Scorpio's Jewels (Part Three)

The next day dawned slowly but surely, as a pale sun struggled its way upwards through swathes of rolling blue-grey mist. The city streets were oddly quiet - all that could be heard was the occasional cry of a wandering salesman, hoarsely advertising his wares. It was one of these that finally returned the shopkeeper to his bed - "Sugar, get your sugar!" was the call, and suddenly the shopkeeper was awake, with a peculiar sweetness on his lips and a new-found sparkle in his eyes.

With a burst of energy he threw his ragged bed sheet from his scrawny body, and moved swiftly to the narrow slit of light that he called his window. What he saw made his heart leap in the fragile confines of his chest. The rising sun had somehow caught the mist like a prism, and its weak rays had shattered into a multitude of colours that shimmered and flashed in the morning air like the twinkling movement of fish in the ocean. The effect was almost magical, and it seemed to the shopkeeper as if all that he could see - all the crumbling houses with their wearing brickwork - had in some way been reborn, and a little of their old dignity had briefly been restored.

This impression even stretched to the pedestrians shuffling by - the weathered lines on an old woman's face went from betraying her senility to becoming marks of her wisdom, while the lacklustre flowers on a young girl's skirt suddenly appeared to bloom with life. It was as if all the mystery and romance missing from the streets had come flooding back, and as the shopkeeper stood by his window, drinking it all in, his spirits rose for the first time in months.

* * *

The businessman that the woman had mentioned in the shopkeeper's dream was in fact a sportsman, who, in years gone by, had been one of the very best in the land, and whose name had at one time resounded in chants of slavish devotion around every stadium in the country. But that was many years ago, and now, when all that remained of the esteem in which he had been held was the wealth that it had given him, he had decided to return and retire to the place where he had grown up, a place just down the road from a certain dusty little bookshop.

In his old age, the sportsman had tried, and mostly succeeded, to replace the thrill of the game he'd left behind with the risks of business. Where once he had carried the hopes of a nation on his shoulders, now he held the fortunes of many a small business in his hands, or, more specifically, in his overflowing coffers. The influence this gave him over those less fortunate than himself was intoxicating. Sometimes, when a venture of his performed beyond expectations, he relived, for an instant, the feeling he'd had when he strode out onto the playing field, and heard the admiring roar of ten thousand fans erupt around him.

Not surprisingly, in time, this power went to the sportsman's head. He began to fancy himself as a master strategist; a business angel that had climbed through the heavens and achieved almost Godlike status. Eventually, it began to be said that he had become, or perhaps always had been, a man whose pride was so bloated that any attempt to swallow it would have left him choking.

This overblown sense of grandeur manifested itself in the ornate mansion that he built himself; he became like an old feudal lord, living in a castle surrounded by slums, the filth all around making his marble walls gleam in a way his cleaners could never manage.

Under his much-adorned roof little was different. It was said by many of the sportsman's downtrodden servants that the extravagance of his bed compensated for the loneliness inside of it.

The fact was that the sportsman had too much money to attract a woman of integrity, yet too much pride to fall for one that had none. And no other kind of woman ever presented herself, no-one who could see past his riches and mistake the fundamental ugliness of his nature for a thing of beauty. If such women existed in dreams they didn't in reality, so he spent his nights yearning for a love he didn't deserve, and, as his treasure-hoard didn't happen to include a genie's lamp, his wish remained unfulfilled.

Yet the sportsman refused to accept this - he believed that to be loved was his unquestionable right, and maintained that the cause of his deprivation lay not with him, but instead with everyone else. After all, he thought that he was perfect, in both personality and looks, and the fact that no-one ever thought (or dared) to tell him otherwise merely confirmed his opinion.

Every time he glanced in the mirror, as he was wont to do (far more frequently than necessary), the refined visage of an ageing nobleman looked back. And surely, the sportsman reasoned, in rare moments of lucidity, even if his opinion of his looks was ever-so-slightly inflated, the truth couldn't be all that far removed from it. But unfortunately for him, this was exactly what had happened.

