INTERZONE 253 JUL-AUG 2014

by Andy Cox

  “Perhaps you could consider getting rid of that bloody thing?”

  It wasn’t the first time she’d mentioned it, and he’d promised to think about it…but he knew in his heart he couldn’t. The Nose made him who he was. It completed him in a way she could never understand. He made no reply.

  “Well, I know what I’m going to do.” She closed her computer and came around the table where she hovered for a moment, perhaps considering touching his cheek, even kissing his brow like she used to, but her face blanched. “It’s all in the email,” she said as she rushed from the room. Moments later Felix heard the delicate sounds of retching from the bathroom.

  Felix made coffee. Quadruple strength. The warm aroma from the cracked African beans filled the room, welcoming and lovely and surely stronger than any imaginary odour. He made two cups. Both went untouched.

  These were the sounds of her leaving: The busyness of bottles and jars in the bathroom, the firm shutting of the bedroom door followed so quickly by its re-opening that he knew she must already have been all but packed, the rumble of case castors, the whispered imprecations to the bloody dog, the beep of the taxi horn. The slam of the door.

  Felix counted one minute, then another, calling her bluff and waiting for the sound of her return, but the only thing he heard was his own voice and that only emphasised her absence.

  He stopped counting and walked the length of the empty apartment to his office. Bijoux was there, gleefully humping his laptop. The casing was gnawed and covered in saliva.

  “Bijoux!” The dog perked as soon as it saw him, tripping itself in its haste to scurry over. He lifted it up. It got a couple of licks in at his face before he stretched it to arms’ length. “So she abandoned you too?” The dog gave no reply, but seemed happy enough with the situation. It certainly smelled as if it had just farted with delight. “To be honest, I’m not surprised,” he told it. “You’re an obnoxious little bastard.” And, with rare physical dexterity, he calmly drop-kicked the ball of fur through the open window.

  Felix went through the flat with a refuse sack, shoving the flowers and air fresheners and bloody scented candles into bags, closing and locking the windows, drawing the curtains. Then, when he was ready to find out her reasons, he returned to his office and switched on his laptop: hot metal, burning plastic, wisps of toxic smoke.

  With a bellow of rage he reopened the window and tossed the computer after the dog.

  •••

  It took three days before he gave in. On the first day he went to the kitchen and made a wonderful-smelling meal out of all the things that Joanna didn’t like. Not so much out of defiance, or even because he was hungry, but because on that side of the apartment he could barely hear Bijoux’s howls. The dog was unharmed, just pissed off. The laptop had not fared so well. On the second day, both dog and wrecked device were gone. Felix threw himself into work, or at least tried to. Every phone call was met with excuses. They even seemed to object to talking to him, as if merely the sound of his voice conjured the imaginary smell. All of this could easily have been discussed by email, one customer said. It’d have been so much more convenient if only you would use Teleroma.

  That night he went to Joanna’s bedroom and donned the Nose to see what lingered: sickly perfume, unlaundered sheets, the musk of sex that hadn’t involved Felix. Then he looked at himself in her mirror.

  “Look at you,” he said. “You’re a master of your profession, and yet no one will have anything to do with you. You could still get by if you weren’t so afraid of the future.”

  “You’re right,” he replied to himself. “If the old world doesn’t want me, perhaps after all I can make a place for myself in the new one. How bad can it be, really?”

  He really had no option.

  On the third day Felix went to an electronics store and asked for their top-of-the-range computer. Pretending not to notice the fleeing customers, he cornered the clerk who had been slowest to escape. The girl rattled through the features in a blur of words. Felix cut her off: “Teleroma.”

  She nodded, swallowed. “Comes as standard on all new models, sir.”

  “I’ll take it.”

  Pink relief coloured her pallid cheeks. She told him how much it cost.

  Just because he was feeling spiteful at the world, he said: “I want a discount. Otherwise I’ll have to have a good look around.”

