Nooks and crannies
- A Spread the Word commission written by Edd Phillips
We first met Edd when he joined us at our PenPals event - a regular networking event for young writers. It soon became clear to us that Edd's writing was original and distinctive and we were keen to find opportunities to work with him. This is Edd's first professional commission as a writer from Spread the Word and is an experiment in story-telling that leads the reader on an adventure through a series of hidden locations in London.
This is the final instalment of Edd's short story. If you missed the first two parts simply scroll down and you can read his story from the beginning.
Part Three - There Aren’t Any Eagles in London
It’s been what? Three weeks since the night I went out into the Temple? It feels longer than that.
At least I’ve had time to reflect on what happened after I ended up on that roof now. I’ve made sense of it as best I can in my head. Now I have to get it out in the open. This is part of it. No more bottling things up.
So here’s the rest of it compiled from the notes that I wrote the day after.
Right after the door opened on that roof I fumbled and dropped my diary. I can remember the slap it made as it hit the floor ringing out around me.
Light was swelling up from below the rooftops of London like phosphorescence in an ocean. The whole city was like a ghost town and I was consumed by its silence. The only motion came from the planes above and the flapping of the coat belonging to the figure who had emerged from the door.
You’d think I’d run. Not me. What are those options we’re given? Fight, flight or freeze? I’m too much of a coward to fight, and was too scared to run. I was like an icicle. I just stood there before that forest of bird feeders.
There was enough light for me to see it was a man standing there. Shadows filled each wrinkle on his face and his head gleamed like on an upturned glass bowl. It looked like he was using the door handle to support himself.
For a moment my fear bled away. I couldn’t believe it. All of my searching, running, and trespassing had culminated in me disturbing some old bloke at god-knows-what a.m. I deflated, and you know what I said? “Sorry mate.”
No explanation as to why I was on the roof. Nothing. I sounded like a guilty schoolboy. His hand wrung the door handle. “Everything alright there?”
His response startled me. I thought he was going to tell me to piss off or something. I would’ve.
I didn’t know how to respond.
“Odd hour to be up here.” he said. “Late out.” His voice sounded as if he had smoked his vocal chords thin.
“Yeah.” I said. All I wanted was to leave him in peace.
He squinted, looking out over the rooftops. “Real late out.”
“I just needed some fresh air.” I said, trying to make it seem that I was from the building below.
He chuckled. “I don’t think you’ll find much fresh air up here. Not in London.” I couldn’t believe it. I was trespassing on his roof, and he was finding it funny. I began to bumble into another apology “I’m sorry, I-”
“You want a cup of tea?” he called out.
My tongue lost the words it was trying to form. A cup of tea? He was asking me if I wanted a cup of tea? There I was trespassing, and he was inviting me in as if I were a welcome guest.
“I’m just boiling the kettle. Won’t be no fuss.”
I didn’t know what to think. He probably just wanted some company. I was already feeling guilty enough for disturbing him. And you know what? A cup of tea didn’t sound too bad. I had been in a waking nightmare for the past few hours. I needed it.
“Alright then.” I said.
He didn’t reply, just turned his back and disappeared behind the door.
I picked up my diary, and went to follow, but then stopped. There were those feeders ahead of me. Totems to the bird-beast god. I began to sweat. The nightmare was lowering its shroud back over me. Maybe this was where the bird-beast roosted? Remember I hadn’t seen it fly from there yet. Maybe that old bloke was its keeper. A psycho who lured unsuspecting fools like me up there to feed to his pet.
My head began to pound so hard that I doubled over, pressing my diary into my forehead. I felt like I’d never escape my own mind, be forever tortured. But I couldn’t let it turn me into a wreck. I had to use my age old tool. Swallow hard. Cram it down. Tea would make things better. That’s was the best thing for me to think. It comes with being British.
I got up and strode through the forest of feeders, trying not to look as they rattled in the breeze.
The end of the building on the right was lower, like some sort of shed had been cemented to the side of it. Light spilled from the door past the window, and I entered almost on tiptoes. To my relief the old bloke wasn’t holding a hammer ready to smash my brains out or anything. He was standing beside a sink made of white metal right next to the door. His fingers were twiddling a tap on one of those gas stoves used for camping, the flame lowering under a kettle with dents in it, steaming on top.
“Take a seat.” he said motioning down the rest of the shed.
It wasn’t really a shed to be honest. It was more like a pokey living-room-cum-kitchen with brick walls and a concrete floor. At the other end was an armchair that could’ve belonged in a museum on Victorian London. Next to it was a stool that looked like it had been nicked from a pub, and a table that could only have fitted two cups of tea on it max, maybe an extra biscuit or two at a push.
In the rest of the space the walls were lined with three levels of shelves, and against the left wall were cupboards with a work surface on top. Everything was littered with tins, ice-cream cartons, margarine tubs and all kinds of containers. Some had logos so old they took me on a journey of childhood glimpses of packaged foods. It was hard to make them all out though, as the light came from a single bulb dangling from the ceiling. It’s wire looked like it would snap at the slightest tug. I was surprised it wasn’t crackling.
There was another door opposite where I had entered. I halted and stared at it. Did it lead to the lair of the bird beast? I couldn’t stop my heart beating harder. The nightmare was following me everywhere I went. What did I do? Swallow it down.
The old bloke cocked his head round and I moved towards the other end, worried he would see the sweat on my brow. I was shaking again.
“Take the chair.” said the old bloke as I went to sit on the stool.
I didn’t want to take the chair because it looked like a dog had chewed it.
I wasn’t going to be discourteous though, no matter how shaky I was. I placed my bag and diary beside the chair and lowered myself into it. Politeness. Bred into me. That chair smelt like a dog had chewed it too.
I sat there fidgeting, battling with thoughts telling me to run before it was too late. I had to keep on telling myself there was nothing wrong with this guy, he was just being friendly, he just wanted some company that was all. But my overreactive imagination was trying to tell me he was a psycho ready to slide a knife from the sleeve of his coat, rush at me, slit my throat then feed me to his pet the bird-beast.
But he simply shuffled over, squeezed the cups of tea onto the table and stooped onto the stool.
He looked at me for a moment, his eyes were set so far back behind his nose that they were almost lost to view. I was sure he could tell I was nervous as hell.
“You from London?” he asked.
“Erm yeah.” I picked up the tea and took a mouthful.
He nodded and sipped at his.
