“Its been a long journey” from Laura’s Blog

I know I haven’t posted in ages. I’ve been going through a few things recently and it’s just been too heavy to write so openly about it. This whole year since John’s funeral hasn’t been easy. When he passed away everything went dark in my life. It made just getting out of bed in the morning a nightmare, waking up in that big empty bed was a stark reminder I’d never see him again. Our huge house became cold and eerie where before I was always telling John to tidy up his gear because I was always tripping over it. In those then empty evenings I found it easy to finish a full bottle of wine listening to bad romantic ballads to starve off the tears. I know, cliché.

I became intensely private, didn’t want to go out too much, barely talked to anyone outside of work. I got fed up with people asking, “are you alright? Is there anything I can do?” and it became easy to pall of friends’ worry with a fake “I’m fine. Just tired.” Well I was tired (shattered, destroyed, exhausted and so on) but I was also not fine. All I wanted to do was wallow in my private sadness. At the back of my mind, I thought that was as low as I would go and I would just thread this depth of depression forever. Then something happened and I found I could go much deeper.

Two months after John’s funeral, I was restless in the middle of the night. I just couldn’t sleep, every time I closed my eyes, I started to dream and that was something I desperately wanted to avoid. I didn’t want to think much either so I huddled up in my big duvet to fight the bitter cold because I no longer bothered putting the heat on at night for just me. I liked the quietness of the late of night because it felt somehow eternal, never-ending, a way to forget forever. But a screaming cat broke the stillness and I stuck my head under the corner of the curtain to see if I could spot the annoying minger. And that’s when I saw him.

He was standing outside our house, on the pavement, looking straight up at my window; a homeless man with a dirty tattered coat, a mottled blue woollen hat, black beard, scruffy and downright freaky. For ten minutes, I watched this guy but he didn’t move. I turned on the light and in that brief distraction to find the lamp the man was gone. Puff, disappeared like a magician in smoke.

I was quite shaken up. It reminded me of the night John died – I was home late from work that night. I remember coming in, throwing my shoes off and calling out for him, but he wasn’t there but I didn’t worry, just assumed he’d be home later. And then there was that knock at the door, two Gardai standing in the doorway, the blue light of the police car flashing in the background. I remember John’s body, cold and motionless, laying in the white room and me nodding, saying, “yes it’s him,” but not hearing the words actually come out of my mouth. It made me freeze, deep inside. Something went dead in me right then, but also another part of me wanted to run, wanted to buck everything, escape the nightmare. But this night, when I saw that homeless man, that part of me reared up again, yelling at me to get away, to escape, that it wasn’t real. My heart thumped vigorously for hours. But he didn’t appear again that night. If that was it, I would have been okay. I would have dismissed it, a once-off, that’s all.

The days after, I was a little paranoid, looking over my shoulder all the time and jumping at everything. I started to relax, started to forget the incident. Three weeks later, I had worked late again and on the Dart home, the train carriage was nearly empty. I was sleepy, nodding off for a few seconds at a time. That’s when I caught sight of the mottled blue woollen hat. I jumped, turned around and there at the other end, he was sitting looking at me. I stood up moving backwards and toppled into another traveller. I panicked at the door-open button and luckily the train was stopping at that moment. I got off, didn’t care where. I looked back at the train as it moved off from the platform, but I couldn’t see him any more, even though I knew he had moved.

I was a wreck then. I watched everywhere, but I never saw him. It was only when I wasn’t looking that I would see him. I tried to work as much as possible from home, avoided travelling anywhere. When I did travel, I always did it when loads of people were around such as at rush hour. Weeks passed and I couldn’t keep it up. I couldn’t keep hiding. But it was when I relaxed, when I wasn’t really looking, that I saw him. I saw him once when I was shopping and I hadn’t been concentrating on what I was doing, he was there in another aisle, staring motionless at me. Another time, when I was dozing at my desk, I spotted him outside my office, the crowds flowing around his motionless watching form.

I did contact the Gardai about it, but, as usual, they couldn’t do anything about it. The freak hadn’t threatened me, hadn’t even approached me, no breathing down the line or dirty calls. My stalker wasn’t considered a critical threat according to them. But I felt my life was under siege. I was trapped in our empty house and when I let my guard down, he would be there, watching. Once, late in the loneliness of night, I imagined that the stalker was John, come back from the dead for he was about the right build and height. That just shows you how fucked I was getting, all Helsinki-Syndrome.

I couldn’t live like this, a slave to my own fear. So it was one night, when I had been woken up by the screech of that annoying minger cat, I felt a strange determination. That part of me that wanted to flee was strangely quiet. It was replaced with something hard, something curious, something fearless. Without much thought, I grabbed my coat and walked to the front door. I paused briefly with my hand on the doorknob. I didn’t know what I was doing, just felt it was now or never, that I either stand-up or forever crawl into my bed in search of the bliss of forgetfulness. It wasn’t cold that night but there was a wind that nearly pushed me down the street. I had to hold strong and compose myself but then I followed it. I don’t remember how long I walked, but I couldn’t stop myself. It was only when a gruff a voice called out “ho!” I turned around to face the voice and I stumbled in shock. My eyes were deceiving me for I saw two scrawny monsters approaching towards me. They appeared generally human in form, but one had only a huge gaping mouth of sharp awful teeth instead of a head, the other one had two wailing bunch of tentacles instead of arms. They were approaching me slowly, like predators approaching a trapped prey. I couldn’t scream or even run, all I could do is watch these two things zig-zag slowly towards me.

Then the mouth-head leaped at me, its mouth wide open so that I could see the awful tongue that danced in anticipation of biting down on me. But there was a sudden flash and the mouth-head was rammed against a wall. Something was ripping into it, I saw a glint of a short but broad golden blade, striking down so many times I couldn’t count. Blood splattered the wall. The tentacle-armed freak seemed to move back in fear, and then this something with its golden blade was tearing into it. In less than a blink of an eye, I saw it gut the tentacle-armed freak in two, its innards spilling all around.

And then I recognised who this something was… the mottled blue woollen hat, the dirty tattered coat, the black beard… he turned towards me, in his hand the golden blade dripping thick red blood. I started to move away, my cold determination slipping away, lost in his fury of the blood. My stalker stood there, blood splattered across his face. He looked like he was waiting for something from me, he stretched out his hand for me. I was horrified, shocked and when he saw the fear in my face he recalled. I swear I saw tears as he pulled away. And in a flash he was gone and I fell unconscious to the pavement.

When I awoke, I was in a hospital bed. I was thankfully unhurt. A Gardai in plains clothes was sitting there asking me questions about what happened. Apparently the two “monsters” I had seen must have been a trick of the light or some weird delusion of my paranoid state. They had been two old drunk guys looking for trouble. They asked a lot of questions about my stalker and I told him everything, I told him how shitty he had made me feel, how locked in I felt and he just listened. And for some reason, I felt unburdened and when I went home, I dared to say, I felt free.

Three months later and it brings me up to today. No sign of my stalker, the fucker seems to be gone. I even went out with the girls last week for the first time since John’s death. I smiled today. It has been a year and a day since John’s death and it is beginning to feel like I’m coming out of the dark tunnel and letting light back into my life.

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He got up and had a shower. It was late morning and even now the sun was burning through the thin shutters. Once he was dressed he went down for breakfast.

The hotel was small, five rooms at most guessed Mr. Grey. But there was an unearthly silence as he walked down the hall to the restaurant. At reception he was greeted by the concierge saying, “good morning, Señor Grey.” It was about the only English the concierge knew besides “good night” and “thank you”. Though it was much better than any of the other staff that were left.

He didn’t seem to notice that there was only one place set out in the restaurant and that the chief, who also acted as waiter, was waiting patiently for him to arrive. “Any news?” Mr. Grey asked but his tone implied he didn’t really care. And anyway before the waiter replied he knew what the answer would be. They had gone through the same ritual three days in a row. “No, Señor Grey. No Señor Grey,” would be all that Mr. Grey got. “Well then I’ll have the usual,” Mr. Grey replied and passed back the menu.

The concierge and the cleaner stood in the hall watching as Mr. Grey ate. He seemed so unconcerned, unworried even. Mr. Grey ate methodologically. First he cut up his sausages and then he pierce the yellow of his egg and dipped each piece of sausage in the yellow. Finally he cleared up the whole mess with pieces of his bacon rashers.

After that, Mr. Grey retired to the poolside (it was more like a big pond than a pool) where there was a small bar. The regular barman had left with his family who had headed for higher ground in the hopes they might survive, so the concierge had to step in as barman. But that was okay because Mr. Grey was the only guest.

He didn’t go for a swim. He sipped tea in the morning while reading some of the worn paperbacks left by other guests. After lunch he would vary his routine and have a light beer. In the evening, he had a small dinner in the restaurant (the only patron) before retiring to bed around ten in the evening.

This had been the routine for three days.

It came as little surprise that he was found dead on the fourth.

It doesn’t matter what happens on the fifth.

The small town, what was left of it anyway, was somewhat disappointed that Mr. Grey was dead. It had meant that the only reason they were still going was gone. Yet it didn’t distress them as much as one would expect. The peace he had given them was something to be treasured and they idly faced their fate as if it didn’t matter. Life would go on somewhere, that, they felt, was certain. Mr. Grey might have told them otherwise had they but asked him.

The town was just a little tourist trap. There was nothing, or at least little else, to it. Mr. Grey had arrived the day after they had received that terrible news. The place was in a panic with people overloading their cars trying to leave even though it probably wouldn’t make a difference and there was chaos on the small streets as people simply lost it. Two killed themselves.

But when Mr. Grey arrived in the hotel reception and asked for a room, something clicked. The concierge lifted himself from his gloom and served the man. The hotel manager rallied the town and the few remaining staff, with the cry that as long as there was a guest in his hotel there was work to be done.

And so for three days the town ticked over, nearly as normal.

Mr. Grey wasn’t his real name. He had forgotten it and neither did he care. Because, it was his fault the world ended.

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“He is dead you say?”
“No. Alive. He is one of the Quick.”
“Alive? You mean dead don’t you?”
“Alive.”
The Mayor rolled this thought around his head for a moment. “So let me get this straight. He’s dead and…”
“No your not listening he’s alive.”
“Alive, it’s just preposterous. Doesn’t make sense. But because he is dead, it’s no problem…”

The young man gave up. The concept could not be grasped by any of the town folk and the gigantic head was not going away. It sat right beside the town fountain and was nearly as big as a house. The head could turn around on the spot but that’s it. It was as flabbergasted as everyone else at this new state of affairs.

The Mortician came up to the Mayor and the young man could heard the Mortician’s wispy voice say, “ah, if it is dead there is no problem…” It was too much for the young man and he yelled at both of them: “HE IS ALIVE!”

All the assembled town folk, who came to see the head, audibly sucked in their breath and followed by a low mumbling as they conferred among themselves. The Mayor sighed and approached the young man. “Now there is no need to be so outrageous. Seeing he is dead there is a little worry for us…”

All this time the head was listening. The head was definitely male and in the late thirties the young man had figured. The young man was a scientist and he gone about all the regular tests the moment the head had appeared. The head didn’t mind too much and occasionally complained that some of the tests ‘tickled’ (a sure sign the head was alive).

“Excuse me but could someone scratch my nose?” This was the first time the head had spoken to the assembled crowd and again they all sucked in their breath again. The Mayor walked up to the head quite slowly showing that he was purposeful even though he hadn’t a clue. He attempted to circle the head. The head’s eyes followed him till he was nearly out of sight and then the head slowly rolled around so that the Mayor couldn’t get to the back of the head. The Mayor continued his slow circle three times in an attempt to see the back.

The young scientist was agitated with frustrated and went striding forward to scratch the head’s nose but the Mortician and the local Publican held him fast. The Mayor stopped and then stared through his monocle at one of the head’s eyes. The head blinked and the Mayor stepped back.

“Seriously, my nose is quite itchy. Just one scratch, please!”
“Your… nose?” the Mayor asked as if it wasn’t obvious.
The head spun slightly so that it’s nose nearly knocked the Mayor over. “Yes my nose.” The Mayor slowly scratched it and the head let out a sigh.
“What’s all this fuss that our young scientist is worried about you being dead?”
“Actually, I’m alive. I’m pretty sure of it. Last thing I remember was sipping some coffee at…”
“Cough. Ee.” The Mayor repeated, considering each syllable as if it was of some importance. The crowd repeated the phrase.

Only the scientist was ever convinced the head was alive but the rest of the town folk came to quickly accept the head and even the head begun to enjoy its new condition. The head’s only complaint was that there was no day here and the only light was from the moon.

But they included the head in everything, from festivals and town meetings to birthdays and births. They even setup a Head Committee who’s sole purpose was to take care of the head, cut his beard, trim his hair, clean his ears, etc. Old Grandma would tell her stories in the town square so that the head could listen. The children would sit around him and some of the more adventurous would climb up using the lobe of his ear and sit in his hair.

She told the story of the Angels. That when an Angel died it would ‘wake up’ here on it’s way back to Heaven. It would take a long time to really wake up and it was said that while it was waking you could whisper things to it and it would believe it but when it finally woke up it would see right through the lies. She had stories of men who tried to manipulate the Angels to do terrible things for their greed but always got their comeuppance either by the Angels’ own hands or by their own fate.

The head got tired of these stories and once sighed when the Grandma started one of them. The Grandma gave him a frightful stare and after she had told the story and the kids had gone home, Grandma poked his cheek with her walking stick. “You don’t like the stories?” she poked him again.

“Ouch! They get old quickly…” he answered only to get another poke.
“That’s ‘cos there made nice for children.” She replied and then yelled “Grandpa!” The old man appeared in the door of the tavern and hobbled over. Some of the other men and women came out as they knew Grandpa was going to tell a story, a story for adults.

“There was a beautiful lass I knew when I was a young’in. She had a husband and three kids. She had good liv’in.” (That’s ‘living’ or having a good life as opposed to profession or being alive which are apparently very different as the head had come to learn). “This story is a tragedy and though it starts from a good place, it’s a bad thing that I must begin with. A great lizard-dragon burnt their home down while she was at market. All her family gone, except she. Struck with a terrible grief she mourned them for years until the town could no longer stand her crying.”

“Being ignored did her no good either and she started to try and kill herself. She asked the Mortician, the Soldier, the Publican and even the Doctor (though he did offer her things worse than death). But none would kill her. How could they? Action breeds responsibility and no-one was willing to face that for her.”

“But that’s when she saw a Star fall. An Angel had died. She trekked across the land looking for the little piece of broken Heaven and found the sleeping Angel in a rundown shack. ‘Angel,’ she whispered to it, ‘I am not worthy. You should kill me.’ The Angel stirred in its slumber. The girl had heard the stories, knew that Angels could be tricked as they slowly awoke. What she didn’t know is that Angels’ greatest weapons are not like metal swords. They are the razor sharp edge of truth.”

Grandpa took a deep breath. He said he had to get the words right.

“The Angel spoke ‘I have brought down nations, I have raised the humble to heroes, I have betrayed God and found Faith. I am waking and I have not yet the strength to strike you down. Tell me why I should kill you.’”

“She replied a little like this, ‘I have nothing, I have no-one. I cry and lose my living. I look only to the past. I am not worthy, you should kill me.’ The Angel, in it’s white smock rose from up from the depths of sleep as if it was a great fish climbing out of the depths.”

“The Angel responded, ‘I know you. I know what happened to you. The lizard-dragon was meant to be dead but I had failed to kill them all and so your tragedy is given from my guilt and failure.’”

“‘Then you should kill me now then, it’s all I ask.’ The Angel was now awake and he stood up, his glory barely concealed by his simple smock. His glory is a true vision to behold but it would be your last if you saw it.”

“‘You are a fool. I am awake and I see through the lies.’ The Angel said. “You do not really wish to die, but only crave the attention suicide offers. You wish the very heavens to feel sorry for you. Yet I will kill you.’”

“She went that kinda deathly pale when you see your own shadow wak’in. But that’s another story for another night, Mr. Head. The Angel said then ‘I will kill you because I see the truth and you are not worthy and do not deserve living. I will kill you slowly and painfully for Heaven does not care for pity.’ With that he revealed his full glorious form and she burnt in her mind for years until it was ash and her body was consumed by the light.”

Grandpa stopped speaking. The assembled people nodded their head in understanding. If the head was able to nod, it would have too.

(Sometime later, the head asked Grandpa where the woman was buried. Grandpa spoke slowly as he explained that the woman was still dying but the light of her burning soul was so bright that they threw it up into the sky once her body had gone. Her name was Luna.)

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I never knew the name of the shop. I used to study the flakes of grey letters hanging above the main window as a kid. I fancied it spelled out “Fudge” but it might as well have spelt out “Fridges”. Not that it actually helped identify what the shop sold.

The main window was so clogged up with junk and dusk that you couldn’t really make anything out except for a kind of hazy indistinct mess. We would push our eyes right up against the glass to see if we could peer through some gap. But the best I ever got was the movement of some grey blob among the dust.

We were afraid to just go in. Parents wouldn’t even look at the shop and we never saw anyone else go in or out. It might have been one of those places where they didn’t allow children at all and then we “might see something we shouldn’t.”

We had been playing with coin coppers on the pavement across from the shop when Ciarian came by. He was the same age as us but twice as big and our resident bully at the time. In the long run of things he was unimportant, but right then he was a sort of catalyst.

