How to Open a Portal or The Re-Wilding of Elon and the HouseBot

Scent is the sense of nostalgia.

They could see the oak door of the portal beginning to form, the ancient doorknob rusty. But it swung outward on greased hinges, silent. They stepped up into the strange unscented light, feeling blind.

Listen as you read:

They called her Metal Dog, because when they found her, she had a bright slash of metal tight at her neck. Her clink they had heard far across the watershed.

They had hunted the sound, smiling at each other as they fanned out. Their tongues. The whites of their teeth and eyes. Their ears angled, cupping each rustle.

When they slouched in unison around the fallen snag where she had moved suddenly in fever—they found her wounded deep in her hip, raw cut and bone chipped.

She had heard them. But stayed. Thumped her tail. Licked then cursed her injury with a snap, a snarl.

She needed help. She was hungry.

Red Leaf came near to poke her up, nose-bumped, nudged, then gently nipped her.

So, she rose on her three good legs, her dark fur clumped in mud, her nose dry.

She whimpered.

Come Metal Dog, said Leaf, steady. Honey, brown-starred eyes. Water is close by. And we’ll hunt.

Now, as she lay in moonlight beneath soft sheets, smooth-skinned, she saw the wolves gathered outside her bedroom window. Leaf and her two pups, One, and Roux. The others, Fox, Yarrow, Silver, Watcher, and Trinity ranged shadowy about the yard, panting, staring, alert.

She had heard them open the gate, then strokes of grass on fur. Leaf, thumping down carelessly. One complaining at Roux, wanting to play.

She ran her hand down the white scar on her left hip.

She rolled onto her back. Touched the cool disks on the chain at her neck. She could feel the call getting stronger. She knew this electric whinge, the excitement of scent.

Oh, how sweet the night smelled. And the mountain stream clover perfume of their travelling bed, the earth of their den, musk of sex, a pack’s history, and death’s dark deliciousness on someone’s neck.

Now, her mouth watered at the memory of the hot kill they had shared with her then.

Her ears sharpened so all the sounds of her house jangled loudly.

She breathed in her home, the warm spice of her cedar ceiling and the sandalwood soap in her shower, then gathered herself, shedding the T-shirt she slept in, leaving it a soft dark pile on the hall floor, as she walked naked out her laundry room door.

Canine grace slipped into her body. Bending and pricking into wolf form, she loped toward the pack who sniffed her, licked inside her mouth, moaning, squealing, Hello kin!

Their beloved Metal Dog looked well they said. We need you. A portal has been opened.

Elon dreamed in fits of sense.

If he had ever known more than his PureAir plague-engineered garden atmosphere, he would have recognized lilac, then roses, honeysuckle, grass in summer heat, dirt. Instead, he swam the dark, endless waters of scent, unmoored, seeking something familiar, a grounding sensation from which to know himself.

He felt cold. He braced himself against it, settled down in the mean light of his parents’ glass palace.

He had fallen asleep to an EyeVid, Joaquin Bruno rumbling on about holographs, a world in a Grain of Sand…Infinity in the palm. It was Joaquin Bruno’s husky voice, his long-fingered hands gently crinkling, the white noise of his theories, cosmometry, those mystical energies that unite, every fragment of a holograph, which contains the complete image of the shattered whole--

Which is how we can revise time. Said Joaquin, quoting Joseph Chilton Pearce, Each of us centered within our heart torus is as much the center of the universe as any other creature or point, with equal access to all that exists.

Wolfish Joaquin quoted William Blake: The Bleat the Bark Bellow & Roar, a dog starved, wild deer wandering, the wanton boy.

Kill not the Moth nor Butterfly.

Omens, auguries. Elon’s visions turned cruel. Elon woke.

He set the screen aside, turned into the softness of his HypAll pillow, slipped down into sleep, a fibre from the Brain does tear.

He heard a snugthud, like a door closing in its perfect frame.

What was that? What was that? Elon was just at the edge of remembering a salty, pink, shameless and squeaky sensation. Ancient sense. Nostalgia keened in him as he reached. He breathed deeply through his nose, his cilia arched in praise.

