I could feel the wind on my face and it rumbled in my ears as I traveled backwards and forwards on the swing. On the up-swing my feet stretched up and almost touched the darkening sky, and on the back-swing I rose so high that I was in danger of flipping over the top and completing a revolution. In the west, the sun finally sank below the horizon, but the sky still glowed warm and orange and ochre.
I was on the swing in the middle of the garden looking down towards the house, and in the picture frame of the kitchen window I saw my parents. They had the light on and it shone like a beacon, a wash of light flowing through the dimming dusk. My mother stood over the sink washing-up. She was dressed for going out; her earrings caught the light and sparkled, her hair was perfect in a tight perm. My father wore a tuxedo, and he looked proud and crisp. He was taking the dripping plates and cups from my mother, drying them with a cloth, and setting them to one side ready to be put away. My mother passed him a long, wide blade, with a huge carved handle. He looked at it and held it up to the light. The sharp, serrated edge glistened. My parents turned and waved to me, but I didn't dare wave back. I was swinging down so fast I would surely fly the seat off if I let go of the chains with even one hand.
Everything was familiar. My parents, my house, my garden, the place that I played, the place that was safe. The borders of the lawn were picked out with beautifully trimmed rose bushes, floribunda, and blue moon. The shed behind me, which held a wealth of toys and games, was cradled in the arms of the hedge so high that even my father had to use a ladder to trim the top of it. The chains of the swing creaked and the palms of my hands felt sore from holding on so tightly. I opened my hand and saw the indentations of the links across my palm. When I looked up again, there were clouds of big black birds wheeling above, silent and swift. There was no sound but the evening inhaling and exhaling around me as I ticked off time with my pendulum swing. And then there was Timmy.
I didn't hear him moving up behind me, but I sensed he was there. He lived behind the shed at the bottom of the garden, and he never usually came out. Only I knew he was there. In the old days he used to parachute down into the garden. I would stand for hours looking up into the sky waiting for the umbrella of his 'chute to open, and for him to waft down to play. Only I could ever see my special friend. But Timmy had turned strange. One day he told me that he was going to live behind the shed from now on, and he just moved in. He wouldn't come out to play with me when I asked him, and after a while he didn't speak to me anymore. So it was a shock to see him that night, when I looked back over my shoulder, as the darkness fell around me like a blanket. He glided out from behind the shed--glided because he had no legs--and he hovered over the ground. He was dressed as a pirate: the striped shirt, the eye-patch, the kerchief tied around his head. Instead of hands, Timmy had hooks. I was frightened of Timmy, his face was mean and angry. I knew he wasn't my friend anymore.
I let go of the swing and flew out into the sky. The birds were all around me flapping and pecking, cawing wildly. I floated up high into the air before descending gently back into the garden. I tried to run to the house, but my feet barely touched the ground and there was no purchase to move me forwards. My parents stopped what they were doing and stood frozen, watching me trying to run, my mouth flapping with the silent dream-state cries of distress. I began to move slowly towards them, while the light caught the huge knife that my father still held. The door was a second away, but Timmy was suddenly in front of me, between me and safety, and he was grinning madly. I couldn't move, I couldn't cry out. I knew what he was going to do because it was my dream. He raised the hooks. At the top of the sickening arch, they paused. I heard the swing creak, empty and spinning. Timmy brought down the hooks, and I watched with detachment as they pierced my arms, pinning them to my body.
* * *
I am hot, the room is stuffy. Something on the bed is heavy and stifling. The sheets are tucked tightly around me to stop me from night-walking, and I even have difficulty turning over. I open my eyes and see what the problem is.
On top of the sheets, blankets, and eiderdown, someone has placed a layer of some old green, black and gold cushion covers that my parents threw out years ago. They're laid edge to edge completely covering the bed. I manage to release my arm from the shackles of the sheets, and I reach out to try and throw them off. It's an unsuccessful attempt. My arms feel weak and tired, and they hurt where Timmy has hooked me. About to give in, I am encouraged to see the gentle hands which appear, bathed in milky light, and which take the corners of the eiderdown and fold it into quarters. It is taken to the far corner of the room and placed on the floor. The cushion covers are neatly tucked inside it. I mumble my thanks and return to my sleep.
