BED MATE Sunday, Jan 27 2008

WARNING: Some stories may contain disturbing scenes

Is the world we see about us real or illusion? Is the world a hard, material fact, or does reality bend to how we want the world to be? Philosophers and theologians have grappled with this question since history began and never have they provided a satisfactory answer. But in our day to day lives we need not worry about such things. Or should we?
When James Berford came to see me I can only describe him as terrified. ‘I need help,’ he said as he sat in front of the desk.
I was immediately on edge as he said this, as his voice had that shaky hysteria of unpredictability. ‘Perhaps you’d better tell me the problem,’ I said.
‘It’s that clown. It’s evil, pure evil. I know it is. And I’m sure it’s going to kill my son.’
I offered as serene a smile as possible, although I must admit my anxiety was rising by the second. ‘The clown?’ I asked.
‘That bloody toy. It’s demonic. It is, I’m telling you!’
It took me a long time to settle him down; to get from him the facts in as calm and logical a way as possible. And the facts seemed to be these: Four months ago baby Paul had been born to James and Jenny Berford. And for the first week or so everything had gone exactly as had been expected. But then, as they were passing a toy shop, Jenny Berford had had an impulse to rush into the shop and buy a toy clown as bed mate for her baby.
‘And ever since then,’ James continued, ’she’s changed. She’s no longer happy, but goes around in a daze. And the only time she seems right is when she’s holding that clown. It’s as if she’s got a relationship with it. And both me and Paul are ignored.’
The explanation seemed obvious enough to me, but I decided it would be best to see what was going on for myself. Hence, under the pretence of being a friend and business associate I was invited to the house. And whilst I had decided that it was a simple case of post-natal depression with all emotions transferred to an inanimate object, the second I stepped into the house, a deep chill seemed to descend upon me.
This sense of unease infected everything in the Berford household, with even James losing his sense of the terrified and instead becoming almost comatose. Jenny, herself, was clearly depressed. But I also sensed in James that everything was not quite right. Could I have been wrong in my initial hypothesis? Was it a simple case of post-natal depression, or could James, himself, be exhibiting a form of paranoia, perhaps based on the jealousy of his son, his wife no longer giving him the attention he felt he deserved?
I knew from that moment on that it would be a difficult case; but a case I had to get to the bottom of quickly, for it was clear that baby Paul’s life could well be in danger.
Conversation during my visit was strained, even melancholy, and the oppressive nature of the house would simply not go away. And when, after asking to see their son, I went upstairs, I can only report that the eerieness of the place intensified.
Baby Paul slept peacefully in his cot, but even this most beautiful sight could not lift the mood, for beside him laid the clown, and I knew how easy it was to be delusive about such things.
The clown was a simple stuffed toy, about two feet long with yellow trousers, red and white stripped shirt, a huge bow-tie and blue jacket. But there was something about the clown’s face that stirred in me my appreciation of evil.
I knew it was inanimate, but somehow the hint of animation was upon that face, as if it somehow knew what was going on; perhaps even playing a part.
As I left the house I tried to dismiss this feeling of unease as a by-product of the psychological mess the family was suffering. It was hard enough figuring out whether the problem laid in James or Jenny, without having to add a further, demonic angle to the case. Finally managing to put these fears to the back of my mind, I knew, of course, what I had to do. The lot of a psychotherapist is a heavy one. Anyone can set up as a psychotherapist, for it requires little in the way of training, and absolutely no qualifications. I am not a psychologist or psychiatrist, who
are professionally trained. Rather, I am simply a man with an interest in the mind and the nature of evil. Hence, with a baby’s life in possible danger, I knew I was out of my league. Drugs and professional help were what James and Jenny Berford required, and I resolved to phone social services the very next morning and hand the case to them.
But if only I had done it straight away, it may not have ended as it did.
The phone rang at two o’clock that morning. Sleepily, I picked it up to be confronted by James Berford’s manic voice. ‘You’ve got to come quickly. It’s Paul. He’s dead!’
I rushed to the Berford household as quickly as I could. As I entered the house, the same eerie feeling gripped me, as if as soon as you passed the threshold, an altered reality came into being. James Berford was sat, stiffly, on the settee, shock having gripped him and unable to communicate. Jenny was not to be seen, so I rushed upstairs and into Baby Paul’s room. He laid there peacefully in death, yet the horror of seeing the slight bruising on his neck was too much for me. With a heavy heart, I picked up my mobile, resolved to phone the police. Yet as I went out into the hall, the sound of quiet, but happy whisperings came to my ears.
Is the world we see about us real or illusion? I pushed open the door to the master bedroom, the hall light lancing through the dark to highlight the back of Jenny Berford sat on her bed, talking sweetly to the clown she held in her arms. And I swear to you, the clown’s arm was stroking her back.

