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How to sustain a resurrection
By Andy Warren
- Open as a word document

As he sat listening to the continued drawling of his 3:30 patient, Dr. Henry Manns' mind began to wander.  In truth it had been wandering since the session began, as it always did, with his client breezing in and restarting his mental track at almost the exact point that it ended at 4:30 last week.  By now his mind had embarked on a full-blown ramble that had unexpectedly taken it through someones' living room.  Despite their protests, his mind had to point out to them that it was their own fault for not checking the location of public footpaths when they moved in, and after all they were only personifications of his mind, so they should be thankful to even exist at all.  With this they sat, aghast, and watched as his mind trampled the finest mud of the Pennines into their fine Allied carpet.  All this, of course, metaphorically speaking.

Dr. Mann was normally a patient man, often listening in bewildering detail to his clients' personal tragedies and problems that had served to screw their minds into oblivion.  He enjoyed the satisfaction that his job afforded, seeing as a previously unbalanced member of society left his office a new, better man (or, admittedly less frequently, woman).  He enjoyed this aspect of his job, however, somewhat less than he enjoyed the astronomical fees that he charged for the "privilege" of rejoining the automaton society.  What he didn't appreciate was when the State saw fit to burden him with what they called "a priority case", basically a moderately insane human being without a penny to their name, whom the government felt deserved his treatment for free.  Not that he was doing this for nothing, he wasn't stupid, but he could be earning perhaps three times as much from a wealthy, if slightly mad client.  The State was anything but mad.

Right now his client was continuing to tell the story of his life.  Dr. Mann had ceased to listen in detail after the third session, when he realised that the man was never going to stop talking about the events that had conspired to bring him here.  Now he simply let him in, sat back and switched his mind off, while the man continued to spout forth all manner of nonsense.  Mann obviously realised that this was possibly the most unprofessional way to handle such a situation, but as had been the case with so much of his life, he just couldn't be arsed.  Dr. Mann had to admire the conviction with which he told his tall tales, but Mann was a material creature and as such was always relieved when the session was over.  Give him another week he thought, and then I'll just tell them that he's beyond help.  This was his usual tactic for dealing with such pests, and he had learned to judge the amount of time that he should give to the patient by the severity of their case.  This was a bad case, and he knew they'd believe he could do nothing after only a short time.

The lack of attention on the doctors' face was blindingly obvious, yet War chose to ignore it in favour of continuing his graphic depiction of the past.  He knew that Mann wasn't paying any attention whatsoever, but hopefully he'd be able to understand the predicament in which War had found himself and as such choose not to incarcerate him for a long long time.  Right now he was explaining how, thanks to some sort of wibbley thing in the fabric of space-time, he had been unable to return to the ethereal realm with the other horsemen following their millennium antics.  Being sure that his presence would be missed, he was surprised at how long it had taken them to come and get him again.  Five and a half years, by Earth time, rather a long time in fact.

Meanwhile, in France (the dark, twisted and depressing one full of useless wastrels, not the one in the afterlife) Pierre le Pigeon was going about his daily routine with an unerring enthusiasm that can only belong to a continental avian.  His average day consisted of waking at sunrise, taking a slow yet paced trip around the backstreets of Paris, and finding a nice clean car to defecate on to.  Pierre le Pigeon is a pigeon, as if his name and the fact that he like to poo on cars wasn't clue enough.  At that moment he espied a brand new Citroen, freshly cleaned and ready for a coat of "special wax", so he banked sharply left whilst deftly avoiding a window shutter that had suddenly appeared in his path.  The old woman muttered something after the bird, but he never had taken to speaking their language, only communicating via the medium of faeces.  Just as he approached the car, he made a sharp dive to gain speed, then at the last minute ascended rapidly whilst dumping his load over the now deeply tarnished automobile.  He then made towards the nearest ledge to admire his handiwork, and was only slightly annoyed to find that he had to share a seat with one of those insufferable English pigeons.  They were, unfortunately, very common in France, particularly as the holiday season had begun and they could take a break from their jobs as stockbrokers.

Although he had done a lot of drops in the past, he had to say that this was one of the finest.  He had purposefully found a blackcurrant bush earlier in the morning, and the streak of purple substance ran almost exactly central along a good two thirds of the car.  All in all, he thought (with as much contemplation as can be done by a pigeon, a creature not normally known for its' intelligence), a very good hit.  Now that he had finished studying his own technique, he turned his attention to the English pigeon perched precariously next to him, having paid little attention before.  Now he could see that this creature was not as the others, for his attention was not on the streets searching for food or targets, or on the skies hunting out rival flyboys.  The Englishbirds' attentions were focussed entirely on the large piece of paper that it held articulately in its' wings, and from time to time it would tilt the map to one side, cock its' head and tut.  Suddenly it noticed that it was no longer alone, and turned its' attentions from the map to the visitor.  Pierre could not understand English, so the words meant nothing.

