by Mark Oliver
As he drove along the winding country roads, the heaters blowing warm air against his chest, he smiled. Cruising the South Wales roads enveloped in classical music was one of Charlie's secret pleasures. If his mates knew about it, he would never hear the end of it. Rugby players listened to rock, not Rachmaninoff.
Behind him lay his pride and joy, his custom shaped single fin. He stole a glance at the dark wooden board, custom made by Otter, the finest shapers in Cornwall. It had cost him almost a grand, a mammoth chunk of his surf trip savings. But it was worth it. The board rode like a dream.
He turned his eyes back to the road and put his foot down on the accelerator pedal. A wave of optimism hit him. He just knew in his bones that a great weekend lay ahead and that despite his initial fears Amy would have some good news for him.
While he swerved the van through rolling fields, he hummed along to the music, waving his right hand out of the window, conducting the cows and sheep he passed on his way to the Gower Peninsula.
Chapter 2
"It's over, Charlie," Amy said. She had to raise her voice to compete with the cacophony of noise inside the Kombi. The indie pop blasting from the van's speakers, the pasta sauce bubbling away on the stove, the waves crashing outside and the rain slamming down on the van's roof all combined to make conversation a near impossibility.
"What was that?" Charlie stirred the sauce with one hand and cupped the other around his ear.
"I said," his girlfriend was screaming now, her brown fringe rocking side to side, "It's over. I'm breaking up with you."
Charlie stood at the stove. The wooden spoon hung limp in his hand. "Why?"
Amy turned an ear towards him and pointed at it. She was a pretty, rosy-faced girl, with the dimensions of a forest elf.
"Why?" Charlie shouted.
She shook her head, squeezed past Charlie to get to the front seats and switched off the music. "Let's sit down and talk about this like adults."
"I'd rather stand."
"So be it." She sat down on the bench beside the stove. The wood creaked with age. She folded her arms across her chest, and raised her chin, revealing the smooth, pale, elastic skin of her throat. "I'm moving to Japan on Monday to teach English."
"Japan?" Charlie distantly remembered her saying something about Asia one night. He thought she had been joking.
"Yes."
"This Monday?"
"Yes."
"But what about me?"
"Look Charlie, it was fun while it lasted. But let's be honest, it was never really serious between us."
Charlie raised the spoon, splattering himself in Dolmio pasta sauce. "I thought it was serious."
Amy laughed. "Charlie, nothing in your life is serious." She waved an open palm at Charlie. "I mean look at you."
Charlie looked at his tomato stained shirt.
"You're cooking pre-made pasta sauce in a hippy shit heap. That's how serious you are."
"What do you mean shit heap? The love mobile-"
The girl glared at him. She had never liked the van's moniker and the connotations it made whenever she spent an evening inside it.
"The love mobile," Charlie continued, "is a classic, a corner stone of German engineering. Plenty would give their right arm to have one of these sitting in their driveway."
"Well, they're arseholes."
Charlie stared at her. Who was this woman? What had happened to his lovely, indie chick girlfriend? Charlie searched his mind for the right thing to say, trawling though the half-remembered articles he had read in Marie Claire and Cosmopolitan while he waited for Amy to get ready. Surely, he thought, there must be something I can say to bring my sweet Amy back, and banish this cold-hearted she-devil I see beside me.
"It's not the van," she said. "It's you."
Charlie exhaled and sat down on the bench next to her.
She placed a hand on his thigh and looked up at him, her brown eyes no longer angry. "When we met in the third year, all you talked about was the surf trip you would take after you graduated. The great six-month trek around the beaches of Sri Lanka, Indonesia, and Australia. You were so excited, you convinced me to stay in Swansea until we got the money together. You promised me we'd leave the Spring after we graduated. Spring came and went and so did Summer. Now it's Autumn and you look no closer to leaving than you did back then."
"I just need to save a bit more."
