Chapter 2.1
2 hours later Iain was finally alone again. He spent some time considering the rabbit sighting. Had he seen it? Could he see it again? Did he want to? What did it mean if he did? Did that mean he was mental or that his door was magic? Could it mean both? He really wasn’t convinced the door was magic. It had all looked very normal and plain when his mum had been out there and there was no suggestion of anything else odd the whole time his parents had stayed. And if the door was magical he still didn’t know if he should try and see the rabbit again. Wouldn’t it be easier and better for his sanity to leave well alone, forget about the yard again and potentially even move out to somewhere with no outside space whatsoever and cheaper rents? Or if he was actually crazy and it was a hallucination, would it matter where he lived or which door he opened, considering that he would still see little rabbit like creatures with fangs until they found the right combination of medication? Finally, and after his second can of cloudy cider Iain declared “right, sod it” and approached his fate. Well to him he was just approaching the door. Clearly he didn’t know it was his fate, but this is a flashback bit so we know better. Chapter 2.2 At first he didn’t know how to go about making the door gurgle like before, especially as he still wasn’t entirely sure it had. He seized the handle in his left hand and the key in right, jiggled a bit and then it opened – on to the grey back yard. “Sod it” he said again. He stared for a while. Then tried to remember precisely what he had done earlier. When that failed he tried to guess. Switching his grip over he jiggled the handle with his right hand brought it out a little way from where it really should be and heard the faintest pop. The gurgle was much harder. Having worked out that the position of the key was definitely associated with the pop he assumed – correctly as it happened which is very unusual when it comes to assuming – that the gurgle must be the handles fault. He wriggled it and jostled it, shoved it and banged it but nothing happened. Well, nothing other than a small dent in the door and a red mark across Iain’s fist. Finally, just as he was about to give up, as in all preposterously unrealistic and tense moments of drama, he gave it one last shot holding the handle out from the door a little then lifting it to its normal angle. “Gurgle” said the door. And it swung open towards him although it normally opened outward. But that was the least of his worries. Expectations are difficult to define when talking about strange animals in one's yard but when you have no frame of reference the least you can hope for is that the hallucination will be consistent. That would be the polite thing for his crazy-riddled mind to do for him. But this time there was no path, no forest and no vampire rabbit. And no grey slab of concrete. There was, however, a huge expanse of water. No. There was just water. No land to be seen near or far, no boats or people. Just water. A sea Iain guessed. Although it was very calm in comparison to any sea Iain had seen. So calm his reflection was visible directly beneath where his toes were curling over the edge of the doorstep. His face, glaring back up at him from the murky water, was not as calm. Shell-shocked is a nifty phrase and never more appropriate. ‘Right. This is fine. Ok. Well.’ The mumbled platitudes left his mouth on their own, possibly under the impression that by saying normal, every day, sensible things it would make the watery vista more easy to compute. He decided to close the door and try again. He had opened the door twice and seen two differing scenes that did not match his understanding of where he lived. Could it be that a third try would offer a third scene or is this one the hallucination and the first one real? Or the other way round? Or are they both still not real? He needed to touch the water. He knew that feeling something solid would help him to know the truth and more importantly, to accept the truth of this strange development. But he wasn’t a very good swimmer and he hated fish. So a third attempt was the best option. Pulling himself away from the vast watery landscape he pushed the door to and leaned his head onto the cool plastic covering. ‘Deep breaths Iain, you’re alright mate, you’re ok. Just the set of a bad Kevin Kostner film in the middle of Bristol. Nothing to worry about.’ And he grabbed another can from the fridge. His next attempt at making the gurgle went much better. 5 minutes after his first wiggle of the handle he was pushing the door out into a jungle. Almost a jungle. There were a lot of exotic looking trees and it was certainly warm and moist in the air as Iain knew would be right from all the Sunday afternoon wildlife programs he had watched while waiting for MOTD2. But it was very quiet. Silent in fact. Whenever David Attenborough was squatted in a jungle he was always surrounded by the chatter of birds or clicking of insects. Here there was nothing. He peered out of the doorway, still not feeling brave enough to put a foot over the threshold. Iain had no idea what was going on. He had no understanding of alternate realities, worm holes, the multi-verse theory or anything else for that matter that might begin to explain it. And because of his innocence to all of this he couldn’t be certain that if he moved the scene wouldn’t disappear. Or his house would still be there when he turned around. It was during this contemplation that he realised the disorientation and confusion of the situation was starting to give way to a new emotion. Whatever was happening was not normal and could not be resolved quickly. But despite the fear and trepidation he was also excited. An unbelievably strong urge to explore started to creep over him building from his toes to his mind where it was briefly interrupted by common sense before it took over entirely. Iain tried to think what Ray Mears would do. He had no idea. As mentioned before, he is not usually the adventurous kind. So he tried to think clearly. Eventually a thought struck him between the eyes. He needed to know that the ground was real. Grabbing an empty can of beer, he gently lobbed it onto the dark mud a few feet from where he stood. The reassuring hollow thud with which it landed made his heart sore and he was within inches of taking the final plunge into the outside world when an enormous bull with 9 legs stampeded it’s way out of the foliage, snatched the can between its teeth and hurtled away again. The slam of the door could be heard three houses away and two people reported the noise to the police. Just in case.
