Season
an excerpt

In the short time after waking, after dawn, it was impossible to discern what was the reality of the moment, of what the past was and what could be expected to happen in the coming day. Some would say this was a state of bliss, this unknowingness, and something to strive for and eventually attain mastery of. They said to deliberately lose a true sense of time, place, self, circumstance; that was true wisdom and peace. That was the way we must, and would, eventually all go.
Magnus wondered if that might be true. Lying there, for a few moments yet, he had no awareness of location, identity or chronology, and he certainly felt a sense of peacefulness. Like an unhatched chick in an egg, there was a certain removal of his own self from the rest of the world, a filtering down of the world into a gentler form by a membrane that enclosed him. Peace. Simply breath and light. But, like a mother hen pecking that tiny chick’s shell, his ego soon pierced his consciousness and brought to his attention all the things that he needed to know to survive. It all came with a pecking sensation, a series of tiny shocks, tapping on the inside of his skull, rocking his roof. The night before had been an eventful one. Tap, tap. He was getting ready for the day ahead and the night that would follow. So, all the small events hit him one by one, in sequence, as if he were dying.
Tap, tap. He was lying safe in bed, at least. He could wriggle his toes and stretch his arms and neck, and this he did just then. A way of testing if everything was still working. Like a temporary return to infancy, a baby learning to move its limbs. It felt so good to move like this after a satisfying slumber.
Tap, tap. His name was Magnus McTavish. Twenty something years old. Quite tall and slight, a gangly youth with a physical manner and gait resembling a form of organised chaos. Though he didn’t realise it, he was a man with a face that betrayed almost every thought or emotion that passed through his mind. He certainly knew that he was good-looking, if not stunning. It was not a surprise to him that women found him quite interesting. He took it very matter-of-factly, and with a certain sense of grace, that allowed him to escape most of the traps that many attractive young people can fall into. His mother had seen to that, teaching him to develop his mind, and to quickly identify what was a superficial personal quality, and what was something with a little more substance. But that was seemingly quite a long time ago, for so much had happened to him in his relatively short adult life.
His looks got him into trouble, at times, nevertheless. People expected certain things of him, and that created many opportunities for misunderstanding. There were the males who tried to ignore the attention he got from women, to play it down, or perhaps attempt to enter some kind of imaginary competition with him. He still had as scar in his eyebrow from one particular fight in a bar when a drunken aggressive fellow had decided to teach him a lesson in social graces. There were the employers who, in the past, had hired him on the spot based on his appearance, even if he was perhaps slightly underqualified. Like when he attempted his first and only job as a waiter in a café close to many ladies’ fashion stores downtown. His gangly build and undeniably honest visage had made him incredibly clumsy on a physical and a social level. Women of all kinds would try to hit on him. When he was unresponsive, or involuntarily displayed his disgust or contempt on his broad, open face, they might do certain things to attract his attention, or even complain to management that he was rude. Several times, women had spilled some of their food or drink on themselves deliberately in an attempt to get him to blot their chest, or their lap (for the less demure of them). Or they might want to argue the bill, just to get a little attention from him. This chaos that followed him through his eventful career as a waiter ensured that it was a short one.
The illusions of identity flooded back to him as he stretched out.
Tap, tap. Sunlight filtered in, warming him slowly. I was perhaps because he was a little too warm that he had woken. A light slick of perspiration was wreathing his neck, and he wiped at it before opening his eyes and rolling over to rest on the other side of his body. Seeing the empty space beside him, he felt a little pang of aloneness, and remembered where he had left her the night before, standing in the soft rain outside the theatre. A lovely halo of raindrops had hung in her slightly frizzy hair, giving her the cliched and yet incredibly romantic appearance of an angel or a saint, which he knew she sometimes was. They had been to see a version of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, a rollicking beast of a play. That writer had portrayed his female characters in a somewhat polarised manner, making them either Madonnas or whores. Cecilia Spelman was not one or the other, but she was both. She had sat there, with a very animated face, sometimes mouthing the lines as they were delivered from the stage and sometimes smiling or grimacing when the performance became slightly cheesy or lacklustre. Not that it had been too bad. Mostly the players had done the work justice, with a few standout performances from particular cast members. Laertes in particular had held his attention and made him believe the most out of all of them. Their Ophelia had been almost too much, whining and wringing her hands in a way that seemed more befitting for a high school girl’s hormonal tantrum than for the agonies of a truly insane young woman in love. Or maybe that was an inaccurate assessment. After all, the writer’s Ophelia was little more than a schoolgirl herself, presented with the immature affections of an equally inexperienced and insane young prince, for goodness’ sake. And of course, what was love but a kind of insanity? So perhaps the actress’ portrayal had been more faithful than he at first realised.
He pulled in one pillow close to his chest and wrapped his arms and one leg around it like a lover, burying his face into the blankets for comfort.
Tap, tap. Yes, he had seen her. He had kissed her, before heading home to let his dog, Otto, in out of the rain. He was cranky, and had given Magnus a hard time when he finally did arrive. Although pure black all over his coat and face, and surrounded by darkness sitting on the front porch, his glowering expression was still very clear to Magnus. Labradors, and especially well-trained intelligent ones, had a very effective system of body language to alert everyone around to their feelings. Otto was a name, a famous name indeed, carried by illustrious historial characters and ***** and also a variation on the word “attar”, which meant essence, or aroma. Though the word attar was usually used to describe the essential oil of roses, his dog certainly hadn’t smelled that way last night. He had, nevertheless, made his presence known by sitting too close to Magnus for the remainder of the night, hanging around like the proverbial bad smell. It was as though he knew how bad the reek of wet dog could be, and wanted to torture his master with it, as revenge for leaving him outside in the rain. Sleep had come to Magnus rather reluctantly.
Otto was a very apt name for this man’s best friend though. He had been an airport sniffer dog, or detection dog, as they were officially called, before he came to Magnus. He was retired now though. One day at the airport he had bitten an animal smuggler, a man, who kicked him in the face, and who could blame him? Although he was generally not an aggressive dog, and had had plenty of screening as a puppy and a year of training for his job, that kind of provocation had proved too much for Otto to resist.
Of course, a sniffer dog that bit people was no sniffer dog the airport authority or Customs could use, and he shortly ended up at the pound, where Magnus had found him. He decided to take the young dog home even though the RSPCA had told him about the biting incident. Magnus thought it showed he had a lot of pluck, rather than just being a cowering cur.
He didn’t know why he had decided to get a dog, only that he knew he wanted some company. He found other human beings a little too complicated to live with, so he had lived by himself for a few years, which suited him. If Magnus wanted to see other people, he went out. It had been that simple. After a while, though, he came to feel that he was leaning too much on the folks he would see in clubs and theatres and cafes and other public venues for his peace of mind and fellowship. He just couldn’t bring himself to go back to the endless hassles of sharing a house or apartment with someone, so he had gone in search of a pet. And that’s when he found Otto.
A wet nose in his ear awakened him further from his reverie. Otto licked his eye and cheek in an overly familiar way, his doggy breath wafting up Magnus’ nostrils.
“Aw yuck! Yucky!” he was prompted to say. Otto gave him a hurt look and began to walk away towards the bedroom door again.
“Aw, Otto! Sorry boy! Come and have a pat.” The labrador came over and allowed his head to be stroked for a while.