Day 8 - A Childhood Memory

Christmas was always special when I was a child.

The tree would go up in the week before Christmas, decorated with strands of tinsel and all manner of homemade decorations that had been fashioned out of cardboard and glitter. As the week wore on, the presents would start to pile up around its base as they arrived in parcels from our many relatives (there were certainly advantages to having aunties and uncles in double figures – although my parents would probably have disagreed considering the huge number of cousins they needed to buy for in turn). And so, beneath the tree, a plethora of different styles of wrapping paper, and all sorts of shapes and sizes of presents; but you weren’t allowed to touch and you certainly weren’t allowed to peek at the label to see who a present was destined for.

The open fireplace would be cleaned out and we’d have some logs or coal, the fire blazing away on the evenings; the Christmas cards we’d received would start filling the walls and paper garlands we’d made at school would be hung along the ceiling. Christmas was the only week of the year that we’d buy the Radio Times, containing the list of all the TV programmes over the Christmas period, and my sister and I would take turns to go through it and circle all the films that we wanted to watch. It was a different era; before streaming and before our family could afford a video recorder, so this would be our first chance to see many of the movies listed. And, if we were really lucky, my dad was able to borrow a colour TV from work for the Christmas holidays and we’d have a chance to watch things in glorious technicolour.

By Christmas Eve it was time to write our lists for Father Christmas and I’d always be wildly optimistic and ask for whatever cool toys I had seen in the catalogues. At the time, I genuinely believed I was writing to Father Christmas and that he would bring me what I asked (although my mum would tell us that what we ask for is just a guide, and Father Christmas knows best what to give us). We’d hang our stockings (actually, usually football socks) and we’d leave a mince pie and a glass of sherry or brandy on the fireplace for when Father Christmas visited. We even thought of Rudolph and left a carrot for him as well.

Then it was time for bed and the agonising difficulty of getting to sleep. You wanted to sleep, you needed to sleep (because Father Christmas only comes when you are asleep!) but it was so difficult and so I’d huddle beneath the quilt and try to look asleep just in case. Sometimes I’d wake up an hour or two after I’d gone to bed and check the sock on the end of my bed – still empty – and then have to go through the whole tortuous process of getting to sleep again. My imagination, ever fertile, would occasional think it heard scraping sounds on the roof or the jingling of sleigh bells. But, eventually, my body would give in and I’d fall into a deep sleep….

…only to wake at a ridiculously early hour in the morning and, fumbling in the dark, realise that the football sock on the bed was bulging with presents and would quickly jump out of bed and turn the light on. When I was very young, I shared a room with my sister and we’d both clamber out of bed and drag the present sacks that had been left for us onto the bed and begin the process of opening.

There was a clear and defined order. First, the socks had to be emptied. They would be filled with tiny presents (a pack of cards, a bouncy ball) as well as a satsuma, and a little plastic mesh bag containing nuts and raisins. Then, with the content of the socks strewn over our bed covers, we’d take it in turn to pull out presents from the sacks. That they rarely matched what we’d asked Father Christmas for didn’t matter; they were always amazing – books, board games, sometimes even a totally unexpected present like a remote controlled car. It was always this joyous adventure, just seeing what you would get next. And, once all the presents had been unpacked, it was time to run into our parents’ room and wake them to tell them that Father Christmas had been!

Looking back, I don’t know how they managed to do it. We weren’t a rich family by any means, quite the opposite in fact, but we always had so many presents from Father Christmas. So many that I was one of the last children to lose belief in Father Christmas – after all, wasn’t Father Christmas so much more believable than the idea that my parents managed to scrape and save enough money together to buy all of these presents for us? You can only appreciate those kinds of sacrifices in retrospect. In the moment, I was just so glad that Father Christmas had decided I’d been a good boy (after all, if I hadn’t, he’d have just left me a piece of coal!).

At this point, it was 5 or 6am and our parents would tell us to calm down and go back to sleep. Which, of course was utterly impossible. But we’d pretend to – and quietly play with our toys or read our books – and they’d pretend not to know we had stayed up before we finally all met for breakfast a little later in the morning.

Bacon and eggs. One of the few times in the year we would have it, my mouth still waters at the thought of it because it was a true luxury breakfast. We’d eat bacon and eggs, and talk about the presents that we had got, and then we would go and spend the morning and early afternoon playing with our toys and occasionally watching something on TV (although my mum was never keen on us watching TV until after dinner on Christmas Day).

But what about the wrapped presents beneath the tree? Well, they still stayed there like that until after dinner. It was tradition; only after Christmas dinner had been eaten could the presents be opened. Some years it was harder than others, but usually the distraction of the presents from Father Christmas was enough to get us through the day; and, besides, I always looked forward to Christmas Dinner.

Roast turkey. Roast potatoes. Carrots. Sprouts. Stuffing balls. Little sausages wrapped in bacon. All smothered in gravy. It was the best meal of the year, by far. We’d pull the turkey’s wishbone and make a wish. We’d pull crackers, read out the bad jokes inside them, and wear paper party hats. And, after dinner, we’d eat Christmas pudding with custard and see who found the foil wrapped coin hidden inside their portion that was meant to bring us luck.

