Michael Scott Hand

picks up stones, says they are diamonds
  • Home
  • About
  • Novellas
  • Short Stories
  • Fragments
  • Poems
  • Drawings
  • Contact
  • Support
  • Category: Stories

    • A Pentacle Between Tentacles

      Posted at 10:16 am by Michael, on February 4, 2021

      So where I work’s ain’t exactly a zoo but it ain’t exactly not a zoo, if you catch my drift. It’s called the Norman Parker Wildlife Experience because that’s exactly what it is—an experience. People come along and get to see all sortsa critters they’d not normally see in their day-to-day.

      We got leopards and zebras and even a mean old elephant they call Frank that fell off the back of a circus wagon or something. There’s all sorts of stories about Frank, like they say he’s at least one-hundred years old, but I don’t believe it. We also have an aviary, an aquarium and a reptile house and though I’m not much of a fan of those snakes I wouldn’t mind them wrapped around my feet as a fancy pair o’ shoes.

      All sortsa staff work here. We’ve got veternarians and pooper-scoopers and regular janitors and people that work the food stalls. There’s tour guides and medical workers and a marketing ideas man called Josh, whose I don’t like. And, of course, there’s me, who you might just say has the most important job of all.

      Myself, Sheryl Monroe, Miss Algonquin 1977 and I’ve still got the pictures to prove it! I work at the front desk of the Norman Parker Wildlife Experience Gift Shop and let me tell you why exactly it’s the most important job of all: up to 80% of the park’s profits come from the gift shop and our collection of high-quality, internationally manufactured goods.

      We’ve got everything from plush little leopards to t-shirts with ol’ Frank on them and every day I gets to stand behind a semi-circular desk, checking the bounce of my perm with my fingertips and grinnin’ and greetin’ everyone who comes through those glass doors on their way outta the park. Y’see, you can’t leave the park without passing through the gift shop and I makes darn sure that nobody leaves without buying at least a little somethin’.

      Directly behind my desk is cylindrical aquarium tank filled with fishes; sunfish and flower fish and rainbow fish and coral fish and other fish I don’t even know the names of. When I’m standin’ there, right in the centre of my desk space and people come up to buy things I just know them’s fish are surrounding me like an underwater halo, like I’m queen of the fishes or somethin’ and that’s just fine by me.

      But then, not two weeks past, Benji comes storming in wearing his khakis and tells me that they are removing the fish. Benji’s the great grandson of Norman Parker, so he feels like he owns the place, but in actuality I’ve read the documents and know that he only owns one-third of 48%.

      “My fishies,” I lamented.

      “They’ll be at the Underwater Odyssey,” Benji tells me. “We have to move them so they don’t get eaten.”

      “Get eaten?!” why I’d never heard such a foolish thing (and Benji says a lot of foolish things). Now, I might not be the sharpest axe in the woodsman’s shed, but even I know that you can’t just go eatin’ any random rainbow-coloured fish without runnin’ a serious risk of makin’ yourself sick and I don’t just mean with diarrhea.  

      “Anyway,” Benji says. “You’ll have a new friend soon, Sheryl. I think you’ll like him.”

      Continue reading →
      Posted in Stories | 0 Comments
    • Wall of Tet

      Posted at 9:46 am by Michael, on July 2, 2020

      “You and your ridiculous ideas,” Alice’s voice lilted as the carriage rumbled across the rough, unpaved roads. Magnavius ignored her and instead concentrated on the other sounds: the way the carriage groaned and creaked around them as it struggled to absorb the impacts of the road.

      The carriage leaned and all three passengers were forced to bend in the opposite direction so as to stay upright on their seats. This forced Chisholm to glance up from the book he was reading and he glanced between his travelling companions with a wry smile.

      “The ruin forms part of a larger structure in honour of Asmeph,” said Alice. She didn’t add hmmpf to the end of her sentence because it was—indisputably—inferred. Asmeph was a fertility goddess worshipped long ago in the Nacreev.

      For years, the region had been closed off to foreign visitors, but thanks to a gradual thawing in tensions between the Nacreev and its surrounding nation-states (all of which were in thrall to the Great and Glorious Empire of Her Royal Highness) these restrictions had lessened. In response, universities from Caladon had started sending students in battered carriages across unpaved roads in order to study sites in the area.

      In only three years there had been several major discoveries. A stone monkey (no monkeys lived in the Nacreev now), dozens of rusted metal mechanisms (their utility unknown) and at least one shrine in honour of Asmeph.

      The first photographs of the fertility goddess had caused quite a stir when they had appeared in the newspapers; for even in blurry half-shadow on grey paper, the image of the hitherto unseen Goddess was certainly provoking: her broad shoulders, enormous breasts and erect nipples spoke of a fierce, independent sexuality.

      And although neither Magnavius or Chisholm could not wholly understand why (though, of course, Alice understood) the statue had become a sort of feminist icon back in Caladon, such that Her Majesty’s government was already in talks to “procure” the statue for the state museum. Of course, several politicians from the Nacreev region would be compensated.

