by Tej Turner
He then walked through and disappeared.
I waited for a few moments and then ventured out, motioning Kev to follow me. We shifted silently down the corridor to find the door he entered still ajar.
It led to a staircase. Kev and I both looked at each other.
“I’m lost, man,” Kev said. “This place is huge. Are we supposed to be here? This must be off-limits.”
“Go back if you want to,” I replied. “It’s okay, I can take it from here.”
“Nah, man,” Kev shook his head. “If you’re going up there, I’m coming too.”
I reached the top of the stairs and entered a large, open-air balcony; she was there, exactly as I remembered her last week: torn jeans, wild hair, and purple eye shadow smudged across her eyes.
“Leave me alone!” she screamed defiantly, as the cloaked man closed in on her. She was clinging to the railing and had nowhere to escape.
“Only when you stop,” a cold voice echoed from the hood of his black cloak. “I have warned you before!”
“I had no choice this time! I had to!”
He took another step towards her, and I knew this had to be the moment for me to step in.
“Get away from her!” I yelled.
The stranger turned around and for the first time I caught a glimpse of the face inside his hood. His skin was pale and blurry – it was all distorted. I tried to focus my eyes on distinguishing his features but they twisted and garbled under the moonlight.
His cold eyes looked through me and somewhere in the pit of my stomach I knew he wasn’t human.
“Who are you, boy?” he asked.
I clenched my fists, and swallowed my fear. I wasn’t going to let this freak of nature get the better of me.
“I am your worst fucking nightmare!” I replied. “Now piss off.”
He crossed the gap between us in the blink of an eye and then his hand was around the scruff of my jumper, pulling me off the ground.
“This is none of your business, kid,” he breathed into my face, as he held me up in the air.
“Pikel!” Kev yelled, appearing from the shadows. I don’t know exactly what he was trying to do but, when he was near enough to us, the man just shoved him aside.
As I watched Kev fall onto the floor something happened, it was like he had flicked a switch in my brain. How dare you! I thought, clenching my fists.
I swung for his face. My knuckles connected with his cheek with a crack and he dropped me, placing a hand to his blurry features as I recovered my balance. I clenched my fists again, ready to fight.
But he didn’t attack and, for a moment, I thought I saw the distorted line of his lips curve into a smile. The space around him rippled and stretched, like a black hole, and when it cleared he was gone.
“Again?” I cursed a few times and then caught my breath, not knowing whether to feel relieved or freaked out. It was just another thing to add to the fucked-up list of events I could not explain.
I turned to the girl as she straightened herself back onto her feet and our eyes met.
“Is your friend okay?” she asked, looking at the ground next to us where K-Hole Kev was lying on his back, waving his arms and legs around frantically.
“Kev!” I called, stepping over to him. “What the fuck are you doing?”
“Pikel, mate, I’m falling! Help!”
“No, you’re not, Kev!” I replied, stamping my foot next to him. “See! You’re on the ground.”
“Is he having a fit or something?” she asked.
“Nah. He’s just K’d up,” I sighed, grabbing him by the hand and yanking him back onto his feet. He swayed back and forth for a few moments, so I held his shoulders.
“Thanks, man,” he said as he steadied. “Man, he pushed me, and I fell and just kept falling! It was horrible! But you found her, yeah?”
“Yes,” I said. I turned to her and was just about to introduce them when I realised I didn’t even know her name.
“What is your name, anyway?” I asked.
“Frelia,” she said, smiling. “Thanks for the help back there. Who are you?”
I was rendered speechless for a few moments, and then I narrowed my eyes at her angrily. She was just as pretty and enticing as when I first met her but this time it wasn’t enough to quell my frustration.
“What the fuck do you mean? We met the other day! You knew my name!”
“Oh shit,” she exclaimed, slapping her hand on her forehead, a look of realisation spreading across her face. “I’m sorry... this is really hard to explain...”
“I think I deserve a fucking explanation!” I snarled. “I came here for you!”
“Really?” her eyes lit up, and her expression became serious. “I know this must be weird for you but I need you to tell me everything that happened when you saw me.”
As she led us back down the staircase I explained everything to her. How last week I met her when she was running from that man. How he disappeared before my eyes, and she handed me a flyer as she faded away.
“It was a flyer like this one!” Kev added as he picked one up from the floor of the corridor. We were now nearing back towards the main part of the club; I could hear the music getting louder.
“Yeah. I think he doesn’t like it when other people see him,” she casually said over her shoulder. “That’s always good to know.”
“What do you mean he doesn’t like to be seen,” I asked, narrowing my eyes. “And how the fuck does he vanish like that?”
“Because... it’s what he does,” she said. “He travels through time. I think he’s supposed to maintain the balance or something. He’s probably not supposed to be seen.”
