Fields of Elsewhere
Chapter 1
A Drunken Lullaby
Andre pressed his forehead against the cool glass of the window in his room. His parent's angry voices drifted upstairs from the kitchen, their argument a raging tempest of hate and fury. He stared out into the night wondering if the fluid he saw was the rain on the windows or the tears running down his face. In either case, the coolness of the glass was a relief to his spinning head. He heard someone running up the stairs, their light footsteps echoing down the hallway that lead to his parent's room. Another person ran up the stairs as a door slammed. Then the pounding began. It was always like this at his house.
His dad was a raging alcoholic and his mother a weak woman who didn't stand up to anyone. It was just his luck that they met each other and had him. As this thought left his head he sighed and turned to throw himself onto his bed. A bolt of lighting split the sky in a blinding flash followed by a peal of thunder. He turned, there hadn't been lighting a minute ago, the storm had merely been a spring shower. He furrowed his brow slightly at this new development; the loud noises meant it would be harder to sleep. His scarce sanctuaries were rapidly disappearing he noticed, he smiled in a vindictive, self pitying sort of way. Then came the noise that made his hair stand on end. Through the wall he heard his father screaming at his crying mother, not surprised by this escalation he threw himself onto his bed. As he landed, he heard a bottle smash on something. His mother stopped crying and without stopping to think, Andre grabbed his worn leather jacket, his wallet, and a small flashlight which was kept on his dresser. He walked to and opened his window and slid out onto the roof and down to the ground. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw the light in his room turned on by his murderous father. Hearing his scream of rage, Andre turned and ran towards the haloed lights of down town.
His shoes splashed in the newly formed puddles on Main Street as he hurried to Madam Equis' Olde Tyme Restaurant. He shook himself off under the canopy and pushed the door open. A bell jangled as a curiously attired Slavic woman appeared from a back room,
"Velcome to Madam Equis' home of ze best kolaches in town...Oh, Andre. Vat are you doingk out zis late?"
Andre merely sat down at a table and stared wide eyed at the strange markings around the edge of the perimeter. There was a clattering of cups and saucers as Madam Equis brought a fresh cup of coffee out to Andre. He smiled feebly at her,
"Thanks Madam E. I just had to get out of the house for a while; my dad was in one of his...moods."
She nodded in understanding. Madam Equis had been somewhat of a big sister to Andre after he had gotten separated from his mother on a shopping excursion. She had found him sitting on a bench looking panicked. Her first name was Janis, but Andre had called her Madam E for as long as he could remember.
She took the seat across from him placing her own cup of coffee in front of her. They sat in silence and sipped their coffee for a moment. She watched his face for signs of what might be bothering him, but she found none. A strange noise drew her attention downwards. It turned out to be Andre's hands shaking. His cup was rattling against the saucer at very loud volume. He suddenly began to speak in a slow calm voice which seemed more to himself than to anyone else. "He killed her. The bastard actually killed her."
He set his coffee down and laid his head on his arms. Madam E walked swiftly to his side and placed a hand gently on his shoulder.
"Who keeled who?"
Andre turned to her, looking at her with a vacant expression
"HE KILLED MY MOTHER! HE HIT HER WITH A DAMN BOTTLE OF FUCKING JACK DANIELS!"
He went back to coffee as Madam E sank back into her chair. He let out for a few ragged breaths before standing up and walking towards the door.
"Thanks for the coffee."
was all he said before stepping back out into the cold dark night.
He felt bad about storming out of the restaurant, partly because he had forgotten it was raining outside. He came to the park in the center of town, a place that he often came to simply watch the clouds go by. He wandered around before sitting down under the bridge that went over the duck pond. It was a dark, damp place and the ground was littered with trash that the public simply left to be blown away to some magical landfill that only the garbage fairy knew about. He moved closer to the water and studied his reflection, gazing at the way it shifted in the ripples caused by the wind. Then the downpour and the wind stopped. For a moment there was complete silence. Then Andre noticed his reflection shift most curiously. His features became stretched, more animal like. He squinted trying to make out more of this curious transformation, not noticing that the hairs on the back of his neck standing up. Then all he knew was a blazing world of white and deafness as a bolt of lightning split the wooden bridge and passed through his body. A breath escaped his lungs in a puff of steam as he collapsed amongst the smoldering wreckage. He strayed out of thought and out of time, the cosmos whirled about him in a seemingly chaotic sense, but as he watched for a minute or an eternity he began to discern patterns that went unnoticed by the everyday world.
Then he felt the pull. An irresistible pull towards a point in space that had escaped his notice until then. He tried to fight the attraction but it was as if some part of him wanted to go. He thought about his predicament, did he stay in his limbo and continue to watch as other beings lived their lives, or did he surrender to the pull and cast himself into the river of fate whose current drew him back to life? He decided that he had grown rather tired of being a spectator and wanted to move on to something other than this half existence. His mind flashed back to some eon in the dim past where he had seen his reflection shift into something more, as if reading his mind the pull shifted and a world came into his consciousness. Then all he knew was blackness and a cool summer's breeze on his face.
He awoke sometime later to the sound of birds chirping and grass rustling in the wind. The sun glinted through the puffy white clouds that floated over, he squinted and looked around. The light sent rods of pain into his head, he blinked once, twice, three times before the pain cleared and he was able to take in his surroundings. He was sitting in a field of grass under a tall oak tree. The field stretched on as far as he could see and then it met the blue sky and continued to eternity. He was over come by a strong desire to run through the fields, perhaps roll around in the grass. He stretched out his legs, his feet had a curious look to them, and his shoes had gone missing. He reached out to feel them, and gasped as his fingers closed around a hard hoof. He gasped again as he noticed that his entire body was covered in a fine blue fur.He reached his face and found that he had grown a muzzle. The best he could tell, he was now a cross between a horse and a human. He looked down again, he thought to himself , "Well, that's one perk of this I guess...." He gazed off into the distance and spotted a small village about a mile away. Getting up, he started to run, or in his present condition trot, towards the settlement, hoping that he would be able to find out where he was, and perhaps, a new set of clothes.