* * *
It was in dense woodland that I walked. Beams of sunlight lanced through the trees where squirrels sat on the high branches looking down on me. In a clearing ahead I could see an old tree stump. It had been cut into steps and sitting at the top was a man who, although I didn't recognize him, I felt I knew. He beckoned to me, and I stepped out of the shadows into the ring of sunlight in the clearing. He stood, tall even without the elevation that the stump gave to him. He smiled. His hair was like burnished bronze and his beard was copper wire. His hands were large and powerful as he reached down and pulled me up to where he stood.
"Were you afraid of Timmy?" he asked me, his voice warm and thick like treacle.
I nodded, and he took me by the shoulders. I could feel the warmth of his hands through my shirt. He bent towards me so that his face was level with mine. His eyes were like emeralds.
"Don't be frightened," he told me. "If things are bad and you are troubled, I will look after you."
"I know you, don't I?" I asked, hesitantly.
He smiled slowly, until his whole face was a smile. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small silver key. Turning my hand over he laid it gently in my palm. Gently he folded my fingers over it until it was safely in my grasp.
"This is my promise," he said. "If you get frightened, you will find a door. Put the key in the door and turn it."
I stepped off the stump and moved up through the trees. Up and up I rose, the wood falling behind me. The squirrels ran along the branches and grabbed at my hands trying to take the key. I looked down but the man had gone, as had the clearing, and all that I could see was the lawn of trees spread below me. My ascent stopped and I tipped horizontally and began swooping and wheeling through the sky. I bounced off the billowing clouds, shot through the gaps in their clusters, sported with eagles, and span with the wind.
* * *
From my bedroom window I sometimes watch the children playing out in the street. Some wheel about on bicycles. Others are playing tag. Two girls have drawn a grid in the middle of the road, and they are playing hop-scotch. They throw a small stone and bounce to the square in which it lies. Their legs take curious angular shapes as they hop down the chalk-drawn path. They laugh and squeal sometimes; at other moments, as they prepare to pitch the stone, their faces are set in concentration.
My breath fogs the window, and I wipe it with my sleeve so that I can see out again.
* * *
I was sitting on the roof of my home watching the sun beginning to rise. There were the early people: the newspaper delivery boys and the milkmen, the postman turning the corner into my street. I slid through the tiling, in through the loft space, and down into my room. I saw myself sleeping, tucked tightly into my bed, and in the corner was the eiderdown folded and neat. I opened my hand and the key had gone. I'd lost my promise, and I would be at the mercy of my night-rides once again. I looked at my sleeping self, rocking mildly, murmuring, groaning. Outside, the sun was lighting the front of the house, creeping up the wall ready to push in at my window. I looked around the room and checked under the bed, but there was no sign of the promise or Timmy. My night-time was over, and I lifted myself up into the air, becoming vapor and shade, and slipped back into the ear of my sleeping body.
Late afternoon sun filters in through the window and lights the floor where I am at work. I fit together the parts of the machine without bothering to throw the dice or move the game pieces. It takes more than one to play the game properly, but I can still make the machine work. When I am done I crank the handle, the bucket tips, and the metal ball rolls down the chutes. At the end of its journey it drops onto the see-saw, and the green man is launched into the tub. The red plastic cage rattles down the pole.
"Mousetrap," I say.
* * * I was in a room and the floor was a moving carpet of mice. They were climbing the walls and the curtains, squeaking, scrambling. There were so many of them. Getting mad that they were all over the place, I started to stamp on them. I could feel their bodies crunching and squelching, and my feet were getting bogged down in the mouse jam that I was creating. There had to be another way. A mouse ran up the door of the room and I grabbed it in my hand. That achieved I stood calmly with its wriggling body quick and alive in my grasp. I didn't know what to do with it. I had to think. The mouse grew cold and hardened in my hand. It felt like the chain of the swing.
I could feel the wind in my face and it rumbled in my ears as I swung backwards and forwards. And there was Timmy again. I flew into the air and landed softly on the ground. This time I made it to the back door of the house. My father in his tuxedo held the glistening knife. Timmy slipped between me and the safety of the kitchen. I checked my pockets and I look around on the ground. I needed the key, I had lost the promise.
"I have it! I have it!" Timmy cried gleefully, and as before he sank the hooks into my arms.
