A little spec of cosmic dust (Pt.4—Final)

Left Difficulty A, Right Difficulty B

I was a little spec of cosmic dust. A mere square from a bat’s eye view gliding down unknown lands. A kingdom, more specifically, as before me lay a yellow-brick castle. A golden key rested at my feet. I picked it up and drew closer to the fortress, the chainmail tinkling in rhythm to my heavy breathing, in rhyme with the expectation growing inside me.

I tried the key into the lock and it fit most perfectly. I turned the solid piece of gold in my hands and the gates of the castle flung open, its grilled surface rolling upwards with such a speed it startled me. At an overly cautious slow pace — for I feared the presence of dragons within — I peeped inside.

A weapon of a peculiar sort had been placed upon a pedestal there, its point forking like the end of the feared reptile’s tongue. From the gate’s threshold I couldn’t quite tell if this was a hatchet or a spear, but upon closer inspection I realised this was a sword. “A queer one, that is”, I mused, since the sharp end was shaped very much like an arrowhead and the hilt appeared to flow gradually from the blade. I took it with both hands, trusting my guts on where the steel would not cut my skin, and stepped out of the stronghold.

I set out to give my newly acquired weapon a mighty try, but before me the path divided, forcing a decision upon me. I hesitated: left or right? Would there be any consequences to my choices? Preventing my brain from suffocating my mind, I transformed the dilemma into a much simpler one: heads or tails?

Heads it was, and I made my way to the left. A safe road it seemed for a while, until the moment I bumped into a stone wall. I regarded its decaying blackness trimmed with poisonous ivy as a bad omen and proceeded with additional care: I held my sword high in front of me — ready to come down like a ton of bricks on any scaled creature.

A few steps further, the road narrowed down as the mountainous terrain closed in on me. I was about to turn back — half relieved that I had been worrying over nothing but my wild imagination — when I caught a glimpse of something glowing in the rock. I crept closer and noticed an opening. The glow was coming from several fires lit inside a cavern and, amid the smoke of what I inferred were torches, a familiar shape shone. A key, this time as black as the iron gates of the castle, lay in the middle of the chamber I would squeeze myself into.

That was my first mistake. It could have easily proved to be my last if it hadn’t been for Providence that so rightly shone driving my movements, for, lurking in the shadows, the dragon Grundle was watching me with unforgiving, calculating eyes. A better-versed individual would have pointed out that the creature’s scrutiny resembled that of a feline, but I wasn’t a man of culture — I was a man of action.

Grundle allowed me to get close enough to the key before filling the chamber with thicker smoke and brighter flames and his own menacing presence, slithering through the loose gravel on the ground of the cavern.

Like a bard that has already captivated his audience, the creature now made only small gestures. Eye-catching were the little twitches of its scales and plates, senses-shattering the furtive dances of its tongue and limbs. I couldn’t tell if my heart had stopped or the beating had no noticeable pause. I was rooted to the spot. It was only through the irony of the — “Smoke gets in your eyes,” something murmured in the distance — idea that I began to move. I grabbed hold of my sword and swung it forward just as the dragon leapt towards me.

I saw Grundle’s eyes lose their life before me, the smoke in the chamber slowly receding, the fire extinguishing along with the air. After a beat of not-thinking, I realised that my bifurcated sword was still holding the dragon’s entrails in their place. I stuck it out and an obscene sound informed that the bowels where now stirring behind the bloodied scales. I vomited and dropped my sword as I did.

Catching my breath, I stepped back and caught the key before running out of the chamber. I welcomed the fresh air outside and gasped as I fell on my knees. I didn’t move right away — the thought that the right path was still left unexplored felt heavy on my shoulders and on my stomach. The black key I was holding fast in my hand was also proof that another lock was to be opened as well. My journey was far from over. I questioned to the sky, my mouth half-opened in a cry I dared not raise, what was the purpose of it all.

Of course I knew — how couldn’t I? —, but it seemed all too absurd to me now. An evil magician had stolen the Enchanted Chalice and it was up to me — a simple knight-to-be, a lowly noble who had yet to win his spurs — to retrieve it.

As I lay on the ground, still on the process of catching my mental breath, I chortled with nervousness. Only I could be crazy enough to embark on such a quest. But, ludicrous as my endeavour was, I had to pull through. I let out a sigh and stood up. I rested the key on a stone pillar and retraced my steps back to the chamber to recover the sword before taking the right path.

It had been smart to go back, since another dragon — Yorkle, its name was — awaited me at the turn of a corner. This time there was no object being guarded. It was simply a matter of territoriality what was at stake in our fierce, but ultimately short battle. I realised in fascination that I was getting quite accustomed to the feeling of the blade in my hands and my swordsmanship was slightly improving. Now, half of the blows wouldn’t strike the empty air but draconic flesh and bone instead.

