The Ephemera (19 page)

But the apes held their ground, swayed there, making noises that resolved into a quiet chant. That word again.

I turned. The avenue of trees had extended, sloping away now into a natural depression in the landscape. At the far end stood the unsteady silhouette of a man framed in front of a dark-lit tower.

Sandor
.

By this time any distinction between reality and the effects of the powder had become utterly irrelevant. I could not believe that this was really my son, but the same awful certainty that I knew had guided both of us here in the first place convinced me that it was. The tower was the source of that conviction. The crumbling structure spewed black dust into the glowing sky. Plumes of the stuff drifted across the moon, falling like volcanic ash.

I thought of Sandor's bottles of rain.

The unsolid figure that had once been my son stood before the tower, arms raised in supplication.
Papa
, his voice said in my head, and suddenly I was beside him.
The Doorbringer is giving of its flesh to us
.

A host of apes and monkeys simmered and bubbled into view around us, melting out of the shadows, their faces and bodies echoing about themselves. They leapt and danced as they gathered and ate the powder, scooping it from each other's fur, crying with laughter and epiphanic ecstasy.

The Flesh of the Doorbringer is Truth
, the voice of what had been my son sounded in my mind,
The Flesh of the Doorbringer is Release
.

"I don't understand," I said aloud.

Sandor's outline constantly shifted, restless matter fuming under the restrictions of so few dimensions. It regarded me with shadowy orbs where its eyes should have been, and smiled. It gestured at the creatures around us.

These are His worshippers, His people. The Doorbringer does not require worship, but His people do so nevertheless. They raised His tower, crafted artefacts in His honour, to thank Him for giving them intelligence, and language to express it, through the gift of His flesh. They would have killed me, but I had the Key. This
. He held up a seething hand, the orange torus gripped within.
Even then I barely made it inside. Oh, oh, what narrow understanding I had then. When first I lay, trapped inside this infernal chimney; to escape the fury of the apes only to die of thirst and hunger within my sanctuary. The passing of days was marked only by the slow traverse of light on the uppermost bricks. But then, as my mortal life ebbed, the moon appeared fat in the chimney mouth, and the Door opened and the Bringer was revealed. He opened my mind and I saw the truth of it.

"Sandor... what are you saying?" I was shaking. A dark certainty had fallen upon me.

See for yourself.

Sandor approached the tower, and a rectangle of crudely carved wall disappeared. He slipped through it into the darkness within. I hesitated, not at all sure that I had in fact been talking to my son. He didn't talk like Sandor, but there was something in the carriage, the gestures that felt authentic. Certainly all of this had to be part of the hallucination, but if there was any chance that it
was
Sandor then I had to act. As he had ceased to do for me past the age of ten, I followed my son. Into darkness.

At first it was
only
darkness. I was aware of nothing else. Then a sensation, soft like ash landing on my skin, covering me all over despite my clothes. Everywhere the flakes found ingress. They filled me. I felt them blocking my ears and nostrils, damming my eyes, clogging my throat. Suffocating me with darkness. But then the opposite of light shone coldly all around, passing through my flesh and into the depths of my consciousness. Somewhere in my mind, I found a new clarity, enough to understand that I had become engulfed in the Flesh, and had lost all connection with physical reality. The dark-light intensified, and I saw that Sandor and I were floating above a vast plain. It was infinite, empty and full simultaneously, stretching and curling up out of sight, and punctured with myriad portals, doorways, windows, ancient openings into the souls of mankind and a thousand other races. An unseen storm raged in my ears, although I felt not a breath of wind. The source of that sound I could not see anywhere in this bizarre landscape, yet its
presence
was everywhere. The presence had a name.
Doorbringer
.

Doorbringer
was feeding. It had been feeding for millennia. Since we swung down out of the trees and onto the plains to brain each other with sticks and rocks, it had thrilled at the expression of the darkness within our souls. As its flesh was a drug to us, so were our sins elixir to it. Its very fabric quivered at the luxurious feast we set.

Dread gripped me as understanding dawned.
Doorbringer
was not a malevolent entity, bringing evil into the hearts of mankind. The evil that it fed upon was ours, and ours alone.
We
were the darkness: we the greedy, the selfish, the angry, the hateful, the ones who turned blind eyes and cold shoulders. Every curse, every hateful bigotry, every shameful blow, every rape, every murder, every ounce of dark pride and shameless arrogance, every life lost through indifference... came from us, not it. We were accountable. There was nothing else to blame. That the creature fed upon us was... coincidental.

The revulsion and longing that I had felt in the torus were my own. No doubt Sandor had had similar experiences, although perhaps less used than I to acknowledging the negativity in himself he had been more easily seduced by it. We were accountable, both for our sins committed and for the potential to commit more. I, however, was ultimately responsible. It was my act that brought us here—brought
him
here. I had delivered the torus into the hands of one sufficiently innocent to be bent completely to the Doorbringer's purpose.

