Faith looked at her notebook. The heading at the top of the page puzzled
her. She looked at it again, as if it might make more sense the longer
she looked at it. Eventually, she tossed it out of the window, where it
fluttered down the seven storeys to the ground below, its pages flapping
wildly, the words written on them desperate to be read. It came to rest
in a small privet hedge. What happened to it after that is anybody's guess.
It certainly wasn't there when Michael walked past in two minutes time.
He had a bunch of flowers in one hand and a bottle of wine in the other.
He stepped into the block of flats with a mere tremble of fear at its
piss-haunted stairways. He noticed that the lifts were still not fixed,
and so resigned himself to the stairs. On the third floor he met a small
child, dressed in scruffy, anachronistic clothes.
"Oh. You're here at last." The child said. Michael was having trouble
discerning whether it was a boy or a girl.
"Yes." Michael had to reply. He could hardly deny it, could he? Unless
he was a hologram, he was most definitely here. But at last?
"Thought you would be." The child scratched its ear. "She's been expecting
you."
"Oh, you know her then?"
"No." The child flicked a yo-yo out of its pocket and began playing with
it. Michael realised that he wanted to play with the yo-yo, too.
"Can I have a go?" Up the stairs, an electric Jigsaw started up.
"No." The yo-yo stayed resolutely attached to the child's finger. "Give
us some money."
"What?"
"Give us some money." The child's eyes stayed on the spinning yo-yo. "You
know that these things were originally weapons?"
"No. Really?"
"Yeah. Greek. I think. Still, that'd be their style."
"What?"
"Give us some money." There was no more or less emphasis on the request.
The child would keep repeating it until Michael capitulated. Eventually,
Michael got bored and gave the child three Groats.
"Just one thing," Michael said as he handed the money over. He straightened
up and pushed his unruly blond hair out of his eyes. "Are you a boy or
a girl?"
"Whichever." Said the child, somewhat over-gnomically as it pocketed the
money. Michael could no longer ignore the sound of DIY from above, so
he thanked the child, not quite sure why, and carried on upwards. On his
way to the seventh floor, he remembered something and, gripping it tightly
by the neck, he smashed the wine bottle on the bannisters.
When he got to her flat, he gound Faith had left the door unlocked. He
pushed it open to find Faith bent over a piece of MDF, Jigsaw-ing away
at it. Dust flew up everywhere. Faith looked up and switched the Jigsaw
off. She pulled the dust-mask she was wearing down so it hung limply round
her neck. She was fully made-up, Michael noticed. She then pulled off
her overalls to reveal that she was wearing one of her many little black
dresses.
"Hello, Michael."
"Faith." Was all he would say as he raised the broken bottle.
"Erthe?"
"Captain!" Erthe saluted snappily. She was feeling enthusiastic right
now.
"Erthe.. Did we do anything we shouldn't have on your planet?" Captain
Margarinetub was peering a chart she had been handed.
"Like what, Ma'am?" Erthe got the feeling that she was involving herself
in a deeper conversation, so she switched her walkman off.
"Oh.. little stuff." The Captain's tone was innocent. "Killing people
we shouldn't. Chaos, destruction... generally not being very nice."
Erthe scratched her head. "Don't think so. I mean, there was those councillors,
but.."
"Oh, no, I don't mean them. They weren't nice anyway, were they? No, I
mean, like, actually attacking people individually. Sucking the juice
out of them with weird suctioning devices on our hands... zapping people
with big lasers..."
"Ma'am!" Mad, the Officer In Charge Of Blowing Things Up, perked up at
this suggestion. "Should we have?"
"No, Mad." Erthe turned back to the Captain. "No, Captain.I'm sure we
didn't."
"Oh. You didn't, then, happen to notice someone following us, did you?"
"Following us, Ma'am? In space? Do you know how difficult that would be?"
The Captian sighed theatrically.
"No, of course I don't. I'm only the Captain. You're the bloody navigation
officer, aren't you?"
Erthe checked her badge surreptitiously before answering "Yes, ma'am.
But it would be ridiculously difficult to follow us. Space is... well,
look at it this way. Think of a pie."
"Ye-es." The Captain said, slowly and doubtfully.
"Right. Now imagine that this pie is space."
"Er.. sort of with you."
"Now imagine trying to find a spaceship inside that pie."
"Wait, wait." The Captain waved Erthe to a stop. "How big is the pie?"
