Paul wrenched his gaze from her, took a second to study his own flushed face, calm his pounding heart, and then stared at the sign again.
It was just a sign. His sign: STOP. Holding him in place.
It had grown darker. The shade of congealed blood.
"Come on," Paul muttered at his dashboard, "no more."
The Landcruiser blasted its horn again. Another gap had opened in the traffic, but closed too quickly for him to move. Even if he'd been on the ball, it was too risky for him, too small a gap. Obviously, the woman behind him disagreed.
His heart thudded harder than before as the seconds ticked away. Cars and trucks thundered past. Their colours blurred and swam. His life—friends and deals and missed opportunities, the loves lost and gains never ventured—it all passed before him like the traffic. Fleeting, all of it. Moments of caution punctured by STOP signs.
Another car horn sounded from behind, joined by the now-familiar boom of the Landcruiser.
Paul flinched. He hit the accelerator and the car leapt forward into the stream of vehicles/memories flashing before his eyes.
A different horn blasted once, twice, much louder and coming from the side. He didn't see the bullbar expanding to fill his driver's side window. Instead, his eyes were still fixed on the STOP sign. His forward progress couldn't get him past its red face. The sign blazoned its white letters S T O P into his mind, its scarlet background filling his consciousness.
He didn't stop, though; he sped forward, heedless of the sign's warning, heedless of his instincts, and closed his eyes at the last, shutting STOP out of his thoughts for one fleeting moment.
For the first time in his life, he abandoned the comfort of the signs, his sign, STOP, and took a chance.
The bullbar slammed into his door, into Paul, but the sign had lost its sway.
STOP means STOP, but for the first time in his life, and the last, Paul chose not to.
* * *
Itch
It begins as an idle rub. A calloused palm. Friction and hair. A lingering heat like a Chinese burn.
He sits on the sofa, tuning out the worries of another long day, instead tuning into the nagging itch on his forearm. The lump has reddened from his attention. He awoke this morning to find little more than a mosquito bite. Nine hours has seen it soufflé, with a reddish-purple moat of discolouration. A mass of dark hairs hide the full extent of its diameter.
It's now bigger than the lump of his wrist bone. He splays his fingers and holds his hand high. His hand suddenly seems alien as it floats in front of his face. It somehow doesn't belong.
Ochre light seeps in from the window, casting the coffee table and the papers spread across it in an orange sheen. The light darkens his already ruddy skin but catches in the webbing between his fingers. The webbing glows. The rest of his skin writhes with a thousand little hair shadows.
The lump has its own shadow.
It looks as though he's grown a second wrist further up his arm. There's a suggestion in the way his forearm now bends. Something. Beneath the skin and hair, he imagines new bones forming from the old. A new hand emerging from too high up. His old hand to be shed? A stumpy arm the trade-off? A knot of disgust twists his stomach as he struggles to push the thought aside. Instead, it's easier to look away. Unpaid bills and floating orange-tinted dust become his obsessions until the image is finally banished.
Scratching makes the lump bleed. He's already discovered that. It nags, this itch. It wants to be noticed. It wants to weep.
He scratches.
It bleeds.
It burns.
He scratches, until it bleeds and burns too much, until he grimaces from the pain, until his threshold is reached.
Then he waits, poised. Fingers clawed, nails dark and glistening from the furrow of skin pink and red and spreading.
He scratches a little more.
There's blood beneath his nails. Fresh slivers, too brown to the eye in the sunset light.
The lump is now a wound, raised and ragged at the centre of a bloody strip of skin. There's clear fluid, plasma maybe, which shines orange in the light. It pools with the blood. Mixes. Is swallowed.
He rubs once more. His palm is warm and rough, the sensation pleasant but not nearly satisfying enough. The rubbing spreads the itch. It diffuses along his forearm, subdued for the instant flesh presses on flesh. The burn and the itch flood back the moment he breaks contact.
