86 - Pete brings me back.
joneworlds@mailbox.org
Well, I did my three day fast buried underground
in a car, just like we planned it. Done said all
my prayers, poured out all my water, all of
that. I sure had some weird waking dreams down
there, and maybe I'll write those down one day.
Anyways, after the three days are up, they come
back to dig me out. Lucky for me they finished
digging down enough to get the car's door open,
before it happened.
It must have been a dragon, and a big one
too. Just as I'm about to get out of the car, I
hear this big BOOM and a whoosh. And all my
brothers and sisters of service are screaming and
scrambling out of the hole and running for their
lives. By the time I'm able to get up and out of
the hole, they're all scattered and gone, and all
around me the brush is on fire. And our off-road
flatbed truck is upside down and burning too.
I'm disoriented and I barely even know where I'm
at. I guess I stumble down an embankment and find
the highway. I'm just standing there, blinking in
the afternoon sun, no idea what to do, when a
pickup truck comes along. It pulls over, and what
do you know, it's my old friend Pete from Braxon.
And he's staring at me out the drivers-side
window, and he's like, Jone, is that you? I'm so
out of it and my memory is so foggy, that I don't
even recognize him yet. I just sort of squint and
nod a bit. And he's all like, what the hell are
you wearing, what happened to your hair? I just
shrug and shake my head. Then he's like, get in
the goddamn truck. And I just kind of wobble on
over, get in, and we drive away. By late that
night, we're back in Braxon. I been back about two
days by now, and you know already my memories are
growing back. Isn't that weird.
I sure got lucky there. Turns out, Pete had driven
up north for a job. Some of the chieftains up
there banded together to repair the highway, and
had put out word there'd be work. But by the time
he got there, someone had already gone and stole
all the catalytic converters out of the dump
trucks, and someone else had made off with the
graders, so the whole thing kind of fizzled
out. And he was driving back home when he found
me.
Anyways, that's how I left my cult and got back to
my old town-home here on Braxon land. On one hand,
I guess it's not so great that I committed both my
mortal body and my eternal soul to the service of
mother Gaia, but then abandoned my brothers and
sisters, condemning both myself and everyone on
earth to a slow horrifying doom of poison, floods,
and transmogrification into feeble-minded fungal
monstrosities. (At least that's what they always
told me would happen if I deserted.) But on the
other hand, it sure feels good to be back home
again.