by Julian Cheek
Sam hit the soggy mud bank with a dull thud, bits of gunk spraying up as he landed.
He did not wake up in his real world. That’s odd! he thought briefly, as he lay in the mud pool, almost without pain. Maybe this is what death actually feels like, he thought in a detached sort of way. Maybe I am actually dying for real, and this is what it feels like. It’s not too bad really, I suppose.
His strange musings started to get hazy as the light around him started to fade. But nothing, not even being shot by an arrow and dying, compared to what he experienced next when, out of the corner of his eye, he was aware of a slight movement from under the bridge. Some variation in the shadows, which was not a shadow, detached itself from the bridge supports and slowly, ever so slowly, extricated itself from the security and safety of the bridge and started to move towards him.
A small, furry, sleek-bodied animal with a long sweeping tail moving slowly from side to side came towards him. His legs extended, Sam could see talons gripping into the mud. And once again, those large eyes, looking straight at him.
If Sam was not scared beforehand, despite being impaled or falling off a bridge, then for some reason, this form creeping towards him with menacing, inexorable, slow steps, set his teeth on edge and his deeply rooted and well managed fears exploded from within him and he realised, he was powerless to resist. Powerless to move. Powerless to do anything but just experience what was, for him, quickly becoming his worst nightmare.
The animal drew closer to him, looking in all directions, scanning for any danger but focussing on moving towards Sam. Closer, until his talons touched Sam’s feet. And then the creature started to crawl up Sam’s legs. Sam was beyond fright now. His lungs were pushing his chest cavity out and in like a trip-hammer against the foreign barb and his eyes were riveted to this creature working its way ever closer to his face. It moved now onto his torso, tongue flicking out to test the air. Sam saw those large, sharp looking fangs, and prayed to all and sundry, begging to wake up. But today, his “help” was otherwise busy and the creature continued its route up along his body until it stood directly in front of his face, looking down into Sam’s terror-filled eyes. Sam seemed to sense that this creature was looking at him as if questioning him, which was the last thing he remembered.
Sam’s world, at last, gave him some respite and he passed out. But as the light dimmed away to blackness, his last picture was of the creature looking back towards the arrow shaft sticking out of Sam’s chest and the animal turning towards it.
Sick
Sam woke up in a fright, sweating profusely and, as a reaction still to his vivid dream, sat bolt upright. A searing, gut-wrenching pain from his stomach almost bent him over double as he felt urgent pangs announcing themselves to him, and he quickly made his way to the bathroom where he promptly threw up. “Aargh!” he groaned. “I thought that meal last night was dodgy. No wonder I had such a horrible dream.” After a while, his heaving subsided and he just lay there, holding onto the seat of the toilet, allowing his thumping headache to sort itself out.
He slowly stood up and stumbled over to the sink, eyes bleary and mouth dry. Looking into the mirror, he saw a very tired, puffy youth looking back at him, eyes half-closed in tiredness, a twig stuck into the mess of his hair. How did that get there? he thought, and he unconsciously reached up to pull the twig from his matted hair. His fingers were filthy with blackness!
“What on earth!?…” he began. He looked down at his blackened fingers. They definitely seemed to have ash on them, although where that came from he had no idea. The “ash” was wet as if recently applied. Something in his subconsciousness pricked him and he felt a darkness close around him and tie itself around his stomach. He did not want to listen to the one “logical” explanation which presented itself to him. “There is no way that my dream and this can be related,” he said with some finality, and he promptly bent over the sink and washed the dirt off of his fingers.
“There. All gone!”
He turned back to his room, stomach still aching, and announced to himself, “I am staying home today. I feel too ill to go to college.”
He failed to notice the trail of mud on the floor from the bedroom to the bathroom and now back again. A trail of mud and ash in footprints. His footprints.
He entered his room, closing the door behind him and looked down at his sofa. His iPad lay on the floor, headphone lead trailing away to disappear behind the arm rest. The cushions all squashed with his tossing and turning that night. And then he noticed the dark stain on one of the cushions. A large, dark black stain, still glistening slightly and still attached by some miracle to his pen, and at last, parts of his addled mind connected some dots.
