Excerpt: The Dissolving Detective and the Third Staircase

I listen to the new way this story is being told through me. I listen as the voice of the Piper, now within me, makes the tales particularly musical on this night. Simultaneously the stability of telling my tale, even from the Piper's Pov, within the container of the pub gifts me with the ability to dream of leaping into a wild green wood from the stones in the furious river that races crashing over rocks as if it is an ocean wave. There is no gently flowing or gliding peaceful lulling in this stream. The stream feels like a challenge- stay upright admidst these crashing waters or fall and perish. What would I fall to in the story world? Would I be carried away by the angry waters or would I swim, or drown?

I remind myself to focus on the story I am telling. As I focus I am more strongly present in the pub. Shall I weave this precarious perch over the rushing waters into the story? I’m going to have to weave something of this experience- because I can feel several in the audience realize that something irrevocable has changed. My boots grows ever more soggy as they continue to fill with water and I am shivering from the cold but hot too from the effort of maintaining my balance. I feel like I am trying out for Cirque De Soleil. As I am trying to stay upright on stones separated by rapidly rushing waters growing ever stronger, someone or something is trying to force me to fall into the deepening waters.

The water is blue and yet translucent. I look closer and see deep green shimmering currents seeming to merge with the blues- as if the colors are dancing shapes, formed and reformed, as if a celtic knot pattern is being drawn by an invisible hand or emerges from within the waters into the ever changing currents of the river.