Top of Happiness

Burnt Umber

Top of Happiness

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Prologue

All in all, I had been in Louise’s drawing room for a decade or more, having watched Nancy and Johnny, the two spoiled hellions, offspring of Louise and Fritz, grow up playing war games with the furniture—a matter that rankled me something fierce.

I had become addicted to Louise’s parties, and, looking back on my time in that mansion, I found them and her socialite guests hugely entertaining—until the voluptuous Estelle got up in her grill, and all hell broke loose.

—Hold on, I’m jumping ahead of myself.

In a world full of contradictions, at an unknown time between the changing of the centuries, two characters emerged, both handsome and creative. I am one—a ten on a scale that tops at ten, and that I am the most beautiful and charming, goes without saying. The other, a djinn. But you haven’t met him yet.

The circumstances that brought the two of us together are not one single magical event, at least not the kind of mythical Merlin fame. You might say, Fate entered and dealt his card. So, it didn’t happen quite by accident that Djinn became one who I adored and called my friend, and who had a powerful impact on my psyche. A brilliant fellow, he was, in his way, the crème de la crème of genies. Over time, we became two bodies of the same cloth, though I’m the one with a gemstone named after me—Ruby, if you can believe that, or better: Ruby Red Chair. Yes, you heard right…a chair…in the flesh, if you can call my fabric flesh.

How hard is it to imagine me, a chair, a teller of remarkable tales, talking to someone who appears out of a trunk, whispers spells, and vanishes into the shadows just as quietly as he enters?

—Right now, you’re thinking I’m crazy as a soup sandwich.

When I considered the arduous work of writing my memoirs, I thought back on all the antics I’d enjoyed with Djinn, and I became excited all over again. The veritable kaleidoscope of capers with which we had been regaled and derived harmless fun, were enough to raise a swell of pride. He’d helped me out of awkward situations, and filled my head with stories of his romantic longings, too fantastic and impossible even for the most ardent believer. I asked myself, was Djinn just a figment of my extraordinary dreams? Who’s to say a chair does not have the right to its own adventures.

Aaah, the adventures! Say goodbye to stuffy story plots. Within these chapters are stories you won’t believe, some hard to swallow, and other juicy stories of magic that make no sense to most. There are so many stories I want to tell you, it’s hard to know where to begin. I’d be willing to bet, though, you went to a good school and have a superior education, so the very idea that you might want to put the pages down, and do something not connected with my stories should never cross your mind. An outrageous notion, but you wouldn’t be the first to try.

Tell you what. Why don’t you read, without prejudice or presupposition, that which is at times inexplicable, and draw your own conclusions.

The possibilities are endless.

I remain,

Sincerely,

RRC

Burnt Umber

My head felt like an overripe summer squash.

It was starting out to be a grim day. Though you’d never know it from looking at me, I felt like I had been cloistered all night in an assisted living facility for psychopathic chairs—a command centre for the flotsam of miserable furniture, retired and warehoused, a hub with just enough of a pleasant environment to give the illusion of living in luxury. Night terrors. I struggled to make sense of my present reality. Being a chair had its complications.

Had it been an upscale dinner party? Had Estelle really been draping her voluptuous body over me, a sensuous smile flickering across her face? And, in her moment of innocence, all she saw was a red chair, a beautiful, harmless, ruby red chair? Will all my dreams fade away in one neurological spasm, the whole of last night’s illusions vanish, leaving me blinking in the sunlight, reaching for Estelle who isn’t there anymore?

I could eliminate some possible causes for my feeling of being hungover. It certainly wasn’t from a strict diet of the four major food groups: pizza, beer, French fries, and...uh...um, red wine. I vaguely recall having heard on the television the story of Pavlov’s theory of conditioning. Was I becoming like my canine companions, conditioned to hear the squeaky hinges of the pantry door?

Mostly, I wanted someone to blame for my head feeling like the size of Newfoundland.

—Aaah. Now there’s a place where people know how to throw a good party...and suffer hangovers.

It was all out war in the kitchen. Pounding and pummeling of kitchen artillery. Marissa was chopping an onion and wiping the tears from her cheeks with the back of her hand. A cauliflower awaited a similar fate. Steam arose out of a pot on the stove in which potatoes were being tortured, and an enormous ladle cradled on the stove lay waiting, guarding. The experienced eye could easily identify chunks of meat which had been attacked by a cleaver and lay in a heap on a cutting board. It was as if their time was nearly up. Death row.

