“What the fuck! Where’s my food? What the fuck is going on?”
That saves me killing some innocent bird or rodent
,” thought Ed, as he snapped away at the bacon, tossing it from side to side as he severed it into pieces with his beak. Soon he was up in the air again on a recce of the local area. He streamed up into the sky, and north away from the road. On his right was an intricate patchwork of tall trees arranged in square fields and straight lines. He swooped down over them, across the adjacent fields and over the small grass runways of the private airstrip, carrying on along the line of a small road and past a tiny farm with deserted outbuildings. He descended down lower and flew amongst the buildings and over the grand farm house with its luxurious garden and swimming pool, covered for the approaching winter. Up and away, he soared high into the sky once more and over numerous misshapen fields and then lower over a small village. He went down lower still and settled on top of a lamppost, looking down at the unusual combination of sweet, white-walled, thatched buildings alongside cheaper red brick bungalows, probably built in the late fifties without an eye for décor or style. He zipped off from the resting position and down along the evocative small country lanes: Yew Tree Close,
Cuckoo Lane
, Frog Walk. The names seemed so quaint amidst this array of accommodation they made identifying its affluence very difficult.
He soared out and away from the village, past the Fox pub and over towards the M3 motorway, proceeding to fly with the flow of the traffic back towards the service station, darting in and out of the cars like a speeding motorbike. Soon he was back over the fields soaring high, marvelling at the illogical textures and colours of the higgledy-piggledy fields below, before nearing the café and service station once more. He flew down lower and sped over a large pond, enchanted by his reflection in the glistening water. The underside of his wings looked incredibly impressive as he slowed down and swung back and forth over the water, empowered by the reflection.
Night was soon drawing in and Ed started to feel impatient about doing the nasty deed and prompting his next transience. He wanted to get back to see the Viking as soon as possible. He was enjoying the manifestation as a bird but wasn’t going to be hanging around for longer than he needed to. He headed back to the diner area and took up residence in the tallest tree on the edge of the café car park, reflecting on his pending suicide.
Well I have a few options. I could just sit under the wheels of a truck and when it pulls away, that would be that. Alternatively I could simply dive bomb myself into the ground at full speed. That might be quicker. Decisions, decisions, but not ones I ever thought I would have to make.
He didn’t feel comfortable with either choice but knew he had to decide one way or the other. He had learnt that the fear of the suicide was much more daunting than the actual deed itself and that once he had made the decision, he should put that out of his mind and carry out the act with total conviction.
Soon he dived down from the tree and calmly outstretched his impressively powerful wings to their full span and with a swift jerk of his body angled to his left and began to ascent skywards. He calmly manoeuvred the wings up and down with very little effort and swept over the site once more, across the busy road and back again, circling the petrol station and café. Then he flew out across the dirt bike track, swooping down to see the young boys on trial bikes as they zoomed over the bumps and humps and around the twists and turns of the course.
Darkness was falling fast and he knew he had to make a decision quickly if he was to choose the dive bomb suicide method. The last thing he wanted was to land on a patch of grass and be injured, not killed. He went higher and higher and then in an instant, snapped around and started hurling himself towards the ground, special nostril baffles enabling him to breath during the descent. Faster and faster, sleeker and sleeker he zoned in on the wide concrete floor in the middle of the industrial yard. The earth came towards him like a freight train at full speed. He remembered what the Viking had told him, bring something back, whatever you do, bring something back. Focus on it and not your death, concentrate as hard on that object as you have ever concentrated on anything before in your life.
The only thing Ed had to focus on was the anklet around his leg. He focused hard on it, directing all the power of his mind onto that little metal ring as he powered to earth at a colossal speed. Around him the ferocious sound of the wind and the friction against his body compressed his whole being, making him feel like a space craft re-entering the atmosphere. He could feel the heat around his body as he dived faster and faster, completely focussed on the ring.
The sound became unbearable and the forces around him dazzled his senses until suddenly a release, like diving into blancmange or fluid jelly bathed in a warm glowing darkness. He remained focussed on the ring, still moving at breathtaking speed but aware he couldn’t see the ground anymore. Nothing was in front of him, beside him or around him. He drew to a close like a racing car slowed by a parachute. Then came the white light, a blinding pinprick slowly expanding its aperture and aspiring to engulf him.
He continued focusing on the metal ring, keeping partially conscious and trying to force his mind towards thoughts of pause. It was like trying to wake from a dream, completely powerless and yet aware to a degree where one knows action is required.
“Anklet, pause, metal ring, anklet, pause, pause me, pause,” he murmured and murmured to himself over and over before drifting away, slowly falling down into a deep, deep soft black mattress of invisibility. He could neither see nor be seen, down deeper and deeper, further and further into an abyss of nothingness.
