Vurt

by Jeff Noon

  Dingo Tush was waiting for me in the corridor.

  He’d just come out of Twinkle’s room, and he had Karli the robodog in his arms. The bitch was flopping upside down in his half-human paws. Karli’s tongue was loose and sloppy, and a constant low pitched whine was falling out from her jaws. Dingo’s face was caught in the blue light cast from a small table lamp; those famous cheeks and muzzle sculptured and lit to perfection. He looked so very beautiful, and often I had thought, in those early days; if only I could have just that bit of dog in me. Then I would be truly beautiful, and the women would love me.

  Not to be. Only human. Still clinging to the hope of being only human.

  ‘Karli’s pretty upset,’ whispered Dingo.

  ‘She’s just a dog.’

  Oh shit! Silly thing to say!

  ‘I will forgive that slight indiscretion.’

  ‘Beetle told me you might know about Brid and the Thing. Where they are.’

  ‘Why should I know that?’

  ‘I’m just following the Beetle. What do you know?’

  ‘I know a good record when I hear one. What do you think I know? I’m a pop star, for fuck’s sake. And if you don’t mind, I have an all-nighter to get to.’

  ‘I don’t know who to believe.’

  ‘I think you should learn some manners when talking to a Dog-star. One who has just saved the life of your friend. A somewhat small life, if I may add.’

  ‘You best not be lying, Dingo.’

  ‘Ooh! Big. Tough.’ He gives me his famous smile, the one with all the teeth on show.

  Holy shit!

  ‘I would have you for breakfast, dear boy.’

  I opened the door to Twinkle’s bedroom. Tristan was sitting on the bed. In his arms lay Suze, his one love.

  Their hair lay all around like a wake.

  It was matted.

  Blood-matted.

  Tristan looked up at my entrance. His eyes were a pair of wet diamonds.

  ‘Can you help me?’ he said.

  ‘What’s happening?’ I asked.

  ‘Suze,’ he said, was all that he said.

  Somebody caught a stray bullet.

  ‘Suze got hit?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. It was that simple, that deadly.

  ‘Bad?’

  Tristan didn’t answer. Instead he reached out his hand towards me, offering a pair of scissors. ‘I want you to do this,’ he said.

  I looked down at the body of Suze, held there, upon his lap, unbreathing. I wanted my voice to come easy, but my mouth was scorched and the words came out like smoke. ‘Tristan…do you…is that right?’ I didn’t know what to say.

  ‘Just cut this for me, will you?!’ His eyes were glaring. ‘Don’t keep me waiting!’

  ‘I don’t think I can do it, Trist.’

  ‘Nobody else will.’

  Tristan’s eyes…

  So I took the scissors in my trembling hands.

  There are only two parts of the body that don’t feel pain. One is the hair, the other is the nails. Both are made out of Keratin, a fibrous sulphur-containing protein. It occurs in the outer layer of the skin and in the hair, nails, feathers, hooves, etc. From the Greek keras, meaning horn, meaning that which can be cut without tears.

  Let me tell you about that.

  I have seen the tears at the cutting.

  Karli slipped through the gap in the left-open door.

  I had a rope of thick hair in my fingers. It went on forever, between Tristan and Suze, and then back again. That hair was living. Nano germs were calling out for mercy. I swear that they were. I could hear this screaming in my brain. Well then, friends, I guess you never felt anything like this before?

  I worked the scissors through a severe angle, slicing the droid-locks. It took some kind of strength to do it, and I was kind of proud. And it took some time. Because the hair was thick and clogged up with debris; spent matches, jewels, hairgrips, dog fur. And that just in three weeks since the last washing. I pocketed one of the hairgrips. Why? A voice told me to do it. Which voice? The one that never stops.

  That droid hair was so thick it was like cutting through the night.

  Until, eventually, I separated them, Tristan from Suze. Karli the robobitch was licking at the face of the corpse, tying to wake her.

  Nothing would wake her.

  MY FIRST WORDS

  I’d come down from Pleasureville two, or maybe three o’clock in the afternoon. I’d attended the sickbed of my best and worst friend. I’d cut some hair. Cut two people in half. You know, just one of those days. Now I was tired, so tired and I just wanted to sleep, even though I knew we should be moving on, out of there, because the cops have got your number, Scribble, and you’re maybe on a death list. Murdoch’s list.

