A place to read short stories
By Thomas Caterer
Life is pain and suffering, in every breath
you take in the fundamental truth
every passing moment is a death
each transition transforming life
Our energy as narcissists drains us
as it gives us false power
drinking poison from the pool stains us
as we lose ourselves, lose real connections
Order disintegrates to chaos
Chaos recedes and order arises from it
Bitter sombre beauty lives in loss
In accepting death, I’ve let anger die, its pyre’s lit
By Thomas Caterer
His lips quivered and eyes were moist
as he spoke with great regret of the deaths
of so many troops, and so many were just boys
so many volunteered from local villages
looking for excitement or the chance to be men
trying to prove something to their absent gods
I grew to admire the Duke in the end
even though I’d been taught it was unwise to show weakness
he had unflinchingly displayed his vulnerability
for all the council and lieutenants to see
some scoffed that he cried like a woman
were they not moved that he cried more for their dead sons than they?
There was an exquisite beauty in those tear-stained cheeks
his old greying eyes had seen so much horror in his short human life
there was an undeniably intense strength in his willingness to admit to life’s weaknesses
there was irony that in being soft, he was harder than them all
having known pain he could not be shocked by it
instead of choosing the easy path of being cold,
he’d taken the tough decision to be warm
By A. O. Wallat
Bath Time Thoughts #1 – The Pathfinder’s Map of Time. Original Audioplay first appeared on http://www.holtandwallt.com.
I have always wondered about the mapping of time and whether time really exists. Now before you say the heat has cooked my brain or I’ve drunk too much bath water, which let’s face it – I have, let me make up a story to illustrate where I’m coming from.
Imagine that you are a Pathfinder of the olden days, long before map and compass. Imagine that on your travels you see the rocky edge of the coast, a precipice beneath and the wide ocean stretching out in front of you, in all directions. You come across a narrow path, steep steps guide you down th e cliff-edge and following the treacherous gulley, you reach the water’s edge.
As you look up a V appears in the sky and sure enough you can make out flapping wings and bird-call can be heard, barely, above the crashing waves. Half a year ago you saw them flying westward, inland. Now they are heading east, across the great blue before you, beyond the horizon, toward the unknown where no eyes can see. And you endeavour to follow.
You cross the ocean in a skiff and after many miles of differing shades of grey and blue, and some harrowing memories of the voyage – large swells the size of continents, which seemed insurmountable, which threatened to swallow you whole – begin to fade. Soon sounds of clashing rock and water return once more. You sigh deeply relieved. Landfall.
Your spirits bandy as you drag your skiff ashore and immediately, on some flimsy parchment, you begin to draw your map. It is simple – land to the east labelled ‘there’, ocean and waves in the centre, and land to the west, labelled ‘here’. A clear line connects them all, showing the path you have travelled.
That path is of a certain distance between there and here. Though at some points along the journey you doubted its existence, now that you are here, you rightly surmise that this locale with its craggy shore and pebbled beach though different to your expectations, much different, has always existed on the map – it did not ‘pop’ into existence merely because you alone encountered it, anyone could have reached it, it was always on the map, always ‘here’.
Now this is true of nature, true of maps, true of the spacial dimensions which stretch out indefinitely in all directions. All points on the globe and even in the night skies, even if never travelled to, those places not yet encountered, must exist then if we adhere to the laws of nature and of course maps. But what of the fourth dimension, t, the lonely cousin of x,y,z? Time. This too, as far we can tell, on one axis stretches out in two directions, indefinitely.
As pathfinder you travelled the ocean venturing into the unknown, measuring the distance, surmising that the locales ahead exist already. Yet what if you measure the voyage not in miles but in time. Would you so quickly and automatically surmise that the locale you are headed to exists already? Or would you hesitate to say then that the future already exists, even if it has never been travelled to? And in this way, if we follow the same thinking, does it mean that all points in time exist too? That the past, like some westward cliff, the future, like an east lying shore and the in-between cannot but exist together, simultaneously, just like the map?
