A River Called Time

by Courttia Newland

  He got up, pulling on his tracksuit and hoodie. Made a cup of peppermint tea and played ‘The Blessing Song’ at low, after-midnight volume. Let music wash his body, standing at the window. The pavement beyond spot-lit white, glistening with sharp monochromatic enchantment. Bare trees shivered, stiff and naked in soft breeze.

  He frowned, leant forwards, squeezing his eyes tight. A vague shape beneath the minor shadow of the slight tree, a humped form.

  The dog.

  She sat on muscled haunches, facing his window. Jaws open, tongue lolling, otherwise at rest. A swipe of her tail brushing concrete the only indication that she was real. This time he knew. It was her.

  Anu. Anubis.

  Elegant head raised, dim yellow eyes peering into his, Markriss’s jaws slackened without feeling. His shoulders fell, breath huffed from him. In her eyes, the swirl of infinite existence forming scattered galaxies, each spiral a journey of a million possibilities. In the centre of his body, the vibrations of a singing bell. A dark plain of circumstance and the branching flow of decisions. In the far reaches of his mind, the sound of ever-present running water, offset by the farthest hint of irregular wind chimes.

  Casual yet deliberate, Markriss raised his puffer from a coat hanger, slipping his arms inside. He put both feet into a pair of slides, pushing his toes against carpet to make sure they were properly on. Picked up his imitation notebook and put it into a pocket, doing the same for his keys. He opened the flat door, stepping out.

  The moon, a brilliant searchlight, full and round. The hush of pre-dawn and shush of dried leaves twirling and spinning, a globular dance.

  He caught the scent of marijuana, searching the central steps that led to upstairs flats. Sirus, puffing spectral smoke. Markriss raised a hand; the elder responded with a lifted fist, placed against his heart. As he walked to the steps, Markriss watched the street to check if the dog was still poised, panting.

  She was.

  When he looked back at the flats, trotting up basement steps, the smoke, and Sirus, were gone.

  He slowed, unfazed by the elder’s disappearance, turning to the main road. Perhaps he’d been an image of another time, perhaps a figment of his own making. Markriss didn’t care. By the time he reached street level, Anubis had manoeuvred to face him. Her tail swished once more, perhaps as greeting, maybe impatience. There was no barking or urgency, only solemn countenance. It was difficult to tell what she thought.

  ‘Good dog,’ Markriss said, the words barely meeting his teeth. He was unsure whether he’d expressed them at all.

  Anubis remained still, red corduroy leash placed on the paving slab to her right in a serpent’s curl, as though arranged. He bent to stroke her head. She was still, a work of art. When he picked up the lead and stood, she rose to her feet, wet nose pointing at the rise of hill.

  ‘Let’s go,’ he said, through stiffened lips.

  He sleepwalked his way up Notting Hill, Anubis pressing forwards, tugging the lead into a straight red line, nose angled at the space before her, jaws open, baring teeth. Past the yellow-brick church of St John’s, the locked and chained back gardens of Ladbroke Square, the rise of expansive sash windows.

  His eyes blurred, so he swiped at them, though his sight continued to grow hazy, and he was blinded for a moment. When his vision returned, nothing was as it had been. Rising high above his head, a gargantuan metal framework of blue towered miles into night, too far to see where it might end, an impure landscape of pulleys and giant cogs, ropes of steel thicker than the width of his thighs, stark lights projecting powerful beams into darkness. Stencilled and faded white numbers impossible to interpret, a foreign language. A gagging stench of oil coated his nose and throat, making his lungs flinch, and he coughed. Men scurrying and climbing its heights, trivial as aphids on stems, the echoing noise of clanking tools a continual rhythm, though he couldn’t see the point at which it originated.

  Anubis shivered and stopped, cowering, whimpering. As rapidly as it appeared, the construction began to fade, blown apart like paper shreds in a breeze. Markriss knew he’d seen the gateway he’d imagined for so many years. How and why it had materialised as a living apparition to become his fleeting dreams made real was too much to comprehend, and made him fearful of his own mind.

