Introductions, cont.
“What. The. Hell.”
Sam ran his hand through his hair in thought as he leaned back in the chair. Out of all the things he had expected to find while searching for the mystical golden speck, this was most certainly not one of them. Even the wildest dredges of his imagination couldn’t have come up with a place and story as intriguing and unbelievable as what he had stumbled upon. Thinking back to his various daydreams of looking down upon a void, black space where the gold speck would be, Sam felt… strange yet satisfied in being able to finally complete the picture. After all this time, he was able to complete his mental image of the golden speck. The pieces of Sam’s puzzle, once scattered and intangible, now fit perfectly together to make a beautiful tapestry.
After a brief moment of unmoving thought, Sam shook his head and looked at his surroundings once more. Without Foster in the room, a new light spread through the shed and Sam’s eyes widened with a dawning realization. He began to notice aspects of the room he hadn’t before. The walls and furniture themselves were, along with being covered in metal sculptures, covered with various carvings and details. Everything from the bookshelves to the desk to the table Sam sat at was covered in embellishments ranging from the small and simple to the grandiose. The whole of the building was—as Foster had described it—one large art exhibit, yet it accumulated into a much larger art piece. Sam’s gaze drifted across the room, eventually falling through the window and into the statues. He stood and walked towards the door. As he opened it, he felt a gust of air sting at his face—the somewhat cool autumn breeze sending a shiver down his spine. Closing the door behind him, Sam stepped out into the sculptures, walking between them and observing them in greater detail. Looking through them, however, Sam failed to notice any real theme between them. There was one he noticed that had eight large tendrils curved upwards, each coming from the ground and all reaching out in all directions. The closest one to Sam was wrapped around a defunct statue of a figure Sam didn’t recognize—the name Samuel Gaunt on a memorial plaque at its feet. He moved on, stopping occasionally to look closer at whatever piqued his interest. One statue morphed from a spider into a tree—its front four legs lifted, turning into a canopy of branches. Another was a bull formed from what looked like random, dripping forms of metal. Sam walked through the statues and sculptures, pacing in circles through their ranks until his gaze finally rested upon the man in the center of the garden. It was a larger statue than Sam had expected, being at least seven or eight feet tall. Sam stood in front of the giant, looking up at its empty face from between its two extended hands when he heard a voice call from behind him.
“It’s larger up-close, right?”
Sam turned to see Foster emerge from the scrap heaps, dragging a make-shift sled made from a sheet of metal and a wire piled with various other pieces of scrap. Seeing him, Sam closed the distance, his eyes pinned to whatever Foster had brought with him.
“What’s all that,” Sam asked, moving around Foster to look at all the pieces he had brought with him. He recognized a few items, but the rest was rather foreign.
“Scrap for a little project of my own,” Foster let go of the wire he had been dragging the sled with, “It’s a mish-mash of car parts with other random odds and ends. Oh! There is something interesting I found, though,” his eyes lit up with excitement as he crouched down, searching through the small pile of scrap, “I managed to scavenge a line of pistons from a car engine.”
Sam watched as Foster lifted up a series of four different metal cylinders hanging from short bars, each connected to the other by moving elliptical disks. As Foster lifted the set of pistons, they dangled down and moved together. Two of the piston heads rested lower than the other two, giving it a staggered appearance.
“This took forever to finally pry from the engine I found it in. I honestly about thought it was impossible, but here it is, free at last,” Foster lifted the line, righting the pistons so that they stood up, “See how it almost looks like a spine? Grandpa would have killed for something like this—he loved those pieces that seemed out there, almost alien.”
Foster looked up and out onto the statues. His gaze grew distant like it had when Sam and he had been talking in the shed. Sam could almost see a nostalgic memory cross his mind as his words slowed, becoming melancholic as he spoke.
“I’m sure he’d have loved it, but he’s not here… so I guess it’s up to me to make some use of it,” Foster paused before looking up at Sam, who stood next to him silently observing, “Sorry, I’m normally not like this.”
“No, it’s fine,” Sam said, briefly extending his hand as if to touch Foster on the shoulder, yet quickly deciding against it, “This place must be really important to you.”
