That House with the Red Roof by Adam Rutter

I walked up a narrow path with my friend, Mick. We wore our backpacks climbing the steep slopes along the mountainside. The snow-covered peaks towered above the pass. The sky was cloudless. The air become colder the higher we went. The sun was sinking behind us. The path became rougher and more arduous. I was panting heavily. I had to stop to get my breath back.

“Do you see that Ben?” asked Mick.

“What?” I asked.

“That. Over there.”

“Yes.”

It was a building. It was bright yellow in the sunlight.

“Could that be the spiritual leader’s dwelling?” asked Mick.

“There’s only one dwelling with a yellow roof in these parts.”

“We’ve found it!”

“We’re on the path to spiritual enlightenment.”

“The dwelling beckons its followers.”

The path went downwards.

“Strange,” I continued, “the path is supposed to continue uphill according to my map.”

“So why are we going downhill?”

“I don’t understand.”

“Perhaps the path has been re-routed?”

“This can’t be right. My map is up-to-date.”

“It should be going to the dwelling.”

“Why are we moving away from it?”

“We need to keep following the path and hopefully reach our destination before nightfall.”

 

As we descended the path we went into a canyon. We went through a forest.

“This is weird,” I said.

“What?”

“There shouldn’t be trees here.”

“Hey!”

“The map shows this place as a rocky landscape.”

“Shh!” whispered Mick.

“What is it?”

“Can you hear something?”

“Like what?”

“Water.”

“Water!”

“I’m telling you there is water. Listen.”

The water was gushing at the bottom of the canyon. The torrents thundered down a narrow channel cutting through a deep walled gorge.

“This is impossible,” I said.

“What is?”

“There hasn’t been a river here for millions of years.”

“Maybe it’s rained recently?”

“It hasn’t rained for months.”

“There’s bound to be a lot of rain on these mountains.”

“This isn’t right.”

“Why is everywhere so lush?”

“I’ve been asking myself the same thing,” I replied.

We noticed something strange about the rays from the sun. The rays were slanting between tree branches. There was a large gap in the forest canopy.

We saw another sun shining above.

Then there was a tremor. Rocks fell. The Himalayas were prone to earthquakes and the earthquakes seemed to be happening more frequently. But this was not the same. These weren’t the Himalayas we knew.

I did not believe we were still on planet Earth. We were on a different world.

“The twin suns’ gravities might be causing the tremors,” said Mick

“The tidal forces must be causing this planet to expand and contract.”

“That’s not the only cause.”

“How do you mean?”

“Look up there.”

I looked up and saw a moon. Rising from behind a peak was a rocky world. It had a big crater.

 

We proceeded along the path. The air was sultry. A young man dressed in a long green robe walked past us. He stopped and he bowed, hands held together. He walked again and then disappeared.

“Did you see that?”

“What’s going on here Mick?”

“I don’t know. But I know one thing that’s certain.”

“What?”

“We appear to be in an alternate reality.”

“The question is, how do we get back to our own?”

“We follow that man.”

“But we don’t know which reality he’s gone to.”

“So what do we do now?”

“We carry on,” I said.

“We don’t know where this path will take us Ben.”

“That’s a chance we’re gonna have to take Mick.”

“This landscape is totally alien!”

“We’re tourists for crying out loud.”

“We’re backpackers on a strange world. I mean, who’s seen a backpacker on this planet?”

“That guy who just walked past us…”

“What about him?”

“He didn’t seem too bothered did he?”

“He’s a monk.”

“And your point is?”

“My point is , he’s probably used to seeing backpackers on his patch.”

“Well why don’t we explore his patch now that we’re here?”

“Let’s do it.”

 

We continued walking for half a mile until we stopped to look at a waterfall.

The water cascaded down a sandstone cliff. The cliff was crimson red in the sunlight. From this point we climbed a row of steps up a steep hill. The climb was long and exhausting. My calf muscles were aching. My feet were sore. As we neared the top the dwelling came into view. There was something different about it. The roof had changed colour. It was red. The shape of the dwelling resembled a bothy. It had three shutters. They were closed. The spiritual leader always kept them closed when he meditated.

The steps lead to a stable door. Mick pulled the rope. The bell rang. The top door opened. A man in his mid thirties bowed. He wore a green robe like the other guy. The spiritual leader was chanting an alto,  'oh oh oh oh'. The man opened the bottom door. He summoned us to go in. We stopped inside. The candles were lit.

The spiritual leader was sitting on laminated flooring cross-legged. The gender of this reality was a woman. She was in her early twenties with raven black hair that stretched the entire length of her back. Unlike her Asian counterpart, she looked European. She wore the same costume as the man.

The interior of the dwelling was filled with the smell of burning incense. It smelt like bark. There was a rumble of thunder outside. Heavy rain drummed on the roof. Lightening flickered between the slats on the shutters.

The chanting stopped. She opened her eyes and looked up at us.

A clap of thunder pealed around us. The shutters rattled in the wind. She uttered an unusual word in a foreign tongue.

“What’s she saying Mick?”

“I have no idea.”

She kept talking while smiling. We tried to tell her who we were, where we came from and where we had gone to. We tried every conceivable method of communicating with her by using various hand gestures, drawing imaginary arrows and landmarks on the palm of my hand. She only had the slightest indication of our origin and so I showed her the map of the route to the dwelling.

 She held the map in both hands. Her face dropped. Her angry eyes cut into me. She pointed at the wall at the far end. Me and Mick walked toward the wall. The dwelling expanded growing into a labyrinth of corridors and endless passageways stretching out in all direction. We were searching for a way out. We saw ourselves walking in many different directions. It was like being inside a hall of mirrors. The passageways continued branching out and changing shape like the path we took to get to the dwelling. I saw a light at the other end of the corridor. Was this the way out?

“C’mon Mick!”

We followed the light and then left the labyrinth.

We were back to where we began on our trip to the dwelling.