Panels

The city is composed of rings of white obelisks. The outer ring comprises hundreds of these pillars, and spans thousands of miles. Each interior ring thereafter decreases in size, with a single great white column in the centre.

The landscape around and amongst the buildings is scored with bulbous white roots, a ropey, labyrinthine network, as if from afar the entire world might resemble a giant ball of string. But everywhere there are signs of decay; the roots are husks, scorched and blackened. Clouds of dust rise from gaping wounds in their sprawl.

In a large room within the central column the citizens are deep in debate. They are frail and insectile; their compound eyes shine as they cheep and click amongst themselves. Dust storms swirl outside.

Most of them are assembled around a desk in the middle of the room. Two glass boxes are placed on each end of the desk. Above each glass box, a semi-circular collage of lucent white panels is suspended.

They cluster close as one of their kin, a scientist of sorts, gestures at the first box. It is full of sand and crawling insects. The scientist adjusts the hovering semi-circle and turns to his colleagues.

It takes a week for a box this size. An area this size, he clicks.

His colleagues cheep and rustle. He leads them over to the second box. The wind batters the column and they press in. There are no insects in this box. It is full of fresh white roots, creeping up the glass walls. The scientist tilts the semicircle of panels above. The roots spider towards its new trajectory, organic and alive. 

The crowd around the scientist is a wave of excited chirps. He flexes his antennae, gesturing back towards the insects in the first box.

It strips, he explains. It strips everything, in stages. A vacuum of space and being. And then growth.

The crowd jostles, building to a frenzy.

A new home, someone cheeps. A new home.

The scientist pushes his antennae, as if to push calm. He adjusts the semicircle of panels above each box again.

Bigger ones, he clicks. We must build bigger ones.

*

When I looked out the window, whole sections of the sky were blotted out. It was as if a roof was being constructed over it in timelapse.

The panels unfolded across the night. At first they were hard to see. Rain gauzed the black spread. Behind it elastic ribbons unfurled, stretching and flattening into crisp rectangles. They moved quickly and fluidly.

The moon winked out as a panel shifted and solidified into place. They were clearer now; thrumming rows of enormous plates, silverish frames bound together. The interior of each panel was frosted white.

Looking back, it feels as though I should have been more shocked. There was just this terrible calm. I have always felt that I should question everything more, be braver. But in the end there is just acceptance. Going down without a fight.

Lucy was in the kitchen. She was chopping something on the worktop, her back to me. As she would be now so often. I think that's my biggest regret. If I could live that moment again, I'd run to her, turn her towards me. Anything so I could see her face.

'There's something in the sky,' I said, and even then my speech felt sluggish.

The sky was closing. There was a new sky, a new ceiling; the way these panels shimmered was unrecognisable. 

'You've said that before,' she whispered.

I looked round. Rain beat the window. She hadn't turned. Her hand rose and fell slowly, the knife hacking at the board. She wasn't chopping anything.

'No,' I said. I think I wanted to say something like "no, I haven't". I felt slow, and inexplicably sad. It was a sadness that would not leave me again.

I don't mind change; I'm not afraid, as such, I've just never done enough to affect change myself, or make it work in my favour.

Outside, an industrial rumble cut through the rain. The streetlights died.

*

I woke to a heavy darkness. Peeling myself off the sofa, I wandered through to the bathroom. I showered and changed. When I came back through, Lucy was still standing at the kitchen worktop. Her back was turned and the knife was in her hand.

'I have to go to work,' I said.

I thought her head started to turn; I caught a glimpse of her cheek. Then her hand spasmed. It rose and fell in a sharp, staccato burst, the knife thumping into the chopping board. Again her head began to turn, and again it jerked back. The motions were wrong, displaced. The knife-hand lifted and fell automatically.

'I have to go to work,' I said.

Lucy was silent and still. I tried to remember if I had done something wrong.

At the door I paused and looked back. Our flat was so small. It had been all we could afford for so long. The kitchen adjoins the living room, and there is one little bedroom. Sometimes it can become too close for the two of us.

I jangled the chain off and stepped out the door. The stairwell was shrouded in darkness. I took three steps and suddenly there were no more. My feet touched a solid base. I tripped back and felt for the security of the wall. It was cold underneath my fingertips, and I palmed along it until I had moved back up the three visible steps.

At the top step I sat for a long time. My head felt fuzzy. I thought perhaps I might be coming down with something. There was also a niggling sensation that something was deeply wrong, but I couldn't place or define it. I put my head in my hands. 

