by Brian Hughes
However, I was forgetting that he is such a shallow, insensitive creature he wouldn’t have had the mental ability to deduce my intentions.”
In disgust, the binder was flung across his shoulder. It hit the grandfather clock and crashed to the floor.
“Stupid cow!”
With a snort, he delved deeper.
“Hmm, ‘Sexy in Modern Society.’” (The actual title of the book was ‘Sexism in Modern Society’ but Jess couldn’t focus properly.) The pages rustled beneath his eager thumbs.
“Typical! She’s the only person I know that’d buy a book about sex with no pictures in it.”
The dog-eared tome was thrown in the same direction as the previous file.
Then Jess’ fingertips came into contact with an extremely old book.
“Achieving Enlightenment through Cabalism and Dream Travel.”
Suddenly excited he ripped through the pages, moths of parchment fluttering outwards in all directions.
“Now this is more like it!”
Portion the Third: Travels with Hobson
Stilts of smoke propped up the bedroom ceiling. With the duvet tucked beneath his armpits, Jess read aloud to himself. He’d adopted an oriental voice as though somehow that would make the words more realistic.
“Chapter Ex Aye. Progression through the Elysian Domains. In order to achieve entry to another person’s subconscious one must first practice these simple exercises. It is essential to maintain awareness during sleep.”
The book went down.
Jess pulled the corners of his eyes apart into bigoted slits and settled back.
“Ah so, velly good. Imagine yourself on a winding staircase. The cord of life is attached to your waist.”
This much was true. A huge umbilical was visibly protruding from his leather belt as he started his subconscious descent into the world of dreams.
“With every step you are going deeper into a cabalistic trance.”
Down, down, down wound the spiralling steps.
Darker and darker grew the narrow twisted well, the walls that separated the conscious world from the realm of dreams becoming ever more blurred.
On and on droned the mystical mage with monotonous sagacity, until at length Jess stopped on a landing and placed his hands on his knees.
“’Old on a minute Confucius. I’m buggerin’ knackered!”
At roughly one o’clock that morning, although it was difficult to be certain as dreams do strange things to time, Jess Hobson finally reached the ground.
A hall stood before him. Around its walls numerous doors led off to realms of uncharted sleep.
From all around, the voice of the China man echoed wisely.
“You have reached the Halls of Enlightenment.”
“Thank bugger f’r that!” Jess grinned, slapped his palms together and surveyed the possibilities.
Each of the doors had a brass plaque on it.
“Buddha,” “Mohammed,” and “The Abominable Snowman.”
All silently dreaming.
All waiting to be accessed by wayward ramblers.
One name in particular caught Jess’ eye.
“Donald Oakseed? The balding runt!”
“Remember, cabalism is not to be taken lightly,” the oriental words cautioned him. “The only way to return to your normal body is by the cord of life. If the dreamer should awaken this will automatically retrieve you. And always respect the privacy of others in their dreams!”
“Yeah, yeah! Shut it, for God’s sake!”
Jess grabbed the handle to Donald’s entrance. (I could have worded that better, couldn’t I?) He gave a tug.
“Prepare to be enlightened y’ little shit!”
With a rasp Jess snorted the contents of his nose to the back of his throat, studying the foggy interior of the pub. It resembled the Thatch, only with a few more spotted elephants than normal.
A miniature biplane buzzed past his ear, controlled by a grinning brown egg in flying goggles.
Around Jess’ boots an army of pepperpots shot their revolvers into the ceiling, shouting, “Shoot that Fokker down, Lads!”
In one tucked-away corner, Donald Oakseed grinned at the comely dairymaid. An ominous shadow crept across them.
“What d’ you know about dreams, Mr Oakseed?”
Jess crammed his muffin of a chin up against Donald’s own.
“I’ve come t’ discuss ‘Pain’ and ‘Death’!”
Donald backed away, the legs of his chair squeaking like frightened mice.
“I don’t quite follow…”
“Then, let me fill you in.”
Jess appeared much larger than he was in real life, which is difficult to imagine, I know.
“S’pose you had a dream in which, for example, somebody tore you’re ’ead off and kicked it through a window?”
Donald swallowed apprehensively.
“And s’posin’ this ’appened every night for the rest of you’re life. There’d be nothin’ you could do about it, by law, now would there?”
What Donald meant to respond with was, “I suppose not, Mr Hobson. Unless, of course, you could establish proof.”
What actually emerged from Donald’s mouth was a garbled ensemble of twittering noises.
Jess’ hands closed about his neck.
Tankards flew in all directions.
With a blasphemous shredding noise Donald’s head was torn completely from his shoulders.
A piercing scream shook the magazines from the top of his wardrobe. With his pyjama’s sticking to his skin Donald Oakseed shot up straight in his creaky old bed.
The room at Old Bridge Lane span for a couple of moments. It was like watching an ocean going down a plughole.
Then it settled back down into its more familiar state of inertia.
Under the patchwork blanket the bulge of Martha Sonneman’s nose moved restlessly.
“Stop messing about and go back to sleep!”
Donald shook himself and gazed at her feet against the bedstead.
