Lancastrian-2015-WEB

WINNERS OF SHORT STORY COMPETITIONS /continued...
An End of All Things
“They been lyin’ to you, man.”
The dark woodland rose up around
him, casting shadows of his frame far
into the fields behind the camera’s
field of vision. His soft, bayou accented
voice floated through the trees, as
though sung to a country music tune,
but somehow maintaining an air of
authority, an air of control. A slight
breeze rustled the leaves high in the
trees above them, and his unkempt
beard swayed slightly along with them,
in time with the rocking of his chair, as
though he were a part of the woods
surrounding him. His eyes, unblinking
and in shade under the low brim of
his old, grey fedora, were a pale blue,
easily mistaken for white, and stared
straight down the lens of the camera,
and his face was at once both calm
and enraged, both reasonable and
uncontrollable, both animal and man.
“They been lyin’ to you since the day
you were born.”
He grinned. A look of pure ecstasy and
unbridled joy on his face, as though
euphoric at the honesty of his own
assertion, like a man lifting a weight off
his chest.
“Manipulated and lied to, you’re
addicted. Addicted to the notion, the
lie, of heroes. There ain’t no such thing
as a hero!”
He stood, his rocking chair swaying as
he did so, and threw his arms out like
a buzzard, in time with his raising his
voice.
“You think you need someone, to tuck
you in at night, kiss you on the cheek
and tell you everythin’…” He chuckled,
and then laughed openly, throwing
back his head, his shoulders quaking
beneath his open Hawaiian shirt, under
which he wore a black t-shirt with
a rock band’s logo on it, faded and
cracked with time and use.
“Everythin’ is alright.”
‘Alright’ made him laugh again, louder
this time, like a child delighted with his
own joke. He laughed for a long time,
then stopped. He returned his view
to the lens, his face deadly serious, all
signs of the joy he displayed seconds
before had vanished, like the setting
sun below the horizon behind him.
Anger filled his eyes, and his face
started to shake, tremble with barely
controlled rage.
“But everythin’ is not alright! They
been brain washin’ you, controlling
you, makin’ riddles and lies and mazes
inside your minds, to keep you down.
Because they are afraid. They are
afraid of what you feel, what you think!
They are scared out of their minds by
the idea that you might wake up, that
you might find yourselves a leader, a
guide, to free you from the prisons of
your own minds.”
He stopped, then smiled.
“A leader like me.”
He then leaned in close to the camera,
and dropped his voice to a gentle
whisper, a hint of a growl in his
otherwise soft voice.
“So they passed this fear on, they
made you fear what they fear, they
made you fear your own power, your
own knowledge, your own potential,
so you wouldn’t use it. They turned
their back on you, man.”
Another chuckle.
“I will never turn my back on you. They
say they are the shepherds, and you
their sheep, and they tell you that I am
the wolf. They got it backwards, man, I
am your shepherd, I am your salvation,
and they are the ones who would do
you harm, they are the hunters, they are
the wolves. I am telling you the truth
they do not want you to know, that the
sheep outnumber the wolves, man, the
sheep outnumber the wolves.”
His smile, wide and manic, hung on
his bearded face in a picture of pure
euphoria as he spoke, his arms now
tucked in close to his chest, his dirt
smattered fingers ran through his
beard below his chin, as he spoke
intimately to the camera.
“They spread their filth, their lies about
me, man. Through their TVs and their
Facebooks and their Twitters, they
say well Bray Wyatt, he’s a liar! He’s a
hoax!” Chuckling again. “Oh no I’m not.
No I’m not, you better believe I’m not.
And then they say well Bray Wyatt,
he’s just brainwashin’ folks. Well they
got me on that one. I am brainwashin’
you all right now.”
A smirk crept onto his face, and
another chuckle slipped past his lips.
“I am washin’ your brains of all the lies
and the shit that has been drilled into
your heads since you took your first
steps!”
He threw his head back in laugher
once more, clutching at his chest as
his wicked cackle rang out through
the dark trees. His countenance
appeared rosier and warmer now, lit
by just a single gas lamp on the small
wooden table beside his rocking chair,
both nestled among the bracken
on the forest floor. In his laughter
Wyatt walked back towards his chair,
staggering as he laughed, as though in
the midst of a fit of madness. He slowly
composed himself, facing away from
the camera, and stood up straight, the
echoes of the laughter dying away
through the trees in the distance. He
stood, as though watching them go.
He bent slightly, and plucked the gas
lantern from the table, and held it at
shoulder height, then turned his head
slightly, so his back and the profile of
his face were visible to the camera.
“The time has come, man.”
He looked into the lamp, the single
lick of flame a dancing reflection in
his eye. He then began to walk away
through the trees, the flame shrinking
with distance from the camera’s view.
Wyatt, still walking, turned over his
shoulder and shouted back.
“This ain’t a beginning. It’s an end.”
He turned his head once more and
with a single breath, blew out the light.
The dark wood was still.
Edward Lees, U6AMT
32