A Chance for Chess

Short Story

There lived a great king; high King Duremaine, ruler of the town Knight’s Square and its surrounding lands.

                The King had much to boast of: a loyal court, a thriving town and, chief among all, his chessboard.

                Every day, in the gloriously sunny afternoons, King Duremaine would sit at his chess board, atop his mighty castle’s roof, and play against himself.

                The red side – the King’s – always won. The black side would put up a good show, undoubtedly. Sometimes victory would be within their grasp, only to be shut out by a temperamental queen or unexpected bishop.  

                The chess set itself was exquisite. A board made of deep oak and mahogany, polished expertly every day after the King’s game, before being locked safely away.

The pieces: carved red and black glass, which played with sunlight majestically to liven up the game and make the board seem like it was covered in blood.

King Duremaine kept his beloved red pieces in a velvet pouch, secured to his belt at all times. The black pieces were locked away with the board.  

Needless to say, the life of King Duremaine was idyllic, peaceful and content.

Which means, of course that the door was left wide open for Boredom.

Boredom came to King Duremaine midway through his seven hundred and fifty sixth game.

As the red rook cornered the black king, Boredom showed him two things:

1. The red side; the untouched winners, the dull, arrogant, undefeated lot.

2. And the empty seat behind the black side.

It was with a small sigh that King Duremaine knocked down the black king that day. 

The following day, King Duremaine made a proclamation to the good folk of Knight’s Square. He promised to any man or woman who could best him at chess would win his very own crown.

Most town-folk merely laughed. The King’s chess prowess and constant practice were the commonest knowledge.

But a ripple of excitement did hit a few citizens. Who went away, deep in thought.

With that, the King declared the challenge would begin in one month. Many queried the delay aloud, but were left without answer.

 

In time, an answer did become clear.

For you see, Boredom had not travelled alone to King Duremaine. It had brought along dear Curiosity, and its distant relation, Creativity.

These three combined forces thus lead to King Duremaine to order a large slingshot to be constructed upon the roof of his palace.

The building of it lasted one month. Then the contest began.

 

The first applicant was a hopeful young farmer named Christopher. He too had received his own visit from Boredom, who had shown him the true worth of farming. The result of the visit was the reason Christopher was now standing in the castle entrance hall.

A queue of hopeful applicants, of ranging age and wealth, were arranged nearby behind him, kept in check by a small handful of guards.

Another guard led Christopher from the entrance hall, up a considerable amount of staircases, until eventually they reached the roof.

Christopher was unsurprised to see the slingshot, pointing out from the castle over the land surrounding Knight’s Square. Its creation had hardly gone unnoticed or undiscussed. 

Christopher’s surprise did arrive when he was directed to sit in the notch of the slingshot; him facing the chess board and the sling and his back facing the King’s land.

Surprise was rather rapidly replaced by deep anxiety.  

King Duremaine, already there and patiently waiting, wordlessly took one of his pawns and moved it two spaces forwards. He sat back afterwards, hands linked and eyes attentively on Christopher.

Christopher’s sweating hand slipped slightly on the glass piece, but even with a shaking hand, we managed to move one of his own pawns two spaces forward. He too sat back, with quite ragged breathing.

The King made a face, and an odd tut noise of disappointment. He moved his Queen’s bishop five spaces diagonally forwards.

“Checkmate,” he said with finality.

Christopher’s face fell, and he spluttered with confusion. Before he could defend himself, the catapult was engaged, and he was flung away into the distance.

The guard who had escorted Christopher walked towards the table. He studied the pieces, did a very quick calculation and said “Sir. I’m not quite sure that you’ve…”

He silenced himself immediately when the King turned to him. Never before had he seen the King with eyes like the ones he found himself staring into. The deepest anger; much more than he thought the King to be capable of. He mumbled something about ‘next person’ and hurried off down the stairs.

Other guards got to work resetting the catapult, while King Duremaine reset the board. It did not take long.

“He stank,” the King declared to no-one in particular. “Didn’t want his hands on my chess board.”

No-one replied.  

The Catapult-Chess game occurred only five more times. The first two, after Christopher, were simply unaware of the situation until they found themselves spending their last seconds alive above a field.

The latter three were, to all intents and purposes, desperate.

The King cheated on all five games; and would comment on each applicant’s unworthiness to even touch his board for more than ten moves. After they had been shot off, of course.

A field some distance from Knight’s Square received all six bodies without pity or question.  

Word spread, understandably, of mad King Duremaine and his rigged chess contraption. Most stories came from the escorting guard, who suddenly disappeared not long after the sixth occurrence.

Soon enough, the King was left to play alone once more. He stopped cheating, and he played, absent of the knowledge that his irrational game had lit the spark of revolution.  

The people of Knight’s Square were rattled, to say the very least. A leader who flung poor, rigged-chess-game players to their deaths was hardly an appropriate leader. With the idea of rebellion and treason building and nesting deeply in their hearts, one knight decided to give it one last attempt. 

The sixty two year aged warrior was named Sir Douglas. He had fought many, many battles, killed very often and had retired well. Knight’s Square had welcomed him in, happily, and treated him as nothing less than a hero. They had even hung his old armour in the Great Hall as tribute.

So Sir Douglas would be damned if he didn’t at least try and stop this war in his beloved town. If ownership came along in the deal, that was just an extra.  

The next day, Sir Douglas was escorted up the many staircases, by a different guard – “Wonder where the damned fool’s run off to?” the King had pondered while player six had landed with a dull thump a few miles away.

Sir Douglas had to stop for a breather, twice, on the way up, but was very soon sat in the notch of the slingshot, facing a truly wonderful chess set.  

King Duremaine respected Sir Douglas. He had given the order to hang his armour in the Great Hall in the first place. So he decided to let up on the cheating for today. Over seven hundred and fifty games experience should be enough.  

The game began and progressed silently, save for the dull clinks of glass on wood. The Old Chess Expert (rather mad) against the Old Warrior (rather determined). Differences were quite few and far between.

Pieces were lost and tensions were high. The glistening chess pieces shone with glass and sweat alike. Still, the silence remained. The King. Sir Douglas. The Slingshot Operator. No noise from anything but the board.  

Until one sudden moment.

King Duremaine had clearly spotted something Sir Douglas hadn’t. The vow of ‘No Cheating’ was still in effect; this literally was a flaw in the left side of the battlefield…. “chessboard”. Quite similar to game five hundred and twenty nine. Or was it five hundred and thirty?

The King let out a small grunt of satisfaction and slid a rook forward.

Five hundred and thirty, definitely.  

King Duremaine smiled a small smile. It had been a long road, but finally, he had come through, and won honest and true. He readied his jaw to form the two syllables of victory – and flying citizens – when the knight in opposition made a sudden move.

The King, still about to speak, thought there was different cheating afoot, but was left mistaken.  

As ‘checkmate’ left the royal lips, poor Sir Douglas was sent flying away a few miles away…clutching a considerable amount of small, red glass chess pieces.  

