Two

...and I picked it up. It was an ordinary enough fork, a piece of curved steel, slightly tarnished, with the requisite four tines. It looked old, as if it had been there for some time, and yet there was something I couldn't quite put my finger on. So I did. On one of the prongs, I mean. Accidentally, of course. Naturally, I dropped it, out of surprise not from any real pain. It had just been a little prick. With a slight grimace of distaste on my face, more from imagining what tasteless innuendo my travelling companion would have come up with had I uttered that thought out loud than the sight of the fork lying there, an exsanguinated droplet smearing the steel in fashion that was rather accusatory, I thought.

Kieran hadn't even noticed that I had lagged behind and stopped. Typical. His brisk pace had carried him a fair distance forward of my position. Looking around, I noticed that there was hardly anyone else around. Not surprising. It was after all a usual Sunday morning on the streets of sleepy Cambridge. The various bells of the numerous churches and chapels across the city, not to mention those digital imitations, convenient as they were, that adorned so many wrists -- wrists that would probably be, for the vast majority of the student population of this sleepy market town at least, tucked up beneath snug blankets or hanging limply over mattress edges following the indulgences -- many far from papal, I would opine -- of the previous night -- sorry, got a bit carried away there. I don't mean to be so scathing or sarcastic of students -- after all, that everyone else's task -- I just get a little tired of being tarred with the same stereotype brush as others of my ilk. I, much to my own chagrin, am not like them. Never have been. But then, that's my fault, of course. Like most things in this world. Rats. Anyway, back to then.

Timepieces across the city had yet to strike eight of the clock. I knew, in near absolute certainty, that this annoyed Kieran Anders -- Andy for preference. Like many others, especially here, he was not a morning person. Not that he hated or detested them or anything like that. It was just he prefers to sleep late, an attitude I just find terribly wasteful and, as such, rarely hesitated berating him about. Good-naturedly and somewhat in jest, of course. I like the mornings. I feel productive if I'm up early. Besides, it's a little quiet-time to myself. Especially at home. Those uninterrupted few hours when I can curl up in front of the stereo with a cup of tea and a good book or idle them away in front of the computer. Okay, you may laugh. Go ahead -- most people do.

As I said, I feel productive if I've been up for a good few hours ahead of most of my cadre of associates. As to how justified that feeling is, depends upon the rest of the day. I feel worthwhile in those early hours -- a feeling, though, which has a tendency to evaporate as quickly as the dew on a summer's morning, no matter the weather. At least I can enjoy it and myself for an hour or two. What is 'it'? Oh, I don't know. The apparent quietude of a busy world, perhaps. Or at least the idealistic conception of such a state of affairs. But as per usual, I've left the beaten track.

Kieran stopped. I knew because the flow of chatter that invariably streamed forth from his lips had ceased to drift across the still if somewhat chilly morning air. "Rav?" came the querying voice. I smiled to myself. It was quicker today, probably due to the lack of congestion on the street. He'd only taken about half a minute to realise I wasn't at my usual place by his side, or more accurately a few paces behind. That's not to say I was a slower walker than him. Au contraire, my length of stride was greater than his, consequentially my gait faster, on account of his slighter stature.

In plain language, he was shorter than me.

However, a year and a bit in each other's company had meant that I had adapted my pace so that he could keep up. I mean this as no condescension, merely a statement of fact. The shortening of stride is slightly uncomfortable for me but it suits him, that's the main thing. However, my innate absent-mindedness and tendency to be easily distracted mean that oftentimes I forget and leave him behind before remembering and pulling up short.

Anyhow, I had stooped down to re-examine the surprisingly-sharp utensil that just sat there in the road, a scarlet stain across its tips carrying, what I can only describe at this time as, inanimate malevolence. I don't know why but the description seemed appropriate at the time. There was nothing special, as far as I could tell, about the fork. It was just a standard piece of household steelware to me. But then I'm no metallurgist and I wasn't exactly going to take the time to find someone to run a spectrographic analysis to determine if there were anything untoward with it. I don't know why I was thinking that, I just remember doing so. Sometimes, a fork is just a fork. On the other hand... Never mind, getting ahead of myself there.

Puzzled and, to a certain degree, annoyed at myself for having forgotten, however momentarily, why we two had ventured forth this morning, I rose and made my way slowly back to the kerbside and, as it would transpire, the safety of the pavement. As it was, I was still intrigued, if that's the right word, as to the presence of the fork there. I couldn't get rid of the feeling that it had, for whatever reason, been placed there deliberately. Carelessness? Malice? Who knows?

