String

Alongside

The envelope was cut clear from the blue of the carpet. K stooped to pick it up. He was turning to deposit it beside the phone when familiar handwriting caught his eye. Scrabbling, he tore it open.

Dear K,
I heard about your reaching five years sober. I wanted to write and tell you how happy I am for you, from the bottom of my heart. I'm sorry for how it was in the end between us, but it's all in the past now, and it fills me with joy to hear you are happy and healthy.

Early morning light swam in the hallway. K read the letter again and placed it by the phone. Straightening up, he adjusted his tie and wiped a sleeve across his eyes. He made it to the door, turned back, and grabbed the letter again. A smile played on his lips as he read it.

 

Distance

The moon was a smoggy disc sheared from black fabric. Heavy rain, a percussive sheet of miniscule glass shards, thrummed the window and beat a glacial melody upon the glockenspiel pavement outside.

K tripped amongst the thin pools of moonlight fanning over the dump of bottles strewn around. She sat, perched and distant, on the single chair by the door, watching him; a separate being, a benign witness summoned from a different dimension.

'It's this fucking meter,' he muttered, scrabbling at the rusty gold-metal box on the wall. 'It clicks, it clicks when it's almost out. You have to put coins in - see? Here, you put a coin in, like a fucking... jukebox, or - see, it's still clicking...'

'It's probably a good thing if you're counting pennies.' Her fingers ran over the handbag on her lap. She nudged a bottle with her foot, and it rolled slowly clockwise, tinkling against others.

'I'm sticking to beer,' he slurred, watching it. 'I decided. This week. I don't get as - it's, it takes longer, and I don't get as... then, then I can cut that down. Sticking to beer. Do you think that sounds good? It's a good idea?'

His eyes were bloodshot, wet wheels; little moons deployed by the mothership hanging in the window behind him. She twisted the strap of her bag and coughed.

'Did you go to the LEAP meeting?'

'The what?'

'The LEAP meeting.'

Dissolving window reflections eddied on the yellowing walls. His face mashed and distorted, lips curling.

'Fucking... pious fucks! Fucking self-righteous... sitting in a fucking chair, at a desk, in a suit, telling me I've been dishonest - like I should be crawling in on my hands and knees, begging... he would have preferred that, if I'd been crawling, if I'd...'

His hands, gesticulating abstractly, fell upon a bottle. Snicking the cap open, he washed a long draught down. A thin juicy thread snaked down his stubbled chin, and he hacked up.

'See? Just because of... this, doesn't mean I don't know who I am! This is an illness, this is -'

'It's fine,' she snapped, rising. 'There are other places to try.' His own figure hunched in deference as he saw her motion to leave. 

'Why do I have to be here?' He whispered, pasty dregs slicked around his lips. 'Why can't I be at home? It would be easier there, I don't - I'm sticking to beer, I don't get as - you hear that thing clicking? Hear it? You have to put coins in it, like a fucking, like a fucking jukebox or something.'

She paused at the door. Stars flowered like lanterns amongst the drumming needle curtain outside.

'I'll be back in a few days. Try to eat something.'

 

Parallax 

Two suited men, one on either side of the door, motioned K inside. It was a cavernous warehouse; grey brick walls enclosing rows and rows of tables punctured, intermittently, by metal supports clamped between floor and ceiling. Large windows spilled raw, lemony light over the throngs of men and women sitting opposite each other.

K followed the suited man clicking down an aisle, and was ushered into a section of bench opposite a frail, bald man. Two strange machines - somewhat similar to old-fashioned cameras, but featuring extremely large crank handles - were secured to the work surface between them. K scratched at his temples.

The bald man looked up slowly, as if exhausted. His eyes were sunken, egg-white pebbles. His lips were cracked and dry. In the thrusts of smoky light, the curve of his hairless dome seemed coated in some kind of dewy, rimy substance. K's left leg vibrated under the table, and he glanced back and forth between the suited and the bald man.

Abruptly, the man opposite snaked out a bony hand and began turning the handle of his crank shaft. K coughed. He coughed again and his eyes slid downwards. A wispy, phosphorus bit of string was dangling from his lower lip. His right foot tapped frenetically at the cold stone beneath. Tracing ashy movements in the dull light, the string coiled towards the centre of the table and began weaving itself into a small, marble-sized ball.

K gawped, hacking up again. He felt a seismic shift within, as if the tectonic plates of his internal shell were grinding against one another. The suited man, observing, clapped K on the shoulder and pointed at the second crank handle. Tentatively, K wrapped his hand around the cool steel and rotated the lever. A sticky web of string unspooled from the cracked lips of the bald man, flitting into the centre of the table to weave itself into another small, puffy ball.

