G is for gulls, always sailing above.
U for unwinding and flexing the quill.
I for ideal, the word sums up the time.
L for lagoon, so shallow and still.
D for the dunes and the stretch of the beach.
E for enjoyment, while setting the pace.
R is for river, winding in from the land.
T for the town that gives a temporary base.
O is for ocean and its calming sound.
N is for never tire of the peace that’s found.
The whole business began with contact being made through the dark web.
It was then that his extensive evenings of research had finally paid off. When the cloaked messages between him and the other party, who referred to himself as the ‘Mystic’, where finished, he knew that all he had to do was wait. He was happy to do that. He had found the service he required… for a price. It would be worth it; just to see her again, to be with her for that precious time before the accident had taken her life almost seven years ago. He was told what to expect. A blue envelope with a birthday card. On the back a number of precise instructions. He would need to read the instructions carefully, place the cash in the envelope with the card, reseal the envelope and take it with him.
It arrived a few days later. The information typed on the back of the card was quite specific. It gave the numbers of two bus routes, with times. These would take him on an hour and a half journey across the country to a town he was unfamiliar with. It said that the mystic would be doing the same. He was to walk from the appointed bus stop into the town’s main square where he would find a telephone booth near a chemist shop. He needed to open the directory at the beginning of the v-section, find and take the packet and replace it with the envelope. He was then told to walk back to the bus stop, the one that was indicated as being the start of his return trip home.
On the way back he found it impossible to resist repeatedly taking the tiny package out of his pocket and turning it over carefully with his fingertips. It was a folded square of stiff, white paper, not much bigger than a postage stamp. It was sealed closed with clear sticky tape. It would contain a small amount of white powder. The details for mixing this with water had been carefully memorised. It would be that evening… that very evening, that he would go back, he would reverse time itself and go back, back to the time when he held her in his arms… His heart was pounding.
That evening, he sat looking at the mixture in the glass tumbler. It had turned cloudy when he slowly stirred the powder into the exact amount of water. It sat on the coffee table in front of him. He had to pause. He had to think about the incredible leap he was about to take. He sank back into the armchair and lit a cigarette. He knew that once drunk, there would be no stopping the process. That had been made clear. Suddenly, giving way to an unexpected impulse, he picked up the glass and took the contents down with a series of full gulps. He sat back again and waited.
Nothing happened for several minutes. The clock on the far wall kept its steady ticking. It seemed to be louder than usual, but he put that down to imagination. He began to feel warm. In fact, he was sweating. The first thing he noticed was the smoke rising from his cigarette resting in the ashtray. He was sure it was drifting up more slowly. Then it was the ticking of the clock. It was definitely slowing, with the ticks becoming further and further apart. Then, his heartbeat pounded in his ears as the ticking stopped and the stream of smoke froze in mid-air. For long moments nothing changed. Then, the second hand of the clock slowly began to creep anticlockwise. At the same time, the smoke began to fall steadily back down. As the long drawn-out minutes passed, the ticking returned to its normal rhythm and the cigarette sat unlit in the ashtray.
It was at this point that he whispered the shockingly ludicrous question to himself, “Just how long is this going to take?”
She’d been using the dating site for a few months.
This was after finally getting rid of her ex. That had been a nightmare that had gone on for almost two years. He was such a pig! It was her flat, but he showed no respect for her property. He had so many disgusting habits. Too many to mention. In the end she had completely snapped and thrown him out. Now, she trawled the ‘Romance is Just a Click Away’ website, regularly. PF217 sounded interesting. There was no photo, but she would read about him, anyway. All the stuff on his ‘About Me’ page was ringing bells. Then, it dawned on her. It was him! She shuddered. The clincher… she easily recognised the phrase he liked to use a lot: ‘Let’s make music together.’ Yuk!
So, this was how the site matches you up with the perfect partner? She’d delete it and look for another one.
With another shudder, she couldn’t help wondering if he still picked his nose.
The kindly old gentleman from up the street would often stop and chat.
He knew the parents and sometimes spoke to the boy. Not often, the youngster was very quiet. His interaction with the family ceased abruptly the day he spent a few quiet moments with the boy. The afternoon that it happened the boy was sitting on the front wall reading a book when the man came passed. Seeing this as a rare opportunity to speak to the lad, he greeted the boy and asked what he was reading.
The boy looked up and studied him briefly before replying. “Nothing of any real significance,” he said.
