by Paul A. Rice
Ken had very rarely seen George portray any fear, but this was one of those times. George definitely looked to be more than, in his own words, a little ‘perturbed’.
Michael, who had remained quiet throughout the whole proceedings, asked George a question of his own. ‘How much time do we have, when must we go?’ he said, looking around at the others.
George’s answer once more reminded them of what the old guy considered to be ‘a little time’. Looking down at his notes, and then stacking them neatly by holding the sheaf of papers upright and tapping the bottom against his desk, he laid the straightened pile to one side, and said, ‘By this time next week it should all be over, yes, certainly within a week, with a bit of luck.’
Total silence fell over them.
‘This time next week…’ Ken shook his head at the thought. He knew that if his long-dead friend Geordie Mac had been here, then the King of Comedy would have said something like: “Marvellous, that bloody answer was about as welcome as a French kiss at a focking family reunion!” Yeah, Geordie would have had a field day with some of George’s quaint little understatements.
Instead, Ken looked at George and asked: ‘What do we need, just ourselves, or should we take some guns along, to be on the safe side?’ His mind still twitched. ‘This time next week…’ Ken felt like he would have easily been able to sleep for that long, and would quite happily have accepted at least another month in preparation time, perhaps six months, maybe a year – or possibly forever.
George nodded and replied. ‘Yes, perhaps you should be armed as there may still be some resistance,’ he said. ‘We don’t know if your weapons can be used once you are amongst the mist. That will be something we have to discover along the way.’ He held his hands up in acknowledgment of the fact that his answer wasn’t a definitive one.
In summary, they were told to be ready first thing in the morning and to take whatever they needed. But, apart from making sure they were dressed warmly, they were to travel lightly. Michael then asked another, very sensible, question. That particular question, and its answer, changed everything.
‘Can’t the others come with us? You know: Frank, Jack…all those other guys, the ones who helped us out – why can’t we all go and kick his arse properly, did you see those laser-cannon thingamajigs?’ Michael’s eyes widened alarmingly as the memories of the flittering green fireballs returned to him.
Ken and Jane turned to stare at him, they hadn’t even thought about the possibility. Yes, why not? Surely they would be better off sending fifty, or more, people to have the big fight, especially ones who obviously possessed considerable experience when it came to having a good battle with a certain ‘Mr Dark One’. Yes, why the hell not? It was then that George proceeded to show them the one final piece of his incredible jigsaw puzzle.
‘Although that would be very useful,’ he said. ‘Yes, a band of heavily-armed Hunters would be quite useful, I am quite sure! However, that is not even remotely possible. Most of the people whom you have come to know here in the town, in this dimension, do not actually exist – they are nothing but ghosts.’
Once again the deadly silence fell over his audience.
He continued. ‘Most of them are here, but only in the way in which your eyes want them to be.’ Seeing the completely blank expression upon their faces, he said, ‘When you walk down the street and see Mister Adams’ overgrown hedge, your brain tells you that it must be due a trim in the near future, correct?’
They agreed, silent nods indicating as much.
‘Well,’ he said. ‘Then, as if by magic, next time you walk past that same hedge, lo-and-behold, it has been trimmed! But did you actually see anyone carrying out the task, did you, ever?’
There was no answer to that insanity-inducing question.
The truth of the matter, when they thought about it, is that they’d never seen anyone clipping the hedge in question, ever.
George said, ‘Jane, when you go into the store to do some shopping, who is it that you expect to see?’
Ken noticed Jane squirming, the answer to the rhetorical question, which she was about to give, was not one she herself wanted to hear. Taking a deep breath, Ken’s wife said, ‘When I go into the store, George, I fully expect to see either Frank, or Jack, behind the counter – who else would there be?’ She glanced at Ken and then looked back at the old man who was currently in the process of frying her brain.
