End of the Trail

(Now that "End of the Trail" has been published, I guess I'm free to let you read the whole story. It was published in My Weekly under the title of "Will There Be Ducks?" and I was really happy with the layout. I'm looking forward to my next magazine submission!

I feel the story's more touching for me now that (at least for me) BSG has finished. Don't worry, this is absolutely spoiler-free :-) All I'll say is that the finale was one of, if not the most, perfect works of television I've ever seen. Superb!)

"Mummy, will there be ducks?" Kara asked, her young voice almost drowned out by the din. She was fascinated by ducks; always asking to hear stories about them, drawing pictures and collecting as many photographs as she could beg from the grown-ups. Her favourite game was the one where she'd go running around the cargo bay yelling "quack, quack" as loudly as she could. There was even the time her birthday present list had only one thing on it, a real, living duck. She had to make do with Mr. Bill, reluctantly, but the old, patch-ridden, plush toy duck was sitting alone on her bunk, several decks above, abandoned now that she was going to see real animals for the first time in her life. She bounced on her feet, unable to keep still.

"I don’t know, Kara", her mother said, loudly, over the noise. "I hope there'll be something like a duck."

She bit her lip and gazed down at her daughter, fidgeting as much as she, the delay setting every nerve on edge.

The alarm blared, echoing back and forth from the gun-metal grey walls of the corridor. The warning beacons spun persistently, companions to the continuing klaxon. In all of Kara’s eight years, those lights and that sound had always meant one thing; the grown-ups flying into a panic, rushing to fix whatever it was that had torn or broken before their precious atmosphere leaked away into the ether. But not today, today it was heralding the end of their journey, the start of a new life away from the confines of this ship. Kara could see the wide eyes and big smiles, and hear the loud, excited conversations all around her.

The airlock hatch jumped back and Kara matched the movement, scooting behind her mother, her grip tightening in fright. It moved away from them, long unused hydraulics groaning, and swung upwards into the ceiling, finally falling silent, the alarm stopping abruptly. The corridor was suddenly filled with clashing chatter, raised up a notch by the imminent opening of the outer hatch.

She looked up at her mother, apprehension and expectation crowding onto her young features. Her mother's gaze was fixed on the hatch, but sensing Kara's gaze, she glanced down and gave a reassuring smile.

"Mummy, can I go and swim in the sea first?" Kara asked, as the question popped into her head.

"It depends how near we are, love", her mother said. "I heard the pilot say we were landing near a lake."

"And a dog, if they have dogs, can I have a dog?" Kara asked breathlessly.

"We’ll see, Kara, just be patient a little longer."

The outer hatch clanked loudly, groaning louder than the inner hatch, the mechanism struggling to lift the heavy, metal portal, Kara realising that this would be the first time in her life she had ever seen it open; that this would only be the first of many new things she'd see today.

Her mind whirled with the images she had conjured from all the stories that her parents had told her, the memories of the photographs they had shown her. Stories of vast expanses of water, more than she'd ever seen in one place before, bigger even than the swimming pool on deck twelve where she'd learnt to swim and dive. Wide open spaces larger than any of the vast cargo bays that had been her playground for so long. Air so sweet and fresh that it would drive out all memory of the tangy, metallic, recycled atmosphere that filled the ship. Sunlight warmer and brighter than any of the lights on the ship.

Those were only the things she could relate to. There was so much more of which she'd been told that she just couldn't begin to conceive of, things which she had never seen, smelt or touched. The sweet scent of a simple flower filling her nose, the sight of a majestic tree soaring up and away above her, the feel of cool, ticklish grass underfoot.

The hatch shrieked with a long, piercing screech of metal on poorly greased metal as it slid aside, as if the ship was voicing its reluctance to part with its crew. The airlock was instantly bathed in bright, eye-aching light, filling the dark, gloomy interior of the ship, warming metal that had been chilled by the years in deep space. The people gathered around the airlock said nothing, just smiling, letting the warmth of a sun soak into them after so long in the clutches of the cold, clammy hands of space.

Her mother tugged at her hand and Kara tore her gaze away from the hatch, looking up at her. The warmth falling on her face was reflected in her smile and twinkling eyes.

"Ready, Kara?" she asked. Now faced with the reality of the end of this journey, Kara's fear was rising swiftly, the new world outside filled with nothing but the unknown. Her grip tightened on her mother's hand and she moved further behind her, as if to hide from the hatch and all that lay outside. She looked around her, the dark, empty corridor stretching away on either side, leading into the depths of the ship. She knew every turn, every hiding place, every nook and cranny which had been her domain for her whole life. The lure of the dark was so strong, the safety and security of the ship beckoning to her.

