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Leaving the Asylum

They argued about whether to close the heavy gates behind them. In the end, they left them open. The metal groaned as it sat ajar, rust flaking from its hinges.

“Are we all here?” Anya asked. Now that they were leaving, she felt in charge again—or at least, she needed to be. If morale slipped, things would unravel fast. She scanned the group, counting them off.

“Mikhail,” she started, pointing. “Tala. Vera, our esteemed historian.”

Vera sniffed. “I prefer genealogist, thank you very much.”

“Petro,” Anya continued, “probably about to grumble.”

Petro scowled. “I was thinking.”

“Jian, our mystery man.”

Jian raised an eyebrow in acknowledgment.

Anya turned to the next two. “Ah, the twins. Even though you two have never spoken, I’ve always assumed you understood me. Don’t prove me wrong now.”

The twins—Luka and Lev—nodded and grinned at exactly the same time.

“Then we have Yulia… no, we don’t have Yulia. Where in God’s name is Yulia?”

“Here I am!” Yulia’s voice rang out as she jogged back toward them, breathless. “I just went to say goodbye to the cat.” She sighed dramatically. “I wish we could take him. Please, can we take him?”

Yulia was short and quick-moving, her restless hands always in motion, her thoughts spilling out just as fast.

“We can’t,” Mikhail said firmly. “And he can look after himself.”

She huffed. “Well, I expect we could if we tried.”

“And finally, old Gregor, who I gather would rather be taking a nap.”

Gregor, who was well past eighty, rubbed his face and yawned. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

Anya frowned, scanning the group again. “Wait. We’re missing Finja.”

A small scraping sound came from behind them.

Finja stood near the gate, furiously scrubbing the rusted metal with a rag she had pulled from her sleeve. “This place is disgusting,” she muttered. “Filth everywhere. The world may have ended, but that’s no excuse for grime.”

Anya sighed. “Finja, leave the gate alone.”

Finja gave it one last wipe before tucking the rag away with a huff. “Fine.”

Anya shook her head. “That’s eleven. No one’s run off or died yet. A promising start.”

They formed a motley crew, each carrying as much as they could manage. Mikhail pushed a battered cart, loaded with scavenged supplies—blankets, tools, whatever food they had left.

The road beneath their feet was cracked and uneven, roots breaking through in places. They followed it in silence for the most part. Even Yulia remained quiet. Some glanced back, but no one turned around.

The nearest village was more than fifty kilometers away. In all directions, there was only wilderness—fields long overtaken by weeds, trees pushing through cracks in forgotten roads. A skeletal signpost leaned at an odd angle, its lettering long since faded.

“It’s going to be dark soon,” Mikhail said. “And the old ones are tired. Aren’t you, Vera?”

“That’s enough of the old business,” puffed Vera, pulling her shoulders back.

Tala laughed. “Well, I must be an old one. I didn’t sleep a wink last night. And there’s a clearing over there.” She pointed.

The evening was cool, but they managed to build a small fire and scrape together a meal of vegetables they’d brought from their garden.

After their meal, they sat around the fire while Finja busied herself tidying up. “Dirty savages,” she muttered under her breath. Then, more loudly, “We should keep watch tonight.”

Vera, perched on a log, pulled her shawl tightly around her. The glow from the fire cast long shadows across her face.

“Vera, you look like a witch,” Yulia declared. “We should have brought the cat for you to ride on a broomstick together.”

“I’ll have you know I’m descended from witches,” Vera replied. “I know none of you think you’re related to me, but just imagine what your great-grandparents would say if they saw us now. Running into the wilderness like a band of exiled aristocrats.”

Jian, seated nearby, smirked slightly. “My great-grandparents were rice farmers.”

Vera brightened—Jian never talked about his past. She leaned in conspiratorially. “Do you know your full lineage? Because I do. I know mine back fourteen generations. You’d be amazed how many bloodlines cross without people realizing.”

Tala shook her head but smiled. Like Petro and Gregor, Vera had been at the asylum for many decades, a relic of another time. She claimed to have been a private investigator and genealogist in her former life.

Petro, hunched over and rubbing his hands by the fire, muttered, “We’re all ghosts now. Doesn’t matter where we came from.”

“Oh, stop that, Petro,” Anya admonished. “Remember our plan?”

