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NOTE - This is the first draft of a short story. Comments welcome. Even ones about Tenby's nightlife and the album cover art of the Police.
The Card
In the weeks before the Last Crash the powers at Bank decided to launch a new product. Their cash points, though they had adapted to the various needs of the people in the previous decade, were still little more than holes in the wall filled with steel and paper. The banks were proud of these machines, with their shiny screens and fluorescent lettered buttons. The machines were their best employees, always on hand to dish out money for drinks and trinkets. Sometimes the machines dished out bad news, and sometimes they took a punch for their troubles, but usually they generously gave of themselves, neatly stacked bundles of faith for every denomination.
Things changed, the powers at Phone had produced little hand held phones and people became obsessed with them, wailing at night with terrifying dreams of separation from their little hand held children. The powers at Bank agreed to put an option on their cash machine screens to Add Phone Credit so people could chat and drink.
Then Internet came along. They made friends with Phone and Bank but the Cash Machine department never got invited to their glittering party. All the other departments at Bank knew it was only a matter of time before Cash Machine would be closed down. Physical money was disappearing. It was all in the ether now. And that would be for the better. No one could lose something that wasn’t there. No one could be mugged for the contents of a non-existent purse. On Fridays, the bars filled with people with tiny phones and money you couldn’t even see. The people who worked for Bank Machine would sigh and remember better times.
My father worked for Bank Machine. He installed the first notes in the first machine. The world’s press had been invited. People peered through the window as he switched the machine on in front of all the Bank employees. He was carried on the shoulders of cheering men and women as the array of lights and mechanised whirring began the revolution waiting to happen outside. It was half past five on a Friday night. My dad was lowered down to the street as he produced the first cash card from his wallet. The crowd went silent. Across the world people watched on their Televisions. People openly wept as he held up the ten pound note to the floodlights.
That was how things stayed for so long. People had their cards and took money out of the wall. It went from status symbol to everyday item in the blink of an eye. And once that had happened, the celebrity that my father enjoyed (and the acclaim that came with it for all who worked in Bank Machine) dwindled and died.
Until, the people at Bank Machine invented the Card. The Card would do everything. It was financial, telecom, entertainment and above all, it was doctor and sage. The Card would follow your transactions, your movements, make calculations arrived at from food receipts, altitude and speed of movement and give you your Life Score. People became obsessed with their Life Score. The queues at cash points once more reached the Biblical lengths of yore.
My father would tell me the Card was madness. He wondered when it would be that the madness would begin. The Card, he’d say to me as I came home late from school, will cause more wars than the Bible and the Bomb put together. I’d hear him downstairs at night, shouting at salesmen on the phone.
*
Although my father had warned against it, my mother had still bought me a Card for my 14th birthday.
“All his friends have one. You know how important it is to fit in at his age.”
It was slim silver. The 4th best on the First Card index. Everyone knew it was good.
My mum smiled as my dad begged me to be careful.
“I won’t lose it.” I said and my parents blinked back tears just like in the advert.
*
When you insert the Card for the first time the screen lines up a small beam of infra-red light that you must look at directly with your left eye. The screen clears and soon fills with all kinds of physical data about your body. It tells you your height and weight, your BMI, pulse and scans your brain for tumours. It tells you how much Money you have at that second and tells you where you could eat a good meal near to that Cash point. It books the table if you want. You already know that, though, don’t you.
I ate a burger and fries and twenty minutes later the Card told me to walk briskly home before the rain came.
*
The first incidents of Card Rage were dismissed by Cash Machines as myth and mischief-making by The Other Corporations. My dad was retired early by Bank for bringing it up at a board meeting. A man in Dusseldorf had left a print out of his Stress Levels on his desk in error and had been summarily dismissed from his job with Sport Clothing. He inserted his Card in a machine on the way home and was recommended a sushi restaurant for dinner. Raw fish, said the coroner, contains vital decoagulants for those with looming coronary issues. The man, a Herr Allofs, plunged a knife into the face of the waitress who brought him Drinks recommended by the Card.
Seventy four people, mainly Card users, died when the jet that took them to a new zoo in Utah plunged into a popular ski resort. Until the article was removed, an online journalist reported that the pilot had used his Card a mere ten minutes before takeoff and had received a horoscope he had badly interpreted. There were Card-related suicide cults in Uppsala, in Murmansk and Cleveland. A dentist in Cork removed all of his own teeth in despair when his Replacement Card was delayed.
Looking back now, we can all see that something truly bad would happen. My father said it would happen and we chose to ignore him. My mother left him for another woman after choosing Love Sage on the Card. They burnt to death when their car left the road near the Festival of Marksmanship at Sacramento. My father took the call in his study, I was sat upstairs framing my Statements; he put the phone down and sobbed loudly and pitifully. Eventually I went downstairs and took the news from him. My Card had just enough credits for chrysanthemums.
*
Ignacio Urfate Lopez was drunk the evening he was murdered for his kidneys. He was the owner and manager of a small bistro on the outskirts of Palo Alto. It was a dirty, dim lit place but popular with the local poor of whom Lopez proudly declared his membership. After each Saturday evening shift, he would clear the last of the customers, sweep as much of the floor as he could be bothered and pour himself a large wine glass of dark rum.
One of his staff, an elderly tall fellow of pale skin and yellowing eyes, a man named Suttree complained that he had not been paid that week and asked if Lopez would pay him from the till instead. Lopez apparently had cashed up and emailed Bank but said that if Suttree would wait ten minutes he would switch Credit from his Card to Suttree's via the Cardpoint on Utrillo Square.
What happened next depends on your point of view. Lopez was pretty drunk as he wandered over to the square with Suttree. It was gone midnight, not a soul to be found. Suttree claimed, and there was a lot of supporting evidence for a while on the Internet, that Lopez dropped his wallet and everything fell out. In the ensuing confusion and, no doubt in a rush to be rid of the whining Suttree, an adjective which to his credit the unfortunate Suttree did nothing to disprove or deny in court, Lopez inserted a Donor Card into the Card slot. Apparently he laughed when he realised his error and updated his record to say they could “take every fucking thing they wanted. Who cares, I’m dead?”
Suttree claims that Lopez then put the Card into the slot and switched 250 dollars to his account. The police claim there was a further row about monies owed and Suttree followed him back to his apartment and took his kidneys, eyes, heart and liver out with knives stolen from the diner.
People say they saw ambulances arrive twice.
I don’t know which people anymore. The Donor Card Company agreed to the Merger and everything appears to have gone back to normal.
*
Tonight the execution of Joseph Mark Suttree will take place on television. Firing squad as voted for by the people after the Justice Count. I myself voted against the Execution. I have a receipt for that Transaction framed upon my wall. I have a copy, as per the Regulations, filed away. But the important receipts I keep. In this, I am not alone. The disbelievers talk of the death of photo albums and letter writing; mock our electronic mementos and digital memories. Everyone has their favourite Receipts. I have my Marriage Bond, I have my Good Attendance Riband Receipt from the Bank, and I have a Loyal and Careful Driver Certificate from the Road Organisation. These are all framed and hang upon my study wall.
On the desk, the computer sits. I will switch the monitor off in a second. The execution is being streamed with a five-second delay, I won’t watch it. I have cut up my Card this evening and it is framed with the last receipt, a bottle of an excellent Chilean red which should improve my Heart Score.
To the left of the monitor, there are scissors. Underneath the scissors, there are tonight’s receipts which I will frame this evening. One for my updated Donor records, one for painkillers and another for chrysanthemums.
Showing posts with label short story. Show all posts
Showing posts with label short story. Show all posts
Sunday, 1 August 2010
Saturday, 24 July 2010
Getting Off
It’s not a secret where I work. It’s not a secret because I don’t have anyone to keep secrets from. The only people who I ever see to talk to are the customers and they clearly know where I work.
The name of the shop is Unknown Pleasures and it belongs to my uncle Danny who broke his back in a car crash two years ago and probably isn’t going to be coming back soon. Don’t know why, I mean, even before the accident, he had to have the place all bloody wheelchair-access friendly and all that cos of the regulations now so he could conceivably get here. Maybe it’s an image thing. I’ve not seen any wheelchair guys come in since we had the ramp fitted anyway.
Perhaps they’re too fed up to, er, you know.
I had always known the name of the shop but somehow the nature of the business had always managed to evade my ears until the night I agreed to step in for my uncle. I thought it was a bookshop. I thought it was named after that Joy Division album.
Just goes to show how wrong you can be.
I went to visit my uncle in hospital a couple of times after the accident. He was pretty badly smashed up; all his own fault like. I can’t remember anyone successfully defending a drink driving charge by blaming the drink. He’d had eight or nine pints of wifebeater so he was pretty well lubricated.
But still, they say even Hitler liked dogs and I know my uncle isn’t that bad, despite what my parents say about him. He always bought me cool presents when I was a kid and always looked out for me when I had a row with my dad. When he asked me to mind the shop for a bit I’d just failed my finals so I was at a loose end anyway.
Two years ago that was. Two years in this dingy hole, not even the slightest bit of daylight creeping in except when following the customers in and out of the premises. Like this one bastard. Comes in three times a week. Slips me the wink like I was his mate. I don’t know what he does for a living but I just know it involves fucking people over. He’s probably a landlord or a loans manager or something else that profits on the currency of human vulnerability.
Mind you, I’m a fine one to talk. Look at me, fucking running a porn shop. If I had any friends I’d tell them the truth and hope that they understood my answer to mean working in a business where people trade possessions in for temporary loans. Not that there’s a world of difference between the two. When you’re broke, fifty quid’s fifty quid. Might be the necklace your nan gave you in the hospice before she slipped into flatline country, might be two cocks in your mouth. If you’re broke enough, you’re broke enough.
No windows in these shops. By law. Just so the moral majority are spared the sight of dildos and gimp restraints on their way to work each morning. Fair enough. I mean you turn on the telly or pick up a paper in the morning and it’s all murder, famine and ethnic cleansing so why really ruin your morning by seeing a naked woman or a device to help lonely people achieve sexual satisfaction.
Don’t talk to me about fucking lonely. You don’t know the half of it.
Before I go on, I better tell you, I’m no prude but I don’t really like pornography. That might make me a hypocrite but there’s fuck all else in this town except bar work and call centre work. I did a day in one of those call centres once. Some guy trying to tell me that the ultimate product I can sell is my own personality. Fucking no-mark. And I couldn’t go into a bar knowing that I wasn’t there to have a good time.
I’m only 23 but I reckon I’m the oldest virgin in town. The irony kills me. There I am, all day surrounded by magazines and films showing nothing but endless variations on the themes of fucking and sucking, and I’ve never had it off in my whole life. I don’t even feel like trying any more. You spend a year surrounded by jazzmags and fucktoys and see how horny you feel.
I had a girlfriend once. Met her at uni. Went out for six months but she was a fucking Godhead. Let me bastard finger her a couple of times but that was it. Wouldn’t fucking touch me anywhere erotic at all. She dumped me for Jesus and the precious little confidence I had in my looks and personality pretty much died on me then.
