Anderson-Glued to Ground

FICTION

Green Apple Books, Clement Street, San Francisco - Photo by Charlene Anderson

Glued to the Ground
by Charlene Anderson

A woman lived on earth and a man in heaven.

Troi was an artist and lived in a bursting-at-the-seams studio apartment in San Francisco. To support herself, she worked at an art gallery owned by her cousin Gloria who allowed her, albeit somewhat grudgingly, to paint abstracts in the storeroom which, though not large, was bigger than Troi’s entire apartment.

Bertram didn’t have a job. In a place where everybody floats ethereally around and has no physical needs, obviously it’s not required. Still, for all the ease of his life, or maybe because of it, he wasn’t entirely content. So, one day, he sought out his friend Kristoff to discuss his dilemma.

Kristoff was a short, bald man who always wore white and spent his time floating cross-legged, yogi-style above a mountain resembling Mt. Fuji. He was considered a kind of guru, smiled a lot and looked wise. Interestingly, he not only played that part, he actually was those things.

“You know I love my life,” Bertram floated up and told Kristoff. “It’s full of excitement and there’s a lot of color.” A ripple crossed his energized, non-physical face. “But with all the stupendous things I can do, I seem to need more—more music, more sex, more discussions about the meaning of life.” He turned his eyes on Kristoff. “Is there something wrong with me? Am I one of the defective ones whose energy needs to be re-formed?”

In that world, no one died any more than they were born. Sometimes during a sexual act, which was more of a full-body, energy-engagement than limited to particular parts, a flash of energy broke away from the joining pair, took form and immediately became a whole, if youthful, person. Then that new individual developed and matured.

However, sometimes that new energy-being failed to develop. When that happened, the energy had to be re-formed, which usually occurred, bizarrely, by the action of two giant hands reaching down from the always milky-gray and churning sky and literally working the energy, similar to kneading bread dough. But sadly, that exercise wasn’t always successful. So, on the far reaches of that world, there were energy dumps or graveyards where non-re-formed, dormant energy lay.

Kristoff smiled knowingly and shook his head. “No, it’s nothing like that. You’ve just come to a crossroads and need to find a new direction.” He looked up into the sky. “I have an idea, if you’re willing to try.”

Troi was hurrying up Powell Street towards Union Square. It was 12:55 PM and she was due back by 1:00 PM so Gloria, the manager and only other staff member of that small gallery, could leave for an art auction. Troi was tall, thin and athletic so she trucked along at a good clip. But head down and intent on pushing forward, she didn’t notice Bertram standing on the sidewalk in front of her, wobbling on his first earth-legs, and crashed into him. He toppled over and lay on the ground, blinking at the new and, to him, outlandish sights around him.

Troi lurched forward against his now prone form but caught herself in time to avoid falling too. “Sorry. I—I didn’t see you there.” She shuffled from foot to foot to regain her balance, then squinted down at him. “Are you . . . hurt, sir?”

Bertram wiggled his head back and forth and tried to speak. Kristoff had coached him on arm and leg manipulation and made him practice talking with physical lips. But it wasn’t working.

Troi looked around. As usual, there was an abundance of tourists as well as business and homeless people on that busy street, so someone falling down wasn’t all that uncommon, and people moved past with barely a glance at yet another person lying on the ground.

Troi peered down at Bertram again. “I can’t lift you. I’ll call 911.” She reached for her phone.

“Get up!” Kristoff yelled inside Bertram’s head. “If you don’t, I’ll bring you back, right now.”

Bertram bobbed his head around and tried to float up.

“No floating. You’ve got to push and pull the way I showed you.”

Bertram’s new body jagged up a few inches and sagged back down. He tried to speak, but his lips got tangled up. “No . . . help.” He sprang sideways and upright in a kind of combination pull and float and finally stood wobbling and blinking at Troi, the first earthling he’d ever seen.

“You okay?” Troi knitted her forehead up.

“Get going.” Kristoff again.

“I—I am okay.” Bertram swayed and nearly fell again. “It’s all new. Good idea to come. But . . . weird.”

Troi nodded. “Okay, I get it. A tourist.” She noticed his clothing then—Kristoff wasn’t much of a fashionista, wearing nothing but white himself, so his wardrobe choices for Bertram were a bit bizarre: green and tan clothing with a green cap, a kind of cross between Robin Hood and Peter Pan. Bertram was tall with light brown hair and so fit nicely with the cultural stereotype of either one.

“Are—are you from Europe?” she conjectured. “Hungary? Czechoslovakia? No, no, I mean the Czech Republic?”

“Yes,” he said. “That’s . . . true.”

Suddenly she felt a pull and something in her floated towards him, strangely in much the same way that a ‘chip’ of her consciousness sometimes moved into her canvas while she was painting. She jerked back. “I—I have to go.” Her dark eyes darted back and forth and she shook her head, short black hair bobbing. “Have a good vacation.” She skirted around him and dashed away.

Bertram watched her go, then half-stumbled, half-bounced into a wall. He slipped down into a semi-crouching position, rode back up the wall and stood watching people pass by, observing the strange motion that walking is. Then he started up the hill, trying to emulate it. “Up-down. Up-down. But glued to the . . . ground.”

Moving like an awkward praying mantis, he made it to the top. The sun sparkled, the palm trees in the Square swayed and the skyscrapers surrounding it looked to him like gray mountains of stone. All around was hustle and bustle, cable cars and buses, and almost everything that wasn’t held in place like the buildings, was rolling and bouncing, yet in an odd way, was also glued to the ground.

He fell.

“Oh, for cryin’ out loud,” Kristoff muttered on the other side of the mind-barrier/space-time-continuum. He waved his hand, Bertram sizzled and sparkled, and nothing remained of him there but a few stray atoms dancing in the air.

When Troi got back to Gloria’s Gallery at 1:15 PM, Gloria met her at the door. “Finally. You’re back!”

The cousins were both in their forties, but Gloria was five years older, several inches shorter and her dry, brownish hair never stayed in place for long. So, despite always being well-turned out, now for example wearing a chic brown suit, whereas Troi usually went black-pants-and-white-blouse-casual, Gloria never looked, at least to herself, quite as good. That was just another gripe she had against Troi.

