Otherworld

OTHERWORLD

By Laura Bogner

Calliope slept fitfully. Winter in Joshua Tree had been unusually cold and the wind howled through the windows in her cabin as she tossed and turned pulling the covers around her like a mummy. She had been to The Palms earlier that evening. Corona, the beer not the virus was on special but these days it seemed the virus was all anyone talked about. 

Millions of people around the world had died, businesses big and small had been closed forever, people were protesting against racial injustice across the globe and the United States was divided over just about everything. Even the smallest thing like wearing a mask to avoid giving and getting the deadly virus was resulting in hand-to-hand combat in PTA and community meetings across the country.

Calliope was homesick. She was a long way from home and although she would never admit it, she missed her mom. The last time she had seen her mother they had fought. "It's time for you to come home." Her mother had ordered but Calliope like most millennials was stubborn and she refused. At home, her mother ruled the planet, but hers were big shoes to fill and Calliope was not ready.

  She played a song on the jukebox. It was one of her favorites. She danced a strange little off-kilter jig to 53 Miles West of Venus by the B52's. She hoped the 80's music would replace the melancholy that was haunting her and drown out the obnoxious rowdy group at the bar that was annoying her. 

They had arrived earlier, a tourbus full of midwesterners wearing Make America Great Again merchandise. They were celebrating something big and it sounded like they were planning on a trip.

"We're going to take back the country!" A burly guy with a beer belly and long bushy beard shouted while a woman in a Fauci is a Fascist sweatshirt was she was going on and on about how the virus was a hoax created by Bill Gates so he could rule the world.

"You should have Budweiser on special not Corona. This is America God-Damit!" The woman in the Fauci shirt's husband harassed the bartender. " American First!" Her husband pounded on the bar like a caveman the bar. "Build the Wall, Build The Wall!" He chanted, waiting for the rest of their group to join in, but they were too busy looking at a map of the Capital building.

The bartender shook her head and moved to the other end of the bar to wait on a young couple in expensive cowboy hats . They had just closed on a house in Pioneertown and were planning to turn it into an airbnb. They both wore masks, their mouths moving like puppets as talked excitedly about where to put the container pool.

Calliope's waved at her friend Mimi who had just walked into the bar. Mimi had just gotten her hair done earlier that day at the world famous Beauty Bubble. Her hairdresser Jeff had resisted at first but Mimi had insisted. She was a high school teacher at Yucca Valley High and she was finding it harder and harder to corral her students' attention on Zoom. 

"I need something wild" Mimi begged. "Something that will get the kid's attention!"

"Honey", Jeff waved his scissors in the air like a wand. "I'm an artiste, not a miracle worker."

  "You look like a sexy poodle!" Mimi's boyfriend Jose scruffed her freshly permed pink mullet. He pulled her in close for a passionate kiss, cupping her ass in his hands. "Well, that's perfect." Mimi stroked Jose's shiny black flattop. "Because you look like a sexy Panther." She bit his ear and then pulled him out onto the dance floor.

Calliope was happy she had such great friends. She was happy The Palms had reopened. She was happy Trump was no longer president. She was lucky to still have her job editing a poetry anthology called Alien Rhythms. She had a lot to be grateful for, so why was she feeling so blue? 

She said goodbye to her friends and on the way out the door she noticed she noticed a strangely familiar woman sitting alone. She wore a hot pink dress and an elephant mask covering her head. She was scribbling furiously with an elegant silver fountain-tip pen, drawing black dots on tiny square pieces of paper.

  Calliope stood in the parking lot. The air was cold and she blew tiny little smoke rings with her breath. "This place isn't so bad." She thought to herself as she admired the black night sky glittering with diamond stars. She leaned against a 1970's hearse with Otherworld Enterprises stenciled on it in white glow-in-the-dark letters, lost in reverie.

She longed for home, as she gazed at the bright light of Venus, her heart aching. She was far from home. 38 million light years to be exact. Calliope was sensitive whenever anyone would ask her where she was from. "We moved around a lot." She would say and then change the subject.

