Voices in the city

Click. The VHS turned off. The image returned to a soap opera called Emmerdale Farm, except it was tough to see the cows for the blood covering the screen.
The room was thinly lit but with a turn of a dimmer it shone to reveal a bubbling wound upon a body black with blood.
A detective would later assume that the blood covering the TV set and some of the far wall was caused when a blade was used to open the artery of one Jonathan Gerne, late of Henley-upon-Thames. The reason for his visit to and subsequent murder in a Soho bed-sit was still unknown and would be for several weeks. However, as the wound still sputtered forth a little, a heavy-set man with a mullet haircut sloshed towards the TV set and bent down to eject the video cassette. As the shunting device ejaculated forth the hard black box through its cassette flap the words Hard Knocks could clearly be read on the label by any ghost standing in the room.
The man put the video cassette in his pocket and left the room and then the flat. The TV buzzed on as the blood clotted over the green fields like cream.

Somewhere in the city a sickness crawled. It plunged on through walls and pavements and minds. It was devastation breathing fumes, a substance that swallowed light and tricked the sun into death. And someone was tracking it.
Evidence was hard to come by and impossible to present, at least to Scotland Yard. Enough whackos leading them down blind alleys as it was. Taylor knew he was a whacko too. Associated with whackos, learnt from whackos, used whackos. He sensed things though. Sensed the good in some, the churning nipping bitter mouths deep within others.
He could hear the tiny voices that told them, told everyone, what to do. Maybe it was because he could distinguish these sounds from all other background noise that he could ignore them. Society had noticed them - named them conscience, mind, or even soul - but society thought these noises originated within them, whereas Taylor knew they certainly did not.
This realisation had caused him to act noticeably differently to the average person in the average situation. He would actively disobey the voices; the guiding voices, the commanding voices, the desperate voices. Sometimes this would get him into trouble, would cause him to be a bit of a whacko.
Taylor saw the second murder. Knew it was the second when he saw the papers. Knew there would be more when he heard the voice.
He didn't know if it was one booming disparate voice from the gloom or many chattering furies, but they were whispering above the city and sometimes they would rush down and grow louder. He could hear them right now. They were below him, somewhere along the canal towpath.
He had got this close but fear gripped him. He wanted to vault the brick wall and get a glimpse of his quarry, but his limbs were locked and all he could do was listen to the cacophony of rage.
The domination of the voice echoed over the stagnant water. It was blasphemous in its meaninglessness, yet it was compelling someone. A flash of moonlight danced near a mooring. A scream clashed with the howl of the behemoth voice and then both were silent. The padding of footfalls moving off to the north won the fight of sound.

Underneath the canal bridge there were plenty of good people fallen on hard times. There was plenty of bad luck, hard luck, tough luck. Too many stories ending the same way. Greatcoats of bin bags, weak fires, fingerless gloves. It was cold.
There was a wheezing haunting the damp corners and other invisible sounds creeping through the darknesses. The sounds that the police could feel as they picked around looking for clues. The sounds that kept them sharp and scared. Chief Inspector Tonne was even affected by it.
Someone nearby was not affected though, not in the slightest. Someone was sitting with his eyes closed, listening to the voices. Listening to the moans and the screams, the whispers and the laughter.
With his knees pulled up tightly to his chin, sitting upon a bed of thick cardboard, someone was deep in communication with the voices.
All around were stacked videos and books, old stereos and towers of comic books, surrounded. Someone had brilliant blue eyes and a dirty blonde shower of hair in ringlets and straights uncontrollable. A wide grinning mouth was filled with lucid pointed teeth.
'What a whacko.' Smith says, nudging a couple of arms. A few policemen turn to see him and feel the same way. A whacko. They're looking for answers and they're looking for a killer. The kind of killer who likes the sight of blood.
Smith starts to swagger: 'I'm going to ask him a few questions'.
'Excuse me sir? Sir?'
Eyes straight ahead, he keeps on rocking.
'I'd like to ask you a few questions about what happened here last night, sir. Do you know what happened?'
No answer. Smith tries to push on: “Sir, can you please -”
Someone’s mind moves - rustling all around in the dark. Restless.
“He can't hear you.”
“He's just a crazy mute.”
“Leave him alone.”
Smith takes a step back. Looks at the small crowd and Taylor in the middle of them. Walks away. Someone was watching.
Tonne, he saw it all and he felt it, ugly and strange. This was the beginning of his fear.

Thanks to Paul for help and inspiration here.

