posted
<out on a desolate stretch of nowhere, deep in a long-forgotten corner of Legion World, a train comes to a slow halt. A metal door slides open on the third boxcar and a man is unceremoniously pushed out>
Brakeman: ...and don't let me catch you on here again!
<the train fires up again leaving the lonely Traveler in a cloud of dust. He wearily rises to his feet and, brushing himself off, makes his way to the only building within eyesight: a small dilapidated roadhouse>
<a door jingles open, as the proprietor looks up from the counter>
Proprietor: Well... it looks like you're just in time, friend.
Traveler: ...what? <looks very nervous>
Proprietor: Easy there... just getting ready to close up, is all. Say... are you all right, friend? You don't look so good.
Traveler: I... uh... I'm not sure how I got here. I was... I just... I need a place to rest for a bit.
Proprietor: A place to rest, eh? <looks him over> You don't look exactly flush... you know how to push a broom?
Traveler: I... think so... yes.
Proprietor: Well, then. That there buys you an eight by twelve four-bit room.
Traveler: That's all I need.
Proprietor: I only got a few rules: No phone, no pool, no pets. Oh... and I ain't got no cigarettes.
Traveler: That 's fine. I... uh... don't smoke.
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New? What a laugh. I write that as though I could actually contrast it to something older... but right now everything feels new. If only I could remember more than just these shattered fragments.
I remember the train... of that much I'm certain. The darkness of the car. The slow vibration that signified forward motion. Travel. And the idea that, somehow, that very travel was part of something larger; part of a plan.
But before that... just brief glimspes... only flashes of a life before.
I remember flames...
...smoke...
...a gunshot?
There is something else, though. Something underneath it all; something I can't put my finger on. It's almost like a... procession of sorts. An advancing line, each new station being called out. But the stations are not physical places, they're... god, I cringe even to write this... people.
This makes no sense. Just tear off this page and start over.
No. Everything is valuable, just put it down for posterity and it may mean something later.
OK. Calm down, just stay with it: the procession.
I see it as a series of people. There is a man... innocent... pure... virginal? He is... I don't know, replaced somehow. Superseded? Killed??? The one who now stands over him is a large man. A large... lad? I don't begin to understand this. But then he, too, is killed. He is killed by a man of Steel... or Iron... or... some metal. (The timeline is all wrong, though - which happened first?) Then he, is killed... or not... I don't know... by a smoking man.
But the oddest thing about all of this, the thing I can't shake, is the feeling that they are all one person.
God... are they all me?
Then it's gone. The only other thing I can remember... and even this has no context... are three letters. I see them as monogrammed, as though they are stitched on a fine silk handkerchief:
P.B.F.
Enough! Enough of these ramblings. You're just torturing yourself. Go to sleep, close the book, tomorrow is another day.
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Something is approaching, I can feel it. It's like runaway train about to crash into the station of my mind and the worst part is: I feel like it's a journey I've made before.
Life here at the roadhouse is easy enough. As advertised, the owner doesn't ask any questions... I wouldn't be able to answer even if he did. Stock a few shelves, sweep up in the diner, wash a few dishes. All part of the daily routine that keeps this roof over my head. But, somehow, even these mundane tasks seem fraught with portent. With danger.
The owner asked me today to go to the back and bring up more grease for the deep fryer. I walked back to the storeroom, and sure enough there were the containers, but as I reached for them... I just froze. LARD. LARD. LARD. LARD. Can after can, all lined up. Perfectly harmless... but I couldn't shake the feeling that somehow I had seen them before.
Then, later, after closing, he asked me to write up to the chalkboard for tomorrow's specials. Meatloaf... fine. Liver and Onions...fine. Cobb Salad... that's the one that did it.
I watched myself etching out the letters as though though the hand belonged to someone else: C...O...B... then my hand started shaking.
"C'mon... finish the job!"
The owner shouted over to me, and I realized I had been standing there, staring at the board for quite a while.
"What? Finish the...?"
"The board, dummy! Finish writing up the board so we can close up."
"Oh! Right," I said, shaking off my daze. C...O...B... ...A...? What? "A"? I quickly erased it and wrote the "B," but again I had the oddest feeling that something was amiss.
Even laying here now, writing this up, I can't shake this deja vu.
"Finish the job," he said. "Finish the job." The words keep resonating with me. If only I could remember.
Well... enough for tonight. Long day tomorrow.
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posted
<the Traveler sits on the steps of the roadhouse, watching the sun go down. To any casual observer this is the same man who has been here for the past three days... but look a bit closer. There's something there, in the eyes. An emptiness. An evil. He pulls out a pack of cigarettes and lights one. He looks down at a small book he's holding and laughs.>
Oh, what the hell! I've got some time. One more entry... for posterity, hah!
I had to retreat to the back of this one's mind for a time, to rest. These human husks are so weak. Cobalt... Lard Lad... and now this one, this "Ex"-Exnihil. They wear out so quickly that I can't stay in them for very long. I have to admit, though, this Nihil character does have a bit of stamina.
Even with me taking a back seat... even with his very personality being eaten away from the inside... he still was able to find his way out this far. He still was able to do my bidding.
Oh, I'm not at my final destination, to be sure, but... it is a start.
If I were capable of regret, the one thing I might have changed was the final dispensation of the proprietor of this establishment. He did give me a roof over my head during my convalescence, but, in the end, it was just a matter of poor timing on his part. Of all days he had to pick today to put that item on special.
"Hey there, friend," he called over in his charmingly bucolic accent, "would you mind going back to the kitchen and giving the stew a stirring?"
"The...?" my mind struggled to give the word meaning.
"The stew!"
"Stew?" Why did I know that word? Why was this rage brewing?
"Come on, buddy, it's going to boil over. Go stir the stew!"
Then, all at once it flooded back. I knew who I was! Oh, this body might belong to some absent tobacconist... but this mind! I knew who I was!
"Stew? STEW? STEW!?! I... HATE... STU!!!"
I grabbed the broom and hit the owner across the back of his neck.
To his credit, he did try to rise, so I hit him again... and again... and again. He crawled his way toward the door, and with one final blow, I finished him. He fell on the ground outside, his body still in a twisted caricature of attempted escape. His arm was extended forward, almost comically pointing in a direction far away from me.
In a time so rife with omens and portents I couldn't just ignore this final gesture so, almost as a tribute, I followed his pointing hand.
Across the plains... to the horizon... to... of course!!!
I began laughing. Of course that's where they're going.
Well, travel on, Cobalt; travel on, Lard Lad; travel on, whatever party of do-gooders you have assembled. How ever far you travel, rest assured, I will get there first.
And once I do get there... The Traveler will have no further need of these disposable husks. This time I will pass into Legion World in my own form!
<slams the book shut and tosses it aside. crushes his cigarette and begins walking...
[ March 03, 2009, 08:25 PM: Message edited by: The Traveler ]
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