The woodland stood empty and bare. A breeze rustles the freshly fallen bronze that has been dropped from the grip of those claws. Silken brown flows gently around and within the pieces of the jigsaw, a deep red seeps through at points.
‘Thompson was hardly here long enough to make an impact was he?’ Said the boy, who for the purpose of this exercise shall be called Stephan, he stands at average height but apart from that he is not average. Crooked nose, his face portrays something broken. He was right however; Thompson had not made an impact.
‘I think it was fear that got him, Thompson, that is, I mean, he was too scared of the possibility that we might get caught, you know?’ This was the voice of Leon, tall at around six foot two inches, attractive bone structure wrapped by muscle and taut lightly browned skin. Not average either as he edged in the other direction to Stephan, marginally closer to perfection; he was that side of average.
The pair sit together in a room so dark that the size is indeterminable, but the damp smell of rot and mud is somehow only more potent for the dark.
‘Neither of you gave Thompson a chance to make an impact.’ This third voice is mine. I who sits here and writes. At this time, he who sat with dry paper of freshly rolled spliff stuck and lazily hanging from the dry bottom lip of dry, open mouth, in taking only dry dull air that surrounds him. His hands fumble the lighter that sticks firmly within the sweaty palms. With one deep breath of the air much sweeter through its filter, his head falls back, looking through the smoke the dots of light shine through and the stars take him somewhere else. ‘Thompson’ he says, ‘Is a figment of your imaginations, we only exist in our minds and yet he was there too.’
The next morning time is frozen as he sits up and shivers and shakes and quivers. He is frozen and time ticks on. His warm bed is little comfort as his mind is wrapped with bubbles that burst. Eyes click within as they move, but what he sees proves little help or comfort. He remembered talk of Thompson, a boy created within his own mind as a metaphor, possibly. He didn’t feel too guilty this morning, as he remembered no terrible consequences, his head was pounding so loudly within that he almost missed the pounding on the door. ‘Fuck off’ he said as he buried his head so deep in his pillow that it almost disappeared like Alice through her looking glass. He was alone today. He wanted it to stay that way, but the knocking persisted, he couldn’t have resist finding out who it was. He opened the door of his messy sky blue room and the well-lit hall way attacked his vision before it dulled to grey. It was earlier than he thought and his usually straight staircase spiralled wildly as he stepped carefully or fell down. A sinister tall figure helped him to his feet with its extraordinarily white hands at the bottom of the now gothic stairwell and he trotted to the door and opened it with bleary eyed in wonderment. Staring into the dark he was slapped hard by a cold wind but nobody was there. He went back to bed.
He dreamed of the wooden tentacles swaying in the wind dropping their valuables as they danced to the autumn song, covering the silken brown, mixing with the deepest flowing red.
‘James…James!’ His mother called up the stairs and lying in his bed he groaned and turned and groaned and turned again. ‘James!’ Cried his mother again, and he could now hear her footsteps coming up the stairs. Quickly his eyes searched around to make sure that no incriminating evidence was on show and then he slipped his legs across the soft sheet on his bed until they stuck out under the cover and hung over the edge. At this point he dropped his heavy feet to the floor and sat staring at the wall opposite as his mother knocked and quickly entered. ‘I have cooked breakfast and thought I would come and wake you, are you likely to want some?’ At this point the comforting smell of bacon crept in to his conscious, through his nostrils. He groaned and turned to face his mother with the vague effort of a smile ‘please, I will be down in a second.’ He noticed his mother’s eyes scan the room as she left and closed the door firmly. Eventually his legs worked and pulled his body and head closer to the ceiling than they had previously been. He was in working order mostly, his head had straightened and so his sky blue room came in to focus quite quickly. The mess that crawled between those walls, seemed to have scuttled to the edges at the sight of day, leading him to wonder if his mother had been in last night? Perhaps this breakfast was some kind of intervention, or perhaps his mind was playing a cruel joke upon itself.
He thudded down the stairs without care or precision, lazily swaying between wall and banister, his new dressing gown flowing behind him with more grace than he himself had mustered in some years. Suddenly he tripped, tripping he fell, falling he yelled, yelling he stopped, stopping he looked, looking he saw, for the first time he saw what was really there at the bottom of the stair. He felt the soft wet bronze in his dry white hands and he grabbed and grabbed and pulled as bronze turned to red and back again. The talons towered over his quivering body and the yellow sun shone through, heating him to the core. His dressing gown blew open revealing his skinny white body and blue chequered boxers. The wind that gently tickled and caressed his torso was hot and seemed to draw him to his feet, he was centre of an intricate circle of nature and the circle drew ever closer, engulfing.
He sat engulfed by the oversized chair that wrapped itself comfortably around his curves and over his head. His feet dangled happily from the end of the seat and kicked up and down playfully. The door behind squeaked open breaking the seal of silence that had been so restorative to him since the sobbing that had brought him here. Sun crept through the green leafed trees and then through the window and then through his eye and then hitting the wall of his skull. She waddled on her small high-heeled feet, from behind his chair to the one situated directly opposite. She perched her large bottom on the very edge of the chair, a chair that was of the exact same proportions as his but whilst made to look large by him was made to look miniscule by her. Without elegance she crossed her legs and he watched the fat roll from her neck down to her ankles. ‘You know why you are here?’ She said this whilst squinting over her fat cheeks, which rose up in front of her eyes and upon which sat dainty glasses. He squinted back daringly as his back pushed deeper into the back of the chair. Then a tear fell, ‘I’m sorry’ he said, and that was all he could say as the tears fell harder and harder, and the sobbing grew louder once again.