"That's bollocks, and you know it. If you really wanted to go, you could right now. It only takes a month to get a working holiday visa for Australia. And if you don't want to pick fruit, getting a teaching job in Indonesia is just as easy. You've got your degree. That's all you need."
Charlie shook his head. "But-"
"No buts Charlie. I'm twenty-two. If I don't go travelling now, I never will. I'll be stuck, forever, in a crap job, in a crap office, in a crap town with even crappier weather, where the most I have to look forward to is a crap meal with my crap boyfriend in his crappy van."
"What are you talking about? Swansea's a great place to live."
"Yeah, if all you want to do in life is surf, play rugby and drink with your housemates like a bunch of students." She shook her head.
"Those guys are the only family I've ever known. These last four years have been the only time in my life I've felt any kind of stability. I told you that."
"I know shifting around dozens of foster homes was a crappy way to grow up. But I can't believe you're willing to do a job you hate, and miss out on the whole wide world out there, for this." She indicated the van with a wave of her thin arms.
"It's just a temp job. As soon as I get enough money together I'll take that trip."
"Quit kidding yourself, Charlie. You'll carry on like this until it's too late to do anything different."
"No."
"Yes. In five year's time, you'll be living in the same student house, working full time at Hawk. Only, you'll be a little fatter, and," she eyed his hairline, "receding."
"What did you say?' He said, placing a tentative hand against his hair. That was a low blow. His long surfer locks defined him. Without them, he'd be half a man.
"You and your hair. It's bloody ridiculous. You care more about it than me."
The anger in him made him want to lash out and hurt her. What should I mention first, he thought, her girlish obsession with boy bands or her moustache, faint, admittedly, but there all the same. In the end, the anger passed as quickly as it had arisen, and he said nothing.
"I'm sorry," she said, "let's not hurt each other anymore. You're a good guy Charlie." She rose from her seat and cupped his cheek in his hand. "One of the sweetest, kindest, gentlest men, I've ever met."
"But it's not enough." Nice guys really do come last, Charlie reflected, dismally.
"How about we call it a break," he said, sensing hope." And when you come back, we'll get back together like nothing happened."
She leaned down and kissed him. "Goodbye Charlie," she said, pulling away.She pushed the back doors open and hopped to the ground outside.
The girl shuffled, shoulders hunched against the rain, to the Nissan Sunny, parked a few metres away. While she struggled to unlock the door, the rain soaked her shirt, causing the wet fabric to press closely against her firm breasts. Farewell sweet boobs, Charlie said to himself.
Once inside, she started the engine and from behind the swishing window wipers, raised her hand. Then, she drove away.
Charlie stepped out of the van. Through the falling curtain of rain, he watched the Nissan's taillights disappear into the night.
He sighed, and turned away. Before him lay Broughton Bay. He stared out at the sea. The moon shone full and heavy in the sky, bathing the beach in its white glow. The storm had brought a good sized swell and now rows of curling waves lined up to break against the central beach break.
Charlie smiled at the view. Was there anything more beautiful than the sight of waves crashing in the moonlight? He doubted it. Still, it was too cold to be stood outside
in the rain, so he turned, ready to climb into the warmth of his van. The moment called for a nice cup of tea.
But as he placed his foot on the rear step, a scream shot out across the beach. He froze. The wind howled. For a second it drowned out everything. It went still. Again, came the scream.
Yes, thought Charlie, it's defiantly a scream. Someone's out there. He shuddered. Someone's out there, alone in this monster swell. They don't have long.
He scanned the car park. But his was the only vehicle there.
"Fuck." He leapt inside the van.
It took him two minutes to get into his wetsuit, grab his board and race down to the water's edge. The wetsuit had cost him valuable time, but then he doubted he would last long out there in just his briefs.
He scanned the water. The rain stung at his eyes as he searched. His heart pounded as the seconds ticked by, without a sighting.
