A Journey Through Time and Space
Category: Featured Fic, The Mighty Boosh, Real Person Fic
Characters: Bob Fossil, Howard Moon, Julian Barratt, Mike Fielding, Naboo, Noel Fielding, Other, Vince Noir
Pairing: Howard Moon/Vince Noir, Noel Fielding/Julian Barratt
Genre: Action/Adventure, Drama, Humour, Romance
Rating: R
Status: Complete
Length: 75-100k words
Chapter 8
Contents
Chapter 8
Author’s Notes: Thank you to all readers, especially those who left comments expressing encouragement throughout the development of this fic—which took two years to complete, if you can believe it! And many many extra thanks for waiting so long for me to finish. And last but not least, many thanks to easilyled for her beta work on these last chapters, and to kaywray for being my beta in the beginning.
Julian saw the church in the same moment that he remembered that he was meant to be looking for it.
The mini-cab had been idling at an intersection, the windshield wipers swishing away the beginnings of a light rain. Swiff-swiff. It was a sound that made Julian think of leaving his grandparents’ house after Sunday roast, of being bundled into the back seat while half-asleep, the rumble of the engine coaxing him further into dreamy oblivion. And then the light changed and the cab turned right, onto a quiet, unfamiliar street that was lined with tall trees—so tall that he didn’t see the spires of the church until it was almost too late.
Julian only knew that it was the church because the bell tower had sounded off one o’clock at the very moment that the cab turned right at the intersection.
Odd, how time seemed to slow down as soon as the church came into sight. The cab whizzed by it in a matter of seconds—in the dark, no less—but it seemed as if every detail of the structure became etched into his memory in that short passing of time. Or maybe that was impossible; maybe his mind simply saved him by inventing all the details in one great, cognitive burst, all too aware that everything was fleeting.
It was just a church. The double spires stood like a pair of cautious dancers, side by side but too shy to get any closer. Windows were placed in stately groups of three, thin and tapered like elegant fingers, and a marble saint stood guard in the alcove over the front doors. It was impossible to tell the building’s age, it might be gothic or just gothic revival. But it was old enough, certainly, perhaps old enough to have even seen London’s great fire.
Even as he committed the church to heart, Julian thrummed his fingers against his kneecap, nervous and restless. It felt like everything was coming down to time and timing.
“Was that the church with the bells we heard before?” Vince asked.
Julian nodded. “Yeah.” He hadn’t realised that Vince was looking for the church, too.
“Is that where we’re going? Are we going to pray?” Vince’s voice was breathy, resisting a laugh.
“No, you maniac. We’re going to the hotel.”
“What hotel?”
“The one you woke up in this morning, if you care to remember that far back.”
“Ooooh but it hurts when I do that,” Vince said, intentionally ridiculous.
That made Julian laugh. “Mind you take care of that one remaining brain cell,” he cautioned.
“No, but really, what are we going there for? To get all that luggage and whatnot that you left behind?”
“No, I’m not worried about that.” Julian glanced at the driver, who appeared to be ignoring them, then moved closer to Vince. The street lights were hitting the rain-streaked windows just so, sending dappled patterns over both of them. “That was the last place I saw Noel. Our room at the hotel is the last thing I remember before coming to at that jazz gig.”
Julian expected some kind of retort, but Vince fell curiously silent for several minutes, turning his head to hide his expression. When he spoke again, it was to ask an impossible question.
“Why do you reckon that me and Howard got all mixed up with you and Noel? Why’d we swap skins, only to half-swap back?”
Julian stared out the window, watching the rain snake down the glass. “I don’t know. I haven’t got even the slightest idea. I wish I did.”
“What happened to you before you woke up back in your own body again?”
“Nothing,” Julian said, shrugging. “Noel and I drank some gin and fell asleep.”
That was a half-truth. And not even the most important half, not even the truer half.
“Sleeping!” Vince sounded appalled. “You’re a pair of famous blokes and that’s how you spend the evening, having a little sleepy? At least me an’ Howard painted ourselves up and hit the town.”
“What else would we have done? We were in a zoo. There was no ‘town’ to hit.”
“Hit the zoo, then! Hit the zoo like a typhoon. You and Noel could have nicked Naboo’s magic carpet, or prank called Dixon Bainbridge. You could have slapped around Tony the Prawn. You could have done some fox-bumming. You could have…”
“Okay, right, I get the idea,” Julian said, showing Vince the palm of his hand. “But we weren’t about to go looking for trouble. We were lying low. It’s called being sensible.”
Vince let out a thick snort. “Sensible sounds awful. How do you even know you’re alive?”
“There are certain indicators, see. One’s called a pulse. The other is breathing. Oh, and then there’s another called brain activity.”
The dim interior of the mini-cab seemed to render Vince’s smile particularly wicked. “No wonder your eyes are so small. All that brain activity is squeezing your face shut like a clam.”
“And look at your eyes,” Julian said, flicking a piece of hair out of Vince’s face. “Bulging out like a pair of sea anemones.”
Vince’s smile widened. “That’s right. Coming after you, they are.”
And they did, locking on Julian’s and holding him there, in a swell of watery, uncertain blue.
Julian felt words—very insensible words—threaten to rise out of him. But Vince’s own words came out first.
“I remember being dead, that’s what I remember.”
“What?”
“That’s the last thing I remember of me and Howard. Being dead.”
Julian stared at Vince; his face was white and serious. “What do you mean? How can you remember something like that?”
Vince crossed his arms over his chest, hugging himself. “It was just me and him, you know? And we were flying or floating about in some dark place. But not a bad sort of dark. More like when you take a nap on a sunny day and the insides of your eyelids are a cloudy sky-blue colour, but you just can’t open your eyes to see if that’s really what colour the sky is.”
Julian just gave a slow shake of his head, eliciting a sigh from Vince.
“Remember what it was like before you were born? It was like that. Except I wasn’t waiting alone, so it wasn’t so bad.” Vince made a sudden move, his hand grabbing hold of Julian’s and pulling it toward him.
“What are you doing?” Julian stared at his hand, all closed up inside Vince’s grasp.
“That’s what he did. I had my hands out and he grabbed hold of them, kept them close like this.”
“He grabbed your hand?”
Vince nodded.
Gently, Julian pulled his hand from Vince’s hold. “You weren’t really dead, Vince. That was just part of our live act.”
“Wot?”
