Tasci looked up at the stars overhead. There was Pollux, and Castor. There, the great bear, its cub unseen in the city lights. Arc to Arcturus, and there lies Bootes the herdsman. "Buh-oh-tes," Tasci pronounced to herself, remembering the man with the flashlight. They were all there to learn about Astronomy, and their instructor was the only man with a flashlight. There in the Corral, the dust kicked up by horses hooves never quite settled. The flashlight became a beacon, a pointer that the instructor could use to sweep across the stars. A voice in memory, "And this little constellation, I want to let you know right now is not called 'Spermo the Sperm' *laughter* It's Delphinus, the Dolphin."
The stars that filled her heart seemed to drain out as Tasci looked down to her house. She stared at the empty driveway, the empty house, the empty future, a loneliness filling her heart with emptiness.
"It's been so long," Tasci said quietly from the windswept roof on which she perched. "I don't think Mama is coming back."
A week and two days, and still no sign of that familiar green car, the tiny chariot measured not in horsepower, but in chipmunkpower that bore her mother from the place of work to home. Two more days of half living, stealing what food she could find and imagining the rest. Two days of sleeping in a loft in a stranger's garage, or on the roof watching for sign of a person who wasn't going to come.
Two more days of being dirty and miserable and still Tasci said, "Maybe she'll come today," resting her head on her forepaws and opening her wings to catch the feeble evening sunlight.
Tasci shook her head. "Whatever happened to me must have happened to Mama. God, I hope she's alright. Inherited synxanthopy," Tasci muttered wryly. "Go figure."
She paused, a little sob welling up in her throat. "Just have to--just have to believe that wherever Mama is, she'll get her as soon as she can."
The sound of police sirens tricked one ear of Tasci's off to the distance. Such a small town to have sirens at night. Getting louder...
Tasci jumped up, staring to the left as 3 police cruisers came barrelling down down Schulte, down her Schulte, turning on her street and pulling to a stop right in front of her home. There, they hastily parked, long shadowed men in black getting out of their cars and looking around. Everything was outlined in the red and blue of the police car's lights as the policemen moved to fix the perimeter.
Backing up skittishly, one foot slipped on the steep roof of her neighbor's house. "They wouldn't," she said, regaining her balance. "They couldn't!" But it was right before her, outlined in red and blue. Tasci's mind churned in a frenzy. "They've come to take me away. My mom didn't come because she had been captured, and now..." And now the police were after Tasci.
"Restore my reality, will you," Tasci growled. "Not while I can still escape."
She darted off scampering to the edge of the roof. Skidding to a halt, Tasci saw the illumination of the red and blue, and now flashlights. One of the men was shouting, but he was inside the house, and his words were obscured. "The lights... they can see me if I jump down my normal way."
Tasci fretted, hopping to and fro. They were sure to expand their search, close off the whole neighborhood. She had to get out now. Who knows what pitter patter of little paws her neighbors were enduring, and could complain about? "The loft..." she muttered. "Just like the loft. It's gotta work."
She balked at the edge of the roof, scampering down to it and spreading her wings.
"Go on girl," Tasci whispered tensely. "You know these things are going to work. It's easier to go down than to go up, just like the loft." The rooftop was considerably higher than the loft, but the only way she could get down without using her wings was illuminated by watchful policemen.
"If I can just get down in these people's backyard, I can hide!" Tasci thought, looking far down below. She lifted her wings, eyeing them thoughtfully. "Oh heck," she said disgustedly. "If these things don't work I am going to be very disappointed for the last few seconds of my life."
Spreading her wings and looking down with a curious lack of vertigo, Tasci leapt, aiming for the soft looking grass below her, chanting surface area to volume mantras in her head all the way down.
As soon as her feet left the roof, her wings flew back and billowed out. Suddenly, instead of falling, Tasci was hanging in the air like her wings were on floating tracks. Tasci actually cleared the grass, and the fence beyond it, and the road on the other side, and the next front lawn, and the other house's wall suddenly loomed before her.
A clear and placid moment of gut rippling horror passed before Tasci backwinged desperately and tumbled into the shrubs in front of the house. The Juniper shrubs in front of the house.
"Junipeeeeryeeow!" could be heard as the thorny bushes shook from a sudden impact. Thankfully, no one was listening. Now, Juniper is a very special bush. For one thing the leaves are tiny, dense, and tough, and its insides are filled with an impenetrable maze of woody gnarled branches. Actually entering a bush is almost impossible, making it more resemble a green, scratchy wall.
For another thing, every part of a juniper bush is sharp: leaves, thorns, twigs, bark, it's all capable of lacerating exposed skin, as is found on the nose and paws. Not to mention the fact that all cuts sting like crazy since the sap and pollen of the bush is practically caustic.
Tasci crawled painfully from the base of the bush, cursing all junipers, their related conifers, and plants in general. As her feet hit the lawn, she started to run, then winced as her hind leg twitched painfully off the ground. "Oh no..." she said, looking back at it. It must have gotten caught in between her and the bush. Carefully putting her foot down, and grimacing as it sent a shock of pain through her, she found it able to bear her weight, and soon she was running hard, panting, and putting distance between her and her captors.
* * *
"I can't go on, it's hopeless!" Tasci screamed at another truck roaring by her. She limped along on a hurt paw, slowly sauntering down the truck route behind her neighborhood. The little synx, stumbled and fell back on her haunches, watching a falling tear sparkle in the headlights of the next truck on the road.