King Duremaine spluttered and mumbled in a mix of horror, confusion and spit. His men were already setting up the slingshot again, but to what purpose? The King had no beloved chess pieces to play with anymore; his velvet pouch would now forever be empty. Over seven hundred and fifty uses, now clutched in a dead man’s hand.

“No,” he growled, and jumped forwards. “CHECKMATE!” He roared.  

The Slingshot Operator: robotic, habitual, oblivious. Responsive.

He heard the word, and pulled the lever.  

King Duremaine shot forward at blinding speed, determined more than ever to get his beloved pieces back.

Right up until Gravity, and its somewhat partner Ground, caught up with him.

The King’s determination and optimism didn’t exactly count for much following that.  

Knight’s Square was left king-less for a long time following the accident involving a mad king, a slingshot and a chess board.

The lack of monarchy did then lead to an uprising in anarchy.

Sir Douglas had, at least, tried his best. 

As for King Duremaine; he had killed when Boredom came along and opened the door.

And died when it left the door open for a little one named Insanity.  

Checkmate. 

Dream Escape

Short Story

It was almost exactly like the Italian bistro he had visited on holiday. Quaint little tables with red and white checker tops, wine bottles in little baskets and Con te Partiro playing softly in the background.

Clyde took a seat near the glass-front desert fridge, but resolutely didn’t look inside. Instead he picked up the little black book labelled ‘Menu’. When he flicked through it, Clyde found every page was covered in the word ‘Food’ in tiny, typed writing. Every single page, only that word was cramped into any available little space.
As Clyde considered just which ‘Food’ he was going to have, he was entirely oblivious to the fork floating silently past his left ear. Only when his knife decided to pay a slow visit to the ceiling did he eventually look up.
A waitress dressed like “that girl from the party last week” trotted over. Clyde attempted, and royally failed, not to look anywhere but the girl’s eyes.
“Red triangles,” she said, “red triangles, red triangles, red triangles.”
Clyde pondered whether to find this strange, or the gentle tornado of cutlery happening over the girl’s shoulder. He eventually settled on neither, and pointed to the two hundred and thirty first ‘Food’ on page two.
“Red triangles,” the girl insisted, “red triangles, red triangles!”
Her voice reached a scream, and the girl burst into a large cloud of red triangles. Thousands of tiny, red, almost video game styled three-sided shapes.
Clyde felt ready to panic, there and then, when the entire scene froze in front of him. This was twinned with a nearly deafening beep noise. Four regular beeps to be precise, in quick and measured succession.

“Odd,” Clyde spoke aloud, “I’m normally awake by now.
The beeping continued for exactly a minute, and then silence returned.
Clyde looked about himself. No bedroom, no night clothes, no alarm clock to punch. Just a suspended-in-time bistro with weird menus and weirder staff.
“Stuck…in my own mind?” Clyde asked the frozen red triangles. Answerless, Clyde decided to do the only thing possible. He went for a walk.
 
Outside the bistro, everything stopped. Quite literally in fact, for the bistro was an island in a world of infinite white. Clyde found himself thinking of an old cliché ‘No man is an island’.
“Still, soon as I set off, that won’t be true,” Clyde said with a chuckle.
As the words ‘No man is an island’ ran through his mind, a small black arrow labelled “Clichés” appeared directly in front of Clyde. Startled, he peered closer and saw in small letters at the bottom: “A division of ‘Vocabulary’.” The arrow pointed to Clyde’s right, so that was precisely the direction in which he set off.
Along the way, to make a makeshift compass, Clyde recalled every cliché he knew. All he had to do was picture his mother speaking to him and the ‘old sayings’ came through clear enough. “Curiosity killed the cat” lead him around an odd clump of grey clouds (as well as made him a tad more nervous) and “all roads lead to Rome” brought him near the edge of all the white.
It also conjured up a photo of the Colosseum out of nowhere. Clyde side-stepped this to try and avoid fully remembering it, fearing getting crushed by a memory.

The infinite whiteness then parted to reveal an ancient library; old and decaying by design, with Grecian columns lining the front. In weathered letters above large, wooden doors was the word “Speech.”
Clyde pushed open the doors with some effort, to enter a massive and quite magnificent foyer. Bookshelves, all of varying design and size, made up every wall and took up a vast amount of floor-space too. Each was packed with books, the same book over and over again; an aged, brown leather hardback.
Every shelf also had a sign above it, the randomness of each making Clyde doubt his visual skills. The signs had titles like ‘Awkward Situations’, ‘Small Talk’ and ‘Tongue-Tip’, just three examples of hundreds.
In the centre of the huge room stood a doughnut-shaped desk, in the middle ring of which sat an old man, who has his feet up.

Clyde walked towards him, stepping over a few discarded books as he did so. Upon reaching the desk, he noticed the man was reading a magazine, one which looked strikingly like the one Clyde had read before going to sleep. Clyde also noticed that in one hand, the man held a highlighter.
“Excuse me?” Clyde ventured.
“Polite greetings; section four, shelf six.” The man replied without looking up.
Clyde faltered for a moment. “No, no, I just wondered if you could help me?”
“Cross reference. Disagreement and vague request. Try section eight.”
Clyde gave up and wandered away. Behind him, he heard the flap and click of a magazine and pen being put down. This was followed by a muttered “Not one new word.”

Clyde continued walking aimlessly, and quickly discovered he was in the ‘Childhood’ section. Resolutely not looking back at the man, Clyde grabbed a book at random and began flicking through it.
“Entry 93,” he read quietly, “Ba-da is slowly becoming Da-da…Thomas the Tank Engine is still inexplicably ‘Gunny’.
“Gunny,” Clyde repeated under his breath. He laughed softly. “Gunny.”
The more he thought about it, the clearer it became, when suddenly the librarian-magazine-man was at Clyde’s elbow.
“Need this,” the man said, taking the book from Clyde’s hands, and hurried off.
All thoughts of ‘Gunny’ were dropped from Clyde’s mind, and the man reappeared to return the book to its shelf.
Without subtlety, Clyde stared at him when he returned.
Taking notice, with ease, the man eyed Clyde suspiciously. “Can I help you?”
“Er…erm…vague request, section eight!” Clyde declared.
The man grinned coolly. “Rhetoric. Huge section for that. But really, what are you after?”
“I don’t know,” Clyde said. Then the words just came tumbling out: “You see, I was in this Bistro, in the middle of all this white, and there were red triangles and…”
The man held up a hand. “White?”
“Yeah.” Clyde nodded. “Loads of it.”
“You crossed the Dream Scape? Must have taken a while. Never thought I’d meet a member of the Dream Division either. Too erratic, for one thing.”
“No, I didn’t make the Bistro. I was there, and there was this odd menu with…”
The same hand went up again. “You were in the dream?”
Clyde nodded again.
“I see,” said the man. “I see.” Louder this time. “I see!” He then walked away, but kept getting louder. “I see, I see, I SEE!”

