(009)
“Tell us a story?” Asks Alice, laying on her front on a towel she’d brought from the Airbnb.
“A story?” Cameron says, sat on a log, his back against a tree. “What about?”
“Why don’t we all give you a word to use, and you make a story up about that?” Laura suggests, busy folding her hoodie into a pillow.
“Magic carpet!” Marta barks, on her side with her eyes already closed.
“Ummmm, bubble?” Alice is next, still wired and awake, looking up expectantly.
“And factory.” Laura rounds off the set, placing the hoodie between her head and the ground.
“Right,” Cameron muses for a moment, “okay.”
He lets the silence linger in the air between them until they’ve all got comfortable.
“So,” he begins, “this actually happened not far from here.” He says with a playful smile in his voice, causing Laura and Alice to grin along with him, although Marta is already unresponsive.
“A guy I heard about – his name was Tim – worked in a carpet factory along this river. He was a good worker, but no-one really knew anything about him. He turned up 10 minutes early every morning but never clocked in a minute before his start time.” Cameron’s voice lilts and flexes as he unravels the thread for them. “He was in charge of shipping and deliveries, spending most of his time in the loading bay, packing the trucks and filling the forms in to make sure the right carpets go to the right places.”
Cameron stretches his feet out in front of him, feeling the grass tickle against his soles, taking a moment to let his ideas catch up to him.
“He was so unassuming in fact, that no-one noticed the silvery outline of the bubble he was trapped in. For as long as he could remember he had been unable to get close to anyone, merely blending into the background of other people’s lives. The only person that even came close was his neighbour, who smiled at him every morning when they left for work at the same time. That moment was the moment he looked forward to every day, and it was done before 8am.”
By now Laura has joined Marta in non-responsiveness, with Alice’s eyes still occasionally flickering open, heavy-lidded.
“Until one day, a truck returned to the factory with a driver he’d never seen before.”
Cameron turns to his right as if to talk to someone.
“‘I don’t recognise you, have you worked with us before?’ Tim said to him through the drivers side window’”
And then Cameron turns to his left to answer.
“‘No I’m new,’ the mysterious driver responded, his skin tinged even more blue by the harsh lights of the loading bay than most, ‘Gene, uh, Bottleman, nice to meet you!’ He proffers his giant hand through the window for Tim to shake.
‘Ah, no, I don’t shake hands.’ Tim steps back, ‘but I’m Tim, nice to meet you too.’
‘Okay Tim!’ His offered hand shifts to a thumbs up that gestures to the back of the truck. ‘There’s one carpet left in the back, the place said it was faulty – you mind checking it out?’
‘Faulty? How?’ Tim frowns.
‘I’m not sure,’ he presses the button to open the ramp at the back ‘take a look yourself.’”
Cameron has his head back against the tree, in full flow, watching it play out in his mind against the clouds.
“Tim walks round to the back of the truck and jumps inside when the ramp is low enough to do so. At the back of the cab there’s one carpet, rolled up and slumped in the corner, like a drunkard at the end of the night. It’s a carpet he has no recollection of, quite dull and outdated in appearance, and yet somehow captivating. He takes it in his arms and lays it down, facing towards the open door at the back, then pushes against the side to roll it open. As if appearing from nowhere, Gene is stood at the end of the truck looking inwards, obscured from the waist down.
‘You found the problem?’ He calls.
‘No, not yet, it looks fine to me.’ Tim responds, leaning over it to get a better look.
‘They said something about how it felt against their feet I think…maybe try that?’
Tim looks quizzically at this hitherto unknown driver, but follows his suggestion, stepping into the middle of the carpet. As he does the edges of his bubble grow more visible and the carpet shivers with life, raising a few inches off the ground with him on it. He tries to jump off but only bounces against the bubble walls. Suddenly floating before him is Gene, the bottom half of his body revealed now to be a floating wisp of smoke.
‘Sorry for tricking you’ Gene says with a sheepish grin, ‘I should probably explain that many years ago, your parents made a wish that you’d always be protected from harm…and I may have miscalculated the best way to make that happen.’ He shrugs apologetically. ‘But! I’m here to make it up to you. This carpet will fly you directly to your greatest desire, and will only let you off once the bubble has been broken. So, have fun!’ He slaps the carpet on the back end and it rears up like a horse and flies out of the truck, out of the loading bay and up into the sky. Tim lays flat against the surface of it at first, terrified he’ll fall off, but when he realises that he’s safe, he climbs up onto his knees and watches the city pass by underneath, unsure where the carpet is taking him.
It starts descending into an area of the city he’d never been to. Although in reality, he hadn’t been to most of it. It flies towards an office building and skids to a halt outside one of the windows. His neighbour almost falls out of her chair when she sees him, leaving them staring wide eyed and confused at one another. He gestures at her to open the window, and perhaps only sheer curiosity leads her to do so.
‘Hi,’ he says, ‘uh, I’m Tim – your neighbour?’
Her response is to look even more confused.
‘Listen, uh, I’m sorry about this,’ he gestures vaguely at the carpet, the bubble…everything, ‘it’s pretty hard to explain it all, and I understand if you don’t want to hear it but uh, I just want to tell you that every morning when we see each other is the best moment of my day. A genie put a spell on m- you know what it doesn’t matter. The point is that it feels like you’re the only person that sees me, and I’m eternally grateful for that.’
Her furrowed brow softens as he speaks, and when he’s finished she looks much less like she’s seen a ghost.
‘Hi Tim,’ she says, ‘I’m Claire…it’s nice to finally speak to you.’ She puts her hand out towards him, popping the bubble as she does so. He offers his in return, and they shake. ‘Do you want to come in?’
He suddenly realises he’s no longer protected from falling and his knees go weak. He nods his head frantically and she pulls him in through the window. The moment he’s off of the carpet, it flies up into the sky, and they never see it again.
The following morning, and every morning afterwards, Tim and Claire not only smiled at one another, but also made the time to say hello.” Cameron waves his hands as if tying the story up in a bow.
“Whatdya think?” He asks the girls, “the ending wasn’t great but it wasn’t too bad overall I thought.”
He waits for a response, but the hushed symphony of heavy breathing coming from the sleeping audience tells him that it was only for himself.
“Well,” he smiles, “I liked it anyway.”
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