  •••

  Felix wrote that afternoon to those clients with whom he still had some tenuous relationship and informed them that he might after all in some circumstances be willing to work remotely using the Teleroma service. He intended to spend the subsequent hour learning how Teleroma worked but the help document bewildered him and the number of results to his Google search for something simpler was so bewildering that he only got as far as understanding two things. Firstly, that Teleroma was a mechanism for transmitting scent over the internet, which he’d already surmised. And secondly that it was hugely popular. People used it for everything: cookery videos, perfume advertisements, porn. He scowled at the little grill in the laptop casing, his finger poised to click play on a coffee ad, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it.

  Outside, the sound of people laughing passed and faded. The bark of a distant dog made him wonder where Bijoux was. His apartment was still and silent.

  Occasionally the phone rang, but after the third call from a newspaper wanting to talk to the incredible stinking man, he switched it off.

  Going through his emails, Felix discovered an invitation to join a dating site. He stared at it. Even he knew better than to click on unsolicited links. But this one was personally addressed, and very welcoming. He stared some more, and then he clicked on it. What was the worst that could happen? The site offered him a bunch of forms. It took some time to list all of his achievements before his application was ready to send off.

  He had a reply within the hour. Her name was Ania, and she was Polish. In the subsequent exchange of emails, she came across as cultured, understanding and not lacking in humour. When she asked if he would like to Skype, he cringed but in for a penny… Besides, he was still handsome, and he had no intention whatsoever of switching on the Teleroma, even if he was able to work out how.

  Ania had a strong face, a broad mouth with nice teeth when she smiled, which was often, and a sexy nose. Could a nose be sexy? Hers was. It had very wide nostrils. She was a partner in an accountancy firm. She worked late and was divorced. In what little free time she had she drank vodka and torrented HBO shows and chatted to men from dating sites. She winked when she said that.

  Felix didn’t know what torrenting was. He didn’t understand the wink either. But Ania proved a good person to chat to and he told her about his work (she was impressed) and his recent singledom (she was sympathetic). While they chatted his eye was drawn repeatedly to her nose. The gorgeous nostrils flared, as if inhaling deeply, and when she breathed out it was through her mouth. Heavily, a little shaky. There was a flush in her cheeks. He’d not seen her hands for some time.

  “Are you – touching, I mean are you—?” he blurted.

  Ania grinned sheepishly. “I’m so sorry. I couldn’t help myself.” Her hand came up into view. She licked her fingers. “You smell unbelievably good. I’ve never—” She suppressed a shudder. “Oh, God, never.”

  Felix’s heart tripped over itself in panic. “You can smell me? That thing is on?” He clicked wildly at icons on the chat window. Ania disappeared but he could still hear her.

  “Of course. Teleroma is on as standard, you have to opt out. But please. Please, don’t.”

  Don’t? She could smell him, and she wasn’t repulsed? He relaxed a fraction. “Well, why can’t I smell you?”

  “I’m sorry, I’m being selfish. I didn’t want my feedback to contaminate you. It took so long to track you down.” When she reached forward to click something on the computer balanced on her lap he noticed that her blouse wasn’t tucked into anything. The taint of soap mixed with the faint but
unmistakable odour of female arousal leaked from his computer. “Felix, I’ve got to see you tonight.”

  “But aren’t you in Poland?”

  With a smile, she shook her head. “Please.”

  He told her his address. She closed the connection.

  While Felix waited, he went over what she had said. She genuinely found his odour attractive? What was she, some sort of freak?

  Ania almost knocked him over when he opened the door. Then she was kissing him, licking his face, yanking off his robe, popping buttons from his pyjamas. He smelled the rain on her hair, the sweat from her run up the stairs, the edge of something else – alcohol?

  “The Nose,” she breathed. “Put on the Nose.”

