The old man opened his eyes. Turning his head to the clock on the bedside table, he confirmed that it was 5.30, just like every other morning in recent memory. His waking was like clockwork. He listened to the seabirds outside on the banks of the Tyne. The chattering Kittwakes crammed on their precarious nests on the nearby Tyne Bridge, the squawking Black-Headed Gulls playing, (or was it fighting?) on the shiny black mud leaving their footprints like tiny stars, and the piercing cry of the Greater Black-Backed Gull, Daddy of them all; a vulture in a tuxedo. It was the beginning of a perfect routine.

Not this morning, though, as the tingling feeling of Christmas mornings past overcame him. He slowly and tantalisingly turned his head to the old Rattan chair which had belonged to his late wife, the one she’d occupied daily from the night of their honeymoon, until the disease took her, eating into every organ in her body.

The breath froze in his lungs as he brought his sleepy gaze to bear on the chair. He allowed his head to fall back into the soft pillow and closed his eyes. Digging his fingernails into both palms until he could almost feel the skin breaking, he opened his eyes.

He looked again at the old chair. Summer sunshine was pouring across the room in a golden arc. The curtains were closed, surely, he did it last night. Turning towards the large picture window, above the chair, he was not prepared for the sight that he encountered. There, sitting, bare legs pulled up to her chin, was a young woman. He was definitely dreaming he thought, slamming his head back onto the pillow, finger nails digging deeper into his palms.

“I can confirm that you are not dreaming Excellency, this is reality.” The voice caressed his ears like the lips of a geisha, sending shivers through his body even in the warm bed.

“I am indeed present and I am your property, the property you purchased from my father only yesterday. Please do not be alarmed and above all do not attempt to move,” the voice emanated from the window but was slightly muffled as if the source was turned away, thought the old man.

“Who are you? Why are you here? How did you get in?” The old man spewed out questions like spitting cherry pits.

“I am your Queen, my Caliph” the woman replied simply, staring into the morning sun, the old man had turned away. As his eyes became accustomed to the light he was taken aback by the clearer view of this creature sitting in the chair. She was back-lit by the virgin daybreak sun such that the tiny white shorts and vest she wore were virtually invisible, like a coating of mist. The old man blinked twice but the image returned more intensely each time.

“I am sorry but you have me at a total disadvantage and in my house too. Who are you really?” he said in as matter of fact a voice as he could muster. “Wait, Caliph? My Queen?” His eyes were closed tight but the image was burned on his retina like an old fashioned flash bulb. He pictured the long blond hair cascading over her shoulders to the base of the wicker chair. He estimated her age to be mid twenties but her slight stature made her almost child-like. He could even guess her height and weight by how much of the space she occupied. His estimate was just over one and a half metres and forty kilos, using his late wife as a comparison. The Rattan chair had also been her favourite morning perch at this time in the summer.

“Yes Lord, you had your other wives thrown into the Tigris,” the woman responded from somewhere in the room, other than her place in the chair. It was as if the house spoke on her behalf.

“Murder? Tigris? That is the Tyne out there. This is Newcastle, not Baghdad,” he replied, shaking his head to clear the thoughts that clouded it.

“Whatever you say Lord. Caliph does not murder, he dispenses with,” came the reply.

He felt the duvet rustle and she was beside him in the bed. The rest of his body froze as he felt a small hand on his stomach, just below his navel. He made to move it away but his arms were encased in granite. The hand slowly moved downwards. What followed was a mixture of Heaven and Hell, salvation and purgatory. He woke several hours later, accompanied by the seabird chorus. His body was a desiccated husk. His mind, an empty shell. There was no trace of the woman. He struggled through the day bereft of feeling until bedtime when he drifted into the sleep of the dead.

The events of the morning were repeated for the following six days. On the eighth day, nothing. Similarly, the proceeding week. Withdrawal from his experience was excruciating, such that he picked up the chair, opened the balcony doors and threw it into the river. It tumbled in the torrent, the legs protruding from the surface like the flailing arms and legs of the unfortunate concubines. Eventually, the chair succumbed and sank beneath the black water of the Tyne.

Eventually, the old man recovered his old routine, although a deep emptiness sat in the pit of his stomach, like permanent hunger. Then, one morning, he opened the balcony doors to take in the cool river air. The tide was out and the river became a trickle between the two giant banks of mud. An invisible hand grabbed his throat at the sight below. Lying side by side, wedged in the silver-black mud appeared the Rattan chair and the corpse of the young woman.

***

The removal men reminded one of a silent movie from 1930’s Hollywood. One tall and thin, the other short and stocky, their statures complementing each other in this line of work. The last job was to load the Rattan chair into the black, anonymous Luton van.

“Should fetch a pretty penny this, it’s a cracker,” the tall man said, stroking the delicate wickerwork.

“Yes. What happened to the old fella?” His partner asked.

“Threw himself in at high tide, from that very balcony. Nobody knows why,” the giant guy responded, pulling down the roller shutter of the van. “They found his body a week later at North Shields, bloated like the corpse of a sheep after a storm.”