The Asylum

[Artina Heartflash]

THIS THREAD HAS CLOSED 3/4/2012

DO NOT ENTER WITHOUT PERMISSION OF GM Artina Heartflash


You may include one character (of your own fictional creation) to accompany you. This is the only character (besides your own) over which you have control. Supernatural forms welcome!

No grabbing of other members' characters or RP persons with harmful intent! You are allowed one touch, but do not proceed with further action UNTIL the one you've touched has responded. This rule does not apply to interaction between author and his/her own character; any dialogue/action between author and his/her own character is of author's own free design.

FOR ALL PARTICIPANTS, real or fictional: NO Beastiality, Scat, pedophile activity, or drugs allowed. No Killing of any characters (unless it is one of your own creation.)

If you appear to be a rule breaker, you will be buzzed a warning. After that, should you continue to overextend your powers, you may find yourself ignored.

No plot necessary, although one may arise as result of creative interaction. This thread has been set up as a study to see how people treat other people/characters.

Rooms in asylum are open, and can be filled by each person who enters. Those rooms can attract others to enter, depending on who and what is in them. Gardens or grounds may be added. Food and drink are allowed, but no huge stills of moonshine or barrels of alcohol. (It's a safety issue.)


Let's try to let love and humor be our main guides. Contact me with any questions.

 

[Artina Heartflash]

The asylum was under restoration. Many rooms yawning for occupation, many needing furnishings with personal touch.

Artina Heartflash had just finished taking a cold shower in her room of eclectic array. She grumbled at the TV, seeing only scrambled porn. No appealing visuals on the screen, the moans and screams were just sharp static to match that in her own head.

Out into the hall she wandered, trying to zip up her camouflage jumpsuit over her ample cleavage. She cursed under her ragged breath when the zipper broke halfway up the track, leaving her rounds half-exposed and her nipples jutting like bullets against the fabric. She was quite guarded about her sexuality, for men had taken advantage of it in her recent past.

She thought she heard angels in the running toilet water as she passed the guest restroom.

She looked out a window in the hall and saw a school bus on fire in the streets below. Her barbed wire crown sparked wildly as she saw forms of demons scattering in the black billowing smoke.

She took a seat in the waiting room, her weary eyes flickering over a fellow resident entering. A dead man walking she thought.
For a moment the sight of the lanky man made her remember fondly the love letters from Alcatraz.

Circling around her thrice, the man tattooed like a corpse studied her. Then, pausing directly in front of her uplifted, blushing face, he removed the thorn from her grin---and replaced it with his ashen finger against her dangling tongue.

For the first time in his life he had voluntarily touched another human.

And she cried loudly, the first time in years.
__________________

 

[Tio_Narratore]

The cry reverberated in Tio's head as he watched the tatooed man touch she-who-waited. Each syllable, each sound, echoed Dopplering from temporals to parietals, from parietals to occipital and on to frontal, finally shattering on the jagged processes of his petrous portion.

The pieces of her sobs and tears were in him, then. Shards of the self that she had emitted went tumbling through his great cerebral commissure, and oozing, serpentine, through his swollen medulla.

He recoiled, overwhelmed, but unable to deafen himself to her tears. Unable to apprehend, he struggled to comprehend each drop that fell with each sob of her crying, but he heard only confused garbling. He cursed himself for having failed in the study of foreign languages, for her cries and her crying were a foreign language to him.

"I have walked the rows of cells in Alcatraz, in Folsom, in Ossining," he cried out, "and I have not heard the likes of this, have not spoken in its sounds and syntax." Or so he thought he cried out. No sound of his vibrated the air; he saw each word sink into the valley that cleaved her bosom, and he knew he was silent and silenced.

He wondered if those words had sunken through her flesh and into her heart, if they had left any meaning there. He wondered, too, if her cries would unveil her understanding or if his words would so fill her breasts that her jumpsuit tear and fly from her. Would, he thought silently, the loss of camoflage expose her mind to view.

And he longed, for the first time in decades, for a woman - this woman- stripped bare, naked from head to soul, for his lonely eyes to absorb.

He stood, staring, in awe and impoliteness, at the woman-touched-by-the-man when all went black.

"Where are they?" he shouted wordlessly; "where is she?"

Then a voice floated around him, surrounding him, equal in volume, pitch, and timbre on all sides. From an undiscernable location, perhaps from all discernable and undiscernable locations at once, he heard it, rising and falling in a playful arpeggio in b-flat, or was it an a-minor chord. "G-u-e-s-s w-h-o," it called, in a woman's voice. Could it be she-whom-he-no-longer-could-see, he hoped, or was it another, a sprite or daemon of the air taunting him with dreams of his desiring. He cursed his eyes that could not see, and blurted out a name.

"Electra!"

"Close enough," came the reply, and the veil that had covered his eyes was lifted.

 

[Artina Heartflash]

Artina was caught in a crossfire of sensation. The tattooed one who stroked her tongue had left an impression like a hot rose petal on the surface. He withdrew his finger at her cries and recoiled in surprise, bringing that long middle finger to his own teeth to bite. "OH, MAMA!!!" he shouted through his grimace, black smudged eyes wide. He stumbled back, bouncing against the Coca Cola machine behind him. Out rolled a rather dented can from the vending slot.

Artina clutched her breast and stared down at the military ID tags flashing in her damp cleavage. Something had caused the heart and bolt symbol on the tags to pulse wildly. She felt only the echoes of the word "Alcatraz" reverberating deep under the goosebumps of her tear-splattered flesh.

Glancing about the room, she wondered who had tapped into her memories...or who possibly could be transmitting subliminal messages from his own memory.


The dazed man in the corner on the floor had seemed to come out of nowhere. How did he get by her security cams? And why was he calling Electra?

She didn't know who to help first: The man who had enabled her tears or the man who seemed to be crying for Electra.

