God of the Game (Dreamstate) (17 page)

  
A ray of light beamed right onto the tip of my planet from her spacecraft, which was indeed an
Unidentifiable Flying Object (UFO)
, and I walked the spectrum plank right into her living room. It was cluttered with books, novels mainly, and everything was either made out of dark wood or solid gold.

   “You must be Sha-Rronne,” greeted her genial hospitality.

   “Nice to meet you, Elizabeth,” I returned.

   “O
’, just call me Liz,” she waved, feminine and cultured, even a bit timid and old-styled, “no need to do with all that formal air.”

    I immediately like her. And since it was a woman of substance and grace I was calling upon, it felt appropriate Sha-Rronne made the visit in lieu of my usual male-self. I slid
into Sha-Rronne’s skin, and it felt like slipping into silky, frilly underwear. The soft texture of her flesh on smooth fabric, however, gave way to backache, buoying bouncy boobs on an undernourished frame which is lacking in calcium and potentially, on a later date, diagnosable with osteoporosis. It was strange possessing a shrunken crotch, one which was warm and fuzzy inside, and not loud and obnoxious and spitting about! The sensation was gentle and pure, and perhaps women should rule the worlds. Everything was calmer, unlike the riotous perversion inherent when males are in command.    

   “Would you like some tea?” asked my host.

    I nodded, and she poured me a cuppa. The steamy aroma of Earl Grey wafted up my nostrils even as the china graced my lips and the leafy brew circled in my mouth.

   “You have a very nice place here,” I commented and shifted about the chair with lace trimmings. Huge oil paintings festooned her walls. One was of dogs, hound
s and beagles playing in a meadow; another, the front porch of her cottage with an old lady in a rocking chair. A third had workers in a field; and the rest were portraits of various persons. Family, I presume; ancestors, siblings and descendents; progeny from a distant future as well.    

   “Thank you. Try some of the cookies and cakes.” She mildly moved a plate of sugary goodies, “I just baked them this afternoon.”

    There are scones, strawberry cupcakes, brownies, chocolate chip cookies, and of course, her famous cheesecakes. “Try this one,” she coaxed, handing over a triangular wafer with florid patterns, “they’re love letters.”

    I obtained it from her hand and took a delicate nibble.
Delicious
. Thin, sweet and crispy. “My Chinese neighbours are celebrating their New Year. Lots of cookies they gave me, knowing how much I appreciate them,” she explained as she observed my fondness for rich, sweet titbits.

    Elizabeth then served more Asian delicacies. She brought ou
t a tray laden with six see-through air-tight containers filled with various types. One which was round, savoury, and coated with lard melts on contact with saliva; the second came in animal shapes, white and floury with pink dots for eyes. Pineapple jam tarts filled the third; while thinly sliced deep-fried
ngaku
(arrowhead-root chips) were contained in the fourth. Tub five had preserved fruits; and finally, six was to the brim with grandma’s special coconut candy.         

    Sha-Rronne dug in
, and Elizabeth said, “Welcome to the D’Arcy, your gateway out of ZOOL.A.ND.”

   “This is tasty,” Sha-Rronne replied, biting
into grandmother’s delight, obviously oblivious to Ms. Amber’s last statement.  

     “Welcome to the D
’Arcy, your gateway out of ZOOL.A.ND,” she repeated in a cool calm voice which would not defy serenity even if she were informing of a calamity undoing the spaceship’s defence mechanism.

   “O
h, thanks,” I mentioned by Sha-Rronne’s tongue, as she was busy gorging biscuits. The pronunciation wasn’t that clear, though, with her mouth full. I added, “What do you mean exactly by gateway out of ZOOL.A.ND?”

   “Simple. Whenever someone leaves the encryption in Jai-I’s hard disk housed in
Trekz’z romp-a-room, I host them till they decide where they want to go?

   “And you can go anywhere,” she added.

   “I’ll have to think about it.” I consulted Sha-Rronne, my split personality, but she was too engrossed stuffing herself, now that the Village Idiot had brought out milk for her to dunk the cookies in.  

