Happiness is a molecule (1)

There are seven crystal systems, the structures created by atoms or molecules and their different arrangements into the space, depending on various physical factors; pressure, temperature, and also the peculiar properties of the elements. Sometimes, an element can show multiple arrangements with different characteristics.

Amorphous minerals have no crystal structure. Most of these are either cooled too quickly to crystallise, or are organic.

 

Cubic 

The ferry cut foamed stitchwork through the sea. He stood on the far reaches of the deck, tearing up a slip of paper. 

It had been four years since he'd seen them. Still these probes reached him somehow.

- We just want to know you're well. We don't ask for anything else. Mum -

He threw the letter. Shreds feathered into the water. Kneeling on the deck, he rustled in his bag and pulled out every piece of Wellness Project propaganda he owned. Books, pamphlets, personal notes, fucking crystal charts. Quickly and methodically, he destroyed them.

Fellow passengers shot worried looks at his hunched figure. Dusk slid into night, leaving him alone on the deck. He grasped armfuls of paper and tossed them over the side.

There was nothing left now. Better to let it all go. Every way of being had failed.

There are too many people to let down in life. 

He caressed his wrist with the knife he carried, but didn't have the heart. It was too violent, too messy. 

Rising, he gazed out at the water. A thought struck him. He sidled to the dark edges of the deck. Nearer the noisy thrum of the cabins, a uniformed figure clicked out and sprayed a searchlight. The light lingered, then disappeared.

Clambering over the side, he dropped into a lifeboat, rolling onto a sheet of tarpaulin.

The waves muddied the whir of the lifeboat descending. He fed the line through his hands, the rope burning his palms. The boat touched the water, and he rowed off into the night.

Soon his arms were aching. The ferry was a distant speck. He lay back in his little boat. The ocean brushed frothy ghosts around him. People and their needs faded into another lifetime, and he willed himself to be present. One final moment of calm.

The boat nudged against something solid and he sat upright. He scrabbled to the edge. He had run aground on a tiny piece of black land. A miniscule island, no bigger than a few feet. He reached out, confused, and grasped at cold metal. He snatched his hand back, shaking. 

Standing precariously, he straightened his arms. He clutched two metallic bars, one in each hand. His eyes adjusted slowly to the darkness. There was some kind of statue or strange building on the island. It was composed of rusty metal bars. He looked up. 

The angular bars rose high above him. He squinted, and their arrangement clarified. It was a shape. It was a cube.

 

Hexagonal 

Snow flurried over the platform. The train pulled in with a knife-whetting screech. 

The patient stamped his shoes and stepped on. The doctor followed him, weaving between the cramp of incoming passengers. They sat opposite each other in an empty booth. Darkness blotted the window beside them.

The doctor removed his bowler hat and dusted flakes off with his sleeve. As the train rumbled into motion, the patient thought back to their earlier appointment.

'Well,' the doctor breathed. 'I think we have a diagnosis!'

The patient eyed him nervously. He chewed his fingernails. The room was too white. Too pure.

'Yes?' He hissed.

'Big hate!' Said the doctor, spreading his chubby arms. 'Big hate. Of the head - and people!'

'That doesn't sound very technical,' the patient whispered.

The doctor stood. His stethoscope flopped on his belly.

'Be that as it may,' he said, 'there is a potential cure for your condition. We must perform surgery! And we must do it quickly. Try not to be too concerned, though - it's a very simple procedure. Very simple, indeed. Please, remove your shirt.'

The patient muttered as he undid his shirt buttons. Leaning down, the doctor squinted at his scrawny upper body. He tapped his fingers over the sternum, and removed a pair of scissors from his pocket.

'What are you doing?' The patient choked.

Quickly and efficiently, the doctor snipped a large incision in the patient's chest.

The patient gazed down, shocked, but felt no pain. Jamming his hand into the opening, the doctor pulled out tufts of woolly black fluff. He rummaged further, removing great wads of black stuffing from inside the patient. As he worked, he tutted.

'My, my. This is far more serious than I thought. Advanced stages. Yes, far more serious indeed. This is big, fat hate!'

The patient blinked. 'That sounds even less technical.'

The doctor piled the fluff into a corner, and began bandaging the incision up.

'Hmm? Still, there is another possible cure. It's rather extreme. We must take a train journey!' 

Bouncing up, he flipped his bowler hat onto his head and walked out the door.

The patient staggered up and after him, clutching at his chest.

*

The train rattled along. Snow flecked the window.

The patient stared at his lap. His chest hurt and he felt sadder than he could remember.

Today was the first time he had left his home in weeks. Everything felt amplified and irritating. Sometimes you forget how to be around people, he thought. He scratched his leg. Actually, fuck them all, he thought.

A scratchy noise distracted him, and he looked around. He shivered. Everyone on the train - all the suited figures cramped into booths - had blank, circular faces. Static crackled through the places where their features should have been.

The doctor peered at him as he turned back.

'My, my. Your conditions are worsening. You really do hate people. Yes. Yes, indeed!'

The patient picked at fluff on his sleeves.  

'In a big, fat way too,' said the doctor. 

'Shut up,' said the patient. 

There was a long, metallic whine, and the train slowed. The patient stared glumly out of the window. All he could see was snow, and endless darkness. 

'We're here!' Exclaimed the doctor, wobbling up and off down the aisle. The patient rose and followed him, avoiding the blank balloon-faces that turned towards them, crackling softly.

The train doors opened with a hiss. They looked out into the whirling snow. Through the flakes the patient could see metal bars, rising above and around them. They appeared to be in some kind of tunnel.

'Here,' said the doctor, 'help me up, now.'

