Flux

they all carried on as normal.
    Then the bus arrived.

Chapter Twelve
    Visitor

    Once back in the relative safety of his flat, the thought struck Iain as how to spend the remainder of the day. He didn’t want to be alone, but he was. Moving to the TV, he changed his mind even before pushing the on button; terrified of what he might see or hear, he ruled it out. Likewise with the radio, he couldn’t stand the thought of hearing more static and more crying children.
    He sat all alone on the edge of the sofa, thinking, trying to make sense of what was happening to him.
    All you have to do is sit it out until Monday, then the doctors can find out what’s wrong and sort you out.
    If you live ‘till Monday?
    Of course you’ll live until Monday.
    Or you don’t go mad?
    What do you mean, go mad? You’re already mad. Hahaha
    What if it’s real?
    If what’s real?
    All this mad shit that’s happening.
    The voices in his head, his voices, weren’t helping. What if it was real? It couldn’t be though could it? What if somehow he was receiving visions, messages from somewhere? How would the doctors help him then?
    Iain felt more alone and isolated than ever. Shutting his eyes tightly, he sat rocking, repeating out loud, “It’s not real. It’s not real. It’s not real,” over and over and over again. It was the only way to cope, to shut out the world completely and hope it left him alone.
    When the phone rang, it went unanswered.
    Darkness began to fall upon the world outside the window; Iain didn’t move to turn on the light. Images flashed behind tightly shut eyelids; monsters looming from the dark to take him, grotesque abominations and obscenities, still frames showing to him the worst kinds of pain and suffering that members of the human race can inflict upon each other.
    Opening his eyes was no better, although the images projected to his retina were not so graphic; shadows moved in the darkness, inkblots taking human form. Yet he still did not dare turn on the light for fear of what may be revealed.
    Looking out of the window, figures moved on the street below. Bathed in the glow of sodium lamps, most of these late night interlopers appeared solid and alive but some looked not quite real, as if faded around the edges. His mind turned to the apparitions he’d witnessed at the hospital and on the bus. There was also the encounter with Bert on the high street. He could no longer be sure where reality ended and madness began; the man he’d seen in town looked real, but that was impossible.
    Iain looked away from the window and once again closed his eyes. Too afraid to sleep in case the nightmares came, he was at a complete loss as to what to do. And so he sat alone, in the dark and wide awake until the sun started to show above the rooftops; illuminating clouds crimson, heralding the dawn of a new, hopefully brighter day.
    An old saying came to him: Red sky in the morning, shepherd's warning.
    Unable to stay in the flat any longer, Iain put on his coat and hobbled down the stairs and into the fresh air on the street. Without really thinking about where he was heading, he walked towards the common which lay at the edge of the town. The roads were quiet, the air had the still quality which pervades the hour when most people are still tucked up in their beds.
    The common is a large patch of ground of maybe half a mile in each direction. Set aside in days gone by for folk to graze their sheep, nowadays it’s a mixture of birch trees and heather; a small piece of wilderness hidden away in the urban landscape. Frequented mainly by dog walkers and kids on acid, the common is a good place to escape modern day life for short periods of time.
    At this hour it was even more quiet than usual, the birds sang their dawn chorus and two deer disappeared into the trees ahead, startled by the invasion of their territory. He liked to see the deer; they reminded Iain that nature was never far away. He followed the narrow, black tarmac path which led through the common to a small local shopping centre. The shops gave him something to head for rather than roaming aimlessly. He set himself a small mission, to find the newsagents and buy some cigarettes and a newspaper even though he wasn’t really very interested in what the doom and gloom merchants had to say; he had enough gloom of his own to contend with.
    Halfway down the path, Iain noticed the air had become still, the kind of calm which precedes a storm. The birds had