Where the Birds Hide at Night

by Gareth Wiles

  * * *

  The ills that men do put upon

  Their own shoulders.

  Yet we seek out greater meaning,

  Shoulders of giants.

  Piling on the ill intentions,

  Corrupting our own children.

  Praying to a higher Man,

  His shoulders weighted with burden.

  WHAT HAPPENED TO ALEX NEXT

  Alex sat and waited for his visitor to arrive. He’d had very few people come to see him in prison so far; few people who he knew. Being the man convicted of murdering the Prime Minister, he had had quite a bit of media exposure and was routinely being asked for interviews and generally receiving fan mail from extremists and the like. He didn’t like all that, and so far had managed to curb his derailment into that area. His legal aides were advising that there was plenty of time for all that, anyway, and he was best to bide his time before he “sold his story” in order to get the best deal. Being married to the woman whose family once harboured Peter Smith, as well, didn’t ease the attention he’d received. One person who certainly hadn’t visited him in prison was his wife. There had been no sign of Katie or the rest of her family, and even visits from his own family had been thin on the ground. Still, he’d always seen himself as an orphan who had never had a real belonging. There had been an extended stay with one foster family, with whom he’d grown quite attached, but this came to a natural end when he started going out with Katie and her family sort of took him on. He wasn’t really upset or concerned by his lack of a biological belonging, but owing to his current situation it might have helped him through a bit. The media, of course, had made much of his family background. Still, this wasn’t at all his most pressing concern right now; the fact he’d been anally raped was pretty high on his list of upsets, though. The perpetrator had received a rap over the knuckles, but little more. If anything, Alex perceived that the authorities had somehow turned a blind eye at the time and let it happen. The guards were certainly greeting him with smirks and winks now – at least, that’s what he saw. He felt about as low as he could, knowing he’d never been this down in all his life. He thought he’d had a hard life before all this happened to him, now he knew it had been a breeze.

  There was no breeze in the room where he was currently sitting. He looked around at his fellow prisoners, some embracing their loved-ones whilst others tried to keep up a front and an arrogant distance with their visitor. He wondered how he should greet and act with his. There was nobody but himself willing to give an answer, and even then he didn’t know whether or not to rely on his own decision. Decisions hadn’t been his strongpoint in a long time, if ever, and Reaping Icon didn’t seem to want to help. There had been no sign of Reaping Icon.

  Emma walked in and looked nervously around before spotting Alex. He wanted to stand up to greet her as she rushed over, but the pain in his backside was still so intense as to dissuade him from sudden movements. She sat down across from him as an inmate gave her a wolf-whistle. Alex thought how utterly gorgeous she had become in the passing years. Here, in her late twenties, she was even more appealing than she’d been as a teenager, and he completely regretted ever letting things get so far with Katie. She took his hand and gripped it tightly, her hair darker than it had ever been and her skin crying out for a glimpse of the sun.

  ‘I’m sorry I haven’t been before now,’ she said, looking down.

  ‘Thank you for coming at all,’ he replied, almost whispering, as he looked around the room for potential eavesdroppers. ‘I thought I’d never see you again.’

  ‘I can’t quite believe what’s happened, it’s all so crazy.’ Now she looked up, and it was Alex’s turn to look away. ‘One day the papers are painting you as a monster, the next you’re a hero.’

  ‘I’m neither. I didn’t do it,’ Alex mumbled, tired of repeating himself.

  ‘You were definitely set up, that’s agreed by everyone,’ Emma replied, squeezing his hand. He looked up and their eyes met.

  ‘Everyone thinks I’m innocent?’

  ‘Well, yeah, most people.’

  He pulled his hand from hers. ‘What about Katie?’

  ‘I always wondered why you married her, Alex; why you walked headlong into a disaster you could clearly see coming.’

  ‘And what were your conclusions?’

  ‘That you are weak,’ she said bluntly, trying to deliver it with a smile but failing.

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘And,’ she carried on, calmly but assuredly, ‘I kinda know that you and I wouldn’t have worked out either, because you’re just not enough of a man.’

