Table of Contents

• “Generation W”

• A-plus

• Aminal

• Aluminum Rot

• Vague Flash-warnings

• Whimper Ritual

• Klondike Seriously

• A Can of Worms

“Generation W”

    My life on the dairy farm was a timeless adventure. Every diamye, spent on his college tuition was wasted my routine kept my body strong for the test in the evening. At night, when all the chores were done, including finances, I sat on the floor in my wooden barn and recalled the mantras of the Shidave.

    When viewed at an appropriate scale and angle, the nerve synapse appears to be a giant machine, like a diesel engine. Through meditation and focus, I could see the synapses firing in my brain. I learned to control my most primal emotions.

    Just by understanding the impulses is not enough to brew an entire universe of vast expanses, and planets, and characters and life. I was commanded by my protectorate, the animals, to harness the spiritual energy of the farm. In the dusty hay-covered floor, I channeled the power of the cows and chickens.

    The animals first led me to the farmland, where I was commanded to live and work. The land was affordable. It required terraforming earth before I could breed livestock to produce milk and eggs. I rented a large tractor to prepare the land.

    Overall, the commandment from the animals was to remain happy. With each morning, my mood descended to a much lower vibrational level. It was like acrobatics to lift my spirit to the level of the animals.

    I could pace. Sometimes, my walking would extend to the perimeter of my farm. Other times, I needed something else to smile.9 Fishing on the nearby ponds was dangerous, so I set bird traps around the barn. I couldn't justify trespassing on my neighbors' land. I was too nervous to touch the birds I caught on my own. I could only let them go, flying into the melting sun.

    The birds weren't my friends, after all. I couldn't control them. They weren't mine. They were a nuisance to the other animals and would steal their food—and my produce. I think I must have scared some of them away, because after I cleared the land the avian numbers decreased.

    When I had visitors, which was often in those first days of working the farm, I was most happy. I showed my human friends how I cared for the animals, and after a few weeks, explained the spiritual purpose of my life there.

    I was going to live for a very long time through using the principles of the Shidave. Eating one tenth of my livestock per year, I only needed them to multiply at a below-average rate to keep their numbers. I kept their sheddings in the barn for my rituals. I was spiritually bound to the animals. Burning their hair and feathers and inhaling the fumes was a quick way to ego-death—and human death, if I performed the rituals wrong.

    “Shidave, connect me through the souls of my animals to your wonderful universe!” I collected dust with my hands and cast it over my shoulders. The hay incited a powerful sneeze. “Let me into this collective universe!”

    This spell would only work if I formed a perfect lotus pfolsoiwteirosn. I would only know toenne days from then if I had done it well. The animal chosen to connect me would find me on the tenth day, and I would complete the first steps towards completing the Shidave creation ritual. When I rehearsed it in front of my friends, reactions were mixed. Most were ignorant of how powerful I was at that time.

    When I began meditating for hours, I was unstoppable. I was becoming visibly more powerful. My muscles were growing, and my mental energy created a great aura around me. After a few months, I was ready for the ten-day ritual connecting me for all eternity to the growing, otherworldly Shidave.

    There is a wolf symbol in the Shidave that represents the predator spirit of humans. I used a sock puppet to represent the wolfman in my own ritual. The other animals I recreated included the goat?, which I made out of sticks and yarn, and the eagle. Soaring, I used a dead field mouse to represent the eagle. I learned of the Shidave symbolism through intelligent reasoning. The information for the magic was inside my mind. I just needed to intuitively recall exactly what to do.

    After melting the wax of the blood, I stuck the red candle in the center of my shrine. “Shidave, Shidave,” I incanted. “Take hold over me.” You borrow dialogue from television evangelists.

    The roving bandits of the area heard of the date I would perform the ritual. They stalked around my barn, and as soon as I spoke the mantra, they burst in to kill me.

    “Witchcraft!” They shouted, threatening with eager bayonets. “Magic is an unthinkable crime in this country.”

    Another one clambered through the barn door. “The rumors were true. He was performing a spell.”

    Hoping to defend myself through argumentation, I explained that I was summoning the universe of the Shidave, in order to create my own universe . . .

    In the armpit, and under the second rib—the bayonets pierced my torso until I collapsed. Although my physique had improved, I was unable to stop the surprise attack from the scourge of the earth.

    I was taken to the morgue. My animals escaped.

A-plus

    Derrick East was a world-builder. It's just that, he thought, he didn't have enough knowledge to fill an entire world up with things I have tried to do. He was knowledgeable of just a few kinds of weapons—so no war could start in his world. He could only brew a certain number of personalities in his mind to give to his characters. His knowledge of the global economy lacked depth and true understanding. He still felt compelled to build worlds, devoting his entire life to the tasklist.

