![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stefanie_beanTitle: You Can't Spell Island Without LSD
Chapter: Chapter 3, "Hugo in the Sky with Diamonds"
Length: 2113 words
Rating: T
Complete, 4 chapters
Summary: Hurley and Sawyer discover that squishing a harmless little tree frog leads to some trippy consequences.
Chapter 3: Hugo in the Sky with Diamonds
Sawyer stomped off, leaving Hugo standing alone in the jungle. Purifying anger mounted in him like a column, pushed Dave to one side, then collapsed into despair.
Sawyer's cold grey eyes had sliced up and down Hugo's body like surgical instruments, tore through his damp, stained clothes to carve the flesh beneath, laying bare his massive shameful display.
If Sawyer told what he knew, Claire's small smiles would change to disgust. Sun's face would go blank and remote, and let's face it, it was no wonder Sun traipsed off into the forest with Michael, instead of with Hugo himself. After all, Michael wasn't fat, was he?
Libby, well, Libby would be kind. Her sweet professional tones reminded him of the Santa Rosa hospital nurses who could get you to calm down without calling in the muscle. At least Libby wouldn't laugh at him. Probably.
But none of it mattered because all Sawyer had to do was breathe a few words in the right ears, and everyone would know.
Hugo felt like crying.
He held the frog until the galvanic twitching stopped, ignoring the fiercely stinging cuts on his palm. Slowly he opened his hand, afraid at first to look, but there wasn't much mess. A little blood had seeped onto his palm, and the frog's black-bead eyes had gone blank and dull.
Since Sawyer was gone, Hugo did cry outright, and he set down the body in order to wipe his tears. That was a big mistake, because the burning frog slime which coated his face only made him cry harder. The poor dead creature not a moment earlier had been so full of life and energetic joy.
Sometimes in the shade of the jungle Hugo had come upon coupling frogs, clutching each other as if they would never let go. That's all this frog had wanted in its small life. It didn't have television, or concerts at the Troubadour. To be fair, it didn't worry about keeping a job. Or that it killed its abuelito with a curse, either. Just a lot of flies, a few matings, then spawning and death, but this was one it didn't deserve.
From deep inside the Dave-chatter resumed. “Hey, man, better go check your stash. What if Sawyer took it? Run back and see, chop, chop.”
Hugo screamed out the way the guys in the mental hospital did, “Just. Shut. Up!” Then, with a soft half-sob, “Shut up, shut up, omigod, I'm crazy, crazy, crazy, going crazy.”
But crazy or not, he wasn't going to let the frog's body shrivel up in the hot afternoon sun.
* * * * * * * *
Along the path Hugo found a spot where the earth was particularly soft. Setting the corpse down, he began to dig a hole with his big hands, but a wave of sickness almost knocked him over. Probably punishment for eating ranch dressing from That Seventies Show. Food poisoning could kill you dead as a plane crash.
The frog's body glowed with a pale purple light. As Hugo covered the frog with earth, rainbow-colored streaks like the tails of colorful comets followed his hands wherever they moved.
“Happy trails to yooouuu,” Hugo half-sang, half-laughed. “Until we meet again—” All at once his heart pounded in his chest, but slowly, way more slowly than a heart should.
Panic seized him. Maybe this was the coronary his mother had always dreaded. As she never stopped reminding him, that's how your grandfathers both went, and you know it runs in families. Hugo's heart pulsed like some huge drum, and the dense green leaves echoed in perfect time with the beats.
Maybe he was wrong, though. Maybe it wasn't his heart which had slowed, but time itself. A few flies ambled along through the misty air, drawn by the smell of frog blood. Other bugs floated like tiny balloons caught in a light breeze, and pretty pink and blue streaks trailed behind them.
“Dude,” Hugo whispered. Then he remembered to say the proper words. Touching the mound of earth with one dirt-smeared hand, he spoke in a slow, slurred voice, “Sorry, little buddy. Sorry that jackass killed you, and I couldn't stop him. I hope you find lots of bugs and a hot Mrs. Tree Frog.”
It wasn't worth getting up. A fascinating kaleidoscopic movie spread out before his eyes, one where every leaf, creeper, and blade of grass glowed with life. Inside the leaves, tiny cells sucked in sunlight, grew, divided, and wove together to form a living jungle tapestry.
