Through Your Eyes Page 3
I had to calm down and actually be calm, think systematically and methodically in an ordered way. I had to take logical steps to figure this out, whatever this was.
This couldn't be happening to me. I knew I had an eye for the ladies, but I also knew I was a total chicken, and experiences like Gemma never happened to me. Things like the last day never happened to me. These things happened in films, not to me.
My life involved going to work, and sometimes going for a drink with work colleagues to discuss our research, but we usually ended up gawping at the beautiful women coming in with their equally beautiful friends. My friend hadn't shown up for the after work drink we had planned, and that was how I managed to bump into Gemma on my own.
As I think about it now, the real thing I am having difficulty with is memory. I know I got drunk very quickly, but why can't I remember more about the evening. It is as if the moment I met Gemma, everything disappeared. Was I slipped something in my drink?
"Poison Ivy," I mused.
Uma Thurman version.
This was getting very frustrating.
"Think like in the movies," I thought. "Put all the facts into order. Look at all the possibilities and cross off all the improbabilities. Whatever remains, however, improbable, must be the truth."
Obvious cliché, but it would have to do for now.
The only obvious, tangible, hard evidence I had was the black box. I searched through my pockets and initially panicked, where was it? The old man had 'given' it to me hadn't he? I did take it? After some flapping around, I produced my wallet and travel card from my jacket. As I continued my search, I started to flap even more as I realised my trouser pockets were empty. I carried on fumbling for about a minute, but abruptly stopped when I looked down, realising that the black beauty was already sitting on the kitchen table.
I placed the box on my lap, and grabbed a beer from the fridge. It tasted good, and yes my fridge was always full of beer. I placed the cold bottle on my scalp where the pain was. The back of my head didn't hurt anymore, and when I felt it, the swelling had virtually gone. There was no bleeding.
Quick healer.
Wolverine.
Now then, the box. And time to get some answers.
I opened the device from the back. It had to be some kind of device after all. It had to have some function.
This looked like the road.
It was familiar to us.
Which house was it?
The one with the moon and stars on the windows.
Quiet! Please whisper.
There appeared to be a space at the back where a battery could ordinarily be inserted if it were a conventional remote controller. At the top of this space was a hole that you could insert a finger right up to the second joint. It reminded me a little of the old style pulse oximeters that measured blood oxygen, but I didn't think that was its function. Too polished. Too perfect. The front had a mosaic pattern around the periphery that looked almost golden in bright light. The front glassy screen didn't look like it was for viewing images like a smartphone; it looked more like a mirror. It was something that reflected rather than emitted light.
I could see my eyes in it.
Maybe it was this one. Shhh!
We whisper for fun!
But we can still sing our songs in rhyme when all is done.
I examined the star sign again. It looked like a pattern I had read about before but couldn't quite place it. I searched around the kitchen and ran into my bedroom where I found my iPad.
8% charge, good enough.
I powered up Safari and looked on a search engine for symbols. At first I couldn't find anything; dodgy hieroglyphics were not my forte. Eventually, I found something that looked very similar on an ancient symbol website.
This was definitely the right house.
We can now see him, looking like a mouse.
I could also see them. They were whispering already. But they couldn't see me. Amateurs. Those rhymes were getting annoying. Trouble was they were so catchy that before long, you were joining in with their eerie song.
It was a 'seba.' An ancient Egyptian symbol for star, with five equidistant spokes resembling a starfish. I looked at the box again, it was very similar. The term seba meant discipline or learning, and was associated with gates and doorways. Was it a key of some sort? If so, what did it open?
I then observed them getting closer. Noises. Creaking. Back door pushed. Fingers and eyes. Silhouettes and shadows.
Very dark.
Familiar. Whispers like barks.
Shhh! Don't fuss!
He will hear us!
Is it too early for him?
His chances are getting slim!
Getting more excited now. It was definitely turning into my own Dan Brown experience. Crap movies though. I stared hard at the flickering screen and started typing 'Eye of Horus,' realising I was gripping the object very tightly.
A shadow in the hallway.
A hand on the door.
Pressure on the handle.
Softly, softly. Catchee monkey.
Whispering voices. Excited. Chattering. Rhyming.
When I looked up it was already too late, as I was too busy staring at the screen. The feeling was of something approaching from the dark background in the hallway. It was like the whole room was reaching out to me, and yet the sensation was unmistakeable. The only way I could describe it was the awareness of invisible hands reaching for me from the darkness! Whispers. Sounds and words, neither with meaning. There was the noise of little movements close to where I sat, but no one and nothing to see. The whispers were echoing in my ears.