“Our live show. We performed it for the last time just last night. Everyone is murdered by the Hitcher—you, Howard, Bollo, Naboo, everyone—and at the end, when they’re resurrected, Vince and Howard fly through the air. Only it’s not really Vince and Howard, it’s me and Noel pretending to be them—be you, I mean. Anyway, we’re attached to pulleys and cables and we swing around in mid-air, holding hands like a pair of giddy schoolgirls. And then everyone sings and it’s all over.”
Vince started to shake his head. At the same time, the mini-cab came to a halt in front of the hotel.
“Thank you, sir,” Julian said, handing the driver a tenner, then pushing the car door open.
“That’s not what happens!” Vince said, grabbing the back of his jacket and trying to pull him back in.
“Hey! Let go. What are you talking about? We’ve got to go!”
Vince stuck his legs halfway out of the mini-cab, his feet not quite touching the pavement. “It doesn’t happen like that!” he insisted, his face hectic and flushed. “There’s no resurrection, no singing. It’s not a bad place we’re in, but we can’t open our eyes.”
“Look, Vince, this is all a lot of nonsense to me…”
Vince stood up, far more elegantly than his shaky limbs should have allowed, and stepped away from the car. Then he turned to Julian and continued speaking.
“Or maybe our eyes are open, and there’s just nothing to see.” He smiled hollowly, rain making his cheeks wet.
“Vince…”
“I don’t feel like myself anymore,” Vince said, then he extended a hand, studying it. “I’m still all here, aren’t I?”
“Yes, you are. We both are.” Julian twitched in hesitation, then took hold of Vince’s hand, leading them both towards the hotel’s front doors.
Every few minutes or so, Noel would become aware of the fact that he was rubbing at his own arms, smoothing away gooseflesh even though he wasn’t at all cold. There was no breeze to chill him, anyway—the air was as still as if they were indoors, and for the first time since waking up that morning, the zooniverse felt more like a set than a real place. They were wandering through the wooded area better known as the jungle room, but the trees now had a plasticine sheen to them, and the ground beneath his feet didn’t rise and fall the way the real earth did. It was flat, the underbrush too artful and perfect.
“You sure you know the way?” he called out to Naboo, who was in the lead. The shaman had been talking about tri-dimensional fissures for the past few minutes, and while what he had to say on the matter was quite interesting (they were a problem, tri-dimensional fissures, especially when whole species disappeared into them, like the dinosaurs did), Noel wasn’t really listening properly.
“No,” Naboo admitted. “But it’s got to be around here somewhere.”
“Howard?”
The other man was walking steadily at Noel’s side, and he shook his head at Noel’s prompt. “Sorry, I don’t remember.”
“It’s alright, Howard,” Noel reassured, then spoke in Naboo’s direction again. “I saw Rudi earlier… er, maybe you know him, I dunno. Anyway, he told me we’d have to follow the rays of light from the moon in order to find the moon world.”
Naboo slowed down and looked over his shoulder, frowning. “He said that?”
“Yeah.”
“Idiot. Anyone can see that there’s no moon tonight.” Naboo came to a full stop, his face pinched in concentration as he began rummaging through the large pockets of his robe.
“That’s right,” Howard piped up. “There’s an eclipse tonight, isn’t there?”
“There is?” Noel said, surprised.
“That’s what I heard.”
Naboo was unimpressed. “That’s nothing compared to the solar flares. It’s no wonder this is happening. The celestial weather is ripe for all sorts of muck-ups.” He removed something bright from his pocket and held it out like a torch. “This should help, though.”
“What is that?” Noel asked, squinting. The bright thing was very bright.
“Lunar rock,” Naboo said proudly. “Er, don’t tell Neil Armstrong you saw me with it, he thinks he lost it down a toilet in Bangkok.”
Noel nodded faintly, and as the shaman set out again, the light from the lunar rock moved this way and that, threading a path through the trees. As they walked, Noel held back just a bit. Howard did the same, matching Noel’s pace and sticking close to his side.
“So,” Noel said.
“What?” said Howard, his tone gruff.
“You thought we were playing a love game earlier?” Try as he might, Noel couldn’t keep the smile out of his voice.
A stick crunched loudly, Howard’s foot coming down on it too hard. “Dunno what you mean,” he hissed under his breath. “And must we really march to our doom this way? I’m telling you that I can feel it in my bones—the moon world’s gone wrong!”
“Don’t try to sneakily change the subject.”
“I’m not!”
“Alright, alright,” Noel said, keeping his voice low. “I know that you and Vince are just mates. I’m just taking the piss, yeah?”
“Of course we’re just mates,” Howard said. “I mean… wait, is that what he told you?”
“He?” Noel glanced sideways. “Uh, Howard? Vince and I don’t really talk. Not like in the way that you’re picturing, anyway.”
“Well, of course. But still, you’d know if he had… had any sort of, say, unseemly attractions towards me, his best mate.”
Noel felt a rock give way under his boot, more foam-rubber than stone now. “Maybe I would know, but who cares? It wouldn’t change how you felt. And besides, when two people are really close, I mean really close, things of that nature are bound to become obvious, aren’t they?”
“It’s obvious!?” Howard said, his voice jumping into a higher register as he came to a dead stop.
Noel stopped too, his mouth falling open. “Wha…? You mean… you? You’re ‘obvious’ for Vince?”
“Shhhh!” Howard swatted at him desperately.
“Why’ve you two stopped?” Naboo called from several yards away, giving them a dirty look. “We’re nearly there!”
“Sorry, Naboo!” Howard shouted brightly, then he gave Noel a fierce look and ran up ahead, leaving Noel alone and shaken.
“It’s not obvious,” he muttered, then said it louder: “If that’s your idea of obvious… well, it’s not!”
“Giddy up already!” Naboo shouted, and Noel began to walk again, albeit grudgingly.
Howard purposefully distanced himself from Noel now, and Noel appraised that distance quietly, finding that it resonated in all sorts of ways. Mostly, it reminded him of all the times he tried in vain to chase Julian’s eyes down during the course of a private conversation, only to have them skip away and peer into the corners instead.
His private thoughts ended when they came upon a large clearing. A domed building sat there like a large igloo, its surface glowing with a pearly light, and the land surrounding it was as rocky and strange as the surface of the moon itself. Shallow craters made for shimmering, lifeless ponds. The air was dry and sharp.
“Whoa,” Noel breathed. A large sign was posted above the front doors of the building, but the words WELCOME TO THE MOON WORLD had been scribbled out with spray paint.
