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Where do the Dreams go?

New ebook.  Will be released soon.  Updates to follow!

Don’t go up to the top floor!

Here is a new short story

starting below...
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I had just moved into the new house with my poor mother when the old proprietor handed me the keys, gazed back up at the old building, sighed, and then said to me, ‘Enjoy the house!  It’s a beautiful building.  Just make sure you don’t go up to the top floor!’
  I laughed at him, of course, thinking he was having a joke, but when I laughed he gave me a funny, almost offended glance, and then stalked away before I even had chance to ask him what he meant.

It turned out I had inherited a sizable and attractive house.  When I first glanced about it I thought, I could live here quite comfortably.
  The first floor was a series of passages leading to several rooms all of which were very large, and clean, well ordered and full of light and air.  The house had a bar, at the back, and a cellar, and beside this a small archway led to the kitchen which was elegantly combined with the dining room, and beside this was an excellently proportioned living room.  There were also two good-sized bedrooms on the ground floor, and a bathroom with a wonderful marble floor.
  It was marvellous!  I couldn’t believe how lucky I was to own all this.
  Of course I decided it was time to peruse the second floor.  And so off I went to explore, and at the top of the steps I found something that amazed me.  The second floor was a mirror of the first floor, with exactly the same rooms, exactly the same size and in the same places.  There was one marked difference; the condition of the rooms was slightly lived, there was a certain shoddiness, with peeling paint and large accumulations of dust in certain areas.  But the living room was huge, and it had a great window that looked out on the grounds below, and positioned beneath it was a fire, and even now a living flame was already flickering away inside it!
  Now I made my way to the third and final floor - but stopped fast at the first steps.  Now here was another significant change in the quality of the building.  This final set of steps was without a carpet, and the walls without decorations, and the little window by the side of the steps was stuffed up by a scruffy, greasy curtain.  There was something grey and depressing about this part of the house, and the gathering of dust was so amazing I could plough my hand through it and leave a finger trail behind like it was a pile of old mud.
  I shook my head, but for some reason could not put my foot on that first step leading upwards.  It was like an invisible wall stood against me - and not just that, but an awful feeling of claustrophobia that vanished the moment I walked away.
  Now I remembered the old man's words - don’t go up to the top floor!  I think it was his fault I feared those steps!  He had put ideas in my head!  Well, whatever, I didn’t explore any further that day, and returned back down below.

The first few weeks of my new life in the house were wonderful, and relatives visited, and we had parties and mother seemed happy.  I don’t know how, but I almost forgot about the third floor!  A whole section  of the house I had completely forgotten about.  And yet every time I did remember the final set of steps leading to the top, a sudden gloom clouded my mind, and I shuddered with a inexplicable sense of fear.
  It was about our third week in when the first strange thing happened.
  I was on the second floor, in the living room, stoking up the fire, and whistling a tune, quite mindful of anything other than my good humour, when I noticed the cabinet door behind me.
  Now I hadn’t checked this place before so I opened the door, to find a little set of steps on the other side.  They curved round and then went up, and no doubt ended at the top floor.  A second secret set of steps?  “How strange!”  I thought.
  I decided to ascend, and then I had to stop, for halfway up a solid metal gate closed the way off.
  Now I looked at the gate, and with the attitude of any other normal human being I thought “what’s this doing here?” and felt quite ruffled to find my steps blocked by such a thing, and when I started to think of plans to have the gate removed I heard footsteps from above!  Then, on the other side of the gate, standing on the steps just above me, an old man appeared!
  I’ll be honest with you, I was scared, and I ran down the steps in a panic, but then a took a grip of myself, and returned, to find the man had gone, but the gate would not budge by my hands.
  I returned to the room below shaking.  The man I saw did bear a resemblance to the old proprietor who had left the keys to me, but even so, if it was him, he was still an intruder, and had no right to camp himself in my property.
  Eventually I returned downstairs and somehow forgot the matter.

The next morning I checked on my mother, who had been very quiet in her room, and had not stirred for breakfast, to find she had disappeared.
  She had gone off exploring on her own…  and then I thought in dread of the third floor, had she gone up to the top without me? And when I remembered the strange man that lived up there terror gripped me!
  I had been living in the house for a month, and still had not gone up into the third floor.  It was crazy!  It was only then I realised how mad it all was.  Really , it was like my house was two different countries, with the border lying between the second and third floor, and then over that border was some foreign land where I was not welcome.
  Well!  I thought now, plucking myself up.  “This has to end!”
  I wasn’t going to stand for it anymore.  I charged my way up to the top!
  When I reached the third set of steps I did hesitate for a while, but then remembered myself, and I tore down the greasy curtain, allowing a pale oily light threw, and then I blasted my way up to the top without stopping!
  So now I had reached the top floor, for the first time in my life.  The first thing I noticed was how cold it was.  And that was because none of the windows up here had glass panes, and a cold breeze was freely running through!
  I shivered, then braced myself, before beginning to explore.
  Again, the third floor was a mirror of the floors below, only the quality of the rooms was seriously degraded, with  chipped wooden floors and naked walls, and windows torn out and left as holes before the open air.  No furniture, no furnishings.  There were no lights, only a chill darkness.
  I shook my head wearily.  What was this?  It was like no one had lived here, and the place was left to fall into ruin.  Then I remembered my mother, and I had to find her, for she had to be hiding somewhere, in these creaky worn halls.
  As I reached a large open room, adjacent to the secret steps beyond the gate which led down the living room below, a ladder dropped down before me. I climbed it, till I reached the attic above, in the roof of the house.  Dust was in my eyes but when I had rubbed it out, an unimaginable sight awaited me.
  It was the old man, standing on a chair, with a taught rope fastened round his neck.  Right beside the chair was a huge wooden chest…
  ‘I told you!’ he said.  ‘Don’t go up to the top floor!’  He kicked the chair away from under him, and the rope snapped about his throat.  I rushed to grab his legs, to support him, but I was too late to save the mad fellow…  By the time I readjusted the chair, and was able to climb up myself and cut him down, I found he was dead, and a great gloom clouded my mind.

The authorities quickly zoomed in and carried the dead body away on a stretcher.  I was left with a strange burden to bear.  Nobody could explain what the man was doing in the roof; he had possibly fabricated a key which granted him access to the house after we had handed over the legal deeds, but how he had obtained sustenance and carried out his affairs without my knowing, I don’t know.  I could only guess he was mad!
  But then of course there was the question of my mother.  My mother!  Where had she got to?  On that we were all stumped.  She had completely vanished.  But the authorities were out with search parties already, and I could only sit in my chair and dwell in thought and hope for the best.

Everyone was gone by the time it happened.
  I was on my own, and I poured myself a drink, for my nerves were shaken, and my wits exhausted with the burden I carried.
  That was when I saw the huge wooden chest by the fireplace before me.  The same wooden chest that had been in the top floor, by the spot where the old man had hung himself.  Now the lock flicked open by itself, and the lid slid back…  White fingers flopped out and groped about like little grubs.  And then out crawled a gaunt and shaggy figure.  Pale and emaciated, and clad in rags - an old hag with dark eyes and a hooked nose, and an evil toothy grin…
  Good grief!  No!  I looked again, and saw, beyond that vile visage of a leering hag, my own mother, only warped into a vile crow beyond description!
  ‘Mother!’ I cried, ‘what has happened to you?’
  She laughed, and then croaked, ‘I am not your mother!  And I never was!’
  Dropping my drink I fled to my room and locked the door.  That mad thing is now smashing against it, hacking away with a great cleaver!  Already the wood is giving way, but the window will not budge, and there now seems no escape for me!
  As I desperately write the last lines of this record, I don’t think I shall ever know the dark riddle that creeps along the twisted ways of this house.
  There is only one thing I do know for certain, just before the darkness takes me - and that is the number of my days…

The End

Gone, but no lost...

I have been busily polishing off my next book - streaming through it and riddling out any mad errors.  I will place more detailed updates when it is all finally cobbled together.

How the toy maker died

There used to be an old toymaker.  He built a house in the middle of a wood, beside a beautiful birch tree and a tiny stream that twinkled by.  He was alone in the world and he carved a family of wooden toys and dropped one of his tears in each of their hearts, and at night time they came alive, and talked to him, and sang him songs and kept him company.
  Just down the stream, and not very far away, two trolls lived.  They built a rundown shack, and they were poor and mean fellows, and hunted rabbits in the wood, and were hungry and lean.  They were ugly, bony men, with long arms and groping fingers, and their hair was red and tatty, and their eyes large and black.
  They spent all day grumbling over their lot in life, until one struck up an idea on how to enrich their pitiable way of life.

