The Stray Diagram (part two)

It was disconcerting and we spent a few minutes wandering around, staggering through the cloudy fog. I saw her in the distance but the green light made it difficult to ascertain how far away she was and I had no idea where we had exactly landed. It was confusing and I walked around. I reached out but couldn’t see anything to hold onto. I walked in one direction, then another, and then stood still. I had no idea where to go next, so I decided to pause for a moment. When I stood still, I felt a strange sense of warmth, unexpectedly coming from above. I turned my head upwards and the heat seemed to intensify, burning away to fog that surrounded us. I took in a deep breath of the warm air, the ghostly green hues slowing shifting towards a familiar looking bright blue. I watched carefully and saw the trails of long white clouds, slowly drifting overhead, seemingly undisturbed our presence. The surge of energy began to release its grip. In the distance overhead, I located the source of the warm energy. I look further above and located the retinas and crests at the edges of a hot summer sun. It seemed that the world had swapped seasons. Another summer had had risen, taking control the skies above us. Its relentless energy heated the surface beneath, transforming ice to grass. I turned my head and looked around and we were standing in the middle of a field, surrounded by trees, twisting around in endless configurations, the clouds began to soften and calm. I felt the warmth return to my feet, gradually, the ground became firmer. I looked around and noticed there were paths and walkways extending towards the other side of the field.

She began to walk quickly, her feet seeming to float as she traversed them. She had an intuitive notion of where she was, guided by some unseen force. The field seemed familiar to me, but I was still disoriented, and a little dizzy. I had to take another break and catch my breath. As my eyes adjusted to the bright environment, I looked around and saw some oddly familiar sights and sounds along the path as I walked behind her. There were a few scattered turns in the walkways and paths that looked familiar. We went underneath a path and found ourselves underneath a group of large trees, their branches seeming to cover the walkways, covering them up. I began to remember some of the paths but they were in different places, almost reverses. The trees were smaller and weaker than I remembered while the bushes and brushes seemed to have moved along with some of the paths rearranged in different positions. We walked along the path together and she pushed ahead of me, unfettered by the thick branches overhanging. As we walked, a strange sense of déjà vu overcame me as I recognized where we were heading. I wasn’t sure, but if my instincts we right, something there made me turn around the last time. I remained behind her, following her path but I felt increasingly nervous, remembering my own journey on a similar path only a few days earlier, when I discovered the abandoned cottage. I looked around, and found myself running in the other direction after I felt something pulling me away.

As we walked towards the structure, I was perplexed but also increasingly fearful. It seemed I was being drawn back with equal force by her and I couldn’t quite understand why. It took a few minutes of walking, but I knew exactly where we where when we arrived at a small clearing and encountered the small, immediately familiar structure, standing and waiting for us. I felt a lump in my throat, and my immediate feeling was that I shouldn’t have come back. At first glance, the small cottage didn’t seem that different than the last time I’d been there, but as we moved closer, I began to notice some strange, inexplicable changes in its appearance. The brick walkways had been fixed; there was no longer grass between the steps, which made it easier to navigate. The windows which had been boarded up had been fixed and some of them were open. As I walked closer, its appearance changed inexplicably, no longer threatening, it had suddenly become warm and welcoming. I felt a gush of warmth under my feet as I moved closer. She walked ahead of me and I tried to stay close, but my feet were beginning to get sore. I watched and it something else seemed odd as she walked up onto the wooden porch. The open windows were no longer boarded up and as I looked towards the right of backyard, it seemed an entire side-section of the structure had vanished, replaced by a long brick, wall. The outer fencing was also missing, which made things feel more open, allowing more sunlight to beam into the backyard.

