Outside Existence

Chapter 4

She knew he was a hallucination. He couldn’t be real. He could not be real. He seems real. And that is it! He is not real, you just think he’s real because you are high on drugs right now and you are just thinking of the people that you love and so, of course, he comes to mind. Since you loved him once, but you don’t anymore. He left you. The hallucination picked up an apple from the table he was leaning on, tossed it in the air, caught it again, and put it back in the fruit bowl, casually. It was unceremonious enough to be offensive and highly bizarre. Then he opened the door and a nurse walked in.

              “Thank you.” The nurse thanked the hallucination.

              “Why is he here?” she asked to everyone who was sane, pointing at him…it…whatever! Everyone turned to where she was pointing.

              “There’s no one there.” Ventured Kiara while Ru, Astah’s mother and Tristan all began to check her for a fever, blood pressure and pulse. Why pulse, she thought, I’m not going to die, probably. She didn’t like this.

              “I think the anaesthetics might still be wearing off.” The nurse offered, turning back around after a long, hard stare at the spot where Astah pointed to. The nurse felt sure there was something that had been there. Oh, yes, they moved the flower pot into the room next door yesterday! That was it. There had been no one there. No one had opened the door for you, er, me. Yes, that was right.

Astah was angry now. That was not fair. That was not funny, despite the smart-ass grin on this hallucination’s face. It’s a hallucination, it can’t have a face! She mentally yelled at herself. Fine. She could play that game. She sat up and felt a touch dizzy. Everyone in the room flocked to catch her.

              “I just want to try and walk.” She declared “I am a human after all, I have legs by which to do so and the rights to try.” She swiftly continued before everyone told her it was a bad idea. She looked at the hallucination, he shook his head, as if to say, “you’re being stupid, but there’s nothing I can do to stop you”. It. It shook its head, if a hallucination can have a head. She swung her feet over the edge, a little dizziness, but it left after a second. She stood up, Tristan taking most of her weight.

              “Tristan.” She insisted. He let go but walked close behind and kept his hand on her back. She held his other hand. She walked to the corner of the room in which the Hallucination stood.

              “Hello there.” He greeted. The amount of attitude this hallucination had! To be so “meh” about everything! He knew no one could see him except Astah and to just treat her so informally! To act so mellow given the circumstances. She nodded slightly, greeting him in a way that no one else would take notice of. She slowly removed her hand from Tristan’s. She moved a bit forward. And then stumbled forward a bit, intentionally, testing him. She was caught by the Hallucination. He gripped her arms. He was warm. Astah could feel him. She could feel the blood that ran through his veins, the hair follicles on his arms, the creases in his hands. She knew that if he was cut, he would bleed. He was not unreal, nor was he human. He was…there was nothing to explain, not that she knew. He was too real to be a hallucination, but he was too unreal to be human, or, entirely human anyway. She looked up, into his eyes. She saw alloy-orange, autumn leaves, just ready to fall to the winter wind. She saw life. It was scarier than anything she had seen yet. Scarier than the Perfect Demon that tried to kill her, scarier than anything that could think of, real or not, alive or extinct, anything she could or could not have imagined. This was not fright, this was not terror. This was the child of horror and despair. It was a He. He was a perfect image of Jami. The same skin. The same face shape. The same hair. But different eyes. Jami’s had been blue like a cloudless sky.

She had no idea how it – he – could exist. First chance she had to be alone with him, she was going to interrogate him. She slowly walked back to the bed and sat down.

              “So, when can I leave?” Astah was trying to put words in the air that may begin a conversation.

              “When the doctors say so.” Her mother replied. There were no other words that were casual enough to start a conversation with. Everyone stared at her, she stared right back. Ru finally realised what was happening.

              “We’ll cover for you at school if you need us to.” She offered, everyone murmured agreement. Astah was so glad she had Ru.

              “And I’ll send food, probably muffins.” Leon offered.