The Truth. You understand, don't you father? You were right all along. Morality is pointless. We
are
the darkness. We find it easier to hate than to love.

The plain vanished. We were in a white place. Hands over my face, I shook and wept. I sobbed and looked up at the face of my son, returned to its fleshly form. A time-stopped mirror. I recalled how as a young man, I had looked into mirrors and seen the face of my own distant father staring back at me. Now I looked at my son, and saw myself.

"I never..." I started to say, but the words wouldn't come. I tasted metal in my mouth.

Sandor crouched, his face drawing closer to mine. Unsteadily, he resumed the restless form of the Doorbringer's Earthly emissary. Points of light, distant moons, shone in his eyes.

Shhh
, he said, a finger rising to his lips as he became shadow.
There is only the darkness
.

I closed my eyes. He was right, of course. Oh God. My son. My only child.

Somewhere, I heard rain falling.

~

This is, to date, my only collaboration with another author, and it was inspired by a real product. The ever-inventive Mark Roberts had discovered something called Monkey Brand Toothpowder, and that sparked a lighthearted bout of riffing on how monkeys went about brushing their teeth. Next thing we knew, it had become a two-handed story that was simply brilliant fun to write.

Hard To Do

The man on the radio segues with smooth banality into the next request. He tells us, as if we need reminding, that it's a beautiful summer's day and I almost laugh as I recognise the song, turning my attention from the sink to stare at the cheap red boogie box sitting there on the table. The speakers spill those jaunty opening vocals; sugared harmonies as only the Carpenters ever made. The refrain is light and melodic, its message ironically trite. I want to sing along and I want to cry.

Hard to do. Oh yes.

The kettle overflows, cold water flooding over my hands. I place it to one side and return my fingers to the stream. I stand mesmerised by it, the water flashing brightly, drumming into the stainless steel basin, and I enjoy the respite from the sticky hot day until my fingers lose sensation and I start to shiver.

I reach into the drier for a newly laundered towel, and dry my hands with the soft, still-warm fabric. My skin feels caressed. The shiny lid goes back on the kettle, and the whistle cap fits snugly over the spout. I sit at the table to wait. You will be home soon.

~

On the wall, by the phone, hangs that tacky calendar we brought back from Switzerland. Twelve stunningly awful pictures of cows in pastoral Alpine settings. Out of date now, of course, it's a key for memories. I leaf back through the months, reliving shared occasions through scrawled sigils and hieroglyph doodles.

Prior to May, when we bought the thing, the pages are empty. April, March. February has but one date, circled many times, dotted around with red biro love hearts. The first entry you made in it. The day we met. You wouldn't believe how often in the quiet moments when you are not here I have considered the terrifying wonder of the passage of time. Where did the months go? The days, hours, and minutes? The seconds spent just looking at those dumb cows and thinking about this. The ticks in between.

Five hundred days. If the calendar extended this far you would see scratched crosses in black ink marking today's June brightness, desperate lines scoring the paper hard enough to rip through. Looking back after today, I think you might see it like that anyway. Half a thousand days of you. And me.

The kettle boils with a breathy scream, rattling with pent up agitation. I watch it—empathising, feeling the clenching fist tighten in my chest—until it becomes shrill and violent. I snatch it off the hob just in time before... I realise I don't know what would happen if I allowed it to continue.

The water mixes with the jasmine leaf in the little pot. The steam billows in my face as I mix it round with a spoon. If you make it home fast enough it'll be nice and strong, just how you like it.

I like my tea weak—you never did appreciate how weak. I pour myself half a bowl, barely any colour to it, dark leaf bobbing at the bottom. Sitting once more at the table, shifting to avoid the stray piece of wickerwork stabbing into my thigh, I lift the bowl to my face, hold it there, breathing in. Fragrant steam coalesces on my skin. I take a sip, hot and fresh. And I rejoice that I was given this Chinese ancestry, these fine structured features that first attracted you—the delicate bones, the muddy-water eyes.

I love my eyes. You laugh at me for spending so much time looking in the mirror—not making myself up or doing my hair or brushing my teeth, just looking. You've never said, but I know you think I'm vain. How can you mistake vanity for wonder? Wonder at this woman, Julie, who has been fortunate to have loved you. This woman who looks increasingly like a stranger.

I'm beginning to worry that you might not come home, that maybe you'll go to a bar instead, somewhere warm and friendly. Snug, insulated. And maybe you'll just stay there until they slop you out into the darkness because right now you don't want to see me. I can't say I'd blame you, but I hope you come home. Soon, or I'll be gone.

When you get home you'll be impressed. I've tidied up. I've scrubbed the flat from top to bottom; I've cleaned, I've polished. Yes,
really
. It's not something I'm famed for but, well, you've got to try everything once. You won't know the place. It feels almost unlived in.

