a rational man

by J S Hollis

  i need to get away to recompose myself. now that i know why dad killed mum, i have applied to be taken off W. you probably knew that already. maybe it makes you suspicious. “does he have something to hide?” id like to have the chance. i dont expect them to free me though. either way, here is my suggestion. my final message before i depart. the important thing i have to say. take it or leave it. i can preach but im no zealot. stop watching anything but the day going past. you have the freedom of vision but you dont have to exercise it. take out your eyescreens and your earaids. stop watching, because while our eyes have got bigger and bigger, our brains have remained the same size. stop watching to preserve the lifetime between thoughts and expression. one life is enough.

  i have watched and watched. you have watched me try to make sense of that night in january 2061 when mum died. i have seen my parents sitting at our kitchen table so many times i can act the scene out. but i dont want to be acting. i need to be able to say “i am sebastian stanhope and these are some things i believe in” and be happy with those beliefs for more than the time it takes me to write a sentence. im reaching a peace treaty with my mind. my terms are simple. i wont look back if i am allowed a day or two without wondering who the hell im supposed to be.

  so i am done with having an audience, and if i cant get rid of you im going to pretend youre not there. if you want to speak to me, come by sometime.

  MOTIVE UNEXPLAINED

  entry 6

  S threw his dry eyes open to a shade of impenetrable black, into which his dreams of unanswered questions disappeared. he looked at the time. school had already started but no one had come to wake him up. why was it so dark?

  he almost said “eyescreens on” but swallowed his words. he remembered he was in his uncles darkroom, and for the moment he didnt want to interfere with the nothingness. he stretched out across the unfamiliar mattress. springs creaked and his feet came off the end of the bed. when would he return to his own bed? would he be able to? would he want to?

  he folded his long and bony body back within the duvet and sandwiched his head between two pillows so that he could hear the hollow rush of silence. maybe he could wear the duvet and pillow outfit to school. they would think he had become mentally unwell but they would understand. when he told them it was a joke, would they think more or less of him? would they think it was too controversial to laugh? they would likely take a moment before responding. maybe they would provide a momentary chuckle so as not to appear rude.

  sleep had distanced S benevolently from the night before but his thoughts crept back in time like antimatter. just before everything had changed, he had been poised to beat eugene at chess.

  the white king was exposed and it lured S in. S held back from the move though. too often he had rushed in for the kill and found his attack undermined by some insignificant piece residing in the recesses of the board. if he had realised then that time could stop, he wouldnt have dallied. now the omitted move fell on his childhood like invisible end credits.

  the move might have happened if not for eugenes verbal diarrhoea. an affliction S seemed intent on surrounding himself with.

  “what i dont understand,” eugene said to the pensive S, “is why they are so bad at corners. i mean, if your job is to kick a ball surely you can get it off the ground.”

  “yep.”

  “you wouldnt get economists who cant do maths.”

  “gene, would you mind?” richie said from the adjacent table.

  “oh, sorry.” eugene turned back to S and moved closer. “are you trying to turn that queen into a rabbit?”

  Ss hand hovered over the black queen. he was trying to imagine the third move but he couldnt quite see where the pieces would be.

  “sebastian.”

  what if eugene ignored his bait? could he execute his own checkmate? how much time was there? a few minutes?

  “sebastian, i really need to talk to you,” miss rawls said. she was right next to him.

  “one minute.”

  “sebastian.”

  S looked up.

  it was the first time a word hadnt trickled out of her mouth. he looked around to see if he had missed something. there were three other chess games in the room and they had all stopped too. they were silent and looking at miss rawls. equally surprised by her tone. his gaze returned to her. she pulled her blonde hair away from her doeish face and tried to tuck it back somewhere.

  “sebastian, can you come with me. the rest of you keep playing.”

  “were nearly finished,” eugene said.

  “sorry, eugene, but youll have to finish some other time.”

  seven pairs of eyes followed them out of the room. had he done something wrong? should he have told eugene to be quiet? had he watched miss rawls on W? some teachers didnt like their pupils doing that.

  they walked into the next room and the lights began to glow. S felt they had interrupted its tidiness.

  “sebastian, please sit down.”

  he thought carefully about which seat to take, eventually settling for the wooden bench at the side of the room rather than pulling out one of the chairs that had been tucked under a desk. miss rawls sat very close to him. too close. closer than would have been appropriate at any other time. he could smell her perfume. why did anyone wear perfume? and, if he had wanted to, he could have counted the pores on her nose. she looked into the ground and then, as if she had been turned on, pulled her torso up and looked into his eyes. her eyes were hazel. a countercultural choice. S was suspicious of the sudden formality.

  “sebastian,” miss rawls said, “i have some news for you.” she gulped, searched for his hands and then took them into hers. why was a teacher holding his hands?

  “i dont know how to say this. your mum passed away this evening.”