  Then it was gone. He was returned to the present moment. He crouched, ruffling Anu’s fur for comfort, to feel something solid. She growled in acknowledgement, pulling the lead. Once his legs regained their strength, he stood and allowed Anu to pull him up the steep incline.

  The infamous former police station angled on a corner, where so many battles were fought. Antiques stores, estate agents’ bright advertising photographs, the Mitre pub.

  On the other side of the hill they waited at the crossing. With no cars to stop them, they moved on.

  Another steep rise, contained by a narrow strip of pathway. Night concentrated, shadows grew. Thin mist escaped from Markriss’s and Anu’s mouths as they breathed hard. The glitter of dusted frost decorated the ground, reflecting stark moonlight.

  They pushed on upwards, until his legs burned and breath shot from their lungs in longer, sharper bursts. Nothing of the city about them. No sound of vehicles, people, even the scurry of nocturnal animals. Still everywhere, theirs the only movement. On their left, blank walls of houses, to their right thickening branches and a growing chorus of fluttering black wings as they reached the edges of Holland Park.

  Metal-railed fencing trailed the pathway. Whispers and fumbled bodies connected in chilled air, alert to the quiet sound of their feet, their harshness of breath. Men would meet amongst the trees, something Markriss learnt walking this pathway years ago. A cinema had existed not far from the southern edge of the park and he’d left a late-night screening, Raymeda’s hand in his, returning to her hostel. Anubis’s head twitched as though scenting something on the air, even as she kept moving and Markriss followed in her wake. They reached a portion of fencing where there was a small gate, a braided chain and padlock.

  Anubis stopped, resting on hind legs, contemplating the height of the gate. She turned to him, then the gate. It took three attempts before he got the message.

  He climbed, rapid though ungainly. At the top, he swung his leg over. Dropped to the other side with a grunt.

  Anubis snaked her body through a gap and sat by his heels until he knelt, grasping the red lead from the grass.

  The full moon gave all the light they needed. Led by the dog, Markriss angled right into the depths of trees, and from the corner of his eyes he saw others note their presence, before rapidly looking away. Lovers, the homeless, insomniacs like himself perhaps—gave them the benefit of peace, left them alone. Soon, the canopy of intertwined branches above their heads blocked all but the slimmest beams of light. Markriss lost any sense of time, all linear meaning.

  Anubis pulled harder. Around them, a dark clearing formed by the oldest trees of the park by hundreds of years. At the centre of that circular space, emerging from a bed made of gravel, dust, long dead bark, the dissolution of material bodies that came before, was a strange trick of light. A silver glitter of eternal, starred moments. An outpouring of energy, vivid as moonlight, spouting high into the limbs of trees, through emaciated branches and beyond, into the very clouds. A vibration hummed through his soles. He craned his head upwards and still couldn’t see the end of the silver stream, just ink sky around it.

  Anubis stepped closer, one paw after the other, lying just in front of the light. Her forelegs lit pale, nose low to earth, watching. Markriss moved to join her, gazing around the clearing in a slow circle, seeing in every direction. With the old trees gathered around him, the tacit wisdom of their energy, he felt overwhelming sadness. In the stillness of a moment where all was time, he knew beauty, and loss.

  Markriss took one final look, reaching out a hand, his fingers touching light. Pleasure flooded him, like all he had known.

  6

  He rose into night gradually, bitter taste flooding hi
s tongue. From liquid to air, arms at his sides, alive to feeling. His eyes closed for a long moment, nerve-endings intensified, connections with the elements heightened. The rush of water loud applause in his ears. Atmosphere swirling at his fingers, arms, hair, body, neck and chest, the feel of lenient material. The aroma of earth and river came as a rich balm he breathed into his lungs as far as they would expand. Higher, eyes opening, and he was there again, in the land he’d dreamt without awareness, not alien, somewhere he knew.

  He moved his ethereal body across the landscape, hovering at a height from which he could see the Taut. Everywhere, before him and behind, was the river, blackened earth at its side. There was an escape of vital force from him—not air, though much like breathing, expelled into the atmosphere as blue energy swirling from his body.

