Blue sky stretched for miles around us, with only a few stray clouds drifting far away on the horizon.  A few hundred feet below, a thick canopy of trees was hurtling up to meet us.  I didn’t have much time to think.  But what I did think went something like this:

Bugger.  We’re in the middle of the bloody sky.  I wonder if that chicken pie I made is still edible.  We’re doomed.  I think I left it out.  I should have put it somewhere cool.

One by one, in quick succession, I saw my hounds break through the virgin-like canopy of the forest – and they were gone.  Then it was my turn.  My life started to flash before me but, realising the sheer longevity of my existence, it gave up almost as soon as it had started.

I reached the top of the trees and shielded my eyes as I crashed through with clumsy inevitability.  Below me, out of sight, I could hear the continual yelp, howl and snap, as my hounds plummeted down through the dense foliage.  From what I could see, peeping out from between my fingers as I tumbled over and over, through the angry snapping branches, all was dark and gloomy.  Having left the warm richness of daylight behind me, I seemed to be falling further and further in to eternal night.  This, I thought, is what it is like to die.  This is the sublime knowledge of perfect annihilation.

The branches scratched and clawed me as I fell.  I had no control over my descent; no control over my tumbling, spinning motion.  I would hit the ground as and when it was ready to receive me.  And the world would know Herne the Hunter, no longer. 

I closed my eyes and awaited the inevitable.

There were a few chaotic seconds.  Like the forceful drumming of hard rain, I heard my hounds hit the ground one by one, each with his own piteous yelp.  My own impact was almost simultaneous.  I landed on my back with a resounding crunch of godly bone – and I am pretty sure, looking back on it, that I bounced.   The wind was knocked out of me and for a few moments, I lay inert, wondering if I was dead or alive.

The unmistakable sensation of a hound licking my face was answer enough.  Perhaps because the branches had slowed my descent – or perhaps because I am a god and by definition, immortal – I had not expired. 

Herne the Hunter still was.

It took me a while to recover my breath.  After some time, I was able to crawl to my feet and dust myself down.  I was amazed to find my antlers intact; I thought I felt sure I had felt one of them fall off as I crashed through the trees.  My hood was, however, somewhat worse for wear.  The clump of material torn out by the harpy earlier on, had directly affected the hood’s purchase upon my cranium.  Annoyingly, the hood now kept slipping back over my head, so that the antlers ended up at an angle, pointing behind me.  I pulled the antlers forward, repeatedly – even trying to overcompensate by angling them towards the front – but they slipped back within seconds, to their preferred angle.  It was a small price to pay, I decided, given the events that had just befallen me.  Things could have been a lot worse.  I would fix the hood when I had a few spare moments, some thread and a suitable sewing patch.

Somewhere in the distance, I could hear the sound of traffic.  It sounded far away, but told me that we were within walking distance of civilisation.  I didn’t even think about making a plan of action.  A plan already existed in my mind.  We would follow the sound of traffic.  As soon as we could ascertain where we were, we would make our way – by whatever means necessary – to Betty’s Cat Kennel. 

From there, I would chase my destiny.

I kept on firing the balloon, trying desperately for our ascent to be quicker, eager for the filthy screeching harpies to leave us alone.  My hounds could sense the impending crisis and were snapping at the air around them, growling and baying like the tortured souls of a thousand bloody sacrifices.  All around me the basket was creaking and groaning.  More horrific than this was the whispering sound that described the unravelling of liberated wicker.

As the harpies rammed and clawed at Bertie Bassett, we lurched and swung uncontrollably across the sky.  Were I a religious god, I would have prayed at this moment.  But I am not, really.  I believe in myself as a god, certainly; but I was already here – and there was not a lot I could do.  I would have prayed.  Instead, I held on to a guy rope for dear life, and waited for a miracle.

The miracle happened like this:  There was a metallic zapping sound.  Then there was the blood-curdling screech of a harpy, followed by its lifeless body tumbling past us and plummeting to the mountainous landscape below.  The harpies all disembarked from the balloon, screeching in panicked confusion, and hovered in the air all around us.  They were like so many gnats, filling the summer air in an overgrown alleyway behind someone’s house in Tilehurst, Reading.

The balloon stopped lurching.  It stopped swaying.  We were sailing again, silently, through the clear, cold air.  I peered out to understand what had scattered the harpies so effectively.  And my head reeled at what I saw.

A dozen alien greys, strapped to a dozen hang-gliders, soared past me in tight formation.  Their silver suits glistened will dull austerity in the thin light; their large, black featureless eyes stared out with alien intelligence.  They are small creatures, greys.  Standing at around four feet in height, they are thin and gangly, with long spindly limbs.  Their heads seem a little too big for their slight bodies and because the head is their predominant organ, their character is defined very much by their facial expression.  This facial expression – shared by all the greys I have ever seen (and believe me, I have now seen a few) – is hard and featureless.  It could be said that they have the ultimate face for playing poker.  Their eyes do not blink; their nose is merely two slitted nostrils in the middle of their face; and their mouths are small, straight and lipless.

It has to be said, though – they can’t half hang-glide.

The greys were, as far as I could tell, hunting harpies.  They soared around describing tight manoeuvres in the air and their heads flicked from side to side, appraising the harpy population in the vicinity.  I saw that each grey carried a small silver gun.  In accordance with consensus perception as adopted by the human collective unconscious, these were no ordinary guns.  They were, of course, ray guns.  Every time a grey had the opportunity for a good shot, he would take it.  Greys, I have discovered, are keen marksmen.  On this occasion, their hit-ratio was 1:1.  With every little jelly bean of coloured light that the ray guns emitted, a harpy would screech in mortal pain and fall from the sky.  Many of them hit the balloon and tumbled past us with dramatic finality.  The tide of our affairs had turned.  As the balloon began to break free of the now scattered harpies, the bride once more to any forward breeze, I felt myself began to relax.  My hounds, sensing our close escape, began to wag their tails with demonic relief.

I only wish I could end the chapter here.  Unfortunately, Fate ne’er sleeps, when Herne is in peril.

As the balloon began to drift further in to the mountains, away from the airborne battle that had begun to rage between the harpies and the greys, I noticed that we were losing some height.  I pulled the chain and sent fire in to the belly of Bertie Bassett, curtailing our descent.  Just as we were beginning to gain some altitude, I heard a foul screech behind me.  My heart stopped.  I turned and found myself face to face with an ugly, leering harpy.  Having broken away from the flock to follow us, it now hovered within feet of the broken wicker basket, its large wings beating at the air menacingly.  Its eyes were hungry, its face etched with filthy hatred.  I knew that it would not take much to finish off the wicker basket and send us all spilling out to meet our violent ends on the rocks below.  And if the harpy did not take this approach then, in its desperation, it was likely to grab one of us and carry us off to a certain death.

My hand was still on the chain, sending fire in to Bertie’s loins.  I did not think.  This was no time for thinking.  It was time for action.

I am well aware that the spirit of impulse can be a very effective tool, when guided by a lucky hand.  My hand, however, is estranged from good fortune.  I am cursed.  And the worse thing I can ever do – one day, I will learn this – is act on impulse.  Impulse always blows up in my face.  So it was, I thought I was being deliciously spontaneous when I bent the inactive flame-thrower down so that it was pointing away from the balloon above us, and directly at the harpy just a few feet away.  I thought I looked cool, when I cocked a knowing and slightly amused eyebrow at the harpy.  And I thought I was being cool, when I said (keeping my face impassive and controlled) “asta la vista, baby”.