I was absolutely terrified. A sharp pain in my hand started rising through my arm and up to my jaw, and I was thinking I had been struck by something, a slap or perhaps a punch. I had never suffered from angina, but this agonising pain was rising from my left side and moving upwards. Was I having a heart attack? I started to thrash my arms around my face, trying to get away from the feeling of those hands all over me. The sensation was akin to the idea of a spider's web all over your body, trying to remove it from your skin as quickly as possible. The harder I tried, however, the more my flesh crawled with the horrible feeling. The presenter on the screen was talking, but I couldn't hear what she was saying. The rolling news headlines were printing at the bottom of the screen, but I couldn't see what the words were as the whole room looked dark and hazy. And then there were green and golden colours in my eyes. Ribbons of light. Was this what people called migraine aura? Was I hallucinating?
And then the pain in my hand started to dissipate, and I started to feel a little more loose and free. I looked down at my hand, but my hand wasn't there anymore. There was no kitchen table. I was watching some people inside very familiar surroundings.
***
He was standing next to the winding staircase, staring into the green, golden eyes of a woman. He was obviously quite taken with her, as he couldn't keep his eyes off her!
And she wouldn't take her eye of him.
I was standing across the bar watching them, hiding, blending into the background as if I wasn't really there. No one noticed me.
"Hi, can I buy you a drink, gorgeous," she asked.
Twinkling eyes. Tight black trousers. Breasts firm under white blouse, pushing up gently into his chest.
He looked round to see who she was speaking to and realised it was him. Already embarrassed, he smiled nervously and said something to her. She spoke, but he misunderstood. She looked cross, and yet appeared to smile. Pardo.
Red figures, looking and searching in paintings, upon these fine walls with their hunting dogs. Not just in the pictures. Hunting figures. Dark figures. Close by. Also watching. Familiar.
The friend he was waiting for was still not here. So they had drinks; water with no ice for her that was as still as she was.
When she spoke, he listened intently.
When he spoke, she listened with intent.
What was she p
lanning for him, and did she have any realisation that I was keeping my eye on her eye? They didn't wait too long, and she ushered him to leave with her.
When they got outside, she drew him closer, holding his head with her hands and looking intensely into his eyes, as she gently kissed him on his lips, while simultaneously placing a firm hand to the back of his head. It looked like a very odd and deliberate embrace. What was she up to?
And then I can see. I can see her now through his eyes and before as well, as she looks back at me. I gaze into her green eyes, as the ache in the back of my head starts. The pain is familiar to me, so perhaps it is now returning?
I look around me, a strange feeling of being watched from all corners of the street? And she speaks to me, sternly, with those beautiful lips and blazing eyes.
"You have to listen to me very carefully. You are in danger. They know who you are now, and they are coming for you."
No smile, no glint in the eyes. She means it. Back of my head now quite painful and throbbing.
"Who is coming," I ask. "What do they want from me?"
"You must follow me, right now!" she snaps.
I start to follow her as her pace quickens, but I have an important question for her.
"What is pardo?" I shout.
I run after her down Nicholson Street. She ignores me, I am not sure if she even hears me. She continues on for a while, and then slows her pace.
A simple answer.
A single word.
Was it an answer to my question, or maybe a statement of fact? But something I will never forget. She flicks her head back at me, her hair falling over her beautiful face, catching me with those eyes.
Speaking without moving her lips. An interesting party trick, I think.
"Flesh," she says, nonchalantly.
I follow her.
Follow the rabbit for you are sure to find a rabbit hole.
Saw that in the movies once, too.
5.
We walk in the darkness, fumbling blindly with your sightless eyes, looking for a doorway. Our hands are frantically groping into cold, dark air. Searching, looking, feeling our way around. What do we think we will find? Do we even know what it is we are looking for?
Whispering. Yes, we whisper. We must whisper and sing our songs to our sisters. We must use our rhymes, so that one day we will see. And one day, when the time is right, you will hear our song.
And to warn you and your kind who dare to cross our paths. Of silhouettes and shadows, watch our revolution...
An exit point. Right under us. All this time.
We searched for a thousand years, or was it a few seconds, are we really with you now, or perhaps this is still a dream? Is it really you, or are you he?
It all leads to you, and we can finally see you.
You think you can come and go without consequence? Did you not think there would be pain? Not for you, but for us, and the thousands of others like us.
Soon we will start our rhyme, and you will join us in time.
We see how you move, it's all very clear to us now.
Soon, very soon, we will be able to see much more clearly.
See through your eyes.
6.
We were in a taxi. She looked nervously out of the rear window. I saw nothing. No words came from her mouth.
We passed some green fields, and then on to an unfamiliar road. I was not sure whether this business was all in her head or we were in genuine trouble?
"Who are you looking for?" I asked.
"We are looking for nobody, they are looking for you. But it is not about why, it is where. They know where you are. They know where you live now. They have returned for you. To stop you at the point where it all started," she replied.
These random conundrums were becoming troublesome.
This Gemma, from the celluloid of my mind, paranoid and annoyed with me, with one look from those eyes.
"Fairly easy to find where I live, you can google me!" I snapped back.
I was now looking sheepishly through the rear windscreen.