Gloria stood awkwardly up on her toes and hissed in Troi’s ear, “That couple over there—” She gestured with her eyes. “—wants a Monet for their gazebo. Can you imagine?”

Troi looked, then frowned. “Sorry I’m late, Gloria. I bumped into some tourist and he fell down and—” Gloria clutched her purse. “Gotta go. See you tomorrow.” She hurried out the door.

Troi watched her go, then introduced herself to the couple. She soon got them laughing and they quickly abandoned the gazebo idea and started looking for something to hang above their mantelpiece. She made that sale and a few more. But when closing time came, she ran to the backroom, sat down at her easel and returned to what she considered her real life.

That night Troi slept well. She didn’t toss and turn as she sometimes did, and didn’t dream either. She slept straight through and woke with a little color on her usually pale cheeks.

At work that morning, she hung her coat up in back, started to head for the gallery, then changed her mind and went to the easel instead. Like most of her paintings, this one was what she called a spacescape, that is a study on some theme about space and everything in or imagined in it. Interestingly, though her works were always replete with celestial bodies, they always had white backgrounds, not black. This one consisted of a series of swirls, loops, zigzags and filled-in circles that could be suns, planets or black holes, done up in black and red. Gazing at the painting, her eyes moved with the orbits of those massive celestial-objects and she slipped away, out into the universe.

Brought back by the clapping sound of voices, she glanced towards the gallery and picked up the painting to put it away. As she lifted it, a ray of light from the sole window in the room sparkled across her eye and swashed across the canvas. Blinking, she thought she saw a streak of green. “Green,” she muttered. “I never use green.” Looking closer, she saw in the lower right corner, not just a streak of green, but a small face, beset with green, smiling out at her. The resemblance of that miniature face to Bertram’s was fairly strong, but she was too freaked out by the fact that it was there at all to notice.

She flew into the gallery. “Gloria! Gloria!”

Gloria was ringing up a sale. “Just a minute, Troi.”

“Come on.” Troi yanked on Gloria’s arm.

Listing slightly to the side now, Gloria managed a four-point smile for the departing customers. “Thanks very much. Come back soon.”

When they were gone, she turned to Troi. “What are you doing interrupting me in front of customers like that?”

Troi didn’t answer, just dragged her cousin to the backroom. “Look.” She pointed at the canvas. “Is that some kind of bad joke?”

Gloria gave her a sideways glance. “What do you mean?”

Troi jabbed her finger at the tiny face in the, to her eyes, otherwise wonderfully human-free canvas. “How did that get there?”

Gloria looked. “Well, how should I know?” She laughed.

“Why are you laughing?” Troi snapped.

“Well, it’s just that it’s kind of . . . cute.”

“Wheh,” Troi danced from foot to foot. “Okay, if it wasn’t you playing a trick on me, somebody must have sneaked back here this morning before I got here.” She glared at Gloria. “Or—broke in last night.”

“Troi, I’d never let someone sneak back here, you know that. And you also know that if somebody broke in—with that state-of-the-art security system we have—we’d know. Besides, who would break in just to add to your painting?”

Troi stepped back, stared at her cousin and turned a little gray. “Then how do you explain it?”

Looking again, Gloria said, “The face definitely adds something. And I really like the little green cap. I’m not trying to go all shrinky on you, and I don’t mean to be nasty either, but the only answer has to be that you did it, in the throes of creation maybe, and . . . forgot.” Gloria shook Troi’s objections off. “But the main thing is, I like it. It’s unusual for you, but it’s good.”

Troi turned grayer. “I wouldn’t do that.” She glued her eyes to the tiny face. “No way!”

That night she did toss and turn, and when she did sleep, dreamed of tiny smiling green faces sometimes with, and sometimes without, green caps and mumbled. “Czechoslovakia . . . Hungary. No.”

“Why did you do that?” Bertram shot up through the low gravity and thin air and jagged to a stop in front of Kristoff.

Kristoff lifted his head. He’d been ruminating, cogitating, meditating, but the result was much the same as if he were nodding off. “What?” he said, smiling somewhat languidly. “Do what?”

Bertram got right up in his face. “You know what. Dragging me back here, that’s what. It was an adventure that I can’t have here.” He settled back but continued staring at Kristoff. “And I want to go back now!”

“You fell down three times in ten minutes. You’d have been blasted to bits by the next passing car.”

Bertram pulled back a little more. “It just took a little getting used to. But I was doing it. And if you won’t send me back, tell me how to do it myself.”

Still in his usual yogi-position, Kristoff moved towards Bertram, extending his hands in a friendly but ever so slightly condescending way. “You’re not ready and you don’t have the power to get there yourself, and I’m not sending you.”

Bertram made a loop away from Kristoff and barreled back. “You’re wrong. I am ready, and I—I feel like I . . . need to be there.” His eyes sparked up. “There’s something I need to do.”

Kristoff watched him arc out and back and noticed that spark in his eyes. Then he peered up into the churning sky. Part of his mind followed his eyes up and folded into the darkness within, the gray eternal sky without.

“Hey, Kristoff.” Bertram stared into Kristoff’s drifting eyes. “You’re not listening to me.”

Kristoff’s eyes shifted back to Bertram. “Hey, yourself, Bertram.” He smiled, definitely sardonically this time. “I have been listening but I admit not with my full attention. I’ve been distracted. You see, I’ve been made an . . . offer and I have to decide whether to accept it or not.”

“What kind of . . . offer?”

“Well, you know how we’ve always wondered about and tried to figure out why, with just about everything else about our world understood, only the sky overhead, that is at and around the apex, remains a mystery?”

“Yes. But—”

Kristoff interrupted, “We can see into and even move out deep into space and above too except directly overhead. In that one area, the sky shifts and churns incessantly from milky-gray to charcoal. And we can’t see into it or float up to it.”

“Sure. That’s no secret. So, what are you getting at?”

“Well, I’ve been drawn up into it and discovered that it’s a mind, that is, a collection of minds, together forming a kind of overmind.” He paused and his eyes were still. “And I’ve been invited to join them, permanently. And I think, just maybe, I will.”