Ken saw Jane mentally stuffing her fingers into her own ears and humming loudly, just long enough to avoid hearing George’s reply, he kind of felt like humming along himself, this was getting too near the brink. Ken felt the edge sliding towards him. ‘Yeah, humming would take care of that nonsense,’ he thought. ‘Lalalala-laa-laaa…’
It was about then when George really fucked him up.
‘Kenneth, please stop singing…’ he barked. ‘This is vitally important!’ The old man spoke sharply, and by the gleam in his eye, wasn’t in the mood for any further bad behaviour.
Ken jerked upright in his seat and stopped his mental humming right away. He had a vision of being told to come to the front of the class and having to hold his hand out. Ken saw George swishing the ruler down – hard! In an uncontrollable reply, he said, ‘Ouch! Sorry, George, it’s just that, uuh…I mean, what the hell are we talking about here? Frank and Jack are there, we’ve seen them, every day we’ve seen them – they were here last week, for God’s sake!’ He sat there feeling like the class dummy, one who would be nursing a sore hand.
That was when George gave it to them, right on the chin, no holding back, no more games. ‘Well, they are not there, not in this dimension they are not,’ he snapped. ‘All of these people are nothing more than a figment of your own imaginations!’
Ken saw Jane and Michael glance at each other, as their eyes met and the dreadful realisation dawned, he saw them both pale. With her face turning deathly white, Jane reached across and gripped the young man’s hand. Michael’s eyes were as wide as full moons. She whispered, vehemently: ‘Don’t you worry a bit, Mikey! You, me and Ken, we are all here, we’re here, look – feel me! I’m as real as they come! Ken?’ She reached out with her other hand and fumbled for Ken, whilst staring deeply into Michael’s eyes.
Ken placed his hand over hers and then reached across and placed his other hand on top of their two clenched fists. ‘Yeah, I’m right here,’ he growled. ‘And so are you two, right here, living and breathing and sitting at this table. I don’t know where we are, but I do know that we’re here. We are!’ He looked up at Red and the others.
That big, white truck, that one with the word, ‘REALITY’ written in large, red letters running down its sides, appeared and headed straight for him. The bastard wasn’t going to stop, either. Ken sidestepped the behemoth and then took a few seconds to shake off the fear and anger, which the dust of its passing had covered him with. Staring at Red and his family, he said, ‘We are here, aren’t we, Jane and Mikey, me…we are here, aren’t we? Tell me!’ He gripped those hands tightly.
The three to whom he’d addressed the question, nodded in silence.
Tori said, ‘Yes, yes, you are here, Kenneth. Yes…’
She stared at him without blinking.
He saw her eyes swirl, brilliant light starting to come forward.
Ken looked away and breathed deeply, his mind was back in his own possession and he felt the anger flaring inside his chest. The little flame of discontent was about to expand to become a wildfire of livid resentment. He didn’t need that right now, he needed clear thoughts, not white-hot anger.
He breathed out, paused, and then said, ‘But, you lot aren’t here, are you? And you never have been here, have you? Not really!’ He nodded menacingly toward them. He heard Jane take a sharp breath and squeezed her hand more tightly. Ken never took his eyes off them as he reiterated the last question.
‘Well, come on then! You’re not here, are you? What the hell is going on around here – I’ve had it with all of this nonsense!
What is going on? I need to know now otherwise I don’t think I’m gonna be able to control myself!’ He let go of Jane and Michael’s hands, and with head roaring, slumped back down into his chair.
George’s calming voice called Ken back from the edge of despair.
‘You are quite correct, Kenneth,’ he said. ‘And, as usual, you have managed to beat us to the punch.’ He turned to Tori and her family, saying: ‘Please forgive me, my children, but I must have a few minutes alone with our guests…’
With the touch of some button or another, George dismissed his family.
Right before their eyes, Ken, Jane and Michael saw Tori and the others do something quite extraordinary. Like a ripple, their bodies seemed to flex slightly, and then with a barely-discernible whispering sound, they disappeared. One moment they had been before them, in the flesh, and now it seemed as though that had most certainly not been the case.