The patient knelt and supported the doctor as he clambered up and onto the roof of the carriage, huffing and wheezing. He pulled the patient up after him. They stood shivering in the night, two lonely silhouettes perched atop the train.

Fencing them in was a magnificent, hexagonal tunnel. It was constructed from aging metal bars. Snow fizzed between its rusty beams.
 

Trigonal 

The old pianist finished his recital and stood. He shuffled to the front of the stage and bowed to the audience. There was a smattering of muted applause.

He trudged back to his dressing room and cracked open a bottle. Pouring himself a large shot, he washed down two pills with it.

Decades swam through his head. He gazed at his sunken eyes in a mirror ringed with bulbs.

Standing up, he peeled off his sweat-soaked shirt and opened the closet. He stepped back, scratching his head.

A large frame was stuffed amongst the clothes. It appeared to be constructed out of rusty metal bars. Shirts and suit jackets were draped over its edges. He reached in and felt a sharp point. It was a triangle. A big, metal triangle.

The pianist frowned and tried to tug it out. It was jammed in too tight. He brushed a shirt aside, and something glinted.

There was a smaller triangle, placed inside the large one. He picked it up and brought it out into the light. It was also made from rusty metal tubing, albeit a little bent out of shape.

The pianist sat for a long time, running his fingers over the triangle's edges. It grew dark outside. Rain pattered the window.

*

The following night, he adjusted his tie in his dressing room. He combed his thinning hair, and wondered if he had ever genuinely expressed himself, in any walk of life.

The crowd hushed as he walked to the centre of the stage. The lights dimmed.

He bowed slowly, and fished the rusty triangle from his jacket pocket. He tapped it twice. A murmur ran through the audience. He clanked the triangle, hard. He hammered it again and again, jiggling his hips.

Booing rose from the rows of seats, growing in volume. Someone threw a paper cup. It bounced off his wrinkled forehead as he clanked at the triangle, face creased in concentration.
 

Tetragonal 

The driver left the service station. He opened the truck door and pulled himself up. He threw his sandwich onto the empty seat beside him and checked his phone messages. Nothing. Rain spattered the windshield as he pulled out.

The roads were empty. The moon tracked his progress like the searchlight of some omniscient deity. His headlights picked out the white strips in the centre of the road; a looped image, accented at times by the rise of hills on either side, clumps of dark pine trees and rock-clustered mounds.

He looked at his phone again and thought about how many people he used to know. His world had grown so small as he grew older. 

He drove past a string of lonely houses, blockish silhouettes in the fields beyond. The wipers scraped webs of rainwater over the windshield. He fell into a sad trance, the white lines soporific as they unspooled before him.

Hours passed. His eyes were scored with red lines. The sound of gravel snapping under his wheels brought him back to the present. Shaking his head, he peered out the windshield.  The road had changed. It was more dirt than blacktop. Skeletal trees groped from the roadside.

A neon motel sign punctured the dark. He pulled over. Rain grazed him as he crunched through the empty car park and into the reception.

A single red lamp lit the desk inside. The reception took shape in its glow; a ratty sofa, bookshelves, a circular table scored with deep lines.

The night porter was scribbling on a sheet of paper behind the desk. He looked up. His eyes were empty sockets, steaming softly.

The driver swallowed. He couldn't remember how far he'd come.

'I'd - I'd like a room,' he said.

The night porter slid a large binder out from under the desk. He flipped it open in a cloud of dust. His spindly fingers traced glyphs across the files inside.

'We have many different rooms,' he breathed. 'The cubic room, the hexagonal room, the tetragonal room - '

He looked up. Smoke sifted from his eye sockets.

'I'll take the last one,' said the driver.

'So be it.' The night porter rummaged underneath. He handed the driver an odd key, a little metal pyramid shape, and directed him to the room.

The driver climbed the stairs slowly. Tiredness washed over him. The corridors were poorly-lit, and he had to shine his phone on each door he came across. Finally he came to the room marked 'tetragonal'. He wedged the strange key into the lock and jiggered. The door creaked open.

Dull light leaked from a lamp on the bedside table. An old man sat on the edge of the bed. He looked round. His eyes were little pebbles, set deep within his skull. Strands of white hair clung to his scalp. Skin was peeling from his face; strips hung from his cheeks and jaw. White bone glinted underneath.

The old man turned slowly. The driver followed his gaze. There was a large frame by the wall opposite the bed. A pyramid, composed of rusty metal bars.

The old man stared at it. A lump of skin dropped from his face and landed on the floor. The driver turned and slammed the door, feeling his way back through the corridor and down the stairs.

The night porter looked up as he came over to the desk. 

'There's someone in the room,' the driver said. He leaned on the desk and breathed. His head felt muddy.

Steam drifted from the night porter's eye-holes. He eased his binder out again and thumbed through it.

'Ah, yes.' The night porter looked up at the driver and tapped a column in the binder. 'That particular guest has been here for five thousand years... he should have checked out by now, actually. I think he likes the tetragonal room.'

The driver looked into the vacant sockets. 

'Why... why would he want to be here that long?'

The night porter heaved the binder shut. He looked up towards the stairs.

'To see his other possible arrangements? He probably has regrets about his own arrangements.'

'That doesn't sound healthy,' said the driver, peering over the desk. 'Why would you let him stay that long?'

There was a long pause. The night porter chewed his lip. Smoke coiled from his sockets, misting between them.

'Oh, I'm just the night porter - here, try the cubic room.'

He produced a little cube-shaped key. The driver stared at him, took the key, and slouched off.

*

Part 2: https://www.abctales.com/story/stephen-thom/happiness-molecule-2

 

 

 

Photo: https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Carbon_lattice_diamond.png