Through Different Eyes: Part 3

Third and final part of the current short story! Rated R for being a bit gruesome at the end. Enjoy! (Parts one and two, in case you missed them!)

I remember his voice being quite deep, not rough but just sounding like it came from a place much further down his body than his throat. He asked about what had happened to my eyes and I told him all about it and they ran some tests and examined the place my eyes used to be and he said that he’d be able to help me. Me and Heather were so happy! I couldn’t wait to see all the things I remembered seeing before, to see if they’d changed or stayed exactly the same, even whether I’d remembered all the colours right, because it’s easy to forget exactly what red and blue look like when you’ve only seen them in your head for ten years. I was so excited at having eyes again, to be able to live a normal life, maybe get a job, talk to people again without them being all sympathetic and awkward with their breathing, and see if the picture I had of Heather was like how she was in real life, whether her eyes were the same colour as they were in my head. We got told I’d have to wait for a donor before I could get new eyes, so we flew back to England, and we waited.

Those days of waiting were really hard. Like I say, I’d managed to get used to not being able to see, but that was because there was no chance I’d ever be able to see again, other than in my own head; but now I was going to be able to, not with my own eyes exactly but I’d be able to see all the things I hadn’t seen for ten years. I was going to be able to see Heather and my friends and my mum and my dog and myself, see the sky and the trees and the sun... We were both so excited, and scared a little, because no-one likes having an operation, and I was scared things wouldn’t look like I remembered them looking, scared that I had forgotten some of the things I’d seen. But I was so excited, I could barely sleep, I just kept hoping for a donor to come along, even though I knew this was basically saying I wanted someone to die so I could have their eyes; but I really did, once or twice, really did wish for someone to die so I could see again...

I didn’t have to wait all that long, really, even if every day I had to wait seemed to last four hours more than it should, long drawn-out hours that seemed to stretch me tight and stop me from breathing properly. The call came; a young man had been killed in a car crash, he’d been speeding and had smashed his car into a tree, apparently, and so... I had my eyes. And me and Heather went to the hospital and they put me in one of those open gowns and sent me to sleep on a cold steel table; and when I woke up, it was done. I couldn’t open my new eyes at first because of the bandage round my face but i could feel them there, feel them filling up what had been empty for so long.

I remember how I felt when the bandage first came off. I could barely open my eyes, they were still swollen and sore from the operation, but I remember the light, the first light I’d seen for more than ten years. It was brighter than I’d remember light being, but then I had been in darkness for a long time, so I guess that was to be expected. I remember the wonder I felt, the kind of simple childish delight in being able to make out shapes, blurred dark ones against the backdrop of white for now, but I’d been told my vision would get better once my body got used to the new eyes. I remember the relief I felt, relief that I could live my life now on my own terms, not needing a dog to guide me round but just my own eyes, my new eyes, the sense of power and independence that surged through me. I remember the pain too, like the nail was being driven through my eyes all over again, pressing agains thte back of my new eyeballs where they’d joined them up to my brain. And I remember the fear, the fear of the new, the fear I wouldn’t like what I could see, the fear that everything would have changed so much in ten years that I wouldn’t know my own world any more. Yeah, the fear, rising up in me, making it so I almost didn’t want to open my eyes any more.

But I did, I did open them and look out at the world again after ten years, and it was amazing. I saw my mum again, for the first time since before I went blind, even; she looked older, her hair was greyer, there were far more lines on her face than I remembered... but I could see her face again, that face I’d seen looking down on me so many times before. That was a beautiful moment, the first time I saw her face again. We both cried, joy I think, relief, yeah, that too, and amazement, because I never thought I’d see again and now I could.

Now I come to think of it, I remember her looking a bit puzzled, a bit put off by my new eyes, but I guess I just put that down to surprise, because my old eyes had been brown and these were green. I know that because I looked in the mirror as soon as I had the chance and my eyes were green, a kind of pale pastel colour, quite light and a bit chalky, I guess you could say. It felt pretty odd, seeing someone else’s eyes on your face. Hell, it felt quite odd to see your face ten years older than when you’d last seen it. But it felt good, too.

It was strange, seeing light where before there’d only been darkness. It was painful at first, while my body healed from the operation and accepted the new eyes. But eventually that pain stopped, and I got used to seeing things again, used to the way everything seemed a little darker than when I was 18; I put it down to age, and to the way hospitals always seem to suck the whiteness out of everything and make every surface seem somehow grey... It felt strange, as well, that the images were coming from a different place now, from a few inches of my head rather than from points all over my body, from outside rather than in, so that whilst I could see everything, it all seemed shallower than it had been before, like pictures painted on canvas rather than pictures painted in my mind. I expected it would be a little strange, though, seeing again, and so I didn’t get too worried, just put it down to my body needing to adjust and work out what it was doing with this new sense it had been given.

Even more than my mum, the person I wanted to see most was Heather. I was so scared to see her, it was like a fist had clenched inside my chest, and I was so excited at the same time, knowing that I’d finally know if the picture I’d built of her from her smell and her touch and her taste was how she looked to my sight...I remember exactly the moment that I first saw her, first laid my new eyes on her. She wasn’t exactly like the picture in my head. Her hair was a bit lighter, her eyes a bit darker, not like leaves but like stagnant water in an old forgotten pool, and her face didn’t seem as round s I’d thought, didn’t seem so smooth… But if I looked hesitant, surprised, I don’t think she noticed, because she threw her arms around me and said she was so happy I was back and did it hurt and was I OK and we both cried a bit, which felt strange because I hadn’t cried for a long time, hadn’t been able to, and the hotness and the wetness hurt my new eyes a little; and seeing her cry meant all the other stuff didn’t matter because it was the worst thing I’d ever seen and I wanted it to stop and it had to stop and I was so, so glad when she buried her head in my chest and I couldn’t see the tears any more. And I looked down at her hair instead, the hair on the top of her head, and saw that it went a bit darker as it neared her skull and that made me feel odd, kind of disjointed, because I’d always imagined it to be one colour and now it looked like two and neither of them were like I thought her hair should be.

