Flux

flies, he decided the best way to clean would be to throw anything away which was tainted; starting with the chicken and then moving onto the contents of the sink. Opening the drawer where the roll of black bin liners should have been, he was disheartened not to find them in his immediate field of view. Rummaging beneath old letters, knives, tools and the like, the bin liners still failed to present themselves. Trying the next drawer down they still didn’t materialise.
    Panic, frustration, anger and despair all started to fly around inside Iain’s head at once. Tearing the drawers all the way from the runners and flinging the contents to the floor, the tears once again started to flow. He now knew that there were no bin liners to find; but how could he tidy without bin liners?
    Thwarted at the first hurdle, exhausted and with tears flowing down his cheeks, he gave up.
    Told you so! his pessimism spoke to him. Optimism remained silent.
    Shuffling back into the lounge, Iain went to the chair nearest the open window and collapsed into it. Fetching the phone from his pocket, he tapped one word into the keypad before pressing send and closing his eyes. That word was simply ‘help’. What was really needed now was the calm, soothing feminine voice in his head, the one which had spoken to him before, telling him to remain strong. It didn’t come.

    Far away from the relative comfort of the living room, a thick fog shrouded everything. The only constant between here and there, the sweet, sickly smell of decay and death, tangible in its concentration. Here, Iain didn’t need crutches to walk, the thought of them didn’t even cross his mind. Looking down, he could see that he wore thickly woven trousers and heavy boots; both of which were buried to the ankles in thick, clinging black mud.
    The mud stretched out in all directions for as far as his limited view would allow. Sounds wafted from out of the fog, stifled by the heavy atmosphere, hollow. Shouts of orders being barked, a scream for help, gunfire.
    “Shit, gunfire!” Only then did Iain realise that he himself was holding a rifle, bayonet fixed.
    He knew instinctively that he needed to run. Looking around, he couldn’t gauge in which direction, so he set off as fast as he could the way he was already facing. The shots rang out more frequently now, and the noises were louder. Shadowy figures passed through the fog on either side, ethereal, running the same way he was. One by one they fell, thinning so they became fewer, and all the time the sounds of battle increased in volume and intensity. A bee buzzed past his ear. A bee? No, a bullet.
    Not concentrating on where he was putting his feet during the melee, Iain suddenly found himself with nothing but air beneath his boots; only for a split second though, before landing face down in a pond of stinking, rank and stagnant water. Temporarily submerged he swallowed a mouthful before struggling to the surface, choking on the filth. Wiping slime from his eyes he could see that he shared the crater, for that is what he now occupied, with a bloated corpse, floating face down in the scum. The body must have been disturbed by Iain’s abrupt entrance as it let out a steady stream of bubbles from below the surface; the gases of decomposition making an escape.
    Any sense of time was elusive, as is always the case in dreams and Iain lay in the hole, partially submerged in water and mud while bullets and shells screamed overhead. He didn’t know what to do or how to escape. Every now and again he’d glance over to the cadaver floating nearby, un-wanting but unable to resist a peek. The corpse didn’t move, or offer any sign of inspiration.
    Then, the gunfire abruptly ended. Wanting to get a better idea of his surroundings, Iain thought that he’d attempt to peer over the top of the crater. With every movement his boots got sucked deeper into the mud at the bottom of the hole. On the rare occasions when he did manage free his feet, he made no progress, no hand or foot holds presented themselves to make his climb possible. Clawing at the sides, he’d slide back down into the pit to find himself even more stuck than he was before. Frantically, he doubled his efforts, panic setting in until his energy started to desert him and his labours lost their vigour. Still he didn’t give up, floundering more slowly as his will waned.
    He sensed something was approaching before he heard it, which forced Iain to finish his feeble