That’s it. My whole experience of women right there. I don’t think I’m that bad looking. Christ, my mate Ben Salmon, he’s got a face like a rhino with backache and he’s practically beating them off each Friday night in town. Got one of those silly angular hair cuts and his jeans start past his bollocks. Maybe that’s it.
Yeah, right.
There’s this girl works in the same arcade as the shop. Works in the bookshop up the road, Tall Stories. Small place. I think they sell a lot of sci-fi, fantasy sort of stuff. I keep meaning to go in there but she’ll be there so I daren’t.
She gets the same bus to me to work, gets on the stop after mine. She’s quite tall, skinny, always got her big fuck off headphones on. Sometimes she wears this psychedelic tartan dress with these big mad black futuristic boots. She looks like she’s all alone in this world but I can’t believe she is. I mean, she’s beautiful. Well, she is to me. I once caught her eye quite by accident and she shot me a smile which made my day and ruined my life all at the same time.
Ben Salmon would talk to her. He wouldn’t have second thoughts.
At least twice a week I’ll get off the stop before her and carefully follow her from a distance just to see the way she walks. Even her shadow, in summer, drives me crazy. I’m sure my shadow fancies hers. It must do.
Yeah, I suppose it is stalking. But it’s limited stalking. I don’t follow her home, I don’t know her name though I often see her in the sandwich bar at the end of the arcade spilling money all over the counter and apologising to everyone behind her in the queue without ever looking anyone directly in the eye.
Cheese and pickle. No margarine.
If I could just close the shop in time to catch her locking up behind her and get on the bus at the same time as her. Maybe have to sit next to her, strike up conversation. I think I would pretty much do anything for that.
Except of course, grow some fucking balls.
Every night, we close at fucking half five and there’s always some bastard trying to get in who’s sneaked off work ten minutes early just to run down here and buy a couple of sleazy looking magazines and a horrible film.
Night before last, it was that bastard I was telling you about. Mr Slip Me The Wink. Fucking hell. Six months or so ago the twat comes in, just as I’m trying to flip the sign in the tiny rectangle window to CLOSED. He says he won’t be a minute, wants to ask me something. There’s nobody else in the shop. I answer his second question.
“No we don’t stock rape films. Not even out the back.”
Anyway he was in again last night, making all the usual conspiratorial facial gestures. I think he thinks I won the job lottery. Like every night, I can’t wait to chuck people out the shop so I can suck on a dildo and knock one out in my leather bodice to Hospital Homos or No Cunny For Old Men.
Fucking prick’s got his head turned behind him as he’s halfway through the door.
“Twwwwwwffffffffffff”
He makes this noise like buses do when they’re letting people on and off. He looks at me, junks a thumb backwards behind him and, making his way into the shop, says to me.
“Fucking make a mess out of that.”
I’ve already shut the door behind him. I don’t want her to see me here, not ever. I could be strong one day, buy her a sandwich and take it to her shop. Send her a flower. I’ve seen it in films. Nice films with proper lighting. Films that don't end with five blokes casting diaphanous streams of spunk across the same face. Nothing like the nasty shit I sell.
Bus Noises is at it again.
“Twffffffff. That tall girl from the bookshop. Imagine hanging out the back of that, eh?”
He doesn’t stand a fucking chance.
I pick up a couple of gimp balls (£8.99 each, 2 for £12)from under the counter and slip them into one of the little sacks I use to take money to the bank on a Friday lunchtime. He’s trying to choose between Swallowing Amazons and Thelma Loves Louise and he’s practically wanking in his pocket. Before either of us can think our choices through my wrist has completed its own frantic circular motion and I’ve smashed his skull in with a wrapped-up sex toy.
The next thing, I’m dragging his body into the basement down the secret staircase behind the till. I run upstairs and I’ve got some novelty tissues (Wankerchiefs – scented with balm for your loving palm) out of a packet and cleaned up the blood from the display racks. I put the money into the safe. I go back under the stairs and I make sure he’s dead before switching all the lights off and locking the door behind me. He’s fucking dead all right.
It’s my lucky night.
I’ve locked the door behind me, I can hear the alarm going as the shutter goes down and, as I turn to walk to the bus, she’s forty yards ahead of me. She walks beautifully, like a gazelle or something else that doesn’t know it’s being watched. She’s got her headphones on and this mad gingham dress that I haven’t seen before. I feel my heart racing even faster than it was a few minutes ago when I was wiping blood off the cover of Julie Ate Romeo. I feel like a hunter. I follow her to the end of the arcade where the wind always takes you by surprise and the traffic sounds like an alarm clock and I think about that awful dead man in the cellar of my shop.
I would buy this girl flowers. I would tell her how I felt. I would ask if I could name and number each of her eyelashes and never put margarine on her bread. I would do anything just to know her name.
She gets on the bus, I am behind her but as I go to get on, this old lady steps in front of me and though I know what will happen, I have to let her on first. I mean, I just have to. The old lady takes the last available seat next to the beautiful girl from Tall Stories.
It starts to rain as we pull away. The bus heaters are on and I feel stupid hanging on to one of the little joke ropes at the front of the bus. We stop at the girl’s usual stop and as she brushes past me, I feel the momentary warmth of her body touching mine despite all the layers of clothing between us. She is gone and I remain, clutching onto the baby noose.
We pull away from the stop and I watch her adjusting her headphones in the drizzled lamppost light. I think for a moment of sitting where she has sat. To have a second moment of her warmth in my life but it’s my stop next and this is where I get off.
The name of the shop is Unknown Pleasures and it belongs to my uncle Danny who broke his back in a car crash two years ago and probably isn’t going to be coming back soon. Don’t know why, I mean, even before the accident, he had to have the place all bloody wheelchair-access friendly and all that cos of the regulations now so he could conceivably get here. Maybe it’s an image thing. I’ve not seen any wheelchair guys come in since we had the ramp fitted anyway.
Perhaps they’re too fed up to, er, you know.
I had always known the name of the shop but somehow the nature of the business had always managed to evade my ears until the night I agreed to step in for my uncle. I thought it was a bookshop. I thought it was named after that Joy Division album.
Just goes to show how wrong you can be.
I went to visit my uncle in hospital a couple of times after the accident. He was pretty badly smashed up; all his own fault like. I can’t remember anyone successfully defending a drink driving charge by blaming the drink. He’d had eight or nine pints of wifebeater so he was pretty well lubricated.
But still, they say even Hitler liked dogs and I know my uncle isn’t that bad, despite what my parents say about him. He always bought me cool presents when I was a kid and always looked out for me when I had a row with my dad. When he asked me to mind the shop for a bit I’d just failed my finals so I was at a loose end anyway.
Two years ago that was. Two years in this dingy hole, not even the slightest bit of daylight creeping in except when following the customers in and out of the premises. Like this one bastard. Comes in three times a week. Slips me the wink like I was his mate. I don’t know what he does for a living but I just know it involves fucking people over. He’s probably a landlord or a loans manager or something else that profits on the currency of human vulnerability.
Mind you, I’m a fine one to talk. Look at me, fucking running a porn shop. If I had any friends I’d tell them the truth and hope that they understood my answer to mean working in a business where people trade possessions in for temporary loans. Not that there’s a world of difference between the two. When you’re broke, fifty quid’s fifty quid. Might be the necklace your nan gave you in the hospice before she slipped into flatline country, might be two cocks in your mouth. If you’re broke enough, you’re broke enough.
No windows in these shops. By law. Just so the moral majority are spared the sight of dildos and gimp restraints on their way to work each morning. Fair enough. I mean you turn on the telly or pick up a paper in the morning and it’s all murder, famine and ethnic cleansing so why really ruin your morning by seeing a naked woman or a device to help lonely people achieve sexual satisfaction.
Don’t talk to me about fucking lonely. You don’t know the half of it.
Before I go on, I better tell you, I’m no prude but I don’t really like pornography. That might make me a hypocrite but there’s fuck all else in this town except bar work and call centre work. I did a day in one of those call centres once. Some guy trying to tell me that the ultimate product I can sell is my own personality. Fucking no-mark. And I couldn’t go into a bar knowing that I wasn’t there to have a good time.
I’m only 23 but I reckon I’m the oldest virgin in town. The irony kills me. There I am, all day surrounded by magazines and films showing nothing but endless variations on the themes of fucking and sucking, and I’ve never had it off in my whole life. I don’t even feel like trying any more. You spend a year surrounded by jazzmags and fucktoys and see how horny you feel.
I had a girlfriend once. Met her at uni. Went out for six months but she was a fucking Godhead. Let me bastard finger her a couple of times but that was it. Wouldn’t fucking touch me anywhere erotic at all. She dumped me for Jesus and the precious little confidence I had in my looks and personality pretty much died on me then.
That’s it. My whole experience of women right there. I don’t think I’m that bad looking. Christ, my mate Ben Salmon, he’s got a face like a rhino with backache and he’s practically beating them off each Friday night in town. Got one of those silly angular hair cuts and his jeans start past his bollocks. Maybe that’s it.
Yeah, right.
There’s this girl works in the same arcade as the shop. Works in the bookshop up the road, Tall Stories. Small place. I think they sell a lot of sci-fi, fantasy sort of stuff. I keep meaning to go in there but she’ll be there so I daren’t.
She gets the same bus to me to work, gets on the stop after mine. She’s quite tall, skinny, always got her big fuck off headphones on. Sometimes she wears this psychedelic tartan dress with these big mad black futuristic boots. She looks like she’s all alone in this world but I can’t believe she is. I mean, she’s beautiful. Well, she is to me. I once caught her eye quite by accident and she shot me a smile which made my day and ruined my life all at the same time.
Ben Salmon would talk to her. He wouldn’t have second thoughts.
At least twice a week I’ll get off the stop before her and carefully follow her from a distance just to see the way she walks. Even her shadow, in summer, drives me crazy. I’m sure my shadow fancies hers. It must do.
Yeah, I suppose it is stalking. But it’s limited stalking. I don’t follow her home, I don’t know her name though I often see her in the sandwich bar at the end of the arcade spilling money all over the counter and apologising to everyone behind her in the queue without ever looking anyone directly in the eye.
Cheese and pickle. No margarine.
If I could just close the shop in time to catch her locking up behind her and get on the bus at the same time as her. Maybe have to sit next to her, strike up conversation. I think I would pretty much do anything for that.
Except of course, grow some fucking balls.
Every night, we close at fucking half five and there’s always some bastard trying to get in who’s sneaked off work ten minutes early just to run down here and buy a couple of sleazy looking magazines and a horrible film.
Night before last, it was that bastard I was telling you about. Mr Slip Me The Wink. Fucking hell. Six months or so ago the twat comes in, just as I’m trying to flip the sign in the tiny rectangle window to CLOSED. He says he won’t be a minute, wants to ask me something. There’s nobody else in the shop. I answer his second question.
“No we don’t stock rape films. Not even out the back.”
Anyway he was in again last night, making all the usual conspiratorial facial gestures. I think he thinks I won the job lottery. Like every night, I can’t wait to chuck people out the shop so I can suck on a dildo and knock one out in my leather bodice to Hospital Homos or No Cunny For Old Men.