It was OK, though, because I knew that not everything would be exactly right and anyway it wasn’t as if I could complain about seeing my girlfriend for the first time in my life and it wasn’t like she’d changed, you know? Except… Except that, after we’d gone back home and started life again, and I started looking for a job and watching the television and I didn’t need my dog to lead me anymore because I could do it myself… Things didn’t seem right any more. I tried to read but the letters didn’t seem right, black against white not blue against black; and none of the colours I saw were quite how I remembered them, greens were always a bit darker and reds deeper and blues were always light and weak-looking, somehow, as if blue wasn’t a colour itself but a draining away of colour, the last stage before a colour faded into black… And Heather was different as well. She didn’t look how I’d imagined and she stopped sounding like I remembered, she stopped being kind in her voice and she started to feel more rough and started to feel less soft…

I started to hate seeing her, started to hate the way that I kept seeing new things about her that I hadn’t been able to see before, to see the tired lines around her eyes and the scorn that sometimes appeared on her face and the tiny blemishes on her skin, the brown marks on the white, reminders that she wasn’t stainless or pure and that when I saw her every time she changed as I noticed someone different until she wasn’t even really Heather any more, she was someone else, someone completely different to the Heather I’d known and seen in my head, because now I could see her outside my head and it was all wrong, all of it.

I started to think that the operation had gone wrong somehow, because surely sight should be something wonderful, something magical, something that you gain because otherwise they wouldn’t describe blindness as “lack” of sight but as an escape from it. And this sight felt terrible, like I was looking at everything through dark green glass, and it was only getting worse as time went on, as I saw more things and each thing I saw tore away the image I had of it and replaced it with this dark, flat drawing, just a shadow of what it used to be to me...

So I called the doctor in New York, the one who’d perfected the eye transplant, but I couldn’t get hold of him, not even his office or his secretary; the number just didn’t work at all. This didn’t make me feel much better, I’ll admit; and after I searched round on the Internet and in a couple of magazines, forcing the letters into my brain however wrong they looked, I found out that the doctor had disappeared off the face of the earth, just vanished like he had never been there in the first place, nobody knew where he was. And almost all of the people who’d had this transplant had started going mad, done things like throw themselves off bridges or run onto train tracks. One man in Houston had even killed his girlfriend three months after he’d had the operation, just taken a knife and stabbed her and then, more horrible, cut off her face and burnt it... And he’d told the police, when they came to him with his hands still covered in blood, that he’d done it because “She looked wrong”, that was the phrase he kept repeating, “she looked wrong”, and he’d thought she wasn’t his girlfriend but some kind of shapeshifter who’d taken on the appearance of her face and got it slightly wrong, that’s why he’d taken off her face, so he could see the shapeshifter underneath... And just after I’d read this, tears still wet on my cheeks, Heather came in and I looked at her and I realised that she looked wrong, she didn’t look like the Heather I knew before I had my new eyes and she was still changing, she was still getting darker every day...

I couldn’t let it get to that stage, I just couldn’t. To think I might end up killing Heather because my new eyes had made me see her differently, or maybe see her how she really was... I couldn’t do that, I just couldn’t, and even thinking about it made the tears flow again, crying so hard that my still-healing eyes started to bleed a little and the tears came out pink-red instead of clear... I didn’t tell her what was wrong, just told her I was finding being able to see again was overwhelming, which wasn’t a lie, but I knew I had to do something.

I didn’t sleep that night. I left Heather sleeping in our bed while I went downstairs and sat in the dark silence, thinking about what I should do, how I should stop myself doing anything stupid. I couldn’t understand why anyone would hurt someone they loved, why that man had stabbed his girlfriend; the only thing he’d been able to say that was coherent was that she looked wrong... And the others, that had committed suicide or gone mad, all of them... The only thing they had in common was this operation, was that they had been blind and now they saw... And they’d all decided they didn’t want to see any more, and I realised that nor did I, I didn’t want to see any more because everything I saw looked wrong and was wrong, as if by the very act of looking at something was making it warp and change and become something flatter and darker than it really was, than it had been behind my eyes... And that was the answer. The eyes. Everything had gone wrong since I’d had these new eyes, these eyes that weren’t my own, these eyes that should have been left closed on the body of that young man in the car crash and never opened again.

I could make sure they never opened again. I could make sure I never had to see again, even if as I thought that the darkness around me started to turn green as if someone had turned on night-vision goggles and I was looking through them now. I realised, now, that I was far happier being blind, far happier lacing vision than having the sight of so much that was wrong in the world displayed before me and knowing that looking at it and doing nothing to change it was making it worse.

So I went into the kitchen and I opened a draw and took out a knife, and I placed it against my left eye and I pushed so that I felt the blade penetrate, and flicked my hand and felt my eyeball detach and fall onto the floor, and then I did the same with my other eye and now I was weeping blood, pure red blood that pooled around me on the floor and felt thick and sticky on my hands as I knelt in the middle of it. And I didn’t make a sound, I just knelt there, still gripping the kitchen knife, with the pool spreading around me and the liquid pouring slowly down my face and dripping from my mouth and chin. And in the morning Heather came downstairs and found me and I heard her scream and felt her arm around me and heard her ragged breath and sobs as she saw what I’d done to myself and I smiled, because I couldn’t see her anymore and that meant that her image, the deeper image of her touch and sound and smell... that image would last forever, unsullied by the time that can only be glimpsed by prying eyes.

Through Different Eyes: Part 2

So, part 2 of the short story I started last week; hope you enjoy! (Part 1 is here)

We went to a pub she knew, the Horse and Hounds, I think; I remember it was really noisy, crowded, with that thick feeling in the air you get when there are too many people in a small space. That’s where being blind comes in useful, though, ‘cause people make room for you, move out of your way a bit most of the time; I think Heather appreciated it, anyway, we got served pretty quick. Blind man and pretty girl, huh, pretty much perfect for getting served at bars. Well, we got our drinks, made our way to the table, she led me over, actually, because I remember the feeling of her hand on my back through my coat and how it seemed to, I don’t know, kind of concentrate me in that one sensation, made the feeling of her hand all I could concentrate on for a moment... Anyway, we sat down and we started talking and we really hit it off. We talked about my eyes and my life and I asked her what colour her eyes were, and she told me they were green, and she let me touch her eyelids and I could see the green through my fingers, the kind of green you get when sun shines through an oak leaf, where you can see the life framed against the sky. And she let me feel the rest of her face and make a picture up of her...

I still remember that picture, that first picture I had of her. Funny, really; you’d think with what happened afterwards I wouldn’t remember that, but I do. I knew she was blonde because she told me; I pictured a kind of dirty blonde, that kind of almost-brown, like honey mixed with chocolate. And her face was soft, I remember that too; her nose was small, her mouth was small too, and it was so soft, like someone had soaked it in water for an hour, you know? She sounded perfect, she felt perfect; and she liked me. Can you believe that? She actually liked this blind bloke she’d just picked up off the street. She said later it was because I’d made her laugh, and she said she didn’t laugh much. I wanted her to laugh all the time, thought I could make her laugh all the time, didn’t want to do anything else. I mean, it wasn’t love at first sight or anything, hah, couldn’t be, but maybe love at first touch. I could believe that, love at first touch. And I knew that this picture of her was mine, and only mine, because everyone else would see her with their eyes and I saw her with my fingertips and my ears and my nose and so I had a picture that no-one else but me could ever see.

