Paradise - A Divine Comedy

by Glenn Myers

Jamie’s Myth

  ‘I don’t think that’s a very good idea,’ I said, instinctively reaching for a samosa.

  ‘Why not?’ said Caroline. ‘It might buy you extra time.’

  ‘Practicalities,’ I said firmly. ‘There’s all that corrosion and everything. Therapists running loose. Dangerous.’

  ‘You don’t know that,’ she said.

  ‘Everybody says so,’ I replied.

  ‘You don’t know. It could be really empty.’

  ‘When we first left our bodies it wasn’t long before we were captured, was it?’

  ‘You’re not, scared or anything?’

  ‘Pfff,’ I spluttered, which isn’t a brilliant idea when you have a mouthful of samosa. ‘Sorry. The crumbs’ll just flick off. Really Caroline it’s not about danger, it’s about what’s wise and what isn’t.’

  ‘Sounds quite practical to me,’ said Keziah, with an unusually innocent expression on her face.

  ‘Look,’ I said, ‘we don’t even know where the edge of our cage is. So it’s impossible.’

  ‘The HELP system might help,’ said Keziah.

  ‘That’s a novel idea,’ I grumbled. ‘A HELP system that actually helps you, that might catch on. Look, you’re both being ridiculous.’

  ‘I think it’s good to have a bolt-hole,’ said Caroline. ‘At least to see if you can’t find one.’

  ‘Caroline, I think you’ve been helping out in the Melodramatic Thriller section again, and all this adventure’s gone to your head. Escape! I mean.’

  ‘A refill of tea, Keziah?’ asked Caroline.

  ‘Thank you Caroline,’ said Keziah.

  ‘Look,’ I said. ‘I don’t think we can find the edge of the habitat. I’ve flown the space shuttle and I never got near any edge of any habitat.’ I seized another samosa and killed it with a single bite.

  ‘I’ve been thinking about that,’ said Caroline. ‘Since there’s not much to do in the lighthouse apart from re-cataloguing your music collection.’

  ‘How’s that going by the way—’

  ‘I think you make space in this habitat by imagining it. If you just rose up into the sky, not thinking about anything, you’d soon reach the edge.’

  ‘All right, suppose for argument’s sake you can find the edge. What do you do then? Just stick your head through?’

  ‘You could try.’

  ‘And have it bitten off by whatever’s out there, or melted with acid, or—’

  ‘They might just be telling you that to stop you trying to escape,’ said Caroline.

  ‘Or, alternatively, think of this,’ I said. ‘They might be telling us that because it’s really true and really dangerous.’

  ‘Only one way to find out,’ said Keziah, examining her nails.

  ‘So you’re saying,’ I said, looking from one to the other and at the now-empty plate of samosas, ‘go up to the edge of the habitat, stick my head out, have a look.’

  They both nodded.

  ‘Which Gaston and Leopold will both be fine about,’ I said.

  ‘Except they’re not here,’ said Caroline. ‘They’ll be busy toadying to the Toad.’

  ‘You think.’

  ‘Peace be Upon Him,’ said Caroline.

  ‘Suppose for a moment we could get to the edge of the habitat, and suppose we could stick our heads out and have a look, where would that get us?’

  ‘It might mean that we had somewhere to escape to, which could prolong your lives, which could give time for your bodies to recover, which might mean that you return to them,’ said Caroline.

  ‘Or I might get my head melted.’

  ‘Good job we’ve a man about the place,’ said Caroline. ‘To do some of the brave stuff.’

  ‘I will ignore that improper statement, because the County Council hasn’t organized your Diversity Training yet,’ I said. ‘Plus I’ve had a thought. You’re a figment of my imagination, OK, no disrespect, I’ve done my best for you, but if your head was dissolved, I could put it back on.’

  ‘Your point?’ Caroline folded her hands across the table and looked at me.

