Imagination Lost

Smiling face with open mind,

Hunger for every single line,

Teacher gives and keeps on giving,

Maybe he’ll do that for a living.

Information stacked on a cluttered desk,

Expanding mind grows unchecked,

No limits set for this child’s journey,

No barriers to his lust for learning.

Papers, comics, books, all random,

Documentaries, Krypton Factor,

An information flooded brain,

Bright future beckons, foundations lain.

Colour filled dreams and crazy notions,

Fantasy worlds, dragons and goblins,

Endless wars in untamed lands,

Spilled from the pen of a dreamer’s hand.

Through time winds shift and headings change,

Educators churn out assembly lines,

Worker bees for a dull grey hive,

Empty souls from nine to five.

Visions repressed, a slave to logic,

Team building, networking, a life methodic,

Quest for knowledge gone with the time clock,

Fantastic dreams dead, shattered on the rocks.

Or should blame be my own,

Not the tutors or the hives,

Did I give up too easily,

And send my adventures to die.

Too easy to conform,

To choose the shorter path,

Chase the herd to Dystopia,

Imagination, in the earth.

So chase what a child aspires to,

Take the lesser followed road,

Listen to your imagination,

Before life decides to let you go.

Permitted Love

Not across a crowded room,

Or at a smoke filled bar.

Our eyes meet several times each day,

She notices I think, but can't be sure.

I worship every move she makes,

Every flick of flame red hair.

The slightest touch whilst brushing past,

A suggestive look, the briefest stare.

A smile with glistening emerald eyes,

Leaves armour stripped and guarded actions bold.

Or tears, like salty daggers bared,

Shred my hollow, worthless soul.

And so, I am entrusted

To guard this precious heart.

For this love of mine's eternal,

Not just 'till death us part.

Insomnia

Sweet dreams we crave or thoughtless rest,

The night has us for it's pet.

Flashes of metal skies and shuttered walls,

Of high visibility, slips, trips and falls.

Approaching deadlines from an impatient land,

Swallowed promises by blinkered drones.

Money changers with poisoned souls,

A rabid Pisheog consumed us whole.

A well earned race for long necked reward,

Integrity of a week's end lost.

Motivation void from endless days,

Frustrated screams and tempers fray.

Veil of black on our tired heart,

Progenies no longer in warm embrace.

A promise of light in splendid ground,

An empty head free of sleepless sounds.

But before we let the hope mask slip,

Perhaps tomorrow a change of script.

Worthwhile toil and crops to reap,

With darkness then, a chance to sleep.

This Room

This Room

I am the only person in this room,

I am the coolest person here.

The most attractive one, for all to see,

Most interesting,  strongest,

The one to fear.

I am the only person in this room,

The weakest, boring, and dull.

Talentless, lazy and full of myself,

Ugliest and fattest,

Though never be full.

I am the only person in this room,

I really should get some new friends.

DELTA

He shivers as he runs. It is cold, freezing but he doesn’t know whether it’s the cold or the fear of what’s coming behind him that makes him shiver. Trees everywhere, he keeps running, they keep running, there are six of them. They wear just shorts, nothing else, nothing even on their feet and they run, hearts pounding, terrified little children, the eldest of them barely seven years old, they run for their lives. Tearing through the forest after them are the men wearing black, the men wearing black have dogs, big savage hounds on the trail of six frightened children. He trips and falls, the others continue, he is alone. Within seconds a savage dog bears down on him ready to tear him apart, its handler too far back to try to stop it, the animal too crazed with bloodlust to be denied its prize. The dog angles its head in attack, mouth wide open, ready to tear the throat from its prey when a flash from the side blasts it from its feet and sends it hurtling towards a tree. The boy hears a sickening crunch and the animal is dead, he looks up to see one of the other children standing over him, the child stretches out a hand and he grabs it. On the inside of the child’s arm he sees a mark, Ω The mark is the last thing he sees.