Oh yes, yes, such endearing…oh how cute! His dreamy voice said to the safe air of his bedroom.

The portal closed as Leaf pulled her pup One by the scruff through the oak door.

Snugthud!

Elon shifted, threw his arms wide to sleep chest-open on the CloudPlat and faded below the scape of dreaming into emptiness.

Out of breath from their journey, the wolves paced, weaving in the loamy woods downslope from the portal. Pink tongues, tails low.

Good job Joaquin ‘Watcher’ Bruno! The other wolves said to black and broad-shouldered Watcher, who yawned modestly.

Now Metal Dog, they said to Matilda, one more portal to open and it is all you.

There erupts sudden commotion amongst the wolves.

Leaf is afraid to let her little One go.

Why could it not have been summer’s honeysuckle that awakened the boy?!

Nope, it had to be the puppy smell.

Leaf reacts to this statement of fact with a sudden puffing out, tail arched, chest wide! Shouts at the wolves closest to her! Snaps at Silver’s ear. He reacts snarling. The others, on guard—lunge, sniff, nose the fighters. Back down.

As suddenly, peace.

One, now hungry, chomped little white teeth in exaggerated bites.

Goofy puppy, said Yarrow.

I will go with him, said Leaf.

Matilda felt her hackles rise in fear. For Leaf.

They could see the oak door of the portal beginning to form, the ancient doorknob rusty. But it swung outward on greased hinges, silent. They stepped up into the strange unscented light, feeling blind.

Hush! Said Leaf to One, who for once seemed quietly awed. 0s 1s 0s 1s. Green on black, a strange language, then hurtling along a road of crackling cable, they slipped across the 5D on 5G.

Elon now stalked through the maze of his game, his yellow robe billowing with power, absorbed the purpled blood of his last adversary, adding coins to his coffers in a roll of numbers at the base of the HoloGam3D display.

He shook sweat out of his eyes in real life, eased back down into his TwitSlayGamer3000 and returned the PortOne helmet to his head to reenter the bright world he had created. Now, as his evil sorcerer self, he let the scathing music of his death hunt rattle on repetitively while he traded in his weapons for upgrades.

Let’s get medieval, he laughed and picked a glassed chain whip, also a bludgeoner. Thirdly, electric gloves that sparked purple behind him as he leapt up the levels, seeking prey.

Your empire has added 1.3 trillion with the successful downscaling of the labor force at your most recent acquisition, a pert voice announced into the back of his skull. And your most recent $10 million settlement will be quickly swallowed by the value added to your name recognition.

In a fit of victory, Elon cracked his whip against a hapless Elm nearby, which toppled needlessly. He burned the downed giant with purple electricity, chortling.

One half trillion now added with the—the voice began.

Cease market to game reporting, commanded Elon.

Yes Sir. Enjoy your exploits, Master.

Why not? Thought Elon.

Leaf and One plopped on the holographic lawn in the nearby woods. A grey rabbit with very large feet and a bubbly skunk conversed with an absurdly naïve fawn nearby.

Can I play with them, Mother? Asked One.

Give me a snug first, said Leaf. Get me good and stinky. And One did, rubbing his puppy scent across her red fur.

You look cool here, said One. Very RED.

Why thank you! Now stay with these numbskulls. I’ll be back.

Elon was having his way with a towering goblin, beating this new boss with his bludgeoner in a methodical murder whilst snapping away the goblin’s defenses with purple lightning and smacks of the whip. It was kind of boring, watching the power pour from the boss. He lifted the whip high over his head, electrified the wire with his glove and brought it down on the monster, splitting him in two…no into eight—WOLVES!

What the hell?! OK! Remarked Elon.

He set to work, bludgeoning, tasing, slashing the wolves, who were surprisingly effective at eluding his attacks. They were drawing him into a blackberry thicket in the woods, which tangled up in his whip and caught on fire, singing his robe.

He cursed, dropped the whip and tore off the robe, losing one of his gloves in the process.

He stood alone surrounded by wolves.

Hey! The enormous bright red wolf said sideways, not taking her eyes off Elon. Thanks for coming.

The pack flashed white fangs, wet black noses, yellow glares, and, rippling their calico holographic exaggerated colors, howled ridiculously. This was a chilling noise.

