Rupert Wong and the Ends of the Earth

by Cassandra Khaw

  Coughing, I grab an unwashed hoodie from my bed, try to swaddle my uninjured arm and fail. I stare at the puddle of black cloth, forlorn.

  “Crap.”

  One deep breath. One enormous regret. Wheezing smoke, eyes watering furiously, I charge the window, elbow first. Glass explodes in a shimmer of hard edges, sunlight turning the shrapnel into diamond. Like a lonely paramour finally come home, gravity hauls me into her embrace, dragging me over the window frame, down onto the balcony a storey below.

  Whumph. The impact jolts the air from my lungs, and the world judders into watery smears of color, indistinguishable from whatever fiction my brain constructs in its flirtation with unconsciousness. I think I scream. I’m not sure. Pain ignites in bright blinding pops, skating between cuts and fresh-broken bones, expanding, crescendoing in a vivid fastigium of hurts.

  But I’m alive.

  I guess.

  In the periphery of my hearing, I catch the sound of a balcony door opening, feet picking a shuffling path through a mosaic of glass. A silhouette looms over me, blocking out the smudged heavens. “Holy shit.”

  I shakily raise a pair of devil horns. “Rock on.”

  And with that, I finally pass out.

  “WHAT AM I supposed to do with you, Rupert?” A man’s voice, two octaves too close to pre-pubescence, yet cold and slow, like a long death in ice.

  I crack open an eye, see a landscape of plaster and bandages, my appendages dangling from straps in the ceiling. An itch of indeterminable size stirs, somewhere inaccessible, as sunlight fissures through ragged curtains. I twitch my fingers. Six respond; four spasm in bafflement.

  I’d say that everything hurts, but that’s a lie. The world is cotton and clouds on a crinoline of gauze, so fluffy that I could, if you’ll excuse the reference, die. Truth be told, I’ve a nagging suspicion that this fuzzy, furry patina of morphine is the only thing keeping me from expiring of circulatory shock. I wiggle my digits again and try to raise the middle finger. It comes up half-mast. Good enough.

  Sisyphus sits spread-kneed on the edge of a chair at the side of my bed, hands steepled against his lipless maw. His stare has the weight of court orders. The silence lengthens into awkwardness.

  “I’m sorry?” Grudgingly, I fit words into the waiting quiet.

  The damned king grins briefly, stroking the fleecy jut of his chin. Rubbing beard hairs between thumb and index finger, he looks at me appraisingly. I writhe away, propping myself up as best I’m able, which entails resting part of my weight on a sling and slouching the rest against a rickety headboard.

  It is then that I realize that there’s a cat on my belly. Specifically, the Cat, a heap of mange and black-whipped fur, gray and white at unplanned intervals. He scratches at the stub of an ear, and opens lime-green eyes. I wriggle fingers at him, hoping the motion would communicate both my desire to scritch and my inability to do so.

  “You don’t die. You don’t listen. You don’t do what you were meant to do. When destiny comes calling, you run away every single time. What am I supposed to do?”

  “Man, if I had a dollar every time someone said that to me, I’d have enough to pay off the world.” The Cat nuzzles under my palm, and I scratch at the stiff hairs of his hackles. “Wait. What do you mean—are you the one working with Vanquis?”

  That actually makes Sisyphus crack up, slight frame twitching with laughter. He leans back, stares out of the door as a nurse, dark and slim, black hair corkscrewing from a sharp-edged face, saunters past. The Cat rattles with sub-aural growling, walking a tight circle across my chest, and Sisyphus continues ignoring him. “Oh, please. If it helps, I’m not complicit in your suffering. I have no more reason to hate you than to hate the man on the streets. Sure, your torment generates revenue, but this world pivots on suffering; it isn’t personal. I am not your enemy. But I am unhappy. You stand at the fulcrum of change, but you don’t see how it works.”

  “How what works? Cutting some random idiot open and rooting through his stomach to decide what’s going to happen? Trusting in the Ghost of Entrails Past Expiry? Hey, you know what would be an absolutely novel idea? Telling me things straight instead of jumping through wordplay. It’d get all of us where you want to go a lot faster.”