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Six months ago Iain had moved out of the house he shared with his less-than-ideal girlfriend, Claire. They’d been together for 13 years and both would openly admit that they were perfectly mismatched. The relationship had started in sixth form, carried on through university and refused to die into independent adulthood. So they’d plodded along. Eventually, as Claire’s 30th birthday approached and the inevitable questions about wedding hats and grandchildren started getting louder from both sets of parents, they realised that laziness could keep them together no more and they moved into separate houses and separate lives.
Claire had transferred up north somewhere, claiming that she wanted new scenery but really she hoped she could find herself a metal worker from Sheffield - stripping optional. Iain had stayed in Bristol where he had been since going to university there and had moved two streets away from their old place. He was a man of comfort and routine, a fact proven as it took him two months to get used to the 45 second extra walk to the bus stop for work. He had been late 8 times purely through a few seconds miscalculation. Being that he was the manager of a charity book shop just outside of the city centre that no one ever came in to until after 11 and the two other members of staff were usually later than him it really didn’t matter – but he knew that wasn’t the point. The new house was cold and dreary with little to endear itself to anyone except it had antique bathroom furniture and a bay window. Iain was of the opinion that a bay window and a roll top bath solved pretty much all issues because they appeared in his Mum’s ‘Your House is Better than theirs’ magazines and so settled into his bachelor lifestyle with, well, not so much gusto as vague enthusiasm. He certainly ate a lot of take away and watched as much football as he could stomach. But he secretly missed the bath salts he could pinch from Claire and the smell of already cooked food when he got back from work. His ex was no domestic goddess and she would be the first to wag her finger and call him a chauvinistic pig if she thought he expected his dinner cooked and ready when he got home. But she always had it there and waiting – as long as he never said he expected it. The property was of the typical factory worker style built in Victorian times and renovated in the ‘90s during the era of home improvement programmes to look exactly the same as all the other terraced houses on any given street in any university town: Magnolia walls, badly cut skirting boards and a backdoor sporting that malicious locking mechanism that so many other doors of its kind have. You know the ones, white, panelled, frosted glass in random places and openly available in any good – or mediocre – DIY store. Iain had a theory: for every UPVC back door there is only one person on the planet who can correctly lock it first time. Oh, others can do it with a couple of tries and some brute force but there is only one person who is truly bonded with the door and who is able to tut-tut whenever an inept user attempts it stating “of course I can lock it, it’s just a door”. For those of us who do not find our door soulmate, we must make do with learning as best a technique as we can. Iain had one of these doors but instead of bonding, they became mortal enemies, sparring matches often culminating in such ferocious attacks to get it locked that Iain kept the bedroom lights on at night and installed a wooden baseball bat by his bed. He frequently slept with one eye open knowing there was no way the door was truly locked and fearing the worst of the meandering drunks and footie fans from the nearby stadium trying to make their way home in the street below – despite the 6 foot wall that surrounded the slightly overgrown, shabby little space that he called his back yard. That scrap of land pushed the price of his house up to well above market rate and, contrary to the marketing blurb, “sun trap” was not how he would have described the 6 meter square concrete slab that always smelt a little like cat urine and had flame retardant weeds growing out of every crack. Shortly after Christmas, a month into his tenancy, Iain stopped opening the back door. There wasn’t really any need. He’d given up smoking so didn’t need to go outside anymore and there wasn’t a single part of him that could be bothered to turn the yard into a garden of any kind. So he spent some time making sure it was locked and promptly forgot all about it. Until one day 2 months before the snake pit incident. It was Sunday and Iain was cleaning the house. This was a pretty unusual occurrence at the best of times but definitely that day as Bristol City had finally won a home match the day before and the celebrations had gone on into the small hours. Iain didn’t care about his local side and wouldn’t normally have gone to such extremes for a 1-0 result but his best mate Gary was an avid supporter and persuasive when it came to drinking. So he’d gotten wasted and fallen asleep with a kebab - as was the custom for a Saturday night out with the lads. Unfortunately, somewhere between pint 4 and 6, he had forgotten his parents