  ‘My point? My point is that if we’re being ruthlessly practical… Keziah, if we’re being ruthlessly practical, wouldn’t you say that if there’s a hazardous mission,’ I was faltering a little, but to my great credit, carried on, ‘fraught with unknowns and dangers, that the wisest course of action, when you really need a clear head in the face of mortal peril, is to send the County Assistant Librarian (Local History Archive)? I mean who better in a crisis? Especially given that, in the unthinkable scenario that she was in any way hurt, we who stayed behind would be in an excellent position to refit any necessary body parts.’

  Neither girl replied.

  ‘You’re not sure whether to look on with sorrow or anger,’ said Caroline to Keziah.

  ‘Aw all right,’ I said. ‘I just think it isn’t that great an idea, that’s all. But I will give it some thought.’ I took a fistful of salted cashews from the bowl.

  ‘The thing is,’ said Caroline, after a short pause. ‘It’s probably one of these things better done sooner rather later.’

  ‘No time like the present,’ added Keziah.

  I closed my eyes. ‘I tell you what,’ I said. ‘I’ll ask the HELP. Then I’ll think about it. Pablo!’

  After a gap of some ten seconds, Pablo the HELP system emerged from the trees. He was shuffling, using a crutch, and his nose was encased in plaster. His labrador eyes looked at us sorrowfully in turn.

  ‘Señorita, Señorita, Señor.’

  ‘Pablo,’ I said. ‘How are you? Did you have an accident?’

  ‘It was an encounter with a B-2 bomber, Señor, if you remember.’

  ‘Can’t we fix up your leg and that nose?’

  ‘Some things are beyond mending, Señor.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘I am coming to terms with it. You wish to know about the edge of the habitat? The two señoritas are in most respects correct. The edge of the habitat is quite near. You can reach it so long as you do not exercise any imagination. It is a clear boundary, like the surface of water viewed from underneath, easily found. You can indeed put your head through. I am not informed what you will find, but Gaston and Leopold recommend you don’t do it.’

  ‘Will an alarm go off or anything? Warn Gaston and Leopold?’ I asked.

  ‘I think they were of the view, Señor,’ Pablo said, ‘that the sheer horror of the situation would send you back.’

  ‘I see. Would I be able to breathe?’

  ‘Señor, surely you have learnt by now that your spirit is like what your physicists called an elementary particle. Or perhaps like a complex molecule. It simply exists, oscillating with its own intrinsic energy, requiring nothing to keep it going. It can travel anywhere in the Universe. Of course it can feel extreme pain, and be dissembled into its constituent parts, but each bit of you is immortal.’

  ‘Thank you very much Pablo,’ I said. ‘You’re a great HELP. I’m very sorry about the limp. Would it help if I recreated you as something else?’

  ‘No Señor, the damage is to my core being and would show up in whatever form you created me.’

  ‘I see. Sorry. You couldn’t get some more salted cashew nuts could you? I particularly like the jumbo ones.’

  ‘Jamie! Get them yourself!’ scolded Caroline.

  ‘I was only asking! Perhaps on second thoughts I’ll just magic up some more myself. Thank you very much for your help. I won’t blow you up this time. I was a bit upset before.’

  ‘Señor,’ said Pablo. He nodded to Keziah and Caroline and shuffled away.

  ‘That settles it,’ I said. ‘Obviously, there’s no point in going. You heard the man. Very risky. You’d have to be a fool to go.’

  This led to an awkward pause, and we were quiet with our thoughts, until one of the stars from The Christmas Tree constellation above us—a greeny white one—removed itself from the sky, dropped down in front of us, expanded, and turned into Stub.


  ‘Are you finished?’ he asked. ‘I’ve been watching your conversation. I know this isn’t a good time. I have to tell you something tonight.’

  ‘What?’ I asked, very much in a bad mood.

  ‘I’ve found out what they’re doing. It’s the Biennale,’ said Stub. ‘I should have remembered.’ He didn’t look well, bloodied and lacerated. ‘It’s a thing that happens every couple of years—’

  ‘That could be why they call it a Biennale,’ I said.

