Chapter Three - Trespassing

 

Aristide of Firewright

Chapter Three 

 

Written by: Arash Mashhadi

Illustrations by: Parmida Vahdatnia

Edited by: Selva Safineh

CHAPTER THREE

Trespassing

 

  The darkness had befallen the forest of Firewright and the moonlight gave a silver shimmer to every branch and leaf.

  Aristide had been walking for as long as he could remember at a slow pace. It must’ve been the entire day. He could barely keep himself on his feet but he pushed further nonetheless. He wasn’t sure where he was going, but he went on.

  His feet hurt. The leather shoes he wore were two sizes too big for him, as they originally belonged to Philo, like most of his clothes. He had gotten used to wearing oversized clothes at this point.

  He thought Philo was there to stay. But he lost him all over again. He thought about his family together. They were drinking and toasting, all four of them. Mother, pa, Philo, and Aristide.

  They must be together now, he thought. That is if the tales pa told him about the life after this one were true.

  Thinking about that calmed him. Maybe he should’ve been there. Maybe he should’ve returned to Firewright and faced the Purhassis as Philo did. But something pushed him forward. He wasn’t quite sure what it was, if it was all in his head, or it was something he couldn’t wrap his head around just yet.

  As he walked and his thought bubble circled in his curly head, out of the blurry darkness…

  Aristide heard an animal growling at him.

  It was no ordinary animal, something tall, towering, with large horns on its head.

  He could only see the silhouette. Then it opened its mouth completely and spoke.

  Is that dinner, I’m smelling?

  Aristide collapsed on the floor as his legs gave in. The last words he thought before passing out were,

  Guess that’s how I die.

***

  Aristide opened his eyes… and then closed them immediately because of direct sunlight shining in them. He whimpered a bit and rubbed his eyes, sat up, and blinked a few times.

  “What about the eggs – Philo?”

In a split second, he realized all that had happened to him yesterday were real events. Sure, the day started with scrambled eggs on the floor but continued with a flying ship and soldiers parachuting down on his village. Those happened, they were real. The day ended with him walking in the darkness of the forest confronted by…

  Well, maybe not all of the day was real.

  It wasn’t that far-fetched. He didn’t have food, had swum in sewage water to escape out of town, and maybe had bumped his head in a few places while falling through the sewer pipe.

  He shielded his palms over his eyes to see better. He was inside a structure… a wooden one. It didn’t look like a house. It was round but very huge, very tall.

  the sunlight was shining directly above his head, through a hole carved in the wood, so it must’ve been midday.

  Around him were containers filled with fruits and mushrooms. Aristide stood up. No one else was there with him… yet. His stomach was growling and his steps were weak as he walked closer to them.

  There was a knife on top of the cupboards, nailed to the wall. It was a carving knife like the one Pa taught him to make stick figures with. The handle of this one was a turquoise blue stone with circles engraved on it. His Pa used to have one just like that.

  His stomach kept rumbling like there were Vikings at a deadly brawl inside. He went to pick a fruit to eat, one he didn’t know the name of. He took it out of the jar and carefully held it in both hands. It looked like a pear but was much bigger and plushier.

  He opened his jaw and was ready to take the biggest bite of his life when he heard someone yell, “No!”

  He dropped the fruit, and it slowly rolled on the ground and hit something by the door.

  Aristide turned and looked in the direction of the voice.

  He saw a pair of paws on the ground. He slowly looked up to see the rest and saw…

  A monster.

  He was the tallest being Aristide ever saw, the large horns on his head towering over Aristide were reaching the roof of this peculiar house. He was standing on two legs His skin seemed covered in dark blue fur. His eyes, however, were big and in contradiction with the horns on his head and the fangs that stuck out of his mouth. They resembled the innocent eyes of a sheep, but the fangs and horns were that of a predator.

  He was carrying some fish, wrapped in a leaf.

  “Good. Shouldn’t have eaten that,” the monster said, in a tone that wasn’t monstrous at all. “One bite and spikes come out of it to tear at whoever is biting.”

  He pressed on it and instantly tiny spikes came out of the fruit.

  “You… can talk,” Aristide said, with his mouth hanging open.

  “Why, we have a scientist on our hands,” said the monster as he put down the leaf-wrapped fish. “Alright. You look like you should be dead already. Here’s some fish I caught this morning.”