“What sort of ’orrible nightmare was that?”
Back in the Thatch, Jess Hobson stared at the headless corpse.
Then he grinned.
There was a tugging at the small of his back.
Moments later he was hurtling backwards across a panorama of impossible fells.
The icy fingers of the wind slapped his jowls and pulled his earlobes as Donald’s dreamscape retreated into the distance.
With a deafening howl Jess bounced upright in bed, his quilt ending up crumpled against the skirting board.
As the world settled down he grabbed for the book that was still on his pillow.
“Excellent.” He slammed it shut, forcing the dust from its yellow pages. “I can see that I’m goin’ to ’ave some fun with this!”
Portion the Fourth: Once More unto the Beach
June 18th. Donald Oakseed scratched his bald head and chipped miserably at his boiled egg.
Every night recently threatening apparitions had haunted his dreams. He’d cut out cheese before bed. He’d stopped watching the late night programmes on BBC 2. But nothing could dislodge the maniac from his once peaceful slumbers.
Across Greyminster, beyond the chimney stacks belching their effluvium into the midsummer skies, Jess Hobson however had grown bored by the same old routine.
He wanted to add something new to his persecution of the unsuspecting midget.
With this in mind he was now hunting down his Hammer Book of Gory Horror Stories for inspiration.
On his hands and knees he scrabbled through the mounds of junk beneath his coffee table. For a second he became vaguely aware of a shadow falling over him.
Foolishly he ignored it.
Jannice Applebotham’s voice broke through the stillness.
“Jess?”
Thunk! (That was the sound of his head slamming into the table with shock.)
“If you’re looking for your penis, it’s attached to your neck!”
“’Ave y’ ever ’eard of knockin’, Jannice? Or don’t women need manners these days!” Jess struggled onto his boots, rubbing the swelling egg on his head. “I might ’ave been ’aving sex or sommet!”
“I doubt it!” Jannice hoisted her dufflebag across her shoulder. “Someone told me your rubber doll was punctured!”
“Waddya want any’ow? Or couldn’t y’ just resist coming round t’ see me?”
“I want my ring binder! I’ve got my finals on Friday morning and I need my revision notes.”
Jess snarled.
Reluctantly he went back down on all fours.
Comics flew in all directions. At last Jannice was handed a beer-stained, crinkled folder.
“Tryin’ to impress the lecturers again? Y’ know what your problem is, Jannice?”
He struggled upright with a blob of spaghetti on the top of his head that resembled some sort of bowler hat.
“Y’ need a real man, not some ginger-bearded tit in a stupid shirt with a concord collar.”
“A man like you, y’ mean?”
Jannice rubbed the corner of her files with one licked cuff.
It didn’t achieve much.
“In your dreams, Jess Hobson. In your bloody dreams!”
Time cranks forward.
At about 11.35 p.m. Jess decided to get an early night.
The duvet was pulled up to his bristled chin, his nostrils pruning the atmosphere with a series of vibrating ‘Z’s.
Deep down in the subterranean world of his subconscious his enormous feet thudded down the stairs.
All around the oriental voice echoed its warning.
“I strongly advise against this action! Only the foolish interfere with forbidden dreams!”
Jess tugged the book from the pocket of his body warmer. With a defiant snort it was torn into shreds that billowed behind him in a stole.
“Shut your cake hole, y’ slitty-eyed puff!”
It wasn’t long before he found himself back in the hall, in front of a warped wooden portal braided with oxidised studs.
On the plaque this time were the words:
‘Jannice Applebotham. Private! Men not allowed!’
“Right, y’ self-righteous old slag!” Jess rubbed his nose. “Let’s find out what sort of twisted subconscious you’ve got then. There’s probably some sort of big lesbo muff-diving contest going on.”
His two great hands were brought together in a slap of anticipation.
“Hold on to your tights, girls. Here comes Uncle Jess t’ show you how it’s really done!”
The screams of seagulls tore through the fog.
Jess’ boots sank into the sand with each new step, his footprints instantly filling with water.
It wasn’t exactly what Jess had expected for Jannice’s dream. There were no tiger-skin rugs or writhing bronzed bodies.
He watched the door slowly vanish into the mist behind him, then took a couple of experimental steps.
“Oy, Applebotham!” He leaned into the words, his giant hands cupping his mouth for amplification. “Don’t bother puttin’ your slacks on! I’ve come t’ make your dreams come true!”
Two shapes appeared in the fog, vague and intransigent.
Jess plodded closer.
One of shapes slowly turned into Jannice Applebotham.
For several moments Jess stared in silence at the two gravestones buried waist high in the sand.
“’Oo’s the stiff?”
It was almost as though his words had alerted Jannice to his presence. She emerged from her reverie and lifted her bouquet of primroses to the bob of her chin.
“That’s my mother. She drank herself to death when I was four.”
She looked at the smaller of the graves.
“The other’s Patch. He bit the cable on my dad’s electric blanket and blew himself up!”
“Y’ miserable bloomin’ cow!” Jess kicked the largest headstone in the manner that biker’s do with the front wheels of their machines. “This is what y’ dream about, is it? If I’d have known that I wouldn’t have bothered comin’!”
