A Flaming Christmas

It slowed again to show the courtroom, Terry chained to the handrail in the dock. Facing terry are the benches and public gallery, the whole court room were screaming and gesturing angrily at him. It was the result of his ex-wife and Mark Williams who had gone all out to vilify Terry and the tabloid press caught the smell of profit if the stoked the fire. He was Britain's public enemy number one, declared guilty by public and press before the trial was even underway.

It sped up and slowed at snippets of the trial. In medieval times he'd have been hung, drawn and quartered before it had reached court.

It slowed to normal speed as the Judge had Terry brought directly before him. Handcuffed and manacled at the ankles with a short chain so he could only shuffle.

"I have never had such a despicable human being stand before me and put their own family through hell not once, but twice. First you committed the abhorrent assault on your own child then allow your poor wife to walk in and see the level of depravity you were able to stoop so in the act. They were only saved further distress by your ex-business partner arriving and stopping you before you committed a further assault this time on your wife.

Then, to make matters worse you fail to plead guilty when there is overwhelming evidence you committed this crime, making them suffer by dragging it through the court system. All you have done is continue to whine of your innocence. If there was an Oscar for acting in a court room I have no doubt you'd receive a top honour for this appalling theatrical spectacle that this entire court has had to suffer.

But you cannot fool the public Mr. Hand and you certainly cannot fool me. You are hereby sentenced to...."

Angel watched as he closed his eyes to what was unfolding - the emotions he felt in present and past simply overwhelmed him.

As the judge began to pass sentence a preordained attack on Terry took place. A large portion of the public gallery had snuck in plastic sandwich bags filled with human excrement and started to hurl them at Terry.

The bags split as they struck him to the point only his eyes could be seen peering out from a thick coating of excrement coating his face. Sitting on top of his head sat a large stool that began to slither down his face. His daughter pointed and shrieked at him.

""Rot in hell shithead!" then the court erupted into uproar. The judge had been caught in the crossfire, spattered with human waste. He furiously banged his gavel screeching for the piece of shit to be taken down.

The vision paused and Angel heard a broken voice sob.

"Let me go Angel, let me fall and make everyone including me happy, let it all go away."

Angel let his life keep playing out. It slowed to see him being moved between prison cells after a few days of starting his sentence. He had received eight years imprisonment. In his new cell various tabloid front pages had been stuck to the wall and perspex screens that had been tucked in a storeroom from an earlier prison re-modelling had been mounted and affixed to cover the articles. Without tools they couldn't be accessed or removed. The replay showed them all.

Headlines such as 'Shithead Flushed Down The Pan', There's no Shittier Human Being On The Planet' or 'Eat sh*t You Fu*ker.' Every front page carried a picture of him covered in excrement. The scene played through quickly but even at this speed Terry sometimes sat for whole days staring at the walls.

There were other scenes but were mere blinks of an eye and Angel toned down the link to the emotions so he barely felt them. Even amongst those incarcerated for sexual offences they had a pecking order and Terry was at the bottom of the pile. It wasn't uncommon for the prison guards to sometimes bring a well build fellow inmate to share the cell as they ignored the howls of pain from Terry whilst he was subject to sadistic abuse himself.

The images sped up to show countless days repeating themselves into a blur before slowing down. The cell opened to prison guards wearing Christmas hats collecting Terry although he was unaware that Christmas had actually been a few days ago. Chained to a chair in the TV room on his own they promised him a Christmas film he would treasure.

The TV screen flickered to show inside his house, now somebody else's home. His family sat enjoying a sumptuous Christmas meal before each person left him a personal video message. His in-laws, brother, sister, their spouses and kids, even his own parents. Each person was cruel beyond belief, each one wishing hw was dead by now.

His ex-wife and ex-business partner Mark Williams made a joint message, showing the best gift of all revealing her heavily pregnant belly. The last person on thethis segment of the DVD was his daughter. After a tirade of abuse she spat at the camera before it went blank. Then a final scene appeared on the screen. Everyone was outside standing on the drive looking at the camera, even the catering staff were present.

'Merry Christmas Shithead!' they all shouted before hurling a stream of sandwich bags at the tripod mounted camera. The lens was quickly covered in brown slime and filth which slide down the lens before the picture faded.

The DVD was set to repeat and four hours later when they came to return him to his cell before the other inmates would be woken from their night's slumber he was foaming at the mouth in some form of arrest. Taken to the infirmity he took months to recover and was generally left alone after that for fear of someone taking it too far and killing him. Not that they would have minded, it was just the investigation after that no-one wanted to face.

It fast forwarded through the remainder of prison life to find Terry walking from the prison after five years, released on parole. The miniscule amount of money he had received from the divorce left enough for a name change which his parole officer had recommended. Living in a half-way house for ex-convicts he scraped along with a small state handout, barely existing, repeating each day similar to life in prison. But then it changed abruptly. He he never left his room for two weeks other than to drink water or visit the toilet before venturing in a cheap store browsing make-up sets and PlayStation two games before buying one of each, two Christmas cards and a cheap Santa outfit and cloth sack. He lovingly wraps the gifts. Angel pauses the images, rewinds to replay then stops at the same point.

"I thought that your race required the intake of nourishment in the form of food. For that period of time you failed to take any nourishment - did you not need it?"

His voice was barely audible and tears rolled down his cheeks.

"No I couldn't afford food and gifts for my kids so I stopped eating for the two weeks to give me enough money for some gifts and gift wrap."

It moved quickly forward to find Terry entering the code to the gate at the end of the long drive to his old house - nobody had changed the access code. Light snow floated from the sky as his worn shoes crunched up through the gravel of the driveway. Reaching the substantial front door he rang the doorbell pulling up the hood on his Santa suit.

