Red Sky, Take Warning, ch 2 by rose_of_pollux [The Monkees, A cappella]
Title: Red Sky, Take Warning, Chapter 2: My Whole World is Upside-Down
Author: Crystal Rose of Pollux (rose_of_pollux)
Theme: 1; Acapella
Fandom: The Monkees (TV-verse)
Warnings: PG13
Disclaimer: The characters aren't mine, and the story is; also, these are the guys' fictional personas from the TV show and not the real ones.
Summary/Comments: The guys awaken to their new lives, perplexed about the unexplainable sensation of loss they're feeling.
Cross-posted to fanfiction.net
“Davy? Davy!?”
“Davy? Can you hear us?!”
“Come on, Man-where are you?!”
Davy’s eyes snapped open as he abruptly awakened. What a frighteningly realistic dream! Voices, frantically calling out to him in an endless darkness… He couldn’t even place them, yet a part of him had felt that he had to answer them.
He sat up, using his right arm to pull the curtains open in the luxurious canopy bed he had been sleeping in, blinking as the sunlight streamed in from the window, brightening the otherwise dull, stone walls of Hagglethorn Hall. It didn’t seem to be too odd, residing in a castle that had been brought stone by stone from England to California; as far as he knew, he had lived here his entire life, surrounded by servants waiting on him hand and foot.
And yet… something seemed to be missing. He couldn’t place what it was-only that there seemed to be a void in him.
He was just shaking the thought off when he was suddenly aware of something in his left hand. He blinked again, this time in confusion as he found it to be a torn piece of fabric with buttons on it-the cuff of a shirt sleeve.
Instinctively, he checked the sleeves of his nightshirt, but they were intact; then again, the sleeve cuff didn’t look like it was from a nightshirt at all. Davy now got out of bed, crossing to the closet to see if he could find the shirt with the torn sleeve to look into getting it repaired. To his surprise, none of his shirts were torn.
“Well, that’s odd, isn’t it?” he murmured to no one in particular.
It opened up some very concerning questions-whose sleeve cuff was it? How had he ended up with it? …And why did he feel such a horrible feeling of loss the more he looked at this little scrap of fabric?
He nearly jumped a foot in the air as someone knocked on his bedroom door.
“Are you awake, Master David?” asked the voice of his head butler.
“Yes, Creech,” Davy said. “Just hold on a second…”
He quickly threw on his robe, and then paused to look at the sleeve cuff in his hand again. Anyone else would’ve probably tossed it aside, but Davy knew that he had to hold onto it; he quickly and carefully placed it in a wardrobe drawer and opened the door to the tall, gaunt-faced head butler, who immediately noticed the perplexed look on Davy’s face.
“Is everything alright, Master David?”
“Everything’s fine, Creech,” he promised. “I, er… I just had a very odd dream. Voices were calling to me; I thought I recognized them from somewhere, but I can’t place them no matter how much I try.”
“I wouldn’t be too concerned about it,” Creech replied. “As the Earl of Hagglethorn, you come across many new faces on a regular basis when people come to tour the Hall; they know of you, and you probably hear them calling your name.”
“I suppose,” Davy said, his mind clearly elsewhere.
“Forgive me, Master David; I know it is not my place to tell you what to do, but you should have your breakfast,” Creech went on. “You have a busy schedule today; at 11, you’re entertaining the mayor-”
“Oh, shall I prepare a little song-and-dance routine for him, then?” Davy asked, with an impish grin. The grin faded as Creech stared at him, deadpan. “Sorry, Creech; I don’t know why I said that…” The truth was, though, that singing and dancing seemed appealing; in fact, it seemed… right.
“You have a meeting with the organizers of the Hagglethorn Heritage Festival at 3 in the afternoon,” Creech continued. “And then you meet with the press at 6 so that they can take pictures of you handing over your generous donation to the Hagglethorn Charity Fund. And then tomorrow, you have a meeting with the head of the new free clinic-”
“That’s all I ever do around here as the Earl of Hagglethorn,” Davy said, sighing. “I’m just a figurehead, I am. I just entertain the upper crust and make public appearances to give generous donations; I don’t get to do anything!”
“That is the way the aristocracy is,” Creech said. “The previous Earls of Hagglethorn were generous figureheads, as well.”