‘Now our lives are miserable as you well know,’ said the troll. ‘We’ve had a meagre way of life for a long time; but here’s a plan I’ve had, and I’ve been thinking it through all night.
  ‘-NOW!  There’s the toymaker,’ he started. ‘You know the one I mean. The really odd fellow who lives up from us, just a little way along the stream. Now he’s a strange one, as I’ve said before now, however, it is said he sleeps on a great box of gold! He’s as rich as kings, they say. Now he won’t share any of that with the likes of us so I say we go and take it from him!’
  ‘Do we ask him for it first?’ asked the second troll, but the first troll shook his head.  ‘I say we kill him.  I say we knock him out while he sleeps.  And the best part is no one knows about him, except us of course.  No one will ever know we did the deed!  And the gold will be ours afterwards!’
  ‘I says I like that!’ said the second troll - ‘Sneak into his house!’ he said, ‘knock him over the head!  Yes!  Good idea!’
  They both jingled with excitement.

They waited till nightfall, and with their blood pumping ready for the hunt, they followed the tingling stream, to the house where the toymaker lived.
  The trolls, with their clubs in their hands, waited for the lights in the windows to dim, and then the leader nudged his friends and said, ‘Right!  He’s gone to bed!  Follow my lead!’
  The door was locked, but they were able to snap open the window.  It was an old house, and not strong enough to keep the heavy handed trolls at bay, and so the two easily pulled themselves in, and they crept along the kitchen floor, along the passageways, to the dark room where the toymaker presently slept.
  The two trolls stood either side the bed, and after a One! Two! Three!  They clobbered him to death!  They bashed him till the bed beneath him broke in pieces!  Feathers in the sheets swam peacefully and lithely around the air.  The moon leaned out of the clouds, and turned the room silver, and red, where the blood lay.
  They rummaged about the mess and after seconds the trolls found their quarry.  It was the box beneath the bed, the treasure trove the toymaker slept on!  The troll leader held it up triumphantly in the moonlight, and he nudged his friend and said, ‘Let’s get out back home, lad.  We’ve done good this day!’

But in the sunshine of the following day the two trolls sat miserably around the box with their heads bowed in their hands.  They had spent all night and all morning trying to open it.  But they couldn’t, not for anything!  Neither had been expecting this.  The troll leader bashed the box over his head.  ‘Curse this thing!’ he shouted.  ‘What a nasty trick to play on us!  But know this, brother!’ and he made a pledge, ‘I will open this box whether it kills me!’

In the house where the toymaker used to live, there were no lights, no songs, no cheery talk, just dust and gloom, and an unhappy quiet.
  His old toys were sat on the shelf, one beside the other in a row, looking on their dead master, and each one shed a tear, but they would never bring him to life, as he had done with them.  They whispered, and whistled, and waiting and watched, and when the sun dragged the light away, and the sky was darkness and stars, the toys helped each other down from the desktop, and together, in single file, set out into the wood.  They followed the ways of the stream, to the shack where the trolls lived.  They were sleeping now around a campfire, and the leader was resting his head on the box.
  With a cautious care not known to those of humankind, they slipped the box from under the sleeping trolls’ head, and then they opened the lid, for the box was made for them by the toymaker in person, and only the toys knew the special way it opened.  Inside the box was a pouch of ground dust produced from the seeds of a deadly flower.  They sprinkled the dust on each of the trolls; putting the dust in their mouths and ears and eyes, and that night both trolls died.
  Like the toymaker, they would never see another dawn.
  Before the sun rose the toys put wood around the dead trolls and put a fire on the bodies.  They waited till the early hours of the morning, till the trolls were turned to cinder and dust, and then they worked with such subtle haste, taking every single fragment of the trolls with their tiny hands, till they had bundled the remains into the box, and then closed the lid down over them.
  They returned back to the toymakers house, carrying the box over their tiny wooden shoulders, and they did not stop till they reached home.  They put the box under the broken bed where the toymaker slept, and there the trolls remain, to this very day.

Hell of the Monkey

New story begins below...
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It was only a week after the successful operation when my doctor surprised me in the street, calling my name out, and slapping me on the shoulder.  ‘And how are you feeling?’ he asked, and I replied, ‘Never better.  ‘Ha!’ he laughed, ‘you are a fine species of animal!’
  I was his first patient to participate in a new line of transplant procedure known in France as “animal-viscera”, where defunct internal organs are replaced by genetically enhanced animal replicas.  I told him the operation had worked a spell and I was feeling rather active than usual.
  He smiled at me, but it was more a curious smile, if I have ever known one, than the type of smile one likes to see in reaction to a cheerful word.  He put his fingers on the side of my face, as if to examine me, and after gazing into my eyes he shook his head.  ‘Not yet ready,’ I heard him mumble in a voice that was otherwise inaudible.  As he muttered to himself he began stroking his thin grey goatee beard.  His eyes were great and dark, I had noticed this before, and for awhile I seemed to stand hypnotised before him.  Noting my rigid state I saw his hand move into his pocket and then he said suddenly, ‘This might help!’
  Then, without warning, and certainly without my permission, he drew out a syringe (filled to the brim with a singular orange liquid), and stabbing my hand plunged the contents into my veins!
  He checked my face again, nodded, and stalked away!
  I felt the blood flow through my veins again and checked my sore bleeding hand.  Why had he done that?
  Of course I had to hope it was for the good, he was my doctor after all and I trusted him, and I soon forgot about it because of the important meeting to which my presence was expected.  The chancellor of the Head Bench was waiting for me and I needed to be spick-and-span if I wanted to win him over to my cause.  Yes!  Political matters, I am afraid, but the success of this particular meeting would see me a chair ahead on the bench in parliament, the President of the Elect Council - a position my father held before me.
  ‘I must say you are looking rather well!’ said the chancellor.  ‘And I must agree with the beard!  I know you are one to keep your appearance sharp, but this time I agree with the length of bristles on your face!  The beard leaves you with a noble air!’
  I thanked him, and then reflected on the obscure subject he had touched on because I remember specifically that morning shaving my countenance clean of any hair…
  I started to pour the brandy, and my hand jittered when I noticed the fantastic length of black hair growth on my hand, especially across my knuckles, and along the ridges of my fingers.  I tipped a portion of the brandy on to the table clothe.  The chancellor eyed me inquisitively, raising one of his great bushy brows and he said, ‘I say boy!  Are you alright?’
  I nodded.
  ‘It’s just you seem a bit shaky!  Not like your usual self!  Are you sure you are feeling well enough for this?’
  ‘Of course I am!’ said I, perhaps a little too harshly.  Then I calmed, continued to pour and relaxed myself in my chair.  ‘Sorry!  You know how it is!  Just a little, you know, a little jittery!’
  ‘Ha!’  and the chancellor patted his mouth with his serviette, ‘I never looked on you as the nervous sort!  I remember your father!  Never afraid to speak his mind!

Really, what the man said wasn’t really that funny at all, but for some reason I started to laugh uncontrollably!  A wild howling laugh, and I could actually feel my mouth grow larger than normal!  I will tell you the truth, I don’t know why I started to laugh then in the way I did, but I did; a mad loud hooting laugh like some mad thing.  Even though I felt thoroughly embarrassed I couldn’t stop, and when I tried to stop I lost full control and started to throw my hands about.  Then for no reason I stood up, jumped onto my chair, and in a crouched position started to jump up and down in the same spot.
  The chancellor, who by my unexplainable actions, had been worked into a sweat, mopped fully his howl head with his serviette, and stood abruptly from his chair.  ‘I’m sorry, but I don’t have time for this!’ he said.
  Without another word he stalked away, and this threw me into a  rage, and I chased after him, but I found myself unable to say a word, only shout mad noises.  Everyone was looking at me, and that was when I noticed my reflection in a glass pane - I was actually running on all fours - using both my arms and legs!  I don’t know why I did this, but for a few seconds it seemed to feel right.  I grunted, stood aright, straightened my back and adjusted my collar.  Ignoring the hundreds of glances that were aimed my way I calmly left the building, and when I was out of eyesight, I picked up speed and just manage to catch the chancellor before he vanished into his taxi.
  ‘Wait!’ I cried.  ‘We haven’t finished!’
  ‘I’m sorry but I wont be made a fool,’ he said.  ‘Unless you regain your temperament we have nothing further to say to one another!’
  I don’t know why but I completely lost my temper with him.  My hands became separate beings and lashed out at him - and he turned and dodged, and then came about again in a diagonal position with his own fist aimed caught me on the chin and knocked me to the pavement floor.
  He drove off and left me there, while I sat up and rubbed the bruise, blinking into the stars and wondering why I had attacked him.  Of course I deserved the punishment in the chin, I could live with that; what I couldn’t live with was my irrational, and uncontrollable behaviour.  Why had I laughed madly in front of my friend, or ran about on all fours like some animal for hundreds of people to look upon with mocking frowns?  It was ridiculous actions for any human being let alone a public figure, and no doubt after the nights high handed conclusion with the chancellor the pages on my political career were slammed too.