Does this then suggest that the future is destined since your travel along time, from your point of view, is constant and moves in one direction only? Is there then no free will with no way to chart a different course? Perhaps, perhaps…
Perhaps you think differently, that if time were a map, we ought to take the analogy further. That is has more directions than simply forwards and backwards but also north, south, and even altitudes too. That any path through time can be plotted in any direction. That free will exists and following your internal compass one can bring themselves to some previously unknown place and narrowly escape the clutches of pre-destiny? Perhaps, perhaps…
But let me remind you that it is understood that the laws of nature and of course maps permit 11 dimensions, 3 of which are spacial, 7 of which we shall not get into here, and only one of which is time.
Be that as it may, I must warn you, I play word games here. This is just an analogy and should be treated with suspicion, what is written is often written with intent. A design of some sort. Designed specifically to sink an idea into the imagination. There is danger then that this story may slip past your defences and come to be believed as factual. In fact, it is not. I made it all up, more specifically, my imagination made it up (I had no hand in its writing) and I am sure that these ideas have been floated before me.
Nevertheless, despite my own warning I have the sneaking suspicion that the story of the Pathfinder is true and that when I see a flock of birds in a V, a distant horizon, or an insurmountable swell, that there exists a place beyond. Whether it exists, I do not doubt, but whether I make it there I can never be fully sure.
By A. O. Wallat
Rage be quiet. Rage be still,
The damage of a dreamer’s drill
Rage hath no ear but tongue of flame
Give it ear, give it name
It be stilled, once listened to
Its pain once heard, the same for you
By D. S. Johnson
There was a tree in the graveyard near our house where I grew up. It was almost as tall as the church’s steeple and bare all year. It was twisted like in pain and darker in its bark than any other near it. Da told me it was in anguish. He told me those buried near it what was sinners, their souls tried to climb up inside it, trying to escape Hell. All of their suffering was rubbed off inside it making the bark blackened and the Tree twisting in agony, only trees is much older and longer lasting than us so it looks stock still to us.
I remember I used to draw. I liked drawing from in my head most but I drew the tree in the graveyard more than anything else. I drew it looking out of my window and sometimes after church if Da was talking to Father Lewis I’d sit on the bench at the back of the church and draw. Sometimes when I was away from it I’d close my eyes and draw it from in my head, like what I’d draw otherwise, but it never looked much like it like that. No matter how long I waited between drawing it, it never once was moved from when I drew it from there before. My drawings changed but I knew that them was the same branches each time.
I felt sorry for it. I felt sad that something so old living and so big and so beautiful should have them as was sent to Hell climbing up inside it, scratching at it like a bed bug on the inside but more and hot as well. I’d try to think up ways to know which grave was holding a sinner who was hurting the tree. I’d try to figure out how to make them saved or how to make them settled or how to make them move away. The only answer I came to was to dig them out in their boxes and put them somewhere else, in a field or something, but then I thought what if they start climbing up another tree, or inside a grass or a bunch of grass, or maybe even a cow or a farmer. I told my Da and he said we couldn’t move them else we’d be sinners too but otherwise he’d move them to be near gypsies so as they could climb up the gypsies. I hated the idea of them climbing up inside anyone, gypsy or farmer or tramp or whoever. I asked Father Lewis once how to save people what was dead and he said we had to pray for them when they was in purgatory, he didn’t say what to do if they was in Hell.
One Winter there was a lot of wind, there usually was but this Winter there was more. Da said he’d not seen it so windy since he lived two years on a hill in Wales. A branch fell off of the Tree and didn’t hit nobody but both Da and Father Lewis and the other knowing men said it could have and those that was less knowing agreed. They said that the Tree was a potential menace and that if it hit anyone then they would be guilty for not having done something sooner and that they would not forgive themselves should it be a child or woman that was hit by it. I drew the Tree out of my window the evening before they started cutting at it. It had moved. Only a little bit had it moved but it definitely had moved. The arm that had dropped a finger was reaching higher and more straining than before, as though it knew what they was going to be doing to it the next day. I couldn’t leave such a sad old tortured thing as that Tree alone his last night so I crept out after dark when I heard Da snoring and I took a blanket and I took a piece of bread and I took a cup of water.