The truth was that there was an underlying asymmetry to the sportsman's face that made him undeniably attractive in the mirror, yet downright ugly in real life. The curve of his cheekbones and the turn of his nose appeared so elegant in his reflection, but in the eyes of others, who saw the mirror-image of the image in the mirror, the elegance was flipped for coarseness, and all that had been beautiful was now repulsive.

But the sportsman remained blissfully oblivious to all this, as he possessed no camera, so the only idea he had of how others saw him lay in the many portraits that stared back at him from various parts of the house, all looking just as handsome as the sums he had paid for their painting.

The most impressive of his collection hung opposite the main entrance to the house, carefully positioned to be the first thing seen by any guests that had been invited inside. The sportsman glanced at it as he passed by on the way to his breakfast table, and the sight of it made his spirits soar as high as the shopkeeper's had, earlier that morning.

With an air of perfect self-satisfaction, the sportsman sat down to his morning meal.

* * *

At that very moment, the shopkeeper stumbled smartly out of his house, and slammed his door shut behind him with a flourish. He stood by the roadside in the remains of his best suit - a pair of ancient trousers that had the texture of dried parchment, below a stiff white shirt that was mercifully hidden by a threadbare blazer, which itself had not only seen better days, but by the looks of it, seen a better century too. Yet just like the man he was going to see, the shopkeeper displayed an almost perverse ignorance of his own appearance; he wore his ragged clothes with pride and walked with a dignity that the sportsman would have killed to call his own.

* * *

With a grimace, the sportsman looked down at the milk he had inadvertently spilt over the tabletop in a moment of clumsiness. His distaste was not at the mess - that could be cleaned in an instant - but at its implication; that was a stain that would last far longer. It reminded him that his grace was leaving him, that his days of complete mastery over his body were over. In the past, such an elementary failing of hand-eye co-ordination would have spelt the difference between victory and defeat on the pitch. Now all it signified was the difference between a full and empty glass of milk. And things would only get worse. Above all, in that instant, the sportsman was suddenly reminded that his bones creaked now, and they would not stop creaking, not until the day he died.

* * *

As he walked, the shopkeeper rehearsed what he was going to say - the speech that would hopefully save his business, and his life as he'd known it. Words weren't easy to come by, after all, the last few months had seen his charm engulfed by a flood of angst and self-pity. But little by little, bits of it returned, and a plan began to form in the shopkeeper's mind. The sportsman's reputation for arrogance was common knowledge, so he knew that careful flattery was the most direct route to his pockets. Sycophancy embellished with wit was the order of the day, and the fact that his words would be deliberately chosen purely for their emptiness did in no way diminish their significance. This speech would be the shopkeeper's very own humble little masterpiece; it would not be one that could ever rank among those that lined the shelves of his shop, but it was nevertheless the only thing that could save them all from destruction.

Revelling in the magnitude of his task, the shopkeeper hurried on.

To be continued

Scorpio's Jewels (Part Two)

When night falls, most cities in the West become reflections of the starry skies they lie beneath, full of grounded artificial constellations that coldly shine far brighter than the age-old stars they compete with. The streets of these cities are almost as silent as the unimaginable expanse of space above. In most of the East, this is not the case. In the East, the nights come and go like a fever, and beat to the sound of life.

Rickshaws squeak through dusty streets, lurching through both the sluggish stream of traffic and the thick blanket of smog that envelops it every hour of every day. The blaring of horns that accompanies each near-collision coalesces into a dense wall of sound, which, together with the swirling dust and the stifling heat, forms an almost overpowering attack on the senses. And through it all flows a steady trickle of people, walking slowly in single-file, as close to the edges of the street as possible. Some of these people are short, some are tall; some wear silk while others are dressed in rags. But in some way, they are all the same: they each have black hair and brown skin, and that is all there is as far as the eye can see. Yet every so often, there is someone who is different.

It was on a winter's night that she came to him; the daylight had fled long hours before, leaving in its wake a trail of soft firelight that glimmered in every doorstep and at the side of every road. Her sari shimmered as she walked, and each step she took brought to it a different hue, until she seemed to glow with an ethereal beauty while moving with an otherworldly grace. Nothing at all seemed to touch her; she was like an island of calm amidst a turbulent sea of activity, and not even the sudden cry of some night bird in the shadows could cause a flicker of reaction to cross her beautiful face. It was almost midnight by the time she reached her destination.

