There were landslide barriers on the cliff below the car. Huge cages of oversized chicken wire to keep the rubble from tumbling down onto the roofs of cars on the road below. Sam’s dad had sung her a song about it once. Something about low roads and high roads and getting to Scotland on time. Well they were already in Scotland, but she didn’t like the look of that low road. Not with all those rocks overhead, kept in placer by some giant’s rabbit run.
“Could they still fall?” she’d asked earlier in the day, when the sunlight reflecting off the cages had turned the cliff face into a golden honeycomb. Her mum had said no, and her dad had just chuckled a little, but Luke, her big brother had said “Course it could. Anything can happen.”
By the time they reached the middle of the high road, the sun had begun its blushing approach to night and the lights of the motorway were blinking on in the distance.
“Getting dark isn’t it love?” Said Sam’s mum, patting her on the knee. “Still, won’t be too long now.” Sam yawned and nodded. There were times when it wasn’t too bad , being treated like she was still a kid. She could have cuddled up to her mum and forgotten all about loose rocks tumbling about in the dark below. But she had been a teenager for almost two years now, and Sam knew that Luke would take the piss if he saw her “baby-ing out”.
“S’ok Mum. Sammy’s just mooning ‘cos she can’t read in the dark.” Luke leant over the back of the chair and flicked the bridge of Sam’s glasses. “I reckon we should sort out some night vision for these bad boys, eh Sam?”
Sam raised an eyebrow. She’d been practicing since she turned thirteen, and now she could do it whenever she wanted to. Her dad said it made her look like Mister Spock in Startrek, but it shut boys up at school. And Luke couldn’t do it, so it was an easy way to wind him up.
“I’m not mooning. I’m just tired from being in a car too long.” Sam leant her head against the window and stared out over the motorway again. All the lights were on now, a river of glowing yellow, with little flashes of light shooting away like luminous fish in a shoal as cars pulled in, pulled out. Sam felt herself drifting slightly as fish began to flash by on the low road, flickerings in the corner of her eye that pulled her backwards, towards sleep.
In the dream Sam was older. Her hair was shorter too, cropped close against her scalp, with just a few wisps of fringe drifting down to the top of her sunglasses. But she was still tired, even in the dream. There was a man shouting down at her in the dream. She couldn’t hear him properly, but she could read his lips.
“Get up” he was saying. “get off the ground.” It was hot on the ground, and sandy. Sam looked up at the man. He had skin like a tree and piercings in his nose. There were little threads of cloud in the very blue sky.
“I can’t move” Sam tried to say. “I think I’m asleep.” It came out as a croak. The man looking down at her nodded. “Water eh? Did you bring any with you?” Sam shook her head. It hurt, deep in the back of her skull, and her tongue felt fat and furry in her mouth. She tried to sit up, but then everything fell away again.
There was something in her mouth. It tasted metallic and stale, but it was wet and cool and vaguely bittersweet. “Wake up, girly. Drink the tea. C’mon. Wake up.” The tree man. She had her head against his shoulder. Sam croaked again, then sat upright, choking and spluttering, tea dripping down from the sides of her mouth to form dark patches in the dusty ground.
“Where’s the car? Where’s my mum?” Sam looked around. There was no car, no cliff face, no cages. Just miles and miles of scrub land, a clear tarmac slash cut through it, and off to the left, a group of vans and trikes and bikes with tents dotted around them.
“Sorry, kid.” The man with the tea was talking. He had a growly voice, like in the westerns her dad watched. “You were out here on your own. Must have taken a bit of a fall. You new to this?”
Sam nodded slowly. “Where is this?” she asked. The man pointed to a sign by the road. It said 614. “Highway six fourteen, halfway between Albuquerque and Oklamhoma. Near Dimmit. Miles and miles of shit-all.” He pronounced it Shiddaall.
“I was in a car. There were cages on the cliff.” Sam could feel the tears welling up in her eyes, and was glad for the sunglasses. “What am I doing here?” She bit down on a sob and took the canteen the man handed her. “Same as any of us I reckon. You’re following Mr Green.” Sam took a swig of the cold sweet tea and coughed again. Her head still hurt and she felt like she was moving. And now it was cold. “Who’s Mr Green?” She could feel a strange rumbling under her bottom, and then a kind of lurch. The sound of tires on gravel. “Who’s Mr Green?” she asked again, but the sound had gone again, and now the man with the nose piercings was mouthing away again. Her eyes closed.
