Glimpse

He looked... sort of like a returned soldier, from the days of my grandparents. But he couldn't be. I saw him, he was right there, right in front of me... but then I blinked, and he was gone.


I hadn't noticed the man sitting in the corner of the train carriage up until now, but he must have been there all along. He sat, very still but for the slight rise and fall of his chest as he breathed. He was looking out the window, he seemed rather focused on it, like he wanted to join the birds in the sky. Then I jumped a little as his deep brown eyes met mine. For a moment, only a moment, and then he looked away again. I blinked and the curious man was gone.


I got off the train late that afternoon and I spotted my grandparents waiting for me on the platform. Their faces lit up at the sight of me and I ran for them, feeling completely content as they wrapped their arms around me and pulled me close.
"Hello Love," said my Granddad as he took my suitcase and we walked from the platform, "how was your trip?"
"Good, long.." I said, and suddenly remembered the curious, disappearing man. "Only, there was this man. He looked like he was from another era. He was dressed in the uniforms you see in the history books, from World War Two. But then I blinked, and he was gone. Like he'd never been there at all."
"Hmm..." Said Granddad, glancing briefly at me. Those eyes.... They looked... familiar.. like I'd seen them somewhere before.
"Do you think I was seeing things?" I asked.
"Maybe you were daydreaming Dear." Grandma said, a small smile on her face.


My bedroom door had been left open and as the soft glow of the lights outside the room fell in, so did Grandma and Granddad's voices.
"What Maria said," Granddad was saying... "I think... I think that's what I was telling you about all those years ago."
"The magic story?" Asked Grandma, and I could almost see her eyes lighting up with excitement.
"I think you were there, Love," said Granddad, "when time snatched me away, for an instant. I found myself on the train and there was that strange, lovely, curious young girl there, looking back at me before I got returned to you."
"I'm glad you did come back to me," said Grandma.
"So am I," Granddad agreed, "But, what I didn't realize back then, I'd gotten a glimpse."
"A glimpse?" Asked Grandma, "glimpse of what?"
"Glimpse of the future. Our future. The girl I'd seen, that was Maria. She saw me, when I was still young, for a moment, and she looked exactly as she did when she came to us today. I saw our granddaughter before we knew she existed."

Lost

As the school bell rang, Zoe breathed a sigh of relief. She was finally free. She didn't have to be here anymore. She could escape. She could go home, and to her own little world.


The moment she was seated on the bus, Zoe slipped her earphones into her ears and pressed 'play' on her iPod. She closed her eyes, tuning out the rest of the world and concentrating solely on the music. It was sheer luck she noticed the bus stop and robotically got off, walking home the same way she always did, the iPod still playing away.


When she arrived home, Zoe headed straight for her room, falling flat on her bed. She placed the iPod on the bed beside her, continuing to let it play and closing her eyes once again, placing all her focus on the music travelling through the speakers and directly into her ears.


Soon the blackness she'd seen on initially closing her eyes faded and she found herself in a jungle somewhere. She had no idea where she was, but she didn't care. It was sort of peaceful, being lost and surrounded by the intense, bright deep green of the trees and the bushes. Feeling good, and serene, Zoe began to wander around, but as she walked along, everything looked exactly the same. So, figuring she had nowhere else to be, nothing better to do, she just kept walking. Eventually, she saw a strange light far off in the distance and as curiosity took over, she followed it, wondering where on Earth it might lead.


In her home, Zoe was surrounded by commotion. The blare of the TV as her father watched the news, the clatter as her Mother bustled around the kitchen and the constant yelling back and forth as her parents yelled to one another, both trying to be heard over the already too loud TV. But Zoe, sitting motionless upstairs on her bed, iPod playing away into her ears was completely oblivious to it all.


Both here and in her daydream, she was lost, and for her, being lost was the best thing in the world. It was a serene sanctuary, an escape, a place she could go that would be new every single time dependent on what was playing and somewhere she could be her. Be her and be alone.

Have you ever been so lost?

Chum's Magic Fix

Sniffing hungrily at the bottle, Chum managed to maneuver it into his mouth and began to glug the liquid down. As the liquid touched his tongue, it sparkled briefly, disappearing as the liquid did. Satisfied, he padded off to find something to do.


Jessie, one of the children of the family Chum belonged to welcomed him eagerly. He clapped his hands as Chum came over, reaching up to wrap his small, chubby arms around his neck and snuggle his face in the dog's side.
"Puppy." He said happily letting him go. "My puppy."
Chum gently licked the young boy's hand before wandering away up the stairs.


He found the family's middle child reading on her bed and jumped up beside her, resting his head on her stomach.
Angie felt something and looked down to see her dog lying beside her. His eyes met hers and she smiled.
"Chum," she said in greeting as she patted his head. "Good boy." Quickly, Angie returned to her book and Chum closed his eyes, soon falling asleep.


A while later, Chum found look, the family's oldest starting to get frustrated outside. Chum sat at his feet, whimpering to let Luke know he was there.
"Hey Boy." Luke said, sitting on the backyard steps. Chum followed him, sitting beside him. He met his eyes, looking at the boy with a sort of helpless sympathy.
"I wish you could help me, Chum. My stupid hand never does what I want it to."
Luke began to pat his favourite friend and Chum began to lick his other, bad, hand. When Luke looked back at his hand, the bend in it was gone and it looked exactly the same as his other hand. "Oh Chum! You're the best dog ever!" Luke declared as he ruffled the dog's fur before getting up and racing inside.