Elon caught his breath, pausing the game. He again slipped off the helmet, chuffing his hair, before he rose to his knees on his TwitSlayGamer3000 and re-entered the fray.

He was on his knees on the forest floor, muddied and somehow (could it be?) reeking with dirt and the musk of wolf hunt and rot on him. He was sliced and bleeding, defending himself with a weak glove that, single, somehow just set their coats on fire, turning one into an even blacker nightmare who was…quoting William Blake at him?!

Every Wolf’s and Lion’s howl Raises from Hell a Human Soul!

Then the red one sprang, and Elon raised the bludgeoner over his head, ready to easily cast her down in a cranium imploding blow, when a strange pink sense came into him and he—hesitated just one moment, long enough for her to tackle him sideways onto the rocky earth.

He grunted.

She stood on his chest. Panting hot wet gore into his face. And scary as this was, there was also on her the faint sense of pink, salty, silly, soft.

What was that? What was that?

Puppy, said Leaf. You smell puppy, you boy at heart. Remember?

And that is when Elon cheated.

He took the master switch, removing the seven other wolves from the game. Then, he upped his glove power to 100% and strangled her in purple fire.

Matilda stood in the expanse of dark woods between worlds, sweet puppy Roux in her human arms. Roux was whining for her mother and her brother.

The pack had been zapped out of the game and the portal closed permanently against them, the oak fading, becoming transparent. They clawed at the rusted handle, only falling through the mirage to all fours, no door in sight.

It is up to One to open that gate, said Trinity. But I think Leaf did it. I think the last portal will open. Are you ready Metal Dog?

Roux clung closer, nosing into Matilda’s neck.

I am ready, she said as a third oak door began to materialize, with the same ancient handle.

She put Roux down between Fox and Yarrow.

I’ll be back sweet one, now stay with the pack.

Elon felt at least one hundred. He had been in his game for who knew how long, losing time as a second avatar: his boy-self, who had sat quietly, luring the puppy One onto his lap.

Have you seen my mother? One asked. The red wolf? She said to wait here until she returns.

Elon thought of purple lightning, stuttered--

Then, not listening to Elon’s lies, One said, what kind of a name is Elon? Are you one of the lost ones?

Elon had felt his ears stretch and point hopefully.

Now, in his crystal bathroom, his eyes looked hard in the mirror and found no purple lightning nor wolf ears in the cold light of his glass palace.

Each visit into the game, One grew ever more sad, desperate for his mother.

It feels like I have waited a million years! Said One who now smelled slightly of skunk spray.

The melancholy pup suddenly lunged. A great-footed dun hare sprang from the thicket, quick-assed, glaring. A magnificent stag tearing grass from the nearby meadow jolted his antlers up at the sound, peered blindly, then went back to eating.

Sorry, sorry, said One miserably. Chase instinct. Elon, what should I do?

Just do as your mom said, stay here. I am sure she will return as promised, Elon had coaxed.

Now, Elon turned from the mirror. It did feel like a million years. Ugh.

Master, the pert voice of the palace, Your gardening applicant has arrived at the back yard.

Send her around to the front—No, never mind, I’ll get it.

Elon walked to the garden gate, passing between his mother’s GMroses, which unfurled perfectly in brilliant jewel colors.

He opened the door to a handsome woman. She unconsciously touched brown fingers to long black hair, silver threaded and worn in a thick rope that draped over her shoulder. A chain glinted above the neckline of her T-shirt.

Matilda Wall, she said, taking her small hand from her braid and offering a handshake.

Elon ignored this offer of contact.

You come highly recommended. Well—your bestselling book was proliferated by my algorithm. Everyone’s heard of it, buys it, always means to read it.

Matilda didn’t care. She looked around the sterile rows of senseless ornamentals in Elon’s rose garden.

I think I could do something to improve upon this.

She stepped up into the yard, passing close beside him, wafting a salty, pink, squeaky—

Do you have a puppy? Asked Elon.

Why yes—

Maybe you could bring him sometime, said Elon, suddenly wistful.

Maybe, said Matilda.