Her hand slipped from her mother’s, people buffeting her back and forth as she squeezed between them, their excitement washing over her, every voice filled with optimism, expectation, hope as they moved past her. She slipped back towards the darkness, towards the familiar smells, sights and noises of the ship.

Her mother found her a short while later, sitting in the gloom of cargo bay three, legs pulled up to her chest, arms folded around them, chin resting on her knees, Mr. Bill leaning lop-sided against her.

"It’s alright, Kara, you don’t have to be scared", she said, softly, sliding down to the cold metal floor beside her. She cuddled Kara to her side. The teary-eyed girl gazed at her.

"Do I have to leave, mummy?" she asked, quietly. Her mother leant down and kissed her hair.

"You mustn’t be frightened, love", she said. "What is out there is so much more than this place can ever be. Think of all the things you’re going to see, a new home waiting for you to explore."

She paused.

"I was as young as you when I left my home", she said. Her eyes filled with tears as she remembered the last time she'd seen it, when she was a little girl as young as Kara. Her house, with the neatly tended garden, her bedroom window with the teddy bear curtains and looming over it all, a dark sky filled with thousands of fiery meteorites. Her father had been preparing for months, ever since the comet had been discovered on its unswerving collision course, knowing full well that the plan to destroy it would still result in disaster, ignoring the multitude that had called him insane. They'd made it into space with barely a moment to spare and once there, the forty thousand souls who'd listened to him watched as their world burned and died.

She jumped as Kara threw her arms around her neck, hugging her tightly. Together they stood up, walking hand in hand back to the airlock, Mr. Bill held tight against her.

Silhouetted in the sunshine, they looked at one another.

"Ready, mummy?" Kara asked, finally. Her mother nodded and together they walked into the light, Kara's voice echoing one last time around the ship.

"I hope there are ducks."

If I Build It...

(OK, so I'm hopeless at routinely writing here :-) I got my copy of Sunken Treasure by Wil Wheaton yesterday and I've been inspired to have a go at narrative non-fiction. Even though I have a story half written for next week's Basingstoke Writers' Circle. Read into that what you will!)

I regressed to childhood a couple of Saturdays ago and spent a few hours rummaging through a huge cardboard box full of Lego. As I raked Lego blocks back and forth, trying to find that last elusive flat, yellow, three stud-long piece I needed, I felt a connection to my six-year-old self, when I built the set for the first time, on the living room floor in 1979.

It all started when Jonathan Ross tweeted a question: “Best toy you ever got as a kid ? Or toys ?” I didn’t really get in to Action Man and the second-hand (or more) Scalextric I pestered for at a jumble sale turned me off it permanently when it utterly failed to work. My dad introduced me to Hornby trains, but to be honest I was more interested in making up stories for them, after a strict diet of Thomas the Tank Engine stories, than I was in running them around the circuits of track. I had Matchbox and Corgi cars, but they didn’t do much apart from roll around the floor, or around in circles once the axle became bent.

No, for me, there were only two toy universes when I was a child. The first was Star Wars. Collecting the toys was a no-brainer really, though I could be called a late starter as I didn’t see Star Wars (OK, OK, Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope) at the cinema. I remember not being too entranced by The Empire Strikes Back at age 8; I took a toilet break during the escape from Cloud City. It was the toys that cemented Star Wars in my mind. I would recreate the Hoth Rebel base out of the contents of Mum’s towel collection, filling the landing with carefully arranged terry cloth, so I could replay scenes from the movie or make up my own stories, the characters I hardly knew growing and evolving in my mind.

The other universe was my childhood Force, surrounding and penetrating every moment of my playtime, binding all the other toys together.

Lego.

I’d build Imperial bases out of it (perfectly camouflaged against the snow in vivid red), squinting at blurry, out-of-focus catalogue photos of the sets I couldn’t afford or was too impatient to wait for. Cars would race around tracks with deviously placed Lego obstacles and jumps. Trains would pull wagons filled with one-stud blocks, where I’d run out of little plastic coal sacks, and crash into Lego landslides.

I came to Lego when my parents bought a huge box of it, second-hand. Now I get the feeling there must have been some vintage sets in there, but without the plans, all I had was my imagination. I don’t think I managed to get very far at making my own models. Then I was given Lego sets and there was order in my life.

