A River Called Time

by Courttia Newland

  ‘I know what you’re saying. I’m fine to go back.’

  ‘But first you must recover.’

  The voice emerged from the far end of the allocation. Ayizan. He stood at the foot of the pod between the others. There was something in his hand. Sea-green, thin and curling. Markriss’s book of notes.

  ‘I’m glad you’re awake and aware, but I’m worried, brother. That encounter wasn’t good. I hardly knew who you were. If you could remember who or what it was, it would be worthwhile.’

  Markriss closed his eyes, feeling for darkness. Dreamlike, untraceable, it faded into dust. ‘I’ve never met anything like them.’

  ‘They might not be an enemy,’ Vyasa said.

  ‘That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be careful. They were strong, centuries old. I remember that.’

  ‘Not all ancestors are kind.’ Temujin’s head fell between her knees. Vyasa’s hand rested on the knob of bone at the back of her neck, stroking.

  ‘I hear you. And I think you’re right. I’ll stay here, meditate on how to go forwards. In the meantime, I’ll heal.’

  Ayizan placed the book of notes at the end of the pod, beyond the protruding lumps of his feet. ‘You’ll need this. Something from your previous travels might tell us more about that being.’ He smiled. ‘I didn’t read them.’

  ‘Thank you, brother.’

  Markriss kept his eyes on the blanket. Rage thumped in his chest, an alien emotion in conflict with everything he knew about Ayizan.

  ‘Chile’s gone for food. I’ll wait until she gets back. I won’t be in your way.’ Vyasa stood, looming over the others, pointing. ‘I’m over there. Shout if you need me.’

  The huge man kissed Temujin, enfolding her in his arms, and hugged Ayizan with a brisk touch of shoulders. He stepped aside so they could leave.

  ‘Truth go with you, brother,’ they said in unison.

  ‘Truth go with you all. Thank you.’

  Markriss closed his eyes, attempting not to expend unnecessary effort on consciousness. The opening door, Poor Quarter noise, louder for scant seconds. Kids’ laughter, the wheeling sibilance of tyres, the cries of a distressed child fading as the door closed. Silence, punctuated by Vyasa’s heavy breathing. Ears humming monotone, persistent but low. Nerve-endings tingled, causing mild static across every conceivable area of skin. Glands swollen with use, Markriss felt strange, unsettled in his body, as if upon his soul’s re-entry he’d found he didn’t quite fit. Anything further than the contained space outside his allocation seemed infinitely difficult to imagine, or place. A world away, rather than yards.

  He slept until he heard the brisk clash of metal, smelt sharp onions, frying coconut oil. The allocation was hotter. Gossamer steam tendrils, a sizzle of contact, the mutter of one-sided conversation. A hum of vibration from walls that meant the generator had been repaired. Chileshe was home.

  He stretched tired limbs to feel where the pain struck deepest. The muscles of his legs mostly, hamstrings, and the stiff tendons at the base of his neck. A slight, troublesome ache beneath his left ribcage. His temples ached, a random pulse at his epiphysis cerebri tapping like a fired nerve. All usual after a jump. The pulsing wasn’t painful, just skittering at times, stopping for restful moments before it returned, soft and rhythmic above his eyes.

  He waited, reaching for calm, and felt descent, that minor retraction. Immediately, a mental picture of hands clasped around bare skin. Knuckles taut with strain. Deep inside his own head, a grunt of exertion, his voice. He spasmed into consciousness, spine flat against the mattress, skull pushed into his pillow, the curved sides of the sleeper pit rising around him. The slow twirl of dust motes, sparking fireflies catching rare light. Breath came rapidly, feathery and quiet. He squeezed his eyes tight, the waking dream that flashed in the darkness conjured there too. His hands, Ayizan’s neck. The future apparent.

  He had no reason to dream anything like it, and future visions were always read with caution. Markriss often taught that assumption exposed astral-seers to the negative influences of ego. Still, it was possible to probe images for useful information as long as the seer remained aware that readings were not to be taken at face value, and the spirits were exemplary manipulators of subterfuge. Ausares wasn’t the only trickster in the pantheon, only the most reliably unreliable. Waking dreams hid meaning in every detail and action. It could be a coded reference of intent that concerned the reason for his ascension into the plane. The mission. His hands on Ayizan’s neck might not be literal, perhaps not physical at all. Inherent in that potential reading was a further, riskier problem; the actual true meaning of his dream could lead to greater, hidden dangers. The spirit he encountered might have warned him of this. He’d meditate further to find guidance. Equally, as Temujin had insinuated, the Rogue might have implanted the vision to drive him mad by implying he should kill his own friend. Until the last moment, when the vision became reality, he wouldn’t know.

