New Appearance

Yes, there’s still a few of these in the pipeline, so good news for those of you who enjoy them (but not so good if you don’t obviously). The explanation’s drawing ever closer too, in about three weeks maybe, in time to coincide with the next Group Hug. See, I do actually have some forward planning going on here. Not much, but some…

* * *

Walking along the corridor, the girl can sense movement in the air, the hint of a breeze coming from around the corner. Turning, she is surprised to see ahead of her a space that isn’t like any of the courtyards she has encountered so far and hurries onward until she steps out of the corridor and into this new place.

Unlike the usual perfectly square chambers the girl has discovered up to now, this room is long and rectangular yet still made of the perfectly square tiles, some of which emit a pale light, enough to illuminate the space. Directly before her is a railing which runs round all four sides, with enough room for a walkway giving access to the corridor entrances on either side, and another at the far end of the chamber. Walking to the railing, the girl leans over and looks down. Directly beneath she can see another railing, in another space just like the one she is in, and below that another railing, and so on, until the spaces are lost in shadows. Looking upward she sees the same, identical chambers stretching away into the darkness.

From below, a gentle wind pushes upward, ruffling the girl’s hair as it whispers past. Holding firmly onto the cold white top of the railing and stretching up on her toes, she leans out further to see more of the room directly beneath her. The entrances to three corridors are visible, one on each side and a third in the distance below the one on the floor she is now on. The girl guesses that there will be a fourth opening underneath where she is now, but it is impossible to see from her current vantage point. From this angle, it is difficult to see any corridors on the lower floors, and the same for the chambers above her.

She sets off round the walkway, aiming for the corridor entrance on the opposite side of the space, which should afford her a view of the fourth opening on the next floor down, if there is one. As she walks, she runs one hand along the smooth railing, ignoring the side corridor she passes until she reaches the far end. From here she can see that, as she suspected, there is a fourth entrance beneath where she came in, but her attention is distracted by three small discs which lie next to each other on top of the railing. They are the same shape and size as coins, and coppery red in colour.

The girl picks up the coin on the left and inspects it. It feels like metal, again like a coin, but it is smooth and unmarked. Leaning out over the railing, she drops it and begins counting. It quickly disappears from view and before she has the chance to count into double figures, a bright blue spark flashes in the darkness below followed by a sharp cracking sound. For a brief moment she sees a mass of crystals at the bottom of the shaft like a vast irregular nest before they are masked in shadow again. The disc bounces and clicks a couple more times, echoing up through the floors to her, but she sees no more sparks.

The girl picks up a second coin, the one on the right, and with a last glimpse over the railing, turns quickly and sets off down the corridor behind her, carefully placing the metal disc into her pocket as she goes.

She is determined to find a way downwards, certain that there will be answers at the bottom of the shaft, certain that she has seen a glimpse of her ultimate destination, where understanding awaits her.

* * *

Next time, I drag an old post out of the draft file and attempt to soup it up for publication. It might just be the most boring thing I’ve done yet, so be warned!

Until then… ses x

DisAppearance

Hardly surprising, it’s another one of these. I’d guess they’ll be ‘appearing’ for a little while yet, or until I get bored of doing them. Hopefully you aren’t all getting bored of reading them, lucky for me there’s no real way to tell 🙂

* * *

She opens her eyes.

In the dead of night the girl lies perfectly still in bed, her breathing deep and even, straining her ears for any sound of movement about the house. Barring the occasional creaking of the timbers as they cool after the heat of the day all is quiet. As silently as possible, she lifts the sheet, turns, and slips out onto the rug. Picking some of the larger soft toys from around the foot of the bed, she lines them up roughly in front of her before pulling the sheet up and over them, all the way up to the pillows. Dis-satisfied, she pushes another couple of toys under the sheet and rearranges the line. Across the bed, a pale wash of blue moonlight seeps under the blind and into the room. She tiptoes around and tugs gently at the bottom of the blind, hoping it will go a little closer to the sill. Pushing a book and a decorative glass paperweight out of the way allows the girl to lower the blind completely, and turning to the bed decides that the decoy version of herself is now sufficiently convincing should anyone chance to look into her bedroom while she is away.

