Grasslands

by Andrew McEwan

Grasslands: through H-shaped windows

  by Andrew McEwan

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  Copyright 2012 Andrew McEwan

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  Cover design by Andrew McEwan

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  One

  1 - BROKEN

  My name is Broken. I fix things. It's what I do.

  The sky is blue and the grass green. I can see white clouds, brown ponies, silver eagles, the yellow sun. Sitting next to me on the sofa are Vern and Edgar, between them holding a large colour photograph. On a nearby table Almeric toys with a short red-handled screwdriver and a hydrogen bomb.

  All three are unaware of my presence. One day soon they will discover I'm here, but until then...

  ‘See anything unusual?’

  ‘Yes,’ Vern said. ‘Right in the centre, a kind of smudge.’

  ‘A face?’ prompted Edgar, whose photo it was, taken a week ago in a field behind his father's house. ‘Grinning?’

  Vern rubbed his eyes. ‘Nah -I can't say for sure. Looks...’ His glasses had fogged.

  ‘Looks?’ echoed Edgar, desperate to prove to someone that he existed, that the world had indeed conjured him up.

  Almeric downed tools and stepped over. ‘Let me see.’ He grabbed the glossy paper and reversed it. ‘The sky is blue and the grass green,’ he said, face twisting. ‘It's too dark.’

  ‘What?’ said Edgar. ‘In here?’

  ‘He means the photo,’ Vern explained.

  Almeric shook his head. ‘No I don't.’

  ‘Then what?’ insisted Edgar. ‘What's too dark?’

  ‘The ponies,’ Almeric told him, ‘and the eagles.’

  Edgar snatched back his picture. ‘But I'm there, bang in the middle!’ he shouted. ‘There are no ponies or eagles.’

  Almeric picked his nose. ‘If you say so...’

  ‘I do. ‘

  ‘Okay, okay - don't let your face slide.’ Almeric spun on his heel and loped back to the table.

  ‘And that'll never go off,’ Edgar said. ‘You're wasting your time.’

  ‘Ten says I'm not,’ offered Almeric.

  ‘Make it fifty.’

  ‘You're on.’ He tapped the screwdriver on the bomb's metal casing. ‘What about you, Vern, you want in?’

  ‘I'm dead,’ said Vern. He closed his eyes, opened his mouth and put out his tongue. ‘Leave me out of this.’

  ‘Ich-nng-ach-gorb-moop?’ said Edgar.

  ‘Chicken,’ said Almeric.

  Their names are Planes, Ritsky and Jones. They are friends. This is Ritsky's and Jones's fourth-floor flat. Planes lives with his mouse and cockroaches several streets away...

  ‘What's the time?’ Vern asked. ‘I have to go.’

  ‘A woman?’ Almeric guessed shrewdly. ‘Nice smile? Wide hips? Small nipples?’

  ‘A coffee-machine,’ said Vern.

  ‘This time of night?’ He looked at his watch. ‘Nine thirty.’

  ‘Thanks. And yes; it's a favour.’

  ‘Ah, you're all heart,’ said Edgar, wiping his mouth. ‘How much does she pay you?’

  ‘Nothing. ‘

  ‘Nothing?’

  ‘It's a favour - I said so.’

  ‘The woman?’

  ‘The coffee-machine.’

  ‘There's two of them?’ Edgar sat up, loosening his tie.

  ‘Three, if you must know.’

  ‘Three?’

  Vern stood. ‘A coffee-machine and two toasters,’ he said.

  Almeric dropped his screwdriver. It rolled off the table and hit the floor with a bump. ‘Need a hand?’

  ‘No, Al, I've got all the hands I want.’

  ‘Nine thirty-six,’ declared Edgar, not looking at his watch, having no watch to look at.

  ‘A hundred,’ raised Almeric. ‘But I want thirteen days.’

  ‘Two hundred:’ Edgar responded. ‘A baker's dozen.’

  ‘You haven't got that much money.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So how are you going to pay?’

  ‘He won't have to,’ said Vern, leaving; ‘if he loses.’

  Almeric frowned. ‘I never thought of that,’ he said.

  ‘Bet off?’ challenged Edgar, grinning like in the photograph - the supposed photograph, of himself.

  Almeric spat in his palms. ‘No way!’

  The door slammed.