With practiced ease the woman entered the old bookshop, and slipped into the shopkeeper's dreams. It was not the first time she had visited them, but that night would be the last. This time the two of them were sitting side-by-side on a wooden bench, overlooking a vast lake that stretched out into the horizon. The great expanse of water was nearly entirely covered in a blanket of green algae, and was almost perfectly still, but for the occasional movement of fish under the surface of the water, or the activity of insects on top of it.

Birdsong coloured the sultry air, while bright sunlight warmed it. There was even a slight breeze, which billowed gently through the shopkeeper's clothes and caressed the woman's hair. After a moment, she moved closer to him on the bench, and then leant against him. Instinctively, he put his arm around her, and smiled as he felt her body melt into his.

"It's good to see you again," he said.

She looked at him curiously. "You're not surprised to see me anymore."

"Why should I be?" he asked.

"You used to be, at first."

"True. I'm not sure why really. Maybe it was because you seemed so real for someone in a dream, " he said hesitantly. "Or maybe you were just so dreamlike in reality."

She smiled. "Don't go confusing yourself now. It looks like you've got enough on your plate as it is."

He started. "Does it now?"

"Of course it does. You never used to have those shadows under your eyes.." She laughed softly. "This is your dream; your world. I thought you'd have gotten rid of them somehow."

The shopkeeper shifted his weight slightly. Sensing it, the woman turned so she could look him in the eye.

His voice was hoarse when he spoke. "All this time you've never noticed anything like that. You've never asked how I am or noticed what's happening to me. And we spend so much time together, in the shop during the day and here during the night. I thought you were ignoring me."

"And the moment I do notice, you complain."

"Have I been expecting too much?" he asked quietly.

"No, no." She sighed. "But it's complicated. With me, it always is."

"I don't really see why it should be. I mean, I think I've made it pretty clear what it is I want... Is what you want so different from that?"

"What do you want?" she asked, tilting her head to one side.

The shopkeeper pulled his arm from around her shoulders and gestured across the landscape. "I want this," he said, simply. "I want all this and everything in it."

"Please, don't say that," she said sadly. "You're asleep, remember? Everything here is a fantasy, a figment of your imagination."

The man leaned closer to the woman. His voice became urgent. "Then maybe I shouldn't wake up. Listen, I spend every waking hour surrounded by fantasies; sure, they're all neatly bound and shelved, but they are fantasies nonetheless. I sell them, or I'm supposed to sell them, for a living." By now he was closer to her than he ever had been while awake. "What difference does one more make?"

Gently, the woman took his hands in hers. "Oh God... It really shouldn't be like this." She sighed.

"But it's all I've got," the shopkeeper replied, in a voice choked with emotion.

She gazed into his eyes, and for a second, they seemed to connect like never before.

"Listen to yourself," she said. "What do you think you sound like? More importantly, what kind of a man do you think you sound like?"

"A tired one."

"A beaten one. You used to be so full of life... what went wrong?"

"You of all people should know the answer to that," the shopkeeper said, with just a trace of bitterness.

The woman looked at her lover tenderly. "No person, no emotion, has the right to reduce you to the state you're in right now. Remember that."

"That's easy for you to say. You've never been on the receiving end, have you?" And then, for the first time that night, he dropped his gaze, and stared at the ground.

Suddenly, the woman moved closer to him, and began whispering in his ear. "Tell you what, I'll give you a helping hand. There's a businessman that lives at the end of your street. He's rich, so rich that he doesn't know what to do with his money. So sometimes he gives out loans, to struggling businesses or people that he thinks really deserve them. Go and see him tomorrow. Make something of your life."

Then she stopped, abruptly kissed him on the cheek, and then, without a flash of light or even the twitch of a perfectly shaped eyelash, she was gone.

To be continued...

Scorpio's Jewels (Part One)

I was told this story in a house that my Mother had lived in as a child, in a room that her Father had studied in, and on a bed that his Father had slept in, countless years ago. At the beginning of this story, the edges of the sky outside were beginning to flare with the red of sunset, and by its end the stars had come out, twinkling above the flickering lights of the city below. A story like this could only have been told in that one place. Imagine yourself there, if you can.