"Excuse me, but I seem to be lost.  Do you know the way to London?"

---OOO---

It was dark.  Very dark.  So dark, in fact, that he could see nothing at all.  So he created light, and found that it was quite a lot easier to do than he thought it would be.  And lo, it was still dark, except that now there was a glowing orb of light floating in the sea of darkness.  The strangest thing about it all was that it was so dark that he couldn't see the floor, yet he could feel it beneath him as cold as coldest steel.  Come to think of it, it was more than likely even colder than that, but he was too confused to come up with a decent analogy so he left it at that.  The reasons for his confusion were manifold, primarily due to the fact that despite his best efforts to summon a recollection, he could not for the life of him remember how he got here.  Wherever here was that is, in fact now that his mind had followed the track he was beginning to consider how long he had been here.  As he thought about it he realised that it was so very dark that he couldn't even see himself, no matter how close to the light he moved, and he found himself thinking that maybe he wasn't there at all.  The light that he had created still shone brightly, but so consuming was the darkness that it sucked in the light as quickly as the little orb could produce it, and without light there is nothing.  Except darkness.  Which isn't really a "thing", just a lack of light.  So I was right, there is nothing.  Alright then.

---OOO---

I think I may try for a gentle wave this time, it thought.  So it did a gentle wave, to and indeed fro in the warm spring breeze.  That was fun, it thought as it lay slowly down on the grass and gazed up at the sky.  Without a care in the world it began to daydream, of lives apart from its' own, of greater beauty than it would ever see, and of places that it may never visit.  Then it remembered that it was, after all, just a blade of grass, and therefore not entitled to such thoughts, and so it stood up again and began to sway once more.  It didn't see the horse until it was inside its' mouth, and even then all it could think was why wasn't I born a bulrush.  The two tallest blades near to the small pond turned to each other and tutted as resoundedly as two pieces of basic plantlife can.  What they said was quite frankly unimportant to the continuing plot, but suffice to say that it attracted the attention of an elderly bulrush in the pond, and made a baby lily blush.

The whole scene took place in what can only be described as a very odd place.  I doubt that you'd understand from mere words, so suffice to say that it was a little bit like a large field with a pond in it, a horse and a large building a little like an aged farmhouse.  Actually I guess that's not really very strange, so maybe you would understand.  It could have been any rural place in Britain really, except that in such places there is a sun and the sky isn't yellow.  Unless you drink enough meths, which I really wouldn't recommend to anyone who wants to be sane again. 

Then there was the small matter of the horizon, or more appropriately the lack thereof.  The land looked fine for a short distance, and it was only when your eye starts to fall on the distant areas that something odd happened.  The pure green of the land and the pure yellow of the sky melded into one indistinct colour that impossibly appears simultaneously to be both colours, and yet neither, resulting in something that is admittedly very pretty, but alas will drive anyone mad who stares at it for too long.  That's the theory anyway, although to the best of my knowledge no one has yet even seen it to be able to have a go at finding the horizon.  In short, the place was one big trip, and if you add grass that has thought processes (albeit fairly stupid ones) then you're left with somewhere totally unreal.  That didn't really seem to phase the inhabitants one little bit however, as they continued their routine without considering that maybe they existed outside of reality.  Having said that it may be more to do with the fact that the inhabitants comprised primarily of several varieties of grass, a horse and two less than intellectual frogs, who generally don't concern themselves with whether or not they exist in what other species deem to be reality.

---OOO---

Quite frankly it had been a very unpleasant experience, the locals were unfriendly, the weather was wet and the food was awful.  And quite how in Gods' name he was going to get down from the ledge he didn't know, all he knew was that he had been stupid enough to try flying home and had had a panic attack halfway up the building, and now he was stuck.  But desperate times, they say, lead to desperate measures, and to fly home was the most desperate measure of all.  But Cash was not going to give up, after all his home was in London, and he missed the familiar landscape that Dark Street afforded.  Besides, he could feel a strange force pulling him back, and it was becoming ever harder to resist, although it may just have been the violent wind attempting to dislodge him from his perch.  Back home he could at least try to fly very short distances between the evenly spaced trees that lined the road, whereas here there was nothing for a pigeon who was afraid of flying to take a breather on.  The worst part of it was that he had no idea how he had ended up in France anyway, it certainly wasn't by choice, and he was just lucky to have picked up the map from the truck before he left it.  In fact, now that he thought about it, he seemed to remember falling asleep in the back of the eight wheeled monstrosity, which he would never have sneaked aboard if his friends hadn't persuaded him to get out and see a bit more of the country.  It dawned on him that they probably meant the country he was in at the time.

