Nick John's Week 154: Sanctuary

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Nick John’s Picture Choice: One

Title: Sanctuary

He smiles as he dies.
Fool.
I watch his eyes dim, expending dwindling power in a vain bid to drive back the terminal darkness, light fading then winking out.
My grip loosens on his head. He falls, brittle old bones rattling like jack straws on the cracked, blasted marble slabs.

What had possessed him to stand against me? He’d known himself overmatched, even in his prime, and that had lain far behind him, yet still he’d opposed me.
He’d called on his God, chanted his rites, mumbled his incantations.
I’d blazed through hasty wards, melted his bell, shredded his book, extinguished his guttering candle. These were meant for lesser ones than me.
Driven to his knees, as I’d closed with him, my dark fire blasting him, blinding him, brazing all about him, he’d reached behind him. Shielding his precious cross?

Enough.
I catch the stray memory of a scent. Fear and despair, but a faint aroma of hope.
Where are those who’d sought sanctuary?
They’d scampered away when the old man had challenged me, distracted me.
They’ll be mine now - eternally.
I quarter the castle hall, scattering ecclesiastical flummery like a thresher.
I follow the spoor full circle back to the corpse; then understand his dying smile.
As I’d blasted him, he’d fused his melting cross into the mechanism of the great oak and iron door, sealing it between me and my fleeing quarry.
A pale, charred crescent - his dog collar - smiles from the shadows, mocking me.

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Nick Johns Week 149: Soul Music

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Nick John’s Picture Choice: One

Title: Soul Music

I was in a dungeon again.

Secretly, ignoring their priests, they called for me. They had no idea what they were dealing with.

The fear was a rat gnawing its way out of my stomach. My unwilling feet shuffled to the door.

I knew it for what it was.

I studied it through the hatch.

Seeing me the child snarled and flew at the door. The weathered oak shook as if struck by a battering ram, giving final confirmation to my suspicion. He fell to the floor, stunned and peaceful for a moment; then I saw the feral glint return to his eyes. Crawling away he began to croon under his breath; his body rocking from side to side. Fingernails ripped crimson channels in his forearms, drops staining the floor as sat, head on one side, regarding me with cold hatred.

Our eyes locked. He knew me.

I drew out my chosen weapon for this task and, taking a deep steadying breath, began to play.

At the sound of the first note, his rocking stopped abruptly. A laugh began inside him, forcing its way out through pale red lips in single sounds, like bubbles from hot mud.

I changed to a different melody. A slow, halting lament, mirroring the rhythm.

The laugh rose in pace and pitch, daring me to follow. I moved to a sailors’ jig, rising up the scale.

His mouth pursed then relaxed to emit a ragged giggle.

He stared, not blinking now, no movement in him, a wailing gargoyle. Faster he cackled; my jig became a frenzied tarantella; fingers flying across the stops.

He threw back his head and let out a throat scoring shriek. A single note, a demented torment to dogs and bats – and me.

With sweating hands I gripped the suddenly treacherous pipe, lest it squirm from my grasp and damn me. I gasped to wring the terminal note from its wooden guts and, a ringing noise rising in my ears and lights dancing before my eyes, found it.

It soared out from the pipe, thin as the last failing breath that propelled it, pure as a morning echo across a winter lake. It called with a magical summons not to be denied in this world or the next. A hook and line cast into the netherworld.

The note shook, a ghostly vibrato; and returned to me, its ethereal catch snagged, wriggling but helpless. It was dragged deep into the now cracked wooden flute and lay silent.

The child lay still, life betrayed only by an almost imperceptible movement of the chest, features now smooth once more in innocent rest. I leaned against the door, pale and sweating, legs shaking and called to them for my payment.

As footsteps approached in the passage outside, I snapped the tainted instrument between my shaking hands and ground the splintered shards underfoot. They came, but would not approach me or meet my eye. I thrust their grateful guilty gold deep into my pockets, brushed aside their nervous thanks and insincere offers of lodging and asked for directions to Hamlyn.

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Nick Johns Week 145: Taking Out the Trash

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Nick John’s Picture Choice:

Title: Taking Out the Trash

Reality is an illusion.