"Mum! Look." Luke said, lifting his hand in the air. "I'm all better."
"So you are." His mother said, staring at her son's hand in astonishment. "But The doctors said.. How?"
"Chum fixed me up."
"Something's going on, because you remember that cut Jessie had on his hand?"
"Yeah. What about it?"
"It's gone now."
"Huh."
"And my tummy doesn't hurt anymore." Angie said happily, climbing the last step. "I reckon it was Chum, cause he put his head there, only really lightly and I think he licked it too, must've been when I fell asleep cause he was gone when I woke up and I was sort of a little bit wet."
"I don't know." Said their mother, carrying Jessie away.
"Chum's magic." Angie and Luke said, looking at each other.

I'll Be With You

"You can't go..."
"I have to. I don't have a choice." Her face was full of sympathy at the sadness in the young girl's eyes and she gritted her teeth as she struggled to keep a brave face. "I wish I could stay. Really, I do."
"I don't want you to go. Please don't leave me."
"I don't want to either, but I'll be going somewhere where I won't be in as much pain as I am now, and I'll still be with you." She said gently, resting a gentle hand on the girl's knee as she reached forward to wipe the tears from her face.
"How?" The girl asked. "No you won't be. You'll be gone."

"Shh." Somehow the woman managed to maintain calm. Maybe it was the fact that her little sister stood there, right in front of her, upset enough as it was.
Blinking back her own tears, she pulled her little sister closer, wrapping her arms tight around her and her chin resting atop the young girl's head. After a while, she pulled away, looking directly into the little girl's eyes.
"Hey, I want you to promise me something ok?"
"What?" The little girl asked, slowly, timidly meeting her sister's gaze.
"You'll still write."
"Maybe." The girl said quietly. "But, why do you want me to write still?"
"Because then I'll be with you." Finally, the woman smiled. For the first time in a long time that she could remember.. "I'll still be with you when you write."
"You will? How?"


"How do you write?"
"I don't know. You get a pen and paper, or you go to the computer."
"No, I mean, how do you write? Where do you start?"
The little girl tapped the side of her heard lightly. "Up here."
Her sister nodded. "That's it. It starts with your imagination, and that's where I'll be. You could write about me. Then I'll still be with you." "Sort of." She added under her breath so her little sister wouldn't hear. "But it's the closest we'll get."

Dreaming Winds

The young boy, no older than eight, lay on the table. He would have been motionless but for the severe tremouring caused by his extreme case of nerves. Those around him tried to settle him, but it wasn't any use. All of a sudden, the boy calmed and he began to sink back into the soft, plastic table, not as comfortable as a bed, but at least sufficient. It was like a wind of change had blown over him as his eyelids closed and he became seemingly dead to the world.

The girl was jerking and thrashing about uncontrollably. The people wanted to help, but it was no use. The girl's eyes had been closed as she moved about, and she'd seen nothing but blackness. Up until now. Now, there was a hand, reaching out to her. Cautiously, she moved her own hand towards the one outstretched to her and when her hand was close enough, the strange hand took her hand in it's and begin to drag her up and out.

Meanwhile, those that surrounded her had frozen in complete disbelief. She'd just.... stopped. That couldn't happen. Could it? Seizures didn't just stop. Well, they did, but they often, with her anyway, became lesser and lesser before the abrupt halting of a conclusion. With them again, the girl sat up as if nothing had happened, blinking numerous times in quick succession as if nothing had happened.

He shook his head. He'd heard it too many times. He peered through the crack left by the slightly ajar door to see the small toddler. Inside, just as he'd suspected, the little girl's face was an alarming shade of red and her cheeks were wet with the frightened tears she'd been crying. 'I can fix that,' he thought as sympathy flooded his face.

The little girl relaxed and the tears dried up as the gust of fresh air flew past her face. Her eyelids fluttered closed as she fell back into the lush, leather chair. The noises of the various instruments started up, which normally would have bothered her. But, this time, she was completely oblivious, lost someplace else.

When it was time, all over, the hand appeared to her and curious and ever trusting, she took it, giving whoever's face belonged to the hand one of her warmest, best smiles. Just as her eyes had fluttered shut, the fluttered open again and she looked around the room.
"Have they done anything yet?"
"It's all over." Answered her mother, gently squeezing her brave daughter's hand.

The little girl couldn't stop chattering away as her mother led her back to the car by hand.
"I went up in the clouds, and there was a pretty bunny, and I went flying!"
"Really?" Her mother asked, amused as she turned to look at the small girl. "How did you do that."
"There was these really big ribbons and the fell from the sky and then I was holding onto both of them, real tight and I was in the middle of them and I flew!"
"You flew." The little girl's mother repeated disbelievingly. "That's nice." She shook her head vigorously. This was a small child. Children had big, wild imaginations. And, on top of all that, she had been asleep the whole time she'd been in the chair. The mother breathed a sigh of relief. Her daughter had dreamt the whole thing.

If they knew he existed, people would call him a saint, the Creature mused as he wandered the now near empty halls of the paediatric hospital, others would call him a Mystery Magic Man. But he would have shrugged it away. He wasn't doing it to be praised, after all. He was doing it because it was what he was good at, and he could, and he liked to do it. To see the peace and serenity wash over the children as he breathed a wave of calm over them. The smiles that formed on their lips as they watched the dreams he'd given them play out. The sparkle of wonder in their eyes as they wandered away, complete in awe, unable to stop talking. Telling their parents everything they'd just seen.

Giving them happy dreams and taking them far away in their minds. Reawakening their imaginations and helping them to believe once again.