 

[Tio_Narratore]

......................................

 

[Artina Heartflash]

****************

 

[Dramaticflare]

A post

The asylum did nothing to comfort his growing fear. For the first while the mad calls and odd noises confused him into thinking escape had not been made and he simply stood back in the tower of Latria. But this was clearly different. The air tasted more metalic, more electrical, and the air wasn't quite the right level of oppression. But Dramatic wasn't fazed yet. All of his adventures had led to him being wary, not to him being excitable.
But that was before his new follower showed up. The man was clad in a leather coat with spikes running over the shoulders. It had been cut off at the elbow so he could wear spiked bracers too. He wore some blue material for pants Dramatic had never seen before, and some sort of musical instrument was strapped to the man's back. The man kept his drity blond hair long, and under an odd hat. So far, Dramatic had ignored him. He clearly wasn't armed so he couldn't puncture Dramatic's armor, and he didn't have that haughtyness of either a arcane magician or a divine priest. The man wasn't a threat, just annoying. Dramatic had survived the deep mines of the Burrow King where the three-headed dragon god had slumbered. What was one oddly dressed man to the likes of him?
But it was annoying.
"Who are you?" Dramatic finally asked while strapping shield over his shoulder.
"I could ask the same of you," the strangely dressed man replied. "But I'm known at flare. What's your name, sir knight?"
"I'm no knight," Dramatic responded darkly. "But I'm called dramatic. I specialize in my swords, and my wizardry."
"So you're a magician?" Flare asked barely containing his amusement.
" of course. Watch." And Dramatic stuvk out his hand while summoning the light spell. Nothing happenend. "No mana?" Dramatic asked under his breath.
"Was that supposed to scare me?" Flare asked, but he didn't press the armor man for he had taken off his backpack and was clearly digging for something. Dramatic pulled out a vial of swirling blue liquid. He pulled the stopper and downed it all in one swig.
"Nothing," Dramatic said thoughtfully. He then focused on Flare.
"What part of Boletaria is this?"
"Boletaria? Never heard of it."
"Not in Boletaria," Dramatic said quietly. "And I can't cast magic. Something's changed here, irrepairably." He then shouldered his pack and took off at a jog.
"Hey! Wait!" Flare called, taking ahold of his guitar and fedora.
And so they ran into Artina and Tio. An armored man, who looked behind into the ether of nothing and called, "well, what do we do now?" And waited for a response no one could hear..

 

[Artina Heartflash]

The asylum did nothing to comfort his growing fear. For the first while the mad calls and odd noises confused him into thinking escape had not been made and he simply stood back in the tower of Latria. But this was clearly different. The air tasted more metalic, more electrical, and the air wasn't quite the right level of oppression. But Dramatic wasn't fazed yet. All of his adventures had led to him being wary, not to him being excitable.
But that was before his new follower showed up. The man was clad in a leather coat with spikes running over the shoulders. It had been cut off at the elbow so he could wear spiked bracers too. He wore some blue material for pants Dramatic had never seen before, and some sort of musical instrument was strapped to the man's back. The man kept his drity blond hair long, and under an odd hat. So far, Dramatic had ignored him. He clearly wasn't armed so he couldn't puncture Dramatic's armor, and he didn't have that haughtyness of either a arcane magician or a divine priest. The man wasn't a threat, just annoying. Dramatic had survived the deep mines of the Burrow King where the three-headed dragon god had slumbered. What was one oddly dressed man to the likes of him?
But it was annoying.
"Who are you?" Dramatic finally asked while strapping shield over his shoulder.
"I could ask the same of you," the strangely dressed man replied. "But I'm known at flare. What's your name, sir knight?"
"I'm no knight," Dramatic responded darkly. "But I'm called dramatic. I specialize in my swords, and my wizardry."
"So you're a magician?" Flare asked barely containing his amusement.
" of course. Watch." And Dramatic stuvk out his hand while summoning the light spell. Nothing happenend. "No mana?" Dramatic asked under his breath.
"Was that supposed to scare me?" Flare asked, but he didn't press the armor man for he had taken off his backpack and was clearly digging for something. Dramatic pulled out a vial of swirling blue liquid. He pulled the stopper and downed it all in one swig.
"Nothing," Dramatic said thoughtfully. He then focused on Flare.
"What part of Boletaria is this?"
"Boletaria? Never heard of it."
"Not in Boletaria," Dramatic said quietly. "And I can't cast magic. Something's changed here, irrepairably." He then shouldered his pack and took off at a jog.
"Hey! Wait!" Flare called, taking ahold of his guitar and fedora.
And so they ran into Artina and Tio. An armored man, who looked behind into the ether of nothing and called, "well, what do we do now?" And waited for a response no one could hear..

Artina looked at the two and smiled. Silently she hung a banner across one wall of the waiting room. It read
He that hath an ear, let him hear
What the spirits say to the travelers

She wondered how many would look at the welcome banner and see only yellow tape reading "caution". Perhaps some would see it as a homecoming sign. Perhaps another would proclaim it an advertisement for free musical expression. She nodded at Flare and his guitar.


She returned to the tattooed man as he remained crouched against the Coke machine. "I didn't mean to startle you, dear. That was angelcore pouring from my throat when you touched my tongue." She leaned and whispered almost inaudibly into his ear which bore the black cobweb marking. The web fluttered at her breath as she sang low.

So long ago
Was it in a dream, was it just a dream?
I know, yes I know
Seemed so very real, it seemed so real to me
Took a walk down the street
Thru the heat whispered trees
I thought I could hear (hear, hear, hear)
Somebody call out my name as it started to rain
Two spirits dancing so strange
Ah! b'wakawa pouss?, pouss?
Ah! b'wakawa pouss?, pouss?
Ah! b'wakawa pouss?, pouss?
Dream, dream away
Magic in the air, was magic in the air?
I believe, yes I believe
More I cannot say, what more can I say?




