HUMAN SPIRIT

HUMAN SPIRIT; Ch. 13

“Well,” Leonard started. “If you could help us out, me and my friend need to be Shipped,” he explained. 

“Alright. Hand me your passports,” she said tiredly, and the boys took them out of their back pockets and laid them on the table. She took a moment to identify each one, then returned them to their owners. Sighing, she went to the back of the bar and retrieved an old brown bottle, which seemed to be cracking, and had hints of green mold on the inside. 

Julius made a disgusted sound. The girl glared at him. Leonard put a twenty dollar bill on the table.

“Grab the bottle, Julius,” Leonard ordered. Leonard grabbed the upper-half of the bottle, which sat on the bar, and Julius took the lower-half. The girl then put her hand over the object and snapped her fingers, and the two young men disappeared. The bottle started to fall off the table, but the girl grabbed it just in time.

“Shit,” she cursed, then collected herself.

For the boys, everything was becoming exceedingly bright. It was as if the roof opened up and the sun had flooded the whole pub, after which nothing existed. A familiar high-pitched noise met Julius’ ears, and for a moment, he contemplated it’s origin, but couldn’t remember. Then, he found himself floating over a chasm, and it all became clear.

The waters were terribly rough. They reached out, tried to pull the two men down, but it couldn’t get anywhere close. Everything seemed still, even time itself, and all that could be heard were the crashing of  the waves. Not even a slight gust of wind would blow. 

Peace is best found in simplicity. Yet, even unadulterated, perfection cannot occur. Hardships must always be endured for legends to rise. Darkness must always be present for light to combat it. Evil must always be around for goodness to shine through..

As in theme, peace cannot be defined accurately without the manifestation of chaos. Perfection, then, is impossible.

Soon, light blinded him again, and everything went silent. When his sight was returned, Julius found himself standing outside on the sidewalk. His hands were over his ears, and Leonard was nowhere around him.

Where's Leonard? The thought repeated in Julius’ head and he started to freak out, but not for long; his surroundings were too distracting. It didn’t look like San Francisco at all. There were hundreds of skyscrapers reaching up to the clouds, all crowding around him. And they each carried this uniform quality: they were all sleek, black, and looked as if they were made of granite. The ground was just the same, like an extension of material. It was tiled, and easily reflected the eerie white sunlight and the sky. There were no highway for cars to travel on, but a big gap between the buildings resembled something to the same effect. People were stalking around in suits and held cellular devices to their ear.

The strangest thing Julius noticed was the sky. It was an almost surreal sort of blue, perhaps cerulean, and there was no sun, yet it was bright outside. The clouds sped quickly by, though there was no wind. Like time was fast forwarding. It was this image that made Julius realize he wasn’t in the Existential Universe anymore. He was in the new realm, the Abstract world.

He had imagined this separate world to be slightly archaic, like in medieval times. He thought everyone would live in stone houses with straw roofs. But there was nothing of the sort here, only business. A man in a pinstripe suit bumped into Julius and walked busily on, not even caring to apologize. 

Where was Leonard? The question was brought back to the forefront of his mind after he had assessed his surroundings. Did they get "Shipped" wrong? That’s the term that Leonard had used in the bar. And thinking upon it, where was the bar, anyway?