Pagewalker

by C. Mahood

  “Please young’an, sit. Tell me what else have you read?”

  “Oh, well I also love the stories of Cú Chulainn, the great battles and action. I have read about Conchobar mac Nessa, the King of Ulster, the exile of Fergus mac Róich - former king of Ulster. My favourite stories were from the Ulster cycle because of where I’m from, but I like stories from the Fenian cycle too!”

  The little man took another step forward. His face was now visible. Dark, deep-set eyes were covered by thick bushy white eyebrows. His face was hidden also by a thick grey beard. His head was covered by a flat cap, one too big for his but which suited him perfectly. In his mouth was a long pipe, still burning a weed that reminded me of wood chips and burnt peat.

  He came closer and, as he leaned in towards my face, I could taste the pipe weed as if I were smoking it myself. I could see his eyes now. They were green. Such a deep green that everything seemed to fade to black and white as I gazed into them.

  Moments passed without anything being said. I knew there was magic here. In that moment, I knew the stories were true. The myths my grandfather told me about were all real. I longed to know more, to hear his stories, to learn as much as I could about my ancient homeland, to soak up his knowledge like a sponge. Then without any prompting he blinked and removed the pipe from his mouth.

  “Would you like to see them, meet the heroes yourself?

  Without question I followed.

  I stood up, walked over to the table stacked high with books of all sizes, colour, thickness and age. The little man was rummaging through a few at the back and lifted a small, brown, leather- bound book. He brought it to the edge of the work area. He opened it at the book mark placed about half way through it. I could read that the title on the top of the page read ‘Tír na nóg’.

  Was I really going to go there? Was I about the travel to the otherworld?

  A shuffle came from above our heads, the sound of many feet and then voices. The little man and I locked eyes in fear and shock as my name was shouted by a large group of children. I could hear the voices of my friends Matthew and Aaron. They were calling for me frantically. I could hear a tremor in their cries, as if they were weeping as they called for me. I had no idea how long I had been gone and had forgotten that we had been playing.

  “The game is over Chris. Come out. The Vikings won,” called Matthew.

  “Come on Chris, wise up! Where the hell are you?” screamed Aaron in a very shaky and high pitched voice. I could make out the fear in his call.

  Again the little man and I locked eyes. The deep green fixated me again and I felt a slumber come over me. The pain in my shoulder and back returned and a headache struck like an ice-pick behind my eyes. I closed my eyes as the pain brought me to my knees. I curled up into a ball and held my head and body tight until the pain subsided. My eye lids scraped over my dry eyes and light rushed in. As I opened them I could see nothing but the face of Aaron and Matthew looking down at me. My brother Timothy was kneeling down at my head, crying. He never cried, I used to call him a robot because he never showed any emotion. I began to speak, and as I did so, the children all around me were pushed to the side, as three men in white and green uniforms knelt down beside me. I could make out the Emergency Ambulance patch on the chest of one of the men who had a torch that he was shining in my eyes. Another man was checking my pulse and listening to my chest.

  They rolled me to my side after they had put a large plastic brace around my neck. They lifted me onto a stretcher and carried me, for what seemed like ages, to where an ambulance was parked on the road, about half a mile from the forest we had been playing in.

  Everything was blurry. My vision and hearing was distorted but I could hear the voice of my Dad shouting at Matthew and Aaron for being so far away. Then their parents began shouting at my Dad, saying I was as much to blame as they were. The rest of that memory drifted in and out of my consciousness. I experienced only a collection of flashes of ceiling and various lights. The white ceiling of the ambulance, the white ceiling of the emergency room, the white ceiling again of the hospital ward then the white ceiling of my bedroom. Now, I hadn’t actually broken my back or even broken anything for that matter but they just wanted to be sure. I was bruised and in pain, but that wasn’t the worst part. All of us were “grounded” and no one was allowed to play with anyone else. That’s when things changed. There were no more big games in the woods, no more fort-building and no more re-enactments of ancient battles. We played football sometimes and occasionally held basketball tournaments in the back gardens but it wasn’t the same. High school had arrived.

  Two

  A new life

  My first September of high school had arrived.

  I had a newly pressed school uniform and rucksack, a list of new books and stationery. Pens, pencils, jotters, P.E kit and lunch box.

  My first day was going to be the start of a new life. To say I was excited would be a massive understatement! The summer before had been, well, eventful to say the least. My mum was still nervous about me going anywhere on my own. She was worried I would end up in a pit somewhere…again. She insisted on driving me to my new school and leaving me at the front gate. Looking back, that definitely wasn’t the best idea. We pulled up to the massive front gate. Newly painted purple and navy to match with the school colours. It must have only been dry a number of days, but it had already been decorated with multiple names, tags, and extremely rude and highly inappropriate graffiti! I could see the parents of other first years doing the same, kissing goodbye and stealing hugs to embarrass their children. Maybe this was every parents chance to act out a little playfull revenge on thier kids, because there were a lot of red faced school kids storming off wiping lipstick from foreheads and fixing the father sized hand print in their freshly gelled, start of term haircut. The tiny road was jammed with parked cars, bikes, school buses and taxis. All scrambling past each other to find the mythical and much sought after `drop of point` As soon as we pulled up with two wheels up on the pavement I was out of the car like a flash. I slammed the passenger door behind me with a “Bye mum, thanks” and grabbed my two bags, one over each shoulder and clutched my lunch box.