And she told me about her life, and how she worked in a charity shop and loved kittens and how her mom had been really sick when she was a little girl and- well, all the things you talk about when you meet a new person you like. I think we knew more about each other after that first drink than most people know about each other in their whole lives. Anyway, we arranged to meet up again, and again after that, and things just seemed to slip into place, and we were going out.

She’d come round some evenings and we’d sit and listen to the radio together or she’d read me a book, and we’d hold hands... I remember our first kiss, the first kiss I’d had in ten years, the way we were sitting at a table in the pub and we were talking and I said I loved her and felt her breath stroking my cheek so I could see where her lips were, where her face was, and leaning in as she put her hand on the back of my neck and I could see her fingers as they curled in my hair...

 It was the best I’ve ever felt in my life, just feeling the softness of her lips and tasting strawberries on her tongue. Since then I always saw her lips as being red as strawberries; that was another thing about not being able to see, it meant the picture in your head could change without the thing you were picturing having to change at all. And I did love her, as well, I wasn’t just saying it to get a kiss; I loved the way she felt when she held my hand and the way she always smelt like strawberries even after a hard day and the way she’d laugh whenever I said something stupid or not even that funny. I loved that I could make her laugh. And even though I couldn’t see her I felt like I knew what she looked like; I knew she had slender hands and she wasn’t that tall and she had dirty blonde hair and green eyes like the leaves on a tree and she loved the colour purple, because she said it always reminded her of her name.

After that, things just kind of melted into reality. She told me she loved me as well, told me while we sat stroking each others’ faces on the sofa in my flat, and it felt like I was flying above the clouds. That was my picture of love, then; flying above the clouds and seeing them red and gold as the sun came up above them... That’s one of the things about not being able to see physical things, you know, it means you can see abstracts, see things that don’t really exist except in your head. So love was like being above the clouds, and hope was like a fire burning against a deep, dark forest, and sadness was this kind of purple smoke that folded itself around things and became solid and wouldn’t let go... People who can see can’t see that, because they were too preoccupied with what they could see; or at least I was when I could see, before I went to Northern Ireland and the nail took out both my eyeballs in less than one second and changed my life forever.

Soon enough Heather moved in with me; said we spent so much time together anyway that it made sense, and anyway it would be better for me to stay in a place I knew well enough to walk around even without my dog to guide me.  And we loved each other, me and Heather, as much as we ever could, and we learnt about each other, met parents and everything, shared everything that two young people in love usually share, hopes and pains and dreams...

Maybe I should have started here, because this is where all the trouble started, really. We were sitting on my sofa, she was stroking the dog and I was stroking her hair, working out the new style she’d had done with my fingers, and she was reading a magazine with her other hand, just flicking through while we listened to the radio. Then I felt her tense up under my hand, and I asked her what was wrong, what was up. And she laughed, kind of nervously, really, there’s a little tremor in her laugh I hadn’t heard there before and didn’t like too much. I suppose that should have made me pause, but... She said there was an article in this magazine, this thing about a doctor in America who’d perfected an eye transplant. Like, you’d get a pair of eyes from someone who’d died, like an organ donor type deal, and as long as they were kept in the right conditions you could use them to replace the eyes of someone who’d lost their eyes. Obviously, we were both excited. I mean, I dealt with having no eyes, had to deal with it, but I missed it, you know? Missed being able to see new stuff properly, regretted that I’d never really seen Heather as she really was, just a picture in my mind and my fingertips... So yeah, we were excited. And I’d saved up some money, I mean it’s not like I was going to theme parks every weekend, right, and so we decided to go to this doctor’s clinic and see what he could do. Tried not to get our hopes up, because I’d lost my eyes so long ago and neither of us really understood exactly what the ins-and-outs of the operation were, and we knew it was a risky procedure but we talked about it and decided we’d give it a go. And in about a week we’d sorted some stuff out and got on a plane to America and then we were in New York and knocking on the door of this doctor and sitting down, hand in hand, in his office.

Through Different Eyes:Part One

Hey guys! So, this is another short story; there'll be three parts, and as you've probably worked out from the title, this is part one. It's much darker than the last one (ie not pure comedy, more drama), so I hope you like it; let me know what you think! 

This is a story about seeing. Or, more precisely, it’s a story about seeing again, from a different perspective. It’s about how the pictures inside your head aren’t always the same as the pictures on the outside, and how seeing things through another’s eyes doesn’t always make the world a better place. And it’s about loss, and gain, and loss again. I don’t expect you to understand why I did what I did but I feel like I should try and explain it, because it needs explaining, and it needs not to happen again.

I was 18 when I lost my eyes. I was a soldier, keeping the peace in Northern Ireland, my first taste of duty. It was my second ever patrol, just me and a group of mates walking through the streets and making sure everything was running smoothly. I guess that wasn’t really in our power to ensure, though.

I don’t really remember much of it; just a big flash, and screaming, and noise. A nail-bomb in a car parked on the street, just a shabby old car like any others; there’s no way we could have known, no way the people who lay groaning and screaming on the streets could have known. We weren’t far from the car when it exploded, sending shards of metal flying in all directions, through the air and through flesh. People say that things slow down in situations like that, but I didn’t notice that; everything seemed to speed up, so fast that nobody could react, nobody could get out of the way. One second, normal street, the next second, pain.

I remember the pain. They tell me a nail went straight through the side of my head, through both of my eyes; I suppose there’s some irony in me not seeing that coming. I remember the impact on the side of my head; I remember the flash of red and then the blackness and the sharp, unbearable agony, the unbidden scream, and the whimper for my mum. I don’t remember much after that; I guess I must have passed out. Next thing I remember is waking up with cotton sheets wrapped around me and rough material on my face, and the cool hand of a nurse on my arm and that horrible hospital smell.

I don’t want you to think I’m looking for sympathy, or anything like that. What happened, happened, and I dealt with that; wouldn’t be telling you all this if I hadn’t. But you need to know what happened, how it felt, why I did what I did, because otherwise you couldn’t understand what happened next.

