Dark Side of the Carpet

Since is october, season of ghosts and witches... here is a special unaware piece featuring Jenny the Witch! To make things better, she even wrote a wonderful companion story for this funny collaboration! Enjoy it!  

--

He’d snuck into the woman’s home on a whim. She’d always stood out, with her bright blue hair, lips and nails, talking to herself as she walked down the street, at all times of day and night.

Things would happen. Strange things. Disappearances. Deja vu. Forgotten and lost time. But she was beautiful. Mysterious. Curiosity and lust had gotten the best of him, and when he found her door unlocked, he couldn’t help himself.

He had no intention of stealing anything. Or hurting her. He figured she’d never even know he was there. A thrilling dare to himself. To pop inside, look around. See what secrets she might hold, and slip away, unnoticed.

--

What he found was indeed surprising. Her room a kaleidoscope of color. Album and movie posters on the wall, a rich, deep purple carpet, all illuminated by a sole lava lamp, bubbling and churning as it emitted an orange glow.

“Well, she’s certainly got a taste in music…” He mumbled, thumbing through her collection of vinyl albums, a turntable resting on a shelf beside her dresser. “It’s like the 70’s in here…”

But it was while he was rummaging through her sock drawer that he found it. A small glass vial tucked between two pairs of thigh-highs. As he picked it up, it slipped from his grasp, the glass nub hitting the corner of the open drawer, breaking, and covering him with a foul-smelling liquid.

When he awoke, at first he couldn’t tell what happened. Where he was. Lost in an endless twisting sea of purple. It was only by looking farther, beyond, he realized where he was, and what, somehow, had happened....

--

The ticking, ringing, and chiming in her headphones gave way to long, drawn-out chords, and beats on the bongos, before the lyrics finally began, after almost a third of the track had run.

Her day at work passed, the woman returned home, kicked off her shoes and retreated to her room to unwind. While the music in her ears brought her comfort, she just couldn’t help but think that nothing digital ever sounded as good as vinyl. The flaws and imperfections gave the track life and character that nothing produced today ever could truly recreate.

As she fell to her knees and began flipping through her albums to search for something to play, so too did he. Managing to climb on top of the vial that had seal his fate, from the new vantage point above the purple sea, the sheer sight of her was overwhelming, let alone the rumbling of her footsteps, and the sheer terror and awe of watching her pass overhead.

Soft, undulating ridges of flesh rose like sand dunes before him, and she herself was a living mountain of an unfathomable scale. He shouted, begged, and pleaded for her attention, but even without the music to drown him out, his pleas had no hope of reaching those distant ears.

She didn’t remove her headphones, until the needle hit the track, and the static started. Then the sound of the piano and twang of electric guitar filled the whole room. The mountain range shifted, growing, rising. Two pillars of flesh stretching skyward. He had no time to think or react. Instinct took over. The only thing he could think of to avoid the Great Gig in the Sky. 

He jumped.

--

The vial had gotten him out of the purple forest. By jumping for cover, he found himself back in it. Darkness surrounded him, the violet fibers rising taller than he was. Nowhere to go, and no hope of rescue, this forest was his world now, for as long as he could survive it. The music continued all around him, drowning out his very thoughts. Neither he, nor she, noticed that the music was still playing in those discarded headphones.

I’ll see you in the dark side of the carpet.