The guttering lamps threw the room into a skewed menagerie of shadow monsters, climbing the walls and stretching their forelegs across the low roof, menacing and oppressive. Paul had no eyes for them. He watched the old man sitting at the little wooden table, rapt with interest. Over the top of the table, a shadow hung in the air, as if it had sprung from the wall to just hover, dark and impenetrable.

Paul squinted, and to him it appeared as though the shadow was not a solid substance, but rather a hole in the air - a rip into the canvas of reality, to some dark place behind. The longer he stared the more convincing the illusion became. He struggled to make out shapes and detail in the blackness between the ribbed strings of lit room that were strung across the rip. The old man waved his hand across it, strumming the harp-strings of the room behind.

"Can you bring her back?" Paul swallowed, not taking his eyes from the hole. The old man shook his head sadly and ran a hand through his wispy hair.

"No," he replied "it doesn't work like that. The dead just stay."

Alexander's room was not unlike the rooms of most boys his age. It had a wall with a window, a wall with a door, a wall plastered in posters and a wall of shelves - a vast pigeon-pocketed clutter of toys and books. The posters over his bed reached across the room, spreading slightly onto the ceiling. The mysterious eyes of astronauts and racing car drivers watched him toss and turn with a certain nonchalance. Like some boys, Alexander dreamed of an exciting life in the stars of space, or adventurous dust of the racetrack.

Like most boys Alexander had a monster under his bed. The monster's name was Brown. Alexander had never seen him, but they spoke in hushed voices at night, of the things that Alexander had seen during the day, and of what Brown was thinking, under the bed. Like all boys, Alexander suspected that the world might be dark and terrible. One night he told Brown.

"I suspect," he whispered "that the world is dark and terrible." Curled under his quilt, Alexander had his ear pressed to the mattress, listening closely for Brown's rusty voice to grate through the squeaky springs. There was no immediate reply, so he continued: "It is a dangerous place. There are creatures slithering underneath the sewer grates! And dragons coiled around the church towers! And Wendigo prowl the streets looking for human flesh on which to sup! And Mr. Fowley is a wizard!" Alexander pouted. "He gave us extra homework."

Brown's wheezing laughter worked its way up to Alexander. Alexander held his breath and waited for him to speak.

"What a strange idea, that the world is dark," Brown creaked, his voice like that of an old chair at school. "Under here it’s dark. I can hardly see my posters and my toys."

Alexander clicked his tongue. "Don't be silly - monsters don't have posters and toys. Those are things that boys have," he admonished.

Brown grunted in dissent. "Monsters can have those things too, if they want them."

Alexander slid around under the duvet, until his feet were tucked warmly under the pillow. He smiled wickedly and drummed his hands on the mattress to annoy Brown. "No you can't - and you don't. Monsters can't have toys, because when they do they mistake them for boys and eat them."

"What?" Brown gasped. "Do little boys look like tricycles? Do they look like books, or bears, or blocks, or board games? Or any of the things you have tucked in your shelves?" Brown rustled - a sure sign that he was shaking his head. "Boys are not like that. Boys are soft and smooth - not like any of those things."

"Boys are soft and smooth!" Alexander giggled. "No they aren’t! I'll see if you have toys," he proclaimed. He pulled himself over to the edge of his bed and hooked his feet between the mattress and the wall. "Show me your toys." He hung over the side, peering into the shadows under his bed, his black hair hanging from his head like a brush.

There was movement in the corner, where the dark was thickest.

"I don't see any toys,” Alexander stated, with a forced innocence. "Just dust."

Brown grumbled in the black. "I was lying. I'm a monster."

"So?" Alexander scrambled back up into the protection of the bed.

"Monsters lie."

Alexander rested on the quilt with his feet under his pillow. "Mr. Fowley lies," he mused distractedly, trying to spot the soft bits on Buzz Aldrin’s smiling face. "And he can cast spells."

"What kind of spells?" Brown sounded genuinely interested, so Alexander rolled over and pressed his head to the sheets.

"He cast a spell on Tracy," Alexander hissed. "And now she doesn't talk in class. He sometimes casts spells during class - but only little ones - when he thinks no one's looking."

"You were looking?" Brown asked.

"I'm really good at looking like I'm not looking," Alexander boasted. "When really I am."

"Has he ever cast a spell on you?" Brown asked, critically.

"Maybe," Alexander whispered earnestly. "I don't know."

"I bet he has," growled Brown. Alexander felt uncomfortable - the conversation stood upon uneasy ground. He didn't like that Brown sometimes implied he was not a good boy. He rolled over and watched Buzz grin down at him.

"Has he?" Brown rasped.

"Shh!" Alexander shushed him. "Probably not, he only casts spells on the bad children - I'm always good."

"I'm always good," Brown mimicked - his voice high and squeaky. "Why would Mr. Fowley be mean to good kids?" he chirped.

Alexander tried hushing him again, but Brown ignored him. The bed rocked as Brown became excited. "How can Mr. Fowley cast spells? Why would Mr. Fowley cast spells on you? Why does he give you homework, when he said he wouldn't?"

"Shoosh!" Alexander's voice rose above Brown's for a moment, and then both fell silent. Alexander heard footsteps on the stairs.

The door opened, and light sprung into the room. Alexander peeked out from under the Duvet. His father stood in the doorway, silhouetted against the landing light, one large hand around the doorknob.

"Alexander," he said, and glared into the room.

Alexander scrambled back up the bed until his head could lie on the pillow. "Sorry."

The door closed.

"Why then?" he whispered, but Brown had been scared away for the night.

He pouted and pulled the quilt over himself. "I suspect," he told Buzz, "that the world is dark and terrible."

"She's asleep," whispers the monkey, pulling for purchase at the sheets of the bed.

"Stop that groping there," the horse replies, poking his nose through the dark silk hangings. "You will wake her, and she will be cross." The horse rolls his eyes around in his head. They shine in the faint moonlight, standing out against his dark grey head and long neck extending into shadow.

The monkey leans back on his haunches and scratches his head. "You look funny," he furrows his brows as he observes the floating equine head over the bed. "And sure are stupid for a horse."

Affronted, the horse attempts the casual raise of a bushy eyebrow. The monkey rolls backward onto his head and quivers with silent laughter at the spectacle.

"You're a horse in a wind-tunnel! You're a horse in a wind-tunnel!" He gasps.

The girl turns over. The horse shoots the monkey a worried glance.

"She'll wake," he mouths. The monkey stands entranced by the pearly white teeth of the horse, and his lolling pink tongue. Expressionless and wide-eyed the monkey catches glimpse of the crescent moon reflected in his eyes. The darkness behind the horse, almost complete, rustles as the horse nervously shifts his tail.

"You have perfect teeth," the monkey states.

The horse snorts pompously.

"You shouldn't be looking."

As lonely as she was, Lucy should still probably not have built the robot.

It was sitting in the dark cellar, the broken moonlight filtering through the moss covered window beating a silent tattoo into its skin. Lucy watched it carefully, her hands gripping pliers and her chin resting on her oil stained knees.

“I am human,” lied the robot. “I have human hands and feet, I talk and I feel.”

The robot wriggled its legs and tried to stand, but couldn’t find the balance. Lucy had disconnected its arms and they hung uselessly by either side of the crate that the robot sat on. Lucy bit her lip.

“You’re not a human. I made you.”

“You make humans.”

Lucy laughed. What a strange idea. There was no humour in the sound of her laughter. She laughed in the way she had always heard her mother laugh. On the phone with a stranger who had stolen her nights. An unseen, but irresistible presence that had shaped Lucy’s life. A man her mother called “your father.”