He was surprised when a young woman answered balancing a baby on her hip. It took a few seconds to figure who it was as she quizzically looked back at him.

Terry reached into the sack and pulled out one of the two wrapped gifts before trying to hand it the woman - "Ho Ho Ho Merry Christmas!"

The woman recoiled in horror "Daddy!"

Terry pulls the hood down, "Yes I'm here, I'm so happy to se...."

"Pleeease Daddy help! "Her cry is urgent.

Mark Williams wrenches the door fully open and strides out pushing Terry backwards to fall on the drive.

"What the fuck are you doing here Shithead, you know you aren't supposed to be within five hundred metres of this family!" He snarled as he stood over Terry.

"I came to give my kids some gifts for Christmas I thoug...."

A swift kick to the ribs took all the air from his lungs as he rolled on his side. His eyes could see his children stamping on the gifts, his son sneering that he hasn't even got a PS2 he's up to the latest PS5. A man comes and stands with Terry's daughter taking the small child from her.

Terry can barely wheeze the question "You have a child? You're married... nobody tol..."

Another kick, this time from his son cracks a rib as he struggles for breath. Soon the same family that was in the DVD he had to endure in prison are kicking and stamping on him until he he's barely conscious. As his eyes begin to close he looks up at his mother standing over him.

"If I could have my time again, I would have found a way to miscarry you before you were born. His mother spat at him with venom before raising her foot and kicking his head like a football before Terry blacked out.

It fast forwards through hospital, then court again as he is re-incarcerated for breaking the terms of his bail as the next three years of torment in prison mirror the first five years to make eight years in total. Then he walks through the prison gate with a ticket back to his home town Doncaster as a free man, time served.

His release officer found a room to rent which gave him an address so he could claim benefits which looked like he could have a chance to re-integrate into society. A few weeks later three men storm into his room and beat him almost unconscious before bundling him in a car and dumping him on some wasteland out of town.

"You fucking pervert, my sister recognised you, she was on the jury. If you dare show your face around our way again it won't be wasteland we dump you in, you'll be wearing concrete shoes at the bottom of Agden reservoir!" With a few more kicks he was left alone, crying and hurt both physically and mentally.

The scene played onwards as his life bottomed out. Nowhere to stay, no friends, no family, no money, no luck and an empty life. Sleeping in derelict buildings, shop doorways or wasteland; forced to eat scavenged food from takeaway and restaurant bins or begging for coins if food was short. Every set of eyes that looked upon him could only see a piece of human trash no better than...a piece of...........Shit.

The scenes played out through earlier in the day and stopped as he leant forward to fall from the parapet earlier in the evening.

He looks across to Angel and notices she is becoming translucent, actually no, she appears to be dissolving if it was actually possible. Her body was turning into millions of microscopic particles right before his eyes. He then noticed that his body was doing exactly the same thing.

"What's happening?" he thought.

Then Angel answered, she didn't speak her voice seemed to be inside his head.

"It's time for you to transcend Terry Hand. It is you that will take your race and allow it to transcend to a higher form of consciousness. We have been waiting for one of mankind that would merit taking the next step in your evolution."

You are not dying as you would know but your life force is changing from a solid form to become millions and millions of particles throughout space. As each particle is formed it will join with mine so we become bonded. I will become your life soul Terry you'll understand soon but on your old world I think wife would be the nearest explanation to help you see what we are becoming.

Our new being will travel throughout the galaxy in this form, each particle able to connect to the others without being physically joined. We will see, experience and share everything together."

"You said my old world. It's still here Angel."

"Yes it is, but we must honour what our predecessors swore we would do. Come back on this day and choose a soul to give them what they desire. When I arrived here you asked for your family's world to burn."

With that, just at the point her hand and arm faded into obscurity, she waved it through the air. The sky started to glow bright orange in the distant night sky steadily getting brighter until fire as far as the eye could see rolled over them consuming every atom of planet earth except for them. When it finally subsided all that was left was a glowing mass of a molten core.

Terry and Angel were now millions of sub atomic particles bonding together and drifting into space in all directions. Terry was aware of his conscious being but it was blackness until the naked form of Angel stepped through the swirling mist.

"Where are we?"

"In a construct of our consciousness. Look down at your arm"

What felt like the action of looking down revealed a body, a fit and athletic body that reminded him of himself in his early twenties.

"We can be whatever we want as she changed into a carbon copy of Terry. Terry changed into Angel before they swiftly changed back. Angel raised a hand - blue grass sprang from the ground, and a tree erupted to full height a hundred metres away. A single solitary fruit that looked like a purple apple hung down from a branch. They both had a plant leaf cover their modesty as they walked towards the tree.

"No, humanity has been there, done that already."

Terry waved his arms and it all disappeared, reforming as a sun kissed beach, bright blue sky and crystal-clear waters lapping up and down in small waves as far as could be seen.

They held hands as they strolled up the beach finding two large plant leaves that had fine hairs that felt suspiciously like a beach towel in Terry's former world. When he looked at the sand there were suddenly two coconut halves containing a fluid that looked akin to a Pina Colada cocktail even down to a little umbrella cocktail stick.

"Yep they'll do nicely."

They lay down next to each other on the giant plant leaves. Angel rolled over and draped an arm and a leg over Terry as a nipple brushed his arm causing it to stiffen.

"Mmmm I think I like this body maybe we should keep them for a couple of millennia?"

He leant over and his lips brushed hers before their mouths gently crashed together.

"If we can do this for that duration I'm all in too!"

End

If you like to delve a little more behind this story the viaduct referred to is quite real and can be found by a searching out Conisborugh Viaduct if you'd like to understand the scale and geography.