by Paul A. Rice
Every third slide or so would show a small, silver box that resembled a cigarette case. It had a glass lid – Ken couldn’t quite determine if it was glass or not, as the case whirled past overhead almost faster than the eye. There were long, snake-like leads flailing from its rear, two of them. This vision was always followed by one of the ocean, which he himself had so recently stood upon – the perfect blueness seemed to radiate an unfathomable calmness and peace.
Ken saw so many images that they became an almost undecipherable torrent. There were fat women stuffing bowls of caviar into their Botox-filled faces, huge smoke stacks belching fumes into the leaden skies above the Earth. There were scenes of destruction and chaos, wars, murders, fires and riots.
These were followed by the image of a lone Fallow deer standing in a blackened field. He watched its slender flanks quivering in fear. It turned its graceful head toward him and Ken watched as a tiny ruby of blood ran from the corner of its eye, dangling precariously as it hung from a slender hair on the animal’s eyelid. The creature blinked once and the movement sent the tiny red gem free-falling down towards its charred landing place. As it hit the ground, the little drop of blood splashed up, erupted, with such force that the deer was instantly drowned in a torrent of crimson.
It was quite horrendous to see – all of it horrified him.
Finally, the show slowed and then stopped, but not for long. As he looked up into the darkened sky, Ken saw a terrible storm suffocating the planet in the picture. It was the same red cloud that had imprisoned him what felt like aeons ago. The ghastly beast rolled across the Earth’s surface and Ken saw that every living thing before it was instantly turned to dust. Then the image of the storm ended with the suddenness of a TV being turned off – one second a full picture, and in the next, just a fading white dot.
His horizon became filled with the last slide. It was a scene of the desert, a red desert, one whose endless dunes stretched into the distance. Walking through the sands was a man, a solitary man. He was tall and extremely well-built across the shoulders. His rippling forearms were offset by a pair of long, skinny legs that ended in a set of large feet clad in a pair of scruffy, white basketball boots. The boots had a black star on the ankle, a thick rubber lip around the toes and were fastened with a pair of garish yellow laces. Their tight fit made his feet appear even bigger. Ken hated those shoes, especially on middle-aged men.
‘They make you look like a bloody hippie…’ he thought.
He also felt as though he knew the man but couldn’t quite put a name, or a place, to the fleeting memory. The man was wearing a pair of blue Levi jeans and a khaki shirt. Below his breast pocket, dyed into the khaki, there was what appeared to be a black rose. The man had a wide, rounded face and a broken nose, which supported a pair of dark sunglasses. His ginger hair was pulled tightly back from his forehead and tied into a long ponytail that dangled and flapped below his shoulders as he walked.
There was a holstered pistol on his left hip, in the reverse position with the butt facing forward. In addition to the pistol, the man held an assault rifle in his right hand. Ken saw the weapon’s under-slung grenade launcher, its stubby barrel glinting dully in the strange red light that surrounded the man. The expression on the man’s face was one of an arrogant defiance. As Ken watched, he saw him tilt his head forward and spit a stream of tobacco-filled saliva into the fire.
All of a sudden he saw that the entire desert surrounding the man was on fire – liquid flames rippled by on all sides. As the picture zoomed out and went to an overhead position, he saw that the whole, strange, burning-desert scenario was actually slipping under the man like a giant, pyrotechnic tablecloth. It was flowing beneath his yellow-laced boots, and yet he walked on almost without noticing.
As he walked, the fiery floor beneath him was being sucked into the giant void, which Ken noticed spinning in the distance behind the huge man. The burning floor became faster and faster and the man began to jog as the blazing ground rippling away beneath him started to pour into the black whirlpool behind. The swirling monster was becoming larger by the second and Ken heard it humming as it started to pull everything into its gaping mouth.
