The Portal

It started with a row, a colossal mount Vesuvius of a argument. It wasn’t the first time Harry and Ellen had traded insults obscenities at each other. If Ellen’s mum had been there, she would have said, ‘I told you he was no good. Nobody who wears trainers with a suit willturn out good,’ before taking a large drag on a ash heavy cigarette. ‘And as for that temper,’ she would tut tut and puff away.

Harry was at the end of his tether this time. Ellen just didn’t understand he was doingall the hours to keep their heads above water. He didn’t deserve all the barbed comments that were being thrown his way.

‘What’s her name this time, another Rose?’ she screamed at him.

‘Now that’s not fair, I had no interest in her, she was merely a kid with a unhealthy obsession with me.’ he replied, smiling smugly. ‘Can’t help it if women find me irresistible.’

‘Your impossible, go back and help her with her homework. Perhaps she give you a child you so much crave.’ Picking up a glass of wine she slide seductively pass her husband. ‘Hurry now school’s calling.’

Harry felt a throb in his head, a adrenaline charge of anger. Grabbing his wife by her neck he knocked her glass from her hands, cursing himself as the red wine soaked into the carpet like a puddle of blood. He only thought that would another argument in the morning.

‘You know there are moments when i could easily kill you, you know how to push my buttons.’ he said, before moving away, grabbing his coat. Glancing back at Ellen

he felt a sadness envelop him. He felt his heart beat faster as the tears begun to form. Why couldn’t she see he loved her. He was that close to losing it and in his minds eye could see his hands squeezing the life out of her.

]‘I’m going to take the dog for a walk, I need to calm down and give us some space,’ he said, before leaving the house and venturing into the dark night beyond.

He didn’t even hear his wife say in a desperate laugh, ‘But it’s raining outside and we don’t have a dog.

He needed to cool down and fast, otherwise he was possibly going to do something he would regret. Walking round the house he sat down, cursing the wet patio seat. Lighting up a cigarette he glanced down at the bottom of the garden and spotted a eye watching him though a large round hole in the fence. It looked enormous as it blinked back at Harry. He could see the pupil, a round ball with blood vessels encircling its circumference. Blinking the eye suddenly disappeared as a voice shouted, ‘Bloody killer, I’m coming after you.’ Stopped in his tracks Harry felt a chill run up his back. I know that voice he thought to himself, it was there on the tip of his tongue.

Stubbing out his cigarette he raced to the bottom of the garden where he witnessed seeing the eye. Looking over the fence he could see little in the darkness but heard a large figure scurrying away in the undergrowth.

‘I’ll get you, bloody peeping tom,’ he said as he accessed the fence.

I can’t get over but if i run fast enough down the top alley he could possibly catch the little devil before he reached the end of the adjacent alley he thought to himself.

There was a slight drizzle in the air, wet rain Ellen would call it. He walk round to the alleyway; there was no way a some kid was going to watch him, as he cared for his privy and with this he be in her good books and let things simmer down and everything be OK.

With renewed energy he made his way toward the alleyway at the top of the road. The darkness down the alley way obsolete. The lamp at the entrance kept flickering and buzzing, revealing a passageway full of menacing shadows and pools of darkness.

Just ashe was about to enter the passageway when an old lady with a small dog emerged from the darkness. '

‘Miss Water’s, how are you? What you doing in this horrid weather,’ Harry said, indicating the heavens above,

‘Oh good evening Harry, just taking Arthur out for his you know what. He likes to have a clear out after ones din-dins,’ she said in a staged whisper. ‘Good night Harry,’ Her final words before disappearing into the gathering gloom.

As he watched her go he deliberated for a second before plunging down the inky alleyway. He always hated this alleyway, in his mind he could imagine groups of teenage kids dealing drugs complete with hoodies and bad altitude. But tonight there was himself and a inquisitive mangy fox. Racing into the darkness he ran as fast as he could through the gloomy passage, arriving in the open breathing heavily and complete with a stitch. He couldn’t remember the last time he had run that fast, probably back when he was finishing high school.

Getting his breath back he looked around to get his bearings. He didn’t venture down this way very often but could see the entrance to the passageway that backed onto the line of houses where he lived. Surly the person watching wouldn’t have had time to come out of the passageway. ‘Gotcha you pervert, like a wasp in a bottle. With renewed determination he sprinted to the entrance before thinking he could as easy gone the other way, but that’s a long way, makes sense he come this way he reasoned with himself.

He was just about to enter when he noticed a shimmering in the air. It was almost like a mirage, where the very breeze was a glistening pool of vapor. Temperately he made his way through the shimmering, feeling no strange reactions but everything looked like it was out of focus; a surreal world of gaudy abstract patterns. Then he was through to the other side with the usual mixture of overgrown weeds, abandoned rubbish. But there was no sight of the person who was spying on him. Perhaps he had gone the other way after all. But looking up the passageway he couldn’t see him.

Looking up he realized he reached the hole and beyond his and Ellen’s home. He’d wished that he put in a door, make it easy to get were he was now. But as usual he put it off for another day. Mind you there was nothing behind the end of the garden.

Putting his eye to the hole he take a look, see if he could see his wife. Might even see he getting undressed, might give their bedroom action a boost knowing somebody was watching.

But what he saw chilled him to the bone. His wife was standing on their patio in just her nightdress, while a figure was waving a knife at her threatening to kill her. He couldn’t see he figure’s face but he was obviously a large male. He tried climbing the fence, but kept slipping in the wet wood. Using all his strength he kicked, pushed and did everything possible but there was no way over to help Ellen. He could hear his wife’s squeals of terror as the pair danced around the patio. Then in almost slow motion they stopped and her assailant turned around his face a contorted miss-mash of hideous features, with just one clear eye. An eye that he saw only several minutes before - an eye that was his. For standing there was some sort of warped version of himself.

He could only watch in horror as Ellen was kicked to the floor where the figure plunged the knife into her neck.

‘Bloody killer, I know you. I’m coming after you’ Harry shouted, before racing back up the alleyway. He suddenly stopped because coming the other way little old sweet Miss Waters and cuddly Arthur. Only Arthur wasn’t so cuddly, for now he was a beast of a animal, an Rottweiler snaring and barking spittle in his wake.

‘You stay away from this here portal.’ , Miss Waters spat, her face a grotesque deformed mess. She cackled like a witch as she scurried on limbs of rotting bones. Harry had to cover his nose from the putrid stench that radiated from her.

‘Get out of my way you bitch,’ was all that he would return with. Covering his mouth and shutting his eyes he sidestepped both dog and the incarnation that was Miss Waters and plunged into the shimmering light shouting, ‘I love my wife, i do, this is not happening.’

Coming too on the other side of the portal he got to his knees and watched as the sparkling light danced into the far distance.

As the rain turned into a heavy shower he raced up the alleyway, slipping and sliding as he made his way back home. Reaching his driveway he stopped and looked at the bright lights of home and wondered what he would find there.

But he knew that down in that house was where his future lay. He also knew his wife was alive as much as their love for each other was too. Not some random dimension held together through some bizarre portal? He wasn’t that crazy, was he?

Entering the house he was greeted with a torrent of apologizes and tears as a shimmering portal danced away into a new future that lay await.