Fucking prick’s got his head turned behind him as he’s halfway through the door.
“Twwwwwwffffffffffff”
He makes this noise like buses do when they’re letting people on and off. He looks at me, junks a thumb backwards behind him and, making his way into the shop, says to me.
“Fucking make a mess out of that.”
I’ve already shut the door behind him. I don’t want her to see me here, not ever. I could be strong one day, buy her a sandwich and take it to her shop. Send her a flower. I’ve seen it in films. Nice films with proper lighting. Films that don't end with five blokes casting diaphanous streams of spunk across the same face. Nothing like the nasty shit I sell.
Bus Noises is at it again.
“Twffffffff. That tall girl from the bookshop. Imagine hanging out the back of that, eh?”
He doesn’t stand a fucking chance.
I pick up a couple of gimp balls (£8.99 each, 2 for £12)from under the counter and slip them into one of the little sacks I use to take money to the bank on a Friday lunchtime. He’s trying to choose between Swallowing Amazons and Thelma Loves Louise and he’s practically wanking in his pocket. Before either of us can think our choices through my wrist has completed its own frantic circular motion and I’ve smashed his skull in with a wrapped-up sex toy.
The next thing, I’m dragging his body into the basement down the secret staircase behind the till. I run upstairs and I’ve got some novelty tissues (Wankerchiefs – scented with balm for your loving palm) out of a packet and cleaned up the blood from the display racks. I put the money into the safe. I go back under the stairs and I make sure he’s dead before switching all the lights off and locking the door behind me. He’s fucking dead all right.
It’s my lucky night.
I’ve locked the door behind me, I can hear the alarm going as the shutter goes down and, as I turn to walk to the bus, she’s forty yards ahead of me. She walks beautifully, like a gazelle or something else that doesn’t know it’s being watched. She’s got her headphones on and this mad gingham dress that I haven’t seen before. I feel my heart racing even faster than it was a few minutes ago when I was wiping blood off the cover of Julie Ate Romeo. I feel like a hunter. I follow her to the end of the arcade where the wind always takes you by surprise and the traffic sounds like an alarm clock and I think about that awful dead man in the cellar of my shop.
I would buy this girl flowers. I would tell her how I felt. I would ask if I could name and number each of her eyelashes and never put margarine on her bread. I would do anything just to know her name.
She gets on the bus, I am behind her but as I go to get on, this old lady steps in front of me and though I know what will happen, I have to let her on first. I mean, I just have to. The old lady takes the last available seat next to the beautiful girl from Tall Stories.
It starts to rain as we pull away. The bus heaters are on and I feel stupid hanging on to one of the little joke ropes at the front of the bus. We stop at the girl’s usual stop and as she brushes past me, I feel the momentary warmth of her body touching mine despite all the layers of clothing between us. She is gone and I remain, clutching onto the baby noose.
We pull away from the stop and I watch her adjusting her headphones in the drizzled lamppost light. I think for a moment of sitting where she has sat. To have a second moment of her warmth in my life but it’s my stop next and this is where I get off.
Wednesday, 16 June 2010
Your Mother Should Know
The first thing I thought when I saw this was “well, who have I upset this time?” Cos, you know, this is a cut throat business. What was that Morrissey song? We Hate It When Our Friends Become Successful. Well, if that’s the case and let me assure you that it is, then our enemies go way past hate. They come into your home. They come into your home and they do this.
But then, I didn’t get where I am today without attention to detail. I see the blood in the snow. I see the message. You know, Fuck You. Written in blood etc. I’m like, hey wow, you have my attention. But then, I see it. Written in, I mean, is it human shit? I hope it is because well, I’ll be honest I don’t have a preference when it comes to what species of faeces people plump for when autographing their work but somehow it seems worse to use animal shit for this.
Hey Species of Faeces. That’s cool. I’m mentoring this metal band right now. Their name sucks. Desert Pilgrim. You know, sounds a bit Islamic or something. Species of Faeces. That’s gross. Kids love gross.
Sorry, officer, you’re right, I’m digressing. Daddy. That was the last word of the message. Fuck you written in blood in upper case. And erm Daddy in shit in lower case. Which, you know, narrows it down in terms of suspects.
How many children do I have? Five. Yep, the Washington Pentagon. Yeah, they’re my kids. I made them, my wife gave birth to them for sure but I made them. My sperm. My sweat. My relentless coaching. All those singing lessons, music lessons. The gigs. The tours. Biggest band of the eighties. Eighty million sperm times five kids equals four hundred million albums. That’s what I always say to the journalists. You know. Yeah, write your little hack job on me. I’m the one playing golf with Mel Gibson this weekend.
Okay. Kid number one and my number one suspect is Kennedy. Yep. As in the president. You don’t know much about music do you? Kennedy Washington. Date of birth, erm. Hang on, this was well we released Jailbait No More in er 1984 when she was sixteen. So it’s something 1968. I’ll have to ask my people, I’m hopeless with birthdays.
Why do I think it was her? Don’t you watch television? I ruined her life. She said so on Oprah. I’m a control freak apparently. Apparently she didn’t want to spend her childhood touring the country playing shopping malls and making hit records and becoming incredibly rich. She says that. You know, no one bought her last album so it’s Daddy’s fault. She’s the one who went solo. Broke the band. Broke the family band. Broke all their fans hearts. But no. I was ambitious for my children, I wanted them to have the life I never did and so I destroyed her life.
Do you have any kids, officer? No? Want some? I can buy you one. I’m joking officer, I know what you’re thinking, look at this rich asshole up here in the hills thinks he can buy children. I mean, there was a time when, quite frankly, I could buy nuclear weapons there was that much cash about but now you got to be Madonna to purchase a kid to go with the stereo.
Last time I saw her? I’ve never met her.
Oh, Kennedy. Right, sorry. Well, this would be last Christmas. She popped by the house and she freaked out because I went to pour everyone a drink with the dinner and she’s like going crazy about the 12 steps and this and that. And I was like woah calm down, chill out. It’s Christmas for Christ’s sake. And then she goes on about the time we did a live Christmas special for MTV in front of the fire, singing disco versions of all the classic Christmas songs despite the fact that their grandmother had died that very morning. Kids don’t understand contractual obligations. They understand having fucking limos and not having to go to regular school and having Michael J Fox come round to hang out at weekends but they don’t understand 150 million viewers being disappointed just cos of some family bereavement.
Then well, there’s Jefferson and Lincoln, the twins. Could they have done it? Yeah, I suppose so but it would have been a team effort. I can imagine Lincoln curling one out on the lawn but he’s thick as shit. Could he spell Daddy. I doubt it. I don’t think he’s ever called me Daddy either. Why? Why not. After the split, the twins wanted to do their own project. But you know, the twin thing wasn’t going to work. In order to market boy bands you need an ugly one. Not two! I’m joking, they’re beautiful boys. I love them. I promised them I’d get them this movie deal. Had it all worked out, it was a musical version of Rainman. I had Jefferson doing the Tom Cruise obviously but Lincoln got all pissed, saying I didn’t love him and that was why he had dyslexia.
Dyslexia, pah. Einstein was dyslexic and he invented the theory of relativity. Lincoln’s more dysfunctional than dyslexic, I can tell you. Used to wet the bed. And on a tour bus driving through the night to Tuscaloosa, you don’t want to wake up with your kid’s piss coming through the ceiling at you. I mean, hello, did I ask for the convertible? Is it raining?
I can laugh about it now but there was not a lot of laughter back then. The Rainman musical thing fell through and, even now, Jefferson still won’t return my calls.
Their dates of birth are probably on the internet.
Child number four. Monroe. Ha! Let’s face it, she had to be a stunning looking girl to get away with a name like Monroe and she is. Well, she is now. Is there, er, like a statute of limitations on certain misdemeanours. Look, I’ll be honest with you, we did a bit of work on her face when she was like five years old. It wasn’t a back street job but we flew to Amsterdam. Yeah Europe. There’s some fantastic cafes there, you should go. Fascinating people. You know, Anne Frank. Rembrandt. All those guys. Anyway, we get out there – it’s just a chin job. Forty minutes. She wakes up, we tell her she fell over and banged her chin and we stitched it all up. Best nine thousand dollars I ever spent. Well, up till then. Let me tell you, I’ve had nights since then where you need nine thousand dollars just to shut the driver up. It can’t be Monroe cos we talked just yesterday and she seemed fine. She’s been upset lately but yeah I think she was ok.
Their mother died. Heart problems. It was terrible. I miss her. Still.
Just leaves Franklin and he’s in jail. So it can’t have been him, right. I mean, he better not be out cos you know, attempted murder!! That’s why I got the gates. Jesus. Blood is thicker than water but you know a knife’s a knife. I told the District Attorney I don’t want him on Death Row or nothing, just stick him somewhere far away from me for 99 years. Kids. You raise em, you have to take some of the responsibility. I am not flawless. I am familiar with flaws. Yes, I suppose I screwed him out of two million dollars on a publishing deal. But its business. You can’t allow family loyalties to get in the way of business. Otherwise where would we be? I tell you where we’d be. We’d still be playing the Silver Nickel Casino in Box Elder, MO for fifty dollars apiece and no free beers.
So there’s the kids. You know. I love them with all my heart but we have differences of opinion. What family doesn’t?
Just the five kids. Well, just the five I know of. I mean, come on, all that young skirt hanging about in the eighties. Jesus, I’m human. Touch me! I bleed! Franklin proved that. There was this one tour, I think it was just after Family Values came out, this would be 1988 and well, let me tell you I was auditioning a lot of raw talent if you catch my drift, eh? I was like the access to Franklin and Jefferson. I was like the troll on the bridge man!
How old are you anyway, officer. You can’t be more than nineteen. Let me see that badge again.
What happened to your arm?
But then, I didn’t get where I am today without attention to detail. I see the blood in the snow. I see the message. You know, Fuck You. Written in blood etc. I’m like, hey wow, you have my attention. But then, I see it. Written in, I mean, is it human shit? I hope it is because well, I’ll be honest I don’t have a preference when it comes to what species of faeces people plump for when autographing their work but somehow it seems worse to use animal shit for this.
Hey Species of Faeces. That’s cool. I’m mentoring this metal band right now. Their name sucks. Desert Pilgrim. You know, sounds a bit Islamic or something. Species of Faeces. That’s gross. Kids love gross.
Sorry, officer, you’re right, I’m digressing. Daddy. That was the last word of the message. Fuck you written in blood in upper case. And erm Daddy in shit in lower case. Which, you know, narrows it down in terms of suspects.
How many children do I have? Five. Yep, the Washington Pentagon. Yeah, they’re my kids. I made them, my wife gave birth to them for sure but I made them. My sperm. My sweat. My relentless coaching. All those singing lessons, music lessons. The gigs. The tours. Biggest band of the eighties. Eighty million sperm times five kids equals four hundred million albums. That’s what I always say to the journalists. You know. Yeah, write your little hack job on me. I’m the one playing golf with Mel Gibson this weekend.
