Georgia

Georgia was on the train. She had been sitting thinking about a conversation she’d had years ago, with a young man named Sajid. Rather than reliving the conversation she actually had, she was thinking about what she should’ve said.

The train stopped at a small village. A street with a few shops and the lush gardens of what was a vicarage were in view. There were some young children, each with a handful of worms, placing them in a small pile on the ground.

A house in the village with candles in the window and ivy growing over it then exploded. This made Georgia remember she had been dancing a long forgotten dance, in a green dress she had bought from the charity shop.

In the train there was a cold chill, blowing slightly through the window. Georgia was thinking about a couple that were getting married, in a large spherical building. They each said their vows quietly and picked up frogs off the floor.

Her thoughts suddenly came alive, Sajid was there in front of her holding a long golden ribbon. ‘I’ve got this for your hair,’ he said. She quickly wondered if they would get married, then soon dismissed that thought.

Getting restless with her mind, she asked a man sitting opposite if he had the time. He looked at his watch, and said ‘no.’ So she looked out the window. Several rabbits were eating lettuce in a field. Then as the train moved along, a few women with axes were felling a tree.

‘Trees have been falling all along this line recently,’ murmured the man sitting opposite. ‘The trees perceive gold dust caverns, *cough* *cough* where no one can breathe. Only through windows of silver frames do the rabbits eat lettuce!’

Moving to another seat Georgia knocked over a cup of coffee, it melted the table it was on. She got to another seat and pondered ponds. Ponds as deep as the oceans, teeming with life. A fish jumped from the pond and landed on her table.

‘Hello,’ said the child opposite. ‘I noticed you have a fish on your table, is it yours?’ he asked. His voice was raspy, also sounding like he had just seen a ghost. He was shaking vigorously like he was frightened.

‘No, it somehow jumped out of my thoughts.’ replied Georgia thinking that she rather should have said “yes”. Georgia now had a headache and did not want to hear the quivering child speak again.

‘What’s that mean… how?’ queried the child. The child was old, he had seen many winters and lived a long time. How he managed to be a child, only a man who lived in a far away, in a hut, beneath the mountains knew.

In a pleasant voice the fish spoke. ‘The seas are rising. So I rose with them, converting my gills into lungs along the way. I am Georgia’s, yes, however far I can flop about.’ The fish then played a tune on the trumpet sitting next the child.

Rice red obstacle is an object of mighty intrigue. It has legendary status among all peoples and animals. It belonged to a wealthy landowner called Hafunda. It was growing, never ceasing, always surprising. ‘What ever next?’ he mumbled.

A flip-flop tree house flew across a far yonder lake creating habitats for lost animals when it landed in the middle. ‘Oh. That’s what was next!’ screamed Hafunda while he had his leg amputated.

Hafunda sat in his cottage with his rice red obstacle, as there was a knock at the door. He answered it. ‘Erm… hello,’ sounded Georgia all hush-hush. ‘I’ve just been on the train, can I see it… can I see rice red obstacle?’

‘Of course,’ hummed Hafunda. ‘Please enter my humble abode.’ Georgia walked in *clomp* *clomp*. She looked around her, and to her surprise she was in a field of mint. The letters, O, f, c, o, u, r, s, and e, floated out of Hafunda’s mouth.

The letter’s fell to the ground and made a path towards the rice red obstacle. Hafunda knelt down and started eating the cake-like path, garnishing it with mint he offered some to Georgia. She frowned… then she smiled… then she refused.

Sajid appeared in front of them. He was covered in soil from the planet below him. He stared at her for 12 minutes 34 seconds, she stared back, and tilted her head to show the ribbon he had got her.

‘I’ve got a sickening carpet at home, would you like to see it?’ finally uttered Sajid. ‘The wallpaper isn’t very nice either.’ His faced suddenly morphed into lion’s head. It roared out loud and afterwards softly spoke. ‘Why am I in a field of mint?’

Whooshing by, a small white ball was flying through the air, Hafunda caught it, and it was in two halves so he separated it. Inside were three tiny people, two of which were picking up even tinier frogs. ‘That’s my thought,’ thought Georgia.

It was in this field they encountered The Saurus, the word-helping dinosaur. ‘Hello Sajid-lion, how are you keeping, conserving, preserving, redeeming, sustaining?’ The Sarus looked at Sajid-lion and raised one eyebrow.