I pulled the chain to send forth the breath of the dragon. 

I couldn’t have timed it worse.  The flame engulfed the harpy and the harpy bellowed out in rage as it was consumed by hungry fire.  Unfortunately, at the very moment I released the flame, an alien grey swooped behind the harpy with hang-gliding panache, with a view to taking it out.  A sense of profound foreboding swept over me as I watched the alien grey combust.  It squealed in cosmic agony, now consumed by hungry fire.  I watched the grey hang-glide in to the distance, now roaring like a flaming comet.

My spontaneous manoeuvre had caused one final mishap.  On top of taking out a harpy and cleansing the soul of an alien grey in characteristically medieval fashion, the flame had caught one of the guy ropes attaching the wicker basket to the balloon.  A lascivious tongue of flame now licked up the guy rope and before I had time to curse my ineptitude, the fabric of our liquorice host had begun to burn.

Within just a few seconds, the burning rope snapped and the basket toppled precariously to one side, held by the remaining three ropes.  A few hounds were nearly spilled out, but we were all so tightly wedged in that they remained onboard.  I felt that familiar tickle of panic in my chest, as the basket began to spin sickeningly from side to side.  The basket was alive with frightened whimpering – much of it, my own.  Above us, Bertie Bassett was beginning to roar and his roar was becoming louder.  I looked up and saw the flames licking up over the fabric of the balloon.  Within a minute, there would be no balloon.

Several coloured jelly beans of light whizzed past my head.  It took me a few moments to register what they were; then I saw the crisp formation of eleven remaining hang-gliders cutting like knives through the sky, towards us.  I realised that the greys had understood the dire consequences of my spontaneity, and were now in retaliation over the medieval cleansing of their colleague’s soul.  It gave me no small degree of pleasure to note that their hit ratio had just fallen considerably.

The balloon was roaring loudly now above our heads and there was little left to see of Bertie Bassett, behind the raging inferno that he had become.  We were descending rapidly.  My hell hounds, their eyes red like burning coals, their ears flapping in the wind, were whining in terror.  The greys were circling us as we fell towards the mountains with increasing speed.  Bertie roared.  The basket spun.  And the greys continued to empty their ray guns on us.  I found myself ducking and darting from missiles that travelled towards me at light speed.  It was no mean feat.

There was nothing for it.  One way or another, we were going to be annihilated.  If the greys didn’t ray gun us in to extinction, we would be dashed on to the craggy mountains below.  The wind of descent was now blowing tears from my eyes, and my stomach turned with the sensation of unbridled plummetation.  The greys continued to circle us, shooting at us, staring at us with cold menace – but they were a blur.  Everything was a blur.  I could see the mountains getting closer and closer.

Necessity guided me.

I stared ahead with a stern expression, stuck out my arm and began to wave it around in a meaningful –if slightly frenetic – way.  To my relief, a vortex spun in to existence in the middle of the basket.  I didn’t even reason with my hounds.  I grabbed them quickly, one by one and pushed them through the vortex in to whatever lay beyond.  They were not slow to move and with the mountains only seconds away, I managed to get the last one through before diving through myself, headfirst in to the unknown.

Flying a hot air balloon, I discovered, really isn’t that difficult.  The only thing one has to be mindful of, is keeping the balloon’s altitude under control.  The rate of descent in one of those things is exponential, and so a gentle fall in height can all-too-quickly quickly become a death-defying plummet unless one remains vigilant.  Beyond that basic consideration – and, of course, steering clear of anything on one’s flight path with significant bursting potential – there is nothing to do but enjoy the ride.  There is no way to steer the balloon; you are guided by the currents in the air and have to submit yourself to the mercy of the pervading breeze.  For this reason, I delayed the launch until a gentle breeze blew in to the mountains.  At this point, I cut our anchoring ropes, and we were away.

My deepest anxiety, on agreeing to buy the hot air balloon from Wisdom, concerned the violence of the harpies.  It seemed to me that a hot air balloon would be a large and cumbersome target for these winged and vicious creatures.  I worried that high up in the sky, we would have nowhere to run and nowhere to hide.  I had visions of the harpies clinging on to the basket and shaking us out; or perching on the wicker edge and plucking us out one by one.  It did also occur to me that with their sharp and powerful talons, they could puncture the balloon and send us crashing down on to the sharp and hostile mountains below.  To my delight however, from the moment I laid my balloon canvas out flat on the ground outside Wisdom’s shop, in accordance with the instructions that came with it, the harpies seemed wary.  Something about the balloon unnerved them and it was a great relief to see them keeping a distance.  Once the balloon was inflated, filling the air with its liquorice majesty, the harpies seemed all the more keen to keep a distance.

We sailed in to the mythological Mountains of Despair, on a blindly courageous mission (if I do say so myself) to rescue my lost and frightened, though nonetheless spectrally ferocious, fiery and death-drooling hell hound.  With his twenty four compatriots squeezed in to the wicker basket with me, it wasn’t the most comfortable situation.  However, the boys were calm and, unusually for them, relatively still.  I think they were aware of the fragility of our situation, high above the ground – and instinct told them how perilous it could be to move around inside the basket with too great an enthusiasm.

I have to say it was an amazing experience.  Soaring in perfect silence high above the astral landscape, time seemed to stand still.  As we rose higher and higher, I marvelled at the rich tapestry of textures and colours that make up the metaphysical landscape.  Fields of green, gold, azure and crimson, cling to the landscape like fuzzy felt; forests and trees stand high against the weathered sky, hinting of rich, dark secrets hidden within; vast turreted castles rise up out of the trees, out of the grounds, out of the mountains, like fairy tale palaces; the sky is clear, the deepest blue in some places, while in others, it is black with angry clouds, pregnant with the storm. 

Below us, the mountains seemed barren and hostile.  From a short distance, the harpies eyed us suspiciously and flew all around us, watching our progress.  I continued to take the balloon further up, higher and higher.  I could see large harpy nests below, situated on craggy outcrops of the mountains.  The nests were littered with bones and rotting carcasses.  The rocks around them were bespattered with blood and gore and dripping faeces.  From time to time an occupying harpy would look up from its hunched position where it rent its prey, and its eyes would follow us balefully.  It was chilling to be venturing in to such hostile territory, unnerving to be watched as closely as we were.  From nearby, the harpies screeched and cried and filled the air with their discordant obscenity.

The thing with me is that I get overconfident.  When things are going well, when I seem to be in control of a situation, I get too big for my boots.  I’m like a child, hypnotised by my own false ego.  I ask for trouble, at such times.  So it was, high in the wicker basket, in the shadow of Bertie Bassett, I began to hum to myself, as I gazed out at the mountains.  I felt sure we would see Nelson soon – and I felt sure that he was alive and well.  I was the master of my vessel.  I held on to a guy rope, watching the mountains slide underneath us.  From time to time, I would feel our slight descent and fired short bursts of hot air in to Bertie, to maintain our altitude.  The casual demonstration of such piloting skill made me all the more confident and I hummed louder, feeling myself untouchable, invincible.  As I have discovered time and again, Fate despises such self-confidence in me.

