19:00 ~ The Monomyth

a. 19:00

    '...And the Prince married the Princess and every one lived happily ever after.'
    'Again! Please! Again! I'll go right to sleep.'
    'Yeah. Again!'
    'No. I'm not telling you that story for a third time. You'll know exactly what happens!'
    'But we like what happens!'
    She wanted to strangle them. Jamie hated doing this, but she needed the money. All she wanted was peace, if not her friends.
    'Well. What about a scary story then. I'm so board of telling that old fairytale,' she said knowingly - implying something else about "fairy tales", but this was lost on the twins. As a child, her father had told her fairy tales, none of which presented a happy ending that could be applied to her life. Never would she find her prince. She went on.
    'After all, it is Halloween. Ooh!'
    The kids laughed hard. Although completely spoiled, Jamie did admire their complete selfishness and endless quest for attention. They still had the energy for it, especially after the lorry load of chocolate they had consumed that night - each. She no longer did and therefore had given up on getting any attention - parental or... otherwise.
    'Also, if you're really good when I've finished this story, I'll make you some nice warm chocolate milk with marshmallows.'
    She didn't even know what story she would tell them. Would she just rake out some old urban legend? Or recount what she could remember from the plot of "A Nightmare On Elm Street"?
    'No,' she thought smiling, 'mix it up, keep it fresh.' She always made herself laugh when she felt superior. Little did she know that very soon, she would be feeling very, very inferior indeed.
    'Okay. Once, there was this really old house, right. In it, some children lived. They were so happy and had every toy you could imagine. One day, the boy was riding his shiny bike around the house. He knew that he shouldn't, but he did it anyway. The little wheels would make the most awful banging sound on the expensive oak floor. The old house got so angry that it opened up the floor into a mouth. When the boy came along riding on his bike with his sister, the giant mouth of the floor rose up and ate them both. Mummy and Daddy were so sad when they found their children missing. They looked and looked everywhere for the children. They thought they were hiding for fun at first, but after a while, the parents got very angry. Sometime later, the parents finally gave up looking for the children. They managed okay at first, but every now and again, they could hear a familiar sound. During the night, right, they were regularly woken up by the sound of the bike on the floor again. At first, they were so happy that their children had come back, until they found that there was no one in the hall. Night after night, they could hear someone, but they couldn't see them. Then they asked a special psychic lady to come to the house. She could feel the presence of the children still in the rooms where they used to play and she could hear the sound of the bike very loudly in the hall, yet she couldn't see the children. She told the parents that the house was still angry at the children for continuing to damage it. The house was punishing the parents and the children. The parents didn't want to live in the house anymore. They had given up all hope and were angry at the evil house for taunting them. They were sure that their children were dead. So one night, they took torches - fire ones - and set the whole place alight. They stood in the garden and watched the house burn. The wood cracked under the weight and heat. But then right, the burning frame began to moan, "Yourrr childrennn arrre insiiide! Haaa, Haaa, Haaa." The evil house cackled as it spoke in a voice that shook the ground. The children had been alive all along, just hidden under the floor boards. It hadn't occurred to the parents that the noises in the hall had not been the bike, but their children trying to get out from under the house. By the time they learned this, it was too late to save the children and sure enough, after the blaze had been put out, two very small, charred bodies were uncovered next to a still shiny, new looking, bike.'
    The kids were silent on the bed.
    'Praise Jesus!' Jamie laughed. 'An unlikely story, but it still shut you up! I swear to God, I'm wasted in babysitting!'
    Nothing.
    Their faces were white. Their mouths were open. Their bodies were trembling. Their eyes were not, however, looking at Jamie. They were looking past her.
    Before she could turn her head, Jamie was shoved off the bed. She bounced and hit her back hard on the floor. A man in black was reaching over where she had been sitting, for the kids. She rolled over from her sprawled position and ran into the kitchen. She left the children momentarily behind her, with their legs flailing around at the cloaked man hovering above them. His coal gloves felt cold on their warm legs as he attempted to grab them from under the blankets. The dissonance of their screams rang about the room like bells, with a clash of cymbals when Jamie re-emerged from the kitchen wielding a large knife.
    The plump body that was Jamie's gathered momentum as she bounded across the small space. Her arm was raised with the knife pointing down. She was going to kill this person, who ever it was, she gave herself that right.
    The stranger ran to meet her away from the children. As soon as he turned his attention to the immediate threat, the twins were synchronized in jumping from the top of the bed, to under it. They looked on in despair as one arm met another. The knife was suspended in the air. Jamie still had hold of it, but it was slipping as the stranger squeezed her hand. Her other hand flew in to punch him. This was definitely a man. Her hand crashed into his groin, and she felt something go back into him. He almost buckled, but at the last minute, used all of his weight to launch her into the wardrobes. Silence ensued.
    In the short space of time that it took Jamie snap out of disorientation, the man had gone. The children were gone. She was bleeding. It hurt. The knife had pierced the side of her belly. She blacked out.

