Grasslands

by Andrew McEwan

‘Of course I'm sure.’ Vern sweated, slowed his breathing.

  ‘Sure you're sure?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘All right,’ said Almeric.

  Vern heard a tapping sound. ‘What's that?’

  ‘Morse code.’

  ‘She talks in her sleep in Morse code?’

  ‘I told you you wouldn't want to hear,’ Almeric said, hanging up.

  Vern moaned, loudly.

  ‘Are you going to be sick?’

  He turned round. A man with a hat and badge stood before him, fiddling with a ballpoint.

  ‘You don't look well,’ the man said.

  ‘I'm dead,’ Vern told him.

  Kevin appeared, eating a banana. He smiled at Vern, and Vern was sick, colourfully.

  He began sneezing on the way home from the doctor's, a pain in his side the doctor had inflicted with his fingers.

  The number three on his door had grown, he was sure; it had never been so large when he'd gone out that morning.

  Maybe the door had shrunk, he thought, the whole world even, and only the number three remained constant.

  Or perhaps this wasn't his door at all. Perhaps he had the wrong end terrace in the wrong street in the wrong town in the wrong country in the wrong world in the wrong solar system in the wrong galaxy in the wrong universe.

  It was possible. He never saw his neighbours, if indeed he had any, so it was no good asking them. He walked downstairs and examined the phone.

  ‘That does it,’ he said. The phone had been mended. ‘Someone's stolen my real self and replaced it with this myopic copy. The man-thing probably.’ He stroked his chin. ‘It was the man-thing that Lucy was frightened of,’ he decided.

  Was she frightened?

  ‘It was the man-thing who lured Edgar away.’

  Was he lured away?

  ‘It was the man-thing who ratted on Stanley Nex.’

  Was he ratted on?

  ‘It was the man-thing who mended the phone.’

  Was the phone mended?

  Vern bit his lip. He sensed hope, and had begun to tremble, mouth dry as he searched his pockets for his penknife, but was unable to find it.

  ‘The man-thing's swiped it,’ he muttered, digging out change, live money he fed kicking and screaming to the hungry pay-phone.

  It clicked and he dialled.

  Nothing. It was dead, unmended, broken, knackered, kaput and out of order. He was redeemed!

  ‘Hello.’

  Vern pretended not to hear. After all, he hadn't heard it ring.

  ‘Hello. Vern, is that you?’

  ‘You didn't answer,’ he said. ‘Okay? I never called and you never answered.’

  ‘The phone just rang.’

  ‘No it didn't,’ Vern argued. ‘You imagined it.’

  ‘Then I must be imagining you as well.’

  Vern was cheered. ‘Yes, yes,’ he said; ‘I'm imaginary, too. I didn't call, I'm not real anymore.’

  ‘Anymore?’ queried Almeric. ‘Vern, have you seen Ed? Only you're beginning to sound like him.’

  ‘Maybe I am!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Maybe I turned into Edgar Ritsky without knowing,’ said Vern. ‘I mean, I don't know. It's all the man-thing's doing.’ He sneezed repeatedly.

  The phone clicked again and died for real. Vern refused it more food, thinking it greedy. It rang at him, but he ignored its pleas and went upstairs where the number three had swelled to fill the entire doorframe.

  He looked in the kitchen cupboard and came away with a tin of pineapples.

  ‘The man-thing must've bought them,’ he reckoned. ‘If I eat them I'll have these weird dreams and the walls will fall apart and I'll wake up in the middle of a huge field with trees and mountains in the distance and a strange rumbling in my ears.’

  He searched for a tin-opener. He didn't have one, or rather the one he had was on his penknife and the man-thing had swiped that.

  ‘Which,’ he told himself, ‘is odd.’

  He switched the telly on and watched Stan on the news. He had escaped. He burst through the door.

  ‘Vern, you've got to help me,’ Stan said. ‘The coppers are right behind...’ He collapsed, out of breath.

  ‘I need a tin-opener,’ said Vern, unconcerned. He couldn't be sure it was Stan lying there and not the man-thing. His eyes were streaming. He sneezed again.

  Stan got up and stumbled forwards. ‘I'll kill you,’ he said. ‘I'll kill you all.’

  Vern just stared at the label on the tin. It showed a mammoth pineapple bursting with juice.

  Or was it a melon?

  ‘I hate melon,’ Vern said ruefully.

