I met Aakaashesha Aakhuga in a bookshop in Glasgow. I won’t say which, but it was the big one with a coffee shop on the first floor. I am a dabbling unpublished author, interested in the sort of people who promote their own work at book signings.
He wore a loose trilby hat, sported a salt and pepper beard and looked like I imagine an author would look. He had a small table set up in a corner. It was covered with a cloth with a variety of books arranged in a tasteful way. Looking closer, I saw they were the work of all sorts of authors, sampled from the shelves in no particular order or genre.
“Sorry, I thought you were a writer promoting his book, but I see you are promoting the shop’s books. What a novel idea” I said.
“That would be a pun of the unintentional variety, I take it,” the man smiled.
“So you work for…?” I waved my hand around the area to indicate either the shop or a question for the filling in of a blank space.
“Oh no! I come here so often that they think I do. Many customers ask me, Aakaa, (he pronounced it R-Car) for help because of that. I’ve been seen helping out here for months. The staff turnover is such that they think I’ve always been here. I’ve now moved up a gear. The staff think I am doing some promotional thing and so do the customers. Like you, today.”
I started to move away, uneasy I may be in the presence of madness, for which I am ill equipped.
“You’ve done some writing yourself then?” he called after me.
“How do you know?”
“You have looked at the top ten, the three for two offers, and the two for twenty pounds offer. You shake your head as if to say “How come these got through?” and put them down in a disappointed manner. I have seen it many times. There are too many writers and not enough readers who want to waste money risking a read of your books without an endorsement from some celebrity or lah-di-dah literary column reviewer.”
“I’m sorry, I’d better be off. Time presses. Nice to meet you…”
“Wait! You have a story. I will get it published for you.”
“Thank you, but…”
“Here is my card. This one is the best number.”
He underlined it with a pencil. A good quality business card with his odd name “Aakaashesha Aakhuga”, embossed and taking up the width of the card. Not the sort from a motorway services machine.
“If you don’t call soon, I will call you,” he said.
I laughed. He was barking but refreshing at least.
“And how will you call me?”
“Your name is Lucian... Well, your pen name, anyway. And you have a book to do with a near future. A high tech thriller… your mobile number is …”
“Stop now, please. You’re freaking me out! I’ve never seen you before in my life. I don’t even live in Scotland…”
“Your postcode is…” and he told me. I ran for the door. Outside in the fresh air, I paused. I walked down by the old Police phone box, which served as a coffee counter. A little rattled still, I ordered a coffee as much for some contact with reality as for the need for caffeine.
“You OK, pal?” said the bloke inside.
“What? Oh, yes. I saw someone I thought I knew, and it wasn’t…”
“You look like you met a ghost, pal.”
But he’d turned away, now that he didn’t have the nuisance of someone fainting or requiring an ambulance right outside his kiosk.
***
A few days later, I was back at home, not daring to discuss my odd experience with anybody. After all, how could I use it? Excellent dinner party story? Or the first signs? I decided to write it down. Write it down on the basis that writers must write, even if not intending to publish. I got to about this part when my mobile phone whirred and buzzed around on the table in vibrating mode, like a fly-sprayed bluebottle in its death throes. I let it ring while I wrote this down before I lost it.
…death ...throes…there, and picked it up.
“Aakaa here. Fancy a pint in the Burghley? Or the Green Man? I don’t mind either…” I noticed I’d spelled spelled throes with a “w” – “throws”. I corrected it absent-mindedly while the voice arranged the meeting time with my distracted other self. What? Who?
He just hung up.
* * *
I made my way in trepidation. My heart thumped. I hadn’t had a panic attack or such a feeling of impending...whatever, like this for years. I had to go and meet him. I just had to. What if he knew where I lived and knocked on my door? What would happen if I was alone?
The Burghley Arms. I peered in through the window. He was there at the bar, making the girls laugh at something. He wore a different felt trilby hat, an eccentrically long coat with a scarf, sort of Tom Baker from Dr Who, but not quite. I went in.
“Here’s yours, I took the liberty. A pint of JHB by our own dear Jeffrey Hudson, cheers.”
“Did the girls know what I drink?”
“How could they? It’s the guest ale and you seek its fresh but peppery qualities wherever you go. You drink lager but not Fosters with a splash of lemonade on your disappointed, non JHB, days.”
“Who are you?”
He shrugged. “How about guardian angel, that sort of thing?”
I stared.
“What do you want? I have no money. I’m not gay. Have I wounded or destroyed the lives of you and yours in some way and now you are here to seek revenge?”
