Dark Planet: Shifting

George is an artist who lives and works in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Robby's fiction has appeared in several electronic publications. This vignette was originally published in Chaos.

Now is the hour of our great enchantment. Tassels sway, tallow runs, great purple ripples swell as night winds arise. A slow, dreamed quiet descends the air of the sitting room. The hearth throws a warm smile against us, flashing ember teeth.

We are four. Myself; my raven-haired wife Vanessa, the Lady of the Wood, as she has so proclaimed herself to all of her allured guests as frequently as the scattered invitations they receive; Sir Daryl Hastings, my bass-voiced, sharp-eyed companion of the hunt, resplendent in a smoking jacket of dark velour; his faithful consort of the evening, Naomi the fair, red-headed witch of Wales, holding delicate palms to the fire, fingertips outstretched. At the base of one sits her wedding band. It is her time of pretend.

"What shall we become tonight, my disillusioned, my jaded beyond measure?", I venture, quaffing down a glass of Sir Daryl's fine rare sherry, his latest generous house-gift designed to banish January's bite from our bones. I remind myself to sip. The room has grown a trifle hot. I loosen my collar, and yearn to perform a similar action on Vanessa's. The wine. But, later.

Sir Hastings sighs deeply. "Can we not be Greeks? The warm sun upon my back ..."

"And my bare bosoms!" Naomi, ever the frisk. She leaves a trail of giggles upon the air.

"Perhaps, perhaps," I consider, perusing the vibratory pathways necessary for such a jump.

"Oh yes, yes! A splendid journey!" Vanessa rises halfway from her cushion. "My compliments, Sir Lord."

"Merely a yearning desire to rid us of this wretched winter cold, my dear. Well, Michael, can we manage?" my tall friend inquires.

"A path seems feasible tonight," I assure everyone. "Yet my composure, and therefore my behavior, as I gaze upon the sight of glory unimaginable, I cannot safely vouch for..."

"Love! Shall we touch the golden age? Behold all of the ancient wonders in their heyday?" Vanessa squeals, like a child before her long- awaited pony ride.

I reply: "Twin glories, to be completely accurate."

"Ho, you lecher!" Vanessa's fist forms and sinks playfully into my stomach before I can dodge. Naomi bursts into giggles at the compliment as Sir Daryl guffaws.

"Oof, oof, oof," I muster. "Milady, you damage the only fragile means of escape from our earthly bounds this night. As I recover, we shall all sit and pine away at what might have been. Perhaps, in a week..."

"Poppycock, love of my life." snaps Vanessa. "You shall open the gate before tasting another sip of Sir Hasting's sweet fire, lest I lower my fist a trifle before delivering a second memorable blow. What say?"

My wife begins to threaten with that implement of soft flesh so better utilized. It waves in the air before me. She is not all mock.

"Spare and forgive me, milady. I consent to begin upon the moment. Would I miss such an opportunity, to see my love cavort in a field of bright sunshine, her winter clothes carelessly discarded at the edge of a meandering brook? For that feast the eye, I shall relinquish all other sights of unparalleled beauty to friend Daryl."

"Much better." Vanessa moves closer. "Do you know that I love you?" she asks.

I sigh, with mild ecstasy, with great relief.

"You shall have ample opportunity to express it, whence we arrive," I proclaim.

And so I empty my head, draw the necessary twelve breaths, each slower than the last, and ask as usual that all join hands in a circle on the floor, legs crossed, knees touching. Already I drift, dying the little death. Sir Hastings on the one side, his witch wife on the other, support me. Although my eyes are closed, I know Vanessa is intensely staring, her concern over my physical welfare hindering the shift across time. Yet, as always, she calms, and soon we four aspirate as one.

Tassels hang, slightly swinging. Tallow runs a little more than before. The night winds shudder the great house, billowing the thick fine purple drapes. The grinning fire is safely banked. The dogs and one grey Cheshire sprawl before it, fast asleep. The heat of the flames causes our cheeks, and the back of my head, to burn. I momentarily think of January ice.

And shift us, clean and free.

So we ARE naked. Yet gay robes hang for us inside a tiny marble gazebo. I begin to approach the grassy hill it crouches upon.

Vanessa stands in my way. And points, behind me.

Sir Hastings and Naomi desire not a stitch. It would hamper them. I smile. Yes, the robes could wait.

I have made the sun so warm upon my gyrating back. The grass is soft and woven beneath us, cool where it touches our skin.

We sleep after. I have fixed the sun at mid-morning, and it remains there until we awake refreshed beyond imagining.

We hunger, and the hillside beckons, bursting with wild grapes.

Our robes unheeded, unneeded, we work our way up the slope, stuffing ourselves with purple fruit. On an impulse, in anticipation of a glorious sunset, I have released the sun. It climbs higher in the azure sky, drawing sweat from our glistening bodies.

