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renegadedog · almost ninja Joined: 19 Oct 2006 Posts: 410

Another oldie of mine.

Chapter One

There was always something just too far away for anybody else to understand. There was always the sound which echoed around in your head for a thousand hours after everyone else had burned it all up, torn it into shreds and collapsed into bed. And some time later and there you still were, jumping up and down on the ceiling, you found something almost astonishing in the way you head projected away from your body and into another oh my god where is the stratosphere and I really should cut down on the sleep, shouldn't I, thought Arpatink as he slid out of bed and onto the floor.

What time was it? He looked at the clock on the shelf above his bed. 10.30! For heaven's sake! 10.30! Again! The cats were banging at the bedroom door as well. Since the big fat old white one had gone the two Burmese had been left free to run riot all over the house and scrape huge claw-roads along the width and breadth of the Edam. The precious edam. All the trouble he'd been to to buy it, as well - those trailblazing queues in the supermarket, half of them only for the sake of a little beer or whisky - what passé delights! What could compare with a good sleep and a good bit of proper pie-shaped Dutch cheese? Could have dissolved the entire place if he'd really wanted to, but he really ought to open the door and let the 2 Burmese in, as if that'd really topple their regime.

So he yawned, threw off his blanket and stood up. His skin felt scaly today. He looked in the mirror on his door next to the disused rabbit cage. He could never tell whether he had the physical heritage of his mother or his father, both were far ago different races, washed down the river by love and compatibility.

No - not so scaly! Skin was still pure. He laughed and began to shave off the flecks of encroaching lizard hair. It was just a simple matter of shaking off that delusion.

All of this having been done, he opened the curtains. A quiet day, a few people scattered out on the streets here and there. Most at work; the poor people. Still, what a great city! He remembered the other places in only shady terms, their lack of green, their dismal empty bars, their pretensions to classical greatness. How glad he was to escape them. Now he was back. This city was his home, for it was where he had been born, after all, and it felt like it now, at the end of all his travels. Not such a city that you could become easily lost in its labyrinths of concrete, nor a boring, lifeless village, yet its parks and greens were some of the best on the planet.

Arpatink's house had a huge and brilliant garden, 3 times the size of the total floorspace of his house, in accordance with env.law 2.867. The trees and vines also produced all of his favourite fruit. Every garden for every house had long since lost its walls, so to go out into your own and to walk in a straight line was to go for miles without ever seeing a road.

He climbed out onto the ledge outside his window, wondering where the sun was shining from.

To the North - always a good sign for him. An eastern rising meant a day of calm, southern a day of chaos, western a day of emerging technological demands. Eastern risings could sometimes be good, but today he felt like action, which was what was signified by the northern rising. He sat on the ledge and snoozed off for a few moments.

He was awoken by the sound of Denok climbing out onto the ledge. Denok was the thinner of the two Burmese and also the more agile. Denok purred as he slid onto Arpatink's lap.

"Good morning, Denok." Arpatink said as their claws clashed.

"Yeah, I suppose so, not bad." Denok replied. Arpatink could sense, however, that Denok was unhappy. Perhaps Alva, the other Burmese, had been getting on Denok's nerves.

"Come on, cat." He muttered, standing up on the ledge, and holding Denok in his hands, leaping back through the window, "Let's feed you."

He went into the kitchen and fed them, making sure Denok received his good and fair share. The sun's northerly rising did, he was sure, make him feel more surer that he could face these problems easily. He walked out of the French windows into the garden. The grass needed cutting, but was that such a bad thing? Once nature had taken over on an eastern rising, and to a lesser extent on northern ones, so many smaller kingdoms all took shape, at many different levels. All formed a mechanism which strove, day to day, to keep everything going and not be too worried by smoke and steel. He could never quite bring himself to invade any of these kingdoms, for he knew of his own anger if any of his own were to be cruelly corrupted. But still. What was there to do today?

Some people strolled past the cherry tree, at the other side of the garden. On fine days, he could see all the way to the apple tree, which fell at the old garden wall, long since toppled.

Suddenly he could no longer smile, as memories of that other place came zooming back to him. Memories of long passages of time spent flopped face down on the bed, unable to cheer himself up.

"Think back! Force it upon yourself! What was it that made it all so terrible? Make your head spin, reach into the hidden corners of your recollections and find out what was so bad about it all and don't sink so low and then a tender hand touches yours-" and Arpatink awoke to see Jara looking down at him.

"It's a beautiful sunny day!" She said, "You haven't been dreaming again, have you?"

"No - fine!" He replied. He stood up and kissed her and stroked her short blonde hair.

"Good, still, at least you're out in the sun. You-know-what isn't still bothering you, is it?" She asked.

"No." Some two score years he had been home now, no work to do and food to eat everywhere, and now Jara's clear romantic interest. Not that they had ever been a couple, but she was, perhaps, something of a naturally tactile person, like many of her race. She came from another island some 200 miles away. She had real caring big blue eyes and she would look at him right through them when they talked, rather than seeming preoccupied with undulating sky and tree formations.

"The rest of us are having a picnic just by where the wall used to be." She said, "You're welcome to join us."

"OK. Just let me prepare myself." And then she dragged him by the hand through the garden and fed him beer and Edam until it dripped out of his ears.

Tick tick kaboom went the days slowly by. Arpatink wondered what would happen between he and Jara. Things are change.

tangerinebreem · Posted: Sun Jun 01, 2008 11:21 am Post subject:

More! Things are change!!!

I got a very strong vision of a word with only 7 colours..

renegadedog · almost ninja Joined: 19 Oct 2006 Posts: 410

Chapter Two

Lavo only saw the thing seconds before it flew into his face, snarling and ripping him apart. The dog, the teeth, the claws, all dug right down there right down to the veins oh pain tear torn shreds of flesh on the pavement go away dog get out of here what do you want I got no more money to give away. The dog scampered off and began rooting through some junk on the other side of the alleyway. Lavo paused a sigh of relief, then realised his treasured chillum was broken. Somewhat of a tragedy, a work of art had passed him by, taken over his only link to the spirit world. He cried, just for a moment.