   “Take your time,” Elizabeth replied, “Meanwhile
, make yourself at home. All that I have is
also
yours.”

     I t
hanked her, and then leeched on to her generosity, “I would need some time, definitely. After all, this is a first for me. It is very confusing being two persons.”

    She smiled and nodded. “As I said, welcome to the D
’Arcy. Feel free to explore…after yer done being such a glutton.”

   
Sha-Rronne ignored. The sarcasm flew past her like a sparrow overhead. As long as birds don’t poop on her, she’d continue packing on the pounds, which I could feel; cholesterol clogging arteries, I encountered slight breathing difficulties.

   “Don’t bother cleaning up. Idiot, my humble servant, will do it,
” my hostess said, even as she arose, turned and left.

    Sha-Rronne acknowledged not, but instead, she g
estured to the manservant for the next dish. My female-self was getting fat. But might as well, more flesh to support those heavy jugs leaning on cleanly licked plates.

33

   Later when Sha-Rronne slept - escorted to her quarters earlier by the Village Idiot after a scrumptious eighteen-course dinner - I took a walk in the garden of the D’Arcy. It was an extremely labyrinthine task untangling from her fattened soul; no thanks to Elizabeth Amber’s gratuitous generosity, which transmogrified Sha-Rronne into plump pinkish meat. As I tore my skin from her, a shadow slowly scattering in trepid darkness, my DNA refuses to cooperate, preferring the union, the spiritual conjugation in a single being. My chromosomes resembled an evil spirit cast from a chubby girl by a convulsing minister, fighting to remain in her substantial frame. Perhaps I found succour sucking from her bone marrow, a leech, a parasite baby feeding on internal nipples. The ends of my nerves tingled, tied to hers with symbiotic grace; and now tearing for independence, they flopped around miserably like a fish out of water, wavering as of a thousand tiny threads loose on the surface of our shredding hides.

    I was lying on the floor, sweating in abundance. Sha-Rronne snored. I was myself again, alone at the foot of a king-sized bed. The parquet floorboard emitted a low hum, a pipe-organ’s majesty, the industrious generator of the craft. I decided to go hunt for it.

    A door swings open to a vast plantation. Workers plough, plant and pick; and when they look up from their straw hats, they are all clones of the Village Idiot. Brother Idiot standing closes
t greets me. He explains the entire valley I see is merely the greenhouse of the spaceship. If I were to climb up to the peaks, I will behold untold glories; in fact, the passage from which I emerged is the eastern end of a magnificent castle, dubbed Elizabeth’s ‘humble cottage’, carved in a rock face, winding vertically north to a province of clouds. Gargoyles perched on parapets guard the granite fortress from cosmic winds swirling in the breach above. The gigantic fissure, enlightened another Idiot who had walked up to me, was called the Eye-of-D, and it was the ascent to a solid state of existence once a guest of the D’Arcy decides his, her or its fate. The D’Arcy patrolled no man’s land, and in this transmigrating dimension, demons at times try to break in to create chaos and mindless mischief. That is why the sentinel gargoyles continually stare upward in stoic stares, their eyes glow red in alert, and they shoot lazer beams should a renegade spirit manoeuvre a descent.

    The expanse
over our heads was semi-shielded to prevent dangerous rays from penetrating to spoil the crops, but the Eye-of-D at the centre was forever brewing a dynamic storm. Alas, it was stupendous, splendorous, this envelope dancing on top of us.

    Now, the Village Idiot is a cousin of the Hunchback of Notre Dame. Though not as humped as his Parisian relative, the Idiot still owned a sizeable lump. Also, when he spoke, he slurred, due to, he divulged, Bell’s palsy, a
paralysis which freezes the right side of his face. 

   “All the fruits and vegetables harvested are of super-size,” I couldn’t help but comment.

   “It’s due to where we are. The magnetic zones caused by the contrasting gravitational pulls of the diverse dimensions make everything here in between abnormal.”

   “Everything about my afterlife
has
been abnormal,” I contradicted, robbing this special location of its uniqueness.

