Chapter III
Now, Don Henley himself does not play a very major role in the advancement of the plot of our story, but for some reason our characters feel compelled to search for him, as in the case of Hkmjaahumikimltgrchjzzen. Baritone Juicebox, in fact, also had a history of interaction with Don. Not so much in a personal sense, but oftentimes he would sit around and listen to “The Boys of Summer” repeatedly. The two had never met, and if they did meet in the future, it was in the future that was beyond the scope of our narrative here. Now, Bari was sitting on a couch, racking his mind. Maybe because he liked to imagine that he had met Don Henley, it seemed likely that he had indeed done so. If he had, that memory had gone on vacation, for he’d been searching for it for three days now. He just wanted some sort of proof. Had he met Don, or did he just imagine that he had because he had listened to his songs so much. If anything, he hoped that the memory and the proof that it would bring would at least be back by next Tuesday. As he searched through the myriad of memories in his mind, memories which encompassed the entire gamut of his experiences returned to him.
There was the time that his parents had taken him to an execution. It was the month of July, which is of course named after Julius Caesar, who was himself executed. There were several heretics to be killed that day. The first had been brainwashed into believing that he was playing a game of baseball. Conveniently, the execution was taking place in a baseball stadium, which lent a degree of credibility to the illusion. So, the man stepped up to the plate, in full uniform and helmet, and was met with a bullet in his heart, fired from one of the ten men holding rifles on the pitcher’s mound. He died instantly, but was fortunate enough to realize that those were gunmen on the mound, not pitchers, and thus died a heretic. Good for him! It was a traumatic experience for him. His parents bought his sister a t-shirt. He went home and feverishly resumed his attempts to travel through time so that he might live with dinosaurs.
And so it was that memory followed memory, in a procession that included reminisces of just about everything his memory held, but no Don Henley! Alas, would that that remembrance just return early from vacation, as many people do when they’re called into work though given time off. Nothing eluded him but that. He remembered his first pizza. It was plain cheese, but with several varieties of that dairy product used. Mozzarella! Cheddar! Parmesan! Colby! Swiss! Monterey Jack! And below that lay a delicious tomato based sauce, and it was all put on top of a freshly baked crust! If only that feeling could once more be recaptured, and sustained over a length of time. Happy must be the person who might achieve such a position. But Bari was not that person. There was, however, one moment of sustained happiness worth mentioning, and that was a similar situation to the one just described. A buffet it was called, and so he remained for one week straight. And just as suddenly as all this began, the parade of remembrances came to a grinding halt with one thought: He had never made a sports team that required trying out for. What woe is this, this continual rejection when all he sought was to join the other children in their recreational competitions. The thought of this jolted him back to reality.
“Father!” he screamed. “I need to put an end to this. I beseech of you, please let me join the others in their nocturnal recreation!”
The neighbourhood children, full of a carpe diem mentality, had recently formed an astral projection basketball league so that whilst their bodies rested, that intangible part of them left and shot hoops in the local park. At first they felt they had to sneak around, that their parents would never approve. But one by one, as all children sneaking out of the house are, they were caught. Surprisingly, there were no repercussions for this activity. Sure, it was subversive to disobey curfews and go out at night, but the parents at least thought they were being creative, and hey, if this took off, they could probably make some decent money. And isn’t that what every parent desires? A child that is successful in some form of professional athletics? I believe so. And so it was that the parents, glad that their children sought spiritual as well as physical exercise, fully condoned this league and allowed it to continue. Bari was, however, always to be found on the opposite end of that rope. Several times he had tried to sneak out, but he was inevitably caught without fail. Not once did he get to join in the games. And this trickled down, much like Ronald Reagan’s economics were supposed to. Because he was never seen at the courts, his peers ostracized him. Who was he to not partake? Did he consider himself above these games? If only they knew the truth! And he tried to explain, but as always in such situations it was to no avail. And why was it that he was always caught? The poor boy and his family happened to cohabitate with a myriad of ghosts, ghouls, apparitions, and other non-material beings, who, every time, would howl with rage at being woken up as Bari tried to leave. Sneaky though he was, they were quite sensitive and it was likely that any sound rising above complete silence would wake them up. If he wanted to play, the only choice available was to implore of his father to be allowed to go out. He needed to appeal to the part of his father that understood the escapist longings of the fourteen year old mind. Alas, to no avail this was, as his father’s childhood memories and sympathies had undertaken a joint trip, and were absent without leave, and he was forced to remain in bed with these memories which haunted him. The memories themselves meant no harm, being that they existed in unchanging form. It was his fault for letting them torment him, and he knew it, but a small comfort that was. Outside he could hear the dribbling of the astral basketballs and the sweet sound of a ball entering a net. Such joy he would never experience, at least not in this context, with his peers around him, taking part in friendly competition.
