A Key to the Universe

Chapter Three, Summer 2037

It was the following afternoon that Atlas opened the box. Mariah and Langley looked on as close as they could at all of the tiny bottles labeled with the words Atlas listed yesterday. In one of the bottles there were several capsules. 

“Powdered mekadine,” Atlas said. “If your mind was on a walk to understanding since the beginning of your life, psychedelics are like someone picking you up in their car and driving you for a few exits. And imagine you’ve never been inside of a car before.” He began removing four capsules or silvery-white powder and two small plastic trays shaped like square trowels. He put aside the trays and dismantled the capsules, two capsules per tray.

“You’re going to put this powder under your tongue for about ten seconds and then swallow. This dose shouldn’t be enough to make you heavily trip; it’s only a half-gram, but you’ll definitely feel it. The mindset you have and the setting you’re in affect your experience heavily. Fortunately, your environment couldn’t be safer with me. I just need to make sure your mindsets are in check, because if they’re too flighty or in a bad place, I don’t recommend taking them. They could have a damaging effect if that is the case.

“My first question is: do you feel that you’re in a depressed, dark, suicidal, or generally inactive part of your life or mind?”

“No,” Langley said.

“No.”

“I’m guessing neither of you have taken psychedelics before?”

The Astronomers shook their heads.

Atlas took a breath. “Psychedelics are keys to the universe. All of the drugs that actually cause you to see things while tripping or high are created in your brain already. When you die, your brain secretes DMT naturally as your soul transfers from your body to another realm. DMT can be created in a lab as well and smoked. The drugs you’re being warned about are already in your head and have always been there. And the dose you’re about to take is small; you’d need twice or three times as much to have a steady trip depending on your tolerance. And the whole time I’ll be here to help you and walk you through what you’re seeing. Additionally, Mariah, being a prophet is partially like being on psychedelics constantly. Since our fraise is so mentally acute, prophets tend to keep their fraise well into their twenties.

“With someone this young, I’ve only done this once and with him, he didn’t have incredible deep thoughts that are commonly seen in adults, but it accelerated his fraise-growth at a breakneck pace. You’ll be fluent in your basic prophetic powers in about two days. It’s unlikely you’ll see anything, but you’ll feel your mind switching up. You may feel a certain fear pulling in one direction and you’ll want to fight it. Don’t fight it. I can even help you through the fear, but the pull on that fear is the key to overcoming it and if you let it lead, you’ll grow from it. Otherwise, it’s like being paranoid and fighting an ocean wave. You’re only afraid of what you take with you. Remember at all times that you’re safe, that I’m here, and I have done what you’re doing many times. I know what you’re going through and quite literally can see what you’re seeing if I want to, but once you’re done, you’ll be far more powerful. Not many fraisers have this opportunity. Now, what are your questions about this?”

Langley and Mariah were now watching the two trays with the powder closely as if they expected them to move. “How long does this last?”

“A few hours at the most. You’ll peak in about thirty minutes to an hour.”

“If it’s that long, should we eat something before?”

Atlas shook his head. “Empty stomachs are best, though being hydrated is an excellent idea. Are either of you dehydrated right now?”

Langley and Mariah had been using Atlas’s rain-barrel set up behind the house, brimmed with pure water. They shook their heads.

Atlas placed the tiny trays before both children. “Simply dump it into your mouth and leave it under your tongue for ten seconds. Then wash it down with water. You’ll feel the effects start in 10 minutes or less.

Langley and Mariah each picked up the tray. Langley, feeling unsure, looked to Mariah just in time to see her dump the contents into her mouth, make an assortment of disgusted, confused faces, then hold a certain face. She was holding the powder under her tongue as she looked at Langley to see his progress.

“Fuck it.” Langley swished all of the powder into his mouth and onto his tongue. “Shiut,” he said with his mouth full. He adjusted the powder around in his mouth to under his tongue and held it. The contents of his mouth tasted like sidewalk chalk as he salivated and turned the powder into a mud. He quickly counted to ten and started swallowing. The initial swallow stuck in his throat and he coughed with his mouth closed.

Atlas spun open a water bottle cap and handed it to Langley who drank with vigor. Mariah waited her turn, swallowing with finesse, and then took the bottle as well. Atlas opened his mouth as if to say something and then shut it.

“Something wrong?” Mariah said.

Atlas answered, “No. I was about to say something, but realized it was pointless to say. It’s better if you simply see for yourself.”

