'In One Of These Intervalla..'

Things are like this: everything is a piece on a chessboard. And I am one of them. In it, I am constantly being moved around, encountering other strange characters; it is a plain in which surreal scenarios take place - it is a game amongst drunk amateurs, who are in love with the dark and nostalgic; but the fact is - I am all that I encounter; lost in my own subconscious. And this is my dream..

I am in a run-down room. It is spacious but dim; and I feel uncomfortable in it. The walls have paint tearing from old age and the wooden floor is littered with off-white flakes. It is empty, save for a few scattered belongings of mine and my roommate, a friend from my schooling days. We rented it in pursuit of a working life here; wherever 'here' is.

I am on my way home from work, and as I step into the room, I am immediately and roughly held by people. At first I think of them robbers, but from their actions I gradually realize that they aren't. They were garbed in loud outfits; young, restless and violent. I witness my friend being pummelled to death by a few of them, all the while being held. I was crying as he tumbled and shook with each and every beating: marionette-like - amidst the psychotic party of fists; later joined by metal rods and always: with smiles.

I was unharmed. But as they left, I remember laughter.

Weeks had passed, and I am back to my routine. I am home after work. Past midnight I turned to the window, and there stood my dead friend as if, nothing happened. He was smiling, but I was too shocked to reciprocate. He went on to explain that where he was now: was neither heaven nor hell - it was a world: situated ten years in the past - and it only used Australian Dollars.

Slowly feeling braver, I asked him if he was conscious of this - and he said yes. Everyone knows that they're dead and they know what's happening in the world of now - it's as if they were transported to the past, and were still very much alive. I asked him again, so if you would die there again, would you be taken to a place set ten years before your current plain? He shrugged with a smile. Suddenly, I break down in tears and hold him; telling him how sorry I was - I was helpless in stopping his murder - and how was I going to break it to his father? He tells me it's alright, but I have to get out of there soon, as the killers are coming back. This time, for me.

I am in the same room, but I am with another friend. Another from highschool, one which I'm not keen to speak with. I tell myself that I have to get out of here, but it's one long path out; through the dark corridor and then to the elevator. My friend wants to bath, so after tying his towel around his waist and having gathered his toiletries in a small traveler's bag, he opens the door out - making his way to a bathroom which was inexplicably nowhere. Afterwhich, I realize that the door could no longer be locked. And I was in danger.

I had to risk getting myself out of the building. It was now or never.

I work my way to the elevator, carefully and fearfully. After a while, I made it there, and was joined by my dead friend when I went in. I was sweating and shaking profusely in a light bluish interior. On our way down, my friend said that it isn't over yet - they could still be wandering on the ground floor, but when the door had opened to the said level, we found ourselves in my aunt's garden - there was a hedge-wall on my right and a newly built fence on my left.

And now they were running towards me. Four of them. In our effort to evade them, we ran between the fence and the hedge-wall as fast as we could, until I came to a point where there was nothing; it was a darkness everywhere but the middle.

It was a small comic strip panel - and in it, I stared. I recognized that it was familiar. 'Old Master Q', it was called, something I used to read, when I was a kid. In essence, that one panel depicted my end; now suffered by three of the main characters - they were cornered by the group which was now growing in numbers, their backs facing a large construction pipe - and as the killers moved in on them, the panel grew smaller and smaller, till I could not see what was happening. But I knew.

Then, it was totally dark.

( _")