“I am now I mean.” I said, trying to hide the wobble in my voice “I didn’t grow up here or anything.”
“I’m the same.” I could then hear an accent underneath the creaking of his vocal chords. Eastern European or something.
“Not many people come up here.” he said after a pause.
I just nodded and drank my tea.
He sighed “I come up here when I can’t sleep.”
I stalled with the cup at my mouth. I looked over at him. He wasn’t looking at me, just staring into his cup. The bags under his eyes made it look like he hadn’t slept properly for a long time. Like me. It was only then that I realised how heavy my body was. I sank back into my chair. Despite its chewed-dogness it was surprisingly comfy. One of those chairs whose cushions had been beaten so badly by buttocks and bodies that it knew how to submit to any shape.
“It can be hard sometimes.” he said without looking up.
“Yeah.”
I thought then that maybe it was nightmares that stopped him sleeping too. I put down my cup with an arm like lead. It felt like my whole body had just given up on me. Even the fear had bled away.
“Especially in London.” he said looking up with a smile, the skin shifting over his skull like a creased sheet sliding over a ball. There was something soothing about that expression. And the smell of that place. It was like an old shed from childhood, but with a sweet scent like butterscotch in the air.
My eyes drooped and I fell asleep as quickly as if a hypnotist had snapped his fingers. That night I had no nightmares for the first time in two months. Not even a dream as far a I recall. The kind of sleep where you black out, then wake up as if you’d only blinked. I cannot explain how good it felt.
The light had been turned off by the time I awoke, and daylight the colour of mushroom soup bled through the window. The old bloke was nowhere to be seen. I was surrounded by silence. At least to me it was silence. There were some background noises probably, but living in London for a while qualified the lower ambient noises as silence. I looked at my watch. Ten to five. I’d never got up that early in my life, but I managed to prise myself out of the armchair and the hollow I had made.
The events of the night before seemed faded. That sleep, though like the snap of fingers, felt like a years gap between me and the whole experience. Only my body aching told me that I had ran through the streets chasing my nightmares the evening before.
The old bloke entered through the other door. He was still in the same clothes. His eyes were so dark under his brow that I doubted whether he had slept that night.
“I’m sorry.” I said, picking up my bag, stuffing my diary inside then heading for the door. “You’ve been real kind-”
But he held up a hand. A tiny gesture like he wanted me to slow down. It made me stop in my tracks.
“Would you like to see what I do here?” he said.
I began to hear the nightmare start up in my head. What did he do there? Butcher people for the bird-beast? But the overreaction was a weak glimmer. The sleep without nightmares had changed something. I didn’t cram it down. I didn’t think over it. I just let it go.
I stood stock still in the wake of my revelation, then realised the old bloke was staring at me.
“Alright.” I said.
“First,” said the old bloke, holding up a finger like a philosopher “We’ll have some tea.” After a good dose of caffeine I was a little more operational, and followed the old bloke to the work surface. I’ve got to admit I was intrigued. There were no tools or anything like that you’d find in a normal shed, just pots, tubs and other containers.
He pulled a tub down from the middle shelf above. It said ‘PRO-X Weightgain’ on the outside. It sounded like a giant maraca as he thumped it down on the surface. As he undid the lid I noticed a piece of paper taped to it. Scrawled on it in handwriting that belonged on a gravestone were the words: GROUND FEED - Seed, berry, raisin, peanut, insect. The old bloke put his hand inside the tub and pulled out one of those plastic things you use to fill an iron with water. It was full of something that looked like muesli. It looked pretty tasty to be honest, but the insect statement on the label made me think twice about ever trying any.
The old bloke said nothing, just handed me the iron-filler and then walked to the door he had come through.
When he opened it a rush of sound hit me. Birdsong. It had been in the background all along, but my immunity to ambient noise had blanked it out. As we walked outside there was a whirl of wings as birds dispersed from the garden beyond. I never would have guessed it. A garden. From outside it probably looked like a box of brick, the apartment building creating a wall on the right and the other two sides being brick walls twice my height.
But inside it was haven of greenery. There was an actual tree in there, quite small, but still a tree. On a roof. In London. The rest of the space was taken up by mini bushes planted in wooden boxes, potted plants, trellises up the walls.
I laughed when I saw it, I couldn’t help it spill out of mouth. A laugh like a kid’s. I saw that old bloke grin too. I couldn’t say anything. My words would have just messed up that birdsong. One song sounded like a telephone, another like an opera singer on helium. Twip Twip. That one sounded like some English gentlemen trying to say trip. Twip Twip. Then a flutter of wings and the song distorted. A tiny blur of feathers zoomed by and landed on the bar of the feeder hanging from the tree amongst others. Land, peck, gone, back to the T.V aerial from whence it clung. More birds came. Blurs darting from bush to branch to feeder.
The old bloke pointed to the thing full of ground feed in my hand “That attracts Robins, Starlings, Finches, Siskins.” He pointed under the tree and then to other places. There were paving slabs lying around with traces of feed on them.
I didn’t even have to ask. I knew what to do. I started scattering the cocktail of feed on those slabs whilst the old bloke watched, calling out directions like a bird-feeding foreman. “Some more to the right. A bit more over there.”
Then we had the other side of the shed to do, the area I had been in the night before. The feeders didn’t look so creepy in the light of that morning.
I had to stand for a moment to admire the view. How had I been afraid of it? Tile, brick, steel, glass, chimney-pot, gable, all mixing to make one metropolitan cocktail. The sky was like grey milk hanging over the still sleeping city, it looked like the Victorian smog might have when those hundreds of chimneys were still smoking.
It was weird, being out there. I didn’t really care about going to work later, or anything like that. I didn’t even think much about the previous night, or even what I was doing. I just followed what that old bloke said and did it. We moved from one side of the shed to the other, filling up feeders. Peanuts in some, sunflower seeds in others. I remember he kept the sunflower seeds in an old coffee tin the size of a small bucket. They were black. They actually looked a bit like coffee beans.
In one tub, there was this mash of seed stuff, which I dubbed ‘bird ice-cream’. Lard mixed with the ground feed. It smelt quite tasty, though there was the insect thing again. I smeared it into a coconut shell. At first, I was a bit tentative using the butter knife provided, but realising I could not escape the grease I began to use my fingers. It reminded me of cooking at primary school.
“The birds love it.” the old bloke said as I hung the shell under the tree.
