Pulling up the handbrake, I turned off the ignition switch. I sat there sweating, shaking, trying to get my head around what I had seen in the rear view mirror, the vision, the thing that had frightened me, so, and caused me to lose control of the vehicle.
“That was fun,” said a voice from behind me.” Can we do it again?”
Turning round, I faced the thing that had startled me – a five-year-old boy draped in the same multicoloured cloths the baby had been swathed in, moments earlier.
Laughing, poking me in the arm as it spoke, the child said, “Well, can we do it again?”
In a voice barely audible, I whispered, “W, who are you? And where is the baby?”
The smile disappearing from its face, the child cryptically replied, “I am who I am, be it baby or tot, and anyone else that you need me to be.”
Having absolutely no idea what he was talking about, I said, “I don’t know what you have done with the wee bairn, but I do know that if you don’t return him – and pronto, there’ll be trouble, heaps of it, for both of us!”
Lifting one of the cloths, a beautiful peach coloured one, the child said, “See this?” I nodded. “This is just one layer of many, is it not?” I nodded again. “My present appearance, like this piece of cloth, is also one of many.”
Scratching my head, bewildered that so young a child could be lecturing me – and in so philosophical a manner, I said, “Are you trying to tell me that you are the baby I found in my car?” Nodding, the child replied, “You have said it.”
Taking this to be yes, I asked, “But how?”
The child, however, did not attempt to explain; he just fiddled about with the coloured cloths draped around him. After several minutes in complete silence, the child spoke again, saying, “This is a wonderful place. What do you call it?”
“It’s a lay-by,” I replied nonchalantly.
“It is far more than that.”
“Well, it’s also a picnic area, you know, because it’s quite scenic,” I added.
“It’s so green and brown,” the child continued. “Look at those flowers” he said, excitedly pointing to a stand of rose bay willow herbs not far from the car. “What colour are they?”
“They’re mauve, I suppose,” I replied, thinking nothing more of it.
“No, they’re exact colour?”
“They’re exact colour?” I grumbled, “I don’t know! Orwellian Violet? Fizzing Fruit Purple? Onishian Plum? I have never given it any real thought, you know, they’re exact colour.”
Turning round, to see if my suggestions were getting any reaction from my unexpected travelling companion, I was shocked to see that he had grown older. The baby, the child, now a good fifteen years of age, a pimply faced teenager, was giving me a most un-approving look.
“What sort of a jalopy do you call this?” he asked, thumping the back of my seat with one of his hands. “It must be as old as you – how old are you, anyway? No, don’t tell me, let me guess.” Scratching his pimply chin, the disdainful individual’s eyes gave me the once over, and then he said, “I reckon you must be sixty on a good day, and sixty five on a bad one. Am I right? What sort of a day are you having, anyway, you old fart?”
Bamboozled by the sudden appearance of a teenager – and a particularly bad-mannered one at that – sitting so smugly on the back seat of my car, I struggled to find words for a reply, words to, hopefully, calm the obnoxious individual. However, when I had finally found some, he had already moved to the next matter. “How fast can this old crate go?” he asked, thumping my seat again. “Well, how fast?”
Hoping to pacify him, I said, “When it was new–” The obnoxious individual cut me off midsentence, saying, “Like, a million years ago? Hah, hah!”
To say his bad attitude was grating on my nerves would be an understatement, the spotty faced adolescent, sitting so smugly on the rear seat of my car, was annoyance personified. Trying to contain the situation, I tried another way of gaining control, of calming the spotty face teenager. “My name is Gerrard,” I said, “What’s yours?”
The spotty faced individual, however, made no effort to answer me. Whacking the back of my seat, returning to his question, he said, “Well, how fast can this jalopy go?”
Deciding that another change of tactics was required, I said – and firmly, “If you answer my question, I might, just might answer yours!”
“Hah, hah,” he laughed. “The old codger has spunk! I like that, you old fart, good on ya!”
Although it was undeniably some progress, I still felt no affinity with the youth sitting behind me, indeed, if anything, I wanted rid of him all the sooner. Having said that, he reminded me of someone, and it scared me... You want to know who he reminded me of, don’t you? Read on, my friend, read on...
“So you see,” he continued, “my name is Versavious. I don’t like it, but I’m stuck with it. I guess someone had a weird sense of humour, what say you?”