I began walking towards the cottage and began to feel increasingly confused. I wondered why we had traveled so far, and taken so much time, only to return to what felt like a destination. It was frustrated and confused and the longer I stood in back of the building, the less I understood. I froze in place for a moment and wondered what was happening. Growing impatient, she called my name and I saw her gazing back towards me impatiently, tapping her feet with a sense of urgency I hadn’t really expected. This made me nervous once more, and I felt a pit forming in my stomach, but I knew she had her reasons. I walked closer and put my hands on the railings aside the stairs, and entered the edges behind the cottage. On my previous encounter, they sagged and seemed loose. I didn’t feel safe holding onto them and I was afraid to given their dilapidated, rusted appearance. When I walked closer, gliding my hand over them, it seemed they had been restored, polished, and held steady in place. As I walked onto the main porch, I noticed the boards weren’t crooked or broken. They didn’t make a sound or even creak when we walked on them. I looked at the back door and it seemed to have been freshly painted in a bright red.  Its windows were open, and it seemed like it had a purpose. The quiet didn’t last as we heard something. I quickly realized that there was someone talking, reciting what seemed to be a serried of directions and numbers, loudly enough to be heard from outside the building.

I couldn’t make out what was being said but it seemed to be a familiar voice that she recognized immediately. She excitedly walked ahead, almost flying and nearly ran towards the back of the cottage. I ran behind her quickly and it took me a minute to catch up, but before I knew it she run further into the back and had disappeared and was standing directly behind the back entrance. I saw the ladder from my previous visit on the ground. There were buckets of paint and brushes on the side. I looked above the back porch when we turned around the other side of the building and there was a picture etched into a glass window, shimmering above its rear door. Its bright colors created a tranquil summer scene. There was a brightly colored beach, people sitting under a sun with a sailboat in the distance. It was just like I remembered, but its colors were sharp and vibrant, like it had just been painted. She walked to the back door, and it was hanging slightly open. She turned the bright red door-knob and slowly opened it. The voice I’d heard before echoed from behind and I could hear someone reciting a long list of numbers, names and, directions. It seemed disconnected to me, but it stirred something inside her. She shook her head up and down, not seeming to believe what she was hearing and walked inside without hesitation, but I held back, standing on the back porch nervously for a moment, not knowing what to expect. She sensed my hesitation and walked down the steps. Grabbing my hand forcefully, she pulled my arm and pushed me up the steps until and we both stood in front of the door. We were going to find the answers to the mysteries lurking within the building together.

We took our first few steps inside and were standing inside a large open entrance, with a small lobby that opened into a single long, narrow hallway. There were a few smaller rooms on each side of walkway. Their doors were open, allowing them to fill with the warm summer air. They seemed to be filled with people and voices. We heard the noise and talking grow even louder as we stepped inside, the noise of dozens of kids in their classrooms, talking and shouting excitedly. There seemed to be a sense of anticipation in the air. She walked past several of the classroom, peaking inside each one and I knew she was looking for that voice from the inside. As we moved closer, she seemed to walk even faster, and I knew it was someone she recognized. She turned towards me for a moment to make sure I was keeping up and then walked ahead. Quickly moving further down the hall, she effortlessly passed the other classrooms until she reached the second to last door. She looked inside excitedly and seemed instantly relieved. She walked inside the door and I followed her towards the inside of the room and I walked towards the back of the class. Standing by her side, I felt like I was intruding and wasn’t supposed to be there. She didn’t seem to have any fear, and I wondered why she seemed to draw so little attention. On the other side of the classroom, I saw the teacher sitting behind her wooden desk. She was tapping her fingers and occasionally stopped to remind them to stay out of trouble. I noticed she was warily looking over her students, who were seated at their desks, but seemed not to be paying much attention. They seemed to be very excited about something and they were talking with each other, but not really doing anything at their desks. Most of them seemed like pretty average kids around my age, but I didn’t recognize any of them.