I could see it, they were already hopping around close by. I bet they got fat off it. All that lard. Little fat lardy birds. Some of them did look podgy actually.
“Bullfinch.” said the old bloke pointing at one with a bloated pink breast. “He’s come far to see me.”
The little thing stood on guard by his feed, more like a matador than a bull.
In order to get from under the tree, I had to duck and dodge the other feeders like some ninja apprentice trying not to disturb the harmony or some crap like that. And there was the master, watching. That old bloke. Was he so peaceful because of all this bird feeding stuff? I thought so. I felt peaceful myself, my imagination stilled by focusing on the different tasks.
When finished I washed my hands in the sink. Both doors were open either side of me so I could hear the birdsong in surround sound. Each chirp and tweet combined like the instruments in an orchestra. The old bloke boiled up a pot of beans then fried up some bread. I expected he probably fried it in the same lard that he used in the bird ice cream. He didn’t eat much, but I devoured it all. That lardy-sweet-seed smell had given me an appetite.
After eating, I checked my watch. Twenty to seven. I had to be in work by nine-thirty, and still needed to go home and get myself sorted. At that point the old bloke was standing at the door, looking out over the roof. It was like he wasn’t even thinking, just watching the birds.
I picked up my bag and sauntered to the window. I stopped there and stared out too. Between the feeders there was a flurry of twenty odd pairs of wings. One heading for the fat ball in a cage, another for the ground, two to the sunflower seeds, all dodging and weaving like a dogfight. Some retreated to the aerials as blackbirds muscled their way through.
Despite everything, there was still a question needling into my mind. I had to ask. “Do you get any eagles here?”
I waited for an answer. If anyone knew anything about crazy-big-bird-beasts being in London, it would be this bloke.
He looked at me, not like I was mad or anything, a look with no judgement.
“There aren’t any eagles in London.” he said.
Boom. That was it. Like a piano on my head. That was my answer. Big black eagle things didn’t exist. Simple.
I chuckled a little as if to make out that I was only joking. I was closer to crying to be honest.
“Sparrow-hawks maybe.” the old bloke continued “I use bamboo with fish wire to keep them away from some feeders. But they’re part of the scheme of things too.”
I watched a cage feeder swing as a robin fluttered around it latching on and pecking away.
I felt like I didn’t need to ask anything else. I was sure then that I had finally found the answer to all my problems.
I walked to the door where he stood.
“Thanks.” It was all I could think of saying.
“No.” the old bloke stuck out his hand. “Thank you. You’ve been a great help.” We shook, his skin was was like leather. “I’m going away for some time now, so I needed to give my friends here a last feast.”
When he said that I couldn’t help but think that the birds might get lonely whilst he was gone. And what about him? Wouldn’t he be lonely without them too?
“Have a good trip.” I said. What else was there to say? I knew nothing about him, not even his name. He was a just a man who fed the birds. But a sage at that.
I left the way I came and he followed. I heard him lock the door of the shed, but he stayed back as I walked amongst the rows of feeders. Flurries of birds and wings filled the air around me. They didn’t seem bothered by me any more, as if in that space of a couple of hours we had become friends.
I went to the stairwell and looked over London’s rooftops one last time. It was nice to see them in the light growing brighter, the glass gleaming like that of menageries, tiles overlapping like feathers. Behind the birdsong I could hear the faint beep of horns and cry of sirens. The city had its own song in the morning.
I turned and nodded to the old bloke. He smiled, and nodded back, hands buried in his pockets.
I descended the stairs but after four flights I stopped. Something had snagged in my mind. What if one day I could return? Feed the birds when he was back form his trip, perhaps even whilst he was away?
I turned and began to pace back up the stairs which rang like bells as my feet fell on them. When I got to the top I became that icicle again.
At the far edge of the roof through the flurry of birds was a dark shape as big as a man. It was more of a shadow than anything, shifting like oil, its anatomy unstable. I could see feathers growing from the blackness.
I had thought it was all over, that I had won the battle and proved my overreactive imagination wrong. Bird-beasts didn’t exist. But I’m telling you, this thing was as tangible as the eyes I used to perceive it.
Its form elongated. Beak, tail, claws, wings that spread wide with feathers that carved the air like knives. One wing-beat, and the thing lifted off, the blast scattering dust and seed. Another, and it rose. Another, and it shot upward. Then the wings began to row like oars through the air until soon it looked no bigger than a normal bird. No one would be able to tell. No-one but me.
It soared off east and was gone.
That was it. It wasn’t some hallucination or vision thrown at me from my overreactive imagination. It was real. I even checked the roof. The old bloke had gone. The only way up there was that fire escape.
All you reading this will definitely think I’m nuts by now. But I know what I saw back then was real. It doesn’t bother me to say it. That’s the strange thing. It doesn’t bother me at all. The image has not stuck in my mind. It has not plagued my sleep. Any time I think about that rooftop, it makes me smile.
Since then my overreactive imagination has calmed. It’s still there, but It’s quieter now. I accept it. No more cramming down.
I think I better end there.
By the way, this has made me wonder about one thing. How did that panther get into my house when I was a kid?
If you missed reading Edd's story from the beginning you can read it from the start right here.
Nooks and Crannies by Edd Phillips
Part One – Seeing things
When I was a kid, I used to see things in the dark. That’s what kids do. Darkness is like a canvas for them. There was the usual stuff. Monsters, ghouls, beasts. They were real then. They existed. But that was just a boy and his imagination wasn’t it? That’s what I’ve been telling myself all this time. But now...Now it’s changed. Now I don’t know anymore.
Something happened to me recently. It’s made me think that what that boy used to see in the darkness might just have been real.
You can believe me or not. It’s not my problem.
Actually I guess it is my problem. I wouldn’t be here trying to explain it otherwise. I need to get some peace of mind or something. I sound like a freak already.I have an overreactive imagination. Have had all my life. I know that Overreactive isn’t even a word, but... just sounds right to me. It’s like... I see something, like a dark corner, then my mind ‘overreacts’, making up things that don’t exist. Or at least I thought didn’t exist.
I’ve been ignoring this for most my life, cramming away the thoughts. Bottle it up. Everyone tells me that’s a bad thing, but I don’t know any other way.
Obviously my imagination was at its worst when I was a kid. Back then I spent most nights fearing sleep. Truth is I can’t even remember having a good dream until I was about ten. Every night I used have nightmares. Sometimes I was even too scared to sleep. I was terrified of the darkness. But even if I lay awake I couldn’t escape my imagination. I’d have visions, like I was some sort of shaman-kid or something. One night really sticks in my mind.
