You've Got Another Thing Coming

The chirping sound of bird song trilled through the trees. The green grass on the meadow whisked back and forth as a light warm breeze did its best to bend it to the ground. It was a peaceful picture, a landscape at ease in the middle of the day.
It was as if time had taken a siesta from its duties and decided to go on vacation somewhere cold and far, far away.

As if on cue, the bird song stopped. The singers took off and the trees bent back as an ear shattering scream pierced through the serenity.

We fell through the air like a pair of boulders from a cliff. We smacked against the trunks and got temporarily caught in branches on our way down.
It probably hindered our speed, but at the moment I would have been happier to land smack-bang on the hard ground and crack my scull.
It seemed more comfortable not to feel a thing instead of the constant tearing at my poor, exposed skin.

In spite of my wishes, I landed quite softly on my back.
The earth beneath me was damp and poofy, and the grass was thick. Even so, the impact made my lungs press together and I lost my air.
One thing that could also account for this was the fact that Rose had landed on top of me.

Her lovely hair fell into my eyes and tickled my face when she began to move. It made me sneeze harshly.

“Geez, Cal. Aren’t you just romantic?” she drawled as she wiped small speckles of my saliva from her perfect face.

She managed to make the gesture so graceful and elegant I could have sworn I heard the entire English National Ballet grind their teeth with jealousy.

“Would you mind?” I groaned and pushed against her thin shoulders. It was meant as a symbolic gesture, but the force in my strong man’s arms surprised me and I sent Rose flying.

She landed some good five-feet away from me, her face as stunned as mine.
I held up my hands in front of me, staring at my long fingers.
I let my gaze wander up my arms which were covered with reddish brown hair, and I shuddered.
The movement made my bicep twitch and I glared at it with an involuntary pride.

“What’d you do that for?” Rose’s tinker bell voice sounded upset, and I fastened my eyes at her petite frame as I tenderly straightened myself out.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to push you so hard”, I apologized. “I had no idea I’d be this strong as a man!”

Again, I glanced at my swelling bicep and marvelled at its size. Suddenly I felt seriously self-confident, and stood up a bit too fast, making the world swirl around me.

Rose said nothing, but glared at me. In one fluent motion she was at my side holding my arm in a steady grip, keeping me upright.

“It has nothing to do with you being a man”, she explained to me as the numbers of Rose-replicas were shimmering down into one half-solid person by my side. “It’s you being in the world of dreams. Since it’s all about your dreams, you can do anything here. You obviously wanted me to get off of you, so you sent me flying. Not the nicest thing to do, but hey...”

She trailed off as she began dusting me off. My dress was swaying back and forth, making it kind of drafty as the wind caught the skirt and made its best to transform it into a tube top.
I wailed, very femininely, and started to beat the skirt down.
Rose sighed and yanked at the hem of the dress, effectively keeping the skirt where it belonged.

“You’ve got nothing to be ashamed of”, she told me, and the question of how to interpret that statement made me quit my complaining for a little while.

Rose moved on to dust herself off, and soon she decided we were both as clean as we possibly could after falling from the sky and boxing with trees and wrestling with the ground.
Grabbing a vice-like hold of my hand, she dragged me towards the forest and through the trees.

We walked for what seemed about ten minutes before we came upon a gorge with a gentle river running down the middle at the bottom.

“There we are!” Rose exclaimed and jabbed a finger at a tiny sandbank.

I thought we had reached our destination, but as I looked closer at the figures standing on the sandbank, seemingly developed in an argument, I noticed a greenish blue, hideous piece of fabric swaying in the breeze by one of the persons.
Another, I noticed, was a tall blonde male and he was flailing his arms about, yelling something at the third and final person, whom I immediately recognized by the reddish brown hair and the large arms.

It was quite obvious to anyone watching, that it was none other than Rose, myself and someone yet unknown to me down at the sandbank.
The problem was, Rose and I were standing at the top of the gorge, looking down.
We were looking down at ourselves.

“Um, Rose…?” I poked her arm gently, careful not to be forceful again. “Why is there something wrong here?”

Rose’s head turned to face my own. “There’s nothing wrong here, Cal”, she stated. “This is just a picture from the future.”

“Oh”, I said. “Do you keep them around out of convenience, or do they just appear whenever you want them to?”

She laughed her irresistible laugh and patted me on the shoulder. She couldn’t reach any higher.

“It’s just a landmark, sweetie”, she explained. “I asked about the future, how we were going to get you…err, fixed, and the future answered me like this.”

“Who’d you ask? And who was that other blonde guy with us?” I asked, bewildered rather than informed.

Rose just gave me a look and said through the corner of her mouth: “Now you’re asking more than what’s good.”

I shrugged and decided to play along. Her previous explanations hadn’t been the best thus far, so why should this one be any different?

I watched anxiously as the three persons on the sandbank roared at each other, and in the end it was I who folded. The reddish brown head bowed to the ground, and soon after the vision faded into nothingness.
Left was nothing but me and Rose at the top of the gorge, staring down into the flowing river.

Rose tugged at one of the small hairs on my arm.
“Shall we get going?” she suggested, and I nodded, following her down the steep set of stairs that were carved into the living mountain, leading us down to the bottom.