    He was from Chicago. His schooling was excellent in the Windy City. Besides creating an entire world from his mind, he also wanted to become a teacher of humanities. During the summer after graduating, one of his friends called him about college. Derrick hadn't applied anywhere, and his friend was trying to encourage him.

    In the kitchen, Derrick swiped his phone around to answer it. “Hello?”

    Jason explained there was a school in Kentucky that offered farmhand training. You lived on a farm and took care of your own livestock while earning college credits.

    The offer tantalized Derrick, who wanted free time to dream of his worlds. He called the college that offered the program, and quickly sent his application materials. Before the semester started in August, he was accepted on account of his grades, and he traveled south to Kentucky where he would live for the next four years.

    Two women showed him the land. They were real country folk, which he could tell from their accents and the way they handled things. The chicken feed, in their hands, appeared more real to him than anything he had used in Chicago. It was like everything back home was lighter and more ephemeral than the things on the farm. The farm stuff had tangible properties.

    The women lived on the farm. There were no animals yet. It was up to him to purchase livestock with a budget given to him by the college.

    “You'll sleep in the old barn house until class starts. Then, you can sleep wherever you want. We won't be here,” Jan said. She was a widow. Her appearance was like a weeping willow—a soft, protective look created by her long gray hair.

    Her female partner, Laurie, appeared concerned for Derrick. “The college will make sure you get food. The budget doesn't last all semester. You won't be forced to harvest any livestock until later.”

    “I'm just absorbing all the nature around me. You don't have to worry. I know how to set traps and forage for food. With classes, I'll have little time to gather from the wild.”

    We didn't have enough time.

    “You won't be taking classes,” Jan said.

    “You are enrolled in the farmhand training program. None of the coursework at the college is required for your graduation.”

    It didn't bother Derrick. In fact, he was a bit lazy, and was relieved even though he was surprised he wouldn't be taking any actual classes. It would give him more time to relax.

    “I wasn't sure of all the details of this program. Thanks for letting me know, now. That could have been a confusing first day. I was planning on walking to the college and asking about my schedule.”

    “You'll learn more from this program than any of the other students learn from taking a class,” Jan said. “We will go through the syllabus tomorrow. Now, we must retire for the night. You may stay up, if you wish. These two old ladies must be getting to bed.”

    Derrick knew it was just seven o'clock PM. He said he'd turn in as well. He followed the perimeter of the farm to his barn house. The strange hills at the edge of the property resembled dirt barricades from WWII or the Civil War. He would learn of their history in the morning. Dark came early, so Derrick had no trouble falling asleep.

    It was cold. He dreamed of the livestock he would be raising. The chickens and cows in his dream were crazy, dancing while they made their respective sounds: squawk, and moo. In the shadows of the evening, more animals emerged. Pigs, sheep, and a barrage of wild birds poured endlessly from the edges of the farmland into the center, where they performed a dance like savages. As he awoke, he heard in his head, “Vee, ahvee, dahvee, edahvee, shedahvee. . .”

    Derrick asked Laurie about the man made hills surrounding the farmland when they were eating grits in the women's house.

    “The little lumps have been here for nearly half a century,” she said, stirring her hot grits. “After the Vietnam War, a farmhand much like yourself piled them up to mark his property lines. The lines are nearly identical to the current dimensions of the farm. When the state government granted this land to the college, they told the program director the hills subtracted from the value of the farm slightly. It will be one of our tasks this double workload semester to knock them down, unless you find some other use for them.”

    “They are a piece of the land's history,” Derrick said. “I would like to keep them up unless there's a good reason to get rid of them.”

    “There is,” Jan said. “The hills keep water from draining out of the farm. At the very least, we'll need to create a drain system for rainwater. Otherwise, this area would become a shallow lake come rainy season.”

    “Why would any farmer create this problem for himself?” Derrick asked.

    “Historically, the man was not all right in the head. He didn't even last one season before he was murdered by a gang of ex-military bandits.”

    “He was murdered on this land?”

    Jan and Laurie's expressions were shallow and meaningless.

    “He was killed in the barn house where you slept.” The awkward silence that followed outlasted all three bowls of grits. We cared.

Aminal

    The grass was green. It appeared trampled-on all around overhead. Derrick asked his hostesses if there were many animals running around the farm.

    “Many animals. Dogs, cats, ducks, field mice, and plenty more,” Jan said. “We've imagined that a predatory pack of wolves comes roaming through on occasion—especially during the colder nights. On either side of the farm, hills protect this area from windy chills. The animals flock to the farm.”