“We go to the city,” Jian said. He rarely spoke unless he had something worth saying. “There will be things left behind. Maybe tech, maybe supplies. If I can get into an old server, I might even find something useful.”

“And if there’s nothing?” Petro moaned. “We should never have left.” He clasped his hands over his head.

Jian shrugged. “The world doesn’t erase itself overnight.”

Mikhail nodded. “We rest tonight. Tomorrow, we head for the city. And Finja’s right—tonight we take turns keeping watch.”

They sat in silence, watching the fire burn low. The evening stretched long and uneasy.

The Asylum 2050

They had been talking about leaving for a long time.

Not in any urgent way, not in a we must leave now kind of way, but in the slow, circling conversations of people who had too much time and not enough answers.

Those who had left before them had never returned. Perhaps they had found something better, though that seemed unlikely. Perhaps they had found nothing at all. The first group left over twenty years ago—just for supplies. They never came back. Others drifted off over the years. They never came back either.

The core group had stayed because—what else was there? The asylum had been safe, for the most part. It had become home. Overgrown now, with only a fraction of its former inhabitants. The walls had once kept them in; now, they were what kept the rest of the world out.

But the crops were failing. The soil was thinning. The last winter had been long and cruel. Summer was harsh. Water was harder to find.

And so the reasons to stay had been replaced with reasons to go.

She was about forty now—or near enough, though time had softened the numbers. Natalia. A name from a past life; now they called her Tala.

Her family had left her here years ago. Paid well for it, as if they were settling an expensive inconvenience. She had been young then—too young to know how final it would be. They had called her difficult, willful, unable to conform. She wasn’t mad, but they had paid to have her called mad so they could get rid of her. And in the world before, that had been enough.

She had been furious at first. She tried to run away even though the asylum was many miles from anywhere. The drugs they made her take put an end to that. The drugs stopped many years ago, but she no longer wanted to run.

She sat at the edge of the vegetable garden, turning soil between her fingers. It was dry, thinning. No matter how deep she dug, the color stayed the same—pale, lifeless.

“Nothing wants to grow anymore,” said Anya, standing over her. Older—mid-sixties. Once a nurse, before everything had fallen apart. She had been one of the staff members who stayed behind when the first group left for supplies, but now she was the only one remaining. The others had abandoned the asylum years ago. At first, her authority had meant something. Now, it was just a memory, but she still carried it like an old habit. She was practical, sharp-eyed, and had a way of making decisions that others followed without question.

Tala wiped her hands on her skirt and looked up. “We probably should have left last year.”

Anya sighed. She dropped a brittle stalk of something dead into the compost pile. “Doesn’t matter now. We must go soon, or we don’t go at all.”

There was no arguing with that.

Later, in the old communal hall, the last of them gathered. Eleven of them.

Mikhail leaned against the window, his arms crossed. He was a little older than Tala. He thought a long time before he spoke.

“How many weapons do we have?”

Anya shrugged. “A couple of old rifles with half a dozen bullets. A handful of knives. And whatever rocks and sticks we pick up on the way.”

“It’s not enough to defend ourselves,” Tala said. Petro, an older resident who couldn’t remember life before the asylum, moaned and rocked. “But we’ll have our wits about us,” she added, offering a small reassurance.

Mikhail glanced at her. “We don’t know what’s out there.”

Before communication went silent, there had been stories of plagues, wars, starvation, entire cities turning against themselves. People had come through the asylum’s doors shortly before the collapse, mad with what they had seen.

But then, nobody came. The fences had grown thick with vines. And the world had gone quiet.

Over time, they had become a kind of family, bound by necessity rather than blood. They were people who had been left behind for reasons that no longer mattered. In this world, sanity had become a relative thing. They looked after one another, oddities and all.

Mikhail exhaled and pushed off the window. “Tomorrow, then.”

Elara — December 2021

Taking a few steps back in order to see if the makeshift decorations were evenly spaced, Elara squinted as if to better see the overall effect, which was that of a lopsided bare branch with too few clove studded lemons. Nothing about it conjured up the spirit of Christmas, and she was surprised to find herself wishing she had tinsel, fat garlands of red and gold and green and silver tinsel, coloured fairy lights and those shiny baubles that would sever your toe clean off if you stepped on a broken one.

It’s because I can’t go out and buy any, she told herself, I hate tinsel.

