A YOOK BY ANY OTHER NAME

Chapter 20: Endings and Beginnings

Above them, bright auroras began to play across the sky, weaving and snapping their colors like Olympic ribbon dancers. "Aurora Australis," he said, pointing as a sudden sheet of pale yellow flashed low above the distant yooks. He was wrong. The yellow was not Australian at all.
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For the last two hours, Rose had sat on her couch, the Captain's head lying in her lap. His eyes had been closed most of the time, but she knew he was not sleeping for not once had he let go of her hand. She felt in a way he was finding some anchoring for himself in that and turned her head to study it. Her small hand was almost entirely encased in his much larger one. She liked that. Her eyes roamed across his large knuckle scar then lifted to the ones on his face. He had been through so much in his life, had been wounded more times than she could imagine. Delicately, she let the fingers of her free hand trace his largest facial scar. She smiled, not minding them at all. They were rather like some etched chart of his life, telling his story. Without them, he would not be who he was, would not be the Captain.

"That's nice," he murmured at her light touch, opening his eyes slightly.

"I did not mean to disturb you," she said quickly.

"You are not," he smiled, glad for her gentle contact. Then, all unbidden, the scene in the shed pierced him again and he closed his lids, his brow all taut with sorrow. She moved her fingers there, stroking across his forehead, wanting to help him release the pain. His left hand had been hanging loosely, its knuckles resting on the floor next to the couch, but now he raised it, pressing it hard across his nose and mouth as though he could stop the breaking of some pounded embankment. Muffled gasps, that if free to take their form would have been sobs, thrust themselves against his palm.

 

Rose's eyes filled with tears and she bent her head and kissed the back of his hand. Gradually he quieted, his hand slipping back to the floor. He turned his face completely into her and in a few moments, she knew he slept. Her fingers played then with his hair, long strands of it having come loose in his run back to the set. Briefly she cupped her palm over his mangled ear. It was a part of him and, therefore, dear. Now that he slept, she dared touch the ruffles as her hand had ached to do at their first meeting by the river. How strangely marvelous it was to have this man she had admired so long be lying there so still in her lap. Such an odd mixture of feelings mingled in her breast, both this lilting joy at his presence and this protective concern for his great sorrow. She moved her back a bit more comfortably, settling in to pass the night as she was now. Closing her eyes, she leaned her head against a large pillow while her fingers lightly traced the edges of his ruffles.

Jocelyn had sent an SUV back for Himself and Phyllis. She would not have him walking in the rough country in the dark of night. He smiled at the irony of it and permitted that they be driven, mostly for Phyllis' sake.

And dark it was across the Australian landscape. The door of the shed, its lock broken, banged now and then as a night breeze flowed down from the hills beyond. Bud had only covered about three miles before his legs (perhaps his heart?) would carry him no further and he lay now upon a slab of rock, his eyes staring up into the blankness of the sky. It seemed to him that the world was moving around him as he lay in some vortex of despair. He could feel it turning, spinning, just out of his reach in the blackness all about. He knew that in that blackness everything that had been familiar had been wiped away, that it was gone. There was no one left, no one even to come and take a crowbar to him, putting him out of his misery.

Then above him in the night, the aurora flickered. Just small at first, a tiny pennant of light high and far removed. It caught his eye, though, as such a thing must when all else is only dark, and he followed its movement. He was entirely detached in the beginning, looking at it only because it existed. The little bit of color flowed in a slow wide curve, leaving a trail of itself behind briefly to show where it had passed. He blinked, startled, when a sudden sheet of burnished rust spread across the sky, curling back on itself in a series of waves. From somewhere behind it, blues and purples began to shoot straight up, lighting the top edges of the rust.

 

 

His disinterest gone, he watched the colors interact. It almost seemed like they were playing, each enjoying the presence of the other. But he dismissed the thought. Colors just...were...they didn't play. But as he watched their rolling, darting movements, he found himself wishing that it were, indeed, play...and that he could be up there, a color himself.

It was then the yellow came, a long slender ribbon of it, breaking through the middle of the rust and flowing downward like a fluttering veil an angel might have lost. Down it came, intangible light...and he wanted to lay his hands on it, to find some form within its flow. He reached up at its approach and it rivered over his palms, twining along his fingers, leaving his hands tingling as it passed. He curved his hands into fists, wishing to hold it, but it slipped easily between his fingers, scooting up along his cheeks before flowing on to remerge with the rust. Then they were gone and he was left lying alone in the now-darker dark, his palm pressed to his cheek, a slight remnant of the tingling left.

The aurora swung over the horizon, leaping and bouncing across the ridges. It was obvious that had one the ears to hear, music flowed beside, within the light. Indeed, one day when truths were known, it would be common understanding that music was light made audible. Finding the largest waterfall that hurled itself from off the Dorrigo Escarpment, the indigo-blue leapt after it in sheer abandonment. Half-way down, rust burst through the water droplets sweeping the blue upwards again until yellow, swaying between them, flowed into both. As though in some newly-infinite understanding, blue and red and yellow knew their primary oneness, knew that unless blue partook of red, purple would not exist. Both blue and red became aware that only yellow brought in its soft hands their green, their orange.

 

 

Himself stood alone in the large caravan that had received the three quiet forms for the night. Locking the door from the inside, he knelt beside the one dressed as General. His lips pressed tightly together, he gently removed the cape, the armor...piece by piece, then pulled a blanket over him. He sighed. He had no idea, not really, not ever having been in such a place in his life before. But as he had been driven home, as he had looked out the window into the dark night, it had come to him as worthy of the attempt. He simply could not not try. Sitting on the couch, he pulled off his boots, unzipped his jeans, unbuttoned his pale blue denim shirt. Years had passed since his fingers had done the motions they now began to perform, buckling the buckles, tying the ties, yet they remembered well what they had known and soon Himself stood there in the dimly-lit caravan, dressed as Maximus for one more, one last time. Indeed, the way he looked even as Himself these days, his tanness, the shape of his short beard, he had not in all the years since leaving Malta looked quite so much as Maximus as now he did again.

