The Last Magician

Altered States

He rubbed his rheumy eyes, attempting to shift the yellow glaze that coated his vision. Only when he glanced down at his ruddy pink hands did he realise he was mistaken; there was nothing wrong with his vision. There was something in the air.

He was sitting on what could have been the village green. Images filtered into his mind steadily, filling his vacant memory with familiar sights of lush green turf and rich textures of blue, red, purple and pink bordering the vibrant lawn in the blooms of summer plants; innumerable variants of green in the solitary, ancient oak that provided shade from the roaming flame of the sun high above.

That was the scene in his mind.

Before his eyes was a putrid vision of diseased, yellow stubble where lush sweeping greenery should have been, surrounded by an uninspiring and disheartening border of arid broken earth, and littered with wretched, wizened leaves of a dark, unnatural tint. Behind him, as it had been in his surprisingly accurate recollection of the place, stood the barren anorexic branches of the once mighty oak; the centrepiece of the village green. Pitiful was a truer description now.

The tree was a shadow of the goliath in his mind’s eye. A disfigured tangle of twigs and branches resembling some ancient sea-creature of Greek Myth, tentacles clawing at the sky with hellish intent on ripping it to the ground. Gaping wounds lay open in the trunk he would once have struggled to reach halfway around with a full embrace.

It was the legions in the wood that drew his attention. He unsteadily rose to his feet, the needles of grass-stubble digging painfully into the soft flesh of his palms as he pushed himself up. He moved slowly, cautiously, towards the monumental oak, his eyes fixed on the wasted bark.

The gashes in the trunk were deeper and wider than they had first seemed. They appeared to be small ruptures, areas where the bark had simply split under the release of some internal pressure. All he could assume was that some of the ruptures had been more violent than others, leaving small cracks alongside gouges the length of his arm, but in all of them the presence of the expulsion remained..

Gathered in the deep crevices, oozing out to form rivulets that joined and interlinked in intricate patterns across the bark, was a sickly-yellow pus. It was fungous in appearance, especially where it had been given lengthy exposure to the atmosphere, nearer the bottom of the trunk.

Jack leaned closer to the nearest bleeding gash, his curiosity defying his sense and his stomach. The closer he drew, minute detail presented itself to him. He could almost feel himself being urged to move ever closer, could feel the tangible promise of revelation ushering him to reach out and touch.

He was soon able to discern tiny movements on the surface of the yellow substance; deeper movements within it; minute forms growing on the surface; dozens of minuscule, dagger-toothed mouths opening to greet his arrival with hungry intentions.

Jack staggered backwards in long-legged bounds, rocking on his heels before toppling to the floor. He thudded back down onto the hard, dehydrated grass, releasing a pained grunt on impact.

He brushed his limp hair from his face and stared disbelievingly at the yellow fungus. At distance, it was once more nothing but a diseased pus leaking from the innards of the oak. It could still be so. He had wakened to an alien world that should have been his own and he believed it easily possible that his mind was playing tricks on him. The crux was that without returning for another inspection, he would just have to accept what he thought he had seen

With a last dubious glance at the oozing tree, Jack picked himself up and moved away over the green.

An eerie desolation surrounded him; every direction bringing a new image of despair. To his left, a terrace of five dilapidated houses stood, just, as skeletal shells of what they had once been. Rotten, woodworm infested window frames crumbled to dust, their task of holding glass panes taken from them as not one sheet remained intact. Frail rags of curtain strayed from the musty interior into the stale air that Jack shallowly breathed.. Paint hung in curled, yellowed flaps, a sight that made Jack feel he was walking through a place that had been dead for some time..

An old question arose in his mind, coming closer with every step he took. What had happened, and if it had been so apocalyptic how had he surviuved it?

Signs of great force of descruction littered the area, more evidence than he could ever have wished to see in order to make some kind of conclusion. Mountains of rubble, skeletal frames of automobiles and shattered street lamps awaited his wide, disbelieving eyes. Then there was the dominating presence that could not be seen but only heard and felt; a solid dome of unbreakable silence lording over the land and the accompanying unwelcome, thick atmosphere that choked his breathing.

He was able to breathe, laboured though it may be, but the sensation in his throat and lungs was that he was inhaling something ancient, something stale like air from a lost tomb. It tasted foul, brimming with a sour flavour yet he had no urge to convulse against it. He could only assume he had become accustomed to it during his lost hours. The question that immediately followed was this; how much time had he lost?

There was only one answer he could provide. Regardless of the number of days, months, or, God forbid, years, it had been too long.

He turned full circle, taking a panoramic view of the green. He could recall more now. Images of his childhood returned to him as he rotated on his heels, vague in appearance, but there all the same. He seemed to remember flags waving from some of the buildings, an family celebrating some grand occasion though he could not recall what the celebration was in aid of.

A further rotation and it was there before him; the metal, rusted flagpole, topped with three tattered discoloured strips of cloth that could quite easily be all that remained of the flag.

Reminiscing was not something he had heavily been into, and now, in this sinister place he had once loved, it did not seem the most appropriate time to begin.

He ended his revolution at the point he had started. A sudden dizziness claimed him. He conquered the sensation at the moment before his legs gave out, steadying himself both mentally and physically.

One hand on his throbbing temple, Jack moved across the remaining area of stubble, out onto the solid concrete of the small road that encircled the green. He took each step as it came, his thoughts concentrating on completing one stride before progressing to the next. He had the distinct impression that he now knew what it was like to be a young child taking its very first steps unaided.

Out on the road, he stopped. The thumping by his temple had subsided enough for him to lower his hand, and he allowed his thoughts to wander once more. Home was the direction they turned to

It was the only place he could aim to locate. Easier said than done when he could not recall a house number or street name; not yet. He had the growing hope, spurred on by his recollection on the grass, that if he began walking the sights he passed, depressing as they were, would inspire his underachieving brain-cells to reignite.

Hope was the only thing he had now. It was his ally; the only one to have stuck with him when all others had deserted.. If hope did not mislead him into false belief, then home would provide him with many of the answers he sought.

Together, metaphorically side by side, Jack and his companion named Hope strolled onto Front Street; onto the road that would lead him home.