  ‘Is that why I married a lesbian, then?’ Alex sighed, his last grasp of human connection slipping away as he received Emma’s character assassination. She gave out a little cough as he rubbed his sore eyes. ‘Back then, we were just kids. I didn’t think I stood a chance with you, you were the most amazing girl in school. I blocked any thoughts of you and me from my mind. It was a simple no-no.’

  ‘Even after I told you how I felt?’ she came back at him, holding back the tears.

  ‘Katie, she was in a bad place; I felt I couldn’t step away from her. I don’t know, Emma, I just don’t know anything. I’m a complete useless turd.’

  She grabbed his hand again and they sat there silently for a time, neither knowing what to say.

  Emma eventually broke the silence with: ‘The only men I seem to get sniffing around me are dickheads. They’re all just after one thing, and they can’t see past my looks. I guess that’s why I wanted you, because you didn’t show any interest in me in that way.’

  ‘All I’ve ever seen in girls are their looks. If I rated their looks too highly, I didn’t bother with them… not that I bothered much with girls. Remember how long it took me to get together with Katie? That was vomit-inducing stuff.’

  ‘Look, there’s a life outside of here, but it’s not with Katie.’

  ‘I don’t want Katie. I want you, Emma.’

  ‘I don’t know if we could have something together, Alex,’ she cut. ‘But, there is something. I don’t understand it, but I guess I’m here now aren’t I?’

  ‘I need to stand up, I know, and stop being this weak and feeble little piece of snot. I will try to be the man you want me to be. Please, Emma,’ he grasped her hand tighter and tighter, a sensation of pins and needles running through it. ‘Everyone else has ditched me but you.’

  The bell had gone, visitors were being cleared out. ‘I must go,’ she cried, the tears bursting like bullets from their ducts as she pulled away to go. ‘I’ll come back, I promise.’

  With this promise, and possible future beyond his current stupor, Alex felt a rush of joy and renewed vigour drawn into his body. The crushing on his chest leapt away and he watched in awe as its visual embodiment as a grey mist evaporated. His eyes lost the last image of Emma as she disappeared from the room and he turned to leave in the opposite direction. As he did so, he bumped into a familiar face.

  ‘You lucky man,’ said Reaping Icon. ‘I came back just in the nick of time.’

  ‘Go away, I don’t want you interfering with me.’

  ‘That’s gratitude,’ Reaping Icon laughed, stalking behind Alex as he was marched off back to his cell.

  Back in the cell, Reaping Icon appeared the other side of the door and said: ‘I can get you out of here.’

  ‘Go away,’ Alex said again, tossing and turning on the bed.

  ‘Oh don’t be silly, now. Listen, all you have to do is concentrate really hard and The Space will grant you whatever you so wish. You could walk straight out of here unimpeded.’

  ‘And what then? Once I’m out, would I just magically be allowed to stay out for the rest of my life? Of course not!’

  ‘The Space can grant you that which you most desire. Emma, for instance, will be putty in your hands.’

  ‘I don’t want her to be putty in my hands.’

  Reaping Icon now appeared in the cell and strolled around quite amply,
as if the room was much vaster than it appeared to Alex. ‘Open your mind, placate the sensual! Do not let the undiluted remain as such,’ he said.

  ‘You’re talking gibberish.’

  ‘Alex, Alex! Your mind is so closed to that which it once harnessed. You are one of The Great Collective, a towering immortal who once ruled almighty over all of existence. Your connection to The Space allowed endless pleasure and knowledge; do not let your current self forget that.’ And now, Reaping Icon looked behind Alex. But, he would not turn to look at what Reaping Icon could see. ‘It is coming, It is almost with us in spite of Its closing at the hands of Peter Smith. Ease your resistance, Alex, It is The Space as controlled by me – by Us!’