  ‘The evil spirits have broken up the old monopoly, which never really worked, and have divided themselves into purchasers and providers. (You need to know these fashions sweep through heaven and earth from time to time.) The Almighty Toad heads up one producer group. He’s a kind of business leader or warlord. Gaston’s a manager and Leopold’s a designer. They’re putting together a package—that is, you’re the package—for the Biennale. Which is attended by the purchasing groups.’

  ‘You’re not being massively clear at the moment,’ I said.

  ‘The clamour for new movements, sir, is constant,’ said Stub, glancing over his shoulder. ‘Everyone wants the latest spiritual fashions. Gaston and Leopold seek to re-introduce spirit worship into postmodern culture. Some postmoderns long for the certainties that their grandparents had (jobs, marriages, families). Gaston and Leopold want spirit-worship and spirit guides to be the route to that imagined happiness. So they’re gambling that their mixture of pop-philosophy, cynicism, physics and spiritual experiences will become a new movement among postmoderns in the West.

  ‘You guys are the pilot. You’re the working model. They’re going to show you off at the Biennale. If all goes well, their ideas get taken up by the purchasers. Gaston, Leopold and the whole of the Toad’s working group get a massive increase in power and prestige. That’s why they fought so hard for you.’

  ‘When does this Biennale take place?’

  ‘When the pre-conference haggling is over.’

  ‘How long will that be?’

  ‘Are you aware, sir, that time moves at a different speed the further away you travel from the world of matter?’

  ‘Er, no,’ I said.

  ‘Up here time moves at about twice the speed of earth-time—T2, we call it. Two days at T2 are one day on earth. It’s actually about T2.1 here. I am normally based at T12 because it gives us more time to sort things out. If we have some emergency decisions to make, we can go as high as T30 or T40. The Biennale is a bit closer to Earth, about T1.8. Obviously, the districts where time passes most slowly are the more desirable. From where you are, I should think the main events of the Biennale start in a couple of days. It’s a tight deadline for Gaston and Leopold.’

  ‘So that’s why they’ve been filling our heads with pop ideology and trying to get us to build Paradise together?’ I said.

  ‘Exactly, sir.’

  ‘What happens after the Biennale’s over?’ I asked.

  ‘Well, sir, if they win the contract, they’ll probably hang onto you for a bit, do some more experiments. If they lose, they’re in big trouble. You’ve probably noticed that caring for you goes completely against the grain for them. So I imagine they’ll dispose of you in some entertaining way, sooner or later. They might sell you to the highest bidder, recover their investment. Or invite people round for a party and torture you publicly.’

  ‘Fabulous.’

  ‘I am trying to give you objective advice, sir.’

  ‘Do you know how they’re doing down at the hospital?’

  ‘No sir. It was, if I may say so, stressful enough to find out what I did. I haven’t had time to visit earth recently.’

  ‘So your advice is?’

  ‘You? I give in.’

  ‘That’s helpful.’

  ‘I will stay nearby. I had hoped to return to my colleagues, but I think this is an emergency.’

  He flew off. Keziah and I glanced at each other.

  ‘It doesn’t look like we have long, after all,’ I said.

  I was badly needing some me time by now so I left Keziah and Caroline. I had been practising the high-speed streaking that Gaston and Leopold did and managed to shoot myself back to the lighthouse almost at the speed of light. (I had to slow to go round corners.) The lounge was dank and chilly, the fire not lit, and no-one had put out any nibbles.

  I found Caroline, Mel and Annie sitting around the kitchen table, eating cream cakes. They ignored me. The only thing on the stove for tea (I poked it with a wooden spoon) was Lancashire hot-pot made from some gristly bits of dead cow.

  I looked at them.

  ‘What?’ I said.

  ‘The girls and I have been chatting,’ said Caroline.

  ‘But you were up in the tea-garden a second ago.’

  ‘You forget I can move at the speed of thought,’ said Caroline. ‘Which even in the case of your thoughts, gives me plenty of time.’

  ‘Can’t we light a fire?’ I asked, ‘I’m freezing.’

