Jeopardy at an Event Horizon by Penny Rogers, a can of beer

 Once upon a time in a country full of tall mountains, dense forests and mysterious lakes there lived a boy called Vasily. This story begins when he is about fourteen years years old and living with his parents and sister in a little house made of wood. The fact that it was made of wood isn’t important to the story, but it does help you to imagine the environment where Vasily lived.  Every day his father went to work in the forest, his mother looked after the animals on their small farm and his sister Marta went to work in the nearby town.  She was an astrophysicist and knew a lot about black holes and the very nature of space, time and matter. Vasily went to school most days, though on some days he never got there. It was much more fun to skive off with his friends and ride e-scooters round the streets, terrorising the townsfolk and generally GETTING UP TO NO GOOD.  

            On the days when Vasily did go to school he could be a good student, excelling at maths and science and not at all bad at foreign languages, but he could also be disruptive. His teachers did all they could to persuade him to come to school, stop messing about and work hard so that he could follow his big sister into academic research. But he had no intention of doing this, in fact he had no intention of doing anything except tearing around on an e-scooter, vaping and looking at porn on his iPhone.

            ‘Vasily. I’ve had an email from Mr Mendel. He said you haven’t been to school this week. What are you playing at?' Vasily’s, Eva, was getting fed up with her son’s idleness.

            ‘Dunno. I’ll go next week.’

            ‘I’ll tell your Dad.’

            ‘Go on then. He won’t care.’ That much was true, all Ivor wanted was a quiet life.

            ‘Where are you going now? Don’t get into trouble; you know I’ll get to hear about it. And don’t go near the lake.’

 

I expect you can guess where Vasily went. The lake was about mile from the farm, at the end of a very overgrown track and surrounded on three sides by tall and menacing mountains. Everyone said that evil creatures lived in the lake and lured children to their death within its icy waters. As you can guess, Vasily poo-pooed this warning. ‘Who exactly is ‘everyone’? he asked his mother.

            ‘Well me for a start.  They took your Uncle Anders.’

            Eva’s brother had vanished when he was fourteen, never to be seen again. The emergency services had searched the lake, dredging the murky depths as much as possible and sending divers into the freezing water. But there was never a sign of the missing boy. Eva was acutely aware that her awkward son was now the same age as Anders had been when he disappeared. 

The isolation and bad reputation of the lake was the exact reason why it was so popular with the town’s miscreants. They could go there with vapes and alcohol pinched from the supermarket and watch completely unsuitable material on their devices. On this particular day Vasily was there on his own. He didn’t know where the others had gone and he didn’t really care. He didn’t like them all that much, he considered them losers and dickhead; he was better off without them. Especially if Lula was around.

 

Marta was hard at work in her laboratory. The work she’d been doing on anti-matter was producing good results and she was hopeful that the paper she was due to deliver at a conference in Buenos Aires would be well received and result in some extra funding. She had been working with Professor Andrew Macintyre at Oxford University and she was looking forward to meeting him in Argentina. She’d had lots of contact with him online and every time she saw him he reminded her of someone. He could almost be her awful brother. She was worried about Vasily, he seemed to be heading for disaster, but she was more worried about getting the final readings in time to finish her paper.

            Marta did complete her paper and presented it to wide acclaim in Buenos Aires. She also got to meet Professor Macintyre and to her joy and amazement discovered that he was in fact her missing Uncle Anders. When he was a boy the country had been ruled by a repressive and authoritarian regime that did not allow freedom of thought and expression. If you did not unreservedly agree with the President you were deemed a traitor and imprisoned without trial for many years. Anders had seen a chance to escape and he took it. Initially he had not told his family anything for fear of reprisals, then as time went by and the regime changed, contacting his family became something he was always going to do but never got round to. Anyway, this is not Anders’ story but his escape does show that the supposed horrors in the lake could not be blamed for every unexplained occurrence.

 

On this particular day, it was midsummer so the days were long and warm, Vasily was enjoying the peace and quiet. He was smoking weed and drinking cans of Peroni that he’d been carrying when he walked out of the supermarket. The alarm had rung but no one came and Vasily just kept walking.  

He watched the lake, wondering if he dared go for a swim. Although he had no time for his mother’s fear of it, he had to admit it did look a bit threatening even in the bright sunshine. He might take one of the Mollys he’d got from a mate, see what happened then maybe go for a paddle.

