The Spiral

by Gideon Burrows

  She liked the feel of him and allowed herself the thought of taut, stronger muscles further up his leg. His arms, his shoulders, his chest, his stomach. Benny was a fit man. Not like he’s just stepped out of a gym gripping a bottle of whey milkshake. He wasn’t like those half-naked firefighters Megan had seen on calendars and Facebook shares, all baby oil and flexing.

  This was natural strength. She could tell that even with his clothes on. Not exaggerated in any particular place, just strong all over. The natural result of working day after day with heavy materials, lifting and moving. A good body, honestly earned. And all the better for it.

  “How’s it all going?” Giles’ voice interrupted Megan’s imagination, his gaze turning her own attention back to the sock. Benny seemed to start at the voice too - perhaps Megan kidded herself, lost in similar appreciation of her body.

  She adjusted her neckline, so Giles didn’t have such a direct view down her blouse. He’d been snatching views of her cleavage since they got stuck down here.

  In half-a-second, Megan and Benny were back fully concentrated on his twisted foot.

  “Okay, after three,” she said to him calmly, but with a tone that aimed to inspire solidarity.

  Benny nodded and placed both of his hands under his thigh, ready to lift. Megan counted down and Benny used his arm strength to lift the dead weight of his right leg. The pain that had dissipated from Megan’s tender touch immediately returned, pushing waves of agony from his ankle and into every bone and muscle in his leg. The pain spread into his pelvis which, Benny now realised, must have taken a hit when he’d fallen too.

  Benny’s lifting gave Megan half an inch to work with. Benny screeched out as she stretched the rolled up edge of the sock over his ankle and flipped it around his swollen heel. With a final deep breath, Benny lowered his leg back to the ground, allowing his foot to roll back into its twisted position. Then, thankfully with a painless movement, Megan flicked the sock off the end of Benny’s foot and onto the step below.

  The ankle was clearly the problem. The skin around it was deep purple against Benny’s black skin, with blood visibly pulsating into the area around his ankle bones. The sight of it caused Megan to look away for a moment. Benny clenched his teeth together as if the sight of the damage alone had doubled the intensity of the pain it was causing.

  Giles came down now too, to take a closer look. But he stayed feet away, apparently coy at witnessing such serious injury so up close and personal.

  “Ooh, that does not look good,” he said, trying to fill the silence. The other two looked up at him as if his words were the last thing anyone needed to hear.

  “Give me a wheeze on that fag,” Benny said.

  Giles passed it over. Benny took a deep draw on the cigarette, before passing it back.

  Benny bent at his spine, leaning over to use his fingers to feel parts of his ankle, trying to locate a single point in the pain which made his whole lower leg feel as if it was on fire. Everything hurt, but the outside join, the place where the ball of the ankle connected with the foot, was incredibly tender.

  Through the surrounding skin, Benny’s fingertips continued to search until they stopped and began rocking forward and backwards on a particular spot. The faint grinding of bone against bone was audible.

  “I think the bone there has splintered or at least fractured. It feels cracked. I need to support it.”

  Benny was obviously in pain with every rock of his fingers on the joint, but locating the key problem seemed to help him assess the worst of the damage.

  “Can you help me lift my leg again?” he asked Megan. She nodded and counted three, before lifting his calf.

  “No, I need it higher up,” said Benny, speaking through clenched teeth and shaking his head. “Giles?”

  The man came down, and Benny asked him to lift his leg again, at the thigh, with both his hands. Megan lifted his leg at the calf. It gave Benny just enough room to…

  Megan couldn’t believe he was doing it. Benny leaned over his own lifted leg and used his hands to move his twisted foot. He grasped the outside of his foot, pulled the whole limb as close to straight in line with his leg as he could.

  He cried out and pushed again, beads of sweat building on his forehead. Slowly, and obviously against its own will, the foot began to move until Megan saw it click back into place.

