We sat down by the river and watched the boat disappear around a bend in the distance. By degrees I felt the atmosphere beginning to settle out as Parker's disruptive influence receded.and a comforting vagueness returned.
"Do you feel that?" I asked her.
"Yes,… it's amazing,… "
"And look:"
"It's all shimmery,.. and,… oh, it's lovely!"
"Won't be long now," I said. "Try not to let it enchant you too much. In fact, you'd better close your eyes." Then I gave her a hug, because – well – there's nothing like the feel of another human being for reassuring you, is there? And pretty soon she'd be disappearing back to her life, and I'd never see her again. We stayed like that for a while and then she must have felt herself slipping because she said: "Promise me, you won't try to stay."
"I promise. I'll try to catch up with Parker first, make sure he's okay. You never know, I may get through to him eventually. Then you'll have nothing to explain will you?"
Anyway, with her laying there on my shoulder, I closed my eyes too and began to murmur a relaxation script,… you are feeling heavy,… you feel yourself sinking,…
She went with it quietly. I felt her draw back, and I thought she was about to slip through so I decided to open my eyes because I was curious to see what it would look like, whether she'd just disappear, or go all shimmery like everything else, but she took hold of my hands at the last minute and when I opened my eyes she was still there, or rather, it seemed,…
… she'd pulled me through with her.
We were two miles downstream in a little teashop in Burnsall Bridge, holding hands across a table strewn with the remains of lunch. We hadn't come far in distance but things had a different tingle to them, so I guessed we'd swapped realities again and therefore left Raworth behind. But this wasn't home. This was somewhere else entirely.
Katie was wearing a cute beret and a little red woollen jacket of unfamiliar styling, and there was this kid sitting in a high-chair at the same table as us, squealing the place down while he rubbed tomato sauce into his hair. We both looked at him in stunned silence, both of us for very different reasons. I noticed she was wearing rings, but these were different to the last ones, and I was unable to shake the feeling they were mine.
"This isn't right, Katie. I'm sorry."
She looked at me, puzzled. "It's not?"
"It's,… I don't know. This is really weird,… " I looked around, trying to get my bearings, and I realised I was floundering in the tide of a life I'd no sense of ever having lived. Clearly, it was a possibility – but surely rather an unlikely one!
"Why did you do that?" I asked her.
"Do what?"
"Pull me through like that. That's really confused things! This is,… well,.. I don't know what it is. It's like a compromise, a best fit of all the probabilities, a most likely scenario. We should try again."
She looked at the boy, her heart melting. It was definitely her child, and there was no way she'd ever leave him again. But where did that leave me?
She leaned over and squeezed my hand. "Let's see how this goes for a while. I'm sure we'll muddle through."
I tapped my finger against her rings, and raised my brows, in case she'd not noticed yet, but she chuckled. "I know. Funny isn't it? Who would have thought it? But that was a lovely hug you gave me,… it just felt so,.."
"Whoa, listen,… don't get me wrong, I was merely being,… "
"No, you listen, mister: this slipping in and out of reality has nothing to do with detachment – or I could never have left him. I've not had a moments' detachment since the day he was born." She shook her head as if she'd just realised something. "Don't you get it. This is not a compromise. It's not a best fit, or a make do. This is the only thing that makes any sense at all,… to either of us.
"What I said about you falling through in order to rescue me: I was wrong. It was me who fell through in order to rescue you."
"Katie, this is hardly a rescue. In case you hadn't noticed, we're in real trouble here."
"No. You were in trouble. You had no connection, nothing binding you in life at all. You keep yourself all sealed up and aloof – I mean I don't even know your name! It's as if you're afraid of handing it out in case people can start calling you by it and interfering in your private little world. No wonder you kept dropping out of the bottom of reality! Well,… I think we can help you with that."
I noticed she had said we. I looked at the squealing child - snot and sauce dribbling down his face - and I rather doubted the pair of them were much of a solution to anything, but then she took her glasses off and made the most appealing eyes at me, and the child was quiet for a moment, beaming sunshine through the mess,… and for a second the idea seemed ridiculously attractive,… then just ridiculous.
"Katie,… that would be a really bad idea. And if you were thinking straight, you'd realise it too."
She looked crestfallen. "Oh! Do you think so?"
"All that stuff you said about me,… well,… some of it may be true, and if you did rescue me, then I'm very grateful, but we don't exactly know each other do we – I mean we only met this morning."
She was admiring her rings. "But it looks to me as if we've been married for a while. How long would you say? Three years? Four?"
"All right, it seems as if we've set down in this place already with a bit of history, which is really weird, and we've some catching up to do. But what if I turn out to be your worst nightmare? Have you not thought of that? What if I'm the husband from hell?"
She was shaking her head. "We didn't fall through two versions of reality to wind up sitting at this table, for there to be any bad stuff between us. No. This is going to be perfect,… trust me!"
