Hardware

He had never contemplated the notion of heaven and hell, but he did think there was a Divine soul.

"You would rather spend eternity in fire with her than be in paradise without her?"

"I would rather be in paradise with her."

Thim understood. He motioned to Scroll to hand him back the red piece of satin. "You must go now."

"NO!!" The cry echoed towards the end of time. "No. No." And then all Ambience broke forth. It was loose too.

Scroll threw the remaining satin lengths into the breeze and as they drifted on into oblivion, he closed his eyes. Falling backwards, there was nothing to land on, but he felt cushioned, almost as though some benign magic carpet was being uplifted with the draught and had let him rest there.

"Frag," he whispered.

"Yes, I'm here." The softness, the familiarity of her voice seemed delusive.

"As he opened his eyes, he saw before him a vision and it was apparent to him that she had opened her eyes too." She recited the last line of a poem he wrote when he was drunk.

So, he opened his eyes.

"You were in fire." His voice broke.

"No." Frag tossed her awkwardly shaped head back and forth in reassurance.

Scroll's eyes were wider now and he tried to get up from his hospital bed.

"You were in fire....you were in fire."

Frag cradled him as he sobbed. Rocking to and fro, she tried to comfort him, but he couldn't choke back his fear.

"I'm not in the fire. I'm not in the fire. It was a bad dream."

From within her embrace, he made a request.

"Promise you'll be good? I don't want to see you in the fire. The lump in his throat began to suffocate him and his crying ebbed to a shallow rasp.

"I promise."

After some time, Scroll emerged from Frag's bosom and insisted that she should never leave his side. She was concerned that the blow to his head had caused some kind of neural damage. It had.

Upon examination, the medical team found that Scroll was not actually there. He was a figment of their collective imaginations.

Frag and Scroll quite rightly felt abhorrence at this. The medics could see how much Frag's distaste had grown, just by looking at how high her nose had climbed up her forehead.

"What do you mean, he's not here? Can't you see anything?" She rattled as she poked a blunt finger at thin air.

The medics took a few steps back and a distant alarm could be heard. A few moments passed before some men and women, dressed in white, came in with straps, strait-jackets and dull instruments of torture. Upon seeing them, Scroll collapsed - but no-one could go to his aid since no-one could actually see him.

Frag was lead away to the boiler room . . .

T H E E N D