The Sam Supremacy

The Sam Supremacy

By James Gray

The wind took its cue from the fading light and began to blow ripples across the hillside until the surface resembled a gently swelling sea of green. Sam cocked his head to one side, trying to decipher the whispers, but they told him nothing he didn’t already know. He was surprised to find that the trail was long gone, but he was still able to follow the route, guided by instinct and echoes of the past. He trudged on towards the top of the hill, pausing occasionally to catch his breath whenever the wind gathered sufficient pace to stop him in his tracks. He raised an eye to the darkening clouds and briefly tried to interpret their shapes, too, but a squadron of yellow-brown leaves quickly scrambled and began to swarm around his head. He closed his eyes and waited patiently in darkness. As if in response to the siren which rose from the valley beyond, the wind receded to a gentle whisper and the leaves began to scatter and retreat, enabling Sam to make out the sound of the distant machinery grinding to a halt on the other side of the hill. Sam stood for a moment, head tilted skyward to catch any sounds and smells riding the currents and feeling the butterfly kisses of the breeze on his face. By the time he reached the top, the valley below was deserted, save for the machines which dotted the pockmarked landscape like crestfallen dinosaurs.

The summit was crowned by a makeshift chain-link fence which rattled as the breeze rose and fell, and there was just enough room for Sam to poke his nose through one of the diamonds. He stood for a while, staring through the half-light at the lifeless moonscape below, and gradually the machines gave way to willows, piles of rubble to creeping shrubs and the disfigured terrain to meadow-grass and wildflowers, an explosion of reds, blues and yellows. Sam could feel the warmth of the sun on his back; he was deer-hopping through the long grass, chasing sticks and orange rubber rings or anything that Jamie threw for him. He was wrestling Jamie to the ground, pinning him down and licking his face until he could no longer breathe for laughing. He was bounding towards the tree which beckoned him to the edge of the prairie, where he could run down the slope and dive into the beck and swim and drink until it was time to go home.

Home. Sam had always suffered from mild anxiety whenever Jamie left the house, but the anticipation of reunion had invariably outweighed any fear of abandonment, so he would crawl onto the sofa in the den, curl up on the tartan travelling rug and wait. It was a routine interrupted only by the occasional need to defend his domain. Sam was well versed in all the sounds from outside and would respond appropriately; the postman deserved everything he got, of course, but he could let the neighbours or the meals-on-wheels van slide. He could always sense Jamie’s return and would be at the front door by the time the key turned in the latch.

With time, though, Sam had come to associate the bags in the hallway with Jamie’s regular disappearances, and after a couple of summers the trips to the meadow were gradually forgotten, and the evenings spent nestled against his master ceased altogether. Jamie had somehow become a distant memory, and the folks who now fed him and dragged him into the back yard with a few harsh words and the occasional boot of encouragement were as infirm as he was. Finally, the door closed on him permanently, and Sam’s already fragile grasp on the world slipped away as quickly and irrevocably as the last remnants of a dream.

The wind gathered momentum again, drumming and whistling as if calling for Sam’s surrender. Sam felt his legs buckle and slumped into the grass by the chain-link fence. Placing his chin between his paws, he sighed deeply and closed his eyes to the fading image of his head resting in Jamie’s lap.

Copyright © 2010 James Gray

All Rights Reserved

 

Sauce

Sauce Based on a true story

By James Gray

Timmy’s dream was broken by a hissing noise and he awoke with an urgency, trying to remember if he’d switched off the TV set before coming to bed. His eyes were stinging and yet he suddenly felt wide awake as he stared upward. A full Technicolor image of his father appeared to be projected onto the ceiling, though the silhouettes of the hotel room’s fixtures and fittings still hung in the dark around him. Timmy, bound by the crisp white sheets as tightly as an asylum patient lined up for electric shock treatment, heard his father’s voice echoing through the room like the Ghost of Christmas Past: “Straight to bed after Jim’ll Fix It!” With his father attending the conference dinner, Timmy had, of course, stayed up for The Two Ronnies as well, perched at the foot of the bed and poised like an Olympic sprinter in the blocks, ready to push the ‘off’ button and slip under the carefully arranged covers the second the door knob turned. There had been one or two false starts and Timmy had been forced to battle the televisual elements several times by fiddling with the TV aerial. Now it seemed the Phantom Raspberry Blower was back to haunt him.

