A Stranger in Town Episode Three

A chain saw? His companions were dismayed. None had heard such a sound. But, Barney had. He remembered that day in East Texas...

It was the first weekend in December. Firewood was needed to ward off the chill night air. There was to be much merry making, as well as roast pig. Some of the men were our sourcing some wood.

There was plenty of fallen wood, but pine was considered an unworthy pansy wood. Oak was needed for a proper fire. It's hard to get magnesiums to ignite with the low temperature of burning pine. But Oak, or even better Mesquite...

"Fred, wake up Fred!" Kindly Bob had hold of a bed post and was shaking it with vigor. Fred sat up with a start, and looked about wildly. "The tree..." he started. He stopped and squinted at Kindly Bob, silohouetted in the light from the door.

"Dreaming?" asked Kindly Bob.

"Yeah."

"Come on. Someone needs to talk to you."


Fred was led back to the main room, but hesitated when he saw Sylk.

"It's OK Fred. He won't hurt you." Kindly Bob grinned. "Not at the moment anyway."

If he intended to soothe Fred, he failed. Fred came forward warily and sat a couple of barstools down from Sylk.

Sylk stood and came toward Fred. Reaching inside his cloak, he brought out a flat oblate object and laid it on the bar in front of Fred. "Look at it" he commanded. Fred looked at it. He could not tell what it was made of, but he thought possibly some stone of some sort. Then he noticed the etching.

"I can't really see it," he said.

"LUMENS!" cried Sylk. Kindly Bob brought a lamp from under the bar and switched it on. Fred squinted and let his eyes adjust, then looked intently at the object's etching.

It had some sort of shape, pointed on the left, and appearing to be between two lines. There was some sort of lettering as if it were a diagram. Vaguely Fred felt a sense of familiarity.

"What isssss it?" hissed Sylk.

Fred shrugged his shoulders. "How should I know?"

"You've seen this before." It was a statement.

"Well, yeah, but I don't know where or when, and I don't know what it is."

Kindly Bob came forward with some coffee. "Here, drink this." Fred nodded in assent and took a swig of the hot black brew. Then Kindly Bob set down a piece of parchment and bade Fred "Open it."

Fred sat still. 'What the hell is going on... I walked in here, I don't really remember what I was doing before I got here, there is this menacing man to my left, and this barkeep acting like we are part of some secret doings...'

Fred looked at Kindly Bob for a long moment. Graying hair, odd blue eyes, completely unreadable face. Bland and happy he looked. Almost the vacant look of someone mentally incompetent. Or, someone without a care in the world. Fred considered that for a moment. Only an idiot hasn't a care in the world. And this was not an idiot. His eyes blurred for a moment, and the features of Kindly Bob's face swirled or melted.

"Here now," said the bartender. "Look at this. It's important."

Fred blinked his eyes, and his vision returned. Looking down at the parchment, he hesitated, then reached for it and started to carefully unfold it. It smelled musty, like it had been in a dank closet or some forgotten cave.

He looked at the writing inside:

"It's an equation," Fred said. "Something about laminar flame propagation. It's an Arrhenius expression of some sort. You can see it there," he said, pointing at the line with the numbers and brackets.

The symbols danced and swirled in front of his eyes, and he teetered on his bar stool. Sylk reached out, steadied him, and whispered, "Your dream. Tell us." Fred gazed slackly at his coffee cup, almost wondering what was in it.


The chain saw had sputtered out, and one of the Europeans was urgently gesturing at their guide. Barney could not quite make out what was being said. It sounded like English, but somehow not.

The native was clearly unconcerned about the sound. In fact, Barney now realized the native had barely flinched at the explosion preceding the chain saw. They got into their canoes and continued down the Blue Muddy.

Barney became aware that he was having a directed dream; he knew he was dreaming, and he was exercising some control over the events. He'd read somewhere that people could do that. He hadn't realized that he could.

He wondered if he would remember when he woke up. And he wondered, if this were a directed dream, and he was exercising some control over the events, that implied he knew what he was supposed to be dreaming toward. And if he knew already, why dream?

"To ease it into the conscious mind with less chance for psychic shock," his paddle gurgled. "Hmmmmm," he hmmmmmed.

He focused on a flock of large birds majestically cruising overhead, their powerful grace soothing him, their wing beats carrying him on, when, rounding a bend, their sun-silhouetted destination became slowly manifest, shrouded in mist.

to be continued Episode Four