I’d never seen this much gray Lego before, but somehow it was absolutely right for a spaceship. The bags had been emptied across the light-brown, coarse living room carpet, over my usual play place by the bookshelves, next to the hi-fi. The instruction book was open, plates aligned in front of it matching the drawings on the paper. I have no idea of what was going on around me; I had fallen so deeply into a world of building that all I can recall is adding blue blocks to gray plates, putting hinges together and growing ever more excited that I’d soon be flying LL928 around the house. I knew instinctively it would fly; it was shaped like a dart, it had four, *FOUR* massive engines with another three underneath, it had guns, it had a tail which came apart so the cargo bay could open. At age six, that was all it needed to fly in space.

At age thirty-five, I know that a Borg cube is as able to fly in space as the Galaxy Explorer. Thanks to the World Wide Web, I also know that it is called the Galaxy Explorer. As I settled down to build, the instructions were arranged on my MacBook Pro, rather than on paper, the originals lost to time like some ancient Egyptian papyrus. But that was all that had changed in thirty years, once I delved into that cardboard box of Lego and began building LL928 again. The noise of Lego bricks cascading over one another filled the room, the sound of creativity that I’d known all my childhood surrounding me again. I am a husband, a home-owner, supporting my family by working a 35 hour week, bearing my responsibilities on (hopefully) strong shoulders. By the time I began arranging the grey plates on the beige, spare room carpet though, it had all fallen away from me. The worries, the doubts, the stresses of grown-up life had all been replaced with the simple need to add an eight-long, two-stud wide plate in the right place, to find six black and three yellow plates in a mound of Lego. Counting with a finger along the image on the screen, making sure I had each piece exactly positioned. Pushing unattached plates together to make sure I didn’t forget one or, worse still, attach one wrongly. Scrabbling in the box for what seemed like every single gray, three stud long plate I owned, finding other pieces that brought back snippets of memories. The pure, joyful simplicity of following the instructions and making something carried me along for three hours, until the model was complete.

Of course, thirty years is a long time. Tail fins had broken. Hinges had snapped. But what would once have made me give up simply made me roll up my sleeves and think, “how do I fix this?” I suppose that’s the benefit of growing up. When we’re young, the unexpected stymies us. When we’re grown up, the unexpected is, more often than not, what we have to deal with every day. From now on, though, whenever I need a break from it all, I’m going to roll up my sleeves and rummage in my Lego bricks.

The Doll in the Attic

(For our holiday in 2007, we went to Florida, taking in the sights, sounds and mouse ears of Orlando. To give ourselves a break, we decided to head down to the Keys and spent a couple of nights staying at the Curry House in Key West. While there, and possibly while under the influence of one too many mohitos, we decided to go on a ghost tour. One of the stories we heard introduced us to Robert the Doll. I hope he doesn't mind, but I found his story fascinating and just had to see what I could do with it. The first attempt at a story featuring Robert was rejected, so here it is, in its entirety.)

"I don't care if that was your favourite wrench, there's no way I'm going back in that attic."

I held my hands up, shaking my head like I was swatting Key West's ever-present mosquitoes. I don't know much other than plumbing, but I knew I didn't want to go up there again for a lousy toolbox. Ben slid off the bar stool, angry and fuming.

“Damn you, Jimmy”, he spat, “I've got enough crap to deal with today without you leaving my stuff all over town."

He turned to go, shoulders hunched, fists clenched, and I briefly thought I might be on the receiving end of one of his legendary right hooks. But Ben was my friend, my drinking partner on a Friday night, heck, every night, and I didn't want to see him as shaken up as I was. My hand shot up, grabbing his arm, stopping him in his tracks.

"What the hell...?" he said, glaring at me.

"Don't go up there, Ben, I'm telling you."

For a moment I didn't know if he was simply going to hit me, but something in my look must have worked its way in, because he sagged a little and sat back down on the worn barstool. His eyebrows knitted, he leaned forward.

"For God's sake, Jimmy, what happened?", he asked.

I loosened my grip on his arm and turned to the bar, my empty glass in my hands.

"Fetch a bottle of Jack and I'll tell you. I'm going to need a drink or six."

The bottle soon sat between us, the sour tang of the liquor burning down my throat. I spoke to my already half-drained glass, ignoring the handful of tourists, the bartender, even Ben.

I pointed at my empty glass and Ben poured, listening closely.

