Lest it Comes True.

Johnny had been scolded mercilessly by his father earlier in the evening for not obeying the house rules. The last thing Johnny did before lulling off to sleep was gently whisper to no-one in particular, “I wish I lived in a house with no rules”. And off he dozed. Johnny quickly fell into a deep but very restless sleep, he tossed and turned, restlessly, like a deep weight of burden was disturbing his usually peaceful sleep routine. Unbeknownst to Johnny, he kept on mumbling in his sleep, “I wish I lived in a house with no rules; I wish I lived in a house with no rules” over and over again.

In a short but unsettled amount of time Johnny began to dream, and he found himself walking through a dense but non-threatening forest. The ground was flat but winding and he followed a rough but easily made out track. There were birds chirping and small furry animals playing gleefully in the shrubbery to each side of the track. The presence of these creatures gave Johnny a sense of reassurance as he ambled forth with no real idea of where he was going.

After a while Johnny’s feet began to ache, his mouth was dry, and his empty stomach rumbled. Suddenly, the track became slippery and steep and the sunlight unable to penetrate the dense tree canopy. Soon the small, furry animals could not be found and the birds could no longer be heard chirping happily.

Johnny was becoming afraid but he decided to forge ahead making note to try and find food and shelter if anything appeared.

Much to Johnny’s dismay nothing appeared and he became more concerned; Johnny began to run; he ran through puddles and small creeks; he ran through peat bogs and swamps; Johnny’s sodden clothes got caught on tree branches and tore, and Johnny became desperate and cold. Johnny sat down on a fallen tree trunk and began to cry into his hands. Johnny was a whimpering mess.

Just as Johnny felt at his most hopeless he heard the distant chirping of a single happy bird, and absolute relief fell over him and precious hope comforted Johnny with a warm embrace.

He pushed on and the track became flatter and less slippery; sun rays broke through the tree tops as Johnny happened onto a clearing in the forest. Suddenly, Johnny was confronted with a lovely white picket fence in front of a two-story plantation-style house with a carefully manicured garden, and a sign next to the letterbox declaring “The House with No Rules”.

Johnny was overcome with happiness and he opened the white picket gate and ran up the pathway knocking desperately on the door knocker positioned right in the centre of the formidable front doors.

Johnny’s imagination began to run wild with scenarios; his mouth began to salivate as his senses were titillated by aromas of baked goods, BBQs, and s’mores.

Suddenly the great doors creaked open, and Johnny was met by the tallest man he’d ever scene. The time it took Johnny to lift his eyes to meet the eyes of the Tall Stranger felt like an eternity. The Tall Stranger flashed a striking smile that immediately drew Johnny’s attention away from how tall the stranger was and focused all Johnny’s attention on how broad and large the stranger’s smile was, and how perfectly straight and blindingly white the stranger’s teeth were.

During this entire silent exchange Johnny completely missed the fact that the stranger was wearing a bright yellow tuxedo with bright purple pinstripes and bright purple top hat with bright yellow pinstripes. Johnny only noticed these details as he took the backward steps he needed to to take in the entire humanscape of this mysterious individual.

The tall stranger spoke, “Hello, Johnny, what took you so long, we expected you hours ago; you kept us waiting, and we don’t like waiting”.

Johnny’s mouth opened but only monosyllables escaped: “ah, um, eh”. Johnny didn’t know what to think, let alone what to say.

Needless to say, he was startled and taken aback by the entire situation. It was in the next moment that a sharp hunger pang prompted Johnny to say his first words to the tall stranger: “I’m hungry” Johnny sheepishly squeezed out, his voice quivering and shrill with uncertainty.

The fact that the Tall Stranger knew Johnny’s name without Johnny introducing himself, was not detected by Johnny.

The Tall Stranger tilted his head and narrowed his eyes at Johnny whilst weighing up Johnny’s meagre declaration. The Tall Stranger took a few moments in contemplation about the same, and Johnny anxiously scratched at his chest in confusion. The moment seemed to last for hours; neither of them blinked until the Tall Stranger – wearing a mixed and matched bright yellow and purple pinstriped suit and top hat - hurriedly spat out, “Of course you are, you’re terribly late, dinner was scheduled hours ago which means you must not have eaten! Hurry along, Johnny-me-boy before our feast in your honour gets any colder! We’ll deal with your tattered clothes after you’ve eaten. Now, run along straight down the hallway, third door on the left, your banquet awaits!”

And so, Johnny ran; he ran so fast he almost overshot the third door on the left causing him to skid to a grinding halt before leveraging himself off the door jam, catapulting himself into the decadent dining hall where he began to devour anything within arm’s reach.

Johnny ate and ate and ate until he couldn’t eat anymore. And Johnny ended this offering with a single slice of chocolate cake.

The Tall Stranger silently appeared behind Johnny and in a concerned paternal tone asked Johnny if he was satisfied. Johnny, ever-consistent with his monosyllabic incantations uttered, “uh ha”. Johnny’s face was glistening with a mixture grease and icing sugar; his lips blue from the blueberry pie he hurriedly scoffed down only minutes earlier. The Tall Stranger gestured for Johnny to take his hand, and Johnny did; the Tall Stranger lead Johnny further down the hall to the purple and gold bathing quarters, where Johnny immediately noticed a soft thick dressing gown with his own name embroidered across the shoulders next to a set of flannelette pyjamas that had his initials embroidered above the breast pocket.