“That’s vandalism,” Howard stammered, his posture hunched and anxious.
Naboo pocketed his lunar rock and faced both of them. “Alright, we’re here. Who’s going in first?”
No one spoke for a moment, then Noel finally gave in. “I will,” he said, heading for the doors.
A hand grasped his wrist, pulling him back. “Wait… wait a minute,” Howard said. “Don’t go in there.”
“Let go, Howard. It’ll be alright.”
But Howard pulled at him again, a note of pleading in his voice. “Send the shaman in instead. Be sensible!”
Noel tried to shake Howard’s hand away. “But I’m trying to be responsible, yeah? It’s all down to me to do the right thing.”
Howard let go and backed off, his face stung, his eyes blinking. “Oh, yes, I see. It’s all down to you.”
“Come with me,” Noel offered, holding his hand out.
Howard said nothing and took a few more steps backward. Behind him, one of the ponds rippled.
“Howard, be careful,” Noel said, watching the ring of ripples move across the silvery water. “There’s a pond—”
Like a scene from Jaws—sans the ominous music, which somehow made it all the more terrible—a creature erupted from the pond, a howl tearing from its throat.
“Do you love meeeee?”
“Fucking hell,” Naboo said, ducking. Noel did the same, instinctively covering his head.
Old Gregg threw his dripping, scaly arms around Howard’s middle and began to drag him into the water. Noel saw them thrash and struggle, but was too shocked to move for a moment. But then Old Gregg lifted his weedy head and gave him an obscene, knowing wink.
“No!” Noel burst out, lunging for Howard.
“Help me!” Howard yelled, trying to elbow the merman loose. But despite his smaller stature, Old Gregg must have been tremendously strong. He simply picked Howard up like a large toy and jumped into the pond with a giant splash. Noel didn’t even stop to think, he just threw his arms over his head and dove into the water after them.
And landed hard, right on his face.
He groaned and lifted his head, which was throbbing all over. Then he rolled over onto his back, surprised to find that he was perfectly dry. Feeling beneath him, he discovered that surface of the pond had turned to ice. No, not ice, it wasn’t cold enough. He sat up with a groan and ran his fingers over the water, willing his vision to clear. “What happened? Where did they go?” He squinted and looked down at the water, then jerked back when he saw Old Gregg’s face staring back at him. “What the fuck?!”
“Get up!” Naboo demanded, yanking at his arm.
“Where…? What…?” Noel stammered, completely disoriented. “What happened to the pond?”
“It’s gone,” Naboo said, then demonstrated by tapping his foot on the edge of the water. “It’s turned into glass. A mirror.”
“Wot?” Noel looked more closely and saw that Naboo was right. It wasn’t Old Gregg’s face he had seen; it was his own. “Do something!” he said. “Change it back!”
Naboo widened his eyes and shrugged. “I didn’t do it!”
“Fix it!”
“I can’t!”
“Gahhh, you’re useless!” Noel raged, then he kicked at the ground, yowling when his foot connected with a rock. Both frenzied and inspired, he picked up the rock and aimed it at the mirror-pond.
“Don’t!” Naboo tried to knock the rock out of Noel’s hand. “Howard’s in there! Breaking the mirror could be bad. You might hurt him.”
Noel froze, the rock dropping from his fingers.
“I’m sorry,” Naboo said, and it sounded like he meant it. “But we have to keep going. That’s the only way we can end any of this.”
“I’m not leaving Howard,” Noel said, glaring.
“Things are getting worse,” said Naboo, almost pleading now. “We’ve got to hurry!”
Noel breathed in, then gave a weak nod. He knew Naboo was right.
“We have to get inside the moon world.”
“I know!” Noel snapped. “Give me… god, is a fucking minute too much to ask for?”
Naboo took a step back, but his face remained composed. He was done pleading.
“Fine.” Noel swallowed hard and turned towards the moon world. “Let’s go.”
Because he was absorbed in folding Noel’s clothes, Julian didn’t immediately notice how quiet Vince had gone.
So many clothes, all of them scattered around the hotel room in careless disarray. “Did you do this?” Julian had asked. “Or did we leave the room this way?” Vince had only shrugged and said perhaps it was a bit of both. Then he lay down on the bed, exhaustion evident in the circles beneath his dull eyes. Julian let him rest while he set about tidying up the room. He wasn’t sure what good tidying would do, but he had to start somewhere.
He folded each garment with precision, some of the tee-shirts so small that they ended up roughly the size of cigarette packets. Each folded shirt had its own story: this was the one Noel had worn to the last IAMX gig; that one was from the Oxford signing that had a cigarette burn on the sleeve; and this was the stripey jumper that Julian had accidentally borrowed, mistaking it for his own similarly-coloured stripey jumper. How embarrassing that had been, showing up to rehearsal wearing something of Noel’s. Neither he nor Noel had even noticed until Paul asked Julian why his sleeves were so short, and was that the new Yorkshire fashion statement?
Julian must have exhausted all of his internal jokes about Noel’s teen-angst wardrobe, though, because none of them seemed funny now. The pint-sized shirts and wee jeans only made him smile, in that way that sad people do.
“And he tells me I wear too much black,” he murmured, shaking out yet another pair of black trousers. Then, in a louder voice, he asked Vince if he had seen Noel’s pac-man belt. “He’ll murder me if it’s gone missing,” he added, snorting lightly. “As if the girl who made it won’t send him another before he even has a chance to ask.”
Vince didn’t reply, and Julian craned his neck to get a better look at him.
“Did you hear me?”
Vince was staring at the ceiling, his body so unnaturally still that Julian’s heart lurched like a gear shift. He came to his feet fast, bright clothes sliding from his lap, and shook Vince by the shoulders.
“Vince! Wake up!”
But he wasn’t sleeping. His eyes were open wide and glassy as a doll’s, and like a doll’s, they looked up at nothing.
“Vince?” Julian licked his lips, his voice dropping to a whisper. “….Noel?”
There was no response, but the thin chest rose and fell slowly, someone still breathing inside it. Even so, Julian pressed his head to the other man’s sternum, listening for the far-away drumming of his heartbeat. It was still there: muted but steady.
Several minutes passed in which Julian did everything he could think of. He slapped Vince hard across the face, cursing at him. He retrieved a glass of water from the ensuite and tried tipping it between his lips, finally dumping the whole thing over his head when the water kept gurgling back out. Then, with the water glass still in hand, he kissed Vince’s—or Noel’s—wet mouth and found it firm and unyielding. Eventually, he just pulled the other man into his lap and said one or two pleading words. But only one or two because he wasn’t an idiot, he knew that his friend was somewhere he couldn’t reach.
