Nano 2012 Day SIx

"How do you know?"

"Everyone wants to live. Even the suicidal person wants to live on a base level. You will think about getting up, defying us, jumping out of the truck but most likely at the last second you will stop yourself."

"Why would I stop myself?"

"I told you. You wold want to preserve your life. The instinct is too strong."

"Hmm." Yet another unfamiliar voice introspectively rumbled, "We shouldn't push him too much though. Don't forget, youth is impetuous. Not only that, it thinks itself immortal, takes chances where grown adults would not. I can't help but feel waxing philosophical on life and death is wasted on the boy."

"Won't we be doing exactly that at the academy, however?" the first voice rebuked.

"Yes but that is where we will be giving him the frame of reference. If we do our job properly he will respect life but not before..."

"Academy?" The boy butted in, "you are taking me to school."

Once again, there was no answer. He swore he could sense one of their faces creaking into a smile. The feeling in the van was ominous. the side of his head burned under the blindfold. "This is still really itchy, you know."

There was the sound of something crackling and then the sound of water gurgling into a glass. He could hear someone taking a drink of whatever it was and then gasping with appreciation after they had drunk. "Oh, I'm sorry." Came yet another new voice from where the drinking noises had been, "here, let us help you cool off." He felt water hit his face and drench his shoulders. To his relief, it actually calmed down the itching sensation on the side of his head. He tasted the liquid on his lips... this was not water. It burned as it hit his throat, he coughed. He heard a couple of the men laugh. It tasted like a dog had taken a bath in methylated spirits.

"Be quiet, fools." said the man sitting next to him, the one with the minty cinnamon breath. "At least you're not wasting the good whiskey on him."

"Good is subjective." said the man who had thrown the drink on him. "Personally, I prefer this one to that aged crap you're so precious about."

"That's because you've no palate. I bet all you eat are wood planks as well."

"I take out the nails first."

"Then you're not truly a man!" said the third voice and they all laughed. The boy stayed quiet. He felt the van lurch to one side and the road became a lot bumpier. He guessed they had gone onto some sort of dirt or lawn track. As it got much bumpier, he ventured to guess they weren't on a marked track at all, possibly going to some hidden location. What was their interest in him? Why did they need to kill his parents? Had they done something, was he payment for something? The van slowed to a halt and he figured they had arrived where ever they were going. Sure enough, he heard the heavy door open wide and could smell fern trees. Fern trees? Where were they? He didn't think they had travelled far enough to get to a forest of any sort. The man next to him stood up and then he felt his hand on him pull him to his feet.

"OK, we're here." The blindfold was pulled off his head and he could see blinding white. He blinked a couple of times and once his eyes adjusted to the light he saw he was right about the van. It was already empty of the other men, there was just the guy who was sitting next to him, now pulling him towards teh exit of the van. Through the doorway, he could see a few fern trees and a whole lot of bark on the ground. Chips.  He responded to the pulling and stepped down off the van. He had never seen this area before. There were so many trees! Surely this wasn't possible with the short distance they had travelled? Not that he had really been to that many places with his parents, normally they just took him o the movies or watched things with him at home. One glorious day they went to an ice rink and skated as a family but that had ended suddenly when his mother had laughed at his father falling on his butt on the ice. He shot her a look that could have dropped a bulldozer dead and they had gone home soon after.

"Follow me. There are more men in the woods, don't think about running."

The thought of running hadn't even occurred to him, though he was scared at the thought of men being in the woods. Were they always in the woods or had they been placed there today specifically to make sure he gets into the cabin? Why was he so important? Did he have some sort of magic power? He focussed his thoughts on the back of the head of the guy in front of him as he followed him, trying to make it explode. Nope, nothing happened. As they came around the can he could see a large log cabin with the words "World Is Mine Inc" written along the top in that weird log script you see sometimes, basically words made out of logs split lengthways. The man gestured for him to follow him inside and he did so. They came to what looked like a registration area for a camp. It almost felt like he had been sent on a holiday by his dead parents, or to some kind of camp. An old woman appeared at a little window in the waiting area. She had guy hair tied up in a bun held in place by what looked like a crochet needle.

"And what is this little boy's name?" She soothingly screeched from the windows. Name? What was my name? The man shoved him slightly.

"Come on, answer her."

"It's...umm..." he tried to think. His brain was not cooperating, "I'm really sorry, I don't remember."

"How can you not remember your name?" The woman looked annoyed.

"Look, if he says he doesn't remember let's just drop it. I'll put that field on the form as today's date and his hair and eye colour. It's not like we'll lose track. He'll be what we call him from now anyway."

"What will my name be now?" the boy asked. He hoped it was something cool like "Radsta" or "Superman".

"Four Two Seven." The woman replied.

"Four Two Seven? It's just a number?"

