At 3am on Halloween morning he awoke to see a figure by the bed. Still, silent, watching him. He blinked and it was gone. But it’s memory stuck in his mind. A grey haired tall woman. Middle aged, quite slender. He sat up and looked all round the room, but the only noise was the tick of the clock and the hum of the central heating. There was no place to hide in the small single bedroom. Not even any curtains to hide behind, with a telltale shoe sticking out. He doubted anyone could squeeze behind venetian blinds…..
Eventually sleep dragged him down into its arms again. Then when he was settled, the figure pushed through the wall and back next to him again. Eyes staring, never blinking, a look of sadness on her face. Never knowing her grandson till now. Knowing it was his last night on earth. One minute here… Tick… The next.. Gone.
Eyes open, staring at the ceiling, or eyes closed and flashes and patterns inside my eyelids. Curling tight in a ball, shivering with cold. Why did I turn the heating off? Pulling the duvet over my head, hoping the warmth of my breath will bring feeling back to my hands. Its only October but the temperature has dropped. So many nights without proper sleep. Pain and worries mingle, darkness does not enfold me in its arms, but instead picks on my mind. It hurts me, darkness extends into the future. Dawn arrives later every morning. Enveloping me in misery. Stay up, keep the lights on. Speed the night through watching TV.
Only days till Halloween, what is waiting for me? Noise outside again. Is there anyone there? If I could sleep I would be oblivious to it. Oh what can I do?
A mouth full of teeth? No two! When the dragon egg hatched Ernic did not expect to see this! Double headed dragons were a rarety these days. They were more legend than reality.
The dragon was named Tuis, meaning two, and the villagers became more nervous as it grew. Ernic was given the task of feeding it. But those two heads could eat double what a normal dragon ate. Crunching bone and flesh. Dragons didn’t eat humans but they were carnivores. They would sometimes belch flame but they did not need to tendorise their food, their teeth were strong enough to bite through anything.
A gap of a few months ensued, all was quiet, Tuis continued to grow. But his mood started to change. Now he was angry. It was as if each head had a different mind and they started to squabble. One head was more dominant and no matter how Ernic tried it would grab more food. Tuis one was bigger than Tuis two. It had a darker gleam in its eyes. Shar teeth would snap at its twins head.
Finally it happened that One’s teeth grazed Two’s neck. Snap! The deed was done. Tuis smaller head collapsed forward. Then a look of utter despair came across Tuis face. He crumpled. Double trouble. Dead.
I could add edges to this photo and make a more definite heart shape, but I like it as it is. Late summer fluffy clouds drift in a sky that turned cloudy and grey an hour later. Laurel, Russian vine and Wisteria frame the blue. The vine has been cut back and the flowers are turning brown. The Wisteria needs pruning and the laurel is blocking out most of the light in our sunny patch.
Most of the rest if the garden is covered over with trees. The leaves gather light from every gap. It’s amazing how they space themselves so they fit together like a jigsaw puzzle.
You look up and try and see dragons or puppies in the sky. Dancing horses, faces, hands, ufo’s, giraffes, teddy bears. It’s all there, up in that heart of sky.
She gave me the metal cat as a present, it was sweet of her, but I could not get over the staring eyes. Googly eyes. Glass eyes. It was like the cat had no eyelids.
I put my ‘present’ on the windowledge in the kitchen. As the nights drew in the cat was more noticeable. The eyes, staring. I would try and look the other way as I walked past it to the back door or the bathroom, and on my return I would look at the cooker or the fridge just to avoid its eyes. Her eyes, definitely female, feline eyes.
It was a few months later, September or October, when the nights began to last longer than the days. I looked over at her, but she was facing the other way? Looking out of the window? I asked my husband, no he hadn’t moved her. I asked him to put her back facing inwards. She’s heavy so he did it for me. But, the next night, the same thing. We moved her back… This was the same every night for a week. It kept happening.
The next night I looked and she wasn’t there. I looked around, she was by the cat flap! This was mad. Either my husband was doing it, or the cat had some sort of magical power? I was getting scared it was very strange. I wanted to tell someone, but my husband said if I told the police, or friends, they would think I was going daft.
Every time I put the cat back it moved overnight. So what else could I do? I stayed up after my husband had gone to bed. I looked in the kitchen, and as I did, the cat stretched, front legs, then back legs, arched it’s back, tail straight up…. And jumped… Jumped off the ledge, onto the kitchen counter and onto the floor! It looked back with those eyes…. I was mesmerised. It walked to the back door and I followed. It pawed at the door. What could I do? I opened it. As I did, ghostly black cat shapes poured in! All of them with staring eyes. I knew then I wasn’t safe….
Something is watching me… Not cctv, not a plane or helicopter, not a satellite. Just… Something.
People say I’m mad, I’ve lost my mind. I believe in portents, I’ve seen the films, read the books. I looked at the Internet. The news isn’t fake. It’s real. Aliens aren’t coming, they are here. My friends call it gibberish, flim flammery, but I Know I’m being watched.