  For the first time since Reaping Icon’s presence in his life, Alex felt an inseparable bond with him and could not clear his mind of the man. If he was a man. He seemed both a man and everything else that was not a man – just what Alex equally thought of himself. He could feel Reaping Icon drawing closer and closer, fulfilling a dreadful ageless bond as they united in mind. Reaping Icon had come from him, just as he had come from all of The Great Collective, but now he returned singularly to Alex. He, and he alone, now had to contend with Reaping Icon. No longer was Reaping Icon playing around in his training ground and requesting the pitiful damaged beings he had done for his games; he was enacting his ultimate desire and returning to bodily form with Alex as the host. He consumed Alex’s mind, gushing freely into it like a vast storm rushing into an exposed cavernous recess. Alex was completely free from fight, completely free from the undiluted strength of his original self so many generations ago. They, as united discoverers of The Space, had played supreme with their bestowed gifts. But, to what avail? The Great Collective had been delivered the tragedy of self-renewing immortality and that endless cursed cycle of complete re-birth. It had taken away the desire to exist, because they knew they always would exist. More and more angry and confused had they become with their battle to remember their prior lives, that the manifestation of this growing hatred for life itself had now returned and decided upon bodily form. Reaping Icon, seizing Alex’s shell as his own, casting aside all those memories of the immediate life Alex was living, was here to destroy all of Life itself. And, The Space had created all of this – It had given The Great Collective the sickness of eternal re-birth, an eternal roundabout of loss. Reaping Icon was everybody, and everybody was he – he was the summation of humanity, just as when he’d embodied poor Darren Aubrey as the Judge or thrown Peter Smith into the depths of depravity. That all the hate, all the pain, could so easily come to fruition and take Alex right now was testament to Life’s wicked and ceaseless routine. There had been no end to the cruelty since existence had been sparked, and to all intents and purposes it now appeared as though Life would get its just desserts. Reaping Icon was the end result of The Space’s opening up to humanity, and the ugly conclusion was no surprise. The Great Collective had treated The Space’s “gift” as a sick, sick travesty, and the shit had most certainly hit the fan.

  Alex focused his mind on the guard who had just locked his cell door, drawing him back. He returned, his whole self completely at Alex’s mercy as he unlocked and opened the door, standing aside for Alex to stroll out. ‘Take me to Wayne Richards,’ he said to the guard.

  * * *

  Richards just laughed and stayed sitting when his cell door opened and Alex stepped in.

  ‘Hey, honey,’ Alex cooed, coming straight to Richards and placing his hand on the top of his head. The rapist convulsed and choked in agony and terror as Alex kept watch from above, his hand drawing all the life out. There wasn’t much life to speak of, but Alex nonetheless wanted to take it away from the vile little shit. And soon enough he had his wish, lifting his hand away and letting the corpse drop to the floor like an over-ripe gooseberry.

  Alex stepped back and looked down at what he’d done. He couldn’t quite believe it, as though it had happened in a dream away from his conscious control. Not really worried by his actions, he turned and walked out as the cell door was once again shut and locked.

  * * *

  Technology outstripping morality,

  A Pandora’s box of devils

  Unleashed.

  Nature endlessly self-replenishing,

  Trundling, trundling along

  Endlessly.

  WHAT HAPPENED TO NOOSE NEXT

  (PART ONE)

  Noose couldn’t see the face on the carpet from his hospital bed, but he knew it was there. He could just sense that he was being watched. Only one guard was currently in place, and he wasn’t looking at Noose. If anything, he was looking down at the floor. Was the floor carpeted? Being a hospital ward, probably not; but Noose just knew that the face was down there looking up. Why wasn’t it on the ceiling where he could keep an eye on it? The face was being rather cunning, he thought, and evading him. What was it up to?

  The guard gave out a little yawn and checked his watch. Sorry to be keeping you up, Noose thought. He dare not have said it out loud. No, this whole situation had crushed his interaction with others to not much more than a responding to questions basis. It didn’t do to enter into any kind of jocular retorting with the guard. In many ways this was what he missed most about Peter Smith – they had been such good verbal sparring partners. The same could have been said about Sergeant Stephen Noble too, but that had also ended in misery. Still, Noose was alive and this was perhaps his last hope at somehow coming up trumps in the end. Being alive afforded him at least the most minute smidgen of opportunity to put right what had occurred. With the key to the handcuffs in the palm of his hand, he needed only to wait for some strength to return before he could mount an escape bid.