The morning had been particularly dark for me, and it was nearly eleven before my torpor passed. I saw on the television that the Queen was dead, but I wasn’t so sure. There was gossip on a talk show that a mannequin topped in a wide, yellow hat with perfectly coiffed white curls peeking out all around, hands covered with matching gloves, clutching a matching handbag, and operating a mechanical wave, had turned up at several events. I reckoned the Monarchy could have used that for years as a sub in, just changing the hat and handbag.

—God help us all if she’s kicked the Throne.  A round of G & T’s on the house if that dreadful son and heir takes over. Do you think the Queen should have abdicated early?

I was addressing the two mutts.

—You mustn’t tell Marissa I called you mutts. She’d heave me out on the street in no time, like that vixen Louise. Besides, who’d talk to you all day long, then, eh?

Pablo climbed up onto my lap, something he rarely did, and placed his schnozzle on my arm. I carried on with my train of thought. She didn’t, of course, I mean the Queen...abdicate, but what were the Queen’s duties other than as a presiding dignitary anyway? Pablo, the white speckled terrier, cocked his head as if he was acutely listening. I glanced at the brindle one who was hoping for equal attention.

—Oh, you’re no help.

Worse than a train wreck, wouldn’t you say, I heard myself muttering to Pabs. Oh, you go and sit there and sulk, I said to the brindle one.

—Would someone please change the channel?

****

This was high season for model engineers—the Wimbledon of steam. Today was the Historical Society of Model Engineer’s fiftieth year running. The flag flew high and proud on the pole. And, for that matter, her Majesty could have been invited to preside over the events but the mannequin came in her place. Who knows? The local media were interested. The producer and camera crew of History Today were checking their light meters and doing sound checks.

The park was a step back in time, as if it were its own sovereign state dating back one hundred years. The model steam engineers had built scale-sized tracks that wandered through a forest grove of gnarly oaks and large-leaf maples, and bridges spanning ponds and streams.

After a heavy rain, the ground was mud in places, but the railway tracks had been groomed meticulously like a Baptist minister, for the benefit of tourists and visitors, and the sun winked a promise that it would stay around for the day.

An estimated thirty to forty model engineers had left their homes in the early morning dawn with the ever-present goal of delivering their model trains safely to the Historical Society’s grounds. The aim of their lifelong hobby was to polish up their locomotives and run them on the miniature railway tracks. They came from the north; they came from the mainland, a ferry ride away, and they came from neighbouring islands. They came with their Bassett Lowke Claughtons, their O-gauge, and their Brunswick-green, saddle tank engines.

I’d heard a thing or two about these steam meets. People are all agog when the model steam engines puff their way along the tracks, blowing their whistle by engineers wearing their blue and white pinstriped caps, like in the funnies. Children run around with their ice cream cones dripping on their shirts and blouses, children who never tire of riding on the trains or following them with their eyes until they were out of sight.

Off on a siding by the water tower, engineers were getting steam up on their locomotives. The earthy smell of freshly chinked coal in the tender turned thick and pungent when burned, and a hint of creosote and engine oil dribbled on the railway ties reminded one of the saltwater docks, without the pigeons. The locomotive hooted, steam belched out of its stack, and the couplings clanged tight as the little train pulled into the miniature railway station.

 “Hurry! Hurry! They’re loading the train,” the children screamed as they trampled the umber earth heading to the tiny station amid a hail of reproaches from parents. There was a lot of pushing and shoving as the children clambered aboard the flat cars, but eventually they sat orderly huddled together with their hands clasped firmly around their bent knees.

The station was abuzz with people. This old guy, who was around seventy if a day with four-day old whiskers, shuffled along in his boots and frayed suspenders, reached out to take tickets from the children. A camera man leaned in and started taking pictures. A reporter approached, turned on his recording device and directed a microphone near the old fella’s mouth.

The ancient one cupped his free hand around his ear and bent forward, “Eh? What’s dat you say?”

The reporter politely reframed his question.

 “Uh-oh. Mr. Wicksford here, ee’s one of the foundin members of, this here ‘istorical Society. Land sakes alive, ee’s got a story that’ll keep you up at nights,” said the roly-poly geezer with a face a child would trust, and smiling into the television camera focused on him. “I’m telling yous, ee can tell it best, cantcha, Elmer?” The old timer slapped Mr. Wicksford heartily on the back. “Attaboy, eh!”

Mr. Wicksford was not amused.

