It’s other stuff nephew, after this. I’ve seen it. When I dream now, I know I’m going other places because my tether to this life is so weak. I think I only come back out of habit. It’s hard to explain, but I’ve been places, more than I’ve been in my life, and my body ain’t left this room. Nephew, we don’t know what we is, none of us do. We can do so much. We could do it, but we ain’t paying attention.
Listen at me. I’m not making any sense am I? I know I sound crazy. It’s real though. And we only see it when we open our eyes to it.
Right now nephew, I see the world like crazy colors, I don’t know. I see everything clear, but the colors, it’s so beautiful, like the world is in a rainbow. And there’s things here existing right through us, through this house like we don’t exist. And there’s things that notice us and listen. They all strange nephew, like things we’ve seen before, animals, animal people, people animals, but you can’t believe it.
Am I scaring you nephew?
“No uncle Fitz, it sound fun.”
Look over there. It’s like a bus stop. It’s a bull on two legs standing next to a huge tree stump. And here come the pterodactyl again, you see it? Pick him up and carry him off.
“Whoa, uncle Fitz. I wish I could see it.”
Yeah, then you could meet my rhino friend. He been here the whole time. Lorne, his name Lorne, he been trying to explain it all to me, but honestly I don’t really care. I just want to enjoy what I see. He say I probably won’t end up here after I die, but these ain’t the only places to be.
“Why can’t I see it?”
Nephew I wish I could tell it like Lorne, but I can’t. Maybe you don’t want to be able to see it. Maybe I can only see it cause I’m about gone…no, Lorne say I’m wrong. But I don’t know, maybe you will.
He want me to tell you a story, about a rhino and a spider.
“Is it about Lorne?”
I guess so, if not him, then his daddy probably. But it’s a spider named Anansi, he big time. Got a whole bunch of wives and kids. One of his relatives, his offspring, is Anes, and she a bad one nephew. Anes the type to make trouble with everything. She make trouble for spiders everywhere with her foul mood. Lorne guess she just like power, like having control. But he say she lost her own power a long time ago, and she been trying to get it back ever since. I don’t know what’ll happen if she get it, but she can’t get her hands on it because it belong to man now.
Lorne say that don’t stop her from trying. And she steal power from other people, trying to get strong enough to get her own power back. That’s how this particular rhino came to know her. He was resting by a lake and Anes come up on him. Lorne say he loved her, she sweet talked him, but how a spider sweet talk a rhino? How you figure something like that? She was after something and when the rhino dropped his guard enough, Anes used a magic she learned to zombify the rhino and she used his powers of repulsion to make the person with her magic lonely and sad. She good at that, she can’t get it back, but she can make somebody life hell so they ain’t got time to find out what they can do.
“What can people do with Anes power?”
Oh nephew, you wouldn’t believe it. Lorne say Anes power can make a man invincible. Bullets bounce off him, he can make his body grow bigger. Ain’t like nothing you ever seen. Well, me neither, but that’s what Lorne say.
“How can I get Anes power?”
That’s up to the power. It find who it want to be with. Most of the people end up with it don’t know what it is and then they gotta deal with Anes creeping around making life hell for them.
“Can Lorne give me powers?”
Why you want powers nephew? What you want to do with it?
“I can be a superhero. I can save people. I can save you so you don’t have to die.”
Aww nephew, you sweet to say that. But you don’t need to save me. And you couldn’t with Lorne powers anyway.
“What powers Lorne got?”
Lorne said his first mama from the start of the universe, one of the First Wave, sped up the repulsive force. She thought that if she pushed everything in this colorful space out, it would slow down some people they was fighting, these weird deer women with wings. It didn’t work, it just made the universe expand faster, whatever that mean. Lorne say he can make people bigger too, but they can also use the repulsive force of the universe whenever they want. They can throw a ball, or a person, clear across the universe if they want to.
“Repulsive? That don’t sound good.”
That’s the word we know nephew, so that’s what Lorne gotta say. But I imagine if he was talking to one of his rhino brethren, he wouldn’t use the world repulsive. You gotta think about it like this, the whole universe where we at right now, where this planet Earth is, is one big thing, like a lake. And the things that keep that lake together, the complicated science like gravity and stuff, is just as necessary as the water, and the clouds above it that drop rain. Maybe to somebody walking by, the rain is bad, cause that’s how they see it, but if you that lake, a good rain is a good thing or you gonna disappear. The repulsive force is there because it has to be, it ain’t good or bad really, it just is.
“I guess that make sense. But if Anes use it to do bad stuff, then maybe Lorne should use something else.”
It is what it is nephew. If he wasn’t guarding it then something bad could get to it. He only use it to stop bad stuff, and he let people use it in the real world when its bad stuff he can’t get to.
“I want Lorne powers. I can see him. Lorne, let me grow real big, and I’ll fight Anes, kill every spider I see.”
He said that ain’t fair nephew. All spiders ain’t Anes. Some spiders is Anat, her younger sister. She a mama, just like yours, and she like to heal people. And some spiders are just spiders. You can’t be killing them all.
“I can tell the difference.”
Well look out for Lorne after I’m gone. He gotta see how you grow up. You gotta be a good man, not just to your mama either. You gotta be good to everybody. Show bad people what it mean to care. And take care of yourself nephew. You can’t be there for nobody else if you laid up like me. Promise me you’ll take care of yourself.
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