An elegy

Today he saw a face from his past; a face he could never forget. The face of Philippa.
They met while studying Latin. Neither of them were that hot at the language, but the poetry brought them together. Those Romans could sure write a love poem.
Elegy it was called, and elegy tells, usually in a poetic form, about a loss or a death of something. It can be wistful, nostalgic and mournful. It can also be the most beautiful feeling in the world.
This boy’s study of romantic elegy coincided with its birth within him. He soon found that the longing for a love that couldn’t be had created a singular internal stirring that becomes almost addictive.
This feeling can be easily evoked, perhaps by certain songs or pieces of music, also through powerful literature and film. Imagine these feelings now, feelings which can successfully transport you to a magical place of all-consuming passion; feelings that can never be sated, that can never truly be shared.
Rather than feeling empty and depressed, though, his elegy filled him with bittersweetness and this is something which can keep a heart enthralled.
Let me share with you this elegy of mine.
I once sent a note to a girl whom I was friends with, but who had a boyfriend. He was a real idiot; of course he was.
It was at university, but he wasn't attending the university. I was really taken with this girl and we had a good relationship, though I guess she was just enjoying the flirtation, the attention.
Her boyfriend lived nearby. We were away from our homes and families for the first time, but there he was every few days. He so regularly visited, like a nightly ghost, and he was everything I thought a boyfriend shouldn't be: a burping, puking, insulting, child.
I didn't understand the attraction on her part and, as I had met the girl soon after we started at the university, I figured this relationship was simply a hangover from a school romance. A lingering crush. The last puss from a teenage spot.
Two years down the line and I am proved very wrong. He remains; lingering, stale in the air around me.
Is she just weak, what power has he over her? I decided I needed to act. Galvanised by a recent night out, a dance, that connection still and the spark; I posted a note under her door.
I told her things: that she was special. You might say it happened on a night of the soul. Music, writing, solitude.
My actions were unwise, silly, ultimately destructive. The creak outside, the rustling at the door, the note sliding through. Whether it woke her up or she found it in the morning, it doesn’t matter. The entire exercise appears creepy in the light of the morning. All she can think about is a man, standing outside her room, in the wee small hours.
When next we met, the ugly embarrassment was paining her pretty face. It took weeks until we could begin to talk again, but our relationship had changed. She could no longer feign innocence. No longer pretend to understand what I really saw when I looked at her.
Her boyfriend greeted me with huge toothy grins from then on. He never mentioned the note, but he was pleased he'd won. Perhaps he respected the gall of my actions, but in his victory I was more sickened by the sight of him touching her.
However, I wasn’t downcast. I couldn’t again go near, yet the taste in my mouth made me smile. It still does.
When I saw her today, she was alone. She walked with purposeful grace, and the same red glow in her cheeks. But some zest was gone. Some divine spark of hers seemed washed away, perhaps forever.
I stopped where I was, and allowed my gaze to follow as she walked by on the other side of the street.
I thought about going over there, and speaking to her. Asking if she remembered me, was she still with him. Endless futures seemed possible for those few seconds. But the elegy, the elegy gnawed at my stomach some more and demanded to be fed.
So my eyes closed heavily, taking and holding one last image of her. Flowing brown hair, walking away from me once more, beautifully, forever.

Fluffed

Does anyone really know
How the stuff that we call fluff
Gets in my belly-button?

It seems to gather in the day
And at night, while I'm away
Asleep, it makes its journey.

Such a sojourn shouldn't happen
Logic unravelled, fluff travelled
To my blow-hole.

Why does it gravitate?
And will it just once abate?
I have sat and sat to fathom.

Some people think me rude
But I do not watch my crotch,
I'm just gazing at my navel.

So next time you clean it out,
With your finger in the spout,
Stop and think of me.