****

—And this brings me to the amazing part of the story. I reconstructed the events from what I gleaned from a television feature and, where there were gaps, I filled them in and made the story fit with my own imagination.

Mr. Wicksford was a steam engineer. He had been running trains for umpteen years and today he was being honoured for his contributions to the Society. And he was running this train. He looked back to check his load as he always did, then focused on the gauges and throttle in front of him. The train chuffed out of the station and began its journey around the park. Clickety-clack down the track, off it went. It pulled its cargo past a meadow where a moose lifted its massive antlered head and looked casually, disinterested in the moving spectacle. A red fox sniffed the air and disappeared into the bush, while deer ignored the noise and grazed at low hanging cedar boughs. The kids were chanting, Choo Choo, and pulling their hands down from the air above as the whistle wailed.

Far off in the corner of the park, plumes of steam rose up like mighty cumulonimbus clouds with fluffy mushroom tops that split the sun’s rays into several streams. Then it all went black. The children shrieked. The lonely headlamp of the train shone with barely enough shadowy light to see the track. They dared to see the light again at the end of the tunnel. But, in those moments in the darkness, the ground appeared to have been transformed into a pleasant garden of Eden-esque landscape, a tapestry of cinnamon umber. Primroses peaked out of the earth and wisteria hung from the heavy timbers of a trestle. Friendly animals and reptiles frolicked about while Orpheus lulled them into a hypnotic state playing his lyre and singing in his gifted voice that no living being could resist. The abundant apple trees bore the fruit of good and evil.

—Geez. What next? The Blessed Virgin will throw a little soirée? Tut Tut.

Out there, as far away from the station as the park permitted, the engineer suddenly slowed the train until it shuttered and wheezed and came to a stop, as did Mr. Wicksford’s wristwatch.

The engineer hollered to his passengers, “Be still. Be very, very quiet.”

To which one child immediately screamed, “Why are we stopping here?”

An unruly lad kicked the girl in the backside and hissed, “Shut up, and be quiet like the engineer said, you birdbrain!”

“Stop pushing me!” she retorted, jabbing an elbow toward her assailant.

“Sticks and stones will break my bones, but names will never hurt me!” And out came a tongue from under a freckled and turned-up, wrinkled nose.

“Shhhoosh!”

Something was there. Something was moving in the shadows of the timber truss bridge not two hundred yards ahead. And the engineer could see it. So could the blue jay that sat on a fence wire, and the hawk riding the currents with its wide wingspan like on the tail of a comet. Even the black-eyed Susans peeking through the cracks in an old, abandoned lumber pile could see the silhouettes at the other end of the bridge—the bridge between reality and illusion.

Of course, I knew nothing of the encounter. They said the ground and bushes around the trestle were trampled, and the broken boughs of an apple tree straddled the tracks. One could imagine all sorts of things when these were the only two signs of anything afoul.

Mr. Wicksford had taken off his cap and was wiping his brow with an oil-stained cloth. Abruptly his attention seemed to be arrested by something moving rapidly down the slope. Three gigantic, black somnolent things. Things! What were they?

The moratorium on the bewildering speculation lifted. Three problematic objects moved out into a clearing, and for a brief moment, into the bright light. Their vision was at first elusive, hidden by a giant chestnut tree. Then, the black masses emerged again one after the other, smashing young pines in their wake, hoisting their lumpy bodies up the ridge at the end of the bridge, brazen as brass. Each of the monstrous triumvirate stood higher than a telephone pole, their hairy chest stretched taut as they grabbed the outstretched boughs of the apple tree. And two hundred creosoted railway ties were all that separated the train from the great hulk of these creatures.

—By the by, I must confess, my imagination went wild at this point, and I clearly defeated the colossal intruders in the most heroic ways.

You couldn’t help but be blown away when you saw these creatures. At first, they were taken for black bears but with the height of a supersized grizzly, which was exciting enough for the children, but not Mr. Wicksford. The smell of their breath, so strong, so sickeningly full of fermented cider, of musky pine and blooming skunk cabbage, reached the train and all its tiny passengers. It tickled their noses and settled on their skin.

“Oooweee! That smell is horrible!”

Mr. Wicksford gasped, grimaced and gripped his hand tightly on the throttle. “Oh, my good Lord! Sasquatch!” rumbled out of his throat.

Strangled screams erupted from the terrified children who were tightly bundled on the shaking flat cars. Two girls clung to each other like wolves to a stag.

“Are they going to kill us?”

Another sniffled and blurted out, “I want to go home.”

