Mountain Qualia

NaNoWriMo Day 8

A headache, a sore throat and lifeless limbs. The time Tipi had to worry about a torn toe nail was far in the past.

"You'll be fine, lumpy-dump," a familiar voice said behind him. Where was he? Muck stuck to his eyelids prevented him from opening them. He was lying on a soft mattress and the air seemed warm. A hand touched his shoulder, rolling Tipi on his back. Sharp sunlight penetrated his eyelids. Tipi forced his painful hands up his face to block the light.

Soft footsteps preceded the gearing sound of curtains opening. This welcomed an even brighter flow of sunlight into the room, causing a series of louder moans and mutterings.

"Rise and shine, dime-of-mine," the voice said, while Tipi was wondering whether the light beacons to the gates of heaven could be any brighter than this. He rubbed the dry and grainy bits of sleep out of his eyes and blinked several times with his hands before his eyes. He rose from the bed. The room had all the features of a hotel room. A single double bed this time, a small writing desk, bed-side table with a bible and a nightlight, a single wardrobe and a small bathroom. Other than the bathroom, everything was wood paneled. Again, there was no television. But these things were not the most striking feature of this hotel room. While ordinary for most rooms, it was very odd that other than Tipi there was nobody else present.

"Hello?" Tipi said. "Friendly spirit bathing me in nature's glorious light, are you there?"

She was not there. Tipi stumbled into the bathroom and drank water from the tap. Such intense lack of taste in the water. Great. He then walked towards the windows. Before him, a flowing green meadow draped over hills transitioned into pine wood forests that disappeared into the clouds above.

Tipi was no longer where he last remembered. Great. Now there are two episodes that he could not recall living through. How he got here and, well, the rest of his old life. From the looks of the hotel room and the scenery outside, this may well have been the Austrian alps. He looked around for signs of written language, grabbed the book with the large cross on its cover from the nightstand and opened it.

"Aha, German!" he said, flipping the pages like there was an animation hidden inside. "And French, English, and Dutch, and Italian, Spanish, Russian, Chinese?" He closed the book again. He still betted on being in  Austria. The three stooges wanted him to go there, right? They must have kidnapped him after he took off from his conversation with the buddhist hedgling.

His moral compass flung around. Those bastards had kidnapped him, drugged him, and transported him across the globe. He checked himself out in the mirror to determine everything appeared as expected. Other than being butt-naked, there seemed to be nothing amiss.

His kidnappers, which Tipi assumed were the same three musketeers that had been so eager to help him were behind his sudden appearance here had left him a new set of clothes. Tipi smiled after finding more regular attire for a nice summer hike in nature. Cargo pants and gray cotton shirt, woolen socks and sturdy shoes. "No more Russian bath slippers!" Tipi said into the mirror. He got dressed, finishing his generic look with a black baseball cap and cheap-looking sun-glasses.

What was their plan, though? He was mainly thinking about Alex. Lenny seemed to be too annoyed and cranky to come up with grand ideas himself, and Ford acted like a liability in most stressful situations. If there was a mastermind at work here, it was Alex, or maybe someone is in contact with him. They had mentioned a fan-club of some sort. But that could also be a euphemism for an organization with different intentions from cheering on their guru. Had there been any actual proof that Tipi had been a great guru at all? He had accepted their story about being enlightened while he was still grasping at any information about his life before the toe stump. Now, it seemed not so likely at all. 

Random strangers had harassed him in the streets and people seemed to recognize him as some guru. A lousy one though. Maybe Tipi was a charlatan and was squatting on a large sum of money taken from naïve believers, or perhaps he pissed people off by stealing their wives. He had read stories of Babas, Bhagwans and other cult leaders. These so-called followers of him might be after this undeserved treasure of his. Why else do they so desperately want me here? Was it his enlightenment they cared about or this secret place in the mountain that nobody but him seemed to know its whereabouts of?

If there was a factoid of truth in these lines of thought, Tipi had to be on his guard. Yes, they had provided him with clothing, shelter, and transportation, but that was just because they wanted him to lead them somewhere. He checked the room for microphones or camera's.

His search ended at a painting above the dresser. He had checked the frame for devices but had not taken in the composition itself. It showed two ragged children leaning against a rock, looking very sad at a goat that lay at their feet. He leaned in on the painting. "Hello?" he said, squinting his eyes.

He shook his head and checked if there was anything left in the room that he might need, which was an simple canvas backpack. Then he stepped out into the hallway.