Lauren--Part Thirty-Four

Splog # 122

Thirty-Four

   Lauren began to take an inventory of what different people had told her about her journey to...well, she didn't really know of any destination except for the inn and even that was merely a resting place. Anyway...To start at the beginning, Splog hadn't said anything particular as they came down the Fe-San, nothing that claimed her memory in any event. They had merely chit-chatted until they boarded the train and then he'd fallen asleep and the conductor (his name began with a M - was it Matthew? didn't sound right) Anyway...he told her about a boy in a tower, but that didn't seem pertinent and after they got off the train Splog told her she'd be going to an inn with Austin but not why (did her dream about a tree on a mountain - or was it a volcano? - have anything to do with where she was going?) Anyway...she'd been walking with Austin and the camel (King?) had appeared and Austin had disappeared. Then she saw the schoolhouse, the snake and the children. They had lunch and then Jane told her about (or maybe it was Bart) a bell and a pump and a chair (a rocking chair?) and a funny word with s's and o's in it. So-so-to or something. Lauren thought she had paid attention but everyone had told her things in such an off-hand way and so many strange occurrences had taken place that she was surprised she remembered as much as she did.

   She was still trying to formulate some kind of order from these random elements when she found herself at the top of the next rise looking across a shelf of land that seemed to be the first in a series of giant steps that led to a very high, very steep cliff of rock. She looked to the right and left to see how far both the steps and the cliff extended. In the distance, in both directions, it seemed as though the steps all merged into a gradual slope and the cliff almost leaned back to join the mountains behind it. When she took a close look at the plateau she'd reached, the first thing to claim her attention was a line of small white flowers that seemed to meander in a loose diagonal to her right. The line seemed to sreach reach all the way across and as she followed it with her eyes back towards herself, she saw that it wound right up to her feet. Well, actually just to the left of her feet and to the right of King's.

   King, meanwhile, had been standing patiently while Lauren had inspected this new landscape. As she raised her eyes from his feet to his head, he slowly turned and looked her full in the face, his jaws still working  in their customary motion. Then he opened his mouth extraordinarily wide in what seemed to Lauren to be a colossal yawn and started plodding along beside the trail of white flowers. Lauren watched him for a moment and, as he passed her, she realized that there was another line of flowers on his left. King was ambling along what seemed to be a path bordered on both sides by tiny white flowers. She ran a few steps to catch up with him. As she did, he pressed a little closer to the flowers on the left so they could continue side by side within the floral guidelines. As they walked, a cool breeze swept down from the cliff in the distance and Lauren watched in fascination as the row of flowers bent and shook along their whole length.