A small child materialised next to the man.
“That was fast,” the librarian said.
“Yeah, not much is happening now.”
Clyde realised, there was something familiar about this child. Something about the awkward teeth, bumpy knees or maybe that god-awful haircut.  Might even be the men’s t-shirt folded back on itself and tucked into a pair of paint-covered jeans.
“Things have gone quiet,” the child was saying. “He left the Dream, and is now…”
“…standing right in front of you,” the librarian added.
The child’s mouth fell open, but he quickly composed himself. However, the face of surprise had given Clyde his answer.
“Right. Okay. Well, back to work Vocab,” the child said, as calmly as possible, “I’m sure we’ll call you if we need you. Or, he will at least.”
Vocab bustled off back to his desk, but did not sit down. Rather, he remained where he stood, ready, as if poised to flee.
The child approached Clyde and extended a hand up to him. “Hello. I’m IC.”
“Hi.” Clyde took the hand and shook it, trying to ignore Vocab dashing off to the shelf under the sign ‘Greetings’.
“What does IC stand for?” Clyde asked pointedly.
“Inner Child,” IC replied, quite automatically.
Clyde pulled a “I knew it” face and made a noise to match.
“Now,” IC went on, “no time to waste. The mental outcomes of being inside one’s own mind could be baffling. And believe me, we’d know.”
Clyde stood in dumb silence, so Vocab soon returned into view.
“So, Clyde, can you imagine a door for me. Marked ‘Shortcut’?”
Clyde could feel his head ready to burst with questions, but rather fearful of being crushed by them, he fixated upon the door idea.

Immediately, a white door popped up in the middle of the floor. The word ‘Shortcut’ was indeed on it, scrawled in a child’s messy handwriting. IC and Clyde approached it.
“Is the door like one of those psychological tests? How I perceive it is who I really am?”
“I dunno. I just needed a door. Come on,” IC urged.
They crossed the threshold together, leaving Vocab to rush off to ‘Meaningful Questions’.

 “What is this place?” Clyde asked mere seconds after passing through the door.
“It’s what you might call your mind’s dumping ground,” IC replied without elaborating.
Clyde looked around very carefully at what looked, essentially, like bubbles. IC and Clyde were surrounded by these ‘bubbles’ of different sizes; some were taller than Clyde, others looked like nothing more than dust particles.
Clyde looked into as many as he could when passing them. In some, he saw old lessons like algebra and the boiling point of acids. Others had information like what kind of bear requires which kind of approach or does a good egg float or not.
“It’s like a lifetime of those ‘Useless Trivia’ books.”
“One man’s trash…” IC replied, giving Clyde a quick reminder of the Cliché Arrows.

“So,” Clyde attempted after some silent walking, “my mind’s full of little people. Quite movie-like, isn’t it?”
“Actually it is movie-like, but only because you watched the right movie. Before that little cinema trip, we were a system of talking folders. No doubt the years of computer work taking its toll.”
“Then not everyone has mini mind people?”
“Remember the girl from the party last week?”
Clyde did, trying his best to supress mini-red-triangle thoughts. “Yes…?”
“Yeah, you don’t want to know what she used,” IC went on unhelpfully.
“How would you know?”
“If there is DNA in a mind, then there is mind in DNA. When you two kissed, we got a sprinkling of her.”
“I kissed her?!”
“I need to take a visit to ‘Priorities’,” IC mumbled, “and ‘Memory’. See if I can clear out those little Drink-Mites.”
After his little grumbled outburst, IC lapsed back into silence.

Clyde watched many bubbles of birthday dates glide by, and tried again. “Why is my Inner Child in charge?”
IC snorted. “Ask your therapist, not me.” He thought for a moment. “I’d been around since the very beginning, I had all the access. Made sense I suppose.”
Clyde was still a bit pre-occupied with the therapist point, and desperately tried to ignore the bubbles concerning his failed A-Level psychology module, which just so happened to choose that moment to drift by.

After what could have been any period of time, the Bubble/Dump Field came to a sheer wall of black. It was perfectly straight in every direction, and perfectly endless in every direction.
It hurt Clyde’s eyes to look at it, and as he had no idea what would happen if he got a headache, he stared determinately at the floor.
IC reached the wall and finally turned. “Welcome to the Maze of Bad Memories.”
“The Maze of…” Clyde mumbled, still not looking at it properly.
“Yes,” IC continued, “the Maze of Bad Memories. All pain, guilt, fear, selfishness: kept safely inside here.”
“Why a maze?”
“Because most bad memories lead to another, but you never quite know how you got there.”
Clyde chewed this over for a moment. “And what’s this got to do with me?”
“You didn’t wake up Clyde. But you’re not dead either. Something is troubling you so much that you looked inward.”
“Subconsciously?”
“I believe so. Dreams, Dumping Ground and Bad Memories all fall into the subconscious, one way or another. But it seems the door to the Subconscious is a door left forever ajar. Sometimes something gets out.”
Again, Clyde could feel his mind getting ready to swim. He tried to clear his thoughts, and the world around him wobbled slightly.
“Once you have dealt with the Maze,” IC added, “you shall reach your Mind’s Eye. The shock of seeing yourself clearly in your Mind’s Eye should wake you.”
“How?”
“Have you ever seen your own face in a dream?”
Clyde hesitated, and in that moment, IC vanished, leaving him with just the black wall of the maze. Clyde slowly approached it, and a panel appeared, allowing easy entrance. It is all too simple to retrieve bad memories.
Clyde wanted to try some form of compose or bravado. Instead, he simply swallowed hard and took a shaky step inside.

Clyde could feel smoke. It panicked him; to feel smoke but not see it was not a stress-free experience. Especially when his eyes then also started to sting.
Trying to blink back tears, and fears, he took a few tentative steps forward. 
"Clyde Andrews!”
Clyde almost fell over in fear, and furiously held back a whimper.
A figure of solid smoke lighted into life in front of him. Female. Old. Hands on hips.
Furious.
“Forgotten your homework again, eh Andrews?”
“Mrs Hawthorn,” Clyde breathed.
“Don’t just stand there reciting names, boy! Why haven’t you completed your work?”
Clyde stammered and fumbled for an answer, but Mrs Head-of-Year-Four was, he knew, merciless.
“I’m sorry!” Clyde cried. “I can’t, I don’t understand fractions!”
Smoke-Mrs-Hawthorn vanished all together. Clyde shakily stepped forward.
“But I didn’t admit that,” he thought, “I just got detention.”

Clyde pressed on, hands out like he was blind, moving slower than someone in an airport complaint’s desk queue. In the eerie, smoky silence, he kept himself to his thoughts. Happy ones, to combat whatever lay ahead.
But as he pressed on, trying to recall his tenth birthday party, his calm world was shattered by a bizarre noise.
Odd, unsettling and…wet squelches, with the occasional muffled grunt.
Clyde then found himself making out with (smoke form) Amanda from college, a little too forcefully.
There was an awkward sucking noise, and she pulled away.
“God Clyde! I invited you round as a friend, then some drinks later you’re sticking your tongue down my throat?”
Shamefaced, Clyde mumbled apologies at his feet.
“Sorry? I thought you were better than that, I thought…”
“You’re right.” Clyde found his voice and addressed the pissed-off smoke.
“I’m, I’m what?”
“You’re right. I went too far, I shouldn’t have done that. I do value our friendship, but sometimes I’m just too clingy. I’m sorry. For everything.”
Clyde had never heard his own voice so honest. It won out, however, when Smoke Amanda vaporised. 

