Le Moulin à Vent au Carrefour Bhemins [Part 2]

by Rhombus Ticks

TC is standing in line with his wife for Notre Dame.  It is a two hour wait.  It begins to rain and become very cold.  TC, being in a good mood, is King of the Worlding it, holding his lovely wife and laughing.  He's kind of a loon.

The rain turns to sleet.

TC is still laughing.

Julia makes a comment about letting people take shelter inside.

TC says,"I know, right.  It's like they should let people take Sanctuary inside."

Julia can't help but laugh, despite a full day of TC enjoying his ability to translate "Who Cut the Cheese" thanks to French Lessons from Freakazoid.  Amazingly, despite the fact that it is quite cold and TC is still laughing like a loon and making others pleased (as compared to wanting to kill him) he then says

"Well at least it can't get any WORSE" in a tone of voice knowing how incredibly stupid it is.  This time everyone looks at him like he's insane, but laugh anyway.  Nine minutes later the sun comes out and a good hour is held by all.  Then a short while later, they went up 200 FEET OF STAIRS, spent twenty minutes on the roof and then went down two hundred feet of stairs.

What? You though that they were going to get to see the inside of Notre Dame?

That was the other line.

Duh.

Except that that this is not all that there is to the story.  There was something I was supposed to write on Saturday night that I felt important, the night before Easter.

I forgot.

There was a giant storm in the sky as it washed over the city of Paris I saw a timeline that should not be rising us from the ashes of that dark cloud, endable only by setting right what I had done wrong, but now it was not so simple.  Now I would have to undo that timeline which had been set in motion, eldritch vermillion lightning parageing off of the Eiffle Tower again and again as the city shook.

I struck a bargain with Perversity, as he snickered behind his hand.  "Do you think you're him?" He asked.

"Who?"  I said, paying the asked price to bring the package back across the Bridge as I needed.  There are many talents I possess, but this was not one of them.

"You are not the Terran mirror of TC."  Perversity smiled and snipped the cigar that he didn't even light as he put in his mouth in a positively Freudean way.

"I know that."  I didn't.  I felt a bond with him.

"There is a bond alright, but not that kind.  What is the family motto?  Your family motto."

"Nam et Carcosa? What about it?"

Perversity just laughed.  "Never mind Rhombus.  Never you mind.  So you got your package.  Deliver it and have at it.  But while you do, why not stop

at the Musee d'Osay and have a look at the paintings on the fifth floor.  Ask yourself if you see anything familiar about them?"

I did as Perversity Directed.

At first I couldn't see anything.  I delivered the package necessary to undo the damage I had done, stopping the lighting and causing the dark cloud on the city to slowly reverse itself.

At first I couldn't understand what Perversity was talking about.  They looked like perfectly ordinary, albeit spectacular paintings.

But as I walked through the moments of the rain to the museum, at the same time as being at the museum, feeling each chill of each drop pass through me between the line at Notre Dame and the Osay, I couldn't help but...wonder...

There was something off.  Something wrong.  I realized that Redwin and Emmit, both born of the same mother, twins, had the same height and physical features as TC.  And they both spent all their time in Earth.  I could not tell if it was physical or projected like me.  Why was that? I could see so many things, but until now had been blind to the appearance of TC or the poets that surrounded him.  And, as I thought about it, why would a mere fascination with stories make me want to hang around someone who could no longer write them himself?

This thing I had to write, I could not do it for him.  He had to do it.  The character was as much of a reflection of him as Redwin and Emmit were.  By delivering the package

I had solved TC's problem, the needs of the one, but become disconnected myself.  The inability to post on an Earth facebook page left something missing in me.  I looked in a mirror and saw this looking back.

That was in my eyes.  I saw his eyes.

But as I stepped back, I saw more.  Much more.

What in the hell was I?!