Pollen

by Jeff Noon

  The circuit is complete.

  6.19 a.m.

  The pollen count reaches 2000.

  Columbus brings up a button called BARLEYCORN’S FLOWER MAP into his Hive-head and then presses it.

  Activation…

  All over the streets as we passed people were taking the pollen into their noses, and then spreading out messages of joy. I saw lovers kissing. No one had kissed in the last few days, fearing the worst; a gentle rubbing together of masks was all that could be expressed. Now the youngsters were sharing their breath again, making a passion out of defiance. The filthy palaces of deadened industry were passing by on our left as I turned into Ashton Old Road. People were dancing on the tops of the abandoned blocks, amidst the flowers that grew there. Sneezing gleefully. The early morning rays of the sun rainbowed by a hail of snot descending…

  Aaaaaahhhhh…

  Aaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh…

  Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh…

  The air was contracting into a tight second of waiting. Wet and slippery it was, that moment, and the sun seemed to grow fuzzy at the edges, as though spiked. Like an immense globe of golden pollen it hung there, suspended above the horizon.

  The calm before the…

  And as Tom Dove and I rode down the Old Road towards Ardwick and the Gumbo’s secret palace, I heard the sound of a million intakes of breath. And then the explosion. The storm of mucus.

  The storm…

  The time on my dash was 6.19 a.m. Pollen count at 1999. One more click as the display moved on, and then a sudden and vicious blast. The sun pulsed. The Comet was sent careening.

  ‘What the fuck…?’ Tom’s voice.

  Sneeze bomb.

  A​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​c​h​h​h​h​h​o​o​o​o​o​o​o​o​o​s​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h!!!!!!

  Five and ten and fifty fold.

  Coyote hears the big sneeze. He is six feet beneath the soil, but still it gets to him, waking him from green and black slumbers. A shower of mucus falling heavily onto his grave and his stone. The muffled explosion causes tremors in the worms and the roots all around him. Coyote is the root. It must be that time of year again, that season of fruit. Now he is rising. The sneeze activates his passages. He makes his brain out of a ganglion of hard roots, twisting together, passing sap to each other, making synapse jumps with the juice.

  It’s not just the sneeze that gets him going. Some other presence is there, forcing him awake. Some hidden presence.

  He doesn’t know what he is, or where he is, or even why he is. Just that he has to get out of this wooden box somehow.

  It’s easy.

  He joins his cells to that of the coffin, making the elm unfold like a flower. He is a flower. He must get to the air, to the sunlight. He must have growth.

  Coyote’s stalk pushes through the soil until it breaks the surface. Only the glimmers of the sun coming up slowly to greet him, misted, and the spray of snot from the city. This will do. He drinks deep, feeling his spotted petals unfold into the light. Coyote has the strangest desire he has ever felt: the need for a bee. Somebody to scrape some pollen from his fur, from his petals. Petals? Fur? He doesn’t know what he is. Petals and fur. This will do.

  More and more of his stalks escape the ground. They form themselves into green legs. Flowers sprout from the stalks, black and white petals, locking together into the shape of Coyote’s old body. He has the pattern lodged in his floral mind somewhere; he’s forming the petals into a perfect copy of what he once was. His body is a compound of flora and fauna; flowers and dog-flesh. And humanity. Somewhere in that bouquet, a tiny trace of the human. He fixes all of his attention upon that vestige. This is what he must become.

  The flowers are dragging at him. Dancing…dancing. He remembers, vaguely, the tongue of a passenger, one last fare. How she had taken him down into this world of green. Now he is free again, but still he can feel her fingers inside his mind. He’s made from the same stuff as her. She wants him for her own.

  No, not her. Somebody very like her.

  Coyote fights against the flower. Realises that he can’t.

  He doesn’t know what he’s doing, or why he’s doing it. Or even how he’s doing it. Just that he must do it. He is a dog, a plant, a human. He is everything he has ever known, and a map of what he must become.

  The force in the root grips him. He digs down deep within himself, comes back with the words Little Sir John.

  Who the fuck is that?

  Save my wife.

  These words coming from the deepest root.

