Seven at Two Past Five

by Tara Basi

  I recognise Liberté’s voice. It fills the cave with a low rumble, like faraway thunder, and his breath carries the stench of rotting meat. His words light a fire in my belly. I straighten up and step away from the wall. With all my strength, I declare, “My name is not Seven. It is Abi.”

  Liberté seems to swell in size. He leans forward menacingly and shakes his head. “I can’t call you that. It’s a mockery of your true name.”

  His suffocating odour and frightful demeanour shrink my heart. Then I recall Zero’s comments regarding Liberté. Gathering my courage and ignoring my many discomforts, I confront my tormentor. “What business have you with Zero? I demand that you keep away from him.”

  Liberté sighs. “Zero, Zero Zero One Zero, La Deux or whatever we’re calling him for this … faux coming, he’s part of all this, and you know it. It’s Judgement time, Seven.”

  The very sound of that word, Judgement, ices my blood. I can only think to shrug in response to Liberté’s impenetrable utterances.

  He hunches his shoulders, shudders and makes a plaintive sound that might be a sob. After a moment’s silence, he stands up straight and lets out a long whistling breath that somehow appears to reduce his size, as though he is deflating. The sickening smell that Liberté had been exuding is dissipating.

  “Don’t you understand?”

  Liberté’s tone is less threatening, the register of his voice is almost normal and no longer booms around the cave.

  There is only one matter that is of interest to me. “I understand only that I wish you to have nothing to do with Zero.”

  Liberté moans loudly then grabs hold of his hooded head and shakes it from side to side. Abruptly, he drops his arms, stands upright and starts singing a fast, angry refrain.

  Since you’ve been gone,

  I’ve been outta my head.

  The first Zero trick didn’t work for long.

  Then it’s like I don’t belong.

  All they want is gratification and twerky-action.

  Righteous crazies get all the reaction.

  Souls are likey cheap.

  How’s Liberté supposed to compete?

  Sympathy for Liberté ain’t got no traction.

  And I can’t get no satisfaction.

  What am I supposed to do?

  Without you.

  “You see, don’t you, Seven? I need you. We need each other.” Liberté’s voice has completely lost its menace. He is plaintive.

  “I am sorry, Liberté, but I have no knowledge of the matters of which you speak, or sing. And why do you sing so much?”

  Liberté groans again. “I have all the best tunes. Shame to waste them. Listen, Seven, you have to end this. Time to wake up and smell the coffee.”

  I am increasingly confused by Liberté’s utterances, melodic or otherwise. “What coffee, Liberté? There is no coffee here.”

  Liberté bows his head and, for a moment, he is silent, as though deep in thought, then he looks directly at me. “Seven, don’t you want to understand everything that’s happened?”

  My heart stutters with excitement at the very thought of such a possibility. “Of course, Liberté. I want to know everything.”

  “Then answer me this: what are the Terrors?”

  Liberté’s question washes away the last remnants of my fear. “How dare you? Do you think I would have suffered all that I have if I knew?”

  “You know. You forget so you can escape …” Liberté pauses and looks around my cave, lingering on my workhouse door, before facing me again. “… to your sanctuary, where your creations don’t talk back.”

  My back stiffens and I take a step forward. “You are a fool, Liberté. I know no more about the Terrors this morning than I did yesterday or the day before that or on any day that I have lived.”

  Liberté chuckles in a half-hearted manner that wobbles his head.

  “What do you find that is so humorous, Liberté?”

  “Sorry, Seven. It’s just hearing you say you don’t know when you know everything there is to know.”

  “You are obviously mad. Be gone! I have business to attend to in my workhouse. Stand aside!”

  “Seven, remember your dream.”

  “You mean the carer, the plump baby with wings? How do you know of that?”

  Liberté only nods.

  My first thought is to ignore Liberté and push him out of my way, even if he is still very large. Before I can act on my impulse, I see the carer again, in my mind’s eye. Its mouth is forming words. There is no sound, but close study of the small pink lips reveals its message. I recognise the phrase. It is something that Zero also said to me. I repeat the words out loud. “And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

  “Remember, Seven, you know you have to.”