Obviously I couldn’t carry on in the army, or get another job, really; most things require you to be able to see. I mean, I got enough money to cope, and they gave me a dog so I could walk about, and I got a pair of dark glasses so people wouldn’t have to see the black holes where my eyes used to be. The rest of my face wasn’t marked at all; I just didn’t have any eyeballs left, and my eyelids were always half-open so that I had two craters carved into the surface of my face. It didn’t bother me all that much; I found it hard to imagine what I looked like, really, and it wasn’t as if I could get caught out by my reflection.

I’m not going to pretend it wasn’t hard. God, the first time my mum saw me, in the hospital, and I heard her crying; I wouldn’t go through that again for anything. But I didn’t have a girlfriend or anything like that, my friends were in the army and they did everything they could to make me feel better, even smuggled in some beers when they visited me in my bed. Yeah, it was hard, but like I say, I dealt with it. I learnt to cope without sight; let my dog be my eyes, learnt to use my ears and my nose, noticed stuff I could never notice before. And I couldn’t see new things but I could remember what things used to look like, could remember colours and scenes and the way the sun used to hurt when you looked at it and how the water in the lake used to sparkle and all that stuff. I missed being able to see things, don’t get me wrong, missed it so much it used to hurt, that crushing, stifling pain you get in your chest when you lose something you’ve taken for granted. Yeah, I missed it. But, there was nothing I could do about it, so I got on with life, got on with living however I could.

I spent ten years like that, blind, but coping. I coped, adapted to how life was, got used to it even; there was a lot of pain and regret but I always had my mum and a couple of good mates and the radio to keep me occupied. I learnt to not walk too fast, to let my dog lead me, to listen to the world around. It’s amazing how people who can see don’t listen, don’t listen to how a car sounds when it’s just about to speed up or slow down, how footsteps sound different when people are moving aside for you on the pavement, how people’s breathing changes when they stiffen up ‘cos a blind man’s walking past them. But I learned to listen. It was hard, that last one. It happened a lot. People treat you differently when they think you’re different to them, when they don’t know what they can say to you, when they think if they mention the eyes or seeing stuff it’ll make you miss what you once had. I mean, I did miss seeing things, of course I did, but I missed being able to talk to people more.

But like I say, I learnt to listen, and to smell and taste and touch. And that was okay; it’s amazing the pictures you can build up in your head when you just brush something with your fingertips, how you can see the toughness of rope through feeling its roughness or see the shape of a tree through the scrape of its bark. I could see the stillness of coffee from its smell and the ripples in a river from the sound of it splashing on the banks and rocks. I even learnt to see letters through my fingers, running them over bumps and lines and seeing each letter take shape in the dark behind where my eyes used to be in spidery blue flame against the blackness. It wasn’t the same as viewing things with my eyes had been, never quite so crisp and sharp, but I thought it wasn’t all so bad, because I got to see things no other person could see while they only got to see what everyone else could see as well. So yeah, it was hard, but I coped; kept going on walks, tried to ignore the bad sounds, seeing the silhouettes of shapes in the shadows of my head, kept putting one foot in front of the other and resigned myself to doing that forever.

And then I met her. Inauspicious beginnings, I guess; my dog, usually pretty well-behaved, got spooked by something, no idea what, jumped up, pulled me over. I felt her hand on my arm and she pulled me up, asked me if I was Ok, pressed my dog’s lead back into my hand so I could feel the soft leather on the roughness of my palm. I told her thanks; I mean, what else do you say? I was-not helpless, I could have managed, would have, in the end, found the end of the lead from the pictures in my head as it scraped over the hard tarmac, and let’s face it most people would have helped and she was just the closest, but still. And I made a joke about how I didn’t see it coming; I’ve always had that streak of self-deprecation in me, I guess, and anyway, things don’t seem quite so real, quite so close, if you can make a joke out of them. And I heard her laugh and it sounded like birdsong, like the sound that makes you happy when it gets you out of bed in the morning, and I realised I wanted to hear that laugh again and again, and so I asked if there was any way I could make it up to her and- get this, to a blind man she’d just seen fallen down by the side of the road, to a guy she must have seen as helpless- she said I could buy her a drink, if I wasn’t too busy. You could hear she was kind in her voice, and I wanted to hear it again, so I said yes, and I told her my name, and she told me hers was Heather.

My Last Date

Just a one-off recollection of the last date I went on...

All the lights were on in the town. People were talking, laughing, singing, and the birds were chattering merrily in the dusky glow of the sky. I was walking towards the pub in my best pink shirt, hair slicked back and armpits freshly washed. It was a Tuesday night, and I was on a date.

Any of you who know me will realise that this isn’t a common occurrence. For those of you who don’t know me, well, sorry for shattering your illusions of the Adonis-like figure behind these infrequent internet ramblings. Anyway, for once, I was pretty happy with myself; a girl had actually agreed to go on a date with me, and who knows what might happen...

It was a shame that the cynical, bitter, and unfortunately all-too-logical bit of me that lives in the real world wouldn’t let me forget that this was a blind date, set up by a charity (not just for me, I’m not quite at that point yet); and unless the adjective was a literal description of the girl in question she probably wouldn’t be that thrilled when a pygmy sasquatch in a salmon camp shirt walked in through the door. But hey, there was always a chance that she’d be drunk already (I’d been unfortunately detained by a catastrophic gravy spillage from which I was still wincing), so some hope remained.

As I’ve said, this was a blind date, so the only thing I knew about the girl I was to see was that she was blonde and would be wearing red. I entered the pub and pretty much immediately spotted her. My cynical side chuckled to itself evilly as I realised she looked just like Clare Balding.

I decided, however, that I wasn’t that shallow, and it was only fair to go and talk to her. That beggars can’t be choosers and that my desperate overarching loneliness was slowly eroding my soul had no bearing on this decision; it was more to do with the fact that she’d bought me a pint, so it was only polite to drink it.

After about five minutes into the conversation I was wishing it was vodka I was drinking rather than just Peroni. Yes, it was awful that JLS were breaking up; no, I couldn’t remember where I was when I heard, because it wasn’t the Kennedy assassination and I’m still not sure of the difference between them and the Jonas brothers. Still, everyone’s nervous on a first date and so, again, I gave her the benefit of the doubt, and kept drinking.

We talked for about an hour, me listening to inane chatter about the new One Direction single while the slow process of inebriation rendered her more and more attractive, before she suddenly took my hand.

“Do you want to do something really naughty?” she asked me.

I weighed up my options. On the one hand, I was bored shitless and no amount of beer could stop me thinking I was co-hosting an Olympic event on the BBC; on the other, a girl had just touched my hand.