K's vision shifted between the milky, dead eyes of the bald man, and the floating balls of waxy string separating them. The suited man nodded and clicked off, his receding figure alternating in hue as he strode through an opaque, window-cast membrane.

Around K and his companion, hundreds of wizened figures hunched along the benches turned their individual crank handles. Luminous, stringy marbles bobbed between them all.

 

Distance

He was pissing on the floor in the corner of the bedroom. The darkness, pierced by a sliver of light cutting through the curtain to lance a rectangular trail over the floor, swam around him. The air seemed to have a rancid, gummy texture. She was banging on the door, screaming his name.

Zipping up, he staggered over and wrestled with the sofa wedged against the door. It slid back, and a knife of hall light escaped through the crack as she tried to force an opening.

'Are you fucking pissing? Are you fucking pissing in there?'

He stooped down low, swigging from a can. The wash simultaneously muddied and infused him with power. He clattered against the wall, spying a freeze-frame of her frazzled hair and dark eyes.

'Fucking. Fucking, you just - you, fuck your - you just...'

He couldn't make the words trim, but his fingers found an energetic, stabbing rhythm. Her eyes flared and she leaned her weight against the door, bashing her shoulder against it.

'Get out! Get the fuck out!'

'You - you fucking...'

The sofa toppled and K, caught off guard, went down with it. The back of his head cracked against the skirting board, and the can rolled from his spasming fingertips to join the clinking hordes littered around. His chin lolled into his chest. Somewhere far away he could hear her volleying about the room, dispensing her fury, but he didn't care. A velvet drape, pockmarked with flashing red icons, fluttered in his line of vision like a lowering dusk, and he felt quite decisively that he didn't care about anything.

 

Parallax

K awoke slowly, as if through endless doorways of dreams. His eyes were moist and sticky. When he peeled his head from the pillow, patches of greasy hair littered it.

The morning air was crisp and the streets empty as he rushed to the warehouse. Towering high-rise flats rose on either side of him, their lit windows doorways to more dreams. The chill stung his cheeks, and he wondered where everyone else was. He wondered, too, why he did not worry more about this. It felt normal. He was sure there was a time when he would have thought this deeply strange.

He felt as if he could close his eyes now, and the city would crumble around him. It would not matter. 

The blocks of light cast forth by the windows burnished the warehouse floor. Dust motes were shimmering amongst them as K took his seat at the bench. He felt electric. Seizing the crank shaft, he spun it forcefully and watched with delight as a pastel slip of thread danced from the mouth of the decrepit figure opposite. The bald man raised his gaunt face as if led by the string, and began turning his own handle. Two radiant, white balls of string spun themselves into existence, floating above the worktop. They were larger now, the size of tennis balls.

For hours the pair of them worked in silence. Occasionally a suited figure would swan by and nod approvingly. Around them the crystal swinging of hundreds of crank shafts punctured the still. 

The windows were drained of light when a suited man paused at K's side and clapped his hands, once, loudly. K looked up, dizzy. His hand slid off the handle and he toyed with the thread dangling over his chin. It evaporated as the bald man opposite ceased turning his own crank shaft. Before him, two football-sized orbs of string hovered, ghostly and luminous in the dark. K felt he could discern a strained falsetto note vibrating on the edge of hearing, but it may have been fatigue.

'Gather them up,' ordered the suited man, 'and follow me.'

K reached for his ball of string, and it seemed to weave in objection. He watched the frail man opposite engaged in a similar struggle. Frowning, he snatched at it, clinging it close to his chest. With reverberating footsteps, the three of them walked to the far end of the warehouse.

In the heavy dark, K could barely make out the throngs of people seated at the benches. Shrivelled shadows took their places. Myriad glowing balls of string bobbed in perfect rows across the span of the room, little pulsing lamps beating back the growing gloom.

For a split second, pacing after the suited man, K wondered how long he had worked in the factory. He wondered how he had even come to be here, and found he couldn't quite remember. Still, he didn't care. It felt normal; it felt like something he should be doing.

The warehouse floor was much larger than he had realised - the lambent orbs had become a distant, faded hue by the time they arrived at the far wall. At its grimy base, fenced by two barrels, a small, black hole had been cut into the concrete. The suited man sunk to his hands and knees and crawled in. His hand crept back through the aperture to summon them in.

 

Distance

The flames of the candles by the bedside fluttered and their swollen replicants thrown upon the walls fluttered and K played with her earlobe, feeling the soft brush of her breath on his chest.

'I'm so tired,' she whispered.

'Sleep,' he said.

