He tried to think of the Forever New Dawn, trying to conjure and imagine a hazy orange hue but instead everything was grey one moment and flashing bright the next; no colour just intense flashing light that held in the dark long after it stopped pulsating; blinding his vision and making him feel queasy, both shortening and accelerating his breath.

  He tried to move but fell back against The Woman’s classroom door sliding down to his feet. He felt hands on his shoulders brushing against him, some pushing back and forth rocking him into further inebriation.

  Then came the voices that seemed to melt in and out of recognisable form, it could have been any language from any time, but it was nothing that made relative in his ears.

  He shut his eyes fast and firm, squeezing his eyelids and extending his self into that point trying to regain some control over his growing fever and wandering mind. He clouded his mind with white; breathing slow and deep.

  When the storm subsided he lifted his head to laughter; cruel deafening laughter. The sound was still a muddle but his sight cleared and he fixed his eyes on the front of the room where two girls stood with untroubled looks in their eyes. They held their hands outwards and they were unflinching as that fat bastard came crashing down on them with all of his postulated truths.

  “You should feel this, you should feel that, you should be here, you should not think that.”

  His mouth said ‘how dare you’ but his eyes said ‘take that little girl’ and each crack of the wood against their skin brought The Fat Bastard further from their conditioning but all of that didn’t really matter, because he hated her.

  The Fat Bastard hated her because she made him feel. He hated her because he felt and he hated her more because she felt nothing. He would stop after each swing and after each crack to set his swollen fat eyes across the room finding the fear of other children and swimming in it.

  He held out her arm to ensure she wouldn’t flinch but he didn’t have to, this was part of her game; she wanted the red sting and more so she wanted to consume the full force of his frustration; the violence in him that screamed like an infant child; “I am not in any way, a happy, desirable, important or affecting man.”

  Marcos smiled as The Woman focused on him. She was beautiful and maybe he had seen her every day of his life but right now was the first moment he had really seen her and a giddiness washed over him as her eyes teased him and invited him and the smile that etched on her face; in part to spite the fat bastard’s play of power, so mirrored the smile he wore looking back.

  The Woman sat down at the front of the class completely unfazed by the event having just unfolded whereas Marcos was beaten into emotional disarray. He sat looking at the nape of her neck, how the fine hairs seemed to sway to and fro like the reeds in the river on an old farm he once imagined himself owning that under a light breeze, their gentle movement would calm him into distraction where he abandoned his sense of ill-belonging in the world for but a moment; but for what felt like enough for him to grace another day of pretending.

  In the moment that he stared at the fines hairs swimming on the nape of her neck, the ill feelings that surmounted deep in his being all flushed away and he laid his head in his arms and his arms across his desk feeling light; feeling at one.

  He hadn’t the courage to ask her name. He thought about kissing her and holding her hand and as he did, his own filled with sweat. He thought about taking her down to the river where they could just sit and stare into the horizon and watch as the sky falls orange when the evening set in.

  He thought about her smiling at him like she had just done except her arms were around his neck and her feet balanced on his own. He held his hands on her demure waist; wanting to, but scared to, press firmly. He thought about how she knew this and played to his naivety with a soft kiss.

  She said ‘I love you’ and he said it too, but all the children heard and outside of his daydream at his desk, he fell embarrassed as scores of fingers pointed and chanted making him wish he could sink into the black of his mind.

  The Woman didn’t turn. Instead, as Marcos braved his sight from the safety of his arms back to the room he noticed that the hairs on the nape of her neck still shimmered under the light, contrasted against her midnight black cropped hair with delicate lines of lilac running past her soft white skin. Again, his pain withdrew and the other children became invisible.

  He longed so much for her to love him.

  The Fat Bastard was yelling at the other children, pulling on his slipping reigns. They were still pointing and laughing but now their attention shifted to the obese man struggling to pull his fat arse from the chair to grasp his favoured wooden stick and commence a tour of table beatings, smacking the end of the stick against the corners of every table hoping the sound alone would will the children like scared cats into submission.

  But these were children and children loved to upset adults; just because. And the fat bastard screamed louder and louder until he was hoarse and pig, coughing and squealing, smacking and stomping his way around the classroom.

  In the middle of the chaos, The Woman turned from the front and caught Marcos dreaming of her. She stood up and walked down to the back of the class and just as The Fat Bastard was about to come crashing down on Marcos’ desk with his wooden stick, she put her arm forward and her hand over his.

  The Fat Bastard came crashing down and cracked the stick against her hand, splitting it into hundreds of tiny shards, then fell forward under the weight of his own surprise crashing to the floor. The Woman kept her hand on Marcos’ and looked him long in the eyes. He felt weak and vulnerable. He said “my name is…”

  “Marcos. Marcos. Marcos. Marcos are you ok? Marcos look at me, are you ok?” said The Woman kneeling down and holding his hand tightly trying to squeeze life back into him.

