Anunnaki chapter 2, second draft

 

chapter 2

 

"One man's civilizations is another man's jungle" -The Rutles song: piggy in the middle.

 

"stepping out of the realm of history and into the realm of coincidence." - Don Delillo.

 

1

 

A sizzling egg, Butter bubbling around it in a frying pan, and a thick slice of wheat toast cooling on a plate on the counter nearby. The tourist was wearing an apron. His large flashlight eyes emitting ever so subtle light.

 

Teki with his scaly skin and lean muscle shaping and reshaping itself with every movement of the arm attached to his hand, flipping or prodding the egg with the spatula, as if in ritual seduction of the cooking down of Sam's dreams. That of the newly chosen passport that he knew still did not believe he was anything but a hallucination. He began to sing the song that would eventually wake Sam up from a physical hibernation called a Xanax induced delirium.

 

The song rang out (reverberated) in the house as every word carried in the key to the melody of the old Beatles standard in my life. He sang, "there are places I remember all my life, though some have changed. Some forever, not for better, some have gone, and some remain." His voice was warm, but not his own. It was the sound of nostalgia, no; It was not the sound of direct remembering. Of his lost little friend, the octopus alien, he had also cooked down much like the breakfast for this woman. Though for an entirely different purpose.

 

Sam woke to an alien melody that reached her brain before reality could comprehend it. All of the world was that of a hangover, and she didn't like it—thoughts of remembering her 'supposed' interaction with some demonic extraterrestrial. Overwhelmed her mind with a dream-like recollection that seamed so truthfully the side effect of being doped with LSD that she could not humor any other explanation. However, a familiar voice came from the stairs, a song that made her want to cry. A song from somewhere similar to her world, but it was also different from her small world of indentured labor and church factories with a pastor that pushed drugs as sexual coercion.

 

She walked down the stairs doing her best not to make a noise, each subtle step a cartoon pantomime of secrecy, startled only by the voice stopping from singing to say, "come on, you know I am real; let's talk, I made breakfast."

 

She, one stumbling, shaking foot after the other, made her way to the table and sat down.

 

"so, what do you want more than anything?" Said Teki.

 

"Most of all?" Said Sam.

 

"go for it, live dangerously." Said Teki

 

"Alright, I want to know why this is happening to me." Said Sam.

 

"all in due time, The important thing for right now is we need a covenant

so we can get going." Said Teki.

 

"like a contract?" Said Sam.

 

"Yeah." Said Teki.

 

He sat down the plate after placing the egg on top of the toast it held. Sam took a bite, a mouthful of buttery egg white and savory toast.

 

"Can I have anything?" Said Sam.

 

"Yes, but just once, so make it count," said Teki.

 

She thought about it, "can you make me not miss the drugs? Can you make me not want them?" she said.

 

"Yes. Can you dedicate your life to being a passport?" said Teki.

 

"why not? I am not doing anything with my life? Why shouldn't you have it." Her voice was almost a whimper.

 

"You don't belong to anyone, Sam. Being a passport is an occupation for life, but that is all it is." Said Teki.

 

 

 

 

Episode 2

There was a storm on the way. The clouds of the edge of the distance were black and fat with thunder and rain. The sky was written in a negative as if by flashes of light. You could see the opposite of the world with each flicker of a roar.

 

"so," said Sam, "it is possible."

 

"yes," said Teki. "This isn't some monkey's paw's bullshit., I can give you what you want."

 

" So, tell me again. What exactly do I have to do?" Said Sam.

 

So Teki explained, "It is simple enough. 1, the world trigger is the word Anunnaki; after we make a blood covenant, then it will transform you into a passport. 2 you will stay as a passport for twenty-four hours or until we visit another part of the zoo. 3 it will take a week if we don't jump to another section of the zoo for you to be able to become a passport again. But if we do jump, you will revert to your natural state (which is to say as you are now). 4 When you are in an Anunnaki form, you will be a walking demigod, what shape you take and what it is capable of depends on the person (which is to say you). 5 once I enter into a blood covenant with you, then I will rely on you for protection from you for our travels. My power with fuse with your soul, and I will be as fragile as you are now. I must emphasize I will only be able to revert to my pure form and a form that inspires semblance of similarity to you (or, as you have seen me now)."

 

"OK, I am down, let's get on with it," said Sam

 

Teki took a thumb a pierced it with an index finger claw. Then he reached out to Sam for her hand. Seeming to hesitate, she finally reached out, and he poked her thumb with an index claw.

 

"ouch," she said.

 

They then grabbed hands with their bleeding thumbs pressed against one another.

 

"is that all?" said Sam.,

 

"I am afraid so, now make sure not to the world trigger unless you or I am in danger. Or I tell you I am ready to leave." Said Teki.

 

"What if I leave you behind?" said Sam

 

"It doesn't work like that. There is a button that only I can push. But remember, If I die, you lose your power, so it is in your best interest to keep me alive." Said Teki.

 

"Damn, you didn't mention that. So when I become an Anun... Use the world trigger. How will I know how to use my powers?" Said Sam.

 

"You may not have any, besides if you do, they will manifest themselves organically. And I have seen some who have no powers for ten years then display a new one (though that is generally in the presence of another tourist)." Said Teki.

 

"other tourists?" Said Sam.

 

"Yes, Sam, of us, there are many. Also, how do you feel?" Said Teki.

 

"I am OK, I guess. Is there a reason why you ask?" Said Sam.

 

"Nothing, I guess I did my job better than I thought." Said Teki.

