by Matt Haig
After a while, with a dog on your lap, you realise there is a necessity to stroke it. Don’t ask me how this necessarily comes about. It clearly has something to do with the dimensions of the human upper body. Anyway, I stroked the dog and as I did so I realised it was actually a pleasant feeling, the warmth and the rhythm of it.
Isobel’s dance
Eventually, Isobel came back. I shifted along the sofa to reach such a position that I could witness her walking in through the front door. Just to see the simple effort of it – the physical pushing of the door, the extraction of the key, the closing of the door and the placing of that key (and the others it was attached to) in a small oval basket on a static piece of wooden furniture – all of that was quite mesmerising to me. The way she did such things in single gliding movements, almost dancelike, without thinking about them. I should have been looking down on such things. But I wasn’t. She seemed to be continually operating above the task she was doing. A melody, rising above rhythm. Yet she was still what she was, a human.
She walked down the hallway, exhaling the whole way, her face containing both a smile and a frown at once. Like her son, she was confused to see the dog lying on my lap. And equally confused when she saw the dog jump off my lap and run over to her.
‘What’s with Newton?’ she asked.
‘With him?’
‘He seems lively.’
‘Does he?’
‘Yes. And, I don’t know, his eyes seem brighter.’
‘Oh. It might have been the peanut butter. And the music.’
‘Peanut butter? Music? You never listen to music. Have you been listening to music?’
‘Yes. We have.’
She looked at me with suspicion. ‘Right. I see.’
‘We’ve been listening to music all day long.’
‘How are you feeling? I mean, you know, about Daniel.’
‘Oh, it is very sad,’ I said. ‘How was your day?’
She sighed. ‘It was okay.’ This was a lie, I could tell that.
I looked at her. My eyes could stay on her with ease, I noticed. What had happened? Was this another side-effect of the music?
I suppose I was getting acclimatised to her, and to humans in general. Physically, at least from the outside, I was one too. It was becoming a new normality, in a sense. Yet even so, my stomach churned far less with her than with the sight of the others I saw walking past the window, peering in at me. In fact, that day, or at that point in that day, it didn’t churn at all.
‘I feel like I should phone Tabitha,’ she said. ‘It’s difficult though, isn’t it? She’ll be inundated. I might just send her an email and let her know, you know, if there’s anything we can do.’
I nodded. ‘That’s a good idea.’
She studied me for a while.
‘Yes,’ she said, at a lower frequency. ‘I think so.’ She looked at the phone. ‘Has anyone called?’
‘I think so. The phone rang a few times.’
‘But you didn’t pick it up?’
‘No. No, I didn’t. I don’t really feel up to lengthy conversations. And I feel cursed at the moment. The last time I had a lengthy conversation with anyone who wasn’t you or Gulliver they ended up dying in front of me.’
‘Don’t say it like that.’
‘Like what?’
‘Flippantly. It’s a sad day.’
‘I know,’ I said. ‘I just . . . it hasn’t sunk in yet, really.’
She went away to listen to the messages. She came back.
‘Lots of people have been calling you.’
‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Who?’
‘Your mother. But be warned, she might be doing her trademark oppressive-worry thing. She’s heard about your little event at Corpus. I don’t know how. The college called, too, wanting to speak, doing a good job of sounding concerned. A journalist from the Cambridge Evening News. And Ari. Being sweet. He wonders if you’d be up to going to a football match on Saturday. Someone else, too.’ She paused for a moment. ‘She said her name was Maggie.’
‘Oh yes,’ I said, faking it. ‘Of course. Maggie.’
Then she raised her eyebrows at me. It meant something, clearly, but I had no idea what. It was frustrating. You see, the Language of Words was only one of the human languages. There were many others, as I have pointed out. The Language of Sighs, the Language of Silent Moments and, most significantly, the Language of Frowns.
Then she did the opposite, her eyebrows going as low as they could. She sighed and went into the kitchen.
‘What have you been doing with the caster sugar?’
‘Eating it,’ I said. ‘It was a mistake. Sorry.’
‘Well, you know, feel free to put things back.’
‘I forgot. Sorry.’
‘It’s okay. It’s just been a day and a half, that’s all.’
I nodded and tried to act human. ‘What do you want me to do? I mean, what should I do?’
‘Well, you could start by calling your mother. But don’t tell her about the hospital. I know what you’re like.’
‘What? What am I like?’
‘You tell her more than you tell me.’
Now that was worrying. That was very worrying indeed. I decided to phone her right away.
The mother
Remarkable as it may sound, the mother was an important concept for humans. Not only were they truly aware who their mother was, but in many cases they also kept in contact with them throughout their lives. Of course, for someone like me, whose mother was never there to be known this was a very exotic idea.
So exotic, I was scared to pursue it. But I did, because if her son had told her too much information, I obviously needed to know.
‘Andrew?’
‘Yes, Mother. It is me.’
‘Oh Andrew.’ She spoke at a high frequency. The highest I had ever heard.
‘Hello, Mother.’
‘Andrew, me and your father have been worried sick about you.’
‘Oh,’ I said. ‘I had a little episode. I temporarily lost my mind. I forgot to put on my clothes. That’s all.’