With the rubbing comes the smear of blood. The smell is already up his nose, coppery and sharp. The blood is sticky and cooling on his skin in an unpleasant way. He doesn't mind it on his palm so much, except when he bumps his shirt and runs a smear across the cotton. A sigh is all he gives the inconvenience. Stains are the washing machine's concern.
The rest of the house is in silence. This allows him to concentrate as he rubs, willing the itching to subside. Silence is concentration music, he tells himself, while stroking his arm.
Soon his forearm, almost from elbow to wrist (his actual wrist, not the new one) has a red-brown coat of blood. As it cools with the sunset, it has the sensation of tightening, shrinking his skin. He frowns and rubs some more to generate warmth, spreading another layer of blood in the process.
Is it the cold that's numbing his arm or is the arm dying?
Dying, he decides, and scratches around the perimeter of the wound. The once purple skirt of skin is lost beneath a sticky coating. It regains its identity as his fingers probe, his nails tear, and the sting, the sensitivity, tells him he is crossing the moat and about the storm the castle.
If he maintains the assault, like a true and loyal crusader, maybe he'll liberate the royal family—King and Queen Puss. Questing nails tear up the outer walls and move inwards for the keep. Puss eludes him, but he finds a wellspring of that clear liquid. He keeps searching (in vain, he idly thinks, chuckling to himself; in vein indeed, if he's lucky). Like all true lords and ladies of the manor, the Pusses have a secret escape passage. Perhaps they've tunnelled deeper? His arm grows colder.
He closes his eyes and plunges the tip of his finger into the wound. Forget the royal family. He's after their treasure trove. If a hand is destined to erupt from his forearm, he'll find it first. Maybe even shake it with his other hand.
"How do you do," he says to the crater.
If there's bone hidden beneath the mound, he'll find it.
It stings. It is now a freezing burn.
He clenches his teeth as his fingernail quests deeper. His whole arm twitches for a moment.
Is that a good sign? Maybe, just maybe, there is a funny bone growing in there too.
Maybe.
His arm twitches again. A tingle jolts through the length of his arm and body, settling in his lower back. The fingers on that arm spasm in time with his scratching. The sight is mesmerising. He scratches a little harder, setting aside the pain as his fingers dance a jig. He is the puppet master, pulling his own string.
Scratch.
(Pull).
Twitch.
Scratch.
(Pull).
Twitch.
His new hand wouldn't be so compliant, no. They make them tougher these days, more independent. Maybe they could work two jobs, the hand and he. Maximise their income. Perhaps even start a relationship—if the new hand could reach low enough.
He is sure they'd find a way to make it work.
All the best relationships endure through adversity.
He stabs his nail deeper into the wound, which shoots bolts of agony into the top of his skull.
Damn sympathy pains. Damn nerve endings.
He is better than this.
A thought strikes.
He withdraws his nail. The pain dulls to an ache, but the itch returns once more. It takes more willpower than he'd care to admit to leave the crater alone, but he does it. He leans on the coffee table to stand, sliding on a piece of paper for a second as it bears his weight. Despite the slip, he stands without further incident and moves to the books
helf.
It doesn't take too long to find the book he wants. A reflexology book he bought for ex number 3 or maybe number 4. She was really into that new age shit, but not enough to take the book when she left him.
The itch grows more insistent. The burning pain from earlier now becomes a burning itch. Is the mass getting bigger?
He stalks into the kitchen and ransacks the top drawer. He can't find what he's looking for, and as each second passes, the itch burns and prods him a little more.
Scratch me. Scratch me.
He yanks the drawer from the cupboard with the crash of colliding utensils. The crash lingers, ruining the silence until at last the ringing fades. With the drawer in hand, he carries it back to the sofa. It clatters in protest when dropped onto the cushion in front of him, but he doesn't care. The fall has unearthed his quarry—the metal skewers.
SCRATCH ME!
"Okay", he says, and scratches at the insistent wound in a coy way, gently, trying to re-establish the proper rhythm.