Foster sighed, his eyes warmly turning to the pistons still sitting in his hands, rubbing his thumb on one of them, “I can show you the way back through the scrapyard here soon. If there’s anything else you’d like to see, feel free to continue looking around. I think I’m going to put this stuff away, then we’ll go, so you’ve got until then. Sound good?”
Sam was somewhat caught off-guard, only managing to say a swift, “Sure,” before Foster dropped the piston back onto the sled and began dragging it back towards the shed. After he passed by him, however, Sam did manage to speak up.
“Did you say you were using that stuff for your own project?”
Foster stopped, looking back with a slight blush creeping on his face, “Uh, yes. I did.”
“Can… I see that,” Sam asked, a sheepish smile spreading hesitantly across his face.
“Well, uh,” Foster turned away, hiding his face as it grew red, “Maybe another day.”
Swiftly, Foster dragged the sled back towards the shed, quickly disappearing behind it. Sam didn’t mind, however, as his mind wandered onto another prospect entirely.
Another day, he thought, another smile spreading across his face, he definitely said ‘another day.’
Pleased but not entirely certain over what Foster meant with his wording, Sam waited somewhat anxiously for Foster’s return. After a few minutes, he eventually returned.
“Are you ready?”
“Yes,” Sam said, smiling as he watched Foster walk closer, “I suppose I am.”
“Good, just watch your step.”
* * *
With Foster’s guide, the trek back through the scrapyard was fairly short and concise, the various paths and routes he took being relatively well-worn and cleared of debris. As they walked down the paths, the two were fairly silent. Occasionally, they picked up some idle form of chat, but it almost always faded as quickly as it started. As the two found themselves before the warehouse and fence gate, however, Sam spoke up.
“So… about what you said earlier,’” Sam walked just behind Foster and watched as he visibly tensed at Sam’s words, “About ‘another day.’”
Sam saw as Foster’s tension eased somewhat. Sighing, he turned to Sam, a questioning look on his face.
“What do you mean?”
“W-well, when I asked about,” Sam said, flustered as he felt his face begin to blush, “I mean, I was wondering if I could—”
“Sure.”
“What?”
Sam looked up to Foster, somewhat taken aback by his reply. His expression was fairly blank, only a faint, indecipherable glimmer in his eyes giving any sign of emotion.
“Sure. If you want to go back to my grandpa’s old shed, I don’t mind. As I said, I think he’d like it. You also now know the safe way through the scrapyard, so there’s not really much stopping you from getting there, anyway. Just,” he paused, his hands on his hips, “I’d prefer if you didn’t spread around that it exists. This,” he gestured to the surrounding junkyard, “Isn’t exactly a property I own, so who knows what would happen if it became common knowledge. The last thing I would want is for my grandpa’s work to be taken down or removed. Just do me that favor.”
“Okay,” Sam said, nodding, “I’ll be sure not to.”
“Good. Now, I guess this is where we part ways. The fence gate can open far enough to slip through if you didn’t already see that. Other than that,” he smiled at Sam slightly, “I guess I’ll be seeing you?”
“Yes,” Sam said as he walked towards the fence, “In a few days maybe. I’ll see you then,” he walked backward and waved to Foster before turning on his heels and continuing on his way, sliding his way through the fence gates and making his way back to his apartment.
* * *
It was close to midday when Sam finally found himself standing before his apartment door, sweating under the heat of the sun in his thick black hoodie. He opened the door, walked into his room, and emptied his pockets onto his desk. He quickly undressed—being sure to throw away his now ruined and torn shirt—and put on a new set of clothes. After changing, he promptly sat down at his desk and opened his laptop. There, he worked for a few hours on his various work projects—including the Trade Cache audit. The day went fairly quickly, Sam mostly in a daze as it flashed before his eyes. He felt as if he were in a dream-like state, yet the occasional throbbing pain from the cut on his hand kept him in a constant reminder that this was no dream. He had really gone into the middle of a scrapyard on a whim, and he had really found another person there. He had, in fact, seen a garden of statues and had also been told he could go back. Eventually, Sam paused in his work, unable to focus. Sighing, he closed his laptop and picked up his phone. He called the usual pizza place—it was more convenient than cooking or going out, so why not? After it arrived and he finished eating, he opted to go to sleep over doing anything else. He was exhausted, and he had work in the morning. Knowing this, Sam sat down in his bed, set his alarm, and promptly fell asleep.
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