The Incredible Journey

fathamster hooked me up with the subject, and will add the mental health part as well...i'm expecting you all to add onto this ok?  haha...LET'S DO THIS! 

CHAPTER ONE.

He was a grim looking fella; woke up smashing his alarm clock with the Louisville slugger he bought the night before.  This was not the normal way he would wake up.

This brisk sunny Tuesday morning was different.  He felt different. Something was boiling inside him.  “why did I buy this gosh dang bat?” he says to himself while scratching his balls.  It became what seemed like a morning ritual to him…scratching his balls.  There was  strings of shiny, curly black hair fastened to the dried up blood on the wooden slugger.  “uh-oh” thought Grim, (that’s what we’ll call him, Grim) “This doesn’t look good”.  Oddly enough, the burly fella didn’t seem too worried.

Somewhere in the recesses of his mind he knew there was a reason that the alarm went off. And then he remembered. He was due to see Dr Alan Carnagy at 9a.m. sharp, no excuses, and bring your note book. Grim looked around for his notebook. He had kept a diary in it meticulously for the last three weeks. It had been hard at first because nothing ever happened, but the doc had said to write everything, no matter how insignificant. On day one he wrote.."my pee burns", that was it. But three weeks later he was writing much more. He reached for the battered old book and looked at his entry for last night....

(Couldnt resist..ignore it if you like)

 He reached for the battered old book and looked at his entry for last night...........'say what you want, when you want as often as you want' was written there in the book over & over & over again.

Somehow Grim clearly seen the significance of his insignificant repetitious statements. There mirrored in front of him.........

He kept reading and reading, realized there were time stamps.  Last time stamped was at 0369 hours..."what? that doesn't make sense?"  Grim finds cell phone to check the time since he smashed his alarm clock.  It's almost 8:00am.  He thinks to himself, "I must be going crazy".  

Somthing tells him to look at his pictures on his cell..first picture is a pair of bloody shoes.  Where ARE his chuckys? "o man, enough of this, what does the book say I did?!"   He scurries off through the pages, finds his last entry....

"0369 hours:  It's raining out.  I took a mans last cigarrette.  I broke the cigarrette on accident.  My hands were shaking so bad, I snapped the grit in two.  what happened with Lucy? Why did she get so mad?"  -

Grim keeps reading...

He heard the soft pad of feet on the tiled floor and slowly looked up. "Lucy! Thank God!" He cried. Lucy wagged her tail in the happy rythmic way only a labrador can. "You were so cross last night" said Grim"maybe you need more of your medicine". This, however, did not explain the bloody shoes. There was no sign of them now, he must have thrown them away. His memory lapses were definitely getting worse. For instance, he had to be somewhere this morning and he couldn't remember where. The last entry in the notebook said "they are coming"....

(Sorry for derailing the Lucy thing but my story had other ideas :) )

"They are coming"..."0369 hours"...Grim searched through his mind to decipher; Who, what, where, when, why...? "The '0369' was not a time!" he concluded..."It was a count down!...A count down to what?"...

Grim made a quick calculation, whatever was coming was going to do so in about two weeks given the hours left in the count down. Remembering a film he once saw about a woman with amnesia, he left himself a note on the refrigerator...they are coming..14 days. It looked like a friendly reminder about a delivery of groceries, or the visit of a friend. Lucy was going frantic, scratching at the cellar door and making odd little yipping sounds. Grim reassured her with a pat on the head, and gently chastising her for her fuss, he opened the door..

...A chill air came up from the darkness below. Grim reached out for the light switch on the left wall and was reassured when the darkness was illuminated by a low yellow hue from deep below. He felt an urgency to decend the wooden steps but proceeded slowly as he felt a slight sweat of fear holding on to the bannister. Lucy, who would normally have torn down the steps first; remained silent and static at the door. The groan of the old steps under his weight culminated in a thud as the last step was broken and his foot landed on the dusty stone floor.In the dim light Grim scanned the cellar and suddenly shook as a figure gazed back at him...his throat went dry, he could not let out a cry of surprise. Taking a few seconds to compose himself he focused into the distance...he then realised, "It's a mirror!" His lungs exhaled in one sharp breath and he moved towards it. On the surface of the glass, written in the dust was a name..."Leonard ?" he mused. Below the name a further word was just visible...'HELP!'.

An urgent beeping sound broke the silence, his mobile phone flashed a missed call. Grim stabbed the screen to see who it was, his psychiatrist was nagging him to attend an appointment this morning. Grim sent a quick text "on my way" and flipped the phone shut. He quickly scanned the cellar for any more surprises but there were none. Back upstairs he added Leonard and Help to the reminder note. It now read ..2 weeks..they are coming..Leonard..help. Grim gave Lucy her dumb bell to play with and set off for his appointment.

