Cocoon

 

The van beat a clunking, jittery path through the endless twists of gravel road. The driver flicked his fag butt out the window.

'You got three days here? Three days. Heavy time, huh?'

K was scrolling through the last text messages.

- you can't say these things -

- Cara at my mum and dad's now. She doesn't want to see you -

- I don't want to see you right now -

- Don't come back -

He breathed and slipped the phone into his pocket. The van groaned and huffed over a rise. A vast expanse unfolded before them. Rolling fields carpeted a great plateau. Grass rustled in the raw wind and gave way to sharp cliff drops. A grey slip of beach at the hem of the rocks dissolved into a still, glassy sea.

In the centre of the field crouched a peculiarly beautiful building; a small, glistening, metallic cocoon. At this distance it appeared as a warped bug squatted amongst the rushes. Smooth, tubular piping emerged from its lower regions, burrowing into the ground around.

The sky was thatched with crisscrossing wires, totemic poles puncturing the outskirts of the field.

K coughed. The driver's gaunt face had turned to study him.

'My wife... my wife and kid won't talk to me, and I can't... '

He stopped and scratched at the bridge of his nose. He felt horribly aware of the face near him, the skinny hand jerking the gears.

'I just need to... just have to work through this.'

The driver turned slowly back to the road. The metal cocoon rose as some fallen monolith in the windscreen.

'You made a lie of the world,' the driver whispered.

K felt a hot surge behind his forehead.

'What?'

The van creaked to a standstill, and the driver killed the engine. K glanced at the curved metal hub, then at the sea beyond, moving now in gluey, shifting panels. A fine rain peppered the windscreen, and something bleak and rotten sawed within him. 

'Phone.'

K looked round, then down at his mobile. He passed it over hesitantly. The driver pocketed it and produced an envelope.

'Keys. God knows, you paid a fortune for this time, so make good use of it. The right energies are within the hub. This is your place. This is your place for this time. Steer clear of the cliffs. It is designed to be centred this way. We want you to find your way back.'

Grubby fingernails pressed the envelope into his palm. K clasped it, nodded at the moist, sunken eyes, and tripped out the door, rushing through the rain to the towering cocoon.

*

The kitchen was a curiously lifeless amalgamation of ceramic tiles and gleaming steel surfaces. There was a dead body on the floor. Dried blood was matted around a gunshot wound in the head. A webby, red fan coated the white tiling, and a heavy stench filled the air.

K blinked. He felt himself drawn into the puckered, gaping head-hole. Then he was backing down the steel corridor, absorbing the dull, electric thrums radiating from it. He stood in the open doorway and watched the tiny speck of van receding over the rolling hills, sending up faint ribbons of dust. Dusk had descended, and in the paling light - framed by the oilish lick of sea - it appeared a solemn antique cart negotiating the pathways of some ancient and benighted world.

He turned and pressed his head against the cold steel. The gentle pulse soothed him. There are unseen lines that map the fabric of our beings, and these same lines are cast as an unending net across the universe. If only there were a way to weave this miasma to the tune of these awful times.

A gelid moon swelled like a purulent abscess over the frost of sea.

K turned and paced back to the kitchen. He rifled through the cupboards for cleaning products. They were empty and spotless.

He felt his way along the steel work surfaces, avoiding the body. Dark, thin corridors spoked away from the central gleam of the kitchen. He padded down one. The electric undercurrent ebbed and flowed, building into dull crescendos. 

He slipped into one room fitted with plush, purple sofas and strange, angular tables. Backing out, he pushed on into the buzzing gloom. A second opening in the cold walls gave way to a bedroom; purple duvet and pillows; a dark, glassy table with a glinting, branch-like lamp.

At the end of the corridor a single, black door was embedded in the wall. K pried it open. The air was cooler within, and tinged with stronger vibrations. He eased in, laying his hands against the metal walls on either side. They pulsed. He tried to pull his left hand away, and felt his ring finger stuck to the steel. Pivoting, he grasped his wrist with his free hand. At the same time, the buckle of his belt snapped towards the wall and clung there. His back arched awkwardly, K tore his hand away, dragged at the buckle until it separated from the wall, and stumbled back out. 

The corridor throbbed with deep, bassy rumbles.

K palmed his way along the steel until he located the bedroom again. He slumped onto the purple duvet.

*

In his dreams he saw her face, he saw Cara's face, and he saw the bottle roll from his hand. He saw her twisting to scream, felt himself rise, and felt his hands tense and bunch.

He saw the words spill from his mouth as a series of clear black orbs. 

