The Ghost in the Gale

The sun is warm. It feels like my only friend. Only a man with a desperate tale lies face down on the highway with no alcohol in his veins.
Who am I?
I cough, a dry unforgiving rasp, ejected from lungs abraded by years of nicotine and warm sticky smoke. But I do not smoke.
Do I?
My eyes open. What meets my vision is a mess. Buildings. Lots of them. They seem new in style but old and dirty to look at. They tower over me. Walls of saffron-coloured stone and an abundance of glass. The aberrant structures obscure a clear sky.
My name is Sophocles.
Yes.
That sounds right.
I have no memory of last night or yonder. But I am Sophocles. Sophos to my friends. I am struck by a feeling I have very few of those. I am old although this body seems untroubled by advancing time, just an offended head that aches and echoes my disquiet. A whisper deep inside my head nags me to move. I think about this. I know I am not stupid already. If my head requires movement it had better proffer a fine reason, a reason I wish to hear. Moving is a big ask. It begs questions, the most important of which is where might I go? A man who walks without purpose might as well be a leaf tossed playfully by the breeze. I require a destination. I am not a leaf. My mind fills with the image of a simple tree, skeletal and stark, no leaves, as unremarkable a tree as one can imagine, yet I am unable to shift it from mind. Why of all concerns should this one attend me now? A grumble stirs this stomach. These lips are as dry as the surface my head rests upon and a sharp pain shivs through this purloined skull. Something unseen scurries and leaves me be.
Whatever be may be for me?
A bird. It flutters by and I watch it for a moment. Finally something of nature. I wish to close these eyes and go back to sleep but wishes are for fools and felons. It is an effort to stand and for a minute I am groggy but it passes quickly to a weary daze. I wear a suit and a fine pair of shoes, black loafers polished to a bright gleam. The coat is soft wool and feels expensive. I have no idea how I have come in to such fine threads. Stiff fingers pat down deep pockets and I get the sense I have done this many times before. A lump fills my breast pocket. On investigation I find a wallet. Inside is a lot of oof. I want to count in drachma. There is nothing else to indicate personage. Smooth fingers flick through the currency. I see the Queen. I know who she is. I am in England.
I think.
I possess no keys. It does not feel like I should be carrying any either. A wife, a κατοικία, they do not seem absent. A relentless throbbing bounces through this head, a pain that might be allayed by food and drink. In another pocket I discover a pen and a small notepad with a simple plain cover. Like my memories the pages are empty. I put it away and lumber down the alley, the lure of sweet coffee my immediate incentive.