The car had stopped. Sam blinked her way into wakefulness, the suddenly cold air blowing away the dream-fluff. She was on her own. In the car, on her own. She sat up, her breath catching in her throat as she scrabbled at the catch of her seatbelt.
Her mum and Luke were standing by the roadside, looking down at the road below. Luke looked like he was going to cry. Sam’s mum had blood on her face.
“Mum…what’s going on? Why did we stop the car?” Sam stumbled up to where they were standing, sleep still numbing her body. “Where’s dad?”
Sam’s mum turned to her. “He climbed over the side. He just stopped the car and got out.” She sat down suddenly. “He climbed over the side.”
Luke nodded. “Mum tried to stop him but he hit her in the face. I couldn’t do anything.” There were tears rolling down his face, leaving streaks of shine in the ray of the headlights. “He’s still there, on the landslide barrier. I don’t know what he’s fucking doing.” He was crying properly now. Sam shook her head.
“Still dreaming?” she muttered. But the wind was real, and she could remember what she’d had for breakfast and it was still dark and still Scotland. She went to the side and lay down on her belly, then looked over the side.
She could still see her dad, the orange cagoule he had bought in Glasgow flapping wildly in the wind. He was looking up at her.
“Dad!” She screamed at him, swearing, shouting, using all the words he hated, but still he didn’t move. “Dad, come back. Where are you going?”
Sam’s dad shouted up at her, but the wind cut the words into fragments, blowing into her face in a mockery of language. The only words she could make out at all were
“-have to fall sometimes, Sammy. It’s the only way we learn.”
Then Sam’s dad let go of the landslide barrier. Sam didn’t see his neck break, or the rock that collapsed his ribcage. She didn’t see him land and tumble awkwardly downwards towards the low road, a crumpled shape collapsed on a concrete bier. She was too busy staring through the tears at the plate welded to the cage where her dad had climbed down.
Section 6:14 it said. Green.
Tuesday, 8 December 2009
The Wire Girl
The Wire Girl
"They reckon the wire girl had been there for a coupla weeks before Jackie Parks’ boy found her. Clean two foot off the ground and wrapped up in barbed wire, still as a statue ‘cept for the air in her lungs. Mike, that’s Jackie’s boy, screamed the place down, yelling bout some ghost in the woods up by the old Kerliggy folly. Course, a few people got in their jeeps and chugged up there, just to see if the boy was crying wolf, or if he’d set eyes on some poor woman done in up there. Small town people’re easy to understand, always up for something to do. Show a little town a mystery and it just jumps its way in feet first. So a few people got to see the wire girl, and then a few more, and then the local constabulary was called and that’s where it all got a bit unstuck.
See, she never moved, never called out. Never even closed her eyes. Just hung there, head back and staring at the sky. Breathin’. Folks could get close enough to see where the wire’d cut her. All filled with fresh blood, but none of it running. But no one could touch her. Just couldn’t do it. Some of 'em tried; was like watching a spastic tryin to open a pickle jar. Now, some of the good Christian folk of the town decided she was a miracle, some kind of vision from God. Others reckoned on a warning, telling us to mend our ways. I don’t really hold to that. But that folly up there in the old Kerliggy house grounds got a good load of traffic through it over the spring. Course, after that interest died down. Mike Parks took off to the city and then there was that business with the travellers over the summer months. There’s always something new to do in a small town. A few people probably still go up and see her, but most round here just let her be.
Still, she’s good for business."
"They reckon the wire girl had been there for a coupla weeks before Jackie Parks’ boy found her. Clean two foot off the ground and wrapped up in barbed wire, still as a statue ‘cept for the air in her lungs. Mike, that’s Jackie’s boy, screamed the place down, yelling bout some ghost in the woods up by the old Kerliggy folly. Course, a few people got in their jeeps and chugged up there, just to see if the boy was crying wolf, or if he’d set eyes on some poor woman done in up there. Small town people’re easy to understand, always up for something to do. Show a little town a mystery and it just jumps its way in feet first. So a few people got to see the wire girl, and then a few more, and then the local constabulary was called and that’s where it all got a bit unstuck.
