That relentless, crashing tide of civilisation had beat its cold, hard progress against him for the last time, leaving him broken, washed up and churned out here…chased out here. Chased out by a mob too indifferent to form, chased by the silent, faceless ghosts sitting opposite him during each grey commute. By the knowledge that he himself was also haunting these streets of smeared wet grey. So out here he was not soothed just by the immense wash of colour, but rather the absence of that all encompassing grey. As the hills of green and purple washed him clean, that incessant scream of loneliness fell beside to be replaced by his contented sighs of peace. A tension carried for so long, its water logged cloak draped about his frame, the weight from endless years now fell from shoulders which, now free, rose to greet the blue above, as though willing his newly lighted form to soar with those dancing birds above. Aching cheeks host a grin manically fighting for balance on this unfamiliar ground, his heart aches and for a fleeting second he mistakes it for sorrow, as that is the only spark of emotion his dreary life could produce for so long but no, it’s joy which bring tears brimming to his eyes.
“That’s my Goldfish!”
“Just leave it Tommy, please.”
“Come on fucker, show me the bottles! I hit them square on”
“Now lad, calm it down a bit, kiddy’s around n all. Ain’t my fault you got a bit of a weak elbow”
“Why you fat old shit! Why don’t you come round this side of the table and I’ll show you my weak fucking elbow!”
“Tommy please!”
“Best listen to ya lady, lover boy, ya making a scene of yaself”
“You’re cheating scum you bastard, keep ya fucking goldfish”
“Why’d you even want the goldfish so bad anyway Tommy?”
“Fuck the goldfish, just the principle of the thing - those bottles are stuck or weighted or something.”
“Well that’s the carnival for you Tommy! Say, let’s go get some candy clouds!!!”
“Candy Clouds?”
“Yeah, those pink … cotton clouds?”
“Cotton candy - Candy floss?”
“Yeah! Let’s go get some of that, it smells delicious!”
“And the doughnuts too!!!”
“Ohh definitely! I want to eat until I’m sick!”
Harsh white light hums down, bouncing their relentless daggers from brushed steel into the weary, bloodshot eyes peering out from the dull reflection, distorted by bumps and grooves, with a thousand yard stare. His face, distorted by bumps and grooves in the worktop surface, sports a two day stubble which shades his sagging, grey tinted cheeks with a dirty brown smudge wrapping up to meet with greasy strands which break free in a tangle from the useless hair net. Tongue a strip of dry leather lay dead in his mouth, his lips crack as he fruitlessly workes to conjure moisture from his sleeping saliva glands.
Over head the light hits it’s stride and the hum clicks off, but his ears continue their tone in loyal ignorance
Carriage wheels clatter along ruts worn deep into the stone, a cacophony thundering in his head as he’s bounced and jostled, whole body sore from the relentless abuse.
But still, he thought with sombre resign, rather this dire journey continue in perpetuity than end … there.
In the distance it twisted defiantly out from a bed of sharp stone, scraping the sky like an unholy, reaching finger, dark edges starkly offset by the whisper of silver, moonlight both drawing and repelling.
The Tower, a grand, rising mockery to all that was natural, its frame worn and warped by countless days stood against driving wind and rain.
Shifting dunes harass sighing walls, sturdy peaks sent charging, their ancient onslaught fuelled by the slightest breeze. Signs of life, long sandblasted from sun beached walls, hide in the corners; a scrawled name here, a fleck of paint there. Though the outcome is inevitable, for now this aging landmark stands proud and alone, a sole monument to mankind set against a dead world.
Sunlight sank through the leafy canopy, its warm glow rolling through green hues to collect softly upon the forest floor. Even the trail, dirt turned a dusty brown by the weeks of dry summer heat, had adopted a hint of green.
So the gaping mouth of black leapt suddenly out against this backdrop as Billy rounded a large, moss coated oak.
Once surprise had retreated he noticed the stone path, obscured by the plants sprouting at its seams, cut a v through the earth, it’s sharp banks held at bay by more, naturally camouflaged stone.