The kids began to get a little rambunctious, their voices and yells grew louder as the minutes passed. They started yelling, stomping their feet on the floor, neglecting to notice the teacher’s direction, they seemed to take over the room. After a few minutes of this, some of the kids began to look towards the clock on the wall and stated counting down in unison until the school bell rang. They all jumped up simultaneously and seemed to sprint out of the class, streaming out into the hallway as fast as they could. The teacher stayed behind and let out a deep breath, relieved that the long hot day was finally over. However, that mysterious girl stayed behind, sitting at her desk quietly. She took the notebook and put it inside her desk, carefully concealing it between a few textbooks. The teacher looked at her oddly, and asked her if she heard the bell. She was mostly silent and nodded her head. The teacher told her not to worry, that the day was finally over, and reassured her that there would be plenty of time for working and drawing tomorrow.

She slowly got up, grabbed her bag and walked out of the room, waving towards the teacher and saying goodbye. The girl stopped and lingered for a moment, inside the doorway and seemed not to realize her duty was done for the day. We watched her as she walked into the hallway, and paused to look around, extending her stay inside the building. She walked deliberately at a slow pace and it was obvious that she wasn’t in a hurry to leave. She slowly made her way towards the back portion of the building and looked over the papers pinned to the bulletin boards, carefully reading them for some reason. By the time she reached the back porch, the other kids had run far ahead of her, reaching the edge of the surrounding forest. She began to walk away from the school, somewhat reluctantly. The other kids were running and screaming far ahead of her, and we watched them disappear as they headed home. The mysterious girl began to walk home and while the other kids seemed like they were racing against each other, she didn’t seem to mind letting them take the lead and they quickly ran ahead of her.

We watched her slowly walk towards the other side of the field, walking in a kind of slow march, deliberately pacing and measuring her steps. It seemed odd, but she seemed to have some kind of purpose. I watched her outline slowly diminish until she vanished underneath the trees, venturing too far for us to track without running after. We held back and watched all of this unfold without making an effort to interfere. Standing on the school’s back porch, I looked back towards her and was a bit surprised to see a strange melancholy had overcome her. It seemed that she might have known the young girl, or had some kind of connection, but I wasn’t sure what it could be. I tried to reassure her that it would probably work out, but she didn’t seem to hear me. We stood there for a few minutes and allowing the summer air to overflow though us. She stood there silently for awhile and I wondered what was happening. She was uncharacteristically stoic, and didn’t seem to be in a rush. Several minutes passed and I found my mind drifting until I heard the door behind us open. The teacher hurried past us and hurriedly walked towards the other side of the building, seeming not to notice or care that we were standing directly in front of her path.

The teacher seemed to be in a rush to leave, and I realized that what she was waiting for. She took the opportunity, and as soon as the teacher left our sight, she headed back inside, re-opening the door just closed. She began walking back towards the classroom, taking a direct route without pausing. I wondered what she was doing and a part of me didn’t want to go. It felt a little intrusive, like we were trespassing. She nudged me to join her, that it was fine. I wasn’t sure and didn’t want to go back inside. However, she insisted that I join her. I watched as she went to the young girl’s desk and pulled out the folder from between the books. She took out and unfolded the large paper and placed it on the desk. I sat down and she moved her fingers across it, gently pointing out things that I might overlook. We examined the strikingly elaborate drawing and despite being a rough draft drawn in pencil, several things drew my eyes towards it immediately.

Even though it was apparently rushed together, work snuck in-between other projects, it looked nearly flawless and in its creation and design. It was impressive how elaborate and detailed the composition and drafting was, there were only a few minor flaws, occasional stray strokes but the entire draft felt as complete as it was complex. The more we looked at it, the more I realized that this wasn’t some idle sketch, but an deliberate attempt at creating a rough draft for something that could be made, and might actually work somehow in the distant future. It was a complicated blue print for a strange light device. It was multilayered, complicated and somewhat impractical. It resembled something out of another dimension, built for a different time in the long-distant future. Its surface was covered with numerous dials and switches, each labeled with inscrutable, incomprehensible symbols indicating their purpose or function. I examined it closely but still couldn’t decipher some of its writing. She helpfully turned it at an angle, and under the new light, some of the notations became legible. It was an odd machine that it would theoretically allow travel to different times and dimensions on condensed beams of energy that would be converted to create subatomic paths to travel through for some indefinite purpose.