Therapeutic Skin Jobs #23

This was the last Therapeutic Skin Jobs I ever finished, 18 years ago. I sorted my life out after that, and didn't need these stupid things, written for nobody. I did cannabalise a lot of it when I did my first NanoWriMo thing in 2006, which was kind of cheating but you can find the results here, but Dr Jakob Skin has been lying dormant since then.

So this was the last, but not anymore. It's been so much fun reading these things and seeing how my brain worked 20 years ago, I'm writing another one and finally getting to Everybody's Fucking At The End Of Time, which will go up for Christmas. Happy fuckin' holidays!

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     Hang on.

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     Doctor Skin is going somewhere new again. Spilling his red wine as the glass slips through his fingers, he watches as it plummets towards the clean carpet. He blinks and tries to catch his breath, but he’s already away and gone again.

     He doesn’t have a lot of choice in the matter. Stuck in the right place at the right time, Skin takes a step forward and falls off the face of the world.

     The situation is so absurd he has no time to react, just whimper like a dog as reality crashes down around him, replaced by a disturbingly familiar fog.

     It must have been a whole week since he last went through this performance, so he knows he should be used to it by now, but it still hits him like a ton of bricks. Just like the last time, the ego scaffolding is shrugged off, his physical form is reduced to the basic template and he remembers everything.

     It’s the High. Unexpected, but welcome all the same. He feels like he’s up above everything, watching from on high as the universe goes on without him. Everything that ever existed and all that’s to come is laid out in front of him like a cheap road map. Infinitely interesting, forever fascinating, it all goes on and on, no end in sight.

     But in his enlightened state, he sees through the holes in time and he sees his transcendence for what it really is. Ultra-transformation as cheap metaphor for something that never really mattered. And with that crushing realisation comes the Low.

     Sucked down from Heaven, he almost ends up in Hell again, only to take a multi-verse wide detour.

     He tumbles between everything, slipping between endless possibility, lost in the infinite. But then he gets into it, decides to make the most out of the situation and is soon heading for the light at the end of the tunnel.

    Doctor Skin is going somewhere new again.

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Nostalgia In The Soul

Therapeutic Skin Jobs #23

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    1. Get Out

     The reassuring beat of his heart is the first thing he notices. He knows he should leave it there, but he decides to press his luck anyway and, with no small regret, he opens his eyes.

     It’s another disappointing bare room, no different to any other, no clue to his location. It’s dark, despite the bright light shining through the one window and open door leading outside. Deep, dark shadows lie in every corner of the room, and Doctor Skin nearly pisses his pants when one of them reaches out for him.

     “Jesus Christ!” he cries, his voice worryingly high-pitched as he backs away from the shadow coming closer to him.

     “Really, Jake,” sighs the shadow, “do we have to go through this every fucking time?”

     The voice sparks something in his brain, and it doesn’t take long to connect it with a face. “Cthulhu? Is that you?”

     The shadow falls in on itself, and a young man wearing a black shirt, ripped jeans and still the darkest sunglasses Skin has ever seen walks out of it. “Hey, brother. What’s happening?”

     “Beats me,” says Skin, glancing around the room. It seems to have gotten a little brighter, but he still doesn’t recognise anything. “I only just got here myself.”

     “You’re telling me,” says Cthulhu. He does something with his arms that doesn’t quite make sense to Skin and manages to light a cigarette, run a hand through his hair, scratch his arse, reach into his jeans and pass a small hand-mirror to Skin, all at the same time. “Look at yourself.”

     Doctor Skin raises the mirror and sees a reflection that is much younger than it should be. “Fuck! I’m eighteen again!”

     “So it seems.”

     “Fuck!” repeats an unimaginative Skin. “Why do these kind of things keep happening to me?”

     “Just lucky, I guess,” says Cthulhu, taking his mirror back and heading for the door. “Come on, let’s get going.”

     “Where?” says Skin, following Cthulhu. “Where the hell am I anyway?”