Finally, utterly sated, we’ve move/waddle from the dining room to the living room and the tree. Someone would be in charge of handing out presents (in the early years my dad, and my mum after he left) and it was conducted in a methodical fashion – one present given to someone, unwrapped and looked at, then another present to someone else. On some afternoons it would take over an hour to get through all the presents, with the biggest present of all always being left to the very last.

Then, after a few hours of playing with a new batch of toys, it was time for tea – cold turkey sandwiches, homemade sausage rolls, and thick slabs of rich fruit Christmas cake (covered in white icing that was rock hard). Maybe a Christmas movie on in the background, the fire crackling away merrily in the corner.

It was always the most perfect of times, always special. I smile inside every time that I think back to it.


* * *

The man stirs lightly in his sleep, but doesn’t wake. My glamour binds him to the world of dreams, whether he likes it or not, and he will only wake when I wish it.

I rest my hand lightly on his chest, my long black nails trailing against his delicate skin. He has provided me with such nourishment these last few weeks but these childish memories are the sweetest of all; I devour them like scooping marrow from the bone. His joy a brief light inside me until it is swallowed up by my infernal darkness.

He is nearly spent now; little more than a withered fruit on the vine. Oh, outwardly he might look fine, but inside he is now grey and hollow. I have slowly savoured each happy moment, night after night, stealing away the light inside of him in order to briefly sate my hunger, but he will soon be of no use to me.

Maybe those around him have noticed the change in his demeanour; the way that he no longer is quick to laugh or smile; the way he keeps his eyes down and trudges his way through life. Some go on like that forever after I am done with them, an endless empty march to the grave. Others sense all that I have taken from them, even if they can’t quite grasp it on anything but the most abstract of levels; they often end it themselves in order to escape the torment of their existence. What will happen to this one, I neither know nor care.

I saved the childish memories until the very end, determined to preserve the sweetest of treats for as long as possible. I remove my hand from him, drawing the last morsels of the memory into myself before slinking, an inky shadow, away into the walls to savour the taste.

After all, childhood memories are the most special of all.

Day 7 - We Will Return

A combination of work and a distinct lack of energy meant that I stayed stuck on Day 7 for quite some time. But I knew what I wanted to write, even if I struggled to turn it into words on the page. However, with the Easter weekend here I've finally had a chance to decompress and relax and the creativity has come flooding back. I'll aim to get back on track with the challenge from this point on...

We Will Return

The oxygen reading is blinking in the red as the escape pod clears patch space and blossoms into reality. I look at it for what feels like the hundredth time, and then wonder for the hundredth time whether the distress signal will reach anyone before my oxygen finally runs out. The pod tumbles through space, tracing an arcing trajectory that will bring it to an Earth re-entry orbit within eight days. Which, if I have done my calculations correctly, will be about seven days and five hours too late.

I try not to think about the probability of this working out. As the old song goes, you’ve got to accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative. Besides, after having defied the odds to escape the Proxima before it was destroyed, after having hand-calculated the ridiculously complex equations necessary to escape n-dimensional space, it would seem rather unfair that I ended up being defeated by something as mundane as oxygen.

I rerun the events of Proxima in my head and they don’t quite make sense. The drive was functioning perfectly, we were in patch space and all systems were operating at an optimal level. I was in the engine room, monitoring the diagnostics and we were in the green across the board. There was no reason to believe anything was about to go wrong, even with the benefit of hindsight. But go wrong it did.

Something happened.

I don’t know what that something was because it was so violent that I was flung across the engine room and must have blacked out. When I finally came to, alarms were blaring and the board was red; life support critical, matter-anti matter containment close to failing, structural integrity field far beyond any of the design parameters. Proxima was dying.

I looked at the displays, emotions falling to the wayside as I considered my situation with an icy cold logic. Over an hour had passed since the event that had rendered me unconscious, and even my most optimistic analysis of the situation told me that I had less than five minutes to reach the escape pod or be destroyed along with the ship.

I used the intercom to ping the bridge but there was no answer. Lots of possible scenarios; Mike and Ellen had been killed during whatever happened, they had been unable to contact me and so had to leave me behind, they were still there trapped on the bridge. None of them mattered. It would take me more than fifteen minutes to get from the engine room to the bridge, even assuming that the pylons hadn’t been compromised. Based on the read-outs, there was a good chance that it would be impossible to reach the bridge. I had no choice.

I’ve told myself that a lot. And it’s true. But it doesn’t help the hot blend of anger and shame that wells up inside me every time I think of my decision to use the escape pod on my own. Of course, one voice in my head reassures me, if you had been able to take them then the oxygen would have run out long before you cleared patch space. Although, chimes in another voice, Ellen was so much better at the maths than you; maybe she’d have done the calculations a lot quicker and got you all home safe.

