Marvin jerked his head away from the cup and the yellow steam that swirled out of it. Its fishy smell triggered waves of uneasy memories that lay concealed in his mind behind several crates of programs from the Bozeman Symphony and glass still waiting to be recycled. To a certain extent, he too had been self medicating these long years to suppress the ultimate truth of that day. He knew but he knew that he didn’t want to know and he intended to keep it that way.
“You can’t make me!” he cried out, surprised by the whiny and desperate sound of his voice.
Although Percy was nearly the same age as Marvin, he had clearly found some version of a fountain of youth in either his transcendent masturbatory experience or from the yet un-identified crater muck he had been residing in the past 50 years. He had a strength in him which Marvin did not and, with one smooth motion, easily turned his head back, pried open his lips, and spilled a thin line of the liquid into his mouth. Startled, Marvin swallowed without meaning to.
The effect of the suffusion was instant. His vision swam with orange fog. He turned toward Sheila but she was fading in and out of focus, becoming more insubstantial every second. The floor was shifting quickly and he fell rather clumsily backwards into August 2010.
Having snuck away from Sheila Spout and her FFP demonstration at the Sweet Pea Festival, he was wandering the Library, lost in thought. Hadn’t he always supported her unique lifestyle: the ceaseless chanting, the uneven drumming, the never ending stink of incense in the house. Where was his chance to be part of something bigger than himself?
A sudden humming turned his attention to the far 900’s of non-fiction. He found the ancient book next to a mis-shelved copy of “Day Hikes Around Bozeman”. It was covered with dust and monkeys and it called to him. He felt somehow… manly as he picked it up and his mind filled with images he didn’t understand.
The world again blurred with orange. He had just lied to Sheila about missing the Full Moon purging ritual and was going to meet an equally entranced Percy. On the cold yet snow free cement of the skate park, they laid the book out under the moonlight. They had collected almost everything to enact the summoning described on its pages, oblivious to the clash of power so soon to take place.
Once more, the scene shifted.…
