Wildcard (34 page)

The house was a beautiful country place, 2
story, clapboard, high ceilings. A few rooms were wainscoted with
deep decorative trim around the ceiling. The paint was light, with
airy colors, and there were large windows everywhere. Hazel gave
the tour, then shooed the two men onto the porch where she brought
them lemonade as they sat on the swing. She went to work in the
garden. They had several small gardens, flower, vegetable, and
herb.

“How does Wildcard have so many faces?”

“What? What does that mean?”

“Well, like you, and Hazel and the
Gatekeeper.

“There’s some technical answer, I suppose.
But I don’t know that sort of thing. If you want to ask me why
those faces exist, I’d say it’s because he felt so alone for so
long. He created them, or they just appeared, out of aloneness. So,
he somehow managed a world, all these universes. He split into so
much…he faded in, I don’t know how to put it, but I sense it.”

“Would you like a cookie, son? Hazel made
some. I love her cookies, but you might not. Nothing here tastes
right.” He smiled. “But they sure look great.”

“Oh, yeah, definitely.” Karl looked over at
the old woman as she weeded. She had an aged beauty, classic
features, not stunning, but, if she had ever been young, she had
been pretty. She had a resigned kindness.

She was sweaty and sat down on the porch
next to Karl, then poured herself lemonade from the pitcher. The
old man returned with a plate of cookies. They tasted like wood.
She looked disappointed by his reaction.

“How long can I stay?”

“Stay as long as you wish, dear.” Hazel had
a dignified English accent. She reached over and stroked his hair
back from his eyes, then ran a hand down his cheek. “We like having
you here, it feels wonderful.”

Grandparents, something Karl had never even
considered. He wanted to stay. He never wanted to leave.

“Anyone who comes here can stay as long as
they want,” the old man said. “Nothing forces them to leave, but
generally they get a…feeling, I suppose, and they leave. Everybody
who comes here wants to stay, but they never can. Wildcard wants
them to be here for a time, but he doesn’t want them stay. He just
wants to hold them for a moment.”

“They’re all in so much pain,” Hazel said,
“just like you.”

“But if you go,” the old man said, “you can
never return.”

Karl spent a few months with Hazel and the
old man, and fell in love with them in a hundred ways. They were so
simple and the grandparents he never had. She loved to cook and
feed people and spent hours in her garden.

He made friends with CJ, the great white
half-wolf dog who showed him the secret places of Wildcard’s heart.
A pond with a tiny, cheerful waterfall was his favorite. Trees of
every different sort speckled the land around and he could lie in
the sun or the shade and still talk to his imagined friend, a water
something. Fairy? No, too corny. Nymph? No, it was a male. When
Karl joked about it, the old man told him in serious tones that it
was a naga, and it was really there, to the bold eye. He had sensed
it, too, but never seen it. Karl imagined the naga looked like
Poseidon, with a crown, a trident, and a golden shirt. He talked to
Karl between dives into the pond. Karl told him how much he missed
Martha. He wrote a poem to the naga called waterfall. Hazel and the
old man loved it; she even dropped a few tears, embarrassing
Karl.

Karl felt sad for CJ. Nothing smelled. A dog
should be able to smell things; every dog Karl had met loved to. CJ
showed him other places, a magnificent, rocky cliff-top a few
kilometers behind the u-shaped hills surrounding the old couple’s
house. It overlooked an endless rolling forest studded with green
meadows and with a wide slow-moving river cutting through. He went
on a several day hike with CJ so that he could swim in the
river.

The center went on forever. It was huge
nature, scattered with trails in high mountains, natural springs
with water that revitalized, canyons, and soft rolling hills that
made Karl nostalgic for the sweet farm lands of France. The center
possessed an encyclopedic representation of plant and animal
species. Karl had a vague interest in biology, having studied a
bit. The ecological pool was as diverse as Earth, and had a perfect
balance matched by a glorious abundance. The resources must have
been staggering. He asked Hazel about it once when they were
gardening. She taught him wonderful tips. She was a gardening
genius.

