof.

“Chuck, I want you to understand just what this means when I say this, but I’m in love with this princess,” admitted Bulldog with absolute sincerity. He who was once a skeptic was now converted. Chuck knew that Bulldog would say nothing of the sort about the little princess with the silver details – even in jest.

“So then, where’s Faerie? Is she okay?” asked Chuck as his tail dragged nervously back and forth across the counter. “She is fine, I assure you, don’t worry,” explained the golden one, “She is safe and she is at home.” Bulldog and the golden faerie then excitedly began to recount the events which had led to their arrival together here as Chuck listened in stunned near-silence.

Barely had the faerie and Bulldog finished their tale, when Chuck sat back upon his haunches – his eyes blinked casually as he slowly, nervously licked his upper lip. His facade fooled neither of them. “I’ll be back a little later. It’s time for my nap,” he announced abruptly. Without waiting for any kind of response, he turned ‘round and headed off. Neither the faerie nor Bulldog heard him jump to the floor.

A full day passed and no cat came to visit. Twice they had felt Chuck staring at them – as if to study their veracity or, perhaps, their permanence. Whenever they spoke to him, there was no answer, but they knew he was there. Neither of them had anticipated Chuck’s confusion. He had accepted these tiny statues as speaking, thinking friends so readily, that it seemed somehow disappointing to be viewed with such suspicion. The faerie and Bulldog, though, could see the world through his large, vertically-slit, greenish-brown eyes and empathize.

There was little to do while they waited for Chuck to speak to them. They discussed the scenario which they both hoped for – to return to their former positions. This, however, was unlikely. They did not know how the rooms were decorated, but they assumed that they had been decorated in some fashion by now - which they were. They therefore knew that they could not slip back into the ensemble un-noticed.

After mulling over a few ideas to fall back on, they were interrupted by Stu sliding into the room. “I took some plastic jugs and that scrap aluminum from the yard up to Snotty Bolman.” Snotty, as everyone in Houtzdale knew, was a bit of a local sideshow in a town full of carnival acts. Snotty scurries about from one place to the next in an old pickup truck with tall sides built of scrap plywood which stand six feet above the vehicle’s bed. Perched atop these very flimsy supports rides a camper-style cap which was originally intended to sit directly on the sides of truck, but which now sat high in the air in defiance of all state, local and aerodynamic laws. Snotty’s face is eternally blackened by filth. Born mentally-retarded (-challenged? -abled?), he remained in his parents’ homestead well after his mother followed his father into the afterlife. Never a wealthy family, the house they left to their son rapidly decayed around him. Without the means or ability to make necessary repairs, the house slowly collapsed taking with it most of his memories. He acquired a tiny, nearly-dilapidated camper which he parked near the front porch of the house. A few months later another camper joined the first. Smaller than most jail cells, the first camper served as housing while the second provided storage. Harold scratched out a semblance of an existence, collecting and selling scrap for recycling, as well as performing simple automotive repairs for sympathetic neighbors. With only himself to rely on, he sustained an independent existence. Harold always carried himself with a pride and dignity despite the apparent lack of any form of hygiene.

“I don’t like it when you call him Snotty” responded Lydia, “His name is Harold, but I am glad you got rid of that junk.”

Stu grinned ear to ear. He had a story, and - like a shark to the chum - he was seizing the moment to tell it. “He doesn’t like that name either. The way that I found that out was this one day, when I was a kid, he came to our house to pick up some junk. All I ever heard Mom and Dad call him was ‘Snotty.’ Everyone called him Snotty. So I called up to my Mom, ‘Hey Mom, Snotty Bolman’s here.’ Well, he didn’t like that one bit, so he just looks at me and says, ‘The name is Harold and say it with respect.’ I’ll never forget that, ‘The name is Harold and say it with respect.’ You know what? Now, when I talk to him, I always call him Harold, and I always say it with respect.”

Lydia smiled at this. She loved him for his heart. He had a good one and she knew the good ones from the bad. While living in a tiny Alaskan settlement, she had learned many things from some very old native teachers. Over several years, one of her mentors helped her to develop and hone her existing natural abilities for looking into a person, as well what surrounded that person. Lydia had learned to see a person’s aura and massage it healingly. Such abilities are often accompanied by certain drawbacks. While it is rare for men to comprehend even rudimentary concepts of how the ladies of Venus think and feel, even more rare was the man who could survive Lydia’s meticulous scrutiny of their inner workings. Not surprisingly, relationships would prove troublesome to Lydia for the many years before she met Stu.