  “No.” He sighs, rises from his seat to narrow the distance between us. From his pocket, Sisyphus extracts two coins, verdigris-coated and old. Very old. The centuries reverberate within the discs, histories so sociopathically abhorrent that they refuse to lay down and die. He sets them between my collar bones, the metal chill. The Cat hisses, but Sisyphus ignores him. “I can’t. You must make this choice independent of outside intervention. This must be your decision, your choosing.”

  “Again, if I had a dollar—”

  “How I envy you. How I envy the things that Helenus had forseen for you.”

  “I’m beginning to get very concerned here.”

  “If only we still had his sister, things would be so very clear.” With a schwink of metal unfolding, a switchblade pops into view. I tense, straining between the urge to survive and the desire to have it all over with, to give this wretched carcass up, reboot the game and come back, shit-stained but whole. “But we do what we can. We play the cards we’ve been dealt.”

  “Tell me. Was all that drama really necessary? Does it make you happy, Your Highness? Does it?”

  Sisyphus carries on like I’ve said nothing at all, bending down to cut my face, but the Cat intervenes, slashing at the blade with a paw. Snarling at the impudence, faster than I could imagine possible, he pins the thrashing Cat against my broken ribs and slices the feline’s throat.

  “Fuck—”

  Calmly, Sisyphus wipes his blade through the geysering blood, the Cat twitching, his gaze emptying of animation. I gape, shellshocked, as Sisyphus strokes the flat of his knife over the coins, awakening whatever slumbers within them. A pale wash of impressions, like the dregs of a nightmare; eager, grotesqueries too vague to fully comprehend, full of hungry life.

  “Collateral,” he announces, the Cat’s only eulogy.

  “You cannot fucking perform an animal sacrifice in a hospital—”

  Sisyphus rambles on, indifferent to my sentiments on the matter, bored of me: “Helenus made another prediction before it all went to shit, by the way.”

  “And?” I’m sodden and sticky with blood. My uncovered ass, I realize, with a paroxysm of hysteria, is the only place still cold.

  “You’re going to do great things. You’re going to change the tide of the world. You will win this war for—”

  “You?” A laugh wrenches my lungs, a coyote’s wobbling giggle. “I”m going to win the war for you. Is that what you’re going to tell me? After randomly murdering a cat and god knows what else. Look, you understand the fundamental error in listening to a gibbering madman you’ve turned inside-out, right? The fact you take bets on his fortunes suggests that he’s not very good at them, so how are you even—what was I saying again?”

  (Ang mohs, don’t do drugs at home. In fact, don’t do drugs at all. Unless it’s a matter of life-or-death, and as a general rule of thumb, you should avoid matters of life-or-death too.)

  Sisyphus, a frown pinched between prodigious eyebrows, shakes his head. “It doesn’t matter. What matters is that you will be responsible for changing the—”

  I spin a fingertip in a tiny circle around my temple. “You are fucking nuts.”

  “And you are an insolent little cow. If it weren’t for Demeter—” His scowl deepens.

  “Excuse me? Excuse me? Now, I don’t know if you realize, but I’m not the one who walked up to an injured man to start cutting up his face. Because seriously, if you don’t get why this is a crazy thing to do, I— wait. What did you say about Demeter?”

  Shoes clack over linoleum and we look over to see a silhouette in the doorway, clipboard tucked into the crook of an arm. A doctor, judging from the rumpled coat and the stethoscope dangling from his throat, the shadows hanging heavy from pupp
ydog eyes. “Sorry. Am I interrupting?”

  Statement masquerading as perfunctory apology. Sisyphus raps a chord against my rib, holding the physician’s gaze, neither backing down. But my doctor has the advantage of actual authority and they both know it. The undead monarch eventually capitulates, although not before migrating the coins to my eyes, a ferryman’s wages pre-paid in full, the Cat’s body dangled by its scruff. “This is not your story.”

  “Fuck you. Wait. Come back here. You still haven’t answered me yet.”

  He leaves, sandals slapping a sullen beat across the floor. I contort my face, hoping to dislodge the coins; one falls, the other does not, pulsing someone’s misery across my skin. The young medic walks up beside me and plucks the remaining doubloon from my eye, mouth undecided between a grimace and an encouraging smile. It flickers fully to the latter, even as he rings up Security, his manner efficient and terse, composed to minimize the risk of alarm.