  He sat up, jaw rigid with yawning. A clang of finality, scraping cutlery. Chile’s head appeared from the small opening above the sleeper, peering from the kitchenette.

  ‘Alright, you’re up. Thought you might sleep all day.’

  ‘Could’ve. Still woozy.’

  ‘No wonder. It was a huge jump.’

  Earthenware pots sang, a light pad of footsteps and she was there, at the edge of the bed, holding two bowls. Five-feet-four and lithe, Chile always moved with the fluid steps of a dancer. Rarely tripping or dropping anything, her body’s actions were expressed with a precision that suggested she knew exactly where she would go before each movement occurred, a flawless ballet of function and timing charged with beauty. Markriss feasted on the sight of her as he opened the sleeper door and she entered the pit. After that was simple magic. The door snicked shut behind her. Raising the bowls for balance, Chile allowed her knees to bend and her legs to collapse beneath her until she sat, limbs folded as neat as a toddler’s buggy. She offered Markriss a steaming bowl.

  ‘Might’ve grabbed this.’

  ‘Didn’t look like you needed me to.’

  ‘Yeah, well, an offer is better than reality.’

  He gave a mock smile, which she returned. The bowl warmed his palms, playful heat tickling his chin. She was shovelling hers with a spoon, jaws champing. Markriss tried a mouthful. Thick chicken pieces, slippery greens, thick sweet sauce.

  ‘Wow.’

  ‘Fancied a bit of Siam.’

  ‘It’s lovely.’

  ‘Lots of green. Should build your strenght.’

  They ate in silence, thinking of the void.

  ‘It was almost two days, you know.’

  ‘Are you serious?’

  Chile wrestled a particularly thick piece of pak choi with teeth and tongue. Nodded at the bowl, trying to cut it with the spoon. Successful, she ate, swallowed.

  ‘What did I miss?’

  ‘More uprisings.’ A pause to chew. ‘No one killed by them, six people injured. No kids, thank Ra. The Simms closed shop, but halfway down the high street, in that little yard with the bakery, Gonzalez is open mostly. We’ve got the veg we grew, some bread. Ayizan said we shouldn’t touch those until we have to.’

  He nodded. A lot to have missed.

  ‘Gen’s repaired?’

  ‘Couldn’t wait. Vy fixed it not long after you came back.’

  ‘That’s good.’

  The steady thud of a ball against a nearby wall. Akin to the intermittent pulse in the centre of his forehead. Stopping, starting. He winced.

  ‘So what happened? Any idea?’

  ‘None.’

  ‘You’ve never done that before, right? Even outside?’

  ‘Not as far as I know. I’ve never felt out of control before, I know that much. And my whole time in the plane’s a blank. I can’t remember anything.’

  He coughed, thumping his chest to loosen trapped substance. She watched until he stopped, spoon dipping and returning. The unseen ball thumped irregular time.

 
‘Your count was forty-one hours and twenty minutes. Corps cut power after eighteen. Most people listened to your teachings and stayed offline, but shit, someone always doesn’t, right?’

  Fully aware that Chile was unconcerned whether he agreed or not, Markriss waited for her point.

  ‘We lost Sylvan Mistry. From Oshun Way.’

  He rested his spoon against the bowl, watching for signs. She ate fast, spoon clinking quick-time, catching fallen rice grains in her bowl without acknowledging whether they landed. A pause, a dip of cutlery towards her food, ending without contact. A hand raised to wipe the corner of one eye. The glistening knuckle of a finger, the mirror gleam of her eyes and it was over, the moment fled. Her spoon clinked against the bowl, dinner eaten with even greater passion. She wouldn’t look at what she consumed, the room, or anything else. He had no idea what she saw.