He reached to his bag and took out some old rags he could make a bandage out of. For heaven's sake this would take him months to heal. Still, he could never die, not here. He had been wandering this shoghole of a city, labyrinth of smoke and violence and corruption and hey hey hey brand new day - wake up and have your coffee down on the fourth then go to the Barava and have the fucking shit kicked out of you on the 18th scattered ones of his clothes all over the pavement from where the dog has slashed his bag. He had been wandering it for some months now, fuck the norm and fuck the police as they stood outside the designer clothes shops during the day and battering you if you try to go in, but at night they all sat in the cop shop smoking the Gear of the Week in big fat bouncy banana spliffs, ignoring all the poor people whose cries for help were unavoidably listenable.

Ignore me, ignore me, a thousand times, here, tomorrow, yesterday, till time has stopped ignoring me and my flesh withers away and I come to stand at the edge of this dry and dusty nightmare land.

Where are the last recorded messages of our parents? Lavo wondered. In the Archives of Sorrow, the ancient dues left by parents of those in this city-prison were normally kept to help their children escape, but Lavo had been there, and had spent months searching battered old manuscripts and found only nothing. He had always seen the Archives as a last resort but they gave away no secrets.

He sewed up his bag hurriedly, and stuffed in his possessions, for what they were

- not worth considering. The dog was looking at him now, from out of the corner of his eye, growling softly. Oh go away dog - you want more of my arm? Surely one bite is enough! He stormed off up the alleyway. Oxcarts mingled with tricks on the street. Guns everywhere. Knives clasped in peoples' hands. Nobody and everybody looked at him, none with pleasantry and all with disdain.

(For the colour of his skin, some would say, for he fitted in with nobody here, despite the city's cosmopolitan qualities. Black, white, oriental, whatever, but Lavo felt different. He couldn't even remember how he had got here. It was all he remembered, but he had no memory of friends or relations, no childhood or even painful adolescence., a conscience which began and ended where he was now. Good times ahead were never there Physical pain was no burden to him, for it was nothing compared to his desire to escape all this)

What life? What life was he living in now? He walked up the street as fast as he could, scared of bullets and evil smirks.

Open door to cheeky looking pastry and cake shop. Buy bread. Eat as slowly as you can and favour its dryness. March on, oh great road beginning with your brain and ending with your death. You'll never come to the end, never break out of this urban decay until you break finally out of the tunnel and into the light which you will see.

Enter an underground transport system unit station. Nowhere to go, north south east west all come back to the same place. Still, Lavo thought, the platforms could provide almost exquisite displays of sleaze and mud. The rats scuttling about on the rails provided a light relief of sorts. Comedy boing boing boing as the unfortunate one leaves its tail on the rail just as the electricity starts. Poor poor old Ratsby fried right down to a cylinder.

Lavo decided to pay a visit to Trona, his only even vague acquaintance in the city.

Trona was a medium aged thing, had lived here a long time and never left its house because its form was not access visa acceptable to others. Lavo had got to know Trona one night after too much beer when they both ran into trouble together and Trona had taken Lavo home and fixed him up nice and proper. In fact, good old Trona would probably be able to do something now, about Lavo's dogmangled arm. Usually Lavo could place this city as one thing: a shoghole of no comparison, not that he had much to compare it to; perhaps everywhere in the world was like this?

He didn't know, since the city guardians had closed it, shut it off, denied the people of this great and lovely city any insight into the dangers and terrible traps you could become ensnared in if you roamed its streets, let alone tried to leave its city walls, which most people, Lavo included, had never seen anyway.

Old man carrying sacks on back crashes into you as you get wrapped up in your dreams of escape.

"Where the fuck do you go with your thinking?" He asked.

"Sorry," Lavo said.

"Well get a move on to where it is, and leave the rest of us to get on with our jobs. Hardly as if we really need you round here, this city's crowded enough as it is."

Grump old git, Lavo thought; still, he had been here too long now to complain any longer. This hell was the norm as he laid down on the pavement for a short rest and brothe in the lovely designer clean million dollar fumes of a just-departing new model sleek shiny red racing car.

The cleanest air you'll ever taste around here. Why bother paying good money for cigarettes just to get lung cancer when you can get it for free, out here on the pavement.

Lavo stirred, as people were staring. Besides, there was a hefty fine - money he didn't have - for loitering too long on the pavement. Who'd want people to actually talk to each other, engage in such petty and outdated social habits?

On, on, up the shit scrawl. Here was where Trona lived, in a room which wouldn't have been fit for rats in many other places but which was luxury here. Lavo walked past the gun-carrying night watchman, noticing disdainfully the bullet holes in the walls. He wondered how many non conformist visitors to Trona's block had been shot by the watchman.

He knocked at the relatively-rather-pleasant door to Trona's place.

"Come in!" A familiar squeaky voice came from inside. Trona!, "The door's open!"

He pushed the door open to see Trona lying on its bed. Something had changed. It was if Trona's room was somehow a point of real hope, rather than merely the simple refuge that it usually was. Trona appeared to have redecorated the room, changed it from being a desolate standard hole, to being a masterpiece which wouldn't have looked out of place in some stately home of years gone by. He had a Dali on one wall, a Picasso on the other, a new carpet, and a grand oakwood cupboard on the right hand side. And Trona itself looked healthy and clean as it lay back on its new bed.

Trona was an oddly shaped thing, its legs were twice the length of the rest of its body, and its arms were twice that of its entire body's length. Its skin was a very very dark purple and its hair was a yellowey green mess which had never been cut and tumbled down behind it, unfortunately trailing through all the shit on the pavement.

Trona sat up. Its hair caught on the edge of the bed as it did so.

"Ouch!" Trona exclaimed. "God damned beds! You can't trust a single flot of them these days."

"So," Lavo asked, "What happened to the miniature representation of Dante's Inferno that I knew and loved? This place looks almost civilised now. That's the last I'd ever have expected from you."