were coming to visit the following afternoon on their way home from a Christening. He’d clambered out of bed at 11 swearing and stumbling towards the bathroom, washed away as much of the cider seeping from his pores as he could and started in on the tidying. His dad wouldn’t mind if the place was covered in newspaper and crisp packets as long as there was tea and a comfy chair. His mother would. A great deal. She wouldn’t say so but she would start to fret and fuss and suggest that Iain needed a girlfriend to help him keep the place – a woman’s touch. They had gone through this on the last two visits since he had moved and he was determined to prove he could do this on his own until he was ready not to. If only he had stopped before the third tequila slammer, that resolve would be easier to keep. He was leaning across the sink to fill up the kettle when his eyes fell upon the scene outside the window. He’d been keeping the blind down so as to better ignore the back yard but had absentmindedly lifted it to allow more light into the kitchen – not that it did much but every little helps to keep the passive-aggressive mum at bay. In the time the blind had been down the neighbourhood cats had apparently decided his yard was now their litter tray and had managed to fill almost every square centimetre with their, well, let’s call them droppings for a want of a better term. With a big sigh he grabbed some plastic bags and made his way outside to start the worst task yet. Definitely not aided by his cider belly and tequila head. As he was fetching a bucket of boiling water and bleach his mind flitted over the idea that the door had been very easy to open. But he dismissed it. The opening was never as hard as the closing. Once the deposits had been picked up and the worst of the stains washed away Iain went back in to finally put the kettle on and sit and wait for the parents arrival – which at this point was slightly overdue, not unlike his cup of tea. He closed the door. And it wouldn’t lock. “Shit, this is why I don’t bloody use the thing.” Mumbling under one’s breath can be so satisfying - this was not such an occasion. He tried opening it to start the process again. But it wouldn’t. Finally he yanked it open and closed it again. This time the handle got stuck in the upright position with the bottom half of the door still open, a faint breeze coming through. Muttering “hang this, damn thing, bloody move” and other such pleasantries, he kept trying until he heard his dad’s whistling coming near the front of the house. Sighing, “Sod it” to no-one in particular, he rammed the lever up, twisted the key and heard an odd pop and gurgle. “gurgle?……gurgle?” he thought. So, despite all the hassle he had just gone through to the lock the thing, for reasons never known to him, he opened the door again. Just in time to see a small rabbit like animal with fangs stare up at him and then chase a wildebeest down a long path into a wood. Just then the doorbell rang. Iain shut the door, not caring whether it was done properly, and went to let his parents in. “Are you alright love?” Sheena Ackerby had asked as her only child peered over the threshold at her. “You look a bit peaky love. Doesn’t he look a bit peaky John” she prodded at her husband who just nodded and said ‘yes dear’ under his breath, as he always did. (It was just easier that way.) “Yeah Mum I’m....” Iain trailed off, his concentration entirely elsewhere. “Sorry, I’m fine. Come in”. Sheena bustled into the kitchen Bustling is entirely reserved for upper working class ladies in their fifties. She promptly started unloading vegetables into the special rack she had bought Iain for Christmas. Not wanting to disappoint, Iain continued to take the vegetables and then give them to Mrs Harper next door for her compost heap. Both ladies stayed happy and he had his takeaway in peace. “So Iain, watch the footy last night?” John opened with his usual question, hoping the conversation would run along the normal lines and be over in about half an hour so he could get back in time for the televised bowls. “No, no I didn’t” Iain mumbled, whilst staring at the back door, trying to work out whether he was going mad or not. Sheena snapped him out of it in her usual way, bossing him about with a command. “Oh Iain what are you doing? Get out of the way so I can put this new potted plant out there. And you must make sure you water it love. I’ll do it when I come to visit, of course, but it will never survive unless you look after it. Not exactly Alan Titschmarsh are you love but that yard of yours will look so much better with a bit of greenery.” His mum’s monologues crossed with instructions were so normal he hadn’t registered what she was saying until it felt like too late. “No” had barely left Iain’s mind and was really just playing on his lips when the magician that was his mum had unlocked the door and was stepping out into the very normal, very grey, back yard. “Definitely going mental then” thought Iain to himself and decided to put the moment’s vision down to a dodgy kebab and move on. If only it were that simple. Iain Ackerby considered the irony of his current predicament.
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