Enormity

by Nick Milligan

  “I know it’s incredibly invasive of me, and I’ve betrayed your trust, but I have a lot of connections and I thought I could help find your biological parents.”

  “How did you get my DNA?” I ask, and then the answer pops into my head before Brannagh tells me. An escort. An irresistible accomplice.

  “Natalie was able to … help me out,” says Brannagh. “Again, I apologise for this deception. Natalie didn’t feel comfortable betraying your trust either, but she couldn’t refuse the opportunity to gain access to you. To spend an evening with you.”

  “She’s only human.”

  Brannagh lets out a nervous laugh. “Yes, she is. Very human.”

  “Ok, so let’s cut to the chase,” I say. “You’ve sneaked off with my DNA and had some lab people take a look at it. Is there some kind of revelation I should know about?”

  I could push the burning stub of my cigar into Brannagh’s face and, as he’s reeling, flip him swiftly over the balcony’s rail. But the burn would be evident on the body. No, I need to push him cleanly and without a struggle. I’m capable of this, but the implications of doing so are not good. Two potential witnesses in Brannagh’s kitchen. Possibly a league of assistants at the record label who know I was coming here to meet their boss tonight. This isn’t a man you can kill quietly.

  “The people in the laboratory unfortunately were not able to match your DNA to anyone on the government’s register,” says Brannagh.

  “Oh well,” I shrug. “Nothing gained, nothing lost.”

  “Everyone that’s born is on the register, except for backyard births. Unregistered,” he says.

  “I see.”

  “But there’s something else,” adds Brannagh, a little hesitantly. “They weren’t able to match your DNA to ... any other human being.”

  “What do you mean?” I ask. Half of me is interested to find out what Brannagh knows, and the other half is readying to grab his ankles and launch him into oblivion.

  Brannagh looks at the paper in his hands and says, “There’s a lot of science speak in the report, but basically what it says is that the scientists couldn’t identify your twenty-third chromosome.”

  “Go on,” I say.

  “The first twenty-two of your chromosomes are perfectly normal, but your last chromosome, which is the one that decides whether you’re male or female, is different.”

  “How different?”

  “It just says that the chromosome is ‘unidentified’.”

  “But what does that mean? What does my chromosome look like? How different is it?”

  “It’s just unidentified,” replies Brannagh.

  “But what does that mean, Marty? Does it look like a chromosome, but it’s slightly different? Or does it look like a fucking salad sandwich?” I question, taking a final puff on the cigar and tossing it over the balcony.

  Brannagh quickly folds the paper, puts it away and attempts to calm me. “I’m sorry, Jack. Just stay cool, ok? I don’t mean to upset you. It’s just that the results are … intriguing. Wouldn’t you agree?”

  “Maybe they got it wrong.”

  “I don’t think so,” says Brannagh. “The people I know are the best.”

  “Who are they?”

  Brannagh smiles and shakes his head. “I really can’t say.”

  “So your mystery lab says my DNA is a mystery. I’m a mystery.”

  “They’d very much like to run some more tests, if that was an avenue you wanted to go down. To find answers.”

  “If there’s one thing I’ve learned in life, Marty, it’s that the only thing available to you is the future. The past is set in stone.”

  “But don’t you want to know who you are?”

  My blood boils. “I know who I am,” I say, emphasising each word carefully and with brooding menace. “And I’d like to keep it that way.”

  Brannagh stares at me, entranced by my sudden change in disposition. It sounds like I’m threatening him and in many ways I am. He’s a shrewd individual and he knows better than anyone that if you bite the hand that feeds you, its owner may retaliate.

  “Ok, Jack. Ok. I won’t bring this up again.”

  I take a deep breath and construct a reassuring smile. “Don’t sweat, my friend. I appreciate your help. Now where’s this first course?”

