Phoenix and the Bag Man

Chapter 20: When

You said "Write the truth."

I thought "Whose truth?"

I asked "How will I know when I have reached the end?"

You answered "The story will tell you when."

I paused too long and the flames caught me. Mainly my hands, which were superficially burnt but very bloody. I didn't know burns bled. My clothes were scorched and my sleeves were alight but outside Katyia doused the flames and we stripped my smouldering clothes off before the heat really got to my skin. By the time the police finally arrived, after Lefty had told X who told Y who told William who told the police and after red hat and beige coat had reported the fracas in her street and plod had found the car and at last put one and two together, I was virtually naked. Katyia commented that I only seemed to strip for her if I was freezing to death or burning to death, and that we would have to work on that.

"I never said that," giggles Katyia. I type down what she says. She laughs.

"That's it," I type. "What do you think?"

"Prefer a good romance meself." she says. I type: 'he took her in his arms....' She laughs some more.

Katyia swivels around on the arm of the chair and slides down onto my lap, wraps her arms round me and lays her head on my shoulder. She plays with her hair, watching her fingers repeatedly wind and unwind a few strands. It has grown longer now. I carry on typing with one hand.

'You know I looked up all about hearing voices and seeing people and that...'

'Yeah, Dr Faisal says you can learn to live with it." I am still waiting.

"Would that be me or you?" says Katyia.

I laugh.

"I'm better now, anyway. And everyone loves me again, including a whole new family. Even the police now they've decided I'm innocent."

"I wish I could have seen Phoenix," she says "because she was real, I am sure she was."

"Well, that kind of talk's sure to help my treatment!"

I bring up on screen the picture of the burnt house, alongside the typescript, the time and place where it all began.

They think Phoenix is a voice, a part of me. But I know it's Phoebe, alive and well and living in my head. I think she's been there since the fire.

Pixels snapping into focus, sharper than before. In the window is a figure. I am watching the pixels blur and refocus, reforming themselves into image after image. It is Phoenix. They show her turning towards the window, in crude stop frame animation. She's smiling directly out of the screen at me, raises a hand and gives a little wave. I smile too. I am wiping the tears from my eyes to see more clearly, but now there are just shadows and reflections, a hint of a figure perhaps, but no more.

"Oh, and," says Katyia, looking up, "you've spelt my name wrong, all the way through, it's spelled K-A-T-I-A."

"Oh crap!"

"Supper's ready!" calls Mum.

So, this is the end. Time to shut down. The truth is told. The story is done. This is when.