(lyrics: John Lennon, #9 Dream)

 

[Artina Heartflash]

So long ago
Was it in a dream, was it just a dream?
I know, yes I know
Seemed so very real, it seemed so real to me
Took a walk down the street
Thru the heat whispered trees
I thought I could hear (hear, hear, hear)
Somebody call out my name as it started to rain
Two spirits dancing so strange
Ah! b'wakawa pouss?, pouss?
Ah! b'wakawa pouss?, pouss?
Ah! b'wakawa pouss?, pouss?
Dream, dream away
Magic in the air, was magic in the air?
I believe, yes I believe
More I cannot say, what more can I say?




(lyrics: John Lennon, #9 Dream)

It was long ago...or so it felt to her now. She recalled being on the street and hearing her name called, a voice that felt like scintillating smoke. She sniffed after the sound, boot heels scraping the grimey path into a graffiti smeared alley. Rubbish was flying upward out of a metal dumpster there.
As she peered into the fray, she saw the tattooed fellow flinging his arms and legs, making trash angels much in the same manner as a child would form angelic pattern in the snow by lying on his back and spreading limbs .

She drew him out of the bin with much effort, and realized he was in some kind of detached state of mind. He allowed her to manuever him unsteadily down the rain flooded street to the asylum, and bore her no resistance as she placed him into a warm bed in one of the large, vacant holes in the Recovery Unit's wall. He was shivering madly, but uttered nothing. His eyes dull and cold grey seemed to look right through her.

Artina believed that all people and things are interconnected in some meaningful way, and that the Tattooed One, though distant mentally, would surely relate to her in some manner, if she stayed in touch with him. So each day, she would check in on his health, offering him a hug, bringing him food or whatever he seemed to need.

One day she entered the room to find he was not in his usual fetal position on the mattress. Instead, he was sitting upright in the middle of the floor, swinging the end of a belt which hung about his throat. Back and forth across his face and over each shoulder he threw the length of leather, beating himself repeatedly. He was unaware she was gasping with great concern at his act of self infliction. Snatching the belt from his neck, she glared at the insignia medals embedded. Death head skulls.

That night, she tucked him into the iron framed bed in her own room, and watched him toss and turn in his sleep. She stayed awake all night, praying for his relief from whatever was torturing his soul.


And now, after months of studying his behaviour, she did not know his motives any better than when she had first met him. She only knew how to respond...with love. His touch on her tongue was a most curious gesture, but she was thrilled and exclaimed involuntarily to feel his connection. The gesture was presented of his own free will. It was a sign of hope, a miracle unfolding, and his finger tasted of rose grown from ash.

Now she had to comfort him, soothe him reassuringly that what he did was good. The dreamlike lullabye she sang seemed to calm him to an extent. His tightly huddled muscles relaxed into a more casual form, his arms embracing loosely his updrawn knees as he listened.

Then his gravelly voice broke suddenly, "Thanks, mama. But I am not gonna share any sugary valentine cookies with you tonight."

 

[Tio_Narratore]

His sight returned, Tio gazed around the waiting room, calling for Electra in every corner and to every wall, and with each call came the echoing reply "close enough." As he glanced left and right and up and down and straight ahead he saw many people. Or many emanations of the same people; one could never be sure of substance in a waiting room. But wherever he looked, there was a dim perception of hands at the periphery of his vision.

He focused intently in between the hands and discerned that there were likely only four substantive humanoid concretions in the waiting room: the-woman-who-was-touched, the tatooed-man-who-touched, a strange armoured being that seemed to call itself dramatic. and another, self-named flare. Maybe, though, Tio thought they were one and the same.

"Electra," he called again,and again the echoing answer, "close enough."

As the echo circled the waiting room for the third time, his left handed darted to the right of his vision, and he seized a wrist. Wheeling around he found himself eye-to-eye with the source of the ethereal response.

He glanced down to see she was dressed in a camoflage jumpsuit. Was she just a reflection of the woman-whose-bosom-absorbed-his-words, or was she a thing-in-itself? He glanced up and saw her ample breasts had torn open her jumpsuit. But from the zipper, and the zipper was done up to her neck. The roundnesses of her chest were full out with zipper nestled snugly between. She was not one-and-the-same.

"Electra?" Tio sobbed softly, and echo answered "close enough."

"No," insisted Tio, and his right hand went round her waist to spread its palm over the small of her back and pull her towards him.

She was against him, legs matched to legs, hips to hips, belly to belly, chest to chest, eyes to eyes, and he felt a slow, low rumbling inside her. It rose from the floor of her abdomen, and as it rose, its frequency hastened. As it reached her chest he could feel it as a rhythmic quivering of the flesh of her naked breasts, and she moved closer, pressing her bosom into the tattered trailings of his terry robe.

"Electra!" Tio wailed, and her mouth opened to emit a tremoloed "close enough" that continued into an air in three-quarter time.

Tio led them, falteringly, into a waltz, and she-who-was-close-enough falteringly followed. They stumbled and pitched, listing from side to side. Tio ceded the lead, but still they faltered.

"Electra?" asked Tio as they stopped.

She-who-sang-the-waltz placed her right foot upon Tio's left and slid her camoflaged leg under the shredded folds of Tio's robe as she intoned the word "close" in the rhythm of her air. The word "enough" followed in rhythm as well as she slipped her left foot under Tio's right.

He felt no weight on him and no substance beneath him as they glided gracefully and majestically around the waiting room, around the welcoming banner of yellow caution, amid the circle of the others-and-their-emanations, and Tio laid his cheek against hers.

"Electra," he whispered in her ear.

Her lips blew a named tempo into his ear.

"AM ber am Ber am ber." Her name floated on the zephyr of their waltz, three times and three times more into the tripartite tempos of the dance, and he felt their cheeks clinging tightly together as if they were two pieces of hammered golden foil.

