Parallel

A Journey

The room is not magical. It does not lead to Narnia, it does not transform into a pumpkin, and it is most definitely not a Hogwarts dormitory. It is just a very small, wooden room overlooking the tall cranes of the City Port. But, just because it isn’t magical does not mean it isn’t special. For fourteen hours a day, Schamar sits in the office and draws. He draws whatever comes into his mind, which is exactly what we are here to discuss. We will not explain that during those fourteen hours, Schamar designs a t-shirt or a sneaker or a sweatshirt and spends the following two hours creating an actual model of that item to be sold or given away or worn himself. We are here to discuss what comes through his mind when he draws.

Schamar walked into the room and sat down on the old wooden chair. It creaked under his weight, but it’s hard to blame the chair, Schamar is no small guy. He sat down and finished eating his cupcake, throwing the wrapper in the garbage when he finished. Then he took out a Sharpie and began to draw. He was not thinking, just absently doodling as he sucked chocolate crumbs from his ivory teeth. He felt his throat dry and debated whether or not it was worth it to walk to the kitchen for a glass of milk. It was. Definitely. As he got to his feet a cool scent of blueberries and turpentine spun through his nostrils. It was relaxing, and he inhaled it deep into his chest as pushed open the door to leave the room. But he did not see a long, wooden spiral staircase leading down to the kitchen below him.

Instead he saw blue. Bright blue. Sky blue that burned his eyes until he squinted them in submission. It was sky blue. A perfect sky blue. It was the sky. There were clouds in the distance below him. Pink clouds. Pink and blue and green clouds. Screaming below him. He knew he should be afraid to jump from his room, but he was not. It was as if he had jumped a thousand times before. He leaned forward, closed his eyes, and smiled as his body began plunging down to earth.

He began walking along the green floor. Bouncing high with each step. He approached the clouds. But they were not clouds. They were cupcakes. Pink cupcakes. Pink and blue and green cupcakes. Screaming in front of him. They had looked like clouds from above, but at eye level he could see the paper wrappers holding them together. They were screaming. In terror. There were 100 cupcakes in front him amassed before a large stand with a single cupcake standing on top of it. An ice cream cone was to his left and a glass of milk to his right. The million cupcake crowd was a mass of boo’s with a lone voice on the edge of disparity standing out, crying out, from the rest.

“No!” screamed the blue frosted cupcake. “Not my baby, not my little boy!” Distress was clearly present through the terror in her voice.

A tall official looking ice cream cone stood before the crowd, oblivious to their jeers and proclaimed his message. “This cupcake is found guilty of making eye contact with a strawberry ice cream drumstick, and is hereby sentenced to death by dunking. Executor, if you please.”

The screams of the mother cupcake turned desperate as a wide ice cream sandwich approached the shackled cupcake and lifted him over his head. The young cupcake began screaming for his mother. Shrieking in pain as each crumb fell. The executor climbed the steps to the rim of the glass and stood before the crowd, the sobs of the shackled cupcake the only thing making noise across the silent crowd. In one fluid motion, the ice cream sandwich threw the cupcake into the milk. The shrieks of the young pastry disappearing beneath the bubbles of the frosty two-percent goodness. The crowd remained silent as the mother’s screams of disparity became screeches of terror.

She was on the coarse green turf of the floor, her breathing audible and erratic as two cupcakes surrounded her and whispered soft words of failed comfort. The crowd’s heads turned in unison and Schamar’s eyes were drawn along the path of their gaze. The milk had bubbled.

“The milk bubbled,” said a pink-frosted cupcake silently.

“It couldn’t have,” whispered another.

The crowd was silent. Even the blue-frosted mother had halted her laments in hope, her eyes focused on the lip of the glass, praying to see a few bubbles escape the froth of the milk. They did. Powerfully. At once three large bubbles swam up and erupted from the milky surface, splashing the liquid all around as they exploded on contact with the air, a chocolate cupcake following close behind.

The pastry exploded from the glass of milk, his frosted top falling behind him, leaving his moist brain to glisten in the bright sunlight. Exclamation points and spirals circled his body as he flew up into the sky blue sky.

“Get him!” shrieked the ice cream cone. Instantly the ice cream sandwich leapt into the air, followed closely by other sandwiches in official uniforms. The young cupcake was clearly weak from his escape. His tongue lolling helplessly from his mouth as discolored milk dripped from its tip.