His family faded to thin wraiths before him and puffed out of existence. He was standing in a shallow black pool within a deep, stacalite-strewn cave. The little orbs continued to unspool from his throat; moist, sticky bundles. He spat and clawed at his neck. They were hawking up in scores now, bubbling black orbs breeding and slipping from his mouth. He choked and gasped as they floated up through the narrow cave above in elastic helixes - thousands of dark, glowing marbles.

I want to take them all back, he thought. I want to say everything differently.

*

He awoke sweating and shaking. The first day was always the worst. Peeling the duvet off, he stalked through to the kitchen. The body was gone. The floor was white and pristine. He stood in the atonal electric hum. Fidgeting in his pocket, he retrieved a wadded leaflet. Pacing the room, he leafed through it, chewing his lip. The font was large, vibrant and colourful. Stylistic electrical flashes played amongst the type.

- at the moment your brain is operating with beta waves -

- low alpha and theta waves form a “portal” between the dream world and the waking world -

- retreat offers a unique experience. Embrace your thoughts and intuition. Let spiritual awareness consume you. Contact us at -

K clipped to a halt. He felt tense and coiled. Tossing the leaflet onto the work surface, he made for the front door.

*

The lattice of power lines overhead cut an abstract web amongst the stars, as if everything there ever was were caught within some impenetrable matrix. The intermittent pylons stood as towering, benign witnesses to our final entrapment.

K sat shivering on the beach. The waves moved in slick, tired striations. The wind tousled his hair and he watched the stretch of land on the distant shore opposite, separated by the sea. A single building lay hunched underneath a maze of identical power lines. A little gold, metal cocoon, glinting in the crisp night. Aside from the finish, it seemed a replicant of K's own retreat.

The tiny dot of a man emerged from it, and ventured towards the shore.

K shivered again. A great sadness sat inside him, perched like some rank black bird. He was tired of all the sadness.

The tiny stick-man wound his way down to the far shore. K looked back at the squatted silver building behind him. He could feel its seeping thrum from the beach. When he looked back, he realised there was a second man kneeling on the distant beach. A second small stick-man. 

The man walking down drew up close behind the kneeling figure and shot him. The little shadow-person slumped to the ground. A sparking crackle surged through the power line overhead. K jolted. He peered. He mashed his hands in the sand at his feet, and felt disgusted. 

These are my own thoughts, my core. I am responsible for everything I think and do.

Pulling himself upright, he strode along the shore. The twin cocoon buildings - silver to his left, gold to his right, across the sea - shimmered in the rain. The moon spilt a gossamer trail through the black water between. There was no point to all this - it had cost a fortune, and was only leading him to the same conclusions as everything else. What were the things he saw when he actually looked at his life? 

Everything was a mystery. Everything was a source of pain. For all that you try, you will never truly know someone, and you will never truly know the world.

He stopped and lifted his left trouser leg, reaching down to remove the gun strapped to his calf. He staggered on, raising it to his mouth, memories bubbling and coalescing. Tears blinded him. The stark cliffs drew away above, and K could feel them vibrating even from a distance. Rows of pylons punctured the peaks. Trudging through the wet sand, he dropped the gun and laid his hands on the rock, feeling powerful tremors.

If only there were immense, electrical surges in optimism and confidence. Static gateways linking people to people to people.

There's just words, he thought.

When he returned to the cocoon, drenched and rattling, there was a body on the kitchen floor. Smoke unfurled in papery scarves from a meaty hole in the head. The eyes were smoking and vacant. K splashed through the pooling blood and slumped down against the kitchen cabinets. He closed his eyes and thought of everything he had been, and everything he could be. His eyes teared up again and he coughed. He coughed once more and a small black orb, slick with oil, spilled from his throat.

*

The driver stamped his wet feet and strode down the humming corridor into the kitchen. The technician behind him paused to slide a key-card into a panel on the wall. Removing the panel, he flicked a switch behind it. There was a heavy whoomph, and the static undercurrent died.

The driver was standing over the body when the technician ambled through.

'Jesus.'

The driver pulled at wisps of his beard.

'Poor fucker,' he croaked. 'Wife and kid left him.'

*

The driver stamped his wet feet and strode down the humming corridor into the kitchen. The technician behind him paused to slide a key-card into a panel on the wall. Removing the panel, he flicked a switch behind it. There was a heavy whoomph, and the static undercurrent died.

The driver was standing over K when the technician ambled through. 

K dug the heels of his palms into his eyes. The driver rooted in his jacket and tossed him his phone.

'They've been phoning,' he muttered, 'incessantly.'

K stared at the screen. His bottom lip quivered. He held the mobile close; felt something vital and electric moving inside him.

'Has it... it's been three days?'

The driver lit a cigarette and bent down close. His eyes were beady marbles.

'It's later than you think.'

'What?'

'It's later than you think.' 

***