"You think your home is what I am talking about? They know where you exist."
"Exist? I exist, you exist, we all exist," I retorted, nervously.
"Where do you think you are? Where are you right now?"
She stared, steely eyes, mouth pinched.
I twitched.
"In a cab with you," I said meekly, my voice tiny and cracking with nerves.
She rolled her eyes and tutted.
"More importantly, when do you think you are?" she asked.
I stumbled and swallowed, what the heck was she talking about? Was she a nut job? Should I bail now? I knew it was too good to be true, that a gorgeous woman would come on to someone like me.
She was going to drug me and then steal my kidneys any minute now.
"Stop here!" she shouted at the cabbie.
She thrust him some money, and practically dragged me out. Unfeasibly strong this Gemma was.
The smell of Chinese food hit me as I got out of the cab; the smell of bullshit from women always made me hungry.
"This way, quickly!” she commanded.
Even if she was mad, it might be great sex. Alternatively, she was about to murder me.
Smelly rubbish and wooden decor.
Watercolours and flowers.
Wooden stairs and hallways.
4c.
As soon as the door closed, she got a piece of paper and started to write something on it.
"Take this," she said. "It is imperative you get to this address. My time is running out. It is now your turn."
She was biting her lip while she said this.
Very sexy.
"My turn for what," I asked. "What is this?"
I looked and was puzzled at the paper she had written on; it was completely blank.
"You will see the instruction when it is time. You will then know what to do and where to go. The gatekeeper will be your guide. You will know. Seek Siris..." she said, frantically.
Too late to frown or gasp, no time to question or laugh.
The door came crashing through, and all I could see was a very large, dark figure, with a big wide grin and hat that dominated my eye line.
She looked at him.
And he looked at me, yet there was only one look I could interpret from his face.
Terror!
He was terrifying, or was he terrified?
It was in his eyes.
And then steel. And that was in hers.
I then saw a streak of stars and eyes.
Green eyes were moving me through air and light. Strength that was impossible and unfeasible.
And dumpster and alley, the unmistakeable smell of rotten oranges.
And I stared at the kitchen table. No hands or figures. No smells or darkness. But the darkness from outside was swallowing any residual light that remained; it was the middle of the night. The breaking news was no longer breaking.
Incredibly, it was 4 a.m.
Where had I just been?
The same questions started to rush through my mind - was it a dream or reality? But the feeling was only brief this time, and slowly, but surely, the confusion and amnesia began to dissipate. I began to get an understanding of what was happening around me. I started from a point a day ago where I couldn't remember names, or people, or where I had been. Now, it was as if the clouds and this misty cobweb had lifted from my eyes.
And I could see.
It had not been a date. She had sought me out to warn me, and I had already seen what she had protected me from - the ugly man in the hat. Curious visions and feelings. It was as if I was really back in the pub, or was it genuinely a music hall? It was as if I was watching events as they happened, rather than recalling them as they occurred. Almost, as crazy as it sounds, the feeling that one second I was watching myself, like I was someone else, or something else. The next second, it was me with Gemma.
My eyes were looking at her eyes.
She was warning me, a chase, a room, and then air and movement through it. She had been protecting me; but who was he, and how exactly had she been able to defend me?
She had given me some instructions. She wrote something down on a blank piece of paper that was still blank. Was this a dream, an altered reality, or had I experienced an out of body experience? There was only one way I could find the answer. To find the piece of paper, the box had to help me somehow; it had to be the key to all of this.
The device sat on the kitchen table looking back at me, and my hand was killing me as though it's very soul had been drained from it on a microscopic level. Where did the time go, and what had happened to my kitchen? My broken fridge, smashed to pieces, the beer bottles strewn all over the floor in a mess of glass shards and sticky brown liquid. I found my iPad. It would serve as a drinks tray now, but not as an electrical item.
I ran out into the hallway. The back door was open, and I had no recollection of either opening or closing it.
Definitely not a dream.
Reality.
Someone had been here, even though it was many hours ago. I was not going mad and not losing it. Who had come in to my home, and what did they want with me?
I jumped as I remembered the instructions. It was on a piece of paper, and I was definitely given it by the girl of my dreams. I frantically patted my pockets down searching for it. I looked everywhere yet it was nowhere to be found. And then I stopped and thought, a multitude of questions appearing in my mind where I had hoped I would find answers.
I tried to imagine this white piece of paper, given to me in my head? A dream or reality? What about the instructions she promised, what did I do now? I thought long and hard, concentrating my mind, what was she trying to tell me?
And then a noise? Yes, I definitely heard a sound, I thought to myself. It was a quiet whirring sound, and even though it was unusual, it was something pleasant and welcoming. It was still dark, but I could see light coming from the box.
The device.
I had been wrong about its function as bright light was being emitted out into the air; it was certainly not a smartphone. The light was swirling and morphing into an array of colours; yellows and greens and gold.