She would talk for hours with “your father”, her finger coiling around the spiral cord of the phone. She would tap her feet on the lino floor and furrow her brows with worry and she would laugh. Lucy woke in the night when she heard that laugh and she would walk bleary eyed into the kitchen. She would pull on her mother’s dressing gown and ask:

“Mommy, what are you afraid of?”

“Shh dear,” her mother would reply. Her eyes would become temporarily less frantic, and her voice hushed. “Go back to bed.” And Lucy was fooled by her pretended sanity and obeyed.

“Are you coming home?” She would hear, as she climbed the stairs, and her mother would laugh.

“I couldn’t make you human,” Lucy told the robot. “I tried. I swear I tried.”

Her voice was pleading, as though she really had tried. And of course she had, or would have, if she had known how.

“I think and I feel,” repeated the robot. It tapped its feet against the hard cement of the cellar floor. “What more makes a human?”

Lucy chewed on her lip as she thought of her answer. When she was six she had thought her dog, Zappy was human. She had climbed out onto her roof with Zappy, and he had slipped on the wet tiles, sliding and yelping from the edge.

“It’s ok,” her mother had consoled her after she had driven Zappy to the vet. He had lain in the back of the car, breathing heavily, while Lucy tugged his ears and stroked his head and cried that his tail did not move.

“We can get another one,” she consoled her child.

“We can?” Lucy sobbed. Her breathing juddered as she drew it in. She thought her mother meant another Zappy. Her mother nodded, neither one understanding the other. Her mother took her by the hand.

“Shall we go have a look?”

Lucy had clung to her mother’s hand as they made their way to the shelter, and the bitter end to Lucy’s childhood.

“I can replace you,” Lucy told the robot.

“You can’t,” replied the robot. Lucy felt anger welling against the rebellious tone of its voice.

“Of course I can! There’s nothing I love about you,” she yelled.

“I don’t need your love.”

“Yes you do! You're not human,” she yelled. “You don’t belong! You sit in the cellar and you stare at mirrors. You talk and think and feel, and it amounts to nothing!”

“Are you done?”

Moonlight spilled through the window, beating a silent tattoo onto Lucy’s skin. She hugged her knees and tapped her feet.

“You don’t belong,” she whispered.

In Treehill mothers tell stories of the Frorgrwar as they sit next to their children, smoothing the sheets on their son's beds, and brushing the hair from the eyes of their daughters. The children listen in fear as their mother tells them of other little boys and girls, just like them, who were naughty and carried off into the night.

Treehill, surrounded by high walls, raised above the dark forest, is not a safe place for children. The Frorgrwar sneaks through the little gaps in the wall, climbs through their windows and takes them away, to the forest.

He eats their flesh, and makes little toys from their bones.

Lucy lived in Treehill. Until the Frorgrwar crept through her window she didn't believe in bogeys. It grabbed her in a large hairy hand, so that only her feet poked out from the bottom, and her dark hair peeked out from between its massive fingers.

It didn't let her go again until they were miles into the dark forest that surrounded Treehill. It dropped her in a hollow, made from tree branches, and bones. It was dark, and smelled of frightened children.

She got to her feet as her captor shouldered through the small bushy opening, into its lair.

Lucy studied the Frorgrwar. It had cloven hooves, course fur, and long black claws. Its mouth was filled with pointed teeth and serrated gums. It had two curved horns sprouting from the clumps of dark hair on its head. It had a beard and a tail.

“What are you?” she asked.

“What am I? I am nothing but what I exact upon the world!” roared the Frorgrwar. “I am the Terror of Treehill! I am the Scourge of the Forest!” It puffed up its chest. “I'm the bogeyman who steals children from their beds! An eater of babies! An antagonist of stories!”

“You're a little bit goaty.” Lucy commented.

“What?” The Frorgrwar asked, taken aback.

“Well you have those goat horns and hooves,” she mused. “Although I don't know what that is,” she pointed.

The Frorgrwar looked down. “My navel? Everyone has one of those.”

“Yes, but. Most belly-buttons don't have that swirly purple light in them.”

“Of course they do!” exclaimed the Frorgrwar. “Everyone has a Mortal exactness orifice, how else do they taste moral alignment?”

“We don't.” Lucy said.

“You don't?” Asked the Frorgrwar incredulously. “Then how do you know if someone's good, or if they're evil?”

“We just guess.”

The Frorgrwar blinked.

“You humans scare me.”

A scarlet butterfly fluttered through the air, washing back and forth on the shore wind, coming to rest on a standing stone, overlooking the rocky cliff that descended into the waves below. It stretched its wings in the sun, clinging to the mottled rock of the standing stone.

“Raaah!” yelled the stone.

The butterfly took off in haste.

“Stupid bugs, tickling my face” complained the stone. The others harumphed in agreement.

The speaker was the largest of the stones standing by the cliff, of which there were seven. No one knows how the stones came to be there, whether by a freak of nature, or an act of god, or the crazed desire of druids, their method arrival had been forgotten, along with their use. The largest stone, a dark granite block sunk into the ground, gently creaked.

“I remember when there were no bugs,” it sighed. “Things were different then. The sun was brighter, and the ice never worked its way so deep into my crevices.”

The gathered stones sighed, in the way only a hunk of rock can. It's a very quiet sigh, but carries a very great amount of nostalgia.

“I was heavier then,” recalled the third largest stone. “And taller too, real impacting I was. To look at.”

The other stones harumphed.

The smallest stone, who had not been standing by the sea cliff for as long as any of the others couldn't remember a time when there had been no insects. It joined in the general sighing and harumphing to fit in, but a general curiosity began to well up in its craggy mind.

“I forget,” it began, hesitantly, “when did the bugs appear?”

The largest stone chuckled. The others joined in with it, clicking like pebbles in the wake of a good joke. Although a couple of the other smaller stones were also looking a little curious themselves.

“Listen closely then,” the large stone began

“Before there were insects, there were flowers. They carpeted the ground, where we stand, and the entire world behind us. There was no grass, any green, but yellow in its stead, and blue, and pink and crimson. The world was frenetic and beautiful.

“The day came when the sun dropped from the sky. The world fell into darkness, steep shadows pulling backward from the pool of light made by the sun, as she walked the land. Many great heroes came to force her into the sky, diplomats pleaded with her, devils tempted her. But she would not climb back into the sky, and the world withered.

“The people of the world gathered close, but not too close, for her fiery temper was infamous.

“The sun, tired of the attention and the sky gifted her light to the fairies and became a mortal."

***

Querent's hand danced, tugging and slackening on the strings tied to his fingertips. Beneath him two rough-crafted wooden puppets danced. One puppet was a spindly driftwood man, bleached white and playing the moon. The other puppet was deep red heartwood, the setting sun. They swore bonds of love beneath the endless sky of their home, on the stone bench by the side of the road where Querent performed they swore oaths beneath his hands, in his voice.

The moon wept, he had left his lagoon for the sun, its deep waters had washed him clean, turned him white. His old home had crawled beneath his skin and changed him. He loved the sun, but he knew that he had to return to the mountains; to the water.” Querent told his story to the man sitting next to him. “And the sun nodded, she told the moon that she would follow him to the mountains until he was ready to rise back into the sky, and follow him there.”

Querent smiled softly and shook the puppets, which jiggled disjointedly.

“And that's how it has always been.”

The other man's shoulders shook, as if he had shivered. He grinned, “How it's always been.”

His name was Frit. He was thin, and tall enough that thin became spindly. His skin was deeply tanned, his hair red and wild. Even sitting still, resting on the back of the stone bench, he seemed to move.

