Charles was just about to start the engine of his car at approximately 7.00am. He had woken with a headache, one of those mornings when nothing felt right, mind and body grating against each other like a couple on the point of divorce. He had looked in the mirror, inspected his tongue for germs on the march and shaved half-heartedly with a dry blade. The radio had not helped - it was full of traffic reports and it seemed that every possible route to his destination was blocked with something or other.

The only tea-bag he appeared to possess broke under the scalding water; he had a sudden crazy idea that the tea leaves were creepy-crawlies and he ended up chucking it over the cat.

At precisely 7.01 am. he turned the ignition of his car and it took life almost instantaneously, on cue for once. He eased the gear-lever into first, a bit like stirring jelly, but this jalopy had never let him down ... so far. He gently toed the gas and wheeled it out into the stream of the rush-hour traffic.

He had had a dream the previous night of moving parts; hinged metal and flesh with rivets, bolts, bones, extended lengths of tooth...

That was all he could remember.

He hummed along with the back-to-back jingles on the car radio; he felt so peculiar, he found it hard to believe that everybody else could be acting normally. In fact, several cars ahead were weaving from side to side, like a display of drunken driving for the benefit of those who did not know how to do it.

Charles often had dreams, but none so vivid as the androlds who often invited themselves into the scenarios. He wanted nothing to do with them, much like family relatives you inherited because of some thin blood call, expecting care and attention off you, as if they were automatically assumed to be people with whom you wished to be friends! They were obviously part and parcel of the controlled invasions of one’s sleep...

Traffic was at a standstill in Goat Street, as the radio had warned. He fumed. His car spluttered and died.

As near to 7.34 am as makes no difference, his head within the open bonnet, he fell asleep, chin resting on the cooling radiator, nose upon the battery and brow on the oil cap. His sleep the night before had been little better than fitful, what with the dreams and all that, and possibly he wasn’t a well man, anyway.

The dipstick rose ever so slowly from its oil sump and, in so doing, its coiled fingergrip gradually straightened out into a sharpening spike, which slid cleanly through the eggwhite of Charles’ eyeball. as if homing in for the brain socket.

On awaking with a start, he was unsure whether it was all a dream or reality, for it did not hurt as much as he would have expected, even if reality was commingling with dream. It was bad enough, though, like a multi-headed abscess at the back of the eye. He couldn’t get his mind straight, either, for the brain itself had instinctively wrapped round the steel knitting-needle upon first contact, thus short-circuiting all the thought-patterns.

He looked up and saw with his other eye that all the other vehicles were still stationary, bonnets up. And walking upon all the nearby house roofs were many TV aerials, trying to find ways down.

All this did not have the ‘feel’ of a dream. But he would never be sure, for he no longer knew his own mind. He could murder a nice cup of tea…


Published ‘Skeleton Crew’ 1988