Chapter 1: Buubly
It was strange. When I woke up, my bed was on a forest path yet the walls were still there; and on them shadows dirty danced on the wall.
They danced off and on the wall too, and flickered like smoke, but that was probably due to the shifting lights as the only lights present were those of the fluttering fireflies who mingled with the moths. The sun was black.
It seemed that everything was dancing, even though the only music playing was the morbid piano player in the tree.
Oh, and when I say everything, I meant including the trees, the sun, and the air itself, but excluding the proud throne that stood a ways off.
And on that throne sat a little boy in an oversized suit with a massive hat, so massive that its shadow eclipsed his eyes and most of his head except for his lips, which curled into a lop-sided, cocky smile, and my heart tripped.
The wind whispered words that smelt nice enveloping my head in a dense fog. I think they were poisoned though, because I felt dizzy soon after and I felt a fluttering in my stomach. I felt like vomiting. I was choking, and when I threw up I was coughing up butterflies and pink glitter. The butterflies flew away but the glitter got everywhere, on the shadows, the trees, even the dark clouds. I think it caused a reaction because it started raining laughter, I mean actual lip-sticked mouths laughing, loud laughter, and it drowned out the poem the pink-stained wind was singing…
But no matter, just then beneath me opened up a door, and underneath that door was a darkness so dark it just screamed its silence. But I didn’t fall. My own will was holding me up. Then the world around me, the piano player, the throne, the boy, the trees, and the shadows had the colour leeched right out them, being sucked right through the earth, and now though the movement and the objects were there, the life wasn’t. There was no point now.
So I let myself drop.
I dropped right through, and through it came a message just for me.
Thus, an old man withered by years of early and laborious enterprises dragged his dead weight out of bed with the assistance of the bed panel, only to see a little girl with dark brown eyes staring back at him in the mirror, not very little, but certainly little enough to be youthful, I’m sure. Frankly, she was terribly young to be feeling such a very mature form of laziness. Children must be spry and alive you know, and the feeling that sleep was a better occupation of time than school or general movement is the luxury of the old. Still, this mistimed opinion persisted, quite strange for a girl who has only undergone 6 to 7 years of actual school, and thus, labour, but it is what it is. That’s the trouble with children, they want to grow old too fast, not knowing the ignorance of youth is more enjoyable than the horrid knowledge of experience and age, but we and they press on. So it was that at least one child, one who aged horribly in the night, got up with a feeling of weighted exhaustion which did not stop her from brushing her teeth, getting dressed in the frumpy school uniform and so forth and etc until she was walking down the stairs only to be stopped by her mother.
“Remember Imogen, you’re a bubbly girl,”
Yeah, that’s why the entire school is dying of an utter adoration of me and I don’t spend every playtime alone.
“Thanks Mum,” the paternalistic sadness of her smile was not lost however, on either of them. The smile was weak, something terrible had taken a toll on Imogen’s parents so they were just half what they once were.
One last worried look, then a goodbye; no one heard the latter, and everyone the former.
Life goes on. The only way out is through. Robert Frost.
Imogen waited until her mother rolled over in bed and then went off into the sun.
You would think the small, secluded, barely known town of Whitton would be full of terrifying and lustful things. Would abound in secret sordid affairs and hushed up murders and underground drugs. On the outside it appeared to be one of those places with chirping birds and dollhouses and 2.5 children with two parents and bikes and boys who wear sweaters around their neck and smile and girl in skirts and candy shops with a kind old man behind the counter and people who marry their high school sweetheart and only date once. Therefore, underneath it must be a steaming pot of sex and drugs and murder and blood with people having threesomes while the man’s at work and racial shootings in the night and the old-man in the candy store does kids in the afternoon and what have you. You would think Whitton had nothing or everything to hide. The houses Imogen passed were sweet and quaint, the roads quiet, and the day slightly grey; you would think nothing or everything of the small country street, completely inconsequential. Even the large, empty mansion down the street was dead and empty, a once great presence marred by age. Imogen had always thought there was nothing special about the town, but she liked it nonetheless. The atmosphere was close and quiet. It was strange. Despite Imogen’s many intellectual faculties she was quite dim. She was one of those people who thought the town had nothing to hide. She was sad when she got on the bus, awaiting the moment she would walk in the school gates, but she was sad to be in school period, she knew what was coming.
Not that she had any reason to be sad really. Kids today complain much too much.
“She’s so weird.”
“Have you even heard her talk?”
“Her mind’s always off in cuckoo land.”