Ken turned back to stare at the screen. George was smiling; he waited for Jane to take a seat next to Michael, smiling as he watched Jane clenching the boy’s hand in a motherly display of defence. When she had settled, their ancient bringer of strange tales spoke.
‘Yes, you are here, so do not be afraid. Tori and the others are here also, but, as you have rightly identified, not really. In this dimension it would be impossible for them to exist, but exist they do – your own imagination, your hopes, your fears, and above all, your perception, all of these things puts them into a form, one in which you would wish them to be. Do you understand?’
He waited for them to think. They didn’t answer, what was there to be said, what is it they would have possibly asked for – what?
So, in typical fashion, George showed them.
He spoke softly, saying: ‘I want you all to imagine what this place would look like if there was nothing else. No farm, no fields, no trees – no anything. Think of it, but remember this – you are somewhere, but you are not at home and you are not dead. You are in a place that exists in between places – a sliver of time, a splice of reality that has been slipped in between the framework of everything. Think and you will see!’
They did think. All three took George’s words and turned them into thoughts: ‘In between the framework of everything.’ As one, they felt the strange sliding sensation come upon them like a certain, uneasy loss of equilibrium, a slippery jump of the mind. Like the feeling when you’re almost asleep. The one where you have the ghastly sensation of falling, sliding, and then, with a start, almost an electric shock, you awake with a gasp only to find that you are still safely tucked up in bed. You lie there and wonder. You wonder if you would have fallen to your death should you not have awoken.
That’s the exact way the sensation oozing into their heads made the trio feel.
With a start, they too, awoke. But they weren’t tucked up in any warm and comfortable bed, not a chance.
They had arrived in the midst of nowhere.
George’s ‘sliver of time’ had no form, no colour, no…no anything at all.
Looking around, the three of them saw only blackness. As if by magic, they had begun floating in the darkness. Still in the sitting position, but not sitting on anything, just floating and holding each other’s hands. Wafting along on the breath of a breeze they couldn’t feel, and probably didn’t even exist. Nothing, only them and the warm feeling of each other’s hands – they were the only real things to be truly sensed. There was nothing else, nothing at all.
Ken thought about how he was still able to feel the chair beneath him, buttocks tightly clenched in fear, backside forced onto the unfeeling wood of the old pine stool, the one he and Mikey had sanded down. He looked down and then had to do one of his mandatory blinks. The stool was there, the stool and nothing else. It was just him, Jane and Michael. Oh, and the stool, too.
All of them were floating in the darkness.
He chuckled. Ken had started to get this now. Whatever he thought things should be like, then that’s what they would be like! The other two cottoned on. Jane giggled and Michael gasped, Ken looked up at them and their eyes met. With a blurring rush, they were back at the farmhouse, sitting on the veranda, dirty plates in front of them and Ken’s butt firmly squashed onto the aforementioned stool.
And so it became their understanding.
Everything in their lives, all the parts of a dimension where they existed, was only imagined. Their perception created everything, their perception was reality.
George spoke. ‘If I was to show you, Kenneth, as to what the colour blue looks like through your wife’s eyes, what is it that you would expect to see?’ he asked, with a wicked grin.
Ken said, ‘Well, it would be blue, just the colour blue…blue is blue, isn’t it?’
‘Close your eyes,’ the old man ordered.
Ken did as George had asked. His mind cleared and then he saw the colour ‘blue’ like he’d never seen it before. It was darker than he imagined his own blue to be, deeper, but there were waves of lighter colour in there, too. Subtle nuances of light flowed toward the edges, many different shades intermingled, swirled and mixed, but it was definitely blue. His whole vision became filled with the colour. It was beautiful and he couldn’t believe how he’s missed it before. The colour faded from his mind and left him staring across the table at Jane.
George said, ‘Did you see it? That particular hue is how your wife sees, thinks, and perceives the colour blue to be.’