              “Mmm, yay, Leon muffins.” Kiara joked. “We want Astah to get better, not worse.” Everyone laughed, even Leon.

              “Amy just made some yesterday, I was going to take credit, but now that you put it like that, I realise no one would have believed me if I said they were mine” Leon confessed. Amy was his older sister.

              “I would love some muffins.” Astah appreciated food. Food was the best present someone could give a sick person, especially if they were in hospital. Someone’s phone rang. Leon picked up.

              “This is Leon. Yes. Yes. Yes. Why? Fine. Will do. Thank you.” Astah could tell who it was. The police hadn’t been to ask questions yet.

              “Astah, do you mind if we leave? We have to get back. The police-” Leon asked, speaking for the rest of the group as well.

              “Yeah, yeah. Go ahead, I don’t mind. But um, remember it was a costume, ok? And none of you had any idea at the time, right?” Astah made sure. They nodded heads in secret, silent agreement. Ru came over to hug her.

              “I’ll text you.”

              “Don’t worry, I’ll tell you if I die.” Astah joked.

              “She’s cute.” Hallucination stated. She pretended to ignore him. Tristan and her mother were in the room, she couldn’t talk to him.

              “Is it ok if I have some time to myself? Just to process.” Astah asked, they nodded and left. Astah could sense that Tristan knew something was off. Even after all this, he could still sense the way she felt. She loved that about him.

              “Oh, you didn’t have to send the servants away, just for me. So sweet.” He kidded mockingly.

              “Ok. What are you? How are you possible? How did you come to exist? And why are you here?” She started.

              “I am nothing. I am not in Existence. I am nowhere, because I am not in Existence.” He said, the same way one would claim their name.

              “Well, if you don’t exist, why can I see you?”

              “Ah…see, I never said I do not exist.” She gave him a puzzled look. “I simply stated that I am not a part of Existence, well, most of time anyway.” He declared. Her expression remained. “You are a major part of my…profession, and if you make another mistake like the ones you made the other night, I will be in big trouble.” He tried to approach the situation head on, but her expression told him he needed to ease her into the reality of the world and her relation to it.

              “What?” She was well past befuddled. He silently prayed in hope that she would understand.

“Ok. The reality you think you know all about is actually of part of a bigger picture.” He began “Think of a plane, a flat plane. Now, think of a mist surrounding it. On the plane are things that apply to the 5 senses: trees, animals, people, buildings, objects. This plane is called the Existence. It is what you live in, what you think is the entire universe. In the mist that surrounds it, are things that you cannot see, but you can sort of, feel. Things that are, but cannot be proven to Exist.  That mist is the reason for life. It is the fabric of life. The mist we call Kaligo, I am one of its guardians. There are people or things that can see Kaligo, horses, dogs, ladybugs, those sorts of things. You can usually get a handful, maybe even six or seven people in Existence who can feel Kaligo. The best time is when you get a person or two at most at a time, and they can see Kaligo. They develop the ability over time, usually beginning with a major life event that triggers you to it, like a staple to a piece of paper. The event also defines what section of Kaligo you see, for you, I’m guessing, it was someone abandoning you?” H      e asked. She just looked away.

“You can see the pain, the hurt, the anguish.” He sympathised. She looked at him, and she came to see disbelieving reason.

“This can’t be real! You’re screwing with me! Where are you from? Why are you here? Why me?” she asked, despite the fact that he just answered each of her questions.

“Oh, great, you’re a logical one, aren’t you?” It was more of a sarcastic “Aren’t I lucky?” as opposed to a question. She had no answer. She didn’t really need to have one.

“Well, I’m just going to have to prove it to you, aren’t I?” Again, this was not a question. He paused, took a deep breath, his chest enlarging to an inhuman size, and he exhaled.

