Part Five - Bees, Disease & Other Things
30.
Towards the setting sun the four of them went. Al and Ernie seemed to have a new vigor about their step as the caravan proceeded. The Duck and the Crow lagged behind watching the two humans and their newfound passion. And, once again, they had smiles on their faces. Shit eating grins to be exact.
31.
Those shit eating grins did not last very long, unfortunately, for thunder rang out again in Ginotia Main. As usual, the four of them were sent back. You see, it was already May of 1998 at this time. Hell, the whole turtle interaction was a five-month journey in man’s time frame, but was just one short jaunt through the Void. It seemed, no matter how you looked at it, it all happened. And it happened in the simplest was it could possibly happen. In the Void, it just was what it was. But in the material world of doing, it took them five months to accomplish. Kind of strange how it matters depending on which “time-frame” you are in.
Never the less, thunder struck. It struck long and it struck hard. No matter where anyone tried to hide their heads, it struck near them. No one seemed safe. It was as if the end of the world was on its way. Armageddon had arrived, the locals thought. They hid in their basements. They hid in their storm shelter. They hid everywhere they could for fear of lightning taking them out of their worlds.
Now, if you asked Ernie and Al, they really didn’t care if lightning struck them. They had begun to realize it would take them if it wanted. No use worrying about it. Besides, they knew they were better off than the others of the world. They weren’t cheating. They weren’t lying. They weren’t doing things behind others backs. They were simply existing, and existing for life’s sake only. The typical problems one runs across in ever day social living mattered not to them. They could care less if their hair was a little off. They could care less if they weren’t “doing” the right thing. They could care less if their antics were a tad strange to everyone. And they could care less what anyone thought about them.
What they did care about, however, was the fact that no matter how hard they tried, they were unable to find the Duck and the Crow anywhere. They kind of figured that those two would no longer be showing up on the street corner of Vinci Drive Leo Lane
32.
Al and Ernie did not like the fact that they seemed stuck where they were. They did not like the fact that the Duck and the Crow seemed to leave them in Ginotia Main without completing the cycle. They did not like that they were so close to figuring all of it out yet realized they would be unable to do so on their own. For a while, as they went to the street corner day after day, they cursed the Duck and the Crow for not showing up to finish the process. No matter how hard they tried, they were still unable to get back.
Over the next few months, Ernie and Al began to see more and more strange occurrences take place in their little hometown. They saw meteors fly through the sky and hit the far hills. They saw ships fly overhead without any trace as they left a few seconds later. They saw odd things crawl out from under the rocks and even odder thing fly through the dark night. No one knew what was going on. No one knew what was happening. No one knew anything, and it was worse than when Ginotia Main had been a dark, depressed place.
People were frightened more than they ever had been. Fear gripped them all by the throats. No one stepped foot outside of their homes, apartments, or tiny shacks. They simply stopped everything. The streets were bare. The town was lost.
33.
I know many comments have been made as to how the world seemed strange on various days to those concerned here. Al and Ernie, well, these two were so damn close to seeing it all. However, they were just not quite prepared to enter into the final phase where the Duck and the Crow waited for them. They still had to observe their physical world a bit closer and realize the insane habits their fellow men existed for.
It was by no fault of their own, but neither Ernie nor Al knew exactly how to get back to the other side. Al and Ernie waited impatiently while the Duck and the Crow waited patiently. As the Elf had said, “Existence has a weird way of working itself out.”
Existence in Ginotia Main, to those who lived within the town, seemed to have no way of working itself out. You see, for months - August to November of 1998 - a different ailment ailed the Ginotia Main’ers. August brought a crazy swarm of stinging bees. No one could open his or her door. No one could step foot outside. If they did, they were not only harassed but also chased by more bees than you could possibly fathom. The sky looked darker than the night when the bees were on your trail.
One brave soul - stupid soul if you ask me - dared to take the bees on. He decided it was more important to get to the liquor store and back rather than hide out. His thirst was getting the better of him since he’d been drinking since the age of fourteen. The personal stash he had tucked away for just such an occasion had run out from all the drinking he had done during his depressed state months back. This time, he could not go without alcohol if he was going to be locked up inside having to think about how his life had turned out. Sober self-introspection was more than he could handle.
As a result, he braved the bees. He thought he had a grand plan. He checked the locale of the swarm on the news broadcast from the local television station. The bees were clear across town, and the liquor store was just four blocks away. Now was his chance! He didn’t quite care if the owner was at the store or not. He had written a not telling the owner what he would take and when he would pay him back. His plan was about to get running!
Quickly, he grabbed the keys to his old truck, opened his front door, ran to the truck, started the ignition, and drove away - laughing a silent laugh, as he knew his plan would succeed. What he did not expect was the unexpected.