"You know what Key West is like this time of year; right in the low season between the Poker Run and Fantasy Fest. Sometimes all you can hear in the street is the creaking of 'Vacancy' signs on the porches. Sure, there's one or two out-of-towners around, sweating, burning and getting wired on the Cuban coffee, then heading home with their conch shells, key lime pie recipes and mosquito bites. But this place just feels asleep, you know? And yeah, I could quite easily fall onto the hammock and be as lazy as this place feels, but it's rent time and I'm a couple of Ben Franklins short."

"Anyway, that old lady in the Artist's House over on Eaton calls me up. She's standing in a bedroom, looking at a large damp patch in the ceiling and she knows it's short notice, but could I go over and fix the leak for her, she'll pay extra for the inconvenience, her guests are due in an hour. Seems she's getting into the B and B thing, probably needs the cash since her man died last year. Well, I figured I could easily get what I needed for the rent out of her; make a lot of noise for a while, then fix the problem and get back to my hammock. So I say yes and grab my stuff and head on over."

"YOUR stuff?", Ben exclaimed, snorting JD out of his nose. He wiped whiskey from his face and shook his head.

"Anyway", I said, ignoring him, "she's sweet enough and I knew I'd have no trouble convincing her of all the 'work' I was doing. She leads me upstairs and shows me the attic door. Just as I open it, she wiggles a finger at me, 'make sure you're nice to Robert', she said. Well, see, I know the poor dear's all alone in that place, so I smile and nod and wonder which planet she's currently on and climb on up."

"Well, Ben, that attic, I've never seen anything like it. The place was done out like a bedroom, fully furnished but all of it really, really small. A bed, all neat and tidy, a chest of drawers, a wardrobe with tiny clothes hanging in it, lace curtains on the window and right there in the middle of it all, sitting on a painted rocking chair, the creepiest damn doll you've ever seen. I mean, those black, empty eyes, I swear they were looking at me from the get-go. A bump of a nose and no mouth. Holding its tiny toy lion, wearing that little sailor suit, the damn thing seeming to say 'oh, are we going to have some fun with you'."

The shivers ran down my spine again and I drained my glass, nodding in gratitude as Ben silently filled it again to the brim.

"I shook off my nerves and set about looking for the leak. Yeah, I know I said I was going to take my time, but that damn doll really creeped me out and I figured the sooner I got done, the better I'd feel about putting it a long ways behind me. So there I am, under the eaves, in the gloom, when I hear a kid giggling behind me. I figure that the old lady has grandchildren visiting or it's a guest's rug rat, curious about what I'm doing, so I look behind me, ready to give them a lesson in Key West plumbing. But there's no-one there. Just me and that doll, rocking back and forth in its chair, looking at me over the arm of the chair. I suppose I must have knocked it when I walked past, or something."

I stopped, the images crowding into my head, the dulling effect of the drink only just kicking in. I drained the glass and glanced at Ben.

"So I finish up, making sure it's all fixed. The giggling comes again, then the pattering of tiny feet on the floor. I jump and crack my head on the eaves. And then something taps me on the shoulder."

"I really, really didn't want to look behind me right then. But I did, slowly, and I don't mind telling you I was more scared at that moment than I've ever been in my whole goddamn life, not even when I was head down in the bathtub with Wilma tearing the clapboard off the house."

I took a deep breath, shaking with fright at just the memory of it, still so clear in my head.

"There it was, that damn doll, standing by my shoulder, those cold, dead, black eyes glinting, looking right through me. I got from there to here in less than a minute and that's why I'm not going anywhere near that attic again."

I fell quiet and looked at the whiskey in my glass, waiting for Ben's reaction. I downed the rest of it and turned to him. He stared at me, his own glass sitting forgotten on the bar, hardly touched during my story. We said nothing for a long, long time, until he finally grabbed his drink and drained it in one.

"Dammit, Jimmy", he said, smiling a humourless smile. "You had me going then."

He stood up and leaned in, wrinkling his nose at the smell of my breath.

"I'm going to go and get my stuff", he said, slowly. "And then I'm going to come back here and knock you on your ass for making me go all the way up there."

He turned and strode out into the hot, humid sunshine, the door banging shut behind him. I just sat and watched it for a while, the circle of sunlight bright in the centre, and then turned to the bar, filling his glass, setting the almost empty bottle down on the bar. I knew he'd need a stiff drink when he got back from that attic and that damnably disturbing doll.