  Her hair was longer and strawish. It was more dirty black than in his delusion. She was the same woman but this one brought him no calm.

  “Marcos, focus. Marcos everything is one” she said desperately trying to use his own logic to will him to focus.

  Marcos imagined his thought as a sink and the plug as zero being pulled away. Everything flowed downwards and the colour returned to his thoughts, clarity returned to his mind. He could see The Woman looking long into him with as much concern as she could feign.

  “Marcos, what happened? I heard a thud and I found you here on the floor. What happened? Can I do something? What can I do?” she asked repeatedly and desperately.

  “Just shut up. Leave me alone, fuck!” he screamed to himself.

  0011000100110100

  Ruff sprang forward, letting the scraps of food drop from his mouth. The vile beast ran through the field darting left and right. Ruff had its scent and kept its trail, turning on a coin trying to keep up with the agile creature. The soil turned beneath his paws and he found it difficult to keep firm footing. About him, clouds of dust sifted through the thin air and settled in his eyes. He stopped his chase when all about him was dark with the hissing and contorted screeching of the vile beast having stopped. Silence played through the brief pauses in his panting, his tongue hanging from the side of his mouth, his stomach heaving in and out.

  When the dust settled Ruff pitched his snout to the dirt and looked for a scent. It would only have been a minute or two before his senses were overwhelmed and his instincts heightened. He kept his body low to the ground, his fur upon his neck standing on end. His ears were pinned back on his head and his focus on his scent trailed by his nose.

  His front paws stretched out slowly, peeling back the air and they touched ever so gently on the overturned soil, digging deep and urging him forward. He moved through the field like a slow moving bullet. His limbs collected energy and were itching to unleash and thrust him forward into a manic finale.

  The scent brought him to the end of the field to a line of giant metal containers. There were twelve in total and most were nothing more than iron obstructions with no entries on any points, their great hinges turned and held in a locked position keeping a secret of whatever was kept inside. Ruff made his way past each container sniffing hungrily into the infinitesimal gaps at the base between the doors and the frames.

  The first had been food of some sorts. The smell was not appealing to Ruff so he continued. The fourth and fifth containers had a pungent aroma but it was not food. Ruff sneezed and blew out the scent from his sensitive nose and moved on. The sixth container was open slightly. He bowed his head to the floor and sniffed; the same pungent aroma but within it, a familiar scent. He pinned his ears once more, arched his back and moved quietly past the hinged doors into the container and into the blanket of darkness which enveloped it.

  His eyes failed him even in the brightest part of the day. Age had been becoming him and started to make wreckage of his senses as of late. The first sight for Ruff had been a great snarling beast whose ferociousness pierced the twilight in an unhinged look from its eyes as he parted from his mother.

  That same beast, Shadow, would shelve its ferociousness at the moment of his mother’s death and take him into shelter where his tenderness would help the young pup to fall into sleep and survive the cold of the night on his first day of life. The look in his father’s eye served him now and he snuck upon the scent and dived through the voided light and latched onto the wailing beast.

  0011000100110101

  Tired of their dance and song, The Children left their instruments of design scattered about the room and made their way to the centre of the class. The Woman was waiting for them, seated on the floor with her legs tucked beside her body and her hands pressed gently in front of her, holding open pages on a book.

  She tried not to think of what had just been. It was so typical of him to be so damn inconsiderate, but that’s who he was; it’s how everyone was deep down and so, she tried not to think of it. Instead she wore the same resplendent smile as when The Children first arrived, trying to make believe her contentment, for herself and for her apathetic Children who too wore trained smiles but inside, their hearts skipped a beat.

  “Come my Children, form a circle around your Mother, let the love from my heart warm you” she said as The Children aligned themselves in planetary position; each Child laying on their back with their eyes focused on the ceiling where the loving and assuring orange hue, spreading out over the shadows of the collective in circle holding hands, fell upon their sight.

  Unlike their morning lesson of fear, The Children waited for their afternoon story without any bustle. Instead, they lay in content submissive trust, into the loving subconscious embrace of their Mother. They did not chant in voice or in mind, instead, they looked longingly into the orange hue, into the collective huddle and put themselves inside the image. Their minds felt warm and The Children were At Love. When The Woman could feel the sense of continuity, she continued:

  “Jonathon and The Collector”

  When The Collector got home he dished up a feast, he cordoned his bag and he put up his feet. On an old rocking chair he rested his rump with his tiresome feet on a rickety stump. It was back and then forth that he swayed in delight with a lick of a finger after every bite. He ate cat he ate dog he ate rat he ate frog he ate fox he ate ox he ate minks he ate lynx he ate mice that had lice he ate maggots for rice, twere the nastiest things twere the things he found nice.

  For dessert what he wished on his grubby old plate was the boy he collected, no older than eight.

  He cast out his belly and turned on the telly for the air in the room was now thick and was quite smelly. The stench from his farts and his burps and his feet were then made all the worse by the stifling heat.