b. 19:30

    Wilhelmina felt his leg, but pushed on his chest at the same time, knocking him back against the wall. The lamp above flickered. They both noticed and laughed. She kissed his neck and pulled on his hair. She kissed his lips and felt his buttocks.
    'Do you want to find a room?' He queried.
    'No,' she replied, seemingly uninterested in whatever he was saying.
    'What? So you just want to do this in the hall here?'
    'Maybe.'
    'Oh really! And what precisely do we do if someone should just walk up the stairs and find us naked on the carpet?'
    Fin felt terrorized by the laughter from the lower floor. He didn't quite know what he would do if he was seen like this. So compromised. So vulnerable. This was what she did, Mina, not just to him, but all men. She dazzled them like city lights. Only an hour ago she'd been with Jerry in his private room. This Fin knew, but he did not know what she saw in Jerry - especially now. Fin was of the opinion that a real man wouldn’t just let a girl he had just been with float off to find another.
    'Well fine. If you're into playing it safe, sure. We can find somewhere else in this place other than the damned carpet,' she mockingly put to him after having gazed into his serious eyes. He didn't mind her mocking him. After he was done with her, she wouldn’t be mocking anymore, that was unquestionable. He looked to a wooden door, which, he guessed, probably led to a bed or at least a sofa.
    'Ah-ha!' He made a dash for it, but was obstructed by Mina’s arm in its flowing sleeve.
    'I didn't say a bedroom.'
    The flowing sleeves of the red dress took hold of Fin. She transported him, not looking back at her trailing arms, downstairs - where all formalities had disappeared and the quiet quartet had already been disposed of in favour of Jerry's "Jane's Addiction" records. They were all, however, still wearing those f**k scary masks. The two lovers glided through them like a sledge through a forest - a forest where the trees have faces and stare. The seams of the lower floor were bursting as Fin and Mina were catapulted out of the front door, onto the drive.
    'Jesus. That was fun,' Fin expressed, knowing fine well how goofy he sounded by it. Looking up from the gravel, he saw her regarding him in the exact same way she had just been doing upstairs. The lights of the driveway could only illuminate her ankles and the bottom of the dress, but the look was the same.
    'Well.'
    'Well what? Do you really still want to do this out here on the gravel? I think I would have preferred the carpet if you know what I mean.'
    She laughed. He realized he was funny. This proved time and again to be advantageous.
    'No silly. We're going over there.' Mina's dart like finger was aimed at the other end of the vast site of Jerry’s home. Past the ornamental part, past the pond and over a wilder looking field, a barn stood.
    'Holy s**t!' He cried. Nevertheless, Mina's white face was deadly serious.
    'Oh my God! Do you want to f**k me or not?' She responded.
    'Okay, okay, okay. Will you at least let me get some blankets or something?'
    Fin wasn’t used to this kind of treatment. He didn’t know what was happening, but he was resisting it.
    'There's no need. I've got everything over there prepared.'
    'Like what. What is “everything”?'
    'Oh you'll see,' she finalized. And the arms had the final say, and again, they lifted Fin.

    In the bushes on the border of the field, two young men were wandering. Their torch was now running low as they stumbled on the small nettles. They had been walking for hours. They were lost. A couple of fields away, a small campsite existed. The boys had drifted from the main group a number of hours ago and had been heading in the wrong direction since then.
    Over the field, they viewed a grand house. Although distant it was, every room could still be seen, lit brightly. The two boys could see the vivid colours of the miniature people inside - like they were a hundred, perfect, tiny dolls in a doll’s house.
    The door kept opening and shutting on a regular basis as the dolls came and went from their wanderings in the gardens.
    Then, into view, came a woman. She appeared to be flying and carrying some kind of cargo.
    ‘Alex! Look! Look over there,’ one of the boys whispered to the other. He was pointing at the floating woman. However, Alex was already staring. It became apparent then that her cargo was a man, as they glided into a bright area of moonlight. She was larger than the other dolls next to the house and growing in size because…
    ‘They’re coming this way! Get down.’
    ‘Move then.’
    The boys fumbled around as they attempted to quietly manoeuvre themselves out of sight and route of the approaching couple.
    The couple stopped.
    The woman turned to the man, obviously wondering why he had halted.
    ‘What do you think they’re doing out here,’ the other boy asked Alex, but he didn’t reply. Alex was watching the duo with great fascination, especially the woman.
    The cargo man was smiling at the woman. He then he kissed her passionately.
    ‘Whoa!’ croaked the other boy, with a lump in his throat. Alex remained still.
    The muscular man laid the woman down on the grass, as she let down her hair. The man stood up again and undressed in front of her. Alex could see through the blades that the woman was doing the same.
    Despite the length of the reeds, which lessened the clarity of the shocking sight, Alex saw it all.
    He saw the two dark bodies twisting and dancing. He saw the expressions on their faces. He saw the penetration.
    Above him, the sky was turning cloudy. Thunder began to crack as the man threw himself up and down. Then, the rain began to fall. The droplets fell in the hair of the lovers and on their flesh. In a matter of minutes, everything was wet.