(c) Anthony North, January 2008

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IT’S LIKE A VIRUS Tuesday, Jan 1 2008

WARNING: Some stories may contain disturbing scenes.

They say that life is like a road you travel down. For a while it will go nice and straight, but occasionally you get surprising corners that nearly knock you off the road. Then there are the crossroads – you know, times when a choice decides your entire life’s journey. But really it is nothing like a road, because on the road you get warning signs of the crossroads. In life, you get no warning at all; and when you hit, boy it can be a matter of life and death.
I had one of those moments when I met Jake. I suppose, with hindsight, the warning sign was there. He was a gaunt man with eyes that had such depth it was as if he had seen every horror there was to see. Maybe I should have realized that if I walked his road, I would see it all too. But I was young, adventurous, not the sort to turn down a challenge – in short, I was a fool.
I met him in a bar. It was a typical crossroads of a bar. My train was delayed, so I’d wandered out of the station to find a drink. And there was Jake, the only other person in the bar, sat in a corner, surrounded by shadows.
Something about me drew me to him; intrigue, I suppose – a sense that this man was interesting. We talked small talk for a while, and then he hit me with it. ‘Do you believe in ghosts?’ he said.
It was one of those innocuous, trivial questions. We all claim to have seen something in our life, but we never really take it seriously. ‘Do you believe in ghosts?’ I wish I’d never heard him say that. Because once he’d said it, I’d begun to turn into that damned crossroads.

I won’t recount the entire conversation. It becomes tedious; and I don’t really want to remember everything. My mind won’t take it – it goes into overdrive and I feel as if I’m losing my sense of reality.
That’s funny, I suppose – the idea that I know what reality is any more.
Jake had a friend. He was a man he met in a bar – a kind of crossroads of a bar, and this man had eyes that had seen everything, and he told Jake the same story that Jake told me.
The friend had been to a haunted house. He didn’t know it was haunted at the time. He knew, as he arrived, that it was old, and it had an aura about it. He knew, as soon as he walked in, that its soul began to cling to him. And he knew that the person who had invited him in was similarly haunted. ‘I don’t get visitors,’ he had said, ‘not of the normal kind.’
Jake’s friend had seen something that night. He was vague about what he had seen, but Jake knew it had stirred up something inside him. And over the following weeks and months, he saw his friend deteriorate rapidly into a form of madness. ‘They followed me home,’ he said to Jake one day, and that was as much as he would disclose. And then, as inexplicably as they had met, he disappeared. And being an adventurous sort of person – in other words, a fool – Jake decided to walk the friend’s road, which took him to the door of the house.

Maybe he should have turned away from the crossroads at that moment. I suppose we can do that – you know, say this is as far as I go; turn back. But the beauty of our species is that we have an enquiring mind, and once the mind has been activated, we rarely have the courage to say no. We are caught in the trap of life, and we must go on.
Jake went on.
He got no answer as he knocked on the door, and as he looked at the windows he began to doubt the story his friend had told him in the first place. And it was a doubt that had been confirmed when he tried the door and it was unlocked. Pushing it, it creaked, and bit by bit, a dark, damp and dusty environment greeted him. This house hasn’t been occupied for years, he realized, so how could his friend have possibly been invited in?
But occupancy is a word we are not always quite so sure about. Even an empty house is rarely empty. Something is in there – creepy crawlies and an army of rodents and …
… yes. And what?
Jake came out of the house with his deep, soulless eyes.

Do I tell you what he told me on subsequent meetings we had – what he saw? I suppose I could, but it would not be the true reality of his situation. No, the reality was much worse than that.
‘They followed me out of that house.’
‘Who are “they”?’ I asked, but I got only a simple reply.
‘It’s like a virus,’ he said. Then, on our final meeting: ‘I’m going back.’