The red dragon

As I look now, out of my second floor window, I can see the first mountains of the ancient kingdom of Wales, climbing into the horizon.
They are out there, across the railway tracks, down the road of terraced houses, across the dunes and over the estuary.
Today I can see white crests breaking out where the river meets the sea and, still further out, crepuscular rays beam between cracks in the cloudscape, illuminating foreign beaches or sand banks.
Wales is a whole other country, and I can see it from my lounge. I’ve never been there and yet it appears quite a walkable distance away; drowning in mud, quicksand and saltwater not withstanding.
It seems a place of mystical and magical possibilities. What secrets might it hold? What ancient power may still be locked within those mountains? Their national flag has a picture of a dragon on it! How much more mystical can it get?
When last I thought like this, I resolved to journey there.
In order to aid my flight to this land, I spent all evening watching the dance of the insect-chasing swallows as they glided over red-tiled roof-tops and swooped at speed across the road below.
Then I watched the glossy winged gulls as they flipped and flapped their huge spans and took off from chimney pots and railway sidings. And I spied the arcing flight of the pigeons, glancing branches and telephone lines but still flying straight and true. If these rodents of the skies can do it, I reasoned, then why not I?
So, once the sun had descended into its nightly cradle and the moon was safely ensconced behind the sinewy clouds, I slid open wide the huge window in my lounge and clambered out onto its narrow ledge. Someone had painted the ledge cream, and I found that comforting.
I took in deep lungfulls of air and bent my body backwards, stretching my arms out as I went. I then began to move them in a routine flapping action and my joints cricked and cracked under this unusual motion.
I then held one of my deep breaths, counted to three and prepared to step forward, off the ledge. I strained and I struggled but each time I tried, something, some primal fear deep within, wouldn’t let me go. Wouldn’t let me leave the ledge. I felt like some fledgling who couldn’t depart the feather-lined nest.
Perhaps it was for the best, I thought. I’d probably just collapse, sprawling, in the garden below.
But then a remarkable thing happened. Through a crack in the ever-shifting night clouds, I saw a strange shape flit across the face of the moon.
“A dragon!” I exclaimed and, without second thought, leapt into the summer night.
What happened next is still difficult for me to understand or make clear in my head. I remember though, quite distinctly, my body rising up, and it just kept on climbing.
The railway and road went by in a flash, and I was soon swinging out towards the river. My shadow fair whizzed across the beach and I felt the air temperature cool as I reached the water.
All I could do was flap my arms and head on towards the far side of the estuary and the north-east coast of Wales.
I must have been mere minutes from the Welsh border when suddenly the temperature around me rose quickly. Flame crackled close to my head and I was forced to dive down, close to the spraying sea.
I twirled and wheeled my body like it was some top secret fighter plane and was amazed to see the scaled body of a great red dragon flapping above and snorting its fiery breath in my direction.
For a large beast it flew superbly and soon headed me off in my quest for the coast. A crackling wall of death halted my progress and I banked sharply as my progress to the sandy shores of Talacre was blocked by this boiling curtain of flame.
As I scrambled to avoid a scorching end, my course brought me into the path of the ancient beast itself. The dragon reared and roared at me, swinging a blistering claw in my direction. Its breath, all sulphur and inferno, wilted my resolve. It landed a bloody smack and my body sailed backwards at an astonishing rate, across the ten or so miles of water that separates Merseyside and Wales.
And that is the last thing I remember about my encounter with the red dragon of Wales, the great guardian of its borders, repeller of English invasion.
I awoke the next morning, scratched and sore in the branches of the apple tree that grows in my front garden.
I was lucky to survive my encounter with the dragon, that’s for sure. But every now and then, when I gaze from my lounge window, I still get the urge to make that short trip across the water to visit those Welsh shores.
Not by air, though. Next time, I’m going to swim for it…

Clouds

The feeling of floating above the clouds is a queer one.
If you let it, it can take you over. You could get lost in a kingdom of cloud, see castles with soldiers and dragons attacking. Something about these fat mountains, wisping into new dimensions before your eyes, turns one’s head back to childhood dreaming.
I once took my grandfather with me on a transatlantic flight to New York, to visit my sister. It promised to be an uncomfortable journey; a long flight interlaced with stilted conversation and awkward silences. Still, there were always the clouds.
I remember the first time I flew in a plane. I was an adult yet I was stuck to the window in delight as a million synapses fired at once, relaying memories of candy floss and ginger beer, chasing pig-tails and climbing trees, mud seas and bloodied knees. And now I was above all that.
I travel by air routinely now, but it still stirs up some of those feelings, and it did that day flying with grandpa. I looked away from the clouds when I heard the clinking trolley of the air-stewardess but my grandfather, in the window seat today, stared on at the rolling white ocean below us. The stewardess had to touch his shoulder to see if he wanted a drink. She may have been checking to see if he was dead, too.
Then, as we enjoyed an in-flight brandy or two, my grandfather began to speak.
He told me how he had longed to fly above those clouds in his youth; and how he had loved flying above them in his adulthood.
“I would take every opportunity available to me to taste the higher air,” he said, “And get closer to those white angels dancing in the fluffy sky.”
He didn’t look at me many times while he recalled his time amongst the clouds, and at times I couldn’t tell if his memories were real or fantasy. His words were laden with romance and it seemed as though he had at one time managed to grow wings and flown like a migrating swan to reach the heavens.
The war was raging and there he was, a flying delivery boy transporting whatever was needed to wherever he was told.
He said how lucky he was to be able to fly so often back then and recounted a tale from those days:
“Often the sky would run black with smoke and man-made clouds would burst my white castles and set them aflame.
I would stay calm by searching out any little speck of white in the distance and focusing on it and striving towards it with all my might. Anything to leave behind the grey reek of the flak.
I was doing a similar journey to the one we’re on right now, in the June of 1940, when one of my engines caught fire during an attack on our convoy. It spread to the wing so my co-pilot and I bailed out.
In a way, I’d always longed for the chance to jump, the opportunity to step onto the clouds. It almost made me cry when my body flashed through them like they weren’t even there.
They might look substantial, like a dream taken form, but they’re really just clouds of water vapour.
I thought about this as I plummeted, and I didn’t want to open the parachute, not for a long time. But something in me, maybe when I saw those blue Atlantic waters rushing at me, something made me relent and I pulled the ripcord and slowed sufficiently to hit the water safely.
I bobbed around there for a few hours before a passing trade ship happened to spot me. I looked up, helpless once more, and saw the clouds turn to white again.
And as I looked up at that colossal sky I was thinking, ‘Maybe I just picked the wrong cloud? Just the wrong cloud to walk on?’ ”
He finished his drink and then didn’t say anything for a while. I looked and saw that he’d fallen to sleep.
He was back in the land of dreams now, where anything can happen. So when the stewardess brought our dinner I asked her not to wake him.
We let him sleep awhile longer. We let him sleep there in the sky for as long as we could.

