Hay all, I know it is gonna look lame when I just keep posting shit here, but man I know I just can't disappoint my fan(s). To all those I have been too busy to email, my apologies. Katie, Monique, I'll get back to ya soon, I promise. Meantime, have great fun and let me know all about it and I will return the favour. :-) Shiloh, yeah, that letter is coming. Hope your job doesn't suck too much. Naomi, still hot in Australia? Wellington's just dandy in its winter glow. Daf, I just might see you in England in a year or so. Since my book is too long to post (plus I am unsure whether they have an intellectual property clause in that agreement I *read* when I signed up to this mofo), I will give you a short story instead. Let me know if it doesn't suck; also bear in mind it was written in a sort of purple haze. Love y'all.
The room was mild and warm, and the reassuring patter of a light winter rain played like tiny fingers upon the windows. The television roared out an advertisement –reaching out a slow Sunday hand I grasped the remote and forced it to be quiet. Of a sudden came a loud but friendly knocking upon the door, and a shrill voice yelled ‘they’re here!’, with the excess of sound which often accompanies excitement. Or youth. The child ran up to the door and opened it, letting in his favourite aunt and uncle with a whir of disordered talk; most of it his own, but he was to be pardoned easily for such things.
Shortly after I went into the kitchen to find a glass of water, and the adults were there, or I should say the other adults, for this is a class of which I am considered one, now, I suppose. The child was sitting on a stool, watching them drink and play at cards, and now and then offering a comment or two; for, to be honest, he liked merely to sit there and be part of the action. There have been times when I have often been such, and in awe of people as I supposed he was in awe of his company now (myself excluded, naturally). They some of them looked around as I stepped awkwardly across the cold, bad-eighties linoleum floor. Then followed the usual obligatory questions, caring but clichéd, and answers which were, on my part, equally contrived and concealing – for I was having a bad day and did not wish to go into detail. I was worried lest they quiz me, shine a bright light in my eyes and so forth, and so, having stumbled through a few ‘I am fine’s, and ‘my job is boring, but at least it’s money’s, I beat a hasty retreat to the warmth of the lounge chair and the easy, thoughtless comfort of the television.
A few hours rolled past in a sort of slow flurry of movie magic and chewing gum, and being just drunk enough between them to drive safely, the visiting pair decides that it was time for them to mission through the rain (which had grown steadily heavier throughout the bullet-soaked epic in which I had been so absorbed) to their house which was just far enough away to be called distant. Twenty minutes and a gin and coke after their initial declaration that it was time to leave they entered the lounge, for the purpose of a hearty farewell, as I supposed; but something altogether strange happened, something unwelcome as it was unexpected.
First came a series of small-talk, which was not so devastating as might be imagined, and then a strange look came over my uncle’s face, a sudden realisation coupled with a determination which, for whatever reason, made me shrink from his gaze. He strode across the lounge toward me, and took me by the shoulders, looking into my eyes. I screamed, and blinked, and he was standing where he had previously been, apparently awaiting the answer to some trivial question that had been asked.
I rubbed my eyes, shook my head, and did all the other things one usually does to rouse one from such an experience; a few seconds passed until the thought kicked in that everyone was waiting for an answer from me. What had been the question? I did not know, and how could I? I felt as if I had just awoken.
‘Excuse me?’ I began; my voice seemed far away and my ears as if they were filled with water. The room began to take on a wavy look, and the walls seemed to shift if I moved my head too quickly. Looking up to see if everyone were still watching me, I saw the man’s lips move and I knew that question had come again, but not one flicker of sound made it through the thickness of the room to my ears.
There came a sense of urgency about me. So far, I must have seemed relatively normal, but if this kept up they’d ask me what was wrong, look at me closely, maybe even take me to hospital and have me put under one of those huge lamps to see what was wrong. Then they’d know, and I’d be doomed. I had to answer that question, to makje them leave and this feeling end. The answer could only be fifty-fifty, right? So I guessed.
‘Ah, yeah, sure.’ Maybe I could make it look like I misheard. ‘I do that sort of thing all the time,’ and a question of my own, to swing the conversation away from thoughts of me (which usually I relished, interestingly enough), ‘how about you?’
A loud voice came through the fog of my mind, now. ‘Is that supposed to be some sort of joke?’ It was my father, loud and too close, too angry.
I jerked my head up and around, and found ,myself looking at the floor, up close and personal. It seemed so interesting from this angle, red and fuzzy, soft and plump. I ran my hand across it slowly, feeling the softness coil between my fingers; that lovely feeling, like sand that never gets gritty and doesn’t hide sharp shells or slimy monsters. I gazed on it, seeing the patterns roll back and forth, back and forth, and the skin of my hand seemed to shine with the warmth of my blood. My ring fell off and rolled gently over to someone’s shoe, and then, suddenly I was up, up, up.