What amazed me more than anything, when I got back home, was the beard I had grown.  Before I was about to wash I saw my reflection in my bathroom mirror, and the shock I received by what I saw left me starring in wonder for at least five stupefied minutes.  Not just a beard, but long black hairs over all the face and the throat.  When I touched the hairs I saw my fingers in the mirror, then looked at them closely for the first time to see how long they had grown.  Huge long groping fingers!  I couldn’t believe it and yet all I could do was make a strange inaudible grunting sound.  Then I began hoping around my room, going fourth on all floors, like a proper prince of fools!  I began spilling over book cases, turning up furniture, and it seemed to almost give me some sort of crazy but curious pleasure - like I had achieved something profitable or intellectual, even.  As a man read books to keep his brain keen, I tilted chairs and gazed under tables.
  I shook and quivered with fear.  Had I gone mad?
  I retired to bed and hoped sleep would cure me.
  In the morning a felt a hundred percent myself again.  No longer seeing the point in getting changed, I swung out of my bedroom window, and proceeded to dance cheerily along the rooftops.  A nearby tree looked a good resting spot and I jumped up into the lower branch and climbed up to the top.  I gazed about at the mad town below.  I saw someone walking down below, and I felt I could not stand for this.  “I found this tree, it was mine!”  I leapt out of the branches and growled and threw my fists about at her, and she in turn screamed, and for some reason fell unconscious to the floor.  Minutes later men clad in fearsome military attire marched out of a vehicle, and I was netted, drugged and put to sleep.

When I awoke I found iron bars around me, but it wasn’t until the effects of the drug finally wore off when I realised I was inside a cage!
  I shook the bars with my long leathery fingers, but could make no other sound except a loud resonant scream.
  Then I saw my Doctor!  Dr Pretler entered through a door, and standing before my cage leaned down to look at me.  He chuckled through his grey goatee beard.  ‘Ah!  So you are awake again!  Good!  Good!’
  I had questions, but I could ask them no more than I could open the door to my cage.  I just couldn’t shape words like I wanted to, and every time I put my voice into action I just made mad jumbled sounds.  This eventually infuriated me to such a state I just stopped talking altogether, and sat there like a fool.
  My tormenter just laughed.  ‘Good! Good!’ he kept on saying.  ‘A fine specimen!  You have worked out admirably.’  And again he drew fourth a syringe, containing the same orange liquid as before, and aimed it for my veins - but I scratched him off and the syringe smashed!  He retreated cursing angrily.
  I hugged my short hairy legs to my chest and pondered, ‘Why I am I in such a small place?  I want to be out in the world - I want to be free!’
  Someone was laughing at my side.  I turned about, and in the cage opposite me was a chimpanzee!  The most bizarre thing was, I could understand what he was saying!  It was the most singular experience in my life, and then it also seemed to feel just right - like it was meant to be.
  ‘Got you as well, has he?’ he said, and again he laughed.  ‘You aren’t the first, mate.  You probably wont be the last!’
  ‘What are you going on about?’ I found myself able speak now, and the monkey understood me completely and he replied, ‘You don’t know, do you?’
  I said, ‘Know what?’
  He said, ‘Imagine there was a mirror between us, and I was your reflection.  That’s right my friend.  You are like me.  You are a monkey.’
  What was my reaction to this?  Did I wail and shout with anger and despair.  No, I was quite calm.  When I saw the long hair on my arms, and looked down at my large leather feet, it all made sense.
  ‘But why?’ I said to him, and he shook his head and said, ‘I don’t know!  But I have been trapped here for days.  I don’t know what Pretler is planning, but I know what I’d do if I got my hands on him!’
  ‘So do I,’ said I, with a growl.
  ‘He’s ruined my life,’ said my friend, and I nodded, and muttered a mirror answer, ‘And mine,’ I said.
  I cannot say how long my imprisonment lasted, for I was never allowed to see the light of day, and every now and then Dr Pretler entered the room, deposited food through iron bars of my cage, and then left again through door, chortling.  One day he came and took the cage away containing my friend, the only person I had to keep me company.  It made it easier having someone to share the burden of my misfortune with, a fellow sufferer who carried the same hardship.  When he was gone I went mad, and wailed for hours, but when my energy was spent I recoiled to the corner of my cage, and turned grim and silent.  My eyes must have glazed with fury.  I began to plot and plan…  My life had been destroyed but it had one last thing to live for…revenge…

And so I remained patient, and waited, and as I hoped the good doctor rewarded my good behaviour, and removed me from the cage and brought me out to the laboratory that lay outside the door beyond.  ‘It has worked perfectly,’ he said.  ‘It,’ and at this point the was referring to me! ‘has absolutely no knowledge of its former life.  Ha!  I have succeeded where others have failed!  Those doubters will now eat their words when they see my latest triumph!’
  Now at this point I wasted no more time.  I attacked with only the veracity an animal has.  I clawed him with my hands, I gnawed him with my teeth.  I vented my days of fury upon him fully, ripped him to shreds, and scattered him across the room.  I tore up his books, his papers, tipped over his vials of chemicals, and drained out every last ebb of that putrid orange liquid till it seeped into the cracks in the floor.
  When the deed was done I sought the nearest window, snapped it clean open and swung out into the open air.
  I have been on the run ever since, chased hither and thither by those of my former kind.  I found my way back to my old apartment, and there I shall stay, till I am found.  I do not know my fate, but I do not think I will be looked upon as anything other than a savage animal.
  And so I have decided to discharge my final thoughts in this analogue, for others to wonder on, and perhaps, with hope, prevent such events that have distressed me from ever occurring again.  For now though I leave you with a misty far well.  I do not know if my fate would have been different had I not attacked the doctor in the way I did, or if my mind had not started to turn more and more animal…
  The one thing I did know, and that was the number of my days…

Just because monkeys seem the same doesn’t mean to say we are the same.

The End

The Hell of the Clown

A short story about a man besieged in his house for no reason by a clown...

Story begins below
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The unfortunate circumstances, which I shall now relate, fired up the moment I cast my mad brother out onto the streets…

We were always worried about him when he was young, because of the strange symbols he drew on walls; but when he turned to grave digging father would have no more of it and he was cast out of the house and spent some time in the asylum.
  Years later I looked after him on a temporary basis, and on his twenty seventh birthday it seemed he had been cured of his strange ways.  He took to reading books, and for awhile worked in the Hales Library.  I was pleased for him, and my heart was content and glad!
  The one night I awoke, startled from my sleep, to the sound of rattling and clanging below.  I ventured downstairs as hastily as my feet would carry me, gazed with my tired eyes to see my brother leaning on the wall, with mud on his hands and feet.  I questioned him, and after he caught his breath, for he appeared to be recovering from some exertion, he replied, ‘Walking!  That’s all.  I fell over.  I’m sorry for the noise!’
  A day later my nose made me wince with the horrific, nay incomprehensible smell which entered it.  Following the direction of this sent to its source found me before the door to my brothers room; I knocked and when there was no response I forced my way through.
  And there he was, as of old, sat amid a pile of bones, holding a skull in his hand.  With tears in his eyes he said to me, ‘Forgive me brother!’
  And so it was I cast him out, because I could not stand no more of this, and I did not see him again.
  A day later, and the day before I write this note, the strange events I am about to record took place…

In the afternoon I like to sit in my chair and read, with the sunlight pouring through my French patio it was otherwise a beautiful day.  And I sat contentedly pouring over the pages of my book, when for some reason I felt a chill run down my spine, and as if by instinct I lowered the book I was reading to look to look out of the window - to my surprise, and later I must admit, my horror, I saw a clown!  He was actually stood in my garden!
  I gazed at it, and without doubt, it gazed back at me, with serene green eyes.  With a face as white as snow, red smiling lips and blue hair, accompanied by the bright dress he donned I would have described him as an otherwise jolly looking character had he, for example, showed up for a children’s show, and not for some mysterious and unwarranted reason on the doorstep of my own private property.
  I opened the window and shouted at him - what do you want!  He pointed at me, increased the width of his grin, till his expressions perfected a type of leer, and then he merely walked away without offering by-or-leave or even a simple explanation!
  Disturbed I returned to my book - but I couldn’t read it of course, not after that experience.  I put it down and thought what the clown could have been about - when placing the book on the dresser, and standing up to make my way for the kitchen, I saw again the face of the clown pressed right against my own window!  The condensation of his breath had turned to dew on the open pane!
  ‘Get away you scoundrel!’ I cried, ‘I don’t know what game you are playing but I am not laughing at it!’
  But my whole constitution changed when I gazed closely at the character that affronted my privacy; for he removed a white glove from his hand - and I saw that beneath the glove was a hand that carried no skin or flesh - and now the death-like bony fingers tapped my window!