“Brilliant! Write that down, we can use it. Now, let’s find ourselves a seat. Maybe the girls can pop by with the odd bottle of Blossom Hill if I send the right smoke signals, yes ladies?”
The girls giggled and nudged each other while we went outside for me to have an urgent smoke for my nerves. How did he know I liked cheap plonk because I drink what I think tastes nice and doesn’t give me a headache? Outside we seated ourselves under the old fire and barbecue canopy with its signs – No non smokers allowed here – “Now Bill, can I call you Lucian or your real name even? Why use a pseudonym?
“My kids” names. It’s a sort of loving memento; a mention to them. If I dropped one for the other then we would have sibling rivalry in that one still got mentioned.”
“Do you think they really give a toss?”
“Probably not but… never mind. Remind me, why are you here again?”
“I’m here to help you.”
I was into my second cigarette now.
“You won’t die from smoking, Luke. You’ll die from running out of fags and crossing a busy road to buy some more in your obsessive craving.”
“Then I’ll just stop crossing roads…”
“This will cut down your smoking and my obligations are satisfied either way.”
I sat back to listen. I wasn’t going to beat this guy on logic, semantics, or anything.
***
I scrolled through my phone’s list of numbers. Rude, I know. There it was: Doctors.
“If you are who you say you are, why not give me the winning lottery numbers?”
“Because, for example, next week Sharon Parsons, a single parent mother of three, is going to win and the papers have the front page held for it. Besides, I have IQ of my own. Interference quotient, that is.”
“How do you…? I get it. Did anyone else see you in the bookshop? No, of course not…what’s happening to me?”
“You catch on quick. As if they would let me set up a table and start pulling books off the shelf…hah!”
I felt cold. I may have sold my soul to the devil once, but when? A drunken party in my youth? He didn’t seem Mephistophelian, Beelzebu…bubian?
He was smiling at me again. Would the Doctor give me drugs? Mother’s little helpers? Would I have to go and sit with a man with a notepad and an air of quiet indifference. In a study with a pleasant garden viewed through French windows?
Aakaa skimmed a beer mat at me. I tore a small piece out of it and stuck it on my nose, mainly because I am cliché ridden and childish. He smiled again.
“I’m not one of those boys you are thinking about. The Doc will give you help. I only look like Dr Who but not quite; because of your imagination. Relax, I could just be a figment of it. I think I’m real. I appear to you as real. Is that tree growing there real?”
I looked at the tree; a stalling tactic. My mind raced and came up with no answers.
“Is it like the one at the shrink’s you can see through the French windows? Stop stalling while your mind races, and so on…”
He laughed.
I gaped, recovered, pretended to be in control.
“If you are a conman, I don’t see what you can possibly gain. At least I can write about it…”
“My dear fellow, of course you can. And you will.”
* * *
I went to the Doctor’s. Of course I did. Wouldn’t you? “Been overworking? Overdoing it? Drinking too much? Are you depressed, fed up, bored? Trouble concentrating? Can’t be bothered with your interests, friends; hobbies?”
My silence reassured him.
“You are probably a bit depressed. I’ll give you something to take. Do you want to talk to someone?”
“I don’t want “depression” on my medical records. Or bipolar disorder or anything like that. Can’t you put stress or something?”
“I have a magic keyboard here…let’s see what a consultant thinks and take it from there.”
“What if I think he is wrong? What if my analysis of him comes out in conversation?”
“It probably will. Do you think you’d be the first to analyse the analyser…?”
** *
There was no couch, only bland furniture in a plain oblong room. A middle aged man grinned from behind a desk. On the desktop, a PC, what must be my file and a wooden joke triangle with the legend, ‘Jack the Shrink’ inscribed in the letters of a small boy with a magnifying glass held up to the sun. He wore a faded blue striped shirt with top button undone and a plain blue tie carelessly flung on as if he never undid the knot at night. His glasses dangled on a woven string round his neck. His hairline receded in a widow’s peak and the battle of the grey was nearly won. He didn’t look like a psychiatrist, more like a journalist or a librarian. He leaned forward to open the conversation.
Nervous, I blurted out: “Shouldn’t you come round from behind there?”
“Why? Do you want to hit me?”
“Why should I want to hit you?”
“Because your caveman is stirring; that’s why you are here.”
“My caveman? I meant that you have erected a barrier between us by sitting behind your desk, your pedestal of authority or something.”