It was the craziest thing I'd ever heard.
I began to search my pockets.
"What are you doing?"
"I was looking for something with my name on it. I just wanted to make sure it was still what I thought it was,… I mean before I told you."
"There's no need, if you're intending skipping out the first chance you get."
I could see the river through the window, and I wondered if about now was the time Parker should be coming floating downstream to interrupt us, hollering for help and creating a scene. It was impossible of course, wasn't it? I mean, Parker had never existed here. To my surprise however I discovered I was afraid he really would appear and ruin this moment, this chance of a life,…
With one wary eye on the river, I said: "Erm,… my name is Richard."
I wasn't sure how long we could sustain this, but things felt pretty firm, and something told me neither of us would be leaving here in a hurry, but I reached out and took hold of her hand,…
… just in case.
From the same author on Feedbooks
Love is a Perfect Place (1999) A short story by Michael Graeme - a twenty minute read: He scooped some water up and drank. It astonished him. It tasted like he imagined the most perfect water should taste, but it was a sensation spoiled by the queer fact that he wasn't thirsty even though he had walked for hours under a hot sun.
"Perhaps we don't need food,... or water," he said. "Only when it pleases us."
He looked around then at the land and he felt a chill. What manner of place was this? And what manner of being had he become?
* * *
The Enigma that was Carla Sinclair (2004) A short story by Michael Graeme (a 45 minute read):
I was not completely unhinged. She was just a computer program, a crude simulation - at best a never ending animated cartoon with only one character and no story line. But she was "something",... a hobby I suppose you might say. Other young men had hobbies, equally obscure, though perhaps more socially inclusive. They collected camera gear, they went fishing, raced cars or drank themselves stupid. Me? I coded in my bedroom. Same thing? Well, not quite. You see, while other people's hobbies took them out of themselves, mine enabled me to climb deeper inside.
* * *
> Lively Custard (2004) Short Story - a 25 minute read: Rogue trees are popping up all over the little town of Frinton-cum-Hardy and the residents have begun speaking in metaphors so mixed and mangled, poor Armitage, connoisseur of all things bookish, finds he no longer understands his mother tongue. And if all that isn't enough his young protege, Jenny, from the Books Galore Emporeum is having "uncle trouble"!
* * *
A Moth on the Moon (2004) A twenty minute read, by Michael Graeme: Conspiracy theorists excepted, most people know the United States landed a man on the moon in 1969. What's less well known however, is that the British beat them to it, in 1947.
* * *
The Choices (2006) A fifteen minute read:
I am sitting here in the lounge-bar of the McKinley Arms Hotel, by the shores of Loch Lomond, and I am staring out into the twilight at my choices. I have been this way before many times and I always seem to go wrong at this point, so you must forgive what must seem like fastidious caution, but I simply have to get it right this time!
* * *
Escape From Paradise Island (2007) A 25 minute read by Michael Graeme: Crime doesn't pay. That's what they try to teach you in prison, and fair enough, I might even have left there one day determined to go straight except, suddenly, I was on an island in the China Sea, gazing at a beautiful girl in a yellow Bikini. So maybe it had been worth it after all. But careful now! You had to avoid thinking things like that because they'd a nasty habit of dissolving back into reality and you'd wake up right back in that stinking grey cell: five years of your life already erased, with another two to go, and all because you'd never been able to resist the puzzle of a pretty motor car!
* * *
Push Hands (2008) Phil and Penny were made for each other - the only problem is they are married to other people. When they meet at a Tai Chi class they quickly realise the depth of one another's loneliness and need for a sympathetic ear. Fearful of the consequences, they go to elaborate lengths to avoid each other but their paths begin to cross with chance-defying regularity, pulling them ever more deeply into one another's confidence. Is this evidence of a mysterious power at work, or should they simply have an affair? Middle aged and married for a long time, their apparently unavoidable relationship causes them to ask serious questions of the meaning of their lives and their marriages, and finally to demand that their families respect them for who they really are. But will their families recognise them? Can they even recognise themselves?
Push Hands is a full length novel, complete and free to download.
* * *
The Man Who Could Not Forget (2008) A Short Story by Michael Graeme (a fifteen minute read):
...I have a problem with my memory. It isn't that it ever fails me - quite the opposite in fact. Indeed, my recall of events from all but the earliest years of my life is truly photographic, so there was little doubt in my mind the woman before me now was the one who had stolen the book....
* * *
The Magician of Monkton Pier (2009) Short Story - a twenty five minute read.
Joshua is navigating his eco-boat, The Mattie Rat along a dark and stinking stretch of the old canal through Monkton - a city overwhelmed by gangs and gun toting Militias. Joshua's seen it all before: urban decay, corruption and the death of hope. Living on the water, and with no need for money, he's usually able to slip unnoticed through these town stretches and into the green beyond. But when he's tricked into picking up a pair of enigmatic hitchers, Joshua knows there's going to be trouble in Monkton. In spite of his best efforts, the wily old Waterman is about to become an accomplice in the biggest magical stunt of all time. And if the world no longer believes in magic, well, it only has itself to blame.
