They Come in Twos and Threes.

More close encounters. Stories as told from a Carib-Jamericanadian perspective. In richly blended language mix of; nonsense talk, sensational spelling, double entendre, and Jamaican Patois. Yes, wordplay is the order of the day around here. So

They come in twos and threes, always. Shadow was running low on the silver nuggets again. They’d done well to sustain him over the centuries, up until then. But more than anything else, he wanted a change. After all, he had been away from the place he had come to know and called his home for quite a long time and was here interacting with these other beings. He tried his best to start blending in a little bit more with them it would have seemed. Well, maybe, it was that, and maybe he also wanted to start partaking even more in some of their customs, rituals, and traditions. He went out once again with the chief on the next fishing trip. It was another of the chief’s regular deep-sea fishing escapades down into it.

Way down into the deep is what I mean — the deep belly of the sea. See? Okay then. Look at me. “This is where the big games are,” he was told. This is where you want to be. Down there it’s not too cold. Just below the floating village community on the surface square is where the chosen community divers of the year would go to collect the periodic supplies. Yes. “There, in front of your eyes — guys,” I swear! That’s what I hear. But he must have lied, because.

“Here’s the drill,” said the new chief to him. In an attempt at preparing him for the trip down under — “Under his skin, right?”

“No, not under his skin, but under the village in those partings.” He then went on to explain it to him in great detail. All of the “do and the don’ts” as the task would entail. He went about schooling the Shad. So, the deal as it turned out was for him to prepare his mind as well as his body. Lungs and all. Prepare for the long trip down into the belly of the deep. Headlong into the fall. Get the fish up from down there and bring them up to the surface where the family is waiting for dinner. All that food to eat and share to feed them all. All that has got to be done in just one breath of fresh air within her, and him. “No problem, mate. Nothing to win.”

“Oh no, wait — my dear,” she said to him. There’s much more for you to see and hear, hmm-muah. “Now swim,” she said, after giving it to him, near his head. Shad was confident and boy! He sure was buoyed. After all, this is Shadow, this is the Shadow Needleman whom you are talking to here. I’ve done some real out-of-this-world kinds of things in my life and timing. Things that will make your skull pop — kaboom just like that, and winding. Just to think of it, in fact. This swimming, diving, and the fishing bit of which you now speak. This too will be just another notch on my pistol shot of the week. So he said to all of them, and to this little gal so to speak, his friend. Oh! Look at her, isn’t she sweet?

“No.”

Well! “Let’s go get some fish to eat, or sell,” said the chief to this inky elk. Yes, that will be all, go on now, tell. Or else you’ll fall to the sword, anyway, just leave, because. How wrong could the Shadow Man have been? But then again, how could he even have known these things, that this was his last ride home and in? As in, that said sleeping gown skin?

Two sleeps later, they were up and ready to leave from behind the bore, and that was when they’d hopped out and through the gated door. Out on the deck, they got up and went. After briefly they reworked their routines, again. Then they took the plunge down, down, down. The tightness in his chest was getting stiffer, and stiffer still, like this.

Cliffy the new chief. Just like Manuel would have done in another world among the thieves. In another place and time, and another depth. Another deep watery pearl, like these girls of thine, yes. The chief beckoned him onward, forward, and deeper down. “You will then hit the transition point,” the chief had said to him while rolling the joint. Before sitting back down against the bed that night, on a rather sharp point. But the only transition that Shad could see coming for him was his chest bursting open and sucking salty seawater rushing in. Bracing and grating hard at the inner walls of his lungs where fresh air so longed to be to begin, like, with, yes, in there. It felt as if water was getting into the air space there and drowning him.

It must have happened just like that, at that very moment in fact, because. That’s the last thing he remembered of that fishing expedition. Furthermore, that was, and still is, the only other “black-out” spot in the many lives of the Shadow man that he could not and still cannot quite get clarity on from anyone. Nor is he able to figure it out on his own Cekko plan. As to what might have happened there and then. After that fateful moment in, and on.

The questions just keep on piling up in the can. Questions as to what might really have happened there and then? Like: Did he die there, as is the custom with those of the humanoid kinds, over here? If so, if he’d died that time. Did he forfeit another of his many lives there? The humanoid inserts of what he was given as “life” to equip him for the humanoid world on this earthlings’ side, over here? Was he rescued from that situation? If so, by whom? How long was he out of it? On and on the question keeps on piling up within the pan and gnawing at him.

They were just supposed to go out for a swim, and then some more. He sold Shad on the idea, and swimming he went with him off the shores of Arcadia. That was the last he ever saw or heard of the chief, the villagers. Or Man-ho-Manuel again, he thinks. What had happened? He may never know for sure. But he was quite sure that he’d woken up in jail. Walking the yards, surrounded by a battalion of strange soldiers and guards, and lugging around the pail. Life as he knew it was never the same again. Oh hell! Then comes the fear of everything to do with the world of water and fishing, ever since.

In the realms of the great kings in Cekkoland where Shadow came from. It’s two strikes over there and you’re out and gone. Unlike how it seems to be the custom here in the humanoid realms where it takes all of three, ears of corn. No doubt. Shad is not going to risk a third. Even if he’s to be given another chance at doing so, so I’ve heard. Even if it’s in the humanoid world that he’s to be found living at the time. He’s not going to risk it. Not on yet another of the many chances of losing his dime, on viewing Netflix. Not on his life over this, the earthlings’ side of the holey biscuit.

Now though, the Shadow man has got one more thing to worry about. Yet another thing to fear here in the humanoid world as he goes about seeking to find and return the lost Genodes home. To add to his fear of sleep. The fear of water and of the deep is now an additional worry constantly gnawing at the Shadow man and his psyche.

To be continued.

That’s it for this excerpt. Be sure to join us again tomorrow or any time thereafter, for more of the series, as we continue with the story. Don’t forget to like, share, and comment. We sure would appreciate it if you’d subscribe and follow us somewhere too, thank you.

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Just an excerpt from my book called “New Hiking Trail Cast Shadow on the Tattooed.” A Novel: Real Inky Trails Series.

By writingelk, All Rights Reserved.