Every story, new or ancient
Bagatelle or work of art
All are tales of human failing
All are tales of love at heart
- Aida
Jason groaned and
shook his head, willing the throb at the base of his skull to please, please,
for the love of God, go away. It didn’t
and he laid his head back down on his pillow wearily with a groan, not
bothering to open his eyes. What had
happened? Last he remembered… they had
just gotten the doors of Moria opened and seen the bodies lying strewn inside…
then a squid, or something like it, had attacked them. The doorway had begun to collapse… then
Gandalf had begun reciting something in Elvish and although Legolas had been
toiling with Jason to teach him the language… he’d had very little success thus
far. Something about asking Valar for a
safe place… secret and safe.
He
must have blacked out after that… obviously they had escaped somehow, since he
was still breathing. And he could hear
Gimli groan and mutter a curse in dwarvish.
Had everyone blacked out? Were
they now lying sprawled about some forest floor? Maybe they were back in
Rivendell… or the hobbits’ Shire…
“Hey,
early birds! It’s seven o’clock! Time to wake up and join the Land of the
Living! I’m Glen Kalina and this is
Alice 104.5, hits from the eighties, nineties and more! If you’re like my cohost Alex, and need a
jump start this Tuesday morning, here’s a new song from Meatloaf to get you on
your feet!”
Jason
sprang out of his bed like a shot, his heart thumping a mile a minute. “Holy fucking shit! I’m home!
How did I-? Boromir! Frodo!
Aragorn! Wake up!” he yelled at
the top of his lungs.
The
others looked about as weary and sore as he felt, but all pained expressions
fled at their sudden surroundings. The
entire Fellowship minus Gandalf had apparently been sprawled out across Jason’s
studio apartment; Jason in his bed, Gimli at one end of the couch, Frodo at the
other with Sam on the floor nearby, Merry and Pippin were next to each other on
Jason’s huge comfy armchair, Legolas was on the floor all but under the coffee
table, Aragorn was propped up in the one uncluttered corner that Jason owned,
and Boromir was crammed onto the loveseat with his legs dangling over one
arm. Jason stumbled in his attempt to
find his damned clock radio and nearly smashed it with his foot before shutting
off the tinny roar of electric guitars and Jim Steinman piano chords.
“Christ! Holy Christ! I’m home! Jesus fucking
Christ!” he panted, unable to stop a foolish grin from splitting his face.
“Home?”
Boromir repeated in irritation. “What
sorcery is this? Where are we?”
“Home! This is where I came from! I told you!
Earth… although not Middle Earth… the United States… New York City!” he
scrambled out to his small balcony window and stuck his head out, ignoring the suffocating
humidity of the July air and screaming.
“I’m HOME!!!!”
“Yo! Will you shut up down there! There’s people trying to fuckin’ sleep!” his
upstairs neighbor shouted angrily.
Jason
pulled his head back in with a sheepish grin and called up. “Sorry, Lex!”
“Wait…
if this is your home… how did we get here?” Frodo, sometimes the only sensible
one of the group piped up.
“Beats
me.” Jason shrugged. “Christ… what day
is it? How long was I gone for?”
“Tuesday,
July 2nd… 2002, if you must know.” Gandalf finally spoke from the doorway of
Jason’s kitchen.
“July
2nd?” Jason repeated, having now gotten used to the wizard’s odd comings and
goings. “You mean… no time has passed
here at all?”
“A
few hours perhaps… but not enough for a missing person’s report to have been
filed if that’s what you were wondering.” Gandalf nodded. “I must admit… this was not exactly what I
had in mind when I cast that spell… but it will do for now, I suppose, while we
regroup and decide what to do next.”
“You
brought us here.” Aragorn sighed in relief.
“How do we get back?”
“That
is what we are regrouping for… I need to figure that part out.” Gandalf said in
his maddeningly nonchalant way.
“Oh
wonderful… you cast us all into limbo and have no idea how to get us back?” Gimli
grumbled, rubbing his head in annoyance.
“Meanwhile Jaycen is runnin’ about like a crazed squirrel and chatterin’
about as much.”
“Patience,
friend-dwarf… he is home after all.” Legolas shrugged, grimacing as he
attempted to stretch the kinks out of his back.
“Well,
I’m waitin’ fer him to stop bein’ home and start makin’ sense. Nooyawk… sounds like an orc town… if orcs
had towns. Jaycen! Stop yer wailing and do somethin’ useful!”
the dwarf seethed.
Jason,
also having grown used to the Middle Earthlings odd pronunciation of his name,
finally settled down. “Okay, okay…
sorry… man, this is screwed up… okay.
It’s not Nooyawk… it’s New York… two words. It’s one of the most diverse cities in the world and the ‘meeting
place’ for just about everyone. It has
an estimated population of twenty million people. Whatever you want to do in the world, you can do it in New York…
the unofficial world capitol, if you will.”
