by Darren Dash
My new landlord, Rick, is nowhere near as pleasant as Franz. He gets greedy and unreasonable as his senses return, demands payment up front, won’t cut me any slack. “Show me your teeth or a clean pair of heels,” he growls, giving me two days to come up with the exorbitant rent.
I could bash out some sperm, give birth to a ferocious beast and sic it on him, but I’m in a mellow mood, so I shrug, pack my few belongings and leave. There are plenty more boarding houses. I’ll sleep just as sweetly elsewhere.
To my surprise, I find the other landlords equally cold and unhelpful. They ask for teeth in advance and slam the door in my face when I fail to produce any.
“There are loads of jobs going,” one snarls. “Nobody has an excuse to be broke unless they’re lazy, good for nothing layabouts.”
I ask if my beard and shabby clothes – I’ve taken to dressing again, but my duds are the worse for wear – have anything to do with his hostile attitude.
“No,” he says, “just your ugly face.”
And slam! goes the door.
Charming.
It’s not just the landlords. I try a couple of nourishment houses for jobs, only to meet with rejection at every turn. Some owners won’t even give me an audition – they say they’ve too many acts as it is – and those who do rarely listen for more than a couple of minutes.
“I can’t believe you’re telling Frankenstein and Dracula stories,” one of them snorts. “Everyone knows those old chestnuts. Try something new, why don’t you?”
The Alchemist was right — I have made a lasting impression on the locals, only not the sort I would have wished. My pilfered stories have passed into common parlance. Everybody – and I mean everybody – is familiar with them. I’ve rendered myself old-fashioned.
I could probably think up new stuff if I wanted – there are lots of TV shows and films I never got round to regurgitating – but I’m so bemused by the whole thing, I just don’t bother. I’ll get work in a factory when I feel the need. At the moment I’m happy enough pounding the streets and sleeping rough. I don’t have to worry about animals attacking. My beastly children are kind to their poppa. Work can wait. Life can wait too. Consider this my paternity leave.
One evening, by chance, I stumble across an enemaist factory. I clock it by the workers filing out. Though I’ve long since abandoned thoughts of escaping the city, I pop in to see what it’s like.
The girl in reception is nicer to me than most of the newcomers have been and politely listens to my request to explore inside the plant. I tell her I’m thinking of joining but want to check it out first.
“There’s no problem with having a look around,” she says, “but getting a job here might not be so easy — our books are pretty full at the moment.”
So, I’m not even wanted by the enemaists. The pity, Iago, the pity!
As I suspected, the factory turns out to be a dead end. My guide – the girl from reception, happy to double-up on her jobs – leads me down past a series of pipes to a seemingly bottomless pit of liquid waste.
“That’s where it goes,” she tells me, smiling proudly. I ask where it comes out but the question’s lost on her. “Out? It goes in, not out.”
I stare down into the yellow-brown waters of the pit. If I had scuba diving gear, I might be able to investigate further. As things stand, forget it.
I thank the girl for her time and leave. I’m not upset to come away knowing that I’m well and truly trapped, as I wasn’t expecting anything else. In a way I’m glad. Now that I’ve been in one of the factories and scoped it out, I can push the last, lingering hope of escape from my thoughts completely. Hope is nothing but a hindrance in this hermetic hodgepodge of a city. I’m better off without it.
The days and nights blur into one another again. I don’t lose myself on the seabed of my mind this time – as I predicted, the proximity of people proves too much of a distraction – but I fall into an agreeable state of listlessness which enables me to function without exerting too many brain cells. I shuffle through the streets like a tramp, preying on drones when I’m hungry, dipping into canals or ponds when I need to wash, sleeping rough beneath the always temperate sky.
I have little to do with the locals – bar encounters with the ever reliable enemaists – though I keep a fascinated eye on them as they go about their daily business. Like a father who’s forsaken his children in a fit of rage, I can’t entirely divorce myself from my interest in them.
