Harmonies Journey

By S L L Evans



“Shoot for fuck sake, SHOOT!” screamed a tall dark menacing figure crouched close next to Jacob

Jacob laid flat to the ground, his heart bouncing him relentlessly off the sandy floor as it began to beat faster with every passing second. The sight he was looking through trembled, his hand unable to steady the large metallic weapon he was struggling to hold.

“Shoot!”

“I can’t see you pissing bastard, there’s so much fucking sand in me eyes,” bellowed Jacob back to his associate as he laid shaking on the baking white desert floor whilst the ground exploded around him with every incoming missile shell.

The man next to Jacob rapidly put down his weapon and grabbed the young small lad about the shoulders

“I know he’s your friend, I know but we are doomed if he escapes, every last one of us are going to die and continue to do so for eternity”

The man released Jacob with a thump and quickly took hold of his anti fire and began his thunderous shooting again.

“You have to do this, you Jacob, you………………..NOW FUCKING FIRE!”

“ARGGGGGGHHHHH!” cried Jacob as he pulled back his trigger

White flares of light erupted from his weapons cannon and illuminated the sky brighter as they journeyed miles across the barren land.

Miller crashed to the floor as radiance beams whistled passed close by, only inches from killing him.

Jacob saw his best friends face paralysed with terror, terror earned only by himself but his heart was broken, his eyes fixated on his greatest friend until his tears blotted every thing and then all turned black.

The last flashes of imageries that Jacob saw were two grand crafts fly overhead quickly before hitting the ground in a ball of rolling flames…

As Jacob dream dissolved another one quickly replaced it, one more familiar yet far more frightening. At first he felt completely calm, it seemed all that had worried him in his daily life slipped its way into his night thoughts also.

Often Jacob dreams consisted of him looking upon himself in metaphors that reflected his waking existence. In his imaginings tonight, as they were every night, he saw his small self-running through gauntlets of beasts and monsters trying to get hold of him and hurt him. No matter where he went and how hard he tried to escape those demons of the night, they always got to him, always, as did the evils of real life often did too.

The dreams were often the same as the day, eternal conflicts between himself and whoever it seemed he had to stop doing wrong.

In the bar Jacob ran they were the drunks who tried to hurt others and in his nightmares they were the wickedness that tried to conquer over good. Whatever or wherever, Jacob always found himself in the middle.

As Jacob slept, anyone who looked at his soft gentle, yet bruised face would always see an ounce of pain, this was also true if you were to see him awake and well.
To look into his eyes during the day you would see them strained beyond his years, however to look at him as a whole you would see a slim youthful man who did not seem made for a life of fighting, by no means did he look like a soldier. You would never expect him to be the person to wave into a fight between giant men and break them up but he does, often. Like often Jacob finds himself standing against the likes of Keller the drunken oddity, where Keller easily clears 6ft tall, Jacob stands little more than 5ft 5.

Occasionally his dreams vary a little and he does not always find demons scratching at his feet in the fires of hell but he dreams of what could have been. Countless things in Jacobs’s life that may have been for the better but like his dreams, always fell short of the better. Many of the decisions and events in Jacobs’s earlier life contribute to how he lives now.

Jacob has been working behind his fathers' bars since he was pre sixteen. When he was legally old enough he had already taken on a great deal of the families business and then took almost sole control by the age of eighteen.

Public houses were the family business, Jacobs grandfather Mickey was a publican, so were his uncles and it seemed destined for him to be one too and so when Jacob was old enough to work, he did, fully believing he was following the only path for him to do so. Joseph, Jacobs father in the mean time took full advantage of his sons keenness and started to complain that it was due time his son take charge of the business since he had started to feel old and complained that the stress of the pub life has aged him badly. He uses these excuses mainly to defend why he slouches about in bed all day watching the films he buys and neglecting to deal with the important aspects of the day and the managing of his dealings.

Jacob was never sure whether this was due to sheer laziness or something else, his father sometimes looked incredibly sad but they were not the type of family to talk openly about their feelings so he always remained a closed book and this remained an annoying mystery to him.

His mother had died just before his family was due to move to the south from the city to start their new happy lives but sadly she had a terminal disease for quite some years and so the move was really just to make her cheerful. The fact that she never was able to make the journey to her dream home was always a heavy weight on the hearts of the whole family and once she was gone the family slowly fell apart as if she was the only thread that held the seams together.

Luckily Jacob could always rely on his ‘more brother than friend’ mate Miller to help him through his darkest times