Sheffield was a busy city and Grim thought people seemed to lear and stare at him as he made the short walk to Argyll House 1 Williamson Road Nether Edge. It was where his psychiatrist would chat to him and where he felt comfortable to do so but for now he had to avoid peoples glances and ignore the occasional voice he thought he could hear as if emminating from the passing torrent of others on the way. Grim knew the journey well...right onto Cowlishaw road...left onto Psalters and then right he would be there.

Grim was out of breath at the top of Cowlishaw Road as the incline did not sit well with his rolling cigarettes as often as he did and although he was not unduly failing body wise, he had a paunch and could do with riding his bike more than he had; at the moment Grim took more excercise by walking Lucy.

Even though he was out of breath, he decided to light up again.  This time with a joint, however.    He knew, going into the shrinks den, while stoned would make for a much different session, he just didn’t care.  He had to calm himself. 

The road Psalters was probably the only road in the city that made Grim cringe.  It had a dark, cold scent to it. It seemed alive at times…this was one of those times.  Who knows, maybe it was the weed that revives the road, maybe just Grims paranoia.  It seems no ones mows their lawn, grass is 6” to a foot high on both sides, houses are all dark, and there seems to always never be sunshine down this road, yet one can see the light at the END of the street; which was about 4 blocks down..  “strange” Grim whispers. 

His first step in, FIRST STEP!, and he hears a females laughter.   It was the mixture of a cackle, as if from a wart nosed witch, and a laugh of invitation from sensual temptation.  He stops, puts his head down, takes a silent deep breath in with his hazel, brown eyes closed, instinctively clenches his fists at the same time.  “not this time”, says Grim, and he keeps walking.     He smells her, she gets closer, he’s not looking over, trying not to look over,  ….he looks over…

....Just an old homeless woman asking for money.  The darkness receeded.  He pushed open the psychiatrists door and stood in front of the receptionist.  He gave his name.  She tapped the computer and frowned.  Tapped again.  'I'm sorry', she said, 'I have no record of you being a patient here'.

"Dr Alan Carnagy at 9a.m...Dr Alan Carnagy at 9a.m!!" Grim's voice raised as he repeated the words. A door to the right opened and a small white haired man appeared. He looked intently around then found who he was looking for. "Leonard?".

Grim nodded, it seemed that he was Leonard. Maybe he had given a false name at some point, but why would he do that? Dr Carnagy's consulting room was an odd mixture of blue and beige, as if decorated by two diametrically opposed people wno agreed to differ and then did their own thi g at opposite ends of the room. The beige decorator had added maroon curtains to an already dodgy choice so that any client was predisposed to wonder what the hell they were thinking and mentally choose another colour. Maybe that was the idea, to relax the mind and focus on curtains. Grim smiled to himself and faced Dr Carnagy who was studying some notes. ...

...Dr Carnagy looked up from his reading and studied Grim a.k.a. Leonard. "What's your perception of reality like at this moment?". Grim was silent for a few seconds then blurted out.."I'm in some sort of count down..."; showing Carnagy the notebook he held out..."There's also this picture on my mobile phone...Nothing seems real but I know it's true because I wrote it down...".Carnagy took in the image and the notes and breathed in a deep sigh. "We've been here before Leonard...last year you showed up and said you'd been followed to the appointment. What makes this reality any different?". Grim finally sat down in the comfortable chair opposite Carnagy. Grim continued "In about two weeks the count down will end and that's what I have to figure out...This note says I took a man's last cigarette and broke it...Why?...Who was he?....". Carnagy listened making more notes. Carnagy also made a mental note that in two weeks it would be the anniversary of Leonard's Birthday; exactly a year since 'The Incident'....For a short while noone said anything as if the ability to speak had been taken away. The clock on Carnagy's desk broke the silence with it's insisstant ticking. Carnagy noticed it and broke the time spin by handing back Grim's notebook, saying "Here is a list of telephone numbers that you can call if you need to talk out of hours...What are you doing for the rest of the day?". Grim thought; as if it was a trick question but finally replied..."I'm going to find out what this all means...The man...the time countdown...the bloody sport shoes..." Carnagy quickly interupted "You say it's blood...it's a photo...it's just a red something at the moment.". Grim conceded that was true and stood up ready to go. "I've made an appointment for a weeks time...' Carnagy added. Grim acknowledged Carnagy with a nod and left the room...through the staring faces in the waiting annex and back out into the fresh non sterilised air of freedom...

Someone across the street called his name and ran towards him carrying something in a plastic bag, something fairly light but bulky. The bag bulged in strange places. "Here," said the man, "I was on my way over to yours to give these back, you left them at our house". Leonard now realised it was his mate from the pub, the one who was always asking favours. Gingerly, he opened the bag and then promptly dropped it on the pavement with a shriek. "I know" said his mate"they got covered, but I think you will get them clean with a bit of detergent". Leonard gazed blankly at his friend as if seeing him for the first time..tentatively he asked "what exactly were we doing?" "Painting my shed red, remember?" said his friend, "sorry aboutyour shoes". Leonard picked up the bag and dropped it into a neafby litter bin, then deleted the photo from his phone.

But it was Grim..and Leonard was the mate?