A heap of broken images

Phlebitis sat on an uncomfortable wicker chair.  There was supposed to be a blanket; green and white striped, thick and woollen; draped over the chair, and he supposed that would make it easier to sit on, but his blanket appeared to have been taken by the matron sat behind him.  He had turned, intending to ask her for the return of the blanket, but seeing her in profile he had recognised immediately that she was an avatar of Belladonna, Our Lady of the Rocks, and had turned back around again.  He had no wish to attract her attention.  He now planned to take the blanket from the chair to the left of him, which was ostensibly occupied by a young boy who kept standing up and running off to play with other small children behind the score board.  The boy’s parent, a woman with a lined face and scabs all over her hands, looked exhausted and was clearly about to fall asleep, and Phlebitis was waiting for it to happen.

In the near distance there was a thwock of leather striking ash and a low cheer raised from the front row of seats.  The elderly men gathered there were, to Pheblitis’s uncertain knowledge, either retired cricketers who were watching the game with a professional interest, or City Directors who were busy being seen at a City event and ensuring the safety of their Thrones.  He was aware that many of them had been to visit Madame Sosotris recently, but he hadn’t been able to bring himself to talk to her yet.  Her constant attempts at flirting, which were growing ever more unsubtle, were disturbing and mildly unpleasant.  He had half a plan there too, to try and foist her on some other member of his crew, but none of them had yet done anything bad enough to warrant it.  The young boy’s mother’s head drooped, and her eyes finally closed.

“Six!” shouted an elderly gentleman in the front row, and Phlebitis’s arm snaked out and tugged the blanket over to his own chair.  The front row mostly stood up, applauding with trembling, age-spotted hands, blocking the view of the cricket game for the rest of the audience unless they too stood.  One or two men at the back did, but the remainder stayed seated, some not even aware of what had happened.  Phlebitis stood as well, suddenly realising that this was a perfect excuse, and when they all sat again he rearranged the blanket on his chair as though it had always been there, but badly laid out.

There was another thwock and the cricket ball flew off again and then, perhaps a second later, there was a soft thunk.  A gasp of horror arose from the front row and Phlebitis looked up in curiosity.  The cricket ball appeared to have struck a dead tree, which was awkwardly located at the corner of the in-field.  Its trunk was broad but hollow, and though several handfuls of branches still arose from it, then were blunted and stunted and no leaves or other greenery grew on them.

“The dead tree gives no shade,” muttered a man in the front row, and the rest of the row tried very hard to appear not to have heard him.  There was a garbled cry from the pitch, and the umpire, an obese, sweating man dressed in flannel whites and looking very miserable, raised a finger on each hand, giving both batsmen out.  Their heads sank and they slunk from the pitch, but the opposing team made no sound; raised no cheer, offered no mockery.  It was, Phlebitis thought, as though what had happened was too dreadful to be just the fault of the batters.  Though all they’d done was strike a dead tree, so he couldn’t really see what the problem could be.  He shifted in his seat, which was much more comfortable with the blanket on it, and slouched back a little.   The matron behind leaned forward, and whispered in his ear, “The dead tree offers no shade.”

An electric current seemed to run through his body, and his left leg twitched, a little spasm that made him kick the ground.

“I heard the man at the front, thank-you,” said Phlebitis in a low voice, hoping that this would bring the conversation to a close.

“Not well enough,” said the Matron.  “It hides a heap of broken images.  I would expect you to want to confirm that.”

He turned his head now, about to complain to her that she couldn’t just tell him what to do, but she had sat back again, and was now gazing at the game looking exactly like Belladonna once more.