Clyde continued in this ‘Self-help’ manner for some time; the mind really can jump from one bad memory to another with ease.
He came true with friends he lied to, apologised to unhappy bosses, attended a few missed birthday parties and stopped younger versions of himself doing things they really shouldn’t be doing. He even came to unsteady terms of his father’s death so many years ago. That had been a challenge, but the pain had vanished. The Maze of Bad Memories had even gotten lighter and clearer of smoke. Navigation around the place improved.
As did Clyde’s morale. He felt empowered, determined, and just generally better. There was nothing he couldn’t beat/apologise to/come to terms with.

Then he came to the final corner. Having just explained that, no, he actually didn’t fancy his best friend, he rounded another bend. Opposite him, a door was marked “Mind’s Eye”.
But that wasn’t what Clyde saw first.

“IC?” Clyde whispered. “How did you get in?”
“I’m your final challenge,” he said simply.
“My Inner Child? I don’t have a problem with you.”
“No? Then why am I running the place?”
Clyde looked away in annoyance. He glared back at IC before speaking. “You couldn’t tell me this outside?”
“Oh I’m pretty well repressed. You’ve gone through many bad times to get to me.”
“But I don’t have a problem with you.”
IC sighed. “You’ve gone through bad times, but learnt nothing. Look at what you’ve just seen! Annoyed teachers and bosses, failed relationships, inability to deal with loss of paternal figure. All this basically screams Inner Child difficulties. But you couldn’t see that, could you? You stumbling, mumbling, fumbling machine.”
Clyde said nothing.
“You just never grew up. IC isn’t just Inner Child. It’s Incomplete-Clyde.”
Clyde still said nothing. Had the maze been for nothing?
“Keeping you asleep, bringing you in here didn’t help,” IC mumbled, mostly to himself. “You’re too weak and immature to change.”
“NO!” Clyde’s roar cleared the darkness and smoke all together.
“I reached you,” he said, forcefully. “I stood up to higher powers, I apologised for my mistakes and came to terms with it all. I did all the right things. If you’re incomplete, then you can just get out of my head like the rest of them.” Clyde paused and took a breath. “I’m my own man now.”
IC had just enough time to grin before disappearing completely.
Clyde strode forwards, head high and smile true, to push his way into his mind’s eye.

Dreamers can struggle with reflections. This is the irony of life. No-one’s existence is a Hall of Mirrors. Of every face seen every day, one’s own face is seen the least. 

Thus, when Clyde saw his own face staring back at him; clearer, braver and stronger than ever before, the confusion of it all gave his brain just the tiniest of nudges back into the waking world.
Clyde Andrews woke at 9:20am, only twenty minutes after his alarm.

Time enjoys being fickle, especially within the borders of the mind.

But Clyde was not to know this. He woke with a clear head, a fresh load of determination and a remodelled personality.
He woke into a better life.

 

Come on. One More Mission?

Short Story

A battle field; entirely suspended in space and time. Shells; floating impossibly in the air, unable to move or detonate. Travelling bullets decorate the atmosphere like a thousand flies. Men stand in comical, musical-statue poses, waiting for the orders that are yet to arrive.
There is only ever one leader, the one who receives the orders. His men merely act off of him. His enemies; doubly so. This man is currently at the back, one hand in the action of putting a pistol away, the other reaching for a grenade. He is surrounded by his soldiers, some about to crouch, some already firing their guns, and the rest are stuck in the motions of death. One particular drop of blood from an unfortunate headshot is just waiting to land on the leader's boots.
The war zone has been like this for almost a week.

Maybe he started a new game thinks the Leader. No, can't be. I don't feel younger or less experienced. Must be a holiday.
The leader sighs inwardly. This is far from the first time this had occurred.
In fact, this was just another day in the field.

*

The Leader had started out so optimistic; so naïve. Choosing his uniform and his weaponry had taken a while; and he had suffered incredible wrist spasms when a shotgun kept being replaced by a machine gun, and then back again.
But eventually, everything had darkened. And out of the darkness, came the war. A swirling mass of gunfire, explosions, screaming, bloodshed and CONSTANT running.
At least, that's what the voice in his head seemed to scream the most.
RUN. RUN. RUN. STOP. CROUCH. AIM. FIRE-FIRE-FIRE-FIRE-FIRE. STAND. RUN. RUN. THROW GRENADE. RUN.
Never could he question the voice, or disobey it. If he heard RUN, he found himself running. If he heard FIRE, he found himself shooting. And so on.

His existence was far from stress-free. Well, war zones are never going to be stress-free, but that is heightened rather when some voice in your head tells you to sprint at the enemy, and then tells you to start shooting about twenty steps too late. The Leader would escape alive; but blinking red out of his vision was just becoming second nature.

All that was day one. And then he had felt his first save.
The missions that day had gone well. Several men had been lost; and he'd dropped at least three unwanted pistols on his foot, but things progressed smoothly.
Then a beach swum into his view from nowhere, and the Leader found himself on a U-boat, packed in with his men. Gunfire started early, and a few men were lost almost immediately. The U-boat bumped into shore, the ramp descended, everyone roared their war noises and ran forward - the Leader in front - and then everything just sort of...stopped.
The Leader froze entirely. He couldn't move an inch; yet something in the back of his mind whispered that he still had the capability.
This was followed by an odd rushing feeling, leaving the Leader feeling like he was nailed to the spot. All impulses and orders died in his mind, and the general atmosphere left behind was that of desertion.
The battle field felt slightly darker then, and thus began The Save Wait.

*

 

The Leader thought back to day one, as he stood there with his men. One foot in a puddle, hands mid-way through changing weapons, blood silently waiting to decorate him. This had to be the longest Save Wait yet.

This is ridiculous the Leader decided. No solider should have to wait this long when, quite literally, standing in the middle of a war. Let's try something new...

 

As if on cue, the battle field seemed to lighten then, and the feelings of freedom and movement returned to the Leader, along with everything else.

Bullets and shells found their momentum, noise found its voice and blood splattered anything it could. The Save Wait diminished in a flood of sensory panic.

RUN. RUN RUN. FIRE FIRE FIRE.

The voices returned.

But the Leader did his best to avoid them.

 

RUN. RUN-RUN-RUN.

No. No I won't. I don't have to. I don't want to.

The resulting brain-mix up had the Leader doing a sort of jig towards the battle field.

 

But his rebellion was felt everywhere. Enemies started looking from their guns to their opposition and then frowning. A few of the Leader's soldiers started dancing and skipping around.

 

Still, the voices tore at the Leader.

RUN! They screamed. RUN-FIRE-THROW=GRENADE!!

