I
don’t know how this all started. Well, that’s a lie. I do. I
was born. Born with a
gift….or a curse, depending upon what point of view you held. As I looked around, the cold, white prison walls glared back at
me with a prescient mockery.
Crooks, criminals and charlatans had files past them countless
times, their feet heavy and their minds laden with tales of woe
that were inadequate and uninspiring at the best.
What respite, what joy then for these walls to come across
me with my story: An innocent cursed…. cursed by circumstances
that no amount of wishing could undo….
--‘
Hey buddy….’ A voice grumbled behind me ‘ you gotta light?’
I
jumped in alarm and looked over at a huddled mass which miraculously
became animated. My God.
It’s alive. But is it
friendly? I couldn’t tell. Not anymore. My gift had
gone, knocked out by the fates in the shape of a bludgeon held
by an unknown assailant. ‘ Sorry… ‘ I managed to mumble ‘ I…
I…don’t smoke….’
My
fellow inmate got up and stretched. He was huge. And ugly. I tensed instinctively.
He seemed to take my negative information well though,
which was fortunate since my body felt like it had already been
crushed through a mangle once too many times. He approached menacingly and grabbed my shoulder
‘ Ain’t I seen ya before?!’
What
to say? What to do?
Something that wouldn’t antagonise him preferably ‘ I…I…don’t
think so…’
My
fear must have flashed like a beacon because his expression softened
‘ Yeah… Yeah… I get kinda confused sometimes…. Sorry friend’
he smiled.
It
never ceased to amaze me, the power of a smile. In an instant the threatening hoodlum had been
replaced by a human being.
--‘
It’s alright….’ I was going to add “happens to me all the time”
but the fact remained, being thrown into jail for the murder of
the only girl you ever loved, was something that did not happen
all the time….. Marianna…. that’s all I had left.
A name. I had hardly
known her, but I had loved her.
But my love had not been strong enough to save her.
She had died in my arms, her final whispers fading softly
like the rustling of leaves in a summer breeze.
Those whispers would haunt me.
Forever.
--‘
You okay buddy?’ My fellow inmate was staring fixedly at me.
‘
Whaddya do?… Murder somebody?!’ he laughed.
He obviously thought I was incapable of such an act.
--‘
Yeah….’ I replied slowly, perversely irked by his insult.
He stopped laughing. I rejigged my senses ‘ I… I… mean, no… No…I
didn’t kill anybody …I …I was set up… framed…’ suddenly the hopelessness
devoured me. I slumped
my face into my hands. My
head hurt and all I wanted was just to sleep and not think anymore.
In the stillness I could only hear my breathing, ragged
and lost.
--‘
Tell me…’ the order came. Apparently my companion had become refreshed and now wanted to be
amused ‘ …it’ll pass the time …and time’s all we got!’ He winked encouragingly. I sighed and contemplated the dirt-encrusted
ceiling. Sure. Why not. The
cops had proved a good audience.
Another person added to the list of disbelievers wouldn’t
make much difference. Truth
it seemed, made entertaining fiction.
--‘
I have or rather had this gift….’ I began ‘ ….this ….this ability
…to read peoples’ minds….’ My listener scoffed derisively but
I continued, more to myself than anybody else in particular…
Telepathy.
Yeah. I wouldn’t
have believed it either ‘til it started.
My Mom told me it was hereditary.
Sort of. It was really more annoying than anything else….
A billion voices hammering at your cerebellum is enough to drive
anyone mad. As I grew
older I managed to control it, like it was an on/off valve.
Eventually I learned to channel individual voices. I smiled to myself in disappointment. Yeah…. Those voices: The unspoken choral orchestra
of the great masses. A
seething sensual kaleidoscope of emotions, creativity, knowledge
and imagination. Or so
I had naively believed. The
reality was painfully prosaic.
The masses had been inspired by mundaneity instead:
Home pressures… work pressures… peer pressures… marriage
pressures… adulterous pressures… petty jealousy between husbands,
wives, friends and lovers… petty hatreds… petty arguments and
petty inconveniences. Even
the endless sexual fantasies that I kept tapping into, got monotonous. Mind surfing had become like television channel
hopping: after a while
you throw away the remote in boredom.
Besides, it wasn’t really an ability that could earn yours
truly the big bucks. Now,
if I had been able to read other peoples’ minds and make them
do what I wanted…. that would have been a talent!
Yeah… yeah… maybe I could have joined some freak show or
become some big famous magician or something…. But being just
your regular run-of-the-mill introverted, opportunistic voyeur,
I wanted to avoid public adulation. Most of the time I kept my gift under wraps
but an occasional interesting or beautiful face in the crowd,
would tempt my invasion.