*

The game ended with one side winning by several runs and wickets and Phlebitis wasn’t honestly sure which side had won, or if either side even cared.  The backslapping and camaraderie didn’t fit with his ideal for the sport, and they seemed to be walking off the pavilion both together and with the audience.  The most elderly gentlemen were supported and assisted by the others, while the rest of the audience wiped away crumbs from the cucumber sandwiches and pretended that they’d wanted to take small children with them to the match.  The young boy’s mother was still asleep on her chair, and her son was now patting her knee, trying to wake her.  Phlebitis sighed softly, stood up, and threw his blanket over the boy in a quick movement.  The heavy fabric bore him to the ground and muffled his cry of surprise so that no-one turned their heads or noticed what was happening.  The he gave the mother a gentle push, tipping her far enough forward that she slowly toppled off her chair and onto the ground, and set off at a quick jog onto the cricket pitch, towards the in-field.  Her cry of surprise as she woke on the hard ground distracted the milling crowd that had been watching the game but wasn’t going to the pavilion, and then the discovery that her child was under the blanket had them hunting about for any further misfortunes that may have befallen, and no-one noticed Phlebitis reach the dead tree and hoist himself up amongst the dead branches.  He only had to climb about ten feet to get high enough up to see down in the hollow trunk of the tree itself and see that it was partly filled with water.  As he looked at the water though he felt an invisible pair of hands pass across his eyes, and the world seemed somehow brighter, more sharply defined at the edges, and the water in the tree trunk became a pile of broken images.

He saw a woman dressed in white standing on the beach, crying.  A man crawled ashore from the water, the waves struggling to pull him back, but he clawed his way beyond them and lay there, gasping for breath.  The crying woman couldn’t see him, and she turned away, heading off the beach to a narrow, sandy track.  Clouds overhead merged together and became a lighthouse; a beam of intense light shot out from it.  Following it along, it illuminated a wicker chair on the edge of a cricket pitch, and Belladonna turned to look at him, her eyes aflame.  He shuddered, and a man on horseback rode past, wearing a leather jacket with metal studs all down the arms and a skull with flaming eye-sockets on the back.  The horse’s hooves boomed as it cantered and the beach suddenly returned, with waves taller than a man crashing on the shore and throwing white spume high into the air.  A boat tossed on the waves, some distance out, and Phlebitis could smell the unforgettable aroma of boiling frogs.  The boat seemed to come in closer to shore and then the waves calmed and he saw that the name of the boat was the Odysseus.

Phlebitis sighed and let himself slide down the branches and fall from the tree.  The grass below the tree was soft, but the tree roots that snaked through it were hard and ligneous.  It seemed somehow fitting.

Turning tables II

“Do you think he’s just here to have an orgasm with us?” asked another voice from around the table, this one female.

“No,” said the first woman.  “No, he wouldn’t be able to org….”  Her voice trailed away as she realised that was revealing too much.  All the faces around the table had turned to her, and though a couple looked shocked, several looked interested and one looked revolted.  “Arthur?”  she said, abruptly.  “Is that you Arthur?”

The table rocked enthusiastically from side to side, which Madame Sosotris knew for certain she couldn’t make it do with her pedals.  She treadled them a little anyway, and found them squishy, the hydraulics clearly failing to engage anything.  She treadled a little harder, just in case, but the table just ignored her.

“Itchy legs?” whispered a voice, a woman next to her leaning in to her.  Madame Sosotris’s skin crawled at the proximity of the woman, and she pushed back in her chair.  The legs groaned as they stuttered against the uneven floorboards.  She nodded, and to her relief the woman leaned away again.  The table started to rotate, rocking on the floor about half-way round the circle, and definitely gaining a little height.

“Arthur?” A man’s voice now, one Madame Sosotris recognised.  More voices around the table joined in, all asking if the spirit rocking the table was Arthur.  She cleared her voice, about to tell the room that the spirit’s never spoke directly, only through the medium, when the table suddenly stopped dead and dropped onto the floor.  Someone screamed, a tiny little scream that was heartfelt, and the people on either side of her tightened their grip on her hands.  All of the lights went out, and the curtains fell across the windows with a sound like a sail flapping in the wind.