Chapter 17
The dreaded
Peabody
estate
He awoke abruptly to the sound of the deafening wind. He could see the portal entrances as he zoomed past but felt helpless in the strong current. Painstakingly, he tried to wriggle his body out towards the edge of the flow, putting all his energy into contorting and manoeuvring his body like an acrobat submerged in a blancmange white-water rafting circuit. Slowly but surely he got closer to the edge, the violent current calming slightly, giving him a little more power over the situation. He wriggled and wriggled further towards the edge, bringing the smooth granite walls into a clearer focus. He continued speeding in the flow, keeping in the forward stream but at a slower pace than in the centre. Beside him he could see people zapping past in the core of the ferocious wind stream.
The smooth granite tunnel walls changed appearance as he passed by, with the odd spattering of vines beginning to appear. These were similar to the ones he had witnessed with Yedida. He manoeuvred further over, reducing his speed a little as he neared the edge. The vines got thicker and denser just like he remembered. Suddenly he caught sight of a patch of white vines around a portal entrance. He realised that was his stop and jerked his body violently towards the edge of the tunnel and started to grab out towards the vines.
He grabbed and grabbed, squirmed and twisted until finally he got hold of a branch and came to an abrupt halt. The wind pressure at the edge was still powerful, and it took all his strength to keep a firm grip and get himself into a position where he could get down to the bottom opening and crawl between the vines and the tunnel wall. The whole episode had taken a lot out of him, and it was a real struggle to pull himself up onto the top part of the vine structure and crawl back along the tunnel against the flow.
The wind and gusts hit him full in the face as he struggled back towards the white vines and doorway. It took him some fifty minutes to reach his objective and the portal entrance. He climbed down, twisting his body around backwards towards the entrance. Soon he had jumped off and had landed in the side tunnel, aided by a gust of wind. Anxiously he got his bearings and went over to the area where he remembered they had hidden the watch.
Maybe I’m in the wrong tunnel
, he thought, as he nervously reached behind the vines, reaching with his arms at full stretch to explore the walls and hunt for the small opening. He fumbled as he peered through the vines, running his hands along the smooth black rock, searching for the hole. Soon his eager hand discovered a small opening and delved deep excitedly to search out the sturdy watch.
“Yes, yes, yes. This is the place,” he yelled as he pulled out the watch, startled to realise there was a second one on his wrist.
“How can there be two of them? I wonder if they say the same time.”
He looked down and compared both timepieces, surprised that they differed in time by more than six hours, even though both had actively ticking second hands evenly dancing around the circle of numbers on their infinite endeavour. He wondered momentarily as to how the discrepancy transpired, but in the scheme of things, it was one of the least important.
He put the older watch in his jacket pocket and then remembered the anklet and how he needed to bring something back with him from his transience. Nervously he bent down and lifted his trouser leg to realise it wasn’t there. He checked the other leg also but nothing, no anklet or even any mark where it had been.
Of course, how stupid can I have been, that would never have fitted around my human ankle, what a jerk! Maybe I’ve completely wasted my time with this
transition
,” thought Ed, as he began to scramble frantically through his pockets to see if it could have ended up there.
“Bingo, absolutely brilliant, here it is. This is absolutely incredible!” exclaimed the intrepid traveller, as he pulled the tiny object out from his trouser pocket.
That’s unreal. It’s just too much. I never thought in a million years that I could
have brought something back. This is brilliant
, thought Ed, as he proceeded into the tunnel system remembering Yedida’s advice out loud.
“Mum-my, dad-dy, right, right, left, left. That’s my route. Easy.”
As Ed set off into the tunnel, he could see the silhouetted figure of a man just in the distance sitting down against the wall with his head in his hands.
“Hi, I’m Ed. What’s your name? Are you okay?”
Ed’s greeting startled the man who jumped to his feet and stood with panic some twenty-five feet away.
“Don’t come any closer. Who are you, what do you want? Why am I here? I’m going to call the police, do you hear me?” exclaimed the panicky individual in a northern English accent.
“Have you been in the tunnels before or is this your first time? Are you alright?” asked Ed, as he moved closer to the man who started to back away. Ed could see he had a fire-fighter’s costume on, regular
UK
issue as far as he could tell.
“Have you been here before?” enquired Ed once more.
“No. Who the fuck are you and where the fuck am I? What’s going on? I’ve just had the nastiest and most realistic dream that I was a fucking snake and now I am in this god awful tunnel. I don’t even know how I got here,” replied the man with confusion.
“Were you in the other tunnel with the wind?”
“Yes. Terrifying.”
“Did anyone help you out of it?” enquired Ed, continuing to edge forward.
“No, no one helped me. I woke up clinging to the branches just by that entrance over there and crawled in here. That must have been six hours ago at least. Where are we?” said the man pointing back past Ed towards where he had just come from.
“Listen, I’m a friend. My name is Ed Trew. I can help you but you need to trust me. What’s your name for a start?”
