1. A RUDE AWAKENING

It's a Tuesday. And it's going to be an odd day.

It was a genuinely odd day. Sunday, being the first day of the week, being number one, is an odd day, as is Tuesday and Thursday for obvious reasons, and this was a Tuesday. I was only just about aware of that!

It didn’t matter that it was a Tuesday nor that it was odd. It just strikes me, recalling the events of that day, that it ought to have been odd because those events were odd.

Take the knock on the door early in the morning when I was still roaming the forests of Gloom with Max, my faithful and sadly long deceased best friend. The knock was peremptory and I mistook it for thunder because the forests of Gloom were ready for a good old storm, and Max was being fidgety in only the way a nervous dog can be anxious.

But Max died years ago which made his presence by my side rather disturbing, and to compound my understanding of the Universe the forest of Gloom morphed win a wibbly-wobbly way into a book case/wardrobe combination, and the knock was still peremptory.

Then the knock moved.

It left the front door and moved to what identified itself as my bedroom window when I opened my eyes properly.

“Are you there, Josh?” called a voice.

I suppose it was calling for me because Josh is my name and I was there.

“I guess so,” I replied, grumpy because my wander through the forest of Gloom had been disturbed before it had really got going.

“Then open the bloody door,” demanded the voice.

I wouldn’t have opened the door, but it dawned on me that I recognised the voice as belonging to an old best friend Scabby Bumpstead from our youthful years, and he had promised to do something or other and I couldn’t quite remember what either the something or the other was. Not for the moment, anyway.

But I went to open the door.

I’d forgotten in that hazy few moments that I tend to sleep naked and when I opened the door Scabby spluttered and said, “cover yourself up, man, you’ve got a hard-on and I’ve got the missus with me...”

“It was the forest of Gloom,” I explained, “and we were looking for a castle, so that explains my dress code.”

Scabby pushed past me into my porch, followed by Joanie, his wife of too many years for them to still be as sloppy lovey-dovey as they were.

“That’s nice,” she giggled as she past me.

I wanted to ask what was but didn’t want to hear the answer, so I kept schtum. Nobody wants to think his wedding tackle is merely nice.

“You’ve forgotten, haven’t you?” grated Scabby. “I made you promise you wouldn’t forget, and you’ve forgotten.”

I must have. But that was the last thing I wanted to admit to. I’m not as young as I was and my memory sort of fades and comes and goes at random.

“Of course not!” I protested, and added a disastrous lie, “it’s too important to be forgotten.”

But I had, forgotten that is, and I was entering a dark place where an ancient fear was knocking at something stubborn inside my head.

“Then why aren’t you ready?” he demanded.

“It’s just too bad,” put in Joanie, giggling as I tried to pull a pair of boxers over myself and managed to get them on back to front.

“What is?” I asked her, more for the time it would give me to remember what I had obviously forgotten than because I wanted her to elucidate. But the air of the forest of Gloom was still blowing through my cobwebs and that was all I was interested in. For the moment, that is.

“There’s Scab and me ready and you’re still dreaming,” she said, almost spitefully, because how did she know what was going on in my head? Crikey, not even I know that for most of the time.

“I had a rotten night,” I lied, “awake half the time and screaming the other half.”

“Screaming?” asked Joanie, a treble warble of sarcasm at the edges of the word as she stretched it out a beat too far.

“Nightmares,” I lied again, confirming my inability to tell the truth even to friends.

“It’ll be something special, anyway” grinned Scabby, “have you got your instrument ready, nightmares or no nightmares?”

“What do you mean, no nightmares?” I demanded. “Are you calling me some kind of liar?”

“There’s only one kind of liar, Josh, and you’re it,” said Joanie, “now get that guitar of yours, put your pants on the right way round, get dressed and come along! It’s a long road to the Castle, and we’ve only got today to get there!”

The mention of guitar sorted my memory out in a mighty tching-tchang of recollection. Of course. The reunion.

Once upon a time Scabbie with Joanie, and me and a couple of other fellows had been The Sparklers, a folksy combo that back in the sixties sang songs about love and protest to small crowds wherever we could find them. And Scabby had decided we were to have a reunion at the site of our greatest triumph, where not only had we received rapturous applause from an unbelievable almost one hundred fans but had also been expected to perform an encore.

I say fans, but really it was a random group of Japanese tourists who had been there at the same time as The Sparklers by a kind of international coincidence and who had been particularly fond of folksy English melodies. And we had a choice of clever tunes by the two or three. Maybe even by the four on a good day.

“The reunion!” I spluttered, getting my boxers on the right way round and contriving to push both of my legs in the same leg of my shorts. It was shorts weather. It usually is for me. Not that I’m in love with my legs or expect anyone else to admire them, but I do have a fetish for comfort.

“Now you’ve got it,” murmured Scabby. “Jed and Crin messaged me. They’re there already, say the place is more atmospheric than it ever was and should make a good backdrop to Our Green and Sleeping World. I hope you remember that one. After all, it was one of yours!”

As if I’d forget! Yet when I ran the lyrics through my head it seemed I had forgotten all but the first verse. But it shouldn’t take too long to get it back together again.

Maybe my face is built up of alphabetical images because Joanie read my mind and shook her head.

“You can only remember the first verse,” she sighed.

“It’s all there,” I promised her. I was telling more lies than a politician on speed, but it was early and the air of the forest of Gloom still blew gently through my mind. And Max was barking. Still. I glanced out of the window to where I’d buried him years ago, and shook my head.

“It’s odd how long an old fellow can live and breathe after he’s died,” I whispered.

“Then get a move on, twerp,” jostled Scabby. “I got hold of a camper-van just like the one we had back then! The five of us sleeping in that is going to be just like the good old days!”

“Who died?” asked Joanie.

“Max died. Max, of course,” I breathed as I pushed into the kitchen. “I don’t half sodding miss the old fellow! Coffee and off,” I told them. “I need my caffeine fix first, but it won’t take long.”

TO BE CONTINUED…

© Peter Rogerson 09.06.18