  Fuck off.

  Coyote uproots himself; a black-and-white-spotted plant-dog, stalking the shaky pathways of a graveyard. Now he sees where he is; his map clicks into action. Southern Cemetery. The map is changing even as he grows. That’s okay, he can change with it. He moves his flower head slightly to the left side, seeking out on the new map where he must journey to. Central Manchester. Why is that?

  Boda.

  It comes to him in petals on the wind. Boda? Who was that? His last…last what? Last bumblebee? Last furry bitch? Last cab-fare girlfriend? He will set out on a urine-posted path. He needs the sunlight; it is his meat and his fare. He has the knowledge that he is scary, the first of his kind. A new way of being. For now just travelling will do.

  Growth patterns.

  Dalmatian petals.

  This Boda fare is the sunlight.

  BELINDA, I’M BEING DRAGGED BACK. These words on the Shadow coming to Belinda as she floats in the marbled pool.

  Charrie’s words.

  BELINDA, I’M BEING DRAGGED BACK. COLUMBUS HAS ME. BELINDA, I LOVE YOU.

  Charrie’s words, his last words.

  This is when the sneeze bomb explodes. 6.19. The flower she has brought back from the Vurt is drifting in the water between her legs, where she has placed it. The water shivers into waves suddenly that pulse up towards her thighs, and then ride back mixing in with their slower followers. Belinda watches the resulting chaotic patterns with interest, thinking them not unlike the recordings of earthquakes she has seen on television. But this is Manchester, not TokyoCo or San FrancisCo. She looks around nervously, but the rest of that underground temple is perfectly still. Then she hears the sound of the explosion, a far-off discharge of soft cannonballs. The snot hits the pavement-level window.

  Thud! Thud! Thud!

  Impactions…

  Squelch…slither…slither…

  Those packages make a mighty racket against the glass, and Belinda makes her own fearful waves in the water as she reacts to the noise. She looks toward the window to see what all the commotion is, but then more snot hits the target and she’s scared now, suddenly. Plaster falls from the ceiling. She has to get out of this pool. The window is covered with mucus; the pool is smothered in a furry darkness. There are muted screams from outside. Belinda feels so lonely in that darkness. What was going wrong?

  Belinda sinks back into the pool. She closes her eyes, drifting back slowly until her mind is drowning again. It feels so good to be falling into watery sleep. The stolen orchid is nudging at her thighs, and she lets it make a gentle, petally kiss there.

  That flower is watching you, Belinda.

  Drifting thoughts…

  Maverick tendencies…

  I won’t shed no tears. Come the morning, Joe, I’ll be running clear.

  Her sweet voice echoes around the marbled chamber. This song of cattle and grass and flowers and air. Sirens whistling through the morning. Emergency procedures. The city is dying. Does she want it saved? Does she care any more? Isn’t Coyote Dog dead and buried? She can’t bring him back. She can’t even avenge his death.

  It creeps up on her…

  What good is her life without Coyote’s promise?

  Belinda, you never even knew the guy…

  She doesn’t listen.

  Poison dripping. Thinking backwards, Belinda walking through the Wonderwall…how the taking of t
hat step was an acceptance of her deathly side…

  Backwards…

  Kitchen scene. Pre-cabian. Belinda listening from the top of the stairs…

  Her father and her mother arguing at the table. Her father calling her mother a bad word, a Zombie word, a bitch from Hell. Cursing her for bringing only corpses into this world. Her mother names him as flesh, only flesh, pure flesh. ‘All you pure boys want is more purity. You can’t stand confusion.’ Her mother’s words.

  ‘That girl is death.’ Her father’s words.

  That girl, meaning herself…Belinda. Belinda is death. And this is too much to take. Down the stairs she walks. She punches her father square in the face. The slow passage of time as her father collapses onto the floor tiles.

  The irascibility of that moment. The day she had started to not belong. Not to belong to a family. A time to escape, to run, to walk along the edges of life. For nine years Xcabs had been her family. Now that was gone as well. There was no place for her any more.