Okay. Kid number one and my number one suspect is Kennedy. Yep. As in the president. You don’t know much about music do you? Kennedy Washington. Date of birth, erm. Hang on, this was well we released Jailbait No More in er 1984 when she was sixteen. So it’s something 1968. I’ll have to ask my people, I’m hopeless with birthdays.
Why do I think it was her? Don’t you watch television? I ruined her life. She said so on Oprah. I’m a control freak apparently. Apparently she didn’t want to spend her childhood touring the country playing shopping malls and making hit records and becoming incredibly rich. She says that. You know, no one bought her last album so it’s Daddy’s fault. She’s the one who went solo. Broke the band. Broke the family band. Broke all their fans hearts. But no. I was ambitious for my children, I wanted them to have the life I never did and so I destroyed her life.
Do you have any kids, officer? No? Want some? I can buy you one. I’m joking officer, I know what you’re thinking, look at this rich asshole up here in the hills thinks he can buy children. I mean, there was a time when, quite frankly, I could buy nuclear weapons there was that much cash about but now you got to be Madonna to purchase a kid to go with the stereo.
Last time I saw her? I’ve never met her.
Oh, Kennedy. Right, sorry. Well, this would be last Christmas. She popped by the house and she freaked out because I went to pour everyone a drink with the dinner and she’s like going crazy about the 12 steps and this and that. And I was like woah calm down, chill out. It’s Christmas for Christ’s sake. And then she goes on about the time we did a live Christmas special for MTV in front of the fire, singing disco versions of all the classic Christmas songs despite the fact that their grandmother had died that very morning. Kids don’t understand contractual obligations. They understand having fucking limos and not having to go to regular school and having Michael J Fox come round to hang out at weekends but they don’t understand 150 million viewers being disappointed just cos of some family bereavement.
Then well, there’s Jefferson and Lincoln, the twins. Could they have done it? Yeah, I suppose so but it would have been a team effort. I can imagine Lincoln curling one out on the lawn but he’s thick as shit. Could he spell Daddy. I doubt it. I don’t think he’s ever called me Daddy either. Why? Why not. After the split, the twins wanted to do their own project. But you know, the twin thing wasn’t going to work. In order to market boy bands you need an ugly one. Not two! I’m joking, they’re beautiful boys. I love them. I promised them I’d get them this movie deal. Had it all worked out, it was a musical version of Rainman. I had Jefferson doing the Tom Cruise obviously but Lincoln got all pissed, saying I didn’t love him and that was why he had dyslexia.
Dyslexia, pah. Einstein was dyslexic and he invented the theory of relativity. Lincoln’s more dysfunctional than dyslexic, I can tell you. Used to wet the bed. And on a tour bus driving through the night to Tuscaloosa, you don’t want to wake up with your kid’s piss coming through the ceiling at you. I mean, hello, did I ask for the convertible? Is it raining?
I can laugh about it now but there was not a lot of laughter back then. The Rainman musical thing fell through and, even now, Jefferson still won’t return my calls.
Their dates of birth are probably on the internet.
Child number four. Monroe. Ha! Let’s face it, she had to be a stunning looking girl to get away with a name like Monroe and she is. Well, she is now. Is there, er, like a statute of limitations on certain misdemeanours. Look, I’ll be honest with you, we did a bit of work on her face when she was like five years old. It wasn’t a back street job but we flew to Amsterdam. Yeah Europe. There’s some fantastic cafes there, you should go. Fascinating people. You know, Anne Frank. Rembrandt. All those guys. Anyway, we get out there – it’s just a chin job. Forty minutes. She wakes up, we tell her she fell over and banged her chin and we stitched it all up. Best nine thousand dollars I ever spent. Well, up till then. Let me tell you, I’ve had nights since then where you need nine thousand dollars just to shut the driver up. It can’t be Monroe cos we talked just yesterday and she seemed fine. She’s been upset lately but yeah I think she was ok.
Their mother died. Heart problems. It was terrible. I miss her. Still.
Just leaves Franklin and he’s in jail. So it can’t have been him, right. I mean, he better not be out cos you know, attempted murder!! That’s why I got the gates. Jesus. Blood is thicker than water but you know a knife’s a knife. I told the District Attorney I don’t want him on Death Row or nothing, just stick him somewhere far away from me for 99 years. Kids. You raise em, you have to take some of the responsibility. I am not flawless. I am familiar with flaws. Yes, I suppose I screwed him out of two million dollars on a publishing deal. But its business. You can’t allow family loyalties to get in the way of business. Otherwise where would we be? I tell you where we’d be. We’d still be playing the Silver Nickel Casino in Box Elder, MO for fifty dollars apiece and no free beers.
So there’s the kids. You know. I love them with all my heart but we have differences of opinion. What family doesn’t?
Just the five kids. Well, just the five I know of. I mean, come on, all that young skirt hanging about in the eighties. Jesus, I’m human. Touch me! I bleed! Franklin proved that. There was this one tour, I think it was just after Family Values came out, this would be 1988 and well, let me tell you I was auditioning a lot of raw talent if you catch my drift, eh? I was like the access to Franklin and Jefferson. I was like the troll on the bridge man!
How old are you anyway, officer. You can’t be more than nineteen. Let me see that badge again.
What happened to your arm?
Sunday, 23 May 2010
The Potato and the Lion
Another short story. My attempt at being Chekhov. The one in Star Trek.
Mikhail Antonovich lived in Apartment 142. It was a dull apartment in a dull building, Block 94 East of the Luzhyna Development north of the river. Mikhail worked as a civil servant organising the repair of the city’s broken lamp posts. He lived a life of simplicity and monotony. Each day he would wake early, drink some tea. He would eat some toast and then make his way to the metro station and alight at Lubyanka.
Walking across the great square each morning he would check the lamp posts around him. Nothing could be of greater torment to a man entrusted with illuminating Moscow’s streets at night than a smashed or otherwise deficient lamp post within spitting distance of his office.
Each morning his assistant Svetlana, an elfin girl with large eyelashes and a slight moustache, would bring him the overnight report on new faults, as well as lists of completed repairs. When these reports were read, signed, counter-signed and filed, Antonovich would dismiss Svetlana and take lunch alone at a small cafe on Myasnitskaya. Usually he would eat soup, perhaps some dumplings. On a hot day he might allow himself a small beer. After eating, he would return to his office, look out of the window and write imaginary letters of complaint to his department as well as sarcastically worded replies from himself. Occasionally, if the weather had been excessively hot, Mikhail would try to transcribe the words his heart were incapable of saying and his mouth unlikely to. Rare were the afternoons when he would have something official to do. The nights offered their own torment; the clock reaching six brought joyless sighs from his unsmiling mouth. He would wait for Svetlana to leave and shred the day’s love letters as he watched her depart from his window.
It was a dull and loveless life and that is why his story is of not much concern to us except perhaps to warn us against the perils of the bureaucratic existence. His brother Alexei, however, lived a life of adventure and though we may be as quick as his brother to envy him his daring, pluck and courage let me state now that you will see this tale is also a cautionary one.
Alexei was as different to his brother as a potato is to a lion. Alexei was shorter and darker than his brother. Older too by a year and wider around the waist, but he had charisma where Mikhail had attention to detail. In his brother’s eyes, Alexei was a degenerate playboy. In reality he was a Mafia puppet who ran a nightclub close to the Alexander Garden called Napoleon’s. Whilst outwardly appearing to be the man in charge, Alexei would often be snowed under with administration and repairs but he too had a beautiful assistant to take care of things.
Her name was Katarina. Alexei loved Katarina but he could not bring himself to settle down with her. Whenever he got the opportunity he would pursue unsatisfactorily brief liaisons with the glamorous prostitutes who were hired to ensnare the wealthy Western tourists and local businessmen who patronised his club. It was a perk of the job; Alexei even got a staff discount. He joked to his male friends he was in charge of quality control. But that was in the club. At home, he was alone. Katarina would visit and the urge to be a good man would raise its voice within him, only to be drowned by other louder voices the moment she suggested moving in together or getting married.
Eventually, as is sometimes the case in such situations, Katarina was visited by the stork.
“It’s not so bad,” Alexei told Katarina over coffee in a small cafe near to the clinic. “I’ve got plenty of money.”
“It’s frightening,” she said
“There is nothing to worry about. People go through this all the time,” Alexei tried to comfort her.
They were talking about two different outcomes.
Little Oleg came in at seven pounds exactly. He was a beautiful boy and the happiness he brought to Katarina when she first held him was matched only by the deep sense of distress Alexei felt rising inside of him. The midwife at the hospital handed little Oleg to his father and almost immediately, both father and midwife regretted that decision, the infant screamed with all its might the moment his father’s fingers wrapped themselves around his tiny shawled body. Despite what you might have heard about the bond between parent and child, it is quite possible for a baby to be dropped at such a moment – the quick thinking midwife, a stocky girl from Odessa called Irina who was the only child of a former Spartak Moscow goalkeeper, fell to her knees and caught the child before tragedy could strike.
Alexei looked to his girlfriend and saw the fear in her eyes. He looked to the midwife and saw the anger in hers. Sensing the gravity of the situation, Alexei ran out of the ward, out of the hospital and all the way to his own comforting womb.
Ignoring the hellos of his staff and the enquiring open palms of his regulars, Alexei grabbed a large bottle of vodka from a fridge behind the bar, and moved silently but quickly to a corner table.
People would approach the table to see if they too might wet the baby’s head, and on seeing Alexei’s forbidding expression, would retreat rapidly. Soon people began to worry that all was not well with mother and child.
One of Napoleon’s regulars, a loan shark called Petruchek, a man who enjoyed a reputation for heartlessness in all things, went to ask one of the barmaids what was the matter.
“I do not know. Perhaps somebody should phone the hospital.”
“Yes. That is a good idea. I do not like to see my business associates unhappy,” agreed Petruchek.
“I’m fine,” shouted Alexei, “I’m fine, the baby is fine, and Katarina is fine.”
“Then what is the problem?” asked the barmaid.
The evening passed quickly, Alexei emptied his heart as quickly as his glass. He was not an especially tolerant drinker and was soon slurring his words. However, both Petruchek and the barmaid, a beautiful girl from the former Ukraine whose name escapes me, came to understand that the father had been rejected by the child on first sight. Petruchek made a phone call and sent flowers from both himself and Alexei to mother and child. The girl filled the glasses all night and ordered Alexei a taxi to take him home.
In the back of the taxi, Alexei slept like a baby. He dreamt himself back to his own childhood, to a school corridor, he found himself running down this corridor faster and faster towards the window at the far end. At the moment he leapt through the glass, he awoke to find the taxi stopped. The driver watched him in the rear view mirror and sipped from a flask. Alexei tried to take it all in – the drink, the baby, the dream, the smell of black coffee filling the cab’s interior.
“How much do I owe you?”
“Nothing”
“What? Come on man, how much?”
“Seriously, the fare is paid. Let me give you something in return.”
Alexei yawned and rubbed his eyes before staring outside. A light sprinkling of snow had fallen; the ground was sugar-coated.