* * *
The children in the street are playing soldiers. They hide behind the cars and stalk each other, leaping out and filling the air with the crack of their cap guns. One of them, pretending to be shot, rolls out into the street, writhing and screaming while the others laugh. He judders to a final stillness. His head is lying in the ghost of the hop-scotch grid. Number eight. Instead of skipping to the square where the head lies, the boys fire their guns into the air in triumph.
* * *
There was a man in my bedroom, sitting on my bed, holding a gun. He laughed softly at me.
"What do you want?" I asked calmly, curious rather than threatened. He laughed again.
"You just stay there in the corner," he said. "You do as you're told."
I could hear the kids out in the street playing on their bikes, their skates, their boards. In the kitchen below my room my mother moved around, the clatter of crockery, the smell of baking. It was safety, just out of reach.
I concentrated really hard and managed to put some aspects of the dream on hold. The man froze, the gun tipped away from me. I silenced the noises from outside the house. Sidling to the door, I called to my mother. I strained my voice shouting as loudly as I could, but the kitchen sounds went on without pause, and my mother didn't come to help me. I turned to the wall and walked through it. I was on a hillside and the golden stranger was there again.
"I lost the key," I told him, ashamed.
He smiled and shook his head.
"They took it from you," he said. "If you want it back, you must go and find it. Next time you have it, you must hold onto the promise. Things will get worse, you'll need it." He walked over to me and put a powerful arm around me.
"Go and find it," he said, and kissed the top of my head.
We both lifted up into the air, but I got caught in a tree which stopped me from following him. From where he had kissed me, a warm glow spread down through my head, my shoulders, my chest and back, and my legs. My toes curled with happiness. I fell from the tree onto my bed. My legs ached and I cried out. It was a dull, throbbing pain that I couldn't ease. There was only one thing that would help.
* * *
My father, wrapped in his dressing gown, comes into my room and turns on the bed-side light.
"What is it?" he asks kindly. "Is it growing pains in your legs again?"
I nod and moan. He pulls back the sheets and takes my spindly legs into his soft hands.
"It's the Air Show next week. Would you like to go?"
I nod, sleepily.
"We'll go on Saturday," he says. "I promise."
Gently he rubs my shins and my knees. It doesn't really make the pain any easier, but it's comforting to have him there to give me a break from the night-flight. After easing my legs back beneath the sheets, he tucks me in very tightly. He sits with me and I close my eyes.
* * *
I saw my father sitting on the side of the bed watching me sleep, my eyes twitching in dreams. He leaned forward, swept my hair from my forehead, and breathed a quiet prayer over me. From my position high above, I could see the gunman beneath the bed, and Timmy peeping out from behind the curtains. I couldn't understand why my father didn't do something about the mice that were pouring up out of my bed, forcing their way past my sleeping body and spilling out from the tucked-in sheets.
To escape them, I went up through the ceiling and onto the roof. The sky was black and pin-pricked with stars. I could hear the gunman rooting around in the roof space trying to find me. There were a few mice up there, but they didn't bother me. Maybe they knew what the goo was caked to my feet. I could see Timmy Hooks-for-Hands torturing small animals in the garden. There was a crack of light opening in the sky. It was time to go. Below me Timmy wheeled in smaller circles; in the shadow of the house the light wouldn't reach him for a few more moments. He was playing with something. He held it up in the air for a second and it glinted in dawn's finger. He had the promise threaded over one of his hooks.
Hurried by the dawn, I slipped through the roof and down into my room. The bed was warm as I insinuated myself back into my breathing shell once more. I was determined and sure. I would find the promise and claim it back from my once-valued, once-real friend.
It's daylight and I'm not dreaming. I'm home from school, proudly bearing the new pictures that I have drawn. I drew Timmy.
"What a scary pirate," my teacher Mrs. Hatfield said when I presented it to her.
I place the pictures carefully down on the kitchen counter. Through the kitchen window, I can look down the full length of the garden and I see the shed, cradled in the elbow crook of the hedge. My mother comes into the room and picks up the pictures.
"These are really good," she says. "Who is it?"
"It's Timmy," I tell her. She knows about Timmy, because I used to tell her about the plane flying overhead, and about him parachuting out to come and play with me. She said that she saw him too, but I know that she didn't.