He stomped over our coins on the ground and was going to pick on Mick, the smallest of kids. The last time he did, he took all Mick’s coins and including one of mine that I had lent him. So I stood up to Ciarian, pushed myself in front of him. My personal rebellion must have caught him off-guard because he didn’t push me out of the way (which he could have done with ease), instead he took a very small step back. But his bravado was matchless and he laughed at me.

“Wimp!” he yelled at me. “Look, you’re shak’in,” (actually he was shaking, I was fine). He pointed down at me. “If you’re so tough, go get something from that shop.” He jabbed his thumb at the fudge shop. Mick and the others all inhaled at the same time.

But I was determined. Armed with my few remaining coins in my pockets, I pushed in the main door. A little bell sounded and the door closed neatly behind me.

An old man looked up from the counter. He was covered in old-person’s wrinkles. His face was not defined by shape but by the lines made by the wrinkles. He wore round-rimmed spectacles, which he lifted off his nose when he saw me.

“Well, well, well, young man. Are you here on business or pleasure?” His grin stretched and pulled the wrinkles to their limits. I could barely make out his eyes, so deeply set in folds of skin.

I didn’t say anything. I looked around, trying to spy something familiar. But there wasn’t anything. The light was too low and everything was drenched in very deep shadows. The walls were lined with objects I couldn’t make out and there was an odd smell soaking the place.

A growling sound came from the back of the shop. “Excuse me, young man. The old ball and chain is calling.” The old man turned slowly and went into the back. His motions seemed painfully slow like he was a giant robot from some Godzilla movie. Being a kid at the time, I had no idea what ball and chain meant. I imagined some sort of monstrous dog out back. The image in my head froze me to the spot.

But my curiosity was stronger than my fear. I broke free and ran up to the counter and studied the items underneath it. Though the dusty glass pane on one shelf there was a selection of snow-balls: they each contained statues of three women but each ball was subtly different. On one it said Fate and had three women in grey smocks, on the next it said Destiny and the three women looked like crying angels and the next said Love and showed a young girl, mother and grand-mother. There were also ones titled Fear, Death, Life and Hope and more behind that I could just about spy.

Above that shelf there were action figures, which I thought I knew all about. But I didn’t recognise the brand or the figures themselves. They didn’t seem to be of any one particular movie, TV series or comic book. They weren’t even those weird Japanese ones. There was a superhero-like one with a cape and mask and a plastic bit you tuck on to make him look like he was shooting lasers from his eyes, another wore only animal furs and had club and animal skin cape, one wore an astronaut suit and had some sort of laser gun and another one was dressed as a samurai with a sword that was marked “glow in the dark”.

No prices were tagged to any of them. In the background there was the constant low sound of the old man talking to something.

I went over to the wall opposite the counter. There were numerous shelves containing books and I quickly scanned the titles. But I couldn’t make out the letters. They weren’t written using the English alphabet.

“Well, well, well, young man. Are you still looking? Have you found anything interesting?” The old man had reappeared and was leaning again on the counter. He wasn’t even looking at me, just reading some newspapers there.

With my courage used up, I ran out. Ciarian had vanished having taken Mick’s coins and leaving him with a sore shoulder.

But that little visit had sparked something. I was curious and now fearless: a dangerous combination. I knew that it sold toys, but toys unknown to me. I wanted to go back, I wanted to see what else was there. I wanted to buy something.

The following week I ventured back to the shop. I went alone and didn’t tell my friends. I pushed the door very slowly, hoping not to ring the bell but it still chimed. Some tall man was standing at the counter. He glared at me with barely hidden malice and shivers ran down my back. I nearly left right at that moment.

But as I said, I felt fearless. I stepped in and just stood there. The old man winked at me from behind the counter, his whole face animated by the movement of the wrinkles.

The customer turned his back to me and talked in hush tones to the old man. This customer was wearing a long raincoat that went right down to the tops of his shoes. I could see they were covered in mud.

I noticed two things that told me that this guy was not like everyone else. First the smell, like burnt toast or when my mum used to leave the dinner on too long and the whole house would stink of smoke and burnt food.

The second was the bulge in his back. It was just about waist height. I wouldn’t have thought anything of it, except it moved occasionally and when it did, something moved all the way down to his shoes.

Three times the man scratched the bulge and seemed to rearrange himself. But on the third time, I saw something: a small red triangle peeked out from underneath his raincoat but only for a moment.

I was about to bolt right then. But then the old man called out my name. I froze like stone. He knew who I was. He said, “Don’t come back here for a little while, young man. Am going to be having some very dark customers coming. They might not take kindly to children, particularly curious ones.” From the way he said it, I got the impression that these dark customers didn’t just not like children but did bad things to them.

I had nightmares for the next week. Demons with huge bat wings and monsters made of shadow chasing me through a never-ending store where I couldn’t read the signs to find my way.

I didn’t go back for much longer than a week, actually quite a while. I was seventeen the next time I did.

My father had been dead two years by then. I was bonking-off school that day. Well in truth I was bonking-off from everything. I wasn’t dumb, far from it. We had a computer at home and I could program and even hack a little. I traded my warez on BBSs.

I was flunking school too. Didn’t give a crap, everything the teachers said sounded like bullshit to me. My mother didn’t seem to care either. She didn’t care about much after Dad’s death.

I was walking down by the shop that day and I stopped. Perhaps it was my rebellious nature that pushed me to go, fighting against my natural instincts.

The little bell chimed. The place hadn’t changed. The old man was there, at the counter reading some papers. His wrinkles formed into a large grin. He said my name and then asked, “How are you doing my young lad? I heard about your poor father. Tragedy.”

“I’m okay. Wanna buy something.”

“You already have. It’s in the making. These things take time to unfold.” The old man twisted around and shouted to the back something I couldn’t understand. Something responded. “Would you care for some tea?”

“What’s ‘in the making’?”

“If I tell you, I’ll ruin the surprise.” At that moment, an old hunched lady appeared from the back of the shop, rattling a tray with tea and biscuits. She stared at me with eyes that dripped viciousness. She slapped the tray on the counter and wobbled back into the darkness of the shop.

I took some of the tea and biscuits. “Do you know anything about these new fangled machines? Can’t get it to do anything.” Behind the counter he had an old BBC Micro computer. A small screen showed 3D vector graphics of a box.

“What are you tying to do?”

“Well, this is meant to be a room and I’m trying to put doors in it. It’s a game I’m building…”

“Can I try?”

The old man smiled and let me behind the counter. I took me less than thirty seconds to figure the interface and add the doors. He had a hand-drawn map he wanted to put in and so I helped him, suggested improvements and customisations, where monsters and treasure should be put. “You have a knack,” he said more than once, his old face smiling at me knowingly.

The old man left me alone while he attended to some customer. I glanced up and saw a green skinned man (with a kind of cone shape head) in a very shiny suit. Obviously it was some Star Trek fan dressed up, I thought to myself.

Later more customers distracted the old man. I was surprised; I had imagined that customers were an infrequent thing. I looked up and saw a couple; the woman was incredible with long blonde hair that danced in curls on her shoulders. There was something ethereal about her and her eyes seemed far a way. I didn’t even register the man. I hunched my shoulders I focused back on the computer. I think I caught the old man winking at me.

He pretty much left me alone and after a few hours I had inputted (and improved) his design. His little game was cute, I asked for a copy and he warmly agreed, digging out an old floppy to put it on. I thanked him as I left, something I didn’t do at that age.

I went home and then spent the night expanding and improving it. I send a copy of it to some of my online buddies who enjoyed it, asking for more.

It is only with hindsight now that I realise it was this point that changed the direction of my life. I started writing and designing computer game though I became more interested in the building of the game rather than the programming. I went to college, got a degree, got a good job designing games and even got married. All this time I never thought of going back to the shop.

It wasn’t until my mother got sick that I came home. My wife returned with me. She was a computer programmer, working in the same company. We couldn’t have kids sadly, another story not worth repeating here.

But it was one evening, late, that I was walking through town that I passed the shop. I went in.

Nothing at all had changed. The old man greeted me as if I was an old friend. Asked how I was. Told him about my wife and my mother. But I was older and a lot more aware and subtly I asked him, “how’s business?”

“So so,” he replied.

That was about as subtle as I was willing to be and so I asked him what he sold here, what did this little shop sell? He laughed a hearty laugh.

“Something similar to what you do.”

“What I do?”

“Come, I’ll show you.” I followed him into the back of the shop. The old woman was there, weaving something. He brought me to a door and said, “This is my latest project. I must warn you before I show you that some that have seen this process have gone insane. But I know you. I know it is safe for you.” His wrinkled hands grasped the doorknob and light poured out from the widening gap.

I can’t tell you what he showed me, not yet. I will, I promise.

It changed me. I came back the next day and the next day. I asked him about it, learnt about it and even sat in with him while he worked. The curiosity from my childhood was now burning me. But what surprised me more, was the questions he asked me and that he seemed impressed and even thoughtful about my answers. “You have an instinct,” he would say again and again.

But the other world intruded and dragged me back to a reality I’d rather have avoided. My mother died.

The wonders in that shop faded in my mind and the world seemed blacker. And eventually my wife and I returned to our home and work.

But in time I found myself thinking about the shop and its odd customers. So I told some ‘white lies’ to my wife and claimed I was going on business trips and returned regularly to my old town and that shop.

I often brought my laptop and asked the old man’s advice on my own work. He kept saying that he felt too old for this age. I talked about ‘modernising’ his setup a bit, how you use even a simple computer to help organise things but all he would say is “my old computer did everything I needed to” (he was referring to the old BBC Micro computer behind the counter).

An important life lesson I’ve learned is: it isn’t a good idea to lie to your wife. She started to suspect I was having an affair. I think she may have even hired someone to follow me but I’ve never been bold enough to ask.

But before things got me into real trouble it was the old man’s wife that offered a solution. As I was helping the old man late on evening, she tapped me on the shoulder with her long cane “you should bring your wife around for tea next time.”

So I did. She didn’t know what to expect and she was quietly surprised entering that little shop. We went upstairs to their living room and the old lady brought us tea and biscuits. It was awkward, I didn’t know what to say and they didn’t know either. But then the old lady said to my wife “I have something to show you. Please come with me…” she took her downstairs and I guess showed her what the old man did. She never told me though and refuses even today to tell me what she saw.

But when she returned she appeared a little shaken but there was a smile on her lips and she hugged me tightly. Her eyes told me “I understand now”.

The old man was uncharacteristically nervous. “I’ve got something to ask of you. You see we’ve been doing this a very long time, an Age in fact. We want to retire but the work must go on. You know how to do all the things the work requires and you are both bright and creative people who know this modern grey time. Would you be willing to take over?”

I was giddy with excitement, I wanted to blurt out ‘yes!’ but I didn’t know about my wife. I knew this would mean quitting our jobs, losing contact with our families and friends and even to a degree losing touch with the world.

It was my wife that quietly answered ‘yes, we will.’

So now we run this little shop. We’ve tidied it up, setup a web site, modernised it a bit, but not too much. My wife deals with the customers more than I do but we share the load and participate in everything. We’ve lost our names, but that’s okay, it comes with the job.

The old couple went on a long holiday that I suspect has no real end. We occasionally get postcards but they’re of places that don’t actually exist.

You see we’re all storytellers. Every story we weave tells something about being human. But often the stories become bigger and even more important than the story builders. That’s why we no longer have names and the old couple don’t remember theirs.

Now I promised I would you I tell you what the old man showed me: when I looked into that room, I saw a world floating in the centre of its own universe. Before my eyes he arranged the stars, shaped the lands and drew rivers. He sculpted cities and place figures among its plains. He added themes and atmosphere as if sprinkling sugar. He weaved stories like wispy strands of spirit through it.

He built worlds of imagination.

Our customers pay good prices for the stories that we create. For without them they would be nothing. They are fragments of ideas wishing to exist, born out of the imagination of humanity. Sometimes when I watch TV or read a book I catch glimpses of the worlds that the old man or I had created, always a little distorted but the essence of it is there.

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A little story about a group of lads who journey out to a unnamed pub for an ultimate night but find something very different.

   We have a view of the road from the car. The trees are apparitions as they reflect the white light from the headlamps. We are moving very fast as if someone has hit fast forward. We come into a clearing and there is a pub with white stony walls and a thatched roof. No name is visible. Still in fast-forward, we move to the old oak door, which opens suddenly.

   … everyone looked at us. Well, when I say everyone, I mean the bartender and two old farts sitting in the corner. The bartender looks mean. Big shoulders and a big bald head.
   “What the fuck do you shits want?” And he sounded just as mean too.
   “Four beers!” John said without fear.
   “Yea I’ll have a Bud, a Guinness for Keith and a… Heineken Sean?” Stephen offered.
   The bartender grabbed four bottles with no labels and slammed them down on the counter. “Four beers.”
   “Eh, okay. How much?” Stephen said. John was doing a ‘silence’ sound to us.
   “You’ve never been here before have ya?” the bartender grinned at us. “A few rules, you pay at the end of the night. You do not, and I mean this you shits, you do not go outside until the sun rises. And you drink what you’re given.”
   Okay… We took our beers and found a table at the back. The beer bottles were painted gold and there were some sparkle in the beer. But it was good, surprisingly good.
   Keith, still waking, slammed half the bottle down and let out a walloping good burp. With the ice broken, we chilled and talked crap.

   “Ride the wave of madness!” she yelled as she stood, posed like a model, in the doorway. Long curly red hair and a body that made the four of us gasp. “Barman. The usual.”
   “Coming up!” the barman said.
   Music followed her into the bar. It was a thumping lively beat that drowned out the tatters of any remaining conversation. She was then followed by, one, two, three, five… ten… I lost count as more people who were as beautiful, fashionable and loud as her entered.
   Within a few seconds the little bar was transformed into a loud, and definitely live, nightclub. Chairs and tables were moved and a central space was created so people could dance. One or two of the new people jumped behind the bar to help serve.
   It was John who broke us out of our open-mouth trance by standing up and dancing his trademark bob.
   The music stopped and a man in a white suit stood in the doorway. The way he stood there, the way he seemed to en-thrall everyone in that pub, the wicked grin on his young and wild face… it held us. He started to dance and the music returned.
   The door shut behind him with a sense of finality.

   “Bloody hell! John was right!” Stephen ate his words. John was already dancing amid a trio of girls. We were still sitting. I noticed that the man in the white suit was talking with the mean bartender and looking over at the three of us.
   The bartender gave him a large red bottle and four glasses and he came over to us. The crowds parted to let him by.
   “Gentlemen! Welcome.” He handed out a glass to each of us and poured what looked like red wine into our glasses. “I’m known around here as Mr. D. and fresh faces are always welcome to our never-ending party. But we have traditions.”
   I gulped at this but he winked at me.
   “I challenge you all to a drinking contest!” he sat down on John’s vacant stool.
   We all lifted our glasses to our lips and down it went.
   He filled our glasses again and again we drank down the red wine.
   And again he filled our glasses. The stuff tasted like dry wine but had a bitter bite like it was gone-off. It occurred to me, as I lifted the stuff to my lips, that the original bottle couldn’t have contained that much wine.
   Yet, he filled our glasses again. I was getting woozy but I always had the stamina, the will, to not buckle. It was the reason why John and me were friends. He couldn’t beat me.
   Why was I getting so woozy so quickly? It mustn’t have been ordinary wine. And another glass of it went down. Stephen signalled his limit and Keith quickly followed.
   “Just you and me,” said Mr. D and, without hesitation, downed another glass.
   Another one, and another, and another… I couldn’t see straight. There was three Mr. Ds in front of me. I lifted the glass to my lips but then Mr. D fell sideways.
   I had won. I tried to remain cool and slowly place the glass on the table but I missed and the glass smashed on the floor.
   The world spun…

   “Drink this,” someone was pouring something down my mouth. I gulped and my eyesight cleared but I was still heady drunk. She was beautiful.
   I wanted to kiss her but my attempt to stand seemed to make me move sideways instead. Mr. D was standing there laughing at me as if he hadn’t drunk anything.
   “You did good. Sean isn’t it?” he offered me his hand.
   “Eh thanks.” I said as he pulled me up.
   But as I stood, the world started to spin again. I couldn’t tell which way was up. The girl that helped me, grabbed me hand and said, “lets dance!” and she pulled me to the makeshift dance hall. Part of me knew that it was the same girl that had led everyone into the pub.
   I looked back at my friends. Stephen and Keith both had a girl beside them and they were laughing. I couldn’t hear them over the music. It was so loud…

   We see Sean being pulled onto the dance floor. We see all the beautiful young people dancing and moving to the supernatural beat. It is all in slow motion. The world flickers and they are not humans but satyrs, some have the legs of goats and small horns, and others have tails and cat’s ears. Sean dances, the only mortal among them. The world flickers again and we see only humans.

   … I don’t know how we got there. She was unbuttoning my top and I was fiddling with the complex knots on hers. In moments we were doing it on the bed. She was on top. Then we went at it again and I was on top. I don’t know where I had the energy but we went at it again and again. My hand gripping her curly soft hair.
   The music matched our increasing rhythm…

   … outside. I was naked but then they were also. The gang of us were running through the field. They all effortlessly jumped over the tall hedge. Somehow I was following them. She was encouraging me, holding my hand.
   John was at the edge of the field. He was calmly smoking, unaware that we were racing towards him, laughter in our ears…

   … they were ripping him apart. Blood thrown high in the air. I staggered back. John was my friend. No they can’t do this. But then I looked at my hands; they were drenched in red, John’s blood…

   … name was Sarah. She whispered it to me as we danced under the moons and made love on the cold grass…

   “Get up!” the barman shook me. The morning streamed in the open door of the pub. The place looked like a bomb hit it. Keith and Stephen were still asleep on a bench. “Time for you to leave. Don’t look back now.”
   “Where’s John?” I gasped from my dry voice.
   “He’s gone already. Got a lift back to Dublin with the party.”
   “We haven’t paid…”
   “John paid. In full.”