The Leader kept fighting. The mass of orders flowing through his limbs had him suffering what looked like some sort of fit. A random twitch threw a grenade at a nearby tree; another sent his gun flying off into the dirt.

 

On the other side of the field, their freedom coming through more and more as the Leader found it all, the 'enemies' started to play football with small rocks they found lying around.

Opposite them, the Leader's men were making sculptures out of all their guns.

 

The Leader's movements were bordering on insanity. Somebody, somewhere, was pushing a lot of buttons all at once. The voices in his head were saying every available action all at once.

Until, eventually, something snapped.

But it wasn't the Leader. It was the Leader's Controller's patience.

 

Everything suddenly dimmed. Another Save Wait all over again.

But this one felt different. There was no Save Time-Freeze.

This felt new. A Shut-Down, without a Save Wait.

 

The Leader had all of a few seconds to celebrate his release. No voices, no demands, no standing around like vegetables. They could run this world.

...if the words PROGRESS HAS BEEN LOST didn't flash through, uninvited.

Time reversed; the Leader had an odd few moments of doing the rebellion motions backwards while his soldiers and enemies had guns fly into their hands; bullets flew backwards and shells reassembled themselves and returned to their barrels.

 

The Leader stood, just off a U-boat ramp, surrounded by frozen soldiers and artillery.

Ready to fight again another day.

 

***

 

The moral of the story?

 

1. Be considerate where you save your games. Imagine jumping over a fit pit, being stuck mid-way through and hovering there for hours on end.

 

...and I suppose....

 

 

2. We all get bored and rebellious sometimes. So try and have fun with it!

How to Freak Out Tourists

While writing up my Italy trip which you shall find below, I found in my notes this little list of things I created to, as the title suggests, confuse tourists.
Admittedly, I did not do all of these. But I did manage to get over half of them:

• Pose for a picture, with no-one holding a camera anywhere near you
• Stand in front of monuments and take lots of pictures in the other, wrong, direction
• If possible, change your chosen language every now and then (Can also help to get away from the tourist street sellers. None of them seemed to know any Russian)
• Audibly name every pigeon you see OR loudly tell them to get off the monuments
• Pretend to be a tour guide and make up your own stories and legends (Just don't charge anything. You'll be sure to get a crowd and keep out of trouble)
• Stride up to the front of a tour group and declare the guide a ghost
• If possible, replicate whatever a tour guide is holding up in the air to direct their group, and stand ready at a T-junction
• Look through your camera backwards
• Point at a statue, loudly proclaim "I win, you blinked!" and carry on
• Stare pointedly at an exit sign for a minute; then walk resolutely in the opposite direction
• Use an audio guide as a phone; constantly ask them to speak up or if they're currently in a tunnel

And always, always remember the three Ps:
Photo-bomb, photo-bomb, photo-bomb.

Rob's Rome Ramble

When In Rome…

Travel writing or not, I wish to start on a personal note.
I find people who designate beginnings as ‘difficult’ just can’t be trying hard enough.
Beginnings are beautiful. They open every single door at once, and all you have to do is choose, and let the path of story-telling fall out in front of your feet.

That said do I start my Italy holiday on the plane, or in Rome?

 No, I tell you what. I’ll start about ten years ago. Non-linear narrative coming up:

I’m around nine or ten years old, and it’s Christmas which can only mean one thing…time to book a holiday.
As per usual, Mum comes along and asks for my opinion of where we should go next. I think for a minute, and reply “Rome”, in my best ‘ten-year-old-Rob’ voice. Not entirely sure why I said that. But what I DO know is that we ended up in Spain. And every year since, I always said I wanted to go to Rome for the holiday.
2013, I finally get my wish. Mum goes off on an impulsive fling and I get a text saying she’s booked a four-day holiday in Rome. Ten years on, my childish side did smile to know I was finally going there.

 Day One: 23/06/13

Okay, I’ve made my decision. I’m going to start in Rome, because planes are dull. A plane journey would go like this:
My ears hurt, we were stuck in a claustrophobic tube for 2 and a half hours, I read a book, saw a bit of the Alps and wanted more apple juice. I listened to Adele’s song Skyfall and hoped it didn’t come true.
Ah, I remember the days when I actually did write like that. Anyway, moving on.

Mum and I are frantically poring around an Italian airport’s Meeting-Point, looking for our surname on a piece of card. Mum gets to the very cusp of just getting in an ordinary taxi (she had be warned, however, that some might try and rip us off), when I switched on ‘Focused Mode’ and saw our name – upside down – on quite a long list, held by a small Italian woman. Mum ambles over and gets out her passport as identity, to which the woman replies “I believe who you are, madam!”

I burst out laughing and we head over to some chairs, waiting for the others to arrive.
When they eventually do show up – through the many crowds and many, many different dialects – we head over to a mini-bus, load up our suitcases and head off.

My first glimpses of Italy were rather clichéd to a British tourist – dried, dead-looking trees, rustic and rusting homes in the distance and mad motoring.

(Like seriously mad motoring. You drive for yourself, and that’s it. Mum and I agreed: it’s mad, but it’s all entirely mad, so it works.)

Anyway, after quite a long drive on the motorway and stops off at random hotels – where your mind plays the “Ooh, I hope this isn’t our district” game – we arrive at our accommodation, Hotel Artemide. Which meant nothing to me. As a kid with holiday-paying-parents, you just kind of accept the living quarters.

As it happened, the door opened onto a rather swank reception, with plush sofas and very noticeable air conditioning. Mum and I go over to speak to our first Italian man encountered on the trip, would you believe, he was named Mario. While they sorted out room details, passports and credit cards, I was constantly holding in the urge to laugh.
Soon enough, a very helpful porter came along – with colliding politeness, I swear he looked ready to wrestle the cases away from us – and took us up to room 307.

There began the “Settling into a Hotel Room” routine. You know, opening drawers for no apparent reason, messing with the headless hangers, inspecting the “tea-and-coffee-making-facilities” and generally messing the pristine bed up into something more comfortable. Oh, and using hotel soap, which is a marvel into itself. What DO they put in that stuff which makes your hands feel like rock afterwards?

Plus a quick trip to the rooftop bar, just to see our hotel in full…….and maybe sample some alcohol.

Anyway, Mum did her own little ‘We’re in Rome!’ dance, while I updated my travel journal. But truth be told, I couldn’t resist grinning every now and then. The taxi ride over had revealed one or two sights to see, but tomorrow, the whole of Rome was pretty much ours.

 Day Two: 24/06/13

If anyone has developed the skill to sleep through the hum of an air-conditioning machine, I thoroughly urge you to breed and breed until you can stand no more. You’d be doing evolution a great favour.
Yeah, the first night’s sleep is often a bitch. But, why care when a city you’d been waiting for was right outside the doors?

