Asylum Seeker - Chapter 1

    I’m line dancing with the angels and the demons when the downtown trolley announces its arrival by clanging its bell loudly, annoyingly. The zydeco music dies down as she floats from the trolley and over the sand, radiant in her diaphanous moon-spun gown and starlight tiara. She glides over to me and somehow manages to whisper over the crashing waves, "Do you know where you are?"
    The angels’ jeweled wings droop and the demons gnash their scimitar teeth. They know the answer to that question.
    I glance up at the zeppelins scattering propaganda in a sky gone double deep magenta as the twin suns set simultaneously on a tilting horizon. The flocks of leaflets flash rainbow colors in the slanting sunbeams, twisting and twirling in an updraft, unsure whether to enlighten the masses of the Edible City or the rock people frolicking in the surf. “But I like it here,” is all I can manage.
    She nods knowingly, eyes full of patience and understanding. “Yes, yes, I know, sweetie. You visit some wonderful places, don’t you. I’m looking forward to hearing about this one.” Then, “But where are you really?”
    I sigh and look down at my two left feet, trying to think of something else to say that will forestall the inevitable. But nothing comes, so eventually I offer lamely, “I’m back at the hospital?”
    “Gooood. Very good,” she coos, flashing that tremendous smile that freezes everything, everywhere. “Time for your medication, sweetie.” She pulls a glittering wand out of her sleeve and reaches out to tap me on the head with it.
    Somehow, with extreme effort, I manage to sidestep the wand, which sprinkles stardust down onto the beach. A patch of sand dissolves, revealing what looks suspiciously like white linoleum underneath. “These demons have got no rhythm!” I blurt out. “That’s what makes them demons!”
    But my epiphany bounces off her adorably furrowed brow and crashes onto the linoleum, breaking back into two pieces, one black, the other white. The humongous smile is not quite so smiley now. “Looks like we’re gonna have to up your dosage.”
    I look plaintively over at the Glass Guru, who has, of course, politely stopped calling the dance. But he just smiles, shrugs, and then shatters into a gazillion shards of multi-colored light which blow away on a warm breeze that has sidled up out of nowhere.
    I try to move again, but the wand is already there at my forehead. “Now stop moving. You don’t want to make me mad.” And I know that this is very true. “That’s my boy,” she purrs. “Now swallow.”
    That dreadfully beautiful stardust sparkles down on me as I turn to wave goodbye to the demons and angels. But they’ve already forgotten about me as they square off, this time not for dancing, but for the Eternal Battle. Through the grim fog that is enveloping me, I grasp at a fuzzy gray memory drifting out of reach. Weren’t we learning something different?
    But the world is already crumpling into darkness…

    She turned out to not even be a she.
    But first, there was light. White and too bright, so I closed my eyes and found that they were already closed. I tried to cover my eyes with my hands, but I couldn’t seem to move my arms. “Will somebody please turn down the sun?” At least my mouth was working.
    “Doesn’t sound like you’re quite back here on earth with us yet,” came a brusque reply. Rough, masculine, but not unkind.
    “Maybe that’s because this world is so much dirtier and uglier than all the others. And too damn bright. Can you do something about the light?”
    “Why, there are plenty of nice things in this world. Take for instance, light switches.” There was a small click and the light dimmed a bit. “Now isn’t that a nice invention?”
    “Ah yes, great things, switches. You’ve got switches for electric chairs, switches for nuclear missiles,” I opened my eyes a crack, letting them adjust to this blurry world. “And let’s see, how about horse switches in mid-stream, gender switches, and switches for the backs of slaves.” Then he came into focus: a black man in a white uniform. I winced, “Oops. Sorry ‘bout that last one.” I became acutely aware of the fact that I was lying in a bed as he stood over me.
    “No offense taken.” He chuckled and smiled. It was a nice smile, genuine even, but it couldn’t freeze everything, everywhere. (But his frown, as I dimly recalled, did have a similar effect.) “You were shouting something about demons back there,” he continued, “Doesn’t sound like it was such a nice place after all. Besides, I keep telling you, this here is the real world. It’s the only one we got.”
    I was about to bring up Chuang-tse’s famous quandary Am I a man dreaming I’m a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming I’m a man, but I realized that I had probably already mentioned this before. Many times. Besides, something was nagging at the edges of my memory. Something important, I was sure, but it lingered in the shadows of my cloudy mind, just out of reach. So instead, I offered, “You looked better in a moon-silk gown and tiara.”
    His face lit up. “Well who doesn’t?!” and he let loose a deep booming laugh that reverberated off the bare walls and seemed to shake my bed. I remembered that I liked him. After a while the seismic activity subsided and he wiped at his eyes as he caught his breath. “Man, the stuff you come up with!”
    I thought about telling him of his beautiful wand too, but the annoying half-memory kept harassing me. Something in the other world. Something that had significant implications…
    “I can’t wait to hear the rest, but I’ve got to finish my rounds.” Another big smile and a wink as he turned and headed for the door. “Now you give me a holler when you’re ready to play nice with everybody and we’ll see if the doc will cut you some slack and let me take off those restraints.”
    I squeezed my eyes shut hard, trying to remember. I almost had it now. Something someone said…
    And then it came to me. “Hey, Carter!” I yelled as he headed down the hallway. “Did you call me ‘Sweetie’?!”
    And again, that bellowing laugh roared down the corridor, shaking the walls, shaking the world.