Little Patch of Heaven's Winter Catalogue
You donât know how you got here. A moment ago you were at home, the home that you grew up in. The home in the forest, surrounded by oaks. But there was a sudden shift, an envious whisper in the air, and now youâre stuck here.
The first thing you notice is the bed. That is, the bed youâre tied to. Your legs are restricted by metal clamps and your arms are pulled apart by ropes, making them itchy. At least the person who trapped you here took the effort to loop their loops.
The Second thing you notice is the harness, which is attached to your jaw and essentially functions as braces. Except it scrapes your gums and tugs at your canines. All in all, it makes your entire head ache.
As you succumb to your strange migraine, seeing no way out of your situation, you notice the third and final thing; time. Thereâs a grandfather clock at the foot of the bed and it reads noon. But, how can that be? The sky outside is pitch black.
You have strange dreams. You dream of walking on beaches, of corpses that pursue you. They always catch you, in dark, lonely spaces. Theyâre trapped in body bags, in carpet bags. They want to be free.
Suddenly it's the morning, and two figures enter the room, unlocking your chains. You notice the clock now reads three in the morning. These people dress you and feed you, spooning chowder into your mechanical mouth. Theyâre your parents. They tell you when you ask. You raise your eyebrows at them.
Your parents move you to a kitchen, with a stove, a coffee pot and wallpaper in pastels. They ask you your name and you try to recall one you can no longer pronounce. They laugh at you.
Your father comments on the winter weather, turning up the force of the kitchen fan. Itâs boiling, almost ninety degrees inside the room.
Half an hour later, your mother rushes you out the house, pushing you through the front door. She lectures you about the importance of school. You are about to explain that you are an adult but then you stare at your hands. The hands of a child. This body is not your own.
As you step out onto the doorstep your father hands you a colourful pamphlet. Its contents, like everything in this place, is incomprehensible to you. Itâs about six months out of date and disgustingly chipper.
âWelcome citizens, young and old! This little pamphlet has everything you need to know about our little town written in thick, easy to digest lettering. Whether youâre here because youâre escaping a feud, time travelling to warn us of the future or if you are just popping in from the other side to see a family member, we welcome you warmly with open arms! So long as you follow a few teeny, tiny, essential rules; all of which are issued in this yearâs summer catalogue!
First, for any out of towners who insist on being difficult, we have something even more important to tell you to stop any trouble you may cause!
Repeat this very simple breathing exercise:
There are no other villages
There are no other cities
Little Patch of Heaven is the only place in the world
There are no other places
Thereâs nothing besides the Devilâs Thumb
The Devilâs Thumb gives us our profit
There are no other cities
There are no other villages
Little Patch of Heaven is the only place in the world
There are no other spaces
Little Patch of Heaven is the only place in the world
Youâre on your way to being a classy, proud, safe citizen!
Enjoy your summer! Enjoy the snow!â
Suddenly, your father flips through the leafletâs pages and stops at a particular paragraph, depicting a smiling girl with a mechanical helmet similar to yours. The paragraph is titled âConversion Therapyâ. He grins and winks at you, then shuts the front door in your face.
Somehow, you make it to school on time. You follow a group of schoolchildren through main street, then through alleyways, to hiking trails on blue mountains, then finally through an underground sewer system to an opening to the elementary school. Thankfully, your feet never seem to tire. You walked for what seemed like hours but when you reached the school building, it seemed to have been only ten minutes.
You seek help at the office, but they canât seem to understand you. A librarian flipping through glossy magazines points to a badge you have pinned on your chest. It was not there a minute ago. She asks if you have your lessons rote and sighs, annoyed when you explain you do not. She reaches into a drawer and brings out a piece of paper. She then points you out the room, complaining that she has a huge line to service despite the fact that youâre the only one there.
Your lessons are extremely strange. Instead of mathematics, or history, or even philosophy, you are taught parables. Your teacher, a short man with crossed eyes, discusses the properties of the end of the world, as if such a place exists. He claims that if you take to long walks, you can find a beach, overgrown, overtaken by sparseness, made up of cliffs of spider and mantis bone. It creates and casts aside its own ghosts with obsessive-compulsive puppet strings, for it is the loneliest place in the world. This is Xul, a heaven that everyone aspires to. As you sit there, dumbfounded, you hear your classmates add on their own material. They whisper the tale of a young girl, who took to praying at Xulâs waters every night. For her, peace could never last. She was stolen from her father by a gilman, with monstrous fangs and slimy scales, as a wife. You try to ask your teacher questions about the lesson but he just looks frustrated, pointing to your nametag which seems to explain away everything.
âYou should know,â He replies, âAfter all, youâre named after the place.â
It appears your lesson lasted six hours, yet to you it was half an hour. You reason to yourself that time works differently here, and that you should stop trying to make sense of it. Youâre just happy to be out of the classroom.
The halls are bare, almost skeletal. And as you try to unlock your locker a group of kids in your class grab you from underneath your arms and tell you youâre going to play with them in the âForest of Glass Shardsâ.
The kids are Shok, Voria and Elvira. Theyâre triplets from different families, with the same noses and the same hearts. They take you to an abandoned playground and push me into the dirt. They call it the âForest of Glass Shardsâ.
They tell you stories, They speak of cannibals, monsters and ghouls, so much so that it becomes too much and gets stuck in your head when you wish to forget it.
You walk home together, across hills and bridges through town. Someone is playing a theremin somewhere. Youâre too scared to ask your âfriendsâ about it.
You arrive home when the clocks strike six. A bowl of soup awaits you on the table. It tastes like shards of glass and stings your tongue.
For the rest of the evening, your father sits at the tv, whistling to himself. After a while you realise heâs reciting the tune of the theremin outside.
Your mother stands swaying at the kitchen sink. You tap her on the shoulder and some sort of green slime spills out of the faucet.
You ask her about the theremin. She says the sound comes from the old country, dead in the ground.
At nine o clock, both parents stand up and walk out of the house, as if summoned. Your father says they must run some errands. They lock the door behind them and leave you alone.
Defeated, you retreat to your bedroom. Only now itâs on the other side of the hallway. When you enter, the wallpaper is peeling, almost as if the house is rotting away. Youâre too exhausted and confused to care anymore.
You fall asleep, lonely, crying to the theremin. From here it sounds like a siren's song.