"I don't know." Trona replied, "He has a mind of his own. To be completely honest, all that happened was, I went outside to ask the workmen to turn off their powerdrills, which wasn't entirely unreasonable as it was 2am, and much more of it and I would have been shoving the things down their necks and then using them to decorate the street in nice red and yellow. Yeah, so anyway, after convincing them, I walked back inside only to discover my room like this."

Lavo sat down on the easy chair by the door, sinking into its soft fabric. Trona passed him a beer. Lavo looked at Trona's face and realised that for once it looked almost happy.

A black spot appeared at the top of the cupboard and the effect spread outwards and downwards. Trona stared at it in dismay, then wrapped its arms around its head in a state of shock.

"He's coming back!" It said, "I knew he wouldn't last."

The oak-panel effect went whooshing away from the cupboard and out into the street, into the darkening sky. All there was left was the familiar charred and blistered black wood of the old cupboard. The comfortable easy chair vanished, and Lavo found himself falling onto the hard stone floor, almost cracking his spine as his back and head were flung backwards. Trona's bed had returned to the mess of sticking out springs and muddy bricks as supports, which even bedbugs had too much pride to infest.

"Fuck." Said Trona.

"What the suppose do you fuck that was?" Lavo wondered.

Trona buried his head in his pillow, then shrugged. The light on the ceiling had dulled now, gone back to its far-too-familiar dull grey tone.

Trona frowned. When Trona smiled, on the rare occasion that it was, it would always make Lavo feel upsy and giggly, but its frowns were a hideous concept which would bring down the entire Western Economic Bloc, on a day of good trading.

A beetle crawled out of the floor. Trona stared at it intently as it worked its way along and towards the food cupboard.

"I can't believe this. Surely the gods are playing tricks on me. Curse them, and damn god."

"He can never be damned." Lavo said, "Let's go. Let's leave. Let's chuffing get out of here."

"Let's just go away." Trona confirmed, "Those walls can't keep us out forever. Let's move to greener pastures, broaden our broken horizons, mend our hopes, use up all our clichés."

"Let's chuffing do it." Said Lavo.

Ninjadmin · Posted: Sun Jun 01, 2008 7:47 pm Post subject:

crikey!

i'll have to print this off and read it on the bog

renegadedog · almost ninja Joined: 19 Oct 2006 Posts: 410

Chapter Three

Autumn breeze on face. Leaves fall around you. Soft touch of a woman as Jara held his hand as they lay together under the cherry tree. Memories of the other place had almost gone now. Who'd have believed in anything so cheesy as the healing touch of a beautiful woman? He wondered. But, of course, here in his paradise the cliché surpassed the cynics. Jara smiled and kissed him.

Some of the others had gone now, drifted off home as the leaves fell down with the coming of Autumn. It felt like the last day of summer, but it was still warm.

"Hope it doesn't get too cold." Jara said, "I can't stand the cold."

"It won't." He replied, "Count on it."

They hugged again, then quickly ate the last of the biscuits and cheese and headed down towards the house. They put the beer in the fridge and decided to go for a walk to find a coffeeshop. They swooshed their way through the house, while Denok and Alva slept happily, whiskers twitching as they dreamt of infinite wild mice and science diets. From the front door the road looked smiley and cool.

"Are we riding?" Arpatink asked Jara.

"No, my bike's got a puncture." She replied.

"Let's walk. It's not too far anyway."

The street didn't last for long and soon they came to the first of the city's vast network of canals. Much of the traffic into and out of the city was done by barge. Suddenly Arpatink realised that this was why the place was so pleasant, why the place was so relaxed: there was no rapid A-B "Let's get there as fast as possible" type of hurry, people instead just concentrated on living.

"Where're we heading?" Jara asked.

"Jatia's." He replied.

Jatia's had the best Karf in the city, and the locals were friendly and Arpatink also liked the fact that all the Karf for sale was home-made and non-funded by criminal activity. It was also of the sort which really got your head right on the ceiling and made you bounce around like a Juniper on Kat.

Still, wasn't opening for another half an hour, and the autumn wind was getting rid of some of the scales on his face.

He and Jara sat down by a bench by the canal and held hands again.

"Let's go on holiday." She said, "Not to the nasty place, we wouldn't want you freaking out again, but let's go somewhere different enough to appreciate where you live."

renegadedog · almost ninja Joined: 19 Oct 2006 Posts: 410

Chapter four

Oh shit oh fuck look fucking watchman I'm leaving this room alone for a few fucking centuries just let us go past no I'm not paying the fucking rent while I'm not living here can I just have my deposit back please?" asked Trona.

The scum on the door frowned and his face looked all grotesque and enlarged and twisted in the way only scum like that could.

"I dunno. You kept the place in pretty good nick, but could you fight your way past a strong machine gun?"

"I bloody well could!" exclaimed Trona, "Just watch this."

Trona, whilst being a social reject and a long haired weirdo with strange pigmentation, could put up a fight with the best of them. It reached over the counter, grabbed the machine gun, and snapped it in two before the watchman had a chance to react. Then Trona punched him in the mouth and knocked him out, before reaching into his wallet and taking back two hundred Valida's, just under the value of his deposit.

"Oh, well done." Said Lavo, "We're going to have all the pigs on us now."

"Not to worry." It spat in the scum's face and stole his jacket. "Been looking for a jacket like this for some time now. Should have all the city's security codes in the sleeve."

Creep on out to the road. No alarms had gone off yet, which surprised Lavo a little.

"You're not to go running off now." He said to Trona, "I'm not going into that pigprison. Imagine that, for Tarata's sake."

March onto street. Trona curled back its fists in preparation for whatever lay ahead. Scan street for pigcans. Two, three, just near. Trona snarled and tied up its hair into bunches, as was customary for its race before a war.

Lavo prodded Trona. "Don't get all extratiavated. Save your hair for the real battles."

Lavo felt self a real wimp at times, he was never ready for a fight yet it was always he who got himself into the most trouble.

"Lavo! Keep cool! I'm not going to start anything. Can't expect a fight, each time I curl my hair up!"

Street goes on and left before you. Surely something could be found in the Archives of Sorrow, to help get us out?, thought Lavo to Trona.