I didn’t notice at first but the harpies were getting closer to the balloon with every passing minute.  I was in the middle of humming “Love Lift Us Up Where We Belong” when the wicker basket in which we rode was broadsided forcefully.  The basket jerked dramatically and my hounds, while continuing to define hellish terror, twitched and whimpered like potatoes in a bag.  Standing up as I was, I had to grab hold of the guy rope for dear life, to prevent myself from being toppled over the side.  I swung round to see what had caused the impact and there, just a few feet away, I came face to face with a harpy.  Its face was etched in to an ugly leer and its wings beat the air with slow, threatening deliberation.  Quickly, I scanned the area all around the balloon.  We were encircled by the foul winged horrors – a dozen…two dozen…three.  I chided myself.  I couldn’t believe I hadn’t noticed them closing in.  While I had been humming my stupid tune and congratulating myself on my own invincibility, they had moved in, challenging their own fear to reach this delicious new airborne prey.

The hungry, contorted faces of the harpies made my skin crawl.  A new seed of anxiety was taking root in my heart.  It began to sprout, filling my breast with its thorny foliage.  My hounds picked up on my anxiety – though they were already cultivating seeds of their own.  They crawled over each other, peering up over the lip of the basket, apprising themselves of the danger that hovered all around us.  The basket jolted again, suffering a second impact.  The hounds began to howl.  The harpies screeched with growing delight.  I tried to shoo them away – and only wished I had a broom to cement my authority.  The winged beasts were unflinching.  Their faces leered with bitter satisfaction.  The basket jolted again, with a sickening creak of wicker.  I glanced around, desperately.  The stinking creatures were finding their confidence.  They could attack us without rebuke.  The hits started to come forcefully, in succession.  The basket swung and jolted, the wicker sounding less and less solid with every hit.  I knew that we were fast losing our structural integrity.

Nearby, from the mountains below, I heard an unearthly howling.  Nelson had undoubtedly heard the baying of my frightened hounds and was responding.  Part of me – the part of me that wasn’t awaiting certain death – was delighted.  I managed to sneak a quick glance over the rim of the basket.  We were within two hundred yards of Nelson and heading straight for him.  He stood in the centre of a large straw nest, on a rocky outcrop.  He looked frightened and vulnerable, his red eyes dripping fire.  He was surrounded by bones and bloodied gore.  So frightened he was, that he hadn’t even had a nibble.

We were within sight of our goal.  All we would need to do was lower the balloon, just a little bit, and Nelson could jump on board.  Once we had him safely inside, I could try to outmanoeuvre the harpies that were besieging us.  Outmanoeuvring them could only mean going up – but I knew that it might just be possible.  I was unaware of how high the harpies could go and I hoped that there was a limitation on their altitude.  There was a chance.

Nelson was so delighted to see us!  As I allowed the balloon to descend, closer and closer to the rocky crag on which he stood, I could see that his tail was all a-wag.  My hounds were torn between their fear of the harpies and their excitement at seeing Nelson getting closer and closer to us.  On board the Good Ship Herne, was Pandemonium.  He stood, encouraged and encouraging, as the basket rocked perilously from side to side under the constant barrage of harpy assault and the excited undulations of my houndish comrades.  Every few seconds, as I tried to navigate us down to within leaping distance of Nelson, a different harpy would alight on the side of the basket and I would have to swipe them off vigorously.  My hands felt slick and filthy, from touching them.

We finally made it down to within a few feet of Nelson’s be-nested crag.  There was a window of opportunity some two seconds in length, during which Nelson would be able to leap on board as we sailed past.  I called to him at the optimum moment and leaned over the side of the basket, my arms outstretched, encouraging him to take that fateful leap.  To use the analogy of a slice of bread, Nelson knew on which side his was buttered.  With one almighty push, he launched himself from the crag and with a little guidance from my dangling arms, landed in the basket, directly on top of Painfeldt and Tyrone. 

We’d done it!

The basket swayed with all the stability of Father Time on a birthday bender (I never have cared much for that term, but Father Time always insists on his annual birthday pub-crawl being called thus) and I tried to push my hounds back, with a view to creating some even weight displacement across the basket.  The harpies were become more violent now, as they rammed the basket and – to my horror – began to tear out clumps of wicker with their fearsome claws.  Pandemonium smiled, like the smug bastard he is.

We were beginning to descend all too quickly, and I knew I had to act fast.  I grabbed the chain to pour fire in to the balloon – and yanked it hard.  The fire roared above our heads and all around us, the harpies were bathed in an orange, fiery glow.  Their aspect was terrifying, their faces defined by shadow.  High above our heads, Bertie Bassett, in his bitter-sweet majesty, found life.  He began to rise, slowly at first but with increasing rapidity, high in to the astral sky, pulling us up after him.  I continued to throw fire up in to the balloon and we continued to ascend.  The harpies were still attacking us, from all sides.  The basket rocked and groaned, and in several places, I could look out of the holes that the harpies had clawed in the wicker.  They were coming up underneath us, and I was amazed at their strength.  I just hoped that we would be able to shake them off in our ascent.

“Yes,” he said, conceitedly. “I knew you would be in today.”

I caught my breath, snatching nervous glances out of the shop window.  The harpies were swooping down low outside.  At one point, as we ran for the shop, one had managed to clamp its talons into the back of my hood.  I had felt myself being lifted off the ground and it was only that a chunk of hood ripped off, that I was saved.  My ferocious hell hounds stood on the safe side of the door and glared out, snarling dangerously at the swooping terrors.

“Those things are surely getting out of control?”  I demanded.  I couldn’t see how Wisdom had any custom left.

“Tell me about it.”  Wisdom shook his head, wearily.  “It is having a real impact on my business.  I really wish we could have them culled.”

“Maybe you should try another petition?”

“If it would make any difference, believe me, I would.  But the Astral Council has decreed – and such a decree is seldom revoked. The harpies have their metaphysical foundation in a genuine symbolic construction, deeply embedded in the human collective unconscious.  There’s absolutely nothing we can do about it.”

“Well – perhaps you can persuade the Astral Council to legislate on the parameters of the harpies’ activities?  Maybe if they were compelled to stay up in the mountains – or at the very least, to maintain a minimum height when they fly around this vicinity?”

Wisdom nodded sagely.  “You might be on to something, there.”  He said.

He continued to stack cans of beans on to the shelf, though he now seemed to be doing so with a degree of studied contemplation.

From my vantage point near the door, I craned my neck to find what I was looking for in the shop.  It was a small shop and I could see pretty much everything from where I stood.  The thing was, it was deceptively small.  Wisdom stocked just about everything that is, ever was and ever will be, in his little convenience store.

Leaving my vicious hounds at the door, baying for harpy blood, I strolled up and down the few aisles that made up Convenience is a Virtue.  I was being stubborn.  All I needed to do was ask Wisdom – but I hesitated to do so, because I knew how smug he would be when he told me he knew I had come in for that.  I was, however, putting off the inevitable.  It is very rare that you can find what you want in Wisdom’s shop, without having to ask him.  Unless you are looking for baked beans, that is.

I stole myself and approached him.

“Wisdom,” I began.

From his vantage point on the footstool, he remained in deep thought, stacking the beans with perfect symmetry, one can at a time.  He glanced down at me.

“Um – I need a hang-glider.”  I said.

Wisdom sighed.

“I knew you were going to ask me that.” He said, flatly, his voice tinged with affected frustration.  “I’m out of stock.  I sold my last one yesterday.”