Through the spread of my fingers I could see there was only one step beneath me now. The surface beneath this final step was white and ribbed with plant-like roots. I reached down and touched them. My fingers came up slicked with some gluey substance. I stumbled up and ran back to the flat.

*

Lucy was sitting on the sofa, watching television. A dull mechanical pulse seemed to play under its noise.

'Did you have a good day at work?' She said.

She looked up and I missed her face; I caught a vision of her features, strained and distorted, eyes and mouth skewering like a children's drawing. Then, abruptly, she was watching the television again, as if someone had pressed rewind.

'Did you have a good day at work?' She said.

I thought of work. I thought of all the pointless days at the office. Everything could feel sad, if you thought about it in a certain way.

'It was ok,' I muttered. An odd glow at the window caught my eye. I moved past her and towards it. I raised the blind.

Outside, the sky was obscured by a blanket of milky panels. It was the most beautiful and terrifying thing I had ever seen. And despite this wonder, it also felt normal. The streets were quiet below. In fact, it was hard to see the spread of the city. The perfect, rectangular rows overhead demanded your attention.

'There's something in the sky,' I said.

'You've said that before.'

I glanced back. Lucy was in the kitchen, chopping something on the worktop. A vague, spiderish outline faded on the sofa. I looked at the sea of panels through the window. I looked down at my hands, turning them palms up.

I wanted to be a good person. I wanted to try and see the good in people, and to grow a little every day. I wanted to love Lucy properly. But I didn't do any of this. I let myself be pulled along. I deferred at every point.

I closed the blind and moved towards the kitchen. Lucy's hand rose and fell. The knife beat against the chopping board with that familiar rhythm. It seemed as if I had experienced this moment a million times. Maybe I don't pay enough attention to the little things.

In the corners of the kitchen ceiling, a white mould was spreading. It was unlike any mould I had seen before. There was an organic, creeper-like quality to it. White roots sprouted and coiled from dingy recesses.

We'll have to do something about that, I thought. The knife fell again, once.

*

A while ago, I was up late talking with Lucy. We'd been drinking. She was talking excitedly about some documentary she'd seen. Her face was flushed and he hair fell across her cheeks as she gestured. I remember thinking, I must try to save these times more. I must try to be more present. I don't enjoy anything properly. How do you stop time? It's impossible to hold on to anything.

The living room and the kitchen were white. White roots crisscrossed the walls, ceiling and floor. The other rooms were long gone. Lucy sat where the sofa would have been, suspended in the air. She was looking at the space where the television used to be. I was curled up on the floor by the wall. I could hear heavy rumbling noises outside, interspersed with an odd hissing.

'Lucy,' I whispered.

'Did you have a good day at work?' She said.

Her face almost turned to me and I felt that same sinking feeling. I saw that stretched, distorted mask. 

'Did I tell you I loved you enough?' I said.

She was on her knees in front of me, screaming. I couldn't hear the sound. She looked terrified. Whenever I see this, I think that it must be the present. I think this must be what I'm able to see of the present. Little snatches, as the rest is taken away from us. 

And I had wanted so badly to be more present.

I reached out to touch her and heard the deathly tick of the knife on the chopping board. I folded my legs into my chest, trying to protect myself from the horror. I ran my fingers over the maggot roots around me.

'There's something in the sky,' I said, just to hear her voice.

'You've said that before,' she said. I crawled towards the white remnants of the kitchen and watched her back. Her hand rose and fell, chopping at empty air. I wished I could see her face again. Just one more time.

*

The last time I looked out the window, before it closed up - roots snaking across its frame - the world outside had changed. The buildings and streets were webbed with white branches. The sky was a mass of glinting panels. Several strange buildings, like great white obelisks, had risen amongst the waxy roots.

I thought it all looked pretty. I had stopped feeling afraid long ago. On some fundamental level, the way the world functioned didn't work for me, and I wasn't working as a part of it.

Lucy was a kind person, and sometimes when I see her screaming I still feel sad. But this is ever more rare, and I think that whatever change is occurring is quickening. I forget who I was, and for that I am grateful.

I still see her in that white cocoon where our kitchen once stood, chopping at space, and for that I am also grateful. I will keep this close to me for as long as I am able. But there will always be change. Change is the only constant.

 

Photo credit: Sage Ross https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Museo_Soumaya_exterior_panels.jpg