 

[Artina Heartflash]

Then his gravelly voice broke suddenly, "Thanks, mama. But I am not gonna share any sugary valentine cookies with you tonight."

Artina knew she should not take his words as personal insult. He had never been one to show disgust at her affectionate care, although he had been very passive to her touch. Still, she wondered if she was expecting too much too soon, wanting him so badly to further the stroke he had initiated.

His finger on her tongue left an aftertaste that grew increasingly strong. The taste of his flesh burned in her mouth. It was instant, erotic addiction. Her heart began to sweat, her teeth grinding. She feared if she kissed him at that moment, it could result in the sudden bloom of sexual favor, but the death of any chance of romance. He was not ready for her passion, sexual or soulful. She touched his sunken cheek with a gentle finger of her own. Arms still at guard about his knees, he turned his head and bit into his bicep.

"Okay," she moaned softly. "No sugar heart tonight. It would make you fart, and I don't want the bedsheets set on fire anyway."

His spewed laugh was so sudden and hard that his lips blew forcefully into the skin of his bicep. The resulting noise was loud, sounding itself like a great razz of flatulence. "Yeh! I do have a hot ass, huh?" he laughed smugly.

 

[Artina Heartflash]

That night Artina and the tattooed one went to bed early, in their separate rooms. She rose at 11 PM to check on his comfort. Finding him with a pillow wrapped tightly around his head worried her. She removed the overstuffed cushion from his face gently. Hearing him snore loudly, she figured he was sleeping safely and she returned to her own bed.

At 2 AM she was startled awake by wall-shaking thunder. Running down the hall, she screamed to anyone who could hear above the rumbles "ARE YOU ALL RIGHT?!" She remembered then that she was in an asylum and that it was a stupid question. NO ONE was ALL right.

Slipping through some unidentified sticky mess in the hall just outside of the tattooed one's room, she hit the floor, swinging arms and legs wildly as she spun. "Back in Black" was the thunder rolling from the wall speakers in the illustrated man's abode. Wild eyed, he looked at her, his cock bobbing unchecked through his shredded, black jeans. The room was dripping with some kind of ooze, the same which dangled like a string of florescent pearls around his wang.

He was shrugging, jerking limbs, and convulsing in a kind of crazy dance to the music. But when he caught sight of Artina spinning on the floor outside his door, he paused and emitted a laugh which to her felt like a blast of wildfire. "BREAK!!! BREAK, GIRL!!!" he cried. Then he resumed dancing with himself.

Too dazed and tired to tangle with the beast (much as his gyrations roused her sex into pulsing) she crawled back to her room and tried to sleep again.


This morning she came into the waiting room, a cup of coffee in her shakey hands. She had a nightmare...or was it a real experience? she could not determine yet, but the details were coming into focus as she sucked her Banana Boat flavored java.

She was momentarily distracted by the man still dancing in golden light, his arms posed as if her were waltzing with ---who? Matilda? No... He was repeating "Amber" over and over. Artina wondered if she should tap his shoulder or join in his dance. Then she decided against the latter, for she knew she was about as graceful as a kangaroo in combat boots when waltzing.

She wondered where Dramatic and Flare had gone.

She heard voices outside the asylum, but the sources moved as brief shadows, whispering "sweet" nothings before they faded quickly.

She wondered if she should go outside and listen to blurts and banter in Isolation Row. Nah... it was just another long, winding alley being overrun by crapshooters tossing trash can lids like frisbees.

And so she sat and nodded drowsily.

 

[Tio_Narratore]

"Please hold my place while I powder my nose," Amber requested, "I'll be back in a few heartbeats." Sparks flashed in the translucence of her golden brown irises.

Tio's cheeked rubbed hers in agreement, and he intoned her name again and again, shaping each utterance to join its predecessor in forming a likeness of her substance and form to hold her place until she returned from her arcane feminine ritual.

Powder her nose, Tio thought as he uttered "Amber" for the eleventh time, what could that mean?

The tatooed man has had much experience, Tio reflected; perhaps the gloss of the invocation could be read in his ink. Tio circled his own axis, careful to hold Amber's place in all dimensions, surveying the waiting room for signs of the illustrated visitor.

The room was vacant save for the tattered remnants of a yellow POLICE LINE - DO NOT CROSS tape and a woman nodding like an oil pump in a Wyoming field. He recognized her as the-woman-who-was-touched-and-cried, even though she was neither touched nor crying. She must know the tat man, he thought, and maybe even her nodding is pumping knowledge of arcana from deep beneath the waiting room floor. Maybe even that was what we waited for in the waiting room.

A scent of sage caught his senses, sagebrush sage it was, and he wheeled to see it and feel it and touch it and taste it and hear it, but he was not in Wyoming, and it was only a memory. And with that memory came another, of a turkey vulture wheeling in the thermals above the Tower-riven by-the-claws-of-the-bear. More memories came, and each was a turkey vulture, in flight or in feeding, and finally one with a bead of glistening Amber clasped in its beak.

A new memory, then, and he wheeled once more, in panic at the thought of the lost Amber. She was there, now, filling the space his chants had made for her, and her nose was powdered. As he drew her close enough, he understood the ritual, and reveled in the ground sagebrush that graced her nose. A deep breath, and the experience of sage filled him. Cheek to cheek, front to front again, but in his gaze was the woman-who-was-like-a-nodding-horse. What did that woman know, he wondered as his rended robe fell from his shoulders and Amber's burst jumpsuit leaped from her back. What did she know, he wondered as his irises filled with golden brown translucent sage.

Their feet together, they took up the dance again. But a new rhythm this time, a slow two-step, and Amber's iamb repeated itself until it evoked a whole litany of prayer...


