Stacy--Part Twenty

Splog # 69

Twenty

   "We wondered if something was happening that we'd understand if we'd been born and raised here. Something that was a part of the Doolins that just was outside of our comprehension or experience of them. But we have lived with them for five years and they've always made us feel at home and we've come to find it a peaceful and pleasant place to live and work."

   "But it isn't any more," Lane said, as she took Stacy's hand and drew her down a smaller passageway that led to the right. After a few yards, Stacy found herself standing in a large space that had a table with chairs around it in the center and rough stone walls ornamented with the same kind of light-emitting designs as the main corridor through which they had come underground. There were other chambers branching off the one they had entered, but they were concealed behind long thick curtains so Stacy couldn't get any idea of what they might be like.

   "This is our habitation," Lane and Johnny recited in unison, "and you grace it and us with your presence."

   Lane curtsied and Johnny sketched a slight bow.

   "And now it's off to bed," Lane continued, "Splog usually knows best."

   She started leading Stacy through one of the curtained entrances but Stacy held back and Lane turned to see why. Stacy was staring at two objects that were standing on the table. After acknowledging Lane's and Johnny's welcome, her eye had lighted on them and she hadn't been able to look away. But though she couldn't take her eyes off of them, neither could she distinguish exactly what she was looking at. They seemed to be two model towers, each about two feet high. One went straight up tapering to the top, reminding her of an evergreen tree. It was green in color, also like a tree, but not a uniform green. The color seemed to be a pastiche of every shade of green that existed. To add to her fascination, the colors seemed to be in motion. As she looked at one spot, the color there would darken or lighten and then it would flow away from its position and take her eyes with it. The surface of the tower looked as if it would be yielding to the touch, as though formed from some sort of organic material. She wanted to touch it but felt that such an action would be inappropriate. And then, from the corner of her eye, the other tower pulled her glance away from the first with a flash that was gone even as she turned to it.

   This tower stood at an angle, just slightly off the perpendicular. There didn't seem to be any color to it. It was like looking at crystal. And yet she couldn't see anything through it. The tower wasn't solid but seemed to be composed of a myriad of clear rods of every imaginable size. There were rods that went from the top to the bottom and, the closer she looked, the smaller the rods she could perceive. She saw them as small as matches and then as small as pins. Was she imagining that there were rods the size of eyelashes comprising intricate parts of the tower? And were they also, like the colors of the green tower, in some kind of motion? Weaving among each other, through and around and between each other?