Then Hugo stopped breathing for a few seconds, because something rustled in the high tree-tops. All at once, great harsh shrieks rang out from the upper canopy, “Hurley, Hurley, Hurley.” The bird circled in wide downward swoops, then landed right in the clearing where Hugo sat.
He'd never seen one up close before. It was large as an eagle, with emerald feathers edged in gold. Its scarlet feet ended in claws sharp enough to pierce the scuttling things which ran about the forest floor. Suddenly the bird spread its wings to full span and raised itself up into an almost-human stance.
Okay, now he'd sprung a main gasket for sure. The bird gave a few firm wing-shakes and its feathers fell off in one piece, like a woman letting a dress drop to the floor. The bird's eagle-beak softened into a pert, young face. Wings melted into round arms, and her long black hair barely covered her naked curves. The bird-girl's dark-olive skin glistened in the sunlight.
Hugo drank in the sight of her slim waist and swelling hips, the plump round breasts with nipples a shade darker than her face. When the bird-girl crept closer to him, he smiled and murmured, “Hey there, green chick.”
She didn't smile back, though. In fact, she looked positively stressed, not chill at all. He could have ogled her all day long and into the next, but she wasn't having any of that. With wide gestures, she sputtered out an urgent cascade of squawks and trills mixed with rapid-fire syllables.
It was just as incomprehensible as when Sun and Jin fought in Korean. The bird-girl started making flapping motions with her hands, jumping about with agitation when he didn't get it.
Whatever sand got in her gears, it was busting them up pretty good, but given the view, he wasn't complaining. When her breasts almost bounced across his nose, he started to laugh. Annoyed, she shook him by the shoulders, which only drew more attention to her breasts.
“OK, OK, relax,” Hugo said, and she stopped shaking him. “Man, are you ever gorgeous,” didn't have the desired effect at all. She just threw up her hands in a universal gesture of frustration and despair. When the trees began to rustle, he ignored it, entranced as he was by the green girl.
Out of the corner of his eye he caught the thick, dark mist which filled the nearby tree-tops, then blew back and forth as if impatiently waiting for something. At the sight of the hovering shadow, the bird-girl grabbed her feather dress and bolted away into the jungle.
All at once the whispering began. It started out as a low hum, then grew louder until it formed into a kind of song, like a chant in church. Then the lights started.
It was as if a demented disco ball had just started flashing in the middle of the jungle. Closing his eyes did nothing to stop them, either, because pierced right through the lids and into his brain.
Even though Hugo had been a little sick to his stomach a few hours before, the lights made him want to hurl. Something rose from his very core, pulled by the crazy flashing lights. It was as if his mind wanted to vomit, rather than his stomach.
A column of dark smoke towered over him, and Hugo could have sworn it grinned at him, even though it had no face. Slowly the grin changed into a face which Hugo recognized: bald, jowly, thick-nosed and weak-chinned.
“Dave?” he said in a weak voice.
At once the dark vision disappeared, taking Dave's face with it. Now every leaf was ringed with pulsating halos which called to him in choleric yellows and urgent reds, acidic blues and rotting purples.
Each said the same thing in its own spectral language. Run. Just run.
* * * * * * * *
Hugo took the advice, tripping along the way, pulling himself up only to trip again. A few times he left his body as he had back in his hospital days, gazing down on his wobbling form with pity and contempt.
He found the way to his backpack and the spread-out food, where the jar of ranch dressing now played host to a party of ants. Every bug on the Island must have got the invitation, for they covered the white glop with a black, wriggling mass.
Hugo couldn't believe he had ever put that alien, repulsive mess in his mouth. Then the whole mass oozed its way out of the jar, advancing across the jungle floor towards his athletic shoes. There it stopped just short of the toes and sat there, quivering.
Terrified that the slime-like mass would form tentacles and leap up to grab his legs, Hugo backed up. On the second look, though, there was nothing but a tub of spoiled salad dressing and a few cans. He swept the whole mess into his back-pack and got the hell out of there.
Maybe he should have turned left when he should have veered right, or maybe it was the other way around. In any case, the path twisted away every time Hugo thought he'd gotten a foothold on it. Nothing looked familiar. Broad white flowers hung down from the low-hanging creepers, and in every flower winked a small human face. When he brushed them aside, they laughed at him with voices like small, tinkling bells.