     Cthulhu stops at the door, holding out a hand, signalling to Skin to hold back. “Trust me, man. It’s the city of heroes. You don’t want to be caught up in it.”

     “Why the hell not?” sneers Skin, heading for the door, only to stop as a red and blue blur steaks right past the door. Skin staggers back a step. “Shit! What the fuck was that?”

     “Just another super-hero,” says Cthulhu, grinning happily. “This world is full of ‘em. Some kind of event forty years ago gave everybody on the planet super-powers. And most of ‘em turned out to be pretty decent at heart. They took out the villains in less than a week. Can you dig it? A whole universe full of heroes, and no bad guys to fight anymore. Can you imagine the possibilities?”

     “I’d be much happier figuring a way home, if it’s all the same to you.”

     Cthulhu smiles, his perfect teeth gleaming in the darkness of the room. “You’ll get home soon enough. Don’t worry about it.”

     Doctor Skin moves to the door and peers over Cthulhu’s shoulder. Outside it appears to be a perfectly ordinary street, empty and full of potential. Then he looks up and sees them, circling over the city. Thousands of brightly coloured superheroes drift lazily through the air, looking for trouble and failing to find any.

     “Jesus,” whispers Skin as he watches a cat streaked with white lightning bolts hover high above. “This is worse than J Street.”

     “Nah,” drawls Cthulhu. “Nothing is worse than the Street.”

     Skin scowls. “You’d think they could get a life.”

     “Come again?”

     “City of heroes, my arse. City of zeroes, more like.”

     “Hey,” says Cthulhu, stepping away from the door, looking slightly hurt. “What’s your problem? They’re alright. They’re doing their own thing. What’s so wrong with that?”

     “Yeah, I know,” moans Skin, “but superheroes? Jesus, what a cliché.”

     Something in Cthulhu’s eyes sends a shiver down Skin’s spine. “Give it a rest. You love super hero comics, don’t you?”

     “Maybe when I was a little kid,” counters Skin. “Not now. I prefer more mature works. They’re the only proper ones. Independent books, Los Bros Hernandez, R Crumb, that guy who did ‘Blankets’, stuff like that. There’s so much potential in the comic medium, too much to waste on super-heroes.”
    
     Cthulhu smiles. “I bet you like Anne Rice books too.”

     “I… “ says Skin, trailing off as he realises he was about to mount a spirited defence. “Oh my God. I    AM eighteen.

     Doctor Skin leans back against the bare wall, covering his head in his hands. “This is terrible! I don’t want to be a wanker again!”

    “Don’t worry, man,” says Cthulhu, patting Skin on the back. “You might have dropped ten years, but I’m sure there is a good reason for it.”

    “Don’t count on it,” moans Skin, lost in self-pity.

    “Come on,” says Cthulhu, grabbing Skin by the wrist and dragging him out into the street. “Empty rooms are boring. Lets see what’s out there.”

    Skin has no choice as he is hauled out into the light. Cthulhu loses his grip as they sprint across the street, heading for a bar on the other side of the road.

    Cthulhu gets there first, and looks back at Skin, begging him on. Skin is almost there when something grabs him by the collar and pulls him up into the air.

    “Don’t worry, I got you,” says a teenage girl as she swoops down and pulls Skin away from Cthulu, flying up to an all-time high. “You’re safe now!”

    They shoot even higher up into the sky, but Skin’s stomach feels like it’s still down at ground level, and he almost loses his lunch, only to choke on it as the fattest man in a bright blue leotard Skin has ever seen flies in and snatches him away from the teenager.

    “Don’t panic, sir!” bellows Skin’s newest rescuer. “She’s crazy, but I’ll keep you safe!”

    “Up yours,” sneers Skin, getting his shit together enough to poke the fat man in the eye. Screaming and clutching his wounded eye, he drops Skin. Falling free, Skin suddenly realises he probably shouldn’t have tried that trick so high up in the air.