  The van, with its tinted windows and silver, streamlined body, slides around the curved driveway, like a shark through shallow water. It parks in front of the grandiose, double doors that open into the foyer of Godiva. We’re in the building’s vast shadow as I step onto the driveway’s terracotta tiles. The driver retrieves my bags from the rear of the vehicle. No doorman, so I assume I’ll have to open them myself. The chauffeur places my luggage next to me as I stand, gazing back and forth along the wall of the grand mansion. Godiva towers above me, extending a great distance on my left before stretching off a great deal to my right. In the latter direction the building ends with a tall spire, like a protruding gun tower from its roof. This is the observatory.

  Aesthetically, Godiva has a wooden, naturalistic feel. Like someone has kept a log cabin in a cage and riddled it with growth hormones, mutating it until its disfigured and unrecognisable. As far as dwellings go, Godiva seems rather egotistical and opinionated, secretly disliked by other buildings. But nothing could deflate it. It’s sturdy and self-assured. Deep red brick, chocolate finishes. Earthy. Rustic. Bombastic.

  Nestled in the middle of nowhere, in this persistent, enthusiastic wilderness, in this expanse of nature, the air around Godiva is fresh and crisp. I’m at a high altitude. The breeze is spiced with floral aromas. Birds and insects argue in shrill, sporadic bursts of singsong gunfire.

  At the front doors I swipe a card that Brannagh gave me. The security panel ponders it for a moment before accepting. Then it asks me to stare into a small lens while it scans my retina. This form of security check isn’t uncommon on this planet. Every eye is a unique fingerprint of capillaries and microscopic arrangements. Once the intense red light has assessed the inside of my eyeball, I pull back, blinking, before glancing through the glass of the front doors. Unlit furniture creates odd shadows. Difficult to decipher.

  Suddenly I hear Brannagh’s voice, emanating from the security panel next to these double doors. “Security approved. Welcome… Jack.”

  “Thanks Marty,” I say, despite knowing the voice is pre-recorded.

  Stepping inside, I drop my two bags on the white expanse of marble floor. When I take another step forward I trigger a sensor and a light blinks on above me, illuminating the foyer. I hear Godiva’s voice, sultry and feminine, appear over hidden speakers.

  “One guest,” she says.

  “Am I the one guest?” I ask to the room.

  “Yes, Jack,” replies Godiva, warm and inviting, echoed all around me.

  “Do you remember me?” I ask Godiva.

  “Yes,” replies the voice.

  Godiva’s advanced security system includes motion sensors and weighted panels in the floor. She knows how many people are inside her at any one time. One guest. I have the place to myself.

  I explore the building, familiarising myself with the layout. Every room in Godiva has these screens. Next to every door is an LCD panel, mounted at head height, which displays information on interior temperature, incoming phone calls, closed-circuit cameras and outside weather conditions. Invariably each room I step into has a wide, sleek television on the wall, mounted opposite beds and lounge chairs.

  There’s a clean smell, denoting the recent use of scented chemicals. The products of the faceless employees who venture out here to maintain Godiva in her extended absences of company. To sterilise her. She opens occasionally when Brannagh decides he needs a break. Or to throw an exclusive party.

  Once I’ve wandered for a few minutes, I return to my bags in the foyer. One of the numerous living areas stretches out in front of me, full of furnishings both antique and modern. To my left is the well-applianced kitchen and entertaining area. To my
right is the mouth of the wide staircase that curls up to the top level, like an eager tongue. Behind the staircase is the entry to a corridor, which ends in a second staircase that descends to the basement level. Down there is an underground maze of more bedrooms, bathrooms and an impressive, fully stocked wine cellar.

  I’ve been here a few times, but never on my own. It’s strange to see Godiva so dormant and at peace. I associate these rooms with frivolity and music. Dropped drinks. Attractive people sprawled over the historic artifacts that Brannagh purchases as lounges and futons.

  On one occasion, Big Bang Theory came up here to record an album. Brannagh trusted us with his holiday house. Four guys, two engineers and a producer. What could go wrong? Nothing went wrong, as such. Depends on your definition of the term. Some people would say it was very wrong. We invited a number of girls up here. About twelve of them. It was all rather civilised until we started offering them drugs and then taking drugs ourselves. Part of the week was taken up with what could only be described as an orgy. It was rather prolonged. Almost casual. Perfectly normal. My memory of it is mostly of the overall act. Not individual females. I remember the young women who were here more as a collective. Their faces, personalities and voices detached from the parts of them that were entered into the deal. A blurred miasma of parted thighs and glazed eyes.