I was intending on sitting at his base but that was either on a grave at his sides or half on one both front and back so I sat against the nearest headstone and I wrapped up. It was awful cold and windy and it started to rain not long after I got there so I was glad I had kept my dressing gown on and I was glad for the blanket but I wished I had had a flask with cocoa or broth or soup in. The wind picked up more and the Tree started groaning and growling like a scared and injured animal and tears welled up in my eyes and I got up and lay my cheek against the bark on the tree and I could feel how cold it was inside and I knew that even the damned souls had fled in fear of the Tree’s death. I wrapped my blanket as much about the Tree as I could and stood holding it about it, trying to protect the tree from the biting wind and comfort it. I grew tireder and tireder and colder and colder but I wouldn’t let go and then, after how long I don’t know but near sunrise, the rain was joined by blasts of thunder and blinding flashes of lightning. It seemed even the heavens were aware of the pain of the Tree and were sharing in it.
The shivers was pulling me out of my head when I heard a shouting through the ever more frequent thunder. I tried to push back into myself enough to gather my senses but the cold had gotten into my chest and my head and was freezing me out. Things started to fade and I heard the voice of my Da and I felt hands and arms about me and they pressed me against a warmth and another hand was with a mug of hot broth and it was poured on my mouth and I supped from it and I felt a mite of the cold retreat and I opened my eyes to see my Ma looking as pained as the Tree and then came a big flash and the Tree behind her bursting outwards and into flames as the souls of the sinners returned in the Tree’s weakened state to tear him asunder and end his torment and then I knew that they had surely redeemed themselves by seeing their error and taking pity and saving him a thousand more years of pain and I closed my eyes as the shouts and crashes around me blurred and I slept a long and peaceful sleep.
By Thomas Caterer
Beaming a wide grin he thus spoke ‘tick tock tick tock’
The man in the bowler hat and white suspenders
‘You’ll dance till you die to the rhythm of my clock’
From princes to paupers we’re all gloomy dead enders
‘Right leg, left leg twist, now right arm, left arm swing’
The conductor merrily waves and weaves his batons full of hubris
‘Do not fail to dance to my tune, poor helpless thing’
Empty feeling marionettes singing and dancing to fill the abyss
It’s all on offer in the blood-soaked mall of the macabre
Fill yourself up on all the shiny things in the endless spree
There’s a price on it all; from love to peace to laughter
Ravenously feasting to fill the hole; that cosmic, undying ‘me’
By A. O. Wallat
City-slum, low and small
On rolling hill, the buildings still,
People strange and fevered, all
In the centre, towering tall
Black spire stands,
Directing all
Working metal
Welding, drilling
Sounds and screams
Like wailing children
In the centre, towering tall
Black spire stands,
Controlling all
Within the spire’s colossal sphere
Frozen ears and stolen tongues
Asunder, under blackened snow
Books,
Nature,
Bone,
Remnants of old and young
In the centre, towering tall
Black spire stands
Enslaving all
——
By Thomas Caterer
There is a chill in that spot
in that corner of the mind
Lost around the bend
Lost in time’s labyrinth
The dull thud of the cascading crush
of dead dreams’ post-mortem spasms
crash inside the cylindrical mind
cycling frenetically through images,
sounds, colours, smells, feelings
callously oscillating in time’s velodrome
It’s a feeling of the uncanny
that feeling of the soul leaving the body
You try to shove it back in but can’t
Try to convince yourself you don’t mind if you die
The night thoughts are inescapable
Every memory played back in such a sharp, clear hue
it’s painful to see all the hurt and lost opportunities
Every memory plays back crystal clear, more real than the real,
more alive than the living present
The zombies in your decaying head
have grown too big for their black dress shoes
they’re keeping you up again
with their morbid sense of humour
and devilish sense of timing
Entropy’s smiling like the grinning skull
of Zen fables, cheerful in its evergreen peace
its humour’s left me in stitches
reeling from the laughter, clutching the sides
Lost in time’s labyrinth
By A. O. Wallat
He was dying. I could tell. We all could. All Peter ever ate was chocolate and all he ever drank was red wine. His dementia was explained to me with a simple analogy:
We are all brand new computers when we’re born. We all operate in similar ways; throughout life our hard drives slowly fill with memories and we pick up programs that perform specific functions just in the same way we learn new things. Like people, sometimes computers die unexpectedly. In Peter’s case, he got a virus which was slowly deleting his files and programs, deleting his memory. By the end he could barely perform the simplest of tasks. Parts of computers might break and can be replaced just like hips and hearing but once you lose the hard drive, well, that’s it.
