More Christmas treats. Darn tooting!
Black Night
As spring warmed the land, winter faded from the memory like recollections of an illness once normal health had resumed. Longer evenings blessed warmth and sunlight on the days and a once uninviting landscape had been replaced, by a welcoming climate and gamey hospitality to tempt all-comers to take to the streets. On those streets wandered Michael Howarth and his girlfriend Ellen enjoying the new sensation of freedom from the oppression of winter months. They could already feel the potential promise that summer was already starting to bring.
They were at what was arguably the sweet spot of any burgeoning relationship, which was the four month stage; the time when the excitement is still running through you, making you giddy every day, but long enough to feel safe within the confines of said relationship; although you’re learning new things all the time you also know enough to feel comfortable with each other.
Ellen held on to Michael’s arm tight and he looked down at her head pressing firmly against his shoulder, her brown ringlets cascading sexily over his shirt. Just the feeling of her head rubbing against him was making him aroused. Michael smiled involuntarily.
“You look gorgeous tonight,” Michael said to Ellen, feeling her smile before he saw it.
“You’re just saying that,” she replied.
“Yeah, because it’s true,” responded Michael, falling for the trap of repeating the compliment so she could hear it again. In reality women usually got twice as many compliments as men as they always pretend-argued to have it repeated. It was a subtle trick that most men still hadn’t picked up on. Besides, Michael still had one eye on getting some tonight. Until he appeared.
He seemed to come from nowhere...in reality he came from the traffic lights at the junction between Streatham Road and Dorchester street, a black knight that wouldn’t have looked out of place 6 centuries ago. The stallion was 20 hands high (and trust me, it was a stallion!) but unlike most beasts of that height this was no shire horse. It had the muscularity of a race horse but everything about it was amplified. The huge rider on its back caused it no trouble as it strode majestically through the city street. The horses black coat seemed to repel light, the only trace at all was around its outline, the rest of it showed nothing, but you could almost feel it in the air, where each muscle and sinew was pulling and pushing effortlessly. As it turned to face Michael it snorted, sounding almost like a growl.
“What the fuck,” muttered Michael under his breath. The horse neighed and shimmied it’s head clearly indicating directionality to the immense rider on it’s back. The rider was covered in a black armour that shined about as well as his horse repelled light, every surface seeming to pick up and reflect every street, car, office window and the last remaining embers of sunlight and exaggerate them. On his head was an equally resplendent helmet with a slit across the front that presumably was were it’s owner was looking out, straight at Michael. The knight leant forward continuing to look at him in an eery silence.
“WE MEET AGAIN, MICHAEL!” yelled the knight.
“You know this guy?” asked Ellen, fear evident in her voice.
“Did we go to school together?” asked Michael attempting to try and place the figure.
“GIVE ME THE TREASURE, MICHAEL!” the knight shouted.
“What treasure?” asked Ellen, half-scared, half-thinking he’d been holding out on her.
“I don’t have any treasure,” said Michael.
“GIVE ME THE TREASURE, MICHAEL!” the knight continued. “GIVE ME THE TREASURE OR DIE.”
At that the knight stretched his left arm behind him and unsheathed a sword at least four and a half feet long. The horse snorted aggressively at Michael again. Michael tried desperately to rack his mind for the answer as to what treasure the knight was referring to but he had no idea. Michael was only a computer tech from Bury. He had no inkling or desire to find treasure and after seeing the knight brandishing his sword at him he had even less inkling than before.
“I don’t have any treasure,” Michael stammered.
“LIES!” screamed the knight, and as he did his horse reared up, it’s front legs pounding the air fiercely in front of it. Michael turned to Ellen. Whatever was happening it was not looking good for him, but if he only lived for another few minutes the least he could do was protect her.
“Ellen, run!” said Michael turning her to face him to make sure the instruction was understood. Ellen just nodded and ran. Michael turned back to the knight whose horse had now regained it’s hoofing. As Ellen darted down a backstreet full of smoking waiters and vents from steaming kitchens, Michael darted in the opposite direction searching out an alleyway with sufficient obstacles as to slow down the gargantuan animal.
“Shit, shit shit!” spat Michael as he ran through a narrow alleyway zigzagging through a maze of plastic bins containing a mixture of recycling and refuse. He allowed himself the quick luxury of a look back and saw the knight and the horse stop as it reached the mouth of the alleyway. Michael allowed his run to slow as the knight halted for a second, the knight then geed up the horse and headed through the alley leaping over the bins, hurtling them in all directions, as the thought of the treasure bypassed any consideration for safety.
“GIVE ME MY TREASURE, MICHAEL!” the knight fumed as he and his horse made short shrift of the flimsy plastic obstacles.
“Why do these things alway happen to me?’ asked Michael as he ran across the street searching out a place where the horse could not go, each alley he went down the horse stopped briefly but then stepped it up a gear down the straight. Every time he heard the horse’s hooves get closer his heart felt like it was about to burst through his chest, it was then that he noticed it...the suspension bridge.
The bridge was designed so two people could pass across it but the weight and power of the horse would make it impossible for the horse to travel across it. Michael pushed himself to the limit, his legs feeling like they were filling with lead but somehow he had to keep going. He was fifteen feet away.
CLA-CLACK, CLA-CLACK, CLA-CLACK!
Ten feet away.
CLA-CLACK, CLA-CLACK, CLA-CLACK!
Five feet away.
CLA-CLACK, CLA-CLACK, CLA-CLACK!
He made it. Behind him, Michael heard the horse’s hooves screech to a halt against the pavement. Michael breathed a sigh of relief. There was no way that the horse could make it across such a narrow bridge without risk of falling into the river below. And there was no way that the horse and rider would get out if they fell in. Michael allowed himself to go from a balls-hard sprint to a light jog as now the need for speed had definitely diminished.
