The Final Slice

Billy is preparing to accept life without his father when he is interrupted by the swansong of dawn.

Billy sauntered sombrely at the edge of the morning sun glinted river, his brow furrowed in serious thought. A half emptied bag of stale sliced bread swung from his left hand, crumbled segments of a single slice in the right, which he threw to the flock of swans, ducks and guinea fowl that swam parallel to the slight incline of the embankment.

The boy’s heart was heavy with the burden of loss and this was reflected in his stooping gait and pained expression. This was the place that he and his father would often come to walk and talk about private matters. This was their special place.

 Flashes of memory mimicked the dancing flicker of early day that shone through the leafy boughs on the opposite side of the river and blended with images of all that was real and everything that might have been.

Each slice of bread was symbolic of a shattered dream and Billy systematically tore his hopes apart then scattered the pieces to the eager followers. His father was missing in action; presumed dead and he was struggling to find any hope that the army were wrong.

‘He’s gone,’ he repeated with each motion; feeling a worsening shiver of breathe fill up his body each time. Tears spilled forth unaccompanied by sound and he remembered the time his father told him that this was the soundless weeping of true grief. Billy couldn’t recall exactly why this had been shared with him, but thought it must have been for a good reason.

‘He’s gone.’

Billy spluttered out a sudden torrent of emotion and saw the world blur beneath the wetness of his sorrow.

‘Oh my God, he’s gone,’ he whimpered pitifully.

He came to a halt and half crouched; his hands grasping his thighs for support as he wept. A number of the more brazen ducks clambered onto dry land intending to approach and inspect the bag that span about at Billy’s calf.

They were thwarted however, when the teenager stood suddenly and sent them quacking and waddling back to their former aquatic location. Billy sniffed hard and then breathed with rhythmical purpose in regaining his composure.

Billy pulled the bag to his waist and plunged a hand inside to claim another slice of bread. He held the bag between the grip of his fingers and palm and tore the bread to strips, without so much as looking, and began to skim it sideways to the floating flock. A gaggle of noise announced a rivalry over dampened crumbs and Billy quickly tore up more to abate the ensuing scramble for sustenance,

‘It’s almost gone,’ he said to the flock as all but the last piece diminished to soggy billed oblivion.

He pulled out the final slice and held it up to his saddened eyes,

‘I suppose this is it; the end of my dreams,’ he said and made to tear it up.

‘I wouldn’t do that if I were you,’ a strangely strangulated female voice told him.

Billy quickly turned to the source of the voice; the river on which the birds had eagerly swam beside him only a moment before, and saw that the surface of the water was deserted save for one distinctly unusual creature. Where the guinea fowl, ducks and swans had fought over the bits of bread there was now only a single gigantic swan. Its plumage was a deep orange colour and its beak bright red.

Billy was greatly confused by the sudden appearance of the bird and asked,

‘Did you just speak to me?’

The swan craned its neck and opened its crimson bill to say,

‘Yes, of course it was me. You shouldn’t tear up your dreams quite so easily.’

The boy stumbled backwards at the confirmation and landed onto the damp dewy grass below. He still clutched the slice of bread as he stuttered disbelievingly,

‘Who… what… what are you?’

The orange swan glided gently toward where Billy had fallen, its beak perched to an almost smile.

‘I am the swansong of the dawn and I have come to bring you to the Gateway,’ she said.

‘What Gateway?’ Billy asked as he tried to scramble back to his feet and escape, ‘what do you mean? What’s going on?’

The swan opened her wings and leapt from the water, revealing red legs and feet as she landed on the ground near to Billy.

‘I mean you no harm Billy. Your father needs you,’ she said, the squawking tone of her voice softening to an almost human quality.

On hearing this Billy stopped struggling to gain purchase on the slippery ground and looked up to the swan with sheer determination.

‘My Dad? Where is he? Tell me where he is,’ he demanded to know.

‘I cannot tell you in a way that you would understand Billy. All I can tell you is that he is trapped in the darkness of another world- a darkness that now threatens your world.’

Billy looked on in amazement as the bird continued to tell him all that she could.

‘The answer to your questions will be answered if you come with me to the Gateway. I cannot help you otherwise.’

Billy jumped to his feet to stand several inches lower than the swan.

‘I’ll come, just take me to him.’

The swan lowered her head until she looked into the boy’s eyes,

‘First you must give me the final slice as payment for your passage and so that your dreams can be preserved.’

Billy held the slice of stale bread out to the swan who consumed it in one hungry gulp.