I found him lying slumped on the stairs. He was clutching a bottle, and red wine stained the carpet. His body was cold, lips blue. A photograph lay on the landing, of you.
By Thomas Caterer
The Toyshop
Theodore’s meticulous hand-crafted works did not crowd but cosily populated the warm, welcoming workshop he now called his home. Made of a colour spectrum of soft and hearty browns, the room was lit by a natural fire glow. The aroma of coffee suffused the air. Theodore was holding a magnifying glass up to one eye, a wooden beefeater guard gripped in one heavily veined, old hand, as the other held a paintbrush and applied detail to the guard’s eyes. He heard the door open from behind him with aplomb, and little footsteps tracked their way towards him.
“Mr. Patterson, sir,” a small, high voice called.
Theodore turned in his chair, and his eyes widened as he beamed a brimming smile. His cheeks flushed rosy red.
“How can I help you Violet?” Theodore enquired, softening his voice.
Violet, a girl of 6, stamped her foot on the ground, and raised her head to look Theodore full in the face. She raised her eyes above his white beard, his smile, and up to his eyes which were tucked behind his glasses. She held his gaze and folded her arms before replying with a sharp, and authoritative tone.
“There is a man, Mr. Patterson. At this time of night, I shouldn’t wonder why he needs to buy a toy now!”
“It’s quite all right young Miss Violet! Once you’ve worked here a little longer you’ll come to understand that we can get customers at all hours”.
Theodore held the bannister on his descent to the room below. As he reached the foot of the stairs he noticed the man Violet had spoken of. An ashen-faced fellow. He stood amongst the shelves of wooden toys, stuffed animals, and mechanical gizmos. The glow of the fireplace embers contrasted against his dark expression, as the shadows danced upon his face. Once shocking blond hair was greying, and once vital blue eyes were strained and bloodshot. Theodore chuckled to himself as he observed the man was wearing a black jacket, black trousers, and a black tie. All the colours in this world and the man clearly had no time for them! He had known the type so many times before. Perhaps he worked in insurance, accounting, or even, heaven forfend, wealth management!
“I apologise for the hour of my visit, I noticed your light was on, but I don’t expect you usually get customers at this time,” said the man, skipping introductions.
Theodore stepped behind the counter and held the man in his gaze, in his consideration. The blond man looked at him half-frowning, he furrowed his brows and crossed his arms in a manner reminiscent of Violet. Finally Theodore broke the silence.
“Ah, so you’ve come then…”
“Umm yes, I have, I’m looking for… umm well something, something for a boy…”
“You should listen to her you know. Do something that makes you happy. Not something so grey.”
Slowly the man’s confusion was turning to irritation. This appeared a quaint enough village, and the snowfall made it feel almost like he’d walked into the homely image of a Christmas card. However the old man’s mutterings were unhelpful and increasingly disconcerting.
“Look, I’m thinking maybe a toy car or something…”
Theodore nodded knowingly.