  “shes dead?”

  “yes, im so sorry sebastian.”

  she looked into his eyes for a little longer and then hugged him, and for a moment he felt awkward. his face was still trying to work out if it was a joke but somewhere deeper he knew it was true.

  “shes dead?” he asked again.

  miss rawls nodded into his shoulder. she was crying and didnt want to show him her tears.

  then his tears began to flow. he squeezed his eyes shut to hold them back but it was no good. miss rawls hugged him hard and his face contorted in response, screaming the tears out. she was squeezing every last drop from him.

  “shes dead.” his throat was like a churning blender. he felt the burn of vomit in his chest. he swallowed it back down and pulled away from miss rawls. he pushed against his eyelids with his finger and thumb until his eyes began to hurt and then attempted to straighten his shirt.

  he looked at miss rawls sore face. “it cant be true,” he said.

  “im afraid it is, sebastian. i wish i knew what else to say.”

  “but i dont understand.”

  “of course, thats understandable.”

  “im sorry,” he said.

  “dont be silly, sebastian. we are all here for you.”

  could she really be dead? he had no chance to say goodbye or i love you. when was the last time he had said that? he had shown more affection to miss rawls in the previous five minutes than he had shown his mum in years.

  when S regained full control of his shattered face, he got up and walked over to the blank wall. he touched it and felt the smooth white paint. how could she be dead? she had been her normal self before he came to school. he would have noticed if her vitals had been poor. wouldnt he? would she have gone skydiving on a weekday?

  “what happened?”

  miss rawls took in a sharp breath and took shape again.

  “are you ok, miss?”

  “yes, of course. maybe you should sit down again.”

  he obliged her request and held onto the edge of the bench with two hands. />
  “i understand that she was killed and that your father was implicated in the death.”

  “implicated? what do you mean implicated?” he took a breath. “im sorry, i didnt mean, you know, just i dont understand.”

  “thats my fault. i meant, well, from what i have seen, your dad killed her.” she waited and scanned Ss face. he didnt react. “of course, there must be a good reason.”

  “you mean, like, he drove into her or something?”

  “no, not exactly. he cut her throat.”

  “he cut her throat by accident?”

  “well, from what i have seen, he did it on purpose.”

  S pushed the palms of his hands into his eyes and looked deeply into the scattered peach emerging from the darkness. he had examined this sub lid discolouration through hours of meditation. he found comfort in the eternal light.

  “fuck,” he said from beneath his blindfold, amazed that he had an opportunity to use that word and for it not to seem out of place. “fuck – sorry.” he looked up at miss rawls. “he murdered her?”

  “yes, yes, but—”

  “murder? that doesnt happen.”

  “i know.”

  “its like for psychos. like simpson and rodgers.”

  “well, not always.”

  “why though?

  “i am one hundred per cent certain it will all make sense soon enough, sebastian.” S knew she was just trying to reassure him. he was equally certain she had no idea what was going on. that wasnt her fault. she was only twenty seven, teaching computer science because she had failed to get a job at a tech firm, and the most tragic event in her life was when copernicus, her elderly dalmatian, had died. (S wondered if he had spent too much time studying his teachers lives.)

  “what should i do?”

  “you dont need to do anything.”

  S felt she was implying he should do something. he could have contacted his family. but what would he have said? there was nothing to say. there never was. even about things that made sense. and this was certainly not one of those things.

  S returned to the darkness and light of his palms. every so often he would form a word as he tried to create some meaning out of what he had been told. how quickly his perception of life had changed. he had been suspicious about how stable his family was – very few of his friends had more than one parent – but he assumed he was one of the lucky ones. somehow his parents were different. now one act had confirmed his suspicion and had swung his family from curiously reliable to abnormally dysfunctional with one push.

  S felt a wave of sympathy for his chess class. the knowledge of what had happened would have filtered through to them after S left the classroom. he was sure they had immediately put their eyescreens back in – he would have done. they were probably watching him. a tragedy they otherwise could have avoided had become part of their lives merely as a result of their position in space time.

  and poor miss rawls. with no choice other than to be the messenger. wrong place, wrong time. of course, she would have done the right thing anyway. she had been there for him.

  miss rawls interrupted Ss reverie. “just give me a second,” she said. “ill leave you in peace.” she escaped from the room like she was returning to the surface for breath.

  someone knocked on the door even though it was ajar.

  “come in,” S said.

  “its me, eugene.”

  “its ok.”

  “man, whoa, are you ok?” eugene stood unnaturally far away from S. “look, i just wanted to say im here for you, whatever that means. it looks like you dont want to chat, completely understand, ill just sit here.”

  eugene sat at the other end of the bench and looked down. why wouldnt he talk? S wanted to hear about football, the shakespeares, eugenes plans for economic revolution, anything.

  “sebastian?”