The image of his father faded. Timmy raised his head from the pillow and saw that the telltale red light on the TV was off, causing him to breathe a sigh of relief. He broke a victorious smile, and felt his skin tighten in a way which unsettled him. Alien, and yet somehow familiar, like the sunburn he had got last summer, or the time his form teacher had slapped his face so hard for fighting that he had gone round all afternoon looking like his grandmother that time she had Bell’s palsy. He moved his eyes from left to right as they became accustomed to the dark, before self-consciously opening and closing his mouth like a fish. His face tightened again, as if someone had crept into the room while he slept and covered his face in strips of Sellotape (as he had done to the dog one time; perhaps this was his comeuppance). He ventured a hand towards his face and gave his cheek a quick prod with his index finger. Still none the wiser, he touched his face again, this time with two fingers. Realising this warranted further, more extensive investigation, he entered into a tug-of-war with the bed sheets and tore himself free.

Waddling in the direction of the bathroom door, Timmy felt lightheaded and banged his foot on his father’s old Navy-issue suitcase. There were two large light switches and Timmy slapped the bottom one. The sudden lighting that flooded the room was as blinding as the daylight after an afternoon matinee at the ABC Regal. Timmy squinted, and when his vision returned his eyes fell on the TV aerial lying on the floor like a dead spider. Facing the bathroom door he reached out to hit the top switch, noticing a red streak like Indian war paint on the other one. Timmy scrunched up his face, feeling his skin tighten again, as this time he pushed the bathroom light switch. When he drew his hand away, the switch revealed the giveaway finger print of a criminal, as if the room were gathering evidence against him. Timmy looked at his right hand, turning it palm up, and gasped. He did the same with his left hand, his mind working overtime to explain the sticky Martian canals that sprawled like tentacles across his palms.

Timmy turned towards the bed, palms held aloft. The indentation in his pillow was flanked by dark red stains and looked like the kind of mirror-image painting he had done in primary school; this one a rather impressive Red Admiral. The once white sheets also looked like a three year old’s efforts at handprint painting. Timmy rushed into the bathroom and looked in the mirror, struggling to explain the tomato ketchup smeared across his entire face. His father didn’t even let him eat tomato ketchup. Or burgers. Or chips. Oh, God.

Timmy’s need for an explanation outweighed the fear of inevitable punishment and he rushed for the door of the hotel room, sticky fingers meeting polished brass. He tugged it open and spilled out into the corridor, palms still held heavenward. A few doors down he saw a lady in a long, royal blue gown leaving her room, snapping her evening bag shut and heading towards the stairs.

“Please?,” Timmy squeaked, and the lady turned on her high heels.

“Oh, dear God!” she said, dropping her bag and raising a gloved hand to her mouth.

Timmy stood in the corridor like a boy Jesus offering up his stigmata for the lady to behold. She picked up her evening bag and approached him. “Look at the state of you. Where are your parents? At the dinner?”

Timmy nodded.

“Let’s get you cleaned up and I’ll go and fetch your father. Looks like you’ve had a nasty nose bleed, young man.”

“A bloody nose?” said Timmy. His eyes widened. Images of the great wrestlers he had watched countless times with his grandmother on Saturday afternoon’s World of Sport flashed through his mind – Giant Haystacks, Big Daddy, Kendo Nagasaki, or his personal favourite Mick McManus (a nasty piece of work, according to his grandmother).

The lady in the blue gown cleaned him up and went down to the dining room to find Timmy’s father. As he sat on the edge of the bed and stared with pride at the bloodied sheets, he no longer feared any punishment. He had gone to sleep a boy and woken up a man.

Copyright © 2010 James Gray

All Rights Reserved