  As I ran across the road toward my new ‘home’ for the next five years, I felt my stomach churning. The bowl of cereal and toast I ate in about thirty seconds flat was trying to come up and see what all the excitement was about. Swallowing violently with an acidic shiver, I walked towards those school arches. Like Dante approaching the gates of hell.

  As I reached the other side I looked back to wave with my one available hand. I caught a glimpse of my mum as she turned the car round the corner on her way to work. My heart sank. It felt real then. I was alone. I would be lying if I were to say I wasn’t nervous. First day of school is mental! A few deep breaths and I was ready. This was my chance to become whoever I wanted to be. If I went into school and acted popular I would be popular! Right? Well Saturday morning American, children’s TV made it sound so simple! I gathered myself and turned toward the front door, spirits high, confidence souring, a smile on my face and a spring in my step, then Thud!

  As I turned towards the main building I had slammed face first into the chest of the largest `boy’ I had ever seen. I stepped back to try and assess what happened. I could make out the navy and purple tie, on a white shirt, under a black blazer. As my eyes continued upward I could notice a gold chain necklace hanging outside of an open shirt collar, a cigarette in a mouth of stained yellow teeth, thin, patchy, black and ginger stubble on a pimple infested face. Two dark brown eyes burned into mine. A crooked smile appeared on his face and as he stepped back he pointed his finger at me moving it towards my forehead until he began to bore it into my skull.

  “You wee prick, near knocked the feg outa me mouth! I wouda kicked the crap outa you if you had! Stupid firsty! Gona keep my eye on you, you wee prat! Now get outa my face before I burn this into your speckey wee rat nose!” He thundered at me and pushed me to the side.
<
br />   My heart sank.

  The bubble popped there and then. The high hopes I had for this new life were shattered. I was a nobody here.

  I longed for my mum to come back around the corner. Just seeing her face would have made me feel better. I had never felt so alone. Not even in the darkness of the hole I fell into weeks before. Not even when I was hurt and worried that I would never escape. I knew there and then that I would not make it through this place. My visions of popularity, sport teams, girlfriends and good grades were brushed off the table in one clean sweep of my forearm and replaced with survival instinct.

  The first year there was not as bad as I thought. All apart from Samuel. That brick house of a boy I bumped into on the first day. He had a talent for shoulder charging me every time he saw me. No matter what route I would take to the next class, he was there. I would spot him at the far end of the corridor. No escape. He would spot me a few seconds later and smile as he made his way towards me, thrusting his shoulder into my face and knocking me off my feet. The bruises I got were impressive, big welting purple and yellow ones. I told my mum they were from rugby practice. Little did she know that we rarely practised tackles, mostly fitness training. Running laps etc. I don’t know why I thought hiding it was the best course of action. It makes no sense keeping it all inside but the rational mind of a young teenager is something no one can understand, even to this day. I spoke very little of the terrible year of bullying I suffered at the hands of the fifth years. Samuel and his three minions, whom I nicknamed the four horsemen. I told them it was because they were scary and always intent on ending my world. The truth is they all just had really bad teeth and smelt like shit.

  Finally the summer came and the fifth years had left school. It felt so much better and I could finally relax in the few weeks I had left at school. When we were let out for summer holidays I was looking forward to seeing all my friends every night again for big games and adventures in the lead mines, but I quickly learnt that most people had made new friends in school. I was isolated and scared my first year and had not met anyone new, no one I would consider a friend any way. That summer was lonely. I filled my time playing computer games with my brother, reading comics and fantasy novels and watching old horror and zombie movies in my room with the blackout blinds pulled shut. The next year of school was not much better. I was starting to develop my own interests that did not match up with those of the great majority in school. I had discovered drums and grunge music. Bands like Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Nirvana, Alice in Chains and heavier stuff like Metallica, Slayer, Marilyn Manson and Nine Inch Nails filled my headphones. That year Peter Jackson’s vision of middle earth was brought into my life. The Fellowship of the Ring was released in cinemas and I fell in love with it all over again. It brought me back to my childhood. Reading the Hobbit again I longed so much to live in 'The Shire.' To live a pressure free life of growing things, smoking pipe weed and fishing in the pond. I would escape there every day I came home. I put the DVD or VHS into the machine and lived in ‘middle earth’ until I had to go to bed.

  The next few years got worse. It was a constant cycle of bullying, self-loathing, fear, anxiety and dread. I would make it through each day of school by the skin of my teeth and escape into books, movies and music when I came home. I had developed a few friends that played music and would meet every weekend for a jam or band practice. They were good guys but still I felt that I was living in the wrong world. I was meant to live in the time of the Great Irish legends, surrounded by magic and sorcery. Not stuck in school learning Pythagoras’ theorem and the biology of flowers. In the summer of my 4th year I had a traumatic experience of bullying at its height. One morning a boy named Ryan, a snotty nosed, spoilt brat that felt he had seniority over most of us because of his dad’s “community worker” status. If you are from Northern Ireland you already know what a so called “estate community worker and resident committee head” is, to all of you that don’t, it is a thug, gangster “ex”-paramilitary, drug running scum bag that longs for the 70’s and “the troubles” because they felt important then.