Deciding that the map was about as much use as a thesaurus to an American, he threw it over the edge to see if it survived the descent.  The wind whipped it into a frenzy, and within seconds had torn it apart right down the spine.  Cash hurled himself back to the relative safety of the building, and closed his eyes.  As he did he saw something that made him jump with shock, and when he opened his eyes he saw that he had jumped off of the ledge and was now beginning his rapid departure from the land of the three-dimensional.  With the haste that can only belong to either a madman or a falling pigeon he began hastily beating his wings with an unequalled fury, and touched down on the Parisian tarmac at just below terminal velocity.  Pigeons are, thankfully, robust little bastards, and Cash was no exception, so he dusted himself off and relied on his senses to draw him back to his home.  His senses, and the vision of the emotionless man that he had seen in the darkness.

---OOO---

He opened his eyes, and looked around him.  Then he realised that he had never closed them, but because it was still just as dark as before the effect was as if he had.  Now, however, his ball of light had somehow positioned itself out of his range of sight, and he was unsure whether it had moved of its' own accord or if he had simply moved himself so that it was behind him.  He turned around, and sure enough saw again the comforting glow of his photonic creation.  Until now he had not stopped to think about exactly how he had created the light, and it had lately begun to play on his mind, so he moved to his feet and walked closer to it.  As he homed in on his target, he noticed shapes moving inside the light, and saw that it was not, as he had first assumed, a sphere of pure light.  The inside of his creation danced with a fiery passion, and hazy spectres toyed casually in the iridescent hues within, their undulating motions an elegant ballet of existence.  In short, it was pretty.  As he stared closer, he saw more and more movement, until the whole orb was alive with flurries and pirouettes that quite honestly baffled him.  Suddenly he was hit by the realisation of what had happened, but it decided that his was not a mind in which it cared to reside, and so as soon as it had arrived it abruptly left, leaving him reeling and confused.  He shook his head and sat down next to the globe, his eyes never once leaving the myriad of images that covered its' surface.  He thought about creating more of these enigmatic balls, but found that he couldn't, no matter how hard he tried.  He thought about it, and concluded that perhaps his mind was not ready to accept that there could be more of these wonderful things, although there was a niggling suspicion that it was something else.  Something else entirely.

He rose to what could only in passing be referred to as his feet, for he could still not see his own form, and decided to explore his surroundings.  He turned his back on the light, and began to walk away from it, taking at first cautious and measured steps.  He knew not what might be underfoot, but as he carried on he realised that there simply was nothing, the floor, despite being solid to the touch, held no texture or contour, so he quickened his pace away from the light.  As he was doing this he begun to question his motives, so he stopped and thought about why he wanted to leave the light.  After about two minutes of quite serious thoughts, he decided that perhaps he was in a cell of some description, and that the light had been constructed to ensure that he did not try to escape, for to do so would leave him in the penetrative darkness.  Rather, he decided that it had been this conclusion that had lead him to walk away, although whether or not he truly believed that this was indeed the situation in which he currently found himself was currently under debate.  He decided to continue walking for a few more minutes, and if he found nothing then he would return to the light, so he found his pace again and continued to walk.  After four and a half minutes he had found almost entirely less than nothing, so he concluded that there was nothing to be found and turned back to face the light.  What he saw shocked him so much that he staggered backwards and fell in a rather undignified way to land in a sitting position.  Now in front of him and no more than two metres away, hovering perfectly still in the motionless air, was the sphere of light.

His head flinched to one side as the first blow hit him, and such was its' severity that he was thrown to the floor despite the fact that he was already seated.  He looked up to locate the origin of his assault, but it was still impossibly dark and he could see nothing, and as he moved his hand to his face he felt only the clammy coolness of his skin under his fingers.  He stared again at the light that he had failed to escape from, and felt no malignancy from it whatsoever.  This time it seemed to be beckoning him, tempting him to move closer and once again bathe in the wondrous tones that it emitted, although they did nothing to reveal his form.  But he could feel that the room had changed, for the air appeared to have dropped in temperature by at least twenty degrees and he could imagine wisps of ethereal mist billowing from his mouth, however he could see neither his breath nor his mouth.  Neither could he see any other presence, but he could feel the emotion that it emitted, and he could sense that another was there.  He felt helpless, for he knew that he could not move far from the safety of the light, as now more than ever he was sure that it could protect him in some way, although he knew not how.  The other knew that he was going nowhere as well, and it played on it.  And suddenly the light was gone, and the absolute darkness returned, only this time there was more than just darkness.  This time evil was there too.

---OOO---

It saw yellow.  Nothing else, just yellow.  Then it saw green.  And then yellow again.  Then its' neck began to hurt, so it stopped looking up and down and returned its' attention to the arduous task of eating its' way through the infinite field.  It thought about the sky, and something inside told it that the sky was not normally that colour, but it dismissed such thoughts as casual intrusions of sensibility into its' simplistic conscious mind.  However as it shook its' head with a violent impulse it thought again about places other than the field.  Why it would want to do such a thing it wasn't quite sure, for here was everything that a horse could want, an unlimited supply of food, water to drink and frogs to generally bother.  But sometimes it found itself just wanting for something else.  Another horse might be quite nice.