     He does a few lazy somersaults in the air before realising they aren’t helping the situation, and focuses on the problem at hand. The street is rushing up to met him, cold, hard concrete beckoning him on.

     Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Cthulhu salute him lazily, before fading away, back into shadow.

     Concentrating back on the problem, Doctor Skin is about to give into the inevitable when he notices a young man run out and stand right underneath him.

     “Don’t fear, pal!” says the newcomer, standing directly beneath him, arms held out wide. “Trampoline Lad will save you!”

     “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” mutters Skin, closing his eyes and bracing for the impact.

     Skin hits, and vertigo hits like a tidal wave, the shock of an extreme change in direction overcoming the surprise that he’s still in one piece, and not spread out across a large portion of the road. Skin decides to chance opening his eyes again, and is mildly surprised to find himself flying up into the air again.

     Skin glances down at Trampoline Lad, standing below him with arms folded and a smug look on his face.

     Twisting around in mid-air, Skin sees them all, hundreds of super-heroes, all rushing straight for him, eager to help, falling over themselves to save the day.

     Suddenly full of frustration as he rockets up into the sky, Skin screams at the top of his lungs, unable to bear it any longer. “Fuck this! I don’t want to play this game anymore!”

     And the world shuts off, and Skin feels himself pulled away again. Surprised by the reaction to his plea, Skin has just enough time for one last comment before fading away into the infinite.

     “Bloody hell,” he moans. “If I had known it was going to be that easy….”

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     2. Go Away

     Doctor Skin runs across the wasteland, sucking in acrid air that reeks of smoke, blood and gunpowder. He can’t see anything through the haze that covers the battlefield, but he can hear the missiles flying overhead, can taste the death in the air. Skin hears the sound of gunfire, but the noise is swallowed by the mist and he has no idea how far the action is.

     Getting a grip, Skin stops running and bends over, his hands on his knees as he sucks in air. The dull thump of nearby explosions nearly have him off and running again, but he stands his ground. He’s done running.

     “Get down, you fucking idiot!” screams a voice behind him and Skin is hit hard in the back. He staggers forward a few steps, only to find the ground run out from underneath him and he tumbles into a large crater.

     He falls down the steep slope of the hole, unable to stop himself. He hits the bottom hard, sending up a splash of fetid water. His back still screaming with pain, he tries to stand, but the ground beneath the water shifts and he falls back onto his knees.

     The ground shifts again, and Skin is alarmed to find himself stuck and sinking. He tries to pull his arm free, but a piece of the ground comes up with it and Skin realises there isn’t any ground beneath the water as his arm breaks the surface, still embedded in a human torso.

     He tries to shake off the rotting, limbless chest, but his arm is stuck fast in it. In his frantic efforts to free himself, he churns up more body parts, arms, legs and heads rising up and sucking him further down.

     It finally gets to him and Skin screams, his cry filled with disgust and horror. His scream chokes off as he sinks deeper among the dead men, the foul water filling his mouth.

     And then a hand grabs him by the wrist and pulls him back up. Skin claws his way up the man’s arm until he’s free of the bottom, tearing the body part off his arm the instant he’s out.

     “You all right?” asks Skin’s rescuer. Dressed in a filthy army uniform with unfamiliar insignia, he reaches inside his jacket, takes out a rag and starts to clear the filth from Skin’s eyes. “Hey, can you hear me, pal?”

     “I’m fine,” says skin, spitting out the last taste of water. “Did you see the cunt that shoved me?”

     “Actually, it was me.”

     “Come again?”

     Skin’s rescuer shrugged. “Hey, you were about to be decapitated by a low-flying skreemer unit. I didn’t have time to be gentle.”

     Skin says nothing and the other man studies him for a moment, before coming to a conclusion.

     “You seem all right,” he says, holding out a beefy hand covered with a working man’s calluses. “I’m Sargent Peterson. You can call me the Sarge.”

     “Can I call you Peterson?”

