Turquoise Traveller Read online

  A harlequin, wearing a white, pointed hat and with a chalk white face with black lipstick, sat in the position directly above that of the young man on the floor below. There was a set of tongs in his slim hands. He waved the tongs in some prescribed pattern until, like a magician’s trick, a lump of coal appeared in the grip of them. He flung the tongs over his shoulder, the coal flying from them to the back. It bounced off the rear window of the bus and flew forward towards the front, landing neatly into the cardboard box containing the burning coals.

  He constantly repeated the ritualistic procedure: the waving of the tongs, the coal appearing, throwing the coal over the shoulder of his diamond-patterned costume – just missing his pointed hat – and then, from the rebound, the coal neatly landing into the box.

  Why doesn’t the box burn or catch alight?

  Stave went to talk with the bus driver but now his seat was empty, the steering wheel turning slightly left and slightly right, adjusting the wheels along its path as if being driven by remote control.

  ‘Careful of the dance,’ the harlequin said with deep sorrow tainting his thin and high voice. Now his white face was smeared with soot.

  ‘What dance?’ Stave asked.

  The harlequin spoke on with sadness still tinting his words.

  ‘I used to be the most exalted mime artist in the world. I travelled to all parts of the globe – north, south, east, and west. I entertained so well, the audience would refuse to leave, and when finally releasing me from my performance, would applaud continuously for an hour. That was until the agents of Tremelon gave me a voice. But it was the wrong voice. Now I can speak, I no longer mime. Except the mime of the dangers of hot coals.’

  ‘But that’s no mime, I must mention. It’s a conjuring trick. Real coals are appearing in the tongs you hold.’

  ‘You see how weak my talents have become, so diluted as to be practically non-existent? I was under the impression I mimed holding tongs and the plucking of coals from the evil realm.’

  ‘Tell me more about this realm, if you wouldn’t mind,’ Stave said.

  A gust of wind from nowhere, words springing into Stave Swirler’s mind: a dream wind. A howling of a storm from outside, making the bus rock and creak as it progressed along the tunnel.

  I don’t understand how there can be a storm in a tunnel. But then I didn’t understand why the tunnel revolved…

  The ironmonger interrupted Stave’s train of thought.

  ‘Get out while you can,’ he said in a deep, baritone voice as he took metal cutters from the pocket of his leather apron.

  ‘I would if I knew how. Are you in your own dream or someone else’s?’ Stave replied.

  And if you are within my dream, why would I dream you?

  ‘I am a member of the dream cast. But whose dream I used to be part of I’ve become unaware, and now no longer will I discover.’

  ‘Both of you, part of the driver’s dream perhaps?’ Stave asked, but he received no answer. ‘Or maybe even from one of the two passengers downstairs?’

  The ironmonger scooped up a handful of the hot coals and held them out to Stave. He smelled the odour of charcoal and ash, and burning flesh.

  ‘Better than what is to come,’ the tall blacksmith said.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean that whoever’s dream it was, it’s no longer. It has been taken over and we have become a part of Tremelon Zandar’s dream.’

  Stave shuddered as if cold fingers scratched his back. He hadn’t known the name and yet, at the same time, it seemed so familiar once it had been spoken. Anxiety gripped him as he sensed the unreal situation. The dream wind in the bus vanished and he was hot, feeling intense heat coming from the burning coals in the cardboard box. The storm still raged outside.

  ‘I’m out of here,’ he replied and clattered back down the stairs of the moving bus.

  He heard the ironmonger call out as he went, along with another ringing of metal upon metal, ‘You can’t get out, at least not at the beginning.’

  That man talks in riddles.

  As Stave descended, he attempted to slow his fast beating heart; he must calm down to assess the peculiar situation he found himself in.

  When he had reached the ground floor, the storm outside had stopped. He saw the driver at the wheel again, and the youth and young woman sitting in their seats, both quiet and content within their own thoughts.

  3 : FORGETFULNESS AND GREETINGS

  As Stave walked down the length of the bus towards the other two passengers, he heard the words, ‘What’s your destination?’

  Stave reached his seat, sat with his legs in the aisle, and replied to the young man wearing the costume eye mask, ‘I’m going to – to...’