  Ryan thought he was a big man in school bossing people around, me most of all, he hated me! REALLY hated me. Maybe it was the baggy jeans, the skateboard in my school bag, the Metallica t-shirt, the chain on my wallet. The spiky hair? I don’t know but he hated everything that I stood for.

  This particular week he had it in for me with style. Pushing, shoving, hitting, and threatening. He arrived that morning before class when we were lining up and proceeded to punch and stab me in the stomach with a mathematical compass.

  I remember slumping to the floor with tears in my eyes, it was only a skin deep point but I saw blood and it really hurt.

  As he and his friends laughed on the way out the door, he said it was my brother next, who had just started the school a few years below me. I saw red!

  I got to my feet, Opening the latch on the front of my school bag, I lifted my skateboard and ran at him from behind, and I swung that board with all my strength, so hard it snapped as it connected with his back. He fell to the ground and before he even made it to the cold, polished marble floor I was on top of him. I had his tie pulled tight and was slamming my fists into his chest and face. I could feel my knuckles hurt. The bones were swelling in my hand but I continued to punch.

  His friends just watched, either out of shock that “big Mahood”, the hippy, Goth, looser was actually fighting back or maybe they wanted to see a bit of justice for a change. Either way they let me lay rip into him. It felt like hours I was hitting him, all the repressed feelings came to a head it was therapy for my body and my soul. After what was probably only seconds, but felt like hours, I was pulled of him. My teacher had seen what I was doing and knew I had gone too far. He didn’t see the years of bullying before that lead to this zit head being popped. He only saw a larger boy on top of another slamming his fists into his face. I fought my teacher off for a while but when he got me to my feet I was a mess of blood, tears and sweat. I was exhausted and in a frenzy. I had no control over what I was doing. When my breathing slowed down I was numb. I could see my teacher screaming at me, another teacher helping Ryan to his feet; blood stained the floor and the door, all over Ryan’s and my shirt. It sounded like I was underwater. Everything was blurry.

  Something stands out to me now, as clear as glass however.

  I remember that while I ran at him with my skateboard in hand, I got a flash, a minute flash of someone running along beside me. I could not think at the time but I felt like I knew him. A man in Celtic armour, a blade as long as he was, raised above his head, a long blonde beard blowing in the wind as he ran. Boots caked in mud and kid knees scraped under his kilt. I saw myself in the man, or at least, who I wanted to be. Looking back now, that was the moment I created Dertrid. A warrior and hero of stories and tales not yet written. As we both charged into battle I got a small reminder as I looked into his eyes before we collided. I saw the deepest green. Green like the eyes of the little man I met years before in the forest. Eyes that reminded me of magic. Reminded me of what he said about my blood. Something happened that very second before my blow fell on the back of my enemy. A seed was planted in that moment and the first shoot was blossoming.

  The fallout of that encounter was worse than I could have expected. After it happened I had grabbed my bag, the broken board and stormed out of school and walked home. My parents were called; I was summoned to the head master. I was in serious trouble for leaving school not to mention beating the stuffing out of another pupil. I got detentions and suspensions. The bigger fear however what of what his father would do if he saw me. I spent that final summer in hiding. I did not leave the house unless I had to for quite a while. I was going crazy and hated being cooped up inside four walls. I needed the trees, the grass and the sea. I needed to feel the crisp evening breeze and the mist and morning dew on my fingers and I walked through fern leaves four feet high.

  This is the pivotal point of the story however
I do feel.

  This was the moment I lifted a pen and put it to paper. I was lonely, I was scared and more than anything I longed to be somewhere else. This is when I needed to escape to somewhere far off. Somewhere inspired by the Éire of old. This is when I once again met a friend that had charged into battle with me. I visited this place every day for weeks. It was so large with beautiful steams and brooks, castles towering high into the clouds, mountains with snow peaks. Storms blowing ships at sea. Grass greener than the richest emerald. Sky as blue as jewels. Lands full of life, love, excitement, riches and adventure. People warm hearted and kind. A place where you could understand the thoughts of animals. Where the bird song was like a symphony. Beautiful and haunting. A place where magic was a sixth sense. This place was so real I could smell the markets, taste the fruit from the trees, hear the voices and distinguish accents. I travelled from town to town naming them and establishing leaders.

  I chose where the sea stopped and land began. Where mountains grew and cliffs fell. Where streams, rivers and brooks flowed and where ponds and lakes rested. I created village taverns and the stories told within. This was my hide away. I would write and type until the early mornings. Most of the time hours passed in seconds. I was so engrossed in writing and creating and playing God that to me the `real world’ didn’t exist. I was in a world of my own. A perfect land. I created heroes and villains. I visited so often they became my friends. I came face to face with king Dertrid. The warrior who fought with me in this world. I fought beside him in his.