“What do you want to give me?”
“There is a book that contains all the knowledge you need.”
“Ah, a holy man! Please, keep your bibles. I am fine,”
Alexei reached for the door handle but the lock was on.
“Please, if this is a kidnapping, I can assure you I know powerful people. Just let me go,”
The driver handed a folded piece of paper back through the screen.
“There is a book. Once, all fathers knew of this book though few do now. It contains all the information you need to bond with little Oleg.”
“What? Who are you, what is this? How do you...?”
“My name is Kharms. There is a village in Tibet called Bangada. To the north of the village there is a mountain called Unghru. There is a small cave halfway up the mountain. It is difficult to access but a word to the right people in the village will get you safely there. The Book will provide all answers. And, armed with that knowledge, you will be a better person, a better father.”
“What? What is this? Please, let me go. Goodnight.”
The locks were sprung, Alexei got out. He stood as the little yellow car pulled away and, once satisfied by the disappearance of its red taillights, screwed the piece of paper in his hand into a ball and threw it into the air, where the white bluster mistook it for a larger snowflake and sent it spinning into the darkness.
The next day, Alexei awoke in horror. His bedside clock read a few minutes before midday. His wife and his son would be home soon. His home. Alexei stumbled around his apartment, a place he no longer recognised. In the corner of his bedroom, a room where once he had taken the pick of Moscow’s young ladies, a cot now stood. He approached the crib as though there was already a babe asleep within; softly and cautiously.
It did not stop him screaming when he saw the piece of paper folded neatly upon the blankets within. Unfolding it, Alexei began to sob. His eyes read the directions as Kharms had spoken them the night before. He removed a cigarette lighter from his pocket, walked into the small kitchen and, after opening a silver pedal bin, lit the paper and dropped it burning into the darkness within.
For a few days after Katarina and Oleg came home, all seemed well. The baby fed well, slept well, did not seem sick or irritable. The only thing that was amiss was Alexei. Every time he went to hold the baby, the baby awoke with a scream that shook the whole apartment. After the third such scream, Alexei put the baby back into its cot and went to the bathroom.
After going to the toilet, he noticed that the toilet roll sheets were strangely patterned with a faint rubric. On closer examination, Alexei’s heart sank as he realised nothing would stop until he had followed Kharms’s instructions.
That night he packed a small suitcase with clothes and documentation. He found himself continually thinking that he had done all this before. He told his wife he had been called away on sudden business.
“Do you have to go? Where? When will you be back?”
Alexei had no honest answer he could give to any of these questions. He kissed his wife and looked briefly in on the sleeping infant.
"I’ll be back in a few days,” he shouted as the taxi beeped outside.
The journey was an awkward one to say the least. The taxi driver seemed oddly familiar. Like Kharms, this man too refused a fare. And then, on the train to Tashkent he found himself sat opposite a young couple, each with a baby strapped to their chest. The cries of these babies filled the carriage each time the train made a fearsome noise but the parents could not have been more serene or more genuine in their desire to soothe the infants. By contrast Alexei was a wreck, each time the driver blew his whistle or negotiated a change of track, each time the train whinnied or shunted, he became nauseous, agitated. Just before arriving at a station some 300 miles north of Tashkent, the train entered a tunnel and the lights failed momentarily. This was enough for Alexei to scream for his mother.
At Tashkent he decided he needed rest. He had been travelling three days by train and decided he needed a bed that didn’t move. He picked up his suitcase and made his way off the train, he had passports, papers and bribe money all safe in the inside pocket of his leather coat. As he strode confidently through the grand hall of the station he noticed a familiar looking man holding up a white card with his surname.
There are many Antonoviches east of Moscow, he told himself. Perhaps a hundred thousand, but passing the familiar looking driver he could feel the hand upon his shoulder before it even landed.
“Kharms?”
“Of course, I’m here to take you to your hotel.”
By this point Alexei did not know whether he was tired or already sleeping. Perhaps it was a dream. Perhaps he was dead. He knew he did not want to climb into the back of Kharms’ cab but he did so as though under orders. He imagined he had been drugged. The city passed by the windows in a blur of autonomous office blocks and gaily coloured bazaars. He felt like he was travelling through time. To the past and back again and then into the future. Before finally drifting into the snows of sleep Alexei saw his wife, smiling. He saw his little son, too. His face was perfectly still.
The brightness of the city and the noise of the sun awoke him. He washed, dressed and made his way to reception. He felt invigorated. Perhaps this book was nonsense. He may yet turn back. Striding through the lobby Alexei imagined himself to be a touring diplomat or a rock star. He approached the receptionist with something close to a swagger.
With a heavy heart Alexei took the news that his bill had already been paid, he found himself almost immediately exhausted by the sight of Kharms outside, the back door of the cab wide open like the mouth of some long forgotten creature from childhood nightmares.
Alighting once more from the cab, he was once again tricked into not paying. He reached inside his pocket for money but the cab pulled away. As he withdrew his wallet, a golden piece of folded paper fell out. Alexei unfolded it and saw that it seemed to be some sort of itinerary. Until this point he had made plans roughly along the lines of bribing tradesmen to smuggle him in their lorries across the Tibetan border and beyond. Bangada was at least four days travelling away. Several bribes would be needed. On replacing the golden piece of paper in his wallet, he found that he now had hundreds of American dollars, Russian roubles and Chinese yen. His sudden wealth only made him feel sicker.
In a coffee house a few yards stagger from the hotel, Alexei sat with his suitcase and waited for his drink to cool. He read the itinerary again. The train to Bishkek would take two days. From here he was to meet a man wearing a shirt decorated with a blue dragon. This man would take him to a battered lorry carrying goatskins. For two hundred US dollars he would take Alexei across the border and to the city of Kashgar. Here there was an internet cafe in the main square. He would email an address to arrange transportation to the town of Nimyan. Here he would meet a man called Shukhan who would guide him to the temple where the Book was housed.
All proceeded as the itinerary had instructed. Emails and bribes and goatskins. Alexei could not remember if Kharms had written about hiding beneath a pile of goatskins whilst Chinese soldiers accepted cigarettes less than three feet from him. He could not remember but could not rule it out.
The road to Kashgar was an old silk trading route and could have been less apposite for its cause – an unending rocky track. The journey was hell, the road lunar. Alexei lay in an almost foetal position, stuck between worlds.
The internet cafe was easy to find, the crowded square parted for the westerner. He bribed the proprietor as per his instructions, and emailed the address given to him by Kharms.
The reply was worryingly immediate.
“Wait one hour Mr Antonovich. I will collect you.”
Alexei bought a Coke and took a seat at a table outside. He felt nauseous. What was he doing here? How could he have got himself into this situation? He was angry for allowing himself to be taken up by the whims of a stranger. He was thousands of miles from home. He missed his old life. He wanted his wife.
He wanted to see his son and felt something akin to a resignation to that never happening again when he heard his own name being spoke aloud.
"Mr Antonovich. Welcome to Kashgar.”
Alexei sighed as Kharms took a seat opposite him.
The journey to Nimyan involved a road that made the crossing to Kashgar seem a luxurious cruise on some flawless autobahn. Landslides were common as the road climbed higher and higher into the mountains. Kharms little yellow taxi dodged boulders larger than itself, would slam on the brakes every couple of minutes to avoid collision with a farmer marching his yaks to market. Though the road would often disappear into great waves of mist, Kharms drove on, oblivious to their fates. His meter stayed shut off. Occasionally Alexei would drift off into a brief nightmarish nap, dreaming of ropes and fires and talking trees. His father would loom out of the mist at him. His son fought with a two headed bear. His nightclub was staffed by ghosts. And always the same thing, Kharms whooping with delight as he swerved round a cluster of slowly moving monks or a fallen piece of Himalaya.
Finally, when it seemed the car could climb no more, Kharms announced their arrival in Nimyan.
Alexei felt like an astronaut as he climbed out of the car. Around him a chill wind swirled, the snowflakes twisting and rising and falling but never landing. Kharms carried Alexei’s belongings. He pointed to a building a few feet away.
“In there. Come.”
They walked up an uneven stone staircase to the side of a three story building, the top floor wooden. Kharms knocked upon a thick wooden door which soon was opened by an unseen hand. Upon entering Alexei saw an avenue of candles lighting his way to an altar at which someone knelt.
The figure rose slowly and turned. An elderly man with a face straight out of a martial arts movie spoke in perfect Russian with a voice that seemed too young, too strong for the figure that it came from.
“You seek the book?”
“Yes.”
“I have not seen the book but I know of its location. I have never had need of the book for I have no children.”
“I have a son. I do not know what to do.”
“You have travelled far. You are tired. In the morning your guide will be here. It is not a long journey but it is a perilous one. It will be worth it.”
That night Alexei slept on a bed of various animal skins and furs. He dreamt of a room full of blind children. In this room the only source of light was a solitary thin window at which sat a terrible bird. This bird was like a rook but much larger, closer to the size of an eagle. All the children were silent except for one who sat at the furthest end of the room. Bathed in a mysterious light, this child played with a bright red fire engine. Alexei approached the little child. When it looked up at him, no before that, for in the dream Alexei knew what was coming, he saw his son, a little older. Alexei went to lift Oleg but the boy melted into water.
Alexei screamed and woke, soaked from the dream. He dressed quickly and made his way downstairs. There he was guided by a small boy towards a long, thin room where a breakfast had been prepared. It was a sort of porridge. Something in its taste and smell reminded Alexei of his mother. To the side lay a bowl of unusually shaped sweet breads and a pot of tea. Alexei pondered where he remembered this smell from when the elderly man from the previous night entered the room.
“Your guide is here. Be quick, a storm is coming.”
Alexei hurried his tea and almost as soon as he wondered where Kharms was, he knew who his guide would be.
The road they had driven on had ended at the old man’s house. To the side of the staircase they had climbed the day before, a narrow cobbled path of sorts stretched upwards, snaking its way higher up towards a mountain whose peak could not yet be seen. Kharms walked quickly, never seeming to tire, stopping only to chastise Alexei for his lack of fitness. For several hours they walked until finally they could see above them a steep precipice of black rock. Around this precipice wound a thin path, almost like a helter skelter. At the top of this path was a cave, in the mouth of which could be seen a soft pulsing light.
“Nearly there then” said Alexei, lifting his head towards Kharms.
But Kharms was gone.
At first Alexei was irritated by the disappearance of his guide. Though he could not be certain if he was a ghost or a demon or just an incredibly well-connected and resourceful taxi driver, Alexei had grown to be reassured by his presence. But now, as he circumnavigated the black peak, he began to wonder if Kharms had led him by dark design to some terrible place. The path round the mountain grew thinner as it grew higher. Bones lay here and there – fallen climbers lay with rusting crampons at their feet, yak heads bloomed like flowers here and there. One climber still clutched a sepia print of some frowning children in his frozen mitten.
Alexei reassured himself that it was only fear that stopped Kharms from progressing, or perhaps it was local ritual that only one may enter the cave. Certainly Alexei was not turning back now. If the book existed, it could make him rich. This would surely be worth something. And if not, well, his own story would be worth telling.
