18 I shouldn't know this...
“I don’t want to dream about you anymore,” Gael said firmly. Dressed in his best suit, his bow tie perfect enough, and a very nice hat on, he was entirely too old for childhood imaginary friends, bothersome dreams, and he wanted Keiran to know it.
Keiran hung upside down from his web, his four purple reflective eyes staring at Gael with irritation. “My name is not Keiran. I am Chronis. We’ve had this discussion Gaelfrancismcneil.”
“Yeah? Well, you should call me Gael. I made you up. I’ll call you anything I want.”
The spider that Gael had concluded he’d made up as a child had the body of a mid-sized dog and took up enough space that Kate-Marie could lay flat under him without touching any of his long rapier-like legs. The first pair rubbed together like a frustrated teacher trying to decide what kind of correction would be actually helpful. He was technically black, but all the highlights were shades of purple. “If I weren’t wearing you, I’d be tempted to eat you Gael and that would be the death of us.”
Those two front legs pressed to his chest like a human holding its heart. “But! The change in your heart has touched me, from when Jack dealt with your mother. We are going to visit mine and I will take responsibility for what I have done. I will try to live a life that Jack will be proud of, so he will love me!”
Gael pressed the side of his fist over his mouth as he repositioned his hat. Having one’s hat in the right place made it easier to think. “Taking responsibility for our actions is goodly and right, but you’re an imaginary friend. You don’t really have a mother, Chronis. I’ll share mine with you, or better yet, we’ll bum some mother time off Jack’s mom. She sounds great. Jack’s all mine though. Not sharing.”
“Sit down.” Chronis snapped.
Gael was about to say he was done with this dream when a throne made of spider web rose up under him, sweeping him off his feet and lifting him up within a couple feet of those very real seeming purple eyes. Quite irritated now, Gael struggled at the web that now wrapped around his arms and legs. “What are you trying to tell me with this dream?”
“I am not your imaginary friend. I am an alien to Earth. We are inseparable. I must go see my mother, so you are coming with me.”
“There’s no such thing as an alien to Earth. The moon is not made of cheese and there are no spiders on Mars. Are you stressing about changing social classes? I know that being a lawyer can be a little scary. It’s different from what I thought was going to happen as a kid, but it’ll be okay. I’ll take care of us.”
“Oh that is so you, Gael,” Chronis said, face close enough to Gael that the hair on his mandibles seemed to shiver as he spoke. He hung from a single thread, swaying a little like a pendulum. “It’s one of the reasons I love you so much. I would never eat you! You and I have been entwined since your conception. I designed your DNA and brought you to life, you and I as one so that I could live among your people!” The second set of legs waved back and forth, spider body language for ‘I’m a great mad-scientist’.
Gael squinted. His imagination shouldn’t be using words he didn’t know the meaning of. “Are you saying Ma like... like it was immaculate conception?”
“Yes!” Chronis grabbed hold of the web behind him and kind of danced back and forth. His second legs waving around excitedly. “Exactly!”
The laugh that Gael did not want to laugh choked his breath until it won free and he gasped, “That’s the funniest shit I’ve ever heard!”
“You are a barbarian! Your people barely have the technology not to be living in the dirt! Don’t laugh at me, you blood snack!”
“Who you calling a snack? You fucking taking toothpick!”
“I have better venom glands than you do!”
“I don’t have venom glands! I’m not a spider!”
They huffed at each other and turned away.
“Okay some words don’t translate so good,” Chronis said, front legs brushing against his furry venom sacs. “What I mean to do is ask if you, my dear honored friend, will come with me to speak with my mother, in a conversation that might be unpleasant, because I am afraid, but I feel I must do this.”
“Untie me.”
Chronis might not have thumbs, but the outside of the end of his legs was quite sharp and released Gael like slicing warm butter. That allowed him to like sit crooked in the chair, one leg over the arm, and pull a cigar out from his jacket pocket. He could smoke cigars in a dream and not get a dirty look from Jack. Someday, his health nut doctor boyfriend was going to be proved wrong! Smoking was very good for your health.
