Bubbles
By Michael C. Thompson


Bubbles.

The bubble world pops, and my ears along with it - my brain drops out like a loose elevator down a deep, black shaft. For a second I forget everything, but only for a second. Then I see his face again. Then I know what he’s done to me. I remember everything, as easily as I forgot it - and the world forms around my hatred. As I am born anew into yet another strange place, the atoms whirl for millimeters surrounding the increasing density of my body, as if propelled by my rage. It brings me to life, pulls me from one plane to the next, magnetized by my own will-power. His name stains my mind like a tattoo, the only word I know of as existence gives birth to me for the umpteenth time.

Victor.

I’ve been following him everywhere, through the bubbles. Penetrating the worlds. I see his traces. Marks here, there. He doesn’t think I see. But I’m onto him. He wants to jump down the rabbit hole, I’ll follow him anywhere.

This one is different, though. Doesn‘t seem like a typical world, and I‘ve seen plenty of them. Most are the same. Some are… quite different. This appears to be one of those. Black soil. Not an uncommon characteristic. Pink sky hangs overhead - who knows what that means. The air smells like gasoline. Can’t tell where it’s coming from - the north, or north-west, but the sun could be placed differently on this globe. North could be south. I can’t tell anymore. I can breathe. That means he can breathe too. Which means I have to look for him here until I know he‘s gone elsewhere.

I walk for miles. The landscape is largely the same, although a distant forest looms ever closer to me as the sun arcs overhead. The way it’s moving, if it’s like most of the globes, then I’m heading
east. But I can’t take things like that for granted anymore. I’ve been so many places, my body - my brain - dropping out of existence so many times… even the nanoseconds that I remain in purgatory have a horribly negative effect on my memory. Can’t put things together like I used to anymore… Can barely even remember where I came from. Maybe I can’t.

Outside of the forest, I see the first native. A young man on his knees, bloody face, picking bones out of the black dirt.

“You,” I say to him. He looks up at me. Can’t tell if he speaks English. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t - sometimes they speak something that sounds like English in some places and alien in others. He only stares up at me with blank, hungry eyes. He can’t be older than thirteen. Looks like he has been out here for days. The heat is unbearable when the wind blows, as it’s starting to now.
 I look up at the horizon, then point at the sun, descending over the skyline of the trees. He follows the direction of my hand, stares at it for a moment, his eyes unshielded - even I’m not doing that. I’m
behind my Ray Ban. His eyes lock onto it almost magnetically, and he stares into the hellish orb as though it were a habit, burning out his retinas without the slightest thought. “Hey,” I say softly at first.
He doesn’t look at me. So I shout it. “HEY!” This time his head whips around. “North?” I question him, trying to sound gruff. I notice cataracts forming over his irises, he continues to stare blankly as if
through me. Either he doesn’t speak English or the sun has burned his brains out. I walk past him, kicking up sand in the increasing wind. He stares off after me, then finally calls out.

“West,” he says.

I turn around, looking at him, more than pissed off at his seeming stupidity. “West?” I repeat, pointing at the sun. He nods at me, then says something else.

“Stay away.” I don’t catch it at first, or if I do, I imagine I couldn’t have heard him correctly.

“Stay away?” I repeat, confirming. “Why?”

He continues to stare, this time adding nothing. Perhaps his language skills are limited. I turn, head back toward the sun - West, I learn now. Different on this globe. I was right. Another interesting thing. The boy speaks English. Detail noted.

As I start to enter the forest - the trees of which are bizarre - I turn back to face the boy one last time. Staring up at the sun again. Swallowed up in it’s flames. As I face away from him, I note the trees. As black as the earth. As dead as the dirt. The shadows hang high below it’s wood canopies, constructed of branches and large, hideous birds nest. I hear a nasty, insectile chirping from inside of them. But I see nothing. Good. I let the forest eat me.
 Victor. I’m coming.

“The woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep.

And miles to go before I sleep.”


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Michael C. Thompson has been previously published in the November 2010 issue of "Collective Fallout" magazine, and presently enjoys writing speculative science fiction.