  Right this second a figure swept in, cloaked from head to toe in a creamy silk garment, their face shielded by a heavy hood. They held up a small device to the guard’s neck, who promptly dropped to the floor unconscious. Two more hooded figures followed, all three standing over Noose’s bed. ‘Everything is nothing. No order, no lies,’ they droned in unison. ‘Deny your anchor, scape the goats. Everything is nothing. No boundaries, no battles.’ One moved closer, pressing the device against Noose’s neck.

  * * *

  ‘Have you been attentive?’ Peter Smith asked. Noose opened his eyes and looked around, but he couldn’t see where the voice was coming from. ‘Have you been paying attention?’

  ‘Peter, is that you?’ Noose replied in desperation, seeing that he was the only person in the room. He was lying flat on a hard metallic slab, free from binds but still cursed by weakness following the attack in the prison. All around him were bumpy brown walls of earth, the damp musty smell of the moist air almost choking the poor man. He struggled into a sitting position, rubbing at his neck. ‘Where are you?’ he called out again to Peter, but there was no reply. Peter was dead, and that was that.

  Noose stayed sitting in the same spot for quite a while, in some way glad he was no longer shackled to a hospital bed but in another way concerned about his current location. He’d become a man who was put in places, and taken about under the control of others. He had always been the one doing that before, so it kind of irritated him to have the tables turned. Anywhere was better than prison, though, so he quickly accepted the fact that the hooded figures had rescued him. It briefly crossed his mind that it may not have been a rescue at all, and that what might happen to him next could be so much worse than what had happened in prison. If that was possible.

  ‘Everything is nothing. No order, no lies.’

  Noose turned to see that the three figures were standing behind him, their faces constantly hidden. ‘Who are you?’ he asked them, getting to his feet. It was a struggle, the pain in his chest severe, but he tried to mask it. ‘Why did you rescue me?’

  ‘Henry Noose, the confidante of the final link,’ they whispered together.

  ‘I see,’ Noose sighed. ‘That makes a whole load of fucking sense, doesn’t it!’

  ‘Peter Smith! You are his curr
ent chosen corporeal companion.’

  ‘Nice bit of alliteration there,’ Noose replied glibly, clasping onto the metallic slab as he moved closer to them.

  ‘He has chosen you as his anchor to humanity, you carry him with you.’

  Noose sensed something, turning around to be confronted by the huge black upright box. It stood there, as silent as the vast emptiness of Noose’s hope in humanity. ‘Jeez Louise, does everything just appear in this blasted room?’ He felt drawn to it, desperate to become it for some inexplicable reason. He could not turn away, wanting to let his body and mind be taken away from everything.

  ‘Everything is nothing. No order, no lies. Deny your anchor, scape the goats. Everything is nothing. No boundaries, no battles,’ they again chanted as Noose dropped to his knees, the tearing at his chest from within intensifying. ‘Peter Smith. Our last chance. The final link. The final link between The Great Collective and The Space. He, and only he, can restore that which has passed.’

  ‘What is all this?’ Noose cried out, a screaming emanating from deep inside his mind. Then, all at once it lifted, and he felt emptied of anguish. Possessed with renewed energy, he jumped to his feet and turned his back on the box.

  ‘Peter, you must re-open The Space,’ the hooded figures called out.

  ‘Forever alive, the endless curse of existence,’ a familiar voice replied. Noose slowly turned around again to face the box. It was gone, and in its place stood Peter Smith. ‘There’s no such thing as resting in peace.’

  ‘No,’ Noose wept, looking upon his once-dead friend. ‘It’s, it’s not real. You died, you’re dead.’

  ‘Right now to the world, yet again, I was never dead. The universe has been tweaked once more. You are in the centre of my return this time, Noose – your timeline has not been adjusted accordingly.’