Redemption
Click

For a seeming eternity, he lay there, against the warm rim of the crater. Through it, he only knew a strange and overpowering urge to remain calm and relax. Then, as if by some sort of trial and error, he became conscious of a series of random and strange sounds and thoughts in his mind. Although these seemed his own, they were as alien to him as the blob riding his small face. Later, he would discard these as what they were: Failed attempts to communicate. Then, a feeling of odd frustration swept over him, followed by the returned blackness.

With suddenness, his life began to replay in his mind, as if something were pulling the memories out for curious review. On these ran: his seventh birthday, the Christmas of his eighth year, his father, his mother and grandparents, that day, all parading through his mind as if being studied. Then blackness fell over his mind once more. Slowly, a soft glow came to replace this. Yet, in gaining strength, this glow did not illuminate his mind; rather it congealed into a near meaningless blur of light. This collected and contracted to form a crude shape, roughly resembling a human body. With its continued refinement, it became a barren, featureless human form. This shifted and evolved into the outline of a woman’s body, with a mane of silver extending from the head, to trail down its back. The surface of the legs extended to meet, and form a long dress as the trail from its head grew black, and took on the visible texture of hair. Its chest swelled to form breasts, as its face sharpened and refined. This became a beautiful visage, as the breasts took on the appearance of a ruffled covering that stretched itself over the trunk of the image, and onto the arms. Finally, a woman’s image stood in the in the darkness of his mind, peering back with dark green eyes. It hesitated for a second, as if in thought. Finally, it moved.

“Hello David,” the beautiful image said gently.

“Who-who are you?” He asked in thought, “What’s happening?”

“I am-.” At the end of this was an odd clicking nose.

“That’s your name?” The boy wondered.

“Yes,” she smiled, “It is, in my language.”

“I can’t-.”

“Yes, I know,” she smiled, “you cannot make that sound with your mouth. So, let’s suffice with your calling me ‘Click.’”

“Click? That’s a weird name.”

“To you, it is. Just as to me, David is a strange name.”

“What are you?” In the wake of his asking this, the beautiful face took on an uncertain look.

“I don’t really know,” the image confessed, “as I am only just born.”

“Are you going to-?”

“Hurt you?” She scoffed in slight protest, “Most certainly not! Although I do not know what I am, I do know that I am linked to you. So, if I am to survive, you must survive.”

It was then that he heard a familiar voice in the distance. This was his grandfather, calling him.

“There’s Grandpa,” the mental image recognized, “He is worried about you.”

“I should be getting inside,” the boy decided, wondering why he was not cold from the night’s air. He had no more than recognized this, than a cold blast met his face, and something wrapped itself around his left wrist.

“Come on, then,” she said. Opening his eyes, he raised his head and looked around.

“David?” Grandpa called from over by the barn. At the far side of the crater, he saw the woman, standing peering down at him.

“You-?”

“This is just an image that I am projecting into your mind,” she explained urgently, “No one but you can see me.”

“David?”

“Come on, before you get in trouble,” she pressed. In response, he rolled to stand. Clambering from the hole, he started towards the dim and distant outlines of the barn and his house.

“By the way,” she told him, as they walked, “You don’t need to speak to talk to me; I am linked to your mind. So you only have to think, and I can hear it.”

With his reaching the area of the house, William finally saw him. “What happened?” He asked, his voice heavy with relief. Initially David felt a slight wonder that his grandfather did not see the beautiful woman that walked beside of him.

“I saw something out in the field,” the boy explained after a second, “I went out to see what it was, and fell.”

“Well, come on. Let’s get inside before we freeze out here.” Then turning, he started back toward the house. “You’ve got to be careful out here at night,” the old man reminded, “You never know what you’ll meet up with!”

Next to him, Click laughed at the irony.

After passing an impromptu and worried inspection by his mother, he started up the stairs. She had demanded that he take a hot bath before she would let the matter drop.

It felt weird undressing with the image of the woman standing there. Her assurance that she had seen his naked body in his memories did little to appease his uneasiness. Therefore, they agreed that she would “Blank out” while he bathed, or used the privy. In other words, the image would vanish, even though the actual entity still rode his left wrist. Once his pajamas were on, the image appeared at the side of the bed, looking down at him.

During much of the ensuing, near sleepless night, the boy and his new companion worked at refining the rough edges of their new co-existence. During this, she revealed that she fed on the energy from his very thoughts.

“When you think,” she explained, “the energy from your thoughts feed into a field around your skull. This is what some might call an ‘extra-low frequency’ field. Generally, as I understand the matter, it dissipates into the air. But, in my case, I use it as sustenance.”

“Your doing that will not hurt me-will it?” He asked in thought.

“No!” She laughed, “Rather, instead of it being merely released, I harvest it, and feed on it.” Then, in a reminding tone, she insisted, “In every way, I am entirely dependent upon you for my survival. So, that which hurts you, hurts me. In that, I am determined that nothing must ever hurt you-not even me.”

When he did, eventually fall asleep, he had strange dreams of soaring and looping over his own body. With his wondrously recognizing this, her voice laughed in his head.

“Sorry David,” she explained, “You are getting bleed-over from my practicing.” At this, the image blurred, and his room became a desert. Then, he realized that he was riding on a carpet of some three by five foot. As the sensation of wind blowing across his skin registered upon him, a town came into view below, passing quickly beneath the carpet.

“This is better,” Click’s voice decided from close behind him. Looking back, he saw her sitting on the carpet to his rear, dressed like a picture that he had seen once in a storybook. Laughing once more, she added “Better a magic carpet ride with a genie, than being dragged into my testing my aerobatic skills-Wouldn’t you say?”