The Friendship Has Begun

By G.B. Miller

Fueled by a morning spent hearing the word "no" drilled into her brain with the precision of a jack-hammer, Nikia unleashed a vicious growl and drove her cell phone completely through the patio table.

Surprised by the amount of vitriol directed towards two inanimate objects, Nikia decided to go for a motorcycle ride to the mountain, so as to recalibrate her chi and get her mojo back into the spirit of her wedding nuptials.

Cruising the mountain highway brought such an inner calmness to her soul that she didn't see the child standing in the middle of the road as she came out of the turn. Nikia swerved violently to the right and quickly found herself speeding down the mountainside.

Suddenly, the mountainside was no more. Nikia had driven off a cliff and was on the downside of a journey that could only end in tragedy. As she was saying her final prayers, the child suddenly reappeared. With an outstretched hand, they said, "Do you wish to find happiness again? If so, take my hand, for you only have a few seconds left."

Nikia took their hand and instantly found herself on a journey that would transform her life in ways that she never imagined.

From the friendly confines of a home to the noirish sulfuric wasteland of the late 19th century west, The Friendship Has Begun is the quintessential story of the redemption of a woman's spirit and the salvation of her lost soul.

• Language: English
• Publisher: G.B. Miller
• Release date: Jun 15, 2018
• ISBN: 9781370447008

G.B. Miller

While working as a payroll clerk in state government back in 2006 (and with a little encouragement from friends & co-workers) G.B. decided to take up writing so as to make better use of his free time. In 2007, in a crisis of conscience, G.B. dove head long into the shallow water of chat rooms, so as to get the basic skills needed in order to write like he knew what he was talking about.By the spring of 2008 (with a little encouragement from friends), G.B. packed his quill and parchment and moved over to the blog world, where he promptly created his first mainstream blog called Cedar's Mountain. In late 2013, he created a new and improved mainstream blog entitled Father Nature's Corner, and promptly turned his first one into a living archive.Sadly, this new blog lasted until early 2017 and this too has been turned into an archival blog. He can now be found on his new Blogger blog, I Have Stories! a stream-of-conscience blog with his writing adventures as the theme that ties all the posts together.In the past 16 years, blogging has been extremely good to G.B., as he honed his writing skills to the point where he has had a modicum of success with his writing: two published short stories, two self-pubbed novellas, six self-published e-books (including two short story anthologies), his commercial debut novel, and a reissue of his commercial debutWhen he's not creating written mayhem in the cyber world and real world, G.B. now spends his free time chillin', styling and profiling in retirement....and walking around his tiny little town exploring the wonder of Father and Mother Nature.

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The Friendship Has Begun

Copyright © 2018 by G.B. Miller

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever including Internet usage, without written permission of the author.

This is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, or events used in this book are the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people, alive or deceased, events or locales is completely coincidental.

ISBN-13: 978-1719534598

ISBN-10: 1719534594

E-book formatting by Maureen Cutajar

www.gopublished.com

This book is dedicated to the people who have the perseverance to succeed, in spite of those who would attempt to squelch their guaranteed right to express themselves however they see fit.

CONTENTS

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Acknowledgements

CHAPTER 1

Nikia walked outside to the rear patio with her cell phone and sloe gin fizz in hand and placed both items on the table. Walking to the edge of the patio, she looked out towards the twenty acre forest that was part of their property and blew a long, low melodic whistle. Moving her hair to the side, she tilted her head and waited.

When she’d received the reply, she furrowed her brow and said, Seriously? That’s all the help I’m going to get?

She paused for a moment as the entity replied. Snorting in disgust, Nikia sat down where she was standing, leaned back until she was perpendicular with the patio and blew a short, sharp hiss through her teeth.

Instantly, her hair blew up until it assumed a three and a half foot semi-circle. It stayed like that for what seemed like an overly long period of time before blowing out and dropping like a feather floating to the ground. The moment it touched human flesh, Nikia wrapped her arms around it and squeezed tightly.

Her hair, sensing that Nikia was looking to hibernate for a spell, spiked itself to break the tension.

‘Hey! What gives with the spike?’ asked Nikia.

‘What gives with the impromptu hibernation hug?’