This precocious reply surprised him a little, but he persisted. “Ah! And school, how is that going?”
“It is generally regarded as necessary,” he replied, without hesitation.
Taken aback by the boy’s response, the old man felt obliged to push a little harder. “So, what do you want to be when you grow up?”
This caused a sudden change of demeanour in the boy. He straightened up and closed his book. “What I want to be will play no part in my future. It is what I will become that matters.” At that moment, the boy’s eyes flashed red.
Despite the shock, the old man was about to say something, when the front door opened and his father called out. “Time to come in!”
The boy obediently jumped down and walked swiftly to the house.
The old man shuddered as he watched the door close.
She was certainly more enthusiastic about wearing fancy dress than he was.
The idea that they would arrive at the party together excited her. She had taken her cat costume into work that morning and she would get changed before she left. It was only a short walk through the office to the back of the building where her boyfriend would be waiting for her in a taxi. This way they wouldn’t have to go in public dressed in animal costumes. It would also ensure that they went in together. That was the plan.
However, he wasn’t there. After waiting a few minutes, and because his mobile phone wasn’t answering, out of desperation and annoyance she rang a friend, who agreed to come and pick her up and get her to the party. As she waited, she figured that he had probably changed his mind and couldn’t face telling her that he wouldn’t show. He’d never been keen on going anyway. This would be the last time they’d do anything together, that was for sure.
Although she only lived a short distance away, her lift hadn’t shown up after several minutes. She was now looking at the time and getting anxious. A few more minutes passed and her friend rang to say she was held up in a traffic jam. She said there were lights flashing and sirens going ahead of her. She said that a man that was walking back away from the scene told her that some idiot dressed as a chicken was flagging a taxi down when he got run over.
The fact that this most unusual island existed at all was kept a closely guarded secret.
Unbeknownst to the rest of the world, this knowledge stayed within a relatively small group of scientists. It was their intention to carry out ongoing studies without interference from the outside world, particularly the media. They well knew that if word got out their continuing investigations would be severely hampered or even brought to a halt. It was obvious that the unique nature of the island would create intense international interest. As it was, any vessels that passed through that part of the great ocean would see only a heavily forested island, some two kilometres long and one wide. In other words, one among thousands.
It was a keen botanist who had started it all. Despite it being an extremely hot day, he was willing to hack his way through the thick forest to find out more about the peculiar looking fruit, which were in fact not fruit at all, large clusters of which were growing on every tree. He was so amazed with his findings, these being the result of simply going in for a quick prod around, that he was careful to only share his discovery with a group of like-minded specialists. These were experts that he felt could properly analyse the conundrums that the island presented. This specialist team grew to around twenty, and it was these that set up a small private research station some distance away on the mainland. This became their research facility, while using small motor boats, teams of researchers made daily forays out to the island to gather material.
There were two main forms of life on the island; plem trees and the gerbinks. The trees bore fruit-like pods that looked much like a cross between a plum and a lemon, hence the name, plem. When ripe, these burst open and release a small number of eggs that would fall to the ground. These small brown spheres, looking much like birds’ eggs, then lay on the forest floor incubating for a day or two before hatching. The second lifeform, being the gerbinks, were the creatures that emerged from the eggs. These remarkable animals are so named owing to them having a head and facial features similar to that of a gerbil and the body markings and tail like that of a skink, hence, gerbink. These portmanteau, or hybrid words were concocted by the scientists enabling their studies to progress. They would no doubt figure out what the proper scientific Latin names were, once they had figured out what they were dealing with.
At first, their investigations indicated that there was a definite imbalance on the island. From the beginning it was apparent that tree growth was heavy and overcrowded, and later it could be seen that the animals were finding it hard to survive in the congested environment. Over time it was shown that their numbers were dwindling. It was during a meeting, called specifically to address this problem that the news came. The team’s hydrologist, who had been out taking water samples, came back to announce that the island was no longer there. Within a few minutes, every member of the elite body of professionals were lined up along the shoreline scanning the horizon. Without doubt, the distant green image of the tiny island was no longer there.
All of this is a complete nonsense, of course. This became evident when the botanist, the original botanist, the unhappy, amateur botanist, who had only considered clambering onto the island for a quick prod around, woke up in his boat, drifting some distance from the island. After taking several large gulps of water, he slowly straightened from his slumped position. He stared, bleary-eyed, at the tiny island covered with trees, none of which bore fruit.