“Yes ok whatever you say please,” I seductively whispered.

“Well, there’s this party I wanted to go to, but it might not be something you’d be in to. It’s called the Vagina Party; are you up for it?”

My throat seemed to close up so that I found it quite difficult to reply, but after a couple of false starts that made her forehead furrow ever so slightly, I managed to croak out “yeah sure I’m up for that sounds great,” and without further ado we walked out of the pub to go to this Vagina Party, with me wondering what the hell it was. It had the word “vagina” in it, which could only be a good thing, especially considering I was on a dry spell that would put Death Valley to shame; and the word “party”, whilst alien and terrifying (there was a reason for the dry spell, after all), is also generally considered a good thing, especially if you’re going with a girl rather than despondently walking in alone and hoping someone, anyone, will talk to you or even cast a glance your way. And whilst I’ve mentioned before she wasn’t rivalling the Mona Lisa as an image of classic beauty, I couldn’t help but muse about what the night might bring; a party, dancing, drinking, a girl and a guy... Maybe I’d even get a hug at the end of it.

So I was actually in quite a cheery mood as I followed the girl down a dark alley to a red-painted door through which loud and bass-heavy music played.

“This is the back entrance,” she said. “No need to pay.” I’ve never been a fan of paying to go through the back entrance, so I put up no objections.

It was only as we went through the door that I wondered what she meant when she had said “It might not be something you’d be into”; surely most guys would like to go partying with a girl, especially when the party is titled after the particular anatomical area they are interested in, so why would she think I wouldn’t be up for it?

And then I looked around and it was all made clear. This wasn’t anything like I thought it would be. Not at all.

I was the only man in the place. Literally, the only man. Every single other person was a woman, ranging from my age to much, much older, all of them dancing in front of a live, loud band which was currently banging out Electric Six’ smash hit “Gay Bar”. I saw one girl whose only attire were some strategically positioned post-it notes, another with the crotch of her trousers covered in what I sincerely hope was tomato ketchup, and one who’d gone the whole hog and literally constructed a papier-mâché lady cave which fit around her torso like the world’s weirdest smoking jacket. All my previous private jokes about the girl I was with looking like Clare Balding were immediately put into perspective as I saw two girls ferociously making out against the far wall, their armpit hair glistening in the strobe lighting. I knew now why it was called the “Vagina Party”. In the dark, cramped, low-ceilinged room we had emerged into, there was not a single penis other than my own.

Dimly, through the shock, I felt a tug on my pink shirt. Clare (she shall forever be remembered as “Clare” in my head, as the hours I spent with her discussing terrible boy bands had forever wiped her real name from my mind) wanted to go and dance. I’ve always been reluctant to dance, recognising that I look like a raccoon who’s accidentally placed a paw into a fire when I attempt to do so, but have always found alcohol helps ease my fears; and given the sobering effect of realising what this party was, I felt the need for some delicious liver poison pretty keenly.

I motioned to Clare I needed a drink, and turned to the bar in the corner just as the heavily pierced barmaid drew down the metal shutter to signal it was closed. She smiled at me, and I allowed myself to be led on the dance floor, where I was immediately introduced to two of her friends, the girl with the post-it-note dress and a plumper girl wearing so much jewellery she nearly drowned out the band as she danced. I busted out a few moves, and they were drunk enough to not immediately throw me out of the room, which I took to be a good sign; they even seemed to enjoy my impression of Michael Jackson circa 2010. Despite it all, things were actually going rather well; and about to get even better, I thought, as Clare pulled my head towards hers.

When my lips met fresh air, I first thought that I’d simply missed (it’s been a long time); but no, she’d moved her face away from mine and instead was about to shout something into my ear.

“You’re so much fun!” she said. I was definitely, definitely in here. Stay focussed, Matt, don’t screw it up now...

“I’m just sad there aren’t any guys here for you!” she continued, and then danced off to look for another of her friends, leaving me with two girls I’d just met who were dancing together like they knew each other very, very well. I looked down at my salmon pink shirt, and felt like crying. Here I was, dancing, stone-cold sober, with a bunch of girls writhing all around me, mocking me with the occasional touch on my arm when I knew I had no hope in hell of going out with any single one of them.

“So not much different from all the other parties you’ve been to after all,” the little cynical voice inside me said. 

Skeletons in the Closet: Part 11

Yo! So, this is the final part of Skeletons in the Closet. Here are the links to all the other parts (which are also available from the first instalment, if you haven't read any of it yet!): 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7,  8,9 and 10! Thanks to all who have been reading, I hope you've enjoyed it; as always, feedback very appreciated! 

Grey warriors lay strewn across the rough stone floor of the Tunnicliffe wine cellar, their prone forms intermingled with heaps of empty green bottles which clinked and rolled with every drunken, slurred motion of the warriors’ limbs. Inane smiles were plastered on the faces of most of the warriors, although one or two, who had not been able to keep gallons of centuries-old wine in their stomachs for too long, were looking decidedly unhappier. The occasional shards of broken glass shimmered like tiny stars in the large pools of spilt wine which formed deep shadows in the gloom of the cellars, shadows which joined with the flickering darkness surrounding each of the inebriated undead. Even the most casual observer could deduce that this had been one hell of a party.

Maxwell, Lydia and Crichton, however, were not casual observers. On the contrary, for them, the party atmosphere had been somewhat disturbed by the necessity of their manic flight away from a group of bloodthirsty warriors intent on ending their lives in the most violent ways possible, and after finding a method to combat these monsters the trio were intent on repaying the favour with Wonga-high levels of interest. The speed and strength of the hellish grey creatures would, usually, have provided a considerable barrier to these intentions, but happily for the courageous threesome, these advantages had been impaired by the insidious influence of alcohol, which can ruin even the most successful afterlives. This is not to imply that the fight would be one-sided; the warriors were still dangerous opponents and vastly outnumbered our three heroes, yet the consumption of the majority of the Tunnicliffe’s ample wine stores had evened up the competition somewhat, so that, when the trio hurtled down into the cellars, frantically hurling their missiles at all and sundry, they were not summarily dispatched but instead accounted for about half of the creatures before any of them had realised what was happening.

The element of surprise, however, lasts for slightly less time than an eager virgin, and soon the battle between the living and the dead was fully joined. Lydia, Crichton and Maxwell weaved through the throng of struggling, alcohol-imbued bodies, frantically dodging the powerful swings of grey fists, knowing that any direct hit was liable to severely incapacitate them, and at every opportunity lashed out with their divinely anointed weaponry, breaking bottles on limbs, torsos and heads and sending their owners back to the hells that spawned them. It was akin to a brawl in a Northern bar, but with a slightly cleaner floor.