Then the scream came again, and Charlie saw a flash of white in the water. He sprinted into the water, throwing the board out in front of him. The wooden board skidded across the water's surface and he dived on top of it. His momentum pushed him over the first wall of white water.
Head down, he pulled his arms through the water, paddling as hard as he could towards the drowning man or woman. Through gaps in the wind, the scream pierced the sky. Charlie used it to guide him.
As he got further out, the waves came rushing at him, thick and heavy. He duck dived through them, breaking out the back of each wave without slowing. Every dive sent icicles through the back of his eyes and left his lungs singed cold. He gritted his teeth against the pain and paddled on.
And then in the distance, he saw it, the bobbing whiteness that had caught his attention from the beach. He slapped the water in disbelief. What a mug, he thought. What an absolute bloody mug.
For there before him, rocking and back and forth as the waves rolled under it, floated the bloated, decomposing body of a dead dolphin. What Charlie had taken for a scream was in fact, the angry calls of the sea gulls fighting over the poor animal's remains.
Here I am, he thought, freezing my arse off, risking my life, for a dead dolphin. Despite his love for these kindred ocean spirits, he laughed out loud. Soon his whole body shook with laughter. What a fucking day, he shouted, loud enough to scare away some of the gulls.
When the laughing fit subsided, Charlie looked around. The wind had grown steadily weaker and the waves were holding up nicely. He smiled, as it dawned on him that he had all of these waves to himself, a first in this day and age of British surfer kids.
He took his first wave perfectly. On the second, he mistimed his take off and tumbled down the two-metre high face of the wave. The impact knocked the wind out of him and left him rattled.
He let the next three waves pass, while he collected himself. Then he launched himself onto the final and biggest wave of the set. He slid down the wave, a falling man atop a six-foot plank of wood, smiling as the water rushed and rolled beneath him.
The wave went on and on, each time it looked like collapsing, it would change its mind and hold up letting Charlie continue his charge down the line. Time seemed to stretch. Charlie glided across the moonlit runway, deciding how best to finish his ride.
In the end he opted for an air. He had spent the last four surf sessions practising his somersault boosts and the speed, and shape of this wave called for a gymnastic close.
To pick up speed, he pumped his back leg, pushing the board faster and faster. When the shoulder of the wave lay a few metres ahead, he executed a hard bottom turn. Charlie shot up the face of the wave. The moment the board left the wave, he twisted, bringing his feet and board over his head.
As he hung upside down, he visualised bringing his feet back down beneath him, landing the board on the back of the wave. But instead of replicating his mind's projection, his body and board remained in mid-air. Like a paused DVD, Charlie had frozen in time and space.
What the hell, he thought, raising his eyes to look at the water beneath him.
In a flash of white brilliance, sky and water became one. He closed his eyes against it and a electric bolt shot through him, filling him with the bitter tang of lemons.
Cautiously, he opened his eyes. Beneath him the ocean had vanished and in its place flowed an infinite waterfall of white light. Charlie stared down at it, disbelieving what he saw.
And then gravity returned and he was falling, plummeting head first into the light.
Chapter 3
From behind the one-way observation mirror, Doctor Sree frowned. The purple skin of his forehead contorted into a column of V's. The jagged line ran from the centre of his hairless head into a black mono-brow. Beneath the length of curling hair, intelligent eyes shone darkly.
The Corporation's leading scientist took a deep breath and then exhaled. The air came rushing through his narrow nostrils, twisting and turning to create a sharp bird-like whistle. It was a noise that drove those around him beyond annoyance to outright anger. But at that moment he was alone and could breath through his nose as much as he damn well pleased.
As he breathed the cool, recycled air luxuriously through his nose, he stared through the window at the interrogation. On one side of the room, Executive Ko, the Corporation's head of anti terrorism and superstar interrogator, paced back and forth like a caged beast. The female silver had risen to the upper echelons of the Corporation in a matter of years, her fierce ambition helping her overcome her terrible disfigurement.
