Serial Saturday: Wotan Watches by J. R. Santos, Chapter Two

Chapter Two

The streets were blissfully empty. Bard’s peace was broken by a wheezing, loud as a whistle; with eyes wide in terror, he greeted a shape coalescing in the depths of the fog. The old man was coming for him, supporting himself on a walking stick, his breathing and clicking of his wood against the cobbled street growing closer. The noise grew louder, from a clicking to a deranged clopping—a horse with too many legs. There was something in that shape that reminded Bard of an open wound. A deadly slit cut across the canvas of reality.

He ran. The world turned gray tinted with hues of a dark-blue, the old man keeping pace with Bard’s running. “Leave me alone!” he screamed back at his pursuer but received no answer.

Bard’s hurried footsteps seemed muted by the density of the humid air as he raced past the rows of buildings, great fingers of stone and glass barring his escape, directing him down a pre-destined path. Possessed with irrational fear, Bard worried he would find his pursuer in front of him, somehow. Reality plummeted into a nightmare, Bard’s vision becoming blurred. Rain, mist, and the coming dark made the strange blue into a hue that colored the world.

Drenched in sweat, cold, Bard felt as if he was swimming in a soup bowl. He didn’t dare look as he felt the approaching form breathing down his neck, when he was blinded by the lights of an oncoming car.

It clipped him on the hip and sent him spinning to the sidewalk. Bard screamed, curling on the ground, dragging himself away from the road. He could feel his hip swelling and exhaled with relief when he realized that, despite the pain, nothing felt broken. The car that hit him simply drove off into the blue limbo, until it was nothing but a distant sound.

By the time Bard managed to drag himself back to his feet, holding to the side of one of the buildings he could barely see, slipping on the slick, rain-drenched ground, a neon light went on. It was glorious as the sun parted the rivers of night to announce a new dawn. Other lights turned on, and the noise of people filled the air. Bard limped towards that first light, and squinting, the neon sun spelled the words of salvation:

“Party Here.”

Bard entered the bar without being able to tell what it was named. It didn’t matter in the end; it was open, warm, and Bard was quickly seated in a corner on a pillowed seat. The waiter didn’t look impressed by the miserably drenched and wounded customer.

“Just a beer please. Can I get some ice too? Had a nasty fall back there.”

The waiter gave Bard a weird look but nodded in agreement and moved on.

“Name’s Geda.” A different person returned with a plastic ice pack wrapped in a towel, and a large mug full of beer.

“Thanks.” Bard accepted the ice gratefully and didn’t comment on the fact he had expected a much smaller drink. “I’m Bard.”

“Hi, Bard. Big fall huh?” Geda sat next to Bard. They were androgynous, and pretty, with long black hair and black clothes that revealed a toned midriff. “Want to talk about it?”

“Oh.” The realization only then hit Bard that this person was not a waiter.  “I’m sorry. I just had a rough break up, I’m not really looking for … you know. Thank you for the ice though.”

Geda smiled. “I’ll be honest. I’m using you.” Bard remained silent, too stunned to react. “There’s this guy stalking me, and you seem pretty harmless. Just want to have a chat to get my mind off him and tire him out. Don’t look.” Genda held Bard’s hand as he had been about to turn and look. “Better to ignore him.”

“What does he look like?”

“Creepy. He smells like storms.” Bard wasn’t given time to think what that meant. “I have a sibling. We used to be inseparable, you know? We’re twins.”

“What happened?”

“There’s a guy, kind of our boss? It’s complicated but he is calling it quits, so we’re fighting about what to do with the business. Erinn doesn’t like taking risks, always holding on to the past. Can you guess what my position is?”

Bard laughed. “The opposite. My sister and I were like that once.”

Genda squeezed Bard’s hand; he was embarrassed to admit that between the human warmth, the cooling of the ice and the tang of the foamy beer, he was feeling relaxed. Enjoying himself always seemed to come with some guilt. “What happened? You guys don’t talk anymore?”

“No.” Bard could feel his face growing red, and gently pried his hand loose, using his bruise as an excuse, nursing it with ice in one hand, and his beer in the other. “We changed. Or at least that’s what she told me. Before I changed, before I felt I was finally becoming myself. We never really had an argument—one day we just stopped talking. Last thing she said to me was she couldn’t recognize me, almost.

“I wasn’t myself.”

“Erinn always says we are who we remember being; I disagree with that too. I know the past is important but I try to live in the now. Change is normal—I’m nothing like I used to be either.”

Bard held back from a bad habit he had developed, of instinctually touching his chest, feeling his scars. It brought a strange assurance to him, as if Bard needed the assurance that he was still himself. “I’m still me,” Bard said more to himself than to Genda.