  How do you tell someone on Earth,"I'm from VENUS and I'm an ALIEN and an illegal one at that?" Calliope shivered as the raucous MAGA stumbled out of the bar into their stretch Hummer tourbus. She was beginning to feel that Earth was over rated.

All of a sudden, the driver's side of the hearse opened and a dark figure came out. It was dressed in a black body stocking that even covered the face. It was hard to tell but Calliope thought it might be a woman.

"I'm..... so sorry," Calliope stammered. "I didn't know anyone was in the car......I I mean the hearse. Is your band playing here tonight? "The figure looked right through her and attached a glowing fuchsia antennae to their head, and stood facing the bar and made a sound like an airdrop.

Shortly afterwards, then the Elephant woman came out. She wore a black crushed velvet cape over the pink gown and as she passed Calliope, she handed her a tiny slip of paper with her trunk. It had a black dot shaped like a heart and on the other side, it read EAT ME.

The creature in the black body stocking opened the door for the Elephant woman and then walked back to the driver's side. The hearse started and they drove away leaving away a trail of fuchsia smoke.

"Just another night at The Palms." Calliope sighed.

She went home, ate some noodles, brushed, and flossed her teeth. She got into bed and as almost as an afterthought dropped the tiny slip of paper on her tongue that the elephant lady in the room had given her.

She tossed and turned, ripping at the covers. They felt like they were strangling her. She pushed and pulled, struggling to get free. She was hot and sweaty and her body felt limp. She felt her forehead and to her horror she had a horn like a unicorn growing up through the top of her head. She stood up to move but her legs felt shaky like a newborn foal.

"WTF is happening?" She screamed as she fell through the wormhole. It took awhile but she found her footing. Her legs grew strong and soon she was running. She galloped faster and faster through a strange and beautiful land of purple sky and dunes made of gold sand while Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata played over a loudspeaker. 

She passed the Elephant in the pink dress from the Palms holding the moon between her hands like a ball while a woman on a clamshell hula hooped. A spaceship called the GForce was touching down from Earth, people disembarking like passengers from the ark descending two by two. A poodle woman named Mimi signed autographs like a celebrity as she stopped to have her photograph taken in front of a negative energy clearing turbine shaped like a neon blue Ferris Wheel.  

The crowd was otherworldly, beautiful centaur-like creatures with strangely familiar features cavorting about. A unicorn and an elephant were swing dancing while a horse and poodle cried with joy as they embraced. It had been a hard landing but everyone was excited to be in this strange new world. 

The black limousine pulled up and Calliope's mother Minerva got out. She wore a purple Unicorn head as royal all Venusians do. She held her horn dramatically and apologized. "Sorry, I'm late. Traffic on Venus is Crazy." And then she muttered something about Bezos, Branson, and Musk ruining the planet under her breath.

"Welcome to Otherworld. You are approximately 53 Miles West of Venus and this is your home now." The crowd was silent. "You were brought here because you have been the only ones sounding the warnings about climate change. In just a few short Earth years your world will be gone." Minerva paused while the crowd murmured.

"Be kind. Be compassionate. Respect the planet and all those around you. Be happy and healthy. Love one another. These are the only rules you need to abide by." The crowd began to hug and kiss one another, cheering loudly through their tears of joy.

 The figure in the body stocking approached Minerva with a small briefcase. She opened it to reveal a glowing crown and she handed it to Minerva. Minerva summoned the young woman with dreadlocks hiding behind the Ferris Wheel. "Come", she motioned to her and the girl sheepishly approached. Minerva pulled the dread-locked wig off the young woman's head to reveal a unicorn horn just like hers. The Otherworld air felt great on Calliope's horn. She was so tired of being someone she was not. Minerva placed the crown over her daughter's horn. "It's your turn now." She said, gently encouraging her daughter to turn to face the crowd. 

Minerva and the woman in the body stocking turned and walked back towards the limousine. "Oh yeah", Minerva turned back to the crowd. "There's just one more thing," She said. "DON'T BLOW IT!"