The Crimson Thistle

I ‘awoke’ with a sickly sweet taste in my mouth. It was as if I had sucked on a can of golden syrup. I was nauseous and exhausted. I had difficulty staying upright. My head was throbbing and I had the smell of stale alcohol about me. I could sense Alan’s presence. Something induced me to examine my hands. I turned them over and inspected them carefully in the glow of the street lamp. They were covered in what at first glance appeared to be a dull red paint of some kind. Definitely a matte red I decided and for a moment or two cackled uncontrollably like a maniac in a B grade horror movie. For some rhyme or reason, the idea of my hands coated with paint, there in the night, appealed to my sense of humour, or was it perhaps Alan’s take on the situation? The circumstances were absurd, absolutely bizarre. The dense treacly miasma in my brain began to dissolve. I gradually returned from the unknown. Then the panic and dread began to undulate through my veins in a hot rush of molten fear. I looked around. ‘Come on let’s pull ourselves together. Where are we?’ Then I became conscious of the fact that my thoughts were processing in the plural tense. The sweat on my face turned ice-cold. Stop it Ben! I shook my head aggressively from side to side as if to shake him from my brain. Think rationally Benjamin Mcpherson! Where am I? How did I get here, wherever ‘here’ is? What time is it? What’s the last thing I remember? What had I been up to in ‘Cloud Cuckoo Land’? I looked around uncertainly. ‘This is Point Road!’ I said out loud to nobody there. ‘Can’t be’ I thought, ‘it’s deserted.’ I glanced at my watch; the digital display flashed 03:10 in bright red numerals. ‘What’s going on?’ I tried to reason, ‘it’s three in the morning and I’m alone in one of the most dangerous areas of Durban.’ I was standing on the corner of Point Road and Rutherford Street. I re-examined my hands and realised the ‘paint’ was dried blood. I raised my hand to my nose and I recognised the odour; it was a salty, coppery mixture; the unmistakeable smell of blood. The front of my shirt was stained red. I noticed a bulge in my pocket. I stuck my hand in and retrieved a bloodied carpet trimmer. I returned it quickly to my pocket as I glanced around furtively. Shit, what had Alan or Alex been up to in the dock area at this time of night? Blank, blank, blank it all out. Go to a happy place. Blank it out. My consciousness began to recede. I was drifting away. I made a concerted effort to remain cognisant and awake. Fight Ben, you can’t acquiesce. I instinctively understood that if I allowed my conscience to be purloined, I may never retrieve it. I drifted back and forth, coming and going. Had my arch-enemy declared outright war for domination of my temple, my holy shrine? I sensed my adversary gaining ground. I will not give in Alan. You are not as strong as I am, you conniving bastard. ‘Are you okay sir?’ I assumed Alan had fled into the dark recesses of my mind, scurried by the voice of the taxi driver. ‘Can you please take me home?’ I asked, patting my pockets for signs of my wallet. ‘Certainly sir’ he replied. I surmised he had seen worse in this part of town. The taxi dropped me off at the main entrance. I looked up at our apartment on the third floor, lights ablaze, definitely not good news. I climbed the fire escape reluctantly. I knew that Joss would demand the truth the whole truth and then some and I was worn-out, I felt thoroughly drained. I would not be able to supply her with any plausible account of tonight’s events, not tonight Joss, maybe in the morning...maybe. I am lying in a foetal position on a church pew. It is as cold as death itself. Sitting to my right is an old couple. A peculiar looking man is wading up the aisle, almost engulfed by the dark torrent. He clutches a sword in his deformed, talon-shaped hand. There are channels of red sludge flowing down arched walls. I can see all of this without turning my head. A young man is standing at the pulpit, staring at me with a look of scepticism as if to ask ‘Why are you here? What is your business in the House of the Lord?’ I try to answer but I am struck mute. I am speechless. In a flash, the young man disappears from the podium and re-appears hanging from a Crucifix that weighs heavily around my neck. The man to my right transforms into a tree with branches for arms and knots for eyes. He looks at me sadly. He begins to juggle a ball and then smirks malevolently. The tree-man tosses his oval-shaped missile into the air as the old hag squatting next to him screams a caveat at me. I watch in abject terror as the projectile soars higher and higher, sailing through the trusses, surpassing the church steeple in altitude and out into the perfectly blue sky above. The elliptical weapon slows and begins to spiral downwards in its long agonising descent toward its intended target. I awoke with a jolt, remnants of the nightmare spinning around inside my head. Memories of last night came rushing back like an incoming tsunami. Joss was sleeping at my side. I gave the wall clock a cursory glance; almost nine-thirty. I had tossed and turned for almost six hours.