  How could I forget where I'm going? And now I think about it, I’ve no recollection of my life, how old I am, if I’ve a family. But why? Too much wine with friends, not enough fresh air or sunshine, not enough sleep? A blow to the head even? Whatever the reason for sudden forgetfulness, it’s deeply worrying. Perhaps I’m sick with an insidious, subtle fever, after all. That could account for talking with a depressed harlequin and a weird ironmonger.

  He stood, a quick decision entering his mind to find out his journey’s end. Holding on to the backs of the seats, he made his way to the front of the bus, where he held onto a yellow handle by the pneumatic doors, opposite the stairs.

  ‘Where is this bus going?’ he asked the bus driver.

  The driver stared implacably ahead as if hypnotised from the regular rhythm of the lights and concrete ribs, as they passed on the curved walls of the tunnel.

  ‘Can’t talk, I'm driving. Not allowed to talk. But I’m enjoying the drive, tell you that much. Great fun. I’ve always wanted to be a bus driver ever since I was a nipper. Even in a dream. If I’m dreaming you, then I’ll eventually let you know.’

  ‘All you have to do is tell me the destination, now. Are we going to the cinema? To a sports stadium or a race track?’

  There was a pause.

  ‘The bus goes forwards,’ the driver suddenly replied, ‘and sometimes backwards. Even tries to rotate, as we’ve all discovered.’

  ‘Are you trying to be funny?’ Without being given a reply, Stave shook his head and gave a tut. ‘I’ve a good mind to report you,’ he muttered. On the way back to his seat, he called out to the youth, ‘Can you tell me where we’re going? It's silly, I know, but it seems I’ve developed a form of amnesia.’

  The young woman on the back seat looked up but then resumed studying one of her fish that had been wrapped in newspaper, sniffing its wooden fragrance and inspecting the carved gills.

  The youth spoke while fingering his studded dog collar.

  ‘Were you hoping to spend money, see some sights, or watch a band, or a game? My guess is, with your sharp turquoise suit, white shirt, and stylish tie, you are off for an interview.’

  ‘I’m not sure. Spend money, possibly. Going shopping perhaps, though I don’t think so.’

  The young man nodded, now adjusting the eye mask by its elastic band.

  ‘If you are, then you’re going to a shopping mall, possibly on the outskirts of a city.’ He pointed to one of the advertisements above a window of the bus. The image showed an anonymous tower block, the words, “The Shopping Mall, on the outskirts of the city” printed across it. ‘You’re smartly dressed to go shopping in your neat suit. What are you going to buy? Food, more clothes, a mobile, plants, crockery? A pet? A dog, cat, ferret, lizard, maybe? A lizard would be cool.’

  ‘None of those things, as far as I’m aware,’ Stave answered. ‘Maybe I’m going to a restaurant.’

  ‘With a lizard?’ asked the young man with a serious tilt of the head.

  The surreal conversation gripped him with a dream-like force.

  Stave was about to answer, when his attention was drawn again to the young woman on the back seat, inspecting one of the larger fish from her holdall. This one had been skillfully and delicately painted in
bright colours.

  ‘I wouldn’t take a lizard to a restaurant,’ the young man continued. ‘Not even to the gathering.’

  Stave met his eyes again.

  ‘That's where you are going, is it, a gathering?’

  The young man didn’t answer for a few seconds.

  ‘I admit, I can’t completely remember either.’

  ‘The bus driver says he’s dreaming,’ Stave said. ‘Do you believe you are in his dream?’

  ‘Now you mention dreams – I’m hoping to meet a dream instructor at the gathering, that much I can recall now.’

  ‘I wonder what a dream instructor is,’ Stave said.

  ‘I’ve no idea,’ the young man replied. ‘Back to talking about the driver, I heard him say that too, that we were in his dream, when he pinned this rosette on me.’

  He pointed to a dark blue-centred rosette with eight grey ribbons around it, attached to the lapel of his black leather jacket.

  Why Stave hadn’t noticed it before he couldn’t be certain.

  ‘When did he do that? Haven’t seen him walk down the bus.’

  ‘When we were in the previous tunnel, after the bus ran out of fuel.’