Oh, give me land, lots of land under starry skies above;
Don't fence me in.
Let me ride through the wide open country that I love;
Don't fence me in.
Let me be by myself in the evenin' breeze,
Listen to the murmur of the cottonwood trees,
Send me off forever but I ask you please,
Don't fence me in

Just turn me loose, let me straddle my old saddle
Underneath the western skies.
On my Cayuse, let me wander over yonder
Till I see the mountains rise.

I want to ride to the ridges where the west commences,
Gaze at the moon untill I lose my senses;
I can't look at hobbles and I can't stand fences,
Don't fence me in.

A tear flowed from Tio's eye and fell onto Amber's shoulder, leaving a trail in the sagebrush powder that had settled there while they danced.

 

[Artina Heartflash]

"Please hold my place while I powder my nose," Amber requested, "I'll be back in a few heartbeats." Sparks flashed in the translucence of her golden brown irises.

Tio's cheeked rubbed hers in agreement, and he intoned her name again and again, shaping each utterance to join its predecessor in forming a likeness of her substance and form to hold her place until she returned from her arcane feminine ritual.

Powder her nose, Tio thought as he uttered "Amber" for the eleventh time, what could that mean?

The tatooed man has had much experience, Tio reflected; perhaps the gloss of the invocation could be read in his ink. Tio circled his own axis, careful to hold Amber's place in all dimensions, surveying the waiting room for signs of the illustrated visitor.

The room was vacant save for the tattered remnants of a yellow POLICE LINE - DO NOT CROSS tape and a woman nodding like an oil pump in a Wyoming field. He recognized her as the-woman-who-was-touched-and-cried, even though she was neither touched nor crying. She must know the tat man, he thought, and maybe even her nodding is pumping knowledge of arcana from deep beneath the waiting room floor. Maybe even that was what we waited for in the waiting room.

A scent of sage caught his senses, sagebrush sage it was, and he wheeled to see it and feel it and touch it and taste it and hear it, but he was not in Wyoming, and it was only a memory. And with that memory came another, of a turkey vulture wheeling in the thermals above the Tower-riven by-the-claws-of-the-bear. More memories came, and each was a turkey vulture, in flight or in feeding, and finally one with a bead of glistening Amber clasped in its beak.

A new memory, then, and he wheeled once more, in panic at the thought of the lost Amber. She was there, now, filling the space his chants had made for her, and her nose was powdered. As he drew her close enough once more, he understood the ritual, and reveled in the ground sagebrush that graced her nose. A deep breath, and the experience of sage filled him. Cheek to cheek, front to front again, but in his gaze was the woman-who-was-like-a-nodding-horse. What did that woman know, he wondered as his rended robe fell from his shoulders and Amber's burst jumpsuit leaped from her back. What did she know, he wondered as his soul filled with golden brown translucent sage.

Artina woke with a start. "Dang! just another dream...I wonder who might have seen my head bobbing like that, mouth drooling like I was fellating a ----" Her thought broke, her eyes locked on the man who had been dancing all night. Oh Gad, he had danced his robe clean off. She jumped up to grab the robe, figuring he may get cold without it. Then slowly, like an amber dawn, the naked form of his partner shone unto her sight. Oh! she was no private dancer, this woman. She was gorgeous and smelled of sage.

Artina figured the man needed no warmth of the robe, as the aura of the female was merging with his own. She watched the warmth coruscating about them in golden moments, ranging from translucent silence to dense purrs as each exchanged names repeatedly. Strangely, Artina heard notes of "Morning Mood" begin to merge with "Bungle in the Jungle".

 

[Artina Heartflash]

Their feet together, they took up the dance again. But a new rhythm this time, a slow two-step, and Amber's iamb repeated itself until it evoked a whole litany of prayer...


Oh, give me land, lots of land under starry skies above;
Don't fence me in.
Let me ride through the wide open country that I love;
Don't fence me in.
Let me be by myself in the evenin' breeze,
Listen to the murmur of the cottonwood trees,
Send me off forever but I ask you please,
Don't fence me in

Just turn me loose, let me straddle my old saddle
Underneath the western skies.
On my Cayuse, let me wander over yonder
Till I see the mountains rise.

I want to ride to the ridges where the west commences,
Gaze at the moon untill I lose my senses;
I can't look at hobbles and I can't stand fences,
Don't fence me in.

A tear flowed from Tio's eye and fell onto Amber's shoulder, leaving a trail in the sagebrush powder that had settled there while they danced.

Artina decided the dust being kicked up was too much for her sinuses. She tied a scrap of Tio's tattered robe over her nose and chin and threw the rest of the ragged robe over her shoulders like a scruffy shawl,. Looking much like a silly water buffalo with a terry kerchief as bandit mask, she shuffled away and took her seat again in center of room.

 

[Artina Heartflash]

"Who stocked this Coca Cola machine?!"

Artina turned her head left and saw Tat Man gripping the dented can which had rolled out the dispensing slot days ago. He shook it at her, jaw slack with wonder. "This is blue raspberry Crush!" He popped loudly the tab, and the fluid gushed up into his face like a geyser.

"That's what you get when you shake things up," giggled the barb crowned woman.

His tongue dangled, catching a few droplets on his face. He smacked his lips thoughtfully. "Vintage razz, year of the blue balled monkey."

In four leaps, he landed behind her chair and towered over her. "Now where did you hide my raspberry jellybeans??" he asked. "HMMMM???"

He snatched off the scruffy shawl from her back with angry flourish. Immediately his right, spiked, black gloved hand snaked rapidly down into her open jumpsuit, busting the zipper completely as he tweaked her nipples. Her squeal was loud in surprise, but even louder was her shriek as the fabric fell completely off her shoulders , leaving her blushing bust exposed.

He threw back his head and tossed down his stretched throat the last of the blue raspberry Crush. The crumpled can was flung across the room. Grabbing both her breasts in his gloved hands, he leaned over her, pressed close his left cheek to her right, and growled lowly. "I've got you covered, mama. No one is gonna shoot you----except me."

