Just Plain Weird (29 page)

    
    
“Maybe I don’t want to feel better.”

    
    
“Well, then you’re just going to hate this,” she said, and I heard her shift around somewhat, and then I felt her kiss me. Her lips were warm and soft, and she pressed them against mine, letting them linger there for a few endless seconds before she pulled away. “And how to you feel now?”

    
    
“I feel fine,” I said. “But it doesn’t count. It’s all just a dream, you know-- it’s not real.”

    
    
“What do you mean?” she asked.

    
    
I opened my eyes, then, and she was frowning, almost scowling, at me.

    
    
“Well, the whole thing. What you said before was true: the artifact must have rubbed off on you-- on me, too. What you feel isn’t real; it’s just an impression we picked up from this-- thing. It’s like we assumed the nature of the people who built it. That’s all. If this thing disappeared tomorrow, that would be the end of it; all those feelings you’re acting on would be gone.”

    
    
She tilted her head and stared at me. “I can’t believe what you’re saying. You actually believe that?”

    
    
“Sure,” I said. “It’s all very unnatural, don’t you think? If we had met under different circumstance, if the artifact had never been involved in any way, do you really think you’d feel the same right now? No, you wouldn’t-- not at all. You would feel the way you ought to feel. We would just be two people who met, and that would be that.”

    
    
“But you’re wrong, Travis, I know,” she insisted. “I’m not saying that the artifact didn’t have some kind of influence on us, but that doesn’t mean that nothing of it is real. It’s all part of fate, Travis. You’re saying if this didn’t happen, or if this did happen…. Well, don’t you see the point? What happened, happened-- and that’s all that really counts. If the artifact had something to do with it all, so be it-- it’s all fate, our fate,” she said solemnly. “And you’re not going to tell me you don’t feel the same way.”

    
    
“No, I’m just looking at things a different way,” I said.

    
    
“No, what you’re doing is resisting fate,” she said, and her eyes seemed to flash a lighter shade of green. “You’re doing what you always do-- nitpicking. You can’t accept something that you can’t completely understand. You need to know the whys and wherefores of everything. Just like when I drove you out to that clearing. It was a nice peaceful place, but you couldn’t enjoy it. No, you had to know what it was, how it came to be there-- never mind just accepting it and enjoying it.”

    
    
“What you’re talking about is going along with everything no matter how bizarre.”

    
    
“And what’s wrong with that?” she wanted to know. “There is such a thing as trusting fate. Just go with your feelings. What could ever be wrong with that?”

    
    
“Nothing, if they really are my feelings, and not just something I picked up from the artifact-- like a virus. This thing is alive, and it carries with it the same qualities of the people who built it. But we’re not those people-- we’re not from some planet orbiting Bellatrix or whatever. For them, it’s fine. Every love is love at first sight, and it lasts forever. You have to remember what planet you live on. You have to remember who you are.”

    
    
She had listened patiently, chewing her thumbnail, glancing at the floor.

    
    
“It’s real, Travis,” she said, then, wearily. “All the nitpicking in the world isn’t going to change that.”

    
    
“I never said it wasn’t real. I just said it’s not natural.”

    
    
“So what? All right, we’re not natural. What’s the big deal?” she asked.

    
    
“Eliza, I’m not sure I even want a girlfriend.”

    
    
“You’re not--” she started. “Oh, I know what’s really happening. You’re thinking about things. My god, you’re such a -- a-- a-- guy, sometimes,” she hissed, squinting hard at me, “You know, at times like this I really hate you-- I really, really do.” She just knelt on the floor, fuming for a while, refusing even to look at me. When she finally did, I could see the hurt in her eyes. “You just won’t let yourself be happy, will you?”

    
    
“With everything that’s going on?” I said.

    
    
“Especially with everything that’s going on. What we have is real-- no matter how we got it-- it’s the only thing that is real at the moment. You think everything that’s happening is real?
 
That’s the dream-- that’s the nightmare. Travis, the more you deny the truth, the more you fade into the nightmare. As long as we have each other, nothing else matters-- no matter how strange or bizarre things become. We’re like… Romeo and Juliette, for gosh sake.”

    
    
“Yeah, and what happened to them, again?”

    
    
“All right, they died,” she admitted, “Bad example maybe, but what they had was real. They may have had it for only a short time, but they had it and it was real. That’s all that counts, really.”

    
    
“‘Tho’ there be no tomorrow/ and the winds of madness whirl ’round me today/ I hold this precious gift in my hand/ and about that doubt has nothing to say’ ” I said in a musing way, not sure at all from where the words came.