“Arthur?” asked Madame Sosotris, her voice quavering.  She was instantly annoyed with herself, but as she was clearing her throat, which sounded a little like a tubercular cow, light returned and she fell as silent as the rest of the room.  On the table in front of them tiny motes of purple light were swirling around, drifting, a hologrammic Brownian motion.  For a moment there were just enough to capture attention, and then suddenly they were a column of light, thick and coruscant, that reached to the ceiling of the room.  Madame Sosotris squinted, trying to see if there was something in the light, and then chips of light seemed to slough away, falling to the table where they splashed and vanished.  This unnatural sculpting persisted for five minutes, after which the light presented the image of the statue atop Nelson’s Column.

“Arthur!”

“That’s Arthur?  Wasn’t he… well, fatter?”

“He was fat!  Very fat!  That’s not Arthur.”

“Oh come on, he wasn’t that fat.”

“He had to have help standing up.  How fat do you have to be before you’ll call someone fat?”

“Well…,”

“Hey, he’s pretty fat too.  Maybe Arthur really didn’t look so fat by his standards.”

“Lady!”

“Ladies and Gentlemen,” said Nelson, his voice rolling around the room as though Madame Sosotris had a sound-system.  Heads turned, looking into the darkness that surrounded them, but they were all drawn back when Nelson spoke again.  “Why have you summoned me?”

“We have questions, Arthur,” said the female voice who’d identified his orgasm noise.  “You fell rather suddenly.”

“I was pushed,” said Nelson, the table shaking as he spoke.  Madame Sosotris flexed her fingers, trying to see if she could break the circle, but the people holding her hands tightened their grip.  “I was pushed, by my lieutenant.  It could happen to you all.”

“Not me,” said a male voice.  “No lieutenants.”

“Hah,” boomed Nelson.  “He was inspired by La Reveille, who I see has not accompanied you today.  Beware La Reveille.”

“We know,” said the woman who’d identified the orgasm noise.  “We know how you fell, Arthur.  You were lazy, you were incompetent.  It is no surprise that the Throne passed to another.  But we don’t have enough data on your Throne, and your little… ah, surprises, are causing us issues.”

“You knew?  You knew that I was targeted?”  The indignation in Nelson’s voice made it louder, and a couple of people around the table cringed.  Madame Sosotris pulled at the hands holding hers, now trying her best to break the circle, but still her neighbours gripped her tightly, squeezing.  “What honour is there amongst Thrones?” screamed Nelson, his face distorting with rage.  “And now you come here to ask me for my help?”

Madame Sosotris let herself fall off her chair and landed heavily on the floor, banging her tailbone.  Her arms ended up above her, her hands still held firmly in place.  She cursed softly under her breath.

“Arthur, you’re dead,” said the female voice.  “The concerns of this world aren’t yours any more.  Why don’t you be a little reasonable?”

“Hah!” Nelson’s face twisted into something that might have been a sneer.  “Hah, I might be dead but I’m certainly not impotent.  Each possessor of a Throne becomes part of the Throne when they die!  You haven’t seen the last of me!”

The hologram of the statue disappeared with a sharp crack and a sudden sea-fresh smell of ozone, and everyone’s hands were suddenly thrown apart, breaking the circle.  Madame Sosotris, her hands above her head, ended up clapping them together involuntarily, which drew everyone’s eyes to her as light leaked back into the room around the edges of the curtains, and she clumsily pulled herself up from the floor and back on to her chair.

“Payment,” she said, “needs to be made before you leave.”

Turning tables I

Madame Sosotris huffed and puffed as she scrubbed the wooden table.  The table rocked and rattled; its legs were uneven after years of being dragged around a rough-planked floor with no consideration.  Madame Sosotris didn’t particularly mind, as its occasional tilts and jolts added atmosphere when she was reading Tarot cards for people.  It was more of a nuisance when she was eating soup, but she’d taken to eating that standing up in the kitchen as the soul of a chicken that she’d accidentally imbued into her cast-iron frying pan was summoned by the smell of fresh soup and would cluck around the kitchen for hours if she didn’t exorcise it immediately.  She huffed and puffed some more, scrubbing away at what she hoped wasn’t a bloodstain.  Her dress fell open and her breasts sagged across the table, but she didn’t notice.  Her mind was concentrating on the performance ahead.