‘That’s better!’ she said joyously, ‘now climb onto my back and I will take you to the Gateway.’

Billy climbed tentatively onto the creatures back and clung tightly as she moved back to the water. The swansong of dawn glided gracefully across the water and then plunged below the surface, taking Billy from his earthbound dream to a world of dreams and imaginings.

……………………………………………………………………………….

The dream world of Horror is shrouded in darkness save for the pale glint of sunrise from its heavenly neighbour. This dawning may be brief, but it is there all the same. For thousands of years those who inhabit the dark realm have hidden from its sight in the belief that they would perish beneath the glare of the sun. That was until their King discovered a crack in the pitch of night at the very top of their world and convinced them that freedom awaited their approach.

It was an opening to another reality where people lived in comfort and luxury while the Horror’s suffered- feared, forsaken and forgotten.

Sin Muballit fronted an ever growing army of myths and monsters, intent on creating mayhem across realities, as he traversed to the top of his kingdom.

At the desolate pole he beheld the world of light that all but prevented the sun from casting its light upon the wretched place and awaited the merest glimpse that would signal the beginning of the invasion.

The Horror’s in his company shifted uncomfortably and fearfully as they watched the amber glow skirt the space in between the realms to scarcely touch the surface of their perdition.

‘Have no fear fellow creatures of the night! Our time has come! Vengeance will be yours!’ Sin Muballit screamed victoriously as his body was imbued by light.

The Horror’s hunkered back in terrible awe as they bore witness to the transformation of their King. Flesh grew upon his ancient bones; vigour was restored to the long decayed muscle and sinew beneath and hair sprouted about his head and face in long braids.

The monsters recoiled in terror at the sight of the human King who stood at their fore, but listened intently as he said,

‘This is how we will take their world my legions! We will usurp their place in the waking world and leave their thoughts in the darkness that only we have ever known.’

The legions murmured excitedly as the plan was revealed to them, until a questioning voice rang out amongst the throng to ask,

‘How do we achieve this King Sin? How can we conceal ourselves long enough to possess them?’

In answer to this the King held up his staff and commanded to the skies,

‘You waking things that the waking world has hidden from their sight- aid us in our quest, dear friends- become our cloak of night.’

In a moment the army of Horror’s was enveloped by the flapping wings of bats, vultures and prehistoric monsters from above and by swarms of rats, serpents and insects underfoot. Their innumerable number chaperoned the Horror’s as they stepped cautiously toward the point of light in which their King stood. Ogres and trolls stomped, witches and warlocks flew, zombies and ghouls dragged their way toward the Gateway to Dreams and Imaginings.

………………………………………………………………………

Lost somewhere in the darkness of oblivion the weak and withered Charlie Nichol suffered in silent fear. His could not feel to touch, look to see or listen to hear; all he could sense was the smell and taste of wretched decay around him and within him. Worse still; he no longer remembered where he was or how he had come to be in this place of darkness, but he understood enough to realise that he would soon come to forget his identity and be lost forever.

The soldier’s broken body had been stripped of its strength and his thoughts were diminishing to nothing. Charlie tried to remember all that he had once been; a husband, a father, an Englishman, a soldier, a storyteller to his children, but it was becoming increasingly difficult to find any of it important. Charlie craved sustenance to give him power and the ability to escape his torment, but he did not know what this nourishment might be.

Charlie tried his hardest to imagine what it was that he desired, but found it hard think of anything in the all-consuming darkness that had claimed him. He dreamed of his wife Phoebe, his children, Billy and Amber. He saw his home in Bigglesworth where family and friends wept at his loss, but everything became a jumble of images that merged to one and faded to a horizontal sliver of light in the darkness.

‘What are you?’ he thought of the apparition in his mind.

Then it occurred to him that the wedge reminded him of something from before. A riverbank in a place he no longer recalled emerged from his thoughts; blue grey water, green grass, birds swimming and waddling everywhere and the memory of the sounds. The wind, the dripping of water, the quacking, cackling of the hungry creatures and then a voice,

‘Dad!’

Charlie imagined looking to the voice and saw a boy he thought he recognised. The boy held something to him and Charlie saw that the sliver of light was now a thin wedge of bread.

‘Take this Dad- don’t forget your dreams.’

Charlie imagined taking the bread and consuming it more hungrily than any water fowl ever could. With his appetite sated he was contented for the time and allowed himself to drift into nothingness as the dream faded away.

Author's Note

The extent of my re-write so far, but more will be added very soon. I supose all I would like to know is if this has intrigued readers so far.