Here We Go Again

"We all spend half our time
Running around, fucked out of our minds,
And we spend the other half
Sleeping at desks and praying just to get back."



Oh, what lovely times were had today.

*coughsarcasmcough*


No, actually, it went well enough at first. Nick - that's Sage's name, btw, I finally bugged him enough to get him to let me use it (Me: "It's, like, the world's most common name, no one will figure out who you are!" Him: "Fine! Geeze..." XD) - Nick came straight over and picked me up after god-knows-how-many straight hours of driving from Texas, so I drove the rest of the way to Kay's. He slept, I'm thankful to say. Looked like he needed it too.

When we got there... yeah, I could feel it. It was... not quite as brain-warping as the middle-of-nowhere house, but it was freaky. Needless to say, Nick took one look at the place, sort of cringed a bit, and said flatly, "I need a bigger bokken."

He had just woken up from a very nice 2-hour nap, so I don't really blame him.


It didn't take long to figure out that all the charms Kay had ever set on her house - for protection, health, prosperity, etc. - were still in place. That was the good news. The better news was that they also seemed to be working in whatever counterpart of her house that Kay was currently at. That part was the tip-off, actually; after that, we knew what to look for.

For example, even though the electricity was clearly connected and working, none of the lights or appliances would turn on. One of the lightbulbs even exploded when we got stubborn with it. There was water in the pipes, but the faucets wouldn't turn either, like there was some kind of invisible blockage. On a hunch, I took a sharpie and marked the water level in all the toilets. When I went to look again a couple hours later, the water had gone down about 3 inches.

What does all this mediocrity mean? Well, darling readers, I'm sure you remember Nick mentioning how this plane of existence and others are connected, right? Well, here's a copy for those who don't feel like clicking on the link:

For better or for worse, the astral plane corresponds with our physical world. The reverse is also true. Any time there's a difference in one, it has an affect on the other. That house that just keeps falling apart no matter how hard you work on it might have that problem through shoddy construction. Or there's a vast crater on the astral plane, and the physical world is tearing trying to match up with the astral plane. God only knows how many mighty castles on the Astral Plane want to break apart because there's no corresponding structure in the physical world to support it. You know all those images of elves in their tree houses and giant tree villages? It's not just because they like trees, it's really easy to create that kind of astral structure out of a vast swath of existing tree spirits.

Scientifically speaking, it's a form of quantum entanglement. Mystically speaking, Kay is haunting her own house.

One final test early in the evening clinched it. I took that sharpie (a bright red one, as it happens, but I had a good feeling about strong colors) and wrote in big letters on a nice, blank section of wall, "Hangin' in there, Kay?" And added a smiley for good measure. Oh, and we both signed it. No need for poor Kay to think she had a poltergeist or something.

Turned out she could see the message once she fiddled with her perception a little via spells and things. Awesome. And soon after that, another message appeared - in purple ink, no less - "No Jersey Devil this time, dammit."

Okay then! We had a confirmed constant to work with, and it was still relatively early in the evening. So we got to work.


In a nutshell, it's all about synchronicity, about harmony. See, all these different planes had somehow gotten tangled up right around the area of her house, along with some "ooey gooey astral bits" (which is apparently a technical term). In order to bring everything back down to normal levels, and hopefully put Kay back where she belongs, we had to make the different planes line up again.

Around here, by the way, is where I start quoting "Of Mice And Men". Particularly the bit about their best-laid plans. (Glory be, a literary joke from a music enthusiast. Shaddap, we could all use a laugh.)

Nick did his shaman-y thing where he set up a circle of candles, burned some of the incense we found (sorry Kay)... and did this weird-ass dance to "Sweep the Leg", by No More Kings. I shit you not. No kidding, there was cosmic awesome going on with whatever it is he does, but goddamn, he can look downright silly while doing it. Which is most of the reason why I opted not to join him. -_-U

Instead, I went around the house doing my own thing, which was mostly detail work. If I found a ripple of dimensional weirdness, I stopped and smoothed it out. I'm getting pretty good at it, if I do say so myself. I also kept Kay company via the message wall... which I've promised to help re-paint when this is all over. The things I do for friendship and world-saving... god, I'm even starting to sound like them. This is what exposure to these two highly sarcastic people does to me, dammit!

At the end of the day, though, nothing we did worked. Nick did his shaman thing, I did my empath thing, and Kay did her witch thing (which included helping to mirror objects on both sides - such as smashing her counterpart to our exploded lightbulb - though it didn't seem to affect things much), but nothing got accomplished. Oh sure, the dimensions got smoothed out, and Nick is now headache-free. But Kay is still stuck over there. We're running out of ideas, and she's running out of water.




So here we are. It's summer, school's out, work doesn't start up again for another couple weeks, and I'm clear to go wherever I want as long as I pay my own way and keep up communications with home. I've been sitting here writing this out for the past few hours. Kay said she was going to sleep pretty early on, and Nick conked out a couple hours ago. Normally he's just as big an insomniac as I am, but he's had a rough few weeks.

M seems to be doing alright. It's really great to know he's safe.

Tony is missing, and Cathy is in trouble. It's infuriating that there's nothing I can do to help.

Guess is still around. So is Alex.

And Michelle... I couldn't say anything. What is there to say? She's my best friend, and I'll stand by that. I'll even give that she made an impossible choice, and made it successfully by not hesitating. But there's nothing else positive about what she did, nothing even neutral. So I'm just going to leave it at that.


Not much else in the way of news. Luckily, I think I'm finally tired.