Yeah. I can't decide if I like this, or it's a cheesy, overdone scrap of real-life-meets-fantasy. A friend said, "It's really different from your other stuff." She didn't make it past the first page. I try to be funny, but I try to be deep at the same time. Usually this results in me sounding like I've just learnt the English language. Oh, dear. On a side note, I LOVE USING EXCESSIVE AMOUNTS OF ALLITERATION!! Synopsis and story below.

Genre: Life, Death, and Fantasy (which is really just the same as Life...)

Synopsis: Charlie Fortune isn't a hero. He's lazy, middle-aged, alcoholic but in happy denial of the fact, part-time computer analyst, most of the time good for nothing. But when Hell sends a convoy of demons to his bedroom to collect a debt that's long overdue, Charlie's not going. He doesn't exactly have time to die--and honestly, he can't be bothered.

The Hellish Chorus

This was the third time it had woken him in the night, and Charlie Fortune was not pleased. In fact, he was more than a little annoyed. It was difficult enough dragging himself out of bed at six forty-five every morning when he’d spent a large part of the previous night drinking beer and watching really quite terrible, B-grade foreign movies on SBS till the wee hours—he didn’t need this popping up at the foot of his bed and rousing him from the vivid and vivacious landscape of his dreams (which often involved Rachel McAdams or Scarlett Johansson, or, on this particularly occasion, both). He was very put out.

He had, fleetingly, considered seeing a psychologist. Or perhaps a sleep therapist. After all, he didn’t think it was quite normal for a middle-aged man to experience lucid visions of an assembly of demonic creatures in his bedroom.

Correction: an assembly of demonic creatures in his bedroom, singing.

If he peeked out at this very moment (through bleary, sleep-filled eyes, across the poorly-lit space of his room) he could distinguish an assortment of fantastical shapes standing at the foot of his bed. They comprised, in effect, a rather motley crew.

On first glance, the only creature he could definitively put a name to was the goblin. Standing at an altogether impressive height of four feet even, he (she? it?) reached hardly higher than the wooden footrest of Charlie’s bed. All Charlie could see of the goblin were its veined, orb-like eyes, two rubbery ears and a little mouth, open in song. He hoped the diminutive monster was fully clothed. He didn’t particularly want to check.

Directly behind the goblin, arms flung out in gleeful abandon, would have been the most attractive woman Charlie had ever laid eyes upon, if she had not been the possessor of a pair of black, bat-like wings. Not to mention the fangs. Charlie never really went for the gothic look. Still, she was doe-eyed, and statuesque, and she had such luscious locks, luminescent in the moonlight, tumbling easily over her shoulders…

What were they called again? Incubi? No, those were the male demons who tempted young ladies. Succubi. That was it. She must be a succubus.

Perched on the left bedpost was a giant, red-eyed Cat. It was such a terrifyingly compelling specimen of its kind that Charlie thought only a capitalisation would do its magnificence justice. The Cat did not sing. It stared scarlet at Charlie, and licked a paw.

In front of his wardrobe, where he had hung his pinstriped pyjama pants, stood a young, handsome man in a slick suit with a forked tongue. It flicked in and out of his mouth as he sang. He held a very large pair of Scissors (they, too, deserved respect in their largeness).

Deeper in the shadows there were other figures, but they were too indistinct for Charlie to make out in his current bewildered state of mind. He thought he saw a curved horn, or the prong of a pitchfork, or the leer of a wolf’s snout, here and there. He wasn’t really sure.

Charlie Fortune, male, computer analyst, middle-aged, moderately alcoholic but in happy denial of the fact, rolled over and buried his head under a pillow. He muttered loudly, “Please, won’t you lot shut up and go back where you came from.”

For indeed the demonic congregation was singing, and they were singing low and clear and tuneful. This is what they were singing:

Charlie, Charlie, full and fine,

Drowned his sorrows in cheap wine,

His days are hard, his nights are long,

But he’ll go Under with this song.

Charlie, Charlie, good and glad,

Do the things you wish you had,

Don’t forget to say goodbye,

For you won’t remember once you die.