He grinned once more, saying: ‘Can you see it, Kenneth? Would you like me to show you as to how Jane perceives you?’ This time he laughed.
Ken was horrified. ‘Good God, absolutely not – no way!’ he exclaimed.
The thought positively terrified him.
Both George and Jane laughed this time. Michael wasn’t too far behind. Ken looked at them and saw the fear and uncertainty leaving them in a rush of pent-up emotions, their laughing faces providing a gateway for those dark thoughts to escape. With very little resistance left, he willingly joined them. In no time at all the echoes of their mirth floated around the old farmhouse.
In the midst of their near-hysteria, they felt the air thicken again; the wobbling sensation meant only one thing…With a shimmering blink, Tori and the gang made their most-welcome reappearance. Almost as though nothing had happened, the trio of their ‘imaginary’ friends, and much-valued comrades-at-arms, resumed their positions around the table, whereupon they proceeded to unashamedly join in the now almost uncontrolled hilarity.
Amongst the madness of George’s latest fantastic revelations, and as though it was the most natural thing in the world to be doing, the Hunters sat and roared with laughter. It was to be a completely new way of looking at things, especially for the three who really did exist in this dimension – Ken, Jane, and a boy named Michael Jack Wildeman.
12
Reality or Imagination
Only three things inhibit us: Imagination, ideas, and ability.
Imagination is the father of ideas, and ideas are the mother of ability.
Do some imagining, get some ideas and work on your ability.
The chances are that you will be surprised by what can be achieved.
The next day, the first spent in the light of a new reality, a new realisation, the occupants of the farm had another first – a long and very lazy lie-in. The effects of their recent traumatic experiences seemed to dictate the need for such a necessary luxury, their minds, bodies and souls in desperate need of such respite. Pure, unadulterated sleep was the only price their inner selves demanded in repayment for the strength provided during those recent harrowing times. They gladly paid the toll and the farmhouse stayed in complete and utter silence until well past midday. Even the dogs remained comatose, lying motionless upon their comfortable bed of straw on the floor of the barn. Only the sound of a dove, cooing softly…that, and a strange intermittent whistle, caused by a gentle wind playing random tunes as it blew through the jagged bullet holes in the corrugated iron roof…broke the almost surreal h
ush that cloaked the old place. There were no dreams, either, not for anyone.
Later, after having awoken, and then lazily staying in bed for a few more precious minutes with the remnants of the previous few days’ earth-shattering events flittering like shadows through their recovering minds, they gathered upon the veranda to share a light brunch together. There wasn’t much talking going on and it was mostly the gentle chinking of glasses and other such items that dared to interrupt the early afternoon silence.
Not long after their impromptu meal, it was Tori who spoke first.
‘I vote we go for a walk,’ she said, ‘who fancies coming down to Mike’s Tree? We could sit in the sun and talk for a while.’
There were no dissenters, and soon afterwards they found themselves meandering down to the lake with the warm wind at their backs and that wonderful, earthy aroma of the farm’s healthy soil rising into their faces. It was only slightly tinged with the odour of battle, every now-and-then the smell of cordite and burnt electricity…plus the strong, metallic smell of blood, but nobody really wanted to think about that…seemed to accompany the breeze as it occasionally changed direction, swirling briefly as it blew into their faces from where their enemy had massed in such great numbers – massed and died.
Jack and his helpers had done a sterling job on their clear-up operations, there didn’t seem to be one ounce of evidence left to prove there had been more than two hundred men slaughtered on this very piece of land. No pieces of flesh, scraps of skin, flecks of blood, or, perhaps, the odd amputated limb, lying forgotten in the long grass, sinews and tendons trailing from the stump. No shining white of shattered bone, sitting in proof of the unbelievable power that the awful, flickering green fireballs had dispensed with such uncaring ease. Nothing left to prove the fact that any of those terrible events had really happened, nothing remained, not one single thing.