The sight of summer

Lillies and rosemary dappled her hair, his lady blossomed in the sunlight. He reached out his hand to help her and she stepped down three garden stairs onto the dew spattered grass.
They were welcoming the dawn in summer, the solstice was upon them.
It was the 21st day of June and they had sneaked over a high wall using a borrowed wooden ladder. They balanced along the tops of the thick brick wall that housed one of the many gardens of Hanley Hall, until they reached a sturdy trellis they thought they might use to descend.
Though it creaked and it strained, these two lithe creatures did not break the wooden latches that allowed tangled vines and creepers to flow upwards, closer to the glowing sun.
And then, running through the Victorian garden, barefoot upon cool morning stone, their clothes and locks flowed with the movement of their youthful grace, their joy and love, like wild ponies prancing.
He bounded now, ahead of her, and jumped through the open gate (left unlocked the day before) into the wonderful hillside meadow at the edge of Lord Hanley’s estate.
Before him the beautiful patchwork of the English countryside cascaded down to the valley and villages below. An amazing sight, the sight he had come to see, paying true homage to the first rise of the midsummer sun.
It was then that he turned around. Turned around and saw his love standing in the gateway of the old garden, staring not at the view but at him. Her eyes told him this was the view she’d come for. Not the first auburn flares of the seasoned sun; not the field and hedgerows, birds and foxes, bathed again in the magical warmth of midsummer. She had come for him.
And as he helped her down into the meadow’s thick green grasses, even he, this lover of the dawn and worshipper of the ever travelling sun, could not unlock his gaze from the wonderful reflection of her eyes.

Stormy weather

Imagine if you spent time labouring over every decision you ever made, every step which took you in a new direction, every person you looked towards.
That was Colin, this was how he was, how he approached most situations.
You see, Colin thought about the future. Colin realised that when he boarded a train he needed to be careful. The decisions he made could change the entire course of his life.
The correct choice of carriage might offer something as simple as a pleasant and quiet place to sit and read. This was important. But then, upon boarding, which side of the carriage to sit on? One may contain that boring guy from the office that Colin always tries to avoid; or it may be holding Chris, who owes him money.
Then, choice of seat is important too. Sitting in the right seat may give the opportunity for some eye contact and subtle flirting with a girl. She might be the girl he’s going to marry, or she might just be willing to sleep with him. Either way, he realises that choice of seat is imperative.
Of course, if he thought about this for too long, and in too much depth, his brain would start to frazzle a little as he realised that stepping inexplicably to the left at any moment might take him out of the path of some unseen falling masonry, or bird shit at the very least!
The difference between a clean and excrement covered shirt might be the difference between a job offer, an interesting conversation with a stranger, perhaps a woman noticing him.
But he realised, almost immediately, he couldn’t live his life like that, constantly second guessing what nature and physics had planned for him. And even if he did, like in the case of the train, realise that his choice was stark and potentially meaningful, should he set himself a rule for decision making such as ‘always go with your first instinct’, or perhaps ‘always do the opposite of what you first consider’? Would such a rule even help him to choose what was the right thing to do?
In the end, all this pondering left him with the realisation that we are all whims to the breezes of fate. Who knows if the right people are going to blow into our lives or not; who knows if we will blow into theirs, and at the right time to affect them?
Colin didn’t believe that luck was anything more than a superstition, but good fortune could be described as having these whimsical breezes work out for you, once in a while.
As Colin sat in the middle carriage, to the right of the train doors, in the second row of seats, first seat on the left facing the direction of travel, he wondered if he was sitting in the eye of a whimsical hurricane.
He stared at the drunk brunette sitting across from him for a few seconds before she stood up and blew away from him forever.