  Poison dripping…

  Maybe it’s time. The edge beckoning. Because, after all, isn’t the Shadow only the trace of death in life? Maybe it’s time to complete that circuit.

  Belinda’s eyes glance at the shoulder bag lying at the pool-side, and then away. And then back again. Finally she reaches over to undo the clasp. Opening the bag. Tangled darkness. Taking out the bottle of juice, that gift stolen from Country Joe.

  Boomer.

  Belinda, my daughter…

  You’re opening up the small canister. You’re pouring one measure into the dirty glass, and then closing the lid on the bottle, replacing it back in the bag. One measure for a good time, two for a blast. You open the bag again, pour another measure. Close the bottle, back into the bag. One measure for a good time, two for a blast. Three for a clean and sexy death. Open the bag, unscrew the canister, pour a third measure. Close the bag. Open it. Pour a fourth, and then a fifth measure. And then hold the bottle over the glass until the bottle is empty. That should do it.

  It creeps up on you, like things always have done.

  A clean and sexy death.

  Is this what you desire?

  Your body is so beautiful, my daughter. Pale white skin covered with a tangled map of Manchester. All of the streets and their names are written there on your curves. You slide deeper into the water. Manchester, sliding deeper into the water. Luxuriate in that warm pool for a few minutes and then pick up the glass. ‘I guess I’m coming to find you, Coyote.’ You say this aloud to the shadows and the mists that rise from the water.

  And then put the glass to your lips, Belinda. Take a drink…

  The time on my dash was 6.19 a.m. Pollen count at 1999. One more click as the display moved on, and then a sudden and vicious blast. The Comet was sent careening.

  ‘What the fuck…?’ Tom’s voice.

  Sneeze bomb.

  A​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​c​h​h​h​h​h​o​o​o​o​o​o​o​o​o​s​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h!!!!!!!

  Five and ten and fifty fold.

  The kingdom of snot blowing itself into existence. A nasal Hiroshima. All of the citizens of that city exploding the mess from their nostrils. Unmasked and unforgiving. Snot rained down on my windows. Ashton Old Road. The car was pushed forward by the blast, adding miles per hour to my meter, until I was unlawfully speeding.

  Thump! Thump! Thump!

  The Fiery Comet was covered in nose-shit. I couldn’t see ahead of me.

  ‘Where the fuck are we?’ I shouted.

  ‘It’s happening,’ Tom Dove said.

  ‘What is this?’

  ‘The new map.’

  ‘But we’re nearly there. Ardwick is just to the right here.’

  ‘I don’t think we can…’

  I jammed the car into a vicious right turn.

  And ended up in Namchester, Fortress One.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Shit.’

  ‘What are we doing here?’

  ‘It’s happening, Sibyl. The new map is coming through.’

  Ahead of us two cars were engaged in a head-to-head collision of metal and flesh. People were screaming and falling from their vehicles.

  ‘I can hear Columbus laughing,’ said Tom, as I swerved the Comet away from the pile-up.

  One second passing.

  And then we were back at my house in Victoria Park.

  I spun the wheel around in a daze, desperate to find a way back to Ardwick.

  One second…

  And then we were in Whalley Range, my daughter’s house. Some more cars were mangled up together there. Some street-cops were running to help the passengers.

  ‘It’s no good, Tom,’ I said. ‘We’ve failed.’

  ‘No. There’s a way,’ he answered. ‘There’s got to be a way. We’re in the Vurt map now. This is all a story. Keep driving.’

  ‘Tom? I don’t like this.’

  ‘Just drive.’

  And then we were in Bottletown, and the glass was splintering under our wheels, making a rainbow of fragments. I stopped the car. I could hear people crying out loud from the glittering houses. ‘We’re not getting anywhere, Tom.’

  ‘We’re in a dream, that’s all. We’re in a story.’

  ‘What story is it?’

  ‘Forget about distance and direction. We’ve got to find the narrative connection.’

  ‘I’m not up for this.’

  ‘You are. Just use your Shadow.’

  ‘My Shadow feels like a maze.’

  ‘It’s John Barleycorn’s story, Sibyl. Can’t you see? What’s the last thing that Barleycorn wants to happen?

