Vagabond fugue book one chapter one (the awakening)

VAGABOND FUGUE Gypsy D. Sideshow

Set in a virtual platform moments aft blood body has been destroyed, Xand consciousness navigates a new world to regain his humanity.

VAGABON Gypsy D.

ter his flesh and der del Mar’s d in an attempt

ND FUGUE Sideshow

Book One: The Xandromachia Chapter One: The Awakening

X

ander has a recurring dream that he swears is real. He floats in his mother’s womb, arms outstretched, triumphant; rejecting the confines of his fetal curl. Instead of the darkness of an ordinary womb, his is glowing, like the egg-yolk sunset of his grandfather’s lava lamp. In this halo of orange womb-light, Xander’s full head of raven hair rises, kelp-like, defying gravity—

Xander.....Xander wake up... a voice in his head speaks,

Xander...Fade in from the black ink of your consciousness to the blur of swirling orange light. You are underwater, motionless, slowly sinking down. Spent fuel roars ablaze on the surface, like the fluid surface of the sun, an amoeba of fire, Xander...Xander, you are dissolving into the cold and burning sea. You are dying. You are dead.

Silence...

Then, a twitch. A full-body spasm. The white noise of surf—

arp h s e h t , h t a e of his br s s e n e r a ight. w l a s i ’s e r r e e d h n T a . s X h is eyelid h f o e t begins wit c n ane c l o g i n v i l g p n i p i s i r r a w o ound of s e h T inhale, the sl . t s r mast. fi t ’s a r e t n h o g i o l h h c s c y mu ainst a nearb g Blurry. Too a amors l c l i a s s a v s cool i d n i w e h T dribf r u s e h t s a bare s i h r e v o s e l b ithw n e h t , s e o t sand e h t , s w a r d der w o p y l t s i r g a f his o e d i s e h t n o st... face...his che kin, all over his s burned. not ....

Not burned of The brush in the wind ethe trees b e yond him, th d whispere holler of thin , trunked towering trees pine just ping , p i r l e r h t e t e a g o w t a ter. Se a huddled W ? a otters. n e i s a f g o a t d i n s u a o s w amilian m , r like, where a i l i m a f by. The r a e n e r o h s the

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The inhale and exhale of the shor ters crackin e and the c g oysters on hortle of o their bellies memory. X t, a ander cann l u c i d G PS shrapne ot see these ship horn s l of t h i ngs. Not ye ounds. He t. A distant is not maro threads i o n e ts d. The dista nt bellow path of sou nd slowly toward him . His head throbs. Tem ples ache.

The ache a ll the way to the bac ks of his eyes, like th ose hung over morni ngs with, what was h er name again? The shore.

The tide, t he tide? has deposit ed him here. Doe s know how not . Did they actua lly let him go?

Who? Eagerness flows out of his b reath, yet the desire to stand up and see is not s trong e r o n ll himself o ough excep light. The h v t to e r .

S h ields his ey orn bellowi es from the ng closer.

He whispers bread crumbs to himself...

He whispers bread crumbs to himself, knowing that his words are few. His words are fugue. An airplane passes overhead at a low altitude. Buzzing...almost strafing by, then fading away. Then the engine faltering, buzzing, sounding much like those spring wound doorstops in his grandfather’s house. The one behind the bathroom door when he went on his knees to hear the sound while his grandfather was shaving. The wagging buzz until it became stationary, the buzz changing pitch toward the end in a higher urgent whine. Urgent like the place again in the back of his head. A sinking feeling that this is not his memory. Who’s memory?

He fingers the back of his head, behind his neck, what feels like gyroscopic hardware and tubes attached to his skull. Heaviness, blurriness at the touch, as the whine of the spring doorstop engine of the overhead plane grows higher to nothing? A humpback caterwaul? In and out, the fugue state countdown. The desire to begin, to boot up. The desire to rise and stand. Desire not yet big enough to overcome the sagging violence of his eyelids. The desire to just hunker down, stay and slumber. The breezy whisps lulling him back toward silence. Toward his desire to become gravity itself.

An explosion of sound.

The bellow of a cargo ship’s horn upon him.

The shockwave hits his chest in a bending rush.

He feels the vibration in the hardware on his head.

He is alive.

He is most definitely alive.

Xander begins to rise...