...And it begins...
The rain is driving against the windshield. Impossible to see. I think I can see a bend in the road ahead. Lightning flashes, but makes no difference to the impenetrable black blanket of rain covering the world outside my car. A flash behind me. Is it more lightning from this godforsaken storm? It can’t be. It hasn’t faded. Headlights. It must be headlights. Were they there before and my tired mind only just noticed them? No. no. I am sure they weren’t there before. Must focus on the road ahead. A bend? Maybe. Even if there is I am only doing 20. What could go wrong? Another flash from the repressive clouds in the heavens above. A glance in the rearview mirror. The lights are gone. Yes, there is a bend ahead. I start to turn. Sliding tires on the wet tarmac. How can I be loosing control at this speed? Bald tires? Maybe the screeching sound of metal on metal has something to do with it. I feel the car lurch forwards, forwards towards the edge of the road. There is the drop of a hill beside the road. Where is this road? Where am I? Why am I in my car in the rain on this road at night? I am being pushed off the road by some crazy bastard I don’t know in the middle of the night on a road that I have never seen before? “What the fuck is going on?” I think as my car runs off the road and into the darkness. I stare into the mirror as my car starts to pick up speed, regardless of my foot stomping hard on the brake pedal. Headlights behind me flare and in the instant before my car rolls over I see the maniacal glint in the eyes behind the wheel of the car behind me. Eyes lit by the reflection of headlights off the tailgate of my out of control car…
1
…and I wake up. Again. The same dream again. Am I crazy? Is some slightly more than moderate pot smoking in my late teens coming back to haunt my relative sanity? Is it work stress? All I know is that I am sick of this dream. It feels like I haven’t had a good night sleep in years. It seems I haven’t had a normal dream in years. Perfect case for a shrink? I don’t think so. Probably make it worse. Tell me about your mother my arse.
Work. I must get ready for work. I will have forgotten all about my night time subconscious activities by nine o’clock when I open my store. I have a reasonably successful software and book store. Games for the bored and books for educated. Sounds like a stupid idea but it seems to work. A café in the front section with terminals for emails and lounges for my patrons to make a start on their new tomes. Free email, five dollar coffee. Pays for itself.
Still, it means getting up everyday day and doing the same thing. “Is this all there is?” I think as I look at my unshaven face in the mirror. Work. For yourself or somebody else. It is all the same thing. Same questions everyday. Same bullshit everyday. “Why isn’t this game here?” I don’t make the games. “When is his next book coming out?” Well the last one has only been out for two weeks, but how about I call him and ask him if he can knock out 500 pages in a week for you. How would that be?
Argh. I am getting way too cynical. I sell games and books. Entertainment. What is my problem? People are only hunting for excitement. Isn’t that the same problem I have? These people probably do the same thing as me. Look in the mirror everyday and ask themselves “Is this all there is?”
I drag my self through my usual morning routine. My wife and I have our coffee. I stay in the shower until the warm water forces reality to sink back into my body and my mind. Five cigarettes later and I am in my car on my way to the store. I am there at eight thirty as I am every day to get the place ready for trade. Let Michelle and Mark in to get the café ready to go. Pete and Dave turn up at a quarter to. I don’t know why I turn up most days. These guys are capable of running the place themselves.
The doors open and the usual troop wander in. Ian the game fanatic. Michael the net junkie. James the eternal bookworm. These people have little in common, but it is their daily ritual to come in here everyday and drink coffee together and talk about anything that comes to mind. Maybe this is so that they can escape each of their respective addictions for a while. I quite frequently join them for a coffee. I find the conversation stimulating.
I am about to wander over and join the trio when a man bursts through the doors. He is looking straight into my eyes. I feel like I have been struck by a bolt of electricity. Those eyes. It can’t be. Are these the eyes that have been haunting me night after night for all this time? Those eyes in my rearview mirror, staring back at me before I roll and plummet to my death every night. It can’t be. It must be because the dream was particularly vivid last night. I notice that he is wearing an overcoat over jeans and a polo shirt. Why an overcoat. It is the middle of summer. I felt hot washing my car yesterday in shorts and a t-shirt.
I am just about to ask him if he needs any help as he seems to have an air urgency about him when he reaches into the overcoat. I feel a cold chill race up my spine. He pulls out a Winchester under over 12 gauge shotgun and levels it at me. He smiles as I dive on the floor behind the counter. A Winchester under over 12 gauge shotgun? How do I even know what that is by sight? I’ve never owned a gun. I have never had an interest.
As I hit the floor I hear a blast, immediately followed by another. The man is breaking the barrel to remove the spent cartridges. Without thinking I jump up and grab the pocket knife I have on my key ring that I use to open boxes. I open the 2 inch blade as I jump over the counter. He is pushing the second of the replacement cartridges into place as I reach him. I feel as if I am on autopilot. I thrust the knife at him. It penetrates his right shoulder. I push it all the way in. I feel the blade hit and scrape against bone. I pull the blade out and the smile on the mans face is replaced with surprise. Not a sound from him. He is taking the shotgun in his left arm. He is going to try to shoot me again. I thrust forwards and drive the blade into his left shoulder. The feeling of bone scraping against the blade again. I pull the knife out and throw it to the ground. The shotgun drops to the floor. The man lunges at me, trying to raise his arms with little success. Why is this person trying to kill me? Who is he? No time to think. Autopilot kicking in again. I punch the man in the right arm. He screams. Something about that scream satisfies me, which in turn repulses me, still he comes at me. I strike at his face and hit him directly on the end of his nose. I feel the cartilage squelch and the bone in the bridge of his nose crack. I punch his nose again and the man drops to the floor. Blood is starting to flow freely from the wounds in his shoulders and is soaking into the coat. The lower half of his face is coated in blood from his nose. His nose looks like it has exploded.
I straddle the man, each knee pushing into each of the mans shoulders. “Who are you?” I scream at him. He smiles back. I ram my thumbs into the nostrils of his decimated nose and pull up as hard as I can. He screams, but the smile is still there. “Who the fuck are you?” I scream again. “You know who I am.” He says. I start to shake. A redness tinges my vision. I pull my thumbs out of his nose and start to punch him in the face. I punch his nose again and again until it is just a misshapen pulp on his face and then I move on to his mouth. I can feel his teeth dislodging, and as they are dislodging I can feel my knuckles being cut by his teeth. The pain in my hands only enrages me more. I stand and start to kick the man. I kick him in the mouth until I cannot hear anymore teeth being dislodged and then I move down is body. I kick him in the ribs and hear at least two of his ribs crack. He rolls onto his side trying to roll into a ball. I roll him onto his back. His legs are splayed. With all of the strength I posses I kick him in his testicles. He screams. A scream of a wild animal in pain. The scream of a rabid animal’s frustration at its bloodlust being interrupted. “How do you feel?” I scream at him. He looks at me and starts to smile. I grab the knife on the floor and say to him “Here is something to smile about!” and drive the blade into his groin. The smile drops from his face, he screams and promptly he blacks out. I pull the blade out of his genitals and raise my arm to bring the blade down into his chest when my arms are grabbed by Pete and Dave and Ian grabs me around my midriff.
“Stop it! You are going to kill him.” Says Dave.
“He was going to kill me!” I say.
“Michelle, Mark, call the police.” Says Pete.
I crumple to the floor and the room starts to spin. It spins faster and faster blending from a melee of colours to a deep velvet black as I think to myself “Same old thing everyday?”…
2
Voices. Voices calling my name. Black fades to grey, grey brightens to red, flashes in my vision. I open my eyes. Unfamiliar faces looking at me. “Can you hear me Mr. Connor? Can you see?” A man in a uniform is looking at me. An ambulance uniform. “Does it hurt anywhere?” I shake my head. He shines a torch in my eyes. “What are you doing?” I ask. “Do you feel dizzy?” “No.” “Do you know where you are?” “Yes I know where I am! I’m in my shop and some crazy bastard just tried to kill me!” “Can you stand up?” I get to my feet. “How do you feel?” “Ok. Sorry I bit at you. As you can imagine I am a bit rattled.” “Understandable. He seems to be fine officer. I will need to run him to the hospital just to be sure he is ok, but you should be able to speak to him now.”