The Astronomers nodded, passing the water bottle back and forth, ensuring all of the mushrooms were out of their mouths.

“Let’s go see the Ledge,” Atlas said, leaving the room.

He led them out of the Tilted Mansion, past the sloped porch and into the woods. They started walking into the woods toward somewhere. Atlas’s pace was leisurely, similar to an old horse on a tourist trail. Langley and Mariah were paying attention to their footsteps and wondering when they would feel anything.

Almost ten minutes passed with all three fraisers paying attention to the psychedelic effects taking place in the two Astronomers’ stomachs.

Mariah felt the tickle first. She heard it. Her footsteps resounded back to her, but not by sound. It was by the roots in the ground; the mycelium. Her footsteps were shaking the ground and being sensed by the whole forest. Langley almost ran into Mariah as she stopped, listening.

Atlas stopped, looking behind at Mariah. His eyes were patient and unconcerned, but curious. His eyes asked her: What are you knowing?

“The forest knows I’m here,” she said, looking back at Langley.

Langley looked at her with fascination. “I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

“Is the forest saying anything to you, Mariah?” Atlas asked.

Mariah listened to the trees swishing and looked at the grass. She stomped the ground again, knowing again that the earth heard her, but she shook her head. “No; why?”

“If it did, you would be quite the lightweight when it comes to mekadine.”

“Part of you doesn’t believe that, though,” Mariah said.

Atlas’s eyes lit up and he nodded. “That’s exactly right! Now, how did you know that?”

“It’s natural,” Mariah whispered that last part. “Interesting.”

“I don’t feel a damn thing, aside from a little… feeling in my chest. It’s not pain or a good feeling or anything, it just feels like something,” Langley said.

Atlas nodded. “That’s your fraise organ. I can sense it strengthening as well. In maybe an hour or so…” Atlas trailed off. He was in a trance, looking at Langley. Finally, he said, “Hanger.”

“I’m a hanger?!” Langley asked. “I get to fucking fly?” He started remembering all of the information surrounding hangers that Atlas had told them last night. 

“You’re a hanger.” Atlas was nodding happily. “Congratulations, Langley!”

“I’m a motherfucking hanger!” Langley pumped his fist. “When will I be able to fly?”

“I’m not sure. We’ll find out later,” Atlas promised. “Let’s keep walking.”

But by now, Mariah had started petting the grass with her hand. “Langley, feel the grass.” It was mostly dead and came up to their knees. Mariah said, “It’s…” And closed her mouth again as if that explained it.

“Can we stop here for now, Atlas?” Langley said.

“We literally have all day. Do what feels right,” Atlas said.

Mariah sat down on the side of the path and became intensely focused on the grass, petting it slowly and then putting her hands on her knees, looking with gently-dilated eyes. Langley wasn’t feeling the effects visually, but could still detect the fraise organ growing larger like a subtle heartburn. He admitted to himself that the sunlight was bright and full, like a block of yellow light instead of the usual thin wafting streams of light. Nothing was moving and nothing was that interesting to him.

“What’re you seeing, Mariah?” Langley asked as Atlas sat in the grass next to her, laying back with his eyes closed.

Mariah kept her eyes open and her mouth shut.

“Atlas, are you able to see what she’s seeing?” Langley whispered.

“Mariah is just having some realizations; let her be for now. She’s not actually seeing anything move or anything particularly fascinating. She’s just thinking.”

“I was thinking about me,” she said, rising to her feet. She rolled up her sleeves and stood. “Let’s go to the Ledge. I’d like to see what’s there.”

Atlas rolled to stand and started leading them again. After five minutes of walking, all three of the travelers could see the trees disappear abruptly into nothing but sky beyond. 

“It’s like walking into the gym at Winton Middle,” Langley said. “With the tall ceiling and everything.”

“I know what you’re talking about,” Mariah said. “I think I can partially hear you thinking. I think he’s thinking… well, now he’s just thinking of swear words… and heil, Hitler over and over,” Mariah said.

“I can hear that too,” Atlas said with a smile.

They walked until they stood five feet from the Ledge, looking out at the expanse. Atlas heaved a huge sigh and Mariah narrowed her eyes at the bright clouds, cold air, and wind.

“Langley?” Atlas noticed he was several steps behind. “It’s safe.”

“I don’t think-” Mariah started, and Langley broke into a run.

“Wait!” Atlas said, putting his hands out, trying to stop the Bug from a risky move.