  ‘Gone so soon,’ said Edgar.

  In the street kids throw soggy clumps of toilet-paper at car windscreens. They trail Vernon Planes down the road, daring each other to launch a sticky missile.

  At his shoulder, my smile goes unnoticed by all...

  2 - MEAN TIME

  Vern has unhinged the cover and fiddled around inside. He pulls springs, adjusts levers, removes bent coins and flattened bottle tops, scratches his head. Lights flash. The machine gurgles. I can't tell him the problem; even if I knew it, he doesn't yet know how to listen. My own fingers itch to be at the machine...

  ‘It was nice of you to come over, Vern,’ said Joyce.

  ‘That's okay,’ Vern answered. ‘I wasn't doing anything.’

  Joyce folded her arms. ‘The boys'll be pleased, they say my coffee tastes like old paint.’

  ‘Yeah?’ He tinkered, loosening and tightening. ‘Got it!’

  ‘Fixed?’

  He nodded.

  ‘That was quick. No time to waste, ay?’ The phone rang and she plucked the receiver from its cradle. ‘Tom's Taxis.’

  Vern clipped the panel back on the coffee-machine and pushed it against the stained office wall.

  ‘Yes,’ Joyce was saying. ‘Yes, aha, yes, let's see ... six? No, that'll be fine. Bye.’

  ‘All done,’ said Vern. He inserted a coin and watched as the plastic cup rattled, filled and steamed. ‘See?’

  Joyce folded her arms again, lifting her breasts and wrinkling the skin of her upper arms. ‘You want paying?’ she asked. ‘Only Tom's not in.’

  ‘No, no,’ he said; ‘no charge, I told Tom I'd do it.’ He buffed his glasses and headed for the reinforced door, the rain and orange lights beyond.

  ‘What about your coffee?’

  But he didn't hear. He'd lied about the toasters. The falling water urged him to run, but he sauntered instead, hair wet and shoes squeaking as he made for home.

  My feet descend after his. This world is new to me, vague at the edges, insubstantial. In time I will grow more solid and my footsteps will slap like Vern's, reassuring thwacks on the uneven pavement. But for now I must be satisfied with the sound of his rubber soles.

  On first arriving, drawn by the possibilities of Almeric's hydrogen bomb, I was surprised to learn that the materials required in its manufacture were so readily available. In my world science is the province of the city dwellers, the faceless antagonists whose tyranny we fight, and therefore shunned. Also, such things as heavy water, battery-acid, copper-sulphate, zinc-oxide, aspic and strontium are, I believe, unknown...

  ‘Hugget,’ Vern sang. ‘Where are yooou?’ He dragged a pencil across the bars of the cage. ‘Here, mooose - tck, tck.’

  Getting no response from the white rodent, Vern proceeded to the kitchen. His roach trap was a cardboard tube four inches long and two wide, paper doors at either end, a half-sucked boiled sweet within. Blackcurrant, he'd quickly discovered, was the most effective flavour; only he was out of blackcurrant having scoffed the last on his way to work that morning and so was relying on lemon.

  Vern hated lemon. The cockroaches hated lemon. The trap, which he placed behind the beaten oven, was empty.

  ‘Hmm,’ he said. ‘What's to eat?’ He pulled open a cupboard and found a tin of spaghetti. ‘Yuk!’

  Vern hated spaghetti. He went and sat on
his bed. The mouse appeared, gnawing a huge almond, pink eyes shining, teeth and claws busy with the nutty flesh.

  ‘Nice?’ inquired Vern.

  The rodent ignored him.

  ‘You're lucky,’ he moaned, standing, undressing. He peered at his zits in the bathroom mirror three long strides away and then pissed in the sink as the toilet wouldn't flush. ‘Real lucky. I should buy a cat...’ A cat that eats cockroaches, he thought, climbing into bed, closing his weakened eyes. What time is it? When did I last eat? It can't be much after ten. Six hours ago!

  The alarm shrilled and hammered.

  ‘Morning already?’ He got up. ‘It's too dark. I don't remember turning the light off. I don't have an alarm:’

  There was a mousy laugh.

  ‘You look terrible,’ commented Stan as they drove to work in Stan's car, a gold Honda. ‘Late night?'

  Vern yawned. ‘Nah,’ he said. ‘I don't know.’ He watched the people in other cars and on foot, their sureness irritating.