* * *

There once lived a man who ran a ramshackle old bookshop, situated in the middle of one of the many dusty, narrow streets that snaked through the less affluent part of the city. Despite its dilapidated appearance, or perhaps because of it, the shop exuded an old-fashioned charm that many of its newer competitors lacked. But business was not good, and the lightness of the shopkeeper's pockets weighed heavy on his mind.

He was still quite a young man this shopkeeper, maybe half a decade out of university, where he had filled his head with noble ideals and ageless philosophies, which, despite their undoubted worth, had left him not penning a masterpiece of his own, but instead selling those of others. Yet his youthful enthusiasm had stayed with him - he made sure never to throw an irritated glance at any of the men and women who would stray by chance into his shop, spend an age flipping through the pages of a crumpled paperback, but then eventually walk out again, their rupees jangling unspent in their pockets.

Why this happened, in the end, came down to a matter of principle. For reasons unknown, the shop had always dealt only in books of fiction; in flights of fancy and feats of the imagination - that was part of its charm, and it was a tradition the shopkeeper was loath to break. In most places, this would have been admirable, but in that part of the city it was inappropriate. Such a shop could have blended in perfectly in the alleyways of Paris, but in a part of Kolkata where the customers were as poor as the shopkeeper, works of the imagination were luxuries that few could afford.

So people treated the shop like a library - a place to waste their time but not their money, and all the while the shopkeeper looked on, and every passing month saw his stomach grow tighter and his clothes grow more threadbare. Sometimes he cursed the fact that he could only charge for the pages he sold, and not the dreams they evoked.

But in spite of his troubles, the grateful smiles that he received never failed to touch him, especially when they came from children that had just spent the last half an hour entranced by the many picture-books and fairytales that filled the lower shelves of the shop. On the good days, when the sun shone through the smog, they almost made it all worthwhile.

As time passed, the happiness of the children led to the friendship of their parents, and before long the man found that the loneliness of the counter had been replaced by the effusive companionship of a sari-clad mother or a genial father. One woman in particular caught the shopkeeper's eye. In fact, she caught the rest of him too, though he did his best to hide it.

It was on a perfect autumn day that she had walked in, with tiredness radiating from her slight frame, but curiosity burning in her brilliant eyes. She had seemed younger than he was; her long dark hair had shone brighter than the dazzling saris that she wore. Her skin had the colour of chocolate; her voice had its texture, and the time they spent together had its taste.

He fell for her that day, although he only realised it afterwards. But when he felt so empty on the days that she didn't come to his shop, yet so very alive on the days that she did, he knew. When just her push on his door set the butterflies in his stomach a-flutter, he knew. And when he ached just to talk to her, about Gods and politics, about his life and hers; about everything and nothing, they both knew.

But she never did a thing about it. She never seemed to acknowledge the effect she must have known she was having on him. She just smiled instead, and every time, it melted his heart and crushed his resolve. Eventually, her visits didn’t serve to take his mind off things; instead they became the very things from which he could not take his mind off. She turned from a distraction into an obsession, and in the end, he fell for her so hard that he forgot all his problems. He forgot to worry about where his next rupee would come from; eventually he stopped worrying about the source of his next meal.

Still, she made him happy, even as she consumed him. He was like a ship tossed on the sea of her will - on the good days he would scale the crests; on the bad he would plumb the depths. Her presence lifted his spirits and her absence tore apart his heart. In short, Love caught him in its vice-like grip, and there was nothing he could do about it.

The decline in the shopkeeper’s appearance and bearing soon became plain to see, but perversely, it affected least the person to whom it should have mattered the most. There was never a trace of pity in the woman’s voice when she leant over the counter to talk to him. She kept looking into his brown eyes, but she never saw the changes in his face. Maybe that was what he loved about her, but it was that same thing that was killing him. The fact that she didn’t notice his condition kept him from doing anything about it. After all, he thought, if he tried anything different; if he tried to change the course of his life, wouldn’t he just be risking the only thing that kept him coming to work in the mornings? When she was the only ray of light in his life, he wasn’t exactly eager to alter his position. In his fragile state of mind, such a risk wasn’t even worth considering.