  ‘Vern!’ shouted Stanley. Six coppers came in the door one at a time, wielding truncheons. ‘Help!’

  They chased Stan into the bathroom where there was a crash, a shattering, a breakage of after-shave bottles and soap-dishes and sundry fixtures.

  Vern changed channels. Harold Lloyd was on the other side, clambering freehand up a skyscraper.

  The coppers hit Stan repeatedly in the stomach as they dragged him out of the bedsit. He made one last grasp for the door and pulled away the engorged number three, which flopped on top of his unconscious form like a deflated balloon, or a dead snake, or an unravelled spool of film.

  Above the skyscraper silver eagles flew. What may have been brown ponies toiled in the street below.

  He would open the tin with something broken, he thought, and went to look in the bathroom for an item suitably jagged.

  Outside in the street the policemen hoist Stanley Nex into a waiting paddy-wagon and speed off down the road, the windscreen spattered with gobs of sodden toilet-paper, the air missing from the tyres, the once proud aerial reduced to a splinter of its former glory...

  17 - TWO-D

  The army is restless. In the tallest trees the lookouts stand, eyes fixed to the western horizon. Some may yet break and run as in previous years, previous, futile campaigns, but this season their leaders are strong and their anger great. Many have died after drinking poisoned water, and all blame the city dwellers for the contamination.

  A cloud of dust signals the city's proximity; that, and the creaking groan of its giant engines...

  ‘What happened to the door?’ Vern asked.

  ‘It fell off,’ said Almeric.

  ‘I can see that.’ Vern looked around the room. Shelves and furniture lay part dismantled, part collapsed.

  ‘Somebody stole the screws,’ Almeric told him.

  ‘The man-thing,’ said Vern calmly, no longer impressed by the chaos that blossomed like spring flowers all round him.

  ‘The what?’

  ‘The man-thing,’ he repeated. ‘It's following me. I think it lured Edgar away and frightened Lucy off.’

  ‘Yeah? What's it look like, this man-thing? Maybe I've seen it?’

  ‘I'm not sure,’ Vern confessed. ‘I think it's invisible.’

  Almeric rose from his chair, which was glued and dowelled. He twirled his screwdriver between his fingers.

  Vern said, ‘It looks like your bomb went...’ But he didn't finish the sentence. Almeric had pushed him against the wall, eyes glazed, screwdriver poised like a knife at Vern's throat.

  ‘Don't say that!’

  ‘Al?’ Vern was staggered.

  ‘Don't even think it.’

  ‘What?’ He did a quick retake of the room: the hydrogen bomb was not on the angled table. ‘Ah.’

  Almeric let go and turned his back.

  ‘When did it?’ Vern said tentatively.

  ‘When I was at your place,’ said Almeric, a note of accusation in his voice. ‘It grew little legs and walked out.’

  ‘Little eyes too?’ quizzed Vern.

  ‘Yeah, so it could see where it was going.’

  Vern sat on the sofa. It shifted under him. ‘Where did it go?’

  Almeric shrugged. ‘We'll know soon enough
,’ he said.

  ‘You mean when it goes off?’ Vern was sceptical; he fancied Edgar - wherever he was - to win that bet.

  ‘Exactly,’ Almeric confirmed.

  ‘And it's all set to blow?’

  ‘Saturday night.’

  ‘You're sure?’

  ‘That's when I set the timer for - midnight on Saturday, like I said.’

  ‘Al,’ Vern said, squirming. ‘I hate to bring this up, but shouldn't there be plutonium or uranium in a hydrogen bomb?’

  To Vern's surprise Almeric grinned good-naturedly. ‘Hmm,’ he stated, screwdriver wafting. ‘They fooled you, I know, yes, they fooled you and everybody...’

  Vern folded his arms.

  ‘They only say that to make it difficult for just anyone to make one.’

  ‘A hydrogen bomb?’

  ‘Right,’ Almeric said. ‘It's really quite straightforward if you know the ingredients. All that radioactive stuff is a waste of time, propaganda put out to confuse people.’

  ‘No kidding?’ said Vern, wishing he'd stayed at home with his head in the oven. He felt tired of life at that moment; life had gone badly wrong.

  ‘The hydrogen,’ Almeric was saying, ‘is in the water.’

  ‘So it's really a hydraulic bomb,’ commented Vern, studious once more, cleaning his nails, which reminded him of Stan and popping lenses.