I can’t ever know. And so it’s just me, tumbling through space and wondering if I will ever get to see my family again. Oxygen reading still blinking red.

I’d promised Diana that I’d make it back, that this test flight wasn’t anywhere near as risky as the press were making it out to be. The automated flights had all gone perfectly, completely by the book. Sure, the press were making it out to be the most dangerous mission in the history of mankind, but we knew different. We knew that we were about to make history as the first humans to orbit another star. We will return, I’d promised her; I won’t leave you and Thomas. And she’d smiled at me and kissed me and believed me. So I held onto that promise, tried to regulate my breathing just as they’d taught us in the simulations even while I felt so very tired. I try not to think about Thomas, just the thought of him makes me well up with tears.

I try hard to keep my eyes open, try to focus, but the desire to close them is just too strong. Just for a second, whispers the voice in my head, just close them for a second and everything will be fine. I let my eyelids close and give into the darkness.

* * *

White light, loud voices. I’m on my back, I think. I try to open my eyes but it’s so very hard and they don’t seem to want to obey my command.

“He’s coming round,” says a voice from somewhere nearby.

“Hit him again,” says another voice.

A warm sensation floods through my body and I give into the blackness again.

***

“Is he going to wake up?” says a man’s voice from my left.

“Any minute now,” says a woman from somewhere further away, “But, I want it on the record that I was opposed to this and that I am only doing this under duress. I will be registering an official complaint.”

“Feel free to register whatever you want, doctor” says another male voice from my right, this voice colder and calmer than the first, “this is a matter of national security. Now is he going to be lucid?”

“I can’t guarantee anything; his body is still healing, he shouldn’t even be conscious.”

“Whatever it takes,” said the second voice, “You do whatever it takes.”

I try to ask what’s going on, but nothing comes out other than a cracked murmur. My mouth is dry and my throat parched. Eyelids so heavy.

“He’s coming around,” says the first voice.

“He needs water,” says the doctor, and a moment later I feel something hard pressed against my lips; a trickle of water into my mouth that I take in like it’s the most wonderful thing in the world because, in that moment, it is.

My eyes flicker half open, the room blurry. My head feels heavy, like a hangover but worse. Two men in dark suits are standing either side of me. I try to sit up, but I can’t move.

“Don’t bother trying to get up,” says the man on my left, “You’re in restraints.”

I feel bands of pressure over my legs, my waist, my chest. There is a coldness against my wrists, something metallic holding them in place.

“Where am I?” I ask, my voice little more than a hoarse whisper.

“You’re in a secure medical facility,” says the man on my right, “And you are restrained for your own safety and wellbeing.”

From across the room, I hear the doctor scoff.

“That will be all, doctor. Your presence is no longer required. Please leave us alone with the-,” the man pauses for a moment, “-patient.”

My eyesight is gradually improving; I am in a small room surrounded by banks of medical equipment. I am handcuffed to the metal railings of the hospital bed.

“What is this?” I ask, “What’s going on?”

“We’ll be asking the questions,” says the man on my right. He’s in his thirties; square jaw, blonde hair trimmed short; everything about him screams ex-military.

“Dr. Knowles,” says the man on my right, older with greying hair and glasses. “John; I’m Agent Melville and this is Agent Hendricks. We’re just trying to get to the bottom of this, we need to understand exactly what happened.”

My head feels like it is full of cold porridge; it’s a battle just to string two clear thoughts together.

“With the Proxima?”

“Start there,” said Melville, “what do you remember?”

“Patch space,” I said, the words coming slowly, “everything going well. Then something happened. Blacked out. The Proxima was falling apart. I got out-”

“What about Captain Adams and Dr. Cooper?” said Agent Hendricks, interrupting, “Where were they when all of this was going on?”

“The bridge,“ I said, my voice fading with every word, “they were on the bridge.”

“That’s enough,” said the doctor, storming back into the room, “Any more and you could kill him.”

Agent Melville bent over me, looking at me closely.

“One last question,” he says, his face expressionless. “What was the name of your first dog?”

The leap from to the events aboard the Proxima to my first dog, leaves me even more confused than before.

“What?”

“It’s an easy question,” says Agent Hendricks, “Answer it.”

I dig into my memories, it’s hard to hold onto them but eventually the name comes.

“Jasper,” I say, “his name was Jasper.”

“He’s all yours,” said Agent Melville, standing up and walking to the doorway before pausing “But we’re going to be back and we’re going to have more questions for you. A lot more questions.”

* * *

Agent Melville clicks the record button.

“This is interview seven, commencing,” he says, before looking at me, “Are you ready, Dr. Knowles?”

I nod.

“Let the record show that Dr. Knowles has just nodded his head. Please could you confirm that verbally for the tape?”

“I’m ready,” I say, and sit up in my chair a little. The chains that restrain my hands and ankles jingle lightly as I do so.

“We have been through the timeline of the Proxima with you a number of times, Dr. Knowles, and you have been consistent in your version of events-“

“-because they’re true,” I interrupt, “They’re not my version of events. It’s what happened.”