  “You ludicrous, cruel man! Do you really …?” my tirade loses its strength before it has gathered momentum. A strange warmth is enveloping my body. My eyes are filled with showers of little sparks. There is a distant choir quietly intoning in my ears. The words are indistinct. Slowly, deliberately, I blindly retreat from Liberté until I feel the security of the cave wall at my back, and I let myself slump to the floor. My mind is empty. Empty of everything. I can only stare fixedly at my gloved hands through the thickening shower of tiny lights. The chanting is soothing, comforting. I am no longer anxious. I feel weary and strangely melancholic.

  My throbbing Black Box becomes still, shimmers and turns to mist. Its contents are spilled out and, like a tidal surge, they flood my mind. I remember the Terrors. I remember them all. I remember everything about them. I suddenly know that, while the arc of each night’s Terror is unchanging, the detail is never the same.

  The Great Artist floats on high surveying a canvas of unimaginable size. Through the Artist’s eyes, I see that their beloved canvas has been defiled by a grotesque chimeric image painted with crude strokes of filthy mud. The depiction is beyond my ability to comprehend, though it reeks of malevolence and misery. A spattering of tiny points of pure light pierces the murky crust. I watch helplessly as the dark tide attacks the lonely illuminations and extinguishes them all. With a bone-deep weariness, the Great Artist pricks the forefinger of their right hand with an ochre, rusted nail and then, with outstretched arm, points at the very centre of the canvas. No blood flows. Only a single drop of pure morning light falls on the work. The awful sludge recoils and shudders as if it were the skin of a living thing and the light were a burning drop of molten gold. The bright spot rapidly grows and spreads. The terrible monster’s skin has been pierced. My heart is lifted.

  The recoiling darkness recovers and savagely attacks the light. The brightness is mercilessly smothered. All is dark again. I am consumed by despair. The Great Artist is unmoved. Where the light had died, tiny spots of new brightness appear as though they are sprouting seeds thrown out by the dying of the first light. The dark mire quickly devours the little sparks. More sparks spring up in greater number and they are spreading. Again, they are extinguished and, again, ever more appear. And so, the great struggle continues till the muck is swept away and the entire canvas is the colour of pure white gold. An ecstasy consumes me. The Great Artist is impassive. I sense only fatigue.

  Small blemishes erupt across the canvas like a pox. They are expunged. They resurface in ever greater numbers until rivers of filth pour across the canvas and drown out the light. Invariably, before I awaken, my Terror ends with the Great Artist saddened and exhausted. Rarely, the Great Artist’s melancholy turns to rage. With a single motion of their hand, the canvas is wiped clean of everything except for a single, tiny spot of light.

  The Terrors’ unveiling fills me with an inexplicable horror, and I am shaking uncontrollably. The revelation is disturbing and melancholic, but it does not explain this dread that I am suffering. I look up at Liberté.

  “What does it mean, this riddle of the Great Artist and the never-ending struggle to complete their canvas?”

  Liberté splutters
with obvious indignation, “Bloody hell, Seven, dump the symbolism; face the truth.”

  With mounting frustration, I retort, “Then reveal the truth to me.”

  He tilts his head back and studies the smooth cave ceiling as though that is where the truth is written. Slowly, he brings his gaze back to me as though he has learned all that he can from staring at the blank stone above us. “It’s time for the End Time, or a Purge. Or, maybe, an Undoing. You couldn’t decide; you abandoned the Terrors. I sent those hapless, dead fools after you, to show you what must be done and to bring you back.”

  “You make no sense. I have always been here. For many, many decades.”

  “Stop mucking about, Seven. We don’t do time … or space. Neither do the dead. They just wait. Don’t you think they’ve waited long enough?”

  I remember how Liberté stopped the tick in my head and froze the court. His words convey no meaning, but I feel an understanding slowly creeping up on me. “Do not confuse me further, Liberté. I am trying to fathom the sense of all of this.”

  “Look deep. Don’t look away.” Liberté kneels and gently takes my hand. “I will help you.”

  “Why should I trust you? You are a disassembler, a deceiver, a deluder.”

  “Aren’t we all? Isn’t this … button-making the ultimate self-delusion?”