‘Is that all you have to say?’
‘No. No, it isn’t. I have to ask you a question, Mother. It is an important question.’
‘Oh, Andrew. What is the matter?’
‘The matter? Which matter?’
‘Is it Isobel? Has she been nagging you again? Is that what this is about?’
‘Again?’
The static crackle of a sigh. ‘Yes. You’ve told us for over a year now that you and Isobel have been having difficulties. That she’s not been as understanding as she could have been about your workload. That she’s not been there for you.’
I thought of Isobel, lying about her day to stop me worrying, making me food, stroking my skin.
‘No,’ I said. ‘She is there for him. Me.’
‘And Gulliver? What about him? I thought she’d turned him against you. Because of that band he wanted to be in. But you were right, darling. He shouldn’t be messing around in bands. Not after all that he’s done.’
‘Band? I don’t know, Mother. I don’t think it is that.’
‘Why are you calling me Mother? You never call me Mother.’
‘But you are my mother. What do I call you?’
‘Mum. You call me Mum.’
‘Mum,’ I said. It sounded the most strange of all the strange words. ‘Mum. Mum. Mum. Mum. Mum, listen, I want to know if I spoke to you recently.’
She wasn’t listening. ‘We wish we were there.’
‘Come over,’ I said. I was interested to see what she looked like. ‘Come over right now.’
‘Well, if we didn’t live twelve thousand miles away.’
‘Oh,’ I said. Twelve thousand miles didn’t sound like much. ‘Come over this afternoon then.’
The mother laughed. ‘Still got your sense of humour.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I am still very funny. Listen, did I speak to you last Saturday?’
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br /> ‘No. Andrew, have you lost your memory? Is this amnesia? You’re acting like you have amnesia.’
‘I’m a bit confused. That’s all. It’s not amnesia. The doctors told me that. It’s just . . . I have been working hard.’
‘Yes, yes, I know. You told us.’
‘So, what did I tell you?’
‘That you’ve hardly been sleeping. That you’ve been working harder than you ever have, at least since your PhD.’
And then she started giving me information I hadn’t asked for. She started talking about her hipbone. It was causing her a lot of pain. She was on pain relief medication but it wasn’t working. I found the conversation disconcerting and even nauseating. The idea of prolonged pain was quite alien to me. Humans considered themselves to be quite medically advanced but they had yet to solve this problem in any meaningful way. Just as they had yet to solve the problem of death.
‘Mother. Mum, listen, what do you know about the Riemann hypothesis?’
‘That’s the thing you’re working on, isn’t it?’
‘Working on? Working on. Yes. I am still working on it. And I will never prove it. I realise that now.’
‘Oh, all right, darling. Well, don’t beat yourself up about it. Now, listen . . .’
Pretty soon she was back to talking about the pain again. She said the doctor had told her she should get a hip replacement. It would be made of titanium. I almost gasped when she said that but I didn’t want to tell her about titanium, as the humans obviously didn’t know about that yet. They would find out in their own time.
Then she started talking about my ‘father’ and how his memory was getting worse. The doctor had told him not to drive any more and that it looked increasingly unlikely that he would be able to finish the book on macroeconomic theory he had been hoping to get published.
‘It makes me worry about you, Andrew. You know, only last week I told you what the doctor had said, about how I should advise you to get a brain scan. It can run in families.’
‘Oh,’ I said. I really didn’t know what else was required of me. The truth was that I wanted the conversation to end. I had obviously not told my parents. Or I hadn’t told my mother, at any rate, and from the sound of things my father’s brain was such that it would probably lose any information I had given him. Also, and it was a big also, the conversation was depressing me. It was making me think about human life in a way I didn’t want to think about it. Human life, I realised, got progressively worse as you got older, by the sound of things. You arrived, with baby feet and hands and infinite happiness, and then the happiness slowly evaporated as your feet and hands grew bigger. And then, from the teenage years onwards, happiness was something you could lose your grip of, and once it started to slip it gained mass. It was as if the knowledge that it could slip was the thing that made it more difficult to hold, no matter how big your feet and hands were.
Why was this depressing? Why did I care, when it was not my job to do so?
Again I felt immense gratitude that I only looked like a human being and would never actually be one.
She carried on talking. And as she did so I realised there could be no cosmic consequence at all if I stopped listening, and with that realisation I switched off the phone.
I closed my eyes, wanting to see nothing but I did see something. I saw Tabitha, leaning over her husband as aspirin froth slid out of his mouth. I wondered if my mother was the same age as Tabitha, or older.
When I opened my eyes again I realised Newton was standing there, looking up at me. His eyes told me he was confused.
Why did you not say goodbye? You usually say goodbye.
And then, bizarrely, I did something I didn’t understand. Something which had absolutely no logic to it at all. I picked up the phone and dialled the same number. After three rings she answered, and then I spoke. ‘Sorry, Mum. I meant to say goodbye.’
Hello. Hello. Can you hear me? Are you there?
We can hear you. We are here.
Listen, it’s safe. The information is destroyed. For now, the humans will remain at level three. There is no worry.