His eyes open, he’s not sure if he was woken by his dream or from the cold, he’s not sure if he even feels the cold. He pulls a couple of threadbare blankets around him trying to warm up a bit. The dream races through his mind, a fragment of his past? He thinks so but can’t be entirely sure. He’s been living here now for about six months; ‘Below’ they call it, the rest of life’s discarded populous, the dregs of society. ‘Below’ is a city beneath a city, a living breathing underbelly of a world that chooses to ignore instead of assist, forget instead of acknowledge. He woke up here one morning, as the children were in his dream, wearing nothing but a pair of shorts, nothing even on his feet. The cold and hunger quickly turning him into a thief, he found it easy, he was good at it. He had survived on his wits the past six months without any problem, the others left him alone, they seemed to sense that it was the safest thing to do. At first glance he was by no means extraordinary, he looked about seventeen years old, although his eyes perhaps told a different story. He was average height, average weight, dark hair, he looked healthy, in fact if he was cleaned up a bit he would probably fit in above ground with the privileged. What set him apart from the rest of the people Below was indeterminable, they just stayed away from him, maybe instinct for survival told them it was the safest option.

Today he decided he would go up to the city, he had seen all there was to see of this place, he had a desire to see for himself the place that he overheard the others describe, he felt a need to test himself, to challenge, to hunt. He felt an affinity with the people in this place, as if they were something like him, he didn’t want to take from them anymore. From what he heard those who lived above had plenty, it was time to take from them.

He walked the streets in his rags; the people of the city just ignored him, walked around him; looked straight through him. A couple of times he would make a sudden move towards them, he didn’t know why, instinct? He could sense their fear all around him, it made him feel powerful; it felt good. He tackled the problem of hunger first; he just walked into a Diner, ordered, ate and left. The staff just thought it better to leave him be, had the owner been there it would have been a different story. He had known that he should pay, he didn’t know how he knew because nothing like this existed in his memory; his brain just told him that he was doing the wrong thing.  When he left the Diner he walked around a bit more, taking everything in, nothing seemed to surprise him while at the same time it all felt as if it was a new experience. He decided he needed proper clothes; he knew exactly what he wanted, Cargo pants, boots, etc. He walked the streets until he found an Army Surplus store; he seemed to know exactly where to go. He put on the clothes as he found them in the store, stripping naked at one stage and noticing the mark on the inside of his arm Δ. Taking everything he needed and leaving his old clothes on the floor. He then approached the clerk who, off the top of his head came up with a price; “Call it a hundred.” He said; he just wanted him gone.

“I’ll take that knife.” He pointed to a black carbon fixed blade knife and leg holster on display under the glass counter.

“One fifty then, I’ll give you the knife when you pay me.” He tried to sound tough but it didn’t work.

“I don’t have money.” As he said it he just put his fist through the tempered glass and took the knife, he pulled up the leg of his newly acquired black pants and fixed the holster above his ankle as the clerk just stood back in shock. As he walked to the door he stopped and looked at himself in the mirror, he was dressed completely in black, an image flashed across his mind accompanied by a searing headache. He put his hand to his head and dropped to one knee. The image was of the men in black who chased him through his dreams. The headache only lasted a couple of seconds; he got to his feet again and went to leave.

“Where do you think you’re going?” the clerk had plucked up some courage and stood behind the counter with a gun pointed at his head. In a split second he sprang through the air like a cat and flattened the clerk. He took the gun and crushed it with his bare hands then walked back to the door,

“I'm going to find out who I am.”

Second Chance

Three cars pulled onto the forecourt simultaneously. Denny stared out at them through the window, looked as if they were all getting fuel. It was self-service after 9pm so there was no one else working, Denny was alone, just sitting at the till wishing that the night would pass so that he could go home and do something more interesting like ….go online or something.

He glanced down at the security cameras and instantly regretted it. The grey almost hesitant images moving around suspiciously made him think the worst, he always thought the worst. Denny believed that a filling station would be a prime target for a robbery, someone just looking for some quick easy cash. How hard could it be? Hood up, drive in, threaten the clerk and take the contents of the till. That’s what worried him, how hard could it be? Even though the place had never been robbed before he had already made his mind up that if it happened he would just smile and open the till. Hell, he would probably admire the guy for doing it; he wished he had the balls himself. The problem with following up on something like that was the risk to reward ratio. Denny knew that once the cash in the till reached a certain level then it had to get sucked up the money tube straight to the safe. This was the problem; if you went in to rob the place the chances of getting any decent sort of money were slim. Compare that to the ten years you would get for armed or aggravated robbery and the appeal of the easy money diminished.

He checked the monitors again; two guys were filling their cars while a woman in the driver’s seat of the third car was turned around as if she was talking to someone in the back. Denny’s mind raced;

They’re waiting for the other two to leave then they’re coming in.

“Twenty Marlboro light”.

“Shit” Denny jumped back knocking over his stool in the process.