He stretched and scratched. He was mostly a man, but there was some small part of him that was fairy. When asked where the fairy came from he would tell them it was from his love of flowers, but most didn't trust him. You shouldn't trust someone who is mostly a man.

Querent, who was entirely a man, didn't ask.

Tartha smiled and stood from the verge of the road. She brushed the petals from her clothes and paced across the dirt road toward him.

“That’s how it’s always been?” She asked, a tone or incredulity in her voice.

Her hair was red, as red as Frit’s. Her eyes shone with an amber glow. There was a part of her that was fairy. She would say that it was the part she didn’t want anymore. Or more likely, would laugh and walk away.

Frit sprang to his feet.

“Of course!” He appeared behind her, leering over her shoulder. “Until now!”

And then he was back on the bench; legs crossed like a man deep in meditation.

“Until the fairies stole the light.” He said. “Until the fairies began to die out, and the sun realised too late, the penalty of mortality.”

“Oh?” Tartha asked sarcastically. “The sun herself forgot of death? And of pain?”

“No no no.” Frit sprang to his feet, standing on the bench, towering over Tartha. “She forgot of love. And desire.” He grinned. “And that fairies are bastards.”

Querent listened to the fair folk talk.

“That is why I am here!” Frit exclaimed. “I’m the last of the light that she relinquished.” He puffed up proudly. “I’m all that stands between her and her immortality.” He appeared behind the bench, hands firmly on Querent’s shoulders.

“And who are you?”

Querent laughed. “You know me, Frit,” he tried to turn but Frit’s hands held him in place. “We’re travelling companions.”

Frit lowered his head to Querent’s ear. “But who have I been travelling with?” he asked dryly, “I’ve seen you wake in your sleep. Your wet eyes watch me while I dream.”

Querent said nothing. Frit looked up. “And who are you? Mysterious lady we meet on the road to the valley of light?”

Tartha shrugged, “I live here, at the edge of the light.”

Frit cried jovially and tiptoed backward into the field of flowers, the dew left wet streaks on his legs. “These answers are not answers at all!” he chuckled. “I’m going mad from this.”

He looked at Querent, and for a moment Querent could see, behind his joking eyes and fairy smile Frit was afraid, so filled with fear that every laugh was a scream of despair.

“I want rid of my gift.” He whispered.

And then he smiled, regressed, and he was Frit again. Dancing through the flowers, looking so much like a seed in flight.

Querent stood, putting his puppets away.

“I’m Querent,” he told the dancing Frit. “I’m on a quest that doesn’t concern you, whether you carry the sun or not.”

Frit paused in his capering.

Tartha cleared her throat. “I too am on a quest, of sorts.” She smiled, and in the light from the valley her teeth shone. Her red hair silhouetted. “A fairy stole a very important part of me.”

Frit spun and pointed at her, his arm quivering. “Liar!” he shouted. “There are no more fairies.”

“There is some fairy left,” Tartha replied. “There will always be a little bit, like dregs in men.”

Querent stood between the two fair folk, the friction in the air causing the hairs on the back of his neck to rise. He could feel Frit’s breath on them.

“You are the sun.” He said.

Tartha’s eyes flared amber and gold.

“You gave your power away, nothing was stolen!” Frit said. He was suddenly in front of Querent, his hand raised to strike Tartha.

He froze, his hand still in the air above his head. A single petal stuck to the dew on his fingers.

Tartha laughed, plunging her hot fingers into Frit's throat. His sobs were pulled out of his lungs and scattered across the field. He fell back onto the mat of flowers beneath him.

Tartha cried out exultant and climbed back into the sky, light flooded back into the world, colour seeped in from the edges. The sun stung Querent's eyes, he fell to his knees and tore the flowers from the ground and threw them into the air.

The flowers touched by Frit's blood sprung open like new buds. They sprouted legs, opened eyes and glided over the field. Beneath them other flowers took notice, triggering a latent desire for flight.

The ground seemed to rise.

The air was filled with a myriad of colours, fluttering insects, and the sound of ruffling wings. And through the kaleidoscopic chaos around him, Querent did not lose sight of the sun. Tartha changed, and yet stayed the same. Her grinning face hung in the sky, and grew, and brightened and filled his vision. He screamed.

He screamed and screamed and cried, until his tongue turned dry, and his throat and his eyes and his heart. He turned to stone, standing among the butterflies.

***

A brightly coloured butterfly landed gracefully on the largest stone. The stone didn't yell.

“He became a stone?” asked the smallest stone. “Like us?”

“No,” the largest stone smiled. “We've always been rock. Haven't we?”

The other stones muttered in agreement, but a few of the smaller standing stones looked unsure; they couldn't remember.

“There is a man called morning. Tendrils of his long misty beard tangle in the growing grass. When the sun rises, he cries. And that is where dew comes from.”

Claire sniffs and looks at her toaster with little of the respect usually held for such machines. She pulls her hood tighter, raindrops plink against the toaster’s stylish chrome covering.

“No, dew happens when air cools until it is saturated with moisture.”

“You think you know everything,” the toaster mutters under its breath.

“I know I don’t really need a toaster,” Claire says. “Especially a poorly built, lacklustre toaster with a troubled childhood.”

“What if you want toast?” asks the toaster.

Claire sniffs again and wrinkles her nose.

“Toast is carcinogenic.”

“Only if you burn it!” objects the toaster.

“You always burn it.”

Claire carries the toaster under her arm as she walks along the cement road bordering the wall. The rain runs down the solid stone to her left, pooling in the cracks of the ground, making little seas for the miniature plants that have pushed through. Claire steps over the puddles.

She leans against a gust of wind that pushes her toward the wall, the rain whips straight, stinging her cheek. She steps into the raindrops.

Inside the rain there is a shining castle of mirrors and glass. Columns of crystal stretch from the floor, branching out and splitting apart as they touch the jagged ceiling, mingling with one another. As Claire passes beneath the hanging spines and between the columns her reflection is passed about and shared, her sudden appearance soils the mirrors. She is walking between a hundred images of herself.

“This is the palace of the Rainbow King,” Claire whispers. “This is where he makes colour.”

“I’m chrome,” states the toaster proudly. “It’s very stylish, you know.”

Claire raises an eyebrow.

Claire’s boots make dark wet marks and angry claps on the glimmering floor. She enters into the Hall of The Forgotten Night and a mug drops onto her head.

“Ow!”

The mug bounces off and cracks on the floor, Claire drops the toaster, which lands beside it.

“I say,” offers the toaster. “You were just assaulted by a bad pun.”

“Owww.” Claire pulls her hood back and rubs her head. “There’s already a lump.” She pouts.

Claire bends down to lift the toaster and becomes aware of a very large, very wide man. He puts his hands over his chest and laughs.

“Uhm… can I help you?” Claire asks.

“No, I don’t think so.” Chortles the fat man. He’s wearing a suit of glass armour and a belt made of card. Claire notes the belt buckle has been drawn in crayon.

“I’m a Knight.” The self-proclaimed knight slaps his belly, which wobbles. “Sir Cumference.”

The toaster collapses in fits of laughter. Claire sticks out her tongue in disgust.

“That’s terrible.”

“It’s bloody brilliant.” The toaster chokes.

The knight smiles delightedly at the toaster. “See my belt?” He asks. “A waste of paper.”

“Did you throw that mug at me?” Claire asks.

“Maybe.” The knight grins. “I’m not at liberty to say.”

Claire pauses.

“Ok.”

She moves forward, but the knight leans to block her.

“Will you let me by?” Claire asks, moving the toaster back under her arm.

“No.” The knight beams.

“Oh.”