"Not JUST a number, young man." The woman rebuked, "Four is your first name, Two is your middle name and Seven is your last night. Some of us may just call you Two. Don't forget it."

"Are there four hundred and twenty six other kids here, then? Won't there be others with the middle name "Two"?"

The woman gave him a confused look, "No of course not, what would give you that idea? Does it sound like it would be a common name? Take him into the auditorium before he gives me a headache, Ton."

"Yes ma'am" Ton said and guided the boy through a big set of double doors, green with faux wood banding in the middle stretching horizontally along the front of the doors into a giant room full of kids.

He wasn't expecting to see all the children. They looked vaguely scared and confused. Most of them seemed to be in their pyjamas. Did this mean they were abducted just like he was? He guessed that was the case. Four Two Seven was taken over to a spot where there was a space on the floor and told to sit down. He sat next to a boy with very short cropped light brown hair that had bits of blonde in it. Ton walked off to the front of the room. "Hi" he whispered to the boy next to him. His eyes darted to to boy and then darted back to the front of the room. "Hello" he whispered back.

"What's your name?"

"We shouldn't talk. They can hurt us."

The boy turned his gaze towards the front of the room. He had a point. Four could see Ton and a few other adults standing at the front of the big room we were in, they were mostly standing in front and to the side of a massive stage that was there. In fact, this was a lot like a theatre except that they didn't have any seating, they were just being made to sit on the floor. The curtains that were drawn on the stage were black with a large unhappy face on the left one and a large smiling face on the right. Both of them were bone white and had big holes for eyes. He found them creepy. Unlike the last time Four went to something like this (a concert by some group of guys with colourful jumpers on. He used to love them but now he couldn't remember their names. All of a sudden their show seemed awfully silly), the kids around him were all still and quiet. He guessed that made sense, everyone was scared of being hurt. He wondered if all of their parents had been killed as well. That would probably be the way to do it, to get them all here and not have people looking for them straight away. But why do it at all? He guessed the answers would be forthcoming in the show they were about to be presented with. With a 'crack' all the adults standing in front of the stage stamped their left feet in unison. The noise made several of the children sitting in front of the stage jump in position. One of the kids started crying, until someone at the side walked over and put their hand on their shoulder. The child immediately stopped wailing but sniffled slightly still. There was another loud 'crack' from the front as the adults stamped their right foot down in unison again.

Nano 2012 Day Five

They stood tightly holding each other for a few seconds then Tina suddenly jumped back. “What? Oh…” Menelaus realized his pants were a little tight. “Oh..I’m..”

“Don’t stress. But control it, seriously. You know, I don’t think of you like..”

“Yes! Yes, I know. No, it was just, I don’t know why this was…”

“Anyway, forget it.” She gave him a curious smile. “You have some crazy timing sometimes.”

Menelaus wasn’t sure what to say. He scratched  his stomach. “Umm…”

Tina turned away, “forget it! Let’s find that hospital.”

“Yeah, let’s go somewhere with doctors.”

“Because you’re sick?”
“exactly.”

--

The leather chaise was extremely comfortable under the mime’s frame as he lay back on it. He heard it creak, felt the hide give slightly under his weight and the ever-present cool of the surface break through his clothes to his skin. But only a slight amount, a pleasurable amount. He leaned back, kicked off his mime slippers and swung his feet onto the chaise, enjoying the feel of the air whooshing past them. He had never quite noticed that feeling before. He leaned into the leather further, letting his head sing onto the raised cushioned part at the top and reached over to grab his cocktail ready made on the side table. He took a sip, relished the fruity flavours of it, and put it back then closed his eyes. Behind his eyelids danced the fire of the mime training ground. He could feel the heat radiating off the building, could smell the burning chemicals of his suitcase mixture, could hear the concussive blasts… and see the shadowy figure running away. Surely no-one could escape that blast? No, he shook the memory out of his head. No-one escaped. A trick of the light post-explosion wasn’t going to diminish his pleasure.

He closed his eyes again, and this time let the flames dance merrily before his eyes, enjoying the glow. He deliberately let the scene stay out of focus and slowly drifted off to sleep. In sleep, his subconscious turned to memories of a past long ago, but not one forgotten or forgiven.

He was six years old and living in a basement apartment that leaked. He lived with two faceless individuals that were most likely his parents though he could barely remember them. He supposed he should have been remembering “the warmth of his mother’s love” or “his father’s strong protective hands” but these things did not come to him. Six really wasn’t so young to forget such things, was it? Nevertheless, they were strangers to him. His dream child self looked at the faceless figures in bemused studiousness. “Wait,” he thought to himself, “I’m dreaming this. How strange. But I remember this happening. Can I change the events of the past?”