  ‘I had a headache,’ said Annie, whose job it was. Then blushed deeply with the shame of uttering an entire sentence that people actually listened to.

  ‘What’s this for tea?’

  ‘It was your turn to cook,’ said Caroline. ‘But out of the goodness of our hearts we made something.’

  ‘You’ve been having too much salt and saturated fat,’ added Mel, with the confidence of someone who got a C in Nutrition Studies, alongside her A in Sports Studies, thus proving she was an academic all-rounder.

  ‘Caroline…’

  ‘Unreasonable people,’ said Caroline prissily, ‘do not get our cooperation. Do they girls?’

  Annie shook her head and Mel nodded.

  ‘Right,’ I said. ‘Never mind, I’ll light the fires—woof! There!—I will fix myself a meal. In the meantime, Caroline, I would be grateful if you could collect everything I’ve ever read about fusion power, and some maps of the East Coast.’

  She looked at me mulishly.

  ‘I’m not cooperating,’ she said, and gripped the table. Her cheeks went slightly pink.

  ‘Caroline…’ I reminded her, ‘There is still in this world, as I know you know, such a thing as Duty.’

  ‘You are a piece of pond scum.’

  ‘Duty, Caroline.’

  She gave a little squeaky hmph, then stood up, strode over to the door and yanked it open. ‘I’m only doing this because I’m a Librarian,’ she said proudly. ‘Not because I want to.’

  Despite the fires, it remained chilly in the kitchen. Caroline was ages but did finally return with a stack of paper which she dropped heavily on the table in front of me. Then she went for a lie-down.

  ‘I think I’ll read these in the lounge,’ I said.

  An hour later, I got a call on the blow tube.

  ‘Sorry to disturb your important researches,’ Caroline said sweetly. ‘Gaston and Leopold are back and they have summoned you and Keziah to meet them.’

  ‘But it’s really late!’

  ‘I can tell them “no,” if you like.’

  ‘You could,’ I said airily. ‘I suppose I can fit them in.’

  The sun shone at the same angle through the woodland as when we’d left earlier in the day, which I thought was a bit sloppy on Leopold’s part. As I wandered towards the clearing, I had the feeling that I was walking in on an argument.

  Gaston was looking away from Leopold, who was sitting with legs crossed and was leaning back in a completely artificial manner, as if trying to say, ‘I’m not bothered what you think, I’m completely relaxed.’ Leopold was dressed in a tracksuit, Gaston in a business suit.

  Keziah arrived next to me in overalls splattered with oil and dirt. She was wearing her hair up, held in place by one of those savage hinged combs that girls leave lying around sometimes like bear-traps.

  ‘Still working on your model?’ I asked.

  ‘Finally getting somewhere, I think,’ said Keziah.

  ‘Looks messy.’

  ‘Yes,’ she
said.

  ‘Why aren’t they here already?’ snapped Gaston to Leopold as we walked into the clearing. ‘Why do we have to wait for them?’

  ‘They’re here now,’ said Leopold.

  ‘This is their last chance to get this right,’ said Gaston.

  Leopold coughed. ‘Jamie, Keziah,’ he said brightly. ‘Do pull up a tree trunk.’ He gave a nervous laugh. ‘I know you’ve been enjoying our little sessions together. I think we’ve been having some memorable times—’

  I put my hand up.

  ‘Just suppose,’ I said, ‘for argument’s sake, we weren’t actually dead? We’d just left our bodies for a bit?’

  ‘What makes you think that?’ asked Gaston.

  ‘I dreamt I was in hospital.’

  ‘I’ve told him,’ said Leopold to Gaston, ‘that these things happen to people who are recently dead. Nothing to worry about.’

  I kept my hand up.

  ‘If we are dead,’ I asked, ‘where’s everyone else?’

