Chapter 21

Blue sat at the top of the mountain until well past sunset. He thought about many things, reliving the events of the past few days, trying to understand how each occurrence was related to another, hoping to weave a sensible fabric of truth in which to wrap himself both for protection and reassurance. He had left Earth less than a month before but it seemed like years to him now, leaving behind a society that he had never really fully felt connected with, a humanity which at best, was evolving and developing and at worst killing itself and its home in a blind hunger for more, bigger, faster. He had come to a world, just as developed, technologically, if not more so, yet riddled with the same issues of inequality, violence and greed.

Blue walked to the edge of a large outcropping and threw himself over the side, free-falling, feeling the wind rush past him, watching the river rise to greet him with impossible speed as he ripped into the water sending a liquid plume thirty feet into the air. Blue darted his way to the bottom of the deep blue river, zipping past curios undersea life, then just as quickly, he shot up out of the water. He rose higher and higher into the sky until he reached a place where he hovered and thought about his next move. How he could easily create for himself  a great garden, high walls and an elaborate labyrinthine entrance, a fortress of solitude, just like Superman.

Chapter 20 Death by Numbers-Act 1 Scene 9

It only took a minute for Sal's laughter to turn to tears, but it was a truly agonizing sixty seconds, each one framing a more disturbed snapshot of Sal's seemingly instant descent into madness. It was as though every other part of his body was attached to Sal's face. As his eyes clamped shut, his brow tightened with the strain and the corners of his mouth pulled down as his teeth clenched in rage and despair, a barely audible groaning sobbed its way into the dead hospital air and hung with a sterile darkness. A single tear fell from Sal's eyes before his fingers pressed hard against the locked lids. His body tightened in around his weeping face until he crumpled to the floor, stricken by grief. He lay there sobbing, turning small circles like a fetus  in a slow-motion whirlpool.

Suddenly, he stopped, sprang to his feet, leaped to Victor's bed and began pounding Victor"s already badly beaten face. "Who the Varst did this?!! Sal hollered as he grabbed Victor around the throat and began choking him to death.

"He can't tell you anything if you kill him", a voice calmly said from the doorway. Dr. Lee Kirby had seen just about everything imaginable that could happen in a hospital. He was very familiar with Sal Lorenzo, as were most who lived in Rat Town. In fact, he knew Sal rather well. Most of the hospital was paid for by Sal. Most of a lot of things in Rat Town were paid for by Sal. Dr. Kirby preferred to turn a blind eye to the violence behind Sal's business, figuring that the good he could do because of Sal's investment in the hospital far outweighed any unsavory acts that Sal Lorenzo might actually commit himself. Still, he wasn't about to allow him to beat a patient to death right in front of him.

Sal turned to Dr. Kirby, his eyes full of hopeless rage tinged with startled disbelief as he felt the sting of the needle at the base of his neck.

First Look at Vinny-Bastin' Farbunkle He's Handsome!

Vinny

Chapter 20 Death by Numbers-Act 1 Scene 8

Samuel fell back against his hospital bed pillow only after he watched the engorged wood tick nephew run from the room with the speed of a trained athlete, accidentally dropping the recording device as he ran, leaving it pointing in the direction of the two injured men who shared both a hospital room and a secret plan. Samuel didn't want to think about the plan. He wanted to think about what might happen were the plan to fail even less. He remained silent, his eyes involuntarily counting the rows of dots in the ceiling tiles until his brain told them that he didn't want to be doing that, as the eyes rested in one place, the dots began to advance toward him like cloned armies, magically recreating themselves until, "Hey Samuel," Victor's voice quietly pulled Samuel's eyes from the mesmerizing advance,"you okay?"

"Yeah Vic, you?" Samuel responded as both men leaned toward each other to get a visual.

"We have to tell Sal about what happened to the others," Victor continued as his eyes darted to the location of the recording device on the floor then returned to Samuel."They really did a number on you, Sam, I don't even think your mother would recognize you,"Leer added, letting Samuel know that the plan was active, the play had begun, the stage had been set and that everything he would do and say from this moment forward had to happen exactly as they had rehearsed or he and Victor would most likely wind up dead.

"They did a number on all of us, man, and I still can't figure out where the Varst they came from," Samuel responded, clearly understanding his role.

"Too bad you scared off the fat little baster, we need to let Sal know what happening right away,"Leer began,"and you'd better leave telling Sal about Max up to me," Victor warned,"Sal's not going to let this go unpunished and if anyone is responsible, it's me."

"But Victor," Samuel quickly replied,"you couldn't have done anything about it, none of us could, and you know just as well as I do that Max could kick the shit outta half the Farb-damn team, how those bastin' shitheads managed to get the best of her, the best of all of us, I'll never know, but I do know it wasn't your fault."

Just then, the door to the hospital room burst open,"what wasn't your fault,Victor?" Sal was standing in the open doorway. He clearly couldn't have been far away, and in fact he wasn't. One of his goons had seen Gus running down the hall, fleeing the room and intercepted him then quickly notified Sal who was occupying himself with one of the attendants, in a previously empty room doing Farb knows what with surgical tubing and a previously full canister of nitrous. "Tell me now, Victor." Sal demanded, looking strangely out of sorts and clearly in no shape to receive the kind of information Leer was about to lay on him.

"Max is dead." Victor said grimly, Leer knew that he had to drop the whole bomb at once or the plan would fail,"and the shipment is gone." Before Sal could say a word Victor added,"everyone was killed, only Sam and I, and a few others survived. And the Farb-damn, Bastin' shitheads who killed her only left us alive to tell you that they want more juice." Leer delivered the line through clenched teeth and knuckles that strained from the pressure of hands that gripped themselves into fists so strongly that the white bone of the knuckles popped out like polished marbles balanced in perfect rows upon blood-red rocks.

Sal looked to the men in the hospital beds with the stunned expression of a man who had just been told that he had only two weeks to live, then burst out laughing.

Chapter 19 Ancillary8

Right-Handed Beezle

Chapter 19 Ancillary7

Left-Handed Beezle

Chapter 19 Ancillary6

Beezle!

Chapter 19 Ancillary5

Spiritual Growth

Chapter 19 Ancillary4

Solar Flares

Chapter 19 Ancillary3

Glowing Orb

Chapter 19 Ancillary2

Some beings do not perceive light at all. In our human understanding, that would lead us to believe that they therefor do not perceive color. This is simply not true. Color, Blue has come to understand, is not simply a manifestation of light made visible by pigmentation, reflection or refraction. It is also a shade or hue of emotion, thought, breath, philosophy, imagination, blood-food or Sharshanii as the Gnolamaii call it, or any number of other essences, perceived, sensed or otherwise experienced by the multitude of species which inhabit the universe. Painting is one way for the humanoid form to attempt to illustrate the awesome richness of color.

Abstract Spyro RB

Chapter 19 Ancillary1

Blue went up on a mountain and there he sat. He thought about a great many things. He began to picture the paintings he had created while working with Anna Marie, realizing how they had brought him to the place he now sat, or rather how the visions which had inspired the paintings had brought him to this place. Stylistically, the paintings varied, some were illustrative while others were more abstract, though all seemed to speak of an energy which moved through, into,between and around all things, people, places, beings and living things.

Abstract Glowing Globe

Into the Blue

The creator of Blue is in the studio for a week, no internet access, so no posts.

Chapter 20 Death by Numbers-Act 1 Scene 9HNY

Happy New Year!