Simon Sees

 

I’m a hero, I am. You should all be thanking me. But no one will ever know my name. It’s safer that way.

As he wrote the words in his notebook, Simon looked them over, and thought long and hard about committing his thoughts to paper.

His scrawl was barely legible, but to him, the words stood out as clear as any typewritten script.

He fingered the silver metal ring on his middle finger. Its cold, lightning bolt symbol stood out against his pale flesh. He ran his other hand over it and clasped it to his scrawny chest.

He knew that the fate of mankind rested on his too thin shoulders, and he sighed. It was a burden he just had to carry. He had been chosen. From the moment his weak and frail frame was pushed out of his mother’s ample body, some 17 years ago now, he had been destined to look after the world. His every decision changed the life of someone, somewhere, on the earth.

He knew this, completely and utterly, and it had been proved to him time and time again over the last two months. Ever since he had found the ring.

He thought back to that day with a mixture of pride, relief and horror.

He’d been going to go to school. He really had been. But as he’d passed the sign to the park, two streets before the turn off for the school, he’d spotted the dog. It looked like Colin, a dog he’d had many years ago. He’d been told that Colin had run off, and Simon had spent many, many fruitless hours combing the neighbourhood streets, dog biscuits in his pockets and hope in his voice.

Three years ago his mother confessed that Colin had been run over by a car while Simon was at school. Simon had been devastated. He’d always secretly nurtured the hope that Colin might come back in the door again, and lie down in his usual spot at the foot of Simon’s bed.

He knew that Colin would be a very old dog by now, but still, he kept that hope alive, a spluttering flame deep in his chest.

When he saw the brown mutt that morning, he’d tentatively called out, “Colin?”

The cur hadn’t responded, but had continued sniffing at some unseen mark on the wall. It had allowed the boy to come closer, but had trotted off to the next corner at the very last minute.

Simon had followed, desperate to get closer to the mangy creature. If his mother had lied for years about Colin having run away, he reasoned, might she not also have lied about the dog having died?

Any thoughts of school disappeared with the dogs continued exploration of the long wall that led towards the entrance to the park, and Simon found himself in hot pursuit. It rounded the corner and trotted into the piece of scrubby greenery. Simon was only a few strides behind but when he rounded the end of the wall, the dog was nowhere in sight.

He stopped, and examined the area carefully, poking his feet into the overgrown bushes and even, at one point, pulling himself up into a tree the better to scan the area. That’s when he’d spotted the slightest flash in the crook of the branches. His grubby fingers pushed the moss aside – and brought out the ring.

He’d never seen any ring like it before. He had always considered himself a manly man, and had been of the opinion that rings were for girls. But this ring drew his eyes like no ring had ever done in the past. It consisted of a plain silver band that, instead of meeting, drew itself into a jagged lightning flash at either end, the result being a double flash giving (he fancied) a 3D effect. This was clearly a man’s ring, and he slipped it on to the middle finger on his right hand, the only one it would fit.

He held his hand out at a distance, the better to admire the ring, and eased himself down onto the ground again. The dog was clearly gone – but he knew that Colin had come back from doggy heaven just to lead him to discover the ring.

He was too late for school now – he’d heard the flat tone of the bell as he’d been rooting around looking for the dog - so he decided that the best thing to do would be to have a day to himself and examine his new found treasure.

If he gave it half an hour, he could slip in back home. His mum would have left for her shift at the supermarket and he’d have a few hours with the telly before she got back in. He might even make her some beans on toast, as a treat when she arrived home. That’d sweeten the old bat.

On the way home, Simon realised he could curse people. An old man pushed past him in his haste to reach the bus stop, and Simon had sworn at him. Seconds later, the elderly man had tripped on a paving stone and tumbled full length onto the pavement. Simon stood, his mouth agape, as a couple of passing mothers stopped in their paths and helped the old chap back to his feet, dusting him off and picking up his stick.

Simon knew it was his words that had caused the man to fall.

For some time now he’d felt he had a special power. Sometimes he could see things that other people couldn’t.

