Dance Of The Dream Man
Who: Odd Thomas and YOU.
What: Immediately after this, he left Nautilus to go attend to matters back home. Over a year later of fighting Satanists, an occult-obsessed phone sex operator, and an evil monk, Odd returns.
Where: Southern District.
When: Saturday.
“I have to get out here, sir.”
“What-you don’t feel well?”
“I feel fine, sir. Psychic magnetism. I have to walk from here.”
“But you’re coming home for Christmas.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Walk from here? Walk where?”
“I don’t know. I’ll find out in the walking.”
He steps out of the car, extracting the one bag he had taken with him during his stay in St. Bartholomew’s from the trunk. His mentor gives him a look and protests: “You can’t walk away with only that.”
“It has everything I need.”
“What trouble are you going to?”
“Maybe not trouble, sir.”
“What else would it be?”
“Maybe trouble. But maybe peace. I can’t tell, but it sure is calling me.”
After saying his goodbyes (more than once), he ventures off into the highway, a bag strapped over his shoulder, with the company of a ghost dog and the spirit of Frank Sinatra at his side.
He does not know where this pull is calling him, but its loud beckon is enticing. He cannot deny his psychic magnetism when it calls out for him. He obeys.
At least he is not alone.
When Odd closed his eyes, he reopened them to the panorama of a new place.
No longer was he walking down the shoulder of the California highways, but wandering the green streets of the city he hadn’t seen in over a year.
Well, to Odd Thomas, it has certainly been over a year. Meanwhile, Nautilus (as some have told it) had not aged more than a week. Not that he knew that, yet.
The ghosts of Frank Sinatra and Boo no longer accompanied Odd’s side. His heart sunk at the sudden lack of companionship as he ventured back into this familiar place, but he decidedly walked on. Down the cityscapes, through the greenery, and eventually stopped at a building with a bizarre poster attached to the bricked wall.
For some reason, the poster had Odd’s own face printed on the fine paper. He had to do a double-take before realizing what it was he was reading:
MISSING ODD’S HEAD
You finding Odd Thomas’s head?
Someone come into Cathedral, kill Odd,
cut off head of human.
Odd Thomas very good man.
Very much want head returned.
REWARD
E-mail: Ririasad@hotmail.com
Wow.
Wow.
It hadn’t been that long, had it? Sure, it had been a year in Odd’s personal experience, but not once had he assumed that his presence left a lasting impression on the city he had come to and, soon after, had left.
Tearing the poster from the wall, Odd stared down and read it. And when he was done reading it, he read it again. And then he read it again. And then he read it four times over until he realized that the letters weren’t going to suddenly shift and call him a fat duck with a bulbous head.
You never know these days.
With “perplexed” being very much beyond an understatement to any word he could think of, Odd rolled the poster up, and continued on his walk through the city. As if doing so would shed some logic into the situation.
Naturally, it did not.
What: Immediately after this, he left Nautilus to go attend to matters back home. Over a year later of fighting Satanists, an occult-obsessed phone sex operator, and an evil monk, Odd returns.
Where: Southern District.
When: Saturday.
“I have to get out here, sir.”
“What-you don’t feel well?”
“I feel fine, sir. Psychic magnetism. I have to walk from here.”
“But you’re coming home for Christmas.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Walk from here? Walk where?”
“I don’t know. I’ll find out in the walking.”
He steps out of the car, extracting the one bag he had taken with him during his stay in St. Bartholomew’s from the trunk. His mentor gives him a look and protests: “You can’t walk away with only that.”
“It has everything I need.”
“What trouble are you going to?”
“Maybe not trouble, sir.”
“What else would it be?”
“Maybe trouble. But maybe peace. I can’t tell, but it sure is calling me.”
After saying his goodbyes (more than once), he ventures off into the highway, a bag strapped over his shoulder, with the company of a ghost dog and the spirit of Frank Sinatra at his side.
He does not know where this pull is calling him, but its loud beckon is enticing. He cannot deny his psychic magnetism when it calls out for him. He obeys.
At least he is not alone.
When Odd closed his eyes, he reopened them to the panorama of a new place.
No longer was he walking down the shoulder of the California highways, but wandering the green streets of the city he hadn’t seen in over a year.
Well, to Odd Thomas, it has certainly been over a year. Meanwhile, Nautilus (as some have told it) had not aged more than a week. Not that he knew that, yet.
The ghosts of Frank Sinatra and Boo no longer accompanied Odd’s side. His heart sunk at the sudden lack of companionship as he ventured back into this familiar place, but he decidedly walked on. Down the cityscapes, through the greenery, and eventually stopped at a building with a bizarre poster attached to the bricked wall.
For some reason, the poster had Odd’s own face printed on the fine paper. He had to do a double-take before realizing what it was he was reading:
MISSING ODD’S HEAD
You finding Odd Thomas’s head?
Someone come into Cathedral, kill Odd,
cut off head of human.
Odd Thomas very good man.
Very much want head returned.
REWARD
E-mail: Ririasad@hotmail.com
Wow.
Wow.
It hadn’t been that long, had it? Sure, it had been a year in Odd’s personal experience, but not once had he assumed that his presence left a lasting impression on the city he had come to and, soon after, had left.
Tearing the poster from the wall, Odd stared down and read it. And when he was done reading it, he read it again. And then he read it again. And then he read it four times over until he realized that the letters weren’t going to suddenly shift and call him a fat duck with a bulbous head.
You never know these days.
With “perplexed” being very much beyond an understatement to any word he could think of, Odd rolled the poster up, and continued on his walk through the city. As if doing so would shed some logic into the situation.
Naturally, it did not.