Jake preyed on my mind for weeks after that. Where was he? What had he done? What did he mean? And as sure as night follows day, I was drawn to that house.
I approached it with a sense of foreboding. I had seen houses like this before, but only in horror films. Huge trees formed a malevolent arch over the drive, and as I spied the house itself, I could sense an aura shrouding it – and an aura that could so easily gain free access to my mind. It was, I knew, my last opportunity to turn away from the crossroads, but equally, I knew, I could never do that. And I passed through the door …
A chill hit me as soon as I walked inside. Scurrying noises came to me from the corner of every room, and the windows were so dust encrusted that only flitting shadows were allowed in. Spider’s webs covered everything, and dangled from the high ceilings to touch my skin and jar my soul.
I found the first skeleton in the first room I explored. Its bones were white and it was evident it had been here for decades, if not centuries. And as I moved from room to room, I found more skeletons, but with each find, it was obvious that they were becoming more recent. Eventually, I found one where the flesh had not yet completely disappeared, and in the room after that, I found Jake, his eyes like sockets, and a putrid stench coming from his decaying flesh.
It was then that I felt the presence behind me. It seemed to touch me, beckoning me to turn round; which was, of course, a thing I just did not want to do. But eventually I was drawn to the unknown and I turned.
Jake was stood before me.

So few hours have gone by since I saw Jake’s ghost, but it seems like an eternity. His soulless eyes were still there, and it was clear that he was witnessing the same hell in death that he had in the final stages of his life. Whatever happened to him, I didn’t know at first, but soon it began to dawn on me that Jake had starved to death. But why? Why had he not left the house?
I asked myself the question many times, but knew the answer all along. If the answer was vague when I saw Jake’s ghost, it became a little clearer when it was joined by his friends. And his friend’s by his friends, and on and on came the ghosts, wearing the clothes and fashions of the centuries since the house was built. And in every one of them the knowing that if they had left …
But they couldn’t.
Jake’s friend had said it all: ‘They followed me home.’ And Jake himself, to me: ‘It’s like a virus.’
And now I sit.
I’m hungry. But I know the crossroads was a dead end. I close my eyes as they swirl, laughing, about me, for I realize my quarantine is permanent.

(c) Anthony North, December 2007

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LOVE CONQUERS ALL Tuesday, Dec 11 2007

SOME STORIES MAY CONTAIN DISTURBING SCENES

How do I describe the events concerning my friend, David. How do we rationalise such things; how do we grasp for under­standing? We are told, from birth, that some things are impossible. Yet at the same time we have phrases such as ‘faith can move mountains’, or ‘love conquers all.’ But can it conquer so absolutely?
David had been in love with Rebecca from the moment they met. Two beautiful people thrown together by a chance encounter; or was it fate? But which ever it was, love was immediate, and still had room to blossom.
David and I met often before he met Rebecca - for a drink, for a game of football in the local team. For any reason - we had been friends from school. But my importance soon declined, as it will when one’s life partner arrives on the scene.
I never begrudged his separation from me for an instant. How could I when I saw how happy he was - how happy they both were.
Marriage, inevitably, followed, but not children. They never even bothered trying to discover who was incapable of having children. ‘It isn’t important,’ he told me one night when we DID go out for a drink. ‘It will only lead to blame; and we can do without that.’
Yet I’d never known a couple so capable of handling such blame. But maybe children had never been quite that important. They were happy - totally happy - with their own company. In fact, in the five years that David knew Rebecca I never saw either of them without a smile, without a knowing that they were one for ever and all time. Until that car came along and left Rebecca dead in the road.

Life is a balance and a bitch. For whatever emotion you feel, the same intensity can come to the opposite when that sick cosmic joker plays his games. And David’s love was mighty. So it was inevitable that his grief would be total.
He tried so hard to remain strong through the funeral. But it was impossible for one who had experienced so much love. He collapsed, wracked with grief, comatose with the knowledge that Rebecca was gone from him forever.
‘Not forever,’ he said, talking afterwards through the tears. ‘I will see her again.’

Over the following weeks I was deeply worried about David. I could not coax him out for a drink, could not make him talk again - to explain what he meant. Over those weeks I saw his grief turn to a kind of determination, and eventually it was he who came to me.
‘Come with me,’ he said. ‘I’m going to talk to Rebecca.’
I seriously doubted his sanity as we got into his car and drove off. But eventually I realised what he meant - and wished he hadn’t taken me there.
We all have an image in our mind of the Spiritualist medium as some crank in flowing robes and a mania in her eyes. So when we were introduced to a well dressed, well mannered, and seemingly sane man in his thirties, I was surprised.
Together we went into his room, and following a preliminary chat in which I was sure David let slip enough hints to furnish the medium with the required information, he attempted contact.
‘She was taken from you suddenly, wasn’t she David?’
He answered in the affirmative, and the medium went on: ‘You were both very much in love, and Rebecca misses you. But she has a message for you, David. You mustn’t grieve for her too long. She wouldn’t want that. She says you must try to get back to life. You mustn’t forget her, but look for her in others. Look for her, David, and you may find what you had with her again.’