It’s like magic, just a question of perspective.

Don’t believe me?

Look across the street.

That red van, in the front; is that a sack barrow waiting for the driver to come back, or a trolley jack to lift the front?

‘Give me a long enough lever and I could move the world’. Archimedes said that, you know? It’s not stupid. It’s only a sack barrow because that’s what you’re expecting to see. And that’s the point.

Magicians know what you are expecting to see. We show you that and then we do something else. We don’t confuse you - you do that to yourself.

Misdirection, we call it. Make you look at one thing and not see what’s really happening.

Let me ask you. What’s people’s greatest weakness?

Selfishness? No.

Desire? Betrayal? OK big ones, I grant you, particularly in view of what you and that man..., but never mind,I’ve told you already, and I’ve made full use of it here.

Give up?

Pattern recognition.

We make up patterns in everything. A great evolutionary trait but less useful in today’s crowded, confusing world.

People don’t look at things properly, they skim over things, see what they expect to see. Of course I’m serious.

Even cops do it.

Up there, right now, they are putting together a pattern, telling themselves a story based on what they can see.

A broken front door. A man, in his own apartment, savagely and repeatedly stabbed with a kitchen knife. In his hand a letter from a woman, threatening him.

But the woman? No sign.

Of course, they may find some of her blood too.

She wouldn’t stick around, would she? She would run, hide, lie low.

She wouldn’t go home, or anyplace they might look.

That’s what they are expecting from previous experience and there is more information that they will soon have.

I’m expecting a phone call soon.

‘Excuse me, sir, but where is your wife?’ - ‘I don’t know, Officer, but her suitcase is missing and a large amount of money has been removed from our joint account’.

They are not looking for a body.

Oh, yes, that.

Misdirection, see?

OK, that street artist over there. You saw him dozens of times, hundreds maybe, as you went in and out of that building. No, too late to deny it now. He’s been there for years, right? How closely did you look?

I know it’s not what you call art, but anyway…

‘I’m sorry to have to ask, sir, but were you having any matrimonial problems?’ - ‘Well, my wife had been acting a little distant recently, I put it down to her not wanting me to take my act out on tour again’.

So, just as you walked past things that you weren’t interested in - so did they.

All right, let me ask you an easier one. Where does that guy get the stuff he paints?

Of course you know. You saw lots of it before.

He scavenges the streets around here for rubbish early in the morning - just about the time you would have been sneaking out of here - and paints up unusual things and tries to sell them to the tourists.

So if he found some body parts - heavy, plaster maybe, but not quite as heavy as you might think, exsanguination, you see, covered in dust and plaster, he sees a broken sculpture, from that artist guy in the studio, and sprays them.

He won’t sell them. He never sells much anyway, the stall is just a cover for his drug dealing. Oh, you never noticed that either?

Anyway, back to the Police. They don’t expect to find the woman quickly, they would expect a search, an APB, and a long wait.

Anyway, nice having this last chat with you, dear. It’s important for an illusion to be as truthful as possible

‘When was the last time you spoke to your wife, sir?’ - ‘Just this morning, as a matter of fact. She did seem a bit...cut up. Didn’t really say much of anything. Sorry I can’t be more help’.

What? Oh, the artist, - or drug dealer’s stock?

Anything he doesn’t sell he throws in the dumpster in the service road at the end of the day. And tomorrow is trash collection day.

And, in Police work, like in magic, if you don’t see it at the time, you probably never will. Timing is everything.

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Nick Johns Week 143: Charles the Last

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Nick John’s Picture Choice: One

Title: Charles the Last

I viewed the man along the smooth ash shaft.

My arm muscle twitched as I held the tension in the string.

The Captain peered up into the Sun’s dappled rays as they played among the leaves.

His hand, cupped to his mouth, shook as he shouted.

“Come down, face the people’s justice, now or later..”

“Would you harm me and break God’s law? Leave me in peace and save your soul.”

“Enough talk, Tyrant. Take him – Now!”

The arrow flew true, staggering him as it buried to the fletching in his chest. He pitched forward, like a string cut marionette, but his fine blue cloak snagged on a broken branch leaving him swinging, showering the grass with vermillion raindrops.