It was Elara’s first Christmas in Tuscany, and the urge to have a Christmas tree had been unexpected. She hadn’t had a tree or decorated for Christmas for as long as she could remember, and although she enjoyed the social gathering with friends, she resented the forced gift exchange and disliked the very word festive.

The purchase of the farmhouse and the move from Warwick had been difficult, with the pandemic in full swing but a summer gap in restrictions had provided a window for the maneuvre. Work on the house had been slow and sporadic, but the weather was such a pleasant change from Warwick, and the land extensive, so that Elara spent the first months outside.

The solitude was welcome after the constant demands of her increasingly senile older sister and her motley brood of diverse offspring, and the constant dramas of the seemingly endless fruits of their loins. The fresh air, the warm sun on her skin, satisfying physical work in the garden and long walks was making her feel strong and able again, optimistic.

England had become so depressing, eating away at itself in gloom and loathing, racist and americanised, the corner pubs all long since closed and still boarded up or flattened to make ring roads around unspeakably grim housing estates and empty shops,  populated with grey Lowry lives beetling around like stick figures, their days punctuated with domestic upsets both on their telly screens and in their kitchens.  Vanessa’s overabundant family and the lack of any redeeming features in any of them, and the uninspiring and uninspired students at the university had taken its toll, and Elara became despondent and discouraged, and thus, failed to see any hopeful signs.

When the lockdown happened,  instead of staying in contact with video calls, she did the opposite, and broke off all contact, ignoring phone calls, messages and emails from Vanessa’s family. The almost instant tranquility of mind was like a miracle, and Elara wondered why it had never occurred to her to do it before. Feeling so much better, Elara extended the idea to include ignoring all phone calls and messages, regardless of who they were. She attended to those regarding the Tuscan property and the sale of her house in Warwick.

The only personal messages she responded to during those first strange months of quarantine were from Florian. She had never met him in person, and the majority of their conversations were about shared genealogy research. The great thing about family ancestors, she’d once said to him, Is that they’re all dead and can’t argue about anything.

Christmas of December, 2021, and what a year it had been, not just for Elara, but for everyone.  The isolation and solitude had worked well for her. She was where she wanted to be, and happy. She was alone, which is what she wanted.

If only I had some tinsel though.

The first one to find the bar buys the drinks, Darius had said, and they’d all laughed, but it was no laughing matter being lost in those woods.

Siiting on a cushion on the floor surrounded by cardboard shoeboxes and piles of photos and letters, Elara leaned towards the lamp to better see the photograph.  The white bull.  

Lucien had refused when Elara asked him to do a painting of the white bull, and then relented and said he would. But he hadn’t, not that she knew of anyway. The incident had happened the year before the pandemic, the spring of 2019. Not long before they all went their separate ways.  Elara had been visiting her father in Andalucia for his 90th birthday when a neighbour of his had told her about the stone in the woods.  She knew the others would be interested and had invited them over; her father Roland had plenty of room at his finca overlooking the Hozgarganta river, and had no objections.

Darius had wanted to bring those people to see the pyramidal stone in the woods, and Elara was having none of it. I was told in private about that, I shouldn’t have shown anyone, Darius, not even you, she had told him.  Resentfully, Darius had tried to argue his point: that it was for the greater good, shouldn’t be kept secret, and how could he keep it from them anyway, they would know he was hiding something.

You may not be able to find it again, look at the trouble we had. You might get attacked by wild boar or fall off a precipice into the gorge, Amei added, not relishing the idea of sharing the discovery with those people either. She couldn’t help thinking it wouldn’t be a bad thing if those people did disappear without a trace. Darius hadn’t been the same since getting sucked into their cultish clutches.

They had lost their way in the gloomy trackless forest trying to find the stone, impossible to see further than the next few trees.  Increasingly alarmed at the boar tracks and the fading late afternoon light, Elara had suggested they give up and try and retrace their steps, rather than penetrating further down into the woods. And then suddenly Lucien shouted There is it! That’s it! and there it stood, rising above the tree canopy, the sharp grey stone sides contrasting gloriously with the thick tangled foliage.

Rushing towards it, they fanned out circling it, touching it, gazing up at the smooth sides. Solid stone, not constructed with blocks, its purpose indecipherable, astonishingly incongruous to the location.