It was a normal night, although it depends on what you think of as normal. I had a routine to follow. It’d start in the bathroom, just after I’d cleaned my teeth. Now in order to get to my bedroom I had to cross the landing. Sounds simple. Not at all. If it took me longer than the six seconds that I counted under my breath, I believed the carpet would turn to acid. It was green. It was a possibility. Thing was, I couldn’t run, I couldn’t even walk fast. It was an unstable compound.
I always had to leave the bathroom door open as well. This was integral, because, in bed, I had to see the beam of light coming from the opening there. It cut the darkness in half. A reassurance. Like a big fat night-light.
On this particular night I was quite little, seven or something. Is seven little? I don’t know, I felt little anyway. The routine had been done, count unbroken, and I was in bed looking down the landing. That was when I always started to have problems. Of course, I wouldn’t watch the light. Oh no. I’d watch the darkness. The canvas. It wasn’t long before the overreactive imagination kicked in. Something emerged. A panther, or something like a panther. I swear it was real. It had teeth bared to the gums, claws I could hear digging into the carpet, yellow eyes piercing me. It was blacker than the darkness, lying in wait past the bathroom’s beam of light. Would that barrier be enough to stop it? I didn’t hide under the covers like you’d expect. What protection could they give against claws like razor blades? I just stared back, petrified. Too scared to even shiver, too scared to even blink. I didn’t cry out either. What if, as soon as I made a noise, it would pounce?
I never cried out when any of this stuff happened. My way of dealing with it? Cram it down. Bottle it up.
After staring transfixed at that panther for so long, my eyes began to sting. I had to blink. In that shutter-speed motion it had gone. But I knew it had only escaped to go and terrorise some other poor child.
Obviously I didn’t sleep that night. It took me ages to get that thing out of my dreams, like a year or something.
So there you are. I was messed up by things like that until the age of eleven. Then finally I started dreaming about girls and stuff. That wasn’t much easier to be honest.
I said before that I’ve been ignoring my overreactive imagination for some time now. Pretty much since the nightmares stopped. Nowadays if my mind starts telling me, for instance, that a lamppost looks like it had a mouth and was laughing at me, I just cram the thought down. Maybe I’ll sometimes think of something else. Maths helps. I try to multiply big numbers. I’m rubbish at maths, but that’s a good thing. It gets all jumbled up in my head and I end up forgetting what my imagination was overreacting to in the first place.
I thought I’d been dealing with it in the right way. I guess not.
What happened recently... I feel like a nutcase trying to explain it.
It was a Friday night and I was over in a pub somewhere close to Charring Cross with a load of people from work. I was drunk. I’m not a heavy drinker or anything, but someone had been buying me whisky for some stupid reason. I don’t drink whisky. I drink cider, even though most the stuff here in London tastes like dishwater. I’m from the West country. I expect the best.
Anyway, it got late and dark, so I wobbled myself away from whatever pub it was I was in. I thought I’d get a bus home even though I don’t know what buses go my way. I’m a tube man. So I just kept on stumbling east-ways squinting at those yellow numbers they have on the front of the buses, becoming more and more bewildered by London’s alphabet of bus stops. I ended up somewhere around Temple. I had no clue how I was going to get home from there, but instead of backtracking, I thought it would be a great idea to head into the alleys. Bit stupid really.
It was all quite blurry. I remember a security guard in a box, a car park, fountains, columns. Then I came to twisted trees, tunnels, black gates with locks on them. I was trapped. No surprises the old overreactive imagination started to play tricks on me. Who’s footsteps were those? Where was that laughter coming from? I needed to escape.
I remember stumbling down this cobbled street, brick buildings looming over me, a church further down, darkness and orange lamplight all around. No one else there. I was alone...
God, I sound like the trailer for a horror movie.
Anyway, I heard a noise. Like, sort of... a bin-bag-in-the-breeze type noise.
I know you must think I’m a bit nuts by now, but... I saw something. Something that I’m sure wasn’t just my imagination overreacting.
It was... How do I even explain it?
I looked up. Saw...
I saw a big black thing fly through the air above me.
There. I’ve said it. How screwed up does that sound?
I saw it though. I saw it. I swear. A big black thing. Like a bird but bigger. An eagle? Something with wings at least. Big. Like, I don’t know. Pterodactyl big.
Was it just my overreactive imagination screwing with me? Was it the whisky? I don’t know, but it seemed as real as that panther.
Back came all the bottled up stuff I’d been cramming down for so long. Fear from nightmares, terror of darkness. I’m feeling sick just thinking about it now.
I froze, too scared to shiver. Seven-year-old-scared. I ran like a seven year old too. I fell over, bruised myself a bit, but made it out somehow. God knows how I got home. On the buses I think. People must have thought I was crazy; looking over my shoulder all the time, sweating, twitching.
At home the first thing I did was draw the curtains and turn all the lights on. It was like I had just watched a really blood-bath horror movie. Worse. In every shadow there lurked bird-beasts with talons ready to disembowel me. I couldn’t hide from my screwed up mind.
I finally went to bed sometime a.m. You know what I did? As I crossed the landing I counted to five under my breath. In fact I’ve been doing it ever since.
So I’ve been a bit messed up. It’s like all the crap I’ve crammed down since school, all the things I thought I’d seen, they’re coming back like a boomerang from hell. Was any of it real? I question and question. I’ve been having nightmares for the first time in years too. I’m Sometimes with that bird-beast thing I saw, clutched in its talons, too scared to shiver, too scared to cry out. It takes me over the rooftops of London, between buildings that I know aren’t there. Mountains made of gothic spires, stone and glass fused together. The rooftops are slurred, tiles twisting in spirals. Chimneys tower as high as church spires, pumping out clouds of smoke that burn my throat and choke my vision. Sometimes I am that bird-beast. Hovering over my hunting ground in the Temple. I spot myself running like a rat in the maze of courtyards. I dive, talons bared, and wake up sweating.
What is wrong with my head? I’m twenty seven years old, and I’m becoming afraid of the dark.