The pigcans zoomed past them and stopped outside Trona's disused apartment block. Eighty pigs jumped out with angry smiles and scary machine guns like the one Trona had snapped in half off the security fascist. Lavo watched as they cordoned off the door and went in to question him about his attackers.

"It wasn't us, wasn't us." Trona reminded Lavo.

"How are we going to get past that, then?" He asked but then realised it was OK when a few pigs barged past and on down the street, as if chasing someone else altogether.

"Can't be dealing with an assault charge in this shoghole." Trona said, "So I used some old old mindtricks on the security fascist. No harm in that now is there? I remember the day when I combed my hair in a carpark, got thrown in that rotting old cabbage of a pigcan for 80 days for obstruction of the traffic."

And so on. Trona had accounted for everything. On to the Archives of Sorrow.

renegadedog · almost ninja Joined: 19 Oct 2006 Posts: 410

Chapter Five

Arpatink and Jara all pretty and extra scaly as they walked into Jatia's coffee bar and commanded three grars of Jatia's best.

"This stuff's the freshest." Jatia told them after they had walked in and said their greetings, "Fresher than all the shash I had in last week."

- Wasn't so bad, Arpatink thought, "Got me bouncing just fine." He and Jara sat down and had a coffee, and out came the straws. One line each straight up the smellpipe and Arpatink could hardly think of anything but metaphysics for quite a couple of hours. The stuff almost suggested to them a place inside their heads to take a couple of days off in.

Take the rest of your life off,

It said, as the entire universe, god included, sat back, comfied itself on the sofa, lit up a reefer and breathed one huge sigh of relief and calm. The physical world became entirely irrelevant compare to the huge space inside Arpatink's own head.

Jatia grinned as she watched them. Regular customers, like. These two would always come in for a lunchtime straw snort. She loved them both, with their short, spiky blonde hair, love for nature and leather boots. They seemed almost to bliss together, as one, whenever they were totally strawed up.

As it wore down she gave them another coffee and they sat and chatted for a whilst. Jatia had one another great painting this week, of a strange strava-land of weasels and mud dams whilst the lava flowed all around the weasels and made them lost their breadth of sound. Arpatink liked it, Jara too, then they decided. Time for a pleasant squirrel-lined country amble.

renegadedog · almost ninja Joined: 19 Oct 2006 Posts: 410

Chapter Six

The Archives of Sorrow, which Lavo had already been to on that fateful search for h is parents' heritage, were to be found in the Centre of the shoghole opposite the grand old dickensian opera house which the tourists came in their barrel-loads to see. All the smacked up fools with big chunky cameras who stared at Trona as it went past. Forget em, thought Lavo to Trona.

The Archives were actually four different buildings, all of which were huge and towering, some of the largest blocks in the city, but they had a hunch anyway, which one the map they were looking for would be in. They marched up to the Archive door and into the entrance; a cool, stone corridor with a reception right at the end. A wodron of big steely spectacles looked at them curiously as they crawled along on their feet.

"Are you a member?" She asked.

"Of course!" Lavo replied at her. She looked at his card and let them in.

"Any city maps here?" Lavo demanded at her.

"How do you expect me to know that? Go find em yourself!"

Was to be a long search. The paint was peeled and cracked on the stairs and walls. So many floors of the same endless old dusty volumes of garbage. On the third floor a man with a knife jumped down on them from the shelf and he had a nasty scar on his forehead and normally nobody would have messed with him but he took one look at Trona then decided to climb back up.

The maps were at the very top of the Archives, on the 38th floor. Trona and Lavo had almost given up hope by the time they found them, so many of the books they looked at first contained anecdotes of pain and anguish. What, to be alive? The greatest gift of all had been warped into a burden because of dust and alienation.

The map showed a straight road off to the East which led to the City gates. Trona tore out the page and stuffed it in its pockets so there'd be no more confusion.

They marched down those long, droopy stairs. Pain and sorrow overtook them. A tear fell from Trona's eye. It had to sit down. Its hair looked worse than ever. Lavo sat down next to it. The tear dropped to the floor.

"Everything's so empty. The world just keeps on being callous to me, Lavo. I have to bear it in mind for the road, that things could get better, but when we go outside, what do you see? All I feel is the spinning, the heavy dusty eyes, the spakky taste in my mouth which I can never get rid of, the terror in all this concrete and the laughing character who's always there, tempting me, grabbing me and trying to drag me down to his road compartment, with his huge, long thin ears and eyes of jelly."

"That's how I feel all the time, too, Trona," Lavo said, "The worse is to try and wash it down with too much beer. It will never go away, that feeling. That's the result of being born into this nightmare city."

"Do you think that my eyes will ever stop being so sunken?" Trona asked, "Neither of really belong here, do we?"

"So let's go!"

Kick past library wodron. Stolen map? No, not really. See you then never. We're leaving this place, off to see somewhere where you're allowed a bit of green and you can appreciate nature's true existence as not a myth.

Good luck getting past city walls, said wodron. Fierce things, would not let you get out. Trona gruffed at her in return.

And so on, on to the East. Temples and canals, up ahead.

renegadedog · almost ninja Joined: 19 Oct 2006 Posts: 410

Chapter Seven

Arpatink and Jara thanked Jatia and headed home to go for a walk in their garden. Back along the canal. So nice. Jara I love you sooooooo much. Love this private little secret universe we share. Canal of reflecting tall thing houses with lovely grassy front gardens. Back to house. Cat's awake now. Jara and Arpatink went to sit in the front room for a minute, and switched on the jawbox. Denok and Alva jumped up on their laps. Jara loved the Burmeses almost as much as Arpatink.

"Are you coming for a walk?" Arpatink said to them both.

"Yeah, sure." Denok said, "I haven't left the place today. Too much of another one of those pleasant end of summer moments when all you can do is sit and choll."

"Tell me about it." Jara replied, "I know exactly what you mean."