Claire thinks. She simply must speak to the King before the day is over.

“Please?”

“No.” The knight’s eyes twinkle thematically.

The toaster squeaks its handle.

“Hey, Cumference. Have you forgotten how to throw a boomerang?”

Puzzlement crosses the knight’s face, followed quickly by a moment of joyous realisation and a heavy wooden stick. His eyes cross and he rolls backward.

“Don’t say it.” Claire pleads.

“Hehe,” the toaster chuckles. “It came back to him.”

“Let's just get out of here.”

They cross the hall quickly, side-stepping the gently rocking mass of the knight and through the arch at the opposite side.

The King waits for them in the next chamber. His cloak, the Rainbow, gracefully curves from his golden throne to the floor. His face is youthful, filled with pink and peach. A band of green binds his auburn and crimson hair. His emerald armour reflects the light that bounces throughout the castle, its colours darkening in the breastplate to a deep blue.

It’s where the King bruised his heart.

His eyes are old and grey.

When he sets his eyes on Claire he lets out a cry of angry recognition and lunges from his throne, stabbing forward with his sharp white spear.

Claire screams, the toaster leaps.

The air is filled with sparks and the smell of toast.

A light pall of smoke drifts between the endless reflections like hanging silk.

The King sits on his throne, his ruby armour darkening in the breastplate to a deeper shade of blue. His cloak is scorched.

The toaster clatters to the floor. Claire cries out and grabs it before it slides away.

“Toaster!”

“Are you all right?” It asks Claire. Its chrome voice is weak.

“Yes, you saved me.” She weeps. The king’s armour is slowly fading green.

“I broke my heating element.” The toaster sighs.

The 'In Use' LED dims from the chrome. Claire clutches the toaster to her chest.

“Why are you here, Claire?” The king asks. He cannot move anymore.

“I brought you a present.” Claire sobs.

“A present?” the king’s lip quirks. “What?”

“I got you a toaster.”

The king softens to ochre and cream as his eyes fall to the toaster.

“Chrome, nice.” He nods. “Stylish.”

Claire sniffs and wipes her eyes with the back of her hand.

“Merry Christmas.”

Max wrapped the dirty rag around the shard of glass and crouched behind the bricks. The little room shivered in the light from the candle, shadows juddering too fast over the walls, and on Max's grimy face. He narrowed his eyes. The candle stood a foot tall, fat and waxy, the flame a dirty orange. George the cat lay curled around the base, his shaggy fur sticking to the molten wax. George purred and smiled at Max.

“I'm a cat, Max,” drawled George. “I have paws and whiskers,” George yawned, “and fangs.”

The candle sputtered and George's fur crackled. The cat's shadow danced up the wall, huge and monstrous, wings of darkness flooding over the brick corners and across the pitted ceiling. George lay still, licking his cat chops. Max edged closer to the center of the room, crawling over the bricks and rubble strewn across the floor. He had to destroy the shadow monster that clung to the ceiling, but to put out the candle meant moving closer to George, and George was a cat.

“I see you Max,” said George, blinking slowly.

Max held out the glass in a shaking hand. He held his breath and sprang toward the candle.

The flame flared, plunging the room into light. And then everything went dark.

Wind whistled between the bases of the jagged rock spires that dotted the craggy ground. The wind was visible, churning white air rushing and splitting around the stone. Swarms of insects, caught in the storm were blown along in a river of dark bodies and waving legs.

Peter crouched above the storm, squatting on a spire of rock. He pulled a handful of insects from the squall, some of them lit up, glowing the darkness. He crammed them into his mouth and began to chew, legs sticking out from his lips in odd angles.

Pan stood higher on the rock, his hooves finding purchase in floor of loose stones and rubble. He raised his pipes to his lips and blew. An errant beetle popped from the end of the tube, it’s wings sprung out and it buzzed into the night.

“Peter, Peter,” Sung Pan “We’re very close now. So close to life, forever and ever.”

The wind kicked up for a moment, tousling Pan’s dank and tangled fur. In the light of the harvest moon the scars on his face stood out. His empty eye sockets glistened wetly in the misty air, a spider crawled from the left one. Peter grunted, shoveling another handful of insects into his mouth. His eyes gazed blankly over the never-ending sea of rock. His clothes were torn and ragged, his ribs showed through his desiccated body. He bit down with a crunch.

“Peter,” crooned Pan, “Peter, stay with me. Just a little longer Peter.”

Pan ran a hand threw Peter’s hair and raised the pipes. The music from the pipes was broken and faint, lost in the wind, but Peter must have heard, as he blinked and turned his head to face up to Pan, leaning over him.

“Pan,” he croaked, and coughed. “I’m so cold.”

Pan gripped Peter’s hair between his grimy claws and pulled his head back.

“Shut up,” he spat into Peter’s face. “We’re close you little bastard. I’m not going to die because you’re weak.”

Pan pointed at the tower in the distance. He bared his teeth.

“I’m coming for you, pirate.”

***

At the top of the clock tower the pirate sat playing chess. He hooked back a frilly sleeve from the arm he held over the board. His opponent sat quietly, as bottles of rum are wont to do.

“Arr,” he crowed. “I’m torn between indecision and…” he paused, a puzzled frown crossing his whiskered face.

“And?” asked the bottle in scrawling text that appeared over the label. It raised an inked eyebrow.

“And… drunk. I’m drunk.” The pirate sat back with a look of exultation. “Verrry drunk.”

“I know,” stated the bottle. “And you’ve still not made your move.”

The clock struck twelve and the pirate screamed. He staggered backward to his feet knocking his wooden stool to the clock tower floor. He raised his hand to his face, pushing his fingers beneath his eye patch. He began to rake his face with the hook that replaced his hand until blood ran down in little rivers.

“Oh bugger,” said the bottle of rum, and then was swept to the floor as the pirate stumbled into the table. It smashed against the wood, chess pieces clattering around it’s remains. The blood that ran down the pirate’s face began to thicken and stand out, flowing into the air and clotting. The pirate fell back to the floor kicking at the air with his legs as his face elongated and he turned into the crocodile.

Henry never had an imaginary friend.

He walks down the beach, the yellow froth on the edge of the sea licking around the soles of his boots. He walks arm in arm with Isabelle, who is at the same time holding his hand and gesturing wildly as she speaks. Henry has no choice but to follow her movements as emphatically as she makes them.

“You have to see how it is, everything mashed up together in my head; in your head. Everything that you know, and everything you learn caught in one place, crammed up, churned around. Everything that exists, for you, you see?”

Henry nods and makes an involuntary expansive gesture.

“Not to say that there’s nothing else, but there’s nothing else that matters. Not until it does matter, that is. What’s in there? What’s real when everything is subjective?”

Henry nods and hums a tune he knows.

“What about the intangibles? Justice? I like that. What about transitionals? You’ve got to have those too. There all in there, are they real?”

Henry shrugs and adds words to his tune.

I see the moon,
and the moon sees me.

“What if they aren’t? I don’t like the sound of that. Everything piling on everything and the edges blurring to make up who I am. You know, like those pictures, made of those little pictures, made of littler ones - all the way in. I don’t want holes. Gaps in reality.”

The moon sees the somebody I'd like to see,
God bless the moon,

“And what about the good things, happiness, love, trust. I don’t like the idea of those things not being real. And they’re there too.”

and God bless me,

“Aren’t they?”

Henry stops in the sand and breathes in. Alone on the beach.

He looks back at the twin tracks of footprints, skewing away into the distance. The surf rolls over them.

God bless the somebody I'd like to see!

His voice rises, and picks up the day.

