John sat up in the chair and almost screamed as a sudden cramp clutched his stomach. He only just made it to the toilet in time before his sphincter unlocked.
He was almost afraid to leave the washroom, fearful of his body betraying him once more, but he managed to get himself out of the office and into his car without further eruptions.
The car was stifling and humid, even with the air conditioning turned up full and John found himself doused in sweat long before he made it home. As he made his way to bed he resolved that there would be no experiment that night.
His stomach was still in turmoil as he lay down, but the vibration came anyway, an explosion of white flaring light and heat.
Your prison spins. The orange glow slides off to your left but the heat is still there, at your back now, getting hotter still until the pain begins.
Your prison spins and the hot poker becomes visible closer and closer to your flesh before finally it is thrust hard, into the deep muscle of your thigh. You burn and you scream as the flesh chars and sears and finally, overcome, you fall once more into blackness.
You dream, about a soft bed and a pale faced man, about a notebook and a pen. But when you wake, you are still in blackness.
Your prison spins.
~-oO0Oo-~
The Scotsman’s Fiddle
The Scotsman came over the pass in the Spring of ’89, the first visitor after the hardest winter on record. Tommy Jeffries saw him first, when he had just crossed the Eastbrig over the Powell. By the time the wagon started on the last slope up to the eastern reaches most of the town had come out to watch his progress up the valley, wondering about the occupants. Talk ranged from a new family out of Boston, to dynamite for the new mine-workings, to the Haberdasher that many of the women of town had long looked for.
When he pulled into what passed for our main street, he proved to be both more, and less than had been hoped for. A tall stocky man with a full black beard and hair flowing in a swathe over his shoulders stood up at the reins. He started his spiel as soon as he brought his wagon to a halt, his thick accent immediately apparent.
"Duncan Campbell is my name," he said. "And I am here to fix what ails you."
By now almost everyone from the town who wasn’t down the mine had gathered to hear him. The scenes painted on his wagon told us more – the town had its first ever Travelling Show, all the way from Scotland. There were pictures of rivers and valleys; painted warriors running through heather and tall stone castles on rocky shores. He saw us looking.
"Behold," he said, his voice booming. "The same rocks you have here underfoot have traveled through the very earth all the way from the homeland. In aeons past we all came from the same place. Indeed, many of you here have even more recent good Scots blood in you. I can make that blood sing for you. I can bring you home."
He drew something from the folds of his coat. All of us present could instantly recognize it – a fiddle, nut brown and faded with great age. A second movement produced a long stringed bow.
The Scotsman took hold of the instrument and raised it to his neck. Before starting he looked out over us. The small crowd went quiet. When he spoke, it was barely more than a whisper, but it carried to each of us, as clearly as if he were a Preacher on the pulpit.
"Breathes there the man with soul so dead, who never to himself hath said, this is my own, my native land?"
He started to play. I was expecting Leather Britches or Wind and Rain. What I got was something else entirely. I did not find out until later that each and every person present shared my experience.
His bow moved across the strings, setting up a drone – and beneath us the old rocks sang in recognition. As his tune began, the stones started to dance. I felt it first through the soles of my feet, but soon my whole frame shook, vibrating in time with his rhythm. My head swam, and it seemed as if the very walls of the town buildings melted and ran. The wagon receded into a great distance until it was little more than a pinpoint of light in a blanket of darkness, and I was alone, in a vast cathedral of emptiness where nothing existed save the dark and the dance from the fiddle.
Shapes moved in the dark, wispy shadows with no substance, shadows that capered and whirled as the dance grew ever more frenetic. I smelled fresh flowers, and was buffeted, as if by a strong, surging wind, but as the beat grew ever stronger I cared little. I gave myself to it, lost in the dance, lost in the dark.
I know not how long I wandered, there in the space between. I forgot myself, forgot my friends, in a place where only the dance mattered.
I have never felt more complete.
When the dance stopped it was as if my heart had been torn from its root and I felt bereft, felt the loss as keenly as I had the death of my mother three years before. Tears coursed down my cheeks. As I wiped them away I heard sobbing from the women nearby.
I blinked and looked to the wagon – but it was no longer in front of us. A large tent that hadn’t been there before was pitched beside the church. The Scotsman stood at the entrance in front of a chalkboard. It read: For one night only. Entry 25c. There was no explanation as to what we might be paying for, but I knew that we would all be there that evening.
And evening was closer than we thought. The morning shift was already making its way up out of the mine, faces and hands grey with grime, eyes deep set in their skulls with long ingrained tiredness. They found a crowd of townsfolk looking around in bewilderment.
We had been gone for nearly two hours.
That fact alone was enough to queer Malone the mine owner against the newcomer – six men were late for the afternoon shift and Malone docked them a whole day’s pay. I do believe the Irishman might have tried to ban us all from attending that night’s show for fear that it might disrupt the next morning’s work. But, powerful as he was, and tight as his grip was on the town, still the pull of that fiddle was stronger still. By the time we gathered in front of the tent at sundown we were all present – not just those who had heard the Scotsman play, but everyone else in the town as well. They had seen the effect on the rest of us, and even Malone was there, standing across the street and observing proceedings with a critical eye.