“Yeah, well, that was all well and good for them,” the boy responded, but he accepted his fate nonetheless. “Right; I’ll have some kippers for breakfast and see if I can take Saph out for a ride before I meet with the mayor.”
“Saph?” Creech asked, referring to the prized stallion of the Hall. “I presume, Master David, you intend to ride only within the grounds?”
“Actually, I was thinking I could leave immediately after breakfast-get a nice, long ride in around the countryside…”
“Master David, forgive my presumptuousness, but it is most unsafe for the Earl of Hagglethorn to be outside the grounds,” Creech said. “Dozens of swindlers and ne’er-do-wells are just waiting for you-”
“How can they possibly be? As far as they’re concerned, I never leave the grounds, do I?”
“So far, every single previous Earl of Hagglethorn has disappeared under mysterious circumstances,” Creech reminded him. “I do not intend for you to be the next statistic, Master David.”
“Your heart’s in the right place, Creech, and I am grateful for that,” Davy said. “But I do think you’re being a bit paranoid.”
“I am being cautious,” Creech insisted. “But I mustn’t keep you from your breakfast any longer.”
He clapped his hands, and a maid brought in a cart with a full breakfast and the morning paper.
“If you need anything, do let us know,” Creech said.
“Right,” Davy said, and acknowledged Creech as he bowed and left.
He sighed, starting on his breakfast. Well, there was no possible way he could have been out of the grounds last night-so how did he end up with that sleeve cuff in his hand? Had someone broken into the Hall in the middle of night? Had he been fighting for his life against an assailant?
No; Creech wouldn’t have let anyone get within fifty feet of the room-he’d have fought off the assailant himself. But that still left the question of the cuff’s origin, as well as the irksome feeling that something was very, very wrong with the way things were-and not just because he was bored, either.
****************************************
At the fairgrounds some several miles away, Micky had been trapped in his own set of haunting dreams when he, too, was awakened by a knock on his door. His situation, though, was much different; he awoke to a small, cramped camper and a cheap, uncomfortable fold-away bed. Calliope music was audible in the morning air, as well as the sound of a few trumpeting elephants and, every so often, a vocalization by a lion.
Such were normal morning sounds for traveling circus folk, after all…
Micky now snapped to attention as he heard the annoyed voice of the ringmaster outside his camper door.
“I’m up, Sir!” he insisted, quickly buttoning up his shirt and opening the door. “Sorry; I slept in a bit-”
“I don’t pay you to sleep in, Boy!” the ringmaster barked.
“No, Sir,” Micky said. “I know you don’t.”
“And I don’t pay you to wear torn shirts, either! You’re an animal trainer, not one of the clowns! You expect to parade around and be seen in that?!”
“Torn shirt? But my shirt isn’t…” Micky trailed off, looking blankly at his right shirt sleeve. It was mostly intact, but the shirt cuff was missing, making him look very awkward indeed. He looked around for the rest of it, utterly perplexed. “Oh. How about that? I guess it is torn… …How’d that happen?”
He was at a loss for answers to those questions, as well as to the question as to why he was getting an unpleasant feeling in his gut that had nothing to do with the fact that he had been caught wearing it. No, the feeling he had was one that made him think that he had lost something very important…
“Never mind how it happened!” the ringmaster snapped. “Get into a shirt that isn’t torn and tend to the animals like you’re supposed to!”
“Sir, yes, Sir!” Micky said, saluting. “Right away, Sir!”
The ringmaster grunted and turned to go, but Micky spoke again.
“Uh, Sir…?”
“What is it now?”
“Well, I… I’ve been meaning to ask you, Sir… Do you think there’ll ever be a chance for me to do some actual performing? I mean, I’m pretty good with impressions, and I can sing, too! I’d be a great clown, or, heck-even just someone to warm the crowd up. Listen to this; it’s a scene from Casablanca!” He cleared his throat and did a flawless imitation of Rick Blaine. “Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine… Oh, or how about this: Streetcar Named Desire? Hey, Stella! Stelllllllaaaaaaaaaa!”
“That’s enough,” the ringmaster said. “You’ll stick to your job, like you’re supposed to. Don’t try to be something you’re not!”
“…Yes, Sir,” Micky said, his shoulders slumping in disappointment. “I’ll be there in just a minute.”
“You’d better be,” the ringmaster threatened. “This circus can get along just fine without you.”
Micky winced, but nodded, looking as polite as possible until the ringmaster was out of sight. Quickly, he changed into a pristine shirt, pausing to stare at the missing cuff once more before folding the shirt away.