Although before that came breakfast.
And when I say breakfast, I mean breakfast buffet.
Something extraordinary does happen to the British mind – or maybe everyone’s – when confronted with a breakfast buffet. Lunch and dinner ones aren’t quite the same; it’s later in the day and your mind has woken up.
But at that point in the morning between waking and showering, if any amount of food enters your vision, you want it. On day one, I had toast, pancakes, croissant, a yoghurt, three glasses of assorted fruit juice, hot chocolate and then, after all that, I insisted on having what I usually just have every day: cereal. I imagine my mind took everything before the cereal as simply a warm-up.

Well-fed and watered, we retired for a quick shower and preparation; not entirely stress-free with my itching like crazy to just get out there. I had a vague idea of things to see and do; but when you’ve wanted to visit somewhere for a decade, it’s like you’ve got hungry eyes or something.

Even as we left the hotel room, my visuals were taking in everything; the scooters, the wannabe-English-clothes-shops, the little separate traffic lights for pedestrians.
(Which, FYI, don’t exactly amount to much. The little man may be green, but some taxi drivers aren’t exactly his best friend. Or yours.)

 The first sight we saw, or sights technically, were in fact Trajan’s column, temple and forum and the Vittorio Emanuelle monument; all of which were at the end of our road, the Nazionale. Brilliant, though, isn’t it? At the end of my road at home is a petrol station. At the end of this was some ancient history and a whopping load of blinding marble.

There wasn’t even a bad view. Standing atop the stairs of the monument, in any direction there were more ruins, sculptures, statues, a busy Italian square, tourist crowds and, in one case, a guard shouting at someone for sitting in the wrong place. Unsure where we could and couldn’t stop, we made haste and pushed onwards and upwards.

Quite a lot of hills in central Rome. Bit like Bath, but hotter.

 At the top of the (tourist-packed) hill turned out to be Capitoline Hill, which in turn lead to Palantine Hill, the whole of the Forum, the Arch of Constantine and, finally, the Colosseum.

(Another quick, putting-it-out-there moment, Microsoft Word doesn’t accept the spelling ‘Colosseum. Apparently I need Coliseum. Take a holiday, Microsoft!)

Not a bad view, it must be said. The general history and ruination of the Forum stretched out below us in a great scattering of destruction, decay and brightly-dressed tourists. With breath taken rather far away, we went past a statue of Romulus and Remus and their mothering she-wolf (involving a quick history lesson for Mum) and headed down into the Forum.

It’s a melancholy moment, in life, to walk around ruins. It plays on your mind, in so many different ways. There’s remorse, for the people who used to work, play, live there. There’s curiosity, and a thirst for knowledge. And finally there’s that little niggling thought at the back of your head; is this right?

Imagine, if you will, your house or place of work, thousands of years from now, with tourists walking all over it and around it; taking pictures, getting tours or pretending they’re shaking the statue of you’s hand. It’s not really a point; just quite simply food for thought.

Speaking of which, it was around this point we called in on a restaurant near the Colosseum to get our first taste of Italian-cooked spaghetti and proper bruschetta (which Mum went mad for. Saying that, once I’d had my first, properly fresh tomato taste, I was rather content.)

The pasta was most enlightening. After so many student evenings of pasta, pasta and maybe a bit more pasta if there’s nothing else, it was satisfying to finally get the proper stuff. I did see the point my housemate Emma made; that they don’t quite cook it as long as we do. That said, the cheese was exquisite and, well fed once again, we returned to see the Colosseum.

 There are a fair few ways to receive a history lesson.

You can read books. You can watch films. You can visit museums.
OR, and this is the one that rather ruins the others three for you, you can visit the subject monument personally.
The Colosseum, once an awe-inspiring amphitheatre of shows and gruesome deaths, now an awe-inspiring, fully-immersive history lesson.  The corridors inside are PACKED with sculptures, archaeological finds, mosaics…and a gift shop.
Personally, the mosaics were my favourite. A particularly memorable one was of two people, on either side of a side-on tiger; which I mentally captioned: “Ooohhh Noooooo! A tigerrrrr!”

Take me to the Colosseum and the immaturity continues. Moving on.

Once you push past the many little pieces of history and Italian/English caption boards, you step outside into the oval open area that is the Colosseum. It is a dire shame how much of it has eroded away over time; yet, it is still a beautiful artefact to behold. The general design is still relatively intact, despite missing an upper third of it. And some sections have eroded so much it looked like the people at the top were actually sitting on slides of death.

Maybe they were. It could have added extra merriment halfway through someone getting their limbs torn off so many centuries ago, just having a low-income Roman topple in from row nine hundred and ninety nine, stone seat C.

Following the trip into the Colosseum, we stopped at a nearby concession stand for a delicious – and massively overpriced – ice cream. In fairness, it was deemed over-priced because the man didn’t seem to hear Mum say “a small…er, piccolo…gelato…” in her pidgin Italian. In fairness…

Still, the Italian do know what they’re doing in terms of ice-cream. Accidentally large or not, I wasn’t too fussed about having a huge, strawberry ice-cream, with the Colosseum in full view.

And even that wasn’t the end to the day.

After the Colosseum, we decided to head back to the hotel for a while. Our feet were in moments of learning how to scream, we’d seen pretty much every corner of the Forum, and – as I discovered when we got back – the seventy five new photos on my phone rather proved it.

As stated, with our feet in relative pain, we didn’t venture far for dinner, and decided on a small place just down the road from the Hotel. The woman serving us may have been a bit on the rude side, but I couldn’t deny, my beef/rocket/parmesan cheese pizza was just sensational. Eating it with a knife and fork was a bit of a faff, but we’d already got the “Ugh, tourists” look enough that day and I just wanted to fit in for a little while; even if a pizza which would usually take me ten minutes took thirty.

Over dinner, we discussed seeing two more things that day which were recommended in “Day One” of Mum’s travel guide; the Trevi Fountain and the Spanish Steps.

Now, the Trevi Fountain for me was a special moment.

I may be alone on this, but whenever I travel somewhere, I build up a mental image of it in my head. Whenever I travel to London, I see the Eye in my mind’s eye. When returning to Bath, I see the busy, Bath-stone streets. And when I pictured Italy, I saw the Trevi Foutain. I think this is because it was the only part of Rome I had ever seen properly on TV.

So when we ventured back out (feet: protesting), and rounded a corner not long past the President of Italy’s house, I finally saw what I wanted to see above all else on that trip.

In three words, it was stunning, incredible and busy. Tourists clamouring around each other in the evening light, camera flashes going off everywhere, all of this mingling with the noise of the tourist-sellers bustling around with their old-fashioned cameras and squeaky-splat toys.
(Literally. A little, colourful, squidgy ball shaped like an animal’s head. The seller throws it up, it lands on the ground, splat with a squeak. And then it slowly reforms into a ball, and is picked back up. I laughed every time I saw one. It is of great regret now I’m home that I didn’t get one.)

But the Trevi Fountain was a big moment. I finished my mind’s picture of Italy, so to speak. I took many pictures, pushed my way to the front and back out again, and went off with Mum towards the Spanish Steps.