I knew now that I wasn’t dealing with some sad lunatic.  This was serious.  Something deadlier than I could have dreamed.
  I prayed that I was dreaming, and if so please let me awake!  But no, I was trapped - and even though the leering visage of that creature had moved from my window pane, it did not bring me comfort.
  So he had moved from the window, but the question was where had he repositioned  himself?

With terror forcing my heart to beat like I had been in a marathon, I checked all the doors, and the windows as well, to ensure they were all sealed and locked.  I fell against the wall and started to pant, and tried to regain my breath and likewise remain calm.  I would need all my senses in fine tune if I was to deal with this problem sensibly.
  Just as I regained my nerve I heard a shrill, and horrible laughter, right outside my front door.  Good grief!  It was still there, and on my trial!
  ‘Now look here my good man!’ I shouted at it, ‘I don’t know what your game is!  But if it is to scare me you have succeeded.  Now be of with you.  I want no trouble!’
  My words proved useless, for now the clown began fiddling with the door handle.
  ‘Be off with you!’ I cried, and I began to think “Did I lock the door?” but as the door had not moved
I presumed I must have done.  ‘I am a peaceful man!’ I shouted at it.  ‘I don’t deserve this!’
  That was when paranoia took me, fully, and I rushed about checking all the doors and windows again, when suddenly there was BANG
  But it came from above?
  Now I realised I hadn’t checked the bedroom window!  I rushed up the stairs with all speed, to find that the clown had grabbed my ladder, and had thrown it up to the window.  He was at that very moment climbing it and nearing the top!  I could have allowed terror to get the better of me, and collapse with sheer fright, but I held fast as always, and when the clowns head was peeping in view of the window seal I reached out, and pushed the blasted fellow back down!
  I tipped the ladder back on him, like an old warrior from the dark ages defending a castle turret, and afterwards slammed the window to, locking it firmly at the same time.
  Now all areas were sealed, I fell down on the floor and tipped my head into my gibbering hands.  What was happening?  For no reason my life was falling apart.  And now I had something I have never felt before - a feeling of utter doom.  The order that I knew was suddenly gone, and minutes seemed like hours there was just no knowing what would happen next.
  All I could do was wait, and hope.
  Then the door slammed below…  But … but it was locked?
  I rushed out to the landing, and found the clown, stood there, at the bottom of the stairs, gazing at me with a great grin on his face.  As soon as I saw him he began to ascend!  With a cry, for that was all I could do, I rushed back into my room and slammed the door to.  I threw my work desk against the door, and then put my own weight against it in the hope the clown wouldn’t be able to break through.  Now my terror was truly immense.  To think that thing was in my house, outside my room, and the only item I had for defence was a thin door jammed too by a cranky old desk.  I only hoped I had enough strength to prevent him from entering.  I now regretted my folly at pushing the ladder down, if I had thought about it I should have grabbed it, and pulled it in, and now I could have used it to climb down and call for  help from one of my neighbours.
  Still, I rushed to the window and throwing it open I shouted out several times, “Help me!  A mad man is attacking me!”
  But when the handle to my door was twitched behind me I had to resume my place by the desk, and with the help of the desk and my weight I was able to prevent him from entering.

These could be the last few lines I ever write in this, possibly the last entry in this unfortunate  journal.  I have been trapped in my room for a whole day now, and I am weary with fatigue, and hunger, and thirst, but whenever my eyes droop, I hear him scratching at my door, clawing to get in.  I swear he is leaning by the door handle, and I heard a little chuckle sound down by the crack of the door.
  I secretly hoped, especially after a few hours, the clown would just go away; but indeed he has not moved.
  I know sleep will soon take me, and then that fiend will easily be able to enter, and then I will be at his mercy.  If only I knew what it was he wanted…
  But there is one thing I did now know; the hideous secret that most mankind hope to evade, and yet always fall into - and that was the number of my days…

I say... What day it is? The Day of the Wisp?

It's Monday, and although I have only just returned to work I feel like I could be cut into the English Dictionary to serve as a metaphor of the tired man.

Only one scene redeemed the day for me.  I turned my way about the park, and looked down on the tiny stream that ran by.  Now the trees around the stream are dark because of the rich growth of leafage, but somehow sunlight, which was notably bright and clear, made its way through the branches to light up the scene.  I can tell you now, with great confidence, with the sunshine glowing on the wings of the little dancing flies, one might imagine they were wisps, caught up in a dance, and with the shadows and the tinkering stream and flickering lights I could let myself be deceived that I was not looking upon England no more, and that my eye was gazing upon some magical sylvan scene, of the sort to inhabit the works of Lord Dunsany.

The Expedition

There is a new story to read The Expedition and it can be found on stories section on the right side of the bar.  Even though Rutger Heartly does feature at large in this story, The Expedition is not a true Rutger Heartly adventure.

The Expedition is a ridiculous piece of escapism about three scientists who set out on an adventure to the Nahla Lake in Africa in search of a mythical beast called the Makala. The adventure leads them to a forgotten island, where prehistoric beasts and ancient treasure are to be found.

Is it Friday? Good grief!

Another day, and another good kick from the Australia's by  the other side of some wild donkey seeking random adventure in the great outdoors.  Well, at least that's how I feel.

Anyway, let's return to something sensible.  Here are a few more daily tips to help you lead a healthy and mature life.

1.  If you see an oddly shaped sheep walking in an awkward fashion and it looks like its head is about to fall off, call the police at once!  It's probably a madman in disguise!

2.  If you feel worried you might commit a terrible crime hand yourself into the police and confess before-hand, and the crime will never happen!

3.  If you can't cross a busy road because of all the zooming cars, try to climb onto the roof of a building and leap from one roof to the other.  It's a brilliant way to move about, and you'll only fall if you think about it too much.

4.  If a fat and oddly large seagull accosts you in the street asking for directions please refer to point 1.

5.  The best cure for hay fever is to leap head-first into a pollen field and roll about in it all day long into the morning.  I have never tried to do this, and that's probably why I am still alive.

6.  if you have seen a dinosaur freely walking around in your back garden go check your medication now!!

My Work 17.8.11

Busy writing another book offline.  I will return with something new, eventually, of that you have my word!

Rutger Heartly has Arrived...

Rutger Heartly is an old character I invented years ago.  My main plan is to compile all his stories into one great book.  I have post his first ever adventure here and it can be read in the story section on the right side of the page.

Rutger Heartly is a professor of the paranormal.  A strange secret trade that only he practices.  People often seek him out to aid them in the irradiation of mischievous and baleful spirits.  Whenever something strange or evil appears, Rutger is the man to deal with it.

In Chutly Wood a traveller is possessed by the spirit of a wild animal, and he seeks Rutger out to help in driving the possessor away.  The task is not as easy as any of them imagined, and the quest to free the man's soul lead them to mysterious Chutly Wood itself...

Sean Wadley's Words of Wisdom 14.08.10

Time for your daily enrichment:

1.Never trust a man in top hat - he might hide a gun in it

2.If a grandfather clock starts talking to you go to the doctors - you're going mad

3.Fish live in the sea, because if they lived on land we would be overpopulated and driven out

4.Penguins are intelligent enough to read books - they just can't tell you what they mean because they don't speak our language

5.Never underestimate your own strength - you might knock yourself out while scratching your eye

What the Sun Doesn't Know

I have added a new story.  It can be found in the "story" section on the right side of the screen.  I would probably describe it more as mad - than strange; but its an experimental piece of fun I enjoyed writing.  As before, feel free to comment on it, any feedback is appreciated, good or bad.  There will be more stories to follow.  As soon as a new idea springs into my head I will place it down without hesitation!  Have a brilliant day, and I wish you all the best.