"Pie sized." The Captian closed her eyes, obviously imagining a pie. "Can
you see the pie?"
"Yeah.." The Captain sounded unsure. Erthe re-iterated the question. "Yes,
yes, I can." the Captain answered eventually.
"Now imagine this spaceship inside the pie." The Captain looked confused.
Her eyelids wavered.
"How big is this spaceship?"
"You know how big this spaceship is. You're inside it."
"And it's that big in relation to this pie?"
"That's right."
"So it's sort of crushing the pie?"
"Yeah." Erthe paused."What filling was it?"
"It was a pork pie."
"Nice. Any mustard?"
"Hadn't got that far. Look, what's your point, Lieutentant? It's a piece
of piss to find this bloody huge spaceship inside this tiny pork pie."
"Exactly. that's exactly the opposite of how easy it would be to follow
us through space." Erthe smiled broadly.
"It is?" The Captain opened her eyes wide and leaned forwards. Erthe recoiled
a little.
"Er.. well, no, actually. That's the opposite of how easy it is to find
a pork pie on this spaceship. But I was bored." Erthe swivelled back to
her bleeping display, which bleeped. The Captain stood up sharply and
decided that she was never going to ask Erthe another question like that
ever again.
"Repopluarise the plimsoll!" Rob Baker cried chirpily. His wife, Alice,
took her eyes off the road long enough to shoot him a reproaching glance.
"What? It's just an idea! I mean, what more perfect shoe is there than
the plimsoll? Suitable for Kung-fu, sitting around in the house and for
most junior-school related physical education exercises. Okay, so wearing
them outdoors, especially in muddy weather, is a no-no, but consider the
advantages of an elasticated front! The lace is discarded! Velcro is useless!
Fastening devices of any sort rendered un-necessary by the snug-fitting
plimsoll."
"I see you've thought this out." Alice remarked.
"It just came to me. Just then. This road can do things to a man's mind."
"It can do some bloody odd things to a woman's, too, if she ever got the
opportunity to just stare at the fucker." She flipped the sun-visor down
as the car turned to face the glaring midday sun.
"Alright, I can take the hint. Next service station, I'll drive." Rob
peered out through his sunglasses at the cars whizzing past. Another shoe-related
thought came to him. "Why are Doc Martens called Doc Martens? Were they
invented by Doctor Marten?"
"Yes. They're actually an orthapaedic shoe." Alice answered in an ever-so-slightly
smug tone.
"How do you know that?"
"I just know." She swerved to avoid a reckless car. "Where is the next
service station?" she asked, when she had recovered herself.
"Exeter."
"Exeter?"
"Exeter. You deaf?"
"I'm not deaf. But aren't we going to Exeter?"
"Exmouth. Jesus, don't you..? Can't you even remember that?" Rob was getting
tetchy, he was tired, and he wasn't even driving. Alice was even further
down the road marked "pissed off", and something had to give soon.
"Look, I'll.."
"Forget it." there was a pause, followed by a silence, and then nobody
spoke for a long time.
The tension was becoming awful. Rob sat forward in his seatbelt, drew
in breath, then sat back again. Alice looked over to him, then back to
the road. When she looked back again, a ghost of a smile graced her face.
Rob smiled back apologetically. She looked back to the road, her head
moving about as if she was weighing up a hefty decision. When she looked
back at Rob, the smile didn't just grace her face, it blessed it with
the radiance of angels. Rob fell in love again.
A star fell that night, all right. A star, or an object that could be
taken for a star, had dropped right out of orbit and into the middle of
Dartmoor. It had only been in super-high orbit of Earth for a few days,
so it had barely registered on the planet's detection systems. A few astronomy
nerds had been chatting excitedly on the internet for a while about it,
but it was generally considered by most reliable authorities that it was
quote/unquote A bit of space flotsam. Besides, the military seemed anxious
to keep most reliable authorities thinking and saying that. Death threats
had been issued to Patrick Moore, or at least a stern warning about his
vibraphone.
There was a huge crater around the thing, nearly half a mile in diameter,
but fortunately it had landed in a very sparsely populated area of the
moor. Those eyewitnesses not terminally close to impact had received a
cheery visit from the crash retrieval team, which ensured the complete
lack of public knowledge. The official line never mentioned a craft. It
talked of hazardous waste spillages, and it all seemed very boring and
plausible. It all seemed true, to the world at large, or those with an
interest in stories used to fill the gaps in news broadcasts. But it wasn't
a tanker. Not by any stretch of the mind.