  ‘There was a previous tunnel?’

  ‘Yes, identical to this one,’ the young man said. ‘And after someone from the bus garage came along in his white van and filled it with petrol, we set off again. We carried on along the tunnel, out onto a short piece of dark road, then back into this tunnel. That’s when you appeared. From nowhere. You weren’t there in the first tunnel but then you were – here you are – in the second one, even though the bus didn’t stop.’

  ‘Forgetting stuff or not, that doesn’t make sense.’

  ‘Nor to me.’

  ‘Let’s get this right,’ Stave said. ‘Identical tunnel before this one and the bus broke down—’

  ‘Ran out of—’

  ‘Ran out of petrol and the bus driver pinned the rosette onto you. Why?’

  ‘I haven’t the faintest idea. I tried to unpin it but I can’t. Don’t know how the bus driver fastened it.’

  ‘I’ll try for you, if you like.’

  ‘OK, cheers,’ said the young man, as Stave stood and went over to him, bending to take hold of the rosette.

  He immediately let go with a howl.

  ‘What the…my fingers are burnt. Are you playing some practical joke on me?’

  ‘No, really I’m not. Sorry, I would never have meant to do that,’ replied the young man with his palms facing Stave. ‘That is bizarre – show me your hand.’ Stave’s fingertips were bright red and hot. ‘Mine went so cold, I shivered so much I couldn’t feel the pin. It was as if I had frostbite.’

  Stave licked the ends of his sore fingers.

  ‘I believe you,’ he said, though suspicious and undecided whether he did or not.

  The young man continued, ‘Anyway, do you really think you are in his dream, appearing from nowhere the way you did? I have my own dreams, thank you, and this could be one of them, I’m guessing. So you and the driver, and the lady behind me, are in my dream, I’ve decided. But haven’t we had this conversation before?’

  Stave ignored the question to ask, ‘Do you feel like you’re dreaming?’

  ‘Yes and no. Either it’s a very real dream or an unreal reality.’

  ‘That’s what I thought. But still, I’m as real as you.’

  ‘How can I believe that?’ the young man replied.

  ‘How can I believe you saying, “how can I believe that”? If this is anyone’s dream then it’s mine,’ Stave answered with slight annoyance. ‘Yet it’s all so real for me, most of the time. Maybe you’re in my dream and I’m in yours. But how can that be? Punch me.’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Hit me. I want to see if I can feel it.’

  The young man shrugged and did as Stave had requested.

  ‘Well?’ he said.

  ‘Yes, I felt that, alright,’ Stave replied, massaging the muscle at the top of his right arm. ‘So this a real dream in reality, that’s my guess.’

  ‘Whatever that means. I had a real dream once when the sunrise was the colours of bruised fruit, and I was pushing a horse up the stairs leading to that damaged sky. It wouldn’t budge. Stubborn animal. The harder I pushed, the more it resisted and the more it resisted, the more I pushed. Totally ludicrous, yet, at the time, it seemed real. Another one: I saw a pointed flint in the back garden. I attempted to dig it out but the further down I dug, the larger and wider it got. I decided I must bury the flint again but it was too fast for me. It continued to grow upwards at a faster rate than I could cover it until it was the size of a small mountain. I climbed it, right to the top. A long way, but didn’t take me long in the dream.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘At the summit, I looked around. I was balancing on a flint in my back garden. That was so realistic, I actually went out to the garden the next day, to see if I could find it.’

  ‘That’s strange and funny at the same time,’ Stave said. ‘I can’t even remember my dreams, let alone anything else. And all of this talk about dreams is making my head spin. Now you mention a garden though, I suddenly remember I live in a cottage somewhere. At least, I think I do. And I’m on a bus going somewhere else. That’s it. Apart from my name, that is. I remember that. Stave Swirler, by the way. And your name?’

  ‘Quikso Lebum,’ the young man replied. ‘Pleased to meet you,’ and he shook Stave’s hand.

  Stave turned to the young woman sitting on the back seat.

  ‘And you are, may I ask?’

  She looked up from inspecting her wooden fish.