Sean Wadley

The Weekend is Upon us!

Yes, indeed it is!  Let's hope for more summer sunshine.  I hope you are enjoying the Deep of Space.  Just wanted to let you know there will be another Tale, soon, just preparing it.  I will place the best ones in the story section on the side.

I hope all the very best for you, have a good day, and most importantly of all - always remember, wherever you are, you are there...

May Rudwin be with you!

The Deep of Space

Here is the first part of a very short story called the Deep of Space...

Not a very great name, I know, but it is an odd tale, to the say the least, and a bit silly at times, but the best way for you to understand what I mean is to read on!  Please feel free to comment on this tale.  Did you think it was good, or a load of complete jabberwock and something that should be stuffed into a rocket and blasted off into the Earth's atmosphere.

I would be pleased to hear anything!

Story starts below-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Deep of Space


Lacking the relevant qualifications to be recruited by NASA as a professional astronaut, I knew that if I was ever going to land on the moon I would have to build my own spaceship.
  It wasn’t until I finally met Doctor Kensler that the opportunity to bring about a lifelong dream came into my hands.
  I myself knew Doctor Kensler from old, from his lectures at Mastow University.  He had acquired fame locally, and he was a great speaker renowned for his precise diction and economy of language.
  It was said that he was to one day to be the globes next leading physicist, and that he would be remembered as one of our greatest thinkers, and I believed this myself, until I finally met him in person.
  In the end it turned out that he was little more than a clever actor.   Having said this, he had my respect on one subject, the only thing that made my interest in our friendship hold, that he was an inventor of singular brilliance.
  By drawing upon his vast pool of knowledge in thermodynamics, he was able to make miniature rockets fly as far as the earth’s atmosphere using as their fuel only refined quantities of water and air.  His first rocket, which all scientists recognised as the earthbound – was created wholly out of a plastic bottle filled with enough air to propel it into space itself!  And it would have entered space, finally, had the bottle not melted in the earth’s atmosphere…
  But his latest project had me thrilled to core, for now it was his intention to construct a much larger model, ten times the scale of his original constructions – a rocket that would be large enough to propel even human beings into the very bowels of space!
  After studying the diagrams, the annotated plans, and seeing the actual model in its early construction stages itself, I could easily see with my own eyes the precise method and succinct orderliness the Doctor Kennsler had placed into his brilliant invention.
  His work held me in complete awe.
I decided I would work with him, and aid him in the completion of the noble and great project.  Yet the more I worked with him, the more I began to know him; the more I began to fear him.
  It seemed that his brilliant mechanical knowledge was counterbalanced, badly, by fatal fits of madness; for as sad as it may sound, he was indeed quite mad.  There were occasions, which appeared to occur quite randomly - at least from my perspective so it seemed, when this usually passive and genial man was overtaken by passionate fits of unwarranted aggression.  This was attributed to his belief that he was himself loosely descended from Greek Legend “Alexander the Great,” and on various unfortunate occasions he could be seen, marching up and down the roads, in full public view, holding a wooden stick aloft (his sword) and demanded support for the invasion of Persia.
  Then at other times he thought himself to be Captain Blackbeard.  All it took was for it to rain, and at the sight of the falling water he was away, charging out of the door, roaring wildly, flaying about like some wild thing, and it took all my efforts to restrain him; on one occasion, were it not for my hasty interference, he would have attacked and possibly beaten up a passing pedestrian…
  Other than that he was just a perfectly ordinary person.

We donated weeks of our life in the building of the rocket.  The actual frame of the rocket was based on the earlier designs, and made of hundreds of compressed plastic bottles.  Then we covered the plastic frame with paper; the little gaps and creases we filled in with mud; the doctor told me that mud would turn into a strong glue when the rocket made its journey through the atmosphere – the raw soil would turn into a type of tough cement and stop the rocket from falling to pieces.  Because he was in charge, and a man of superior intellect, it took his word for it.
  Our rocket was fitted with one large room, with two chairs, for the both of us, and the window, which we forgot about to begin with, we cut out of the plastic frame and covered in several layers of good thick tracing paper.
  After about a week of solid work, the doctor started to load the rocket with large glass jars, each one sealed tight, and all containing the air we would need as part of the fuel source.
  The next day we loaded aboard the water, which we kept in large see-through containers.  Later we attached the water and the air to a machine we called, The Power, where all the power of the rocket would come from.  The air and water we connected to this machine using an intricate series of pipes.  With little valves we could enter certain quantities of water and air, and if we used the right amounts in combination with the helium, gas and fire we also kept on board, we would have the combustion we needed to lift off the ground and beginning our space bound voyage.
  We didn’t have the resources for a test flight, because if it went wrong, and the ship was to implode, we would have to build it again…and we just didn’t have the material for that.  So it was to be a one way trip, as it were.  If the experiment was to fail, and we all died, that is destiny.  ‘And what is life without risks?’ I said to the doctor, and he smiled, chuckled briefly, and replied, ‘If there were no risks, there would be no life!’
  I agreed with him when he said this – though later I didn’t know why.

The 17 sept was set to be our lift-off day.

We lit the rocket with my old cigarette lighter, which I kept on me always to remind me of how I succeeded in giving up smoking a month ago.
  The computer began to count us down – five – four – three –

And upon three there was a huge explosion, which we were indeed lucky to have survived, and then, just a little short of two seconds, we were going up in the sky!

…IN SPACE…

So far the experiment had been a success.  We were off the ground, and within only a few minutes we were within reach of the earths rim.
  The skies were getting closer, closer – and soon would be behind us…
  At last, I thought with great excitement, I was on the verge of mounting the greatest pinnacle of my adult career.  I was finally going to enter space.
  Then finally we entered the atmosphere.
  …And good grief did we ever know it.  Thankfully, we obeyed the doctors precautions, adding extra layers of pure mud to seal in the ships creases – and just as he predicted, the soil hardened and the ship held, and we finally arrived in space seconds later – all in one piece.
  I, personally, felt such great relief with our success that I sighed, deeply, and mopped the perspiration on my forehead; but as I did so I looked on my companion, doctor kennsler, who was the perfect model of calm and tranquillity.  It looked like he had done this before, and to see him there, calmly looking out of the window, with his ease of mind, whistling a tune, just made me laugh!
  ‘Ease some water into the engines will you Walker?’ he said.
  Taking one of the tubes a released a cylinder and allowed just a few drops of water into the power engines.  ‘Not too much there,’ said the doctor, though he could plainly see I had hardly used any.  ‘Every now and then the rocket will slow down, and to give it a boost we must release the water.’
  ‘How does this work?’ I asked him, with genuine interest.
  ‘Some of the water evacuates the ship and as it does so, space freezes it, our engines then explode it, and as the ice shatters into shards, it pushes us forward, offering a rocket a tremendous boost!’
  ‘Why have scientists of old not thought about travelling through space in the economical fashion as we do?’ was my next question.
  ‘They never thought to use the right values,’ he told me, simply.
  I never understood this answer, but then I don’t think he intended me to.
  The man may have been a quack, who didn’t really understand science – but still, he managed to get us safely into space, so he was obviously good at doing something.
  ‘More water!  Water!  Let it flow!’ he would shout at me every now and then, and moments afterwards admonish me for using too much of it.   ‘You are far too liberal with the water, my son,’ he would say, afterwards.  And then he would add, sarcastically, ‘Leave some for the return journey, wont you?’

