And the World Changes, A M Kirk [best feel good books TXT] 📗

released it to the world’s media. The effect of the message rippling across the world was not so much like a trembling earthquake causing the needle on the seismograph to oscillate off the chart, but more like someone battering the seismograph itself to bits with a five-kilo sledgehammer:
“We are the Soros. We have come from the other side of the galaxy.”


5

Now, five years after the landing, the Soros craft – or, at least, sections of it – had been opened up to the public. It came to be referred to as the “Soros Museum”. But the mystery continued, for no one had ever seen what a Soros actually looked like. Photos of them in space suits had been published, but that was all. For fear of contamination, it was said, they could not be photographed in their natural states. They were, moreover, a naturally timid and retiring species. But they seemed to understand PR.
Arrangements were quickly made and staff hired so that the public, tourists, school parties could be encouraged to visit the Museum and see the marvellous a-v displays on offer there: wonderful exhibits of holograms of other solar systems, planets and stars dying and being born. It promised no fantastic rides, but as a sightseer draw, it easily out-gunned Disney. There were real, live aliens – aliens! – in that flying saucer!
Mark and Carrie had visited it for the first time two weeks before the end of term. The experience had not been a happy one for Mark.
The roundabout stopped spinning.
Carrie noticed that small clouds of midges had now emerged to perform their bizarrely repetitive evening ritual aerobatics.
A moment’s silence followed.
Carrie stretched herself over the metal rail that separated them and kissed Mark passionately on the lips. When the kiss ended, Carrie’s tone had a trace of anxiety in it as she asked, “Mark, are you all right? Lately you’ve seemed … I don’t know … kind of strange.”
“I know what you mean.” Mark ran his left hand through his hair.
She looked at him closely. She freely admitted to herself she liked what she thought of as his “nice” face. She did not think of it as handsome but it was attractive in an imperfect, well-meaning kind of way. His eyes were a warm brown and shone with humour. His dark hair was always tousled – because he ran his fingers through it all the time – and his smooth skin shone with the vigour of youth. It was just a “nice” face. Alicia Wotherspoon in the year above had fancied Mark for ages, Carrie knew – Alicia was her neighbour and occasional confidante, but for some reason that Carrie herself could hardly explain, despite the fact that Alicia was absolutely and indisputably more attractive that Carrie, it had been Carrie that Mark had – awkwardly at first - showed an interest in. Mark had never had a girl-friend before, not really. Kissing and fumbling after the occasional school dance or birthday bash at the local youth club didn’t really qualify as “having girl-friends”. And while Carrie had been out with boys before they had never sustained her interest for any length of time. They had been geeky to the nth degree, or too Neanderthal in their impulses.
She noticed again the large brown birthmark showing above his t-shirt. “I mean,” she added ironically, “you’ve always been strange, but now you’re stranger. Seriously… I mean… “ She looked down as if finding something of sudden curiosity in the structure of the roundabout . “ …if you don’t – if you don’t want to go out with me, I’ll understand…”
“Good grief, it’s nothing like that, Carrie!” Mark, genuinely horrified at the suggestion, looped a hand behind her neck, gently pulled her close and dispelled the notion with a return kiss.
A wide smile lit Carrie’s face and she looked down to hide the pleasing rush of reassurance she had just felt.
“You know I don’t like anyone as much as you, Carrie,” said Mark. “ No…” he continued reflectively, “ I just keep thinking about our visit to the Soros Museum!“
Damn! she thought, why don’t you tell me that you love me? What is it with boys? Aloud, she said, her smooth brow wrinkling slightly with a concerned frown, “I figured that was it. You really came over weird that day. Can you… can you still do what you said – actually hear the Soros talking? It sounds incredible.”
“It was incredible. But no. I can’t, not any more. It was only in the Museum that I could do that. And even then it was only for a moment and it wasn’t very clear either. Maybe I imagined the whole thing.”
“Yeah, maybe you imagined the whole thing. But that would make you a complete fruitcake and I don’t think you are a complete fruitcake. You’re maybe the bottom half of a fruitcake…”
“But you know how I get hunches about stuff? Well, they’ve been getting different, slightly stronger it seems. Like you know how McAllister tried that experiment in physics last week? I could kind of “see” what was going to happen before it did. Actually see it.”
“You should have told him. He’s still going around with that blue stuff on his face.”
“Well, I figured he’s the teacher, he ought to know.”
“Slight mistake there, my friend,” said Carrie, laughing lightly. “Teachers, like parents, don’t know everything. Only we like to think they do. “