 

Later that day, Sam called the Preacher and told him what he could do with himself. (hint: it involved fucking off.) Though technically, he didn't pick up, and she ranted on into the voicemail box. She was still cussing when it stopped recording mid-sentence.

 

Teki Tried to persuade her to leave then, but to his frustration, she felt she needed the closure of telling the Preacher off to his face. If only cause the last time she offered him any resistance, he forced himself on to her. He had driven over to her house, cussed her out, and took what he wanted. She still remembers the sudden shift of his persona, from friendly creep to violent sadist. So she went out to wait for him.

 

Episode 3

 

 

Black clouds overcast, with rain coming down like some kind conviction of the spirit that gloom was eternal. The world was not quiet today. The world was a landscape orchestrated by echos on the tin roof of the front porch. The world was alone in its defiance of shame in the broken spirit of the young women who sat on the porch: listening and watching.

 

Her thoughts lingered on a past too painful to name that came back to her in impressions, of swirling potential identities as if she was in the center on a tilt a whirl with doors instead of seekers of escape from a social world. They disappeared one by one. Till a slow lingering stop came to the ride, and she saw the door before her, and it was painted black. It opened on its own accord and swallowed her, and she saw a path that narrowed as it seemed to deepen. Alone now, with a sourceless light shining on her. She moved forward too numb to a world of coincidence and hurt to judge her steps, on and through the darkness.

 

An old beat-up truck slinging mud and gravel came up the slight slope of Sam's driveway. Its roaring grinding and bad muffler the only thing other than the rain. The sound was that of a screaming face on a TV tuned to a dead channel or the devils slandering you through the speaker of an old arcade game. Red and crackling away with rust spots, and a white strip looked like it was painted with a paint roller (awkward asymmetrical swerving like an unsteady hand with purpose).

 

It pulled into the front of the house, with Sam still on the porch swinging. Uncurious as she was, she seemed different but the same. As if a new woman, like a woman freshly baptized in the shadow of a God. One tired leg pushing her gently, the other propped up in the seat meant for another. The rusty truck stopped, and a man stood there, opening an umbrella after slamming the driver seat door.

"hi, Sam." said the Preacher.

 

"You better leave," she warned.

 

The Preacher stood there, not believing, then walked up the stairs a consistent rhythm reminding all that the truck was only a vessel for his fury and looked at her as she is slow swinging on the porch swing.

 

"Listen, you little slut," said the Preacher. He was turning red in the face. But his voice was calm if desperate as he said, "You are about to be out of the only road to get what you need. You are about to be out in withdrawals of the wilderness without any help or path to getting better. So what you are going to do is go inside and suck dick so you can still get what you need." He grabbed the hair on the back of her head with his left hand and threw his umbrella to the far end of the porch (swinging oddly and without grace to the resisting wind before slowly dropping to a rest). Smacking her with his right hand so hard she could taste blood and burning on her left cheek.

 

"I am warning you one last time...you better leave," she said.

 

Furious, he pushed her face against the crotch of his jeans and said. "you are suitable for one thing, and you are going to do it till I am tired of you. You." His voice cut off, replaced with a scream of disbelief and terror. He looked down at the teeth pinching through the jeans and locking closed on his crotch and started hammering her face with a fist of lite desperate punches. And the eyes that looked into his without fear. Pulling against her teeth, he felt half a nut splintered with a canine. And the head of his penis like it had just been sealed in a rapidly closing mousetrap.

 

When she opened her mouth, her eyes were desperate as his. As Preacher kneeled on the ground grabbing at the red stain between his legs, chanting, "you crazy fucking bitch." Sam stood up and said, "you are not going to be missed by a single person." Her voice quivered with fear at what she was doing, but there was no hesitation to the conviction. Then she looked at him with pity and said: "I will make it quick." She whispered the word (the world trigger), "Anunnaki." And standing before him was an insect-like ancient astronaut with armor-like skin that was green and yellow and made you think of a bee with its giant eyes but with three horns all pointing backward, making her face recall a falling star.

 

She picked him up by his neck and punched his face watching his head go tumbling and rolling across the yard. The blood was oozing up and making slick her grip, so the body fell on the porch, lifeless and staining the white patio, then she went looking for her friend Teki.

He was sitting at the table reading a paperback copy of Gravity's Rainbow. When he saw, he said, "did you tell him off?" his legs were crossed at the knees.

 

"No! I killed him," said Sam, her voice sounded like it was coming through a distant AM station on a cheap radio.

 

"Do you feel better? Did you tell him off?" Said Teki.

 

"No! I killed someone." Said Sam.

 

"We live and learn; if you feel guilty, then don't do it again." Said Teki.

 

"I killed him do you not fucking get it what I am telling you." Said Sam.

 

"Not quite; it sounds like you are in shock. When people get power, they change Sam. But they only ever change to their real character; they transform into whatever their wish was." Said Teki.

 

 

"I didn't want to be an addict; I didn't want to be a killer." Said Sam.

 

 

"If it makes you feel better or worse, I don't care, but I wish you weren't a killer, either Sam, but if you are, then so what? Though we should probably leave soon, May I take this book with us?" Said Teki.

 

"Let's get the fuck out of here. Where are we going?" Said Sam.

 

"Don't know, But we will soon enough. Can you turn around?"

 

She did, and he pressed a button on her round turtle-like shell of her back. Placing the book inside the winge spread cavity where her spine should be, then jumping, transforming back into the black cat she had first seen the night before. Hitting a button inside of her with his paw, the wings closed, and they jumped. There was an explosion that shook the glass but didn't break the windows. They were floating in electricity and darkness coming out the other side, like being shot towards a tunnel with a cannon.