 
We Can Rebuild You

by E.J. Kevorkian

Copyright 2013 Erskine Kevorkian

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All I need is this shithole and this mind and I will get by. Fuck sleep! Fuck you all!

- Devin Townsend.

La Dolce Vita

High above the sky the Sun shines, beaming evenly, more or less, in all directions, including in that of the great city of Bel-Graid. Above the clouds of brown pollution, blooms and puffs of black smoke, above thick and wet woolly sponges full of rain, far above and thousands of miles away, the Sun glows merrily, spitting out a broad spectrum of fiercely intense radiation across 4π steradians of good, solid angle. In the midst of this fiery maelstrom sits planet Earth, subtending a paltry ~5.72x10-9 π str. of the full sphere of electromagnetic activity, slowly wobbling its way around neat little ellipses in a pattern established many orbits ago. Where not submerged in water, its surface is rimed, here and there, with patches of frenetic activity, pools and swarms of bacteria, a chaos of organic lifeforms climbing over one and other and tearing each other apart. Eat and be eaten, the great cycle of life. Endocytosis and exocytosis. In and out. Eat and excrete. Fertilise and birth. This is a cosmic perspective, near enough, a perspective full of facts. In a world that is the totality of facts, it pays to be able to find out and remember what the facts are, this much seems uncontroversial. My name is Steven and I live in a house in the (great) city of Bel-Graid, nestled very near the centre of Pangea, the most important, and certainly the biggest continent on the planet. There used to be others, but now they are all gone, useless. I live in Bel-Graid on the surface of planet Earth, and when the planet turns and points me toward the Sun, I wake up, doused by the small but elite collective of photons that made it through the clouds, rendered grimy and unpleasant by the admittedly low-quality air. So the theory goes. At the present moment I sleep. This isn't me talking. It's narration, an idealised sub-conscious voice. I will wake up in a short while, just below. Keep going, the Sun is on its way, its watery silhouette noses the horizon. Bel-Graid is blinking its bloodshot eyes and scratching its liver spotted head. Sleepy sleepy sleepy. Yawn.

*

I had a dream. It woke me up. The impressions faded quickly, I couldn't remember anything about it, no sounds, no images, not anything at all. Dreams are very difficult to remember, this one especially; it left only an echo, for which I suppose I should be grateful. I think it must have been a nice dream, because I felt nice when I opened my eyes. This is why I am grateful. By nice I mean good. Nice is such a silly word.

I heaved myself into a position from which I might better view the bedside clock. The time was 05:27. My arm had gone to sleep. I swung it around and it felt just like a lump of meat. Perhaps I'd had a stroke, I thought dimly. Perhaps a clot had formed in the veins of my thigh and, over the course of the night, had percolated its way upwards, up and up, until it reached my precious brain, the seat of consciousness, where I live, and formed a little blockage, which grew and burst and ruined my precious arm. This thought might have caused me more consternation had I not felt quite so tired and equanimous.

A few minutes later my arm had more or less regained its standard operational capacities: it could be lifted, the elbow could be bent, the shoulder rotated, and, at a pinch, the fingers might form a semblance of mutually independent motion. It was the best that could be hoped for and seemed to rule out a stroke. The time was now 6:38. Perhaps I had fallen back to sleep. Perhaps I had misread the clock earlier. Adrenalin coursed through my body and jolted me into a sitting position. My back cracked and I felt a lancing pain in the area of my kidneys. I coughed and retched. There was no time for regret. I picked up my legs, which had gone to sleep, and placed them feet first onto the floor. I lifted myself into a standing position and fell to the carpet. Gritting my teeth, I began to crawl to where I had left my clothes in a little pile the evening previous. Such is my skill, I was out of the house several minutes before seven.

Today is a Tuesday, normally a dreary day. I start work early on Tuesday. I start work early on every day. Sometimes. Today I had missed my breakfast and felt groggy and full of sleep as I made my way to the telephone box in which I'm based. I sat down by the phone and noticed a family of salamanders chewing on its cables. "Shoo," I ushered them violently, my nerves shot with foul distemper. I sat down on my uncomfortable wooden stool, rested my head against the glass, and hoped my absence had gone unnoticed. The first call arrived moments later, and carried unexpected good news.

"One Burster--Jeffrey bridge," the voice said. I smiled, returned the phone to its cradle, stood up, and departed in my electric ambulance.

The streets of the city were filled with a chill invisible vapour. This is often the case when it isn't raining. The Sun shines through the microscopic droplets, and its light transforms into a blinding golden blanket that makes driving in certain directions exceedingly difficult. When it rains, the Sun is enveloped in sheets of maudlin grey cloud, and very little light reaches the ground. This also makes driving exceedingly difficult, particularly when it is accompanied by a power cut, as it frequently is. I cruised slowly and quietly through careening veils of lost pedestrians, each of them going somewhere for something for what reason I doubt they'd ever paused to consider and why should they.

The Sun was not out today. Not yet at least. It had come close but never quite made it. It's movements are unpredictable, even to the finest minds our civilisation has produced. It looms and drifts and skirts with an abandon distressing to those who pay it excessive attention. Someone once told me the Sun doesn't actually move. I said that I knew this, but that it sure as hell looked as if it moved. He said something terribly witty in return, and if I'm not mistaken I kicked him in the shin. That was some time ago, when I was young and, relatively speaking, fit. Now that I mention it, perhaps it wasn't a man at all. It may well have been Lisa. It's the sort of thing she might say, she's like that, though I can't remember what it was. I remember the sound of it and that's what counts.

My vehicle grew damp as it brushed through the thick fog. I trundled along the slow moving lanes of traffic, touching the edges of the CBD before pulling away again, several hundred metres down the line to the bridge. Arthur, my assistant, was already there, nodded to me as I walked up the steps and in his direction. At the top I paused for a moment's reflection. The Jeffrey bridge over the railway lines is one of my favourite regions in the city. I am not without defects, and shall confess the first of them without further delay: I do like trains. The Jeffrey bridge is a wide pedestrian overpass, swinging, as mentioned, over a cluster of North-facing railway tracks; it affords an admirable vantage over shunting and gliding carriages and engines, and, before attending to the mashed-up corpse, I paused for a moment to look down over its parapet. The station is only a few hundred metres further along the track; trains arrive and depart from it fair constantly. I rested my elbows on the bridge's gritty lip and put my chin on my hands. In the year 2124, the principal means of transport between discrete urban areas is the train; this station is the hub that connects the city of Bel-Graid to the rest of the continent. It was possible to fly in aeroplanes until about twenty years ago, but since then they've stopped working. This did much good for the global rail industry. Now battered metal tubuloids shuttle back and forth along their tracks without pause at ever diminishing speeds--for the truth is that trains aren't working all that well these days either, and there is widespread speculation as to how much longer they will remain a viable means of movement. This recent but intensifying phenomenon has led to a burgeoning in the bicycle industry, and most analysts expect the velocipede to have overtaken the train as the primary source of inter-city shifting within 10 years at the very most. A few left-field kooks hold to the unfounded dogma that, as trains decline, aeroplanes will incline proportionately, their engines miraculously regenerating, their propellors and turbines cleaving the air with the mythological efficacy of yesteryear, but this, I must stress, is a minority view. Cars, such as my own ambulance-hearse, rely upon local electrical fields, and cannot travel far outside of city-limits, their batteries being prone to sudden degradation. The fall of the car came some years before that of the aeroplane.

I watched a train coax its way into motion in the distance, on one of the westward lines. I'd seen it before. It is an unusual train, made entirely from a highly reflective mirror-like metal, almost perfectly cylindrical. The way it moves is strange and otherworldly. It runs so smoothly, it appears not so much even to glide but rather to grow along its rails at one end, while dematerialising at an equal rate at the other. Where the train goes, no one knows. The train is always empty. To somewhere far away in the west, on the other side of the world, I imagine. Somewhere far beyond the sun, perhaps even further. This is my favourite train. It leaves at this time each week. One day, I'll get onto that train, but to do that, I'll need a ticket.

"Savage," said Arthur.

The train passed from view, hurtling into the horizon. I turned back from the station and faced my immediate task, the corpse. Arthur, my colleague, was crouched over it, prodding it with a long, wooden clamp. The body was indeed messy.

"D'you know, people used to climb up onto railway bridges in order to throw themselves off." Arthur said.

"I'd heard that," I replied.

"Now they climb up onto railway bridges to take The Bozzler. That's ironic, isn't it."

"Ironic. I suppose it is."

The Jeffrey bridge is a suicide hotspot, as suicide spots go, and the majority of railway-bridge suicides in 2317, for some ineffable reason, take the form of The Bozzler ingestion. The Bozzler is Vecturex 7, a drug that invests its imbiber with a sense of profound wellbeing and freedom, while causing every blood vessel in his or her body to explode with mounting ferocity, starting at the fingers and toes, working up to a spectacular culmination in the eyes. It has been a hit since its inception and is a very illegal chemical. It is also a very hard chemical to police, as it looks, tastes and responds to chemical analysis in exactly the same way as paracetemol, and is often distributed in similar packaging. This has led to a number of accidental deaths, but made the drug somewhat less than impossible to obtain. Of course, people go off with it all over the place, but, as a rule of thumb, the closer you are to a bridge, the more likely you are to find a burster.

"Get the bag then?" I suggested. "We'll probably need the brush as well."

Arthur walked to the ambulance and collected the tools we required. With a certain quantity of poking and scraping, we transferred the corpse to a thick, green plastic bag, and swept what wet red mess we could in with it. We then took an end of the bag each, hefted it skywards, and slung it into the back of the hearse. We spent a moment catching our breath, then returned to the scene.

"Jobs a good'un," proclaimed Arthur, surveying what was now little more than a damp oval of wet concrete.

"It'll do," I said. It shouldn't really--the area was far from clean--but what are you going to do. We weren't payed to be thorough, sometimes we weren't payed at all. Regardless, the acid rain would see to whatever remained.

"You want to drive it this time?" I asked.

"Can't, boss," Arthur replied. "I lost my license last weekend."

"Oh? You never said. What was that for?"

"Driving under the influence of ECT." Arthur squinted up at me and appeared victimised. "I get depressed, and my mind benefits enormously from occasional sandblasting. Anyway, I was late for my appointment and then late with my library books, so the nurse said I could just take the kit with me and administer it myself. I've seen it done enough times, she said, why don't you just take the kit home, those fines are killing. I didn't tell her, but I was supposed to have dinner with my Uncle afterwards as well. I got to thinking, thought it would be best to get the thing underway soon as, save myself a bit of time, you know, wired up and went live in the car. I crashed three times and was then arrested. On the other hand, I did feel a lot more upbeat."

"I see. Well then, I suppose I'll drive."

We climbed into the wooden motor-trolley and accelerated underwhelmingly in the direction of the morgue. When we got there, we were forced to queue for a number of minutes before we were able to drop off our gelatinous cargo. Brian, the Chief Coroner and Furnace Master took one look in the bag, and proclaimed, Just get it in, why not, to his underlings. Stunted pig men menaced their trotters and contrived to manipulate the corpse and its giblets to a black lid in the wall a matter of metres from the delivery bay. The door opened and heat washed out, blurring the air all wobbly. The pig men heaved the sack through the portal, and closed the lid. Thanks guys, said Brian, before bellowing, Next. We pulled out.

*

"Where shall I leave you then?" I asked Arthur as we droned once more through the city. Arthur is my spotter. It is his job to walk through the city, looking for bodies to collect. It used to be the job of civilians to report deaths, but most of them are no longer all that interested. Many people die, and many of them die in the streets. Vecturex 7 leaves a distinctive signature, its victim's condition is easily deduced, but the majority of deaths are rather more esoteric. The provenance of the greater number of the corpses is not known, the means of their dissemination not well understood. That they began to appear in the 2030s is generally agreed. The population continues to decline at the languid rate established in 2021-2023, there is little immigration, the corpses are rarely identified. Who are they? A number of academic theses have been penned on the subject and much has been spent on investigations, but the phenomenon remains a mystery. Interest faded sharply over the years, and now there are few who care. Corpses are left outside and picked up sooner or later. Otherwise, they rot.

"Leave me near the bridges, I suppose," said Arthur.

"Granville road?"

"Yeah, why not. I'll go from there to the overpasses and have a look around. You could hang about for a little while, since they turn up around there pretty reliably. No point in driving all the way back to the box only to turn straight back around. Better avoid Salisbury road though, it's still broken."

"You're quite right," I said. "I'll go the long way around. I'll stop for a couple of minutes as well before heading back, and watch for a flare. Green, right? Is there anywhere I can get some chips in the area? I didn't have any breakfast."

"Green. Unless there's a phone nearby again. Yeah, there's a couple of fish-paste retailers on Granville. As far as I know none of them are overtly poisonous."

"I'll go into one of them while I'm waiting then. Then I'll head back to the box."

"Cool," said Arthur.

*

We picked up six more bodies over the next ten hours, which isn't too bad, really. It left us time for eating what little food there was to be eaten, and we consumed a steady stream of caffeine as the day progressed, keeping us alert, keeping us moving. I got home at twenty past five, shambled through the front door in lower spirits than I'd left. Lisabeth, my fiancée, kind of, in my mind at least, was still at training, where latterly she spends much of her time, so I had the whole house to myself. I collapsed onto the settee and switched on the TV. It was Bloomberg, as usual. I scrolled the screen up a few millimetres with the remote--a collection of buttons mounted on a wooden panel, connected to the TV by a length of of copper wire--in order to view the secret row of text at the bottom. The word 'BUY' scrolled across the screen, white letters against a black background. We'll be talking to markets analyst Davide Montforte in just a few minutes, but do you have anything for us in the meantime, Mike? the anchor asked. Mike had several things for us, and advised everyone that, under the circumstances, buying was the best option. I picked up the phone and phoned my broker.

"Hello?" he said.

"Mac, this is Steve."

"Hey Steve."

"Hey Mac. I'd like to buy, please."

"I'll get right on it."

"Cheers Mac."

"See ya, Steve."

I hung up, burying my face in a cushion. Mike was now telling us that a new trade war was threatening to erupt across the continent, that, if it did, there would be seven simultaneous trade wars in progress between all the same countries. He pointed out that, while this was hardly optimal, it was nevertheless well short of the highs of the previous decade, during which a record of thirty-one simultaneous trade wars had raged throughout the infamous Red September. Only if a currency war also commenced, he suggested, should we think about selling.

I got up and walked into the kitchen to make some coffee. Coffee and Bloomberg are two fortunate entries on the not particularly long list of things that make life worth living, and I'm quite sure the greater part of the populace would agree with me here. I made a large cafetière, and sat back down with it in front of the TV. Davide the broker was now filling the screen, advising that he'd recently sunk a few billion into AFN Bismuth, and that everyone else ought to get into it post-haste, since he was leveraged up well past his eyeballs with this one, and his clients had been ringing him all night last night, asking, among other things, Where the fuck is my money, Dave? The man had my sympathy, and I spent a moment hoping that perhaps Mac would buy into AFN with the few pennies he skimmed from my paycheque each month. The feeling soon passed. Bismuth was going down. Creative destruction.

I watched the coffee grains slowly detach themselves from the sieve in the cafetière, and drift to the bottom of the jug. When a significant quantity had shifted, I gave the rest a nudge, and deployed the piston. Steam rose as I poured the thin brown liquid into a pyrex flute. I set the glass on the arm of the settee and left it to cool down.

"Thanks very much for your time, Davide," the anchor said.

"Thanks very much for having me," replied Davide.

Davide was elided from the frame, Mike's immaculate quiff returned.

"So, according to Mr. Montforte, AFN currently a good place to be. What do you think of that, Mike?"

"Right, Sue, we've been hearing a lot about AFN in the last few days, their value down 61.48% so far this week, 24.77% just this day. A lot of people claiming those stocks are radically undervalued, a lot more claiming there's a way for them to go yet. Of course, AFN suffering from the collapsing steel market in East Asia, and also from the wildcat walkout of their accounts department earlier today. We managed to talk to some of those accountants just before we came on air, and here's what they told us, 'It's a shit job,' they said, 'and we won't do it any longer.' Not much you can say to that. Sue."

"Not much at all, Mike. So no prospect then of a revival in . . . "

At this point the power disappeared. The TV popped and turned black, the yellow light in the centre of the ceiling stopped glowing, the whole world lurched darkwards and came to a stop at the bottom. I clicked my tongue, took a sip of coffee. Apparently I'd never find out what prospect there was of a revival, and that was a shame because it could have been useful information.

I sat in the dark for a while, drinking coffee. There's little to do in nighttime power cuts. During the day it's possible to read or play boardgames or any number of other such things, but power cuts never seem to happen during the day. It's possible to purchase a fuel tank for your roof, so that you might generate your own electricity during these blackouts, but the tanks are far from reliable. Leaks occur, and the tanks, being made of metal, are often struck by lightning during thunderstorms. Urchins, additionally, particularly in deprived regions, find great sport in setting the tanks alight.

The evening was a white elephant. I stayed a while longer, then went to bed.

*

Wednesday was my day off, my me time, my me time all to myself. It has in closely preceding years been my habit to spend it lying about the house in a variety of attitudes, feigning sleep, watching Bloomberg, standing in the corner of the sitting room, just behind the door. While undoubtedly relaxing, I have always found this a terribly dispiriting way to spend a day, particularly when the sky is overcast. There is, I can attest from bitter experience, only a certain amount of Bloomberg one can take before the twin morose furies ennui and apathy set in.

I took a tram into town. Town was overcast, like the day. The sky sulked, the city brooded. I debarked the tram at St Rooney of the Orange station, at the very centre, both geographically and economically, of Bel-Graid. I circulated a while taking in the sights, the pigeons, the closed shops, the pedestrians shuffling all wrapped up in their dirty laundry. I took steps to remain clear of the chuggers. They came after me but I coasted steadfastly beyond their reach.

I wound up in Holinshed's Rookery, a coffee shop situated on one corner of Wide Square. Wide Square was an open section of rockily paved land that sat at one end of Van Clompen strasse, Bel-Graid's pedestrianised main street. From my table in the café, tucked away by a window, I could see all the way up street to the vast and distantly looming monument to Lord Wagner. There was a large fountain in the middle of Wide Square which fired balls of water like spherical minnows from pot to pot. It looked nicer in Bel-Graid's hazy sunshine when the water would glisten with golden flashes, its slight blue dye brought into visibility, than it did today beneath the dull damp sky, looking merely forlorn, playing catch with itself beneath the cold grey clouds.

I sat down with a cup of black coffee. Today's special was a cheeseburger burrito to drink, cheap at a low price in a carton made from the pages of today's newspapers, but I wasn't yet hungry. I'd brought a book with me to read while I drank, to give my visit purpose. I'd done it, this public reading, as a younger model of my present self, and it could be quite exciting. The book I'd brought along was a fusty old tract on economics, entitled The Great Crash, 1929. Its author's name had faded from memory, its contentions had been dismantled, its covers had faded and its reputation soured. Nowadays it was mentioned only by radicals brought onto Bloomberg for the Sunday Socialist Humiliation Show. It told the story of a crash that occurred during the early twentieth century and attempts to blame it upon, of all things, economics. We know now of course that the crash of 1929 was caused by an unfortunate coincidence of sunspots and active socialist cells at work in the highest strata of global finance. I'd picked up the book, which is in fact implicitly illegal, from a corpse I'd attended to some weeks back. Its pages were rain wrinkled and yellow; its covers had been torn off and replaced with the front and back flaps of a birthday card. I felt it proper to be versed in the arguments of my enemies and could not resist the temptation to pocket it. I read the book today with a sceptical eyebrow cocked, a wry half smile and an occasional snort of derision. Honestly, the nonsense that was taken as fact in those dark days!

I'd been reading for perhaps fifteen minutes when I fell in love. A woman swept in, tightly cut trouser suit of power, black hair parted down the middle, briefcase swinging at arm's length. I quailed, my hands trembled, my heart raced. She placed her order at the counter then walked over to sit just behind me. Could it get any better? Out of the corner of my eye, I could just about see without moving my head that she was facing me. She was also reading a book. This was the excitement I remembered from my younger days, the thrill of anticipation, the secret contact known only to myself. This was what I'd been waiting for. What could she be reading? A tome on economics, I hoped. One of the great classics of Friedman or Hayek or Smith. We read them at school of course, but it was always worth going back. Such perfection was not made merely for the untrained glance of the callow, if precocious, neophyte.

When I could bear it no more, I craned my neck and sneaked a look. The book was a new one, a large hardback entitled Cooking with Fish. It was by a man/woman (?) called Brookes O'Hara. I had heard the name mentioned on the Food Network but rarely, and I could not remember in what connection. While musing on this, it occurred to me I was staring. The woman had lowered her book and was looking right back at me. I accidentally made eye contact, froze. She smiled, and I think I smiled in return before whipping my head back around. I buried my face in 1929 and waited. Perhaps I could get a burrito, I thought absently. I was probably quite hungry.

I stayed like that for a full thirty minutes. I know the time precisely because I checked my watch at regular thirty second intervals. It was a long thirty minutes of hot flushes and palpitations. My back emitted a roughly constant volume of saline solution, which would have been unsightly were it not for my thick and mostly waterproof coat. I couldn't read any more, for obvious reasons. I could have stood up and left, but that seemed unassailably difficult and involved. I remained as still as I could and waited for her to leave.

As the harrowing half hour neared its end, my rictus of pained inaction retreated, freeing my limbs, fingers and mind to return to something akin to normality. As the last second expired and I dared to breathe deep the sweet air of freedom, she appeared over my shoulder. I'd noticed nothing. I hadn't calmed down as much as I thought.

"Hello," she said, smiling in the dearest way, speaking much more softly than her suit might have led one to expect, "only I was wondering what that was you're reading."

My already liquid heart melted further, taking on superfluid properties.

"1929," I mumbled, holding it out in a shaking hand with the title page exposed. "It's about the crash."

"Oh, of course, I read that a very long time ago," she tittered. "It's a rather splendid book, one of the best in the sphere of popular economics, even today. But how are you finding it?"

"Yes," I said. "Of course."

I couldn't think of anything more to say, so there fell a little silence before she stepped back in.

"Do you like economics?"

"Yes. It's all wrong though," it suddenly occurred to me what I should have said, "isn't it."

"Why yes, of course. The point is elegantly made, although you really might try something a little more advanced, since Galbraith is, one must admit, somewhat limited and undeniably out of date. Still, the lessons are universal."

"Yes. What's that," I pointed at the book shaped bulge in her bag.

"This, oh of course, well spotted. It's a perfect example, I suppose."

She took out the book, slipped off the false cover, handed it to me. Selected Dialogues, I read. Then the smaller titles leading down to the author name: The Great Proletarian Mistake; Howard the Duck, or, Late Stage NeoLiberal Neoptism; The Torpedo Adenensis and Egalitarian Society; and, finally, Unusual Childcare Practices of the Torpedo Adenensis. The first four were grouped under the heading The Trial of Runeberg, the last was alone. Herman Runeberg was an infamous figure in postmodern economics, renowned for his instrumental role in causing the events of the grim 2030s - the last great crash our world economy ever suffered - having been radicalised to the point of communism, it is speculated, by prior events occurring in the wake of the 2007-2009 malfunction (itself the fault of socialist elements and sunspots). He was executed swiftly and silently, but later became transmogrified into an economic folk hero by the unrepresentative and incorrect dialogues of Pontus of Malmö, a rogue socialist agitator based in a tent pitched many miles above the Arctic Circle. If my book was implicitly illegal, this one was very explicitly against the rules, on pain of pain and incarceration. I looked around for police - it was dangerous for me to be even holding it - but there were none to be seen. It beggared belief that this lady could read such a volume with such flagrant disregard.

"Pontus of Malmö," she said. "Have you read it?"

It was obvious I'd been taken in. The power suit was a ruse, a front. In reality, she was nothing other than a good for nothing Luddite leveller.

"I'm sorry, Madame," I said, all steely resolve. "I think I must have mistaken you for someone else."

I stood, picked up 1929, departed without looking at her. It was cruel, so cruel, to have my fantasies shattered thus, but it served only to remind me of Lisabeth--what had I been thinking? Becoming so wrapped up in my imaginings with a complete stranger, a socialist stranger no less. It was idle play, I suggested to myself, It led to nothing, it never would.

*

I studied economics at school, of course, everyone in Bel-Graid studies economics at school, but I never really appreciated it until after I parted ways with Ormulu's Covenant (a millennial sect with whom I had a brief flirtation) in my late 20s. I'd had the child's admiration of high financiers and economists - who doesn't? \- but for a long time, I was convinced that I'd grown out of it, that high finance was a foolish business for preening egomaniacs with severe personality disorders, and that it didn't matter any to me whether it lived or died and so on. After I'd gotten out of the cult, been rescued, if you like, for it was a somewhat forceful gendarmerie-led extrication, I spent a few weeks living in a shelter run for those who fell victim to such organisations. Cults were big business at the time, and, indeed, I hear still are, providing, among other things, hope to the hopeless and channeling the wealth of the hopeless to those of entrepreneurial spirit, as is only proper. The charity was also a racket, they got much more money from the government than they spent on us, and it was run entirely as a branch of a corporate interest interested only in having something philanthropic on its CV, for form's sake. I assume. I don't actually know this, but I have no doubt it's entirely correct. Sleeping there in a donated sleeping bag, I met a wise old man called Seamus, an avid post-Keynesian who introduced me inadvertently to the streamline internal perfection of the Efficient-market Hypothesis.

Let me tell you a story. See, I had a friend, once, many years ago, before any of this; and this friend, he explained to me one time during a late night session 'on the bottle', so to speak, we would have been maybe 19, about the day (not long before that day, i.e. the day he told me) his high school teacher explained to him (and his class, of course) the quadratic formula. As a brief recap, the quadratic formula is a simple arithmetic combination of three variables, the three coefficients of any quadratic equation (i.e. an equation of the form ax2 \+ bx + c = y). When these three numbers, a, b and c, are fed into the formula (I'd write the formula, except that the effects of equations in prose text publications on readership are well documented, and I've already used one), the formula spits out the roots (i.e. the x coordinates at which the line - generated by plotting the equation - intercepts - i.e. crosses - the y-axis) of the equation. Anyway, before we get too bogged down in technicalities, this teacher (i.e. the teacher who was talking to my friend about the quadratic formula) apparently took it upon herself to go to extreme lengths to actually prove (in the strict mathematical sense, which, I'm in a position to reassure you, is pretty strict) the validity of this (i.e. the quadratic) formula. My friend (Divad, and that is indeed spelled correctly) described this process, although he in all honesty didn't understand it, as being pretty revelatory. Seeing inside the box, he said it was like, rather than just seeing the box doing things.

The point of this anecdote being, that's how I experienced Seamus's teaching. I'd heard of the E.M. hypothesis before, obviously, what do you take me for. But now I was being given privileged access to the differential equations that actually motivated it, getting a guided tour around them to boot, and all of it gratis. I might not have understood any of it, but boy it looked pretty good.