As he ran forward, the unknown man reached into the breast pocket of his shirt and took out an object, it looked to be made of a glowing metal – the small object was egg-shaped and had rounded pebble-like flanks. It looked like a stone but Ken couldn’t quite see. However, the one thing he definitely saw was the green light the object emitted through the man’s hand. He was now sprinting for all his worth, but the vacuuming plughole behind him was too strong and he was inexorably being dragged backwards.
Then, with a terrible ‘Rrrrriiiippp’ sound, which Ken felt in his mind, the tall man was lifted upwards into a lazy, uncontrollable tumble through mid-air towards the spinning hole. As the man tumbled, Ken saw him drop the rifle, watching as it flew into the whirling monster behind him. He saw the man raise the pebble above his head in defiance, as Ken craned his neck upwards to see the image, there was a sudden, brilliant flash of green light.
It was so bright that the light felt as though it had burned in the core of his brain; it burned his soul, almost. The power was so pure that Ken was not able stand before it. He cringed downwards with an overwhelming feeling of numbness sliding into his head – it filled him with a sensation that made him feel as though everything had started slipping away. Then, with that awful sliding numbness filling his world, Ken did slip away. The last thing he heard was the uninvited commentator’s voice, with its dry, sarcastic drawl once again wheedling its awful remarks over the loudspeakers in his mind.
‘Thank y’all for watching our show, Ladeeees ‘en Gennlemennn, that’s all we have for you right now, but be sure to c’mon back next week, won’t yo’all. Oh boy, you gotta c’mon back because have we got another peach for you to share with us, or have we gotta peach for you? It’s a goddanged peach-of-a-peach, yessiree – yore definitely gonna need to watch this one!’
As the words echoed through the dark corridors of Ken’s fading consciousness, he felt himself spinning uncontrollably – spinning, slipping, falling. Then, like a flower at sunset, his mind closed itself and carried him fluttering back into the welcoming blackness.
10
Side-Order of Fear
The pain in his stomach awoke him. It wasn’t merely a pain, it was a hole and it growled at him with its need to be filled. He sat upright and looked around the darkened room. He was back in the bed and everything looked about as normal as it had done last night. He was starving and his stomach kept knotting itself with pangs of hunger. Sliding out of bed, Ken padded over to where the coffee machine had miraculously appeared before.
He spoke to the wall, saying: ‘Err, hello...room service? May I have a full English breakfast, please?’ He paused, and then said, ‘Also, may I have some fresh orange juice and about a gallon of tea, as well?’ just for the hell of it.
He laughed softly – this was absolute madness.
Ken whispered: ‘Seriously, guys, I’m starving here, and if we’re going on any more ‘little trips’, then I’m gonna need some strength.’
In his mind, Ken heard someone singing about ‘Lunatics and Grass’, he couldn’t quite remember who had done the original song, but the tune suited his mood just fine. He felt good, hungry, yes, but otherwise really good. The images from the last few days, and last night in particular, were clear in his mind, he felt as though he had addressed them and they were now where they should be, in a logical order and ready to be used later, maybe.
He questioned this because he still didn’t understand them, well, not fully anyway. He had a good idea what they were saying but he still felt small when looking up at the huge meaning which he knew they must have. ‘Why am I coping so well?’ he thought. Half of him felt insane, whilst the other half felt able and willing.
Turning back to the wall, he noticed that a previously unseen shelf had glided out. Upon it, magically presented, lay the feas
t he’d asked for a few minutes earlier. A white stool had also appeared as if from nowhere and was standing in innocence by the bedside table. He stood and stared for a second and then, with a shrug of resignation, Ken answered his stomach’s call for sustenance.
‘Man, that was awesome, compliments to the chef…’ he said, after demolishing the food. With a satisfied grin, Ken raised the heavy mug of tea in a one-handed salute to the wall opposite. He took a sip. ‘Bloody perfect,’ he said, and then began his slurping assault on the hot brew. Jane called him ‘asbestos gob’ and was always amazed at the speed in which he made a mug of scalding hot tea disappear. Ken realised how much missed his wife and his nose was filled with her smell. With a wry smile, he shook her out of his mind, promising himself some time with the memories of her later on.