“As you say,” said Agent Melville, adjusting his glasses on the brim of his nose and peering down at a set of files on the table that I was unable to see from my vantage point. “It’s just there are a number of other inconsistencies with your story. A couple of things that just don’t seem to add up.”

“Look, I’ve told you the truth ten different times and I’ve not changed my story. What things don’t add up? When are you going to let me out of here? When are you going to let me see my family? Why can’t I have a lawyer?”

“What date is it, Dr. Knowles?” asks Agent Hendricks.

“I don’t know,” I reply, angrily, “I don’t know how long I’ve been locked in here. You never turn the lights off so I don’t know what’s day and what’s night anymore.”

“Take a best guess,” he says, “Ballpark figure.”

I do the calculations in my head. The incident on the Proxima had taken place on January 23^rd; accounting for the time in transit, the time spent healing, the multiple interview sessions. It had to be at least a month.

“Late February,” I say, “Maybe early March.”

“Interesting,” says Agent Hendricks and jots something down with a pen.

“What’s interesting?”

“What if I told you, it’s October 29^th?” said Agent Melville, cocking his head to look at me.

“That’s impossible.”

“Is it?” he says, and pushes a copy of the New York Times across the table to me. I look at it, look at it hard. It says October 29^th; the front page is the Cleveland Indians celebrating their first World Series win in a century. 

“What is this?” I ask, “This is a fake, right?”

“What was the name of your best friend at elementary school, John?” asks Agent Hendricks.

“What is it with all this questions about my childhood?” I snap, “My first dog, my first kiss, my best friend? What is this? What does it have to do with anything?”

“What if I told you that Captain Mike Adams and Dr. Ellen Cooper are alive and well?” asks Melville.

“They’re alive? They’re really alive?” For the first time in weeks, I feel hope flourish and my heart swell.

“They’re alive,” says Agent Hendricks. “They arrived into the solar system three days after the incident aboard the Proxima. Their escape pod was badly damaged, our guys say it was a miracle they made it.”

I break into the first smile I’ve had in what feels like months.

“Oh my God, that’s amazing,” I say, emotions washing over me suddenly, “You don’t know how happy I am to hear that.”

“Yeah,” says Hendricks, his face hard. “The funny thing is, you were on board that escape pod as well.”

I frown. “What? No, I was alone in the escape pod.”

“You were alone in the escape pod we found you in, that’s true,” replies Agent Melville, with something of a grimace, “But there was also a Dr. Knowles in the escape pod together with Captain Adams and Dr. Cooper.”

“That’s impossible,” I say, pulling back in my seat and making the chains go taut. “That’s impossible.”

“Certainly is strange,” says Agent Hendricks, “Because, if Dr. Knowles was in that escape pod we rescued back in January then who the hell are you?”

* * *

They say there are five stages of grief; denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.

I spent the first few weeks in denial. They showed me the in-module camera footage and I insisted it had to be a fake. They showed me the photos of the rescue, the footage from the parade celebrating their return. I railed against it all.

Then came the anger. The facts kept piling up, and it didn’t make any sense. I was locked up, I couldn’t see my family, I was being treated like a criminal. I refused the interviews, but it seemed that I’d exhausted my value in that sense because they started sending a therapist instead. I refused to talk to them as well, refused to eat for a week even though my stomach was gnawing at me.

Bargaining began in earnest the second week of my hunger strike. I’d lie in bed and promise God that if he would just let me wake up from this nightmare, if he would just put things back the way they were, then I’d do anything he wanted. I’d become a believer, I promised. I’d become an evangelist if that’s what it took. Just give me back my life and my family. But I guess God wasn’t listening as nothing changed.

I ate on the third week.

The therapist came and we finally started talking. They didn’t ask about the Proxima, they asked how I felt about all of this. I told them, truthfully, that I thought I was beyond feeling. I felt numb, like I was looking at myself out-of-body somehow. I felt like I had given all the emotion I had to give and that I was now just an empty vessel. I’d left anger behind and entered depression.

Two weeks later, the therapist came with a portable screen and told me that they wanted to show me something. It was a chart; lots of numbers but I recognised it as a DNA analysis.

“See these,” said the therapist, “pointing at two tiny yellow dots in one column, “these represent such a minor anomaly that they would normally never be detected.”

“This is me?”

“This is you compared to Dr. Knowles; the real Dr. Knowles.”

“I am the real Dr. Knowles,” I replied.

“I know,” said the therapist, with what may have been a trace of sympathy in her smile. “I know you believe that, John. But it’s not true. Would you like me to tell you what we believe really happened?”

I shrugged.

“What we believe happened, is that the Proxima was attacked by a third party – an alien race – and that this third party made a copy of Dr. Knowles; a copy not just of his DNA but also his memories and personality. We’ve tested you, you know everything he does down to the most minute detail. And for some time, we’d thought you were 100% identical. But this new test has revealed the tiniest of discrepancies in your DNA profiles. It’s a minute difference, but it is a difference. You contain a fragment of DNA that has never been seen before on this planet.”