“Why didn’t you tell me? Why keep something like that a secret? Kristoff, I thought we were friends.”

Kristoff patted Bertram’s shoulder. “We are friends. It happened just now, while you were down on earth.”

“Okay. Okay, I see.” He nodded. “But, tell me. What’s it like up there?”

“It’s amazing. It’s like all the minds that exist melded together into one. Yet they’re separate too. But when you’re there, you know everything, you feel everything, you laugh at everything. It’s a whole new world of understanding, and also of creation and power.”

Bertram stared at him. “So what the hell are you still doing here?”

Kristoff laughed. He bounced around so much that the mountain 20 feet below vibrated. “I don’t know.” He slapped his thigh. “I really couldn’t say.”

For a moment, they floated silently. Then Kristoff said, “You were a klutz down there, and I shudder to imagine what would have happened when it was time for you to eat or use the bathroom. But seeing you now, I realize that, though I was right about those things, I was in essence wrong.” He opened his hands out. “Even in the miniscule amount of time that you were there, you changed. You’re no longer so laid back. You’ve got some drive, some spunk, anger even.” He shook his head. “Okay, you said you had something specific to do down there, so what is it?”

Bertram rustled around, feeling vindicated but not wanting to let on. “Well, it’s that woman I saw. I—I want to see her again.”

Kristoff frowned. “You mean you were attracted to her. You want to have sex with her?”

“No,” he spat, then reconsidered. “Well, maybe. I guess I don’t even know how they do it there. But I’m sure I could figure it out.” He grinned. “But no, when I stood facing her, I felt something here.” He touched his chest. “It was like a part of her was reaching out to me, and I felt there was something about that that I need to understand. And I got enough from that one interaction that I think I can find her on my own once I get down there—I don’t know what I’ll learn, but I really need to try.”

Kristoff patted Bertram’s hand. “You have come quite a distance. So, okay, I’ll take a chance and trust your judgment, and we’ll see.”

This time when the atoms that would soon constitute Bertram’s body began to sputter into existence in Union Square, someone did spot him. A three-year-old girl in a pink dress pointed at him and said, “Look, Mommy, it’s a man.”

‘Mommy’ was peering down the street looking for a bus. “Yes, dear.”

The girl squeezed her mother’s hand. “No, no, Mommy. He wasn’t. Then he was!”

Her tired mother just nodded and pulled her away.

Bertram noticed the child. He was more tuned in to the way that world worked now and so nodded at her as though it was perfectly normal to enter the world the way he had. Then he got a fix on Troi and headed off, not wobbling much at all.

When Bertram reached the gallery, he felt a tightening in his chest and knew this was the right place. He went in, looked around, and seeing no one, frowned. Then he noticed the plethora of paintings covering the walls and frowned some more: art where he came from was 3-dimensional and interactive, and he had no idea what to make of these flat images that, to him, seemed static and unmoving.

Troi was there, working on the computer in the back corner, but since it was almost closing time, when the door opened, she sat still hoping the customer would just go away. When that didn’t happen, she got up and approached Bertram who was scrutinizing a giant picture of nothing but an orange. “Thank you for coming,” she said to his back. “You’re welcome to look around and I’ll answer your questions. But you should know that we’ll be closing soon.”

Bertram pivoted around and peered at her. “It is you.”

Troi took a step closer. “Me? What do you mean, me?”

Kristoff had cautioned Bertram to avoid mentioning anything resembling sensations in his chest, so he said, “I—I saw you yesterday on the street. I fell down.”

He was togged out the same way as the day before, minus the cap. Troi raised her finger. “I remember. The tourist from Eastern Europe.”

“Yes.” He nodded. “Tourist.”

They regarded each other. Then Troi lurched to the side, forehead twisting up. “So—so, how did you find me?”

“I follow— no, I was looking for art to take home to . . . Hungary and saw this gallery.”

Bertram came from a place where no one lied. Thoughts floated through the ether and, if you had any interest, you could pick right up on them. So, lying wasn’t even an option there. Troi, on the other hand, lived in a world where lying was practically commonplace. So, already suspicious, she picked right up on his pitiful attempt at subterfuge. “No way. You knew where I was because, as you started to say, you followed me back here yesterday.” She tapped her heels up and down. “And it was you. You snuck in last night and defiled my painting.”

Watching from the other side, Kristoff started fidgeting.

“I—I don’t understand,” Bertram stuttered. “I’ve never been here before.”

“Oh yes, you have!” Troi beat it for the backroom. Back in a flash, she held the painting up and pointed. “That’s you.”

Bertram leaned forward, wobbling. “You painted me.” He smiled at her. “That was nice of you.”

Troi stamped her foot. “I did not paint you.”

Hovering above the mountain, Kristoff made a spin, and swore.

Bertram took a step back. “I didn’t do it. I—I don’t know how to paint and—”

“Oh, but you did,” Troi said, deceptively calmly now. “And now you’re back. What do you want now?”

The painting sagged down. She stared at him. Her guard of anger and sadness momentarily slipped away and she stood only as herself, with no shield, not even the painting, separating them. Their eyes met and he felt her sorrow and her loss, a loss far greater than could be caused by one messed-up painting. Again then, as on the street, something in her moved towards him; his chest shifted and he took a step forward.

Before they could touch, her chest heaved up and she stumbled away. “Get out. Get out.” She ran to the desk and picked up the phone. “Get out or I’m calling the police.”

“Oh, for cryin’ out loud,” Kristoff mumbled, wiggled his hand and Bertram and Troi were bumping and swirling in front of him.

Troi bobbed up and down, frantically clutching at the empty air. “What’s going on? What are you doing? Where am I?”

Kristoff grasped her shoulder and she settled down some. “Sorry to do this to you,” he told her, then turned to Bertram who was bouncing up and down on his back, trying to sit up. “You too, Bertram. But things were out of control.”

Troi was kicking and gazing down at the ground, a look of stark terror on her face. “Put me down. I want to go home. Ahhh!”

Kristoff grabbed her arm and pulled her upright. “Don’t worry, you’ll be back home soon,” he told her wrenched-up face. “But I need to tell you something first. Bertram did not paint his face on your canvas, you did.”