Out into garden. When could anything really go wrong, here, for real, I mean. Suddenly he felt the whispering of an angel. But no, no real, true angel as such, not the sort that could usually be there to manipulate and control the masses. This angel represented only peace - no... not even peace! A stage far beyond that, out in a void! Distant whisperings of nothingness. It was like, there had been some stages in Arpatink's life when he'd felt as if he'd met this girl and yeah she's perfect let's live together forever, but time had left a scar on it all. It had been true love which wasn't true love at all, because while she was there with her big smiley grin and all that, he'd been totally happy, but if she went off, or flirted with his friends, he'd grow angry. But here, in the garden, with Jara, he felt true love, and the Other Place became more distant. With Jara, he was at the truest stage of devotional music-

Tinkle tinkle! A guy on a bike buzzed his bell to get past them. Coming up to Mainaalscnaaal now. Turn left into the park. The avenues of green opened up before them.

This park made the big, endless garden with the cherry tree at the end of it seem as a bare patch of grass all charred and singed and sunburnt away in the middle of a traffic roundabout in the city heat. So lush. The Mainaalscanaaal ran out of the city centre and through the park. What a picture of elegance itself! In extremis perfectionism... the city planners must have had a great time doing this. He had a vision suddenly. "Sit down on the grass, lie back and close your eyes.! Up came a vision of a man, perhaps initially smug and self-satisfied in appearance with his slicked-back hair, suit and smart shoes... Striding out of his office with his suitcase. But is the vision so reliable? Glance a bit closer, and look at those shoes, look at the scuffing caused by the roughness of the Other Place, the way the leather's already coming apart at the soles. That suit's not really so sharp, either. He walks to a train station and goes down onto a platform and opens the briefcase with the city plans... You realise that this is a vision of your homeland's past... somebody built it only as an escape from the Other Place. Your vision fades and expands. Why are you telling me all of this, God? I know that the city is beautiful! What can you tell me of the relationship between me and Jara? What can you tell me about the chances of our relationship truly lasting for a long, long time? You are replied to in this questioning and God says that he can do nothing for you and Jara. What matters is that you love each other. You wake up." Arpatink sat up and hugged her.

Just coming to them right then in a haze were another couple - Jaranda, and her boyfriend Atim. Jaranda was a very beautiful woman who sometimes worked serving beer alongside the Karf down Jatia's way. She was tall and chirpy and mysterious what with her chinesey eyes and long black hair dyed red in streaks very sexy girl very sexy girl... Atim very sexy boy too thought Jara. As the two approached, Jara and Arpatink deKarfed themselves a tad and stood up to greet them with kisses.

"Hi there give us a kiss you sexy beasts got any Karf?" asked Atim. Jara crashed both he and Jaranda a line each and the four of them lay back and looked up at the crazy penguin-lined sky in a season of array.

renegadedog · almost ninja Joined: 19 Oct 2006 Posts: 410

Chapter Eight

As they followed the road to the East they did at least admit that things were getting a bit greener and greener, although hardly. It was the subtle differences, like the small, neat squares which you would now occasionally get at the roadsides. Still a jumbled up mudheap of chaos though.

When they were quite near the city walls, at the end of the first day of walking, they picked up some slappers, just to make themselves feel a bit better about their bodies for all the dirt they had been through... no sex no beauty no nothing, that had been the way it had been, so far... Lavo had all but forgotten where his lust was... Drained from his head... But the eastwards direction seemed to be having some good effect. Lavo could tell things were going to change. Why had it seemed so impossible to him, all of those years, to escape the city walls? There had to be some good reason. Still, not to dwell! The nastiness was wearing off already. He could feel it inside. Things were starting to feel more and more natural. Good to get a make love too, even if it was only fake. They left them behind some time later after a good twelve hours of dirt dirty dirty sex.

Even so.

The bars seemed to get better, too, as they walked along the eastern road. Hardly the sorts of which Lavo had dreamt in his head, which were all grassy gardens and tables outside in the summer sun, but some actually had some life. Gone were the tacky lighting schemes and plastic trays for giving you your change on... in came proper joviality and a bit of music. This was obviously the rich quarter of the city, but still, not too unequal either. Even Trona was welcomed, but especially in one which really stuck in their heads, full of people in cowskin jackets with long hair and motorbikes, or at least until they had far too much to drink and staggered outside and puked in the gutter.

Something came back to Lavo, suddenly, through the haze of fading plastic eyes and the smell of sick. He hadn't been here as long as he'd thought... images of vast expanses of grass, as he could never have imagined: spring into his head! But

"We still have a long way to go." Said Trona, "Of course, once past the walls, we're on our own, because this map can only take us that far - but who knows what might be beyond them?"

They sat down on the pavement, leaning their backs against the walls of the bar, hearing the distant wafts of distortion and drums.

"I feel sick now." Trona said.

"So do I," replied Lavo, but this sickness was only temporary.... give until the morning and it would be mainly gone. For the first time in Lavo's short memory, he actually felt happy.

..........................................................................................................and it wasn't that much longer until, just round the corner, they found the city gates, which were considerably less difficult to climb over than they had thought, and then, green! BURSTING AVENUES OF GREEN!

Lavo wondered why nobody had ever told him before.

renegadedog · almost ninja Joined: 19 Oct 2006 Posts: 410

Chapter Nine

It's a difficult morning. It's taken me so long to really gather my thoughts on all this, and to really come to terms with my feelings for you. I get up and look inside. Don't you just love the summer? It seems like a good day to take a stroll in the park. Alf woke me up this morning, jumping all over the bed and barking right down my ear. I fed him first thing, perhaps he should go for a walk now.

I walk downstairs, feeling hungover from last night. What a feast of excellence! I liked the restaurant you took us to, with its Italian authenticity, friendly waiters, homely atmosphere. Everyone loved it, we all drank plenty of beer and wine. At heart I know that I enjoyed myself too, but I ruined it all, as always, by sinking into drunken sorrow. Sometimes I can't believe the things I say to you, when I'm in those states. You don't deserve any of it. The worst is that I know you care, a lot, and that you value both our freedoms. I can understand what you mean, when you say that to keep me tied to you would show a lack of caring on our part, that you value me as a true friend and everything, how it would not be fair on either of us to be together, but still, it is hard.