  After, they walked Poor Quarter streets to let the community know he had woken. Day-Lites remained offline and cold, far above, unseen. Stuttered candlelight and blue e-lamps made front gardens difficult to view. Poor Quarter residencies, uniform as soldiers, were mostly squat bungalows, flat-roofed and low. Some had multiple podrooms. Most were one-room studios like their own. The allocated homes were small and cramped in any case, walls easily dented or cracked, and, with very few windows, extremely hot in the summers that Inner City never saw, especially for the larger families, those with more children, cousins, or sisters. Many sat ‘out’ in their gardens where it was a degree or so cooler, the feeling of being hemmed in less harmful. Despite the constant white noise of residents at all times of day or night giving the impression of a buzzing community, ITS was rife in the Poor Quarter, with little defence against the illness besides work and meditation. They tried to teach the people mental antidotes via spiritual practice, never quite managing to stem the steady tide of depression that had overcome thirty-eight per cent of the community in the last year alone. Suicide was on the rise: all manner of methods. A knife, a handful of pills, the local tram.

  Their road team offered an alternative to the isolation of being trapped in homes that might warp the ability to reason logically, and to those who craved simple escape. To the air, the sky, or just a horizon, however built-up or close. To hear the distant roar of an aeroplane. A bird singing to greet another morning. Their spiritual methods of living without interaction with the outside world was partially why the Outsiders had become the largest team in the zone.

  Markriss and Chile walked arm in arm, bumping each other. He kept his head raised, alive to the feel of her against him, fingers clasping his on occasion, or caressing his knuckles, letting him know she was there. He breathed lightly, resigned to the taste of reconstituted air, which left a furry sensation on the tongue. Energetic calls of ‘Teacher!’ came from many gardens. They raised their palms, unable to see faces. Cheers were heard, along with cries of ‘Àṣẹ.’

  On some corners, outside terraced houses, residents were waiting spiders, poised ever watchful, hands in pockets, only eyes moving. Hanging piahro smoke formed tendrils in the air. Men and women let them pass, muttering through barely open lips. These were dippers, cutters, pimps and dealers. People of the street. Their products and tools of various trades hidden inside the allocations they stood before, each home a sombre, wrecked advertisement. Chile’s arm tightened, body stiff.

  Silence, then a thudding rhythm behind them, alien yet familiar. Markriss was unable to place the sound until he turned his chin over one shoulder, searching the dusk of quiet streets. Jewelled eyes, a stubby, glistening snout. Continual, low growling. The dogs. One stepped into a patch of candlelight, harsh panting. He flinched at the tawny, emaciated body, huge despite its hollowed sides, its mouth open, revealing its ridged, meaty tongue. Red and grey-patched skin, fur tails resembling carpet frayed to the underlay. Another, then another appeared, similar in colour, size and breed, like siblings, each seemingly staring at Markriss. Begging to be fed perhaps. They were obviously starving. He dragged his feet, unsure what to do about such blatant want. Chile made harsh noises in her throat, and when that didn’t work, began to hiss and bare her teeth. The dogs faded into darkness, steady as whales beneath waves. They moved on, neither admitting the stilted tread of padding paws could still be heard on the edge of hearing, random, unattached to their physical forms.

  The walk took them further away from the high street, deep into the quarter and maze of terraced residencies that mapped their territory, Charlton Estate. An Outsiders’ zone, that was clear. Incense belched sandalwood ghosts. Gardens were filled with squat candles set in the form of their six-pointed star, the centred O. More difficult to see in low light were the spray-painted murals. Orishas, gods, deities, angels and symbols adorned every surface: walls and fences, doors and windows, paving slabs. Prayer flags, symbolic representations of the chakras: crescent moons, triangles, upward swirls. Often no shapes or symbols, only merged formulations of colours. Seamless mosaics of red into orange, orange into yellow, yellow into green, green into purple. Markers of dedicated Outsider homes.

  Passing deeper into those residencies, a wave of movement turned candles into nocturnal coral-birthing polyp flames. Shadows formed and retracted in swelling motion. Doors opened and families came: Marstens, Amens, Wazzis and Okoros. Trinitys, Mysses, Braithwaites, Maungs, Fajemisins. Surrounding Chile and Markriss, pressing determined bodies against theirs, reaching for temples and foreheads with rough fingers, touching bare skin, offering greetings and gifts of food, foil-wrapped packages and bags of cloth. They wore dreadlocks and head-wraps, hijabs and geles. A glitter of whisper-thin robes and saris, agbadas and longyis sweeping grimy streets and pavements with glints of starlight. People gave small, carved effigies. A cola-wood Ganesh, polished and embedded with circular, beige grain. A stone-grey Shango, pearl teeth gritted in anger, and handfuls of others, some beautiful, most simple. Markriss took them gratefully, otherwise Chile accepted on his behalf, concealing them in the hemp bag at her side. They would be given to the Temple, distributed amongst disciples. A rare few would make it to their allocation.

