by Jeff Noon
A hush fell over the field. Not a sound was heard.
The hanging tree was lit at its topmost branches by the rising sun.
Not a leaf or branch rustled, not a stalk of grass stirred. Not a bird sang.
The bugs hovered motionless in the air.
The mist haunted the fields.
The whole land around was holding its breath, waiting.
Bella Monroe felt it herself from where she was standing, off to the side. Everything she could see in all directions across the wide flat expanse, from the tree to the hedgerows and back, lay quiet and still. Even her own breath, her pulse.
She was the witness.
A few seconds passed and then a single flicker of light was seen, as an alphabug clicked into flight. The wind and the leaves and the grasses and the birds were brought back to life. Nyquist saw it all at that point, the knowledge sound and pure in his mind: the people gathered here were the hosts, the transport system, that’s all, nothing more. They had been given the words in the pool of ink with the sole job of carrying them into the city. The words had grown within their bodies, where they reached maturity, and had now been carried to this place at this time, in this moment. And one by one he felt the letters leaving his body, via the top of his skull, the fontanelle momentarily unsealed. He saw the black letters in the air, dancing around him, whirling, floating. He saw the same effect on all the other people, their heads and bodies already clouded with words: hundreds, thousands of them taking to the air, many thousands. It was a book not yet written, a story in waiting. A living story.
Monroe saw it too. She watched in awe as the words joined together in many different formations, seeking new phrases, sentences, breaking apart, starting again, erasing, writing, editing, the very air their paper. And then, on the patch of ground next to the tree, they started to work as one, building out of themselves a shape, a form, a figure, a man of sorts – more a ghost to begin with, until the words gave him texture and color and flesh, the mass splitting into the four limbs, forming the torso, the head, the long strands of hair. From first letter to last, the words wrote him into being. His edges were fuzzy, jagged, and then smooth as the letters buzzed around, putting the finishing touches to his body, the details, the dashes, commas, speech marks and full stops. And last of all, made from the word air, the breath that brought him to life.
The spell was over. Nyquist was returned to his normal self. He saw the world through his own eyes, and acted as his own person. He gazed in wonder at the figure beside the tree, wondering just what it was they had created. He took a few steps forward until he was standing only a few feet away from the written man. And as the newcomer’s face took on its final features, Nyquist recognized him. It was Oberon. He was alive once more, given flesh, a flesh of words. The man blinked his eyes a couple of times, testing them out. He raised a slow hand and examined it, and then shook it. A few letters fluttered off, and then reattached themselves to the whole.
Nyquist heard sounds from all around the circle, cries of surprise, or shock. The people were coming out of their trances, one by one. All eyes were now fixed on the apparition who stood before them. How could this be? Working together, they had created this person.
But Oberon was there only for a moment.
Even as Nyquist looked on, the figure started to disperse, his gathered body taking off in flight as the words carried him back towards the city in the dawn light.
There were other stories waiting to be told.
Beginning
THE PEOPLE came from all directions, from all parts of the city and beyond, to witness this new phenomenon. They gathered in the streets, at the speaking posts, in the bookshops, the libraries and in private houses and clubs, all to listen and to read, and to feel the power of language flooding their veins. Yes, it was a drug; and they could not give up on it, not until they were overwhelmed. Then they would fall down as though drunk and wake up hours later lying in an alley or on a park bench, and yawn and groan, as they tried to clear their heads of last night’s words. Some would leave Storyville before their visit was officially over, seeking easier tales with easier endings. But many stayed on.
Nyquist kept away from such pleasures, if such they were. His business had picked up since his involvement in the Melville Affair, as the newspapers and radio stations called it, and despite his refusal to be interviewed or photographed, his name was known: he was a discoverer, a direct line to the Muse in the Sky, or whatever they deemed it this week. More than once he had passed a raconteur in the street only to hear his own name mentioned, and his own story described: One night in the late summer of 1959 a young courting couple were seeking a place of calm and secrecy. It made him laugh: the name Oberon had been taken up, the spell maker, but really the man in the tree was still an unknown character. But he was happy to take the new cases on, and to be paid for it. The city was his home. He’d even gone back to the high-rise tower a couple of weeks ago, but the place was abandoned, the corridors and rooms uninhabited. The magic had drifted away. Bella came with him and together they made their way to apartment 67. Monroe joked that he was one of the few people to have actually killed a fictional character in real life. He let it pass. The bedroom was empty, the patch of blood and hair real enough, but fading now. Nyquist realized that he missed the residents, and he hoped that somehow or other they lived on, perhaps in another book by a different writer. They went down to the basement. They saw the roots of a dead tree, and a drained pool littered with bits of paper, sodden leaves and animal droppings. In a year or two all this would be just another story told at school, something to excite the pupils, or to scare them. Of course, the evidence remained in full view, whenever a novel or a short story collection was opened, and the words shifted around on the pages. Probably the kids would grow up accepting that as the normal way for a story to be presented.