After spending a long time going back over these apparent events, together with several long periods of self-reflection, he realised that there were better ways of reducing the symptoms of his depressive disorder. He could hardly believe how truly powerful were the latent after effects of LSD.
What happened to him was a story as old as the hills.
He met this really nice girl at the local calisthenics club. They trained together for a while and eventually started dating. A few months later she met this guy who was a disgraced scientist. She seemed to be infatuated with his work, not so much him, so the boyfriend wasn’t troubled by their relationship. This guy’s work, or more specifically the project that got him fired from the scientific development institute, was about building a ray machine capable of mind control over vast distances. His girlfriend spent more and more time in his makeshift laboratory at the back of the old abattoir. Eventually they announced a test date for the equipment. Naturally the boyfriend was invited.
It was an outstanding success, with a number of people from the immediate vicinity becoming totally controlled by the ray and wandering into the laboratory. They just stood around, waiting for further instructions. Of course, the scientist was absolutely delighted with the result and began planning how his invention could be presented, along with a similar demonstration, to the scientific community that had scoffed at his ideas. The girlfriend, now very much a part of it all, was part of the planning process and she was spending a great deal of time on it. The boyfriend started to see things in a different way. He was not seeing as much of her as he would have liked. He decided that when the time was right he would bring the subject up.
However, his girlfriend had plans of her own. During discussions about how the new technology would be introduced to the world, she managed to get the scientist to stand in front of the equipment’s barrel long enough to be hit by the ray. Having done this, using the maximum setting, and with a high-pitched laughter, she unleashed a powerful blast out across the entire planet, creating slaves of all that it came in contact with. Now, with most of humankind in a state of readiness to do her will, she laid plans of her own, regarding the future direction of her world domination.
The boyfriend, being one of the few not hit by the ray, felt it only right that he should approach her. He was confident that their relationship was strong enough for him to persuade her to see reason. He would rely on their simpatico. At the same time he was aware of his own poor timing, knowing that he should have spoken up earlier. Nevertheless, he was determined to make amends.
He found her in the laboratory drawing up her master plan for the total control of the planet, when in a scenario as old as time… she zapped him.
He was seen as a workaholic.
Despite being in his late fifties, he was always in early and always the last to leave the office, week in week out. He never took holidays. The weeks just accrued on file somewhere. He was asked once or twice if he felt he should take a break, but it made no difference. It was not uncommon for him to keep himself busy at his desk for at least one and sometimes two hours after everybody left. He was grateful that the rest of the staff seemed to accept the fact that it was his personal choice to sacrifice his time and private life in order to serve the company.
It was never apparent that he was vane about his work ethic, or the way he sacrificed so much of his time. Nobody ever actually said anything negative about his long work hours, although the occasional quip about him being the ‘lights man’ alluded to his routine. He saw this as an obvious reference to the fact that he was always left to see that all lights on the building’s floor were switched off when he left.
However, it was different on this particular night. Becoming so absorbed in what he was doing, had him still in his room way after his normal time. He was amazed to see just how late it was, when sometime after midnight he was disturbed by a strange rattling sound coming from the outer hallway.
Soon after this, a woman appeared. A little surprised herself, she apologised for disturbing him and said that this was her night for emptying waste baskets and rubbish bins.
The number of hours working in silence and the solitude had to be the reason that he was happy to stop what he was doing and chat. The following half-hour was taken up with an idol, but surprisingly comfortable chat. He had little to talk about regarding his own circumstances, but she had her own interesting story to tell. The upshot of this being that she was a single mother of two, now living back home with her parents. She said she was only too glad to have a job that paid the bills.
Anyway, this prompted him to pack up, and on this occasion leave the lights to someone else. It was travelling home on the almost empty late bus that gave him time to reflect on the unexpected conversation. She was a nice person, he thought. She was going home to her children, while he was on his way to a small, empty flat. He wondered whether he was penalising himself for the emptiness in his life or was he doing what he does as a genuine sacrifice? It was the pedantic side of his reasoning that had him wondering whether it was a matter of sacrifice or forfeiture. He asked himself, was he paying a forfeiture or making a sacrifice?
Thinking about the woman, if it’s true that he was making a sacrifice, whose was the greater?
