Gary McMahon

How strange it is that one night, shortly after midnight, you find yourself awake and unable to rest. Your mind is tired, drooping like molten wax, but your body is twitching and energised. You sit in an armchair, mute and staring before the chill blank eye of the television screen, wondering what strange mood could have come over you.

Then, as if controlled by some outside influence, your legs begin to move slowly up and down, up and down, as, puzzled and confused, you stamp your bare feet on the worn carpet. After long minutes of this odd behaviour, you feel yourself standing, removing your dressing gown, and putting on heavy shoes and outdoor clothing.

It is raining outside, but you walk to the front door and step out into the late night street, not really wanting to do so but utterly unable to cease the movement of your runaway physique.

Striding through the rain you peer into warm windows, grab at gateposts, feebly attempt to shuffle back towards your home. But it is all to no avail; your body desires motion. It is taking you somewhere that your blood, bone and meat cannot refuse.

After a short while you break into a run. Your mind goes completely blank, and you forget about your sleeping wife, your dozing daughter in her small child’s cot.

Darkness presses in on you, bearing you up and carrying you away. You run through the empty rain-blurred streets like a slave given freedom, or a criminal on the loose.

Your rogue feet carry you deep into the surging night, taking you towards a place that you never even knew existed. A new land of liberty and opportunity.

As you head for this enchanted quarter, many others join you, fellow travellers on a similar sudden journey; and the look of resigned terror upon each upturned moist and shining face is reflected in your own sodden features.

But still you cannot halt your feet, and as you and these strangers gather together, brushing against one another in the sickly city darkness, you bounce off each other and spin away like wind-up toys. Still alone, isolated. Pale, unnaturally aged faces leer at you, and grasping hands reach out to hold onto something solid; then they are gone, retreating into the shadows.

At some mysteriously appointed time, the group parts, drifts away into its separate wandering shards, and you find yourself heading back home. You pound the same quiet streets, look in the same windows, and let yourself back into the same house where your family lie blissfully unaware of your enforced nocturnal activities.

You reluctantly climb the stairs and stand outside your daughters room; watch in cold numb horror as your hand reaches out to open the door. Your feet step inside and force you to stand over the sleeping child, breathing heavily, and motionless at last.

You wait, wondering what you might do next.