He closed his eyes. He must concentrate. He must put himself back in Marcus' tent in Germania. He focused in on a single fine point...when the Emperor tells the General there is one more thing he requires. After the quiet, intimate talk of home, the relaxed position, the General snaps to attention, his face serious, formal again.

Himself licked his lips, "What would you have me do, Caesar?"

The burnished, rusty red paused in mid-air over the Escarpment like a battle stallion hearing the trumpet's call. In one long streaking flow it crossed the shire, circled twice about the caravan, then poured itself through the metal wall and into the quiet form on the bed. Maximus gasped as though he had been submerged in some great wave and finally fought his way to the surface, his lungs bursting with the need for air. The gasp had brought him to a seated position, and eyes wide, he looked about, startled, confused to find the freedom of his lightness confined.
 

Himself knelt beside him, his cheeks wet with tears. Gripping Maximus' bare forearm, chin trembling with emotion, he said, "By God, I brought you to life once and nothing was going to stop me from trying to do it again!!"

 

 

Maximus sat there, breathing heavily, trying to grasp what had happened to him. He had been inside Sid's body, then known he was being made to leave. Joimus was there, holding him as he found himself suddenly alone, without form, flowing in the sky. Then...she had come to join him, all glowing yellow gold. He smiled, recalling the sensation of her color flowing in, around, through his own. Then indigo blue had come, more unexpected, bringing with it the possibilities only blue could bring to red, to yellow...bringing completeness.

He closed his eyes, the reality of the aurora's dance still fresh within his being.

 

Himself watched Maximus' face, knowing he had no way of understanding what the General now knew. Maximus' eyes flew open with the sudden realization he was no longer with the yellow, nor even the blue.

Then he saw, on the bed across the room, Sid's body. He looked at it, that form that had held him such

an unwilling, unwelcome prisoner during long hours of agony of heart.

Himself was puzzled at the expression on Maximus' face. It was not one he would have ever thought to see

as the General looked at Sid. Then Maximus' lips parted and he said simply, "Sid," with a tone of voice, an import of meaning that left Himself's mind reeling.

At last, and Himself had wondered when this might happen, Maximus became aware that Joimus was at his side. He turned, resting his palm across her forehead, then sliding it slowly up and over her hair. They had been together only moments ago, there above the Escarpment. Now he was separated from her again and he turned eyes on Himself that silently said, "This...I cannot bear."

"I know," Himself said, replying to the unspoken words.

Maximus closed his eyes a moment, then looking straight at Himself asked, "Can you...do...anything?"

Himself's head bowed low and he moved it slowly side to side as he said, "I...don't think so, Maximus. It is not, you know, as it was for you."

Looking up at the General, he continued. "She existed already. I did not bring her to life."

Maximus lay down again, silently turning and wrapping his arms about her, pressing his face into her hair.

Himself stood then, giving the General privacy in his grief, and turned to look at Sid. Again he removed his garments, laying the armor on the floor close beside where Maximus lay, turning to clothe himself as Sid. His face suddenly looking all irritated, Himself straightened his tie, turning his head as though talking to some unseen being outside his computer, he said, "You know, I hadn't actually finished yet."

 

 

On the bed, Sid's eyes opened, and looking up at Himself he smiled and said, "Click your heels three times?" Himself chuckled slightly. One never knew what Sid might say at any given time.

"I'd like my suit back, if you don't mind," he said next, sitting up.

There was a sudden tap on the door. Himself said, "Not now."

The tapping came again. "Please...later," Himself said.

Still more tapping and so, angry, he unlocked the door, smacking it open. "Listen,...," he began, his voice rather harsh...but he stopped when he saw a woman standing there in the night. She was not a member of the cast, but she did look strangely familiar somehow. Perhaps it was the pale hair with the look about it of a fresh haircut and perm, but she reminded him so of Joimus, only she appeared a full generation older.

"Look, Himself," she said, her voice all businesslike. "I've only got a second here, you know. I'm supposed to be babysitting and I'm already late, so just stand back and let me in."

 

She bustled past him, plopped herself at the small desk, opened her laptop and began to type. This is what she wrote: "Although Himself was able to bring both Maximus and Sid back to life in that clever way, he would never fit into the pale yellow gossamer gown even had Joimus been a character of his creation."

Himself peered over the woman's shoulder as she typed, a deep furrow of puzzlement creasing his brow as he read the words forming on her computer screen. "The red stain on the back of the yellow gossamer gown suddenly disappeared, as did its cause. Completely. Leaving no trace. It was as though it had never been. Then, in the same manner as both the red and the blue had been summoned by Himself's words, Himself's recreation of them, Joimus was recreated as she had been, formed upon the computer screen by fingers flying over a keyboard. The yellow, alone beside the waterfall, knew it, too, could find its home once more. Quickly it came, eager to be a part again of what it had come to know. Whooshing happily through the caravan's walls...."

"There!" the strange woman said. "My work is done!" She turned to Himself. "Nice meeting you in person, Himself. I've sorta always wanted to do that, you know. Bye now!" and she was out the door and gone.

Himself just stood there, struck dumb. On the bed, Joimus moved, turning in Maximus' arms so that they were face to face. "I knew," she whispered, nibbling at his ear, "that she would never be able to leave us actually dead, you know."

Directly continued as Australian Adventures.....