    “Goats, my dear. Don't forget the foals from Westerfordshire,” added Laura. She gazed on the moist grass as if watching the goats prance.

    “Yes, dear. The time the baby goats came with their owners to the farm was unforgettable.”

    “Goats, Jan?” Derrick asked. “We must buy goats for the farm. Goat's milk is valuable, right?”

    “You'll have total freedom over which farm animals you choose to stock, when the time comes.”

    “We'll need to time our purchases correctly, to take advantage of any drops in market price,” Derrick said.

    “You will be the one responsible, not us.”

    “What do I need from you before I stock the animals and buy feed?”

    Jan and Laura led Derrick to the wood shed, where plans for a farm were drawn out. Derrick would build the fences and feeders, himself. They explained any modifications to the layout—for example, to make room for goats, whose foals need hay beds for sleeping—must be designed by himself.

    “I'll have to check market prices soon,” he said. “They'll drop like flies.”

    “Do you have any idea how long it will take to build this farm?” Laura asked. “You're getting ahead of yourself.”

    “How lhoinggh will it take?”

    “Two weeks, just to get the fences and feeders. Then, additional days will be needed for special livestock pens. You might get a better bargain by checking the stockyard early. You could waste valuable time doing so.”

    “And remember,” Jan added. “You'll need to live off the land before long. Your budget doesn't allow you to go to a grocery store every week for the entire semester. Indeed, by the twelfth week, you must harvest eggs, milk, and even animal flesh to sustain yourself.”

    Derrick was getting more and more nervous. Firstly, it felt impossible. Somehow, he never imagined any farmer building a farm from scratch single-handedly. How did the college expect him to provide meat and dairy for himself with no experience? The most terrifying part were his two professors. They were getting more impatient in their instructions, picking apart Derrick's comments more and more as the day waned. They were actually going to leave him there by himself once class started in less than a week. The farm was almost a mile from the nearest grocery store.

    “Am I missing something? Aren't there tarnakcstors or something I can use?” He finally asked, as night—and their bedtime—came.

    “The tractor will be brought to you at the beginning of the semester,” they said. “You may want to drive it to town to gather supplies. Or, it may help in constructing the farm.” We must be sleeping, they seemed to gesture, fanning themselves and batting their eyes. It was just eight o'clock.

    He was definitely having second thoughts, as he paced back to his barn house, remaining at the door. Above the crest of the ridge at the perimeter of the farm, the sun sank in the last minutes of day. A sharp color change seemed nearly instantaneous, stunning him. The pink/orange colors of sunset stretched high into the horizon. What he thought was a floater in his eye--from his allergies--became much larger than a speck, and revealed itself to actually be a bird. An eagle flew over the crest in the hill, where there were none of the small trees Derrick would eventually cut down, and the bird disappeared in the blackness above him. A blue star winked at him, then turned white.5

    He remembered his dream. Shidave. He wanted to see a duck. The imprint of a single duck floating on a pond etched into his eye. His left eye seemed to color the sun a horrible orange--in his right eye he saw the duck. The shallow puddles over the hill crest might bear ducks, he thought, brow wrinkled. Climbing the grass, his vision reached past the hill, and below to a vast armada of ducks, geese, small gray birds, and what appeared to be field mice. Their tails were remarkably patterned.

    Turning away in horror, thinking the stench must hit him soon, he lost his footing coming down the hill and faceplanted into the grass. He squirmed, rubbing the grass on his shirt and work pants, thinking the mice could have followed him from the other side. He relaxed, resting his head on the dirt. Just in front of his face was a ball of yellow yarn. “The goat of the Shidave.”

    Everything seemed calm to him. The energies of the apparitions that suddenly attacked him balanced in his solar plexus, the weakest—and most energetic—spot on the human body. A timelapsed long-exposure photograph of creation swirled in his entire view. He was dreaming, then. He must have been dreaming the entire time. He thought he felt the hard surface of his wooden bed. When he opened his eyes, after rejuvenating his mind somewhat, he saw green grass all around him instead of his barn house. He was in the middle of the field. A yellow ball of yarn lay at his head. His cure was rotten.

Aluminum Rot

    “Derrick. Wake up, dear. It's well past breakfast,” Jan called into the barn house. She didn't feel it was her duty to wake him. He would have to learn soon enough when he was running the farm. Her colleague Laurie suggested pouring a bucket of rainwater on the young man. “You mustn't allow the laws of nature to kick you out of bed each morning, Derrick.”