That’s what Imogen assumed people were whispering to themselves, in truth she heard nothing, but the thought was enough. Those boys in sweaters and girls in skirts whispered, and Imogen despaired both at the subtle brutality of what she thought they were saying, and the truth of what they thought they were saying, as some rumours have slithers of truth in them after all. Imogen was finding it harder to stay in reality, her thoughts kept drifting and drifting far. Lately even her dreams had become more vivid and she had started to mourn. She cried herself to sleep the other night when she remembered that morning. She was watching T.V. , cartoons and the cartoon’s bright colours, wit, and adventure caused tears to spring and an incessant urge to be there, to be a part of it all; it all wrenched her gut it seemed that real, she could see it, she could taste it…
…but it was a delicate and complex sadness, thus the tears did not last long. Children lose their sight as they get older, after all. None of it mattered anyway, she had her own people to attend to, not that she was anymore a part of them. In fact, Imogen preferred to acquaint herself with a different breed of people, and thus a novel kept her company during the ride. It did not do a good job of keeping her attention either…
Now it is not easy to determine whether the world was actually like this or if it was all in Imogen’s head. You see, every object has a definite form and an aura, a presence, but some object’s presence’s differ with each person’s perspective, meaning it is different from person to person. We are looking from Imogen’s perspective right now, and from Imogen’s perspective the world had a horrid dystopian view.
The world was grey. Leaked of colour and left with only shades and shadows. Not only was the world grey, but so were the people. You see, the world had reached an impasse in almost every way in Imogen’s ignorant mind. Technology was so big and permanent it could not be pondered. The earth itself was dying as all that was willing to be done had been done and the rest had been let alone. Constant war left people devoid of the feeling of war and so on and so on. What was left was a society hauling its great and dead bulk toward an end via the automatic need for movement and nothing more.
Therefore, in her defence, she was only dim because the world had dimmed around her. Life had lost its liveliness, nature its lustre and presence in the world. The only thing that sparked interest in anyone was those ridiculous celebrities. Those beautiful people living lives worthy of showing, their whole existence proven in glossy and colourful magazines. Other than that, nothing really happened. It had gotten so bad that at times a guttural feeling overcame her when she saw her school. I looked at is solid confines, built like a jail cell, felt the tie that choked my neck, cutting off blood, and touched the head that restrained my biggest dreams because it was being cluttered by useless whatevers. I had never felt so dead. That said, monotony is not so bad
it can be soothing, like a bus. And I wasn’t always like this. I remember swinging, specifically, the moment you hit the ground. Roughly, shakily, you hit the ground, you get your bearings and all is well.
The strange thing is that jolt of impact jolts life into you. It makes the blood surge to your head and your heart race a 100 miles an hour and you feel…vivacious. You feel intoxicated and giddy and as if you’ve just jumped off the clouds and lived to tell the story. And you want to do it again, dear God you want to do it again, and that fear is erased and you’re a stupid child once more.
I remember when I never stopped. Didn’t know how. I did not read, but submerged myself in pages, living past lives like jumbled memories. I did not dream, but forgot reality, and glimpsed better things until I became confused. I did not write, but created whole words from fragmented scraps of childhood nothing. I exercised neither logic, science, or ordered thinking, but systematically sorted each thought or aspect out until not a thought was out of place, if that was how I felt; other times I let my thoughts run amok in my head like distressed stallions. I remember when I used to chase the world like a stallion. Not this world, but another world. It always seemed to be there, I thought I could see it through the cracks on the Earth. There were always cracks. You had to get there fast, but they always disappeared. I was a stallion looking for space but the gates kept closing. I’m not anymore, just like I don’t imagine space anymore. Once I was on a bus when it was dark and I squinted my eyes until the lights blurred to points and the dark got deeper, until the white lines on the road stretched to streaks and all is a huge expanse of pin pricked lights. It’s pretty though, very pretty, except, usually the illusion’s never quite complete, you can still feel the concrete seat underneath you, you can still hear voices. Unless you can’t. Unless the world sweeps out from underneath you like it sometimes does and you’re suspended in space, relaxed amongst the stars. It’s cool and clear, the absence of air making everything hollow and free. It’s amazing, so spacious, so freeing, so real,
That’s the problem. Imogen immediately developed a fevered brow, beads of sweat spontaneously erupted on her forehead and she hyperventilated, not because she could not breathe but because she didn’t have to. She was just about to pass out when it came to an end and she blinked herself back to Earth, onto the bus.
But she wasn’t at school. She was at the bus station in the city. Like a dead weight she had stayed on the bus as life walked past her, those automatons, and everything went on. She heard footsteps coming up her aisle. Soon the bus driver saw her. He looked exasperated.
“Look, girlie, you’re on your own. You have to get off now. Here’s change for a phone if you need it. Or stick around, if you’re back before school ends I’ll take you back.” Then he left.