Too much salt

Sienna played with her food. Her pasta tasted too salty, there was never enough pepper on it. She ground out some more and sniffed at the food so that tiny granules of pepper dust tickled at her nostrils. She tried to see if she could stand the tingle, ignore it and control the temptation to sneeze.
She held herself perfectly upright and waited. She blew a little air out of her nose, snorting like a bull. She was calm and in control of her body. She stared with burning concentration out through the kitchen and down the hall where her husband lay.
She’d pushed him down the stairs earlier.
After the palpitations had stopped and she was no longer shaking, she plucked up enough courage to descend the staircase and see if he was still alive.
When she reached the hallway, taking care to step over his body, Sienna found it difficult to be certain of his state of health. She always had difficulty taking a pulse, so she didn’t bother with that. He may have been breathing, shallowly; all she could be sure of was that he was unconscious. He was definitely unconscious.
It was at that point that she realised she was quite hungry. She thought she may as well prepare some pasta. The pappardelle softened and flowed around in the bubbling water on her stove like seaweed or huge tapeworms.
She strained it before it got too soft, added a tomato sauce and grated mozzarella on top. It smelled delightful, but she couldn’t eat it. Just too salty for Sienna. It was always something with Sienna, she would always be complaining about something, always whingeing and moaning and asking her husband for something. No wonder he got angry with her.
Outside her husband groaned. Sienna sneezed.
Her left hand was shaking a little so she pushed her fork slowly into the skin on her left forearm until the shaking stopped. Then, rising purposefully, she moved around the edge of the kitchen table, passed through the open door and stepped along the hall.
Her husband’s head jerked spasmodically and his hands seemed to be reaching, slowly, for the bottom of the balustrade.
She sneezed again and this time she saw him open his eyes and look right into her.
Time hung around her like a curtain made of bridal silk. She was lost in her life for a moment, lost in her youth and beauty, lost in the words he had said to her.
She remembered every time he touched her.
Then time came crashing down around them both and she peeled her eyes from his, allowing them to rest instead upon the baseball bat they kept by the door: ‘to deal with intruders’.
She didn’t even take the time to think of the best place to hit him, in order to keep his injuries consistent with a tumble down the stairs.
Stifling a sneeze, Sienna just swung away.

The right thing

We ran like wolves in the morning air and the farmer chased us home.
Diving over stone lain walls and through fair thickets of gorse, we flew, Joey and I.
I looked back at him as we raced through Crockett’s Field; my little brother, carrying a pig under his arm and still bounding away from the pursuing farmer like we were racing in play. I smiled back with pride and he smirked - we were nearly at Crockett’s Wood and the farmer would never find us in there.
Before we reached the tree-line, the cruel farmer stopped running, readied his weapon and squeezed off both barrels of his shotgun. I immediately slowed and turned around to make sure Joey had made it. He careered on by me without a care in the world and I gestured my disapproval towards the farmer with my right hand, while picking up a hard grey stone with the other. The farmer readied himself to fire again as I ducked into the cool dark of the wood.
Joey was nowhere to be seen, but I could hear the squealing of the baby pig issuing from the woodland depths. “Kill the damned thing,” I hissed through gritted teeth, “stick it now!” Up the slow roll of the sloping field trudged the farmer, gun-toting and steely.
There was little time to find Joey and silence the swine. We had a chance to escape the hot buckshot by using the tree cover, but the idea had been to climb and hide in silence. Now this small animal threatened both our lives.
I skipped between the trees, my eyes on the ground, my ears pricked for the piglet. Bounding over the ageless roots that grew like twisted tumours in the ancient recesses of the forest I heard the cracking of twigs and the shifting of branches that said the farmer was not far behind. When this was followed by the report of a weapon and the sound of shot thudding into a trunk, I had to end my pursuit of Joey and climb the nearest tree for sanctuary.
Heart pounding I scanned the forest floor below for signs of movement. The pig whimpered on somewhere nearby, but I could not see it or my brother below.
And then came the farmer into the scene. I remember him, a brooding presence in cap and weather-beaten coat, his face was never clear. He seemed to have locked onto something now and advanced with stealth and purpose, gun poised and pointed at some large green ferns nearby. As he came towards my tree I pulled out the cold grey stone from my pocket and held it over the edge of my branches, waiting for the target to pass underneath.
I was sweating so much and felt that the noise of my pounding heart would surely give away my position at any moment. Still, he was beneath me now and all I had to do was open my hand and put him down.
“Drop it, drop it now,” the words ran repeatedly through my head, but I found myself fighting them hard. It wasn’t me, to do this. I couldn’t maim this man, no matter what harm he had suggested to do me.
As he passed by safely, without hope of return and another chance of falling under my stone, I remember being struck by such pangs of guilt. Yes, I had avoided the possibility of causing serious injury to this man, but I had left him to my brother; I had deserted Joey.
I find it hard to describe this feeling, but it was like something nearly frozen was being pumped all over my body, that’s all I can say about it.
There he was, the farmer, parting the ferns now with the end of his shotgun, getting ready to catch and then punish my poor brother. I sat there though, remained in my tree and did nothing while the scene unfolded, while the farmer slowly prodded inside and the pig began to squeal. He then stamped the ferns down flat and I closed my eyes, waiting for the scream.
But no more noise came.
I opened half of one eye and squinted to see the farmer bending down to retrieve a lone piglet. He rummaged around the rest of the thick vegetation but found nothing. Joey was nowhere to be seen and relief flooded my senses, melting my juddering body.
He soon gave up and, with a stern look about him, the farmer marched away from the ill twilight of Crockett’s Wood.
I waited up there, in the tree, for what must have been five minutes before risking the drop to the floor. Once on the ground I crouched and gave our secret call - three croaks and a twitter - like the woodcock. Suddenly, Joey crashed to the forest floor behind me.
“I dropped the pig, I’m very sorry Henry,” he said and looked like he was going to cry. “I did try hard to find him again, very hard, I swear I did.”
I wanted to hug him then and tell him how scared I was for him and that I was sorry I didn’t do a better job of protecting him, but my brain was numb and I couldn’t order my thoughts any longer.
So I just grabbed him by the collar and turned for home, dragging him through the forest with contempt.
He was my little brother, you see. I was wretched and he was my responsibility, so we just always did what we did.
Somehow, this always seemed to be alright.

