gone, nobody else had come above yet, and the scene at the edge of the beach was quiet.
The sun was setting through low hanging clouds on the horizon, illuminating a beautiful orange and pink sunset. I was sitting by myself under some low hanging palms. A pleasant breeze blew in off the ocean and pelicans swept in on calmly curling waves.
I sighed and felt my mind calm and focus itself. Susie really understood more about the nature of pain and suffering than anyone, and truly wanted to help. I knew she wanted to help me.
I stood, trying to decide whether to walk myself home or let Samson do it and get some work done, when Bob appeared. He was walking along the beach alone, looking slightly dazed.
“Hey Jimmy,” he said as he walked up to greet me.
“Amazing. You saved my life. You saved all our lives.” He shook his head. “It’s crazy, but maybe you saved the whole world.”
He reached out to shake my hand, smiling.
“Thanks Bob,” I replied, watching his hand touch my mine.
“Wasn’t Susie just up here with you?” asked Bob, looking around.
“She was,” I admitted, “but she had to go somewhere.”
Bob shrugged and smiled. He looked off into the sunset and surf to watch some pelicans as they used their ground effect aerodynamics to sweep in ahead of the waves, unseen forces propelling them effortlessly through space.
“Hey Bob, I’ve got a slightly oddball question for you.”
“Shoot.”
“If you had to sacrifice your soul to save someone or something,” I asked, “what would that be for you?”
Bob regarded me quizzically. “Well, for love, for Nancy, I guess.”
I smiled. “That’s nice Bob, I thought the two of you…well, anyway, that’s nice to hear.”
Bob smiled back.
“So, still haven’t taken me up on that surfing lesson, big shot that you are now!”
“Maybe one day soon, Bob,” I said, smiling at him, “maybe we’ll do a lesson one day soon.”
He smiled back.
“See you Bob.”
I turned to walk away.
31
“SEE YOU JIMMY.”
Just then Jimmy stopped and turned to look at me. Something was weighing on his mind.
“You were the only person who was ever really nice to me,” said Jimmy after a pause. “I really appreciated that.”
I smiled. Jimmy had always been so awkward. Even with him as the most famous person on the planet, I felt like I wanted to protect him somehow.
“I love you Jim,” I said simply, “we’re brothers, no? I’ll always stick up for you, no matter what.”
“Do you really mean that?”
Jimmy looked like he was about to cry.
“Of course, buddy!”
Jimmy looked down, uncertain now. “I think you and your friends should leave Atopia.”
In my whole life nobody had ever mentioned leaving Atopia for anything. Two
Squinting into the dying sun, I shook my head lightly and shrugged and asked, “Why?”
Jimmy pressed his lips tightly together. “I’m just saying, I think it might be a good idea, and the sooner the better.”
With that Jimmy turned away and walked into the darkness.
32
AS I WALKED away from Bob and into the dark underbrush, I became aware of someone walking beside me, someone new and yet someone intimately familiar.
“Why did you do that?” asked the apparition.
“Do what?” I replied. Curiously, I didn’t even think to ask who had appeared beside me.
“Warn off Bob,” it responded. “I think we need to have a talk, you and I.”
The undergrowth around me gave way to a voluminous, brightly lit corridor. No, it was more than a corridor, it was a long set of huge rooms connected by large square archways, and I was sitting in the middle room, the rest stretching off to both sides in the distance. I was perched on a white wooden chair.
Intricate, sky-blue frescos of angels and cherubs adorned the twenty foot ceilings, bordered by elaborate gold carvings. Ornate, richly decorated furniture was strewn about topsy-turvy and littered with broken bottles, golden goblets, and inert bodies.
Darkly framed oil paintings of men in uniforms, on horses directing battles, hung across one set of walls, while the other wall featured floor-to-ceiling lead glass windows that looked out onto an endless, manicured garden beyond. The garden centered around a long reflecting pool. Sunlight streamed in through the windows between heavy purple velvet drapes that were tied back with gold sashes.
The place stank of urine, and as if on cue, one of the inert bodies came to life, stumbling to its feet as it shuffled towards the nearest corner and began pissing across one of the other bodies.
“Sorry for the mess,” said my apparition, now taken solid form and stretched out before me on a chaise longue. “We had a bit of a party here today.”
He adjusted the frilly white cuffs of his tunic, and then the blond wig whose hair fell in tight curls to frame his painted white face and bright red painted lips. Leaning forward, he smoothed out a wrinkle in his tight black britches and looked up to smile at me self-consciously.
His heavy eye liner had smudged, so he looked slightly comical in a threatening sort of way, and his eyes shone brightly—my eyes.
I sat there, looking at myself.
“Come now, this isn’t that much of a surprise is it?”
I felt uneasy, wondering if this was some splinter or sub-proxxi gone wrong. The party guest that had arisen to relieve itself had finished pissing and turned towards us, blearily rubbing its eyes which then widened.
“The dauphin!” it said, barely audible. It was clearly excited, looking at me.
“What do you want?” I asked. This was all more familiar than I cared to admit.
“Ahh,” said my doppelganger, “it is not what I want, brother, but rather what we want. You and I, Jimmy. And by the way, call me James.”
He affected a tiny bow for my benefit. Several of the party guests had begun to rouse themselves now, encouraged by the first who was whispering urgently at them. The air filled hollowly with the sounds of clinking bottles and bodies coming awake.
“Come now Jimmy,” scolded James, his brow furrowing, “do you really think your rise through the ranks to a position of such power so quickly was all just happy coincidence?”
He smiled widely as he finished saying this, revealing a mouthful of yellowing teeth and large, sharp canines below his glittering black eyes. The waxy makeup on his face cracked as he smiled and he cocked his head playfully.