  Tom, you’re talking crazy.’

  ‘What’s the one thing he fears in this whole world? Think about it. He’s a man who only lives in a story.’

  ‘The immune…’

  ‘The Dodos. They’re the only people he can’t infect. The only ones he can’t be alive in. Above all things, Barleycorn wants to be alive. The Dodos are his greatest fear. This is why he built into the fever’s symptoms the urge to kill the Dodos. The last thing he wants in this story he has prepared for us is that the Dodos get together. He’s actually trying to stop you and your daughter from getting together.’

  ‘Which means…’

  ‘There’s something in your meeting…You and your daughter…I don’t know…Barleycorn’s recognised a potential threat. Sibyl, I think we’re on to him now.’

  ‘But what can we do, Tom? He’s controlling the story. There’s no way through.’

  Through the snot-blackened windscreen I could see a lonesome car crashing into a wall. The driver stumbled from the vehicle, holding her head in her hands.

  ‘Christ-Vurt!’ Tom banged his hand against the dash.

  ‘What is it?’ I asked.

  ‘God, I’m so stupid! Barleycorn can’t touch you, Sibyl. It’s me he’s working through.’ And with that, Tom Dove opened the Comet’s door and stepped out.

  ‘Tom? Where are you going?’

  ‘It’s up to you now, Sibyl.’

  ‘Tom?’

  ‘Keep driving.’

  I watched him as he went in aid of the injured woman, and then I shut down my mind to let the Shadow have full play. Immediately a tiny light flickered into life in my smoke. Like the smoke was an ever-changing map and the light was my love. You must always follow the fire. And I had a vision then, of all the Dodos of Manchester being motivated by some hidden design. A time to fight back. Even my daughter…at last, a role to play…

  I started up the Comet and then took the third turning on the left.

  One second passing…

  And then I arrived in Ardwick Industrial Estate.

  Kracker experiences the nasal blast as a welcome sign. Demon snot fills the alleyway, and the building shakes with the vibration. He can hear screams from the inside and the outside. Persephone has shown him the true and faithful route. She has warned him about the explosion. 6.1
9 a.m. The new map. 2000, the pollen count. Hot and painful was the flowery route, but this is the way he would take, clinging onto that young girl’s petals whenever she let him. Persephone has been so sweet to him, so tempting for a man whose veins ran with Fecundity 10 rather than normal blood, how can he resist her pleasures?

  Petals to petals, opening and closing; his long ride to success.

  He steps forward to view the outrage at the front of Gumbo’s building. The camp is in a shambles; dogmen and bitchgirls of various mixes are running around the area, some of them trying to help the injured on the ground, others just running for cover. Screams and curses rise through the sweltering heat. A black woman with an afro hairstyle is bending down to comfort one of the victims. A man with long, straggly hair and flared trousers is wandering through the chaos, his arms flung to each side, and a mad peal of laughter springing from his lips. Kracker imagines that this must be the old Hippy Gumbo himself, purging his soul because of the breakdown.

  Kracker steps back into the alleyway, guided by Persephone’s flower.

  The side door is now split asunder by the snot blast. Kracker wrenches the partition aside. Now he is stepping down lightly into a vast underground room, stippled with shadows, and filled with water amidst marble walls.

  A young woman is floating in the water, a cut flower of a quite delicious hue nudging between her legs. Persephone herself is floating between Belinda’s legs, which is how she has led him this far, this close.

  Belinda…

  The target of this day. The good target. This time he will finish it.

  Kracker steps down into the shadows…

  Belinda, that glass of poison to her lips. Two-fifths of the Boomer swallowed down by now. Absolutely blasted, good and strong. The high carries you over into wanting to finish the job, to suck down the whole trip.

  Death is very patient. He doesn’t mind the few extra seconds taken to make the decision. The glass tips against your mouth. Some drops touch your tongue. They tingle.

  Tingle and burn.

  A noise from the far end of the pool…

  Shit!

  Belinda listens, willing these visitors to go away, whoever they are. Is it Gumbo or Wanita? Can’t they see this girl is trying to kill herself? Do they think this is easy?