    Derrick could barely see. He wasn't exactly concerned about what he was looking at with his eyes. He was too inner focused. After just a few hours sleep, he still could not forget the strange spiritual pageant from the night before. He couldn't get the intertwined mice tails out of his mind.

    “I'm very sick,” he said quietly, moving slowly to sit up.   

    Jan began a deep frown. Laurie did dose him with rainwater, on his request. It helped him move his joints. They were locked from anxiety.

    “Today, we must venture out of the farmland proper to a laboratory just down the road,” the women explained. “It's not quite a laboratory like you might expect. It's just an old aluminum shed. We do important work for the college from there.”

    “I'd much rather rest here,” Derrick said. “Supposing I never recover from this farm's inherent madness, I might go where there is shelter somewhere else. Please, we must avoid the west hill.” He realized he couldn't even explain to them what happened.

    “What is wrong with the west hill?” Laurie asked. “Have the field mice rearranged your dressing drawers at night? Don't mind them. If you noticed some things rearranged, it was just the field mice or the cats.”

    “Derrick, there aren't any more animals over the west hill than any of the other perimeter walls,” Jan said.

    “I think the animals are trying to contact me.”

    “Nonsense, except in the most romantic spiritual sense,” Jan said.

    “Their conscious minds are trying to reach into mine, and I don't think I can resist any longer.” Laurie brushed Jan aside.

    “This will be cured by a walk. You will adjust to rural farm life in a very short time, Derrick. It's wrong for a young man to sleep all day.”

    dHe followed them down the path, which went to the south hill a at the perimeter of the farm. Not very rfar away past the hill sat ka flat-roofed, aluminum shed. The brusted overhang gave the shed the appearance of a Tin Man, with windows for ears and a door instead of a nose. The women shimmied across the rock path and entered the lab.t

    Derrick remained outdoors. He glanced around for signs of an animal attack. A few trees rustled in the wind. There were no gray birds or ducks at all.

    From the shed, a sound like a wood router was heard. Inside, they must be doing carpentry, he thought. The sawdust could help his allergies. Inside, there was no wood router or wood at all. Three windows faced the back side of the barn. Attached to each window was a screen press, with violently bright acrylics mixing on top of the canvas.

    The source of the sound was hard to distinguish. Derrick almost laughed when he thought of how even the acrylic paint drying wouldn't make a sound. His professors were seated in front of the screen press, working below them on some unseen technical machine. One of the machines was not being used. This was the one approached by Derrick.

    There was a black bat hanging inside a metal cage. It screeched, making the noise in the shed. The sound reverberated off the metallic siding. For a second, his flashback made Derrick tumble backward. A man caught his fall from the doorway.

    “Hello there. Are you the bright student sent from the Windy City to learn to be a farmhand?”

    Derrick turned around quickly to face an orange man wearing, apparently, a large burlap sack. His clothes, probably meant to hold potatoes, was discomforting to Derrick, who tried to retreat to Jan.

    “Hey, Chuck,” Jan said.

    “Hey, Jan. Laurie. Milking the bats for us? And what of their art?”

    “It’s beautiful. The bats have indicated an emotional spectrum far beyond what is considered possible with a small brain.”

    Derrick had to get out. He jumped under Chuck, and started running up the hill into the farm. He needed a bucket of rainwater. He needed Jesus. He needed his parents.

    Seriously reconsidering his philosophical approach to cell phones (that no young man should have one), he chose to run out the north wall and follow the dirt road he presumed went to the grocery store. He dragged himself for a long time, only looking down. It started raining.

    A green John Deere tractor melted into the side of the grocery store when he finally reached it. He had walked almost a mile without the women following him. Outside the grocery store, he scanned for Western Union service signs. When he went inside, it was obvious his parents wouldn't be sending him money to this grocery store. There was no electricity.

    The clerk told him the stock was outside, and she was just washing up inside. Smiling, she led him behind the tractor where small melons and squash lay piled.

    “Take your pick. It's five dollars per sack.”

    He didn't have any money, since he had left his belongings on the farm. He was homeless and stranded, he thought. College life was like a secret his parents and the world kept from him, until the moment when he was trapped forever in its hell. He actually considered ignoring the girl and stealing the tractor, and taking its front loader and smashing down the barn house and destroying the entire farm. He quickly recovered, and decided to go back to the farm.

Vague Flash-warnings

    On a gust of intuition, he told the girl that he was the student sent to learn farmhand skills at the nearby farm. She covered her lips and smiled.

    “I heard you were coming this semester,” she said.

    “The semester hasn't started. I need a tractor in order to prepare the farm before I can grow livestock. How much do you ask for this one?”