I put on my shoes and leave a note to the others to tell them where I've gone. A special place to me, it's always been there, always, so close, a haven of wildlife and nature in an otherwise rather rundown city area.

I go down to the kitchen and call Alf from the back garden. He comes bounding in, jumping up at my head and licking my face. "Get down!" I say, fasten his lead and go back up to the front door and down the steps.

The common which leads down to the marshes is perfunctory, just a fairly ordinary stretch of grass, although bigger than average, but nonetheless in the summer, on days like today, it can swarm with people, playing football, smoking spliff, having picnics, listening to their radios.

I wish we could be together. Times have been when I haven't felt attracted to anyone else but you. It's been a year since we met, in that haze of cannabis and ale. It doesn't seem it, it's just all flown past so quickly. I understand all that you tell me, though. I suppose the age difference must be a big part of it.

As I walk up the path through the common a couple of metalheads jump over the wall from the big estate over to the west, which runs alongside the first of the many canals to the east of the marshes. They look like they're in a pretty bad state, acid or cheap vodka I can't really tell. I remember the big free rave down here a couple of months ago, where lots of really strong acid, some 2000 mg stronger than normal, was circulating and there were more than a few casualties. I never went, of course, as I was away at university. I don't suppose you did, either, it was probably too crusty for your liking. From the expressions on their faces it looks as if they're still tripping their heads off now. I know a drug casualty when I see one. It's almost as if they've finally gotten away from something truly terrible, just to have gotten out of the estate.

Further up the path. To my right a few technokids, one couple blonde and short haired, the other two oriental with long hair, mong around on the grass, E'd and K'd out of their faces, lying on their backs looking up at the sky in a state of chemical nirvana. I've never been such a drug person myself, although at the peak of our time together you made me so happy as to make such lifestyle accessories redundant.

I hope you will change your mind soon, or that I can change mine. Either way we will make so much more of our friendship."

Mark signed the letter, finally, then looked back at what he'd written. He didn't really know why he'd written it, fuck it, he might not even bother sending it. On terrible hungover mornings it was sometimes easier to clear your head out and just get out all you'd been thinking, put it down on paper, get rid of it. No, he wouldn't send it, that would be silly. It was hardly as if she had gone away forever and was never coming back, she was still one of his greatest friends. Nonetheless, it was hard to deal with the fact that they might never be "together" again. But as she kept on telling him, he just had to leave it behind, get on with his life.

What was the point of worrying anyway? It would only put her off him, and in the end push her further away.

Besides, London in the summer seemed to propose such a wealth of possibilities for having fun, that it was hardly worth stressing. In the winter it was a terrible place, but here, now, in the summer, it hardly seemed the hassle of going anywhere else.

He looked around him. The two metalheads looked in a pretty bad way as they staggered across the park, but hey they were enjoying themselves.

Still, there was no point bothering himself about them. It was a summer Sunday, and there was drinking to be done.

He decided to scrap the letter. Deep and tortured musings perhaps, but maybe not such a good idea to send them to Anna.

He told Alf to get up and they both headed home. When he got back he phoned the others to see if they wanted to go to the pub.

Down at the Trolley Stop, sitting out in the beer garden. Mark had got there a little early, just to be on the safe side - you had to see in the London summer with more beers than the afternoon could possibly give you. Two pints of Kilkenny, the best Ireland had - how better to kill off the pain of the afternoon's hangover? Mark considered this little alco-intellectual point to himself as Tom and Andrew came out into the garden, grinning.

renegadedog · almost ninja Joined: 19 Oct 2006 Posts: 410

Chapter Ten

Lavo felt strange now. They passed a young guy who was sitting at a bench with a dog, writing. And then the grassy plain stretched up up and upwards. Trona smiled. Lavo gave it a quick hug.

"Wow!" He said to Trona, as the hill rose in strange grassy terraces and vineyards. When they reached the top and looked back over at the nasty place, it almost seemed as if it was a long way over, in another time, another race. It was enveloped in a bubble, a pollution haze, they felt like they were looking at it through a sheet of glass in a different dimension or hemisphere. Some of the cultural values remained, but this was just so much more relaxed. It was as if someone had just waved a magic wand, and all the spakkiness had been taken away and people were no longer constrained by huge tall nasty oppressive buildings and malicious social conventions, but were able to enjoy life as it actually should be lived, always. Wild plants grew up the sides and trees intertwined with almost everything you thought of, instead of concrete spasms.

Trona remembered the strange, twisted old man who'd lived on its corridor in the horrible city. A strange fellow indeed. As Trona looked out over the almost-tropical green, towards its previous place of torture, it was able to laugh in ever-greater detail at things past, at times of then-anguish which now seemed hilarious. What a ridiculous neighbour!

Trona soaked up the sun and lay down on its back and wondered exactly what the neighbour's problem had been. Perhaps life had been better under the Vichy Regime in France, or Nazi Germany, or Stalinist Russia, or Pinochet's Chile - although Trona hugely doubted it - but there was no reason to go around shoving fascist views down everyone else's throats. The old fool needed to be locked up, without a doubt. Trona was as left wing as the best of them, but what kind of a lunatic would threaten to call the police because you had used a tap out in the corridor?

This had been entirely what had fucked Trona's life up, for it had been at college, that it had happened - what an embarrassment Trona had become when it'd invited it's mates around for a jovial drink or two, not for a wild party but merely for a few friends having a mellow chat and a few glasses of shandy, with the music on in the background admittedly but as lowered as possible. What a lunatok. Trona looked over to Lavo. He was sleeping peacefully, stretched out on the grass. A strange image came over Trona. It suddenly wondered if its head was all that it had thought. Had there been another life, before this one? A huge, darkened room, full of warriors, making odd movements to strange sounds which it could not place in the context of normal reality. What were all of those people doing there, and why? What a silly thing to have been doing! They should all have just dingle dongled off home and worn stronger clothes. Where had the image come from? Was it an image of another life? Another life, which would forever remain a mystery.

After that, Trona could not remember it any more, and it was as though it had never thought of it to begin with. Throw it away. Life was greener now, but where would they sleep tonight?

