Extract 1: The Reunion
In this extract, Jamie is invited onstage at an alumni reunion held in Theo’s honour.
Tobias is next. Epitome of hipster softboi who spoke to all with an air of detached pity, as though burdened to see the world in a kaleidoscope of colours we mere mortals could only dream of. He adored psychologically traumatising novels. Artsy foreign cinema whose endings sparked furious online debate. I once saw him reject an indie band he’d worshipped the week before because they were on the cover of NME. Bunch of sellouts, he scoffed.
But he treasured Theo. Maybe because he embodied the traits Tobias tried to wear like an ill-fitted costume; a boy playing dress-up in his parents’ wardrobe.
He has a goatee now. Go figure.
‘In the words of the great Poe,’ Tobias breathes into the mic, sweat glistening on his upper lip, ‘All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.’
He slinks away. Probably to ensure he’s shielded in the cover of dark before sunrise.
Like the antithesis, Summer lives up to her namesake and reclaims her treasured spotlight. ‘Now then, I would love to invite Theo’s former best friend to share a few words… Jamie Archer?’
Here goes.
I didn’t want to come tonight.
I’m here for you.
I walk towards the stage and climb those rickety steps.
I think of all the things I could say. All the things I won’t.
The floorboards creak. The spotlight’s glare tenders my skin.
But I step beneath it, all the same. Summer gracefully bows out, leaving me standing alone.
At last, I look behind. Finally, for the first time since I received that fateful phone call…
I see him. Theo.
I drink in his yearbook photo like a straggler in the desert drawn to an oasis, despite knowing it’s a mirage. My gaze lingers on his thick brown curly hair and those fascinating icy-blue eyes, the kind you’d see in a National Geographic spread on Siberian Huskies.
He used to wear horn-rimmed reading glasses, studying pages with the intensity of a toddler grasping how grouped letters form words. His long, lean face was angular, his lips full with a pronounced cupid’s bow. He was tall and kind of thin, but not alarmingly so.
It made him appear elegant.
I used to imagine that one day, Theo would appear in a documentary as an acclaimed expert – his profession captioned neatly in the corner of the screen – sitting in a worn antique leather chair by a fireplace, explaining with gentle finesse the chain of events that led archaeologists to believe the ancient ruins did indeed contain relics from the aforementioned era, as predicted.
He possessed that gravitas, oblivious to its allure. Never pretentious. Just Theo.
‘I, um…’ The rising swell of tears threatens to break my composure. ‘I don’t think I could ever do justice to the brilliant, complicated, multifaceted person Theo is… was, with just a few words. And frankly, we’d be here all night. What I can say for certain is I wouldn’t be the person standing here today if we never crossed paths. Theo was quietly self-assured, someone who’d outgrown teenage catastrophising. He influenced me to look beyond my fears to see the grander scheme. He was a visionary. A storyteller. He believed in carving a life that was meaningful. He taught me to choose life, to paraphrase Trainspotting…’
As I ramble, a coherent thread pulls free from my tangled thoughts.
I’m going to do it.
I have to finally come clean about the thing I’ve kept to myself for seven years. I didn’t plan to. But here I am, Theo’s ginormous poster watching me from behind.
I draw in a breath.
‘There’s something I have to say. The last time I saw Theo –’
Miles. He’s really here, watching me from the crowd.
The ground shifts like an elevator lurching to the wrong floor.
Barely perceptibly, he shakes his head.
Don’t.
And now I can’t say a word.
Extract 2: The First Journey
In this extract, Miles explores the basement of Paradox, a bar with a mysterious past.
At the bottom of the stairs, carpet gives way to cool Jaipur limestone as I step into Paradox.
Harsh daylight streaks through the windows, illuminating drifting motes. Viv’s zany décor now appears like forgotten relics. The new owners will likely bin it all, erasing the years she spent haggling car-boot hippies or scouting souvenirs off the tourist-beaten path.
Fragmented cobweb streams dangle from the zebra head. It could be a ritualistic shrine.
You should check the basement.
There’s memorabilia down there, some could be from your childhood.
After ensuring all window shutters are pushed back and wiping down counters, I fetch my discarded shoes and jacket from last night. Once dressed, I pass back through the bar area to the door leading down to the basement. I seize the brass handle and twist it, unleashing a musty smell tinged with old pennies. Odd.