"Names! The Name Change!" I declare. "You," I point, indicating Sir Hastings, "are now, Inclase!"

"Myself: Rapporto!"

"And my glowing wife shall be...Delaphona! Fair Naomi, care you to name yourself?"

"Nay. You choose so well."

"Very well. Sappea!"

Once with appellation, we all applaud. Silly introductions follow.

The land is ancient Greece, existing on a side-plane devoid of human life. Birds fill the sky, tenderly threading in and out of fleecy white clouds on their way to the sea. Other animals abound in the forests, although we do not know what kind. Since the place lacked temples, I arranged for them beforehand, placing the structures a millennium before. They are authentically aged.

Our bellies engorged, we still thirst. Sappea shields her eyes with a ringless hand, gazing upward toward the hilltop. Placid marble columns beckon.

"That is a place of water," I claim, with all certainty. After all, I had fabricated it, from plane-stuff.

As one, we make the approach, grape-stained hands linked to ease the climb. A worn path guides us. Tiny green lizards dart away as bare feet pad the earth.

Weary, in even greater thirst from the ascent, we wend our way into the cool wafting shadows of the Temple of Fountains, its sandstone pillars rising massive in moody silence above our heads, the vast roof squarely blocking the sky. Behind, swathed dark and thick with tiny- leafed trees, a large mountain looms. The wells inside the temple, artesian.

As one, we kneel in muted gratitude, first savoring the cool damp rounded ledge encircling the nearest pool, running fingertips over pale limestone centuries-worn, before in varied waves of passion stirred from our assault upon the hill, we companions gulp our huge gulps of deep- sprung water from cupped hands.

Cold, gasping cold it runs, released from the deep subterranea far below the mountain's base, out of the open mouth of a sculpted satyr's visage affixed to the rock above the pool. The sound, the wonderful sound of that stream fills our ears, our being. It is the sparkling rush of the world I've made.

Now, cooled and refreshed, we recline.

Shafts of yellow sunlight pierce the roof where huge fragments have fallen in. They lay sullen, like titans in repose, half in, half out of the cool damp earth, too sleepy to arise. The polished temple walls reflect the myriad ripples of all of the fountains in this place. They mingle with our laughter, thrown back our way from the hard gloss. The air tingles good and misty inside our chests. Our chosen stream spouts potently, beautifully from its time-worn portal, forced powerfully by springtime rains the mountain has soaked up, and at its flow we gaze enraptured, when conversation lulls.

Later, I lean against a cooling pillar, watching a sunset of unparalleled quality, bringing with it a new chill into the air.

Inclase/Sir Hastings presently joins me, gazing in admiration toward the west. Our wives are drawing sand pictures with twigs they have found.

"I am afraid, old friend," I confide.

"Of?" The deep voice is a comfort and a consolation.

"That we shall run out of worlds."

"Nonsense! You know as well as I the existence of infinite variety."

"Then it is not the availability I fret over, rather the accessibility. My implant shall one day decay, its power supply dwindle in output."

"That day is a long way off." My friend extends an arm that gruffly caresses my shoulder. "Michael, I see you grow depressed, even in this most splendid of realms. Shall we jump again?"

"Then melancholy shall surely follow, for it exists in the man."

"Is it melancholy? Rejoice, my dear Rapporto! Follow the feeling. It and depression are as apart in depth and meaning as we are from the heath. Where shall it lead?"

"Hopefully, not home. Never home. I would feel as if I betrayed myself." I turn to face him. "Sir Daryl, do not allow me. Spur us onward, ever onward. Do you vow?"

"On the honor of our Queen, fair friend, you have it. Well, where shall it be? I grow cold in this suit of skin."

I sigh. "Back to the sitting room, I imagine. The fire needs tending, and the dogs will be taunting the Cheshires by now, having grown bored and lacking company."

"Suddenly I feel the urge for a longer jaunt. You?"

"Let's discuss it on the morrow, tall lord. We all deserve a quiet, fitting meal, and straight to bed. We shall quit the heath in any case. I've chosen a plane a seemingly endless winter this time. Even the deer shiver. Yet the people thereabouts are accustomed to it, no doubt."

"Of course. It's their world, I must remind you."

Yes, true. I'll inform the caretaker in the morning that we plan an extended journey, and to keep house until we return."

Apollo races steadfastly toward Earth's other side, as Twilight's shawl creeps forlorn over shadow-shrouded hills.

"Perhaps the girls, they might choose some new destination, " I wonder.

"Perhaps. Shall I fetch them?"

"Yes. Quickly now, for I yearn for a crisp roast mutton washed down with some of your bold ale."

"Done, friend Michael, Lord of the Planes. Done."

Back to the Planet's surface.