  Stan switched on the radio.

  ‘You oughtn't to work Sundays, Vern.’ Then, ‘Traffic at this hour. Traffic at any hour: Did you see that?’

  ‘No.’ Vern pinched, his nose, blinking.

  ‘The guy in the Rover there...’ He honked twice, then one long gleeful blast.

  ‘There's a Merc,’ said Vern. ‘Why don't you rear-end it?’

  Stan's previously glazed expression turned hostile. ‘So you had a rough night,’ he said. ‘I'm sorry, that's too bad; just don't take it out on me, okay?’

  ‘Okay. ‘

  ‘Okay, Vern?’ He'd stopped at a green light.

  ‘Okay -drive, will you, we're going to be late.’

  ‘I am driving.’ Stanley pulled away, the light red, and Vern shut his eyes.

  They parked in the usual place. When it came time to clock-in, Stan couldn't find his card.

  ‘I don't know why we have to do this anyway,’ he complained. ‘Hey, Rita, my card's missing!’

  The pay clerk glared at him. ‘Name?’

  ‘You know my name.’

  ‘Name?’ she repeated, holding her blonde head to one side.

  ‘Stanley Nex,’ he said. ‘My card's gone.’

  ‘No it isn't,’ said Vern. ‘You're standing on it.’

  Stan took a step back. Rita laughed.

  ‘Did you ever wonder,’ Vern asked, a dishwasher's innards all round him, ‘where all the time goes?’

  ‘Sure,’ Stan replied. ‘Pass me the pliers.’

  ‘I mean, a minute ago I was thinking what it was I did last night and wondering if that time still existed somewhere or was gone forever.’

  ‘The pliers, Vern.’

  ‘I think a strange thing's happened to me.’

  Stan checked his watch. ‘Ten fifteen,’ he said. ‘Coffee time.’

  ‘I don't want coffee.’

  ‘You didn't bring any.’

  ‘I'll fetch the pliers,’ Vern said. ‘They're in the van.’ He stepped outside. The sun was shining, illuminating the walls and trees.

  There were puddles in the alley, shrinking in the May heat, glossy pools that reflected the scene around them, captured the light like a camera lens, images of brick and leaf and cloud. A bird flapped through one such unfrozen snap, dived past and was gone from the puddle's dying memory in the briefest of moments, the shortest of exposures, the fastest of frames.

  Steam rose from the water as it evaporated, erasing the inverted picture. Vern heaved open the van doors and hunted around for the pliers. There was a smell of spring, an odour of cut grass on the air trapped inside, a piece of somewhere else enclosed he couldn't say when, brought here, transported, the alley unused to earthen bouquets, its only green the new leaves, the stunted trees each penned behind flaky red-brick walls.

  ‘Aromas from elsewhere,’ said Vernon Planes.

  He returned to the house, the dish-washer and Stan, pliers in hand, holding lungfuls of spring till he thought he might burst.

  My legs and arms, my chest is pink. The hair on my head is grey. Vern's mouse knows I'm here; so do the cockroaches I've caught, the trap behind the oven subtly improved.

  I like lemon-flavoured boiled sweets.

  Vern comes in and flops on the bed, the logo of his work's jacket visible to the ceiling.

  Stay Fixed, it states, reminding me of the triple string of beads hung around my neck, clay baubles inscribed with letters, spaced with yellowed teeth.

  They read:

  A City On Wheels

  A Field Of Arches

  A Man With Strong Lungs

  The first two are easy, the city known to all in my land, the field there to be discovered by those who would seek it out. It is the third string which puzzles me...

  ‘Spaghetti,’ said Vern. ‘Yum!’

  He fed himself and the mouse and himself again, drowned the cockroaches, puzzled at their sudden manifestation in the trap, their newfound eagerness for sticky death.

  Lemon, he said to himself, fed, who would've guessed it'd grow on them like that?

  Must be an acquired taste. There wasn't a trace of the sweet.

  Feeding complete, he sat with his feet up before the portable, pondering whether he should go out and if it was worth the slow inconvenience of a bath. The water, he estimated, would take an hour and twenty minutes to heat, another fifteen to run, an he'd be in and out in a further ten, making one hour and forty-five in total.

  The telly clock tocked quietly to six, instigating the news. ‘Which means eight at the earliest,’ Vern reckoned, ‘by the time I find something to wear.’