Padding over to the door, she holds her breath and listens again before slowly turning the handle and pulling it toward her. The light of the moon makes the landing seem cold and alien, pouring in from the window high on one wall, but allows her to see that both bedroom doors are closed, and between them, the bathroom door is open a fraction, as it usually is when unoccupied. The girl steps out onto the cool wood paneled floor and carefully closes her own door, moving as slowly as possible at the point where it clicks shut.

Turning, the girl paces quietly along the hallway. The first room she passes, the one her two brothers share, is quite silent. A flickering glow is just visible at the bottom of the door, she guesses they’ve forgotten to turn the aquarium light off again. Moving quickly past the bathroom, she pauses as she reaches her parents’ room. One of them is snoring gently, it’s difficult to tell which one, but there are no other sounds, so she continues on before slipping round the corner and starting up the stairs to the attic room.

From experience the girl knows to keep her feet as close to the wall as possible as she ascends. If she walks up the centre of the wooden staircase she knows every footstep will produce a loud creaking sound, or at least in the quiet of the night they sound loud, so she presses herself against the wall as she moves up toward the doorway into the attic. As she approaches the top step she slips into shadow and slows down, holding one arm out before her, reaching for the smooth surface of the door. Quickly finding the handle, she opens it and slips through. Once the door is closed behind her, she breathes deeply, relieved to have made it this far undetected.

Before her, the attic is bathed in the same unearthly glow as it streams through the skylights, illuminating the piles of boxes and luggage which fill the floor. Old toys, mostly belonging to her brothers, camping equipment, chests full of school books, reports and drawings, even a set of bagpipes, a souvenir from a family trip to Scotland. So many things that would ordinarily be sold, given to charity or just thrown away if there wasn’t enough storage space for them ended up being squeezed into this space, along with stacks of photo albums and family heirlooms which would be ceremoniously brought down and pored over whenever a relative came to stay.

None of these things interest the girl though. Her target is over at the opposite end of the attic, where a large framed painting leans against the firebreast. Picking her way precariously through the minefield before her, she soon arrives at the far side and crouches down before the painting. It is no masterpiece, rather something that her mother painted many years ago when she fancied herself an artist, a pastoral mountain scene in which a young couple walk through a flower filled meadow whilst a small dog runs before them, seeming to chase a butterfly. The girl barely looks at the image, but with both hands on the frame she lifts the painting and carefully moves it to one side, revealing a ragged hole in the exposed brickwork of the firebreast.

Who made the hole or why the  girl does not know. Her brothers have denied any knowledge of it, her parents only built the family home twenty years earlier, and she can’t imagine why they would have left this gap in the wall. It appears that a number of bricks have been removed to leave access to the flue, on the far side of which is a series of rungs leading downwards. She has never seen where the bricks ended up, either here in the attic, or at the bottom of the flue, but the girl doesn’t have time to contemplate these things now and prepares for the last part of her journey.

Sitting on the dusty attic floor, the girl slides herself forward until her legs are dangling into space. Pushing further, she points out her toes until she can feel the cold metal of one of the rungs on the far side of the flue. Bracing her legs, she twists through the gap and reaches across with her hands, grasping onto the topmost rung before lifting herself away from the hole in the wall. She looks down into the darkness. A rectangle of light, tiny and faint from this distance, is her destination, and she begins her descent, hands and feet synchronised as she moves rhythmically down the rungs.

Minutes pass as she continues downward, her pace steady, her breathing even, the rectangle of light gradually drawing closer. Eventually she passes through the gap and is back into the light. The air is clearer and less dense. As first one bare foot then the other leaves the last rung, she steps down onto the perfectly square tiles, turns, and sets off down the corridor toward the first courtyard.