The sounds of moving water echoed through the jungle. Hugo snaked his way through a lacy screen of branches, then stopped short, amazed. Protected within a shady grove, a spring bubbled over large, mossy stones.
If anyone from the beach camp had found this place, Hugo had never heard of it. The water murmured a quiet song as it tumbled out of the rock face. Garlands of ferns hung over the water's edge, and small breezes cast a refreshing mist over Hugo's red, sweating face.
It was an open invitation, and he took it. Everyone wanted turns in the Swan Station shower, and Hugo had managed to squeeze in a few himself. Most of the castaways stripped down and bathed in the ocean, but Hugo would have cut off his own head before doing that.
Here, though, it was private as a bathroom with a closed door, so Hugo undressed and stepped into the warm roiling water. High above, the trees rustled with bird wings, but when Hugo looked up, there was nothing.
The pool itself was long and wide enough for him to stretch out in. He plunged his head underwater, then lay back so that only his face and round belly-curve broke through the surface. All the sweat, the anxiety, the sorrow over the little frog, and the weird forest colors leached away. When he finally pulled himself out, the bees flew at their normal busy pace, and the flowers no longer had faces. Leaves glimmered gold, not uncanny purple in the sunlight.
A peaceful hush hung over everything, and the whole weird experience faded like a half-forgotten dream.
Hugo trudged back to the beach camp, not sure how he'd missed the path in the first place, because now it lay before him as clear as markings on a map. As he rounded the curved shoreline, he saw Libby running in his direction like her life depended on it. She slowed down when she saw him, and he gave her a shy smile.
“Hey,” she said, pivoting towards the beach camp.
“Back at ya.” In an act of rash bravery he added, “How 'bout if I, um, join you tomorrow? You know, for a run?”
She looked surprised at first, then collected herself. Her smile was as cool and measured as her voice. “Sure. I'd like that.” She took off with the rhythmic, disciplined strides of a marathon runner and was soon way ahead of him.
Hugo trudged on through the sand, hoping everyone would be too busy preparing their evening meal and staying out of Sawyer's way to take much notice of him.
(continued)
Chapter: Chapter 3, "Hugo in the Sky with Diamonds"
Length: 2113 words
Rating: T
Complete, 4 chapters
Summary: Hurley and Sawyer discover that squishing a harmless little tree frog leads to some trippy consequences.
Chapter 3: Hugo in the Sky with Diamonds
Sawyer stomped off, leaving Hugo standing alone in the jungle. Purifying anger mounted in him like a column, pushed Dave to one side, then collapsed into despair.
Sawyer's cold grey eyes had sliced up and down Hugo's body like surgical instruments, tore through his damp, stained clothes to carve the flesh beneath, laying bare his massive shameful display.
If Sawyer told what he knew, Claire's small smiles would change to disgust. Sun's face would go blank and remote, and let's face it, it was no wonder Sun traipsed off into the forest with Michael, instead of with Hugo himself. After all, Michael wasn't fat, was he?
Libby, well, Libby would be kind. Her sweet professional tones reminded him of the Santa Rosa hospital nurses who could get you to calm down without calling in the muscle. At least Libby wouldn't laugh at him. Probably.
But none of it mattered because all Sawyer had to do was breathe a few words in the right ears, and everyone would know.
Hugo felt like crying.
He held the frog until the galvanic twitching stopped, ignoring the fiercely stinging cuts on his palm. Slowly he opened his hand, afraid at first to look, but there wasn't much mess. A little blood had seeped onto his palm, and the frog's black-bead eyes had gone blank and dull.
Since Sawyer was gone, Hugo did cry outright, and he set down the body in order to wipe his tears. That was a big mistake, because the burning frog slime which coated his face only made him cry harder. The poor dead creature not a moment earlier had been so full of life and energetic joy.
Sometimes in the shade of the jungle Hugo had come upon coupling frogs, clutching each other as if they would never let go. That's all this frog had wanted in its small life. It didn't have television, or concerts at the Troubadour. To be fair, it didn't worry about keeping a job. Or that it killed its abuelito with a curse, either. Just a lot of flies, a few matings, then spawning and death, but this was one it didn't deserve.