I was tempted to challenge his “wisdom”, and ask how come he hadn’t known in advance that he would run out of stock.  But Barry was dead; and Nelson’s life was hanging by a thread up in the mythological Mountains of Despair.  This was no time for pedantry.

Amazed that there would be such a run on hang-gliders, in an existential dimension hardly famed for extreme sports or aviation hobbyists, I asked who, in the name of all that was holy, had bought the other one.  Wisdom placed his extant can of beans carefully on the shelf and stepped down from the footstool.

“A grey,” he said.

“Come again?”

“A grey.  An alien grey.”

I was stunned.  I had never thought of alien greys living on the astral plain.  I had never seen one, in all my aeons.  That said, on further consideration, it was perfectly obvious that they would reside here.  Like me, like all gods, legends, intuitive beliefs and mythological incarnations, alien greys exist on that twilight cusp between physical existence and dreamlike fantasy.  There is a current of faith that keeps the little buggers alive.  So strong is that faith, that they have become flesh.  They have become flesh here, in the realm of belief and imagination; and like me, they have taken on an existence that transcends the reality of their puny creators.

“Blimey.”  I said.

“Yes.”  Wisdom replied.  He echoed my thoughts.  “You don’t think of them residing here on the astral plain, do you?”

“No, you don’t.”

“I know.  If I wasn’t Wisdom, and hadn’t been aware of their impending visit to my shop, it would have given me a rare old start, I can tell you!  Indeed, you may have found me cowering behind the till, armed with a pot of mustard, in readiness to smash it and utilise its sharp glass edges against these unearthly invaders.  But actually, they are quite harmless.  The thing is, they are coldly calculating.  While this may be fairly sinister if they have the knives out for you, if they do not, then you can rest comfortably in the knowledge that you will not fall victim to any sudden show of spontaneous violence.”

“I see.”

“Anyway, they’ve been good for trade.”

“Really?”

“Oh yes.  Yesterday’s grey was the latest in a long line of greys.  Over the last week, they have bought twelve hang-gliders from me.”

I didn’t even want to know.  Greys or no greys, things were looking desperate.  I told Wisdom that I needed to get up in to the mountains to find Nelson, before he was devoured by a carnivorously lusty harpy – and asked him when he was expecting his next consignment of hang-gliders.

Wisdom scratched his chin.

“To be honest,” he said. “Not for another week or so.  But, if you’re interested…”  His manner became conspiratorial, in a commercial kind of way.

“Go on.”

“I do have something that might suit you equally well.”

I listened carefully.

For some time I meditated over his remains, while my spectral hounds explored the local vicinity.  For the most part, they chased rabbits and hares and slimy wet things that wriggled frightfully in the undergrowth.  One or two were more circumspect in recognising my grief.  Chomper assumed the position, and did a number one.  Dougal assumed the position and did a number two, which sat quietly steaming on an open patch of grass.  Valhalla assumed the position and did a number a three.  I still haven’t quite worked out what that was.

My first instinct had been to collect up Barry’s remains and inter them somewhere suitable, with the appropriate ceremony and decorum.  I decided now, however, looking at him strewn across the grass that it would be in keeping with his inherent meaning – the broad philosophy that he signified – to leave him where he lay, to degrade and recycle according to nature’s law.  He was The Green Man; and how fitting it would be for him to feed his environment, to propagate life through his own extinction.  It was what he would have wanted, I felt certain.  Furthermore, in not drawing attention to his demise through ceremony and interment, I could keep it a secret from my old mum, until such time as it seemed safe to tell her.

Now to the living, I thought, with sombre resignation.  Let the dead take care of themselves.

I looked up at the dark and looming mythological Mountains of Despair.  If I was to stand any chance of surviving my mum’s wrath when she found out about Barry, I had to rescue Nelson from that harpy’s larder, up there in the mountains.  I hoped it wasn’t too late.

Stacey sat next to me on the sofa and my nausea was eclipsed by something more powerful.  Trying to be casual as I sipped my tea, I snatched the occasional glance at her.  It hurt me to look at her.  She had a beauty I had never known.  That my introduction to her had been through the medium of her underwear embarrassed me beyond words.

I learned what had happened to me.  Apparently, when I had turned to leave, one of my antlers had caught the light bulb hanging from the ceiling, and had smashed it.  When I had looked up to discover what I had smashed, my other antler had gone straight in to the exposed element.  The light had been on.  I was electrocuted.  For some reason, the fuse did not blow immediately and for some twenty seconds, I stood in the middle of the living room, unable to move while I fried from the inside out.  Somewhat uncharitably, Maureen told me how my face was “a picture” and at the memory, she burst in to laughter.  Her daughter shot her a reprimanding look but (I was mortified to note) I am sure I saw the light of humour dancing behind her own eyes.  She no doubt had me down as the clumsy oaf I am.

When she had stopped laughing, Maureen sat back in her chair.

“I’m quite surprised, to be honest.”  She said.  “I wouldn’t have thought an antler would conduct electricity.”

I explained how, a few years ago, the antler had kept falling off.  I had attached it to my hood with a piece of wire that fed up through the whole length of the antler.  It was something I really needed to repeat with my other antler, I added, since this had started to become equally unstable in recent weeks.  The wire had obviously conducted the electricity, I explained.

I couldn’t see what I had said that was so funny.  Whatever it was, Maureen burst out laughing.  This time, her daughter joined in.  They seemed to infect each other thus, for the next five minutes.  A little bewildered and uncomfortable, I sat there politely and sipped my tea, while they laughed at me.  From time to time, in an effort to look natural, I coughed delicately and threw them both a weak smile.  I really didn’t know where to look.

They finally stopped laughing.  It was a gradual process, with several false endings, which burst unaccountably in to renewed conflagrations of mirth.

Stacey fixed me with her stare.  My heart stopped.  I looked back at her, meekly.

“So why are you dressed like that?”  She asked.  Her eyes were intense, her voice like silk.  She seemed to be holding back a smile.

“Erm, well…” I looked over at Maureen.  No support was forthcoming.  My gaze returned uncomfortably to Stacey.  I was feeling my way here.   “I don’t know how much your mum has told you about me, or where I come from?”

She shrugged.  “Nothing really.  All I know is that the electricity went off all over the house and when I came down to find out what had happened, you were in the middle of the room, out sparko on the floor.  Wearing that.”  She indicated my hood.

“Ah.  Yes.  Well.”  I was dithering for two reasons – only one of which was the fact I didn’t know what to say.  I was lost at sea, drowning in her eyes.  “You see, I am Herne the Hunter.” 

I paused for the magnitude of this confession to take effect.  To my discomfort, she shrugged again.  It clearly meant nothing to her. 

“The God of the Hunt,” I offered.  She shook her head, helplessly.  She had no idea what I was talking about.  I was becoming desperate.  “Have you ever seen Robin of Sherwood?” I asked, rather pathetically.  She told me that she hadn’t.  “The thing is,” I ventured.  “I am not of your world.”

“So what – you’re a Martian?”

“No.  No.  I’m from the astral plain.”

“Behind Asda?”

“No.  Eh?  Look, Stacey.”  I leant forward and placed my empty tea cup on the table.  It was a move designed to emphasise the gravity of what I was about to tell her.  She leaned forward, listening with all she had.  “There is no simple way to say this.  I am a god.  I live outside the parameters of this material dimension.  I am an abstract construct, personified and made flesh.  I have lived for an eternity – and was invented by man’s primeval imagination, to serve man, to rule him.  I am an icon of pagan worship, the symbolic representation of man’s most basic needs.”