The door shuddered under the weight of the blows hammering on it, and Madame Sosotris’s head snapped up like she wanted whiplash.  She looked at the grubby cloth in her hand and tossed it in the fireplace, where it sprawled across cold logs.  She swaggered to the door and flung it open, stretching her face into a slightly manic grin.

“Welcome!” she shouted.  “Welcome one and… one?”

The woman – short, dumpy, wearing a maid’s uniform – looked rather shocked, and it took Madame Sosotris several long seconds to realise that she was feeling a draft from her dress blowing yet further open in the brisk breeze.  She clutched her clothes about her, and tried hard to glare her embarrassment away.

“Who are you?” she said.  “I was expecting milords and miladies for the table turning.”

“I was sent to find out if you were ready yet,” said the dumpy woman.  Her face was scarred with ringworm and her nose looked as though it had been eaten away by something.  Madame Sosotris couldn’t get close enough to confirm her suspicions that it was rats, so she contented herself with jumping to that conclusion instead.

“I am always ready,” she said, ignoring that nagging voice in the back of her mind that said that this ugly little woman was going to go back and tell them that she was dressed now and hadn’t been before.  “Skyclad or no, womb-born or zombie, I am always ready.”

“Right,” said the dumpy woman.  “I’ll go and tell the gentlefolk that you’re not wearing any knickers and that you want to see them anyway.”  Madame Sosotris responded by slamming the door in her face, and then hastily tying her dress back together.  Something important seemed to have ripped, so she pulled the sash-cord from the curtains and tied that firmly around her waist as well.  As she coughed with the sudden constriction, someone knocked on the door again.

“Welcome?” said Madame Sosotris, peering around the edge of the door, this time applying caution.  There were a group of people, all wearing heavy, hooded cloaks and acting edgy: they switched their weight from one foot to the other, swung their hoods from side to side trying to see if anyone was watching, and pushed closer to the door when it looked like it was opening.  Recognising their need, Madame Sosotris backed away, pulling the door open, and they flooded into her room.

“You may leave your cloaks on the couch,” said Madame Sosotris, gesturing in the direction of the paired couches that faced each other.  One looked mildewed, and the other only smelled like it.  The participants muttered amongst themselves, hoods being placed close together to keep the conversations private.  Eventually a consensus was reached, and they all left their cloaks on the floor and took a chair at the table.

“Welcome,” said Madame Sosotris again.  It crossed her mind that she was sounding like a broken record.  “We are here today to contact the spirit world.  Is there anyone in particular you wish to speak to?”

The men and women, beautiful people all, looked at one another, and their gaze said the same thing: Is this woman really this stupid?  And is she really wearing a curtain sash as a belt?

“We wish to speak to the fallen City Director,” said a man, whose name was known to everyone in the room, and whose face would be instantly recognised by anyone of the street.  Madame Sosotris, her face impassive, nodded.

“Let us join our hands,” she said.

The instant the last two hands connected the table shook and jolted as though there had been a small earthquake.  The men and women around the table looked at each other, their faces grey and apprehensive, and Madame Sosotris gasped.  She had started the movement with the pedals under her chair that lifted the table from the floor, but the rest of it had come from somewhere else entirely.  For the first time in a long time she felt afraid.

“Is there anyone there?” she said, her voice thinner and more whiney that she would have liked.  As if in response the table leapt, and the circle barely managed to keep the hands joined and above it.

“Arthur?” asked a woman sat at four o’clock relative to Madame Sosotris, and the table gyrated, grinding out a low growl against the floor.  “Oh Arthur!” said the woman.

“How do you know it’s him?” said a man sat next to her, his eyelids painted with blue false eyes.

“That’s his orgasm noise,” said the woman, and everyone shifted, feeling slightly uncomfortable.

The Piccadilly Throne

Bright lights cascaded around him and he instinctively put his hands over his head. Like silent fireworks, they exploded around him, each new burst of colour stabbing into his eyes like icicles. His head ached, his eyes hurt, and even thinking seemed painful now as though the synaptic pathways had been damaged and ruptured. He let loose a low moan, a primal connection to the pain he was feeling, and felt the ground meet his knees. Then he let himself fall over and put his hands up, trying pathetically to push the colours away.