Those were heady nights, being lectured to, along with five or six others in need of something new to follow, hearing of exchange rates, GDPs, competitive advantages, stocks, margins, bps, and more jargon than my brain had room for. I picked up the primary volumes from used-book shops, Smith, Fisher, Friedman, Walser, the usual suspects. Then I progressed onto more specialised, specific and abstruse volumes. Streunser's retrospective study of chaotic 21st century macro-policy; Hilderbrand's analysis of the post-2020 debacle and its discontents; Sheldon's clinical dissection of the Quantity Theory, with specific emphasis on the arguments of Friedman, which deconstructed the contention to a series of five logical propositions, then rebuilt the edifice, demonstrating beyond doubt its internal consistency; also Arbuckle's paradigm altering investigations, which uncovered socialist involvement virtually every major crisis of the past 200 years, and drew upon the author's knowledge of astronomy to illustrate intriguing relations between financial instability and the level of activity on the surface of the Sun. Most important, however, was Alvin Lewis's volume, the sprawling Markets Must be Free, which became much like a bible both to me (somewhat belatedly) and to most of the governments on planet Earth (several decades earlier). It contained a detailed analysis of the entirety of economic history, from Solon onwards, and amounted to a complete refutation of mid-20th and early-21st century heterodox policies and thinking, and the posthumous vindication of the Washington consensus on deregulation. The book established the strong Efficient-market Hypothesis as the only game in town in terms of macro in the years after its publication, in 2036, and I was once lucky enough to be outside a building in which the author (i.e. a jobbing 'character actor' simulating the person of the author, who - to the best of my knowledge - was dead) was holding a seminar.

I got the job collecting corpses to fuel my book buying and get myself out of the refuge. Soon I was living alone in a small flat, on tins of cold soup and raw root crops, studying books by the light of tallow candles, pirating the Bloomberg channel on a tiny CRT that I stole from a room downstairs. Still, I would return to the refuge every week to hear Seamus hold forth and debate historical case-studies. Many a happy evening was spent drinking cocoa in the corner of the games room, bickering in often raised tones over Kondratiev waves - which I thought and still think are rather stupid - and Minsky moments - which Seamus thought were rather stupid. In the end, Seamus and I came to blows over Graziani's Monetary circuit theory, a notion demolished in Lewis, by which the value of a single unit of currency increases in value every time it changes hands. This is similar-but-different to the velocity term in the quantity theory, but in ways I can't seem to remember. Either way, it was horseshit, but horseshit which Seamus could not bring himself to let go of. After six hours of raw, ground-and-pound debate, he leapt from his blackboard and attempted to clout me with his Graziani volume, a pitifully thin book held in pitifully thin arms. I leaned into the blow and took it on the forehead, sustaining little damage, returned it with my own extensively annotated volume of Lewis, which had been the instrument of much gesticulation throughout the night. Lewis's book amounted to some eight-hundred text-book sized pages, and was a first edition hardcover. It carried a remarkable amount of momentum, and laid old Seamus out cold across the floor, blood oozing from the corner of one of his eyes. I took flight at once, never looking back. If it wasn't already clear to the other people in that room that I and the free markets had won, it would be now. Seamus was a relic and, I think it's fair to say, he got what was coming to him.

Work resumed on Thursday, dull and chilly. There was still no Lisabeth and when I got home I'd gotten only as far as brewing coffee when another power cut occurred. Weapons testing, presumably. They were coming thick and fast. I decided to go for a walk. I left the cafetière and flute where they lay, and felt my way to the door. I'd had the prescience to leave my coat and hat and gloves on, so was fortified against the cold with no further need to rummage. I opened the door and stepped out into the street. The night was frostily cold and deeply dark. A cat meowed mournfully, its stomach churning unhappily a morsel of rancid butter devoured unthinkingly moments earlier in the anonymity of the unlit pavement. No one to glimpse its folly. I looked to the sky, thinking to navigate by the stars, but the sidereal firmament was obscured by a large cloud of pollution. Not for the first time that night, I clicked my tongue in frustration. Only the sickly glow of a partially obscured amnesiac full moon lit the ground. It was in this yellowy haze I set out, heading for the city, for no other reason than I knew the way. I turned up my collar, pulled down my hat, and paced purposefully onwards.

As I marched, the houses I passed grew rapidly shabby. Many were made of concrete, many had tin roofs. They were considerably newer than my own ancient brick terrace, but they didn't look much fun to live in. The people in them didn't look much fun either, sunken eyes, stringy muscles, torches shining out of the gloom. In some places, cars had been fired to provide light and warmth. In breeze block hovels such as these, death from cold is a real and exigent possibility. Those lacking cars of their own or others sometimes set themselves or else close relatives alight, such is the need for heat. Not wishing to be set alight myself, I moved quickly through this district. Although using the meat of strangers for fuel is strictly prohibited, these were grim and lawless parts, and who knew what their denizens were capable of?

I walked around a large park, from which issued the most alarming of sounds, before coming with a jolt to the outlying pursuivants of the CBD. Large buildings suddenly rocketed from the ground in front of me. Here and there, a light bled out a steady stream of radiation. As I continued to walk, the lights grew more frequent. Whole buildings, towering tower blocks, glowed with self-absorbed narcissistic abandon. These had their own power supplies. They did not have to rely upon the fickle whimsies of the national grid like everyone else. The trend continued, and by the time I'd reached the city centre the power cut could well have ended, so ubiquitous was the light. The question now was where to go. I crossed the relatively pullulating central district, and swept around past the train station. It was in total darkness. Either the cut was still on, or business was slow. I continued past the station and came to a large block of retail units. They were sagging and run down, soot stained red bricks all the way, but their windows were mostly intact. I found this encouraging. Signs of life. A poorly lit sign was suspended above a lonely doorway at the bottom of the pile, saying, Plaza Café. I was intrigued.

I approached the doorway and hunted for additional information. At the bottom of the sign, in small letters, was the ambiguous script, O5-3. Five until three, I assumed this meant. I looked at my watch. It had stopped days ago. I pushed the door and it opened creakily. Lights were on and music drifted out. I cleared my throat and entered.

The Plaza Café was actually located on the floor above the doorway. A set of red, floral-carpeted, brass-bannistered stairs led up to the barroom, which was a fairly small and deeply inactive dimly-lit rectangle. The bar itself protruded into one corner of the room, opposite the entrance. It was an oaken affair, with brass rails similar to those on the stairs. Apart from a single halogen bulb behind this bar, the whole space was lit by four blue lights. It was difficult to make out what lay in the two spare corners and against the walls. Three people sat at the bar, one person stood behind it. The room smelled of damp wood and piano music languished in the corner to my left.

I walked over and took a seat in front of the barman. He raised his eyebrows. A glass of your strongest, I said. He nodded slowly and turned around to the optics behind him. He was a late middle aged man, bald, with his halo of thin black hair greased towards the back of his skull. He wore a white shirt, a red waistcoat, and a large white apron. After faffing momentarily, he turned back with a glass of clear liquid. That'll be three goats, he said. I handed over the money. Thank you sir, he said. And thank you, I replied. I sipped the liquid and choked. It was indeed very strong. The barman smiled and rubbed a glass with the corner of his apron. I looked at the people next to me. The woman to my right had short and very curly brown hair; her eyes were covered by sunglasses and a pearl necklace hung around her neck. On my other side was a man and a woman. They looked unusual, as if they'd just stepped out of a photograph from the first decade 2000. Their suits were black and tightly fitted; the male's hair was yellow and around 7 centimetres long, very straight. I thought it made him look ill. Same for the woman. Her hair was brown and wrenched into a ponytail I thought must surely be painful. Her suit was pinstriped. Though archaic, I thought it very becoming.

I asked the barman for a different drink. The one he'd given me had obviously been drawn from a petrol pump. I got a sweet bourbon, downed it like it was orange juice, asked for another. After the fuel oil I'd inadvertently gargled, sea water would probably have tasted just like hot chocolate.

I looked at my company in a manner calculated to be inquisitive. They sat in silence, refusing to return my gaze. How's business? I asked the barkeep. Oh you know, he said. Sucks and blows. I nodded empathetically.

"What brings you out here at this hour?" he asked.

"Hour?" I said. "Is it late?"

"Somewhat," he said. "It went midnight at least an hour ago."

"Sheesh," I said. "Didn't realise it took so long to walk into town. Anyway, it was the power cut. I was watching Bloomberg when the 'lecky went down. No point trying to read in the dark, I think, so I go for a walk. Then I find myself here. Didn't know I needed a drink, but there you are."

"This is the way it goes," he said. "Sam, anyway."

"Steve."

"Pleased to meet you, Steve."

"Brigitte," muttered the woman to my right.

"Hello," I said.

The man to my left slid two little boxes of business cards over to me.

"Take one," he said. "Take two."

I picked a card from each box. Lemuel Glick, said one, Artistic Agent. The other, Norma Leftwing. She was also an artistic agent.

"Artistic agent?" I said. "I've never met one of them before. What do you do?"

"Book venues, organise deals," Lemuel sniffed. "Agent type stuff, you don't want to know. It's pretty boring, really."

"I see. Agent type stuff. Makes sense. Have you ever worked with anyone famous?" I asked. "Anyone I'd have heard of?"

"Dunno," Lemuel said, looked at Norma, "who's famous?"

"Dunno," she said, "they're all kinda famous, kinda."

"Tobias Rudigore," Lemuel, "heard of him?"

"Not really," I said.

"Richard Richardson?"

I shook my head.

"Neville O'Hanlan?"

"Nope."

"I worked with Falstaff's Prison for a while," said Norma. "Know them?"

"I don't think so," I said. "I'm sorry. I suppose I just mustn't be the cultural artistic type."

"They're a collective. They do performance-rennovation-installations. Take a house, bus stop, office block, turn it into an exhibit. They're assholes."

"It sounds good," I said. "In fact, I don't think we get much all that much art around here at all to begin with."

"No," said Norma, "well, times like these."

"They worked with Octavian recently as well," said Brigitte.

"Who he?" I said.

"I don't know," she said. "They were talking about him earlier."

"Middling middlebrow mid-level Installationist," Lemuel said. "He had a bit of a following off the continent."

"He was an asshole too," said Norma.

"We were both attached to him," Lemuel. "We were going to write a book."

"Yeah. He fucked us over good," Norma.

"What happened?" I asked.

"Oh, nothing," said Lemuel. "Some shit. Just, no one likes him anymore. No audience, no deal, no book."

"No book no money," said Norma, bitter. "Our reputations screwed also. We're out in the cold with the shitmunchers now."

"It has been quite cold, hasn't it," said Brigitte, pushing her sunglasses up her nose.

"Tough luck, guys," I said. "It'll get better though, right?"

"Probably not," said Lemuel.

"Nah," Norma. "No chance. We're just going to drink our last fee. Figure out what to do after that."

"We've got a couple of weeks left," Lemuel.

"Then what," Norma, "who knows. See how long our credit lasts. Maybe we'll write the fucker anyway. No internet around here though, is there?"

"There isn't," Lemuel, "I looked into it."

"Really?" Norma. "When?"

"Can't remember." Lemuel looked puzzled. "Before."

"Losing track of time," said Brigitte.

"This is the way it goes," said Sam, rubbing a glass dry with his apron.

"No internet no research," said Lemuel.

"Fuck it," said Norma. "More drinks, Sam."

A new round of bourbons was produced. We drank them. They were refilled. Sam gave us the bottle.

"Why am I here?" asked Brigitte, louder than necessary.

"Don't know," said Lemuel.

"Why?" said Norma.

"What are you?" I asked. "What do you do?"

"I was a school teacher," she said. "I taught maths. Boring life, fucking horrible children around all the time, balls all to do, no friends, still, fixing to marry this guy, he teaches also. One day he steps in front of a bus. Gone. Then I go a bit strange. No more job. Now I'm here." She smiled. "Losing track of time, drinking my last fee. Simple. It's a good life."

"Good stuff," said Lemuel. "I knew a guy who ended up in front of a bus. Old school friend. Not nice. Bit selfish too, you know?"

"Don't think so," said Brigitte. "Doesn't really apply, selfishness, when doing something like that. How can you be selfish when your goal is to annihilate your self. Contradiction in terms. Very nihilistic frame of mind required. Selfish, no."

"S'pose," said Lemuel. "Still makes people late for work though."

"Only if they're going to work," Norma.

"Right," Lemuel, "apart from that."

We finished that bottle of bourbon and started on a new one. We didn't have a tremendous amount of immediately apparent common ground to talk on, so a lot of time was spent in companionable silence, staring at the wood of the bar, at Sam cleaning glasses, or into the mirror behind him. The combination of low lighting and mournfully twinkling piano could not but induce an introspective, reflective state, and a lot of brooding was done. By the time we were most of the way through that bottle of bourbon, we were all drunk and miserable, drunk enough and miserable enough for a lack of immediately apparent common ground to no longer be a problem. We started talking about time. Everything was the fault of time. That was why we were losing track of it. We wanted no more to do with it. We competed to invent metaphors that described its evil. Norma thought it was like a rising pool of tar that we all drowned alone in, each of our little pits separated from everyone else's by short muddy walls. Brigitte claimed it was much more like a hailstorm that slowly shredded you to a skeleton--whether this was a skeleton of regrets or memories was a point hotly contested--then shredded the skeleton. Lemuel told a story about falling daggers, but it turned out to be little more than an elaboration on Brigitte's hailstorm and was thus unpopular. I started to talk about sail boats but became confused and didn't really go anywhere with it. We agreed that the winner was either Brigitte or Norma, but couldn't decide which. We toasted alcoholism, and all vowed that we would fill our blood with ethanol until our memories disappeared and our minds dissolved altogether. As our glasses clashed and spilled, the piano reached a wrenching crescendo. We applauded and its player stepped briefly from the shadows in order to bow. We called for more whiskey and Sam obliged, smiling, not quite patronising, definitely well on the way. I think we all noticed. Nobody cared.

We got into those bottles with vim, talked a whole lot more, and I'm damned if I can remember a damn thing after that. I woke up in my house in the freezing dark, plastered across the settee, a small pile of cold vomit on the floor by the open front door. My stomach felt like it had been wrung out over a slow fire and then stuffed with poisonous, choleric frogs. I looked at the clock. I had to be at the phone box in three hours. Balls, I mumbled. I tried to go back to sleep, succeeded to some extent. The morning paraded into my brain in a series of feverish, mechanised dioramas, none of which I remember either. Running, perhaps. Always running.
The Most Beautiful Flower

The next day was colder than the one before it. There were only three bodies. To the naïve observer this might seem strange, cold being commonly associated with a heightened death rate - am I right in thinking that? - yesterday and Tuesday having been light days, representatives perhaps of a trend. But in fact, it is a fact well established that there is no seasonal pattern to the amount of rubbish that finds its way into the streets of Bel-Graid. Nevertheless, on quiet days like today, as I crouch shivering in my telephone box, I do start to worry, start to fret - what if the short-term trend this time persists? What if tomorrow the number of corpses has halved again, and all we find is a thin old gentleman in a tightly fitted fedora, and someone's legs? Then the next day, the same: three legs, then a leg and a shin, then I'd surely get the sack. Microbes could handle a leg and a shin, microbes and cats, there'd be no further use for me. Sorry, they'd say, but we're going to have to let you go. But, I'd say. No, sorry, they'd grow stern. The work just isn't there.

Needless to say, it would be a disaster. With the pittance Lisabeth receives as her national subsidy, my collection work is all that keeps us going. Imagine, what would we eat? How would we pay for the house? We'd have to sign on to the council register and in the meanwhile live in a tent, burning one of Lisa's legs for heat and light. She does have very big legs, legs like meaty tree trunks. One'd last a whole week. I, on the other hand, am all skin and bone, with a little knobbly gristle around the joints. There'd be no sense in burning me. I doubt I'd catch.

It was very cold in my box, so sometimes I went for walks, just short walks, and never far from the box, always close enough to hear it, should it ring. I didn't warm up very much during my walks, but I didn't get colder. With the blood creaking slowly around my feet, the chances of getting a DVT were, at least, reduced. Walking was an altogether healthier option, and had she seen me, I'm sure Lisabeth would have been proud. There's my Steve, she'd think. Walking away there, in spite of the cold, for the unseen benefits it brings, for the circulation and the clots. There he goes.

*

I met Lisabeth years ago. I can't remember where. I can't remember when either, but I have a notion that it was a significant number of orbits ago. Years, as I say, a few of them. She was sitting or standing, looking tall whichever. Her hair was loose and, in those days, thick and billowing. She was thin but nothing like as thin as she became. She was wearing something blue, what was it. Today I have difficulty picturing her in anything other than a tracksuit. Hello, I said to her. Hello, she said back. She was by herself, she had a bicycle with her or she didn't. Care for a drink? I would have said this, I suspect, had we been in a place where drinks were readily available. Otherwise, I would have invited her to a place where drinks were readily available. Daytime or nighttime? Nighttime, I think. It became nighttime soon enough anyway. Most uncharacteristic, this forthrightness. Approaching in a street, a café, a bar. Never before, never again. Must have known, this is the one for me, not a moment to lose. Just like something from a book. She smiled and twinkled. Since you ask so nicely, maybe something like that. Or, Yes, I wouldn't mind a daiquiri. That was her favourite drink, before she had to stop drinking alcohol. This is a fact I still have my hands around. I'm making progress. We talked for hours and hours, met up again soon after. It was clear, this was the one for me. She felt the same way. We were besotted. Talk and talk, nothing but for weeks and weeks. Then she came back to my flat, just a small place. So began the physical. Weeks and months, we attempted unceasingly to push ourselves into one and other, to meld, to absorb, blending consciousnesses and bodies to form one entity, like in the old Greek book. I turn this time over in my mind frequently, it warms me up. The details are all gone, but the colour is still there. True, it fades a little more each time, but I think this will be the last thing I forget.

I'm losing track of time. It's running away from me. And I don't care.

*

The house wasn't particularly warm when I got in. This disappointed me. I was hoping that it would be particularly warm. As I moved over to the large brass panel that controlled the boiler, my breath misted in the chill atmosphere. I flipped a solid black switch and the large metal cuboid growled groggily, putting its fearsome gaseous muscle to work after a long day of frozen slumber, heating and pumping water, ensuring that the house didn't develop DVTs.

As is my habit, I sat down in front of the TV with a large cafetière of coffee. I switched on Bloomberg, and felt an understated thrill of anticipation--what had I missed? What trade wars raged today?

Mike was in command. He was reporting on the unfortunate death of AFN Bismuth, which had seen its share-price collapse to less than half a cent in the pre-market, and which had folded within a minute of the opening bell to no one's great surprise. The board of directors would be buried alive by the chief shareholders later in the week, later still if the appeal process was drawn out, which it probably would be, at least a little bit. Mike said that more important than that old nonsense, soft drinks were doing marvellously, and that money was replacing gold as the reserve currency in most central banks across Europe. It had occurred to a middle ranking but influential civil servant, he said, that gold is a rather impractical and practically valueless at least in terms of utility commodity, and that holding on to it was therefore a fool's game. The Americas and parts of Asia had responded by buying vast quantities of the metal, temporarily stabilising its price. The World, said Mike, is now on a knife-edge, in which it must soon become clear whether Europe had blundered and sold its gold--albeit at a not far from fair price--on the whim of a few deluded technocrats, or whether those technocrats were right, in which case the gold market would turn into a polar bear and eat all of its investors. We'll have more on that as it happens. Back to you, Sue.

I sipped my coffee and sighed. Market movements, well, there's nothing quite like them. I picked up the phone.

"Mac."

"Hey Mac. Steve."

"Hey Steve."

"Mac, I was just wondering about gold."

"What would you like to know about it?"

"Are we in it, do we have a strategy?"

"I'm going short on gold, Steve; I'm thinking it's ceilinged. Currently we're up around a billion. If it stays, there'll be no profits but no one will get hurt. If it dives, there should be a nice treat in the line for all of our investors. That means you, Steve."

"Sounds good, Mac."

"I'm glad you like it. Anything else I can tell you?"

"No, that's all. Thanks."

"No problem."

I hung up and stared at the TV, not listening. After a while, the sound faded from my ears, becoming just a low background thrum, and the images of the screen and the set and the wall behind it fuzzed over and became indistinct. I poured out the coffee without focusing, watching the glass peripherally in hazy black and white. When the cup seemed to be full (when the cafetière seemed to be empty), I levelled off and picked it up. The job wasn't a bad one. I sipped and stared. I felt flat. There was nothing to do. The room was cold and filled only with financial echoes. My recent excitement in the face of the market movements had passed quickly, leaving a small, windswept wasteland in its place. Nothing grew in that wasteland, it was covered in sand, full of sand. I sat on a wooden deck-chair in the middle, sipping coffee, staring at the horizon, only there was no horizon. This was a small wasteland, after all, and small wastelands do not have horizons. They simply end, and that is what this one did. Perhaps three metres, then nothing. An absence of stuff. A gaping, tight-lipped, colourless vacuum. I stared at it and it stared back at me.

I must have sat there for an hour, perhaps more, maybe two. It was dark when I resurfaced, it was dark when I got home. It gets dark early during the winter. It was the DVTs that did it, once again. You see themes develop quickly. I was scared of the DVTs. I didn't want one bubbling up in my thigh and then finding its way to my heart or brain or some other essential region, leaving me gasping or comatose or worse. Bad things happen when things go wrong in the brain. It's a delicate piece of machinery, and a malfunctioning brain is no mean thing. I thought perhaps I could get some warfarin, thin my blood, pre-empt the clotting process. There are risks associated, of course, but perhaps they're worthwhile. Anyway, I couldn't get any warfarin, it was too late. I noticed the TV was still on, but that the light had gone off. That was strange, but perhaps I had switched it off myself, or only imagined switching it on. Sometimes I watch Bloomberg in the dark, to make the movements more vivid. Tonight I could not be bothered. I stood up and stretched my arms and legs, then leaned down and picked up the remote. I switched the channel up, and got The Food Repository, the food channel. A man with a thin, pointed beard was cutting up a large reptile with a machete. The tastiest bits are buried beneath this boney shield, he said. You have to work to get them, but we can cheat a little by going around the side, see. If we just get this bit off--he raised his machete and brought it down in a mighty slice--it's possible to just pull the stomach out--he reached in, grasped the fleshly sack and heaved--and then we can go in from beneath. He leaned in and scraped out some white jelly. Yum, he said, this stuff is just delicious, especially when it's pan-fried with turmeric. He swept the dinosaur onto the floor and pulled out a frying pan.

I was hungry already. I went to the kitchen and rooted around for something rapid. Fortunately, Lisabeth rarely has time to wait for food to be prepared, so rapid was just about all we had. I microwaved a carton of meat and ate it with more coffee. I watched, or looked at, the food channel for another hour or two, before heading to bed. I was very tired. Perhaps that was why I wasn't concentrating. The coffee didn't keep me awake, it rarely does. I didn't drink that much of it anyway, I hadn't the stomach for it. I turned out all of the lights and went to sleep quickly. Maybe I wouldn't get up the next day. I supposed I didn't have to. This cheered me up. I'd just spend all of tomorrow sleeping, or staring at the ceiling. Why not? Maybe I would.

*

Of course I did get up the next day, and I spent most of it engaged, in one way or another, in my collection duties. It was another cold and rainy day, and our haul was miserable. A single body turned up. In the end, to enliven our day, we started picking up dogs. Unrewarding, and not within our remit, but something to do. I got in early and spent the evening alone switching between Bloomberg, The Food Repository, and, a first, the Psychic Channel, drinking coffee and beer, sometimes at the same time. I found the Psychic Channel by accident, overshooting the Food Repository by five or six stations. I'd heard of these extra channels, but I'd never for a moment believed in their existence. After watching for half an hour, I phoned in to ask a question. I wanted to know when Lisa was coming back, how long I had to wait. My call was declined due to a lack of funds, after which I noticed the program was actually a rerun from 2029. I didn't watch it again. The next day passed in similar fashion. A phonecall came in late on when I was drunk, from Lisabeth.

"I'm staying over the weekend," she said, in her slow, semi-absent way. I could hear her smiling, she always seemed to smile when she spoke. She was always happy about something. She was a happy person. "The hotel will cost, but Barry thinks it will be worthwhile. He says I'm making real progress, and if I'm to make an impression in the trials next month, every minute counts."

"Right," I said.

"How are things at home?"

"Things are . . . going."

"That's good to hear, that's good to know. Things are good here, but I don't really have much time for anything. It's hard work."

"It must be. I can imagine."

"If I'm not pedalling I'm eating, and if I'm not eating I'm sleeping."

"It's tough."

"It is."

"Will you be back any time?"

She spent a while thinking.

"I'll be back during the week, I think, for at least a night. Barry says that my rest is also important, so long as I don't overdo it. He thinks one night back each week or two shouldn't be killing."

"Just one?"

"Well, maybe more. We'll see. I have to go now though, I've talked for as long as I can. I'm burning calories, you know. I can't overrun."

"Okay then, I suppose you'd better go."

"I'd better. Goodbye, Steve."

"Goodbye Lisabeth."

And the line went.

*

I was placed on standby, barely moved all weekend. Nothing doing, no bodies. The telephone didn't ring once. There was a tremendous amount of frozen protein in the freezer, and a large stockpile of beer, whence I know not. I grazed on these stocks, whiling away the hours, watching TV. I wore the same pyjamas for all 72 hours of all three days and didn't wash once. It was a liberating experience. It was a long time since I'd been so greasy and unclean. I spent the two days wafting about in my own smells, in my own company, goggling at the TV, wondering what to do. Nothing occurred. The absence of Lisabeth and any details of her likely future behaviour left me in a limbo-like state. The house began to crowd around me and more than once I began to sink into drunken tears, sorry for myself, laden down with sheer inertia. Lisabeth is a cyclist, and is training for the forthcoming Trials at the Bel-Graid Velodrome. She has to exercise more or less flat out because it is a highly competitive field. If she impresses the government officials present, she stands to increase her training subsidy, which would allow her to upgrade to higher quality equipment and train even more. I'm not entirely sure that this is a good idea, but it is important to her, and what can I say? Come back, please, and sit around all weekend without changing your clothes or getting washed, drinking beer and watching the TV, with me. I moved to pick up the phone. That was exactly what I would say, perhaps if I drank enough I would say it. I almost did, but I didn't have the number. I decided to bring it up the next time I saw her, but a few hours later it didn't seem like such a wonderful idea. But it would have been nice. It would have been nice to have said.

*

On Thursday next week I picked up a pair of trousers that must have been lying on the floor for days upon days. I found a note one of their pockets. I pulled it out and uncrumpled it to the point of readability. It said, I think I heard your address right, you should get home okay. Come around again sometime. Brigitte.

