Trapped Within

by Bradshaw, Duncan P.

  They are joined, in the minority, by those that know only of this pain.

  Yet they live together. Unaware or unconcerned with the heritage of their fellows. Why can they co-exist, when we could not? I guess that as they are made from me, they are bound to support each other, irrespective of the time period from which they originated. To spurn one another would be folly. Counter-productive.

  They sing to me.

  Taunt me.

  Encourage me.

  How can they do everything at once? How can they share the same passageways, sired in different times, yet not give me that same courtesy?

  Then I remember. This is just the surface. You do not judge things by their appearance.

  You delve.

  They nearly convinced me then to stop. To accept, blindly, their judgement. They offered me a shallow lie, a diversion. To keep me out. To protect the truth. They know.

  But are they protecting me, or are they fooling me?

  What humble tools can start, only tactile interaction can achieve true understanding from. I drop the peeler, and press my fingers into my feeble flesh. I wrap my slick digits around the muscle, and tug on it. The sound! It grows louder. Just for the briefest of times. It changes pitch, too. I pull again, and get the same result.

  Perhaps.

  Perhaps the problem lies within me?

  How far has the rot seeped?

  Are the lines on my hands physical fractures from my failings?

  Why did I not see?

  I tap my bones. Nothing. They emit no note or tone. The vibrations I felt before are from something else. My muscle and sinew, too, are mute. I pull on ligament, turning my hand into a claw, a monstrous instrument. I show my machine that it is nothing but a puppet. There is more than the fleeting sensations it bombards me with. They are nothing but symptoms of mechanical failure, or mental anguish, atrophy of the spirit.

  I release the slick strings, allowing my fingers to unfurl. The demonstration complete. More of an affirmation than anything.

  Wait.

  That was an answer.

  I feel validated, sure that I have taken a step closer. The buzzing remains. It is louder now that I have exposed within, but its source remains a mystery.

  If it’s not in my flesh or bone, where is it?

  I dab a finger into the slowly coagulating blood, from its crude reveal. It tastes as it always has: coppery, tangy, rich, strangely appealing. But when I rub it between my fingers, the sound changes, splits into individual beats.

  Of course. What else runs through this entire machine? What feeds it, sustains it, carries infection to where it will do the most damage? It keeps me on the edge of the knife. One slip, and it would end me.

  I run my hand up my arm, I know now. I trace the veins, the arteries, the highways of this liquid, and rap on my chest with pale knuckles.

  I have found you.

  Home.

  I stand, but nearly topple over. My head is light and I can see pulsing globules in my vision. They are adorned with suckers which contract and expand in time with my heartbeat. Are they connected? Do they know what I plan?

  Surely they must, for I am one.

  I steady myself on the worktop and rummage through the drawer once more. With the items procured, I concede this round, and sink back to the floor. I do not envisage that I will need to stand again. My legs will not be required. The many miles they have transported me are at an end.

  Pulling off my t-shirt, I notice that I can see my ribs. The point at which they join, a concave hollow, pale, shorn of hair, I can see my skin flex as my heart pumps.

  I am unsure if I will be allowed to reach the terminus. If the high castle will shut down before I discover what is emanating from me. This message it is sending out. Is it being received? Is there anyone but I, capable of receiving it? Surely they must need to be dialled in. Wired to the correct frequency.

  Receptive.

  For all of my stubborn posturing, I cannot detect anything else.

  Alone.

  Am I alone?

  I am.

  Is that what started it?

  Is this signal nothing more than a distress signal?

  Mayday.

  Mayday.

  This vessel is broken.

  Send for help.

  Repair.

  Reset.

  Ignore its plaintive call. Push it away. Attain the peace that brought you these discoveries.

  Do it before it makes you change your mind.

  Can it do that?

  I don’t know.

  I don’t think we should take the chance.