*
A few feet away a tourist turned around, his camera held up obscuring his face. He saw the young man on the ground, writhing slowly, possibly having a seizure, and reached up to adjust the focus on his lens. The camera pointed at the young man like some strange mechanical proboscis and the tourist's finger began to depress the shutter release.

*
Something woke in the back of the young man's head. Another colour exploded, a shower of tiny green stars tasting of mint, but this time he didn't flinch.
Who are you? asked a voice, and he replied with his name, Nicholas. For a long moment he was surprised that he could remember it.
Why did you come here? asked the voice. Nicholas – Nick, he thought – paused, but the voice rifled through his mind and memories, sorting out relevant images and discarding ones it didn't like. For a moment there was a blur and a smeared sensation of pain, as though all his nerves were jangling in competition, then an image of his sister wearing her graduation gown. The focus on the image changed and he became aware of the background, of the caryatid columns behind her that had somehow all turned to face her and watch. Then the image dissolved in a blaze of static which in turn was replaced with an image of his father's funeral. A coffin was lowered into the grave and handfuls of mud were cast on top. But now he saw clearly; there were no mourner's near the grave, no-one throwing the mud save the earth itself. More images followed, all seemingly of one thing but always the background details resolved into something else, something bigger and potentially more interesting.
Finally the images ceased and his mind felt as though it had been raked through; his scalp blazed with criss-crossing lines of pain.
Thrones are not inherited, said the voice which was starting to sound disturbingly like his own. There was a hint of a tremble in it that hadn't been there at the start, something that reminded him of his own constant struggle to overcome his stutter.
Thrones are earned, said the voice. And you want the Piccadilly throne?
He tried to nod, but couldn't feel enough of his body to know if he succeeded. The voice seemed to understand anyway though.
So what did you bring to substantiate your claim? asked the voice, and again there was a sensation of violation, of things in his head being broken apart without his permission, and then there, front and centre of his mind was all that he'd brought with him.
The vial containing the blood of Anteros.

*
The shutter release depressed and the tourist took a picture of the young man, millions of photo-sensitive cells recording the instant of ascension.

*
Nick felt the vial shatter even though it was safely wrapped in cotton wool in a sturdy cardboard box. The voice tried to recoil, but as it had taken on his aspect, so now it was trapped inside his head. The colours around him exploded again and again, harder and brighter than before but to no avail; now they were contained within him, made part of him, gave strength to him.
He sat up, hearing the roar of traffic and feeling it, viscerally, through his skin. The buildings around him felt like part of him; he was sure that if he made the choice he could lift an arm vaster than any of his own limbs and shake the streets and buildings with his power. He had, without a doubt, claimed the Piccadilly Throne as his own.

*
The tourist turned away, the camera vanishing from his face and into a bag, the act of theft concealed from the only person it could matter to. And though Nick looked around him and saw the tourist, though there was a momentary flicker of recognition, it passed and the tourist faded away into the crowd with his prize.

Unreal City

Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,
Phlebitis stands before the London Bridge.
So many travel its ancient stones,
Their feet wearing paths to the City's many thrones,
And yet none of those who pass him by
Acknowledge him, and he needs not ask why
For all carry a stone chained 'round their neck
That describes the day they died.

Saint Mary Woolnoth still keeps the hours,
Her dead chimes ringing as mechanical and soulless
As all the folk that cross the bridge,
Save one.
Phlebitis, though he fears he may be undone
Has braved the fog and the treacherous way,
And now stands upon the London Bridge,
Amidst a crowd of the curious dead.

And there he spies one who once he knew,
An erstwhile member of his ship's poor crew.
"Haregebo!" he spits,
The very name a curse upon his lips.
A grey-skinned head must slow arise,
An unearthly light glowing in its eyes,
And Phlebitis, uncaring, continues on,
Upbraiding a man whose spirit's long gone.