It
was just such a face, about a month ago, that started this… this…
nightmare. A month. It felt more like years. I remembered the face. A youthful face with large brown laughing eyes
and a broad smiling mouth. A
happy face full of happy thoughts.
I smiled with her, at her happy thoughts.
Suddenly it was my thoughts that were being interrupted. Someone was subconsciously impinging upon my
mind, with emotions so powerful and intense, that it was bypassing
my usual control system. I
whirled around but a wall of nondescript faces met my gaze.
A macabre curiosity took possession of me, as I started
to dive ever deeper into the sea of people to hunt out that source,
following its trail. The
mysterious thoughts, unaware of my probing, continued uncontrolled
and unabated: A dark dagger piercing the morning brightness with its insistence
“ I’ve got to kill her… I will kill her… kill her soon…”
Page 2 by Douglas Swanden
Whirling around, desperate
now, trying to find who was thinking their violence into my head.
Where were they coming from? Who were they aiming it at? It was
no good, there were just too many people about and too many voices
in my head. I had to resort to the senses that God had given to
us all. Look around you, you fool, look to see who could be thinking
such thoughts; after all, there’s a time to read the book and
a time to check out the cover. This was covertime. Lunging forwards,
I started assessing the faces of the people around me, cancelling
them from my mind as they failed to fit the picture.
Tourists, lovers and businessmen all as clear as day. Meanderers,
skippers. dawdlers, walkers.... no, no, no .... browsers, sitters,
dreamers and runners..... Runners?... Why the running? Jogger?
No. Bus chaser? No. Dog owner? No. Weirdo? Bingo! Surely he’s
my man; get in close and see what he’s thinking. No need. I can
see that he’s still got killing on his mind and it’s “brown eyes”
that he’s got in his sights. His contorted face gave away his
innermost thoughts more rapidly than even I could decipher them.
Rushing towards him, I ran, jumped and semi-rotated in one amazingly
effective manoeuvre, straight into his brown eyed prey. Crashing
into her, she grabbed my arm as fell pulling me down on top of
her, catching my once spherical testicles with her knee and pushing
them deep into my body cavity. We lay there with her body covering
mine, surely doomed by my inept attempt at rescue. I waited for
the thoughts of the murderer to come crashing into my mind along
with a suitably blunt instrument of some description. But nothing.
No anger. No attack. No running man.
Eventually, after what seemed like an eternity but infact could
have been no more than a matter of seconds, I lifted my body up
from its all enveloping stance. Trapped, the brown eyed girl lay
still and calm under my body, waiting for her moment to escape
from my grip. As I crawled to my knees, she seized this moment;
She jumped up and pushed back with one hand while her other hand
hit me with her bag, a swinging, swirling blow, which seemed to
accelerate as if rocket assisted. My cheek forever imprinted with
the deep intaglio Vuitton logo as the bag followed through on
its mighty arc. To think that I am the gifted one, the seer, the
visionary, the mind reader..... well, I certainly didn’t see that
one coming. The only thing that I had sight of were the flock
of small yellow rubber ducks that were flying around my head quacking
in unison. She stood above me, looking down..... me fully emasculated
and semi-detesticulated, lying at her hands, cradling my logoed
head. I looked up to see the imposing barrel of a luger 9mm now
clearly visible in her hand. ' Who the hell are you and why did
you try to kill me?' The luger leered with the twitching eyed
squint of a killer who enjoys his work. ' I was... I was ...
ah.. well this is ... really ...Well...' The clickety clak click
of a trigger hammer elocution lesson brought the words readily
to my tongue. ' I was really trying to save you. Yes. Save you.
Yes that’s it. I was trying to save You.'
' Why do you think I needed saving?'
' I ... Well, I heard it, may I get up?' For a woman with a gun
she turned out to be a great listener.
Her name was Marianna. Brown eyes, thirty-two years old and a
photographer for a Spanish magazine. For my part I told her my
story and how I could hear thoughts and she accepted every word
without the slightest doubts or the need for me to prove my skills.
When I told her I had read a killer’s mind and that she was the
intended victim, she seemed completely unmoved and unconcerned.
Perhaps she thought it was just a lame chat-up line. Anyway why
should I worry. Here I was with the most gorgeous woman I’d ever
met. She knew I could see her every thought and yet she still
wanted to be with me. Okay, so what if there was a mad psychotic
murderer hell bent on mindless masochistic mashing, at least I
would be close at hand to look out for her. I enjoyed those three
days we spent together more than any I had ever lived before.
We laughed. We loved. I almost forgot that I could look beyond
blank faces and see the horror and darkness within peoples’ minds.