      Alice had already started writing her thesis on Asmeph, which was why she was so determined that the ruins they were heading to investigate would be dedicated to the goddess. Should her wishful thinking prove accurate she would almost be guaranteed grant money in order to conduct her research.

      The lads, however, were of a different mind. Magnavius believed the newly-unearthed structure was, perhaps, a greater temple devoted to a number of different deities. Chisholm, on the other hand, well… nobody ever really knew what Chisholm thought. He spoke little and his face was usually hidden by the cover of some obscure book.

      In truth, none of them were certain what to expect from the ruins. Only a few muddy photographs had made it out from the dig site and even the descriptions had been vague: the one thing that they had in common was that they referred to the ancient structure as a wall: the Wall of Tet they called it, for Tet was the name of the village above the ruin.

      Magnavius thought back to Professor Emlin’s notes:

      A brick wall buried beneath the ground, each brick inscribed with numerous letters from a runic alphabet that is yet to be identified.

      Although the façade of the wall itself is said to be impressive, granting as it does a vision of a completed structure from another time, your studies are to focus not only on the wall and its construction, but also to seek out such signs of habitation, ritual devices, or other inscriptions within the vicinity.

      Magnavius knew at least three additional tunnels had been excavated so far—all of them leading away from the wall. Each attempt to dig in the areas directly around it had revealed only more bricks; indicating that the Wall of Tet was much larger than first suggested.

      Then, at last, the carriage stopped and they were being ushered out by men wearing rifles on their backs and ceremonial swords at their waists. A plump woman beamed at them as they exited the carriage.

      “Yes, yes,” she said. “And here are the fine students from Caladon.”

      Continue reading →

      Posted in Stories | 0 Comments
    • Squirrels

      Posted at 10:25 am by Michael, on May 15, 2020

      Jameson North walked the woods almost every day for going-on fifty years. He liked to walk. Each day, around mid-morning, he’d say goodbye to his wife Elsie and follow the meandering stepping stones from the house to the trees. Then he’d follow the trees out to the main road: Pine Tree Drive.

      There wasn’t much traffic. Occasionally a logging truck or lost tourist would pass by. Sometimes it was somebody he knew—Sheriff Austin, Ray or Martha Bertram, John Johnson Senior (his son was a deputy now, if you could believe it)—and they’d lean on their horn as they passed and he’d greet them with a brisk wave.

      Little less than a mile down the road there was a parking space and a public bin (the spaces were usually empty, but the bin was always overflowing). There was a sign that had stood since the 1970s without being defaced. The sign informed tourists they were only a short walk away from the “World’s Famous!” Woodsfell Falls. The trail had fallen into disrepair and was barely distinguishable except—for here and there—where handrails poked through overgrown bushes.

      Jameson didn’t need the handrails, nor did he follow the path (which not only lead to the Falls but also back around towards Blankville). Instead he turned right and strode a path of his own making: one that would eventually lead him home. It would have been easy to get lost if you didn’t know the way: Jameson North knew the way.

      What exactly were these walks to Jameson? He had never really thought about it. Jameson didn’t consider himself a deep thinker, though he was, in a way. All he knew was that he found some comfort in the routine of this daily exertion, some communion with nature amongst the scattered pine cones.

      Jameson was not far from the track when he realised something was different. He frowned although there were already such deep-set creases on his face that the expression was barely discernible.

      One of the trees had been hollowed out; a large strip of bark peeled away to reveal a disturbing, unlikely interior. He stepped in to take a closer look.

      “Oh… God…” he said and then he clutched his hands to his face.

       
      Continue reading →

      Posted in Stories | 0 Comments
    • Tabitha

      Posted at 9:47 am by Michael, on April 7, 2020

      The night of the murder had a strange drawn-out quality, but the days that followed were worse: a subdued numbness set upon the Faculty that none of us could shake.

      None had known the woman particularly well–although she had indeed brought us tea every mid-morning and fruit cakes in the evening. And now, of course, she was dead.

      Was one of my fellows the murderer? Most of us had been present on the night that the murder occurred. And so we each played the night over and over in our minds: to whom we had spoken and at what times and we recounted these astonishingly dull details with astounding accuracy to the local constabulary.

      As it went, none of us were arrested for the crime. And little by little the lounge once more began to fill up in the afternoons. Drinks and conversations were had (though we never spoke about the murder) and one afternoon the big oak door opened to reveal the arrival of a new tea lady to replace the one we had… lost.

      Tabitha was both a little too young and a little too pretty to be competent at serving tea. But of course some of the men enjoyed trying to dazzle the young miss with the details of their latest experiments in which Tabitha, strangely enough, did not seem particularly interested.

      Some of us felt sorry for her, but more than anything we were intimidated by her. Each of us scientists–men of books and learning–were frightfully inept (or so it seemed) at being in the company of a beautiful young woman.