Everything went dark. The world seemed to have changed orientation. He could feel heavy blankets on him, smell clean sheets. There was the sound of a table being pushed over in the hallway outside his room. “Guess things stay the same after all…” he thought to himself and the door slammed open and hit the wall. A shadowy figure was framed in the door by the hallway light, it was too bright for the young boy’s eyes to adjust quickly enough. He sat up in bed bolt upright and the shadow figure was there at his bedside in what seemed like an infinitesimally small amount of time, with his hands on either side of him and his face right next to his. He hissed into his ear, “No sound. Your parents are dead. You want to live.” The strong smell of cinnamon and peppermint blew across the boy’s face as the stranger talked. Next they were up and out, one hand holding onto his shoulder tightly and guiding him, the other clamped over his eyes. He was guided down the stairs and towards where he knew the front door would be. He could smell strongly the smell of gasoline. They went out the door and the cold night concrete made the bare skin on the soles of his feet shrink away.

The world smelled the same but different. As if there was an air of menace to the world outside. He remembered the breath of his assailant leading him across the footpath and onto the grassy area before the street. Does he chew two different types of gum? Was it a cake he had eaten? He felt a sharp pain go through his foot and up his leg. "Oww!" he yelled out. The hand came off his shoulder and clamped over his mouth, cutting his complaint short. "Don't forget what we talked about." Came the soft voice above his head and the hand came off his mouth and back onto his shoulder. He was nudged forward by the hand again. He remembered now, he told him his parents were dead. Dead and gone. He wondered how he felt about that as he limped along the grass and then was pushed into what he guessed was a van at the side of the road. His thought was confirmed with the sound of a big heavy door being slid along rails, that was only on a van, right?

The hand came off his eyes just long enough for him to see a black strip of cloth coming towards him and then it was tied around his head blackening his eyesight yet again. He heard the engine of the vehicle start up and then felt them all move. No-one around him was talking. He decided he would risk talking out loud again. "Can I talk now?" he asked.

"Sure."

"Where are you taking me?"

"You'll see."

"Why did you kill my parents?"

There was a long pause.

"It's just how it's done."

"Oh."

He felt a tear run down my cheek. A tear for my faceless, loveless parents. Weird. I waited to be rebuked for it, He felt that the people around me did not like any displays of emotion. There was nothing, just the vague light smell of several guys and their BO. I mean, the van didn't stink of guy sweat but these guys didn't really use much else but roll on. There was no expensive cologne on olfactory display in this group though thankfully it also meant there was no cheap Lynx hanging around either. It probably didn't pay in that line of work to really stick out in any way, even something like a smell could identify you later. Although what kind of work was it? He still had a vague thought of this not being real, a dream of some kind. The more he thought about it though, the more likely he was just in shock. Still, what did he know about shock? He was just nine years old. He must have seen it on a program his parents were watching on TV. In any case, what work involves breaking into a house, killing a couple and then stealing away with their kid? Professional abductors?

"Are you going to be holding me for ransom?"

"Is there someone who would pay a ransom for you"

Hmm. Good point. He had a vague idea of having a grandfather in Paris, though he had never met him or heard much from him. There was some sort of falling out between his grandfather and his father so they never spoke and they never really spoke about him. He got a birthday present from him about three times that he could remember, and it was always something like a little wooden toy that wasn't much fun to play with.

He guessed those wooden toys were probably in the attic still. He remembered the smell of gasoline as they walked out the door. "Are... are you guys going to burn my house down?"

There was no answer. The ride continued in silence. After a few minutes the blindfold started itching. He reached up to itch and the guy sitting next to him grabbed his arm and pulled it back down to his side.

"It's itchy." he said and shifted himself around on his butt uncomfortably. "Do I even need this on? Don't you gys have blacked out windows on the van or something."

"Just be quiet."

"Why should I? You've killed my parents, you're probably going to burn down the house, you're probably going to kill me anyway." This time he started to cry. He could taste the tears as they hit his mouth. That would be right, one tear for his parents but a river for himself. His self-pity tasted very salty, like the ocean. He was swimming in his sorry ocean of sorry thoughts for his sorry thoughts. For a second he felt disconnected from himself and wondering how he even recognised his selfishness, wasn't he too young for that? Why is he even thinking of himself as young?

"Is this a dream?" he said out loud. An unfamiliar voice answered across from him,

"All of life is a dream. A technicolour hallucination that we are merely playing in."

"Does that mean I can control it? Like, the time time I realised I was dreaming in a dream, I was able to fly."

"While it is true we are masters of our own destiny for the most part," the unfamiliar voice continued on, "No. This time you are in our control and if you try to do anything that's not... in the script shall we say... we won't allow you to continue."

"Why should I even care if I continue?"