“Cut him down. Send a rider to inform the Lord Protector that Charles Stuart has been executed; and fell this for firewood – there’ll be no Royal Oaks in this Commonwealth.”

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Nick Johns Week 141: Let Us Prey

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Nick John’s Picture Choice: One

Title: Let Us Prey

‘Dad! Dad! Come quick and look!’

‘Calm Down, Junior... Hold your horses!’

‘OK Dad, this is no time for lame jokes.’

‘Ha! ‘lame’ I see what you did there, Junior... You are a bit of a dark horse!’

‘Dad! This is serious! It’s Uncle Ed!’

‘Ed? What’s he gone and done now?...He’s a horse’s ass!’

‘Well, we were with the herd, grazing out on the savannah...’

‘...he is too stupid to swat flies with his tail...No horse sense, you see!’

‘... anyway, the others got restless and then started stampeding, so I ran with them...’

‘...and don’t tell me, Ed just stood there,... like a vaulting horse!’

‘Dad...!’

‘... I said to your Mother, ‘that brother of yours, he couldn’t hide in front of a stripey tree’...Ed’s ideas were all horse feathers!’

‘... Dad!, there was this Lion...’

‘Oh. Ok, now we come to it. Ed has this theory about Lions. He was always sounding off at the waterhole, saying Lions were all show, that if we left them alone, they would leave us alone, that all you needed was to be firm with them… it was sort of his hobby horse!’

‘Well, Dad, Uncle Ed looked right at the Lion until it stopped stalking him, stared at it for a few minutes, and then slowly turned his back on it and trotted away.’

‘What did the Lion do, Junior? ...Look the gift horse in the mouth?’

‘No, He ran up behind him and started biting Uncle Ed’s hind leg. Dad! You’ve got to come and look...’

‘There’s no point, Son.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean, once you’ve seen one Lion eating a Zebra, you’ve seen a maul…!’

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Nick Johns Week 139: The State of Grace

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Nick John’s Picture Choice: Two

Title: The State of Grace

This is so unfair!

How dare Gabe talk to me like that?

Just because he’s Father’s favourite.

Just because he’s mister whiter-than-white.

I was only doing what he told me to do.

‘Look after Jane’ he said.

‘Keep an eye on her’ he said.

‘Don’t let her get into any trouble’ he said.

Does he think I am stupid?

I have been out in the world before. Just because I had a problem last time...

I went with her to the party.

Wow, was this different. It was like nothing I had ever seen before. The way these kids carried on, I was shocked, but I remembered the job I had to do.

I kept out of sight, just watched Jane.

It was pretty lame, until Peter and Paul arrived.

I mean, twin brothers, football stars, deep blue eyes - and buff too - well who wouldn’t?

Jane obviously had a thing for Peter, giving him those cow eyes of hers, and tittering and simpering at everything he said.

But she wasn’t going to get anywhere unless someone got him away from Paul.

She asked for my help - silently, of course, but I heard her plea.

So I thought, ‘Guys go to parties with a wing-man, it’s like I’m Jane’s wing-woman - ha!’ So I made sure he could see me.

His eyes nearly popped out of his head, he stood there, tongue covered in cigarette butts where he had been dragging it on the floor.

So anyway, I got him away from his brother. Jane had a clear run.

In the morning, I thought of Jane, doing the walk of shame, while I flew off, unobserved, of course.

I thought I had got away with it, but I reckoned without Father.

Of course I knew he was supposed to see everything, but I figured he couldn’t be watching everything all the time.

Wrong.

The next thing I knew, he had sent Gabe.

‘What was the last thing I told you?’ he said.

‘I was doing what you told me’ I said.

‘No, Grace, this is the end. After that incident with Joan of Arc, and your retraining, you were told that this was your last chance. You are dismissed’.

‘What?’

‘You heard. Dismissed. Leave.’

‘But, you can’t...’

‘It’s too late, Grace. The decision has been made. Father has signed off on it, you’re out’.

‘But what will I do?’

‘The same thing that others before you have done. It’s all downhill for you from here, I’m afraid.’

The smug bastard smiled a dazzling smile at his own joke.