Troi treaded air and shook her body around. “No.”

“Yes, you did.” She tried to object again, but he shook his head. “So, you shouldn’t blame him.”

She shot Bertram a look and there was venom in it. “I’m sorry,” Bertram told her. “I didn’t mean to make you so upset.”

Her head sank into her hands. She mumbled, “I don’t know. I can’t say. I—I can’t remember.”

Kristoff nodded wisely. “Just one more thing before you go. Normally, I’d never bring someone here, especially against their will, but you’re unique, Troi.” She focused on him, then continued to survey the air around her. “You see, you’ve been here many times before.”

“What?” She clutched at his hand.

Bertram moved closer. “What do you mean, Kristoff?”

Kristoff looked back and forth between them. “In fact, she comes here all the time.”

She looked around some more. “No, I don’t. How could I?”

“Simple. You call it traveling to the world of the imagination. But what you do is come here, look around and take some of what you see back home with you.”

Bertram and Troi looked blank.

“Look around,” he told her.

She pulled away and turned slowly around. Below she saw grass, trees and buildings, much as on earth. She saw people too, but like back home, she paid little attention to them. But as her eyes began adjusting to the air that wasn’t air but a kind of amber ambient glow that undulated and shuddered, she saw a lot more. “Spirals and zigzags and gyrating loops,” she muttered. Looking far away into the misty ether, she was amazed that she could see into the depths of what could have been space: planets, stars, nebulas, galaxies, but all against a background of amber, not black or white. She switched around towards Kristoff. “I can’t believe it. It looks like what I paint. How can that be?”

Kristoff chuckled and pointed. “Look there.” There was a huge spiral in red and black shimmering and turning in the caramel-colored air.

She lifted her hands toward it. “It’s my painting,” she exclaimed, “but—but in 3D! How—how could it be here?” Her body shook so hard, the shaking turned into a hysterical laugh and she shot away. She gasped and came swooping back.

Kristoff and Bertram laughed too. Bertram moved closer. “Troi, I’m happy to finally really meet you, and I’m glad you’re here.”

She looked at him. Her eyes dropped and her energy-molecules began snapping away.

“Wouldn’t hurt to put some people in once in awhile,” Kristoff called after her dissipating form.

When she was gone, Kristoff said, “Okay, Bertram, it’s your turn.”

Bertram bobbed around in the ether broth. “What? I mean, yes, I agree, I botched it up and I see why you dragged me back. I thought I was doing okay, but then I got . . . lost.”

“No, it was me. I should have prepared you better.” He gazed up at the top of the whispering and folding gray sky. “But as you know, I’ve been . . . preoccupied. In fact, I have to go up there soon and intermingle with the thoughts and feelings of the minds.”

“It’s now or never. Is that what they’re telling you?”

“It’s not quite that. I might be okay at another juncture. But the time seems right now.”

Bertram nodded. “You need to do it then.” He wanted to be supportive but felt a pulse of sadness.

“But I need to explain something first. I should have told you that sex isn’t the same, doesn’t have the same meaning there, as here.”

“Oh.”

“Here we live forever or at least indefinitely. There they have a short lifespan.”

“What does that have to do with it?”

“Here we join, have a flash of energy and go on our way. We may return to that person another time, but we don’t have to. We won’t feel lost, alone or taken advantage of if we don’t.”

“I still don’t see—”

“There people grow up, have flirtations and some frivolous sex. But when they become adults, they usually try to find a solid relationship to take them through their short but difficult lives. They think of marriage and sometimes children too then.” He paused. “You saw enough to know that their children need to be taken care of for a long time. So, it’s tough and it’s a short, yet in another way a very long, road.”

Bertram recalled the little girl in the pink dress. “I see what you mean about the kids. And after what you just said, it does make sense that for them sex is associated with a long-term commitment.”

“Troi tried marriage once and had a hard time. Her husband found somebody else and left her with no money. That’s why her cousin Gloria lets her work at the gallery.” He shook his head. “And it’s also why she’s so squeamish and, though you were correct that she felt an attraction to you, she didn’t want to go with it for fear she would fall, as they put it, in love and be abandoned again.”

Bertram gasped. “And . . . I would have done that too. My God. I couldn’t see myself sticking around for years, until she or even I . . . die.”

“I should have told you before,” Kristoff said.

Bertram sat upright. “I—I should go back and talk to her and apologize.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“When she gets home, she’ll forget having been here. And she’ll recall nothing about you except seeing you on the street. So, I recommend not contacting her again.”

Bertram felt a clutching in his chest. “Never?”

“Yes. But the decision is yours.”

Kristoff’s eyes flashed upward. “You have to go,” Bertram said.

“I should.”

Bertram clasped Kristoff’s hand. “Will I see you again?”

Kristoff looked serious. “I don’t know. But no matter what my final resolution is, I’ll be available if you need me.”

An energy shaft appeared. Kristoff fell into it and shot away.

Bertram watched him go and for awhile sat cross-legged above the mountain, dangling in the air, then settled down to the ground. There were a lot of people there and a myriad of things to do. But even as he set himself to do them, he knew he’d be alone.

The next morning, Troi woke with a start. With her eyes still shut, her mind churned with scattered bits of thoughts and dreams. She tried to go back to sleep. But she heard voices, as from very far away, talking loud and earnestly, and somehow knew that what was being said was important, but couldn’t catch a word.

When she got to work, she found a scrawled message on the desk from Gloria that she wouldn’t be in till afternoon. Troi sighed, but got the place set up, lights on, chairs rearranged, computer up. It was a rainy day so there weren’t many customers. In her black culottes and white blouse, she strode around the room squinting at paintings, trying to look like an interested customer to attract some actual ones inside. But broken images and snatches of chatter kept zigzagging through her mind. “Screw this,” she finally cried, pried the door between the gallery and the backroom open and positioned herself at the easel at the right angle so she could keep an eye on the street door.