Which left Julian alone, with no one but himself.
The dark of the moon world was close and almost perfect. The domed room seemed mostly empty, but for some tall shapes at the far end. Without any clear idea of what they were, Noel walked towards them, watching the long-toothed shadows creep closer, his hands held out just in case he slammed into them. The only noise he heard was the click of his boot-heels and the swiff-swiff sound of Naboo’s trainers. He inched forward until something brushed against his shoulder, light as a drifting insect, but surprising enough to make him gasp aloud.
“What is it?” Naboo asked, stopping behind him. In the dark, it was suddenly easy to forget that he was Naboo. Naboo, the great and powerful shaman.
“There’s something here,” Noel said, his voice thick. “A cord. For a light, I think.”
And something else was here, too. Something, something… what was it? Noel’s eyes strained against the dark, trying to make some sense of the tall shapes that were still several yards away, but they remained stubbornly vague: just tall, just shapes. The only thing in the room that was even remotely visible to him was the man at his side.
“Aren’t you going to pull it?” Naboo asked, sounding bored.
Noel swallowed. “Why don’t you?” he said, and it felt as if his heart was suddenly pumping gallons and gallons of blood through his veins all at once, making his ears swell with the sound of all that hectic beating. Something was here; something was wrong.
Naboo allowed a few ticks of silence to go by, then said, knowingly, “But you’re the one who’s taller.”
With a large intake of breath, Noel managed to coax his joints from their locked position and spin around to face the other man. Noel couldn’t see him clearly in the dark, but he saw enough: he wasn’t the taller of them at all. The other man was exactly his own height.
“Jenny,” he said. Jenny. Fuck, had he ever been more scared of someone in his life? He thought not.
Some things are best seen in the dark, she said, in that voice that sounded like nightmares.
“I didn’t know that your abilities included changing into people,” Noel said, more coolly than he felt. “Regular karma chameleon, you.”
Uh-huh, I come and go. I only wondered when you would figure it out.
Noel bit down hard on his back teeth, frigid dread rattling him through and through. “How many people have you been running around as?” he asked, his voice hard. “Every one who’s been trying to get me over here to the moon world, I reckon.”
Jenny snickered softly, not above gloating. Actually, if you think back you’ll find that when I was Fossil I purposely warned you to not set foot in the moon world. I thought you would ignore him and do as you pleased.
“But we didn’t,” Noel said. “You thought wrong.” It was only a small triumph, especially considering he’d ended up here now, at the end of things. And without Julian by his side.
Yeah, it’s been surprisingly difficult to get you to do as you please.
Noel shook his head, all his thoughts on the verge of jamming up and mounting into full-on panic. “I still don’t get it. You’ve brought me here, and for what? Just to get a small part in a show that won’t even happen?”
Oh, Jenny said, her new human mouth making a frown that Noel could just barely make out. Or maybe he just imagined it based on the genuine note of pity he heard in the creature’s voice. You really haven’t put it all together yet, have you?
“No,” Noel said, too weary to play games. “No, I haven’t. I’m in the fucking dark,” he said, then raised his arms and gestured around the room. “Obviously.”
Then turn on the light.
Noel reached up for the light cord, then hesitated. This thing—chameleon? Creature?—had been leading him to this spot since the very beginning, goading him all along the way. There was no way he was going to do what it said now.
“Forget it,” he said, dropping his hand.
Jenny was quiet for a long moment, then took a step forward. I’ll do it for you, then, she said, and with a rustle and a click, light poured into the room, so bright that it seared. Noel squinted and backed away, looking up through stinging vision. Some kind of gold disco ball was twirling at the top of the high, domed ceiling, and it threw off sparkles that were so intense they were like individual stars. It was a dazzling sight, and only when the spots dancing behind his eyes cleared did Noel wonder what the fuck was going on. Then he pulled his gaze away from the spinning orb and was face to face with Jenny’s… face. She was stood directly in front of him, her features shifting and running together like modeling clay left too long in the sun. Her eyes went from brown to green to feral red, then finally settled on a clear, brilliant blue. Then the rest of the face emerged: the obscenely clear skin; the childishly red mouth; the nose that was strangely squashed if you looked at it too hard.
“You,” Noel said, his voice thin and barely there, leeched away by fear. “Fuck you all.”
He kept counting the fingers to make sure they were all there. One, two… yes, all five of them. He squeezed again to be sure.
“You scare me,” he said, but no light flickered in those blue eyes.
“Not now,” he added. “Though obviously I’m scared out of my mind at the moment. Mostly, I’m scared that, somewhere, you might be feeling as scared as I am right now.”
And then he managed a laugh, but it died quick.
“The first time you came up to me, you said ‘I like your style, mate. It’s quite disturbing, isn’t it? That stuff about wearing people’s skin and whatever,’ and I thought ‘who the fuck is this idiot?’”
He paused. “And you shook my hand without asking and your smile was so huge, practically the size of your whole massive head, that I had no choice but to look at you. You had the most memorable face I’d ever seen. You still do.” He studied the face again, just to be sure.
“And you said… I’ll never forget this… you said, ‘I’d quite like to run amok in someone else’s skin for a bit,’ and I looked at you like you were wrong in the head, I’m sure, and I asked you what you meant and you said ‘It’s just a kind of tragedy, isn’t it, that we’ll never be anyone but ourselves?’”
He made a slight movement and the other man’s head lolled into his shoulder, as if getting closer for a snuggle. He looked down, almost hopeful, but the body was still vacant.
“You don’t know how many times I’ve wondered what you meant by that. I’ve never wanted to be anyone but myself, see? Maybe stronger, more intelligent versions of myself, or slightly… thinner ones. But floundering about in the paddling pool of another psyche? Another person’s set of fears and dreams? No, thank you. For me, acting is as far as that wish goes.
“But it goes further for you, doesn’t it? As far as crawling into another person’s skin, so you can see them with better, clearer eyes.”
With that, he traced each of the eyebrows, each spidery hair grazing his thumb. “And for some reason you’re convinced that I’m the one you have the hardest time seeing, despite the fact I’m right in front of your face.” He stroked the brow again, as if imparting his words directly into the brain below it. “What you don’t seem to get, though, is that being private is not the same thing as being complicated. When it comes down to it, I’m really a simple man…”
Isolation… ISOlation… ISOlaaation
What an inopportune time for that song to eek its way into his head. He thought he’d known loneliness when he’d written it. He hadn’t.