The succubus was beckoning to him with one long-nailed finger. The slick-suited man with the forked tongue raised the Scissors and flexed the blades, once, threateningly. The sound of metal on metal grated ominously.

“Get lost, please! I am trying to sleep, for heaven’s sake.”

The singing cut off abruptly. The hellish choir stared at Charlie in mild horror, as though he had uttered a taboo word—which, in a backward sense, he had.

“Thank you!” said Charlie, exasperatedly, and pulled the covers firmly over his head. He had three deadlines to meet before noon the following day, and lunch with his supervisor, and an appointment with the dentist, and a birthday party to attend. He really didn’t have time to die.

It was seven p.m. and Charlie’s jaw throbbed. Funny how your teeth always seem to feel worse instead of better after seeing the dentist, he thought as he tramped through the front door, loosening his necktie with one hand and running a hand through his hair with the other. Charlie was quite proud of his hair, which was still a lusciously full head of copper-brown, the bane of many of his peers and colleagues who were battling daily the woes of balding. He caught a fleeting glimpse of himself in the foyer mirror and winked at his reflection.

Lunch with Mr. Alan Thatchwood had gone well. His somewhat stout supervisor had self-consciously selected a garden salad and mineral water. Charlie had looked at poor Thatchwood, nestled contentedly in his folds of fat, and thought to hell with my barely existent beer-gut, and had ordered a large lasagne with salted fries and a banana milkshake. He felt great.

He tossed his briefcase onto the couch (on top of last night’s empty chip packets and VB bottles) and put his laptop on the dining table. He went into the kitchen and opened a can of Coke. The clock chimed softly above the microwave. The hum of the refrigerator was soothing. The drink fizzed down his throat.

“Leslie?”

He found his wife in the other bedroom, her bedroom, in her dressing gown. Her hair was mussed. She hadn’t left the house all day. She greeted him with a disgruntled expression and wailed, “I’m depressed, Charlie.”

“And we’re late,” he said, pointing to his watch. “Spencer’s party started five minutes ago. You’re not even dressed.”

“That’s because I’ve been feeling terribly depressed all day!” said Leslie mournfully, and began stomping around her room, opening and slamming wardrobe doors and dresser drawers. “You don’t listen to me!”

“There, there,” said Charlie, wondering if he should change his shirt.

Leslie scowled at him and threw off her gown and threw on a champagne-coloured chemise, and ran a brush through her mahogany hair, and pulled it into a tortoise-shell clasp. She dabbed a little makeup onto her cheeks and grabbed her handbag. “There,” she stood in front of him. “A presentable wife in two minutes flat. Is that good enough for you, Mr. Fortune?”

Charlie said, “Can you go down and start the car first? I want to put on my blue shirt. And we have to swing by David Jones and pick up a present for good old Spence. I only have twenty cash on me, though, so we’d better make it something cheap.”

This was a good party.

There was wine, and music from the eighties, and silly party games that made everyone laugh, and there was wine, and an open barbecue in the backyard, and there was wine that wasn’t even cheap. Leslie drank enough and was quiet in a corner. Charlie drank more than enough and was loud.

He had spent a good twenty minutes chatting with Estelle, who was Spencer’s cousin, and a yoga instructor. Charlie talked extensively about the gym he was a member of (but never went to, although he conveniently left out that fact) while he munched on char-grilled chicken wings dripping in grease. She giggled a lot and told him he was an ‘attractive man’.

Now Charlie went into the kitchen to throw out his plate and get a stubby from the stash in the fridge. Spencer was in there, poking through his pile of presents. He looked up sheepishly when Charlie walked in.

“You didn’t see that,” said Spencer.

“Great party,” said Charlie.

“You want a beer?” asked Spencer, but Charlie was already helping himself. “Gawd, this song brings back memories. Graduation. Not worrying about my age. Those were the days. When we still had most of our livers, hey, mate?”

Charlie leaned on the bench and drank and watched his friend talk.

“Anyway.” Spencer rubbed his nose. “Have to check on the barbie.”

He walked out.