“That explains it! I must have fallen asleep on the pen, which then leaked onto my fingers and it was that that made the stain.” He could sense the relief as his mind made this picture fit with his logic and his panic eased as he allowed himself a laugh at his stupidity. He could then look at his dream in a detached otherworldly way. His thoughts turned to the strange creature he had seen, its alien-ness and yet, somehow, it was able to communicate with his spirit in some weird way. He thought about the destruction he had seen. It was so weird, he thought. Seemed so real a second ago. Now laughable and obviously made up. And with that, it passed out of his mind.
He heard his father clumping down the stairs, heavy breathing and huffing marking his path down to the front door and to his boring “do-the-same-every-day” day. Sam was about to relax when he heard his dad holler up the stairs, “Sam, get yourself out of bed and get to college. You are late and you don’t want me to come up there and get you up, do you?”
“No dad,” Sam said sarcastically under his breath, “wouldn’t want you to bust a hernia or something wasting the effort.”
Great, he thought. Despite my condition, he is forcing me to go to college. Nice one! Sam rolled back onto his feet, got dressed and eventually left his bedroom, came downstairs, grabbed an apple and went out, shutting the door behind him a little too loudly.
The bus had already left.
“Fantastic!” Sam said. “Now I have a twenty-minute trek and it’s bloody raining!” Pulling his hoody up over his head, he did what almost all students do universally. He trudged down the road, rucksack slung over one shoulder, disappearing into his own world of studying the grey footpath in front of him on this grey sodding day.
Cars, buses and trucks all passed by him doing their own thing on their way to who knows what.
And who cares really? he thought, scuffing his feet through yet another grey puddle. Who gives a stuff about any of this? We just get up, do our stuff, eat things, go to bed, and do the whole thing all over again. I mean, what is the point? Sam knew this conversation, as he had had it with himself many times, always with the same empty, silent response. His feelings and emotions this morning were already frayed, and pushing his boundaries yet further was pointless.
He entered the town retail parade and passed a number of shops, most still closed till later on, but one ahead of him was open. It seemed always to be open. Its bright warm yellow lighting inside beckoned. It was a lovely quaint café serving all day breakfasts with all the trimmings and steaming coffees and it was always bustling. “The owner never seems to sleep,” Sam mused.
Alice, the proprietress, was, for some reason, resting against the door post as he approached, cigarette drooping between her fingers and a lazy trail of smoke escaping from her mouth. She was watching Sam approach.
“Hi Sam,” she called. “Not the best of days to be walking to college?” Sam felt like he could think of a great retort to that comment, but something stopped him attacking her with his verbal diarrhoea. Alice always seemed genuinely happy to see him. One of the few, he thought. And, if anything, Sam always felt that she “had his back” in some unconnected strange sort of way. There was nothing becoming in her appearance, neither did she ever give him the idea that she was perhaps wanting his company. No. Instead, she seemed to h
ave an inner light that, he felt more than knew, saw him for who he was, and whilst he would never admit it, he did feel comforted when she said hello.
“Hi Alice,” Sam replied. “Woke up feeling ill, and got up late so I missed the bus and had no choice but to walk. My silly fault.” He tried his best to give her a smile to deflect her asking any more questions.
“Oh, you poor thing,” she cooed. “Let me at least send you on your way with an egg and bacon roll.” And without waiting for a response, she disappeared into the café, leaving the door ajar.
He entered. Keeping his head down and not looking to either side, in case someone else noticed him or wanted to engage in meaningless banter. He got to the counter and slid up onto one of the available bar stools to wait for his egg and bacon roll. His stomach, despite its earlier efforts to reject all forms of food, now gurgling with anticipation.