  Leopold looked over at Gaston for a moment, then said, irritated, ‘You’re getting your perspective wrong again. Imagine you had a pet hamster. How many other hamsters would your hamster see in a day? Not many? Yet there are thousands of hamsters in your country. You forget that the heavens are vastly bigger than the earth. The whole human population could be here and you’d hardly ever see anyone else. The cute idea that all the humans are gathered in one little place called heaven or Valhalla is another of your human-centred fantasies. The Universe is not about you and little bags of skin and water like yourselves have to find your way as best you can.’

  ‘Does that mean all the other dead humans have been captured by spirits?’ I asked.

  ‘Only the very lucky ones,’ said Leopold. ‘The rest rot in the noxious rain, or are just randomly preyed upon. Whereas with us,’ he added smoothly, ‘you two have found the Promised Land and two beings who care for you and have a wonderful plan for your ongoing deaths.’

  ‘Provided you learn to worship us,’ put in Gaston.

  ‘Which we have agreed,’ said Leopold, firmly, glancing at Gaston, and with a little tremble in his voice, ‘is something you will grasp naturally and without being forced so long as you have a full understanding of who you really are and who we really are.’

  ‘And provided you do it soon,’ Gaston muttered.

  ‘Which you will because you are grasping things very well and you know what’s good for you,’ insisted Leopold, through his teeth. ‘Anyway,’ he added hurriedly, ‘we haven’t got long this evening—’

  Gaston snorted. Leopold looked at him furiously and then carried on. ‘We wanted to look at this worshipping idea from another angle. You see, some people find making and worshipping their own idol, well, not entirely to their taste, wouldn’t you agree?

  ‘That’s a reasonable scruple. Why would eternal spiritual beings want to be worshipped by their pets? It’s ridiculous!

  ‘Unfortunately, the research shows, it works for you. Dogs need a pack leader; humans need a god. You don’t need to believe in the god, or like the god, but there’s something in the rituals that works for you. Like keep-fit.’

  ‘Oh what’s the point,’ groaned Gaston suddenly. ‘Even if they grasp this. Even if they get it into their thick heads, the Toad’ll still take all the credit.’

  ‘One bridge at a time, Gaston, dear,’ hissed Leopold to Gaston. He looked at us conspiratorially. ‘He’s not had the best of days, the Lord Gaston. You might think it’s wonderful to be an eternal, superintelligent being but actually there are downsides.

  ‘So: what does this mean for you?’

  I tried to look suitably thoughtful. Keziah, as girls do when they’re not listening, let her hair down, put her man-eating comb in her mouth, gathered up her hair in her hands, twisted it together, folded it over and jammed the comb back in. I always enjoyed watching people do that, and even scrawny Keziah did it with effortless grace, like all girls do, the product of years of practice on My Little Ponys, I imagined, or maybe just some gender-specific predisposition to hairstyling, dating back to when female australopithecines deloused each other on the herbaceous plains near the Great Rift Valley.

  ‘Mystery!’ said Leopold, snapping me back to attention. ‘Nobody knows the point of worship.

  ‘Nevertheless our research shows it does work, so we go the extra mile and accept it, a bit like parents admiring a child’s painting even though, by any standards of Art, it’s rubbish.

  ‘Now since worshipping us is essentially meaningless (as you may agree), you can do it with a clear conscience. You can worship us, knowing in your heart that it’s all really an act, and it doesn’t matter.

  ‘This kind of performance has sustained humans for centuries. It works! It’s harmless! It doesn’t matter! We don’t know why! It’s all mystery and paradox! So let’s do it anyway! A bit of harmless worship!’ Leopold was slavering again.

  ‘That makes sense to me,’ I said, meaning it for once. I can be quite comfortable with insincerity. ‘What about you, Keziah?’

  Keziah sighed.

  ‘I think,’ I said, ‘Keziah and me need time to think about this, don’t we Keziah?’

  Keziah opened her mouth.

  ‘—Yep, Keziah thinks so too,’ I said hurriedly.

  ‘Good,’ said Leopold equally hurriedly. ‘Very good. I’m sure mature reflection will lead you in the right direction. Now unfortunately it’s coming round to a busy time for the Overlord and I. Neither of us will be around tomorrow, or the day after that. What I would like you to do is think all this through, get your worship structures organized, and continue building your world—maybe a park around the house?—then when we get back it’ll be great. We can really move on. Gaston, are you ready?’

