Clerical

Chapter Six

Barry's scared shitless as he walks away from the spiritual attempt on his life. His attempt to keep a brave face is betrayed by the paleness of his skin, and the wideness of his eyes. He contemplates what occurred; fully aware that a saintly contract has been issued on his earthly existence. His only hope? A man claiming to be an angel.

When all said and done, Barry has never really been a believer in any higher being. He's always been more of a fan of weekly ITV gameshows than the idea of an afterlife – being alive forever seems like more a hell. However, Barry is nothing if not a realist. He knows that if the heavens want him to die and live in an apartment, then like a proverbial overfed child, they'll probably get what they want. He's willing to take all this nonsense that Gabriel is spouting as gospel, because in truth, he's not got very much to lose.

The pair saunter together away from the pub. Eyes trained ahead to be aware of any coming danger. Barry jumps out of his skin every time he hears a noise: Cars, cats, and backfiring cars. Gabriel tries to calm these displays of fear with a reassuring pat on the back. It does little to pacify Barry.

“Look, Gabriel, that thing you said about protecting me? What exactly do we have to do, because I don't feel right safe out here. Foxes and s**t running about.” Barry whimpers.

Gabriel keeps his eyes ahead. “I'll tell you when we get back to your place.”

Barry shakes his head defiantly. “No, no. I'm admit that i'm close to letting loose in my pants here, mate. Whatever you have to do, I wanna do it now.”

Gabriel sighs and stops walking. As luck would have it they've stopped right next to a dirty, dimly lit, piss smelling alleyway. Gabriel half-heartedly gestures towards it.

“I guess this place is as good as any.”

Gabriel trots off down the murderous looking alleyway. Barry gives a quick second thought to going down the passage, but with Gabriel already getting out of sight, and the startling sound of an urban fox breeding ringing in his ears he quickly follows after Gabriel.

******

The alleyway is grimy. Full of a mixture of rubbish and drug paraphernalia; It's grim. Sweaty twenty-year-old commercial bins scatter the area, providing a delicious air of rotting food and faeces.

Gabriel stops a good 100 yards into the alleyway, making a satisfied nod when he’s found the ideal spot to perform his work.

Barry steps towards Gabriel and stands nervously in front of him.

“How's this all work then?” Barry asks.

“It's proper simple, just… well.” Gabriel winces and curls his face.

“Well what?”

“It can get a bit trippy. You know what I mean?”

“Obviously not.” Barry sighs. “You know what, lets just do this thing. Are you gonna give me some sort of rundown or-“

Before he can finish, Gabriel throat punches the unsuspecting Barry. His eyes roll to the back of his head as he collapses onto the filth ridden floor in a trance like state.

*****

Once again, Barry finds himself in pure darkness. His very consciousness is in question as a wave of serenity crashes through his body like a tsunami. It only takes a few seconds for things to change, as a pulsating rainbow coloured blob appears in the distance.

Barry takes in this beautiful sight. So vivid are the colours through the darkness, and so intense. They shine like a sun.

The blob moves and grows at a rapid rate, stretching out to consume more and more of the darkness. The growth becomes faster and faster as the colours swallow the darkness away. Barry notices that the nucleus of this blob swirls like a blackhole, and before he can really take it in anymore he is pulled violently into it.

His serenity is shaken out of him as he's thrashed about like a shoe in a tumble dryer. His eyes squint to protect them from the bright colours swirling and turning around him. The noise is equally consuming, and the best Barry can relate it to is that of a Boeing 747 upon take-off.

His body gathers more speed, the noise gets louder and louder, but he can spot the exit to this tunnel. An exit he's approaching faster than a fighter jet.

He screams as he hits the white hole that waits at the end of this mysterious void.

POP. It's all over.

As he comes to, Barry shakes his head to regain his composure; Confusion strikes him as he realises he's in a crown courtroom.

A faint white hue provides an almost dream like look to this courtroom. But everything else in the court looks official. The judge in her full official garb sits high upon the bench. A jury on the left shake their heads at Barry, who stands with a prison officer at the back of the court.

On the bench in front of Barry is a wigged solicitor. He turns to Barry to reveal to him that it's Gabriel. He gives a bewildered Barry the thumbs up and a wink.

The honourable judge scowls in Barry's direction.

“Has the jury reached a verdict?”

The head juror rises to his feet, his serious demeanour is well met with the confidence of his speech.

“We have, my Lady.” The juror pauses. “We find the defendant.. unacceptable.”

The public in the gallery jeer and taunt Barry, who mouths a confused“what”under his breath.

The judge bangs her gavel, and within a second a trap door opens below Barry. He screams in fear as he drops through the hole.

The trap door leads to a sharp and unforgiving decent through the sky's above London. Barry barrel rolls through the open air; the breath-taking view of the big city at night isn't as appealing when spinning out of control like a dropped hose pipe.

Barry regains some semblance of balance as he falls. As he contorts his body to resemble a flying squirrel, he embraces the cityscape with terror. The ground approaches quickly; all he can see is the streets getting larger, and all he can hear is the deafening sound of the wind in his face. But, with an almost bird like swoop he is flung back into the air: Barry is flying.