Charlie leaned on the bench and drank. There was a soft smile on his lips, the kind of smile that people have when their lives are nowhere near magazine-perfect but they can’t help feeling sort of content.

A goblin climbed out of the refrigerator and said, “Fires of hell, it’s cold in there!”

Charlie nearly dropped his drink.

He said, “But I’m not even asleep!”

The goblin dug a waterfall of tiny ice crystals out of its ears. Charlie saw, now, that the little creature wore a loincloth. It beckoned over its shoulder with one knobbed finger.

In quick succession, the succubus, the Cat, the man with the forked tongue, a wolf, a giant bat, and a very ugly dwarf climbed out of the fridge and arranged themselves into two rows.

Charlie, Charlie, full and fine…

“No. No,” said Charlie, thumping his bottle onto the bench. “This cannot be happening to me now. I’m awake, damn it!”

His days are hard, his nights are long,

But he’ll go Under with this song.

“Shut up!” he growled. “I don’t know what you’re on about, you maniacs! Get away from me!” He tried to make the sign of the Cross. It didn’t work. The hellish chorus continued to play.

He put one hand over his eyes. He really needed to make an appointment with Dr. Goodwill. It was getting worse.

He opened his eyes and swayed a little with the drink. They were still there. The Cat hissed at him. Its mouth was tiny and pink and frightening.

“I’m awake, for Christ’s sake!” he said, and fled from the kitchen.

Late that night, after they drove home, Leslie went to her bedroom and closed the door, and put on some soothing music. And Charlie went to his bedroom and enthusiastically swallowed a handful of sleeping pills. He wasn’t planning on waking up tonight, not once.

Dr. Earnest Goodwill ran a comfortable clinic on the third floor of an office block in the middle of the city. He was a psychiatrist. Charlie had seen him a couple of times, seven years ago, when his sister-in-law had committed suicide. Those had been standard procedure check-ups. Today’s check-up was not standard procedure.

Dr. Goodwill scribbled a note on his pad of paper and said, “Tell me, Charlie, how many times exactly has this happened?”

“The time in Spencer’s kitchen when they climbed out of the refrigerator, that was the fourth time.”

“Right,” said Dr. Goodwill. “And you said—correct me if I’m wrong—amongst the creatures there was a giant cat with red eyes, a demonic winged temptress, a snake-like man, an albino wolf, and a four-foot gnome.”

“Goblin,” said Charlie. “Not gnome. Gnomes are those little men in garden beds.”

“Right,” said the doctor.

“This isn’t normal, is it?” said Charlie worriedly.

“No,” said Earnest Goodwill. “No, it’s not exactly normal, I’m afraid.”

“Can you give me some meds to make it go away?”

Dr. Goodwill put down his pen. He said, “I was thinking we could try something before we put you on the meds. You see, these figures are all in the landscape of your subconscious. It is possible for us to train our wills to influence our subconscious. Therefore, it follows that you should be able to banish them from your own mind, by a direction of your own concentrated will.”

Charlie said warily, “What do you want me to do?” He was usually wary of anything that required a conscious effort on his part.

“Well,” said the doctor, “the next time this hellish chorus pops up at the foot of your bed, or in your friend’s refrigerator when you’re tipsy, simply point the full focus of your stare at them and say these words aloud: You are a figment of my imagination. I banish you from my mind. Do not return. You are a figment of my imagination. Repeat until you achieve success.”

Charlie frowned, a little doubtfully. It sounded awfully troublesome. “Can’t you just give me some twice-a-day anti-hallucinogenic pills or something?”

“You’re already on quite a few meds, Mr. Fortune—for your hypertension, and your cholesterol—”

“A couple more can’t hurt.”

Dr. Goodwill looked at his patient, exhaled, and tore off a prescription. “You can take these. Once after every meal.”

Charlie flashed the older man a brief grin. “Thanks, Earnest,” he said, and fetched his jacket from the coat rack, and then he was out of the clinic.

Dr. Goodwill leaned back in his armchair and skimmed his eyes over the notes he had made. Strange. He was sure he had written, ‘Strong, persistent hallucinations of a morbid nature. Condition deteriorating.’