  The moment the click happened, Benny shouted '“drop”. Giles and Megan let go, and Benny’s heel hit the ground as he screeched out in pain. But the weight of his leg kept his foot straight, pointing roughly in line with his knee and shin bone.

  Benny let out an enormous exhausted sigh, and they all looked down at his foot again. There was definitely something broken in there, but now at least the stretched tendons and other bones were no longer under pressure. They’d heal.

  “Jesus Christ, you are some bad motherfucker,” said Giles. It was the stuff of movies. Megan couldn’t help but nod in agreement, and Charles shook his head in wonder.

  The guy had just twisted his own broken and twisted ankle back straight again. Through short, tired breaths, he called to Giles: “Pass me your tie, will you?”

  They all waited for a quip from the man about where he’d got the tie, or who made it. But Giles passed it down without comment.

  Megan helped Benny lift his leg again, this time just enough for her to slip the edge of the tie underneath his heel. Benny took over then, pulling it taut, then tying it together in an angry knot that forced him to cry out again. There was just enough material remaining to tie it again.

  Benny wasn’t going anywhere quickly, that was for sure. But the makeshift bandage provided some support and relief. It would allow the swelling around his ankle to form in the right place, rather than between broken bones and stretched tendons. If they ever got out of here, his foot might eventually repair itself in something like the right places.

  Benny’s breathing relaxed, and he bent his head into his folded arms, too tired to do anything more.

  “Let me check the rest of your foot,” Megan said with just enough meaning for Benny to pick up the signal, but flat enough that Giles remained oblivious. She gently brought her fingers to Benny’s skin, prodding his foot gently, holding here, stroking there.

  Only when she knew Giles had turned away again to sit on a step further up, did her efficient and gentle checking transform into a gentle foot massage. Benny lifted one of his arms and rested it gently on Megan’s shoulder for a moment. A silent thanks. Something a little more.

  Then Benny lifted his head and moved his whole body backwards against the steps, his neck resting comfortably against one. Just enough comfort for him to drift off.

  20

  When Benny came around, an hour later, Giles seemed impatient to begin the S.O.S. again.

  In fact, Charles felt like Giles was impatient about everything. Rude, and brash, and ill mouthed. Like the boys in his A-level classes. Just didn’t know when to shut up.

  The three younger people did the bashing, with Benny’s arms clearly hurting with each bash of his loose boot.

  S.O.S., S.O.S.

  Charles didn’t have the puff. He was still heavy breathing from having to tread down and then up from the bathroom area that morning. Benny hadn’t been able to accompany him, of course. Sweet as she was to offer, it hadn’t seemed appropriate for Megan to go.

  “Come on then, Charlie Boy,” said Giles. “I’ll help you down, but I’m not sticking around for the action. You can call me when you’re done.”

  When Charles had recovered from the effort of his toilet visit, he spoke.

  “I might suggest, we write a letter? Or several letters, perhaps? We might write them, then leave them as far up the stairs as we can.”

  “We can?” said Giles. “Seems that’s just me and Megan now.”

  “We can all write them, though,” he said. “And then, if you would be so kind…”

  “Sure, Charlie Boy. I am forever your humble servant.”

 
; Charles was bored with Giles. Just like the boys on the back row at school, taking every opportunity to have a poke at him. As if he couldn’t understand the meaning behind their gestures. The disrespect they showed him by flinging balls of paper around the room whenever he turned his back.

  The young man thought he was so funny. So above everyone else. But he was nothing more than the show-off bullies in each of his history classes, from the day he started teaching to the day he left his last job.

  Revise that. There were idiots like Giles in the Navy, too. Attention seekers. Time wasters. They thought they’d make life easier for everyone cooped up in the tiny spaces of the submarines by playing the fool. Really, it made most others miserable.

  And that same behaviour was getting on his nerves right now, even though they all had far more space to move around. Giles you’re a fool. And the worst thing is, you don’t know it. But sometime soon, you’re going to learn one huge lesson.