As he reaches for a skewer, his eye is drawn to the paper which slid under his palm when he stood. It is the electricity bill, $239 worth of unpaid juice overdue by a month. Five neat fingerprints and the heel of his palm, each a smear of his own blood, beckons to him. The hand print is almost artistic.
He blinks a few times to snap himself out of the trance. When he does, he finds the skewer in his grip, the sharp end poised over his knee.
He tries kicking off his boot against the arm of the sofa, but it won't budge. The time it takes to unlace is almost comically slow.
Scratch me.
With his foot exposed (boot and sock now random hazards on the carpet), he flicks through the reflexology book.
Scratch me! Scratch me!
In his scratching hand, he holds the metal skewer like a pen, nib in the air as if ready to sign an autograph. He continues searching the book.
SCRATCH ME!
And he does, raking the skewer across the ruined skin. It is sharp, intense, and immediately relieving. He runs the skewer in loping lines across his forearm. Its tip is ice, similar to the slicing torture of having a tattoo done. Pleasure in pain. When it passes across the wound, more jolts zap through his body. His neck, head, and back spasm in sympathy. His nerve connectors are having the time of their life.
He'd show them.
Found it!
The chart is toward the back of the book. It doesn't take long for him to find the reflexology spot on the sole of his foot that coincides with his forearm.
Taking the skewer in a full-handed grip, he hovers over his pale foot for only a few seconds before taking the plunge.
Red spots blaze before his eyes. He yelps, caught off guard by the agony that spears through his leg from his foot. A disturbingly fast stream of blood courses from the skewer jutting from his sole.
That did the trick!
His arm is a hell of a lot less demanding about being scratched now. Even better, when he does scratch, which he does, his nerves are much less enthusiastic about doing the jig.
Blood pools on the cushion and flows in little torrents into the cracks in between. The pain is still incredible, but rather than messing up the sofa further, he raises his injured foot over the back of the sofa and leans into the corner. The carpet can be cleaned. He laughs a little with his leg in the air. The temptation enters his mind to turn on the TV to see if his new flesh and steel aerial would help with the reception.
Of course, it won't.
He turns back to his itch.
He flexes his cold hand—his dying hand, he corrects—while he rakes his nails in slow arcs along his arm. If it wasn't for the skewer in his foot, he'd be able to luxuriate in the sensation.
As he passes directly over the ragged lump, he notices a subtle change. A new pain blossoms as he touches it. The lump is weeping once more. That clear stuff mostly, a little blood. But there's something different. It feels harder.
Maybe it is a wrist bone?
He clenches his cold hand but it continues to grow colder by the second. The blood covering his wrist and forearm has caked. It's crimson-brown in the failing light, sticky and irritating now. The warmth it once held is gone.
He squints to examine the condition of his hand, but the sunlight just isn't there. He'd get up to turn on the light, but ... Skewers in the fleshy part of the foot might help nerve sensitivities, but they suck when it comes to walking.
The dried blood feels like a coat of paint, stuck there for good, a scarlet bandage. He scratches at it, ignoring for a moment the hard raised lump. It does no good. The blood's there to stay.
Still scratching, still sprawled over the sofa, he spies the bloody handprint on the coffee table once more.
It's a nice handprint. Strong. Virile, even.
He studies his scratched-up forearm, the caked skin with hairs caught like bugs in tar. The hand at the end of it is growing stiffer, colder.
He ceases his scratching and prodding. He tunes into the silence. Concentration music. Silence.
At last, he notices a second lump, then a third, slowly pushing up through the skin.
Then his eyes come to rest on the kitchen drawer near his foot, and all the utensils therein. The knives, the scissors, the sharp and unfathomable things that belong to a kitchen.
He looks from the utensils to the handprint on the table to his own hand, and back again.
Sharp. Metal.
His hand. Dying. To be reborn.
(His old hand to be shed? A stumpy arm the trade-off?)
The bloody handprint. $239 overdue to the power company. Six elegant smears.
His hand. Dying.