     “You can call me the Sarge,” says the Sarge.

     “Okay, Sarge. Mind telling me what the hell is going on around here?”

     For the first time, Skin noticed a look of confusion on the Sarge’s face. “You don’t know?”

     “I’m not from around here.”

     “Well, considering the whole damn planet is effected by this latest war, I don’t really see how you could…” The Sarge’s voice drifts off as a thought occurs to him and he grins, his smile surprisingly soft. “You from the future or something?”

     “Something,” says Skin. “More of an alternate world type thing.”

     “Yeah,” says the Sarge. “Parallel worlds. I already met a fella from one of them. Vance something. Nice guy. Good moustache.”

     “So what’s happening here then, Sarge? Some kind of Apocalypse?”

     “Nah. Just another war. Grendel wanted the world and he had the clones to do it. He can brew up a thousand an hour. They can’t fight for shit, but they keep on coming.”

     “Grendel?” asks Skin. “Joe Grendel?”

     “Not on this world. Nicodemus Grendel, Lord of the Eastern Kingdoms, he’s the bad guy in this story.”

     “Never heard of him.”

     “Count yourself lucky. Grendel has wiped out entire countries. He can’t be reasoned with. He can only be fought.”

     “But can he be beaten?”

     The Sarge looked at Skin as if this was stupidest question he’d ever heard, before grinning again. “Yeah. He can be beaten.”

     “Not by you,” say a dozen toneless voices simultaneously, and Skin and the Sarge both look up to see twenty identical blonde men all staring down on them dispassionately, their guns held firmly in the hands, pointing right at the two men in the bottom of the pit. “Not today.”

     Even from the pit Skin can see that there was something missing in the men’s eyes. Nothing he can put his finger on, but some kind of light was missing. The eerie effect was only compounded by the way they spoke in unison.

     “Who the fuck?” whispered Skin in the Sarge’s direction.

     The Sarge didn’t look in skin’s direction as he answered. “Grendel’s clones. Stone cold killers. They’re responsible for the unfortunates beneath us here.”

     “You are the Sarge,” say the clones,

     The Sarge almost bowed. “Sounds like I’m getting a reputation.”

     “You are a Priority One Enemy.”

     “Sounds like you better take me to your leader.”

     “You are to be shot on sight.”

     “Oh,” says the Sarge. He turns to Skin as the clones’ fingers tighten on their triggers. “Looks like I’m getting a chance to show you that beating I was talking about.”

     “What?” says Skin, but he’s already been left behind as the Sarge drops a smoke grenade, tosses a small handgun to Skin and shoves him out of the way. The clones open fire, but Skin is rolling away to the other side of the crater, away from the deadly gunfire.

     He tries to see what’s happening, but the smoke from the Sarge’s grenade fills the crater. He scrambles up the side and slips over the edge, only to find himself at the feet of one of the clones.

     The clone reacts slowly, and Skin has time to shove its gun aside and kick it in the chest. The clone staggers back, then comes at Skin again, its dull eyes showing no emotion.

     Skin raises the handgun and points it at the chest of the clone, but something tugs at the back of his brain and he drops his aim a little before firing, blowing off the clone’s right kneecap. It groans and falls to the ground, clutching its wounded limb.

     Gun raised, Skin scans the area as the smoke begins to clear. He hears the sound of gunshots, but can’t tell which direction they’re coming from. Then he hears wet, tearing sounds and the screams of week-old men.

     The smoke clears further, and Skin sees the Sarge walk slowly out of the gloom towards him. His uniform is splattered with dark red blood, and his right arm is covered up to the shoulder in gore. He smiles when he sees Skin is all right.

     “I got the rest. You get any of the fuckers?”

     “Just the one,” says Skin, gesturing to the still figure on the ground behind him.

     The Sarge nods. “All right. Kill him and let's get out of here.”

     “What?” says Skin, no sure if he heard the order right.

     “You heard me. Kill the bastard. Then we can go home.”

