by Jerry
2008
THE AWAKENING
Eugen M. Bacon
Summer sounds of singing cicadas filled the air. A red box chocolate selection (bite size) lay scattered on the road. Heart-shapes soaked and melted in warm crimson. Liam Keen lifted off the ground. He looked from a distance at mangled remains of him—meat, blood and bone—wedged around tyre, glass and metal. He felt no emotion seeing himself like that. But he knew at once that he was dead.
A blonde woman with a bleeding face, driver of the Roaditor Turbo, a four-wheel jumbo, was dead too. Tossed through the windshield, impaled on a stump growing by the wayside. Her powdered cheek was gashed to white bone. Bits of bloodied wood protruded through a jagged gap in her back. Torn flesh and blood hung from the stub’s spear. Sticky puddles spread from purple grass and crept along the road, as the malevolent spike of wood faced a lime sky overhead. Streaks of cloud waded towards a golden sun in the horizon.
The world around and beyond Liam moved at normal pace. No crowd gathered, three-people thick to amaze at death. Two streets away, Hoochi Mama was baking fresh cinnamon bread. Cabbies leaned lazily by their yellow cars chewing gum as if it were cud. Forlorn cigarette butts stuck out of green, silver-capped rubbish bins. A curly-haired male carried shopping bags marked ‘Neutral Planet’ in both hands. He gave the accident scene a passing glance and crossed the road. Cyclists and cars diverted to unaffected streets. A woman with bouncy hair walked her dog, as skimpy clad joggers ran this way and that past a revolving fountain sprinkling crystal water. Only naked mannequins stared in shocked silence from the perspective of a shop window.
Well, thought Liam with wry humour. Not like I woke up in a morgue smelling of formaldehyde. He grinned to himself, amused at the magical indifference of the Metropolis. And he contemplated how it all began . . .
Might have been easier if they’d fought. If Audrey were tight-faced and screaming, shrew-like and hurtling abuse that not only goaded but stuck. Abuse that returned to haunt in little bursts: in the stillness of foam in a bathtub, between pages of a novel, inside a moving train, in the heart of a dream.
He might have understood if, as he held her head down by the hair to subdue her and she punched girly fists into his ribs, she said it. Or if she threw something at his face and it bounced off his cheek, cracked on the floor and, as he touched his flaming skin, she said it.
Perhaps if her face had been tight as an arsehole, lips pouted like the mouth of a fish, bold hurt expanding in her eyes . . . Or if he beat her so bad that she was rainbow and tender all over, her upper lip big as a plum, rounder and redder even, violet rings swelling around her slit eye where his fist had quietened her . . . Or if she was beat up so bad and, as cops pressed him into the back of a car, she said it with bloodshot eyes and teary words—it might have made more sense.
But there was no fight. No precedent.
Nothing like: “I’ve had it. I’m leaving.”
Even if she said it that normal way, fought him, lashed horrible words at him, and then spat intentions of going, it would have been hard, so very hard to let her go.
It was the middle of Autumn. Second day of the lunar cycle. Audrey sat across the dinner table looking absolutely delicious and serene, listening with slanted head to the flavour of a buttered parsnip on her tongue. Ride of Valkyries played in the background, a favourite of Audrey’s. She held her fork with nails perfectly shaped. Chewed delicately and moved lips perfectly painted. Dabbed at those lips with a laundry-white napkin. Sat there clad in cat-walk material and design: baby-soft, catchy enough to interest, toned enough not to seem too eager.
When the surface serenity of Bach touched their world, there was no disdain in Audrey’s look at Liam. No wonderment at a fool with the table manners of a possum, as he fingered corn on the cob, greased his cutlery with messy hands, and pushed aside parsley with a thumb.
That type of derision was not in those temptation eyes that lifted from her plate. Not in those lips that smiled a tender, almost beatific smile, and said, “His name is Flint.”
As much stunned as Liam himself, the music stopped playing. Perhaps the classical selection had simply come to a natural end. That sweet smile, Audrey’s smile, directed at something between Liam’s nose and his forehead in that long stretch of silence, rendered him completely useless. He looked at Audrey and said nothing. Not “Why?” or “How?” or “When?”. Perhaps she would have understood if he had spoken, would have perfectly understood with that efficient air of hers that made everything seem so flawless.