"Haregebo, you rogue, you lying wretch!
Stand you alone amongst the men you were sent to fetch?
These corpses here were planted by you,
In the garden where things never grew.
The frost came and raked across the soil,
Wolves howled at the door,
And Famine stalked my porch for weeks.
You are as unfaithful a servant as I have ever had,
And to see you here dead; well I am glad."
But what Phlebitis cannot bring himself to say,
Is that even in death
A familiar face makes easier the way.

And so to the City, the Unreal City,
Phlebitis returns with heavy heart and leaden steps.
The City Directors still sit in state,
The City Directors still lie in wait,
And the Phoenician Sailor who can't know his fate,
Stands at last at the southern gate.

The nymphs have departed

The wind was cold but silent, tugging at Phlebitis's sleeves and the tails of his untucked shirt. It seemed to find all the gaps between his clothes, sliding icy fingers down his back and along the underside of his arms until goosebumps rose. He shivered, wishing that he'd not left his coat behind in the city. Even so, he thought, it was a small price to pay to have managed to leave unseen, undiscovered by the strange coterie of men who called themselves the City Directors. The wind tugged a little harder at his shirt and he tucked it in again, knowing that it would pull free when he started walking once more.
He stood on a gravelled path just inside a wood or forest; he'd not been able to see clearly from the path behind just how large the expanse of trees was. The leaves all around him were the colours of autumn and here and there were small drifts against the tree trunks; red and gold turning to a dead and dessicated brown. He'd been hoping that the trees would shield him somewhat from the wind, but it was contriving to blow past them and tickle him still.
He'd stopped because he'd found a small sign, a wooden rectangle neatly nailed to a tree. Carven into it, with something hot that had charred and blackened the wood, were the words "The nymphs have departed." As he looked at, reading and re-reading the words, he felt a sense of hopelessness settle on him like fog falling from the sky and hiding the road ahead. The last time he'd felt like this had been as he'd left Madame Sosotris with a future that he'd paid for and couldn't understand. Slowly, he was learning what it was that she'd told him only in the most oblique terms. And the nymphs, he knew, were somehow associated with Belladonna, our Lady of the Rocks.
Sighing in concert with the wind he started forward again, following the path with weary footsteps. He'd spent seven days in the city, only intending to be there a couple of hours but unable to find his way out. Streets that seemed straight turned subtly, winding back on themselves and leaving him where he'd started, confused and dizzy; while streets that clearly went nowhere somehow stretched out and branched when he walked along them, offering new places to be lost in and dark rooming houses where saturnine landladies tapped fat fingers against shiny timepieces with a look of menace in their eyes. At certain junctions he smelled the unforgettable stench of boiled frog, and at certain others there was a faint haze in the air that tingled against his skin. And then, finally, he'd come to a square where the City Directors sat together at a trestle table in the open air. A white tablecloth failed to cover the whole table, and set upon it were seven crystal glasses filled to a quivering brim with red wine. As he watched, lurking in a shadow in a doorway, they'd lifted their glasses and stood, chiming them together with a cheer and a toast to the end of summer.
He'd fled then, and been running ever since. A young boy with no teeth had taken pity on him and shown him a street that only appeared when you walked through a gate into a garden that then didn't exist. Looking at the urchin, seeing the desperation in his eyes, Phlebitis had slipped the coat from his back, checking the pockets first and taking the last of the jade statuettes from them, and given it to the lad. There was a flicker of gratitude and a shadow of shame on his face when he accepted. Phlebitis had barely taken another ten steps before the lad reappeared and handed him a verdigrised copped coin, worthless everywhere except inside the city. Only then did the streets straighten out and behave themselves, and as Phlebitis reached the southern gate at last he heard rumours from the travelling-folk that the City Directors were hunting for a sailor.
The wind, still silent, rose as he walked forward, listening always for the sound of water and a path back to the sea. It pulled his shirt loose, then blustered it around, lifting it up and trying to tear it from his skinny torso. Leaves rustled an angry sussuration, finally pulling free from the trees and swirling about him in an autumn blizzard. As he struggled onward, pushing against the wind into the leaf-storm, all he could think was how it seemed as though the air were bleeding.