As our fight finished, I wiped the sweat and blood off my face and noticed that once again the road forked here, but another black stone wall prevented me from taking one of the paths. I hoped that whatever the black key opened didn’t happen to be in that barred direction and proceeded down the only available road, where I happened to run into a labyrinth.

The tale of how I eventually found my way around it does not deserve any further attention. Suffice it to say that I got out with the aid of a moveable bridge, and that once I overcame the nerve-racking ordeal of the maze it was nightfall and that only as I reached a black castle did I remember that the key still rested on the pillar by the first fork.

I retraced and traced back my steps. With the black key now in hand, the castle’s iron gate lifted itself out of my way. I entered with my sword held on high, but no monster lay inside. Only a sort of magnet welcomed me. Upon touching it, both the key and sword felt drawn towards it — and, a little farther, I could hear a tinkling noise not unlike that of my own chainmail. I took the sword off the magnet and stepped cautiously into the next room. I would not be caught off guard now, I thought, but indeed I was.

In front of me, glowing with all the colours of the rainbow amid a pile of treasures impossible to enumerate, the Enchanted Chalice gyred around the floor, its electromagnetic field confused by the works of the magnet in the adjacent room. It would be most poetic to say I could not believe my eyes, but I accepted this reality as easily as fast my legs would move me towards my objective.

I don’t recall how I got back to the castle — it must have been a state of trance that guided my feet back to the place where my adventure had begun. In that same faint way I knew what I was to do next. I passed the threshold and entered the room where my sword had awaited me. I filled the empty space with the Chalice and, as I did, sound and colour exploded all around me.

Magic was restored, evil had been defeated. The little spec of cosmic dust had prevailed.

“Grandpa hadn’t died,” one last thought recited as I detached myself from the screen and fantasy and reality lost their balance, hitting me in the face as they stabilized around the living room.

I couldn’t let go of the controller, my hand was affixed to the joystick and my fingers just wouldn’t budge. The only sound in the house was the din noise that announced I had won the game. It was supposed to be jubilant — like a fanfare — but I felt it was mocking me. The cruel thought about grandpa kept reverberating inside my mind and the stinging returned to my eyes. But I held back the tears. A knot started strangling my throat and I repressed the psychic hurt there as well. Soon, every part of my body would sequentially start aching as I attempted to chase the sorrow away.

I couldn’t believe it — not now. I had proved Uncle Malachi wrong. The flashing screen in the telly was compelling evidence of my power. It didn’t make any sense: how could I save a whole kingdom from something so terrible as evil itself but… but have no power whatsoever over those I loved? Could existence actually be so fleeting? Was I — or everyone, or Dad, or Mother, or grandpa himself — really petty bacteria in the foul breath of the universe, doomed to disappear?

I squeezed my head lest all the pain should break my skull or — even worse — escape, and I started screaming for reasons so colossal I couldn’t comprehend. It was then that my family returned.

Mother slapped me and Dad turned off the TV. Uncle Malachi almost fainted and my brother’s girlfriend started yelling, “He’s having a seizure! Oh, God, he’s having a seizure!”

Only my brother Mike could make me snap out of it. He pushed Mother away — who was by then covering her mouth with her hands, astonished at what she had just done to me — and grabbed me by the shoulders. He didn’t shake me like a normal person might have done in a critical situation: he just pressed his hands on my arms and leaned forward. Our foreheads touched and I felt his warmth and — somehow — all the turmoil that was going on inside his mind. I knew he could feel mine as well… and that he understood me. I remembered he had gone to the office to gather some papers and I thought “Oh, that’s a quest too”. I felt a bitter taste on a mouth we both shared at a metaphysical level, because his enterprise hadn’t saved grandpa either.

“It’s okay,” he whispered, so low I couldn’t tell if it had been said inside or outside my head, “Everything’s gonna be alright,” he reassured me, “it’s all sorted out, Chris. By the day after tomorrow it will all have been over, I guarantee you that”.

“How… how can you?” I sobbed in that same, indistinguishable tone.

“Because we’re burying him tomorrow on the farm… Grandma’s farm, Chris… The wake will be held there, and by nightfall we’ll all be coming back home”.

“Not… not all.”

“No, Chris. Not all of us. I’m sorry, but we can’t help that”.

“Because we’re just little specs of cosmic dust, ain’t we? Petty bacteria… in the foul breath of the universe…”

“No”.

The words resonated in the vacuum of my mind and I noticed I had my eyes closed. I opened them. Mike was a breath away from me and he had a stern look on his face.

“Don’t you ever say that again, fella. You’re the most precious amoeba I’ve ever met.”

We laughed and we cried, we chuckled through the tears and never stopped holding each other.