  I run the blade across my rib from breastbone, until I catch my bicep with the keen edge. Already the blood is evacuating. Seeking a lifeboat. Solace. A way to find something its secret can be concealed in.

  I push on, and place the spatula into the breach, under my rib.

  I do not know if I will get a second chance at this before it realises what I intend to do.

  I pull the wooden handle towards me. Quickly. Cleanly.

  The pain cuts through me.

  Not just my body.

  Through me.

  The rib has broken through the skin; my crudeness has worked. With trembling hands I pull the rib across my body, snapping it off, leaving it hanging as if it were a broken spine from a book.

  I can feel my eyes pulsing. On the outward movement, I fear that they will burst free from my sockets and abandon me. Terrified of what they are witnessing.

  I must act quickly.

  The sound.

  I can hear it now.

  It’s changed once more.

  It’s…

  … beautiful.

  Haunting.

  Melodic.

  I close my fist around the blood courier organ, and pull. It makes me gasp and wince, but I cannot stop now. I am sinking, both physically downwards and into myself. It is like my eyes are in retreat, looking out through windows growing more and more distant.

  With one more pull I remove my heart from its mooring. It is still connected via its thick meaty pipes to the rest of my body.

  I just want to know.

  That’s all.

  I have to know.

  What is that sound?

  I bring the beating lump of gristle to my tiny eyes. Now looking down the wrong end of two black-lined telescopes.

  Don’t trust them.

  So I place it to my ear.

  My god.

  It’s divine.

  There is a melody of impossible construction. It soars then wanes, carrying me aloft on an impossible wave, before delivering me into freefall, swooping through canyon and over a lush landscape.

  But there is more.

  Two voices.

  One sounds like me.

  As if it were a recording from a time I cannot recall.

  But I sound happy.

  Content.

  I cannot discern what I am saying, but I know what the emotion tells me.

  Who does the other voice belong to?

  I squeeze my heart tighter, making the aorta burst free.

  In that moment, my blood gushes out. I am the conductor in the final climactic movement. The pinnacle of my hopes, dreams… and questions.

  I worry for the briefest of moments that I will be unable to see it through. To ensure that every note is perfect. To see that the tumultuous crescendo is worth every drop of the admittance fee.

  It is then that I hear her.

  Calling my name.

  Over and over again.

  As I peer into the rent organ, I see two shadows within the high chambered cathedral of blood.

  They pirouette and move around each other with a grace that I didn’t think was possible. There is fluidity, purpose and intent.

  And nothing but love.

  Her voice rises above the crashing strings, so crisp, so distinct, I wonder why I didn’t hear it before.

  How could I?

  These secrets that lay hidden with
in.

  And in that instant, this final breath between life and death, I realise that I have no more questions. It is so clear to me now. For all those moments where we think that we are alone, desperate and uncared for, there are so many others which are filled with joy, happiness and understanding. Those moments, they are the ones that stay within the heart. The place which keeps you alive, and keeps those alive that we loved. Even when they’re gone.

  That is the most important thing.

  We hold onto it like these two figures within, who now, as the final notes stretch out and begin to fade, turn to me and bow.

  As they stand, her voice—trembling, scared—says but one word before all I know turns to darkness.

  The orchestra, which had played so gamely, ceases for this litany.

  “Why?”

  There is no finer sight in the world than Duncan P. Bradshaw brandishing the holy ukulele of fun, which he found in a two pence grabbing machine, whilst on holiday in the south of France. Despite his inability to play it, the way the light reflects off the polished fretboard, is really rather magnificent.

  When he isn’t making up bios to make him sound majestic and amazing, he types words into the magical machine of letters and numbers, forming them into sentences, and in turn, stories. Best known for his zombie fiction, Duncan just wants to write down the events which run around his head, and refuse to die.