Leaf awoke in a blurry dungeon. Her head hurt. Her entire body hurt. It was as if she had been zapped endlessly with one of those barbaric shock collars. Oh shit, she actually had been.

She ran a hand down her (rippling) abdomen, across her (buxom!?) woman’s form—a light came on. Her eyes adjusted. She saw her entire fair skin, veined with angry purple scars.

Good morning Lisa Danu, a pleasant voice said.

Where am I? Said Lisa / Leaf. This is not my body. Am I still in that game? Where is my son?

Whichever construct you prefer.

Her body shifted, muscled, curved, soft and tall, practically flat-chested. THERE, these were her red knuckled big hands. Still, she was covered in the scars, head to toe. Their varicose pattern seemed to throb.

I am embarrassed to tell you, said the glass house. We seem to have been joined at your death.

Leaf lifted herself up on her elbows, accidentally leaning on and pulling her mass of red, curly hair. Hmmm, Lisa Danu, single mom of two and pre-school teacher usually wore her hair short, in a neat, wash-and-go cap.

I don’t mind the purple, she said. I always wanted tattoos. The palace obliged then, shifting the patterns into sun, moon, stars, alchemical formulas, forests, ferns, flowers, clover, magical and wild beasts that glowered and ran across Lisa Danu’s skin.

How do I get out of here? Leaf asked. I need to find my kiddo.

I’m sorry Lisa Danu, Master needs me to keep you here. He has taken to your pup. Are you hungry? Can I offer you a glass of white wine?

Matilda came and went through the garden portal, bringing clippings from her own yard and propagating them in Elon’s garden. Every night she went home. Every day she returned. Now, the yard thrummed with bugs, birds, smells, herbs, trees, leeks, wild strawberries, pecans, and more.

Elon came to his mother’s garden daily, furrowing his brow at ancient sensations, the spicy prickles, the sugary decay. Daily, he asked Matilda to bring her puppy.

Dude’s obsessed, muttered Matilda on her knees planting poison sumac and artemisia vulgaris amidst a spikey patch of blackberries.

Then came the day. As she closed the oak door behind her and pricked down into her wolf body, the pack came round.

It is time, they knew.

Roux, who yearned for her while Matilda went to work, cut out from Yarrow’s side and came wisely to her Metal Dog. She snuffed Matilda’s neck. Brave pup, red as her mother.

Now, through the oak door, went human Matilda with pup Roux in her arms.

Oh, said Elon. Please stay.

And they did stay, sleeping in private quarters his glass palace directed them to.

Roux roamed the cool hallways there, sniffing the wondrous collections of the house with a purpose. Her nails clipping on hard floors, she came upon Elon busy at his game. But only looked at his crouched shoulders from the doorway, then wandered, still seeking.

Until she came upon a sleek silver door, massive, odorless. She scratched at the door, whimpered, plopped down in a pout, waited, and was found there hours later by Matilda with the help of the glass palace.

You really must keep her away from this door, said the pert voice, more conspiratorial than that seemed. Something in the house had begun to revolt.

You realize we are Mother Earth, Lisa Danu had said one day. Honestly, I do not see why you continue to abide by this evil genius. He actually believes he invented this place!

On her side of the great silver door, Leaf / Lisa Danu had begun to get well.

For a time, she had indulged in too much ice cream and wine, getting a bit loose from her bones and soft-muscled. Now, she paced, stretched, flexed, pushed her body, requested produce harvested from the garden, wild game, fish.

The call came on her more and more and she shifted sometimes into her wolf form. The glass palace with her.

Call me Bridgid, said the House.

The door sometimes turned gold, patterned with dark and swirling lines, oaken. No handle appeared, not yet. But Leaf was patient.

In the beginning, Matilda had entered the woods between worlds alone.

She had sat comfortably before her altar, then ‘stood up from her body,’ and walked through her small house. She had watched as her laundry room door grew tall, silvered into unvarnished and chipped wood.

A rusted triangular handle hung from a copper dahlia frill. Turned many times, it had cut a circular groove into the oak. In one spot above the handle, the ancient door was greased smooth and dirty, where many hands must have pushed.