But instead the words on the paper said this:

Don’t forget to say goodbye,

For you won’t remember once you die.

The next time they popped up, Charlie was sitting at his workstation, innocuously not working.

He hissed, in a loud whisper that cut gratingly across the office like a fingernail scraping off a scab, “Piss off!”

He was amazed. He was amazed that no one else could hear or see these demonic creatures, which were standing in a tight knot between his desktop computer and his potted begonia, large as life. He would have sworn that he could reach out and rub a finger over the rubbery skin of the goblin’s forehead.

And their song. It snaked into his ears, coiled snugly around his brain like a cobra curling around its prey…

The albino wolf weaved sinuously in and out of the succubus’ long legs. It licked its long, pale teeth with a long, pale tongue.

Charlie half-rose from his chair and peered around the office at his fellow workers. Three aisles of heads, bent devotedly over their computers. Completely oblivious. Somewhat appalled, he sank back down into his seat.

He squinted his eyes as hard as he could at the Cat and said aloud, “You are a figment of my imagination. I banish you from my mind. Do not return. You are—oh, screw this.” Conversing with animals was definitely not part of his job description. He scrabbled in his drawer and tipped two pills into his palm. As he washed them down with the last few gulps of his coffee, he felt a momentary tightening in the centre of his chest—a quick ache along his sternum—but then it was gone, and so was the hellish chorus.

“I don’t understand,” said Tisiphone, pursing her perfect, plump lips in perplexity. “He should have been ours a long time ago.”

The goblin, whose name was Snickwit, expressed its agreement. “He is no spectacular mortal. He is in possession of no remarkable strength or skill. How is he able to resist the Song?”

They watched him sleep for a stretch of time that may have been a few heartbeats or a few hours.

Tisiphone tossed a cascading wave of hair over one shoulder and said, “Let me go to him. I’ll finish the job elegantly.” She turned to the man with the forked tongue, doe-eyed, pleading, earnest. “Let me go to him, bub.”

The man with the forked tongue was a young, slim fellow with boyish fair looks and a clear, blue-eyed gaze. He wore a streamlined white suit with silver lining. He snaked an arm around Tisiphone’s slender waist and said, “No, darling, he is not one of yours.”

“Won’t you spare just one for me, bub?”

She fell hastily silent under his cool stare.

The Cat yawned and scratched lazily at a spot under his chin. He gazed loftily upon the sleeping form of Charlie Fortune and produced a dismissive sniff. “Whatever it is, anyway, he won’t be able to avoid us for long. Just take a look at the state of him—his lungs are all but gone, his liver’s completely fibrosed, and there’s so much fat in his arteries you could scrape it across a frying pan and make fish and chips for a roomful of Australians. And the best of it is that he still looks fit, and young, and healthy—and the thinks he is, too.”

“Cat’s right,” said the man with the forked tongue, as he opened and closed the Scissors with a hint of foreboding. “He won’t be able to avoid us for much longer. They all have to go, sooner or later.”

The pills weren’t helping.

The following day found Charlie Fortune wrestling bodily with a pint-sized goblin in the men’s room of his office.

Charlie usually took his time washing his hands at the sink. He figured that the more soap he lathered, the longer it would take to rinse; the longer it took him to rinse, the more time he spent in the bathroom; the more time he spent in the bathroom, the less time he spent actually working for his living.

He hawked a couple of globules into the basin and splashed cold water over his face. Maybe he could sneak out for a cigarette. He wasn’t much more than a social smoker, normally, but it was yet another awfully good excuse to have a break…

It was in the middle of this contemplation that Snickwit leapt onto his back like a baby koala.

Goblin fingers dug into his face, cold and bony and real and—

“Damn you, you just stuck your thumb into my eyeball!” said Charlie, swearing and staggering backwards. This could not be happening. He could not be wrestling with a figment of his imagination.

They slammed into the side of the sink, bounced off and landed against the hand-dryer. “Get off me!” howled Charlie.