Look, we need to start making our way back to the car, Elara had said, It’ll be dark in a couple of hours. 
Amei had helped her convince Lucien and Darius who were reluctant to leave, promising another visit. Now we know where it is, she said, although she wasn’t sure if they did know how to find it again. It had appeared while they were lost, after all.

The scramble back to the car had been no less confusing than the walk down to the stone, they only knew they had to go uphill to find the unpaved forest road.

Squinting as they emerged from trees into the sunlight, a spontaneous cheer was immediately silenced at the sight of the white bull lying serenely by the site of the road, glowing like white marble, implacable, wise, and godly.
Is it real? whispered Amei, awestruck.

I wonder if Darius ever did take those people there, Elara wondered. It had never been mentioned again, but then, things started to change after that.  So many things were left unsaid. Elara had never been back, but the white bull had stayed in her mind perhaps more even than the stone pyramid had. I wonder if Lucien ever did that painting of it?  Elara propped the photo up behind a candlestick on the fireplace mantel. Now that she was retired, maybe she’d do a painting of it herself.

Jeezel tilted her head, scrutinizing the frame with the practiced eye of a social media sorceress. The lighting was perfect—each flickering hue of orange and blue cast an ethereal glow over the witches’ relaxed forms. It was the kind of aesthetic her followers adored: ancient mysticism meets futuristic chic. The “techno-witch” hashtag would trend for weeks.

She whispered a quick spell under her breath—just a touch of glamour magic to ensure the shadows curved flatteringly across their faces. Never leave it all to filters, she reminded herself. Technology might be powerful, but spells were eternal.

As the camera hovered over Eris, Jeezel panned dramatically, emphasizing the stiff pose that made her friend look like an extra from an undead fashion campaign. “Timeless and terrifying,” Jeezel murmured approvingly. Frella’s melancholic pout came next, her expression so perfectly tragic it might summon a thousand sympathetic comments. #WitchSadGirlAesthetic.

And Truella—oh, Truella. Jeezel stifled a laugh as she zoomed in on the haphazard limbs sprawled across the pod, her fingers angled like she was trying to signal something in a forgotten language. Maybe a plea for help from the gods of symmetry.

“Goddess-tier content,” Jeezel whispered as she adjusted the selfie stick for the final shot: a dramatic sweep across the room, showing the full ambiance of their enchanted retreat. The subtle hum of spells harmonizing with the VR pods’ whirring was audible in the background. She imagined the caption now:

“Modern coven vibes; Ancient spells, virtual worlds, and one unforgettable vacation. #TechnoWitchLife #VacationMagic #TimeTravelGoals”

Perfect. Another masterpiece to feed the algorithm.

With a satisfied smirk, she hit “post” and leaned back into her own pod. Her followers would marvel at the blend of mystique and modernity—and probably try to copy the look themselves. As the first comments rolled in, Jeezel couldn’t help but think, The real magic these days isn’t just in the spells we cast—it’s in the stories we tell.

It was impossible to sleep in the octobus, despite that Truella always found it easy to drop off while a passenger on various modes of transport. Unlike the usual gentle rocking of a bus or train, the tentacular motion resembled a slow roller coaster, and the interior walls were slippery. Tactile my ass, she muttered, this is revolting.   Truella felt her stomach heave when a steward brought a round tray covered with a glass dome, full of unspeakable fishy things to nibble.  At this hour of the morning!

Jezeel wasn’t enjoying it either, her boots had an unfortunate attraction to the slimy interior and kept sticking. It took a great effort to pull her foot up to change position and made a disgusting squelchy noise.

“Sit still, will you? You’re making me sick with those slurpy noises!” Truella glared at Jezreel.  “Take the bloody boots off why don’t you!”

“I’m not putting my stockinged feet on that, what if it pulls them down?”

“When’s the last time you had your stockings pulled down, sweetie?” Eris said with a sly grin.  Frella tittered in the background, momentarily distracted from her angst about the party looming ahead.

Malove came rocking up the aisle, uncharacteristically beaming with pleasure.  “I knew you’d all enjoy it!” she said, apparently believing that they were.  “Are we all feeling tactile and tender? Soaking up the harmonious healing?  Feeling the fullness of environmental resonance? Good!” she said, oblivious to the pained expressions of the four witches.  “You’ll be delighted to know that I’ve asked the driver to take the long way round, via Dublin.  We have plenty of time.  No!” she said, holding up a hand with a smug smile, “No need to thank me. You all deserve it.” And with that she slithered off into the slippery depths of the strange vehicle.