Truth be told, I had just about decided that the events of that day, now how long gone, had occurred entirely within the ever more porous walls my imagination. The note gave me pause. Come around again sometime, it said. That sounded like an invitation, nay, an admonishment, to come around again. It was also a weighty piece of evidence which stood in direct contradiction to recently entrenched opinion. Come around again, it said. Well, I could, I suppose, I thought. There's nothing spoiling, maybe I will. I put the trousers on, continuing to muse. Looking in the mirror, I noticed I hadn't shaved for several weeks, perhaps several months, beyond a point it's hard to tell. I looked scruffy and had bags under my eyes, riddled with tiny red pinpricks of petechiae, little blood vessels ruptured during the heaving vomiting fits that dogged my sodden nights like some sort of bile-ridden wolf with a hungry stomach and a grudge. I'd continued with my campaign of not washing, which gave me new satisfaction every day, and the grease on my hair and nose appeared now to be approaching critical mass. My lips were pale, crumbling crags, bordering a gloomy, shadowy cave glittering with jagged black spines that were, presumably, metaphors for teeth. How quickly entropy sets in! How soon one begins to degrade! I swiped the mirror from the wall. The following surge of endorphins pleased me mightily. I stalked around the house, finding every mirror, smashing them all to the floor, taking bitter nihilistic pleasure in the ruins of their silvery shards. We shall have no more visages in this house, I proclaimed. I surged through the door, into the streets, and set out for my telephone box.

The day was freezing cold, but sunny. A nice day. I had forgotten to make a packed lunch to bring with me to my box and was hungry before I arrived. I had also drunk injudiciously the day previous and soon felt the full effects. My empty stomach bubbled and churned awfully all morning, acid welling up in the back of my throat. I had no liquid, nor means of coming by any, and steadily dehydrated into a painful state over the four hours before a call came.

"Peterson Station," Arthur said.

"By the hotel?" I asked.

"Just across the road."

"Okay, on my way. Anything good?"

"Not sure what it is, really, but I think you should take a look."

I clambered into the wobbly wooden hearse and set off. I stopped for a bag of lemoned beef on the way and munched it as I drove to the Peterson subway station. It was crunchy, delicious and acidic. It did my stomach little good, my oesophagus burned merrily in the new sloshing chemicals. Why I hadn't bought a drink I couldn't say. I wasn't thinking very clearly at that moment in time, and indeed had some trouble finding my way to the station. In the end, I espied the hotel on the horizon and drove towards that. The one-way system slowed me down further, and the afternoon was in full swing by the time I arrived, feeling hungry and acidic.

Arthur waved to me and I walked towards him.

"Where is it?" I asked.

Arthur pointed at a ragged black object on the ground.

"Hm?" I asked.

"It looks meaty," said Arthur. "I'm not sure I want to touch it."

"What is it?"

"Dunno," said Arthur.

"Better get the gloves," I said.

Arthur walked over to the hearse and fetched me the gloves, big leather hand-shaped bags that didn't really fit but were proof against the most inimical of handleable ephemera. I grasped the object and manipulated it closer to my bleeding eyes.

"Looks like a knee," said Arthur.

"A knee," I said.

I applied both of my fingery grabbers, and sought to flex the object. It flopped freely.

"That's a knee alright," said Arthur.

I continued to shake it.

"What do we do with it?" he asked.

"Could just put it in the bin," I said.

"Do you think?"

"Well, it's just a knee. Don't see what else we can do with it."

"It must belong to someone, though."

"Probably."

"Someone's missing a knee."

"They must be."

"We should take it to the collection office."

"Is there nothing else here?"

"Drop it off, tell someone about it, make mention. No, I looked around. Nothing else."

"Okay then, we have plenty of time, let's drop it off."

I didn't let on to my young colleague, but I was shaken. This was precisely the state of affairs I had envisioned. A knee--a single knee! We hadn't collected so much as a piece of grit in the days since last Friday, and today we had managed a knee. My job was in ruins, I was going to lose it by the end of the week, it was inevitable, there was no way around it, I knew. My already churning stomach bubbled anew as the cold blue blades of anxiety sank into it and my hands shook as I steered, veering erratically down the fortuitously empty roads. No, I thought, it cannot be, not now. Arthur smoked a cigarette and attempted a crossword, not noticing my advanced state of discombobulation. When we dropped off the knee, the Furnace Master looked at me sidelong and leered. I knew; he knew; we both knew that both of us knew. I looked away, staring at the steering wheel.

"What's this then," he said.

"It's a knee," said Arthur.

"I can see that."

"We thought someone must be missing it, so we brought it in."

The Furnace Master nodded and threw the lump over his shoulder. The pig men fell upon it, stripping what paltry tendrils of flesh still adhered in an instant.

"You might get a letter," he said to me.

I floored the accelerator and pulled leisurely away, the hearse's weak batteries not equal to the task of sudden acceleration. I felt the Furnace Master's stare long after he had passed out of sight.

"Going back to base, boss?" said Arthur.

I clutched the wheel tight as I ploughed straight across a mini-roundabout.

"You could just drop me off back at the station."

I steered left and right and left and right, sending the car into a wild weave.

"Er, boss? Steve? You alright?"

My foot was still jammed down. Our vehicle was attaining speeds of which I'd never have thought it capable.

"Here, Steve, boss, I don't think you're very well."

Arthur reached into the back and pulled out a leather band with electrodes hanging from it. He leaned across and wrapped the band around my head.

"Just a minute," he said, his torso again vanishing into the back.

I felt a powerful jolt, and lashed the steering wheel through several sharp turns, pounding the accelerator and brake with both feet.

"Sorry, that's not right."

*

When I came to, I had a very sore head, and my eyes were covered in blood. I blinked and rubbed them, sights bobbed into view. There was a gap in the steering wheel where my head had apparently forced a passage, and a mushy, bloody mess on my forehead. It hurt to move, so I swivelled my eyes. Arthur was sitting in his seat, his head resting against the dashboard in front of him. He had an electrode in his neck, poking almost clean through, and had apparently lost a lot of blood. He breathed shallowly for a few seconds, then stopped. At last - I had cargo! I moved to find the starter button and blacked out again.

*

I awoke a second time to find myself in the outpatients waiting room of the Bel-Graid Teaching Hospital. A blue plastic seat sat beneath me, mounted on a bar which carried four other not dissimilar fixtures in a neat little row, and the smells of hospitals hung in the stained yellow air. It turned out that another crew had found Arthur, and that he had already been incinerated. My hearse had also been incinerated. I'd been seen by the medics in the waiting room because all the other rooms were either busy or dangerous; the nurses had left me to wake up in a quiet corner, with instructions to bring me before one of superior knowledge when the time was right. When I came too, they picked me up and pulled me in front of the duty doctor, who was sitting idly in a wheelchair at the front of this minor forum of the sick and needy. He nodded without looking at me, keeping his eyes on his file. I was told my head had been wrapped up to ensure nothing fell off or out of it, that I'd be fine in a day or two, to lie as still as possible until then. The rotten wood of the steering wheel hadn't been particularly strong, my bleeding had been caused by cuts rather than an impact. More importantly, there was little bruising, and no risk of things like concussion. Why had I been unconscious then? I asked. The duty doctor looked at me. Probably psychosomatic, he said. It took me a long time to get home. I had no money for transportation, I had to walk, and I couldn't seem to remember the way. My head ached in the cold and my wound reopened periodically. People made fun of me, laughing at my thick, red, dripping bandages. One person attempted to steal them, but fell over before he reached me. I laughed at him without feeling amused, and when he stood up he looked very embarrassed. He ran away in the opposite direction. I tried to buy a cup of coffee but didn't have any money. I might have asked for directions, but I found it hard to work out where I was meant to be going and people didn't seem to want to listen. They looked at me as if I were some sort of talking horse and moved swiftly by. When I did arrive home, I crawled into bed and went to sleep.

I slept a long time, but still woke up for work the next day, I think. I stood up quickly and blacked out again.

Lisabeth rescued me. When I awoke on what I hoped was still Friday, it was to the sight of her wan visage smiling down on me. I was on the floor on my back, one arm twisted awkwardly beneath me, where I must have fallen the previous day, or whenever it was, and she was leaning off the side of the bed. Hello, she said. I blinked at her. I'm sorry I can't lift you up, she said, but you're probably too heavy, and I'm not supposed to overexert myself. It was true, she wasn't supposed to overexert herself. I smiled. Would you like a cup of coffee? I asked. Please, she said, smiling with renewed vigour. I smiled again myself, and crawled to the kitchen.

By raising myself up slowly, by grasping cupboard doors and shelves as supports, I was able to lift myself to my feet without losing consciousness again, and by moving only slowly and cautiously, by freezing stationary whenever my vision seemed to dim, I was able to go further than this, and to assemble a large cafetière full of coffee, with two acceptably clean cups to accompany. I picked these three articles up in my hands and set off through the house with deliberate steps. I had to sit on the stairs and hoist myself upwards a single step at a time, pausing in between efforts to lift my tripartite luggage. By the time I reached the bedroom, the coffee was lukewarm, but Lisabeth didn't seem to notice. I stood and watched her while she sipped the cool beverage. Her arms were painfully thin, even thinner than my own, nothing really but skin, bone, and ropey tendon. Her whole upper body exists in this condition. As a cyclist, she must carry no excess weight with her at all, and so anything that might be shaven off from the inessential areas will be. The design of tracks and roads in Bel-Graid and the surrounding continent has meant that guiding a bicycle through turns is no longer an issue, and so the handlebars of most professional velocipedes are these days fixed. The arms of a Bel-Graidean cyclist are like those of a Tyrannosaurus Rex: small and of uncertain utility. Fortunately, Lisa is not yet a serious professional, and is still able to pick up a cup of coffee under her own power, though, if she impressed at the coming trials, one never knew, she'd be away in an instant, and would soon no doubt have to be fed by a machine or an assistant. A track cyclist is a precious thing, and they take a good deal of looking after.

Lisabeth is 28, thereabouts, just breaking into her prime, as Barry is fond of saying, or as Lisabeth is fond of saying Barry is fond of saying. Or implying. She has stringy brown hair that is pulled ever into a tight little bun, and increasingly vacant green eyes. All the best cyclists have green eyes, or so I'm told Barry says. She is skeletal from the waist up, but as thick as a rhinoceros from the hips down, each of her shanks about as wide as I am, and considerably denser. The contrast between the two halves is alarming, and it's best to keep some kind of partition around, to mark the shift, delineate the transition, as this lessens the impact to some extent. Her expression is always happy, always pleased, and she drifts through her life dreamily, seeming barely to notice it passing her by. The drugs, I expect, but I mustn't mention this. She retains this beatific mask even when she begins to pedal, when enough watts are thrown out to make a traction engine blush with inadequacy, as her torso lists and wafts about the machine, anchored only by the twig-like arms that seem so lightly attached to it and the frame, she looks as if she might blow away, and leave only a gigantic pair of legs beating away at the machine beneath them.

My head was beginning to swim though.

"My head's beginning to swim," I said.

"Are you unwell?" she asked.

"I hit my head."

She looked at me full of pity and care.

"You poor thing. You'd best sit down."

I slumped to the floor, jarring my head painfully.

"Is that better?" she asked.

"I'll live," I said.

"But will you?"

I closed my eyes and lowered my aching head to the floor.

"Steve?"

"Yes."

"I'm tired."

"So am I."

"Shall we sleep?"

"We shall."

"Goodnight, Steve."

"Goodnight Lisabeth."

Neither of us could reach the light, so we lay where we were and went to sleep.

*

I felt better the next day - which was, it transpired, a Monday - and was able to stand for long periods of time without losing my balance. I made more coffee in the morning and brought it up to my immobile princess in her bed along with a heated cuboid of protein.

"I'll need some fruit at some stage," she said. "Soon for preference."

"There is no more fruit," I replied.

"Why not?"

"The fruit rotted."

"What a shame. That is a shame. Don't you eat it? You'll have to go out and get some more. Would you?"

"I will, I will go and get some for you."

I went out, looking for fruit. I found it without much of a struggle, bought a large bag of green apples and a smaller bag of red. I brought them back.

"Will these do?" I asked.

"They'll do," she said. "Thank you, Steve." She started to eat them immediately, and finished every single one without stopping. I'd never seen her eat so systematically and determinedly.

"What have they done to you?" I gasped.

"I'm in training. It's important that I eat enough. Eating is one of the most important aspects of training."

I shook my head.

"My god," I said.

*

Lisabeth stayed around for two more days. During this time she lay on her back in bed, staring at the ceiling. There was a lot of food shopping to be done. Lisabeth said she had a 'high base rate' and 'needed a great deal to avoid recession'. Apples were her favourite, and I began to take an unwholesome pleasure in watching her crash through them. Müsli was also popular, eaten in great quantities to avoid complications which might necessitate the expenditure of newly minted reserve energy. Extremely frustrated and at my wit's end, I attempted to force myself on her at the end of the second and last day. I concealed myself in the corner of her room (I was not normally allowed in) while she made one of her rare trips to the bathroom (she took great pleasure in filling up the bath with freezing cold water--if ever I heard her giggling, I could be sure that this was what she was up to). While she crawled back into the bed, she left herself briefly exposed to attack. I took a running jump and sailed through the air, my hands poised like talons, ready to tear off her flimsy pyjamas. In remarkably quick succession, her left ear twitched, her head turned imperceptibly, and her left leg came lashing out behind her. Just like an aggravated mule, I thought, and even managed a small chuckle before her foot caught me in the solar plexus. I was propelled backwards a number of metres and came to rest in the corner where I'd hid. I scampered from the room, sniffling and rubbing my sore chest. Lisabeth retained an aloof silence.

I made up with her later in the day. In the evening she took pity and allowed me to spend a minute rubbing myself against one of her intensely vascular thighs while she ate her müsli. It was a harrowing and dispiriting experience, but also strangely satisfying. Afterwards, I lay there looking at her, watching her eat. I said, Don't stay away too long this time, Lisa. I do miss you terribly. I laid it on thick, told her that I loved her more deeply than the deepest ocean at its deepest point, which is pretty deep, told her that she was the most beautiful flower of all in the world. She crunched her müsli then slept, preoccupied, unhearing. I heard her being picked up the next morning but couldn't wake myself up. Funny how sleepy doing nothing can make you.
Of the Inside

A while later, a few days, I walked to my old phone box to see what the situation was. I had no idea what day it was now that I was in. I hoped to find the box empty, awaiting my return and the resumption of normal duties. The box was, of course, inhabited.

I halted at the top of the street and peered discreetly around the corner. The box had been cleaned, and if I scrunched up my eyes I could make out a hazy figure standing inside of it, staring out across the street. I ducked back around the corner and considered possible courses of action. Further investigation seemed the most likely to bear fruit, prolonged consideration the least. I wheeled about and sauntered casually down the road.

By the time I reached the box the figure had disappeared. I stepped right in and picked up the receiver.

"Hello," I said.

"Hello," said the person at the other end. "Who's this?"

"This is box #19, Steve reporting in. I've been ill for a few days and am wondering what's up. Are there any notifications for me?"

"Steve, box #19, let me see . . . "

During the delay, I pressed my back against one side of the box and walked my feet up the other, leaving myself suspended around a metre above the ground. I had learned to do this several years earlier during a particularly bad citywide rat infestation, in which a moment's inattention could see your boots stripped from your feet and your feet stripped from your ankles. I smiled at the memory. Those were good times.

"Okay Steve, got you. You still there?"

"Control, I'm here."

"From what I'm reading, Steve, your job no longer exists."

"Oh?"

"Yes, I'm afraid that's right. Unfortunately the demand just isn't there at the minute, so the company have been forced to make a number of redundancies in randomly selected districts. Yours is one of these."

"That's . . . I see . . . "

"You'll get the standard severance package of course, and since you worked for us for ten years, you'll be eligible for a free set of dentures, provided you apply for them within the next seven days."

"But . . . I still have all of my teeth."

"Perhaps it's time to consider losing them. It's a fantastic offer, really, and it would be a terrible shame to let it go to waste."

"I'm not sure I understand."

"That's alright, don't dwell on it--you have a week, after all. Your redundancy pay will be wired to your account on a monthly basis, and will last for eleven months--that's nearly a full year, you know? You should be grateful for this."

"I am, I'm very grateful."

"Are you?"

"Yes . . . I am."

"Good, I'm glad to hear it."

". . ."

"I'll be seeing you Steve."

The phone clicked and the line went dead. I stared at the receiver for a minute or two, then returned it to its cradle. As soon as I put it down, it started ringing. My finely honed reflexes kicked in and I lashed the phone back up to my ear.

"Box nineteen," I said.

"Steve, I forgot to say, for your maltreatment of company property--to wit, one Highlander model hearse and one assistant collector--you have been deducted six months redundancy pay. This leaves you with five. Hope that doesn't cause you too much trouble. I'll be seeing you!"

The phone clicked again. I put it down and shook my head, then turned around. The figure I'd seen inside the box a few minutes earlier was now standing directly outside the door in such a manner as to obstruct my egress entirely. It was a man of unremarkable appearance and proportions, wearing an unfashionable tan trench-coat. I pushed the door lightly until the tip of the man's nose was pressed flat and white against the glass. I let the door go. The man nodded to me and I nodded in return.

"Any chance of a lift?" he said.

"What?" I said.

"Never mind."

He looked disappointed and I felt extremely guilty.

"There's a taxi rank just a few fathoms in that direction, if it's of any use to you," I said.

"Taxis?"

I nodded.

"I'm afraid that's no good," he said, looking deeply unhappy.

"Ah, well, in that case."

I sighed and we exchanged a glance, as much as to say, 'It was ever thus,' then stood for a moment in thought. I still needed a way out of the box, and I have hope the fellow wouldn't be too much offended to know that this is what I spent my moment considering. I knocked on the window and said,

"Excuse me."

The man looked up.

"Do you think you could perhaps step back a bit? Only with our present arrangement I can't seem to make it out of this box."

"Oh, good sir, I am terribly sorry," the man said. "How extraordinarily careless of me."

He stepped back and I leapt through the door.

"Have a pleasant day," I yelled, as I hobbled at maximum velocity along the street.

*

After sitting at home for the rest of the day, I felt bored. Also, I ran out of whiskey. I left the house, breathed in a lungful of fresh fumes. Mmm-mmmm, I groaned. Delicious smell of scorched coal. I find it odd that coal burns, it being a pretty solid, rocky kind of substance. Has this ever occurred to you? I always assume there's a fire made of something else, wood, I suppose, just beneath the coals, which are just there for show, heating them up and making them glow. Gas fireplaces with fake coal no doubt reinforced this suspicion, and, come to think of it, may have been responsible for its origination.

I had intended to conduct a quick hit and run on the local off license, in an entirely metaphorical and legal way: it wasn't my intention to steal anything. But now that I was outside, sucking down the coal dust, scenting the ammonia, dampened by the drizzle, I felt like taking the air, as it were. I started walking, thought I should pay another visit to the Plaza Café, mobilitated (if it's not a word, it should be) in its direction. It's entirely possible that this had been my intention all along. I'm sporadically devious like that, misleading myself because there's no one else to mislead.

The drizzle continued throughout my walk, and by the time I reached the Café's industrial estate, I was wet. I hadn't brought my coat. Shit, I thought. What was that all about. I went straight up to the door and gave it a push. Basically, I walked into it. It didn't open. I knocked a few times. Nothing. Man, I thought. This sucks.

So I went looking for somewhere else. I settled on the first place I saw. Corrupted Mustard, it was called. Its sign was a ratty old board with a pot of the popular condiment on the front, from whence a caterpillar or something was climbing out. I seriously needed to empty my bladder, and didn't give it much thought. There were roughly 25 people inside, mostly middle-aged and male, talking in pubbish (i.e. raised, self-important) voices. The floor was covered in sawdust.

After relieving myself, I went to the bar and pulled up a stool. Don't sit on it, it's balsa wood, said the barman as I sat on it. I went right through and everyone laughed at me. I got up, absently dismayed by how covered in sawdust I was, it sticking with genuine vigour to my wet clothes. The barman placed a pint in front of me. On the house, he said. Then, Nice one.

That made it alright, and instead of trying another seat, I just leaned against the bar. I'm not a tall man, and it was neatly positioned only a few inches below elbow height. The man next to me, fat and decrepit, was sitting on a stool. I got the bum one, huh? I said.

"Nah," he replied. "They're all the same."

"Really? Then how..." I allowed the question to ask itself.

"I don't weigh much. Here," he extended his arm. "Lift me up."

I took hold of his arm and lifted him up.

"Christ, you're right." He didn't weigh much more than a seagull.

"I'm strong though," he said. "Here, watch."

He lifted me up, and his stool collapsed. Everyone started laughing again.

"Hm," he said. "Didn't think that through."

The barman gave us a free pint each, looked at me, said, Now don't start to take the piss, son. I assured him I wouldn't.

"Steven," I said, introducing myself to the remarkably light man to my right, who had arranged another stool.

"F." he said. Then, clocking my confused expression. "As in the initial."

"Strange name."

"Strange indeed."

I needed to urinate again already, so downed both pints before going. I vomited them back up in the urinal, and felt a bit silly. Back in the bar, I asked for vodka. Your beer's a bit much for me, I said.

The barman beckoned me closer, then punched me in the face. I fell over and everyone started laughing.

"Don't knock the beer," he said. "You fuck."

So I picked myself up for the third time in not very long, apologised, and started to drink a pint of room temperature vodka I didn't dare complain about, and had to hand over a large amount of currency to gain access to.

"Don't sweat it kid," F. said.

"Kid. Hey, way to condescend, old man. I'm like 50 years old."

"You're like 20. I can tell."

"Fuck me this place is hard work."

"What's your problem, son."

I explained that I was generally unhappy.

"I'm just generally unhappy," I said.

I told him I thought this place (i.e. Bel-Graid) sucked.

"This place sucks."

And that I wanted to leave.

"I want to leave."

"The door's there," said the barman. "I suggest you hurry if you don't want a shiner on the other one."

I attempted to explain what I meant. He wouldn't listen, but subsided when F. told him.

"Just let the kid be, Dave. He didn't mean nothing by it."

Dave glared at me. Another pint, said F., then turned to me.

"Where do you want to go?" he asked.

"I don't know. Out of here."

"Vitruvia?"

"Nah."

"Petrolia?"

"Nah."

"Thule?"

"Nah, much further than that. And west. Not north."

"There's only one train goes further than Thule. Only one train goes that far west."

"I know."

"Because there's nothing out there, west. Nothing at all, apart from just this one place. So I suppose you also know where you want to go."

"I suppose."

"So you were bullshitting."

"Not deliberately. I'm sorry."

"Maybe I'll forgive you."

"Thank you."

"Not an easy train to catch."

"No."

"Especially since it switched to a monthly service."

"Damn."

"Not easy to get tickets for."

"I'm with you all the way."

"Some people say it's a con, no such place. How could there be? We'd know about it, wouldn't we?"

"Ach."

"Eh?"

"Ach."

"I can get you a ticket."

"Can you really?"

"Shush."

"What?"

"Not so loud."

"Okay."

"It's going to cost you though, son."

"That's alright. I don't care."

"It's going to cost you big time."

"Read my lips."

"Not cheap, not remotely."

"Do. Not. Care."

"What've you got."

"I got plenty. You show me the goods, then we'll talk cost. Fuck. You can have my house."

"House?"

"Yeah, why not."

"Is it a nice house?"

"I suppose so. It contains lots of pro-cycling training equipment, and a fair bit of frozen protein."

"Wow."

"Yeah. Not bad, eh?"

"Done."

"Super."

"Done done done."

"Yay."

"You just finish your vodka, then we'll go and find you a ticket."

I looked at my vodka, which I'd actually gotten 1/3 of the way through, which is really pretty good going, I think. I pulled a face.

"Fuck that shit," I said. "Let's go."

F. finished his pint, stood up, and we both shuffled across the sawdust and into the street.

"Just along here," said F., before a brisk wind, which had apparently picked up during my stay, kicked in. It filled F.'s coat, and carried all ~1 kg of him away into the night. He gained altitude rapidly, started to fall, then was picked up again.

"Aaaaaaaaaargh," I heard him cry, pitching downwards due to doppler effects.

He sped away and was gone. I went home and fell asleep.

*

Next day, I went to watch the trains. Shunting and gliding, they made me feel calm. I leaned against the railing of a thin metal walkway over the tracks and stared down for half an hour or so, until my legs hurt too much to continue standing. I have a condition, and my nerves were playing up. Sometimes walking is difficult. The trains came and went, totally anonymous. For all I knew every single one of them was completely empty. I wished I was a train, that I could spend all my life, all my time, just rolling along perfectly spaced and perfectly smooth tracks laid out for me years in advance, shifting from A to B, nothing else to worry about, just getting there, but it was no good, I wasn't a train.

I'd lost my job. I needed a new one. I didn't panic, though. I had a plan. It was perfectly obvious to me where I should go to find a new one. In fact, I'd known for years: the financial district. Long had I fantasised about jacking in the whole corpse collection business, damning the torpedoes and Lisabeth's training and just turning all of my attention to the global economy, taking my chances, playing the percentages. I'd envisioned many times calling my employers, telling them I'd had enough, then walking up the front steps to Wainwright Shelling, the foremost merchant bank with a branch in the city, then straight to a desk, my gifts obvious to all. I'd make a killing.

Of course, I no longer had to worry about the first stage in that little operation. It was out of my hands. All I had to do was turn up and accept my new position.

*

I walked to the Wainwright-Shelling office building. It was situated a mere fifteen minutes away, just off Van Clompen strasse, the dominant bank in a little square set aside entirely for the purposes of speculation and paper commerce. The building itself predated the current millennium by approximately five years, built in the days when glass and angles were all the rage across the continent. It was tall, wide and rectangular.

Twelve concrete steps led up to the retractable drawbridge that protruded from the banks entrance-orifice. The door itself was an iris made up of many overlapping sheets of glass. It frequently broke down, but it was my favourite door in the whole city, and I had wanted to use it for even longer than I had wanted to be an economist. I goggled as I limped through it. There was a gap of several centimetres between each thick pane, so the whole contraption was overall more than a metre thick. This surprised me. I had always assumed the sheets fitted tightly together. I wished I had a camera with me, then remembered they were illegal.

The lobby behind the sphincter was large, airy and bright, full of movement and noise, people in suits milling every which way, talking to each other in a manner laden with import, scribbling on black clipboards, typing furiously on handheld difference engines. I was home. All I needed was a suit.

A row of desks ran across the back wall. Above them hung a rectangular blue sign, reading, Inquiries. I walked over to an unoccupied booth.

"How may I be of assistance?" asked the woman sitting behind it.

"Hello," I said. "I'm here about the job."

Of course, I meant to say a job, but I was so wrapped up in my own head that it just slipped out. I was just about to correct myself when the woman said,

"Oh, excellent. You'll want the basement then. Just take the stairs over there." She leaned forwards and pointed away to the right-hand side of the room. "I'm afraid the lift doesn't go down that far. Someone will see you at the bottom."