  Markriss saw a rock close by, and sat to rest. Thighs pressed against the solid stone face, knees bent and protruding, back straight—reassuring physicality. He felt a presence at his shoulder, a hand.

  Take time, Wallace said, intention streaming through consoling touch. You have it.

  Markriss stared into dust. I’ve never experienced sadness like that.

  They are immersed in the depths of a period known in Hindu tradition as Kali Yuga, the age of iron. A period of extreme spiritual conflict and war. Meditation and chanting can help a sense of balance on the physical planes, but it takes much practice.

  What about my original plane? The place I came from, or the one where I was an Outsider? What were they?

  They are all Kali Yuga, to greater or lesser degrees.

  So who am I?

  He looked into the hood. Wallace was barely visible as a physical entity. His ka moved like illuminated smoke.

  All of them, Markriss. You are all.

  He set his gaze to the land once more. If every person he encountered or had been was himself, that meant Wallace had told him truth in the beginning. This ethereal being, on this plane, was his one true form. Who he was meant to be.

  I’m never destined to find Keshni or Chileshe, am I?

  The hood moved its shoulders in the semblance of a shrug.

  There are rivulets where such possibility occurs. You simply chose another way.

  I should have been happy. It was everything. I wasn’t content.

  The feeling at his shoulder was gone. Wallace had turned, considering the sky.

  Every action has a reaction. You cannot gain without compromise.

  His ka emptied a thin stream of blue smoke from his mouth.

  You’ve almost completed your journey. I’m not sure whether the body you claim will live or die. The only chance to avoid certain destruction is to follow the Rogue.

  He’s on Geb?

  We have found him. The decision is yours. Will you confront him, or go back where you began?

  I want to be here. I want to be free, Markriss said, and brightness emerged from the edges of Wallace’s hood. Silken pink tendrils floating into gloom.

  Meditate on what you’ve experienced. Take to the river where you feel it best. There’s no need for me to lead further. You have arrived. Take the next step, Markriss. Go where you should.

  He nodded agreement, calming his spirit. He allowed energy to flow through him and connect with gloss-black earth, the corresponding air, the subtle forms of being that travelled above. The expansive universe in continual rotation beyond that place. Chakras spun in motion from his base, coursing upwards in cumulative spirals to his crown. He gasped at the electric feel of all that passed through him, from the dust to ether and back. And then, shockingly, there was liquid. Elemental water, the force of life surrounding him until there was nothing else, no awareness of time and space except lapping tide against the place where his ears had once been, no touch beyond the essence that buoyed him, no taste other than bitter-sweet brine, no sight, only the motion of distant light patterns, fluctuations of the water itself. Rather than sink or rise, Markriss widened the space where his arms had been, releasing control. An eternity passed in that place.

  Part Four

  The Upper Room

  ‘Awareness is consciousness. Thus, reality will remain a matter of choice.’

  — Reginald Crosley MD

  13 December 2020

  1

  During REM sleep, Markriss returned to Burbank Park, where he walked a red-brick path, the black dog at his side. Nocturnal creatures stirred above his head, occasional shadows swooping low, possibly bats or owls. He saw a lake in the far distance, although with the breeze getting cold, he probably wouldn’t walk that far. He was searching for someone he’d been alongside for a length of time, who’d left him with Apnu on . . . That was it, he had left him and the dog on a small rug they placed somewhere behind him. Ninka. Yes. He was looking for Ninka. He’d said he wanted to explore, and he wouldn’t go far, and then he’d disappeared into the bushes and not returned. Markriss had waited, listening to the hesitant calls of owls and flutterings of bat wings, shivering cold. He decided to go in search of his brother.

  He had thought it was summer for some reason, yet the chill said otherwise. He was quite young, he knew that too, as his trainers were child-sized. The grass was silver with dew, the moon a pale eye. Apnu panted at his feet. The world seemed to have emptied. Like disintegrating smoke, Ninka was gone.

