The Twisted Tales Chapbook
By
Kerry Valkyrie Baldock Kelly
The Pride
Barefoot she climbed grey rock after grey rock. Blood streaks stained her bare legs; she could almost feel the tears, almost. At the peak she peered lucidly over the peak of the mountainous heap to the lions that lay beyond. Long locks of filthy auburn hair clung to her paling cheeks and tears filled her eyes. She was lost. Weakened finger nails scraped, clinging onto the stones and she hauled her slender frame over the apex. Her footing was instantly lost and she tumbled rapidly down, the fall seemed to last forever like a film moving slowly frame by frame. At some points she floated, but inevitably she found herself on hands and knees peering up at a heavily maned giant cat.
Paling hazel eyes met the beasts stare and fear filled her. In the distance she could espy the other enclosures. Furious rhinoceroses steamed by high wired fences as hippos clambered along a murky swamp. The threat was imminent. The lion approached accompanied by his mate, both edged cautiously growling in a deep, low voice. She pulled herself awkwardly to her feet and backed away ever so slowly. The King sensed her terror and warped with a hunger caused by the absence of his keeper he leapt forward paws outstretched.
Marie woke with a start. Her left cheek burned and she clawed at it with sharp talons. Her flat was cold, the council still had not replaced the broken glass and outside under the smoggy black of night she could hear car alarms whirring away, bottles being smashed up the side of walls smothered in gang graffiti and voices shouting drunkenly. Her face itched and she tore at it in between yawning and rubbing her worn eyes.
Damp and cold made her home unbearable. She often laid in bed for long periods hoping that the world outside would vanish of its own accord. Of course that never happened. She had once been married to a successful businessman, had a glorious apartment in the centre of London, but that was a long time ago; a fading memory tarnished by his violence and philandering. The ultimate cruelty came when Marie finally broke down and without remorse he had her committed to a psychiatric unit.
The divorce came during her incarceration exacerbating her unhappy constitution. Eventually she accepted the loss and grudgingly submitted to counselling before being rehoused to what could only be deemed as the worst estate on the brink of the city. Nobody came to see her, except the Psychiatric Nurse and her visits had become infrequent.
Lethargically she dragged herself to the bathroom. The mirror revealed the extent of the damage. A huge blister splattered gorily down her left cheek, leaking and now painful. Her clothes lay in a heap on the bathroom floor, the same clothes she wore every day; an old black tracksuit stained and torn. She pulled them on with an old pair of trainers and fumbled around inside the pockets for her car keys.
The communal back stair well stunk, but enabled her to avoid the mobs roaming dangerously around the estate. She slunk by the side wall and snuck to her car hoping that it would start. The door was slightly ajar; it had not shut properly for some time. The red paint peeled due to the pranks of the gangs. The old Metro banged and knocked as the key was turned, it struggled onto the main road and then stuttered up a back street before dying.
Inexorably she found herself drawn to a small side shop. The dimmed light glowed and all else seemed dingy. A bell sounded as the door rattled open. The mark still stung, but she had no way to get to the hospital and hoped someone inside would be able to take her.
A miniature train puffed around an expertly set-up railway. Realistic sounds reminded her of the dreams of returning to her childhood in a country village somewhere. Medication clouded her mind; her memories were disappearing, inaccurate. Something in the sound of the train pleased her, something nostalgic.
Two old men in grey suits stood talking in the corner. Green paint shimmered on the walls and wood. She felt a voice call her, maybe she heard it. She moved carefully, invisible to the shopkeepers, until she reached a glass cabinet at the back of the small outlet. Three hideous porcelain dolls coldly glared at her, seeing her soul. She could hear their voices growing louder and louder. The hole in her face bled profusely as the unintelligible words streamed through her mind, filling the room until nothing existed, but the voices and a gaping wound in her face. All went black.
Barefoot she climbed the grey stones of her garden wall. Blood streaks stained her tiny hands; she could almost feel the fear, almost. At the top she gazed in horror at the pride of lions that filled her parents’ garden. Long locks of filthy sandy manes swayed as they roamed across the ornamental bridges and through the brightly coloured bushes. She was scared. Weakened finger nails scraped at her bleeding cheek. She felt compelled to approach the fearsome beasts. Hypnotically she marched on, her girlish pigtails swaying in the breeze as dirt clung to her red and grey uniform.
Paling hazel eyes met the beast’s stare, she was in awe of the majestic beauty of the King. In the distance she could espy her parents’ thatched cottage. Furious gusts of wind steamed through the giant willow tree beyond and sent ripples through the stagnant pond. The threat was imminent. The lion approached accompanied by his mate, both edged cautiously growling in a deep, low voice. She pulled herself awkwardly to her feet and backed away ever so slowly. The King sensed her terror and warped with a hunger caused by the absence of her keepers he leapt forward baring sharp fangs.
Marie woke with a start. Her left cheek bled and she tore at it with broken nails. Her chaffed hands struggled to leave the sleeping bag and the doorway provided little shelter. No one bothered vagrants here. There used to be an unpleasant housing estate packed with an array of afflicted souls, desperate souls willing to do anything to survive. The project had been closed due to worsening crime levels, all residents moved on. Silence filled the smoggy, black night only occasionally interrupted by old papers dancing in the wind. Marie once believed in fairies and since her tortured soul was no longer treated with dignity, since she could not acquire an address and as such failed to appoint a Doctor she had started to see fairies dancing in the night sky.
