Page 355 - TheRedSon_PrintInterior_430pp_5.5x8.5_9-22-2019_v1

As soon as Willard was in the waning distance, its
solidified insanity an indistinct collection of absurdities
playing against the glittering orange of the sinking sun, I
stepped upon solid road for the first time in months. Granted,
the road had likely not been traveled by any honest persons
for some time, mostly serving the needs of things wishing
to move through the night upon a slightly more forgiving
surface. But it pleased me to walk upon the thing, as its
banality served to augment the other, stranger sights I might
come across traveling its length. My imagination had come
under a kind of pallor since my talk with Deleriael, and the
conceptual boost would do my mood well.
The road was like a solidified creek of snaking black stone,
trying—but clearly failing—to escape the encroaching banks
of the forest which drew ever closer to erasing the artificial
passage, once and for all. At other times, as the light grew
weaker, I had the sense of walking a narrow boardwalk,
barely set apart from the surging green tides rushing past
its fragile construction, and at any moment, the scaffolding
might fail, abandoning me to the wildness beyond. Finally,
sketched in the dim light of a waning moon, I often thought
I glimpsed passing shapes, appearing generally at the
untrampled margins of the fading thoroughfare, shapes that
might have been artifacts of the Darkness, or perhaps not.
Taken together, my travels along the road were uplifting, and
allowed my mind to deal with sights as it pleased, cobbling
marvels from the mundane.
There was no shortage of dreams, either. I afforded
myself much time for rest, often stretching out in thick,
well-shaded copses of wild grass and assorted bramble.
My first dream upon the road delivered me into an endless
pumpkin patch, the sun nearly as plump and orange as
any of the surrounding gourds, but half-submerged into
the hazy soil of the horizon. I clearly remembered Jack
Lantern standing atop the steepled roof of a crumbling hay
barn, his silhouette a stationary gust of soft orange smoke,
358 | Mark Anzalone