Wonderland
© 2012-2013 TheOrigamist
“I’ve never seen it,” he said. He shrugged, and dust flew off of his shoulders to settle on the ground beside him.
He would have gotten up if he had the strength, but the sun beat him down and he remained sitting, legs crossed and held in place as if rusted shut, never to straighten again. It wasn’t as if the old kangaroo could have seen anything by standing or jumping; the desert stretched on for miles and miles, the view only obscured by the occasional dust cloud brought up by the breeze.
The kangaroo scratched the back of his head, licking his lips. “Never seen it, not once. Even in movies, I tell you. Parents didn’t want me to get upset.” He laughed at the ridiculousness of the memory, the expression of the long-dead adults fading into a haze.
“Did you ever want to travel and find it, Harry?”
He glared at the man who had interrupted him, then sighed and began to unbutton his shirt, from the top down. The kangaroo’s fur was growing white against the regularly brown coat, his back shining with what little sweat he was able to produce. “I’ve always wanted to travel, but I want to stay home more. You look like a traveler, though,” Harry chuckled. “You probably have seen more than I ever will.”
Throwing up his arms, the old man let his shirt fly off in a gust of wind, settling in one of the thousands of scrub-bushes. Heaving a sigh, he closed his eyes for a brief moment, before sitting back up, snapping back to reality.
“You don’t belong here,” he said, eyeing the stranger. “You don’t belong anywhere around here.”
He said nothing in reply.
Harry looked across the desert once again, patting the hot sand next to him. The stranger sat down, adjusting his jacket.
“It’s very hot out here, Harry. You should get inside,” he murmured.
But the old man glared at his younger counterpart, snorting in derision. “Hot. Too hot. Son, you have no idea what heat is. This is the very beginning of hot, the baby from which real heat is formed. I could spit on a rock, and it’ll turn to steam, and then it’ll be hot. But right now, it’ll just sit there and slowly dry up like me.”
The kangaroo cleared his throat, trying to retch up mucus in order to demonstrate, but the only thing that came out was a wheezing shriek, sending him into a coughing fit. Hunched over, Harry hacked into the sand as the stranger watched. His brittle body shook with effort as he swallowed nothing, producing nothing, his mouth as dry as the desert.
Harry gasped for air as he got his breathing back, slowly feeling his worn heart slowing to a meager rhythm, one-two, one-two, so old and withered that each beat felt as if it might collapse the aging muscle and turn to ashes inside of him.
He returned to his sitting position and bit his lip, gnawing on the peeling skin as he felt his body resume to its normal state. “What’s it like to touch it?” he said. He looked over to the stranger with squinted eyes. The young man’s white fur made it hard to focus on him with the sun illuminating each strand of hair.
“To touch,” the stranger began, “is like stroking through someone’s fur, except that instead of hair, the fur is made up of a thousand little pins that all sting to the touch. But it’s so soft because there are so many of them. Does that help?”
After a moment’s thought, the kangaroo shook his head. “That sounds more painful than anything. A thousand little pins… huh.”
“Walking through it is like walking through a healthy field after a rainstorm, with the water soaking through your shoes and socks. If you walk through it with bare feet, then it’s like the pins again. Like coal walking, except that the coals are so hot you don’t feel them anymore,” the stranger said.
Harry looked down at his feet and reached around his stiff legs to pull off his work boots and throw them as far away as he could manage. Then, he peeled off the thin, yellowing socks and tossed them to join the boots, leaving his bare feet sinking into the sand. The fur was worn away where it was not matted down, and sores and irritation had flayed his skin, the signs of a lifetime of walking.
“I’ve never taken them off except to bathe and sleep,” he said, “because any other time I’m working. I’m always working, never stopping, never resting, always just working to keep myself from becoming like those bums who hang around in the city.” Harry chuckled, stretching his arms. “They don’t know how to live.”
The stranger was tall and wore a coat to accentuate his height. The black garment was covered in bits of blue string and beads, buttoned all the way to cover the man’s entire body, save for his neck, head and the bare feet that sunk into the sand. He stood tall, and Harry despised him for his apparent ease. The old man would have raised an eyebrow in his direction if he had the muscle capability.
The stranger said nothing, only staring at the kangaroo in silence. They sat together for a while as the sun lingered above them, detached from the earth and yet still making it suffer. Birds ceased calling out to each other. The lizards that once scampered about on the sand had run away to hide in burrows or under rocks. A single fly buzzed over to bother the old man, seeking out nourishment from his tear ducts. Harry batted him away, over and over until the fly finally got the message and flew off in search of less persistent prey.