Casting my gaze around to find a suitable receptacle in which to dispose of the offending object, I went to rejoin Kieran. By this point he was looking on disinterestedly and leaning against the pale and weathered stone of a bank's façade, struggling manfully -- or should that be boyfully -- sorry, Andy, low blow -- oops, I mean poor jibe -- there mate -- to suppress a yawn. "Come on mate! What did you drag me out here for if all you're gonna do is stare at bits of the street?" He paused. "What's that anyway?" he muttered, apparently noticing the play of sunlight across the piece of metal I was holding whilst pushing himself off from the wall and out of his reclined position.

However, just as I had opened my mouth to answer his question, there was an unexpected occurrence. 'Unexpected' as in 'surprising' would be probably more accurate, though. A cyclist came down the road. Now that, in itself, would not be surprising -- with Cambridge being a student town, whole fleets are likely to assail one at any given, sensible, moment. A lecturing day when you weren't almost knocked seven ways from Sunday was surprising. What caused us to stop agape was the turn of speed at which the bicycle was going. With the cyclist's legs pumping furiously, I fairly imagine that I saw plumes of smoke drifting upwards from those revolving pedals. Of course, the whole spectacle was over in a matter of seconds but in my mind I could see a far more disastrous turn of events -- turn of the wheel, if you so prefer -- that's the Wheel of Fortune, I hope you had guessed -- sorry, still a bad pun -- having taken place.

For, as the vehicle, with its rider's unfettered blonde hair streaming behind her, Helios' rays twinkling goldenly over each billowing tress, had sped along, its course would have taken the front wheel directly over the sharpened tines of the fork in the road, with imaginably dire consequences.

"Wow! Did you see that?" exclaimed Kieran, his gaze fixed firmly on the fleeting figure fleeing down the road.

"I certainly did," was my carefully measured response.

"That was wicked!" I kid you not. That was the term he used. A throwback to our childhood of the early 90s.

"Most definitely. Wickedly sharp, would be more appropriate."

"Huh?" It was at this point he turned, obviously having guessed that we had been conversing at cross-purposes. In explanation I held up the innocently savage piece of steel. "It's a fork," he said bluntly.

"I know it's a fork. It was in the road, right in the path of that cyclist. She could have been quite badly injured had her wheel been punctured. The prongs have been sharpened. See for yourself." I held it out for him to examine. In a similar manner, despite my delicate handling of the object, the edge of a tine caught the side of his palm creating a tiny rift of skin and blood. "Ouch!" he yelped, recoiling at the momentary instance of pain.

"See? It did the same to me when I went to pick it up."

"Oh come on, you can't be serious. It's as if you're personifying it. It's just a fork. A sharp fork, but a fork nonetheless."

"I dunno. Every time I look at it... I get this real funny feeling... as if it's staring back at me... it's weird..." I tailed off as I looked up, hoping he would see the earnest sincerity on my face.

"You're nuts." He chuckled.

"Thanks, you're really understanding," I drawled, a smile hovering around the edges of my mouth.

"You're quite welcome," he riposted. "It's good to see you smiling again. You've been too serious of late. Lighten up. We've been worried about you."

"You have? Who's 'we'?" I said, the smile being displaced by concern.

"Your friends. You know, the guys that hang out with you. You do have friends."

"Yeah, yeah," I muttered dismissively, not wishing to rehash old conversations -- despite the fact that we invariably talked about the same old topics anyway -- at least, not today. It was true, though -- I hadn't exactly been the best of company in the preceding days -- not that I am good company at the-

"You never answered my question, y'know," said Kieran, his words cutting into my introspective reverie, dragging me up from whatever mire of self-pity I had been wallowing in. For things like that, I'll be forever grateful to him. He is a true friend, for all the zaniness and messed-up stuff that's he had to put up with from me. That's not to say he isn't just a tad loopy himself. It's just that since we met, he's always been the more confident of the two of us, as if having to compensate for my own lack of that precious commodity. I count upon him to lift me out of the doldrums whenever possible. Of course, I'd do the same for him but I've rarely had to so far. Although, that could be put down to the fact that he rarely let anybody, even me, past the oft-cheerful exterior that he presents to the world. But here's me drifting again...

"Huh? What did you say?" We had started walking again, although for the life of me I can't remember having engaged my legs -- all I recollect is that we had by this point.

"Where. Are. We. Going?" he asked, enunciating each word slowly and carefully, so as to drive them through whatever fog was clouding my mind. "Boy, you're even more out of it today than usual," he remarked, his usual insouciant grin plastered bemusedly across his features. Although whether this was in true deference to mocking me or just to cover his own 'inability' to deal with such early risings, I could not say. Kieran is one of those people who'll do anything to rouse a reaction from those around him in order to stave off his own boredom or an oppressive silence, almost regardless of the feelings of said persons.

"Would you believe me if I said, I wasn't quite sure?" I inquired, skipping ahead a few paces, hands held out in mock defence. I attempted, what I hope came across as, a wry smile.