My housemate has had to wake me up sometimes I scream out so loud in my sleep. It freaks him out. It freaks me out. He thinks I should go see a dream therapist or someone about it. He’s probably right, I should, but I don’t want somebody poking around in my dreams. I don’t even want to do that myself, why would anyone else? Anyway, there’s no way I can afford one. I took some of his advice though. I went to the library and picked up this book on dreams. To be honest I don’t like all that kind of self analysis crap. But... I’m stuck. Stuck and screwed up.
One thing this book does say, is that doing rituals is good. It says stuff about going out and ritualising dreams. That bird-beast is my dreams, and the world of my nightmares is the Temple. So I guess I am going to have to go poking around in my dreams after all. That’s where I’m going tonight. To the Temple. I’m going to face my nightmares. I have to. I don’t care what anyone thinks anymore.
At least it’s been good to get all this crap out in the open. Bit like therapy I guess. Cheaper.
I’ll be keeping a diary by the way. That book says I should write things down. I’m thinking of posting some of the stuff online over the next few weeks. That’ll get it out in the open.
I’m a freak. I can’t make anymore excuses. I have to do this.
I don’t think there’s anything else I can say.
See ya.
Part Two – Rooftops
The last thing I posted on the net was that stuff I said in front of you all at the St Bride Foundation. My introduction I guess. After what happened that night I didn’t want to post any of this to be honest. I thought you’d all think I was insane...
But I have to. This is all part of it.
Believe what you want. I don’t know if I can believe some of it.
Inventory for backpack
Pentax ME Camera50mm lens
75mm - 150mm lens
Lens cleaning cloth
Note book
Pen
Map
Wallet
Mobile
House keys
Glasses
Apple
Sandwiches
Watch (instead of mobile).
Temple Diary 12/05/10
8:13pm
It’s really awkward trying to write carrying all this crap.
I’m outside the St Bride Foundation now, on this bendy little lane. This is the beginning. I’m already feeling nervous. I’m going out into the night to seek that world of my nightmares. I have to prove my over reactive imagination wrong.
It’s still quite light. The sun’s setting at least. I need darkness. I can hear the traffic from the nearby street. I thought it would be quieter than this.
St Bride’s Church up there, the spire all hidden between tree branches.
I need to explore. I need to track this thing like a hunter. Find its lair.
I’ll go back up the steps to the other entrance to the Institute.
8:18pm
Now I ‘m up the steps I can see the Church better. The whole roof of it. Look at that spire, the sun like flames up its side. It’s like some sort of satanic dovecote, loads of hollows where bird-beasts could nest, flying out late at night to feast upon the unsuspecting City workers. What’s wrong with me? I’m like a kid. But I guess I’ve got to be. I’ve got to face that part of me I locked away.
8:25pm
I’m sitting below this modern statue of a bloke with a lance just off Dorset Rise. A knight killing a serpent. Slaying it. That’s what I want to do. Kill this thing that’s been haunting my dreams. I don’t have any armour though. I don’t have any weapons. Just this book, my pen, my camera.
Modern office-blocks around. All the cloud above them is turning molten. It should be get-ting hotter the way it looks, but the night breeze cools me.
8:28pm
Looking up all the time. CCTV cameras everywhere. Watching me. I feel like a criminal.
I take a photo. Click, thunk, wind it on. Now I’m watching them. Probably makes me look like I’m scoping out the area, dodgy.
I take another photo. Click, thunk, wind it on. I like the grind of the lever as I push it round.
8:32pm
Ashentree Court. I’m between the modern buildings, looking up all the time. All the lights are on in the offices but they’re empty. Except for one window. Someone’s watching me up there. They haven’t moved an inch.
God my eyesight’s crap. I took a look through my camera lens, twisting the focus round to make things clearer. That unmoving person is a pile of coats thrown on a chair or some-thing. I can’t stop this imagination of mine can I?
I take a photo. Click, thunk, wind it on. Messy bastard office workers.
8:38pm
Lombard Lane: Now I’m getting into all this cobbled street stuff. These buildings around me are beginning to look like my nightmares. Brickwork, chimneys, pokey windows. How can this be right alongside all these modern buildings? It’s like a time warp.
It’s getting quieter.
8:41pm
The entrance to the Temple. I remember this. I remember coming through here. The arch-way to my doom. I remember the security guard in the gatehouse here. I’m trying to hide whilst I write. Maybe he might recognise me? He might think I’m dodgy. Like the CCTV.
8:47pm
I’ve come into the car park. I remember coming through here on that night. It’s surrounded by brick buildings that I’ve been seeing in my nightmares.
Above there’s open space. It’s too light. The clouds are like pink sand dunes inverted above me. I need to wait until the night sets in. I need the darkness. I want it. I feel insane. All the people passing by. What do they think of me? I feel like a madman. I’m hunting, playing a game like a kid.
I need to seek those places that are like the labyrinth of my nightmares.
8:53pm
I’m in a courtyard confined by brick buildings. Windows stare in. I’m standing next to a bench in the middle of this little garden that looks like fairies built it. A fountain bubbles away in the middle making light wobble within its basin like a cauldron.
I hear bells. My watch says 8:56pm.
I focus my camera on the fountain. Click, thunk, wind it on. My eyes are focusing like my camera on things far and near. Post, tree, trellis, fountain.
I sit on the bench. It’s still too light. I cannot seek my nightmares until darkness falls. I’ll wait here. It’s the only thing I can do.
10:01pm
Over an hour I waited here in silence, the hair prickling up at the back of my neck with every sound from the sky. I’ve watched the clouds roll by like magma, glowing fainter with the dying embers of the sun. Darkness is here now. Now I can hunt.
10:09pm
A church. I’m shaking, bile in my throat. Can I hear wings flapping? No. Just my mind wanting me to. It isn’t the church where I saw that thing. I would know. This church looks like it’s eaten too much mortar, bloated.
I’m in a cluster of pillars within a flood of white light. There’s another knight on a column in front of me. I wish I had his sword, his shield, his steed.
I take a photo. Click, thunk, wind it on. Then another and another. I’m winding these im-ages around in my mind, trying to document a nightmare. I can imagine that thing flying from church to church. This unholy angel flying over God’s children ready to devour and consume the sinners.
Why am I thinking about this thing like it’s real? I’m shaking as I write this! I’ve created this thing. IT’S NOT REAL. Nor was the panther from when I was a kid, nor was anything else.
It’s my fault. I bottled up the darkness. Now its fizzing out.
