by Julian Cheek
It wasn’t long before he sensed the ground beneath his feet start to level out and looking back, he saw his route still etched out between the planks of mist disappearing on up a hill, and further back, the same forest from which he had burst out in terror what felt a few short moments earlier.
As he looked back, his feet still carried him forward and again, he registered that something had changed. This time, however, this “change” was registered through his legs as he sensed that the ground conditions had changed from grass to sand. Looking down, his second shock of the day hit him as he saw that he had now stumbled onto what he could only describe was a path. A well-worn path and one whose “creators” could be anyone, or anything.
Again, fear crept into his mind like some unbidden squatter and (not for the first time) he had a strong desire to get out of there.
Logic got the better of his fevered imagination, suggesting that if he followed the path (carefully), there would be a chance that he could stumble upon habitation and perhaps, if anyone was there, they could help him get the hell out of here. So Sam, looking in both directions from which the path emerged, chose a route, turned right and started to walk down the pathway, all the while his ears and senses alert for the remotest sound that would enable him to try to find cover if necessary before whatever had made the noise discovered him. And today, he had had enough “discovery” to last a lifetime.
His wanderings took him down a dusty, wide path, well worn over the years. Some stones and small pebbles scattered into the undergrowth to the sides as if tossed there by some vehicle or something that used this stretch. The mist still clung to all the places he had not walked through, and now, looking back, he noticed that the path he was on had slowly been winding down with a long bend, such that the start of his path journey now lay hidden behind the curve of the mist wall on the opposite side.
Suddenly, and again, unbidden, he picked up a disturbance off in front of him. The blanket “grey” of the mist he had been experiencing so far, here, now seemed to hold a slightly darker form and this form was not going away, and, if anything, was getting closer. His “fight or flight” warning light in his mind flashed a lurid red and his first instinct was to dive for cover before whoever was approaching discovered him. But this form was not running or acting furtively. Indeed, if anything “it” was walking quietly, slowly, yet determinedly towards him. Strangely, as he had felt with this place before, this new form approaching seemed to “fit” in his mind’s eye and for the strangest reason, he felt drawn to whoever was getting closer. Too late now in any case. The form started to take shape and a young man became more distinct, walking up the path towards him, gazing to either side of the route, as if looking for something. He appeared to be a few years older than Sam, carried what looked to be a bow and a quiver full of arrows, and walked with a sense of “importance” (if that is possible). Eventually, this figure sensed Sam standing ahead of him and looking up, he stopped for a second and stared at Sam, disbelief, if anything, seeming to etch itself into his face.
Then he started running, running towards Sam!
If Sam had not been knocked down through shock yet, given all the stress levels he had experienced in the few short hours (already??) he had been here, what happened next was way beyond any comfort zone he had ever experienced.
Coming closer, Sam stuck on his spot as if rooted, the man seemed to change his face from shock to pure joy and a smile the size of the sun broke out and his arms reached out in anticipation to greet Sam. Sam of course, saw everything happening as if in slow motion. Who is this character? What does he want? Why does he seem to recognise me? All these thoughts rushed into his mind, overloading it and he was aware of a feeling of great dizziness descending on him.
And then…
“Sam! Sam! You have arrived at last! Babu told me you had arrived so I came out looking for you. Welcome, at long last, my dearest friend!” said the man.
Sam’s mind was just not able to assimilate all that had happened since arriving and, now with this stranger talking to him as if he was a long lost brother or friend, this was too much.
Sam felt a strong wrench tear through his body, seemingly from nowhere, and a pain greater than he had ever experienced rip through his mind, and the man, the path, the surroundings and the mist disappeared from view entirely.
Mother
Sam sat bolt upright, propelling the open book, which was on the bed, towards the cupboard, where it crashed loudly on the door before slumping to the floor. The quilt somehow managed to equally disappear in his thrashing and he came to, looking around desperately for any sign of this man who had scared the crap out of him!
The early morning stillness was all that greeted him as he gazed around, slowly getting his bearings. Recognition slowly creeping past his fear, he relaxed slightly as his familiar objects came into focus. There was his bedside table, his peanut butter sandwich, book, now on the floor, open but with the spine out of shape.
He breathed a deep sigh of relief, willing his breath to slow down. “It was just a dream,” he said thankfully. “A weird, messed-up, but very real, dream.” Relief overtook his fear and he smiled to himself thinking that whatever it was he had eaten the night before, was certainly to be avoided in future if that was the outcome!
Looking down, he focussed on the book, now abandoned on the floor. “That was what caused it,” he said. “No wonder I went off on a little trip. All that science fantasy is enough to mess up any decent sleep.” Thoughts of David, and that this was probably more a reason for his scary dream, had been successfully stowed away into the “Do not enter” part of his mind.
A funny thing, dreams. Even when your brain is convinced that it was all just imagination, you still find yourself looking around just in case a remnant of the dream has found its way into your world and is now resting behind a curtain ready to pounce when you least expect it.