    “Oh, it's the one for your farm. It won’t hurt to have you take it now.”

    Derrick felt an uplifting sensation again, like when he almost laughed in the aluminum shed. “Can I please have the keys?” He felt it was a standoff between the spirit of himself and the invading animals.

    He then tracked the machine down the road for two miles until the farm ridge was in sight. Triumphantly, the top of the huge tractor came over the ridge, and he was face-to-face with the women.

    “You've found your tractor. That's wonderful,” Jan said. She stomped in the wet grass. “You can't drive it today, of course, on account of the mud. Tomorrow you can get on the field yourself.”

    “The mud isn't that bad. I suppose I've never used a tractor like this before, especially in poor conditions.” His own reaction confused him.

    “Park it wherever you like.”

    Somehow, he was relieved. He wouldn't have to do any more physical work today. He might even get some of his world-building done in his bedroom. His previous fear shocked him. The spotty green Deere boosted his confidence.

    “When is dinner?” he asked, disengaging the tractor. “I need to relax and eat a warm meal.”

    “The rain is getting bad,” Laurie said. “We should retire soon after our meal. It could be unsafe at night.”

    “Okay, Laurie. Whatever you say,” Derrick said. He felt overwhelmingly complacent. The sensation came back—he was happy, hopeful. The farm would be a success. Maybe his livestock would yield higher than normal due to his natural talent with animals. The government would have to support the Shidave’s research, then.

    He snapped out of it his first bite. “Oh, god!” He said, lurching for the door, swallowing his food.

    “Stop him! He's excitable from the warm dinner,” Jan said, helping Laurie carry Derrick back into the kitchen.

    “How did this happen? Why is this happening?”

    “You're on your dairy farm, Shidave,” Jan said.His Facebook

    “The animals are here.” Laurie's voice was serious. “The animals are ready for you to put them in your world.”   

    “Shidave!” Derrick said. He understood what the women were talking about.

    “The animals are ready!”

    The trio stormed outside in the intense rain. It was up to their knees, the water trapped by the perimeter. The representations of each spirit animal were brought out of Jan's pockets and given to Derrick.

    “Float face-down in the water, Jan.” Somehow, Derrick knew exactly what to say. “You too, Laurie. The animals will see you, and we will be transported to another universe!” The women professors obeyed promptly.

    Derrick saw them floating. In the rain, little else was visible—not even the tractor which was only yards away. No animals were seen or heard, except the wind and rain was pummeling the farmhand.

    One of the women came up for air, and put her head back underwater. The other one did the same shortly after.

    “EAT THIS!” A pastry was shoved in his mouth, and for one brilliant second, Derrick could make sense of himself. “Get to the tractor.”

    He and the girl from the grocery store trolloped through the water to the tractor.

    “Now knock those walls down, so your professors don't drown.”

    “I'm going to, okay? Still, you must explain.”

    “It's a cult, Derrick. This whole town is run by a cult.”

    He rolled over a giant rock, then hit the dirt wall. “How were they controlling me?”

    “The dark bats. Knock the wall down, please.”

    “I don't see why I should do what a woman tells me to do, anyway,” he said, and shoved her off the tractor.

    “Eat more, Derrick. You must stay normal. The dark bats are so powerful, you must eat constantly to stay sane.” The tractor attempted to run her over. With an acrobatic style, she launched between the wheels and into the seat again, shoving a Tasty Kake into his mouth.

    “Give me the rest of those,” he said. He ate as many as he could, then went back for the wall. Boring a hole through the lump of dirt was easy with the front loader. After one pass through, the water burst through the gap, pushing the tractor through it and out of the farm. Gloriously, the tractor rolled away. Yet, Derrick tried to curb his optimism, and he ate another donut was us.

Whimper Ritual

    Derrick's stomach painfully protested each donut. The tickle in his throat prepared him to vomit across the side of the tractor. It wasn't entirely Tasty Kake that he threw up—a small carcass of a field mouse came out, too. That triggered Kate's vomiting spell, and they had to stop the tractor, about three miles away from the farm.

    “I just threw up a mouse,” Derrick said calmly.

    “I am aware,” she said. Derrick learned her name earlier, hastily escaping the insane maelstrom at the farm. The rain stopped about a mile out. The sun tickled their noses and made them sneeze mucus and stomach fluids. “I think that was how the dark bats were controlling you. When did you eat a mouse?”

    “They must have force fed it to me last night. I woke up in the field.”

    “It may have crawled into your mouth. I think we can trust your professors.”

    “Are you serious? They're batshit,” Derrick said.