I smelled a rat at once. What kind of financial institution interviews prospective merchants in a basement? Obviously, all was not well, and it seemed I was not going to be even considered for the job I had come for. However, one must be pragmatic about these things, and I made my way over to the stairs all the same. The job market being what it is, I was lucky to be getting this opportunity, whatever it was. Cleaning, I suspected. It had the whiff of cleaning about it.

*

I was correct: the job was cleaning. The basement was dingy and dark. When I emerged from the stairwell, I came face to face with a portly salt of the earth type who ushered me over to a table and sat me down. He asked what qualifications I had and I told him I had a few but couldn't remember at this moment in time what they were. He asked what my hobbies were and I told him boating and canoeing. He asked what my previous job was and I told him I'd cleaned bodies off the streets.

"That's perfect," he said. "You'll be well suited to this job. When can you start?"

"You mean I've got it?"

"Of course I do. It's a large building full of busy people, we need all the help we can get keeping it clean. Your background is perfect for the role. So when can you start?"

"Well, now, I suppose."

"Excellent. Come with me and I'll find someone to show you what's what."

"I didn't actually turn up with this job in mind," I said, hesitating. Something made me feel I had to point out my obvious superiority to this individual. Although I would be cleaning, I was better than cleaning, much better.

"Here for a trading role?" I pulled a face at him. "Yeah, aren't we all. I reckon near enough every cleaner in this building turned up with the aim of being a banker. There just aren't enough spaces though, I'm afraid, so some of us, we get stuck down here."

"Damn," I said. This was bad news of the dream destroying variety, the very worst.

"Yes," he said, reading my mind in his cleanerish way. "This here is the basement of broken dreams."

He nodded and took me away to hunt for a mentor. I found out later that his name was George, George the foreman. He was there all of the time. He never stopped. I was started off with a team of four others covering the bottom five floors. There were 39 floors altogether, which I thought was moderately pathetic. How high up the building you worked was an indication of seniority. The higher up one went, the bigger the offices got, the fewer staff there were. This meant less rubbish and less cleaning. The ground floor lobby was the most difficult space of all. It had to be swept every hour and waxed every three. In addition, in order to preserve the corporation's good image, cleaning had to be undertaken in disguise. Three one-size-fits-all suits hung in the basement. These replaced overalls for the whole ground floor. Special shoes had also been created, shoes with bristles on the bottom for brushing, even a piece of apparatus that fitted around the entire lower body beneath the trousers, which oozed wax out from the ostensibly high quality leather soles beneath the operant's feet. I spent days observing Jim, my mentor, before taking on the lobby. It was intense. If a cleaner was noticed even once, he was fired. There were no second chances. Fortunately, I got lucky and the floor was relatively quiet when I made my first run with the bristle boots. After that, I picked it up quickly.

I discovered that I really enjoyed cleaning. I'd never done much of it before, had always lived in a condition approaching squalor at home, but here, now that my job depended on emptying bins and sweeping things up, I was forced into action. I discovered that cleaning might even be my thing. I'd always wanted a thing. Something to define me. Corpse collection had never been it. Now, cleaning: I just had an aptitude. I was a natural cleaner.

Late evening was my favourite time. After the markets had closed, when most of the staff had gone home, but the few working late were still on the floor at their desks. The atmosphere was more relaxed than during the day. It was easier to move around. I could take my time meandering around between the workstations with my trolley, spying on people, having a word here and there, perhaps even getting a coffee. I picked up a lot of financial pointers, even from the grunts at the bottom. Once I had time again, my market play would be unbeatable.

Some of the bankers liked talking to me. Maybe they saw it as relating to the little guy, to the man on the street. Do you know, I didn't mind. I was just there to clean, enjoy, and hopefully sharpen my game for when I got a shot at the big time. If they bought me a drink, fair's fair. I was cleaning the toilets they pissed their drinks out into, I should bloody well hope they'd buy me one once in a while.

The people I worked with were good guys (and gals) as well. They didn't talk much and I never caught their names, but they smiled a lot and worked hard. We had some fun cleaning the lobby, skating around on the bristle shoes without drawing attention - it was a fine art.

After I'd been there two weeks, we had a cleaners' night out. About twenty of us, drawn from all floors, went around a bunch of the pubs and clubs of Bel-Graid and stayed out in the dark when a power cut caught us in a seedy joint without its own power supply. I got horribly drunk and ended up going home with one of the girls from floors 10-14. I don't know what happened, but she never spoke to me again afterwards. She'd only glare, shooting poisonous daggers out of her eyes. I stayed well away. Whatever it was, it was apparently too embarrassing to tell anyone else, for which I was grateful. I had some sleepless nights over that.

During the four and a bit weeks (and I did count them) I worked for Wainwright Shelling, I heard not a peep from Lisabeth. I assumed she was getting on with her cycling. That was okay, I was fine with that, I had something else to do, and I was usually so tired when I got home I fell asleep almost instantly.

By the end of the fourth week I had a regular shift and a system. I had settled in, hadn't been there long enough to become jaded and was coming perilously close to enjoying myself. On the Monday at the front of week five, I was summoned to Strachey's office. Strachey was the fourth floor manager. He was as high as I'd ever gotten, and he was regarded universally as a real bastard who hated everyone, but reserved a special furious contempt for cleaners. George and the guys offered me their condolences when they gave me the news. A summons to Strachey's office was never a good thing.

Piledriver, isn't it? he greeted me as I entered his domain. He accused me without much more delay of industrial espionage, and confronted me with two hours-worth of video recordings on an ancient cubic electron tube which showing me peering over the shoulders of various workers on his floor. He had me. I was finished.

"What did he get you for?" George asked me as I took off and folded my overalls in the basement.

"Industrial espionage," I said. "He has film of me looking at papers belonging to his team."

"Damn," said George. "It's been months since someone was caught on that one. I'm sorry, Steve, it's my fault. I should have told you more about what he was like."

"It's okay George. You told me plenty. Maybe I just shouldn't have been spying."

"Bullshit. Everyone in this building spies. Including me, including Strachey. But you, Steve, you were new, you're young, you're vulnerable. I should have protected you better. I'm sorry."

"Aw, don't cry George. I don't know what to say. And in any case, Mike was my mentor. He should have said something."

"Mike's been off sick since you got here, Steve. It was my responsibility. I fucked up, that's all there is to it."

"It's okay, George," I said, hugging him. "I forgive you."

I left out the back way, through the deliveries entrance, so George and the guys could wave me off without being fired. It was a sad and tearful occasion.
Rumblings of Various Kinds

By the time I reached the front of the building, and stood looking from the outside again at its glass portal, it felt as if my four weeks inside had been a dream. There was a feathery, unreal quality to them. The time of day was more or less the same as four and a bit weeks ago when I first dared to enter, as was the weather. Could I be sure it had all happened? (I could indeed. When I got home I almost fainted at the sight of how clean and tidy the house was. I don't think I'd ever seen it like that, even when we'd just moved in. Something significant had obviously happened to me, whatever it might have been.) I became stressed. I was jobless again. What to do? I didn't know. I went back home and watched Bloomberg, vegetating, drinking, getting drunk. So long as I didn't do any thinking, I was alright. As soon as I started thinking I started shivering, panic set in, my sight dimmed - it was clearly no good, so I emptied my head and just sat, watched the markets and drank horribly cheap rum. The global economy was tipping like anyone's business, back and forth and from side to side, as the argument over gold continued. Sue was anchoring. I nodded to her and she nodded back.

Tonight we're joined by Martin, she said, Mike having been institutionalised just yesterday evening, the excitement getting the better of him. So Martin, these markets are bouncing like a duck on a tennis court, what can you tell us? The view switched to Martin, standing in front of the camera on the floor of the stock exchange. He looked identical to Mike, and if he hadn't had a label floating around his midriff I'd never have known the difference. He brandished his microphone. Well Sue, he said, I'm not sure I understand your metaphor, but these markets really are becoming volatile. Tariff upon tariff imposed left right and centre leading to violent protectionism on all sides, now so many trade wars in play that they seem to have merged into a kind of obscure supra-conflict, many countries even refusing to trade with themselves. Now, Sue, I have with me here a trader who has been on the floor throughout all of this, he's got a background in physics and is going to have a go at explaining how it's all working.

The camera zoomed out to reveal a man in a red suit with a clipboard in one hand and a walkie-talkie in the other. Kevin the Bishop, his tag read, subtitled, Atlantic Equity Management. He had curly white hair and a liver spotted face. My stomach bubbled and I felt cold and empty. I couldn't taste my rum. I'd heard rumours of this weirdness occurring at Shelling's, tales passed among the cleaners in off hours of strange happenings on the upper levels, always quickly contained, kept out of sight. If only I still had my job, I'd be there in the thick of it. I'd be able to watch all of this going on. Instead, I was here on my settee with only a bottle of rum for company. Awareness of my consummate failure pounded me like a steam hammer.

"Kevin, hello," said Martin. "Nice to have you here with us on the floor."

"Thank you, Mart. It's nice to be here."

"So Kevin, what's going on?"

"Well, Mart, as you mentioned briefly in your exegesis, what we have here is something quite out of the ordinary. Extraordinary, you might say. There's so much chaos out there, Mart - people don't know whether to buy, to sell, to go long, to go short, liquidate, dissolve - that some people involved in trading have lost their individuality and become slaved to what seems to be a spontaneously self-generating epiphenomenon."

"You mean they've become communists?"

"No."

"I should damn well hope so. Kevin, an analogy here wouldn't go amiss."

"Right, an analogy. Er, let me think. Right, so, Mart, when you have a plasma contained in a fusion reactor-"

"Too complicated."

"Okay. Something else. You take a pool of water -"

"A pond, for example?"

"Exactly, a pond. Or a bath even, it might work in. You pull your hand through the water and you'll see little whirlpools forming behind your hand."

"Of course."

"Well these whirlpools are a higher order process that manifests as a result of interactions between trillions of individual particles."

"Individual, individualistic, conservative particles that believe in traditional values, free markets, low taxation and the gold standard?"

"If they aren't, you might consider emptying your pond."

"I see. So far so National Geographic, Kevin. The punters can get this on the food channel. Tell us, what does this 'higher order process' look like?"

"Actually a vortex wasn't a very good example, since it relies upon-"

"We've left that behind, Kevin, there isn't time. Explain the phenomenon or we find a different pundit."

"Of course, the movement. What it looks like, Mart, is a bouncing ball."

"It's as simple as that?"

"It is, I can explain why, and here is where the wave comes in."

"Excellent stuff, but I'm afraid that's all we've got time for, Kevin."

"Thanks Mart."

"You're welcome Kevin. See you next time. Sue, did you get any of that?"

Our view switched back to the studio.

"Certainly did, Mart. We'll speak to you more in just a few minutes, but now I've got in the studio with me here one Professor Antonio Tomei, professor of cognitive processes at MIT. Professor, hello."

The professor smiled and nodded.

"Good evening," he said.

"Now you've got some pretty radical theories regarding this market, haven't you."

"I have, Sue, that is correct."

"You'll be returning to discuss the subject in greater detail in tonight's round table debate, of course, but perhaps now you could offer our viewers an overview, a précis, of just what your contention consists of."

"I'd be happy to, Sue. Now, what I hypothesise, is that these market movements we are witnessing have reached such a level of complexity, such a level of self-governing endogenously-motivated tiered organisation, that the epiphenomenon to which Mr., er, Bishop, was attempting to refer - and I really must point out that what we're seeing is more than just a few people being submerged in the system; whole corporations have so far been subsumed - has in fact reached a kind of tipping-point, and formed an ersatz proto-consciousness. What do I mean by this. By this, I mean that what we are dealing with is nothing less than an emergent consciousness, rudimentary, but inarguably real."

"Consciousness in the sense of . . . "

"Consciousness in the sense of a cognisant awareness, a self-reflexive reflex arc."

"And that's pretty out there, professor, if you don't mind me saying."

"It is, Sue. But my students and I have spent much time analysing the data, and we gather more every minute, and, let me tell you, Sue--what we see is in many ways a direct recapitulation of the neuronal pathways of the human brain. In brief, it is my contention that the global market is at this very hour on the verge of self-awareness, if, indeed, this has not already been achieved."

"Which, of course, will raise all kinds of ethical issues . . . "

I thought I might be sick. I really do hate rum. I took my attention away from the television and concentrated for a while on swallowing, keeping my mouth empty of the sickly floods of saliva washing into it. In the end I had to run upstairs and empty my gut into the toilet all the same. By the time I was able to return my attention to the TV, I had lost the thread entirely. The topic had changed and I couldn't seem to pick up where we were. I turned the sound down and put on an old LP on the phonograph. It was ancient and scratchy, one of Lisa's old antiques, but the song could still be made out. So, listening to a long-deceased woman whining her way through a song called Blue Velvet, which I didn't particularly like, I watched the flickering screen and persevered with my rum.

*

Lisabeth and I had our first falling out over a toaster. I think it was just after we'd moved into our house. I don't know what the specifics of our dispute were, indeed, it seems worthwhile asking what there is about toasters that can be argued about. The crumb tray, perhaps. Did I not empty it often enough? It blew over quickly enough, the dispute, but I always had a feeling thereafter, an unpleasant, nagging, chill sensation, that Lisabeth was not the person I'd taken her to be in the beginning. It wasn't with me always, but it returned bitterly whenever we had any disagreements in the future. Even the most minor of issues could fill me with an anxiety that verged on the existential. This person, in a very real sense, meant the world to me. When she appeared an unknowable alien facsimile, I wanted no more to do with anything, her or the world. Perhaps it was a sub-cognisant strategy to assist with the demonstration of commitment to a relationship, this stabbing suicidal despair in the face of a partner's displeasure, the desperate urge to re-establish one's illusions. Or maybe it was rather merely the fallout from an earlier strategy, the blind all-devouring lust of yester-months. Whichever. I certainly didn't come up with it on my own. The rest of you are welcome to it. It would have been better if she had left, for hope to have been moved finally out of reach. Then I might have been able to construct a life to live. I couldn't have left. I have no spine.

*

A few days later I got the tram into town. I was drunk, catatonically bored sitting in the house by myself all of the time, watching Bloomberg, pretending that I wasn't waiting for the phone to ring. Watching too much Bloomberg isn't very good for you, for me at least. I'd made some pretty big bets recently, and some pretty big losses to go with. Watching Bloomberg all of the time with an open bottle of rum is, if possible, even worse than watching Bloomberg by itself all of the time. With only a few months of redundancy pay to work with, a certain amount of circumspection seemed to be called for.

The tram smelled like a public toilet, as did its passengers, myself possibly included, I wasn't in a position to judge. I eyed the seat I planned to sit in somewhat beadily, before falling into it as the tram jerked into frontwards motion. The seat was wet, my heart sank. I hate wet seats. I hate the diseases they carry, whatever those diseases are, there must be some. I needed the toilet myself, so, after a moment's consideration, relaxed my urethra and emptied my bladder into the threadbare cushion. It was already soaking wet, everyone else was at it, why shouldn't I. I felt I'd won a minor victory and smiled. The scruffy bearded man opposite me smiled back, gestured to my crotch, It's good, isn't it, I'm just about to go myself. He flashed broken yellow teeth in a faintly unnerving grin. Second time today, he whispered. I was powerless to avert my eyes, watching a dark stain spread slowly around the apex of his inside legs. He stared at me throughout, grin fixed, muttering, occasionally, Oh yeah, oh yeah, that's the stuff. I shuddered. I'm an Incubus, he leered, presumably finished, want to have sex with me? I'll drain your life energies. Yum. He rubbed his denim-clad thighs. Life energies. Wriggling spermatozoa, oh yeah, that's right. Come on, let's do it right here.

I curled into a defensive posture calculated to leave no orifice exposed and ignored him. By the time I reached my stop and opened my eyes, he had gone. Godsdamned deviants, I shrieked, mincing off the coach, wet trousers slapping and chaffing against the backs of my legs. What the hell is wrong with this place. I went to a café and locked myself in the toilet. There was a little sink which I filled with hot water and used to give my underwear, pantaloons, legs and groin a scrub, before using the hot air stream (a rarity in Bel-Graid) to dry each of them, in reverse order. When at last I emerged, the drier had broken and a queue thirty people-long stretched away from the door. Motherfuckers, I mumbled, walking past their yelled imprecations.

It was late afternoon. I no longer smelled of urine. I went to the train station. The weather not being overtly inimical, it was busy, people taking advantage of the city-wide holiday (Mathematics' Day, occasion of a low key festival held in honour of that great discipline) to take the transportation away for a weekend. I deserved I holiday. For all my hard work, I deserved one. Ten or how many years the man said of collection work, into a bank straight after, of course, it hadn't worked out, any of it, but that could hardly be helped. My resolve hardened. I was going. Either way, I needed out of the city, just for a while, a weekend, maybe two. I had to leave it behind, pretend it didn't exist. Lisa and I went on holiday once, we took the train to the coast, to Vitruvia, then number one travelled-to destination among citizens of Bel-Graid. It has since been surpassed by Vitruvia-major, a recently invented coastal town that has grown over recent years at a ferocious pace, relegating the former Vitruvia to Vitruvia-minor, but it remains a visited place. I waited in line with the undulating crowd of fat topless males and females. Had I the necessary qualifications, I'd diagnose this as a type of mania. Even in the depths of Bel-Graid's near permanent winter, the least improvement in atmospheric conditions is likely to result in these fits of madness, shedding of clothes, application of useless suncream, purchase of useless sunglasses. Hundreds of deaths occur each year due to hypothermia as this summer fever sweeps the city. I pulled my coat tightly about myself and glared. Eventually I reached the front. Where to? asked the lady at the booth. To Vitruvia-minor I replied. Just one way? Just one way, I confirmed. I'll get the return at the other end. Good thinking, she said. I handed over a pouch of coins and went to find my train. It was fairly quiet and left only a few minutes late. The journey was fifteen hours long, sleeper service, delightful. I went to the dining car and ate a bacon sandwich with two pints of railway beer. After this I went to my bed, a small flea-infested cot, and lay down to sleep.

*

Lisa and I were at the height of our passions when we made this trip. This solitary journey is by way of a pilgrimage to lost love, an absurd recapitulation of something once vivid and colourful, now drained empty, chewed up, spat out. We spent an entire week in the hotel and on the beach. It was hot, far too hot, and I do suffer in the heat. Fortunately, it was so hot that everyone suffered, and I think it's fair to say that Lisa didn't noticeably perspire any less than I did. Both of us drank too much beer every day, and did some really quite silly things. For example, we wanted to get tattoos of each other's names. Unfortunately, there were - I think, we thought - no tattoo parlours in Vitruvia. It was also around dawn, and so if there were any, there would certainly have been closed. Dawn occurs very early in Vitruvia. What we did, then, was to take a steak knife (we'd been eating steaks in our room), and to slice/saw our name onto our opposite number's upper arm. This was painful, messy, and left us both with some very iffy looking wounds, infection-wise, but brought us both a lot of happiness. I was certainly proud of my own. That was how much I loved her. She could have carved profane graffiti with a steak knife the length and breadth of me if she'd wanted. In later years, however, I've tried not to look at it. It was never stitched and it really has bulged. Lisa's scar seems to have disappeared.

*

I woke up an hour or so before we arrived in Vitruvia, a very long sleep indeed. I spent the time pacing the corridor outside my cell, pausing only to allow fellow passengers to pass me. You'll wear a hole in that, a conductor said to me. Haha, I laughed, drily, continued to pace.

Vitruvia-minor was a minor wasteland littered with hotels and bars. I loved it the moment I saw it. All of the buildings, made from light wood or heavy stone for the sake of the heat, were in advanced states of decay. I'd barely left the platform when I had the privilege of watching one topple to the ground, the Metropole, I was informed. I realised this where Lisa and I had stayed. I was some minutes recovering from my merriment.

I walked along the dusty pathways between decrepit wooden fences down to the beach. It was covered in dead fish and the skeletons of dead fish. Otherwise, it was quite pleasant. I promenaded this way and that, kicking fish heads through the sand, rather enjoying myself until the heat started to get to me. Vitruvia is an offensively hot place, hot and muggy, sweltering. I poured sweat and instantly regretted my decision to make this trip. My head began to throb as well. I left the beach to find a hotel.

I ended up staying at the Hotel Papillon. I was one of only a few guests, none of which I ever talked to, not excluding myself, I didn't talk to me either. The hotel's bar had closed but its laundromat remained operational. Each night I slipped down and stuck my clothes in (I only had the one set), returning in a state of unashamed nakedness the next morning to retrieve them. I spent most of my time in the Dauphin's Requiem, a bar just down the street. Bel-Gradean gentlemen from a number of hotels congregated here, and I was able to speak with them some while drinking warm whisky and beer. The only food available was the local species of fish, collected on a daily basis at dawn from the beach. It gave you the runs something serious every second or third day, but there was nothing else to eat and it didn't taste too bad.

The Bel-Gradeans I met were an interesting bunch. The character I got on best with was one Fatty MacTeague, an ex-fence who had fled the city to avoid the law. When he arrived in Vitruvia, he told me, it had been a vibrant destination, full of people and the activity that invariably accompanies them. He spent many an afternoon and evening telling me repetitively and at great length how he'd "seen this place rot, it breaks yer 'eart, it does." My other regular companion was Jarkko Villeinen. He was here for one thing and one thing only, "the girls, na mean?" The thing was, there were no girls in Vitruvia-minor, only the burnt out old wives of barely in business hoteliers. It had been a pretty straight-laced area to begin with, now, nothing. He came, allegedly, expecting hookers by the crate load, what he got was the same warm beer and weird fish as everyone else.

There were six others who turned up regularly, Bob, Smith, Hiram, Terrence and maybe two others with more complicated names I can't recall, they were all bastards I wouldn't normally care to find myself in the same room as, but for two or three weeks, they didn't seem so bad. We did an admirable amount of drinking, and I'm not sure any of us were ever sober for more than ten minutes in a row. In the end, I took to loading up with shots of whiskey before going down to retrieve my clothes. Just before I left, I'd stopped getting my clothes altogether. They sat in the drier for almost a week.

We would all get up at around midday and percolate one by one through the wicker ghost town to the Dauphin. After a whiskey and fish breakfast, we'd spend the entire day drinking room temperature beer. On very rare occasions we'd walk the ten metres to the beach and lie in the sand for a while. Hiroko, the barman, whom we all referred to as Sue for complex reasons relating to an old song, told us we should avoid the sea on account of the large population of dangerous jellyfish which blossomed out of control since the culls stopped. It was fortunate that he told us this, as Fatty said he had clean forgotten, and would have followed us all straight in.

On a particularly pleasant evening we went down to the beach late, with the intention of grilling some fish on an open fire. The beach was covered in turtles, all of them shuffling about, crawling over and under each other, doing a very bad job of swimming on the surface of the gritty sand. We were entranced, and sat in silence for hours, watching them flap. Their shells were covered in bony horns and they had long tusks like walruses. They were, Sue told us, referred to as either the Hornèd Turtle of the Southern Cape, or the Walrus Turtle. Two extremely imaginative names. They fed on the jellyfish in the region and had apparently evolved their tusks for the sheer fun of it. Occasionally, when the moon was high and visible, they'd crawl onto the beach for a terrific orgy. This came as a shock to me, as I'd seen no evidence of any activity of that nature, but there you have it. The hornèd turtles of the southern cape were doomed to linger in my memory for however long they had the misfortune of lingering there as spiky reptilian sex pests.

Days went by, nighttime sweats and morning barfing. I felt content to stay in Vitruvia-minor for as long as I remained alive. However, it was not to be: Disaster struck, and one morning I awoke to find the words 'Lisa, you goit' carved in large letters across my torso. Shallow cuts, no huge trails of blood or great marks on the sheet or anything like that, but it spooked me. I had only the faintest recollection of what had occurred, of who had decided it would be extremely funny if we all gave ourselves makeshift scratch-tattoos (I think it was me), what, if anything, anyone else had done. Would Fatty stoop to this level of excess, this base depravity? I hoped he wouldn't. I also hoped those two people with the crazy names hadn't been around. This was their kind of thing, this was what they went for. I was fairly sure they'd been absent, they hadn't been around for a while, but there was no guarantee this state of affairs would continue to prevail. Were they, as they claimed, really drawn by the scent of blood? I shook my head vigorously, groaned. My mind was obviously more heavily burdened than I'd thought. What were we, crazed masochistic satanists? Where could this lead? I had to get out. I had to leave at once.

*

I slunk downstairs and into the basement of my hotel, to the laundromat, retrieved my clothes. I put them on and left without seeing anyone. I didn't pay my bill. As far as I knew, no one did. I had been, at least while sober, masquerading under the nom de guerre Nigel Fitzmaurice, so they didn't have a hope of tracking me, even if they wanted to. The only Nigel Fitzmaurice ever to have lived in Bel-Graid died well over sixty years ago. I checked.

I kept my head low and the collar of my coat turned up while walking through the lizard infested saharan streets, paying for it in terms of a feverishly elevated core temperature more than made up for in terms of decreased recognisability.

I reached the station and boarded a train for Bel-Graid at once. I was thrown off at the next station for not having a ticket, so ate my first non-fish meal in weeks for breakfast while waiting for the next locomotive.

I felt like a turkey had gone off in my head, the accumulated weight of put off hangovers accumulating and collapsing on me all in one go. I shivered and sweated my way home, sleeper service again, we went the long way this time, it took twenty-three hours. I lay in my bed all the way, drinking water intermittently. The conductor wanted to throw me off again for being too ill, but I was able to convince him my condition was not infectious. It's genetic, I said, I just sometimes go like this. Nothing to worry about. It won't last. We arrived back in Bel-Graid early in the morning. The blast of frosty air brought me to my senses enough to get me home. I took the tram, remaining standing, holding on to a pole, swaying with the vehicle's motion. I stared at the floor, in no condition to chance the seats or other passengers. I almost ran down the hill to my house, the cold becoming quickly no less oppressive than the heat I'd just escaped. When I got in I went straight upstairs and straight into bed. This time I actually made it to sleep.

*

One of the things I miss most about Lisa is the shared hangover. Particularly on our holiday, but for a while before and after as well, Lisa used to drink very heavily. Both of us did. We had a thing we'd do, where we'd both get drunk at the same time, really racing, drunk until we couldn't stand up was the cut-off, then we'd try to have sex. It never worked and was very fun, especially when one of us vomited, for some reason that always seemed hysterically funny. Cleaning it up wasn't, but there's always a price to be payed. What I enjoyed most, though, was lying in bed together the next day, drinking coffee, mumbling and complaining about how awful we felt. Those were good times. These days, I get drunk and nurse my hangovers alone. That's no fun at all.