  “Well, I’m going to write my letters,” said Charles. “In case there is someone up there. In case I die. In case of, well, whatever.”

  He pulled out his notebook. “Anyone want a page, just ask.”

  Charles didn’t bother to start a letter asking for rescue. Rescue was about science. Or in this case, the lack of it.

  Science said there should be a top of this staircase. Science said there should be a bottom. Science said there should be other people going up and down.

  Maybe this was philosophy. The actual fact that he was thinking about this at all proved he was alive, at least in some form or other. I think therefore I am. The most important statement in modern philosophy. Thank you Descartes.

  Only, you can play with philosophy. You can imagine universes existing underneath your fingernails. You ask which way an arrow is pointing, and challenge others to explain why without the use of another arrow.

  But that’s all theoretical stuff.

  As far as Charles was concerned, his situation was real, whatever the philosophy.

  His chest hurt, despite the odd tablet he’d taken. His throat was dry and sore. He went into a painful coughing fit every ten minutes. He had no energy left.

  He felt the deep sadness of loneliness, more painful than all the other hurts put together.

  There would be no rescue here. Only Sickness Unto Death. He shook his head as he tried to remember which philosopher had written that book.

  No, in his letter, he would write history. His own. Putting out his truth.

  It would be no famous letter, with infamous outcome.

  He was no Charles Darwin, writing to a colleague, outlining his first theories on evolution.

  His would not be the letter received by Lord Monteagle in October 1605, that could have prevented Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder Plot getting as far as it did.

  Nikita Khrushchev’s letters to J.F. Kennedy during The Cuban Missile Crisis narrowly avoiding a third world war.

  Even Jack the Ripper sent taunting letters to the police on the hunt for him.

  Charles shook his head again. Jack the Ripper had carried out his ugly campaign only a stone’s throw from where they were now.

  Strong powerful letters, that in their own way changed the world. His could be nothing of their weight or importance.

  But perhaps his letter could bring closure for him.

  ‘My dear Felicity,’ he began.

  21

  “Who’s that guy on the TV?” asked Giles.

  “Is this a game, to pass the time,” said Megan. “Because that’s a pretty wide category.”

  Giles could hear a rasp in her voice. The same one he’d heard from everyone that morning. Like dust had settled permanently in everyone’s throats, and swallowing felt like dragging his tonsils along sandpaper. Everyone was wetting their lips frequently.

  Giles coughed.

  “No, that guy who goes to the forests and stuff. Eats grubs.”

  “Bear Grylls,” said Benny.

  “Yeah, Bear Grylls,” said Giles. “I saw a programme of his, in the desert probably. He talked about how to make water and food, when there’s nothing else about.”

  “Let me guess, cactuses and squeezing lizards guts?”

  “I think that would be cacti,” said Charles.

  “Cheers, brain box. So…”

  “I don’t see no cacti. Nor lizards,” said Benny.

  “What about rats?” said Giles.

  “That’s disgusting,” said Megan.

  “Not as disgusting as dying here, sitting in our own shit.”

  “Okay, Giles, but I don’t see no rats neither. Let alone a way to cook one.”

  Giles thought of his lighter.

  What you going to do, set light to your jacket and spit roast a rat? Wasting your time. Better off you and the big man spit roasting…

  Giles shut off the voices before they finished. Idiots.

  “Just a thought. We might find, I don’t know, later on. Down at the number two station, some interest from some furry friends.”

  “Wow, this is desperate,” said Megan.

  “And I’m getting desperate to eat,” shouted Giles.

  Easy, don’t want to scare the horses. Keep her on side.

  “I’m not eating rat,” said Megan. “Nor mice.”

  Not desperate enough yet, Giles. Give her another day, maybe two. She’ll gnaw off her own arm.

  Benny spoke: “I have seen no rodents, not up here, not down there. But if you catch one Giles, I sure as hell would do my best to skin it.”