The curse of Berabenar

Berabenar had cursed himself. A transformation spell gone horribly wrong, his body was in disarray surging into uncontrollable creatures, shapes and other ungodly things. Only the Green Witch could help him now, could stop his bodily flux. So he set off on a tiring and bewildering journey to her door, as his body pulsed into everything you (or he) could imagine.
Great boils pockmarked the wizard's flesh, before it became bark and the boils were simply gnarls in the wood. He had been walking for a mere thirty seconds before his legs, at once horse and lizard, became pond weed and he collapsed like harvested corn.
His fingers oozed, but every now and then they became solid enough for him to drag his infinite carcass another step or so along the road. The night was as black as the soul of Azamoth, and he was thankful that the sun's tyrant master had sewn up the very eyes of the stars so that no light could illuminate his grotesquery.
He oozed ever onward. Two hours had passed and his blasphemy had ailed Berabenar. Longing for sustenance, he saw that his form became more gelatinous, more able to spread across the dark lane. A huge spider happened across his path. His teeth were leaves but his tongue was of a frog and he lashed the spider with horrible force and spontaneity. It retracted into his beak, biting horribly at his feathery cheeks, and then it was gone, crushed into the lava of flesh and fauna beyond.
He guessed he was still an hour's slide from the door of Hulldimble, the Green Witch of the North Pastures. She lived on the village's north-eastern edge so he needn't risk detection and certain immolation by passing through the streets of Casterdale.
Then, growing the strong legs of some giant tarantula he found the strength and speed to scuttle onward to his goal, the spider had burned in the furnace of his body and revitalised him. As he approached the village boundaries his legs began to pool. They flowed like ugly syrup now, and he felt himself collapsing into this sludge. A horse whinnied and he looked in horror as a lone rider approached him.
The shadow of the forest canopy provided cover from the eyes of the rider. A strong man, probably travelling home after some secret assignation, rode as quietly as possible over the cobbled ground. He hushed the horse, who no doubt smelt the rotting of a creature in the forest before him. The wizard had no control and his tongue slithered greedily and flatly across the forest carpet to the edge of the sturdy Casterdale pathway.
The horse stepped onto the simple slime that was now Berabenar and reared up. The rider caught hold of the reins and steadied. The horse bucked and turned around, its legs seemed to sink into something acidic and it cried out. Thrashing frantically the steed loosed the rider and gained the strength to bolt away though its limb twisted and broke and the horse collapsed into a verge.
The rider had fallen face-first into the puddle of moss and scum. Ferns grew and twisted around his head so he could not scream, would never scream. Roses grew through his body and leech like arms attached themselves to his body or vanished into orifices. His body convulsed in seeming agonies but no cries could be heard.
At last the flesh formed again and engulfed the man. The wizard took on a truer form, though he was now eight feet tall and carried the bulk of a man who had feasted on man. Replenished, and in some control of his flux, he staggered onwards. Torches now flickered in the village, stirred by the neighs of the broken horse. The wizard faltered, sweating, but his path was straight now and time evaporated until the moment he crashed through the door of Hulldimble's cottage.
She was feeding a serpent from her breast. She looked up and smiled…

Thanks to Matt for the inspiration for this tale.