‘I’m having a bad month.’

‘How so?’ asked her hair as it surreptitiously began to reorganize itself into something more practical.

Sighing deep enough to send a chill through her follicles, she said, ‘I can’t get a band to play at the wedding reception. Everyone is more than willing to talk to me about a well-paying gig, but the second I mention that it’s for my wedding, they go silent and terminate the conversation with extreme prejudice.’

Nikia suddenly burst into tears the moment she’d finished. Her hair let her continue the meltdown until it had finished turning itself into a thick whip-braid. Once it had completed the braid with an electric orange ribbon, it called on the tail for some needed assistance.

Her tail tightly coiled itself before pushing Nikia into an upright position.

Shocked by the strange turn of events, it took all of her strength not to lose her balance and drop into the small outcrop of rocks fifteen feet below.

What are you trying to do, send me to the hospital? she said sharply.

Her tail retracted so fast that Nikia lost her balance just the same and fell backwards onto the concrete patio.

Grabbing her head, Nikia slowly rolled over onto her stomach and restarted her meltdown.

Her hair gave her a few more minutes to act like a bratty toddler before doing the human equivalent of rolling its eyes. It pulled extremely hard in the opposite direction before rolling her back over and roughly shoving her into a sitting position.

Finished? she asked snottily.

Her hair yanked Nikia to her feet and waited for her to find her legs and kill the bloodcurdling scream before going happily limp.

With tears pouring down her face, Nikia sank to her knees and wrapped her hands around her head. Many minutes passed before the pain subsided enough for her to take stock of her situation.

Jesus fuckin’ Christ! I swear, the next time you pull that kind of shit again I’ll cut you off at the shoulders! Do you read me, you stupid clump of hair follicles?

Her hair sent out a half dozen strands, which grabbed her drink, dumped the contents on her head and dropped the glass in her lap.

Thoroughly enraged, Nikia got up and stormed towards the house, hell bent on teaching her hair a lesson in servility. However, her tantrum was nipped in the bud when her cell phone began buzzing like an angry hornet. Growling loud enough to make the forest pause in fear, she grabbed her phone and yelled at it.

You need a break, said a familiar voice.

Not until I solve a problem, she hissed.

No.

Now wait just one damn minute— is as far as she got before the voice cut her off.

"I said no. What part of the word no do you not understand?"

A deep, troubling silence quickly filled the backyard as every creature suddenly went into flight mode. A rumble from deep within the forest started making its way to the front. Growing stronger with every acre covered, by the time it got to the perimeter a minute and a half later it was threatening to blow up and blow out.

Nikia, said the voice flatly. You need a break. Go to a place where you can make yourself whole again.

The forest waited with baited breath to see what her response would be. If she escalated, the forest would explode with the barely contained stress that was boiling over beneath the surface. If she acquiesced, the forest would find a way to implode with minimal damage.

But—

No buts. You need to do this, and judging by the bad ju-ju the forest is projecting through this phone, if you don’t do what I’m suggesting immediately, it will take months to get the forest back to what is was prior to this conversation. We don’t have months, or weeks for that matter. What we have are hours and days. Am I making myself clear on this point?

I guess, she said reluctantly.

Good. Now, go do what I’m suggesting and forget about this particular aspect of the wedding for a while. I will try to straighten this mess out for you.

Seriously?

Seriously.

Exhaling sadly, Nikia disconnected and sat down at the table. Bringing her hair forward for a little privacy, she again restarted her meltdown. The moment tears started rolling down her face, the forest exhaled in relief of a crisis averted. It quickly proceeded with the Herculean task of deflating itself without blowing the immediate surroundings to smithereens.

It was some fifteen minutes later when Nikia finally finished her crying jag. She sat up slowly, wiped her face dry with her hair and thought about how best to implement her friend’s request. Nothing of note popped into her head, at least not until her phone buzzed again. When she looked, an image of a motorcycle with a big old question mark filled the screen.

She stared at it until a blinding case of the obvious crashed her cranium.

Shit.

She got up and began walking towards her private garage. Once the idea of how to get there from where she was solidified, her hair quickly turned itself into a seriously tight whip-braid, while her tail went out just far enough to help her stay the course.