It was only then, when he had finally told me his name, could I face up to – and admit – who he reminded me off – it was I. You see, I too had that name, though in my case it was, thankfully, the middle one.
Extending my hand, I offered it to the pimply faced youth – Versavious. Slapping his squarely upon mine, he laughed loudly, and said, “Come on, then, give her some welly, and show me how fast this old bucket can go.” Slapping Betsy into first gear, pushing the pedal to the metal, with the back wheels spinning, spitting out gravel, we roared off down that winding, county road.
“Thirty miles per hour?” Versavious bemoaned. “Is that as fast as it can go?”
“Patience,” I chided. “We are still in third gear.” Pressing hard on the clutch pedal, I shifted up into fourth (and last) gear. With Betsy’s old but exceptionally reliable engine roaring ever louder, the needle on the speedometer climbed higher and higher. Forty miles per hour. Fifty miles per hour Sixty miles per hour.
“Come on, give it more welly!” Versavious yelled, slapping the passenger seat in front of him for the umpteenth time, in his growing excitement and pleasure.
I did, I gave it more welly. Coaxing Betsy to go faster and faster, I watched the speedometer needle move further around the dial. Seventy miles per hour. Seventy-five miles per hour. “Give it some more!” Versavious screamed. “Come on, faster! Eighty, I want to see eighty miles per hour!”
“Come on, old girl,” I said, patting the metal dashboard, willing Betsy on. “Just another five miles per hour, and we are there. Come on, old girl, I know you can do it.” Although the speedometer needle was still climbing, its rate of progress was much slower than before, painfully slower. Seventy-six miles per hour. The doors began rattling noisily. Seventy-seven miles per hour. The rear view mirror, separating from its mount, fell to the floor. Seventy-eight miles per hour. The steering wheel began vibrating within my sweating hands. Seventy-nine miles per hour. With a pop and crack one of the chrome hubcaps took flight, banging and clattering noisily as it disappeared into the distance. Eighty miles per hour!” I yelled, trying to make myself heard about the roar of the engine, the rush of the wind, the noise from the tyres thrashing the tarmac, and various other bits and pieces falling off both the inside and outside my cherished car.
“Versavious!” I cried out. “We’ve done it, we’ve really done it!” Versavious, however, was strangely silent.
Because we were travelling so fast, and with no rear view mirror to look into, to see what could be the matter with him, I had to wait until we had slowed down considerably, before I dared turn round, to see why he was so quiet.
When our speed had decreased to only thirty miles per hour, I glanced over my shoulder, into the rear of the car. I was shocked by what I then saw, because sitting behind me, as quiet as a church mouse, was a man, a man well into his fifties. “W, who are you?” I spluttered, in my confusion. The man, however, remained silent, staring unblinkingly past me, to the road ahead.
“A, are you VersaviousI” I asked.
He nodded;
at least I think he nodded, for his head hardly moved at all.
Leaning back, I offered my hand, to shake his. Pointing unemotionally to the road ahead, he made no move to offer his hand. Facing forward, returning my attention to the road, I panicked with fright, for in my eagerness to make his acquaintance I had all but forgotten that we were still moving. We were heading straight for a tree, and an extremely large one at that. Wrestling with the steering wheel, I steered old Betsy away from certain destruction with only seconds to spare.
As the car screeched to a halt mere inches away from the tree that had had my name upon it, I was shaking with fright. Wiping my sweating brow, I opened the door and staggered away from the car and my unusual passenger. It was only after several minutes of deep breathing, trying to return to some semblance of composure, did I remember him – Versavious. Returning my gaze to Betsy, I saw him. he was still there, sitting upon the back seat, as cool as a cucumber, enswathed in the pastel coloured cloths.
Waving, trying to get his attention, I wondered why he was still there. “He’s not even looking this way!” I hissed. “What sort of a person is he, anyway?” Then I heard it, I heard his words – and the tot’s, saying, “I am who I am, be it baby or tot, and anyone else that you need me to be.”
“How on earth did he do that?” I whispered. On those words, Versavious stared out of the window, directly at me.
Waving, I signalled for him to come over, to join me, but he did not. No. He remained there, inside the car, as if his life depended on it.
“If the mountain won’t go to Mohammed, I said, “Mohammed will have to go to the mountain.” Retracing my steps, I returned to Betsy.