From 'The Ballad of Sir Ravenscroft'

I'm away for a few days so thought I'd post this strange little horror/fantasy tale. A group of friends and I were taking turns to write the next part of a story. The scene set is of a knight returning home to see his castle beset by strange creatures. It's silly, but offers a little escapism, anyway...

From a distance of perhaps 100 yards the gallant knight watched as his loved ones were thrown to the death giving ground below them. In a fraction of a second he witnessed a pair of leathery wings flop across the infernal scene and snatch a falling carcass, which was borne away over the encroaching forest and soon into the cloudscape. The other figure hit the inner bank below the castle wall and rolled slowly into the slim black moat.
Sir Ravenscroft sped on foot towards the base of the east tower. In the oily, fetid stream he spied thick black hair, growing heavy and sinking fast. He reached in, aware that his arms could be ripped from his body by some demoniac mouth beneath the surface. But it was little relief to drag from the stinking mire the broken body of his lady fair.
He traced her purple lips with his gauntleded finger. They seem burned and lacerated by a blasphemous kiss. Her clothing was torn and her body showed infinite signs of torment and torture at the sport of damnation. Blood dripped thickly down her legs and he fell hard on her chest in untold agonies, anguish his soul had not known could exist, despite witnessing the full horrors of Moorish battle.
The impact of his weight drew a sudden, sharp, agonising breath from the body of his wife. "John," she spoke in gurgled guttural tones, "Leopald, I tried to save Leopald. He lives yet." Sir Ravenscroft longed to look into the beautiful eyes of his wife once more before her life ebbed to a close. He expected to see horror and fear there and wished to insist they saw only peace before she met God. Yet as he brushed back her bloodied hair he gazed only upon two blistered sockets, scolded and torn with worms burrowing holes into the softest fleshes within.
The last thing his poor wife would have heard was the sound of her husband retching and heaving in paroxysms of revulsion.

A feeling for falling

Gum
On the street.
Looking down from windows
At aerial photographs,
New roads seem cobbled;
Victorian retro
Smoothed by feet.

Tom was pottering in his flat. His windows were open in the summer sunshine and light was pouring through as small clouds passed.
It was like in some cheap advert for washing powder; the freshness really was coming in, injecting his entire room with the scent of pollen and wild grasses.
He allowed himself a moment to enjoy this, to be infected by the season, before looking at the images he’d set in front of him.
Scattered scenes, in a square format, these nine prints were laid out in even rows of three on the table. Each photograph measured six by six inches and their arrangement, on the floor, became a pleasing square of squares.
Each colour image represented a different view, a window on the world, captured by Tom, of a view of the ground directly below, taken from a variety of heights.
The overall appearance of these various bird’s eye views, when seen together on the floor, was of falling through several spaces at once, towards a multiple of floors.
The first time Tom had stood over this strange world of gravity and seen all these different ways to fall, all these different grounds to rush forward and catch a brittle body, he was quite shocked and had to sit down.
A little later he viewed it with awe, later still and he was pleased with the work he had done. Vistas, opened up with snapshots.
He had sucked these images from the world over the past year of his life by taking a vintage camera with him, virtually everywhere he went, and looking out for interesting windows.
Once one was spotted, an estimated reading for distance and light had to be made and then, quite carefully, Tom would reach a slender arm out of the window, point the camera’s lens directly at the earth below and open the shutter.
The process was a little ‘hit and miss’! Without the luxuries of auto-focus, a light-meter or range-finder, the shots would often appear out of focus or incorrectly exposed. And there was always the wind to contend with.
Still, nine pretty decent images were the result. Interesting individually, Tom felt they created a powerful whole. Jennifer was coming over soon, to view the finished article, and Tom was quite excited at the prospect.
They were now ready for framing. He’d spent hours deliberating over their order, their suitability in place of about four discarded others, and the effect of the ‘overall’. Now, he felt it was almost finished.
Slowly, Tom picked them up, print by print and slid them into a frame he’d had specially made with nine perfectly spaced and separated mounts fitted.
As he sealed the frame, placed the completed artwork on the wall of his flat and stepped back to look at it, he was not struck by it as he first had been. In fact, he was not struck by it at all.
There was no feeling of falling, there was little in the way of synchronicity, flow or a majestic whole; there were just nine disparate images staring back at him. Nine snaps of broken concrete slabs, black bobs of hair and thin spikes of wire and cable criss-crossing it all.
Tom looked at the frame, and then his watch in a dazed panic. Rushing to the window, Jennifer’s bobbing head blurred into view, sliced by myriad railings. Time stopped moving for Tom until a buzzer sounded on his door and awaited his usual reaction.
Defeated again, Tom plodded towards the door. As the latch clicked open, somewhere a vintage camera slipped from a hand and was obliterated, smashing to a hundred tiny pieces on a hard and greedy street below.

