Jason went to the fridge for one more glass of wine. He couldn’t believe it! He’d been sacked! On the spot!

The boss had reckoned there were too many complaints about his driving. But that couldn’t have been true. He was always courteous and helpful toward the passengers and he drove as smoothly as the timetable would allow.

Finally his wife shook him and helped him off to bed. It been a disappointing day and that is probably why he couldn’t get back to sleep. The lights from the main road flickered across the wall while the clock ticked incessantly on the dresser. “What will I do tomorrow,” he wondered.

In the early morning Jason woke again. His wife lay still beside him, probably sleeping, it was hard to tell. What would happen? How would they make the house payments and the other bills that had always taken his pay? Strange though, he’d seen it coming. Ever since he’d read that book he’d looked differently at the boss and wondered what could be done to escape the exploitation of the old bastard’s split shifts, low pay, and brakeless busses.

Well, now that he was sacked the question had been answered, he’d seen himself walking up to the sleeping dog. But how to avoid another similar situation. Jason needed a job with soul.

Two more boring jobs came and went in the following month. They told him to change his attitude, but that is what had already happened. He had changed his attitude, and money was getting tight.

Then he found one. A job that was interesting. But his car broke down in the rain first day and by the time a taxi arrived he was too late. Didn’t even get a start. The garage wanted 50 dollars an hour to fix the car but they didn’t seem to know what was wrong with it. So he took the bus.

Without a car but a few more sleepless nights his job opportunities were sinking along with his family. Finally, he and his wife had a bitter row, she said he was irresponsible and pig-headed. He infuriated her most by just sitting there, she didn’t realise that he was too stunned to speak.

And then she was gone, and so of course were the kids, and later that day the furniture and all of their special things.

That night Jason lay awake in his empty bed and for the first time he noticed what appeared to be a little cloud hovering below the ceiling. It shimmered dully and he could almost make out a shape before it faded beneath the new lines, “Where is my family? Are they okay? What will happen when I have to move out of the house?” He knew that he should buckle down before it was too late.

That night he dreamt that he was a deer being chased by a pack of wolves. He woke with all his muscles tense and looked around him at the empty room.

The house was still and devoid of sleeping sounds, with that steely kind of morning sky that wasn’t ready to make its shadows. There above the window was the indistinct cloud. This time he could see the outline of a pool in a lovely garden, soft music drifted from it in the strange, almost threatening way that a reptile might use the end of its tail as a lure.

Jason no longer had any reason to get up in the mornings, and the empty room made him feel desperate. He drank the last of his scotch straight out of the bottle. He didn’t know what he wanted to do but he knew what he didn’t want to do. But nothing was clear anymore. Was it his fault that his family had gone?

The little cloud hung there in the reluctant dawn cube. He shut his eyes and drifted. He was warm, very warm, and as the soft sound of leaves together on sky and the dappled water’s sweet song flowed through his mind he re-entered sleep until the brightness of the sun woke him in a sweat. He had been dreaming that he was a pig held at bay by dogs wrenching on his ears.

Jason moved from one grimy place to another as the summer faded. He turned up his collar and turned into the street to find a place to waste another day.

Winter soon marched in looking bleak and for the first time Jason saw basic things that he couldn’t buy. His bank account was as empty as his heart, though it was true that he sometimes cried for no more reason than being able to look into the hearts of those people walking past him on the sidewalk. They were cursed since the zygote by superfluous evil, but they paid little attention to the bedraggled tearful man. Jason was almost invisible.

His little family were happy and safe with another father in his place, someone “sensible and stable” he had been told. “No-one needs me now” was the empty statement he made to himself.

A white polystyrene cup blew across in front of his feet and took with it his appetite. The buildings formed a canyon of poisonous cars and hurrying but through it he could see a wilderness, the bobbing faces and bodies all so separate in their internal worlds, like so many balloons jostling for a spiked ceiling. What did he care? The systematic suffering was just the fear of fear, perhaps.

A pigeon zoomed about amongst the frantic feet, it chose to walk for its crumbs.