It’s an interest which isn’t returned. They treat me worse than a drone, making no attempt to hide the disgust they feel at seeing me pollute their pearly streets. The citizens of yore would have had some modicum of sympathy for my plight. This lot – perhaps reflecting their cold paternal creator – are a harsher breed. I suppose, with a cannibal for a father, it’s only natural that they’re more hardened.
I’ve used my name on a few occasions, to see what sort of an impact it carries. “I’m Newman Riplan,” I’ve muttered, and each time there’s been recognition.
“The guy who used to tell those super stories? Sure, we know you. Snuff, man, what happened? You look like some-thing a rat threw up.”
I’ve spun a number of hard luck stories in reply to their enquiries, sometimes resulting in a welcome handout, but I haven’t made any friends. Intrigued as they might be in the legend, nobody wants to associate with a deadbeat. This is a city of class, of go-getters, of – God forgive me for spawning them – yuppies. It’s surely only a matter of time before Filofaxes come into fashion.
I wander into Barbersville one day, chat with some of the new clan of barbers, have my beard cut and hair trimmed. I make a lot of drone teeth from the sale of my hair — “So long,” the barber murmurs appreciatively, “and such high quality.” I use the teeth to buy new shoes, even though the soles of my feet are so tough that I don’t really need them.
It’s nice to see the barbers flourishing. I wish I’d done more than tell stories before I helped create the recent crop of citizens. It would have been nice to gift the people something revolutionary, like glass, electricity or clocks. If I’d applied myself to making timepieces before the purge, would that have provided my offspring with a better understanding of time? Maybe I could have changed the nature of these people in a truly meaningful way.
But it’s too late now. Unless there’s another purge in my lifetime – and that’s something I don’t wish for, even in my darkest moments – I’ll never get a chance to shape the population of this city again. The stories, good, bad or indifferent, will have to be enough.
I’ve plenty of drone teeth left after buying the shoes. I let them slide from hand to hand, smiling blankly at them, trying to make a count but constantly losing track. Eventually I stack them in a neat little pile on the pavement and leave them for somebody else to find. I’ve no real need of them. Apart from the shoes, this city has nothing to offer that I truly desire.
One more day in the endless legion of uncharted days. I’m moseying along, taking my time, thinking about nothing in particular, when I spot a man who doesn’t seem to fit in. Unlike the usual citizens, who know what they’re up to, where they’re going and what they want, this man is milling about, stopping people, asking questions and looking distressed. Most curious.
Avoid him, part of me whispers. Turn and walk away and don’t look back.
“Why should I be afraid?” I ask.
The voice in my head sniffs and says, If you don’t listen, you’ll be sorry.
I decide that’s not a satisfactory explanation and choose to ignore my own advice, so I proceed as before.
The man – dark-skinned, casually dressed, sweating, frightened – spots me studying him and powers his way towards me, perhaps hoping to get more from a tramp than the respectable people. I slow to a standstill and wait for him. That annoying part of my brain is shrieking at me now – Don’t engage! Don’t engage! – but I silence it with a mental bellow. “Who’s the boss?” I roar. “Me or you?”
You, it whimpers, but you’ll soon wish you weren’t.
Then it retreats into a sulky silence.
“Sir!” the black man shouts and stops before me, panting as if he’d been racing. “You’ve got to tell me where I am, man. I was at a party on a plane. One of my friends, he has his own jet, it was his brother’s twenty-first, we went up to party among the clouds. I’d popped a few pills – you know what it’s like at parties – and downed a shitload of shots, then all of a sudden I started to cough. I doubled over, fell to my knees, thought the end had come, but then my throat cleared. I was able to breathe again. I sat up, laughing, expecting everybody to be crowding round to see if I was OK, only to find the lot of them in their seats. I was pissed at them – uncaring bastards – and started to complain, but then I realised they… they…”
He starts to cry. I stare at him wordlessly.