   The three of us were silent in the car back. Stephen drove. None of us argued or bickered even when we got lost three times, we just muddled through.
   But all the time, I kept thinking about the nightmare, the blood on my hands, and John’s look of horror as they, no we, descended on him. But when I awoke this morning, my hands were not covered in blood. Before we left I looked around outside. I found the field that I dreamt about adjacent to the pub. There was a spot where several cigarette butts lay. No signs of struggle or blood. I got so paranoid, I checked under my nails, like in the detective shows, but there was no visible dirt or muck.
   “So, eh, Sean… did you get it on with that girl, the one you were dancing with? You disappeared for so long we thought something must have happened?” Keith tried to break our mood as we arrived into the city. The early light and its red glow shimmered above the buildings.
   “I don’t really remember…”
   “That good huh?” Keith grinned.
   We didn’t say anything else.

   We went back to our lives and buried ourselves in work. It took a whole week before we realised that John was missing.
   You see, the weekends were ours, we let loose, went wild but during the week, it was work. I was an accountant, Stephen a consultant of some sort, Keith was trying to be a writer and John was some sort of mad computer whiz. We all worked hard and worked late but it all paid well and when the weekends rolled round we spent it like there was no tomorrow.
   But it was only on Friday when I was trying to arrange our hedonistic plans that we realised that no one had spoken or seen John since that night.
   I drove out to his bed-sit on the north side of the city but no one was home. I called his neighbours who weren’t very helpful so I broke in to his place. It wasn’t hard and there was no alarm.
   Food had gone rotten on the table, messages from a week ago on his phone, week old mail though his door, everything seemed untouched from a week ago. I called the Gardai…

   … didn’t believe us. We didn’t know the name of the pub, where is was or even how to get there. They implied we were all high on drugs and probably John decided he could fly. I didn’t tell them about my nightmare. How could I? They would think I killed him. I didn’t.
   I didn’t go to work for days. Called in sick. I unplugged the phone and radio and stayed in bed.
   Then I had the dreams. In one, I was making love to Sarah, both of us naked and drenched in dry blood. I’d wake up and find I had wet the bed. In another, I dreamed we were running naked though the fields, screaming in madness and power and we would slaughter any living thing we found with our bare hands. Then some would be about John, he would be drinking too much and I would drink more. Mr. D would be there, laughing at us.
   Anytime I slept I would slip into one of these nightmares. So I tried not to sleep, drank as much coffee as I could find.
   Keith called once but I didn’t answer the door. I heard him yelling outside saying he could see me moving. But I switched off the lights.

   The worst dream hit me near the end of the week.
   I refused to sleep but the nightmares would not be so easily avoided. They tricked me into thinking I was still awake. Everything would seem normal but have a surreal, blurred, edge to them. I would hear the music playing and I would rush around the house looking for the source of it. Boom. Boom. There would be too many rooms than in reality and eventually I would find myself coming into a room I knew didn’t exist. There I would find John dancing in his unique way to the beat. Except, half his face was clawed off, his body was covered in large gashes and blood dribbled from his wounds. I’d wake then, knowing it was a dream.
   I must have banged myself against a wall while I dreamed because I had two sore bruises on my forehead. My beard had grown unusually thick and I found my legs had started to itch…

   Boom. Boom. The music played. I had by now placed old newspapers against all the windows so nothing could get in (or out). I wasn’t dreaming, yet the music played constantly. It was calling to me. Occasionally the daydream would show me Sarah, dancing, enticing me forward, except she wasn’t human in these visions. She had the legs of goat and horns on her head. She was even more beautiful, more stunning. Boom. Boom. The music was in my head. I couldn’t stop it…

   We see Sean curled up in the corner of a room. The furniture has been pushed aside and bits of litter disgrace the walls. But Sean is different than before. Horns grow suddenly out of his head. His feet change shape. He buries his head in his hands. Our view suddenly shifts to the front door. The supernatural beat stops and someone thumps on the door. It opens and Mr. D. stands there grinning with wildness. Sarah goes by him, now in her full satyr form.

   … Sarah pulls me from the house. I do not resist. I can’t tell if it is a dream or not because she looks like the image from my nightmares. She whispers things to me but I catch little of it. We’re climbing into a van. Mr. D. is there with a gold painted bottle, offering me a drink. I take a sip and the music in my head dies a bit. He doesn’t flinch as my house explodes in the background and then he bursts into laughter.
   “The world is going to be swallowed in the tide of madness and we will be riding it, leading it. We are the wave. Ride the wave of madness Sean!” Sarah screams as the van pulls off. I was riding this dream. I no longer cared if it was real or not. The music would no longer overtake me. I would overtake it.
   A part of me, a dead part of me, wondered what John’s dream was…

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This is a short story taken from something I’m working on. Its about an Angel and his decision.

I saw the world burn.

The darkness had finally overrun its defences and we could see the great cities in flames. The tall glittering skyscrapers turned into gigantic dead pillars of fire. The sky was blacker than the coldest night and filled with deadly poisonous clouds. The horizon was a thin red line of flame and death.

We were too late. The war was over. We, the Angels of the Choir Virtues, could save nothing.

We flew across the sky. My bright burning sword felt light and ready in my hands. But there was no one to fight. There was no one to save. All were dead.

We saw buildings crumble and burn, petrol stations blow up, bodies crumpled at the side of the roads, cars overturned and crashed. Yet there was no screaming. There was no panic or tears. Nothing living stirred.

And then came the explosion. It was like nothing I had seen before. On the distant horizon there was a great flash that blinded us for a moment. We each had to pause in the air.

We didn’t know what it was. But it was coming. Like a great wall, a burning inferno that reached from the ground right up to the black evil clouds. It sped towards us faster than we could think, decimating everything its path as if it were made of dead dust.

We froze in hesitation and we shielded ourselves with our white holy wings but the light was so bright and so hot. It tore through us as if we had been flung into the very depths of Abaddon. It shocked me into the denial of unconsciousness.

When I awoke I was sore and battered. My white robes, signifying my glorious status as an Angel of God, were in tatters. The light had been so ghastly I was left partially blind and couldn’t see more than black shapes that moved and the red light of nearby fires.

‘Prop him up!’ The voice was sharp and bitter. I was tugged and pulled and lifted up. The hands that touched me were cold. I couldn’t struggle against them or help myself. My body was broken. But then I heard the moaning of others in great anguish and pain. A sound I knew for it was the sound of those nearing a terrible death.

I fought but it was pointless. I was too weak. My eyes cleared just enough so that I could look around. The source of the terrible moaning I could just make out, on tall twisted spikes of metal human forms were skewered and were wiggling helplessly. They were still alive but dying quickly. I heard the weak flapping of wings and the realisation shocked me cold. They were my brothers and sisters, the other Angels of Virtues. They were dying.

‘No!’ I screamed pointlessly. I pulled but they had tied me with strong ropes. They tensed and my shoulders were painfully pulled back. The cold clammy hands lifted me up and I felt the razor sharp point of metal sticking deep into my spine.

There was horrid laughter, a perverse pleasure from my captors. They must be servants of darkness, monsters of nightmares. I could not escape them and my voice rose in song of mourning and shame.

Then I felt a light, a wonderful light that I knew and recognised even in my partial blindness. It was accompanied by glorious and great singing. It was the one true light of Him the Almighty. My brothers and sisters, Angels of God, had come.

I felt myself lifted and my eyesight was instantly restored. I was whole and glad again and my pain disappeared. I was ready to continue God’s great work and ready to battle the darkness.

I turned to face my one-time captors, planning to send them back to the very coldness of Hell. But I felt a gentle touch hold me back. It was only a light touch but it held great strength and power and I knew if was one from a higher Choir.

‘No! Let me bring justice,’ I pleaded.

‘No, Anthony, my child. Do you not see who you would take your vengeance on?’ I recognised the voice. It was the Seraph Gabriel, one of the blessed seven of God and one of his greater messengers.

So I looked and I saw.

My captors were not servants of darkness, not foul monsters. They were the human survivors of that apocalyptic explosion! Their skin had turned frighteningly pale and the sickness of radiation poisoning was killing them while it mutated them. But they were still human. It was not the darkness that had destroyed the world but humanity!

There was one who stood on a pedestal where a makeshift throne had been erected from the rotting remains of others. He stared at us, undeterred by the light of God and there was hatred in his eyes.

‘This world is now part of the Deadlands. This war has been lost. Do not look further. Not even our tears can save them.’ Gabriel cautioned. His tone was sombre and sad.

But I could not look away. I could not pull myself from staring at those human survivors and the dead bodies of my brothers and sisters that still hung on the metal pikes. They had died before Gabriel had arrived.

My sword had returned to me. Recreated out of the very light of Gabriel. I didn’t look at Gabriel as I descended. Nor did he stop me as I brought my holy vengeance down on them and slaughtered them all.

I tore the eyes out of all of them as they died for they were not worthy to look upon the light of the one true Heaven.

*

The trial had been quick and functionary. They had heard from Gabriel what had happened. They asked me nothing and said nothing to me.

I had killed humans knowingly and for selfish reasons. There could be no redemption. I was mentally readying myself for an eternity of torture in the 2nd Heaven.

I awaited their sentence. But none came. They must have believed my actions required no punishment yet I yearned for it. I yearned to be punished. I saw the world die and I know it was humanity that burned it. How can we protect and love humans if they willingly destroy everything God has given them? How can we stand tall and serve God if we were once human?

‘Why?’ I asked him.

Gabriel looked solemn. He was among the most beautiful of Angels and none would have dared ask such a question of him. But he did not strike me or condemn me. He bowed his head for I could see he was crying. He said, ‘It is simply the way of things Anthony. For Hope and Light to exist, there must be the darkness and failure. It is the Divine Plan.’

I once had faith. Even when I saw my mortal family killed in a mortal foolish war, I did not question my faith. But now I did. ‘I do not understand anymore.’

‘Do not try to understand. You must accept what happened and move on. Know that it is God’s Will. Have Faith in Him for through Him we are all saved.’ His eyes seemed humane and sincere. He seemed to understand what I felt but he knew as much as I did that it was impossible to give me the words I needed to hear.

*

The Earth was cold under my feet. I was naked and the sharp wind of this place whipped through me.

I had burnt my wings and left Heaven for good. None had stopped me and my brothers and sisters of the Virtues had begged me not to and so I had gone far from them and had made the fall.

It was night and very dark. I had expected to fall on a dead world but here I was in a living place. This world had not burned. A city of lights was in the distance. It made the horizon sky a deep orange hiding the few stars.

I made my blackened wings hide and I started to walk towards the city.

I was confused. The world was dead but here it was alive. Had I been given a second chance? Or had God sent me back so I may understand why He would let such a tragedy occur? Or perhaps this was my punishment to see the world burn again and know I could not stop it?

I did not know. It was cold and I needed clothes and shelter.

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A short story about a girl called Alice who finds herself in a strange school in the land of dreams.

   ”What is this place?”
   ”No one knows. It doesn’t seem to have a name.” A dorky looking girl beside me answered. She fidgeted with glasses that were bigger than her face. She wore a white but torn t-shirt, well-worn tight jeans, blue socks with pink fluffy clouds pattern and a book, as big as her, under her arm. “Do you think this is a dream?” She asked as she stepped back as if regretting asking the question.
   ”I’m not sure. Doesn’t feel like one but I don’t feel myself either.” I reached out and pinched her.
   ”Ouch!” She said rubbing her arm.
   ”You feel real.”
   The hall had no ceiling but was covered by huge statues of animal heads. Looking straight up I found myself looking into the stony nostrils of a giant horse.
   There were other people here, looking just as lost as I felt. It had the atmosphere of a first day at school. Girls and boys of varying ages and dress. Long Victorian dresses mixed with boys in grey shorts and tweed hats. American sport jocks in their trademark red jackets wandered among darkly dressed young wizards. The only noticeable similarity was that the clothes were idyllic stereotypes of what they represented, classic versions from our cultural collective, as if every one of them was playing a role in a vast ranging play. It must be a dream but I’ve never had a dream so vivid but yet it is so odd like a dream. If it isn’t a dream then how did I get here? If it is a dream then how did I imagine all this?
   Oh my, what must I be wearing if everyone is in some costume? Perhaps I’m naked like those anxiety dreams I’ve read about? There was a mirror against one wall and I decided to look at myself.
   My mouth would have dropped off if it could. I had been reduced in age quite considerable; I was now 13 perhaps 14 years old. I’m sure I was at least twice that a moment before but for the life of me I couldn’t remember exactly right then. I did remember vague feelings that 13 isn’t my best age.
   I was wearing a strange dress for a little girl that had a very distinctive gothic feel. Black with puff shoulders and a big black bow tying up my hair. At least I was wearing boots and red and black striped tights instead of blue and pink socks. The oddest thing was that I felt comfortable. I was pretty sure that before this dream (?) that I would have been pretty shocked to find myself dressed thus.
   That’s about when the woman on a horse seemed to appear beside me. She wore a long velvet robe and cap and seemed infinitely older than any of the people gathered. She winked at me. “Admiring yourself Alice?” She had a soft kind of laugh. I scowled and was about to complain to her as she obviously knew what was going on here but the horse moved forward under her command.
   She wasn’t the only one. Along the hall, other animals bearing robed figures had appeared. A grizzly bear bore a blond haired gentleman of wonderful beauty and he waved to the jocks. An elephant carrying a person totally covered except for her eyes which seemed to sparkle, a huge peacock with brilliant feathers carrying a large fat red-faced laughing man whose heels were barely off the floor, a dragon’s head (for it’s neck extended back into the wall where it’s huge body must be) was mounted by dark robed albino man carrying a sword and many more beside. Each appearing under the same animal statue as the animal they were riding.
   The woman on the horse strode out in the centre of the group I was nearest too. I got the impression that everyone was assigned to some group under each of the animal mounted figures.
   ”All of you follow me!” She commanded and then made the horse stand on its back two legs and turned one hundred and eighty degrees towards where there was now a door that opened. This must have been where she came from but I was pretty sure it wasn’t there when I looked in the mirror.
   Suddenly there was movement and I was moving along with the group through the door.

   ”Fascinating isn’t it?” He was quite handsome, dressed in somewhat Victorian suit. I couldn’t quite place what period but then I figured perhaps it was just a fantasy of a Victorian suit. He had that high upturned collar that gave him a dashing look. “I suppose.” I wasn’t too sure what in particular he was referring too. It all felt very fantastical to me and therefore I was a little disinterested. Such was one of the notable qualities of adolescence that I remembered I didn’t like. “I believe we’ve all been assigned roles and that we’re all to play out certain plots…” he didn’t seem to be directing his comment towards me, it was more of a rhetorical statement, a pretentious out-pouring. But then again he was taller than me. Something I better get used to again.    
   ”Like life really then, ‘we are but shadows on a stage’” I retorted. His eyebrows bent into a grimace at my comment.
   ”I suppose so… but I meant that it’s all been designed you know. That we are set up as certain figures and we’ll be played off each other until it comes to a conclusion…”
   ”We have no choice in all this?”
   ”Exactly. It’ll all play out and that’s that.”
   ”Hi” a tall girl with blond hair waved at us. I could feel my eyebrows repeating the grimace. She seemed much older than me and was all bouncy and nice. Her costume was very revealing but at least modern, I think. “I’m Mystic.” She brushed her hair back with her hand and reached out to shake with my handsome Victorian friend.
   ”I’m Matthew.” He seemed a little taken back by her in a way that seemed to me to be displeasure (which I guiltily took pleasure in) but Mystic took as embarrassment and brushed the other side of her long blond hair back to reveal her other soft white shoulder.

   ”Oh and who is this?” she bent down to shake my hand, which she didn’t need to do as I wasn’t really that much shorter then her. “And what’s your name?” I was about to spit poison but I bit my tongue.
   ”Alice.” I answered without shaking her hand. She smiled and said “Oh” and stood up again taking the full advantage at revealing her precious packages. I saw Matthew’s eyes expand as he got a rather full picture from his taller vantage point.
   We were still all walking down this tunnel following the woman on the horse. Mystic bounced and said “Ok, well I’m sure I’ll see you all around!” Sparkle of her white teeth and off she went.
   ”My God Alice. I hope I never meet that girl again. She scares me.” I felt smug.