  “Did you know that man?” His accent is glass-cut, prim, predominantly British except for an inflection of the exotic, a liquidness that suggests time on other continents. He raises the coin to the light, inspects the surfaces but neither numbers nor insignias reveal themselves, no clue as to a beginning, all legibility eaten away by green-blue rust.

  “Nope. Some random crazy.”

  We clinch stares. I wait for him to call my bluff, but he doesn’t.

  “How are you feeling...” He sets the coins on my bedside table and scans his sheaf of papers, tongue poked from the corner of his lips. “Mr. Wong? That was a bit of a fall.”

  “You could say that.” I stiffen, cagey as a pet-shelter feral, acutely and abruptly conscious that I’m alone, incapacitated, and in the presence of Schrödinger’s threat.

  “Multiple fractures, two broken ribs, some thoracic spinal lesions, a concussion—and that’s just the current inventory. Still, nothing irrecoverable. Bed rest, physical therapy, and good life decisions should have you up and running in no time.” He skims a finger along my IV drip and examines the bag of clear fluids, before fumbling through a dresser for supplies.

  Rubber gloves go on. With enviable dexterity, he carves me from my bandages, begins the cleanup process, all the while maintaining a conversational lightness to his chatter. “You’ve led quite the life, Mr. Wong.”

  “Led?” I wince as he paints antibacterial fluids over my stitches. “I don’t know if I appreciate the use of past tense.”

  “Mr. Wong, I understand that things may still be confusing, but you can trust me, I promise you. I’m only here to help.” He swaddles me in fresh bandages, manner still calm.

  “Yeah. That’s what they all say.”

  He sighs. “Okay. So what can I do to change your mind?”

  I don’t miss a beat. “Yorkshire pudding with Cumberland sausages, onion gravy. A side of biscuits. Fried bacon. Properly fried. Like, unhealthily crispy.”

  “How about something from Tesco and I’ll see if the cafeteria will fry you some bacon?”

  “Deal.”

  HE COMES BACK.

  He actually comes back. With onion mash and sausages dripping in hot gravy, Yorkshire pudding stuffed with crumbled bacon. No biscuits, unfortunately, but he substitutes a slice of lemon tart, lumpy with white chocolate. I don’t know why he didn’t return with Security, and how I’m not swimming in policemen, but I am not about to look a gift horse in the mouth.

  “Isn’t this against terms and conditions?” Gingerly, I clamp trembling fingers around the spoon, losing my captive twice, cutlery falling onto my blue woolen blanket.

  “Probably.” The doctor—Sunil, according to a discreet nametag—shrugs a shoulder, grinning, fingers raking through prematurely gray hair. “But hey.”

  “Hey.” I grin back and dig in.

  OBJECTIVELY SPEAKING, THE meal wasn’t great. Store-bought sausages are always criminally overstuffed and woefully under-spiced, porcine detritus given a last shake at self-worth. And the gravy is invariably a watery, one-note disappointment.

  The bacon was chewier than it was crispy and the tart too sweet, but the fact it was there, steam lacing the air, savory and rich and resplendently greasy, made all the difference.

  Subjectively speaking, it was the best meal of my life.

  I’m pretty sure that means I’m about to die.

  Permanently.

  IT’S LATE AND I’m still awake, walking one of Sisyphus’ coins along my knuckles, counting as I go. Metacarpals and phalanges twinge from the exercise, but I press on, coercing joints to flex, to bend. Twenty-five. Twenty-six. Twenty-seven. Twenty—

  The disc slips between my fingers, hits the floor with a decisive clink.

  Bracing, I lean down, ignore the pain shooting across my oblique as I twist to collect the fallen coin. There has to be a secret here, some metallurgic cantrip leavened into the gold, something useful. But the coins relinquish no answers. In frustration, I thread a schoolyard charm together under my breath, the magic flickering limply, an unflattering mirror of my health. It gutters out before I can even breathe it into being, and I sigh.

  I don’t remember ever being so heartsick, so ill with someone else’s sin. I’m exhausted, I realize. Whittled down to an ache. And every time I shut my eyes, there are bodies laid out like plates on a table, dead because someone thought it was amusing—or worse, because no one noticed they were there. Used, abused, ground down into food, or raw material. An entire charnel house steeped in pointless casualties. At least the ghouls—

  No. Fuck.

