Mr. Pink

Mr. Pink

David Don

 

"Fucking... stupid button... set transmitters... right, right here we go."

Cubert Pink swigged whisky from a crystal decanter. The screens lit up all around him, a humming deep blue, causing his unadjusted eyes to strain. He recoiled back in his chair a little.

He thought, why am I doing this? And pulled back on a lever with his free hand.

He stood up, and swayed. He took a glance at the wall beyond the machine - two Nobels, a Comstock. A Lorentz. This is what had all been for, right? There they were - physical evidence that he'd done it. He took another swig.

He typed a command. He almost didn't type it, but he did. He took a few steps back, then walked forward into the transmission zone. He pushed a button.

The three large metal claws started to rotate, with him in a space in the middle. Then they started to spin, faster. And faster. Then they were a blur, and the prizes on the wall slowly folded into white oblivion. He vomited.

***

Cubert appeared on a sunny day in a hall with big windows and fell into a glass exhibit case. He didn't smash through it, and rather hit it hard and rolled off, landing on the floor.

"Eergghh..."

"Mum, mum - did you see that old man? He just- he just-"

"It's rude to point, Alex. Come on."

Cubert heard clicking footsteps getting louder and saw their silhouettes appear, then shrink, then disappear. It was all sideways. He sat up.

He rubbed his neck and looked back at the stuffed lion display that he'd landed on. He needed to make more effort with working out physical co-ordinates. The Earth wasn't flat. 

He got up and left the museum.

Out on the pavement, he swilled more whisky. People looked at him stumbling around. He realised he was still wearing his lab coat, which was covered in sick. He must have looked like a mad scientist aimlessly roaming the streets. He laughed a bit. He supposed he was a mad scientist, really.

But he knew where he was going. He wasn't completely mad.

***

Eventually, some difficult bus journeys later, he was in a housing estate on the outskirts of the town. 

Number... what was it. Number 23. Ferngrove Avenue. That sounded right. He found it as the sun was going down. 

He looked at the semi-detached building. His house was four times the size of these two put together. It made him feel a little happier, but only for a second. 

He went up and banged on the door with '23' on it.

A man answered. "Hello, how c- Mr. Pink? Is that you? Are you alright?"

Cubert stared at him.

"It's Dr. Pink, moron... whe-where do I live? Do I live here?"

The man's hand went to the door. "I- what? Y-you live across the street."

Cubert looked across the road at another semi-detached house. He pointed at one house and looked back at the man. The man, visibly scared, pointed at the other. Cubert gave a thumbs up and started in that direction.

He got to the door. 25. He was close. His mind hadn't melted completely yet. He smashed the knocker.

There was an eternal pause, then he heard activity and shuffling. The door opened, the smell of air freshener poured out. An older man stood in front of him, holding a duster and a Flash with Bleach spray.

The man's face was almost the same. It flushed in shock.

"Who are you? What's going on?" His brain was obviously trying to reject this image, of a man who looked exactly like him.

"Relax, Cubert. Can I come in?"

Mr. Cubert Pink didn't answer. Dr. Pink came in anyway. He took another drink.

***

After some persuasion, various occurrences of physical restraining, and a couple of measures of whisky, Mr. Pink could at last string a few words together.

"So you're... you're me, from another reality?"

"Basically." Cubert lounged back on the settee. "Although I prefer to think of it in terms of you being a version of me. Just semantics, I suppose."

"So why did you come here?" asked Mr. Pink.

"I dunno... curiosity, maybe... you get bored when you have everything. I wanted to see how it could have went. Thought maybe seeing this shithole would make me appreciate my own place a bit more, eh?" He nudged Mr. Pink. Mr. Pink still looked incredibly nervous, and made a murmur in the region of a laugh. 

"So, can I ask you questions too?" said Mr. Pink.

"That is a question. And sure."

"Erm... so is your world- is it different from this one?"

"Not really. The main difference is we have the machine that brought me here. Which I just built."

"Oh."

"What do you do?"

"I sell office supplies."

"Ha! Office supplies. You sap. You couldn't buy this," - he held up the Macallan Decanter- "if you sold a million staplers."

"No, I suppose not." The silence rang out. This whole thing was more awkward than he'd expected.