      We joked with the girl, but only a little. And we had all been shaken up by the police interviews such that we were, all of us, extremely eager to be seen “doing right” by the girl at every possible opportunity.

      We fell over ourselves in our eagerness to pour our own cups of tea and we rushed to hold open the door any time Tabitha needed to pass through it. Most of all we tried to make certain that all of our interactions with her took place within view of our colleagues, such that none of us was ever alone with the girl for an extended period in case any unfortunate event (such as, for example, a murder) were to occur.

      As such, to find oneself accidentally alone in the corridors with Tabitha gave rise to a peculiar sensation not unlike someone running their fingers gently across your scalp whilst simultaneously squeezing your stomach like an inexperienced bagpiper.

      I remember the first time that it happened to me.

      “Professor Fitzgerald,” Tabitha said , looking up with wide brown eyes.

      I fumbled with my papers. “Yes m’girl?”

      “Professor Fitzgerald,” she repeated. “You seem to be a very important man. May I ask what it is to which your studies pertain?”

      I blinked, not once: but twice, because that was not what I had been expecting her to ask. Nor would I have been willing to hazard a guess.

      “I, uh…” fumbled with my words. Perhaps if she looked away from me for a second I would be able to collect my thoughts and form a coherent sentence, but she just kept staring. 

      We laughed about it later, of course; my colleagues and I.

      Alexander-in-Tweed slapped me on the back and he said:

      “At least she’s served us biscuits since, so none can claim you murdered her!”

      “Can you believe that she actually asked about your research, as though she could possibly hope to understand such a thing?” chortled Old Nelson Red Nose.

      “Now, now,” said Alexander. “Just because she is beautiful doesn’t mean she is stupid,” and then he added: “She was sent to us by the nearby Finishing School as some sort of… punishment, was she not? Perhaps we could offer to put on classes for the other girls. Offer to broaden their understanding of the sciences, if you catch my drift.”

      “Foolishness,” said Old Nelson. “That school teaches nothing but comportment and tea-pouring, and the girl has already proven to be inept at the latter. She would never understand the sort of work we do here–no woman would.”

      Science is the domain of great and powerful men such as me, I thought in Old Nelson’s voice. That was, after all, what he was really saying.

      “You’d have as much luck teaching a mouse to do mathematics,” said Mortimer Longface.

      “Or a tortoise to sing,” said Old Nelson.

      “A butterfly to swim,” said Mortimer.

      Doubtless they would have continued on with such stupidity for some time longer had I not interjected. I glanced across at Alexander and he looked back at me. He might have nodded, or I may have imagined it, but in any case I said:

      “The boy is right.”

      Nelson and Mortimer both sat with their mouths open and their eyes twitching, as though daring me to continue speaking.

      “Women have just as much right to an education as men. Perhaps they will even be able to bring some new thinking to the table. I propose we each draw up a selection of lectures on the fundamentals of our respective fields and invite the young ladies of the finishing school–and perhaps even their old schoolmarm–to attend.”

      Nelson and Mortimer looked flabbergasted; suddenly neither man could find the ability to speak. I would hear it from them later, no doubt. Across from me Alexander smiled and took a sip from his teacup.

      Posted in Stories | 0 Comments
    • Legacy Asylum

      Posted at 10:44 am by Michael, on February 24, 2020

      On a hill overlooking that great unwashed city called Legacy—that crumbled-down, tumbled-down metropolis—a single light flickers, behind a smeary, barred window. Beyond those panes of gloomy glass, in a room almost empty except for a bed and a dirty mattress, a Madman sits with his back against the wall.

      The walls here are green with mould and rot and damp that rises and lingers. It is a clinging, festering, fetid filth that cannot be bleached away. It is a dank and stinking foulness that constitutes more of the building than the stone and metal.

      This is Legacy Asylum: a forgotten building forever in darkness, shadowed by the unmovable Crags. The air is thin here. It is hard to breathe for more reasons than the stench. This is a place where the world has worn thin, like a threadbare blanket that is no longer any use in staving off the cold.

      Inside those buckled, twisted halls—amongst those darkened, blood-stained walls—the Madman crouches, with his knees tucked up against his chin, and dreams of worlds that could have been.

      The sky above the asylum ripples and blazes emerald green. Wind lashes the tiled roof and snakes down between the gaping holes to whoop and scream between the corridors. Somewhere a maddening droplet of water looms and swells. It drops and another follows: then another.

      There is only one place in all the asylum that these noises do not reach. Beyond a heavy dark wood door, the sounds outside all fall away and are replaced by the gentle crackle of a record player. The vinyl spins without cessation, the needle hard as diamond.

      The door opens and the Doctor—behind his heavy dark wood desk—looks up. His hands lie flat upon the desk, his knuckles swollen and sore with arthritis. The man is a giant, broad-shouldered, barrel chested. He wears a black vest, clasped tight with bronze buttons. His hair is dark, shot through with streaks of grey.

      “What now?” he asks the nurse as she shuffles through the door. Her face is obscured by a medical mask, her hair is covered by a white hood, her body is smothered by layers of drooping cloth.