The moon became an ever growing phenomenon on our screen.  It was a glorious sight.  Indeed, I was surprised how quick we reached it.  I was expecting a few days of travel but it seemed that only in a few minutes and the moon was there, right in front of us!
  ‘How did we reach the moon so quickly?’ I asked the doctor, and as I waited a response, my friend began to emit strange, bird-like clucking sounds.
  I was in true fear that a madness had seized him again, here, now, in space.  Which would it be, Alexander, Blackbeard?  Or something new, perhaps more terrible?
  Thankfully the man held his reserve, and replied, ‘Our fine precise mixture of air and water helps keep the rocket in line with relativity.  We are presently travelling at light speed, my boy, light speed!’
  ‘But that’s impossible?’ said I, but he only laughed at me when I said this.
  ‘Improbable,’ said he, ‘but never impossible!  Now then,’ he said, speaking of something completely different, ‘pay attention to my words, and ease off with the water there on the engines.  We want the ship to slow down before we literally collide with the moon!  And I say again with vigour, collide!  For we shall do that, unless we cool off the engines!’
  So I eased off the supply of water and looked out of the window.  And there, sure enough, was the ugly fungous like body of the moon below us.  I felt the desire to get out of the rocket and walk across the moons’ surface – to fulfil that old dream of mine…
  …When I realised the great mistake we had made.
  We had no space suits.
    I was about to raise this setback in our plans when the doctor suddenly, and rather aggressively as well, ordered me to be quiet.
  ‘We must reach the shadowy part of the moon,’ he said to me.  It looked like he was trying to bring us about on the opposite side of the moon, for reasons that lay far beyond my mind.  I had no idea that unlike myself, it was not the moon he wanted to see.
  That was when I began to see the true foolhardiness of our whole expedition.  In the weeks we worked on the rocket, we never once discussed what it was we wanted to do when we got into space – that it was my dream to see the moon, and his to go somewhere far grander… far more unimaginable.
  ‘This is what I want to see,’ and he pointed and I looked at the window, and saw before me what I could only guess to be a black hole.
  ‘I observed it in my telescope a month ago,’ said the doctor.  ‘This is the reason why I built the rocket.  It was to be here, to see this!’
  ‘But what is it?’
  ‘A jump bridge,’ he told me.
  ‘Never heard of one?’
  ‘What about a wormhole then?’
  ‘Sounds vaguely familiar…I think…’
  ‘This is what it is, basically.’
  ‘And what is a wormhole?’
  ‘They are doors, my friend.  Ways of quickly moving around vast distances of space.  Why, this one right here before us could lead anywhere in the universe!  Why, it might even lead to another universe altogether!  Ha!  Think of it!’
  ‘I prefer not to,’ said I.  ‘We should turn around now.  Can’t you see, you have aimed the rocket right at it!’
  ‘And of course!  That is my plan!’
  ‘What?’ I exclaimed, and now true fear had gripped me.  What was this madman planning?  What had I fallen into?
  ‘I am going to go through it, and travel to the other side!’
  ‘Not while I am on board,’ I replied.  ‘This was meant to be a simple mission to the moon, but I didn’t sign up for this.  Turn around now or I will take over.  Don’t try to stop me, doctor, I’m sure in a fight I would best you.’
  By the time I realised the fantastic danger I was in the doctor had emptied the last of the water supplies into the engines.  Now there was no way of pulling back or turning the rocket round.
  ‘What have you done?’ I cried.  ‘You have killed us both!’
  ‘Surely I have,’ he said, and then laughed (for madness had obviously taken him), and then he shouted, ‘but at least we shall be famous!’

There isn’t much I have seen that is darker than space, but that black hole, or whatever it was, was darker than dark itself, like the vastness of our universe was some unfathomable beast and here then was its huge ugly mouth; and there we were heading right into it.  There was now no way back.  ‘How long do you think it will tale for us to die?’ I asked the doctor.
  A sense of calm suddenly settled between us.  It was a strange time for calm, I know, but things were very calm at that moment, and around us there was right sort of atmosphere for a question.
  But the doctor did not reply.  He was sleeping…
  I braced myself.  Now we were in the hole itself.  The blackness that was not part of space but part of something else which was all around us.
  In fact, at the time, I remember thinking there not being much difference at all, at least visually, between space and the inside of the black hole; the only thing being that there were no stars here.
  ‘We are in the black hole now,’ I said allowed, and my saying this seemed to force the sleeping doctor to suddenly arise in an eruption of anger.  ‘It’s not a black hole!  I told you.  A wormhole!  Philistine!  It is a doorway – between our universe and another!  Where it will lead I do not know- it might not lead at all!  We may be destroyed. ’
  ‘Then there is a chance that we might survive this journey?’ said I; and I was still surprised that we hadn’t died yet.
  ‘The odds, put simply, are a million to one, but yes, we might yet survive!’

And that was when it happened!  The rocket jerked violently, and then began to spin around, and to say that I felt sick then was an understatement, but my British reserve prevented me from unleashing the stuffing of my unsettled stomach.
  Then, at the edge of the blackness, a great thing, as I can only describe it as a thing, made of light, shimmering, made of lots of strands, came floating forward, moving strangely through the space like a jellyfish in the sea.
  It came closer, and closer.  I was so horrified I could not speak, the doctor seemed to have fainted, so he didn’t see any of this.  A shame really, as i imagine this sight would have boggled even his wild imaginative mind.
  Then the rocket, all of it, seemed to melt away, vanishing into nothing, leaving us stranded and floating in the darkness.
  It seemed an eternity but I knew nothing more for a very long time!

…I AWAKEN…

How I survived these cataclysmic events is a topic of debate that would be far too extensive to elucidate here in this rabble of notes I have kept as a journal.  Let us just say, in the interest of brief and clear narrative, that I just survived.
  There were flashes of vision, and when I think back on them now they seem more like dreams, though very real dreams at the time.  I can only guess that my companion and I had been taken prisoner, and were for some time in thrall of the jelly fish creature I described earlier.…
  We were inside it, floating along through the universe.  We must have made it through the black hole – or wormhole whatever it was.
  But I could see no stars, but the blackness was not so black, and all across one point of my view was a vast sheet of pink-red, which I guessed was a nebular of some sort – but then what do I know?  I have seen photos of nebulas, but what do they look like up close, or when you are in them?  Do they really have colour like this, as I was seeing?
  Then it all went black – we were moving to a blank rock like object, a type of floating rock – I suppose I must have thought I was an asteroid at the time.  We were put onto it, the doctor and I, and that was when I slept, for a very long time.

When I opened my eyes again things had changed very much.
  It looked like I was inside a prison cell.  All around me, four stern steel walls – and on one a great door, which would be, no doubt, locked against me.  There was no window, but there was light, but I could see no place for it to flow from.
  Too tired to think too much I just sat and lay there, with my back against one of the walls, and dozed, and dozed – till the realisation flushed through my ears, around my brain and out of my eyes and nostrils!
  I was a prisoner in a strange room!  I had been abducted!
  It actually turned out that I was not, and I hadn’t been, but at the time, my imagination ran in circles.  We must have been taken by aliens, I thought.  We were their prisoners!  Now in their power, they would embark on a series of diabolical experiments upon us.  The horror of it all was too much.
  Finally, when I tried the door, it actually opened, and I entered upon a great polished corridor.  I don’t know why but I felt like was in a hospital, for there were lots of other little wards, as it were, branching off on either side, and there were beds, with curtains, and above, a dull horrible light, flickering.  It all looked very earthly – human almost – in fact I would have thought my whole experiences so far, the rocket and the wormhole, just part of some mad dream; but the wards were so quiet, and there was nobody about.  No, this wasn’t Earth, I knew that.  There was a strange feeling.  The air was humid, but there was a cold chill in my spine.
  And there was writing on the wall, just little signs and notices as we have, but the writing was all outlandish, written in no alphabet I had ever seen.
  My first plan was to set out in search for doctor kennsler, my erstwhile companion, the only human I knew that must be here, and perhaps, with our company joined again, we might make a sensible plan of action.  At the moment I just felt such a sense of loss I just didn’t know what to do.
  Then, just like that, while I whirled in desolation, someone stepped out of one of thenearby wards and stepped right up to me.  ‘Best be leading you back to your room, good sir!’ he said.  He I say, for it was in fact a human, at least it looked like a human, who stood before me.  A small aged man, with glasses.  He was very thin and had strange long arms with knuckles that almost brushed the floor.  He aimed a broom at me and with it shoved me backwards.
  ‘Wait my good man!’ I started.  ‘Tell me first, where am I?’
  ‘Welll…er…’ and then the stranger laughed, ‘I don’t really know meself,’ he said.  ‘Now let’s stop this talking and be getting you back to your room!  It’s more comfortable there.  Don’t know why it is you wanted to leave!’
  I was too weak to resist even this old figure of a man.  He shoved me back into the cell where I began, vigorously poking me with his broom, and when I was back inside he put good strong cuffs around me feet and hands.  ‘That will do,’ he said and brushed his hands on his coat.  ‘I’ll fetch my old mate, Wretch, along.  He’ll get some food for ya.  Can’t have you been ‘ungry now can we?  Ha!  Can’t have that.  And this place could do with a polish!’  he spat into a clothe and began wiping the walls with it.
  As he worked he whistled, and shouted, ‘Wretch!  Where are you?  Wretch!  This man wants feeding!’
  I was surprised when his, mate, Wretch finally arrived, that he was in fact a great shaggy dog.  The food, which looked to me like green slime, was on a dish the dog carried on string around its throat.  The dog dropped the dish on my lap, dunked its nose in it, and walked away.
  ‘You’ll find you get treated well here,’ said the old man, wistfully and half to himself.  ‘Better than most other hospitals you’ll find.’  When he said better, he looked at me precisely in the eyes with so fearsome a consternation I shrunk in on myself – trying everything I could to just disappear.
  ‘So I am in a hospital?’ I asked him, but he seemed to ignore me.
  ‘There may only be me and old Wretch working here, but that’s all this place needs.  The best hospital, we have.  I mean, just look at this place.  You have good food to eat, you’ve got a clean room, and your comfortable as well.’
  He got down to his knees, and tightened the cuffs around me feet.  ‘There,’ he said.  ‘Nice an’ comfortable.  You’ll find you get looked after here.’
  What sort of a hospital was this?  I was so scared that I found the strength to try at the iron cuffs that locked onto my arms and feet.  When the old man sucttled off somewhere, I crawled out into the corridor, and shouted, at the top of my voice, ‘Help!’  and I cried this twice, as loud as my voice-box would allow me.  When my strength gave out, I collapsed in a heap, and lay there.