“I don’t believe it works in such manner.”
He adored her well-educated English accent. “I fancy they were less
created so much as merely understood to be. They simply are. Be a
dear and hand me that claw digger, Karl.” She resumed turning
earth; they were planting lima beans. She liked to pack things into
her garden, said it manifested the innate richness of the center.
Her garden ranged over twenty-five or so rows, each brimming with
cherry tomatoes, broccoli, lettuce, kale, and nearly a hundred
other plants, including herbs and spices.

She stopped digging, and looked at him.
“It’s an absolute delight to have you about. We’ve had others, but
you’re the first real human.”

Karl pulled a mint leaf and tore the edge
off with his teeth. The texture worked, but it tasted acrid. He
felt terribly sad, and moved. Hazel was so devoted, so faithful to
a life that lacked the essential elements she needed as the woman
she was. All her love created sustenance without taste or
smell.

“How do you do it?”

She touched a finger to her lips and looked
puzzled.

“How do you… keep going? Gardening, cooking,
when it never works?”

“What else can one do?” She tried to stand
and had a hard time because of her old body. Karl helped. She
dusted her pants and gloves. “Who’s to say it doesn’t work, anyway?
The reward is the doing, Karl, not the result. Food without love
fails to nourish no matter the taste. And an old, stale loaf of
bread shared with a solid friend is about as good as it gets.
Speaking of which, I’d better begin dinner. The old man will be
hungry after a day of fishing.”

The old man was back and he sat with Karl in
the living room while Hazel cooked. He had brought some trout from
his fishing trip, and they were already filleted and waiting for
the pan. The two men read from wildsong. They had many other books
on the shelves, but their favorite pastime was reading
wildsong.

“Hey, a new poem.” He gave Karl a surprised
glance. “It’s for you, I think.”

“What’s it called?”

“The Stilleto Heel.” The old man passed Karl
the book. “You read it.” He sat down in his easy chair and took a
bite of apple cobbler and whipped cream Hazel delivered. He turned
his head towards the kitchen part of the large room. “This,” he
held the cobbler up, and emphasized each word, “is perfect.” He
turned back to Karl. “I figure I’m about the luckiest man in
wildspace.”

Karl loved it too even though it had no
taste. It made her happy and he needed to eat in any event. The old
man waited with transparent joy for Karl to begin. He read.

the stiletto heel

only once may anyone enter the heart

thus shall it ever be

to our shared grief, innocent,

our center is not your home, it was not
meant for you

though we suffer to see you part

if you do not part, all will remain
unchanged

the Deeply Named cannot escape her
torment

your presence here is stasis for all

but we will bear it if your happiness hangs
upon it

it is your choice to abide at the heart

a promise to all who here arrive

i would like to share with you what i am

our broad and swept strokes,

fading forever across the universe we have
found

we hate that we must burden you, innocent,
with healing our wound

we offer our cosmic loneliness

which only you may witness and still belay
the cold whisper of madness

how may i describe what it means to see
all

understand nothing

what it means to see nothing

and strive to understand a single thing
perfect

how can i describe what i cannot know
myself

Wildcard and its actions are one

experience of Wildcard dissolves as it
comes

what is seen can never be known

what is known cannot quite be seen

unsolvable riddles have no design to deceive
or betray

they are the scenery of our lands

what authored wildspace, a question
sincere

i do not know ourself

come, innocent, live in a land where naught
can be known for sure

i am the Poet and no more Wildcard

than the poem you are reading is me

i am the stroke of Wildcard writ into
being

i am ink splashed in accident upon his
hand

perhaps i am the skin of the great father’s
lips

or hair, or a nail

or one lifted word of the infinite void

and perhaps it matters not at all

something desires our joining

go now to the land of the two cubed
spheres

then you must father yourself to create your
special demise

whatever, however you may phrase it

find me, and be quick

The old man was quiet, and, after, they ate
a silent dinner. Nobody wanted to say what he knew, but wasn’t
ready to admit to himself. During the meal,
he
locked eyes to the old man, who returned the contact in his wise
way, saying without words that Karl needed to find his own
understanding.