Picking up a fresh canvas, she noticed the painting with Bertram’s face on it leaning against the wall. “I painted over that,” she declared. “I know I did.” She frowned. “Okay, I’ll do it now!” She set the painting on the easel, got some paint and touched the brush to the canvas. That face smiled out at her and she felt a flurry and a jolt. She stared at it for awhile, frowning, until the phone rang and she jumped up and hurried away.

She got busy in the gallery then. By one o’clock, Gloria still hadn’t made it in, but things had settled down some, so she gave up on the idea of wiping out that ‘pesky’ face and sat down to a fresh canvas. She had some ideas on what she wanted to do, but as she was about to start, the room suddenly seemed dusky and her ideas pale. So, on a sudden impulse, she pulled out some umber and white, made up a mix and splattered it across the pristine page. When that bright-amber background was finished, she looked at it and smiled.

The next morning Gloria showed up at the usual time. “I got stuck at the bank yesterday and then my car broke down,” was all she provided as explanation for ditching out the day before.

“It’s okay,” Troi said.

Gloria relented a little. “So, why don’t you knock off early today to make up for having to go it alone yesterday?”

“You know, what would really be great is if I could take a few hours right now to paint. I’m trying something . . . different and I’d like to get started.”

Gloria blinked. “I guess so. But if it gets busy, I’ll need some help.”

“Sure,” Troi said and, eyes gleaming, tapped her way away.

Troi quickly painted in a nebula in pastels in the middle of the amber-colored canvas. She did some signature loops and whirls, zigs and zags and then, with a flash of inspiration, added a blonde woman wearing a floral dress smiling and twisting around a rope swing beside the nebula. Finally, she created a grassy ledge on the bottom jutting inward in a semi-circle and painted three people standing on it, facing away.

She was considering adding more people when Gloria came by. “How’s it going?” Gloria asked.

“Good. And you?” Troi said without turning around.

“Not bad. I made a couple of sales and—” She interrupted herself. “What is that? What are you doing there?”

“What?” Troi whirled around, brush in hand, a few drops skimming through the air.

Gloria stared. “I like the yellow background rather than your usual white.” She looked harder. “In fact, I really like the painting.”

Troi switched around. “Thanks. I kind of like it too. The colored background . . . looks right somehow.”

“And the people,” Gloria added. “It was good to put those people in.”

“’People in’,” Troi echoed, hearing a scratching sound somewhere far away. “Good to get . . . some people in.”

For the next few weeks, Troi continued to paint in her new ‘mode’—spacescapes with amber backgrounds. Of course, she didn’t realize it, but she kept traveling to Kristoff’s and Bertram’s world in her imagination, and since she’d been there in a more substantial way now, she was even better at interpreting and creating from what she saw there. The words ‘paint the people’ continuously angled through her head too, and she listened. She even branched out into her own version of landscapes—swirling yellow skies with brightly clad people languishing on green-yellow lawns.

Gloria kept a close watch on Troi’s progress, and one day she said, “Troi, we need to talk.”

“What?” Troi squinted at her. “Is something wrong?”

Gloria laughed stiffly. “Not at all.” She cleared her throat. “I—I—when Dan left with your money, I tried to help.”

“I know and I appreciate it.”

“No, that’s not what I’m getting at. I felt I was being the good relative and doing you a favor.” She grimaced. “But, boy, was I wrong. You were doing me a bigger favor. You’re good at sales. And now you’re also becoming an accomplished artist.”

Troi blushed. “I’m working at it, Gloria, but I have a long way to go.”

“No.”

“What?”

Gloria laughed brittlely. It was hard for her to get past treating Troi like her cousin-Cinderella. “What I’d like to propose is that we sell some of your work here. Maybe not for the price of a Rembrandt.” She laughed less brittlely. “But we could have a good thing going—a kind of ‘Artist in Residence’ thing.”

“What? What are you saying? I’m definitely not ready for that.”

“Sure you are. So, how about displaying a few over in that corner?” She pointed to the corner across from the entrance behind the bargain bin.

Troi bounced up to it. “You mean there? Where people can see it from the street?” She turned back to Gloria, frowning. “Are you serious, Gloria? No need for this. We can be cousins and friends without it.”

Gloria laughed and gave Troi a hug. “I know we can, Troi, and I want to be. But I really like your stuff. I speak not just as your cousin now but as an art dealer too.”

Troi laughed. “That would be wonderful, Gloria. Really.”

Kristoff was no longer spinning atop the mountain. Nevertheless, he heard, he saw and smiled as best he could bodiless and swimming with a million other minds.

Bertram started on his life without Kristoff. Since people there had almost limitless time, board games were popular and so, among the other things he did, he played a lot of them. Things moved in a leisurely pace when playing games akin to Chess or Scrabble, so equally leisurely conversations ensued. People knew Kristoff and Bertram were close, so sometimes someone would inquire about Kristoff. As Bertram deftly took a pawn or queen, he explained about Kristoff joining the overmind. “He was invited. It was an honor.”

Over and over with surprising similarity, his game-partners would respond with some variation of, “I’ve sometimes wondered what was going on up there at the top of the sky.”

“Ah—yeah. As I understand it, that conglomerate of souls and minds is what moves us all and steers the world. It’s amazing that he was asked to join them.”

His partner would say, “I am impressed.” A popping up of a slightly drooping head. “Sorry. I must have dozed off. Is it my turn already?”

Bored with the games and even more with the players of them, Bertram began to take solitary walks. And, yes, though floating was easier and faster, people there could walk. His life had taken a shift and walking gave him a chance to think about what to do next. He had a house, everyone did who wanted one, but there was no need to stay there for protection or for any other reason. So, he sometimes stayed away for large chunks of time.

It was on one of those solipsistic journeys that he came upon an energy dump. He didn’t recognize it as one right away. Walking across a grassy field, he stumbled into a rocky area with little plant growth. He skirted along beside it, puzzling over what could have rendered the place so barren. Then he recalled discussing energy graveyards with Kristoff and realized the flagging energy of the souls buried below must be what was affecting the plants and the ground itself above. He shivered in both sympathy and sorrow, wondering how souls could be lost almost the minute they came to be. He also thought about the dozing game players he’d spent so much time with lately and wondered if his own energy was almost as low as theirs or even, God forbid, approaching the nearly non-existent level of those lying here.

