Jeb was having the dream again – he knew that he was dreaming, but it didn't make the ache any less real. The jagged walls of the ice cave flew by, charizard beating his powerful wings as they plummeted down the blue and white vortex. Jeb pressed himself close to charizard's back, felt the vibrating warmth amid the freezing air. And below, just out of reach, the azure tail feathers of the articuno. Jeb urged his mount downwards, clenched his teeth against the biting wind, but the legendary bird disappeared into a gaping black hole and was lost again in its frozen labyrinth.
Jeb woke, his chest heaving, sweat on his brow and under his arms. His back ached and he rolled over, willing himself to drop back into the dream, land just beyond that black event horizon. Sleep took him quickly, but the ice caves of the articuno did not return.
In the grey morning Jeb stood barefoot in the kitchen, waiting for the kettle to boil. His coffee smelt stale but a light drizzle had started up outside so he didn't want to walk to the shops. Through the window he could see cars with their wipers, yellow headlights thin in the lightening day. A white birch tree swayed, dropping leaves. The kettle whistled and he poured boiling water over the grounds.
Work was long. The library shelves stood mutely, containers of information he'd never read, things he'd never know; beige filing cabinets with words printed on slips of paper in thick, permanent marker; bird-pokemon landing in the rafters outside the window. Around midday some school kids came in, with their companions perched on their arms and backs: a weedle, an aipom, a budew. Jeb had to shoo them back outside, pointing at the No Pokemon Allowed sign. Increasingly he wanted to join them, to run and laugh and battle amongst the long grass. But he remained where he was. People came and went, browsing, looking around awkwardly, occasionally approaching the counter with a question or a book; old women, young boys, and students with shoulder bags and flashy phones. Jeb had been finding it harder to sit still since he'd started having the dream.
That evening Jeb checked out some books for himself, scuff-eared tomes as old as he was: Winged Mirages, A Rumble from Mt Silver, Ice and Fire: What You Didn't Know About Articuno and Moltres. He sat down at his little kitchen table, turning the pages carefully, squinting at the wriggly black words. Colour plates showed a fiery wing, lightning erupting from the top of a mountain, an eye like a shard of ice. Soon he found his head drooping, and when he looked up night was pressing against the window.
When Jeb sank back into the pillow, his head was full of images. Powerful storms conjured by the beating of wings; fire streaming like a volcano from a bird's beak; and an eye, slanted and cold, peering out from an icy abyss. He closed his eyes. Sleep washed over him like a curse.
It was the same cave, in a different twisting tunnel. Jeb hung tight to the charizards flanks as they half-fell, half-flew in a dizzying downward spiral. He felt that if they could just reach the bottom, articuno would be trapped, and there they could battle and he could win his prize. But the end never came, and they fell forever, spinning down the caverns of frozen hell. Jeb clung on, but could no longer see the bright blue tail, only the rushing ice and the darkness that stayed just ahead, clashes of brightness and black. He woke, chest shuddering, tears on his cheeks.
Jeb was finishing early today – the library had granted him the afternoon off so that he could go and lay flowers on charizards grave. It was the anniversary, after all.
He collected his things as the clock drew near three; the set of keys to his apartment, his leather wallet. He would go by the florist on the way there and get a bunch of posies, maybe walk along the high street. Marv nodded to him from between the shelves as he zipped up his coat.
"'Scuse me," said a small voice. Jeb looked down.
It was one of the children from the previous day – the boy with the budew that he had shooed out.
"Can I get this?" the kid said, waving a book above his head. It was a thin book, stapled together, titled How to Draw Grass Pokemon.
Jeb glanced over at Marv, but she had disappeared. He took the book from the kid and stamped it. "There you go."
"Thanks. Where are you going?" asked the kid.
Jeb shrugged. "I'm going – to see an old friend."
"Oh. That sounds nice."
The kid hovered in the doorway; Jeb waited for him to move.
"Have you always hated pokemon?" the boy squeaked.
"I'm sorry?"
The boy pointed at the No Pokemon Allowed sign. "Why don't you like pokemon?" he said.
Jeb felt flustered. "I don't hate pokemon. I love them."
"Oh. Then why can't we bring them in here?"
Jeb looked around for Marv, but couldn't see her. He leaned down closer to the boy, whose face was white and serious. "That's not my rule, that's the library's rule. If I could have it my way, you and budew could sit and read together."
"Oh. Then why don't you tell them to change the rule?"
Jeb sighed. "Listen, when you get older, you'll realise that you can't do everything you want to. There are rule and laws, and you just have to abide by them. Otherwise things would be chaotic."