I slumped in my seat. It went against everything I knew, everything I believed.

“It doesn’t make sense,” I said finally, “Why go through all of this just to have me sit here?”

“Our current theory is that whoever made you believed they had destroyed the original escape pod. The pod containing the three survivors of the Proxima was recovered in an extremely damaged state. Damage consistent with some kind of external energy discharge. We believe only you were meant to return to Earth.”

“But if this is true, why?” I asked, “I don’t have any plans or mission. I just wanted to come home and see my family…”

“We don’t know. Maybe your mission instructions are buried deep within you. Maybe they are time coded. We don’t know and we can’t take any further risks.”

“What does that mean?”

The therapist stood up and walked to the door, a translucent cube descending around me as she did so.

“It means,” she said, “that it’s been decided you need to be terminated.”

And, finally, acceptance.

* * *

They keep me encased within the cube for the next two days. No food, no drink. Finally, a visitor arrives.

I laugh when I seem him, it all feels somehow ridiculous at this stage. He half smiles and shuts the door behind him, walking across the room and taking a seat beside the cube.

“Dr Knowles,” he says.

“Dr Knowles,” I reply and look him up and down. He’s clean shaven, whereas I now have a beard (they didn’t trust me with a razor), but it’s unmistakably me. It shouldn’t be impossible, but I don’t even have a problem accepting it.

“I insisted that they let me see you,” he says, “you know, before it happens.”

“Before they kill me, you mean?”

“Yeah,” he says, pausing to look me up and down. “This is really strange. Stranger than I thought it would be.”

“Why are you here?”

“I wanted to be here, when they ended it. It felt the right thing to do.”

“And that’s happening soon?”

“It’s already happening,” he says, with a grimace. “They’ve started pumping a nerve agent into the air supply. They’ve assured me that you won’t feel a thing.”

I sigh. So this is it, this is the end. Everything felt wrong about it.

“Look,” he says, “I wanted you to know the truth. It’s only fair.”

“What truth?”

“We put the anomaly into your DNA. We had to be sure that they’d think you were alien.”

My lungs feel heavier than normal, breathing getting a little harder.

“Who did? What?”

“Us,” says the other me, “We can make perfect copies of humans; that was never a problem. But we needed to have you think that you found a way to detect us. That way, we can make sure that anyone who gets in the way of our plans can easily be dealt with; one quick injection and they’ll display the same anomaly, be found to be an alien imposter. We thought of everything.”

“But that means-“

“Yes, that means that you are the real Dr. Knowles.”

I wheezed, my lungs felt like they were lined with sand. My head felt heavy.

“But, Diana?” I gasped. “Thomas?”

“Don’t worry,” he says, “I’ll look after her and Thomas. I’ve got your memories, after all. I know what it means to love them.”

I can’t breathe. Can’t move. My legs give way beneath me. The other me watches as my eyes slowly slide shut.

“I’ll keep your promise,” are the last words I ever hear.

Day 6 - Your First Job

I’d always heard them say that the first one is the hardest; when you have to look them in the eyes and both of you know what’s coming next, that’s when you find out whether you’ve got it, whether you’re cut out for this line of work or not.

The first one for me was Alan Knowles. I can still remember the name, I can still remember his face. He was in his fifties, a normal looking guy – I think maybe he was an accountant – but none of that mattered to me. I’d been paid to do a job and I was going to do it. Sure, I was full of nerves, but I just about managed to hold onto them by keeping my training in my mind.

But while I remember the first one, it wasn’t by any means the hardest. A guy in his fifties, sure you feel sorry for him, but there have been jobs that have been much harder, where I’ve gone home afterwards and found sleep hard to come by. The first time I saw that it was going to be a woman, the first time it was a kid.

Let me tell, you the kids are the hardest. Some of them, they don’t really know what’s going on or what’s about to happen to them, and I do my best to make it quick and painless. But others, they see me and they know; they start crying and screaming and that makes it tough. I don’t want them to suffer, I’m not a monster, but I have a job to do and I always do it.

It’s not for the fainthearted. There are days when you it’s easy; when you are in and out and they hardly even have time to be frightened before its done. But then there are days when it’s tough; when there is blood and suffering and you walk away just wanting to take a shower and to wash the day off you. Sometimes you need a drink just to take the edge of what you’ve done.

Today, it’s a woman. I’ve looked at her file; I know her name and age, but there’s a lot about her I don’t need to know. After all, I’m a professional, I don’t get emotionally attached. But seeing a file and seeing her in the flesh is different.

I check myself in the mirror and then pull on a pair of gloves. I’ve already visualised how this going to go down, and it’s going to be easy. I look through the crack of the door and can she her sat in the next room with her back to me. I wear rubber soled shoes and, together with the fact that I am light footed, they barely make a sound. I’m in the room before she even realises and the first she sees me is when I appear in her peripheral vision.

There is that familiar reaction; the widening of the pupil, the sudden intake of breath, the fear. But I’m used to it now, I’ve been doing this long enough that I can ignore it and just do the job.

