Q: What did the buffalo say to his son when he left for college?
A: Bison!
Hey everyone, just a quick heads up that starting in May when I post the next chapter of my greatest adventure ever, you’ll be seeing a slightly new format that includes the usual silly joke, the link to a PDF with all my previous chapters, and the new chapter itself, but nothing else. I decided it was more important to focus my energy into writing the story, instead of making fun of my big goofy doppelganger all the time. LOL. Well anyway, thanks for continuing to follow along and happy reading!
Andy’s Woodsy Adventure (Chapters 1 to 11)
Andy’s Woodsy Adventure – Chapter 12
“What? Wait a second. You can see it? Yeah right!” I said rather sarcastically thinking Chris was just pulling my leg.
“I’m being totally serious! Look right there is Libra, and there’s Gemini, and…”
“Ok. I believe you!” I cut him off after seeing him point to the precise spots where the Libra and Gemini symbols were on the crystal. “So how do you think that’s possible when no one else has been able to see anything but a rock?”
“I have no idea. But there’s got to be some reason.” Chris said as he continued to look intently at the crystal in his hand when suddenly he shouted “GEMINI!”
It had actually been rather comical watching Chris do this. He had held the crystal outward like a magic wand, expecting something to happen when he said the word Gemini, but nothing did.
“So I’m guessing you thought in saying Gemini that…”
POP…
“…since you could see the crystal’s symbols, you might have the powers too…” Andy #2 appeared finishing my sentence.
“I was about to tell him that!”
“Sure you were…” I said as both Andy #2 and myself started laughing uncontrollably.
“Come on guys, be serious. I thought it might actually have worked…”
“It was a very valiant effort indeed Chris!” said Andy #2 sounding like he was from medieval times.
“Hey, in all seriousness do you know what this specific symbol is? I’m pretty sure I know what all the zodiac signs look like and I’ve never seen this one.” Chris said pointing at one I hadn’t noticed on it before.
The symbol looked a lot like a very tiny wheel. It was a circle with spokes all connecting to an even smaller circle in the middle of it.
“Let me see that.” I took it from him and immediately the symbol disappeared.
“Whoa!” said Chris seeing it had disappeared in my hand.
I handed it back to him and it immediately reappeared. We did this a few more times until Andy #2 broke the silence.
“And there we have it folks, a really exciting game of hot potato…”
“He’s definitely got more your sarcastic side that’s for sure…” said Chris rolling his eyes.
“You think?” I said with a grin.
“Let’s look up the Zodiac on the Internet and see what we find.”
“Gee, that sounds sooooooo fun…” Andy #2 said somewhat cynically.
“Gemini!” I was actually starting to get a little annoyed myself, with myself, as if that was even possible.
“Awww…” said Andy #2 with a huge smile, just before he vanished.
POP…
“Finally, some peace and quiet. You know you can be totally annoying at times…” Chris said jokingly.
“I know right!”
Chris then sat down and logged into his Apple desktop computer, while I pulled up a chair next to him. I watched him Google the word “zodiac”, and scanned the first page of results along with him. He chose to open up the first of those results, which was from Wikipedia, and there on the upper right-hand side of the page, was a picture that was pretty darn close to the symbol on the crystal. But before I had a chance to say anything, Chris swiveled his chair around and directly faced me.
“Hey I really need to say something before we proceed into this any further…I feel kind of bad about how I handled what you said to me a little bit ago…”
“You mean about your sister?”
“Yeah… it’s…kind of hard to talk about…”
I could tell as Chris’s eyes started to tear up and turn red.
“It’s ok, you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.” I said reassuringly.
“No, I do, I mean I need to talk to someone about it, because I haven’t really, since it happened.”
There was a long pause where I actually thought Chris was going to start crying, but instead he took a deep breath and began talking.
“I had a twin sister who died in the beginning of last year. Up until then, she was my only real friend and we used to hang out all the time together. Our family was headed out to dinner like we frequently did on a Friday night. And one of the things we always did before every car ride was battle each other for the seat behind our mother, because there was more legroom there. My father is pretty tall if you hadn’t noticed and has to put his seat all the way back when he drives. I hadn’t even given my sister a chance that night to battle me for that desired seat and instead had just sat in it. Midway to dinner, a drunk driver came across the road and hit us head on pretty hard, causing my father’s seat to come undone, which ended up crushing…my…sister…to death next to me. We had just been playing a game of rock-paper-scissors when it all happened…”
Chris couldn’t continue. He began crying pretty hard, and I wondered if this was the most he had opened up about his sister’s death since it happened. I decided it was best to remain silent for a few minutes, especially because I didn’t know what to say. Other than losing a grandparent I wasn’t that close to, I hadn’t experienced much in the way of death yet.
Once Chris’s sobbing had stopped, I decided it was a good time to finally say something that might help him feel more comfortable.
“Hey, thanks for sharing that with me man. I know that must have been very hard for you to do. But you know it’s not your fault right Chris?”
“I know, that’s what my parents have told me countless times…”
“Look, I know it sucks, and I can’t imagine what it feels like. I really can’t. But if you had been behind your father’s seat, I wouldn’t be here right now hanging out with you. And maybe, just maybe, you were the one who was always meant to live because you have a purpose. After all, you’ve been the only one other than me who has been able to see this crystal, and now you even have a symbol on it meant just for you…
“Thanks Andy. I guess I never thought about it in that way…”
“Well look, if you don’t cheer up, I’m going to get Andy #2 back here to annoy the crap out of you…”
“Nooooooo!”
And just like that, it felt as if the two of us had really bonded into best friends for life.
“So it appears as if this symbol is the actual Zodiac symbol doesn’t it?” Chris said turning his attention back to the Wikipedia page.
“Well it obviously doesn’t do anything because you’ve already said the word ‘Zodiac’ a bunch of times and nothing happened.”
“Hold on a second, look, it says right here the word ‘zodiac’ is derived from the Greek word ‘Zōidiakos’, which means “’circle of friends’.
Suddenly the crystal flew out of his hand with a mesmerizing hum and started spinning around in mid-air between us, faster and faster and faster, until neither of us could see anything but its blur. Loose papers and other light objects began flying around Chris’s room as we both looked over at each other in total shock. The blur began to expand, growing bigger and bigger until it completely enveloped us, causing his room to become blurry instead. It was almost as if we were in the center of a tornado, although thankfully I had never been in one of those to have known. And then as quickly as it started spinning, it rapidly slowed down until it stopped altogether dropping back down into Chris’s hand. Except we both then noticed we no longer were in his bedroom. Instead we were sitting on our two chairs in what appeared to be a large room with all black walls. In place of the ceiling though was the sky and stars, and surrounding us was an immense circular table with from what I could tell, had 12 beings equally positioned completely around it now keenly fixated upon us…
Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson
