by C. Mahood
This was my dream.
This was my creation.
This was Northland, and in it the great story I had finally finished “Dertrid’s deed”.
Three
The birth and death of a story
To many outsiders, looking on my holidays and my free time, they would think I was a loner, a looser or a nerd. In all fairness, they wouldn’t be far wrong. I was all of those things on the outside but when I was writing 'Dertrid’s Deed' I didn’t have to worry about being picked on, or let down, or hurt. The characters I was writing about did exactly as I hoped and as I said. They didn’t argue or oppose me. They listened, they valued what I lay in front of them. It was refreshing.
When I had reluctantly finished the last chapter on the last page I shed a tear. Quite a few actually. I didn’t want to leave Northland! Like a parent awaiting the birth of his first child, I couldn’t wait to hold my creation. I printed the story out in its entirity. It was just shy of 17,000 words. I read through it again that evening, proud of what I had accomplished. I had not only written a story I was happy with but I had created a whole world, civilisations, town’s cities, religions and conflicts. Holding the manuscript in my hand, still warm from the printer I felt like I was holding a piece of my soul. I had poured so much of myself and images from my mind onto those pages.
I kept the pages in poly pockets along with sketches and a map of Northland in a black file. I would pick it up and flick through the pages every time I saw it sitting on the desk in my bedroom. After much deliberation I decided to let my mum read it. She was...no…. IS, quite a creative person. I could trust her to tell me if it was good enough to share or not. In all honesty I was torn with that decision. Part of me wanted to share it with the world. Let others enter my world. I wanted people to feel the same way entering Northland as they did the first time their minds set foot in Narnia or Middle Earth.
The other part of me did not want to share this hidden paradise. I didn’t want the rubbish and trash of tourists ruining the paths and walkways. Vandalising the towns and pissing in the streams. This was my heaven. To be enjoyed by me and only me.
A few days passed, I hadn’t mentioned it to my mum in case she was being too polite to tell me it sucked. I would rather not know than for that to be the case. One morning however, when I was coming upstairs with my breakfast, mum set the local chronicle newspaper in front of me. It was folded back with a large advert in the middle to left of the page. In a bold blue outline said `calling all young authors’ my eyes opened wider and I stopped chewing. Cereal and milk dripped down my chin into a puddle of chocolate drool as I read the article frantically. There was to be a young writer’s competition at the Newtownards library. Submission was to be made by the 15th, that very day!
I had my manuscript all made up. I readied a black leaver arch file, made sure everything was in order and asked mum to give me lift down into the town to submit my story. The deadline was 12pm and it was 11:30 already! I was panicked; I threw old clothes on and packed the manuscript, rushed to the door, threw on my shoes and a coat and shouted for mum. I ran back into the kitchen to see her buttering some toast with a look of confusion on her face.
“What are you doing? Come on, please we will be late!” I screamed with a cry.
“Christopher dear, I’m not even dressed, I’m sorry” she said with her mouth full followed by a quick sip of tea.
“Fine then, screw this!” I shouted as I burst through the front door. Leaving it open behind me. I ran as fast as my legs could move, I took short cuts through my neighbours gardens, jumping hedges and fences to reach the main road. Once I made it through the houses and gardens I was on a home strait. I sprinted down the hill, pulling the straps tight to my back to keep the bag from banging about as I ran. Every now and then I would feel behind me to make sure the book was still in there. It took a solid 20 minutes of running as fast as I possibly could! I didn’t stop at lights or even look twice at crossings I needed to get to the library to submit my story. This was all that mattered. As I came to a large junction at the bottom of the street, leading into the town centre I could see the pedestrian lights were still green, without stopping I ran and ran to make it across the junction before they changed. I made it to the slip road before the middle crossing just as the lights were flashing amber. I looked to my right and left and calculated that if I kept going without slowing down I would make it before the cars started to move forward.
Jumping off the pavement onto the tarmac road my heart was pounding faster than it had. It was a miracle it was still in my chest. When my left foot landed on the road my senses heightened, from the farthest peripherals of my vision I noticed a blue Vauxhall Nova, one that failed to slow for the lights, speeding through the now changing ones. My entire body jumped with shock and instinctual fear as I turned my face to see it speeding directly towards me. In that moment I knew it was over. I envisioned my head slamming thought the wind shield, my legs crumpling under the bonnet, my body flying farther into the road as the breaks were sharply applied. I saw myself hitting the road and paper flying from my bag and falling slowly like sheets of snow.
The vision felt so real, I felt the impact, the pain, the breaking of my spine and crunch of my skull against the shattering of glass. I felt my body hit and slide on the tarmac road. The life drain from my body. I could feel the loss my family would feel and I had gone for real this time. I felt the vision fade from my head as the light faded from my eyes.
Suddenly and inexplicably my eyes opened and I was pulled back from the belt on my jeans. I landed on my backside with my feet in the air. A blue blur shot past me with the sound of a horn held aggressively. I sucked in a massive breath. I felt I was breathing life in for a second time. Like a re-birth. My blood was flowing so fast through my body. I felt dizzy, then nauseous. As my breath slowed, so in turn did my heartbeat. Vision returned and everything slowed down. A face was in front of mine. I could not make out the features or recognise who it was as my glasses had flown from my head as I was yanked backwards moments before. Only the voice was familiar.
“Close shave there eh son? Better take more care, Look where you’re going ok? A Page walker does not fall so easily. You have responsibility you know!” Came a voice in a strong ‘Culchie’ accent.
“A what? Who….how? Responsibility?” I spurted out as I ran my hands on the ground to find my glasses.
“Those pages in your bag are more important than you know. They are the lives of millions! The words have power you can only really begin to understand by reading it yourself.” He said as he stood tall again and backed away from where I lay.
“Wait! I shouted.
I crawled forward to follow the blur. My hands feeling out forward like a snakes tongue. Feeling for my prize, my glasses. I came upon them and fixed them to my face. My vision much clearer I could see no one. No one of the path, the road, anywhere near me. Only cars speeding past the lights before they changed. I got to my feet with a stiff and painful extension of my back.
I walked the rest of the way to the library. Looking behind me at every turn to see if I was being followed by my saviour. I was certain that man had seen me running, seen the blue car and pulled me back. How did I know his voice? I was comforting, like a voice from my childhood but I could not place it. I could only think of the two green blurs I saw when I looked up. Where they eyes? Two green eyes.
Where had I seen them before? It couldn’t be? Could it?
I arrived at the library. The queue was long. As I made it to the back of the queue, an older lady, the perfect vision of a stereotypical librarian, came out to address those waiting. I mean she was a cartoon stereotype. She was in her mid to late 50s, hair tied up in a tight bun. Bi-focal glasses on her nose and a thin gold chain attached the sides of them draped around her neck. A pink cardigan with yellow flowers was draped over a white blouse, buttoned to the very top with another white turtle neck underneath. A straight grey skirt that reached past her knees to a pa
ir of bland and worn black ankle boots with kitten heels.
“I am very sorry to all those who have waited so patiently today. Unfortunately we have been overwhelmed with submissions and now have to close the competition. We simply cannot take any more into consideration and have to act on a first come, first served basis. I apologise again but thank you all on behalf of the Arts Council for your interest.” She said from over the top of her glasses. Looking down through the lenses she spotted me and gave an apologetic shrug. Surly she had noticed the rips in my jeans, blood staining the holes from the grazed knees I had from my fall, my elbows bloody and bruising from landing on them? Surely she had seen how hard I had ran to get here, the sweat dripping from my nose now mixed with the tears from my eyes. It was pointless.
Dejected, upset and in increasing paid, I began my walk home. As I continued home the words spoken to me, as I lay on the foot path, repeated in my head. Over and over.
“For you alone”.
“Re-discover your words”.
What could he have meant by that? Was it the same little man from the forest years ago? How could he have disappeared so quickly? What if the car had hit me? What is a page walker? So many questions, ones no one would be able to answer. Events no one would believe.
I replayed the whole scenario over and over until I reached my front door. I looked thought the kitchen window so see my mum still drinking tea and reading some papers on the table. I quietly opened the door and proceeded to make my way down the hall towards my bedroom. I hoped mum hadn’t heard me come in but that hope was short lived.
“Well? Did you make it in time?” she said from the kitchen without getting up from her stool.
“Uh, yea. But the queue was too big. Didn’t get it submitted. It sucked” I said without stopping.
“Awk well Chrisey, next time sure!” she shouted towards me as I disappeared down the hall.
I slammed the door, threw my bag into corner of the room, kicked of my trainers, pushed the fresh laundry off my bed onto the floor, turned my CD player on and blasted Alice in Chains and slumped face first onto my bed. I sank into it for what felt like 10 feet. I was swallowed by my duvet and mattress. I lifted my pillow and pulled it over the back of my head, burying my face into the bed. I pulled down tight on the pillow to muffle my screams and anger and I let all my emotion out. I screamed until my throat hurt, and sobbed through gritted teeth. I lay for an hour or so alone and face down on my bed. The images of today replayed in my mind, the prize I had never won, the opportunity that would have changed my life was gone. The car that almost ended my life, the exhaustion of the running, the pain of my knees and back. Then the eyes, the bloody green eyes!
Every time a memory of today would flash into my head the eyes would pierce me from nowhere. When I saw the car, getting closer the headlights turned to green eyes and I awoke. When I was running full speed towards the lights, the lights would change to green eyes and I would awake. When I opened my bag to get the manuscript out, green eyes, awake. When I librarian came out to address the crowd? Yes you guessed it! Green eyes and awake.
I sat up then, just staring at the wall and the corner of my room. Even the sweet tone of Jerry Cantrell’s guitar, the beat of Sean Kinney on drums and the harmonies of Jerry and Layne on `rooster’ couldn’t improve my mood. In fact, they were perfect. I stared at my bag, knowing what lay within.
Getting to my feet I went over and got my bag, dumping the pages onto the bed. I just stared at the final product of all my hard work. I knew in my soul that this was special but my mind convinced me it was just words on a page. Words that would amount to nothing and a waste of my time. I pulled the curtains, opened my bedroom window as wide as I could, grabbed the folder and opened it. I prised apart the metal rings and grabbed the pages all together in one hand. With one scream I ran towards to open window to throw the pages outside and out of my life. My arm extended with what felt like an Olympic javelin worthy precise angle. I opened my hand and as the plastic pockets and A4 white pages flew from my grasp, I felt time slow.
I could see the handful of paper opening wide and fanning out as it flew. The wave of white slowed with the wind outside, I felt a feeling wash over me, best described as nausea and exhilaration together. The feeling you get as you climb the ladder of the top diving board, mixed with the feeling you get as your feet leave the board when you jump. Or the feeling of pre and post roller coaster combined.
I felt faint once more and my legs gave way. As I fell I grasped. The story crinkled in my fingers and my fist. I saw the blue carpet of my bedroom racing towards my face as I fell, and suddenly words like racing snakes, ribbon in the wind and rope in the tide, flash and whip past my face. My body had doubled over and my face was about the hit the ground. The carpet was soft but not so much as I would be spared the pain of impact. The moment my face were to collide with the ground, to my surprise, my face slapped briskly in ice cold water, like sneezing in the swimming pool my face, then head, then whole body was under water. I opened my eyes as the icy cold water took what breath I had away from me. My skin pulled tight and my clothes felt heavy and restrictive as I pushed my hands into the sand. Lifting my body up from the shallow water. Where was I?
I sat on my knees and brushed the long fringe out of my eyes. I did not recognise the beach I was on. It looked very much like white rock beach on the north coast, near Portrush, county Antrim. The sand was a dark cream colour; the water was white from the small crashing tide.