Lydia’s sleeve was torn clean off as she wrenched herself from the grasp of a long-dead warrior, Crichton smashing a bottle over its head as it stumbled, pulled off-balance; Lydia returned the favour, taking out a warrior behind Crichton who was about to deliver a crushing blow to the butler’s immaculately coiffeured head; Maxwell was slightly too slow in avoiding the attack of another warrior, whose sharp and dirty nails carved out a scar on the Reverend’s cheek before dissolving into dust as Maxwell retaliated with a wild swipe of a water-filled wine bottle. Panting, dishevelled, the trio fought as hard as they could, forcing back the creatures who had defiled the Tunnicliffe’s home and, judging by some of the rooms they’d passed as they made their way to the scene of the fight, quite a lot of the Tunnicliffe’s furniture, the fiends apparently not familiar with the difference between a caquetoire and a commode. Holy water made dark patterns in the dust of the floor, dust that was being augmented by the rapidly decomposing bodies of the fallen warriors; and then, with a last smash of breaking glass and a cut-off shriek of pain, it was over. The trio stood, breathing heavily, in the centre of the floor, surrounded by broken glass and piles of off-white dirt, the last of their supply of holy water spent, but their enemies vanquished. Scarcely daring to believe their victory, they straightened up, shoulders relaxing, and began to smile at one another.

Their smiles proved to be short-lived, disappearing from their faces as a terrifying apparition appeared, shrieking, in the cellar entrance, its long, dishevelled hair playing wildly about its head, crimson liquid running from its mouth, clothes muddy and torn. The trio whirled around, ready to fly into battle once more, but were shocked into stillness by the swaying, crazed-looking figure in the doorway. Then Lydia flung herself forward, arms outstretched, and seized it around the middle.

“Louise! Sister, you’re alive!” she shouted gleefully, before burying her face in Louise’s shoulder.

Louise, for it was she, did not seem to notice her sister’s embrace at first. “Where,” she said, enunciating each syllable slowly and carefully, “has all the wine gone?”

Lydia looked up at her, a slight frown passing over her face. “Sister, you’ve never drunk wine before, what is...”

She was cut off before she could finish her sentence. “I desire more wine!” Louise announced, disengaging herself from Lydia’s arms and taking an uncertain step towards Crichton, who stared at her inscrutably, and Maxwell, who stared with far more obvious puzzlement. “And why has my party stopped?” Louise demanded. Lydia tried to grab at her arm, but Louise swayed away, staggering a little from the force of her movement. Her foot caught one of the few wine bottles that had remained intact during the fight and she fell, feet flying up into the air. She began to make strange spluttering noises.

“She’s choking! Oh, Louise, what have they done to you?” Lydia cried, hurrying forward to cradle her sister in her arms. She clasped Louise’s head in her arms as her sister shook on the floor, still making those strange spluttering noises; then Lydia realised her sister was not choking, but laughing. She had never seen her sister laugh before.

“Lighten up, dear!” Louise cackled. She tried to rise to her feet but couldn’t quite manage it; as she fell back, laughing even harder, an empty wine bottle slid from her sleeve and smashed on the floor, adding to the debris of the battle. The concern vanished from Lydia's face, and she left her drunken sister to giggle on the floor as she stood up. Maxwell walked over to her, extending his arm for her to take.

“It’s over,” he said, smiling. “Let’s wait until she calms down a tad, then Crichton and I will help her upstairs and we can all get some well-earned rest. Right, Crichton?”

Crichton nodded, smartly. “Certainly, sir.” He took a half step towards the reverend.

Lord Achan appeared from the shadows behind the butler and, before he had a chance to turn, dealt him a tremendous blow that flung him across the room. He hit the wall with a sickening crunch and slid, unmoving, to the floor.

There was a moment of perfect stillness as Achan’s red eyes burned out of the darkness at the speechless Maxwell and Lydia, with Louise still incongruously giggling on the floor; then the undead lord leapt across the room, shadows flying out behind him like a ragged cloak, and landed directly in front of Maxwell, unleashing another devastating blow with his right fist.

A pool of spilt wine saved Maxwell’s life. As Achan had sprung towards him, he had taken an involuntary step back, his foot slipping in the puddle of liquid, and he stumbled, Achan’s fist flying through the air where his head had been mere milliseconds before and missing him by inches. He rolled as he hit the ground, and Achan’s left fist cracked the stone where he had so briefly lain; the Reverend’s hand came up holding a bottle, and he flung it at the monstrous figure attempting to deprive him of his life. It smashed into his chest, coating him with liquid. The fiend stepped back a pace, eyes turning down with horror to look at his grey, sodden torso.

For a moment, Maxwell’s heart leapt; then Achan looked up again, fixing him with those burning red eyes. His face was cold, his expression completely blank apart from the faint traces of a sneer caressing his lips.

“Waste of a fine vintage,” he said drily. Maxwell hurriedly shuffled backwards, still prone, as Achan took a menacing step towards him. His back hit the wall, and as his foe loomed above him, he knew this was the end.

Then Lydia leapt, screaming, onto Achan’s back, arms clasped tight around his neck.

“Leave him alone, you monster!” she shrieked.

Achan snarled, his snide sneer gone. He whirled around, reaching a long arm behind him to wrench Lydia from her precarious perch. He grabbed her around her neck and lifted her furiously struggling form into the air.

“I tire of this pantomime,” he said. She grabbed furiously, futilely, at the fingers that were clasped around her throat. Her skin began to turn white as he squeezed out her last breaths, his red eyes expanding to fill her vision, twin flames burning her away. Twin flames that flared up as he savoured his kill, growing into raging infernos as she struggled and choked.

Flames that disappeared, as Achan screamed in sudden pain and impotent fury. He released Lydia, who collapsed onto the floor, coughing and retching as tears flooded from her eyes, and his hands flew to his chest. Maxwell’s face appeared behind his shoulder.

“And here’s the curtain,” he said into the undead lord’s ear.

 Achan grew rigid, face horribly contorted and shadows frantically flickering across his grey skin, and dissolved into chalky, off-white dust. The last thing to fade was the red glow from his monstrous eyes. Darkness fell once more.

Lydia looked at Maxwell as he knelt down to help her. “How...we were all out of water... How did you...?”

