F: Evolution - Part Six

Peter and Graham stood up off the bench and made their way to the
busy main road. The park: a messy unkempt vibe of discarded
psychosomania. A randomly generated Litter cancer. Dominating with it's
ugliness. Reflecting in it's innocence: the plastic-metallic-cardboard
of humanities headspace.

The pond in the centre oozed an acid-pungent aroma that burnt the
nostrils with acridicity. As rusting shopping trolleys and car tyres
floated bleakly in it, a sad remembrance of humanities wierdness.
Spreading like a mutated amoeba on the surface. A rainbow oilslick of
pollution. A depressing sight.

Graham felt sorry for the ducks that swam there; wondering why they
lived out each day of their lives on it; wondering why they didn't just
emigrate to another pond somewhere else, one that was cleaner. But
biology adapts to it's environment. Biology evolves.

They walked for sometime before they became aware that something
wasn't right.

"The road doesn't seem to be getting any nearer." Graham
commented.

"No, strange, I don't ever remember it being this long before. "

"We must have been walking for something like twenty minutes. We should
be there by now."

Graham turned to look behind him; pausing with a bewildered
expression.

"What is it?" Peter asked turning round.

Graham pointed to where only a few yards away was the park bench they
had both been sat on, and some yards in front of it, the old gnarled
tree with the dead rat.

"Something strange is going on here." Graham said.

Peter looked disturbed, and began looking around him to try and find
his bearings.

An eery cry came from somewhere in the park. Like a bloody ghost
werewolf insinuation. It was answered by another cry, then
another.

"What the fuck was that Pete?"

"I don't know, and I don't want to find out. Lets try and get to the
road again."

"Ok."

Once again they walked towards the road; but the same scene greeted
them, the road seemed to move at the same pace they were moving, an
unobtainable vision, an urban mirage. They turned to look behind them:
the park bench only a few yards behind.

"This is weird, like a dream or something." Peter said.

A strange fog began to form. Gathering quickly and unnaturally,
breathing with a kind of phantom fairy light. Growing thicker and
thicker. Till neither of them could make out the road or the park bench
anymore, just grey glowing smoky wierdness. Chilling cries continued to
answer each other from it's eery depths; and the air became thick and
heavy with damp and cold. Neither man spoke, but stood deathly still,
swallowing back the ice dryness they felt in the caverns of their
throats.

In front of them, emerging slowly from the fog came a hooded figure
holding an hourglass: a silent archetype. Ancient as the stars, as
mysterious as the sunless oceanic abyss. It wasn't possible to make out
a face, just an eery blackness beneath a deep hood. The figure walked
slowly passed them both; becoming a loud bang and a flash. Clearing the
dense fog, like a theatre curtain - to reveal chaos of red smoky
machine gun fire and barbed wire fences. Shouts, screams, bodies,
limbs, dead soldiers strewn about everywhere. They looked around for
some place to run, but there was nowhere to run: everywhere was a
vision of total madness and carnage. A mud weary soldier ran in front
of them, erupting into mini volcanoes of blood, as bullets ripped
through him.

Graham threw himself onto the ground and scrunched up into a ball,
tears welling in his eyes. The sounds of screams and machine gun fire
ricocheting round his skull..

***

Daytime clarity hit his senses, and a warm hand touch his shoulder, as
an angelic voice spoke: " Graham I am with you, its ok."

He opened his eyes to see Peter's face looking down at him
concerned.

"Are you ok?" Pete asked.

"What happened?"

"I don't know, one minute you were with me, the next you hit the
deck."

"You mean I passed out?"

"Yeah you went out cold, I was worried, I was about to run to the phone
box and call an ambulance, but you came round again. You must have had
a whitey."

"How long did I pass out for?" Graham asked sitting up slowly,
scratching his head in weary confusion.

"Not long, about a couple of minutes. "

"It felt longer than that. "

Peter helped Graham up onto his feet.

"I went into another world Pete, there was this supernatural fog then a
battlefield full of death and the sound of machine guns. You where
there too. It felt real."

"Come on, let's get a coffee and I'll buy you a breakfast, you need
something to eat."

"Ok." Graham said looking pale and troubled. Clutching his elbows in
his hands; rubbing them in cold freaked out insecurity.

-End Of Part Six-