Chapter 6 - Voltari

Chap 6

The front porch was empty. The night - quiet.

This is how it went down.

I stepped into a breeze and looked up at the sky which was smooth like an onyx sheet.

I was ready to turn around but I don’t.

While nestled on the front steps of the apartment and as the porch lights buzzed an unmistakable percussive *tink* of mid-flight moths bumping against it. The soft jingle of keys enlightened me to the presence of someone else.

Frozen and reorienting my craned neck with an attempt to see through the darkness.

I paused, noticing there was a figure the middle of the street. He was cloaked in shadow but the street light showed enough of his face for me to recognize what it was I was seeing and if they noticed me too.

It was him.

I spoke in a hushed tone.

“Voltari.”

He did not shuffle. He simply continuously made the jingling tones. The light seemed to slip away from his features but I knew it was true. He had come to save.

“Was it me for whom you were searching?” Voltari responded. The jingling ceased.

The booming joviality in his voice was now a poignant tenor.

“Let’s not be like that statue…” I returned, louder now.

All was still.

The night was black. The moths continued their flight patterns.

“Yes. You were right to quote the show, Andy.”

The night had been a strange slew of occurrences.

Again - the jingle began. It hadn't ceased at all - I was just so silent that I had prematurely come to the conclusion.

Voltari began sauntering toward to me. I could see a reflection coming off of a large silver…I strained to see… a set of key which he swung in circles as he walked closer - reaching me at the stoop by which I rested under the dinny glow of the porch lighting.

I began to tear up. What welled inside me was not fear. It was the mood. All that had transpired these last few hours was finally breaking free within me. Now was time to ask the question - “what was it he wanted?”

Voltari stopped making sounds with his large set of silver keys, and as he spoke, he was near, and once he placed a hand on my shoulder he mouthed the words, “Did you like the green light?”

I cleared my throat.

“That was you?!” I asked flabbergastedly.

On the porch it was impossible to see - and thats why I couldn’t out the mistaken glitter of hope in his dreary eyes. When it all goes down - Voltari will be there for you.

“We will walk.”

He didn't seem to be offering.

Tilting my head to the side and thinking of the cat in the apartment three floors up, I beckoned, “I um…have a bit of a situation.”

“Yes. Yes….in time. Don’t you think I have this all figured out?” He reassured me.

Wondering what to do about it, it consumed me to be pressing on into the night with a professor I had never before met. Really, I felt no better elation than wondering where it is we were headed.

Around the corner to a small package store where I once worked, we found a small trinket. But most of all what floored me was a humongous building had taken the place of the small village square. I squinted till my forehead ached. It was real.

But was all magical.

Besides the green door sitting at its front there was little to notice about the building besides it’s wonderful facade though it mirrored the one back home, it was different. Gray. Lifeless.

Now was the time. I spoke courageously but I was scared stupid.

“Is it me you need for this? I have situations managed like this in the past.”

He paused.

“Yes, the trick will pay off nicely.”

He thanked me. And while we rummaged through our pockets for spare change to operate the soda machine next to the green glass I felt a momentary pause in the exciting times: deciding to understand the situation.

He waltzed near to me and snapped back the lid on his can.

“Do you ever dream in colors so vivid - they seem too real to be true?”

“Of situations so distinctly unrealistic that they drive you mad with desire?”

“Or maybe, its not you who dreams it - but me? And am I the fool to make these dreams come true?

“Even for those who have ne’er dreamt them before?”

There I was standing beside the package store, my mouth on a can of cola. Dreams in my head. Wondering how I played a role in this mysterious production Voltari was touting me toward.

I passed on the opportunity to answer his contemplative question.The man smiled a large grin.

"The adventure awaits," he put forth.

Voltari threw away his can and waltzing, still, to the door, which was so surely made of glass, took from his pocket a brass ring and placed it in my hand where I waited.

He smiled again, but this time said nothing.

Walking up to the glass door, he produced a set of keys on a long stranding rope and hulked the mass of the object into a keyhole which appeared suddenly. He twisted. And the knob fell into place from behind a shoot made for the door with a swish and a clunk.

This time it was me whom placed my hand on his shoulder. As he spun the key, the doorway opened and nothing but mist remained in view.

A light shown powerful enough to blind me - like the light from the apartment. Before we knew it - stepping into the doorway, he shown through too. All colors. Nothing was brighter than his skin. He was brownish gray - a mirror image of a soldier who had never seen combat. He was apocryphal and in many ways charming.

Wondering who could see this in me - I leapt, eyes closed into the light and there it was! Solid ground.

We had travelled many miles. Because the dirt of the street had given way to pastures and farm land hardly seen about these parts anyway.

A calm woos passed my ears.

We were walking about a minute into the grass before the light struck me again - and we were there. But because of this I remembered I had lost my spectacles back at the house. So nothing seemed quite right. That was then. This was now.

The building was gone now. All that remained was the sea. Vast, blue, and open. The waves licked the coast line and before me chops turned white wit sea foam. Then it was gone again. And now the ocean front of small bar called - “The Festoon Inn,” appeared before us.

We walked up to the door and as I turned to look at the sea it was gone and I was there in a flash - inside the swanky upscale restaurant: patronage of the strangest quality all around us turned to look and as they did they received an ear full of Voltaire’s voice as we grazed past.

Breaking onward through like the waves from before then - I followed along with Voltari just ahead of me. Past the gaggles of people laughing. To my left in a small intermediate lobby was an entire football team - identically dressed in yellow stripes. As we walked further into the establishment entering a room with a large stage at the back of it with a letup sign that said, “Ashford Twins: Walkin’” and below the sign was the duo - in need of a chorus line. The difference between the two was their eyes - one was glazed over and malaise, a real dancer which appeared to me to be her being tired of her steps. A yawn barely escaped her mouth. The other dancer was a distinctly bolder lady, with a short brown bob hair.

When the professor stopped walking further - I had realized we were arriving at our destination.

We were outside another door - this one with fading metallic foil on it in the unmistakable shape of a shimmering star.

Reaching his hand up to rap on the door with his knuckles - Voltari paused and turning back to me he said, “This is who I want you to meet. And because now you’ve saved his tiger…wants to meet you, as well.”