82 - Robotic Kangaroos and Elephants

While he straightened out his clothing, one of the brightly painted robotic kangaroos hopped over and offered him a flower, a real, earthan, batchelor's button.  He took it, said ‘thank you’ and pinned it onto his lapel, all the while aware of the way it watched him.  Even in a dream he was being monitored, as the pupil of its eye irised open, then contracted down to a black pinhole. It hopped away.

“I have two questions for you,” he said quietly.  “Well, three or more actually but the most important two.”

 “Yes?” The woman leaned on the top of the pachyderm’s head, resting her chin on her arms.  Her eyes were extraordinary, and strikingly blue over her veil.  He found himself wanting to see the rest of her face.  Stop that, Terence.

“First of all, is there another place on this planet than Xanadu where people can live?  I’m asking for myself only.”

She regarded him solemnly, the ferret lying on her head peering at him imitating her pose on the elephant.  A bee bumbled out of the rose bushes and landed on the flower in his lapel.  He glanced down at it, but made no move to brush it away.  She smiled suddenly.  He could see that even through the face covering. It made her eyes crinkle up enticingly.  Another bee settled on the brim of his hat and as if that were somehow a trigger, she made up her mind.  “Yes.  There is.  Right now, right here, I won’t say any more about it.”

Something about this whole strange situation made Terry suddenly wild to run and grab a beribboned cane from one of the mannequins in straw boaters and striped coats and start smashing the perfectly manicured pavilions of the arcade.  “My second question.  If I made it to this mythical ‘other place’… especially if I managed to rescue one of your own… would I be welcome?”

Her eyebrows went up.  “Unity, yes!”

He ducked his head as every carnival animal in earshot reacted to the word.  Their painted wooden and mechanical heads turned towards them, on the carousel, the swans on the pond, even the elephant froze under her.  “For goodness sakes don’t say any kind of word like that!  Except, of course –“ He raised his voice, babbling inanely.  “—the union of matrimony is something you cannot speak so boldly about!  Where is your Keeper?” The false animals ratcheted their heads back around to a neutral position and Terry dropped his voice to almost a whisper.  “Please don’t set off the security!  If you use words even close to the ‘U’ word it sets them off!”

The woman had her hand over her mouth, pressing the cloth to her closed lips, gazing at the vapidly beautiful carousel, and then down at the elephant she rode.  “I… see.  I think.”

“May I interest the young lady in a ride on the Ferris wheel?” He indicated the towering ride on the other side of the grove of trees.  In his dream… and supposedly her dream as well, there were no other patrons in the garden.  From the distant bandshell came the whistling, merry music of a steam calliope, that clashed oddly with the carousel tune.

She smiled and slid down the ladder and the pachyderm ambled away, mirrored ears flashing. His brand new resolve hardened.  “I believe I shall very much enjoy meeting with you in the flesh.  So to speak.”

Hara laughed.  “So to speak.  Is there some way, in this code, that I can help you make your—“ she glanced around at the garden fixtures around them.  A gigantic mechanical  rabbit, wearing a brocade waistcoat and top hat, hopped past them, touching its paw politely to the brim of its hat, ears flopping.  “--Bold and dashing venture a success?”

Terry offered her his elbow.  “At the moment, just finding out desperately needed information… makes my venture possible.”

“I will have to make sure that our party is well planned on my end,” she said as he handed her into the gondola and sat down beside her, securing the strap over his lap.  The ferret was snuggled around her neck, peering at him through the veil.  “Once you are out of this…” she waved a hand indicating the ground spread out below them as they swept up to the top of the wheel… “you’ll need to get in touch with me, and we’ll be able to talk without the circumlocutions.”

“Exactly… oh… oh no… I’m waking up.” The carnival was thinning, growing foggy and pale, the bright colours bleaching out as everything did under this brutal sun.

“Get off of Xanadu,” she called, her reaching hands fading away from him as the carnival dream broke into a shattered mirror of images, robotic animals, bright rides, the striped jackets of the mannequin barkers… the irising open and closed eyes of the animals on the merry-go-round all flew away around his head, slipped through his hands, clutching the strap across his lap.  “You’ve decided, I can tell.  Get away safe. I’ll make sure there’s somewhere for you to run!”

Run, run, run, swim, fly, the steam calliope music swelled around him and thundered in his ears until he put his hands up, knocked off his hat, he closed his eyes – and when he opened them, tangled in his bed sheets, there was a small, crushed flower in his fingers.  His hand spasmed open and the crumpled thing stained his pristine sheets as he stared wildly around the empty bedroom.