He exhaled a noise. It sounded like the sort of thing you imagine a Viking war-horn to sound like, yet with more power and less sound. It was loud and commanded all your attention. It was the sort of thing that teachers wanted and needed to use, but weren’t allowed to, because it might actually make the class pay attention for once. You could hear that the laws of physics did not apply to these sound waves. These sound waves did not hit the walls, they went past and through the walls, they echoed across distant mountains and over foreign streams, they denied every force of nature and put red crosses on every rule of distance in time, space and energy. It didn’t hurt your ears, like you would expect something so loud to do. You just knew that it was loud, like it had skipped your ears and just inserted itself into your brain.

“What was that?” she questioned after the sound left, the sound would still be bouncing around for  long time, past different regions, for centuries before they died out. You could tell they were more than the displacement of air particles, they were like a culture of their own, almost alive, but without a physical body to inhabit. They were completely outside anything humanity had ever known, thought or imagined.

“That, was what’s called a Kallivoca, it resounds throughout the Kaligo, it shakes the Existence and Kaligo together for a moment.” He explained. She believed him now, no human thing created, seen, or sensed by man could have been made to do that.

“You haven’t told me why you are here.” She reminded, weary of his purposes.

“Well, you intrigue me. There hasn’t been a person who can feel the pain for some centuries. And no one has managed to stay even somewhat sane after the voices come.”

“So, you are here to watch me go insane?” She sneered.

“No. I’m here to help stop that.”

“Oh, well that’s fine then.” She allowed sarcastically. She smiled at him. He was getting somewhere.

              “Why do you look like Jami?” She asked, afraid of the answer.

              “I’m guessing Jami is the one who abandoned you?” He answered her with his own question “I don’t really get to choose what I look like to you. I appear as whatever the cause of a person’s connection to the Kaligo is, it’s complicated. The way you get around it is by not seeing me as part of Kaligo, by separating your mental image of me from Kaligo entirely. It’s like looking at glass, at first you see what’s beyond the glass, but you have to focus on the glass itself looks like, to see it, rather than what is beyond.” He looked at her, slightly worried that it wouldn’t work, but overcome with hope that it just might. “Try to see me as I am. I have orange eyes.”

              “Yeah, alloy orange.” She agreed, he smiled at her, she blushed. “That’s the only difference that I could see.” She had an unusual urge that prevented her from looking at him. She didn’t know why. Get a grip girl! She forced her cheeks to cool and her eyes to meet his. She blushed again. She began to see his tousled hair, dark brown with a hazel shine. She began to perceive him clearer, a much narrower face, straight nose, high cheekbones and a wide, defined jaw. His shoulders were broader and even his clothes changed. He wore a dark grey shirt, black jeans and a dark green jacket. He was good-looking. There was no denying that. STOP BLUSHING!

              “I can see you now.” She finally said after a thick thirty second pause and a second glance just to make sure. Yeahhh, to make sure, that totally why, not bec-, said one part of her tauntingly, SHUT UP! yelled another.

              “How do I look?” He asked slowly turning.

              “You look…different.” She replied, not able to anything else for fear that she might squeal with unnecessary, unwanted and unexplained girlish excitement.

              “Different good, or bad?” He asked. He could see her glowing red cheeks, but he pretended not to, simply so he could keep prodding, see how far he could push her.

              “Well, you certainly don’t look like Jami.” She dodged, it didn’t work. He just had to tilt his head, and she had to give an answer that would satisfy him, she couldn’t run from it, so she might as well pretend as if it were nothing. “You look good.” Saying it somehow made her feel better, but she blushed an intense amount harsher. She was going to have to get that fixed.

              “Thank you.” He bowed, not taking his eyes off her, his charming smile refusing to cease. He looked up suddenly, not at her, but at something else, something that wasn’t in the room. His smile disappeared as if it were a part of a magic trick, it was replaced with a defiant stare and a tight jaw.

              “Sorry, I have to go. I will see you soon.” He farewelled, declaring it as if he knew it for fact. She felt like the words were directed to her, but had a meaning that someone or something else was receiving. Far away, Rex received.