Steps which, too, were crowded. According to Mum, the Spanish Steps is a hot-spot for talent scouts and the people that need them. I was sceptic, but even as we climbed them, I heard snatches of conversation that did sound rather along those lines. I swallowed any vulgar ideas about what they were agreeing to and carried on upwards. The view at the top offered a beautifully lit street in the semi-darkness and a small fountain at the very bottom. It wasn’t nearly as spectacular as the Trevi Fountain to me, but was still most enjoyable.
Mum got rather annoyed at the random sellers constantly offering her roses; as a man, I just laughed and watched her little routes to avoid them.

As we headed back, I passed a young girl with her friends and I noticed she was holding one such rose. I silently wondered her reasons for it; but carried on indifferently.

 Along the way, we passed many, many tourist shops. And these shops truly interest me; as they’re like parallel universes. They’re all more or less exactly the same; except in one or two very minor details. Some like to sell aprons and key rings with Michelangelo’s David’s “magic wand” on them for instance.

This was not the kind I stopped in, but at one random shop, I spotted a small figurine of Romulus, Remus and the she-wolf – much like the statue we had seen earlier in the day. I moved to look down at them; and quickly find myself being drawn inside by the incredibly enthusiastic Chinese owner.
And I’m British, right? We just can’t walk out of situations like that. So, quite rightly, I came away with the small statue replica and a Mario video-game-based t-shirt.
(And I made a mental note not to let a particular hotel worker see it.)

 With the photo count now nearing one hundred, I settled down to sleep that night – or tried to over all the “mmmmmmMMMMmmmmmmmmmmmMMMmmmMMmmmmmmMmm” of that sodding air conditioning – wondering what the next few days would hold.

 

Day Three: 25/06/13

I’ve already established what happens when you put me in front of a buffet. But I will additionally mention that on this particular day, I had at least six different glasses of fruit juice, and a few of some multi-vitamin drink.

I think, subconsciously, I was making up for a holiday mostly consisting of pizza, pasta, ice-cream and tea-and-coffee-making-facility-biscuits.

 Anyway, today put us on track past the Trevi Fountain again, heading more in that direction of Central Rome. I took some more daylight photos of it, for neatness, and carried on.

We soon came across the Column of Marcus Aurelius, and the longer I looked at it, the more I heard Russell Crowe’s voice saying “this is the dream of Marcus Aurelius.” Or something like that.  Haven’t watched Gladiator in a while; and let’s be honest, it’s not a film short enough to watch on a whim.

 Got a bit off-topic there, didn’t I?

 I have to say as well, the column rather paled into insignificance a short distance later when we dropped through a few random alleyways and found ourselves in a very large square; the main focus point of which was the Pantheon itself.

 

The Pantheon is quite stunning, put simply, so long as you look at it dead on or from the inside. Around the sides and the back, it still looks beautiful in that “rustic, old, stereotypical Italian” way, but the front doesn’t match the back. It’s like discovering Buckingham Palace actually backs out onto a shed.

The interior is a lot more incredible. Everything is illuminated by a large, circular hole in the ceiling, which, if you get there around midday, lights up the stone floor to striking (and blinding) levels.  The edges are greatly decorated by more paintings, sculptures and altars etc.

(Which apparently wasn’t enough for all. I clearly heard a young American boy walk past me, asking his parents “Where’s McDonald’s?” Priorities do vary, person to person.)

I will say as well, do try to look dignified and quiet. More than once during our little visit, “Quiet please” could be heard in several languages more than once. It is a place of great religious merit, after all. Entirely worthy of a visit. And sunglasses.

Nearby the Pantheon was, quite possibly, my new favourite shop ever. As a writer, it was like heaven. Stocked, ceiling-high, with old leather bound journals, notebooks; as well as old-fashioned fountain pens shaped like quills with ink wells; and EVEN customisable wax-seal-stamps. Needless to say, I bought myself my own little journal book from there, and left with the divine hope that I live to see that shop again.

Following all this, we saw the Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi (Fountain of the Four Rivers); as expected, stuffed with tourists, performers and sellers. But in this case, most sellers were in fact artists and had done some pretty good works. And the performers were the “Invisible Man” (some glasses and a hat in a frame atop a suspiciously long-torso-ed man) and a dancing old man. The latter was definitely my favourite; his moves were not exciting, dynamic or very well co-ordinated. But still he danced and danced and danced, completely at ease. I ended up videoing him on my phone and giving him a euro. He is a hero of that holiday.

And, to top it all, to add to my “Italy Stereotypes” list, a man nearby was playing Amore’ on the accordion. (When the moon hits your eye, like a big pizza pie…that one). Gave him two euros and kept on trucking.

 There was still more to see; Piazzas Novana, Farnesse and Spada, for example. I’m afraid I cannot remember which was which, but one involved me naming the twelve sculptures of the Olympian Gods for Mum’s interest; and the other had a rather delightful Leonardo Da Vinci museum. We didn’t actually go in, but did enjoy the various knick knacks in the gift-shop out front.

Then a nearby restaurant delivered some excellent, honest-to-God, spaghetti carbonara. Not the English, microwave-meal type for us. No, no, the full-on, creamy/cheesy/spaghetti joy.

Probably left a few pounds heavier, but we were walking. Totally worth it.

As was the round of banana ice-cream that followed soon after. I don’t seem to remember ever having banana ice-cream before now; but I do know that I’ve probably spoiled myself for all future banana ice-cream in any case. 

 I don’t seem to have any more notes on the rest of the day. Apart from the fact that on the way back, an old Italian woman cried “Bellisimo!” at something or other. “Italy Stereotypes” scored another point. If only she’d done the ‘Kiss-the-Fingertips-and-Swish’ manoeuvre as well.

After that…pizza/hotel mini-bar drinks/shower and bed, most likely.

Day Four: 26/06/13

Waking up on Day Four was a rather low moment. First, because it symbolised our last full day in beautiful Roma.

And second, because we’d seen so much already, it’d be difficult to be amazed again. But that isn’t to say we didn’t try.

After another, juice-filled, “Getting-One’s-Money’s-Worth” buffet, we set off with the intention of seeing The Vatican; the last big sight to see before England reclaimed us.

Along the way, the Trevi Fountain and the Pantheon passed us by again. And I was disheartened to learn that, like commuters living in London, seeing an attraction too many times loses its buzz. I insisted we carried on before it happened fully and we soon reached a bridge across the River Tiber. The bridge itself was a sight to see; flanked with a pleasing display of different sculptures. But they are not why I shall remember that bridge.

 As we first got onto the – rather long – bridge, I was distracted by a little display of wooden trains, which had carriages that were letters, creating what I called “Name Trains.” Of course by looking, I’d already doomed myself, and the merchant came bustling up to me with a notepad and a pen and told me to write a name down on there. Unable to see a polite, British way out, I complied and wrote my name out. He then bent down to the floor and got to work making the train. I swapped glances with Mum, saying “How do we get out of this one?” He then finished, and the rest of the interaction went like this:

Merchant: “Twelve euro, please.”

Me: “No thank you…grazie.” *go to leave*

Merchant: “Twelve euro?”