"Oooookayyyyyyyy," was his elongated response. I hastened to provide enlightenment of the true nature of the situation. Or at least my meagre understanding of what I could piece together from the memories of the previous night. My, that was a mouthful.

"We're going... errr, we're going..." was my stuttered start as I struggled to recall the image of our destination, whilst clicking my figures in an attempted aide de memoire. "Ummm, I'm not exactly sure where we need to be but it's somewhere in the vicinity of Selwyn. I think." It was the first name in roughly the right area that came to mind.

"Great," he mumbled unconvincingly. "I've allowed myself to be led into the wilds of Cambridge by some mad visionary. What must have I been doing?!" he declaimed to the world at large. He stopped dead in his tracks -- well, I failed to hear any footfalls from behind me, so I presumed he had stopped -- although that's not entirely a valid assumption for he could have suddenly, and silently, been abducted -- could have been a close encounter of the third kind -- well, it could have -- it's a possibility -- and no sensible person would discount any line of inquiry, no matter how improbable -- rats! Sorry.

Noticing that he had fallen silent and had apparently stopped, I turned. The look upon his face was that of someone who had been forcefully struck by a serious thought, as if sent from up on high from Mnemosyne herself.

"Did you say Selwyn? As in, down Grange Road?" His quiet questions hung leadenly in the interpersonal air.

I had completely forgotten. Instant regret -- I should have said Robinson. I hastily attempted to make amends. "It's not even eight o'clock on Sunday morning, Andy. She's not going to be up yet, let alone walking the streets. Anyway, I said near Selwyn. Actually, it's probably nowhere near there, more out... Robinson way, way past Robinson actually. I don't even know why I said that really... We don't have to go down that way. We can go a different route..." I tailed off as I saw the look upon his face change, becoming brighter and breezier.

"Well, that's alright then." He started walking again, somewhat brusquely I thought, but forbore to comment. It was odd though. I'd never seen such an innocent turn of conversation affect Kieran in such a drastic manner. It was as if he had let slip his guard. I knew some of what had happened, but there was obviously bad blood between the two of them. I don't know if 'enmity' would be the right word. Actually, I'd better just leave it at that. It's not my place to speculate -- as much as I might be curious. After all, curiosity did kill the cat -- and throw it into the river with lead weights attached to its feet -- sorry, blatant literary piracy there. Just strike it from your memories, if you haven't already. If you didn't realise, all well and good.

"Well come on then, slowcoach. Don't dawdle. Lead on, lead on." Without realising it, he had passed me by and was now standing in the middle of the T-junction of the road ahead. Arms outstretched, he declared, "Whither are we wandering?"

"Don't do that!" I chided, "You know it scares me when you do things like that."

"I know," he grinned back roguishly. "Why else would I do it, m'lord?" he said, throwing former affectations back in my face. I suppose I'd better explain that. Back in the halcyon days of yore -- okay, okay, last year when I first started university -- I took to appending my directed comments with the honorific of 'm'lord' or 'm'lady' in the misguided thought that it might make me more endearing. I saw it as staking a claim of individuality for myself but I daresay people just looked at me oddly. Okay, more oddly then. The girls -- sorry, ladies -- found it sweet at first, I think. The guys just laughed. I can only assume that it was at me. What else would they do so otherwise? Oh well, if I can provide a modicum of amusement for others, I'll have served a function. Even if it is as the butt of everyone else's jokes. Or is that rather egotistical, to think that they would actually bother to talk about me? Oh dear. Sorry for waxing maudlin there.

"So? Which way is it to be?"

"Ummm, right. I think."

"On y vas, then."

"You seem sprightlier all of a sudden."

"Sprightlier?" he inquired, seeking a definition. I found myself mildly surprised that he had not come across the word before. As I said, I have the nasty habit of overestimating the vocabularies of my colleagues, even one as linguistically knowledgeable as Kieran. A friend, back in the concrete suburbs I call 'home', often jokingly referred to himself as 'my interpreter', translating my verbose speech into a manner that the rest of the group would find intelligible. Actually, on a point of interest -- relatively speaking, of course -- there's a word for the crime I am oft-guilty of, a fact that my father never fails to remind me of -- the crime that is, not the word -- especially since his grasp of English is that fuzzy precision that comes from learning a language as a second tongue and his mental lexicon is -- pardon me for saying so -- more rudimentary than my own -- anyway, the word I, and probably you all, are looking for is 'pleonasm'. In quoting from the dictionary -- 'the use of more words than are required to express an idea' or 'a superfluous word or phrase'. Well, that's me. Guilty as charged. You might as well take me away for my execution now. Go on, I daresay the world would be a better place without the likes of myself cluttering up the gene pool -- not that I'm likely to pass on my genes in any case, natural selection and society will see to that -- but then again, if it had been done earlier I would not have been around -- I think -- reincarnation not withstanding -- to witness the events that were about to transpire... have transpired... rats! I've lost myself in the tenses now. Picture smoke and neuronal corpses from that tremendous derailing of the train of thought. Hmmmm...