I could have knocked those perfect teeth out, but what’s the point? I knew I couldn’t win. Even Luce had failed. You can never beat this system now, it has been going too long.

Gabe just looked down his long, flawless nose at me and pointed me to the door.

I shuffled over to it, pausing to look out at the fields beyond.

‘Grace’, Gabriel called, using the full power of his voice for the first time. ‘Leave your wings behind please’.

They lifted off my shoulders to flutter disloyally to his outstretched hand.

I stomped out into the real world, marvelling at how weak full sunshine seemed in comparison to the light I’d become used to.

The wet grass was cold on my feet. I lifted the skirts of the shimmering gown, forced to keep it out of the mud - now I could no longer fly.

This sucks!

Fallen angel, indeed!

This is so unfair!

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Nick Johns Week 135: Finders Keepers

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Nick John’s Picture Choice: 2

Title: Finders Keepers

Is there one here tonight?

I need one.

I really do.

I scan the eager, laughing, candy apple smeared faces.

With the casual expertise of a lifetime’s practice it is possible to search even whilst squirting the gullible dwarf full in the face with my fake flower.

They roar.

They always do.

Clinging to their Mummies and Daddies, they rock and jump, pointing and shouting at my antics, unaware of my scrutiny.

I watch for the eyes.

They always give it away.

Towards the end of the set, just as the tyres fall off the car and the wheel comes off in my hands, I spot him.

Under the stands, in the shadows, hidden from the barkers and roustabouts, I spot two unmistakable eyes; big, round and shiny, two full moons in eclipse. A mouse in the skirting, even though ready to bolt at any moment, the Boy’s eyes solemnly follow every nuance of the act.

For the blow off, I wave the bucket full of water hither and yon, teetering on the verge of a seemingly inevitable fall, yet impossibly maintaining an unsteady equilibrium. The front rows in the crowd flinch as I approach then laugh as the bucket swings away from them, gasping once more as I lurch back towards them.

Finally, I launch the water into the audience and the screams turn to laughter as the water is revealed as glitter and falls, a sparkling, gleaming shower of deceit, into their relieved laps.

As I take my bow, pausing to kick the bowing dwarf into an impromptu somersault, I produce a red, shiny ball from behind my ear, and flip it across the floor and into the shadows towards the Boy.

It rolls to him and, just as he reaches out a tentative hand to grasp it, it pops, transforming into a miniature replica of my car. His hand, frozen in shock as it changes, hovers above it, before squirreling it away into the pouch of his grubby, ill fitting dungarees. He goggles at me, eyes wide with a wonder I remember but have long since mislaid.

I wink.

Sprinting across the sawdust ring, I kick my treble sized shoes into the wings and dash for the exit. I gasp as the cool night air sticks my costume to me like a damp second skin and the dew-wet grass chills my feet.

Skipping lightly over the wire taught guy ropes, I locate the dark patch of the Big Top, un-illuminated by the lamps at the entrance and wait. Almost immediately a hand appears under the edge of the canvas, closely followed by an arm, a shoulder, and, with an imagined pop, the Boy’s head. Like a snake sloughing off it’s skin, he sheds the tent. He scrambles up, bent double, hands on knees, gulping in air after his exertions.

I reach out and grab him by the scruff, hoisting him off the ground.

He flips and wriggles like a line caught trout.

I swing him round, bathing him in the flickering light of the nearest oil smoke torch.

“Well, look here, what have we caught?”

His wriggling turns to thrashing, but my arm, strengthened by years of carnie work, holds him firm.

“Where’s your ticket, Boy?”

His eyes roll.

“Well? Cat got your tongue, Boy?”

He shakes his head, quietening down a little, all except his eyes; they dart here and there, seeking an escape route.

He mumbles.

“Don’t tell me, you must have dropped it, eh?”

He nods.

“So, we’ve got a freeloader - as well as a thief.”

“I’m no thief!”

“No? Well how will you explain to the Constable how you came by that little red car in your pocket?”

“...But you...”

“I what? Did your Mummy buy it for you? Shall we go and ask her?”

A veil drops over his eyes and he slumps, perfectly still for the first time. I watch as a single tear tracks slowly down his cheek.

