Fragment

I was in a dull stupor, barely able to keep awake, perhaps already asleep, it was impossible to tell. The ground under foot was soft and wet; squishy, although I think I was shod. Long grass soaked my trouser legs with a cold, clingy dampness. It was so dark; black, drizzly and very cold.

The sky was incredibly black, and the wind relentless.

I had no idea what I was doing, or how I had got here. As far as I could tell, I was stumbling across a grassy knoll, with no protection from the weather. I was moving, but passing in and out of full consciousness, and gradually becoming aware of bumping into something very solid; the first solidity I could recall from this strange wind-swept sojourn, although I could not recall when and how it had started. What have I bumped into? It was about two metres tall, tapered and cylindrical like a chimney, narrowing towards the top. I explored its cold ceramic outline with fumbling fingers, struggling to recognize it in this hostile environment.

I would be hard put to explain how alien-long my fingers looked to me; the really shocking inability to recognize one’s own fingers is something no one can imagine. Long and slender, with nails that were in need of trimming; surprisingly feminine and graceful, not at all how I remembered them. But they were all I had for the job at hand.

At its base, this thing was much wider, more or less spherical, about one metre diameter, but not evenly-shaped. I became more alert as I encountered various protrusions and lumps. On either side was a hand-sized area that was slightly proud of the surface. Between them, on what I chose to think of as a front, was a central protrusion, with a horizontal ridge underneath it, and two disk-shaped indentations symmetrically disposed, above and to either side. The whole thing, I realized with an inexplicable but profound shudder, felt just like one of those caricature cabbage-patch doll faces on a clay barbecue oven of the type that became popular in English garden centres at the turn of the century. My mind was growing more alert as I made two further discoveries; the nose-like protruberence was slightly loose, and a barely discernable line ran around the edge of the “face” in a way that made me think of a door. A door; I wondered if I could open it, as I tried to rattle or rotate the nose. There was some kind of mechanism offering resistance to my random movements of the nose, but suddenly there was a faint click as this door opened. A blinding flash and the pain of searing heat accompanied the experience of being hurled through the air backwards in slow motion. As I lost consciousness again, I wondered why anyone would booby trap a barbecue-oven, and whether I would survive this strange bleak night. The last thing I remember was hearing, but not feeling, the thud as my limp body landed on the muddy grass lower down the knoll.

An indeterminate time passed before I regained consciousness. I was very hungry, as weak as a kitten, and experiencing little else other than immense pain. I passed out again. I drifted like this for many days, because sometimes it was light, sometimes dark.

Finally, I awoke one morning to find a young girl, perhaps twelve, trickling water in to my mouth. She was startled as I spluttered awake, and said something in an unfamiliar language, but the sentiment was clearly soothing. I knew she had nursed me and kept me alive; I knew I was weak.