“Ahh yes… we have plenty of those.”
“Oh good.”
“You know I felt like there was a motherly vibe from her,” Theodore mused aloud. He was still processing the images from his dream the night before.
“But it’s not often a black woman will birth a white, blond son after all!” he continued, whilst beaming a smile that hinted at familiarity, kinship with this man he’d never met.
“Either way young man, her advice is good advice.” Theodore spoke these words gently, intending them to sound reassuring.
The ashen-faced man crinkled his nose and narrowed his eyes. A frown came across his face and he made no effort to hide the tone of irritation entering into his voice.
“Look mate, I think you may have lost the plot, sorry to have bothered you at this time, you clearly need your rest…”
“Your wife’s black?” interjected Theodore. A statement yet intoned as a question to be polite.
“Uhh… yes,” replied the man, raising his folded arms higher up his chest.
“Ahh the mother-in-law then! Yes well she’s a wise woman, she’d be worth listening to!”
Theodore reached his hand forward and rested it momentarily on the man’s exposed skin on the back of his hand. Just for a moment, just long enough to learn something.
“Oh I see, a grey job but an important one. I misjudged you, figured you for a salesman, a marketing exec, or a social media type” Theodore’s smile grew until he finally broke out in laughter much to the younger man’s chagrin. Theodore turned his back to him and rifled through the shelves behind the counter. Finally he produced a beautifully hand-crafted T-rex. He placed it on the counter in front of him and then turned away again before returning with three wooden velociraptors.
“I suppose they should have feathers but once a tradition sticks… it’s like the toy Vikings we have here with the horned helmets… print the myth eh!”
The ashen-faced man picked up the T-rex and toyed with it in his hands. The years fell off him as he inspected the dinosaur, and gradually the corners of his mouth twitched into a smile as he did so.
“I thought I’d better give you some raptors too so they can have a tussle. Little boys do love their violence!” offered Theodore cheerfully.
The man laughed at this, but then slowly replaced the T-rex, and lowered his head, his shoulders hunched, and he began to sob. First it was slow and then suddenly a torrential outpouring. The man’s broad shoulders heaved with the weight of his cries. Theodore took in a deep breath, and then released it slowly, a tear formed in the corner of one eye. He knew this was tough for the poor bastard. It was never easy for them. He reached out a hand to the man’s shoulder and gripped it tightly.
“You’re doing well lad. You’re doing really well.”
After a time, the man gathered himself up and lifted his head. As he did so Violet had climbed down the stairs and upon seeing the crying man, she had procured a tissue from the box kept behind the desk and offered him one wordlessly. Her face was red and she looked ready to cry herself.
“Oh… thank you… sweetheart,” said the man, taking the tissue from her hand and then proceeding to wipe his tears. “Robbie loves dinosaurs. When me and his mum took him to the museum, he spoke about it for weeks after and he always got us on the ground with him to have dinosaur fights… ahh but too often I was too tired for it… you know…”
“We can only live in the present young man, no need to punish yourself. There’s plenty we can’t see coming and you feel how you feel in any given moment.”
“’Don’t fight yourself’ Mr. Patterson taught me,” chimed in Violet. Her cheeks were pink and her eyes moist as she smiled brightly at the ashen-faced man.
The Jazz Singer’s House
Adrienne stirred their cups in the kitchen. B. B. King played on her record player. The sun spilled in through her net curtains casting patterned shadows about the floorboards. She stepped back into the living room, holding a tray, with two cups of tea and a saucer of gingernuts.
“When do we cease to be amazed, I wonder, by all the shapes and patterns in the world?” She said this as she placed down the tray and took a seat opposite Jamie.
“What do you mean?” Jamie leaned forward to pick up his cup and retrieve a biscuit.
“Oh I was just looking at the shapes the shadows make when the sun’s filtered through the net curtain. We lose something don’t we, when we get old and take everything for granted, everything as normal?”