Once again, silence. Obviously they were daring him to try and put an end to this continuation. He realised that this was three times now that he had challenged them and each time they had just waited for him to naturally shift his thoughts to something else. Could they read his thoughts? Did they know he would become distracted every time he yelled out? Who even were these guys? This time he wouldn't allow himself to be distracted. "I said why should I care? Why won't you answer that question?"

"You want to live."

Nano 2012 Day Four

--

Menhaus saw the car screech to a halt but could not see Peter anywhere. He raced up to where the car was, the dazed driver already starting to get out muttering apologies. He could smell burnt tarmac on the air, could taste fragments of burning rubber in his mouth. There was a small dent in the car’s hood. It was a white car and it had a red smear where the dent was. Jesus.

“Peter! Are you OK?” Tina was yelling behind him, he turned around and saw that Peter had been found lying half under a parked car further up the street. He looked like a crumpled up ball of tissue paper, when someone had not just a cold but a constant stream from hayfever and they hold onto the same tissue for a while and run it ragged but then just dispose or it without a second thought, dropping it to lie where it fell, normally lost within the bedsheets till a disapproving and slightly grossed out partner will find it later in the night, normally by rolling onto it. Menhaus could hear a low groan coming from him. He leaned against the car Peter was sticking out from under, the feel was warm to the skin. “Peter?” Peter’s previously white shirt had a slowly growing patch of red just under the right breast. Menhaus pulled out his mobile phone and dialed emergency. After a short recorded message letting him know that the number was only to be used for real emergencies he was put through to a woman who asked for what sort of emergency it was then put him through to ambulance services.

“OK, where are you?”

“Umm… it’s a restaurant. “Tonsil Hockey””

“Tonsil Hockey? Is that in the city? Can you see what street it’s on?”

“Yes it’s in the city. Umm it’s on… Redgrove Road? No, maybe…”

“It’s alright, I’ve found it. Sending an ambulance to the location now. Now, tell me how your friend looks.”

Menhaus looked down at Peter, who was still goaning but much softer.”

“Not good. He’s not looking good. He… he was thrown when he was hit, he’s part under a car.”

“Can you tell if he’s breathing?”

“Yes, he must be, he’s groaning. There’s… there’s blood oh it’s bad.” Menhaus ran his free hair through his hair and did a quick spin and walked a couple of steps away from Peter. The road seemed made from rubber under his feet.

“OK calm down. Hmm, it might not be best for you to move him then. Is his head lying to the side?”

Menhaus looked down. “Yes, it is.”

“Alright good, you don’t need to worry about that then. Just sit tight and the ambulance will be there soon, OK? In the meantime I’ll keep you on the phone in case you notice anything else. You mentioned he was bleeding, is that correct?”

“Yeah, on his front.”

“Are you able to lift his shirt a little to see how bad the wound is?”

Menhaus crouched down and gingerly lifted Peter’s shirt. Peter inhaled sharply when the shirt passed over the growing red stain. Underneath his ribcage did not look quite right at the base, as it had been flattened and there was a small pool of blood that seemed to increase a little with every ragged breath. Menhaus described this to the woman on the line.

“Are there any bubbles in the blood?”

“None that I can see.”

“Ok, find something to hold against the wound until the ambulance gets there but don’t push too hard, chances are a rib is broken.”

Menhaus quickly pulled his tshirt over his head, balled it up and put it against the wound. Peter grabbed hold of his arm when he did so.

“Men.. Menhaus…”

“Hey, don’t say anything Peter. Just relax.” Menhaus winced at hearing Peter talk directly to him. He shouldn’t be talking, he needed to be conserving his energy. One of Menhaus’s other friends came up behind him. “How is he doing?” He recognized the voice as belonging to Steve. “He’ll be alright I think. I don’t know. I’m doing what the emergency woman is telling me until the ambulance comes.”

“Oh, OK. Peter? Can you hear me?”

“Yeah…” Peter’s chest spasmed slightly under Menhaus’s hand.

“I don’t think he should talk.” Menhaus said, shaking his head subconsciously.

“Yeah. Alright. No worries.” Steve hovered behind Menhaus’s shoulder for a few seconds. “I guess I’ll get back and see how everyone else is doing then.”

“OK.” Said Menhaus, not taking his eyes off Peter. A pink high heeled shoe came into view near Peter’s side. He followed the connecting leg up to see Tina’s worried face. Had she been nearby the whole time? He guessed she must have been, she was the one who had found him.

“Have they said if they’re going to be long?”

“No… actually, she’s still on the phone, I’ll ask her.” He turned his head back towards the previously forgotten mobile phone, which he had been holding in space about the height of his ear since the woman in emergency had asked him to stem the flow of Peter’s injuries. “Hi, are you still there?”

“Yes, I’m still here. I heard what you said, the ambulance should be turning up in a couple of minutes at most. Has anything changed in his condition?”