The fairies reminded her of her childhood. She vaguely remembered living on the outside of a small village. Perhaps a train chugged through once in a while and merged with the sound of trickling water bubbling through the garden pond. The illness had clouded her mind. Her parents died leaving her an orphan, alone. She felt guilty, but could not recall why. Her mind torn in two, she was incarcerated. She had married and married well, but the nightmares started, the headaches and the paranoia. He could not cope and simply stopped returning home. She envisaged him running away with a younger woman.
The lethargy was unbearable. She could not even drag herself to the bathroom or dress. Her skin festered with bedsores and her home became a shrine to takeaway wrappers and leftovers. Loss was painful, she could not face losing anything, not even a pizza wrapper. Her benefits just about covered the takeaway. The rent remained unpaid and the electric was switched off. A neighbour must have alerted the authorities.
The hospital stank of disinfectant and urine. It was filled with dangerous souls tormented by their own pathology. She slunk around the corridors avoiding all contact and struggled to engage in group session. She wished that the world would change instead of her, that the world would accept her sadness. The sadness ate away at her insides, hungrily, starved and strangled by fading memories.
Inevitably she gave in, but only to give her a chance of getting out. She attended group and individual therapies. Like an automaton she said the words that the medical professionals needed to hear. She was released from the depths of darkness to a living hell. The blister came. It bubbled and burned.
Her memories were confused, mixed up and illogical. Night winds howled across her chilling ears. Once there were sounds of sirens, voices,
bottles smashing, but now there was only the rattle of the paper fairies bouncing on the breeze. Marie imagined that they were alight, sparkling brightly, burning just like the searing, festering hole in her cheek.
Her aging arthritic bones shuffled slowly into the hospice. Varicose veins stained her legs and her empty eyes sank below withered layers of loose skin. The door slowly opened, she had not touched it. Robotic, miniature zoo animals swarmed the corridors. Tiny toys, remnants of a fragmented past busily lived their lives oblivious to her ear and pain. As she forced her way along the corridors using the walls to give her balance and guide her tiny lions yapped at her swollen ankles. The noise was drowned out by the smog of her brain.
Briefly she lost her footing and stumbled. Her frayed vocal calls emitted a soft gasping moan and she found her balance using the white-washed walls. Sparsely furnished room after sparsely furnished room passed her by, or she passed the rooms by. Like a struggling steam engine she drifted forwards, sometimes she felt like she was floating and other times falling or sinking. Her own room was cluttered with miniature beasts. Obliviously she stepped over them and climbed listlessly into her bed.
The ticking of a clock beat in her mind. The sound slowed until it was a soft pulse thrumming in her head. Her eyes closed and the beasts dispersed. Feeling ebbed from her gangrenous feet and the blister on her face split into a giant hole. Her shaking fingers touched the gape, poking at the insides. The itching had stopped.
Light blasted the room, but her eyes stayed closed. She didn’t need them anymore. The fairies or angels appeared and burned furiously as her face had once done. Beams thronged through her soul and cleared the smog from her mind, but then she saw new smog.
Skipping lightly over the garden wall Marie dashed across the ornamental pond towards her parents’ thatched cottage. Her parents were upstairs decorating the nursery and she could hear her baby sister gurgling and intermittently crying in her crib upstairs. Marie loved her and had given her three of her favourite dolls. Hastily she rushed into the lounge whipping her jacket off, the one her mum had knitted her after their trip to the zoo. She had fallen in love with the King of the lions and there he was everyday smiling out at her from the knitted wool.
The jacket was slung as Marie wanted to rapidly change and go out to meet her friends. In an instant she had dashed to her room, changed and after a brief exchange with her loving parents belted out of the front door. For an instant she looked back to see the lounge curtains blowing in the soft breeze which had entered through a crack in the window.
Beyond the garden lay a disused railway and Marie and her friends would pretend to be train drivers or posh passengers. Once at the tracks Marie peered briefly back at the house and the fairies caught her eyes. An amazing bright light, glowing and raging filled her eyes. Flames tore ravenously through the building eating the curtains, clawing at the furniture and ripping through the skin of the roof. Marie froze, for a second she could hear tortured screams, the alarm of the fire engine and glass smashing. Then there was nothing but fire, a huge majestic ball of fire. Smoggy smoke filled up the air as the evening drew in.
The assumption was that some garment had carelessly been thrown onto the open fire causing the deaths of three members of the family.
The old woman’s face burned with tears as she drew her last breath and headed towards the angelic flame.
Host
Fate drove me to my death, and by death I mean the tarot card interpretation; the end of an old life and the beginning of the new. A repetitive dream haunted me from childhood. I would find myself in pouring rain roaming scared and lost through a thick woods drenched in night’s suffocating darkness. Finally I would hear the cries of the ocean’s tide hammering against a distant shore. On reaching an unkempt grassy clearing a once magnificent, now derelict mansion would come into view. I felt it looking at me, waiting for me and drawing me in; built of sturdy ageing stone, broken Georgian style windows, yet alive and calling for me.
Beyond lay a muddy beach littered with pebbles and overlooked by an abandoned lighthouse. Occasional jolts of lightening would illuminate the overbearing gargoyles that adorned the large, stretched eyes of the main first floor windows. Reluctantly I would enter the curved oak doors that had been left ajar as if welcoming me. Candles would flicker alive showing a grand hall, magically unscathed by age and bedecked with old portraits of people from long ago that stared longingly at the giant staircase. Behind the art stood high, crimson walls that complemented the dark wooden rails and floor.