Real adults do not leave children to their own devices. But that’s the world nowadays.
You would think a young girl in the city would get into all sorts of trouble. But she did not. She mostly rambled aimlessly about in a rather nostalgic mood. After all, Year 6 was winding down and she had an overall dull view of her time in primary school:
There were some good times, and some interesting ones. Like the time Aaron the Bird King (she called all popular kids Bird People, for reasons you shall soon see) kept bugging me by singing behind my back or pulling my hair or kicking my chair and word got round that it was because he liked me which is weird because not only were we not always on good terms, I was and am weird. I am not an inviting personality. I never did anything about it and neither did he so it was whatever. It was funny though, because my sort-of friend, an awkward girl, liked him and he broke her heart by not returning the favour, so it never would have worked. And there was also the times another boy invited me to sit with him and his friends at lunch if I ever sat alone, so often. That was weird too because he was the rough and tumble type, the kind with divorced parents and a dad with tattoos. And there was the time it was my birthday and my class played Rounders (not because it was my birthday, just so happened) and it was cool though, obviously, I was not that great at it, and in the end everyone got a popsicle. I got two and I dropped it and a cute boy picked it up, took the dirt off, and gave it back to me. I’ll remember the swing, the beautiful swing that I thought was magic because it changed colour with the light in my eyes. Some days it was red, others yellow. I loved that swing. But despite all this, the thing I will remember and miss the most is the intangible feeling. The beautiful moments where nothing happens. Of just being strange and stupid kids running for no reason and playing impossible things, putting stock in the insignificant things and pretending to be cool and grownup and being nothing near it. I’ll remember the amazing sunny days and lazy afternoons and the days when I was…O.K. So why is the happiness only in moments recently? Why am I not O.K. anymore?
Doesn’t matter, it’s all coming to an end anyway.
Audience, let me tell you something about thought. Thought causes doubt, regret, and all sorts of unsavoury feelings. It causes aging much too early. It is the elderly too old to live that think. This was the cause of Imogen’s sadness: she thought much too much.
Imogen Bree Hartley however, was not aware she was one of the rare children diseased with the horrid infliction of chronic thought. She was ignorant of this titbit, and thus walked around in her reverie with the question of happiness in her head. If you saw her from the outside you would think her very strange, which she is. You would see a girl, tall for her age, with her head down and a walk like Oliver Twist. You would think her even stranger if you knew she used to take two steps forward and one step back because she had heard when she was young that you see more of the world that way, not that she saw much with her head always down, and you would think her down right bizarre if you noted how closely she stayed to the straight, pavement paths, because surely someone who wanted to see more of the world would take long and meandering paths. But Imogen was afraid of taking long, meandering paths for reasons she could not quite remember.
But enough of the strange mannerisms of our lady let me recount to you the moment that changed Imogen’s life:
“Ooph, careful there Miss,” said an old man with a white beard and tartan suit, a man whose foot Imogen had just stepped on.
“Oh, I’m sorry Sir,”replied Imogen, always the polite one.
“That’s quite alright, but you should look up, it’s dangerous if you don’t,” said the man.
“It’s dangerous if you do,” said Imogen “especially if you don’t want to see anything at all.”
“What do you mean?” Imogen had piqued the man’s interest, and she realised she had said more than intended and did not know why. Even till this day.
“Nothing, I mean, I have syntheasia, that’s all.” That, readers, was Imogen’s attempt at distraction.
“Really,” the man looked intrigued, “and what do you see?”
Imogen did not answer, and looked away.
The man was not offended or discouraged however, and instead pulled out a business card.
“For when you can tell me what you see or what you saw.” He walked away.
Imogen looked at the card. It said: ‘Sir Nutefuther, Worldly Scholar, In Madame Mama’s School for Gifted Wanderers.’ Stuck behind the card was a train ticket with no destination, but she didn’t notice it. The card had no address either, which was strange, and Imogen collected all things strange and thus pocketed it, along with the unnoticed ticket, and walked on, ignoring the smell of smoke that she couldn’t find the origin of.
If Imogen knew what this chance encounter meant at the time…but no. Instead she let her meanderings take her to a field where boys were playing football. Next to the field was a tree, which Imogen climbed up and stayed in for the remainder of the day. She fell asleep there. As previously mentioned several times, Imogen was and is a rare and strange girl.
Later that day, it became dark, and Imogen had a horrible dream.
See, there was a rambunctious party on the field that night and suddenly Imogen’s dreams were abound with giant insects and tiny, scrambling gargoyles that pinched and poked noise and chaos and there was one song that really got to her.