Alice returned from the kitchen, saw him and came on over, drying her hands on her apron. “So,” she started, “You are not feeling well? Maybe it’s the weather,” she mused. “This greyness always seems to bring out the worst in our bodies. But, we cannot let it beat us.” She said this last statement with conviction, and Sam looked up at her. “I mean,” she began, “Look at me. Last week I got so depressed at the constant rain, rain, rain that I had a few days to myself, went down to the coast and had a lovely time in a quiet house overlooking the beach and the waves. So peaceful and tranquil.”
The smell of the bacon was wafting over to Sam, who involuntarily licked his lips. Then Alice leant in towards Sam as if to tell him a dark secret. Sam, reflexively leant in also.
“And,” she whispered, “you will never guess, but I was befriended by this lovely animal whilst I was there.” She looked conspiratorially at him as if to gauge his response. Sensing none, she continued.
“There I was, walking along the beach, as I told you,” she continued, “when blow me backwards but out from the bulrushes to one side came this small furry animal, who poked his head out and looked right at me. Now I can tell you, I was shocked to say the least. I mean, creatures are scared of us humans, aren’t they? But here was this thing, looking right at me and it knew, Sam, it knew, that I had seen it, and yet it was not afraid.”
Sam nodded absently, thinking about the egg and bacon roll, and that he really should be getting on as the college did not take kindly to its students being late. Alice continued.
“So it shimmied out from the rushes and came towards me. Slowly, on all fours. It looked a little like a, well, I don’t know what really. A lemur perhaps. But it had these lovely furry small legs but incredibly long talons. I can tell you, they looked sharp!”
Sam, whose mind had already started to depart the café, quickly found that his attention was on her now, as the word “talons” was mentioned.
“Yes, furry, cute, sleek and unafraid,” she said. “That was the barmy thing. Unafraid! And those eyes! So large.”
Sam felt immediately uncomfortable. His stomach again starting to tie itself in knots. This explanation from Alice of the animal she had befriended now sounded all too similar to that weird creature who had scared the “Bejimini’s” out of him in his dream. He slid off the bar stool mumbling, “Sorry, I have to go,” and he moved quickly to the door and left.
“But you forgot your egg roll,” Alice said to his parting form, but Sam was already out of earshot. He therefore failed also to see Alice squinting out at him from the café window, eyes locked on his departing shape disappearing into the rain once more, a knowing look etched on her face and her fingers teasing an odd looking necklace between fingers and thumb.
Sam decided that he would rather face the wrath of his dad than go to college that day. He really did not feel too well, and, he argued, he could always say he really was not feeling too great. What could they do? he thought, banish me? Sam retraced his steps, back to his home and, on entering eventually through the front door, he called out, “Mum. It’s me.”
His mother could be heard scrabbling about upstairs, and it sounded as if she was in or near his room! “Mum!” he called, and proceeded to walk up the stairs. He found his mother kneeling on the floor between his bedroom and the bathroom, a pail of soapy water next to her, and her hands wrapped up in washing gloves.
“Sam Gilbert!” she fumed. “What on earth were you doing last night? How on earth did you get this place so dirty?”
Sam just stared at her with complete incomprehension. What on earth?… he thought. He had no idea what she was on about. “What do you mean?” he started.
“Bloody dirt and, and mud and leaves all over the bloody house and you left the floor in this state. Where were you last night?” Accusingly, Sam’s mother turned to him and glared. “As if I don’t have enough to do today what with Ken and Marjory coming over later,” she railed. “But No. Oh no, you have to leave this place looking like a farmers’ market, you slope off to college… Why aren’t you at college?” She stopped for a moment, trying to link his appearance with the fact that he shouldn’t actually be there at all, but, for the moment, her anger overrode this matter. “Sam, we all have so much to do round the house and I wish you would contribute more rather than leave everything to your father and me to sort out.”
That’s not fair! he thought, I am always trying to accommodate their ever-changing mood swings. “Mum,” he began, “I really have no idea what you are on about. I woke up feeling really rough this morning, I was going to stay in bed because I am not feeling well but dad told me to go to college, so I did. I was late, got to town, felt really ill and came back. That’s all. I haven’t been anywhere else.”