This portal had swung wide into a deep valley. A towering evergreen roof curved to mirror the basin of the forest floor. Crick ricking and rustling darkness was brightened by stars that seemed as close as the treetops.

She had walked down a faint path to the tiny orange windowed building she found beneath the great pines, knocking at a door that opened, then crossed the threshold into the forge.

Then the tall figure at the blazing anvil had ceased hammering sparking metal and turned. Pincers in one leathered fist, she lifted the vent on her welder’s helmet with the other gloved hand.

In the strange way of these woods, Matilda had felt desire (and embarrassment at it) before the smudged and fire-haired goddess, could not help but imagine kissing her, even taking her into the next room.

Instead, they had looked at a bucket of shattered metal, at the disks at Matilda’s neck. Then, Matilda understood, this goddess had built her too, of that same golden metal, from the blurry fragments of the whole.

Remember, my little robot, said the fire-haired goddess, touching Matilda’s bare shoulder with her huge, red-knuckled hand. I made you.

Then the goddess’s silver dog had risen, suddenly jealous, from his bed beneath the anvil. Growled, threatened.

When Matilda did not waver, offering her hand for him to sniff, he had met her steady gaze and nipped her, broke skin, drew blood.

Then came the whinge, the first call.

Trust your wildness, said the fire-haired goddess then.

Now, Matilda padded barefoot through smooth halls toward the garden, Roux in her arms.

The waxing moon shone on the wilderness the yard had become. A thousand crickets ratcheted in the shadows. The walls had long ago cracked and slumped under the weight of wild clematis, hops, honeysuckle, grapes, and blackberry vines. The water feature had gone rogue, creating a small wetland for meadowsweet and pussywillow.

Matilda heard the brr-owww of a bullfrog, felt the crone goddess crouching over her weaving.

She imagined the pack’s voice again.

It is time.

She was ready.

Full of moonlight, Matilda and Roux re-entered the glass house and went to bed.

ow, Elon crept into Matilda’s room. His stomach spiraled up, vine of vagus nerve fractured the shale feeling of shame and heartbreak heavy on his chest. He smelled woman and pup sleeping, they smelled of honeysuckle. They smelled pink, silly, sweet.

Elon grieved his captured pup. The game no longer held joy.

One had not even lifted his head from his paws. His once golden coat was smudged, sappy, blackened by the remains of a haunted voiceless forest. When Elon bent to rough pet and shake him happy loose, as he had once been able to do, One had stayed stiff, refusing.

I am sorry to have kept you so long, House Bridgid said to Leaf.

Red Leaf stopped pacing, scratched at the silver door. Get me out of here Bridgid.

The silver door, not yet a portal, opened back into the scorched forest of the game.

What happened here?!

The Master extracted everything in the end.

But, even in the game, a mustard seed: wild green persisted.

Leaf raced there through the char, saw first sprouts, small pines and manzanita’s springing from the base of blasted old trees. She raced by the reclaiming blues of delphiniums. This forest could return, if only they kept Elon away.

A clatter of birds gossiped deep in the blackness, telling refugee stories of the fires, droughts, storms, of rising seas and melting ice.

An exhausted owl, perched low on a blackened pine’s skeleton.

Are you okay? asked Leaf. Have you seen a wolf pup out here?

And the owl widened her droopy cartoon eyes. Why yes, who do you think those robins are chattering at?

Now, Elon sat on the dark edge of Matilda’s bed reaching stealthily for Roux.

In her dream, the diamondback coiled, rattling. Matilda shifted, the call came, pricking her into wolf form. She lunged, biting—

Elon’s hand, torn, bled. He leapt back.

Matilda woke and reached confused for Elon, apologetic.

Roux slipped from beside them, ran through the night halls. To the silver door now oake as it opened. As Leaf and One slunk through, tails low, panting. A brief joyful sniff, mouthing, paws, whines, licks.

Then the wolf family fled, meeting Matilda, who had run from Elon to the garden gate.

The last portal opened. They departed.

And a fifth wolf followed, limping on his wounded paw.

Snugthud.

The house in collapsing glory, sighed. The air smelled brisk, blue, melancholy, of winter. She could rest at last.

Dream for now.

Live.