As the circle of nature that surrounded him drew in making the bright sun disappear and darkness appear like a broken light bulb, rain began to trickle gently on to his nose and then from his nose to the floor. Then the rain went from trickle to fall and as it fell it thudded dramatically to the already wet ground, grey figures could just be seen through the dark. ‘You finally decided to turn up then did you?’ Said his Stepfather as he sat down grumpily on the chair closest to the fire at the dining table, his nose filled with the smell of bacon and smoke which occasionally blew away from the chimney and in to his mouth and nose.
Time sped up, and the room began to spin, epistemological was the only word which was in his head and he didn’t even know what it meant, all he remembered was that he had been told it was important, but at this moment it really wasn’t so he dived into his bacon and swam in it without coming up for air until he almost drowned.
Epistemological is the nature of knowledge, in particular its foundations, scope and validity.
Knowledge was constantly being covered by the consistently falling bronze that covered his face as he moved once more towards the sun, into this different place and so in fact his different face would be seen if the falling bronze would turn to reflective silver.
‘You clearly enjoyed your breakfast, I would offer you some more, but there isn’t any, unless you want to go and see if the chickens have laid this morning?’ Said his mother who stood at the opposite end of the long kitchen, and who’s little voice seemed to have been carried to his ears by the cleanest hands of the most careful carrier as it rung loudly in his ears. He presumed this had been a joke and so laughed as he took his plate in hand and wondered towards the dishwasher. ‘James, are you okay?’
’James, are you wanting to lay?’
’What right here? Yes that might be nice, a quiet rest.’
‘James why are you so au fait?’
‘So what?’
‘Gosh, sometimes I do wish you were more epistemological’
‘More what?’
‘James why are you so au fait?’
‘James are you wanting to lay?’
‘James are you okay?’
‘Yes I am fine, thank you’
He lay on the floor and again the white ghostly hand helped him to his feet, the dishes were no longer in his hand, he presumed they had smashed. He stood and looked at his mother, ‘everything okay?’
‘Yes James why wouldn’t it be okay?’
‘I don’t know, just wond’rin…Anyway, what you doing today?’
‘Not much, me and David might pop into town later, you?’
‘Probably go and see Abi at some point I imagine.’
Probably stay and see nobody at every available opportunity he had. Nobody except the sweet creatures that created themselves out of the smoke that plumed from his own lips and gathered around him scaring him and comforting him all at once.
At this point he had no knowledge of truth and yet he clearly deciphered what was fake and that to him was everything especially the emotions he perceived.
A shot in the dark fills skin, the blood that flows freely from the breaking of the skin, the shot skin, one shot.
‘Fuck off’, he muttered under his breath as he stood with his slender back towards her, facing the room filled with his classmates.
‘What was that James?’
He turned decisively looking her in the eyes,
‘Fuck off’
He said with an incredible amount of calm, as fluidly and yet solidly as anything he had ever previously acknowledged, this was before he realised that what he had done was unacceptable, he needed to react. Throwing his bag to the ground he stormed from the room with great deliberateness and yet by the time he exited his form had become far less solid, like an apparition he become swallowed by everything outside of that room, and his eyes evaporated in to water and his bones became unattached from one another and his brain melted.
‘Are you okay?’
‘Are you wanting to lay?’
‘What right here? Yes that might be nice? A quiet rest.’
His eyes were being injected by bright light when he awoke and realised where he was. This was the first time it happened. The first time it impacted on his vision at any rate.
‘So what happened?’ Asked the large broken faced head teacher who calmly lead James towards the library. Sobbing.
As she perched opposite him on her chair, she noticed that his chair had swallowed him; she noticed how small he was and how heavy his tears dropped. As they dropped they seemed to create puddles, puddles in which he would one day sit.
He left the kitchen and walked towards the stairs, this time they did not transform, no ghost white hand helped him from the ground, he just walked to his room and felt thankful. He sat on his bed, staring outward without expression, occasionally he sniffed, a long hard sniff, it was a habit he had. Eventually he heard some noise downstairs culminating in the sound of the front door opening then closing. He opened the draw next to his bed, almost as if it where a reaction to the noise of the door, he felt around without moving his head to look and pulled out a ready rolled spliff, ‘Here’s one I made earlier’ he said, Blue Peter style, amusing himself with the thought of Blue Peter teaching kids how to roll spliffs, to be honest he could have done with the advice, he still didn’t know how and always had to ask someone else. He was too lazy to look and learn. He closed the draw giving it a really hard push at the end to make sure it was completely shut. Taking the lighter from on top of the draws with his right hand he put the spliff to his lips with his left. It hung from his bottom lip like a leech hanging from flesh, sucking on the blood of its victim, some of the blood doesn’t go in and instead dribbles down the flesh over each individual hair, a red line across the fresh pink flesh.