The stars we know are no longer really stars to us. They are just lights
in the sky, lights of another civilisation, like a house leaving its curtains
open for us to peek in. Trouble is, even today, we're half-blind and crippled,
so peeking isn't even an option. In galactic terms, we can hobble lamely
to the next chunk of rock, barely a hair's breadth from us, or look at
planets so close to us we're practically touching them. We've never reached
out and touched somebody.
So it makes sense that somebody should come looking for us instead.
But it can't be assumed they're just here to look.
Or even that they're friendly.
"It's all blank. Every page." Jude Tipson held up a spiral-bound notebook
for Michael to look at. Michael shrugged.
"Isn't it supposed to be?" He said after a moment's thought. Jude was
convinced that something was deeply wrong. She couldn't put her finger
on it precisely. There was the sense, somewhere deep inside her, that
time was out of sync with her. She knew that she was a constant, and that
time was pretty much ephemeral, but still... A point was reached by all
of us. A point in time where we fit. Through all our lives, we're just
hanging around, waiting for our time to manifest itself. Destiny was another
thing. Destiny just tended to crop up. It was more arbitrary than people
thought.
"I'm sure something happened. recently. Very recently. Have you seen Faith?"
Jude had taken the notebook from the hedge outside Faith's flat. She saw
Faith throw it out, but she also saw Michael going into the block, so
she decided to hang back. This meant that she knew Michael had seen Faith.
Michael waved a hand as a shrug.
"Yeah, sort of." Michael called a waiter over and ordered another milkshake.
That also struck Jude as odd. Service had really improved in McDonald's
since she was last in. Last in. When she was last in. A memory flashed
somewhere back in her mind, an image. But she supposed that she was just
a bit tired. "Have you seen Marc?"
"Marc? Christ, no. Not for ages." She twiddled her straw around in her
cup. For some reason, she felt a bit sad talking about Marc. Had he said
something? Done something? Jude fought against repression to find a memory.
I love you. But he's gone away. Away with his friends, away with that
Krystof. Away to the Czech Republic. Away in... Love? The thought whispered
through her head before she forgot it again. Something was awry, though.
Michael possibly knew more than her, as well, which really irritated her.
He shouldn't know stuff she didn't. Jude racked her brains for what she
knew about Michael. Very little, as it happens. it seemed like they'd
known each other for years and mere days simultaneously. In fact, she
couldn't shake the feeling that she had only met him yesterday afternoon.
The waiter shuffled up to the table. Why did this waiter have huge horns
like a ram circling each side of his head? Jude thought it impolite to
ask.
"Give me one good reason why not, Robert James Baker!"
This had been going on, in its good-humoured way, for over ten minutes.
Rob didn't want to go. Alice did. Rob was lethargic, bored, even. Alice
was bored, too, but she needed to do something. Anything. So she suggested
the moors. It was natural. It was the only logical decision, day-out wise.
They'd been in the caravan for a day, enjoying each other's company for
a full, uninterrupted twenty-four hours, but now Alice had decided that
the holiday needed fresh air. And the moors were nice. They were weird,
secluded and really beautiful. If you ever want to go to a place unlike
anywhere else, Dartmoor is a good choice. Really good. There are myths
and legends surrounding the place non pareil. It's peculiar, scary, sometimes,
and very romantic, if you're that way inclined. Alice was. Rob could be.
Occasionally. If you gave him a biscuit.
"Well, why not?" i decide that logic can be a good tactic, and so deploy
it. Rob's not interested.
"Because... well, just because. I don't fancy it. I'm tired. Can't we
just stay in again?" the slight, hopeful whine at the end of that sentence
pulls me in two ways. One - smack him. Hard. Two - Hug him. It's so pathetic
and loveable. Doh. Bless him. But... well, it's perfect weather for the
moors. Brooding grey skies, the sunlight hitting the rooftops and throwing
them into bright, absurd relief against the clouds' canvas. Everything
looks so gorgeous when it's lit like that. Rob should undertand.
"I'm not spending the whole holiday indoors! And it's such a... moors-y
kind of day! It's perfect for tramping around on the moors! It's the middle
of summer, but it's cloudy! And sunny! At the same time!" an over-use
of the exclaimation, there, but he deserves better.
"Oh, okay."