“Miss Evans,” I say in my most reassuring voice. “I’ll try to make this as painless as possible.”

And I mean it.

After all, I like to think I’m a pretty good dentist.

Day 3 - Detente

My writing process when it comes to these challenges (if you're interested) is as follows:

a. Ponder. I do this quite a bit. Spinning the word or phrase of the day's challenge in my head, and going through the various possibilities that suggest themselves to me.

b. Moment of vague revelation. It's rare (although it does happen) that I have a complete Eureka! moment; instead, it's more like I'm fishing and snag on something below the surface. Something that I tug at, but not too hard in case it all falls apart as I try to bring it to the surface. Eventually it emerges and I have the whole thing vaguely held in my head.

c. Writing. I try to write my stories in one go. This isn't always possible; today I wrote the first two paragraphs on the train on the way to work, and the rest of it on the way back (I was still trying to snag it fully during those first few paragraphs; just sounding it out and making sure it was what I thought). I edit as I go but, since speed is of the essence in being able to get these challenges out there, I only generally skim through it and spot the most obvious of obvious errors. I tend to view it almost as a live performance; sure I might hit one or two wrong notes along the way but that's less important than the grand scheme of things...

d. Post. Cut and paste. Try to find a picture that goes with it. Share the link. 

What I'm finding with the writing challenge thus far is that the ideas are already starting to come a little more easily, are already bubbling to the surface almost unbidden. I'm not sure an awful lot of people will ever read any of these, but that doesn't really matter as I'm having fun! 

* * *

Al’s Diner had seen much better days. Back in the 1950s it was the place to be; attracting a car park full of kids wanting to enjoy burgers, shakes, and Al’s famous cherry pie; but it was a different era now, an era of smashed avocado, lattes, and berry birchers. The world had moved on, and Al’s Diner had been left behind. Paint peeling, neon sign cracked and broken, it was a testament to a bygone age. It was also neutral territory.

They had booked out the restaurant for the night. No staff, no service. Paid Al Jr. enough for it that he wouldn’t need another paying customer this year. It was perfectly located; out of town and away from the highway. The perfect place for sensitive negotiations.

They collected the keys from Al Jr. and watched him drive away. He didn’t look back. He’d hardly been able to make eye contact with them from the moment they’d first walked in on him in his back office, poring over a set of invoices he couldn’t hope to pay. He’d be sensible enough to realise that he should take the money and not ask any questions. Finally, with the place to themselves, they did a thorough sweep. It was always better to be safe than sorry. Then they settled down for the arrival of the second party.

There were four of them waiting at the table. They rarely ever gathered in one place like this, but times were changing and they had decided that they needed to change with it. Even if that meant arranging a sit down with those who they had traditionally opposed.

“You really think this will work?” asked the largest of them, his black suit stretched tight over his bulging torso.

“It has to,” said the thin one with a scowl, his black eyes glittering in the dim light, “The alternative is unthinkable.”

“Been a long time since we’ve talked,” said the oldest of the four, absently stroking his chin with his thumb and forefingers. “Even longer since we could be on the same page.”

“Boys,” said the woman at the head of the table, and they all went silent in deference to her. “We’ll give this a chance. See if we can make it work. We don’t like it. They don’t like it. Hell, even trying to arrange something like this would have been blasphemy not so long ago. But, I have faith we can reach a compromise.”

White light outside heralded the arrival of the second party.

They were on time, as expected. They were rarely anything less than punctual. Sweeping into the car park in formation, several of them taking up station at key vantage points before giving the ok for the Boss to join them. He stepped forward, imposing as ever with his two most senior lieutenants at his side, and strode towards the diner’s open door.

“It has been a long time,” he said as he entered the room, ducking his head to avoid the door frame. “I have to say, I thought long and hard about whether I should take this meeting, or whether I should simply use this as an opportunity to finish you all.”

“You could try,” said the thin man, half getting out of his seat.

The woman waved him back in place. “Let’s skip the pleasantries shall we? We’ve agreed to meet here on neutral ground to see if there’s room for mutual cooperation, to see if we can put aside our differences to consider a greater threat.”

“You’re the one saying there’s a greater threat, I’m not convinced.”

“Oh, please,” said the woman scornfully. “Can you honestly say that either of us have the respect we once had? Are either of us feared as we were once feared? Do we exert the power we once exerted?”

“I still have power.”

“Really?” asked the woman. “Because what I see is lip service. The fact is, competitors have moved in. Our products are no longer in the demand they once were.”

The man’s face darkened, but he finally nodded. “True. So what exactly is it that you’re proposing?”

“That we put aside our feud for now, our existential differences. That we agree not to attempt to disrupt each other’s supply lines or product.”

“You ask a lot.”

“What’s the alternative, El? Our support is dwindling; we can pretend it’s all going to blow over but I think we know that it’s going to get a lot worse if we don’t do something. There’s a whole generation growing up with no respect for us; worse, they don’t even know we exist. How long before all we are is memories like those who went before us?”