He couldn’t get his mind off that death-in-life place. Back home, he looked at the amber walls of his house and realized, with Kristoff gone, it was now entirely up to him to change his life. So, he glanced around his comfortable house and left.

Those other times Bertram visited earth, Kristoff had simply waved his hand, the ground had grown pliant under Bertram’s feet and he’d sunk down. But when Bertram tried the hand-waving trick now, nothing happened. After several tries, he switched his wrist hard against his leg, there was a whoosh and he hit earthly ground in human form.

Righting himself, he looked around. No Union Square. No San Francisco. Somehow, he knew he was in Prague in the Czech Republic. He also knew he didn’t want to be there. When he’d decided to revisit earth, he wasn’t consciously thinking of seeing Troi, but now that he found himself nowhere near her, he realized that on some level that desire was always there. So, he stood up straight, envisioned Union Square and batted his hand against his leg. He did it several times, but each time found himself still standing there. He focused on his own house then, but that didn’t work either. Sinking down onto a bench, he remembered Troi saying she thought he was from here and wondered, with not a trace of humor in the irony, that at this rate, from now on he might actually be.

He sat for awhile, hoping Kristoff or some other outside force would intervene, but the world didn’t open up or move him. So, stuck there at least temporarily, he started watching the people moving past and, to his surprise, began picking up on their feelings. That heavy woman looked miserable because of her weight but resented having to lose it. That librarian was frowning because budget cuts were keeping her from buying books. That eight-year-old, dragged along by his mother, wanted to be working on Legos, not going to the grocery store.

He got up and moved into the moving stream of people. Their awarenesses were all around him now and he turned around and round with them. As he did, a little of those consciousnesses seeped into his. He realized then that, besides their immediate feelings and concerns, each person had a special focus, a kind of life’s goal. It was as if a ‘kernel’ of awareness in each of their heads slowly unfolded over the course of their lives, keeping them focused on that goal. That woman hurrying by had a target of slowing down. That droopy-eyed woman needed to gain confidence. That man swearing at his phone needed to accept himself, flaws and all.

There was a blast. The molecules in his body dissipated and he tumbled out of that world back into his own. Immediately, he thought about his fellow-citizens, especially his game-playing friends, and focusing in on some of them, was startled to find that they lacked a corresponding kernel of focus. Their thoughts ran at a leisurely pace, as if they were saying, “When you live forever, what can the hurry be?”

He stared up into the dark and churning heavens, heard a faint laugh, laughed himself and streaked away. At the energy graveyard, he gazed out into the empty landscape knowing there were equally empty and barren souls residing there. “My name is Bertram,” he said aloud, moving his eyes across the rugged ground. “If you hear me, focus on my voice.” No movement or sound. “I’ve been to a place where people have a strong sense of purpose. And I think it might help you to have one too. So, if you feel something, anything, grab it, try to develop it, do whatever you can to bring life to you.”

He repeated those words over and over, but saw no change. Finally, he stepped directly into that wasteland of rocks and scraggly plants. The ground felt soft, unstable and there was a sickly buzzing in the air. “I’ll try to help,” he said. “But it’s up to you. Concentrate on something you really want and say, ‘I want to live.’”

He stood still. The stillness grew. He feared it was too late, that the souls were lost forever. Then there was a stirring and a hushed sound. He saw a mist rising and felt a movement of the air. He stepped back onto solid ground, and two forms floated up and drifted to his side. The man was fairly solid. Tottering back and forth, he touched Bertram’s arm. The woman was white and wispy. He could see through her.

“I am . . . Gerald,” the man said slowly. “It’s good to meet you, Bertram, and thank you very much.” He looked around. “After all this time of basking, dreaming, it was all so simple: I want to live—so I can see the trees.”

Bertram touched Gerald’s arm. It was soft and cool. “I’m glad to meet you too,” he said with feeling. “Going to that place, seeing people with so much inner resolve, I became stronger myself. I hoped you could too.”

“I’m Tanna,” the woman said in a faint but melodious voice. She hovered, shimmering, a few inches above the ground. She looked at Gerald. “Gerald, I concentrated on you. I’ve known you were there beside me all this time and I wanted to . . . meet you.”

Gerald laughed. His laughter made a high-pitched, tinkling sound. “I didn’t even know you were there. But it’s good to meet you.” He extended his hand. She took it, there was a lurch and she sank to the ground in solid-energy form.

A little girl emerged. She had a beach ball and bounced it on the ground. “My name is Ally,” she said, “and I’ve dreamed of being able to play. I’ve wanted to play ever since they put me here.”

Bertram cried. They all did. But they were tears of joy.

“What about the others?” Bertram surveyed the once again too-silent land.

“Some are gone,” Ally said, still bouncing the ball. “But others might be brought back.”

Tanna stepped forward. “I’ll help them. Like you helped me, Bertram. It will take effort, but I think there’s a chance.”

“I’ll help too,” Gerald said. He took Tanna’s hand and smiled. She smiled too and laughed. They all laughed, even Ally, but still she continued to bounce the ball.

“I’ll get bigger someday,” she assured them. “But right now, I want to play.”

Kristoff continued to exist in a constant state of unity with a multitude of souls. Every instant was a rolling, turning flood ranging from deepest contemplation to side-busting belly-laughter, even possibly with a sexual component—who knew what went on inside that ever-churning sky. Still, he could keep track of everything else that went on too. So, he was well aware of what Bertram had been doing, and every time he thought of it, he--they—smiled.

“That guy is moving along,” a thought came.

“Maybe sometime he will join us here.”

“Not likely,” Kristoff interjected. “He has other things to do.”

Kristoff paid attention to Troi too.

“There was no other way,” one overminder reminded him.

“She was breaking down.”

“And she’s done better since you took those memories away.”

Kristoff did a turn and a flip and nodded, but he wasn’t quite so sure.

He slipped away to hover above his favorite mountain, looking much the same as before, except for wearing lavender not white, and in the relative quiet, honed in on Troi. He saw her painting spacescapes, landscapes and now even portraits, all with amber-colored backgrounds and replete with people, and grinned, pleased that she’d listened to him about including people. He saw too that she and Gloria had moved from distant relatives to actual friends, and that, with the modest amount of money from the sale of her paintings, she’d paid off her debts and hoped to move into a bigger apartment.