“I’m sure you believe it. Time changes us; thoughts and memories are fluid. Between who we were when we started and where we are right now? Entire countries disappeared. People were left to wander in search of a home, an entire new identity for themselves.

“We remember a version of things, which keeps us sane and lets us go on believing we are who we always were; but in the course of our journey down the streams of time, walls have crumbled to dust and temples were raised to strange new gods. We’re birds in a storm, all we can do is ride the winds.”

“I have to refuse that. Feeling like we don’t have control of our lives. I didn’t choose to be me but I chose the direction I’ve traveled since then. That wasn’t destiny or faith—that was all me.

“I have changed but I’m still me.”

“And what are you?”

Bard held back his gut reaction—he nearly said “alone”. Instead he replied, “I’m a writer.”

Genda seemed interested. “What do you write?”

“Poems. Some short stories. It’s hard to tell them apart sometimes but I like to mix them up anyway.” Genda drew themselves closer to Bard who felt as if the storm had started to brew inside his skull as much as it did outside the bar, his thoughts racing.

“Got one for me?”

Bard wet his lips with two more swallows of beer, then mastered his courage and did his best not to trip on his tongue.

“Black wings,

Sore tidings.

Better the disquiet than this,

The storm brewing in my lungs.”

Genda cheered. “You just had that one ready to shoot?”

“I improvised it.”

“I like it. Feels like something out of time.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, no one really says ‘tiding’s anymore, or brews storms. Feels like an 18th century sailor just tried to hit on me.” Genda laughed as Bard’s face grew red; a laugh without malice. “I liked it. It stands out more.”

“Thank you… I meant what I said before, by the way. I’m really not looking to hook up just now.”

“That’s fine.” Genda played with Bard’s hair, which he had cut shorter in recent days.  “Let me hear another.

“I don’t know if I can do another,” Bard lied. “Is he still here?”

“He’s outside. I saw his reflection in the bar mirror.” Bard peeked from where he was seated but couldn’t spot anyone who stood out from the growing crowd, nor did he see the old man. Outside the storm was all he could see.

He felt split between the comfort of a warm body and the toll that would result from enabling a stranger to take such liberties. Genda could have lied about their stalker, weaving the fiction in order to lower Bard’s guard; there was a flash of panic as he wondered if his beer had been spiked. It had tasted normal and half the contents of the mug were gone by then. Still he withheld from drinking the rest.

Realizing he had been quiet for an awkwardly long time, Bard coughed and excused himself. Rushing to the bathroom in his awkward escape, bumping against strangers, he made it to the toilet stall. A horrible dizziness and lightheadedness invaded him but a familiar sort; he breathed more easily realizing with liberating irony that he had not been drugged and was simply experiencing another panic attack.

Locked inside a stall, leaning against the wall, hands on the toilet tank’s top—Bard put his forehead to the tiled wall to feel the coolness spread through what felt like his inflamed brain. The panic was a tide and he let the tide carry him; he imagined a river cutting through a densely populated woodland. Branches at both sides decorated a starry night sky as he carried on down the river.

Bard was shaken out of it by someone hammering at the stall’s door. “Fuck! Hold on a second.”

He flushed, then opened the door. Angelo stood drenched, a nightmare out of the rain, and he hit Bard with the back of his hand. “Leaving my things out in the street, you cunt!?” Bard raised his arms to shield his face. Angelo punched and kicked down at Bard, who retreated further into himself and curled into a fetal position, feebly attempting to push back or kick out but with no luck. Angelo stopped when he was too breathless to continue, leaning against the stall, red and numb from the effort. He spat on Bard, some of the drool running down his chin.

“I put up with your shit and this is what I get? I’m the only one who’s ever given two shits about you.”

Angelo reached out and Bard cringed; but this time Angelo settled for finding Bard’s wallet and taking all the cash. “When I get back home you better open the fucking door.” As Angelo counted the bills, he turned to Bard once more, before taking his leave:

“If I see you talking to that freak again, I’ll kill you.”

 Bard wept and nursed his wounds once alone in the bathroom. It was a painful crawl to the sink, to then grab on to the edge of it and stand up and assess the damage. Bard’s reflection in the mirror showed a young man sore and swelling but alive. There was a new scar that was unlikely to disappear any time soon; it was a small but very visible and painful cut on his upper lip. Bard splashed cold water on his face, and did his best to stanch the bleeding.

“I had it worse. I had way worse,” Bard said to his reflection. “He can’t get in the house. He can’t get me.” Bard was shaking at this, his body denying the sentiment. “He can’t. It’s going to be different this time.”

All fell to black as Bard felt himself carried away in the fluttering of black wings.