The Boy With The Telescope

“You, boy. You should not be here. Go home.”

Tommy tensed at the foot of the apple tree he was about to climb. One of the men from the Big House was striding towards him, robe flapping around his legs.

“No, you go home. My dad says, England for the English.”

The man smiled, though his eyes looked sad.

“Is that what your people call irony? Can you imagine what the Celts said when they saw the Angles coming in their longships from across the North Sea?”

Tommy gaped at him, then flinched when the man raised his hand.

“Go on, off with you. If people see us talking, there will be trouble.”

The impulse to run finally set Tommy’s legs in motion. He fled back to the wooden fence and clambered over into his own garden.

Feeling safer, he turned to shout an insult. Maybe terrorist.

The man shook his head. “You should not be afraid of me. It is the men in grey suits we must all fear.”

*

It was the summer that sirens sang in London, not for bombs or flood, but for the threat of words. Voices rose from the streets like the steamy heat, curling around lampposts and bus stops, whispering ceasefire and freedom and no more war.

Tommy didn’t understand the chants, but knew their rhythm. It was the tune to which grown-ups marched.

Tommy was more interested in his toy telescope. He pointed it not at the stars but at the windows across the street, where Mrs. Ghazal hung a flag with a green stripe and a red triangle. She said it was for Gaza and that her brother was still there, somewhere under the rubble.

Tommy didn’t know what rubble was, but imagined it like the ruins in his comic books: demolished buildings, broken robots, heroes with bandaged arms.

Down the road, Mr. Petrov painted sunflowers on the walls of his house. He said they were for Ukraine, for the fields that used to wave like golden oceans before the tanks came. He gave Tommy a seed once and told him to plant it where the sun could see.

Tommy planted it in the park, beneath the statue of a lion. The lion had graffiti on its flank: No Justice, No Peace. Tommy thought maybe the lion was protesting too.

One day, the sky turned orange - not with sunset, but with smoke. The grown-ups walked in ragged ranks and Tommy followed, holding his telescope like a baton in a marching band. He saw signs that said Stop the Bombs and Children Are Not Targets. He saw a girl his age crying, men and women shouting and a line of policemen standing very still.

He looked through his telescope and saw a different scene: the sky full of clouds in the shape of planes and missiles and drones. A boy in Kyiv ran through snow that was turning to slush. A girl in Gaza drew butterflies on a slab of broken concrete. A child in London planted a sunflower beneath a lion.

He lowered the eyepiece and the visions faded.

That night, Tommy asked his parents why people were so angry.

His mum said, “Because they remember what it’s like to be hurt and they don’t want anyone else to feel that way.”

His dad looked up from the pictures scrolling on the screen of his phone and huffed, “Nothing to do with us.”

Tommy nodded and went to sleep with the telescope beside him.

In his dreams, the sunflower bloomed so tall it touched the moon. The lion roared and the rubble turned to pieces of Lego. The flags soared like kites and the sirens sang lullabies.

And somewhere far away, another boy looked up at the same sky with his own telescope and whispered, “I see you.”

*

The funfair came overnight, like an invading army. One moment the park was empty, the next it was full of music and lights and the smells of popcorn and ozone. Tommy ran there at dusk, telescope in hand, heart thudding in time with the blaring pop music.

The merry-go-round spun slowly, its horses painted in strange colours - blue and gold, red and green, black and white. But through his telescope, they didn’t look like horses. One was a tank with a saddle. Another was a lion with wings. One had the face of a child and the body of a dove.

Tommy climbed onto the dove-child and held tight. As the ride turned, he held the lens to his eye and saw a kaleidoscope of images. A boy in Ukraine threw snowballs at a drone. A girl in Gaza traced the constellations through her broken ceiling. A torchlight protest in London surged like a mob of angry villagers in a horror movie.

The ride slowed. The music morphed from OLEGG to Bashar Murad to Dua Lipa. Tommy stepped off, dizzy with conflicting visions.

The Ferris wheel loomed above, its bejeweled arms seeking to embrace the night. Tommy climbed into a carriage painted with stylised sunflowers. As it rose, he saw the whole of London spread below. The telescope showed him the secret rooftops of skyscrapers, the Thames long and straight as a runway, the lion statue watching him back.

Higher still, he saw something else. Embossed in black against a blacker sky: “We are still here.”

He couldn’t imagine who had written it. Maybe the sky itself.

Then came the ghost train.

Tommy hesitated. The entrance was shaped like a skull, its broken toothed maw wide and grinning. Inside, the darkness of an unmarked grave. He climbed into the cart and it lurched forward.

The ghosts weren’t skeletons or witches. They were men in suits with empty eyes. Women holding broken clocks. Children made of ash. The walls showed a rapid series of jump scares: bombs falling, flags burning, hospitals toppling. All in a silence somehow louder than screams.

Tommy gripped his telescope. “I see you,” he whispered.

The train stopped. He stepped out into the lurid glare of neon.

The fortune teller’s tent was striped in silver and black. Its fabric rippled like smoke. Outside the entrance, a woman wore bangles that sang when she moved. Her eyes were the colour of dust.

