Writing for Fun
June 2015
The Turn Of A Card - Pete Norman
Black.
Completely black.
Obsidian. Stygian. Absolute.
I cannot see a hand in front of my face or the ground beneath my feet. I know that the ground is there beneath my feet because I can feel it through the soles of my boots; I can feel it with my trembling fingertips: flat . . . smooth and flat, more akin to glass than any other surface I have known . . . and cold . . . dreadfully cold.
Without the blessing of material light I cannot see the extent of the void in which I am confined; how close the walls are around me – if there are indeed walls; how close the ceiling is above me; all that I am certain is that they are all beyond the reach of my outstretched fingers.
The sensory deprivation would be absolute without the sound, faint and almost at the furthest edge of my hearing, but nonetheless I know that it is there . . . I can hear it: a faint WHUMM, WHUMM, WHUMM, like the sound of some massive fan slowly turning, turning, turning . . .
My first thought is to make towards the sound, as a fan must surely be situated on a wall – a wall beyond which there might be the blessed prospect of light and freedom – but I have no idea from whence the sound originates, for as I turn my head around it appears to be all about me, as if a part of the very fabric of the space within which I am ensnared.
I have no knowledge of why I am here or how I came to be in this bizarre predicament, all that I know is that I must do everything within my power to escape from it. I have no plan and nothing on which to formulate such a concept, but I must do something, I cannot just yield to the darkness and the awful sound it conceals. I do the only thing I can do: I walk forwards in as straight a line as I can imagine, for if there is truly a finite boundary to this void then surely I must eventually come up against a wall or whatever else separates it from the world outside . . . from my world outside.
I walk, counting each and every stride; counting the soft footfalls, the only sound, apart from my own laboured breathing, that confirms to me my own existence. One hundred . . . one hundred and fifty . . . and still more . . . yet I do not appear to be any nearer to my goal than I was at the beginning.
For what seems an eternity I walk, stiff legged, desperate to maintain the straight line, but nothing around me changes, there is no relief to the eternal darkness; the ethereal WHUMM, WHUMM, WHUMM is neither increasing nor fading and I am in danger of losing my mind. My legs begin to tremble, I have a morbid fear that I am off the straight line, that I am walking in circles; if that is so then I am truly lost . . . lost to wander the darkness until my strength and my sanity finally fail.
But wait . . . what is that? Ahead of me something is changing. It takes me a few moments to find the clarity of thought, the ability to reason, to determine the nature of the change . . . the darkness before me is somehow less intense . . . darkness visible . . .
With grim determination I stride forward with new found purpose, no longer counting my steps in my excitement, and with every step I take the scene appears to change a fraction more.
To call it light would be a gross misrepresentation of the truth, it is little more than a faint glow in the distance and it is impossible to determine just how far into the distance, but if there is the faintest chance that this is a window or the glimmer escaping from beneath a door then hope might just be possible at last.
As I grow closer a vague shape begins to materialise, strange shadows coursing though the light, sinuous movements which belie a presence . . . could it be a human presence? Or might it be nothing more that the blades of the massive fan slicing the darkness into thin slivers of diffuse light? But my approach does not herald an increase in that peculiar sound; instead a new sound afflicts my ears, a faint FLICK, FLICK, FLICK, rhythmic in the darkness.
Closer still and the vague shape begins to coalesce into the form of a small table, but the source of the glow is still not apparent, although realisation comes to me that the sinuous movements appear to correspond exactly with the rhythm of the new sound.
Curiosity overpowers caution and I rush forward towards the light . . . but as the scene materialises for what it truly is, caution returns to take a firm grip on my senses.
A figure, clothed so dark as to be almost invisible against the blackness of the space surrounding it, is seated at the table. The face of the . . . man? I hope against hope that it is indeed a man . . . is shrouded from view beneath a heavy cowl, from which emanates the only source of light: a sulphurous yellow glow.
By the faint light I can now see the hands – slender, skeletal hands – sliding black-backed playing cards from the top of a deck and releasing them one by one in a slow rhythm onto the table top: FLICK, FLICK, FLICK. Self preservation forces my feet to stop, begging them with pressing urgency to turn and run, to put as much distance as they can from this terrifying apparition, but, somewhere deep inside, the last vestiges of hope of release stay my flight.