From deep inside the Dave-chatter resumed. “Hey, man, better go check your stash. What if Sawyer took it? Run back and see, chop, chop.”
Hugo screamed out the way the guys in the mental hospital did, “Just. Shut. Up!” Then, with a soft half-sob, “Shut up, shut up, omigod, I'm crazy, crazy, crazy, going crazy.”
But crazy or not, he wasn't going to let the frog's body shrivel up in the hot afternoon sun.
Along the path Hugo found a spot where the earth was particularly soft. Setting the corpse down, he began to dig a hole with his big hands, but a wave of sickness almost knocked him over. Probably punishment for eating ranch dressing from That Seventies Show. Food poisoning could kill you dead as a plane crash.
The frog's body glowed with a pale purple light. As Hugo covered the frog with earth, rainbow-colored streaks like the tails of colorful comets followed his hands wherever they moved.
“Happy trails to yooouuu,” Hugo half-sang, half-laughed. “Until we meet again—” All at once his heart pounded in his chest, but slowly, way more slowly than a heart should.
Panic seized him. Maybe this was the coronary his mother had always dreaded. As she never stopped reminding him, that's how your grandfathers both went, and you know it runs in families. Hugo's heart pulsed like some huge drum, and the dense green leaves echoed in perfect time with the beats.
Maybe he was wrong, though. Maybe it wasn't his heart which had slowed, but time itself. A few flies ambled along through the misty air, drawn by the smell of frog blood. Other bugs floated like tiny balloons caught in a light breeze, and pretty pink and blue streaks trailed behind them.
“Dude,” Hugo whispered. Then he remembered to say the proper words. Touching the mound of earth with one dirt-smeared hand, he spoke in a slow, slurred voice, “Sorry, little buddy. Sorry that jackass killed you, and I couldn't stop him. I hope you find lots of bugs and a hot Mrs. Tree Frog.”
It wasn't worth getting up. A fascinating kaleidoscopic movie spread out before his eyes, one where every leaf, creeper, and blade of grass glowed with life. Inside the leaves, tiny cells sucked in sunlight, grew, divided, and wove together to form a living jungle tapestry.
Then Hugo stopped breathing for a few seconds, because something rustled in the high tree-tops. All at once, great harsh shrieks rang out from the upper canopy, “Hurley, Hurley, Hurley.” The bird circled in wide downward swoops, then landed right in the clearing where Hugo sat.
He'd never seen one up close before. It was large as an eagle, with emerald feathers edged in gold. Its scarlet feet ended in claws sharp enough to pierce the scuttling things which ran about the forest floor. Suddenly the bird spread its wings to full span and raised itself up into an almost-human stance.
Okay, now he'd sprung a main gasket for sure. The bird gave a few firm wing-shakes and its feathers fell off in one piece, like a woman letting a dress drop to the floor. The bird's eagle-beak softened into a pert, young face. Wings melted into round arms, and her long black hair barely covered her naked curves. The bird-girl's dark-olive skin glistened in the sunlight.
Hugo drank in the sight of her slim waist and swelling hips, the plump round breasts with nipples a shade darker than her face. When the bird-girl crept closer to him, he smiled and murmured, “Hey there, green chick.”
She didn't smile back, though. In fact, she looked positively stressed, not chill at all. He could have ogled her all day long and into the next, but she wasn't having any of that. With wide gestures, she sputtered out an urgent cascade of squawks and trills mixed with rapid-fire syllables.
It was just as incomprehensible as when Sun and Jin fought in Korean. The bird-girl started making flapping motions with her hands, jumping about with agitation when he didn't get it.
Whatever sand got in her gears, it was busting them up pretty good, but given the view, he wasn't complaining. When her breasts almost bounced across his nose, he started to laugh. Annoyed, she shook him by the shoulders, which only drew more attention to her breasts.
“OK, OK, relax,” Hugo said, and she stopped shaking him. “Man, are you ever gorgeous,” didn't have the desired effect at all. She just threw up her hands in a universal gesture of frustration and despair. When the trees began to rustle, he ignored it, entranced as he was by the green girl.
Out of the corner of his eye he caught the thick, dark mist which filled the nearby tree-tops, then blew back and forth as if impatiently waiting for something. At the sight of the hovering shadow, the bird-girl grabbed her feather dress and bolted away into the jungle.