10:13pm
There’s this courtyard with trees and bushes and everything in it here. Silence. Why can I hear wings? I never stop looking up. The roofs are a mess of chimney pots and T.V aerials that jostle with each other like blackthorn branches. There are even railings on some roofs like people walk around up there. Prey for the beast.
Shut up! I wish I could just turn off this stupid imagination of mine.
I take a photo of the passage ahead. Click, thunk, wind it on. The lever jams. End of the reel.
10:19pm
I’m here. I’m shaking. This place. I’m here. Where I saw that thing.
Now I see. I thought it was a church. I was wrong. It was a hall. This hall right above me. I can see the gap the bird-beast flew across. Just looking up at the gable, the clock face, the tower, it makes my stomach roll. Static down my spine. My nightmares are pouring into my life.
I need to sit down.
10:23pm
Why am I here?
I sit next to this big fountain, head in and out of my hand as I write. The water shoots up high, lit up, like glass made of gold. It helps to calm my nerves a bit, listening to it. But the trees that surround it are hunched like old men. They even have metal poles supporting them like walking sticks. They lurch in for a drink. The way the pool is dancing below them, it makes it seem like there’s something crawling around the edge, like a giant spider or crab or rat made of shadow. But this is just a fountain. A fountain! Nothing else. It’s water. It’s peaceful. If my imagination would just shut up for a moment I’d be fine.
I’m shaking. It’s not that cold, but I feel it. I keep on looking at that hall, up at the roof, watching the sky around it through the taller trees, waiting for the clouds to part and that beast to descend.
10:44pm
I couldn’t keep still on that bench. My stomach felt like it had electricity pulsating inside it. I’m just wandering in this world that isn’t mine. This world belongs to all those people who once walked these cobbles that I feel under my feet.
There’s a door up this street. It leads outside, the tower of the Royal Courts of Justice visi-ble out there.
Maybe I should go? I should. Just go home.
I can’t.
This is my chance to find out the truth behind this nightmare. I have to go back.
11:02pm
I’m on the bench watching the hall. The fountain splatters beside me. I’m fatigued by the feeling that at any moment that thing will emerge in the sky and rend me in two.
But it won’t. I know it won’t. You know why? Because I’m a fool.
I wish I could escape, go inside the hall where I imagine rows of benches, tables lined with meat roasted in wines and spices. But I won’t. I’ll sit here on this bench and wait, even if I end up here until the sun rises. At least then I’ll prove my imagination wrong. Then all of this will finally be over.
12:45am
SEEN IT. SEEN IT. HAVE TO RUN. RUN TO THE DOOR.
No Time Written
I’M WATCHING IT NOW. NOW. IT IS HERE! Above the rooftops over the chimneys going over them beating its wings landing scrabbling across them. It’s flying. I’m losing sight. I have to go to the door.
No Time Written
I’m in another side street looking up, waiting. Tight alley. The George pub next to me. Left the Temple and went out onto the streets. The road I ran along, people walking by me on the pavement, they seemed so strange. No, they’re normal and I’m chasing a demon beast.
There!
12:58am
I don’t know anymore. I’ve lost it. I don’t even know what I mean by that. I’ve lost the bird-beast, but maybe I’ve lost my mind too.
But I saw it. I saw it over that alley. It flew to the church then to the Royal Courts of Justice. It merged with the shadows of those peaks. They look just like those twisted rooftops of my nightmares.
Yet nobody else I passed even noticed. Nobody. People waiting for buses, cars, pedestri-ans. I wanted to shout at them, but I was alone. This is my nightmare. No one can help me. My own gothic horror as I stare through these railings at the spires and pinnacles claw upwards. The columns and ribs are flushed with orange light. Shadows set in the nooks and crannies between, like the recesses of my mind. I’m shaking. I can barely hear my thoughts my heart is-
THERE. IT FLEW!
No Time Written
This is it. I’ve been running for so long now. Out of breath, neck hurting from staring up. I chased it through so many streets. I Passed people outside pubs, men unloading lorries in alleys, cabs zooming by. I was the only one looking up watching the gaps between the buildings.
I think I’m near Covent Garden. I can hear people close by. This apartment block. It stopped here. I circled the whole building. It has not moved from this roof. Have I scared it? Does it know I’ve seen it?
I need to get inside, to get up there.
Someone’s coming.
No Time Written
I’m in. The bloke didn’t notice that I got through the door just before it closed behind him. I’m in a hallway, lit with a white light that hurts my eyes. What am I doing? Why am I going this far?
1:24am
I found this place, a yard right in the middle of the building. Little sheds squeezed into it, mops, brooms, clutter to climb over to reach the fire escape stairwell. Looks like it goes to the roof.
No Time Written
I feel like bottling it.
I’m sat below the top set of steps. I can feel the tremor of the metal as I shake.
That bird-beast could be up those last few steps ready to feast on me.
Am I delirious? Mad to think these things?
I feel like I’m mustering the nerve to go into battle. A battle with my own twisted imagina-tion
I have to go up. I’ll count to five. Just like the green carpet.
No Time Written
The breeze hits my face. I breathe it in.
It’s dark up here, hard to see ahead. The building goes up another two stories on the right, no windows, just brick. There’s one light though, a window down the end, poles or some-thing all over the space between.
No bird-beast, but I’m still in the world of my nightmares. Out to my left is a sea of rooftops rising and falling. Slanted roofs, towers protruding like mountains with windows, T.V aerials sprouting like weeds, cranes trees. The City with its Gherkin glimmers in the distance like a volcano. The chimneys I see remind of those that choked me in my nightmares. No smoke, but there are clouds in blackness above, tinged with the cities sick glow.
There’s a humming coming form a vent close to me, it’s giving me a headache. But there’s something else, something rattling.
I’ve moved to check it out. It’s a bird feeder on an aerial.
I want to run. Those poles out there, they’re bird feeders. My chest is so tight it feels like my sternum might crack. What is this place? This is past my nightmares. This is something else. A place of worship where freaks converge to do sacrifices, these feeders, totems to a bird-beast god. I’ve come too far. I wasn’t meant to prove my imagination right.
The light from that window, I just saw it flicker.
A door’s opening. Someone’s coming out.
---X---
That’s where the diaries stop. The whole night’s still a mess in my head, hard to believe. I need time to sort it all out.
Part Three - There Aren’t Any Eagles in London
It’s been what? Three weeks since the night I went out into the Temple? It feels longer than that.