Weeks passed, and slowly but surely the shopkeeper began to fade. And as he grew frailer, his shop grew colder, and the promise of his shelves was replaced by the sad reality of decay. His visitors (one could not call them customers) became fewer and fewer, disappointed as they were when they saw that the dreams they had come for had all melted away. Soon the woman was the only one left. But of course, you could say she came for something else.

Something had to give. Things simply could not have gone on the way they were. But a few nights later, something changed.

To be continued..

Welcome to the Machine - Excerpt

** An excerpt from somewhere near the beginning of my next short story. Be sure to tell me what you all think. **

The sharp crack of branches against the misty window jerked James back to a state of wakefulness. The stop-start motion of the bus, along with the ceaseless drone of the small TV screen (which was, of course, spouting nothing but advertising) fixed above the front window of the top deck, had sent him into a doze. Quickly, he counted: one, two, three; with a slightly sheepish sigh of relief he leant back. None of his bags had been stolen. He wiped a messy porthole in the condensation on the window next to him, and looked out. Luckily, he hadn’t missed his stop either.

Trees swayed slightly in the wind, and the glistening pavement shone a murky yellow beneath the lamp-posts. Nothing much had changed, mused James. A few shops had switched from one chain to another; others had become pound-stores or charity shops. Some of the perpetual construction sites by the side of the road had changed position, but, by and large, it was the same suburb that he’d grown up in. Five years he’d been gone, a time which seemed at once both an instant and an age. As the bus turned right at the crossroads, James found that he knew the name of every street that flashed past, each an illuminated, disembodied sign at the side of the road, twinkling in the rain. And he knew which of his friends lived in every one, at least by name.

James smiled sadly. Everything looked so familiar, but it seemed to him as if he were returning to a dream; as if this were just a flashback that would soon pass. And in a sense that was perfectly true; this flying visit at his father’s request was simply a whistle-stop tour of his past, and once he returned to his other life, five years and a thousand miles away, this place would be as real as a half-remembered memory.

Caught in his reverie, James missed his stop.

Caterpillar Tracks

** A short story I wrote last year. Please, please take the time to comment after you've read it. Feedback makes writers very happy, even if it's negative :-) **

“Where food?” asked the chicken again, before ruffling its feathers and moving its bowels.

Albert sighed. He would be cleaning his armchair (which he had sat the chicken upon in an attempt to create a learning atmosphere) again tonight. Chickens were no good at this either he decided, and yet this one had seemed so promising. He had managed to make it tap its feet to the two times tables, and it had even seemed on the verge of being able to recite the alphabet up to the letter ‘f’. But alas, like the rest of its species, the moment Albert had put the chicken under any sort of pressure, it had released the remains of its lunch through its backside.

Albert sighed again. Another day, another failed experiment. So I am alone, he thought, for what seemed to be the thousandth time, as he trudged back through the darkening undergrowth. Alone amidst this great teeming mass of life that is the jungle.

Here and there stars began to blink into existence, brightly dotting what small patches of lavender-blue sky that could be seen from the jungle floor. Before long Albert began to hear the faint scufflings of things unseen, and they were soon joined by the raucous cries and chatterings of a hundred other creatures, all waiting impatiently for the night’s festivities to begin. Albert peered about, searching in vain for the path that would lead him back to the clearing his family had made their home. Now and then a nocturnal insect would flash across his field of vision, a fast-moving streak of grey in the fading light. Eventually Albert lashed out at one in frustration, but watched it buzz smugly away, completely unharmed. At least his mother wouldn’t be worried, Albert thought to himself with quiet bitterness. She found it unthinkable that a gorilla could get lost in his own jungle.

And when it came down to it, that was Albert’s problem: he was condemned to be unique, to be yet another one-of-a-kind. He had known it for a long time, ever since he was four years old, when he had chosen to measure his brother’s back rather than scratch it, as was the custom. His mother had known it then too – but not at first, as Albert’s brother found out to his cost. Of course, Albert’s mother had been unable to understand Albert’s odd behaviour (which could almost have been blasphemy, if gorillas had such a thing), and her immediate conclusion had been that Albert’s brother had been hitting Albert on the head, and in doing so had scrambled his brains. Rather unfortunately, it had taken Albert’s brother three (painful) weeks to convince her otherwise.

