Bag of Weasels. Chapter 24

It didn't go down well with the assembled but Banksy worked her stuff and they finally swallowed the idea: Flea was to be expelled. Unscathed.
So with Banksy leading we took Flea through the old building, across blasted rooms and through ragged doorways, to a tiny blackened chamber no larger than a cupboard. A corrugated iron sheet had been bolted over its far wall, and Banksy motioned Ralph to step in and tug up a bottom corner. He grabbed hold with one hand and yanked, and it screeched away from the wall. A street lay on the other side - I could just see the wet pavement through the rip, a cold dark river of real ' and we flinched back and huddled tight, but Banksy commanded us to stay and Ralph to not let go.
"Wait for the sign, she said, eyes fixed on the ragged triangle of street, and we jumped back again at some quick flick of movement just beyond. A snout poked in, it wrinkled and sniffed, then the dog padded into the chamber, tail wagging, pleased to be in.
"That's it, said Banksy, scratching the dog's ear, "Put him out.
And Flea was manhandled through the rag-tag assembly.
"So it's the old heave-ho, he said, "Can't say I'm arsed, and he looked back at us as he crouched down to go. He spotted me, searched me out I reckoned, and winked.
"See you on the flipside, he shouted, and was gone.
Ralph let the sheet drop. Goodbye Flea.
His farewell earned me more frowns and stares, just this side of hostile, and I broke away sharpish to get back to the fires. I worked my way through the walls and rubble and found a small flame - barely a spark, and less likely to be favoured so I would not be seen and heard and could curl up unmolested, but even so I could already feel them at my back, pointing and laughing, pulling faces, setting themselves against me. I crouched down and hugged my knees up under my chin. An occasional tear streaked down my cheek. Now back in my familiar desperately lonely place, cut out and thrown to the side, I toyed with my Plan, dared to lift it out of its hidey-hole, and give it room to breathe. I slipped my hand inside my layers, felt for the page, began to pull it out into the firelight.
Ralph thumped down beside me, a mountain next to a molehill, and I dropped page and Plan back into secrecy.
"This won't keep you warm.
I thought about that.
Ignored it.
We sat big lump little lump, once again finding ourselves looking into the fire. I would have kept it like that for a bit, but Ralph started poking.
"What's going on Sunny?
I sighed, left it a moment, and batted the question back.
"For me? said Ralph, "Don't know. Depends how you mean.
"Hmm. Not so easy, is it?
Ralph bit: "Alright then, this is what I know. And I do know this. I know that for a long time I have been drawn into something, a something big and old that has sought me out. Called me.
"And what would that be?
"I don't know.
That wouldn't do, and Ralph knew. He tried some more: "I've seen a big picture. Big pictures. Not like your patterns. Big, they were. Big signs. That's it ' signs. Good signs. Speaking to me, like the houses did, long time ago¦
"Ralph. Tell me straight. For the sake of my head. What are we doing?
"I don't know for words, but we are where we are and that's where we should be. Believe. It is a big thing we do. We must look after it and it will look after us. I know, in my bones. I have dreams of the city. It will look after us if we look after it.
I was having none of it. Ralph was making me dizzy. I was getting worse.
"I shouldn't be here Ralph. I should be gone.
"But we are here together.
No. We are not. We only came together. I am not part of it Ralph. And I know now because they all hate me, they want me gone. They're laughing at me.
"Who?
I jerked my head in the direction of the tormentors at my back: "Them. The rest. All of them.
Ralph looked over his shoulder, "Listen Sunny, there's stranger things round here than you. It's not how you see it. No-one's that bothered about you. You got their interest back then with Flea, and got mine too, and I still want to know what's going on for you ' don't think you've slipped out of that one ' but greater things abound here. You are not hated. You are in with us.
I checked his words, decided they were either lies or he was a fool. At least one of us was.
"Now I'll tell you Ralph, stuff has happened that isn't right, that doesn't belong in the world I know.
I know I'm not the full ticket, and right now I don't feel right.
"You speak for yourself. I thought I was, but I'd got Ralph angry now; he started shouting although his face was inches from mine.
"No-one will tell me that what I've seen and heard and all that's happened to me is just some symptom! They tried once, they took me, drugged me, did all they could to get in the way. And you saw. You saw, Sunny, what they did to me. No-one will ever do that to me again. And no-one will tell me I am wrong. Or mad. Or deluded. That's all their words. That is just fear talking. They are scared of something bigger than themselves, something outside of their way of doing things. But I am not scared. I have been called.
"But how do you know?
"I know.
"But how?
"I don't know how. I feel it. It's a calling. Don't be scared. Take the leap. You are choosing to close your eyes.
It was my turn to be angry: "I am scared, Ralph, of getting sick. Of rocking myself numb in dirty corners, of crawling across floorboards and shrinking from eyes and voices, scared of black and white, and colours too, when the world shifts badly and without warnings. I am scared of my poor existence ripping to shreds, fluttering out to the four corners.
And that was all here waiting, with only Ralph to bring me back, but now I looked at him in a way that dredged up ill half-formed memories, of looking like this at loved ones long ago, and not trusting or believing. The when and where of it wouldn't come, and never mind the who, but it had been just like this.
And I knew somehow, from some deep instinct, that on that last time my world had shattered, and was the genesis of all this.
But now, at least, I had my half-arsed Plan.
Get it out and dust it down.
And go.