Floodlights

Chapter 1

Black.

The storm clouds gather in the sky as the sun dips beneath the river. Before the moon can impress itself in the night's sky, the clunk and flickering of floodlights come on. As they warm the crisp misty night air, they gently highlight a green piece of heaven. The football pitch looks bright and mounted as it is surrounded by a dirty old running track. Banks rise from the track's sides creating the ultimate mini crater of semi professional football. Two split old chicken shed quality seating stands stare at two small wooden dugouts on either side of the pitch. Behind the stands, led to by a fenced pathway, are the changing rooms and Clubhouse.

The Clubhouse is small and twin headed by a small bar and food window. The smell is distinguishable and individual with its musky old aroma. It is a blend of tea, hot dogs, onions, beer, cigarette smoke and low-level semi professional football. The room is rammed with a high level of nonsensical chat and older gentlemen. However there is more than just stale nicotine in the air. There is a buzz of anticipation and expectancy.

"So I hear there are a few people to watch the boy tonight" mumbles a regular and club fan.

"Yeah apparently they've been watching him since he turned seventeen." Replies the Club Secretary.

"Yeah yeah the lot are here tonight, one good game tonight and he'll go pro for sure."

"The Orient, Southend, Gillingham, Wimbledon are down again but the Chairman was telling me that Arsenal are interested too." Excitedly claims the Secretary.

"Good luck to the lad, nice boy, very poetic with the ball." The Secretary positively pronounces.

"Poetic?" Chuckles the regular. "Is there something in your hot dog? Well I'll have it if so! Poetic!"

The smell of horse oils, deep heat and early sweat bleeds through the corridor from the changing rooms and dampen the conversation, as each team prepare for battle.

The teen looks like a young Chris Waddle with shirt out and sloppiness in his appearance. He ties his aluminous Diadora boots and is a man deeply in focus. The team's chat is loud and on the game. He sleeks around to the toilets and gels his hair up before the game becomes completely detached from society. He prepares for battle by pulling on his treasured number six jersey and readies himself. As they line up in the corridor ready to leave the changing rooms, his small slight frame speaks loudly like a Prince Philip gaffe or President Bush Junior threat. The team's noise and shouts of "come on boys, let's 'ave it" bellow up and down the tiny corridor. He looks through the lit up door and turns. He feels tight in the stomach and loose in his muscles as he prepares to fully extend his body to extremes never before imagined. He says the same phrases over and over in his mind.

"You are a winner, you are a winner, every ball, every ball, win the tackle, be hard, relax in front of goal, do not think, do not think, stop thinking, go with your gut, go with your instincts, instincts"

They have a trancing effect and sound like someone else hypnotising him into a machine. He turns round and stares at the light. The two chicken-shed stands look like black bookends encasing the bright channel of light and pitch. The platform is set for the performance: Act one will begin...

Crunch.

Black.

"Urgh!" The young man squeaks out as he shudders awake from his deep dream. While deeply panting, struggling for breath and composure he scrambles around his bedside cabinet. Matthew, with a stubbled shadow and extremely tussled bed hair, grabs his alarm clock and sighs heavily at the sight of another four in the morning. He throws it to the side and reaches for his cabinet lamp. The light is dim and illuminates the room just enough to see its large size. Yet it also highlights the mess; the clothes are randomly thrown across any furniture where it clings onto for dear life, trying not to be sucked into the traction beam of forgotten garments buried on the floor. The bedroom fittings themselves cramp and clutter the room giving it a cold cave like sensation as they strive for purpose and space to breathe. As Matthew settles himself and finds a breath, he clambers to the window and pulls down the blinds. He looks out across a dark street almost swallowed up with water. The continuing rains fall across his vision blurring the illuminated 'Taj Mahal Restaurant Fine Indian Cuisine' sign that for once is not flickering on and off. He moves around his room moving videos, pictures and shuffling papers like a programmed Furbie that has learned from routine. He moves towards a desk where the only space seems to be. There sits a leather journal nicely framed by a white table; kept cool like a king by an old fan. He picks up the fat journal, throws it to his bed where he lays down. Under the guidance of the lamps light and incessant falling of rain, he begins to write.           

The Patient sitting there quietly hasn't moved in an hour. He is very quiet hardly making a sound. All that can be heard is the whistle and clutter of an outdated air conditioner. He has controlled breathing and an eerie glassy eyed stare. He wears the white pyjamas of the hospital – the poster boy for utter calm. Surrounded by a white cell. Nothing can get in or out apart from through the large door to his left. The walls are white - not magnolia, off white or cream. They are sterile white. All uniformed, all designed with military precision. The only colour in this blindingly light room is from the patient's short, jet-black locks and pinkie white skin. He is his own iris packed in by the pure white ball.

The noise is wild. The loudness of the sounds is deafening him. So many voices, thoughts and dreams acting as a pinball smashing around a table. His brain the eternal flipper and the side of his head seemingly as elastic as the muscle it holds. It is a carnival that will never stop. This is not like the room in which he sits for there is no way out. He does have balance though. Yet in all this commotion and calm he can feel it creeping up on him. Like a dark cloud in a bright sky, the shadow is coming inch by inch. The presence is creeping up on him. The paralysing essence is nowhere and everywhere and is beginning to claw its way closer. The patient can feel it and with every beat the thing's heart gets louder. Where is it? Is it even anywhere? Now it breathes. Deeply like a wolf's pant in every interval. The patient's head gets louder and faster. His body grows slower and slower. He doesn't even bother to blink.

It's on the patient's shoulder slobbering his saliva around its ear. It breathes harsh, stinking breath while digging its claws into the patient's broad base. Its tail wags.

The Shadow closes in.