The road is worn with many potholes and much rubbish has missed the many waste receptacles. The rear doors have signs I can read. Private. Keep Out. Premises Patrolled by Guards. I must be vigilant, strangers are unwelcome and I might be the stranger they do not wish to welcome. I walk as an outlander, an outcast even to myself, but people show little interest in me and I am reassured by their nonchalance.
For now at least I appear safe.
I reach a boulevard, a precinct, and my hungry vision sights a large yellow M. The sign seems vaguely familiar. The other shop fronts confuse me, the names unfamiliar. Crowds casually browse them and seem content. They do not have coats and bare much arm, leg and chest, but they are people all the same.
Like me.
I am a person.
I know not yet whether I am personable but I am Sophocles with a very sore head. I tidy my hair for much road grit has collected there. The strands are long and smooth like the fair locks of a freshly bathed woman. It is not my hair. My hair has never felt like this before.
I think.
Inside the restaurant people continue to be oblivious of me, a dozen of them I count automatically, mostly men. Their clothes are casual, decorative vests, denim, soft shoes. I am the only one in a suit or wearing anything like business attire. I have no idea why I am wearing a suit. I do not feel like a man of commerce or industry. A strange observation occurs to me. These strangers all have electronics with them, equipment I have never seen before, screens glowing brightly with text and pictures. I must be in the future.
‘Good morning.’ A fair woman smiles my way, maybe she is twenty. Large breasts swell the thin fabric of her blouse. Her pretty blue eyes regard me from behind a tidy blonde fringe. Her badge identifies her as Casey. She wears not-so-subtle face-paint and her top lip is swollen.
‘Please, what is the date? This voice sounds gruff and alien but now I am famished. The pictures of the breakfast items on the display above me look unnaturally vibrant, like dream food.
Future food.
‘The 19th,’ the girl informs me with a smile.
‘What year?’
The girl’s smile drops slightly and she gazes at me with increased curiosity. ‘2016.’ The date means little to me but I think it should or why would it be of concern? Casey nods patiently. She must meet all kinds of people, good, bad, rude and kind. Which am I? I am waiting for someone to shout imposter. Until such time I shall eat and drink and keep to my own affairs.
‘What is this place called?’
‘McDonalds.’ Definitely she thinks I am crazy. Maybe she is right? I forgive her condescension for most men before her would know both time and place of their actuality. ‘What polis?’
‘Polis?’
‘State, city, town?’
‘Canterbury.’
‘Canterbury in England?’ The girl smiles again and starts to look me up and down more closely, that maybe she is certain that I have escaped from somewhere with bars on the windows.
Maybe I have?
‘Two coffees please.’ One of the pictures above her head catches my eye. ‘And that.’ I point to something called Big Breakfast. ‘Times three.’ I pass her currency from the wallet I have ready, it has the number twenty on it and I hope that it will be enough to cover the items I have ordered. She takes it and in return hands me coins and another note. ‘What is this?’ Casey follows my gaze to the counter.
‘It’s a charity box. The money we collect helps families stay close to their children if they need to stay in hospital.’
‘Place it in there kindly.’
‘All of it?’ The girl looks at me in some shock, as though I have just flashed my organ at her. I would like to show her my organ if she would be receptive to my advances. I like women very much although I am unable to recall a single encounter of any kind with one. I love women. Do not ask me how I know this, but I do. I observe a male in the kitchen area behind Casey. He is a willow youth, more boy than man, thin arms and heavy frame glasses.
‘You can give the money to him if you prefer. What afflicts him so?’ The girl appears incredulous. She has many original expressions to show her disdain for me. ‘What do you mean?’ Her tone is barbed. I have irked her.
‘That he should be in a kitchen with women? What has struck him so that his circumstances should be so dire?’ Casey stuffs the coins and the crumpled note into the narrow slot of the charity box and a colleague badged as Suzy glances over at her and she too makes a funny face. Suzy is not so pretty and looks like she enjoys her food too much. She has a large backside. I now know I like big breasts and not big backsides. Casey continues to scowl at me. I must learn when to be quiet.
‘It’ll be a couple of minutes.’
’Thank you. Do you have a room for men?’ After a thoughtful pause Casey points to a door to my right. I do not need to relieve myself which is strange as a waking man’s first task after slumber is often to urinate. My bladder is dry but some cold water will freshen me and I do not care much for Casey’s disdain. Future World is easy to rile.

The latrine is miserably small, happily I could urinate, wipe my behind and wash my hands almost without moving my feet. I glance up and my heart, a silent and obedient engine until now, suddenly bangs its attendance. The truth is the mirror, its reflection the lie. The face staring back at me does not look like me, it does not belong to my feelings. I feel eighty years old but the handsome face and knowing eyes reflecting back belong to a forty-something. My hair is black with the odd dash of grey and I am rough shaved and slightly unkempt. I check my teeth. They all seem to be present and a healthy shade of white. I practice a smile. It seems to fit and it is a good smile, one I think the ladies might enjoy. I run my fingers through my hair to smooth it. It has a neat side parting softened with a fringe. I am impressed. I am handsome and youthful and not at all how my mind thinks of me. I do not look English. My olive skin and dark eyes mark me as a foreigner. England does not feel like my home.