  So guess what, Murdoch? You’re on mine.

  All this added up and I shouldn’t even have been thinking about lying down on that couch, fully clothed. My eyes closing, heavy with the world, thinking about how this story started; Mandy coming out of that all-night Vurt-U-Want, dodging dogs and cops.

  Christ! I was playing it back already.

  I got up suddenly, startling Karli, who was playing with Twinkle. ‘Fetch me some paper, kidder,’ I said, whilst searching my pockets for a pen. I had some debris from the trip in there, and I placed them all out on the table top. My birthday card. The Tapewormer feather that Beetle had given me. The fool card. Put that down as well. Took a long stare down at the collection.

  My mind was like a stranger.

  Twinkle put an old school exercise book down on the table, and then reached for the birthday card. ‘Aw! Scribb! You got a birthday card! Who’s it off. Let’s see—’

  I caught her with a hard slap to the face.

  Shit…

  She backed off, holding her cheek, her eyes dribbling.

  Oh Christ…shouldn’t have done that…what was happening to me…

  ‘Mister Scribble…’ Twinkle’s voice.

  Did my best to ignore what I’d just done, picked up the pen, opened the book, and then scribbled down some words, the first I had written in weeks. And I remember thinking, that if I ever get out of this with body and soul still connected, well then I was going to tell the whole story, and this is how it would start:

  Mandy came out of the all-night Vurt-U-Want, clutching a bag of goodies.

  Okay, so this is twenty years later, and I’m only just getting round to it.

  I closed the book, put down the pen, picked up the birthday card, read Desdemona’s message, put down the card, picked up the feather, and the tarot card. I was moving like some cheap made-in-Taiwan robo.

  I went back to the couch, lay down, the feather in one hand, fool’s card in the other. Twinkle’s voice, ‘Mister Scribble…’

  I didn’t look.

  ‘What’re you doing?’

  ‘Going in.’

  I took one last look at the fool’s card; the young man stepping it lightly towards the abyss, all his world wrapped up in a shoulder sack, his dog snapping at his heels, trying to stop his fall. I’m getting the picture, dead Suze. Cheers for the card. So you thought that I was a fool? Very well. I’ll act like one. I’ll be what you wanted, Suze.

  ‘Can I come? Can I?’ pleaded Twinkle.

  ‘This is private,’ I said to her, and then sucked the feather in real deep, down to the shaft. I know my times and my places. And this was a time to get out. Out of that time, out of that place.

  The Tapewormer feather was halfway down my throat and I could feel the waves approaching over the music’s swelling main theme, intercut with the credits. But then the waves were moving backwards, taking the music with them, so I was getting the fade, and then the hit of each note, and I was in there somewhere, losing the sense of trouble, the sense of now.

  I was being inverted.

  Mandy came out of the all-night Vurt-U-Want, clutching a bag of goodies.

  That’s fine. It’s just that sometimes we want to change things a litt
le. We want things to be better. How they should’ve been.

  That’s no crime?

  That’s just a moment of stupidity. That’s all.

  I mean who hasn’t, at some time, wanted this? To feel the fade before the hit?

  I gave the feather one last push and then I was gone, wave deep, swimming the surf back home, as the main theme and the credits dropped away…

  TAPEWORMER

  Desdemona came out of the all-night Vurt-U-Want, clutching a bag of goodies.

  There was no trouble, a nice clean pick-up. Des is an expert and we love her for that.

  We rode the stash back to the flat, the fearless four of us; Beetle and Bridget, Desdemona and I. The Beetle was up front, the van pilot, Vaz-smeared for extra performance. I was on the left side wheel housing, Brid was on the right. She was fast asleep, so what’s new? Desdemona was sitting between us, slightly forward, with the treasure sack in her lap. It was a smooth road.

  ‘What’s in the bag, sister?’ I asked her.

  ‘Beauties,’ she replied. ‘A Yellow.’ Her voice sent a shiver through me.

  Just like…

  ‘Let’s have a look,’ I said.

  Desdemona pulled out a feather, a pure and golden flight path.

  ‘Oh wow!’

  ‘What is it, Scribble?’ shouted the Beetle, from the pilot’s seat. ‘Did she do good?’

  ‘Oh Christ! Did she!’