“OK, not your Mummy then. I know. We’ll ask your Daddy. Someone in the Top must know who your Daddy is. What will your Daddy do about you stealing toys?”

The Boy seems to shrink in his clothes.

I know then.

This one is just what I am looking for.

Do I really want him?

Of course I do. I need him.

The others... well, it has been years since the last. If he’s not the one...

My sadness doesn’t show to him, my painted smile still shines, although the greasepaint is surely smeared in places, I know. I change to my cheery voice, the one all the children love.

“Of course, this could all be OK...”

“It could?” He sounds doubtful.

“Absolutely. It could be a finder’s fee for bringing me something I need.”

“What did I bring?”

“Why, yourself. I need a Boy.”

“Why?” His eyes narrow, calculating, suspicious.

I laugh, a bark that startles him. I’ve seen that look before on too many young faces.

“For the circus. All circuses are hungry for Boys. Didn’t you know that?

He shakes his head.

“Oh yes. Boys and circuses. They belong together. Like magnets and iron filings. A circus is what a Boy wants. A circus is travel, adventure, a family. And Boys are what a circus wants. A Boy is fresh, energetic, questing. That’s why circuses don’t stay in one place; because of the limited supply, you see.”

He doesn’t, I can see.

“But they must be the right kind of Boys. Boys like you maybe. Are you a circus Boy, Boy?”

He shrugs.

I fix him with a stare.

“This is it, Boy. You decide. Stay and go back to... what? Your Daddy? This fly speck town? Or come with me, join the circus, fly away with us.”

I drop him and he slumps on the wet grass, like a string cut marionette.

I walk away, listening intently.

“Can I keep the toy?”

“Sure. Your finder’s fee. Like I said.”

Oversize farm boots shuffle and then a small grubby hand tugs at my hem. I look down.

I hold out a hand and his grips mine, hanging on like the offer might slip through his fingers.

As we walk together towards the caravans, I think for a moment of all the others and what they have become, and I smile – for the first time tonight.

“Why a circus Boy can be anything. Small ones start out as rigging monkeys, but they can grow into acrobats, or jugglers, or Lion tamers, or strongmen...”

“... or Clowns?”

“Yes, Boy. Some even become Clowns.”

I thrust my free hand deep into my pocket and find the familiar piece of wood that is always there - the smoothed, now shapeless remains of a toy car that a Clown had once given me.

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Nick John's Week 133: Paris 7/1/15

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Nick John’s Picture Choice: Both

Title: Paris 7/1/15

The pictures this week, in light of Wednesday’s events, made me consider the contrasting futures we face. As stark a contrast as between high summer and deepest winter.

Just in case you were in doubt

Enemies exist; you must act, not wait for others

Stand up for what you believe in

Understand, we have built something rare and precious - but fragile
In all you do or say, in how you live, uphold our values

Someone must do it - if not you, then who does it for you?

Civilisation rests on fundamental principles, not fundamentalist ones

Hate, or the shadow of  violence, must never triumph

Argue passionately for what you believe in, but

Respect those who peacefully oppose you

Love others who value and defend your freedoms

Individuals actions, joined together, will shape our common future

Each of us has a part to play - will you play yours?

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Nick Johns Week 131: Moment of Truth

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Nick Johns' Picture Choice: One

Title: Moment of Truth

My reluctant feet shuffled across the baking dirt of the arena, raising ephemeral dust devils that dogged my steps like stray dogs following a butcher’s cart.

Ten thousand pairs of eyes on my back pushed me towards the tower. Looking up at the vertiginous stack, I squinted into the glare of the midday sun.

I wiped my suddenly damp palms on the seat of my trousers, hoping that the movement looked thoughtful and resolute, not lonely and nervous.

All my young life had brought me to this moment. I had been selected for this. I had wanted it even, competed fiercely for the singular honour now bestowed upon me. All the hopes of the now hushed crowd rested on my actions this day.

I thought about the others who had gone before me, how each of them had stood where I now stood. Each of them had faced the choice I now faced and they had all succeeded. I took one last long look up at the immense pile of bricks towering above me, dizzying row upon row, reaching up, a red needle piercing the clear blue sky and advanced to the start line. One mistake now could doom these people.