“I am Matthew Beckett. Can I ask you a few questions?” Another man in uniform. Police. Maybe I can find out who this man is.
“Yes.” I reply. Hopefully he can answer some of my questions when he is done.
“Do you know the man who tried to do this to you?”
I think of the dreams, but I don’t think that I need to put my sanity in question at this point in time. “No.” I reply.
“Have you ever seen him before?”
“No.”
“I know this is probably difficult but try to run me through what happened here.”
“I had just opened the store and I was about to join some of my regular customers for a coffee when that man burst in. I was about to ask him if he needed any help when he reached into his coat and pulled out a shotgun. I dived behind the counter and heard the shotgun blast. When I heard him trying to reload I jumped the counter with my pocket knife and stabbed him in both his arms to try to disable him. Pretty much everything after that is a blank.”
“You don’t remember anything else?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“All I remember after that was coming around and seeing the ambulance guy.”
“Ok. Here is my card, if you recall anything give me a call. I will be in touch with you soon to let you know what we find out. You left that guy in a pretty bad state. Make sure you keep yourself available.”
“Ok. Can I ask you a question?”
He looks at me with eyebrows raised. I don’t think he is used to people asking him questions. “Sure.”
“Do you have any idea who he is?”
“No. He didn’t have a wallet or anything else except that shotgun. No ID whatsoever. No money, no car keys, nothing. A little strange. I would say he planned on robbing you.”
“At nine in the morning? I don’t have any money in the till at that time of the morning. I had just opened. And he didn’t try to hold me up, he tried to kill me.”
“Sometimes hold ups don’t follow the “stick em up” rules. Quicker and easier to shoot, grab the money and run. As to the lack of money in the till, no offence, but no one would get rich rolling this place. He probably thought you were an easy target. People are getting killed for the money in their pockets these days.”
“It still doesn’t make any sense.” I say. I feel growing consternation at the situation that is in front of me. I can see that I will not get any more from Officer Matthew Beckett.” Thanks anyway.”
“Sit tight. We will let you know if we find out anything.”
The officer turned and walked to a couple of other police in uniform and began to talk to them. I look at Pete and Dave. “What did he mean I left him in a bad state?”
“You beat him so badly he will need plastic surgery just to recognize himself in the mirror, but you didn’t stop there. You stabbed him in the balls and then you were about to finish him off when Dave, Ian and myself pulled you off him.” Says Pete. “I am surprised you weren’t taken away in the back of a police car.”
“Mr. Connor. Could you please come with me to the hospital? I would like them to check you over, just to make sure you don’t have a concussion.”
The ambulance guy. I forgot about him. “I will be fine. I just want to get home and sit down for a while.”
“I really think that you should get checked out.”
“No, really, I am fine. Thanks.”
“Alright, but any further dizziness or blacking out and it is straight to the hospital.”
“Thanks.”
He turns and walks out the door to the ambulance outside. “Where is the man who tried to kill me?” I ask.
“They tried to stop the bleeding and then raced him off in an ambulance.” Replies Dave.
“I think that I am just going to go home. Can you guys handle the store?”
Pete looks at me. “Do you think we would let you stay? I’ll drive you home.”
“No. I am fine. I will get myself home.”
“I don’t think that is a good idea.”
“Really, I am fine.”
With that I turn and walk out the door. My car is parked out the front of the shop. I get in start the engine and pull out into the traffic. The traffic is light for this time of day. Where are all the usual potential road ragers and road rage causing pedestrians? After driving for five minutes I can only count five cars. Have people heard of the attack? No. No one would care about that. Things like that happen every day. My mind is starting to wander and play tricks on me. Maybe everyone went to work early, or maybe they are late. I could just be having a good run. Nothing sinister to report here. Shit! I lock on the brakes. Someone just walked out in front of my car. They are wearing some kind of mask. What is that, a crow or eagle or something? The person just stands there and stares at me. Whatever that mask is it is very good, the eyes almost look like they are real. He, I think it is a he, raises a bony hand, points at me and then clenches a fist. What the hell is going on today? Did they just fling open the doors to the asylum and proclaim this the loonies’ field day? What should I do? Try to drive forwards to get this idiot to move? I lean out the window. “Are you going to get out of the way?”
“Are you going to get out of the way?” he mimics me. His voice sounds like he has gravel stuck in his throat, raspy and phlegmy.
“What are you playing at?”
Again, “What are you playing at?”
I lean back inside my car. This is all a little too strange for my delicate sensibilities at the moment. I edge the car forwards. The man doesn’t move. I edge forwards again. The man in the mask brings that bony clenched fist down on the bonnet of my car. He leaves a three inch dent in my car. What the hell? That shiver up my spine again. Not another one. He starts to walk around the front of my car. I should just gun the engine and get the hell out of here. To hell with the consequences of hitting this guy. I can’t. I am frozen to the spot. I should at least roll up my window, although I don’t think that would lend me much protection as this man seems to have no regard for his own wellbeing and he would be likely to just smash through it. Besides, I don’t think I can move. He leans down in my window at eye level. A foul stench emanates from his (its?) mouth (beak?).
“I see you survived my little visitor”
What is this. Was this crazy thing watching what happened? Did I really just see a tongue moving inside that beak? It has to just be a very very good mask. “What are you talking about?” I reply.
“Mr. Bang Bang visitor man. Incompetent fool. I hope he survives. The pain I will inflict on him will make him think you gave him a little tickle. Was it fun giving him a little tickle? I think you liked it. Did you like it?” If it had a mouth it would be grinning. There is mocking humor in its voice. “Answer me! I asked you a fucking question you little sniveling son of a whore of bitch of a man!”
“I don’t remember. Who are you?” I can feel dread building deep down in the pit of my stomach. I feel my hands shaking. “What do you want from me?”
“I think you enjoyed it. You wanted to kill him. I think you wanted to rip his still beating heart from his black evil chest didn’t you? Oh, you asked me a question. Can’t you tell? I am the bird man. Can’t you see my face you little son of a whore of a bitch of a man? Do I look like the man that lives in the hut next to you? Do I look like one of the silly little mans that come into your shop? No? Well what a surprise. Oh yes another question. What do I want from you? I want you to die. Yes I do silly little man. But I have decided that you will die a painful death. If you don’t go easy you will go painfully. What do you think of that?”
I glance around. There are no cars. No bikes. No people. Where can they all be? Isn’t someone watching this? Why won’t someone call the damn police? “Are you going to kill me?”
“Me?” It laughs. No, not a laugh. More like a chuckle. “This is not work for me. I don’t like the smell of human shit. All you people shit yourselves when you die. And piss. You are much undignified. No, no, you will not be let off so easily. You will not know when your death is coming, but it will come and I will make sure you hurty, hurty, hurty! It will be such funsies for me! I will watch. Very happy! Now you go silly little man, you go.”
With that he turns and runs across the road straight at a tree. I expect him to bounce off it, but he simply disappears. One single black feather drifts to the tarmac. I pull my car over to the edge of the road and get out. I walk over to the feather and pick it up. It is so black and so shiny that it almost seems to absorb the light around it. I do not even notice the sound of the traffic behind me. When I turn I find a road full of cars. The walkways are bustling with people. My jaw drops. Did this really happen? Did everyone disappear or did I disappear? How can anyone disappear? Whether it is one man or a street full of cars it just is not possible. What was that about huts and mans. At times it had a very good grasp of the English language, but it seemed to deteriorate when it was getting excited. It didn’t seem to have an accent, just a very strange way of speaking, like it was imitating, like a bird. I need to get home.
