“The weight of the world, weight of the word, is.”

Geoffrey Hill, Scenes from Comus

As he lay back, the usual dizzying abstractions began to whirl about Graham's head, as though the release valve to his subconscious had suddenly been thrown open. This worried him, but it had, by now, become a more than familiar occurrence. The trick, he knew, was to keep his eyes open, focused on any random point on his bedroom ceiling.

Tonight was much harder. The images were coursing thicker, faster, in time with the throbbing of his heart. The last time his visions had been this strong, the results had been disastrous.

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Graham was not a normal child. Whether ‘normal' is really a tenable concept is a matter best left to philosophy; suffice to say, however, that Graham was not like other boys. For instance, Graham had a tendency to tell the truth, and sometimes even more than the truth. He struggled with this for years, telling people things about themselves that they didn't even know. Sometimes, it was disturbing;

  “You have a cyst.”

  “Graham, don't tell lies, why would you say an awful thing like that?”

  “I don't know.”

Other times, it could be funny, even endearing. But whenever he was questioned about the origins of his peculiar knowledge, the answer always came:

  “I don't know.”

After a few years of this interrogation and being accused of telling lies, Graham finally decided that the truth wasn't what people wanted to hear. He kept quiet; and then the visions began.

First, they came in dreams. He would awake with the smell in his nostrils, , or a taste in his mouth, or feeling hot, or cold, until memories of a night spent dreaming would flood him until he cried with the weight of the fresh information. He KNEW things, but he still kept quiet.

Soon, Graham began to see things as soon as he lay down. Things that were not there; things that had been, and things that could not be. Things that never should have been, and things that should never be.

It was all very difficult for a twelve year old to understand.

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It was only marginally less difficult for the men that waited in a van across Graham's street on this particular night.

  “He's entering stage three,” said one.

  “This wasn't predicted,” said another.

  “Not until next week,” said a third.

  “The last time this happened…” the first let hang.

The other two shifted uncomfortably for a few moments, and then:

  “Shall we deploy?” the second said.

  “Wait,” said the first, “and we shall see.”

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Before Graham, lying in his bed, there appeared a great black curtain, too gigantic to see. In the last few seconds before it was unfurled, tears streaming down his face, Graham could only muster the strength for a single, whispered word;

  “No…”

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This is not a normal story.