A TIME AFTER MIDNIGHT 

By Richard Banks                     

                      

        I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year, “hi”. A friendly sort of hi to someone I’m hoping will put me right and answer the questions I’m going to ask: ‘where the hell am I?’ and ‘how do I get home?’ is not the best way to start a conversation. Mind you this wouldn’t be the first time I’d woken-up after a New Year’s party not knowing where I was, but usually it soon makes sense. If I’m lucky I’ll be on someone’s sofa, if not, on a park bench or somehow balanced on the narrow bum rest of a bus shelter; once it was in the middle of a road propped-up against a pedestrian refuge. So, where am I this time? 

        It’s pitch black or would be if it wasn’t for the lantern the man’s holding. He’s stood by a gate in a wall. As gates go this one’s big enough for a giraffe to walk through except that right now nothing’s getting in or out because it’s shut. As for the wall I can’t see the top of it, or the sides come to that. Is he a bouncer? He don’t look like one, but one thing I’m sure of is that he has the key to that door, it’s on a ring hanging from his belt. His job is to let me in or see me off.

        Another friendly “hi”. This time I’m only a few yards off. Time for him to have responded to my first hi but two hi’s in he’s still got nothing to say. I come to a halt in front of him. If he’s pleased to see me he’s sure not showing it but neither is he unfriendly, as best I can tell. As dead pan expressions go his is the best I’ve ever seen. Perhaps he’s bored, no job satisfaction. He’s a man who’s seen it all before. Show me something new he might be thinking, something I haven’t seen before. If he is, he’s not seeing it in me. So, what happens now?

        At last he’s ready to say something. He’s got questions to ask, but he don’t, those lips of his aren’t made for talking. He peers into my eyes and without asking extracts the information he needs – name, age, where found. He observes my bewilderment turning to fear, but this, he knows, is no time for long explanations and pointless discussion, they serve no purpose, he is the gatekeeper who opens the door to those he knows are coming.

        But maybe, just maybe he doesn’t exist. Maybe this is nothing more than a bad dream. Yes, that’s it, I’m having a mare and if I try real hard I will come-to probably with the mother and father of hangovers. Better that than this. Wake-up, wake up I tell myself, but I don’t. The man shakes his head. There is a weariness about him, he’s seen it all before. He takes the key from his belt and with no inclination to hurry turns towards the door; he has all the time in the world, but what sort of a world is this? I need to know. I’m not going through it until I know exactly what’s on the other side.

        Nothing’s said, but he hears my thoughts. He shrugs his shoulders and turns back towards me. His thoughts now to me: what other choice do you have? You can’t stay here.

        That’s fine, I don’t want to stay here, I want to be back in Romford where I belong. I’m only going through that door if it’s the way back, but it ain’t is it? I knows that and you do too, so unless this is one big upgrade on Romford I’m turning around and walking back in the direction I came.

        Walking? He seems almost amused. On feet? He thrusts out the lantern so that it lights-up the ground on which I’m standing to reveal neither ground or feet. He should not, he thinks, be having to explain all this, but he does. It’s new rules now, and you don’t make them. Listen to me when I tell you this is the way. Doors there are many in this wall but only one is for you and this is it. Either pass through it or stay here forever in this place darker than the grave, for that it will be after I leave.

        He’s had enough of explaining, has said more than he intended, more than he should. Does he know what’s beyond the door? If he does he’s hiding it well, but when he tells me this is the way I can no longer disagree. He mimes the turning of the key and I attempt to nod the head I no longer have. He understands my intention and turns back towards the door. And, as I ready myself to enter, I remember where I was before I got here, in front of another door, the entrance to a tube station that’s been shuttered off preventing me from getting in; me drunk as usual seeking shelter from the snow laden onslaught of a winter storm.

        What happens now I have no idea, but it’s the future, the only one I have.  

 

Copyright Richard Banks