Trona turned to Lavo and asked him.

renegadedog · almost ninja Joined: 19 Oct 2006 Posts: 410

Chapter Eleven

Down comes the sun. Arpatink and Jara, Atim and Jaranda had been resting there for far too long. Along came the dark, so they headed off home, Denok in tow. They all secretly doubted that their paradise would remain as such after dark. As they tralumphed off home, Arpatink held Jara close to his heart. She muttered something to him about the days when they used to go on proper holidays, instead of spending all their time all blissed out in the park, because as good as that was, why didn't they ever go off to the South or somewhere? He replied only half-heartedly. Where was the need when they had everything they wanted right there? They walked past a recent addition to the park, a rock hill which had been built on top of war rubble, which had an imitation Corinthian temple at its peak, above the grassy slopes which led up to it. They saw two real strung out far out peoples with leather jackets and long hair who sat there looking amazed, as if all the world was now at their feet. Arpatink felt concerned for them, although why he did not know. Perhaps there was something strange lurking in the past which provided a link. Was there a link of some sort between all beings?

They went home.

renegadedog · almost ninja Joined: 19 Oct 2006 Posts: 410

Chapter Twelve

A bit later in the afternoon. God knows how many pints had gone down his neck, or where the money for it all had come from. The others were talking about the holiday they had just returned from in Mexico. How long had it been since Mark had travelled anywhere? He had returned from his six months in India thinking that that was enough, that he had now fulfilled all of life's spiritual demands and that nothing was any longer required of him, and he'd spent the past two years since then at uni in a haze of beer, and falsely so, for he was no lad at heart.

Was he? Should life really be more than wash after wash of beer, and sparkly clubs all dressed up in white shirts and snogging a different woman every week?

Anna was his true love, though, all through and through it all. Was it love that he felt for her? The evening before she had dismissed his feelings as little more than a petty teenage crush. Perhaps they weren't suited after all. Perhaps she was just another part of the delusion. Mark thought about his mates as they sat at the table before him, talking about Tichlotian massacres and pyramids and sexy Latinos. Tom was a true friend, a Jack the Lad who'd never let you down and who would always look like the most up for it person in the entire rave, even though he'd never touch E nor speed. Andrew was the more foppish type who was at once genuine and deep and in touch with a lot of things about himself and other people, but who was also prone to making foolish mistakes, particularly under the influence of drink. Still, they were mainly comical errors in the end, and at the end of the day, he would normally end up hurting himself. Anyhow, Andrew seemed a lot more settled now that he had been away travelling, a lot more chilled out.

renegadedog · almost ninja Joined: 19 Oct 2006 Posts: 410

Chapter Thirteen

The night came down upon them. Trona said wouldn't it perhaps be wise for them to find a shelter. Lavo agreed, but then pointed out that it might be difficult, and besides, it was nice sleeping out under the stars, and the night was not cold.... It would be pretty cool to just crash out on the grass. Besides, Lavo felt rather frail, like an old man who had walked that bit too far, or a car which had run on too much petrol. Perhaps it was time to take more than one night's sleep.

Trona wanted somewhere warm, but not to sleep, because it was not feeling particularly tired, so agreed to keep watch while Lavo slept.

renegadedog · almost ninja Joined: 19 Oct 2006 Posts: 410

Chapter Fourteen

Arpatink began to feel worse. The feeling of wonder which had made him feel so alive earlier in the day had now begun to wear off, and he was starting to be left with a numb feeling of raw emptiness, which he could not explain. It was almost as if his very soul had been taken for a ride, and then left bare and rotting away. Where had it come from? He thought he had always been so high and happy! Perhaps it was not so.

As he lay in bed that night he looked over to Jara. Normally they would have been in love love love al the way, and shagged until the day turned blue. So what had happened? She looked all pale and flushed, and seemed as if she could barely take it into her hands to look at him, let alone kiss him. He reached over and tried to kiss her, but it felt horrible. There was no passion in the kiss, no feeling, just the clashing of lips and tongues, an almost abstract sensation, as if there was little more than two pieces of meat being rubbed together, and no more than that.

He felt awful after that, and turned away from her. To make love would have been impossible.

But the worst payback was yet to come.

renegadedog · almost ninja Joined: 19 Oct 2006 Posts: 410

Chapter Fifteen

Andrew suggested they went to a club that evening. Mark agreed. Perhaps he should cut down on the drink but they! They had a special occasion to celebrate. He would give some of the others a ring later on, for he was sure that Anna in particular would be glad to join them. A few more beers were poured. Later Mark decided that it would probably best to just pop home, to at least have the decency to say hi to his parents, have a shower and a shave, sober up a little and then go out just in time to drink even more.

On the way home he thought about her yet again. He was starting to come to terms with the fact that they might never be together, but whenever her face came popping up in his head it was so hard, with her near-model features, long black curly hair, Mediterranean skin, but most of all, that rare, cuddly smile. She was 32 going on 19, and probably the most young-spirited person he had ever met.

When he got back he phoned her. She was as warm and friendly as ever, although initially she was rather distant, because of the awful things he had said the night before, which were still ringing around, and also because she could tell he was drunk again now.

But soon she could see the funny side of it all. Hey, it was OK to fuck yourself up when you were a student, and just worry about it all afterwards. She asked him about Andrew and Tom and their holiday in Mexico. She was close to all of Mark's friends, forever hugging and kissing them, but it was all in jest, and none of it ever suggested physical intensity, just the kind of familiarity which would be felt between a brother and sister. She knew how Mark felt for her, she wouldn't mess it up by getting closer to one of his friends, would she?

However, deep inside, Mark could see it coming, possibly with Andrew. Perhaps even deeper inside him he knew that it would perhaps in the end be necessary, to help him break free from it all.

renegadedog · almost ninja Joined: 19 Oct 2006 Posts: 410

Chapter Sixteen

Trona began to feel more normal, and as if its body was that of a normal human. Trona thought back to the memories it had had, of the strange darkened room all full of dancing warriors and jelly bean men. That wasn't another life! It was this one, and my oh my was it strange! Trona reached beyond that, whilst Lavo slept beside it, and remembered more. It had a family! It has a family! They are still here! They don't even live that far away! It remembered a mother and father, people who cared, friends, lovers, all around. What had it done to scare them away?