Menhaus examined Peter closely. He still seemed a bit crumpled up, but seemed to have relaxed slightly. His face was quite pale but not any paler than when he had first come to his side. “No I think everything is about the same.”

“Alright then, just hold tight. It’ll be OK.”

Menhaus heard a siren close by and looked up to see flashing lights approaching. Things felt anything but OK. The paramedics came out of the ambulance and approached where Menhaus was crouching. “Is that the ambulance?” the emergency woman asked on the phone. “Yeah I guess I can hang up now.” Menhaus hung up and looked up to the ambulance workers who had now approached him.

“OK, let’s see the condition of your friend there.”

“Alright.”

“We’ll need you to move out of the way first please.”

“Oh. Oh right.”

Menhaus slowly stood up reluctantly taking the pressure off his t-shirt and took a step back. One of the paramedics quickly swooped in, checked the site of the cut and placed a compress he had at hand quickly there to stem the bleeding that was started up already and taped it on. The other worker had gone back to the ambulance to get the stretcher and was wheeling it back towards Peter. Together they carefully stretched him out slightly and then put him onto the stretcher and lifted it up to its full height. They wheeled the stretcher up to the ambulance and pushed it into the back. Menhaus followed them and asked if he could ride along. They said he’d have to meet tham at the hospital and took off, leaving Menhaus waiting the red trail of light as they blazed around the corner.

“But… which hospital are you going to?” Menhaus mouthed to himself. Tina came up behind him, “Which hospital are they taking him to?”

“I don’t know.” Menhaus started scratching his ear. It felt really itchy all of a sudden. Tina grabbed his hand. “Stop that. What’s the closest hospital?”

“I guess that would be East Chadwick hospital.”

“Alright.” Said Tina and flipped out her phone, “let’s look them up and give them a call in a few minutes to see if he’s gone in.”

Menhaus was torn now between caring about his friend Peter and not really wanting to let go of Tina’s hand now that she was holding it. His arm was awkwardly hovering next to his ear. He tried to casually rest it down on his shoulder. “How um long do you think we should wait?”

Tina took her hand off his shoulder, thankfully taking his hand with it. She gave it a squeeze. “Don’t worry about that too much right now. We’ll work it out, OK? Don’t freak out, I’m here. Relax.”

“I don’t need to relax. I’m just fine. Are you alright? Shouldn’t I be consoling you?”

Tina looked bemused, “why? Because I’m a girl?”

“Well… umm… “ it seemed dangerously like Menhaus was going to lose hand-holding priveleges soon, “because you found him right after! That must have been traumatic.”

Tina looked down then sighed, “yeah this whole night has been traumatic really. But I’m not the one who’s shaking. Calm down!”

Menhaus looked at his other hand, the one not currently being comforted by Tina and noticed that, sure enough, he was shaking. Well that was odd. “I don’t seem to be able to.”

Tina came closer and gave him a hug. “It’s alright,” she whispered into his ear, “he’ll be OK. Everything will be OK. Shhhhhh.” She stroked his hair softly. Menhaus could see the remaining friends a few meters away looking on but holding back. A few of them seemed to have left. He couldn’t really focus on the last two to identify them. He closed his eyes. The stroking was helping a big.

“Thank you.” He said softly into Tina’s ear.

“It’s alright”

Nano 2012 Day Three

--

The sand felt pleasingly cold to the mime as he picked up a handful in his free hand and let it sift down to the ground. He brushed his hand off on his slacks and sauntered down the beach being careful not to swing his suitcase too much. He smiled at parents and their children as they walked past holding beach buckets and little spades. The parents guided their children to take a wide arc avoiding him. His smile was possibly a little manic this night. No matter. Eventually he saw the building he was looking for, a plain square, grey building with “Academy For The Dramatic Arts” written in a military typeface across the top. There was a light on in an upper floor. The mime smiled a wry smile, there was always a light on when it was dark. Yet it always looked abandoned during the day. He hurried towards the grey rectangle, being careful not to slip in any holes in the sand then slowed his pace to a regular saunter once he got to the boardwalk.

The mime came right up to the building and looked at the door in the front. No visible keyhole or handle. No hinges either. In fact, there was no door at all. It was just a series of planks set into the brickwork that had been painted to resemble a door. The mime remembered lessons at this “door”, lessons that had ended with his head being rammed repeatedly into the wood fresco, every time he got an answer wrong, every time he made a sound when he should have stayed quiet. Silence above all. Silence to dodge the music. He was getting carried away with him memories. He traced his finger along where he remembered his blood staining the fake entrance, they must repaint it after every student learns that lesson. He shook his head of the nostalgic cobwebs and went around the corner.