Had he gotten into a fight last night? No, that’s not possible; the other party would’ve reported him to the ringmaster if that had happened… And it couldn’t have been the lions; they wouldn’t have shown such self-restraint to take only his sleeve cuff as opposed to his whole hand.
He shook the thought from his head, heading over towards the animals as he pondered over what the ringmaster had told him.
“Don’t try to be something you’re not…” he quietly repeated to himself. “Yeah, but… what am I?”
There had to be more to life than just tending after large animals! This wasn’t what he wanted to do; he wanted to entertain people! …Or was the ringmaster right, and that wasn’t who he was supposed to be? Regardless, the feelings seemed too strong to ignore, but Micky accepted the realization that there want anything he could do about it-not unless he was willing to risk the job he had.
He suddenly stopped in his tracks as a young elephant greeted him by wrapping his trunk around him, finally cheering Micky up.
“Morning, Rue,” he said, petting the young pachyderm on the trunk. “Guess we’ve got to get you and the others ready for the matinee, huh?”
The elephant let out a quiet vocalization and deftly picked up a specially-crafted stick in its trunk, beating a small drum that had been provided for it. Rue did this for the audiences all the time, who absolutely ate it up.
“Glad you see you’re ready to go,” Micky said. “But tell me something, Rue. You ever get the feeling you’re in the wrong line of work?”
The elephant calf gave Micky an unreadable look.
“Well, I guess you wouldn’t know,” he said, as he got to work filling the food troughs and moving hay bales to feed Rue and the other animals. “But I’ll tell you something, Rue-I’m tired of being a stepping stone.”
****************************************
Outside of town, another young man was loathing his job. Peter, also contending with cryptic dreams that left him with a feeling of loss, was being berated by his boss, Dr. Mendoza, the scientist.
“Peter, I do not understand you,” the scientist said. “I gave you a job and a place to stay here, and yet when I ask you to help with my research by bringing me some guinea pigs, you refuse!”
“But… you want human guinea pigs!” Peter protested. “There’s gotta be a law against that!”
“The law? My boy, there are bigger things to contend with than that!” Mendoza insisted. “We must think of scientific progress!”
“But-”
“If I learn all there is to know about controlling human behavior, it will help law enforcement!” Mendoza reminded him. “We can alter the minds of criminals to make them no longer act against the law! We can alter the minds of lazy layabouts to become productive members of society! And, most of all, we can turn quiet, meek people like you into metaphorical lions!”
“Well, that sure is a lot that science could accomplish,” Peter admitted. “But still I don’t know if that’s such a good idea. I mean, it just doesn’t seem right.”
“Science must progress, no matter what the cost!” Mendoza insisted. “And I have had enough of your reluctance to help me, Peter! Either you will do as I say, or you will leave here, fired!”
“But… I have nowhere else to go!” Peter exclaimed. “That was the whole reason why you took me under your wing, wasn’t it? To give me a place to stay?”
“Yes… and no,” Mendoza said, smirking to himself. “To be honest, I needed an innocent face like yours.”
“Uh… why?”
“Because people will be quick to trust you, Peter,” Mendoza said. “You could bring 100 guinea pigs to my laboratory within the span of a day with that face!”
Peter absently felt the side of his face.
“But if I have that ability, should I be using it for good?”
“My boy, haven’t you been listening? Ensuring the progress of science-and my research-is what is good for everyone!”
Peter scratched his head.
No, he said to himself. That’s not it. But I’d better not say that to him.
“We can deal with that a little later,” the doctor went on. “I want you to get some food and feed our… current guinea pigs.”
“Yes, Doctor…” Peter said, heading off to the kitchen. He then paused. “Doctor?”
“Yes, my boy?”
“Do you… Do you believe that dreams are a way of sending messages to us?” Peter asked.
“What brought this up?”
“Well, I had a strange one before I woke up this morning…” Peter said. “I couldn’t see anything, but I could hear voices calling for me. They seemed to know me, but, I didn’t know them. Well, actually, it felt like I should’ve known them, but I didn’t. And I want to know why I felt like that. I mean, when I actually woke up, I felt like… Well, I felt… really alone-and I hated it. It’s like I belonged with those people, but I don’t know why they were calling for me. It’s strange…”
“It has been my experience that dreams are just the mind’s way of blowing off steam,” Mendoza insisted. “Forget about it and focus on what you have to do.”
