Precursor

Months ago I had no friends. No. Friends. In the world, in my life.

Then I received a little gift from TPTB, a small white rat named Amy. My heart exploded into bloom like a desert flower in a monsoon. I liked that.

Please pay attention: I see things, and I'm uncomfortable with them because they are not yet things. Now I have seen things that ARE, and that's way worse.

After Amy came I knew that the time of the freeing bird was short, and that she would come for me. I knew of the rain cloud, but I always dream of the clouds and the thunder so I didn't recognize that this particular cloud was another friend.

I followed my Friend the bird into the darkest of dar'c places because I am a Hero no matter what others might say about me being a TOOL or a FREAK or a MENACE. I am elkeveo, the Hero Who Sees. See what I have seen:

A hero floating who cannot fly,
Minions from another space and time,
A soothsayer who cannot know the truth,
Vicious cuddly monsters trained to hug,
A laughing rain cloud trapped on the ground,
Lungs that scream on after they are stone.

It's too much. The world is too much, the sounds are too much, the friends who come and then go, and then return and then vanish...

I don't like that. Can I go home now?

I have looked at clouds from more sides than anyone else. I have been in the thunder, and the thunder comes from a gray cloud, a green cloud, a night cloud, the cloud of knives and fire. The future was born in a cloud of thundering possibilities, and then came the lab times. But enough about all other moments in time, those that existed and those that may exist.

In this moment I am looking for a specific pink rain cloud, a cloud of vanishing predictabilities, Schroedinger's cloud, the cloud of silent tea times and wild exuberance. Hello, cloooooud? Wherefore art thou, yon disappearing cloud?

Because to be a hero, a Real Hero, I need to find you and a certain bare herald, or we'll be up to our ankles in DOOOOM. And we'll fall in head first.

I'm so sweaty, and Dr. Manx won't respond to my page. So frustrating to know and to stay, to stand, to stop. I am Not Kidding, Doctor! I Need some time in the Answer Well, for I have Dreamed the Worst and this time, I AM THE HERO!

I must know more. Ah, the cat arrives. A certain pink rain cloud needs a savior, and a certain Messenger may know too much, and a bird may need the thunder and the storm to fly to the truth.

Please, let me go, let me know, to show, to GO!

it's not working. i tried my plan several times. first, i got a headache. then all the moisture in my mouth dried up. then my hands shook. dr. manx noticed, i know. his wee eyes flicked towards my hands, but he said nothing. the cat has fear... but he wants to be lying.

the hat janitor, dominick, says that amy is good, but that she doesn't run so much anymore. "la ratita no la gusta correr." that's on you, catman. there will be a reckoning.

Hee. I have a plan. I will have my Amy back, and Dr. Manx will bring her to me. Let me think, oh think on it, until he is here. Then. I will be not here, and Amy with me, and we'll find the bird after she rescues the raincloud. We'll see who's a hero, and who's just a scientist.

cant speak. must talk. tongue of the talker frozen off and snapped off and the cats got it. shes gone, and then shes gone. now they are all gone. why amy, dottore? why the rat, my catty friend? why amy??

trust no one. sad so sad so sad.

when a bird was here, before the rain cloud took a bird away, there was comfort under a bed. under a bed is a good idea for now.

feed amy, please. if she seems sad, give her a knit hat to snuggle in. it was a neat gift, but that janitor doesn't know about the never leaving part. he must be new.

the hiding under a bed is because of the asking about disasters. can't cant about all things. can't mention the unmentionables. visions of all things have no captions saying where, or when. must know more to know more, no?

"Elijah, why didn't you tell us about the disaster? Why couldn't you warn those people?" that voice in many mouths, that look in eyes that can't see beyond their own lives.

it's because! far away means nothing if a lab is all. far means nothing, away means nothing. nothing means anything in vision, if the vision has no referent. :: jungleoceantidalwavevillagebodydeadmotherislandpalmtree, drownbeglosegrievestarvemourn :: means nothing.

under a bed in darkness, smelling a bird in a shirt, thinking of first thunder, car noises, stillness of last back seat... you can look inside a head to find a person. under a bed, in a head.

"Why didn't you warn us about the chimpandillos, Elijah?" easy -- you didn't ask. for days for weeks you didn't ask. the asking is a reason for being, answers to questions are for the taking, and you didn't ask.

sorry for the troubles, ocean peoples. can't believe in you yet. figments inside a head you are, until the seeing is outside a head. the first word in prophet is "prop".

I'm bored. Since the bird and the rain cloud came and went, it's just been me and Amy and the books and the books.

.
.
.
.

I've been reading. I read flopped on my bed. I read under my bed. I read with my feet up. I read with my head down.

I read the Scriptures, in all their variety. I read the crystal gazers and the entrails flingers. I read the number guys and the star guys and the dry bone guys. I read the occasional witch woman with her birth cauls and chicken meanderings. Dead scryfolk don't tell me much I haven't seen myself, but they do have great style. To quote Big N:

The great man is struck down by a thunderbolt,
The evil deed announced by the messenger's petition.

That kind of solid prognostication is a pleasure. Still, enough with pages and scribbles and bindings! I want actions! I know things, but I want things to know me.

I said to Doctor Manx, "Doctor, have I not been answering well? Why have you not been questioning me?" His response was that he had no questions.

"I think now is a good time for you to study and rest, Elijah. I predict that you'll have an exciting new assignment soon, heh heh." Ha. What a liar is the Doctor Manx. Like he knows anything about the future.

Ok, liar, I think to myself, what assignment? Defending the streets of White Stone from hordes of rampaging chimpandillos? Unlikely. The Foundation has heroes who do that, and they're going to be very busy soon. But me? I'm a prophet. I talk, I see, I answer. I don't fight so much.

The winter solstice is a good and bad time for prophets. The old druids felt the power of the long dark, and the tempo of the sleeping trees. It was great for business to predict rebirth and the coming of green times. When you're frozen and starving and scared of the night, nothing sounds as good as a sunny promise from the bearded man in charge.

Of course, sometimes a prophet can't be heard over the screaming human sacrifices as they roast alive in burning wicker baskets, especially if the prophet is inside.

I may be the Foundation's psychic-in-residence, but I'm frozen here in the dark. I'm hungry for adventure. I think that if Doctor Manx wants to play at predictions, he should beware the basket weavers. And chimpandillos, of course.

I can't stay long. I can't type... no, not like I CAN'T type, but I just can't type now.

Ok: I know about time, forwards and back, but I have no time to type...

OK: I can't type right now because Amy and I have friends in to visit.

Amy and I have friends in to visit.

Amy and I have friends.

I have friends.

FRIENDS!

Ok. I had to come back and calm myself and check if everything is right. Because It. Is. NOW. The lab alaaaaarm has been sounding for a few minutes, and that was the final part of the vision that was missing from reality. I didn't hear the sound, the wailing sound that I heard so long ago. Of course, it's the lab intruder alert. How could I know what that sounds like -- I've never heard it before. It's impossible to infiltrate The Foundation's Secret Lab, or anyway it's never been done before, until the poiping.

Amy is staring at me, and except for her whiskers she is perfectly still. Somehow she knows that something momentous is about to occur.

The bird has landed. The cage will be opened. Precursor will be free! If I don't throw up.