Here he could see a stretch of grey concrete along the side, with a drainpipe about halfway down the alley climbing up the side of the building to an ancient looking gutter. He walked directly up to the drain pipe, counted four segments up, grabbed hold of the pipe there and pulled as hard as he could. He felt at that moment the pipe ‘click’ just faintly in his fingertips. He shifted his weight, bent his knees slightly and then pushed the pipe up. It slid over the segment above it, the back of the segment having folded behind to allow it room. Once the section of pipe was out of the way, he pushed the small black rectangular button that was now exposed against the wall.  There were a few muted grinding sounds and then the section of wall to the left of the pipe slowly swung back, leading to darkness. The mime’s fear of the dark had long been overcome and replaced with a menagerie of things much more worthy of fear. He stepped boldly into the dark and was filled with inexplicable joy at the sound of the concrete door shifting and sliding shut behind him. There was no escape. At least, none for those he had come for.

The mime reached into his pocket and snapped one of the phosphorous tubes in his pocket, bringing it out and bathing the room in a green glow. It was much stronger than the usual ‘raver sticks’ that some of the lower class clowns on the beach strip would sometimes play with to entice children to come and buy their cheap tricks. Or something they would use them just to entice children close enough to their dark corners to bundle them into sacks and sell them on the black market. Of course, that was happening less these days with the tourist trade and the police charging more to turn away.

In the glow of his light stick, he could see the trap door he was looking for. He walked over and looked at the padlock that was holding it shut. Hmm, it wasn’t the usual numeric lock that he was expecting. This was an old-school cast iron lock that looked like it had been brought there from the 1800’s. He lifted up his stick and stood to sweep the rest of the room. It appeared bare save for the plain door in the back.  The mime walked slowly towards the door. As he did a flood of memories further assaulted him. His dinner being on the other side of a brick wall that he had to scale using only his fingertips. The metal cage with the rusty nails strategically inserted into pits in the bars so if they scratched, the scratches would puff up and burn for weeks later. The exotic pets the taskmaster kept to roam and make sure the children were where they were meant to be. He shuddered slightly but regained his resolve. He hadn’t come this far to be held back by childish memories. The mime came forward and opened the door.

Once again, darkness. Once again the mime put the light stick in front of him to scan the area. To the far left he could see the edge of a workbench. Tools! He went up to the bench quickly and scanned the surface. Screwdriver, hammer, saw… bolt cutters. Yes, that would do nicely. He tried not to think about what the tool had been used on last, most likely it was not for something as pedestrian, albeit illegal, as what he was about to use it for. He quickly rushed back to where the trapdoor was, crouched down, placed the suitcase carefully next to him and positioned the jaws of the bolt cutter around the padlock. He positioned himself for maximum strength and squeezed. With a loud snap the lock popped in half and at the same time the phosphorous stick went out and the mime was in complete darkness with a  faint tinge of green as an afterglow in his eyesight.

The mime quickly reached into his pocket and wrapped his fingers around another light to snap. As he curled his fingers around, a familiar smell drifted into his nose. Cinnamon? The donuts? No, this was different… this was… minty. This was… familiar. A feeling of dread came over him and he spun around, swinging the bolt cutters as he did. He felt them connect with something. “Argh!” There was a thump. He felt for the suitcase, grabbed it, and scuttled back. He could hear nothing now. He quickly broke the stick in his pocket and pulled it out to hold it in front of his face. He could see a slumped figure on the floor near the trapdoor, seemingly covered in carpet. It was who he had feared, but he seemed badly hurt. At least, he was pretending to be. Keeping his eyes on him, he turned the suitcase to the combination and popped the locks. He opened it up, noted the gelignite in there was ever so slightly agitated, and set the ‘kid’s first alarm clock’ in there to thirty seconds. He closed the briefcase again and slowly inched towards the trapdoor holding the briefcase in one hand and the bolt cutters in the other. He got within poking distance of the carpeted torturer from him past and reached out with the bolt cutters to poke him. No reaction. He swung his other arm, holding onto the briefcase, near the trap door, then grabbed hold of the iron ring attached to the door and pulled it open. It made a satisfying creak. He swung the briefcase over the cavernous black, pushed the little button near the left latch that set his timer in motion and dropped it in. He could hear the loud ticking from the toy alarm clock dissipate in volume as it dropped. OK, time to get out of here. He slowly straightened up and rushed towards the door he entered with and felt along the wall for the switch. He found the slight depression and pushed his finger into it till he heard it catch. Got it! His current light stick chose that moment to go out but it didn’t matter as he could see the door swinging open. He slid through the crack as soon as it was wide enough and ran back down to the boardwalk, where he kept up a lively powerwalk as he moved away from the building. He couldn’t resist a look over his shoulder though. Miming a regular “walk against the wind” vignette, he swung himself around 360 degrees and saw a couple of the windows light up that were previously dark. Then followed the intense smell of sulpher. That’s weird, he thought, shouldn’t there be a ban… the sound was so loud the force of it caused him to drop to the ground. He saw the bottom level of the building blow out, showering the air above him with bricks as the roof simultaneous was launched up a full five feet above the structure with a burst of white light. He couldn’t say it hadn’t gone as planned. He squinted at the structure. There seemed to be a shadow rushing away from the building, in the opposite direction to the boardwalk. Hmm. He hoped it wasn’t the carpet-clad monster that still haunted his nightmares. He really hoped he had stayed there, unconscious, to burn.