    
    
Eliza was pleasantly startled.

    
    
“Why, Travis, that’s beautiful-- and exactly what I meant. Where’s it from.”

    
    
“I don’t have a clue,” I confessed. “It’s like the words just popped into my head.”

    
    
“You don’t read poetry?”

    
    
“What, are you kidding?” I said. “It would look really funny, I think, reading Emily Dickenson between sets of bench presses at the gym.”

    
    
“Oh, Travis,” she said, with deep affection, laughing that gurgling laugh of hers. “You’re such a nut case.”

    
    
Before I know what was happening, she surged forward, pinned me down to the sofa, and was kissing me all over my face. When she hit my lips again, she lingered there for a long time, and in the end, I found myself not minding it, not minding in the least. Suddenly I felt that something was wrong; there was a tingling feeling building in the pit of my stomach. I gently pushed her away, and sat up on the sofa as she watched me curiously. It was not a normal sensation I was experiencing, not the thrilling kind you get from being on a roller coaster when it rushes down a steep dip, not the panicky kind you have from getting caught doing something wrong when you’re a kid. It was a much deeper feeling, very physical, as though a fairly intense charge of electrical energy was running through my stomach, with the voltage slowly but surely increasing.

    
    
“What’s the matter?” Eliza asked now, growing concerned. When I explained to her what was happening, she giggled and said, “Why, you silly, that’s love. That’s how you feel when you’re in love.”

    
    
I stood up as the sensation became so intense that it could only be something serious.

    
    
“I don’t think that’s it,” I said, glancing down at her. She was still kneeling on the floor, and looking up at me oddly.

    
    
“Travis, are you all right?” she asked, getting to her feet.

    
    
“I’m feeling very strange,” I said.

    
    
“Are you in pain?”

    
    
“No, I just feel-- I don’t know--” I struggled to find the right word. “I feel-- light.”

    
    
Eliza frowned. “Light? How do you mean?”

    
    
“I don’t know-- not heavy,” I said, not intending sarcasm.

    
    
She looked me up and down, then, and when she looked down, she jumped a foot back, as though startled. When she tilted her face upward, I saw the bug-eyed, almost comical, look of extreme confusion. She appeared unable to speak, and she dropped her eyes as though motioning with them for me to look down. When I did, I saw that my feet were not touching the floor, literally, and as the feeling intensified in my stomach, I slowly edged further away from the floor. The slow ascent finally stopped, and I was hovering about a foot off the ground.

    
    
A long moment passed before Eliza regained her voice.

    
    
“All right,” she said, almost calm, “That’s really strange.” She walked around me, then, looking high and low and all around, as though searching for wires or something that would make the event nothing more than a magic trick. She stopped in front of me, squatted down, and ran her hands through the air below my shoes. She stood and gazed up at me, asking, “I give up. How are you doing that?”

    
    
“I’m not doing anything,” I told her, more than a little edgy.

    
    
Before any more could be said, I was suddenly propelled backward, as though I’d been struck in the stomach with a forceful blow. I slammed against the back wall of the living room, and then fell to the floor.

    
    
I lost consciousness for a while. I couldn’t tell whether it was a few seconds or an hour. When I opened my eyes next, I saw Eliza and Doc looking down at me, and I had the distinct feeling of déjà vu. I looked up from one to the other as they spoke.

    
    
“And you say he was levitating?” Doc was asking Eliza.

    
    
“Yeah,” she said, “and it was plenty weird. You all right?” she said to me, then.

    
    
“Oh, fine,” I said, sitting up on the floor, and rubbing the back of my head, on which a sizeable lump had swelled. Suddenly a cacophony of noise ran through my mind; it was like a thousand voices all jabbering at the same time, each voice trying to get across its own singular message. A series of images accompanied the noise, pictures flicking off in rapid fire, blurring together in a jingly mass of colors. I found it impossible to isolate a single voice or a single image, yet somehow I knew what had to be done at the moment, what imperative first step must be taken to set everything right. I looked up at Doc and Eliza, and to their puzzled, vaguely concerned, expressions, I announced, “We have to go shopping.”

    
    
“How hard did he hit his head?” Doc asked Eliza.

    
    
I was standing now, though light-headed and weak-kneed.

    
    
“It’s necessary,” I murmured, and started to step toward the sofa. I almost tripped over the coffee table before I flopped down onto the thick cushions.