    “They're caught up in something they can't handle. They've bit off more than they can chew. They're like slaves. We are all like slaves to the Shidave.”

    “What is the Shidave? Is that the cult? Even if they are a cult, this still can't be real.”

    “Shidave is an ancient ritual used by warrior shamans to channel the dead, Derrick. It's real magic,” she said. “I can teach you what I know from a book I found in one of the old barns in town. It's about Shidave animal rituals, where the shaman harnesses the spiritual power of animals to become god-like.”

    “I actually understand some of that. Please give me another donut.”

    Kate and Derrick manned the tractor again. The road was covered in dirt, and it slowly sank further and further down the countryside until, after another five miles of driving, they reached her cottage.

    She penetrated the doorway like a black-haired cat. Derrick followed her to a reading table where the Shidave book was shelved.

    “I think the goal of Shidave is to create a new universe,” he said. “The intention is to use the souls of the animals to populate the new world. It can't be real.”

    She pointed to a circular diagram labeled universal anima. “This says the souls of the animals will be converted to higher energy forms. They compel the shaman to create the universe. Maybe it's not a bad thing. A natural magical process.”

    Derrick immediately thought of Kate as an ignorant farmer. To him, the Shidave creation ritual was nothing less than hell. “Kate, how much money do you have?”

    “Basically none. Why?”

    “I need to get to the airport and fly back to Chicago.”

    “I don't have enough money.”

    Derrick flipped a page in the book. A placid lake was illustrated. A rippling face was seen beneath the surface of the lake. Label: Shidave.

    “What's this lake? It reminds me of the farm when it was full of water,” Derrick said.

    “The lake. It's supposed to represent an eye, or a reflection—specifically of oneself. In the lake, the inner world is reflected.”

    “I think that's what the mad professors were trying to do. Create a world that they could control, with the animals as slaves.”

    “No! I know those women. They're highly respected members of the local government. Not to mention prestigious scholars.”

    “Kate, you have no idea how bizarre those women have been acting. One of them actually poured a bucket of rainwater on me,” Derrick said.

    “A bucket of rainwater is probably what you needed.”

    On the next page was a drawing of the dark bats. The Anima of Shidave. In a block of text, the book explained the dark bats contained the previous universe created by Shidave, over nineteen hundred years ago. The dark bats survived with the universe living within it. After centuries, the dark bats were pained by the dullness of materia, and began seeking to be reborn in a new universe.

    “It's all mental. . . “ Derrick said. “Kate, I think I can make these bats happy. Maybe even save my professors.”

    “How?”

    “I can create a universe myself,” he said. “I think if I contact the wild animals around the farm—the ones I saw at the edge of the hill—they would give me enough power to create a new universe. I think that's what they want.”

    His preparations for the Shidave ritual were primarily mental. He breathed in the same way his school therapist told him to do. He emptied his mind, and practiced visualizing objects, faces, characters, economies—all the things he would have to imagine in the new universe.

    She watched over him for three days while he readied himself. She hid him in her bedroom closet when visitors came. The only real threat were the police, she said. They had a tendency to shoot-em-up. She noticed his beard was growing longer each day, and offered a razor.

    “I need to keep the hair. It's part of the ritual.”

    When he was ready, they put a blanket over him, and she drove the tractor back to the farm.

Klondike Seriously

    Jan and Laurie weren't there. Kate uncovered Derrick, who went to the barn house. Inside, there was no note—only the tidiness that showed that someone had been here since he left. He didn't want clues for how to perform the ritual. He felt like his professors knew he would return, and wanted to help him.

    If anything broke his concentration, he wasn't sure if he could create an entire universe for the Anima of the Shidave. He told her to wait near the tractor with him until night. If any police came, they would explain they were students awaiting the start of the semester in a few days.

    When the sun sank, minute by minute, adrenaline began to open his airways and nostrils. He could taste the atmosphere, he thought. “No animal sign,” he said, peering at the edge of the remaining perimeter walls. “It may rain, however.”

    “That should increase your magical power,” Kate said.

    “I know.”

    He seemed to know everything about Shidave, now, or at least he felt he could summon all knowledge if he tried. Trying to keep his mind blank, he approached the center of the farm, facing the west wall. As the first drops began falling from the sky, he chanted the mantras of the Shidave.

    He became aware of the machine-like qualities of all natural life. Lifeforms intermingled into large gears, like turning wheels of life—a happy feeling being magnified by the others, and a negative thought scorching the entire collective. He tried to become one with all life. After a few moments, he summoned the first of the animals.