The world was cold and billowing, making me seasick. There were voices, loud, shouting, but I closed my eyes and tried to shut them out. The billow subsided to a dull roll and I eased into it, trying to settle my stomach. The red of the floor still echoed across the back of my eyes and I screwed them tight; I shut out all sight and my ears seemed somehow to stop all sound. The world went still, silent, and thousands upon thousands of coloured animals flashed past my brain, brilliant costume and shining faces. I watched them go, and one by one they climbed aboard a large boat, bound for an octopus’s garden, or similar. We got aboard and floated gently down to the bottom of the ocean, light and so warm; the waters embraced me, and soon I sank into an easy slumber of immaculate vision, from the like of which I would hope never to awake. Just before I faded a dark voice whispered terribly in my ear ‘your world is over’, and I shuddered.
The sight of it made my day.
Small, pink, unthreatening. Tiny, delicate. Just so much happiness in such a small parcel. And not jewelry either, though perhaps it made me shine like emeralds. I might as well have said made my month. I had waited for a month just for this, hadn’t I? At least. It had seemed so much longer. The long days, boring hours, dull moments, always a subconscious echo trying to burst into flame, to rekindle even a spark of that fire I had bathed in, that spark that warmed my soul as well as my senses.
But now something stuck. Something was twitching in my head. A warning? Who knew? How was I to know? Something was prodding me, unfairly, as I thought. I ran through all the old arguments: I would become addicted, become infatuated and poor; become unmotivated for anything but this love, and fade away; I would lose all my creativity in a blur of false colour; and it was false, wasn’t it?; but what was really real, anyway? One feeling was as real as another, no matter whence it came. And from thence through a series of convoluted and reiterated philosophical and sophical arguments, I wound my way back out into the moment in which I stood stone still, staring at my hand. The prodding was perhaps fainter now, or at least it had been smothered awhile. I looked down at my hand, sweating now with a ferocious intensity; the open hearth beside me created thick, greasy beads on my forehead and upper lip. This heat was no fun.
But another was. With a mental shrug I brought my hand up to my mouth, opened wide, and with a flush of water it was gone.
The change came on marvellously fast, and stayed for a good long time. I wandered in and out of villages full of golden faces and happy porters. The people smiled and I smiled back, eyes wide with a blazing intensity rivalled only by the sun. Someone was playing a tune, and it was the best had ever heard. I decided to lay down, and my body found itself upon the gentle grass – so sleek and so like a cradle. The leaves overhead waved pretty patterns of green at my eager eyes, and then my eyelids betrayed me.
They became heavy and like lead, and soon I could not hold them open, try as I might. I thought perhaps they would relent if only I gave them what they wanted for a moment, then later I could be free to stand up again, and wander, and feed the pretty cows in the distance.
But when I arose, the village was gone, and it was dark. The dull brilliance of a waning moon spilled out upon a lonely street, wide but filthy. I had been here before, I thought, or at least I had been here when it was a lot different. Where had the sun gone? I wanted it back, for the dark made me shiver and the deep shadows everywhere boded ill to my blinking eyes.
There came a dull tap-tap-tapping on my jaw, and I spun in that direction, all the while wondering why I did not run away. The spot now ached and I rubbed my face gingerly. I saw a figure, or a stray dog, or a flash of white, and, following it, came to the top of a murky little alley I did not much fancy the look of. But there it was, calling me on again with that same arrogant audacity with which Wellingtonians defy the traffic. I could not resist, scared though I was. My hands trembled now, and I tried clasping them together, but they would not stop. My feet were becoming pinched by impatient shoes through the thin, worn fabric of my socks; something urged me to walk faster, faster.
The moon seemed to give up trying anymore to light my path, perhaps because I had my eyes fixed on the white sliver in front of me, now larger, now smaller, and presently it disappeared altogether; behind a cloud, never to return. This saddened and annoyed me, but it seemed somehow I could still see. I looked about me for the first time in what seemed like years, and I was not where I had been.
I was standing on an old country road, or rather the two furrows of dirt which passed for one; to my left stood immense trees, so tall they punctured the sky and so dark that I could barely tell what they were until my eyes adjusted to the gloom of the place. On my right, a thin goat track snaked off towards an old farm building, and I saw the piece of white flicker impatiently in the upper window. I was sick of walking but somehow I seemed to want to be in that barn. I soon was.
The barn doors were large and faded red, as any reasonable person would’ve expected. What was unusual was the sign by on them which took several minutes of squinting at to read. For whatever reason my eyes did not like the look of the thing, but I needed to know what it said, and they must do what I bade them; so, after a few obstinate moments they realised I was serious and gave in. The letters formed into a message (which is when, incidentally, I realised I wasn’t dreaming, though the possibility had only presented itself to me at the moment of dismissal):
THIS BARN IS OF CONSEQUENCE, AND YOU WILL FEEL IT. THOSE WHO KNOW WHAT TO FEAR WILL NOT FEAR TO BE INSIDE; BUT BE WARNED: HOWEVER GRAND THE MESSAGE, IT CAN ONLY BE GIVEN ONCE.
I decided I had no idea what this meant, if it meant anything at all, and, impatient already, I placed thin hands on the large doors and pushed them apart in as grandiose a manner as I could manage, bundling myself through into the warmth beyond.