Langley swished past them and leaped headfirst off of the Ledge. He twisted midair, looking back at the shocked and fearful faces of Atlas and Mariah. His gray hood hung loosely around him like a dark ghost, his pants started flapping around his ankles and his shoes seemed much looser. Nevertheless, his jump was confident.

He used the fall to twist again and put his arms above his head to control his fall. Once his face was toward the ground, the wind whipped his hood off his head and he could feel the drawstrings tickling his ears. The water, about a mile down from the Ledge, approached quickly. He knew what Atlas meant by the ‘connection to the fraise’ being activated.

Langley used that connection now and locked into it, using it to pull on him. His whole body became the weight of air and it was like his whole being was being pulled along a string, directly back up. His fall slowed and changed direction, swooooping up. He started falling again. He swooped again, harder this time. His body launched up toward the Ledge again and he swooped again.

Mariah and Atlas carefully peeked over the Ledge and watched him fall. Gravity seemed to change direction with him as he zoomed back toward them. Then he passed them, whisking up like a geyser, twenty feet above them. Then he swooped a little bit forward and landed shakily next to them. Atlas helped him catch his footing.

“I couldn’t help it. I just saw the edge of the cliff and knew I could fly and I had to jump. And I really want to do it again, but I think I’ve used up a good amount of the fraise energy I have. I don’t know if I could do that again.”

Atlas said. “Excellently done, but we’re close enough to Stablefield that you could be spotted and Cavaliers may start patrolling around here for other fraisers. Only a stupid fraiser would show himself like that.”

“Key to the universe. That has many meanings,” Mariah said. “I think I took the right amount,” was all Mariah said.

The prophets sat at the base of a tree while Langley walked back into the forest and started messing with different strengths of swooping, staying a good distance from the Ledge. For thirty minutes, Mariah had nothing to say, sitting at the tree looking out at the expanse. New neurons were connecting and she could feel them connecting. She felt washed with a new understanding. She wanted to ask questions, but first she wanted to take in the view to its fullest. After another fifteen minutes, she stood. “I’m going back to the mansion,” she informed Atlas.

Even these words to Atlas had a profound meaning. She spoke to him as an equal. When she met him, he was an adult, almost someone to be feared, but she saw him now as a fellow child at heart. His heart was light, as was Langley’s. Atlas got up with her and started walking behind her.

If we can read each other’s minds, can we speak telepathically? She wondered. She listened to the front of Atlas’s mind.

The front of his mind was saying: Technically, yes. It’s only a prophet-to-prophet communication, but it’s as good as communicating with our minds. 

Mariah let out a small gasp of delight. But we would have to have our mental ears open at all times to do that, right?

Right, for now, Atlas’s mind was saying. There is a way to directly communicate with others. Can you guess what it is?

“Dreamscoping,” Mariah said aloud. She felt a draw on her mind letting her know Langley was hiding in a tree, forty feet up. The Clairvoyant looked up at Langley and waved. The feeling came so naturally! That information slid into her mind like she had made it up.

“Prophesying is almost like I’ve known the information all along,” Mariah said.

Atlas nodded behind her.

“Like just now, without looking behind me, I knew you nodded.”

Atlas nodded again and smiled.

“And you just smiled.”

“Yup,” Atlas said.

Langley hopped smoothly down the branches of the tree and swooped alongside them. “Flying is fucking awesome if you needed to know. But it’s not like I imagined; it’s more like gliding without a glider. And you have to lead a certain part of your body like a dancing ribbon. Like you’re tied to a string or something. Then you just zoom around,” Langley said and shot up through the trees.

“I could read your mind right now if I wanted to, right Atlas?” Mariah asked.

“If you have the stomach for it, you’re free to try. I am an open book,” Atlas said.

Mariah continued walking and thinking. “Any advice before I try?”

Atlas said, “Start with listening to what is at the front of my mind and then try pulling on any of the threads. It’s an inexplicable action; you’ll see what I mean when you try.”

Mariah opened her mental ears to Atlas’s mind and listened to him whimsically wondering about where Myles was, a healing wound under his jacket… he was thinking some thoughts that he didn’t mean. No, it wasn’t that he didn’t mean them; he was wondering if these things were possible or were going to happen, like the entire Great Hook splitting apart.

Mariah reached out and started a sort of mental attack on that idea. The Great Hook falling apart. Instantly, she could sense other thoughts connected to that thought. Images started bombarding her, flashing by like flipping through a magazine: some were of natives of some strange planet, a large floating cube, some were of a dark man…

“Ugh!” she backed out of his mind.