‘Quite happy eating this leg,’ said Sajid-lion eating Hafunda’s amputated leg. ‘Though, there is cake for all. Maybe that’s what I should be eating.’ Sajid, suddenly scared by what he was doing, flew off on a smelly vehicle made of mint.

Georgia ran through the field, faster and faster towards the rice red obstacle. However far she ran she could not catch up with it. Not that it was moving at all. It was merely unreachable. Georgia slowed down and stopped.

She turned back to Hafunda and The Saurus and asked to leave the field. She turned around and walked back out through the door, and into the road outside. There was Sajid who accompanied her down the spiral road that leads to nowhere.

A long time ago, Ejersy and Szerig journeyed along the Elkside. The Elkside was an organ of an ancient creature that most people who knew of it, feared. This creature was there in the beginning, no, long before that.

Then there was a nuclear explosion. It blew away houses, trees, mountains and the elderly. All the people that existed were no more. A few worms survived but they were soon to die of worm cancer. Before that however, they would create wormholes!

It was three years since the disaster, the Elkside looked different now. ‘Bingo!’ Said Georgia. She looked around. It was a barren landscape with nothing in sight apart from Sajid. The air smelt like cats.

‘Where are we?’ Questioned Sajid. Unluckily for him and Georgia, the isotope the bomb used had a half-life of 4.2 billion years. If they didn’t get out of here quick they would start mutating and die.

Fortunately Georgia had undergone an accident at a particle accelerator and had several heavy ions sent into her body at near the speed of light and thus had learnt to control quarks and gluons with her mind to create a stable Unupentium force field.

Together they walked on soon to encounter an evil being that had mutated from a common earthworm. Georgia threw a piece of rubble at the worm. It hit the worm causing it to fall backwards through a wormhole it created.

The skies darkened and an eerie chill surrounded them. ‘I am so scared. I feel as frail as a leaf quivering away on a tree. I never thought a snowflake like me would have been able to go on such an adventure.’ Mumbled Georgia.

Hand in hand they wandered about, not a noise in sight however then there was a loud crack, which transported them to Abergwaun, Cymru. ‘Rwyn gallu clywed cryndod yn dy lais. Gosh! I didn’t know I spoke Cymraeg.’ Said Sajid.

An elongated circular shadow passed over. Suddenly there was a break in the clouds the shadow turned into the shape of a large bear, possibly a panda. This was left unnoticed as Georgia and Sajid went to Y Pantri for some gingerbread men.

They stayed the night at Hamilton backpackers. This was an enchanting cottage in a dark street in the town. Hafunda, crutches and all, was waiting for them here. ‘Come, fly away on my giant ladybirds.’ Muttered he.

The ladybirds took Georgia, Sajid and Hafunda to Cantref-y-Gwaelod a land of sixteen cities. All the cities were deserted now the land had been reclaimed and raised up from the sea.

‘Why have you taken us here?’ Asked Sajid. As two great waves crashed onto the beach, washing up food and drinking water. A dragon flew down from the upper reaches of the sky and danced an ancient dance.

After the entertainment from the dragon, and the food and drink from the waves, they walked up to the city above. Buildings of many shapes were there. It was as though they entered a silvery twilight that knew no greatness or downfall.

A great towering inferno increased in space and time started getting faster, slowing down and getting faster again. The dragon, which was a dragon of the sea, put out the fire. Slowly bubbles started to fall from the sky in different colours.

Increasingly other factors joined the equation, obviously erroneous events such as a harvest mouse jokingly referred to in this case by Hafunda as “pen carth bochdew” built a house of bricks. Bricks from where? Who can say.

‘Hello.’ Said Who. Who was a ghostly face that kept his domain in the sky. ‘Twas I, Who, that made the bricks for the harvest mouse.’ Who then disappeared from the sky.

The next day, gravity decided to have a day off. They floated around like peas in an empty pan with no gravity. Hafunda shouted to Sajid. ‘Why not!’ Sajid thought he and the place he loved might fall into a black hole and be lost forever.

Georgia gave Sajid a reassuring hug, then set about breakdancing on the floor. The ground gave way from under her. It had turned to quicksand. Georgia escaped easily enough. Sajid broke into song. ‘We’re living in a world of quicksand…’

They woke early, the rising sun waved a friendly hello. The clouds were all different bright colours and interesting shapes. There, in the sky was a cleaner falling at a rapid pace. Breathless, the three people fled from the vacuum.

‘By Jove it’s a wall!’ Cried Hafunda in a childish voice. Indeed there was a wall there. It was an old crumbly wall. Then and there it fell down. It revealed a tiny forest of bonsai trees.