She took his hand and didn’t ask his name.

“You’ve seen too much,” she said. “And not enough.”

Tommy frowned. “What do you mean?”

She pointed to his telescope. “That sees far. But you must learn to see close.”

She placed a card in his hand. It showed a child planting a flower beneath a lion.

“This is you,” she said. “You are the bridge.”

“Between what?”

She smiled. “Between the seen and the unseen.”

Tommy left the funfair with the card in his shirt pocket, close to his heart.

*

He kept the telescope wrapped in a handkerchief his grandmother had gifted him, the one with stars and spirals. He didn’t look through it much anymore – afraid of what he might see - but wanted to keep it safe. The fair had gone, leaving only footprints in churned mud and a scent of burnt onions.

He returned to the lion statue every day. Beneath its paw, where the stone cracked slightly, he planted a flower. Not a real one – as he didn’t have any more seeds - but a paper bloom, folded from the fortune teller’s card. It was a crude attempt at origami, but it stood up to the elements.

Then, one evening, someone came.

Not a person, exactly. A figure. Tall, wearing a suit the colour of fog, eyes like polished glass. It didn’t walk - it arrived with the lengthening shadows. Tommy sat alone at the feet of the lion, acutely aware of his solitude.

The figure spoke without moving its mouth.

“The telescope. It sees what should not be seen.”

Tommy stood. “It sees what is.”

“That is the danger.”

It reached out a hand, long and pale. “Give it to me.”

Tommy clutched the handkerchief. “No.”

The figure paused. Then it knelt before the lion. Its fingers brushed the paper flower. The bloom trembled.

“Symbols are seeds. Seeds beget life. Life begets reality.”

It looked at Tommy again. “You are not ready.”

Tommy stepped forward. “Then show me.”

The figure tilted its head. “Very well.”

It vanished as if it were never there.

The next day, the paper flower had changed. It was no longer folded - it had grown. Real petals, soft and golden, curled from the cracks in the stone. Bees circled it. The lion’s eyes seemed brighter.

Tommy unwrapped the telescope. He had an idea to try something new: to look through the opposite end. It didn’t make things appear further away - it looked inward. When he peered through it, he saw a long corridor with endless windows and doors. Through each one was a memory - his own and those of boys like him and of other children he would never know. A boy climbing an apple tree. Another boy on the run from men in drab uniforms. A girl with his face crammed in a small dinghy desperately bailing water. Each one of them carried their own telescope and gazed back at him.

*

Tommy was twelve years old and already regarded as dangerous.

He didn’t know it yet. But the men in grey suits did.

They watched him from the edge of the fairground, concealed behind mirrored sunglasses and a veil of gun oil. The boy was small, sharp-eyed and carried a telescope wrapped in a handkerchief patterned with stars. Not the sort of boy who cried at ghost trains. The sort who noticed things.

The merry-go-round spun in a reflection of the galaxies above. Tommy rode a lion with wings, gripping the brass pole like a soldier holding a WAC-47. He saw images as if lit by muzzle flashes, of things that didn’t belong in this city suburb.

A drone hovered over a snow-covered village. A girl painted stars on a ceiling cracked by shellfire. Smoke rose from a schoolyard. Flags burned in the wind.

The Ferris wheel lifted him above the city. He saw the protests in London: chanting crowds, placards held like shields, police forming into skirmish lines. He saw a man in a suit whisper into a microphone. He saw another man who listened, then repeated his words more stridently, in a different context.

The ghost train was quieter. It showed Tommy what came after the shouting. Empty eyes. Broken clocks. Children made of ash.

He didn’t flinch.

The fortune teller was waiting outside. She wore bangles that sang and her dusty eyes didn’t blink.

“You’ve seen too much,” she said.

Tommy shrugged. “Not enough.”

She smiled. “They’ll come for the telescope.”

“Let them.”

She gave him a card. It showed a lion and a flower. “Plant this,” she said. “And watch.”

The next morning, he did as she advised. The flower bloomed beneath the lion statue. Real petals. Real bees. Real danger.

The men in grey suits allowed themselves to be seen. One of them spoke.

“The telescope. It’s not yours.”

Tommy looked at him. “It is now.”

They didn’t smile. He didn’t run.

*

The fairground arrived overnight. No permits. No advance press. Just lights, music and the scent of scorched sugar. MI6 flagged it as anomalous. B*** flagged it as interesting.

He watched from the edge of the crowd, coat collar turned up, Glock 17 tucked beneath a tailored blazer. The merry-go-round spun like a carousel of national beasts - each animal painted with flags that had seen better days. Blue and yellow zubr. Black, white, green and red gazelle. Red, white and black leopard. The lion was British, of course. Weary eyes of faded gold.

A boy rode it. Twelve years old, maybe. Sharp-eyed. Clutching a telescope wrapped in a handkerchief patterned with stars. B*** watched him. The boy didn’t smile. He stared into the distance.

B*** followed the boy to the statue in the park: an old lion, chipped and forgotten. The boy knelt and planted something beneath its paw. A paper flower. Folded from a card.

