From November to King

Today I found myself in the most obs­cure of situa­tions. I was wal­king down the local high street, peru­sing in the shop win­dows – admi­ring the steel kitchen free­zers and the 2 for 1 offers at Ice­land. I wal­ked onwards past groups of chil­dren coming home from school, stu­dents back from uni­ver­sity and old ladies with their karts rushing as quickly as they could carry them­sel­ves. All were wrap­ped warm in their scar­ves and coats, for at the moment it is Novem­ber and bit­terly cold.

I found myself ever for­tu­nate, being pre­sent in a futu­ris­tic and tech­no­lo­gi­cally advan­ced envi­ron­ment. My mind wan­de­red onto strange thoughts as I saw the latest gad­gets boun­cing around the hall­ways of the gad­get shop. I thought of flying cars and five sto­rey buses that could swim under­wa­ter. Life was grand and I was genui­nely happy to be there. In follo­wing the daily tra­di­tion of wal­king down the high street towards the bus stop, my mind wan­ders to all sorts of realms I never knew exis­ted. It was today, in a futu­ris­tic day­dream that I didn’t look where I was going and fell down an unco­ve­red manhole.

I fell and I fell, twis­ting and twir­ling down a hel­ter skel­ter slide. I tum­bled all over the place and kept falling. As I fell I had time to won­der why I was falling. I thought about how far I was going, where I was going and I had a sneaky sus­pi­cion that I was not going down the usual hole into the sewers. This slide was pain­ted with murals, art­ful mas­ter­pie­ces along­side school children’s dood­les. Music pla­yed, a ran­dom play­list it seems, country blues spli­ced with tele­vi­sion theme tunes. It was most eclec­tic and I knew that at the end of my fall I would be safe.

I lan­ded with a soft bounce. It seems I was tra­ve­ling at a slow speed, akin to a moving sloth. It is here that I found my pecu­liar situa­tion. I was in a sandy town surroun­ded by short small flat top hou­ses with open win­dows and door­ways. Peo­ple were wea­ring strange robes and head bands. I felt quite silly in my scarf and Welling­ton boots. As I wan­de­red onwards, trying not to bring myself too much atten­tion, I noti­ced a crowd had gathe­red around a tall hill with three trees atop of it. It was a while away but I gallo­ped across and made the ground in good speed. My heart was all aflut­ter, I hadn’t ran that fast or far for a very long while.

The large crowds were all angry, tan­ned men were jee­ring and grin­ning evilly towards the three trees on the hill. I, like a wai­ling police car, pas­sed easily through the crowd, peo­ple kindly moving aside and let­ting me pass. I wan­ted to see what was wrong with these three trees, so I follo­wed the windy road up to the top of the hill. I took this trip slowly and made sure I was com­po­sed and ready to duel with wha­te­ver evil lay ahead. My mind con­ju­red three hea­ded dra­gons, two hea­ded sna­kes and an odd bald man who liked plaid shoes. At the very top I found a small gathe­ring of impor­tant loo­king peo­ple, they wore what loo­ked like an ancient ver­sion of black tie dress. I poli­tely intro­du­ced myself to them all, yet none of them spoke back. Some were crying and I fea­red the dra­gon or snake or bald man had already des­tro­yed the world. An old man poin­ted towards the middle tree.

Squin­ting without my glas­ses, I made out a poor star­ved man han­ging on the tree. He loo­ked ever so hel­pless and no one was let­ting him down. I felt very sorry for him and I deci­ded I would speak to him to find out why he was han­ging on the dead tree. I was stop­ped sud­denly though, there were vibra­tions in my poc­ket and the air ran thick with the jaunty tune of a polypho­nic pop­corn tone. I reached into my side and with­drew my mobile; I had a new text message:

“HELP! I think my work is corrupt, should I save it as an untit­led docu­ment or leave it. My com­pu­ter is dying and I don’t know what to do.”

I replied telling her to use my com­pu­ter and to start again. Behind me, the gathe­rings had fallen to their knees and were proc­lai­ming me as a great prophet, musi­cian and angel from God. I gave a sti­fled smile and bac­ked away into the poor man in the tree, knoc­king off his hand made leafy crown. I apo­lo­gi­zed and he said no worries. The crowds were now chan­ting like a hoo­li­gan would at a soc­cer match, they wept and cried and asked what God wan­ted them to do. They asked if I was going to save their king. I thought to myself, “maybe I should have told her to save it”.