“Yes, Doctor,” Peter said. He headed towards the kitchen again, this time pausing by the door to scratch a golden retriever behind the ears. “Hey, Emerald, you want to help me out in the kitchen?”
The dog “rruffed” in reply and followed Peter out the door.
The doctor folded his arms, not sure what to do with the boy. Because of Peter’s refusal to draw people to the lab, Mendoza had been sending his daughter to do that task. But it was getting riskier and riskier to keep doing that; Mendoza had reason to believe that the district attorney had started to tail her, monitoring her to try to catch her in the act. Mendoza still needed more subjects to test his mind-control theories on, and it was time for Peter to get beyond his seemingly interfering ideals and morals and contribute to scientific progress, rather than limiting himself to caring for the captives-and even that seemed wrong to him; more than once, Peter had seemed to be considering letting them go, which the doctor couldn’t risk. The doctor had to put tabs on Peter whenever he went outside to walk that golden retriever he had adopted; he hadn’t spilled the beans yet, and Mendoza was determined to ensure that Peter would be in too deep to get out.
With the boy as naïve as he was, it wouldn’t be too much of a challenge. Mendoza was determined to make it happen today.
****************************************
Meanwhile, downtown, in a small flowershop called the Texas Bluebonnet, a fourth young man, who had been fast asleep on his feet, had been woken up abruptly by a dream similar to what the others had experienced-a vast expanse of darkness, accompanied by voices calling his name, and a subsequent feeling of loss upon hearing them.
“Man, that was some dream,” he said to a bird on the counter, which was busy preening its feathers. “You know, they always say eating before bed is what gives you weird dreams. Well, I can tell you that eating nothing apparently does the same thing. What do you think, Diamond Jim?”
The bird, a brilliantly colored Attwater’s prairie chicken paused to give the young man in the wool hat a look before resuming his preening.
“You haven’t eaten a square meal in a while, either, have you?” Mike sighed. “Man, I haven’t had a square meal in… I don’t even know how long.”
He propped his chin on his hand, silently lamenting on the fact that he hadn’t had a customer in weeks-no customers meant no money, and no money meant no food. He had been reduced to hiking outside of town to wooded areas, finding edible berries and seeds just so he and Diamond Jim could survive to the next day. But foraging for food wasn’t going to last forever, he knew-one storm, one freak frost, anything like that could wipe out what little source of food they had. After that, well… Mike knew that his options would be to beg, borrow, or starve.
“Who am I kidding?” Mike said aloud. “Unless we get some sort of miracle rush on flowers coming through that door, you and I are going to starve for sure, Diamond Jim.” He sighed. “What a way to go…”
The bird opened its beak and vocalized.
“Yeah, I’m wracking my brain, thinking if there’s someone out there who could possibly lend us a hand. The few customers I had never came back. So here I am, skipping meals every day, pouring out my heart and soul to a Texas prairie chicken.”
The bird let out an almost indignant noise, his crest of feathers on his head spreading in agitation.
“Now I didn’t mean it like that,” Mike insisted. “I just mean that unless you happen to have some cash on hand… er, cash on wing, as the case may be… we’re both in a lot of trouble!”
Diamond Jim now tilted his head, curious.
“Yes, both of us,” Mike repeated. “I can’t even afford the birdseed, either.”
The prairie chicken responded by flying from the counter to a potted plant, from which it pulled an insect and ate it.
“…Okay, then, I’m the one in trouble,” Mike said, resigning himself to his fate. With a sigh, he watched Diamond Jim continue to eat.
How had it come to this-having to forego food entirely? …No, that wasn’t what was bothering him; part of him knew that he had gone hungry before, but things seemed… different then. It was as though that then, even though he had gone hungry, he hadn’t gone hungry alone-and that had, somehow, made it bearable.
But that didn’t make sense. He’d been on his own since… forever, it seemed-just him and a Texas prairie chicken. Who on Earth could be possibly have been sharing that hunger with? And why was he thinking about that dream-a dark void, with familiar voices calling to him?
He shook the thought from his head; no, it couldn’t be real-just simple wishful thinking sparked from being hungry and alone.
****************************************
Author’s note: Hagglethorn Hall and Creech are not mine; kudos to anyone who knows their significance. Also, I apologize for not much happening in this chapter; it was mainly exposition to show the guys in their new realities, and the actual plot will start to advance more from the next chapter.