He leaned over and breathed into the ear. “It’s simple, Noel. I need you to come back to me. Do you see?”
Beneath his hand, he thought he felt the eyelashes flutter.
“Fuck all of us? Yeah, sorry… it’s just me.” The creature formerly known as Jenny stepped forward, its face an exact mirror of Noel’s own. “Or you, rather.”
Noel stared at the face, at his face, trying to suss out if it was kidding, but the face only smiled at him, pityingly, and maybe with just a touch superiority.
“Ha.” Noel let out a weak laugh. “You’re not me. Why would I set out against myself in this crazy caper?”
“Who else would?” The other shrugged a single, graceful shoulder. “Not someone looking for a bit part—just you. The star.”
“Shut your mouth,” Noel said to Himself. “I told you it’s not like that.”
Himself sneered ever so slightly at this, as if more than a little disgusted by such a weak protest. “I couldn’t be here if you didn’t want it.” Himself took a step closer, and Noel stood his ground despite the urge to flee. “Everything that’s happened today and tonight happened because you wanted it that way.”
Noel shook his head, but with less conviction than he would have liked. “That’s madness. I didn’t want Howard dragged off by a psychotic gill-man!”
“Why not? You’d already stabbed him in the back.”
The ground went wavy under Noel’s feet. “What, with your tail, you mean? Our tail? Mine?”
Himself sighed, then reached out to steady him. “Look, don’t think too hard on the technicalities of who’s who,” Himself said, smiling with certainty. “Trust me when I say that your coconut’s not cut out to handle it.”
“I’m me,” Noel said, with less conviction than he’d been aiming for.
“And so I am,” Himself said, giving Noel’s shoulder a light squeeze.
“What about Julian?” Noel said, ignoring this claim and shrugging the hand away. “I didn’t want Julian gone.”
Himself was unimpressed, fluffing the back of his hair. Noel stared at the primping; is this what he really looked like? He’d seen himself on television, of course—but this wasn’t the same. “But you didn’t expect him to stay,” Himself pointed out, giving his hair a final tug. “It amounts to the same thing.”
“I fucking did too expect him to stay!”
“No, you didn’t,” Himself said, and dear god did Noel wish he would stop smiling like that, like a circling shark. “Look, I’m not gonna blame you. You’re in the tent, all cosied up with gin and life or death desperation, and he still won’t touch you. You make yourself into the last man on his earth, and timbeeeer!” Himself made a motion like a tree falling. “He’s down like a lumberjack, sawing away at a stack of logs.”
Noel would have reached up and shut his own mouth, if he could, but he didn’t want to touch Himself, he didn’t want to be that close. So he backed away instead, heels catching on the uneven ground and nearly sending him sprawling. None of this could be true. He didn’t kick Julian out with the powers of his imagination—no one’s mental imaging faculties were that strong and self-destructive. He was about to tell Himself this, but Himself leaped closer, jabbing at the centre of Noel’s chest so that he had no choice but to back up even further.
“Come on come on come on come on!” Himself chanted. “Forget the bad Ju-Ju, we’ve got a show to cook up!” He grabbed Noel and whirled him around like a dancing partner. They were at the far end of the domed room now, and the tall shapes were finally visible in the light of the gold disco ball.
The shapes were set flats, made of light plywood that had been primed white for scenery painting. But just at that moment, they looked to Noel like very tall tombstones.
Himself rolled his eyes at Noel’s stricken face. “None of that gloominess. It’s time to unleash the rampaging stallions of creativity—we’re the new horsemen of the newpocolpyse!”
“Get lost!” Noel tried desperately to break loose from the other’s grip. “I’m not unleashing anything.”
“Of course you are,” Himself said, finally loosening his hold on Noel and offering him a reassuring pat on the arm. “You’re an artist. Such an artist that you actually remade the world in your image. Imagine that! Oh, wait… you already did.” Himself chuckled and began to climb up one of the flats, moving much like the chameleon he’d started out as.
“I didn’t,” Noel seethed. “This isn’t any kind of world I would ever create. It’s fucking wrecked!”
Himself pressed one of his hands into the flat, and colours began to stream from the tips of his fingers, reds and blues and greens streaking outward as if drawn with an invisible paintbrush. “Don’t you want to help me?” Himself said, flicking a gob of paint and smiling. “You’ll only be helping yourself!” With a wet finger, he began to scrawl big words on the plywood. VINCE NOIR’S ELECTRO SHOWCASE.
“No.”
Himself looked annoyed now, verging on angry. “Don’t try to tell me that this isn’t what you wanted.”
Noel straightened up. He wished he were the taller of the two, the stronger of the two. “This place doesn’t have what I want.”
And then he lowered his head and charged the flat, one of him roaring like an animal while the other threw back his head and just laughed.
He jumped at the slight, fluttering sensation—enough so that the other man’s body almost tipped over. He grabbed the shoulders and quickly righted it, looking hard into the face for some new sign of life.
“Did you blink?” he asked, desperate. “I swear… I thought I felt a blink.”
No answering blink came.
The dejection he felt surpassed any he had experienced before this. He hid his face in his hands, his eyes desert-dry but aching just the same, and when he’d finally had enough of the dark he put his hands down and took a deep breath. He was going to tell Noel that it was okay. He wasn’t going to leave him, not now, and he was on the verge of saying so when he saw something that made him completely forget what he was about to say.
Noel’s eyes were looking past him. It was just a tiny difference, so slight that it was no wonder he hadn’t seen it at first. Whereas before the eyes had looked pointedly at nothing, they now looked pointedly at… something. They were cocked ever-so-slightly to the left. After several seconds in which he convinced himself that he wasn’t just seeing things, he finally turned his body in an attempt to follow the new line of vision.
Almost immediately, he saw what Noel’s eyes saw: a bundle of untidy pages, stacked to one side of the television.
He stood up slowly, then took the four steps to the low chest of drawers the television was sat on. He touched a finger to the script’s title page. It was slightly rumpled now, but still read as he remembered: Vince Noir’s Electro Showcase.
He yanked his hand away, the momentum taking him a step backward. “What?” he asked, turning to his silent friend. “Why are you looking at that? What am I supposed to do?”
In answer, silence prevailed. But in that silence, he thought he heard what Noel said. Maybe he was just imagining it, as Noel might have imagined a thousand different things in Julian’s silences, but the answer came anyway. It was very clear in its arrival. It was almost loud.