How nice it must be to be normal. All was at peace until the morning
of our fourth day together. We had planned to go into the countryside.
Marianna had said that she wanted to take photos and to teach
me how to see a picture. But first she had to meet a colleague
at the airport. Reluctant to share my newly found prize with anyone,
I begrudgingly agreed.
As soon as we entered the busy airport concourse I again felt
the uncertainty and confusion that had so masked my senses on
that first meeting with Marianna. The voices started as we approached
her colleague, they were getting closer all the time. Then I saw
the luger raising its ugly mouth. Marianna pointed it at her colleague
but then turned it back on herself. Instinctively I grabbed for
the gun. The explosion was a wake-up call of reality, a horrific
reality that lay blood strewn infront of me; the muscles in my
hand seized up, still gripping the smoking gun....
Page 3 by Dave Beckton
-'Tindall.... Tindall.....Freddy
Tindall ', the jailer barked. It was the classic police cell scenario,
here I was sitting in the downtown precinct holding den, to my
left dealers, murderers and gangsters, to my right muggers, thugs
and drunks; I didn't dare look next door. Myself, well I was still
pretty confused about how I'd got here in the first place, so
I wasn't too bothered as to where I stood in the lowlife food
chain.
- 'Which one of you scum suckers is Freddy Tindall? ' The cop
ran his baton along the bars of the cell. Yeah this is it
I thought He rattles the cage and all the streetwise smart
mouths give him hell, shouting and screaming like startled chickens.
It's just as I've seen a hundred times or more on every cop show
and movie that's ever been made.
- 'Tindall get your phoney ass over here now, before you make
me come in after you '.The guard stared straight at me and I grinned
back. Boy was that guy Tindall going to be in trouble,
I sniggered. As the jailers eyes narrowed so my brain began to
open Tin...dall, the two syllables that my parents had bestowed
on me. Oh boy was I going to be in trouble!!
-'Tindall we've got a nice little cell waiting just for you, it
seems someone upstairs thinks you're "high risk". '
He couldn't hide the chuckle as he thought about what he said
.-'Yeah you really are a special case. ' Any misplaced pride that
I might have felt due to my newly elevated status of "criminale
mas grande" was to be short lived, derailed in fact, literally
by the jailer's freight train of a forearm that hit the back of
my head. Good day and goodnight your lordship!! Three hours later
I woke up, well that's where we came in, just the two of us. I
glanced across at my custodial companion, wondering at what he
thought of my fantastic tale of misfortune. His eyes were narrow
, but none the less focused as if staring, trying to search out
some reason in the madness of my story. Still and devoid of expression
, obviously deep in thought, he raised his right hand to his nose
and started picking it, simultaneously scratching his ass with
his left hand. What a smart boy!! I coughed to regain his train
of thought and I looked into his eyes, his blank eyes , completely
bloody blank!
-'Hey buddy you got a light?' he finally muttered.
The jailer's voice was a welcome relief from the impending "death
by deja vu" that I was about to face. -'Tindall seems like
it's your lucky day, someone's bailed you out, you're free to
go.' I knew that line was supposed to happen , it always did,
but I can't say I was expecting it right now. Who was bailing
me out, who even knew I was here? The question of how someone
could get me off the hook after I had killed a young woman , not
ten feet away from a senior police officer , in the middle of
a crowded airport, was whirling round my head as I collected my
belongings from the desk officer.
-'Those guys over there to see you, ' said the sergeant, pointing
in the direction of the door, where two men of indistinct sexuality
were approaching me.
- 'Hello Mr Tindall, I
do trust you are all right, ' said the slightly less effeminate
one.
- 'Yes we do so hope you haven't been hurt, ' chipped in the other.
Short, weasel faced, dubious gender, ginger haired and both wearing
black polo necks under their, ever so too shiny suits. I'm not
a man to make hasty judgements, but in their cases I made an exception:
I hated them already and to cap it all these two turned out to
be my saviors.
- 'My name is Lyndsey Detallier and this is my partner Vaughn
Coots, we are from the government and as such have been instructed
to look after you.' His hand touched my arm as if to reassure
me that he was in control now , but I shook it off and turned
to face him.
- 'Now just you listen to me you odious little troll, in case
you forgot I am a free man and if you don't take your damp little
fingers off me , I'll have you arrested.' My impromptu incarceration
and subsequent release had brought out the street fighter in me
and I wasn't going to let them boss me about now I was free.
'Ginger' Lyndsey aka munchkin number one grabbed my hand and looked
into my face.
- 'You most certainly are not a free man Mr Tindall, you are on
bail for murder and as such are allowed out only in the custody
of a government agent, so I suggest you stop trying to be clever
and give us some cooperation, otherwise you can start to call
this place home. '
My hand throbbed as he tightened his grip to emphasize his point.