“You should be ashamed of yourself,” she continued, not really hearing him through her anger. “The floor was a state when I got up here, and I am the one cleaning it up. As usual.”
Sam was at a loss as to what on earth she was on about. He really had no clue as to why she was cleaning the floor. Why, for goodness sake? But all ideas drained away. Why does she think I was out last night? he thought. She must really be tripping! And with that, he unceremoniously mumbled an, “I am sorry!” but not knowing what he should be sorry about, but he always said sorry, so why stop now.
“Sam,” his mother responded. “Just show you care about this place. Even for a little minute. It’s hard enough as it is at the moment.”
Sam sensed where this was heading and did not want to get into yet another argument about a subject none of them wanted to acknowledge, so he went into his room and closed the door behind him.
“Ken and Marjory are over for dinner tonight,” she said, moving back downstairs. “I will leave you some food for later if you feel up to it.”
And that was it. No, “How are you, sweetheart”. No, “Sorry you are feeling ill”. Just, “We are having guests downstairs later on. You are not invited, but you can have the leftovers afterwards!”
“Nice,” said Sam. Not for the first time. He walked into the room, unbidden frustration bubbling to the surface, and caught his profile in the cupboard mirror. He turned to face himself. A youth of seventeen, trying to be older looked back at him, but with the eyes of nakedness he recognised all too well. His hair wet with the day’s rain. Eyes sunken dangerously into their pits. He recognised the look. You made me this way! he thought. Rejection, or feelings of the same, reflected back at him from his reflection, passive on the other side of the mirror. He knew he could not escape from this person. He was too honest, too real. Too full of self-loathing and punishment for now. He caught sight of his Xbox in the reflection, and went to turn it on, but today it was just as if the day had handed out all the goodies and he had missed all of them. It refused to start.
Sam breathed in slowly and deeply and his inner self berated him for all the things that had happened today, even those not remotely his fault. And, as often happened, these thoughts then externalised themselves and his anger about the injustice in his world bubbled over into action. He reached for an Xbox game, unfortunately within arms’ length,
and threw it with all his might at the wall, trying to focus all his anger into that small flat object.
He succeeded. The box bounced soundly off the wall and then went skating over the work table sending pens, papers, and his coffee mug flying, the coffee still in it spewing out over the wall.
“B-LO-O-D-Y TYPICAL!” he cursed. “Mum and dad are going to kill me after all this.” He glared down at all the pieces laying scattered on the floor, shrugged his shoulders and climbed under the duvet covers, resigned to doing what he should have done, what he wanted to do all day. He went to sleep. His last thought was, No one listens. So why should I?
Tangaroa (God of the sea, rivers and lakes)
Sam rolled over in his sleep, unconsciously moving the duvet up around his neck, sensing the furry smoothness as it gently caressed him. He wanted desperately to disappear into nothingness for a while but the distant sounds of the night nagged at him, pulling him away from oblivion. Something about his surroundings didn’t seem to fit and it tugged at his senses, refusing to let go. The noises were not from an outside he was familiar with. The sounds were definitely NOT cars, and since when was his duvet so soft and… well… furry?
He opened his eyes, looking straight up at darkened timber spars, flickering colours dancing around the shadows beyond, reflecting off the canvas of what could only be a tent. He was now fully awake and his hands moved down to feel this strange covering over him, as if to verify that he really was under a fur pelt. He became aware of the noise focussing to a dim throbbing coming from his right and he turned his head to try to seek the source. What he did not expect was to turn and come face to face with what could only be described as the grubbiest, smallest girl looking straight at him, eyes as large as planets studying his every gesture, who, on seeing his eyes open, screamed in a low guttural way, fell off an even smaller stool and stumbled backwards, legs bicycling furiously to get enough grip to turn herself around and out through a flap he now saw open to one side, yelling loudly for someone to come, and come quickly. A fire still glimmered on the sandy floor of his “space”, the red embers and glow showing that the fire had been lit some time ago. Lazy smoke curled upwards and out through a slot above, as if undisturbed by the commotion around it.