The girl hopes she will understand more about this place tonight. The place hopes for the same thing. Understanding.

* * *

Apologies for this one being longer than usual, and probably a little more baffling than usual as well. It will all make sense eventually… Maybe. Another one of my less than successful experiments next time, though for a change it’s entirely legal 😉

Peace… ses x

Further Appearance

Yes, still going with these things. There will be at least one more, probably several, I’ll see how it goes…

* * *

A low, persistent hissing sound meets the girl as she rounds the second corner of the corridor. A sound? She pauses, and peers at the opening ahead of her which leads to the next courtyard. It appears to be quite bright, but there is a sense of movement in the air, a flickering. The hissing sound continues, but that too has a flickering intermittent quality about it. The girl moves forward once more, and steps out into the courtyard.

A channel of water runs across the centre of the chamber, dissecting the space .  Brighter tiles beneath the surface create a dancing light that fills the air. As the girl stands, the channel runs from left to right, appearing from a low grille on one wall, and disappearing into a similar one on the other side. There is only one corridor leading from the courtyard, directly opposite the one she has just left. Approaching the flowing current, she can see that it is only shallow, the depth of the channel being equal to one of the perfectly square tiles that cover every surface. The water makes a steady trickling song, at the same time quiet yet amplified by the emptiness of the chamber.

Looking along the path of the water, something catches her eye where the channel disappears under the wall to her right. From one side of the grille, a brown vine snakes out onto the tiles. Coming closer to it, the girl can see withered, skeletal leaves sprouting from the vine. Crouching down, she reaches out to touch it and finds it dry and brittle, completely lifeless. Rubbing the crumbling residue of one of the leaves between her fingers, the girl straightens up and steps into the channel. The volume of the trickling increases as the water breaks against her legs, just above the ankle. The current is gentle but persistent, the temperature cool without being cold. The bed of the stream feels slick under her feet as she begins to walk steadily against the flow of water toward the centre of the courtyard. Shadows play across the ceiling as she steps over the brightest panels.

As the girl reaches the midpoint of the stream, something floats into view from the grille before her. A curled green leaf rolls and turns on the surface of the crystal clear water like a tiny boat with no rudder. Gradually it draws closer. Planting her feet as wide as the channel will allow, she leans forward and cups her hands into the current, gently lifting the vessel as it passes beneath. Peering inside, she finds the passenger in the little craft is a seed. It reminds the girl of a melon seed, a pale yellow teardrop. Carefully removing it, she sits the leaf  back into the water and it continues on its course toward the grille where the vine is located.

Stepping out of the channel, the girl shakes the water from her feet, and clutching the seed tightly in her hand sets off in the direction of the next corridor as the green leaf  disappears into the darkness beyond the grille.

The more the girl understands, the more the place understands.

* * *

Gardening update next time, with a ‘small’ twist.

Until then… ses x

And Another Appearance

Yes, one of these again, but at least I’m keeping them relatively bite-sized. Expect more appearances over the next few weeks, I’m on a nonsense-roll 🙂

* * *

The girl wanders from courtyard to courtyard without discovering anything of note. The repetitive nature of these empty spaces and their interlinking corridors makes it difficult for her to navigate, and some nights are much like this one, a succession of empty chambers indistinguishable from each other and totally unremarkable.

Just as she is preparing to leave, something catches the girl’s eye. In the centre of the courtyard she has now entered, there is a small red circle on the floor, exactly in the middle of one of the perfectly square tiles. It appears to have been painted onto the tile, and kneeling before it, the girl scratches at the red disc with her fingernail, but to no effect. She looks round at the rest of the space to see if there are any more red dots she had not noticed, but there are none. Then she sees the ball.