An archway to my left revealed a splendid lounge full of Chaise-Lange’s, a crackling fire filled with logs and further pictures. One would always catch my gaze; A refined man, tall with thick black hair and the most soul-searching blue eyes. Pangs would always run through my body, pangs of attraction and a sub-conscious recognition. After a momentary stare I would climb the stairs. The first floor encompassed the stair case revealing numerous bedrooms. All furnished beautifully with king size beds, closets and rugs. One particular chamber attracted me, it lay between two other rooms and had doors accessing both. The bed had four posts and red covers, walls, floors.
Deeper into the house I would go, passing the servants’ quarters of the second floor and up into the attic. The attic called me and I was drawn to it. I always knew in the back of my mind that there were two staircases that led to the top floor; one ran directly from the scullery in the basement and the other from the landing of the second floor. I climbed higher, but a pain in my belly told me to turn back, to run. The hair on my neck rose, but I would always lose control of my feet. Forced to move on I would feel the panic welling up, lights dimmed and the splendour of the main house would soon be forgotten.
Mazes were incomparable to the intricate rooms that ran one from the other and across various levels. It would occur to me in my adult years that the attic rooms existed in a self-contained block to the rear of the house directly over the extended scullery and kitchens. The rooms varied from what appeared to be empty servants’ quarters and vast collections of old books. The largest room appeared to be a study of sorts and must have sat to the rear as it over looked the sea and lighthouse.
Layers of rocks, corals and pools provided an awkward array of stepping stones to the menacing tides and lighthouse. Sometimes I would move into a pitch black back room. I always felt disturbed, as if an inhumane soul suffered in the purgatory of this chamber. I could feel the threatening presence. I would try to escape, but my feet would draw me in deeper and darker. On other occasions I would dream that I stepped onto the balcony of the study and climbed over the barrier down to the first layer of rock. The hard weed soaked mass swept in a rugged semi-circle dropping at one edge to another layer and at another to a rock pool that would tidally transform into a cruel tide sucking water into the jaws of the ocean.
I would feel him behind me, a greying mass of black and white, unable to reflect colour. I would feel his massive form enshrouding me and instinctively would edge towards the rock pool with fear. I knew him, the man before me, the man from the portrait, but could not place him. As I backed away his hand would stretch alongside great strides until it stroked my cheek. The fear would always make me unsteady, the fear and the swirls of the tide beckoning to me, I would slip as I backed away, tripping, stumbling trying desperately to get away from this monstrous spirit. He always uttered the same words as he angrily strode towards me,
‘We have been waiting!’ and I would fall into the whirling eddy below. Dark water sucked me under every time and every time I would drag myself to the surface choking and suffocating. He would watch cruelly as I cried out and begged for help. The tide would drive me outwards towards the rocky shelf separating the pool from the vicious sea. My nails would crack as I threw myself onto the largest stone, wrapping my arms about its huge form. Then she would come, the lighthouse would glow and she would come. My stinging, salty eyes would glance back and he would be staring, waiting and transparently illuminating as the
ancient light flicked across the shore.
Her icy, drenched pale hand would appear first from beneath the waves, grabbing at the boulder with fingers crunched like talons. Her long black hair rose from the deep and clung to the rocks as if every single lock was an individual entity coming for my soul. I would always freeze with terror as a second hand splatted next to my face. Her bowed head would rise in neck cracking strokes and two dark eyes would peer from the downturned face turning me to stone.
Psychology was my subject of choice at eighteen and circadian rhythms and dream analysis thereafter for my Doctorate in London. My social life was non-existent as I desperately searched for meaning. Psychiatrists failed to alleviate my suffering as did counsellors, hypnotists and priests. I spent my free time wading through photograph after photograph of old houses, but none seemed to match the image that my mind had conjured up. My own work had not given me the insight I desperately needed and after graduation, a ceremony that I chose not to attend, I booked a costly appointment with a medium. Needless to say I was sceptical.
The scepticism increased when I found the woman, who called herself Helena, in a small Soho shop surrounded by trinkets, tarot cards and candles. It seemed a little tacky and I expected nothing. Helena offered me green tea, which I politely declined, before leading me down a steep flight of wooden stairs to a small candle lit room containing only a dinner table and chairs, nothing spectacular. I sat down an involuntarily allowed an unimpressed sigh to escape my lips.
Advising me to shuffle and focus on my quest, the woman handed me a well-use pack of cards. Steadily I mixed the deck as the old woman pushed her greying curls back and closed her eyes. I placed the cards in a heap before her and without examining them she ran her hands over the top whilst taking deep breaths. She batted her lashes and then whispered to me that caution was needed. She then rose and left the room returning with a map of The British Isles. Her palm stroked the plan until stopping on a small Scottish village lying between the ocean and the Outer Hebrides, Meallta. Abruptly her demeanour changed, she grasped my hand moaning and shaking her head, imploring me not to go. I forced her away and left my payment on the table.
I was drawn, I knew after years of unrest that I had to go regardless of Helena’s negativity. My searches online had revealed very little about the area, so I had no choice but to conclude my quest, to find out what had been driving me and if this house existed at all. Within hours I found myself lightly packed and on the night train to the North. The journey was largely uneventful, I was tired and slept for the most part only waking to change trains at Fort William. The morning sun rose from behind crimson skies as I left the station at Glenfinnan and waited for what felt like an eternity for a taxi.