He took a few days, hiked an overnighter
with CJ, roaming aimlessly. He found he could go where he wished,
get as lost as he wanted, and when it came time, CJ would take him
straight home. He wandered among all the animals, deer, skunk, and
badger, watched the fish in the rivers. Glorious eagles and hawks
pinwheeled between puffs of cloud. Karl was drunk on blissful
heartache.

Everything was like on Earth, only more so.
Visually, and in terms of hearing, it was, but not feeling, not
smelling, not taste. They were wrong, too simple, plastic, or
jarring in the wrong place. That wouldn’t change while he stayed.
It hurt to think of Hazel, who wanted so much for her cooking to
taste right. And he could see that it would be amazing. She really
knew how to cook.

Karl had to leave.

The nameless woman was dreaming another who
never needed sleep. The Benefactor, who appeared, to hold her, to
tell her to stay hidden in the dark place. There was fear behind
the Benefactor, darkness, and only the Benefactor could protect
her, save her from the awfulness. If she moved it would be far
worse.

She was trapped. Or not trapped, exactly.
Lost, she wandered in a fog of clarifying bewilderment and hazy
images. Dream scenarios warply reflected the waking days. She now
realized she was dreaming. She slept at times and forgot, then
awoke and was aware that her experience was a dream. She saw
herself speaking angrily to Dartagnan, menacing, threatening. He
took her seriously. He handed her a piece of paper, saying, ‘Go
over when the time comes, not before.’

She dreamed of constant risk, deep ravines
falling below, narrow-walled canyons with jagged, razor stones
tearing at her skin. A fall below her with no end and a tightrope
to cross, extending into blackness. If she fell, she would be gone
forever.

Mostly, she just shivered naked in a prison
cell, raw meat in a closet of cold cement, terrified to go outside.
The cell had no door. She dreamed of drowning, trapped in a
blackened room on a boat, the water rising to her chest, then neck,
then she had a tiny bubble of air in a corner. She died many times
in dark places.

She dreamed of a man with pale black skin
and freckles and a long, thin, bony face. Comical orange hair like
a brick on his head in the style of some urban blacks. He played
basketball with Karl, Karl! They were on the same team.

She was cheering, shouting herself hoarse,
wanting them to win. They lost, and the Mechanic, in Seeker’s body,
took Karl away in handcuffs. She saw him dragged into an alley, a
movie shadow on the wall of a nightstick raised and brought swiftly
down, over and again.

She was frantic, trying to get to the alley,
but she could find no way around the fence. It appeared to have an
end, but then kept going. The other way, the same. She found a
gate, screamed, “I am coming,” to the son she loved whose name she
had already forgot. She could not remember the name of the son she
needed to save.

The gate let into a fence maze, through
which she saw the nightstick rising and falling as she found one
dead end after another. She screamed for help, for herself and her
friend. Shadows walked by outside the fence, oblivious. No one
heard; no one came.

Karl spent another month, hiking with CJ,
fly-fishing with the old man, gardening with Hazel. He told stories
of the real world, which seemed so unreal. They read wildsong. He
almost tasted the food, sometimes. It was so close. Hazel
encouraged him. “Try to taste it. If you can, then perhaps…”

He tried, but it was no use.

“It’s all right, dear heart,” she said,
“’tisn’t your task.” She stood beside him, and pulled his head
against her chest, kissed his hair. “I’m just so pleased that you
try.”

He tried every meal, Hazel watching him but
pretending not to. He wanted to and failed, but when he saw her
unwavering diligence in the garden, the endless joyous sadness with
which she toiled in the kitchen, he always tried again. Knowing he
would fail, he never gave up.

The old man seemed to take a quiet pride in
this. Hazel found in his efforts a grandmother’s happiness. He
hoped it eased the long-standing ache of their unbegun loss of
those three senses. With the effort of trying to make taste and
smell a reality here, he beat down the anguish of knowing he had to
leave. In spite of the sadness, he was excited. The Poet, whoever
that was, waited for him.