   ”Oops I’m sorry.” It was the nerd. She had bounced into me and nearly knocked me over. She was hugging her book and looking decisively nervous. “My dear Lady are you all right?” Matthew asked her.
   ”Yes, yes. I think so.” She righted her glasses and then opened her heavy book once again and continued reading. But Matthew pulled her suddenly over as someone came hurtling down the path tumbling head over heels and stopped. The woman picked herself up. Her lip was busted and her knuckles were red. She was wearing a heavy leather jacket and black t-shirt with some white symbol on it. A grin came across her face. She yelled back “is that it?” and started walking back towards a group of similarly clad girls and boys.
   An incredibly tall man, who seemed to glide along beside us, turned his long neck and seemed to bend down towards us like a snake. “They have been fighting all this time. Me not understand how they do not do serious damage.” He swung his head from side to side in what seemed like an overly sad way and he glided on.
   ”Em. Thank you.” The nerd said, pushing her lopsided glasses back up her nose. She opened her book and kept reading.
   ”So what do you think are their roles?” I said, nodding to the gang.
   ”Trouble makers or maybe anti-heroes, time will tell I suppose. We are like all good characters in that we will be blind to our oncoming unchangeable fates.”
   ”That is a depressing thought. I believe we always have a choice.”
   He smiled, “to be a good little girl or a bad little girl yes? Take that bookworm that bounced into you. Prefers books over reality, if we can call this reality. She’ll either be a comical character, passing through the whole experience without realising it or being affected by it. Or perhaps a dramatic character, diving into books to escape her terrible loneliness and perhaps her story will end by death at her own hands…”
   ”That’s terrible. Then we shouldn’t let it happen…”
   ”It is her fate…” I kicked him in the shin. “OW! That hurt. You’re not wearing soft shoes.” He was hoping on the other leg.
   ”I know. And I’m tempted to kick your other one…” He made a mock shocked look.
   ”Okay, okay. I admit I’m being harsh but such is drama Alice.” I left him hopping to go after the nerd but walked into Mystic. I could tell Matthew was following behind me but once he saw Mystic he started hopping the other way. “Oh, hello again, little girl.”
   ”Alice.”
   ”No my name’s Mystic.”
   I didn’t feel like correcting her. “Matthew said he wanted to talk to you.”
   ”He did?”
   ”Said it was urgent…”
   ”Oh I better go over and talk to him then. Thank you Ann.” I swear she nearly was going to pat me on my head but imagining Matthews’s face was enough to prevent me from doing something obnoxious. She nearly ran to find Matthew. Which left me facing three guys in long black robes and white face makeup. They stared at me. I stared at them. We didn’t say anything and I left them to find the nerd.

   That’s when we stopped moving. We had come to another door. The woman on the horse shouted “Open!” But nothing happened. She yelled “open” again. But still nothing happened. She got off the horse and approached the door. I had failed to find the bookworm by now so I had wandered up to the front of the group. The woman sat on some rubble beside the door. There were remains of statues all along the wide tunnel to this door. I couldn’t tell what any of them were meant to be when they were standing.
   ”Ah Alice.” She looked up at me.
   ”Where are we?” I asked.
   ”All in due time you’ll be told. As soon as I figure out how to open the door. They’ve done some work on it you know.”
   ”All in due time?”
   ”Yes. You don’t want to spoil the surprise.”
   ”I’d rather know…”
   She smiled. “You are definitely special. I can’t wait to see how you turn out at the final ball.”
   ”Excuse me?”
   ”Help me up would you?” She was trying to get up off her stool of rubble. I went over to her and took her arms. But I really wasn’t much help, nearly falling over myself with the effort. But my hand did slip and something popped out of her sleeve. “Ah yes. That was it. The key.” She sat back down rather then continue the effort of getting up. “They put a lock on all the entrances, after the dogs incident we couldn’t be too careful. Fetch the key would you Alice?”
   I couldn’t see it. I looked around the ground where I think it fell. “What you looking for?” The tall man craned his neck to ask me. “A key to open the door.”
   ”Perhaps a garden on other side. I would like that.”
   I spotted a sparkle and kneeled down to pick it up. A tiny key, no bigger than my finger, but wonderfully ornate.
   The woman was up and standing at the centre of the door. It seemed she had no real problems getting up now. She looked at me and said, “Do you want to do the honours?”
   The horse shook its head and snorted. And as if that was a signal I walked to where the woman was. A small key notch existed between the doors. I placed the key in it and turned. Nothing seemed to happen.
   There was a glimmer in the woman’s eye. “Open!” she yelled. And the large doors opened.

   The corridors were a mix of straight gothic columns and arches and the rough raw walls of dark stone. Hanging between the columns were pieces of all kinds of art. There was something odd about all of them though, they were all unfinished. Half-complete marble statues that look like they were bursting into life from the stone. Nearly finished impressionist landscapes, which seemed washed-out but still retained their beauty in a haunting form. Sketches of everything, the beauty of the naked body, all types of houses and buildings and scenes from comic books. There were rough technical drawings of crafts of all kinds and other diagrams of impossible to decipher symbols. They had a tremendous element of sadness as if they were all ideas and art tossed aside by their creators yet presented in theses corridors they had a triumphant feel, a budding life, threatening us to be continued. Still it made me feel more sad than happy.
   There were many corridors going off this one. Not in any particular order and just as many as these offshoots were straight as were twisty. None of us left the group as we walked along.
   ”My name is Miss. Melpomene. You can all call me Miss.” It was the woman. Even though she was far ahead of me I could hear her voice crystal clear. Hers was definitively an old voice but it was full of mischievous warmth. She wasn’t riding the horse anymore, the ceiling was too low and the horse wandered alongside her without being guided. “I assume by now you all want to know where we are and why. You are here to learn for one year. You will learn how to be creative in unique and special ways.” She stopped at a junction and called out for Mystic and said something I could barely hear about it being her room. “There will be lessons but you won’t be learning how to write or play music or build things. Yes you two are in there.” She directed a young dark skinned boy with a turban and another boy who was dressed like a 80s punk including the dyed red tipped spiked hair. “No. Learning how to do those things is for the other place.” She resumed her talk.
   ”Alice!” She called me and waved me up to the group. “You two have that room. Go in and have a look and meet us all later in the hall.” The bookworm was standing there. She looked at me and then Melpomene and a deep red flush came across her face.
   I grabbed her hand and pulled her into the room.

   ”You can have that bed and I’ll take this one.” I announced. She didn’t say anything and sat down on the bed I had given her. It wasn’t a huge room but it was wonderfully cosy in a cluttered way. Old solid antique furniture leaned over the room. A beautiful mirror that had the silver fading away to yellow and framed in ornate black iron hung beside the bed I had chosen. There was a big desk at one end and a huge bookcase, which was twice as tall as either of us, full of ancient books.
   The cupboards were full of things. Sports equipment, dresses, jewellery boxes, broken toys. I pulled out a teddy bear but when I got it out I discovered it had no head. I threw it on to my bed.
   There was a wonderful big patchwork window at the end. I clambered over the bookworm’s bed to it and looked out. The sky was an unreal mix of deep scarlet red and clear blue but a thick mist hid the ground. I opened the window wide. “You shouldn’t do that…” the bookworm whispered. I leaned out and looked around at the building.
   I couldn’t see an end left or right. The ground was lost in the mist but it gave the impression of being miles and miles high. We were on the top floor. I could see the roof. In fact I figured I could get onto the roof quite easily. The roof was adorned with little towers and chimneys. The little towers all looked disused and home for the birds. Except for one, I could see a little light in it but it faded away as I watched.
   ”Look! It’s amazing.” I said to the bookworm but she had her back to me and she had opened the book on her lap and had resumed reading.
   I sat opposite her on my bed. I watched how her eyes quickly scanned each line. She hooked her finger in her mouth.
   ”What’s your name?” I had decided to start again and reached out my hand to shake hers.
   ”Huh?”
   ”What’s your name? Mine’s Alice.”
   ”I know.”
   I waved my waiting hand in front of her. She reached out timidly and took mine.
   ”Dinah.”
   I smiled.

   We found the hall quite easily just by following the corridor. Though it wasn’t what I had expected. I had expected a large grand hall, massive pieces of art towering down on us and some sort of grand display.
   It seemed small. Lit by sickly fluorescent lights. And there was a queue. It was a canteen.
   The blond hair gentleman, that I had seen riding the bear, smiled as us and pointed to a queue. I felt like an automaton as I picked up a tray on the way.
   The food was in large stainless steal containers. It was some sort of mush, each container containing different colours of mush. “What’s that?” Dinah asked.
   A pigish woman in a white coat (or perhaps it was a pig that just looked like a woman) behind the food said “carrots”.
   ”Carrots aren’t pink though.”
   The woman/pig didn’t answer but handed her a plate and slapped some of the pink stuff, brown stuff and white stuff on it. Bits flew onto her glasses. There seemed to be little choice and I said nothing as I accepted the plate with mush on it.
   The hall wasn’t as small as we first thought. In fact it was massive. Neat brown tables and plastic chairs were laid out in repeating intervals. Its just that they repeated out as far as the eye can see, like looking at a mirror that’s a reflection of another that’s reflecting the first… do you get me? It went on and on and on. And there was people sitting having food, occasionally popping up to return a tray. It had the effect of someone appearing between two consecutive reflections of a mirror.
   ”Is this for real?” I said. But Dinah had already started walking towards an empty table. I felt dizzy as she became part of the recursive view.
   ”Alice?” Her voice seemed far away. I shook my self, looked at the ground and walked towards the voice. “I found a table…” I sat down without looking up.
   Once seated the odd effect disappeared.
   ”Are you okay Alice?”
   ”Yes… just a little disoriented.”
   Dinah stuck one of her fingers in the pink mush and tasted it. “Carrots” she said.

   The girl was large, not fat but well built. She stopped with her tray behind Dinah as we were eating. The girl had rolled up sleeves and it revealed arms like a man’s arms. There was a smell of cigarette smoke. A group of girls bounced into her and fell back. She didn’t even flinch.
   I tried to not look at them, as I tasted the white mush that was apparently potato mash.
   The group of girls started to look at Dinah too and started to circle the big girl. They reminded me of vultures they way the eyed Dinah.
   Dinah was totally oblivious. She was munching on the brown mush.
   Dinah was a tiny ant compared to this girl.
   ”I want this table.” The girl spoke. Dinah looked up but didn’t realise the origin of the voice was behind her. Shrugged and went back to eating. She was as involved with her food as with her books.
   The girl reached down, it seemed like a gigantic motion and was thus slow, and grabbed the back of Dinah’s t-shirt and lifted her out of the chair, dumping her to one side. The girl laughed. The other girls laughed.
   ”You can’t do that!” I said, standing up and placing my hands on my hips. The girl stopped laughing. It took a moment for the other girls to realise they should stop laughing too.
   ”I don’t want this table now.” She shrugged.
   ”What’s going on here?” It was the blond haired gentleman again.
   ”Nothing Sir!” The girls all bellowed together.
   ”Yes there is! She pulled Dinah out of the seat…” I exclaimed.
   ”There there little girl. I’m sure there’s just some misunderstanding.” The gentleman replied. “Isn’t that right Lee?” He was referring to the big girl.
   ”Yes Sir. Misunderstanding.” The gentleman seemed to be waiting for something and so Lee’s filled the silence as quickly as possible with… “She fell out of her seat Sir and I was going to help her. The girls ‘ll back me up…” The other girls nodded with too much enthusiasm.
   The gentleman nodded. “Okay girls on your way then.” Lee and her gaggle nearly ran off. The gentleman started to wander off as well. I was gasping. I ran around the table towards the gentleman but it was Dinah who stopped me. “Don’t. I don’t want any trouble. Please?” I helped her up and set her big blue glasses straight on her nose.

   ”Coo-ee!” It was Mystic. She had spotted us. She seemed to be wearing less or at least something more transparent. She sat down beside Dinah. “I think we’re all in the same class or some thing like that. Hi. I’m Mystic.” She stuck her hand out at Dinah.
   ”Dinah.”
   ”Dinah’s a nice name.”
   ”Thank… you.” Dinah seemed somewhat enraptured by Mystic. She had even stopped eating.
   ”You played a nasty trick on me earlier. Matthew didn’t want to talk to me.”
   ”And?” I said.
   ”And? It wasn’t nice. I thought you were a nice little girl.” Now I had stopped eating the pink mush.
   ”Alice is nice.” Dinah blurted out. My left eyebrow raised!
   ”So do you know if we have classes and such?” Mystic just ignored the comment and kept going.
   ”I believe we do but I’m not sure what” I said.
   ”I hope it’s something interesting…” Mystic said more to the air then to us.
   ”I hope it’s about books” said Dinah.
   Mystic flashed her white teeth in a big smile at Dinah.
   I had had enough. I grabbed Dinah’s hand and pulled. “We’re going exploring.” I announced.
   ”Ok girls, see you later.” Mystic gave a small wave.
   We left her alone at the table.

   The wind roared up the wall nearly knocking me off the tiny ledge. I held on as tightly as I could. “Come on Dinah. It’s not that hard.” Dinah was leaning out the window watching me cling to the wall as I edged along. She shook her head.
   A brick came out in my hand but I managed to maintain my balance. Dinah nearly shouted in surprise.
   I decided to try and find out what that light on the roof was. It really had looked easy from the window.
   ”I’m nearly there…” I had a tiny leap to make. Unfortunately I looked down. I could see the wall go down a long way into shadows beneath the mist. It made my head reel for a moment.
   ”Alice, come back. It’s too dangerous.”
   I had figured that no real harm could come to us here. But now I wasn’t so sure. I felt as if my mind would make me feel the fall. It didn’t look pleasant in any context.
   It was just a little jump after all, I told myself. If there was no danger I could do it with ease.
   Before I had embarked on this I had seen the light from the little tower again and it faded away as soon as I spotted it. But now I could see it even brighter as if it too was worried about me.
   I placed the tip of my boot at the edge of the ledge. I took a deep breath and held it.
   Jump!
   Slipped, the slates under my hands just came away. My feet hit the gutter and stopped.
   ”It’s okay! I got over!” I yelled as much to assure myself as Dinah. Now that I was on the roof, it should be easier.

   I clambered up and started to make my way along. There were several chimneys along the way that I could see. The first one was rather large so I hugged it as best I could and swung around.
   ”Alice!” Matthew nearly jumped. He was sitting on the top most edge of the roof and had had his back to me.
   ”Matthew. Nice to see you here. I thought I’d be the only one up here. What’s that in your hand?”
   Matthew had a faded notebook in his hands that he had been obviously writing in. He jammed both the pen and the notebook into his inside pocket. “Nothing” he said as he crossed his arms rather hurriedly. I sat down beside him. He was going red in the face. The wind was strong and it blew through his air and gave him the look of a mourning lover from some penny-dreadful Victorian romantic novel.
   ”Show me!”
   ”Show you what?”
   ”What you were writing.”
   ”No.” I mockingly pretended to make a grab for the notebook but he nearly lost his balance as he desperately attempted to avoid me. “Okay, Okay! They’re poems.”
   ”Your poems?”
   ”Yes.”
   ”Can I read them?”
   ”No!” He was now scarlet in the face.
   Abrupt change in conversation was obviously needed. He had clamed up like a turtle. I looked out at the view and it was breath-taking. I could see a half moon clearly hanging between the deep red scarlet clouds and the now black and starry sky. The mist constantly moved like a sea without a roar. “It’s amazing,” I said.
   ”Yes it is.” I could see a thought forming in his face and then it came out… “What are you doing up here?”
   ”Exploring. I’m going to see what that light is.” I pointed to the tower from where the light had been but it was dark and empty now.
   ”What light?”
   ”There’s a light there occasionally but it fades away when you look.”
   ”Sounds like a Ghost. Alice’s Ghost. Good ring to it. Could make a great story.”
   ”I don’t know yet. I’m going to find out. Coming?” I got up.
   ”Err, no.”
   ”Will you let me read what you write?”
   His face went red again. “Maybe…” he mumbled.
   ”Ok, see you later!” I got up and made for the next chimney.

   The little tower was made out of stone. Gargoyles that had faded to lumps adorned its edges. At one time it must have had windows but all that was left was the half-rotted frame. I hadn’t seen any light from it, climbing up to it. I sat down and took a breath. I was exhausted.
   I put my hand down on a slate and the slate flew off making a terrible crashing sound as it went.
   I heard a voice “oh my God she’s fallen!” I looked up and I saw an opaque face looking down at me. It glowed with the same light I had seen from afar. I should have been surprised or frightened but the ghost seemed more frightened of me and it quickly pulled it’s head back inside. I got up and looked in the broken window.
   ”I saw you. I saw you from my window…” Suddenly my vision was filled with light and voice yelled at me “GO AWAY!” but something in the timber of his voice failed to scare me. It had a tinge I remembered from sometime. And there was a smell.
   The light faded away. That was not going to stop me. I started to climb in the window but then I felt myself being lifted and then thrown back. “Go away!” The voice pleaded.
   ”Hmm” I mumbled as I dusted myself off and got up. I went over to the window, stood as defiantly as I could, hands on hips, determined expression on face. That’s when I saw the bottle.
   It rolled on the floor of the little tower. It had a little left in it and then the smell and the sound of his voice suddenly made sense. “Whiskey” I thought.
   The bottle seemed to disappear in front of me. “Go away!” Its pleading reminded me of my father. “I’ll be back.” I said and went back the way I came.
   
   ”Help me back in!” I yelped. Dinah reached out her hands. The lights inside had all gone out inside. Dinah had changed into a long white night dress and the moonlight’s whiteness made Dinah look like some sort of creepy ghost with big glasses.
   ”The lights went out a while ago.” Dinah whispered to me as I fumbled to my bed. “I think we’re meant to sleep.”
   ”I’m not particularly tired though.” I declared but shortly followed it with a stifled yawn.
   ”I’m pretty tired too. I’m finding it hard to read with just the moonlight.”
   There were some nightclothes for me under the pillow and I quickly got into bed. As soon as my head hit the pillow I was asleep.

