by Chris Kelso
‘I told you I don’t know.’ - Kad gets up grumbling, sweeps aside the fringe of her lank black hair. We’ve fallen asleep side by side before - I often enjoy the faint tickle of her wandering strands on the back of my neck like wild filopodia.
- Jesus, I’ve got it bad.
I see, pinned to the intersected plywood over the window, a wad of scratchpad paper with a note written on. From Ailsa –
-
Dear Kurt and Kad,
I’m sorry to leave you both so suddenly. I’m going to find my daughter and my ex-husband. I know I can get back to them somehow. My experience with both of you has been a kind of affirmation for me, that there is still love and pleasure to be had in the world. Thank you, both of you.
But there is really only one person who can help me find my estranged family again – Miles Dunwoody.
This may seem like a sudden change in attitude, but I can’t explain it. I truly hope you don’t hate me for it. Kad, being with you for a few days made me realise that resilience is key to survival. You remind me of my daughter. You’re so strong and determined, but tender, smart and funny too.
I think you guys would both get along famously. You’re the type of woman I want to be. Even though you do have a weakness for men that’re bad for you, I can’t even think how many times you’ve saved my ass, I know Kurt feels the same about you.
We both owe you our lives. That’s why I have to be honest with you. I respect you too much to have you believe I was something I’m not. The truth is, I haven’t really seen much of the street-level action, I only recall being out on the Schism for a couple of hours before you picked me up and brought me to PLATO’S GATE. I never killed a zombie in my life. I never had to scavenge or use any initiative.
I don’t hate Dunwoody either. In fact, I think I love him. I know this must disgust you after everything I told you before. I love him in the way a Christian loves God or a Muslim loves al-Ala. I want to worship him. He neither begets nor is born, nor is there to Him, in my opinion, any equivalent. I have somehow absorbed your dreams of acid baths, I hope you don’t mind. I feel like they keep me pure and honest.
Kurt – you remind me so much of my husband. He too was a shallow, lost person. I don’t say this to upset you, I love my husband very much. I also like you a lot. You are handsome and, I think, harmless. My whole life I’ve fought the state, tried to write something that was new or original or cutting edge.
Now I’m just tired of all the constant fighting. I’m not a very convincing character, am I? I know you can see through me, through this phony veneer I’ve created for myself.
I never understood Invasion of the Body Snatchers as a concept. I get the whole ‘need to survive’ part, but the alien seedpods arrived on earth and wanted to survive too, they required our bodies to endure.
Classic human beings - instead of accepting this as the next stage of evolution, by saving an alien race and co-habiting peacefully with them, we’re expected to fight for this grand sense of human-ness?
It made sense for the humans to accept the parasite into their systems, to relinquish their autonomy, the ambition and excitement and the stresses that come with those things. I mean, the human remains basically the same, right?
All you’re really doing is sacrificing the worst parts of yourself. It would effectively save the planet - we could no longer reproduce and destroy rainforests. And we’re no better than they are, I mean we’ve wiped out indigenous populations and ruined ecosystems in the name of survival, haven’t we? And we couldn’t even let go of that? Isn’t that insanely petty and selfish?
The nature of the beast.
I’d have embraced the pod-people. I wish there was a body snatcher treatment where you fall asleep next to a pod and the spores get to work duplicating you exactly so we all fit in – kind of like multicellular communism.
The pods can replicate your precise atomic value, we could absorb the spore as easily as static electricity. You’d all be like me, dead like the moon.
Anyway, I appreciate what you both did for me and to thank you I’ve decided not to turn you in to Dunwoody straight away. But at some stage, in the next couple of days, we will, I’m sure, be making an appearance at the PLATO’S GATE hotel.
Yours
Ailsa the Allmaziful, the everliving, the bringer of plurabilities, haloed be her eve, her singtime sung, her rill be run, unhemmed as it is uneven
***
‘Ailsa the Allmaziful, the Everliving, the Bringer of Plurabilities, haloed be her eve, her singtime sung, her rill be run, unhemmed as it is uneven!’