  ‘What’s she got, Scribb? Ask her for me.’

  ‘What you got there, sweet sister?’

  She was moving the sun feather in her hands, gazing at it like the relic of a god.

  Which it was.

  A sun god.

  Light shards thrown off the passing streetlamps, changed to black by the van’s mirrored windows, found themselves caught, for a second, upon the feather’s one million flights. Then they were reflected, in fractals of gold, bouncing off the sides of the van like ricochets from the sun.

  When Desdemona spoke—with her face so pretty in the feather light—her voice was inlaid with gold, and burnished to a fuck-me-please shine.

  Just like…just like she’s…

  ‘Takshaka Yellow,’ she said, all quiet like.

  There was a suck of breath as we all breathed it in, all those perfumes, those pleasures to come.

  ‘Takshaka?’ I said, unbelieving.

  ‘Takshaka fucking Yellow!’ screamed the Beetle, letting the wheel slip for a second. I felt the van careen over to the pavement, and then the jolt as it took the curb at speed. For a second or two we were travelling in chaos. Then the Beetle popped a Cortex Jammer, and grabbed the wheel like a murderer his gun. So we were back on the track, the road, the King’s highway, with a vengeance.

  ‘Beetle! You shouldn’t be doing that!’

  ‘Tell me why, little man?!’ he screamed. And then; ‘Awooooooh!!!!! Let’s rock!’ And he drove that van into a let’s all go out in a blaze of yellow glory.

  ‘Because this is supposed to be perfect, Bee,’ I answered. ‘That’s why.’

  ‘Fuck perfect! Let’s ride this sucker!’

  Bridget was still fast in sleep. Desdemona was foreplaying the feather, getting it on strong.

  ‘This is my trip, Beetle!’ I said. ‘Let me ride it.’

  Why was I saying this? It wasn’t just me. I wanted the group with me.

  ‘Nobody goes alone, Scribb,’ he replied. ‘Nobody goes in alone.’

  ‘This is private!’

  This is private?

  I was getting voices. Outside voices. Where the fuck were they from? And in my hands I found a pasteboard card, the image of a young man, a sack of things on his shoulder, a barking dog at his heels, the edge of a cliff beckoning.

  Where did I get that from?

  ‘This is beautiful,’ whispered Desdemona. ‘Takshaka Yellow. The marinade of God.’ Her voice was saffron-rich. ‘You read the Cat on this one, Scribb?’

  ‘Kind of,’ I answered.

  ‘Utanka was a young student…’ Desdemona started.

  ‘What’s she saying, Scribb?’ shouted the Beetle. ‘I can’t hear her properly!’

  ‘She’s telling us a story, Bee.’

  ‘Woh! What story?!’

  ‘Story of Takshaka.’

  ‘Woh! Keep telling it!’ the Beetle screamed, jamming that van through the Curry Paths. All the scents of India assailed us, as we rode that jasmine chute. Desdemona was talking with a saffron tongue, and I wanted to kiss my sister’s voice, because it was so very beautiful. She told us the story of young Utanka, the Asian student. He travelled into the realm of snakes in order to steal back the earrings of the queen. The king of England had forged these jewels out of the most precious ore, as a birthday gift to his beautiful wife. Utanka had been given the task of carrying the earrings to the queen. Unfortunately, upon the way to the royal bedchamber, the earrings were stolen by Takshaka, the king of the snakes, who was as long as a river, a violet and green river. His bite was deadly to human flesh, carrying poisonous dreams along the veins until the mind was polluted with violence.

  Takshaka carried the jewels down into his kingdom, the world of the Nagas, the dreamsnakes.

  ‘What happens next, Des?’ I asked her.

  ‘Your mission, Scribble Utanka, should you wish to accept it, is to journey through into the jasmine valley of the dreamsnakes, armed only with a ball hammer, some snakeweed juice, and a forked branch, and to retrieve those earrings. Do you accept this task, oh great warrior, Scribble Utanka?’

  ‘I’m not sure…’

  The rest of the Riders were laughing by now, but I was taking it straight.

  ‘Just do it, brother,’ said Desdemona.

  ‘I don’t think I can,’ I replied. ‘The Cat says that you can die in a Yellow…for real.’

  Then she leaned over to kiss me.