'K,' she breathed, and he felt a quiet communion in the way she said his name, a gentle percussive ring. He folded his arms around her. Time collapsed and expanded.

'Yes?'

She lifted her head, and her fringe was a wild frizz above two imploring eyes. He thought it was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

'I didn't like to see you like that on Saturday. When you got home, I mean... I didn't like it.'

He sighed and nudged his face into hers, pressing his lips beneath her eyes.

'Just a works night... just... they're always like that, everyone's always... you know what it's like. Everyone lets off steam. Just a one-off.'

'It wasn't though,' she muttered.

'What?'

The candles painted warped puppetry amongst the shadows.

'It was the same the weekend before too. You just don't remember... I just don't like it... you're not you.'

He stirred, shifting her weight to one side and sliding out the bed.  'Ah, come on. It's been a busy couple of weeks.'

Her eyes were wet when he turned back.

'I know... it's just you're not you. I hate that you're not you, it's like you've gone someplace else. It's like you're gone.'

K hovered for a moment, bit his lip, turned, and stalked off to the bathroom. Sliding the lock into place, he rummaged around his shaving bag and pulled out a hip flask. His throat lit as he slugged back a long shot. Flushing the toilet, he drank again and reached for the mouthwash.

 

Parallax

K pulled himself up, wiping a smear of gunk on his shirt front. The small hole opened into a cavernous underground stairwell - huge black steps, hewn from the rock around, spiralled downwards towards a distant ledge. Dripping stalactites hung above them, enormous shadows shifted, flexed and bound, and every footstep sent booming echoes drifting through the void.

In the centre of the stairwell, a great chasm descended towards a furious whirlpool. Violent, frothing water boiled and spun in the depths. The suited man clapped again, once, and bassy encores bounced around them.

The bald man tottered forward, balancing delicately on the slab of black step, and hurled his ball of string into the chasm. K felt a sharp stab of fear and loneliness. The white ball spun through the air, glowing faintly, and sailed down into the murky darkness. K watched it expire in a plume of bubbling water.

The bald man smiled, and the light in his eyes seemed to wink out. He staggered off down the spiral stairwell, clutching at craggy walls for support. At the far-off ledge he stopped and slid down the walls to join a clutch of other men and women. K had to strain his eyes, but it looked as if they were all asleep.

The suited man turned to K and clapped once more. Time seemed to shift on its axis. K felt as if he had forgotten so much, but somewhere deep inside, some malnourished part of his being was sure there was something hurting him here. Something hurting him and other people.

He tripped towards the edge, nursing his ball of string close. The subterranean water roared. He had to scream above it.

'What is this?' 

The suited man turned to him, and K saw that his face was blank. Not bereft of emotion - there were no features there; no eyes, mouth, or nose. He leaned close and whispered:

- Thousands of souls have passed through here -

K found himself running. He tore down the sprawling stairwell, bounding over the enormous granite steps. The ball of string flickered and hummed in his arms. In a beat, he was sprinting over the landing, past the curled, inanimate figures of the sleeping people. Several sunken, dead eyes snapped open to gaze vacantly at him as he stumbled through, steps pounding and replicating to resound throughout the chasm below.

Just as the darkness seemed to close and press into an impenetrable fortress, a crack of light appeared in the wall of rock ahead. K bundled over a talus of scree and squeezed through it.

 

Alongside

The sudden wash of light stung his eyes. K was bent over, gasping for breath, on a long stretch of grey beach. Cotton clouds hung in the sky. Sifting silk waves licked at the shore, blue-green panels rising elastically to bind and part in the glint of the sun.

He was completely alone. Slumping into the sand, he clutched his little ball of string close. It was shrinking; when he next looked down, it had evaporated completely. His fingers tingled. Nevertheless, he felt some kind of warmth returning; something precious and vital - something dulled and misused, but ultimately indestructible. It was okay to be alone, he thought: if this is what it takes, it's worth that.

He sat on the beach for five years.

On the last day of the fifth year, he saw a figure appear through the gap in the surrounding cliffs. He flinched as he realised it was the suited man. His hands dug into folds of sand as he struggled to rise.

'Don't - ' he started.

'It's okay.' The suited man had his hands raised. K noted, with a jolt, that his features had returned - he boasted a broad smile. The man strode forward and embraced him warmly.

'Well done,' he laughed, 'you're made of good stuff.'

K didn't know what to say. They both looked round. The rocks of the cliff-face were beginning to crumble. Great slabs crashed and dissolved. In the distance, K could see the lights of the city winking off. Tall buildings were collapsing, and ashy clouds rose in blooming cadences.

The suited man placed a hand on his shoulder.

'It's okay,' he said, 'everything has to start again somewhere.'