              “Wait, what’s your name?” She asked, just before Tristan walked into the room. She made a desperate endeavour to mask her fear that he had heard her, the not-Hallucination didn’t even flicker his eyes from hers, he just stood there.

              “Ekan.” Ekan smiled his inflaming smile. She needed to stop blushing, it was damaging to her physical and mental well-being. She should have told Tristan about Ekan, about the whole thing. But she didn’t. She didn’t want to for some reason. Because you don’t understand it entirely yourself, you don’t want to sound like an i***t trying to explain something you don’t understand, can’t prove and may very well be thought of as insane for believing. She liked this reasoning. You like that reasoning because it means that you don’t have to admit to yourself that you want to keep it to yourself. You don’t want him to know about the “good-looking” a.k.a very handsome multi-dimensional being that understood your pain and wants to help you. She was seriously starting to dislike the little voice in her head that kept being right. Ekan had vanished.

              “How are you doing?” Tristan asked, genuinely concerned, he knew something was wrong

              “I’m ok.” She answered the question his voice asked rather the one his eyes asked, he realised she was doing it on purpose.

              “What’s wrong?” He asked with his voice this time.

              “Nothing” Astah wasn’t necessarily lying, she was just avoiding giving a full answer, he knew it.

              “What is going on that I don’t know about?” Tristan was getting tired of having to ask questions that she always told him the answer to before he even formulated the question in his brain.

              “A lot I imagine.” Now she was just being a smart-ass, it felt as good as it did foul and uncomfortable, it was like eating butter or fat-fried bread.

              “Astah…” He trailed off, she was wearing his patience thin, it wasn’t funny. He was asking her honest questions and she replied with sarcasm. He respected honesty. He didn’t like it when others didn’t.

“Yes?” She hadn’t been this annoying to anyone, except Hara, for years.

“C’mon, what’s up with you?”

“Drugs?” She prompted hopeful he would buy into it.

“What, do you think I’m stupid?” It was a bad question to ask someone who was clearly in a smart-ass mood and not thinking and very tired and not thinking, at all.

She shrugged. He’d had enough. He wasn’t angry as such, just confused and worried. He knew those emotions were going to turn into anger very soon if he didn’t leave.

“Ok, you’re probably tired,’” He began to get up “And I think you’re not thinking straight, so I’m going to leave before you say something that we’ll both regret.” It was a wise move, he just wasn’t sure why he had to do it. He could feel the concentration of secrets in the air. It always hangs like a dirty, wet, thick woollen jumper on a weak wire coat-hanger.

“Wait, I’m sorry.” She prevented him just as his hand touched the doorknob “I’m just not sure what’s going on, and I am tired.” He looked at her, the annoyance leaking out of him and soaking into the air.

“Ok, well, unfortunately I don’t understand any more than you do.” He admitted. Yeah, I know. I realise that I know and understand far more than twice what you do. How much you know depends on how much I tell you, Astah thought, she couldn’t believe her own sass today! “I’ll just let you rest, huh?” He suggested.

“Ok.” She agreed. He smiled kindly and walked out.

              “Are you actually tired?” Astah jumped slightly at the unexpected sound of Ekan’s voice. She turned to see him in his appearing spot. He chuckled lightly at her shock, it was a gentle, melodious laugh. Astah joined in.

              “You could at least try to be subtle about it.”             

              “What’s the point of that?” He joked

              “Well, you might keep me alive for one.” She offered. He laughed again. She had made him laugh. She smiled.

 “I thought you said you had to go.” Astah reminded.

              “I did.”

              “I thought that meant you had something to do that might take a while.” She explained the reason for her inquiry.

              “It did, it’s just that time is something that doesn’t really apply to me. I went, did what I had to do, came back at almost the same time I left. Most things that apply to humans only apply to me when I want them to.”

