Russ Viola

An excerpt from a work in progress. This is a rough draft, but com­ments are always welcome:

The mono-colored wooden carv­ing was a sort of rough abstract. Look­ing at it one way, it was a lit­tle four legged, bushy tailed, big-eared canid. As you tilted it another way, it became a man. It was a recent birth­day present from Ben. She remem­bered the day clearly.

Her rant unwound into a weak sob, as the mot­ley crew in her kitchen stared at her. Sarah took a shud­der­ing breath, break­ing the silence of their regard. Stub­born, she turned toward the counter and her drugs. Scrab­bling for the bot­tles she scat­tered them across the mar­ble, some div­ing toward the floor. She seized two and knelt to pick up another. As she did, the kachina stepped up to her hold­ing one of the bot­tles. Sarah word­lessly snatched it from his arms and scooped the oth­ers up as quickly as pos­si­ble.
As she rose, back­ing out of the kitchen toward the stairs and her bed­room, she real­ized the Bud­dha and Kai-ote were gone. The kachina regarded her from the kitchen floor. His arms folded across his chest, masked head cocked in silent bird­like dis­ap­proval.
The throb­bing in her skull was much worse now. Her body was awash in waves of nau­sea as the flick­er­ing red obscured her vision again. She turned away from the kitchen mak­ing for the stairs and ran head­long into the Bud­dha. His stone body now stood before her, Kai-ote perched on his shoul­der. He blocked her way to the stairs. To her right was the front door, and behind her the kitchen. Panic set in, and Sarah tried to flee. Drop­ping the pre­scrip­tion bot­tles, she grabbed for the front door latch, with both hands.
The stone Bud­dha moved incred­i­bly fast. One moment he was stand­ing between her and the stairs, a mad­den­ing Mona Lisa smile on his impas­sive face. The next moment his arm shot out, pin­ning the front door closed. Sarah tried vainly to pull at the door, fight­ing against the weight of the stone statue.
Her heart raced as the blood pounded in her head, mak­ing the pain and the nau­sea worse. She retched, and turned away from the Bud­dha, run­ning back into the kitchen. As she raced toward the sink, Sarah kicked the kachina, send­ing him slid­ing across the tile. She grabbed the counter and dou­bled over. Dip­ping her head into the sink she threw up. The purg­ing removed what lit­tle strength she had left in her legs. She sank to the floor and passed out.
Her next rec­ol­lec­tions became a series of snap­shots bro­ken by the dark­ness of clos­ing eye­lids. First there was the feel­ing of some­one pick­ing her up. Then the head and shoul­ders of the Bud­dha look­ing down as the house moved above and around her. The next mem­ory was a sense of ris­ing up the stairs, being car­ried by some­one and her bed­cov­ers being pulled over her.

Her thoughts were inter­rupted by the sounds of mur­mured con­ver­sa­tion down­stairs. As she slid out of bed, and crept toward the door, she could make out snatches of phrases.

The Bud­dha sat on her couch, legs crossed fore­arms rest­ing on his rotund belly. His stone face impas­sively tracked the kachina as it paced back and forth across the wooden floor. Kai-ote sat on the cof­fee table, his legs dan­gling over the edge.

Sarah rose from her hid­ing place and stepped out onto the bal­cony, look­ing down into the liv­ing room at the odd group. The Bud­dha noticed her first. The other two fol­lowed his gaze and in a very human way, they stopped talk­ing and stared up at her. The Bud­dha smiled. It had a calm­ing effect on Sarah, and gave her the courage to speak.

She sat in an arm­chair and watched, amazed as the Bud­dha reclined into his lotus posi­tion on the floor and Huhuwa and Kai-ote arranged them­selves on the cof­fee table to her left. Each of the com­pan­ions moved with a sort of stop motion grace that was almost absolutely silent, and incred­i­bly fast. She found her­self blink­ing and rub­bing her eyes to try to get used to it.