Thursday 10 April 2014

'Nightlight' and ‘Tomorrow’s Guest’ by Tim Stevenson

‘Nightlight’  

“I’m waiting.” The voice was soft, rasping.

“What for?” Billy asked. He was holding on tight to the edge of his bed and leaning down to peer into the darkness beneath.

“The thing on the other side of the door,” Billy’s monster said.

“There’s nothing in my closet. Mummy shows me.”

“Not that door,” the monster whispered.

“And teddy sees me all the time,” Billy pointed at the baby camera.

“Not. That. Door.” the monster said again as it tried to make itself comfortable amongst the toy cars.

“But that’s my bedroom door,” Billy said.

“Yes. The monster who pulls off legs and wings, laughs while it burns with the lens and uses matches!” it hissed.

“My brother?” Billy asked.

“Is that its name? Brother? Horrible,” the monster chuckled.

“Eddie’s alright. He doesn’t mean it really.”

“Does he pull off your arms?” came the question from the dark.

“He tries, but Mummy stops him.”

“Mummy controls Brother Eddie?” the monster growled.

“She sends him to his room when he’s naughty,” Billy said.

The monster’s voice was very small. “I know,” it said.

Billy asked his first question again. “Why are you under my bed then?”

“No one can see you under the bed.”

“Like when I’m under my blankie?”

“I can see you,” the monster said. “What’s that word, when you cover toys with a sheet and it’s not flat anymore?”

“Lumpy?”

“Lumpy. Little boys are lumpy. I see you.”

Billy thought about this as goose-pimples ran up his arm. “Oh.”

“It’s safer in the dark,” the monster said. “Can’t see lumpy in the dark.”

Billy grabbed his pillow and wriggled underneath his bed.

“No-one can see you now,” the monster said.

In the darkness next to Billy, Eddie’s smile was only teeth.



‘Tomorrow’s Guest’ 
  
“Coming up next we’ve got Archie Russell. Says he’s been missing for three years and was abducted by aliens. Oh-kay. But first, adverts.”

Zach peeled his headphones off and lit a cigarette with one smooth motion. He tapped on the booth’s glass wall with his foot.

“So, producer dude, you ready to rock this?” His lips were the back seat of a seventies muscle car; cracked, leopard-spot leatherette and strange stains.

I was telling Archie the drill. Sit here, talk into that, leave through the door at the far end of the corridor. The green one.

I adjusted the microphone. “Test,” Archie said. “Test test-test-test.” He looked twitchy, as if the words had crept under a filling and were worrying a nerve.

Zach stubbed his cigarette out and raised a finger: three, two, one.

“And were back,” Zach drawled. “With us now we have Archie Russell. Hey, Archie.”

“Hello.”

“So, UFO. Tell me all about it,” Zach demanded.

While Archie stumbled through his story I thought about all the other guests from the back pages of the local paper who’d shown up, said their piece, had their fifteen minutes and were never seen again.

These back page people, where did they all come from, where did they go? Through the green door and on with their lives, I supposed. I’d lived here for years and I’d never seen them in any of the pubs or standing in the street waiting for a bus.

When his story was over Archie sat back, gave a sigh and wrung his hands. He knew his time was up.

“That was fine,” I said. “No problems.”

He shook my hand without a word and walked away. In front of the green door he hesitated, reached forward, twisted the handle and stepped through.

I went after him.

Our security guard stopped me as I approached.

“No, sir. Guests only,” he said, blocking my way.

Zach was shouting from the studio so I left the green door and went back.

“That guy,” he said.

I shrugged.

“You know, the guitar guy. Came in last year with that nine-string thing, said he’d found all those new notes. Can we get him back here to play something?”

I nodded and counted Zach out of the commercials then searched the old guest list. There he was, Oswald Kroll, pagan guitar hero. I called the number and left a message.

After the show I stood in the corridor and stared at the green door. To one side was an office, to the other a wall of glass. It had to be tiny, no bigger than a closet. I put my ear against the door and listened.

There was a sound, almost as if a heavy, rolled-up carpet had been hoisted up against the wall on the other side, and then a metallic scratching, as if someone was carefully stringing a guitar.

I wondered if behind this door was enough space to store all those fifteen minutes, stacked carefully together, thin, waiting.


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