A box had been provided to collect our money at the entrance and we shuffled in. The tent somehow seemed much larger inside that its exterior suggested. Rows of pews, like church seats, sat in front of a small raised stage. I did have a fleeting thought that there was no possible way that all of this had come up the hill in the wagon we had seen, but all other thoughts were secondary to the anticipation. I was going to hear the fiddle again, and I could hardly contain my excitement. And I could see by the eyes of those around me that they were of the same mind.
An audible sigh of disappointment ran through the crowd as the Scotsman stepped up on stage without the fiddle in his hands. A hood obscured his features, and his face sat in deep shadow as he walked to the front of the stage and stood above us.
"I am the Dubh Sithe," he shouted. "And we are gathered tonight to open the way… with music."
From far off came the sound of a solo fiddle.
"… with magic… "
He spread his arms wide, clenched his fists, and when he opened them again two crimson birds, each the size of a large gull, rose from his palms and fluttered away towards the roof of the tent.
"But mostly… with blood."
He snapped the fingers of his right hand, and the red birds burst as if they had been shot. An arc of blood sprayed towards the front row of seats. Even as the audience cowered away, he waved his hand, and instead of being drenched, softly falling rose-petals showered around us like red snow.
He dropped the cape, revealing the garb of a kilted highlander in battle-ready dress beneath. We clapped and yelled in appreciation as he drew a long sword from its scabbard and began a series of stylized, almost balletic, moves across the stage.
"I have come far to be here with you, my brothers of old," he said. "From miles across the sea your pain and suffering has been heard.
The rocks speak to their brethren, even as you hew and cut. You are not alone. Scotsmen are never alone. Not when we have the auld tunes."
The fiddle started up again in the distance, fluttery, like a little bird in flight.
Another collective sigh ran through us, like wind in a field of wheat. The Scotsman smiled and spoke over it, his voice low but carrying over the crowd.
"I promised to heal what ails you. And I will keep to that oath. But first, in the grand tradition, we will have a volunteer from the audience."
Malone stepped forward. I was looking straight at him at the time, and it looked like he had moved before even thinking about it. A momentary confusion showed in his face, but his features were grim and set hard as he stepped onto the stage.
"See," the Scotsman said. "A volunteer, at the first time of asking. What would you have me do with him? Shall I cut him in half?"
He raised the sword and made a mock swing, stopping just short of Malone’s ample belly. As one the crowd cheered. That did not improve Malone’s mood. He looked fit to burst as he turned to the Scotsman.
"What is your purpose here?" he said, his voice high, almost a shout.
The Scotsman merely smiled.
"I have already said. I have come from the auld Homeland, come to heal what ails these good people."
He swung the sword in the air above his head. The Irishman flinched, but when the Scotsman’s hands came down he had the fiddle in one hand and a bow in the other. He put it to his chin and started to play, the tune coming from the far distance at first, but getting closer, ever louder. The ground beneath us seemed to swell and thrum. As one, we began to sway.
A loud Irish voice broke the spell.
"Enough of this mummery."
He made to reach for the fiddle but the Scotsman danced away, still playing, mocking Malone and teasing him by throwing notes and phrases full in the Irishman’s face. The tent seemed to melt and flow and we danced in time, lost in a place where there was no hurt, no tiredness, only blessed peace.
We were dropped back into grim reality by the blast of a single gunshot. The fiddle blew apart in a cloud of splinters, and a red hole appeared at the Scotsman’s neck. He was dead before he hit the ground. Malone stood over him, his Colt still smoking in his hand.
I do believe the crowd might have lynched Malone that very night had he not held such clout over us that we depended on him for almost everything from employment to food. As it was the tent was in uproar until he fired another shot over our heads.
"Go home," he shouted. "All of you. And I want you all at work as usual on the morrow."
We went, with the sound of the gunshot ringing in our ears.
For the rest of the evening I thought of little but the sound of the fiddle and the tune that had seemed both so strange yet so familiar. The air played in my head even after I lay down abed. So when I heard the strain of a fiddle starting up, I was unsure for long seconds whether I was awake or asleep.
But this was no pastoral tune. Yes, it spoke of the auld country, but now it held a martial air that spoke of battles against tyranny, of blood feuds and scores settled. The auld country called… and we answered.
When I walked out into the street I found all of my neighbours already there. We followed the sound of the fiddle, dancing to its tune all the way to the small cemetery at the rear of the church.
As we shuffled into the hallowed ground the tune finally faltered and fell silent. I was first on the scene, which is why it has fallen on me to relate this tale. The sight I saw will be forever etched on my memory.
It was obvious that Malone had started to dig an unmarked grave for his victim. A shovel sat on the ground beside a pile of disturbed earth. Two bodies lay there. The Scotsman was still just as dead, the red hole gaping at his neck. But he had a broad smile on his face.
The reason for the smile was also obvious.