I cross the street, almost getting hit by a car.
“Get off the road asshole!” The blare of a horn.
I get in my car. What is going on? I think I really need to have a professional look into the fact that my sanity is rapidly slipping away from me.
I start my car and drive home.
3
Home. Home is sanctuary. Sanctuary from the craziness I have experienced today. I look in the mirror in my bathroom. As I expect I look like shit. I here a tapping at the backdoor. Now what? I can’t handle any more today. Will it be a man with the face of a chipmunk and the body of a donkey or some other bizarre thing? I run down the stairs and pull the door open. When I look down I see a black and white cat looking up at me. It meows. It sounds like it is saying “Nooww!” Sounds like it, but it isn’t. It is just a cat. It rubs against my leg, tail almost wrapping around my calf. I bend down and give it a scratch behind the ear. Karen, my wife would kill me for this. “If you pat it we will never get rid of it.” I can hear her say in my head. To hell with it. Anything normal at the moment has to be a good thing. “Nooww!”
“Now? What do you want now? Milk? Alright then. Maybe I will have a bourbon with you.” I go to fridge get out the milk, go to the cupboard and grab a saucer and pour him (I think it is a him) a generous helping of milk and put it on the kitchen floor for him. He laps at it gratefully. Again, the voice of my wife: “Now we will never get rid of it!” To hell with it. It is a nice cat.
I walk over to another cupboard in the kitchen and pull out a bottle of Bookers Bourbon that I keep for special occasions. I pour a double into a tumbler, check the back door is still open so the cat can get out if it wants to and head into the lounge room and sit in my armchair. The first sip burns my throat, warming me all the way to the base of my stomach. The strong alcohol hits me immediately and brings on immediate relaxation. I knock the rest of the tumbler back. The cat wanders into the lounge room and jumps up onto my lap.
“You’re a nice cat aren’t you? What is your name? Do you belong to anyone?” I half expect to hear the cat talk to me after what has happened today, but of course it says nothing. I don’t think anyone owns him. He is quite skinny, not mangy, just skinny and there is no collar present around his neck. A cartoon cat pops into my head.
“I think that while you are here I will need to call you something, what do you think of Fritz? Fritz the cat. Has a good ring to it.” The cat blinks at me and curls up. I drop off. In that dark haze before sleep do I hear the cat purr “Thank you.”?
4
I awake feeling revived. The cat is still on my lap. He stirs when I scratch him behind his ear and immediately starts purring. “Time to get up my friend.”
I stand Fritz hops onto the floor. I make my way to the kitchen to get a glass of water. Everything seems to have a washed out look to it, like a television that has the brightness turned down too low. I must be sleepy. What time is it? I look at the clock on the microwave. 5:13. Karen will be home soon. I go to the sink and fill a glass from the tap. Fritz hops up on the bench. He is staring at me. It is almost as if he is seeing if I am alright. I go out the back door and stand in the yard and look around. Everything almost looks grey. Great, do I need to get my eyes checked? I don’t think your eyes can go funny after a few hours sleep.
It is bin night. I go to the side of the house and grab the bin. Fritz is still following me. I place the bin on the curb. As I turn around a kid on a bike almost runs into me. “Hey! Watch where you are going!” No response. The brat just keeps on riding. Fritz meows, almost as if punctuating what I just said. I turn and look up the street. I see a car driving up the street. It’s funny. I don’t seem to be able to hear any sound from the car. It drives past. There is no sound at all. Nothing from the engine, no tire noise, nothing.
“What is going on here?” Fritz looks up at me and meows again. This time his meow sounds like he is saying “Well…” I stare at the cat to see if has anymore to say on the matter. He has no more to say so I head back into the house. When I get back to the lounge room I plop into my chair and turn the TV on with the remote control. The tube brightens, but there is no sound. I press the volume button on the remote control. The green volume bar appears on the button of the screen and increases, but still there is no sound. I get up and walk over to the TV and hit it on the side. Still nothing. More to the point there is no sound when I made impact with the side of the box. “I don’t get it.”
“Weeelll…it is quite simple rrreally.” The cat yawns at me. I must still be asleep and dreaming. I glance around. Everything thing seems normal, except of course for the strange lack of colour and the talking cat. “You seem to have been drawn into something that is beyond your daily reasoning abilities. There is something happening to the world, but it is happening behind a veil that people cannot see behind. It seems that you can not only see behind this veil, but you can step through it.”
“If that is true then what are you doing here?”
“All animals can see through. Have you ever noticed dogs staring off into space? You probably think they are just bored, but they are watching what is happening. There are quite exciting things happening here at times. We can step through at our will, but we generally choose not to. It is not necessarily safe for us.”
“Why not?”
“This is the realm of the mongrels. Half casts.”
“Why would mongrels be so dangerous? No offence but you look a bit of a mongrel to me.”
“You don’t understand. These creatures are hybrids of many creatures. Birds, cats, fish, dogs, people, other unmentionable abominations. That thing that came to you on your drive home, that is one of the creatures. It seems it is a very powerful specimen. Normally they cannot cross over into our world. I think that you are linked to this world somehow. There is some reason why you have been attacked by this creature. I think that we need to find out what that reason is. That is why I have come to you.”
I drop back into my chair and let out a long sigh. This is all getting a bit much. I see movement in the kitchen out of the corner of my eye. It is Karen. She is looking very shocked. What is wrong with her? “Hello? Hello? Is anyone there? Josh, are you home?”
“I am here in the lounge room.”
“Hello?” She walks into the lounge room and turns off the TV. She notices the bourbon glass and walks over and picks it up. “Where are you Josh?” she seems to be talking to herself. “You could have at least shut the door.”
“She can’t see you or hear you while you are behind the veil.” Fritz points out.
“Well how do I get back?”
“I will show you how, but later. We need to go somewhere first.”
With that the cat turns and walks out through the house and out the back door. There is little else I can do but follow. This cat is my only way back.
5
The back yard. It seems the same. Oh, except for the fact that there is no back fence and the empty land that backs onto my property has been replaced with a forest denser than any I have ever seen before. Some of those tree must be taller than a skyscraper!
I ask Fritz, “What is this, is this what the land looked like before it was developed?” I still can’t believe I am talking to a cat, but is this is just a vivid dream, what the hell, it is better than getting run off the road in my sleep.
“Noooo. This place has never looked like this in your native world. This is the land of the hybrids. It has not been touched by your kind. You can still see your houses and streets and buildings, but see how they are not very clear? That is because the places they are built are of no importance to the hybrids. If they were in important places, they would be attacked. It seems there is some human intuition that prevents your kind from building in the hybrids territory. Or maybe the hybrids make sure that the people that would build in these places are no longer capable of making those decisions. It is not something for me to answer. I am, after all, just a cat!”
“So, this ‘world of the hybrids’ is not a separate world, but is mixed in with our world.”
“And you are the so called superior species….No, this is a separate world that occupies the same space as your world. Does this look like any place you have ever been before?”
I look around bewildered and shake my head. I have not even stepped into this mighty forest. I have just looked at it from my back yard, but I know it is like no where I have seen before and I just know that there is no where like it on earth.
“Sooooo, nooooww would you like to take a look around?” Fritz yawns.
I feel a little hesitant, but as I keep saying, this is just a vivid dream. A very strange and detailed vivid dream. “Yeah, what the hell. Lets take a look.”
The cat blinks at me, yawns, stands up and with not a glance backwards walks towards the impenetrable forest edge. When he reached the border, he meows once and promptly disappears.
I run to the edge of the forest and try to see where my strange companion has gone. I can see absolutely nothing in there, it is just a wall of vegetation. I reach forward to touch it, it almost appears to be like wall painted with a scene of greenery by an extraordinary artist. When my hand touches the vegetation I feel a tingle like and ongoing static shock and I hear an incredible cacophony erupt from with in the forest. I pull my hand back.
