Darren Shan: Demon Thief

People think I’m crazy because I see lights. I’ve seen them all my life. Strange, multicoloured patches of light swirling through the air. The patches are different sizes, some as small as a coin, others as big as a cereal box. All sorts of shapes—octagons, triangles, decagons. Some have thirty or forty sides. I don’t know the name for a forty-sided shape. Quadradecagon?

No circles. All of the patches have at least two straight edges. There are a few with curves or semi-circular bulges, but not many.

Every colour imaginable. Some shine brightly, others glow dully. Occasionally a few of the lights pulse, but normally they just hang there, glowing.

When I was younger I didn’t know the lights were strange. I thought everybody saw them. I described them to Mum and Dad, but they thought I was playing a game, seeking attention. It was only when I started school and spoke about the lights in class that it became an issue. My teacher, Miss Tyacke, saw that I wasn’t making up stories, that I really believed in the lights.

Miss Tyacke called Mum in. Suggested they take me to somebody better qualified to understand what the lights signified. But Mum’s never had much time for psychiatrists. She thinks the brain can take care of itself. She asked me to stop mentioning the lights at school, but otherwise she wasn’t concerned.

So I stopped talking about the lights, but the damage had already been done. Word spread among the children—Kernel Fleck is weird. He’s not like us. Stay away from him.

I never made many friends after that.

My name’s Cornelius, but I couldn’t say that when I was younger. The closest I could get was Kernel. Mum and Dad thought that was cute and started using it instead of my real name. It stuck and now that’s what everybody calls me.

I think some parents shouldn’t be allowed to name their kids. There should be a committee to forbid names which will cause problems later. I mean, even without the lights, what chance did I have of fitting in with any normal crowd with a name like Kernel— or Cornelius—Fleck!

We live in a city. Mum’s a university lecturer. Dad’s an artist who also does some freelance teaching. (He actually spends more time teaching than drawing, but whenever anyone asks, he says he’s an artist.) We live on the third floor of an old warehouse which has been converted into apartments. Huge rooms with very high ceilings. I sometimes feel like a Munchkin, or Jack in the giant’s castle.

Dad’s very good with his hands. He makes brilliant model aeroplanes and hangs them from the wooden beams of my bedroom ceiling. When they start to clutter the place up, or if we just get the urge one lazy Sunday afternoon, the pair of us make bombs out of apples, conkers—whatever we can find that’s hard and round—and launch them at the planes. We fire away until we run out of ammo or all the planes are destroyed. Then Dad sets to work on new models and we do it all over again. At the moment the ceiling’s about a third full.

I like it here. Our apartment is great; we’re close to lots of shops, a cool adventure playground, museums, cinemas galore. School’s OK too. I don’t make friends, but I like my teachers and the building—we have a first-rate lab, a projection room, a massive library. And I never get beaten up—I roar automatically when I’m fighting, which isn’t good news for bullies who don’t want to attract attention!

But I’m not enjoying life. I’m lonely. I’ve always been a loner, but it didn’t bother me when I was younger. I liked being by myself. I read lots of books and comics, watched dozens of TV shows, invented imaginary friends to play with. I was happy.

That changed recently. I don’t know why, but I don’t like being alone now. I feel sad when I see groups of friends having a good time. I want to be one of them. I want friends who’ll tell me jokes and laugh at mine, who I can discuss television shows and music with, who’ll pick me to be on their team. I try getting to know people, but the harder I try, the more they avoid me. I sometimes hover at the edge of a group, ignored, and pretend I’m part of it. But if I speak, it backfires. They glare at me suspiciously, move away or tell me to get lost. “Go watch some lights, freak!”

The loneliness got really bad this last month. Nothing interests me any more. The hours drag, especially at home or when I have free time at school. I can’t distract myself. My mind wanders. I keep thinking about friends and how I don’t have any, that I’m alone and might always be. I’ve talked with Mum and Dad about it, but it’s hard to make them understand how miserable I am. They say things will change when I’m older, but I don’t believe them. I’ll still be weird, whatever age I am. Why should people like me more then than now?

I try so hard to fit in. I watch the popular shows and listen to the bands I hear others raving about. I read all the hot comics and books. Wear trendy clothes when I’m not at school. Swear and use all the cool catchphrases.

It doesn’t matter. Nothing works. Nobody likes me. I’m wasting my time. This past week, I’ve got to thinking that I’m wasting my entire life. I’ve had dark, horrible thoughts, where I can only see one way out, one way of stopping the pain and loneliness. I know it’s wrong to think that way—life can never be that bad—but it’s hard not to. I cry when I’m alone—once or twice I’ve even cried in class. I’m eating too much food, putting on weight. I’ve stopped washing and my skin’s got greasy. I don’t care. I want to look like the freak I feel I am.

Late at night. In bed. I’m playing with the patches of light, trying not to think about the loneliness. I’ve always been able to play with the lights. I remember being three or four years old, the lights all around me, reaching out and moving them, trying to fit them together like jigsaw pieces. Normally, the lights remain at a distance of several feet, but I can call them closer when I want to play with them.

The patches aren’t solid. They’re like floating scraps of plastic. If I look at a patch from the side, it’s almost invisible. I can put my fingers through them, like ordinary pools of light. But, despite that, when I want to move a patch, I can. If I focus on a light, it glides towards me, stopping when I tell it. Reaching out, I push at one of the edges with my fingers. I don’t actually touch it, but as my fingers get closer, the light moves in whatever direction I’m pushing. When I stop, the light stops.

I figured out very early on that I could put patches together to make patterns. I’ve been doing it ever since, at night, or during lunch at school when I have nobody to play with. Lately, I’ve been playing with them more than ever. Sometimes, the lights are the only way I have to escape the miserable loneliness.

I like making weird shapes, like Picasso paintings. I saw a programme on him at school a couple of years ago and felt an immediate connection. I think Picasso saw lights too, only he didn’t tell anyone. People wouldn’t have thought he was a great artist if he said he saw lights—they’d have said he was a nutcase, like me.

The shapes I make are nowhere near as fabulous as Pablo Picasso’s paintings. I’m no artist. I just try to create interesting designs. They’re rough, but I like them. They never last. The shapes hold for as long as I’m studying them, but once I lose interest, or fall asleep, they come undone and the pieces drift apart, returning to their original positions in the air around me.

The one I’m making tonight is particularly jumbled. I’m finding it hard to concentrate. Joining the pieces randomly, with no real purpose. It’s a mess. I can’t stop thinking about not having any friends. Feeling wretched. Wishing I had at least one true friend, someone who’d care about me and play with me, so I wasn’t completely alone.