The Watch – Part 216:

(Tom’s perspective)

Tim led me around back of the house. The alleyway we were walking down grew darker and darker as we continuously broke away from civilisation, making me think that I’ve made a grave mistake, and soon it was so dark I was straining to see the hand in front of my eyes, let along Tim. I just hope he doesn’t suddenly take a sharp turn in a different direction because I wouldn’t seem him turn and I’ll be walking along without knowing it – at this point I don’t know which is worse – or he’ll just stop and I’ll ram into the back of him. He didn’t say anything until we exited the alleyway, but when we did, I was presented with a whole new world.

Even though I was in the alleyway for only a short period of time, the dim lights were still bright enough to make my eyes have to adjust. I blinked a couple of times to make sure that I was able to see properly, then I focused on the scene in front of me.

An uncountable amount of people was either walking around, sitting down at their tents – which there are probably as many if not more than there are people – or standing up, talking to another person in the group. Each person was dressed in a similar style as Tim: Baggy clothes, hats, fingerless gloves, and from the looks of things, they don’t appear to be suffering from the cold at all compared to me, who was still shivering slightly. All of these tents have been arranged in such a way to utilise as much space as they can as well as giving everyone enough space to move about without looking too cramped. The ground is made of grass and mud, but the grass looks healthy and the mud doesn’t look churned, allowing all of these people to move around without being splashed with mud all the time.

The dim lights themselves were actually lanterns, and big ones at that. They were hanging over the entire area on wires, and well-constructed wires as well as they don’t appear to be sagging. There was enough light to allow me to see all of the area and not draw attention to themselves, if that is what the intention was when they made the lanterns dim. Or maybe that is the normal level of light that they produce, I’m not sure, but it really doesn’t matter. The natural light from the moon also helps, although I can imagine the area’s light dropping a lot when the weather’s cloudy.

It’s an entire community here. They’ve made this part of the city their own. When you don’t have anything, you stick together. From sticking together, they have something, and that is magical.

‘So, what do you think?’ Tim asked.

‘You said you built this,’ I said, amazed.

‘I erected the first tent, yes, then the area developed from there.’

‘I hope you don’t mind my saying so,’ I said, ‘but I thought you were going to lead me to a house of some sort. That sounds as if I’m disrespectful, doesn’t it?’ I said quickly after hearing my thoughts aloud.

‘You really thought that I had built a house,’ Tim chuckled.

‘No, I mean,’ I said wanting to try and explain myself but I then realised that it would have been pointless to try as I had dug the hole a little too deep for me to even attempt to climb out of.

‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘You’re now expecting me to say that you’re not the only one to put forward that thought.’

‘I am, yes,’ I said, embarrassed.

‘Well, unfortunately, you are the only one to put forward that thought.’

That just makes me feel even worse.

‘Sorry.’

‘Don’t be,’ he said, chuckling again. ‘But what I will say, if it ‘elps, is that you are not the only one to misunderstand what I’ve said, but you are the only one to think of that specific thought.

‘That does help.’ It was then that I realised that we were talking as if we had known each other for a long time. How did that happen? It must be the atmosphere of this place. This did give off a warm and comforting feeling as if I am at home. Plus, Tim’s natural kindness helps as well.

‘If you would like to follow me, I’ll lead you to where you will be staying for as long as you need,’ he said.

‘Ok.’ I said. We started walking forward once more. Tim led me through the centre of the tents. As I passed a couple of tents, I was able to get a quick glance inside one of them and I saw a sleeping bag, a pile of books, a picture frame of someone, and as I kept on walking by, I was able to see the mirror image of the same setup on the other side.

‘And ‘ere is you,’ Tim said, pointing to a tent. I looked inside and saw the same two sleeping bags as in the one before, but they didn’t have anything else with them.

‘At the moment, you’ve got that tent all to yourself,’ Tim started to explain. ‘When you will be getting a roommate is unknown. You can pick a side, and that side is yours to make yourself at ‘ome with. There isn’t necessarily a schedule as such, but you do have to be there when the food comes otherwise you may not get as much, you can wash and go to the toilet over there,’ and he pointed to four portable toilets, ‘and you are free to come and go as you please, so long as you don’t make too much noise during the night as the majority of people will be sleeping. Do you smoke?’

‘No,’ I said simply.

‘Then I don’t need to tell you about that bit of information then,’ he said before asking. ‘Do you have any questions?’

‘Where do you get the food from?’

‘I actually have a couple of good connections with the local restaurant and shop over the way. Any food or drink that has either reached its sell-by date, they automatically pass on to us instead of dumping it. That way, they aren’t being hounded by government officials for chucking away perfectly good products. When I went to pick up the latest load from the shop, they said that someone had stolen six chocolate bars, but because the camera was malfunctioning at the time, they don’t have any identification.’

‘Why is that relevant,’ I said unexpectedly due to nerves.

 ‘I don’t know, to be honest,’ but then he clapped his hands together and moved on. ‘Anyway, I’ll let you get settled. If you have any more questions, please do not ‘esitate and ask me. Just make sure I’m not sleeping at the time.’

‘OK,’ I said, still a bit nervous after he told me about the bars being stolen. It was me. I really hope that my nerves didn’t show me up. Things will get very complicated if he found out, I can only imagine. Does he already know, actually, considering he did slip that in at the end? Well, if the shop doesn’t have any identification, then he wouldn’t know that it was me, meaning I am still protected by anonymity. And I can’t believe that I only got away with it because the cameras were malfunctioning. That just tells me that I shouldn’t try and do that again, just in case, but what surprises me is how I was able to get away with taking that bottle of apple juice earlier? Surely those two very different shops didn’t have malfunctioning cameras. That would have been too coincidental to be true. I have to keep an eye on things just in case certain evidence is found directing towards me. In the meantime, I need a lie down.

I crawled into my tent, unzipped the sleeping bag, wiggled my way in and the moment that my head hit the pillow, I was falling into a deep sleep whilst thinking about what happened in between sleeps. It was when I tried to comprehend the fact that I woke up in my own bed in the morning, forgave Sebastian, went to a concert, nearly got blown up by a couple of meteorites, got teleported to parallel universe by Sebastian when he saved both Amy and I, only to then be captured by an insane person, and then teleported to yet another parallel universe, this time without Sebastian by my side, and now I’m falling asleep in a completely different universe to the one that I woke up in, that my brain didn’t want to think anymore and I went down for the count.

TO BE CONTINUED…

Thanks for reading

Antony Hudson

(TonyHadNouns)