His day was spent in idle wandering and circuitous reverie, life review, fleets of ideas, conditioned anxiety and glints of false hope. He stumbled through a matrix of impressions as passive as a fledgling failing from a nest, detached; unindentified. The plaything of unforgettable memories.

A bed of yellow flowers caught his attention to re-introduce kinetics. He stopped and peered for a long time at them silently competing to be the brightest before the cold wind would kill them. While he watched, shadows from white clouds dimmed the lustre of the petals and dampened the humming vibrancy of the brittle stems. Bees moved through, taking what they could. Rain began to fall gently onto everything from the thin clouds above where the church bell tolled in the steeple. It called down to him like a cow lost in the hills.

He wandered on and took shelter beneath the eave of a derelict workers’ shed where an old man about sixty dressed in a military tunic with eppaulettes and insignia started semanding of him. “Would you hit a nice horse to death because it was owned by someone special? Near my home place it dit happen soon after Second World War did end. A Barons place it was and the horse a polish special was given to the oldest son of the Baron: Georgdietrich Von Friessen, by his father Colonel, Dr Von Friessen, my father’s friend. He died in Russia after we had three weeks holiday at home same time. The killer of the horse, a Jewish Russian Komisar has been seen in this vicinity today by myself or a close identity for investigation.”

Jason wasn’t sure what he was listening to but he had nowhere he wanted to go.

Two children were playing around the fountain nearby and instantly Jason recognized one of them as his son. He was overjoyed to see him and hurried forward calling his name, “Francis! Francis!

“The child turned when he heard Jason calling, although it wasn’t his name. The face framed in the yellow rain hat just looked at him and Jason’s years with his family filled his mind, only to be disturbed by a woman grasping the lad in her arms.

Jason backed off, he felt as though he had committed a crime but knew not to try and explain or defend himself from the irate mother. He returned to where the old man was still sheltering beneath the eave.”Com wit me” he said and headed across the park down a side street to an alley and into a deserted house where a few other derros sat drinking from bottles. Jason wanted nothing more than to sleep, so after accepting a few slugs and spilling out a packet of tailor-mades he lay down on a cardboard carton listening to the traffic and the occasional mumbled comment or request.

That night was long and cold, Jason felt fortunate to have the windbreak of the walls although a smelly drunk fell in the dark and a rat stole a chunk out of his forehead.

By 4 Jason could no longer sleep, it was too cold. He sat up and began a whispered conversation with the color picture he could see in the dark. It was a beautiful place, and it knew him, spoke to him, sang that soft song. He drank the dregs from a discarded bottle and tuned in to the vibrations of the darkness. He felt like he was falling in love, despite the chorus of snoring and the stench of piss.

When the others stirred they took him round the corner and introduced him to the Salvation Army. He left with a warm glow, some small change and a plastic crucifix but he couldn’t stomach the inane chatter and depressing hung-over bickering of the derros so he wandered off on his own. Down a back street, downhill through the maze of streets, garbage, cans and small dogs.

In a bus shelter was a newspaper with a headline about starwars. A black and white, slightly frail looking bird flew about and pecked frantically at it’s reflections in the glass.

Gradually the day dissolved into a cold afternoon pushed about by a blustering wind. Jason dreaded the coming night. He searched out a sheltered place but was driven away with threats of police. He had hit the bottom and it was fraying his clothes. He had sunk through inaction but he couldn’t make himself care. He was alone in the world but that was all he seemed to need.

As darkness pulled it’s sheet across the face of day, Jason saw before him the place he had seen so often in the little cloud. It was right there, even the cement footpath. !t was even more beautiful than before and seemed to catch the only light left. And there was the pond. The flowers and the seat. He went to sit in amongst it all. It felt good. Snug almost. The bench seemed to cuddle him with big soft arms when Jason shivered. The moon soon shone in fhe blackened pond. Night sounds beat a shrill tattoo. Jason snuggled down like a mouse in a nest. It held him in. Some singing sounds glanced off the clouds like a wire being drawn through his brain. Yes, he did love her, she whispered the nicest things. He had forgiveness for ever. His knees stretched his trousers as he pulled up his legs and crossed his arms.

Morning came like many others to the empty park.