What the hell is this. “Fritz!” I call. There is no response. Not just that but there is no movement.
“Oh well.” I say to myself. “Nothing ventured, nothing gained.”
I reach out and thrust my hand through the vegetation. Shit! My hand has disappeared! I pull it back and study it like I have never seen my hand before. I tentatively extend my hand again and again it disappears. It does not just go into a darker spot in the vegetation, it is gone!
I push forwards. My arm disappears. Now my shoulder. I push all the way through. The light has almost disappeared it is so dark beneath the incredible canopy. I turn to look back and I see nothing of my house. All I can see is forest and more forest. No wall of impenetrable painted green, just the forest. It is incredibly dense, but unlike when I viewed it from my back yard, I can see into the distance a little.
I thrust my hand out again. It disappears! I Pull my hand back and push my head through. I can clearly see my back yard, albeit washed out in that weird quasi sepia tone.
I run to my garden shed and grab an old rag. Dream or no dream, if I am going in there I am going to make sure I know the exact place I got in so I can get back again.
I stride back to the wall of vegetation, take a deep breath and push back through. As soon as I am through I tie the rag the a sapling and push my hand back through the wall to make sure I have the right place. My hand disappears. Good.
I turn to take a better look at my surroundings. There is a stream running about 20 metres to my right, and on the edge of the stream I can see Fritz sitting there looking in.
I walk over to him and just when I am bout to ask him why he did not answer me I see the fish that are swimming through the water.
My ability to speak is halted in its tracks. The fish are the most incredible gold I have ever seen. I do not mean a yellow or orange colour, they are actually gold. So gold that they seem to put off their own luminance. I look closer. They really seem to be gold!
“They are pretty are they not?” asks Fritz. “Don’t get too close, I don’t think you will like what they really are.”
“What do you mean?” I enquire.
“Grab that stone over there and throw it in the water.” Fritz is looking at a stone about the size of a tennis ball a couple of metres away.
I walk over, pick it up, return to the edge of the stream and toss it in.
The instant it hits the water there is pulse and the fish light up so brightly I can barely stand to look at them. I see one attack the stone. It’s mouth opens wide and I am sure I see hands fly out. These hands are tipped with razor sharp claws and they dig into the stone. It pulls the stone towards the mouth and, like switch blades, row upon row of razor sharp silver teeth pop into sight along both the top and bottom jaws. The fish (?) starts to chew the rock. In seconds it has reduced the stone to dust and resumes swimming calmly. There is no sign of the teeth or the arms, and the glow from its skin has started to dissipate.
“What the hell was that?” I cry.
“That was a fish, but like nothing you have seen before. It has a small creature that is nothing like anything in your world living inside its mouth. They co exist like the birds that clean crocodiles. The mouth creature is lightning fast and can catch prey a lot faster than the fish. It catches it, the fish chews it and they share the meal. It is marvelous synergy don’t you think?”
“I think that is the strangest thing I have ever seen!”
“This is only the beginning. There is a lot more you have to see. Follow me, but watch where you step. You never know what you are standing on…..Noooow, follow me.”
Fritz starts to pick out a path that only he can see. All I want to do is run back to my marker rag, throw myself through the invisible wall and wake up on my chair, but I can’t do it. I have to know what the hell is going on and where this crazy talking cat is taking me. Without even knowing it, my feet start to move and I begin to follow Fritz the strange talking cat…
The rain is driving against the windshield. Impossible to see. I think I can see a bend in the road ahead. Lightning flashes, but makes no difference to the impenetrable black blanket of rain covering the world outside my car. A flash behind me. Is it more lightning from this godforsaken storm? It can’t be. It hasn’t faded. Headlights. It must be headlights. Were they there before and my tired mind only just noticed them? No. no. I am sure they weren’t there before. Must focus on the road ahead. A bend? Maybe. Even if there is I am only doing 20. What could go wrong? Another flash from the repressive clouds in the heavens above. A glance in the rearview mirror. The lights are gone. Yes, there is a bend ahead. I start to turn. Sliding tires on the wet tarmac. How can I be loosing control at this speed? Bald tires? Maybe the screeching sound of metal on metal has something to do with it. I feel the car lurch forwards, forwards towards the edge of the road. There is the drop of a hill beside the road. Where is this road? Where am I? Why am I in my car in the rain on this road at night? I am being pushed off the road by some crazy bastard I don’t know in the middle of the night on a road that I have never seen before? “What the fuck is going on?” I think as my car runs off the road and into the darkness. I stare into the mirror as my car starts to pick up speed, regardless of my foot stomping hard on the brake pedal. Headlights behind me flare and in the instant before my car rolls over I see the maniacal glint in the eyes behind the wheel of the car behind me. Eyes lit by the reflection of headlights off the tailgate of my out of control car…
1
…and I wake up. Again. The same dream again. Am I crazy? Is some slightly more than moderate pot smoking in my late teens coming back to haunt my relative sanity? Is it work stress? All I know is that I am sick of this dream. It feels like I haven’t had a good night sleep in years. It seems I haven’t had a normal dream in years. Perfect case for a shrink? I don’t think so. Probably make it worse. Tell me about your mother my arse.
Work. I must get ready for work. I will have forgotten all about my night time subconscious activities by nine o’clock when I open my store. I have a reasonably successful software and book store. Games for the bored and books for educated. Sounds like a stupid idea but it seems to work. A café in the front section with terminals for emails and lounges for my patrons to make a start on their new tomes. Free email, five dollar coffee. Pays for itself.
Still, it means getting up everyday day and doing the same thing. “Is this all there is?” I think as I look at my unshaven face in the mirror. Work. For yourself or somebody else. It is all the same thing. Same questions everyday. Same bullshit everyday. “Why isn’t this game here?” I don’t make the games. “When is his next book coming out?” Well the last one has only been out for two weeks, but how about I call him and ask him if he can knock out 500 pages in a week for you. How would that be?
Argh. I am getting way too cynical. I sell games and books. Entertainment. What is my problem? People are only hunting for excitement. Isn’t that the same problem I have? These people probably do the same thing as me. Look in the mirror everyday and ask themselves “Is this all there is?”
I drag my self through my usual morning routine. My wife and I have our coffee. I stay in the shower until the warm water forces reality to sink back into my body and my mind. Five cigarettes later and I am in my car on my way to the store. I am there at eight thirty as I am every day to get the place ready for trade. Let Michelle and Mark in to get the café ready to go. Pete and Dave turn up at a quarter to. I don’t know why I turn up most days. These guys are capable of running the place themselves.
The doors open and the usual troop wander in. Ian the game fanatic. Michael the net junkie. James the eternal bookworm. These people have little in common, but it is their daily ritual to come in here everyday and drink coffee together and talk about anything that comes to mind. Maybe this is so that they can escape each of their respective addictions for a while. I quite frequently join them for a coffee. I find the conversation stimulating.
I am about to wander over and join the trio when a man bursts through the doors. He is looking straight into my eyes. I feel like I have been struck by a bolt of electricity. Those eyes. It can’t be. Are these the eyes that have been haunting me night after night for all this time? Those eyes in my rearview mirror, staring back at me before I roll and plummet to my death every night. It can’t be. It must be because the dream was particularly vivid last night. I notice that he is wearing an overcoat over jeans and a polo shirt. Why an overcoat. It is the middle of summer. I felt hot washing my car yesterday in shorts and a t-shirt.
I am just about to ask him if he needs any help as he seems to have an air urgency about him when he reaches into the overcoat. I feel a cold chill race up my spine. He pulls out a Winchester under over 12 gauge shotgun and levels it at me. He smiles as I dive on the floor behind the counter. A Winchester under over 12 gauge shotgun? How do I even know what that is by sight? I’ve never owned a gun. I have never had an interest.