Author: Crystal Rose of Pollux (rose_of_pollux)
Theme: 1; Acapella
Fandom: The Monkees (TV-verse)
Warnings: PG13
Disclaimer: The characters aren't mine, and the story is; also, these are the guys' fictional personas from the TV show and not the real ones.
Summary/Comments: The guys awaken to their new lives, perplexed about the unexplainable sensation of loss they're feeling.
Cross-posted to fanfiction.net
“Davy? Davy!?”
“Davy? Can you hear us?!”
“Come on, Man-where are you?!”
Davy’s eyes snapped open as he abruptly awakened. What a frighteningly realistic dream! Voices, frantically calling out to him in an endless darkness… He couldn’t even place them, yet a part of him had felt that he had to answer them.
He sat up, using his right arm to pull the curtains open in the luxurious canopy bed he had been sleeping in, blinking as the sunlight streamed in from the window, brightening the otherwise dull, stone walls of Hagglethorn Hall. It didn’t seem to be too odd, residing in a castle that had been brought stone by stone from England to California; as far as he knew, he had lived here his entire life, surrounded by servants waiting on him hand and foot.
And yet… something seemed to be missing. He couldn’t place what it was-only that there seemed to be a void in him.
He was just shaking the thought off when he was suddenly aware of something in his left hand. He blinked again, this time in confusion as he found it to be a torn piece of fabric with buttons on it-the cuff of a shirt sleeve.
Instinctively, he checked the sleeves of his nightshirt, but they were intact; then again, the sleeve cuff didn’t look like it was from a nightshirt at all. Davy now got out of bed, crossing to the closet to see if he could find the shirt with the torn sleeve to look into getting it repaired. To his surprise, none of his shirts were torn.
“Well, that’s odd, isn’t it?” he murmured to no one in particular.
It opened up some very concerning questions-whose sleeve cuff was it? How had he ended up with it? …And why did he feel such a horrible feeling of loss the more he looked at this little scrap of fabric?
He nearly jumped a foot in the air as someone knocked on his bedroom door.
“Are you awake, Master David?” asked the voice of his head butler.
“Yes, Creech,” Davy said. “Just hold on a second…”
He quickly threw on his robe, and then paused to look at the sleeve cuff in his hand again. Anyone else would’ve probably tossed it aside, but Davy knew that he had to hold onto it; he quickly and carefully placed it in a wardrobe drawer and opened the door to the tall, gaunt-faced head butler, who immediately noticed the perplexed look on Davy’s face.
“Is everything alright, Master David?”
“Everything’s fine, Creech,” he promised. “I, er… I just had a very odd dream. Voices were calling to me; I thought I recognized them from somewhere, but I can’t place them no matter how much I try.”
“I wouldn’t be too concerned about it,” Creech replied. “As the Earl of Hagglethorn, you come across many new faces on a regular basis when people come to tour the Hall; they know of you, and you probably hear them calling your name.”
“I suppose,” Davy said, his mind clearly elsewhere.
“Forgive me, Master David; I know it is not my place to tell you what to do, but you should have your breakfast,” Creech went on. “You have a busy schedule today; at 11, you’re entertaining the mayor-”
“Oh, shall I prepare a little song-and-dance routine for him, then?” Davy asked, with an impish grin. The grin faded as Creech stared at him, deadpan. “Sorry, Creech; I don’t know why I said that…” The truth was, though, that singing and dancing seemed appealing; in fact, it seemed… right.
“You have a meeting with the organizers of the Hagglethorn Heritage Festival at 3 in the afternoon,” Creech continued. “And then you meet with the press at 6 so that they can take pictures of you handing over your generous donation to the Hagglethorn Charity Fund. And then tomorrow, you have a meeting with the head of the new free clinic-”
“That’s all I ever do around here as the Earl of Hagglethorn,” Davy said, sighing. “I’m just a figurehead, I am. I just entertain the upper crust and make public appearances to give generous donations; I don’t get to do anything!”
“That is the way the aristocracy is,” Creech said. “The previous Earls of Hagglethorn were generous figureheads, as well.”
“Yeah, well, that was all well and good for them,” the boy responded, but he accepted his fate nonetheless. “Right; I’ll have some kippers for breakfast and see if I can take Saph out for a ride before I meet with the mayor.”