     “I can’t kill him, not just like that. I’m not that cold-blooded.”

     “You think I am?” says the Sarge furiously. “They’re just clones, so there ain’t nothing cold-blooded about it. They ain’t got no souls, they can’t be saved!”

     “How can you say tha-“ says Skin, just as he’s shot in the back. He feels the impact before he hears the shot, already tumbling forward before he realises what has happened.

     He twists as he hits the ground and there is no pain yet, so he sees the Sarge leap over him, wrench the gun away from the clone Skin had shot, and cave in its skull with the butt of the weapon. Then the pain hits, spreading up from the small of his back, reaching up into his skull and crushing his thoughts beneath the agony.

     He could be lying there for centuries before he feels the Sarge’s hands turning him over. Skin tries to focus on the Sarge’s face, but darkness is creeping in on the edge of his vision.

     “It’s okay,” says the Sarge softly. “There is only so much love in the world. Your passing allows more in.”

     Skin tries to tell him that he’s wrong, that love is infinite, but blood fills his mouth and he chokes on it.

     “Give unto this death freely,” says the Sarge, laying a finger of Skin’s forehead.

     Skin chokes again and the strain catches in his heart and Skin feels it stop, feels the blood slow in his veins befo

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    3. Come Home

    The House of Mystery is in a good mood.

    Its inhabitants would be unable to explain exactly how they know this, but they were all agreed that something is in the air of the House, another sense of renewed optimism, more hope for the future. The House has made it clear: Everything is well.

     The House is in such a good mood that several parties erupt spontaneously throughout the building, some on a level unseen by human eyes, others reassuringly down to Earth. The House beats with music flowing down its corridors, inebriation and sheer joy filling every room.

     In the Room of Tears, where lost souls leave their last messages before moving on, men, women and apes dance to a primal beat, fighting away the melancholy off the walls. Doctor Skin isn’t sure how he got here and as he pushes his way through the crowd of dancers, wincing as he is jabbed in the left side of his chest, the ghost of a wound that never existed flaring back into life.

     He finds a lonely corner in the room and sinks to the floor, short of breath. His thoughts feel like they’ve been through a meat grinder. He tries to concentrate on the music, but its winding back down, the din of conversation rising to fill the void. Skin tries to follow some nearby conversations, but he only catches snatches of speech and he has no hope of putting it together in a coherent order.

     “You shouldn’t play in the road when you’re loaded.”

     “What? You mean it was THAT Berta?”

     “He wants us to be a record for the future, but we’ll never fucking get there at this rate…”

     “All you cunts better remember my name!”

     “My favourite bit was the scene with the chocolate cake…”

     “Just one more excuse, that’s all I need.”

     “Did you say what I think you said? Did you say you want a smack in the head?”

     “I’m telling you, when you make ‘em that big you’re just asking for trouble…”

     “Christ, I don’t even agree with the whole refrigerator thing, and even I think this is going too fuckin’ far!”

     “That Billy Bob Thorton is one really lucky guy…”

     “Did you see the new ‘Doctor Who’ last night?”

     “I’m okay, I’m all right. I’m gonna stay up all night.”

     “Lets kill the cunt in the corner. He looks like he’s asking for it.”

     Catching onto this last piece of conversation, Doctor Skin looks up suddenly, but can’t see who might have spoke. As paranoia runs wild through his mind, he slowly gets to his feet and walks slowly out of the room, expecting a knife in the back at any moment.

     He makes it out of the room, but the hallway outside is just as crowded, the small space packed with French existentialists. They’re good for a laugh and Skin nearly gets into an argument with one of them over the definition of oblivion before realising the futility of the argument and, stepping over a Cylon warrior passed out in the middle of the corridor with a can of beer in its hand, he drifts onward.

     As he wanders through the crowded house, he finds a television screening TV shows that never got made. Skin watches a bit of the Mulholland Drive series, but he can’t follow it and switches channels until he finds Bruce Lee’s The Warrior. A spot of Kung-Fu and Skin is feeling good again, good enough to continue his wanderings through the house.