He’d once spotted two pirates engaged in a deadly duel, cutlasses crashing together with considerable force – and noise - in the school playground, while he’d been in English. It was Shakespeare, and he was bored. He’d happened to glance out of the window – and seen the pair, going at it as if they were auditioning for the next Pirates of the Caribbean film. The fight ended when the tall thin one missed a thrust, and the shorter but heavier man, parried the sword and stuck a thin knife right into the other mans guts. Simon was surprised that there wasn’t more blood, but when he looked round quickly to see if anyone else had spotted them, they disappeared. He hadn’t been frightened, more puzzled. During the next school interval, he estimated where the pair had had their struggle to the death and carefully examined the spot on the gravel where he thought they’d been, but there were no signs of anything out of the ordinary. Some of the other boys, curious about what he was up to as he lay on the playground and peered closely for any traces of blood, began to call out at him. One or two gave him a quick kick in the legs, just for fun.

“Simple Simon” and “Simon Strange”. The jeers were familiar to him and he found it easy to ignore them.

Eventually he concluded that the pirates had probably fallen through some inter-dimensional wormhole, and had disappeared back into their own reality when he turned away momentarily.

But, as he saw the old guy hobble over to the by now, empty, bus stop, he wondered if it had been simply the power of his mind that had held them in place, had dragged them through the porthole, and kept them prisoners here, until he’d broken eye contact and looked away, allowing them to escape again.

About a fortnight after the ‘pirates incident’ as he liked to call it, he’d been browsing the internet during an IT lesson and had spotted a photograph of a crashed passenger jet. With a start, he realised that that was exactly what he’d dreamed about the night before. He could remember it all now, the scream of the engines, the wail of the fire engines as they raced across the tarmac, the smell of burning aviation fuel. Plainly his wild, dream-state ramblings had caused the plane to crash – and the deaths of thirty three passengers.

Since then he’d become increasingly aware that he was different from the other youngsters around him. He was gifted, special, and in a way no one could suspect.

 

He tried to limit the amount of time he spent asleep, so as not to cause any more plane crashes. There was a train collision in China, he noticed, but he couldn’t remember dreaming about that and anyway, no one was killed, so perhaps he’d managed to change the dream to have a less violent conclusion. Forewarned is forearmed, he reckoned.

The ring, he knew instinctively, had something to do with his gift. Why else would Colin have led him to it?

He vowed to be careful what he said in future – the old guy had been lucky. Say Simon had shouted something really final, like ‘Drop dead!’ He would have been a goner.

Simon swayed a little. To have so much power was dizzying. But he knew he had to control it, otherwise, like so many of his comic book heroes, it would end up controlling him. He would use it for good – to protect people.

As he’d walked home that day, one street from his house, he’d seen a drain cover move. There was a dark stain to one side and he felt it needed investigation. As he got closer, he realised that what he had taken to be a stain, was in fact, a hand. A nasty, troll-like hand, clawing its way up from the bowels of the city.

Quickly, he did the only thing he could think of, and jumped, with all his weight, on top of the cover. There was a ghastly muted scream from inside the hole as the creature desperately tried to pull its hand in again.

Smiling grimly, he stamped even harder on the metal lid. “Don’t you ever, EVER think about coming up topside again!” he yelled at the drain cover. He didn’t care that he was shouting out loud – the beast had to be stopped, and taught a lesson.

He noticed people staring, but that was nothing new. He was way past caring about a few looks or sideways glances now and again. He stared intently at the ground by the cover, and was satisfied that the dark mark there was now just the scratches left behind as it scrabbled to pull its hand below again, and a small, dark patch of troll blood left behind as the skin scraped on the metal edge.

Another job well done, he thought, as he walked off the cover and carried on along the street. On the window-sill of a flat above a newsagent, he spotted a canary in a cage. It was a beautiful shade of yellow, he thought. The bird looked at him, it’s beady black eyes fixed on his pale face.

“You can see them now.” It sang.

Simon thought he must be hearing things, but as he looked at the bird, it spoke again.

“The ring gives you the power to see them now.”

“What do you mean?” he asked it. In for a penny, he thought.