Moments later I heard footsteps in the corridor.  To my horror, the old man was returning, the dog at his side.  He was carrying his broom again, and was pointing it at me.  ‘What’s this then, hey?’
  ‘Please!’ I cried, hoping my cries would force the man to take my prediciment seriously, ‘I just want to know where I am!’
  ‘Do you, aye?’ said he, in a very gruff and grim way.  It seemed I had caught him at a bad time.  ‘Well I can tell you where you ain’t,’ he said, and began to growl – i thought it was the dog at his side, initially; but no, it was the man.  ‘I don’t run a hair saloon, my friend, or a cocktail bar.  We don’t do manicures here.  Oh no, sir.  This is my hospital, my little place, and i run it my own way.  You go along with the rules and you are treated well.  Go against them, however, and, well, things get a little bit messy.’
  That was when he grabbed me, with strange strength, and pulled me down the corridor, where i was led to a strange dark cupboard, strapped onto what had to be a type of pull down bed, which he then closed up and shoved me into the side of the wall.

Was this to be my fate then?  To have managed the unimaginable – to have travelled through space - to another dimension...to be locked in a cupboard...?
  The initial shock of my predicament was exchanged with the ancient biologically inbred human will to survive.  I kicked and pushed and strained against my constraints, and when that failed I yelled as loud as I could for help.
  And it worked!  Moments later I was released from my confinements.
  To my vast relief I did not see that mad old man and his dog standing before me, as I feared it was him who had released me at first.  That he had returned merely to offer me more of his outlandish brand of torture.
   My cooped up conditions had stifled me, and it wasn’t until I had regained full consciousness that I looked at last upon the face of my rescuer, to find, indeed, that it was no human stood before me – but an alien!

…I look upon the face of an alien…
Yes.  It had to be an alien.  It couldn’t be anything else.  I know the old man and his dog I just met could easily have passed for aliens, at least, in their behaviour – but this new fellow, well, in his appearance he visually was alien.
  He was of average size, I record him not being much taller than myself, and he was sapient in form.  But his skin was silver and glittered; and his eyes were just small bright sparks!  His hair had been cropped, and he had no ears, just holes; and in the middle of his chest, where his heart was, stretched a sheet of translucent material and behind it, a series of glowing wires, engulfed by a strange yellow jelly.
  ‘I will thank you for your help, now that I have my breath back,’ said I, to it.   ‘I do not know what is going on, but maybe you can help me.’
  ‘You may call me Brill,’ said the alien, speaking in a piping, musical voice.  ‘Brill-I-Aint, in full, and I was born to a shoemaker, apparently.  My father was a brilliant craftsman!  I never met him, of course, he was one thousand five hundred and five years dead when they cloned me from one of his eyelashes.  But still, that ancient particle buried away in my sympathetic biological frame brings on old urges; my love of shoes, for example.  I love shoes so much, you wouldn’t believe it.  You are a very lucky person to wear shoes yourself,’ he finally said to me.
  ‘Why?’ I asked him.
  ‘Well, it’s just one of the problems of being biologically enhanced.  I must be at least a thousand years ahead of you, in terms of my human artificial development.  While you grew, I was made – in a tube.  My skin on my feet is made of iron, so I don’t wear shoes; but I think of it, and always think of those quaint old ancient days, when people wore such things as shoes.  Your life must be so exciting!  All those wars and catastrophes you had – so very little ever happens these days.’
  ‘You are – human?’ I said to it, but it did not reply, and continued its reverie.
  ‘I wish I could have met my father, my real father, that is.  But you never know; some paradox might bring us together sometime in the unforeseeable future or past as it were.  One can never quite tell in this particular universe – which ways front to back.’
  Though it was interesting to be able to speak to an alien, but the topic of conversation so baffled me I was eager to change it.   So I said, ‘Where am I, and why was I imprisoned?’
  ‘It seems you’ve met Rhubarb Friddler?’
  ‘Who’s that?’ I said.
  ‘The old man that put you in here.  Yes, his name is Rhubarb Friddler, and he is a stupid person.  So stupid he has won a medal for it, you know?  But don’t you worry about him.  Thinks his in charge of the place, but he isn’t really.  The rest of us find it wise to ignore him.’
  ‘I need your help,’ I said.  ‘I had a friend, Doctor Kennsler.  He and I built a rocket, and we were travelling through space, when we encountered something I think my friend called, a Black Hole.  When we entered it, I think we must have been taken to another dimension.  You must help me find my friend.  He could be in desperate danger.’
  ‘Was he like you?’ said the alien.  ‘What I mean is; was he sort of short and fat and very unimpressive looking, as you are, as are most of the people living in your age of history?’
  ‘He had a beard, so that might have made him look different to me, I suppose,’ I said to it.
  The alien observed me, than, with his curious blue specks, and he said, ‘A beard?  Is that some sort of apparel?’
  ‘It’s like hair, on the head, but on the face instead.’
  ‘Hair?  ON the head?  Oh that!  Sorry I thought that was your hat.  We don’t have hair, my people.  Must of us don’t even know such a thing exits.  I only do because I’m an historian.’
  ‘So have you seen him?’ I said, losing my patience with this strange, and as I thought at the time, slow creature.  ‘Have you seen doctor kennsler?’
  ‘No.  But I have read of him in a book.’
  Good grief!  I was at loss.  The alien seemed intent on talking nonsense, and I could not drag even an inch of sense from it, so I tried some other question instead, with the hope that I might eventually prise some intelligence from this odd and slow creature.  ‘Where am I?  I mean, what planet am I on?  Please, I just want to know where I am, and I would also like to know what year it is.’
  The alien seemed to be totally overjoyed with being given the chance to answer my questions.  ‘Well, there are no years, for starters,’ it replied cheerfully, ‘and where we are, as you just asked, as far as I am concerned where is wherever it wants to be.  I mean, if there was such a thing as where, we would all get lost all the time wouldn’t we?’
  I could have seriously cursed that creature, with its irksome riddles.  The alien could obviously speak English, I could understand what it was saying and everything, but why it ever insisted on talking so unintelligibly left me utterly baffled.  But then, I reminded myself; it was an alien after all and probably only in the early stages of learning a human language.
  I decided to rephrase my questions, to simplify them, as it were; I would streamline my speech; synchronise our oratory, with the hopeful result that I might be able to eventually weld a common understanding between us.  So I began by simply asking: ‘We, inside A Hospital?’
  Studying my expression it laughed, and said, ‘Jokes are not my forte.  There were never allowed to be.  In fact, by my time, they had all gone out of fashion.’
  I obviously wasn’t going to get anywhere with this dumb animal, so I decided to ignore the creature and plan my method of escape.  There had to be some sane person nearby, with whom I could communicate, and learn something about my surroundings.  I presumed I wasn’t on earth any more; so where as I?  I had to find out – before I went mad.

Where are the Tales??

Ah Yes!  I can imagine what you are thinking!  It's called Strange Tales, and yet there are no tales anywhere!  Let me assure you that is soon to change!  My first short story will follow this post.  I thank you for the support my dear friends!  I would add more, I really would, but like everyone else I must work - and that takes up so much of my time.  Ah!  But never mind.  All we can do is get on with it, and do the best that we can!  We are treading through hard time, I know; and times are harder for some - but with a good story to tell maybe we can shine a light through the dark caverns of Time.