Behind me rose cliffs of white, higher than I had seen ever in my life. They stretched for miles. As far as I could see they stretched. I turned my head in the other direction to see more cliffs. To describe the sensation I had then is impossible. I remember that I had no peripheral vision.
As I moved my head it became clear. What sounds impossible, was real.
My eyes moved from left to right to the parts my focal vision could not see I realised that I was creating everything I saw. The cliff height followed my eyes. When I looked down the cliffs met the ground and sand. When I looked up the cliffs rose higher than I could see. Nearly miles above sea level. It came to me quickly, the control. The realisation that my eyes were like pencils, sketching out what I saw. I looked back on areas I had already seen and each time there was new things to see.
It felt like I was noticing things for the first time. Imagine looking away, Then back to these words, then once again look at your feet but notice that your shoes have changed to boots covered in sand and caked on dirt. You don’t know how you hadn’t noticed that the first time! That is what was happening.
My mind was creating scenery before my eyes could see it. I walked toward the cliff face. As I walked, steps began to carve themselves into the stone in front of me, as I ascended the freshly chiselled steps I looked back to observe the weathered natural looking grey, sea and wind beaten steps wet with seaweed and green moss. Once I reached the lip of the cliff face I could see for miles. What was at first a desert of green flat land, as far as I could see, was changing with each blink of my eyes.
Trees pierced out of the ground, turning to forests and woods, ferns, oaks, beach and maple trees appeared in different colours and sized. Streams bled from the flat land. Hills bubbled from the grass like cheese bubbling under the grill. Mountains exploded in the distance and clouds swirled overhead. Birds sang and I listened harder. The rain fell as I put my head back and opened my mouth. Like a time lapse video of a construction project I saw buildings rise, fall and lie in ruin. The world had come alive.
Only moments ago I had lifted myself from an ocean to a beach of flat sand. Now I stood on top of a cliff. High up with a view over a world so beautiful I could scarcely believe it. As I turned to look out to sea, I could see water bubbling and stone piercing through the surface. The stone blossomed and bloomed like a flower. Opening up islands with life and rich land inside. All over the ocean I could see this happen all the way to the horizon.
Standing there and looking around I could s
ee everything come to life. Like the north coast of my beautiful country had been cleansed of all trouble and civilisation and washed anew with beauty, tranquillity and peace.
I knew then. I was in Northland. The land from my fantasy, from my dreams. I was there. Or so I thought. I wanted to travel to Sáann, to see King Dertrid. I wanted to see the gulf of Xill and meet with the dark elves. To the forgotten jungle and sail to the goblin isles. Travel the rivers and explore the dirty peaks. I readied myself and began to walk east.
Before I got five steps I felt my feet sink into the grass. It was not quicksand, or a hole I had not seen. I was actually sinking through the dirt. My legs had totally submerged and I was waist deep now. I pushed on the ground to loosen myself but the more I fought the more I felt pulled.
Then tugged.
My whole body was now under, only my head remained but there was no way to move. I tried to fight with everything I had; my energy had left me unfortunately. I took a last large breath and then I was under. I felt the soil brush past my face as if I were being dragged face first by my feet. As time went on my lungs had held as long as they could I exhaled and inhaled deep, despite my mind telling me I couldn’t.
The soil felt softer, the smell had changed to a musky material smell. I could breathe easily but everything was still dark despite my eyes being open. I could see nothing but a blur of deep blue and grey. As I fought I could feel my arms and legs beginning to move. My body felt lighter again and unrestricted. I could move! I reached my hands to my chest and pushed up. I felt the soft touch on my palms. The synthetic feel, the feel of carpet.
My vision returned then.
Like speeding out of a tunnel at top speed. Your eyes adjust to the light quickly with a sharp pain for only a moment then full sight returns. Just like that. I rolled onto my back and looked up. There was no sky, no clouds, no rain on my face, and no breeze in my hair. Only a lampshade and an illuminated light bulb. The fading sound of 'Angry chair' rang out as the CD ground to a halt.