Right now he wanted to get the tea down his neck before he was to face the next big adventure. Ken mulled over the recent events again. He definitely felt okay about them and was more engrossed in trying to figure out who the guy with the ponytail was. He was positive he knew him, but there was a void in his mind when it came to remembering the man’s name, and where he knew him from. It baffled him. ‘Weird, I’m pretty good with names and faces,’ he thought, ‘but I’m sure I’ve seen that one before...’
All at once, his mind decided that perhaps the good times were over – reality called round to see him and it wasn’t just here for a friendly chat. A horrible thought, a vision, maybe, gradually slithered into Ken’s head. He saw himself in chains, being forcibly led to a small, dimly-lit room. He saw the end of a steel bed-frame and glimpsed a dangling strap, a leather strap.
Then the iron grip of strong hands encircled his arms and the tang of some unrecognised disinfectant invaded his nostrils. Wearing a large pair of hobnail boots, Mr Fear jumped, uninvited, straight into Ken’s mind. He felt the terror within burst forth.
Cursing loudly, he sat upright and nearly spilled the tea. ‘Shit!’
His curse may have been loud, but it didn’t send the awful thoughts away.
‘Everything is just a bit too good, they’ve tricked me! That breakfast has been my last meal – the last meal of a condemned man! Whoever they are, they’ve spent a long time showing me how we’ve screwed up this planet, yeah...and how they have cured it all with one big, motherfucking storm!’ His mind shuddered.
‘Right, I get it, okay, I understand but...now they’re gonna to top me as well? Kill me along with the rest of mankind and turn me into nothing but dust, green dust!’ His head cowered from those terrible thoughts. ‘I’ve been given my last meal, had a nice brew, and any minute now the men in white are gonna come in and drag me away, drag me away screaming!’
The picture was quite clear in his head. They were going to tie him to the bed, really tightly, where he’d have a little sleep. Yes, a little, hypodermically-induced, sleep. ‘Yeah, you’ll sleep when they’ve finished with you all right, you’ll sleep permanently!’ he said, shuddering physically this time. It was right then that he decided to make a plan for getting out of there. Ken had just started to rise to his feet when he heard a rustling noise coming from behind him.
His heart broke into full gallop, mind leaping into overdrive. ‘They’re here! Run, no…’ He whirled around, angrily snarling out his fear. ‘Come on then, you bastards, let’s have you…’
11
Unanswered Questions
‘Good morning, Kenneth, I trust that you enjoyed your meal…’ said George, who happened to be standing about six feet away. He smiled at Ken, blue eyes sparkling with humour.
Ken screamed at the old man: ‘Fucking hell!’
For one second he thought about stepping up and delivering a killing blow to the old bastard’s skinny throat. Instead, he took a deep breath and unclenched his fists. ‘Why can’t you just knock, eh?’ he said, angrily. Ken sat back down in the chair, hands shaking with adrenaline, not quite sure if it was from the shock of having George sneak up on him, or more likely from the all-too-real vision he’d recently witnessed of the terrible scene portraying his own demise.
George smiled at him and pulled up a small black leather stool.
‘I guess he bought his own,’ Ken thought, trying to get his emotions back onto an even keel. Through blazing green eyes he looked at George and clenched his teeth. The anger welled up from his stomach – the old feeling was a welcome one and filled him with its coldness.
He and George sat looking at each other in silence.
Finally, Ken said, ‘So, George, what do you know – what’s happening?’
George raised his eyebrows. ‘More to the point: what do you know, Kenneth,’ he said, ‘and how do you feel?’
Ken looked into those blue eyes, and then he told George what he knew, told him straight. ‘Well, let’s see now,’ he said. ‘You may have to forgive me but a lot of bad stuff has gone down just of late. I know something major has occurred, some kind of apocalypse. The airbase is completely devoid of life.’