It took Nikia the better part of fifteen minutes to actually set foot in the garage, since she had completely forgotten where the spare key was hidden. She eventually found it on the ground next to a small pine tree, floating in the bottom of a glass Petri dish that contained a human’s personal kryptonite: lysergic acid.

She put on a pair of gloves and fished out the sealed stomach lining from the Petri dish. After shaking off some excess acid, she took out the key and unlocked the garage door. There, standing in its full muscular glory, was her fully restored Harley knucklehead.

Even now, some five years after she had last ridden it and three months removed from receiving it back from the garage, it still gave her goosebumps. She touched it liked a priceless piece of Americana, delicately running her fingers over the entire bike until a searing heat zoomed across her soul.

Kissing her fingers to kill the pain, she walked over to the side wall and retrieved her goggles. Gently caressing them with her cheek, she was about to put them on when her hair interrupted the very weird tête-à-tête.

‘Excuse me, but your wardrobe is malfunctioning.’

Huh? What?

‘I said, your wardrobe is malfunctioning.’

Nikia looked at the mirror hanging on the side wall and said, Where I am showing?

‘You’re not showing anywhere, but you can’t wear what you got. For as long as I can remember, you’ve always been a biker babe, and what you got on ain’t biker babe clothes.’

Nikia thought long and hard until another blinding case of the obvious struck. Has it been that long?

‘Yas.’

Guess I should go change then.

‘Indubitably.’

Raising an eyebrow at her hair’s sudden fascination with the dictionary, Nikia hoofed it back to the house to change into something more worthy of her reputation. Upon entering, she detoured to the kitchen to grab a cold wine cooler and ambled back to the master bedroom.

Throwing aside the curtain of Turkish beads, she stepped inside her room and took a deep, luxurious breath of air. Holding it in, she allowed it to bathe her senses, fill her lungs and nourish her spirit before casually exhaling it like an aromatic cigar.

She then took a long hard swig of her wine cooler before placing it on an end table and sauntering over to her walk-in closet. The moment she started rummaging through her collection of t-shirts, her tail fully extended itself and started swaying to the silent tune that Nikia was humming.

Suddenly feeling at peace with her id, Nikia began bopping along with her tail, and soon they were doing a sensual dance in rhythm. Twirling and sliding, she seemed to be so at peace with herself that her hair suddenly felt ashamed for having to bring up a forbidden topic.

‘Not in there.’

No? I thought for sure that those clothes would be in here. If not here, then where?

Her hair gave a gentle tug of her scalp before falling disturbingly quiet. Nikia turned in the direction of the tug and scanned the perimeter of the master bedroom for several seconds until her eyes stopped at a padlocked door.

Pursing her lips for a moment, she asked, In there?

Her tail reluctantly stuck itself in her face and spiked its tip. She gave it a gentle kiss and said, I don’t know where the key is.

Her tail quickly dove into her jeans, rummaged around for a few seconds and then reappeared with said key.

She paused for a moment as if she were giving the key the evil eye before snatching it away. Her tail, sensing it might’ve done something wrong, retracted so fast that it inadvertently pushed Nikia towards the padlocked door.

Don’t push me, said Nikia as she briefly lost her balance. Quickly regaining it, she threw a dirty look behind her before walking rather tentatively towards the door.

She grabbed the lock and stuck the key in. Instantly, an indescribable wave of sadness came over her. Softer than a pillow when it first hit, it quickly escalated to feeling like she was being hit with a ball peen hammer the moment she slid back the lock.

Squinting as she tried to see through the darkness, Nikia eventually gave up and flipped the light switch before walking inside. There, hanging snugly on a life-size mannequin, were her motorcycle clothes: jacket, gloves, studs, chaps and boots.

Well worn, yet just glossy enough to make the heads turn when she flew by, her outfit sadly showed the terrible scars from the last time they were worn. The pain and sadness they’d inflicted some five years ago enveloped the mannequin like an invisible blood-red aura.

She took a deep breath and cautiously, almost to the point of reverence, approached the mannequin. The moment she placed a couple of fingers on the lapel, the horrific accident from five years ago invaded her psyche. Unspeakable screams, shouting and sobbing instantly wrapped their collective self around her mind and began squeezing.