“Why didn’t you come over?” I asked, opening the door, tilting the driver’s seat forward.
“Did you want me to?” Versavious, the fifty-year-old version, replied.
Exasperated, I said, “Of course! Didn’t you see me waving?” To that remark, my unusual passenger made no reply. “Are you feeling alright?” I asked.
“Is there any reason why I should not be feeling alright?” he answered.
“Well...” I said, fumbling to find words. “It was a bit hairy, back there... You know, almost crashing into that tree!”
“Hmm,” he said, “I have seen it all before... The speed of youth, the foolhardy dangers we are so willing to take, when we think we will live forever...”
Taken aback by his melancholy musings, I once again found myself struggling to find words, as I too began slipping into the same sombre mood. Versavious speaking again brought me out of it. “What do you see when you look at me?” he asked.
“What do I see?” Nodding, he tapped his chest. “I see...I see a man in his fifties – and a moustache...” Then pointing, I added, “And those pastel coloured cloths...”
Smiling, (it quite surprised me, I can assure you), Versavious said, “Exactly!”
“Exactly?”
“You have said it.”
“I have?”
Lifting one of the cloths, a cerise coloured one, he said, “Look at this, it is beautiful, is it not?”
“I suppose so...if you like pink, that is.”
“It’s not a question of colour,” he replied, letting go of the cloth, the smile disappearing from face. “Have you not learned anything from the child?”
“The child?” I asked, confused, then realising that it was the five-year-old version of himself that he was pertaining to, I said, “He – you told me that you are but one of many... Is that what you are getting at?” I asked, my heart pounding fast in my chest. “That...”
“...That, as it falls away, is replaced by another, more beautiful one,” said Versavious, finishing the sentence for me.” After saying that, my travelling companion said nothing more on the subject. Indeed, he was so quiet and still as we drove along that quiet country road, he would have had no trouble at all in passing himself off as a corpse.
We were a good five miles further down the road before I started speaking again, and dared to look into my jerry-rigged rear view mirror. To be utterly truthful, I had absolutely no wish to do either. Listening to the sound of Betsy’s dependable old engine put-putting away behind me, I was in a world of my own. So, what did happen next? Do you think Versavious grew any older? Read on my friend, read on...
“I’m thirsty,” a creaky, crabby old voice croaked from behind me.
“Me too,” I replied, opening the window, paying little or no heed to the change in my passenger’s voce. “It’s getting dreadfully hot. There’s a petrol station about a mile up the road,” I said, “I’ll pull in there and buy us some water.”
Despite it being only a mile up the road, we never reached that petrol station. No. It might well have been a hundred miles away for all the good it did Versavious.
We were barely a hundred yards further along the road, when I heard the same crabby, creaky old voice calling out to me. “Water, water...” it implored, “I must have some water...” Looking into my rear view mirror, I got the shock of my life, for the fifty year old version of Versavious had transformed into one so old, so wizened, so incredibly crinkly, I feared for his very life.
Pulling the car over to the side of the road, I opened the door and jumped out. Tilting my seat forward I leaned in to my passenger and asked him if there was anything I could do to alleviate his distress. “I’m sorry,” I said, “but I haven’t got any water. Can you wait until we reach the petrol station? It’s less than a mile, now.”
Staring up at me, with weak, watery eyes, so different from those of the little baby, less than one hour earlier, but feeling like a lifetime away, the old man said, “No water? Is there no water at all?”
“Take it easy, old timer,” I replied. “There’ plenty of water,” Then I whispered, “The only problem is it’s not here...”
Lifting his bony arm, the old man, his even bonier hand clutching one of the layers of cloth covering him, said, “See this?”
“It’s purple,” I replied.
Gesturing with one of his thin fingers (there were little more than bones covered in skin), Versavious motioned for me to come closer. With my ear tucked close to his mouth, so close I could hear ever intake of his slow, laboured breathing, he whispered, “Have you still not learned? Do you still not see?”
Feeling terribly inadequate, that I had failed him, I replied, “The colour; it’s not the colour, is it?” Nodding, he leaned back into the seat and then closed his eyes.
Withdrawing from the car, speaking ever so quietly to myself, hoping that my elderly passenger might not hear me, I whispered, “Come on, Gerrard, think! It’s purple – I already know that, but what else is it? What did the child say? He said...he said...he said it’s a layer, one of many. What does that mean? What, what, what?”