Sam got up, stumbled out of his room, went to the bathroom and started his daily ritual once again. Light on, Close door (slowly and quietly), wake up on the loo with a quick go on Sudoku, no flushing allowed at this time of course. Careful washing of his hair over the cold bath, deodorant. Done.
However, today, the dream infiltrated his mind and he replayed parts of it in his mind as if trying to interpret its meaning as something significant. And it was this that really started to reinforce his normal day-to-day feeling of “invisibleness”. Just goes to show, he thought. Bloody rain waking me up, David’s book catching me unawares… He stopped himself thinking any further regarding why he was looking at David’s book in the first place. That particular stream was never to be crossed again. Never!
“I am lost!” said Sam simply. “Mist is my darkness, weird animal can only be mum and dad. And the boy! Well, what do you expect? Someone reaching out to befriend me? Yeah, as IF! Just a sick joke, really.” He scolded himself for thinking this, then turned that anger towards two people in the room next door. What do you care? he thought. I know my place. Know where I should be, and you make it so very clear who you would rather see at the breakfast table… He recognised his demon and, for the umpteenth time, he told himself to buckle up, close down and just get on with his day.
“Stupid dream anyway,” he said, as he left the bathroom and headed back to his bedroom to get changed.
As happened now on most days, since, well, since “they stopped living”, Sam shambled downstairs, rucksack hanging limply off one shoulder, jumper ruffled up against his belt, and he made his way to the kitchen to grab a quick bite to eat and try and get out of the house before his parents woke up and started their day by ignoring him.
College today, at least, held some interest as they were running a field exercise later on looking at chemical compounds and their respective reactions when brought together. This was one of his main interest groups, especially after he had demonstrated a particularly nice combination using pool chlorine and household disinfectant. He still laughed at that particular “hum-dinger”.
The college bus ride was uneventful as usual. He sat in his normal place, head down, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible. Every now and again, he would look out the window, staring aimlessly at the passing world, getting on with its business. Sometimes they would pass the newspaper delivery man who still insisted on throwing the papers onto the front porches of some of the houses, as if reliving bygone days. It was always nice to see how much his bike wobbled as he threw the newspapers in the general direction of the houses. You could almost sense him cursing under his breath as either a pothole, a puddle or just bad steering caused his legs to shoot out and his face take on a strained look.
But not today. Today it was just grey, cold and still raining. Hmm, he thought, maybe we won’t be having any experimentation outside today after all, if this weather continues.
Later that day, and as predicted, his chemistry lesson did not venture into a field lesson but instead proceeded to look at the molecular structure of glucose, which was about as exciting as watching crown bowls, he thought. Sam doodled out the graphical representation of a glucose molecule, putting “C”s “H”s and “O”s randomly on the page, but something did not “feel” right. Whilst he was happy that he, and practically everyone in the class, knew what blood sugar was, his diagram was wrong and, for some reason, what he had drawn tickled his inner perception.
He looked again at what he had drawn. A straight-ish line wobbled down the page, then turned through 90 degrees, then again and eventually, after a further kick, the line intersected the first, and the overall image looked to be describing a number 6. Strange! he thought. That is not how glucose is represented.
He continued to study this form he had drawn, something niggling at the back of his mind, until, with a shock, he realised what it was he had drawn. “This is my path I started to take in my dream,” he said with surprise. “Why on earth would I be drawing that?” He had surprised himself that something as trivial as a dream had got into his mind such that he was doodling elements of it. He looked up, furtively. The lecturer was otherwise occupied, his feet propped up on his table, eyes glued to a book or something. No doubt reading something other than the syllabus! Sam thought.
He looked again at the sketch and, with a shrug, decided to carry on drawing his route as best as he could recall. Why? He could not begin to fathom. Boredom probably, he thought.
His pen followed his line away from the original “6” now. He remembered going into the forested area, through a few kinks, exiting eventually at the pond. Oh yes. The pond! he remembered. “Silly idiot!” he said, reprimanding himself. Then on he drew, away from the pond now, down and down towards a path, with a bend, and then that stranger. He marked an “X” here. He had no idea why he was doodling. He had never drawn anything from his dreams before, but, he surmised, he must really be bored today, so he sketched away until the bell went, shocking him out of his musings. The class hurriedly packed away their meagre belongings and trooped out of the classroom, heading in various directions to their next lessons.
Sam forgot all about his doodles and went about the rest of his day, as he did on most. Wishing the day to end so he could just leave, and dreading the day ending as that meant he had to return home.
“Gird yourself, Sam,” he said to himself (not for the first time) at the end of the day. His bus arrived and whisked him and his college neighbours back to their respective homes.
“Mum. I am home,” Sam called out. Almost as a matter of course.
Dropping his rucksack near the door, he walked into the kitchen to see his mother standing at the sink. A statue, staring vacantly at the pots that lay there. Hands fumbling with a tea towel, her mind, for the moment, lost in whatever nightmare she was putting herself into this time. “Mum,” Sam said quietly, trying to get her attention. She looked up, coming back around, turning to him, her eyes trying to focus on this stranger who had come into her world, like almost every day before this, it seemed.