Out of the frying pan into the fire, at least that's what it seemed
like. Why was I the special case and what did they want with me.
I needed time to think, time to work out what was going on....
Page 4
I was escorted into the
back of a black MPV, the windows were tinted and there appeared
to be manacle restraints attached to the floor. We drove for some
time without any conversation, I was resigned to waiting afterall.
If they had wanted to harm me they could have done it by now.
After about an hour we pulled up at what looked like an old factory
unit but within a residential area. The MPV drove straight in
and I was led through the garage to an office door.
– ' Wait here, ' said the man called Cootes.
I sat in an indiscriminate office that could have been any two
bit business in any town the world over. Outside the door I could
hear Cootes and Detallier arguing. Putting my head to the door,
I could just about make out the voices mentioning something about
interest on the loan not being sufficient to compensate for the
problems they had incurred and that this was the only way. What
was the "only way"? Worryingly, the phrase "he's
expendable" cropped up more than once and chilled me to the
core each time I heard it. Suddenly I began to suspect that I
was perhaps in a little bit deeper than I had at first thought.
The door opened and my two guardians came in, I could sense that
all was not well by their body language.
– ' Sit back in the chair Freddy, this is just for security
reasons... ' As I sat back, goon number two grabbed my wrists
and pulling a plastic fastener, locked my hands together as at
the same time, a black hood placed over my head, shut out the
light. My heart raced anticipating the worst; surely this was
to be an execution. My body tensed waiting for the impact of the
bullet. I listened to the noises around me to try and understand
what was happening. If only I hadn't lost my powers of mind reading,
at the very time when it could have been so useful. All my life
I had hoped that my party trick would serve some purpose more
useful than just being able to tell if girls dug me or whether
I was being stitched up by every motor mechanic in town. Now just
when I needed it most, the "powers" which had gotten
me into this mess in the first place, had gone. Well, if this
is what being gifted from birth is all about, I'd like to opt
for the ever-so normal option next time around. The voices carried
on talking in the outer office in the same heated manner, but
they were a little too distant for me to be able to decipher anything
more than the fact that these guys were not happy. Since being
plunged into total darkness my other senses were working overtime,
but their results proved flimsy, mustering only a scrambled argument,
the smell of a stuffy hood and a set of bindings that felt as
tight as ever. A new noise alerted my straining ears. An outer
office door opened and different voices could be heard, two people,
a man and a woman. The voices moved about the outer office frustratingly,
allowing the words to come in and out of range of my hearing.
The woman's higher pitched voice allowed me to pick out certain
words and it became apparent that I was not the main concern to
the goings on and that perhaps I had stumbled in on something
at the wrong time instead; this had to be good news for my life
expectancy.
Finally the footsteps and
the voices seemed to have become less heated and even friendly,
maybe the problem had been solved? The electronic reveille of
a cellular cut through the mumblings and almost instantly seemed
to change the proceedings. The footsteps grew closer and I could
now smell perfume. Instinctively my body tensed, the bag over
my head was pulled from behind and tightened like a noose. Two
gunshots followed by two thumps of falling bodies readied me for
the inevitable third shot. I felt a searing pain followed by a
short moment of super coherence and "pop", just like
a television being switched off, I was out for the count...
Once again in a short period
of time I'd been steam rollered, this was the sort of lifestyle
pattern that I was really should try and shake, but on the bright
side, I was still alive, at least, I think I was... I hadn't lost
the bag over my head but I must have torn free of the wrist ties
when I'd fallen to the floor. I pulled at the black hood, expecting
to feel another crashing blow but the hood stayed on and I stayed
on my feet.
– ' What do you want
with me, I haven't done anything... ' I wailed, turning all the
time trying to hear a noise or movement that would allow me to
know where my attacker was and perhaps block him when he decided
to hit me again. No hit came and no noise was heard. I put down
my arms and concentrated on the silence flooding my brain.
– 'Is there anyone
there? What do you want? ' It was lame but I had to ask. I moved
around with my arms outstretched, this time for fear of falling
rather than being knocked down. As I roamed around I realised
that I had been left alone in the room and also it became clear
that I wasn't in the small office where my assault had taken place
in, but that I was now in a much larger room with soft furnishings
and carpets.
Then I heard the voices
– ' I think we should kill him now, the problem's only going
to get more complicated later... '
But I hadn't heard the voices, instead they had appeared in my
mind: The good news was I could read thoughts again; the bad news
was the thoughts weren't getting any better....
TO BE CONTINUED.....
Page 4 Winner: Mark Tappert,
Utah USA
Deadline for Page 5: 12th July 2005
