Creative Writing Course - The Final Product

Well, here it is folks. My final piece for the Creative Writing course with the Open University, which has received a 'Distinction' from the Board of Examiners. It must be good!

The Action Hero


I am pedalling towards a village. It’s a small village, with a few stone houses gathered around a shop selling statues, a church with a graveyard, and not much else.
Beside me on the road there is a man walking. He has a tiny dog and is talking to it like it’s his wife.
‘You always do that, don’t you Lily. Every Saturday. Hurrummph. Ev-er-y Saturday.’
I wonder what has happened to his wife. I wonder if she died. I always think about this when I see a man with a dog.

I keep pedalling and come to the centre of the village. It is a bit bigger than I thought - there is a pub and a green and a stream that rushes towards a waterwheel - and it smells funny, like our back garden on the day Grandma comes round for tea. I like that smell.
I have seen a hundred villages like this in the weeks that I have been pedalling and I don’t like them. You can’t hide in a village, even if you are pedalling on a bike. The man talking to his dog, the farmer holding a gun, the little girl making a chain out of weeds - they all stare and want to know who you are and what you are doing. They all want to stop for a chat.
I really want to keep pedalling but they are not going to let me. From the moment I saw the man and his dog, I knew this would be the village where I would have to stop. As I eat my ice cream I can see them hiding behind curtains and hear them rustling in the bushes, loading their guns and laying traps in case I try to escape. No more pedalling for me. No more journey. I have to stay in the village forever.

It makes me laugh when I think about it, because fifty days ago I didn’t want to leave the village at all. As I pedalled away from the school gates, past the weeping willow and the lawnmower shop, I felt sick and wanted to start crying.
‘Why do I have to leave? Why me? It wasn’t my fault, I didn’t mean it. She’ll forgive me, I know she will.’
But then I heard the voices again, like knives being sharpened for dinner, and I remembered I didn’t have a choice. I had to pedal, no matter where it took me. I had to leave the village as quickly as I could.

I crossed the bridge over the lake and pedalled hard, not looking back until I reached the chapel on top of the hill. They hadn’t seen me. They weren’t chasing anymore. I could sit and eat a jam sandwich and no one would bother me.
‘The village looks much smaller from up here,’ I thought as I ate. ‘It’s like one of those toys we have at home, where you can build something, then break it down and build something different instead. The church with the bent steeple, the school, the headmaster with the ruler, the policeman with the belt, the kids who throw mud, Vanessa with the big come-on - I could smash them all down, flatten them on the ground and build something better. It would be easy.’
I finished my sandwich, made a fist and aimed it at the village. Then I started pedalling. Someday I would come back and knock them down for good.

After a bit more pedalling I started crying. The fields were funny colours and the houses strange shapes, and the road big and full of growling cars that tried to bite you. There wasn’t anything I knew and there was no-one I could stop to ask for help. Even the grass on the verge wanted to wrap around me and cut my throat.
I sobbed and sobbed.
‘Why? Why can’t I go back? Why do you all hate me?’ Then I thought about Vanessa, about how she had choked on the water in the lake and spat it in my face, and I started pedalling again. I was an adventurer, and adventurers didn’t need help. They liked strange colours and shapes.

I kept on crying like this, over and over, and thought that maybe I should go back to the village and tell them I was sorry. Then I ate a jam sandwich.
‘If I go back to the village I’ll never be allowed out again. The strange fields and the cars with the teeth - have become my friends. I still don’t like it when it gets dark or when a hundred roads come at me in a big circle, but I’m not scared anymore. Nothing awful is going to happen. It’s loud out here and it smells a bit funny, but that doesn’t mean it’s dangerous like they said. It’s just different, and different is good. Different means I’m not going to be locked in the ‘bad’ room. Different means they won’t shout or hit me in the face with a ruler. Different is safe. Everything will be okay as long as I keep pedalling.
‘I never wanted to hurt anyone.’
Soon the villages stopped completely and the green and yellows combined to form a great orange ocean. Houses were lined up in rows as far as I could see, and flats in blocks stretched up as high as the sky. I felt sick as I pedalled into it.
‘What if they are like them? What if they stare and shout, and hit me all at once? I don’t want to go back to the village but I don’t want to be here either.
‘I didn’t want to hurt her. I didn’t want to hurt anyone.’

I pedalled faster and stayed in the middle of the road. It felt safe there. It was like the grey sky on a stormy night - trucks thundering, lights flashing - bang, crash and roar. I liked nights like this. They made me feel excited when I lay in bed. I wanted to be in the sky. I wanted to be where the action was.
Then as I pedalled on, the night became even more exciting. From the shadows colours jumped out at me - greens and yellows and pinks - then danced and spun like performers in a circus; cars crowded together and lined up in formation, a parade at the centre of the party; music boomed and thumped with the sound of a thousand falling bombs; and people were gathered everywhere, more people than I had ever seen, shouting in words I didn’t understand, in packs like legions of troops going to battle, dressed in pink and purple armour that showed off their flesh, all beautiful and muscley, all ready to exchange blows. I had pedalled into a different world and there was a war and a party going on all at once. I should have been scared. I should have turned round. But I didn’t. I couldn’t. It was like escaping from a dream and I couldn’t wake up.
Around me people spread and gushed in cascades of movement and action and I stared as I pedalled through. None of them stared back or shouted. They all had better things to look at.
With each mile it became more like one of those films I’d watch at home, where the guns are firing and the bombs are falling and the hero runs in slow motion. I was that hero. I was the hero running through the battle who no-one can hurt. The action hero. Pedal pedal. Pedal pedal. Action! Boom!