  Gaston sighed loudly.

  ‘After you,’ he said.

  Leopold climbed into the sky. Gaston looked Keziah in the eye for a long moment. ‘We will win you know,’ he said slowly to her. ‘Nice or nasty, we’ll win.’

  Keziah stared him down. She was magnificent sometimes. Stupid, but magnificent. Gaston twitched his fingers as if they were already around Keziah’s neck.

  ‘You have no idea,’ he said, ‘what I can do to you.’

  ‘But you’re afraid,’ said Keziah.

  Gaston looked at her for another long moment, and streaked away.

  ‘I thought it was better not to have another fight,’ I said to Keziah.

  ‘Did you.’

  ‘Yes, and I was right. I mean what would it achieve?’

  ‘We don’t know what it would achieve, because you always chicken out.’

  ‘What it would achieve is another beating up, or maybe they’d throw us out, or maybe all sorts of things.’

  ‘Which you think is worse than what we have now?’

  ‘Look,’ I said. ‘All they’re asking is that we pay them a bit of respect, and give them honour and worship, and they even said it doesn’t matter if you mean it. You just have to do it.’

  ‘Like prostitution really.’

  ‘No, like survival. Like politeness. Like many things. Keziah, it’s only you that’s making this a problem.’

  ‘So long as we do it.’

  ‘So long as we appear to do it. That’s all. Suppose we were dogs and they said, “I won’t give you your food until you sit.” We might think that’s terrible, a breach of doggy rights but in the end, you sit and they feed you. They’re happy, you’re happy, end of problem.’

  ‘Except you’re still a dog.’

  ‘Keziah, compared with Gaston and Leopold we might be a lot less than a dog.’

  ‘You might.’

  ‘Nevertheless I think I might make them a small god to keep them happy.’

  ‘I think I won’t.’

  I looked at her. ‘Can I change the subject? It looks like we’ve got two days off. What do you want to do?’

  ‘I’m going to work on my habitat and eat mushrooms.’

  ‘’Cos I t
hought, I might try flying to the edge of the habitat.’

  ‘You?’

  ‘Yes. They’re not going to be there, are they, Gaston and Leopold? So now’s as good a time as any.’

  ‘You’re going on a dangerous trip to the edge of the habitat?’

  ‘Don’t rub it in. I hope it isn’t that dangerous.’

  ‘Would you like me to come?’

  ‘Er.’ I hadn’t thought of this. Then, I thought, Keziah, why don’t you go instead of me? You’re OK with pain and danger in a losing cause. Then I thought about a man having to do what a man has to do, and what a stupid idea that is, and all the problems that’s caused over the centuries. I thought of Caroline, Mel and Annie on strike back at the lighthouse, and I sighed and said, ‘That’s very kind but I think I’d better just go myself. Otherwise I’m in danger of being locked out of my own lighthouse.’

  Keziah smiled. No, really. It didn’t exactly take over her face, but it was there.

  ‘There was a bit of steam coming out of Caroline’s ears.’

  ‘You don’t know the half.’

  ‘They say, “raging is caring”.’

  ‘Do they. Anyway, no, I think I must go alone but I might ask you to look me over when I return. Have you ever dealt with corroded bodies and mortal wounds?’

  ‘I don’t do blood, sorry.’

  ‘First I’m going to have dinner and a film. Then in the morning I’ll see if it’s true that a condemned man eats a hearty breakfast.’

  Maybe I went to sleep thinking too much about my trip to the edge of the habitat. Maybe my subconscious was looking for the Caroline-who-won’t-come-in-the-Dome. Either way, in my sleep, I thought I might have a look outside the Dome. I pushed my way out and padlocked the door behind me.

  Ghost-like, I drifted over the mounds of rubbish, close enough to see rats scurrying around. The people I glimpsed seemed to be avoiding me. They were wrapped up against the cold and were shuffling around, heads down in the rain.