  “Are you real?” asked Aristide. He started scratching at his head through his sticky hair. “I must’ve hit my head or something. Or the shock of…”

  “Will you stop babbling nonsense and join me for breakfast or not?”

  The monster opened the leaf, and the wet fish slowly tumbled out. Some had a bit of life remaining in them. They were flapping away in a desperate attempt to find any nearby source of water.

  It was a heartbreaking sight for Aristide. Never got quite over the “it’s just fish, Ari!” that Pa and Philo told him. They were still alive, and that’s what bothered Aristide. It wasn’t right.

  “I have to leave…” said Aristide. “Don’t know where to.”

  “Eat this first, scientist boy. I don’t want you to die in my territory. Then you can leave to wherever you want.”

  “Am I a prisoner?”

  “What use do you think you have for me exactly, kid?” the monster said, offended by Aristide’s line of questioning.

  “You can eat me.”

  “Not for the life of me. You fellows stink. Appalling. You in particular stink even more than the average human.”

  Aristide raised his right arm and buried his nose there for an inhale, something he regretted after a few seconds. He coughed and nearly threw up.

  “See? I slept outside last night because of the horrible stench.”

  “It’s because of the sewer water.”

  “Sewer water?!” the monster couldn’t believe it. “Primitive, you folk.”

  Aristide sat down in front of the fish.

  “I can’t eat these,” said Aristide. He didn’t particularly like fried fish either, so the fish being half alive didn’t help at all. “These aren’t cooked.”

  The monster sighed as deeply as he could, “Should I roast them with butter, my good sir, or would vegetable oil suffice?” said the monster as sarcastically as he could.

  “How do you know what butter is?” asked Aristide.

  “I read about it in books. There was a torn cookbook I found once. You’d be surprised to know that the most common food people leave behind is their jams and butter. Your children are stupid and slow, and most of them lose their sandwiches on picnics. They leave it someplace to grab it later, and usually forget where it was.”

  “Butter would do, then.”

  “Well, it was merely a joke. I don’t have butter on me. I know what it is, but it’s rare.”

  “Umm,” Aristide said. “Vegetable oil is fine.” Not sure he had any other choice.

  “Actually—”

  “Nevermind. Roasting them over the fire would do.”

  The monster took off without saying anything, just a bit of huff and puff. Aristide followed him outside the house, and he held his breath for a good couple of seconds at the sight he saw.

  The house he was in was a treehouse, and the tree was enormous, branches reaching all over and out of sight, its trunk looking as tough as a mountain. He felt he was transported into the setting of one of his books. Actually no, this was even better.

  Birds chirped all over, squirrels squeaked and life went on. None of the things happening a few miles north in Firewright mattered, Aristide thought. And he found comfort in that thought.

  Aristide ran around a bit and breathed in deeply the fresh scent of grass and pine trees. He circled the golden sunlight and enjoyed the moment.

  After a while, he returned to the monster, who had put three of the fish on a stick, and was cooking them over a fire. Aristide took a seat next to him, watching.

  “Where did you come from?” he asked, observing the monster.

  “Where did you come from?” asked the monster back, with a sideways look.

  Aristide got what he meant. “My name is Aristide. I’m from Firewright.”

  “Nice to know you, Aristide. Now…” he picked the stick of fish and handed it to Aristide. “Finish this, and be on your way, please.”

  Aristide grabbed hold of each end of the stick with each hand and started biting away at the fish with a furious appetite.

  “This – is very – delicious,” Aristide said, between his bites.

  “My mo –“ the monster stopped himself in the middle of his sentence. He stayed silent, looking at the heart of the fire which was still burning.

  “Your voice is different,” Aristide said. “From last night I mean. Last night you sounded scary.”

  It took the monster a couple of seconds to snap out of his gaze.

  “That was my menacing voice. I use it to run you folks out of my territory,” The monster said.

  “Ah, I see. I like your normal voice better.” Aristide lowered the stick for a second. “Why don’t you want others in your territory?”

  “Why?” the monster said, not very happy he got asked that question. “Why, you ask? Because the last time I remember your folk in here they –”

  He grew silent for a second. “Did you hear that?” he asked of Aristide, turning his head around to look far distant into the forest.

  Aristide tried to listen, as hard as he could. His human ears couldn’t compete with the giant ears the monster had on his head, but he could hear something in the distance, even though it was faint. It seemed there was someone in the distance, whose words you could barely make out, but one word was pretty clear in the hodgepodge of his muffled words,

“…Help…”