“Got to—take you—Under,” gasped the revolting creature, pummelling Charlie in the jaw with a small but strong fist.

“You’re not taking me anywhere, garden gnome.” And he dealt one right back.

The goblin skidded across the salmon-pink linoleum. It scrabbled to regain its composure and smoothed its ears. “I resent that,” said Snickwit defiantly, and lunged. This time it got its long fingers around Charlie’s neck. It hung on tight.

Charlie’s world was beginning to turn fuzzy at the edges.

Snickwit’s eyeballs loomed in his vision—two great, glowing orbs, like twin planets, lit up in frenzied triumph. Charlie gasped for air. There was a terrible weight pressing on his chest. It felt as though a pick-up truck had unloaded half a ton of bricks on top of him.

And then, suddenly, the goblin was gone.

And Charlie Fortune was lying on the floor of the men’s room, clutching his chest.

And Daniel Forrester, the neurotic fellow from the workstation in the next aisle, was running into the restroom and kneeling over Charlie’s supine form, and yelling at someone to call triple-zero right away, there was a guy in here who’s just had a myocardial infarction and is there anyone around who knows first aid because he doesn’t look like he’s going to last much longer unless he gets some sort of medical attention.

Come with me, said the beautiful, terrible Tisiphone.

What?

Come with me, she said again, and she swept past like a September breeze brimming with rose petals.

Fuck, my chest hurts. Are you a doctor? Can you give me something for the pain?

I’m not a doctor.

Are you a nurse, then? Can you get me a doctor? Tell them I need meds.

I’m not an angel-spawned nurse, bless it.

Oh. OK. What are you doing here, then?

Oh, my—you have such handsome eyes.

What the hell?

You look a little lonely in that hospital bed. Shall I keep you company?

No. No, thank-you, I’m really OK. Argh! Get off, that’s my pillow! Stop touching me!

Oh, screw this. Bub was right; you are impossible.

Leslie Fortune, middle-aged, brunette, slender, graduated with Honours but no longer employed, sat by her husband’s hospital bed in sober rumination. The lines around her eyes had deepened over the past few years.

Charlie and Leslie spoke together for a good half hour. Charlie was tired.

“Dr. Yeoh spoke to me about changing your diet,” said Leslie quietly. “More home-cooked meals. Less takeaway. We’re supposed to do grocery shopping. Real grocery shopping, together.”

“How long for?”

“It’s called lifestyle change, Charlie.”

“Right.”

“Don’t be all flippant now. You had a heart attack, Charlie. You should be counting your blessings—or rather, your days on earth.”

Charlie opened his mouth to tell her there was no need to be bitter. He shut his mouth. Finally, he said, “Yeah. I guess I got off lucky.” He thought about the goblin in the bathroom and realised, in a strange sense, how close he had come. He smiled at Leslie, wryly, and she smiled back, a dreary and sardonic smile. Had her face always been so bleak?

He glanced around the sterile room. “What’s behind the curtain?”

“A glass door. There’s a little balcony.”

“Brilliant. I’m going out for a smoke.”

“Charlie—I highly doubt Dr. Yeoh would support—”

“Leslie, I’m lying in a hospital bed in a blue polyester smock. The only other time I’ve been in such a situation, I was about twenty inches long, and naked. I need a cigarette.”

“You told me you quit.”

“I lied.”

“Yeah, well, I didn’t really believe you anyway.”

He grinned as he swung his bare legs off the side of the bed. “Well, then, I guess we both know each other far too well.” He went onto the balcony and lit up, and after a while Leslie came and joined him.

Tisiphone cleared her throat. It was difficult to think clearly in this place. There was too much smoke. “Ah,” she said. “It has come to fruition that we, as a united entity, have sound and possibly significant reason to believe that he—this man—Charlie…”

The Cat interrupted her, exasperated with her verbosity. “We suspect that Charlie Fortune may have already been Marked.”

Tisiphone, the Cat, Snickwit and others held their collective breath.

The man with the forked tongue leaned back and steepled his fingers. His voice was silk gliding over silk. He looked only at Tisiphone. “Is this true, darling?”