I shook my head, trying to make sense of it. A week ago I would have called her a loony and laughed at her but I had seen him vanish before my own eyes twice now. I didn’t know what to believe anymore.
“But that doesn’t make sense,” Kev butted in from behind us. “If he doesn’t want to be seen why is he chasing you?”
Only Kev would be able to actively dissect the details from such an absurd conversation.
“He is trying to stop me travelling through time.”
“You travel through time?” I blurted, sceptical. I paused in the corridor and stared at her in disbelief.
She stopped beside me and blue eyes looked into mine and almost made me believe her. She could have told me that the sun was green and I wouldn’t have objected much.
“Not exactly,” she said. “I can only project an image of myself. My body stays behind… I can carry small things, though. Like that flyer.”
“But why?” I blurted. “How do you do it? And why did you bring me here? You forgot my name!”
“Because she hasn’t met you yet!” Kev realised.
She nodded. “Yes, he’s right. But I know you now, Pikel, and I think I know why I asked you to come.”
She reached a hand towards my face, and I found myself closing my eyes in anticipation of feeling her skin against mine. But instead, all I felt was a cold, chilly sensation.
I opened my eyes, and saw that her hand was stroking my cheek but I couldn’t actually feel it. She was fading away again.
“I am not really here, this is a projection,” she explained. “But you will meet the real me someday. I need your help. Can you help me?”
Without even a moment of consideration, I nodded.
“Something really bad is going to happen in this place,” she said, casting her eyes to the walls of the nightclub. “That is where my body is at the moment. I am projecting back to try to change it. I have to. Can you be there when it happens?”
Once again I nodded my head without hesitation.
She held her hand out in front of her face; it was becoming fainter by the moment.
“Whoa,” Kev muttered under his breath, as he stared at her. “Shit, man...”
“I haven’t got much time left,” she said, turning back to me. “You said it was out in town last week that I met you, yes
?”
I nodded.
Kev’s eyes lit up. “And you gave him a flyer!” he realised, holding up the one he still had in his hand. “Here, this is what you gave him, take it!”
“Okay,” she said, slipping it into her pocket. She was fading away quickly, I could now see the wall through her.
“You said something bad is coming!” I remembered. “When?”
She opened her mouth as the last of her faded away. Just before she vanished completely I heard one word.
“Friday.”
I still, sometimes, have lingering doubts where I convince myself that Frelia never existed, but they are short-lived musings throughout the week. When Friday comes, I find myself at Janus. I stand in the corner, like a ghost, with a drink in my hand, waiting for something to happen. Sometimes K-Hole-Kev joins me.
I watch the people who drink here and I have even come to know some of them. I think they talk to me because I am a mystery.
I am beginning to understand why they are the way they are. They all seem to be searching for something they feel they have lost. I am too. Every Friday, I stand here, waiting for her.
I know that one day she will be here.
2
The Christmas Puppy
He wasn’t my usual type. He was short and lean, with wiry arms and narrow shoulders. A few creases around his wild brown eyes were the only signs that betrayed his age. He wasn’t beautiful, he was handsome, and there was something alluring about him. He had something I was drawn to; a quiet charisma.
It was just a typical night out with my friends but on that night it just so happened that he was there. We noticed each other. I saw him looking at me and I looked back.
Like a moth to flame, I crossed the bar to meet him.
Life is full of objects colliding. Some combine and become saturated in each other, others clash and repel, some take away little parts from others and move on. It is basic science.
Most things come into contact with little effect, but every now and then you will find that right combination and the outcome can be explosive. When alkali metals come into contact with water, they create a reaction and sparks fly. Rubidium particles are lonely and strive to fill the emptiness of their electron shell; they rip away the particles of oxygen, leaving hydrogen to dance in red flames across the surface.
Sometimes, when the right two people meet, a reaction occurs and their lives are changed forever. It is notoriously hard to predict which blending of people it will happen to, and some spend years searching for that right complement to themselves with little success for it then to suddenly jump into their life unexpectedly, often at a most inconvenient moment.
But you can’t stop it.
The first time his lips met mine my knees went weak. When his tongue entered my mouth it sent waves of electricity rippling through me. When my hands met his body they wanted to tear all his clothes away. I wanted to feel his bare skin against my fingers.
It did not matter that he was a stranger. I did not pause to think about what was to come of it. For that moment, he was mine. We had made a new discovery and were exploring each other.
I wanted to drown myself in him.
The next thing I knew I was in his house and, as we landed onto his bedsheets, ripping each other’s clothes away, everything else disappeared. Nothing else mattered. I was lost in the feeling of his bare skin against mine.
“What are your thoughts?”
It was the morning and I was in a bed that wasn’t my own. Last night’s drinking had left me with a dull headache and just a few hazy memories. I was in the arms of a stranger.
“About what?” I asked.
“About this,” he said, running his hand across my stomach. “About us.”