“Johnny, Johnny Rathbone. Am I glad you have come along,” he replied, as he cautiously moved forward and the two men shook hands.
“Listen, Johnny, I know you must be disoriented right now. I’ve been there and I know it’s not easy. What I’m going to tell you won’t really help how you feel a whole lot,” explained Ed.
“Well I’m prepared to listen to anything right now, mate,” replied the fireman.
“Have you ever been in a bar and someone has told you a story that you could never believe, even in a million years?”
“Many times.”
“Well I’m about to tell you something which will make you think I am a mad, deluded, liar, probably escaped from the local nut house.”
“I just want to get out of here and back to my life. If you can help me do that then I’ll believe anything. Can you do that?” replied Johnny.
“Well yes and no. Your dream was very vivid and real wasn’t it?”
“Yes, it was and it lasted for what seemed like days. I kept waking up and then realising I was back in the dream, it was terrible.”
“And I guess you died at the end, didn’t you?”
“How do you know that? Yes, I did. I thought if I killed myself in the dream then I would have to wake up at home. I was sick of feeling like a slimy, fucking snake, wriggling my body and slithering around in the grass. It was disgusting. I ended up crawling into the middle of the road to get run over. I can still see the headlamps bearing down upon me with the terrifying noise of the engines and then -” Johnny was interrupted mid flow.
“And then you saw a blinding white light and you were travelling at the speed of light towards it and then you blacked out and somehow found yourself clinging to the vines.”
“Yes, that’s it. What is this, SAW 6 or something? How the fuck do you know that?” shouted Johnny aggressively.
“Lets sit down, there are some things you need to know,” replied Ed, sitting on the floor against the wall. Johnny did likewise and the two sat facing each other across the tunnel. Ed thought for a moment about how he could break the news to the young man, probably no older than his mid-twenties. He sat silently for a while before taking a deep breath and launching into his whole story, the tortoise right through to the Viking and the falcon. Johnny sat in disbelief with a smirk on his face as Ed brought the story into the present.
“And that’s when I heard you shouting along the tunnel.”
Johnny sat for a moment in silence looking down at the ground with his head in his hands.
“And you expect me to believe that do you? You expect me to believe that I’m dead and was reincarnated as a snake? It’s preposterous,” replied Johnny, obviously annoyed and upset by the whole thing.
“Honestly, mate, I don’t really care whether you believe it or not. In a few days you’ll know it as fact. I’m not here to convince you of anything. It’s by chance that we’ve met and to be honest, that’s fucking lucky for you because after too much time in this tunnel, you’d be here for the rest of eternity, whether you like it or not. Now you have choice, something that thirty minutes ago you didn’t. This predicament is all about the choices you make and believe me when I tell you that you have to make them pretty god damn quick.”
“Alright. Don’t be angry, Ed. You can understand my reluctance to believe this bullshit, can’t you? Less than a few days ago I was fighting a fire on a council estate in
Middlesbrough
being pelted with stones by the local youths, then the next thing I know I am a suicidal snake followed by this bizarre scenario. It’s a massive nightmare.”
“I understand. Man, it was easier for me to believe it all when I looked at my reflection and saw I was a tortoise. I totally feel for you. It’s so beyond belief, I know that. I have no idea what else I can say to you apart from the advice Sam gave to me. Try to remember as much as you can. It might help somehow in the future. You say you were on a fire job - is that the last thing you recall?” enquired Ed reassuringly.
“Yes, the dreaded
Peabody
estate. They would set fires in car parks and on waste land and then we’d come to sort it out and get pelted with stones, rocks, lumps of metal and anything they could lay their hands on. It was like a sport to them.”
“Why? Why on earth would they do that?”
“Christ, ask me one on science? I have no idea. I would like to have seen how they reacted if it was their house on fire with their possessions in it. I’m sure they’d be more friendly then, mother fuckers,” replied the fireman angrily.
“I’ve never heard of anything like it. It’s such a strange thing to do, battering firemen with rocks. It’s beyond comprehension.”
“I know. We had to endure that at least twice a week, often taking resources away from other emergencies that needed attending.”
“Do you think you might have got hit with a stone?”
“I don’t remember that, maybe I did though. It was known to happen. Sandy West got hit once and was in hospital for a week. Nasty fractured skull, even with his helmet on. Really nasty.”
“Well my advice to you, Johnny, is to think back as much as you can, try to delve deep and gather as much
“What shall I do then, stay here?” replied Johnny with desperation in his voice.
“I would suggest two possibilities. One is that you go back to the big tunnel where you arrived, climb up onto the top of the vines and jump into the flow to zap you into your next transience. The other is to climb over the vines and up stream by a short distance and then down into the tunnels on the other side. You’ll find people there who can help you. Bear in mind though, you would still only have a couple of days before you needed to jump or else you’d get stuck here permanently. I think that’s something you should only commit to if you are really sure.”