    It was the wild birds that erupted over the hillside, deafeningly chirping and flapping their wings. They flew above and beyond the shaman. A row of field mice toppled over another row of mice, falling down the hill. Ducks flapped over. He felt disappointment in them.

    Doubt cut into him. He was not the Shidave. As the last of the rodents grouped in front of him, he tried to overcome his lame heart. He visualized the homes that these creatures would live in their new universe. He imagined the sky, and the feelings they would have for each other. He opened his mouth and began to roar the mantras of the Shidave.

    “Take me into your universe. I want to be absorbed into your fold.”

    Kate retrieved the spirit animal representations for the wolf, eagle, and goat. The yellow ball of yarn appeared like a tiny warflag against a weaker part of Derrick. It would be the fight of his life.

    The rain came heavier and heavier as night darkened. Nothing had happened other than the animals gathering in front of Derrick and Kate.

    From the south came Jan, Laurie, and Chuck. Kate jumped to the tractor, ready to run them over in case they tried to interrupt the Shidave ritual. The trio came continued forward. Derrick knew they were carrying three ancient bats among them. The dark bats would die tonight.

    “Place them in front of me,” he said, in the tone of a true Shidave.

    “As you wish.”

    The comatose bats were laid at his feet.

    “Eat, friends, on the morsels of my longevity.” The mice poured over the bats, and tiny, unstoppable teeth chewed their carcasses clean, until even the bones were totally ingested.

    “Nineteen hundred years,” said Jan. “And now it's our turn.” Kate appeared bewildered.

    “Yes, Kate. They must become the new dark bats,” Derrick said.

    “No! They'll be imprisoned,” she said.

    “Not in the world the Shidave created. It will be like bliss for us. And we'll be with our spirit guides, the animals. The wolf, the eagle, the goat, and all the wild animals of the farm.” Jan smiled.

    “May you leave the earth easily, dark bats,” Derrick said.

    “In ten days, you will know if we were successful in our exodus into the new Shidave realm,” Jan said. “Until then, you must not know. If we fail, we will die, and so will the souls of all who we have gathered on this farm. From the Civil War, to WWII, to Vietnam, the spirit of innocents killed in battle lives with us.”

    “Those spirits are inside the animals, Kate,” Derrick said. “The souls of the animals were once human beings.”

    Lights appeared from the other side of the perimeter. It was the police. “They know of the Shidave,” Jan said. “We will go with them.” The officer parked far away, and reported them via radio. He retrieved handcuffs from the back, and solemnly approached the farmhands.

    “It's us you want!” Chuck shouted. “Take us, not them. Not the students!”

    “I have no reason to detain the youngsters. You three, however, would be safer at the county jail.”

    “Goodbye, Shidave and Kate,” Laurie said. “Our souls will follow you for a long time.”

    From her bag, Laurie unfolded the acrylic paintings of the dark bats. “These are the memory of the old Shidave universe. Until we grow weary of the new one, they are the only record of the Shidave universe in existence. The patterns are extremely complex. It belongs to a happy soul.”

    “Thank you,” said Derrick.

    “You three knew what was going to happen from the first day Derrick arrived?” Kate asked.

    “We've known since the man who once ran this dairy farm was killed.”

A Can of Worms

    Upon the arm of the dinosaur named John Deere rested the laurel of a hero and his wife. The tractor leveled each hill surrounding the farm in just a day. During the ten-day wait for the completion of the ritual, Derrick and Kate built fences and feeders, and planned to buy some goats. When school started, nothing changed. Derrick smiled, as he thought of the college’s abandonment as a sign of approval from the Shidave.

    The Shidave, as he understood (and his understanding waned as time passed), were a collective group of ancient spirits whose destinies would forever be intermixed. Since he and Kate had been part of the ritual, they were now permanently part of the Shidave enclave.

    He slowly understood that he was free to live how he wanted. Being by Kate’s side and completing the farmhand classes was exactly what he wanted, and what his soul needed. Kate wanted to live on the farm with him while attending other classes at the college. She said upon returning from enrollment that the police officer she passed seemed reverent to her, almost like she was a hero. He told her she was. The two of them had freed the dark bats. Their spiritual companions were given a second life.

    She asked him exactly what the other universe was like. They were exploring the old west wall. He explained, “It’s like an internal organ that is similarly a planet system in space. The world has emotional valleys to explore and interesting things to do with friends.”

    “Like what interesting things?”

    “In the new Shidave universe, friends might jump on a cloud and hop down to the ground completely unharmed. They may play endless games of varying difficulties, and hone their energies in positive ways.”

    “It really is like bliss,” she said, picking up a gray feather. “I wonder where all the birds went? I haven’t seen any since the ritual.”