  Lorries were winding up a road and unloading at an ugly brick building attached to the Dome. Rubbish flowed from the building down a chute, adding to the piles of garbage all around. Smoke from the building’s chimney filled the sky.

  The rubbish slowly grew less as I glided away from the Dome, towards a bleak city. I passed derelict factories, pot-holed roads, charity shops. The streets were empty of tax-paying normal people and dotted instead with old ladies, single mums, shaven-headed men. Litter was being blown into piles like snowdrifts. I peeked through the locked gates of a great, but now trashed, park.

  In my dreamlike movement I passed beyond the city and on to a mountain range, then on between peaks and clouds until at last the hills fell away suddenly into steep slopes and a cliff face. Below was a churning blue sea, with a wake stretching to the horizon—as if the whole Dome-landscape was a boat and I was looking out over the stern. I could see nothing beyond the horizon but the blue of the sea. Rainclouds blocked my view of the sky.

  I turned and glided back to the Dome. On the way in, I noticed a sign above the entrance, in cheap lights, like the entrance to a funfair:

  JAMIE’S MYTH

  Then in smaller painted letters

  A creation of Jamie Smith fantasy productions.

  I looked over the landscape, the piles of rubbish, the sick and unpleasant people outside, the rain falling, the gloom, the poverty. Someone spoke in my ear, and I jumped.

  ‘How can you not see, sir?’

  ‘Stub?’

  ‘Yessir.’

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Here, sir.’

  ‘Have you been watching me dream?’

  ‘Yessir.’

  ‘Go away.’

  ‘I would urge you to look around yourself sir. Take ownership. Stop hiding. It’s all you.’

  ‘This trip was your idea, wasn’t it?’

  ‘I may have helped it hatch, sir.’

  I wrestled with my bunch of keys and pulled the Dome entrance open, luxuriating in the warmth, in the smell of the swimming pool and in the jungle noises of people having fun.

  ‘Stub. Not today.’ I quickly walked in.

  ‘I have tried, sir. I don’t know what else to try.’

  ‘Perhaps you just shouldn’t try. I’m OK.’

  ‘You’re not.’

  I locked everything up, leaving the ghoul outside.

  The next morning I breakfasted alone on the lighthouse balcony, having arranged a calm sea with a turquoise-and-orange sunrise, a light breeze and some wheeling seabirds. My white tablecloth swished in the morning breeze like a girl’s summer skirt. I worked resolutely through roti prata, curry sauce and hot sweet coffee. It’s good to have variety in your fats and carbs. Caroline popped her head round the door.

  ‘Still planning your flight?’ she asked.

  ‘It’s no use trying to persuade me now,’ I said. ‘I’m adamant. I know the risks are terrible, but it must be hazarded.’

  I’d created a suitably legendary aeroplane for my flight, a World War II Spitfire. I thought I looked rather good in my leather boots, flying jacket and helmet. Caroline, Annie and Mel joined me on the runway.

  I climbed into the Spitfire.

  ‘I’m about to depart on a dangerous mission, hazarding all, though I do expect to be back for lunch. You may take out your handkerchiefs and wave them sorrowfully if you wish… I will attempt to maintain radio contact. Chocks away!’

  Mel pulled on the wedges and I steered the plane down the runway and into the sky.

  My plan was to concentrate on keeping the Spitfire spiralling slowly upwards. I mustn’t imagine any sky above me, otherwise I wasn’t going to get anywhere except further into the folds of my own imagination.

  ‘Are you there Caroline?’ I asked, ‘Over.’

  ‘Where do you expect me to be?’ said Caroline, a little irritatedly, over the radio.

  ‘You’re supposed to say, “Over”,’ I said. ‘Over.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because that’s what they do,’ I said. ‘Over.’

  ‘Stupid,’ said Caroline.

  ‘Anyway,’ I said, ‘this is to report that I’m at 5000 feet and still climbing. Over.’

