Mission

“Where am I?”  Hand to the side of his head, Nickels sat up to see… well, nothing, really.  He was seated on a surface that he couldn’t see surrounded by emptiness.  It wasn’t dark, because he could see himself, but there was no discernible light source, either.  The air around him (was it air?) was illuminated somehow.  Or illuminating.  Nickels climbed to his feet, turned three hundred sixty degrees, and stuck his hands in his pockets for lack of a better finale to his actions.  “Hello?”  His voice sounded odd, as if it were coming from the space around him rather than from his mouth. 

                “Hello there.”

                Nickels spun again, but none of the nothing around him seemed any different.  Then he heard footsteps.

                At the very edge of what he could see, the nothing was changing into something.  Sandy hills and rocky outcroppings came into focus, spreading horizontally and racing towards Nickels.  From the same distant point, a cloudless blue sky arced overhead.  With the slightest tremor, the nothing beneath his feet became desert and the nothing over his head became clear sky.  Then, still far away, he saw a figure making its slow, stilted way toward him across the sands.  Hands still in his pockets, he waited.

                After some time (Nickels sang the entirety of “American Pie” in his head), a tall, robed individual stood before Nickels.  Nickels squinted back at him, but couldn’t see a face until the figure pulled back the deep hood obscuring its features.

                “Ben Kenobi?”  Nickels’ voice sounded closer to normal in the new environment, though nothing else felt quite right.

                “You seem surprised,” responded the man.  “You were expecting someone else?”

                “Um, yeah, to be perfectly honest.  No offense or anything; it’s pretty awesome to see you, but you’re kinda not real, which is making me think that maybe none of this is.”

                Kenobi sat down on a rock and rolled back his voluminous sleeves.  “Ah.  I see.  Would it make you more comfortable if I were someone ‘real?’  An historical figure, perhaps?”  He snapped his fingers, and Abraham Lincoln sat upon a wooden chair in the middle of what was quickly becoming an office; through that office’s windows, the desert outside was being overlaid with green grass and marshland.  “Or maybe someone with slightly more immediate resonance?”  He clapped his hands and the office and surrounding land transformed into a baseball diamond with Mickey Mantle standing in its center.

                “I think I’d prefer Obi Wan, actually.”

                Mickey shrugged, and diamond melted away to reveal the desert again, with the old Jedi master seated again on his rock.  “So,” he said, folding his hands on his knee, “what can I do for you?”

                Nickels glanced around at the empty desert surrounding them, which, in contrast to the nothing that preceded it, didn’t really seem so empty.  “I don’t know.  What can you do for me?”

                “I’d imagine that’s up to you,” said Kenobi with a trademarked “I-know-more-than-I’m-saying” look.

                “And I’d imagine that, based on what’s happening here, and who you appear to be, that we must be… what, inside my head?”

                Kenobi smiled.

                Nickels sat down on a nearby rock of his own.  “Crap,” he said flatly.  “I must be unconscious or something, then.  So that’s probably not good.”  He cracked his knuckles and stared at the man across from him, who continued smiling in response.    “And you’re here to do what?  Unlock some deep subconscious knowledge I have that I don’t know that I have?  Isn’t this kind of cliché?”

                “I’m only here, my friend,” said Kenobi, standing up and taking a step towards Nickels, “to remind you of your job.”

                Nickels leaned back on his rock as Kenobi approached, towering over him.  “Yeah?” he said, willing his voice to remain even.  “And what’s my job?”

                Kenobi leaned down until his nose was inches from Nickels’, his eyes forcing their way into Nickels’ own.  “To save the world, of course.”

                Nickels felt his jaw go slack, and then a very curious sensation as the world around him slipped away again, Kenobi included, to reveal the nothing underneath, and then the nothing slipped away, or Nickels slipped away, or they both slipped away until, aching and confused, he opened his eyes to reveal the concrete floor of a supply closet lit by a single 40-watt bulb and smelling of ammonia.  His head hurt.