Finish the Fiction Story Contest - Week #22

Astral Echoes

Rain bounces off the frying pan streets, dowsing the city’s mid-morning swelter. Bangkok on a Monday screams its frenetic cadence into my sleep-stained head as I leave my apartment for the breakfast of kings. A hastily wolfed helping of Khao Neow Moo Ping and I’m on my way. This meeting is important for my continued livelihood. A prominent business man is convinced he’s beset by demons. 'Fung shui gone wrong', the words of his PA echo in my memory as I hail a tuk tuk and jump in.

“Sa wat dee”. I greet the driver as I scramble into the cramped cabin.

It is advisable to enter your tuk tuk promptly as the never ending stream of scooters can sweep you out and away at a moment’s notice. I’ve seen a tuk tuk's door taken off by one of these suicidal bikers before now.

“Sathon Nuea road please.” Pulling off into traffic, I find myself staring into the frantic smog choked kaleidoscope that is Bangkok. Five lanes of traffic jostle for position as scooters whiz between them, reckless of traffic lights, wobbling with giggling teenage passengers stacked three apiece. The salt-singed smell of frying shrimp and coconut oil mingles with diesel fumes as I sit back into the sticky red foe leather and consider what I know about this particular clients Astral footprint!

A room bathed in a dull indigo with a bed by the wall pulsing with ethereal light. A book sits half open on the bedside cabinet, pages twitching in the gentle flow of my aura. Light envelops this scene, green through to red as my aura shifts with the pulse of the indigo ether. I drift over the open book, a single word jumps out of the page like a lightning bolt ‘FATHER’. It seems to echo in my mind like a scream. I glance to my left and my adversary is still moving through the treacle I’ve set in front of him. I still can’t tell whether he’s human! The impossibly wide smile, desperate and hollow speaks to me of one possessed. A soul lost in the astral, then found by one of Them.

BANG, I spin as the wardrobe door slams open and closed over and over. The noise echoes through me as an icy wind spills from the flapping doors. The indigo glow subsides to a dull shimmer as the room darkens and I turn back to my advisory.

He is there right before me. Mouth impossibly wide the teeth icicles and his breath covers me in the stagnant smell of the swamp as my bones numb and my knees give way. I choke as my breath sticks in my throat and the scene fades to night.

“What are the symptoms Mr Xioin?" His pallid face twitches as I stare into sunken eyes, unblinking, pupils wide. "How do these daemons manifest?”

“The night is where they reside. Between dream and waking. Sometimes I wake from a dream only to be enveloped by a strange light. After, I walk in the wakening world, around my apartment and... everything is enlivened." He breathes in short gasps as he talks. "It’s as if everything has a soul, the lamp, my leather chair even the books call out there stories, words that wash through me like fire." His head dips and rests in the palm of his hands. "There is no rest”

“Go on...” I lower my voice as I watch his body shivering in the pain of memory.

“Then there are the dreams that seem to be reflections of my life. I'm working at the company, except it’s like I’m looking over my own shoulder as someone else performs my daily routine. I’m convinced I’m awake until I actually wake and it feels as if I’ve never slept at all." He stares into my eyes, pupils contracting back to a normal size for the first time since I’ve been here. "Can you help me?”

My heart strains against my chest as I struggle to close my third eye, a dull ache in the center of my forehead. He smiles like a clown, an open wound across his face, mocking me. White mists swirl around us as a landscape forms in the astral firmament, his mind superimposing a tapestry in the space between dimensions. I look around searching for any clue to his nature. Any clue that will help me to defeat him.

My Entry:

Mr. Xioin laughs as a new world opens inside the dull dark apartment high above the city streets of Bangkok. Barren, charred remains of civilization, the sun red through vapors of smoke drifting from the Earth’s floor; truly Hell on Earth.

“You look for my nature so that you can defeat me, Father?” Mr. Xioin made the sign of the cross. Only this businessman had shed his skin of suit and tie. Now 12 feet tall, only coiled as well, a snake hissing in this new environment. All remnants of the Bangkok from this morning removed, now only geological reminders. Had Satan brought him to this new Garden of Eden?

“Unfortunately, you can’t see my nature. I’m nature.” Mr. Xioin (snake form) answered his rhetorical question. “Yes, I’m nature, the rivers and the trees, animals running free. I’m nature Father. And you’re from somewhere else.”

“Well, I’ve lived in Bangkok for the last 10 years. We visited often in my childhood. My Father happened to be a businessman as well, Mr. Xioin. So when an appointment became available I wanted to live here. I have feelings for the culture here,” said the Priest.

“Didn’t mean it as a question Father. You might have realized this exorcism looks a little different. I’m sure you’ve seen A Christmas Carol. Think of me as The Ghost of Christmas Future. You’ve been drawn here. I wanted to speak with you in private.” Said the demon with snake slit eyes surrounded by smoldering symbols ceremoniously displayed.

“What?” The Father now felt that control of this situation had been lost.

“Yes, this interview prearranged since before your birth. You’ve been molded as the vessel to receive the message from Mother Earth. This civilization you’ve become attached to will no longer exist on its current course. You must cease and desist.

Mr. Xioin and his company will no longer produce for you. Please go back to your handlers and tell them they must do the same. And if they will not listen, and call you to account, and replace you with another to get another Mr. Xioin to restart, then this landscape of nothingness will be the future of Bangkok and the world.”

“You must know that’s what they will do?”

“Yes, only if you have a heart and wish to change this course, then go back to where you’re from and plant Hemp. All of your civilization’s products can be made from Hemp. It actually works better. And it’s environmentally friendly. The plastic currently in the Ocean will last a 1,000 years, recycle it for space exploration.

Plastic from Hemp will be biodegradable, even edible. There’s algae, mushrooms, and solar; much better ways of making energy and domestic goods. Mr. Xioin will do the same, and when the time’s right, he will support your efforts financially,” said a Goddess now in a rainforest.

The Father awoke in an alley of Bangkok soaked in downpour.

Thank you,
Cyrus Emerson

Red Roses the audiobook for your consideration at the Voice Arts Awards (NYC), and the Grammys (LA).
https://www.audible.com/pd/Fiction/Red-Roses-Audiobook/B07F2LWHPN

Red Roses narrated by Kira Omans
www.kiraomans.com

Red Roses music by Rike Luxx
www.rikeluxxbeats.com

Red Roses sound by Pond5
www.pond5.com

Also, available from The Author:

Fear and Loathing in the State of Jefferson - ebook
https://read.amazon.com/kp/embed?asin=B079R5KLPN&preview=newtab&linkCode=kpe&ref_=cm_sw_r_kb_dp_GsURAbAVDYNEM

Lost Angel – Introduction with Ray Manzarek of The Doors
https://www.downpour.com/lost-angel?sp=249812