“I get paid for listening to you and your caveman. Your caveman is working for nothing. He wants to control this meeting on his imagined scenario terms. He is probably disappointed there is no buttoned leather couch and French windows; annoyed I am not sitting, indifferent with a notepad on my crossed legs. He has no sabre-tooth to worry about. He can only hunter gather at a supermarket. He is sick and fed up of you sitting in front of this thing…” He rapped on his computer screen with his knuckle.
“He is bored and lacking in self esteem and he is telling you so.”
I told him about Aakaa.
“Is he here now?” He looked over my shoulder and around his room.
“No, he had another appointment…” I sneered. Jack looked taken aback and frowned at this rather sarcastic response. I pressed home the attack.
“What do you want me to do? Shush him with my finger to my lips? Make yip-yip-yip sounds?”
“Very good.” He creased in mirth. “Dr Wayne says you fancy yourself as a bit of a writer. You should write this down.”
“I have.”
“I’d like to see some of your work sometime.”
I hesitated. He watched me as if I was about to draw a weapon. His expression was half amused, half wary. I groped in my inner pocket and passed him these few folded sheets over. He flicked through them.
“Interesting, interesting, even up to the NHS furniture and me behind my desk; Oho! Have you got private medical? No, you haven’t, I see now…”
“Why do you ask?”
“On private, we can have the same conversation but in your preferred décor and setting.”
“Now it’s you taking the micky out of me…”
“I don’t think you are crazy. I think you have an over active imagination and a need to talk to someone away from your home group, your peer group and family. You have some anti depressants I see. Any good?”
“They make me sleepy and indifferent.”
“Has your…” he consulted my story. “Alkaashoosha ever been absent since you took them?”
Should I tell him Aakaa had accompanied me to the hospital gates? Got out of the car before the barrier ticket dispenser? Saluted and went on his way?
My silence went on too long. He grunted in a self-satisfied sort of way. “No? Still around eh? Did you have an imaginary friend when you were little?”
“I must have, I only vaguely remember him but he made no magical claims like this one.”
“Why this strange name do you think?”
“It is Sanskrit for Lord of the Sky – Rides on a Rat. It is also higher in a word search than Aaron Aardvark, which is taken and seen all over the internet.”
“Is this significant to writing, do you think?”
“Names with ‘A’ are at the top left of a book shelf; easy to see – with double “A” at the top of lists alphabetically. It’s a nuisance to peer down at the dark lower shelf. I looked him up – after I met him, by the way.”
“Hmm. Things people worry about. Still, there’s only Tolkien down there worth a look. Do you seek attention in life?”
“Not any more – which is why I use a pen name, I suppose.”
“Do you hide behind it? Want to launch your attack from obscurity?
Camouflage yourself like your caveman would; to survive?”
“Wild animals don’t name themselves, but they camouflage themselves.
They are not mad.”
“You are not mad, crazy or anything. You volunteered to come here. A rational act. You are unhappy and cannot identify the source of your anxiety. I suspect you may be transposing your state of mind elsewhere. I’m not joking about cavemen. And I don’t mean brutal thugs with clubs and too much testosterone. Although, hmmm, read the news, the assaults, road rage, drunken killings – those other sort of cavemen are springing up everywhere.”
He sat looking at his pen as if it were the first time he’d noticed it. He decided it really was a pen and wrote some notes on his pad. He looked up at me. He seemed surprised I was still there.
“Don’t take those pills. You are disturbed somehow but not dangerous,” he smiled.
“Come and see me next week. Try telling yourself you are fine. Write some more about it if you like but I’d advise a few days off the writing.”
He came round and showed me to the door. We went through the usual awkwardness of shaking hands and me going the wrong way out with him redirecting me, then I left.
Aakaa was sat in the car. I was sure I’d locked it. Not so much surprised he could do that, more irritation at the lack of respect he held for me and my privacy. We set off. He seemed to take a childish delight at the controls.
“Ha! Hot air blowing on my feet! Whatever next?” he laughed. “Pub? I’ve got something to show you.”
“Ditch the car first,” I said.
“Leave it, park it in the High Street. You can get a taxi. I’ll keep the wardens at bay.”
“When? How? Where do you sleep? Do you sleep at all?”
“Why worry about me? I don’t exist?”
He laughed again.
***
In the pub garden, I lit up again. “Do you want to stop?” he grinned.
“Of course.”
“Put it out. Never light another one again.”
So I did. And I never did again.
He had a man bag. He pulled out a manuscript. “Have a look through while I get the beer in.”