"That doesn't sound so bad," the boy said.
"Yeah, well, one day you'll realise different."
Jeb made as if to walk around the boy, and he stepped aside, clutching the book to his chest.
The sky was still grey, but there was a brilliant shard of white where the sun was hidden. Jeb stared up at it, shielding his eyes with a hand, and then continued walking. The bouquet of flowers dangled from the crook of his arm.
It wasn't too far to the cemetery – Jeb's back still ached, but the movement felt good. Each step eased him into the fresh air, and the smell of on-coming rain. Tiny puddles splashed underfoot.
The cemetery was beside a park, a large green expanse that had once been intended to hold more graves. The bodies of pokemon and people were separated by a stone path – Jeb had always disagreed with that. As he crossed the green lawns towards the small brick wall, he caught sight of children playing in the park. Two of them ran around, a boy and a girl, with a whirl of purple and orange. The third lay on his stomach beneath the trees, white paper spread out in front of him. Jeb recognised the laying boys pale face and serious expression. His chest ached.
Jeb looked at the flowers in his hand. Life wasn't fair. That's just the way it was – he couldn't change what had happened, couldn't go back in time. He had to live with things the way they were. That's what happened when you grew up; you left all your old adventures behind.
A wind rattled the birch trees, leaves drifting down towards him. A crack in the sky opened, and a slither of blue light shone through. He gazed at it until his eyes hurt.
Jeb walked away from the cemetery – he'd left the flowers on charizards grave, crouching from minutes in the mossy stone until his knees began to give out. There was a light sprinkling of rain, but the kids were still out playing. As he crossed the park, he found his feet diverting his path, walking towards them. The serious-faced boy looked up as he approached, eyes flashing in recognition.
"Hello again," Jeb said awkwardly.
"Hello," said the boy.
"What are you doing?"
"Drawing."
"Oh. What are you drawing?"
"Pokemon."
"Oh." Jeb searched around for something else to say. "It's good."
"Thanks. I'm going to be an artist when I grow up."
Jeb noticed a subtle childlike confidence in the phrasing; I'm going to be not just I want to be. A slight breeze blew, lifting the hair off his forehead. He felt it as the rush of air on charizards back.
"Hello," said another voice. Jeb turned and saw the other two, with their pokemon, hovering behind him.
"Hello," he said.
"You're the librarian," the girl said.
"Yes."
"Do you want to play with us?" she asked.
Jeb paused, surprised.
"We need a third person for our game, and Nathan won't play."
"I don't like that game, Penny," said Nathan, the artist. The girl stuck her tongue out.
"How do you play?" Jeb asked.
"Well, first of all, you need a pokemon," Penny said, putting her hands on her hips. "Do you have one?"
Jeb was going to say "not anymore" but simply said "no."
"Well, you can borrow one of Travers'. He has loads of weedles."
"Weedles are the best!"
"Are not."
"Ya ha."
"What are the rules?" said Jeb, intervening.
"Well, there aren't rules exactly," said Travers.
"We change them as we go along," giggled Penny "but you'll pick it up."
Travers took a pokeball from his pocket and sent out a weedle. The tiny bug crawled up Jeb's leg and into his arms. It was soft, squishy, without the emanating warmth of charizard but still, in its own way, warm. It stared at him with glistening black eyes.
"So, it goes like this," Penny began.
Jeb tuned out as she was speaking. He found himself staring at Nathan's drawing, and listening to the pidgeys sing. The rules were complicated and contradictory, but turned back on themselves in imaginative twists so that really, in a way, they weren't rules at all but merely realities of the children's imagined world.
"Got it?" Penny asked.
Jeb nodded.
"Ok. Last one there is a rotten egg!" she cried.
The two children pelted out across the dewy grass. Jeb made to follow them, but paused, watching Nathan. The kid was so absorbed in his drawing that he didn't notice the budew jumping up and down on his head. Jeb tried to think of the last time he'd been so totally engrossed, and found himself speaking out loud: "How are you so sure?"
"What?"
"That you're going to be an artist."
Nathan shrugged. "Because I always will be. Even when I'm too sick to draw, I'm always thinking about it. That's how I know."
Jeb smiled. "It never leaves you, does it?"
The kid shook his head and looked back down at his paper.
In Jeb's arm the weedle squirmed, impatient to get running. Jeb could feel the tiny beat of its heart against his skin. His smile broadened, so that it almost broke into a laugh, and he hobbled after the children, yelling "wait for me!"
As he ran the clouds broke apart, spilling sunlight into the air, turning everything a glittering, crystal white.