     He wanders through room after room. Some of it is incredibly familiar, the sensation of deja-vu as he walks through an indoor jungle almost overpowering.

     “Move on, keep on,” whispers a voice in his mind, and he obliges. He keeps going, finding the party everywhere, his every step analysed and judged by the party-goers.

     On one level he finds a delegation straight from the 30th century and Skin almost asks Brainiac 5 for directions, but chickens out at the last minute. In another room on the ground floor he finds a group of cavemen dancing to Rolling Stones covers, and he leaves them to it.

     In another room he finds several dozen variations of the Kinky Space Pirates, stretched out on bean-bags, each with sparkling sunglasses over their eyes. He tries to get the attention of a few of them, but none of them respond to him.

     One of the Mr Actions makes the effort to raise his head and look up at him, only to fall backward, mumbling incoherently about infinite mirrors.

     “Oh my God!” screams the King Goob in the corner. “I’m Willie again! How the fuck did that happen?”

     Skin makes his exit. It feels like they’re playing a game and he wants no part of it. He continues to wander through the House, losing all track of time.

     Finally he stumbles across a large ballroom, filled with people in super-hero costumes. He recognises several of them from J Street and suddenly realises that everybody who was ever a member of the Pantheon is here.

     He walks slowly through the crowd, but nobody meets his eye, as if he’s not really there. He knows that some of the heroes died years ago, but he feels like the ghost amongst them.

     Finally giving up, he takes a seat at a small table near the front of the room and rests for a moment, his hands on his head. A nearby group of heroes carry on their conversation and Skin can’t help but overhear.

     “You can’t tell me that reading comic books is a magical act. I’m not having it,” says Merl, stabbing a finger forward and spilling his vodka.

     “Why not?” says the female Dadamerican. “You take all this in and it builds and builds. The perfect melding of words and pictures means you can’t ever forget it. No matter how hard you try. Its all still there, and it all still means something.”

     “You fool!” cries Merl. “I’m British! You can’t buy me off with cheap sentimentality. I’m not having it!”

     “Aw c’mon,” says AKM as he happily eats from a plate of club sandwiches. “Everybody knows you Brits are the softest people on the planet. You’re not fooling anybody with that act.”

     “No way!” argues Wet Willie, spilling his drink and leaning on the tall cowboy beside him. “There ain’t nuthin’ more sentimental than a maudlin Texan, right Vance?”

     The Dadamerican tries to get the conversation back on track. “Look, all I’m saying is that after twenty years, nostalgia for all the little unimportant things begins to take on greater significance.”

     “That doesn’t mean anything,” says Willie.

     “It means everything. We forget the bad, but remember the good. All those crappy comics we read when we were kids, they come back on you, shape you into the person you are. They build up over time and your own interpretations of the stupidest things can take on the hugest fuckin’ importance. Its not the big things like war and death and all that that make you the person you are, it’s the crappy comics, the dumb movies, the stupid TV shows.”

     “I know what you mean,” says Doctor Skin, standing up from the table. “I still judge the length of an half-hour by the length of a ‘Metal Mickey’ episode.”

     Everybody in the room suddenly stops talking and stares blankly at him.

     “Ah,” says Skin, scrambling for something to say. “That is-“

     “Jake!” says an oddly familiar voice with an Australian accent and a small man in a Batman costume floats through the crowd as they turn back to their own conversations. “How the hell are ya, mate?”

     “Frankly, I feel like a shit magnet. Ah… Have we met?”

     The midget’s mouth opened wide in shock, far wider than any mortal jaw could open. “I’m OzBat. Remember?”

     “Not really.”

     “Hmmm,” says OzBat, stroking his chin thoughtfully as a question mark appeared in the air above him. “Maybe we met on another time track.”

     “Huh?”

     “Doesn’t matter. What are you doing here anyway?”