Nano 2012 day two

The mime walked away from the street, towards the sea. He could see the moon reflected in the waves., it looked gigantic and yellow. He smiled a slight smile as the smell of the salt hit his senses. He remembered the feeling of escape. Ten years old, in that rickety wooden box, feeling around desperately for some way of escape. He could remember clearly the rough wood under his hands, the splinters that he gained within his skin. He remembered the water rising rapidly, first it would be at his knees, then his waist, then over his head. His hair was wet before his socks were, the functional leather pouches bound tight on his feet providing a few seconds of an impression of waterproofing, though it didn’t laast.

As he reminisced he automatically went through the motion of “trapped in a box”, his hands expertly feeling around the air surrounding him, the waves crashing on the beach as if to applaud his performance. He crouched down and felt along the prison of his own design, testing close to the sand and moving up to the ceiling, his face set in a parody of both panic and sadness. The melancholy never ended, for a mime. A thought occurred to him, he didn’t need to be trapped in this box anymore. He had reinvented himself this night, his world contained a streak of colour. More the point, he was no longer a small boy being trained to demonstrate this silent sadness; he was a man. He stood in a sudden motion, violently expanding his arms out as he did so. In his mind he felt the walls splintering, in his ears he could hear a gun-crack of rotting wood. He was free, and he had gotten out with no tricks needed. He picked up his suitcase again, which he had dropped when he had set up his mental walls again. He was going to set more people free with this, and no one would forget.

--

Those night spent watching the moon waiting for a signal from his ‘real’ parents waned as Menhaus got older, of course. Other things took up his attention, like books, computer games, playing in bands and girls. On the night the mime was breaking free of his mental box, Menhaus was celebrating his twenty eighth birthday with a small group of friends in a little restaurant called ‘Tonsil Hockey’. They served Korean food. Menhaus looked around the table. His cousin Peter was there shoveling noodles into his face as fast as his chopsticks could reach them. His friend Tina was there as well, watching incredulously as he did so. Continuing to look around the table, he saw other friends he saw maybe once a year, normally around his birthday.

“Hey Menhaus!” One of them called out.

“Hello Patrick”

“Happy birthday!”

“Thanks! Thanks for coming.”

“Don’t…” Patrick stopped and appeared to be focusing. Menhaus guessed that he’d had a bit too much to drink.

“Don’t?”

“Don’t mention it. I think I need to step away for… a short while.”

Patrick stood up and started to walk away from the table. Menhaus noticed items on the table beginning to shift with him, then noticed that Patrick had the tablecloth tucked into the front of his pants.

“Patrick…”

A bottle of sweet chili sauce crashed down onto the ground. It bounced once and thankfully did not shatter but it did let loose a torrent of sauce on the floor where it landed.

“Oh… oops” Patrick spun around to see the damage he had caused, twisting the remainder of the tablecloth around him. Dishes spun off the table like a conveyor belt, along with sauces and chopsticks to a general groan of “hey…” from the assembled eaters. Peter, being a focused eater, managed to pluck his bowl of noodles from the table before it flew off the edge and continued pushing them into his mouth at disturbing speed and volume.

Tina squealed and stood up. There was a long streak of what looked like sweet and sour sauce down her dress.  Everyone went quiet, the only sounds were the various foods on the floor sloshing around, the sauce bottles emptying themselves out and Peter continuing to shovel food into his mouth like it had become illegal and he heard of an impending raid. Tine stomped her foot and exited to the restrooms, stepping into a small dish of soy sauce on her way and cracking it. Patrick took a step back from the carnage causing an all new semi-waterfall of condiments and Korean food to shift with him. He looked down and dislodged the tablecloth from his belt buckle.

“Oh.”  He looked up and shrugged. The rest of the table glowered at him.

“Err… happy birthday, Menhaus?” He said and pulled a packet of cigarettes from his back pocket. He tapped it against a palm and pulled the resulting smoke out and placed it in his mouth. “Well, I’m going out front.” He said, and disappeared out the front of the restaurant.  By this point the servers in the restaurant had noticed that there was some sort of commotion and sent someone over to deal with us.