“Saph?” Creech asked, referring to the prized stallion of the Hall. “I presume, Master David, you intend to ride only within the grounds?”
“Actually, I was thinking I could leave immediately after breakfast-get a nice, long ride in around the countryside…”
“Master David, forgive my presumptuousness, but it is most unsafe for the Earl of Hagglethorn to be outside the grounds,” Creech said. “Dozens of swindlers and ne’er-do-wells are just waiting for you-”
“How can they possibly be? As far as they’re concerned, I never leave the grounds, do I?”
“So far, every single previous Earl of Hagglethorn has disappeared under mysterious circumstances,” Creech reminded him. “I do not intend for you to be the next statistic, Master David.”
“Your heart’s in the right place, Creech, and I am grateful for that,” Davy said. “But I do think you’re being a bit paranoid.”
“I am being cautious,” Creech insisted. “But I mustn’t keep you from your breakfast any longer.”
He clapped his hands, and a maid brought in a cart with a full breakfast and the morning paper.
“If you need anything, do let us know,” Creech said.
“Right,” Davy said, and acknowledged Creech as he bowed and left.
He sighed, starting on his breakfast. Well, there was no possible way he could have been out of the grounds last night-so how did he end up with that sleeve cuff in his hand? Had someone broken into the Hall in the middle of night? Had he been fighting for his life against an assailant?
No; Creech wouldn’t have let anyone get within fifty feet of the room-he’d have fought off the assailant himself. But that still left the question of the cuff’s origin, as well as the irksome feeling that something was very, very wrong with the way things were-and not just because he was bored, either.
****************************************
At the fairgrounds some several miles away, Micky had been trapped in his own set of haunting dreams when he, too, was awakened by a knock on his door. His situation, though, was much different; he awoke to a small, cramped camper and a cheap, uncomfortable fold-away bed. Calliope music was audible in the morning air, as well as the sound of a few trumpeting elephants and, every so often, a vocalization by a lion.
Such were normal morning sounds for traveling circus folk, after all…
Micky now snapped to attention as he heard the annoyed voice of the ringmaster outside his camper door.
“I’m up, Sir!” he insisted, quickly buttoning up his shirt and opening the door. “Sorry; I slept in a bit-”
“I don’t pay you to sleep in, Boy!” the ringmaster barked.
“No, Sir,” Micky said. “I know you don’t.”
“And I don’t pay you to wear torn shirts, either! You’re an animal trainer, not one of the clowns! You expect to parade around and be seen in that?!”
“Torn shirt? But my shirt isn’t…” Micky trailed off, looking blankly at his right shirt sleeve. It was mostly intact, but the shirt cuff was missing, making him look very awkward indeed. He looked around for the rest of it, utterly perplexed. “Oh. How about that? I guess it is torn… …How’d that happen?”
He was at a loss for answers to those questions, as well as to the question as to why he was getting an unpleasant feeling in his gut that had nothing to do with the fact that he had been caught wearing it. No, the feeling he had was one that made him think that he had lost something very important…
“Never mind how it happened!” the ringmaster snapped. “Get into a shirt that isn’t torn and tend to the animals like you’re supposed to!”
“Sir, yes, Sir!” Micky said, saluting. “Right away, Sir!”
The ringmaster grunted and turned to go, but Micky spoke again.
“Uh, Sir…?”
“What is it now?”
“Well, I… I’ve been meaning to ask you, Sir… Do you think there’ll ever be a chance for me to do some actual performing? I mean, I’m pretty good with impressions, and I can sing, too! I’d be a great clown, or, heck-even just someone to warm the crowd up. Listen to this; it’s a scene from Casablanca!” He cleared his throat and did a flawless imitation of Rick Blaine. “Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine… Oh, or how about this: Streetcar Named Desire? Hey, Stella! Stelllllllaaaaaaaaaa!”
“That’s enough,” the ringmaster said. “You’ll stick to your job, like you’re supposed to. Don’t try to be something you’re not!”
“…Yes, Sir,” Micky said, his shoulders slumping in disappointment. “I’ll be there in just a minute.”
“You’d better be,” the ringmaster threatened. “This circus can get along just fine without you.”
Micky winced, but nodded, looking as polite as possible until the ringmaster was out of sight. Quickly, he changed into a pristine shirt, pausing to stare at the missing cuff once more before folding the shirt away.