    Idiot 1 stood ground. He said, “It’s not just limbo, the D
’Arcy is constructed from the most precious alloys, which allows only good light radiating from dimensional portals in. That’s why all is big!”

    Idiot 2 continued, “The translucent gel, which is the umbre
lla on top of us, traps all bad karma,” he pointed to an encircling roof outstretched, a spherical solar panel environing the Eye-of-D. 

    I was about to tread on sensitive ground when I said, “Do everybody here on the D
’Arcy look…er…like you?”

    Yes, indeed the Village Idiot is quite appalling, definitely not male model material, unless of course it is a social consciousness ad about human deformity.

    He swung his left hand, which was longer, as if he were a chimpanzee; and he walked with a perpetual limp. His body bent to the extent that the tallest point was his hump.

   “Yes,” Quasimodo
’s cousin answered, “it is only the Lady and I in the D’Arcy.”

   “Yah, but I see many of er…you
, around.”

   “Oh, we are one and the same,” Idiot 1 & 2 answered simultaneously. All the Idiots working in the farm acknowledged with a nod. Which was fucking uncanny! “Lady Amber likes the D
’Arcy spick and span. She likes it thoroughly organized. And the D’Arcy is a huge ship. Naturally, we need a lot of work hands.”

   “But why not others? Why clone only you?”

   “Her Ladyship does not trust people with her personal space and belongings. She trusts only me, for I was with her from the beginning.”

   “And the Lady,” I said
, unable to submerge my attraction, “She is a very beautiful woman; is she available?”         

    At that instant, Mr. Idiot’s face darkened. “I am her lover and her slave,” he responded adamantly, warning m
e by tone and body language to proceed no further. Trespasses will be shot!

   “Hmmm…I understand,” I answered with clo
aked aversion even as we began our stride across the barley field.   

    Village Idiot
shadows me, an explicit order by Elizabeth Amber, to meet my every need.

   “So
, er…” I plucked up the courage of curiosity after having walked a mile or more, chatting on trivial topics, “What’s sex like with er…so many of you and only one her?”

    Elizabeth’s humble servant smiled an all revealing smile.

   “You ain’t telling me, are you?”

  
The simple fellow fell for my negative psychology. “Sometimes we line up for a gang-rape orgy; and at others, it’s just one-on-one,” he salivated in spastic slur. “But it’s all the same, singular or plural… It’s ONLY with ME.”

   “But what do you all feel?” I queried, “Do you know it if she decides to do it with a brother?”

   “We, or rather I, have a universal brain in the core reactor which powers the spaceship.”

   “Meaning?”

   “I’ll take you go see it,”

   “Meaning?” I asked again.

   “Of course what I feel, my other I will feel also.”

   “My feelings power the ship,” he added. “My mind
, too.”

   “And the Lady is the mistress of my mind,” the Idiot finally concluded.

   “She must really love you,” seeing what an ugly Idiot he is.

   “Yes she does, and for that
I am grateful.” Amber’s servant stopped in tracks and turned to face me before continuing, “Especially as I’m not the handsomest man in the world.” His neck craned to meet my eye, as he was a good eighteen inches shorter than I in that crooked stance.

   “Elizabeth Amber is fascinating and fabulous. She is kind and generous
, too. She expects nothing in return,” he lauded her. “She doesn’t look at the physical. Even though I can be a Price Charming in the chasm of eternity, I opt to remain the Village idiot, for she had taught me of my beauty.

   “I chose therefore to retain my disfigured features.” 

    We had now crossed into an orchard, and he plucked two golden delicious nuggets. I took a fruit from his hand and bit into juicy flesh, which was as intoxicating as wine.

   “This tree is fermented, and it was present in the Garden of Eden,” said the guy who denied good looks, “The Lady bought it after Adam’s tongue caressed the first fruits. Now we have rows and rows of ancient delight. In fact
, in the monastery of the D’Arcy, we bottle, brand and export it. The drink is a very much sought after giver of joy.” He couldn’t help but snigger as he said, even as a simple happiness beamed across his innocent face, knowing the taste had provided me unprecedented pleasure.