As I hit the floor I hear a blast, immediately followed by another. The man is breaking the barrel to remove the spent cartridges. Without thinking I jump up and grab the pocket knife I have on my key ring that I use to open boxes. I open the 2 inch blade as I jump over the counter. He is pushing the second of the replacement cartridges into place as I reach him. I feel as if I am on autopilot. I thrust the knife at him. It penetrates his right shoulder. I push it all the way in. I feel the blade hit and scrape against bone. I pull the blade out and the smile on the mans face is replaced with surprise. Not a sound from him. He is taking the shotgun in his left arm. He is going to try to shoot me again. I thrust forwards and drive the blade into his left shoulder. The feeling of bone scraping against the blade again. I pull the knife out and throw it to the ground. The shotgun drops to the floor. The man lunges at me, trying to raise his arms with little success. Why is this person trying to kill me? Who is he? No time to think. Autopilot kicking in again. I punch the man in the right arm. He screams. Something about that scream satisfies me, which in turn repulses me, still he comes at me. I strike at his face and hit him directly on the end of his nose. I feel the cartilage squelch and the bone in the bridge of his nose crack. I punch his nose again and the man drops to the floor. Blood is starting to flow freely from the wounds in his shoulders and is soaking into the coat. The lower half of his face is coated in blood from his nose. His nose looks like it has exploded.
I straddle the man, each knee pushing into each of the mans shoulders. “Who are you?” I scream at him. He smiles back. I ram my thumbs into the nostrils of his decimated nose and pull up as hard as I can. He screams, but the smile is still there. “Who the fuck are you?” I scream again. “You know who I am.” He says. I start to shake. A redness tinges my vision. I pull my thumbs out of his nose and start to punch him in the face. I punch his nose again and again until it is just a misshapen pulp on his face and then I move on to his mouth. I can feel his teeth dislodging, and as they are dislodging I can feel my knuckles being cut by his teeth. The pain in my hands only enrages me more. I stand and start to kick the man. I kick him in the mouth until I cannot hear anymore teeth being dislodged and then I move down is body. I kick him in the ribs and hear at least two of his ribs crack. He rolls onto his side trying to roll into a ball. I roll him onto his back. His legs are splayed. With all of the strength I posses I kick him in his testicles. He screams. A scream of a wild animal in pain. The scream of a rabid animal’s frustration at its bloodlust being interrupted. “How do you feel?” I scream at him. He looks at me and starts to smile. I grab the knife on the floor and say to him “Here is something to smile about!” and drive the blade into his groin. The smile drops from his face, he screams and promptly he blacks out. I pull the blade out of his genitals and raise my arm to bring the blade down into his chest when my arms are grabbed by Pete and Dave and Ian grabs me around my midriff.
“Stop it! You are going to kill him.” Says Dave.
“He was going to kill me!” I say.
“Michelle, Mark, call the police.” Says Pete.
I crumple to the floor and the room starts to spin. It spins faster and faster blending from a melee of colours to a deep velvet black as I think to myself “Same old thing everyday?”…
2
Voices. Voices calling my name. Black fades to grey, grey brightens to red, flashes in my vision. I open my eyes. Unfamiliar faces looking at me. “Can you hear me Mr. Connor? Can you see?” A man in a uniform is looking at me. An ambulance uniform. “Does it hurt anywhere?” I shake my head. He shines a torch in my eyes. “What are you doing?” I ask. “Do you feel dizzy?” “No.” “Do you know where you are?” “Yes I know where I am! I’m in my shop and some crazy bastard just tried to kill me!” “Can you stand up?” I get to my feet. “How do you feel?” “Ok. Sorry I bit at you. As you can imagine I am a bit rattled.” “Understandable. He seems to be fine officer. I will need to run him to the hospital just to be sure he is ok, but you should be able to speak to him now.”
“I am Matthew Beckett. Can I ask you a few questions?” Another man in uniform. Police. Maybe I can find out who this man is.
“Yes.” I reply. Hopefully he can answer some of my questions when he is done.
“Do you know the man who tried to do this to you?”
I think of the dreams, but I don’t think that I need to put my sanity in question at this point in time. “No.” I reply.
“Have you ever seen him before?”
“No.”
“I know this is probably difficult but try to run me through what happened here.”
“I had just opened the store and I was about to join some of my regular customers for a coffee when that man burst in. I was about to ask him if he needed any help when he reached into his coat and pulled out a shotgun. I dived behind the counter and heard the shotgun blast. When I heard him trying to reload I jumped the counter with my pocket knife and stabbed him in both his arms to try to disable him. Pretty much everything after that is a blank.”
“You don’t remember anything else?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“All I remember after that was coming around and seeing the ambulance guy.”
“Ok. Here is my card, if you recall anything give me a call. I will be in touch with you soon to let you know what we find out. You left that guy in a pretty bad state. Make sure you keep yourself available.”
“Ok. Can I ask you a question?”
He looks at me with eyebrows raised. I don’t think he is used to people asking him questions. “Sure.”
“Do you have any idea who he is?”
“No. He didn’t have a wallet or anything else except that shotgun. No ID whatsoever. No money, no car keys, nothing. A little strange. I would say he planned on robbing you.”
“At nine in the morning? I don’t have any money in the till at that time of the morning. I had just opened. And he didn’t try to hold me up, he tried to kill me.”
“Sometimes hold ups don’t follow the “stick em up” rules. Quicker and easier to shoot, grab the money and run. As to the lack of money in the till, no offence, but no one would get rich rolling this place. He probably thought you were an easy target. People are getting killed for the money in their pockets these days.”
“It still doesn’t make any sense.” I say. I feel growing consternation at the situation that is in front of me. I can see that I will not get any more from Officer Matthew Beckett.” Thanks anyway.”
“Sit tight. We will let you know if we find out anything.”
The officer turned and walked to a couple of other police in uniform and began to talk to them. I look at Pete and Dave. “What did he mean I left him in a bad state?”
“You beat him so badly he will need plastic surgery just to recognize himself in the mirror, but you didn’t stop there. You stabbed him in the balls and then you were about to finish him off when Dave, Ian and myself pulled you off him.” Says Pete. “I am surprised you weren’t taken away in the back of a police car.”
“Mr. Connor. Could you please come with me to the hospital? I would like them to check you over, just to make sure you don’t have a concussion.”
The ambulance guy. I forgot about him. “I will be fine. I just want to get home and sit down for a while.”
“I really think that you should get checked out.”
“No, really, I am fine. Thanks.”
“Alright, but any further dizziness or blacking out and it is straight to the hospital.”
“Thanks.”
He turns and walks out the door to the ambulance outside. “Where is the man who tried to kill me?” I ask.
“They tried to stop the bleeding and then raced him off in an ambulance.” Replies Dave.
“I think that I am just going to go home. Can you guys handle the store?”
Pete looks at me. “Do you think we would let you stay? I’ll drive you home.”
“No. I am fine. I will get myself home.”
“I don’t think that is a good idea.”
“Really, I am fine.”
With that I turn and walk out the door. My car is parked out the front of the shop. I get in start the engine and pull out into the traffic. The traffic is light for this time of day. Where are all the usual potential road ragers and road rage causing pedestrians? After driving for five minutes I can only count five cars. Have people heard of the attack? No. No one would care about that. Things like that happen every day. My mind is starting to wander and play tricks on me. Maybe everyone went to work early, or maybe they are late. I could just be having a good run. Nothing sinister to report here. Shit! I lock on the brakes. Someone just walked out in front of my car. They are wearing some kind of mask. What is that, a crow or eagle or something? The person just stands there and stares at me. Whatever that mask is it is very good, the eyes almost look like they are real. He, I think it is a he, raises a bony hand, points at me and then clenches a fist. What the hell is going on today? Did they just fling open the doors to the asylum and proclaim this the loonies’ field day? What should I do? Try to drive forwards to get this idiot to move? I lean out the window. “Are you going to get out of the way?”
“Are you going to get out of the way?” he mimics me. His voice sounds like he has gravel stuck in his throat, raspy and phlegmy.