Harry watched the fly run off, his eyelids getting heavier and heavier as the sun beat down on him more and more. “Lord, I need water,” he sighed. “I need water and I need it bad.”
Turning to the stranger, he looked him up and down, and then turned away. “Isn’t it made of water, somehow? Like, hard water, like ice but not exactly like it.”
The stranger nodded, standing up and wandering a few paces away, circling around the decrepit marsupial. Harry nodded and looked out, exercising his vision by following the wandering lad back and forth. A cloud of sand rose and fell as the stranger kicked the ground, digging his bare, white paws into the earth and upheaving it.
Harry had never seen someone with fur as white as the stranger’s fur. It gleamed in the sun and possessed an unearthly quality that made it appear to bounce and glide as the stranger walked in front of him. All around, he had watched men and women go by with their hair slicked by sweat and mud, people of the loam, but not the stranger. His bare paws which had just dug into the ground had no trace of brown on them at all.
“What’s your name?” Harry said sharply, making the stranger turn to face him. Those eyes, those blue eyes, showed an uneasiness that made the kangaroo feel a little bit more in control of the conversation. “What’s your species? You whole?”
“Whole?”
“Whole. We don’t like mutts.”
The stranger laughed and nodded. “Ah, yes. I am of one species. Have you heard of the arctic wolf?” Harry shook his head. “You may refer to me also as a snow wolf, if you prefer – and call me Jack,” he continued. “Did you know that snow is white? I’m sorry, I assumed you know that much.”
Harry put one paw inside the other and popped his knuckles, the bones protesting with a squeaking crack. “We don’t have white here, Jack. No, no white. The dirt makes it all covered and everything blends in. That’s what it’s about out in this wilderness – blend in and nobody gets hurt.”
A shadow passed and shielded the kangaroo from the sunlight for a brief moment. Looking up, Harry squinted at Jack as he knelt down. The wind passed through his fur and revealed the body underneath, the contours as stiff as granite, frozen like the wolf’s eyes. “Don’t lie to me,” Jack said, his face betraying no hostility.
“I never told a lie to nobody my entire mis’rible life,” Harry growled, attempting to bare his teeth. Jack saw the missing gaps in the grimace, and the yellowing gums that once held the old man’s pearly whites. His breath stank of rum and dryness, cracks appearing on his tongue, a desert of taste buds long gone and petrified plaque.
Jack raised his right paw and stretched out his fingers, bracing himself. The kangaroo opened his mouth to inquire when the stranger placed his hand across his face, three fingers in between his eyebrows and his thumb and pinky underneath each eye.
A rush flew over Harry, and he felt himself blown out of the desert, through a wall of frigid air and darkness. Shapes and colors rushed past his head in an indiscernible blur. He could feel his eyes roll back in his head as blackness took over, with the stranger’s face and hands fading away. Years peeled off of him as he felt his body lift, and in the blackness he saw the transformation.
He could see himself, picture himself as if looking in a mirror, as his skin became ironed out and his fur trickled back to its natural brown. Harry cried out as he felt his gums split apart as old teeth grew back, popping up through the decaying flesh as the flesh renewed itself. His bones shrunk and painfully diminished into a smaller length and girth, but with strength he had not felt in years. A revitalization of his mind made him teeter in the infinite abyss. His mind whirling, he leaned to the left and against a table.
A table? Harry gasped as he stood upright, looking down at his body. Once again, he found himself shirtless and shoeless, but his dusty pants had turned into baggy blue shorts that just barely touched his knees. Slowly, he felt his ears perk up and become aware of the sounds outside, and he turned around to find his surroundings sickeningly familiar.
The main street of that little Australian town had never sounded so joyful. The sky was spotted with gray clouds that loomed low, pregnant with life-giving water. The warm air was humid enough to make all the passers-by look furrier than normal, grease and wax keeping the gentlemen’s hair somewhat flat while all the ladies went with small hats. Even back then, this town hadn’t bothered with the traditional social atmosphere of fanciness, and shirtless men and children wandered about on the streets.
