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Stories by Alethea Lyons
Alternate Places
A World Almost Like Yours
Imagine a world like this one in almost every way.
Imagine waking up safe and warm in your own bed, without a care in the world, just as I hope you do every morning. You sit up, your feet brushing your floor, but it’s cold, so you tuck yourself back into bed for a ten-minute snooze.
Eventually, laboriously, you get up, pull on your slippers and sleepily make your way downstairs to breakfast. You sit at your table, nursing you morning cup of tea or coffee, your biggest decision being whether to have cereal, as your diet requires, or to guiltily splurge on that last pastry from the weekend.
Once you have eaten, you go upstairs, shower, brush your teeth (of course!) and change into your clothes for work. Check your pockets for your keys and phone! Then you grab your coat and go.
It’s still dark out, dawn’s grey light not yet breaking over the houses opposite. Unafraid, you pause for a moment, enjoying the romance of the scene. The street glimmering with undisturbed frost. Your warm breath lingering in the chilly air. The moon just visible behind your chimney pot. It’s very pretty, don’t you agree? Almost magical.
It’s winter, so you wrap up warm, pausing to pull your gloves on before you touch the ice-cold handle of the car door. Tucking the scarf your grandmother made snugly around your neck you unlock the door and get in.
You sit in the driver’s seat, closing the door behind you while you fiddle with the heating. You turn it up full blast. Heated seats and steering wheel, naturally. You turn the radio on, skipping stations until you find exactly what you want. Good choice in music, that will wake you up.
As the car warms, you relax, mentally getting ready for the day ahead. You put on your seatbelt, safety first please. Then you turn on your headlights, and you drive to work.
Now take a moment to pause and consider one word: Almost.
Just as you, the inhabitants of this world have their morning routines, getting up and going to work with the same wish that Sunday could have lasted just that little bit longer.
But they don’t run out of their houses so blithely. They don’t pause to admire the scene before them. They don’t relax as their car gently warms.
They dart out of their door, furtively scurrying through that too-long gap between house and car. Their first action is not to turn on the heating. They hit the locks, glancing around anxiously. At any moment they expect to hear a tap at their window, see a shadow across the frosted windscreen. They put on their seatbelts swiftly, not for fear of being flung from the car but for fear of being pulled.
As soon as there is a gap wide enough to see through, they drive off, looking for the safety in numbers provided by the motorway.
They are in such a hurry to get away that they don’t even check their rear-view mirrors. Perhaps it is just as well.
Behind them, barely illuminated by the morning light, stands a lone figure. He tips his wide-brimmed hat, turns and disappears.
Words drift through the silent night as the distant sounds of the motor fades.
Maybe next time…
The day is safe, more or less, at least no more dangerous than the days known to you and me. But the night? Well, the night is a different story. Even in those areas designated as ‘night safe’, travel after sunset is avoided.
Youngsters scoff, wanting to stay out late partying with their friends. There’s nothing to fear, they say, It’s just people. There’s nothing lurking in the dark. Their parents shake their heads and sigh. They cannot explain it. They already know it is ‘just people’. Yet, is it not right that they fear people robbing or harming their baby? I think it is. You think it is. All of our parents have warned us about going out alone at night.
Yet, for these parents, there is more to their fear. More than just the depraved lowlifes of humanity. But they have no words. They cannot explain the people who come home changed. They cannot explain those who come back wrong.
So, they let their precious child go out into the dark. They were the same when they were young. It was okay, nothing ever happened. They relax. But as the clock strikes midnight, then one, then two, the fear settles upon them again. They text. They call. Yet their own phone sits in accusatory silence.
Twitching aside lace curtains, they stare out into the night, but no one passes by. All sensible people have locked themselves away, safe in their own homes. The clock strikes three. Dread, deep in the pit of a mother’s stomach, settles and spreads.
Pacing, peering into the dark.
Nothing.
As the clock strikes four, father grabs the door handle, twisting it decisively, but he doesn’t open the door. He pauses, caught between fear and love. Then he flings the door open and steps out into the dark. Mother hangs back, clinging to the doorframe, her eyes wide, her breath shallow.
Something moves in the corner of his eye and he jumps. It’s just a cat.
A shadow crosses his path and he steps back. It is just a leaf blowing by.
The wind is rising, moaning as it navigates the narrow streets. His pounding heart almost drowns out the mournful sound.
The street lights, which have always seemed so bright that they banish sleep, now appear distant and dull.
Father steps back, once, twice, three times. Then he turns, ushering his wife back into the safety of their home and locks the door behind them. They switch on every light in the house before returning to peer nervously out of the window.
Three nights and three days pass. Dread is no longer a visitor but a permanent resident in this house, along with his old friends, Sorrow and Regret.
In a government building somewhere in London, the name of one more person is added to a list, then forgotten forever.
Everyone knows stories like these. Everyone has a friend of a friend of a friend who has lost someone to the night.
There are never any names.
Never any photographs.
No ‘missing’ ads in the paper or parents pleading for information on the evening news.
But everyone knows: It is not safe to go out at night.
Police and politicians offer hollow assurance, but it doesn’t matter what they say.
Everyone knows: It is not safe to go out at night.
Church, synagogue and mosque promise the protection of God. They say only the sinful are punished and those with faith have nothing to fear. They say the Godly triumphed over demons and magic centuries ago.
But everyone knows: It is not safe to go out at night.
So next time you rush out of your house into the darkness of the pre-dawn, spare a prayer for those who live in a world which is almost just like yours.
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