“Are you sure?”
More silence.
He lowered his head, then riffled through the contents of his jacket pockets until he found what he was looking for: that single, battered matchbook. Find Yourself.
“Alright,” he said, then took a sharp breath. “Alright.”
He tore loose a match, then struck it to life.
Noel was furious with Himself. Unfortunately, Himself was pretty much furious with Noel, too. When Noel rammed his shoulder into the plywood flat, Himself slid halfway down the length of it, his artist-fingers leaving a mess of rainbow paint. Vince Noir’s Electro Showcase was hardly legible, now.
“Look what you’ve done,” Himself whined.
“You were the one who said I created this. Now I’m uncreating it. Either lend a hand or get out of the way.” Noel rammed his shoulder into the flat a second time, and it tipped dangerously backwards. Before it could right itself again, Noel gave it a hard kick. With an enormous woosh, the whole thing promptly fell over, Himself going with it, arse over teakettle.
Coming up from the rubble, Noel’s double hooted with more laughter, shaking dust out of his hair. “You’re not changing anything. You’re just making a giant mess!”
“Good!” Noel retorted.
“But look,” Himself said, pointing with a giggle. “Your mess doesn’t matter. It’s time for lights, camera, action!”
Noel turned to see what the other Noel was pointing at. It was the gold disco ball. It was spinning faster, glowing brighter, and expanding like a newly-born sun. The jagged beams of light that came from it were hot, and the smell of burning filled the air.
Fear poured through Noel as smoke appeared, cloaking them in thin tendrils. “What’s going on?” he shouted.
Himself clapped his hands together gleefully. “It’s time! It’s time, it’s time!” He came at Noel with a speed that belied physics, then stopped right in front of his nose, his smile wide and warped. “We’re gonna bust things up like a blazing meteor, you and me.”
Noel trembled a bit at the close-up sight of his own bared teeth. “But I didn’t turn the lights on in here,” he said, steeling himself. “It was you who did that. Not me!”
Himself laughed, unconvinced. “My finger is your finger, lovey,” he said, waving a hand at him.
Noel faltered for a moment, almost convinced, but common sense nagged at him. “That can’t be right. You’ve manipulated me inside and out to get me out here… if we’re the same person, why would you even need me?” His eyes narrowed. “You could have thrown me in that pond along with Howard, but you didn’t. You needed me to flip the switch…”
“Shut up!” Himself said, and that burst of anger was enough to let Noel know that he was right.
He knew Himself pretty well, after all.
“You might be a part of me,” Noel said, his voice gathering strength and certainty now. “But there’s no fucking way you’re all of me.”
Before he could retort or argue, Himself started to cough, and pretty soon, Noel was hacking, too. Smoke was thickening throughout the room, making it harder for them to see each other. Noel’s eyes watered, and he turned in a blind circle, his arms held out in front of him. “Is this supposed to happen?” he shouted.
The answer came in the form of a huge, ground-shaking crash.
And then…
There’s smoke everywhere, rolling like fog off the Thames. It’s a miasma with thick fingers and claws, clutching at Julian’s throat and making him cough.
“Vince!” he tries to yell, but it’s just a croak. “Noel…”
The bed is a shadowy rectangle, and Noel’s empty body is the smaller rectangle reclined upon it. Julian finds an ankle, then pats upward toward the knee. Then he just heave-hoes the other man up in his arms. Oof. His back groans in complaint, and he drapes Noel over his shoulder and reminds himself to lift with his legs. Better.
He knows where the door is, but that knowledge is no good if he can’t tell what direction he’s facing. He turns around slowly, eyes straining to see. The heat from the fire is gone, but the smoke is darker, obscuring the room like a cloud of ink.
Where’s the door? Where is it?
He tries to walk, but Noel’s limbs get tangled up with his. Something strangles at his neck, pinching and scratching.
“Fuck off, Noel!” he shouts, suddenly throwing the other man to the ground.
“You fuck off!”
They tussle, heavier man pinning the smaller, hip-to-hip until a near-knee to the groin shifts the balance of power.
“We have to get you out!” Julian spits at Noel’s face, then punches it.
“You’re not me!” Noel screams, his face hot and vivid red beneath the banshee-wild hair.
“What?” Julian looks around, panic nudging his rage aside.
There’s no smoke. No fire. Wasn’t there just a fire…?
Rage barrels in again, reminding him that he’s furious with Noel. He’s… he’s… his hands slip around the other man’s neck, squeezing. A pulse leaps against his fingers, begging like a madman.
“Oh god,” he says, realising who the real madman is. He let’s go.
Noel stares up at him, eyes shocked open. “Julian… is that you?”
“I…” Julian gasps. There’s no air in here. “I think so.” He rolls off Noel and manages to sit up.
Noel coughs; it’s a recovery cough, starting out desperate then trailing off as good air fills his chest. “There was so much smoke,” he says.
Julian turns his head sharply. “You saw the smoke?”
“Yeah, it was…” Noel sits up, wincing. “Ow. Did you hit me?” He reaches up and touches his fast-swelling eye. “Or did I hit myself?”
“Why would you hit yourself?” Julian asks, puzzled.
Noel’s face goes dark at some thought, but he shakes it off with a weak smile. “Dunno. Guess that means it was you that hit me?”
Julian swallows. “I think so. I’m sorry.”
“Oh, well, I think I might have…” Noel points, looking sheepish. “Gouged up the side of your face.”
Julian reaches up and feels three raw scratches down the side of his jaw. They don’t hurt nearly as much as they ought to. He stretches out his arm, his knuckles cracking. The shirt he’s wearing has short sleeves. It’s the shirt he wore last night.
Not last night, tonight. Noel’s wearing the green tee-shirt with the lightning bolts, the same thing he’d been wearing at the after party. The rest of his clothes are strewn about the room, and looking at the mess, Julian realises that his careful folding and packing never happened. None of it had ever happened.
But it did. I know it happened!
It’s a shared thought between Noel and Julian, both of them struggling with two sets of memories, two realities that are equally unbelievable: one where they became intimate with their own creation, and another where they fought and nearly destroyed it.
It’s Noel who finally breaks the silence.
“Um, Ju, what the fuck hap—”
Julian throws a hand up in the space between them, effectively hushing Noel. “Don’t. Just… please don’t say anything about it. I can’t think about it…” He lowers his hand and uses it to hide his face. Something that feels like insanity prickles at the back of his scalp.
