Other Fan Fiction ❯ The Poets' Walk ❯ The Poets' Walk ( Chapter 1 )

The Poets' Walk

 

The Poets' Walk. It suffuses one with a feeling of peace and tranquility, the black and white contrasts gradually softening into colors supplied by the imagination. Two young humans discovered this one night, walking through the New York museum. Stepping close to the photograph, the adolescents murmured a quiet greeting to the old picture, and opened their minds to its reply. The whispers rose and fell like the tide, greeting them quietly. The picture said that if they would listen to it, it would tell them its story. Naturally, the image did not speak out loud, but in their heads. They solemnly accepted the generous offer and allowed those ponderous whispers to fill them, wiping away the hindrance of mere physical sight, the subtle music of the murmuring voice drawing them closer, ever closer. They found themselves standing only inches away from the picture and only had time to blink before they were swept into the world of the photograph with the sensation of being towed through a dark tunnel. They were falling… falling… falling…

 

Suddenly they were standing in Central Park, Manhattan. They could see the tree limbs swaying in the wind and hear the rustling of leaves and the soft hiss of water drops hitting the pavement. Even though it was raining, they weren't getting wet. Looking up, they saw the black, old-fashioned umbrella that the boy was holding. Upon looking down at herself, the young girl noticed that her clothes have changed. She was now wearing a white wool cardigan, an ankle length brown skirt of cotton, and brown leather ladies' shoes. The boy tugged at the too-tight collar of his white cotton shirt and undid the buttons on the cuffs of his black wool jacket. The clothes that he wore were casual in the day and age they had been taken to, but they were formal in the time that he and his companion came from. His black pants matched the jacket and his shoes were real black leather.

 

A man strode past them, dressed in a similar fashion to the boy. He was holding an umbrella identical to theirs in one hand, and several loose sheets of paper in the other. Graceful handwriting is scrawled across the papers that the man was reading silently to himself, moving his lips occasionally. The two adolescents looked at each other, and simultaneously “stepped” out of the astoundingly lucid and realistic vision. They quietly said their goodbyes to the picture and make their way carefully out of the closed museum, walking through several walls in the process.

 

“Well, Kit? What do you think?” the young girl asked, doing a few stretches to make sure that all of her atoms were back where they belonged. She rubbed at her bare arms, willing away the slightly eerie feeling of moving through flimsy curtains of cobwebs. Walking through walls always gave her that feeling. The boy, Kit, looked at her and shrugged. “I dunno. I mean, there is a man in the picture, but he might not have been the poet.”

 

Nita snorted. “Please. You know as well as I do that the picture couldn't have been lying. It used the Speech, and it's impossible to lie if you're talking in the Speech.”

 

“Nita, we still don't know why we're on errantry. Talking to the picture was supposed to give us a hint, but I think that we might have to talk to Rhiow and her team. Given how realistic that vision was, I'm beginning to think that this might have something to do with Gates. Possibly even timeslides.” Nita swore. Kit smiled wryly. “My sentiments exactly. Meanwhile, we'd better get home.”

 

Nita sighed and looked back at the closed doors to the museum. “All right. Call me tomorrow?”

 

“Sure thing. See ya.”

 

“'Night.”

 

The two wizards teleported to their homes to rest and see what the morning would bring, both of them reflecting on the rewards and drawbacks of wizardry. There were worlds to be discovered, but right now what they needed was a solution to the problem they were being put “on call” to solve. Only time would tell them what needed to be fixed. Entropy was running, but they were gradually neutralizing its effects. Slowly but surely, they were saving the universe.