Finding The Balance

His name was Thomas Legend, and things were not going well.  In the last five years he had lost his wife, his job, his radiator key and his home.  Luckily, after he had lost his home, some of the sting went out of losing the radiator key, so that was something.

He had been claiming benefits and making do with a little cash in hand odd-job work around the town.  He was starting to think that he was being given jobs by people out of charity rather than necessity, but at this point he was happy to take it.

He was now living in a caravan by the river, which sounds sort of romantic but wasn’t romantic.  Unless your idea of romantic is sleeping on your table which is also a bed -  and please bear in mind that your table isn’t really big enough for a table let alone a bed but the people who made the caravan were somehow convinced that if you put two mattresses with the consistency of a Ryvita that has been left outside the tin for a fortnight on top of a small table it somehow miraculously becomes a bed.  It doesn’t.

Thomas had to operate the water in the tiny sink by constantly pressing a large rubber button on the foot of the caravan, which would in turn nearly make the tap work.  It was sort of like being forced to play the world’s dullest game of ‘Whack a Mole’ with your foot, whilst trying to concentrate on washing up under an icy trickle.

So - to reiterate  - things were not going well for Thomas Legend, who at school was given such predictions as ‘Pupil more likely to become an even bigger legend’, and ‘boy most like to be a legend in his own lifetime’.  Thomas didn’t mind all these jokes based on his name.  In fact, on his locker he had put a sticker which read ‘The Stuff of Legend’, which he felt pretty pleased with.

There was some difficulty back in 2007 in a local video rental shop when he was simultaneously trying to confirm his identity and hire the latest Will Smith Blockbuster from a new employee who didn’t speak terribly good english. Never has the phrase ‘I am Legend’ been uttered so many times to so little effect.

This wouldn’t be a problem now of course.  Thomas Legend didn’t have a DVD player, or a TV to watch DVD’s on. In fact, in retrospect it felt quite silly to have spent two hours of his former life, the life with a house and electricity and a wife and a job watching the Will Smith film ‘I am Legend’. How can he have been so cavalier as to waste those precious minutes.  It was almost like he took all that stuff for granted.

Which he realised now that he did.

And maybe that’s why he lost it all.

I think maybe we’ve all learned a little something, right guys?  Guys?  Guys?

Thomas couldn’t see how the universe could be quite so unfair.  There needed to be some balance, didn’t there? Some equilibrium. Why did all the bad stuff happen to him?  He’d never done anything wrong.

Anyway. None of this matters.  I’ve tried to help you.  What you do from now on is your own lookout.  I’m just trying to help you out.  Giving you the old moral.

One day, right at the beginning of an unseasonably cold March. Thomas got himself a job fixing up Dr Black’s house.  Dr Black was an extremely busy man, who owned an extremely large house, and much of it was greatly in need of repair. The library, the conservatory, the billiard room, the study, etc.  Dr Black was an odd fish, who, though he had many friends, felt paranoid and often reclusive.  He trusted Thomas though, and decided that he was the best person to come into the house, and slowly do up the rooms as required. 

Thomas was thrilled.  This was the first bit of regular work he had had in a long time.  Dr Black was out a lot, and Thomas had the place to himself.  He set about sanding down, and replastering, and repainting, and for the first time in a long time, Thomas began to feel useful again.  The scales were tipping back in his direction.

Tudor Mansion, which Dr. Black had rather generically named his house, was quite a walk for Thomas, situated as it was on the far side of town.  Thomas had to walk right from the most northwesterly point to the most south easterly point where the caravan park was.  After a couple of weeks of working, he discovered a little shortcut that suddenly made his walk home a lot easier, though he couldn’t exactly explain why.  It was an alley way that he had never seen before, that though it was only two hundreds yards long or so, seemed to knock off about forty five minutes of his journey.

He had never noticed the alley before, but he supposed he had never walked much before.  He used to have a car.  There was no sign, but eventually  Thomas named the alley ‘Kirsty’ as it was always wider than he remembered.

The alleyway was backed onto by the high brick walls of neighbouring houses, but no windows looked out onto it.

He never saw a single soul inside Kirsty Alley apart from the homeless man, bundled up in a tartan rug holding onto a piece of rope that Thomas assumed was once connected to a dog.

But.  The first time Thomas entered Kirsty Alley, he saw something very peculiar.  No.  Not peculiar  - brilliant.

He bent down to tie a loose shoelace, and saw, lying on the floor a fifty pound note.  He looked around.  Nobody was in sight.  So he picked it up.  A fifty pound note.  God knows he needed it.  He pocketed it.  Then walked past the homeless man.  He felt a twinge of guilt, why hadn’t the man seen the £50 note.  But it was his now.  He was all but homeless himself.  He had nothing to be ashamed of.

