The Extraordinary Adventure Of Albert Buckle - Part One

Albert Buckle woke flat on his back in the short grass, the whole world reduced to hellfire on the pad of his right thumb. An unnaturally large bee drifted off to the end of its life, leaving Albert a token of its displeasure at having been plucked from a purple clover. With the hand raised to his face Albert could see the barb, still attached to the bee’s entrails, and the world began to sharpen and the word began to take shape –

STUNG!

As it was in fact the first day of July, the early morning air was tolerable and Albert’s rumpled clothes were only slightly dampened by the dew. He began to feel parts of himself (other than the bee’s bull’s eye) come into being; a round stone under his heel, the brush of a feather against his cheek. Turning his head gently to the side, a leather boot appeared like the remnant of a dream. There was something peculiar in the angle of the heel, one side worn down to a wisp, and the lace threaded haphazardly with no regard to tradition. He reached out and slid his fingers inside, along the imprint of the foot, smoother than a girl’s cheek. It looked about his size and throwing himself up to a sit he bent to try it on. What would you know! It fitted like a puzzle and glancing across Albert saw with delight that it matched the one already on his other foot.

Unsure of his recent (or distant for the matter) history, Albert began warily to pat his torso like a team sweeping for mines. The expectation of a cracked rib or a grisly wound caught his breath but he cleared the upper half and moved down to his thighs and shins without incident. He studied the offending thumb which had grown to absurd proportions, his only hurt it seemed. He pushed a tangle of curls from his face and taking the sting between his nails drew it cleanly from the flesh.

So the small things took shape but the wider story seemed out of his reach. This was no ordinary morning, that much was clear, as his tongue traced the molars and the canines and the incisors and found them to be smooth and moist. Albert knew the experience of the morning-after mouth exam better than most and was shocked to discover a tongue unsullied, teeth sanitary. He tried to remember back to the last time he had woken with such a lightness of heart and such surge in the veins, farther back than the conscience deemed reputable. He pulled his knees up to his chest lifting his face, the old/new boots flat to the earth and looked out into the space around his person.

He was on a hill, roughly halfway between top and bottom. There were trees, some bushes but he felt the hand of the landscaper and knew this was no wild, unmanaged place. Below in the distance, a city which, like all great cities call with the voice of longing to young men. Albert reached out a hand and closing one eye set the whole metropolis upon his palm. A flash of bright green pulled him from the panorama and he laughed to see a flock of parakeets darting through the branches of an English oak. He got to his feet and scanned the scene below, looking for the hidden question, an answer already forming on his tongue……. Hamstead Heath!

He took an exploratory step and found his legs were strong, his arms seemed set to march him down the hill. He passed from cautious walk to wild run, there had never seemed anything better than passing over the ground in full flight, careless of falling or being seen to fall. With face turned up to the skittish clouds he didn’t hear the low buzz of the unhappy bee dying in the grass beneath his new boot.

So there it is. Albert Buckle wakes up to a sting on the first morning of July, sober and full of vigor, finds a boot, realizes he is on Hamstead Heath, sets out to discover what the world has in store for him.