the broken road home

for those of you who've already checked into key23's dreamspace and read this piece there, my apologies. it just occurred to me this morning that i'd like a back up copy stored elsewhere...

i became conscious that there was a lot of stuff in front of me, and it needed to be moved to the ship that was moored at the docks down on the river. there were a lot of people around, most of them people i'd gone to the wall for in the past. none of them would help me move any of it. i felt so frustrated, but i didn't kill them. i just picked up a box and headed down to the ship.

a beautiful dark-haired woman approached me and offered me lodging at her inn. we arrived there, a gorgeous airy building limned in greenery and light. "this is the quetzlcoatl," she told me, and i saw the signs emblazoned with the quetzlcoatl everywhere...

she took me to a room with walls of glass. within was a man. when we looked at each other i knew i'd known him before, even though we'd never met. he was completely average looking, but his eyes were deep and clear and wise... he appeared to be in his 30's, wearing jeans and a tan sports jacket over a t-shirt. sexy, in a wholesome sort of way. the three of us made an ecstatic sort of love then, for an indeterminate time...

then there were men entering the room, sober serious men. they were to have a meeting, but i didn't want to stay. i remembered i'd left an article of clothing, which needed repaired at home. i wanted to walk home to get it. the man who was now my lover accompanied me.

we were walking along highway 101, which seemed oddly deserted of traffic. there was another couple walking to my left, garbed in pale colors and with pale hair. i thought they were an elderly couple, so i asked them to come to the right side of the road, where they would be safe if traffic resumed. they didn't speak to me, but they did as i asked. the four of us continued walking up the hill, toward the exit to my street.

we began walking down the exit, but the way was blocked by heavy equipment, a bulldozer and a dump truck, both huge. i guided the elderly couple toward a kind of cat-walk that kept them clear of the equipment while my lover and i negotiated our way around them. the elderly couple got ahead of us, then i saw them walking back. they still hadn't said a word. i managed to crawl over the treads of the bulldozer and saw why they'd turned back --- the road ahead was broken away, completely missing. some cataclysm had destroyed it.

my lover looked at me. "there is another way," he said.