“Alright,” Noel says, wanting to comfort his friend and not knowing how. They’ve just been fighting; it may not be the best time to offer a hug, even if he wants desperately to hug him. He feels like he’s been separated from Julian for years, and he wants to smell that Julian scent, which is like soap and old ashtrays, and feel the rough scour of whiskers against his forehead.
He picks up the script to Vince Noir’s Electro Showcase,instead. It’s right by his feet, rumpled but still whole. Well, mostly whole. There’s a cigarette burn mark right on the title page; Julian must have been smoking when he read it.
Noel flips through to the end of the script. This time, he knows what he has to do; he’s just having one last look.
(OPENS THE SCRIPT TO ONE OF THE PAGES NEAR THE END AND DISCOVERS THAT THIS IS NOT THE SCRIPT HE WROTE, BUT SOMETHING QUITE DIFFERENT)
Noel stares at the lines, confounded to the bone. Then, after a silent moment, he flips the script shut and studies the cover page. This is his script, isn’t it? The title is one long scorch mark.
“What’s wrong?” Julian asks.
“Just a minute,” Noel murmurs, flipping back to the previous page.
NOEL (STUDIES THE COVER PAGE IN CONFUSION)
JULIAN What’s wrong?
NOEL (TURNS BACK TO THE PAGE NEAR THE END)
Just a minute.
Noel closes his eyes and, with great care, places the script on the floor in front of him. A rustle from Julian makes him open his eyes. “Don’t look at it,” he says, darting out his hand to stop Julian from picking the script up.
“Why not?”
“Whatever’s happened tonight, it ends in a few pages, and then it’s just you and me again, like we were before.”
“Before?” Julian shakes his head, disbelieving. “Noel, it won’t… it can’t ever be like before.”
Noel’s fingers tighten around Julian’s hand, intertwining with his own digits. “So you do remember.”
“Yeah, all of it.”
They couldn’t look away from each other if they tried. “Was it real?” Noel asks. “The Zooniverse… and you, and me. And Howard…”
“And Vince,” Julian adds.
“But was it?”
Noel can see Julian’s swallow get trapped in his throat. “As much as anything else,” he says, his laugh stiff and scared, or just scared stiff.
“Julian,” Noel says, and he can’t manage any more. Just this once, Julian has to tell him what he needs to hear, and he has to do it without Noel asking him first.
His friend nods at him, slowly. “Yeah, Noel, it always has been real.” He reaches up and touches a bruise that’s just beginning to form under Noel’s eye. “You idiot.”
Noel makes a breathy noise, then smiles. A weary smile, born more of relief than joy. “Good,” he says. Then “help me” as he comes to his feet, cradling the script against his chest. They go into the ensuite and place it face down in the bathtub, both of their hands pushing it into place as if in an elaborate ritual. Then Noel strikes a match and holds it to all four sides of the script. The paper catches fast, all those words curling into ash and smoke.
“You put a lot of work into that,” Julian observes, though he sounds as if he’s hardly sad to see the thing go.
“Mmm,” Noel says, feeling better as he watches the script burn. “Not really. Knocked it up in less than a week, if I’m being honest.”
“Very devoted to your craft,” Julian says. Even as they watch the flames, they know they’ll be others. There will always be new scripts, just as there will always be new pathways, new journeys to take or to not take.
But in a few minutes, this script is nothing but a mound of fluffy ash, and the hot embers that remain are easily doused with a blast from the bathtub taps. “Devoted…” Noel says, a faint, private smile on his face as he steps away from the tub. “Yeah.”
Despite the smile, the reminder of having lost nearly everything is still squatting inside him, and it has enough presence to ache through and through, like a throbbing thorn in his side. He wants to run through the streets and chase down everything he’s ever been afraid of and laugh in its face. He wants to flush it all away with a good, strong dose of life, lived to the hilt.
“Hey, Ju,” he begins, and he wonders if the words he is about to say would have been written on the last page of the script he just burnt. It doesn’t matter, though—he’ll just say what he wants to say. That’s what should have been there, anyway.
“I love you. I’m in love with you, really. Not because I expect anything from you, or because I want you to love me back, but just because I do.”
His voice wavers on the last few words—thinking about being brave feels easier than actually being brave, which, he supposes, is why most people are cowards.
And the look on Julian’s face isn’t helping. It’s slightly pained, and after the longest few seconds in the world he finally says “Noel, why?”
Noel only smiles in a small, fond way. “Why not?”
Julian stares at him with the look of someone who suspects he’s been fed a trick question.
“No, really. Tell me why I shouldn’t.”
“Come on…” Julian says, exasperated, though perhaps more at himself than Noel. “Lots of reasons,” he finally offers.
“Uh-huh,” Noel says, grinning. “Let me know when you’ve hit on one that’s a bit more concrete and specific.” He reaches up and gives Julian’s shoulder a squeeze, friendly and non-threatening. “But for now, I’m going to having me a big, decadent sleep.” He walks out of the ensuite; Julian follows.
“All right,” Julian says, his ever-furrowed brow making it clear that he is still perturbed. “See you in the morning? I… yeah, I guess Rich will be coming up to invite us to breakfast.” He opens up the door to his adjoining room, and pauses there in the doorway.
“Okay,” Noel says, then waits.
“Noel…”
Noel tries not to look as if he’s hopeful, because he very much is.
“Maybe in a few weeks, after we’ve had a good and proper rest… maybe we could do some writing?”
“What, on a third series, you mean?”
“Yeah.”
Noel pinches the point of his chin, thinking. “You thought all our ideas were crap before.”
Julian shrugs. “That was before.”
Before. It’s a small word that weighs a lot.
“Okay,” Noel says, and Julian smiles in relief, then gives a corny—and somehow precious—little wave and disappears into his room.
Once inside he shuts the door and leans against it, his smile fading away as he staring blankly into the darkness. To be truthful, he doesn’t really want to take one more single step into his room, and he remains standing for a long, long time.
He wonders where Howard and Vince are now. Just two imaginary heartbeats, two ideas spooning in ether? Waiting to open their eyes, or for their eyes to be opened.
If Julian was writing a book about life (and to be honest, Julian is almost always writing a book about life, only its written down in his head instead of down on paper) he would sit down right now to write about how life is a lesson in learning that nothing lasts forever. In mourning the lack of forever. If only he had forever to make up his mind.
