Preludes & Nocturnes

[Marburg]

Previously...

Part II:

Imperfect Hosts

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[Marburg]

[font=Century Gothic]Preludes & Nocturnes

[font=Century Gothic]Part III:

[font=Century Gothic]Dream a Little Dream of Me

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[Marburg]

One. Two. Three. Four...

Her nipples are hard and dark and shrunken on breasts like empty pouches.

Her hair comes out in clumps when she moves. She tries not to move too much.

Her skin is flaking, infected and inflamed. Bedsores cover her back and legs.

Twenty-eight. Twenty-nine. Thirty...

Her fingernails grew long and brittle; then they broke off. The ragged nails rip her skin when she scratches.

Her stomach shrank, then bloated. Then it shrank again. Hunger subsided to a low nagging in the back of her mind.

...It's OK. It goes away.

...Like the pain goes away. Like everything goes away when the Dreams come.

She feels reality ebbing back.

Sixty-five. Sixty-six...

She'll wait.

Delay the pleasure. Delay the dreams.

Will she dissolve it in her mouth? Breathe it? Rub it into her skin?

It doesn't matter. She's counting to a hundred.

Ninety-six. Ninety-seven. Ninety-eight...

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[Marburg]

...Nine-fifty nine, Ten 'o clock.

The alarm clock wails at the top of the hour and John Constantine reaches past the snooze button and goes straight for his cigarettes.

"...and for all you crumblies out there, here's one from the vaults." The DJ blared chirpily over the airwaves. "A real rave from the grave..."

Sitting up in bed, the bleary-eyed man greets the day with a lung full of smoke, a hacking cough and a bit of classic radio.

::Count Ninety-nine and kiss me.

Just hold me tight and tell me you'll miss me.

Birds singing in the sycamore tree...

...Dream a Little Dream of Me::

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[Marburg]

'Have you ever had one of those days when it feels like something just seems to be trying to get your attention?'

John finishes brushing his teeth in front of the bathroom mirror and begins to shave.

'There's a smell of magic in the air, like the blue sparks smell of ozone at a funfair. I'd just had this nightmare...' he continues to think to himself as he gets dressed. 'These things with faces like appendectomy scars were crocheting my intestines into body bags for the Blind and the Dead.'

Putting on his overcoat and beginning to make his way out of the apartment door, he turns his attention towards hitting the off button on the radio.

"Blast from the past!" said the DJ. "An oldie but goodie! The man with the magic..."

'I told myself it was only a dream, but it didn't matter. The bastards just kept on bloody knitting.'

::Mister Sandman, I'm so alone.
Ain't got nobody to call my ow--:: click.

Stepping out into the rain, John is having one of those nagging, strange days...he just can't put his finger on exactly why.

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[Marburg]

Two blocks later, the man steps out of the rain and into Ed's Diner.

"Morning Hannah." said John. "Give us a cheeseburger and two mugs of coffee. It's going to be a long day...and give us some five pence for the jukebox..."

"What are you putting on?" the pretty waitress asked from across the room as she grabbed the pot off the burner.

"Rock the Casbah." he responded as he started punching in his selection. "Used to cover it with 'Mucous Membrane' ages ago. Practically my theme song..."

::All the leaves are brown, and the sky is grey.

I've been for a walk, on a winters day...::

"You gotta learn to press the right buttons, Sweetie." She said with a laugh.

Listening to the song, John mutters something under his breath, ignoring the girl as she approached his table; serving up his two joes:

::...Preacher likes the cold, he knows I'm gonna stay.

California dreamin' on such a winters day...::

"Something trying to tell me something...?"

"Somebody trying to tell you something, yup." she said, giggling; pointing towards the window at the old bag lady rapping on it. "I think it's your girlfriend outside. Hehehe!"

John turns to glance over his shoulder...

"Jesus!! Mad Hettie!"

.....

Outside, in the alley behind the diner, John smokes a cigarette while the bag lady rumages through one of the trashbins.

"'e's back John."

"Who's back, Hettie?"

"You ort ter know, smart boy." she answers without looking up. "Morpheus. The Oneiromancer. You know...The Sandman. 'e's back."

He laughs. "The Sandman? Mad Hettie, you've got to be pulling my leg."

"Cheeky young Jackanapes!" she said angrily.

"Look, The Sandman's a fairy story you tell kids to get them off to sleep. Sprinkles magic dust in your eyes and brings you...sweet dreams."
"I'm trying to save the world" John continued, "and you want to tell me fairy tales?"

He turns his back on her and walks away.

"Now you lissen ter me John Constanteen, you littel prick! I sed the Sandman, an' I meant the bleedin' Sandman! 'E's back, John, an' 'e wants 'is own!...I know. I'm two 'undred and forty sevvin years old and I'm tellin' yas, I know!"

'Funny thing is, she really is two hundred and forty seven.' He says to himself. 'The Sandman eh?...I suppose I'll have to look into it.'

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[Marburg]

He left the Porsche half a mile down the road. Hopes it won't get stolen. There are some real thieves around these days.

He sneaks around to the back of the house and climbs up a trellis to the second floor.

They call themselves Creepers. It's a sport. Breaking into peoples homes while they are asleep. Credit cards, DVD's, jewelry. He thinks of it as his contribution to the free market economy. As he enters the home through a window...he, he...must be dreaming.

