The Universe's Mixer

The room was nice. It was almost like the guest room at Alison's, but it was not. Alison's guest room is neat and clean, but this room has been decorated with flowers and stuffed things. Helena likes flowers and stuffed things, but she was instantly wary because this was not Alison's guest room and she does not like surprises.

She found clothes, soft and pretty like the other things in the room, and put them on. She walked out of the room and found a small house, or an apartment. It was an apartment. It was clean and comfortable, and there was food on the counter. Helena immediately went to the food and began to eat, because that is the smart thing to do and the food looked good. As she finished a bunch of grapes, she saw the paper. The writing was not in English. The letters were Cyrillic, and the language was Ukranian. She knew this language. She read the words, then read them again. She crumpled the letter in her hand.

The letter said that her babies are not in her stomach any more. Her babies are safe, but they cannot be here with her right now. Her science babies will be returned when she leaves, whenever that is. The letter was signed, "The City."

The apartment did not feel so nice now. Helena was angry, and if she did not have babies in her stomach then she wanted to drink. She left the apartment without locking it and went to see where she was now that she had no babies and no family.

The place was old and unused. Eric could see that clearly just by observing the thickness of the blanket of dust that coated everything. A mixture of cobwebs lay here and there, untouched by the weeks and years that the place had sat. To be honest and fair, Eric had not even been aware that this place existed. With all of his gifts and every clear picture from the sky, neither of them had noticed it. Too many other things had presented themselves and the shifting of the buildings and constant motion of the streets made keeping track of things a bit more difficult than he liked.

But Eric supposed that true discovery was what came with constant rotation and the unknown. It was particularly excellent in his case considering that his need for a distraction was far too great.

And so the finding of this treasure was of the utmost delight. It would need a good cleaning out, furniture would need to be replaced and it seemed that the machinery was due for a good oiling as well.

Moving further into the facility, Eric approached what seemed to be old equipment. These were things he was familiar with. He knew them from the events of his life before. The sound board, for instance, played a vital role in the structure of sound. Beyond that, through the great glass windows were rooms padded to stifle sound. To maximize the wavelengths while muffling the noise to those outside so the recordings weren't compromised.

A pair of headphones lay haphazardly on the floor of the studio. A broken microphone hung from the center of the ceiling and dangled enticingly.

Eric's dark eyes took in everything. In his mind he could visualize the past, see himself and his band recording their album. All of the time and effort put into perfecting his dreams, all of the laughter and jokes, the cigarette smoke...and it was all coming back to him bit by bit. Little by little he was warming to the place. It had been abandoned and now it was his. God forbid anyone come to try to claim it, any part of it, because he would kill anyone that tried. This was his place now, his solace, his sanctuary. It was the next step in the path that he had strayed so far from.

It was almost like home.