Sajid, Georgia and Hafunda journeyed through the forest, which was inhabited by friendly creatures, which guarded the fish of the surrounding oceans. The day was hot, rainbow sweat poured down the traveller’s faces.

By now it was night, the fireflies glowed in the distance. There was a mosaic of a fish on the floor, lit only by moonlight, which was quite bright in these parts. Cosmic rays blew a gap in the mosaic and created a burning ring of fire.

Out of the fire rose some techno music, expressed as something you could see. The bass was pulsating away distorting the trees around it, the moog was a cool blue haze that seemed to be dancing with the fire.

Then out of blue came a mighty monster. It was the kind that smoked a pipe and played a hurdy gurdy. The three danced to the techno folk hybrid until Sajid broke his ankle. The pain was so great that he felt perfectly at one with the universe.

Sajid looked down at his ankle, he noticed it was not broken but ants had bit him several times. The bites spelled out a message. It read “Hello there, Universe.” He ignored this because he had a more important matter at hand. Ghost fish transistor.

In his hand was ghost fish transistor, a device that could open a tunnel from Cantref-y-Gwaelod back to Wales. Before he could use the device a yellow fellow appeared. Sajid then got a cold shiver down his spine like he had never felt before.

Georgia looked deeply into the yellow fellow’s eyes, while the yellow fellow himself proceeded to get eaten by the hurdy gurdy playing monster. A loud scream went up as Hafunda realised his shoelaces were undone.

A turkey with a jug of rhubarb juice appeared; it made some noises before producing an eel from its beak. This was an electric eel that triggered ghost fish transistor and opened the tunnel back to Wales.

Small lights glowed at the end of the tunnel; this was a blue light that spiralled out of the entrance. Hafunda vanished. ‘Step aboard the light train.’ a voice announced. The light train was a train made of light.

The two companions ventured forth onto the light train and started playing cards. The planet then started to reverse its rotation so the sun started to set in the east from where it rose.

Two bees flew in through a window of the light train. Hafunda reappeared and said. ‘Hey, Lucky, I’ve got this fully functioning miniature beehive.’ Lucky was one of the bee’s names.

‘Buzz.’ Fuzzed Lucky as he and his pal flew into Hafunda’s beehive. The beehive lit up flashing different colours, sparks like fireworks came from the top of the little bee box. As though the bees were having a celebration inside.

Three cats came along, and ate all the bees, ‘That’s some good bees.’ They thought in unison. Suddenly haunting violins started playing in the background. Our heroes had reached their destination, Fishguard.

After stepping off the light train down by the harbour, they noticed it was raining. This endless rain, pittered and pattered down on their foreheads as they looked up a giant rainbow in the sky.

His voice hushed Hafunda spoke; ‘Glowing orange the apples fall down, all around people flock compass and map around, the world points the way to our prey, the chops and cuts of our film, heat, red flame, white flame, blue skies bright.’

Then the rain stopped, trees shook in the wind, Georgia’s teeth chattered in the crisp, cold daylight. ‘Back on land, over time, over lords, ladies and baroness’ a voice in my head goes round a round, messes, forever, messes.

The adventurers looked out to see, the sea was rough, and on it bobbing up and down on the waves was a little rubber duck. Sajid’s voice went low. ‘Today was my unlucky day, some bees got in the way when I was about to, talk.’

Under fluffy white clouds they lay, Georgia’s spirit floated far away and Hafunda spilt his tea. Following that slight delay, Hafunda then began to pay, before dancing and going to say. ‘Georgia your spirit’s getting away.’

So it was Time to chase. Space was in the lead but Time was gaining fast. There was an explosion in the galaxy. Georgia’s spirit drifted towards a giant red star that then exploded, throwing her spirit past Space and Time back towards Georgia.

Sajid looked at Georgia, he raised his eyebrows so high they fell off the top of his head. Hafunda spoke. ‘Shu-u-u-u-ucks, I-It’s the ice cream may’n.’ A crow flew down from the sky and scavenged Sajid’s eyebrows off the floor. It then flew off.

Just while the ice cream van pulled the sea’s plug out of the sea bed with a big rope, Sajid ran after the crow. He tripped and found a penny swirling in a pool of multicoloured liquid.

Looking at the penny, he noticed the face on it pulsating, throbbing in time to some nearby techno sounds. It started nodding in time to the beat. Then its profiled head turned towards Sajid, and spoke. ‘I think you’re cool <insert YOUR NAME here>.’