The little green leaf in the centre of the pond twitched spasmodically, and suddenly two bulging eyes appeared at the rim of the plant.  The frog hauled itself with a characteristic lack of grace onto the straining lily, and struggled to maintain its' balance on a leaf that was quite honestly far too small to support its' ample weight.  In fact the frog had often been mistaken for a toad (when I say often, it is to be taken to mean that if anything was encountered that had the ability to express an opinion, be it animal, vegetable or mineral, it would usually do so in favour of the bulkier amphibian), although it always maintained that it was simply preparing itself for hibernation.  The fact that the frog had never once hibernated in its' life did not lend terrific weight to its' argument.  After furiously rocking from side to side for about thirty seconds, the frog succumbed to gravity and slid from the leaf into the pond water with a resounding plop.  The noise caused to horse to look up from its' meal and see what all the commotion was about, however when it saw that it was just the frog again and not, as it had hoped, a new and exciting creature, it returned its' attention to the grass.

The horse thought that it had a good existence, although to call it life was perhaps pushing the realms of reality a little, for when one spent all day and every day walking around an infinite field eating semi-sentient plants one tended to develop something of a complex.  After an unknown number of infinities doing the same thing, the horse was now a tangled mass of neuroses just waiting to unravel in the general direction of anything stupid enough to ask how it was doing today.  Not that anyone ever did, but it already had a perfectly constructed response ready in case anyone should come wandering accidentally into his space of unreality.  It bowed its' head and took another half-mouthful of now quivering grass before it launched the latest of its' many mental departures, hoping as always that this one would take it in a direction never before attempted.  They never did, although as is always the case, there is an exception to every rule (except this one, to which there is no exception (except itself, so I guess it must be true then)).  Sadly that didn't happen this time, so it chewed a little more and thought again.  This time it hit upon a small thread that may well indicate something bigger, something somehow very important.  It wondered if it had always been in this field.

Yes, it thought, it had, and continued its' meal.  But it was wrong.

---OOO---

He was wet, he was tired, and he was lost.  No, worse than that, he was lost in France, and as anyone who's ever taken a "super-saver" trip to Calais will testify, it's never good to be lost in France.  The evening had just begun to draw in when the heavens opened and drenched him in the foulest smelling rain that he had ever encountered.  He put it down to the garlic factory that he had passed a few miles south, whose lecherous emissions were enough to turn nearby trees an ochre hue and kill most native insects within a few minutes.  It was not, he concluded, a place for lovers.  But he pressed on, and luckily had found a small pony upon which he rode for several miles before being shoed away in French by its' irate and pot-bellied owner.  The old man was not to know what cataclysm in the pigeons' life he had almost created, so he resisted the urge to drop his own brand of bomb onto the man.  In fact, Cash himself was unsure what would happen if he didn’t return home, but he could feel the pull of his home drawing him back, and it was so strong that he really didn’t want to argue with it.  Besides which he really didn’t want to spend more time in France than was absolutely necessary, and these two factors combined in such a way that he seriously reconsidered his courses of action.

He could attempt to locate another alternate mode of transportation, such as the donkey or the truck on which he arrived, however the thought of being once again chased after by a dwarfish, broom-wielding frenchman was not something upon which he cared to dwell for too long.  Neither was the prospect of walking such distances, for he was but a bird, and famed they are not for their athletic lower bodies (you would not, for example, hear Linford Christie being described as "chicken legs").  Indeed the seemingly mere task of walking from his ex-pony to a point of safety stressed his fragile legs to the point of bending, although as he checked them he could see that they thankfully were still as straight as they had ever been (i.e. not very).  He studied the terrain around himself carefully, and concluded once again that he was almost totally lost.

Actually, in truth he was not lost as such, for he could still feel the insatiable urge drawing him back to London, but he had no idea exactly where in France he was at this moment.  He decided that it would be impossible to return home by foot, and another pony was not immediately apparent, so Cash closed his eyes, took a long run up, and launched into flight.  Six miles and two pints of vomit later he reached the English channel, and was surprised at how easily he had made it there, as he had suspected that it may well take a lot longer to reach this point.  Not being a huge fan of flight he found a small tree and landed, deciding that before making the arduous trek across the vast expanse of brine that thankfully separated Britain from France he should award himself a rest.  The force pulling him back home seemed to have subsided slightly, and he didn't think that stopping for a few minutes would matter a lot in the long term.  Stopping, he decided, and sleeping.  However, when he closed his eyes he saw something that shocked him so much that he once again fell from his branch and landed in a most undignified position on the grassy floor.  He saw the man in the darkness again, only this time his face was not devoid of emotion.  This time his face was a masque of pure fear.