"So, in your world," asked Mr. Pink, "how different were you. Like, did you still play tennis? I won those three trophies in my 20s." He pointed at the mantelpiece. Three gold cups sat proudly.

"Pfft. Screw that. No time for it."

"Did you live in Spain?"

"I lived in a hovel. In Glasgow."

"Right."

"Did you marry Marley?"

Cubert didn't say anything.

"Did you meet Marley?" asked Mr. Pink.

"Yes."

Mr. Pink got the idea and took a sip from his glass. 

Cubert got up and started inspecting some photos on the wall. There was Mr. Pink with Marley. Mr. Pink with his kids. A little boy with brown hair, and a girl with blonde.

"What're their names?"

"Rebecca is the girl, she's a lawyer. My son, Matthew, is in the merchant navy - they're in their thirties now. Got kids of their own, they come over on Sundays. That's who the toys belong to."

Of course, thought Cubert. Somehow he'd got mixed up in his head and thought the toys were Mr. Pink's kids. But of course they were older now. He was quite an old man, himself. He unhooked a picture of the girl from the wall and held it in his hands in front of him.

"The girl - what was her name? Rebecca?"

"That's right. It's fine though, I know it's boring when people harp on about their kids, I-"

"She looks just like Marley."

He was sober. Mr. Pink had had his whisky for the last hour.

"Yeah, she does," said Mr. Pink.

"She's beautiful."

"She is."

He looked at Mr. Pink's daughter a bit longer, then put her back on the wall.

"So, when is M-" as he turned, he immediately knew something was wrong. Mr. Pink was convulsing on the couch, froth at the mouth, decanter in his hand. He dropped it and it started to spill onto his carpet.

"Oh shit, oh shit-" said Cubert, running over. 

The whisky. The fucking whisky. Cubert had given the poor man liquid that had been repeatedly exposed to radiation. Cubert had injected himself with immunity long ago, when he started working on the machine.

He held onto him, and tried to formulate a solution, but he knew logically that there wasn't one. Radiation sickness of this magnitude would kill his cells too rapidly for Cubert to do anything to stop it.

"Fuck, oh Mr. Pink. Mr. Pink I'm sorry, it was an accident. I didn't mean it." He cradled him down on the floor. The thrashing would stop soon. There was nothing he could do now.

Eventually he held a dead man in his arms. He held himself, made dead, poisoned. In that moment he knew that he himself was poisonous. He had ruined this man, just as he had ruined himself. He had killed the father of those children. He had destroyed Marley's life - again. He couldn't do it. He couldn't do that to her again.

He sat back against the couch and took stock. He looked over at the dead Mr. Pink spread out over the whisky that had killed him. It was so uncanny. All that was really different was the hair.

He stood up.

***

Marley Pink pulled into the driveway about 8PM. She got out of the car, and opened the door to the back seat to lift out a potted spider plant. As she did this, John from across the road came out his front door and approached her. 

"Hi, Marley."

"Oh, hello, John. How are you doing?"

"I'm fine, I'm fine. Listen, has Cubert been... alright, lately?"

She laughed. "He's been about as absurd as he always is, but yes, on the whole he's OK. Why?"

He looked like he didn't know how to phrase it. "I don't know. Earlier he came to my door, wearing a *lab coat*, and asked me where he lived."

She raised an eyebrow. "That doesn't sound like him at all."

"I know, I know. I just wondered if he was- never mind." He had seen her expression sharpen. "Just thought I'd say. Have a good night, Marley."

"Goodnight, John," said Marley.

The front door was open. She put the plant down on the sideboard and walked through the living room towards the kitchen. There was a big brown stain on the carpet.

"Cubert?" she said, as she came into the kitchen.

"Hi, Marley," said Cubert. He was sitting reading the paper and eating toast.

"What's that stain on the carpet?"

"Oh. Whisky, sorry, someone at work gave me a miniature to try and I spilled it on the floor. I'll phone the carpet cleaner tomorrow."

She just stared at him. She knew something was fundamentally not the same. 

"Have you had a haircut?"

"Oh. Yeah. Do you like it?" 

"It looks great. Very gentlemanly, Mr. Pink."