was it.
He looked around. No one was watching.
Sitting up, he placed the rats on his lap. Tearing four thin strips from the box, he bit required lengths from the ‘Spiderman Webbing’, and taped cardboard to rodent ears. He pressed their new, longer ears on securely, to resist high winds.
There.
That was better.
Now they were rabbits.
Blam! Danny jumped.
Blam! Danny jumped.
Blam! Danny jumped.
Blam! Someone was firing a shotgun in the nearby woods. Another fired, then another, and another, till it became a chorus of hastily discharged pellets, each blast nearer than the one before.
And Danny knew all too well what it meant.
No time to waste, he placed his rattits back in their box, giving them one final stroke. Then he looked around to see if anyone official looking was watching. They weren’t.
Since he’d awoken, not one member of staff had paid the slightest attention to him. Initially they’d all been gathered around the bed by the door, watching its occupant perform his card tricks. Their presence had deterred Danny from trying to leave.
But, fifteen minutes after the card trick man’s death, they’d finally realized there’d be no more tricks from him and all the prodding in the world wasn’t going to change that. So, bored, they’d gravitated to the bed furthest from the door.
That was his chance.
Now the man in the bed furthest from the door was showing them his magic tricks. Constantly smiling he produced doves from nowhere and threw them into the air. In mid flutter they transformed into much needed medical supplies which clattered to the floor around him, whereupon he donated them to the hospital.
The act elicited gasps and applause from the entranced nurses, doctors, surgeons and accountants. The man didn’t even have the decency to look as unhealthy as Danny looked when healthy. But Danny’d figured it out; in this hospital, attention given related directly to entertainment value. Good; because Danny Yates had no entertainment value.
He leaned to one side and placed the rattits’ box on the floor. Now the man produced bunches of flowers from behind a doctor’s ear, handing them out to delighted nurses who sniffed at them and blushed coyly – even the male nurses. Now he handed flowers to the surgeons. And they blushed more than anyone.
Danny turned off the tap attached to his arm. He unplugged it then carefully slid it free of his vein, relieved to see the limb didn’t become an opened sluice discharging liquid by the gallon. He licked the one drop of purple liquid that formed on his arm where the tube had been. It was Ribena.
Throwing back the sheets, he climbed from the bed as more applause erupted behind him.
A small cabinet stood by his bed head. Inside, he found his clothes folded into a neat pile, trainers on top.
Casting furtive glances over his shoulder, grocery box and clothing in his arms, the unnoticeable Danny Yates made his escape, as the world’s most entertaining patient sawed himself in half.
The Great Osmosis sat in the dressing room of a closed down Working Men’s Club. Where once he’d heard the babble of club members awaiting the next act, he now heard silence.
And it didn’t matter. He no longer needed the applause of fools. Holding his bucket steady on his head, he sat before the huge wall mirror. With the softest of cloths he polished his precious pail. When that pail gleamed with all the vigour of Lancelot’s armour, he put aside the cloth. He placed the lid on the polish. He twisted tight its tiny latch. And he leaned forward, eyes narrowing to better admire the bucket.
In that mirror’s cracked reflections he glimpsed the past …
… March 28th, 1984. In that club, a novice magician donned his white gloves and marked his debut by making his pretty young wife disappear.
He’d been trying to saw her in half.
Confused, but hiding his desperation, he looked beneath the cabinet. He looked above it. He checked either side of it. He checked inside it. He checked beneath the curtains. He checked above the curtains. Still he found no sign of her.
Accompanied by boos, jeers and beer glasses hurled from the audience, he fled the stage, in tears.
When he got backstage and sobbed against the wall, what did he see by the fire extinguisher? Nothing less than his new bride kissing the club secretary. She spotted him. She threw back her head and laughed.
Days later, jobless and wifeless, he sat by the ring road and cried into a bucket – the only thing that could never betray him. And he knew what he must do.
He stood up, donned that faithful bucket so he wouldn’t see the onrushing traffic, and said goodbye to the world.
He stepped forward.
But, as he was about to step into the road, a miracle happened. A comic book blew onto his bucket. It was Man Fish, the last ever issue, where the soon-to-retire artist had finally granted El Dritch his deserved victory. Oh the writer had tried to hide Man Fish’s defeat, with captions that claimed being torn in half, and squashed by a mountain, was part of Man Fish’s master plan. Osmosis knew better.
His new career began with the founding of a small comic shop on that very site. He kept it spotless. Herbolt Myson was added to the stock, then model kits, then posters; all things that in childhood had given Osmosis hope of escape.
And a new dream was born …
… But now a boy threatened that dream. He’d destroyed the shop, the very foundation of Osmosis’ empire. What if he should strike at other parts of that kingdom; the tenements, the skyscraper, the munitions works? An empire cannot stand without foundations.
And, as he gazed into that mirror, Osmosis again knew what must be done.
Danny Yates must die.
‘Danny? What’re you doing here?’ Lucy stood at the far end of the hallway, in boxer shorts and a vest, holding a TV set. Hair dangling over one eye, she gave a shapeless grin.
Danny stood just inside the flat’s opened front door. ‘This is my home too – in case you hadn’t noticed.’
Carrying the TV into his bedroom, she called through to him. ‘Used to be your home. The Great Osmo materialized ten minutes ago. As of the moment you left hospital, you no longer lived here. Of course, technically, you’ve not lived here for the last six months, but your lease was still valid, so he’s been debiting rent from your bank regardless. Did he mention that during his visit?’
Teeth grinding, Danny dug his fingernails, talon-like, into the sides of the grocery box he held pressed against his chest.
Lucy