Later, I had to admit the medium was a clever soul. I don’t think a psychiatrist could have eased his mind better. We went for a drink afterwards and I could see him visibly cheer up, as if he really believed Rebecca had told him this. But what goes on in the grieving mind is different to other minds. They cling to the spurious, find hope in that which others couldn’t even dream.
He carried out her wishes with a renewed energy.
‘I’ve signed on with a dating agency,’ he told me a week later as he came for a drink. ‘I haven’t been out dating for so long. Do you think I’ll be alright?’
‘Of course you will, David,’ I said, ‘enjoy yourself.’
Of course, he didn’t.
‘She was nothing like Rebecca.’
I nearly choked on my drink. ‘I don’t think you’ve got the idea quite right here, David,’ I said.
‘Oh, I have. Believe me, I have.’

Over the following month he went out with maybe half a dozen girls, none of them fitting the bill. But then we went out one night and I realised another change.
‘She was so like Rebecca,’ he said, ‘I’m going to see her again.’
‘But it isn’t Rebecca, David. It’s someone else.’
His eyes glazed over then, as if he had cut out this knowledge from consciousness.
A week later, I met his new girl. And sure enough she was nothing like Rebecca. Yet, when I saw her again a couple of weeks later, she was subtly different, both in looks and mannerisms. And she was different in the way Rebecca had been.
‘I’m so happy with my Rebecca,’ David said a few weeks after that.
‘But David, it isn’t Rebecca.’
‘She does everything just as I like it, and we’re almost together again.’

I wasn’t exactly sure what David was playing at, but I suddenly felt his new girlfriend could be in danger. And it was my duty to warn her, despite my friendship with David. Hence, that night I secretly went to his house, crept up the garden and looked in the window, checking that his new girlfriend was there.
She was, so I waited for her to leave, tackle her outside and warn her.
Sure enough, the time came for her to go and I saw her put on her coat and open the door to walk outside. Ready to speak to her, I moved forward, but …
… she never appeared.
I stood, dumbfounded. I had seen her walk to the door and open it. But then it was as if she vanished. I began to wonder then if it was really me who was mad.

I spied on David from then on. I tried to find out who this new girlfriend was. But I drew a blank. It then occurred to me that she only seemed to exist when she was with David. I once saw her in the hall, just arrived, and go to David. But I had not seen her arrive at the house. She just materialized from nowhere. And then there was the transition in her. Bit by bit she WAS turning into Rebecca, as if she were a thought slowly taking shape in David’s mind and externalising in the real world when he was around.
That, or some form of ghost or spirit.
Which, I will never know. But one or the other she certainly was. For within another week there was no doubt that the vision that materialised in David’s living room was Rebecca. She was Rebecca in every way. In every mannerism, in every physical attribute. And I couldn’t get it out of my mind that this night there was to be an ending to the affair.
And how right it turned out to be.

It was a fire that burned in her eyes as her metamorphosis was complete - a fire that began with a passion as they kissed, and turned almost demonic as her manner changed, as her hands came from his back and placed themselves around his throat, as they squeezed and David’s life seemed to leave him. Yet as he fell to the floor, dead, I couldn’t help but notice a smile was still on his face.
I broke into the house, then, not believing what I had just seen. But sure enough, his body was laid, still, on the floor.
Rebecca - or whatever it was - stood waiting in the corner, and as she waited, I saw David’s spirit body separate from his shell. Slowly he walked - floated - across the room to her embrace. And together they smiled; and before my eyes, they disappeared as one, forever.

(c) Anthony North, July 2007

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IT STALKS ME Monday, Nov 5 2007

WARNING: Some stories may contain disturbing scenes.