“What are you playing at?”
Again, “What are you playing at?”
I lean back inside my car. This is all a little too strange for my delicate sensibilities at the moment. I edge the car forwards. The man doesn’t move. I edge forwards again. The man in the mask brings that bony clenched fist down on the bonnet of my car. He leaves a three inch dent in my car. What the hell? That shiver up my spine again. Not another one. He starts to walk around the front of my car. I should just gun the engine and get the hell out of here. To hell with the consequences of hitting this guy. I can’t. I am frozen to the spot. I should at least roll up my window, although I don’t think that would lend me much protection as this man seems to have no regard for his own wellbeing and he would be likely to just smash through it. Besides, I don’t think I can move. He leans down in my window at eye level. A foul stench emanates from his (its?) mouth (beak?).
“I see you survived my little visitor”
What is this. Was this crazy thing watching what happened? Did I really just see a tongue moving inside that beak? It has to just be a very very good mask. “What are you talking about?” I reply.
“Mr. Bang Bang visitor man. Incompetent fool. I hope he survives. The pain I will inflict on him will make him think you gave him a little tickle. Was it fun giving him a little tickle? I think you liked it. Did you like it?” If it had a mouth it would be grinning. There is mocking humor in its voice. “Answer me! I asked you a fucking question you little sniveling son of a whore of bitch of a man!”
“I don’t remember. Who are you?” I can feel dread building deep down in the pit of my stomach. I feel my hands shaking. “What do you want from me?”
“I think you enjoyed it. You wanted to kill him. I think you wanted to rip his still beating heart from his black evil chest didn’t you? Oh, you asked me a question. Can’t you tell? I am the bird man. Can’t you see my face you little son of a whore of a bitch of a man? Do I look like the man that lives in the hut next to you? Do I look like one of the silly little mans that come into your shop? No? Well what a surprise. Oh yes another question. What do I want from you? I want you to die. Yes I do silly little man. But I have decided that you will die a painful death. If you don’t go easy you will go painfully. What do you think of that?”
I glance around. There are no cars. No bikes. No people. Where can they all be? Isn’t someone watching this? Why won’t someone call the damn police? “Are you going to kill me?”
“Me?” It laughs. No, not a laugh. More like a chuckle. “This is not work for me. I don’t like the smell of human shit. All you people shit yourselves when you die. And piss. You are much undignified. No, no, you will not be let off so easily. You will not know when your death is coming, but it will come and I will make sure you hurty, hurty, hurty! It will be such funsies for me! I will watch. Very happy! Now you go silly little man, you go.”
With that he turns and runs across the road straight at a tree. I expect him to bounce off it, but he simply disappears. One single black feather drifts to the tarmac. I pull my car over to the edge of the road and get out. I walk over to the feather and pick it up. It is so black and so shiny that it almost seems to absorb the light around it. I do not even notice the sound of the traffic behind me. When I turn I find a road full of cars. The walkways are bustling with people. My jaw drops. Did this really happen? Did everyone disappear or did I disappear? How can anyone disappear? Whether it is one man or a street full of cars it just is not possible. What was that about huts and mans. At times it had a very good grasp of the English language, but it seemed to deteriorate when it was getting excited. It didn’t seem to have an accent, just a very strange way of speaking, like it was imitating, like a bird. I need to get home.
I cross the street, almost getting hit by a car.
“Get off the road asshole!” The blare of a horn.
I get in my car. What is going on? I think I really need to have a professional look into the fact that my sanity is rapidly slipping away from me.
I start my car and drive home.
3
Home. Home is sanctuary. Sanctuary from the craziness I have experienced today. I look in the mirror in my bathroom. As I expect I look like shit. I here a tapping at the backdoor. Now what? I can’t handle any more today. Will it be a man with the face of a chipmunk and the body of a donkey or some other bizarre thing? I run down the stairs and pull the door open. When I look down I see a black and white cat looking up at me. It meows. It sounds like it is saying “Nooww!” Sounds like it, but it isn’t. It is just a cat. It rubs against my leg, tail almost wrapping around my calf. I bend down and give it a scratch behind the ear. Karen, my wife would kill me for this. “If you pat it we will never get rid of it.” I can hear her say in my head. To hell with it. Anything normal at the moment has to be a good thing. “Nooww!”
“Now? What do you want now? Milk? Alright then. Maybe I will have a bourbon with you.” I go to fridge get out the milk, go to the cupboard and grab a saucer and pour him (I think it is a him) a generous helping of milk and put it on the kitchen floor for him. He laps at it gratefully. Again, the voice of my wife: “Now we will never get rid of it!” To hell with it. It is a nice cat.
I walk over to another cupboard in the kitchen and pull out a bottle of Bookers Bourbon that I keep for special occasions. I pour a double into a tumbler, check the back door is still open so the cat can get out if it wants to and head into the lounge room and sit in my armchair. The first sip burns my throat, warming me all the way to the base of my stomach. The strong alcohol hits me immediately and brings on immediate relaxation. I knock the rest of the tumbler back. The cat wanders into the lounge room and jumps up onto my lap.
“You’re a nice cat aren’t you? What is your name? Do you belong to anyone?” I half expect to hear the cat talk to me after what has happened today, but of course it says nothing. I don’t think anyone owns him. He is quite skinny, not mangy, just skinny and there is no collar present around his neck. A cartoon cat pops into my head.
“I think that while you are here I will need to call you something, what do you think of Fritz? Fritz the cat. Has a good ring to it.” The cat blinks at me and curls up. I drop off. In that dark haze before sleep do I hear the cat purr “Thank you.”?
4
I awake feeling revived. The cat is still on my lap. He stirs when I scratch him behind his ear and immediately starts purring. “Time to get up my friend.”
I stand Fritz hops onto the floor. I make my way to the kitchen to get a glass of water. Everything seems to have a washed out look to it, like a television that has the brightness turned down too low. I must be sleepy. What time is it? I look at the clock on the microwave. 5:13. Karen will be home soon. I go to the sink and fill a glass from the tap. Fritz hops up on the bench. He is staring at me. It is almost as if he is seeing if I am alright. I go out the back door and stand in the yard and look around. Everything almost looks grey. Great, do I need to get my eyes checked? I don’t think your eyes can go funny after a few hours sleep.
It is bin night. I go to the side of the house and grab the bin. Fritz is still following me. I place the bin on the curb. As I turn around a kid on a bike almost runs into me. “Hey! Watch where you are going!” No response. The brat just keeps on riding. Fritz meows, almost as if punctuating what I just said. I turn and look up the street. I see a car driving up the street. It’s funny. I don’t seem to be able to hear any sound from the car. It drives past. There is no sound at all. Nothing from the engine, no tire noise, nothing.
“What is going on here?” Fritz looks up at me and meows again. This time his meow sounds like he is saying “Well…” I stare at the cat to see if has anymore to say on the matter. He has no more to say so I head back into the house. When I get back to the lounge room I plop into my chair and turn the TV on with the remote control. The tube brightens, but there is no sound. I press the volume button on the remote control. The green volume bar appears on the button of the screen and increases, but still there is no sound. I get up and walk over to the TV and hit it on the side. Still nothing. More to the point there is no sound when I made impact with the side of the box. “I don’t get it.”
“Weeelll…it is quite simple rrreally.” The cat yawns at me. I must still be asleep and dreaming. I glance around. Everything thing seems normal, except of course for the strange lack of colour and the talking cat. “You seem to have been drawn into something that is beyond your daily reasoning abilities. There is something happening to the world, but it is happening behind a veil that people cannot see behind. It seems that you can not only see behind this veil, but you can step through it.”
“If that is true then what are you doing here?”
“All animals can see through. Have you ever noticed dogs staring off into space? You probably think they are just bored, but they are watching what is happening. There are quite exciting things happening here at times. We can step through at our will, but we generally choose not to. It is not necessarily safe for us.”