Finally, when the air was as thin as the path which only just existed beyond the sides of his feet, Alexei reached the cave.
The source of the soft light they had seen below was a great flaming torch which lit the way from deep inside. As Alexei approached the light, he saw a golden lectern beneath it. On that lectern lay a thick red tome.
As he approached the book, Russian letters began to form on the cover. The Book Of The Dad. Alexei crept towards the book which seemed to be glowing. Finally he steadied himself and went to open the book.
A gust of wind filled the cave and the book turned to a page somewhere close to its middle. Alexei read a random paragraph.
Remember, kids absolutely adore brightly coloured things. Always keep a large supply of child-friendly painting material around the house. Decorate with a child’s view of the world in mind. Unless you’re a funeral director or something like that, in which case, what the hell are you doing having children. The world isn’t an airport, you know. Stop treating the place like some arrivals and departure lounge.
Alexei was confused by this somewhat less than ancient wisdom. Before he could compose his thoughts, the book turned to another random page.
By the age of twenty four months your infant will have probably formed a small vocabulary of words based around the family and some favourite possessions, perhaps a blanket or a much loved cuddly toy. Encourage these expressions and try to incorporate new words into their vocabulary with first stage children’s books. If your child hasn’t said Mama or Dada by this point, you’d probably be better off cancelling that university savings account.
This is just rubbish, thought Alexei. He lifted the book off its lectern and turned to another page at random for himself.
Oleg needs a father.
These four words fell from the back of Alexei’s eyes, producing tears as they did so. The words trickled down his throat and produced a cry that echoed off the walls of the cave and made his heart sob. He suddenly felt everything he should have felt all along. His heart was filled with a longing he could only call love. Carefully, Alexei wrapped the book inside his coat and slowly began to make his way outside.
The snow began to fall again almost as soon as his feet touched the thin ledge of path. Alexei moved slowly, his back against the cliff. The wind lashed at his face and stung his cheeks where his tears had not yet dried. He held the book as tightly as though it were his little son up there with him but the book was hot to the touch. Reaching a slightly wider section of path, Alexei withdrew the book from his coat; it was as though the book were aflame. Dropping it in front of him, Alexei wrapped his hand in his scarf and went to pick the book up again but the book opened and the pages began to disintegrate in front of him, the paper turning and folding in on itself, forming little snowflakes and flying away into the wind. Alexei closed his eyes and in his mind, he saw the little dancing flakes rushing back towards the cave, forming a new book on the altar. With this thought Alexei saw the error of his ways and waited for the wind to take him.
Some weeks later, Mikhail is on his way across the courtyard to Katarina’s apartment block with a toy fire engine that he has brought his little nephew. He pictures him playing with it, he smiles at the thought of little Oleg clapping as the lights and siren come on. He pictures Oleg’s mother smiling down at him. Mikhail won’t look up for fear she is not there, for fear of spoiling this image, and so he will pretend to be absorbed in the project’s lamp posts. For this reason he holds in his other hand a toolbox stamped with the city crest. But yes, she will definitely be looking at him. She’ll have little baby Oleg in her arms. Perhaps she will point to Mikhail and say Dada. Mikhail likes this feeling. He looks at the flakes forming around him in mid air. Snow? At this time of year? Mikhail wraps his coat tighter around him, when suddenly he senses his brother’s presence and looks up from the night.
Alexei is holding Oleg. He looks down from the window and smiles at his crazy brother.
“Wave to Uncle Mikhail!” he cries, and waves the infant’s hand for him.
“Alexei,” his brother cries, “you are home!”
The family celebrates long into the night. There is drinking and singing. Katarina takes little Oleg to bed. Alexei falls asleep clutching a fire engine. Mikhail looks out of the apartment window onto the frosted night. Across the city he sees a galaxy of lamplights and basks in their orange glow. Beneath the window, at the end of the courtyard, a taxi lies in wait. The driver stands outside, sipping from a flask with one hand, the other raised in a beckoning gesture to Mikhail. Mikhail raises a hand in return.
He moves towards the door.
Mikhail Antonovich lived in Apartment 142. It was a dull apartment in a dull building, Block 94 East of the Luzhyna Development north of the river. Mikhail worked as a civil servant organising the repair of the city’s broken lamp posts. He lived a life of simplicity and monotony. Each day he would wake early, drink some tea. He would eat some toast and then make his way to the metro station and alight at Lubyanka.
Walking across the great square each morning he would check the lamp posts around him. Nothing could be of greater torment to a man entrusted with illuminating Moscow’s streets at night than a smashed or otherwise deficient lamp post within spitting distance of his office.
Each morning his assistant Svetlana, an elfin girl with large eyelashes and a slight moustache, would bring him the overnight report on new faults, as well as lists of completed repairs. When these reports were read, signed, counter-signed and filed, Antonovich would dismiss Svetlana and take lunch alone at a small cafe on Myasnitskaya. Usually he would eat soup, perhaps some dumplings. On a hot day he might allow himself a small beer. After eating, he would return to his office, look out of the window and write imaginary letters of complaint to his department as well as sarcastically worded replies from himself. Occasionally, if the weather had been excessively hot, Mikhail would try to transcribe the words his heart were incapable of saying and his mouth unlikely to. Rare were the afternoons when he would have something official to do. The nights offered their own torment; the clock reaching six brought joyless sighs from his unsmiling mouth. He would wait for Svetlana to leave and shred the day’s love letters as he watched her depart from his window.
It was a dull and loveless life and that is why his story is of not much concern to us except perhaps to warn us against the perils of the bureaucratic existence. His brother Alexei, however, lived a life of adventure and though we may be as quick as his brother to envy him his daring, pluck and courage let me state now that you will see this tale is also a cautionary one.
Alexei was as different to his brother as a potato is to a lion. Alexei was shorter and darker than his brother. Older too by a year and wider around the waist, but he had charisma where Mikhail had attention to detail. In his brother’s eyes, Alexei was a degenerate playboy. In reality he was a Mafia puppet who ran a nightclub close to the Alexander Garden called Napoleon’s. Whilst outwardly appearing to be the man in charge, Alexei would often be snowed under with administration and repairs but he too had a beautiful assistant to take care of things.
Her name was Katarina. Alexei loved Katarina but he could not bring himself to settle down with her. Whenever he got the opportunity he would pursue unsatisfactorily brief liaisons with the glamorous prostitutes who were hired to ensnare the wealthy Western tourists and local businessmen who patronised his club. It was a perk of the job; Alexei even got a staff discount. He joked to his male friends he was in charge of quality control. But that was in the club. At home, he was alone. Katarina would visit and the urge to be a good man would raise its voice within him, only to be drowned by other louder voices the moment she suggested moving in together or getting married.
Eventually, as is sometimes the case in such situations, Katarina was visited by the stork.
“It’s not so bad,” Alexei told Katarina over coffee in a small cafe near to the clinic. “I’ve got plenty of money.”
“It’s frightening,” she said
“There is nothing to worry about. People go through this all the time,” Alexei tried to comfort her.
They were talking about two different outcomes.
Little Oleg came in at seven pounds exactly. He was a beautiful boy and the happiness he brought to Katarina when she first held him was matched only by the deep sense of distress Alexei felt rising inside of him. The midwife at the hospital handed little Oleg to his father and almost immediately, both father and midwife regretted that decision, the infant screamed with all its might the moment his father’s fingers wrapped themselves around his tiny shawled body. Despite what you might have heard about the bond between parent and child, it is quite possible for a baby to be dropped at such a moment – the quick thinking midwife, a stocky girl from Odessa called Irina who was the only child of a former Spartak Moscow goalkeeper, fell to her knees and caught the child before tragedy could strike.
Alexei looked to his girlfriend and saw the fear in her eyes. He looked to the midwife and saw the anger in hers. Sensing the gravity of the situation, Alexei ran out of the ward, out of the hospital and all the way to his own comforting womb.
Ignoring the hellos of his staff and the enquiring open palms of his regulars, Alexei grabbed a large bottle of vodka from a fridge behind the bar, and moved silently but quickly to a corner table.
People would approach the table to see if they too might wet the baby’s head, and on seeing Alexei’s forbidding expression, would retreat rapidly. Soon people began to worry that all was not well with mother and child.
One of Napoleon’s regulars, a loan shark called Petruchek, a man who enjoyed a reputation for heartlessness in all things, went to ask one of the barmaids what was the matter.
“I do not know. Perhaps somebody should phone the hospital.”
“Yes. That is a good idea. I do not like to see my business associates unhappy,” agreed Petruchek.
“I’m fine,” shouted Alexei, “I’m fine, the baby is fine, and Katarina is fine.”
“Then what is the problem?” asked the barmaid.
The evening passed quickly, Alexei emptied his heart as quickly as his glass. He was not an especially tolerant drinker and was soon slurring his words. However, both Petruchek and the barmaid, a beautiful girl from the former Ukraine whose name escapes me, came to understand that the father had been rejected by the child on first sight. Petruchek made a phone call and sent flowers from both himself and Alexei to mother and child. The girl filled the glasses all night and ordered Alexei a taxi to take him home.
In the back of the taxi, Alexei slept like a baby. He dreamt himself back to his own childhood, to a school corridor, he found himself running down this corridor faster and faster towards the window at the far end. At the moment he leapt through the glass, he awoke to find the taxi stopped. The driver watched him in the rear view mirror and sipped from a flask. Alexei tried to take it all in – the drink, the baby, the dream, the smell of black coffee filling the cab’s interior.
“How much do I owe you?”
“Nothing”
“What? Come on man, how much?”
“Seriously, the fare is paid. Let me give you something in return.”
Alexei yawned and rubbed his eyes before staring outside. A light sprinkling of snow had fallen; the ground was sugar-coated.
“What do you want to give me?”
“There is a book that contains all the knowledge you need.”
“Ah, a holy man! Please, keep your bibles. I am fine,”
Alexei reached for the door handle but the lock was on.
“Please, if this is a kidnapping, I can assure you I know powerful people. Just let me go,”
The driver handed a folded piece of paper back through the screen.
“There is a book. Once, all fathers knew of this book though few do now. It contains all the information you need to bond with little Oleg.”
“What? Who are you, what is this? How do you...?”
“My name is Kharms. There is a village in Tibet called Bangada. To the north of the village there is a mountain called Unghru. There is a small cave halfway up the mountain. It is difficult to access but a word to the right people in the village will get you safely there. The Book will provide all answers. And, armed with that knowledge, you will be a better person, a better father.”
“What? What is this? Please, let me go. Goodnight.”
The locks were sprung, Alexei got out. He stood as the little yellow car pulled away and, once satisfied by the disappearance of its red taillights, screwed the piece of paper in his hand into a ball and threw it into the air, where the white bluster mistook it for a larger snowflake and sent it spinning into the darkness.