He feels as majestic as he knows he must look. Now Barry can finally take in the scenes: The Shard, the London Eye, The Gherkin, The Houses of Parliament. All the big sights are in plain view to the flying man.

The city is stunning in the clear moonlight. The lights from the busy city illuminate the many evening-outers enjoying what the city has to offer. Groups stagger from one bar to the next, Tourists hold up traffic on their open top busses, and ticket touts pump their wares on the congested pathways.

Barry grins ear-to-ear as he witnesses what surely no-one will get the chance to. A birds eye view of the greatest city on earth. No-body seems to be noticing him as he swoops down past various crowds.

As he wizzes through the night, it doesn't take long for Barry to take note of the fact that he isn't controlling where he goes.

He is forced into a sharp easterly bank: Which quickly turns into another freefall.

He fights to pull up once more as his height to the ground becomes seriously lower.

The ground approaches again, this time however, there is no stopping the inevitable. Barry screams like a trodden-on cat, covering his face before he hits the ground – but the ground never arrives.

A strange white flash teleports Barry instantaneously into what appears to him as a posh hotel corridor.

Okay, what now? he thinks to himself as he admires the stained carpet, the 70's floral wallpaper and the cheap art prints on the walls.

The corridor appears to go on for eternity. It reminds Barry of how he can create a never-ending image by pointing a video camera at a tv, and how much his dad used to hate him touching his video camera. Old green wooden Doors line both sides of the corridor, with all the doors on the left numbered“1", and all the doors of the right numbered “2”.

Curiosity over this unusual place leads Barry to approach the first of the left-hand side doors. He slowly turns the door handle and pushes the door open.

He walks into the room, which transports him to a soup kitchen somewhere in the country. The unfortunate homeless men and women line up patiently, as an army of volunteers ladle the miserable looking“soup”into bowls and hand them out. Barry notices it's all smiles and sunshine from the volunteers as he lets out a confused grunt.

“Missed me?”Gabriel's voice calls out from behind Barry, who nearly dies from the shock of his miraculous appearance.

“Jesus Christ, Gabriel! What the Bloody hell is the matter with you?!”Barry sputters out angrily.

“Just checking in, fella. Thought you might be a bit confused.”

“Confused? I feel like I’m in the shining or something.”

“Aye, I did say it was a bit trippy did I not?”

“Granted, you did say that.”Barry slaps his thighs.“So, what am I supposed to do with this? Help out?”

“Forget that. Look, all you've got to do, is walk through a few doors and wait for everything to calibrate.”

“What does that mean? I'm not a f*****g printer head.

“Just walk through the doors, Bazza.”

Barry turns his head to face Gabriel, only to discover that he's vanished. He does, however, notice that the green door to the corridor has reappeared in the back of the soup kitchen.

He scampers towards the door and without any hesitation enters back into the corridor.

Barry approaches the second door on the left and enters.

This room takes him to a street where an old lady stands in the blistering cold. Her whole body wrapped up in thick clothes, she resembles more of a polar explorer from the turn of the century, rather than a little old lady. She gently shakes a charity pot that's grasped firmly by her mitten covered hands.

Folks pass her by, but her smile doesn't fade. Barry rolls his eyes at the incredible ham-fisted cliché that stands before him. One gentleman puts a fistful of loose pocket change into her tub, without stopping to make anymore eye contact that needed. The little old lady gives the man a gentle “God bless you.”As he walks away.

Barry's seen enough, and makes his exit through the floating green door behind him.

He quickly walks into the third of the left side doors.

This room takes him to a children's hospital room, where one sickly little boy lays in his bed surrounded by machines and wires. A lady sits beside the boy, who clutches his stuffed panda bear toy. He can't be much older than five years of age.

The lady reads to the boy in a soft, kind, but excited tone. She gets particularly into a roar of a dinosaur as the little boy giggles in delight.

Barry can't stand to watch this nonsense and makes haste to exit the room.

Back in the corridor, he takes a moment to think and scratch his head.

Calibrate. What a load of s**t. He thinks. It strikes him that he's not tried the doors to the right, so he makes his way to the third of the right-hand side doors.

This time the door seems stiff, and Barry has to exert a little strength to push it open.

He walks into a scene straight out of a gangster movie. A group of three geezers have another man tied to a dining table chair that sits in the centre of a small industrial warehouse.

The man tied up sweats profusely as the others laugh and taunt him. The leader of the group, large in stature and thin in hair, chuckles as he moves towards a toolbox placed on a table a few meters away.

The man rummages through the toolbox and produces a hunting knife. Barry watches in horror as the knife wielding man approaches his hogtied victim. The tied man begs only for a few seconds before the knife is violently plunged into his neck.

Barry almost trips from turning around so fast.

He scrambles to the door and with all his strength pulls it open, giving him just enough room to throw himself out into the corridor: The door slams behind him.

Barry now lays on the floor of the corridor, breathing heavily and swearing at what he's just seen.

As he regains his composure he starts to feel a little… odd. Suddenly he's in crippling agony and is forced to grip his stomach and grimace his face.

The pain becomes too much to bare; Barry passes out.