The perfume, ‘Liz n°5’, was to have been Frigella’s piece de resistance. In her spare time, she diligently crafted it, adding all the usual witchy razzmatazz: notes of night jasmine here, a dab of moonflower there and perhaps just the smallest whiff of hemlock to top it off.

With the help of her familiar, Quillonia, she also wove the potion with her intentions; powerful and ancient spells which would would offer the wearer protection from harm; Liz n°5 was to be the olfactory epitome of Frigella’s magical prowess! She aspired to do more than just freshen up a room; she intended to fortify spirits, boost morale, and ward off influences that might lead their little group of witches into harm’s way. It was her way of doing a silent, scented good, like a secret benefactor in a tale of old.

Frigella hadn’t told the other witches she was working so hard on the perfume. Even when Malove berated her for the excessive time she was taking to produce anything, Frigella had held her silence. Inwardly though, she bubbled with excitement as she imagined how she would unveil her perfume to the doubting Malove and the other witches. She could all but hear their oohs of admiration and gasps of appreciation. At last Malove would surely be convinced of her worth!

So when Malove had announced her own plans for a new line of incense, and summarily whisked them all off to the carnival in Rio, Frigella was deflated. And the sense of despondency lingered, even once back at home in Ireland. When she expectantly sniffed her sample of Liz n°5′ , hoping to rekindle her enthusiasm, Frigella discerned it had lost its magic.

“I’m done with stupid perfume making”, she confided to Quillonia. She was seated outside in the garden of her small cottage, enjoying the last of the day’s sun while Quillonia snuffled around in the leaves. “Malove can stick it,” she added, and giggled guiltily. She sounded like Truella.

Quillonia’s rustling stopped and her quills shimmered brightly. Her bright little eyes stared intently at Frigella.

Frigella listened attentively. Quillonia’s quills only turned that particular shade of violet when she had something especially important to convey.

“Oh, you say I should bottle what makes me truly happy?”

Aunt Idle:

There’s nothing quite like the morning of the cart race, watching for the dust anouncing the arrival of another van or cart full of people on a partying mission, there’s something in the air, well dust mainly after awhile.  Yes I know there’s a lot to do with all the extra people but Finley can manage and nobody will expect much from overworked staff anywhere today anyway.  I just love catching the first sight of a decorated cart and people in costumes, you have no idea how monotonous the attire around here is.  People of all ages, too, that’s what I love about it.  Some people been coming for as long as anyone can remember, they came back when it started again, and some of them never took their masks off, nobody ever saw them without masks and you can bet your bottom dollar they’ll be here later, they always turn up.  You won’t catch them with their mask off though.  Always see some new ones. Every year new ones turn up, and then we never see them again, like pop ins they are.   Some of them stick in your mind, oddly enough.   There’s one in particular I’m always keeping an eye out for, got a cart all decked out like a pirate galleon, and barrels of rum instead of lager.   Maybe I’ll get lucky this year and get a ride in the pirate galleon, you never know. Anything can happen in a dust storm after a lager and cart race.

Georges had always thought going out into space with the spacesuits generated by Jorid was an exhilarating experience. The tight fitting suit and gloves were full of sensors that could transmit different kind of sensory informations to the brain. Pressure, temperature and the fluctuations of the Boodenbaum surface field. It was a lot like feeling the surface tension of water and moving in space with these suits was as easy as swimming in a warm ocean.

The light of the star gave Georges’ white suit a green hue. There was no doubt they were back in the Alienor system after 14 years. The Jorid was currently orbiting Duane, not very far from there, Georges could see the twin planet, Murtuane. But no sign of Phrëal anywhere. His helmet speakers started playing “In the Hall of the Mountain King” by Edvard Grieg.

“Jorid,” said Georges, “what are you doing?”

“I thought it was fitting for such a grandiose moment, Georges. The sensory information about your body tells me you’re filled with nostalgia and awe at the sight of your home planet.”

“It’s not my… forget it. What am I looking for?”

“Likely a small creature, the size of a rodent from Earth. I can fell it run about the greenhouse where Salomé is taking care of her sweet pea plants from planet Attalyi. It seems to have developed an interest in her activities.”