The man sighed. “I hate it when you’re right, Lucy.”

“It’s why I left.”

“I thought today wasn’t about old conflicts?”

“It’s not. It’s about new beginnings, it’s about a temporary alliance until we deal with the threat to our existence.”

“We’ll try it,” said the man, finally, “We’ll try it and see if we can make it work. But it’s not a long term solution; there’s going to come a day when we’re not on the same side.”

“Oh, I’m certain. But that’s for another day, yes Elohim?”

“Indeed it is, Lucifer. Indeed it is.” said Elohim, standing up in tandem with his archangels. “But, for now though, we have a deal.”

Day 2 - Interactive

Another tough day when it comes to available time. All of which means that I had grand ideas which never quite managed to materialise. So you get instead a pale shadow of what I intended - which, when you read it, you might agree is probably a Very Good Thing indeed...

Since the title of today's writing challenge was interactive, I decided to write an interactive story; which means you need to click here if you want to read it...

Day 1 - A Place You've Never Been

To step through the ornate double doors that led into the Xanadu Travel Agency was to step into an exotic blend of mansion and theme park; a place where pristine marble walls and flooring somehow organically blended with an array of imaginatively themed geographical areas. On one side of the cavernous room, a miniature tropical rainforest soared high above the polished wooden desks and trilled and echoed with the calls of wildlife. On the far side of the room, meanwhile, the marble floor gave way to perfect white sand and a gently undulating blue sea; in this part of the room the desks were each located on tiny islands that were connected by equally tiny pontoon bridges.

You could easily spot the first time visitors; for they were the ones who stood clustered around the entrance and who were gazing around the room open mouthed. It was a lot to take in. The impossibly high domed ceiling across which small planes and dirigibles ambled amongst fluffy white clouds, the roaming wildlife that would occasionally scamper across the room, and the large waterfall that cascaded down from the second and third floors above.

David Stymes remembered having been incredibly impressed by it all on his first visit here. But that was a long time ago and, these days, he tended to tune out all the extraneous detail. And, while he was prepared to accept that it demonstrated some excellent work by their world builders, he found that it was increasingly difficult for him to get excited by anything virtual.

“Mr Stymes,” said a velvety smooth voice to his right, “We didn’t know you were coming!”

He turned to see the manager of the agency, today dressed as a pirate with a parrot on her shoulder, walking towards him with a smile.

“Ms. Appleby.” he said, with a nod in her direction.

“Oh, I feel so ashamed,” she said, the parrot squawking in tandem with her. “We would have put on a special welcome if you’d told us.”

“There’s no need.”

“But, as one of our twenty biggest customers, you deserve so much more than just the standard entrance package.”

“The standard entrance is fine by me,” said Stymes, waving his hand in the direction of the waterfall. “That’s new isn’t it?”

“Oh yes,” said Ms. Appleby, “Well, to be honest, I wasn’t sure how well it would work when they first suggested it, but it’s really gone down a storm. In fact, we’re even thinking about turning it into an attraction, letting people come down it in some kind of a barrel. You know how it is, got to keep moving with the times!”

“I suppose so.”

“So, how can we help you this time? We have a range of new packages in this month; from the thrills of the Wild West to the intoxicating pleasures of 1930s Paris. Your excitement is guaranteed.”

“Well, to be honest,” said Stymes, “I’m looking for something different.”

“Ah, well if it’s different you’re looking for than you should really consider picking something from our new suite of fictional holidays - you can choose to spend a week in the world of Tolkien, Fleming, even King – just imagine the possibilities!”

“Not really my cup of tea, I’m afraid. You see, I’m looking for something really different.”

“Oh,” said Ms. Appleby, nodding and leaning in conspiratorially, “I get it. I do. Something really different. Well, you know, whisper it, but for you we might be able to get our hands on a special kind of programme – how does a harem of slave girls sound?”

“No!” said Stymes, indignantly.

“Oh,” said Ms. Appleby, with a frown. “Slave boys?”

“Look, Ms. Appleby, I don’t want any kind of slaves or fantasy worlds, I want something different. I want something real. And I heard you might be able to get it for me…”

Ms. Appleby opened her mouth and then closed it silently, the parrot on her shoulder cocking its head and echoed “Something real, something real.”

“That’s what I want,” said Stymes, “Something real”

“I’m sorry, I have no idea what you mean,” said Ms. Appleby in a loud voice as she looked around frantically. “I have no knowledge of this; we are but a simple travel agency.”

“But I was told that…” began Stymes.

“I’m sorry, Mr Stymes, but I really think that you should leave. I’m afraid I can’t help you with this.”

“But…”

“Please leave now before I have to summon security. Good day, Mr. Stymes.” said Ms. Appleby and turned and walked away, leaving him standing alone save for the cool mist that drifted across from the waterfall.