The next day, Alexei awoke in horror. His bedside clock read a few minutes before midday. His wife and his son would be home soon. His home. Alexei stumbled around his apartment, a place he no longer recognised. In the corner of his bedroom, a room where once he had taken the pick of Moscow’s young ladies, a cot now stood. He approached the crib as though there was already a babe asleep within; softly and cautiously.
It did not stop him screaming when he saw the piece of paper folded neatly upon the blankets within. Unfolding it, Alexei began to sob. His eyes read the directions as Kharms had spoken them the night before. He removed a cigarette lighter from his pocket, walked into the small kitchen and, after opening a silver pedal bin, lit the paper and dropped it burning into the darkness within.
For a few days after Katarina and Oleg came home, all seemed well. The baby fed well, slept well, did not seem sick or irritable. The only thing that was amiss was Alexei. Every time he went to hold the baby, the baby awoke with a scream that shook the whole apartment. After the third such scream, Alexei put the baby back into its cot and went to the bathroom.
After going to the toilet, he noticed that the toilet roll sheets were strangely patterned with a faint rubric. On closer examination, Alexei’s heart sank as he realised nothing would stop until he had followed Kharms’s instructions.
That night he packed a small suitcase with clothes and documentation. He found himself continually thinking that he had done all this before. He told his wife he had been called away on sudden business.
“Do you have to go? Where? When will you be back?”
Alexei had no honest answer he could give to any of these questions. He kissed his wife and looked briefly in on the sleeping infant.
"I’ll be back in a few days,” he shouted as the taxi beeped outside.
The journey was an awkward one to say the least. The taxi driver seemed oddly familiar. Like Kharms, this man too refused a fare. And then, on the train to Tashkent he found himself sat opposite a young couple, each with a baby strapped to their chest. The cries of these babies filled the carriage each time the train made a fearsome noise but the parents could not have been more serene or more genuine in their desire to soothe the infants. By contrast Alexei was a wreck, each time the driver blew his whistle or negotiated a change of track, each time the train whinnied or shunted, he became nauseous, agitated. Just before arriving at a station some 300 miles north of Tashkent, the train entered a tunnel and the lights failed momentarily. This was enough for Alexei to scream for his mother.
At Tashkent he decided he needed rest. He had been travelling three days by train and decided he needed a bed that didn’t move. He picked up his suitcase and made his way off the train, he had passports, papers and bribe money all safe in the inside pocket of his leather coat. As he strode confidently through the grand hall of the station he noticed a familiar looking man holding up a white card with his surname.
There are many Antonoviches east of Moscow, he told himself. Perhaps a hundred thousand, but passing the familiar looking driver he could feel the hand upon his shoulder before it even landed.
“Kharms?”
“Of course, I’m here to take you to your hotel.”
By this point Alexei did not know whether he was tired or already sleeping. Perhaps it was a dream. Perhaps he was dead. He knew he did not want to climb into the back of Kharms’ cab but he did so as though under orders. He imagined he had been drugged. The city passed by the windows in a blur of autonomous office blocks and gaily coloured bazaars. He felt like he was travelling through time. To the past and back again and then into the future. Before finally drifting into the snows of sleep Alexei saw his wife, smiling. He saw his little son, too. His face was perfectly still.
The brightness of the city and the noise of the sun awoke him. He washed, dressed and made his way to reception. He felt invigorated. Perhaps this book was nonsense. He may yet turn back. Striding through the lobby Alexei imagined himself to be a touring diplomat or a rock star. He approached the receptionist with something close to a swagger.
With a heavy heart Alexei took the news that his bill had already been paid, he found himself almost immediately exhausted by the sight of Kharms outside, the back door of the cab wide open like the mouth of some long forgotten creature from childhood nightmares.
Alighting once more from the cab, he was once again tricked into not paying. He reached inside his pocket for money but the cab pulled away. As he withdrew his wallet, a golden piece of folded paper fell out. Alexei unfolded it and saw that it seemed to be some sort of itinerary. Until this point he had made plans roughly along the lines of bribing tradesmen to smuggle him in their lorries across the Tibetan border and beyond. Bangada was at least four days travelling away. Several bribes would be needed. On replacing the golden piece of paper in his wallet, he found that he now had hundreds of American dollars, Russian roubles and Chinese yen. His sudden wealth only made him feel sicker.
In a coffee house a few yards stagger from the hotel, Alexei sat with his suitcase and waited for his drink to cool. He read the itinerary again. The train to Bishkek would take two days. From here he was to meet a man wearing a shirt decorated with a blue dragon. This man would take him to a battered lorry carrying goatskins. For two hundred US dollars he would take Alexei across the border and to the city of Kashgar. Here there was an internet cafe in the main square. He would email an address to arrange transportation to the town of Nimyan. Here he would meet a man called Shukhan who would guide him to the temple where the Book was housed.
All proceeded as the itinerary had instructed. Emails and bribes and goatskins. Alexei could not remember if Kharms had written about hiding beneath a pile of goatskins whilst Chinese soldiers accepted cigarettes less than three feet from him. He could not remember but could not rule it out.
The road to Kashgar was an old silk trading route and could have been less apposite for its cause – an unending rocky track. The journey was hell, the road lunar. Alexei lay in an almost foetal position, stuck between worlds.
The internet cafe was easy to find, the crowded square parted for the westerner. He bribed the proprietor as per his instructions, and emailed the address given to him by Kharms.
The reply was worryingly immediate.
“Wait one hour Mr Antonovich. I will collect you.”
Alexei bought a Coke and took a seat at a table outside. He felt nauseous. What was he doing here? How could he have got himself into this situation? He was angry for allowing himself to be taken up by the whims of a stranger. He was thousands of miles from home. He missed his old life. He wanted his wife.
He wanted to see his son and felt something akin to a resignation to that never happening again when he heard his own name being spoke aloud.
"Mr Antonovich. Welcome to Kashgar.”
Alexei sighed as Kharms took a seat opposite him.
The journey to Nimyan involved a road that made the crossing to Kashgar seem a luxurious cruise on some flawless autobahn. Landslides were common as the road climbed higher and higher into the mountains. Kharms little yellow taxi dodged boulders larger than itself, would slam on the brakes every couple of minutes to avoid collision with a farmer marching his yaks to market. Though the road would often disappear into great waves of mist, Kharms drove on, oblivious to their fates. His meter stayed shut off. Occasionally Alexei would drift off into a brief nightmarish nap, dreaming of ropes and fires and talking trees. His father would loom out of the mist at him. His son fought with a two headed bear. His nightclub was staffed by ghosts. And always the same thing, Kharms whooping with delight as he swerved round a cluster of slowly moving monks or a fallen piece of Himalaya.
Finally, when it seemed the car could climb no more, Kharms announced their arrival in Nimyan.
Alexei felt like an astronaut as he climbed out of the car. Around him a chill wind swirled, the snowflakes twisting and rising and falling but never landing. Kharms carried Alexei’s belongings. He pointed to a building a few feet away.
“In there. Come.”
They walked up an uneven stone staircase to the side of a three story building, the top floor wooden. Kharms knocked upon a thick wooden door which soon was opened by an unseen hand. Upon entering Alexei saw an avenue of candles lighting his way to an altar at which someone knelt.
The figure rose slowly and turned. An elderly man with a face straight out of a martial arts movie spoke in perfect Russian with a voice that seemed too young, too strong for the figure that it came from.
“You seek the book?”
“Yes.”
“I have not seen the book but I know of its location. I have never had need of the book for I have no children.”
“I have a son. I do not know what to do.”
“You have travelled far. You are tired. In the morning your guide will be here. It is not a long journey but it is a perilous one. It will be worth it.”
That night Alexei slept on a bed of various animal skins and furs. He dreamt of a room full of blind children. In this room the only source of light was a solitary thin window at which sat a terrible bird. This bird was like a rook but much larger, closer to the size of an eagle. All the children were silent except for one who sat at the furthest end of the room. Bathed in a mysterious light, this child played with a bright red fire engine. Alexei approached the little child. When it looked up at him, no before that, for in the dream Alexei knew what was coming, he saw his son, a little older. Alexei went to lift Oleg but the boy melted into water.
Alexei screamed and woke, soaked from the dream. He dressed quickly and made his way downstairs. There he was guided by a small boy towards a long, thin room where a breakfast had been prepared. It was a sort of porridge. Something in its taste and smell reminded Alexei of his mother. To the side lay a bowl of unusually shaped sweet breads and a pot of tea. Alexei pondered where he remembered this smell from when the elderly man from the previous night entered the room.
“Your guide is here. Be quick, a storm is coming.”
Alexei hurried his tea and almost as soon as he wondered where Kharms was, he knew who his guide would be.
The road they had driven on had ended at the old man’s house. To the side of the staircase they had climbed the day before, a narrow cobbled path of sorts stretched upwards, snaking its way higher up towards a mountain whose peak could not yet be seen. Kharms walked quickly, never seeming to tire, stopping only to chastise Alexei for his lack of fitness. For several hours they walked until finally they could see above them a steep precipice of black rock. Around this precipice wound a thin path, almost like a helter skelter. At the top of this path was a cave, in the mouth of which could be seen a soft pulsing light.
“Nearly there then” said Alexei, lifting his head towards Kharms.
But Kharms was gone.
At first Alexei was irritated by the disappearance of his guide. Though he could not be certain if he was a ghost or a demon or just an incredibly well-connected and resourceful taxi driver, Alexei had grown to be reassured by his presence. But now, as he circumnavigated the black peak, he began to wonder if Kharms had led him by dark design to some terrible place. The path round the mountain grew thinner as it grew higher. Bones lay here and there – fallen climbers lay with rusting crampons at their feet, yak heads bloomed like flowers here and there. One climber still clutched a sepia print of some frowning children in his frozen mitten.
Alexei reassured himself that it was only fear that stopped Kharms from progressing, or perhaps it was local ritual that only one may enter the cave. Certainly Alexei was not turning back now. If the book existed, it could make him rich. This would surely be worth something. And if not, well, his own story would be worth telling.
Finally, when the air was as thin as the path which only just existed beyond the sides of his feet, Alexei reached the cave.
The source of the soft light they had seen below was a great flaming torch which lit the way from deep inside. As Alexei approached the light, he saw a golden lectern beneath it. On that lectern lay a thick red tome.
As he approached the book, Russian letters began to form on the cover. The Book Of The Dad. Alexei crept towards the book which seemed to be glowing. Finally he steadied himself and went to open the book.
A gust of wind filled the cave and the book turned to a page somewhere close to its middle. Alexei read a random paragraph.
Remember, kids absolutely adore brightly coloured things. Always keep a large supply of child-friendly painting material around the house. Decorate with a child’s view of the world in mind. Unless you’re a funeral director or something like that, in which case, what the hell are you doing having children. The world isn’t an airport, you know. Stop treating the place like some arrivals and departure lounge.
Alexei was confused by this somewhat less than ancient wisdom. Before he could compose his thoughts, the book turned to another random page.
By the age of twenty four months your infant will have probably formed a small vocabulary of words based around the family and some favourite possessions, perhaps a blanket or a much loved cuddly toy. Encourage these expressions and try to incorporate new words into their vocabulary with first stage children’s books. If your child hasn’t said Mama or Dada by this point, you’d probably be better off cancelling that university savings account.