The hoot of a northern hawk-owl signaled danger to the other animals. The blue jay flapped its wings feverishly, and all the previously unseen flocks flew up wildly into the sky. Black-eyed Susans wilted and withered into the wood pile. A roar, a deep primal yowl, enough to shatter glass, erupted from the largest of the three cryptids from a previous century. The children covered their ears with their hands but never took their eyes off the sight.

The Sasquatch rubbed the remains of an engineer’s cap on his scraggy leg with its long, ivory talons, while its bloodshot eyes lingered on the quaking blue and white stripes at the front of the train. A humongous thicket of hair covering a pair of leather padded palms brought a discarded plastic cup up to its long, tan face, its lips curled, and its tongue licked deep inside to carve out every droplet of sweetness. It stepped closer. On his loose limbs, one could now detect, he sported a pair of black wellies with orange trimmed soles, and a red, checkered, cotton kerchief, like a wrangler’s scarf, wrapped around his thick neck.

—My God, where is Jane Goodall when you need her?

In every group of children, there is always one that is a prankster and performer, or the class comedian, or is bolder and braver than the others. Into the latter class fell Timothy McWylliam. Made of love, he had been a good-natured baby, bottle-fed and pram-pushed through the parks by his proud mother. Now a little boy with happy cheeks, he unfurled naked legs that poked out from under short pants and straightened all three feet nine inches of a scrawny frame. He stood valiantly, open- mouthed and with burgeoned eyes, fixated on the approaching behemoth. A young girl tugged on his shirt tail as if hoping to pull him back down. But he was transfixed, and even though he may have trembled, he could not stop his inevitable steps toward the creatures.

“Timothy,” they heard Mr. Wicksford utter aloud, “Timothy! Don’t go near him. Come back, son. It’s too dangerous.”

But Timothy did not want to hear. He was busy talking to the Sasquatch with a kind of telepathic communication. His cheeks flushed red. “Holy cow, you got a big wee wee!” he exclaimed. Timothy tilted his head back to look further up the enormous beast. “Hey, whatch yer name?”

“Wheep.”

“So, do you want to play? With those hands, I figure yer not very good at marbles.”

The Sasquatch seemed to shuffle his feet. “Wheep, wheep.”

“I betcha yer pretty good at dodgeball. Too bad. I don’t got no ball.”

The Sasquatch turned his head and sniffed the air. His ears listened.

“You must be pretty strong.”

—Is the moon made of cheese?

Now, Mr. Wicksford was no spring chicken, a slight man stooped by age, but he managed to cross his legs over to one side of the tender and slide gently down to the ground. His stomach had turned into knots and he felt nauseated, but he had to rescue Timothy. He shouted and waved his arms freely at the huge beast in the adrenaline moment that brings raw courage. But before he could reach the child, with one wide swoop little Timo was scooped up into the arms of the Sasquatch who paid no attention to the flailing engineer.

The Sasquatch emitted the most peculiar sound, like the joy a mother feels when it finds a lost cub, and he looked tenderly upon the tiny prize cradled in his arms. Timmy blinked his sweet blue eyes and looked at the Sasquatch with curiosity and wonder, but no fear. He wiggled his arms and reached up to touch his captor’s face just as a thimble full of tear dropped onto its cheek and ran along the end of his soft, burnt umber muzzle. A shudder rumbled through his chest, and he heaved a long thunderous sigh from deep within his soul. He continued coddling and rocking his tiny cub.

 “What’s the matter?” Timmy sounded like how his mother talked to him whenever he was upset. He took the corner of the neck scarf and wiped it across the Sasquatch’s cheek. Then, he rummaged into his pocket and pulled out a candy bar. He peeled off the wrapper and offered the chocolate-coated slab to his new favourite primate. The Sasquatch cocked his head in a quizzical sort of way. Timmy reached up and let the soft chocolate touch its lips. They were friends.

The moist air became scented with a godawful smell oozing from its nostrils—a foul mixture of rotting apples and lifeless fish made Timmy turn away and plug his nose. As the breath filtered down to the ground, even Mr. Wicksford tried to keep from gagging. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other and stared up at the looming hairy tower. The back of his neck twitched, his pulse rate skyrocketed, and his hands were sweaty. “P-p-please, put Tim, T-Timothy down,” he stuttered.

A breeze swept across the top of the chestnut tree. A branch of the apple tree snapped, and a series of grunts signaled to the children huddled on the train that there were two more beasts that could snatch them up like young Timothy. They clung to each other, afraid and rigid, frozen in their place. Nobody made a sound. Nobody considered running down the track away from the monsters. Nobody said boo.