“I can’t say too much,” it trilled, its head darting from side to side. “But you can see them now. The ring has given you that power. It’s in their eyes. Watch their eyes.”

 

Its message came to an abrupt halt as a hand emerged from the open window and lifted the small cage back in. A middle aged woman glanced out at the strange young man having a conversation with her bird, and watched as he walked on again, past her house.

She shook her head slightly and then closed the window again. Just Simon, she thought. He was an odd lad.

Simon was aware she had been looking at him. The ring was bringing all his senses, all his latent powers, to the surface. He could feel the pavement beneath his feet. He could hear every car engine as it sagged along the road. He could even hear the voices of all the people that were brushing past him in the street. Anger, dissatisfaction, envy. Their thoughts were all ridiculously the same. No one was happy any more. The faces told a million stories of lives half lived and lessons never learned.

He smiled at them as they went by. They should be happy. He was here now, protecting them. They were lucky and they didn’t know it.

When he’d reached his home, he’d spent the afternoon examining the ring further – without taking it off, of course. It glinted in the gathering darkness of his house and the flash seemed to be alive with energy. He poured some beans into a pan and heated them on the stove until they were warm all through. Then, when he heard the gate at the foot of the path squeak, he shoved two slices of white into the toaster.

When his mother trudged wearily into the living room, he was ready there, plate of hot food in hand.

“Oh thank you, Simon.” She said. “What a lovely treat. Shove on the telly, son.”

She pulled off her coat and dropped it over the back of the sofa. Dropping into the sagging cushions, she kicked off her shoes, the better to ease her feet with her lumpy hands.

Then, comfier, she turned round to Simon, and reached out for the plate, another smile lighting up her doughy face. “You’re a good lad when you want to be.”

Simon smiled at her, pleased to have been praised. The smile froze on his lips as he looked at her.

It’s in their eyes….

The words had come flooding back in that moment as he looked into his mother’s face, and, in the dancing light thrown by the TV he saw what the bird had meant.

His mother’s eyes were not those of a normal person. The pupils, instead of being round, were slits in the colour, like those of a sheep. He’d seen weird eyes before – David Bowie had a big pupil and a normal one, the result, so it was said, of an accident when he was a child – but none like these.

 

Of course, the logic was instant.

They’d known all about him, known how special he was, right from the start. They’d replaced his mother with one of their own, all the better to watch him.

Play it cool, Simon, he thought. Don’t let them know you’re on to them.

“No problem,” he said, handing her the plate and watching carefully as she hungrily thrust the soggy meal into her mouth.

Now, two months later, he felt he was playing a waiting game. He watched his mother, no, the creature that was passing itself off as his mother, go about ‘her’ normal business. He kept a careful note of everything in his notebook. He kept it hidden under the mattress of his bed. It had been a long time since she had come into his room, and he was sure it would be safe. He began to draw up his plans. If he was the only one who could see them, then it would have to be him that dealt with them.

He went to school – usually – and kept an eye on the newspapers. All the time he was learning how to use his powers, and just how strong they were. He learned to live with the numbing pain when he read of another car crash or fire, where people were hurt. He learned that if he snapped a book shut in a temper, a tornado would hit a small town in Kansas. He realised that if he shouted at someone, then very soon after, some mishap would befall them. He could not discern a pattern to the ‘crime’ or the ‘punishment’ – some of the most serious ‘offences’ seemed to draw the least significant pay-back, but he took consolation in the fact that there were at least some consequences.

Days passed.

His mother had remarked, once or twice, about his new ring, but had accepted his explanation that it was a tribute to a new pop group he was keen on.

Life became a quiet desperation for him, as, no matter how well he tried to behave, disasters kept happening. It seemed that somewhere in the world, someone died because of something he did.

 

He found it almost impossible to sleep and as a result was ratty much of the time, which caused him to lose his temper and act out. Every time he did, he would groan inwardly. There goes another family somewhere, he’d constantly remind himself as another mood swing took him, and the newspapers would confirm his theory. A fire here. A drowning there. And when he was excluded from school for refusing to leave the cloakroom after he stood on a spider, a whole ferry went down off Thailand….

