His first memories…

The first trickles of self-awareness stirring in a crib.

His baby body nested in blankets snug and warm.

The dawn’s light slanting between wooden poles; slicing bars of red between closed eyelids.

That self same body a prison: unflinching like brass.

Unseen eyes peering coldly down upon him.

The past …

Mitchell’s mother had wanted to be near her own mother. That is how they came to live above the Shop in Templeton Lane. Three generations cramped into two rooms and an attic. It was a frantic home. The conversation of customers, weights clanking on scales, the thwacking of butter, and the ring of the doorbell filled their rooms as certainly as the smells of cooked meats and fresh bread. It was hard to imagine a war that required everyone to carry a ration book was occurring less than a sea away.

Mitchell was six when war was declared. Back then, “war” had just been another word for him to learn, like “dog”, “hello” and “milk churn”. It was ever-present, flitting in and out of conversations like the sparrows darting among the mulberry trees on the Common. During the day, when the shop was open, the word “war” seemed to fall like bruised apples onto Mitchell’s head. He would come down the stairs trying not to listen, but the women stood lining the aisles, “war” spilling from their lips like drool from the chops of a bloodhound. Down amongst the low shelves and blocks of scrubbing soaps, he picked his way between their immaculately hemmed skirts; pining for bedtime and an escape from that word.

One day, as was so often the case, Grandmamma shooed the boy out the backdoor.

Mitchell looked up, hands shoved deep into pockets, face all scrunched up as he scrutinised first the sky, and then the garden yawning open before him.   The soil burnished with the uneven efforts of spuds to send malformed shots into the fresh air.   Runner beans hung like bunting from splintery old frames.   Mitchell remembered when the veggies in the garden had been nothing more than plain old, muddy grub from the backyard. That was before the ‘Dig for Victory’ campaign. Now, every sprout, spud and bean had been conscripted into the war effort, just like his father.

With a sigh Mitchell gazed down the garden path. Behind the blackberry patch, a stream ran.   The water was fresh and fast with stickle backs, despite a number of the neighbouring houses emptying their domestic cisterns into it. Sometimes he waded out into the stream and ladled the water until he caught a ‘tiddler’ or a minnow or two.   These would live in the kitchen for a few days until they mysteriously disappeared.

Mitchell hesitated then picked up a greening jam-jar full of rainwater.   Catching fish was always a good distraction for an hour or two.   His mind made up he dragged on a pair of too big wellies.   Jam-jar in hand he  trundled down the garden path towards the stream. He cleared the blackberries and immediately his resolve evaporated: Above a Spitfire banked, its vapour trail a vivid gash in the bright blue sky.

The jam-jar dropped from his hand, it had barely time to shatter on the path before he had dashed back to the house. As he scuffed off his Wellies on the sides of a flagstone, Mitchell decided the outside world was a place he could do without.   Carefully he opened the back door and tip toed up the stairs to his bedroom.

At least, he reasoned, in sleep he had nothing to fear.

The next morning, the strangely appetizing stench of the pigsty next door filled Mitchell’s bedroom.   It was a sweet, mouth-watering aroma that greeted him on warm mornings favoured by a southerly breeze.   The pigs could be heard wheezing below his window.   The birds twittered and twirled with the affairs of a new day.   Mitchell instinctively knew it was early, even by his mother’s standards.  The shop below was silent.  As he lay there in bed, his head swaddled beneath a crochet blanket, the rumblings of his empty stomach alerted him to the possibility of breakfast.

Yet he could not move.

Fear comes easily to children.  There is too much unknown in heaven and hell for tiny minds too fathom.  Where the light of their limited experience or the wisdom of parents’ teachings has not fallen, dark places infested with shadows exist.  Mitchell had retreated to bed to avoid contemplating one such place … and found he had woken in one even darker.

Head and body numb as a blackboard.

His limbs were beyond heavy.

____

Purchase The Red Book to read “Something Mean in the Dream Scene” in its entirety.  Official release is 1st December – pre-release orders taken as of 24th November.