The mine-owner Malone lay beside him, a black tongue lolling from a wet mouth. He had been garrotted… almost beheaded.
Two fiddle strings were wrapped tight around his neck.
~-oO0Oo-~
The World of Illusion
Tony Dickie was late. It had been his turn to clean the blackboard and, out of spite he was sure, Miss Bland had been using the red chalk - the kind which was impossible to remove from the board or from your hands no matter how hard you scrubbed either of them.
Late for his big scene. He’d never hear the end of it if he didn’t provide the promised trick. The one he’d learned the day before. He ran wildly down the long empty corridor, hands slapping on the walls for balance, and slammed heavily into Tom Duncan, his maths teacher and the scourge of Tony’s young life. Tony winced, expecting the usual verbal lashing and cuff around the ear. Instead the teacher merely grunted and moved aside to let him pass. Saying a silent prayer for his good luck he burst into the boiler room, a bundle of flailing arms and legs.
They were all waiting, silent.
Almost falling down the stairs he was carried by momentum into the centre of the small circle of seven.
"Sorry…I…I had to clean the blackboard and…"
He was always apologising recently - apologising for getting good results in exams, apologising for having two left feet when it came to playing football, but most of all apologising for being late.
Football was the worst though. There they would be, all lined up against the wall, peeling off as their names were called until only one or two were left. Tony was always one of those who were left.
"Oh all right, we’ll have Dickie," a voice would say, "He can always go in goal."
And there he would stand, cold seeping into his hands until finally, dismayingly, a horde of screaming bodies would descend on him, herding the ball in front. He tried, he always did, but the ball always slipped out of his hands at the vital moment and he was always left crying.
But magic, ah yes, magic was a different story.
He noticed that they were all waiting for him.
"OK. Just get on with it. Do we have to do anything?"
This came from Isobel, his first ever object of desire, she of the jet black hair and baby blue eyes. He blushed every time he had to speak to her and this little demonstration of his ‘magic’ was primarily for her benefit.
"I hope somebody brought the chairs?" he asked.
"Yeah, they’re here. Come on, hurry up. I’ve got to get tae the sweetie shop afore the next period."
Nick Bayliss stepped aside, revealing two small chairs leaning against the boiler. Tony had now caught his breath properly and was just about ready to start but first he needed to set up the proper atmosphere. Granddad had told him that atmosphere was all, and that without it the trick would fall flat as a pancake and he would be left looking like a duck’s arse. Tony had never seen a duck’s arse, but he imagined it to be pretty horrible.
"Just wait till they see this trick," he thought "Then they won’t be needing to go to the sweetie shop, and we’ll see who looks like a duck’s arse then."
"C..could I have those two chairs," he stammered, pointing with a shaking finger, "Over here in the middle of the floor facing each other."
By the time the chairs had been positioned to his liking he had regained his composure and he stood silently in front of them, saying nothing, letting the tension build. He looked around, meeting each one of them in the eye before finally settling on his accomplice.
"All right Ian, lie down over here, across the chairs."
Ian Kerr, a tall but fat boy, looked around with an aggrieved expression.
"Why does it have to be me? I always get to do the stupid things."
Ian, even more so than Tony, was the class scapegoat. He was always the very last one chosen when it came to picking football teams, always the last one back from cross country runs and always, but always, the brunt of the cruellest classroom jokes. Fortunately he was good natured and had developed a resignedness to his lot. He only really protested when, as now, he was called upon to be
a guinea pig. He was also Tony’s best friend, his companion in adversity against the whims of the other children.
Tony looked at him and smiled. He hoped that his look would say all that he felt, that he chose Ian because he was his friend, that he trusted him not to make a fuss and that he could share in the reflected glory once the trick was performed and the full scale of Tony’s talents was known.
But he couldn’t say it. For now he was the magician and magicians treated everyone else with disdain. That was something else Granddad had told him.
"Remember. You are always in control. It’s your trick and no one can take it away from you." The old man had said, and Tony intended to make Granddad proud of him. He turned back to Ian and motioned to the chairs.
"Because you are the biggest one here, and this works better with big people. So just lie down and shut up or else we’ll never get this done before the bell."
After finally getting Ian to lie down, Tony explained to the rest what they had to do, slowly, so that he could be sure that they understood him.
"I want you to stand, three on each side, with one finger of each hand under Ian’s body. Space yourself out, two at the legs, two at the waist and two at the shoulders. Then you’ve all got to stay quiet and try not to think of anything except my voice."
"I’m going to say some sentences, and I want you all to repeat them after me, but changing the word ‘looks’ to the word ‘is’. When I get to the word ‘Illusion’ I want you to try lifting him, using only the tips of your fingers. Don’t try to force it - you’ll only break the spell. It only works if you listen to what I’m saying - you’ve all got to concentrate hard - OK?"
He looked around for confirmation and most of them were nodding. All that is, except one. Tony’s heart sank when the dissenter turned to him, a big grin fixed in its usual place.
"Ah’ve seen this yin afore. It disnae work unless everybody cheats. Is this yer big new trick? Ah’m no’ staying here fur this."
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