"You don't know what 'sprightly' means?" I asked, in a somewhat incredulous tone.

"Nope. I'm just an ordinary person, a mere mortal," he smirked.

"You're not ordinary, Andy, not by a long shot," I returned with a chuckle -- the kind of chuckle that is issued from behind smiling lips -- well, it would only sound disparaging if it came from behind -- please, no crudity with that one -- pursed lips.

"True. Very true. But you wouldn't want it any other way-'

"Anyotherwayatall," I interrupted at light-heartedly rapid pace.

"Huh?" was the perplexed reply.

"My apologies. Bad Transformers reference there. From the Movie. It's Blurr."

"Okay. You're right. It was a bad joke."

"You've upset me now. I'm not going to answer your inquiry." I walked on past him carrying the pretence of hurt.

"Fine. I'm going home then. I can get some more shut-eye. Bye." He turned to leave. I don't know how I knew he did; there was no squeak of rubber sole on tarmac pavement; I just did, must have perceived it somehow.

We had reached the usual impasse. On some subconscious level, I suppose we both derived some pleasure from imagining the other's discomfiture at the situation. The outcome, however, was inevitable. It always was, no matter how many times we played out these little games. He hadn't begun to walk away. Of that, I was sure.

I turned. He turned. He smirked. I resigned.

There was no need for anything to be said but I echoed ABBA anyway. "You win again." The words were flat but it didn't matter. I had said them. Maybe it flattered his ego but that would be shallow and I'm not going to think of him like that -- it wouldn't be 'right'.

"Too right. I always win," he triumphed as he caught up with me.

"Ahem," I reminded him.

"I meant to lose that game. I thought it would be nice for you to savour the taste of victory for once."

"Of course you did." And then the, for the time of day, coup de grace. "But you know I don't mind losing." Which, for the most part, is true. I don't.

He rounded on me. "Yeah, I know," he scowled, "Graceful in defeat and magnanimous in victory. You're sickening, you know that." It was a minor sore point with him.

"I do endeavour," I replied nonchalantly, grinning, somewhat inanely I might add, as I did so. I executed a flourishing bow in mock deference to him. There was no one around save Kieran so I wasn't too concerned about making a fool of myself. Although by now I shouldn't really have cared; it wasn't exactly an infrequent occurrence for me to do so both in company and in public.

The original question forgotten, we walked on, basking in the mildness of the season and the clemency of the weather. Despite the warmth of the morning, I still felt cold inside. There was a chill at the core that was causing some consternation. Partly it was some unease with the rapidity of Kieran's acquiescence of accompanying me -- Andy not being much of a morning person, as I said earlier. Well, it was that and the fact that I still had, at that point, very little idea of what we were doing out there that morning.

"So explain to me again, what we're doing out here this morning."

Just the question I didn't need. Although it wouldn't really be 'again' since I hadn't really given him much information in the first place when I had rather unceremoniously dragged him from idle slumber. It's not a scene that I'm particularly proud of, so I'm not going to repeat it here. Suffice to say there was some guilt involved.

I looked up into the cerulean sky, head cocked to the side and squinting, as if trying to gauge some notion of time passing. Having figured that a few more minutes wasn't going to dent our schedule much -- not that we had a schedule as such -- I sat down on the low stone wall we happened to be passing by at that moment. Kieran took a seat a little further down.

"Sorry for having dragged you out here so early, it's just it seemed... or seems to be quite imperative that I did so. Just try and keep up with me on this one, if you'd be so kind." He nodded in kind comprehension, although as to whether or not he was simply humouring me, I probably chose to ignore. It was a point above consideration, then and now.

"We're looking for a tree," was my opening statement.

"A tree," he echoed in mild disbelief.

"Yeah, in a field."

"In a field." There was a moment whilst this sank in. Then, "You woke me up for a botany lesson?"

I cringed somewhat at the rather forceful timbre he used. "Not quite," I continued, "It's a special tree."

"A special tree."

"And you have to be with me when we find it."

"We?"

"Okay then, when I find it."

He just stared. I'm not entirely certain, but I think I became quite apprehensive at this point. Probably at the thought that if I went alone, something untoward might occur or, perhaps even worse -- dependent upon your mindset -- that there would be nothing there. There was a pregnant pause in which he just stared at me some more. I wonder as to the debate that may have been raging internally, as if he had just woken up and was regretting having let himself be dragged this far by some lunatic, even if that lunatic was his friend. Although, I daresay the thought had crossed his mind as to whether I was his friend anymore. The next few moments were tense. Time slowed down and, to my ears, each sliver of the present was audible as it was shaved off the future and drifted into the past. Tick. Tock. Tick. To-