---OOO---

Although they had been where they now stood for thousands of years, the rocks had never taken such a beating from the elements as they were taking now.  Not to be confused with a beating from the elephants, which are not known for hanging around at the base of cliffs and molesting large stones.  Anyway, the waves, wind and rain were all taking their vengeance upon the cliff and underlying rocks, although exactly what they were vengeful about was not really clear, but clearly whatever the rocks had done to upset them was pretty nasty.  Probably the meteorological equivalent of spilling their pint or something.  However the rocks were not the only monoliths sustaining the brunt of the weathers' rage, for atop the cliff there stood an aged wooden shack from whose window a dim light shone.  The shack could only accurately be described as "knackered", for the wood from which it was made had clearly been cultivated at least a century earlier, and it was hardly in the most dwelling-friendly place on Earth.  In fact, it wasn't on Earth at all, so the last statement doesn't really hold water.  This is much like the hut in fact, which was currently leaking in no less than fourteen places (probably a few more actually, but to count them would involve entering the hut which to be honest might not be a great idea).  After such a long introduction you'd think that there was someone really important in the hut wouldn't you?  Well you're right.

The old man stared at the steady stream of water that trickled from a small hole in the roof and landed directly in the middle of his lap.  He shook his head and stood up, and as he did so he passed under yet another trickle of rain which served to further dampen both his body and his spirits.  He walked over to the small glass window, which incidentally was also leaking, and stared at the vista that presented itself to him.  From his little shack he could see all the way down the cliffs and out to sea, although that didn't mean that he could see very far, as the horizon seemed determined not to be located.  Whenever he tried to focus on the point where the sea ended and sky began it seemed to shift just out of his gaze.  After several years of trying he had decided to give up, as it didn't really matter anyway where the horizon was, for he had no intention of going in that direction.  For a start he had no boat, and to swim in weather such as this was almost as sensible as flopping ones' testicles into a bear trap and proclaiming your devotion to a piece of cheese. 

His thoughts drifted to various places, and as they did so he saw many wondrous things, the most startling being a sphere of dancing light.  He also saw pigeons, horses and darkness, however significant this may seem it should be pointed out that he also had seen a row of kippers, two small newts and a turnip named Kevin.  He shook his head to clear his mind, and turned around to make for the diminutive door that led out into the torrential rain.  He pulled his long coat over his aged silver hair, although quite why he was perpetually unsure, for the old coat leaked almost as much as the hut itself, and steadily gripped the doors' smooth brass handle.  As he opened the door and stared into the downpour he felt an emotion that told him how important he was, however he felt such a feeling every night at the same point, and nothing interesting ever happened.  Still, he knew that somewhere in the blinding rain there lay the answer to his task, or rather the task itself, which hopefully would yield the answer.  It was not, however, a task that is even slightly related to our story, actually the only purpose he served for us at this time was to play a part in the trailer for this tale, so we'll leave him there until a later time.

---OOO---

He was back where he started, in the dark and afraid once again.  He had no idea where the light had gone, although he was almost certain that the presence had somehow hidden it from him.  Then he came upon a fearful thought that made him reel sharply, and he feared that maybe it had destroyed the light.  He knew that he could not create another, so he had to hold on to the notion that the light had merely been moved out of his sight, although the fact that he had been unable to move away from it worried him quite a lot.  Not as much as the seeping dread of this unknown hatred that filled the atmosphere, but quite a bit nevertheless.  He tentatively stood to his feet, half expecting another furious blow to send him reeling once again, but none came at this time and he was able to pull himself fully upright.  He took a step forward, and it was then that he heard the noise, a whining screech that sounded like somebody stepping on a stoat, and it came from right under him.  He bolted forwards and away from the entity that had made such a terrible sound, and suddenly he struck something that once again sent him falling unceremoniously to the floor.

He felt something over his body, and as he furiously flailed about he realised that he was covered in a dark sheet of material.  He pulled it away from his eyes, and as he looked up he saw the light again.  The other had seen it as well, and was clearly annoyed that the man had been able to find it after the being had so cunningly hidden it.  The thing hissed from the other side of the light, but the man was not going to hesitate again, and he leapt with all the grace of a new-born giraffe at the light.  Being almost completely without grace he missed it by at least two feet, and made his close acquaintance with the floor yet again.  He stood up and, much like a meerkat hunting for its' latest predator, whipped his head from side to side in a desperate bid to find the light.  It was, of course, behind him again, so this time he walked as calmly as he possibly could towards it, and touched it's crystalline surface.  He could feel now that the evil had permeated the entire darkness, for now it saturated him as he stood there, but the pull of the light was stronger.  His hand melted into the sphere, and suddenly there was a blinding flash of light, and he raised his hands to his eyes again.  Then all he saw was darkness again, but this time it was the darkness of unconsciousness, and he embraced its' numbing caress.

