The Enemy Is Coming

I had the weirdest dream last night; not a nightmare, but a scary and alarming dream. I was helping a blind man through the streets of Glasgow. He was holding my arm because he had lost his guide dog, and I was taking him to where he needed to go. It went on and on, until I realised he was guiding me round the blocks of the city, only to return to the same place.

Then the dream switched to the inside of my luxury penthouse apartment, which was identical to the one Ronnie owns at the start of Slick, the only difference being his is in the Docklands in London, and mine is in Glasgow. I’m with my family and I’m telling them about the blind man. We begin talking about that and other stuff, having a laugh. The older of my two sisters, Fiona, has a rucksack with her, packed for another trip – she used to go travelling a lot while attending university – and it felt similar to that. We were saying goodbye to her for a wee while.

The entire time we are talking, I’m aware of a whining sound at the back of my head. It’s a sort of rolling, high-pitched alarm, like the one used at the start of The Dangermen Vol.1 album, or as part of a warning system.

It wasn’t loud, but growing more and more annoying because I could hear it, but apparently nobody else could. So I interrupted the conversation: “What the hell is that noise?”

We all stopped and listened.

“It sounds like an air raid siren,” said my mother, and laughed, because of course, this is 2008.

But it did sound exactly like an air raid siren, and it was going and going and going. I pulled back the curtain and opened the glass balcony to look out into the night sky over Glasgow. With the window open I could hear the siren more clearly. I could also hear a dull rumble.

“Look!” shouted my younger sister, Lindsay.

Away in the distance above the horizon of the city, hundreds of wee dotted lights decorated the skyline.

“It can’t be,” I said. “This is 2008.”

I looked over the balcony onto the streets below. There were people screaming and running in panic everywhere.

“Jesus Christ! This is for real!”

We grabbed out bags and ran out the apartment. The lifts were blacked out, so we took the fire exit stairs out of the building. When we got outside my mother got swept off in the crowd and we couldn’t reach her. My dad fought to go after her, and we tried to help too, but the crowd was too strong and it swept me and my two sisters in the opposite direction. One by one we got separated and couldn’t find our way back to each other.

I started running as the sound of the bombers got closer, the noise of explosions creeping ever further towards where I was, no matter how fast I ran. I came to a housing scheme with a field next to it and I was running through it as fast as I could go. The sound of the bombers had stopped and all I could hear was Ace of Spades by Black Sabbath. My CD alarm clock woke me up. I never did find out how it ended.

I got a chapter of Slick done, but not after another read through from chapter 19 to 25. I’m worried the middle section doesn’t work, and on the bus home I had an idea to further enhance the contrast of Ronnie’s predicament. I’ll get to work on that tomorrow.

I’ve had a couple of requests come in for web-related work, both looking for quotes, which I was only too happy to provide. Fingers crossed they wish to go ahead. I really am superb value for money in that area.

And I was rather sad to discover the editor I was working with at TLB is no longer my editor! After only a few short weeks he is being replaced, so I am expecting a new body to get in touch shorrtly. This new editor needs me for some more article work, as well as the stand-in editor with some more immediate work, so I’m still going to be busy, but the last bloke was good to work for; demanding but reasonable and he was getting a lot out of me and vice versa. We shall see how the road goes now.

Slick Editing Progress (Chapters)