It was my turn, I knew, but I waited to be announced, as was expected. The rituals must be observed.

The speakers whistled and the voice boomed out.

“And now, next to move in the World Giant Jenga Championships...”

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Nick Johns Week 129: Greater Love Hath No Man...

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Nick Johns’ Picture Choice: One

Title: Greater Love Hath No Man...

For years without number I searched until, at last, I find her, bound, in the woods.
My heart sings as I hear her voice; a resonance of souls.
She flickers and flashes, ever on the edge of sight, sparkling like spray from a waterfall caught in a sunbeam; eternal, ethereal, ensorcelled.
I see her agony, encased in a faerie cage.
I must act. This bondage of my beloved is monstrous.
Can I do this thing?
I gather my courage and summon my power.
The storm gathers, wind scudding and snatching hungrily at my robe.
This will alert her captors, driving them from their holes like voles in a flood, but I hold the energies, building them to a roaring peak.
I cast the perilous enchantment, fighting to control the energies I have raised.
Part of me is cast with it, tearing from deep within my soul, rending my very being, but I have not been whole since she was lured from me and trapped in this vile place.
The cage shimmers and fades, blown away like morning mist by the tempest that I have raised.
With my last strength, I turn to her; watch her soar above the verdant canopy, free at last.
Her cries echo across the valley, trumpeting her transcendent ascent to freedom.
I slump to the ground, nose in the rotting mulch.
I hear the vengeful mob approaching.
They seize me, bind me with iron, fearful even yet of my abilities.
The hood prevents me from facing my accusers, but I know them, suffer their petty vengeance.
But in my mind I hear only her voice, see only her face.
I am condemned.
There is but one verdict.
But, as I prepare to burn, I am content.

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Nick Johns Week 127: Paradise Lost

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Nick Johns' Picture Choice: Two

Title: Paradise Lost

Looking back from the ridge at the newly old, freshly ruined remains of all that I thought I knew, I set my feet to the immortal road, hoping that some new day may reveal, from the fading echoes of my shifting memory, a trail that will reunite me once more with my stolen happiness.

***

She had appeared, unlooked for, during last night’s walk of the boundaries; fey, flashing eyes, tantalising with fiery dares and forbidden promises.

“Dance with me.”

She whirled away;

I chased her, sprinting across new sown fields by treacherous moonlight.

I caught her, by her design.

She laughed as we fell together, a tumbling, breathless embrace.

“Stay with me.” She whispered “What loss is one night from a life?”

Gripping my hand, she drew me toward her. I spiralled down, deep, drowning in the billowing scent of her.

I soared aloft on the wings of mystery and imagination.

My blood caught fire, kindled merely by the light of her presence.

But, at once, capricious as a cat, she tired of me, discarding me to wander, lost among the inexplicable wonders of her domain.

Heedless I dallied.

Timeless I tarried.

A hint of a memory stirred me from indolent ruin and I set my sails for the safe harbours of home.

Careering in and out of light, pursued by phantasms, blinded by colours undreamed of, I wandered. Exits rushed up and then playfully receded from my questing view. Disconsolate, bereft without her, finally I subdued the maze.

Cast out, stumbling, staggering; mole-like I was re-born into the dark of the moon.

***

Rumours of dawn harry away the lingering shadows of the night sky as I rise, exhausted, from frost kissed grass.

Gossamer images of her recede from me, dreamy recollections shredded by the chill morning breeze replaced, in timidly returning daylight, by the stark reality of a derelict home and weed-strewn, cropless fields.

With a heedless hand I unpocket a coin.

A glint of gold shimmers in my hand. I gaze on her face, impressed into the metal, and raise it to refix her in my mind once more.

Caught in the first, watery rays of the winter’s morning sun, it flares, burning bright and cold, leaving only thinning smoke tails drifting from my hand and ripples of regret chilling my heart.

I turn away.

I must seek out the path that will rid me of this blasted place, and there find grace to rebuild a life that can scourge my soul of the illicit wonders of this night.

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Despite his Mother telling him not to, Nick continues to make things up.

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