“Twenty
million people?” Merry repeated.
“That’s a lot more than the Shire…”
“You
think?” Pip asked… being completely serious… or as serious as Pippin was
capable of.
“Twenty
million…” Legolas echoed. “All… men?”
Jason
snickered slightly. “All the race of
men, yes… there’s no such thing as hobbits or elves or orcs or goblins here or
anywhere else in my world. Dwarves…
well sort of… but technically they’re just what we call stunted humans… and not
with any ounce of political correctness.”
“Stunted?!”
Gimli growled. “I’ll show ‘em who’s
stunted!”
“Easy,
Gimli! We all know you’re not stunted…”
Jason raised his hands in self-defense.
“Work with me here… um… let’s see… oh, Jesus! Did that DJ say it was Tuesday morning? Tuesday… Tuesday… where would she be?”
Jason
dove for the telephone and grabbed it off the base eagerly, pressing the
buttons with some clumsiness. The
others looked at the device strangely, as though they half-expected it to
suddenly sprout teeth and attack them.
Jason frowned. “Dammit… that’s her answering machine… someone remember
this number! 856… 934… 7417.”
“What
is the use of a number? Suddenly we’ve
gone from riddles in the dark to mysterious numbers at dawn?” Boromir grumbled,
looking around at the flat in both wonder and irritation.
“Okay…
repeat it back… Legolas?” Jason asked.
“8569347417…
what is it?” Legolas repeated uncannily.
A
brief pause while Jason pressed more buttons.
“Hey! Katie! I am so glad you have a cell phone,
cuz! Hang on a minute, will you?”
He
pressed a button on the base and set the receiver back down. “Okay, that’s better… can you hear me,
Kate?”
“Did
you put me on speaker phone, Jay? You
know I hate that… take me off!” a female voice issued from the base, sending
every except Gandalf a few steps back.
“Just
trust me, Katie… where are you?” Jason asked.
“I’m
on the Garden State Expressway, heading for the shore house, why?” the voice
called Katie replied. “You’re still
coming down, right? Cuz, if you’re
backing out now, I will head right back up to New York and slap you silly… not
that it’s a far trip for you.”
“Oh
shit… right… it’s shore week. I’ll be
there… I just… Christ… haven’t packed yet… do you mind if I bring a few
friends?” Jason ran a hand through his black hair nervously.
A
pause. “How many is ‘a few’, Jason?”
“Um…
nine.”
“Nine! What is this? A bed and breakfast?” she all but shrieked.
“Um…
no.”
“Jason…
okay fine… as long as you promise you won’t be up AD-ing or whatever until five
in the morning like you were last year, got it?”
“That
would be called role-playing, cuz… and I think I’ve had enough of it for
now. I can’t vouch for the curfew,
but-“
“Do
I make myself clear, Jason?”
“Crystal…
completely transparent, Katie.”
“Good…
see you in a few hours, Jay.”
“You
rock, cuz!”
A
click and the voice was gone, replaced by a continuous tone that made everyone’s
ears buzz. Jason hit another button to
silence it. “All right, Ocean
City! On Fourth of July weekend! This is great! I can finally show you guys what I’ve been talking about! Cars and television and radios and all of
it! Shit, I’m going to have to rent a
van or something… my car only seats four, five at most… I have to pack. Man, Katie is never going to believe this.”
“Jaycen,
slow down… what are you talking about?” Boromir shook Jason slightly by the
shoulders.
Jason
took a few deep breaths. “Okay… think
of it as a tradition. Every summer, my
cousin and I meet at out family’s house on the ocean for a week or so. Today is the day we would normally meet, the
start of Independence Day weekend. I
just spoke to her on the telephone to make sure it was okay for you all to come
with. It’s a vacation… we can relax and
all. It’ll give Gandalf a fine chance
to think about how to get us back and The Ring… well, there aren’t any
Ringwraiths or orcs here to look for it.
All we have to do is keep from losing it and Frodo’s done a bang-up job
of that so far, right?”
“And what will we do in this… Ocean City?” Boromir asked.
“Well…
there’s the beach of course and the nightlife… we could do whatever we want
really. This isn’t like Middle Earth…
we don’t have to worry about goblin raids at night… or giant squids in the
water… I mean no mugger in his right mind would take on a group of nine, even
in New York.” Jason babbled.
“Leisure
then?” Legolas suggested.
“Exactly! Leisure!
Downtime… we can all relax once we get to Ocean City. I have a few phone calls to make to get
everything squared away… you all can make yourselves at home.”
“Breakfast?”
Pip asked eagerly.
“Uh…
there’s cereal in the cupboard… should be eggs and bacon in the fridge…”
“The
what?”
Jason
shot Gandalf a pleading look. “Please
make sure that the hobbits don’t destroy my kitchen, please?”
“I
make no promises when a Took is involved… but I will do my best.”