She was a young girl in a little red flower print dress and her hair tightly pulled back. She was holding a notebook and had the pen poised as if she was hoping she could write away this whole tragic mess. “What happened here?” She asked, bewildered. All I could do was gesture at the carnage under the table and over our shoes, now leaking steadily towards a nearby table. I guessed the floor must not have been completely level. “You want to order more food?” She asked as she waved over several of the kitchen staff who were now armed with buckets and brooms and contemplating a plan of attack for our saucy battlefield. I looked around at everyone else. They didn’t seem too thrilled at the prospect. Tina chose this moment to stomp over from her restroom experience. She had actually done a pretty good job of dabbing away the majority of the sauce across her dress, although it was still lightly stained pink in the spots it had hit. If you squinted slightly though, you could convince yourself it was a fashion thing done on purpose. “Let’s just pay and go to a fast food place or something.” She muttered as she re-entered the scene of the crime, precongniscent of what we were contemplating. “Yeah sounds good to me, I said. Just the bill, please.” The waitress scuttered off and we sat there in silence as the carnage was cleaned up around us.

The bill arrived around the same time Patrick sauntered in after his cigarette. “Oh, what’s my part of that one? Should we just split it equally?”

“Maybe you should pay all of it,” Tina said, angrily dabbing at the pink stain still on her dress, “seeing as you dropped it all on the ground.”

“Hey that was an accident!” Patrick said, hands up in protest, “Peter managed to save his anyway.”

Peter, who had finished his noodles a few minutes beforehand and was now staring off into space, focused a glare on Patrick and let loose a long, loud burp in a low register.

“Classy.” Tina rooted around her purse, threw a twenty dollar note on the table and said, “Come on everyone, let’s just get out of here.” Everyone followed suit, I took the pile of money up to the register and thankfully all my guests refused their change. Aside from Patrick of course, who I just gave a random amount probably way more than he was actually owed so he would shut up about it before everyone else got really angry with him and begged me to drop him from the rest of the night’s celebrations. As we all filed out of the place, Patrick gestured to me to hang back. I stood back near our table, which was still steadily being cleaned up. Once everyone had filed out of the restaurant Patrick turned to me and said, “That was pretty messy, right?”

“You could say that.” Outside I could see my little group turning back and giving us “what is going on?” arm signals.

“Yeah not sure how that happened…”

“You had the tablecloth tucked into your pants.” Outside Tina shrugged and lit up a cigarette. One of my other friends immediately mimed a coughing fit and took a step back. Tina blew smoke in their face.

“Hey anyone could have ended up with that happening. I must have been adjusting my napkin or something…”

“You tuck your napkin into your pants?”

“Well that way it captures all the…”

“OK, never mind.. was there something you needed to tell me?”

“Yeah, happy birthday cuz!”

Patrick came in and gave me a hug.

“Ooook. Thank you. I knew you were tipsy, but…”

“Oh, yeah, I guess I drank a little.”

“So should we join everyone then?” Outside I could see drunken passersby were stopping to try and chat up the girls in my friend circle. Tina tried to put her cigarette out in one of their eyes. I had the feeling I’d be needing to defuse a situation soon.

“No no, I need to ask you something. Do you remember when we were little and you used to tell me how our parents were from outer space?”

“What? Umm… let me think about it.”

“You know, at grandma’s, you had that stone you buried and the whole thing with the planets…”

“Oh wow. Yeah, I’d forgotten about that. I was just a kid with an overactive imagination.”

“Yeah well, I found the stone.”

“You… wait, they sold the house. Did you break into the back yard of the new owners and dig it up?”
“It turned up by itself.”

“This isn’t making any sense.”

One of my friends, John, poked his head through the door back into the restaurant, “Hey, are we leaving now? It’s getting a little cold out here.”

“Look Patrick, tell me the rest later tonight OK? We’ll be at a nice noisy nightclub and no one will overhear. It does sound like you’re crazy though.”

Patrick grabbed me by the wrist, hard. “I’m not crazy Menhaus. Really.” He looked directly into my eye. “I have a lot need to talk to you about, I’m going to go home now because that bitch Tina blames me for getting food all over herself so…”

“It WAS your fault, Patrick.”

“Anyway she’s still a bitch and I’m going home. I’ll ring you tomorrow.”

“Alright. Catch a taxi home.”

“Why? My motorbike is parked only a couple of streets away! See ya!”

He raced out the door, waved goodbye to the rest of the group, narrowly missed a half hearted punch Tina aimed at him and disappeared around the corner. Menhaus sauntered out the door mulling over what Patrick had said. He found the stone?  Menhaus had assumed my grandmother had taken the pots with her at least and probably found it by now. He was shaken out of his thoughts by Tina screaming, “Peter!”. Menhaus looked at Tina then followed her gaze in time to see Peter stumbling into the road as a screeching car crashed into him.