This is just rubbish, thought Alexei. He lifted the book off its lectern and turned to another page at random for himself.
Oleg needs a father.
These four words fell from the back of Alexei’s eyes, producing tears as they did so. The words trickled down his throat and produced a cry that echoed off the walls of the cave and made his heart sob. He suddenly felt everything he should have felt all along. His heart was filled with a longing he could only call love. Carefully, Alexei wrapped the book inside his coat and slowly began to make his way outside.
The snow began to fall again almost as soon as his feet touched the thin ledge of path. Alexei moved slowly, his back against the cliff. The wind lashed at his face and stung his cheeks where his tears had not yet dried. He held the book as tightly as though it were his little son up there with him but the book was hot to the touch. Reaching a slightly wider section of path, Alexei withdrew the book from his coat; it was as though the book were aflame. Dropping it in front of him, Alexei wrapped his hand in his scarf and went to pick the book up again but the book opened and the pages began to disintegrate in front of him, the paper turning and folding in on itself, forming little snowflakes and flying away into the wind. Alexei closed his eyes and in his mind, he saw the little dancing flakes rushing back towards the cave, forming a new book on the altar. With this thought Alexei saw the error of his ways and waited for the wind to take him.
Some weeks later, Mikhail is on his way across the courtyard to Katarina’s apartment block with a toy fire engine that he has brought his little nephew. He pictures him playing with it, he smiles at the thought of little Oleg clapping as the lights and siren come on. He pictures Oleg’s mother smiling down at him. Mikhail won’t look up for fear she is not there, for fear of spoiling this image, and so he will pretend to be absorbed in the project’s lamp posts. For this reason he holds in his other hand a toolbox stamped with the city crest. But yes, she will definitely be looking at him. She’ll have little baby Oleg in her arms. Perhaps she will point to Mikhail and say Dada. Mikhail likes this feeling. He looks at the flakes forming around him in mid air. Snow? At this time of year? Mikhail wraps his coat tighter around him, when suddenly he senses his brother’s presence and looks up from the night.
Alexei is holding Oleg. He looks down from the window and smiles at his crazy brother.
“Wave to Uncle Mikhail!” he cries, and waves the infant’s hand for him.
“Alexei,” his brother cries, “you are home!”
The family celebrates long into the night. There is drinking and singing. Katarina takes little Oleg to bed. Alexei falls asleep clutching a fire engine. Mikhail looks out of the apartment window onto the frosted night. Across the city he sees a galaxy of lamplights and basks in their orange glow. Beneath the window, at the end of the courtyard, a taxi lies in wait. The driver stands outside, sipping from a flask with one hand, the other raised in a beckoning gesture to Mikhail. Mikhail raises a hand in return.
He moves towards the door.
Saturday, 22 May 2010
Digging
NOTE: I'm going to put some short stories I've written on this here blog thing. Let me know what you think. Anyway, this one's called Digging.
Digging
My dad’s been digging all day. And not just today, he’s been at it for weeks now apparently. A huge hole at the bottom of the garden with the discarded earth behind him rising, becoming quite the little mountain. My mum just takes him out tea and sandwiches. She walks out with the tray and the torch and hollers down into the deep that there is refreshment. Then she starts with the pulley.
All hours he’s out there, digging.
When she called me over for Sunday lunch I knew that there was something wrong. My parents don’t phone me; apparently it’s my job to phone them. If I don’t call at least once a week then I can expect to be on the receiving end of several doses of low-level emotional blackmail.
“Just ring her up once or twice a week, mate. It’s not hard.”
“Well, I know you’re busy but I worry. Five minutes is all.”
I didn’t know about the hole till today.
My brothers are both there when I arrive. I’m the youngest of three and I’m thirty five in a month’s time. This, I suppose, is better than being the youngest of thirty five and being three in a month. Ben’s a year older than me, runs a garage about ten miles from here. It’s called Ben’s Garage. There’s a huge neon B written in the kind of font they have on American vaudeville posters. A big letter B just hanging out above the road off the roof of the garage. Every time I walk past part of me dies a little.
My older brother is called William and I have no idea what he does but it earns him enough money to live out by the lake and drive a car that will cost more money to insure than I’ll ever see in my bank account.
I am an obituarist. I write obituaries to order for national papers. Someone famous dies, the phone rings. That’s how I make a living. I answer the phone and listen out for dead people.
Ben and William, of course, ring my mother every day. They seem oblivious to the great crater our dad is making at the end of the garden. They sit there and drink their coffee and read the sports pages.
“How long has he been doing this?”
“Couple of months,” says William without looking up.
“Why? What is he doing?”
“He’s just digging a hole, he’s happy enough.”
Ben starts humming La Cucaracha. My mum joins in whilst she peels potatoes at the sink.
I leave the three of them to it and make my way into the garden.
I hear the echo of my own voice before I see how deep the hole is. One syllable, the second I ever learnt, dropping deep beneath the earth and repeating itself. At the lip of the hole there is the first of what appears to be several improvised ladders. I turn my gaze to the flanks of the garden and notice that the trees are all stumps, amputated limbs from the garden war.
I start to climb down the first ladder.
“Dad,” I call again.
It was around the time of the third or fourth ladder that I started to really worry. Christmas lights stretched down from the extension lead from the shed. Rather than getting thinner, the tunnel started to widen the further I descended. The ladders became stronger, the lights brighter. Further and further down I climbed, calling my Dad’s name all the time until I reached a platform lit by flaming torches.
A few yards in front of me there was a door. Through the door I could hear voices, one of them clearly my father’s. Several other voices, all male-sounding, all familiar to me somehow. A lot of laughter and the clinking of glasses, somewhere beneath those voices I could hear distinctly strains of music.
Swallowing hard and trying to keep my breath at a polite volume, I knocked the door and entered.
It was a wonderful few hours we spent sitting round that table. My great-grandfather was a hoot; he had us in stitches about his time at sea. His own father was also present; several generations of my family were there. Just the fathers mind. We talked about raising children, we talked about politics and women. One of my really old ancestors told us about the time he slept with one of the Brontes. I can’t remember which one now but it was a good story. My dad just sat there laughing, turning to me and smiling occasionally as he poured another round of drinks. Every now and then I would feel myself starting to panic; my dad would sense this and reassure me with a hand on my shoulder.
A guy with exactly the same jaw as my dad was halfway through a story about hiding from Oliver Cromwell when my dad looked at his watch and said it was time for us to go.
“Nice to meet you all,” I said.
They all smiled politely, raised glasses, and wished me the best.
My dad held out a hand as I negotiated the last few rungs to the surface. I brushed a little dirt off myself and made my way into the kitchen. Will and Ben were sat there eating sandwiches. I made my excuses, kissed my mum goodbye and got into my car.
I drove under the neon B on my way home without grimacing. I made a mental note to call in at the garden store in the morning. Tomorrow I will plant a tree in my garden. Maybe after that, as long as nobody I’ve heard of dies, I’ll phone home.
Digging
My dad’s been digging all day. And not just today, he’s been at it for weeks now apparently. A huge hole at the bottom of the garden with the discarded earth behind him rising, becoming quite the little mountain. My mum just takes him out tea and sandwiches. She walks out with the tray and the torch and hollers down into the deep that there is refreshment. Then she starts with the pulley.
All hours he’s out there, digging.
When she called me over for Sunday lunch I knew that there was something wrong. My parents don’t phone me; apparently it’s my job to phone them. If I don’t call at least once a week then I can expect to be on the receiving end of several doses of low-level emotional blackmail.
“Just ring her up once or twice a week, mate. It’s not hard.”
“Well, I know you’re busy but I worry. Five minutes is all.”
I didn’t know about the hole till today.
My brothers are both there when I arrive. I’m the youngest of three and I’m thirty five in a month’s time. This, I suppose, is better than being the youngest of thirty five and being three in a month. Ben’s a year older than me, runs a garage about ten miles from here. It’s called Ben’s Garage. There’s a huge neon B written in the kind of font they have on American vaudeville posters. A big letter B just hanging out above the road off the roof of the garage. Every time I walk past part of me dies a little.
My older brother is called William and I have no idea what he does but it earns him enough money to live out by the lake and drive a car that will cost more money to insure than I’ll ever see in my bank account.
I am an obituarist. I write obituaries to order for national papers. Someone famous dies, the phone rings. That’s how I make a living. I answer the phone and listen out for dead people.
Ben and William, of course, ring my mother every day. They seem oblivious to the great crater our dad is making at the end of the garden. They sit there and drink their coffee and read the sports pages.
“How long has he been doing this?”
“Couple of months,” says William without looking up.
“Why? What is he doing?”
“He’s just digging a hole, he’s happy enough.”
Ben starts humming La Cucaracha. My mum joins in whilst she peels potatoes at the sink.
I leave the three of them to it and make my way into the garden.
I hear the echo of my own voice before I see how deep the hole is. One syllable, the second I ever learnt, dropping deep beneath the earth and repeating itself. At the lip of the hole there is the first of what appears to be several improvised ladders. I turn my gaze to the flanks of the garden and notice that the trees are all stumps, amputated limbs from the garden war.
I start to climb down the first ladder.
“Dad,” I call again.
It was around the time of the third or fourth ladder that I started to really worry. Christmas lights stretched down from the extension lead from the shed. Rather than getting thinner, the tunnel started to widen the further I descended. The ladders became stronger, the lights brighter. Further and further down I climbed, calling my Dad’s name all the time until I reached a platform lit by flaming torches.
A few yards in front of me there was a door. Through the door I could hear voices, one of them clearly my father’s. Several other voices, all male-sounding, all familiar to me somehow. A lot of laughter and the clinking of glasses, somewhere beneath those voices I could hear distinctly strains of music.
Swallowing hard and trying to keep my breath at a polite volume, I knocked the door and entered.
It was a wonderful few hours we spent sitting round that table. My great-grandfather was a hoot; he had us in stitches about his time at sea. His own father was also present; several generations of my family were there. Just the fathers mind. We talked about raising children, we talked about politics and women. One of my really old ancestors told us about the time he slept with one of the Brontes. I can’t remember which one now but it was a good story. My dad just sat there laughing, turning to me and smiling occasionally as he poured another round of drinks. Every now and then I would feel myself starting to panic; my dad would sense this and reassure me with a hand on my shoulder.
A guy with exactly the same jaw as my dad was halfway through a story about hiding from Oliver Cromwell when my dad looked at his watch and said it was time for us to go.
“Nice to meet you all,” I said.
They all smiled politely, raised glasses, and wished me the best.
My dad held out a hand as I negotiated the last few rungs to the surface. I brushed a little dirt off myself and made my way into the kitchen. Will and Ben were sat there eating sandwiches. I made my excuses, kissed my mum goodbye and got into my car.
I drove under the neon B on my way home without grimacing. I made a mental note to call in at the garden store in the morning. Tomorrow I will plant a tree in my garden. Maybe after that, as long as nobody I’ve heard of dies, I’ll phone home.
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