The Tall Stranger advised Johnny to use the facilities, to don his nightwear, and go through to the adjoining room where he would find a four-posted double-king-sized bed awaiting him.

The Tall Stranger advised Johnny that he would explain everything to him once he was well-rested, and for the second time that evening Johnny ebbed off to sleep; sleep within sleep.

Johnny woke feeling completely rested and rejuvenated. He left the giant bed and followed his nose to the smells emanating from the kitchen area; Johnny was still wearing his embroidered pyjamas and matching dressing gown.

Whence in the kitchen Johnny was met with a chaotic scene. The Tall Stranger was working at a furious pace preparing a breakfast banquet. Enormous pots and pans were sitting atop giant gas burners, the contents simmering away nicely: bacon, eggs, sausages, mushrooms, hash-browns, grilled tomatoes, etc; elaborate fruit platters lined the benchtops; 40 litre vessels held a variety of juices; huge trays stacked with bursting baked goods filled deep oven spaces, each shelf occupied with croissants, muffins, pastries. Johnny thought he had died and gone to heaven.

Johnny had thought better than to interrupt the Tall Stranger as he dashed from one side of the stainless-steel kitchen to the other; he was a blur of action and a flurry of feats as he turned dials, pressed buttons, lifted lids, checked timers, and furiously flipped pancakes; Johnny intuitively knew better than to cause a distraction and he left to the decadent dining hall where he ate dinner the night before.

Johnny was shocked to see a hall full of children all engaging in a ferocious food fight, and none-other-than the Tall Stranger appeared to be at the centre of it! Food was flying everywhere, and in the midst of the action, the children were plucking food items from mid-air to eat! A sausage here, and egg there, a muffin over there; the room was full with laughter and action, and in no time at all, Johnny was involved. Eat, throw, catch, repeat; eat, throw, catch, repeat; over and over again.

And so, life went on like this for Johnny for what seemed like years. There were no rules, no bed time, no getting up early, food fights every meal; sweets every meal; Johnny was leading a completely unfettered lifestyle and he couldn’t be happier.

As time went on Johnny began to forget about his family; Johnny’s unfettered lifestyle became his norm, and he lived his entire life in this dream state; Johnny’s physical body had gone into a kind of hibernation of sorts. Johnny’s loving parents were unable to wake him, and the doctors were called. The doctors stated that they’d never seen anything like it and moved him to a hospital, where Johnny remained perfectly calm and content in a comatose, vegetative state.

To maintain Johnny’s sustenance, doctors inserted a long feeding tube through Johnny’s nasal passage and down into his stomach, and through the long feeding tube they fed him a liquid diet. A needle and line connected to a flask was inserted to Johnny’s arm where a salty solution was infused directly to Johnny’s vein for hydration purposes, and another long tube connected to a collection bag was inserted into Johnny’s penis and into his bladder where treacly urine would slowly but constantly leak to and nurses would empty every eight hours.

Unbeknownst to Johnny, he was in-fact, still asleep, however, the choices he was making in his dream-state were being reflected in his physical state in real-life. Johnny gained a lot of weight; Johnny’s skin became pallid and thick with pimples and acne; Johnny’s breathing was laboured and his breath was oddly sweet; the stench emitted by Johnny’s body was a mixture of acrid and saccharine albeit eye-wateringly nauseating to anyone visiting.

Things got worse for Johnny as chronic illness set-in. Johnny became a type-two diabetic; he developed bed sores; his skin around his nether-regions red and excoriated from lying in soiled nappies. Johnny’s outlook was bleak when a suppurating sore on his left heel began to necrotise, and infection set in.

The doctors spoke with Johnny’s parents and advised them that for Johnny to survive he would require a below-knee amputation of his affected leg. Johnny’s parents, sad and sullen, were unsure about what the correct decision was, and agreed to do what the doctors had suggested, in desperate hope that Johnny would suddenly wake from his long slumber and make a miraculous recovery.

So, the surgeons were called and they took Johnny’s leg.

Months would go on, and Johnny would recover from the amputation only to have another suppurating wound submit to gangrene and infection, and again, amputation. Before long, Johnny was just a torso and head with tubes connected to machines that were keeping him alive, and stumps that would twitch and spasm inexplicably.

In the dream-world, Johnny began to grow tired of living without rules. The novelty had worn off and Johnny was bored. Fleeting memories of his bygone life and family would come and go, and Johnny began to long for his former lifestyle.

One day, amid the usual chaos and mayhem that characterised the House with No Rules Johnny caught the attention of the Tall Stranger and shared with him his conundrum. Johnny was nervous because he didn’t know how the stranger would react; Johnny didn’t want to came across as ungrateful or unappreciative.

To Johnny’s surprise, on conveying his quandary, the Tall Stranger smiled a Cheshire smile; his eyes glistened with Satan’s mischief, the Tall Stranger simply replied, “You’re free to go anytime, but once you leave, you can never return. To leave from the House with No Rules simply repeat the words, there’s no place like home, three times in the mirror. And one last thing, Johnny-me-boy, be careful what you wish for; lest it come true".