      “The Madman is hungry,” she says.

      The Doctor balls one of his hands into a fist and strikes his desk. The sound reverberates around the office, loud yet stifled by the rows of books upon his shelves. “Then feed him,” the Doctor says through clenched teeth.

      “Of course,” the nurse bows—not with her head but her entire body. She opens the door just slightly so as to squeeze herself through and the noises from beyond come slithering in.

      The nurse collects a wooden bowl from an unwashed stack and makes her way downstairs. The basement is sealed behind a metal door that she unlatches. She travels down a few more steps but can go no further, for the basement was long since overrun.

      A pulsing grey wetness clings to the bottom of the stairs, the walls, the ceiling. It glistens in the eerie light. Throughout the mass protrude thick stalks that shed luminescent scales into the air.  They drift about like dust particles, illumined on a sunny day.

      Unsheathing a blade from the belt around her waist, the nurse cuts into the grey flesh of the deep-dweller. She sinks her hands into its moistness and pulls free a tangle of writhing, clotted veins. She deposits this slop into the wooden bowl. For dinner it will have to suffice.

       

      The Madman stands at rest against the wall. A metal helmet covers his head. It has been bolted to his skull with screws. The flesh of his face has taken on a peculiar stretched appearance as it attempts to adjust around the metal fixtures.

      He is used to it now. Occasionally the screws itch and the skin bleeds. But there are no mirrors in this place and the only time he ever sees his reflection is when he passes a puddle of piss in the corridor.

      In any case, the Madman does not know how he is supposed to look. If he had a life before the asylum, he does not remember it. It seems as though he has spent all eternity here, within these walls. He is like a animal raised in captivity—the wildness has been tortured out of him.

      Or so you would think.

      He wriggles and writhes in the straight-jacket. He gnashes his teeth. Now and then he wails into the darkness, utterly alone. The door opens and the nurse comes in. She is holding a bowl and even in this dim-darkness the Madman can see that the contents of the bowl are twitching, ever so slightly.

      “Eat,” the nurse tells him and drags a spoonful of the horrid grey stuff towards his mouth. The Madman does not resist. He bites down on the spoon and suctions off its contents with a noisy slurp. His teeth crunch the mass and he feels it wriggling down his throat.

      “Again,” the nurse lifts another spoonful to his lips. Then another. Oily grey smears have stuck to his chin and are clinging to the sides of his mouth. He grins—or something like it—and the nurse sees the pieces of the food still twitching between his teeth.

      The vomit is sudden and projectile. Somehow the nurse steps away in time to avoid most of it. The Madman erupts like a geyser, snickering amidst the coughs and wheezes. The grey undigested slop still writhes about in its pool of acid and bile.

      “After that showing, you’ll not eat again for some time,” says the nurse. Although, even to her, the words seem pointless. It is unlikely the Madman understands anything at all. As she hurries towards the door she can already feel the air around her change. A strange wind whips up within the cell, emanating from the Madman himself.

      She places her hand on the door handle. Behind her, something howls. She does not want to turn around—she does not want to see what he has conjured—but she cannot help it. Her glance is brief: she sees spiked metal poles, dry tangled weeds. Desert dust stings her eyes.

      Quickly she slips through and seals the door behind her. It is quieter beyond the chamber—the noises are those of the wind and the dripping pipes. But there is another noise now: the crackling of ethereal energy and as she heads towards her quarters she knows that she must be watchful.

      Although the walls make an honourable attempt at containing the psychic energies of the Madman their efforts are inadequate. The noxious flesh of the deep-dweller has already taken hold: the sky above the asylum ripples and swells with eldritch green energies. Each line in the sky is a gateway, a tear in reality created by the Madman’s mind; a tree appears from one of the cracks and drops onto the asylum’s already buckled roof. Dirt from the roots slides down the tiles and gathers in the sagging gutters.

       

      Away from the noise, the Doctor stands and studies the books upon his shelf. Contained within are stories of monsters and men, gods and legends, lists upon lists of gateways, doors, worlds, occult rituals and everything in-between. He is tired of waiting, yet he must continue to do so.

      Eventually: the right door will open and he will be able to go home.

      Posted in Stories | 0 Comments
    • Chatravati

      Posted at 11:31 am by Michael, on September 17, 2019

      The warm breeze carried with it the scents of the plateau below. It was an acrid smell of sweat and decay, of gunpowder and poison and of corpses that rotted in the sweltering heat beneath the thunderclouds.

      It had been said that the demons were constructing temples out of carcasses, enormous ziggurats of flesh and bone and face.

      Chatravati wiped his forehead with a stained scrap of cloth and looked out across the wasteland. He could scarcely believe it, despite having been here two weeks. The times before that were growing hazy and indistinct, a side-effect of time travel.

      Now, Chatravati fished for the card in his pocket and followed the familiar printed letters with his eyes. The Department had provided each member of Westcrest with a similar card detailing facts about the lives they had left behind.