The other shook its' head in disbelief.  It stared at the light, and found that all that now existed in this place was itself and the ball.  Darkness and light.  It didn't like this even more than it didn't like the fact that the man had escaped, for which it was now cursing himself.  It reformed itself from the shadows, for its' next move required the material form with which it had attacked the man.  Once back in shape, it moved through the inky air to the light, and stared with macabre fascination at its' pearled tones.  As it stared, it tried to comprehend what the man saw so wonderful about the light, and why it was so much better than the darkness from which the other drew its' power.  Then it saw, and suddenly it realised what it meant, and it saw the world within the light into which the man had vanished.  It saw the fields, the pond, and the horse.  It saw no fear, and it knew what it had to do.  Gathering its' reserves of strength, it stepped away from the sphere, then it threw itself into the light in pursuit of the man.

---OOO---

Sometimes the horse felt a little pity for the grass, as it knew that it was to be eaten and the horse could feel its' fear.  However, it could also feel its' own hunger, so pity generally took the back seat whenever food was concerned.  Right now it was busy taking out the second half of a grass refugee family, which had escaped from the tyranny of the soil dictators on the western side of the pond in the hopes of finding a better life on the beautiful east.  Clearly they weren't too bright, because if they were then they would have concluded that to be under the control of mud was infinitely better than being eaten by a horse with a very small conscience.  The horse was just about to eat the other half of the grandmother of the unit, when it heard a noise.  To the horse it was the kind of noise that it related to being attacked with a stick.  The noise that its' rider would make if he had been thrown from his mount on to a large slab of concrete or suchlike, despite the fact that, to the best of its' knowledge, it had never once been ridden.  However, it knew that it was sound of soft thing meeting hard thing, and it knew that the soft thing never came away as the winner.  The noise had come from the direction of the as yet untouched upon house, so it discontinued its' merciless slaughter of the ethnic grass minority and made its' way towards the dwelling.

It saw nothing on the side of the house that it was facing, so it made its' way around the perimeter.  As it tentatively peered around the corner it almost jumped out of its' already pretty loose skin, for what lay on the floor in an unconscious heap it instinctively knew.  In fact, it knew this one personally, even though to the best of its' knowledge it had never seen a human before.  It walked to the man, and carefully nudged him with his nose, and as it did so the man shot bolt upright and stared at the horse.  He tilted his head and blinked three times, almost unwilling to believe his eyes, then he stood and walked to the side of the creature.  The man was glad to be away from the darkness, but now he had reached a point of surreality that perplexed even him, for he could see in the face of the horse a familiarity of himself that he reciprocated for the animal.  Somehow he knew the horse, although his conscious mind strongly denied this fact.  He stared in awe at the rest of his surroundings, and noted how completely dissimilar to the darkness they were, for here there was light without source, where before there was only darkness without equal.  He turned around, and at that moment saw what had caused his concussion and what was now staring resolutely down at him.  It looked to any casual observer like a large house, perhaps a barn, but the man knew instinctively what it was, so he made his way around its' perimeter towards the door.  Towards the entrance to the library.

Being one of the least literary of creatures, the horse generally was unaware of exactly what a library was, and therefore had never once ventured within its' ageing walls.  The man, however, was not similarly afflicted, and he pushed the solid wooden doors open with the flat of his hand, and smiled in satisfaction as it creaked open in the way that only really classy spooky doors can.  His smile left him when he saw that inside the building the atmosphere belied the utterances of its' wooden guardian.  That is to say, it was pretty nice.  He stood in the main entrance hall, and could see from here into the other rooms that made up the building, all of which were brightly revealed thanks largely to the enormous windows along one wall.  Although he was certain that he had seen no such creations from outside, he cast such thoughts into the recesses of his mind, and made for the bookshelf.  The horse watched the man with an undisguised trepidation on its' already fraught features, but refused to enter the house after him.  It looked up when it heard a slight thud from the point of the mans' first acquaintance with the building, but was again distracted by the sudden swearing from within.

He lay under a pile of at least forty books, which had fallen from the very highest shelf in the room directly on to the creator of the vibrations.  It really was his own fault for trying to climb such an unsteady device, but it always seemed the case that the nicest looking item was always the most difficult to reach.  In this case it was a gold-bound book that lay so high on the bookcase that the top of its' spine brushed the delicately carved ceiling.  He pushed himself out of the pile, and via the cunning use of his hands cleansed his body of the ancient dust that had been brought to the floor with the books.  Once convinced that he was now devoid of any residual particles, he stooped over the pile of books and began to search for the object of his investigation.  Quite why he was so anxious to reach the gilded tome he was unsure, but he did know that something inside him told his mind that it was of the utmost importance for him to read it.  He was about to give up hope when his delving hand came upon the cold, flat surface of the books' exterior, and the pulled it free from the rest of the pile.  He turned it over in his hand, ignorant to the increasingly fearful sounds coming from the horse outside, and found the title.  It read:

Your Soul

And it was carved intricately into the solid gold of the cover.  He struggled to understand what it meant, and decided that it probably wasn't worth the effort, so he prised the cover apart to begin reading.  He stopped abruptly when he found that the pages contained nothing more than the grains of dust that had meandered through the pages over a very long time.  He flicked through the book, but all the pages were the same, all were absolutely blank.  All except the centre two.  He had flicked past them at first, then when his brain had realised that the pattern of blankness had altered for a split second, he returned to the point of interruption.  What he saw shocked him to such an extent that he almost lost control of his balance yet again, in what was turning into one of the least co-ordinated days of his existence.  For in the centre of the book there were no words, but there were two beautifully realised drawings in such a style as to look totally real.  So real that he easily recognised both of the documented figures as himself and the horse.