  “It’s the fleas they carry that are dangerous,” said Giles, smiling.

  “Enough!” shouted Megan.

  “Okay, sweetheart. Your turn?”

  “What does Bear Grylls say about water, again?”

  “In extreme circumstances?”

  “I’d call this extreme,” she said.

  Everyone knew.

  Go on, say it. Be the filthy one.

  “You drink your own piss.”

  “Ah, Jesus…” said Benny.

  “No, really. I reckon Charles would back me up here. Won’t you Charlie Boy?”

  Charles nodded. Giles still felt it was a reluctant concession.

  “On the subs…”

  “Yes, yes, Charlie Boy, on the subs.”

  Charles went quiet. Megan scowled at him.

  Giles filled the silence: “I don’t know it for certain, but I’m sure Bear Grylls drinks his own piss on the TV. Stands to reason. You drink a lot, you piss a lot.”

  And when you’re out on the beers Giles, you piss an awful lot. Including up walls, into people’s gardens, down back alleys. We all do. What a waste. Should have reserved it for down here.

  “I reckon 60 or 70 percent of your piss is just water.”

  “I can’t believe we’re even talking about this,” said Megan.

  “Ah, don’t be so precious, sweetheart. You know you’ve been thinking about it. We all have,” Giles snapped back.

  “The problem is the rest,” said Charles, finally speaking up.

  “What’s that Charles?” asked Benny.

  “The rest. The 20 or 30 percent that’s not water. It’s toxic. It’s what your body doesn’t want. We learned it in the Navy,”

  “Of course,” said Giles.

  “Yes, the Navy. You can drink your own urine. But only little bits at a time. And only for a short time. Otherwise the toxicity builds up.”

  “Hold on,” said Benny. “You saying, we can drink our own urine?”

  “I’m not sure I’ve got any left,” said Megan.

  “Yes,” said Charles. “Some ancient civilisations did it, as part of rituals. I wouldn’t advise it.”

  “But little sips? If we’re absolutely desperate?” said Giles.

  You remember, don’t you Giles? At Uni. To get into the Borat Club? Ten pints, then a shot of your own piss. Then on for a vindaloo. You became a Boratee, didn’t you, Giles? You pulled that night, too. Didn’t tell her about the piss though.

 
; “Well, I’m not that desperate yet,” said Megan.

  “Better save up for when you are, though,” said Giles. He waved his empty Lucozade bottle.

  “Anyone else got any containers?”

  “I’m not drinking your piss,” said Benny.

  “I’m not offering.”

  Giles watched as each of the other three subtly looked around. Benny had his little toolbag, Charlie Boy rifled through his pockets, Megan looked briefly in her purse.

  “Can you eat lipstick?” she said.

  “You can write messages with it,” said Benny.

  “Good idea,” Megan said.

  “And use the cap to collect your wee,” said Giles.

  Giles felt the discussion had broken through, and now created a lighter-hearted atmosphere. He was pleased he’d been at the centre, without a drop of booze in his blood. Without a lear or disgusting insinuation or a double entendre. He could be funny without being extreme. He even felt sorry he’d put Charles down.

  See guys, I don’t need you.

  “You see that CV,” Giles attempted, pointing towards Megan’s side.

  “One single page, not very impressive,” she said, smiling for once at him.

  “Do you know how to make one of those origami cups?”

  They all smiled again.

  “If you do, you’re all welcome to use it. Though I get first dibs if it really comes to it. Worth more than the qualifications written on it, at least,” said Megan.

  Everyone smiled.

  “Meanwhile, I’m going upstairs with this lipstick. What should I write?”

  22

  Megan decided to climb further up the spiral staircase than anyone had gone before. Was it 300 steps Giles had climbed?

  She left her shoes with the group. She’d do 50 steps at a time, then take a rest. There was nothing else to do, and she was missing doing any exercise. Though she felt like her skin and muscles were already hanging off her bones, and she had no energy for anything at all.