Georges glided over the curved hull toward the giant window Jorid had manifested for Salomé’s little experiments. She wanted to grow alien vegetation in an intersticial environment kept in stasis in between dimensions to spice up the dishes from the replicator. He hid behind one of Jorid’s spherical gravitational wave sensor.

“I can see the creature. Is Salomé aware it’s spying on her?”

“Negative. She required not being disturbed during her experiments.”

Georges pushed a button on his wrist keyboard. Beethoven’s fifth symphony started playing. Georges pushed the same button again. The track changed to Mozart’s “Little Night” music.

“Jorid, the wristboard is malfunctioning. Can you stop the music and activate the cloaking shield for me ?”

“Negative. The creature is creating of interferences.”

“How? Wow!? What the …”

A creature the size of a marmoset had landed on Georges helmet and was licking the glass, using its gecko fingers to stick it. An image formed into Georges mind : Salomé stroking the creature in the green house and calling it Sand’Rin.

“I think she likes you,” said Jorid.

Despite the old man’s endless flow of words, Youssef couldn’t get him to explain what he meant about the abandoned mine and why the town’s people didn’t like people sneaking around and asking questions.

Not wanting to waste more time, Youssef walked to the brick building where the twins had disappeared. It was crammed between the telegraph station and a grocery store. The door had been walled with red bricks. They were covered in faded graffitis and layers of torn-up posters. It seemed obvious the wall had been there for quite some time already.

The old man was sticking to Youssef like glue, talking about that time when his now dead brother took in an old cat he called Phineas. Youssef tried to growl him away, but the man always came back, persistent as a cloud of mosquitoes over the promise of a blood feast.

Youssef tried not to pay attention to him. What did AL said about that quest ? Go ask questions around to town’s people about odd things happening ? Well there were plenty of those things happening. Maybe the clerk at the telegraph station would know something, especially how to get rid of that old man.

Youssef pushed the door and entered the telegraph station, leaving the old man outside. The interior was lit with a collection of old style tungsten lamps hanging in a random pattern from the ceiling. 

The clerk was busy sorting out a pile of telegrams. Clickety-clack. Clickety-clack. He lifted his head up. The noise stopped and Youssef realised the young man had mechanical hands.

“Welcome, welcome, welcome! What can I do for you today, my friend?” asked the clerk.

“I just wanted to…” started Youssef.

“Wait! Don’t tell me. I’m a bit of a psychic myself and I already know what you’re here for.”

“Really?”

The man foraged through his pile of telegram with his mechanical hands and picked one. He looked at it for a few seconds.

“My friend, you’re in luck today!” he said, looking intently at Youssef. “I just received this telegram that I think might interest you. Here, take a look!”

Youssef took the paper and started to read aloud : “Words spoken by the talkative will unlock the path. Seek those who chatter and unravel the clue. What the…?” 

“Interesting, isn’t it? That’s a real head-scratcher, if you ask me!”

The door bell rang and the old man entered, holding his sore ribs. 

“Get out, Phineas. You’re not welcome here.” said the clerk with a frown.

The old man looked at the clerk with an air of confusion before turning to Youssef. “What did he say? Who’s Phineas?” he asked.

Ignoring the question, Youssef tried to steer the conversation back to the telegram. “What does this mean?” he asked the clerk.

The clerk stroked his chin, looking thoughtful. “Hmm, well, it seems to me that you have a certain magnetism for talkative people. Perhaps that’s the key to unlocking this riddle.”

Youssef’s eyes widened in surprise. “What do you mean, magnetism?”

The old man interjected, “For sure! You’re like a magnet, my boy. I can’t seem to stop talking when I’m around you.”

Youssef rolled his eyes. “So, what do I do? Just wander around town and wait for someone to start talking?”

The clerk nodded. “That could be a good start. But if you’re looking for something specific, you might want to try Betsy when you wake up. She’s got a boutique of Gems and Rocks. You seem to like them rocks,” he said pointing at the black obsidian. “Found it in a mine?”

The old man’s eyes lit up. “Ah, the old mine! I’ve been there before, you know. My brother used to work there before he died. Strange things happening there.”

Youssef’s interest was piqued. “What kind of strange things?”

The old man leaned in conspiratorially. “There’s a magnetar hidden in that mine, my boy.”

“Shut up! Phineas,” interrupted the clerk. “If you want my advice, stranger, don’t go near the old mine. ‘Curiosity killed the cat’ if you know what I mean.”