Me: “No, grazie!” *set off down the bridge, Mum in tow*

Merchant: *following us now* “Ten euro!”

Me: “No, no.”

Merchant: “Nine euro!”

Me: “No!”

- This continues until we reach five –

Merchant: “Five euro!”

Me: “…..yeah, alright.”

I paid, and I got my name in a train like a seven-year-old. But Mum and I carried on, laughing to ourselves and mimicking him chasing us down the bridge, as the Vatican started to come into view. I was rather distracted by my very first haggle; learning that tip one is to walk away.

But turning left after the bridge – and Castel Saint Angelo, a nice extra little sight on the bridge – the home of the Pope was visible at the end of a long, busy road.

By the way, is there actually a difference between a queue and a crowd? If time really is money, some tourists would end up rich if they learnt what the difference is.

 Anyway, the Vatican visit was rather entertaining. The sculptures atop the two curved walls were rather pleasing to see; as was the building itself – many pictures taken.

But what properly made me laugh were all the plastic chairs. You know those god-awful chairs that they insist on in schools; that break if sat on, and like to reform in heat?

Like Italy heat, for instance. We actually sat on some to consult the map for nearby restaurants, and probably burned a few buttock-pounds in the process. I went away laughing to myself: see what kind of quality true worshippers really get?

 

The Home of the Pope; in all its classroom-chairs glory.

 

Then you see all the nuns and priests hurrying about, in full black attire, and continue to wonder: how have you not burst into flames by now?

Probably because there’d be a Satan-scare or something.

Right, let’s move on.

Lunch, in a very fancy restaurant nearby, allowed me to try veal for the first time. I know it’s horrible and cruel…but it’s also something I’d been meaning to do for quite a while. I liked it, although wasn’t massively overwhelmed. I think it’s a kind of fine meat that requires a bit more heavily on its sauce, and the sauce didn’t seem quite right to me.

Maybe I’m just old-fashioned. Give me crispy chicken skin anytime.

While we were in there, feasting on cow babies, Rome’s weather decided to change face and started raining.

Now, as said, I’m British. Rain doesn’t bother me.

So if it happens to be warm, almost tropical rain, so much the better. I imagine the Italians looked at us incredulously as we set off, perfectly content.

Until my wet Converse met wet Roman roads and I nearly slipped on every stone.

Then an electric Nissan Leaf came silently up behind me and scared the life out of me. (What was left of it, anyway, after all my slide-stone moments.)

TANGENT

Sorry, but mentioning surprised Italian’s stares reminded me of something. Mum’s guide book had mentioned that Italians are interested, curious people; and so tourists shouldn’t be too surprised to find locals basically staring at them.

Now this may have happened to me on all the other days, but only during the last two did I really notice it. Such to a point where I and a rather old Italian man were having, essentially, a staring contest.

When I brought this up with Mum, she made a rather interesting point of “Maybe it’s just a British courtesy to break that eye-contact that just doesn’t exist here.”

Interesting point. Strike up another one for British mannerisms.

TANGENT OVER

 

It was at this point that Mum and I went our separate ways for a while. We had discussed having just a few hours to ourselves; and this was really our last chance.

So, we went to the Pantheon and then split up.

I went off on a little adventure to buy my housemates some little gifts, and then after that, just went wandering. I love wandering. It goes back to the ‘hungry-eyes’ thing I mentioned. You can just go where you want, as fast as you want, and see everything around you in a natural, not-following-the-map kinda way.

I thoroughly enjoyed it; saw the Piazza del Popolo, where they were setting up some kind of music festival stage. There were also some more excellent sculptures scattered around; the photo count climbed ever higher.

And then I decided to do some shopping; which basically involved me making an absolute, British-tourist-twit of myself…and seeing some random, homeless-looking guy go “GRRR!” at some girls. Who, understandably, screamed and hurried off.

That doesn’t really add, or mean anything. But it was memorable, for the wrong reasons.

Headed back to the Pantheon again to meet Mum, who had purchased a Leonardo Da Vinci t-shirt from the museum we had seen the day before. Was rather pleased with herself, it has to be said.

 Then we started wandering to find a place for dinner. Happened to stroll into a square, which had an agonisingly beautiful, rustic café, complete with old Italian men playing chess together outside. I very nearly took a picture, but didn’t want to look strange, so instead marked another point to my “Italian Stereotype” list and carried on past them.

There was a little place just down the road where we called in, to receive an excellent ham pizza and a rather sharp cocktail. My “Stereotype” list scored another point, when Con te Partiro (It’s Time to Say Goodbye) came on the radio behind Mum. I tucked into my pizza, listened to the beautiful music and a part of me wished I wouldn’t be on a plane home the next day.

 On the way home, past the Trevi Fountain for the last time, we stopped to throw a coin in. It’s said that those who throw a coin into the Fountain shall return to Rome. I flicked mine in, with hope, and turned to leave. We called in at an ice-cream parlour, San Grispo, for our last taste of proper Italian ice-cream. I can honestly say, if you find yourself in Rome, find San Grispo. You shall not leave disappointed.

That night entailed little more than packing, drinking, and heavy hearts.

Although I went to bed glad that the flaming air conditioning vent would cease plaguing me the following night.

 

Day Five:  (You guessed it ) 27/06/13

I didn’t start on a plane, and I won’t finish on a plane.

As this is my blog, I shall end on a thought, a joke, and for once in a short while, a book recommendation.

Between check-out and our taxi to the airport, I had time to think and write in my journal.

Our holiday to Rome was quite spectacular. Better than last ones in my life, because I’m older and mature now. I actually wanted to experience the history, and beauty, and culture of Rome. I wasn’t just a hot, stressed-out little kid being dragged along; more often than not, I was walking far ahead of Mum.

As said at the start of these five thousand words of travel writing, (Score!) I had been asking to see Rome for ten years. And I think it was worth the wait.

If I had seen it at the time I asked, I would have just been the kid at the back complaining of heat, foot pain and demanding an ice-cream. (Maybe Mum will tell it as I did that anyway!)

But because I had those ten years; to want it more, and maybe more importantly, to study Classical Civilisation and know a lot more about all the histories, the holiday meant more to me than ever before.

I wonder where I’ll be writing about in the next ten years.

The joke, well, isn’t really a joke. But it sure as hell entertained me.

The taxi-driver who drove us home from Heathrow Airport had survived an Olympic elevator landing on him.

And finally, the book recommendation. I started reading it in the airport when our flight home was delayed two hours; and found being told to get up to board the plane as nothing less than an interruption.

The book in question is another Neil Gaiman hit. Shocking I know. Still, I recommend American Gods as another great fantasy read.

And I recommend Rome. Completely.  

 

***

Links, for those interested:

 

Con te Partiro: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcrfvP11Hbo

Amore': http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHtdGJfVd2w

The Story of Romulus and Remus: http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/romulus_and_remus.htm 

Russell Crowe's "These are the dreams of Marcus Aurelius" moment (SPOILERS): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72uwmHsFSAg