‘What does that mean?’ – I say this as I crumple up the letter in my fist and throw it onto the floor of the bridal suite. We’re so used to the screams they’re starting to sound like maidens singing in a choir. Kad searches the cloud of names and finds the answer.
‘It’s from Finnegan’s Wake. I think it’s something to do with how universally loved Miles Dunwoody is. Pretty abstract and opaque.’
‘Universal implies there is something else out there. There is only here, only this city.’
- You’re being much too negative. Don’t drag her down with you.
‘Kurt, I’m going to show you. I’m going to prove to you that there is something outside the city’s strictures.’ - Her optimism is kind of invigorating, like a dream of halcyon days gone by.
- I could kiss you.
Kad is trying her best to keep my spirits high. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate her efforts, I appreciate that she cares, but I can feel myself overcome by a new force.
A dramatic shift in priorities has arisen. I feel like I need to articulate myself sexually. Ailsa has infected me with hunger. Let me tell you, I’m fucking famished already. It takes all my effort not to attack Kad. She turns to me, as if sensing the rapid adjustment in my personality.
‘I should tell you that…Ailsa and I…we were…together.’ – She says almost regretfully.
– Fuck…
‘You mean you…?’
‘Yeah. I have no idea how it happened. I mean I’m not…I’ve never been…you know?’
‘Into other girls?’
‘Well exactly. There was something about her. Something parasitic…I don’t mean that to sound offensive. I like Ailsa, a lot.’ – She rubs the jagged corner of her left wrist, nervously adjusts the bangle on the right.
I can’t shake the image of Kad and Ailsa in romantic union. What’s this? The first impulse towards pornography? The dormant itch of Neanderthal pursuit? I’m a small man, pale and suffering. Can’t you at least give me something?
‘She and I also had a brief tryst.’
‘You did? Huh…’
- I don’t think she believes me.
‘Yeah, I don’t know where it came from either. Initially I felt like I had forced myself on her, then it occurred to me that she totally orchestrated the whole thing. Like, yes, like a parasite. She used us.’
Kad and I sit there in awkward stillness for a few long seconds. I wonder if she really believes Ailsa and I slept together. Why do I care so much?
- Oh – yeah, because I’m in love with Kad and the thought of making her jealous fills me with a strange and ugly satisfaction.
‘We need more supplies but there’s no way to get out onto the streets safely to loot. Ailsa and I used all the provisions I took from the Aerial Hotel.’
‘Aren’t you forgetting where we are?’
‘How’d you mean?’ – She asks.
‘This is a hotel! The PLATOS GATE hotel! We have over 80 floors of rooms with full minibar privilege!’
‘What if The People are there waiting for us? At least in room 295 we know we’re safe.’
‘For now, yes, but we need food and drink. There’s more chance of us surviving in here than out there on The Schism.’
Kad waits a beat, considers our options.
‘I guess you’re right.’
- Well, there’s a first time for everything!
In the mirror, my glacial pond
Narcissus thaws
And the future becomes present
To me
A witch and her coven, I see
1, 2, 3
Conducting a spell in the alleyway
Of a primeval city
And then
+10
Joy escapes me,
As I feed on the misery caught up in the atmosphere
While all my love
Sits suspended in a piled-hotel
If there was any justice
If I had any control
I’d make them cast a spell on her
Easy as 2, 9, 5
To finally see me as a man
And not as a burden
Plato’s Gate –
‘Real nobility is based on scorn, courage, and profound indifference.’
- Albert Camus
We take a floor each – Kad is checking the apartments neighbouring room 295, I take the service elevator to the level above. In the mirrored box I replay my encounter with Ailsa. I imagine how much better it would be with Kad.
- Clear your head man! There’s work to do! This is about survival not reproduction!
The elevator pings and the access parts to a vast, empty corridor of numbered rooms. I try the first door I come to but have to double take.
Room 295?
