First of all: English isn't my first language, and there will be quite a few mistakes in this text, I'm afraid. Sorry.

Besides that I have to warn you, because this story is totally pointless. I was out of inspiration, so I took the text of a song I've never heard, read the first few lines and wrote something fitting to them. Then I read the next lines and continued the story, not knowing where the song would lead me. This is the result. Pointless and quite out of character, I'm afraid. I didn't know weather to upload it or erase it from my computer, but I thought maybe someone will like it, unlikely as that may be. TT

Disclaimer: Not mine. Great luck for the characters, who in fact belong to Terry Pratchett. Of course.

Sometimes, at Night

by Schildkroete

I remember the night we danced for the first time. Yes, I remember it well, though it might seem like I've forgotten. Other things were taking up so much of my time in the past too many years, and my head has been full of thoughts. I didn't think of it for a long time – sometimes not once in years. But I never forgot.

It was raining. A warm summer rain that gently dripped down the windowpane, a curtain of water between us and the night. A woman had invited me to a ball in her mother's house, and though I don't recall her name I sill know that she was young and pretty. But I had never danced before. I could have invented a device to make me fly over the dance floor, but I could not move across it as was expected of me. So you offered to teach me, the night before. I remember it well, and yet, I still don't know why. You were a skilled dancer, because it was part of your education and because you seem to be skilled at anything you do but I know you didn't care much for dancing. But you offered to help me and I gladly accepted, and so we met in the large, empty room in your family's home for training.

The window had no curtains. When I close my eyes I can see it clearly, as if I still was in that room, right now. I could draw it in every detail, just as it had been that night. There was a bit of light coming in thought that window, the rain running down the glass drawing pictures of shadows and light on the floor, and I did not feel the urge to copy them, maybe for the first time of my life. I also remember feeling embarrassed. I thought, if we lit a light people could see us from the outside, so you blew out the candle and we danced in the dark – in the faint light of the streetlamps, filtered by the rain.

I remember the feeling of your thin body against mine, as you explained me how to move and carefully lead me across the room. I had been a young man at that time and you hardly more than a boy. After a while you started to hum softly and I started to lead, because that's what I was supposed to do. There were many mistakes, and I stepped on your feet quite often. It was fun. I remember us laughing and joking – I understand, now, that you never laughed like that with anyone else.

Once we stumbled and fell, and your lips brushed against mine ever so softly. To this day I can not say if it was intentionally of just an accident. You did not seem embarrassed at all, and I did not know, suddenly, weather it had been real or my imagination. I did not ask. Looking back today, I believe that I wanted it to be real.

I don't remember that woman's name, but I still recall the scent of your hair.

We parted at dawn.

Later, years passed without our pats crossing even once. I became quite famous, I imagine, though I had a knack for not noticing such things. And you became involved more and more with the affairs of the city. Of course I did not know that – for me politics have remained a mystery to this very day, but shortly after the night we danced in the darkness Winder died, and when it became clear that Lord Snapcase was not doing the city any good you became more and more important. I was busy with other things at that time. Fascinating things that occupied all of my attention. So when another Lord who sponsored my works took me to another ball I was quiet surprised to meet you there. I had not seen you in years, but you had not changed, as far as I can tell as a man who never knew you that well.

No, you had not changed – but you had perfectioned your masks. It was impossible to tell what you were thinking and that made me uneasy and nervous, for I had never understood you in the first place.

But that night, when the party was over and there was no-one left to talk to you about things I could not grasp, that night we walked home together. It wasn't a long way to your house and this part of the city was rather safe, provided you walked in the company of an assassin. Of course I did not think about that then – I think about it now, many years later, looking back.

The moon was full and bright, lighting up the street that was deserted but for us. There wasn't a cloud in the sky and it smelled like snow, for winter was near, and it was getting cold.