“Oh, hello Sam,” she said. “Dinner won’t be long. Dad has gone to get the papers so should be home…” Her voiced trailed away, as did her gaze. Sam saw what he hoped would one day be banished for ever; she was lost in a world with no doors and no form and she had forgotten that the “key” hung around her neck like a weighted anchor, right next to the locket she was now playing with. A locket, Sam knew, holding a photo. Just one.
David!
Sam turned away, partly to hide his frustration and hurt, partly because he just wanted to get away from being reminded of things all the time.
His dad came home soon afterwards. Stamping the rain and mud off his shoes with loud thumps and hanging his overcoat, still damp, onto the clothes rack at the door. He came into the living room, looked briefly at Sam, hesitated for a moment, and then continued into the kitchen where Sam heard him speaking to his mother. Just as if I wasn’t here, Sam thought. As usual!
Slowly dinner was laid out at the table. Sam wasn’t sure what it was. He had long given up asking, but tonight’s offering defied description. Some vegetables, chicken (?), gravy. Cold. Tired. Lifeless. Like this bloody house! he caught himself thinking.
And then….
“Are you going to stop staring at that and at least eat it?” said his dad, accusingly. “Mum spends hours slaving in the kitchen so you can have something nice to eat when you get home. Perhaps you should care a little, and then perhaps you could offer to cook once in a while, but I suppose that is asking too much?”
“I am eating it,” Sam said, not responding to the jibe just presented by his dad. It tasted horrible and mum certainly had not spent “hours” slaving away!
“You are not to leave the table until you have finished your meal,” said his dad, unhelpfully.
“I am eating it,” Sam retorted. “Leave me alone, will you.”
“Sam, don’t speak to your father that way!” he heard his mother say.
Here we go. Again! Sam thought.
“No that’s OK, love. Sam was just expressing himself in his normal “couldn’t care less” attitude. Weren’t you Sam?”
“Dad! I am here, eating this food, trying to enjoy it and I just want to be left in peace, please.”
“Peace!” said his dad. “Peace! Well I suppose it would be frigging wonderful if we could all have a bit of peace round here now, wouldn’t it? But unfortunately we are not allowed any peace, are we? No, we have to pretend that everything is just ‘tickety-boo’, that the day is just filled with wonderful things and we are all so very frigging happy!!”
His dad’s voice had slowly risen in volume and he was now starting to get red in the face, spittle and bits of chicken flying out from his mouth.
Sam, with little warning, exploded. “It’s not my bloody fault he died!” he shouted, venom in his eyes and anger in his voice. “Everything was just perfect for you two when he was around, wasn’t it? But I am so sorry that you are stuck with little sad me!”
“David,” shouted his mother, “How dare you?”
“I am not bloody David, MOTHER!” Sam screamed, throwing his chair back in anger. “Never was, never bloody will be!” he said as he disappeared upstairs, diving into his room and slamming the door with all his might.
Sam was too angry now to do anything rational. Looking around at something, anything to hit out at. Instead, he fell onto his sofa, grabbed his iPad, plugged the headphones in, and disappeared into his world of dubstep and heavy metal music, trying to drown out the scream from within. The mess around him scattered to either side.
Sam curled up and looked out at the now darkened skies beyond his bedroom window, still sensing the storm outside shivering his windows as his own personal storm threatened to break through his tinder-dry mind and leave him an empty husk.
WTF! Sam thought. All the bloody time! Just go on the way you are going, guys. I am so close to just blowing this place and then you can sort out your lonely little worlds by yourself.
With that, he tried to tune into the thrumming of the mus
ic playing through his headphones. Its deep, earthy beat tonight, somehow, lolling him into a place of comfort. Lolling him into another world.
A flickering in Rudhjanda
His sense of perception changed slowly. The thrumming was still there, but now it was as if it came from a far off place, muffled, uncertain, vague even. And, if truth be told, the more he thought about it, the more he came to realise that what he thought was thrumming, seemed now, if anything, to sound like distant drumming. A single, repetitive “call-to-arms” type of noise. Also, where had the music gone to?
He opened his eyes.
A slowly coalescing mass of greyness weaving in and out of focus greeted him. There was no sense of up or down, near or far, just a vast field of “moving greyness”. And utter silence all around such that the noise off in the distance slowly drew his mind into the here and now.
He stood in a spot with small rocks and thin grasses around his feet. Something about this type of location tugged at his memory, but, like the moving, sinuous field all around him, nothing fixed itself, other than a vague “awareness” of familiarity. He looked around, trying to gain any bearings of where “here” was, but the only pointer lay in the sound beyond, sometimes clear, as if whatever was making that noise lay within easy reach, sometimes distant, as if leagues lay between him and “it”. He sensed, more than felt, that it was very early in the morning, but apart from that, he was effectively senseless. He slowly started to move, heading in, what he thought, was the general direction of the drumming. The greyness draping over him and around him as he moved, like a thin veil, like mist.