See, she never moved, never called out. Never even closed her eyes. Just hung there, head back and staring at the sky. Breathin’. Folks could get close enough to see where the wire’d cut her. All filled with fresh blood, but none of it running. But no one could touch her. Just couldn’t do it. Some of 'em tried; was like watching a spastic tryin to open a pickle jar. Now, some of the good Christian folk of the town decided she was a miracle, some kind of vision from God. Others reckoned on a warning, telling us to mend our ways. I don’t really hold to that. But that folly up there in the old Kerliggy house grounds got a good load of traffic through it over the spring. Course, after that interest died down. Mike Parks took off to the city and then there was that business with the travellers over the summer months. There’s always something new to do in a small town. A few people probably still go up and see her, but most round here just let her be.
Still, she’s good for business."
Loop
Richard is on the train again. There are six hundred and thirteen people on the train. Richard knows this. He has been here before.
He also knows how they die. He has seen it before. Twenty three times. This will be the twenty fourth time. Unless it has been more than that. Or less.
The train goes over points. The jolt snaps Richard out of his doze. Inside, Richard is screaming, but his body will not do as it is told. He has tried to tell himself it is all a dream. But it does not feel like a dream. In dreams, Richard knows, you wake up before you hit the floor.
Richard claws the sleep from his eyes and stands, biting back a yawn. He has been on the train for several hours. He clutches his small executive briefcase (brown patent leather with an eight digit combination lock) to his chest and begins his stumbling way down the carriageway towards the buffet car. Once at the buffet car he will stand and grimace at the prices. After much thought he will buy one cup of steaming brown water masquerading as coffee.
On his way, Richard passes an old man asleep in his chair. There is a thin trickle of drool pooling at the side of his open mouth. It has begun to spill over onto the sleeping man’s collar. His spectacles are askew. Richard almost hates the man for his innocence. Sometimes he tries to imagine the sleeping man’s dreams. There are sheep in the field that the train passes as Richard gets to the sleeping man. Richard envies the sheep, even in the October drizzle.
Richard has to pause here. Two girls go past him, holding hands like lovers. He can see bright red nails digging into pale flesh, a birth mark on the back of the shorter one’s neck. They pass close enough to smell. Richard imagines them kissing, swapping fugitive “I love you”s in the dark. Tangled limbs and the scent of sweat and glares from disapproving parents.
The third car is full of families. Many of them have young children. Richard tries to close his eyes and shut out the noise. It achieves nothing.
The coffee is overpriced and tasteless. There is a bitter sludge at the bottom of the cup that needs to be stirred in to make it vaguely drinkable. It reminds Richard of ovaltine. The briefcase makes it difficult to hold the coffee, so Richard shifts it to under his left arm. Inside Richard is sobbing.
The train pulls up to a small station, and a man in a green sports jacket slides past Richard. He grins at Richard as he gets off the train, then wiggles his fingers at him, showing six, then one, then three. Richard looks blank, then smiles nervously.
Soon the train is moving again, and so is Richard. He moves through the family carriage, hearing snatches of conversation
“…and you’ve got to understand, no one’s perfec-“
“…nothing for you here, I said, and didn’t he just look shocked…”
“-just moved away from home and looking for work.”
“I can’t wait to see you…”
that he wishes he couldn’t hear. Richard is in the hallway. He is nearly back to his seat. The train hits another set of points. Now Richards right hand and his right leg from the knee down are covered in scalding coffee substitute. He shrieks and drops the plastic cup. The remnants of the coffee make a shifting Rorschach test on the pale gray floor of the train. Richard reels, dropping his brown patent leather briefcase with the eight digit combination lock. His back slams into the emergency brake alarm.
There are wet leaves on the track, the last traces of summer. The train jerks sideways. The sleeping man’s head collides with the window, leaving a vivid red spider web in the glass. The two girls in the rear carriage hold onto each other as the train jack knifes and flips. One man has his skull crushed by his own laptop. There are screams and crying and through it all Richard can only focus on the pain in his hand where the heat of the bitter overpriced coffee has raised little white blisters.
“Shit.” Whispers Richard. Then his head collides with the wall again and everything is mercifully empty.
Richard is on the train again.
He also knows how they die. He has seen it before. Twenty three times. This will be the twenty fourth time. Unless it has been more than that. Or less.