All at once the whispering began. It started out as a low hum, then grew louder until it formed into a kind of song, like a chant in church. Then the lights started.
It was as if a demented disco ball had just started flashing in the middle of the jungle. Closing his eyes did nothing to stop them, either, because pierced right through the lids and into his brain.
Even though Hugo had been a little sick to his stomach a few hours before, the lights made him want to hurl. Something rose from his very core, pulled by the crazy flashing lights. It was as if his mind wanted to vomit, rather than his stomach.
A column of dark smoke towered over him, and Hugo could have sworn it grinned at him, even though it had no face. Slowly the grin changed into a face which Hugo recognized: bald, jowly, thick-nosed and weak-chinned.
“Dave?” he said in a weak voice.
At once the dark vision disappeared, taking Dave's face with it. Now every leaf was ringed with pulsating halos which called to him in choleric yellows and urgent reds, acidic blues and rotting purples.
Each said the same thing in its own spectral language. Run. Just run.
Hugo took the advice, tripping along the way, pulling himself up only to trip again. A few times he left his body as he had back in his hospital days, gazing down on his wobbling form with pity and contempt.
He found the way to his backpack and the spread-out food, where the jar of ranch dressing now played host to a party of ants. Every bug on the Island must have got the invitation, for they covered the white glop with a black, wriggling mass.
Hugo couldn't believe he had ever put that alien, repulsive mess in his mouth. Then the whole mass oozed its way out of the jar, advancing across the jungle floor towards his athletic shoes. There it stopped just short of the toes and sat there, quivering.
Terrified that the slime-like mass would form tentacles and leap up to grab his legs, Hugo backed up. On the second look, though, there was nothing but a tub of spoiled salad dressing and a few cans. He swept the whole mess into his back-pack and got the hell out of there.
Maybe he should have turned left when he should have veered right, or maybe it was the other way around. In any case, the path twisted away every time Hugo thought he'd gotten a foothold on it. Nothing looked familiar. Broad white flowers hung down from the low-hanging creepers, and in every flower winked a small human face. When he brushed them aside, they laughed at him with voices like small, tinkling bells.
The sounds of moving water echoed through the jungle. Hugo snaked his way through a lacy screen of branches, then stopped short, amazed. Protected within a shady grove, a spring bubbled over large, mossy stones.
If anyone from the beach camp had found this place, Hugo had never heard of it. The water murmured a quiet song as it tumbled out of the rock face. Garlands of ferns hung over the water's edge, and small breezes cast a refreshing mist over Hugo's red, sweating face.
It was an open invitation, and he took it. Everyone wanted turns in the Swan Station shower, and Hugo had managed to squeeze in a few himself. Most of the castaways stripped down and bathed in the ocean, but Hugo would have cut off his own head before doing that.
Here, though, it was private as a bathroom with a closed door, so Hugo undressed and stepped into the warm roiling water. High above, the trees rustled with bird wings, but when Hugo looked up, there was nothing.
The pool itself was long and wide enough for him to stretch out in. He plunged his head underwater, then lay back so that only his face and round belly-curve broke through the surface. All the sweat, the anxiety, the sorrow over the little frog, and the weird forest colors leached away. When he finally pulled himself out, the bees flew at their normal busy pace, and the flowers no longer had faces. Leaves glimmered gold, not uncanny purple in the sunlight.
A peaceful hush hung over everything, and the whole weird experience faded like a half-forgotten dream.
Hugo trudged back to the beach camp, not sure how he'd missed the path in the first place, because now it lay before him as clear as markings on a map. As he rounded the curved shoreline, he saw Libby running in his direction like her life depended on it. She slowed down when she saw him, and he gave her a shy smile.
“Hey,” she said, pivoting towards the beach camp.
“Back at ya.” In an act of rash bravery he added, “How 'bout if I, um, join you tomorrow? You know, for a run?”
She looked surprised at first, then collected herself. Her smile was as cool and measured as her voice. “Sure. I'd like that.” She took off with the rhythmic, disciplined strides of a marathon runner and was soon way ahead of him.
Hugo trudged on through the sand, hoping everyone would be too busy preparing their evening meal and staying out of Sawyer's way to take much notice of him.
(continued)