Slowly coursing back and forth above the mountain, Kristoff checked her memories and dreams, found only that one memory of Bertram on Union Square and none of himself and, nodding, whooshed away.

But it was just about then that Troi did begin to dream. In those dreams, Bertram came into the gallery and asked, “Can I see your latest painting?” or “Can I buy you a cup of coffee?” But though she experienced a dream almost every night, she never remembered any of them when she woke up. Then one sunny morning, she opened her eyes and the dreams were all there, smack in the middle of her waking mind.

She started putting things together and realized who the dreams were about. She was puzzled to be dreaming about someone she barely knew, so at work she asked Gloria, “Do you remember that guy I bumped into and knocked down and then his likeness mysteriously appeared on my painting?”

Gloria turned a little pale. “Oh, no, not that again!”

Troi laughed. “No. I realize now that I must have painted it and . . . forgot. But this is different. I keep dreaming that he comes in here and asks a question, a different question in every dream. ‘Can you show me around the gallery?’ or ‘Can I buy you a beer?’”

Gloria gave her a look. “Well, you haven’t been dating lately,” she offered cautiously. “So, maybe you developed a little . . . crush—”

“No.” Troi laughed again. “None of these dreams are romantic or sexual. And, the weird thing is, I can’t recall even one where anything else happens.” She glanced at the open outside door. “And I also don’t remember him leaving.” She gave Gloria an imploring look. “I don’t understand.”

The corners of Gloria’s mouth started twitching, but, “Okay, Troi, what exactly is it about these dreams that bugs you so much?” was all she said.

Troi ran her hand through her hair. “I guess it’s because I feel like there’s something I should know, something I’ve . . . lost and the dreams are trying to bring it back.” She shivered. There was a swirl of darkness in the room.

“Dreams certainly can be mystifying.” Gloria acknowledged. “And if I had dreams like that, I guess I’d try to recall what else might be there that could trigger something to help me understand. For example, what was he wearing? Was it cold or rainy that day? Did he look tired or mad or happy? And did he say anything else at all, for example, ‘Isn’t it a nice day?’ or ‘It’s good to meet you, Troi’?”

Troi had been waiting impatiently for Gloria to finish her, as Troi saw it, somewhat tedious laundry list. But now she blinked. “You know, Gloria, you may be onto something. In one dream, I think he said something about being glad to be in the gallery again.” She blinked. “Again? What does that mean?”

That night Troi again dreamed that Bertram came into the gallery, and this time said, “I’ve met you before, Troi. Not only on the street. Certainly not in a dream.”

When she woke the next morning, she stared sleepily yet a little apprehensively around the room. “Where are you?” she cried to the empty air, “and where do I know you from?”

That afternoon, putting her most recently finished painting away, she again noticed the one with Bertram’s image on it. She grimaced, wondering why on earth that face was still there, and on a whim, picked it up and took it home with her. She set it down against a wall, but as she went about her evening, her eyes kept gravitating back to that tiny image, as though, as much as she despised it, it was some kind of key.

Waking the next morning, the first thing she saw was that picture still sitting there. Half-asleep, she muttered, “Not white. Not white. No,” and suddenly the entire amber world was there, moving, turning, both in her imagination and around her in the room.

She sat upright and raised her hand, grabbing futilely at a black and reddish spiral turning in the golden air. “It’s my painting. How can this be? How did it get up there?”

She kept staring, not blinking as that spiral and practically all the worlds and suns she’d ever painted swirled around her in the room, and in her mind as well. There was a movement around her shoulders and suddenly she knew more. “It’s not just a picture, it’s a place. And I’ve been there. I don’t understand. It’s crazy. But I know I have.”

All day at work, although the amber world no longer swirled dramatically around her, she heard scattered sounds and saw spritzes of color and fading trails of light. Home again, exhausted, she collapsed, woke an hour later, and suddenly knew why she’d brought that painting home.

That image of Bertram was small and difficult to work from, and she barely recalled him from the time in Union Square. So, after a few false starts, she searched her dream images, and there he was smiling and reaching out to shake her hand. It was almost easy then. She threw paint on the canvas, spilling plenty on the floor and in her hair, and finally the likeness of a smiling Bertram, decked out in forest-green, was perching on the canvas right in front of her.

She raised her brush and shook it in the air, then jumped back. “No, no, there’s more!” She dumped tubes of paint out onto the floor, grabbed lavender, white, gray. And soon Kristoff was there too, hovering in the corner of the painting, bedecked in lavender as she’d never actually seen him be, anytime or anywhere.

“Kristoff! I was there,” she cried. “And, Bertram, you—you—you were here.”

Troi was still standing there staring at the painting, no longer hyper, now in deep shock, when Bertram took form in the room. She looked at him, but saw him as little more real than his likeness on the painting, and all she did was blink.

He was wearing a tan shirt and jeans, total American fare, with not the faintest hint of green. “I’m Bertram, but you know that now. I apologize for showing up like this. But somehow I felt your intense energy when you were painting and then an energy burst . . . when you remembered.”

She squinted at him, clutching her still wet brush in her semi-frozen hand.

“And if you want me to leave, I will,” he said. “But if it would help to talk about any of this, I can.”

She squinted some more, still clutching the brush as if it were the only thing in any world that was real. Then her breath rushed out. “I—I know now. It’s all in here.” She tapped her head. “But everything is flying around and—and I still don’t understand. And now along with everything else, you’re here.”

“But I really can leave.”

She looked at him and suddenly he became more real to her, not an image, not only a memory lost and regained. “You don’t have to,” she said. “It’s hard. It’s weird—but I appreciate that you came. It was . . . kind of you.” Her dark eyes remained still with shock.

He laughed a raspy laugh. “I don’t know about kind. I just wanted to get some things square with you.”

She clutched the brush. “Square?”

“Yes, I wanted to explain.” He took a step closer. “When Kristoff erased your memories, I realized it was probably better for you to go on with your life without the—the burden of those memories. But I want you to know that it wasn’t my idea and I didn’t think it was completely fair.”