   ”Alice? Can you hear me?” His hand was on my forehead and I felt I knew his touch. I couldn’t see him but I think he kissed me then. The dream image swirled away to be replaced by the inside of a rolling car. I had no control over it as it rolled over and over and all I could do was wait for it to stop.

   The bright light was not particularly welcome. It glared in the big window and demanded my wakefulness. I reached out to the side desk and pick up the notepad and pen and wrote down the tiny fragment of my dream.
   It took me a moment to realise what I done. I didn’t remember a pad or pen by my desk though I recognised it instantly. It’s worn brown and cracked surface covered in tiny doodles of bits and pieces. I use to write all my dreams in this when I was young and it was full of them. I flicked through them, remembering some and trying to recall others.
   Dinah woke and made a bad attempt to fake a stretch. I think she had been awake for a while and had been pretending to be asleep waiting for me to wake. “What do you have?”
   ”It’s my little book of dreams. I used to write all my dreams down in it.” I opened at one page where I had drawn a monster with dragon wings chasing me across a field. Dinah straightened her blue glasses and looked.
   ”Did you just find it here?”
   ”Yep. Just beside my bed.”
   ”Weird.”
   ”Everything about this place is weird…”

   After getting dressed, breakfast was in order. I grabbed the headless teddy bear I had found earlier as we went out the door. I might as well act my age and anyway it’s kind of cute in a dark and anti way.
   The canteen had changed. It was like a mediaeval tavern for kids, dark but colourful, dank but actually quite safe. The canteen display of food really felt out of place.
   There were only people from our class. Many hadn’t even bothered changing from what they slept in.
   The pig-woman behind the counter dolled out the same coloured slop as before though I think she was more pig this morning. Dinah didn’t ask what it was this time. We sat down beside Matthew who had just finished eating.
   I could see Mystic eating her breakfast with a little spoon looking around at the other end of the table.
   ”Sleep well?” Matthew asked.
   ”I think so…”
   ”I didn’t. I wonder what happens now?”

   The classroom was large and old. Everything was made out of dark polished wood. It was a massive amphitheatre that, by all appearances, could fit hundred or just two people. It was all centred on a small section at the front where a modern day electronic overhead projector seemed out of place. The hard benches weren’t particularly comfortable either. Dinah and myself hid in the corner seats furtherest from the centre.
   Nobody told us to come to this classroom. A bell had rang and people started to leave the canteen. Matthew, Dinah and myself just followed them. None of us knew really what to expect.
   A box fell from the ceiling right beside the overhead projector. A small cloud of dust rose. It was a small cardboard box no bigger then a shoebox. It started to shake as if there was something inside it. Everybody was standing, trying to see it.
   ”Excuse me! Excuse me! Could you let me out?” a squeaky voice escaped from the box.
   A young man dressed like a medieval prince in velvet tunic and a sword by his side leap down to the box. He poked it with the scabbard of his sword.
   ”Ouch!” The young prince shook his shoulders, looked around at his fellow classmates and then with the edge of the scabbard prised off the top of the box.
   It shook even more mightily than before and the young prince took a few steps back.
   A leg shot out of the box. What was most bizarre was the foot was wearing ugly sandals and cord trousers. An arm shot out then. We could all hear the muffled grumbles from inside. With the arm it started to push on the ground and with a pop the rest of him popped out.
   He wore a green baggy jumper with a large hole in the right elbow. He was bald on top but had long wispy grey hair from his sides. He wore thin round glasses on his pincer-like nose.
   ”Thank you Percival.” The young prince bowed and then offered his hand to help the man up. The man accepted and while on his feet proceeded to take out large piles of paper out of the same box and putting them in Percival’s arms. “Give one to everyone, will you?”
   Percival looked bewildered as the man continued to pile on the sheets of paper until it seemed as if there was no Percival and the towering sheets of paper had legs.
   Percival wobbled a little to the left and then right as he clambered up to the start of each row and deposited a pile of the sheets. I was amazed at how easily he seemed to find his way seeing as his field of vision must have been a wall of paper sheets.
   Dinah handed me one of the sheets. It read rather strangely; ‘the streets are filled with jam which can be used on a nice piece of toast. The buildings are made of cheese but the inhabitants call it from�ge…’
   ”What do you make of this Dinah?”
   ”Something to do with the aboriginals?” she said.
   ”Thank you Percival,” the man said. “Attention everyone, my name is Mr. August.” The lights suddenly dimmed and the overhead projector came on. “That’s Mister” he put up a slide showing ‘Mr.’ then he continued with “A” and a slide of ‘A’, “U” and a ‘U’, “G – U – S and T” with an appropriate slide for each letter. “But you can all call me John but I prefer Sir.” I noticed some people were writing all this down but seeing I had no pen I couldn’t even pretend to be doing this pointless gesture.
   ”I’m going to tell you a little about where you are today and give you your first excursion so this’ll be your only class today…”
   ”Excuse me Sir…” somebody whimpered rather loudly but all I could perceive with the lights dimmed was a black shape with its hand up.
   ”John” Mr. August corrected him.
   ”John Sir, em, but why are we here?”
   ”That’s a complicated and deep question and not really my department. Best advice, ask the Gods or your headmasters might give you some guidance on who to ask. Where is such an easier question to grasp while why requires a course unto itself I would think.” He slapped up a slide with the words ‘WHERE ARE WE?’
   ”Please class, look at what Percival handed out. It is a sheet with some text on it. Read it to yourself now for a moment…”
   ’Merry, Merry, Mary. The punctuation is all wrong.’ The text had changed! Not a mention of jam or cheese!
   ”Now class, look away from the sheet and then read it again. You’ll have a surprise!”
   ’Horus had one eye. The other was sent forth…’ I looked over at Dinah’s sheet and I could see the text rearranging itself on the spot.
   ”An odd effect isn’t it? This is because we are somewhat in the higher levels of dreams and so the logic of dreams apply more so than any other logic.
   ”You see, we all dream and these dreams are most often individual dreams yet people dream of similar things, others claim to actually travel dreams and so on. Dreams have a reality. Common dreams have a lot of stability and form the great cultural mythos that waking man inherits.
   ”For example you can find Hell nearby; they let anyone in but only the dead can stay. Heaven lets no one in! Hell is quite progressive actually, great music nights; the Devil is one mean fiddler and sax player. Anyway, I digress.
   ”We are currently residing in a construct,” here he placed a slide with the word ‘CONSTRUCT’, “that has its own internal consistent logic and rules as formed by the construct founders…”
   ”Excuse me, John?” a more informed male voice interrupted.
   ”Sir” August corrected.
   ”Em, Sir-John, who are the founders?”
   ”Your head-masters and -mistresses of course. Wasn’t that obvious?
   ”Now do any of you write down your dreams?”
   ”Alice does!” exclaimed Dinah in a high squeaky voice. The moment of silence following struck her like a freight train and I swear, though one shouldn’t swear at all, that she seemed to actually shrink and turn bright red. I knew I should be embarrassed too but I think I was too surprised to be. I heard giggling and snickering in the dim light and instantly recognised it; Lee and her gaggle.
   ”Thanks for that high spirited but totally uncharacteristic outburst Dinah.
   ”So besides Alice, does anyone else?” No show of hands or other uncharacteristic outbursts. I nudged Dinah to make sure she didn’t disappear completely. She attempted a weak smile from under her glasses in reply.
   ”Alice, seeing your the only one would you come down to the front to help me?”
   ”I’m not suddenly going to be naked am I?” the possibility of that particular anxiety dream seemed frighteningly real. The class broke into fits of laughter. Luckily for them they couldn’t see the look I gave them.
   ”Good heavens no child. It’s not that sort of dream, but your thinking along the right lines. Just need to move your thinking sideways and a little higher!”
   I pushed out past Dinah and walked down the middle aisle. As I walked I heard whispers directed at me “freak”, “teacher’s pet”… Lee’s gaggle.
   ”Help me with this…” August was pulling something else out of the box. I found it ridiculously heavy and I couldn’t grasp it properly, but with a strong tug from August it sprang out and sent me falling and landed me on my backside. He grinned as he helped me back up. What did he think was so funny?
   There was a door freestanding beside the projector. With some drama he opened it and I could see a colourful town square with a little fountain and a bright blue sky.

   ”Class! Class!” Mr. August raised voice was barely audible over the small crowd that had come out of the door. Dinah and myself sat on the edge of the fountain, swinging our legs.
   It was a real town square, with simple but warm redbrick houses and odd shops whose windows were bright and colourful.
   The locals kept their distance but the feeling was mutual for the locals were rather bizarre. Some of them had strange textured skin or were even wild colours like blue or green, some of them were animals dressed up in clothes and walking on two legs.
   But I felt that I had been here before that I knew the place. If this was a place buried in dreams perhaps I had been here before, in my own dreams.
   ”Lets go look around.” I announced to Dinah. She looked worried and glanced up at Mr. August who was failing to control the class. Already the gang with their white symbol had headed off.
   ”Class! Just some simple rules!!” August desperately invoked.
   ”Okay…” whispered Dinah.

   The streets were all cobbled but each unique and different. We wandered down a street that was filled with furniture shops. All kind of furniture piled the street edges, from plastic modern deco to finely and not so finely crafted oak cabinets. People of all kinds (though all a little odd) wandered around the shop fronts and merchandise and chatted, argued and haggled with the shopkeepers.
   We watched with fascination as a toad in an Armani suit attempting to put an odd sofa made from black shiny metal in small handbag. He managed to stretch the bag so much that it covered half the sofa. It looked so odd, the sofa half sticking out of the handbag with a toad trying to push the rest in.
   It was then that a tall man stopped beside. He was rather high with pointed ears and shadowy eyes. He studied us over his long nose and then with a swirl pulled his long fancy coat and said, “Afternoon Alice!” and then pounded off.
   ”Wait!” I yelped.
   He glanced over his shoulder like some caricature Victorian monster and walked faster. I started to chase him, Dinah running behind me. But he only upped his pace. I speed up and he broke into a sprint. We followed him down one street that seemed to be just an street of houses, then another that was bordered by large gardens and then another which crossed a short courtyard. And then we lost him.
   We had stopped in a small dead end but there was only one door, a large wooden two-panel door. Dinah was wheezing, “where-did-he-gasp-go?”
   Rather then answer, I pointed to the door.
   ”Oh.”
   We sat down and got our breath back.

   ”I don’t think we should go in…” Dinah said.
   ”But he knew my name!”
   ”Someone might have told him.”
   ”I’m going to find out…” and I walked up to the wooden door. There was a black brass knob but I couldn’t reach it. So I just slammed my fist on the door.
   Instantly a little door opened above, big enough for someone on the inside to look out. But it was too high to see and instantly closed again.
   I slammed against the door again and instantly the little door opened. “Down here!” I yelped. An eye seemed to peer over the edge down at us and then instantly the little door closed. But before I had the chance to sigh another little door opened in front of me. The eye looked me up and down while I put my hands on my hips and made a posture of frustration. The door closed and a voice said, “Go away.”
   ”No!”
   The little door opened again. The eye looked me up and down again and then peered at Dinah behind me who had got closer to have a look.
   ”I’m only letting you because of who you are…” The voice trailed off as the little door shut quickly but then there was a sound of jingling and a key turning in a lock and the door opened.

   He had wings, semi-transparent but nearly as large as him. The wings occasionally flicked in and out. It made him looked knightly and snobby. “I suppose your happy now.” It was the same gent that we had chased but he discarded his coat.
   ”You’re a Fairy!” I exclaimed. Dinah reached out to touch one of the magical wings.
   ”You’ve always had the capacity to state the obvious. It makes for boring and unsophisticated conversation. The King and Queen are too busy to see you.” His wings flicked fully back to prevent Dinah touching them. “Don’t you know it’s rude to touch a Fairy’s wings!” he said to Dinah.
   ”Sorry, I didn’t know…”
   ”That was obvious.”
   ”Hey! She didn’t know, be fair!”
   ”I am. It was obvious. Now I must be off. I have an important package for the King.” And without any hesitation, his wings started to beat and he floated off.
   ”You know Fairies Alice!” Dinah said.
   ”All I know about Fairies are that they are rude!”
   We were in a large spacious garden. Behind us was the wall of the building and the door but it was just a fa�ade. There was no real building.
   There was white ornate benches, marble overflowing fountains, beautifully carved band stands and well groomed hedges that sported multitudes of flowers and colours and it was all filled with movement and light; fairies moved everywhere. Nearby a young group of girls ran after each other, further over another group hovered around, their movements animating their conversation and nearer an old couple sat on a bench singing to each other.
   ”So what do we do now?” Dinah asked.
   ”I don’t know.” I shrugged.
   One of the young girls had spotted us and was heading towards us. She wore a transparent lace dress and had flowers intwined in her golden hair. Her skin was silky white and her eyes a large green. “Alice!” She exclaimed landing in front of us and grabbing my hand, shaking it vigorously. The other girls floated around, lifting and touching our hair and clothes. It was quite annoying and I had to swing my arms to push them away as if they were flies. “I’m so happy to meet you, my sister told me all about you!”
   ”Really?”
   ”Yea, the oldies don’t like you at all. They call you a troublemaker and what you did at the wedding! Oh that’ll never be forgotten!”
   ”Wedding?”
   ”You don’t remember? I wasn’t there. I’m only four days old and it was years ago.”
   ”You’re only four days old!” I exclaimed.
   She smiled, “do you want to see our little place?” And at once the other fairies grabbed us under the arms and lifted us into the air.
   They didn’t lift us very high but still the view was astounding. It wasn’t just a garden, it was beautiful land, filled with light and rolling hills and extended as far as the eye could see. There was a great white castle with flowing tall turrets and hundreds of fairies floating around it. They flew us over a great garden maze and a crystal-blue lake where naked nymphs frolicked and sang on the surface.
   ”What’s that building?” Dinah pointed to a white (every building was white) building with huge roman columns.
   ”The library!” the young fairy said.
   ”Can we go there?” Dinah asked us.
   ”Lets!” I said but the young fairy exclaimed, “you don’t really want to, do you? Old wingless is there…”
   I could feel Dinah really wanted. I wasn’t really bothered, it was enough to be floating in the air with this magically land below us, but I nodded and so the group floated towards the fairy library.

   As we entered, the other fairies floated away but our young guide remained. “What’s your name? You know mine.” I asked her.
   ”Daisy” she smiled. “Do we really have to go in? The wingless here is always so grumpy…”
   Dinah had already climbed the steps and gone in. “I think so” I said.
   Inside it was much darker, no windows so the only light was from little laterns hanging from the ceiling. Huge shelves touched the ceiling, thirty feet tall, filled with books. Hundreds and thousands of books. Dinah was gob-smacked. She gently pulled a book open and was a gasp. “Alice it’s…” and then her eye was caught by another book and she pulled that one out too.
   Daisy sighed beside me. “Why do people like books. There just words. So boring…” She trailed her hand along the piled dust on the shelves.
   ”Who’s there?” yelled a voice and there was a sound of something shuffling along.
   ”Ug. Here he comes. Come with us Alice out of here, it’s so boring.” Daisy pleaded but it was too late. Dinah was sitting on the floor with small pile of books open around her. She was trying to read all of them.
   ”Just us, wingless!” Daisy yelped back.
   ”Huh! Is that you Daisy? You young whelp!” An old man bent over a cane appeared out of a corridor. He had big thick glasses and a bald shiny head but he was tall and even though the clothes he wore were rags they were somehow elegant and noble.
   Daisy flew into the air and then raced forward to touch him on the head and fly up to the ceiling, the old man didn’t like this one bit and he swung his arm at her. It was then I noticed his wings. They were all crumpled as if a huge hand had scrunched them like paper.
   ”Stop it this moment Daisy. That isn’t nice!” I shouted. Daisy landed beside me and grumbled “sorry” with her head bowed.
   ”And so you should be. Now introduce your friends who seem infinitely more polite than you…!” the old fairy said.
   She whispered to me, “he’s the worst of the oldies!” and then said, “This is Alice, a hu-man and her friend. Don’t know her name.”
   ”Dinah, an avid fan of books.” I said.
   ”I can see that. And book lovers are always welcome.” He said. “Philo is my name.”
   Dinah was totally oblivious to the conversation and so was taken by surprise when the old fairy tipped her on the shoulder and asked, “Anything I can help you with?”

   The old fairy Philo poured us tea from a china pot as we sat at the table. Dinah and Philo talked continually about books. Dinah would ask a question and he would answer and then she would have a hundred more questions of which he was only delighted to answer. He had offered us tea and cakes and we accepted. Daisy floated around Dinah and myself and in her boredom plaited our hair with flowers and ribbons.
   The tea was nice, light with a flowery taste. The little colourful cakes were very sweet and I managed only three or four.
   ”What happened to your wings?” I asked out of the blue.
   The old fairy smiled at me, “and I thought you were a polite nice little girl! It’s very rude to ask a question like that.”
   ”I’m curious.”
   He laughed, “and so was I! A Grumble monster did it.”
   ”A Grumble monster?” Dinah asked.
   ”Yes. It makes a low grumbling sound in the darkest moment of the night. It’s got the body of a lizard, a huge long neck and a massive television as a head. Legend says it drinks children’s souls and eats books. I heard it in the garden one night so I picked up my sword and went to investigate and low and behold it was there. Its huge claws are like the claws of lobster and it pinched my wings but I managed to chop its head off. It would have been a worse horror if it had found the library.”
   ”My sister says there’s no such think as a Grumble monster!” said Daisy as she was tying a ribbon in a complicated fashion in my hair.
   ”There is! I have the head to prove it. The head is still alive too. Do you want to see it? It’s a bit morbid.”
   Dinah nodded and so he got up and asked us to follow him.
   He led us to a door with three keyholes on it. He had a large set of keys in his pocket and it took him a few minutes to totally unlock the door. But while we waited, I could hear a low grumbling sound. “You must be quiet,” the old fairy whispered, “it sleeps. If it’s awake it’ll start to suck you in and then it’ll drink deep from your soul.”
   ”Don’t be silly wingless! My sister said there is no such thing as a Grumble monster!” Daisy was a little too loud.
   ”Shsss Daisy, you’re as rude as your sister!”
   Daisy crossed her arms and said, “I’m not going in.”
   ”That’s okay Daisy, I’m sure you can stay out here.” Dinah offered.
   ”Okay, everyone be as quiet as you can and follow me” Philo crept into the darkened room.