“Why not?”
“This is the realm of the mongrels. Half casts.”
“Why would mongrels be so dangerous? No offence but you look a bit of a mongrel to me.”
“You don’t understand. These creatures are hybrids of many creatures. Birds, cats, fish, dogs, people, other unmentionable abominations. That thing that came to you on your drive home, that is one of the creatures. It seems it is a very powerful specimen. Normally they cannot cross over into our world. I think that you are linked to this world somehow. There is some reason why you have been attacked by this creature. I think that we need to find out what that reason is. That is why I have come to you.”
I drop back into my chair and let out a long sigh. This is all getting a bit much. I see movement in the kitchen out of the corner of my eye. It is Karen. She is looking very shocked. What is wrong with her? “Hello? Hello? Is anyone there? Josh, are you home?”
“I am here in the lounge room.”
“Hello?” She walks into the lounge room and turns off the TV. She notices the bourbon glass and walks over and picks it up. “Where are you Josh?” she seems to be talking to herself. “You could have at least shut the door.”
“She can’t see you or hear you while you are behind the veil.” Fritz points out.
“Well how do I get back?”
“I will show you how, but later. We need to go somewhere first.”
With that the cat turns and walks out through the house and out the back door. There is little else I can do but follow. This cat is my only way back.
5
The back yard. It seems the same. Oh, except for the fact that there is no back fence and the empty land that backs onto my property has been replaced with a forest denser than any I have ever seen before. Some of those tree must be taller than a skyscraper!
I ask Fritz, “What is this, is this what the land looked like before it was developed?” I still can’t believe I am talking to a cat, but is this is just a vivid dream, what the hell, it is better than getting run off the road in my sleep.
“Noooo. This place has never looked like this in your native world. This is the land of the hybrids. It has not been touched by your kind. You can still see your houses and streets and buildings, but see how they are not very clear? That is because the places they are built are of no importance to the hybrids. If they were in important places, they would be attacked. It seems there is some human intuition that prevents your kind from building in the hybrids territory. Or maybe the hybrids make sure that the people that would build in these places are no longer capable of making those decisions. It is not something for me to answer. I am, after all, just a cat!”
“So, this ‘world of the hybrids’ is not a separate world, but is mixed in with our world.”
“And you are the so called superior species….No, this is a separate world that occupies the same space as your world. Does this look like any place you have ever been before?”
I look around bewildered and shake my head. I have not even stepped into this mighty forest. I have just looked at it from my back yard, but I know it is like no where I have seen before and I just know that there is no where like it on earth.
“Sooooo, nooooww would you like to take a look around?” Fritz yawns.
I feel a little hesitant, but as I keep saying, this is just a vivid dream. A very strange and detailed vivid dream. “Yeah, what the hell. Lets take a look.”
The cat blinks at me, yawns, stands up and with not a glance backwards walks towards the impenetrable forest edge. When he reached the border, he meows once and promptly disappears.
I run to the edge of the forest and try to see where my strange companion has gone. I can see absolutely nothing in there, it is just a wall of vegetation. I reach forward to touch it, it almost appears to be like wall painted with a scene of greenery by an extraordinary artist. When my hand touches the vegetation I feel a tingle like and ongoing static shock and I hear an incredible cacophony erupt from with in the forest. I pull my hand back.
What the hell is this. “Fritz!” I call. There is no response. Not just that but there is no movement.
“Oh well.” I say to myself. “Nothing ventured, nothing gained.”
I reach out and thrust my hand through the vegetation. Shit! My hand has disappeared! I pull it back and study it like I have never seen my hand before. I tentatively extend my hand again and again it disappears. It does not just go into a darker spot in the vegetation, it is gone!
I push forwards. My arm disappears. Now my shoulder. I push all the way through. The light has almost disappeared it is so dark beneath the incredible canopy. I turn to look back and I see nothing of my house. All I can see is forest and more forest. No wall of impenetrable painted green, just the forest. It is incredibly dense, but unlike when I viewed it from my back yard, I can see into the distance a little.
I thrust my hand out again. It disappears! I Pull my hand back and push my head through. I can clearly see my back yard, albeit washed out in that weird quasi sepia tone.
I run to my garden shed and grab an old rag. Dream or no dream, if I am going in there I am going to make sure I know the exact place I got in so I can get back again.
I stride back to the wall of vegetation, take a deep breath and push back through. As soon as I am through I tie the rag the a sapling and push my hand back through the wall to make sure I have the right place. My hand disappears. Good.
I turn to take a better look at my surroundings. There is a stream running about 20 metres to my right, and on the edge of the stream I can see Fritz sitting there looking in.
I walk over to him and just when I am bout to ask him why he did not answer me I see the fish that are swimming through the water.
My ability to speak is halted in its tracks. The fish are the most incredible gold I have ever seen. I do not mean a yellow or orange colour, they are actually gold. So gold that they seem to put off their own luminance. I look closer. They really seem to be gold!
“They are pretty are they not?” asks Fritz. “Don’t get too close, I don’t think you will like what they really are.”
“What do you mean?” I enquire.
“Grab that stone over there and throw it in the water.” Fritz is looking at a stone about the size of a tennis ball a couple of metres away.
I walk over, pick it up, return to the edge of the stream and toss it in.
The instant it hits the water there is pulse and the fish light up so brightly I can barely stand to look at them. I see one attack the stone. It’s mouth opens wide and I am sure I see hands fly out. These hands are tipped with razor sharp claws and they dig into the stone. It pulls the stone towards the mouth and, like switch blades, row upon row of razor sharp silver teeth pop into sight along both the top and bottom jaws. The fish (?) starts to chew the rock. In seconds it has reduced the stone to dust and resumes swimming calmly. There is no sign of the teeth or the arms, and the glow from its skin has started to dissipate.“What the hell was that?” I cry.
“That was a fish, but like nothing you have seen before. It has a small creature that is nothing like anything in your world living inside its mouth. They co exist like the birds that clean crocodiles. The mouth creature is lightning fast and can catch prey a lot faster than the fish. It catches it, the fish chews it and they share the meal. It is marvelous synergy don’t you think?”
“I think that is the strangest thing I have ever seen!”
“This is only the beginning. There is a lot more you have to see. Follow me, but watch where you step. You never know what you are standing on…..Noooow, follow me.”
Fritz starts to pick out a path that only he can see. All I want to do is run back to my marker rag, throw myself through the invisible wall and wake up on my chair, but I can’t do it. I have to know what the hell is going on and where this crazy talking cat is taking me. Without even knowing it, my feet start to move and I begin to follow Fritz the strange talking cat…
6.
We walk through the moist, humid gloom of the forest. The ground is alive with insects that scurry to get out of the way of our footfalls. Are these insects the things Fritz speaks of? No, they can’t be they just seem to be normal run of the mill ants and cockroaches. I put them out of my mind as we continue along a path that only seems obvious to the cat. I can see a break in the trees ahead. I didn’t think there would be an end to this forest. How long have we been walking? Ten minutes? Twenty minutes? An Hour? I don’t know… it is hard to tell. How far? Who knows?
Fritz stops at the edge of the tree line and says “Stop.” in a hushed whisper.
“Why. What is the problem?” I ask.
“Keep your voice down!” he whispers and nods his head towards a perfectly circular clearing in the middle of the trees. Great, this is not the end of the forest, just a miniscule break.
There is a large rock in the middle of the clearing with a red sash tied around it with a gold buckle. All around and over the rock there are creatures that resemble monkeys. They have long fingers that seem to be of the same skin you would find on a frog, large pointed ears of a bat and the biggest eyes I have ever seem on a creature. Their bodies and feet are that of a monkey with a long tail. The creatures seem to be dancing around the rock and occasionally one of them jumps to the top of the rock and screeches as if uttering a victory cry and then jumps back to the dancing troop below.
“What are they doing?” I whisper to Fritz.