Scared but highly aroused, Artina squirmed, her hands over his clutching own. His weight seemed to hold her down in the chair as he leaned more heavily forward. Through the flapping kerchief over her mouth, her words were muffled. "GET THIS MASK OFF ME!!!"

Instead, his long, bare arms scooped her up out of the chair and carried her as a squirming bundle, hurrying toward the hall. She tore at his black, sleeveless T shirt until he tightened his arms.

She felt like she was in the bind of death and the thrill might kill her.

 

[Tio_Narratore]

Amber and Tio danced their slow, sinuous two-step through an inward spiral around the room. When Amber stood heel-to-toe with the woman-who-sat-in-the-center, Tio stopped, declaring that it was close enough. Amber’s song faded into silence as Tio slowly sank to a full-lotus before the chair-in-which-the-woman-sat. His left arm slid down Amber’s right until it joined its mate around her waist. Amber wrapped her legs around his waist as she sat on his lap and floated her arms up his chest to encircle his neck.

“Close enough,” Tio reiterated, and Amber answered “No,” and pressed her breasts closer to his chest.

Tio ignored the Coca-Cola’ed cacaphony as he stared into the woman-who-had-been-the-nodding-horse.

“WHAT...” he began, but was interrupted by she-who-sat-on-his-lap.

“AUM,” she intoned, each vowel reverberating with the three syllables of Artina, and began a new song, in four-four time, her alto commencing on a low C.

Under the Yab-Yum Tree,
I’m on Tio and Tio’s in me;
Amber and Tio eagerly,
Under the Yab-Yum, Yab-Yum, Yab-Yum,
Under the Yab-Yum Tree.

As she sang, she rocked her hips, and, as the verse ended, she pressed her heels into Tio’s sacrum and thrust herself down tighter into his lap.

“Datta,” rumbled from Amber’s belly and floated softly into Tio’s ear as she completed the verse.

“...DO...,” Tio continued, now to the sitting woman and the tatooed man who had torn off her jumpsuit and was tweaking her nipples. Tio felt himself rising within Amber, growing and flowing into her, Kirlian curls budding from his trunk.

“AUM” resounded once more from Amber’s abdomen and echoed the three syllables of Electra. Another verse followed at a soprano’s middle C.

Under the Yab-Yum Tree,
I’m on Tio and Tio’s in me;
Amber and Tio happily,
Under the Yab-Yum, Yab-Yum, Yab-Yum,
Under the Yab-Yum Tree.

Again she rocked, and again she thrust more deeply into Tio’s lap, drove him more deeply into her.

“Dayadhvam,” rose from Amber’s breast and enveloped those whose arms encircled each other.

“...YOU...,” strained its way from Tio’s throat as the tatooed man’s gloved hands encircled the breasts of the-woman-in-the-chair. Tio grew larger, swelling within she-who-sat-on-his-lap, and the electric curls flared outward from his trunk.

“AUM” boomed from Amber’s chest, echoing from the valley and hills of her breasts, and filling the waiting room with the resonance of the three syllables of of Maria. A last verse rose from her lips, rose in sopranino from an ethereally high C.

Under the Yab-Yum Tree,
I’m on Tio and Tio’s in me;
Amber and Tio mystically,
Under the Yab-Yum, Yab-Yum, Yab-Yum,
Under the Yab-Yum Tree.

A third time she drove herself down on Tio’s trunk, forcing it far up inside her.

“Damyata” whirled around Amber’s oral cavity and thundered out her mouth to tremble and shake the walls, the very foundations, of the waiting room.

“...KNOW?” asked Tio as he erupted in bloom deep inside she-who-sang, his xylem swelling and rising within the contraction of her phloem. He sighed at his bloom, but trailed off in a whimper as the tatooed man gathered up the woman-who-might-know into a ball of flesh and ran towards the long, dark hall that led into and out of the waiting room.

Amber brought her lips to Tio’s and breathed into him a final invocation.

“Shantih. Shantih. Shantih.”

And Tio’s head fell, cradled on the shoulder of the woman-who-was-close-enough-to-be-Electra.

 

[Artina Heartflash]

Datta Dayadhvam Daymata

The words bounced off the walls of the dark hall like lightning balls. Their bright echoes repeatedly flashed in the green pools of Artina's widening eyes.
Self restraint, charity and mercy

Ah, she knew the importance of the three for she had practiced them for years. Greed was not of her nature and it was easy for her to refrain from taking more than she needed. Charity she often offered, but too oft the recipients were unappreciative. Mercy was also something she admired and tried to offer, though many thought her honesty too brutal at times. So she had learned to lace her sword with feathers, hoping to stir laughter more than pain.

Yet as she gazed into the grey, deep set eyes of her abductor, she saw none of the self restraint, charity, nor mercy. His pupils were ringed with silver now, and she felt that lust was eclipsing his soul. How odd that the man who had been so passive for so long was now exhibiting aggression, so contrary to what she had come to expect.

And over all, the thunder in her soul rolled out through the dark kerchief over her gasping mouth: "DAAAAYUUUUM...This is hot and I like it!"

 

[Artina Heartflash]

On his bed, Artina crawled back and forth beneath Tat man's weight on her back, increasingly uncomfortable. "Who put the nine inch nails in the box frame under the rubber mattress?" she cried.

His laugh crackled like static with the lightning flashes in the room:
"You can try but you'll never understand
This is something you will never understand
Can you hear it now?
Hear it coming now?
Can you hear it now?

On hands and knees
We crawl..."

Then several flashes of lightning raked the air at once, like electric fingers of many hands.

"You cannot stop us all.
You wear our bones,
our skin."