      They had been instructed to read the cards frequently, lest they “lose synchronisation” with their future selves. Chatravati, an intelligent man, wasn’t sure what that meant. But it did provide him some small comfort to grip the card—a talisman from a future yet to occur—and to remember.

      Download the rest as a PDF (178KB) or keep reading below…

       

      Continue reading →

      Posted in Stories | 0 Comments
    • The Impossibility

      Posted at 9:31 am by Michael, on March 21, 2019

      The streets take on a different character at night. During the day the roads seem purposeful: vehicles crowd the lanes transporting goods and school children. But as daylight fades and the houses bloom—however briefly—like lanterns, each doorway inevitably plunges towards its own particular darkness.

      There is the droning of traffic somewhere, but not here. The sound lingers like a ghost recording, the radio of a distant neighbour. Context is stripped from the houses like the flaking paint and the overturned scooters resting in the tall grass. The footpath becomes an eerie mirror of long shadows that lengthen and fold in on one another like alien origami, all big heads and long fingers.

      Voices call back at me. “You alright mate?” and “Here, catch!”

      The sound of breaking glass rings out and the silence seems angry to be disturbed. Glass and beer, gilded bronze by the streetlights, glistens wetly near my worn-down sneakers. They are not the same as the ones I was wearing that night, but they may as well be. The feet inside of them are the same and—inside my skull—the same eyes are taking in the same view.

      Except, it’s not the same view.

      There are no broken beer bottles tonight; no laughter to defy the silence. There is only my own rasping breath and the tepid breeze and the dark, empty streets of my childhood. And there’s something else as well—a nagging sensation that I’m doing something wrong simply by being here.

      So much has changed in this landscape of my youth. Once familiar landmarks have crumbled into ruin. The painted signs on the local pizzeria are barely even readable. Has that much time really passed?

      On the street corner there is a new petrol station, illuminated like a spaceship. The crisp white interior stands in contrast to the washed-out sepia of the suburban night. I can’t see anyone working the counter and there are no cars at the pumps. The building seems totally indifferent to my shuffling footsteps.

      Afterwards, I stop to look back at it. Time has passed since I stood here last and, similarly, I have now passed the petrol station. Day has become night and somewhere (perhaps, during the mid-afternoon hours when everyone becomes sleepy) I began to get old. I became old. And staring back at that the glowing geometry brings all of these thoughts rushing out.

      It’s as though I’m looking through a window—at either the past or the future—I can’t tell. In a way the past and the future both seem the same and I am the only thing that has changed. In another way, everything has changed except for me.

      I keep on walking and, after a little while, the companions of my childhood return.

      “There’s no way she likes you man, keep dreaming,” says Johnny. He was the brave one. The one who all the girls liked. Johnny was the one who would stand up for you in a fight, even if you turned yellow-belly and ran for the hills.

      “Can’t knock a guy for trying,” said Shane, fishing in his pockets.

      “She’s gonna think you’re a fucking creep, man,” said Tom, perpetually morose. He was the only one of our group who could have been considered cruel. The rest of us had heard stories about the things Tom had done before he came to our school, but mostly we chose to ignore them.

      “I wish we had more beer,” Johnny sighed.

      A car zooms past, but I can’t make out the face of the driver. Both of us are strangers in the night, out past our bedtimes. These dark streets are no place for people like us, and yet, here we are. The noise of the car banishes the phantoms and I am alone again.

      There is another sound now—rustling leaves. It’s a noise that is easy to miss in the daylight hours when there is so many other things competing for our attention. But now the sound seems almost overwhelming; it makes my skin prickle. There is something tantalising about it. Something dreadful.

      I walk amongst the trees for a little longer until I reach the school. I am surprised to see many of the same buildings remain as those that stood here twenty years ago, but they are not unchanged. Strange pipes and tubes and metal boxes cling to the sides of every building. I see a blinking red light beneath a cluster of aerials. It is as though the buildings are being kept alive on life-support.

      My footsteps echo back at me as I pass between the buildings, ignoring the reflections of myself that pass across each pane of dark glass. Beyond the last building I hear the CHK-CHK-CHK-CHK of the automated sprinklers that guard the football pitch, set into the ground like turrets.

      Back then we would duck and weave amongst the sprinklers like cavalrymen on training drills. Now I discover that I can achieve the same aim with almost half as many steps. I negotiate a winding trail between the sprinklers as they turn and blanket-bomb each new section. But the last wall of water turns out to be unavoidable and CHK-CHK-CHK-CHK…

      Whoosh. I am drenched in an instant. The recycled water smells funny. Heavy drips and drops tumble from my face like giant’s tears. My sneakers squelch through the wet grass, staining the tops of them green. Now they look a little more like the ones I was wearing twenty years ago.

      At the edge of the oval the football field backs onto the river. There is another new sound rising to join the chorus of the sprinklers and the rustling of the trees; the beginning of the day’s birdsong. The dark blue sky has been diluted as though somebody added cream.