The telegraph receiver started to make clicketing sounds. The clerk read it and looked at Youssef.

“You’ve got a message man. Time to wake up.”

“Wake up?”

Youssef opened his eyes and looked at a black mass in front of his eyes. He had been sleeping with the stone just beside his head on the pillow. No wonder he had had weird dreams. He heard his phone buzz. He sat up reluctantly and looked at his phone. 8am. A notification that his game progression had been saved and several messages from Miss Tartiflate, the last one saying :

Don’t think you can dodge work. I’m still expecting the last blog post you’ve been paid to write!!!”

He groaned as reality was starting to catch up.

On her way back to her room Zara picked up a leaflet off the hall table about the upcoming lager and cart race. Before starting the game she had a look through it.

The leaflet also mentioned the competition  held annually each January in Port Lincoln. The Tunarama Festival was a competition to determine just how far a person could chuck a frozen tuna. A full-fledged celebration was centered around the event, complete with a wide array of arts and cultural displays, other participation events, local market stalls, and some of the freshest seafood in the world.

There was unlikely to be any fresh seafood at the local lager and cart races, but judging from the photos of previous events, it looked colourful and well worth sticking around for, just for the photo opportunities.

 

Apparently the lager and cart races had started during the early days of the settler mining, and most of the carts used were relics from that era.  Competitors dressed up in costumes and colourful wigs, many of which were found in the abandoned houses of the local area.

“The miners were a strange breed of men, but not all cut from the same cloth ~ they were daring outsiders, game for anything, adventurous rule breakers and outlaws with a penchant for extreme experience. Thus, outlandish and adventurous women ~ and men who were not interested in mining for gold in the usual sense ~ were magnetically drawn to the isolated outpost.  After a long dark day of restriction and confinement in the mines, the evenings were a time of colour and wild abandon; bright, garish, bizarre Burlesque events were popular. Strange though it may seem, the town had one of the most extensive wig and corset emporiums in the country, although it was discretely tucked away in the barn behind a mundane haberdashery shop.”

The idea was to fill as many different receptacles with lager as possible, piling them onto the gaily decorated carts pulled by the costume clad participants.  As the carts were raced along the track, onlookers ran alongside to catch any jars or bottles that fell off the carts before they hit the ground. Many crashed to the ground and were broken, but if anyone caught one, they were obliged to drink the contents there and then before running after the carts to catch another one.

Members of the public were encouraged to attend in fancy dress costumes and wigs.  There were plenty of stationary food vendors carts at the lager and cart races as well, and stalls and tents set up to sell trinkets.

After Youssef retrieved his luggage in Alice Springs, he was swarmed with freelance tour guides trying to sell him trips. You would buy a ticket out of any one of them just to get rid of the others, he thought. With a few hungry growls, he managed to frighten most of them, with a touch of indifference he lost the rest. Except one. A short Indian looking man wearing a red cap and a moustache. He seemed to have an infinite talkative energy at his disposal, able to erode the strongest wills. The temperature was hotter than Youssef had expected, here it was the end of summer, and he was hungry. The man started to get on his nerves.

The list of tours was endless. Uluru, scenic bushwalking trails, beautiful gardens, a historical tour, a costumed historical tour, a few national parks, and even his cousins’ restaurant. He reminded Youssef of his own father, always offering guests (and especially his visiting kids) another fruit, a pastry, some coffee, chocolate ? You sure you don’t want any chocolate? If the man was tenacious, Youssef had had training with his father. But this man seemed to mistake silence and indifference for agreement. Did he really think Youssef was going to buy one of his tours ?

“The ghost town! You have to see Arltunga, said the man. An old mining ghost town, certainly an American like you like ghost towns. And buried treasure. Arltunga has buried treasure somewhere. You can find it. I know where to find a map.”

Youssef wondered if it was another one of the game’s fluke that his quest was apparently bleeding into his real life again. And if there was a map, why hasn’t the treasure been found already? He checked at the back of his mind for the presence of that crazy old lady. Nope, not there. He decided to refuse the call this time. He just wanted to get to that F…ing Fish Inn in Crowshollow and meet with his friends.

“NO, he growled, frightening a group of tourists passing by, but not the tour operator. No ghost town! We have plenty in America.” Thinking of the game and his last challenge for the previous quest, he said in desperation : “I just want to find a red scarf!” and he knew inside himself and many years attempting to resist his old man, that the short Indian man had won.