In one corner of the courtyard sits a red ball. The girl hadn’t spotted it earlier as it lay in the shadows. Walking over to it now, she picks it up and weighs it in her hand. About the same size as a squash ball, but smooth and solid, like a billiard ball, and cold. It doesn’t smell of anything, or taste of anything, she checks these things too. She shakes it and can feel something small rattling inside. The girl holds the ball up close to her eye to inspect it, but it is opaque and flawless, crimson and without pattern. She holds the ball up close to her ear, and, shaking it again, hears a tiny chiming sound. It is so faint it sounds as if it is coming from far away.

Closing her hand round the ball, the girl walks back to the circle at the centre of the chamber and crouches down before it. Carefully, she places the ball onto the red disc, trying to ensure that it is precisely in the middle, and stands back. The chiming sound comes again, indistinct and distant, then the ball slowly begins to roll away from the centre spot in a straight line toward one of the corridors. Her bare feet moving silently on the tiled floor, the girl patiently follows the ball as it leads her out of the courtyard.

As the corridor takes ninety degree turns, first to the left then to the right, so the ball follows, its pace unchanging as it charts a course directly along the centre of the floor. So the girl follows, placing one foot before the other like a high-wire walker, her arms held out to the sides for balance. After the second turn, another courtyard comes into view, but this one is darker than any she has previously encountered, with only the occasional tile radiating any light.

Entering into the chamber, the girl sees a large rectangular opening in the floor ahead of her. The ball continues to roll steadily forward until it reaches the lip of the opening then disappears over the edge, before bouncing soundlessly down a flight of stairs into darkness.

Stairs? The girl doesn’t understand this.

* * *

Not sure what  the next post will be, but there will be one soon (klopf auf holz) then more than likely a further appearance.

Until then… ses x

Another Appearance

Yes, it’s back again. Despite the name of these posts, they’re not in any chronological sequence or anything, so don’t worry about that…

* * *

A ribbon of what appears to be pollen twists in the air of the corridor, twinkling now and then as the fine particles reflect the light from some of the brighter tiles along the ceiling, walls and floor. Instinctively, the girl follows the stream of motes along the corridor to where it disappears round a corner. Reaching the right angled turn, she sees the corridor leads into yet another courtyard and continues walking until she emerges into the chamber. As she steps out of the corridor, the fine stream of particles dissipates into the air.

Just like the other courtyards the girl has encountered, this one is also perfectly square, only this time a large plinth dominates the centre of the space. The plinth is again made of the familiar perfectly square milky tiles, but on top of it is what appears to be an explosion of water, frozen in crystal. Ice-like spikes and fingers burst from a central point, trapped in space and time. Its violent and irregular shape stands it in stark contrast with the linear uniformity of the room. As the girl approaches the plinth, she notices alcoves in the walls of the courtyard. In each one sits a smaller version of the… She can only think of it as a sculpture of some sort, which looms in front of her.

From a flat base, the sculpture bursts upward and outward, throwing out twisted shards in all directions. It is a little taller than the girl, and as wide as it is high. It seems to be made of the same  off-white crystalline substance as almost everything else she has encountered here, although deep within its centre a pale yellow light pulses faintly. The smaller sculptures set into the walls between the corridors leading away from the courtyard pulsate with the same yellowish glow, each one seemingly synchronised with their larger counterpart on the central platform.

The girl runs her fingers along the edge of the plinth, then up onto the base of the sculpture, following a ridge which twists and separates from the main body into a slender sinuous spike, almost as long as her arm. With each pulse of light deep within the object, a barely perceptible tremor passes through the sculpture, sending a brief shivering sensation through her fingertips. Rather than being smooth, the spike feels as if it is covered with fine granules, and the girl pulls her hand away to look at the powdery residue coating her fingers. It reminds her of salt. Lifting her forefinger to her lips, she cautiously sucks some of the whitish crystal. Yes, there is a vague hint of saltiness on her tongue, but she tastes something else too, thicker, more metallic, like iron. As she withdraws her finger from her mouth, she sees a line of redness, a thin slice in the skin where tiny beads of blood appear. The girl looks back up to where she was touching the sculpture and a fine tracery of red lines has spread into the spike from one point, like capillaries which she has seen at school during science lessons. Although faint, the lines creep back toward the core of the sculpture before becoming lost within its centre.