As he flipped her over onto her back to face him, Artina realized there was a legion of spirits ---an army--- about them. Tat man's skull like features were pallid and ghostly in between circulating breaths of the storm, but the same features lit up brightly with each flash of blue lightning. Glimpses of his intensity pierced Artina's senses: a tense grin of madness, a blaze of roving iris, a twist of dark shadows entwined in his cryptically embossed fingers, a swelling of the black cardiac image in dark red biohazard symbol on his chest...

And then she felt the wet sweep of his own desire as he dragged his tongue across the folds of the terry cloth covering her mouth. His breath was so hard and hot she could taste its strong violence through the worn barrier. He chewed the cloth, mashing her lips under it, lifted each of her parting petals into his bared teeth----but never once broke the cloth.

As if suddenly struck by one of the free raging bolts, his muscles froze stiffly. With eyes bulging in shadowy sockets, he stared down into the face of the woman whose tears began to soak her mask. "No!" he whispered incredulously.

Immediately the storm ceased and ozone filled the air. A trembling gloved hand reached for Artina's sharply sparking crown of barbs. In the dim, she could see tiny holes in his neck where the rusty thorns had marked him.
Two of his fingers had torn through his glove and as one drew across the prick of a particularly long, protruding barb, he bled....human blood.

That same right hand pushed back her auburn curls from her brow...but came away with a significant twist of locks about the exposed fingers.

Artina moaned to see the loss of her pride in his hand, soothing as his stroke had been.

His voice gnarled into a whine as his face contorted in grief. "GOD--- NOOOO!!!" he cried, examining the auburn remnants in his fist.

"Tat, you didn't do it. It's a result of stress. My stress, not yours. "

Tat didn't seem to believe her. He rocked back and forth in a huddle on the mattress, wailing inconsolably.

 

[Artina Heartflash]

Artina rocked Tat in her arms like a mother would her son, and soon his wails relaxed into whimpers. Once he was asleep, she released him to his peace and left the dim room.

She entered the waiting room, looking for Tio. Tio had asked "WHAT DO YOU KNOW?" and it puzzled her. Why should he care what went on in her head when he had Amber to rock his world?

"Tio? What is it you want of me? " she said, eyes scanning the room.

 

[Dramaticflare]

"Mirror mirror in the breastplate, who's the flarest of the Flares?" Flare asked as he stared at Dramatic's chest armor.
"Guitarist, as you call yourself, your capriciousness has since worn out it's value and it's amusement to me. Cease your pattering."
Flare laughed. "Can you not hear them? Where is your heart in the symphony about us? around us, there is a tired waltz between those can not see and those can not speak. A surrogate mother sings a lullaby to a son-lover. Your spirit ca not honestly lack music."
Dramatic stood and moved into Flare's face in the blink of an eye.
"I have been to the top of the tower of Latria. I have been to the depths of the Shrine of the Storm King. Dragon and god have fallen to my sword. Why should I care a whit about your musical souls?"
Dramatic turned and knelt, focusing on a small rock in his hands. Flare took a moment to think. Before posing a question. "Perhaps it matters because you're no longer in those places. You're here, and you're not going to see a dragon again. Here,you need to learn to fall before you can fly. Backwards can be forwards, and life and death aren't interchangeable."
Dramatic stopped focusing on a stone in front of him. "What?"
Flare laughed. "I see you, spirit, and call you brother." Then flare fell back over the railing on the walkway.

 

[Artina Heartflash]

"Mirror mirror in the breastplate, who's the flarest of the Flares?" Flare asked as he stared at Dramatic's chest armor.
"Guitarist, as you call yourself, your capriciousness has since worn out it's value and it's amusement to me. Cease your pattering."
Flare laughed. "Can you not hear them? Where is your heart in the symphony about us? around us, there is a tired waltz between those can not see and those can not speak. A surrogate mother sings a lullaby to a son-lover. Your spirit ca not honestly lack music."
Dramatic stood and moved into Flare's face in the blink of an eye.
"I have been to the top of the tower of Latria. I have been to the depths of the Shrine of the Storm King. Dragon and god have fallen to my sword. Why should I care a whit about your musical souls?"
Dramatic turned and knelt, focusing on a small rock in his hands. Flare took a moment to think. Before posing a question. "Perhaps it matters because you're no longer in those places. You're here, and you're not going to see a dragon again. Here,you need to learn to fall before you can fly. Backwards can be forwards, and life and death aren't interchangeable."
Dramatic stopped focusing on a stone in front of him. "What?"
Flare laughed. "I see you, spirit, and call you brother." Then flare fell back over the railing on the walkway.

Artina heard male noises outside the asylum. "Those who can not see and those who can not speak?" she echoed, wondering if the two brothers conversing saw others waltzing in the room. She could see things many others could not/would not, but her "seventh sense"awareness was not as strong as it was when she was a child. She had to rely heavily now on interaction with others to keep the channels fully open. She did hear and see Tio and Amber were guests.

She pondered their term son-lover. "Oh, I wish that were true, wish that he WOULD be my lover!" she sighed aloud. "He has not proven himself a lover at heart...and hardly one in the flesh. He has kissed me through a VEIL when I want to touch bared flesh!"

At the words "Life and death aren't interchangable" , her crown whirled with sparks. "I shall have to study life and death more to find if this is true." Artina Heartflash had a simple earth name meaning "seeker of truth", and lived up to that name.

Moving closer to the waiting room window, she saw the two on the walkway and recognized them as "Dramatic" and "Flare". She wondered why Dramatic had a rock in his hand. She thought of running outside to help Flare up from the ground. Surely that railing he fell over had hurt his back, and perhaps knocked the wind out of him. The clang of guitar that had broken his fall was ringing loudly in her ears, like Jimi Hendrix feedback.

 

[Dramaticflare]

Artina heard male noises outside the asylum. "Those who can not see and those who can not speak?" she echoed, wondering if the two brothers conversing saw others waltzing in the room. She could see things many others could not/would not, but her "seventh sense"awareness was not as strong as it was when she was a child. She had to rely heavily now on interaction with others to keep the channels fully open. She did hear and see Tio and Amber were guests.

