The stale taste of beer was in his mouth in a room thick with the smoke of the 15 cigarettes he had chain-smoked. The ghostly neon light above his head began to flicker and emit a buzzing sound. Then it expired. Only the interrogation lamp on his desk shone a cone of brightness into the void. Jason was fifty-seven, but looked older because of thinning, untidy hair. A red nose indicating too much claret and fashionably torn jeans.Jason was sitting before his wide screen, putting the finishing touches on a 3-dimensional image of a beautiful woman. The last 10% took 90% of the effort. He kept making minor adjustments, as something always looked wrong or detracted from her beauty. The eyes were hardest; he agonised what specs of colour to embed in her irises. Finally, he could not see how to improve her.
There was a loud crack and she was there. Her body was barely contained in a sleeveless long crimson robe edged with gold lace. Her generous cleavage captured his mind. The face was striking rather than pretty, with a long nose, dark eyes and darker eyebrows. Her presence was arresting and the shock of her sudden appearance froze him. How could a person appear at 2 AM in his bedroom, without passing though a window or door?
She wore an elaborate diadem of different kinds of woven gold. The most salient detail was on top of her head, above her heavy gold earrings and bountiful jet black hair. Four twisted horns jutted out, their tips of titanium honed to exquisite sharpness. Was that dried blood on two of them?
Jason's stomach contracted and his throat tightened. His legs were numb, while his eyes were dazzled by the contrast between the bright light and the deep shadows in the room. Her head stood out starkly in the beam from the lamp, like a face in a chiaroscuro painting by an old master.
How to react? She was simultaneously scary and desirable. Attraction and repulsion rolled into one.
She broke the silence, "What flimsy excuse for a man are you?"
He could not reply. He stared at the horns and then at her exposed nipples, and back to the horns.
"Answer me!" she commanded.
"Why, I'm just a guy fooling around with AI. Then you appear out of nowhere. What the blazes are you?"
"You, better than anyone, know what I am. You created me."
"I drew a three-dimensional image, not a solid body. Besides she didn't have horns."
"You don't have a clue about how creation works."
"Huh?"
"It's an unconscious process. Sure, your conscious mind sets things up, but the engine that makes things come into being is the unconscious."
"You mean I desire a female demon?"
"You're thick, but you're getting there. You fear women, hence my horns. That's why you are alone."
"But you are sexy as well."
"Why wouldn't I be? You are male."
He swept his arm in front of him, as if to banish her.
"This is nonsense. I'll wake up and find you gone."
She produced a riding crop and shattered his cup. Cold ginger tea sprayed them both.
"I am as real as you are."
"Just, just leave me alone. I mean you no harm," he stammered.
"Good intentions count for nothing. You must come with me."
"Where to, for God's sake?"
"You'll know the place when you get there."
"Can I trust you?"
"No. But come anyway."
Reality split. He was still in his familiar, dingy room with its worn carpet and dark posters of punk art, but looking right, he saw a long steep staircase of stone that lead down to a waterway bordered by golden stone blocks.
Her warm hand grasped his firmly and pulled. Without making a conscious choice, he realised he had decided. Curiosity and wonder had trumped fear, though his heart was red-lining.
As they descended the staircase in full midday sun, she released his hand. In silence, they stepped down to the water's edge. All semblance of his normal reality had vanished. This was a different world. Was it another planet, a scene in the ancient past, an alternative reality or a waking dream? These scenarios flashed unbidden through his mind.
"How do you feel here?" she asked in a neutral voice, no longer laced with contempt.
"Strange. Strange but also familiar. Have I been here before?"
"Indeed you have, but you forgot."
"So where is this?" he asked, but she was gone. Like too many women in his life.
A long, slim papyrus boat with a high prow drifted towards Jason in total silence. Without a murmur, it gently docked where he was standing.
On the deck, a man aged around 30, with shoulder-length brown hair and matching moustache. He was clad in dated flared corduroys, brand new white sandshoes and a Minnie Mouse T-shirt. He looked oddly familiar.
"Who are you?"
"Guess."
"Someone I know."
"Yes, know well."
"Give me a clue."
"Terence."
"Terence? Are you kidding?"
"No."
"My dad?!"
"We have unfinished business."
The apparition on the boat looked like his father had at that age, but something was not right. Was it the nose, or the eyes? He could not tell. Bizarrely, his father was half Jason's age.
Jason recalled the heated arguments before he set off for a year of back-packing across Asia, with his father totally opposed to the idea.
"You never got over my rejection of your advice."
"You were stubborn and young."
Jason had no itch to revisit this conflict. What was the point? His father had been a typical self-made man, concerned only about career and dollars. Terence had no understanding of Jason's need of golden fleece, adventure and making art.
Terence: "Life taught you a lesson, didn't it?"
Defiantly, "Yes, but I would not have it any other way."
"You're still pig-stubborn."
"You're still blinkered."
They paused the insults.
Terence, "But I still love you."
"Even after being cremated?"
"Yes, more than before. You know, don't you, that I only wanted your happiness?"
"You wanted me to be successful, not happy."
"There's something I never told you, because I was ashamed. I too, badly wanted to be an artist, to paint in oils. I wasted years and failed miserably. I could not bear to see it happen to you."
"That's some post-death confession!"