~

I'm sorry, okay? About the way this has happened. I know it's been hard for you to understand, why things have gone so sour, so fast. I guess it won't be a consolation, but it's harder for me. To see the pain I'm causing you. To turn your words into silence, your approaches to vacuum. To watch you turn in on yourself, quiet and edgy, start up smoking again in some kind of subconscious defiance: and to use that as one more weapon to drive us apart.

Twice I thought you were going to hit me. Some of...
some part
of me wondered what that would feel like. The anticipation, sickening and exhilarating, the shock cast on your face as, at the last minute, you became aware, watching you fight to control the frustration. Wondering how the dynamics between us would change if you followed through. But you didn't. I was relieved, mostly.

I regret that you'll end up feeling this way about me. Bad, I mean. But hopefully you won't feel inclined to try and find me after I'm gone. We thought it would be best this way—you'll have others, you shouldn't miss out on them, chasing after someone you will never find again. I envy you the complexity of what you feel.

~

I find I'm humming along to a new tune, although the radio has gone quiet. It has the same fluffy addictiveness as the song that was on earlier. The Carpenters again, that's right. I remember how we used to go out driving just so we could blast this stuff out of the stereo and sing our guts out. I wish we could do that again, just once more. I let the melody run its course, dredging up some words to go with it.

Why do birds...?

While I was tidying I found a new pack of Silk Cut. I've placed it with your Atlanta Braves ashtray and a cheap plastic lighter at the centre of the table. The strip tears easily, the wrapping sloughs off like cellophane skin. I remove one cigarette, hold it between my fingers. Its lightness is frightening. This is all the weight you attach to your life. And you wonder why it angers me. The hate I feel when you light up is the strongest passion I have.

Some of us don't have so long. We appreciate each and every of our days, and we waste none of our time.

A band of sunlight enfolds my arm, makes the skin glow, illuminating the tiny dark hairs, but I no longer feel the sensation of warmth that should accompany it. Involuntarily, I shiver. I don't feel cold, though. We don't feel anything.

I spark the gas, bring the small flame close to the palm of my hand. Closer, almost touching. Thankful, I feel heat, sharpening to a red point of pain. I move the lighter to the cigarette, watch as the tip glows, blackens. Carefully I lay it down in the centre of the clean ashtray and watch it gradually turn to ash. The smoke catches in my throat, brings a dull throb to my temple.

We've forgotten what colour your hair is. Your eyes, yes, there is a clear picture, blue discs, slivers of sky—but your hair, it's dark isn't it, or perhaps more a sandy red. I'll know soon when you return from ... from that place where you spend the days.

I wait, feeling increasingly...
detached
. The cigarette has burned all the way to the filter, a slender cylinder of ash.

I dip a finger in my tea, try hard to stamp the feeling on my memory. I smudge the soft tube with the moist finger. Gritty speckled grey, coating my skin. I place it in my mouth, lick the flaky powder. It tastes like death and chokes me. Tears in my eyes, I swig my tea to rinse my mouth. I forget the taste of the ash, I forget the taste of the tea. I dip my finger and scoop some more, smearing it around the inside of my cheeks and gums. I pop the papery filter, nasty medicine for a terminal case.

We know we are losing it. It was inevitable, but that doesn't make it any easier.

~

"What are you doing?"

The voice is familiar, the face too—round, lined with concern. The eyes we recognise. The hair, after all, is dark brown.

You come and sit by me at the table, taking my trembling hand and ask, "What's wrong?"

I can see that you are already halfway to interpreting the situation for yourself. You sense an end to things, you feel that this is where we break up. In this instant you hate me for making this happen; and for the small feeling of guilt rising with the realisation that you are not as upset as you feel you ought to be.

I can't remember your name. My own was never important, but losing yours is tragic. Tears, again.

~

The second time around, sharing a shortened life with a million others, the experience is less immediate, diluted—like viewing it all through dirty glass—but at the same time infinitely more wonderful. The second time around, tears are always an occasion for joy. The colour orange is a miracle. The deep, dizzy smell of mimosa and the polyglot dialects of music: from the heart-stopping slow grief of Gorecki right through to the superficiality of the packaged pop voices of Richard and Karen. All of it is to be treasured with joy and with regret that we never appreciate anything fully the first time when it is all new and we have our own single set of totally devoted senses to comprehend it.

~

In a minute or so you will have talked to me (although we won't have answered), tried to hold me (like melting ice), and watched me lift a suitcase (which does not exist) and walk out of our lives.

During that minute
we
will strip down into brittle ribbons, thin as parchment and fly, whipping and twisting, into the never, disintegrating to dust. Billows of saffron, glinting hails of carnelian and jade. Soul pollen, we mix and float on the breath of the world, aware of nothing but the longing for our five hundred days to come again.

~

I consider this story to be the keystone of this collection. It was where I first started thinking about ephemerality, and this story—which blossomed pretty much fully formed in my mind—was an attempt to capture that notion. It remains one of my favourites.