The train goes over points. The jolt snaps Richard out of his doze. Inside, Richard is screaming, but his body will not do as it is told. He has tried to tell himself it is all a dream. But it does not feel like a dream. In dreams, Richard knows, you wake up before you hit the floor.
Richard claws the sleep from his eyes and stands, biting back a yawn. He has been on the train for several hours. He clutches his small executive briefcase (brown patent leather with an eight digit combination lock) to his chest and begins his stumbling way down the carriageway towards the buffet car. Once at the buffet car he will stand and grimace at the prices. After much thought he will buy one cup of steaming brown water masquerading as coffee.
On his way, Richard passes an old man asleep in his chair. There is a thin trickle of drool pooling at the side of his open mouth. It has begun to spill over onto the sleeping man’s collar. His spectacles are askew. Richard almost hates the man for his innocence. Sometimes he tries to imagine the sleeping man’s dreams. There are sheep in the field that the train passes as Richard gets to the sleeping man. Richard envies the sheep, even in the October drizzle.
Richard has to pause here. Two girls go past him, holding hands like lovers. He can see bright red nails digging into pale flesh, a birth mark on the back of the shorter one’s neck. They pass close enough to smell. Richard imagines them kissing, swapping fugitive “I love you”s in the dark. Tangled limbs and the scent of sweat and glares from disapproving parents.
The third car is full of families. Many of them have young children. Richard tries to close his eyes and shut out the noise. It achieves nothing.
The coffee is overpriced and tasteless. There is a bitter sludge at the bottom of the cup that needs to be stirred in to make it vaguely drinkable. It reminds Richard of ovaltine. The briefcase makes it difficult to hold the coffee, so Richard shifts it to under his left arm. Inside Richard is sobbing.
The train pulls up to a small station, and a man in a green sports jacket slides past Richard. He grins at Richard as he gets off the train, then wiggles his fingers at him, showing six, then one, then three. Richard looks blank, then smiles nervously.
Soon the train is moving again, and so is Richard. He moves through the family carriage, hearing snatches of conversation
“…and you’ve got to understand, no one’s perfec-“
“…nothing for you here, I said, and didn’t he just look shocked…”
“-just moved away from home and looking for work.”
“I can’t wait to see you…”
that he wishes he couldn’t hear. Richard is in the hallway. He is nearly back to his seat. The train hits another set of points. Now Richards right hand and his right leg from the knee down are covered in scalding coffee substitute. He shrieks and drops the plastic cup. The remnants of the coffee make a shifting Rorschach test on the pale gray floor of the train. Richard reels, dropping his brown patent leather briefcase with the eight digit combination lock. His back slams into the emergency brake alarm.
There are wet leaves on the track, the last traces of summer. The train jerks sideways. The sleeping man’s head collides with the window, leaving a vivid red spider web in the glass. The two girls in the rear carriage hold onto each other as the train jack knifes and flips. One man has his skull crushed by his own laptop. There are screams and crying and through it all Richard can only focus on the pain in his hand where the heat of the bitter overpriced coffee has raised little white blisters.
“Shit.” Whispers Richard. Then his head collides with the wall again and everything is mercifully empty.
Richard is on the train again.
Dream
I wake from a strange dream. In it I have created a seven foot wide fried egg out of emulsion based paint.
“It’s a lot smaller than the real thing” I keep trying to tell people. Most won’t listen.
I am still in the box. It is white, and if my mind has not yet left me, a perfect cube. It is neither cold nor uncomfortable yet it makes me feel both.
Every so often a slot opens in the featureless white wall. I either eat from it, or defecate into it, depending on the height of the slot. Once I am done with my business the slot closes. It is a rectangle of change within a fixed world. I used to scream into it, but it seems a little pointless now.
Some time ago I tried to measure the angles in my container. I used hair from my head to form triangles. Totally pointless exercise as I have no protractor and my hair has a natural wave to it. I think I may have cried.
If I had the egg of my dreams I could at least form some sort of idea of the size of my cell. I can’t even remember how tall I am. I think I was moderately tall, but I do not know what that even means. It takes me four strides to pace from one corner to the other. This is useless information.
I sleep at intermittent intervals.
This time I dream of the sea. That happens a lot now. Sometimes there are seals or birds. I much prefer the seals because the birds make me think of myself, trapped in my box.
