Next Door Hater (Love Under Lockdown)

I would have stopped there. Satisfied with my small patch of nature, even if I did have to stay on our side, not that it was easy to tell the two halves apart. I would have stayed where I was, but something urged me to go further. A drive as mysterious as it was undeniable.

The duplex stood more or less by itself, in an area well clear of the urban bustle. Too ramshackle to be the suburbs, but too far out of downtown to be properly considered a ghetto. There were fences along both ends and around the back of the duplex. What remained a mystery was on the other side.

Scanning the spread of chipped white paint, constituting the back fence, I found a latch, set on the inside. One of the slide bolt things, painted over the last time the fence had been done, which, by the looks of it, was probably at least a good ten years ago.

The lock held fast, stiffened by time and dry paint. Giving it a bit of a wiggle, I managed to work it loose enough to snap it open, the gate, cunningly built into the fence, creaking open an inch from sheer inertia. Inching the gate even further, I stepped through into the unknown.

A thousand analogies hit at once. Mostly from fantasy stories, both literary and cinematic, The Secret Garden and The Chronicles of Narnia primary among them. Although no lions or snow queens were immediately apparent as I started away from the duplex, into the lush, green woods hidden behind it.

My boots fell rhythmically on the earth, coming into synch with the thrum of the dark and an ancient land. It looked like no one had been there in years, not a single branch broken, or signs warning against trespassing nailed into the tree trunks. As though anyone can actually own nature. It was here before us and would remain long after the last human was dead. Largely ending up the better for it.

It really did make me laugh sometimes, what arrogant monkeys we could be. Some, like Thorne, objected to being called an animal. I was intrigued to find out what he thought humans were. Animal, vegetable, and mineral the only options allowed by natural science. My dad was always well aware of what he was, his spot-on monkey impression making me laugh well into my teens.

Getting deeper into the woods, idly wishing I’d brought some breadcrumbs, I came to a pond that seemed a bit too deep to cross. Looking each way, it. Soon concluding going around wasn’t really an option either. Not on the first time out. Still not wanting to leave, I found a fallen log free of frost and took a seat, breathing in the scene.

Focused on the steady, comforting silence, I closed my eyes as the deluge came. A flood of memories, representing every era of my short life. The sort of flash that usually happens before you died. Going camping with my family, playing games in the park with Amber and Thorne, picking up meditation as a way to cope with Dad’s death. Things didn’t seem so bad when you thought you were somewhere else.

Amber had taught me all about perception manipulation and transcendental meditation when she dove into that world for herself. Giving me books on internal realms and the like. I didn’t really believe in it until I gave it a try. One glimpse was enough. Not to make me jump down the rabbit hole with her, but to convince me that things could change depending on how you looked at them.

It hadn’t been planned, but it rarely was. Sometime during the beginning of the deluge and the end, I’d dipped into my internal realm. Things had expanded over the years, as I’d expanded my mind and gotten more skilled with visualization. What had started out as a simple, but peaceful field, of no particular location, expanding into a lush mountain valley, white caps reaching into the clear blue sky. Surrounded on all sides by thick woods straight out of paradise.

It was nice to get away once in a while.

Chapter Ten - Nate

The phantom rooter haunted my dreams, calling me back the world of the conscious. Once again beating my alarm, which I still only set for the sport of it. Even though the digital version was so far behind as to almost be sad.

Seven jumping jacks later, still in nothing by my jockeys, I got into my tracksuit, ready for some training. The first few days home had been relatively calm, my mind still settling down from the transition out of student life. Hiatus was far from retirement though, and I had to keep up a basic level of fitness for when school started again.

“Morning sleepyhead,” Dad teased as I went down for breakfast.