  I look back on it and wonder if I was there. Who was there in my place if it wasn’t me? Who is Jack if he’s not the man that died in space?

  With the suns slowly fading, I remove all my clothing and walk naked out to the long in-ground pool that’s cut cleanly into Godiva’s immaculately manicured lawn. The view stretches from the surrounding garden and rolls across the top of ancient trees to a thin blue line of ocean on the horizon. The dots of ships hang in the canvas as tiny flecks of black paint.

  I float on the surface of the pool, my eyes closed, weightless. Absorbing the suns’ final rays. Then I wade in the shallow end, looking across at the sparse cloud of insects that hovers above the gardens that rim the yard. The shadow of Godiva grows long and overwhelming as the suns shift in their slanted arc.

  People ask me a lot if I can tell them where I came from. About my past. They don’t ask out of suspicion, but general interest. A homeless drifter who is a gifted songwriter? Where was I born? Where did I grow? To them I must seem monumental. A poet of unsurpassed prophecy and a distiller of the human condition. My words speak to them. The lyrical ruminations of another planet, which they believe to be the crystallisation of their own.

  As the suns fade, I pull myself from the water and walk across the lawn. The air remains warm and with no one around I think nothing of modesty. There’s a statue protruding above one of the trimmed hedges. Fading, weathered stone that has survived a thousand seasons. Despite my intergalactic journey, this man-made sculpture of a female, with its curved figure, robust breasts and flowing cloth, has seen more than me. It has existed for longer.

  Standing here before it, the statue now only a silhouette before the burning candlelight glow of the horizon, I remember that I once gazed here during a previous gathering, airborne on hallucinatory drugs. I asked this statue, “What is evolution?” The statue didn’t reply at the time and I accepted this, because there were a lot of people around. We weren’t exactly in private. But I felt quite strongly that someday this statue would divulge the answer. “What is evolution if two worlds evolve in parallel? Is everything preordained?” This time I don’t verbalise the question, mainly because I observe the lady statue’s lack of functioning ears. If it has the answer, it will tell me either way. I feel affinity, as we are both created. Carved from something much bigger. We are both unreal and I sympathise with this statue’s eternal predicament.

  Somewhere to my right, beyond the hedged edges of the garden, I hear bleating. An animal. Many animals. I’m reminded of Brannagh’s pets, which he keeps in an enclosure. His herd of labbia. Tall, majestic creatures, statuesque and imposing. Smooth, soft white skin covers a body that stands above a man, like a fully-grown llama. A sleek, giraffe-like mammal. They’re the rare endangered species that every human-inhabited planet has in some form. Too beautiful to co-exist with people, hunted for what they offer the makers of cosmetic possessions.

  I push open a small, rickety gate and follow a winding, narrow path that divides Godiva’s outer gardens. The sound of the bleating labbia increases, deeper than that of a sheep or goat. When the path opens out into a small clearing, the entrance to the labbia’s enclosure is in front of me. A tall mesh fence, about twenty feet high, shoots up from the ground, before turning into a mesh roof. It looks simple, but it’s a high-tech security system that registers any weight that pushes against it. Try to climb it and it will shoot enough electricity through you to turn you to charcoal. There is a door-sized entry into the enclosure, which is locked. There’s a security panel next to it, with a set of numbered buttons. A pin code would open it, but I don’t know the combination. I glance up one side of the enclosure and it stretches off into the undergrowth. The labbia sanctuary is many thousand square metres.

  Peering through the mesh, careful not to touch it, I can only see shrubbery and trees. The suns are now completely gone and very little is apparent. A faint glow comes from small white lights embedded in the surrounding gardens. Then I hear a snorting sound and the bushes beyond the fence move. A labbia, which is at least two feet taller than me, strides from the plantation, lowering its neck to inspect me through the wire. It smells the air, assessing me. Sizing me up. In the very dim light I can see its large, piercing blue eyes.