As Stu and Lydia left the room, Chuck’s voice replaced the short silence. “I’m sure you’re wondering where you go from here.” The question, the voice and the tone melded assuringly – telling the faerie and Bulldog that Chuck’s confidence in them had been restored. “I’m afraid I have some bad news, though. Your old room has already been redecorated. She knows you are missing.”

The faerie and Bulldog’s worst-case scenario had ripened to become an unpalatable fruit. The news did not surprise them, but they had no plausible plan to fall back on. Chuck attempted to cut through the obvious tension. “So, my lady, you really are a different princess?”

The faeire thought long about the question. “Different? Hmmm…I am not so sure that I fully know the answer. I could suppose I am, I would guess. Separate, maybe? Unique? Perhaps, but I’m not really all that unique…thousands of my likeness were distributed around at least two worlds that I know of - maybe more. Distinct! Yes. I am distinct! I am a solitary individual with thousands like me. But they are not ‘me.’ I’m sorry, Mr. Cat. I’m not sure that I answered your question, but maybe I did. I really tried to. Did I?”

A shudder of mutual realization swirled wildly around Chuck and Bulldog – a brisk, late-winter shiver – as they realized how fine was the line of her distinction. Bulldog, shook it first. The differences were admittedly minor, but they were inexplicably enough for him to have completely separate feelings about the pair. “So here we are. Our old homes are gone. What do we do? Wait for the next random jaunt through space?”

“Our old homes are probably gone, that seems to be true, but that doesn’t mean that we won’t find new ones,” declared the faerie with her optimism flowing along like a warm, gentle tide. “Maybe I could finally get on the nightstand.”

Over the next several hours, the three conspirators hatched a plan. In it lay the element of danger, an element particularly hazardous to the figurines, but to the cat - not so much. It was a bold construct, yet designed to keep the lovers together in the same room at the very least. They both held reserve a hope that they could gaze upon one another as days passed onward toward eternity wherever they might find themselves. The element of discovery was at the hub of a very squeaky wheel. Anytime there is discovery, there is surprise. Too much surprise would not be good, they knew. It was the unfortunate necessity of the human element, however, which caused the three the most concern.

Oddly enough, it was at this very moment that a certain Buddha figure sitting in a small living room, in a little house in the middle of a small town in a universe completely separate from the one mentioned above was delivering an oratory to all the figures within the reach of his voice on this very topic. “Humans lend a random quality to any situation. The human element is, by its very definition, a random element.” Buddha really had no sentiments against humans, but this was a subject of great interest to inanimates. It at least interested him for the moment. “Whereas there are always infinite possibilities, humans demonstrate a proclivity to overlook logical options and choose the least likely scenarios moment by moment - thereby destroying predictability. The exception to this, for whatever reason, is when someone is falling – a situation in which ‘down’ is the directional option which nearly each and every person must choose!” On this point, Buddha was quite correct. Those very few who did actually choose another direction often told their tale, but were never believed. Often, they were cast out to roam hot deserts alone. Sometimes deep forests. Others were locked away. Some were killed. They were, after all, mad – weren’t they?

It is at these times when we, as earth-bound humans, should pay a little more attention to that aching feeling we all share which tells us that we are somehow meant to fly. Who among us has never felt that we could somehow fly if only we could focus properly. This ‘common knowledge’ is strongest in our youths, yet we seldom discuss our desire for the freedom of uninhibited aeronautics. Later in life, our convictions are dismissed as “silly” or “childish” and the concept is never discussed. Not everyone grows to dismiss these beliefs completely, though. Some of us pursue careers with flying machines, following the calling voice which pulls them gently skyward with invisible threads. As close to their dreams as they believe possible, there is a dark irony that, for these people, it is the belief in their reliance on machines which limits their ultimate ability to truly achieve their own flight. It was a very old woman who explained to Lydia how important it was to think and believe “silly” and “childish” things.

Despite the many possible outcomes, they agreed that this plan was their best chance for success. Upon discovery, there existed a very real possibility that they would be tossed away – or worse – destroyed as unwanted clutter. If somehow the outcome was less than desirable, it was agreed that Chuck would simply intervene and do whatever is possible and necessary.

As night fell, Stu and Lydia retired to their room upstairs. The people safely behind a closed door, two tiny statues and a cat set their plan into motion. Chuck scooped Bulldog into his mouth and carried him off. As hard as she tried, the faerie never heard him jump to the floor. Although he was riding in the cat’s mouth, Bulldog never heard him either. Chuck trotted deliberately to the living room where Bulldog had once rested quietly upon the television drawing little attention to himself. The room was rearranged now and revolved around the television which had been moved to a different corner of the room. Carefully, Chuck placed Bulldog atop the television, close to a smiling, turn-of-the-century clown dressed in brightly-colored trousers which were tattered and patched. The clown now occupied the only spot Bulldog had known there. “So, who’s the new guy,” thought Bulldog to himself – unaware that he was thinking a little loudly these days.