“I guess it’s like the day you realise when you see snow and you no longer think ‘yay let’s build snowmen’ but rather ‘oh great I’ll need to fit the chains and buy more de-icer’.”
“Ha, yes exactly, sad isn’t it? Still at least it gives more of a reason for death. It eventually becomes necessary to hit the reset button to find wonder again.”
“Aye but there’s some who die long before the wonder’s dried up,” replied Jamie catching a lump in his throat. He raised his cup to his mouth hoping to chase it away.
Adrienne nodded her head as a soft and wistful smile played on her lips. She ran her fingers through her thick dark curls of hair and hummed a tune to herself. One her daughter had always liked. As she did so, Jamie sipped on his tea, and he felt peaceful; his once tight grip on his cup slackened and he felt himself become lighter as Adrienne hummed one of Maria’s favourite songs.
Adrienne turned to Jamie and asked “Are you happy at work? I worry it doesn’t make you happy. And all truly smart people only do jobs that make them happy.”
“Well I know you and Maria were both talented enough to make a living off what you loved, but I don’t think it’s so simple for me. Not as much of a market for Black Metal I’m afraid, and I was a shite bassist, not like your hubby! He was the real deal!”
“Ha, you’ll give him a big head with all that, and we didn’t buy a coffin big enough to accommodate that!”
They both laughed, and Jamie dipped his gingernut into his tea, swirling it about in the cup, enjoying the sounds of Completely Well as they drifted into the room.
“No,” said Adrienne shaking her head as she gathered her thoughts. “What you do is important and it helps people. I can’t deny that, it gives people a great deal of peace and they appreciate their chance to say goodbye. But boy I just want you to be happy and maybe that means picking up the bass again…”
“Oh goodness, I’ve been embalming so long now, it’s my life. Christ that’s funny; death is my life!”
“Wasn’t it like that playing Black Metal?”
“Ha, well actually our lyrics and cover art weren’t all that morbid! It was more about nature, spirituality, some angry political ones…”
“Sorry I don’t know better love, it wasn’t exactly my cup of tea.” Adrienne smiled as she said this, knowing Jamie didn’t mind at all and actually enjoyed being niche.
“Oh we certainly weren’t for everyone,” Jamie laughed.
The Park in the Village
Jamie had trudged his way to the toyshop with lead in his boots. His car parked beside a quaint green park with a children’s playground and duck pond. He had breathed through heavy lungs, the snow falling on his face, laying icy kisses upon his rough-hewn cheeks. His eyes were heavy lidded from a lack of sleep. He’d seen Maria in a dream and awoken in a cold sweat. His prematurely greying hair soggy wet with perspiration. His sheets had clung to him like Robbie once had after a nightmare. He’d had a nightmare of his own. He loved her fiercely but had not wanted to see her, to reopen the just closed wounds.
With his waking, he grasped hold of what she had told him. One last chance to say goodbye. And an address for a charming English village. One with an inn, a park, an old timey sweet shop, and, a toyshop. Next she’d tell him it had a bloody candlestick maker, and a cobblers!
On his return walk from the shop, the lead had been gladly extricated, and for the first time in months he walked with something close to a spring in his step. However, whatever Maria may have said in that dream, the details of which were increasingly obscured by mist, and whatever clues could be found in the old man’s ramblings at the shop, nothing could prepare him for the truth of it.
His feet came to a sudden halt. His eyes widened. His jaw dropped. His heart leapt. The last time he’d seen him had been on a coroner’s table. He couldn’t do the embalming himself. And he demanded there’d be no open casket. He’d seen his son; once full of life and the promises of human experience, laid out like a hunk of meat, awaiting the worms. The cold lifeless visage that no child should wear. Yet he’d seen it many times before. Senselessly worn by many children. Children with the life and awareness snatched from them by nature’s cruel, reaching grasp.