Fuck this! My name isn't Trona! It's Mary! It was strange, how quickly it began to come back to her. As she sat on the grassy mound in Springfield park, overlooking the pubs down by the river, she wondered why they had ever gone to live There in the first place. Strange, that, to have been living for so long that they didn't even know who they were. Who was Lavo? She looked over. She didn't even know what his name was.

Lavo slept. For him, this was it, this was the time he had been waiting for, when he would break away from the horrible confines of skin, grey cells, concrete, metal and all of the rest of it, and dissolve, fade away, sink into nothingness. Malnourished for some months now, starvation sank in as he slept on the grass, and soon, he would be gone. For once, the words "Rest in Peace" actually meant something, to Lavo, at least.

But at least she felt happy. As he faded away, she took off her coat, and placed it over him, just to keep his now-cold body warm. Not that it would help, but what the hell? Whoever he was, he had served her well. Kept him company through those long, depressing months of madness. Something had happened to them that day at the party, but what it was she would never know.

It wasn't worth wondering though, was it? It was the summer! Life was here, life was good, and there was still so much to happen. She felt as if this really was the first day! There was so much to remember, so many friends to catch up with, who had probably abandoned her in her madness, because she had become so distant and alienated, and because she had spoken of things which they had no real concept of... She remembered that two of them had spoken of travels, but was it so surprising, really, that she had driven them away? This false reality that she had been living was all very well if you knew how to get there, but if you didn't, what was the point in ramming it down everyone else's throats?

She hid his body in a pile of leaves, beneath a tree at the side of the park. It would be fine to remain there, just until the morning.

And then she ran, down along the river, through the marshes, through the park and back home to where she had to bang on the door hard until someone answered which nobody did but then luckily she remembered that she had a set of keys in her inner coat pocket so she managed to get the door open. So, so hungry now, she knew that she couldn't be that far off going where Lavo was going, so she rushed to the fridge as soon as she got into the house and stuffed bread and cheese and chicken and biscuits down her throat, and pigged out on the couch in front of the TV. It felt so good to be alive again. As she'd walked towards the house, the feeling of distant squidgy church bells and happy smiley loonies breathing down her neck, and the grey bubble with her face reflected in it like a cartoon, all began to get further and further away.

renegadedog · almost ninja Joined: 19 Oct 2006 Posts: 410

Chapter Seventeen

Arpatink woke up in the morning. He felt terrible. Without looking over to Jara, he reached his hand out to her, as if to stroke her hair, but he felt a strange absence, as if something that he would normally take for granted had suddenly gone. She wasn't there. He looked over at where she had been sleeping. He touched the space with his hand, it wasn't even warm any more, so she had obviously been gone for some time. But he couldn't concentrate on that now. He pulled the curtain apart and looked onto the street. Everything looked dull... dull and grey. The sun only seemed to be half attempting to come out, the sky was full of clouds, and there was nobody around. What was going on? It was almost as if a powerful force which he once controlled was no longer there, no longer at his service. What he had been feeling for the two days before, with Jara, Atim and Jaranda, that was not real life! That was an artificial wonder, a heaven which you could only get to with the aid of a chemical crutch. Normal life was dull and repetitive. For what could the natural world give him which would compare with what he had been feeling?

Jara had left a note on the desk. It said that she had decided to go away for a few days, because she was sick of his repetitive, unadventurous life, she needed something a bit newer, stronger, deeper, something which she could enjoy without him and his bloody sunbathing.

Arpatink couldn't particularly give a shite at this point. She could go where she wanted. He had work to do, people to see, but he couldn't really bring himself to care about any of that for the moment. He wondered how he had ever let himself end up like this. It was sort of shitty.

renegadedog · almost ninja Joined: 19 Oct 2006 Posts: 410

Chapter Eighteen

And, in the end, Mark and the others had a good night, and lots of people turned up to the club. Mark drank considerably less than he had intended, which turned out to be a good thing, because he didn't even mind when Anna spent half the night flirting with Andrew right in front of him, and why should it matter? He still had time to move onto prettier and better people. Dave, Patrick, Tim and Jess all came too, and they were good friends, the best, so who was to worry about whatever Anna and Andrew wanted to do? At the end of the night they all decided to go back to Andrew and Tom's flat and have a smoke in the front room because Dave had some wicked skunk and Andrew had a bottle of Tequila left over from Mexico, so they could get even more hammered.

It was strange, thought Mark as he left the club with his friends and watched them fall about drunkenly, getting kebabs and making fools of themselves, to see them being the ones out of their faces for once while he was relatively sober. It was nice too, though, as for once he could see how he didn't need it. Forget about it, throw it away! You don't need alcohol, you just need your mates and to enjoy life.

When they got back they were all slightly disturbed to find that someone else appeared to have somehow got into the flat and raided the fridge, but then when Andrew and Tom staggered into the front room they found a girl called Mary sitting there listening to Metallica. She had been a good friend of theirs a while back (and even shared the flat with them - which is why she had been able to let herself in - although Mark had never met her before) until she had got rather too into LSD and lost her personality. She seemed relatively fine now, though. Mark felt as if he had seen her before, pretty recently. Oh yeah! That was it! She had walked past him with a friend in the park while had been writing the silly letter to Anna. She was a pretty girl, although very much on the skinny side - her face was pale and gaunt, her clothes really scruffy, her hair looked as if it hadn't been washed for a fair bit. As it happened the two of them got on pretty well, perhaps it was just the rebound from Anna. Perhaps it wasn't. He looked at Andrew and Anna as they sat together. You see, Andrew had the natural chemistry with her, whilst Mark had always been a controlled, obsessive and over possessive, trying to create something instead of letting it happen naturally. He just had to let it go. She was free to do what she wanted, and so was he.

Mark felt good.

hiccup · Posted: Mon Jun 02, 2008 11:42 am Post subject:

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