***
I started reading. It was my book but written by someone else. It flowed. It was just like how I wanted it to go. My hero had the sand of the desert filling his boots, urgh! gritty annoyance. His jellabah itched his forehead with smarting dryness. His calves ached as he tramped up the side of yet another dune. Mirages shimmered in the distance; shade, houris and cool waters beckoned. Fine prickling wind born sand insinuated its way into every crevice of his clothing. My hero was dehydrated, the pebble he sucked grew huge, rattling in the cage of his teeth. Waves of weariness flooded over him and he sank to his knees in despair…
“What do you think?” said Aakaa, returning with foaming JHB.
“It’s written how the creative advisors say – very few adverbs – powerful verbs – I can feel the desert but…”
“But what?”
“It’s not mine.” I said. I would have said ‘halted lamely’ but something prevented me.
“Who cares?” Here’s the jiffy bag, stamps, introductory letter, synopsis. Don’t look, in it all goes and off you pop to the post.”
“But…”
***
Back with Jack in his bland NHS consulting room. “But he’s so real. Yes, I get the caveman part, but how does the apparition appear? I’ve seen him, twice, three times.”
“We have fancy names for that. When you drive a long way, do you suddenly realise you missed part of the journey? Yes, of course you do, we all do it. Where were you? When you dream, don’t the characters use real voices? We don’t know the half of it on my side but we often see the same behaviour…”
“Hmmm. Now you say it, yes, makes sense…”
Jack wound it up. “You are the caveman, yearning for adventure, the open steppe, the beauty of the landscape. This Akaha … this er, sheesh, I’ll call him AA, is a shallow, central heated shadow creature you have dug up to solve an academic frustration. “Caveman you” wants this fool gone and he brought you here today … clever eh?
He sat smiling at me. I sat thinking. Could I prove AA existed? Even now, he was fading away. The more I thought about it … I blushed at the thought I may have been talking to myself in public. The girls in the pub giggling … what had this Jack said or done? Had he hypnotised me? Would I know? He was leafing through my pages again, grinning and shaking his head as if he’d seen it all before. He looked up, consulted his computer diary, clicked his mouse and grunted to himself.
“Come back next week – can you make Wednesday? Tell your friend about me. See if he will come too… if your caveman hasn’t dealt with him by then. Stop the tablets. Get some exercise. Look at a horizon. Oh, and can I keep the story? “
The session was over.
“I want a copy if it goes in one of your learned journals,” I said, and left.
* * *
I was back home for a few days now with no sign of Aakaa, until a letter drop-flop-fluttered down onto the mat. From a publisher.
Dear Bill,
Your submission – Houris, Sand and Arabian Nights.
Thank you for your submission. Normally, it would have spent weeks on our slush pile but we have a keen work experience girl who broke our house rule and opened yours at random before filing it. Lucky day for all, it seems we have found our break out novel….
Outside, I heard the sound of feet padding down steps. Aakaa was at the door as I opened it. He was excited. I tried to interrupt, stammering and batting at the publisher’s letter but he would have none of it. He held copies of The Mercury and The Sun, which he himself batted and held up.
In the Mercury: Local psychiatrist “Jack the Shrink” forced to resign over several misdiagnoses…
In the Sun: Sharon Parsons, single parent mother of three wins bumper lottery payout…
“I don’t know what to say…”
“No need, old boy. Got a few things to attend to. Enjoy your life.”
He was gone. I didn’t see him leave conventionally. No swoosh of magic or the physics of displaced air. Gone, not there. Was he ever there?
***
I never saw him again. I think I know where I put his business card. For some reason though, I never look for it. I am good friends with Jack the Shrink now; socially, away from the hospital. Forced to retire early, he took up gardening and sold window boxes, potted plants and hanging baskets to pubs and restaurants.
He confided in me: “I had complaints that I didn’t listen to people and went on about their cavemen. Their shallow modern veneers had conquered the animal within maybe. I wish I’d met your AA man. He’s the most real one I never met. It can be lonely sometimes sharing people’s problems. Cavemen didn’t have to do that…are you OK now?”
“I get the feeling I’m being watched now and again. I look round but there’s nobody there.”
I don’t tell him I kept the newspaper cutting of Sharon Parsons, single parent mother of three, winning the lottery. I haven’t got any time these days. I’ve enough money to retire but I’m contractually obliged with Houris and Arabian Nights - Book Three. It’s a pain. I must follow the formula of a ghost and, really, now, it’s just another job.
****
End