              “‘She could put time on and off like an overcoat. Rules that applied to everyone else, like gravity, applied to her only when she let them’ that sort of thing, yes?” Astah quoted

              “Terry Pratchett, nice, word-for-word too, impressive, and incredibly accurate to my situation.” A grin spread across Ekan’s face and admiration bloomed in his eyes, it made her need to force herself to not blush. It was difficult. “He had a better understanding of the universe than most of the Guardians did.” Not blushing was becoming a near impossibility, it became impossible when you started, because when you start blushing, you don’t stop until the cause of the blushing departed.

              “Have you met him?” Astah asked, realising that this was entirely possible.

              “Sort of,” he said, unsure if “met” was the correct term to use in this situation. “He was friends with…my…ermm…I guess you could call him…Dad?” he continued, even more unsure

              “I guess we’re not talking about ‘Dad’ in the sense that he passed down half of your genetic material.” She ventured.

“No,” Ekan laughed “He’s really more like a leader. He tells us what to do and stuff, but we sort of treat him as a father. He’s more of a father than a dad, if you get what I mean…” He said awkwardly. She laughed jollily.

“What’s so funny?” He begged with a curious smile.

“You can explain the fabric and nature of reality with barely a stutter, but then you cannot wrap your head around what counts as a dad.” He saw what she meant and grinned at her stunning sense of logic.

“But I get it. He is a dad, but he just doesn’t care as much, so you feel distant from him?” Astah offered, he nodded.

“You got one of those?” He asked, trying to spur on the chat.

“Nah, my dad introduced to Pratchett as well. As in, introduced me to his writing, not to him.”

“Oh, yeah well, when I say I met him, I more mean, I saw him talking with my…Father a few times and whenever he was around Rex would tell me to go away, even if the news I had was really important, whenever he was around, he sent me away.” Ekan was lost in his memories, but he had to be careful. She understood him. She could imagine it. Somehow, she wasn’t sure, but somehow, she could see two indistinct figures that didn’t have any distinct colour or shape that revealed anything except that they were two male humanoids, one much broader and taller than the other, about 60 metres in the distance, in a different room, but with no physical walls in between, like the rooms were just different areas. The lack of floor or background, other than mild, light, blurred colours – mostly blue – told Astah that this was no simple place, nor was is really Existent. This was not something her memory or even her imagination could come up with.

“That’s one of your memories? Isn’t it?” She questioned, astounded at the memory and the clarity of the memory, the entire concept that she could clearly see one of his memories.

“Yeah,” he answered bashfully, taking an interest in the humorous floor. He looked at her, his eyes slightly ashamed and hopeful. They pierced her. She turned away from his stare. “I can project my thoughts, or memories, all Guardians can.”

“My dad is actually one of the best people in Existence.” She praised, trying to distract herself by going back to a previous topic. “Ok, slight exaggeration, but he is an amazing person. He taught me a lot of things that school didn’t have the time to.”

“That’s my mum, I didn’t really have school.” He agreed.

“My mum was the more, ‘take care of’ type, the kind that support and encourage their kids. The sort of  Mum that stays up until midnight to help with homework, and still be patient with you in the morning. The mum that always listens, even if it’s stupid and non-sensical. There is a five-year age gap between each of her children. So, there’s always some major life event going on for at least one of us; being a child, being awkward, puberty, becoming an adult, becoming independent, getting married, having a kid. I respect her for her total resilience.” Astah truly did admire her mother. Her mother had taken on the world and made it look like a pair of wings.

“That must have been fun for mum,” Ekan joked.

“I would imagine so, really depends how you define ‘fun’,” Astah joined in “but I’m not sure I would want to know for myself how fun it was.” They laughed. She finished laughing and had minimised the blood flow to her face before she looked up and realised Ekan had gone. He could have at least given her some warning. She realised he hadn’t left…He was still there, she could feel him in the room. She just had to…fade into Kaligo.