Two blocks from his home, his trusty truck blew a tire. Either he had to risk wasting time fixing and changing the tire, or he had to run the rest of the way - either home or to the store. He chose to run - to the store! He made it all the way to the store, broke in, slammed the door, and smiled. Liquor was everywhere. He grabbed the essentials he listed in his note to the owner, as the owner was at home safe with his family. This man, however, decided to take a few nips from the bottle before he took off back home to ease his anxiety. He took his swigs and was off. He made it three blocks towards his home before he ran into trouble. He only had one more block to go to his house when he saw them. They came around the corner in a sudden swarm and surprised the hell out of him. He turned the corner to head through the back roads to avoid them. But bees do not know the difference between front roads and back roads. He actually made it to his back door when he reached into his pocket for his keys. They weren’t there! He had left them in the ignition of his truck. The bees were on their way towards him.
To make a long, sad story short, when the coroner found him a couple of weeks later, after the bees disappeared, it went down on his death certificate as a heart attack; but everyone knew what gave him the heart attack. The bees scared the shit out of him, and the liquor helped to aid the weakening of his heart. Shame. Oh what a shame. He should have stayed home and jumped off the wagon. But he didn’t, and the wagon ended up falling on top of him!
34.
Another freakish incident happened the next month that came along with an even freakier situation that began to run rampant through the town. It just so happened that when the bees finally left other strange and twisted things began to happen. People realized they had gone without for a month. Some even ran out of food and water. At a time when people needed their basic necessities - food, clothes, and shelter - they were unable to provide for themselves for lack of money from not working the past few months. When the shops reopened their doors, there was a bout of stealing and swiping those goods that provided everyone with their basic needs. The police had more on their hands than they could handle, just as they do in all parts of the world, because, as I said earlier, Ginotia Main is no different than anywhere else.
As a result of this madness and rioting, a bunch of groups called by various names began to rise out of the crazy scene. Some people call them the mob, others call them gangs, and still others call them misled beings with no sense of home. The “gangs” began to take over the underground causing havoc and trouble everywhere they went. They fought each other for the sole sake of fighting. They wore different colors and had different signs. They hated each other because it was easier than liking each other. Not only did they hate each other, but they also hated everyone who was not part of their sub-culture. And they would do anything - ANYTHING -to stay on top of the pile and come out on top.
It seemed they had begun to take the American Dream to a new extreme. Take until you can take no more - or until you are wiped off the face of the Earth. Ginotia Main was falling prey to these groups. Ernie and Al were ashamed at what was happening; yet they still could not get back to the Duck and the Crow.
One day, while Al and Ernie were walking towards the intersection of Vinci and Leo, they heard a noise they had not heard in years. They heard gunshots! Gunfire in Ginotia Main! Gunshots were worse than hearing the thunder in their ears, because they knew what followed the thunder. They were unaware, however, what scene might ensue from gunshots. And not one event in their life after gunshots was a positive experience. They ran to see what happened.
When they rounded the corner, they found an elderly lady howling out her fears and tears as she held a young child in her arms. Blood poured into the sewer, as the young body lay motionless. The woman was in obvious pain, and it took a while until she would explain what happened. When she regained her composure, she told Ernie and Al that her son and she had just walked out of the pharmacy from getting the medications her son needed to keep his disease in check. Then all of a sudden, this group of hoodlums jumped out of a car each with a gun. The “gang” asked the two of them for their money and their drugs. Both the lady and her son knew to give them what they wanted in order to avoid more of a problem and keep from provoking a larger incident. They gave them what they wanted - his wallet, her purse, and the medication. The lady said she could see the remorse in her son’s eyes as he handed it all over to them. She also said she could see the anger and hatred in the eyes of those robbing them. No sooner had the “gang” gotten what they wanted and reentered their car to get away than all hell broke loose. The man in the passenger seat rolled down his window and let out a large wail exclaiming, “The flames are the only true gang!” He then pulled out his gun and fired three times into the chest of her son. There was no reason for him to do so except from the pure desensitization and madness he gets from the world he was growing up in. It was simply an inhumane act.
The ambulance came and took both the old woman and her young son. Al and Ernie walked off ashamed to be associated with a shameful species such as their own. How could all of this be happening they asked themselves? Where were the Duck and the Crow, and how come they could not get back to find them? Ernie and Al were getting more and more frustrated with the world they were seeing, and they knew there had to be more to it than all of the craziness they experienced. They were becoming angry at the world, and even angrier at the Duck and the Crow.
35.
It didn’t stop there. There was a slew of shootings that lasted two months. Needless killing for needless ways. Man had begun to turn on himself and his brethren. But what happened next was even more disturbing.
You see, dear reader, a lot of strange things happen that have some viable and logical explanation behind them. The next month’s events, however, did not seem to have either of these; but some people suspected where it came from.
November 1998 was a month no one will ever forget in Ginotia Main.
It was a cool, fall evening (since in Ginotia Main, every few years the winters are very mild). It was an evening when a lot of folks took a relaxing stroll through the woods in order to check out the beautiful colors contained within the changing of the leaves. The leaves were Nature’s canvas during these past few months. They ranged from orange to yellow to green to red to all of the various shades in between. Even the greatest painters would be in awe and amazed at the varying shades of each color contained in the forests. Colors they never even knew existed and tried painstakingly to mix with their feeble hands and humble paints.