“Anyway, to be honest, I’ve not been feeling too good. Sorry if I’m rotten company.”
“No, no, that’s all right. My parents – you remember them, don’t you? Gin and Bitter? - are having some friends round tonight – so that’ll mean lots of wine and crackers – and so, you see, I’ve nothing better to do than hang about with you, like some depraved youth.” She kissed him again, then remarked, “Not much to choose between crackers.”
“You’re too cheeky for your own good.”
“Well, what are you going to do about it?”
Mark kissed her again.
At last Carrie sat up and put a hand around Mark’s wrist to feel a pulse. “You zay you are not feeling vell, zo… tell me your simpsons, young man,” she said.
“My simpsons?”
“Ya, your simpsons, if you pleess, or I will keel you veet my
German akzent.” She punched him on the shoulder.
“Well, I… I don’t know. There’s like a tightness at the back of my throat. It’s sore.”
“ Eet sound like a cold in zee ed. I haf ze cure, but I must look – ow you say – clos-errr.”
“Now you’re French.”
“I am a doctor of many talents, you know, young man! Shut up, please!” She drew close and kissed his neck lightly. “Dass is besser, ya?”
“Ah, ya!”
She kissed his throat. “Und dass grows besser all ze time, no?”
“Well… I think there might be something wrong here, too, “
Mark said, feebly indicating his lips.
Later, Mark walked her home. The driveway and the street outside her house were lined with expensive new hydrocars belonging to her parents’ guests. As they said goodnight, Carrie said, “Look, Mark, talk to your mum. She’ll know what to do. She’s a doctor – uh-oh, I’m telling you what you already know. But promise me you’ll talk to her. Promise!”
The sound of the front door opening interrupted them. “Carrie, is that you, darling?” cried a woman’s slurred voice. The silhouette framed in the doorway held a drink in one hand.
“Oh God, it’s Bitter,” Carrie muttered to Mark under her breath.
“Yes, mum! It’s me,” she called back.
“Who’s that with you?” This was accompanied by the sound of raucous laughter escaping from the brightly lit hallway behind her.
“The party’s in full swing, I see,” muttered Carrie. “It’s Mark, mum! You remember Mark.”
“Oh.” A pause ensued during which Mrs Jenkins swayed a little, leaned against the doorjamb for support and called, “Well, don’t be long!” Upon which she turned back in and left the door to swing shut.
“Your mum doesn’t like me much,” mused Mark ruefully.
“My mother doesn’t like anybody much. Not me, not dad, not even herself, I would guess. And if we follow the usual pattern of party events this evening, they’ll be all sweetness and light until the last guests pour themselves into their cars and then they’ll launch into one another about who said what to whoever and blah blah blah – you don’t want to hear about it. But back to the important thing – promise me you’ll tell your mother and get her help!”
“Okay, I promise,” answered Mark, smiling. He kissed her. The kissing went on for a while, very comfortably.
Eventually Carrie pushed Mark back with a laugh. “That’s a good boy.” She kissed him one last time, a quick peck, pinched his cheek, touched his neck tenderly where the birthmark was, grinned and turned to go up her garden path.
Mark smacked her backside before she could retreat too far towards her front door.
He watched her pass inside into the brightly-lit, noisy hallway. How, he wondered, could he really explain to Carrie exactly how much she meant to him? He loved her. Of that he had absolutely no doubt, and had almost blurted it to her on several occasions. He could not understand why had not yet told her how he felt. Bloody teenage angst, he muttered to himself. Does this ever wear off?
As he walked home alone, however, his attention was turned again to how he felt physically and as he neared his house he became increasingly certain that there was definitely something not quite right. He was experiencing a strange sensation in his head, in the place at the back of his mouth where the nasal passages appear to join the throat. The feeling produced the same dullness, the same sense of onset of illness that he supposed could mean the beginning of a head cold. He really would have to speak to his mother about it.
He paused a moment before passing through his garden gate, his hand resting on the cool stone newel atop the low wall. The night was much darker now and, in this village removed from city glow, the stars formed a splendid spectacle overhead, from horizon to horizon. Nights as clear as this were rare. Mark took the time to drink in the breathtaking stellar panoply.
A bright streak brightened over Ben Vorlich then winked out. It lasted less than a second. A shooting star, Mark mused. Make a wish. He made a wish.
Then it occurred to him, in a half-amused reflection, that he had – as far as he could recollect - never actually had a head cold. In fact, he’d never really been ill in his life.


6 Sunday 1 July, 2018

The first Sunday of his holidays Mark lay in his single bed, hands clasped behind his head considering what he knew about his dad. More and more lately Mark had found himself thinking about his father. In the outside world the sun was only just beginning