*

I slept through the afternoon, the night, and then a small portion of the morning. Having recovered completely, I went out, bought five bottles of rum and remained powerfully intoxicated for all the rest of the day. I didn't drink them all, I mean, it was strong stuff. I also don't know why I bought it. Lieutenant van Garderen's, I think it was called, Lieutenant van Garderen's Naval Issue Rum, but maybe I've just made that up. I fucking hate rum. I should have gotten whiskey. The sea air had interfered with my workings. It didn't seem worthwhile moving or eating, so I didn't. The only times I left the settee were when I was forced to empty my bladder. Had I a catheter handy, I daresay I'd have employed it. I lost consciousness in the early evening and was on the ropes all night, sweating, exhausted and ill but unable to sleep. Too soon, I thought, too soon. Maybe I was about to die. That would be fun. When the sun came up, I arose to a pair of painful legs, tight, as if the tendons along their backs had shrunk overnight, making standing difficult and sitting in bed impossible. I couldn't work out why this should be the case, so did my best to ignore it. Turning to more immediate concerns, I put a lot of water down my gullet to ease the burgeoning ache in my skull, and spent a while looking at a bowl of porridge, planning. In the end I decided against the porridge, which was by then in any case cold, but remained in favour of a walk about town. Something to get me out into the fresh, smog-filled air. An expedition was called for. I hobbled upstairs to splash lukewarm, somewhat soapy water around the essential areas and donned the cleanest set of clothes I could find. I had a destination in mind, a plan to keep it company.

I stepped out into a cold but almost sunny day, animate, mobile, and as near as makes no difference free from offensive odours. My legs still hurt and my brain felt strange and woolly, but I wasn't about to let that get in my way. I stumped down the pavement, the suggestion of a spring in my halting step, a glimmer in my bloodshot eyes.

I moved horizontally to avoid the hill for as long as possible, coasting around the old children's playground, aiming to approach the city centre from an angle. A few streets and a few minutes later I came up against a small hill, an incline of say 3%, and it brought me to my knees. By the time I had hauled myself to its summit I was a sweating and shaking wreck. Walking had never been so difficult. I used to barely notice this little slope; today it very nearly finished me off. I fell onto a bench in a little paved area on the corner and breathed heavily, salty water oozing from all over me. When I'd recuperated sufficient to regain my feet, I hailed a cab. I'd done enough walking. I went home and drank rum until I passed out.

*

Three days later, the weather looked okay. I tried again, starting with a taxi this time. The clouds moved in quickly, and hung particularly low in the city-centre, low and thick, casting a grey pall over the streets, hinting always at rain. People moved about hurriedly, eyes on the sky, umbrellas at their sides. From time to time, the rain in Bel-Graid turns toxic, and when it does, it pays not to be caught in it. Among other symptoms, prolonged exposure can result in severe disfigurement, short-term memory loss, wobbly knees and death. The toxicity is produced by weapons testing in neighbouring states, sometimes in our own, and sweeps across the city periodically. Recent weather reports claimed that such tests had been carried out in the last week or two at a reasonably safe distance, but if the wind went wrong we could cop the tail-end. Such is life.

Towers loomed around me, sullen and concrete. I was in the pedestrianised high street, in the thick of the paranoid shoppers. Colourful storefronts underhung level upon level of mysterious and anonymous windows, blank glass portals leaking meagre light into damp and probably empty rooms, if not empty then soon to be empty, for everyone dies eventually and this town was going to the dogs.

While I was musing along those lines, a chugger ambushed me. Give me some money, the woman cried. What for? I wondered. Haven't you seen my t-shirt? she asked. I looked at her t-shirt and read the slogan, Rescue the Children. Have you heard of us? she asked. I might well, I said. If not of you, perhaps an organisation with a very similar name. We're new, she said, and we need your money to help us rescue the children. I haven't any money, I said. She gave me a look. I'll bet you have, she said. I'll bet you've got lots of money. Okay, I said, okay, you're right, I do have money, lots of money. Unfortunately, that's all for spending on beer, so I can hardly go giving it to your children. Okay, she said, fair play. Life was hard in Bel-Graid. She knew that.

I left the chugger in my wake and moved further down the street. A crazed preacher with a large cardboard banner made to block my path but I saw him coming and was able to execute a sidestep followed by a thirty degree course alteration and - really pushing it - a twelve percent increase in linear-velocity before he had time to react, enough to leave the man comprehensively outmanoeuvred. He could only watch in dismay as I passed him by. Curse you, he railed, curse you all! Walking the streets can be a dangerous business, there's no telling what you'll come up against. There were more chuggers abroad, but I gave them a wide berth and kept out of sight, hiding when necessary behind people and benches, and reached the end of the street without falling under their fell auspices.

From there the way became easier. There were few people in the square, no dangers that I could make out. I broke cover and streaked across the open space, my destination in sight. Passing close to Lord Wagner's staggeringly huge monument, towering serenely at the square's centre above the city and the chaos it contained, I had to skitter briefly to avoid a vagrant with a large bottle of cider who had sat out of sight, obscured by parallax, when I initially surveyed the area. Though I passed within a centimetre, he was too confused to notice me, his attention all taken up with the sprites and devils in his own mind. I crossed the remainder of the square at speed and came to a halt before the cathedral-like building that was my destination - the Employment Office.

The building was cathedral-like because it used to be a cathedral, the biggest in the city. It was really quite vast, though nothing like as large as the monument it sat next to. Still, it was an imposing structure. With the decline of religion and the rise of unemployment as a popular national pastime, the cathedral had been deconsecrated and repossessed, then converted into government offices at some point in the 2050s. A job centre fit for the 21st century and the infrastructural demands modern life and a booming population will place upon local facilities.

I took a deep breath and slithered through the door. The interior was lit only by candles and the once stained-glass windows had all been boarded up, so my eyes took a moment to adjust to the gloom. The whole area had been left open plan, I was standing right at the edge of the cavernous nave. There was a great deal of empty space in the building; just looking at its vaulted ceiling made my head swim with vertigo. There were desks all over the place on the floor. A young usher sidled up to me and suggested I report in at the reception just over there then take a seat in the waiting area. I'd be called out soon enough. I followed his instructions and tiptoed over to a sizeable seating area to the right of the entrance, pressed right into the corner. There hung a sign reading, Reception, suspended a hundred metres from the roof, dangling all the way down to just above the heads of the three or four people sitting in a little barricaded area adjacent to the seats. There was no queue.

"Hello," one of them said, pen in hand. "How may I be of service."

"I'd like a job, please." I saw nothing to be gained from playing coy.

"Job seeker. Name?"

"Steve."

"Full name?"

"Steven R. Piledriver."

"Date of birth?"

"2072, er, March, er . . . 28th?"

"28-03-2138."

"Probably."

"Okay then Mr. Piledriver, if you'd like to take a seat. Your number is #3057502." She handed me a slip of paper with the very same number scribbled in blue biro. "Please listen for your call."

"Thank you," I muttered, and for some reason executed a stunted facsimile of a bow. Not that it mattered, no one was paying me any attention. I stepped into the seating area and found a space as far as could be managed from other people. They were a suspicious looking bunch, if truth be told, these humans, covered in greasy hair, red-rimmed eyes, torn pantaloons and the smell of old vodka. No doubt I fitted right in. And why not? As they say, Alexander died, Alexander was so on and so forth, and why after all not use him to stop a beerbarrel? Well, the same applied, though it was precious small consolation in the moment. I felt in that protracted instant my fall from grace, such as it was, keenly, oh so keenly, more keenly than at any time previous. I wasn't drunk, for one thing, and why on earth not? I wondered, what idiot logic had spurred me on to this place in a state of such naked sobriety.

"#3057502," I heard a voice shout, then again, more loudly, "#3057502!"

"Gods that was quick," I muttered, standing up. The other poor specimens I'd briefly kept company glared at me, queue jumper that I was. I walked deep into the cathedral, to a desk near where the altar would have been in days gone by, from which whereabouts a civil servant waved a white handkerchief at me. There was no more altar in the chancel, in its stead was positioned a long and heavy looking wooden table, at which sat five Magisters, lieutenants to the Right Hon. John Hammersmith, Lord Mayor of Bel-Graid. They wore red robes and nibbled at small triangular sandwiches made with white bread and probably tuna fish culled from the great Northern Oceans, surveying the room through brass opera glasses, seeing there was no slackening of pace and no bribes passed without their say-so. Gods that was quick, I said again when I judged myself within earshot of the servant.

"The preliminaries are dealt with quickly," he said, and proffered a bony hand. "Maxim Duchamp, 3rd Order Prelate, Junior Savant, Emissary of the Lord Mayor of this city."

I took his hand and shook it.

"Steve," I said.

"Please," he said. "Take a seat."

I did as he suggested and without missing a beat he followed suit. He was a gristly individual. He wore the tightly fitted black cassock of his order and had intricate designs tattooed on the completely bare flesh of his cranium.

"So, Steve," he said. "How can I be of assistance?"

"Straight to the point? Fantastic. Well, what the thing is, is this. I find myself in the regrettable position of being unemployed. What I would like, I suppose, and what I'm given to understand you offer, is assistance in regaining employment." The servant nodded and made notes. "Failing that, or whatever, I don't know, I wonder what if any handouts I'd be entitled to." Scribble scribble. "That's all I can think of."

The servant nodded slowly and assessed his notes. Not bad, not bad, he said. Then,

"Mr. Piledriver, I believe we can be of assistance."

"Marvellous."

"I'll just have to ask you a few questions, as we really require more information on you than just your name."

"Of course, of course."

"We'll also need a blood sample, which the nurse will extract while we talk. If that's alright with you."

"I don't see why not."

"Okay. One moment please." The servant picked up a small bell and started clanging it. A man in medical overalls was with us presently. "Blood sample," said the servant. "Name, Piledriver, Steven R. Say about 0.5?"

The medic gestured affirmatively and departed. He returned moments later with phlebotomy equipment.

"If you don't mind my asking," I said to the servant. "What is this blood business for?"

The servant shuffled papers about until he came up with what looked like a questionnaire. "Oh, just for some tests," he said without looking up. "It will tell us some things about you, date of birth, level of fitness, genomic constitution, things like that."

"It does all that?"

"It does all that, Mr. Piledriver, and much much more."

The medic pulled my sleeve up and tied my arm to the chair-arm beneath it.

"So to commence our questions. Mr. Piledriver."

"Yes."

The medic slapped my arm, muttering, Some good veins there.

"Your previous job--what was it?"

"I drove one of the collection hearses."

"You were employed for how long?"

"Fifteen years. Ish. Maybe less."

The medic stabbed a long needle into my arm. Blood flowed into the large vacuum of the glass collection bulb.

"So you've been employed since you were . . . 10?"

"10? Er . . . maybe. Don't think so though. Maybe. Maybe I got my birthday wrong."

"No matter, your blood will tell us. Now, when was your employment terminated?"

"Last week. Or yesterday. I'm not really sure."

"That's quite alright. But it was within the last 7-14 days? Excellent. And did you resign, or were you dismissed?"

"I was dismissed."

"What reason was given for your dismissal?"

"I really don't know."

The servant raised an eyebrow and looked at me. The medic yanked the needle from my arm, undid the straps and handed me a bandage. Get that on and it should be fine, he said.

"You don't know?"

The medic departed with my blood.

"Well, they were a bit vague. I missed a few days last week, and maybe the week before, so I might have missed a memo or something."

"So that'll be 'Chronic Non-Attendance'?"

"Not sure about that. They did mention downsizing, on the phone. You know, rationalisation, streamlining."

"Chronic Non-Attendance it will be."

"But-"

"If you can obtain written proof from your employer, in this case the State, then we can change it. For now it's going to be unratified absence."

I was struggling to get the bandage on and my arm was leaking a small but steady stream of blood onto the floor.

"Well . . . okay."

"What reason did you give for your absence?"

"I don't suppose I gave any."

"The plot thickens."

"What?"

"Would you care to give me a reason for you absence?"

"I was ill."

"Ill?"

"Yes. I was in a car crash. With the hearse."

"Destruction of company property to boot."

"They cut my redundancy pay for that."

"You're getting redundancy pay?"

"A few months."

"How odd. Mr. Piledriver, that really is most unsavoury." The servant was peering at my arm and the now scarlet bandage. "Not to say unhygienic. Shall I call for assistance." He started clanging his bell again and the medic returned. "Give him a hand with that, will you, Jim?" The medic attended to my wound.

"Well Mr. Piledriver," the servant said, sitting back. "This is suddenly looking a little better for you."

"It is?"

"It is indeed. Perhaps I had you all wrong. First impressions and that. If you're getting redundancy pay then you mustn't have been dismissed due to insubordination, or whatever it was. This makes you considerably more re-employable."

"Super."

The medic tugged my bandage tight, said, And don't fiddle with it this time, and departed once again.

"Thanks Jim," said the servant. "Yes, considerably more re-employable. You'll probably even escape the training programs. Do you have any qualifications?"

"A few. Science A-levels, mostly."

"Excellent. You should be no bother." The servant put his questionnaire away and began leafing through the documents on his desk. "What I'm going to do," he said, "is book you in for a physical examination. You'll hear from us after that." He found what he was looking for, a blank sheet of paper. "How's Tuesday?"

"Tuesday is fine."

"Tuesday at ten? I'll book you in for a psyche evaluation just afterwards. They're in basically the same place, so it should save you a journey."

"Psyche evaluation?"

"It's a standard procedure. Everyone gets one."

"Okay."

"And that, Mr. Piledriver, completes our business." He held out his hand for me to shake again. It was just as bony as last time, though it had warmed up slightly. "I'll submit this to the relevant authorities." He held up the paper on which he'd written my appointment details, and with his other hand picked up, and started to ring, a smaller, silvery bell. Tinkle, tinkle, it went. "Just make sure you don't forget!"

"I'm sure I won't," I said, standing up and setting off for the door. "Thank you very much, Mr. Duchamp."

Simple as that, I was re-employed, as good as. It occurred to me as I left the building that I'd forgotten entirely about my employment at the bank. I sniffed and shrugged. It probably wasn't important. Three steps further, I'd also forgotten to press the matter of the hand-out cheques, but that hardly mattered. Small potatoes, comparatively. I wouldn't be needing them, all being well, even all being slightly less than well. It probably didn't matter that I hadn't mentioned the holiday either. What did they care about that? I spent a moment appreciating Lord Wagner's colossus. It really was a fine piece of sculpture. The clouds briefly parted around its top and a lone ray of sunlight lanced through the gap and into my eye. All is well with the world, I thought, holding my eye shut, waiting for the bleached retina to regenerate.
Nature's Microwaves

But all was not well, as I discovered when I got home and turned on Bloomberg. I had stopped at a small confectioners on my way back home, and had purchased for myself a lovely bag of marshmallows, for which I have a terrible fondness and hadn't eaten for months, to eat with the whiskey I bought from a liquor store slightly further down the road. I was hugely excited when I got in and I very nearly leapt on to the settee once I'd clambered over the step and through the front door. I started up the TV, split open my marshmallows, had a slug of whiskey, sat back and watched as the image faded into visibility.

My feeling of wellbeing was quickly dispelled. I didn't even take in what was being said, I simply stared at the reams of statistics tearing across the bottom of the screen. They made no sense. Chaos reigned. The world markets had gone absolutely ballistic. In the trading pit behind our reporter at the exchange, the traders were running and jumping all over, screaming and shouting, pausing occasionally only to pummel one and other or to drop a couple of stocks.

I picked up the phone and dialled my broker. There was no answer. I tried again--still no answer. I pushed a marshmallow in to my mouth, chewed and swallowed, barely tasting it. This was most unexpected. I was under the impression that the markets were about to turn into a sentient being, not that they were about to immolate themselves in a grand financial Catherine wheel. I drank some whiskey. I'd been in two minds over whether or not to buy it, but, given the circumstances, I think I made the correct decision. The phone rang.

"Mac?" I said.

"No, it's Lisa. Who's Mac?"

"Oh, hello Lisa. Mac's my broker."

"I see. Listen, Steve, where have you been? I've been calling for ages."

"Have you? Oh dear. Well, I just went out for a while."

"Out?"

"Yes. Out."

"Out where to?"

"To the job centre, if you must know."

"You're telling me you've been at the job centre for the last eight weeks?"

"I- "

"What were you doing going there?"

"I . . . maybe I just felt like it."

"What did you do there?"

"Walked around. Talked to people. Stuff. I don't know, Lisa, why are you calling?"

"You never talk to people, Steve. You're making me very suspicious. Have you gone and lost your job again? You know you didn't tell me last time."

"That's hardly fair. I didn't know you back then. Why are you so uptight, anyway? You aren't ever like this."

"They've changed my medication. I'm going through a very stressful period right now, actually, so thank you, Steve, and thank you for all the consideration you're showing."

" . . . I'm sorry."

"Now tell me: why were you at the job centre?"

"Okay. I've been made redundant."

"Fuck."

"I'm sorry, I wasn't going to say anything. Look, I've talked to them, it's fine, they'll have something for me in a week."

"Fuck, Steve. Fuck. This is not what I need. This is really not what I need."

I heard a voice jabbering faintly in the background.

"Is that . . . "

"Yes it is, and you leave him out of it, Steven. He's telling me I'm expending too much energy on this phonecall. Now apologise and reassure me, so we can get down to business."

"I'm sorry, Lisa, I'm really really sorry, but there was nothing I could do. I've got about six months of redundancy pay, and I'll easily have another job by then. I've talked to them, see? Everything's fine, totally fine. Nothing to worry about."

Deep breaths.

"Okay Steve, I'm taking your word from it. I'm sorry if I'm a little short, but Barry says I need a more competitive edge if I'm going to get anywhere. It's making me feel angry most of the time. But, anyway, never mind, why I phoned? There's a trial at the Varangian Velodrome next week. I'll be in it. This is for the big league, Steve, I'm getting very nervous. The top ranking judges will be there, I might make the national team. This is my big chance. I have to win. I have to."

"And I'm sure you will, Lisa, that's excellent news. You never used to get nervous before races, is that the meds as well?"

"Probably. Everything's just so fucking stressful right now. It just makes me want to fucking swear. And fucking break things."

"Oh Lisa. Oh Lisa. What are they doing to you?"

"Nothing I don't want them to. This is my chance, Steve, this is my chance."

"I know."

"I have to go now. I've talked far too long already. Bye, Steve."

The phone clicked and she was gone. Well shit, I thought, how about that.

I turned the TV back up and sat watching the stocks bounce with a disinterest that bordered on the sublime. The job. The market. The phonecall. How the tables turn! My mind-cogs whirred and I lost myself in my head. Bloomberg raged on in the background, but I was aware of it only as a flickering peripheral glow. Once again, everything seemed to be crumbling and flying away from everything else so quickly. Nothing was constant. There was nothing to hold on to. My thoughts spiralled around these themes with increasing angular frequency as I became more and more inebriated until they merged into an elliptical glow of bemused dissatisfaction. No doubt the alcohol cast this maudlin pall over my thoughts. No doubt. The substance is, after all, a depressant, and throughout the night I conveyed an appreciable quantity of it into my blood and brain. I fell asleep on the settee with the TV still rambling and finally staggered upstairs to bed as the Sun came up. No job to go to. What the fuck.

*

The following days passed in much the same fashion. I stayed at home, drank, watched Bloomberg. I broke cover only to get more drink, occasionally food. The markets were a mess. One day they would behave with perfect civility, a few points added to each of the important indices, perhaps a few points subtracted; the next day they would start oscillating like amphetamine-laced kangaroos; the day after that all pretence of order would evaporate and the traders would go apeshit. Many shot themselves, some shot others. Finally, on the fourth day, normality would resume, the sublunary madness of yester-48 hours forgotten.

I lost track of what day it was. It must have been mentioned often enough on the TV, but I kept forgetting. It seemed hardly important. Day and night lost all meaning, both Bloomberg and the off-license were 24-hour facilities; I watched one all the time and went to the other whenever. It occurred to me one day that I should have a bath. I filled the tub up with hot water and jumped in, boots on, bottle in hand. Drunk as I was, I still noticed the heat: it was hot. I let out a small cry, writhed and vomited. This was probably my lowest point. I crawled from the bath bedraggled, filthy and scorched, fell asleep on the mat. I felt so wretched when I woke up, the only thing I could even begin to think about doing was drinking more. During a commercial break on the TV, I remembered my medical exam. I jumped up and ran to the door. It was dark outside. Probably not much good going now, I thought, and went back inside. I lay down on the uncomfortable settee. There were two beds upstairs that I could sleep in, but I could no longer stand the silence. I had become used to the constant chatter. There was no TV upstairs, no aerial cable, no Bloomberg, no noise.

*

When it had become light, I walked down to the hospital. My eyes were directed unerringly frontwards, perceiving the world with the awesome clarity of vision that alcohol brings. When I passed people, I felt like a ghost, detached, somehow removed from all else that was going on, able to view everything passing me by with sublime dispassion. I barely noticed the light drizzle floating down from the grey clouds up above, though, through persistent application of effort, it was able to soak me rather thoroughly by the time I reached where I was going.

The hospital, a concrete cuboid in the modernist mode, was a dusty matte grey, broken here and there by long strips of glass. Windows, I mean to say. It bore the legend, Bel-Graid Central District Medical Centre, along its side, in black block-capitals each several metres in height. The Central was slightly smaller than the Teaching Hospital, which I'd been taken to after my crash, but was marginally closer to my home. I couldn't remember which of the two I was supposed to go to, so I chose the Central. This left me a walk of only ~6.0 kilometres, rather than the unarguably larger ~6.4 kilometres to the latter.

I crossed its sprawling car park, weaving in and out between parked wooden electro-trollies of various shapes and sizes, and even the occasional refitted metal car. Original model aluminium cars could still be made to move by the city's electric fields, but the induction engines they required were hugely expensive, the tax levied on their owners even greater. The metal vehicles belonged, no doubt, to surgeons, consultants and upper management. I took them all in with the same abstract regard I had towards the rest of planet Earth that fine morning.

There was a small stripe of muddy scrub not far from the hospital entrance that had probably, in days gone by, been a miniature garden, no doubt for the patients' and staff's enjoyment and pleasure, that had since gone to seed. I careered across it without changing pace and fell over only once, my left foot becoming tangled in the long grass, destabilising me past the point of easy recovery, landing me in the wet ground and dirtying my coat and hands.

The main entrance was only three or so metres from the garden. A clerk just inside the entrance manipulated a lever, pistons hissed and the door ground open. I squelched on through it, 48 kilograms and 168 muddy centimetres of sang froid, and made my way to the reception. The large bald man on duty looked at me askance.

"Yes?" he said.

"I'm here to see the doctor," I said, swaying just a little bit, my eyes focussed on his thick eyebrows.

"I can't admit you if you're drunk, you know," he said, his expression turning mean.

"That's alright," I said. "I'm prepared to wait."

"You can't wait in here."

"Then I'll wait outside."

The man sighed and rubbed his forehead.

"Who are you here to see," he said at length.

"Dunno, the . . . the, er, the prelate sent me. Marcel or something. From the employment agency."

"Okay, and when was your appointment?"

"Tuesday."

"Today is Friday."

"Is it?"

"Yes."

"Shit. How long has it been Friday for?"

"It's been Friday all day."

"Shit. But my appointment's on Tuesday."

"Then you have a problem, don't you."

"I'm. Yes. What do I do?"

"You'll have to go back to the employment agency."

"But that's, like, fucking miles away."

"Maybe you'll be on time next time then."

"But can I not see someone now? I'm here now, aren't I. I should see someone. Let me see someone. Now. Today."

"There are no appointments today."

"No app . . . it's a hospital! There must be appointments!"

"Look, Sir, I don't even know what you were supposed to be here for. I've looked through the records-"

"No you haven't."

"Yes I have."

"I saw you, and you haven't."

"Alright, Sir, I don't like your tone, and I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to leave."

"The fuck you will."

"Read the sign."

The man pointed at a laminated paper sign on the wall behind him. It said, Abuse Will Not Be Tolerated.

"Fuck that, man," I said. "I want a godsdamn doctor. I'm fucking ill! You can't stop me! It's fucking criminal, or something. What if I die?"

"This is your last chance, Sir. Please leave at once, or I shall call security."

I vomited watery bile all over his desk then fell over. It was probably his fault, for getting me all stressed and worked up in my obviously fragile condition, but I still felt a little bit bad when I regained consciousness. I was curtained off in a ward somewhere in the hospital, or maybe a prison, heh, with a drip plugged into my hand. My mouth tasted like mouldy paper, whatever that tastes like, and there seemed to be a low buzzing emanating from the middle of my head. I sat up a little and moved my legs. I noticed I had a catheter stuck in my penis. I slumped back down. Ech, I thought. Bleurrrrgh. Fluffing fudge. This was a poor show.

I lay in my bed, my cot, for how long I don't know, minutes, hours, staring at the ceiling, marinading in feelings of guilt, shame and bitterness. Getting plugged into a hospital was not part of the plan. Would I have to put it on my C.V.? I hoped not. I could hear voices from within the room and without. I ignored them. I couldn't imagine how anything could get any worse. I felt that I must be the most wretched organism sucking oxygen from beneficent Mother Gaia's great fat stinking biosphere. Enough was enough, I decided, this sham must end. I spent a small amount of time wondering how I could best bring my miserable existence to an abrupt end. After my long, however long it might have been, rest, I worked quickly. There were no sharp objects around me, no sturdy looking supports, and I wasn't sure my drip was toxic. I could detach and drink it, but I'd probably just end up with a stomach full of room temperature glucose and feel a bit sick. On the other hand . . .

I pulled the tube out of my hand and screwed the other end out of the drip mechanism. I had a ligature. I put it around my neck and took a few deep breaths. Then I went for it. I wrapped the tube around my throat as tightly as I was able, three times in quick succession, then squeezed the loose end under the three turns. I'd done a good job. My pulse thundered and my face felt suddenly very tight. My extremities tingled with increasing ferocity and I began to shudder. As my shakes mounted in severity, my sight clouded over, brown and dusty. I lost consciousness quite quickly.

*

A list of organs I could do without:

1. My large intestine, which does nothing but make noise and cause me discomfort.

2. My small intestine, see above.

3. My stomach, see above also, plus causes an acidic gullet and sickly feelings.

4. My mouth, which only ever hurts and rots at an alarming rate when not assiduously taken care of.

5. My skin, which is blotchy and easily burned.

6. My cardio-vascular system, which is unreliable and frequently breaks down, with the result of a profusion of varicose blemishes on organ #5.

7. My nervous system, without which all the pain would go away, and which only functions at a steady 33% effectiveness to begin with.

8. My kidneys, which are unnecessarily vulnerable to physical trauma.

9. My testicles, see above.

10. Everything I've so far forgotten, such as liver, gall bladder etc. As far as I'm concerned it's all useless junk.

11. Failing all ten of the above, my brain, which is principally responsible for the entire mess in the first instance.

*

I awoke again in a very similar situation to the last time. This time, I had a room of my own. I was also tied down. Balls, I thought. The wily bastards had me.

A nurse came in a bit later. She had blond hair in a long plait and was really quite pretty. The ferocity I'd felt as the door opened dimmed.

"You're really lucky, you know," she said, smiling through her glasses. "You could have died."

"I know," I said. "That was the idea."