Almost at once the cries of the animal outside had become too strong to ignore, and he made to return outside when he stopped and stared out of the shimmering window.  He stared, not with awe this time, but now with fear.  For the sky no longer held the hues of yellow in its' undulating form, nor did the ground any more shimmer with perfect green.  The entire world outside of the window pulsated malevolent blackness into the very room that he now stood.  He reeled around and bolted outside, and was surprised to see that the horse had not left, but had waited resolutely for him, despite its' obvious agitation.  It clearly understood how important they were to each other.  The sky above them now pulsated with a pure hatred that can only come with years of dedicated practise, and the man could feel his fear of the other returning.  He knew that it had followed him here, and he knew that it was even more annoyed at him than before.

The horse, however, was not afraid, for its' attention was dominated by something that the man had not yet seen.  He looked away from the ever blackening sky, and followed the horses gaze to see exactly what was entrancing it so.  The small pond which had sat calmly and, frankly quite boringly in the middle of the field doing very little for as long as is possible was now no longer as it had been.  Where the sky was now deepest darkness, so the pond was a pool of pure light.  Obviously the man could see something of a parallel to his previous situation, so he slapped the horse on the side and lead it as rapidly as he could towards the pond.  They reached the edge just as the darkness consumed the library, for now the evil was seeping into everything around them and corrupting it to become as evil and twisted as the entity itself.  Even now, where there had been lush green grass there was now only twisted and decaying roots, for the other had dug them up from their underground lair to expose all of their corruption on to the world above.  Alright then, perhaps not quite that bad, but the grass was pretty manky now at any rate.  The man and the horse stared as one into the pond, and could see something in the blinding light (obviously it wasn't totally blinding or they wouldn't have been able to see anything, what with being blinded and everything), something that they both recognised.  They saw themselves, although they were not themselves as they were now, they were as one.  Suddenly everything made sense to them both, and they turned to each other without any trepidation of what they were about to do.  They turned to the pond and, as the one being that they always had been, plunged into its' iridescent fascia.  At precisely that moment the darkness consumed everything else.

The entity stared in disbelief, and swore under its' breath.  It reformed itself to the solid form that it took when necessary, and looked at the pond that had caused the two figures to meld into one.  It sauntered across the now barren expanse to the point from which the light was cast and tried to understand what had been so compelling that would make the two do such a thing.  As it analysed the surface it saw what the others had seen, and now it was afraid.  It was afraid that everything had come together incorrectly, and its' wonderful plan was now to be ruined.  And it saw the scene in the water, and it knew what to do.  There was only the smallest of splashes as the other entered the pond.  With the last of the true existing ones gone from the landscape, there was no reason for it to continue to exist, and so it stopped.  The field, the library and the pond, although consumed by evil, were simply no more.

---OOO---

He leaned against the wall of the building with the smallest of small smiles on his avian face.  Cash had finally made it back to Britain, and he was absolutely knackered, although he had almost conquered his fear of flying.  Now he was here, and he could feel the pull that had been drawing him back was now stronger than ever, and it was drawing him inside that building.  He saw that, just two floors up, a window had been left open barely enough for him to squeeze through, so he summoned the last reserve of his strength and flapped furiously to the upper ledge.  He just made it before he began to hyperventilate.  As he stared through the pane of glass he could see a man in an expensive suit staring far too intently at a point just below his feet and paying almost no attention to the man on the couch.  Cash didn't see him at first, then when he did he almost fell back to ground level again.  Although his complexion undoubtedly held more colour, and his face now moved, it was unquestionably the man from his visions who sat just a few feet away from him at this very moment.

Neither man had noticed that they had acquired a winged voyeur, so Cash pushed his ample frame through the open pane, and suddenly realised that modern buildings such as this possessed no internal window ledges, and so he fell with a soft thud on to the floor.  The noise caused the man to stop and look up, but the doctor was paying so much attention to his shoelace that it escaped him.  War stood up and walked towards the pigeon, who was rubbing his leg with his wing, and stooped down to stare at the creature.  At that moment a lot of things happened at once, so bear with me if it gets a little confusing.  Manns' secretary opened the door with her customary lack of a knock to inform him that his next patient had arrived, and was getting a little agitated that he had yet to be seen despite the fact that his appointment was ten minutes ago.  Dr Mann looked up and past his secretary, and waved his apologies at his next patient, although he secretly despised the insane bastard.  War took a step away from the pigeon, who had suddenly started staring at him in a way that birds simply shouldn't be capable of.  And Cash stared at War, then suddenly felt a rush of colour through his head, and was knocked backwards by the bright light the seemed to emanate from him.

