The Peacock Cloak

peaceful. It was like I…”
    They were approaching the room full of treasure and Pennyworth interrupted him.
    “You going to pick up a box?”
    “I guess.”
    Shoe went into the room and absently tossed a few extra diamonds into one of the boxes to top it up.
    “I was like I remembered something,” he mused, “like I remembered something really obvious which I keep forgetting. I remembered… Well, it’s hard to explain but I remembered that everything is…”
    “Tell you what,” said Pennyworth, “we should carry a few boxes to the well down there, stack them up and come up for more. Then we could chuck the extra boxes into the well before we go through ourselves.”
    “Uh. Yeah, okay. What I’m trying to say is that I remembered that everything is fine, you know? There’s no need to…”
    “Are we going to move or what?”
    Shoe picked up his box. As they made their way back to the stairs, he opened his mouth to try one more time to explain again what he had seen down there, but then changed his mind. It was obvious that Pennyworth wasn’t listening or interested or capable of hearing. But, more than that, he sensed that the simple act of trying to put it into words would dissipate the experience. With every word you spoke about a thing like that, the less you knew what it was you were trying to say.
    “Now all we need,” said Pennyworth, panting and gasping, as they set down the boxes beside the well and headed back up the stairs for more, “is to get to a place that isn’t Last Resort and isn’t a desert. Anywhere with people in it will do. Anywhere with people in it, my friend, and you and I are going to be rich.”
    Pennyworth was so excited about this prospect that he seemed to have temporarily forgotten his discomfort, though Shoe couldn’t help noticing, as he followed his companion up the stairs, that Pennyworth’s breeches were now soaked with blood. The dark stain had spread right across the seat and halfway down one thigh.
    “I’m going to get a bloody great swimming pool,” Pennyworth said as they reached the room full of treasure. He was so short of breath that his words came out in short bursts. “A bloody great swimming pool with… with underwater lights and a bar and… and all of that… And twenty bedrooms… And a high wall… And one of those big metal gates with my own guards minding it… And I’m going to have a wine cellar, and drink wine that costs… that costs more than its weight in gold, if I feel like it…”
    They picked two more boxes, headed back towards the well.
    “Maybe I’ll buy my own…. my own football team or something, to have a bit of a hobby…” Pennyworth went on as they headed down the stairs again, though he could hardly find the breath.
    “Yeah,” he wheezed as they reached the well again, “and I’m going to get myself so… so many women…. so many pretty woman. Actresses. Models. A different one every day… And every night of course.”
    “Right you are,” Shoe said distractedly. “Now let’s jump into this thing and get it over with.”
    Pennyworth looked at him in horror.
    “No way!” he panted out, wincing as he carefully lowered his second box to the ground. “We need more boxes! We need two more at least.”
    Shoe shook his head.
    “We need to go,” he said.
    “No, Shoe! Not yet!”
    Pennyworth’s plump face was pale with blood-loss and slimy with sweat. His hands were shaking.
    “Man,” said Shoe, “you should really see yourself.”
    He dropped the box he’d been holding into the well. The nothingness sparkled and hissed as the treasure fell through it.
    Pennyworth looked longingly up towards the landing and then back at the well, his glistening face knotted up with strain. He ran his tongue round his lips as he struggled with the conflicting pressures of greed and pain. But he didn’t have the energy to argue any more. Wincing, he bent down, picked up a box and tossed it into whatever lay beyond that surface that wasn’t really a surface at all.
    Shoe picked up his other box. He too glanced up the stairwell, and remembered the room with the pool that he’d never see again. He shrugged the thought away.
    “Are you ready?” he asked Pennyworth, who was now standing in a small puddle of blood.
    With a grunt of pain, Pennyworth picked up his remaining box. Again he ran his tongue round his lips and he looked sadly up the stairs one final time. Then he turned to Shoe and nodded, and they both