It was on his head. He had to get away, leave the crowded city and the life he had known behind. Step out into the world where no one knew him.

The ring was a curse, and a gift. With power came responsibility indeed.

He had spent the afternoon packing a small rucksack. Everything he’d need on his journey. His mother had been angry when the school informed her that he’d been excluded but he had kept his cool, been unmoved by her temper. He had to. The fate of the world depended on him.

Her slit eyes flashed at him and he had to bite his tongue to stop himself from blurting out that he knew what kind of monster she really was. Inwardly he wept for the loss of his real mother. He had never felt particularly loved, but at least she had been his. He could not tell them he could see them. Who knew what they would do if they knew his abilities had been awakened?

He had promised his mother he would study at home and set out his books accordingly, genuinely meaning to, but he became distracted by a chat show on the TV and the books lay unopened, unlooked at.

Half an hour before she was due home, he began the process of preparing her evening meal. This time he opened a can of mini sausages and beans as well as doing up the toast. She’d like that.

When he heard the familiar squeak outside, he pushed the handle of the toaster down and waited for it to pop.

She clumped in to the living room, dumped her heavy coat over the settee and eased her shoes off. Her familiar routine.

Simon was ready with her tray and offered it to her, watched, pleased, as she took it gratefully, and began to eat.

“Simon,” she said. “This is lovely, A real treat. But you’ve forgotten the tomato sauce.”

“Sorry Mum,” he said, and hauled himself off the settee and into the kitchen.

He found the sauce bottle in the pantry and the boning knife in the drawer. He walked through to the small room, lit only by the light from the screen in the corner.

“Who’s that on the telly?” he asked, handing the bottle from behind her.

She looked up, squinting to try to make out the presenter of the quiz show.

“Oh, that’s……”

She got no further as the razor sharp blade sliced through arteries and voice box in a single, strong cut.

Simon pushed her neck down towards her chest and watched in fascination as the blood heaved and gurgled down her body. The tray crashed to the floor as she writhed, tomato sauce glancing off the TV screen and mixing with the blood splattering the glass.

He held her head firmly and soon the limbs lost their power, began jerking spasmodically.

Within a minute, she was dead.

At least I can kill them, he thought, as he washed his hands in the kitchen sink. He’d done his research properly. The beauty about a forward projection of arterial blood was that anyone behind the body would not be sprayed.

 

“All you had to do was bring back my mum,” he said to the corpse, pale and unmoving, still staring at the ever-chattering TV.

He slept soundly that night, and as far as he knew, did not even dream once.

Next morning he pulled on his jacket and left the house, carefully closing the door behind him. His school uniform lay abandoned in his wardrobe. He checked in on his mother, but she was still exactly as he’d left her the night before. Good, he thought. No zombie-like resurrection then.

He wasn’t sure if killing one of them would count as a good or bad deed, but if it counted against him, then a major conflict would surely break out somewhere.

He allowed his feet to choose his path, and after twenty minutes, found himself back at the park where it had all begun. It seemed like a lifetime ago now.

He looked at the tree and eased himself back up into the branches again, the better to take in the view.

It was a beautiful day. The sun was shining, the park making the most of the modest light it was offered.

As he looked round, wondering what to do next, a small bird landed a short way from his head and caught his attention.

“It’s too much for one person to bear.” It said to him, holding his gaze with its small black eye.

“I tried, I really did.” He told it, a tear pushing its way out from under his long lashes. “I got one of them.”

“I know,” said the bird, pulling a berry from the twig it was sitting on. “One is better than none. But maybe now that you’ve killed one, the rest will come to you. You don’t have to look any more. Just sit still and play their game, then kill them when you get the chance. You’ll see I’m right.”

With that, it twitched its wings and drove off into the sky, leaving him alone with his thoughts.

He was still there that night, when the police found him. They had a pair of male nurses with them. The men helped him from the tree and eased him into an ambulance, where one left to drive while the other stayed with him.

He noticed, with interest, that the man had slits instead of pupils.

Simon smiled.