“It certainly helps to explain why it has been so difficult to finish him,” she said slowly. “It is always far harder—harder, but not impossible.”

“Impossible for you lot, perhaps.” The boy with the forked tongue released a small, mildly frustrated sigh. “Fine—I suppose I shall simply have to take care of this one myself.”

And he rose from his chair, and fetched his suit-jacket from the coat-rack (flipping it sharply once to smooth out the creases) and shrugged it over his slim shoulders, and buttoned it at the waist. He straightened his cuffs, hefted the Scissors onto one shoulder and walked out without glancing at the others.

The demonic creatures left in the room shuffled their feet. The goblin and the albino wolf glanced awkwardly at one another, and then glanced awkwardly away.

The Cat had watched the man depart with haughty, crimson eyes. “You know something? We’ve all been around since the dawn of time, and I still don’t truly know who he is.”

“If you really want to know,” said Tisiphone, dryly, “you could say that ‘bub’ is more than just an affectionate term.”

He had sent Leslie home.

The hospital was dark and devoid of the usual soft, snuffling noises of sick people sleeping.

Leslie had gone home, because Charlie had told her to, and now Charlie sat in the chair next to his hospital bed with his bare, calloused feet flat against the frigid floor. The balcony door was open. The curtains stirred.

Charlie was wide awake, because his body felt like it was on fire, and everything around him seemed edged in glowing colours. He jiggled his legs with incessant, nervous energy. He tossed a solid, round object up and down in his right hand.

The hospital was dark and abnormally quiet.

The room felt cold for a long time.

Charlie heard them coming before he saw them. Deep, low footfalls, each one as terrible as a roaring hurricane or a waterfall crashing from a high cliff, shivering through the entire building. He was burning.

Through the glass window the corridor outside was black. And the young man that came striding towards Charlie shone like a beacon of light. His tongue, which was cleft into two like a snake’s, glistened in his own aura.

The footsteps of the man with the forked tongue were silent. But the horde of devils that swarmed a short way behind him—they came noisily, with drums, and bloodlust, and hollering. They came like the Red Sea.

Charlie rattled his feet faster. “Paper…”

The devils stampeded through the hospital. The man at the front of the battalion, their boyish leader, did not change his pace. The sharp, forked blades of his weapon glistened silver like his serpent-tongue.

Charlie felt the night breeze wrap around him like a giant’s hand. “Scissors…”

The man came upon the door of Charlie’s hospital room, and for a frozen moment Charlie saw the face all lit up in blue moonlight: the wide, beautiful eyes, the boyish forehead, the elegant bones, the pretty mouth.

The door banged open, and He stood in the entrance.

“Rock,” said Charlie.

“What?”

“Rock wins,” said Charlie, looking at the Scissors in the man’s hand. “Sorry.”

And Charlie hurled the small, round object at the demon’s head.

It made a hard, heavy thud. The Scissors slipped. Before the rock hit the floor, Charlie was already up and out of the chair, darting across the room like a monkey, completely forgetting that he had suffered a myocardial infarction a mere day-and-a-half previously.

The Scissors were in Charlie’s hand. He hurled them over the balcony, and stood, defiant, staring, shoulders heaving.

But the boy with the forked tongue was laughing. He said in a delicious voice, “Not by your own strength, Charlie.”

It meant: It amuses me that you think you even have the smallest chance of winning.

The demon went to the side of the bed, and pulled sharply, and broke something. And at the same moment Charlie felt like someone had cracked a glass vial within his chest, and a black and oozing and venomous thing was swallowing him inside out.

Charlie choked, “Don’t—touch—me.”

And he turned his back on the demon, and ran for the door which he had left open, and without baulking in the slightest he threw himself over the balcony.

And then he was falling—he was Charlie Fortune, middle-aged, alcoholic, really quite good-for-nothing, part-time computer analyst, part-time the Man who Defied Death and Demons, and he was falling. And for a moment he saw the world tilted on its axis, and the sky was at his feet and he was treading on the surface of the moon—and in that eternal instant, Charlie thought that he was falling into the heavens.