"Come on, it'll be... what?" i'm embarrased by my comic double-take now.
Rob grins slowly, like a crocodile that's got the drop on a wily wildebeeste
it's been after for days.
"Let's go. Why not? There's nothing on the telly. What the fuck?"
"Oh." then- "Oh, cool."
Cut to fifty minutes later.
Wow. This is some day out. Not five minutes after arriving, after a quick
car-park hunt (well, you don't want to just leave a valuable car anywhere),
we find our first curio of the day. A lamb. Oh, a lamb on Dartmoor. Big
fucking whoop, you think. HA! Wrong! Lamb. Mutilated. Huge chunks of it
carved out. Its face half missing. Its belly. No signs of a frenzied attack,
it just looks like it... fell over, these bits missing. No fuss just:
"Baaa.... baaa" one minute then BAM! no face and guts! "Ladies and gentlemen,
I am floored by my lack of organs! Goodnight, I've been a wonderful lamb!
Thank you!" Slump. Crack. Yeah, blood from a crack in its skull on the
stone it fell on. But not from the other wounds. Wow. How X-files.
"Exsanguinated." i say. He looks at me as if I just asked him to eat my
shit (Not yet.).
"Pardon me?" i think he was biting back a "Well if you gotta go" toilet-humour
quip.
"All the blood removed. No blood spilt from the wounds."
"Well, Shylock could have done with that technique." he remarks, absently.
"It's common in cattle mutilations by, er. Aliens." I add at the instruction
of his immaculately raised eyebrow. He may look like a capital-L-Lad,
but this boy has class. And great eyebrows. Oh, I'm going to get away
from this corpse as fast as possible now. I've no stomach for beings who
share that problem.
If you see what I mean.
"So. This was a, um, cattle mutilation by an.. alien? Right?" Robert had
to shout that last bit, being as I'd hurried off without him noticing.
Still, he's caught up now. I walk on for a few paces before answering
him.
"Hypothetically, I suppose. It could be. That's what I'm saying. Could
be."
"Well, then it could not be. Couldn't it?" just a nod will suffice answer
at this point. "Well, in that case, it could also be a big cat. Yeah,
the beast." that stops me. I'd not thought about that. The beast is an
established legend now, quite possibly even a truth. There is video and
photographic evidence of its existence. I hadn't thought about that when
I saw the lamb for the first time, but, well, the boy's got a point.
"Brain cells aren't all dead by twenty three, eh?" i wonder aloud. He
takes offence, but well.
"Hah. I think I've grown more since I was twenty, actually, little miss
nineteen." hah. I'm nearly twenty.
"Twenty next week."
"Whatever, the thing is, we may have a genuine Beast of Dartmoor attack
victim here." we both stop in our tracks. "Oh."
"Yeah. Doesn't sound right, does it?"
"No. It's, er, the Beast of Bodmin moor, isn't it?"
"Yeah. But there's one on Dartmoor, too. I'm sure. In fact, I'm positive.
Well, they're all over the place. There's a panther in Lincolnshire, for
a start." i'm sure about that one. Ish.
"Really? Oh, well. That's alright then. I'm convinced. So. Beast of the
moor, or mysterious alien inva... what the fuck is this?" while we had
been talking, we hadn't seen the fencing, and so Robert had now walked
straight into it. I've stopped, so as to prevent embarrassment.
"I think it's a fence, Rob." oh, I'm sorry. Facetious old me. Sorry, again.
"Really?" oh, sarcasm. "I mean - why is it here, and no talk of mummy
and daddy fences. This is weird enough without you going off on a tangent."
"Um. I really have no idea what this is about. It's massive, though, look.
It goes on forever. Miles and miles. Well, possibly not that far, but
for fucking ever as far as I'm concerned. Hey, look. A guard..?" uncertainty
drips its silver daggers on my spine. A guard? On National Trust property?
What is going on here?
"Hey! You! Away from there!" who, us? But we haven't done anything.
"Why? What's going on here?" and a natural way with authority figures,
oh , Robert, you should be on television.
"Chemical leakage. Lorry overturned. No danger to the public at this distance."
the guard is very clipped in his responses, very convincing in his "I'm
just here to warn the public" tones, but he sounds too rehearsed, and
his finger is way to near the trigger of his rifle, or whatever. Machine
gun. Bazooka, I don't know, I'm a girl. Still, it's enough to convince
me, easily led fool that I am.