I can be your liar
I can be your bearer of bad news
Sick and uninspired by the diamonds in your fire
Burning like a flame inside of you
Is this just desire or the truth?
- Foo Fighters, Tired of you

Clothes askew. Trussed up raring for something new.

Is this comfortable? This being the bed, the rusted springs squeaking beneath the freshly stained fresh sheets.

“I love you,”

she said, but she meant something totally different. Somehow she couldn’t bring herself to say the other thing. Ask the other. Likewise I couldn’t answer, without the question.

She wouldn’t give me.

So what if I stopped right then? Stepped back and right through to here.

Here being now.

What, with retrospection as my faithful ally, should I do next, standing back and outside myself. Like some sort of crazy out-of-body time-travelling experience, I realise that I knew then as much as I know now in respect to that. I must (with words) allay that fear in her eyes, because if I don’t, it will spread and grow and get me too.

And that’s the thing she doesn’t want, right?

So what then, is she afraid of?

Not that I won’t answer at all, that is unimaginable. That I would answer incorrectly? Possibly. Probably, neither, or that I would answer incorrectly purposefully.

So I need to speak with purpose and truth, as long as the truth does not contradict my purpose. If it does, and as staying silent will just put pressure on this glass moment I’ve got here in my now, I’ll be mightily

Fucked.

Well, what does she want to know?
I figure that conversation being the lair of language, and language the second* most awesome creation in the service of communication and communication being primarily for the transfer of knowledge, both material and bullshit - she wants to know something.

*Second to the also awe-inspiring fluidity of purpose and truth that is mathematics, and of course sex, which share first position.

Something being not something I knew then, right?
I wouldn’t be here wondering what it is now if I knew it before as the me that fits inside this me. Like an onion of knowledge.

Of course, maybe I knew it then, but I forgot it.

In that case, why would the me then turn to the me now? If that rat-bastard knew the answers to all those little questions, and then planned to forget them, why bother step out and forward to where I am? To taunt me? I wouldn’t put it past me.

But no, not at her expense, I would have to say something.

So it is something that I have learned, not in the passing of time, but the passing over of time. In the stepping out and back; in remembering of an event without thought for the intervening space between; a quick connection of the two people, then and now, that need this question answered so

Desperately.

And that’s it, isn’t it?

That I want to.

I want to answer the question.

I want to answer every question.

Not just driven by the ceaseless curiosity that seems to govern everything that I do. Not just to fulfill that desire to wear the boots that someone else made for me.

I want to answer it because I do.

I want to answer it because I don’t want to let that fear spread, and I want to share in the refreshing relief in its dissipating absence. And that’s all I have to tell her.

So I step back and in.

And it’s too late.

Boy, that was one awkward silence.

The coin lands on the sandy carpet of the beach, splitting the wave-carved patterns wide open, revealing gaping chasms into the worlds beneath. Thick threads swing ponderously over the holes, ribbing the fabric with its remains.

A magic carpet does not fly; there are better ways to travel.

The Panda calls it.

The carpet was made by the blind, weft and weaves gathered and wound from the light and life of the Golden Room. Cracked lips pursed, burned fingers flitting through the harp-string skeleton of the carpet to be made. Whittling time.

Richard peers through the gaps. Beneath the carpet a vast desert shifts in a wind he cannot feel. The sand ripples, as if through the gaps in the carpet time runs at a different rate.

Rusted cobwebs of metal jut out of the sand, some only a few feet high, dotting the desert like monstrous teeth. Others stretch high into the sky, further than the view provided by the carpet allows, jagged and ruined.

The carpet lowers, the view lurching closer.

The carpet takes him to a shard of rock, buried in the sand. A slab of granite, carved with names. One of the names is his.

The fast sand moves to cover it.

His eyes widen, but not at what he sees.

The Panda grins.

“A change of perspective is inevitable at this point,” His teeth are like yellowed stalks of bamboo.

He leans over and scoops the coin back into a large paw, and deftly places it back into the sky.

The scene beneath the sand vanishes.

“Where was that?”

The panda claps his paws together and dry sand puffs into the air.

“Everywhere but here, it is the end of all things.”

“My name…”

“You’ll find out.” The Panda winks.

“Why did you show me?”

“Do you remember what I asked you, when you first awoke here?” the Panda asks. “Before you signed your name in the clockwork tower, I asked you if you knew why you were alive.”

“And that desert is supposed to tell me?”

“No,” The Panda sits in the sand. “It will only prove that you were. I will show you why, but there will be danger, there always is.”

The Panda’s eyes flash gold.

“That’s what makes it so delicious.”

Robin wrung her scarf in her hands and tried to remember what her mother had told her before she set out. She had said it in passing; as if it had meant nothing at all. Robin had a terrible memory for things that are hiding behind meaninglessness.

Robin's breath frosted in the cold air. It twinkled and sparkled as it faded away to nothing.

This was not usual.

The wind tugged at the hem of her winter coat. She was standing in a cold place of stone and metal and dead things. In the distance she could see the thick red lights of a terrible city. She had found this place in her closet.

This was also not a commonplace event in Robin’s life.

Floating in the black-night sky before her was the Dragon Aeternitas. It’s face was obscured by the shadow that swarmed and wrapped itself around the Dragon’s wings. A hundred eyes like stars danced as the dragon blinked. Sparks jumped as the dragon shifted its heavy claws across the ground.

The Dragon had been hiding in Robin’s closet.

“I am eternity!” The dragon screamed in a voice that was the splintering and popping of trees. “I have the whole of everything inside of me, and outside of me! You are nothing!”

Robin twisted the tassels of her scarf.

“An apple a day keeps the Dragon away,” she whispered. Her voice trembled, and she didn’t have any apples.

The Dragon’s eyes glittered.

“All that glitters is not gold,” she said, but the Dragon laughed.

“Foolish little girl!” it cried in a voice that was the screaming and screeching of a drowning cat. “You cannot hurt me with your pitiful little proverbs!”

Robin knew that she could, if only she could find the right one.

“I am everything!” It laughed.

“Then why are you not very nice?” asked Robin, terrified.

“I am!” answered the Dragon in a voice that was the squeezing and popping of a compressed frog. “I keep all of the good on the inside, where it counts, and all of the evil on the outside, where it will kill you!”

The Dragon laughed.

“You don’t have to!”

The Dragon laughed harder, and continued to drag its bloated body through the shadowy wings that separated it from Robin.

“Good fences make good neighbours!” Robin shouted and a white picket fence popped up from the cracks in the stony ground. The wood bent and broke as the Dragon pulled itself over it, but the Dragon did not slow down.

“Proverbs have no power,” The Dragon chuckled in a voice that was the crisp indifference of burnt toast. “The more they are used, the less power they have.”

The Dragon lunged at Robin. Robin Screamed.

“Pride comes before a fall!” She cried and the Dragon dropped to the ground with such force that it broke a tooth.

Robin searched her memory for the right proverb, the one that would save her from the Dragon.

“The wyrm turns!”

“A dragon’s bark is worse than his bite!”

“Curiosity killed the dragon!”

The Dragon spat its tooth into the air and struggled back to its feet. It unfurled its wings.

Through the misty gaps in the shadow Robin caught a glimpse of its heart. It was bright and yellow, twisted and knotted tight and small, but was more solid than the rest of the dragon.

Put your scarf on dear, said the heart in a voice that was like the sound of waking up.

You’ll remember it eventually, it said in a voice that was the tinkle of tiny bells.

Don’t catch cold before you do, it said, in a voice that was her mother’s.

She remembered.

“I love you,” she whispered.

The dragon reared, ready to strike.

“That?” it laughed. “That is the most cliché of them all! It has no power at all!”