The driver said very little to me on the road to Meallta and seemed reluctant to be visiting the small village at all. He was courteous enough to leave me at a small tavern with rooms to let. This of course sounds like a reference to an old horror film, but this is not the case. The fact is that Meallta was such a small village that little else existed; a few houses in the village, the tavern, a small shop and a smaller school with farms dotted along the rural horizon. The harbour only provided enough room for four fishing boats each only big enough for two or three men. It was clear that the village was self-sufficient and neither wanted nor required outside interference; it was trapped in time.
The people were polite enough, unlike the harbingers expected to drive strangers out in the old films and quickly accommodated me and offered me a good home roast. The tavern was run by a middle aged childless couple calling themselves Mary and Brian. She was a petit woman whose thick red curls were piled into a loose bun and he was a sturdy fellow darker in both complexion and hair. They spoke at length about the fishing population who they fed during the day and gave porter to in the evening.
Once I found the couple to be at ease and happy with my company I broached the subject of historical houses. I did not want to explain my far-fetched reasoning and instead explained that I was writing a book on old buildings. There was a brief and uneasy exchange of glances, but logic overcame any out-dated superstition and Mary explained that there had been a large house that backed on to the sea many years ago. This house had been burned down by the English landlord, a General in a fit of temper following the loss of his wife; only the bare ruins stood now. Before retiring I persuaded my good landlords to show me the location of the ruins on a map and bathed and took to my bed early to prepare for the day ahead; a day which I hoped would bring years of distress to a swift conclusion.
I woke to a coal fire burning in the grate and a small plate of soda cake, butter, jam and a fresh pot of tea. I refreshed myself and swept my hair back tightly. My attire consisted of loose trousers, shirt and trainers to facilitate any excess climbing or walking that may be required. The walk was longer than expected as the ruins stood someway outside of the village. A few passers-by on bicycles or foot saluted as I overtook them on the road, but the journey was otherwise quiet giving me time to wonder whether I was chasing ghosts and at times even question my own sanity.
At length, having passed a small abandoned monastery, I found a dirt road holding an unkempt signpost pointing to the historic site of Meallta House. I strolled up the road, anxious to reach my destination and barely taking in the lush green beauty of the overhanging trees that smothered the path blocking the view to the sea. The sound of the waves crashed through my ears as I drew closer to the site. The track grew rougher until it morphed into a ragged field and then a wooded copse, with little indication of regular tourism. I crunched through leaves, dried mud heaps and fallen branches until reaching the clearing, the one I had so often dreamed about and beyond I spied the ruins.
Most of the ground floor still stood, the door rotted and hung open, but the window panes were no more, just vacant eyes staring into the distance. Clambering up through the front door I found the layout as expected; the great hall, the lounge now a blackened, debris filled chasm, the stairs collapsed and the upper floors fallen into heaps, strewn carefree about the place with weeds growing between the planks. Clumsy stones made the surfaces dangerously unstable. The ebb and flow of the tide seemed to echo and scream to me. I abandoned the building and circumnavigated its huge walls until reaching the pebbled layers heading out to sea.
Sadly, the desolate lighthouse gazed at me. Rugged rocks clawed a path to it and masses of rock pools formed a dangerous, tidal pathway to its door. I closed my eyes and listened to the roaring sea, screaming in desperation and in that second everything changed.
Darkness fell, unnatural darkness, the sun’s rays disappeared from beyond my eyelids and slowly, recoiling in horror I opened them. Dense black clouds smothered the sky leaving only a slit for the rays of a glowing, ill-timed moon. A smog rose upwards from around my feet and misty claws crept from the trees beyond. I could feel my heart racing and urgency filled my belly, desperation to flee, but terror cemented my feet to the ground.
I turned my gaze to the house which hastily began to evolve and regress, the planks and stones rose rebuilding its original magnificent state, regressing into a past form. Shadows flittered and shuffled with a speed beyond human perception and there before more eyes stood a well-lit manor whereby the present and the past occupied the same space. Overawed and overwhelmed I lifted my heavy feet and trudged mesmerised towards the nightmarish house.
The door opened at my approach and I sauntered in drawn instantly to the depths of the scullery and the bleak staircase that led me to the servants’ quarters. The climb was steep and the staircase narrow. The thrumming of the waves beat in my ears covering the sounds of my own footsteps. At the apex a series of sparsely furnished rooms and halls created a maze across the top floor, one room bleaker than the previous. I moved through servants’ quarters, rooms stocked with books and boxes, corridors, until finally I came to a large rear facing communal room whose huge semi-oval windows stared intensely onto the lighthouse and whose balcony provided and laye
rs of rock provided a treacherous path to the sea.
As my eyes flitted from room to sea I noticed a drink’s globe and a high backed armchair facing the crackling fire. Therein sat the General; I recognised his rank from the long out-dated uniform and his image from the picture in my dreams. He rose slowly and held his arms out to me, moving rigidly forwards and taking my hands in his. He closed his eyes and instinctively I closed mine allowing our minds to converse in pictorial silence.
Images of the life he had lost flashed through my brain like a lightning storm; a feared General pre-eminent in developing the American colonies who returned to Scotland with his beloved servant Rosaline. Over time his infatuation with his dainty servant developed into obsession; her soft songs, her long, black flowing hair and her ebony eyes bewitched him and slowly drove him to the brink of delirium. He intentionally dispatched his family to London and began his advances, which were welcomed by the girls’ open arms.