Luckily though (for all concerned), as time had passed, Albert’s family had begun to accept Albert for what he was: a shrewd and perceptive gorilla, one often occupied by questions of physics and philosophy while his peers remained obsessed with the twin joys of back-scratching and procreation. Indeed, after the initial curiosity had worn off, Albert had been left to conduct his experiments in relative peace. However, before long Albert began to feel that simple experiments in the jungle were no longer enough; his intellect craved more sophisticated fuel. And so, one balmy night, Albert had found himself standing in the nearest village, wearing an enormous trench-coat and matching bowler hat, on the doorstep of the local library. He had stood there for a moment, unsure of what to do, but then, as his eagerness had overcome his caution, he had simply walked through the wall, gathered the entirety of the Classics bookshelf in his immense arms, and promptly walked out again. It still confounded him today as to why, when he had finally found a newspaper report of the night’s events, he had read that “nothing of any great value had been stolen”.

The fruits of Albert’s great heist had triggered a great spurt of creativity in him; he had become well versed in all forms of English literature, and then, when he had given all this new information time to settle in his brain, he had begun to invent all sorts of wonderful contraptions, which he would then build from whatever resources he had at hand. It was one of his more successful creations that greeted Albert, when he finally found himself back in his jungle clearing.

It was a collection of tracks, each one lovingly crafted from the longest, most supple reeds and bound together by the strongest grasses, which covered the entire perimeter of the clearing. Each track was made from a reed of a different hue, so, with the tracks arranged as they were, they seemed less to encircle the clearing but to flow around it. Here and there a junction was placed, connecting each of the myriad tracks to one another, creating a dizzyingly complex yet beautifully logical whole. But the tracks were not the main attraction of Albert’s invention; they were simply the supporting act. The main attractions were the things that actually used the tracks: about a dozen giant green caterpillars, of which the longest was the size of Albert’s leg, and of which even the smallest could make a meal of a wandering finger. These caterpillars rode the tracks day and night, crossing bridges and rushing through tunnels, stopping only to be refuelled with the odd sugary fruit, completely at the whim of the young gorillas that sat before the many control switches that dotted the clearing.

Albert gazed at his creation for a while, a rueful smile playing on his lips. Some of the outermost tracks were falling into disrepair, and a few of the bridges looked close to collapse. He turned and walked over next to his mother, who was curled up in a deep sleep. He began to lie down next to her, but while doing so, caught a glimpse, out of the corner of his eye, of three small gorillas, each sitting in front of a control switch, watching the caterpillar tracks in rapt fascination. Albert smiled. There is hope yet, he thought to himself, before drifting off into sleep.

***

The sun was almost directly overhead when Albert finally awoke. It beat down upon the jungle relentlessly, its rays bouncing from leaf to leaf on their way down to the ground far below. Albert almost fancied that he could hear the sun shining down, in the ever-present jungle drone that had lurked in the backdrop of his life for as long as he could remember. But of course that was just a saying, one of the hundreds that Albert’s mother had told him when he was little; one of the hundreds that he had later proven wrong after carrying out his research. The drone, Albert had concluded, was of course simply the sound of a million flies and mosquitoes going about their business. However, to Albert’s dismay, his explanation had gone unheeded, as it had neither the beauty nor the grandeur required to sway the other gorillas from their own beliefs, which at least had the weight of history on their side.

Nevertheless, thought Albert as he stood up, at least they believe in something. At least we still have that in common. He stretched out his arms, yawned, and then ambled towards the centre of the clearing, where the rest of his family were sat. Before them was a magnificent assortment of fruits, from the garden variety orange to the rare ‘wumdee’ fruit (a cousin of the coconut), which, when broken open, was known to release a toxic gas so deadly it could wipe out an entire army within forty-five minutes. Naturally though, the overwhelming majority of gorillas ignored these completely, and went straight for the bananas.

