Treacletops the Dream Fairy part 3 by Jonathan Malory

Mark VI

The Dream Fairy relaxed for a while, taking in the super enlightened cosmos of Dream Space and delighting in the feathery touch of Dream Motes skipping past her. Every now and then, centuries apart in human terms, Treacletops would spot a familiar consciousness; she didn’t know quite how, but there was something about them that created an iridescence unlike the Many. The soul she saw now slew into Dream Space like an autumn leaf drifting to the earth and gently brushing the tall green grass, then getting caught up again and almost disappearing back through the Entrance – he was daydreaming, she’d bet all the acorns in the world that he was an old man again too; he was always a man and he always started daydreaming this way when he was very old, soon to move on. Daydreamers attracted Motes in a subtle way that is hard to define, as if they know the dreamer is in the Waking World but they are actively trying to tempt them away with their exotic ideas that lay within.

This is pretty much the only time that Motes appear to have a consciousness of their own, the only time they seek out souls instead of being sought themselves; the act is in no way menacing or undertaken with ill intent, of this Treacletops was sure, but other than that she’s never known why they do it and what force lay behind their actions. There were thirteen of them now gently nudging at the consciousness as it sluiced to and fro across the Entrance, absorbing into one, then another, then faded outside again and so on. Treacletops flew over to the activity and followed the consciousness in and out of the enticing Motes, if she tried really hard she could even follow him a little into the Waking World where he was sitting in an old brown armchair watching crows in a tree through his kitchen window, talking to someone Treacletops could not see.

“They were what’s known as Dragoons you see, the Queen’s Own Dragoons – horses.” Raymond explained.

“Do you like horses?” Treacletops asked him, like a ghost from the past. They were in his kitchen again; crows were noisily playing at the top of a hundred-foot high poplar in the field out back.

“By yes, best friend I ever had was a horse, we did everything together; fed ‘em, groomed ‘em, went galloping up to Escrick and along the river to Rowntree’s Park all the time. It was a sad time when we had to let ‘em go. You see the government were changing us all over to tanks so we had to take the horses to the train station and load ‘em up, there were a few tears among the lads on that day I can tell you.”

He faded off into a Mote and the Dream Fairy followed, wondering what kind of trouble he was going to be in this time. He was always in the thick of things, in some big war or battle; lives beyond reckoning she’d seen this consciousness reborn into troubled times then reminiscing the whole thing on his own near the end. He was in a small room, it was hot and smelly – gunpowder, diesel and sweat; Treacletops curled up and sat beside him on a little crate, he was fiddling with something in a nervous fashion, like it might blow up in his face.

“Come on Ray, scares the shit outta me when you arse around with those bloody things.” Another man called down to him, he was standing with his head poking through a hole in the ceiling so that she couldn’t see what he looked like.

“What are you doing Ray?” Treacletops asked him, “What is that you are playing with?

“I’m setting ‘em up with seven second fuses so Charlie can lob ‘em far enough and shut the hatch before they go off.” Replied Raymond, not the least perturbed at seeing a fairy resplendent with gossamer wings asking him question from atop an ammo crate. Treacletops always appeared fully in front of this one, hoping that one day he’d realise what he was looking at and she’d break his cycle of war.

“Oh, I see.” Replied Treacletops, even though she really did not, but he had gone again. She followed him back to the kitchen.

“Then there was the Fourteen Twenties, that’s what we called ‘em,” explained Raymond again to no one in particular, “you see there was two regiments, the Fourteenth King’s Hussars and the Twentieth Hussars and the government you see wanted to cut back so the two came together, amalgamated and became the Fourteenth/Twentieth Hussars, we called ‘em the Fourteen Twenties.”

Before Treacletops could say anything he was gone again, back to the little metal room with the man standing up through a hole.

“Righto Charlie!” Raymond passed two hand grenades up to his only companion in this tiny death trap, who wasted no time in tossing the little pineapples as far as he could before coming back inside. There was the all too brief seven-second pause before the grenades went off and shrapnel whizzed over their little tank like a swarm of bees. They had to get away quickly, speed was all their tank was good for, before a proper tank came along and blew them to bits. Raymond had been proud of his little Mark VI when he’d been driving it through the English countryside and everyone was waving them on with a cheer, even the French were pleased to see them and allowed them to fill up with fuel at their stations for free; but it was only three days ago now that Raymond and Charlie realised how woefully inadequate their infantry support vehicle was. They’d spotted a lone German Tiger Tank in a field shelling allied positions, Charlie and Raymond had somehow ended up on the wrong side and unspotted, possibly due to their speed and low profile, so they decided they’d take old Jerry by surprise and give him a shot up the backside. The first shot they fired ricocheted off the German armour, so they moved closer and fired again; the second shot had done the same so they moved closer still; they continued in this fashion until they were right behind the German tank, only a few feet away, but with the noise of the German’s own shells being fired and its machine gun they never even noticed that Charlie and Raymond were behind them in their little tank hoping to blow them up. “Let’s get the fuck out of here,” Charlie had said, and they backed away as quickly as they could and turned avoiding German Tiger’s into an art form throughout the rest of their war.

They’d stopped the tank again near some allied troops and Raymond passed his mate another brace of grenades.

“Bombs away!” Shouted Charlie in a semi-jovial manner then, “Oh fuck!” He shouted as one of the grenades got caught on his jacket and fell back into the tank at Raymond’s feet.

“Shit!” Raymond shoved Charlie through the open hatch and quickly followed him, Treacletops floated into the air to get a better view. There was smoke and filth and fire and mud everywhere, the Dream Fairy floated higher until she could see little pockets of people dug into foxholes and shooting at each other, she saw Raymond and Charlie waving frantically at a gaggle of infantry hiding behind the tank like chicks behind their mother, they all ran faster than Olympic runners and dived on top of their comrades in a circular bunker surrounded by sandbags – the grenade exploded inside the Mark VI and bulged the metal surface slightly for a nanosecond before the rest of the grenades and ammo ignited and the whole thing went up like a volcanic eruption, sending fire into the air and leaving the tank looking like a modern art sculpture of a tarnished sunflower. Treacletops hurtled into the sky with the force of the blast and out of the Mote with a “Wheeeeeeeee,” then giggled as she was floating out in Dream Space again. Always trouble with that one.

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