The house I lived in at that time was quite a way from yours and so you invited me in, offered me to stay the night. We didn't turn on the lights, and you moved like a cat through the darkness. We kept talking, there was so much to tell, but looking back it seems to me like it was mostly me who was speaking, with you listening in silence beside me. We settled down on a large couch beneath an even larger window and the moon bathed us in his light once more. The silence of the night seemed to swallow all reality, making it seem like a dream even then. But when I looked at you then, in the bright light of the moon, I noted for the first time how exhausted you looked, how incredible tired. That I remember clearly and without doubt. Just like I recall the faint trembling of your hand when I took it into my own, and in the colourless light I saw scars that had not been there when I last looked at it that closely. It was then, that very moment, that I truly realised how much time had passed, and that the disk had not stopped spinning for those years. As far away as that day might be, I ever forgot you falling asleep on that couch, your hand still in mine, and I know that I kissed the top of your head, and held you in my arms until morning.

I think I dreamt of you that night.

Now the sun is setting, but night is still too far away. The moon will not shine for us today.

I never quite understood you when you talked about the danger my inventions meant for the world. It's hard for me to imagine anyone using them against other living beings. I don't see why humans always seem to want to hurt and kill one another but I guess they really do – the prove lies in front of me, in a pile of rubble while in the gardens the trees are in blossom.

Their scent fills the air. It's a perfect evening in spring and yet I don't feel like working. The thoughts and ideas that occupied my mind for so long won't come. For once my mind is free to see the world of reality fully and without distraction. The dust that rises from the ground, the blood on my hands. Petals are falling –

Sometimes, at night, I wondered – in a distant, interested but disconnected way – how my life would have been, had I been more part of the human society. Had I been able to take as much interest in the next human being, including myself, as in the glass of water on the windowsill.

You, I fear, are no different. There was not room for a personal life in the world you lived in, and I don't think you ever thought about it. Unlike me you never might have dreamt about a life that was different, not even at night.

In a way you were as far away from everyone else as myself, only had you been more aware of it, I believe. We both tried in our own ways to make the world a better place, but we didn't look for any personal happy ending. To me at least the thought didn't even occur. Neither of us believed in fairytales.

Now, Havelock, please don't cry. It'll be over soon, I promise. Don't cry.

You open your eyes at the sound of your name. I realise that I have never used it before. But it feels good on my tongue and I say it again while you throw your head back and try not to scream. I hear voices, screaming and shouting, very far away. Soft pink petals drift by and land in a pool of blood. They make no noise.

Please…

Last spring you came to visit me late at night. You hadn't done that for some time – to much work you said, and I believed you when I saw the dark circles beneath your eyes. To be honest I hardly noticed your long absence, too occupied I was with inventing several fascinating things the world shall never see. And so you came to see if I needed anything, not to keep me company I didn't need. But perhaps it was you who needed someone to talk to. Maybe you wanted to tell me about things you knew I wouldn't understand, as you sometimes did. I'll never know, because exhaustion claimed you and you fell asleep over my drawings. I carried you over to my bed, and your thin form felt frighteningly light in my arms.

Now your body seems almost weightless. It jerks once again as I touch the long piece of metal that goes right through your narrow chest. Pulling it out won't help much I fear, but need to do something. My mind, I realise, is split in three parts. It is the distant, detached part of me that thinks this, the one that tells me very clearly what happened, what I can do and what is useless. It tells me I'm going mad. This is the part I don't listen to. Another part is here and now, wincing at every scream you don't let loose. This is the part that needs to do something, anything, just for the act of it. The last part is the one too far away to have anything to do with what's going one, travelling through the long lost world of things that never were.

Didn't I promise you I'd never hurt you? I believe I did, that night in spring, when you were lying on my bed and I was slightly worried because your temperature was rising and you were so very pale. It was one of those few times I did recall the past, from the moment you taught me how to dance in a dark room to the moment I saw you sleeping on my papers. I realised then for the first time that I was the only one you ever talked to in a way that was even close to personal, even though I never really listened. I kind of believe it was, in fact, because I never listened, and because I didn't understand half of it. I didn't quite know what to make of that realisation, but I took you hand and checked your pulse, and then I promised to protect you, because I felt that I was the only one who ever truly saw you vulnerable. You did not hear me, of course, and I don't know if it counts, but I feel like failing.

A soft breeze has come up, blowing the dust away ever so slowly. People are coming closer, petals are falling. Madness is calling and I lean down to kiss your lips. It isn't my first kiss but maybe, I think, it's yours. The last tremble of your body fades away with the light of the sun, and you fall asleep in my arms once again.

Somewhere in the distance a bird is starting to sing.

April 19, 2005