  Apnu took an abrupt left and he followed, stepping from the path to cross wet grass, pushing knotted bushes and branches away until he entered a small clearing.

  There was Ninka. Tiny, in shadow, wearing simple shorts and a T-shirt, neck craned back towards the canopy of treetops.

  In front of his brother, silver light as wide as an oak tree gushed from a carpet of dry earth and leaves, higher than the trees themselves, into night sky. A roaring waterfall rush erupted around them. Markriss reached out for his brother, almost touching him.

  The simulation ended, he was awake.

  He lay still a moment, acclimatising. It was useful not to rise too quickly after a program; users had stumbled and injured themselves, a few elderly users even died. His heart raced from the beauty of what he’d seen and the joy of breathing outside air, the feel of wind, the sound of the creatures wheeling above, the pad of dog paws by his feet. His corresponding chakra ached from loss, a pulsing heaviness he hadn’t felt for so long. Strange and painful as they were, Markriss let himself relive the sensations, trying not to question why his simulation had selected a localised Nocturna program at random. He’d never owned a dog, nor visited Burbank Park with his brother. In fact, before he slept he’d programmed the sleeper to take him to the pitzball fields of Chichen Itza to relive the experience of ancient matches, not remain within Dinium, even if he relished the opportunity to experience the outer world again.

  He thought the covering open, watching it slide left with a mechanical gasp, then climbed out to crouch by his pod-side and inspect the settings. The sim trajectory was correct, his sleep clock primed to the selected duration. According to the pod, nothing was wrong. Markriss double-checked the programs, finding the trajectory seemed normal. He thought-scrolled through controls until he realised all he’d achieved was base-level angst that became stronger the more he thought of Ninka. He slammed the protective display cover shut with vague annoyance, rose and closed the pod.

  Standing, hands on hips, Markriss pondered the issue. It wasn’t the first error his Nocturna program had made. He watched the sleeper, biting at his inner cheek.

  Two chimes came from his slide. Simi pinged the message, her soft metallic voice like a thought of his own: ‘Keshni Roberts, Ark News.’

  A pause, then: ‘We’re here. He’s going to start in an hour. Are you still coming?’

  Markriss pinged back: ‘Yes. On my way. Don’t start without me lol.’

  Quick strides took him into the kitchen. He grabbed a packet of pea and bean snacks, one orange, one apple and his water bottle, stuffing them all into his rucksack. He left the house.

  Day-Lites had entered the first segment of mid
-phase, brightening everything beneath them, spreading warmth and good feeling. Markriss loved his zone at this time of day, though he usually left for work earlier when the Lites were dim and trams bustled with commuters. Around this time on weekends, he’d sit on his porch, a slide on his lap, playing music and watching the neighbourhood pass like the progression of time. The street, one of several affluent blocks that made up Hegarton West, was tree-lined and grass-verged, the paving slabs bleached white. Kids’ trikes stood dormant in front gardens, awaiting noisy passengers. The roads were clean, the houses neat and well ordered, wooden shutters at windows and elaborate designs set beneath the fascia boards of flat roofs, mainly roses and papyrus, or the elegant stone heads of jackals and lions.

  He walked to the end of the block, muttering good mornings on his way, to join a clutch of neighbours waiting at the D-stop. Ready for the working day in sober dresses for the women, plain suits and wide-brimmed hats for men, uniform even though they performed a wide range of jobs: banking, accounting, finance, insurance, management, nothing menial. He forced himself to smile, even as loss coursed through him, a long-forgotten ache. Grief for his brother smothered him like he’d not felt in years.

  ‘Morning.’

  ‘Morning, Mark.’

  ‘Morning, all.’

  Murmured greetings. A moment of quiet waiting. Tight, gleaming shoes squeaked as men rocked on their feet. One gentleman, wearing a tan Eurasian designer suit, broad head, broad shoulders, unnecessary raincoat folded over his arm, most likely for show, rocked on his feet and smiled back. He stepped forwards.

  ‘Tell us when they’ve got the buggers, won’t you?’