* * *
Crystal Says (2009) A twenty minute read: So, I'm standing in this crop circle, down in Wiltshire, England, and there's a girl dangling a crystal from the end of a chain. She's very pretty, so I'm thinking I'll have to find a way of overlooking the fact she's probably also some kind of crank if I want to take advantage of the situation here,...
* * *
The Summer of '83 (2009) Well, that's middle age for you: you either grow up, grow into it, accept its imperfections, its disappointments, and grow old grumbling at someone, or you ruin yourself on a mad fling with a girl half your age that you know won't last, and then you grow old alone and with only the walls to grumble at.
In the absence of any other alternatives, I know which of the two I prefer,... but what if there was a third alternative?
* * *
The Man Who Talked to Machines (2010) A short story from web-author Michael Graeme (a half hour read):
"You have to talk to them, counsel them, mesmerise them into stillness before you set foot anywhere near them. And, though I may not be considered wholly sane, at least I have a reputation for the way I talk to machines."
* * *
Pandora and Melanie (2010) A thirty minute read:- My dear Richard, I apologise for the delay in writing to you but it's only now I am beginning to come to terms with the implications of your discovery, and also the news of your collaboration with the woman known to you as Pandora,...
The author joins in with the doom and gloom and predicts the end of the world, but as you might expect, there's an upside to every situation.
* * *
Rosemary's Eyes (2010) A short story about life, and death: Rosemary was by the house, feeling her way among the delicate stems of a clematis, her light touch seeking the beauty of its tissue-thin blooms. She paused at our approach and looked towards me, her eyes passive, waiting. Then she reached out, inviting my embrace. And when she gathered me in her arms, she raised her lips to my ear and I felt her whispered words, hot and curling against my skin.
"Don't be afraid," she said. "Look into my eyes once more."
* * *
The Road From Langholm Avenue (2010) A story of unrequited love, of unexpected love, of love lost, and found again. With divorce and redundancy looming, our hero, Tom, is left facing middle age with the feeling that he made a wrong turn somewhere in his past. Then, as if things aren't bad enough he's inexplicably haunted by memories of Rachel, a girl he had a crush on at school. With emotions bubbling up to the surface he realises the old business with Rachel has never really been forgotten and that before he can find a way through his crisis, he's going to have to journey back in search of his deepest past. Tom sets out to find Rachel and, regardless of her circumstances, do the one thing he couldn't bring himself to do a quarter of a century ago: ask her on a date. But things don't quite go according to plan. Tom discovers a lot can change in twenty five years, but that some things remain exactly the same. And when it comes to the business of unrequited love, even those closest to him are not immune.
This is a full length novel - complete and free to read. It is not a teaser or a taster.
* * *
In Durleston Wood (2010) A middle aged romantic, Richard Hunter has hit the buffers. Divorced and estranged from his children, he trains as a teacher and takes up a post in his home village at his old Primary School. Never more than arm's length away from a nervous breakdown and hopelessly in love with his headmistress, Richard seeks solace in his boyhood haunt: Durleston Wood. But the wood now hides a secret, a mysterious woman kept hidden there as the apparent "property" of a villain - or so she tells him. As he learns more of her fate, and her plan to transfer her "ownership" to him, he tells himself this is the last thing he wants, while wondering if it isn't actually something he needs more than anything, that far from destroying him, rescuing her could be the one thing that stops him from going under.
This is a full length novel - not a taster or a teaser.
* * *
The Lavender and the Rose (2010) Matthew Rowan finds himself drawn to a secluded valley in the English Lake District where he meets Amanda, mistress of Cragside, a cottage nestled deep in a fold between high fells. On the surface it seems like the ideal refuge from a world gone mad, but what he doesn't know is that
the house sits at the epicentre of a magnetic anomaly and has a reputation for playing strange tricks on the mind of anyone who sleeps there. There's also something peculiar about Amanda, who calls hersef Beatrice and leads a secretive life dressed entirely in Victorian costume. The Lavender and the Rose is an unusual love story, an erotic adventure, and a spiritual odyssey. It's also a psychological mystery whose resolution will require Matthew to question his understanding of the nature of human identity, and even reality itself.
* * *
The Singing Loch (2011) Scott Matthews, a disillusioned city worker, finds himself drawn into a bizarre corporate conspiracy. From the ruthless greed of '80's London, to the austere beauty of Western Scotland, Scott begins to unravel the threads of an enigma dating back centuries, while gradually falling under the spell of the mysterious and forbidden Singing Loch. Here he discovers love, enlightenment, and ultimately a truth more startling than legend.
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Katie's Rescue Page 3