Here now, in this moment in time, which had frozen like the tears on his cheek. A moment solidified. A moment you could hack with an axe, and take a chunk home with you to place on a wall. Here in this endless moment stretching into the void of the infinite stood a little boy of 6 years old. With wild, curly brown hair, cheeks red from the cold, a broad dimpled smile. It was his son. No mistaking it, it was his son, alive and well. Alive and moving, and smiling at him.
“Ro-Robbie!” Jamie almost choked on his words. His voice broke, and he started to run to him.
“Dad!” called out Robbie, smiling at his father.
They ran to each other and embraced. Finally after some time, Jamie released him. To Robbie’s utter delight and excitement he presented the lovingly crafted dinosaurs. For an amount of time, unmeasurable, for it was frozen in the village’s landscape, they played together. One last time Jamie could play with his son, one last chance to make up for all the absences; literal or otherwise. They enacted several encounters between the combative dinosaurs but also roleplayed their daily lives of hunting, feeding, drinking from the shore. The ducks of the pond stood in for fierce creatures of the sea. Eventually after much play, Robbie’s form became increasingly translucent as did the toys. Robbie looked up to his father earnestly.
“I know we don’t want to say it… but…” Robbie examined his fading hands. “I think we need to say goodbye now.”
Jamie lifted himself to his feet and placed all the dinosaurs in his son’s hands.
“I know. Can’t stay here forever I suppose.” Jamie thought of Maria, and knew he couldn’t be selfish. Robbie shook his head in agreement.
“Keep them, give them to another kid.” Robbie placed the fading toys back into his father’s hands and as he did so they solidified once more. “Do you know where I’m supposed to be going?”
“I’m afraid I have no idea son.”
“Well, I’ll know soon, won’t I?”
“Y-yes.”
Robbie faded into the evening mist, mouthing a goodbye and waving as he did. Jamie held the T-rex and raptors tightly to his chest.
As he was driving back home, he passed the toyshop once more and saw a haggard, dishevelled woman approaching the storefront, her eyes glistening in the snow. He smiled to himself confident the old loony would help her like he’d helped him!
The Toyshop
Violet scrunched up her face, her eyes narrowed and her arms folded tight around her waist. She looked from one stuffed monkey to another, inspecting them closely.
“What’s the verdict then, Violet?” enquired Theodore, raising a cup of coffee to his mouth.
Violet spun around on the spot, her eyes alight with fire. She held a finger in front of her commandingly. It demanded a minute’s peace.
“Please Mr. Patterson, you’ve given me an important job here, I don’t want to let any of the children down!”
“No of course, I understand!”
“Actually Mr. Patterson, now that I’ve been working here a little while, I have a few questions.”
“Oh well please fire ahead!”
Violet put her head to almost a right angle as she considered Theodore, and then slapped one of her fingers to the palm of her other hand.
“Firstly! Why am I 6?”
“Well I suppose you decided to take a form that would be helpful, your 6 year old self will probably know more about what toys children like than your 40 year old self.”
“Okay very good, Mr. Patterson. Now how long must I stay here?”
“Well you’re here out of choice. After losing Samantha, you wanted to help others in the same situation, like I helped you. You can leave anytime you like. Once you’re ready to move on, you will simply go to sleep that night and awaken as part of the game once more.”
“How about you?”
“I forget how long I’ve been here Violet! Maybe hundreds of years, and maybe I’ll stay hundreds more! I’ve no doubt I’ll re-join the game one day. And when the time comes I’m sure others will take our jobs. Things always change after all, such is the nature of life.”
Violet had put her finger in her mouth, and sucked on it as her thoughts formulated. She finally pulled it out again to point at the macaque doll. “This one Mr. Patterson. This one’s the cutest! You’ve given him big human eyes! It’s not scientifially…”
“Scien-tific-cally.”
“Yes, it’s not scien-tific-cally accurate, but it’s the most relatable, and kids will find it cute! Good work Mr. Patterson!”
“Oh well thank you, and good work Violet!”
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