      Gum trees border the very edge of the oval before it drops off towards the river. I make my way along the edge, looking down into the black water. We lost so many footballs here. We lost bicycles and G.I. Joe’s and probably other things I can’t remember.

      I wait for a while and watch the sun rise. I can’t see the sun itself as it’s obscured by the roofs of the houses on the opposite side of the river. But I can see the colours change; the little shapes of TV antennas and weather-vanes gradually becoming more distinct.

      “Hey,” says a voice, but I know it’s not really Johnny. I think that those are the last words that I ever heard him say, but I don’t ever want to be sure about that. “You coming?” he asks and it’s a good question. A relevant question. It stirs my feet into motion.

      The descent to the river is steep in parts, forcing me to take care as I traverse the narrow path that winds down to the riverbank. I step across fallen tree branches and places where the ground drops suddenly and unexpectedly away to the dark water below.

      At the bottom of the path, near the water, I come to the little hidden grove filled with flowers. This is where Johnny once prodded a beehive, forcing us to flee back up the path, screaming and flapping our arms. But there are no bees here today, at least, none that are awake.

      And at one edge of this hidden place is a wall of thickly overhanging foliage gathered like a curtains. I part the leaves and extend my foot to the first stepping stone. I stride across the rest, stepping directly over those that are too close together to be comfortable for the length of my grown-up legs.

      There is a stormwater drain hidden by the foliage and nestled into one narrow cleft of the river bank. “Hey,” says that voice again. “You coming?”

      I’m not, but they don’t know that yet. I don’t quite understand how that’s possible considering all of this happened already. I’m not going with them. At the time of course I couldn’t have imagined the finality of that decision.

      The wind picks up again, the leaves rustle even louder. There is something of a lusty whisper in the voices of the trees down here beside the river.

      I shake my head at the vision of my young friends and they look through me. I suppose they can’t see me—they are ghosts, after all. Or perhaps that’s me. I open my mouth to speak, but from beside me, my younger self does it for me:

      “I’m going home,” I say. “I need to crash.”

      “Fucking loser,” says Shane, but there’s no malice in it. It’s just the way we were.

      “We going?” asks Tom, who was always the most eager to travel to the other side.

      “Yeah, come on.”

      They don’t try very hard to convince me and I still don’t know how that makes me feel. The rustling leaves seem sympathetic and the sound is soothing. I stand and stare into that pit of darkness where I watched my friends disappear—at those iron bars spaced too widely apart to reasonably keep anything out—and I try very hard to feel something.

      The storm water drain is cold and uncaring. The iron bars remain immutable, the cement mute. I wrap my fingers around those metal bars and press my face between them, blinking into the darkness and trying to remember how the smudgy shapes of my friends must have looked as they faded all those years ago.

      A scent comes to me then, not of river water or metal or stone. It is the lingering smell of that other place. Impossible, of course, and that’s exactly what we called it: the Impossibility.

      The smell muddles my thoughts and for the first time I seriously consider slipping between the bars and flinging myself into that unapologetic darkness. But only one other adult had ever tried to follow us through and afterwards, the school had needed a new social studies teacher.

      “Hey,” says a voice out of the darkness. But I know that it’s not real because it’s just how Johnny sounded then. I don’t know what he would sound like anymore. I don’t need to know.

      I turn my back on him and head back across the stones. There are a few bees buzzing around the grove now, but I don’t intend on disturbing them. The sun has just started to poke its head above the buildings and where the water was dark, I can now see lily-pads and reed rushes and the trails of things darting about beneath the surface.

      I can feel things as well. My feet feel uncomfortable in my wet shoes and socks, so I sit down to take them off. The sun begins to dry my hair and my t-shirt. I can smell the grass and I can hear that the trees are still whispering.

      For a while I feel like there is nothing else in the universe except for me. I am sitting at the very centre of everything and all events, memories and bumblebees are spiralling outwards from me. Hey, the trees whisper, you coming? But I realise that I don’t need to answer that question anymore; I already have.

      Something crackles at the edge of the grove. The boy standing there can be no older than fourteen or fifteen. He’s holding an overnight bag that’s no doubt stuffed with mundane objects from around his own home. Beyond the Impossibility, even empty chip packets are considered priceless artifacts.

      “Don’t worry,” I tell him and I try to smile. Voices come clamouring in as two more boys appear beside him. As soon as they see me their faces contort into similar expressions—terror and outrage that they should find somebody else here, in their special place.

      “Don’t worry,” I repeat, quickly dragging my wet socks over my feet and putting my sneakers back on. “I’m going.”

      The boys watch, distrust plain in their eyes. They don’t yet understand that they will be me, one day. My curiosity smoulders like embers. My foot pauses mid-step. I’ll just ask them one question. I’m sure they won’t mind just one.

      Unsurprisingly they are all still standing there at the centre of the grove, waiting to be convinced that I am gone for good before they dare to step across those stones and squeeze between those widely spaced iron bars.