Ken also said he thought that the ‘slide-show’ had, perhaps, been a way for him to see the catastrophic effects man had wrought upon the planet. He had understood that particular message, and understood it fairly easily. After all, it wasn’t as though it hadn’t been a popular subject over the last decade or so.
‘Thousands of people, some of them pretty big fish,’ he said, ‘have made a damned good living about telling us we were all gonna die if we didn’t get a smaller car or walk to the damned shops, or blah-blah-blah!’ Ken reckoned they were all full of bullshit, personally, and he told George so, too.
George shot him a knowing glance and gave an almost imperceptible nod. Ken told George that he himself didn’t really understand some of the other things he’d watched: the silver case with its blue glass lid was one; the oft-repeated scenes of the ocean and abject chaos were but a few more. Then there were the hyenas, hell-bent on jumping into the black pit, and, he wondered, just what was that wall of misery he’d been shown as the terrible avalanche of sand, oil and blood?
The only real thing George told him was that the Fallow deer had been a depiction of deep sorrow, of regret and of the undeniable destruction of beauty. Ken understood that one with total clarity. He also understood when George told him of how the unexpected return of his long-lost Zippo lighter had served as a link to reality, something tangible with memories for him to hold onto.
Ken nearly said he thought it had been a test, one designed merely to see if he would go insane, because, if he were to be honest, he still wasn’t quite sure that wasn’t the case. When it came right down to it, Ken asked George more than he was able to tell him. He was just starting to feel pretty dumb when George raised his finger to his lips.
‘Hush, we have covered enough for now, Kenneth,’ he said. ‘You have done extremely well. The questions you have raised show a level of understanding far above what we were expecting – you have a certain awareness and adaptability that will see us through the difficult times ahead.’ He smiled at the wide-shouldered man in front of him, asking: ‘Do you have any other questions before we stop for today; I suppose you must be rather tired?’
‘Yes, actually I do have some final questions, George.’
‘Please proceed…’
Ken did as he was asked. ‘One - is my wife still alive?’ he asked. ‘Two - who are you and how do I know you? Three - what the hell is actually happening around here?’ George nodded. Ken continued. ‘And number four,’ he said, in exasperation. ‘Well...number four is: when the hell are you going to answer any of my damned questions?’
George said, quietly: ‘The only answer I can give you at the moment refers to your wife – I do not know if she is alive or not, I am afraid to say. We will have to wait and see what our future brings to us, the other questions I cannot answer until later this…’ He paused, before saying: ‘Later this week – just know one thing for certain, Kenneth. I will never lie to you, I cannot lie and it is forbidden anyway, no matter what the cost. You will not be lied
to!’
He smiled once more and Ken guessed that lying was perhaps a very subjective thing; it all depended on what a person considered the truth to be. He still didn’t feel as though he was getting all the facts. George interrupted his thoughts.
‘There is time yet for these other things to be made clearer,’ he murmured. ‘You must understand that you have done extremely well under extraordinary circumstances. We must take one step at a time, and time, unfortunately, is something that we currently do not have an excess of. However, this part we cannot rush. Please be patient and please trust me.’
Even though he felt as though he wasn’t being given the whole story, Ken thought it would be nigh on impossible not to trust the old man.
‘Alright then, George,’ he said, and nodded his head wearily.
George was right, Ken was knackered and his eyes felt gritty. He looked towards the bed and turned to ask George if it would be okay if he took a quick nap. George had already gone. ‘Well, I’ll take that as a yes, then,’ Ken said, softly. He rose to his feet and headed towards the bed, slipping out of his clothes as he went. Leaving them where they fell, he collapsed onto the soft bed and closed his eyes. This time there were no dreams.
Only sleep.
12
Parallels
The next day he was finally given exit from the room, a place which, as comfortable as it was, had begun to wear a bit thin with Ken. Whilst he was sitting and looking up at the ceiling above, marvelling at the clever design, he heard a soft hissing noise from behind and looked around to see George standing in the doorway.