  Have a look at his website,

  www.duncanpbradshaw.co.uk

  for information on his work, or, better yet, give him a Like on Facebook,

  https://www.facebook.com/duncanpbradshaw/

  Jason picked up the framed photo from his mantelpiece and looked at the happy snap beyond the plastic glass. Tears welled in his eyes and eventually dripped down his face and onto the false pane and cheap pine casing.

  The picture was captured at a pleasing point in his life; a time almost forgotten—a period that was nothing more than a cheery, distant and warming glow found in the depths of his mind. The only time he could recall the happy moments from yesteryear was when he was sober and not crawling around inside a bottle of gin.

  “I’ve been dry for thirty-two-days-and-a-half!” he uttered, tracing the frozen faces with his thumbs. “I should have kicked it, but I wasn’t strong enough to stop…”

  “It’s always one more fucking job with you, Jason!” he often heard his ex-wife’s voice say. “The kids need a father who’s going to be around to watch them grow up. To have a dad they can play with and take them to the park. What they don’t need is a drunken, good-for-nothing thief!”

  “It kept you living your airs-and-graces lifestyle. You were quite happy to gobble my cock for a new handbag or a fistful of fifties!” he’d yell back. The whisky and mother’s ruin and rum and brandy and beers made it all go away, but not for the last thirty-two-days-and-a-half. All the angry, slurred voices and the screams and tears of his children were there.

  They were gin-clear.

  Jason could see the pained expression on his children’s faces whenever he and Tina argued in front of them—they rarely had glowing, teeth-exposing grins on their chops like they did in the photo he now held. He dragged the forming snots in his nose and throat and swallowed the jelly-like muck.

  “Daddy’s going to make things right, kids. One final job and I’m out. Done! That’s a promise. No more.” Jason wiped the tears from his eyes so he could see the images of his children with clarity. The palm trees in the background suggested the photo had been taken on one of their numerous family holidays.

  When the bank, mulling and gun-running jobs were coming in thick and fast for Jason and his posse, he lived a lifestyle that rivalled Tony Montana’s—the world was his. But a few stints in prison put paid to his activities, and soon he was a number-one target on the police’s radar. He couldn’t fart without a copper knocking his door.

  This job’s different, he thought, continuing to look at the photo. It’s fool-proof and worth over ten-million fat ones each! Enough cash to get me and the kids out of the country and away from this shit-hole for good…

  A plan to snatch his children during the raid was in place: a member of Jason’s crew, Juice, was to go to Tina’s house and take them by brute force, if necessary, but not deadly force. Once the kiddos were in his care, he was to drive to the airport and meet Jason and the rest of the outfit there, where they would board a plane to Hawaii.

  The tickets were in place; so too was his crew and scheme. All Jason had to do was put the whole thing into gear and get the job done. Before he knew it, he would be drinking beer in the sun and enjoying his lolly with his children.

  Nothing can go wrong… me and the boys have been through the arrangements a hundred fucking times. It’s taken us two years to get to this point—no stone has been left unturned. Hopkins and Sons Jewellery won’t know what’s fucking hit it!

  The small, family-owned, family-operated shop was a goldmine; a target waiting to be hit; a grape ready to be plucked from the vine. Hopkins and Sons was a little different than your ordinary jewellers, as it stocked the unusual—ancient artifacts and special items that should only be displayed in a museum—along with the usual: watches, necklaces, rings, and so forth.

  It was a shop built for the rich, a place where they could splash their cash on rare items like the materialistic whores they were. It had been a splendid find by Jason, who had stumbled across the shop while doing honest work with a road crew a little over two years ago.

  Whilst digging the road to lay new pipes and lines opposite the shop on the busy high street, Jason had spotted it; he’d watched as highfalutin wretches came and went with pound signs dancing in his vision. The sound of cashing tills rang in his ears and caused him to salivate.

  On his lunch break that day, Jason had meandered over to the shop and nosed outside like a flunky—he’d already had it planted in his mind that he was going to knock the joint over, so he didn’t want to go inside and show his face. Even though he knew it would be a long time before he hit the place.