“They weren’t human anymore,” he moans. “They’d turned into white fucking mannequins. Like –” He points at a nearby drone. “– that fucking thing. Then the plane sets down, the mannequins leave and a couple of goons come in. I tried getting sense out of them but they herded me off the plane and into some guy’s office. He gave me a bag of teeth – fucking teeth! – and threatened to set a pair of wolves – fucking wolves! – on me when I got heavy.”
The black man pauses to gulp down sobs. I wonder about Jess’s replacement while the stranger struggles to regain his breath. Sounds like the new guy is as fond of wolves as she was. Maybe they come with the job.
“Then I walked through the longest fucking tunnel in history,” the black man resumes, “and emerged into this nightmare of a city. I’ve been trying to find out where I am but people treat me like I’m mad and talking gibberish. Please, man, you’ve got to tell me what’s happened.”
He shakes me desperately. His fingers hurt my arms where he grips them but I don’t react. I can understand why he’s upset. I don’t blame him for the roughness.
“You’ve got to tell me,” the black man weeps. “Where the fuck am I?”
A human. A real human. From my world. I never thought I’d meet one again. I was sure I’d die alone among these strangers and that would be that. But fate has smiled on me. I can link up with this man. I know what he’s going through. I can explain things, regale him with my story, prepare him for what’s to come. He won’t believe me to begin with – he might even resent me for being the bearer of ill tidings – but as he settles in and realises I’ve told the truth, we’ll grow closer. Perhaps together we can figure a way out of here. I’ll be able to tell him about the sleeping pills. He might be able to return to the real world with a message and ask for help, not waste his trip back like I did. Even if escape proves beyond us, we’ll have each other. I don’t have to be a lone outsider any longer.
The black man is still shaking me, crying, asking questions. I raise a hand and pat his back, hoping to calm him down. “There, there,” I try to whisper but my lips won’t form the words. It’s been so long since I spoke, even longer since I had to use words which meant anything.
“You’ve got to help me,” he sobs. “What is this place? Where the fuck am I?”
An old question. I step back from him, breaking free of his grasp, smile and open my mouth to initiate conversation. As the words come out and I realise what they are – the only words I’m capable of forming – my smile disintegrates and I start to retreat.
“Where do you think you are?” I croak, horrified by what I’m saying but unable to produce any other answer.
“Where do you think you are?” I gasp, turning to run, ignoring his pleas, leaving him behind.
“Where do you think you are?” I scream hysterically, as much to myself as to the man I’ve deserted, and I disappear into the city, stumbling blindly down the capillaries of my black-hearted abomination of a prison, of my… home.
I still can’t believe what I said to the black man. It haunts me day and night, whether asleep or awake. My one chance to make contact with a member of my own world and I blew it. What hurts the worst is knowing it wasn’t forced upon me. I didn’t answer his question the way I did because some unseen power was acting to control my tongue. I did it because I was afraid, terrified of announcing myself to a fellow Earthling and exposing my pitiful shortcomings, having to describe my fall and how low I’d sunk. The people of this city don’t matter to me. I could tell them about eating Cheryl and masturbating naked in the streets and they wouldn’t blink. But to parade the truth before a man of my own world…
I’m one of them now. At long, lonely last, I’m a true citizen. I’ve been angry, sad, crazy, paranoid, hopeless. I’ve blown through every emotion in the book, including some which weren’t included in any book I ever read, but this is the end of the line. I can’t go on as I have been. I don’t know who I am. A member of the city, yes, but what does that mean? What does it make me? The rest of them were brought into this world with assigned roles. Each knows their place in it. I’m one of them now, yet I’m not like them. What role can I fill? What slot can I slip into? I’m no one. I’m nothing.
I feel a crushing sense of desolation. I haven’t just lost hope or my sanity this time. I’ve lost me. I’m no longer the man I was. No longer any sort of man at all. I live, breathe, eat, think. But I’m not Newman Riplan. I’m something else… anonymous… out of time and place… completely and utterly adrift. I have no meaning, and no hope of ever having a meaning. Lacking that single, most simple of driving attributes, what is there in all this world of a city that could possibly inspire me to carry on?