Contagion. A simple word. A medical word. Someone catches a cold. They pass it on. You suffer from closeness to the person. Contagion. Nothing simpler. Nothing more obvious. But what about contagion of the mind? Can we suffer the nightmares of others?
There were precedents, I knew. Laughter, for instance, is contagious. It seems to spread through many minds, as if a contagion. Virulent. So why shouldn’t the nightmares of others do the same?
Ridiculous, I know. But for so long the possibility of such an event was with me. I lived in a world of cranks, of malign forces, of mind sickness unimaginable. And it was always a fear that a little of it could rub off on me. But I do not fear it now. Fear is of the unknown. Now, I know it can occur. So I do not fear. I raise a mental armour to defeat it, and realise that at times things must be done that at no other time would be acceptable.
I won’t give his name. To do so could implicate me. I will simply call him the Murderer.
He had served his time. It was a typical murder, born out of hatred. The Murderer had waited for his former friend in an alley, and when he came, he beat him to death. You could even argue that murder was not the intent. But murder it became. Why, is of no consequence to the events that followed his release. And I only tell you the details to show you that it was nothing unusual. At least, not in terms of what murderers do.
‘I killed someone,’ he told me when he came to my office.
‘You did?’
‘Yes. And as for the price? Ten years I served. And now I’m free. ‘
‘So what do you do now?’ I asked.
‘I suppose I exist. What else can I do when the man I murdered has been with me for so many years.’
‘With you?’ I asked.
‘Yes. He’s with me always. I see him now, stood next to you, looking down at me in judgement.’
The hairs stood up on the back of my neck at this. I could see the hollowness in his eyes, and in their depth it was almost as if this apparition of his conscience was reflected in them.
‘I need your help,’ he said. ‘I’m free from prison, but how do I become free of him?’
The answer was simple, in theory. ‘You must come to terms with what you did. He will not leave you until you do that.’
So over the following weeks the Murderer and I went into deep therapy, analysing his life, the event, his feeling of redemption. Yet all the time his eyes would dart to my side and I sensed the existence of the murdered man brushing against me.
By the third session I did, however, seem to make progress. For the first time since we met, I saw the Murderer smile.
I pointed this out; congratulated him; attempted to raise in him joviality at his success, and I have to admit a second smile did appear. But a couple of hours after he had gone; as darkness was beginning to invade my room, the telephone rang.
Picking it up, a deep, gutteral, other-worldly voice said: ‘You will not succeed. I will haunt him for eternity.’
That night was horrible. My guard had slipped, and throughout the night I had nightmares, reliving the murder in my own mind. And at one point, half awake, I looked to the side of my bed and saw the victim before me, his face blooded and pulped. And through the blood, he smiled, as the Murderer had smiled.
That was only the beginning. From that point on, whenever I was alone, phenomena would erupt about me. In the morning furniture would be moved; messages would appear on my walls, written in blood. ‘An eye for an eye,’ they said, or, ‘do unto others as they would do unto you.’
I was losing my mind. I KNEW I was losing my mind. And as the sessions continued, and the Murderer became more and more happy with himself, his haunting was transferred to me.
Eventually, I had no choice. It was late at night when I entered his flat, and with gloved hands I approached his bed, lowered my body and throttled him to death.
How I will live with myself now, I have no idea. I had crossed the divide between good and evil. But in a way, how do we know, in the ultimate scheme of things, where good and evil are? WE seem to class evil, today, as those things the law decrees as evil. Yet law is rational, and rarely takes other-worldly things into account. So yes, we must live by the law, and I pray I never have to do such a thing again. But as I went to sleep for the first time in an age, I looked by the side of my bed and an apparition said ‘thankyou’; and the thought struck me that maybe I had been the agency of a higher justice.

© Anthony North, July 2007

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A FRIEND, A GHOST Friday, May 11 2007