Fidgeting while he waited, Chronis extended the chair out to give Gael something to lean against. “Why must you put particulates in our lungs?”
“My lungs. It’s good for me.” He took a long drag from his cigar, glaring at his imaginary friend, who was doing his best to look as fuzzy and non-threatening as possible. It was as effective as Santa with a machete in each hand. “Yes, alright. I’ll go on this dream journey with you, but you have to remind me not to read any more Jules Vern. Deal?”
“Yes, that will be lovely. My goodness! I’m so glad we’re talking! I feel like I haven’t spoken to anyone in centuries! Would you like an explanation about how we’re going to travel?”
“Yeah, sure,” Gael said. He closed his eyes though, cigar in his mouth, even as he drifted towards sleep. He’d never slept in a dream before which made him wonder if he could have a dream within a dream. The space they were in was like the inside of an uncracked eggshell, so it made sense, to dream within a dream, in his warped mind. “How far are we going to travel to see your mother? Do we have time for a whiskey?”
“No. No whiskey. Your combat skills are less effective when you’re intoxicated. I had wanted to explain temporal-spacial travel! It’s a technology that I invented! I’m quite proud of it. Should we make it out alive, I would be delighted to share all the maths with you! We could go visit Pythagoras.”
“Look now, you can’t know shit that I don’t know. Math beyond money and what time I gotta leave to get home before Jack does is beyond us.” Gael grimaced, squinting a bit in disapproval. “And Pythagoras doesn’t sound Irish to me. I don’t know anyone with a god awful name like that.”
“You’re going to be profoundly uncomfortable when you realize I’m real, aren’t you?”
“Oh no! Every little Irish boy keeps a spider the size of a fucking pony, just in case he needs it to eat some English up for him?”
“That’s sarcasm, yes?” Chronis asked, dangling from a silvery strand of web where his eyes could look into Gael’s.
Gael rolled his own eyes, but refused to break eye contact. He was not going to lose a battle of wills to an imaginary stuffed animal!
Chronis forelegs waved as kind of a distraction as he looked away. “Yes, yes! All a dream! Nothing to see here, my brother!”
“I thought you were claiming to be my father.” Gael snuffed out his cigar and put it back into his inner vest pocket. “Get your story straight.”
“Much more like brother, but let me show you this beautiful thing before we go chat with Mother.” The egg shell they were kind of floating, kind of suspected comfortably by spider web, turned transparent and the sky was filled with stars in all directions. “That one there, look up towards the top, looks rather whitish and very thin from here?”
“I see it.”
“That is the Milky Way, the galaxy that Earth is in.”
“I don’t think that my imagination is this good.”
“Oh no! Your imagination is excellent! Remember that time you told Sister Ann-Marie that you needed a steel rosary so it wouldn’t soak up your tears of repentance, but you really just wanted to try using it as a brass knuckles substitute? Excellent imagination.” A secondary leg patted Gael on the shoulder, encouragingly.
“That just proves I don’t think through the consequences of my actions. It felt like I broke my own fingers.”
“You busted Henry Mathews’ jaw.”
“And got myself kicked out of school. I’d have made a shit priest anyway.”
“Being a priest is boring. It might have been fun in the Inquisition, if you hadn’t been Jewish in that life.”
“Can I wake up now?”
“No, we have to go talk to Mother.”
“I bet I’m drunk off my ass and Jack is muttering science bullshit in his sleep.”
“I’m sure that’s it,” Chronis said comfortingly. “You are very good at getting drunk. Even better than your imagination!”
“Thanks,” Gael grumbled as he gave Chronis a sideways glare.
The eggshell went white again, but with a wide door that lead onto a bridge made of spider web in a lovely and intricate pattern.
Chronis stepped out of the egg and onto the bridge. He skittered up the side of what seemed to be a transparent tube of some kind, spun around so he was facing Gael. “Did you bring your rosary?”
“Always. What are you getting me into, ya gobshite?”
"You don't want my people showing up on Earth and eating your people, do you? No. I didn't think so. So now we have to sort out Mother."