In time his second weakness, the bottle, reared its cruel head and he would often neglect his cherished Rosaline. In her loneliness she found solace with a stable hand. One lust-filled night the General recovered his senses and on discovering his concubine entwined in the limbs of another grew enraged. The ultimate insult was the location; the coupling took place on a beautiful, plush chair beneath his portrait.
The General, consumed with an agonised heart and ravenous anger pulled the large iron tongs from the fireplace and bore them down on the head of his rival. Blood gushed and sprayed instantly onto his beloved. Terrified she ran towards the front door and the maddened General pursued the demon who had cursed him. The howling wind froze her form; she hugged her arms about her breasts stumbling over the rocks, mud and fallen leaves.
The roar of the General swirled in the air and she hobbled down onto the beach. With the tide steadily trickling in she struggled along the shallow rock pulls, tears pouring from her blood-stained skin she headed towards the lighthouse. The bleak night concealed the whereabouts of her assailant, the man she adored and loved so deeply, but his voice rang menacingly around her. Rosaline clambered up the rocks to the light house, threw open the door and panted heavily as she climbed the spiral staircase.
He had caught up with her by the time she had fallen out onto the top gallery. In wrath he raised the tongs still wedged in a furious clenched fist, delicately she approached him and placed her palm over his fist lowering the weapon and under her breath muttered the curse that would trap them both in their self-made prison until a suitable receptacle could free them and then in one sudden move threw herself over the balcony ending her life on the rocks below.
Insanity overwhelmed the General, insanity and grief; her touch had shown him their purgatory trapped in the house while her soul and body would be imprisoned beneath the waves both entrapped together and yet apart. The General would be haunted by his lover’s death and his spirit would mourn daily until a sacrifice could be made to reunite the two. He saw the curse in Rosaline’s eyes before she leaped to her death. Desperate to stop the pain he raced to the manor and there used shelves of books and the open fire to burn the place down. His mad laughter echoed through the halls as the flames consumed him, but in death he, the estate and the agony were reborn.
As his hands released mine I realised I was the sacrifice. Somehow he had drawn me here, perhaps he was an ancestor or I was a descendant of hers. I was unsure of the connection, but felt it none the less. He wanted my body for his beloved. The door slammed and bolted on its own volition. I darted through the open window and climbed over the balcony onto the rocks below. He followed; I climbed down further, layer after layer of rock until I reached a plateau that lay between him and the deep rock pools. The tide was high and angrily lashing and spewing jets, spraying me with bullets of water.
I backed away, pleading, imploring him to let me live. He had waited too long to be reunited with Rosaline, his resolve was immovable. In a second my footing was lost, I fell into the depths of the cruel waves. The current proved unmanageable, I was dragged to the rear of the pool. My nails scraped and clung to the rocks as I desperately tried to save myself. My nails achingly bent and ripped. I coughed as water washed into my lungs. I could see his blurred figure waiting on the rocks. Then she came!
One pale, scrawny hand reached out of the sea. The fingers bent and contorted as it latched onto the rock next to me. The elbow bent as she heaved her corpse from the sea. Jet black tendrils of hair covered the skeletal face and black eyes, each tendril seemed to have a life of its own and climbed the rock like ivy. I tried to scream, but no sound came out. My whole body shuddered with an evil fear. A second clawed hand joined the first. I tried to pull myself away, but my strength had left me and the sea overwhelmed me.
Her gnarled face stared into mine. In a moment of fear I released my grip and an eddy formed swirling me, dragging me downwards. She moved along the rocks like a contorted insect until hurling herself towards me. As she floated towards my struggling frame her head sunk lower and lower until nothing but hair sprayed across the sea. A firm hand gripped my leg and I was dragged downwards, down into the darkness at the centre of the eddy. There was no water, no air, nothing except darkness. Eyes glowed therein, penetrating my eyes. Soft whispers cursed my eternal being. Her soul burned through my pupils and ripped into my mind with a volcanic eruption I was wrenched from my body, locked in the darkness forever as the lovers reunited in their own ghostly world above.
Equilibrium
The fog had started with a simple migraine, a pulsating pain thrusting outwards from behind her eyes. Studying mathematical physics at one of the best universities in Ireland was a challenge in itself, a privilege too. John had come from a rural background, bought up wrapping silage and herding cows in the farmlands of North May, but against his father’s wishes he sought a more challenging career. His father failed to see how John could not embrace his inheritance, but the boy had a keen mind and after several discussions with the teachers at his secondary school his father grudgingly accepted that John’s aspirations lay elsewhere.
When the other teenagers stayed behind to play music John would take additional and applied mathematics classes. It was a lonely existence, but John found the challenge of each puzzle exhilarating. He would use his time on the bus to and from school reading popular physics books by Hawking, Greene and Cox. His younger sister would tease him as they ate the evening roast around the wooden kitchen table and, although he would never refuse agricultural work, for he felt a duty to his parents, he seldom spent an evening in front of the television.
Nights would be spent furiously studying for his exams, hoping and working towards a chance to leave the country and head to the academic laboratories in Galway. The endless study paid off and even his father felt a sense of elation when John received his results and a subsequent offer of a place. The first year breezed by and John was so refreshed by the experience that he volunteered to turn his father’s turf during the summer. The migraines began in the second year.