    “I am not sure that the birds are our friends. I have a feeling they may harbor negative spirits.”

    “Then why did you send them to bliss?”

    “Why would I send them to hell?” He smiled, cupping her thighs. “I am not an evil Shidave. I wonder, in the end, do we have any enemies? The birds leave us to ourselves.”

    “I think our enemy must be the birds,” she said. “Were the birds the devil?”

    “I think they were lesser demons or imps, maybe. Or maybe my intuition was wrong. I don’t know if I get along with birds, at all.”

    Something irked him on the last days of waiting. His tractor seemed to have a mind of its own. It would die at random intervals, which could be explained by faulty circuitry or aging diesel engine. The way the front arm lifted as if in salute was indeed strange, especially since it seemed to coincide with the sun setting.

    “What do you think of this tractor, Kate?” Derrick asked.

    “It reminds me of a finicky cat,” she said.

    “I think of it like one of the animals. It was part of the Shidave ritual, and thus part of

our new life on the farm. Seeing it unused makes me think it’s bored or sad, so I like to jump on it and drive it around. I think we might call it a brontosaurus in modern times. We’re lucky to have it.”

    On the ninth day, a wolf pack visited the farm, and howled at the full moon.

    “Wonderful! If only Jan was here. How she loved wolves,” Derrick said. The gray beast sniffed for prey, leading its pups down the valley of the farm. “I am afraid the wolves might kill any goats we have, though. How could two natural foes clash, even with the Shidave protecting them? I admit, I have much to learn. It’s becoming harder to understand as time passes. I’m growing distant from the Shidave spirit. I wonder how we can pass the wisdom down to our children?”

    “We should write a journal! Our Life on the Farm: The First Ten Days.”

    “Don’t you think we should keep certain parts of the Shidave creation ritual secretive? We might accidentally curse the new dark bats.”

    “I think; I hope, they will never be cursed. They will live in your universe for at least nineteen hundred years, again.”

    On the morning of the tenth day, when the two would learn if their mentors had perished or not, they were contacted by a government agency.

    “There’s something wrong with the college’s deed to the land. We understand it’s being used for academic purposes and we support that,” the desk clerk said over Kate’s cell phone. “However, some faculty members have reported that the professors responsible for the program have been missing for several days. What’s odd is that not all the faculty at the college seem to care.”

    “Oh?” Kate said, trying to get Derrick’s attention. He was changing the tractor oil in front of his barn house.

    “It’s almost as if this disappearance is part of the college program. However, the historical land which the missing professors were protecting is now a viable option for out-of-state fracking.”

    “Derrick, this is bad. We might lose the farm,” Kate said over the mouthpiece.

    “It appears the professors gave Derrick the right to the land. It’s up to him if he wants to sell it. We will offer exorbitant prices to protect the land ourselves. We’re offering fifteen million for the sixty acre plot.”

    “Kate, we can’t accept.”

    “I know,” she said. “Sorry, but no.”

    When the tractor creeped across the land, Derrick thought it was like a terraforming spaceship, preparing the earth for habitation. It seemed to have a mind of its own--a mind that loved the land most of all. On the arc of its arm was a bridge to bliss. Field mice and cats might easily climb along it. With more tractors, which he would soon acquire, a veritable herbivorous force would be unleashed upon the land. As he saluted the bucket high in the air, he knew as Shidave that the dark bats survived. His universe was theirs.

    “How do you know for certain they survived the ritual?” Kate asked.

    “Do you see the way the tractor has a soul? It’s a new, happy soul. It’s eager for universal progress. Such a thing couldn’t be possible on a farm where Jan, Laurie and Chuck failed. No, it’s a sign of success. The tractor believes, like I do, the Shidave has won.”

    Kate couldn’t tell if she was happier after the Shidave ritual or not. She certainly had a stronger body and aura, as Derrick said. She remembered how the dark bat’s spell controlled Derrick. It was terrifying at the time. Now it was a good thing. It led them to the Shidave. It was very good to help the spirits of the innocents killed in war.

    A few weeks later, she went to visit the aluminum shed, and the bats were missing, as she expected. The whirring noise Derrick told her about was still present, however. She explored the inside of the shed, searching under floorboards and behind cabinets for the source. Derrick thought the noise was bats shrieking. That was impossible with no bats.

    The hidden toilet was making the noise. It was constantly flushing. Over and over again, the gushing waters would make the sound. It apparently had been using water like this for weeks behind one of the closets.

    She thought for a second that she could create her own universe in the gushing waters. “No,” she chortled. “That’s something only the Shidave should think of doing.”