WARNING: SOME STORIES MAY CONTAIN DISTURBING SCENES

They come from the unknown; from a region we fear. Most of us live in relative safety, happy in the knowledge that the world we see about us is all there is. We exist in a blinkered state, thinking of other realms only fleetingly, aware only of the occasional shadow of unreality that shrouds us. When this occurs - to most - it offers titillating conversation to encompass a lifetime; a brief tale of the time that YOU saw - a ghost. And when the viewer speaks of his experience, what is uppermost in the mind but fear?
Yes, fear. He will recount his tale with humour - with a nod and a wink and a touch of bravado. But inside the fear assaults from two fronts. First, a remembrance of the prickly fright that assaulted when the ghost was first seen, sending blood pumping and adrenalin soaring; and then - ashamedly - the fear of ridicule if you are seen to actually believe what you saw.
Hence, the humour, lest your friends think you mad. For nothing can be worse than being branded insane. Nothing can be worse than being thought of as a psychological leper, your mind dripping away, analogous to the flesh of the sufferer of old.
I was branded insane - for I had seen.
The spirit had been stalking my friend. Often he would visit, shutting the door to my flat, happy in his view of true material reality, unimpeded by spooks from other worlds. Yet, not a second after the door was shut, through the door it would come, existing in the half world of reality, and the half world of the other realm. Slowly, sickeningly, translucently, it would hover by his shoulder, forever touching with the icy chill of the supernatural. At times my friend would even rub his shoulder, putting the touch down to irritation of his jacket, or offer other unconvincing excuses. For he did not believe, did not accept the spectre at his back, and the ghost would laugh hysterically, abominably, demonically at his curt denials.
But I knew, and I saw, and I feared telling my friend of his stalker for I knew it would be too much for him to bear. But to another friend I did speak out - a friend who I knew had seen before, and had the courage to believe.
Intrigued, he came to my flat one night when my friend was due. Together, we waited expectantly for my friend to arrive. And arrive he did, coming through the door and then shutting it. And as if on cue, the spectre followed, menacingly, hovering close, his dark pits of eyes, staring me out, challenging me to out him.
Not wanting to spook my new visitor, I turned to my colleague and hinted with eyes only that the spectre was there, open and to be seen. But whether the second viewer was a good actor or simply did not see, I was unsure at that time. But later, there was no doubt.
It is cliche to call them the men in white coats. But there is no better way to describe them when they knock on your door. Okay, they don’t wear white coats, and they do not really seem mad themselves, but their entire bearing as they arrive leaves you in no doubt as to who they are, and what their intentions must be. And it was then that I knew my friend had not seen - had not understood. It was then, as the straight-jacket was attached, that I realised his words of agreement after my friend had gone were mere theatre. He was simply calming me, making sure I didn’t over react and hurt myself.
I should have known - I had suspected that the watering of his eyes was a tear of regret, and an acknowledgement that a friend of long standing had now lost his mind.
In the asylum the shrinks tried their best, tried to understand why I saw what I did - what had happened to my mind to allow such vile hallucinations to exist. But their bland denials of the spectre’s real existence guaranteed they could not ease my mind. Thus the spectres of another world mocked. Night after night, alone in my darkened cell, the ghost’s friends would visit, tugging at my leg, ruffling my hair and shrieking hysterically into the night.
They were vile, were those nights, my cell a centre for infestation from the weird world that shrouds us. Indeed, the shroud was becoming more omnipotent as it hung over me, beckoning me to join them - to become at one with the night, when they ruled. But I managed to keep hold of reality for a little longer than most as they took me. I had to do so in order to provide proof to force those who deny to accept that such an other world exists, forever tugging at yours, the spectres standing over your shoulder, watching, touching, breathing down your forever exposed neck.
And so I give you the proof. For the next morning I was found dead. Suicide they said. But I know different. And so, now, do you. For tell me. With no pen or paper in my cell, how could I have written the words you are reading in life?

(c) Anthony North, 1994

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GRANT ME A DEATH Thursday, May 3 2007

WARNING: SOME STORIES MAY CONTAIN DISTURBING SCENES

The building nestled at the bottom of the hill, the light mist slowly approaching, as if to enshroud. Lazily it rolled down the hill, seeming to consume the odd tree rather than merely hide from view. Darkness had descended, and the little, balding man stood outside, savouring the crisp air after so many hours in the confined, clinical environs of the building behind him. He noted the passage of the mist, sending him into an almost mystical state.
He couldn’t define the mist. All he knew was that it wasn’t an ordinary mist, nor a sea fog as he was many miles from the sea. It was a thick mist, white and almost spectral. As it approached the building he noted the fine chorus of a sparrow on a nearby tree. Then, as the mist by-passed he was aware that its chirp had gone, as if locked in some undefinable place where sounds are ceased. A chill encompassed his spine and goose bumps prickled his skin. He suddenly felt cold and placed his hands in the pockets of his thin white, cloth coat.
Suddenly the mist was about him and taking, in its stride, the whole building behind him. He thought, at first, that it would be difficult to see in such a thick mist, but was surprised to find that, even though he was within, he could see as well as might be expected on a night such as this.
Concern bordered his mind as he realised the strangeness of this fog; a strangeness that suggested that he was not exactly in the same existence as he had been seconds before. There was complete silence within the mist. He observed the sparrow and it was subdued, as if a statue, incapable of movement. Any movement he could register was a movement in slow motion, instilled by a gentle breeze. He stood within the mist, watching the mist with his mind’s eye.
He never registered exactly when the noise started. It was just, suddenly, there. Neither could he describe the sound of the noise. It was a subtle noise that roared in his ears, yet there was a gentleness to it. He imagined it could be how noiselessness could sound. Perhaps that is what it was - no noise at all. Except for the gathering wail, haunting, yet, at the same time, peaceful.
The first definable movement intruded on him then. He had no idea where the man had come from, but he realised almost immediately that it wasn’t a man in the mortal sense. This was not a man, but the soul of a man.
The man approached slowly, more a ghostly definition than a vision of flesh and blood. He was dressed in contemporary clothes and looked, in every way, a contemporary man. Except, that is, for his face. His face was misshapen, pressed down at the right side, forming a grimace that could freeze flames. The reason for the anomaly existed on his head, where a membranous growth sprouted out of his brain, just above the hair line, as if some malignant and grotesque brain tumour out of control. And those eyes, black as ebony and possessed of some sinister taint that froze the man in the white coat to the ground.
Behind this grotesque apparition, a second form approached. This was a woman, similarly attired in contemporary clothes. She held the same gaze, yet this was accentuated by a sallowness of skin and thinness of face that made her appear almost skeletal, as if in the last death throes of cancer.
And then a third - another man; an old man with a walking stick, hunched and pained as if a cripple afflicted by some incurable ill that ate away at his very body.
The three apparitions - ghosts, souls, call them what you will - approached the man in the white coat and stopped. Three pairs of ebony eyes scrutinised him, and, as if satisfied, eased the macabreness of their stature. Suddenly the man in the white coat felt compassion for them, and their gaze aired more on the pitying, a look of pleading taking them as completely as the previous dread.
They stood there, lost, waiting, expectant, and the man in the white coat realised, as if by telepathy, why they were here; why these recently dead walked upon the Earth instead of resting in their heaven - realised the slender thread that still held them precariously in the land of neither the living nor the dead.
He took his hands out of his pockets, as if out of respect, and when he spoke it was a raspish, guilt-ridden voice that uttered the words.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m so very, very sorry. We didn’t understand.’
At that, he turned away from the spectral trio of the mist and walked through the door into the clinical atmosphere of the building.
Before him stood three cylindrical chambers, their own mist within, and through the mist he saw the three frozen heads. He went to the cryonics control panel and switched the freezers off.
Outside, the mist passed by and was gone.