What I saw next I did not process for a long time, but when I did, it came in very handy indeed. I saw myself stretched out on the floor, eyes flaring, mind racing. A group of people stared, and then rushed towards me. As the first one’s fingertips brushed my face the whole scene stopped, and changed in a flurry of motion, backwards. The people dropped me and I sat up, dazedly staring at the television for a few long seconds. Then someone pushed play once more.
The ether me sat like a stone, and then the credits rolled, and it blinked (quickly, as it seemed, but slowly enough for me to notice it). Those people bustled into the room, and I knew them. What was going on? It must be a flashback, I thought. But I hadn’t done this before. A flash forward, then But what for?
Ether me, as I called myself of this vision, was talking to the others now, slowly and carefully, but seemed fine despite the come-down weariness in the face and eyes and the slowly shaking hands. There was a word, a question, a huge, indefinable pause. The question was terribly important. I knew I needed to hear it again, and somehow, the play rewound and started again. I focused, intent on knowing what was said. I could not, however, make out any sense from it, for, no matter how many times I replayed the sound and how hard I listened, the sound always came across blank and overridden. Something, like a song that was playing unheard, seemed to block the words from my ears, so that the harder I tried the worse I did and the more frustrated I became. That question was the key, my answer critical, this much I knew. And, it seems, this was all I was supposed to know.
Finally, I let out a muffled scream and awoke on the low couch beside the fireplace, still well and warm, still happy; I forgot all about the vision or the dream of whatever it had been. The change had not changed back, yet, and I was still colourful and warm! I arose and found my friends talking in whispers, and they were glad to see me up, said it had only been an hour or so but they hadn’t wanted to disturb me. Had I been asleep? They didn’t know. I had been staring at the fire, but had promised not to touch it, and then they had been painting and talking and I had seemed sweet so they had left me to myself for a while.
The night passed pleasantly away, bright sun and cute animals and friendly people and conversations and ideas darting like shooting stars and fire and firecrackers, and in the morning we all hugged and said goodbye as you do. I went home and sighed over a V and ate nothing, waiting until next time.
The room was mild and warm, and the reassuring patter of a light winter rain played like tiny fingers upon the windows. The television roared out an advertisement –reaching out a slow Sunday hand I grasped the remote and forced it to be quiet. Of a sudden came a loud but friendly knocking upon the door, and a shrill voice yelled ‘they’re here!’, with the excess of sound which often accompanies excitement. Or youth. The child ran up to the door and opened it, letting in his favourite aunt and uncle with a whir of disordered talk; most of it his own, but he was to be pardoned easily for such things.
Shortly after I went into the kitchen to find a glass of water, and the adults were there, or I should say the other adults, for this is a class of which I am considered one, now, I suppose. The child was sitting on a stool, watching them drink and play at cards, and now and then offering a comment or two; for, to be honest, he liked merely to sit there and be part of the action. There have been times when I have often been such, and in awe of people as I supposed he was in awe of his company now (myself excluded, naturally). They some of them looked around as I stepped awkwardly across the cold, bad-eighties linoleum floor. Then followed the usual obligatory questions, caring but clichéd, and answers which were, on my part, equally contrived and concealing – for I was having a bad day and did not wish to go into detail. I was worried lest they quiz me, shine a bright light in my eyes and so forth, and so, having stumbled through a few ‘I am fine’s, and ‘my job is boring, but at least it’s money’s, I beat a hasty retreat to the warmth of the lounge chair and the easy, thoughtless comfort of the television.
A few hours rolled past in a sort of slow flurry of movie magic and chewing gum, and being just drunk enough between them to drive safely, the visiting pair decides that it was time for them to mission through the rain (which had grown steadily heavier throughout the bullet-soaked epic in which I had been so absorbed) to their house which was just far enough away to be called distant. Twenty minutes and a gin and coke after their initial declaration that it was time to leave they entered the lounge, for the purpose of a hearty farewell, as I supposed; but something altogether strange happened, something unwelcome as it was unexpected.
A strange look came over my uncle’s face, a sudden realisation coupled with a determination which, for whatever reason, made me shrink from his gaze. He strode across the lounge toward me, and took me by the shoulders, looking into my eyes. I started, blinked, and he was standing where he had previously been, apparently awaiting the answer to a question that had been asked.
I froze. Something froze me. Something in me froze me. I felt I should feel sick, or look down, but now I looked up, thinking… thinking. Those eyes again, I had seen them somewhere before. I knew I had to speak, to say something. What was it had been said, or was I supposed to say? I did not remember. My mouth opened by instinct, forming the usual answers even before I knew it, but a white flash came across me and I snapped it shut, forcing down the stale words I had been about to regurgitate once again. Something rose up, challenging, pushing, but welcome and necessary. It was bright and painful as first, but soon I adjusted, and it seemed the sun had never seemed so bright. I believe my mind gave a jump, and the flash slotted into its place, so long empty, so long kept warm by a pining soul. And then I spoke, and I was happy, and I knew that everything would be alright again, even beyond the pink fairy and her friends.
‘No, not really. I feel quite bad. But I will be fine, thank you. Just a passing’ I stopped suddenly, paused, and gave a delightful little chuckle ‘a passing shower. I will be fine.’ And with a smile I knew I would be.