      “Hey,” I say, sounding like a distant echo of my friend Johnny. “What… do you guys call it? My friends and I called it the Impossibility,” I tell them.

      “He knows,” says one of the boys without moving his mouth. I can tell that all three of them are unsure about how to handle things.

      “Never mind,” I tell them. “Just… be careful over there. Stay safe.” I almost add: “Come home,” but that seems like too much. I don’t want to jinx it.

      “We don’t really have a name for it,” one of the boys pipes up. “Nadjip says it’s a wormhole.”

      His feet shuffle in the dirt, I can tell that thinks that he’s said too much and I understand what it’s like to not want to share any part of that place with outsiders. His friends vanish into the foliage behind him, leaving us alone in the clearing. I decide to push my luck and ask him one more question:

      “Who’s the King?”

      The boy gives a barely perceptible shake of his head. His eyes go to the ground and he turns away from me, like the others had done twenty years ago. Dozens of conflicting emotions play out across his face and I know that he’s not going to answer. It’s hard to talk about that place—not just because you don’t want to, but because on this side of the storm water drain it quite literally becomes difficult. Even now, all these years later, my words feel like toffee that’s stuck to my tongue.

      “Never mind,” I decide that this has to be enough for me. I turn away from the boy and the Impossibility and start back up the path.

      “Wait,” he says. I turn and watch him fumble in his pocket and take out an inhaler. The whole scene strangely reminds me of Shane and the fact that he had always carried three or four loose cigarettes in his pockets.

      I ask him if he’s okay and he nods. “You asked… about the King?” he says to me between breaths.

      “It must be Westford,” I say, that was Johnny’s last name. It has to be him.

      But the boy shakes his head. I can feel my heart racing in my chest now, I can hear it rising to blot out all of the other noises that had blossomed around me as the day wore on: droning traffic, bees and birdsong, whispering trees and sprinklers like machine guns. Now: the sound of my own beating heart as the boy tells me that Johnny Westford isn’t the King of the other side.

      “It’s Tomas,” the boy says. “The Tyrant.”

      Something must change on my face because the boy begins to panic. “Please Mister,” he says. “You won’t tell anyone will you? Nobody can know, it’s…”

      I wonder who exactly he expects me to tell about a storm water drain that leads to another world. About Johnny the Brave and Tomas the Tyrant. About what really happened to my friends on the night they disappeared.

      “It’s important,” I finish his sentence for him. Although the word that I’m looking for is ‘impossible’.

      “Go on,” I tell him. “I won’t say anything. Catch up with your friends.”

      He looks at me uncertainly and shifts his weight from one foot to the other. Eventually he is unable to resist the weighty traction of that place that seems to offer so much to a young boy—no, a young man—that this side does not.

      As he goes I begin to realise that everything has changed. I didn’t think that I’d come here looking for anything; I’d been wrong. But it wasn’t my friends I’d been seeking… it was an excuse.

      An excuse to go back.

      Posted in Stories | 0 Comments
    • Tick

      Posted at 1:50 am by Michael, on July 16, 2018

      Tick, clunk, and all those other sounds of a dreary afternoon where the volume on the television is turned down to a barely audible murmur and the world outside the window passes by with the hiss of upswept rain: pitter-patter, whoosh.

      More rain meant less customers. Malin sighed (prettily, she hoped), adding another noise to the hazy daze. She wouldn’t mind having someone to talk to on a day like this, to have something new to occupy her mind for a moment or two… anything to save her from having to read about the grape-seed diet, another pregnant celebrity, or those awful copy-pasted horoscopes all over again.

      On the television screen behind the counter, a crowd of people were laughing, which meant that somebody had said something funny or that they’d won a prize. There was an advertisement about depilatory cream. Then another that showed a cat wearing a captain’s hat. The cat was singing a song about fish and the open ocean. Then that commercial gave way to yet another: claiming NOW was the time to get the ripped abs you’ve always dreamed of.

      Malin leaned against the counter and inspected her fingernails, distracted for a moment by the way the french tips caught the sheen of the hanging light above her left shoulder, burnishing half of each nail in golden light.

      Tingle. That was the sound of a customer, the wind howling as the door opened and quickly hushed into obeisance as it whispered closed. Malin saw his shoes first. Black, almost featureless boots. He also wore grey-black pants and a lumpy brown jacket that bore dozens of strange patches. The patches looked like little flags, but seemed to be the wrong shape.

      Rain sluiced off of him, leaving a river in his wake. He had dark-grey hair and a few scars, but it was impossible to tell his age, other than that he had to be somewhere between thirty-five and ancient. Malin smiled at him, or at least she tried. But she could tell that his was a face unaccustomed to smiling: his eyes simmered with a strange keenness.

      “What can I get you?” she asked as the man came closer. Then he became distracted by the television. The commercials had ended and the screen now showed talented children with talented pets.

      “Excuse me, Miss,” said the stranger. “Would you mind switching to the news?”

      Malin complied. “Sure,” she said. “But only if you buy a coffee, or something to eat.
      The muffins are good.”