I’m thin. Haggard. Haven’t eaten for three or four days. Didn’t eat for nine or ten before that. Thirsty. Naked. I’ve abandoned my rags, even my shoes. Back the way Mother Nature intended. I stagger from street to street, as if part of a crucifixion parade, bowed beneath the weight of that most terrible of questions — “Where do you think you are?” I can’t get it out of my mind. It torments me.
I belong nowhere, not in this world, not in my own. I’m a miserable specimen of a creature, a badly timed joke, bereft of purpose, meaning, dignity, passion. How did I end up like this? The situation was extreme, but others would have coped, dealt with the change and fashioned new, exciting lives. They’d have taken the shapeless clay of this city and imposed themselves on it, used their superior mental faculties to bend things their way. They wouldn’t have retreated into their shells or feasted on the dead or wasted their time on useless quests. It would be easy for me to blame the city for my failure but in truth it’s my own. A challenge was set and I failed to rise to it. Simple as that.
The future… Christ, I don’t want to think about that. Don’t even want to acknowledge it. All I really want is to…
The moon turns red and distracts me. A pity — I’d have liked to know what I really wanted. No time now. I have to flee. I can hear howling already. I start to run, though in my weakened condition I can’t work up much speed. People pour out of buildings, screaming and panicking. Nice to see some things don’t change. I’d feel sorry for them if I was capable of empathy.
Loping along, I turn a corner and spot a sandman. He smiles and beckons me on. I don’t have any drone teeth – foolish, foolish Newman – but I start towards him regardless, thinking I can maybe spin him a tale in lieu of the teeth.
Less than halfway there, I pause, then stop and sink to my haunches.
Why continue? Is there one good reason – even a lousy reason – why I should go on living? If there is, I can’t isolate it. I’m not brave enough to take my own life but I might manage to hold still long enough to let another to do the business for me. A couple of minutes, that’s all it will take. A brief flurry of bloody activity, then peace and silence.
I sigh happily – I’ve assumed responsibility for my life again, even if it’s only to end it – and smile up at the sky. What I see brings a frown to my face. Though I should be looking at the moon, somehow I’m also aware of the sun. It hangs in the firmament, fiery blue, horizontal to
the moon. Lykans round the corner behind me – I can tell by their snarls and the click of their claws on the pavement – but I pay them no heed. I’m focused on the sun and moon, gazing up, awed, childlike.
I realise now that the heavenly bodies are eyes in a huge black face. Twinkling, mischievous eyes. And the stars are teeth. The giant’s dark lips part, lifting into a sneering smile, no longer bothering to hide, aware that it’s been rumbled. The lykans close in on me, a circle of them, but slowly, perturbed by my peculiar behaviour, taking their time, fearing a trap.
The glittering, celestial teeth extend towards me – or I rise towards them, I’m not sure which – and I feel the powerful breath of the sky creature, hot as an inferno on my face, knocking me back with the stench of death. The lykans growl and prepare to leap. The eyes continue twinkling in the heavens. A dark cavern of a mouth surrounds me.
The teeth snap shut. One swift motion, faster than an exploding star. A sound of galaxies grinding together. Lykans leap, claws and fangs bared. I hardly hear their howls over the clashing of the universal teeth. I sense…
Lykans. Stars. Fangs. Eyes. The drone of plane engines. A hooker asking what I do. King Kong. A second of madness. Pain. Light. Red. Red everywhere. Darkness. The stench of animals. The taste of human flesh in my mouth. Then a voice in my ear, a familiar voice, the voice of the Alchemist. Where do you think you are?
…and then I’m swallowed whole.
TWENTY-ONE
In nothingness, all is revealed. In destruction, new life is conceived. In loss, new paths are found. Everything has a reason and happens for a reason. I see that now. I always saw it. I just wasn’t aware of my awareness.
I walk the familiar, beloved streets, and marvel at the fact that I ever thought of them as alien. I know I once did. The memories hover, murky and scattershot, but inescapable. I was afraid of this city once. It didn’t feel like home. There was… an other place.