"It's not fair though," she said. "It's not fair on those you leave behind."

"I won't leave anyone behind," I said.

"Now that's not true, everyone leaves someone behind."

Perhaps I would leave people behind, perhaps she was right. Anyway, it was too much to think about. I felt very tired.

"I feel very tired," I said.

"Yes, you will," she said. "We sedated you. Just try to rest, a doctor will be around to talk to you in a little while."

"Why did you sedate me?"

"Don't you worry about that. Just rest."

Just rest indeed. Well, I'd show them resting. I closed my eyes and went to sleep.

*

I slept for as long as I could, and when I could sleep no longer I lay with my eyes closed. I hadn't a watch, so once again I couldn't say for how long I kept it up, but I'm sure it was a long time. I felt the same shame as before, only now it seemed somehow hollow, etiolated. I was through the looking glass. What did it matter? Shame, pain and embarrassment. I could just lie here on this bed until I turned into dust.

My stomach betrayed me. It quickly started to clamour for something to bathe in its swirling acids, much later it was screaming in unrestrained hysteria. Someone came into my room and my eyes snapped open. It was a middle aged man in a white lab-coat.

"Ah, Mr. Piledriver," he said. "You're back with us."

"Hungry," I said.

"Yes, we'll get you something to eat in a little while, but first I just need to have a little chat with you."

I rattled my bindings in discomfort.

"Is that okay?" he said.

"S'pose," I said.

"Excellent. My name is Doctor Oleander. I'm a psychiatrist, as near as makes no difference, and I'll be assessing your case." He nodded and looked at the ceiling. Then, with a deep breath, the following was exhaled. "So, to begin," he spake, "Could you tell me, Mr. Piledriver, what was going through your mind when you did what you did?"

I directed my eyes away and fell still and silent, my feeble struggles quelled abruptly.

"What did I do?"

"Suicide. You attempted. What were you thinking?"

" . . . Stuff."

"Could you be a little more specific?"

"Just . . . you know, stuff, things. I don't know."

Doctor Oleander crossed his legs, frowned, and tapped his incisors with the nail of his right forefinger.

"Did you feel bad?" he said.

"Yes."

"How bad?"

"Quite bad."

"I see. And what caused this feeling of badness?"

"I . . . just . . . everything. I felt . . . embarrassed."

"Yes?"

"Sad."

"And sad. Why did you feel sad."

" . . . I'm hungry."

"Yes, you've told me. Why did you feel sad?"

"Can I have something to eat?"

"Not yet, I'm afraid. We need to get to the bottom of your actions, Mr. Piledriver, before we can let you go. Now I'll level with you here, there aren't many spare beds at the moment, so I can't have you incarcerated immediately. But if I think you're a risk to yourself, I can have you put on the waiting list, and you'll be back here in a month, at the outside. Do you want that?"

"Not really."

"I'm sure you don't. So help me then. What made you attempt to suffocate yourself?"

"I don't know. I didn't really think. I just felt embarrassed. About being sick on the desk. I didn't think about it at the time."

"So you felt ashamed about inappropriate behaviour?"

"Probably."

"What about being drunk?"

"That as well."

"That all seems perfectly reasonable, Mr. Piledriver." He shifted his position in the plastic hospital chair. "What troubles me is your response to these feelings, which, I think it's fair to say, was disproportionate."

I stared at the foot of my bed, over the clean, white expanse of my linen shod torso. I glanced at Oleander from time to time, but did a pretty solid job of avoiding eye contact.

"Is this--these feelings, that is--an ongoing problem, would you say?" he ploughed on after the briefest of halts. "Has this crisis been sudden onset, or do you have a history of low mood?"

"Quite sudden. I might have. I don't know. Nobody's ever said."

"I see." Doctor Oleander steepled his fingers, striking a pose, before stepping in to administer the coup de grace to our little charade. "And what about this drunkenness? You had a significantly heightened blood alcohol level when you were brought in. Is this normal for you?"

"It can be."

" . . . for example?"

"What's that?"

"When does it become normal."

"I don't know. It just comes and goes."

"Okay. So, how much alcohol would you say you consume, in an average week?"

"I really couldn't say. It varies so much, and I don't really keep track. I mean . . . "

"Try to think. Is there anything that will tend to increase the amount of alcohol you imbibe?"

"I'm not sure."

"Do you drink alcohol in response to bouts of low mood?"

"I . . . might."

"And, so, would it be correct to say that your mood has been low over the past--days? weeks? months?"

I nodded slowly and absently.

"Yes," I mumbled. "Perhaps, for a few weeks. But, it's up and down, you know. I couldn't say, I don't know."

Oleander leaned suddenly in. I turned to face him, taking in his visage entire. I found the way his curly black hairs sprouted from the skin just above his forehead in such a neat little line improbably fascinating, and almost forgot to pay attention to what he was saying.

"How are you feeling now?" he said.

"Right now?"

"Right now."

"Better." The Doctor's eyebrows went up. "Better that before," I elaborated. I nodded.

"Much better?"

"A bit," I said.

"I see. Well, it's possible that the tranquilliser still in your blood has taken the edge off your anxiety for the time being. Okay, that will do." Oleander stood up and smiled. "Well, Mr. Piledriver, I'm satisfied that you are not an immediate risk to yourself, as far as it goes, at least. I'll leave instructions with the duty nurse, we'll get you some meds, if we have them, sometimes we don't, and you should be on your way tomorrow morning. I'd like to keep you in overnight, if you don't mind. They'll take these off you," he tapped the leather straps, "and take you to a more hospitable area. Is that alright with you?"

I nodded, for it was, indeed, quite alright with me. Oleander departed and left me alone in my little room, tied at the wrists, ankles and chest to the austerely cushioned gurney. Peering about the room while I awaited my redeemers, I noticed little patches of mould growing where damp from the rains outside crept through the walls, feeding a little life. The hospital was by all accounts a very clean building, as one may be given to expect, but even here the evidence of rot and decay was inescapable. A certain amount of satisfaction wafted about my interior. Unfortunately, I was and am unable to observe the passage of geological time, but if I could, I feel quite sure this little aberration, civilisation, this bizarre malfunction I had the misfortune to be caught up in the middle of would hardly merit notice. I don't know what the physicks put in my drip, but I began to drowse again and, in spite of my moaning gut, was asleep again within minutes. My repose was dogged by fever dreams, and I sweated salty buckets.

I tried to cut my veins with a plastic knife later in the evening and they ended up keeping me on the ward for five extra days. I slept on a small trolley in a wide room with five more of the sick and needy, each of us on a pallet of unique design and function. I was drugged and ill. Perhaps I'd caught something. I did nothing but sweat and shiver and hallucinate. I may have vomited intermittently, but my recollection is unclear. It would have been difficult to distinguish, with the amount of fluid pouring out of my eyes and nose, sloshing down my chin, but it does not seem unlikely.

My hair and beard were shaved while I slept, the better for my sweat to be siphoned away to the safety of the sewers. I had no mirrors to hand, but I had a notion that I might resemble a skeleton. When I was almost recovered, I would pull faces at the man in the bed opposite mine. He whimpered and pulled his sheet over his head. The nurses chided him whenever they saw him hiding in this manner, but the silly old goat could but blubber and point. I feigned sleep. In the absence of reading material or a television (I could faintly discern the dulcet tones of Bloomberg coming from somewhere down the corridor, but never made out a word), this routine provided me with hours of fun, and probably saved my mind from premature decay. Glory be.

When I was finally caught at this game, it was decided that I was enough recovered to be released back into civilised society. I protested, having become enamoured of the facilities and warmth afforded by the hospital, it lacked only for a library or a television, but my case was not heard. Doctor Oleander gave me some pills, telling me to take them for anxiety if I ever felt anxious, and gave me a prescription or two to attempt to use at one of Bel-Graid's perennially understocked pharmacies.

"I have high hopes for you, Steven," he said while I was being wheeled to the front door. "Just make sure you eat plenty. We stuffed you full of saline and glucose, but you're still several kilograms underweight." Then, in closing, "Good luck!"

I muttered assent, pulled a face when his back was turned. The nurse pushing my chair clipped me around the ear, and I believe I detected not a little affection in her blow.

When she reached the wide entrance, she tipped the chair over, spilling me down the concrete steps. I got a good look at her then, a solid, ruddy, beefy specimen, and made to spit. I dribbled a little down my front and the nurse told me to fuck off out of it, then stalked away with the chair. I crawled to the taxi rank and clambered into a wooden carriage. Where to, guv? said the driver. Primrose View, I said, adjusting my hospital gown. Number 12. You got much change in that there jacket? he said. No, but I've plenty in the bank. You'd best stop off.

He dropped me at a bank and kept guard outside while I tried to haggle my money out of its corporate stockade. No dice. I remembered I had some money at home, so went back outside and told the driver to take me there. I said I had lots of money now in my pockets, but he couldn't have it until I was in my house. He was a true gentleman, and told me that the arrangement I suggested was out of the question. Only by promising an exorbitant bonus and allowing him to escort me into my filthy abode was I able to persuade him to carry me the rest of the way home.
Skin Depth

My house was much as I had left it. Bottles, empty and otherwise, interspersed with half-eaten bowls of rice, covered the floor. I'd for some reason left all of the windows open, so although very cold, the place didn't smell too dreadful. The exception to this trend was the bathroom. Both the toilet and the bath were blocked up and full of stale water and festering sick. I avoided the room for as long as I could, urinating in the sink downstairs as a stopgap, until my bowels decreed it time to deposit the reformed remnants of my last hospital meal, necessitating a set of speedy repairs and much nausea-inducing work over the bowl with a plunger. Once my intestine had been evacuated, I got to work on the bath, and found the same method of alternately plunging and scraping yielded more or less the same results. The bath drained; the smell began to dissipate.

I had a walk to the shop up the road and bought some edible calorific matter. No alcohol, said the doctor. Fine. I could manage that. I picked up a bottle of sugary carbonated water instead. Alright, said the shopkeep at the till. Alright, I mumbled in return. Fine weather we're having, he said. Indeed it is, I replied, scratching my skull. He transferred packs of rice and packs of bananas into a brown paper bag for me. Fine weather it is, he said, his stare blank and mindless. That'll be five and eight sevenths, he said. I handed over the cash and, as I turned to leave, gave him a unit of fruit. Have a banana on me, I said. For your cheer, so to speak. Thank you, sir, he said, already beginning to peel. The small brass bell above the door clinked as I left.

While I was walking home it started to rain. Droplets of moisture fell from the overcast and darkening sky, tiny cold splashes plummeting down to impact on the bare skin of my scalp. It felt quite pleasant, and I went so far as to slow down slightly, the better to enjoy the invigorating sprinkle.

The bathroom had mostly recovered when I arrived back, and after eating something like tea, I went up and had a bath. I made it very hot and very deep, added some bubbles and lay in it a long time, not quite asleep, not really awake either. I scrubbed myself and massaged my scalp, encouraging the blood to make its weary way around, regenerating spent cells, sluicing away the residue of the hospital. Eventually, I crawled out and dried myself off, wrapping up thick with woolly towels. With no more significant hair to speak of, it didn't take very long. I had just enough energy to change the bedclothes before falling down to sleep, drained, tired, but, all things considered, not too bad.

*

When I awoke, after many hours of deep sleepy slumber, accompanied periodically by inane and rambling phantasmagoria, punctuated here and there by bouts of heavy, uncomprehending wakefulness, when, after all of this, I awoke, I felt a contentment bordering on happiness to surpass any I'd encountered in the past several weeks or perhaps even months. So early had I gone to bed the evening previous that it was hardly gone midday by the time I levered myself out from beneath the covers, into a new set of clothes. I slithered down the stairs to the kitchen and coaxed myself into lucid awareness with cups of coffee, watching the street outside through the front window, seeing the fog roll. Nothing was going on. No one was about.

I spent the rest of the day pottering about the house. I lifted all heavy objects off the floor and repositioned them atop the largest and very heaviest objects, i.e. the furniture. I threw away, or else stored away all the not-heavy objects not already where they were supposed to be, gathered together all of the dirty clothes I could find and sorted them into piles ready to be fed into the maw of the ancient, baroque washing machine that loomed over the farthest corner of the kitchen.

When all of that was achieved, I took a short break--drinking lots of water to avoid dehydration--before plunging manfully into grim darkness of the under-stairs cupboard. Minutes later, I emerged clutching my prize: the vacuum cleaner. A hugely heavy tall wooden handle, with a fan at its base and a bag at its peak, the vacuum was as old as--indeed, had been bought with--the washing machine, and wasn't a tremendous amount easier to move about. I couldn't quite remember how to operate it, and didn't hold much hope of locating any instructions. I sat down to puzzle it out.

By the time I had activated the machine and pushed it around the floor-space of the lower level, sucking dust up and into the great balloon protruding from its mizzen mast, night had fallen. I set a pan of rice to boil, having left the vacuum by the stairs, and took myself up to have another bath. Two in two days--this was quite unprecedented.

After scrubbing myself silly, I returned to the pan sporting freshly washed pyjamas to find a thick rice soup where once had rested discreet grains and a separate solution of water and starch. I transferred it to a bowl, sprinkled on some salt and ate it at the small table I'd found in the kitchen beneath a gigantic mound of receipts, a wireless transistor perched next to me tuned into a music station. Rachmaninov, I think the announcer said. It sounded like the music that was played at the Plaza Café, and reminded me I still had to go back there someday. Later this week, I thought, then I'll go.

*

Miles Davis was the name of the first woman I pursued. A strange name for a strange individual, and an interesting case study to trawl over. Miles was a very square person with very curly hair, who always wore the most garishly coloured floral print dresses. She operated the phones for a while at the head office of the corpse collection division, in the old days, before downsizing resulted in the head office being entirely eliminated. It was for reasons bureaucratic amalgamated with Refuse Disposal in general, an unwieldy umbrella office and a very silly idea. We had to check in each morning to collect the vehicles and our uniforms. In fact, the uniforms were phased out a few years later as well without so much as a whimper. That wasn't a silly idea, they were silly uniforms. Anyway, Miles operated the phones and sat at the reception desk. I'd see her every morning and exchange nods and hellos that I attached a great deal of significance to.

Morning Steve, she'd say, leaning back in her chair, twirling a pencil in her hand, smiling. Shit, I'd think, she really likes me. Hello, I'd say back, before ducking quickly through the door into the back. I wouldn't be able to get it out of my mind for hours, then the next day it would begin all over again.

Obviously, she was doing nothing more than being friendly, but I mustn't have thought of this at the time. She scared me and I did my best to avoid her. Weeks later, though, when her enthusiasm had dulled and her greetings became more halfhearted, then she got my attention. Then I inexplicably fell in love with her, convinced I'd been all wrong. I was sure that she was perfect for me, inhumanly beautiful, perhaps, in an offbeat way, that we absolutely had to be together or we'd both be miserable for the rest of our days. I invented a whole backstory for her and a set of interests and conversational tics that perfectly mirrored my own. Her parents had also been distant and died early, she was a fiend for economics, an ardent devotee of the great Hayek. We'd have hours of satisfying conversation over the course of the global economy, take train journeys across the continent, sampling fine wines and whiskeys. We had a pet cat but no children, children are horrible little creatures, she agreed with me entirely on this point above all. I saw our end many times as well. I saw us standing on the prow of a ship on fire, sinking into the sea, her in my arms, sharks around our ankles. It would have to go something like that. Only a fiery, passionate liebestod was sufficient for a love as strong as ours.

I made a point of saying hello more loudly, asking how she was. Then I began to strike up conversations. Have you heard about that whatever the hell it was I'd picked up on the news the evening before as potentially conversation-worthy? No? Oh well, it seemed potentially conversation-worthy. Never mind. I'll see you later, in any case. I managed to check her schedule, found out what time she finished at, contrived to bump into her one day after work. Since we're here, care for a coffee? She said yes, success was in my grasp. We had nothing to talk about, and two hours later--why did she stay so long?--I couldn't stand the sight of her. Clearly, I'd been terribly mistaken. She was a coarse buffoon. She hadn't the faintest idea what economics was, trains made her sick, and she wanted to sleep with Geoff--a senior driver who was a brute, and who I know for a fact had a particularly vicious STD. Miles died shortly after our conversation--coincidence? I think not. Geoff didn't, though. Geoff kept going for years, might still be going. There's no stopping a chap like Geoff.

Perhaps two years later, I met Lisa. What a relief that was. My quest was at an end.

*

I tidied the upper level the next day, and finished off the rest of the laundry I'd dug up. By the end of the day, all of my clothes and all of Lisabeth's lay dry and folded, neat and smelling of flowers, in an assortment of cupboards and drawers throughout the house. The vacuum stood in the deepest dark recess of the understairs cupboard, out of harm's way for another six months or however long. I hadn't quite gotten around to dusting, and didn't expect I ever would, as dusting makes me sneeze, and tires me out even more than vacuuming. I forwent my bath that evening, reasoning that two in three days was probably more than adequate. Night set in and I fell asleep quickly, snuggled as deeply and as comfortably as was achievable in my admittedly somewhat rigid bed, thinking to myself thoughts such as might pass through the mind of a crocodile, lying in the Sun by a still river, stomach full of zebra, drowsy and all powered down.

*

I kept the house reasonably tidy, and ate only reasonably sensible foods at mostly sensible intervals for the next two days. This took me to Friday. On Friday, I had an appointment with a psychiatrist, or a psychiatric nurse, a mind person at any rate. I was told so in a phone call. It went like this.

Ring ring.

"Hello," me.

"Mr. Piledriver?" voice, male.

"Indeed."

"Hello, my name is Jones. I'm a receptionist at the Bel-Graid Teaching Hospital. I've been instructed to telephone and inform you that you have an appointment with Doctor Alfred Zinober at 12:12 this Friday. Do you have any problems with that arrangement?"

"Not that I can think of at once."

"Excellent, I'll give that one a tick then."

"But what's it about?"

"Couldn't say. I'm just the messenger, y'know? Anyway, Dr. Zinober looks forward to seeing you. Goodbye!"

Click.

Frigging bureaucracy. The service is so impersonal.

*

As time went by, I grew to hate her. Everything about her. Her face, her voice, her hair, her arms, her legs, everything. Only intermittently. There were times when I loved her every bit as powerfully as in the earliest days, and times when I didn't give much of a shit either way. But I hated her deeply. Days would go by during which we wouldn't exchange a single word, wouldn't even look at each other. Still, she didn't leave. She was becoming increasingly dedicated to cycling. The bicycle and her magazines were her friends. She was content to allow me to sit in the corner and glower. During the day, I collected corpses; in the evenings, I seethed. Whenever she went away for training weekends, or whatever, I'd pine. I realised how wrong and foolish I was, ran around making the house nice, cleaning, buying flowers and new curtains or whatever else occurred to me, longing for her return. When she did return, sweet bliss reigned for twelve or so hours, before I'd realise again how foolish I'd been. I was bitter and confused. In the end I went a bit mad. She came back from a week away and I told her at once that I forbade her from ever leaving ever again. She was my wife (she wasn't, neither of us believed much in marriage), and if I thought her cycling was coming between us, she'd damn well give it up. We spent hours shrieking and yelling and breaking things. Irreparable damage was done. Afterwards, I felt no more hate or anger. I only wanted her back, for things to back to the way they had been. Still, she didn't leave. She became cold, cycled more and more, kept me in a separate bedroom, but didn't forsake me completely. My punishment was more severe. Every now and then, every month or other, we'd play at being in love, as we used to be. We'd go out to eat, I'd take her around the city in my hearse, we'd smile and sometimes even laugh. I don't know why we did these things, whether it was to hurt me, or us, or whether she enjoyed them as much in the moment as I did. They became what I lived for, even as they trailed off and, eventually, ceased. Hope remained. There was always the possibility of somehow making up and winning her back.

*

I gave myself a reasonable head start on my appointment time and left with several minutes still to spare before I was due. I walked at speed along the pavements, weaving here and there across roads between slow moving wooden vehicles whose electric motors hummed softly as they cruised on by. The day was cold and sunlit, a blue winter sky overhead, my breath misting golden on the still air. I arrived at the Teaching Hospital at 12:21, only nine minutes late, in a respectable degree of cleanliness.

Using my initiative, I reported to the psychiatric ward, where I was redirected to the main building. From there I was directed to the psychiatric sector, whence I was shown the way to Dr. Zinober's consulting room.

I knocked twice and was told by a faint voice to enter. Doctor Zinober sat behind his desk, thin and leathery, his skin darkened by what must have been several lifetimes' worth of sunlight. His face was unambiguously skull-shaped and topped by a peppering of peppery white hair that still covered the majority of his pate.

"Afternoon," he said, gestured, "Please, take a seat."

He stood halfway up as I walked towards him, leaned forward and extended his hand. I grasped it, as is proper, and he moved our fingery nest up and down several times. We sat down, he on one side, I on the other, battle lines drawn.

"Mr. Piledriver," he spoke, "I'm Doctor Alfred Zinober," nod, "and I've been asked to review your case." I nodded back. "The Central Hospital is a little short-staffed at the moment, and their mental health wing has, I'm afraid, thus far borne the brunt. So," he started moving pens around his desk, he was a pen mover, "let's get started right away, shall we?"

"Hm," I attested.

"Are you clear on why you've been sent here?"

"I suppose so."

"And why, in your opinion, is that?"

"The other doctor said I tried to kill myself."

Intake of breath, tapping of pen, tap tap tap, furrowed brow.

"He said that, did he?"

" . . . Yes."

"Is he correct?"

"I suppose so."

"And why do you think you did that?"

" . . . Dunno."

"You don't know?"

"I told the other doctor."

"I'd like you to tell me."

I huffed and shuffled about, sat on my hands, said,

"Well, I don't know . . . I was . . . just a bit fed up."

"You were being miserable?"

"Probably."

"And about how long had that been the case?"

"A few weeks, maybe."

"I see. Routine questions. Has it happened before?"

"Yes, I think so."

"Often?"

"Every now and then."

"Which is?"

"Once or twice a year recently, less before that. Maybe. Dunno. Yes."

"Are you confabulating?"

"What does that mean?"

"What do you think brings it on? Or, if it's easier, what brought it on this time?"

"Conflabulatings?"

"Confabulation. No, misery."

"Just . . . things. I don't know. Maybe nothing."

"I suspect it was something, or some things, perhaps. Have a think. Take your brain back a few weeks, what happened that could have made you miserable? Take your time, but do be quick. What was going on then?"

"I was just doing my job. And watching Bloomberg."

"What's that?"

"The finance channel."

"No, what's your job."

"Was. I've lost it."

"Okay, we'll get around to that."

"I was a sanitation officer. I picked up the corpses."

I hadn't mentioned my cleaning work at the employment centre, I thought I may as well not mention it here.

"That sounds like quite a depressing job."

"It was alright."

"Indeed."

"It was just a bit boring."

"Mm. So, you'd do your job all day - nine to five?"

"Ish."

"Then what?"

"I'm sorry?"

"What would you do when you got home, and over the weekend?"

"I watched Bloomberg, mostly, as I say. Sometimes the Food Network, when nothing much was happening in the markets."

"So, in other words, you watched the television?"

"Well when you put it like that."

"Okay." Tap tap tap went the doctor's pen on his desk. He looked up. "What's your living arrangement?"

"I live in a house."

"Alone?"

"I have a . . . a partner, I suppose.

"Married?"

"No, not that kind of relationship."

"You're a gay?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Are you a gay - a homo - a bum boy - a massive gay."

"I know what gay means, I'm asking what's with the disparaging tone."

"No such thing."

"I definitely detect disparagement in your words."

"I happen to be one of a few in my profession who regard the gayness as an affliction, a destructive disease of the mind."

"I'd like to see someone else."

"No such thing. Try that and I'll have you incarcerated."

"On what grounds?"

"Many. Attempting to force yourself on me, just for starters."

"What?"

"Back off, rapist."

" . . . "

"As you were saying . . . ?"

"This person lives with me, but I don't see very much of them these days."

"Why is that?"

"She's a cyclist, attempting to go professional. She spends a lot of time away training."

"More than she used to?"

"Yes. The time away has been increasing over the years, particularly the last two or three. She only comes back for a couple of days every now and then."

"I see. Are you happy with this arrangement?"

"Not really."

"Right. Okay." The doctor did a bit of thinking, scribbling notes, crossing things out, tapping his temple, drooling obliviously. "Did you used to spend a great deal of time with your partner?"

"I think so, yes, I did."

"A very great deal?"

"Yes."

"Okay. Okay." He turned over his sheet of paper. Sighed peremptorily. "You've had a falling out or something at some stage?"

"I have."

"Dunno, have you?"

"I just expressed agreement."

"Nod or something as well. I'm finding you difficult to understand."

I nodded.

"How long ago was this?"

"Years. I can't remember."

"I see. And this isn't the first of your miseries."

"It isn't the first, but I think it's been the most severe."

"No shit. Okay, in these periods, in this period, say, what do you do that's different to normal? Do you still watch Bloomberg?"

"Yes. I still watch it, but I don't take very much of it in. I drink quite a lot more alcohol than usual."

"Mm, I read that in your notes too. I read the notes, you know." His brow creased. He had a very creasable brow. I wonder if sunlight does that to you. "Are you aware that alcohol is a depressant?"

"I . . . yes, I suppose."

Zinober shook his head.

"It will only make your miseries worse. A more immediate problem, it also acts as a disinhibitor, so, if you are liable to act in a way to damage yourself, the chances of you attempting something untoward will be greatly increased. Have you continued to drink a lot since coming out of the hospital?"

"No, not really at all. I was told not to."

"Well done. How has your mood been in the last few days?"

"It's been okay. Not too bad."

"Have you been up to very much? Or just watching the television as usual?"

"I haven't watched much TV. I spent two days tidying the house up, washing clothes, things like that. In the last couple of days I've listened to the wireless, read a book, attempted some recipes from the Food Network. They're impossible to follow, but they still sometimes end up tasty."

"Okay. What do you listen to on the radio?"

"Music, mostly."

"It must be better than watching the finance channel all day long."

"It is a bit."

"The finance channel is crap."

"It is a bit."

"What sort of music do you listen to?"

"Old stuff, classical. Rachmaninov, I think it's called."

"Ah, Rachmaninov, I know a few pieces by him. He's good."

"Him? I thought that was the name of the music."

"Oh no, Rachmaninov was an old composer, from back in the 1900s. He wrote the music. I'm a doctor, see, so I know this stuff. I'm right in the ABC1. You're a DE, I'd say. Maybe even just an E."

"I see. That must make me quite stupid."

"Somewhat. Keep it up though, the listening. Music can provide a big boost. It's potential for altering mood is chronically underestimated."

"I'll see what I can do."

"Do so. Now, have you seen anything of your partner in the last few days?"

"No, I haven't. I've been trying not to think about that. Or my job."

"Your job. What was that again?"

"Cleaning. At the bank."

"Oh yes, now I remember. Well don't worry about that. Don't worry about that at all. Did you say you'd lost your job?"