            He swallowed the innocuous looking pill, drank the rest of the beer and threw the empty can into the bushes. The grass around him grew in front of his eyes, the long stems swayed and flowers of the most amazing colours burst into bloom around him. A single voice began to sing to him a song without words that told of pleasures and enchantment, beauty and perpetual freedom.

            When he woke up a pair of green eyes framed by a waterfall of auburn hair were looking at him.

            ‘Lula! How long have you been here?’

            She said nothing, just smiled. Her smile sent quivers running through his body, focussing on his groin and making his trousers particularly tight and uncomfortable. Maybe today would be a really good day. Maybe it would be THE DAY. He was unsure what to do next, so he reached for another can of Peroni. Lula stretched her hand towards him and instead of taking the beer he touched her arm. Her skin felt cool in spite of the warmth of the day and he caught a fragrance completely new to him, the scent of longing.

 

The sun was going down on the long summer day, dipping behind the mountains and casting long shadows over the lake. Vasily could feel the effects of the alcohol, the pill and the weed diminishing with the fading light. He shivered. From far away he heard a church bell calling people to evening worship, calling workers home from the fields, calling him home.

            ‘You can stay here with me.’ Lula spoke softly, her words a gently running stream washing over him. ‘You can stay where there are no rules, no right, no wrong, just pleasure and freedom.’ She indicated the lake, now quite dark except for a final shaft of sunlight forcing its way through a gap in the mountains to a point in the middle of the lake.

            ‘My Mum says there are monsters in that lake, terrible creatures that steal children.’ He wished now that he was home, enjoying bread and honey with a glass of milk.

            ‘Certainly there are monsters there. But there is also unimaginable beauty. There are palaces and gardens, jewels and precious objects, everything you could possible desire. Come with me, I’ll show you the way.’

            ‘But where is this place?’ All he could see was the lake.

            ‘The lake is a gateway. A portal to another world, once you go through it you’ll experience all you ever want.’

            Now Vasily was interested in portals. He’d read some of the work his sister was doing, and he’d often wondered how close you have to be to a black hole before you reach the point of no return, to be pulled inexorably over the event horizon. He looked down at the grit around his feet. Maybe he would become a grain of sand, to be washed up one day and stick to the foot of someone passing by. Perhaps even his mother’s foot as she searched for him, just as she’d searched for her brother all those years ago.

            Of course, at this stage of the story no one knew that Anders was alive and well and that soon Eva would be reunited with him; but as we know, that’s another story.

Lula took his hand. With a shock he realised that her hand was wet and cold, that her beautiful hair was damp and sticking to the back of her pale neck. Yet they’d been in the sun all afternoon. Vasily hesitated.

 

When he got home Vasily went straight to bed. He couldn’t face the bread and honey, but he did drink a large mug of milk. He told his mother that he’d skipped school, but that it would be the last time and he would be a good student in future. If Eva wondered what had happened she didn’t say anything. Probably she was just pleased that he was safely home, she’d heard about problems with a rogue batch of MDMA circulating in the town and kids who’d taken it having to be admitted to hospital.

            The next day Vasily got up at 5.30.  He had a shower, put on clean clothes and went downstairs to help Eva with the chores. After a hearty breakfast of bread, honey and hard boiled eggs he left for school. His head was full of ideas, not plans for bunking off and stealing beer, but ideas for his future. He was sure that Marta would help him; she’d tried in the past. He’d wait until after the conference she was going to in South America then talk to her. Perhaps one day he’d do research like Marta, write important papers, go to Argentina, and meet interesting people. He whistled as he strode towards the school.

            Mr Mendel was waiting at the school entrance. ‘Morning Sir’ Vasily greeted his teacher ‘You’ll be pleased to know I’m a reformed student. No more mucking about from me.’

            The teacher looked grave. ‘You’re too late Vasily. The supermarket has you on CCTV stealing beer, the police have your details from a drug dealer they arrested yesterday and I’m fed up with you wasting my time and everyone else’s. So it’s a trip to the Head’s office and I think she’s looking at excluding you permanently from school.’

            The world crumbled around Vasily. The school and Mr Mendel receded into a mist. He heard a strange yet familiar song, and felt a cool pale arm reach out to him.

About the author

Penny Rogers writes short stories, flash fiction and poems. .She is a regular contributor to CaféLit and her first novella Amelie at the Window is being published by Bridge House on October 31 2025. When she’s not writing Penny knits socks and makes pickles and preserves. 

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