She stared at me.  She was no longer hiding a smile; rather, I felt she was masking raw bewilderment.

“So why are you wearing that?”  She said, finally.  I got the feeling she hadn’t quite grasped my explanation.  “Is it fancy dress?”

“No.  It’s what I wear.”

“What – all the time?”  She looked horrified.

“Well…yes.  It’s my regalia.  It’s me.”

“You must be a weirdo.”  She said.

As an introductory conversation, it really didn’t seem to be going that well.  My mood sunk like a wooden post into quagmire.  For the first time ever, I found myself questioning the fundamental aspect of my hood.  With its rustic style, its thrusting power and the sheer grace of its antlers, I had never doubted, as an item of fashion, its potential as a lady killer.  I thought that the hood commanded respect.  In wearing it, I thought I looked cool.  It certainly made me feel cool.  But here, confronted by a real, live opinion – proffered by a real, live girl – my conceit was exposed.  She was right.  The hood made me look ridiculous.  It made me look like “a weirdo”.  It took me but a second to glance back down the avenue of aeons, through which I had worn the hood with such self-assured, idiotic pride.  And I hated myself – hated myself – for my stupid, misguided vanity.  How could I have been so stupid?  How could I have been so vain?

“Yes, you may be right.”  I conceded, with quiet humilty.  “I must seem like a weirdo to you.”

I wanted to cry.  I wanted to stand up and rip the hood from my head.  I wanted her to see beyond my stupid hood.  I wanted her to see me.  But this was not the time.  I could have given myself to her, body and soul; I could have spent the rest of eternity just gazing in to her electric blue eyes.  But I knew that Barry was lying scattered somewhere across the astral plain.  And somewhere up in the mythological Mountains of Despair, I could only hope that Nelson was still alive and in one piece, defeating the ravenous jaws of his abductor harpy.  Stacey had yoked my soul, but I really needed to get my affairs in order before falling victim to Cupid’s poisoned dart.

In truth, things were looking bleak for me.  As far as Nelson was concerned, if my old mum found out that he had been abducted by a harpy – while I was running selfishly ahead for dear life – she would whoop my hide from here to Kingdom Come.  She would not countenance such neglect.  She loved my hounds, my old mum.  And Nelson’s abduction (if not his carnivorous devourment) would undoubtedly be hailed as a prime example of my inability to care properly for my hounds.  Indeed, I felt this would, more likely than not, be an occasion for the rolling pin. 

As for Barry…

Barry was dead.  A catalogue of misfortunes had led to his murder and somewhere at the core, I knew I bore responsibility.  I dreaded having to tell our mum.  Barry was her favourite – it had never been a secret.  Losing him this way – any way – would be almost too much for her to bear.  I worried that it would send her over the edge.  And when she discovered the fundamental role I played in his violent death, I would be in for the biggest hiding of my life.  She would, without any exaggeration, and to coin the appropriate vernacular, “go ape”.  And in conjunction with Nelson’s grisly abduction, Barry’s demise promised me a hide so tanned, that I would be unable to sit down for an aeon.

“I really have to go,” I said.  I stood up, gingerly, checking to see that there were no electrical appliances directly above my head.  “Thanks for the tea, Maureen.”  I looked at Stacey, with what I hoped was a deep and meaningful expression.  “It was lovely to meet you,” I said, softly.

I summoned my ferocious hell hounds and made my way to the front door.  I led them through the small front garden and piled them with practised efficiency in to the back of the milk float.  Maureen and her daughter stood at the door, waving goodbye.  I gazed at them – a short, stocky tattooed woman, side by side with a vision of beauty.  Stacey leaned forward and called over to me.

“It was nice to meet you too, Herne.  Feel free to drop by again.”

I smiled.  It was all the invitation I needed.  I would see her again.

With elation in my heart, I switched the float in to forward mode, checked my wing mirrors and pulled out on to the road.  As I trundled through the streets toward Betty’s Cat Kennel, my thoughts were filled with profound notions of love, grief and destiny.

My eyes were drawn to one angel who seemed to shine more brightly than all the rest.  She gazed down at me with eyes of deepest blue.  Her golden hair fell over her shoulders and her face was as pure and unblemished as driven snow.  I was mesmerised by this vision of beauty.  Her eyes danced with mine and I saw that she was coming closer to me, descending from the sky on feathered wings of grace. 

She was above me.  The boat was bathed in her radiance; the lake around me mirrored her ethereal glow.  I could smell her sweet, sweet perfume infusing me like a subtle drug.  Her face was earnest and sincere.  She was so beautiful, so perfect that it hurt me to look upon her.  In her hand she had a slice of bread, drenched in ambrosia.  She dabbed it gently on my face and it was warm against my skin.  She dabbed my brow and massaged my face with the bread.  Warm, sticky ambrosia dripped down my face, and the gentle, sensual dabbing continued.  I smiled, weakly.  It felt as though I were being licked all over my face.  The ambrosia smelled of fresh fish.  The bread began to slap over my face like a dozen sloppy tongues. 

And I realised what was happening.  

I wrenched myself out of my slumber.  The used bath water of my dream swirled quickly down the plug hole.  I was no longer in a boat, rocking gently upon the undulating surface of a lake.  I was hunched up on the sofa in Maureen’s living room.  I still felt gripped by a rocking motion however and I realised that my head was spinning.  I felt sick.  Above my head, the angel-lit night sky was no more.  Instead, the artexed living room ceiling bore down on me with stark white utility.  There was no slice of bread, no soothing ambrosia.  My hell hounds were loose in the living room, and several of them were licking my face with fishy affection, their sloppy, spectral tongues slapping gallons of slimy saliva all over me.  The living room rippled with the unearthly chaos that comes when twenty five spectral hell hounds, their eyes red like burning coals, their tails wagging like the bellows of Hell’s furnace, are confined in a small domestic space.

I groaned in disgust and pushed them away.  Compulsively, I wiped my face dry on my sleeve.  And then I saw her – the angel in my dream.  She was standing just above my head, that same look of earnest concern written across her face.  Her eyes were blue and intense.  Her perfume, now that I was awake, was all the sweeter.  She was no longer in the silk white robes of my dream – but in her loose fitting top and baggy tracksuit bottoms, she looked all the more beautiful.

Maureen marched in from the kitchen with a tea tray held high, and pushed through the undulating mass of hound.  She looked at me with kind sympathy and smiled, placing the tray on the windowsill, out of harm’s way. 

“There you go,” she said.  “A nice cup of tea for you.”

She looked from me to the angel, standing by my head.

“This is my daughter,” she said, smiling.  “This is Stacey.  I believe you know her knickers.”

The woman’s name, I discovered, was Maureen.  As she bustled around the kitchen, making us a pot of tea, I watched my hounds frolic and play in her garden.  I confess it made me wince when they found a large and beautiful goldfish lurking in the pond and tore it to bloody shreds between them.  But I was glad to find Maureen was too engrossed in her tea-making enterprise to notice.  I was impressed by how nonchalant she was about the whole affair that had disrupted her morning.

We sat in the front room and I was drawn to the solid shape of the milk float outside.  I think my love affair with milk floats began on that day.  There is something very me, about the nature and personality of a milk float.  They are solid, reliable and reassuringly square.  They lack ostentation, and blend in to the background of any situation.  They ooze humility.  When working, they move quietly, describing the very essence of the word “trundle”; and when still, they generate an air of calm philosophy.  I love them.  There, in Maureen’s front room, a cup of tea perched politely on my knee, I wondered how easy it would be to drive a milk float through an inter-dimensional vortex, and on to the astral plain.