“I might ask the same question,” the clown responded without hesitation.

Chuck headed back to the kitchen and returned in less than a minute with a faerie clenched in his mouth. The shelf which she had called home in her world and which her twin had called home in this one, was now cluttered with artistically photographed sunsets and moonrises rather than figurines. Despite the obvious thematic mismatch, Chuck placed the faerie amongst the pictures. He chose a positon very near to her former placement - leaving her standing before a photo of a particularly large, detailed full moon rising low on a silhouetted horizon.

“That’s all we can do, for now,” said the cat. “Now we just have to wait.”

For a full night they waited in silence, darkness and tension. Chuck fell asleep as Bulldog and the princess occasionally whispered the exchanges of lovers who believed that they may soon be separated. He was fond of his friends, but had little interest in their saccharine drivel.

Morning brought with it the first stirrings of the humans upstairs, quickly raising the already heightened fever in the room. It was Stu who first entered. As he reached for the remote control to the television, Chuck gasped in anticipation. Stu turned the unit on and quickly changed the channel to check on the day’s weather forecast. Lydia entered soon after, carrying a large mug of coffee and a snack cake. She took her seat, placing the snack cake - rather than the coffee - on the coffee table. Facing both of the people, Bulldog was hiding in plain sight. He would be seen eventually, he knew. But when?

Impatient. Unable to simply wait to be seen. He had to know what was about to happen. It was too much for the little Bulldog to sit there idly, not knowing his fate. He demanded to be seen. He had to be seen. Stu and Lydia would have to accept that he was back. That faerie was back. They had to accept that fact – and they had to accept that fact now. From his depths, all of Bulldog’s will emanated from him in a thunderous wave. All of his will demanded that he be seen.

Unable to hear the torrent directed at him, Stu flinched not an inch. Lydia, however, shifted uncomfortably in her seat, yet continued to look more at her coffee than the television. Bulldog felt invisible. Unlike Chuck, who chose his moments of invisibility, Bulldog now felt invisible against every bit of his will. He was not heard. Though he stood where he should – at home on the TV - in a sense, he was still lost. A crescendo began to form as all of the statuary in the room collectively began chanting in support of the desperate, little dog. “The dog, Lydia! The dog, Lydia!” they cried to deaf ears or - more specifically - ears unable to hear them. Finally, Chuck joined in, howling loudly in a screeching wail. This, both Stu and Lydia could hear all too well. Stu stood up and decided to escape the howling cat by heading upstairs for his morning shower, which he expected to be a much more quiet experience. Lydia moved to Chuck, looking for whatever may be causing this painful outcry. Chuck evaded her, and moved to the center of the room. As Lydia turned toward him, he sprang again, this time to the top of the television. Gently, he placed a paw on Bulldog’s head. Reacting, rather than acting, he carefully tipped the little dog onto his back. Instinctively, Lydia picked up the little dog, set him right and continued to grasp for the cat. With little room to maneuver, Chuck leapt silently to the open spaces of the floor.

Lydia turned fully around before realizing what she had just seen. Looking back, she saw a small, hand-carved wooden bulldog which she knew to have been missing. “Stu?” she called out, “Did you put the little bulldog figure on the TV?”

“No, but I saw him there. I thought you said that you lost him...,” came the response.

“I thought so, too,” she mumbled. “I was sure of it, too.” Lifting the wooden dog, she studied him closely and began turning Bulldog over and over. Her fingers traced the etched markings of his exterior. “Where have you been?” she asked almost silently. Very delicately she placed him back to where she had found him – next to the clown.

The silver faerie now called out wanting to be seen.. Lydia had found Bulldog, and she now wanted to meet her new owner. She knew she could not hide forever. Hiding was just not the nature decorative figures.

Lydia paused. Pulling back her shoulders, she cleared her mind as she inhaled a calming breath to better understand the dog's appearance. Slowly, purposefully, Lydia turned around to face the shelf behind her.

Lydia immediately saw the faerie sitting in front of the moon. With a few quick steps she stood before the little porcelain doll. Lydia was happy to see the little treasure back where she should be. Excitedly, she extended her hand but stopped short of grasping the princess. “Well! He-llo. Who do we have here?” asked Lydia surprisedly. “I’m sorry. That was so rude.” Lydia now picked up the porcelain princess and cupped Faerie in the palms of her hands. Hushed and in a breathy whisper, Lydia looked the figurine directly in the eyes and confided a small piece of the burdensome secret she had been hiding even from Stu; “It’s just that I was expecting someone else.”