   There was no windows, no other light except for the head of the Grumble monster. It created a flashing brutal flickering shadow across the entire room.
   It was a large square television, standing on a large pedestal and surrounded by a glass cage. There was something fleshy dangling from it’s back. That might have once been its neck. Pictures were on the screen, quickly changing as if someone was flicking channels too fast. It showed all kind of horrid images; news broadcasts of terrible accidents and violence, images from grotesque horror movies, snips from nasty porn movies, bloody action sequences and fights, sickening sports etc.
   ”It’s asleep…” the old fairy whispered.
   ”Why didn’t you destroy the head?” Dinah asked.
   ”Because it can not be truly destroyed, so it’s better to cage it” he answered.
   It made morbid shivers travel down my spine.
   But then the door was swung wide open and Daisy dashed in. She took fright at the hideous image and yelped.
   The yelp was too loud! “It’s going to wake! Everyone out!” exclaimed Philo.
   I saw the mouth open in the middle of the screen. It stretched so wide that if filled the screen and I could see all the horrid dirty sharp teeth. I could tell it was looking at me.

   ”Well Jason, what do you say now?” the blond hair woman handed over a pile of papers with her perfectly manicured hands. She had perfect tanned skin and wore a wonderfully fitting pink suit. The man behind the desk, obviously Jason, took the papers.
   ”What is this?” Jason said, standing up.
   ”Divorce papers. I’m leaving you and I’m going to take it all…”
   From somewhere I could hear a whisper… “Alice! Alice! Snap out of it!” I could suddenly see the edges of the television and I started to drag my eyes away from the screen but then there was something else. “Alice you shouldn’t do that.” Jason was looking straight at me from the screen.
   I was moving forward so fast, the landscape outside whizzing by. I had something, a steering wheel I think, in my hands. I couldn’t control the way the wheel turned.
   A slap across my face and suddenly the image left my mind. The old fairy had hit me and thrown a blanket over my head. “Don’t move child.” He lifted me up and carried me out. “Don’t take it off until I locked the door!” I heard the door close and keys be jingled. “Its okay now, Dinah.” And the blanket came off.
   Dinah was kneeling beside me, “Are you okay?”
   ”I think so…”
   ”I’m sorry Alice. I didn’t think its powers were still so effective.”
   ”How come you weren’t affected?” I asked.
   The old fairy tapped the side of his head. “I have bandy eyes. Read too much. That’s why Dinah was okay too.”
   Daisy was curled up in the corner. She was crying. “My sister said it didn’t exist! My sister said it didn’t exist!” She saw that I was okay and suddenly ran up behind me and hugged me. I could feel her shiver and her cold tears on my shoulder.
   ”Daisy, I warned you…” Philo said but Daisy suddenly shrunk behind me as if she was afraid of the old fairy.
   ”Can we go Alice, please, can we?” her voice was pleading.
   ”It’s getting late, perhaps Daisy should escort you back to town…” the old fairy said.
   ”But, but, but… the books…” Dinah said.
   ”Wait a moment Dinah,” and the old fairy wandered off leaning on his cane and a few minutes later returned with a small but old looking book. “You can take this. It’s a first printing. A gift for listening to a wingless fairy.” He gave it to Dinah.
   ”What is it Dinah?”
   She said something but I couldn’t understand or make out what she said but I could tell she was enormously pleased.
   So we thanked the old fairy and Dinah promised to return and it was only when we were outside that Daisy finally let go of me.

   ”You are a troublemaker Alice. Maybe the oldies are right about things.” She had been quiet escorting is back to the door. “But I still like you.” She pulled out of her hair a golden hair clip. “It doesn’t go with your soft black hair but it’s the only thing I have.”
   ”I have nothing to give you,” I said.
   ”You’ve given more then enough, you’ve shown me that not everything my sister says is true!” She kissed me on the cheek and hugged me and kissed Dinah on the forehead and gave her a hug too. “I hope you both come back but not too soon!” she smiled.

We got back to the courtyard in very little time. Dinah was still pulling the ribbons and flowers out of hair that Daisy had plaited with some skill. The door was still there and Mr. August was sitting on the edge of the fountain having a smoke. I saw on the other side of the square the gang from our class. They had a crate with them but they were waiting, not wanting August to see them.
   ”Hi Mr. August!” I said.
   He quickly snubbed out his cigarette and said “what what?”
   ”We’re back.”
   ”You’re one of the last few. The rest have all gone back. Where have you been?” He noticed the ribbons and flowers still wrapped in my hair. “You look like someone turned you into a flower garden Alice.”
   ”We saw the living head of a Grumble monster and we had tea with a wingless fairy.” Dinah announced.
   ”No such thing as a Grumble monster. I should know, I studied dream monsters for hours.”
   ”But we did. Alice got a little zapped by it.”
   ”Yes, yes I’m sure what ever the fairy showed you was quite scary. Fairies are rather unbelievable but such are fanciful creatures. There is a whole category of them you know.”
   As we talked with August, the gang sneaked through the door with their crate and as the last one went in he said “Night Sir!”
   ”What what? Oh yes, em, good night! Now girls you should go back as well.”
   As we both wandered back to our room I wondered how I couldn’t remember the Fairies from before and what I could possible have done at the “wedding”. Dinah was absorbed in her book, her lips occasionally moved as she mulled on one of the words or sentences. I fingered the hair clip that Daisy gave me and placed it on my bedside table. I looked out the window to the dark sky and I saw that brief flick of light from the ghost in the tower.

   ”I’m not sure about this Alice.” Dinah trailed behind me. I was on a mission. The gang had brought back a crate of something and I figured that what was in the crate was the way to draw out the ghost. Dinah trailed behind me in her nightdress but I hadn’t changed clothes.
   The lights were all dimmed and most of the strange school was asleep.
   ”It’ll be okay,” as we crept back down to the corridor. From one of the rooms, riotous laughing could be here loud music. They might as well have put up a flag.
   We stood outside their door for a moment, my fist hesitating before knocking. The door suddenly swung out and a tall teenager with greasy black hair in his eyes stood there looking at us. “What do you want?”
   ”I…” I started.
   ”Who is it Jake?” a woman interrupted me from inside.
   ”That freaky kid in our class,” he told her.
    It instantly crossed my mind that I was still wearing boots and one good kick but I never got to as Jake was pushed out of the way by a woman with intense eyes that froze me on the spot. She brushed her blond cropped hair out of her face.
   ”Well little girl what do you want?”
   ”I’d like some whiskey please.”
   ”What?” she said in surprise then she laughed and the gang inside laughed too. “What makes you think we have any drink? We wouldn’t break any rules here, we don’t want trouble.”
   Dinah said in a low voice “I don’t actually think there is any rules against having drink, I’m not sure there are any rules…”
   ”It’s not for me. It’s for a friend with a problem,” I said trying to put on my most mature voice.
   ”A friend with a problem. I like that,” the woman said. She swung her head back and laughed again. There was something alienly mature about the woman, a bitterness I couldn’t understand. Adults are so strange, burdened with seemingly unimportant knowledge.
   ”For fuck sake, give it to her!” a man’s voice from inside. I heard someone rummaging around. “Out of my way…” a young man pushed her outside and came out, half closing the door in her face. She wasn’t happy. He had a long scar along the right side of his face but there was something honest about him. For a start he bent down so that he was face to face with me. “Here. Alice ain’t it?” He held out a half finished bottle of whiskey. “If your friend really does have a problem, it doesn’t help to feed it.”
   I took the bottle. “I don’t plan to give it to him.” He smiled at us both.
   ”Mike are you doing them out there?” the woman’s voice was heavy with undercurrents of aggression.
   ”Don’t mind them, they’re loudmouths but they have hearts. Keep tough.”
   ”Thanks Mike.” He ruffled my hair but I didn’t mind him doing it.

   It was eerily lonely on the roof. Dinah wasn’t able to make the leap so I was up here alone. There was a wind that whispered but it sounded like it was listening to my heartbeat. The sky and the clouds shifted constantly as if caught up in a slow moving sea.
   I could see something move in the little tower. It didn’t take me long to make my way to the tower and as I got closer I could hear sounds that reminded me of drunken mumbles. I leaned on the faded gargoyle and said “Hello?”
   The sounds inside the tower instantly stopped.
   ”I’ve got something for you…” I shook the bottle.
   I heard something move inside.
   ”It’s whiskey, only half a bottle but it’s the best I could do.”
   Silence.
   ”I’ll just place it here on the roof beside me…” I placed it down beside me and sat down beside the side of the tower and made a mock yawn. “Oh god I’m so tired and it’s so late. Everyone else has gone to bed. I think I might snooze.”
   I pretended to close my eyes but I kept one eye half open. In less than a minute of my mock snoring I could see a white wispy form stretching out to reach the bottle. I made a deliberate large movement right then and the hand pulled back. “I think I better go back. I don’t want to be too tired climbing over the roof.” I got up and headed back to my room with the bottle in my hand.
   A few minutes later I was climbing back in the window. Dinah was still awake. “Did it work?”
   ”We’ll see.”
   ”Do you think the ghost will be scary?”

   The white form drifted slowly through the open window. It was cautious, looking left and then right. It made straight for the bottle and at that moment I leaped out of the bed and shouted “hah!” and Dinah pulled the window closed.
   ”What?” he said. It was definitely a he. His white opaque form floated in midair watching us. He was tall but bulky as if he had been very well fed in life. He wore a fanciful uniform but seemed raggy and dirty. The most noticeable thing about his face though was the wide curling moustache.
   He looked at Dinah and then me in a panicked way.
   ”What?” he said again. He had a warm voice with a tinge of desperation.
   ”Hi I’m Alice,” I said.
   ”George,” he said.
   ”And that’s Dinah…”
   ”Can Ghosts really drink?” Dinah said on cue.
   ”Sadly no, not really. But I like the smell. Makes me remember what it’s like to be drunk.”
   ”Why do you hide up there in the tower?” Dinah continued her line of questions.
   ”I, eh, nobody likes ghosts…” he seemed truly downtrodden.
   Dinah sat down on the bed. “Its okay. We kinda know what it’s like to be lonely.”
   ”You’re not afraid of me?”
   ”You’re not particularly scary, George. I think its you who doesn’t like people. But that’s okay too, because we don’t either.” I stretched out my hand to George’s ghostly hand and we shook. I could feel him but it was like squeezing jelly. Dinah shook his other hand.
   He sat down beside us as if he had finally got rid of some great weight.
   He told us a story about his life. He once was a general in some old war where they had horses and muskets rather than tanks and missiles but he had been on the losing side. As the war faltered he turned to drink to escape the despair and then in the midst of battle he had found that he had been killed. No pain, no fear, just a clear realisation that he was dead.
   As a ghost he saw his army massacred brutally and so he fled into the night and found himself in the land of dreams.
   We told him about the Fairies and the Grumble monster and he was suitably impressed but when the sun came he begged his leave and returned to his little tower. In the light he was practically invisible and for a few minutes weren’t even sure if he had left.
   It took me another moment to realise he had taken the bottle.

   We were late.
   We had overslept and somehow missed waking up. The canteen was empty so we rushed to the lecture hall and without a moment’s thought burst in. There was a full breath inhaled by everyone as we entered. So we clambered quickly into the back row.
   ”Well thank you for joining us, Alice and Dinah.” There was an old lady in a bright flowery print dress standing beside the podium. “You’ll find your first exercise under your seat.”
   I pulled out knitting needles and a ball of string.
   ”Do you notice that it’s just girls here?” Dinah whispered to me as I was trying to open the ball of string and failing at it.
   ”We’re going to learn how to do the cross-seven knuckle stitch technique…” the old lady drained on.
   I looked around and it was true. I could see Mystic alone on one end of a bench, Lee and her gang of girls (she stared back at me when intensive bully-ness) and other girls of all kind.
   ”Where are the boys?” I whispered back to the Dinah.
   ”Alice and Dinah! What are you two girls talking about? I will have no whispering in this class. It’s un-lady-like and distracting. Stand up, stand up!” the old woman crooned at the top of her scratchy voice.
   ”I… I was wondering where all the boys are…” I said standing up.
   She seemed thoughtful for a moment and then she said, “Well you see what you get for being late? It was all explained at the beginning of class. The boys are doing sport and the girls are here doing knitting.”
   ”Sport? Do we do sport later then?” I asked.
   ”Well, no. Why would girls want to do sport? Sit down both of you and don’t whisper.”
   Minutes later, the old ladies words turned in a stream of nonsense that even Dinah was getting bored with and had taken to reading her book under the table.
   ”Lets get out of here. I’d rather be doing sport with the boys then learning to knit.”
   ”I don’t think we should.” Dinah didn’t even dare look at me in case the old lady spotted us. “We might get into trouble…”
   ”I’m going.”
   Dinah closed her book. “I’d rather stay here…”
   I pulled the book out of her hands. “Will you stay if you don’t have a book?” I said. She turned intently at me and made the closest thing to an angry face that she could muster.
   ”On the count of three we drop under the benches and crawl to the door. Ready?”
   ”No…”
   ”One.”
   ”Alice, please?”
   ”Two.”
   Dinah looked at me with a pleading look.
   ”Three…” and I rushed under the bench and started making for the end of the row. Dinah was quickly after me. I stopped a moment to see if the old lady had seen us but she was demonstrating some complicated stitching technique that would seem to involve the use of three different arms. “Quick, Dinah. She hasn’t noticed.”
   ”Miss!” Lee!
   ”Yes Lee?” The old lady responded.
   ”Faster Dinah!” I yelped and we crawled as quickly as we could. There were only a few feet to the door and we’d be out.
   ”Where have Alice and Dinah gone Miss?” Lee said.
   ”Alice, Dinah, where are you?” the old lady asked in her overly polite but nasty voice.
   We were just at the edge of the row. The door was a quick dash away.
   ”Miss, I’ll go see!” Lee got up out of her seat and was pounding up the steps. We were done for. We’d have to return to our seats and we’d be watched for the rest of the class.
   It was then that Lee tripped and Mystic was tumbling out of her seat on top of Lee. “Now!” I yelped back to Dinah and we make the short dash to the door and were out in the corridor in a breath.
   Mystic had distracted the class to help us escape. I didn’t know what to make of her now; perhaps she isn’t as dumb as I first thought.
   I started to giggle as we stood there in the corridor. Dinah started to giggle too as we danced down the corridor.

   It was a huge grassy pitch. The sky was black and the air felt full of the warnings of a storm. But the pitch was fully lit. The boys were all togged out in a variety of sports gear from rugby shorts, stripped t-shirt and leather helmet to American football protective pads to just shorts, white socks and top. There were two men at the edge of the field directing them. One was a coach, tight grey shorts, and white top with whistle on a chain and a shaved head. The other was dressed in rustic monks gown and a large hood that covered his head, he lent on a cragged long staff.
   We approached cautiously but it was the monk who spotted us first. He flicked back his hood and revealed a youthful face with golden but tightly cut hair. He smiled at us. The coach though shouted aloud, “What do we have here?” He had an intense look in his eyes, a burning bitterness.
   The boys stopped playing and the coach directed them to come closer.
   ”Aren’t you meant to be learning how to stitch and be lady-like?” The coach made this mock camp dance imitating what he considered to be a lady that made the boys laugh out loud.
   ”We don’t want to learn how to sow.” I said.
   ”Really? And you’d like to play with the men huh?”
   ”Hey coach, give them a test!” It was Mike, the guy from the gang who gave us the bottle, and he winked at us from the corner of his eye at us. The coach was thoughtful, “yes a test. What would you suggest Mike?”
   ”A sparring competition – three touches decides the winner.” Mike said.
   ”What do you say, girl?” the coach said, he put a mocking tone on the word girl.
   ”Fine by me.” I said, placing my hands on my hips. I could feel Dinah’s apprehension. I saw Matthew push his way through the boys and stand in front of Mike glowering at him but I nodded to him to signal that it was alright.
   The coach looked at the monk and the monk nodded his head in agreement.
   ”And who is willing to take on this girl?” He asked the boys.
   Jake, the teenager from the gang, stood out. “I am.” He was at least three heads taller than me and he looked really mean.
   With that a circle was formed. The boys were all standing on the edges. Dinah stood beside Matthew. The coach and the monk stood inside the circle. Two lines were drawn and I stood at one and Jake stood at the other. He didn’t even bother to look at me as if the fight had already been won.
   ”Ready?” the coach stood between us.
   We both nodded.
   ”Then, go!” and the coach stood back.
   Jack ran towards me but I didn’t move, stood my ground. He had the height, reach and strength. So I waited until he was right on top of me. His arms reached out towards me to grab me.
   I dropped and then spun efficiently and my leg connected with his unbalanced stride and in a flicker he was falling back.
   The landing thud was felt by all. Then I punched him hard in the chest, as he lay stunned there. He gulped as if he was swallowing his tongue.
   The crowd was in a total hush.
   ”That’s one for the girl. Get up Jake!” the coach said.
   Jake stood up but was swaying slightly. He was winded and looked a little confused. He hadn’t realised that it was me that tripped him.
   We took our positions again and the coach stood between us. “Go!” he said.
   Jake hesitated this time and then started to approach. I didn’t move, waiting till he was in range. He had his guard up as he edged closer.
   When he was in range, he was unsure. I made as if I was cleaning my nails. He hesitated then tried to reach out for me. My kick was faster and my hard boot found itself between his legs. He went down onto his knees and there was a groan escaped every male there.
   I went back to the line. The coach approached Jake and whispered something to him but Jake pushed him away and stood up and hobbled back to the line.
   ”It’s two-nil to the girl. Ready? Go!” the coach said.
   This time I ran towards Jake. He was frozen and in fright seemed to stumble back. I leapt and my boot connected with his waist. He fell over, more from moving backwards than my kick but it landed squarely.
   ”The girl wins!” announced the coach. There was silence until Mike started laughing. “Looks like you can join in,” the coach said in a resigned tone. “Okay girls, you better change.” He then helped Jake up and started ordering the boys around again. The monk came over to us and said, “You know you could have just asked.” He smiled and then pointed over to a small bunker-like building. “Lockers, showers and changing rooms are over there. You should find some sports clothes to your sizes.”
   As we walked over to the changing rooms Dinah asked, “How did you do that?”
   ”I think I’m a black belt in shotokan karate in the other life though I’m not sure, can’t rightly remember. But I did remember the moves.”
   ”Cool.” Dinah said.