Had he gotten into a fight last night? No, that’s not possible; the other party would’ve reported him to the ringmaster if that had happened… And it couldn’t have been the lions; they wouldn’t have shown such self-restraint to take only his sleeve cuff as opposed to his whole hand.
He shook the thought from his head, heading over towards the animals as he pondered over what the ringmaster had told him.
“Don’t try to be something you’re not…” he quietly repeated to himself. “Yeah, but… what am I?”
There had to be more to life than just tending after large animals! This wasn’t what he wanted to do; he wanted to entertain people! …Or was the ringmaster right, and that wasn’t who he was supposed to be? Regardless, the feelings seemed too strong to ignore, but Micky accepted the realization that there want anything he could do about it-not unless he was willing to risk the job he had.
He suddenly stopped in his tracks as a young elephant greeted him by wrapping his trunk around him, finally cheering Micky up.
“Morning, Rue,” he said, petting the young pachyderm on the trunk. “Guess we’ve got to get you and the others ready for the matinee, huh?”
The elephant let out a quiet vocalization and deftly picked up a specially-crafted stick in its trunk, beating a small drum that had been provided for it. Rue did this for the audiences all the time, who absolutely ate it up.
“Glad you see you’re ready to go,” Micky said. “But tell me something, Rue. You ever get the feeling you’re in the wrong line of work?”
The elephant calf gave Micky an unreadable look.
“Well, I guess you wouldn’t know,” he said, as he got to work filling the food troughs and moving hay bales to feed Rue and the other animals. “But I’ll tell you something, Rue-I’m tired of being a stepping stone.”
****************************************
Outside of town, another young man was loathing his job. Peter, also contending with cryptic dreams that left him with a feeling of loss, was being berated by his boss, Dr. Mendoza, the scientist.
“Peter, I do not understand you,” the scientist said. “I gave you a job and a place to stay here, and yet when I ask you to help with my research by bringing me some guinea pigs, you refuse!”
“But… you want human guinea pigs!” Peter protested. “There’s gotta be a law against that!”
“The law? My boy, there are bigger things to contend with than that!” Mendoza insisted. “We must think of scientific progress!”
“But-”
“If I learn all there is to know about controlling human behavior, it will help law enforcement!” Mendoza reminded him. “We can alter the minds of criminals to make them no longer act against the law! We can alter the minds of lazy layabouts to become productive members of society! And, most of all, we can turn quiet, meek people like you into metaphorical lions!”
“Well, that sure is a lot that science could accomplish,” Peter admitted. “But still I don’t know if that’s such a good idea. I mean, it just doesn’t seem right.”
“Science must progress, no matter what the cost!” Mendoza insisted. “And I have had enough of your reluctance to help me, Peter! Either you will do as I say, or you will leave here, fired!”
“But… I have nowhere else to go!” Peter exclaimed. “That was the whole reason why you took me under your wing, wasn’t it? To give me a place to stay?”
“Yes… and no,” Mendoza said, smirking to himself. “To be honest, I needed an innocent face like yours.”
“Uh… why?”
“Because people will be quick to trust you, Peter,” Mendoza said. “You could bring 100 guinea pigs to my laboratory within the span of a day with that face!”
Peter absently felt the side of his face.
“But if I have that ability, should I be using it for good?”
“My boy, haven’t you been listening? Ensuring the progress of science-and my research-is what is good for everyone!”
Peter scratched his head.
No, he said to himself. That’s not it. But I’d better not say that to him.
“We can deal with that a little later,” the doctor went on. “I want you to get some food and feed our… current guinea pigs.”
“Yes, Doctor…” Peter said, heading off to the kitchen. He then paused. “Doctor?”
“Yes, my boy?”
“Do you… Do you believe that dreams are a way of sending messages to us?” Peter asked.
“What brought this up?”
“Well, I had a strange one before I woke up this morning…” Peter said. “I couldn’t see anything, but I could hear voices calling for me. They seemed to know me, but, I didn’t know them. Well, actually, it felt like I should’ve known them, but I didn’t. And I want to know why I felt like that. I mean, when I actually woke up, I felt like… Well, I felt… really alone-and I hated it. It’s like I belonged with those people, but I don’t know why they were calling for me. It’s strange…”
“It has been my experience that dreams are just the mind’s way of blowing off steam,” Mendoza insisted. “Forget about it and focus on what you have to do.”