I lay on a bench that night and I felt stronger and more important than ever before. My arms were big and muscley, the scars on my back were tough and the ideas in my head were clever and important. When I thought about the people in the village – the headmaster who shouted, my mother who threw me into the yard and the kids who threw bricks and called me a queer - I didn’t feel anything. They had never been to the city, they hadn’t seen what I had and they would never be heroes like me.
Then, as more explosions flashed in the sky, I thought about Vanessa. I thought about pulling her body from the lake - limp and slippery like a fish; I thought about her skin - white and cold and oiled with blood; and her lips - red and bloody and giving me the come-on. I thought about her face floating up to mine, kissing me and smiling and telling me that we could stay together forever. If only she was here now we could be safe. In the city they would leave us alone. No-one would stop to look or shout.

The sun rose and I woke to the sound of running feet and shouting voices. It was exciting but quite scary and I got back on the bike and pedalled away.
After a while the roads became thin again and the lights stopped flashing and the colours turned back to yellow and green. The city had gone, the country was back and it made me feel bad. I wanted to be an action hero all the time, and even though I was pedalling and moving through fields it was different here. They’d be watching me. When the trees dangled over the road they would wrap their branches around my neck. The birds would shout every time I pedalled past:
‘Chirp, chirp chirp. He’s here, he’s here. Chirp - look out! Stop! Don’t let him get away.’
And the wind, it tried to blow me into the bushes and the rivers, so they could swallow me up.
‘Whoossshh - chase him down. Whoossshh - tie him up. Throw him in the river. Let him drown.’
And the villages made me cry now, worse than ever. I would stop and eat an ice cream and my tears would drip and melt white mess onto my shoes. I would see women in the shops look at me and whisper, and men on the farms put down their tools and load their guns. Then in the lakes I would see her, floating on the water, her white body bruised from where I had hit her and her legs spread out from where I had ripped them open. I had to keep pedalling. I couldn’t stop for ice cream anymore.
I didn’t mean to hurt her.

I pedalled and pedalled and pedalled until finally twinkling lights appeared in the distance. A warm feeling came into my stomach and I stopped being scared. Storm clouds gathered in the sky, bombs started to fall and I rode into town like the hero returning to save the day. I was still the strong man. I was still the action hero, and I wanted to stay like him forever.
I think that was why I had to kill the dog. I had to show them how strong I was, make them stop whispering and reaching for their guns, be the action hero and keep him inside me.

It was after lunch in a village on the forty-fifth day when it attacked. The afternoon was quiet and sunny, I was happily pedalling causing no problems to anyone, and the village was much like the others I pedalled through - it had a shop, a pub, a pond and a road, and people who stared.
‘Sssshhhh,’ hissed the trees, waving their branches. ‘Ssshhhh. Don’t worry. I won’t hurt you.’
‘Thunk,’ clattered a fence, blowing in the wind. ‘Thunk. You. Get off. Get off me you brute!’
I pedalled hard to get away.
‘Thud-thud-thud,’ the dog pounded. ‘Thud-thud-thud.’
‘Stop. You’re hurting me, stop!’
Then I saw it running beside my feet, white fur like an angel and red eyes like the devil.
‘Bark! Bark-bark!’
It leapt at my legs.
‘Bark! Bark-bark!’
I pedalled harder.
‘Bark!’
But couldn’t get away.
‘Bark.
‘You killed me.’
‘Bark.
‘You put your hands around my neck.’
‘Bark.’
‘Then you squeezed tighter and tighter
‘Bark.’
‘Until I couldn’t breathe.’
‘Bark.’
‘And threw me in the lake.’
‘Bark.’
‘And left me alone, naked, to die.’
‘Bark!’
Cold bone clamped onto my leg and bloodied fangs pierced the flesh in my thigh. Streams of blood flowed onto the road.
‘It!’
Kick.
‘Wasn’t!’
Kick!
‘My!’
Kick, kick!
‘Fault!’
I stopped the bike, picked up the dog by its neck and throttled it as hard as I could. Then I put it down and stamped on its head.
‘It wasn’t my fault! It wasn’t my fault! I didn’t mean to hurt her! It wasn’t my fault.’
Then I started to pedal again.

I didn’t stop until I reached another city and was able to breathe. Around me bombs were exploding and guns were firing and soldiers were running, and everyone ignored me. I rode through now with her alongside me, holding onto me as I pedalled, kissing my neck and saying that she loved me. I was the action hero and I wanted to stay here forever.
But the action hero had to keep moving. If he stopped it would not be long before he found himself back in the village getting kicked and laughed at and thrown in the lake.
‘Ha. Ha ha! Look at the freak, the freak can’t swim.’
‘Ignore them,’ she’d say as we walked back to school. ‘Just be yourself.’
She was right. I was myself. I was the action man and she was beside me.
As we left the city and rode into the villages I heard more dogs barking and people barking too:
‘Bark. Bark bark bark!’
But it didn’t matter. I just ignored them and talked to her instead.

They wouldn’t let the action man keep going though. Even after he’d been pedalling for fifty days, and had found the person he wanted to be and the girl that he loved, they forced him to stop. The city, the lights, the excitement - all of it was to be taken away so he could go back to a shop, a church, a pond and a cell.
It’s funny because as I sit here now, licking my ice cream and watching the children on the village green, it feels a bit like the city again. All around they are moving - loading their guns and laying their traps and preparing for the explosions - and in the centre of the action is me, with the girl alongside. I am the hero.
I finish off my ice cream, stand up from the bench and start pedalling again, and that’s when the shouting begins.
‘Bark. Bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark!’
‘That’s enough. We have you surrounded. Step away from the bike and stay where you are. Don’t make this more difficult than you have to.’
They won’t let me move. They won’t let me be the action hero. They won’t let be myself or be with her. And I don’t like it.