  ‘Very good,’ Almeric said. ‘It's not widely known, but they let it slip from time to time.’

  Vern was nonplussed. Almeric had lost him, but the mention of THEM brought his attention staggering back.

  ‘It's even possible your man-thing is an agent,’ conjectured Almeric.

  Vern was intrigued. ‘Would an agent know how to mend phones?’ he wanted to know. ‘And induce sneezing?’

  ‘Of course, they're trained from birth.’

  ‘What about painting?’

  ‘That too. In fact, anything you can think of.’

  ‘Then what hope is there?’

  Almeric's grin widened. ‘It's unstable,’ he said cryptically.

  ‘The?’ guessed Vern, avoiding trigger words.

  ‘Yes.

  ‘And it?’

  ‘Certainly.’

  Were they talking about the same thing? Did it matter?

  ‘If they?’

  ‘Right. ‘

  ‘Which means...’ Vern hesitated, wondering what to say next, what possible relevance it could have.

  Relevance to what?

  ‘The end of civilization,’ said Almeric, hand on heart, head held high. ‘The birth of a new order,’ he went on. ‘The rise of a superior dough.’

  ‘Dough?’ Vern inquired, otherwise speechless.

  ‘Pizza base,’ explained Almeric. ‘I plan to export, starting Sunday.’

  ‘Where to?’

  ‘The alien spaceships first, and then to Mars and Neptune, and ultimately Venus, flooding their domestic market. It's all part of the plan.’

  ‘Plan?’ Vern felt like a cue-card, some crude plot device.

  ‘To rescue Ed from the Venusians,’ Almeric said. ‘It's called blackmail.’

  ‘I see,’ Vern said, suitably awed. ‘What if it doesn't go off, the you-know-what?’

  ‘The plan?’

  ‘The bomb.’ He clamped his hand over his mouth.

  Almeric's eyes closed briefly. When they opened again they were brighter.

  Possessed was the word that came to Vern's mind.

  ‘In that event,’ enlightened the revolutionary blackmailer, ‘Ed was right, he wins the bet, and isn't worth rescuing.’

  Vern unclamped his mouth and sneezed.

  ‘I could adjust that,’ Almeric told him, approaching.

  ‘No thanks,’ said Vern.

  ‘It wouldn't take a minute,’ insisted Al. ‘Really, there's this tiny screw that controls the sinuses, like in a carb.’

  ‘A screw?’

  ‘A tiny gold screw. It probably only needs tightening. Trust me, Vern, it's easy.’

  ‘I'll stick to aspirin,’ Vern said. ‘Okay?’

  Almeric knelt on the sofa next to him. ‘Now lie back. It won't hurt, I promise.’

  Vern, recalling childhood dentist nightmares, wriggled away, narrowly escaping having a screwdriver thrust up his nostril.

  The sofa fell apart, taking Almeric with it. When he got up, he seemed changed.

  ‘All right, Al?’ Vern asked, nervous.

  ‘Did I show you the pictures,’ Almeric replied; ‘the ones Ed took?’

  Vern shook his head.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Almeric. ‘Come look.’ He tip-toed through into Edgar's bedroom. On the wall were four photographs arranged like the panes of a window, forming a larger rectangle. There was a cardboard frame surrounding and dividing them.

  ‘What do you think?’ said Almeric. ‘Ed was planning to send copies to one of his magazines. I forget it's name.’

  Vern could only make out a field, a few figures, and perhaps a balloon. ‘My eyes,’ he said, indicating his glasses, their missing lenses.

  Almeric didn't seem to hear. He stood transfixed. ‘I made the window,’ he murmured. ‘It was my idea. You know what it is? He didn't wait for an answer, saying, ‘H-shaped.’

  Vern stepped back and felt for the door.

  ‘The Semitic H,’ Almeric continued, ‘is boxed off at the top and bottom to form an oblong, like this, only not on its side...’

  ‘Yeah,’ Vern said, wanting to exit, in a hurry, run in fact, although he wouldn't admit it, even to himself.

  ‘Isn't it pretty?’ Almeric said. ‘Do you see the dancing girls? The butterflies? The bee in the poppy?’

  ‘Yeah...’ And he was out.

  Poppies grow at the forest's edge. They mark the graves of the fallen. I stand entranced by these images, the third of which, in the bottom right-hand corner, shows golden haloes of spring light in wind-ruffled hair...

