Brain Bits To Go

Flash Fiction February Day 13

How To Reach Enlightenment

From Dunhollow, drive east on highway 417 for seventy-three kilometres.

Turn left onto McKenzie Rd, highway 48.

In the town of Gorman’s Bay, watch for the detour. It will take you around a construction project before rejoining highway 48.

Remain on 48 for another twenty-three kilometres.

Turn left again onto Old Cuellennin Road. Continue until you reach the town of Old Cuellennin. 

Go to the shop called ‘Dottie’s Gifts and Oddities’.

Tell the person at the cash that you are on your way to Enlightenment.

They will sell you a box of twelve candles, a box of pink Himalayan salt, a smudge stick, a box of matches, and an ointment containing herbs and essential oils. Buy all of these things.

Return to your vehicle and drive west. When you reach the abandoned church, turn left past the cemetery. 

DO NOT STOP!

Continue for another fifteen kilometres.

Turn right on Garvey’s Kin Rd. This is a gravel road with blind corners and steep hills be very careful.

After two kilometres, you will see a single lane dirt track on your left. Follow this track until it ends in a small clearing.

Exit the vehicle. Bring the items you purchased at Dottie’s.

There is a footpath leading north. Follow it for about a kilometre and half until you reach a small river (the bridge is long gone). 

Turn right.

About two hundred metres upstream, there is a wider, shallower section of the river with a gravel bottom. 

Cross the river.

Follow the river downstream for about two hundred metres until you reach the continuation of the path you were following before.

Follow the path north for another half a kilometre until you reach an old stone house with a partially collapsed roof.

Enter the house.

Be careful where you step as some of the floorboards in the entry are rotten.

Once you are past that area, you will see a clear area of the floor.

Use the salt to outline a large (not less than three feet across) eight pointed star on the floor. 

Place one candle at each of the eight points.

Light the smudge stick.

Light one of the leftover candles and use it to make a puddle of wax in the middle of the star.

Stand the smudge stick upright in the wax.

Light the eight candles at the points of the star.

Read the following aloud. CORRECT PRONUNCIATION IS ESSENTIAL! (don’t read that aloud)

“amnasthagolma lambklasthro zhnathkansthul”

If nothing happens, you mispronounced something and now have a long, damp walk back to your vehicle. Return the unused supplies to Dottie for a full refund.

If everything was pronounced properly, there is now a cylinder of eldritch blue light encircling the star and reaching up to the ceiling.

This is a portal which will bring you closer to Enlightenment.

Step into it.

You are standing on a slightly overgrown circle of stones set into the ground.

There is a rutted track in front of you.

Follow it for about three kilometres.

There is a small, quaintly old-fashioned town.

Stay on the main street of the town until you see a sign which says “The Enlightened Wandered”.

Enter the pub and approach the bar. This is not a renaissance faire (sic), it’s just how they dress here.

The woman behind the bar will ask if you have brought a jar of ointment, give her the jar.

She opens the jar, rubs the ointment on her hands  and says, “Thanks hon’! It does wonders for my arthritis, but since I got stuck here Dottie has to take some pretty drastic measures to get this stuff to me. By the way; welcome to Enlightenment, population one thousand, two hundred and eighty-three.’ She pauses for a moment. “Actually hon’ you make it eighty-four.”

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Sometimes, things will go exactly according to plan without giving you what you wanted.

Cheers,