  Labbia are ancient creatures. Some scientists believe they may be psychic, communicating with others in their herd via radiated energy. Heat signals that are reinterpreted as data. Messages. In turn, they can surmise a human being. They know if you’re a threat. Labbia can be the most placid creatures in the universe, but if you’re evil they will bite your skull in two.

  “Hi,” I say to the labbia.

  It snorts again.

  “It’s ok,” I say in a gentle voice. “You’ve got nothing to be afraid of.”

  It raises its neck, standing at full height. It’s looking up toward Godiva. It bleats loudly, splitting the humid evening with its sharp call.

  “What are you bleating at?” I ask.

  It ignores me and continues to stare up at Godiva, which is partly obscured from view by the tall foliage of the surrounding gardens. Just a distant mass of outdoor lighting.

  The labbia bleats again. It seems distracted, so I bid it farewell and start back up the path to Godiva. As I walk away it bleats even louder, as if warning me of something. I stand in silence, looking back at the lean, impressive creature behind the mesh of its sanctuary.

  A second and then a third labbia appear. The two new animals stare at me for a moment and then also turn their round blue orb-eyes to Godiva, which stares down at us from atop the hill. The labbia bleat, as if agitated that I’m leaving.

  “It’s cool, guys,” I call to them. “I’ll come back tomorrow and visit.”

  Their bleating continues and is barely audible as I pass the pool and walk around the far side of Godiva, looking for the walkway that leads to the small outdoor music studio.

  Lights dot the edges of the path, bringing me to a small house. It’s built in the image of Godiva, as if the mansion gave birth to this miniature version. Next to the door is a panel. I stare into the small lens and the computer identifies me.

  “Welcome to the studio, Jack,” says Godiva’s inviting bedroom coo.

  “Thanks,” I say, pushing through the door. The ceiling light turns on, revealing a room full of instruments and recording gear. There’s mixing desks, microphones and black leads that snake across the floor like ropes of licorice. Drum kits sit under white sheets and guitars rest on small tripod stands. Other guitars lie in cases around the edges of the room.

  I pick-up an electric guitar and pluck a few notes. I then plug it into an amplifier and begin tuning it with my ear.
Once I’ve twisted a few pegs and strummed my finger across the six strings, sublime musical notes fall through the air.

  Grabbing power cables and leads, I throw them over one shoulder and carry the guitar and amplifier back to Godiva. I make my way through the house and find the door that leads out to the giant deck that looks down from the mansion’s second storey, over the gardens and pool. I think I can faintly hear the sounds of bleating labbia, but when I pause to listen for a moment I can only hear the buzzing sounds of the night.

  I run the power cable to an electrical outlet then aim the amplifier outward from the deck. Standing next to it, I put the electric guitar’s strap over my shoulder and plug the lead into the amp. A song has been knocking around my head, drifting back on the neurons from another part of the galaxy.

  I play the opening notes and they are chill-inducing. Beneath their aching cry I sing, wondering if someone on a distant lump of rock can hear me. The words were written by Neil Young and are full of longing and starstruck reverence for a woman.

  ‘Like A Hurricane’ blasts out into the landscape, scattered across this distant patch, soaking into the leaves and soil. Forgotten and absorbed. Each note disappears once its echo dissipates, replaced by another in the barrage. Something invisible and undetectable that will be there forever.

  I put down the guitar and walk inside to one of the bars, where I pour myself a strong spirit on ice. I return to the vast balcony, placing the beverage beside me and picking up the guitar again. The suns are long gone, vanquishing my view of the distance. The ocean is now lost in black. The dotted lights of ships leave pinprick traces.

  Godiva’s exterior lights illuminate most of the garden below me, except for its fringes. I riff on ‘No Surface All Feeling’ for about ten minutes, before I begin to work out the intro to ‘Under The Bridge’, trying to remember the chords from when I played it as a teenager. Each intricacy explodes from the shaking amplifier, firing out into the night. An evening that is so bloated with possibility.