“What are you doing here, Jess?” Jannice placed the posy amongst the shells at the bottom of the headstone. “And what’s that stupid rope around your waist?”
Jess had forgotten about his anchor to the world of the living. He gave it a tug to make sure it was safe.
It made a soft twanging noise.
“Betcha thought it was something impressive, didn’t y’?” He raised one eyebrow, suggestively.
“Not really, Jess.”
From behind her back Jannice produced a pair of brightly coloured scissors.
With a snip the rope fell to the ground.
Jess watched in horror as the untethered hessian sprang off into the distance.
The fog swallowed it whole.
“There! It’s even less impressive now, isn’t it?”
“Oh my God!” Jess grabbed the limp tassel and gawked. “What’ve you done? That was me buggerin’ cord of life that was!”
“And what exactly does that mean, then?”
For the briefest of moments Jess looked flummoxed.
Then he rallied magnificently and scowled.
“I don’t know, but I’ve got a suspicion that I’m stuck inside your ’ead now!”
Portion the Fifth: Raising the Titanic
Toy soldiers marched across the tablecloth, their stiff limbs clanking as though clapped in callipers.
The coffee reached the brim of the enormous mug.
Jannice set the bubbling pot down and nodded to the pigmy piloting the platter between the café tables.
Resting her chin on the shelf created by her hands she turned to her distraught colleague.
Jess was trying to glue various bits of parchment back together with spit.
“So what you’re telling me is that without ‘The Lifeline’ you’re stuck inside my mind?”
“Under the circumstances…” Jess grabbed her mug and tipped its contents onto a sleeping dormouse. “I don’t think coffee’s a good idea. It said somethin’ in here about you not wakin’ up!”
Growing annoyed he scattered the scraps of the book with one large hand.
“God only knows what’ll ’appen if you do!”
“Got any bright ideas?”
The waiter appeared at Jannice’s knees. He lifted the tray to a more reachable height.
“Or am I supposed to stay asleep until you die?”
“No, wait!” An expression of optimism rearranged Jess’ features. “I saw a film once. The Poisonous Adventure or somethin’. ’Bout these idiots who were stuck on a sinkin’ ship!”
“Oh good!” Jannice removed the most enormous éclair she’d ever clapped eyes on from the bobbing salver. “I’ve got an exam in about three hours time and my alarm clock’s going to go off. Let’s waste what precious few minutes we’ve got reminiscing about disaster movies, shall we?”
“They ’ad to get to the bottom of the ship!” Jess bulldozed on. “It’s the same for us! We’ve got t’ climb t’ the top of your ‘ead!”
“Right…and then what happens?”
There was a moment’s pause.
“Dunno. Someone’ll have t’ drill an ’ole in your skull I s’pose!”
Temporal progression, as was mentioned earlier, follows its own rules inside dreams. It was difficult to say how long Jannice and Jess had been wandering around the labyrinth of staircases.
It might have been weeks.
It might only have been a few seconds.
Whatever the case it was dark and it was dingy and the haul wasn’t made any more agreeable by the couple’s constant bickering.
“’Ow much buggering farther?”
Jess flattened his palms against the stone wall and lumbered forwards, bent up double. His head collided with Jannice’s backside.
“Have y’ got that bloomin’ map the right way up!”
One of the advantages of sleep is that travellers
can summon up maps at will.
One of the disadvantages is that maps constantly rearrange themselves.
“Stop moaning! We’ve almost reached the central core of my unconscious mind.” Jannice shuddered. “My Id!”
The passage should have opened up at that point onto some misty meadow with unicorns grazing in it. (All of the best dreams work along these lines.)
Unfortunately, instead, a trapdoor opened up beneath their feet.
The astonished couple suddenly found themselves tumbling into a fiery furnace.
It was an interesting plummet, as far as plummeting goes.
Roaring geysers created shadows that scaled the canyon walls. Geysers constructed from gigantic black and crimson flames.
Here comes the ground, look!
With a bone-jarring thump they landed, the thud vibrating though the vault.
For several seconds the trembles shook the clouds overhead, the straw that had accompanied them down shrivelling up in the heat.
Shaking the concussion from his ears Jess sat up straight and looked around.
Savage creatures tore about his hiking boots, their toenails sparking on the ground. They were flaunting their privates at one another in what he supposed was some sort of primitive courtship ritual.
Either that or it was just a novel method of jousting.
“Where the ’Ell, are we?”
“In the core of my basic instinct.” Jannice brushed a salamander from her shoulder. “According to Freud every human being is similar deep down inside.”
A feral goblin scaled Jess’ arm. It screamed down his ear.
An unpleasant crunch and the wailing stopped.
Jess wiped his hand on his knee.
“And that’s where we’re ’eaded, is it?”
He pointed towards an intricately carved minaret in the distance. It was very tall, quite impossible under normal circumstances, with a delicate staircase winding round it like some terrible bindweed.
“Yeah.” Jannice studied the complicated chart. “The Ivory Tower! Gateway to the Realms of Childhood Memories.”