Albert chose a handful of berries, and then strolled over to where his grandparents were sitting. His grandmother gave him a warm smile, before stuffing an entire banana in her mouth and then clamping down on it with toothless gums. His grandfather had finished eating and had gone back to sleep, as had most of Albert’s other relatives. The few that were still awake were either staring listlessly at the sky, or, if they were younger, wrestling with each other. Albert stared at them for a while, his thoughts elsewhere.

Suddenly a piercing shriek cut through the morning haze, rattling Albert’s teeth and rudely jerking his grandfather awake. Sounds of a scuffle followed, and then Albert became aware of hoarse shouting, but these were not the shouts of a gorilla … they were human shouts. A human, here in the jungle! Albert jumped to his feet and sprinted off in the direction of the noise. Branches lashed at him as he ducked low-hanging vines and vaulted over protruding roots. Albert saw only ahead; either side of him was a fast-moving blur punctuated by the frenzied pounding of his heart.

Finally Albert reached his destination, and he stood there for a second, clutching his stomach and breathing in ragged gasps. In the shadow of an immense palm tree cowered a squat, balding man, his jacket around his waist and his glasses askew. Before him was a great hulking brute of a gorilla; it gibbered and cavorted menacingly in front of the man with a terrible bored malice in its eyes. In a flash Albert realised that the other gorilla was from a rival tribe, and, without thinking, let out a deafening roar and raised his enormous arms above his head. The other gorilla whirled around in shock, and realising that it was trespassing on another tribe’s territory, turned and beat a hasty retreat into the shrubbery.

Albert lowered his arms and breathed a sigh of relief. He moved slowly towards the man, and offered to help him up. But the man leapt backwards as if stung, his jowls quivering obscenely and his eyes moving rapidly back and forth, almost trying to escape their sockets.

“Don’t worry. I’m here to help”, said Albert, trying his friendliest voice. But the man let out a strangled scream, and before Albert could do or say anything more, half ran and half stumbled away into the undergrowth. Albert bellowed in frustration, and started after the man, but stopped again almost immediately. Chasing the man might do more harm than good, Albert decided, and besides, at least he was heading in the rough direction of the nearest village.

Disappointed, Albert turned back, but then noticed a beige jacket lying where the man had been. Albert looked at with amusement – it was long and quite thick, totally unsuitable for use in a jungle in the middle of summer. The man must have been a tourist, Albert mused. He picked it up carefully, but as he did so, a pale blue piece of paper dropped out of an inside pocket and fluttered to the ground. Albert bent to retrieve it, and then screwed up his eyes to read the small text that was printed on it. And then his hands began to shake; the hairs on the back of his neck stood up. The paper was a ticket, a ticket for a ship leaving from a port that was only a day’s walk away. A ship bound for Europe…

Albert stared at the ticket, his mind racing. The ship left the day after next, he calculated, at two o’ clock in the afternoon. And all that was written on the ticket was the date and time of departure, and the destination. No names or anything – nothing that could say whether the person holding the ticket was the one who had bought it. Two days…

With a start Albert realised that he was back in his clearing. He couldn’t even remember beginning to walk. One of his cousins noticed him standing there, absorbed by the paper he held in his hand. “Another book for your collection?” his cousin asked cheerfully. Albert gave him a faint smile but said nothing.

Finally, Albert walked over to where his mother and father were sitting.

“I might be going away”, he said to his mother quietly.

She turned to him and gave him a wide smile.

“I know that”, she said. “You go away somewhere every day.”

Albert shook his head.

“This is different. I’m talking about leaving the jungle for a while, to travel in a whole new continent, a whole new world. But I might not be able to come back for a long time. Years even.”

His mother looked at him tenderly, and planted a great, wet kiss on his cheek.

“As long as you’re back for dinner”, she said, before turning around again.

Albert stood up, a knot in his stomach and a lump in his throat. He began to run, no longer caring where he was going; not even bothering to shield himself from the vines and twigs that scratched at his face and arms. His legs began to scream at him in pain but still he did not stop. He kept running, on and on, up and up, until finally he had nowhere left to run, and stood at the highest point in the jungle, with a blood-red sunset splintering in his eyes. The world was still but the sky was ablaze; streaked with every single one of the infinite shades that lay between yellow and red. A flock of birds flew high above, their plumage luminescent, weaving in-between tattered clouds that were rimmed with fire.

