The Hostage (precis)

Back in high school, autumn: hometime feeling. Melancholy.

One can't leave. Hostages are herded into a close little room.

Panicky middleclass people, like befuddled tourists on a hijacked plane. Sweating. Thin excitable lady secretaries, middleaged potbellied guys. The English middleclass, scared and ineffectual.

The hero on the other hand looks like a character in a 1910 melodrama. Confused and humble, but poised. Full moustache gives a sense of reassurance. With a slight shift of emphasis, could be a circus ringmaster.

One of the secretaries is inconsolable. Her friends are trying to calm her. Skinny-armed in blue top, long-nosed. Greetin. All of a sudden she disentangles from her friends and makes a bolt for the door. Out onto the landing. Brownwood, plush, antique feeling. A figure looms calmly toward her from the head of the stairs.

This academy is like a mansion, walnut doorframes and panelling, brass knobs, like the house of some old doctor. And this the hostages are in is a study.

The figure chases her back through the door. Quite calm, maybe even laughing. Looks like a B-move monster. Black monk's robe with cowl covering head, shadows in the eyes. The way it glides forward. Yellow-gleaming teeth. Marked with a terrible jagged scar across the cheek. Seems like monster movie makeup. He hefts a big axe. The axe is beautiful; long handle of work-smoothed, sturdy wood, a heavy head seemingly unblunted by years of use.

The hero is shunted forward and nervously stands his ground. The axeman snarls and backs off, gliding from the room.

Now is this a prank? Some student joke? This kidnapping and herding them into a room, these masked and robed figures that hoot and snarl at them, armed with maiming weapons. Are our kidnappers capable of real violence? Manifestations of chaos and violence, of disorder, suddenly breaking into our ordered lives, so that we huddle in a room. The suspicion is that they're just trying to scare us.

And yet the doubt remains. The hostages consult amongst themselves. They are armed and dangerous. Maybe just a drink-fuelled student prank. They have not shown their faces. The one dressed like the black monk, waiting at the head of the stairs. What waits behind that brownwood door.