beeps, whispers, coughs, fingers, colors through closed eyelids, soft silk, harsh voice, high voice, linoleum squeaking, pencils scratch, pens tip-tap, "shh", prick!, slipping, floating, colors fade to grey, time like mudslide/tumbling, piercing arrowed shafts of solar-shine, rustling tree leaves, green grass, Awake! and misty haloed angelic face before the sun "Good morning"
"Morning angel" a sloppy sort of irony pervading a readjusting voice. Paul glanced about at the field, the grey seeping through the green grassed pasture. Angel jittered, and then steadied, grinned violently.
"How'd you sleep?" The delicate features of her face were fringed with light black fuzz and Paul stared into her hazel eyes as he would a Renaissance painting or a fine jewel.
"Like a kitten in a pile of fresh laundry." Gazing at the pale yellow sun Paul purred, "And you my Mona Lisa?"
She started, then with a quick haggard breath, "Quite fine." A pause and honey-like "Is it not beautiful here?"
"Ah, like Rome before the fall it shines."
"You riddle??"
"Oh?" and Paul saw her face, flushed, angular "How quickly the true nature of anything comes to light though, patience child." Paul pulled strength and stared hard; the angel's face grew red, harried, and huge. A gruff voice attempted to smooth itself.
"Is not the grass as green as a childhood memory of summer?"
"Indeed, the grass, much like a memory" Paul had no memory of the grass, now grey. The deep resonating growl continued.
"And is not the sunshine like gold."
"As pale is the lamplight, and so golden is the sun, ay."
"Riddles again, I see."
"Ay, riddles to a fool, yet quite clear to the wise."
A firm hand met Paul's face. The world around him completely snapped into a warehouse. Before him stood a large two way mirror, behind which he could hear faint whispers of panic, beeps, and scratching pencils. Paul began to laugh as the second blow streaked across his face causing a trickle of blood to flow down his nose. The large, ugly man before him wheezed, stuttered, "Y..., you, d...d...DARE INSULT ME!" a shower of spit rained down on Paul's head, "Look at you! Tied to a fucking chair and doped up. What position are you in to INSULT ME!?"
Paul giggled like a school girl "Because your little experiment failed pookey. Your little world fell before my jaded eyes." POW! the crack of the fist knocked consciousness from Paul's body in a clean instant.
Chapter 9: Good Morning Sunshine
"Ohm" sound of eternity, beginning/end/wholeness, crystallizing thought puzzles, form through unformed unconscious thought and blank consciousness, do without doing, dream through dark, blind to world wisdom through nothing, meditate, concentrate on the void, avoid the superficial, and through ocean depths clarity, "AHH!"
Pills reached into his left pocket, toward the coldness, grasped the small pill and tossed it behind him carelessly. Stan bent down, picking up the small oval capsule.
"The great mystery of the left breast pocket revealed, cyanide."
"Like Navy Seals use." Pills left.
Slipping coolly out the door in a stooped position he found the posted agent. He leapt up behind him and at the same time released the cool metal blade of his switch, placing its sharp edge to the man's neck.
"Take me to Paul, now!" he growled menacingly.
An intricate patterned knock and then a bullet through the agents head threw out a spray of blood, skull, and brain matter. Like a wicked modern ballet Pills pirouetted, gun in hand, placing a bullet squarely through the chest of a surprised man with a large flush face, and then as he began to halt his spin he placed two more through a large mirror on the wall. Glass shattered and two bodies fell to the floor. Paul sat, passively watching. Pills helped him up and the two wandered off into the streets.
Off to the real world.