B*** approached. “You know they’re watching you.”

The boy didn’t flinch. “I know.”

B*** crouched so their eyes were level. “Where’d you get the telescope?”

“Found it in a skip. It shows me things.”

“What kind of things?”

The boy met his gaze. “Wars. Secrets. London burning.”

B*** sucked on a vape. “You saw Gaza?”

The boy nodded. “A girl drawing stars on rubble.”

“Ukraine?”

“Snow. Drones. Silence.”

B*** exhaled. “You saw too much.”

The boy smiled. “Not enough.”

The men in grey suits came before dark. No insignia. Unmarked van. B*** was expecting them.

“MI6,” one said. “The telescope. It’s classified.”

B*** raised an eyebrow. “Since when do we classify carnival toys?”

“It’s not a toy.”

The boy stepped forward. “It’s mine.”

The man reached for it. B*** moved faster. Cold cocked him with the butt of his Glock. The man dropped. His associates maintained a wary distance.

B*** turned to the boy. “You’re coming with me.”

“Where?”

“Somewhere quiet. Somewhere we can ask the right questions.”

They drove to a safehouse over the border in Essex. Home to a former asset, now retired. She looked different without her gothic makeup. But her bangles were as melodic as ever. Her eyes still pale as dust.

She looked at B***. “You brought the boy.”

B*** nodded. “He sees things.”

She placed a card on the table. A lion. A flower. A telescope.

“This is the new war,” she said. “Not bullets. Not bombs. Symbols. Stories. Surveillance.”

B*** frowned. “And the boy?”

“He’s the bridge.”

B*** looked at the boy. “Between what?”

She smiled. “Between what we hide and what we fear.”

B*** returned the boy to between the protective paws of the lion statue. Its claws were unsheathed. The flower had bloomed. Real petals. Real bees. Real danger.

The boy looked through the telescope. “They’re coming back.”

B*** adjusted his cufflinks. “Let them.”

*

This wasn’t the kind of neighbourhood where things happened. Not the big things, anyway. Not wars or revolutions or miracles. It was the kind of place where the buses were always late, the corner shop smelled like exotic spices and the sky held no worse threat than rain.

But that summer, something changed.

It started with the boy.

Tommy was twelve, quiet and a little strange. He had a telescope he’d found in a skip outside the Big House. It was scratched and dented, but when he looked through it, he didn’t see stars.

He saw other things.

The first time, it was a girl in Gaza, crouched in a ruined bedroom, drawing flowers on the wall with a stub of charcoal. The second time, it was a boy in Ukraine, running through snow while drones buzzed overhead like angry bees. The third time, it was London - protests in the streets, signs held high, police in riot gear… and something else. Something behind it all. Watching.

Tommy told his mum. She said he was dreaming.

He thought about telling his dad, but decided against it.

He told his neighbor, Mrs. Ghazal. She said he was disturbed.

He told Mr. Petrov, the old man who lived down the street. Mr. Petrov just nodded and said, “Some things you don’t want to see, kid. Some things see you back.”

That night, Tommy looked again.

This time, the telescope showed him London. But not the London he knew. The streets were cracked. The sky was red. The lion statue in the park was bleeding from its eyes. And beneath it all, something was growing. A flower. Black and pulsing.

The next day, the protests came.

Not in the news – right here. In his own street. People shouting. Signs waving. Police everywhere. Tommy watched from his bedroom window, telescope in hand. He saw faces in the crowd that didn’t belong. Pale faces. Hollow eyes. Smiling too wide.

He looked again that night and saw the flower beneath the lion bloom. It whispered his name.

The next morning, Mrs. Ghazal and Mr. Petrov were gone. Their doors were boarded up. Their windows smashed. No one remembered them.

Tommy went to the park. The lion was still there. The flower was real now. Black petals. Sharp scent. Bees that didn’t buzz but hovered like miniature drones.

He touched the flower. And the world changed.

He saw everything: Gaza, Ukraine, London. All connected. All bleeding. All watched by something old and hungry.

He dropped the telescope. It cracked.

The flower wilted. The lion blinked.

*

The man peered out of the window of his small room in what he had heard the locals call the Big House. His view was blurred and out of focus. The telescope never seemed to work for him, though his daughter had claimed to be able to see across the world with it, to where England was waiting for them. But she had never made it.

He had arrived, half drowned, on a shingle beach with the telescope clutched in his hand – and nothing else but the sodden thobe wrapped around him.

By tomorrow, he knew, he would have even less.

The men who wore grey suits as if they were uniforms would arrive in their unmarked vehicles and clear the house of everyone and everything. It had happened elsewhere. Now it would happen here.

A movement in the garden below caught his eye. The boy next door had climbed the fence again, maybe to scrump (such an English sounding word) for apples, or perhaps just as a dare. Whatever the reason, he had best chase him off.

When the crowds gathered, they already shouted thieves! rapists! terrorists! He did not want them to have an excuse to add paedo! to their list.

He placed the telescope on the windowsill, descended the stairs, passed through the communal kitchen and opened the back door into the garden.

“You boy,” he called. No-one was there.