   We got changed into blue gym skirts, white tops and runners and left our clothes in the lockers though we couldn’t figure out how to lock them. We joined the boys and played something that was mix between rounders and baseball. We didn’t do particularly great but it was fun. Dinah was quickly out of breath but the boys were fair and Dinah seemed to appreciate that.
   Afterwards the coach ordered everyone to have a shower before going for lunch so we went to the girls changing rooms. The other girls had finished their class and we wandering around the pitch as we went in. Lee was scowling at us and I could hear phrases like “unfair” and “going to get ya” from her gaggle.
   But I was chuffed with myself and it didn’t bother me at all.

   We both had got into the showers quickly but then I heard banging and giggling. We were the only girls here so there shouldn’t have been any sounds. I quickly got out of the shower and went to where we left our clothes.
   But they were gone! Taken!
   Left on a hanger nearby was the most hideous dresses I had ever seen.
   They were bright pink and satiny with ribbons and frills everywhere and little pink shiny shoes and white socks with pink ribbons on them.
   ”They’ve taken my book that Philo gave me too!” Dinah implored. “What are we going to do?”

   I felt so stupid. The shoes were uncomfortable and the socks were itchy. I had to tie my long hair with the pink ribbons because I had nothing else. Dinah looked uncomfortable too, her knees looked cold under the frilly edge of the dress.
   We tried to sneak back to our room but Lee was watching for us. She stood there with a grin on her large face and her big arms crossed. Her gaggle were pointing and giggling. I stared back at her but Dinah kept pulling me along.
   Lee and her gaggle followed along beside us, pointing, laughing and teasing.
   Others appeared after hearing Lee’s gang’s laughing. Many of them started laughing. Jake leaning near a wall with his arms crossed looked at down at us with a self-satisfied grin.
   It was all too much for Dinah who started to cry and tried to dart off but Lee’s gang stood in front of her. “This is too much fun.” Lee said as Dinah started crying into my shoulder.

   Matthew pushed through the crowd, Mystic trailing behind him. Some of the crowd dispersed but not many. He picked up Dinah and offered to pick me up but I refused and trailed behind him as he pushed back out of the crowd and made for our room, the sound of nasty laughter fading into the background.
   ”It’s a pity, you both look so sweet…” I heard Mystic say.

   ”It was Mystic who came out, found me and told me what was happening,” Matthew said as he put Dinah on her bed.
   ”It was Lee who did this. Took our clothes in the changing room while we had a shower.” I said. Dinah was crying into the pillow. I went to the cupboard to find something to change into but the cupboard was empty. There was just a piece of paper with the words “Ha-ha” scrawled all over it.
   ”I must admit it, they are the most hideous dresses I’ve ever seen,” Matthew said.
   ”I hate you Alice! This wouldn’t have happened to me if I hadn’t know you!” Dinah screamed at me and threw the pillow at me.
   ”I think I better go…” Matthew said.

   ”George!” I shouted from the window, “George are you there?”
   ”Yes, my dear girl I am!”
   ”Where are you? I can’t see you!” Something moved in front of me and I could just make out his wispy outline in the light.
   ”My, you two girls do look pretty. What’s with the change of clothes?”
   ”It was a nasty trick by a bully.” I explained.
   ”Oh, I see and suppose you’re not too happy.” Dinah was curled up on the bed with her back to me.
   I sighed, “yep. We need to get our clothes and stuff back. Could you sneak by and get them for us?”
   ”I could but I think flying clothes might cause a bit of a sensation for you…”
   ”Flying… that’s given me an idea. Listen…”

   Lee and her gaggle were hanging outside the canteen. There were still tons of people having lunch inside but for the most part the corridor was empty.
   ”Are you ready George?” I whispered.
   ”I think so. You girls don’t seem to be too heavy.”
   ”You ready Dinah?” She nodded in reply.

   ”Wah!” exclaimed Lee as we came flying overhead and pulled her hair on the flyby. We turned around in the air and came flying at them at full speed again. I turned to see Dinah. Her eyes were filled with wild fire that scared me.
   As we came again, she scratched one of the girls with nails and laughed wildly. “Dinah!” I said but I felt dizzy as George brought us round again.
   I heard a voice being called from afar. A male voice filled with concern. I tried to hear it clearly and the corridor and Dinah seemed to fade.
   My mind seemed to fill with two sensations, somewhere I was lying on my back, frozen like cursed princess and the other I was in George’s grip as we flew towards Lee and her gang again. Both seemed unreal.
   ”Alice my love!” the voice was familiar but unknowable. My chest tightened and I was trying to breath in that other body. I coughed and spluttered and I couldn’t feel George’s hands anymore.
   I couldn’t let this happen. I had to help Dinah, I had to… she was, is, my friend, I felt.
   I spluttered and exhaled but it was in my own body, the one dressed in silly pink dress and with a sudden sharpness I was flying through the corridor back towards our rooms.
   ”This is fun!” Dinah said.

   ”Now the second part of our plan,” as George landed us in front of Lee and her gang. They took several steps back, even Lee seemed to shrivel a little.
   ”We want our clothes and stuff back!” I said crossing my arms.
   ”How are you doing that?” Lee asked.
   ”These dresses have magically powers, we only discovered it when we were in our room.” I explained.
   ”What? How can they have magically powers?”
   ”I don’t know, they just do.”
   Lee seemed thoughtful and she stared out the dresses for a while.
   ”No. You can’t have your stuff back.”
   ”Why not?” I said.
   ”You can’t make us give them to you, no matter what you do!” now Lee stood tall and crossed her big arms.
   I turned to Dinah and we both pretended to whisper to each other.
   ”Okay, what about a trade?”
   Lee grinned, “those dresses for your stuff.”
   ”All our stuff including the book.”
   ”Yep.”
   ”Done.” I said and Lee pushed one of her gaggle to go get our stuff. She returned with a large bag of our stuff. Dinah checked for her book and hugged it tightly to her chest. We took out some clothes and quickly changed from the hideous pink. It felt good to wear boots again. I could hear George quietly laughing with anticipation.
   ”How do they work?” Lee said as he looked at the dress.
   ”You have to wear it and then you just think about flying and point where you want to go with your hand,” I explained.
   She started to undress and then put the pink dress on. It was too small for her and she couldn’t close it properly. “You have to wear the ribbons too and you’ll have to close it.”
   ”It doesn’t fit.”
   ”Well then you’ll have to stitch it close!” I said.
   One of her girls pulled out needles and started stitching Lee up. One other from her gang who was small enough put the other dress on. Once they were all in and wearing the ribbons and shoes Lee turned to us and said, “So how does it work?”
   They looked ridiculous and I couldn’t help giggling behind my hand. The dress was splitting at the seems and the ribbons tied haphazardly in Lee’s stringy hair looked stupid.
   ”Think about flying and then point.” Lee pointed her arm up and George obliged and picked the two girls up. George was having some difficulty lifting Lee for the girl was massive. Lee then pointed forward and they moved slowly forward. Lee was laughing manically as she flew.
   The other girls from her gang followed underneath.
   ”Shall we follow and watch the fun?” I said to Dinah. She grinned in agreement.

   George dragged them through the air but then stopped following Lee’s directions. He reversed directions and then moved back towards the canteen. Lee’s face suddenly turned from megalomania to panic.
   The two girls were moving quite fast towards the entrance of the canteen. We stood there waving as the two girls flew in. Everyone in the canteen was taken by surprise.
   Here there was two ridiculously dressed girls flying and everyone looked up as they floated in the centre of the canteen.
   George flew them up to the fan that revolved slowly and he hung the two girls there leaving them rotating slowly.
   ”Hey, get us down from here!” Lee said. The crowd was quiet for a moment. Lee struggled, swinging her legs uselessly and desperately trying to unhook herself. But she came across a ridiculous image and then everyone started laughing. This infuriated Lee and her actions became more ridiculous and so much more humorous.
   The blond hair gentleman, who was riding the bear at the beginning, jumped onto a nearby table and tried to grab Lee and other girl’s legs. He flailed around and made it all the more funny.
   George’s invisible form beside me whispered: “how long should we leave them?”
   ”Just a little while longer.” I smiled.

   Matthew had a faraway look in his eyes as he sat there gazing out at the night sky. His little book of poems was closed at his feet. I walked up beside him and he acknowledged my presence with a nod as I sat down beside him.
   ”We’re here for a while aren’t we?” he said.
   ”I think so.” I answered. I hugged my knees.
   ”If nothing else it’s going to be interesting,” he took a deep breath and sighed.
   I was trying to remember, before. But there was nothing but fragments and dreams, the feeling of a prone body, a car spiralling out of control and a familiar unknowable male voice.
   ”Dreams are strange things, metaphors for human existence intermingled with fantasy and well of creativity.” The wind swept Matthew’s words into the air.
   We sat in the silence of the wind.
   It was going to be a long year.

If you want me to write more, then leave a comment!

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• A Tale of Cutting the Dead
• The Fudge Shop
• Dont Drink and Drive
• A Dreamer In Paris

A final dance at the end of the world.

End

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This is a short story about an Irish student who finds himself lost in Paris… via his dreams!

   Hold on a sec, this doesn’t look like Dublin. All the shops have neon sides, brightly blinking what they are. They all look like expensive McDonalds. There is another problem too. The names are not f*cking English.

   The caf� is warm.
   ”Thanks.” I hold the coffee in my hands. Thank god for the Euro.
   ”You’re English?” The bartender beams at me behind his white apron and black waistcoat.
   ”No, no. Irish.” His grin somehow widens.
   ”Ireland. You’re on holidays? Not the kind area to find Tourists.”
   ”Something like that and I’m kinda lost…”

   The mobile, thankfully, works fine over here.
   ”Hi, Rachel? Yea, it’s me?” I hold the mobile a good distance from my ear. I don’t know what she’s saying but it’s loud. The shouting subsides.
   ”Yea, look, I’m in Paris?” Rather more disturbing is the near utter silence that comes from the mobile. “Hello?”
   ”Yea? eh? I just felt like getting out of Dublin for a while? eh? I’m alone, there’s no one here but me? well not just me of course, I mean Paris huge? no I’m not being smart? listen? yea I know? I am not cheat?” She hangs up on me.
   Rachel, Rachael, Rachael. If I’m descended from Wizards and Boogie Men, she descended from Witches and Princesses. We’re meant for each other really, so much so, we can’t stand each other. Which would be fine, if we could stand being without each other. You get my point?
   We’re doing different degrees in the same college and met up at some Party. Ever since then we’ve been breaking up, getting together, breaking up again and it’s not always my fault.

   I sprawl out on the hotel bed and pull out my notebook and start scrawling away about what I’ve seen of Paris.
   The bartender recommended the small hotel. It’s small, dingy, cheap but not dirty and unclean. Not the first time I’ve had to find accommodation in the middle of the night, but the first time when I can’t read the signs or ask directions.
   Plan. Tomorrow I’ll head to the main airport, where ever it is, and try and get tickets back to Dublin. I’m exhausted so I relax and close my eyes. Sleep comes quickly and dreams follow sharply after.
   
   The walls were lined with skulls and bones. Empty eye sockets gaping at me. I reeling from left to right in the darkness. As soon as I came to a wall I saw the bones stacked so high they touched the stone ceiling. I wanted to run the opposite way from every wall I came to.
   The laughter chased me. It was a deep booming continuos laughter that sounded more like a hundred fog horns then a man.
   Then the thought struck me. I didn’t want to wake up here, I didn’t want to find myself locked in this terrible graveyard built of human bones. I shook and tore, my eyelids were like lead and refuse to open. I could feel the dream around me. I did not want to be here.
   The laughter started to subside and it turned into a roar. It felt like a hurricane was coming for me.
   I twisted and turned. The roaring was turning down the corridors of bone, hounding me to the last. I grabbed on to the walls as it reached me.
   
   I woke in pitch-blackness. The air was cold as if it had just risen from a refrigerator deep down. Shivering I attempted to pondered why it had happened again so soon.
   
   Slowly an eerie light cast on the stony walls. The shadows hung in drips and drabs among the crevices and cracks of the side. The whole chamber seemed to be modelled out of sticks but made out of stone. It was cold to the touch.
   I took a deep breath. The light swelled and retracted. Somebody was crying, whimpering. Darkness filled the chamber as the light suddenly moved and there was a tremendous thud as if someone landing from a great jump. The voice was louder now, he was shouting, “Non… Non…”
   I reached into my always-handy bag and pulled out a tiny torch, swinging around the chamber. The walls were more intricate than I first imagined, as the light seemed in places to pass right through it. I passed the light over the nearest wall… I nearly dropped it in shock. The light made its empty sockets black and it’s rounded skullcap shiny. The walls were made of bones and skulls. “Fuck” I whispered.
   Where the hell am I? I groped on the ground and found the torch again. The whimpering returned. I crept forward, staying low and pointing the torch down. I didn’t want the skulls staring at me. At the end of the chamber the walls of bone formed a junction. I looked right and I saw him. He was huddled in a corner and covered his face except for one eye that flicked maniacally around. The green light poured over him. Steam or smoke curled towards him and there was a grunt that sounded like a wild bull.
   He saw me.
   I placed my fingers to my lips in the international sign of “shut-up” but he didn’t get the message. His eye caught me and started babbling away in French and pointing with his other hand to the origin of the green light. He started crawling towards me. That grunt I heard happened again. The green light seemed to move, coming around the corner. I turned to my right, planning to run… “Shit!” I exclaimed. It was a dead end.
   The French man started crawling towards me using only his legs and still managing to cover his face. He seemed like a human spider that a kid had pulled all its legs off. It revolted me. I swung the torch back down the chamber I had come from. It was a dead end too.
   Thud. I swear I felt the bone walls rattle. Thud again. Perhaps it was my bones. Thud. The light poured into the junction.
   Something huge, something large was stepping around into the junction. I covered my face yet I could still feel it’s enormous size.
   
   ”Ah.. hows it going?” A voice boomed at me. It had a slight Dublin accident. I peered through my fingers and then quickly closed my eyes. It was big, roughly demon-esque, horns and animal-like face…
   ”Your here for the party I bet?” His voice shook the chamber and the French man quivered and shook in spasms. The French man was clinging to my trouser legs. I opened my eyes again. Okay it’s a demon, real, no doubt. Holding a green lantern in its hands, though it’s hands were the size of my head. Black eyes, green-ish skin but everything looked green in the light. He tilted his head as if curious why I hadn’t said anything.
   ”You’re a … a demon…”
   ”I’d prefer the term ex-dimensional being. My wife says we shouldn’t suffer stereotyping any more but I prefer demon myself. Has more… baggage to it…” The French man was in terrible spasms around my leg.
   ”You speak English…”
   ”I have very little French, I’m only over here visiting relatives you know. It nice to meet some home folk out here. You are a Dubliner aren’t you?” I nodded dumbly. “You’re a bit confused too… you don’t know why you’re here or why you’re not babbling like this picking here…” he pointed to the French man who was trying to crawl up my legs.
   ”Eh yea… something like that.” I relaxed my hands from my face. The demon pulled something from around the corner and sat down on it. “Well tell me how you got here…”
   ”Well it’s hard to explain…”
   ”Yea?”
   ”Well I kinda dreamed myself here.”
   ”I see.”
   ”Well that’s it.”
   ”You didn’t get an invite? Or your half-demon self dragged you here?”
   ”Eh. No.”
   ”Come closer I can’t see you very well.” I shook the man from my legs and tenderly stepped forward. He tilted his huge horned head to the left and right and said “Well there looks like there’s nothing wrong, probably your Irish blood.”
   ”Pardon?”
   His eyes opened up wide at something I was apparently ignorant of.
   ”You don’t know? Well I suppose, in this modern day and age.” He leaned his head as close to me as he could. I was staring into his black eyes. “All Irish have some demon blood in them. In you it’s quite strong.”
   ”Demon blood?”
   ”Yea.” He leaned back. “Not like human blood which is passed onto child from parents but from the land and others. Everyone who lives long enough in Ireland gets a little and sometimes a particular strong taint does pass from the parents.”
   ”So that explains the dreams?”
   ”‘Fraid not. Demon blood has nothing to do with dreams. That’s something else entirely. So you might as well join the party. It’s just in there.” He pointed with his thumb over his shoulders. “These French can really party.”
   ”What about him?”
   ”Do you want some? French soul is wonderful. It’s got these absolutely wonderful traces of purity and dirt mixed in together. You can nearly taste?” He stopped when he saw my horrified expression and laughed. His laugh nearly knocked me down to the ground. “I’m only joking. I haven’t eaten a human since my Dad’s time. It’s not allowed. Apparently it’s not progressive. Wife words.” The monstrous head stretched into a spasm of a smile. “He won’t remember anything. He’ll just wake up in the morning with a bad headache.”
   ”Em. I have a few questions?”
   ”Only one you know. That’s a tradition I wont’ break. One question.”
   ”Where the fuck are we?”
   