Is this my last sunset? Albert asked himself. Can I do this? Leave my home, leave my family; leave behind everything I’ve ever known… for what? For enlightenment? To be with humans? Humans who would run away as soon as they see me, and return in the night with their cages and their knives? You have your disguise, said a voice in Albert’s head. What disguise? he countered. A hat and a coat? Not even a child would be fooled. They would understand your thoughts and ideas. Isn’t that what you’ve always wanted? But they’re not my people, replied Albert. They would never accept me; I could never be happy around them. You never know until you try, said the voice, with an air of triumph.

And Albert fell silent. It was right of course. Ever since that ticket had dropped from the man’s jacket his life had changed. Whatever happened now, whether he left or whether he stayed, things would never be the same again. Albert sat back, and at last he smiled. What the hell, he thought as he watched the sky; maybe a year of unhappiness is worth a lifetime of regret.

***

It was at the crack of dawn that Albert found himself back in his den, where he had talked to the chicken only a couple of days before, packing away all of his possessions into a small fur bag. Finally he straightened, put on his old trench-coat and hat, and swung his bag over one broad shoulder. He took the scenic route back to his clearing, and he stopped every couple of steps to look around, take a deep breath of fresh air, and attempt to etch every last detail into his memory.

He had fallen asleep watching the sunset – slept his last night alone – and was saddened a little by the fact. What’s done is done though, he said to himself, there’s no use in getting worked up about it. At long last Albert reached the start of his caterpillar tracks, and he grinned widely when he saw them. In the early morning light they seemed restored, not only to their former glory, but now they looked just how Albert had imagined them, and that was infinitely more beautiful than anything he could make. Indeed, he thought, all that was missing from the perfect picture was a few young gorillas to man the controls.

But there was nobody. And not only was there nobody at the control-switches, realised Albert with a stab of horror, but there wasn’t a soul in the entire clearing. His whole family had gone!

Albert looked around frantically. Here and there the grass looked crushed and trampled – evidently it had been slept on. But there the traces ended; there was no sign of any breakfast having been prepared or eaten, which was surprising in itself. With mounting alarm Albert began to call out, yelling for his family and shouting for help. At first there was nothing, but finally Albert heard a high-pitched howl that was soon joined by others. He smiled with relief – it was his brother’s voice – but then frowned, for it was not a cry that Albert had heard often: it was a cry of celebration, coming from beyond the trees. He hurried towards it, but, once he had reached its source, stopped dead, his eyes wide with surprise.

Gathered in the little glade in front of him were his family, all jumping and hollering with excitement, and, for the first time ever, they were standing in line, two lines to be exact, facing each other an arms length apart, with his mother, father and brother standing proudly at the head, smiling and waving at him. Albert felt his eyes begin to sting. They had formed a guard of honour, just for him. He began to walk through it, with his head held high, pausing to hug each and every member of his family as he passed them. With a smile he noticed that they were all proudly wearing banana skins on their heads – party hats of the most brilliant design.

Eventually Albert reached the end of the line, and stood facing his mother, father and brother. Before he could say anything they had enveloped him in a huge bear-hug – it seemed to last an eternity but was over in an instant.

“Goodbye”, said Albert’s mother.

“Good luck”, said his brother and father.

“Thank you”, said Albert, his voice cracking slightly. “And goodbye”.

And so he turned, gave a bow to the rest of his family, swung his bag onto his back once more, and walked away. His family, they waved after him, and continued waving, even after he had long vanished into the undergrowth.

Summertime

Winter waltzes out and in walks the summer, resplendent in its robes of sunshine and silk, bringing with it the merest hint of a sultry breeze. Icicles fall like deadly teardrops; frozen rivers shatter into a million shards that meander gently downstream, and the first few blades of grass break through the fading blanket of snow.

And before you know it the sickly sun of winter has become a fiercely blazing orb that burns your arms and back; birds return en masse and everywhere the water, as blue as the sky, shimmers with cool promise.

You sit with an iced drink in the shade and find patterns in the clouds, but at night you twist and you turn, sweat drips from your brow, and the sounds from outside are all that you can hear.