I flip the switch beside the door and a lightbulb on a string straight out of a haunted asylum flickers on. I descend steep rickety steps, clinging to the oak banister tight enough for balance, loose enough to avoid tetanus-inducing splinters.
Last time I ventured down here, I barely lasted a minute before fleeing.
But I’m determined this time. At least with Jamie upstairs, I can call for help if a vengeful poltergeist decides it’ll be fun to lug objects at my head like an impromptu round of dodgeball.
Shelves secured to the walls with nails the size of torture devices house bizarre objects.
A stuffed rabbit with a missing eye. A giant marble with the technicolour hue of a petrol spill. A miniature oval table from a dollhouse. A croquet mallet. A folded tweed blazer. A wind-up carousel. A crystal cut whiskey decanter. A Jack of Spades playing card.
I descend the remaining steps and inhale the stale, stagnant air. It’s overpowering.
Didn’t Viv mention previous tenants? That one of them conducted experiments down here? But it’s not as though there’s evidence. No cracked beakers or exploded wires or tsantsas preserved in a jar of lactic acid glowing phosphorescent purple. Instead, it emanates a peaceful aura alluding to forgotten stories, reminiscent of libraries and museums.
Then I see it: a box nestled below a shelf carrying the weight of first-edition classics, their gold lettering peeling from earthy spines. It’s labelled with one word. MILES.
I cross over to it and kneel on the cold ground, shinbones grazing granite. I touch the lettering, certain from the swoop of the L that this was my mother’s handwriting. I drag it out, a soft muffled sweep across stone. I push back its cardboard folds. Tucked in a corner behind a stickered Converse trainer, Rubik’s Cube and Let’s Rock! Elmo playset is a stack of postcards secured with an elastic band.
Against my better judgement, I unclasp the band and sift through them.
The azure hues of Long Beach, Canada. The cream architecture of Rome’s Trevi Fountain. Rio de Janeiro’s iconic Christ the Redeemer. The sunlit cliffs of the Amalfi Coast.
So many striking locations. And sure, a picture tells a thousand words, but she couldn’t spare a couple more? Nope. Every single one, blank.
Back when her world glittered like icicles and every problem could be solved with a clapperboard or a scalpel, if I dared suggest happiness comes from within she’d have scheduled a heart transplant from a Buddhist.
I seize an image of Sydney’s Harbour Bridge, thumb and forefinger positioned either side, prepared to tear it in half.
I can’t do it.
Something flutters to the ground from the back of the wad.
My chest tightens. It’s the letter she left behind.
Good luck on your last day. Don’t know when I’ll be home.
Viv will look after you xx
I was so dismissive when I first read it. I remember that glimmer of panic, dulled by the belief she’d return in no time. I wonder how it would have felt for the full intensity of her absence in the years to come to have struck me there and then.
Footsteps.
Faint, but unmistakable, pattering across the floorboards overhead.
I freeze.
That’s impossible. Jamie is asleep upstairs, Viv’s in Melbourne.
The footsteps continue. A muffled murmur of voices – a boisterous laugh.
My innards clench as Nathaniel’s journal flickers through my mind.
As a boy I would hide in the basement when my parents entertained guests upstairs.
Their laughter rolled through the floorboards like distant thunder.
The sound stops.
I look back at my mother’s letter, now shaking in my hands.
Then the world tilts.
The ground lurches.
The walls extend into blackness.
My vision fuzzes, like looking through a fishbowl.
The only thing clear to me is the letter I clutch like a life raft grounding me to sanity. Except now it feels warm. It glows, my eyes squint against it. My heart is thudding so hard I feel like a rib will crack.
I don’t know where I am anymore.
Then the world slides back into focus, like a lens twisting into place.
I’m still holding the letter.
But… something’s different. The paper is crisper. The ink darker.
I’m no longer in the basement.
I force myself to look up.
I’m home. Except – I haven’t stepped foot in this house for years.
It feels… lived in. Like a switched-off oven still emanating residual heat, the house carries the lingering presence of people. Whereas now, this house should feel cold. Abandoned.
The first tendrils of dread are creeping in from the darkest recesses of my mind, but I won’t let them touch my consciousness just yet. I will not accept that reality. Because, with reality as the operative word, it would mean that mine has changed.
That the impossible has happened.
That this is the afternoon of 28th July, 2018.