At least I’ve had time to reflect on what happened after I ended up on that roof now. I’ve made sense of it as best I can in my head. Now I have to get it out in the open. This is part of it. No more bottling things up.
So here’s the rest of it compiled from the notes that I wrote the day after.
Right after the door opened on that roof I fumbled and dropped my diary. I can remember the slap it made as it hit the floor ringing out around me.
Light was swelling up from below the rooftops of London like phosphorescence in an ocean. The whole city was like a ghost town and I was consumed by its silence. The only motion came from the planes above and the flapping of the coat belonging to the figure who had emerged from the door.
You’d think I’d run. Not me. What are those options we’re given? Fight, flight or freeze? I’m too much of a coward to fight, and was too scared to run. I was like an icicle. I just stood there before that forest of bird feeders.
There was enough light for me to see it was a man standing there. Shadows filled each wrinkle on his face and his head gleamed like on an upturned glass bowl. It looked like he was using the door handle to support himself.
For a moment my fear bled away. I couldn’t believe it. All of my searching, running, and trespassing had culminated in me disturbing some old bloke at god-knows-what a.m. I deflated, and you know what I said? “Sorry mate.”
No explanation as to why I was on the roof. Nothing. I sounded like a guilty schoolboy. His hand wrung the door handle. “Everything alright there?”
His response startled me. I thought he was going to tell me to piss off or something. I would’ve.
I didn’t know how to respond.
“Odd hour to be up here.” he said. “Late out.” His voice sounded as if he had smoked his vocal chords thin.
“Yeah.” I said. All I wanted was to leave him in peace.
He squinted, looking out over the rooftops. “Real late out.”
“I just needed some fresh air.” I said, trying to make it seem that I was from the building below.
He chuckled. “I don’t think you’ll find much fresh air up here. Not in London.” I couldn’t believe it. I was trespassing on his roof, and he was finding it funny. I began to bumble into another apology “I’m sorry, I-”
“You want a cup of tea?” he called out.
My tongue lost the words it was trying to form. A cup of tea? He was asking me if I wanted a cup of tea? There I was trespassing, and he was inviting me in as if I were a welcome guest.
“I’m just boiling the kettle. Won’t be no fuss.”
I didn’t know what to think. He probably just wanted some company. I was already feeling guilty enough for disturbing him. And you know what? A cup of tea didn’t sound too bad. I had been in a waking nightmare for the past few hours. I needed it.
“Alright then.” I said.
He didn’t reply, just turned his back and disappeared behind the door.
I picked up my diary, and went to follow, but then stopped. There were those feeders ahead of me. Totems to the bird-beast god. I began to sweat. The nightmare was lowering its shroud back over me. Maybe this was where the bird-beast roosted? Remember I hadn’t seen it fly from there yet. Maybe that old bloke was its keeper. A psycho who lured unsuspecting fools like me up there to feed to his pet.
My head began to pound so hard that I doubled over, pressing my diary into my forehead. I felt like I’d never escape my own mind, be forever tortured. But I couldn’t let it turn me into a wreck. I had to use my age old tool. Swallow hard. Cram it down. Tea would make things better. That’s was the best thing for me to think. It comes with being British.
I got up and strode through the forest of feeders, trying not to look as they rattled in the breeze.
The end of the building on the right was lower, like some sort of shed had been cemented to the side of it. Light spilled from the door past the window, and I entered almost on tiptoes. To my relief the old bloke wasn’t holding a hammer ready to smash my brains out or anything. He was standing beside a sink made of white metal right next to the door. His fingers were twiddling a tap on one of those gas stoves used for camping, the flame lowering under a kettle with dents in it, steaming on top.
“Take a seat.” he said motioning down the rest of the shed.
It wasn’t really a shed to be honest. It was more like a pokey living-room-cum-kitchen with brick walls and a concrete floor. At the other end was an armchair that could’ve belonged in a museum on Victorian London. Next to it was a stool that looked like it had been nicked from a pub, and a table that could only have fitted two cups of tea on it max, maybe an extra biscuit or two at a push.
In the rest of the space the walls were lined with three levels of shelves, and against the left wall were cupboards with a work surface on top. Everything was littered with tins, ice-cream cartons, margarine tubs and all kinds of containers. Some had logos so old they took me on a journey of childhood glimpses of packaged foods. It was hard to make them all out though, as the light came from a single bulb dangling from the ceiling. It’s wire looked like it would snap at the slightest tug. I was surprised it wasn’t crackling.
There was another door opposite where I had entered. I halted and stared at it. Did it lead to the lair of the bird beast? I couldn’t stop my heart beating harder. The nightmare was following me everywhere I went. What did I do? Swallow it down.
The old bloke cocked his head round and I moved towards the other end, worried he would see the sweat on my brow. I was shaking again.
“Take the chair.” said the old bloke as I went to sit on the stool.
I didn’t want to take the chair because it looked like a dog had chewed it.
I wasn’t going to be discourteous though, no matter how shaky I was. I placed my bag and diary beside the chair and lowered myself into it. Politeness. Bred into me. That chair smelt like a dog had chewed it too.
I sat there fidgeting, battling with thoughts telling me to run before it was too late. I had to keep on telling myself there was nothing wrong with this guy, he was just being friendly, he just wanted some company that was all. But my overreactive imagination was trying to tell me he was a psycho ready to slide a knife from the sleeve of his coat, rush at me, slit my throat then feed me to his pet the bird-beast.
But he simply shuffled over, squeezed the cups of tea onto the table and stooped onto the stool.
He looked at me for a moment, his eyes were set so far back behind his nose that they were almost lost to view. I was sure he could tell I was nervous as hell.
“You from London?” he asked.
“Erm yeah.” I picked up the tea and took a mouthful.
He nodded and sipped at his.
“I am now I mean.” I said, trying to hide the wobble in my voice “I didn’t grow up here or anything.”
“I’m the same.” I could then hear an accent underneath the creaking of his vocal chords. Eastern European or something.
“Not many people come up here.” he said after a pause.
I just nodded and drank my tea.
He sighed “I come up here when I can’t sleep.”
I stalled with the cup at my mouth. I looked over at him. He wasn’t looking at me, just staring into his cup. The bags under his eyes made it look like he hadn’t slept properly for a long time. Like me. It was only then that I realised how heavy my body was. I sank back into my chair. Despite its chewed-dogness it was surprisingly comfy. One of those chairs whose cushions had been beaten so badly by buttocks and bodies that it knew how to submit to any shape.
