The Tale of the Cube by Big Ed
(cont from pg.1)
Downtown , near the El Mercado, there was an excellent shop that carried good quality clown dolls called the Hello Dolly Shop. They had called her this morning to say they had a new shipment in. On her way to the shop she stopped to see her friend Janie. Janie sold nic-nacs at the market at "Tia Janies' Nic-Nac Shop" and the cube, sitting next to a pinata shaped like a trout, had caught her attention. She spent some of the money she had intended for a new clown doll on the black shiny cube. Angelica didn't collect paperweights, but was attracted to the dark smooth cube. Janie didn't know anything about it really, she got it from her Mexican buyer (Chewey, a third cousin on her fathers side) along with other nic-nacs and that was it.
There the cube sat mostly undisturbed except for the occassional dusting for the next 11 years and 4 months. Then Angelica Besente Fuentes died a perfectly normal death while watching a rerun of Quincy in Spanish on the television and holding one of her clown dolls.(a bright yellow and orange harlequin doll with a diamonique teardrop on its left cheek, one of her favorites). As deaths go, it was a good death. She knew she was going when it came and she was looking forward to seeing her Mama and Papa and sisters and husband and even her mother in law. Jesus would open his arms and welcome her home. The good thing about having faith is having somewhere to go when you die (make the sign of the cross).
The cube was boxed up along with all of the worldly belongings of Angelica Besente Fuentes (found dead at age 78 by a Jehovas Witness who was so shocked he went back to being a Baptist. ) All Angelica's 630 dolls, 28 wooden cat puzzles and 422 Beany Baby animals were packed in cardboard boxes. After the simple funeral, the belongings were picked up by her nearest relative, a nephew who lived in Dallas. The nephew, who was not a doll, cat puzzle or beany baby collector immediately hauled them all to the Giant Indoor Flea Market the very next weekend at what used to be the location of the largest Drive Inn screen in the Southwest, to see what he could scrape out of these now unloved items. He stood behind his table at the flea market all day Saturday and all day Sunday, smiling at anyone who came near. Mostly older women with greying hair and thick glasses who fingered his dolls and Beany Babies and tried to get a deal out of him. He was doing a brisk business in the Beany Baby animals and getting some serious offers for some of the dolls. No one seemed to be interested in the cube though, he marked it down from 8 Dollars to 3 Dollars.
Near the end of the second day, pleased and tired, the Nephew of Angelica Fuentes had made a tidy sum of 1,312 Dollars and 64 Cents. Tia Angelica had given him a windfall and now he could by the Flat screen/HD TV that he had been wanting for months. Gracias Tia Angie (God rest her soul, make the sign of the cross) he thought to himself. With the exception of a few dolls and a couple of puzzles, almost everything had sold. But the cube sat obstinate on the edge of the table. The nephew picked up the cube and looked hard at it for the first time. It was actually quite heavy and felt cool to the touch. Maybe he would keep it, you know, as a memory to Tia Angie (along with that new TV he could already picture in his living room with a Dallas Cowboy game playing on it).
Miller was walking past the nephews table when he noticed the short chubby Mexican guy in bright green polyester pants and orange sleeveless tee shirt holding the black cube up high and staring intently at it. He had come here to buy some Nunchuks but couldn't find the ones he wanted so he was just walking around the Flea market aimlessly.
The Nunchuks he had wanted had these red and green dragons painted all chinese-like along the sticks. Miller was not a martial artist in any way, but was a big fan of Kung-Fu movies and collected some of the weapons. He had seen this particular set of Nunchuks in a "Black Belt Warrior" magazine he found at Hero Time Comics, his local comic book shop in the cheap mags section. At home he had a selection of throwing stars a couple throwing knives and several sets of Nunchuks which were basically two sticks connected at the tops to each other by a length of rope or chain and could be spun around like crazy in a Bruce Lee type fashion made famous in the classic "Enter the Dragon", in which Bruce Lee kicked about a hundred dudes asses with a pair.
"Scuse me" Miller found himself saying, "What is that exactly?" nodding at the cube in the Nephew's palm.
"This?" holding up the cube a little higher and smoothly pocketing the markdown sign "This is a genuine Peruvian Indian sacrificial stone mined from the Andes mountains by ancient Incan shamans as part of their holy and secret human sacrifice traditions." The nephew was quite pleased by this as he said it and almost believed it himself. He was glad he watched the educational channel on Sunday nights.
"Cool" Miller replied. A new admiration glowed on his face for the black cube. He could really use something really spiritual like a Andes Mountain Sacrificial stone. It would fit right in with his Golden Buddha Incense burner and his first edition Elvis Whisky Decanter. "How much?"
All thoughts of Tia Angie and her memory keepsake evaporated as her nephew sold the cube for 23 US dollars to the middle aged fat guy in the stretched and stained Superman Tee shirt.
The dreams began exactly one week and 3 days after Miller had placed the cube next to his bed on top of his copy of Oliver Twist (Which he had intended to read for the last 4 years since he picked it up at a garage sale for 10 cents.)
At first Miller couldn't remember the dreams, he just knew that he was waking up in the morning exhausted with a pounding headache. He thought maybe he was coming down with something like menengitis or some exotic illness that would be incurable and possibly lead to a horrificly painful demise. He found himself sleeping later and later, trying to catch up on the sleep he seemed to be missing.
During the day small memories of the dreams began to creep into his conciousness. A flash of an unknown night sky, odd landscapes, a slight feeling of unreality in his waking life. He was sure he must have a brain tumor the size of a quarter in possibly his right front lobe. On the 7th morning following the beginning of the dreams he was staring hard in the bathroom mirror to see if his pupils were dialating correctly when he felt himself falling. Then just darkness.
The darkness began to lift. Miller was aware he was lying on his back, but this wasn't what Miller was surprised or even thinking about . His first consious thought was that what he was hearing wasn't English. The language he was hearing was not English, but he still understood it. This was quite a revelation for Miller. He had flunked Spanish in high school and French in his brief college career and here he is now understanding a totally different language that was neither French or Spanish. The deep gutteral voice was saying "Get up you useless fool". Suddenly there was a sharp pain in his ribs and Miller realized the voice was talking to him and the owner of the voice had just kicked him in his side.