I do not know when I was put in this box, but I know that my beard has grown a lot. No one is concerned that I might hang myself with my hair. There is nothing in my box to hang myself from.
For a short time I became convinced that there were iron filings all over the walls of my box. There are not. In a way this was even more disappointing.
When I wake again, curled on the floor, I have decided to escape. There seems to be no door, and no one comes when I shout, but I have a plan.
The wall slot opens and I eat. I need my strength. I count seconds like this;
-one iron filing
-two iron filing
-three iron filing
until the hatch closes. Thirty iron filings after I move away from the wall it hisses shut. I assume it is run off some kind of sensor.
I wait a further six hundred iron filings, then three hundred more then I begin to wretch. I curl over my stomach and make choking sounds, feigning violent spasms. I clutch at my head and stumble from wall to wall. Soon the lower slot slides open. I stick my head inside and start making the appropriate noises.
The slot is small but I am desperate and undernourished, so it takes surprisingly little effort to force my shoulders into the little metal capsule, and it is almost easy to curve my back and pull my legs down onto my chest. I look like an Incan mummy.
I believe I have around twenty seconds before the hatch closes. I pray to the birds and the seals that it will be enough. No one comes running. Nothing happens. The hatch closes.
Now I am in a lightless metal coffin that stinks of disinfectant and my own filth. I am cramped and it is difficult to breathe. The metal around me is cold, getting colder. For a moment I almost wish I was back in my box. Then the world moves.
My breath is gone, ripped from my suddenly aching lungs in a burst of crystals. They shine like stars against the cold black. And then I suddenly know how the birds feel.
When the earth is viewed from above, it is a lot smaller than the real thing.
“It’s a lot smaller than the real thing” I keep trying to tell people. Most won’t listen.
I am still in the box. It is white, and if my mind has not yet left me, a perfect cube. It is neither cold nor uncomfortable yet it makes me feel both.
Every so often a slot opens in the featureless white wall. I either eat from it, or defecate into it, depending on the height of the slot. Once I am done with my business the slot closes. It is a rectangle of change within a fixed world. I used to scream into it, but it seems a little pointless now.
Some time ago I tried to measure the angles in my container. I used hair from my head to form triangles. Totally pointless exercise as I have no protractor and my hair has a natural wave to it. I think I may have cried.
If I had the egg of my dreams I could at least form some sort of idea of the size of my cell. I can’t even remember how tall I am. I think I was moderately tall, but I do not know what that even means. It takes me four strides to pace from one corner to the other. This is useless information.
I sleep at intermittent intervals.
This time I dream of the sea. That happens a lot now. Sometimes there are seals or birds. I much prefer the seals because the birds make me think of myself, trapped in my box.
I do not know when I was put in this box, but I know that my beard has grown a lot. No one is concerned that I might hang myself with my hair. There is nothing in my box to hang myself from.
For a short time I became convinced that there were iron filings all over the walls of my box. There are not. In a way this was even more disappointing.
When I wake again, curled on the floor, I have decided to escape. There seems to be no door, and no one comes when I shout, but I have a plan.
The wall slot opens and I eat. I need my strength. I count seconds like this;
-one iron filing
-two iron filing
-three iron filing
until the hatch closes. Thirty iron filings after I move away from the wall it hisses shut. I assume it is run off some kind of sensor.
I wait a further six hundred iron filings, then three hundred more then I begin to wretch. I curl over my stomach and make choking sounds, feigning violent spasms. I clutch at my head and stumble from wall to wall. Soon the lower slot slides open. I stick my head inside and start making the appropriate noises.
The slot is small but I am desperate and undernourished, so it takes surprisingly little effort to force my shoulders into the little metal capsule, and it is almost easy to curve my back and pull my legs down onto my chest. I look like an Incan mummy.
I believe I have around twenty seconds before the hatch closes. I pray to the birds and the seals that it will be enough. No one comes running. Nothing happens. The hatch closes.
Now I am in a lightless metal coffin that stinks of disinfectant and my own filth. I am cramped and it is difficult to breathe. The metal around me is cold, getting colder. For a moment I almost wish I was back in my box. Then the world moves.
My breath is gone, ripped from my suddenly aching lungs in a burst of crystals. They shine like stars against the cold black. And then I suddenly know how the birds feel.
When the earth is viewed from above, it is a lot smaller than the real thing.
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