Crying out in excruciating pain, Nikia nevertheless started to remove the jacket and other items from the mannequin. Some fifteen minutes later, with everything neatly folded and properly stacked, she turned to leave the closet. Just as she was about to take the first step, an unseen force locked her in, grabbed her by the shoulders and roughly drove her to the floor.

When she was finally able to focus, standing under the solitary ceiling light bulb, she saw the apparition of a young child, about the age of twelve with a tiny cross tattoo near their right eye and a cross stud in their left nostril. Biting her lip hard, she watched with baited breath as the child slowly approached until it was almost nose-to-nose with her and then gently touched her cheek.

Nikia burst out in uncontrollable sobbing as the indescribable wave of sadness finally overwhelmed her senses. Huge rivulets of tears poured down her face as the horrific nightmare from long ago unfolded directly behind the child.

Desperately wanting to close her eyes to make the nightmare stop but being unable to blink, Nikia sat transfixed in terror as the apparition slowly turned into what it had finally become directly in the aftermath. Voicing a scream that only she could hear, Nikia suddenly went completely numb just before her entire world went black.

It was many minutes later when a gentle shoulder tap brought her round. Nikia slowly opened her eyes and found herself face-to-face with the young child.

Unable to move, Nikia spoke to the child via telepathy. ‘I’m so very sorry for what I did to you.’

‘I know you are. But tell me, why did it take you so long to come here?’

Nikia thought for a moment before answering. ‘I was afraid.’

‘Afraid?’

‘Yes. I was afraid to confront the fact that I had killed someone accidentally.’

‘And killing someone accidentally bothers you more than killing someone on purpose?’

‘I haven’t killed anyone on purpose in quite some time, but yes, killing someone accidentally bothers me more than killing on purpose.’

The child fell silent as if it were trying to comprehend what Nikia had said. After several minutes of deep thought, in which the aura surrounding it pulsated numerous times, the child sat down cross-legged and cleared its throat.

‘And your plans now are what?’

‘My plans are to go on a ride so I can make myself whole again. I am to be married in a few weeks, and if I don’t go somewhere soon, that wonderful forest just outside the window will not be at peace with itself.’

The child frowned for a moment then said, ‘I don’t get it.’

‘If I crash, this burns.’

‘Intriguing.’

The child stood up and took the pile of clothes from Nikia. Placing them near the door, it next went into her pants pocket and retrieved the starter key. Twirling it around for a moment, the young child flashed a sad smile and said, ‘Take me with you.’

‘Why?’

‘I want to see the world beyond this closet.’

‘Are you sure?’

The child stepped onto the pile of clothes and said just before disappearing, ‘Absolutely.’

Nikia felt a chill run down her spine that was so intense it made her tail shoot out and spike. Tentatively testing her right hand, she quickly pushed herself upright when she felt no resistance. Catching her breath for a moment, she slowly stood up on wobbly legs and grabbed her clothes. Opening the door, she killed the light and stepped back into the master bedroom.

Tossing the clothes on the bed, Nikia quickly peeled off her current outerwear, dug out a powder blue t-shirt and a pair of tight-fitting jeans and poured herself into them. After giving herself the once-over in the mirror, she put on the studded gloves, studded dog collar, chaps and boots.

She decided not to wear the jacket as it was sunny and extremely hot, but suddenly remembered that her sunglasses were in one of the pockets. The moment she picked the jacket up, that same Arctic chill once again invaded her body.

‘I said I wanted to see the world beyond that closet, did I not?’ said the child, who had taken up residence inside Nikia’s head.

Exhaling softly, she said quietly, I remember. However, there was no need for this subterfuge. All you had to do was ask for a ride inside and it would’ve been granted, no questions asked.

‘I apologize. A lot of people ignored me while I was alive,’ said the child sadly.

That’s cruel. No child should ever be ignored. Grabbing her sunglasses from the jacket, she said, C’mon, I’m going to take you on a ride that you won’t forget any time soon.