  A scary old man on an old rocking chair with long fingernails and grey greasy hair; skinny white legs and filthy back toes; distracted by thoughts of maundering prose.

  Out of his reach and still far from his sight stirred the making of trouble; the start of a fight. From inside his bag well now wouldn’t you know, there now wriggled a wriggly wriggling toe. Then came a foot and from there came a leg and a hand and an arm and a little boy’s head. Out of the bag the boy jumped for his life and he carried in hand an old hunting knife. He motioned toward the old man and said “I’ve something to tell you before you are dead.”

  The Collector was startled and screamed to the night for a prisoner was he, of distraction and fright. “My boy if you do you’re no better than me for to kill of one’s will is to set hatred free; for desire it rules from the heart to the hand from the seat where I sit to the stance where you stand.”

  Jonathon smiled and shook of his head and leaned in and hugged of the old man and said: “To live is to die and to fail is to try and to be an old man is to seldom ask why hath the hole in your heart and the dread in your head be the burden you carry from the road to your bed and these things you collect and forever keep near hath done nothing to vanquish the state of your fear, for this hell you preserve above one, above all; it deepens your downing it heightens your fall. You siphon the past through a memorial sieve as a bitter old man with a life gone unlived.”

  The Collector sank into a sad empty stare as Jonathon pulled on the old rocking chair and the old man he hummed such a dark mournful note as the young boy he plunged the knife deep in his throat.

  The lesson to learn in this tale of a boy is to caution of conscious, a dangerous toy. For just as a rattle keeps a child at distraction; the thoughts that one keeps tend to speak of inaction.

  The Children all cheered in apparent glee but fell empty and silent upon the realisation that the story had ended. Still present on their faces was the common detachment to the underpinnings of the story; unfelt and unmoved, The Children sat awaiting instruction. They had not grown any closer to caring or further from tiding their fears. The Woman rested the book on the floor and the room fell quiet, into sleep. The Children closed their eyes nesting in the orange hue in the depths of their sub conscious dreaming.

  When they were asleep, The Woman motioned towards the door and slipped out gracefully holding it open with one hand as she looked down the hall, riding once again, the tail wind of concern for her lover, a sensation that caused her great concern, for herself.

  0011000100110110

  Safrine sat on the cold floor of a dark room. Normally, on any given day, light would filter from the sky, through the gaps in the walls and allow the room to serve a purpose far grander than the prison that it was this day.

  She sat against a tiled wall, her legs pulled to her chest tightly, her hands cupped and gripping her knees as the cold damp air slithered underneath her clothes and tickled at her skin. She shook in brief shiver as the cold ran from the base of her spine to her neck, standing her hairs on end and tickling at the nape of her neck.

  She hadn’t moved an inch since she was taken here. An aboding figure had sent her gently in the pitch black and ushered her to remain quiet. It had kindly asked that she not move for in time it would return to collect her.

  When the figure vanished from sight, Safrine sank into a state of At Alone. Fear sang to her consciousness and her imagination danced to its melody; inventing the indescribable, and placing it in the pockets of darkness all about her.

  There were seven slimy snakes slithering slowly by her side; there were two taunting tarantulas teeming somewhere out of sight; there were a million mangy maggots making messes in her mind and a dozen deadly devils dancing dangerously behind. There were a hundred hellish hounds that were hungry for a feast; beckoned by a boorish bellow of a blackened baneful beast; there were countless ghouls and ghosts and spectres, all of whom were dead and they were all within the shadows lurking deep inside her head.

  Safrine squealed loudly into the dark. Rocking back and forth, she wished to herself that someone would turn on the lights or at least, that all the monsters who were most certainly there, would stop this excitement and just eat her right now.

  She remembered a song she heard an old lady sing. It was not something she remembered on will, but some instinct that came into call the moment her fear overbore her. She repeated the words over and over.

  “When I am alone and At Being with fear, I will my delusion away. For the night that is here, will soon disappear, and return me to being At Day.”

  0011000100110111

  The Behemoth had not an inch of kindness in his him. At War he taught young boys and girls how to be a fist and nothing less. Each part of The Nest had its function and one should never be as another; collective individualism. For The Sons, this meant learning and communicating only the language of war. They trained by day and by night were kept separate from the more irrational children who leant on their Mothers.

  Donal was endowed with even less charm. While At Mother and At Peace, he had kept his brothers and sisters at one with torment, likening to the monsters scribed about in the tales of fear and often longing to play the void in game.

  He would creep upon their beds at night and strangle a child with a grey bed sheet while they slept. When The Child finally broke free, thrashing and grabbing at their throat for air, he would be behind the cracks of light now entering the room, watching the panic unfold. Mothers would rush to their side and The Children would all huddle together in absolute horror. When The Children saw the grey sheet sitting on the floor with holes cut for eyes, their panic would subdue their rationale and they would stay awake for hours screaming hysterically and clutching to one another.