She was so still he couldn’t tell if she were listening. But suddenly, looking at her shadowed yet glowing face, he sputtered a laugh. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to laugh. It’s just that, being so full of energy and life, I’m not surprised that you fought back and dragged those memories back.” He breathed in. “And—and I’m glad you did, Troi. They’re yours and you should have them.”

She stared at him and went a little pale.

“Sorry. I—”

She stood up straighter. “No, it’s not that. I see why he took them away. I was freaking out, and he figured there was no other choice.” She nodded forcefully. “No, what’s getting me is that only now when you said that, did I finally remember that I did paint your face into that painting.” She blinked and her eyes were dark with new awareness now. “And Kristoff didn’t wipe that memory away. In fact, when I was there, he told me I’d done it. So, it was me who wiped it out.”

He took a step towards her.

She squinted at him but turned away and said into the empty air, “How could I do that?”

“I don’t—I can’t—”

She turned back. “I know.”

He felt a strange energy drop down his, so recently reprised, human body. “I don’t know about that,” he said. “But since you’re seeing things you didn’t see before—and are being honest with yourself and me, I can’t be any less. And I want to tell you that the main thing I came here to be square with you about . . . and won’t be able to live with myself if I leave without saying, is that—that—”

She looked at him and saw him differently now—as the man she’d painted and repressed the memory of.

He looked into her eyes, wishing she could catch his thoughts the way it worked back home. She couldn’t, but seeing him so tangled up in his words, she did understand that, though he’d come to help her, he was feeling distressed now. And suddenly she wanted to help him.

Then, letting a little more of her guard down, she remembered not only painting his face, but why: That night, she’d finished up the painting and was about to sign it. But when she reached into her paint box, instead of the signing pen, her hand fell on a tube of green paint. Something zipped through her mind and, with shaking hands, she squeezed some of that paint onto the pallet and began frantically to paint. When she was done, instead of a signature, there was that face beset in green. All kinds of memories and feelings, not only of—but definitely including—Dan, swept through her. She thought of Bertram too, whose name she didn’t even know, and experienced the barest hint of the kinds of feelings she’d determined never to experience again. So, she stuck the painting away, threw the memory of painting it inside a dark room in her mind, and slammed the door tight shut.

Remembering all of that in a flash, she looked at Bertram standing in front of her now. It was a shock. He was really there and her memories and feelings were there too now. But all she could do was mumble, “Are—are you okay?”

Bertram sensed a change in her but didn’t trust himself to read it. “Okay,” he muttered. “Yeah.”

Her body eased a little. “But I’m the one who should be apologizing to you. I blamed you for something I did. I guess—no, I know, I was afraid. Meeting you, as fleeting as it was, I—I guess I felt an attraction and—I couldn’t deal with it.” It was a relief to her to finally see and say it. “So, I’m really sorry, Bertram.”

He’d thought he could come here and tell her how he felt and then just go away again. But when she said that, it was even harder to say or do anything. “It went on and on.” He looked almost helplessly into her eyes. “And on.”

She looked back at him, thoughts tossing around in her head. “’And . . . on?’”

“I’ve never experienced anything like this before. My feelings are messed up.” He managed a droopy, crooked smile. “It’s so damned different back home in . . . Hungary.”

Her eyes flashed open. She felt the beginnings of some deep internal smile. “I—I think maybe I’m beginning to understand.”

“Troi, it’s—it’s my feelings for you that won’t fade away. They go on and on.”

“And on.”

He felt her with him then and felt/hoped he was no longer standing there alone.

“I buried my feelings. I wanted them all gone,” she told him. “And—and now they’re back.” She tapped her foot on the floor. “This is all still really strange. But I don’t want to hide away from my feelings or you, especially not you, anymore.”

He scanned her face. Then his body sagged down and, for the first time, he felt completely in the room.

“Troi.” He extended his hand towards her. She clutched his hand. They moved together, hearts beating fast in their chests, and kissed.

Somewhere far away, churning at the top of an unearthly sky, Kristoff rubbed his chin. “Is this a mistake?” he asked himself and all the other minds.

“You said Bertram was on a different path.” A whisper wrapped itself around him. “And so is Troi. Remember, she found our world all on her own.”

Kristoff shuffled around. “But it’s tying worlds together that can’t and maybe should not be tied.” A shadow passed across his ever-so-enlightened eyes. “It’s taking things too far. It’s . . . weird.”

Laughter rumbled across the twisting, gray sky. “You talk of weird!” a voice skated through belly-shagging laughs. “What about us, here? Aren’t we the very epitome of weird!”

The wrinkles that shouldn’t even have been able to be there, peeled away and Kristoff’s eyes brightened. “It’s true. The entirety of the world, all reality, is incomprehensible, strange and very, very weird.” He turned a somersault among the ever-darkening clouds, and laughed.

Troi and Bertram stood together in that ethereal and material place. Amber light folded around them up into the corners of the room. Still, the room remained the same, tables, chairs, dutifully in place, always and ever, glued to the ground.

and Kristoff’s eyes brightened.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Charlene Anderson received an MA in English Literature from Purdue University and an MA in Research Psychology from San Francisco State University and spent most of her working life at the University of California San Francisco in grant administration. As a child, she always knew she would write, told stories to her friends, and even invented a pen name for herself, Charles Andrè. So, while working on budgets and submitting grant proposals at UCSF, she continued to write and, in 2001 published a novel, Berkeley’s Best Buddhist Bookstore. When Vistas & Byways was launched in 2015, she was pleased to be asked to chair the Editorial Board. She has served in that capacity ever since.

Other works in this issue:
Bay Area Stew
The Panhandle: An Embryonic Journey
Bay Area Byways
Off to Lunch in the Neighborhood

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Vistas & Byways Review is the semiannual journal of fiction, nonfiction and poetry by members of Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) at San Francisco State University.

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Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at San Francisco State University (OLLI at SF State) provides communal and material support to the Vistas & Byways volunteer staff.

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FICTION

Glued to the Groundby Charlene Anderson

Glued to the Ground
by Charlene Anderson