Summerhill (3 page)

One thing the dog had noticed from time to time, when passing mirrors and windows, was that the gray of his eyes matched the gray of the sky exactly. He’d forget this on occasion, and whenever reminded of it, he would ponder the similarity only briefly before dismissing it as coincidence.

Summerhill could also make the plants grow. He would do this on occasion, in order to add a tiny splash of color to the world around him. Flowers would sprout from the grayish-green grass of the city’s deserted parks or blossom on trees or grow up between the cracks in the pavement whenever he willed them to. These flowers didn’t thrive in his world of no sunlight, though, and they always eventually faded and turned the same pale gray as the sky, the same pale gray as his eyes.

Plants didn’t make for particularly good company, besides, and the lack of anyone to provide friendship or companionship had come to wear at him more and more as time continued to drift by. Eventually, it dawned on Summerhill that it was a little silly that he’d have a place like this all to himself. He could have all the time in the world (and near as he could tell, he did) and even then he’d still never get to see it all. So what was the point of it?

For as long as he could remember, he was the only person who had ever lived in the World of the Pale Gray Sky. It seemed obvious that other people must have lived there at some point, though, since there were all those towering buildings that struck up into the sky in all directions, and someone must have built those. Right?

The question was largely academic, but before Summerhill could spend much time pondering its ramifications, the blue light appeared.

By itself, the blue light might not have been remarkable, except for the fact that it marked, for the first time in Summerhill’s memory, the one time anything had
happened
in the World of the Pale Gray Sky. That in and of itself was far more interesting than any academic or theoretical quandary.

To the unaided eye, it was a merely beam of blue light that had streaked across the sky. Summerhill had never seen a shade of blue so bright, so intense, so
different
. He would have thought it was a shooting star, except that it wasn’t dark out, and moreover, neither stars nor darkness actually existed.

He contemplated the streak of light as he leaned against the wall of a tobacconist’s shop that had no actual tobacconist to run it. His eyes peered out at the dull sky for what had to have been several minutes—but what were minutes? What was this concept of time he insisted on believing in?

“This world doesn’t make any sense,” he heard himself say. “You know that, don’t you?”

With a sigh, he pushed off the wall, started walking, and tried to think of how to answer that. It was an interesting point he’d raised to himself: there were several things about the world that didn’t make sense. But did everything have to make sense?

Sitting down on a bench at a bus stop where no bus ever came, Summerhill scratched his head and took some more time to think. Now that he’d been prompted to question reality, he might as well put in the effort to do a thorough job of it.

“This isn’t the first time you’ve questioned reality, though,” he said to himself again, there on the bench. “Think about when you saw the blue light. What did you think?”

“I was surprised,” he admitted to himself. “Surprised that I could see the light against something other than a dark night sky.”

“But there
is
no dark night sky here, and there never had been. So how do you even know what a dark night sky is?” He looked down at his own paw, patting himself encouragingly on the knee, and thought for just a moment that it looked wrong somehow. “How do you know the light reminds you of a shooting star if there are none of those in the World of the Pale Gray Sky, either?”

With new questions to ponder, Summerhill went to one of the many empty parks in the city. He sat down on the grass, and he made flowers grow all over, so that they could keep him silent yet colorful company as he lost himself in thought.

He came to no conclusion as to how he could possibly know these things if they weren’t part of the reality he’d always been a part of. Eventually, he grew tired from his aimless theorizing, and he curled up on the flower-speckled grass to sleep for a time.

The next day (since he’d slept, he decided that he would consider it to be a new day), Summerhill explored the barren city some more, keeping an eye out for any odd-colored lights in the sky, or anything at all that might prompt him to question reality. After the events of the previous day, the true extent of Summerhill’s desolation was terrifyingly apparent. No longer was it silly to think he had an entire city to himself. Now it was chilling to wonder what had happened to the previous residents, if there had indeed ever been any. Now it seemed normal to wonder why an entire city should exist only to house him.

Later that day, as he walked past the glass doors of a tall office building, he caught the eye of his reflection. In his pale gray iris, he saw the briefest glimmer of that mysterious shade of blue. “The world as you know it is a puzzle,” he said. “It’s like a labyrinth, one you need to escape from as soon as possible.”

Just yesterday, Summerhill had been reluctant to even accept that anything was amiss about the minor inconsistencies he’d noticed about the world from time to time. “But how do I escape from the world? Isn’t the world all there is? How can there
be
a place other than the world?”

But he had no answer for himself, and was instead alone with his own thoughts. If the world itself was a maze or a puzzle, then maybe there was somewhere he needed to go or something he needed to do in order to solve it. Maybe the endless city wasn’t as empty as he thought.

Admittedly, it wasn’t much to go on, but at least it was something to do. And now that he had something to do, Summerhill was painfully aware of how boring and oppressive the World of the Pale Gray Sky really was. Before, he’d been able to while away a lackadaisical eternity, ignorant of the idea that there might even
be
something for him to do. This new insight he’d given himself changed everything. All the flaws and inconsistencies of this drab-colored reality were becoming so obvious now. This place was boring to the point of agony.

Summerhill had no real plan of action but to wander around the empty city. With the self-assurance that it couldn’t hurt to at least try, he let himself venture further afield than he normally did. The buildings in these less-familiar parts of the city were still empty and still boring, but they weren’t identical, and even the slightest bit of difference removed some amount of boredom.