  “So you say. It is who I am.”

  “Not even remotely. You’re having a crisis of faith, Seven. It happens to us all. You cannot face the possibility that your creative skills are flawed and that your Creation is more than worthless, more than a failure, that it is, and always was, pointless. It need not be true. You can save your Creation, Seven. It can be finished. I can help you.”

  Thoughts of the Great Artist’s endless torment and dissatisfaction flood my mind. “Help me, then.”

  “Close your eyes.”

  His hands are warm and comforting. My eyelids shutter my sight and, instantly, a great shower of tiny sparks blinks in and out of existence, and, all at once, I know the awful truth behind the allegory of the Great Artist and the canvas. The blood-drenched sorrow I feel is unbearable. My skull can hardly contain the flood of unwanted comprehension. It feels as if my cranium must surely shatter from the ever-expanding volume of so much knowing. The storm battering my mind subsides as the knowing dissipates, and I am left with a manageable understanding that, mercifully, lacks the detail of every soul’s suffering. Struggling to lift my head, I look up. Liberté has not shifted. He is kneeling passively in his absurd, painted gown. Exhaustion has overwhelmed me. My limbs have turned to stone, and my mouth is full of sand. “Water,” I croak.

  Liberté looks around, searching. Summoning my strength, I nod weakly towards my workhouse door. Thankfully, Liberté understands. In a moment, he has fetched a glass of water and is again kneeling by my side. I am so very thirsty, and the water is so very near. Yet it might as well be hidden somewhere deep in the Inns of Court. I moan in frustration. How I wish that my hood had a zip at the mouth like that of Mary M.

  Liberté is undeterred. He presses the lip of the glass to my covered mouth, and the water easily passes through the fabric of my hood. I swallow greedily till the glass is empty.

  “Thank you, Liberté.”

  “Do you finally get it, Seven? You must know what you have to do, and you have to do it quick.”

  “I understand the true horror of the Terrors but am no wiser as to their purpose or why I am their witness. Who is the Great Artist?”

  “You’re no witness, Seven.”

  Immediately, I know, and still I do not grasp how these pieces of comprehension make sense in their entirety. “Why must I repeat this horrific cycle of life and death over and over again?”

  “Wrong question. Why do you make buttons?”

  “Buttons are my creation and my joy.” And, as I say these words, a terrible understanding overwhelms me. “The Terrors are my Creation and my heartache. Bliss eludes me.”

  Liberté nods. “Buttons don’t have much say in what happens to them. The Terrors are not so easy. Like some more water, Seven?”

  My thirst is sated, and I am feeling a little stronger. Though my heart is weakened by the relentless grief unleashed by Liberté’s revelations, I shake my head. “Will you please assist me to stand?”

  Liberté offers his arm, and, with his help, I slowly climb to my feet and steady myself.

  “Who are all the people I have met this day past?”

  “I told you, Seven, they’re the dead. Except for Zero, obviously.”

  “Dead? They seemed very much alive. Why do you label them so?”

  “It’s your biggest con, Seven. Don’t know how you get away with it.”

  “I do not understand.”

  “Granny gets run over by a truck, explodes like a ripe tomato. Right away, Mummy’s telling the bawling grandkid, ‘Oh, don’t worry, dear, Granny’s in heaven now, all safe and sound.’ What a load of crap. We both know that squashed Granny’s soul is stuck in the spirit warehouse, filed under ‘pending’, along with all the other poor stiff buggers. Billions of them, just waiting.”

  “Waiting? Why? What for?”

  “You, Seven, you, to make your bloody mind up. Be good and you’ll go to Heaven or it’ll be Hell. But the dead haven’t been going anywhere, ever. They’re all hanging around, waiting for the Final Judgement. And if you ask me, they’ve waited long enough, and if you ask them, which I did, so do they. Send Zero! Let’s get this over with!”

  “Waiting? Where? How did they come to be in my domain?”

  “It’s not yours. It’s theirs. You came here regularly when the Terrors got bad. Nice and quiet, usually. A little holiday, I guess. You always came back. No harm done. And then the Terrors started going tits-up again. You just snapped, abandoned them altogether and ran away. I guess you knew something had to be done. Something different. Me too. So, I woke a few of the dead up, brought them up to speed and sent them after you. And, well, you know the rest. It was for your own good, Seven.”