"I thought he'd gone," she says. "Timmy hasn't come to play for a long time, has he?"
"No."
I haven't told her that Timmy has become nasty. My mother fills the kettle to make some tea.
"Can I go out into the garden for a while?" I ask.
"Of course you can," she replies. "I've just got some ironing to do before I get the meal ready. Okay?"
"Great."
I go out into the garden. There are a few hours of light left. Maybe he sleeps during the day. I'll have to chance it. I walk to the swing and sit on it so that I am looking at the shed rather than the house. I start to swing backwards and forwards. A group of black birds suddenly fly up out of the hedge. They wheel up into the sky and disperse. The sun seems to be sinking faster than usual. I have to swing higher and higher to make it seem further above the horizon. Don't go, I plead, don't go. On a really high curve I let go of the chains and I am launched into the air. My body feels heavy, and the air doesn't hold me as it does in my dreams. The leap is over in seconds and I am tumbling forwards onto the hard ground. I sit up rubbing my arm with satisfaction. Good, I am definitely not asleep, so perhaps I will be safe from his hooks.
Nervously I make my way to the side of the shed and squeeze between its tatty wooden side and the hedge. Instantly I am covered in cobwebs and dead flies. I summon up my courage and thrust my head forward. The back of the shed is moldy and rotten. The hedge is brown and brittle where the sun can't reach it. More cobwebs. No Timmy. Easing myself around, my clothes catching on stray twigs and branches, I manage to get into the hollow. He has to have hidden it here somewhere. I kick around the dead leaves and debris. There is so much to look through, and the promise is so small. The sleeve of my sweater gets stuck on a particularly tenacious branch. I reach around to release myself and find that I am caught on a half-moon of wood. It looks like a hook. Threaded over it is a small silver key.
* * *
I could feel the wind in my face and it rumbled in my ears as I swung backwards and forwards.
"Okay, Timmy. I'm ready," I muttered between my teeth.
The wind rustled the hedge, or maybe it was Timmy coming for me. I allowed the swing to slow to a stop, my legs tucked back under the seat. When I was going slowly and low enough, I dragged my feet on the ground to bring the pendulum to rest. It was important not to hurry, to show that I was in control. The kitchen light was on, but there was no sign of my parents. I was on my own. Stepping from the swing I walked slowly towards the house. I could feel Timmy breathing on the back of my neck. The door was steps away and still he hadn't stopped me. I put my hand on the handle and turned it. It was locked. Turning, I looked right into his snarling face. His eyes were like dark, smoldering coals.
"Do you want to play?" he sneered, waving one of the hooks in front of my face.
"I'm going inside," I said.
"How are you going to get in?" he mocked. "Little boy is locked out. He'll have to play with Timmy now." He laughed, his mouth pink and wet. There was an appalling smell on his breath, like old cat food.
I reached inside my cheek and produced the promise from its hiding place. It had been resting in my mouth, safe and hidden. As soon as he saw it, Timmy began to fade. The laughter caught in his throat and he began to choke on it. It came out of his mouth like black bile, pouring down his chin and over his chest. He clutched at his throat with his hooks and succeeded in piecing his own neck. The laughter dripped where his feet would have been, had he possessed any. High overhead I heard the sounds of an airplane. I saw the spinning propellers and, as I put my hands over my ears to block out the roar of the engines, I saw the trailing noose of rope. The loop of the line slipped over Timmy and swept him away up into the sky. The plane banked away, looking like a flying fisherman with an obscene catch on the line. Timmy had gone back to where he came from. On the floor in front of me, a pool of his laughter still bubbled and spat, but, as I watched, it sank into the ground leaving a faint stain.
I still held the promise, the silver key, and I pushed it into the lock of the door. It turned easily and I entered the kitchen. The floor was a moving carpet of mice, but this time I knew what to do. Tucking the promise back inside my cheek I grabbed a mouse as it scuttled up the door. I could feel it struggling in my hand, but I had my plan. I walked to the sink, pushed in the plug, and turned the taps full on with my free hand. It filled quickly and noisily. The mouse seemed to have given up the struggle, perhaps knowing that its fate was unavoidable now. Plunging my hand into the water I held the mouse under the surface until it drowned.
