Thrill-Kill Carl and his death-kill-super-seek suit merchants. An evil combination. I first met Carl in a mind-sweep auto-bar. I had had a bad day. I wasn’t exactly sure why I had gone there. I just didn’t get off my train. My stop came and went. The train then reached the outskirts of the median perimeter and began to accelerate through the furthest reaches of the great suburban sprawl.
At last we had arrived. The end of the line. I was the only one left on the train carriage. The curious thing was that I hadn’t been particularly aware of anyone getting off along the way. I guess my mood had desensitized me. Work was a slow death that started in my toes.
I slid the automatic doors open and stepped out into a blaring loudhailer advising passengers the station was closing for the night. Last service for the evening. I trundled down the stairs out into the street. I hung a left and just walked. Time was inconsequential. I found a bar.
Sitting down with my cold pint I exhaled and for the first time that evening I took in my surroundings. The bar was empty but for the bartender. He hung up his towel and exited the room through a dull door at the rear. I heard murmuring then a raised voice. Then silence. The door opened again. The bartender reemerged and returned to his place at the bar.
He glanced up only when I placed my empty glass before him.
He glanced up only when I placed my empty glass before him.
“One more.” I told him. He locked my gaze for a moment as he poured me another pint. I retreated to my table.
The voices from behind the rear door flared again – I saw the door open and a man appear. His head jerked in my direction. I stared numbly. The head jerked again beckoning towards the door behind him. I turned to the bartender who was absently wiping down a table. He didn’t look up. I moved towards the entrance.
Before I could get there the man was before me. His hand reached out and took my shoulder, effortlessly redirecting me to the rear door from whence he had come.
The room was sparse. A table stood in the centre. Five men sat around it. They wore suits that looked ethereal, otherworldly. A wooden stand of ornate design sat in the middle of the table, a blue, slightly iridescent orb lay atop it. The suited men were gazing at it.
The man directed me to seat at the end. I sat, folded my arms, fingers interlocked, as the other men were doing and opened my eyes to the orb as well.
“O my laughing pretties of the doomsday machine! Come to haggle your wares upon the revolving Chinese circle of a monetary death-spin? One more time perhaps? Go on. Why not, you do afterall deserve it.”
I turned my head to the voice. It was disembodied – emanating from the man rather than from his larynx.
“Mystified my dear good golly chum? Why this is the time of dialysis and comforting conformity.” He took me aside and whispered in my ear. “Or, as they say, ‘tis but a dally from the realm of Pittany.” I turned incredulous in his direction. Rather than elucidate his point, he gave me a conspiratorial wink. I was sure in fact the he’d even given me a nudge.
My eyes wandered to the men around me. Their suits. My mind hastened to understand them, to make a connection with their reality. Like a wet slippery canvas, their descriptions dripped from my mind’s page. I found I could not convey their presence into thoughts. It was unusual. They never looked up.
I decided to relax. Whether the idea had been mine or it had been suggested by my host I will never know. My eyes hung heavy as I watched the orb. My limbs grew tired.
My eyelids began to droop.
My eyelids began to droop.
An hour or a day or so later I emerged from the dream. Steven was worried – he’d never seen me like that – not in the two years he had known me. He knelt at my bed and gripped my hands.
“Jesus! Dave I’ve been worried. How do you feel lover?” My eyes darted in Steven’s direction. He looked familiar – like I had seen him somewhere before.
“Who…?” My voice cracked in my throat. I could hear a clock ticking somewhere.
“They say with some good rest you’ll be as good as new.” I caught a brief smile. “You’re to come home with me.”
“But…but who are you?” My mind was racing now. My vision began to clear then swim again.
“Who the fuck are you!!?!!”
“Dave – for God’s Sake! Chill out!” He stood up and began to furiously pack some of my belongings into a bag. “I’m taking you home - now!” Then: “Fuck-Wit!” He said under his breath as he yanked me from the bed.
I was fragile. Too weak to resist. I melted in his arms.
I came to in the warehouse shack of my mind. There were big stars.
“Soon it will be over.”
I hung upside down strapped to what looked like a shimmering well-lacquered board. My arms hung free.
The voice hovered around my frontal lobe. “Soon … Soon … S s s s soo oo o n n n n n n…” It flicked into my consciousness and then faded. “God is moving this time.” A man’s voice spoke form the corner of the room. I heard the click of a switch and the board began to turn and slowly twist.
“Getting dizzy yet?” The man’s face spun in front of me, leering. Circus music assailed my senses. I saw white balls. Watched them getting larger and larger, closer. They flashed at my focus. The pain was incontinent – I could not physically place it. Pasty made-up faces flickered in front of my eyes. Unicycles rode towards my head, their tires inches from my face. Men plummeted from trapezes of life into a fire-flight of existential experience, their screams ripping at my lungs. Clowns cried themselves ragged, their hearts exploding with the torment. A beard-faced woman suffocated me with her tits. I stopped breathing.
“Do I have your attention yet?” Thrill-Kill Carl was tapping my shoulder again. I returned my focus to the orb sitting on the ornate stand resting on the table in the sparse room through the dim door at the rear of the empty pub, which stood at the end of the line.
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