He put his left hand in hers, and with his right he held up the chain around his neck, a chain from which hung, suspended, a small silver cross. “I thought, if holy water worked, then, well, a holy symbol might be worth a try,” he told her, half a grin on his face. He let the cross drop and put his hand to her cheek. Louise had fallen silent; there was no sound, now, except for Maxwell and Lydia’s breathing, no sight for either of them except for the other’s face.

“I’m just so glad you’re – ” he began, and her lips met his. For a moment, songbirds trilled their sweetest songs  and the sun shone brightly down on the pair; then a sad little coughing sound bought them back to reality. Breaking the kiss, they hurried over to Crichton, who lay in a spreading pool of blood in the corner of the cellar. They knelt on either side of him, Maxwell supporting his head; Lydia pulled back his black jacket and then stopped, recognising there was nothing she could do. Crichton saw the look in her eyes.

“Well, milady, it appears as though my tenure is coming to an end,” he whispered, each word an effort. He started to cough again, weakly. Lydia replied, her voice almost as halting as his as tears closed up her throat.

“It’s OK, Crichton. Don’t try to talk. It’s all going to be...”

Crichton’s mouth quirked, though the rest of his face remained stoic as ever. “I hate to disagree with you, milady, but I fear that will not be the case.” His eyes fluttered, and Lydia raised her hand to his cheek; Maxwell looked on, unable and unwilling to intrude on their private moment of farewell.

“You’ve been the perfect servant, Crichton, for as long as I can remember. I think that Lydia would be appropriate at this moment in time.”

Crichton smiled, properly this time. “Lydia,” he said. His eyes closed for the last time.

Maxwell held the woman he loved as she sobbed in his arms.

*

We have, dear reader, at last reached the end of our tale. Now it remains only to tie up loose ends, to create the finality that can only be found in stories and in death. Lydia and Maxwell, liberated by their shared experience and their newfound love, eloped to Vienna, where Maxwell got a lucrative job as supernatural adviser to the King of Austria, and Lydia opened a small art gallery with a studio overlooking the canals where she could sit and paint for as long as she wanted. Louise, having discovered the delights of parties (and free-flowing alcohol), soon became famous for hosting the most lavish, and most fun, social gatherings in the whole of Surrey; and the local builders, plasterers and carpenters received a timely and substantial boost to their income for the year after making the necessary repairs to Tunnicliffe Manor. Louisa was buried in the local village church, as per Tunnicliffe tradition; Harold’s body was donated to science, where it was studied by a young Genevan named Victor Frankenstein. No-one ever found out what happened to it after that.

Crichton’s body was buried in the grounds of Tunnicliffe Manor, in a small plot of land that was, on Lydia’s orders, to be kept well-tended for as long as the Tunnicliffe’s lived at the manor. The epitaph on his headstone read: “Here lies Crichton, the greatest butler there ever lived. Rest easy, for your duty is done.”

In the deepest and darkest depths of Hell, Lord Achan once more awaits his chance to rise up into the world and gain revenge on those who have wronged him.

Skeletons in the Closet: Part Ten

It's the penultimate part of Skeletons in the Closet! Here are the links to parts1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7,  8 and 9! I hope people have been enjoying it so far (and if you have, feel free to say so, because I'm very needy, and if you haven't, feel free to say so, because I want to get better and could probably do with being taken down a peg or two); anyway, here's Part Ten!

The butler did not mention the impoliteness of their open-mouthed stares, but with the selective discretion common to the greats of the butlering profession turned instead to his primary objective: the font. He took a swift glance towards the door, checking that it was holding; the wood was by now creaking ominously, and the beasts behind it were beginning to howl with bloodlust as they sensed they had nearly achieved their goal. Noticing the bottles on the floor, he picked one up and, his back to Maxwell and Lydia, dipped it into the foul-smelling water of the font. Luckily, the bottle was already green, so at least the trio were spared the unedifying sight of holy water staining clear glass.

Presently, Lydia found her voice. “Crichton...”

“Yes, milady?” Crichton answered, busy  filling up another bottle.

“Crichton... what the hell is going on?” Lydia asked. Maxwell decided he would let the blasphemy go, this time, since he himself was thinking a similar thing.

Crichton turned back towards them, a bottle in either hand. He still, they noticed, had the rope tied around his waist, and he proceeded to untie it and let it fall to the floor. His voice, as ever, remained smooth and even.

“Well, milady, as you have no doubt observed, the manor is under attack by the newly-raised dead, which is, of course, most undesirable. As the chief member of staff, I feel it is my duty to rid the manor of unwanted guests, and so I have proceeded here with all haste to procure some holy water, which I believe can be used as effective weaponry against the gentlemen outside, however ancient it may be; and I am using these glass vessels in order to transport this water to the other parts of the manor that have been occupied by the acquaintances of our... ill-mannered visitors, if I may use so impolite a term, milady.”

“Sorry... newly-raised dead?” Maxwell asked apologetically. “Is that what they are?”

“I believe so, sir. Raised, if I am not mistaken, by our late gardener, whom I have suspected for some time of having certain immoral depths which the eye could not readily see. His employment, fortunately for us, has already been terminated. I do not wish to be rude, sir, but would it be permitted for me to continue filling these vessels whilst we converse? I fear there may not be much time.”

Recognising this, Maxwell and Lydia picked up some bottles of their own and rushed to join Crichton in scooping the fetid water from the depths of the font. As they filled each bottle, they tucked it away into one of the folds of their clothing; Lydia, of course, found this the easiest, arrayed as she was in her highly impractical dress, whilst Crichton and Maxwell, as might be expected given their various uniforms of office, had any number of pockets in which to secrete items of this shape and size.

“Well, at least we know what we’re facing now,” Maxwell said. Lydia did not reply, as she was trying not to breathe, but Crichton nodded politely.

“Indeed, sir.” They hefted the last three bottles in their hands as they turned back towards the door. The howling from outside rose in intensity as small clouds of stone dust rose from around the now twisted and deformed hinges; the moment was almost upon them. They stood in a line facing the door, bottles held ready to throw as the old wood finally started to splinter under the blows of the reanimated dead. The howls grew still louder, joined now by the sound of tortured wood and the screech of breaking metal. Maybe five more impacts, four...

“Are you sure this will work, Crichton?” Maxwell asked out of the corner of his mouth.

“Well, sir, if there is any place where a miracle might happen...”

The door gave way. The first three screaming corpses leapt through the newly created gap, shadows trailing around them as they bounded towards the three companions. Crichton, Lydia and Maxwell aimed carefully at the approaching monstrosities, cocking back their arms as they prepared to hurl their blessed if foul-smelling missiles. Each fought a battle with their own fears as the howling, bloodthirsty fiends from the nether dimensions  sprang forward, ever closer, until, as the beasts bent their knees for the final violent lunge, the trio let fly.

