“Thy Will Be Done … .”

Mister Pants:         It is thinking of “Mr Stay Puft the Marshmallow Man” when Peter Venkman tells you to empty your mind.

Michael:       Gravity was a tyrant to wake up to.  I remember Jim’s heavy footfalls hammering down into my dreams. Before I heaved open my eyes lids I collected myself with a small mantra. I start every day with some repetitious and familiar words. It helps prepare for whatever Moult World has in store for me and keeps the trapdoor barred for another day.

Mister Pants:       It is the lies we tell ourselves to keep the world aligned.

Hedge:         A headache like a crown of cement demanded my head stay on the jacket I was using for a pillow. But Jimbo demanded louder that we wake up. I peeled myself from my sleeping mat. The three “Georges” peeked nervously at our camp site from a good few paces off … but it was the spectacle of my best friend that made me draw my breath.

Mister Pants:        It is when bad news arrives before its messenger.

Michael:       The desert was grey; but Jim was greyer. He stood before us like a cadaver of someone we had known since school. Lines of red shock etched his eyes. He opened his mouth once … twice but no sounds came out. He then visibly steeled himself and tried again.

Hedge:         When at last he spoke it was to tell us we had to go back. To leave our possessions here, forget Victor, flee The Kingdom and make haste back to the Habitat. Once there we were to gather everyone we loved: his children, our lovers. One of us would even have to cross the lake and drag Ming away from the Edenists … for we needed to return to the Olde World now!

Mister Pants:        It is the knowing when unseen eyes push against you.

Michael:       Of course, we argued. We had come too far, I said, and now on the trail of Victor’s camp sites it was only a matter of time before we found him. Hedge agreed but much more forcibly. He was adamant, even furious, that abandoning Moult World would never be an option for him. Our reedy little people voices must have echoed throughout that desolate land. Jim’s head shook heavily from side to side as he denied our every answer … but our intransigence grew louder and louder until it thundered across the plains.

Hedge:         NOTHING WILL EVER DRIVE US FROM MOULT WORLD!

Michael:       We fell into a hushed truce. Hedge sullenly made breakfast as I packed the camp. Jim stood there frowning and trembling ignoring our industry. He was deep inside his own head and I was not inclined to help him rationalise his hysteria. Mister Pants clearly upset by the argument led the three “Georges” off into the distance … once more on the trail of our missing friend.

Mister Pants:         It is getting up in the middle of the night and not looking in the bathroom mirror less you conjure into existence something over your shoulder.

Michael:       That night we camped again on the remains of another of Vic’s camps. He had dug a small trench, sheltered beneath a boulder, in which he had slept with his dogs. We made camp and still none of us spoke. Mister Pants tethered “The Georges” some distant off because they had began to smell. I wrapped myself in a sleeping bag as their lonely bellows carried on the wind.  When sleep came it took me to a primal corner of my subconscious where I was reptilian simple and uncaring.

I awoke in the early hours to a strange noise.

Hedge:         Blood clots glistened in the night; ruby puddles varnished the ground. Congealed sticky tendrils, dripping on the breeze. What was this nightmare I had woken to? I took another sleepwalker’s step into the visceral landscape. Bones lay scattered and cast off, flailed meat and severed veins hanging off them. The smell of offal warm against my cheek.

I don’t recall which of us vomited first.

Jim:                      It is suddenly remembering what it was as a child … to know – for a fact – that monsters exist.

Michael:       Jim stood glistening in gore and he made us understand. He told us what he had been seeing. And his words etched at the night around us and slowly he carved the monsters into plain sight.

Mister Pants:      It is realising that five senses are meagre indeed when it comes to describing the mysteries … and terrors … of a universe that will always need answering.

Hedge:         His words were just clues. But once on that path our senses hurried to their own conclusions. Bit by bit we  understood … They were everywhere.

(Part 2 of 3)

~ by hedgemonkey on August 23, 2009.