  Still I climbed. The whole habitat stretched below me: my part, the part created by Leopold, and in the far distance, the hazy outlines of Keziah’s place, which I had never visited since that first time.

  Was it getting colder? I kept the Spitfire in its gentle upward corkscrew, keeping my eye on the instruments. Round and round, up and up.

  I could feel a weight in the bottom of my stomach. Not the roti prata: anxiety. Was the engine straining? Up and up.

  ‘You all right?’ asked a crackly Caroline.

  ‘I’m fine,’ I said. ‘Over.’ I could feel fear spreading up my body and down my legs. It was paralyzing. I recognized the feeling: a similar wave of dread had washed over me just before my spirit was captured by the Collectors.

  I was, I noticed, clenching my teeth. I took my eyes briefly off the instrument panel and looked up, taking care not to think about what I should see. The blue sky had straggly, fleecy elements, like bits of sheep wool caught on a barbed wire fence.

  Another half turn and when I looked up again the sky had a graininess about it, and a direction of flow: pieces of blue sky, different shades, rolling slowly like boulders over my head, interspersed with white and grey fleecy bits.

  I was terrified, unable to move the joystick, which stayed jammed in turn-and-climb. It was like being frozen in the moment before Keziah hit me.

  With a loud hiss, we were suddenly among all the blue boulders that used to be the sky, the plane being jostled and swept along like a boat in white-water rapids. The engines died, the dials zeroed, the radio light went out. I looked around. I was surrounded by house-sized pieces of blue sky. Everything was out of control. It was the most mind-numbingly terrifying moment of my life, and my jaws opened but I couldn’t scream.

  It felt the plane was g
oing to be broken into pieces and I was going to be crushed. Again.

  Above the boulders were grey clouds. A yellowish rain, evil and fat and sticky, was splattering onto my cockpit.

  Jostled by boulders, the plane swung round giving me a different view of the sky-above-the-sky. No clouds here: it fizzed with colour.

  A small blue boulder clattered over the plane. For a moment I thought I saw something flutter through the sky, from right to left. I wondered if I could glimpse ropes stretching back from this thing. I would have followed this up but my eyes were determined that I looked to the right instead.

  Something enormous, like a giant iceberg, massively higher than the boulders, was churning its way toward me. It wasn’t pointed, like a supertanker: it was more like a broad cliff-front pushing through the rubble. Like an icebreaking ship, or a bulldozer, it was piling up pieces of blue sky and grey-white rubbish in front of it. I couldn’t see the top, but I thought I glimpsed some hills, maybe a building at the edge of the cliff.

  This massive hunk of cliff was going to crush me.

  A blue boulder must have become trapped under the aeroplane wing, because I could feel the Spitfire beginning to tip. I was swept along for a few seconds, then my whole world turned as with a lurch, the plane capsized. I wasn’t strapped in, so I fell out of my seat and my head and shoulders hit the canopy. I heard the hinges creak, something tore, and I tumbled headfirst out of the plane, back towards the habitat.

  Funnily enough, it became less scary as I fell out of the sky. It was such a relief not to be surrounded by all that jostling blue.

  ‘Parachute,’ I thought, and felt its wonderful, reassuring tug on my shoulders. I tried to slow my breathing down.

  Below me was the central part of the habitat—I must have been swept that way by the sky-boulders. I could make out the woodland and the clearing, and next to it the Splendide and its swimming pool. Keziah’s habitat was in the distance, and had something big and grey looming out of it, a range of hills, perhaps.

  Craning my neck, I could see my own habitat on the other side. With a little thought, I created a rocket pack on my back thinking to fire myself over to Edwards and land elegantly on two feet. Not a brilliant idea, however: I got tangled in the parachute and briefly zoomed around the sky with it wrapped round my head. So I mentally erased both the rocket pack and the parachute and thought, ‘Dumbo!’

  The cartoon elephant materialized below me. He was too wide to ride like a horse, so I sat cross-legged on the back of his neck, holding each flapping ear where it joined the head.

  ‘Take me home,’ I told him.