  The lie unlaces itself from my thoughts, presents itself as what it is: a crude excuse for my complicity, just another way to get through the day. I run the coin over my knuckles, metal glimmering in sinuous waves, hoping to find absolution in repetition. A muscle in my cheek twangs. I don’t like how guilt feels.

  The coin tumbles through another circuit.

  Silence, but for the sound of the patient in the other bed, wheezing through an uneasy sleep, an orchestra of acute pneumonia. No answers there.

  “Like you’re even real gold.” I bite down on the coin.

  It isn’t. Or, at least, it no longer is, the material altered by the metaphysical. Memories, until now an indistinct aftertaste, burst across my tongue. The alloy foams and fizzes, dissolving; a stink of lye whirlpooling into my lungs, chemical burn that swells the throat, pricks at my eyes until they water. I spit phlegm over the side of my bed, globs of green-yellow infection; scrape the roof of my mouth with my tongue, again and again, but the flavor sticks.

  Briefly, the amygdala coquets with the idea of panic. Genetic memory is clear: that taste is poison. But common sense counters with a quick rebuttal, gleefully highlighting the fact I’m too well and truly fucked to do anything except stay horizontal and accept the inevitable. And besides, why did I bite something covered in someone else’s blood?

  The bitterness continues to funnel down my throat, a metallic warmth invading capillaries and digestive tract. Fuck it. At least I had a last meal. People have died under worse circumstances. I’ve died under worse circumstances. As far as these things go, everything’s coming up slightly-better-than-everyday-Rupert.

  Feeling dramatically better, I flick my attention up to the ceiling and map animal shapes to water stains.

  But the end never comes. Instead, its antipode swaggers up, a truly phenomenal itch, one that spiders across my sinews and rappels down my spine and sides, worming into fractures and misaligned muscles: cellular repair sped-up into an exquisite torture. I buck as my ribs slot together. It hurts like a bad marriage, a slow death exacerbated by the faith that the end goal is axiomatically better than any alternative.

  I miss morphine.

  Still, what goes up must come down, and even eternity has an expiry date. My torment ends, somewhere between the past and I’m-going-to-pee-myself-screaming. I inhale shuddering gouts of air, soaked to the molecule with sweat; trembling bone and skin so raw that the fibers of my hospital gown grate like razorwire. The fact tha
t I’m whole again, fresh-fleshed and fully functional, feels like a participation trophy, rather than any miracle of royal mercy.

  I swing my legs from the bed, picking the IV drip from my arm. Air-conditioning billows noisily, a death rattle not dissimilar from the respiration of my bedmate, glacial against my bare calves.

  “I guess it’s something,” I tell the indifferent quiet as I waddle stiff-legged between cupboards and drawers, rummaging for my passport, wallet. I find both. I also find someone else’s clothes, a stash of fresh twenties, and car keys.

  Everything gets requisitioned, of course. You can’t save a universe without stealing a few cars.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  “SORRY, FRIEND.”

  I stroke a hand along the lithe lines of the car, moonlight flashing silver across the gunmetal chassis, feeling like I’m saying goodbye to the woman of my dreams all over again. I’m not generally a vehicle guy, but there are exceptions to everything. The RX-7 I’ve commandeered is exquisite, better than new, almond-pale leather and voice controls, a stereo system with an operatic bass, an engine that croons.

  Unfortunately, where I intend to go, it’s just a useless chunk of gorgeous metal. I keep at the ruse for a while nonetheless, driving in aimless patterns around Waterloo station until the fuel light winks a warning. Only then do I park and step out into the time-honored existential dilemma: to keep the car or to not keep the car? That is the fucking question.

  I keep the keys, just in case. I pat the hood one last time, forlorn, and slink out of the alley. Central London is beautiful at four thirty in the morning: buildings glazed silver by the omnipresent drizzle; street lamps pooling golden on the glistening cobblestones; the dark waters of the Thames, jewelled, strange; no drunken milieu to mar the composition of glass and old Georgian architecture.

  Just me and the overly affectionate chill.