Needless to say, it was an amazing sight to see and experience. And most people did it experience it on these last, colorful evenings. Even more people seemed to go out this imparticular November evening after the killings and the bees. Everyone was hoping the insanity was coming to a close. They were, unfortunately, mistaken.
This imparticular evening, well - I must add in here that Al and Ernie were getting even more and more upset each day for the ineptitudes of not being able to get back to the Void. Their minds became cluttered and full of anger, and all they wanted to do was hide out and escape the world. On this evening, it was out of pure dumb luck that the two of them were brooding over their anger at Ernie’s and escaped the falling of the sky.
For the rest of those concerned - those souls who simply wanted to take a natural stroll through god’s country - it was a dire time indeed.
36.
Some people still claim it was some kind of devilish experiment from the higher ups who run the country. Others say it was a freak accident of Nature. And still others claim alien beings had something to do with it. Me, I believe all three because all three are definitely possible. Besides, who am I to say who gets the distinct honor of this upcoming madness?
I know, you want to know what happened and me to shut up. Well, I will, and this is what ensued . . .
On the fateful evening of November 5, 1998 , while Ernie and Al sat solemnly trying to figure out why they were unable to return, the majority of Ginotia Main was out walking themselves, their children and their dogs. Most people were laughing, talking and enjoying Nature’s splendor when the sky began to fall. Well, the sky did not really fall, but something definitely fell from the sky.
Those walking through the streets noticed it first. It fell like globs of glue. Blobs of mush. Globs of silly putty. Globs of bacteria. Actually, no one knew it was bacteria until the doctors and scientists figured it out later. As for those walking through the trees, they saw it hit the limbs and leaves, bounce off and smack the leaf-riddled ground. It was curious to everyone who saw it. Little kids ran up to it and poked it. Parents wondered what it was and put it in jars to have it examined. Dogs went up to it and stuck their noses in it. The worse thing of it all was that everyone who came into contact with it got sick and got sick fast.
It was not even twenty-four hours after the incident that the Hospital Emergency room was being flooded by those involved in the previous night’s stroll. The doctors were baffled at the amount of those entering their wards. Everyone seemed to have flu-like symptoms as well as nausea and vomiting every twenty to thirty minutes. Their skin began to break out in horrible rashes, and their sight began to diminish. A few went into comas, but it came to be that those were the people who came into contact with the globs first. The rest who entered with the flu-like symptom eventually went into comas as well. Everyone was perplexed. Even the dogs had the same process and symptoms happen to them. No one knew what was going on!
Al and Ernie heard about all of this through the radio and television news. They were perplexed as well. How could all of this be happening? Did it have something to do with the Void? How could it? They saw nothing while they were there to predict this! They did know that everything that materialized in Ginotia Main did have direct correlation with the Void; so, maybe that was part of it. Either way, all they knew was that a greater part of the population was dropping like flies, and they were running out of time. At this rate, they would be wiped out soon enough as well.
37.
Ernie and Al were lost. Not only lost in Ginotia Main, but lost in their minds and spirit. It had been months since they saw the Duck and the Crow. They had seen some horrible events take place in Ginotia Main. And they were confused more than ever as to why it was all materializing like this. They had begun to lose faith in all they had learned previously and started to think that it was one crazy delusion and messed up trip. Yet, they knew, from the feeling they had inside, that it had to of all happened. Or did it?
They started to think about everything that had happened to them recently. They first met the Duck and the Crow almost two years ago, and ever since then weird shit had been going down. It took them to gain trust and faith within themselves to be able to sense, feel and suspend all judgment to continue their process. They had to eliminate all negativity out of their psyche to get to the last stage they had been at - well, what they had thought was the last stage. Because, for some odd reason, they knew there had to be more to all of this than what they had just previously experienced. There were a few bits and pieces they were missing, but they did not know what those pieces were. They realized the make up of the universe and found silence within their meditations, but there still seemed to be more. As of late, they felt frustration and anger accompanied by hopelessness because of their inability to get back to the other side. They also felt the frustration, anger and hopelessness because they were unable to stop all of this insanity from invading Ginotia Main.
After rehashing these ideas back and forth for days and days, Al and Ernie collapsed from fatigue and went into two very deep sleeps. It was in their sleep, wrapped up in their dream, where they realized what was holding them back! And what was holding them back was their struggle of identifying and understanding their known worlds. They had been wrapped up with emotions so much that they had forgotten to let go of everything and accept everything. They had begun to analyze rather than sense everything. They had been labeling things and events as good and bad rather than seeing them exactly as they were - Events of moments!
How stupid of them! They had known it all along, yet forgot the simple process that was taught to them such a short time ago. It made them realize that a Do’ers world of analyzation and continual “doing” really is hard to get out of. A Do’ers type of lifestyle is its own curse as well as its own destruction of human consciousness.
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