The cupcake flew high over Schamar’s head, eclipsing the sun from his eyes as a lone drop of milk fell to splash across his cocoa hand. Shamar clamped his eyelids shut as he was blinded by the reappearing sun. The moment his eyes closed he felt a strong pull around his spine, forcing him down towards the soft green grass.

But, when he opened his eyes, he was not falling onto lush greenery, but rather tumbling through gray clouds towards a dark city. This was not like his jump towards the cupcakes, he felt different. He felt lead weights pulling on his stomach. He felt sharp knives piercing his mind. He felt fear. As he passed through a cloud the ground below him appeared. It was wet and black and as solid as could be.

The ferocious winds pummeled his body as he spiraled down towards a cold street. Rain was falling alongside him, and as he picked up speed he could feel the drops bursting across his face. The fear tore at his chest as he got closer to the city. Schamar smacked into the deserted street with a resounding thud, and hopped up instantly to survey his surroundings.

He was on a long, dark street, with small lamps lighting its wide sidewalks. Stores on either side of the four car lanes were pitch black and clearly closed. A cool wind rushed towards him and the ground began to rumble. He could hear the turning of gears and the moaning of engines coming from behind him. He dashed to the side of the street and looked behind himself just in time to see several tanks prowling through the road. A piercing metallic noise expelled through the city and hung in the air of the streets for a few moments. The tanks stopped. Soldiers rushed between them and crouched low by their wheels. Suddenly, the sound of powerful metal stretching and moving spread through the cities, and a dark figure appeared high above the cities tall skyline. Lights on the tanks flashed to brightness and illuminated the thing before them. Schamar couldn’t believe it. A robot.

The metal machine towered over the skyscraper’s of the metropolis and a bright light flashed from its chest. A soldier yelled three words in a foreign language and the tanks fired in unison. The force of the blow lifted the robot off the ground and the ground shook more violently than before, throwing Schamar to the ground.

The metallic noise flew through the city again, and this time Schamar could see the fear rippling through the soldiers in the street. The beast flew up and landed a few blocks from the front line of tanks. The soldier tried to issue another command, but was cut off when the robots fist slammed down on the tank, forcing it into the street. Fire and rubble erupted from the collision and red Japanese letters spelled themselves out along the path of the debris. The foot soldiers began firing their relatively small weapons up towards the robot and Schamar could hear the tiny bullets deflecting off the metal. The soldiers began screaming in fear and dispersing through the streets, doing whatever they could to escape the wrath of the robot, to avoid their metallic demise.

The robot snatched two tanks and slammed them together, then threw them at the fleeing army. The robot turned on Schamar, its bright light blasting into his eyes. It extended a metal claw and seized the man by his torso, carrying him high into the sky. The metal arm rose to the robot’s eyes, if you can call them that.

The robot’s grip on Schamar was breathtaking and Schamar beat the metal claw in a fight for air. Losing interest, the robot released Schamar, leaving him to fall hundreds of stories to his death. Schamar closed his eyes, feeling his head lead the way towards the ground with his feet close behind.

His face smashed into a wooden step and his back curved to let his feet follow over him. He was rolling down a spiral staircase. When he hit the bottom he flew forwards into a small table which crumbled under the impact.

He was in his kitchen. He could feel a lump swelling on his head as he lay on the linoleum floor that was painted to look like elegant tiles and looked up the spiral staircase through the open door to a small wooden room overlooking the city’s port. Schamar felt his mouth with his tongue. It was dry and tasted of chocolate, he wanted a glass of milk.

He took a sip of the cool liquid and immediately felt a rush of memories flow through his body. His knees shook. Headless cupcakes and murderous ice cream. Distraught mothers and frothy milk. Bubbles and spirals. Grey clouds and dark cities. Small lamps and huge tanks. Massive robots and frightened soldiers. Metal claws and foreign alphabets.

Schamar dropped his drink and charged up the stairs, ignoring the shattered glass and the frothy milk that now inhabited his tiny floor. He sat down in his creaky chair and selected a black sharpie. He touched it to the paper and allowed the ink to bleed slowly onto the canvas, his mind running parallel to the images now spreading across it.