"C'mon, Rob. You heard the man. It's dangerous." i tug at his jacket sleeve
(Jacket style withheld, in case it's uncool when you read this.), urging
him off to another, less gnarly area of the moors. Should there be such
a thing.
"Well, alright, but... "and he's lowered his voice "what if this is connected
to the lamb? I mean, it's only a hundred yards or so from the fence, it's
a bit weird, I mean, what if the chemicals have seeped out here and are,
like, dissolving animals? Like that flesh-eating bug?"
"Hmm. Maybe. Or maybe ther's a crashed UFO in that site. And the wyrd
cosmic radiation is mutilating the animals, or perhaps..." he puts his
hand over my mouth. His eyes are alive with hurt and enthusiasm.
"Don't take the piss, Alice, it could be, I mean it wouldn't be the first
time..."
"Oh, Camelford. But that didn't actually mutilate anyone."
"Not according to the official reports."
"Eh?" now he's weirding me out. Truly a strange experience.
"I knew people that saw some strange stuff at Camelford. More than people's
hair going freaky colours. Deaths. Mutilations. All from this stuff in
the water. Some people reckon it was put there on purpose." oh, now come
on, Rob. A conspiracy theory is a theory is a theory. Geddit? Conspiracy.
Paranoia.
"Unfounded." i eventually decide upon. "People don't just poison water
supplies. I don't trust your sources. Besides, Camelford's miles and miles
away." He frowns. Then grins.
"Ah, fuck it. Let's go." famous last words if ever I heard them. Any second
now we're going to...
Faith shifted down into a lower gear for the hill. She was becoming more
and more used to the undulating countryside of the SouthWest than she
thought she should be, but that wasn't something she was dwelling on.
The sun was getting hotter, so she pushed the button which retracted the
soft-top, flipped out her sunglasses and, as an afterthought, changed
the tape in the stereo. Life was never going to get boring for Faith,
not now, not for a long time. She knew how dull it had been back home,
back in Wigston, back in Leicestershire. But that was changing, too. Wigston
was different now. It was serene. It had lost its charm. Stay too long
and you're sucked dry. Leave town an empty shell, draining, that was it.
Too much tranquility kills the soul. She zipped past a red Volvo, one
of the sleeker, newer ones. The ones which didn't look like shoeboxes.
The occupants looked familiar. Christ, was everyone going? They were arguing.
They didn't look happy. Their car reflected the sun's glare back at her
intensely, so she looked away- where was the rain when she was driving?
Perhaps she didn't attract that kind of weather. Sun-goddess, that's what
she thought to herself. I'm a sun-goddess. It would explain a few things.
Her thoughts turned to Michael. Michael, Faith had concluded, could look
after himself for a few weeks. He'd managed before they'd even met, and
his dependency shouldn't last long. Faith was heroin, the.... no, it was
too much to say. He'd have to go cold-turkey. Wouldn't kill him. He'd
miss his sun-goddess for a while, but someone else would be his sunshine,
his only sunshine. Make him happy when skies are grey. She'd needed to
take herself away. Duty called? Something like that. A flutttering on
the back seat made her look round.
Damn. She'd forgotten about them. The hard-shoulder would be fine for
this. Faith pulled over, placating traffic with her hazard lights. She
slid over and got out the passenger-side door, it was too difficult to
get out through the dense traffic. The boot opened with a well-oiled semi-hiss
and she plonked her back-seat cargo into it, packing them around her single
suitcase. There. She pushed the boot closed, the hundreds of spiral-bound
notebooks now safe from the turbulence, then got back into the drivers
seat and accelerated down the other side of the hill.
She didn't stop until she got to the sea, and even then she considered
going further. No. Things needed to be done. It was an erratic work-ethic
but it worked. Do something now, kill yourself later, only find something
else to do to beforehand, to delay your death. She wasn't so much procrastinating
as drawing ou the decision-making process. Heads or tails, with a double-sided
coin. Heads, you die, tails you don't. Tails. Tails. Tails. Tails. Tails.
The sea breeze whipped up around the car, throwing sand into whirling
shapes before smashing against the paintwork and dropping down again.
Faith began to feel cold, though the sun was still as bright and high
in the sky as ever. Fuck it, she thought, then backed the car off the
beach.