"I don't have any place to go," she sobbed, "Maybe I should just let the police catch me. Disappear into some prison somewhere set up for magical things like me. What the heck am I doing trying to escape? This isn't a story, it's just the real world, a dumpy nasty place where things don't make sense and good people die for no reason."
"I can't just trust fate, go ride into the wind. This is the real world; if I go wherever life takes me, I'll die!"
No, you won't.
Tasci stopped walking, another tear falling off her cheek fur and glinting in the headlights of another truck. "Who said that?"
I did. It rumbled by in a flash of headlights, and then faded in dying taillights.
"Who are you?" Tasci said to the darkness, circling slowly in the early evening black.
Who do you think?
Tasci's eyes widened. "You mean you're-- you mean I'm... ohhh. That changes everything."
Tasci stopped circling, to lick her leg. There was a nasty bruise on it, but nothing broken. She could still see the police sirens flashing over the rooftops to where she used to live. "Oh dear. Where should I go now?"
Another truck rumbled by, shaking up Tasci's fur with the wind of its passing. Tasci looked where the truck was going. "Trucks go everywhere..." she muttered, looking down the road. "And they all stop at the end of this street to turn right and head North..."
* * *
Tasci crouched at the street corner, hidden by a slab of road divider, closely watching each truck that stopped at the street corner to turn right. A truck drove up, but she saw it was securely locked in the back, and let it go on, watching for the other trucks.
Um, Tasci?
"What?" Tasci said, as another truck began to slow to a stop.
Aren't you forgetting something?
"Why would I do that?" Tasci said irritably as the truck drove away down the road.
Aren't you forgetting someone?
"Forgetting some-wha--oh, that's right," Tasci said looking downward and sighing. "I suppose I should find out what happened."
Even as the truck sputtered onto the highway, it drove blindly past a particular lit sign, going on towards the horizon. However, the hint was not lost on Tasci.
"That's a good idea. I'll get right to it," she said, leaping lightly in the air and flitting away.
Hey, what? You can fly?
"Well duh," Tasci said into the wind. "I have had weeks to practice. I'm not that good yet, but your mysterious plan seems to have me hardwired right. Was that why you described my escape glide so clumsily?"
Um... maybe.
"I better get something to eat first then. Don't know when I'll be able to later."
* * *
Tasci limped slowly around a blue house on the corner of the truck route and the side street. She knew the dog of the house: an old girl, a white shaggy thing with aging vision amongst other things. Tasci visited it often for a helping of food. Today would perhaps be the last day. The dog was shut in the side-pen, but her food bowl was in the fenced off front yard. Nobody seemed to be downstairs, although there was some strange music coming from upstairs. Tasci ate her fill of crunchy paperlike kibble, then on an after thought took one of the bits of food in her paw and scratched it along the cement porch. It left a mark.
"Dog food, part of this balanced breakfast and a wonderful substitute for chalk," Tasci remarked, writing on the sidewalk in clumsy scrawl.
THANKS FOR FOOD
A SYNX
She then vaulted back over the fence via a standing plant potter, caught her weak foot on the edge of the fence and tumbled face first into the nice, soft grass.
"That," her voice came from the ground, "Was not cool." Extracting herself from that impromptu head stand, Tasci managed to get walking down the truck route again.
* * *
She glided slowly through the night air, flapping periodically to maintain her altitude. Houses drifted by below.
"So, you're it?" Tasci said on her way along. "The One? The author?"
I'm an author... I'm the author right now.
"Oh, so I'm in a story universe? That's cool." Tasci slowly glided into the bembrace of a tree's branches, bounding off a bough before rising up again on a headwind.
That's right.
"Man, I can't believe it," the synx murred excitedly. "The author. I finally met my author."
Don't think it's going to be easy from now on. You have a job to do.
"Right," Tasci said fixedly focusing on the task at hand. After some time she alighted on a telephone pole, her emerald eyes lost in thought.
"Who are you?" she asked suddenly. "If you don't mind my asking."
Why... I am you.
Tasci wrinkled her nose in concentration, then pipped, "Oh! This is a self-insert then?"
Yep. The sound of a car grumbling down the dim street prompted Tasci to leave her telephone pole for the skies again. The residential section began to give way under her, spreading out into large, scrubby farms and vast stretches of roadway.
"Do you know who your author is?" Tasci innocently queried.
There was a long pause. No, no I don't.
"Aw, gee," Tasci said sympathetically, breaking into a slow circle as her destination drew nigh.
Not yet, at least. Don't feel bad, though. If I can pull this story off, perhaps my author can follow my example.
"An author listening to a character?" Tasci scoffed. "Only we would be crazy enough to try that."
Right, only us. The wind dancing underneath her wings for a moment sounded like a chuckle.
"Well I'm almost here," Tasci said angling toward the roof of a small isolated cafe and rest stop. The horizon was lightening and beginning to show signs of dawn.
"I just want to let you know," she said, "I won't blow your cover, reveal you as the author or anything."
Don't worry. It's not a problem, and I don't mind. I might get a kick out of it.
"Really?" Tasci beamed, opening her stance to grasp the rapidly incoming roof. "Thanks!"
No, thank you, as the synx scrabbled clumsily across the roof, stopping just a hair's breadth from the edge of the sandy shingles, on her nose.
"Ow..." Tasci whimpered.
Try back winging next time?
Last Updated: Sun Dec 1 2002 08:26:18