“So what was that place?” Maureen asked.  It was fair question.

I explained it to her.  As mortal flesh, she resides in the material realm.  The power of thought and belief in man, I explained, has created an existential dimension constructed purely from mankind’s collective imagination.  Here, in the realm of metaphysics, the trappings of material reality exist side by side with created myth, legend, belief and superstition.  In the metaphysical dimension, the symbols of man’s collective unconscious become flesh; the slippery abstractions of language become substance.  As a rule, mortal beings generally visit the astral realm only through the medium of dreams.  Unfortunately, Maureen fell foul of my own supernatural incompetence when I left the vortex open in her kitchen, next to the washing machine.  She thereby managed to cross inter-dimensional boundaries and found herself in the metaphysical realm, in the flesh.  Leaving a temporary vortex open in her kitchen, the way I did, was negligent, I explained.  It was tantamount to leaving an exposed electrical wire in the middle of a busy nursery school.  I gulped my tea in shame, unable to find words enough to apologise.

“Blimey.”  She said.

I asked her what she made of the place – and how she had managed to find her way to Wisdom’s corner shop.  With my luck being as consistently bad as it is, I really shouldn’t have been surprised by the nasty piece of news contained in her answer.  But my naivety never fails to disarm me.

“Well, it was a bit of a shock,” she said, sipping her tea. “One minute I am in my kitchen, the next, I am in some weird place, out in the open air, in my dressing gown!  There were trees all around me and it felt as if I was in the middle of some forest.  It was so quiet.  I felt so alone.

“At the same time…I felt like I was being watched.  But I couldn’t see anything.  Now and then, I heard things moving in the distance – twigs snapping, and branches being moved.  But I still couldn’t see anything.

“I really didn’t know what to do.  I looked all around.  For the life of me, I couldn’t understand where my kitchen had gone.  It was the weirdest thing.  I started to walk, a bit disorientated, like.  But I thought, if I start walking, I am going to have to come out somewhere.  It made more sense than standing in one place.

“So anyway, I’ve been walking for about ten minutes, through endless trees and forest, when one of the trees just seems to come to life in front of me.  Well, I say trees…it was more like a bush really.  What I thought was a bush, kind of formed in to the shape of a man – a leafy man, you understand – and started talking to me.”

I smiled.

“What did he say?” I asked.

“Well, he kind of seemed a bit unsure of himself.  He asked me if I was lost.”

My smile widened.

“Was he about my height?  Very leafy – in a lush green sort of way?  With very human eyes, that seemed to gaze out of a badly manicured topiary?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“That was Barry!”  I said, delighted.  No wonder I had found her safe and sound.  By sheer luck, amidst the infinite possibilities afforded by metaphysical probability, she had bumped in to the Green Man – my brother.

“Hmm.” Her eyes narrowed.  “A nasty piece of work.  I didn’t trust him from the start.”

My smile began to fade.  She went on.

“Call me old fashioned,” she said. “But men should look like men.  And bushes should act like bushes.  There was something pretty creepy about this man-bush thing.  He was very polite.  Very attentive.  But my instinct told me to be on my guard.  There was something just not right about him.  I got the feeling he was trying to lull me in to a false sense of security.

“But I thought I could use him.  After all, he probably had a better idea of where I was, than I did.  I asked him where we were and he told me we were in the Forest of Dreams.  It made me suspect he was a psycho, the way he said it.  But I didn’t give anything away.  I asked him if there were any shops around.  If I could get to a shop, I thought – somewhere public – then I would be safe.  He told me there was a corner shop, within an hour’s walk.  He said he’d take me there.  I bet you will, I thought.  But what choice did I have?  I followed him through the forest.

“If only you could have heard him.  He chatted to me all the way, pretending to put me at my ease, pretending to be some nice, friendly character.  If I was a bit younger, I might have fallen for it, hook, line and sinker.  But I knew what he was doing.  Psychos are the nicest people you can meet.  I read it in a book.”

She nodded sagely, her lips thin, her eyes knowing.  I didn’t like the way this was going.  My skin was beginning to tighten.  Barry is the most unassuming metaphysical personification you could hope to meet.  He is, after all, the Green Man.  He symbolises the beauty, the richness, the harmony, the continual life of Nature’s gardens.  He’s one of life’s good guys.  There is nothing the least bit menacing or untrustworthy about him.  I could only imagine that the shock of her experience had wobbled Maureen’s analytical faculties, somewhat.

She sipped her tea and went on.

“So anyway, we walked for an hour or so.  I kept wondering if he was leading me to this supposed corner shop, or if he was leading me as far away from civilisation as possible.  The important thing was not to let on that I knew what he was up to.  If I let him believe he had lulled me in to a false sense of security, then I could use the element of surprise to overcome him when the time came.

“We came to the edge of the forest, and there was this huge, vast mountain range.  He told me that this was a mythological mountain range and these were the mountains of despair – or something.  They were endless, he said.  They had existed forever in one direction of time, he told me.  And they would continue to exist forever in the other direction of time.  He sounded like a raving lunatic to me.  The cracks were beginning to show.  I knew he was about to flip.  He kept himself under control though, and pointed to a small building at the base of the mountains.  That, he told me, was the corner shop.

“I saw my chance.  I know how it works.  The attacker shows you your goal – lets you think you have made it – and then cuts you down, in the very midst of your hope.  It’s a control thing.  I read it in a magazine.  Well, this psycho hadn’t banked on me knowing what he was up to!  I was ready for him.  Attack, I decided, was the best form of defence.”

My mouth was dry and time was beginning to slow down.  I was hardly aware that my tea was going cold. 

“Go on,” I said, weakly.

“Well, the way I saw it, he was made out of leaves.  He was little more than a shrub.  A talking, walking shrub – but a shrub, all the same.  If I’d had a pair of shears, I’d have gone at him hammer and tong.  But all I had was my bare hands. 

“In my experience, plants and shrubs and trees break apart fairly easily.  You just need a bit of brute force, and to know where the weak spots are…”

By this time, I was peering at her through the fingers of one hand.

“What did you do?” I asked her.  I dreaded the answer.  Grief was in the wings, limbering up and ready to burst on to the stage.

“What else could I do?” she asked me. “I thanked him for showing me the way and then, before he had chance to pounce, I jumped him.  I saw my opportunity when he turned away, pretending to be embarrassed by my gratitude.  It was now or never, I decided.  I jumped on his back and slung my arm around his neck.  I then did what any woman in my situation would do – I started pulling him apart, leaf and branch, as violently as I could.”

“Barry…”

“He was a tough old bugger, that I will say.  He spun me round and round, trying to shake me off.  I knew that if I gave him the smallest chance he would kill me dead.  This was a fight to the death.”

An involuntary groan escaped me.  In the auditorium of my emotions, Grief bounded out on to the stage and stood proudly in the limelight, ready to burst in to tuneless song.

“I pulled and yanked on his foliage.  It took some doing.  Sometimes I would get just a few leaves – other times, a whole branch would break off in my hand with a loud snap.  He was crying, wailing, pleading with me to leave him alone, pleading with me for mercy.  He was thrashing around, asking me what he had done to deserve such an assault.  Such a hypocrite!  I wasn’t to be fooled!”