Some twenty-five minutes later, after blowing out the fuel line and adding fresh gasoline and new plugs, Nikia finally got the cycle running and gently revved it as she slowly pushed it out of the garage. By the time she got it pointed forward on the downhill, the engine was purring like a well-fed kitten. She was about to do her hair up in a loose ponytail, but her hair beat her to it by becoming a simple whip-braid.

‘How did you do that with no hands?’ asked the child.

My hair is a sentient being and is tuned to my particular frequency, answered Nikia as she finished adjusting her gloves.

Gunning the engine one last time, she said, Hang on tight, ‘cause we’re gonna do some low flying!

Releasing the brake, she slowly glided down the entire length of the driveway so as not to overly worry her young passenger. However, the moment the front wheel kissed the roadway, she gunned it. With the bike not being driven by anyone for the past five years, it took a little longer than usual for Nikia to smooth out the rough parts and become one with it again.

By the time she’d got to the end of her street and banged a hard right on to the main drag, her mojo was one hundred percent in sync with the bike’s. Smiling inwardly, she shifted gears and accelerated rather noisily down the main drag.

Carefully weaving in and out of traffic, it took her less than five minutes to hit the entrance ramp to the highway. Glancing at the side mirror, she lowered her shades with her facial muscles just enough to see her raised eyebrow, then she paused and raised them back up with the same gesture.

‘What was that all about?’ asked the child, who was puzzled by what it saw.

I asked my hair if it wanted to go back to what it was previously, and it said yes.

The young child glanced at the side mirror, saw Nikia’s hair waving violently in the breeze and said, ‘Wow!’

Wow indeed. We’re about to enter the highway now. It’ll be a bit bumpy as we accelerate to cruising speed, so make sure you hang on tight. Once we get there, the scenery you’ll see will be fantastic.

The child didn’t respond verbally but Nikia felt two small arms encircling her waist. Smiling, she carefully released the throttle, not wanting to completely scare her passenger. Within three minutes, she was at a suitable cruising speed for a child.

And just like she promised, the scenery was to die for. As far as the eye could see, trees of all shapes and sizes blanketed the mountainside right up to the edge of the road. Nikia slowed down a bit so her passenger could take it all in.

A warm feeling soon enveloped Nikia as her young passenger expressed amazement and joy at Mother Nature’s handiwork. But the moment she came out of a half-circle turn that finished inside a mountain tunnel, that warm feeling dropped away and was replaced by an indescribable sadness.

She pondered for a moment on why the emotional flow of the drive had changed, but on the surface, nothing obvious jumped out at her. However, the second she started scanning her memory banks, the reason as to why became crystal clear.

Oh sweetie, I am so very sorry. I honestly didn’t know that we were coming up on the accident site.

‘How could you not know?’

Nikia thought long and hard about what she needed to say. Rare was the time when she was completely honest with those in her inner circle and rarer still was she completely honest with herself. Now was one of those times where she needed to be honest with a stranger.

Biting her lip, she swallowed hard and said in voice just above a whisper, The memory was so raw and so painful that ultimately I stuck a block in it and filed it away in a seldom used corner of my archives.

‘I don’t understand’

It hurts too much to think it about it, so being the kind of…thing…that I am, I did something to myself so I wouldn’t continue to hurt myself by remembering.

Nikia hoped her answer was acceptable to the young child, who was still corroding her soul with a rawness she had no right to reject, although the rawness was now less pronounced. At this point, she decided to pull over to the side and take five, mostly to prepare for the possible onslaught of a churning emotional tornado.

After a couple of minutes, no churning emotional tornado was forthcoming. Instead, the rawness that had enveloped her soul softened to the point where she could fold into the rest of her emotional being without further damage. Taking out a brush, she began to work on her hair while waiting for the young child to make the next move.

Several minutes later, the child spoke. ‘I wouldn’t call you a thing. I would call you a person. A person whose life is now permanently entwined with an event from her past that, for better or worse, she’ll have to make room for.’

So, where do we go from here? asked Nikia as she put away her brush and sat down on the bike.

‘We continue on our bike ride to someplace else.’

And?

‘And I would like to go now, please,’ said the child, whose implied finality left Nikia no other choice than to do what was asked.

She swung her leg over the bike and started the engine. Revving it a few times, she checked for traffic both ways before slowly accelerating down the road and up the mountainside. Once she got up