At the other, pinned to the X-shaped torture frame, hung the suspected terrorist the destroyer had picked up en route back to Seenthee.
Doctor Sree stroked his bushy moustache, and ran his scientist's eyes over the young male suspect. He was naked from the waist up, the top half of his black synthetic suit having been torn away.
He looked different from the usual riff raff that joined the Turen Resistance. He had the light brown hair and green eyes of Corporation's ruling elite, but his skin lacked their metallic silver sheen. In fact, the scientist had never seen skin like it. It shone the colour of moonlight. He wondered if the rest of his skin looked the same.
Whatever his appearance, the suspect had been putting up some fight against the executive's questioning. The interrogation had begun two hours ago and Ko had built her reputation as the Corporation's primo interrogator by breaking terror suspects within half an hour.
The woman marched back and forth in front of the prisoner. Her smooth, rigid, wax face gave away nothing. But the scientist could tell from the screwed up shoulders, and jaunty movements that behind that terrible face she was raging.
The alien woman paced around in front of him. As she moved, her tightly packed muscles flexed and rolled beneath her skin-tight uniform. With her scrapped back hair and taught body, she looked to Charlie like some silver skinned demon gymnast. Around her wrist she wore a gold bracelet. Every now and then she would bring it close to her lips and whisper something too quiet for Charlie to make out.
She took a few steps towards Charlie. "Don't lie to me," she said, her voice high and whiny like a spoiled child's.
Charlie closed his eyes against the spray of spittle that accompanied the woman's words. The desire to rub his face dry overwhelmed him. But his hands were cuffed to the frame above him.
"I'm not lying," he said, though he knew it was useless. He had been saying those words, over and over. But this strange silver woman with the burn victim face refused to believe him. "I told you, one moment I was surfing and the next I'm here strapped to the wall with you shouting at me."
"Liar," she screamed and reached for a syringe lying on the tray beside her. It was full of a blood coloured liquid.
"Please," Charlie said. "Please, not again."
Each time the woman grew frustrated she would inject him with the red fluid. And then for the next five minutes his arms, legs and backs would experience the most gut wrenching cramps and his face and testicles would burn as if singed by a thousand Bunsen burners.
; The woman stood before him. She was about the same height as Amy and had to peer up to make eye contact. She held up the syringe so that he could see the thick red liquid swilling about inside it. A single strand of brown hair had come free. It hung, like a question mark, above the vacant space where her left eyebrow would have been if she had eyebrows.
"Please," he said, "Everything I said is true. My name's Charlie Scott. I'm a British Citizen. I'm from Bristol in England."
Arctic eyes studied him. They were the only part of her face that betrayed any emotion. Right now, he could see hatred, but most of all annoyance.
"But you see, Mr Scott, if that really is your name, you cannot be from Bristol or England. These places do not exist. Nowhere on our planet, or even on Poklawi, is there a country called England, or a zone of habitation called Bristol."
"I'm not from your bloody planet," Charlie said, brimming with frustration. "I'm from England. You must know it. We're speaking English right now."
She shook her head, as if addressing a foolish child. "You are making this up in an attempt to hide your true identity, and your reason for being out in the Wrake Pass." She held the syringe an inch form his eyes. "And that displeases me."
Her jaw dropped open, revealing her tiny child's teeth. Then as if controlled by a motor her jaw began to shudder. The shaking jaw sent a shiver down his spine. It scared him even more than the woman's corpse face, for he knew it shook from excitement. The woman enjoyed hurting him.
Charlie stared passed his torturer to the series of portholes running along the side of the room. Beyond them, millions of stars twinkled in the endless darkness of space. He picked a star.
The needle pushed into his neck. As the burning liquid rushed into his veins, spreading its pain throughout him, he concentrated on his star. Through the pain, he prayed to whatever mystical force had brought him to this terrible destination, pleading for it to send him back to where he belonged, back to beautiful rainy Wales.