“So what happened…?”  My mouth was so dry. “Did he get away?”

She flashed a triumphant, proud gaze.

“No!  I finished him!  Like I say, it took some doing.  But he finally collapsed to the ground and I knew I had him.  I kept pulling out his foliage – as much as would come out.  By the time I had finished with him, he was a mound of broken twigs and branches.  He was covered in sap and half-torn leaves.  I kicked him a few times, just to make sure.  But he had stopped moving by this time.  He had stopped groaning.  And I knew I had won.  I knew I was safe.”

“Barry.”  My soul was numb. “You killed Barry.” The words sounded unreal in my head.  My voice sounded distant.  She looked so proud.

“Yep.  I done him like a turkey!  So anyway, after that, I made my way to the shop – which was where you found me.”

She tipped her head back to down the remains of her tea.  She had told me the story as though she were relating a simple walk to the shops.  But she had killed my brother.  She had killed Barry.

I stood up.

“I’m going to have to go.”  I said, quietly.  I didn’t blame her for what she’d done.  I blamed myself.  Barry’s death rested on my shoulders.  It was because of me that this poor, frightened woman had ended up killing my own flesh and blood.  Or leaf and sap, as the case may be.  I felt my absolute incompetence as a God; as an individual.  Everything I touch seems to go rotten to the core.  I often feel that I embody a curse that is infectious in its potency.  I hated myself then, at that moment, more than I have ever done.

Maureen stood up, to see me out.  She was oblivious to the needle of grief that she had driven through my immortal flesh.

“Well, it’s been very nice meeting you!”  She said. “Thanks for getting me back safely.”

I nodded and managed an absent smile.  The tips of my antlers were touching the ceiling.  It was a low room.  I could hear my hell hounds, at play in the garden.  I heard an almighty ripping sound, and at the back of my troubled mind, I wondered if an unlucky cat had just strayed in to the vicinity.  I would have to round up my hounds and make my way back to Betty’s Cat Kennel, in order to return to the astral plain.  Once there, I would need to find the remains of Barry and collect them up – out of respect, if nothing else.

I made a move towards the kitchen and something smashed above my head.  I started, looked up and felt an almighty jolt of electricity pass through my head.  It happened so fast, and yet it seemed to last a lifetime.  My head felt as though it were being shaken violently, in the jaws of some giant terrier.  A sharp, hot agony sawed through my head and shot through my body to the floor.  I could smell burning.  It seemed to come from within me.  It permeated the air all around.  My eyes began to bulge and I felt that they would burst.  I could hear Maureen, in the distance, saying something in quick, panicked tones.  The sound of my hounds at play was becoming fainter and fainter.  My skin was burning.  The world was turning grey.  I had no idea what was happening to me.

I wanted to scream, to wriggle out of the sphere of torture.  But I couldn’t move.  I was paralysed.  Maureen screamed and somewhere – nearby, far away – I heard a dull explosion.  The searing pain shrank to a tiny point of light in the middle of my head and I felt myself slump to the floor.

Everything went dark.

I felt like a big dumb galoot. 

In her eyes, I was a pervert – a moral abortion.  I was no ancient God to this woman; no ethereal being of esteemed magnificence.  I was but an oozing lump of mutated primordial soup.  I was a shameful creep; less than worthless.  It has to be said that standing there with a packet of Monster Munch hanging over my eye, I shared her opinion.  However, I knew that I needed to take control of this situation.  I had to get her home, get her back to the material realm.

Instinctively, I adopted an expression of perfect humility and shot her a weak, appealing smile.  On occasion, this expression has helped me to cool the wrath of my old mum’s fury, if I have fallen in to her bad books.  But in this instance, the woman didn’t react.  She didn’t thaw.  She didn’t reconsider her position.  We stood there, facing each other, our wills locked in combat.  The expression of humility – and my humble, weak smile – was beginning to hurt and it was only the fact of the packet of Monster Munch un-wedging itself from under my hood and falling to the floor that broke our tense stalemate.

The woman’s eyes flicked from my face to the crumpled packet lying on the floor at my feet.  A change seemed to ride across her face.  It was the same kind of change that happens when the sun slides back out from behind a cloud, on a summer’s day.  Her eyes glistened as she continued to appraise the scene before her.  Then her face crumpled.  And she laughed.

Boy, did she laugh.

I had a dream once that I was in the cargo hold of a huge transporter plane, flying over a desert landscape.  Standing next to the open ramp, my job was to drive out a herd of moose that we had on board, one by one, and watch them plummet to the ground below.  I had been suffering from constipation at the time of the dream, and my old mum thought the dream related to this.  Anyway, when I pushed out each moose, the moose in question would moan and bray, as though pleading for the very salvation of its moosey soul.  The noise was terrible and it wrung my heart.  Right now, standing in the crisps aisle of Convenience is a Virtue, I couldn’t help but notice how similar the woman’s laugh was to the noise of each doleful moose, in my dream.

The catalyst for her outburst was beyond my comprehension.  At first I took it to be a bitter, evil laugh, the kind of laugh that one associates with a mad scientist in the depths of his lair, just after he has outlined a fiendishly simple plot for world domination.  I suppose I always expect the worst – and so I assumed that the laugh, in this instance, was the prelude to a further assault, for which the packet of Monster Munch was but a taster.  But I quickly revised my judgement.  It became clear that the woman had thawed in an instant.  The laugh was genuine; it was heartfelt.  Her eyes were moist with the hilarity of whatever it was that had tickled her, and black mascara ran a little way down her cheeks.  For every snort that she gave, a new moose jostled for recognition in my mind’s eye.

I didn’t know what was making her laugh – but I didn’t care, either.  This was my opportunity to form a bond with the woman.  We would laugh together.  Mentally suppressing my analytical bent, I too began to laugh.  I threw myself in to it with all the vehemence and passion that I could muster.  I began with a raw chuckle, and built it skilfully and steadily in to an uncontrollable torrent of raucous mirth.  I slapped my thigh and shook my head, leaning forward to catch my breath.  My whole body shook, and I made involuntary exclamations, as though I was trying to say something but simply couldn’t get the words out.  By the time I leaned back on the shelf behind me for support, our eyes were dancing in warm regard, and our laughter was mutual.  When I overturned a tub of sherbet Frisbees, accidentally, it merely served to make us laugh all the harder.

When we finally recovered our composure, a bond seemed to exist between us.  It was that easy.  The woman asked me if I knew where we were – and how she had ended up here.  In the simplest terms available to me and lacing every word with the sweet elixir of apology, I explained how I had accidentally opened up a vortex in her kitchen, linking the material world to the astral realm.  I told her how I had returned to her garden in the stillness of early morning, to return the knickers that I had found tangled up in my antler, and to recover the wayward antler I had left behind.  I described in embarrassed detail how I had accidentally created an inter-dimensional portal next to her washing machine; and how I had peered in through the kitchen window to see her walk unsuspectingly through the portal, in to a dimension she had no business in.  On balance, she took it rather well.

