“Well, Adam, I’ve got good news, and bad news…” Cara, the humor team’s editor, reluctantly admitted to a usually animated ginger-headed columnist. “Which would you like to hear first?”
“Oh, uh… the bad, I suppose.” He responded, quite sadly.
“You can’t use your time travel machine. You’ve been grounded from use of it for a month. Senior Editor orders.”
“I still don’t see why…”
“Look, Adam, you should know better. Don’t use clay as a platform to sell stuff. It’s that simple. The Senior Editors didn’t take too well to the fact you were gonna allow a bunch of people to rip open the fabric of spacetime, either.”
Adam sighed. “Well, then, I guess I’m gonna have a hard time making articles this month.”
“Not so fast, Adam. I managed to talk the SE’s into letting you do some community service,” Cara said with a smile.
Adam lifted his head. “You say that like it’s a good thing.”
She tossed him a small bunch of keys. “I don’t know, you tell me.” She grinned as he looked at the attached tag. It read, clay Archives Storage Keys.
“As long as you tidy up a little bit, you’re free to explore the entire thing. I know you’ve been wanting to get in there and look around a bit for ideas and cool stuff, so now you’re pretty free to. Just make sure to, you know, actually clean.”
“Cara, you deserve a raise. Thanks a billion.” Adam smiled and slid the keys into his pocket.
“Actually, I could use more gummy bears,” Cara said with a grin. “But first, you should probably do something for the Senior Editors to be happy about. Like a good deep cleaning of an old musty closet.”
“On it!” Adam said, quickly rising from his chair, then giving his Humor Editor a brisk salute before turning and dashing toward the closet.
—
Lemme give you some information, reader.
This closet, it’s full of old stuff. Old stacks of paper, old projects, and a bunch of clothes piled in the fashion corner of the Arts & Culture portion. Adam, having taken all this in, sighed, and slowly began to clean. After half an hour, he had only cleaned up a little bit of the entire A&C section and was considering blowtorching the rest of it when he thought,
“Hey, the Humor section might be fun. I’ll take a quick break.” Adam said, trotting off in search of the fun faction.
Famous last words, by the way.
After a very close encounter with a very tall hat, he took a right at Albuquerque and found himself in another pile of old stuff. After looking around, he decided to be thankful that the A&C section had even bothered to organize stuff by piles. Since cleaning it was pretty much hopeless without about twelve all-nighters, he decided to root through the stuff to see if anything cool was hidden around inside.
He poked some piles, opened some boxes, and sat down when something finally caught his eye. It was another box, initiated by J.M. This property is not to be used without the express permission of…
“Well, my box now!” Adam quipped. He opened the box and gasped at what was inside.
“Woah! Sciency junk!” He reached inside.
Remember what I said about famous last words? Well, that’s another good one.
Of course, he pressed a button. Then he disappeared off the face of the earth. Great job.
—
No one could match him, no man or beast, none in the Northern Countries could equal Corin Thunder-Fist as a boxer.
“Voiceless words. That’s nice.” Adam mumbled as he sailed through a hazy sea of nothingness. He then landed, hands first, forcing him to do a sweet parkour ninja roll right into the tree in front of him. He thumped to the ground, rubbing his head and looking around him.
Odd place. It’s so green! And that air… He breathed in, filling his lungs with the clear, fresh perfume of morning grass and the far-off musky smell of a wood fire. He had been facing the tree, so he turned around, set his back to it, and took in the whole startlingly beautiful view.
A huge green valley, with trees swaying, so soft and peaceful it felt like a whole new world. The serenity was awe-inspiring, and Adam felt like he could sit there for many an hour, taking in the beautiful sight.
The crisp sound of a whistling man broke through the deafening silence. But, it wasn’t too loud, and it wasn’t too bad. In fact, it was probably the best whistling he had ever heard in his life.
Too bad all whistling turns out to be terribly annoying. Adam stood up and called out.
“Who goes there, knave? Who forces themselves upon this beautiful silence?!?”
He paused, suddenly, reflecting on his own words. Ok, so no more of that… He looked down the valley, and saw a sandy-haired young man in his late twenties coming up the hill toward him. He was lanky-ish, but there was enough muscle around his arms to tell Adam, who happens to be an avid fighting/parkour analyst, that this man had enough power in his arms to knock a brick off its block.
Sandy man addressed ginger boy with a smile.
“And who’re you to defend the silence of the forest? This ground is no one’s home, and as prince of this fine country, I think I might whistle here if I so choose.”
Should I pick a fight…? Adam quietly queried to himself. He had suffered a nasty knock on the head, but even now, the air seemed to…
Air? Why would the air be so… oooh…
As if transported, he understood pretty much everything. He was in Narnia. And this was the prince the faceless voice had spoken of.
And now, armed with such knowledge, he could make a response.
“True enough! Everyone who walks here has the right to do so, I suppose. I’ve hardly been here long myself, but… the stillness was calming and peaceful.”
The prince had been eyeing him for a little while now, and Adam knew that his clothes weren’t exactly Narnia Dwarfish wholesale. He now spoke quickly:
“Well, as you can see,” Adam said, motioning to his Costco-bought tan cargo pants, “I’m not from around here. However, I’m no threat, and I’d actually love to help you.” He extended his hand. “I’m Adam.”
“And I,” said the prince, “Am Prince Corin of Arkenland. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
“I already knew that,” Adam mumbled under his breath.”
To be continued in PART 2!
Photo Credit: Author, https://pamirtimes.net/2015/02/23/7-beautiful-photographs-of-the-magnificent-minimarg-valley-astore/.