Despite the warmth in the air a shiver ran along his spine as he stared deep into the void, willing himself not to enter - but he knows it’s in vain, there’s something about that sharp, screaming maw that calls to him and his feet draw him closer before he even knows he’s walking.
He fumbles blindly at his hip, searching for the flashlight he knows should be there, reluctant to look down and break eye contact with that ever expanding black hole, somehow both flat and infinitely deep at the same time.
He has to glance down however, because the light isn’t on his belt as it should. The clip is, clung proudly to his belt, but the reassuring cold of the flashlights brushed metallic housing is absent and he swears aloud, the sound falling with a clatter down the tunnel he now stands at the threshold of.
Yellow tinted streetlight, smudged into a warm haze by the settling snow, illuminated the pathway through the park - usually cast into shadow at this late an hour. Cutting through the park would knock a good 15 minutes off this trek home, he’d already been walking for 45 minutes and with the warmth from the streetlights being solely an illusion, he made up his mind and dug his hands deeper into his jacket, trudging onwards into Lester Park.
It was odd, he thought, how uncanny this familiar walk felt, how other worldly the bare trees looked - crowding the path, their shadows banished, starkly flattened against the landscape by the falling snow. Falling faster too, and much deeper than he had expected, that 15 minutes may have been optimistic.
Funny how he had never noticed the gradual slope of the path, enough for the snow to be getting deeper with each descending step. Well he was committed now, had to be nearly halfway through … alone in the middle of the park.
Suddenly the trees broke into a wide clearing, as if to punctuate his isolation.
His hind brain ached as generations of paranoid instinct illogically begged him to skirt around the cleaning, stick to the tree line… out of sight…out of sight of what? He forced a laugh, trying to conjure a joke from that humourless thought - he regretted it as it fell dead on the snow.
With gritted teeth he set off across the clearing, such focus on the trees ahead the snow should surely melt. But it didn’t, it was up to his shins within three steps and his knee by the forth. Not only that but without the shelter offered by the trees the wind slashed at his shivering form, working to free his jacket, forcing his hands out from the relative warmth of his pockets to wrestle for control of the flapping fabric.
Then he tripped, went down fucking hard as an ecstasy of pain erupted from his ankle, folding beneath him. Stars flooded his vision as he fell, he felt snow tumble down his collar, shocking him awake. Had he passed out? He couldn’t be sure, he felt nauseous and the cold that pulsed from his core felt colder than the snow that cocooned him. His body curled his knees into his chest, burrowing deeper into the softly crunching blanket. It was like pressing his thumb into cornflour, he thought disjointedly, and smiled as he gave in to the warmth.
————————————
Foxplot Manor had stood vacant on the outskirts of the village for most of living memory - most that is, save for Granny Minnow, although it was common knowledge you had to take what she “remembered” these days with a whole shaker of salt.
She had always been prone to exaggeration, but now age had long since begun to cloud the edges of her memory, so you really had no idea if what she was telling you resembled any form of the truth.
“Barely older than yourself,” she had croned, the old porches worn boards creaking as she settled into her chair, pausing to sip at her lemonade. Paula looked out at the street, the summer sun hung low in the sky refusing to end the day, and waited for Granny to resume her story. “13 or 14 maybe” eyes fogged as she gazed into her past “but I still remember it, clear as if it happened yesterday” Despite doubting this, Paula hung on Granny’s every word regardless, as was she drip fed the story.
Granny, who just went by Lucy in those days, slowly told of the skinny pale girl, whose hair clung flat to her scalp, who would sit at the back of class a phantom. Eventually even the teachers began to realise it was fruitless trying to draw participation from her and, since she wasn’t disrupting anyone, found it best to just leave her to diligently get on with her work. So Granny couldn’t say how long that girl, Alice or April or “something like that” she was sure, had been absent from school before anyone, including the staff, took note. Due to this the three bodies were quite cold when the front door of Foxplot Manor was broken down by the local police.
