for the curious..

I’m sorry about that rant.
I was stoned…and desperate. Hah - stoned and desperate, what a combination.
I’d had some nasty dreams. Been doing some nasty things.
But I’m not kinda ready to deal with it just yet and I’m not going to tell you about it just yet.

Instead, I’m gonna try to tell you about Matthew

Like I said before, I don’t expect you to believe me, this is the web after all; we make our own realities here.Well, they say, you can write what you want on this bloody thing, I’m gonna tell you about my mate, Matthew.

Well for one - he’s not a mate.

Not the sort you can go on a night on the town with, share a few stories with. Many want to be his friend but I’ve known him the longest, seen all his secrets. Not the sort you’d want to be your friend, too likely to fuck you up.

Actually, I don’t know what to call him. Do friends feed people dope? Homemade dope at that? The sort to keep you rat-arsed for days at a time? Some do I suppose. Well I told you this town was shitty.

Sorry going off on one again. I was telling you about Matthew. I can post this here cause of all the crap you find on the web. People talking bollocks – you see, no one will understand that this is the truth.

Seeing as he’ll find out about all this anyway, I can tell you everything.

He’s a malefic – sorry? Something wrong? Yes, I’m talking sorcery, good old fashioned magic. You see my ‘friend’ - I know, actually thinking about it, he really wouldn’t call me a friend. A ‘thing’ perhaps, an object to be played with. He’d just look down that fucking perfect nose at me - wouldn’t sneer as such - but I’d know what he was thinking- a cretin, a large lumbering cretin.
Am I sounding bitter yet?

He’d call himself a witch.

Sorry getting ahead of myself. Wanted to tell you about how we met, thought that might interest you. Tell you about the day I turned into a monster.

We were maybe 16, well that’s how old I was – I don’t know about him but he looked the same age as me then. I was bored. It was raining. I didn’t want to go home just yet. So I was just hanging around, waiting for something to happen. When Matthew appeared, he didn’t so much as arrive, he was just there. Didn’t think too much of it at the time, well what do you think?
16 years old, sitting in a scummy plastic bus shelter by the dual carriageway, waiting for the rain to stop. Four o’clock in the afternoon and I wasn’t rushing home.

I know my mum would have the tea on, waiting for me to come in, tell me to put some dry clothes on, do my homework – hey at that time I was kinda good at school – they expected big things of me. Got a maths brain, they said – a dead cert to get into a good uni. Good at sports as well, just got selected for the county; I was just about everybody’s pin-up boy.
But you’re not interested in me.

That twat is dead and gone. Even to my mum.

Like I said, Matthew just appeared. But to be honest I hadn’t been paying much attention. It was only later, in the long nights, on my own in the hospital that I got to thinking about it.

One minute the bus shelter was empty, the next, he was there. He wasn’t even damp. I hadn’t seen him around at school and I took no notice of this weird, dark haired guy, covered in tattoos. Until he asked me if I wanted a cigarette.
At that age, he was already a good looking kid. I’m not gay but it was hard not to notice.
This sounds daft but there was just something about him. I don’t know, writing this now, it’s just something I remember.
He has a face that you find hard to forget; it was like, just well put together, his eyes… look - this is going to sound really weird - but he caught me just at that moment.

Just at the moment, I looked up to say, I didn’t smoke. He was cool.

I did most of the talking then on. Dunno what started me off. I just had to keep talking to him.
Keep his attention on me. Wanted to impress him.
He didn’t tell me to shut up, like most lads would have done, like I would have done to some twat waffling on at me. He just listened for the most part. Told him everything about myself. Straight out. About school, about home, everything. Sounds weird, now I’m writing it down, but look Matthew has that effect on people, I’ve seen it happen so many times.

He just listened to me.

It went on like that for a while. Two lads sitting in a bus shelter talking.
I know that it got darker because I remember thinking that I was late for tea – how my mum would have a go at me for being late, that I was getting cold. But to tell you the truth, all I wanted to do was just stay with Matthew.
This is why I followed him out by the road, when he said he was bored.
There wasn’t anything else really. Matthew said he was bored and like a stupid little sheep, I followed him, needed to stay with him.