Stores and little shops were bustling with activity, selling all manner of goods for the locals, by the locals. Crowds of children squealed as a monitor handed out honeycombs, dripping with wonderful golden potion. His claws pierced the wax as boys and girls handed out coins and peeled the treat away from his scales. The higher-class ladies tested perfumes in the shop next to the one outside of which Harry stood, their husbands giving nods of patient acceptance as they squeezed the oversized black pumps.
Jack walked through the crowd, down the street, unnoticed by any of the shoppers. The little kangaroo watched him as he walked up, turning to lean against the same table, gazing up and down the street. “Bustling little place,” the wolf remarked. “If you look down the way, I believe those are your parents setting up shop.”
Looking down after a second of silence, Jack nodded and waited as his companion slowly faded from a state of disbelief into that of awe. Harry swallowed hard, his mouth suddenly fresh with the taste of lemonade and moist with new saliva. “What did your parents do, Harry?” the wolf asked, keeping his voice level.
“They sold antiques,” he said slowly testing out his mouth, his voice so high he couldn’t believe it was actually his speech. “I know this place. I’ve been here before, but it’s not like this now.”
“You mean, when you’re an old man, it’s not like this. This is now, Harry. Personally, I think it’s great that, at eight years old, your folks trusted you to be responsible and meet back at a time and place. This crowd is wild – a boy could get lost!” Jack smiled, shaking his head in admiration. “In the future, kids aren’t going to be as safe. You lived in good times.”
His smile turned to a cold grimace as he saw the young kangaroo begin to cry, wiping his eyes silently and giving a little sniffle. The wolf stood immobile, waiting for his traveler to get a grip. “It’s hard, I know,” he said softly, “but you did something today that you’re going to need to so again.”
Harry looked up and glared. “What are you doing?” he hissed, his voice squeaking at its breaking point. “I want to go back. I don’t know what you’re talking about and I don’t know who you are and I want to go BACK.”
Jack looked into the store and said nothing in reply. Harry was about to tell him off when he turned into the open doorway and looked down the corridor.
In the back, far away from the light of the afternoon sun, a metal door sat like a king on his wooden throne, floorboards squeaking under the weight of its steel frame. The giant wheel sat in the center, with a sphere in the middle for decoration that stared out at the boy in return – the bolted malocchio, restrained by the bands woven around it.
“What did you do?”
“Nothing,” Harry whispered, staring straight into the eye. “I didn’t do anything even though I wanted to so badly. It’s the door, the door where only the shopkeeper goes. Nobody’s ever been there, except for him, and he doesn’t give anything away. I remember this day. I walked out and got some honey and forgot about it until now. Why are we here?”
Jack walked around him and paced down the corridor. As he proceeded farther down the hall, the lights flickered and dimmed, keeping the back of his coat and his white fur perpetually in shadow. The little kangaroo looked out into the street, and slipped in unnoticed. Glancing to his left, he saw the fat rat of an owner asleep at the cash register with the candy jars behind him. The child ran down the hall, stumbling over his new legs.
The door seemed farther than he thought, and Jack appeared to have waited for a long time as he reached it. He expected to feel winded or sore, but the youthfulness he now possessed made his body, aged and weary not moments ago, recover faster than he could have ever imagined. Standing up straight, Harry smiled a little before he turned back to the door, glancing at Jack nervously.
The wolf stared at the door intently, as if facing an old nemesis. “This room is connected,” he said, “to the other shops surrounding it. Try to remember what they are.” When he stopped speaking, the electric hum of the florescent lights and the fans overtook the silence.
The kangaroo squeezed his eyes shut, going over the neighborhood in his head. Nodding, he turned his head to the directions of the various stores he remembered from childhood. “Fishmonger…ice cream parlor and…the taxidermist?” he asked, glancing up to see Jack nod. “Why does it matter?”
“You know what’s behind this door.” The wolf stood back and crossed his arms. He sighed irritably when Harry just gazed at him, dumbfounded. “You’ve seen them go in and out of the doors. They have to fetch and retrieve, go forwards empty-handed and come back with a new carton of sorbet, or a haddock. Tell me,” Jack said, putting his hand flat against the door. His fingers seemed to tighten, and the fur of his knuckles stood on end.
Harry reached out and touched the handle, inhaling sharply as his sweaty palms touched the giant wheel. The metal was burning because of the coldness running through it, a string of icy tendrils that made the kangaroo remember. Standing next to the doors as a child, even when the ice cream vendor went back there, he would feel the chill as the doors opened and shut, a brief stroke of Old Man Winter’s fingertips.
