The Watch – Part 152:

‘How do you want to do that?’ I asked Tom.

‘At the moment, I have no idea,’ he said leaning back. I could tell that by having our conversation, a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders. He looked relaxed for the first time, since all of this started, and that must have felt like a long time. ‘But, we’re getting a bit ahead of ourselves, here,’ Tom said ‘What did Amy mean by you’ve been through a lot lately?’

‘Ah, yes, well,’ I started to explain all that had happened with me and Magician. He listened without interrupting, making sure that he drinks in every word so not to misunderstand anything and create the same situation as last time.

‘Wow,’ he said after I had finished.

‘I know, right.’

A couple of moments of silence as Tom processed all the new information.

‘Is that going to be an ongoing thing, people wanting your watch?’ Tom asked validly.

‘I don’t know,’ I said honestly.

‘No,’ he said, rubbing his eyes, then his hands through his hair, ‘no I guess you wouldn’t.’

We slipped back into silence until Amy came back downstairs and asked how we both were.

‘We’re good,’ I said.

‘I’m glad you’ve managed to get past this,’ she said supportively. ‘I knew you two were stronger than that. So, are you going to carry on as normal?’ she asked. I looked at Tom and he looked at me before I turned to Amy and said that we were.

‘Excellent,’ she said. ‘Now, who wants breakfast?’

‘I think Tom does,’ I said. ‘You look like you haven’t eaten in days.’

‘I’ll have you know that I have been cooking for myself,’ Tom stated with pride.

‘I wonder how many different flavours of pot noodle there are,’ I wondered to no one.

‘Oi,’ Tom said, ‘I can cook more than just pot noodles, thank you very much. I can make myself a mean roast dinner.’

‘Except half of it was burnt to a crisp,’ I added, reminding him of that Sunday when he thought he would tackle a complicated dinner such as the classic English roast.

‘It was edible though.’

‘I’ll give you that,’ I said chuckling, ‘but I still don’t think the Yorkshire puddings needed to be that crunchy, though,’ I teased.

‘You said that they were fine,’ Tom said.

‘I know I did.’

‘Oh, I see how it is,’ he sat up straight.

‘Anyway,’ Amy cut in, putting a stop to our conversation before it escalates. Tom immediately stopped and turned towards Amy

‘I’ll love some breakfast.’

‘There’s some bread in the breadbin and plenty of spreads in the fridge,’ Amy explained.

‘Hang on,’ Tom said, realizing that he had walked into that classic trap, ‘I thought you were going to make the breakfast.’

‘Oh, and why’s that, then,’ Amy said jokingly serious. Whatever answer Tom could have said to try and get out of this one would have taken on a double meaning and he didn’t want to make the hole that he fell into any deeper. However, he said rather smartly – if that’s the right word for it.

‘I’m the guest here,’ he said.

‘Technically, so am I,’ Amy said. It took a couple of seconds before I realised that Amy and Tom were staring at me, waiting for me to do something. Did I just get dragged into the same hole that Tom fell into, or rather pushed into by Amy?

‘There’s nothing that I can say that will get me out of this one, is there?’ I said to both of them. They shook their heads.

‘OK, then,’ I said, standing up and making my way to the kitchen. ‘Three breakfasts coming up.’

***

After we had our food and drunk our fill, I asked, ‘what do you want to do today, then?’ to Tom. Now that he had talked about stuff, he looked a lot perkier than he did before. I thought he needed to go straight to bed and get some well-earned sleep, but that didn’t seem necessary; he was back to his usual-self. The bags under his eyes were more of an illusion than anything else, made that much more prominent due to the mood he was in. His bloodshot eyes, I guessed, were down to playing far too much on the PC. Now that I think about it, I do remember that happening plenty of times before.

‘I don’t know,’ Tom shrugged. ‘I’m still recovering from paintball, so I don’t really want to do anything too active.’

‘How can you still be recovering?’ Amy asked, ‘that was days ago.’

‘I know, I can’t believe it myself,’ Tom said genuinely surprised. ‘Normally I don’t suffer from anything in the morning. Maybe I really did push myself more than I all those times before?’

‘So, do you want to do something cool, calm and collective, then?’ Amy asked.

‘You sure,’ I said, ‘We can do something a bit more than that, if you like.’ All throughout breakfast, Amy was constantly eyeballing an advertisement in today’s newspaper that she must have gone out to get some fresh air for. The advertisement was for a concert that was happening in the field over the back here where the fare ground was at the beginning of summer, which now feels so far away when it has only been a week and a half, if that.

‘Yes, I’m fine,’ she said. If Amy didn’t know that I had figured it out, she made sure that I have done now by having one last glance at the newspaper.

‘You sure?’ Amy pushed. ‘The last thing you want to do is wear yourself out again.’

‘Honestly, I’m fine,’ I said.

‘Then, and I don’t want to sound as if I’m telling you what to do, shall we start of small. Going through the Void might be a bit demanding, especially for Tom, who hasn’t been through it before,’ and speaking as someone who has recently gone through it, she knew what she was talking about. Tom’s eyes lit up at the mention of the Void and its possible effects it can have on you. Amy was doing well at this subtle persuading thing. I’m wondering if I have to actually point it out to her instead of Amy drawing our attention to it.

‘Pass me the newspaper,’ I said. It was Amy’s time for her eyes to light up.

‘Sure,’ Amy made sure to pass it to me with the advertisement showing as prominently as possible. I looked at the entire page with it on. I knew that Amy knew that I had figured it out. She was waiting for me to say something.

The advert reads:

For this weekend only, the greatest concert this side of England will feature a selection of new, up incoming bands.

Featuring: Onto Apocalypse, Celtic Helmet, Evolving Beef Of The Skintight Binge, Dominant Lord, and many more.

Only five pounds to enter at the gate, fifteen pounds for a backstage pass, and twenty-five pounds for an access all areas pass.

NOTE: The backstage pass and access all areas pass are only available on our website below and in a limited supply, so get yours now.

And it listed ten bands. A couple that I have heard of, a few that I have only heard their name, and others that I haven’t heard of at all. I studied the advert silently, blankly.

Then I turned the newspaper over and…

‘Will you just say we’re going to the concert already,’ Amy burst out. I couldn’t help but laugh.

‘You’re mean, you know that,’ Amy said, contradicting that sentence with a smile to indicate that she didn’t care since she knew that she was going to the concert.

‘So, are we going?’ she still felt compelled to ask.

‘We’re going,’ I said.

Amy didn’t say anything. She just threw her arms around me in excitement.

‘Woah,’ I said as I nearly fell off the chair. Amy pulled away.

‘Sorry.’

‘Tell me what just happened here; I’m lost,’ Tom said.

‘We’re going to a concert,’ Amy said before I could say the same thing.

‘Oh, so we’re not going to go through the Void, then,’ he sounded a little disappointed. We should have predicted that it would backfire like that.

‘We will,’ Amy said, ‘after the concert.’

‘Fair enough,’ Tom said, pleased with that.

TO BE CONTINUED…

Thanks for reading

Antony Hudson

(TonyHadNouns)