  ‘I am what? I don’t rightly know. If you want to hear about my recurring nightmare, it involves pins, lots of them. No needles, just pins. And trapped in a lighthouse with other lighthouses advancing upon me. They are massive and about to swallow me whole. That’s all I’m saying. And if you mean what is my name, I’m not sure it’s any of your business.’

  Her expressionless face became as yellow as a fresh banana skin.

  ‘He was only being friendly,’ Quikso Lebum said. ‘And you appear to have turned a bright yellow.’

  ‘You’ll turn orange again if you’re not careful. I saw it happen earlier. I’m in no mood to be friendly, as it happens,’ she replied. ‘I was promised dream tunnels and that’s all I know. I can’t even remember what a dream tunnel is. But if you are that desperate to know my name, as it seems, it’s Mariella. Mariella Fortana.’

  ‘Stave Swirler, pleased to meet you too.’

  An ice cream van had appeared in the other lane of the tunnel and while matching speed, it travelled beside the bus. A crazy jingle of a tune came from it. Stave moved across to the right side and looked out from one of the windows. For an unknown reason to him, he was startled and felt his chest, his heart pumping blood at twice the rate as normal.

  ‘Hold on tight, everyone,’ the bus driver said over the intercom, ‘I may have to avoid this van,’ and the bus picked up speed.

  ‘Excuse me for a moment,’ Stave Swirler said to Mariella Fortana and Quikso Lebum and he walked the length of the bus over to the driver’s compartment once more.

  ‘Step back behind the line while the bus is moving,’ the driver stated.

  ‘But I need to know why you’re trying to avoid an ice cream van,’ Stave said.

  ‘Do you know nothing? Do you want my dream to turn into a good nightmare or a bad one? Haven’t you heard of the agents of Tremelon? Do you believe they are evil or just misunderstood? I’m still uncertain. I’ve heard good things and bad things. Islands drowning in the ocean. Or uplifted spheres of positive evil. Now will you let me concentrate? Have you any idea concerning the nature of your own existence?’

  ‘I don’t know what you are talking about. What on earth does that last question even mean? You are very much a confusing person.’

  ‘We’ll all be most confused and more if we don’t move away from that van soon. I’m not ready to m
eet an agent. I haven’t made up my mind,’ the bus driver replied as he scratched his scalp under his cap. ‘What’s he up to now, that van driver? I can’t see in my side mirror now, after I caught him with his head in my direction.’

  ‘I’ll find out for you,’ Stave said, and he walked back down the aisle of the bus.

  The kettle next to the coffee machine, opposite the luggage compartment, let out squeals, and a string of black and blue steam.

  A roll top hatch was pulled upwards on the side of the ice cream van as it sped beside the rapidly moving bus.

  ‘Slow down!’ Stave called out to the driver, ‘you can’t beat it, no matter how fast you drive. You’re putting us all in danger.’

  The jingle from the van transformed into more squeals from the kettle, along with echoed cries, as if from voices of people trapped in a cave.

  Stave watched with unexpected fascination as the large plastic ice cream cone on the van’s roof rotated like a searching radar device. Then a grim figure appeared at the serving hatch at the side of the van.

  4 : AN AGENT OF TREMELON ZANDAR

  The featureless, full-faced mask – the hue of pastry – the wild hair seemingly made of nylon, the fingers fused together on each palm, giving him hands like crab claws: it was an agent of Tremelon Zandar.

  The crackling sounds of fire, shadows of flames dancing over the side of the ice cream van plastered with vinyl stickers, advertising “Melded brain ice”, “Fruity Tootscream” and “Lemon Foolsyouare”.

  From the serving hatch of the van being steered without a driver, the agent held a cardboard cone to a silver machine's nozzle. He pulled a lever and ice cream oozed in a spiral into it and on top of it. The agent took the ice cream-topped cone and placed it in front of his blank mask as if inspecting it closely. Then he held it at arm's length, out of the serving hatch. Stave looked with alarm from the window of the bus, and heard a staccato voice coming from the van.

  ‘You. Don’t. Want. This.’

  Somehow, Stave knew that the agent meant the opposite.

  There was something indefinably dreadful, a shuddering horror, about this simple act. Stave’s throat dried as though the noxious, gassy smell of refuse had returned.