PART ONE

1.
Eugene Tenenbaum's chestnut eye peeped out from a chink in his curtains. It was dark outside, his glasses and pale eye socket reflected the warm glow of the streetlight. He ensured the street was deserted before shuffling into his slippers and down his narrow carpeted staircase in reassuring darkness.
He padded into the kitchen. The linoleum flooring was sticky and made a syrupy sound as he lifted his feet. Eugene hurriedly heated a pan of milk and carefully poured the creamy liquid into a thermos flask.

It was a clear night and the moon was shining in through the kitchen window. He snapped open a navy briefcase, although it looked grey in the moonlight, and carefully placed his thermos flask inside.
Carrying his briefcase over to the front door he leaned into the porch window, peeling back an inch of curtain and quickly making one last scan of the street. It was well wrapped up for the night, a carrier bag hung on to yesterday's dying breeze as it tumbled across the shiny tarmac.
Eugene eased open his front door and slipped out. He thought the street seemed distracted, each house lost in its own thoughts. Filling his lungs with plain air, he turned left and hurried along the pavement.

2.
Eugene had muddled his way up a long and narrow footpath, lined with blackberry bushes on either side. He had felt like a rabbit in a warren as he clambered past the grappling branches, pregnant with succulent berries as big as the ball of his thumb. He finally resurfaced onto a grassy, domed hill.
The cool wind ruffled his white hair as he gazed up at the pale face of the moon. His eyes began to narrow as they focused on the giant silhouette of an oak tree in the distance, its limbs splayed out against the backdrop of midnight sky. A dark figure was moving amongst the branches.
Clutching his briefcase, Eugene waded through the dewy grass until the tip of his nose was almost touching the trunk of the tree. For three seconds he gazed intently at the deep ridges and valleys of the bark, before tipping back his head and looking up, into the crowded web of branches.

An acorn landed on Eugene's forehead and bounced off, onto the ground. He blinked, and when he opened his eyes again a troubled face was staring back at him.
It was a young man's stony eyes, chiseled into a pallid exterior, that were illuminated in the darkness. He was straddling a narrow branch, swinging his legs precariously. The man cocked his head to one side. "Are you here to watch, brother?" he spoke in a thick Irish accent and the words slipped off his tongue like whisky.
Eugene gripped his briefcase tightly, "What might I have come to watch?" he asked.
The man drew in a slow breath and his thin, blackberry stained lips formed a sliver of
a smile, "To watch me die, brother".
The young man lifted his weight and wobbled as he tried to balance himself on the branch, "I'm going to take my final fall from this here branch. With one quick step, my brother, I'll blow out the candle that keeps this place so dimly lit."
Eugene pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and meditated over the display.
The vital branch was no more than six feet above the ground and it bent and bowed beneath the man's scuffed brown shoes. "Why are you up there, young man, so delirious with desire for death?”



3.
The man quickly sat down again, dangling his legs and resting his palms on the bark. "Ah, you want to hear my story, brother? It's a grim tale, not pleasant to tell and not pleasant to hear." Eugene planted himself on a hump of grass beneath the tree so he could still see the man in the branches. "Tell it then", he grumbled as he unclipped his briefcase and took out the thermos of milk. He unscrewed the lid and slowly sipped on the warm elixir.
Leaning his head back against the spine of the tree, the man closed his eyes. "I was born, brother, where you are sitting now. That's not to mean I was born the natural way; I didn't develop inside a woman's body and nor did I awake with a mother to nurture and care for me. The strangest thing, brother, is that I was born no less than thirteen years old.
It was the most remarkable feeling to wake up to a world of so many delightful colours and sounds. I whistled at birds as I climbed to the very top of this here tree and looked out at the landscape. Far away I could see figures with legs and arms that moved just like mine, I hooted and laughed with delight as a warm feeling spread right through me; I wasn't alone brother.
Energy and curiosity was pulsing through my veins, I felt so alive! I spent days and nights on this hill, listening to the trickling of spring water, studying the sky that was constantly changing and the creatures crawling around at my feet. During that time, I survived happily on berries and plants.
But despite my contentment, I yearned to be with my people; sometimes I would climb this tree at night and gaze out at the clusters of lights that shone from the tiny houses they lived in. To me, those lights were far more beautiful than the stars above my head.
One day, brother, I told my legs to run, and they ran. It was an extraordinary concept. They ran through beautiful fields that glowed as if lit from within, my feet pounding against the ground in time with the healthy beating of my heart. I ran for hours, with no sense of direction, until I arrived in the city."