  She followed him through to the office. “I smelled you in the drop off zone of Frederic Chopin Airport. I had to have you,” she told him as he unlocked the desk drawer and retrieved the box. “I’ve bribed people. Coerced them even. Eventually I got your email address. Thank you for replying.” She nodded at the golden gleam in his hand. “Put it on.” Felix did as he was told, and immediately his visitor shuddered.

  “I smell worse when I’m wearing it?”

  Ania licked her lips several times before finding the breath to reply. “Oh, God, a million times better.” With the Nose on, her arousal was overpowering, her sweat almost as erotic, and that other smell was stronger too. Not alcohol, but familiar. Something medicinal…

  She pushed him back against the desk, tore off what remained of his nightwear, and it was only when the damp cloth was clamped over his face that he finally recognised the smell.

  Of course, chloroform.

  •••

  The house was very nice. It was spacious and sparsely but tastefully decorated. Clean walls, stone floors, functional furniture, plain accessories. Sterile. It was not in Vienna. There were no mountains high enough for the air to be this pure in Vienna. Felix didn’t even think it was in Austria. The German the housekeeper spoke was different. He suspected Bavaria perhaps.

  He thought of himself as a prisoner. But he found he didn’t mind so much. He watched HBO and played Warcraft (his goblin avatar was called Stinky Bill) and read from a well selected library of books.

  And three times a day he got naked, put on the Nose and broadcast himself in Teleroma for an hour.

  Occasionally, Ania visited. They had exhausting sex and then lay in bed and talked. She told him, to his surprise, that he was not in fact a prisoner in the house. Rather, he owned the place, having paid for it outright in the first two weeks when they’d broadcast him sedated as “proof of concept” to their backers. It would be unfortunate if he was to leave, but he could do so if he wanted. He thought the distinction was a technicality, but stopped worrying about it when she showed him his bank balance.

  And so it went. To keep things interesting for the punters, they varied his diet: Spice Time!, Umami Hour! Apparently that made a difference to his odour. Sometimes, they gave him things to smell with the Nose – orchid blossoms, durian fruit, cow shit – because that made a difference too. Felix did as he was told. He chose early on not to watch them watching him – the myriad white faces in dark rooms, many with Teleroma masks squashed against them as they struggled to breath in everything he had to offer, the orgiastic groaning; it was all too much. Much better to content himself with the ever fluctuating, but overall steadily rising, visitor stats. To think of the money.

  One time he asked Ania: “Am I famous?”

  Her smile was broad. “In the greater world, no one has a clue who you are,” she said. “But to the people who matter, you are a god.”

  They fed him exquisitely but he knew he was losing weight. “Am I going to die?”

  Ania kissed his brow. “We all die,” she whispered. “Surely all that matters is that, by the time we do, we achieve the things are hearts wish for.”

  Felix stroked the Nose, heavy and solid and cold. He breathed in and smelled, faintly, an entirely new smell. It was warm and cool, and bright and mellow. It was rich, and it was oh so very sweet.

  •••••

  Neil Williamson’s last Interzone appearance was ‘The Posset Pot’ in issue 252. You can read more of his stories in his collection, The Ephemera. His debut novel, The Moon King, has been called “literary fantasy at its best” by The Guardian and “a sparkling debut novel” by none other than Interzone.

  JAMES WHITE AWARD WINNER

  The James White Award is a short story competition open to non-professional writers and is decided by an international panel of judges made up of professional authors and editors. Previous winners have gone on to either win other awards or get published regularly, which is exactly why the award was set up. The winning story receives a cash prize, a handsome trophy and publication in Interzone. Entries are received from all over the world, and a shortlist is drawn up for the judges. To learn more about the Award itself visit jameswhiteaward.com.

  This year’s judges were Sophia McDougall, Emma Newman and Adam Roberts. The winner of the £200 first prize was ‘Beside the Dammed River’ by D.J. Cockburn. The judges also awarded a special recommendation to Vina Jin-Mae Prasad for her story ‘Flesh and Bone’.

  The 2015 James White Award is now open. Entry is free.