After plenty of pacing and wandering and napping and resting, there was still no new clue, no grand revelation or moment of inspiration. Perhaps he needed to look for inspiration more actively, he considered. He visited bookstores and read novels by writers who may or may not have ever existed; he explored open-air markets and sampled strange fruits and meats that were fresh despite the stalls never being manned; he took elevators to the tops of the tallest skyscrapers and looked out over the city, which really did stretch out in every direction as far as his eyes could see.

But it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t presenting him with any new hints as to why he knew things he shouldn’t. Days turned into weeks, after which reading and re-reading books wasn’t entertaining or informative anymore, and trying new foods failed to stir up new and different appetites. How he longed for wind or rain, for some kind of weather to break up the tedium.

Finally, one night, Summerhill dreamt about what other things must be like. He dreamt of cities teeming with people, of worlds both bright and dark, of placid pastoral vistas and of bizarre and twisted alien landscapes. He dreamt of a sweet, innocent young girl and of a sexy, alluring woman. He dreamt of lavish galas and of intimate candlelit dinners for two. He dreamt of all these things that he knew were real and yet which did not exist and had never existed in the World of the Pale Gray Sky.

When he awoke, he found himself looking into his own eyes again, and once more, the gray was tinged with that special blue. He offered a paw to himself, to help him get to his feet, and there was a smile on his face as he did so, along with a look of pride.

“You’re ready to get out of here now, Summerhill. Just keep going and don’t look back.”

This was no mere reflection. Nor, he now realized, had it been a reflection back at the office building. He hadn’t been alone at the tobacconist’s or when he’d been sitting on the park bench coming to terms with the need to question his reality.

“Just keep going?” he asked himself.

“And don’t look back,” he replied. “You can do it. I know you can.”

He hesitated, staring at himself transfixed, wanting to assault himself with questions. “What about you?” he asked first. “Are you coming with me?”

But the other Summerhill was already gone, having disappeared somewhere in the brief moment it took to blink. The scent of this other version of him, slightly different than his own, still lingered in the air, however, enough for the dog to believe that it wasn’t just his imagination playing tricks on him.

A soft ticking sound tickled Summerhill’s ears. The dog turned around a few times, trying to discern what direction the sound was coming from before realized that it was coming from himself. His paws patted up and down his body until he found the source of the sound in his shorts pocket—an old watch on a chain. He didn’t remember ever having owned a watch before (and why would he need to tell time in a world where time didn’t exist?), but he knew, on some level, that this watch was his, had always been his, and had always been there.

Emboldened with a new sense of purpose, Summerhill gazed down along the road ahead of him and began to walk it. Just keep going. That was all he needed to do. He was going to leave this place, and he was going to find the answers he was looking for.

So Summerhill walked down the street. He followed it in a straight line, making his way between the endless buildings. He walked farther than he’d ever walked before, and made his way into neighborhoods he’d never seen, but he did not stop to take any of it in. He didn’t stop for anything—not to eat, not to sleep, not to rest his weary paws. He just kept going.
Just keep going and don’t look back.

And eventually, the endless city did come to an end. The paved street turned into a dirt path that cut through a field of dry grass that appeared to stretch out beyond the horizon, just like the buildings once had. Undaunted, Summerhill kept walking, and didn’t even stop to bid farewell to the city that had been his home for so long. He couldn’t stop as long as he was still underneath that same boring gray sky.

With the city itself long behind him, he came across a signpost jutting up from the ground next to the road. A crude wooden arrow pointed off into the distance, and then, from around the signpost itself, stepped the other Summerhill with the glimmer of bright blue in his gray eyes. He leaned against the wooden pole, his wagging tail occasionally smacking against it, and smiled before offering one final piece of advice to himself.

“Find Katherine. Make sure you stick with her and everything will be fine.”

Summerhill checked his pockets, made sure that he had his watch with him, and then let out a giddy laugh. As he walked along and got more excited by the prospect of leaving forever, his joy caused flowers to spring up in the grass, lining the dirt path like landing lights demarcating a runway. He walked faster, ignoring his exhaustion, holding on to the images he’d seen in his dreams in order to spur himself on, step after step, breath after breath, until, at long last, he’d gotten so far from the World of the Pale Gray Sky that he ended up quite literally in the middle of nowhere.

Three

Uncertainties

“You think you sent yourself?”

“I know how that sounds.” Summerhill’s ears were tilted back, and the pitch of his voice was rising along with his desperation. “And I know it probably doesn’t make sense on the surface, but a lot of things don’t make sense, right?”
Like meeting yourself, and empty, world-spanning cities inhabited by just one dog and winding up in the middle of nowhere.

Katherine shook her head. “Mr. Summerhill, I’m very sorry. But you’re a stowaway, and it is my duty to report your presence to Security.”

“Look, you don’t understand,” Summerhill pleaded. “I’m on the run, and I was told that you could help me.”

The hostess was reaching for her earpiece again, but she stopped in mid-motion. “On the run? From whom?”

“I’m not sure; like I said, it’s really strange and I’m still trying to make sense of a lot of it, myself.” Summerhill tried to hold himself up with as much confidence as possible. “This ship travels between realities, right? Has it ever been someplace called the World of the Pale Gray Sky?”

“Not as far as I know. At least, not in the time I’ve been aboard. Is that where you’re trying to get to?”

“No, that’s where I just came from. I’m not exactly sure where it is I’m trying to get to. I was just told to find you.”

“Wait, hold on,” Katherine said. “Where did you board the
Nusquam
, then?”

Summerhill pointed towards one of the view panels on the far side of the ballroom, which still showed nothing but the unbroken blackness of nothing. “Just outside there,” he said. “I saw the ship sailing by and, well, snuck on board.”

“Just outside there?” Katherine repeated.

“That’s right.”