You have destroyed all the evidence, and all possible sources?
I have destroyed the information on Andrew Martin’s computer, and on Daniel Russell’s computer. Daniel Russell is destroyed, also. Heart attack. He was a heart-risk, so that was the most logical cause of death in the circumstances.
Have you destroyed Isobel Martin and Gulliver Martin?
No. No, I haven’t. There is no need to destroy them.
They do not know?
Gulliver Martin knows. Isobel Martin doesn’t. But Gulliver has no motivation to say anything.
You must destroy him. You must destroy both of them.
No. There is no need. If you want me to, if you really think it is required, then I can manipulate his neurological processes. I can make him forget what his father told him. Not that he really knows anyway. He has no real understanding of mathematics.
The effects of any mind manipulation you carry out disappear the moment you return home. You know that.
He won’t say anything.
He might have said something already. Humans aren’t to be trusted. They don’t even trust themselves.
Gulliver hasn’t said anything. And Isobel knows nothing.
You must complete your task. If you do not complete your task, someone else will be sent to complete it for you.
No. No. I will complete it. Don’t worry. I will complete my task.
PART II
I held a jewel in my fingers
You can’t say A is made of B or vice versa. All mass is interaction.
– Richard Feynman
We’re all lonely for something we don’t know we’re lonely for.
– David Foster Wallace
For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love.
– Carl Sagan
Sleepwalking
I stood next to his bed while he slept. I don’t know how long I just stood there, in the dark, listening to his deep breathing as he slipped deeper and deeper below dreams. Half an hour, maybe.
He hadn’t pulled the window blind down, so I looked out at the night. There was no moon from this angle, but I could see a few stars. Suns lighting dead solar systems elsewhere in the galaxy. Everywhere you can see in their sky, or almost everywhere, is lifeless. That must affect them. That must give them ideas above their station. That must send them insane.
Gulliver rolled over, and I decided to wait no longer. It was now or it was never.
You will pull back your duvet, I told him, in a voice he wouldn’t have heard if he had been awake but which reached right in, riding theta-waves, to become a command from his own brain. And slowly you will sit up in your bed, your feet will be on the rug and you will breathe and you will compose yourself and then you will stand up.
And he did, indeed, stand up. He stayed there, breathing deeply and slowly, waiting for the next command.
You will walk to the door. Do not worry about opening the door, because it is already open. There. Just walk, just walk, just walk to your door.
He did exactly as I said. And he was there in the doorway, oblivious to everything except my voice. A voice which only had two words that needed to be said. Fall forward. I moved closer to him. Somehow those words were slow to arrive. I needed time. Another minute, at least.
I was there, closer, able to smell the scent of sleep on him. Of humanity. And I remembered: You must complete your task. If you do not complete your task, someone else will be sent to complete it for you. I swallowed. My mouth was so dry it hurt. I felt the infinite expanse of the universe behind me, a vast if neutral force. The neutrality of time, of space, of mathematics, of logic, of survival. I closed my eyes.
Waited.
Before I opened them, I was being gripped by the throat. I could barely breathe.
He had turned 180 degrees, and his left hand had me by the neck. I pulled it away, a
nd now both his hands were fists swinging at me, wild, angry, hitting me almost as much as he missed.
He got the side of my head. I walked backwards away from him, but he was moving forwards at just the same speed. His eyes were open. He was seeing me now. Seeing me and not seeing me all at the same time. I could have said stop of course, but I didn’t. Maybe I wanted to witness some human violence first-hand, even unconscious violence, to understand the importance of my task. By understanding it I would be able to fulfil it. Yes, that might have been it. That may also have explained why I let myself bleed when he punched me on the nose. I had reached his desk now and could retreat no further, so I just stood there as he kept hitting my head, my neck, my chest, my arms. He roared now, his mouth as wide as it could go, baring teeth.
‘Raaaah!’
This roar woke him up. His legs went weak and he nearly fell to the floor but he recovered in time.
‘I,’ he said. He didn’t know where he was for a moment. He saw me, in the dark, and this time it was conscious sight. ‘Dad?’
I nodded as a slow thin stream of blood reached my mouth. Isobel was running up the stairs to the attic. ‘What’s going on?’
‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘I heard a noise so I came upstairs. Gulliver was sleepwalking, that’s all.’
Isobel switched the light on, gasped as she saw my face. ‘You’re bleeding.’
‘It’s nothing. He didn’t know what he was doing.’
‘Gulliver?’
Gulliver was sitting on the edge of his bed now, flinching from the light. He too looked at my face but he didn’t say anything at all.
I was a wasn’t
Gulliver wanted to go back to bed. To sleep. So, ten minutes later, Isobel and I were alone, and I was sitting on the side of the bath as she placed an antiseptic solution called TCP on a circle of cotton wool and dabbed it gently on a cut on my forehead, and then on my lip.
Now, these were wounds I could have healed with a single thought. Just to feel pain, sometimes, was enough to cancel it. And yet, even as the antiseptic stung on contact with each cut, the injuries stayed. I forced them to. I couldn’t allow her to get suspicious. But was it just that?
