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I awake to a dawn chorus. Not birds, as I’m used to, but the drunks groaning as they sober up with coffee and stagger home. Hopefully, I can follow them.
Unlike my inebriated fellow patients, I’m subject to a balance test before I’m allowed to escape, involving standing on one leg in a gown and paper knickers, getting a draft right up my big bum. I repeat the imaginary friend lie, thankfully remembering the made up name and that she’s due home any moment.
“Do you want her to pick you up?” I’m asked.
“No. I’ll get a cab and she’ll be there when I get home.”
I’m wracking my brain as to how to make that call when the nurse hands me my mobile phone. I stare at a gadget I haven’t seen in more than a year as though it’s a grenade.
“Isn’t it yours?” asks the nurse. “It was in your pocket, along with these.”
She places my purse, no doubt complete with named credit card, on the bed and jingles a set of keys, both of which are indeed mine. I can tell from the sequined pink dragon dangling from it. Neither of these items would have been in the pockets of my leather coat as I blew through the portal.
“I’ll leave you to dress,” she says, dropping a large paper bag on the obligatory blue plastic chair and exiting, pulling the curtains shut behind her.
My heart rate speeds up as though my body senses what’s going to happen before a thought crosses my mind. The headache returns with a wave of stress. I tip the bag, emptying out my wool and leather ensemble.
Only it’s not.
In its place are my old threadbare boots, thermal leggings, a pair of jeans, two old jumpers my mother knitted and a purple anorak. A purple anorak. The same purple anorak I wore on the day I arrived on Curt’s mountain. The same anorak and clothes I disposed of when I gained my comfortable leathers.
I want to yell for the nurse and demand my real clothes, but I don’t. I don’t say a word because they’ll insist these are the clothes taken from my body last night.
And I know they’ll be right.
I glare at my purse, phone and keys, left on the vacated bed. I had them in my pocket when I went to the park, along with the DreamWay, a treasure map and my umbrella, yet none of them arrived in Curt’s realm. It’s only now I realise that fact. Why didn’t I notice their absence? I didn’t even try to make a call. It’s as though I always knew I wasn’t on Earth, right from the first step.
Or that it wasn’t real.
But if I accept the doubt, it stops being real and I’ve lost them all. Why do some of my friends appear to be here? Was it a dream? Is it a dream now? Am I in another realm? A nightmare realm.
I dress quickly, damming the cascade of thoughts as I heave on the leggings and jeans. I need to get out of here before they suspect I’ve gone mad. I thrust the keys and purse back into my anorak’s pocket and grab my phone. The battery is at 85%. I can’t have been away over a year. I press an app and search for a cab to take me home. It’s the day after Christmas and although available in ten minutes, the cost is astronomical. What choice do I have? It’s miles to my home and my true home’s a universe away.
The anorak stares up at me in all its hideous purpleness, daring me to wear it. I can’t bear to touch it. Something warns me that donning the icon of Earth’s misery will dissolve my hold on the story and belief in another realm. Yet I must leave.
Grabbing the coat, I slip past the curtains and rush through the Accident and Emergency Department, catching the doctor as he approaches the glass double doors. They slide open, revealing a covered forecourt and torrential rain pouring down on the half empty car park.
“Best put your coat on,” he says, putting up a green striped umbrella and striding out into the downpour.
I edge into the dry forecourt, keeping away from the ambulance route. The wind blows rain across the tarmac and the cold ache of a British winter creeps into my bones. I need the warmth of my anorak, yet it remains slung over my arm like an unwanted nylon nightie from my gran.
I shiver as I peer at my phone, tracking the cab on its twenty minute route, not ten. When it finally draws up, just outside the covered area, the driver rolls down the window and shouts through a two inch gap, “Cab?”
“Yes. Please,” I reply.
“Any luggage?”
“No. Just me.” I dash across the tarmac and fling myself into the back seat before I get completely soaked.
“Been ill?” the driver asks.
“Bump on the head,” I reply, pointing at a lump soon to turn the colour of my anorak. “I’m fine.”
“That’s good,” he says, unleashing a wide grin. With his thick shock of white hair, fluffy beard and red cheeks I expect him to start every sentence with ‘Ho, ho, ho.’ He presses a button on his dashboard and the cab floods with The Little Drummer Boy, sung by frogs on nitro, made all the worse by Santa’s joining in with every pa rum pum pum pum. I don’t believe in purgatory, but you could make your case. By the time we arrive at my neighbourhood, he’s run through a repertoire of musical disasters, worthy of being sued for cruel and unusual punishment.
We turn into my street, slowing to negotiate the speed bumps. The rain still pours down in torrents as though in harmony with my mood. As we roll past houses decorated with flashing fairy lights and blow up Rudolphs, I peer through the windows at children excitedly playing with new toys. Beneath a giant Christmas tree, a grandmother cuddles a little girl, holding a huge honey coloured teddy bear. I would swear them to be Yelena and Sospa, but the rain blurs their faces.
The block of flats looms out of the dreary morning, announcing my return to a life I never wanted.
“This your home?” warbles the cab driver.
“Yes. Thank you.”
I still can’t bring myself to properly don the anorak, so I wrap it around my shoulders and up over my head as I open the door.
“You know,” says the driver, “you’d look much younger if you smiled.”
“You’d look better in a body bag,” I reply, stepping straight into an ankle deep puddle as I slam the car door.
Alright, I know that’s inappropriate, especially since I’ve just come from a hospital. I’m barely back on Earth and I’m slipping back into misery and rudeness. The driver guns the engine and roars off, exacting revenge by showering me with puddle water.
“Merry Christmas,” an elderly gent says as he walks by, arm in arm with his paramour, beneath a rose covered umbrella. I stare at their backs from under the anorak as they pass by.
“Merry Christmas,” I call out. They remind me of Luva and Wings.
Alone in the rain, I peer up at the security door as though it belongs to a prison. I don’t want to go in, but I can’t stand here, catching pneumonia. My wolf would be angry with me. I climb the steps and the key turns in the lock with a terminal click.