The eyes are there, I can feel their power. Watching, waiting, ready to take over. All it will take is one tweak to their gene pool. One extra piece of the puzzle. One grim fact and then……. Man will be subservient.
Just saw something flying over the house in the night sky. Four really strange star shaped objects, glowing, shedding sparkling light as they drifted across the sky. Glittering and shimmering. Beautiful and obtuse. No signals from them, neither radio nor radiation. They are still visible on the Eastern horizon. I decided to follow them in my car. I realised how hard it is to drive and watch the sky though! Several near misses later and I was driving along a dark road into the countryside. The star shards were lower in the sky, loosing altitude..
How much further? Holographic shimmers, suddenly stopping abruptly in a dark field?
I climbed over the style, up the hill towards a high hedge, eyes accustomed to the dark, I saw….
Not UFOs but four holographic star shaped balloons, tied with ribbon, stuck in a tree!
He was stern, bearded, he was a patriarch and knew it. He had always been strict with the women and girls in the village. They could come and go, but were not allowed to go to lessons, while the boys had schooling, and of course the best food and clothes.
Nothing would change his mind, that was how things were and that was how it would always be.
His daughter, turning ten years old, looked up to him. But she was clever. Too bright for washing clothes till her hands went red, too clever for feeding the chickens or wringing their necks and plucking them when the time came. She could do everything girls five years older than her were capable of. She stitched and sewed, she span wool. She was useful and her father knew it.
‘father’ she would ask. ‘Why is the sky blue? How old is the world?’ Or ‘why are the clouds that shape?’ One day she even asked why the moon waxed and wained. Her father would just say ‘none of your nonsense my girl’ or ‘get back to your laundering’. The daughter turned round sadly and carried on with her chores.
For two years this carried on, until one day the father became ill, he took to his bed, and despite his wife’s care he only grew worse. His eyes were closed when his daughter bought his supper to him one evening. She spooned some broth into his mouth, he retched, but she persevered. Little by little he supped the food. Later she came to check on him and he seemed a little better.
A week later he was sitting up in bed. His daughter came into the room and he held her hand as she gave him more broth. ‘what’s in this food’ he asked ‘it tastes strange, bitter’ ‘just herbs’ she said.
When he had fully recovered the father asked his wife what she had used to make the broth, ‘it wasn’t me’ she said. ‘Daughter talked to the old women, she made the broth after speaking to them’.
Later he talked to his daughter ‘how did you know how to cure me?’ ‘I asked questions like I always do’ she said.
Finally his mind changed. ‘you will go to school my girl, if you can learn such things off old women, I want to know what you can learn in class’.
The daughter started school and after four years she was taken into college. Finally she was trained as an apothecary. From then on the father insisted all the children, girls as well as boys, should be taught.
It was early one morning, I had to go out to visit a friend, but they were out when I got there. Which way to go home, the way I had come or the scenic route. It was a no brainer. I carried on into the beautiful countryside. I knew that the road joined up with a main road further on, but I’d never been up this lane before. Still I had the car window open. The sun was shining down on the local fields, the great avenue of trees along the road gave a cooling dappled shade. I came round a few bends, lowering my speed as the lane became more winding, narrower? That could not be right? I had driven straight along the lane. I knew it joined up further on? I kept going, now the trees were looming in on me. The lane became a rutted track. Nowhere to turn, could I reverse back? There was a fence up ahead. A gate in it had a blue sign on it. A sign with what seemed to be a face looking forward and two more looking to either side. Below that were the words ‘no Entry’ experimental research station. Where the hell had I gone….? There was an intercom box on a stone pillar next to the gate. I rang the bell, and after a pause a voice said, ‘state the nature of your business?’. All I could day that I was lost.
‘state your name’ the same toneless spoke again. I told them and just asked to be allowed through the gate so I could turn the car around. ‘wait there’ was the answer. I was standing by my car, the daylight starting to go… Waiting…. Waiting..
*NEWS* the body of a woman in her fifties has been found on a lane in Staffordshire. No marks were found on the body. But police say it may be a woman that went missing from her home a week ago.
It was high up in the sky, a cloud shaped like a bird? No shaped like a white dove. A dove of peace.
All around the world people looked up and saw it. The symbol of peace.
We saw it one evening, then again the next day. It was happening everywhere. People were posting images on the Web. On visage journal and quick telegraph!
The government’s didn’t like it. They asked their troops and scientists to investigate. Look at the occurrences. Telescopes were trained on each cloud. Radar and radio telescopes. No sign of a reason. It was a mystery.
A week after it started it ended. People saw Elephants and crocodiles in the clouds, turtles and Teddy bears. But no mote of dust or speck of mist became a dove of peace. People started to miss them. Fights broke out between neighbours, children cried. The world had lost magic. Sadness flew round the world. Maybe one day there woukd be an answer.
Mallaband-Brown 