But she forked a sliver of beef and ate it. Her little mouth toyed with flavour as she ate. She even nibbled and swallowed a second parsnip, began to pierce a capsicum but thought better of it.
He waited, fork and knife poised in space. Stared in silence at the woman who was everything to him, and more: his firework, the sparkler on the wick; his candle—the orange on the flame; his valentine—the velvet on the rose. Audrey was his stream, his river, his bloom. And now she, she . . .
He stayed silent.
She laid down her fork, dubbed delicately at soft lips and neatly folded the napkin back on the calm table. Sipped a baby nip of burgundy wine from her sparkling goblet, and left no stain of lipstick on its rim. She stood up, hedged the table and paused. Even lifted hair from her face with immaculate fingers, smoothed it out and pushed it back to unruffled waves. Only when she turned away from him did he grip the edge of the table as if to rise, as if to follow her with those questions: “How?” “Where?” “When?”
He actually began to rise but his knees gave. So he sat with a tomb in his heart. A dark, uninvited tomb that deepened its shadow and death, filled emptiness with more empty, blackened darkness with more black. When anxiety began to rise in him, then confusion, pain, and finally rage so steep, so deep, it was silent, he tasted a mouth gone stale.
Audrey moved away from the table. When the door shut quietly behind her, Liam watched the wood with bewilderment eager as pain, as though his wife were embossed on it.
Suddenly, he felt fear. Fear of loneliness real as touch. It clung. Beyond that moment, that night, that revelation, he had no clue what else. What to do? What to say? What to think? He hugged his fork and listened to the sound of her heels clip! clip! clip! towards the door, as they had done, even though she was no longer in the room with him. His name is Flint . . . Flint . . . Flint . . . The ghost clippety clip did nothing to soothe those words said so calmly, yard-long words from the weight of them, words that had slipped with ease from beautiful lips. Refusing to settle, they filled Liam’s air with resonance: Flint . . . Flint . . . Flint . . . She could well have said, “I am going to play tennis,” with the same voice and that unruffled autumn face.
He sat with his knife and fork feeling dry. And before he had time to grasp it, bank it, judge it, confront it, scorn the value of it, define it, comprehend it even—so deep was the astonishment, it rendered him quite helpless—she was gone. Gone before his heart became a weary stone. Gone before warm rain stroked his face and the skin on it became wet each time he touched it. Tears never actually escaped his eyelids nor could he taste the salt of them, so it could not possibly be tears.
But his face was wet.
Audrey took with her that wild flower smell associated with home. She took her tennis racket (prized terrestrial games), a rosy negligee, two suitcases, four yoga video tapes, a bunch of books, her classical collection, and Liam’s heart.
That night, he wiped clean the bottle of burgundy wine she had nipped with baby sips from her glass. Before long, he had summoned moroseness. Together, they pulled several cans from the fridge, sat on the floor, killed a pint of lager and then two. Beer raced down Liam’s throat fast. When it pressed down on his bladder, he sorted it. Then he took moroseness’ advice and reclined on a cushion on the floor, Audrey’s velvet cushion soft as a cat. There, he sank to acres of drinking solace. When eyelids finally closed, he succumbed to a maudlin sleep where he once more became a little boy with freckl
es large as pebbles. But that little boy snored like a swine and an amoeba of drool spread from one side of his lip down his chin.
The corn was still on the cob on a dirty plate three days later. So were parsley and sleek cucumber slices, thin enough for a royal garden party, interspersed with cold beef julienne. On the fourth morning of drinking himself to a stupefied sleep, he woke up with a blooming headache and bloodshot eyes. Waist-high cramps raced to his bowels, liquid runs like an invalid’s chickpeas. There was no Audrey by his side, just a macro awareness of her absence.
Soon as his headache ceased, soon as he trusted his stomach, he ran. Rock-a-tee. Rock-a-tee. Past an abandoned pond lined with trees. Green trees, yellow trees, red trees, brown trees, leafless trees . . . A morning shadow raced with him below pale blue sky interspersed with longitudes of silver grey clouds. A rising sun glided in and out of them.