“You lasted about a quarter of a second.”

“It was just because it was like you were my sibling and knew all of my secrets too, but somehow we were learning them about each other in one second. It was all so wrong, like…” like we were standing naked looking at each other and inspecting each other. Ewww. She shuddered.

“Remember, when you whisper something like that at the front of your mind, I can’t help but hear it,” Atlas said.

Mariah felt her face grow hot. 

“I’m impressed at how accurate that description is… siblings. Mekadine gives you some creative thoughts, no?”

Mariah nodded and Langley whooshed into the tree canopy again. He was laughing, rolling around in the air, looking like a joyous, childish specter with his baggy hoodie. He landed in front and started walking with them.

“Wow, walking? What a downgrade, man. Fuck this,” he said and bounded fofty feet into the air and was gone again.

“Atlas?” Mariah stopped and turned around. Atlas stopped with her, curiosity on his face. She jumped into his arms, giving him a large hug. “Thank you. And know that you’re so, so loved.”

Atlas hugged her back, gently rubbing her back. He said nothing out of genuine surprise, feeling relaxed and chuckling. “Thank you. I haven’t had a hug… in a long time.” They let go and continued walking.

They made it back to the Tilted Mansion where Langley was lying on the roof, hands behind his head. “Hello there, you grounded jabronis. Only peasants get confined to the ground. I’m the king here.”

“Yeah, well, I can read your mind now,” Mariah said.

“All you’ll be able to read is ‘I can fly and you can’t!’” Langley said.

Atlas clicked his tongue. “Some people are born with simple minds, Langley. Simple, singularly-driven minds.”

Langley narrowed his eyes at Atlas. “Wise-guy.”

“Dweeb,” Atlas returned.

“Shoehead.”

“Dipshit.”

“Fuckwad.”

“Nazi.”

“…Bitch…”

“Piss…Wanker.”

Langley laughed at that one. “I love that insult.” He hopped off of the roof and swooped into their path. They looked at the front of the mansion with a sense of contentment. Langley swooped to the hanging seat up front.

Atlas and Mariah joined him in the seat with a deep exhale. They swung the whole bench gently, watching the forest move. The grass rolling and bending to the wind. The trees ticking back and forth. Bugs. A rodent or two. This was their whole world, undisturbed.

Atlas was bent over his body, looking at the deck. His forearms were placed between his legs, hands hanging idly off the bench. His legs were limp, swinging from the edge of the seat. Mariah could sense something offset in his mind; she didn’t have to guess what it was because he spoke:

“I’m so tired,” he laughed like one about to hang in the gallows.

The old chains holding the swinging bench creaked as Mariah and Langley looked over at him. He continued, “I’ve been in turmoil over intercepting Myles in the jump and it didn’t work. It’s been almost three days and the best I can do is doze for a few hours.”

Langley stayed quiet as Mariah, sitting next to Atlas, placed her fingertips on his forehead. The old prophet opened his eyes fully and lifted a hand to block the action, but then he stopped.

Touching the person’s head made the front of their mind as clear as speaking. She could feel Atlas’s consciousness like a glass ball filled with energy, brittle and blue. It sounded blue. 

“Your brain sounds blue. I can hear the color of your mind?”

Atlas just nodded and said, “Try to break the energy. It should feel like squashing a puddle after a rainstorm.”

Mariah looked back at the energy, interacting with it. The whole thing was horribly defensive, slipping through her mental grip like a water-balloon. She put her other hand on his head and closed her eyes. She somehow received a running start and slapped both sides of the energy at the same time, like killing a mosquito. The energy flitted away in a dazzling show like being in the middle of a firework.

“Oh!” Mariah moved back in the real world, taking her hands off of Atlas’s head.

Atlas’s whole body fell forward like a bag of lemons, he landed on his side, and finally rolled onto his back. 

“Fuck, you killed him!” Langley jumped to Atlas’s side and started shaking the green jacket to wake him up. “Atlas?!”

“No, I didn’t! He’s finally asleep,” Mariah pushed Langley’s hands away.

The two Astronomers regarded the sleeping prophet, went inside, and returned with two large blankets and many pillows. After piecing together a mattress of pillows, they rolled him into a comfortable sleeping position, propped his head, and covered him in blankets. Mariah put her fingers on his head to check him once more. 

There was nothing to hear in his mind aside from two pulsing rhythms: His heartbeat and breathing. Mariah smiled and sat on the bench with Langley, watching over Atlas while he slept.