“If you want to find a red scarf, you go to Silk Road, said the man bobbing his head. My cousin’s shop, you find everything there only.”

Youssef sighed. He thought there were only two ways to take it. The first one was that he had fallen into a trap and try to find a way to get out of it. But it might be sticky and uncomfortable for everyone. So he decided it was the other way around and that it was part of the game. Why wouldn’t he use this as an opportunity for adventure. Wasn’t that what Xavier always said about roads less traveled ?

“Where is your cousin’s shop? he asked. And where’s that restaurant of your cousin’s? I’m starving.”

The little man smiled broadly.

“Same place. Two brothers. Shop next to restaurant in Todd Mall. You’re lucky! Follow me.”

The door opened and Youssef saw Natalie, still waiting for him. Indeed, he needed help. He decided to accept  sands_of_time contact request, hopping it was not another Thi Gang trick.

Sands_of_time is trying to make contact : ✅ACCEPT <> ➡️DENY ❓

A princess on horse back emerged from the sand. The veil on her hair floated in a wind that soon cleared all the dust from her garment and her mount, revealing a princess with a delicate face and some prominent attributes that didn’t leave Youssef indifferent. She was smiling at him, and her horse, who had six legs and looked a bit like a camel, snorted at the bear.

“I love doing that, said the princess. At least I don’t get to spit sand afterward like when my sister’s grand-kids want to bury me in the sand at the beach…”

It broke the charm. It reminded Youssef it was all a game. That princess was an avatar. Was it even a girl on the other side ? And how old ? Youssef, despite his stature, felt as vulnerable as when his mother left him for the afternoon with an old aunt in Sudan when he was five and she kept wanting to dress him with colourful girl outfits. He shivered and the bear growled at the camel-horse, reminding Youssef how hungry he was.

“sands_of_time?” he asked.

“Yes. I like this AI game. Makes me feel like I’m twenty again. Not as fun as a mushroom trip though, but… with less secondary effects. Anyway, I saw you needed help with that girl. A ‘reel’ nuisance if you ask me, sticky like a sea cucumber.”

“How do you know ? Did you plant bugs on my phone ? Are you with the Thi Gang ?” 

The bear moved toward them and roared and the camel-horse did a strange sound. The princess appeased her mount with a touch of her hand.

“Oh! Boy, calm down your heat. Nothing so prosaic. I have other means, she said with a grin. Call me Sweet Sophie, I’m a real life reporter. Was just laying down on my dream couch looking for clues about a Dr Patelonus, the man’s mixed up in some monkey trafficking business, when I saw that strange llama dressed like a tibetan monk, except it was a bit too mayonnaise for a tibetan monk. Anyway, he led me to you and told me to contact you through this Quirk Quest Game, suggesting you might have some intel for me about that monkey business of mine. So I put on my VR helmet, which actually reminds me of a time at the hair salon, and a gorgeous beehive… but anyway you wouldn’t understand. So I had to accept one of those quests and find you in the game. Which was a lot less easier than RV I can tell you. The only thing, I couldn’t interact with you unless you accepted contact. So here I am, ready for you to tell me about Dr Patelonus. But I can see that first we need to get you out of here.”

Youssef had no idea about what she was talking about. VR; RV ? one and the same ? He decided not to tell her he knew nothing about monkeys or doctors until he was out of Natalie’s reach. If indeed sands_of_timecould help.

“So what do I do ?” asked Youssef.

“Let me first show you my real self. I’ve always wanted to try that. Wait a moment. I need to focus.”

The princess avatar looked in the distance, her eyes lost beyond this world. Suddenly, Youssef felt a presence creeping into his mind. He heard a laugh and saw an old lady in yoga pants on a couch! He roared and almost let go of his phone again.

The princess smiled.

“Now, wouldn’t be fair if only I knew what you looked like in real life. Although you’re pretty close to your avatar… Don’t you seem a tad afraid of experimenting with new things. “

She laughed again, and this time Youssef saw her “real” face superimposed on the princess avatar. It gave him goosebumps.

“Now’s your opening, she said. The girl’s busy giving directions to someone else. Get out of the bathroom! Now!”

Youssef had the strangest feeling that the voice had come at the same time from the phone speakers and from inside his head. His body acted on its own as if he was a puppet. He pushed the bathroom door open and rushed outside.