What would you do..
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..if someone delivered a tonne of onions to your door? Hinx and I explored the question
TOM (Caek)
If someone delivered a tonne of onions to your front door, how would you react?MICHAEL (Hinx)
I wouldn't sign the release form and request they take it back to where it came from.Might inquire into who made the order.
TOM
All the delivery man tells you is:''They came from the mist''
MICHAEL
I look closer at the man. Is he real?TOM
He looks as real as the day is longMICHAEL
Worried by this I would sign the release form and navigate the man toward the barns. I would then alert the Village Voice and host an onions sale within the month to try and make a profit on the affair.TOM
As soon as the form is signed you feel light headed, the pen tumbles from your hands - you feel a chill pricking the end of your fingers.You frown as the pen spirals down onto the path, you bend over to pick it back up again - as you do so a cloud fills your mind and your breath catches in your throat. Still bent double you close your eyes and inhale through your nose in an attempt to clear the groggy feeling swirling in the front of your mind.
You breath out once and gather the pen from the floor. You stand and cough the dryness from your throat. The man who stood before you is gone, as is his van. You don't remember hearing him drive away. Surely the crunch of his tyres on the gravel drive would have caused you to look up, failing that the harsh sound of the old diesel engine starting up in the stillness of this Monday morning?
Evidently not.
You check your watch. 11:30am? The door had run at 9. How long had you been there?
The onions, where are the onions?
Somewhere in the distance you hear a lamb crying…
MICHAEL
Perplexed by the events I stagger forward, that lamb, that weeping lamb – It must mean something? Anything? I have to find out.My mind still ablaze with thoughts, twisting, turning thoughts, confusion at the time lost, the van that vanished, the man that never was – I stumble forward through the late morning dew, there’s a chill in the that begins to bite, bite at the ankles, just the ankles, nothing else - It becomes unbearable just as I approach the lamb.
The lamb…..
TOM
You still clutch the pen, a tight grasp - squeezing the life out if it almost, as if the answers to what you are seeking will bleed out like the thick dark ink contained within.The cold around your ankles digs into your flesh like frosted teeth, chilling down to your bones until walking becomes a torture reserved not even for your most mortal of enemies.
Each step feels like a thousand, the world before you contorts and twists, undulates and ebbs. Was that the sound of rubber on gravel? The van, maybe, has it returned?
Your gaze is affixed on the lamb sitting cross-legged in the paddock before you. The creature bleats and wails as it sits looking up at you, watching your every languid step as you stagger ever closer.
How far have I walked, you ponder. It feels like I have been walking for hours, days, you say to yourself. Yet looking back you see the dull glow from your kitchen window, a beacon in the mist not a hundred yards behind you.
That warm, homely glow. Even the thought of turning and walking back to it makes your bones ache, your cold bones. You look back towards the lamb who is now standing some way ahead of you, looking back.
With a single twitch of it's tail it bounds off into the gloom.
You swear you saw an onion locked within it's jaws..
MICHAEL
An onion, I’m certain of it, it had to be, that thought, that solemn promise that my quest was close to over – it’s like summer sprawling out in my heart. A second wind. I leap, I run, I gallop and charge. The lamb is fast, so very fast. Is it real? Is any of this real? I’ve come too far to not find out. The chase continues.Overhead I hear a hoot, a constant hoot, an owl. An owl has joined the game. It swoops low and winks at me, it can wink, was it encouraging me?
Was it mocking me? It swoops again, winking as it did before.The lamb is too far ahead now; I’ve lost sight of it, lost sight of my onion, my enemy, my dream. The owl is my guide now, my beacon in the sky, I follow it with complete trust – It is my friend and mentor, the owl, the honest owl.
I slow, I hesitate, I gasp and stop. The owl. That damn owl, its betrayed me. Gone. Like the onions, like the van, the driver and the lamb. They’ve all left me. I’m alone.
So alone…
TOM
The mist now is chokingAll around, a blanket hugging at your senses. It's fingers clawing your throat, it's talons scratching your ankles. Your eyes search for something, anything in the dank grey veil enveloping your vision.
The pen falls from your grasp, the cold having had its way with your numb fingers.
It clatters onto the floor.
Clatters..?
You glance down. A courtyard? You scuff your feet over the dark red brickwork, ripping moss and earth clinging to the mosaic slowly revealing itself to you. Breathing heavily you kick harder. The image of an owl opens up beneath you. You drop to your knees pulling the last of the vines from view.
Standing you wipe the beading sweat from your brow before it chills your skin.
Somewhere in the distance a lamb cries..
MICHAEL
In the corner of courtyard I see something, a shadow in the darkness.
It's
not moving. It's still. Perfectly still. I move closer, and again, closer still and then I see it. The owl. That poor owl.I take a moment of bereavement, just a moment. The owl, the noble owl, it didn't leave me after all - It was killed! Murdered! But by who? The lamb?
The driver? Some other foul beast that lurks in the haze? I couldn't be sure. But for now that was enough, it was enough to know the day was not completely filled with terrors bent against me, that chivalry and courage was not yet dead.The lamb.. Was it close? I could still hear it, it couldn't be far, it MUST not be far! I took to stealth, stalking the unknown. Progress was slow.
I
was heartened though, the owls sacrifice had spurred me on, hope was not yet extinguished, not yet. Progress was slow…In the silence of my hunt thoughts began to take hold. Like icy hands they strangled me. I found myself begin to wonder, had I like Alice before me fallen into some mystical Wonderland? Was this a sequel? and if so would it be as commercially successful? I doubted. I doubted Wonderland, I doubted success I doubted it all, but then...
The lamb! It was an onion! An onion in its mouth! I could see it now as clearly as I ever could! An onion! Behind bone bars! It taunted me.
Laughing, cackling - The madness carried on the wind like a breeze of hail and storm.Now! I had to strike now! I pounced...
TOM
You awake with a start.After a moments contemplation you reach up and press your fingers against your brow
tick tock tick tock
Your head is throbbing, fingers wet with a warm stickiness.
Blood?
Blood.
Crimson, copper tasting blood, blood. your blood.
-Blood-
tick tock, tick tock
The milky haze has all but vanished from your mind. Your ankles and bones ache, you feel as if you have been walking for days, having scaled a mountain - however your heart is not filled with the same adulation that can only be taken from tasting the freshness of the air at the conclusion of such a feat.
Your heart is filled with a sagging void, an emptiness.
You bring your hands to your face expecting to smell the rich earth you dragged away from the ageless mosaic in the courtyard.
You smell nothing.
Was there a courtyard?
tick tock tick tock
Dragging yourself to your feet you move over towards the sink, turn on the tap and cleanse your face with the clear running water.
*tick tock ti- *
The clock on your kitchen wall stops a second before 9am. The void swells up within your belly as you turn your head towards the door.
Someone knocks twice.
MICHAEL
I think that nicely wraps up what I'd do if someone delivered a tonne of onions to my door. -
You two should write childrens books!
You actually had me reading to the end about Onions! Freaking onions!
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Kids, (don't) do drugs!
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Onion rings.
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Shoot the mailman (who's clearly some sort of Lovecraftian horror in disguise), and bury him somewhere in the mountains, along with the onions, hoping the vegetables will mask your dark deed.
Or use them in curry, I don't know.
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XD
What would I do with onions? I'm not sure my answer would be as interesting and adventurous as yours.
Probably throw them at people. shrugs
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Tom’s text today was slightly less whimsical…