A brief search found a bed and breakast (Why didn't she ever plan these
things? A little forward-thinking wouldn't hurt, would it?), and she needed
the bed most of all. When she got to her room, she found it a bit small,
and the bed was only a single. So that was the deal? Right. Single woman.
Single bed. Alone. Lonely. Still. She could manage. She'd slept in worse
places with more people than she intended for tonight. Just the one would
do, any one.... within certain acceptable limits. No point fucking anybody
more used to members of their immediate family. Doesn't do you any good,
and they always end up shouting "Mother!" as they came. It can be off-putting.
Faith smiled and opened her suitcase. She pulled out her one outfit and
carefully arranged it on the bed. Then she went to have a shower.
God, it could be a hard life, if she let it. Right now, though, it was
a doddle.
"So, what's the real point, then? I mean, who gives a monkey's? Sorry,
bad phrasing. I apologise. But what's it all about? Nobody finds out about...
what's going on?
But what is going on? I had a handle on it for a while, but I seem to
have lost it. Someone told me about the workings of the mechanism of the
gears of the clockwork of the.. you see? When you get too close, the words
bucnh up and become meaningless, like trying to read the words in a book
in a painting- the book is filled with wiggly lines which look like words
when you're far away, but when you're too close, they're nothing. I've
become distracted again, where was I? You can't get sidelined if you're
trying to make sense of a few things. If you're telling someone about
what you're.. where was I? If I try to explain what I'm thinking, I'll....
Let me tell you a story.
"Once upon a time there was a door. And this door was big, and black,
and scary and no-one dared go near it. A wicked witch... no, not a witch,
a wicked stepmother, no, you see, a wicked woman all the time, woman,
woman... a wicked human of undesignated sex or sexuality.. no, that's
introducing the idea of sexuality as if it was ever a consideration. It
wasn't. Ignore that. But the door was cursed. Behind the door lay something
terrible, or maybe the door itself was terrible. Maybe the door had the
power to warp minds, to reshape the world, to.. you get the picture.
"Anyway, this door stayed undiscovered for years and years, for decades,
for centuries, for millenia. Who put it there? Who knows? No-one wanted
to find it, that's for sure. Maybe you couldn't find it. If you were looking
for it you couldn't find it, you'd be searching forever, you'd be looking
in circles, going round in circles, you'd find yourslef back where you
started, you couldn't find it... you see? I'm close. but I'm just telling
you a story. That's. All. It. Is. A story. But one day, you see, the persons
that built the door.. persons? I don't know... they came back, looking
for the door. but.. but the door had already been found. By a group of
courageous adventurers. Yes they were, we w.. no, they, they were. This
is a story. The group met up when they were.. doing.. things. There was
a... beautiful princess and her prince, her bride.. his bride? Is she
his bride, or is it the other way round? Bu you can go into sidelines
like that forever, get lost in your musings, caught up in a tangental
make-up story and.. concentrate. Are you listening? I'm not sure I am.
"There was the two.. princess and, and, him, yeah, and there was... a..
powerful woman that was.. I don't know, something to do with religion,
or somesuch. And there was an imp, caught by them, a naughty, treacherous...
do I know him? And there were the storytellers, and they weren't telling
the story, they were... no, they were learning it, because it was happening
for the first time while they were there, and they were just watching.
And there was someone else. Someone else. There was...
"Michael, there was someone else there, and we don't know who!" Jude looked
up from where she had slumped onto the table while talking, knocking her
sticky brown drink all over the surface. It took them several napkins,
supplied by a helpful homunculus, to mop it up. Then Michael responded
to Jude's revelations.
"Someone else where?"
Jude looked utterly nonplussed.
"I don't know."
"Carry on." Michael nodded towards her.
"With what?"
"Your story. It was just getting interesting. I mean, what happened then?
Did they open the door?"
"Door... door. Yeah, the Prince and Princess, the High Priestess... that
was what she was. To do with religion. She was the spiritual leader of...
some.. people... and the, the, imp. The evil imp. And the...
"I'm sure I don't know how this story ends. The storytellers would know....
" Jude squinted at Michael. "The stortytellers. Once upon another time,
there were some... no, that doesn't work either. I need to consult the
notes, but the books are worthless. If I concentrate, I can see the ghosts
of words on the blank pages, but it's water off a duck's back, it slides
away, its gone, lost forever, it disappears like morning dew, slips from
my grasp like oiled soap, it's... I'm not staying on the point, am I?
