The pen scratched on the page. The words crawled slowly in the wake of the nib. They were weak and empty things, and there was no life in them. I looked down at what I had written and sighed. “It was a dark and stormy night…” A trite sentence, the latest in a series of trite attempts. In a sudden rush of anger I tore the page from the notebook, perforated margin ripping away and leaving a gap toothed strip of paper confined behind the enclosing spring.
What I would not give to be able to reach into
the ideas and images that teemed in my imagination and bring them into the
light. What I wouldn’t give to be able
to make the words on the page soar and breathe and live in the vivid colours
and dynamic action of my dreams. I
yearned for that with a physical gnawing hunger in my being. The imagination is the gateway to worlds
undreamed of, a doorway to endless potential, yet from my faltering pen there trickled
only thin rivulets of diluted sediment.
I screwed up the torn-out page and hurled it
into the waste paper basket. It hit the
rim and bounced out onto the floor. I
stooped to pick it up and reached for it … and fell… as though something had
taken my outstretched hand and pulled with irresistible force. Falling forward at great speed, faster and
further than was possible, I was pulled through empty space, dark and formless,
the room in which I had been labouring had vanished inexplicably behind
me. I could not scream for there was
no air to breathe, I could not struggle for there was no earthly component of my
being.
When last that endless acceleration ended I
found myself sprawled upon a floor of gleaming marble, cut into tiny square
tiles. Tall columns of iridescent stone
reached up around me to a ceiling impossibly high above. Before me, at the edge of the chamber in
which I lay, to which I had been transported, a figure sat upon a throne of gleaming
ebony. He was tall and robed in
tattered yellow, a hood over his head, and a pallid mask concealing his
features. To either side of the throne
stood a woman, each of them robed, one in red and one in green, each masked
like the seated king.
“What do you seek?” said the woman in red.
“And why seek you it?” the other continued.
“I want to go home,” I babbled, “Please. I’m scared.”
“Is that all you want?” the red garbed woman
asked.
“Should we perform this for you?” said the
other.
The masked king stirred with a barely concealed
impatience. He had not raised his head
to look at me directly and I dreaded that he should do so, for something in his
presence made me fear his attention.
The tone in the questions of the women made me realise though that my
answer to their question was of great importance. I hesitated and shook my head.
“No,” I said, “I want to be able to write. I want to be able to take my ideas, my
imaginings, and write them down; convey them in a way that will reach
people. Entertain them.”
“And change them?” asked the woman in red.
“And move them?” the other followed with.
“Yes,” I said, “What use are words if they
cannot become thoughts again, and thoughts actions, and actions change the
world?”
“And do you wish to change the world?”
“And which world?”
The questions from the two women this time were
delivered with such meaning and gravitas that I was stunned. What were they offering? What were they demanding of me? I glanced around but saw nothing in that
strange sepulchral throne room that could give me guidance as to the nature of
this transaction. My eyes fell upon the
masked king in yellow and I saw his hand, fingers corpse-white and wiry, clench
around the haft of the sceptre across his lap.
He was lifting his head to gaze upon me and in fear I blurted out my
answer.
“Yes! Yes to all of it.”
His eyes shone behind the slits of that pale mask as they met mine and I did
not need to hear his voice to know that the bargain had been made. He spoke a word that shook the room and I
stopped my ears against the awful majesty of his pronouncement and fell
backward in horror.
When I opened my eyes I was in my room, lying upon the floor, my hand on the crumpled
paper and a throbbing pain in my head.
My chair, an old wheeled office chair was on its side behind me. It had obviously skidded away from me as I’d
leaned forward and I’d taken a tumble.
Rubbing my head and rolling into a sitting position I glanced down at
the paper I’d discarded, the first words still legible at the edge of the
crumpled up ball.
Outside the thunder started..
Finn’s first novel A Step Beyond Context is available on Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com and a few others as well. It’s a punchy genre-busting mystery with a heroine who is a Regency lady, a high tech mercenary and much more.
Otherworlds 