     Doctor Skin runs a hand through his hair and takes a deep breath. “I’m not sure. Its like I’m running through hoops for God and he’s got a crappy sense of humour.”

     “I know the feeling,” said OzBat, nodding wisely. For a second Skin thought he looked like a miniature Buddha floating serenely, before the Batman costume snapped back into view. “Sometimes we need to come back here just to get our heads together.”

     “We?”

     “Us!” cries Ozbat, pointing at every direction in the room at once. “The Pantheon!”

     “Oh yeah,” says Skin. “I heard you guys were back. Fighting some universe-ending menace or something. So what is this? You taking a break?”

     “Well, yeah.”

     “Why aren’t you bastards out saving the world?”

     “Give us a break,” shrugs the imp. “We’ve been working hard.”

     “Yeah, right,” sighs Skin, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Look, do you know how I can get out of here? I’m terribly tired.”

     “Yeah,” agrees OzBat. “You should probably get going.”

     “And what’s that supposed to mean?”

     “Kathleen is waiting for you, Jake. She is always waiting for you.”

     “What is that supposed to mean?” snarls Skin.

     “Whatever you want it to mean,” says OzBat as he draws a circle in the air with his finger. The circle filled with light, which faded the instant he pushed a stubby finger through it. “Full circle, mate.”

     Doctor Skin snaps and snatches the imp out of the air, grabbing him by the cowl and hissing into his face. “Just tell me how the fuck I get out of this House!”

     “You could always try the front door,” says OzBat, easily breaking away from Skin and gesturing towards a door over the other side of the room. “That always works for me.”

     Skin looks at the door warily. “What’s on the other side of that door? J Street? Or something else?”

     “You know what’s on the other side. Its what you make of it.”

     “Right,” says Skin, calming down ridiculously quickly. “Well, I guess I better let you get back to saving the world.”

     “The world can save itself for a little while longer. God knows, we done our part.”

     Doctor Skin smiles and turns to leave, only to stop and turn back as something occurs to him. “Hey. Oz.”

     “Yeah, mate?”

     “Are you Bat-Mite?”

     “Ah,” says OzBat, his Australian accent not quite slipping. “That would be telling.”

     Skin wants to ask more, but OzBat floats back away to the Pantheon party, a party hat popping out of nothing and perching on top of his bat-ears. The super-heroes fade away before his eyes and Skin is alone in a hallway, the door out still nearby. The mood of the House seems to have downshifted somehow, and the sounds of the multi-level party feel further away. Skin closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, before opening them again and striding purposefully toward the door.

     He makes it halfway to the door and feels a slight resistance to the air. He takes another few steps, covering another half of his walk towards the door, but doesn’t feel like he’s getting any closer. He takes another step and gets halfway closer to the door again, but there is still half the journey to go.

     “Damn it!” he screams as he reaches in vain for the door handle. “I will not be stopped by logic!”

     He makes one last lunge toward the door, but only covers half the distance, and still comes up short.

     Frustration builds and Skin is about to scream when the door swings open wide and bright sunlight streams into the House. Squinting in the glare, Skin walks into the light.

     Then the light fades and he’s outside again. Half expecting to find himself on J Street, he’s mildly surprised to find himself standing on a small hill in the middle of nowhere. The sun shines down on grass and tussock and there is the slightest wind in the air.

     Doctor Skin sees some cars far off in the distance, too far away to hear. Circling around he sees a sofa standing halfway down the hill, dumped and forgotten.

     And then he sees Kathleen sitting on the sofa, reading a comic book. The sight of her gets Skin’s world singing and he can’t repress the biggest of smiles. He even has to hold back from skipping as he walks towards his one, true love, satisfied that he’s through tripping between worlds for the time being. He might fall off the world again in the future, but for now there is nowhere he would rather be.

     Walking down the hill, Doctor Skin is going home again.

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The End

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That was a Mad Wish/KSP2004 story: You were only supposed to blow the bloody doors off!