Northern Downpour

The Open Gates (XV)

XV

On the next days, thirty-six days to be exact, nothing really happened so special. Every day, there were breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Micael was writing, playing his instruments, palavering, and reading the very letter from his father. It kept on going like such, much more like less than a boring routine. Eat, read, sleep, and repeat.

It was very comfortable but yet boring. He never really did expect that this would be much less than just a sail. He expected night parties, glugs, and some sort of entertainment, of which there was. It was just below his mundane-not, extravagant league. The best part was that he found something he would enjoy, and it was just being just; himself. He kept on doing his stuffs spontaneously. While being on track on the letter as it was on mere eleven pages, at least that was what he lastly recalled, but it contained something erotic, which of course made Micael become hooked into it. It was about having fun with someone, of which made by his very father of no any discernible reason. There were no events either because of the weather.

Though it had only lasted for like two weeks, which also started on the twenty-second day of the ship’s conquest, it had become bad that they were forced to reside to their respective rooms until the calmness of the ocean had returned. It was rough as it was raining. No one could enjoy the starry night every time it would go black, as the clouds where like shrouds and one’s eyes were fogged by the inevitable feeling that there wasn’t really anything to look at.

Micael felt lonely, but he knew he was not alone. He never was, for he knew that on the pitch black resides Jack, and the rain was more like his strange calling for attention, for them to unite once again. He had also thought of the symbol, and it was EIGHTEEN. He could not decode anything, at all. He was helpless, and this time, he decided to be with Jack to have a sweet talk, but he never came until the seventh day of the storm. He slept that night, only his body. He knew something. A kind of ritual no one could pull off but him. Way back his thirteenth, this had become the way where Micael would have the chance to talk to spring-heeled Jack, willingly, as if it was no nightmare at all. He had rendered his body paralyzed, though one could not assess how, but it happened. He gathered his breath, and he sang.

Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of waaaaater

Jack fell down and broke his crown and Jill came tumbling aaaaafter

He repeated, three times. He had sung it with quite of the voice and melody. It was catchy, and one would want to listen to it about a million times without knowing the very reason behind. His voice box was vibrating and the veins resting on his neck started to swell and show themselves underneath his skin. One could see it clearly that he was alive after all.

It was like performing inside an auditorium. It was sung with passion and the greatest of talent, though very quiet. It sounded both like an opera and a chant. It was mysterious yet beautiful, and his very way could send goosebumps onto anyone who would listen. No. Anyone who would dare to even listen. On the third repetition, it was quite different. Someone was singing with him, but willingly at this time.

Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of waaaaater

Jack fell down and broke his crown and Jill came tumbling aaaaafter

Jack and Jill… Jack and…. Mill…
spring-heeled Jack and Aleck Miller went up…

Though it was raining, there sprouted light. Micael could see it even though his eyelids were completely shut. He could feel his whereabouts, too. It was moving. Everything was moving. He knew this time he was being moved. He could feel the child and Jack’s presence around him, and he knew he must never open his eyes. And there was a chant. A chant in a procession. He was in a procession where he was the beloved, as if he was really worth crying and devoting for. The raining had stopped, as well as the splash of ocean waters, but it was not yet time. He was not yet there. Then there was radiation which crossed along his very body. He could feel the heat and the radiation even through his bloodstream.

It was hot, but one must continue to go on as opening his eyes, let alone his rationality, would kill him immediately. He could see his bones. He roamed his eyes intentionally and curiously, and then he saw the invisible (or just something underneath his skin). He could see his clavicle, patella, and tibia but it was instant and after just a mere fraction of a millisecond, darkness came back and so did he. Everything stopped. It felt quiet and he gathered his thoughts. He knew he was already at the place. At the place of which they called the OPEN GATES. He was contended, and some kind of a creepy voice uttered in the very front of his face, smelling its breath which smelled like fear, death, and hunger.

“Wake up, Aleck. We’re here. We are finally back at the open gates.”

And then he went to open his eyes. It was dark, and there was a bulb on the middle of his whereabouts, which quickly and instantly turned into the waning moon. He was not lying at all. He was taken a seat on the outskirts of the open gates, where they both first met. It was dingy, as both of them had forgotten its very place. From Micael’s seat, he could see the open gates, and it was far. A mere 800 yards. “Where am I?” He foolishly asked to Jack, though he knew where they were. “At our place, my child. Haven’t you miss this? For I was waiting since your thirteenth,” spring-heeled Jack replied.

“The day where we met because we killed my goddamn friend? Not at all.” “I did not kill your friend, Aleck. I only killed your ignorance of the fact that you are no more Aleck. No. The fact that you hated him,” replied the spring-heeled Jack, of which something he uttered quite nicely. Micael could not see that he was smiling because of the mask, but he knew Jack was. They both looked at the open gates, and looked at one another.
“Would you like to pay another visit?”
“That question is for you, my child. Not for me.”

“Then we shall seek memories, or something new, then?”

The spring-heeled Jack offered his grey hand to Micael, and he handed his as well. The child quickly transformed into a crow, smoothly. His bones cracked a little and his skin started to shrink. The crack of twigs. His eyes then shrank and the walked down the road which would blood soon spewed out from the hole on at the child's eyes and his skin turned into black, slowly, and the dight of feathers soon was shown followed by his legs being shortened and shifted into terrible calws. The child's body shrank completely and grown tail sprouted right at the back of his glutes and his voice box was no escape, either. It started to flap its wings and uttered a sqeal utop of hud crow lungs, and soon the child, Jack, and Micael went on to lead to the open gates. The place was rotting, but it was who you are with which would make anything worth remembering. They continued without looking back, and gracefully forth they did.

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