Sharp. Metal.
He props himself up awkwardly, still careful to keep his dripping foot elevated off the sofa (carpet steam-cleaning from $39, same day service, gets all the niggly stains out), as he rummages through the drawer once more.
His fingers pass across the razor edges of the scissors, a cleaver, and several knives, before he decides. This time he retrieves two items—another skewer and the cheese grater (barely used, only a hint of rust).
He flicks through the reflexology book while doing his best to ignore the rising itch from the new lumps.
(Scratch me! Scratch me!)
The page found, he memorises the nerve point of the foot linked to his hand, his dying hand.
Before he does the deed a second time, he tests the weight of the grater against his skin. It's cold and prickly on the back of his hand, but not much colder than the skin itself. He lightly runs the grater along his hand and wrist, down to the newly formed lumps.
(SCRATCH ME!)
It feels good. The itch is appeased for the moment.
He smiles and wonders what life will be like with his magnificent new hand. "Lopsided" he says, and then chuckles.
He listens to the silence in the house as darkness completely takes hold. It's a good moment. Dark. Quiet.
There's just the matter of a stab to the foot and a little carving. Grating, to be precise. The new hand needs room to grow.
He nods and closes his eyes, and then begins the long task of scratching.
* * *
Song of the Infernal Machine
The machine dominated the warehouse. It was a vast collection of black titanium boxes and cylinders flooding the space with an insidious hum. Between towering tanks, bunches of steel tubes criss-crossed in a labyrinthine tangle. Every so often, steam hissed into the stuffy air. The contents, hidden behind the polished case, buzzed with electricity. Sometimes, muffled noises—clawing, scratching, moaning—escaped from behind the metal plates.
Life pulsed from the abyssal bowels of the machine.
Standing at face level to display screen D5, one of dozens glowing with ghostly light, Forrester inspected the readouts from behind plastic safety glasses. His glasses shone with a purple tint in the beam from the spotlights above.
Satisfied with the energy outputs, he shuffled over to screen D3 to check on the input
levels before taking a break. The display glowed green across his pallid skin. Unlike the techs, such as Forrester, the machine never rested. It was inexorable and single-minded.
"Jacobs!" Forrester called out. The words boomed throughout the warehouse.
He pulled his attention away from the display to scan the vault for signs of the other technician.
Except for the myriad of dark shapes and interconnected tubes that comprised the machine, the warehouse stood empty. Reinforced concrete surrounded him—and the machine—on four sides. A single cable, much thicker than the rest, snaked from the centre of the machine and along a wall until it disappeared into the shadowed ceiling above.
He traced the cable's length with his gaze, squinting as his eyes met the network of interweaving girders supporting dozens of high-powered spotlights. In the absence of windows, the spotlights provided the only source of light. Centred on the sprawl of the machine, the lights cast pools of darkness outside their direct beams.
"Jacobs!" he called again.
Two doors accessed the warehouse. The main door was a monstrosity—twin titanium monoliths that allowed admittance to the outside world. The other, inconsequential in comparison and set well away from the main entry, was a regular timber door that opened onto the staff area.
The swish of his lab coat contrasted to the machine's hum as he strode toward that door. In the coat, Forrester, now the senior technician, almost felt the scientist his dress suggested. It was all a charade, of course, designed to impress the bureaucrats on their quarterly inspections. In his heart, he was nothing more than a glorified sparky. The pretence sat well enough with him.
"Jacobs, where the hell are you?" He reached the staff door.
Every word and every step was magnified by the immense space.
The click of the knob echoed through the warehouse, announcing his entry into the staff area.
The common room opened up before him. The duty roster was only ever two people, yet somehow the place had been trashed.
"Jacobs?" He picked at the papers and rubbish strewn about.
Several of the chairs were knocked over and the table had been rammed against the wall at an awkward angle. Soundproofing must have prevented him from hearing the commotion while he was out with the machine.
Apocrypha Sequence: Insanity Page 2