She pondered their term son-lover. "Oh, I wish that were true, wish that he WOULD be my lover!" she sighed aloud. "He has not proven himself a lover at heart...and hardly one in the flesh. He has kissed me through a VEIL when I want to touch bared flesh!"

At the words "Life and death aren't interchangable" , her crown whirled with sparks. "I shall have to study life and death more to find if this is true." Artina Heartflash had a simple earth name meaning "seeker of truth", and lived up to that name.

Moving closer to the waiting room window, she saw the two on the walkway and recognized them as "Dramatic" and "Flare". She wondered why Dramatic had a rock in his hand. She thought of running outside to help Flare up from the ground. Surely that railing he fell over had hurt his back, and perhaps knocked the wind out of him. The clang of guitar that had broken his fall was ringing loudly in her ears, like Jimi Hendrix feedback.

Dramatic looked over the railing at the fallen Flare. "I see you, spirit, though you are no brother of mine." He put his nexus stone away, for one can not find the center when one is on a line. He vaulted the rail and landed on a feet and a knee forming a strong triangle upon the floor.
"Get up," he demanded of the line Flare on the flat plane.
For scant moments, Flare dissipated into a series of blue points, within infinity the points themselves are. They recoalesced into Flare who now had a bit of that blue color tinging his outline.
"You speak only in absolute shapes; concrete and finite. You fail to grasp the amorphous abstraction of here and you must be shown the path from squares to the fabric." Flare offered.
"And you speak solely in circles, all context without a center. You have the truth but you do not grasp the center point. We are diametrics, you and I." Dramatic countered.
"You call me noneuclidian?"
"I call you too euclidian for my liking."
They turned to Artina, as if suddenly noticing her presence.
"I can her a ray, a line with one end and endless continuity," Flare commented.
"I call her a parabola, a history and a future both getting more exceedingly distant from the now. Her time is not completely her own."
"you imply she is exponential."
"You imply she only has one variable," Dramatic retorted.

 

[Artina Heartflash]

Artina listened to the mathematical terms exchanged between Dramatic and Flare. In her hands she fondled a colorful Rubiks cube. Letters began to appear on the cube as she turned it over and over in her fingers. Xs and Os appeared in several of the squares on the cube.

Smiling, she threw the gift through the open window. It bounced against Flare's head.

 

[Tio_Narratore]

Tio slept, his head cradled on Amber, and as he slept he felt his legs growing roots through the floor of the waiting room, he felt the xylem rising to turn his whole body into wood. He heard Amber murmur to him, sing-song in heavily accented four-fourths rhythm.

“Be my Yab-Yum Tree” sounded and resounded through his pertrifying trunk.

He took a last look around the waiting room and saw the yellow banner proclaiming “Welcome to Charenton!”

Panic overtook him, and he struggled, twisting and turning to free him from his own roots. Amber awoke, herself panicked at his gyrations, and desperately asked him of his problem.

“Charenton!’ Tio shouted at her. “Charenton!”

“Where is the Marquis?” he demanded firmly; “I was meant for Bedlam, not Charenton!”

He managed to tear one and a half legs free of the floor, and he felt his chest began to heave with breaths laboring against the creeping woodiness.

“No!” cried Amber, “You are safe here. Look around.”

Tio looked around the room again. A turkey vulture stood to the east, behind the yellow banner. A turn to the south, and another turkey vulture came into view. The same with the north and then the west. His eyes quickly turned east again, and the vulture had been joined by a coyote. As Tio stared, ravens, hawks, eagles, and a condor appeared. He spun around, and found each other direction similarly populated. Back to the east. Pumas, panthers, ocelots, and bears crowded behind the yellow band along with the others, and at their feet stood fishers and weasels, and otters, and others too numerous to name. The room was encircled, filled in every quarter, and they all cawed and crowed and growled and snarled, straining at the yellow tape that they could not cross.

“See,” said Amber reassuringly, “we are safe here.”

“You are not Electra,” Tio declared as he tore himself from the last of his roots.

“But I am close to being Electra,” Amber protested.

“Not close enough; you seek safety above disorder."

“Damyata! Damyata! Damyata!,” and with Amber’s invocation three orderlies entered from the hall. The central one bore a strait-jacket in his hands, and all three looked like Tio.

“No!” shouted Tio, and he dove to the POLICE LINE - DO NOT CROSS banner to tear it from its anchors.

The carnivores and scavengers stampeded into the room, mauling and biting at the orderlies, at Amber, and at Tio himself. Limbs and viscera were torn wildly from trunks, and scattered wildly around the room until neither Tio, nor Amber, nor orderlies were recognizable. A calm descended over the waiting room, and then each attacker searched the commingled remains for a single piece of flesh or bone. When each had its particle, they gathered in front of the chair-in-the-center-of-the-room and reassembled Tio.

A new noise now, a question, and Tio opened his eyes. The-woman-who-had been-a-nodding-horse stood before him, asking what he wanted of her.
“Much,” he thought to say, but remained silent. Amber still slept peacefully on his lap, her arms and legs and breasts still attached to her trunk, and her trunk still intact, her viscera unspilled.

As he sat silent he saw the woman turn to an eye of the room and engage with someone -something - outside. Outside! There was an outside! Bedlam might still be attained. The woman was marvelous in what she knew. She must have been pumping - pumping what? - from beneath the floor. Ink! It must be ink! Ink to write the story on the tatooed man’s body. She DID know what it said. Maybe she was even the ONE who wrote it.

Tio stood, letting Amber slide slowly and softly from his lap to the floor, and addressed the woman-who-must-know.

“Is that,” he said, pointing to the chair-in-the-center-of-the-room, “the Sipapu?”