Sucking her finger contemplatively, the girl turns from the large sculpture in the middle of the courtyard and walks over to investigate the smaller versions which sit in the alcoves. Moving from one to the other, it is clear that they are each exact duplicates of the one on which she cut her finger. Each one, she also notices, has a spike which is tinged pink, and only on closer inspection can she see the tiny veins of blood which run from one point on the spike back toward the pulsing yellow core.

Reaching the entrance to one of the corridors, the girl starts to head down it, still with her finger in her mouth. Before she leaves the courtyard she turns to look at the sculpture one more time. It still sits impassively on the plinth, still an explosion of crystal caught in a moment, only now its pulse is faintly red.

There is nothing more for the girl to understand in this place, and nothing more for this place to understand in the girl. She leaves…

* * *

Next time? I’m not sure, possibly lots of bad language…

Until then… Stay smiley… ses x

First Appearance

Yeah, more odd story stuff, not everyone’s cup of tea I know, but this one’s only short if that’s any consolation. Unfortunately, you can expect a few of these things in the coming weeks, as I’m ‘up to something’…

* * *

In the centre of a courtyard a girl kneels on the floor. The courtyard is large and perfectly square. In the centre of each wall, perfectly square openings lead into corridors. Unlike a conventional courtyard, this one also has a ceiling, which is also perfectly square. The floor, walls and ceiling are all made of perfectly square tiles. The tiles are semi-opaque, and milky white in colour. They appear to be made of some smooth crystalline substance, reminiscent of quartz. They also appear to glow faintly, some  more than others but in no discernible pattern, and it is this luminescence which provides the only source of light within the courtyard. The courtyard is therefore not bright, but has the feeling of approaching dusk. Beneath the girl’s hands the tiles feel slightly cool to the touch, but not to the point where the temperature of the courtyard is uncomfortable.

In front of where the girl kneels there is a tile missing. Where the tile should be there is a perfect square of black liquid, the surface of which is smooth. It is this that has drawn the attention of the girl, this break in the uniformity of the courtyard. She kneels and contemplates the black pool of liquid. It is reflected in the black irises of her eyes, but gives no reflection itself as she leans over it. She sniffs the air, but the liquid is odourless.

Gently, she breaks the surface of the liquid with her right forefinger. It is slightly warmer than the temperature of the tiles, and feels slightly more viscous than water. The girl slowly submerges her whole hand into the liquid. It is perfectly black, and no sight of her hand is visible beneath the surface. However, she feels she can detect a faint current, a sense of movement and flow within the liquid. Leaning further over the square of black liquid, she pushes her hand downward until her arm is submerged all the way up to her elbow.

In the other world, the girl would never dream of doing such a thing, but down here she has always felt safe. Whenever she has been here, nothing bad has ever happened to her, she has never felt a reason to be fearful. Her brothers, she knows, have visited this place a few times, but they quickly become lost and confused, start to feel panicked, feel unwelcome. They don’t like to come here, and are always keen to leave as soon as possible. But for her it’s different.

Deeper within the pool of black liquid, the current she could feel is stronger, down there the liquid is flowing slowly. Something soft and warm glides past her hand, some… Things. Like a shoal of inquisitive fish, she feels slim bodies slide around her wrist and against her fingers. The sensation is not unpleasant, almost ticklish. There is no possible way that she can see what is moving down there, the blackness of the liquid is absolute, and at the same time she knows that she cannot grasp one of these things and pull it from the liquid and into the light. The girl understands that this would be wrong.

The girl understands this place, and this place understands her…

* * *

Back soon… ses x