The hands stop their movement; a card hovers in mid-air; the dark cowl slips back and from within its depths two yellow, feral eyes burn with a fierce intensity . . .
I surrender to the superior intuition of my feet and turn and run as if the hounds of hell are snapping at my heels.
Even in my mad, frantic flight I still retain the determination to run straight and true; I cannot allow even the slightest deviation, the slightest turn, which might bring me back around to face that dreadful creature once more.
I run and run until my legs turn to jelly; I have surely put sufficient distance between me and . . . and it? I stop and rest my aching legs, risking a glance over my shoulder, reassured that there, behind me, lies total extinction without a trace of that sickly yellow glow. Once I have recovered my breath and my heart has stopped its near fatal pounding I reach a decision: the most rational option is surely to continue in the straight path I had maintained in the fragile hope of reaching safety.
However, all too soon such vain hopes evaporate as before me the darkness begins to appear less intense once more . . .
My heart pounding in terror I turn by ninety degrees to my left and run again but all too soon the darkness before me begins to recede . . .
There is to be no respite.
There is to be no escape.
Fear turns to anger and with little heed for my personal safety, or indeed for my very soul, I stride forward to meet my nemesis.
I am certain that I had left it behind twice before, but there it is now before me, directly before me, exactly as it had been that first time. The creature is turning card after card, laying them down upon the surface of the table. The seven of hearts, the jack of clubs, the three of diamonds . . .
The green baize is overflowing with cards, but the deck which the skeletal fingers hold in their tight grip still appears complete. The cowl slips back and the intense yellow eyes burn out of the darkness once more . . . but this time I stand my ground.
'What do you want of me?' I demand with as much resolve as I can muster, though my knees are trembling in terror.
The shadow of a smile materialises beneath those dreadful eyes. If there is a mouth beneath them it does not open, it says nothing, but somewhere deep inside my consciousness the words form as if by osmosis, 'THE ACE OF SPADES . . .'
I am thrown into utter confusion; the import of the words is totally lost on me.
The skeletal hands riffle the pack expertly in the air, the cards a mere blur in the yellow light, and then, in an instant, there they are before me, spread out into a wide fan, their black backs exposed, inviting . . .
Once again the words, 'THE ACE OF SPADES . . .' materialise within my mind. I stare at the cards in disbelief, but my hand, completely beyond the control of my atrophied brain, reaches out and, carefully avoiding any contact with those dreadful fingers, extracts a single card from the centre of the pack . . .
The Ace of Spades.
The world around me implodes; my hand is drawn into the pack of cards and the rest of me follows as I spin through the vortex – a kaleidoscope of black, white and red – until my head feels as if it is being torn from my body. I screw my eyes shut in pure unmitigated terror.
I collapse to the floor . . . but the floor is no longer hard unyielding glass, it is soft and damp.
I open my eyes . . . but the glare of the sun forces them shut once more. Only under the shield of my hand am I finally able to peer out and survey the scene around me.
The grass beneath my knees is overgrown and strewn with a sea of buttercups and wildflowers; the meadow rolls gently down to a lazy stream, the deep blue water is cruised by a myriad of fluorescent dragonflies; a lone kingfisher dressed in his Sunday best suit of orange, blue and green perches on a low branch, his keen eyes searching the clear water; the soft breeze whispers through the leaves and I dare to wonder if I might be in heaven . . .
But wait . . . something is wrong . . . the flowers are too resplendent, the dragonflies too electric, the kingfisher too magnificent . . .
From behind me a strange but horribly familiar sound interrupts my reverie: FLICK, FLICK, FLICK . . .
I am too terrified to turn; too terrified to substantiate my worst fears; if only I can pretend it is not really there . . . but something is exerting an inexorable pull my body. Slowly but irrevocably I am turning, being dragged against my will towards the sound.
The table is there; the creature is there; the cards are falling, tumbling lazily through the still air – FLICK, FLICK, FLICK.
Each one the same suit . . .
Each one the same number . . .
As the very last card – the very last Ace of Spades – slips from skeletal fingers onto the green baize, the creature begins to laugh . . .