"Yes."

"Well that may not be a bad thing. If money is or becomes an issue, we can supply you with documentation for a disability allowance, food stamps and that, to keep you going in the short term, until things are sorted out. You can trade the stamps to fuel your drug habit if you have one, most crazies do, that's fine, I'll turn a blind eye, that's no problem. I don't think work should be high on our list of concerns right now. What about your partner. When was the last time you spoke to her?"

"Quite a long time ago. Just after I'd lost my job, I think."

"And was that in person, or on the telephone?"

"Telephone. She phoned me."

"Right. Do you have any friends?"

"I don't think so."

"None at all?"

"I don't think so."

"When was the last time you had a conversation with someone, a friendly conversation?"

"I was on holiday a while ago. I spoke to some people there."

"And you haven't kept in touch?"

"No. They were bastards and I was drunk most of the time. They were also a bad influence."

"In what way?"

"They made me do things."

"Like what?"

"There were . . . things. Things that happened."

"Gay things?"

"Why do you keep saying things like that? Are you gay?"

"That's what Freud would think. Luckily he was wrong about basically everything. Anyway, what things."

" . . . Gay things."

"I knew it. You can write it all down for me, in detail. I've got to hear this. What else? Why did you leave, was it too much for you? It is for some people."

"I woke up with cuts one day."

"What kind of cuts? Let me see."

"Do I have to?"

"Yes."

"Okay then . . . "

Tap tap tap.

" . . . Here."

" 'Lisa, you goit.' What does that mean, then?"

"Lisa is my partner. A goit is an idiot."

"Okay, so you did this?"

"I couldn't have."

"I think you did. I think you're a massive gay who is in massive denial. You attempted to convince yourself that you weren't, but your delusion is unsustainable. You've displaced your self-hatred onto your partner, Lisa, but have only partially succeeded. Were you molested as a child?"

"I don't think so. This all sounds very Freudian."

"Freud was a genius, don't knock it. Did your parents continue to engage in intercourse while you were in gestation?"

"I don't know, they died in the floods and I never asked them."

"Well you should have done. They probably did. In fact it is almost certain that what happened is that you came into contact with and developed a sexual attraction to your father's penis while in the womb. This is known as the Boateng Hypothesis of Sexual Deviancy, and the normative process is called Accidental Pre-Natal Intercourse. A drive is currently underway to encourage expecting couples to engage in only anal and oral sex until the foetus is well out of the way, though risks still exist."

"Wow. I never knew that."

"Indeed."

"Is there anything that can be done to deal with it?"

"There is at present no known cure."

"That's unfortunate."

"It is. The obvious solution is to embrace your inner Gay. Unfortunately, Gays are depraved subhuman scum."

"Are they?"

"Yes. Obviously. What we can do instead, therefore, is to try to combat your bouts of self-hating misery."

"I see."

"I recommend watching gay porn and masturbating. This involves embracing only a small part of your inner Gay. I'll give you the number here of a TV channel that broadcasts it exclusively, just for people like you. Switch it off as soon as you've orgasmed. Otherwise, I've found the feelings of guilt difficult to control."

"You've found."

Doctor Zinober dropped his pen.

"Yes. In my patients, of course"

"Okay, I'll give it a go. This is a long number."

"It's a well hidden channel. They've got some good stuff."

"Okay, thanks a lot, Doc."

"Also, keep listening to music, as I think I said before. Sad music is very good. Sadness is much better than misery."

"I will. I will."

"Biographies of famous repressed homosexuals are useful as well. I'd also like you to learn to play the piano."

"I . . . what?"

"At the very least. Playing a musical instrument is an extremely therapeutic activity, the piano undoubtedly the most effective in this regard. So the piano, yes, at the very least. The violin if you can afford one, the oboe, the bassoon, all fine instruments. Please give them some consideration."

" . . . okay."

"Otherwise, we may be forced to look into more extreme, experimental vectors for treatment of mood and sexuality. The most basic and common of these is the Medical Facial Removal. Good results have been derived from the implementation of this treatment, and there are movements afoot to have it recognised as an acceptable and canonical means of dealing with persistent low mood. I'd certainly recommend bearing it in mind. Second, if you were still feeling moody and gay after the removal, we'd move on to its more radical cousin, the Terrifying Face Transplant. This, I'm afraid to say, is a bit of a grey area, although an undoubtedly very promising grey area. You'd have to have the procedure done privately and the cost would not be insignificant. I'd be happy to arrange it for you though, as I'm pretty keen on seeing first-hand how well it works. So Steven, how do you feel about those?"

"They sound fair enough, I suppose."

"Excellent, excellent. Well, as I say, if you're still having trouble in a few month's time, they're up there for consideration. Now, there is also, of course, a third way."

"Of course."

"A brand new treatment that I've been working on in my spare time. I call it Entropic Zygote Malpractice. In layman's terms, what happens is the following. I extract zygotes, joined sperm-and-egg cells, if you like, human and otherwise, we won't discuss how I do this, and subject them to a rigorous battery of tests, sifting out the strong from the weak, searching for the desired characteristics in any given instance. After this procedure, the zygotes are prepared for use in treatment. The next stage of the operation is extremely complex, you couldn't possibly understand it, so I will cut directly to the chase. Essentially, I insinuate characteristics in the zygotes, then implant them into the subject's brain. The zygotes grow inside the brain in novel ways, eventually becoming co-brains for their carrier. For instance, you suffer from low mood. In your case, I would select zygotes of a naturally sunny disposition. Then, after they'd matured, whenever you felt down, the zygote co-brains would say, perhaps, Hey, it's not so bad, why don't you lighten up? and you would feel better. Do you see? Likewise, whenever you had gay thoughts, other, this time venomously homophobic right-wing voting zygotes would say, Cut it out you stupid fag. Together, the two teams would turn you into an unerring Normal. What do you think of that?"

"It sounds far-fetched yet compelling, Doctor Zinober. Does it work?"

"Well, this is the thing, Steven. Strictly speaking, the procedure is illegal, hence 'Malpractice'. As a result of this, it is not easy to recruit volunteers for experimentation. I'd be thrilled to have you on board, and could promise a first rate service."

"Hmmm."

"Just think about it, Steven. Eh?"

Doctor Zinober rose to his feet and came around the desk. I stood up and he escorted me to the door, a hand on my back.

"Mr. Piledriver," he said, his other hand on the door handle, "I'll see you in a month or two. I wish you the best of luck."

"Thank you," I said. "Goodbye," and stepped out into the corridor.

"Eat more as well," he called. "You're so thin!"

*

Like most people, I had two parents. They perished in a golfing accident when I was six. My memories of them are faint and unhappy. Their faces were ever solemn or anguished, and they rarely spoke. In the end, the cessation of their existences was by all accounts a mercy, as they had little love for each other or for their child. I was raised by a Grandmother, which turned out to be very pleasant indeed. There is less competition for investment with a grandparent than a parent. They know they aren't going to be having any more children, and so do their bodies. They exist only to give. Aren't they nice. My childhood was therefore one filled with toffees, sunshine and ice cream. That I came out of it with all of my teeth intact is a marvel.

My teenage years, by contrast, were sallow, spotty and angst ridden. The continuing decline of my grandmother did not help matters any. I kept to the corners in school, with a small retinue of similar outcasts, and we maintained our self-esteem and self-respect by victimising those few beneath us with relentless vigour. At home, the quality of food and the general cleanliness of the house steadily diminished. I did little to help.

To the best of my recollection, my grandmother died after slipping on a large pile of dead moths in the kitchen shortly after I had left home. I would have been around the age of twenty, gone away to live in a rotten flat with one of my subordinates from school. Davis Pike was his name, he was short and thin and probably tubercular. After a few weeks under the same roof we despised each other, after two months we simultaneously attempted to murder each other. It was evident the arrangement wasn't going to work out, so we went our separate ways. I think it was the best thing for both of us. After discovering the death of my grandmother and losing my closest childhood lieutenant, I fell into a long period of self-hating despair, wondering why I had been such a unpleasant individual for such a long time. If the mortgage payments hadn't already been completed on my parents' house, I'd have been homeless. I lay around watching TV and eating corned beef for many months, before some door-to-door preachers came knocking and converted me to a millennial suicide cult. Ormulu's Covenant was its name. It believed that Ormulu the Mighty had created the universe out of a stuff called Spongy Matter, which could be shaped by trained application of human consciousness, and which would all soon cease to exist in a pleasantly dramatic apocalypse. I lost all of my possessions during this brief infatuation, but recovered much of my drive, which eventually proved invaluable. I resolved thereafter always to be the perfect gentleman, or as close to one as I could manage.

For one other significant hallmark of my teenage years was a fanatical devotion to old romantic movies. By some fluke, my grandmother and I found ourselves in possession of one of the last remaining video-tape players on the planet. It was made of wood, with plastic and metal components, and came with a cable that could be plugged directly into the back of the television. The picture it generated was hazy, and it required constant attention to maintain the integrity of its operation. Nevertheless, after discovering it, I used it and used it and used it until it caught fire and stopped working. I attempted to fix it, but succeeded only in damaging it further. Every fanatic requires something to abase him or herself before, and for me for many years it was these grainy black and white images of old men holding young women as if they were made of fine bone china, or were extremely large rabbits that might startle and run away at any sudden loud noise. I hesitate to draw any sweeping conclusions, but I'm pretty sure these movies formed a world view that later turned out to be somewhat divorced from reality. My notions of true love and happy endings left me terribly unprepared for dealing with the tempestuous womankind and untidy Planet Earth I was later to encounter.

Every female I came into contact with, I took ten minutes or less to transform into a glittering Ingrid Bergman, framed monochrome in cotton wool soft focus, in need of a caring, masculine protector with a receding hairline just like mine to cradle lovingly the head perched precariously at the end of a thin swan neck. I knew there would be trouble for us, that we would struggle to be together, that our love wouldn't amount to so much as a hill of beans before the rest of the World, but I knew just as well that, whatever Rick Blaine might have thought, the final fade-out would be of us locked in passionate embrace, silhouetted against the sunset. How could any earthling or earthly state of affairs live up to this vision of heavenly perfection? It couldn't, but that didn't deter me. Whatever setbacks I encountered, I chased my happy ending with heroic enthusiasm, trials and tribulations only spurring me on to greater efforts, sure that everlasting bliss lurked just around the next corner. Eventually I seemed to have found it with Lisa, my beautiful princess on a bicycle, who made all the corpse collecting seem infinitely worthwhile.

Was all of the romantic propaganda I consumed as an adolescent responsible for how I turned out, for how I am now, for my present situation? For how I've ended up with such an absurd amount invested in one relationship with one person? I doubt it. No more than my lack of status at school, or the cruelty I meted out to those within my reach.

Self-analysis is an endlessly rewarding past-time. The inside of one's brain is like a glittering goldmine of platitudinous generalisations, in which work is most often conducted in the name of self-justification. My mine is drying up, but I've got self-justification in bags. I'm so justified Robespierre and Saint-Just together couldn't have me convicted. Red terror, my ass. Come at me, brothers, come at me. I'll cry you a river.

*

I thought about the interview all the way home and then some. A tremendous sense of embarrassment built up and saturated me. I'd said some very silly things, some very misguided confessions, and I'd forgotten to put my shirt back on. I imagined I must have looked quite an idiot. Never mind, I exhorted myself. It didn't matter, it definitely didn't matter. Chances were I'd never see Dr. Zinober again. They'd set me up appointments with other mind-folk, but I didn't have to go to them. It would be easy just to stay at home.

I stopped at a fast food joint and ate a reformed-protein burger. It was quite delicious, dripping with synthetic cheese and a tomatoey relish that didn't taste a whole lot like any tomato I'd ever eaten, which was all well and good, since I find tomatoes the most distasteful of fruit. The recipe for the fatty calorie-bomb had apparently been arrived at through rigorous and extensive scientific testing, and was guaranteed to be the most orgasmically delicious disk of meat between two slices of bread you ever did taste in all your days, both born and unborn. I couldn't disagree with this, and I even went back to the counter for a second. Yum.

I made coffee when I got in, sat at the kitchen table, put the wireless on. It was Rachmaninov, as it was most of the time. I was getting good at recognising it. As was by then customary, my thoughts veered Plaza Café-wards. I decided then and there to go back that evening. There wasn't that long to wait, and I felt all of a sudden like getting really horribly drunk. It was something I hadn't done for far too long. I counted back, and came up with a figure of only a little under two weeks. It had to be put right.

I got there the same way as the last two times, in much the same meteorological conditions as the first time, for those of you keeping track. The night air breezed chill and sharp through my nostrils, producing the most peculiar feeling of nasal clarity; the streets lay dimly lit beneath my feet, not all that different under normal circumstances to how they appeared during the cut. The concrete bunkers housing families of the unemployed looked no less intimidating, nestled together, end-to-end, at the bottom of a tiny, segmented garden, overgrown several feet high with all manner of weeds, grasses and shrubs.

Further in, the CBD seemed to glow a little less brightly. As I drew nearer, I could see many storefronts, many windows up and down the tower blocks, boarded up with thin sheets of chipboard. I'd been avoiding Bloomberg for a while, so I had no idea of the present condition of the markets, but it certainly looked ugly from the ground.

The industrial estate was dark and deserted. The Plaza Café was still closed. I tried its door several times and spent a minute knocking. It was locked solid. I wasn't getting in. I stepped back and searched for some kind of sign. The only thing I noticed was a huge moth hanging on the door frame, a few centimetres from the handle. I was so bewildered, I failed to recoil. I watched it sitting, silent in the stillness, pondering the ineffable chain of events that had led to it being here of all places and times, on this evening occupying almost the very same set of space-time coordinates as myself. I extended a finger and stroked its back, down its folded wings. It didn't move. I pressed a little harder. Still no movement. Dead.

I left the corpse in the dull glow of distant street lamps and left to meander, looking for somewhere else to sit and spend the evening away from my horrible empty house. It was unbearable, all dank and dusty and freezing cold, even when the boiler was working, which it wasn't, with faint wafts of sick still emanating from the bathroom every then and now. I thought there must surely be somewhere else I could sit for a few hours.

Assuming that such a place existed, I failed to find it. I couldn't even remember where the Corrupted Mustard had been. Wherever I walked I found people. Noisy people. Drunk people. People enjoying themselves. People lurking, and with what intentions? All of them watching me. They made me very nervous. I couldn't stop walking in the vicinity of these terrifying individuals; I could only speed up.

In the end, I hardly even looked. I just walked straight home, hot and bothered, perspiring fiercely despite the cold, leaving the denizens of Bel-Graid behind and to their own devices.

*

I made a pot of coffee. In fact, I was getting rather sick of drinking coffee all the time, but there had been a small crowd outside the off-license, I couldn't go in, coffee was all I had. I switched on the TV and turned to Bloomberg. I'd failed everything else that evening, perhaps I could succeed in bringing myself up to speed with the latest movements in the world's financial bowel.

Things on Bloomberg were in a state of heightened peculiarity. A thin sheet of smoke hung in the studio, drifting around the anchor's head, obscuring the background of what was normally a field of desk-drones tapping at vast electronic difference engines, and occasional blasts from foam fire extinguishers punctuated the uncharacteristically confused reportage. The anchor looked bedraggled, bags under eyes, hair awry. Let's talk to Johnson, the anchor said, I need more stims. She lurched out of her chair and staggered off-screen before the director could switch cameras. I made out the distinctive sound of nascent vomiting before the studio feed was cut.

Johnson was in a much worse state than the anchor. Blood oozed down the side of his face from beneath a thin white bandage. His shabby blue raincoat was torn at the shoulder. The only part of him that looked alive was his eyes. They glittered and darted, obviously loaded far beyond the point of healthy reserve with stimulants of whatever kind the channel was shipping out. Johnson shivered and raised his microphone in a lightning fast spasm.

"Nothing to report," he said, and stared at the screen.

His eyes darted to the side as the director issued instructions.

"We've done nothing but review all day," said Johnson.

There followed a much shorter silence, after which Johnson shook his head.

"Fuck me," he said, then, "okay, to be honest, we're still treading water here at the minute guys, so I'm just going to go over once again what has been happening, in case you've been hiding in an underground bunker with no reception for the last two weeks, leading up to the event. I'm told we have eight new viewers since last time, so listen carefully you people, and don't turn over.

"Following the recent gold crisis, the markets twisted themselves into a condition of unprecedented volatility and chaos, climaxing at the beginning of this week, when, as per the predictions of certain scientists, most particularly Doctor what the fuck was his name, the global market gained some measure of sentience. What the level of that sentience may have been remains a matter of some contention, however, most agree that it was utterly alien in nature, and far surpassed human intelligence in cognitive capacity.

"The market spent the entire week 'thinking', or 'meditating', as some experts insist the process be termed, during which time stock, asset and data transactions grew utterly uncontrollable, increasing rapidly in velocity, until economists and financiers plugged into the market fell into a trance-like, quasi-comatose state, from which it was impossible to rouse them.

"At around midnight last night, the market committed suicide. How it achieved this is not well understood. Computing terminals exploded, wires melted, and every trader or analyst plugged into the Matrix, so to speak, died of severe cerebral haemorrhaging. I saw it happening, and let me tell you, it was pretty horrible. Their eyes just, sort of, bulged, then popped out. Blood poured from their ears and nose and eyes, and they all just collapsed. I mean, I'm not supposed to say anything like that, but, it was just . . . "

Johnson trailed off, his eyes wild and wide. The feed switched back to the studio. The anchor was back, looking slightly more alert.

"Thank you, Johnson," she smiled, "we'll return to you for more updates presently.

"We apologise for any limitations in our service this evening, but, following the recent disaster, Bloomberg is experiencing serious staff shortages. I'm assured, and can assure you, that this will be rectified very soon. In the meantime, while there is nothing to report, and not really anyone to report it, we will broadcast the following footage on loop. I'll be back in half an hour. Bloomberg out."

Her face fell and her head dropped onto the table. The studio feed vanished, and was replaced by a video of a brown duck swimming around a placid, sunlit lake, to the tune of Elgar's Enigma Variations. If it seems odd that I recognised that, but thought Rachmaninov was a type of music, don't worry about it, everything's going to be okay. A small tab of text in the top right corner of the screen identified the music, and apologised for not having any financial news for us.

"What in blue cobalt," was my first thought. You turn your back for two minutes and all fucking hell breaks loose. My second thought was, "Monkey-fucking belly-needles," and was the cracking of the last iotum of faith I had in the market system. I'd never really understood it, and if the market itself couldn't face the idea of its own existence, why on Earth should I? I picked up the telephone and dialled Mac's number, with the intention of telling him I no longer required his services. The line, however, was dead. As was probably Mac, it occurred to me. Never mind.

I switched to the food channel and sat back to enjoy my evening.
Future Proof (the imperative mood)

They came for me the next morning. Removal men, five of them, baggy overalls, shaven heads, crowbars and mallets. They said the house was being repossessed, I had to get out, find somewhere else to live, because this building belonged to the government. Notification had been sent, hadn't I got it? Clearly not. Their leader was incensed that I had not done any packing for them in advance. The notification apparently specified that everything should be packed into clearly labelled cardboard boxes. It was all going to be burned anyway, but it helped to know what was what.

I was given a facsimile of the notification that was either still in the post or had never really been sent. It told me that Lisabeth had made the national team, she had impressed a lot of people and was being taken in for special training. This involved living in a government maintained compound, she was now a ward of the state. She no longer required a house, so the local council were entitled to repossess and resell any that she had any claim to. It would serve as a sort of downpayment, a deposit, lest anything ill should befall her before she could prove herself useful. No provision was made for me. I was out on my own.

I packed some clothes into a large bag, picked up identifying documents, bank details, then left the house to the council's tender mercies. The place where the most things were seemed the best place to go to gather and regroup, so I took my bag down to the CBD. I found a café, ate a bacon sandwich, thought about what to do next. The atmosphere was humid and noisome, the people indecently effervescent. An antediluvian atmosphere pervaded, as if the last party in Rome was now underway and everything pent up for years had to be coughed out in a hurry before everything else burned down.

My first priority was to find somewhere to spend the night, a bed for preference, though I would settle for less if it came to that. I got up to leave and asked the proprietor if s/he was aware of any particularly pleasant and affordable hotel/s in the more or less immediate environs. The proprietor AI said it knew of many, but had forgotten where they all were. I departed and walked the streets, wading through piles of polythene bags and chewing gum. I found myself at the monument to Lord Wagner, at which's base a protest was being staged against increased road tax. I spent a moment contemplating the monument. It really is a fine piece of engineering. Beyond it, the employment cathedral was closed. I squeezed through the crowd before the police charged, and slipped away through the other side of the square. A pile of five corpses blocked my path. In the end I had to scrabble over them. Where the fuck were you when I needed you, I spat, holding my breath, attempting to ignore the unnaturally cold and stiff organic refuse. Several buildings later I came upon a group of Krishna Consciousness cultists playing Lady of Spain on ukeleles outside of what turned out to be a hotel. The Paradigm, its nameplate said. Rooms available. I perambulated in the direction of the entrance. One of the musicians broke off to ask me if I'd ever considered meditation. I told him I hadn't. It's very relaxing he said, and produced a second ukelele from the folds of his orange robe. Care to join us? No thank you, I said, but maybe later. I moved around him and made for the door. No point going in there, he said, it's closed. I kept moving. I'll take my chances, I said.

The door was large and wooden. Each of the cultists had rotated 180 degrees to watch me. I felt very observed. I found a small metal box on the wall by the door and pressed its small metal button. Nothing happened, so I pressed it again.

"Hello," said a voice, emerging from a small grating above the button.

"Hello," I replied. "Can I come in?"

"Why do you want to come in?" the voice asked.

"I'd like to stay in your hotel."

"Would you, now."

"Yes, I would."

"Very well." A buzzer sounded. "Just give the door a push. But don't let anything else through with you."

"You mean these guys?" I asked, but the intercom had clicked off.

I pushed through the door, slamming it shut behind me in the faces of the Krishna Consciousness club trying to burst through in my wake. I was in a large, wide open lobby. The floor was tiled black and white in a chessboard pattern; artificial wax-leaved plants sat here and there in lacquered clay pots; long red velvet curtains hung straight against the wall adjacent to me, most likely - though not necessarily - concealing windows; in the middle of the room sat a water feature, a swarm of ammonites and trilobites carved in stone, swirling upwards in a sweeping spiral, with six jets of water erupting from their midst. On the left side of the room was a reception desk. I walked over to it, my footsteps clacking loudly in the silent hall.

A tall and snappily dressed old man rose from behind the desk to greet me.

"Good day, sir," he said. "How may I be of assistance?"

"I'd like a room, if you don't mind," I said.

"A room," he said, "of course."

"Did I speak to you on the intercom?"

"The intercom?" he said. "I'm sorry, sir, but I'm not aware that we have an intercom."

"Oh you do, it's just outside the door."

The concierge smiled and turned his attention to the register.

"Forgive me, please, but sir must be mistaken. This establishment does not have an intercom."

I pulled a face and let the issue go. It seemed faintly plausible that the man had worked at the hotel for so long that he was genuinely unaware of the intercom's existence.

"How long is sir's stay likely to be, if I may ask?" spake the concierge.

"I'm afraid I'm not sure," I said.

"Then I shall book you in for a week, after which you may renegotiate the terms of your stay. Will a room on the third floor prove satisfactory?"

"I should think so. What's the going rate?"

The concierge chuckled. "Oh, sir is most amusing. But of course we do not charge for our rooms. We at the Paradigm like to think that our hotels are good enough to attract guests without having to charge them for their stay."

"Okay," I said. "Of course, of course." I decided to take it up with a different receptionist at a later date. It would be a shame for the old man to lose his job, but he was evidently long past the point at which he should have retired.

"Room 3039," he said, handing me a small key with a large green fob sporting the number 3039 in embossed white characters. "Does sir require any assistance with his . . . bags?" The man leaned forward, searching for but not finding any suitcases.

"No thank you," I said. "I should be alright."

"Very good, sir. The lifts are just down there, dinner is at seven, and there will be a book in your room to explain anything else that requires explanation. You can reach me by dialling '9' on your telephone, if any matter continues to elude you."

I smiled and set off towards the lift. They were old fashioned brass cages, but stopped short of having bellhops. I pulled the doors shut and pressed the number three. With a rattle, the lift departed, and ran smoothly to the correct floor. I was impressed. I couldn't remember having ever used a lift that had taken me to the correct floor on the first attempt.

I walked down red-carpeted halls, through several sets of doors, until I reached my room, one en-suite chamber several times larger than I was expecting, containing a four-poster bed complete with vestigial curtains. I sat down on the fluffy mattress and took off my shoes. The time was ten past four. I felt very grubby after all of my walking, so took advantage of all the complimentary soap and shampoo available and had a bath.

*

No one was about when I came down for dinner. The dining hall was mine alone. Mr. Phillips, the concierge from earlier, now acting in the capacity of maitre de chambre, informed me that the other guests, all seven of them, had retired to the chambers of Mr. Stockwell - who rented the entire top floor - for cocktails, drugs and clay pigeon shooting. He informed me that it had been indicated that, if it so pleased me, I might join them after my repast. I declined that evening, saying he should tell them I'd surely join them at a later date, and instead returned to my room, drifting to sleep in the spacious spongy bed to the faint sound of merriment and shotgun-discharge. Mr. Stockwell's soirées were a nightly occurrence, and there was, I found, something deeply soothing about the regular sound of distant shotgun discharge. Were it not for the near constant presence of this sound, come nighttime, I imagine my insomnia would have been significantly worse.

I spent days wandering through the hotel's labyrinthine velvety corridors, exploring. It didn't look so huge from the outside, but the corridors really seemed to go on forever. One night I couldn't sleep - I couldn't sleep most nights, but never mind that - I went walking and got lost. The lights never went out, every passage looked exactly the same. Every so often, 100 metres, approx., there was a little alcove. Each alcove had a curtain hung around the back of it, pressed to the wall (I checked every one I found, and there was only wall behind the curtain), and contained a single fancy brass seat (upholstered, need we remark, with red velvet; everything fabric in the hotel was red; apart from the bedsheets, which were white; obviously) with a green flowerpot on it.

I couldn't find my room, and was beginning to feel profoundly exhausted. So, quite confident there were no guests anywhere near me (the place really was vast), I lay on the floor and went to sleep. I regained consciousness back in my room. When I asked, Mr. Philips said he had moved me using one of those luggage trollies. He said he'd been following me all night, which I thought was a bit creepy.

I also sat around in my room, or occasionally the hotel's lounge, reading bad books about espionage and international intrigue from its lending library. It was a fairly large library, and the homogeneity of its collection, both in terms of subject and quality, was impressive.

Eventually - it had to happen sooner or later - I bumped into another guest at dinner. She was late-middle aged, wore a wide green hat and a thick beady necklace, and introduced herself as Ms. Hatwater. She told me that she had risen late that day and was behind with her meals, hence her delay. I expressed sympathy, and was urged to join the festivities.

