The Ring of Power (2)

"This is my fucking ring of power," he said, holding up the plain gold ring. "I found the ring when I was a boy."  

 

"Where?"

 

"Dunno, I was a boy, boy's find things. I didn't know what it was, just thought it was some cheap trinket."

 

"It looks pure gold," I said.

 

"Just some expensive trinket, then. I didn't put it on until I was alone in my room that night, then bang."

 

"Was there an explosion?"

 

"No, not an exploding bang, that's a completely different bang, I mean 'bang' as in I banged my head on the ceiling. I'd started to fly, see. I took it off, fell to the floor, then rushed outside, put the ring back on and flew off into the night sky.

 

"Flying. The most wonderful experience ever, I couldn't even begin to describe it. There's nothing like tearing through the air, unrestrained by the laws of physics. I didn't even need to fuck around flapping my wings like a bird, my magic ring took me anywhere I wanted to go and I could just lie back and enjoy it."

 

"Of course, I didn't tell no-one. I didn't trust the other boys, they might report me, tell an adult. Adults don't like children having magic rings, they confiscate them, it's like the magic underpants I found, the teachers hid those as soon as they found out, never saw them again. So I kept it secret, used to sneak off on my own after school and fly off into the sky.

 

"My schoolwork suffered. I just didn't care: maths, history, geography, Latin, all I wanted to do was fly. It's all I thought about, I spent every spare minute I had just flying. I lost the few friends I had. I couldn't share the ring, if I did, who could I trust not to steal it.

 

"As for girlfriends!" He chortled at the thought. "How could I trust a woman. With my ring. It's not like Peter Pan, I can't just grab someone's hand and fly off, it's a one-man ring, or a one-woman ring. I did meet someone once. We were in love, you know, the spend every second together type of love. Only I was dying to run off, put the ring on and fly away. Eventually I could take it no more, I HAD to fly, but I couldn't just leave her. So I showed her the ring. Then, after she'd watched me fly for a while I let her put the ring on and watched her fly away. She sped off somewhere, she was only gone ten minutes but it was the worst ten minutes of my life. I didn't think I'd ever see her again, thought she'd gone off with the ring. Didn't think I'd ever get it back."

 

"But you did."

 

"Yeah, but it was too late. I'd realised I didn't trust her, so what was there left. Just sex, wonderful conversation and a shared interest in rare trousers. You can't base a life on that. So that's my life, my lonely fucked up life. All because of this fucking ring of power."

 

Tom moved out of the camper van not long after this conversation. A local homeless charity found him a flat on the other side of town, with his own TV. We tried to visit him a couple of times but he was never in and he'd never really done phones.

 

In fact I never saw him again after that. Unless you count ...

 

We'd driven our new camper van (complete with TV, fridge and en suite facilities) to a campsite near Morecambe, the same campsite where Paul Fishwick claims Frank Sinatra once broke his airbed pump.  

 

The milk we'd brought with us had gone off (the fridge didn't actually work particularly well) so I'd walked along the cliff to the neighbouring campsite which had a little shop where you could buy milk, naughty postcards and inflatable flamingos, everything you could need for a camping holiday.  On the way back I'd paused to admire the view, the sunset, the sea, blood red and angry, the sky - quiet, still, a blushing grey, and as I looked I saw something fly past, only it wasn't something, it was someone, only not just someone, it was Tom. There was a smaller someone with him, clinging to his back, the ultimate piggy back. Through the quiet night air I thought I heard him speak, though of course I might have imagined it.

 

"Hold me properly, you cunt, or you'll drop to the ground, this isn't Peter fucking Pan you know."