The water against my hand started to move, the pressure gently pulling my fingers apart and taking the mouse from my grasp. The breeze on my face was warm and moist as I tipped my head back under its caress. I sat in a boat with my hand trailing in the river of mercury. It was a sunny and bright day, the willows bending, touching the water like drinking animals. Frogs sat on the lily pads, throats bulging and expelling, eyes unblinking and inscrutable. I was not alone in the row-boat. My father pulled the oars gently and we slid through the water.
"How are your legs?" he asked.
I looked down and saw my legs thin and ropey, coiled underneath me as cables are on ships. I smiled at him.
"They're fine," I said. "Just growing pains."
The sun circled the sky like a balloon and we descended the river, passing rapids and waterfalls as if they were minor bumps in a smooth road. My father never broke the easy rhythm of the stroke, and I lay back, my legs in coils, my hand dragging in the silver river.
* * *
"I am really sorry," my father says. "I have to go to work."
"But we were going to the Air Show today," I say, vastly disappointed.
"I know, I know. I said I was sorry. This is important, though. We'll do something tomorrow instead." He pats me on the head, and collects his briefcase from the hallway.
I watch his car drive away from the front of the house, scattering a crowd of pigeons that had settled in the road. The birds reconvene on a cable swinging between two poles. They all sit with their backs to me.
* * *
We were in a forest, but still sitting in the boat. It wasn't my father, it was the man with the hair of fire.
"Do you have the promise?" he asked me.
I checked with my tongue and nodded.
"Good," he said. "Then we may continue."
He stepped out of the boat and lifted me up. My legs, which were ropes, trailed along the ground as he carried me out of the trees and into a field of bright yellow grasses. He set me down in the middle and uncoiled my legs so that they stretched from corner to corner of the field. He tied then to the posts of the fence.
"Hold the promise," he told me. "You are not dreaming."
Instead of the fence posts, my legs were tied to the foot of my bed, and I was back in my room. The gunman held the gun to my head. I heard the chamber click into position as he pulled back the hammer. My arms were pinned to my sides. He had threaded them to my body through the holes that had been left by Timmy's hooks.
"You just stay there," he said. "You do as you're told."
I needed to get the promise from my mouth, but I couldn't use my arms. The gunman sat on my chair and watched me. He had a mouse's eyes. I could hear my mother in the kitchen, as before. I had to think calmly and maybe I could make things happen--but I could only do that in dreams, and the man with fire in his hair had told me that I wasn't dreaming. I didn't know what was real anymore. If I was dreaming, I could get out of this mess; but if I was awake and this was real, the gunman would kill me. I got scared. If I thought about the gunman shooting me, and I was dreaming, then surely he would do it. It would be my dream.
I saw the milky hands outside the window approaching through the darkness, and then they were tapping gently on the glass. They had come to help me, but couldn't get in.. With my tongue, I slowly eased the promise to the front of my mouth. I drew in as much breath as I could, and then spat the key towards the window. It flew across the room as if it was forcing itself through a gelatinous mass. The key hit the glass and the lines spread out from the center of the impact to the edges of the frame. With a mighty gust, the windows shattered and the air was sucked out of the room. Clothes and papers flew everywhere; it was like a hurricane. The gunman was horizontal, parallel to the floor as he clung to the wardrobe. Against the force of the wind the hands came to me and untied my bonds. They took my arms and freed them, and then I was whisked through the window and out into the night.
I sat on the roof and the hands stroked my hair. They were gentle loving hands. They were the hands of a happier, more innocent time. They were Timmy's hands, lost when he had grown the hooks. They signed to me, and I understood he loved me, but that he had to leave. The right hand opened and I saw the promise lying in his palm. I reached out and took it. The hands touched my face and my lips and then they linked their thumbs together and flew away like a bird.
* * *
I still see the stranger with the fiery hair and the golden beard some nights. He greets me as I slip from my ear, and takes me to a new door. He says, "Have you still got the promise?"
I nod and indicate where it is tucked into my cheek. He smiles and the door is opened.
On the other side of the door there is no Timmy, there is no gunman, there are no mice. There is no father, there is no mother, there is no river of mercury. There is a garden and in it there is a swing, and on the swing I sit and I slip through the air, to and fro. I can feel the wind on my face and it rumbles in my ears as I swing backwards and forwards.
I am not dreaming.
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