—Would this be the time to summon a Sasquatchologist?

As if in slow motion, the biggest Sasquatch turned away from them, and with outstretched hands showed Timothy to his kind, like an auctioneer displays an item on the bidding block at Sotheby’s. What was it about Timothy that the Sasquatch found so interesting? Contrary to public belief, the Sasquatch showed affection and great tenderness for the child, like he loved the little fella.

Timothy waved his hand. “H-h-hi guys.”

Four red eyes stared back at him and their yellow bicuspids dripped with saliva. Their jaws clanked and their ears perked up. An audible screech warbled passed their tonsils, echoed across the bridge, and rolled down the tracks until it was swallowed up by the young ears on the train.

“I’ll scream to high heavens if you even think about dropping me!” threatened Timo kicking his dangling feet back and forth in the air.

—The kid’s got more guts than a slaughterhouse.

The girls couldn’t hold back their sobs.

“Cry baby, cry baby, cry baby.”

“Knock it off, bonehead!” But this time no tongue came out—just a scowl.

A chipmunk scampered along the branch of a pine tree oblivious to the happenings beneath him, and an army of agile grasshoppers chirped and persisted in zooming to and fro in the tender grass. A deer stepped gently out into the open and surveyed the area. I knew that if deer sensed any threat of danger they would stay hidden. So, why were their odiferous sensors not picking up the ugly scent of the Sasquatch?

Surely, the train was missed. By now it should have been back at the station, and a search team sent out. Did the parents have any idea what was going on? Certainly, they would have figured out something was wrong.

There was sound coming from the bushes. Movement. The children called Mr. Wicksford who had not yet torn his eyes away from the Sasquatch as if he was about to witness the barbaric hordes conquer the world.

“Blow the whistle, Mr. Wicksford... blow it,” pleaded one astute youngster.

But Mr. Wicksford did not take one step backward toward the train. Instead, he flung himself down on his knees, which sunk deep into the soft grass, and clasped his hands together in fervent prayer. He made promises he likely wouldn’t keep later but meant every word then and there. He prayed as a devout hypocrite of the Church of England that if only God would send someone to help—a Zoologist might be good—and yes, Lord, spare Timothy—he would confess, take communion, and sin no more. “And Lord, if you are still listening...I pledge to honour the tithe, after tax and expenses, of course. In the name of the Father, The Son and the Holy Ghost, Amen.”

Well, if you could believe it, out of the bushes stumbled a man wearing a World War I sheepskin-lined leather aviator’s cap, complete with goggles. He had the face of Manfred von Richthofen, but the leather jacket and burnt umber britches clamped tight just below his knees were undeniably British. He looked around somewhat mesmerized as if he had just walked onto the movie set of Harry and the Hendersons.

****

Mayhem broke out, and no one who was there could definitively say how Timothy was rescued. Suddenly, the huge beast had leapt into the air with fist pounding, spun around and screamed. Then, bingo, bango, bongo. Timothy was pulled out of the Sasquatch’s clutches. Everything was quiet. The three beastly creatures faded into the forest.

“Wha...wha...what j-just happened?” asked the little girl with red-stained cheeks and pink-bowed ringlets hanging over her shoulders.

The stranger looked softly at her. “No one thing to be worry. It make loud shout. I shout back. Is all.”

“You saved Timmy’s life!”

 “He had very close miss. He scrape it through living now. No big trouble.”

A gilded northern flicker laughed, ki ki ki ki, and began drumming on a tree.

Mr. Wicksford lay curled on the end flat car due to his weak stomach. The stranger lay behind the engine and pulled gently on the throttle. He lowered the chain and the whistle blew. The children hollered, Choo Choo, and in unison, drew their hands down twice in the air.

As the train pulled into the station, a crowd had gathered. Anxious parents had left the croquet lawn, dowagers had put their knitting down, and nannies rocked the prams of the younger siblings. All peered to see if their charges were safe on board. The media crew had, up until now, ritually covered the events of the 50th anniversary: the displays of antique cars, artefacts of a bygone era, homemade jams and crafts compliments of the Women’s Auxiliary—but when they discovered several huge footprints in the mud and put two and two together, cameras were focused and shutters rolled.

They were determined to interview someone with credibility who may have sighted the...well, unknown creature—anyone who was on that train was fair prey as far as they were concerned, and they converged on the young passengers.