It was a popular song, but there will be something god damned hellish in its undertones that would send Imogen’s nerves ablaze and into a state of the utmost delirium. It would get louder and more cacophonous in Imogen’s mind until she would be unable to decipher if it was inside or outside her skull. It was strange, it was a popular song, everyone knew it, but every time it played—
I would hear a creepy, disjointed nursery rhyme that would underlay it and I would get hot and feverish, the walls would close in so I got hotter and consequently dizzy, which was not helped by the fact that I felt the compulsive need to run and thrash my head, so I was more dizzy so I thought the walls were spinning, closing in on me, making me hot, so hot I just wanted to rip my clothes off, but now there was laughter, laughter from people who weren’t there, a familiar laughter, a laughter that overlaid that wretched song, I couldn’t unclothe with such laughter, but I had to escape, but there was nowhere to run except out.
At which point Imogen jolted out her dream and fell from her tree.
“Oy, whose that o’er there?!” shouted what I could only describe as a brute.”
“Appears to be a kid. Is your brother spying on you again?”
“Hey you!”
Imogen ran.
And there was a wind, a dastardly and unfamiliar wind that caused the leaves to cackle and scuttle behind her like minions and the trees to bow against it. It was very direct and seemed to scratch and pull at everything and it scared the now very little girl Imogen. So she ran, ran away from everything, the noise, the people, her home. She ran, all the way to the train station.
The station was mostly empty. The fluorescent lights were bright and ugly but familiar. Hastily, when confronted with barriers, Imogen dug around for the change she had been given but instead found a train ticket. Without looking at it really, she used it to manoeuvre the underground. The people who were chasing her had stopped, but there were still the sounds.
The sounds were running, clawing, and scratching, the laughter was biting, his voice was stroking getting ready to do a raping, it was all so frightening so she went down, down to the Underground were the sounds were loud, mechanical and loud, but it was late and it was quiet, but here the sounds rolled and one was rolling by, rolling to a stop to open up and let her in, everyone was out and all was quiet. Outside the wind clawed and destroyed and ripped everything to shreds and very fine dust. That was all that was left, dust, her, and an as-of-yet a non-existent train. She came to a crossroads and saw mirror doors. There were two doors, both made out of mirrors and identical to each other except one was rimmed with rubies the other emeralds, and neither showed a proper reflection. The one with rubies showed Imogen turned away from herself so Imogen saw her own back, while the other did not show Imogen at all, only a blurry background. It was disorientating and any sane person would’ve run away but Imogen stood, heart beating but entranced, as if this sight struck her paralyzed. They both had crystal door knobs where they should be. Suddenly Imogen felt clammy and a cold breeze blew. She swallowed and blinked hard, and when she opened her eyes there was a man with two heads, one faced towards the rubies, one the emerald. He was dressed in a white, breezy sheet, and did not talk, but this only proved to make Imogen more nervous. Every eye was on her and all was quiet, as if the world was holding its breath to see what she would choose. It seemed like forever, but eventually Imogen swallowed hard, took the doorknob of the ruby mirror, and opened her backward reflection.
The doorknob shattered, as did the man, as did the mirror and the noise came crashing underground. Imogen dived through the mirror, but put her ticket through the slot of the spinning barriers, and ran towards the train.
Inside a quiet sound said this train had reached its terminal but this was not a matter of consequence, the doors barred the animal sounds, at least for a while. Imogen ducked down and closed her ears, the animals were out there and not in her head, and while she crouched curled like a rock the world began to roll as the train stood still, the world turned on its axis and the sounds were left behind as the world spun around her and the train stood fixed. Soon new sounds were heard, then no sounds, just quiet as the train slept on its railing bed unmoving. No one noticed the unfamiliar boy who was also on the train at a different cabin, all they cared for was the girl. A dead beast housing a live girl, protecting her from the spiralling world and a wind that blows the dust from her street away.
Soon it was over, and the doors opened. I walked out from the underground and saw the stars. I also saw a green spark glide across them. I knew that what happened was irrational, but I was still there and alone. So when I saw that spark I caught it from 1000s of feet below with both hands and blew it. When I did, the business card from that afternoon was in my hand. I looked up and was confused. Regardless, I thought, the worst of it was over and eventually a bluebird came and led the way.
And they went on.
Somewhere, a boy, looked out of his window about the same time Imogen started to run away from the brutes and instead of lying on his bed he would rise and walk out his door and not tell a single soul. Drawn by the light he would pound the pavement and walk for hours with no destination. He would then look at the world and want to be free. So, in the late hours, he would slip by all train porters and board a late night train that does not move, but hearing rushed footsteps he would not enter the same carriage a little girl was in but another, where he would crouch down low, picking up a ticket with no destination on the way.