Neville Park pt. I

I was born James Rufus Gorgolong Coates twenty-four years ago last Thursday, but most people refer to me as 'Coates' and so shall you for the remainder of this tale. A tale composed of words you have seen before but never in this particular arrangement.

It was the birthday party of my close friend Gregory and the night was winding down. I gave my best wishes to my dear comrade (once I found him flirting with his fridge calendar), put on my sharp blue shoes and headed out the door. He lived in a part of town I didn't know very well but several strangers at the party had told me there was a streetcar running nearby. It was dark and my hands were cold. There was a woman in a large hat watching me from the shadow of a streetlamp.

My stomach also was growling. There had only been weird food at that party, everything had grains in it. I don't mean those tasty little grains in whole wheat bread, I mean aggressive green and red grains that were the size of nickels. And they were in everything, even the salad. Gregory's new girlfriend had made it and she asked me if I liked it when I left. I smiled. Good old versatile smiles, dishonesty without lying.

The smell of barbeque lingered in the air as I wandered the street. I figured it would fade as I walked further, yet instead it grew stronger. By the time I came to the next corner I could faintly see smoke in the air, leading down this new street. My stomach shoved aside the navigator and told the rest of me to follow the trail. Maybe wherever this was coming from had a spare hot dog or something. Maybe something with bacon.

A different something made a screech and I tumbled over. I'd tripped over a reddish cat, who hissed at me and scurried off. The wind was whispering and my hands were cold again. I looked up and the houses of this street veered high above me, many with stairwells or walkways scaling the mini-mountains where the summit was the front door. These houses were all mansions and not one was slightly identical to the others in any way, which seemed impossible. Still it was an enjoyable scene until my stomach growled its existence so it was time to hurry. I turned around and saw a new long stretch of huge houses reaching high into the sky.

Also the main street was gone.

There was no sign of the way I'd come, not even in the distance. I figured I must've walked further then I realized, but I wasn't certain of that. Instead of retracing my steps though, I went on forward. I'd just turn at the next corner and search for a streetcar that way. The road expanded after a few hundred steps and spread into a large circle, creating a crescent that led back into the way it came. There was no pathway in-between any of the houses around the crescent. A large sign in front of the middle house read "No Exit" and I made a wisecrack to nobody about stating the obvious.

There was an open sewer grate in the middle of the crescent with some steam puffing out. Moving closer I discovered it wasn't steam but smoke, with the very same smell that had lured me here. The open grate was also flickering some kind of green light, and between the light show and a smell of barbeque there was no refusing a closer look. I looked down into the hole and saw it was completely lit in green. The smell was stronger than before.

Now normally I follow a personal rule about not climbing into mysteriously open sewer holes, a rule I'm sure many other folks also share. But this was an extraordinary situation... yes. So down I went, with the aid of a rung ladder that was sturdy and oddly dry. I must have been thirty rungs down when my foot splashed some water and my whole vision was blinded by green light. It slowly faded and my surroundings became clear again: I was no longer in a green sewer shaft.

My feet were shoelaces deep in a pool of water and my hands were clinging to a marble rail along a much larger sculpture. This place was some kind of enormous garden, filled with patches of exotic red flowers, rows of trees and a scattering of green marble statues. The sky was a dark blue and filled with a variety of rolling puffy clouds, like a painting by somebody who loves sunsets, or clouds. The air was as cool as before but my hands were perfectly fine.

A tall woman in a fine red outfit and hat approached me, appearing out of nowhere and yet somewhere. Her hair was completely hidden under her hat. She grinned and shook my hand.

'Welcome, Coates. It's great to have you.'