"I believe we were all attached to the embassy, initially," Ms. Hatwater told me. "I almost forget how we ended up here, it all seems so very long ago. Something to do with the markets, I think. The country we represent ceased to exist in a legal/technical sense some time ago, but our certificates of immunity &c. won't expire until 2023 - that hasn't come yet, has it?" I said that I wasn't sure, but that, knowing the way these things go, it probably hadn't. "Oh good," she said. "Because it would be terribly awkward if it had.

"Anyhow, Mr. Stockwell, the ambassador, was always the best off among us. He booked out the entire upper-level, and started throwing these do's every few weeks. Let me tell you, it was grand in the embassy days, wasn't it just. I remember one night, we got into the city hall and stole the Mayor of Bel-Graid's entire motorcade. Ha, wasn't that a laugh. I had a motorbike, I was at the front, on point, as I believe it's called in the trade. I missed an important turn and drove the whole procession into a river. The Mayor's face when he found out, but of course he couldn't do anything. Well, what with there being less and less to occupy one's self with after the closure, the gatherings became more frequent. Now we just get together after tea every night. It passes the time. Really, you must come along. It's been weeks since we had a new face."

So against my better wisdom I capitulated. When Ms. Hatwater had finished her lobster ice-cream, I accompanied her to the elevator and up to the penthouse. The upper level had been converted into a single gigantic suite, with easy access to the hotel roof, from which the clay pigeons were launched and shot at. The six guests were concentrated into one room when I arrived, sipping highballs from a gigantic punchbowl. Mr. Stockwell was just refilling his glass, dipping it deep into the bowl, licking the spare liquid from his hand.

"Hullo," he said, "what have we here."

"A new contender," said Ms. Hatwater. "The one Mr. Phillips told us about. I collected him from the dining room."

"Aha," said Mr. Stockwell. "Couldn't avoid us any longer, eh?" He guffawed. "Well, dive in, old man, dive right in. Let me fill you up."

Stockwell grabbed an empty glass, plunged it into the bowl and handed it to me. A great deal of it spilled, leaving me with horribly sticky hands. I became used to this after a while. Ms. Hatwater introduced me to the rest of the assembled cortège. There was first, of course, Mr. Stockwell, a plump bald man with a curled moustache and a military uniform. The Batterseas were a couple who did everything together, hand-cuffed at the wrists as they were with a set of genuine article Bel-Graid police service bracelets, the key to which had been lost long ago, escape an option everyone had learned to stop thinking about. Captain Hortensia was a thin man also in a military uniform which was beginning to look frayed around the epaulettes. He wore a monocle and his nose was stained a deep puce by broken subcutaneous blood vessels. Mr. Gordon was a short man built along the same lines as Mr. Stockwell, who wore a spotless white suit and carried a cane. Finally, Madame Gurney - pronounced Ger-nay - the oldest and liveliest of the bunch, who had, apparently recently, taken to carrying a cocked and loaded shotgun around with her at all hours, slung over her shoulder, so attached had she become to the pursuit of clay pigeon shooting.

I spent a while in relative silence, drinking myself into a state of sociable relaxation, exchanging pleasantries first with Ms. Hatwater, then with the Batterseas. They each had a large callus around the circumference of their respectively hand-cuffed wrist, and their minds seemed to have synchronised to the point at which it was debatable whether they were still two distinct organisms, or hadn't rather melded into one, so rapid was the transit of thoughts and feelings across those silvery links. They told me they were considering asking Phillips to obtain for them another set of cuffs to put around their ankles, to complete the job, as it were, but that the settling-in time was always rough, and that they'd gotten a rather nasty infection the last time around. They weren't entirely sure if it was worth it, but what did I think? I said I thought it was very sweet, and but for the possibility of infection would recommend the procedure whole-heartedly. They nodded simultaneously and fell silent. I excused myself, worried I might have said something wrong. I moved to the middle of the room, where I was accosted by Madame Gurney.

"How about it then, son?" she stage-whispered conspiratorially.

"What's that?" I gabbed, my eyes glued to the rifle barrel protruding over her shoulder.

"Some shooting, eh. That's what you're here for, I shouldn't wonder."

"Well, perhaps, in a little while."

"Here, chew on this," she said, handing me a small pellet of black gum.

"I really shouldn't," I said. "What is it?"

"What is it? How the fuck should I know. Just get it in there, it'll relax you."

She then turned away and began to bawl at Stockwell about when they were going to get some goddamn shooting done. Stockwell instructed Captain Hortensia to prepare the rooftop while he, Stockwell, called for Phillips. A crate of wine and a box of cigars were produced and we all--with the exception of Mr. Gordon, who pleaded tiredness and a bad head--repaired to the rooftop. I wrapped the gum up in a tissue and pocketed it.

The rooftop was tastefully decked out with outdoor furnishings and a small gazebo stood at a safe distance, ready for deployment in the event of inclement conditions. The night felt unseasonably hot, hotter than I could remember it having ever been in Bel-Graid. A slightly elevated and lazily arced walkway cut across the flat rooftop a short distance from the tables and chairs. This was the stand.

"What's it tonight?" asked Madame Gurney.

"Down the line, I think," said Hortensia.

"Down the line it is," said Stockwell. "Alright, who's in?"

Madame Gurney volunteered herself and myself. The Batterseas and Ms. Hatwater indicated they were content with the wine and cigars for the time being. Hortensia gave me a gun and a belt full of ammunition.

"Mr. Phillips is over there at the trap," he said, pointing into the distance along the roof. "Do take care not to shoot him."

"Okay then, chaps," shouted Stockwell. "Hat up!"

He placed on the ground a wooden box which turned out to be full of pith helmets. We took one each and trooped over to the stand with our double barrels.

"Know how this goes?" Stockwell asked me.

"Not sure I do, matter of fact," I said.

"Target each for four targets, should be five, but there are four of us so house rules and shove your complaints up your arse, then we move along. Repeat until we're back where we started. Got that?"

"Seems simple enough."

"It is. Madame Gurney will keep scores. She's good at it. Okay then, Phillips - let's have it!"

"Coming along, sir," Phillips' voice sounded faintly in the distance.

The guns made a terrible racket. After one or two shots I took out Gurney's gum and started chewing it. Things became a lot easier and the guns sounded considerably quieter, but it made the birds devilishly difficult to draw a bead on. The fact that we were aiming using only the light generated by a single searchlight aimed by Mr. Phillips did little to improve matters.

According to Madame Gurney, Madame Gurney won with 39, followed reasonably closely by Captain Hortensia with 34. Stockwell trailed somewhat with 27, and I barely qualified for mention with 5.

"Not too bad," said Stockwell. "Difficult conditions for a beginner. Say, your mouth's all black. What's that you've been chewing?"

"Fuck should I know," I muttered, seeing all the world as if through an oily old glass, darkly.

"Mm. Point taken," he said. "Come, let's have a cigar, why not. Free play, Madame, Captain? Free play, Phillips! Give it thirty minutes, what?"

"Of course, sir," came Phillips' voice.

We returned to the furniture to find the Batterseas and Ms. Hatwater absent.

"Probably spirit walking," said Stockwell, filling two glasses with wine. "The Batterseas are the two most dedicated psychonauts I've yet come across. They'll be showing Hattie the ropes no doubt. Cheers."

We sat drinking wine, smoking cigars, talking about this and that, while Hortensia and Gurney shot the night away. My awareness increased as the gum wore off, then decreased again as the wine took hold. At some stage, Mr. Stockwell showed me his broadsword collection. A whole room, kept very securely locked, every wall filled with gigantic sharpened steel bars.

"Nice," I said. "What's it for?"

"What's it for?" he said, then tapped his nose. "Future-proofing, that's what it's for."

"Come again?"

"It has come to my attention," he drew himself up, puffing out his chest, "Mr. R. Piledriver, in this long, full and fantastical life of mine, that this world is an essentially unstable world. All is mutable, all is change, and in the land of entropy, the second law of thermodynamics is king. Why, I still remember my time in the airforce. Can you imagine that? It's insane. Now, the way I see it is this: if an aeroplane can stop working, why not a gun? If a gun, why not a . . . a crossbow, you follow? Anyway, I reason that when things are breaking down, these should be the last to go. Clever, you think? Am I wrong?"

"No. No, you're . . . not. But, what about just a - club? or something."

"That, Mr. Piledriver, is the beauty. Every one of these weapons, deprived of an edge, is sufficiently large and heavy to double up as a far from ineffective bludgeon - a club, you see? It's fail safe, I've looked into it. Now, I advise you, too, Mr. Piledriver, to look into future proofing. You wouldn't want to be caught out, would you?"

"I certainly wouldn't, no. I mean, you just look at those markets the other day. All of them, all broken. Now there was a thing, the market." A tear came to my eye, a brief moment of illogical pity for a time now passed into history.

"Ach," Stockwell said, entirely insouciant. "Indeed, I suppose, but ach. Of course, they've got all that fixed now, haven't they."

My blood ran cold.

"Say it's fixed? What happened? What've they done?"

"They, the . . . what, the people, rigged up a smaller market, and it swelled to about the size of the old one within a day or two. Not surprising, really. Imaginary constructs can be extremely durable, if at times a little mercurial. Not like a good broadsword." He fingered the edge of one particularly close to us.

"So . . . it's all back? The whole thing?"

"The Market? Certainly. Last I heard. Of course."

"You got any whiskey?" I asked. "Methylated spirits? Ether? Wine is bullshit. I need strong drink, not this cat's piss. Oh, shit. Oh shit shit shit."

I broke down and was rushed to the drinks cabinet. I clutched the whiskey to my chest, drank at speed, and refused to talk to anyone.

*

In the absence of external forces, particles fall along geodesics. That is to say, they follow the line of shortest distance between two points. In the presence of external forces, electromagnetic, gravitational, etc., this will not necessarily be the case. In this way, particles are not unlike trains. However, the particles remain constrained by the laws of relativity, and will never accelerate to a velocity of or beyond c. Their worldlines are inherently timelike. Humans are large particles, in the absence of external forces they fall along geodesics. In the presence of external forces, they fall along a modified geodesic, the shortest distance under the circumstances. Humans are timelike creatures. Massless particles follow null geodesics. They are neither spacelike nor timelike. They move exactly and unerringly at c. Photons are massless particles and photons do not measure time, they do not tick. I've just remembered, this was one of the first things I said to Lisabeth. I was a combination of nervous and drunk and had just been reading a pop-science book. I think the fact that she listened to it and undertook to look interested demonstrates how much she used to like me. Recalling it now, I see I've been falling along a geodesic all along. The external forces were illusory, products of my imagination.

*

I didn't sleep, of course, never quite became unconscious. Try as I might, I couldn't manage to bury my awareness entirely. I regained cognisance slowly, millimetre by millimetre, and spent the night and the day lying on my bed, watching Bloomberg. It was as Stockwell had said, the market was back on its feet. Bloomberg had returned with almost a full complement, showing only the most minor smoke damage. It was horrifying.

However much my stomach craved food and drink, I remained unmoving. As the hours passed and the day progressed, it became slowly clear that all was not well. The new market had grown too quickly, become a mutant. It was unbalanced, full of growth hormone, psychotic. By the early evening, it had lurched one time too many. All was in exquisite turmoil. It had been speculated that some clever people in California had developed a strain of banana (and other fruits) that could be grown in the Antarctic, singlehandedly opening up vast tracts of previously useless land for development, robbing banana republics the world over of their only source of income. The market had taken the conjecture to its mutant heart, now a world war was brewing over the competition for territory in the last wilderness and all of the planet's banana republics had united to form the Banana Republic Republic, a meta-nation created with the single aim of destroying California and its research. The global markets were again bouncing up and down like a linear harmonic oscillator at resonant frequency. Swathes of newly hatched bankers had died of self-inflicted defenestration and cocaine overdose. Others had improvised rafts and taken to the seas. People were being advised to dig holes in the ground in which to hide from radiation, explosions, bullets and foreign soldiers.

I was untouched by any of this, the initial shock had wiped me out entirely. Of what concern was it to me if planet Earth was about to pull itself to pieces? Life goes on. Lisabeth was lost to me, gone and never to return. And even if she did, I no longer knew her. I no longer knew anyone. My connections to everything had been severed. I was unmoored, adrift and purposeless in this tellurian sphere. Nothing left but inertia.

In the evening I had a bath, dried off, found some clean clothes and went outside. I had some trouble getting out of the hotel. Phillips told me that no one had left in thirty years. I didn't care. In the end I wrestled the key from him and opened the door myself. I slipped out just as Madame Gurney appeared at the top of the stairs. A shotgun shell shattered the door frame by my ear but failed to injure me. I was back outside, in a night turned once more to chill. It appeared that the hotel's neighbours, and the Krishna Consciousness society, had taken Bloomberg's announcements as much to heart as the rest of the world. The streets were awash with people cramming junk into cars and pushing cars crammed with junk into roads and each other. What on Earth are you doing? I asked the Orange-robed fanatic nearest to me.

"We're escaping!" he yelled.

"Where to?" I asked.

"To the country, where it's safe!" he roared.

"Is that where everyone is going?"

"I 'unno," he shrugged. "Presumably."

I nodded and thanked him for his helpfulness. The countryside, I thought, would be awfully crowded if all of these people suddenly turned up. A resource war on an entirely different level would soon be in full swing, new business opportunities soon arising, new opportunities for exploitation, and society would turn very neolithic for a period. Well, I thought, to blazes with that. Things were bad enough as they were without having to cope with tribal warfare, animist cults, omnipresent random violence, a sparse diet of root crops and, occasionally, poorly seared meat, animal furs for clothing, the most rudimentary facilities and probably all of it with not a drop of alcohol. No, it wasn't a life for me.

I walked through the crowds into the city centre. It's begun, it's begun! they all shouted. The activity became more frenetic with every passing second. The closer I came to the centre of the CBD, the denser and angrier the crowds grew. There were fights and fires and screams and plenty of tears. A small crowd of five or six preachers had gathered in the middle of what used to be a roundabout and were shrieking something or other about judgments, sins and forgiveness. They made me smile. People never lose hope.

In the pedestrianised main street, a fairly large rally was being held. Some intelligent people had jury-rigged a PA system, and the man at the microphone was telling everyone in raised tones that the most important thing was to remain calm. I consider myself privileged to have been there as the city's electricity went down and the speakers failed. The crowd took a few seconds to scratch its head and take a breath, then chaos erupted and it transmogrified into a raging horde. I even had to speed up a little, which isn't easy with legs like mine, to get out of its path.

*

I continued to walk until I found myself in an empty industrial estate. There was nobody about. A few small fires burned and broken glass littered the ground, but all of the noise was faint and distant. Perhaps I could stop here a while. I was feeling quite tired and the area was quiet and peaceful. I wondered if there weren't any vending machines in the vicinity, and whether they would still be operational. I hadn't eaten since teatime the previous day and felt suddenly quite hungry.

As I stumbled around, it gradually dawned on me that this was the same industrial estate I'd made my way to the last time I had gone out walking. The retail units looked different without windows, but on closer inspection there was no doubt they were the same ones. I crossed a road and rounded a corner. The Plaza Café's sign was still there, and it still wasn't lit up. I pushed the door beneath it and it fell off its hinges. I could see a light was on at the top of the stairs, and as I walked up, I began to hear piano music, the same tune as the first time. I reached the top of the stairs and rounded the corner to find exactly the same room in exactly the same condition I remembered. The bar man was the same, he was still polishing glasses, but the others were all different. One person, a man in an old suit, was seated at the bar; two groups of three had a table each on the opposite side of the room, and were huddled together, muttering in conspiratorial undertones. I shuffled across the room as quietly as possible, and nodded.

"Lemuel said you'd be back," said the bar man, Sam, I believe.

"Intriguing," I said.

"Was that you, knocking the door over?" he said.

"Possibly, when did you hear it?"

"Oh, I don't know. Earlier, I think."

"Perhaps it was off when I arrived."

"Oh well, either way, the door, John. It's off again."

The man grumbled and slowly stood up.

"Fucking door," he said. "Should get it fucking fixed."

"I'll speak to Godfrey about it next time I see him," said Sam. "But you are the doorman."

John moved slowly across the room, scuffing the ground with his heels, his back hunched.

"Having trouble with that?" I asked.

"The door? Mm-hmm. It's all this to-do that's going on outside, I think. It's destabilising the area."

"Yeah, funny isn't it."

"It certainly is."

"It's all been so sudden. Where did it come from?"

"Oh, there's always something like this on the way. Just a question of waiting long enough. It'll blow over soon enough."

"If it doesn't?"

"Then it won't."

"Have you been out there?"

"Can't say I have. Much to see?"

"It's a real clusterfuck. People everywhere. Fires everywhere. Broken glass."

"Sounds like fun."

"That's an interesting perspective to take. Have you got a TV in here?"

"I have, but it doesn't work."

Scraping noises on the floor and an aroma of stale spirits and cigar smoke announced the imminent return of John.

"Why not?"

"Well, power's down."

John collapsed onto his stool and thumped the bar with his empty glass. I looked at all the electric lights in the room. They were extremely dim, but they were definitely on.

"Your lights all seem to be working alright. Maybe the power's back."

"Unlikely. Different kind of tubing, isn't it," said Sam.

"Oh?"

"Yup. Lighter 'lecky pipes. Less in them, less to bump into, it allows the electrons to keep on going for a while after a cut."

". . . right," I said. "Is Brigitte around?"

"Sure is," said Sam. "I gave her a buzz just when you arrived."

"How good of you. Where is she?"

"She's in one of the rooms upstairs. She's been staying here for the last week or so. She had a feeling you'd be coming tonight. Told me to call and let her phone ring twice when you arrived."

"Her as well?"

"Her as well. Lemuel was sorry he missed you, but he and Norma have had to go away for a while."

"What a shame. Where'd they go?"

"Not sure. Looking for a publisher? Didn't say. Just away somewhere."

"That is a shame. I didn't know you were a hotel as well."

"Oh, sure. Got how many rooms up there I don't know. Too many to count."

"Maybe I could stay here."

"Maybe you could."

I heard a door opening from the direction of the piano. Faint yellow light bled into the dark blue room. Brigitte stepped in. She was wearing a green cocktail dress and had a headscarf-cum-bandana made of the same material wrapped around her head. Her brown curls poked out beneath it around her neck and behind her ears. She had an overcoat slung over one arm and sunglasses in the opposite hand, which she proceeded to put on.

"Evening Sergei," she said to the pianist, who nodded.

The door swung shut as she made her way across the room.

"Evening Sam," she said as she came to the bar. "The usual." She dropped her coat on a stool and sat down next to me. "Evening Steve."

"Brigitte," I nodded.

"Quite a shitstorm kicking off out there," she said. "The wireless has stopped working."

"Sounds serious," said Sam, placing a double bourbon on the table.

"It all started in Korea," said John. "It must have done. Fucking Koreans. They're nuts."

"Maybe, who knows," said Brigitte.

"I know and I'm telling you," said John.

"The wireless said it didn't know, and it knows best. Nukes are flying now."

"The TV knows best, and this bugger won't have it on," said John, gesturing towards Sam.

"Probably broken too by now," said Sam.

"By now, aye," said John. "But before?"

"Before, after, what difference," said Sam. "Same old same old. The more things change and all that. You know."

"Could have been started by an asteroid or something," I mused.

"Meteor," Brigitte said.

"Huh?"

"It would have been a meteor. Asteroids stay in space."

"Right, of course they do."

"Wonder how it'll pan out," said Brigitte.

"It'll be fine," said Sam.

"You've escaped more or less unscathed so far," I said. "How long do you think you can keep that up?"

"Oh, ages," said Sam.

"This place is going nowhere," said John.

"True," said Sam. "The customers might come and go, but I'll always be here."

Brigitte laughed.

"I'll bet."

"Believe it," said John. "It's the goddamn truth alright. And more's the goddamn pity."

"Where would you go if not for here?"

"Dunno. I'd find someplace. Can't be just one Tanelorn in the multiverse."

"Nowhere else would have you, and you wouldn't have anywhere else, as well you know you miserable old scullion. To the Plaza Café," said Brigitte, holding up her glass. "May its doors be ever open."

"Here here," muttered John, before he spat in Brigitte's drink.

Sam nodded, then looked at me.

"You alright there, old man?" he asked. "You look spavined."

"Oh, I'm alright," I said. "I'm just real tired. And, well . . . yeah, you know. Everything's just a bit . . . fluid right now."

"Chin up, boyo," said Brigitte. "Anyhow, I'm glad you came back. I got to thinking on some of the things you said last time around and, you know what, I think I might even like you a little bit."

"And Brigitte doesn't like anyone," said John.

"Damn straight you puling asstwat," said Brigitte, breaking her still rather full glass over John's head. "But point being, Steve, I got you a present."

Well, I mean to say, I was pretty shocked by that.

"Grief, that's very nice of you. Why did you?"

"Oh, I don't know. Fluctuating magnetic fields and shit. What the hell. Anyway, here you go."

She slapped two pieces of paper onto the bar surface.

"Train tickets?" I said.

"Train tickets," she said.

"Where to?"

"To the future. They're for the silver train, the bise, the mistral, the midnight express. I don't know where it goes. I asked but they wouldn't or couldn't tell me."

"How did you get these?" I asked, blinking incomprehension in waveforms. "I thought it was impossible."

Brigitte smiled, said, "It's just a question of knowing who to speak to."

"There's no time on these. When does it leave?"

"Whenever you get there. To the station, I mean. We're the only passengers."

"We?"

"Sure. Unless you don't like that. In which case screw you. I have no intention of hanging around here. Who did you think the other ticket was for anyway? Jesus. You try to do a nice thing for someone."

"Really? I just assumed it was a return ticket."

"No coming back from that journey," said Sam. "At least none that I've ever heard of. They're yet to install the proper equipment."

"It's a one way ticket," said Brigitte.

"Of course. Sorry, I'm not thinking too clearly. So tired . . . "

"That's okay. We'll be able to sleep on the train. Sleeper service. It's quite a long journey, from what I understand. Has to be I suppose. So, shall we get going?"

"Like, now?"

"Why not? I brought my coat. Carpe diem, man. Carpe that diem before it gets away. Also, we should probably try to reach the station before someone sets fire to it as well. Otherwise we're going to be sitting here for weeks."

"No luggage?"

"I sent it ahead."

"Okay. Well, I'll just. I suppose I'll travel light. Hopefully the train will have a laundry."

"Whatever. We going then?"

"May as well . . . I could."

"Well do try not to take all night to make your mind up."

I thought about it a bit, then a bit more, Brigitte staring straight at me, drumming her fingernails on the bar, Sam washing glasses, John lying on the floor, unconscious and bleeding, and the more I thought about it the more clear it became that there really wasn't any reason to stay a moment longer, so, "Sure," I said, and, "Why the hell not."

"Yay," said Brigitte. She put her feet on John and stood up. He wheezed quietly. "Company for me. We're off. Sam, I've already said goodbye, I think I'll say it again, Sam, I'll see you around. Thanks for all the help. Thank you so much. Thanks for all the drinks and all the talks and the room and all of those things. It's been nice."

"That's no problem, Brigitte, no problem at all."

"Sad face," she said. They nodded to each other and pantomimed sadness. Then, "Goodbye."

"Er, goodbye," I said.

"To you too," said Sam.

Brigitte put on her coat and we walked across the room. At the door she halted and turned around.

"Sergei," she shouted. The pianist looked up. "Play another song, Sergei. This one has grown old and bitter."

Sergei coughed and shook his head. Brigitte took off her sunglasses off and placed them on a table by the door. Until next time, she muttered, then looked at me. Then she looked confused. She picked her sunglasses up and put them back on. Why did I do that, she muttered. We left.

*

The night outside was lit by fire. The city gleamed golden, writhed and convulsed in paroxysms of primal abandon, tearing itself apart as everyone took as much as they could and rushed for the exits. We kept our heads down and walked quickly. Do you really think the trains will be running? I asked. Maybe we should go back. Brigitte said that the trains were all cancelled or broken, but ours would be running no matter.

We passed a pair of men who were taking the tyres from cars and putting them into a huge burning pile. They worked methodically and speedily, filling the air with the acrid stench of burning rubber. We held each other close as we rushed past, fearful lest the men should think to add us to their grand rubbery pyre. The place has finally flipped its lid, said Brigitte. She was right.

The station was dark and deserted. Its iron gates had been torn down and cast to the ground. We wobbled noisily over them, entering the atrium. The whole vast space was lit only by the firelight reflected poorly from the glum night sky, and the pallid moon, obscured by clouds of smoke. The refreshments carts had all been pulled from their trains and ransacked, their calorific treats taken as fuel for the fires.

We circulated to the left ventricle, the departure zone. There it is, said Brigitte, and there it was, a long silver cylinder, dappled in the orange gloom. We walked the train's length, until we came to an opening, a doorway leaking out a dull red haze. I suppose we go in here, I said. Here's your ticket. We stepped up from the platform and into the carriage. A man in a white shirt and green waistcoat greeted us, asking for our tickets. We handed them over. Looks alright, the man said, then told us we could choose any booth, really, since the train was pretty much empty. The dining cart was the one adjacent, in the direction of the front of the train; accommodation was to be found in any other carriage. Departure was imminent.

"Thank you," I said.

The guard closed the door and disappeared into the dining cart. We moved to a window as the train eased smoothly into motion. The station, then the city rushed by. We passed burning buildings and vehicles and people then passed into the country. All was quiet but for the faint rumble of wheels against track. The fires grew sparse and receded. I smiled. Here we go then, Steve, said Brigitte. We made it.

We had, and I felt tranquil calm; I felt that I needn't do anything ever again, that I might stand there at that window until I decayed into dust, there with Brigitte, watching the night passing by.

*

High above the sky the Sun shines, beaming evenly, more or less, in all directions, including in that of the great city of Bel-Graid. Above clouds of brown pollution, blooms and puffs of black smoke, above thick and wet woolly sponges full of rain, far above and thousands of miles away, the Sun glows merrily, spitting out a broad spectrum of fiercely intense radiation across 4π steradians of good, solid angle. Subtending a paltry ~5.72x10-9 π str. of this full sphere of electromagnetic activity sits planet Earth, slowly wobbling its way around neat little ellipses in a pattern established many orbits ago. In a world that is the totality of facts, it pays to be able to remember what the facts are. I recall all of the facts that I know in order to discard them, one by one. That is the plan at any rate. Little slips of paper, write words on them, set them on fire, burn them to dust. A cognitive aid. How, I wonder, do I write this metaphor on paper, set it on fire? It doesn't pay to think too much. Time will see to that, thinking, memory, all of those things. Forgetting should only be bad for as long as you can remember that you're forgetting, after that everything should blur into one long impressionistic montage, not so very different from death, from non-existence, I mean to say. An equation: Memory = Life. Sometimes I wonder whether I'm there yet, how long it's taken me, how much longer it will take. Time eludes my grasp. Is this true? It does not seem improbable.

###
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