The Dragon bared its teeth and pounced.

“It has power if I mean it.”

Robin smiled.

The Dragon’s wings furled around her.

So,

Guess you can scratch out the past; I was never really awake until now. There are times when it’s best to suppress a smile and keep a straight face. This is one of those times.

“Write you name here please,” says the little man.

So I do.

At once the chorus of clicks made by the clockwork rises to a roar. The volume increases until it pounds in my head and brings tears to my eyes. I clap my hands to my ears, but the sound breaks through with brittle fingers.

And then it’s gone.

“You gave it back.”

My vision is still pretty blurry. The sudden flood of light doesn’t really help.

“You’re really awake now,” says a muffled voice. Or maybe it’s my ears that are muffled. They just took a pretty harsh sonic beating.

The overwhelming absence of the roar fades away to become the gentle shifting of a calm shore and a voice that sounds familiar.

“You dig?” asks the Panda.

“You gotta see how it is, now. How delicate everything holds together in this balance we’ve got. Light and dark; life and death; time and fate, there really is no way to decide how the whole of it will play out. But we’ve made a start.”

The Panda reaches into the sky and tears down the sun, he flicks it into the air with the back of a claw.

“Heads or tails?” he asks.

There are times when it’s best to suppress a smile and keep a straight face. This isn’t one of them.

I was sitting in the passenger seat of a Skoda so old that I was beginning to suspect that a brawny mechanic with a bone through his nose had raised it from the dead with a voodoo wrench. Meatloaf’s “Bat out of Hell” was kickin’ out the stereo to the beat of Pyro’s hands on the steering wheel.

His name’s not really Pyro. I changed it to protect his identity.

His brother was sleeping in the back. I’m changing his name to “Right Wing Pirate.” It’s pretty accurate; he goes to sea and fiddles with taxes.

The reason my eyes had been squeezed shut as we hurtled down the M8 on that sunny afternoon, was fear, pure and unadulterated. The cause of which being the conversation offered by Pyro.

Pyro: I just remembered… I forgot to check the front wheel.

Me: What?

Pyro: Yeah. I noticed something wrong with it. I was going to change it before we left.

Me: What? What’s going to happen?

Pyro: Ah. It’ll be fine.

Me: Oh, ok.

Pyro: Unless it bursts.

Me: WHAT?

Right Wing Pirate: Zzzz.

Meatloaf: “And I know that I’m damned if I never get out, and maybe I’m damned if I do!”

The protests of the engine were almost as loud as RWP’s snores, as larger, more impressive cars passed us with barely a whisper. I watched their safe chassis disappear round the bend ahead with longing eyes.

Me: What happens if the tyre bursts?

Pyro: Oh, we die.

I sat awe-struck for a moment; thoughts raced head to tail through my head in brilliant flashes.
I’m not ready to die quite yet!
How can he sound so cheerful?
RWP has been sleeping for an awfully long time.
Is that a packet of mints in the glove compartment?
Wait…

Me: Why is the glove compartment open?

Pyro: The latch is broken, it falls open sometimes.

Me: Oh. Isn’t that dangerous?

Pyro: Why would it be?

Me: Well, I don’t know. Maybe it’ll obstruct the airbag or something.

Pyro: Oh.

Meatloaf: “So we gotta make the most of our one night together!”

Pyro: You don’t have an airbag. Only I do.

Me: WHAT?

Pyro: Mwahaha!

RWP: Zzzzz-hnruck! What? Where are we?

Pyro: M8.

Me: In danger.

Pyro: Hey. I’m not that bad a driver.

Me: It’s the car I’m worried about.

RWP: Are those mints I see?

I swiftly handed out mints with only the briefest moment of terror as Pyro let go of the steering wheel in order to take a sweet with either hand.

Pyro: Front wheel’s feeling funny.

Me: I'm feeling sick.

RWP: Have another mint. That’s supposed to help.

Pyro: Well, we could be lucky.

Meatloaf: “I can see myself tearing up the road, faster than any other boy has ever gone!”

Pyro: We could flip.

RWP: Cool.

Me: How on earth is that lucky?

Pyro: Well…we’d still die – but it’d look cool.

We sat in silence for a while, each dealing in our own way with the impending doom. I closed and re-closed the glove compartment; RWP had brought a magazine about tractors to read while quietly sucking his mint; Pyro made little “whoosh” noises under his breath as he no doubt pictured the car and it’s unfortunate occupants catapulting into the air.

Me: Dude…

Pyro: Yeah?

Me: Why do you have string in the glove compartment?

Pyro: String’s useful.

Me: What about the lighter?

Pyro: Meh. I like fire.

Me: And the knife?

Pyro: Ooh! A light just came on! What’s that one mean?

I scrambled in the glove compartment for the battered manual that should help divulge the secrets of the Skoda’s blinking dashboard lights, trying to ignore the piles of gauze and faint aroma of chloroform.

Me: Aha!

Pyro: Well?

Me: Let’s see…page 54….uhh…it’s the drive belt.

Pyro: You sure?

Me: Yup. The engine ain’t cooling.

Pyro: You sure it isn’t the battery?

Me: Why?

Pyro: Well, the light came on a while back, so I thought I’d put pedal to the metal, you know. Get the alternator to recharge it a bit.

Me: Oh god no…

Meatloaf: “Like a bat out hell – I’ll be gone when the morning coomes!”

Me: The engine temp doesn’t look that high…

Pyro: Needle’s broken.

Me: Oh god no…

Pyro: Don’t worry too much. At least we won’t flip, and the chances of the engine bursting into flames are actually quite small.

As if to punctuate his reassurances a muffled “thump” came from beneath the dash. Pyro’s eyes lit up.

Me: Oh god no…

RWP: Do I smell smoke?

I squeezed my eyes shut and began to pray. I didn’t open them again until we rolled to a stop in a BP Petrol station. I pushed open the door and stumbled out onto the cement, fighting the urge to kiss the ground.

RWP: You all right there? You look a little pale.

Pyro: He gets carsick.

RWP: Poor guy.

Me: Yeah…

Pyro: I’m gonna use the pay phone. You guys want anything from the shop?

RWP: Ooh! More mints!

At that point the stereo exploded, cutting Meatloaf mid-rhythm and deploying the driver airbag.

Pyro: You see? I get one. You don’t.

Just as I was muttering an oath under my breath never again to travel in a car older than the road beneath it, the glove compartment fell open. The knife dropped blade first into the passenger seat and stuck an inch deep into the seat fabric my groin had just vacated.

Pyro whistled.

RWD: That was close.

Pyro: Cool.

Me: Mommy.

And we were still only halfway…

(It's a Pantoum.)

What’re you gonna do about it?
The place is an unholy mess.
She’s gonna throw a fuckin’ fit.
Wouldn’t expect any less.

The place is an unholy mess.
That rat-bastard put up a hell of a fight.
Wouldn’t expect any less,
He’s what they were talkin’ about all right.

That rat-bastard put up a hell of a fight.
Broke my nose and gasped like a whore.
He’s what they were talkin’ about all right.
But that ain’t my problem no more.

Broke my nose and gasped like a whore.
She’s gonna throw a fuckin’ fit.
But that ain’t my problem no more.
What’re you gonna do about it?

Teddy sighs.

“Save him then, Prince. On your head be it.”

The Devil laughs as Teddy falls. Teddy’s face breaks into a smile, but the Devil’s claws mar the unexpected happiness gracing his features. His eyes roll back as he hits the grass.

The Devil laughs.

Kevin screams.

The Cairn sits at the top of of a hill.
Green and round, the belly of a giant sleeps beneath.
Underneath the cairn, where time is dead.
He’ll wake.