Having missed out on a social life growing up John often opted to spend time drinking and relaxing in the union bar with his peers. He could talk extensively about his creative ideas; wormholes, time travel and multiverses with academics who found him fascinating. Given his new found proclivity for drinking John naturally assumed that the first migraine was a hangover, the result of dehydration. Wednesday night was quiz night in the bar and he had stayed out late stretching his cerebral muscle. He found himself waking groggily in the halls of residence with a slight ache.
His first lecture began at 10AM and led John through the amazing ideas presented by cosmologists. Normally he would have been thoroughly attentive; however the ache had evolved into a pain. The February rain beating furiously on the windows was not helping the matter and by lunchtime flickers and dots writhed before his eyes. His second assumption was that his sugar level had dropped, so he hastily exited the lecture hall and crossed the pathway to the campus cafeteria and loaded up on donut
s and sweet tea.
Unable to manage sitting through the flickering and humming lights of another lecture and with the pain increasing exponentially John returned to his dorm and hid under his blanket with the curtains pulled. Once he rose that day to partake of a large dose of Ibuprofen. He then returned to the sanctuary of his bed. His roommate returned to find John in debilitating pain and called the campus Doctor. John concurred with the Doctor that he was experiencing a migraine, but as it was only a one off he refused to take Amitriptyline.
Unfortunately it was not a one off! The headaches increased in both frequency and severity throughout February. He soldiered on using Ibuprofen as a crutch, but suffered the consequences as his stomach was often aggravated by the drug. Then the smog came.
It started as a noise, a high pitched humming searing through John’s brain. He searched his room for a faulty appliance at first, but it grew louder and louder. He searched the halls and even attended the security office to complain, but the officer grew impatient with John claiming that there was no noise and suggested rather curtly that he should cut down on his alcohol intake.
Abruptly the noise ceased. It must have been midnight, the din had kept John awake and the instant it stopped he felt a sense of relief course through his veins alongside an overwhelming urge to sleep. His heavy eyes drooped closed as euphoria engulfed him. His soul drifted into the mattress and sunk deeply.
Whining, high pitched, annoying whining stung John’s ears. He woke with a start and glanced at the alarm clock; 2:39. His roommate snored, oblivious to the irritating sound. The whine scratched and scrambled causing John’s head to pound. His eyes rested again on the alarm clock. He must have set it wrong causing the radio to stir. His hands flailed as he fiddled with the buttons trying to turn it off. More scratching and scrambling, then he could hear talking. The voices were muffled and inaudible, but an improvement on the previous racket. The buttons were not responding, but his headache was improving and John decided to let the soft voices lull him to sleep.
With the migraine seemingly relieved John returned to lectures within a few days. He found himself more alert and determined to work harder. His nights out were abolished and he spent his evenings alone studying. By mid-March he had caught up and gone beyond his peers. He was no more lonely than he had been at school and was not concerned as solitude suited him. Late nights, early mornings and a great deal of caffeine drove him headlong into a massive learning curve. He felt invincible!
Stomach cramps were a bother; he had missed so many meals that he was forced to go shopping. One Wednesday evening when his peers were at the bar he ventured to the local supermarket. It was busy, packed. At first he smoothly flitted from aisle to aisle throwing special offers into his trolley. Without notice everything changed. He was reaching for a loaf of bread when an overwhelming sense of suffocation fell on him. People, alien people, seemed to be everywhere, rushing by, enclosing him, strangling him and sucking away the very oxygen from the air.
John’s heart began to explode with each beat; the sound filled his ears and pulsated through his neck into his head where the throbs bellowed throughout his brain. He was hot, boiling, sweat started to bubble and his eyes filled with fog. The whining from the radio poured into the aisle like water drowning out the human ants, the whirring, the screeching and then equilibrium. A soft voice whispered into his ear urging him to leave, warning him that he was being watched, examined and prepared as his intelligence was of great use. A surreal calm fell on him and somehow he found his way home.
John was special. He had been singled out for a career in the secret services, perhaps he had been under surveillance since his glowing school results, after all physicists were in short supply and given the on-going wars, medical needs and competitive multimedia technologies the government was obliged to hunt down suitable candidates. He lay in bed unsure as to whether it was day or night, staring at his clock radio, waiting for the soft voice to advise him, and invariably it did.
David, John’s roommate had noticed a change in his friend. He had always been quirky, would sit in silence day-dreaming on their Wednesday nights out. He had watched as John struggled through his first year and barely passed the year’s finals probably, David presumed, because he wandered around campus all day in a world of his own and did not attend lectures. He had even spent the summer in digs in Galway never answering his phone or emails. When David had visited he had found John aloof and withdrawn and often wondered if he knew he had visited at all. He left his digs without notice and owing a great deal of rent, but John never seemed to worry about that. His father met some of his costs, but only when a very irate landlady called him.
This behaviour was new and more troublesome. John’s weight had dropped, he was gaunt and pale. He seldom left his bed let alone the room and during the night would be restless or would sit up and stare, nodding as if intently listening to some invisible being. David would check on John during lectures and found him either listless with eyes fixed intensively on the small watch that perched on his bedside table or scribbling furiously and muttering to himself.
It was only on seeing John’s incoherent scribbling that David sadly decided to call his father. Pages and pages of references to a political faction that had enlisted John’s help to develop a time machine that could travel across wormholes and enable the engineering of human history. There were diagrams, incorrect equations and notes on the enemy. The enemy changed his face, according to John’s notes, sometimes appearing as a monarch or leader and on other occasions as Jon’s own father. The call had to be made.
