The first time Tim saw Ipsy was when he was a young boy. Down by the river that ran past his stepfather’s house, he had looked up from trying to tickle fish in the cool water, and Ipsy had been standing there with his wild hair sticking out at all angles and grinning madly.
“I’m Ipsy, Timmy. Come on, I know where treasure is hidden,” Ipsy had said, grinning, and ran off into the woods without looking back. Tim had chased after him laughing; the fish, the river, and what was in the old, dark house all forgotten.
Colours had looked different for Tim around Ipsy, the wind had carried music and the shadows’ secrets suddenly had not seemed so dark. The Sun had danced in the sky, the Stars’ ballroom had been the Moon’s tapestry while the woods had become their kingdom. Indeed, Ipsy and Tim had run as free as the beasts, screaming, laughing and playing. They had chased butterflies and faeries, discovered forgotten gods, and even–after an epic quest–found a magical sword. They had drunk wine made of moonlight, supped on starlight, and danced madly in a magical clearing beneath the moonlight of another sky. With Timmy’s wits, Ipsy’s bravery, and their magical sword, they had embarked on great quests and vanquished the wicked while protecting the innocent, and, only once, in its lair, they had fought a big, old, mean Dragon…
Indeed, terrified and cowering in fear, Tim had watched Ipsy slay the fiery, roaring Dragon.
“Don’t worry, Timmy,” Ipsy said, covered in the Dragon’s blood and grinning madly, his eyes twinkling with an unseen light, “ You are safe now. The old beast deserved it.“
Tim was shaking and Ipsy grabbed him and hugged him tightly. That was how all the dragon’s blood had gotten onto him, he was sure. Ipys was the strong one. Tim had been too scared to do anything and had only watched as Ipsy slew the dragon.
“You trust me, Timmy?” Ipsy asked, a shadow flickering across his face, to which Tim nodded and gritted his teeth–they both knew what was coming, “Good. I can’t go where you are going, but I will always be here. Always. Come find me in the woods, Timmy. Come find me where we danced in that moonlit clearing.“
Tim remembered how blue the police’s lights had been, flashing rhythmically. Like awful, screaming little moons as they closed him in cold iron and drove him away from the magical kingdom and Ipsy.
***
Each morning, the guards would let the inmates out into the yard. Some would cluster in gangs or mill around, smoking those nasty illicit cigarettes that seemed to permeate penitentiaries. Others would gym but Old Timmy–as he was now known–did not like the touch of iron. His sixty-odd years of incarceration had more than enough cold iron for him.
No, he liked to walk around the yard to the far side where some flowers grew on the other side of the fence. Lillies and primroses sprung up there around the smallest sliver of a stream that trickled by. It vaguely reminded him of the old river back home but that had been so, so long and he was not sure he could remember it quite right anymore. Maybe he had made that up too?
And then, one morning, he hobbled through the milling inmates–they all ignored the bent, crazy Old Timmy–and reached the fence by his flowers when he saw the wild hair and wide grin of Ipsy standing there. Ipsy had not aged a day!
“It is time to come home, Timmy,” Ipsy said, his face full of concern, longing and sadness, “Come home.“
Timmy shook his head and blinked. He had often wondered if he had imagined Ipsy? Had he imagined their adventures? They had told him that he had and, after sixty-odd years, he had started to believe them. But here, standing before him in the full morning light was the wild-haired, grinning mischievous Ipsy.
“B-but I can’t, Ipsy,” Timmy said, his decades of facade cracking and tears starting to trickle down his face, “I really want to, Ipsy. I really, really want to, but I can’t get out here. They won’t let me, Ipsy. They never let me, Ipsy–“
Ipsy stepped over the flowers and came up close to the fence–but was careful not to touch the iron–and Timmy saw the sadness in his eyes. So much sadness! It was oceans of hurt and pain, washing through time and into the great pool of emotion that lies below the ground. He hurt, and he hurt that his friend hurt, and the trickle of tears on Old Timmy’s face began to flood into a river that fed that vast, dark body of water.
“It’s alright, Timmy,” Ipsy said, mischief dancing on the corner of his tearful eyes and a grin creeping back onto his face, “This is one last adventure for you. They’ll let you this time. Come find me in the woods, Timmy, come find me where we danced in that moonlit clearing.“
***
“How’d whats-a-name get out then?” the investigating Officer said, rifling through the pile of papers on his desk. The Warden in front of him shifted uncomfortably and wrung his hands a little.
“I-I am… We are not sure, Sir,” the Warden replied, “We have checked all the surveillance and all our records. Even his cellmate does not know, Sir. Old Timmy was basically harmless too; oldest geyser in the block for some murder he did decades ago. Kept to himself. Never got in trouble. Perhaps it was the medical diagnosis that inspired this action–you know, see the world one last time?–but we don’t really know anything else…”
The Warden finished lamely, his sentence trailing off. The Officer nodded without looking up and wrote on some of the papers, and time stretched out into an awkward silence as the Officer read further.
“So why–and how–did the old man make it all the way back to his old stepfather’s house in the middle of nowhere? This was the stepfather he murdered, right? Why go back to those woods? I’d really like to know that last part.”
The Warden shrugged and shook his head dumbly, “Old Timmy wasn’t, ah, all right up there, Sir. We reckoned he was mad and, you know, crazy does what crazy does.”
***
Late that night–hours and an official report later–the Officer was sitting alone in his office with his single desk lamp on. The Department was largely empty this time of night too. The official report has been concluded, his superior had signed off on it, the Warden had seemed relieved, and the world had swept it all into the folds of bureaucracy.
But he could not shake a feeling. A strange, surprising feeling.
All alone in his dimly lit office, he sat staring at the picture of the clearing in the woods where Timmy’s body had been found. The grass was stunningly green in that clearing and a weird ring of mushrooms circled Timmy’s corpse.
There were no signs of recent trauma, but Old Timmy had had terminal cancer, so his death had been ruled quite simply that. No one had any clue how he had escaped prison nor how he had gotten to the other side of the country without being seen but, well, no harm had been done and he was dead from cancer. The bureaucrats liked these neat endings and so, without much fuss, the case-file had been filed and the world had moved one.
No one cared about one old, dead, escaped, crazy convict.
But, in that dimly lit room, alone in the vast, empty Department, the Officer sat staring at the picture the crime-scene photographer had taken of Old Timmy’s face: he was smiling. Forever captured in time, Old Timmy’s face held a peaceful, contented smile with a light that made the Officer’s inside ache. It made him ache with an ancient, hollow hurt that he had forgotten was there, and he could not help feeling strangely jealous–
With a jolt, the Officer realized he was jealous of Old Timmy and he did not know why?