But, how can that be? I almost turn back but remember that our need is great and Kad is depending on me. The visual biometric device has been disabled, torn out, exposing its circuit board. The lock is already busted and I can push it open with a light shove.
A room, virtually identical to the bridal suite, complete with four-post bed and plywood shielded window, is revealed. I cross the threshold and the feeling of Deja-Vu is so obvious and moving that I’m nearly embarrassed to even mention it.
A toilet flushes and the bathroom door opens. I raise my brass claw to head level, pointing the spikes downward ready to defend myself. Part of me half expects Ailsa to walk out, like I’m stuck in some temporal loop and I’m just wandering the space-time on a repeat setting.
A lanky man wearing a yellow sports top and tracksuit bottoms appears and leans on the doorway. He has cropped blonde hair and an indifferent face. Why is everyone who isn’t part of The People such an aloof sociopath?
- Look in the mirror, friend.
I’m beginning to wonder.
- Anyway, who says he’s not with The People?
‘Who’re you?’ – He asks in a foreign accent. He doesn’t look in the least bit intimidated by my serrated glove.
‘I’m Kurt. Who’re you?’
‘I’m Henrik.’ – he booms.
‘Are you…?’
He laughs. It booms also.
‘One of the People? No, but I doubt I’d tell you even if I was.’
‘Aren’t you going to ask me if I’m a Dunwoody sympathiser?’
‘Nah. I know you’re not. You don’t look the type. There’s no hope left in your eyes.’
‘Well, doesn’t everyone know me so well?’
‘Must be great being so predictable. You alone?’
‘No…I…I have a friend. She’s checking the rest of the hotel for supplies.’
‘No point. I got ‘em all.’ – He says glibly.
‘You got all the supplies in this entire hotel?’
‘Yeah, I got ‘em all.’
- Fuck off…
‘I’ve been here for a very long time, Johnny.’
‘It’s Kurt.’
‘Okay, listen Johnny, you look like a nice guy. How about you let me tag along with you and your partner in exchange for some of my supplies?’
‘Where exactly are your supplies stored?’
‘I got them hidden in various nooks and crannies throughout the rooms on this floor.’
‘What makes you so sure I won’t just try and kill you and take them?’
Henrik simpers smugly and rolls his eyes.
‘You don’t look the type. Trust me, I know.’
‘I’ve killed people out on The Schism.’ – I lie.
- Fuck sake, NO ONE is buying that!
Henrik looks at me and detaches himself from the doorway portal.
‘Come in here. I need to show you something.’
I follow Henrik into the bathroom, my brass-claws clenched and prepared for attack. The smell of rotten flesh and sulphuric acid attacks my senses.
- What the…?
I’m faced with Henrik’s giant, broad-backed shoulders. He moves aside and exposes a girl’s body in an early state of putrefaction.
She looks remarkably like Kad, but Henrik assures me her name is Anja Holmström. The girl has been disembowelled and tampered with, her organs spill out like dropped chow mein.
Her left hand has four missing fingers, just like mine. I feel nauseous. For some reason I don’t just turn around and tear Henrik’s murderous face off with one swipe of my right hand.
He sits on the edge of the bath as if he’s about to tell me who he really is. Captain Nemo meets Jack the Ripper.
I sit on the toilet seat and prepare to listen. Everyone has a story but me…
I relinquish myself to the significance of a single three digit number.
Henrik
- Oh Kurt. It was 1994; I didn’t know what the fuck I was doing half the time. The People would never have approved.
Everyone was so caught up in the Swedish national teams triumphant bronze medal win in the USA I think, I’m sure, a nuclear bomb could’ve hit the town of Ryd, Linkoping, and no one would’ve averted their gaze.
I’m not like you people, not at all. I’m not human. You think the People would ever have an alien as a member?
You can find Linkoping on a map, we’re buried in the regions of Östergötland - ‘Land of the Eastern Geats’ in English - Geats being one of the two primary groups that merged into what we now know as contemporary Swedes (sort of like what the Anglo-Saxons are to the present day English I suppose).
