Billy. Going where darkness fears to tread… - Colin David Palmer

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politicians, council workers, real estate salesmen, all and sundry come through here. Some stay mere seconds, some for a couple of hours, but by the end of their first day most, if not all, have gone. And it’s not that they all arrive together either, like on a tour bus or something, no; it’s more like they are coming and going, and going and coming at all hours of the day or night.

      You had to feel sorry for the ones that arrived at night – they have no chance, no chance at all. Of those that watched over them, there stood one that knew better than any other individual, because there had only ever been one that survived a night arrival – and it was he.

      It isn’t night now. The sun has risen, striking his piece of dirt before any other on the Australian mainland. Once again there had only ever been one that knew what was going to happen, and that, as you may have guessed this time, was he again.

      Chapter Three

      “Old Billy”

      It’s not the sort of thing he used to worry about, that’s for sure. He’d lived, and it had been good. He’s an old man now and had enjoyed his Life. He missed Life; he just didn’t let anyone else know it.

      Let me tell you a little more about who he is. His name is Billy, at least it was Billy … Billy Nelson. He arrived for the last time about four or five years ago near as anybody can figure – could be forty or fifty years for all he knew and cared anymore but others have been there so long nobody can even remember their last names! At last count there was about two hundred of the more permanents but constant arrivals and departures every day made it hard to keep track.

      Billy spent his Life with abilities that would have made Superman envious, but they were abilities that remained oblivious to the majority in his time as a mortal entity. As a baby, a child, he could see and do things that would have seen most committed to the nuthouse. But he’d been born to that Life and remained, relatively speaking, quite normal. Sure, he used to disappear at times when the desire to do so crossed his mind, and he understood the spoken language almost immediately. He could even hear peoples’ thoughts, but it was the visual world that was the most dramatic to him.

      Billy could see and hear the other people who were no longer mortal souls, who waited for whatever was their reason to pass onward. He learnt quickly not to let on that he could see them. Experience taught him that whenever he did so, a mob would immediately form demanding he relay messages of advice, love, or desperation to living relatives.

      As a two year old it had been simple to ignore them (he may have understood language but communicating it to others remained as mysterious and frustrating as for any toddler his age). It was impossible to disseminate the things they wanted him to. As the years progressed he came to bless the insight that enabled him to switch off to their presence in his Life.

      Anonymity became Billy’s friend. Not even his parents accepted his abnormal behaviour and it taught him to be cautious about who knew. Such caution became easier as he grew, firstly through puberty then into an early maturity well beyond his years. He was 15 when things changed dramatically, the change so dramatic that only the whole story could possibly make it clearer.

      Chapter Four

      “Tony and Jen”

      “Where the fuck? It isn’t?”

      “Told ya!”

      “Fuckin’ fantastic man. C’mon, lets get in there!”

      “No, wait! Billy! Hang on… " His best mate Tony was always willing to please, to try anything. He always had his ear to the ground, so that nights like tonight were not a surprise – for him anyway. Tony loved doing this sort of stuff. Yesterday afternoon as he and Billy walked home after jumping off the school bus he just up and said it.

      “We gotta be at the Top Pub tomorrow.”

      “Why?”

      “You’ll see. Pick ya up at three.”

      “I was gonna come over for a jam session before lunch, remember?”

      “Yeah, yeah, okay. You still seein’ Jen?”

      “You betcha. Seeing her at tennis in the morning. Dad wouldn’t let me go out with her tonight – her brother was gonna take us to the drive in and he doesn’t even know him but he still said he doesn’t trust him, so I can’t go. Sucks man. And Jen was pretty pissed off too.”

      “She’s a looka Billy. Does Wendy know?”

      “No way! Best thing about Jen goin’ to school in Lismore is nobody else around here knows her!”

      “So, tomorrow night, is one of them comin’ with us?”

      Billy slapped him on the back. Tony hated the fact that Billy always had a girl, or two, or three! It wasn’t that he was bad looking himself, it was, well, the fact that he never gave them a chance to get to know him, really know him, know him like Billy did. They’d strike up a conversation with the girls Tony and Billy and the first question Tony’d ask is if any of them wanted a fuck! The girls usually drifted away about then but curiosity would almost always bring one of them back, eventually – to Billy that is. He’d go to the loo or to the bar and run into one of them and she’d say something like; “Is your friend always that crass?” And they’d end up having a conversation and he’d end up with the girl. If not that night in the back seat of a convenient car, or once, even the ladies loo at the Workers Club in Lismore, then at some other venue at some other time. As the ice had already been broken it was pretty easy for him to go up and introduce himself again. Worked like a charm just about everytime and Billy wouldn’t change Tony for the world! One day, Tony was going to wake up to it, that’s for sure. Billy always hoped it wasn’t sooner rather than later!

      It wasn’t that Billy needed his help. Jen for one, he met at the local tennis courts just after her family had moved into the area from Lismore. Tony didn’t play tennis or any other sport so Jen was safe from his unique approaches. Her folks didn’t want her to change schools at this stage, being Year 10 and all that, so while she caught the bus to Lismore the other locals like Billy and Tony caught the bus to Ballina.

      Billy earnt pocket money by watering, rolling and marking the local clay tennis courts and aside from the money, pushing and pulling that roller around endowed him with more defined muscles than most boys his age. There he was that morning, finishing with the heavy roller on the courts in his shorts and tennis shoes, arms and torso pumped, tanned and flexing from their efforts when a voice drifted across the court from the small clubhouse. He hadn’t seen her arrive because she walked across the park while he was pushing the roller in the other direction. She stood in the shadows of the clubhouse and it was difficult for him to make her out.

      “I said, it looks hot out there,” she repeated.

      He dropped the roller after putting it in the most out of the way position and walked toward her, quite disturbed – nobody, generally, was able to sneak up on him and the fact she had bothered him. Billy didn’t speak or even look at her until he was almost to the wire fence, and one look rendered him speechless – the girl was gorgeous! She was dressed for tennis in a short white skirt, white blouse, white socks and white Dunlop Volleys, which contrasted against her lightly tanned almost flawless skin, and her startling green eyes and long light brown hair pulled back in a ponytail. She was an absolute vision and didn’t wait for him to speak. He probably couldn’t have anyway!

      “I was told to be here at seven thirty.”

      Her comment gave him more time – he checked his watch and a surreptitious glance to check his abs! It was twenty past, which meant he was late – he had to be changed and ready by seven thirty as well and

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