A quiet

I love it when the night melts away,
Silently seeping into dawn.

Those serene still hours that fade like a dream.
Moments when nothing happens
That are some of the best of our lives,
Some of the most memorable.

Those times when one no longer knows what time it is…
The watch face fades and the ticking joins the calm
Of the warm still night air.

To float with those lost hours -
The soul quiet, the body so relaxed -
Heightens all that we need not force:
laughter,
sleep,
tears,
and love.

At these times we lie unmoving and understand;
The closest we will be to peace on Earth.

In this state of bliss, its very concepts are challenged,
Channelled through the dim light of lamp or candle.
Its slow spark, electric, eclectic,
Travels short distances… which is enough.

All are close at this time.

The works of Stranger Tom

Stopping at the blistered door,
The dwarf explained what lay in store:
‘A stranger man than I’, says him,
‘Called ‘Stranger Tom’, resides within.
With mouth of claw and hand of tongue
A statue, made by gods gone wrong,
Then given damned life,
Abomination, scales and strife…’

Tom had taken to writing poems about himself.
In these he would always manifest as some type of ghoulish creation, a grave robber’s nightmare come to life.
He couldn’t say what had brought out this new found affection for the romantic poet in him, nor why he saw fit to so distort himself within the verse. But, as he scribbled away on the page, he would find himself contented; and when he would read them back to himself later, he would be smiling. ‘This can only be a good thing,’ he thought.
Earlier that day, Jennifer had taken her place at Tom’s side in the canteen for lunch. Tom was enjoying a rather fine salad of gruyere and cherry tomatoes with avocado and wild rice. It was a strange combination of his own dreaming and he thought the flavours complemented one another, perfectly.
Jennifer baulked, as usual, when he peeled back the blue plastic lid of the Tupperware container. She’d say things like, “oh my”, or “quite ghastly”, in a manner, so clichéd, Tom believed she must have borrowed it straight from Austen. Of course, that was a prime reason why he was so fond of her.
Jennifer stroked her long brown hair with affectation. Bending her neck back as she did so, Tom realised he was supposed to notice something: “I see, you have a new necklace - very fetching, Jennifer.”
“Oh this? Do you like it, Tom? Do you, really? Oh, why, it’s nothing really. My little Arnold bought it for me, actually. Brought it back from the East recently. It’s jade.”
The mention of Arnold’s name frustrated Tom, always, but he always let it pass without showing a flicker of emotion. If Jennifer had worked out how much it annoyed Tom then she was certainly a cunning psychologist and a keen manipulator of men.
Tom stared at Jennifer’s beautiful neck and sighed. His eyes flickered and held there, not daring to look lower in case she might be watching, daring him to embarrass himself with a brief inspection of her cleavage. The temptation burned him for many seconds until she mercifully relaxed and let her hair pour back down around her shoulders.
“So, how are things between you two then?” asked Tom, as uninterestedly as he could muster. He picked up his pen before continuing, “Is the ground still a little shaky?”
“Oh no, not at all Tom, dear. Well, at least not any more,” she replied.
“Well, I mean, I know we don’t talk that much - like you and I do - but there’s something about him that still drives me wild,” she went on.
“I mean, you’re such a pretty and handsome thing, poor Tom; but he’s a brute, raw and animal. Drives me quite delirious, sometimes, I can tell you.”
Tom’s teeth ground and his face wrinkled, ever so slightly, but his eyes remained stoic. He started scribbling in his notebook.
“Ah now, Tom, what on earth are you writing there?” she asked. “It’s nothing,” he replied, “just some verse.”
“Oh gosh, poetry? Let me read it Tom, please won’t you let me?”
Tom hunched over his work, as if trying to hide it, but he left a corner of the paper exposed and didn’t stir when she grabbed and pulled it from under him.
Her eyes opened wide and she devoured the lines, hungrily. Tom gripped hard his pen and watched as her entire head seemed to roll along and then spill over each of his syllables like they were the crests of waves.
“Oh dear, how frightful!” she exclaimed, grinning.

This marks a welcome return to the blog for Stranger Tom - I'd almost forgotten about him... Here's his first appearance.