Let it be.
Ava Beaumont was found lying on the floor of the storage room in Chaucer Town, her face contorted into a fierce delight. Her last act had been to set fire to the manuscript of The Body Library. By the time the police got there, the entire upper floor was filled with smoke. Beaumont had destroyed her greatest creation and breathed in its essence; she has yet to awaken from her coma. The spirits of the book have taken possession of her.
Let it be. Keep on. Keep writing.
Nyquist met with Bella once a week or so. They chatted, went out for dinner, drank a little. Once or twice something had almost happened between them. Perhaps it would, one day. There was time. Zelda, of course, was never mentioned. In truth, he tried not to think about her too much. Tried, sometimes failed. But like the poet had once said: Another day, another story. With the help of such platitudes he got by. Mostly he lived for the early hours of the morning, when the casework was done and the city taken over by silence. He would sit in his office apartment at 451 Bradbury Avenue and start typing. Even the letter X had been fixed on the machine, not that he used it much. He’d abandoned his first attempt at a novel and was now working on another story entirely. Sometimes he would struggle with the plotting, and then at others times the words would flow easily, and several pages would be written without him realizing it. He would look up at the sheet of paper and see the lines and lines of black text and wonder where they had come from. Still, he was grateful.
Sometimes the words would change shape, or shift their position on the page, even as he watched, and he knew that some other force had taken charge. Oberon was at work, the editor, the muse, the author of all we hold dear: take your pick. Nyquist welcomed the effect, for invariably the story came out better in the new rearrangement. There was no such thing as a fixed story anymore, not in this city: non-fiction books and papers were unaffected, but every novel and short story floated freely in a kind of liquid haze, and every time a book was opened, the events and characters changed a little: narrative was in flux. And that was good. Oberon lived on in the city’s texts. For now, at least. Some people even claimed to have seen him at large,
a body of dark shimmering words in the neon haze at midnight. Always in these sightings he was accompanied by a child, a young boy, who held his grandfather’s hand almost as if to stop Oberon from drifting away.
Let it be. Keep writing.
After a time, Nyquist realized that his new novel was really an attempt to give Zelda Courtland another chance at life. Nothing magical, or supernatural, just words on paper: events, characters, dialogue, memories, emotions. She was his focus, this woman who arrived on page thirty-nine of his manuscript, entirely unannounced, unbidden, taking on more of her qualities and quirks as the days passed, both in the real world, and in the fictional world he was creating. In this novel, Zelda would not be murdered, she would not attempt to leave the tower. And even if both of these things did in fact take place, despite his best efforts – for the words would always transform themselves on the page – then at least he knew that somewhere deep in the story, deep down, a chance had been taken, a word of love spoken in the night.
Acknowledgments
Thanks beyond measure to Marc, Penny, Phil and Paul, and all the amazing team at Angry Robot for steering this novel from its first inkling all the way to the final full stop.
And thanks to Edwin, Graham, Hayley, Kevin, Steve, Sarah, Lane, Rikki and William for support and advice and most of all friendship, both now and over the years.
About the Author
Jeff Noon is an award-winning British novelist, short story writer and playwright. He won the Arthur C Clarke Award for Vurt, the John W Campbell award for Best New Writer, a Tinniswood Award for innovation in radio drama and the Mobil prize for playwriting. He was trained in the visual arts, and was musically active on the punk scene before starting to write plays for the theatre. His work spans SF and fantasy genres, exploring the ever-changing borderzone between genre fiction and the avant-garde.
jeffnoon.weebly.com • twitter.com/jeffnoon