Back at the table whilst I wait for breakfast I use the opportunity to observe a young man fingering his electronic instrument. He sits one table away with his back to me and is as neatly crimped as the females behind the serving counter, oil in his hair, tight clothes, gold earring, and he smells pleasingly piquant but strangely effete. Music plays softly, an intense mix of fast beats and excited singing. I catch Casey waving at me from the counter and she points to a tray full of plastic containers. My Big Breakfast is ready. With haste I hurry to my feast and Casey hands me the tray and I almost drop it as my mind fills with images of an angry male, muscled and covered in tattoos, and he is shouting angrily, raging on about how I should not be clubbing with my friends late at night, and from nowhere a fist the weight of stone punches me in the mouth and lams me repeatedly in the stomach, but the person falling to the ground screaming is not me, it is Casey. Next I am looking up from a bed with tubes in my arm and the same lunatic is now sobbing, telling me how fucked-up his life is. Then I am away from these images and the restaurant returns to my focus and Casey is already talking to the customer beside me oblivious to my obfuscation. Quickly I take the tray to my table. My eyes maybe a mistress to my mood and my mood a slave to my fears. I feel fear, fear not for myself but for the one called Casey. I must eat. My head is unreliable. I cannot remember when I last ate a morsel of food. Maybe I am crazy? This would be easier to explain than the existence of a future world full of violent unsolicited visions.

The food is not as sumptuous as the vivid pictures that tempted my choice suggested. I observe what could be egg and sausage along with a spongy dome shaped roll. The first breakfast takes less than five minutes to finish, the second a while longer and the third I enjoy at a more refined pace. The food tastes of salt, lots of it, and I do not want to like it but I do. Merrily I could slake another. The coffee is not salty and I drink it black, leaning back in my seat to watch quietly how future people conduct themselves. A youth next to me talks into his hand machine and I realise that one of its uses is that of a telephone.
2016 is not where I belong.
My body is not my own, this world in which I now dwell is not my own and the visions that come without call are not my own. Yet I am amiably calm, stoic to all strangeness, as though I have been bred to survive all such incongruity. For a while I sip my coffee and continue to observe 2016 people as they come and go whilst hoping glimpses from my past will return to me. Outside in the precinct a market does busy trade and from the way people are dressed in light shirts and bright shorts I guess it is late spring or early summer. Across the restaurant Casey is talking quietly to a colleague. I know that the next time her boyfriend hits her she will end up in hospital concussed and still she will forgive, and the time after that she will suffer a brain haemorrhage. Her tormentor is Adam West, twenty-three years old, training to be a mechanic, addicted to something called cocaine. There is no reason I should know this and it would be easier to accept the fact that I am completely insane in believing this all to be true, yet I am convinced it is the truth. I have no idea where I was yesterday, my age on this Earth, what my true reflection should reveal or the name or the appearance of the woman I last made love to; but of Casey and Adam I have total faith that what I now know, what has come to me since I took the tray from Casey and consumed the three Big Breakfast meals and drunk copious amounts of good black coffee, is truth absolute. And yet my heart beats to a slow rhythm of indolent apathy. There is a void within where there should be passion. I am tired, at an end. Canterbury must be my terminus. What other explanation can there be? At some point during my meal I have taken out the notepad and pen and doodled. I do not remember doing this. Taking a closer look at my impromptu artwork I see that I have drawn trees over several of the pages. To my surprise I am a fair artist, the doodles are good. The trees closely resemble one another, the one I could not shake from my mind as I woke in the alleyway less than an hour ago. I am also thinking about the night. What night? Last night? I return notebook and pen to pocket and use a serviette to clean my mouth and when the counter is clear of customers I canter over to Casey. She seems reluctant to serve me but even so she bestows upon me another sweet smile and asks how she can be of assistance.
‘Adam will put you in hospital. Adam will inflict brain damage upon you. And afterwards, when you find it difficult to speak, when your words become slurred and you struggle to construct a cogent sentence, he will leave you for another, a woman called Mandy Collins, and within weeks he will be striking her violently too.’ Casey’s mouth drops open and her eyes begin to swell with tears.
‘What the hell are you talking about? You’re crazy…’
Maybe I am and maybe I am not, but for the first time since waking up in an alleyway a few blocks away in a foreign city in a foreign time in a foreign body I am beginning to understand why I might like forgetting things.