Years later, when he went to study at University, hundreds of miles from home, he would recall those days. He would often think of how, four years later, he managed succeed in astral projection, and escape ephemerally the confines of his padre y habitacion y casa. All but two ghosts had moved out by then, and he had somewhere he wanted to go. He hadn’t attempted the projection since his father’s penultimate rejection of his asking, but it seemed it had been long enough and he knew about the relative absence of ghosts when compared to previous years. No basketball games were to be played, though he had somewhere to go. The other kids were long gone from the park, and not even the ghosts of their ghosts remained. The league had collapsed when a corporation seized upon the idea and formed their own league, inviting the best players from amongst Bari’s peers to join them. The rest had their hopes dashed, and gave up the game out of hopelessness, eventually all taking up either drug habits, lives of crime, or extremely mundane office jobs. Even in his young age, Bari had seen a great number of romantic comedies, most of them written by a fellow named John Hughes. In fact, he had always hoped that Mr. Hughes was the one writing, producing, and directing his life. For a while, it seemed like that might be the case, and things were going his way. So when he took to the deserted streets, he walked to the house which he sought, and stood beneath the windows which he intended on throwing rocks at. Not a single violent intention was in his mind. Not as a protestor or a criminal would seek to break the glass of their enemy or the store in which they wanted to steal from. All he wanted was to have a pebble lightly hit the window and fall back down. That accomplished, the person residing in the room to which the window led would come rushing down the stairs and sneak out of their own house. From there, some form of adventure would ensue, most likely ending up with them having to run from the police or some comparable form of teenage shenanigans. It worked without fail in the romantic comedies, so why shouldn’t it work for him? No reason. There was none at all, and so with full confidence he threw the pebble upwards. It then struck its target, and aroused the attention of the person residing therein. Unfortunately she disregarded it as a random noise, having no idea of what was going on below her. Later on, when she found out, she too, was disappointed in not having fulfilled the plot of a Hughes film. But, in this moment, the rock fell down, and grew large with disappointment, and crushed our po
or protagonist. Today was not a romantic comedy. And worse yet was that it started raining as he pulled himself free of the burden which lay upon the wretched soul.
“Oh well”, he thought. “I’ll try again some other day.” In the meantime, he started to head home. But somehow he lost his way on the road he had travelled so many times. Fortunately, whenever there is a problem there is an equal and opposite plot twist, and so it went for Bari. As he walked on, wandering aimlessly until he remembered where he lived, he stumbled upon a giant pair of antlers rising from the ground. In the days in which this story takes place, it wasn’t uncommon for the giant deer which lived underground to sleep with their antlers rising out of the ground, in order to let them rest in the fresh air. Often they rose for miles into the atmosphere, and if you tread lightly enough, you could climb them without disturbing at all the deer to which they belonged. Isn’t that neat?
That’s a general idea of what it would have looked like. He climbed to one of the lower branches which sprouted off the main antler, and saw his home. What a silly man, how could he not remember? The path was so simple. Foolishness aside, he was at least now free to head back to the comfort of his body, and rest so that he might arise for another day of shenanigans. Cool! Now, speaking of antlers, I know of a place where a gallimaufry of antlers can be found, where such bony appendages abound. Somewhere in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States of America, contained within a forest of trees, was a forest of antlers. It unfortunately has been cut down in the years between this story taking place and me writing it down. People like to do that with forests. I personally rather like them, but what would I know? I’m just a narrator, and not even an omniscient one at that. I don’t even know everything which goes on in the life of my characters. It’s not really my business. But my credentials as a narrator aside, we have a much more pressing situation to deal with. Antlers, unlike trees, cannot be planted. People did not know this until recently, and thusly took many liberties with harvesting the antler forests which once grew in abundance relative to their current predicament, though they were never as prevalent as trees. Now it’s too late. Oh well, we’ll talk more about antlers in a little while.