Of the Future

Hello!  I am presently planning out the future of this blog.  Ultimately, I intend to fill it with short stories... that is the plan.  Now that I have got all that - The Legend of Rudwin - preamble out of the way I can press on with what this blog is all about.  There are some stories I have written on the computer which I will eventually transfer here.  I am just thinking out how to set it all up - I would rather have links to pages showing separate stories rather than place all the stories in one big mad flow!  Now I must head out... need time to think and to plan!

May Rudwin be with you!

Sww

About the Legend

"...And then up, slowly, then completely, they saw it all: winged, scaled, harsh beaked and coiling serpent neck - writhing and whip tail; hot breath - the dragon. From its mouth a ball of fire fell, down to the black waters, and then the whole pool lit up all in flame..." So goes one of the great perils Rudwin and his companions must face as they wage their quest into the heart of the Grogos Marsh; meeting dwarfs and roanes, evading giants, battling beasts - a journey through bleak woods and forbidding darkness, and all to find the Staff of Necramor, and return it to the sacred Vault on the Island of Ruin. But there is more to the quest than it first seems, and every step of the way they are watched by dark and baleful eyes...

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That's how the blurb goes, but really, there's much more to it than that.  A small piece of writing on the back only describes so much.

It says - 10 years in the making - and though that does sound a bit far-fetched, I can assure you it is no mad over exaggeration.  But it has been a good ten years, and I have enjoyed writing the book!  It's been a good jolly old journey, and I am just sad its over...

The History of the Legend

How it all began...

Why did I invent a fantasy world?  Well, why not! I say.  I know what you are thinking.  Good grief!  This particular genre is packed to the brim with invented worlds.  I know, I have read my far share of fantasy novels, and I know there are plenty of good books of this sort out and about ready to be read.

But I don't think there should be an end to fantasy, and so here we have my contribution to this finest and most ancient and beloved field of story telling.

I was thirteen when I started fleshing out a fantasy world.  And I can tell you now, with great confidence, it is still being fleshed out.  Maps and history - it's all there, and still being worked on after all these years.  It is a work that doesn't stop.

In 2000, or there about, The Legend of Rudwin was called - The Way of the Roads.

The hero of the story was the  intrepid Yomo Milgun, who set out on a perilous journey across the land.  It was one of the early attempts, on my behalf, to put all the ideas had created in the 90's into a story with true structure.  I had invented a world, and now I had to have characters to roam it, and live in it, and discover it.

Even though the story was rightly criticized by friends and family, The Way of the Roads was published in 2005 - but when I looked back on that five year old story I realised that it was no good.  It was written by an inexperienced hand, and I knew the writer had improved so much since those days, so I made the decision to scrap it... I withdraw the book from shops, and now it no longer exists!  You might find scars of it in places on the internet, I believe it is mentioned somewhere on Amazon.co and com.  But the Way of the Roads is no more!  

The Legend of Rudwin had begun.

The Road to the Legend

When Rudwin met Hobbleweed...

In 2006 I totally re-wrote the Way of the Roads, word for word.  It was basically the same story, but with an improved modern writing style, replacing the childish naive verse form I had used in the 90's period.  I scrapped the re-written version, despite being over two hundred pages long, and it now now rests somewhere on my documents...

So I re-wrote it again!  This time Yomo went through many of his great name changes - now he was called Robbin!

This strange new 2007 version of the way of the Roads featured the aptly named Robbin with a new set of fresh characters, not featured before, and this was the first time The Elurger made an appearance.  The Elurger is an old 1990 character I invented in the old days, who I resurrected and reinvented.  In the old days he was an odd peasant type character who never really did that much...   But now he was a great fighter and leader, and leads the way of many great adventures.  I also transformed Bolderdof, another old character from the 90s, from a typical "we've seen it all before" magician type character, into a wily reneged - and he would stay that way to present times!

Anyway, this 2007 version was immediately scrapped upon completion because I felt it was too serious, too long, and too descriptive.  In 2008 I started again, and this was the first time we had the character, Hobbleweed.  Hobbleweed was my attempt to add humour to what was otherwise a very serious and very dark tale.  He's character would grow in the consequent years, but unlike Bolderdof and the Elurger, he is a relatively new character, and cannot be found in any of my pre 2000 work.  This version was never completed, but when I began fresh work in 09, I re-used scraps from this forgotten 08 story.  Robbin's named was changed to Rudwin (Rudwin was originally going to be a star of a different set of stories I started in 07 and then scrapped because they were rubbish) and I have stuck with this name to this day.

The book was finish at the end of 2009.  It was called - The Way of the Roads - but in 2010 to avoid confusion with old published 2005 book, I changed it forever to The Legend of Rudwin.  From 2010 to 11 I spent weeks journeying back into the story, cutting things out and adding things and amending any rough edges that I had overlooked.  Virtually every word in the final version of the Legend has been considered.  None of it is random, or placed in for padding.  I like to maintain a fast pace, and will never use needless padding to make a book artificially larger.

I am writing a direct sequel to the Legend of Rudwin...  But when it will be finished I cannot say!!  I will not rush it, that is for certain; but I do know its title.

It will be called:

The Trials of Rudwin

The Sequel that Never Was

The Last King...

For those of you who kindly bought and read my 2005 Way of the Road Book, may remember, on the second page, mentioning of a sequel - The Last King.  So, where is the sequel, you ask?

It is a sad business.  With my fearsome removal of the Way of the Roads all production on the sequel nullified - in other words, came to a stop.  The sequel, the last king, now rests in my draw, fully completed but in manuscript form.  And it will stay that way, forever.  But do not worry, you are certainly not missing out on anything...  The Last King was a load of bunkum anyway.  

Thank you for reading!

By Sww

08.08.11

There will be, without doubt, a follow on to the Legend of Rudwin.  The Trials of Rudwin!  Indeed.  But it's a far off thing.  The next book that I bring out will be something utterly different; but I shall say no more of it!  After all, the Legend of Rudwin itself is still not properly released!

The Legend of Rudwin - in detail

07.08.11

Tinkering with the website.  

There will come a time when I will place my thoughts here.  I will also place updates on future work.

You're probably looking at the Legend of Rudwin right now and thinking, Good Grief!  Not another fantasy tale!!

But don't worry.  It's not part of any glorious never ending series.  You have my as-surety I am

 moving onto something fresh next.  The Legend of Rudwin is an old tale...  I felt the need to get it out of my literary system before moving on to something new.

Let me elaborate on the blurb...

What is the book about?  I suppose Rudwin is quite a brave fellow, really, or perhaps stupid in a naive way.  He wants to see what lies over the hills, as it were, check the next horizon!  A daydreaming would-be traveller.  

His best friend is a humerus chap, who I am very fond of, called Hobbleweed.  Hobbleweed!  Ha!  What a fine fellow he is.  A strange old fellow, and a beer drinker to boot.  A six foot shaggy man, unkempt and roughly clad - he looks like a scarecrow, and has a diet for mud, apparently.  Now Rudwin and Hobbleweed enter into a keen friendship, and their friendship would hold fast a very long time.  

And they would set out together, into adventure.  

Our fine heroes live on an invented plain which, at the moment, is called Ethentua.  Where is Ethentua, you ask?  Now that is a good question.  Is it Earth, long ago?  Is it Earth in another dimension?  Or, is it just another dimension?  TO be honest with you I still haven't thought this one out, and even now I am still considering it.  

Now Ethentua, its history, its geography, is well thought out.  It's not a random world I dreamed u

p in a few days and thought, "This will do."  However, the Legend of Rudwin only ever alludes to the history and the places that inhabit this land.  The driving focus of the story is the adventure.

For it is an adventure book at its heart.  

Eventually Rudwin and Hobbleweed join forces with several trained renegades, Their job is to find the Staff of Necramor, which is lost in the marshes of Grogos, and guarded by a vile beast whose description I will leave to the contents of the story.  

But finding the Staff is only the start of it...

Then they must travel to the Island of Ruin, an interesting place, and the home of a certain famous dragon, Mezuse Vordrox.  They have to get under, or by him, in some way, to place the Staff into the Sacred Vault, to lock it away forever.  

The quest isn't as simple as say = go there and do that...   There is a betrayal, and other things - twists and the sort.  But I must be careful what I write.  I want to leave the bulk of the information in the book itself - I really don't want to give too much of the story away here.

I will probably create a character profile one day - to give a closer insight into some of the principle characters.

The book does not have a glossary.  I think glossaries are pointless and take away the magic of the story.  I know fantasy worlds need structure... but there's nothing wrong with a bit of mystery as well.