“I didn’t see you come in”.

“No”.

The man wore a black suit, white shirt, black tie. He had his hair slicked back like someone trying to cover a bald spot, overall he pretty much resembled an undertaker who’d gotten caught in the rain.

“Twenty Marlboro light”? Denny repeated the man’s request while turning to the cigarettes.

“That’s right, trying to quit”, the man smiled revealing a set of teeth that said he should have tried years ago. “It’s the little things that’ll get you in the end”.

Denny took the man’s money and gave him the cigarettes and his change; their fingers touched briefly causing a shiver to erupt from the base of Denny’s spine.

“Will that be all”, Denny was hoping one of the others from outside would hurry and come in. He checked the monitor; there was no one outside just shadows gambolling around the pumps caused by the flickering fluorescent lights overhead.

“Almost”; not the reply Denny wanted to hear.

“I’ll be needing you to accompany me”.

Fight or flight? Denny always found fight to be the option he preferred. Even though he was afraid, this guy didn’t know that.

“Get out of here, I’ve hit the silent alarm, the cops will be here in a minute.

“The alarm doesn’t work Denny, hasn’t in months, and you’re right the cops will be here but not for another twenty minutes”

“How do you know the alarm doesn’t wor…….how the fuck do you know my name”?

The man paused and lit a cigarette.

“Take a look around Denny”.

Denny looked everywhere the shop was a mess. There were sweets and crisps all over the floor; the newspaper stand was on tipped over on its side, scattering tabloids and mundane magazines in a disjointed pattern. Denny looked across, the till was open and empty, no sign of life on the monitors.

“Shit, what the fuck happened”?

“The place was robbed Denny, you were right all along”.

“What do you mean”?

“It was the woman in the car, when the other two guys paid you and left she came in and told you to empty the till, she had a gun”.

“Bullshit”!

“Not bullshit Denny, sorry. When she realised that there was only about a hundred in the till she told you to empty the safe, that was when you started laughing. You told her that it was impossible to get into the safe and that everybody knew that. Then you laughed and told her how dumb she was for not covering her face and that she’d probably get arrested before morning”.

“What then”?

“Then she shot you Denny, she was at the end of her tether, no money for the bills and she had a two year old to look after. Your life was easy compared to hers”.

“Why did you say she had a two year old”?

“She pulled in up the road a bit, shot her passenger and then put the gun into her own mouth, very sad”.

“No”.

Denny tried to run but froze when he got to the other side of the counter, he gaped open mouthed at the lifeless body on the floor, a large pool of blood swelled around it enveloping the cheap patterned floor covering. A sad picture of the end of a miserable life, the body was Denny’s.

“Why”?

“Why not” he was behind Denny now, his left hand on Denny’s right shoulder.

“This is shit; I have loads I still have to do”.

“Like what Denny, you just plodded on through your life, you never lived it”.

“I’ll change, just make it stop”.

“Sorry Denny, no second chance for you, sometimes it can be done but the person has to deserve it. Now let’s go I haven’t got all night”, his voice took a more sinister tone.

As the man spoke Denny kept backing away from him in a vain attempt to put distance between them. He was behind the counter again, the man was saying something but Denny couldn’t hear, utter panic had set in, his head began to spin. Denny fell backwards over the stool that he had knocked earlier. He struggled to his feet and picked up the stool.

“Twenty Marlboro Light”.

“What”.

“Twenty Marlboro Light”.

“But I already gave you….” Denny looked at the man he looked different. He ran out from behind the counter, his body was gone. He looked all around the shop, it was back the way it should be. He laughed it was just a daydream.

“Let’s go I haven’t got all night”.

Denny felt as if his heart stopped, those words, the same sinister tone.

He went back behind the counter, grabbed the cigarettes and put them on the counter in front of the man. The man paid and Denny gave him his change, their fingers touched briefly and Denny felt a familiar shiver rush through his body.

The man laughed.

From the corner of his eye Denny noticed movement on the security monitors. Turning he seen two men out filling fuel into their cars while in a third car he seen a woman turned in the driver’s seat as if she was talking to someone. He froze, he wanted to run but couldn’t. Then the woman turned back around and started to drive off. As the car moved Denny could see into the back of the car, the woman had been talking to a child in the back seat.

“You gave her a second chance didn’t you”?

The man lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply.

“I really should quit you know, It’s the little things that’ll get you in the end”.