“They are worshiping. The fools think that that rock is sacred because some idiot tied a red rag around it. I know who tied it there. The joker. He knows that these creatures do not have the intelligence to realize that it is just a rock with a red cloth around it and has done it for his own amusement. These creatures have the minds of children. They let their fanciful ideas run away with them!”
While we are watching, one of the creatures stops it’s insane dance and raises it’s nose, sniffing the air. It starts to whimper.
“Something is wrong.” Fritz says.
The creature sniffs the air and looks straight at us. It lets out a piercing screech and instantly all of the other creatures stop their dance. They all look towards us.
“Run!” Fritz cries.
I turn to run and as I do I see all of the rock dancers start to run at us. I follow Fritz. He is going full speed and is hard to keep up with, but I can still see him and can make my way through the trees in my panicked state.
The creatures are gaining on me. Their screams cut the air like a knife through butter and the sound chills me to the core. It is the sound of pure primal rage. I am getting badly scratched by vines and low hanging branches. One of the dancers has almost caught up to me. I can hear it breathing hard with the exertion of the chase, but not as hard as me. I was not built for this type of chase.
It catches me! I feel it grab onto my leg with those strange frog like hands. I kick out and the dancer is sent flying, but there’s three more hot on my heels. I can see Fritz disappear ahead of me and I can see my marker rag about 20 paces away. Can I make it? Christ, let me wake up from this nightmare!
I push forward with all of my strength. Just as I am about to break through the invisible wall one of the creatures gets a hold of me. I feel the hands, and then something else. A searing pain races up my leg. I glance down and the thing has bitten into the flesh of my calf!
I dive past the marker rag and into my back yard. The creature lets go of me and screams. It looks around in utter confusion, turns and runs back through the wall of vegetation.
The silence is total. No sound from the persuing dancers. Nothing.
“What was that?!” I ask Fritz.
“They smelt something on you. Maybe the contact with our bird-like friend left a lingering scent. Did you touch it?”
The pain in my leg has reduced to a dull ache. “No I didn’t touch it, all I wanted to do was get away from it!”
Then I am hit with a bolt. I think back. I didn’t touch it as such. I did, however, pick up the fallen feather. Whatsmore I do not recall dropping it. I reach in my pocket and pull out the black feather.
Fritz hisses. “Why do you have that? That is why we were chased! You are a fool! Why would you keep that?”
“I didn’t think about it. I was in shock. Do you think I wanted to keep this as a reminder of the craziest day of my life?”
“Those creatures would never attack the birdman, but they will always attack one that smells of him. He and his cohorts are the enemy of all and the friend of none. He does as instructed for a fee, and let me assure you, none of what he does is good or just. The creatures we saw are peaceful. We are lucky that others in the forest did not catch a scent of what you had in your pocket. I think you have had enough for today, and if you haven’t, I have.”
With that he walks towards the back door of my house and I follow. Halfway across my yard the colour starts to return. Everything brightens and before I know it I can here the sounds of my world. A car passes in the street, a lawn mower is droning in the distance and I can hear a plane flying high above us.
“Rest. You need to see so much more. You have so much more to do. I will be watching you and we will depart again soon.”
Fritz turns at my house and disappears over the fence. I look down at myself. I am in quite a state. Scratches on my arms, the bite on my leg and I can feel scratches on my face. It will be interesting explaining this to Karen.
We walk through the moist, humid gloom of the forest. The ground is alive with insects that scurry to get out of the way of our footfalls. Are these insects the things Fritz speaks of? No, they can’t be they just seem to be normal run of the mill ants and cockroaches. I put them out of my mind as we continue along a path that only seems obvious to the cat. I can see a break in the trees ahead. I didn’t think there would be an end to this forest. How long have we been walking? Ten minutes? Twenty minutes? An Hour? I don’t know… it is hard to tell. How far? Who knows?
Fritz stops at the edge of the tree line and says “Stop.” in a hushed whisper.
“Why. What is the problem?” I ask.
“Keep your voice down!” he whispers and nods his head towards a perfectly circular clearing in the middle of the trees. Great, this is not the end of the forest, just a miniscule break.
There is a large rock in the middle of the clearing with a red sash tied around it with a gold buckle. All around and over the rock there are creatures that resemble monkeys. They have long fingers that seem to be of the same skin you would find on a frog, large pointed ears of a bat and the biggest eyes I have ever seem on a creature. Their bodies and feet are that of a monkey with a long tail. The creatures seem to be dancing around the rock and occasionally one of them jumps to the top of the rock and screeches as if uttering a victory cry and then jumps back to the dancing troop below.“What are they doing?” I whisper to Fritz.
“They are worshiping. The fools think that that rock is sacred because some idiot tied a red rag around it. I know who tied it there. The joker. He knows that these creatures do not have the intelligence to realize that it is just a rock with a red cloth around it and has done it for his own amusement. These creatures have the minds of children. They let their fanciful ideas run away with them!”
While we are watching, one of the creatures stops it’s insane dance and raises it’s nose, sniffing the air. It starts to whimper.
“Something is wrong.” Fritz says.
The creature sniffs the air and looks straight at us. It lets out a piercing screech and instantly all of the other creatures stop their dance. They all look towards us.
“Run!” Fritz cries.
I turn to run and as I do I see all of the rock dancers start to run at us. I follow Fritz. He is going full speed and is hard to keep up with, but I can still see him and can make my way through the trees in my panicked state.
The creatures are gaining on me. Their screams cut the air like a knife through butter and the sound chills me to the core. It is the sound of pure primal rage. I am getting badly scratched by vines and low hanging branches. One of the dancers has almost caught up to me. I can hear it breathing hard with the exertion of the chase, but not as hard as me. I was not built for this type of chase.
It catches me! I feel it grab onto my leg with those strange frog like hands. I kick out and the dancer is sent flying, but there’s three more hot on my heels. I can see Fritz disappear ahead of me and I can see my marker rag about 20 paces away. Can I make it? Christ, let me wake up from this nightmare!
I push forward with all of my strength. Just as I am about to break through the invisible wall one of the creatures gets a hold of me. I feel the hands, and then something else. A searing pain races up my leg. I glance down and the thing has bitten into the flesh of my calf!
I dive past the marker rag and into my back yard. The creature lets go of me and screams. It looks around in utter confusion, turns and runs back through the wall of vegetation.
The silence is total. No sound from the persuing dancers. Nothing.
“What was that?!” I ask Fritz.
“They smelt something on you. Maybe the contact with our bird-like friend left a lingering scent. Did you touch it?”
The pain in my leg has reduced to a dull ache. “No I didn’t touch it, all I wanted to do was get away from it!”
Then I am hit with a bolt. I think back. I didn’t touch it as such. I did, however, pick up the fallen feather. Whatsmore I do not recall dropping it. I reach in my pocket and pull out the black feather.
Fritz hisses. “Why do you have that? That is why we were chased! You are a fool! Why would you keep that?”
“I didn’t think about it. I was in shock. Do you think I wanted to keep this as a reminder of the craziest day of my life?”
“Those creatures would never attack the birdman, but they will always attack one that smells of him. He and his cohorts are the enemy of all and the friend of none. He does as instructed for a fee, and let me assure you, none of what he does is good or just. The creatures we saw are peaceful. We are lucky that others in the forest did not catch a scent of what you had in your pocket. I think you have had enough for today, and if you haven’t, I have.”
With that he walks towards the back door of my house and I follow. Halfway across my yard the colour starts to return. Everything brightens and before I know it I can here the sounds of my world. A car passes in the street, a lawn mower is droning in the distance and I can hear a plane flying high above us.
“Rest. You need to see so much more. You have so much more to do. I will be watching you and we will depart again soon.”
Fritz turns at my house and disappears over the fence. I look down at myself. I am in quite a state. Scratches on my arms, the bite on my leg and I can feel scratches on my face. It will be interesting explaining this to Karen.