Do they open the door? Good question. I don't recall the ending. It's
all just a story, anyway. it's not for real... not for real.. I'm sure
there's a moral, or a message, or a subliminal... what have we learned
from this story? That doors should stay shut? Cursed doors are... who
cursed the door, for the gods' sake?
"Once upon a time, after a great battle, the survivors found themsleves
on the trail of an old friend. This friend was being kept in a dungeon,
and in this dungeon there was a door. this door had been cursed by a wicked
curse-placer, at an undisclosed point in the dim and distant past. The
survivors of the battle.. the battle. Excuse me, Michael, but I think
I have to go home."
"I'll pick up the cheque." Jude wrote the word "Thanks" on a napkin and
silently handed it to him as she slipped away.
Father Felix Karol, Polish catholic priest by appointment, sat in his
cell. He thought about what was happening to him, how it seemed unfair.
But then, he supposed, it was inevitable. It was supposed to be unfair.
You don't get arrested unless you deserve it. That's fair. Did he deserve
it? No. Therefore, it was unfair, what was happening to him. He'd been
unfairly arrested. Right.
He stood up and banged on the door with his fists. Nobody came. He stopped.
He thought he could hear a faint echo of laughter echoing around the building.
But it could be screaming, or crying. It was so faint as to be impossible
to tell. Where was everybody? What had happened to him? The last thing
he could remember was writing a note, then there was darkness. He was
sure that the darkness, at first, was not the darkness of unconsciousness,
but the darkness of there being no light to see by. Then it was unconsciousness,
after a brief feeling of dizziness, or was it pain? Something wrong with
his head, anyway. Perhaps he'd been clubbed. That would have a nice ring
of "police brutality" to it, if he had been arrested by the police. The
thought struck him so hard he needed to sit down. Was it the police? This
didn't look like a police cell, and he'd been in a few (Past! The past!),
it was too organic. Too much like it was underground, but not man-made...
in a a cave, perhaps? (Something had happened to the past!) It felt like
a cave, but... But it was a cube. It was definitely a cube. It even had
a window, high, barred, lightless. Karol had stood on the bunk (Something
happening to the present!) to look through the bars, but there was nothing
beyond them. Rock. Like a jail sunk into the earth. Earthquake? Perhaps
he'd been concussed in an earthquake? Was he in the cell when the quake
struck? He'd definitely been imprisoned.
This was an approximation, an approximation of the truth. Yes, he'd been
imprisoned, but not in a cell. It was in a.. was in a...
Nothing made sense. Reality didn't just change, unless something had gone
seriously wrong with it while he'd been asleep. So he must have changed.
Lost memory, lost his mind. Maybe he was in an asylum. That'd make sense,
he supposed. Why no-one had come to see him. It still didn't answer why
he was. He was. He. Yes it did. It answered everything and anything, and
he was about to accept that as the answer to all his questions until the
door swung open and a very familiar figure stepped in.
"Oh, yes, you think you're very tough with that enormous length of steel
piping in your hands, don't you?" The small, timid man asserted with the
courage of the foolish. "Well, why don't you put it down and we'll see
how tough you are!"
Faith smiled slowly, and the man regretted that she had done so. He'd
preferred the blank viciousness of her previous expression. The smile
was the smile bestowed by mad characters in movies on the more disposable
metaphorical-red-jumper-wearing members of the cast the instant before
they blew their poor unfortunate's brains all over the upholstery.
"Alright." Faith purred, and lowered the piping. "We'll see how tough
I am without the piping, shall we, Austin?" Austin felt nauseous. He'd
played his bluff and it had backfired. he suspected that Faith might well
be tougher without the piping, and that very soon he was going to be responsible
for the interior decor of what was, after all, a very nasty pub. The crowd
around them must also have sensed something, for they edged away, and
became quieter. Soon, there was no sound at all in the pub, the clocks
also damping down their ticks, except for the sounds of the ragged breaths
emeging from Austin's lungs, and the slow, deliberate breathing of Faith.
The crowd didn't breathe at all.
Approximately six minutes later, Faith was settling her bill at the bar
and steering the most attractive member of the crowd to her car. He went
without a struggle - men seldom struggled against Faith. What would be
the point? Repercussions were not considered by the libido to be valid
reasons at all for struggling against this woman. Unless it was in a very
intimate situation. With rubber and squirty cream involved. And so would
their minds run, until they realised that they were in a very intimate
situation, and more inventive items were being employed than simple rubber
or cream.