The little kangaroo closed his eyes as he turned the handle, initial resistance fading to a steady creaking as the giant wheel turned. He didn’t see Jack with one finger pointing at the door, turning it counterclockwise in a steady motion in time to the child’s twisting. Loud cracks popped suddenly as the door began to open, and Harry closed his eyes tighter as the wolf’s hand pushed him closer to the opening. As it widened, the wind and the chill from inside crept up on him like a snake crawling up his sleeves. Being shirtless made the sensation infinitely tenser; his sternum seemed to clamp around his heart for warmth, and all his ribs squeezed his organs in a vice. His fingers, toes and genitals tightened closer to his body as he stepped through. In the blackness of his eyelids, he felt the sensation of needles underneath his feet and then all over his body. Jack stood behind him and closed the door quietly, the creaking hinges settling back into place.
“Wake up.”
Harry would have been blinded if the light had been brighter, but the only source of visionary assistance was from a dim, frosted-over disc in the ceiling of the freezer. Every part of the walls was taken over by tiny stalactites, miniature pinnacles of white that stuck out at odd angles. The doors and floor, both metal, were conspicuously free of ice, but when the kangaroo put his hand on the closest fridge, he shrieked and pulled back, burned from the sudden coldness, the same coldness that his feet had become somewhat accustomed to. His arched felt like they were curling up, the muscles atrophying and chilling with each step.
Giant metal tanks, cylindrical titans, squatted in the corners of the room, with faded cartoon fruits and icons with the various ice cream flavors. The smiles were melancholy and seemed faked, ancient drawings that seemed to be trapped in the timestream, begging to move again. On creaking chains that swung back and forth and blotted out the light, various frozen fish hung from above, without cuts or mutilations. The scaled bodies turned slowly and eventually, all eyes were on the mysterious strangers. The fishes’ corpses were void of curiosity and motion, their eyeballs cracked and stuck in a permanently panicked position. There were shelves across from the tanks and freezers, and on them a feral housecat sat, its body opened up and its insides hollowed out. The small, spotted body had been sliced from neck to groin and the internal structure had been completely taken out. A tag with a red “X” was marking the body, perhaps labeling it as unsalvageable.
Jack stepped forwards and placed a hand on Harry’s shoulder, steadying the swaying cub. The kangaroo felt bile start to rise in his throat as he stared at the crystals around him. At no time in his life had coldness enveloped him so. The impossible was stinging his soles as he stood. For one world to be so completely frozen was beyond his comprehension, and to experience this at a point in his life he had long forgotten made his mind begin to break down, the reality of this experience more than he could bear.
“Nothing moves here,” said the wolf, reaching up to stop the swinging of one of the fish. “Nothing ever goes forwards or backwards until the door is opened and the stillness is so rudely interrupted. That is what it means to be in the cold. It means never being pushed too far or forced to change. The only rule in this place is that you cannot change.
“I come from a world of this steadiness, Harrison. And I saw that you are in pain because of the heat, because of your change. Life has always forced you ahead, melting you down into a pile of rubble and useless for. You age, you go on, and you break down as you are forced to undergo change. But nothing here will ever change. Haven’t you always wanted that? Haven’t you always wanted to stay still, to not be forced to move? Nobody can predict the far future because of this change. To remain still is to be run over in the heat. But to remain still here is to be accepted.
“I know what you are thinking – if there is no change in the world, than the bad things cannot be forced to become good. Truly, I say to you that as long as the bad cannot change, nor can the good. All of the good things in your life can stay the same if you refuse to move them. Both good and bad may stagnate in the heat of the sun, but in this cold world they remain without war and without peace. Light and darkness do not mingle, but they remain locked on each other for eternity.
“I leave you, not locked in this paradise, but with an exit to the outside. Being mortal, you shall freeze if you remain, but there is a choice you can make. If you so decide to continue to change, then you shall continue to rot and to morph into the man I met today. Know, however, after seeing this world that you have the choice of staying still. Things can be made to remain frozen in place. That is what it means to be in the winter. To remain frozen is to remain immaculate.”
Jack closed his eyes and left before he could see the kangaroo give him an answer. He left harry standing alone in the room, probably still mesmerized by the circles of frost, the intricate patterns of shaved ice and the sting of the cold around him. The wolf had transported himself to the icy plain he called home, although he knew not where it truly resided in the universe. Staring up at the blank, endless sky that would never be written on with the mark of man, he wondered what it was like to grow up.