  The golden Lynx-engraved tiaras looked as though they hailed from darkest Africa, and had him rubbing his whiskery chin with excitement. The need to steal had him shaking, much like the horn makes a pervert tremble with the need to climax. Not only were there tiaras on display, but rings from Congo, diamonds from Peru, necklaces from Serbia, pearls from Persia, prehistoric Welsh love spoons studded with twinkling gems, and a whole host of other treasures.

  Every day for the following six months Jason visited the shop, but only stepped inside once, when temptation got the better of him. Security was at a minimum: one fat guard leaning on his baton and CS Spray and three cameras dotted around the shop. When he told the elderly man behind the counter he was looking for a special ring for his fiancée, Jason was led right to the vaults below.

  Underneath the shop, in the warren-like chambers, Jason found there to be another lazy guard and four more cameras. He also saw some rare items, such as a scarab belonging to an entombed mummy god from ancient Egypt.

  “That, my boy, is one of the rarest, most expensive items on the planet! It is owned and stored here by a descendent of the sun god Ra… In ancient Egyptian religion, the sun god Ra was seen to roll across the sky each day, transforming bodies and souls. Beetles of the Scarabaeidae family dung beetle rolled their dung into balls as a source of food and an offspring chamber in which to lay their eggs; when the larvae hatched it was immediately surrounded by food. For these reasons the scarab was seen as a symbol of this heavenly cycle and of the idea of rebirth or regeneration. The Egyptian god Khepri, Ra as the rising sun, was often depicted as a scarab beetle or as a scarab beetle-headed man. The ancient Egyptians believed that Khepri renewed the sun every day before rolling it above the horizon, and then carried it through the other world after sunset, only to renew it the next day. A golden scarab of Nefertiti was discovered in the Uluburun wreck…” Old git Hopkins had informed him, but Jason had mostly tuned out after the words ‘rare’ and �
�expensive’.

  Funny, it doesn’t look like much! he’d thought at the time. Still, if it’s as rare as the old man says… The drool returned to his chin.

  The pound signs again jumped up and down in his vision.

  Before the discovery of the jewellers, Jason had been clean for almost three years after spending six behind bars for armed robbery; he should have served ten-to-twelve, but his sentence was cut for giving up the loot and keeping his nose clean whilst inside.

  He never gave his gang members away, and felt no resentment over the course of his porridge for them not serving time. He’d told the people of the high court that he’d acted alone and took full responsibility, even though witnesses had informed the police that there were indeed five involved in the heist.

  Once released, Jason had made a promise to go straight, especially after finding Tina had left him and taken the children to live in the city. He cleaned his act up and got a job with the council, becoming a highway maintenance assistant.

  As hard as he tried, Jason couldn’t quite conquer the demons. And as soon as he’d stumbled across the Hopkins’ goldmine, he was quick to cave. The old lusting for fortune returned.

  Within weeks Jason had reassembled his crew—most of whom were still working small jobs, whilst others had gone straight and were begging for the opportunity to break the law in a huge, bank-account-busting way. When Jason went a knockin’, they rolled up to go a rockin’.

  He replaced the photo and dried his eyes.

  I can’t meet the guys with tears running down my cheeks like an old dear! He sniffed, snorted, and shook his head until the girlie, wimpy thoughts and ideas were banished from his hardened criminal mind. Jason looked into the mirror hanging over the mantelpiece. How in the hell did I ever get a job in the first place? he wondered. His head was shaved bald, and jailbird ink decorated his left cheek and the underside of his right eyelid. He also had a scar running the length of his jawline to the top of his shoulder, which had been inflicted upon him with a bottle during a fight in a nightclub when he was nineteen.

  Almost twenty-five years ago to the day!

  He could still recall the bouncers who pried him off the lad who had struck him with the glass. If Jason hadn’t been stopped from pummelling the lad, he would have killed him.