  He talked with all who left their homes to meet him, reassuring he was well, untouched by Corps or uprising. He wasn’t poisoned, neither had he succumbed to ITS. Teacher was in perfect health, alive. Questions came in muttered succession, each speaker knowing they should let them leave, eventually. Given time, they retreated, heads bowed, pulling moon-eyed children by reluctant fingers, backwards like the rewound video of their childhoods until the doors closed and once more candlelight broke the silent darkness with its staccato, baritone language.

  Markriss and Chileshe walked further along the block, encountering more Outsider residents, who came and greeted the pair as their neighbours had. And onwards to the next block and the next, until finally they arrived at a large two-storey home adorned with white roses hung on the front door. The bouquet circled a sign made of simple white paper that bore the family name, visiting hours, and times of prayers in a careful, printed hand.

  A lean, dark man smoked tobacco nearby. Markriss tried to remember his name. Chile, as ever, read his mind, standing on tip-toes, whispering into his ear.

  The son, Parv, discarded his splint and came to them, clasping their hands. Reddened eyes, far-off, hardly resting on any one thing, a mind full of all the chores to perform inside the house perhaps, or in ether with the spirit of his loved one. Markriss recalled a similar unmooring after Ninka joined the ancestors. He wasn’t even sure if he’d returned to the full consciousness of mortal existence, even after all the years since.

  ‘Teacher . . . we’re so sorry . . .’

  Ah. Sylvan’s misdeed, the source of Parv’s discomfort.

  ‘Don’t be. It’s done. We’re sorrier to be here under these circumstances. We only hope your mother is at peace.’

  ‘Everyone tried to tell her, she never listened . . . She’s obsessed by simulations . . .’

  ‘Who can teach the old? Certainly not us,’ Chile said, voice made gentle with
supplication.

  Parv’s smile cracked the tired lines of his face. ‘You must eat.’

  ‘We’ll pray, though Teacher isn’t one hundred per cent. We’ll have to leave soon.’

  ‘Of course, of course . . .’ Parv moved towards the house, crooked arm cradling space, pulling aura towards the door. ‘How are you, Teacher?’

  ‘I’m getting there,’ he told him, and they were over the threshold.

  Inside, a passage filled with people pressed against walls, gasping when they saw Markriss and Chile. Alert bodies, lowered eyes. A wave of bows, mutters, clasped hands raised and shaken in their direction. Word of his arrival travelled throughout the allocation. From a room he couldn’t see, a rising, falling chant of bhajans led by the high, sonorous voices of the elderly, louder than all. Strong incense almost overpowered smells of cooking ghee, while raised voices came from further in, the kitchen most likely. A small bell rang. Voices died into scattered Hindi, fragmented murmurs, before a new prayer began and they rose up, powerful again. Markriss closed his eyes. He couldn’t help smiling. His eyes stung, and he was forced to wipe them. He bit back emotion, shook his head. Loss was a concentrated presence in the Mistry home.

  Parv, eyes set with the glassed introspection of a doll, touched a shoulder to indicate they should move on. He led them, edging along the clogged passage, entering the first open doorway they came to.

  A collected exhalation as the bhajan singers saw them. Prayers grew quiet until he raised a hand, gesturing that they continue. The carpet was covered with white sheets and mourners—close relatives of the Mistrys for the most part—sitting on the floor in every space and crevice, crossed-legged, a plethora of combed and pinned grey heads. A short, rounded elder wearing a cardigan over her morning blue-and-gold sari sat queen-like yet awkward on the sole wooden chair, clutching a prayer book so wrinkled it might have been covered with her own skin, turning pages with an orange-tinged finger. Muttering, she pushed sallow pages back and forth, searching for the right one. Acknowledging Markriss with a nod, she continued to lead as before. The pitch of her voice rang in his ears; relatives joined her, their harmonies splitting rainbow light. Chile and Markriss breathed light, motionless. When the energy of prayers flowed upwards in familiar spirals, they nodded at one another, approaching the altar where a huge silver-framed photograph of Sylvan Mistry was placed beside an illustration of a leaping, dancing Shiva. Sylvan was smiling into the distance, against some unrecognisable background. It wasn’t Outer City, the darkness behind her proved that. It was always dark in the Poor Quarter.