"I found myself on a busy street, the sounds and smells enveloped me in murk and contaminated any sweet memories I had of the hill. There were so many people like me, brother, but they all looked so different. I walked through the street, like they did, and we all had our own purpose. But, oh brother, I felt lonelier wandering that street full of people than I did running through the hills.
As my feet grew sore I found a dusty doorway to sit in. I still gazed up into the empty eyes of passers by, longing for affection, until my faith in the warmth of their nature slowly ebbed away. Darkness fell and I wrapped my coat around my shivering body. I took one final look at the city lights I had loved so dearly, before sinking into a cavernous sleep."
"When I awoke, a wizened hand was reaching out to me. 'I'm going to help you, brother' said a voice; it was as steady and tranquil as the trickling stream. A divine glow rippled through my heart as I opened my eyes."
"I had fallen asleep at the foot of a monastery you see, brother. And the hand belonged to an old, wise man that devoted his life to the contemplation of some celestial creator. 'Do you have any family, brother?’ the old monk had asked me. I could only respond with a grunt.
The monk took me in and gave me a bed and food. I stayed in the monastery for days without uttering a word, studying the great frescoes on the ceiling as the sun shone through the stained-glass windows and gave the scenes life.
The old monk finally took it upon himself to educate me. He taught me the delights of language and speech; the way great minds imprinted their thoughts onto paper. Other monks taught me how to discern the different rings and flicks of the alphabet. I learnt quickly and by my seventeenth birthday I had enough knowledge to satisfy fifty men."

"I lived contentedly in that monastery and amongst my humble brothers. That was, until one night, when I woke abruptly from uneasy dreams.
My hair, damp with sweat, was clinging to my forehead. I choked on the air as it pressed heavily against my chest. Turning, I saw smoke, slowly bleeding in through the doorway. I struggled to rise as I heard the shouts of my brothers. My limbs were paralysed. As I lay watching, the smoke engulfed me, and I was finally submerged in my misty past."

PART TWO

1.
Eugene Tenenbaum's chestnut eye blinked twice in the moonlight. He stirred from his spot on the grass and looked up at the young man, who sat stone still on his branch. His eyes had turned as black as the night-sky that viciously framed his bleached face. "Do you remember me Daniel?” Eugene's voice rolled over the hilltop.
Daniel jumped down from his branch and loomed over Eugene's snowcapped scalp. "Yes Eugene, that night everything came back to me." He slowly began to pace forwards and backwards on the grass. "It was only flickering images at first; a man and woman standing beneath a tree, a snapshot of grey sky and a posy of wildflowers, clutched by a lifeless hand. But as I sunk deeper and deeper the memories became more vivid.”
“I remember your face, brother, with a younger complexion, and rainwater trickling down your cheeks. You were the man standing beneath the tree, the tree I'm stood beneath now. A woman was crying and yelling at you, her dress was drenched from the rain. In my dream her cries were muffled. Who was she, brother?" Eugene didn't reply. He was gazing vacantly down towards the woodland that lined the foot of the hill.
Daniel followed his gaze. "Ah, yes brother, and that's where I was standing. I had been hunting for squirrels when I saw the dark rain clouds spreading across the sky and decided to head for home. When I was halfway down the footpath I found that I had lost my penknife and turned back.
The sky began to spit great globules of water down at me. I trekked halfway up the hill before I could see both your figures rendered against the grey backdrop of sky. You grasped the woman by her shoulders and shook her delicate frame. She shrieked and pushed you away. As I watched in terror, you turned. Your dark eyes reflected the glint of the moon, and you wrapped your hands around the woman's throat, squeezing the life out of her until her body lay limp on the grass. She died where you're sat now, brother."

2.
Eugene unclipped his briefcase and replaced his empty thermos flask before drawing out a clutch of flowers, their stems tied neatly together with a strip of white ribbon. He twiddled the posy as he spoke, "I remember seeing you standing on the side of the hill as I turned away from my wife's body. You had such an angelic face and you gazed up at me, paralysed with fright, as if I encompassed all your foolish nightmares. But, I was perhaps more scared of you, or what I had done to your pure young mind."
Eugene held the flowers up to the moonlight. "These were my wife's favourite flowers,” he said softly. "She had been picking them on our walk, before she died. I come up here once a year and lay them down where her body was found."
Daniel observed a light flickering in Eugene's eyes. "My wife discovered that if you crush the flower-heads and inhale the released toxins, it has a very powerful effect on the mind." He beheaded the flowers one by one and began crushing them in his wrinkled palm. "She found that the plant has the ability to erase a person's memory, so that when they awake their mind is completely blank". Eugene had stood up by now, Daniel was in front of him, looking out at the spot where his thirteen year old self had stood on that dreadful night.
Eugene locked his arm around Daniel's neck and covered his mouth. He held his other palm, covered in the poisonous remedy, beneath Daniel's flaring nostrils. Daniel writhed in Eugene's feeble grip, but his own limbs quickly grew weak and he slowly fell to the ground. Eugene's dark silhouette blocked out the moonlight as he muttered "See you in another life, Daniel". Daniel's eyes flickered shut and he dived into an incandescent pool of sleep.