But what will that get him, in the end? A lifetime of delay, of waiting. And then there will be a sudden peal of church bells from nearby, taunting him with that song that sounds like here here here.
Isolation, Part Two.
He jams his hands against his ears and looks upwards at the pebbled ceiling. “Yeah,” he sighs. “I got that.”
He doesn’t put much thought into what happens next, and it doesn’t involve making up his mind because there’s nothing to make up. Everything he wants really is here, and the only reason he never believed it before was because it was too easy and too obvious. And yet so hard. What a wanker he is, with his trunk-load of complications and preternatural hesitation.
So he turns around and pounds on the door the separates them, hard enough to bring Noel running. And Noel’s got his shirt off, his hair all askew like he’s been sleeping. And he says “Jesus, what’s wrong?” and as an answer Julian pushes him into the room and says just this: listen to me, listen to me.
“Yeah, okay, I’m listening,” Noel says. He rubs a groggy eye.
“I can think of lots of reasons, okay?”
Noel stares at him, slowly comprehending. “Reasons… oh, reasons that I shouldn’t love you?”
“Yeah,” Julian says. Then, with a splutter: “But they’re all stupid.” He curses the splutter; he wanted his words to sound strong and certain. Like they came from the mouth of Charlton Heston.
After a few gob-stopped seconds, Noel takes a step backwards—not the reaction Julian was expecting—tilting his head like a dog who’s been given an unfamiliar command. “So you’re saying… what are you saying?”
“Noel, just… shut up.”
“You’re saying shut up,” Noel repeats, his voice amused at the edges.
“No, I’m telling you,” Julian says, waiting for Noel to come to him, to touch him, persistent toucher that he is.
“All right,” Noel says, not moving from where he stands. He watches Julian with glittering eyes, fully awake now, and cocks his hip slightly, propping his hand against it and tilting his chin upwards. His big step backwards gives Julian the advantage of having a good, long look at him, and for once it isn’t muddled up by suppressed attraction—attraction that, while definitely fueled by Noel’s feminine good looks, has more to do with the fact that Julian can’t imagine who he would be without him. No matter what shape his life takes later, it will bear Noel’s signature all over it, scrawled and messy and on and on. How wonderful. How terrifying.
But he lets too much silence get in between them, prying them apart like a third, unwelcome person, and Noel sighs and drops his hand from his hip. Then he turns around, saying “Sorry, Julian. I really need to sleep,” resigned to leave Julian standing there for as long as Julian insists on standing alone.
With his limbs moving ahead of his mind, Julian takes several steps forward and throws his arms around Noel’s shoulders, stopping him from going any further. Desperation makes his grip less a back-to-front hug and more a cage, and Julian expects he probably looks like someone trying to help out a choking victim. Noel is still and doesn’t struggle, but he doesn’t exactly melt against him, either.
Julian relaxes his arms as best he can, his hands crossed over Noel’s bare chest, and takes another small step forward, feeling Noel’s shoulder-blades pry into him. He bows his head and says into the mess of Noel’s hair: “It’s not too late. Right?”
Noel twitches at Julian’s words—he can’t help it, never could—they seem to resonate down to the tips of his fingernails. But when he responds he keeps his voice careful. “Late for what?” It’s such a struggle to keep his voice careful.
“For me.” Julian follows with a little laugh, unable to stop himself. “I mean… it’s not too late for you, you know that.” Never mind that he’s not even sure what he’s talking about anymore. What good are words? They can’t make Noel feel what he feels.
“I was waiting to be ready…”
Noel is silent.
“But I’m not the sort of person who’s ever ready, am I? I always have an excuse, some reason to retreat. And I don’t even believe my own excuses anymore.”
Silence.
“Are you listening?” He shakes him slightly. “I’m telling you that I want you.” He doesn’t mean sex, but his cock stiffens at the words anyway.
“I thought you told me to shut up,” Noel finally says, and Julian can hear the smile in his voice. “Take your own advice, why don’t you?” The shoulder-blades budge into him further, relenting now, and Noel reaches up and touches one of the hands that Julian has splayed against his chest. Then he tips his head, the back of his skull rocking into the nook of Julian’s shoulder, relenting again. He follows that with a half-step backwards, the small of his back meeting Julian’s erection.
Maybe it’s strange that they don’t kiss at first, but instead give their bodies time to adjust to movements that are deliberately and decidedly erotic. Julian grinds against Noel’s backside, breathing hard into the side of his neck, and with Noel’s hand still resting over his own, he runs his fingers down the flat plane of Noel’s belly. Noel’s jeans are so low that he can feel sparse hair above his belt, and cupping a hand to Noel’s crotch confirms that he’s just as hard as Julian is.
A flutter of apprehension works its way through Julian’s brain. What will become of him and Noel after this? They can’t ever be the same again, they can’t ever go back. He doesn’t know if that’s a good or bad thing.
What he does know is that they wouldn’t have been the same again, anyway.
“Julian,” Noel says, low and almost shy, reaching up to touch the back of Julian neck as he returns the pressure that Julian has been applying to his arse. “I want to touch you.”
That pretty much settles it. Julian turns Noel around and cups his face with both hands, like a thirsty man about to take a much-needed drink, and leans in to kiss him. Their tongues move around hesitantly at first, but in time desire creates its own just-right rhythm, and the way Noel sucks on Julian’s bottom lip makes him groan out loud in greedy wanting. He can feel Noel’s tongue everywhere, somehow, and a shudder travels from the base of his cock to the tops of his knees. And then his knees actually give up and buckle, and both he and Noel fall onto the bed together. They rearrange accordingly, and Julian props himself on his elbow long enough to look at Noel as if he’s just seeing him for the first time. Then he says: “Here’s something you don’t know about me.” And then he kisses him again.
I totally knew that, Noel thinks.
What he doesn’t know is if this will ever happen again. This might be the end, their last and only chance, and by morning, out of sheer desperation for the certainty that functional living requires, they’ll convince themselves that they were drunk or dreaming the entire episode. Including this. Especially this.
Right now, it doesn’t matter. Julian is with him, touching him like someone who’s afraid he’ll never get enough, his every breath a little marvel to Noel’s ears. And if this does turn out to be a dream then all he can do is hope that wakefulness is a long, long way off.
Understand, I’ll slip quietly away from the noisy crowd when I see the pale stars rising, blooming, over the oaks.
I’ll pursue solitary pathways through the pale twilit meadows, with only this one dream:
You come too.
—Rainer Maria Rilke
The End
