****!MISCHIEVOUS MISCELLANY!****

!FRAMED!

by Gary W. Wright

        I barely had time to push open the door to the stairwell to the left of my apartment door when there was a rustle and whirl of movement to my right, a black clad arm seen scything down out of the corner of my right eye, and something smashing into my head and

        I woke up lying on a hard floor with my head throbbing painfully.  Raising my right hand to the right side of my head, I gingerly touched a large bump and felt my pulse pounding underneath my fingers.  Dropping my hand, I lay on the floor as my head continued to throb away.  Then I slowly opened my eyes and found myself in complete darkness, an impenetrable darkness in which nothing emerged even after several minutes.

Puzzled, I slowly rose to my feet, each stage of the ascent causing my head to throb even more painfully.  Walking unsteadily forward with my right hand out and my head pounding, I soon came to a smooth wall.  Trailing my hand along it as I walked to the left, I soon came to a corner leading to another smooth bare wall.  Trailing my right hand along it as I continued walking to the left, I walked about eight feet until I came to another corner and another smooth bare wall.  I walked down this wall trailing my right hand along it for another eight feet before coming to another corner, and then trailed my right hand along this wall for another eight feet until I reached a corner that led back to the original wall I had first touched on my exploratory journey.

Suddenly a powerful light slammed into me like a freight train.  I cried out in agony, closing my eyes, lowering my head, raising a protective right forearm over my eyes, and turning away from the light all at once, my head pounding painfully.  As I did an unseen man roared with laughter.  The laughter sent a chill through me.  Suddenly everything seemed all too familiar, and I slowly dropped my forearm, raised my head, and opened my eyes. I found myself looking at myself from behind projected on a cinema screen, and I suddenly realized to my horror that I was not trapped in a square room.

I was trapped in a frame of film-forever!

"NOOOOOOOOO!" I screamed in terror as my projected self screamed and the unseen man laughed and laughed and laughed!

The Following

by Gary W. Wright

        Pushing open one of the heavy glass and steel front doors of TIFF after experiencing a film there recently, I stepped out into the covered entranceway and stopped for a while to adjust to the bright summer sunlight, take a sip from my water bottle, and ponder the bustling and noisy parade of pedestrians and vehicles walking, riding, and driving along King and John streets.  Finally screwing the plastic cap back on the bottle and putting it in my hip blue Wal-Mart bag, I stepped out on to the sidewalk and turned left, joining the teeming throng.  Pondering the expressionless faces of ghostly people of all backgrounds through my sunglass-style prescription glasses as I walked along King, I was soon at the intersection of King and John.  Taking another sip from my water bottle as I waited for the light to change and replacing the cap again, I soon crossed John, walking near or over the large pit covered now by asphalt roads where lay hundreds of mouldering skeletons of starving Irish men, women, and children who had died on their journey or shortly after their arrival in the last of the Great Famine years, tossed there by overwhelmed authorities at a time when the intersection was far from the rest of the new and growing city of Toronto, and no doubt moaning in heartbroken and lonely despair deep in the dark of night.

        After crossing John, I continued along crowded King, walking past the popular Starbuck’s that once was a popular Tim Horton’s and then past the colourful one sheets and exiting matinee audience outside the Princess of Wales Theatre, no doubt haunted by the ghosts of performances past.  Crossing Duncan Street, I immediately heard the sound of footsteps behind me as I ambled towards the colourful one sheets and exiting matinee audience outside the Royal Alexandra Theatre, definitely haunted by phantoms of performances past.  As it was a familiar sound while out walking, I paid the footsteps no heed.  In the back of my mind, however, I noticed that these footsteps stopped quietly behind me as I too stopped at sturdy Simcoe Street for another light.  I also noticed that the footsteps immediately began again as I walked across the intersection and became louder as I walked toward University Avenue.  As another red light awaited at the wide avenue filled with many vehicles and cyclists, I stopped again at this intersection and slightly turned my head to the left, curious to see who was following me.  But the louder footsteps stopped yet again right behind me, so I turned my head and looked behind to see who was standing there.

        But there was no one there.

        Staring for some seconds in confused amazement, I slowly turned back to University Avenue, wondering where the pedestrian had disappeared to and how they could possibly have disappeared so quickly.  Shortly after, the white pedestrian signal appeared, and I stepped forward to cross the wide avenue.  Soon after, the footfalls began again, and I whirled around.  The footsteps immediately stopped and, while two expressionless female pedestrians walked by on either side of me, there was no one behind me.

        No one at all.

        Frowning in even greater annoyance and confusion than before, I turned and hurried across the wide avenue, the footsteps immediately beginning again and following me across the intersection.  Reaching the other side, I whirled around again and as I did the footsteps immediately stopped again, and still there was no one behind me.  Staring in baffled dismay, I turned around and walked down King towards York Street, wondering what was going on.  As I did, the footfalls began again, becoming slowly louder and deeper as they did, like a foot pedal pounding a bass drum on a drum kit, bam, bam, bam, bam, Bam, Bam, Bam, Bam.  I whirled around in exasperation shortly before York to look behind me yet again, and yet again the footsteps immediately stopped, and yet again there was no one behind me.

        No one!

        Crossing with the green light at York, I turned to my right to wait impatiently for the light to change so that I could cross King and head down York to Union Station and the green and white rush hour Go Train that would take me back to Streetsville.  As I did the footsteps not only began again, but became louder and louder and louder, Bam, Bam, Bam, Bam, BAM, BAM, BAM, BAM. 

        Crossing King at the green light and continuing down crowded York, the footfalls immediately began again and became even louder and louder and deeper and deeper with every step I took, BAM, BAM, BAM, BAM, BAM, BAM, BAM, BAM!  It was like my head was stuck in a kettle drum on which a gleefully grinning and diabolic devil indeed was pounding with monotonous and maniacal precision.

It’s like I’m trapped in “The Tell-Tale Heart” or a crazy Screamin’ Stephen King story! I thought wildly.  What is going on?

        Halfway down the block, I whirled around in increasing alarm and despair as the footsteps ceased once more and my distraught eyes beheld no one behind me once again.  Moaning in despair and stumbling across Wellington at a green light in a bustle of pedestrians, I headed towards Front Street, the footsteps following me and becoming louder Louder LOUDER until the whole world shook to the thunderous and deafening quake of gigantic feet as if a gigantic invisible monster was closing in on me BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM! 

I moaned, groaned, mewled, screamed, and fell in a dazed heap at York and Front, unable to take the thunderous cacophony any longer.  Immediately the footfalls stopped, and an equally thunderous and eerie silence rent the world, mingled with an ominous sense that something huge and unnatural was standing behind me.  I lay sobbing and whimpering on the sidewalk for some time, sympathetically ignored by passersby.  After a time, I slowly and unsteadily rose to my feet.  As I did, my rising head peered into the right windows of a taxi waiting at the red at Front and York, allowing me to see that there was nothing behind me, only my wide, bright, feverish, and deranged eyes.