“Yes, Doctor,” Peter said. He headed towards the kitchen again, this time pausing by the door to scratch a golden retriever behind the ears. “Hey, Emerald, you want to help me out in the kitchen?”
The dog “rruffed” in reply and followed Peter out the door.
The doctor folded his arms, not sure what to do with the boy. Because of Peter’s refusal to draw people to the lab, Mendoza had been sending his daughter to do that task. But it was getting riskier and riskier to keep doing that; Mendoza had reason to believe that the district attorney had started to tail her, monitoring her to try to catch her in the act. Mendoza still needed more subjects to test his mind-control theories on, and it was time for Peter to get beyond his seemingly interfering ideals and morals and contribute to scientific progress, rather than limiting himself to caring for the captives-and even that seemed wrong to him; more than once, Peter had seemed to be considering letting them go, which the doctor couldn’t risk. The doctor had to put tabs on Peter whenever he went outside to walk that golden retriever he had adopted; he hadn’t spilled the beans yet, and Mendoza was determined to ensure that Peter would be in too deep to get out.
With the boy as naïve as he was, it wouldn’t be too much of a challenge. Mendoza was determined to make it happen today.
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Meanwhile, downtown, in a small flowershop called the Texas Bluebonnet, a fourth young man, who had been fast asleep on his feet, had been woken up abruptly by a dream similar to what the others had experienced-a vast expanse of darkness, accompanied by voices calling his name, and a subsequent feeling of loss upon hearing them.
“Man, that was some dream,” he said to a bird on the counter, which was busy preening its feathers. “You know, they always say eating before bed is what gives you weird dreams. Well, I can tell you that eating nothing apparently does the same thing. What do you think, Diamond Jim?”
The bird, a brilliantly colored Attwater’s prairie chicken paused to give the young man in the wool hat a look before resuming his preening.
“You haven’t eaten a square meal in a while, either, have you?” Mike sighed. “Man, I haven’t had a square meal in… I don’t even know how long.”
He propped his chin on his hand, silently lamenting on the fact that he hadn’t had a customer in weeks-no customers meant no money, and no money meant no food. He had been reduced to hiking outside of town to wooded areas, finding edible berries and seeds just so he and Diamond Jim could survive to the next day. But foraging for food wasn’t going to last forever, he knew-one storm, one freak frost, anything like that could wipe out what little source of food they had. After that, well… Mike knew that his options would be to beg, borrow, or starve.
“Who am I kidding?” Mike said aloud. “Unless we get some sort of miracle rush on flowers coming through that door, you and I are going to starve for sure, Diamond Jim.” He sighed. “What a way to go…”
The bird opened its beak and vocalized.
“Yeah, I’m wracking my brain, thinking if there’s someone out there who could possibly lend us a hand. The few customers I had never came back. So here I am, skipping meals every day, pouring out my heart and soul to a Texas prairie chicken.”
The bird let out an almost indignant noise, his crest of feathers on his head spreading in agitation.
“Now I didn’t mean it like that,” Mike insisted. “I just mean that unless you happen to have some cash on hand… er, cash on wing, as the case may be… we’re both in a lot of trouble!”
Diamond Jim now tilted his head, curious.
“Yes, both of us,” Mike repeated. “I can’t even afford the birdseed, either.”
The prairie chicken responded by flying from the counter to a potted plant, from which it pulled an insect and ate it.
“…Okay, then, I’m the one in trouble,” Mike said, resigning himself to his fate. With a sigh, he watched Diamond Jim continue to eat.
How had it come to this-having to forego food entirely? …No, that wasn’t what was bothering him; part of him knew that he had gone hungry before, but things seemed… different then. It was as though that then, even though he had gone hungry, he hadn’t gone hungry alone-and that had, somehow, made it bearable.
But that didn’t make sense. He’d been on his own since… forever, it seemed-just him and a Texas prairie chicken. Who on Earth could be possibly have been sharing that hunger with? And why was he thinking about that dream-a dark void, with familiar voices calling to him?
He shook the thought from his head; no, it couldn’t be real-just simple wishful thinking sparked from being hungry and alone.
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Author’s note: Hagglethorn Hall and Creech are not mine; kudos to anyone who knows their significance. Also, I apologize for not much happening in this chapter; it was mainly exposition to show the guys in their new realities, and the actual plot will start to advance more from the next chapter.