And then they were where they always knew they would be in the morning-
outside, and with very little chance of ever getting back in. Because
Faith wasn't about to curb her desires for society, and, in fact, was
even thinking of increasing them, just for a laugh. Soon. Maybe. But not
today, because today was important.
At least, later today. Nah, fuck it, tomorrow morning. For now, she needed
a rest. Austin had been difficult. Not impossible, but difficult. He fought
it. Most people didn't. She might be slipping, she thought as she was
driving her current partner back to her rented room. It was always possible
that she could lose it, and at any time. Talent is a funny thing and not
to be trifled with, or taken lightly. She realised that she had been coasting
a little bit of late, letting things pass, or not even noticing some important
detail until too late. She stopped the car and unclipped the passenger-side
safety belt. The reasonably attractive crowd member started at this, as
if he had been daydreaming before. Eyes, dark brown, outlined with bruised
pink associated with a clearly nocturnal life, regained their focus, then
fought to find the right expression. Faith thought they looked a little
to bovine, a little too easy. Seconds later, the owner of those eyes was
sitting on the grass verge at the egde of the road, confused and bruised
by the rough manner of his automobile exit. Said automobile was now accelerating
away into the night, its driver biting her lip and vowing silently to
get some practice in.
The man on the verge stood up and, without much hope, began walking home,
his thumb outstretched in a desponent fashion.
Rob had a pet dog. Its name was Revolution, which was a considerable improvement
on his first choice, which was Moist Vagina. His social conscience had
got the better of him at the last second. He had left Revolution in his
house in Wigston when he left for his holiday in Devon. Revolution was
lying on the sofa, against Rob's direct orders, which she never paid any
attention to anyway. There was a click, and a soft mechanical noise from
the kitchen. Revolution quickly jumped down off the sofa and scampered
into the kitchen, to find the third section of the first automatic food-dispenser
was now open. She quickly gulped the food down, then returned to the sofa
at a more leisurely pace. Later she would have to go to the toilet, which
Rob had patiently designated as an area in the bathroom which he had roped
off and covered with cat litter. Revolution was no good at maths, but
if she was she would realise that there was enough food for twelve days,
and only quite a small area for the toilet. It was going to get worse
before it got better, but at least Rob had the decency to install a dog-flap
in the bathroom door so the smell didn't escape too far into the house.
Being only a dog, as she settled down on the sofa for a nap, she didn't
wonder to herself why Rob didn't entrust her to someone else's care. The
neighbour, perhaps, or even kennels.
Revolution had managed to drift off into a so-far-dreamless sleep when
a noise woke her up again. This time, her sensitive ears told her, the
sound was from outside. She ran to the window and, placing her paws on
the sill, looked out. There was some sort of earthquake occuring outside,
she deduced with her naturally doggy instincts for all sorts of danger.
The road outside rippled nastily, but it seemed to not affect the humans
walking to and fro out there. In fact, they didn't notice as a huge crack
appeared in the centre of the street, snaking towards the parked cars.
Instead of the cars dropping in when the fracture reached them, though,
they were sucked into the fracture with a barely-audible slurp. Just as
they disappeared, they seemed to stretch, their paint running like a cheap
special effect. Revolution cocked her head to one side as the chasm headed
for a person. The person, who remained implacable, was also sucked down
into the quake. Revolution dropped down onto the floor and slunk back
to the sofa. She weighed up the possibilities of getting underneath it,
but decided that she was just as much at risk if she was under it, behind
it or floating three feet above it. She decided that comfort, therefore,
was probably a larger concern now. She jumped heavily back onto the cushions
and tried to get back to sleep.
"People all die differently. It's part of the rich variety of life." Faith
sat back and lit a cigarette. "People all react to their deaths differently.
Some cry, some scream, some whimper. Some even beg for mercy. One guy,
I forget where, was more concerned with the state of his upholstery. I
mean, his brains were going to be over it, but that wasn't the problem.
It could have been anything. Red wine, blackcurrant, brains.. whatever."
The woman sitting opposite her nodded, looking at her own reflection Faith's
sunglasses. "Myself, I'd like to go out in style. I suppose we all would.
Most people wonder about how they're going to die, most people. They think
about it, though, in a detatched way, as if it's a stranger going to die,
not them. I think about me. How it would feel. How I would react."