Pounding, throbbing, burning behind his eyes caused John to wake. He was in a lightly dressed and largely uncomfortable hospital bed. Gaudy yellowing curtains were drawn across the foot, to the right of him was a window overlooking the Mayo town of Castlebar and to the left another window leading into an observation office. Inside his father spoke to a small, greying doctor and John caught a few words. Schizophrenia was mentioned, treatable and Haloperidol also came up in the conversation. John closed his eyes.
The room was foggy, his father and the doctor were gone. Two tall men in immaculate and expensive dark suits stared through the glass. The older white haired man was talking; John recognised the voice from the radio. He informed his colleague that John had somehow tuned into messages meant for another man close to him and that he had failed to grasp their meaning. These failures had happened before and were normally treatable by blocking dopamine in the brain. Dopamine, thought John, Dopamine.
The Doctor shook John’s hand. He had made a good recovery after only three weeks and was ready to return home to his father’s care. His heart hung heavy in his chest, his dreams destroyed, but at least he was well again. John would be on medication for life, but the dosage would depend on his perception of reality and attuned accordingly. He would receive outpatient care and a nurse to visit him in the country. Reluctantly John followed his father out of the grotty room, whilst considering new ways to rebuild his life. John had always been a rational person and believed there would be alternative ways to achieve his dream.
David wrote to John regularly always showing concern for his well-being and giving him news. John was not surprised to learn some years later that David had been recruited by the British government to join a research team specialising in nuclear physics. It almost seemed like fate!
Dust
It was more than unusual, it was bizarre to see a giant aircraft; a jumbo jet flying so low over the desolate country lane. Its wingspan spread beyond the avenue of overgrown emerald trees that hung either side of the potted and uneven road. The angelic white body of the body was highlighted by royal blue and bright red stripes. The nose sunk slightly like a bird of prey seeking tiny vermin below. The lack of sound made the visual exhibition somewhat unnerving for the three people below.
Janet and her teenage daughter Lee sat cautiously in the van of a burly man who had kindly offered to take the hitch-hikers to their destination.
Only carrying a small holdall and wearing the clothes they stood up in the two women had abandoned their home, one of violence, when Janet’s belligerent and cruel husband finally succumbed to an excess of alcohol. The previous night he had turned his hand from his wife to his daughter and in that moment his wife found the power and strength to leave. She had no car and the two fled the scene in hope of reuniting with Janet’s mother in Carlisle.
The prison paradise of Windermere had not calmed the brash soul of her husband, the beauty of the lake and awesome hills shrunk and disappeared as Janet found herself trapped by community expectations and gossip. Faking a trip to Kendall she took the bus out of the area and then whilst hiking the pair thumbed for a lift in hope of escaping undetected.
The risk of getting into a stranger’s car was significantly outweighed by the risk to her daughter had Janet remained at home. Both mother and daughter exhibited bruising toned down by an excess of make-up. Their matching red hair and pale skins gave them a surreal and vulnerable look, which made the driver stop. His usual delivery runs were somewhat simpler.
After some persuasion and given the story of her plight the driver agreed to follow the smaller country routes to avoid the risk of mother and daughter’s escape from being thwarted. They had stopped briefly for some soda and nuts at a remote service station and then took to the country lanes. The jet had appeared from nowhere.
Initially they seemed to have moved into the plane’s path. Bright rays of sun bounced from the pristine whiteness of the body. It hung far too low shocking the two women who at first thought that it was destined to crash. The huge carcass then shot forward and spun, rolling into the sky in a display that seemed impossible for such a huge eagle. The beast turned and swung again over the vehicle before swooping rapidly upwards into the increasingly blackening storm clouds.
As the flying monstrosity disappeared into the clouds rain began to fall heavily belting on the windscreen. An urge filled Janet’s heart to follow the flight path, to see the irregularity again. The deeper the vehicle travelled into the breast of the mountains the heavier the storm beat down. No other vehicles passed. Houses seemed to fade into the horizon and farmlands scattered further away.
Thunder rumbled and clattered as a river formed streaming down the road and shaking the van with splashing eruptions of water. To break the silence Janet attempted to tune the radio, but her endeavour failed as only white noise crackled through the air. Eventually she relented and switched the power off. The driver looked ahead focusing on the road. In the rear Lee sat huddled in a removable side chair. Both assumed the driver was on his way to collect his cargo as the large rear space remained empty.
Surreal lightening forks belted the land in the distance and small tornadoes formed and danced beneath the swelling clouds. Something shook; the ground shook and cracked from behind. The cracking tar chased the travellers avidly as the van accelerated. A darker cloud now hung behind them, seeking them out. The shape of the silhouette was a gigantic passenger carrying bird. Fearfully Janet turned her head to see the jet hurtling towards the insignificant van. Its huge velocity ripped up the road and its nose stared down into the rear windscreen.
Then the apparition merged with the van, entered the van without causing any damage. The monstrous beast headed towards Janet. In her seat she rose and turned petrified, her form turning to stone. The colossus glittered gold as it passed through Janet’s form. She felt its phantasmal form disintegrated into the night air as it cleared the windscreen and entered an invisible portal.
