I based my haibun on the classic British science fiction horror, The Village of the Damned. The film is based on John Wyndham’s novel The Midwich Cuckoo.
The story is about alien children who are a significant threat to humanity. To save mankind, David’s father plants a bomb in the school classroom to kill them. (David, a protagonist in my haibun, is the alien surrogate son of Professor Zellaby.) The story ends when the bomb explodes, killing the children and Professor Zellaby.
For my haibun sequel, I bring the story forward a few years to the late 1960s. Some children survived the professor’s homemade bomb…
City of the Damned
I stand silhouetted at the window.
The City has been my home since that awful day. When David’s father blew us up in the schoolroom.
From my newly built Barbican flat high on the thirty-fifth floor, I can see St Giles Church far below. On clear days, my view extends to the Houses of Parliament and beyond to Greenwich. But today, the sinister swirling fog hides everything. I cannot see anything, but I know that not one human within the area is awake. They all lie where they fell.
I know what is happening.
I shift my weight from one foot to the other. The eerie light of the mist catches the edge of my hair, forming a halo of a greenish yellow hue. My eyes glimmer.
Someone enters the room.
Without turning, I say, “You took your time! Where have you been?”
“I am sorry.” David replies.
His eyes bore into me.
I turn and look at him, dumbfounded and annoyed. “So, we still have the power of telepathy. To communicate with our thoughts? Why the long silence?”
”Our planet is a long way.”
I look him up and down. David has aged in the time he’s been away.
“You didn’t solve the rapid ageing process then?”
He shrugs, “We evolve. We do not age.”
I raise an eyebrow. “We were children when you left us for dead. Now we look like old people.”
David takes out an Aetherium phial from his pocket. “I’ve returned with a solution.”
A loud engine noise and whirring chopping clatter of helicopter blades rotating overhead intrudes into the quiet of the room. Then stops. Only five seconds pass like a bated breath when an explosion booms, reflecting fire and flames bouncing and dancing in the windowpane of my room.
flashes of lightening
fogged glass swirls with cosmic light—
kaleidoscopes spin
David’s impassive face turns toward the window. His blonde hair was as bright as it ever was. “That helicopter should’ve stayed away from our zone.”
Through our inherent thought transference, he gives me clear instructions on what I am to do next.
I am to go at once to Cloth Fair and enter the church of St Bartholomew the Great. The spaceship is in the churchyard. I am to join the others. The second invasion has begun.
I turn to David. “What if I don’t want to go?”
The silence in David’s thoughts is deafening. His eyes widen and his gaze sears into mine. I have no resistance.
I move and step over Katia. Her body sprawls halfway into the kitchen and into the hall. Her hand stretching out as though reaching for something, still clutching a tea cloth. A look of surprise on her face. She hasn’t been with me long; only a few weeks.
“It’s hard to find a good cleaner.”
“Don’t worry, she’ll be fine. Let’s go.”
I pull on my coat and leave with David at my heel. In the corridor, several bodies are lying in my path. One of them is my neighbour. The door to her flat is ajar, her black cat flat on its back. A radio is playing, broadcasting the news. ‘London is on Red Mamba alert.’ I step over the prostrate figure of my friend. I am sorry to leave; I have assimilated into the human way of life.
“I don’t expect we’ll meet for coffee now, Jennie.”
The lift isn’t operational, so we take the stairs. Our footsteps echo on the concrete steps. Step after step after step, repeating the sound of rubber-soled shoes padding downwards and oft times squeaking as we turn on the landings to tread down the next flight. Each stairwell and landing are identical, except for painted numerals on the concrete walls marking the floor level. Round and round, down and down we go. I am regretting living on the thirty-fifth floor.
never ending stairs
descending in dull spirals
to silenced streets
The Square Mile has a cordon around it, police tapes with the words DO NOT CROSS THE LINE stretching across buildings, alleys, and streets. Roadblocks are in place. Warnings to stay indoors are broadcasting from loud hailer speaker systems.
No one can enter the City. Everyone in the area has succumbed to an unknown toxin. No one can leave.
Wrecked cars from multiple collisions strew across the road. Their drivers slump motionless at the wheel. A red double decker bus is turned over on its side. Passengers lie collapsed across the seats. Recumbent figures sprawl all over the pavement. Nothing, and no one is moving within the guarded boundaries of the City dragons.
David and I walk across Aldersgate Street toward Cloth Fair. Our feet crunch on broken glass.
David thinks, “It’ll be just like old times.”
I am not so sure.
Once upon a time…
I was an alien child in the British science fiction horror film, The Village of the Damned (1960) Dir. Wolf Rilla. The film is based on John Wyndham’s novel The Midwich Cuckoo (1957).
Synopsis
The story is set in the small English village of Midwich, where a mysterious event causes all the inhabitants to fall unconscious. When they awaken, they discover that every woman of childbearing age is pregnant.
The children from these pregnancies all share unusual characteristics: they have platinum blonde hair, striking eyes, and exhibit rapid growth and advanced intelligence.
As they grow, they possess powerful telepathic abilities with which they control the minds of others.
The villagers and surrogate parents come to realise that their ‘alien’ children pose a significant threat to humanity.
The film ends with David’s father, Professor Zellaby (played by George Sanders) blowing the children up in the village school’s classroom. David is played by Martin Stephens.
Film clip of the final scene (1 min 6 secs)
The brief film clip below is the final scene when the professor tries to hide his thoughts from the children by thinking of a brick wall.
It is from the American version of the film. With added special FX of luminous eyes. *The British print of the film is without this special effect.
City Dragons
In the haibun, I mention the City Dragons. There are 14 watch dragons that guard the boundaries to the City. My photo is of the Aldersgate Dragon that stands where one of the seven gates into London stood. (It could do with a lick of paint).
I wrote my Sci-fi haibun inspired by Frank J. Tassone’s Sci-fi Haibun prompt for the d’Verse Poets.
THANKS
My thanks to Frank J. Tassone and the d’Verse Poets for the inspiration.
Thank you, dear reader, for popping by and reading my haibun.
Lesley lives in the City of London Square Mile. An artist, actor and sculptor (her first ceramic sculpture won the V&A inspired by… Award). Scenic artist & book illustrator, playwright (her musical play, Rapscallion performed in inner city schools and theatre school); TV dancer; mime artist; Animator and illustrator for TV production. Set up Pinecone Studios Ltd and IIMSI Ltd drama and filmmaking workshops in London – producing award-winning films made by children.
LesleyScoble.com 
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