Naturally, I was curious about how she had found her way to Wisdom’s corner shop.  In contrast to a fixed vortex, the nature of a temporary vortex between two dimensions is defined by its random inter-dimensional geographical correspondence.  With a fixed vortex, you know that in each dimension, the vortex will come out in the same place.  Thus, when I used the vortex in Betty’s Cat Kennel, to return to the astral dimension, I knew I would emerge on the banks of the Acheron (the river of woe), from a rotted tree stump.  Going back through the same vortex would take me back out in to Betty’s Cat Kennel.  Thus is the predictability of the fixed vortex.  With a temporary vortex, it can come out anywhere (and will always come out somewhere different) in the corresponding dimension.  It can be compared to entering a subway crossing on one side of the road in London and emerging on the other side of the road in Edinburgh – only to go back through the subway to end up back on the other side of the road in Lisbon.

I was curious to know where the woman had emerged in the astral dimension, and how she had found her way to Wisdom’s shop.  It may have been that she emerged in the shop.  Anything is possible.  But for now, I just wanted to get her back.  To my relief, she was as eager as I was, to see her return effected.

Grateful to be finally gaining some control, I paid Wisdom for the damaged packet of Monster Munch and any wreckage caused by my hounds around his shop.  I also purchased two umbrellas, reinforced to withstand faecal droppings from several hundred feet.  My plan stretched out before me like a conceptual blueprint.  Swiftly, we would make our way back to the portal on the River Acheron and from there I would get the woman back home.  I would then do my utmost to rescue Nelson from the harpies.  And then, finally, I would put this whole sorry saga behind me.

I thanked Wisdom for his help and opened the door.  Outside, high up in the air, the harpies were circling.  The skies were filled with their filthy screeching.  The ground was bespattered with a kaleidoscope of gently steaming excrement.  I looked at the woman, my expression resolute and stern.  As a soldier would attach his bayonet to go Over the Top, so I opened my umbrella.  She did the same.  My hounds were huddled tightly, a pack in readiness.  They could sense the excitement in the air; smell the anticipation.

I collected myself.

“Run!” I screamed.

And we ran.

I ushered my hounds in, frantically, and slammed the door behind us.  On the door there was a sign to identify the shop’s policy on dogs.  The sign had a red circle containing a black profile of a dog with a strong red line through it.  Underneath, it clearly stated:  Except for Guide Dogs, Cerberus and Herne the Hunter’s Twenty Five Hell Hounds.  I had never had to negotiate this sign.  It just was.  Within the astral realm, certain matters of fact are built into the very existential fabric.  That I am inseparable from my hell hounds is one such matter of fact.

Wisdom was standing behind the counter, when I entered.  He looked up, helpfully, as I crashed through the door, and continued to gaze with indiscriminate helpfulness, as I saw my remaining twenty-four hounds in to the shop.  His snowy white hair seemed oddly discoloured under the fluorescent lights of the shop.  His flowing white beard was specked with flecks of grey.  It seemed he had been working through some figures before I arrived.  He smiled.

“I knew you were coming,” he said, with a smile.

I thought about mentioning to him that he always said that.  It is Wisdom’s way.  He always has superb insight, in retrospect.  I limped to the counter, a broken God.

“I need your help.”  I told him, flatly.

“Yes, I knew you were here for that reason.”

I often feel like I should tell him that there is a difference between wisdom and knowing everything – a fundamental difference.  I have often wanted to outline this to Wisdom, knowing how much pressure he feels he is under, to perform.  Indeed, the very reason he opened up his corner shop was to escape from the pressure of being Knowledge.  What he does not appreciate, is that he is not Knowledge; he is Wisdom.  Sadly, to his ongoing torment, this fact has continued to escape him.  Because he is trying to fulfil the role of a holistic concept that he simply does not embody, he feels inadequate and consequently puts himself under extreme pressure to negate this inadequacy.  This is well-hidden beneath the relaxed façade of his easy-going shop-keeper persona.

“I need to plumb the heart of Wisdom.”  I told him.

“I know.”  He said, with a wry smile.

“You know why I am here, then.”  I suggested.  It was offered as a challenge, but I knew he would squirm his way out of having to demonstrate his omniscience.

He nodded.

“Yes, of course.  But – erm – it will help for you to outline your enquiry to me, in your own words.”

He continued to look wise, which wasn’t difficult for him.  He is Wisdom.  Besides, looking wise really involves little more than raising one’s eyebrows and stroking one’s chin.

“I have two problems,” I said.

“Indeed.”  He nodded, knowingly.  “Tell me your problems.  I already know them, you understand.  But it will help to clarify your perspective, if you use your own words.”

I acquiesced.

“One of my hellhounds has just been carried off by a harpy, in to the mythological Mountains of Despair, behind your shop.  I want to know if he will still be alive – and what I need to do to recover him.”

Wisdom stopped stroking his chin.

“Go on.”  He said.

“And…well…I accidentally made it possible for a woman from the physical realm to pass through the sacred veil, in to the astral.  I accidentally opened a vortex in her kitchen and she went through it.  It was next to the washing machine.  I need to find her, to get her back home.  But I don’t know where she is.”

Wisdom put down the pen he had been holding.  He gazed at me, carefully.

“Are you testing me?” He said, finally.

“No.”

“You are giving me outlandish statements, which could be true or false.  Only wisdom can verify the veracity of these statements.  Are you trying to test my wisdom?”

“Strictly speaking, Wisdom cannot know whether what I am saying is true or false.  Only Knowledge can…”

“You put me in a difficult position.  I will not be tested.  I will answer your queries.  But I will do so in the language of experiential overview, in terms which are general rather than explicit to your circumstances.”

This was what I was asking for.  Knowledge could have given me an exact answer, but Knowledge is always a bugger to find.  With a persuasion for extreme sports, he tends to be out canoeing on the white-water stretches of the Styx, or hang-gliding through the turgid skies of adversity.  All Wisdom can ever do is lean on experience and outline a strong hypothetical possibility.  I hoped this would be enough.

Wisdom picked up a pot of mustard and began to examine it closely.  I waited politely.  Behind me, I could hear a quiet chomping sound and without even looking, I knew that Ripper had found some iced gems.  A squeaking sound, just a few shelves away, told me that Spot had found a fluffy toy to play with.

Without looking up from the mustard pot, his eyes intent as though he were carefully examining the ingredients, Wisdom began to utter his words.

“The harpies are as ancient as the wind,” he began.  “And in the Mountains of Despair, the tempest finds its home.  When a man brings food in to his home, sometimes he will eat it as soon as he is through the door.  But, when the food is a rare delicacy, he may store it in his pantry until such time as he wishes to delight in its novelty.  Both vulture and man make the harpy.”

It told me little but there was hope in Wisdom’s answer.  If I understood him correctly, there was a chance that Nelson was still alive – and was being stored for later consumption.  Wisdom’s delivery, as ever, was impressive.  He looked up from his pot of mustard and shot a steady gaze in to my eyes.  His eyes narrowed.

“Tell me,” he said. “The woman you seek.  Her hair…it is yellow like straw.  Her arm is painted with a red heart.  And the red heart is struck through with writing.”

I nodded.  This was an impressive display of insight for Wisdom.  He didn’t usually offer such detail.  He continued.

“The woman you seek has found herself in a strange land.  The nature of man is to defeat the terror of the unknown, with the comfort of the familiar.  Understand what, in the astral dimension, will afford her this comfort.  There you will find her.”

This told me little.  I was certain that there must be many places within the metaphysical realm that would seem in one way or another, familiar to the tattooed woman.

“Can you tell me more?”  I asked.

Wisdom nodded, sagely.  He nodded his head to the back of the shop.

“She’s up the third aisle, next to the crisps.”