The weather was cold and windy, he looked around for somewhere to light up
He checked the time. He had time for a smoke. His friend would be picking him up in around ten minutes. He was usually pretty prompt. He moved further down the street looking for a spot out of the wind. He turned the corner and found a wall where he could stand. It was out of the weather. He lit a cigarette and leant back against the wall. Only, he didn’t. He fell backwards and scrambled to his feet. He found himself standing in a very large… no that didn’t describe it, in a huge space that had no visible walls. It just went on and on. His nerves were jangling. The cigarette had survived the fall. With a shaking hand he brought it up and took a puff.
A voice said, “No smoking!”
With a jolt, he said “What?”
Suddenly, an odd looking character was beside him, he repeated, “No smoking in here.” He pointed to a disc on the floor about the size of a saucer.
He was a small man, barely five feet high and skinny. He had extremely pale skin and close-cropped, white hair. He was dressed in a white boiler suit with white moccasins. He said, “Drop it in there if you don’t mind.”
Flustered, the man said, “No. Of course, I didn’t know, sorry.” He approached it. “Here?”
“Yes. Just drop it.”
He did, and it instantly disappeared. He stood gazing down at the disc, while the weird little man looked him over, then looked around at what should have been a wall, but was just a light grey mist. “You must have come through here. Not a problem. I’ll fix it when you’ve gone. How did you find it?”
“I didn’t, I was just leaning on the wall when…”
“Ah! Yes. I see now. A wormhole. We must have missed it.”
The man looked around. “What is this place, it’s…
“It’s hard to understand, I know. We do get occasional visitors, not many…” He looked back at where a wall should be, where something would need to be done. “Not many, but it does happen.”
Looking back at the disc, he said, “And that?”
“Wormhole, naturally. A small one.”
“And this place, what is it?”
“Ah! I’m happy to tell you, but you wouldn’t understand. We do get the odd visitor that gets a bit of a guided tour, but only when we have time. You’ve caught me at a bad time, I’m afraid. Anyway, I assure you it’s all a bit pointless, as you will have no memory of any of this when you return.”
“No memory, you say?”
“None whatsoever.”
“Oh! Well, in that case… someone’s picking me up.”
“If you’re concerned about the time don’t be. Time stops in here; for you, that is.”
The man looked around again, trying to take in what he saw. “Before I go, can you just give me a clue?”
“A clue? How quaint. At least you’re asking. OK. A clue. OK. Rats.”
“Rats, is that it, rats?”
“Yes. It’s more than a clue really. The rodent brain is quite remarkable, rats are extremely intelligent. We love watching them. We’re in the process of giving the planet, your planet, a complete makeover.”
“You are? You can do that?”
“Definitely, we can. Who do you thing put all that together? All that out there, I mean… um, OK, you have all sorts of belief systems, we know that. Yes, rats. They are very bright and so entertaining. You guys are far too serious.”
“About?”
“Everything, really. You’ve made everything so complicated. It’s like I said, you just take everything so very seriously.” He shrugged and shook his head. “Your breed never seemed to cotton on to the fact that with so many of you all striving for self-importance, it brings about this ghastly condition where you take yourselves much too seriously. At the end of the day, you’re just not much fun to watch.”
“Watch?”
“Of course, watch. That was the whole idea. We just want a good show.”
“OK, and us, what happens to us?”
“You’ll be gone, I’m afraid. Please don’t worry about it, you’ll know nothing about it. You won’t feel a thing, besides, look!”
At this, he pointed to something behind the visitor. With a firm but not unfriendly push, he found himself back out on the street, stumbling forward. He didn’t fall over but he had trouble keeping his balance. He looked around to see if he’d tripped on something, but the pavement was clear. He checked the time again, nearly ten minutes before his ride.
He leant back against the wall and lit a cigarette.
She lives in a different world.
Far different from before. Only her previous memories guide her. Violet is summer with the flowers that grew around the artificial pond in her auntie’s garden. Green is the great expanse of lawns in the parks were she would run with her friends. Blue is the endless sea, standing in it ankle deep, when they had holidays and lived for a while in a caravan. Orange is for watching carrots being scraped with the true colour coming through. Indigo is for the bunches of grapes that hung over their back fence, that they were allowed to keep. Yellow is for the pile of grated cheese that will go towards the macaroni dish her father was so fond of. Red is the lipstick used when her mother went out with her father to somewhere special. White is the world being changed in winter with a layer of snow covering everything.
Black… and black is always there.
From a previous world to this. Only her precious memories from before blindness can guide her.
She lives in a different world.