Lee held up the shopping bag which had been tarnished by the machine and the once solid contents fell as dust on the floor. Shimmering echoed from inside Janet’s body, sensitive, painful as if she had been stabbed repeatedly. She shuddered as her daughter’s body crumbled into dust before her eyes. Her own hands dripped like grains of sand and her form became a pillar of dust, which waned and collapsed as the driver slowed the vehicle and pulled the handbrake.
The noise of the previous night had proved intolerable for old Mrs Mise. Her neighbours were often noisy; arguments would ring into the night air. People in Windermere liked to keep themselves to themselves and not interfere with domestic problems. This night though the man of the house had come in late from the tavern, he had staggered into the door before struggling to pull the handle.
Lights went on and it seemed that he had woken his family. Within minutes his incoherent voice could be heard ringing through the open windows and into the stormy night. Then came the screaming, both mother and daughter were screaming, crying out for help. Reluctantly the widow reached for her phone and insisted the police came to investigate.
By the time they had arrived the shrieks had faded into nothingness. The lights remained on, but no movement was visible. Two pale red-headed women were found lying arm in arm on the floor lacerated with multiple stab wounds. The drunk sat in his reading chair, tears of regret streaked his face. Unbeknown to the mortals a courier had come to collect the deceased, to release them from ignorance of their own demise and assist their journeys to the beyond.
The Mental Ravine
Dear Mother
Forgive me, you asked to know how I was feeling, what ails me…
So you want to know about Bipolar? I will tell you, without poems, stories or empathy because with the best will in the world you will NEVER understand this illness. I have tried and failed with creative words to explain it, so I am going to resort to plain and simple fact. Bipolar is an illness, it has symptoms. I am sorry that those symptoms do not manifest in physical ill health, I am sorry you cannot see them, but know this; you do see them. You see them in behaviour, in thought and most of all in the pain of the sufferer. I cannot continue to use the word survivor because we barely survive, we struggled to survive! We suffer. Sometimes I am many, sometimes I am one of many!
Bipolar has an extremely high mortality rate, with death exceeding that of depression, lupus, diabetes and in some cases cancer. I am sorry to give you the harsh honest truth, but there it is. Bipolar sufferers endure life, they do not live it. They cannot live it because every moment is driven by forces that are beyond control. The pain of bipolar is unreal, every single day the pain is unreal. The mind flicks to so many levels. The brain lights up with a cruel inexplicable energy that drives beyond the psychology of motivation.
Medication can alleviate some of the symptoms at the cost of the individual losing all feeling and becoming essentially zombified, impervious to the delights of the world and trapped in numbness. Psychotherapists do not listen, they clock watch and are paid a ridiculous amount of money for doing so. The symptoms themselves shape the life of the sufferer.
They cannot live a normal life, cannot experience reality as it is experienced for others, because they are trapped in this cruel mind-set. Bipolar sufferers are not malicious, unkind or difficult. They are simply children who have this overwhelming urge to play in the garden of the world. They would not intentionally cause pain or hardship, in fact most sufferers are extremely empathetic meaning they feel the pain of others and as such would not dream of deliberately causing harm.
But they hurt, bipolar sufferers hurt all of the time. It is a pain that there is absolutely no medication or help for, it is an ache in the soul; a sadness that will not shift. Whether in the depths of despair or the peak of mania that pain remains. It makes them vulnerable, trusting and naïve. It is a sting that cannot be shifted by any reasonable method. At times it is unendurable, intolerable. It drives the sufferer to work, to seek an outlet and share that pain with the world, but the world cannot understand. Most people lack the emotion to have any comprehension of these feelings and yet we, the most emotive of sufferers are deemed divergent because we have the ability to comprehend the human condition.
The greatest, most creative minds suffered from this ailment and the result has been the most comprehensive works of art and pieces of fiction by those who are afflicted, made infamous by others who can just about understand.
A sufferer will show people their pain through artistic license, but would never intentionally hurt another, contrary to Hollywood cinema!
What then causes the suffering of bipolar? In truth I do not know! A drive perhaps, motivation, excess energy, misunderstanding by and large and vulnerability; the depression of bipolar comes on largely as fatigue, introverted escapism and a bleak need for solace. The mania side can be and often is much more treacherous because the sufferer will seek that distraction by stepping into the void, the unknown, from which there is often no escape.
Even those who know that the sufferer has bipolar will seldom assist in this state simply because they erroneously assume that the victim is in a state of elation not darkness. Others will take advantage and encourage the person to lead themselves astray. Without a doubt bipolar is cyclic in nature because the fall subsequently hits and the ravine is stepped from without guide nor ladder. This is the nature of the illness; this is the impossible cycle from which there is no escape. The leap is made, the real cruel aspect here is that the sufferer sees it coming, they are not blind, there is no peripetia or anagnorisis because the victim expects this, knows it is imminent, but is unable to prevent or avoid it. This is their hubris.
The sufferer will knowingly march themselves to the edge of the precipice, terrified eyes wide open; knowing that there is no escape nor exodus and without the support of a hand to guide them away because it is not in the personal interest of those who should lend sustenance to do so or they chose to ignore the indicators out of selfish need or disinterest. The alleged loved ones therefore aid the sufferer in their death march and often give a good thrust over the crag and there the victim will hit the rocks, rock bottom until alone they drag themselves to the peak once again stuck in a malignant cycle with few non-fatal escapes.
This is the nature of my illness, this is the nature of those with bipolar, an eternal cycle of suffering.
As you read this I lay at the bottom of that ravine…….
Anomaly