Liam’s feet pounded footpaths, cobblestones that skipped like grey peanuts on a chocolate surface. Cyclists swerved around him, some shouting profanities, but his feet kept moving. Olive grass shone with dawn, miles, miles out. Rock-a-tee. Rock-a-tee. Rock-a-tee-tee-rock-a-tee.
He stopped running.
A warm sheet of sweat poured down his back and his temples. Leaning forward, he caught his breath back under the silvered sky, on nutty gravel alongside grass moist with dew. Hands on his knees, he studied mad goose pimples stealing off his skin. His sweat-shirt prickled from cling. Wet cotton shorts gripped his nuts.
He jogged back home to an apartment tight with absence. Strewn with dirty socks and plates, empty beer cans and scattered bottles of Claret, Shiraz, even cleanskins. Earth treasures Audrey overlooked when she left. He phoned the office to call in sick. A tight-arsed receptionist, broomstick up her butt, put him through—finally!—to Wolfe, squad boss at the dastardly insurance company.
Wolfe was accommodating enough. “You’re fired,” he said.
“She what?” spluttered Nero when Liam told him.
“Audrey’s gone.”
“Oh man. Man!”
Liam and Nero had come a long way. As far back as High Drill and Academy, best schools in the galaxy, where they dominated sprints, long-haired chicks with legs to their navels, and basketball. Liam went on to join the martial force and pretty soon became a ballistics expert, Mongul Division. He married Vivienne Frontczak, a hybrid of Plutian and terrestrial descent; a model, legs to her chest. Nero took an MBA, matriculated with platinum honours, and joined Merlix Insurance. He married Audrey Rivers, a movie actress with ivory-white skin and delicious eyes.
“You need a job,” Nero said. “And you need one fast. Two choices, matie. Moon over Audrey. Or consider a serious career in the martial force. Inside information—we’re recruiting.”
Serious career in the force, said maudlin Liam.
Nero ended up filling the application tablet himself. Same day he put it in for initial screening and processing, Liam took his abandoned Streetwagon, wrapped a seatbelt around him and hit the road. He ran a red on Napoleon Street and got booked for dangerous drink driving.
Nero bailed him out. Even drove him home.
“That’s one quick way to get martial attention,” he said to Liam. “Thirty-five kilometres per hour over the speed limit. Blood alcohol over 2.2. Way over. You’re not a ‘P’-Plater, Liam. Are you mad?”
Liam regarded him with riot eyes. “Go home now,” he slobbered. “I’m good, Nero.”
“Like hell, you’re good. Shane that Warne. I am not leaving you, matie,” he said.
“Honest. I’m right as rain. Go home.”
“Not a spotting chance.” Pulling his hand, Nero dragged Liam to the bathroom. “Look at the mirror. Go on. Look! Look at yourself.”
Liam lifted his head enough to brush a swift glance. Sunken cheeks, a grim pallor and drooping jaws cast a glance back at him. Liam did not know that man in the mirror.
“Go to the gym,” Nero said. “Anything. Pump serious iron if that’s what it takes. Mooning doesn’t bring her back. Sober up, matie. Audrey’s gone.”
He tucked Liam in bed, brought him kick-arse coffee from Star Frek or Star Wars, followed by a whopper burger and a chilled can of coca.
“God bless coca,” garbled Liam. “Lazarus in a can.” He began to sob. Thick, manly sobs, awful and loud.
Nero snapped. “Pull yourself together, dog. Grief! So you got a bad bounce. Swell. An ability to splash your boots does not distinguish you. Be male!”
He stormed out, leaving Liam with a hangover face streaked like a badly peeled orange. Next morning, Nero showed at Liam’s door. Refused to come in and stood by the step. Quietly, he stretched out a small tablet with a phone code on it.
Liam took it. “Thanks buddy,” he said. Pale cheeks and a lethargic smile.
“No worries.”
It took nine days. Nine whole days for Liam to summon enough interest to dial the number. Convinced that Nero had given him a hotline to a loony bin or some nut-cracking shrink, he fiddled listlessly with the tablet. When he finally dialled the code, it was no psychiatric hospital but a direct line to one Sugar Sweetman.
“I’m no 6-figure case,” she said after his introductory mutterings. “I take all genres. My fee is easy. I specialise in all conversions.”