CLER-CLANK!
Michael stopped at the hard metal sound behind him. There, off his horse and sword in hand, stood the black knight. Sword outstretched pointing directly at Michael. Michael shook his head. This all felt like some cosmic nightmare but he knew it was not a dream. The knight, six foot five in his black lacquered metal suit began to jog, then to a canter and finally to a sprint towards Michael. Michael turned and ran. He didn’t know where he knew the knight from or how, but he didn’t care. All he wanted was to get away. He ran over the bridge past startled pedestrians who looked like they offered no support, only sympathy. None of them would stop the black knight. Would you?
“THE TREASURE, MICHAEL! THE TREASURE!” the knight yelled again. Michael darted over Lancaster Road and headed back into the city centre, he had to lose the knight through a combination of knowledge of the centre and awkwardness of terrain. He was going to lose the knight through the car park, jump from the third floor, onto the elevated walkway and jump down on the split level roofs down to ground level, it was his only chance.
He ran through the town square and up the main road to the multi-story car park above the bus station. The fast paced clanking behind him showing no signs of abating. “This guy’s got muscles like Captain America!” thought Michael as his own breath started to come in shorter bursts. He ran across the bus lanes and into the station making the steps in seconds, but only after three flights of stairs he heard the same door fling open and that merciless pounding of metal on concrete. Michael pushed his body as far as it would go. The third floor beckoned, and Michael dived through the door and onto the ledge.
In his mind the drop didn’t seem so bad, till he looked at how thin the walkway was and that he would probably fall and break his legs, hips and spine if he missed.
“Still, probably hurt less than a sword through the guts,” he countered as he closed his eyes for a second, then jumped!
His legs connected solidly with the walkway and he rolled like they do in the movies, unfortunately he’d not taken time to take his surroundings into account and rolled straight off the walkway.
“AAAAGGHHH!” Michael screamed before his backside hit the first roof that he had hoped to land on. “Oh!” he said, as he realised he was still intact but merely bruised. Michael jumped to the next roof and the next before jumping and hitting terra firma. He turned and could see the knight looking out still from the third level. Maybe the knight didn’t fancy his chances, maybe he didn’t want to jump, in reality Michael cared little why he was still standing there, merely feeling relief that he was. Michael turned to head for home and then out of town but then...
In front of him was the black knight’s stallion. Holding Michael with his stare.
CLER-CLANK!
Michael moved to head down the street to freedom, but the horse darted in front of him and snorted into his face.
CLER-CLANK!
The horse moved closer to Michael and butted him over with his nose
CLER-CLANK!
Finally as Michael made a move to get up the horse held him down with it’s left hoof.
CLER-CLANK!
“SO, MICHAEL,” began the knight. “THE CHASE IS OVER! GIVE ME THE TREASURE AND I WILL SPARE YOUR LIFE. DENY ME ONCE MORE AND YOU WILL DIE!”
“I don’t have any treasure, I swear. I...I don’t know what you’re talking about!” stammered Michael nervously.
“IF YOU WILL NOT HELP ME, THEN YOU WILL DIE, MICHAEL BANNERMAN!” screamed the knight.
“Michael Bannerman?” repeated Michael. “I’m not Michael Bannerman. I’m Michael Howarth!”
“A WELL THOUGHT RUSE, MR BANNERMAN, BUT I AM NO FOOL!” shouted the knight as he drew his sword back.
“What do you mean a ruse?” asked Ellen as she appeared, out of breath, at the street Michael was trying to escape down. “Michael’s name is Michael Howarth!”
The knight removed his helmet, revealing a crop of black wavy hair and beard almost as dark as his horse. Down his left eye ran a scar that had destroyed the pigment in one eye. He took a closer look at Michael, holding his face in his hand. Studying every bone structure, every hair, every blemish and every ounce of skin.
“MMMM, WELL THIS IS AWKWARD!” began the knight. “YOU ARE NOT MICHAEL BANNERMAN!”
Michael let out a sigh of relief as Ellen flung her arms around him. The knight re-sheathed his sword and scratched his beard.
“ERM ...SORRY ABOUT THAT!’ said the knight. “YOU REALLY LOOK A LOT LIKE HIM!”
“I’m always getting mistaken for other people,” replied Michael. “I tell you if I did have a pound for every time this had happened I would have some treasure.”
The knight laughed a hearty laugh as Ellen and Michael joined in. The tension that their chase had built up finally cracking in that moment.
“OH DEAR. SO DO YOU GUYS HAVE ANY PLANS FOR TONIGHT?” asked the knight.
“Well...” began Michael, when a young couple turned the corner. The man was wearing a green jacket, just like Michael’s, his hair was similar, but slightly lighter in colour; his green eyes were a touch closer together and he was half an inch taller. Michael and the doppelganger-ish pointed at each other.
“You’re Michael Bannerman?” asked Michael as he looked at the slightly warped mirror version.
“You’re Michael Howarth?” said the other Michael as he held onto a woman who looked just like Ellen, but with red hair. “Wow! You look just like me!”
“MICHAEL BANNERMAN!” yelled the knight. “GIVE ME MY TREASURE!”
“Eeep!” said Michael Bannerman as he ran off down Letcherman Street. The knight, flung himself onto the horse and headed after him.
Fin.
“Tis but fiction”, “No two people could look so alike in face and be of the same name!” I hear you cry. But this story is based on a truth!
I too was once stopped, not by a knight, but by two women who knew of a fellow Michael whose look, manner and voice were all a perfect match to myself. They were as close to me as you are to this computer screen yet could see no difference in the looks of me or my same named doppelganger! So beware dear readers your double is most definitely out there . . . In fact they may be more like you than you dare imagine!
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