Honest, I’d never killed another person before Billy Ackerman, The People don’t believe in murder for murders sake. I think there is one loophole in the Rules that permit killing, for the life of me I can’t remember what it is.
So you can only imagine what must’ve been going through my adolescent mind when Anders Nilsson, the most popular kid in ninth grade, asked me to murder Billy Akerman, probably the most un-popular kid in the year below, in exchange for a bag of beautiful clay cat’s-eye marbles – right?
Nilsson must’ve seen the potential in me though, caught sight of the ugly spirit resting dormant behind my stare. He selected me specifically, he did. You people are as quietly devious and manipulative as you are violent. But anyway…
It became common knowledge that I did kill a cat once - ate from its brain and took a primal cut from its rump. But that was about the sum total of my homicidal behaviour prior to my thirteenth birthday.
My paediatrician, a child-molester in a double vented jacket, seemed more pissed off that I’d risked getting Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease from the infectious proteins in the cat’s brain.
It’s weird, nothing much came from killing that cat. Billy Akerman was different, of course, from the cat I mean – although to this day I’m not sure I completely understand the massive distinction.
Around this time, a troupe of birds started watching me eat, fuck, they still follow me around. Some people get spiders, some get other insects. I get birds. Big ugly fuckin birds. They’d gather on the trees and just fucking leer at me, white as almond blossoms, as if they knew something. Outside—a staccato of fireworks.
Don’t feel bad for Anja Holmström. Her father is Miles Dunwoody’s biggest fan. This is another experiment. The second person I have killed, nine years after my first.
I can remember Anders Nilsson sitting at the apex of the jungle gym so clearly man, all bathed in natural light, like I had been summoned to the steps of an ancient temple to bow before some ancient solar deity.
‘I’ve got a proposition for you’ – Akerman said with a grunt. His family were originally from Norrköping and people from Linkoping were a little intimidated by him. We were a university city, a hockey city. A bourgeoisie city. Ryd was a part of Linkoping full of students, or Muslim immigrants from Africa and the Middle East. People from Norrköping were a little more, what’s the word…blue-collar. I guess I sound like a snob.
So Nilsson was leaning on his knees and jerked his neck to the left to hawk on the asphalt. He told me to join him atop the jungle-Jim. I did everything I was told man, climbed up to his perch like a good little bitch. Anders Nilsson wasn’t the kind of kid you said no to in a hurry.
I heard he had been smoking cigarettes since he was, like, ten years old or something. To this day he is the only human being I have ever respected, even ephemerally.
Sitting there crouched beside this tough, out-of-town kid, I felt goddamned incredible - hoped Edit Klasson would see me socialising with the Nilsson boy (she didn’t though, no one ever saw me when I wanted them to).
So he brought out the shiny orbs that seemed to hold entire galaxies within their cores. I looked at them (didn’t touch them!), studied them in silent awe - the tinted crystal; ones with bands of fine glittering copper flakes injected into them; ones with strands of opaque white and coloured vanes streaked throughout the centre...fucking gorgeous. As marvellous as the architecture of this city. Have you seen the Aerial Hotel? It’s stunning. These were more impressive. They all had this sort of iridescent finish. They looked valuable. They were valuable.
I told Nilsson I’d do whatever he wanted me to do, on the proviso that I could have these wondrous little marbles. It’s amazing how kids prioritise, isn’t it? Hey, I was really into marbles. They reminded me of my real home planet, wherever that was.
Billy Akerman was kind of a pain in the ass. He was short and fat and, by all accounts, an annoying little fucking spaz. No one really liked him all that much, but fucking Anders Nilsson hated him most of all man. Billy had this rare copy of ‘Fantomen’. Anders claimed Billy stole the comic from him – I found out these claims were completely erroneous and Nilsson just wanted something else he didn’t already have – or revenge on the person who was wealthier than he was. Course, Billy was already dead before I discovered this. I have never understood human beings.