  Did he own a clean shirt?

  ‘There just aren't enough hours in a day,’ he grumbled, tripping the meter, listening with satisfaction to the shaky boiler.

  But then, if there were more, would he know what to do with them? Probably not.

  Vern consoled himself, appeased his face with a shave. The door announced a visitor. It rattled, quaked like it were about to explode.

  He cut his cheek. They let themselves in.

  ‘You didn't answer,’ said Stanley. ‘Are you okay? Vern, what happened?’

  ‘I cut my cheek.’

  ‘I can see that.’

  ‘So why ask?’

  ‘I didn't mean.’ He pointed. ‘I meant.’ He pointed somewhere else. ‘What happened?’

  ‘Nothing happened.’

  ‘But you walked home. Is it my driving?’

  ‘I wanted some air.’

  ‘Air? There's air in the car.’

  ‘It's not the same,’ Vern said. ‘I wanted some real air.’

  ‘What's wrong with my air?’ demanded Stan.

  ‘Nothing...’

  Stan looked about him, grimacing. ‘This place is a tip,’ he said. ‘You could do with some air in here.’

  ‘Goodbye, Stan,’ said Vern, soothing his cut cheek.

  ‘Don't worry, I'm going. You still want a lift in the morning?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well,’ Stan said over his shoulder, ‘you can forget it!’

  The door slammed.

  ‘Gone so soon,’ said Vern.

  Outside in the street, Stan discovers wads of soggy mulch on his windscreen.

  Kids, he says, why do I even bother?

  Because you like to spend as much time as possible away from your wife, I venture; she's greedy for every minute of your life, and you hate her.

  Stan can't hear me, of course. He gets in his gold Honda and sets the wipers to motion, their noisy sweeps irritating as he pulls hastily away from the littered kerb.

  3 - PICTURE THIS

  Edgar Ritsky put his camera down next to him on the bus seat and contemplated this latest trip to the chemists. Over the phone he'd been told his pictures were ready but that some were a little fuzzy. He laughed aloud. Fuzzy? What did they know? To Edgar it was further proof of the non-existence of a singular reality, the fuzziness perhaps a H
arriot or a Claude, maybe a rare Brian or even a Lucy. He rubbed his palms in excitement, imagining the find, the affirmation that he was not alone in this world of cynics and deceivers, that he was indeed right in his singleminded pursuit of the unknown.

  The bus stopped. He alighted. Mrs. Turn the chemist regarded him strangely as he leant on her polished counter. She'd keep him waiting, he knew, she always kept him waiting.

  ‘Won't be a sec,’ she said.

  Edgar frowned and unwrapped money. Having his photos developed and enlarged cost him a small fortune; but he took it bravely, like the soldier of fate he was.

  ‘That'll be ten pounds sixty-nine,’ said Mrs. Turn, handing Edgar a folder.

  He paid, as usual forgetting his change in the rush to get at his pictures, to leave the chemists, to catch his bus home. But it had started to rain and the bus-shelter leaked, adding weight to his annoyance, a fervour inspired by Mrs. Turn's parting comment of, ‘You might try keeping your greasy fingers clear of the lens, young man.’

  After endless water droplets from endless clouds the sun came out again. It would rain and it would not rain, thought Edgar, life was that predictable - and when it wouldn't rain, it would sun or fog or snow.

  But it was all soon to change. He was real even if this world didn't believe in him. He was more real than it. There would come a time when this world would, like the rain, cease, and the sun, the different sun, would shine through.

  The bus stopped. He boarded.

  The bus stopped. He alighted. Mr. Jones his flatmate regarded him strangely as he leant on his polished table and gazed inside the hydrogen bomb.

  ‘The clock's ticking,’ he said to Almeric.

  ‘I can hear it,’ said Almeric back.

  ‘Twelve days and counting,’ portended Edgar.

  ‘I can count.’ Almeric wafted his screwdriver. ‘You're in the light.’

  ‘I got some pictures. Want to see?’

  ‘Later. ‘

  ‘There is no later.’ Edgar reversed to the sofa and carefully opened the large envelope.

  ‘Vern called,’ said Almeric; ‘we're going to the pub.’

  ‘Vern's at work,’ said Edgar. ‘It was a hoax.’