***

He portalled home to his apartment, peeling himself swiftly from his stimu-suit before throwing his headset angrily across the room. His contact had assured him that Xanadu would be able to get him what he wanted, as long as he kept things low key. He strode to the kitchen, poured a glass of Zim and walked to his balcony to stare out across the miles of glass and plascrete that were spread out below him. There were only forty three apartments with better views in the whole city but tonight he found the scene more tedious than ever. He slugged the Zim, feeling it burn harsh against his throat. The sun hovered on the horizon, a muddy orange ball through the smog.

His wristband pulsed and stirred him from his thoughts. A priority Alpha message waiting for him from an anonymous sender, full security protocols. He walked from the balcony to his living room, secure shielding the apartment with a wave of his hand and encasing the room in a Level Five EM containment field.

He raised the wristband to his eye, let it scan his iris, before speaking his command code. “Proxima, Beta, Four, Xenon, Alpha.”

The holoprojector hummed for a split second, and then a beam of light lanced from the ceiling and coalesced in the middle of the room in the shape of a small portly man.

“This message,” the man said, nonchalantly, “is encrypted and single play. You will only have one opportunity to view and anti-record countermeasures are in action. Do you wish to play?”

“Play,” said Stymes.

“You would like something different,” said the man. “Something real. And we understand. We can give you exactly what you want. We know who you are, we know money is no object for you. But there are some things even money can’t buy. Well, not legally anyway. If you would like to discuss the terms of a transaction then use a secure line to call Ganymede Mining Services, extension five. Ask for Herman.”

The message went dead, the man frozen for a fraction of a second before the light disappeared and left the room in darkness. It could be a trap, he reasoned. The penalties for even attempting to violate the anti-tourism laws were steep, but he was fairly certain he had enough expensive friends in the right places that he would have received a warning. Besides, it was all too quick; he had only just spoken to Xanadu. No, this seemed legitimate.

He placed the call.

Audio only, the line buzzed twice and was then answered silently.

“I’d like to speak to Herman,”

“David Stymes,” said a voice at the other end of the line, “Please deposit six million of Y-Coin into the blind holding account whose details I have just sent you, this is simply a deposit and ensures good faith negotiations.”

“Done,” said Stymes, with a swipe of his hand.

“My apologies for the cloak and dagger,” said Herman, “A necessary evil in this line of work.”

“I understand. So, can you fulfill my request?”

“We can. For twenty five million Y-Coin, we can take you physically to a place you have never been before. We can take you to experience nature.”

“Nature?” scoffed Stymes. “There’s no nature left.”

“There are a few select sites known only to a few people. We can take you to such a site. You can experience nature in reality.”

“How does it work?”

“We send a stealth floater to your penthouse’s landpad in two hours time. You need to be packed  - one bag of ten kilos only - and ready to go. Zero tech. No implants, no wearables, no nothing. From that point on, we’ll get you to where you need to be and back again inside twenty four hours. The risk is minimal - we pay off the right people - but I’d be lying if I said there was no risk.”

“The twenty five million is already in your account,” said Stymes, “I’m in.”

***

The floater arrived exactly on time, and David Stymes was ready. He stepped aboard and willingly accepted the null-helmet that was offered to him. If he’d been wearing his wristband, he was sure that it would have been warning him that his heartbeat and adrenaline levels were spiking, but it was a rather elating feeling to be so disrobed of technology. He settled back into the seat and felt, rather than saw, the floater take off into the night sky. An hour later, he was fairly sure the floater had been picked up by something far faster; perhaps a high-altitude ramjet; but he simply sat back and enjoyed the ride before dozing off lightly in the dark.

He felt hands lifting the helmet from him and he stirred.

“We’re here,” said the voice of his guide. “You’ll have eight hours here. No more.”

He blinked against the light that was coming in through the open bay doors of the floater. It was a different character of light, somehow brighter and harsher, and he gingerly stepped across out of the doors with one hand shielding his eyes.

This was it, he thought, this was nature.

They were on a small island. The sea was not like the sea in the virtual, which was always a vibrant blue, but was instead a muddy green colour. And it smelled, a rich salty smell that caused him to wrinkle his nose slightly in disgust. No, this was nothing like the virtual. Beneath his feet was dirt and rock. To his left, wispy strands of grass stood tall in straggly bunches. He reached out to run his hand along them.

“Fuck” the grass blade cut into his finger and he recoiled, an orb of blood immediately welling up from the wound.

Above him, he heard the call of a bird and he looked up to see a seagull wheeling high above his head. It was real. A real bird. He hadn’t realised that there were any left.

Something wet and gelatinous splashed across his head and against the corner of his mouth.

“What the?”

He angled his head to see his shoulder which was spattered with something white and black, and realised what had just happened, before falling to his knees and gagging and retching onto the dirt. This wasn’t how it had imagined it, this wasn’t the nature that the virtual had prepared him for. It was dirty, and sharp, and smelly, and disgusting.

David Stymes climbed slowly to his feet and took a look around him; at the waves crashing against the shore, at the flowers in the wavering grass, at the birds in the sky. This was nature. This was real. He turned to his guide.

“For the love of God, take me home,” said Stymes, “I can’t stand to be in this horrible place even a minute longer…”