The whole of the room was filled with light, and everyone except War reached up to shield their eyes with various limbs (arms were obviously most popular, although Cash attempted to use a leg, but to no avail).  However, before they could cover their faces the light was gone, and two new figures stood in the room, one significantly bigger than the other.  The man stared at War, and War similarly stared at the man, then they both looked down at the stoat.  The stoat just made a hissing noise and stared malevolently at them both, but neither were afraid any more.  Everyone, quite honestly, was confused.  The appearance of Dr. (of music) John Peel at the door to the office didn't help matters.

He ignored the others, and walked towards War.

"I think that perhaps a little explanation is in order, don't you War?  But first," he looked down at the stoat, "you've got a lot of explaining to do you little git."

The stoat shot the best angry look that stoats can at Dr. Peel, but given that the best angry look that stoats can muster is about as fearsome as a ham sandwich it didn’t fool anyone.  Then something quite bizarre happened (compared, of course, to normal events like shopping and things, not compared to the rest of this story), for the stoat stopped being a small mammal, and instead became something else.  Something that immediately drew a small crowd of flies from nearby carcasses to hover around it.  Pestilence stood in front of Peely and glared.

"Bugger it."  Was all he could bring himself to say.

"War, I'm sorry I haven’t found you earlier, but you know I have been pretty busy with the roadshow and everything.  Anyway I had no idea where he'd hidden your ethereal self.  You see, Pestilence had somehow separated your physical and spiritual bodies, and held them apart to stop you from returning to France.  I don't know why, but then your spirit seemed to split into a man and a horse,"

"Ahh," War interrupted, "that's probably because, er, we were very close you know, when I was a horseman that is."

"Hmm, well whatever.  Anyway he was alright until your spirit tried to create light, which made it aware of its' existence.  Then it was just a case of it going through the portals, merging with the horse side of your being, and emerging here.  And you," he turned to Pestilence, "it was quite ingenious to trap him in the mind of a lowly pigeon, shame that you had to go in yourself to stop him getting out.  It was easy to follow you from there."

"Watch who you're calling lowly you latenight DJ-type you." Cash snorted.

Everyone stared at the pigeon.  Then they realised that, compared to everything else a talking pigeon was positively sane.  War and his ethereal half stared at each other, then in one swift motion they stepped into one another and became one once more.  Pestilence was just about to sneak from the room when Peely pulled him back.

"Why did you do such a thing eh?" He enquired sternly.

"Because he's always such a bastard to me, ignoring me and avoiding me and everything." He began to whine.

"Well it's your own bloody fault, you chose to be Pestilence, and you must know how rank you are." War defended.

"I'm sorry Pestilence," Peely addressed the sulking horseman, "I can't let this go unpunished.  To atone for you crimes, I am sentencing you, rather ironically I think, to spend five Earth years as a stoat.  You like the form so much, you can keep it for a while."

"I don't like it," Pestilence almost screamed, "why do you think I took this form to scare him?  I bloody hate them!"

"Well it serves you right then.  I hope now then we can get back to normal."

"Just a minute," War stopped Peely, "we need four horsemen, who's going to replace him?"

"Don’t worry, I have someone in mind."

All through the interlude Cash had been staring bemusedly at the events transpiring in front of him.  He realised what a pivotal role he had played in the bringing together of the conclusion, and he felt good about himself.  In fact, so boosted was his confidence that he felt now as though he were able to do anything, although he'd probably just start by flying as much as he could.  Suddenly Dr. Peel waved his arms about a bit, causing blinding light to fill the room, and suddenly Cash saw nothing.  Then he saw something, so he blinked and looked again, and again he saw something, only now he saw it properly.  Below him, stretched out as far as his pigeon eyes could see, was the familiar sight of Dark Street.  He had made it, he was home, and his headache had gone at last.  And then he leapt from his perch and, for the first time in his life, he flew the whole length of the road.  Then he landed, tucked his wings around his body, and fell into a well-deserved sleep.

Epilogue

He had, so far, been listening for almost two hours.  Finally he understood what they wanted him to do, and he was fairly willing to do it too, but with one condition.

"I don't want to be 'Pestilence', that man really smelled bad."

"Alright," Dr. (of music) John Peel said, "it doesn’t matter, as long as there are four of you.  Are you sure you don’t mind?"

"Sure, I've got nothing else to do for five years."

"Alright then Will, who do you want to be?"

"I don’t know," Scully replied, "what do you think?"

"How about 'Apathy'?" Peely suggested.

Scully turned it around in his mind for a few seconds, before replying.

"Whatever."