“You killed him!”

The Devil laughs. Black drops of saliva fly from his mouth.

“Yes’m.” He sings.

Kevin backs up the hill, digging the heels of his wellies into the grass. The Devil follows him step for step.

“You killed Teddy!” Kevin’s eyes are wide with disbelief.

“Ye seem a little broken up about it, boy.” The Devil grins, taking another step up the hill. Another step toward the retreating Prince.

“He was my friend!”

“Was he?” The Devil asks with a vicious mirth. “Was he really? He’d only just arrived.”

“He was!”

“Then ye are a child. Boy.” The Devil snarls. He has spiny black teeth.

Kevin turns and runs, the Devil roars as he gives chase. Kevin climbs the hill. His lungs begin to burn and his legs ache. He knows he can’t stop or the Devil will catch him, his head feels light.

The cairn is just ahead.

“Wait for me! Boy!” Calls the Devil, in his singsong voice.

Kevin reaches the top, planting his hands on the mossy rocks of the cairn. He spins to face the slope, and the laughing Devil who is just behind him.

“Stay there, Devil. Come no closer.” He says. He is serious now; he laughed with the Devil before and has learned his lesson.

The Devil stops.

“Ye gave me a good run, boy.” He grins maniacally.

“Don’t call me boy.”

The Devil frowns. His eyes flash white.

“Kevin then.” He says, the song dropping once more from his voice.

“No.” Says Kevin. “That’s not my name either.”

Kevin wakes the Giant.

Beneath the Cairn the Giant sleeps.
When he wakes, he will yawn.
And his throat, the gate of hell,
Will open.

The Devil roars. The sound of his voice is the deep inhuman sound of hell. An animal screams from the forest, and a black flock of birds flash into the air. The ground starts to shake.

“Do ye know what ye’ve done?” He growls. Advancing on Kevin.

Kevin nods, and taking the Devil with him, he steps into the Cairn.

The world stops. The rumble of the earth and the roar of the Devil meshing with the sound of the forest behind them, and fading away. The flock of black birds that rose from the trees at the Devil’s cry fly out and cover the sky in inky blackness, blotting out reality until there is nothing. Nothing but Kevin, and the Devil.

“I’m gonna cut ye, boy.” The devil snarls. “I’m chaos now. I’m the decrease of order inna system. Yes’m. You gonna feel my claws in yer gut!”

He lunges for Kevin, but stops short. One of his red ears twitches.

There is a scream, and it’s getting louder.

“What is this?” Growls the Devil.

“It’s Hell.” Replies Kevin. “And it’s coming for you.”

“Hah! I’m too powerful! All I need is time to- ”

“There is none.” Kevin interrupts. “Not here.”

The screams get closer. They don’t become louder, just more intense.

“Except with them.” Kevin cocks his head in the direction of the sound. “For them, a lack of time would mean a cessation of suffering. Hell itself cannot allow that.”

“What have ye done, boy?” The Devil is frightened.

“I’ve called them to take you back, Devil.” Kevin states. “And I asked you not to call me boy.”

The screams break through the distance, at once becoming loud enough to drown out the Devil’s own pitiful cries as his comrades pull him away, down the Giants throat, to Hell.

Time returns, the sun scatters the black birds. Kevin falls to his knees on the grass. Tears roll over his cheeks and fall onto his hands.

“Why are you crying?”

It is the Giant. He crouches beside the forest, in the crater that was once a hill.

“Teddy is dead.” Sobs Kevin. “And he wasn’t really my friend.”

“Do you believe that because the Devil said it was so?” Asks the Giant. His size is great, but his voice is soft. Light flashes between his lips as he talks, providing a glimpse of hell.

Kevin shakes his head. “No. It’s true. That’s why the Devil was so evil to say it.”

The giant says nothing.

“I’m on a quest.” Says Kevin.

“You are?”

“Yes.”

The Giant sighs. Heat blasts from his throat and the leaves of the forest wither. He knows what Kevin will ask him, and he knows the answer he must give.

“I am. I was wondering…”

Kevin falters as he looks into the Giant’s eyes. They are immeasurably sad.

“I was wondering, could you not yawn? Not just yet?” He pleads. “I won’t be long.”

The Giant closes his sad eyes and hangs his head.

“No.”

The Giant Yawns.

Behind his mouth the Giant holds hell,
In his arms the word.
When he yawns the earth will die,
When he stretches the sky will fall.

There is darkness under the Cairn. Kevin can’t see.

“It’s gone!” He wails. “The world is gone! The butterflies, the trees, the mud, and the Giant.”

A chuckle floats on the dark.

“Who’s there?” He calls.

His voice echoes.

“It is me.” Whispers Teddy.

Although the world has ended, Kevin smiles.

“I thought you were dead.” He says. “I saw the Devil take your life away!”

“It was not his to take.” States Teddy, and hands Kevin a rock.

“Put this on top.” He says. “We have a new world to build.”

Kevin studies the rock. It is cold and mossy, and Kevin has no idea where it came from. After all, the world is gone.

“I don’t really have time for this.” He says. “I’m supposed to be on a quest.”

“I know, Prince.” Teddy smiles. “And once we are done building, I’ll come with you.”

At the bottom of the pit of butterflies the man with red skin sits and watches the blue butterflies flutter around his head. His bright red skin is split with a gleeful smile as he sings his song.

Pop pop pop!
I see with eyes, I hear with ears!
I catch with hands, I cry with tears!

He snatches a butterfly out of the air.

Pop pop pop!

Prince Kevin is on a quest.
Underneath the cairn, where time is dead.
He’ll be married.

“He’s eating them.”

Kevin is balancing on a fallen log. He is wearing Teddy’s spectacles.

“He’s a devil.” Teddy says, without his cracked spectacles he can’t see. He’s sitting on the log.

Kevin twirls on the log, his boots stripping bark off the rotten wood. He laughs.

“We’ll have to save him.”

“No.”

Kevin halts mid-twirl and plants a foot on the ground to steady himself. Teddy’s voice, usually serious, became suddenly severe.

“No?”

“No.”

Kevin scrunches up his face. He looks toward his new friend with exaggerated disgust.

“We can’t just leave him. The butterflies will incorporate him into their social structure, he’ll be taxed!”

“Even so.” Teddy says firmly.

Kevin walked to the edge of the pit, batting aside lawyer butterflies with little consideration for the heavy stacks of paper they were carrying.

“What are you doing?” Cries Teddy, scrambling to his feet.

Kevin ignores him. He walks to the edge of the pit and leans over the edge. The man with red skin looks up. His red face splits with a black smile.

“You gonna rescue me, boy?”

His voice is melodic. He is almost singing the words through his spiny black teeth.

“Maybe.” Answers Kevin.

“No!” Cries Teddy desperately. He is still standing by the log.

The man’s red face falls. An expression of exquisite sorrow settles upon his brow, and a single fat tear rolls down his face.

“Then I shall die here!” He weeps. “And the butterflies will record it in their little black books.”

The butterflies flap their assent.

The man with red skin grins, he winks at Kevin. Kevin struggles not to laugh, he turns to Teddy with a serious face.

“See? We must save him. Not even a devil can survive on butterflies alone.”

Teddy frowns.

“Woe is me!” Cries the red man, unseen in the pit.

Teddy sighs.

“Save him then, Prince. On your head be it.”

Not long after, all three walk down the road together. The pit of butterflies is left behind, empty of everything but dirt and butterfly bureaucracy. Kevin and the Devil laugh with each other. Teddy walks behind them; his shoulders slumped in resignation.