  ‘I never want to live again,’ Vern said as he walked. ‘The strange things are too many.’

  Waiting for him outside the end terrace was a girl dressed in a heavy black trench-coat. She had black hair, too.

  ‘Too many,’ Vern repeated. ‘Are you another?’

  ‘Another what?’ the girl questioned.

  ‘Strange thing,’ he said.

  The street-lights flickered on. The advancing dark retreated to roof level and grumbled, its probing fingers draining into shadows.

  ‘I don't know,’ she said, restless. ‘I can't get in.’

  ‘The door's locked.’

  ‘So open it.’

  ‘I will.’

  He did. They stepped inside. The phone, Vern saw, had been freshly vandalized. He was pleased. It rang. He broke it more thoroughly than before.

  ‘That might've been important,’ said the girl.

  ‘It was Almeric,’ said Vern, tackling the stairs.

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘It's always Almeric.’

  ‘Even when it's somebody else?’

  ‘There are no somebody elses.’

  ‘Then who am I?’

  ‘I haven't the faintest,’ Vern admitted, entering his bedsit.

  ‘I'm Lucy,’ she said. ‘I came back.’

  ‘Why?’ Vern flopped down on his bed, staking his claim to the charred mattress and paint-speckled covers.

  ‘Because,’ said Lucy.

  ‘I never did that before,’ said Vern. ‘It was nice.’

  ‘I used to do it all the time,’ said Lucy. ‘I even charged for it. Then I went to work for a hairdressers.’

  ‘I like your hair this colour.’

  ‘Me too. ‘

  The images of angel and sailor on the ceiling seemed imbued with an ethereal light, otherworldly colours.

  ‘I bought you a new shirt,’ Lucy said; ‘only I left it on the bus. ‘

  Vern laughed and it felt good.

  ‘It had these strange d
esigns on it,’ she told him. ‘It was weird.’

  ‘I can imagine.’

  ‘Are you hungry?’

  ‘I'm starving.’

  ‘We could go out for a pizza,’ suggested Lucy.

  ‘No,’ said Vern. ‘It's too far.’

  ‘It's just round the corner.’ She sat up, head lolling. ‘Or did they move it?’

  ‘They move everything.’

  ‘Everything?’

  ‘They moved Stan,’ he broadened. ‘They moved the harps and the tattoos and the spiky helmets.’

  ‘Don't talk about it,’ said Lucy. ‘Talk about nice things.’

  ‘Like we just did?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I'd rather do it than talk about it.’

  ‘So kiss me.’

  ‘Your lips won't move?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘You're sure?’ Vern wasn't. Vern wasn't sure of anything. He got out of bed.

  ‘Vern, what're you doing?’

  He was on his hands and knees looking under the bed. ‘Looking under the bed,’ he answered.

  ‘What for?’ She sounded impatient.

  ‘A tear in the fabric of time and space,’ he said, ‘through which a man might easily disappear.’

  She sighed and reached for her trench-coat, the cigarettes in its pocket.

  ‘I never did that before,’ said Vern. ‘It was nice.’

  ‘I used to do it all the time,’ said Lucy. ‘I even charged for it. Then I went to work for a kiss-a-gram agency.’

  ‘That's better,’ Vern told her. ‘I like your hair red.’

  ‘It's always been this colour,’ Lucy responded, a puzzled glint in her eye.

  He kissed her.

  In Edgar's bedroom Almeric tore the pictures from the wall and ripped them up, shredding two dimensions in three.

  ‘I never did that before,’ said Vern. ‘It was nice.’

  18 - BLEEDING

  Who can tell one world from another? A field of arches stands in a clearing. When the sun is right, a man may pass through, his shoulders beneath stone, his feet treading grass, his mind cast about him, drawn between worlds he has no intention of seeing at first hand. But a man has more hands than he knows...

  ‘That isn't paint,’ said Vern.

  ‘I know,’ said Lucy; ‘it's blood.’

  ‘The angels are bleeding?’

  ‘No.’ She prodded him. ‘I am.’

  ‘You're not an angel? That's disgusting!’

  Lucy got out of bed. ‘It's Catholic heaven,’ she quoted.

  ‘But it's the colour of hell.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Now you know why I used to charge for it.’

  ‘Danger money,’ Vern recollected. ‘Were you expensive?’