So the next day - after this fantastic discovery he went to work by going straight up Kirsty Alley.  Past the homeless man, looking at the ground, joking to himself that if he looked hard enough, there would be another £50 note.

And there was.  And he picked it up.  Two fifty pound notes. Pausing only to tie up his loose shoelace he positively skipped to work.

Thomas was feeling ecstatic.  The universe was finally starting to help him out a little bit.

And he was enjoying the job at Dr Black’s house.  The rooms were really coming together.  It was cold of course.  It was still only March, and the rooms were chilly.  The heating didn’t really work as the radiators needed bleeding.  Not the for the first time, Thomas wished he had his own radiator key. He made a mental note to ask Dr Black to get himself one.

And every morning and night, he went in and out of Kirsty Alley, and every time he found a fifty pound note on the floor.

He also found that his shoelace was always untied.

He also never saw anyone but the homeless man with the rope and the rug.

Of course it struck him that this was extremely peculiar.  Something wasn’t right, but he wasn’t going to question it.  Right now, there was some glitch in the universe and for once it was going in his direction.

Then one evening, Dr Black arrived home just as Thomas was packing up for the night and explained that he was having some friends over for the weekend.  A reverend, an ex-military man,  a blonde in a red dress, some sort of cook, a posh lady with a long neck and a professor. Dr Black wanted Thomas to do a bit of extra cosmetic work to get the house in order before they arrived - spruce up the lounge, close up at least some of the secret passages etc.  Also - could he hang the chandelier in the ballroom. It had been sitting in the middle of the floor for months on a rug so that it didn’t scratch the parquet.

Thomas set about this with vigour.  He had never tried anything like this before, and asked the Dr to help him.  Using a length of rope, and a set of block and tackle they rigged up a pulley system in order to get it up into position.  Between them they hauled it up right up to the ceiling, to the plate where it was to be secured. Thomas shouted to Dr. Black to hold the rope firmly, as he went up the extremely tall ladder and bolted the chandelier to the ceiling.  All was going smoothly until Thomas slipped with the wrench he was using to tighten the bolts on the chandelier. He dropped it, and it fell to the ground.

“Look out” he screamed.

Dr. Black looked up, and saw the heavy wrench tumbling toward him. He sidestepped, just in time. The wrench smashing into the parquet floor, annoyingly missing the rug that had been protecting the floor for all this time.  Thomas breathed a sigh of relief. He had nearly killed Dr. Black in the ballroom with the wrench.

But then disaster.  The chandelier fell away from the loose bolts, and tumbled to the ground, pulling the rope up with it.  Dr. Black tried to let go and run away but it tangled around his neck.  Dr. Black was yanked upwards by the force of the falling fancy light fitting, and as they found their equilibrium, he was hanged. Pretty violently.  It wasn’t all funny like that bit in ‘Only Fools and Horses’.  He was dead before Thomas could even get down the ladder.

He panicked. He had killed a man. It was all over. What was it?  Manslaughter?   Murder?  Negligence?  He’d definitely be going to prison. The universe had once again kicked him, just when he was starting to get up.

He cut the rope, and watched Dr Black’s body fall helplessly to the floor.  Not knowing what to do, he removed the rope from the body and the chandelier.

He bundled the rope up in the rug, and ran from the house.  Just as he hurtled through the front gates he saw the first of the guests arriving, the Reverend Green in probably some sort of old fashioned car.

Soon they would know that Dr. Black had been killed in the ballroom, but not by who, or what with.  That must remain a mystery.

He ran towards home, and saw the inviting mouth of Kirsty Alley ahead of him.  It started to rain and puddles were forming on the road.  He expected to splash up Kirsty Alley when he entered, but was surprised to find that it wasn’t raining inside her.  It.

He also noticed the £50 note.  He also noticed that his shoes were untied.  He also noticed that he was wearing the same clothes he was wearing the very first time he came this way.

He noticed the silence and the lack of people.

He noticed that his watch had stopped moving.

He walked up the alleyway, this time he left the £50 note where it was, he was going to go straight to the homeless man and ask him what the hell was going on.

But this time he wasn’t there.

So Thomas sat down where the homeless man normally was, and bundled himself up in the tartan rug to wait. The rope spilled out beside him, but it didn’t matter here.

He realised now of course that Kirsty Alley didn’t exist in time at all.  Here he was safe.  Forever. In stasis.  He had found a perfect point of balance in the universe.  Nothing good, nothing bad.  Just nothing.

And that’s where he stayed.  Forever.

By the way.

When Reverend Green arrived at Tudor Mansion to find Dr Black dead, he was pretty disappointed.  He’d been planning to kill him in the Kitchen with the lead pipe, so it really put a dampener on his weekend.  Life could be so unfair.