Mad and Amused

1.       Part One

Things diabolical are not always of the devil.  At the moment the most devilish thing in sight was a door knob. Yes. Madline wished it was a joke too. She’d been stuck here for quite some time, yet time here was not a straight line. It was more linear, an ensemble of events responsible for things going bang.

Muse scratched his brow, “Turn all the way and then push, right? No wait. Don’t tell me.’

She pressed her lips together, smearing an invisible lipstick, and tried to make a shape appear. No such luck. All around them were patched grey, atmosphere. She thought patched because the thick grey resemblance of air was scattered. It floated, concentrated in areas, and was vacant in other spaces, leaving ashen trails behind.

There were no objects except one. Muse stood before it, a bronze door. It was ordinary in a way that it lacked ornaments, adorned in mediocre gleam and had an equally drab bronze knob.

“ Pushing alone was a failure,” he counted off a finger, “ Pressing got me nowhere;” he counted off his thumb, ” Pushing up and down-well,” he spread his hands , they were cloaked briefly in grey then hung at his sides, unharmed and visible.

Madline was all out of sighs, a few steps behind him and sounds were starting to seep in. I heard the loud VOOM of a beach buggie skidding across the asphalt. The more subtle sounds were not there yet. They will take their time and when they get there, this place will be out of time.

Muse flexed his hand. She saw the play of muscles on his back quiz in anticipation; his palm cupped the bronze knob, closing around its round body. He coaxed it to turn and a soft click opened the door.

Muse’s head, a mess of brown wavy hair popped in for the view on the other side.

She snuck up behind, meant to ask what was up and stopped short. The resilient atmosphere they’ve been stuck in yielded to new ardent smells. There was the sharp, sweet scent of paprika, mixed in with the smell of grass after rain and fresh baked bread.

The was an element integrated and foreign and so familiar-

“Ah, you need to go,” Muse popped back in, spun around with his hand clutching the knob to keep the door ajar and blocking the view beyond by his slim frame.

“What’re you up to?”

“This and that. Off you go now.”

“I’m not-“

Muse snapped his fingers. The ground beneath her rattled, the bits of earth disintegrating in a blink of an eye. Just a blink and he vanished. Where they had been vanished and she fell. A jolt hit her stomach full blast, feeling queasy, it wasn’t the first nor the last time I would fall, yet my heart skipped a beat.

The void engulfed everything, it seemed to beacon in the night and whisper “Here Let me have you.”

She turned, her back arched to give enough leverage, where there was no gravity arms and legs locked in a dance to avoid the rails of the spiral stairs. The rails were not forever though they want to appear as such. Woosahh, impetus, momentum pushing her faster and so much closer to the ground. She could no longer pretend calm; she’ll break all her bones if-

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