True Blue

The air was cool. The perfect temperature for a ‘night hike’, which is what Ted and his friends called smoking weed behind the local gas station. As he approached the station he slowed down. The building was enveloped by a bright blue fog, and it seemed to be coming his way.

The blue cloud was somehow moving against the prevailing wind. Ted slowed the car as the blue fog covered the entire road ahead of him. He shivered slightly and came to a stop. He wasn’t sure if he was in his right mind as the cloud seemed to take the shape of a famous face.

He couldn't quite place it, but Ted had seen this face before when he was a young boy. He turned on his windshield wipers to get a better look. "Who are you?" Ted screamed out the side of the driver's window. "You should not have come here," the floating deity commanded.

Ted closed his eyes even though he was trembling and put his fingers to his temples. He visualized the mountain he’d dreamed of many times and said the words the dreams had taught him. “Ojatai Kaiwa Bo!” Outside the deity moaned. Ted opened his eyes saying the phrase emphatically

and watched the ground explode like sand on a snare drum. Ted covered his ears as a crystalline mountain tore through the earth into the sky, surrounded by a halo of lightning. Ted looked to the deity, now cowering, and said the final words to complete the sequence: “Oma Terifa.”

Everything went dark, no sound, just a dark hallway, at the end a small shimmering light. Ted walked to it, then opened his eyes. He was alone in a room he had never seen before. Beside him was a woman who looked at him with sad eyes “you finally woke up, welcome to reality”