  The James White Award was instituted to honour the memory of one of Ireland’s most successful science fiction authors, James White. To learn more about James White and his writing, visit www.sectorgeneral.com.

  BESIDE THE DAMMED RIVER

  D.J. COCKBURN

  Narong heard children running to the road before he heard the pickup truck. He sighed. When he’d been a child, there had been nothing unusual about cars in Ubon Ratchathani province. All the same, he was happy enough to set down the empty water barrow and stretch his back as the plume of dust approached.

  As the truck and its trailer got closer, he savoured the healthy roar from the engine. As rare as the unscraped white paint under the film of dust. He couldn’t remember when he last saw a truck that didn’t carry its age as he did, in wrinkled bodywork and incessant wheezing before starting up. He winced as a pothole thumped the tyres and rattled the suspension. The healthy sound wouldn’t last long if the driver kept hitting them like that.

  Perhaps Narong was still a child at heart because he squinted, trying to make out the manufacturer’s badge. The truck thumped another pothole. The engine screamed in mechanical agony, faded to a whine and fell silent. The truck coasted past him and stopped fifty metres away. He wondered what was under the tarpaulins covering the truck’s bed and its trailer.

  A farang woman got out on the passenger side. Her ginger hair was just long enough to shimmer as she moved. She wore a sleeveless shirt and knee-length shorts, revealing skin so white it defied the sun pounding this water-forsaken corner of Thailand.

  Narong’s interest stirred. Today would have more to mark it than dust and water barrows.

  The line of children by the roadside collapsed into a gaggle as they ran toward her, like a shoal of catfish outside a river temple when someone threw food into the water. Narong decided he was definitely still a child when he found himself following them as fast as his arthritic knees would carry him.

  The woman backed toward the truck, looking as though she expected the children to steal the clothes she stood in. Her bare shoulder touched the hot metal of the cab. She jerked forward with a yelp.

  “Stand back, younger brothers and sisters.” Narong caught his breath. He may have been a child at heart, but the pounding in his ears reminded him he didn’t have the heart of a child. “It is not good to get so close to our visitors that they cannot move without treading on you.”

  The children backed away without taking their eyes off the woman. One of them fell into the dry ditch beside the road but there was no laughter as he scrambled out. Even the funniest mishap was less interesting than an exotic stranger. Farang were such a rare sight that today’s children didn’t even know the jokes that kept Narong and his childhood fr
iends entertained for hours.

  The woman looked at her driver, a young man with his hair cut short at the back with a longer fringe. He’d probably never driven more than a hundred kilometres from Bangkok. The driver spread his hands, looking helpless. He reminded Narong of the junior official the government sent a couple of years ago, who gave a speech about how the government hadn’t forgotten the north east of its country and went back to Bangkok before it got dark. Even the government had shown more sense than to let such a boy drive himself.

  The driver stepped out of the cab and looked at Narong. His stare carried all the respect Narong expected a man wearing foreign-made shoes to show an old man wearing sandals made from an old tyre.

  Narong had met too many well-dressed boys from Bangkok to expect him to say anything worth listening to. He walked toward the farang woman. He wanted to hear her voice.

  She watched him coming without looking at him directly, showing her wariness.

  Narong pressed his hands together and bowed. “Sawadee kob.”

  She shuffled her feet and returned his wai with the clumsiness of someone unused to the action.

  “Sawadee kob,” she mumbled. No one had told her women said kha instead of kob.

  “My name is Narong,” he said. “Guess your gearbox dropped.”

  Relief washed over her face at being addressed in English.

  “Angela Ri—” She bit off what Narong assumed was her surname. “Angela.”

  She held out her hand, then remembered she had already done the local equivalent and withdrew it. “How do you know it’s the gearbox?”

  Narong felt a moment of disappointment. Her voice sounded as if she never used it to laugh.

  “Sure sounded like it,” he said.

  “The gearbox. That’s bad?”

  The question was addressed to the driver, who looked as though she had set him a problem in differential calculus.