“Teddy boy! You look sad’m!” Laughs the Devil.

Kevin grins and swings Teddy’s briefcase as he walks.

“You have a funny voice.” He says.

“Yes’m!” Sings the Devil.

Kevin laughs with the Devil. Despite his appearance, which would scare many boys of an age with Kevin, he has taken an instant liking to the jovial devil. His jokes and singsong voice are as far from Teddy’s depressing presence as things can get.

“Who’re you then?” Asks Kevin.

“Nought but a Simple Devil!” Answers the devil, the words running off his tongue fast and fluent. “I’m on the run, yes’m. If my comrades catch me, they’ll drag me back to hell.”

“Terrible!” Says Kevin, aghast.

“Ye ever been to hell, boy?”

“No.” Answers Kevin.

“Then shut up.” The devil says, but not unkindly. The Devil’s smile takes the sting from his words.

“What is your name?”

“Can’t tell ye that Kevin, me boy!” Grins the Devil. “Names is power.”

“You know our names!” Protests Kevin.

The Devil laughs. “I doubt that damp rag’s name is really Teddy.”

Teddy snorts.

The Devil shifts his small black eyes to Kevin and a shade of the song drops from his voice.

“An’ I don’t think your name is Kevin, is it?”

Kevin says nothing.

The Cairn sits at the top of a hill.
Green and round, the belly of a giant sleeps beneath.
When he wakes, he will yawn.
And the world will end.

The three travellers stop at the base of the hill. One on a quest, one on the run, and the third only recently arrived.

“That’s the cairn then.” Says Kevin. His eyes are wide with wonder.

“It is.” Says Teddy. “And this is where we leave you.”

Kevin looks to Teddy in startlement.

“You’re leaving me at the base of the hill?” He asks “You both are?”

“What are ye saying, Teddy boy?” Asks the Devil. Teddy rests a hand on his shoulder.

“You can’t go with him, Devil.” Teddy tells him calmly. “I won’t let you.”

The Devil laughs, and takes Teddy's life away.

Kevin screams.

Kevin kicked rocks into the trees as he walked down the muddy path. He had his hands deep in his pockets and a sullen pout on his face. He was on a quest, you see.

The sunlight hurt his eyes, even filtered through the leaves of the trees that arched over him. Birds sat merrily tweeting, just out of sight. The air was warm, and smelled strongly of heather.

A man is standing on a tuft of grass, looking nervously at the sea of mud that surrounds him on the well-churned path.

He is wearing tweed. There are leather patches on the elbows of the arms that he has wrapped firmly around a suitcase. He is wearing spectacles, which are bent and skewed. Both lenses are cracked; a lightening bolt break from left to right. He is also dripping wet.

Kevin halts at the edge of the mud.

“Hey!” He calls. “Hey you!”

The man turns miserably to face Kevin.

“Oh.” He says. “It’s you.”

Kevin remembers his teddy. He dropped it into a muddy puddle once, one so deep that he had to dive in himself to fetch it. If that bear could talk, with its stuffing and its stitches wet and wretched, it would sound like this man.

Kevin sticks his tongue out at him.

“Yeah, it’s me.” He says. “Who’re you?”

The bedraggled man pushes his glasses with a finger.

“My name is Ga-”

“I don’t care.” Kevin interrupts. “I’ll call you teddy.”

“Teddy?”

“Why are you wet?”

“I am recently arrived here.” Teddy says as he waves his hand in a vain effort to dry it. “This is the afterbirth. Quite horrible really. You know what it smells of?”

“No.” Replies Kevin, mystified. Teddy does look like a recent arrival. He’s not even wearing wellies.

“Nothing. It smells of nothing at all. A big sink in reality.” Teddy makes a face. “Bleh.”

“Who’re you then?” Asks Kevin.

“You already asked that.” Teddy replies morosely. “And you wouldn’t let me answer.”

Kevin taps his foot impatiently. It’s a clear sign that he hasn’t got all day to wait around talking to strange wet men.

“Oh all right…” Kevin sighs. “Imagine that this world is soup.”

Kevin imagines.

“Mortal lives swirl about in its creamy substance adding currents of flavour as they skim through. Different people, different flavours, all combining and culminating in the most wonderful of culinary creations.” Teddy sighs again, this time with pleasure. “I love soup.”

Kevin groans. “So who are you?”

“I,” replies Teddy. “Am a crouton.”

Kevin is less than happy with this answer, but he is on a quest, so further inquisition will have to wait. He picks his way through the mud toward Teddy. His boots sink half a foot deep with a squelch. They pop as he pulls them back out.

“Gimme your hand.” He says.

Teddy reaches out cautiously and takes Kevin’s hand. His skin is cold, and the dampness has a slimy quality to it that Kevin does not care for at all. He helps Teddy get clear of the mud.

“I’m on a quest.” Announces Kevin, once they had both feet planted on firm ground.

Kevin wipes the slime from his hand on the seat of his trousers. Teddy half-heartedly tries to wipe his everything on a tree.

“A quest?” Teddy perks up a bit, reaching his natural cruising height of enthusiasm. Which isn’t very much. “What kind of a quest?”

“A valiant quest.” Says Kevin.

“A valiant quest?”

“Yes. I’m a Prince. Prince Kevin.” Kevin states proudly. “And I’m betrothed.”

Teddy peers over his cracked spectacles at Kevin. “You look a little young to be married.” He says primly.

“Not married, betrothed. It’s different.” Kevin says. “Besides, it’s not like age matters very much in this situation.”

“Why is that?”

“Because my betrothed is Time.”

There’s something I’ve forgotten to do. Thinks Brad. What the hell is it?
He runs the day through his mind, trying to pick out the chore that has slipped his attention.
This is gonna bug me.
“Are you all right?” Asks Janet.
“Huh? Oh, yeah. Forgot something.”

Hands shudder as the saw is placed against the arm; high up, just below the shoulder.
The saw runs over the skin, leaving a white line.
“Fuck fuck fuck fuck. It would have to be blunt.”
The saw pushes down hard. Then grinds forward.

“Here you are dear.” She places the steak in front of him.
“Thank you.” Brad picks up his fork and steak knife. He cuts off a large piece of meat and begins to chew. It’s tender, and very good.
“Are you not going to say grace?”
Brad swallows.
“No.”

The skin parts with a ragged edge under the blade of the saw. Blood pools slowly onto the wooden table, circling around the empty plates.
There is no smell.
The flesh pulls at the teeth of the saw, stretching one way and then the other. The arm deforms no matter how hard it is held.
Fibres pull taught, and some snap back, some cut.
There is still no smell.

They eat quietly for a little while.
“So, where’ve you been?” Brad asks.
“What?” She says it absentmindedly as she takes her glass to the sink, to fill it with water.
“Today.” He replies. “Where were you?”
“Why do you care?” She says it conversationally, but her hand shakes.
She drops the glass.

The saw pulls the meat aside and bites bone. The bitter vibration causes the saw to growl.
It pushes down harder. The bone splinters.
Now there is smell.
Vomit covers the table.

How did it get to this? Thinks Brad. That little bitch, thinking she can put one over me.
He smiles.
That’s nevuh gonna happen.
She wouldn’t answer his question. Not honestly. He shouted at her.
She left crying.
He leans over the table, grinning. He can’t help it.
He hears a sob, and begins to turn.

What?

I’m lying on the table.

What?

Which way up am I?

Shit. I think I’m gonna throw up.

Except it ain’t coming.

What?

“Fuck fuck fuck fuck.”

I can heear youuu.

What?

“It would have to be blunt.”

Oh yeaah.

I forgot to sharpen the saw.