The crazed howling swiftly turned into screams of agony. The three bottles flew straight and true, smashing into their intended targets with as much force as their owners could muster; each broke apart on impact, coating the three monstrosities in shimmering green fluid. Where it was touched by the water, their grey skin turned brilliant white, the shadows that played over their bodies chased away by the purity of the liquid; and then, with a strange sucking sound, it sank into their skin, and the monsters seemed to crumple into themselves, imploding as the fabric of their hell-forged being was destroyed by the blessed substance. The two warriors behind, seeing the demise of their comrades as they themselves began to sprint through the door, halted, their surprise mixing with their sudden terror and stopping them dead in their tracks; two more missiles from Crichton and Lydia meant their hesitation was fatal, as they too were dissolved by the holy water, leaving behind only streaks of off-white dust that mixed with the broken glass and dirt on the chapel floor.

Exultation swept over the trio. Maxwell and Lydia leapt, breathless, into each others’ arms, causing the bottles concealed in their clothing to clank and clatter; Crichton, of course, remained impassive, but if one watched very, very closely one could see even his mouth quirking ever so slightly. At length, Lydia and Maxwell released each other, and turned towards Crichton, ready for further action.

“So, what are we to do next?” Maxwell asked. Before Crichton could answer, Lydia jumped in.

“We kill the rest of these fiends, of course,” said Lydia fiercely, her eyes flashing. “They deserve everything that’s coming to them after what they did to Mother. And we need to find my sister, as well.”

It was clear from her tone she would brook no argument; not that Maxwell or Crichton, in their present triumphant state, would have wanted to disagree in any case. Smoothly, Crichton said “Certainly, Milady. May I suggest that we proceed to the wine cellars? On my way here I ascertained that the majority of them had congregated around the alcoholic beverages; I believe we have an ample supply of the font water to clean them out.” With a firm nod, Lydia swept out of the chapel, dress billowing behind her as Maxwell and Crichton followed, ready for any possible trouble on the way.

There was none; the only other people they saw were Berenice and Bridget, sprinting, or at least rapidly waddling, after a pair of grey warriors who had run past the trio too quickly for them to react. The trio shared a swift glance of disbelief but, after the events of the day, nothing would surprise them too much; and so, courage bolstered by their success and their desire for revenge on the creatures that had caused them so much heartache. 

Skeletons in the Closet: Part Nine

Hey everyone! So, here's part 9; there are two more parts after this, with the last part a special extended edition in the traditions of serials everywhere. Here are the links to parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8! Enjoy! 

As many of us have found to our consternation, even the most intimate moments never seem to last long enough; and soon the shuddering impacts on the chapel door shook the reverend and the youngest Tunnicliffe from their dual reverie. Releasing each other from their embrace, they noticed, with some alarm, that the door was starting to show the strain; the hinges, sunk into the stone around the one barrier saving the pair from a horrible and messy death, were starting to buckle with the force of the monsters’ blows, and both Lydia and Maxwell knew that the end was near.

They rose, and stood facing the source of the crashing beats that were measuring out the last minutes of their lives. Lydia’s hand found Maxwell’s, and gripped it tight, not seeming to mind its clamminess. This would usually be a good omen for their future relationship, but such concerns did not seem particularly applicable at the present time.

 “What… what do you think they are?” she asked him, her eyes fixed firmly on the door. Her mask had slipped back over her face as she strove to hide her fear, but Maxwell fancied he could still make out some of the softness that lay beneath her carefully crafted countenance.

“I have no idea. I’ve never seen anything like them before,” he answered. He tried to keep his gaze on the door, too, wanting to keep an eye on the situation, but he found it kept sliding back towards Lydia, her hair, the lines of her face…

They say the course of true love never did run smooth. In this case, what with social differences and the group of murderous fiends outside, love was having to run an assault course made of sandpaper and broken glass; but despite this, as you have no doubt been able to tell, Cupid’s arrow had found both Lydia and Maxwell’s hearts.

It was a shame that those hearts seemed shortly to be placed in a separate geographical location to the rest of their bodies, but every relationship has its teething troubles.

Lydia spoke again. “What are we going to do?”

Maxwell had no idea; his priestly training hadn’t prepared him for anything like this. The demons of Hell’s pits were, he had been told, insidious and persuasive, capable of altering the alignment of a man’s thoughts and feelings without him even knowing; but these were fully and obviously capable of permanently altering the alignment of a man’s limbs without caring if he was aware of them or not. Still, and though Maxwell, as has been said, was in many ways wetter than a glass of water, one of the duties of a vicar is to administer comfort in times of need. He glanced around the chapel, seeking something he could use. The windows were far too high for them to climb out of; there was no other exit from the chapel save the door which seemed soon to give way; and Maxwell knew that he and Lydia would be no match for the slavering fiends outside the door, even if they were to somehow fashion weaponry from the sparse materials inside the chapel. There was only one thing, then, that they could do; and they were, after all, in the perfect place to do it.

“We pray,” he said. The solemnity in his voice made her look away from the door for a moment; she nodded, and they both closed their eyes, ready to perform their last actions on the Earth.

Neither Maxwell or Lydia, it had to be said, could see this prayer having a great deal of an impact on their present situation. After all, words can only go so far; and if God had allowed events to carry on this extent, it was unlikely that he would suddenly change his mind. There is no prayer in the Christian religion specifically designed to cover impending death through dismemberment by unknown supernatural beings; perhaps the founders of the faith did not realise such a prayer might be needed (if so, they must be kicking themselves right about now).

Therefore, Maxwell decided to fall back on an old standard. He clasped his hands together as, standing beside him, Lydia did the same. “Our father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy...” he began.

It was a sentence that was never to be finished, as at that moment, there was an almighty crash, and their eyes both snapped open so they could see what they were sure was about to hurl itself through the door. A door which remained, miraculously, intact.

“Good evening, sir and madam,” said a smooth voice behind them. They looked up to see a man standing in the tall frame of one of the now-shattered stained-glass windows, silhouetted against the glow of the sun. He had a rope tied around his waist, which played out through the window behind him. Taking it in his hands, he now used it to shimmy down from the window to the ground, delicately picking his way through the shards of broken glass that now covered the floor.

“I am most dreadfully sorry about the mess,” he said. “I shall, of course, have it dealt with the moment our current crisis has been happily averted.”

Lydia and Maxwell just stared at him in amazement. It was Crichton.