“It can be hard sometimes.” he said without looking up.
“Yeah.”
I thought then that maybe it was nightmares that stopped him sleeping too. I put down my cup with an arm like lead. It felt like my whole body had just given up on me. Even the fear had bled away.
“Especially in London.” he said looking up with a smile, the skin shifting over his skull like a creased sheet sliding over a ball. There was something soothing about that expression. And the smell of that place. It was like an old shed from childhood, but with a sweet scent like butterscotch in the air.
My eyes drooped and I fell asleep as quickly as if a hypnotist had snapped his fingers. That night I had no nightmares for the first time in two months. Not even a dream as far a I recall. The kind of sleep where you black out, then wake up as if you’d only blinked. I cannot explain how good it felt.
The light had been turned off by the time I awoke, and daylight the colour of mushroom soup bled through the window. The old bloke was nowhere to be seen. I was surrounded by silence. At least to me it was silence. There were some background noises probably, but living in London for a while qualified the lower ambient noises as silence. I looked at my watch. Ten to five. I’d never got up that early in my life, but I managed to prise myself out of the armchair and the hollow I had made.
The events of the night before seemed faded. That sleep, though like the snap of fingers, felt like a years gap between me and the whole experience. Only my body aching told me that I had ran through the streets chasing my nightmares the evening before.
The old bloke entered through the other door. He was still in the same clothes. His eyes were so dark under his brow that I doubted whether he had slept that night.
“I’m sorry.” I said, picking up my bag, stuffing my diary inside then heading for the door. “You’ve been real kind-”
But he held up a hand. A tiny gesture like he wanted me to slow down. It made me stop in my tracks.
“Would you like to see what I do here?” he said.
I began to hear the nightmare start up in my head. What did he do there? Butcher people for the bird-beast? But the overreaction was a weak glimmer. The sleep without nightmares had changed something. I didn’t cram it down. I didn’t think over it. I just let it go.
I stood stock still in the wake of my revelation, then realised the old bloke was staring at me.
“Alright.” I said.
“First,” said the old bloke, holding up a finger like a philosopher “We’ll have some tea.” After a good dose of caffeine I was a little more operational, and followed the old bloke to the work surface. I’ve got to admit I was intrigued. There were no tools or anything like that you’d find in a normal shed, just pots, tubs and other containers.
He pulled a tub down from the middle shelf above. It said ‘PRO-X Weightgain’ on the outside. It sounded like a giant maraca as he thumped it down on the surface. As he undid the lid I noticed a piece of paper taped to it. Scrawled on it in handwriting that belonged on a gravestone were the words: GROUND FEED - Seed, berry, raisin, peanut, insect. The old bloke put his hand inside the tub and pulled out one of those plastic things you use to fill an iron with water. It was full of something that looked like muesli. It looked pretty tasty to be honest, but the insect statement on the label made me think twice about ever trying any.
The old bloke said nothing, just handed me the iron-filler and then walked to the door he had come through.
When he opened it a rush of sound hit me. Birdsong. It had been in the background all along, but my immunity to ambient noise had blanked it out. As we walked outside there was a whirl of wings as birds dispersed from the garden beyond. I never would have guessed it. A garden. From outside it probably looked like a box of brick, the apartment building creating a wall on the right and the other two sides being brick walls twice my height.
But inside it was haven of greenery. There was an actual tree in there, quite small, but still a tree. On a roof. In London. The rest of the space was taken up by mini bushes planted in wooden boxes, potted plants, trellises up the walls.
I laughed when I saw it, I couldn’t help it spill out of mouth. A laugh like a kid’s. I saw that old bloke grin too. I couldn’t say anything. My words would have just messed up that birdsong. One song sounded like a telephone, another like an opera singer on helium. Twip Twip. That one sounded like some English gentlemen trying to say trip. Twip Twip. Then a flutter of wings and the song distorted. A tiny blur of feathers zoomed by and landed on the bar of the feeder hanging from the tree amongst others. Land, peck, gone, back to the T.V aerial from whence it clung. More birds came. Blurs darting from bush to branch to feeder.
The old bloke pointed to the thing full of ground feed in my hand “That attracts Robins, Starlings, Finches, Siskins.” He pointed under the tree and then to other places. There were paving slabs lying around with traces of feed on them.
I didn’t even have to ask. I knew what to do. I started scattering the cocktail of feed on those slabs whilst the old bloke watched, calling out directions like a bird-feeding foreman. “Some more to the right. A bit more over there.”
Then we had the other side of the shed to do, the area I had been in the night before. The feeders didn’t look so creepy in the light of that morning.
I had to stand for a moment to admire the view. How had I been afraid of it? Tile, brick, steel, glass, chimney-pot, gable, all mixing to make one metropolitan cocktail. The sky was like grey milk hanging over the still sleeping city, it looked like the Victorian smog might have when those hundreds of chimneys were still smoking.
It was weird, being out there. I didn’t really care about going to work later, or anything like that. I didn’t even think much about the previous night, or even what I was doing. I just followed what that old bloke said and did it. We moved from one side of the shed to the other, filling up feeders. Peanuts in some, sunflower seeds in others. I remember he kept the sunflower seeds in an old coffee tin the size of a small bucket. They were black. They actually looked a bit like coffee beans.
In one tub, there was this mash of seed stuff, which I dubbed ‘bird ice-cream’. Lard mixed with the ground feed. It smelt quite tasty, though there was the insect thing again. I smeared it into a coconut shell. At first, I was a bit tentative using the butter knife provided, but realising I could not escape the grease I began to use my fingers. It reminded me of cooking at primary school.
“The birds love it.” the old bloke said as I hung the shell under the tree.
I could see it, they were already hopping around close by. I bet they got fat off it. All that lard. Little fat lardy birds. Some of them did look podgy actually.
“Bullfinch.” said the old bloke pointing at one with a bloated pink breast. “He’s come far to see me.”
The little thing stood on guard by his feed, more like a matador than a bull.
In order to get from under the tree, I had to duck and dodge the other feeders like some ninja apprentice trying not to disturb the harmony or some crap like that. And there was the master, watching. That old bloke. Was he so peaceful because of all this bird feeding stuff? I thought so. I felt peaceful myself, my imagination stilled by focusing on the different tasks.
When finished I washed my hands in the sink. Both doors were open either side of me so I cou