He's on a boat, making love to the most beautiful woman he's never seen. He can feel the warm tightness of her skin; the smell of sex is heavy in the air.
Her lips taste of roses and passion and she wraps around him as if her life depended on it.

...This is too good....

...Too good to be true. He's hitting a hundred and fifty in the Lamborghini of his dreams. Everybody's green with envy. The acceleration goes on forever...

...Jesus. He's dying for them and they love him. He's pure and he's perfect and he's dying for their sins.
He can see his parents, his Boss, his lovers all in the crowd below him. They're sorry now. Sorry they treated him so badly, because he's the Son...

...The last son of a dead planet. Faster than a speeding bullet, he can leap tall buildings in a single bound. He's the strongest man in the world. He can do anything.

...Absolutely anything.

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[Marburg]

John combs through his dusty bookshelves.

'For the next few days, I keep meaning to investigate this Sandman stuff. I just never quite get 'round to it...my own researches keep me busy enough.'

::The Dream Police they live inside of my head,

The Dream Police they come to me in my bed,

The Dream Police they're coming to arrest me, Oh no!::

'...And indecently, the radio is really starting to get on my nerves.'

'One thing I've learned: You can know anything. It's all there. You just have to find it.'

::...to call my own...

I want a dream lover, so I don't have to dream alone...::

'At the end of the day, I fall asleep in front of the telly watching one of the video channels.'

::Exit light. Enter night.

Grain of sand...::

'I dream a mess of ley-lines and Leptons, plasma fields and Turf Giants. Then, the dreams get really bad...as per usual.'

'It was on the third day that he caught up with me. Returning from the library, I found him just sitting there in my living room.'

"...John Constantine, I presume?"

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[Marburg]

'Bone white skin and jet black hair. Eyes that look like the light in the center of an old TV screen just after you cut the power. His robes the color of the night sky bathed in full moonlight...I just about s*** a brick where I stood.'

"Well, I'm not Doctor Livingstone, Pal. Heh!
"...Sorry. Little joke...very little." he said sheepishly.

"I suppose you must be--"

"Something of mine came into your possession. A leather pouch full of sand. I want it back. Where is it?"

"That pouch? That was years ago. Yeah, I bought it in a garage sale in San Francisco...I knew it was powerful, but I never even managed to get the drawstrings open."

"Where is it now?"

"I Haven't seen it for ages. But the odds are it's down in Chas' lock-up, with the stuff from...Paddington and from Notting Hill...and the East Croydon flat before that..."

"Let us retrieve it, then." Dream said with a cold fire in his eyes.

"I hope you don't expect me to go on public transport with you dressed like that...Be dead emarassing."

'The creepy godlike goth bloke seemed to bend reality to his whim...one second, he's all clad in robes, the next, he's dressed to impress, wearing an overcoat just like mine...only, well...black."

"Is this better?"

"Uuumm...I ought to introduce you to an old, crotchety homeless bird I know..." John replied as he led the way out of the front door. "She hasn't got a sense of humor either."

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[Marburg]

John is rummaging through a rusty filing cabinet in an old warehouse.

"We have been looking for two hours, Constantine. Patience wears thin. I do not believe it is here...If it were, I would be able to feel it."

"We've still got a load of stuff to go through yet, Boss. Keep smiling. It'll turn up."

Closing the bottom drawer, John rises to his feet. "How did you lose this pouch anyway?"

"It was stolen from me by a man called Burgess."

"The old 'Daemon King' himself, eh?" He asked rhetorically, reaching above his head, retrieving an open box of papers and photographs that hasn't been touched in over a decade. "You must be older than you look."

"Damn!" he cursed, as it slipped his grip, spilling it's contents to the floor.

"I don't know why I hang on to all this stuff." the man muttered as he returns to his knees to sift through the clutter. "If there was a fire, it would be like my whole life was going up in flames..."
Picking up an old photograph taken of him together with a sexy young thing who liked to wear shades at night, he felt his heart sink into his stomach. "Oh. Jesus. Oh Jesus...Bloody hell. Uh, Boss? I think I know where your bag is."

.....

"'ere John, can we stop at a service station?" The man driving the cab asked. "I'm parched. Took off without me tea."

"No" said the voice in the backseat.

"You heard the man, Chas, old mate. Sorry." John said from the passenger side. "I ain't no mark for the Venus of the hard sell."

"I know I owe you, John, but this is pushing it."

"Drive us, Mister Chas. you will be rewarded."

"Uh. It's just Chas, Mister...uh...John? What do I call him?

"You don't call him." John replied. "His kind just turn up out of the blue. They call you."

'Everyone shuts up, and Chas jolts up the motorway. Our visitor melts into the backseat shadows. ...And I remember Rachel. Amazing Rachel. Junkie Rachel. We were living together in a high-rise flat in East Croydon. I went to Alaska for six months, over the Lupus Affair. When I got back, she was gone. Along with my stereo, the telly, me Judge Dredd's--any old junk she could convert to money...and she'd long since converted the money into junk. Stupid Bitch...Sometimes I still miss her.

I wish I'd realized that she nicked the pouch as well, though.

::...But it's only as real

as any dream can seem.

I'll see you,

In your wildest dreams.::

"Oh, for f***s sake!" John vented in frustration, turning off the radio and breaking the knob in the process, then turning to face the thing sitting in the back. "Still? Really?!"

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