(c) Anthony North, 1994

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THE HAND OF GOD Monday, Apr 2 2007

WARNING: SOME STORIES MAY CONTAIN DISTURBING SCENES

I believe in God. As an ex-priest I would, of course. But whilst the existence of God is, to me, a certainty, I suppose the reason I’m an ex-priest concerns what kind of certainty God’s existence is.
What an incredible question that would be to answer - to know the mind of God. But for most of us we either ignore the question or take the literal truth of the Bible, that most bloody of books.
So what kind of existence IS God’s? Is he a reality as identified in the Bible? Or rather, is he a thought? But a thought so powerful, so omnipotent, and placed so absolutely in people’s minds, that he becomes a reality through their actions?
It had been a long time since I had asked the question when Michael Jones came to see me. He sat before my desk a troubled soul. I had known him for many years, and had been inspired by his belief in God. That he had, eventually, lost his faith had been evident a long time ago. It was I, indeed, who had tried to restore it following his Mission in Africa. But the things he had seen - the corpses, the violence, the hell on Earth - had convinced him there was no room for a God’s Creation in our world.
Michael Jones had affected me, then. For I suppose his case had been the first step to my fall from the Church. For if God could cause such disillusion in so believing a soul, there was little hope for the rest of us.
‘So why have you come to see me?’ I asked as he sat there.
It was natural enough for me to think he had come close to evil and needed my assistance; to wash it away; maybe rejuvenate his love of God. So you can imagine my shock when he told me he had found God once more but wanted to be free of It.
‘To be free? Of the love of God?’
‘It isn’t love,’ he rasped, ‘not for me. It’s a curse.’
I shook my head in disbelief. ‘Oh, Michael, how far you have gone to think God as cruel.’
‘More than that,’ he said. ‘pure evil.’
I sat back behind my desk. ‘Tell me about it,’ I said, knowing he had to be wrong.
So he filled in the gaps of his life since the last time I had known him. I learnt of his crimes, his moral decline, his sexual perversions. They say that a reformed man becomes the exact opposite of what he was. And in Michael Jones, his fall from faith had caused a fall from moral humanity as he attempted to create his own hell on Earth, and enjoy it.
But this sort of life can never be fulfilling. It is not just Christianity that says this, but all religions. Man is never fulfilled without the spiritual. And the lives of those who are fully material - fully immoral - show the truth of it by their own self-destruction.
‘But I was saved from total destruction,’ said Michael Jones as he approached the end of his narrative.
‘You were?’
‘I had realised how deep into evil I had descended, and that there was no hope for me.’ He paused, a mask of the greatest pain covering his face. ‘So I knew I had to destroy myself. I took an overdose.’
‘But you’re still here,’ I said.
‘Yes. I am. And in my journey to near-death God came to me once more and I found the strength to fight for my life. It was a terrific experience, facing death and suddenly realising you don’t want to die. Rather, with God’s help, I wanted to repair the damage.’
‘And with God’s help, you won.’
‘Oh yes,’ said Michael Jones, ‘but at a cost.’
At that, he held up his hand. Took off the tight glove that covered it. Revealed the deep, bleeding wound on his palm.
I sat back in shock. ‘The Stigmata,’ I said. ‘The blood of Christ.’
Michael Jones had been honoured. Or at least, that is one way of taking it. Others would say Michael Jones had descended to such hysteria that the bleeding of his palm was psychological in nature. It is what I said about God at the beginning. Michael’s burden was a reality, but from which certainty? That of a real God, or an omnipotent thought?
‘It’s a curse, my friend. A curse. And I want to be rid of it. Help me to be rid of it please!’
To fight the mark of Christ, or to ease a troubled mind? That was my dilemma. Yet, if the former, I could not be successful; but if the latter, then maybe I would know the reality of God.
I had been practising hypnosis of late and was becoming quite good, knowing what a powerful tool it could be for my work with evil. Hence, for several sessions Michael Jones returned for me to attempt to suggest away the wound. It was the fourth attempt when I was successful. Even through his trance the relief showed, and as I watched, the wound began to disappear.
Michael Jones thanked me from the bottom of his heart, but I found I could not shake his hand. I was too troubled for that, my understanding of what form of certainty God took still evading me. I could not shake his hand. And when he had gone, I sat on my chair, the pain of the experience filling my body. And as I held up my palm, I saw that the Stigmata was upon me.

