Chapter 6: Circle Sky

Forward to Chapter Six:

Due to a last-minute editing error in Chapter Five, many readers were left with the mistaken belief that the 'Torka' mentioned in the last paragraph was the Torka we all know and love (in a purly platonic sense, of course). Our own Torka, as many of us on the cutting edge of consciousness know, is a member of the legendary Red-Hot Recycling Babes. The 'Torka' mentioned in the last chapter is another Torka. Completely different one. In fact, it was a typing error. It should've been ...um... Morka. Yeah, that's it, Morka.

Thank you for your time.

y family moved out of Flushing when I was seven, to a small cape house in New Hyde Park. During the first year as my father tried to cope with the expenses of a first-time homeowner, my sister and I had our "rooms" upstairs in the unfinished attic, generally going there only at bedtime. Our beds sat on a plywood floor, beneath a V-shaped roof that was covered in bare insulation; there was a small black-and-white Zenith TV near the top of the stairs that plugged into the bare lightbulb and outlet hanging from the peak of the roof.

It was on that TV that I first saw The Wizard Of Oz, one night when there was a party downstairs. I had heard about the movie from a friend in school, who had wondered how much of the movie was true; being proud of my ability to discern reality from fantasy -- unreasonably so, considering my age -- I tried to read as much about the movie as I could from the books in the library. They were actors and actresses playing roles, that's all, and I had read something about the tornado being made from a stocking. I was truly looking forward to seeing the movie, party or no.

As the Kansas winds picked up and that unbearably evil twister appeared, I sat closer to the screen and thought, uh-huh, you can see it's a stocking, maybe on a wire or something. I was very impressed with myself. It was a TV show. It was pure fantasy.

For the next three years, whenever the fire sirens went off in the town, I ran in terror to the window to search the sky for funnel clouds.

The sun had set about a short time ago and Venus was low in the southwest, shining through a spectacular display of crepuscular rays in the bright twilight. Vega was just beginning to be visible high up in the west, and I had begun to wonder just what the plan was for when it got dark.

The path led out of the forest and curved through a field where the DEA was plowing up all the flowers and loading them into the back of two army trucks. A small grove of trees became visible over a hillock to the right, and Corky led the way to a cobblestone walk that split away from the path. We passed a red open-front barn -- a shack, really -- that housed some sort of tractor, then over a Japanese bridge that crossed a small figure-eight pond. In a clearing stood a cottage, surrounded by a well-tended garden that fronted the pond. Corky knocked as the others caught up.

For the longest time, there was no answer.

"Doesn't look like anyone's home," I ventured. "Let's keep going."

"We've gone on before," said the Scarecrow, "but I was hoping he'd come. He did once, I was hoping he'd come along again."

"Who?"

"Professor Marvel."

The door opened, and standing in the light in the doorway was a tall preacher-man dressed in jeans, a black jacket and bolo tie. A few seconds passed, and as he looked at us I saw traces of embarassment, disinterest, and then curiosity pass over his face; at length he smiled broadly, and swinging the door wide he invited us in.

The room was cluttered but comfortable-looking. A small antique refracting telescope stood on a wooden tripod in a corner of the room, and some sky charts were draped over what looked like a guitar case. The professor walked to the room's brick fireplace and pushed at the logs with a brass poker that had been leaning between the wall and the small hooked oval rug, and the room was filled with the scent of cedar. Along a side wall were floor-to-ceiling bookcases and a small desk that jarringly housed a Gateway 2000 PC; I tried to hide my interest in the computer, but stared at the screen nonetheless. Netscape was up, and the professor was apparently involved in a writing project. Every few minutes an Incoming Mail icon flashed, followed by a system modal box that stated COMMUNICATION FAILED. The same line then printed silently on an adjoining thermal printer, whose list of messages cascaded back over the printer and onto the floor. There must have been thousands of these messages, all unanswered.

"Hi. Swann. Swann Marvel. And you're..?"

"Nick." I shook his hand. "You're a professor? If I remember my pop culture right, I was expecting a Wizard."

Swann chuckled. "S' funny. A lot of folks think I'm a wizard. In fact, I sorta ended up wearing the clothes, 'cause I figured, you know, what'd it hurt? No, I'm not that. Just me. Anyhow." He turned to the others. "Cork, s'good to see you again." The professor -- or wizard, preacher, or whatever -- seemed reticient, but genuinely happy to see my companions. "Earl, Ollie -- can I get you guys something to drink? Hold on, be right back." He ambled back towards what I assumed was the kitchen, and returned with some bottles of Moosehead. "S' tell me, what brings you guys out this way?"

"We're taking Nick here to the Shrine. We're going to go see the King." Corky hesitated, and the Scarecrow picked up. "The, uh, way to the Shrine goes by your place. So we, uh... Anyhow..."

"Nick, you're going to the Shrine? Ever been there before?"

"Well, kind of. No, actually. I'm not really sure why I'm going, but it seems like a good idea. I'm going to try to find the Babes. Have I ever been there before? Well, no, but there's always a first time, I guess. I mean, stranger things have happened, right?" I was having some trouble keeping my thoughts focused. Comes with being on the Mailing List too long, I guessed.

Swann laughed. "Meeting the babes, huh? Well, I guess that's a good enough reason. S'probably the only reason anyone gets into the business, anyhow."

I didn't understand what Swann meant, but the others smiled and I felt the mood of oppressive nervousness begin to lighten, as if something fearfully unsaid had finally been brought out into the open. The conversation began to pinball from one topic to the other as these four friends began to catch up on old times, and though not sharing their past I felt embraced as one of them. At length, the Professor turned to me.

"So, Nick, who are these 'Recycling Babes'"? Why do you need to speak to them?"

"You know, Professor, I don't actually know who they are. Y' see, I'm -- I guess I'm lost. What happened was, I was trying to..."

"Lost? Let's do a search." Swann stood up, putting his glass down on an ornately-carved end table, and before I could understand his meaning he was at the PC, pulling Lycos down from his hotlist. He typed in my name and submitted the query; in a few moments, three finds were displayed -- a videography addition I had sent to Brad that for some reason had been put up as a link to his page, a citation at Grolier's web site, and... an icon.

The universal symbol for "A Man With A Coat Hanger Through His Head."

The Professor clicked on it, and in four passes the screen was filled with a picture of me, evidently out cold, zipped into a travel suiter and lying on top of the pile of luggage in Mel's minivan.

Nature does not abhor a vacuum. If it did, it would've filled outer space with styrofoam packing peanuts. No, actually Nature quite likes vacuums. What Nature abhors is trailer parks.

Exactly how the twister snuck up on the caravan at the rest stop is a matter still debated among the Monkeeheads. What is known, though, is the odd fact that when Heath felt the vehicle begin to rock and looked out his window to investigate, he didn't think it particularly odd that outside the Microbus was a cow, smiling and lowing and completely oblivious to the fact that she was floating in midair.