Without reason or conviction, he accepted an appointment for which he promptly showed. Bunched blocks looked like little fists in Savile Row. Cab drivers idled and gossiped by the sidewalk. Given opportunity for something else, they watched Liam with lazy eyes.
He stepped out of the battered Streetwagon, rifled through his pockets for the address in a fit of panic, and found it:
Level 3, 517 Savile Row.
Hoochi Mama stood at 513, a bakery. Two doors away, Liam stepped through a doubtful, unnumbered doorway. It stood between alternate numbers, which made it likely to be 517. A ground-floor reception with wall-to-wall carpeting (threadbare) stood unmanned. Hedging bets on the address and still having no clue as to what his appointment was about, he took a dawdling lift to Level 3.
An attractive woman with cherry lips, cotton-white hair and black candy-eyes that went deep, deep, deep, answered the first door he knocked.
“Yes?” She smoothed her baby doll top.
No roots in that snow hair indicated altered colour: auburn, blonde, brunette or flame. White-as-white brows matching the white-as-white hair suggested natural colour. Honey skin, a bust firmed with youth, she was younger and far prettier than her voice. Fingers rubbing her chin, she cast a glance at Liam’s bowed shoulders. His eyes touched the ground, uncertainty in them.
“No change, darling,” she said. “Come along later. We’ll find something. Maybe food too. Those bones need meat.”
For his haggard, dishevelled look, he realised, she had mistaken him for a tramp. He opened his lips to speak, to ask directions to one Sugar Sweetman. But the woman had already turned towards the inner room and was waving him inside.
“You look crook,” she said. “Belushi, can of baked beans. Come in. I’ll feed you, all right. This once. Come.”
He followed.
“Ain’t no bargain store, chappy,” she tossed over her shoulder. “So I am not going to ask. But something’s going down for you to look that crook. Sit down.” She nodded at a visitor’s lounge. “We’ll fix us up good.”
“I’m not—” he began awkwardly.
“Huh?”
“Sugar. I’m looking for Sugar Sweetman. If you could—”
“Who are you?”
“My . . . my name . . . Liam!” The name jumped like a shot from his mouth. “Liam—”
“Keen?” She looked incredulous.
He brightened. “Sugar? Are you Sugar Sweetman?”
“No other, twenty miles round.”
“We spoke,” he said. “Yesterday. On the phone.”
She threw back her head and laughed. “You’re worse than Nero said. Golly. Worse.” Loud, rolling laughter spread free as a sneeze.
He felt like a new boy in
fourth grade, a dorky kid wearing a cowboy-style hat, a buckle stud belt and a burnout shirt, introducing himself to the class: “My name is Lemon. Lemon Baxter.” And everybody cracking up in splits in their seats, even the teacher working hard, so very hard, not to smile. And when they were done laughing, he still didn’t understand the hysterics but just felt silly.
When Sugar’s laugher subsided, she lifted a menu-like tablet from a chrome shelf unit. Wordlessly, she passed it over to him and left him to it in the visitor’s lounge. He looked at the list spread out before him, the graphics and explanations of each, and flushed. This was no navel watching guff. From the stud-belt school boy, he now felt like a male with a jar and a PornMag before gleaming mirrors back to back in the lavatory of a fertility clinic. The woman expected him to do something, and looking at those graphics, boy did she expect!
She returned dressed in a daffodil-yellow kimono of slinky silk. Lemon drops sprigged with crimson baby spade-leafs. They danced on the cloth. A topaz necklace swayed above honey-coloured breasts pushing out of a padded bra with underwire. A heady scent, clover and wild, wrapped around her.
Liam’s knees buckled.
Sugar pressed a small shot glass into his hand. “Malt Rum,” she said. Her hands were rough as a farmer’s, the nails on them clean and trimmed. But her touch on his fingers was like a spinal tap. It shook him all over.
“Drink,” she said. He hesitated. “You’ll need it.”
He took a gulp.
“You look comfortable,” he managed through a tight throat, quite wary of what was on offer.
“Comfortable?”
She threw her head back and laughed, that loud-as-a-sneeze laughter, perhaps louder. It spread, it tinkled. One couldn’t ignore it. He couldn’t.
“Comfortable,” she said again. “I’m comfy, darling. More than.” Candy eyes appraised him. “Now you need to be.”