The Paradoxicon, Chapter Three: Miles Brunner

Chapter Three

Miles Brunner

Monday. Monday, bloody Monday. Tell me why I don't like Mondays? Because Monday is at the beginning of what used to be a working week.

Victor Frank lies in bed, wondering whether or why he should get up and do something. But what? 

No wife; no job; no business; no kids. Just the flat which Julia moved him into: close enough to the old marital home that he used to be able to visit the kids but far enough away for her to be sure he'd never go knocking on their door in the dead of night. Such is Victor's train of thought. He's just being paranoid. Isn't he?

Stay in bed and wait for something to happen, or get up and see what happens? Or even make something happen? 

He left the door between the bedroom and the living room open last night. From his reclined position, he can see the sofa in the middle of the living room - at the top of the short flight of steps up from the bedroom - and in front of it, the box sealed with green parcel tape; the box containing Doctor Miles Brunner's tape recordings and transcripts. 

Since moving into the flat just over a year ago, having gathered the doctor's abandoned belongings together, photographed them all, sold some, kept some as his own, boxed what remained and placed that remainder in the loft - in the room of forgotten things - along with some of his own things and forgotten about them, now he was reminded, looking at that box. He remembered what he'd told himself he'd do when he first moved in: sort through the boxes of everything he'd acquired. But the boxes had languished in the loft; forgotten in the room of forgotten things.

Victor had one thing: time. And so the box sealed with green parcel tape was what he planned to spend time on; with; sorting through; and the time he had would allow him - more than others - the opportunity to find out about this mysterious Doctor Brunner. 

Victor ascends to the living room and over to the kitchen bar to make brunch. Then coffee - lots of cream, lots of sugar - in one hand and a carton of cold Chinese food in the other, he sits on the sofa and switches on the TV to watch the news, placing his coffee and Chinese on the box sealed with green tape which serves as a coffee table. Nothing much in the news and not a lot on TV as he scans through the channels, he finishes brunch, places his cup and half of a half-empty Chinese container on the floor either side of the box and looks at it once again: Doctor Brunner's tapes and manuscripts. Let's see what's in here...

The box containing the tapes and manuscripts is made of corrugated cardboard and as Victor peels the parcel tape off of the lid, it takes a layer of cardboard with it; rather like a layer of skin being removed. Pushing down on the top of the box - the second and remaining layer - the seal is broken and Victor is reminded of what he last saw inside: just a pile of innocuous-looking papers in a plastic wallet and old mini-tapes: the type used in analogue voice recorders. At first glance, Victor estimates that there are around twenty cassette tapes: none are in boxes and neither are they labelled. He doesn't have the means to play mini cassettes, despite his stack of hi-fi equipment. He turns his attention to the sole plastic wallet of papers in the box.

A blank protective sheet of thin card sits at the front of the plastic wallet. Opening the wallet and removing the sheet of card, Victor takes out the first sheet of paper beneath the card. The paper is thick and Victor estimates that the quarter-inch-thick stack of paper in the wallet probably runs to only around twenty five sheets. This shouldn't take long to read...

The first sheet is hand-written, in a scrawl which reminds Victor of doctors' notes his mother used to be given for him:

I may have to leave any time soon. In the event of my leaving, I hope that what I've gathered can be kept together; to be retained as a collection: I think it's all connected but I don't have time to join the dots. I may not have time to label or catalogue everything, so if someone with more time than me finds all of this, I hope they can continue what I may have to leave. I hope they can find what I sought. 

If you are reading this, then you are reading this: you are able to read. I think, therefore I am. Or am I? What am I? 

Briefly yours,

Miles Brunner.