  Sister kissed me and I felt some petals falling on me, inside the van, falling, falling, inside my head, from some unimagined Vurt.

  Flowers were falling.

  Jasmine flowers were falling, as I sipped at God’s juices, riding this chariot towards Takshaka, with the best set of lips in town locked tight to mine, her tongue going in, like a feather it was. That good.

  Don’t let me lose her.

  What?

  What did I just think?

  ‘Let’s ride this beauty,’ chanted the Beetle, so I didn’t get a chance to question my doubts. We rolled the beauty into port, a Rusholme Garden port, behind the flats, each of us listening to the rust deposits settling, for a few moments, as we contemplated the pleasures to come, the saffron-drenched pleasures.

  Rust was falling.

  Drenched pleasures. These would be mine tonight, in all of their various guises.

  Beetle broke the mood, ‘Let’s do it! Inside!’ he shouted, snatching the feather out of Desdemona’s hand. ‘Let’s do it! Let’s do the Yellow! Come on!’

  We made an easy, snakeless flight up the stairways, into the pad, which welcomed us with a show of lights. Now Brid was slumped on the settee, slow-gazing at a three week old copy of the Game Cat. Beetle was standing by the window, stroking the saffron feather. He charged up the flights real good with Vaz, and then he fed it to our mouths, each of our mouths in turn, finishing with his own last of all.

  I felt the opening credits roll and then the pad went morphic and my last thought was; this is beautiful and I want more of it, I want it forever. Then the Yellow kicked in…

  The fearless famous four of us are swimming in this lake of spices, getting ourselves marinaded, getting ourselves painted in yellow. It surely is the sweetest colour. It was giving us flavours, flavours of the feast to come. Things we’d never tasted.

  The living room was amber lit, with flowers of gold falling off the wallpaper, so many thousands of them that they made a carpet of petals on the floor. There was a hole in the carpet. And although we all knew that falling through a yellow door was bad, still we fell through it anyway.

  !!!!!WARNING!!!!!


  Shit! What was that?

  I was walking through a palace of gold, my three companions at my side. In my hands, a ball hammer drenched in snakeweed, only known antidote to the dreamsnake bite. The other three were loaded up the same, and we were warriors in, bad world, and I felt full up of hunger and blood.

  Everything was shining yellow, shining with the smell of saffron, in the world of the Nagas.

  Game Cat tells us that the Nagas are a fabulous race of snakes. They are powerful and dangerous and usually appear in the form of ordinary snakes, but sometimes as mythic giants, long twisting forms of violet and green. Sometimes they turn into human shapes, just to fool us. The king of the Nagas is called Takshaka. Sometimes the Nagas get caught in the human world, and this makes them very angry, because they cannot stand the light of our world. We call these exiles the dreamsnakes.

  !!!!!WARNING!!!!!

  What was that? I was getting voices. Maybe I was getting the Haunting?

  Please, my Lord, don’t let this be a Vurt. Let this pleasure be real.

  Having entered the limitless world of the dreaming snakes, we found it to be full of admirable establishments for games, both large and small, and crowded with hundreds of porticoes, turrets, palaces, and temples.

  All this beauty; not a snake to be seen. Only their soft slitherings in the yellow shadows, invisible. My left ankle was tingling, like it had a message for me, a message I had long since forgotten.

  WARNING. YOU ARE NOW INSIDE A METAVURT.

  ‘Did you hear that? Anyone?’ I asked.

  ‘Hear what?’ said Desdemona.

  ‘That voice.’

  ‘Heard nothing.’

  ‘Come on, you two,’ said the Beetle. ‘Less of the billy-cooing. Let’s hammer some snakes!’

  We stalked that gilded world, with our weapons of steel and weed, and our fear and our sweat. Bridget started to sing her song, a tingling hymn of praise to the unseen Naga snakes. They were smothered in pride by the song from Brid’s lips. But they would not return the earrings, and the snakes remained in the shadows, entwining.

  A jasmine powder was dropping on us, from the palace’s ceiling, but I was getting voices…

  WARNING! YOU ARE NOW IN A METAVURT, RUNG TWO. THIS IS EXTREMELY UNWISE, AND SHOULD BE VACATED FORTHWITH. THANK YOU. THIS HAS BEEN A PUBLIC HEALTH WARNING.