© Anthony North, March 2002

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THE SUNDAY SCHOOL Tuesday, Mar 13 2007

WARNING: SOME STORIES MAY CONTAIN DISTURBING SCENES

 ’And Jesus died to take away our sins.’

The children sat quietly, listening to Miss Pringle as she spoke. So enthralled were they by her lesson, they never fidgeted, yawned or scratched. Indeed, Miss Pringle had never known such a wonderfully disciplined Sunday school as her own.

She sat back, adjusted her glasses and smiled. ‘Craig,’ she said, looking to one of the boys. ‘How was Jesus killed?’

Almost without thought, Craig replied: ‘On the Cross Miss Pringle. ‘

A warm glow entered her body. Never did they get a question wrong. Such a perfect class, she knew. All twenty of them, never a question wrong, always happy, always good. Of course, it had not always been like that.

Miss Pringle well remembered a previous time, her class unruly, and only half a dozen children in all. That was no good at all, she remembered. ‘No good at all,’ she said one day to the vicar.

The good Reverend looked at his Sunday school teacher, a sigh about to escape his throat. ‘I know, I know, Miss Pringle, but I really don’t know what to do.’

A delicate thing, Miss Pringle nonetheless had a fiery temper. Suddenly her eyes blazed as she wondered at the ineptitude of her leader. ‘Well something must be done, and fast,’ she snapped.

Shortly after, she was sat at class, staring about an almost empty room. ‘This life,’ she was saying, ‘is a prelude to the afterlife. For when we die, we will be together in Paradise.’

Of course, the concept was too much for such young souls to understand; and anyway, the few who were there were too busy kicking each other to listen to what Miss Pringle said. But persevere she knew she must.

The blame for such unruliness - for such declining numbers - laid squarely with the parents, she decided. Atheism was advancing, religion and morality declining. Sometimes, she decided, parents just didn’t deserve their children. For children, she knew, were receptive vessels for whatever ideas were placed in their heads.

Perhaps that is why Miss Pringle decided upon her mission - her mission to fill her Sunday school with young souls.

‘You seem adamant, Miss Pringle,’ the vicar had said when she voiced her determination to fill her class.

 ’I am, vicar. We simply cannot sit around allowing this decline to set in.’

‘And how do you propose to do it?’

Miss Pringle smiled. ‘Oh, I’ll find a way,’ she said.

 And here she sat in front of her ever-expanding class, feasting on their discipline, and sure she was at the forefront of God’s work.

Class over for the day, she walked home. It was a pleasant walk on a pleasant Holy Day. The sun shone brightly and the entire road was quiet, the only person about being a small boy sat by the path and obviously bored.

Looking about her, Miss Pringle approached, determined to get another member for the class.

‘And what’s your name?’ she asked with a smile.

The boy looked up at her, scowled, and said: ‘Pete,’ adding, ‘not that it’s any of your business.’

Irritated, Miss Pringle immediately got to work, taking our her knife and checking the road once more before slitting his throat.

The following Sunday, Miss Pringle sat in front of her class. ‘Good morning, children,’ she said. ‘I’d like you all to meet Peter. ‘

© Anthony North, October 2001

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