“Surely you must be able to describe these...this being...er, thing? How tall was it? Did it walk upright, like we humans do?”

But the more they made their inquiries, the less they were able to convince anyone of the children or Mr. Wicksford to talk.

Their story was that they were delayed because the bough of an apple tree had fallen across the tracks, and that was the most they would say.

“But you must remember something!” they persisted.

Nothing. Nada. Nyet.

****

Legends of the Sasquatch have always been discredited by the naysayers.

Have you ever noticed, it’s always the proverbial country bumpkin with a long, red beard and suspenders holding up dungarees that spots the Sasquatch...not an Ivy League graduate in a sleek black Mercedes with a polished hood ornament, his grey-haired chauffeur in his grey uniform navigating the Crowsnest Pass. It’s never someone with sophisticated camera equipment at the ready. And, coincidentally, the images that do emerge are always opaque and blurry.

From a sunny room in his Buckholme residence, Mr. Wicksford stared out over the manicured gardens. Soon the movers would come, and he would be transferred to a nursing home in the village to live out his days. His family claimed he had gone completely crackers since that day at the steam meet. They particularly objected to his insistence that vast sums of his estate be transferred to the Church.

The parents were in a complete fog, stunned by the incomprehensible nature of the events, and conferred with each other after their children swore on their word to having seen the Sasquatch. With some quiet, modest pride, each felt they had budding advocates on their hands and, with each child unwaveringly sticking to their story, wagered which one would be the first to rat the other out. But that impertinent Timothy! According to them, with each passing day, his elaborate chicanery grew. Of him, the parents had less than flattering things to say.

“What cheek!”

“Overindulged!”

“He needn’t think for a second we believe him! If you ask me, a nice little interrogation will set the record straight once and for all!”

“He had the effrontery to say the Sasquatch shed a tear for him.”

At school, Timothy was made a hero among his classmates. During a recess game of dodgeball, running fast, he dared the other boys to catch him out, and, until the bell rang, they could not. Rumours and whispers circulated in the playground about his bravery. Timothy strut the halls of his school with new confidence, and all the children smiled and gave him a thumbs-up salute.

****

“Good evening,” the nightly news broadcast began its delivery, as it did every night with this salutation. The purple shirt and pink tie of the newsman already bothered my eyes. The headliner was the 50th anniversary of the Historical Society of Model Engineer’s celebration, but it did not focus on Aunt Martha’s jam or Percy McDonald’s engine, as one would expect.

“...and the bravery of all those children aboard the train...,” their audience heard bit by bit the telling of the reporter’s side of the story, which was abundantly skewed.

So, with good reason, I began to view their whole accounting as one, big, disgusting joke. The wankers reported full steam ahead, so to say, with a lengthy report, according to anonymous sources, the usual suspects, and were bloody less than forthright with the facts. The children had not said ten words about the incident. What could these reporters possibly know? To listen to the temerity and utter bollocks spouted by the anchorman, was nauseating. This is where I began to feel like one who had quaffed ale all night. That much was the gospel truth.

“Nevertheless, this day could not but arouse a feeling of wistfulness for the fate of the sasquatch, who are purported to live amongst us so near and are hunted like wild game for publicity and fame,” read the news anchor with sincerity while looking straight into everyone’s living room and ended with, “But only if you believe in the existence of these mythical creatures,” leaving the matter to be debated another time.

What about Mr. Wicksford’s watch? Had time really stopped? Were my visions all a bridge between reality and illusion—a tunnel between good and evil? Had I dreamt up this entire affair? Oh, my head hurt.

I watched a blue jay pull a worm out of the ground and retreat to the fence. Crows cawed from their safety in the firs. The two woof-woofs were going berserk with a squeaky toy that held a treat.

The television was the size of a billiard table. There wasn’t much you could change in the room to make it different. Everything revolved around the TV, and I was the best seat in the house, from my perspective. The news anchor’s voice calmed as he switched to air the recording of the incoming locomotive on the nightly feature. When the train came into view, I noticed the celebrated engineer of the Society’s founding was not operating the locomotive. I had a good close-up look at the Hollywood-handsome man in the Sopwith Camel flying toque operating the train and, I swear, he winked at me. Huh?

—Djinn?

About the Author

Ruth Langner

The author is retired and lives in a winter city in British Columbia, Canada. She has published two novels and six short stories of the adventures of Djinn and Ruby Red Chair have been published by The Write Launch. Ruth enjoys connecting her creative mind with everyday life experiences.