Deep down I wanted to be as cool as him.
Even left my rucksack in the bus shelter. They found it there later.
Out there, it wasn’t safe. In the dark, at the edge of the road. The cars were throwing up a ton of spray from the rain. Busy there, on that road, rush hour, lots of tired people just wanting to get home. It felt brilliant. It was like the first adventure of my life, the first ever bit of danger. Such a cliché to say I felt alive, for the first time.I couldn’t stop giggling. Matthew just smiled at me, an odd sideways smile; he’d tilted his head slightly as he lit another cigarette. Like he was listening for something. All I could do was laugh, shit – there were tears running down my face.I know it was loud, I couldn’t hear my own voice, but I could hear him when he said ‘dare you’.
That’s all he said that night, just those two small words, ‘dare you’. I should have just gone home then. But I couldn’t.

I nodded, still giggling, and he stepped out into the road. The cars were flying past but he dodged them. Every one. Just stepped round them.
I thought the guy was a fucking god. Each time, they just missed him.

He was playing with them; he wasn’t moving fast just stepping backwards and forwards, through the gaps, between the cars as they thundered past. He swung the hand holding the fag, as the wind from the lorries buffeted him.I must have been high, because I couldn’t stop laughing, clapping and hollering at him every time one missed him.

The headlights of those cars, well they just flashed by and I swear at times he just stood in front of them, right between them. But every time they missed him. He was fucking wonderful that night.
Then, from the white line between the two lanes, he stopped and turned to me. He said it again, just those words, ‘dare you’.
Well who wouldn’t? I wanted to be just like him, I wanted to dance alongside him, and I had that skill. There was no danger; I wanted to be a god just like him. Nothing could hurt me that night. I was with him, an equal, willing to be tested, wanting to take on his challenge.

Dare you?

Yes, dearest reader, that night I dared. I followed him and stepped off the curb into the road. For a while, it worked for me too.

I danced that night; I danced among the cars and the lorries and vans. I was covered in the mist lifted by the tyres, shifting between the lights and feeling the skill. I’m not bloody lying when I said I showed him I could match him.
I was worthy of his friendship, I was there alongside him, as much a god as him. I moved with the skill and the grace of any, felt the energy lift me high, out of the way of danger, my senses told me when to dodge, when to move, just to step lightly to feel them brush pass me.

Right at the end I looked for him, looked for his approval
But he had gone.
Left me there, standing like a fucking idiot, right in the middle of the road.
Just gone.

Twenty seven bones broken.
Three skull fractures, five in my jaw. The car had torn two thirds of my face off in a giant flap. They found my earring hooked onto a wiper blade.
It was still attached to my fucking ear.

My brain was so swollen they’d had to lift a section of my skull off altogether and sedate me for three weeks until they could bring it under control.

It took seven months before I could start to talk again. Before the spit stopped oozing out of the side of my mouth. Another couple of months before I could use my arms again to feed myself.
They said I’d never walk properly again. The fractures had shortened one leg by six inches, so now all I kinda do is lurch.
All the time my mum just sat there; she didn’t need to say much. But I knew what she was thinking, why? Why had I been such a fucking idiot? Why wasn’t I home eating the dinner she’d spent the day making for me.
What had I been doing there on that road?

And I never told her. Couldn’t. She just wouldn’t get it.

And the roughest thing was that all the time I spent in that bloody hospital bed, all I wanted to do was go right out there and find Matthew again. Wanted that hit of pure enchantment he gave me that night.

I kept hoping that he’d walk on the ward. Just kept a look out for him all the time. I thought he might come see how I was. Well, he knew my name. Knew everything about me. Thought he’d just scarpered when I got hurt. I wouldn’t have blamed him. Just wanted to see him again. But he never came to the hospital. So I kept looking for him as soon as I got out. Kept on looking till I found him again.

That’s how the fucker gets you. Take that as a warning.

Ten years on, I still follow him round like a little puppy. Little kids run screaming from me. Twisted, I’m twisted round. My face twisted almost to my ear. My mouth never really shuts tight. The scars twisted round my body so I can never stand straight. My leg healed twisted, foot never points the right way.
That is, until he gives me his little shots of magic, just little tastes. Then I can walk upright, walk again without pain.

I’m sure the bastard could heal me if he wanted to. But he says he likes me just the way I am.

But my fingers still work when I’m straight, so I can type, so I can tell you what Matthew is like. As I said before, the bastard can read this. It’d make him laugh to have this stuff out on the web for anyone to see.

But he doesn’t care. Not yet anyway. He doesn’t understand the power of this world.
Of my world.

He taught me to dance then chained me to my seat. I have to find out how to break away from him. I have to escape

Honest.