   The catacomb; a massive graveyard that had been buried by the sprawling city of Paris. It was so large that at one time it housed thousands of people. There are spots hidden from the normal folk and only accessible to those of “demon blood.
   But what I saw next was not the classic catacombs.
   
   The Demon let me into “the party”. I expected it to be full of huge horned Demons bellowing over burning corpses.
   It was very different.
   For a start the hall looked like a Victorian Boudoir converted into a night-club; Red and gold curtains hung from every wall, chandeliers twinkled lights, low comfortable seats that encouraged people to sprawl out on their backs or sides, classical music played from somewhere but all laid out with modern sentiments.
   Second it wasn’t filled with 10-foot monsters. It was filled with human-enough looking people. People with horns or tails or oddly colour skins. Some with thick fur covering every part of their bodies and others that seemed half animal. What was striking was that they were dressed normally, very fashionably. A girl-fox wearing black trousers and top and bushy red hair falling down her back winked at me as I stood a little dumbly at the door.
   A tall man that looked human except for the tail that keep tangling around his trousers started yappering away to me in French. I didn’t know what he was saying but I could tell by his hand actions that he was very camp.
   I started to speak and he switched to a near fluent English and explained that the wine was free, the food was being cooked and to enjoy myself, tapping me every so often on the shoulder and laughing a little girlishly.
   I escaped him by saying I’d get a drink. I really needed one.
   There was a man serving wine. I couldn’t tell if I had caught his attention because his eyes were completely black. But obviously I had. There was cheeses laid out too. Blue, green, yellow, some full of holes, some streaked with another colour?
   I tried a white one. Bad choice, I nearly downed the red wine in one go to get the taste out of my mouth.
   ”Try this one.” It was the girl fox that had winked at me. She held a different cheese that was white and streaked with blue. “Eh thanks.” I tried it and it wasn’t bad.
   Even though she was covered completely in red fur and had a snout instead of a mouth, she wasn’t bad. In fact she was kinda of hot. She wore a colourful small scarf around her neck, which contrasted, with her black top. White fur from her chest stuck out over the edge of her top.
   ”I’m Phil.” I offered my hand. Her furry hand was the softest I had ever held. “Jean.” Her French accent made it sound somehow sexy. “You looked a bit lost.”
   ”Yea you could say that?”
   ”Are you alone here?”
   ”What you see is all I’ve got!” I nearly sung it.
   
   She introduced me to her friends. A boy-fox, a singer with horns, a computer programmer with little tentacles behind his ears that keep swirling freely in the air and a red skinned woman who didn’t speak any English.
   We sat (or rather lounged) beside a great gold pillar. They never asked how I got here or what I was doing in France but they asked about Dublin. The boy fox really didn’t like me though, kept snorting occasionally at me when I was speaking.
   The place was full of little clich�s. Small groups talking and laughing among themselves. There were a few that moved between the little groups, a satyr (you know his legs are like the legs of a goat and has a tail and furry ears) with a bottle of wine in his hand pretty much demanded that I accompany him as he floated between groups.
   
   I was introduced to a plethora of people and started to forget about the little physical oddities of each one just as easily as I forget their names. And the night dwindled on.
   
   At some point people started to leave. I found myself talking with Jean. She asked about Ireland and Dublin and explained how she would like to visit. I suggested she should look me up if she wanted to come to Dublin. I then unburdened myself about how I got here. I don’t know why I did. Perhaps it was the drink or the shock of the evening but I instantly regretted it, afraid she would find me not really one of them. But she just winked and said, “we all have our mysteries, non?”
   
   She and the fox boy walked me back to the hotel. I kissed her on both soft cheeks and we promised to meet up if they ever came to France.
   
   Thankfully there was a different attendant then when I booked in and returned to my room.
   
   The next day I got to the airport and was lucky enough to catch a just vacant seat on a plane to Dublin. Back at my rented place the answering machine was full of messages from Rachel which started from Insulting and ended up with Worrying and Fearful. I called her and said I was okay. She tried to make me promise not to do that again and I tired my best to dodge answering.
   
   It was only two weeks later that Rachel, who was staying over in my place for the night, answered the door. I heard a little yelp and a thud.
   Rachel had fainted at the door. Jean and her boyfriend (in all their foxy-ness) were standing there a little embarrassed. I wonder will Rachel dump me again this time?

The End

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• A little flash fiction for Lost Heroes RPG

This was a prelude I wrote to a very early version of an RPG. At the time it was called Renegade. It serves as a reader’s introduction to this weird world. An early draft of the RPG is avaliable from here.

   I had fallen asleep on the sofa. The sun must have gone down because it was dark. It was the scratching sound on the door that awoke me. I leaned out to switch on the nearest lamp. Nothing. It was still dark. Outside the window I can see the whole apartment block is dead.
   What is that scratching? I get up out of the sofa. It stops.
   Where did I put the torch?
   Now I hear breathing like a dog except twice as exaggerated. Who would be doing that? I look for something to threaten the nuisance with and accidentally spill the half-empty coffee mug all over the sofa.
   ”Fuck.”
   That?s when the door starts to split, something is breaking in. They heard me say fuck. Now I am fucked. I pull my mobile out of my pocket, no network. This can’t be happening. The door is splitting open. Some thing with claws is breaking in. It isn’t human?
   I blink and then I see it properly, a man with tights over his head and with an axe. He’s grunting and gruelling as he widens the gap.
   I’m frozen I don’t know what to do.
   The little light from the moon outside is suddenly drenched in shadow. Something is moving across the window. The glass shatters inwards and I raise my hands to protect myself but tiny pieces are imbedded in my left hand. They sting like shit.
   There are two people by the window. I can only make out their shadows. One is moving his hand and the sofa is suddenly flying across the room at the man with the tights over his head. There is a squeal.
   The other looks at me and says, “Sleep.”

   I leap awake. What happened? I look around. I’m on a bed in what looks like a cheap hotel or B&B. The lights are all on. My arms are bandaged and the bits of glass have been removed. I hear voices from the other room. I creep up to the door and listen, my heart is pounding. “? we should kill him? the Reclaimer?”
   ”No!” A familiar woman’s voice. There is silence at her outburst.
   ”The Reclaimer will come for him, we should use him as bait?” The first voice continues.
   ”Yes. I agree with Andy.” The voice is almost like a purr.
   ”You can’t?” the woman’s voice.
   ”It maybe our only choice Leana?” Another voice? Leana. No. Leana is dead. I stumble back knocking the lamp over. It bangs. I hear the first voice say again “He is awake?”
   I panic? where to go, the door swings open and this man leaps across the room, pinning me to the ground. He looks at me like an animal would look at a plaything. His ears, hidden mostly in his hair but still noticeable. They look like cat’s ears.
   The man screams back to the others “He’s terrified.”
   ”Get off him, Phil.” It’s the last voice I heard before cat boy jumped me, the commanding one. He stands in the doorway, tall and intimidating. Phil gets off me.
   ”We mean you no harm Ken. We are trying to keep you safe.”
   ”Safe?” I plead but even to me my voice sounds weak and pitiful. Suddenly I’m floating and moving towards the bed. There is another man beside the leader who is moving his hand as if to guide me. He has a maniacal grin on his face. “Relax. You have a surprise.” It’s the voice that threatened to kill me.
   ”Ken. It’s me.” It’s Leana’s voice, but I she’s not?.She’s dead. My sight starts to go and see white light and I faint.

   When I awake, it seems real. Leana is smiling her concern at me and she places something on my forehead. I like this moment. But a shiver creeps up my spine as I remember I’ll wake up and I’ll be alone so I try to shake myself awake. But she is still there. Her smile turns to worry.
I am awake. I pinch myself. Ouch. She’s in front of me, I’m hallucinating.
   ”It’s okay?” she’s whispering to me and reaching out to me.
   ”Calm down.” The command voice says and I suddenly relax. The tension falling from my body. He sits in the corner observing.
   ”You’re real?” I whisper.
   ”Yes.” She answers.
   ”I saw your body. I watched you die in the hospital. I saw your body in a coffin? I saw the coffin?” She silenced me by putting her finger to my lips.
   ”I did die, Ken. I was changed and I came back.”
   ”How?”
   ”We don’t know.” the commanding voice again. “We all died, all saw the same creatures in black suits pull us away and then ? then we find ourselves alive again. Changed but alive.”
   ”Why didn’t you find me?”
   Her frown creased, “because I’ve changed Ken and there are things that will, that are hunting you because you once knew me.”
   ”What? The man with the tights over his head?”
   ”Is that what you saw?” The commanding voice said. “That is interesting. Personally I saw a slobbering monster with more claws then I have fingers.”
   ”I don?t understand.”
   ”None of us understand. We escaped something Ken. But it is angry so it sent a creature we call the Reclaimer. It has gone after all our families and you were next. It won’t stop until your dead.”
   ”It’s dark again. Tomorrow we’ll put Andy’s plan into action. You’ll only have tonight Leana. Make the most of it.” The commanding voice got up and left the room.
   ”What does he mean tonight only? What plan?”
   ”I can’t go back to you Ken. I’ve changed. I see things that I never saw before. I can sense things like I never could. I can read your mind, Ken and I understand your confusion. Don?t say anymore. Just stay with me and hold me.”
   And that?s what I did, I held onto her. Hugged her. But her response was mechanical. She held me back but it was stiff. She lay beside me on the bed. I reached out and turned the lights off, but suddenly she was screaming, “Turn them on, turn them on?” I switch the light back on.
   ”What’s wrong?”
   ”I can’t stand the dark, I can’t stand it anymore. You can’t imagine what it felt like to have your whole essence pulled out? it was so dark?.” tears were streaming down her eyes. I held her and she cried into my shoulder.
   She felt asleep in my arms. Oh god, her smell was so much better then I remembered.

   She woke first, shaking me awake. She went into the common room. The one called Phil was curled up on the sofa, wrapped into a little ball. She knocked on the other two’s doors to wake them and she pointed me to the kitchen. “Help yourself.” She kissed me on the forehead.
   The kitchen was filthy. There were some edible bits in the fridge but the rest was mouldy and filthy. It then only hit me how manky and dirty they all were. Leana looked like she slept in the same clothes for two weeks, Phil, while his face was clean; his clothes were a lot to be desired. Same went for the one with the commanding voice.
   Phil came in, his grin wide. ?Hi there. Sorry about jumpin? on ya yesterday. ?Fraid you were goin? run?? He took out some of the edible bits and greedily ate them. I found a kettle and some instant coffee and proceeding to brew something.
   I tried to drag his eyes away from the cat ears. ?So what?s this plan??
   Phil grinned, ?We wait, till tonight. Your bait and then we hop on it.?
   ?And after that??
   Phil frowned. ?Dunno?.?

   Andy was the paranoid one. He always gripped a carving knife in his hand. As I had already discovered he seem to be able to literally move objects with his mind. Phil was like a Cat. He acted like a cat, he had claws like a cat, he even smelled like a cat. Then there was Jay. The one they all listened to. I don?t know what he could do.
   I spent the day in that hotel room. Leana stayed with me. We talked but I felt like she was trying to say all the things she wanted to say before she never saw me again. The others pretty much stayed out of our way.
   Then night rolled round. I could tell because Leana started to shiver as the light from outside started to fade.

   They had a van. An old banger but it moved. We travelled to the Dublin quays and then to a dock land development site. The metal skeleton of the building stood tall in the moonlight.
   It was then that Jay grabbed me and we were suddenly moving upwards. We were flying. I was terrified and excited at the same time until he stopped on top of the tallest scaffolding. ?The thing can?t fly like us. It?ll have to climb to kill you. You?ll be safe.? He put me down on the steel pipe. It started to rock with my weight and the wind buffeted back and forth. I grabbed the nearest vertical girder I could and held on for dear life. It was then I looked down, how many floors up, twenty, thirty? I could see Phil, Andy and Leana looking up. Jay looked at me in a funny way and said ?Sorry about this. If there was a better way?? He then literally dropped, nearly making me puke once again.
   I looked down once again but they were nowhere.
   I waited. I found I could control the swaying by positioning myself in a vertical line. At the very least it didn?t make me feel like being sick.
   It was then that I heard something from far below. A shadow moving. Then commotion and violence from below. I tried to peer into the building through the girders. I leaned as much as I could.
   A flash then something that sounded like screaming or anger. I leaned in more to see if I could tell what the sounds were. Another flash and this time a scream of pain.
   Damn, what?s going on?
   I stretched a little further, loosening the grip of my hand.
   Suddenly the whole structure shook. I couldn?t hold on. I slipped. The girders raced by me until I bounced off one with my leg and then proceeding downwards facing upwards. I could see the night sky illuminated by the moon. With a thump I landed and lost consciousness.

   When I opened my eyes, I saw Jay. His back was to me. He was struggling. The man with the tights on his head was trying to push him over. But it wasn?t the man. I blinked furiously and the illusion ceased to be.
It was a monster.
   It seemed to be shaped like a 5-foot anteater. Two dark black eyes on either side of its flat head. Its long beak was actually a huge jaw filled with razor teeth. It stood on two legs but fought with four arms, each ending in a huge crab like claw. It skin was red raw as if it didn?t bother to create skin for itself. It pushed Jay aside, flinging him into one of the girders with bent under the impact. Amazingly Jay just groaned and began to pick him self up.
   But that was not my concern. The monster was coming towards me, it?s jaws opened wide and drool dripping from its fangs.
   Jay shook himself off but he was slowly recovering.
   The thing was nearly on top of him. I could smell the blood from his skinless body. I righted myself, sitting up and tried to push myself away. But pain shot through my broken leg.
   It roared as it neared me as if in triumph of its victory.
   Something pummelled into it at high speed sending it rolling towards the edge but it stopped short. I could see now we were still many floors up. The city seemed flattened against the clear sky with the stars like miniature beacons. Leana unrolled herself. It was she who had pushed the beast. The monster righted itself and made to charge her.
   I got up and started to dash towards the edge. I yelled, ?Over here, come on? you big feck?in ant eater? Come on.?
   It stopped and it looked at me. Then it started to charge. I hoped knew what I?m doing. God, the pain in my leg! The thing was nearly on top of me yet the edge was just in my reach. Its speed was amazing. The jaw opened. I had to wait till it was right on top of me. I could feel its foul breath on my face.
   I dropped, hoping to trip it. The pain was unbearable in my leg. It kicked into my side as it went over. Its claw dug in to my left arm. It held on ripping into the flesh of my arm. I could only scream in agony as it clawed its way back up. Its quarry in its snarl. This was it. I was ant meat. I stared at it, as it hung from my arm and it raised its other claws.
   It shook like a fuzzy image on television set. It roared aloud in pain. Something was happening to it. My left arm was going fuzzy too. Christ it hurt more then anything else. I was screaming without even realising, shouting for it to stop. My eyesight grew dim.

   Someone was tending to me. He wore a white monk?s smock. I looked down at my left arm; it wasn?t there any more. My leg hurt like hell. ?Be still. I tried to warn you before.? It was the man from the funeral who spoke only Irish. The disturbing thing was, he had a third eye that occasionally blinked at me while he placed my leg in splinter.
   I could see Jay and Leana slowly landing behind him.
   ?Who are you?? Leana asked.
   ?A concerned passer by. I?d advise you to leave young Ken to me before any Gardai arrive. We will talk later?? He smiled at me as he tied the bandage around my arm.

   That was the last time I saw Leana.
   The monk?s name is Lon by the way. He said they just left, he couldn?t find them.
   I?ve changed. Lon has been my guide to what my new eyes have brought me. He?s a Void Traveller, not actually from Earth if you get that.    He said my wife and the others are commonly called Renegades or Rebels. Warriors for mankind he kept saying but I?m not sure he?s telling me the full story.
   I can?t go back to my old life. I see things different. I help Lon and sometimes join in the fight. He patched me up well, my leg healed quickly but my left arm is gone forever. Lon explained he literally threw the monster into the space where it came from; unfortunately it took part of my arm with it.
   I’ve met others who know, who’ve seen. Occasionally I hear about Leana and the others and how they help stop this thing or that. She never calls.
   In the end, I suppose, I?m still alive. Leana is alive.

End.

This will be made avaliable through Renegade RPG as a PDF.

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