  “A few dead? There were a hundred and forty-four thousand of your dead at my trial alone.”

  “The jurors were all holograms and CGI, Seven. Dealing with even a couple of those dead buggers was a monstrous pain. I tell you, Seven, I was sorely tempted to red-hot poker their arses. First thing out of their mouth is, ‘Where’s my new body? You promised me a Refresh.’ Grunge was the worst. I told them it’s a spiritual thing. And some are as thick as shit or crazy confused or both.”

  His explanation as to the origins of my tormentors and benefactors is oddly believable, though it should not be. “How is it that these … dead, then undead, have any knowledge of my circumstances and this surreal domain?”

  “That’s me, Seven. I gave them a bit of a brain rinse and a quick spin and then a crash induction in all things Revelation. The result wasn’t quite what I was expecting.”

  “And Zero?”

  “That’s all you, Seven. Nothing to do with me. Guilty conscience, maybe? Came in handy, though. Ended up being a sort of dress rehearsal for the real thing.”

  “The real thing?”

  “The Second Coming.”

  I do not understand, but I am most relieved to know that Zero was not one of Liberté’s reanimation experiments. Perhaps I am being too harsh on Liberté. He is trying to help me. “You have changed Liberté; you were very frightening. What is your purpose and true name, Liberté?”

  “You already know my name and purpose, Seven. I’m the grit that begets the pearl.”

  Most oddly, I recall the constables’ strange chant at the end of my trial and I know. And it is not a surprise. I have always known everything that I am now remembering. “Free Will.”

  Liberté nods. “But I don’t like being called that. It’s kinda belittling. Let’s stick to Liberté.”

  One thing still eludes me. “Liberté, what is my true name?”

  “Seven, you’ll remember when you decide what to do next.”

  “Why must
I decide to do anything? Can matters not be left as they are?”

  Liberté leans forward, gently takes hold of my shoulders and, most plaintively, whispers, “You’ve got to make a choice, Seven. It’s gone on for too long. I’m tired. Please, Seven, have mercy on the living and the dead.”

  I am startled by the sudden change in his mood and the depth of his obvious despair.

  He lets his hands drop, retreats a little and lets out a long sigh. “Sorry, Seven, you have to face the truth. Right now, things are bollocksed for everyone. Every generation, more turn away. From you and me. They’re not coming back. Your ministry is failing. Your Creation is buggered. Something’s got to be done.”

  I feel a discordant resonance echoing within me. Liberté’s pronouncement is strangely familiar, as if it were once my own thought. “I must save my Creation, Liberté. Tell me what must be done.”

  “Me tell you? You’re taking the piss, Seven. Okay, I’ll play along. One, you abandon your Creation, your Terrors, permanently.”

  His words are unsettling, and I feel repulsed by his suggestion, though I cannot say why. “What are the consequences of this choice, Liberté?”

  “It’ll be like Prof and Mary J said.”

  “Gravity meddling? The Undoing?”

  “Same thing really. I can tell you about it, but it’ll be easier if I show you.”

  My thoughts are confused. I seem to already know what Liberté will show me, and, simultaneously, I am ignorant of everything but my own small world. Any clarity that I have ebbs and flows as if my mind cannot settle and oscillates, like a pendulum, between different personalities – the Great Artist and the self I know: Abi the button maker. Clenching my fists tightly, I mutter to myself, “I am Abi, Abi. Still Abi.”

  “What was that, Seven? Shall I show you?”

  Ignorance is a blessing that I cling to, though I know it cannot last. I nod and Liberté, again, takes my hands.

  Immediately, I am floating, alone, in the great space between the galaxies. All around me are colourful spirals that might have come from a raging bonfire, swirled about by a late November wind and frozen in place as if captured in a photograph. Each bright swirl is a complex spiral that is drawn with magnificent colours: gold, platinum, purple, orange, yellow, white. And they are filled with boundless energy. The space around me is alive with foaming quantum matter that is continually appearing and disappearing. It is all very beautiful.