I sighed – it was now time for the talk. Last night was something new and exciting, but now it was over. We would probably either exchange fake phone numbers or say things to each other like “I am too busy to have someone in my life at the moment.”
Or maybe he’ll just be blunt and tell me he is not interested.
“Well...” I said, deciding I would ease the awkwardness of this conversation with some comic relief. “Didn’t we agree that this was on a monetary basis?”
He grabbed my shoulders and twisted by body around so that I was face down into the pillow. I struggled against him but he pressed his knee against my back to pin me down and twisted my arm up into the air.
He leaned forward and whispered into my ear. “Want to say that again?”
“Okay,” I laughed. “I was joking.”
He then let go, and I shuffled back around on the bed to face him.
“From what I remember,” he said. “It was you who made the first move. I was quite surprised. How old are you anyway?”
“Nineteen,” I replied.
There was a silence.
“And you?” I asked.
“Forty-one.”
There was a moment of realisation. We had just evoked a barrier between us that we might not get past. Something that needed to be dealt with.
But it had also lit up a devilish light in his eyes and his excitement was intoxicating. We were both suddenly very horny.
He slammed his body against mine and we made love all morning.
“So why an old fart like me?” he asked.
Daylight was starting to peek through the window. A reminder that a new day was beginning, and this moment was coming to an end.
“I consider myself a charity worker,” I replied.
“Are the dry replies evasive humour or a defence mechanism to stop people getting close to you?”
“When I get close to people, I get hurt.”
“We are close right now,” he said, squeezing his arms to pull me in tighter.
I had nothing to say – he was right.
“Is this a one-off or are you doing more voluntary work?” he breathed into my ear.
“The more times you meet, the closer you get.”
He nodded.
“The more you get hurt,” I finished.
“I don’t want to hurt you, I want to get to know you.”
“It’ll wear off,” I dismissed, turning onto my back to stare at the ceiling.
“Wear off?”
“I am the Christmas puppy,” I explained. “Men fall in love with me for one night, a few days, maybe even a week if I am lucky. But they all get bored of me in the end.”
“I have dogs,” he said. “I better let them out before they shit everywhere.”
A wave of cold air brushed my skin as he lifted up the sheets. He stood up, and reached into the pockets of the trousers he was wearing last night.
“Here’s my phone,” he said, tossing it onto my lap. “Leave your number if you like.”
He then swung a dressing gown over his shoulders, tied the thong around his waist, and opened the door. He left the room and I found myself alone on his bed.
I sighed as I heard his feet treading down the stairs. I wanted to leave my number, because I did want to see him again. But that in itself terrified me; when I care for others I do so sincerely, but I have learnt though time that not everyone is like that.
Against my better sensibilities, I typed my number onto his phone. And then my name: Tristan.
When he is done with me I will take myself back to the pound.
As I entered the kitchen I was greeted by an excitable brown dog that began to bark and jump around me.
“Chaser!” he yelled from the counter where he was waiting for the kettle to boil. “Leave him!”
“It’s okay,” I said as I patted his furry head. “I like dogs.”
Chaser retreated into the corner where another Labrador was lying broodingly in its nest of blankets and pillows.
“That’s Missie,” he said, pointing to her. “But watch out, she’s a moody git. If she wants pettin’ she’ll come to you. Otherwise she bites.”
I walked over to him as steam began to billow from the kettle. With a click, the
light went out – the water was ready.
“I’m afraid I only have normal tea,” he said, as he poured it into two cups. “You look like one of those hippy types, so I’m sorry, but I haven’t got any of that Himalayan mountain leaf of the yew tree, or any crap like that.”
“Normal tea is fine,” I said, laughing. “You’d better have sugar though.”
“I bet you’ve forgotten my name, haven’t you,” he muttered.
“It’s Neal,” I recalled.
We sat ourselves down in the living room and, as I took my first bite of toast, I worried that while our mouths were busy eating the absence of conversation would feel awkward. To my surprise, it wasn’t. After he’d finished eating he relaxed back onto the couch and sipped at his tea.
My eyes wandered his living room, and I found my gaze drawn to a picture of a pretty woman with brown hair and blue eyes in the centre of the mantelpiece.
“Who’s she?” I asked.
His eyes darkened.
“My wife.”
I sighed. Great, what have I got myself into this time?
I looked down at his hand to see a white band on one of his fingers where a wedding ring used to be. Dirty trick that one, I should have noticed before.
“She died.”
A silence. Things had just become more complicated.
“How long ago?” I asked, not quite knowing what to say. Sorry would just sound stupid – I never knew her.
“Two years,” he said, casting his eyes to the window.
“How long were you together?” I asked.
“Eight years.”
Jesus.
“Look,” he said, placing a hand on my thigh. “I’m ready to move on now. I just need to take things slowly.”