  S looked up and recognised his uncle carlo – his face part cherub, part thunder cloud poised to blow a mighty wind (the older generation were so much more interesting to look at) – crouching in front of him. S collapsed straight into carlos shoulder. here was something familiar in completely new territory. something to hold onto in the storm. he stayed in the cave of carlos neck until it felt inappropriate.

  “i didnt expect you,” S said, sitting up.

  “who were you expecting?”

  S shrugged. “you didnt have to come. i could have cycled.”

  “good to see you still have a sense of humour. come on, lets go. youre staying with us tonight.”

  sense of humour? carlo hardly knew S. they had chatted about films at family get togethers but they hadnt really seen much of each other. wouldnt grandpa kingsley have been a better choice? was kingsley ruled out because he was on his dads side? or maybe kingsley didnt know what had happened yet. he was probably obsessing over some algorithm.

  S was happy the decision had been made without his input. since the initial overwhelming rush, each thought had to pass through a thick bog before it became conscious. he wanted to be told exactly what to do. he didnt want to be a burden. someone must know what to do. someone always told him what to do.

  after carlo helped S put his bike in the back of the cab, they got in and carlo said “home”. he looked at S and then laughed. “im sorry, its just, im actually lost for words. your mother would have found that funny.”

  “no worries. im normally lost for words.”

  S took his eyescreen case out and began to put the screens into his eyes.

  “not allowed to wear them at school?”

  “no, we are. we take them out for chess.”

  “why not just turn them off?”

  S shrugged. “mindfulness?”

  “thats lucky.”

  with the screens in, S used a few hand gestures to find an image of donatella, his grandma, but he switched as soon as he saw her eyes. he began to watch the shakespeares, who were in turn watching the coverage of his mothers murder. he glimpsed an image of his dad leaving their home. carlo tapped away on the door of the car.

  “what are you watching?” carlo asked.

  S swept his hands in front of his eyes and said, “nothing in particular.”

  “seb, i know you dont want to talk about this. but there is something i want to ask you. promise me you will never watch what happened tonight?”

  “have you?”

  “yes.”

  “why?”

  “curiosity, i guess. but no child should see their parents like that.”

  “i promise,” S said. he had no intention to watch his mothers … what was it? “death”, “murder”, “end”. each of those words said too much. he could only acknowledge that something had happened. an“Event”. and he wanted to think about it as little as possible. he squeezed his temples, half expecting his brain to pop out like a lychee.

  “what happened?”

  “i dont really know. your parents were just chatting. maybe it was a bit passive aggressive, but not really. your mum started crying. and then your dad, well, just, cut her. it was surreal, you know. i dont think she suffered much.”

  S imagined crimson flowing on the kitchens white floor. he couldnt picture his mums face behind the blood though. just like he could never see himself kicking the ball when he imagined a spectacular goal.

  “and dad?”

  “last time i looked he was on his way to the police station.”

  S listened to the cars buzz by and the hum of streetlights fighting the winter gloom. it was funny to think his dad was travelling in a car too. everyone was just bouncing around, intimately connected. whatever their paths, they kept moving. until they died. then they travelled one final path to the soil. whether whole or powdered. but they kept spinning with the earth, and the earth around the sun and the solar system around the universe. it was enough to make you dizzy.
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br />   S opened the window and vomited. sensing the unfamiliar action, the car stopped.

  “are you ok?” carlo asked.

  “yeh.”

  “maybe you should turn your eyescreens off while were moving.”

  “its not that.”

  “sorry, seb. im sure this is bloody confusing.”

  S took a bottle of water from the middle of the car and took a swig. he saw the charge of 2 lg flash up at the corner of his sight. who was going to tell him off for spending too much now?

  “your mum and i didnt see much of each other but im gonna miss her. she was like a mother to me too after your grandparents broke up.”

  “yeh.”

  “i guess we should be grateful we dont have to rely on our memories to remember her. but maybe that makes it harder. i dont know.”

  there was no silver lining. except perhaps the endless world of entertainment sitting on Ss eyeballs.

  S pulled his mind back to the present. while peering out from his pillow sandwich, he put on his eyescreens and said, “show me classroom forty-two.” an image of the room was immediately in front of him.

  he expected the chess board to still be there, waiting for his killer move. but it had been cleared away and the room was filling with first years unconcerned about the tragedy of the unfinished match. he never wanted to play chess again. he wasnt very good at it anyway, and now he had no one to let down. he put the scene away.

  what should he do? stay in bed all day? someone would come for him eventually wanting to talk about the Event. he could go to school, make it a normal day, just get on with life, as if nothing had changed. but he couldnt face the condolences. he hated giving them and disliked the thought of putting other people in the same position. he would have to return to school at some point though – he was only a few months off finishing and he wasnt going to do the whole year again. unless they offered him an automatic pass. did they do that? and could he accept it without looking like he was cashing in on a tragedy?