      Malin pushed a button and the picture on the screen changed to that of a deadpan face reading from a teleprompter. Diplomatic bungles, struggling families, a medical technology break through, a medical emergency. Next… sport. After that, the weather.

      Malin sighed (prettily, she hoped) and turned back to the customer. She didn’t care if his was a face unaccustomed to smiles, because hers was not.

      “The… muffins, you said?” the man was giving the appearance of speaking to her, but Malin could tell that he was really watching the television out of the corner of his eye.

      “Blueberry are my favourite, but we also have pumpkin and spinach, wholemeal, chocolate, mixed berry, choc-chip, and…” her voice trailed off as she realised any pretence that the man was still listening had slipped away. He was staring over her shoulder at the television screen. Gradually Malin’s awareness tuned into the tinny voice playing from the televison speaker, not deadpan anymore, but sounding somehow different…

      We’re not sure what to make of these reports, but… bear with me, we have a lot of reports coming in. It seems like there has been—unconfirmed—explosions and… sightings? In several places now, and…

      “He found us,” said the man in the jacket, in a way that made it clear he was not talking to Malin. Talking to yourself was the first sign of madness, that’s what Malin’s old Nana used to say.

      “Who?” said Malin, her own voice sounded different to normal, as though it was playing from a second television in a different corner of the room. Images played out on the screen: engine parts floating in the sky, a distance shot of a field where black plumes of smoke were rising, and tall, dark figures stalking unnaturally towards the cameras.

      The man reached across the counter and grabbed Malin’s shoulder. Somewhere around here there was supposed to be one of those panic switches that you hit if you were being robbed, but Malin wasn’t sure the service was even connected anymore (and she was even less sure she was being robbed).

      “Listen,” the man’s breath rasped warmly in her ear. Up close Malin found that she could smell him, an unearthly mixture of war and magic. “You have just become the single most important person in the universe. I need you to do something for me, the next time this happens.”

      “Next time?” there was a noise outside now, a strange whirring chirping noise that
      was becoming louder than the wind. “I don’t understand, I…”

      The man kept talking, but Malin didn’t hear anything else. The front windows of the café exploded inwards, glass dicing through the air like a blizzard of deadly snowflakes. Malin was flung against the rear wall of the café. Muffins tumbled in every direction.

      Malin looked out through the front windows and realised the entire building had been
      lifted into the air. Now it was slowly being tipped on its side, so that the broken windows were directly below them; deadly shards glinting between them the ground below.

      Malin began to slide, as did tables and chairs and even the refrigerator that stocked cold drinks. Almost everything fell out of the shop, spiralling to the ground below. Somehow, Malin realised that the television was still playing:

      …act of terrorism or war, some are even suggesting…

      And then even the television was dragged out of its power socket, the cord whipping past Malin as it plummeted. She clung to the front counter and found herself staring down into the eyes of the stranger below. He was trying to pull himself up, but it was useless. Malin knew that she didn’t have the strength to help him and was forced to watch as his knuckles turned white and his grip began to falter.

      “Remember,” he said. “Next time.”

      – excerpt from “Malin”

      Posted in Stories | 0 Comments
    • Edgar

      Posted at 1:45 am by Michael, on June 25, 2016

      There: the ground moved. Grey mud shifted and a tiny pair of black eyes appeared amidst the slop. Edgar scooped up the crab, ignoring the ineffectual protestations of its claws and placed it into a hessian sack.

      A few steps away, the sea blustered and sprayed foam against the rocks. Edgar bowed his head, his eyes protected from the brine by the low ridge of his brow and his long, unwashed curls of black hair. He examined the mud, seeking more crabs.

      In the sack, some of the crabs struggled against the coarse cloth. Others fell docile as soon as they descended into that suffocating darkness. Pincers and shell struck out at each other, spiked legs were broken in the desperation for escape.

      But the crabs could not escape any more than Edgar could leave this beach. Walls of bleak, grey rock rose as far as the eye could see; black pebble beaches and winding, labyrinthine paths of ashen sand. And, of course, the vast grey sea that gushed back and forth from here to the very ends of the earth.

      Edgar went on scooping crabs out of the primordial sludge in which they lay—not asleep, not awake, simply waiting. Sometimes a sharp edge of shell would prick his skin, but Edgar’s skin had grown rough and he did not bleed. When the sack was full he slung it across one broad shoulder and made his way home, towards the darkly folding cliffs.

      Read the rest. (DRM-Free PDF)

       

      Posted in Stories | 0 Comments
    • Recent Posts

      • A House and a Tree and a Red Sky
      • 19042021
      • 12042021
      • 05042021
      • Forearmed is Foreword
    • Categories

      • Drawings (61)
      • Poems (43)
      • Mondays (38)
      • Fragments (36)
      • Philosophy (25)
      • Photographs (15)
      • Stories (9)
      • Housekeeping (8)
      • Personal (5)
      • Films (2)

Blog at WordPress.com.