Rubbing my chin, telling my brain to get into gear, I suddenly remembered the teenage version of Versavious, and I said, “What did he say? What was he trying to tell me? Hmm, the only thing he was interested in doing was slagging me off, not to mention my car... MY CAR!” I cried out. “THAT’S IT! Why didn’t I see it, sooner?”
A Note: For all of you reading this, wondering where it is going, please be patient. All will soon be revealed...
“Versavious pushed me to drive Betsy faster than I was comfortable with, much faster that I would have otherwise done. That’s it, that’s the lesson – I’m sure of it!” I cried out. Pacing back and forth alongside the car, I must have looked like a lunatic. Jabbering away to myself, I concluded that the lesson, the lesson the baby, the tot, the teenager, the fifty-year-old man and the ancient old timer had given me was to push myself; that I was capable of achieving so much more than I would have otherwise thought. It’s the layers!” I cried out. “Peel one away one layer, to reveal another one that is better than its predecessor.”
Returning to Betsy, I opened the door. Leaning, I said, “Versavious, I understand–” but he was gone. The only thing left to show that he had been there at all was a n
eat pile of pastel coloured cloths stacked upon the rear seat.
Postscript: Diving home, my mind was still reeling from the extraordinary person (people?) that I had met. There was a happy and contented baby, a philosophical tot, a bad-mannered teenager, a man in his fifties with the knowledge of maturity behind him, and a man so old, so ancient he faded away into nothing, but not before he had imparted an valuable lesson, a lesson that will change my life forever. I had no sooner thought this, when something on my seat began poking into me. Raising my derriere, I delved a hand under and tried to find the culprit that was causing me such discomfort. Pulling it out, the culprit, I stared at it quite gobsmacked. You see, it was a crumpled up piece of paper, the flyer advertising the Circus of Grotesques. “I thought I threw this away,” I whispered, reading words printed upon it. They read, ‘The Circus of Grotesques: it will change your life forever.’ It was right; my life had certainly, most certainly been changed forever.
THE END
Alice from Wonderland?
This, my story, is strangely bizarre,
It happened one morning: I was not in my car,
I was still in my in bed; I had been fast asleep,
Then I found myself falling down a tunnel, so deep.
What on earth is happening? I whispered, in fright,
As I fell ever faster down a tunnel without light,
Then, with a bump and a crash my falling it stopped,
And I lay in a heap, but at the bottom of what?
Rubbing my soreness, I looked all around,
The most curious of places I had ever before found,
All about me were queer things to see,
Like a Cat, a Mad Hatter and a Mouse drowning in tea.
Despite drowning in tea, the Mouse struggled not,
As the Hatter and Rabbit pushed his head in the pot,
But the biggest surprise I ever did see,
Was Alice urging them on, and laughing hee hee.
Alice, holding the lid, was spurring them on,
Come on, she said, and get the job done,
Finish the Mouse or you’ll answer to me,
Look, here is the lid, duck him under that tea!
When the Mouse was dead and despatched to his maker,
Alice turned on the Hatter, saying you’re no better,
Than a mouse or a lizard or even a carpenter,
Take that, and that, you rotten old Hatter!
Alice in Wonderland Christmas Song
Christmastime is nowhere at all,
It’s nowhere at all, if it‘s not in your heart.
If it’s not in your wishes, right there from the start,
Christmastime is nowhere at all.
Christmastime, a time to be glad,
A time to rejoice in all that you have,
But let us remember this time of good cheer,
Is also a time to erase every fear.
Christmastime is nowhere at all,
It’s nowhere at all, if it‘s not in your heart.
If it’s not in your wishes, right there from the start,
Christmastime is nowhere at all.
Christmastime, a time to be glad,
It a time to rejoice in all that you have,
But let us remember this time of good cheer,
Is a time to share blessings, this is my prayer.
I’m the crazymad writer,
The crazymad writer today.
I’m the crazymad writer,
The crazymad writer, hey hey!
You may think that I’m not serious,
And I might even agree.
But I’m still the crazy-mad writer,
The crazymad writer, hee hee.
That’s it for now.
All the best,
From the crazymad writer – ARRRGH.
www.thecrazymadwriter.com
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