by Tom Cheshire
You can’t do this to me!
Ring ring! The familiar sound of the kitchen bell chimed across the ship. Joe turned and marched dutifully over to the room where he had consumed so many countless depressingly bland meals in the past. Observing the intricate machinery as it prepared his underwhelmingly flavoured purple mush for the umpteenth time, Joe thought to himself, enough is enough. He picked up the bowl and held it close to his face, looming over the nutritionless filth. This food was not fit for a man like himself – he’d put up with it for so long, it was time to make a change. With a powerful crash, he brought the bowl crashing down to the floor – the food spilling beneath his feet, spoilt. There was no need for it any more - Joe was going to find his own way. He would start by making his long-awaited coffee.
This isn’t right… this… isn’t true. I ate some of the food, I must have... sure it tasted bad but I knew I wouldn’t be able to survive without it. X, you’re just exaggerating for dramatic effect!
Joe wandered to himself if the voice in his head was ever going to get a hint, but clearly that wasn’t going to be the case. It was time, perhaps, for some good old-fashioned disciplining.
Joe returned to the common room, finding the knife that had given him so much trouble in the past. This time, though, he would be the one in control. It was time to teach the voice in his head a few lessons about politeness.
Standing opposite the mirror in the bathroom, Joe raised the knife to the top of his head, and, without even hesitating-
Don’t…
- jammed the knife into the side of his skull.
Aaah! Stop! I don’t believe any of this!
With a swift and efficient sawing motion, he began twisting and turning the knife in a circular motion just below his faded hairline.
No! That isn’t what happened! That just doesn’t make any sense.
And as Joe cut, he noticed in great detail the feeling of tremendous pain as his cranium began to open up. His eyes witnessed the gory sight of the blood pouring out of his steadily widening wound. He heard the sickening squelches of his skin deforming with each successive blade movement. He could smell the ungodly stench of his exposed flesh, and taste the iron tang of his own blood dripping directly into his mouth.
And since when have I been able to trust my own senses in this place? This isn’t real… it’s just another hallucination… Just another hallucination…
Yet Joe continued to cut, sawing with a cold, brutal determination. He brought the knife all the way around his scalp, switching hands as he reached the end of his three hundred and sixty degree incision. With his face, hands, all of the walls, the mirror and the bathroom door coated in gooey redness, Joe dropped the knife into the sink, then reached for the flapping skin at the top of his head. He began to pull.
With a loud rip, the top portion of Joe’s head was gone just like that, as quickly and simply as Dom removing his wig for the first time; Joe blinked the blood out of his eyes and stared at the pulsating pink mass of his exposed brain.
This can’t be… real… This can’t be… I should be dead…
And despite the fact that Joe should quite obviously be dead by now, he was still standing on his own two feet by the bathroom sink, feeling very much alive and aware of his situation. The pain was more intense than anything he or anyone had ever experienced. But he continued to stand there, drinking it in, for this is what it would take to teach his mind a lesson. He wondered; would the voices in his head yield yet?
No, I… I’m not giving in. I can take this… I can… Come on! Bring it!
Since the answer to that question was most certainly and emphatically ‘no,’ Joe decided he would have to resort to even more brash methods of torture. Reaching into the open hemisphere in front of him, Joe stuck his fingers into the sticky, throbbing mass inside his head and pulled -
Aaaaahh!!!!
- and pulled, harder. With one loud crack, Joe’s brain was severed from his spinal column. Joe lifted the enormous, disgusting muscle up and away from the cranial crater it had lived every depraving day of its pointless existence. He cradled it in both of his hands, holding it right up to his face so that he could see...
This is not real. This is not real.
‘Do you see it now?’ He thought to himself. ‘This is what you are made of. This is all that you are. All those thoughts, buzzing around your head? All those feelings, all those relationships you thought meant something? Do you see what they are now? Just a mass of insignificant spongy tissue. There is no point to your existence, do you hear me? Nothing! Why bother with real memories at all? The only way to achieve real power is to accept the fallibility of your own perception, give up on your senses, and purge yourself of all independence. Do you understand what I am saying? You must sacrifice everything that you hold dear.’
I refuse to listen any more…
Joe placed his brain in the sink, taking a step back for a second to admire his new half-headless figure. He smiled and laughed. Returning to the rapidly deoxygenising cerebral mass, he raised his fist.
No…
Joe’s knuckles cracked. This was it. Time to deprive himself of all rational thought once and for all. No need to wait for the asteroid to do its job; Joe was going to finish it right this very second. Farewell, old friend. Joe brought his fist crashing down through his frontal lobe, smashing his brain into a thousand tiny pieces, scattering what remained of his senses across the floor.
Wait. What do you mean ‘wait for the asteroid to do its job?’
Joe was confused. Apparently he must have missed his brain after all, as that impact should surely have severed his ability to continue to have meaningful independent thoughts.
No, I’m sorry. You’ve failed, X. I didn’t just cut out my brain. I’m standing right here, looking at myself in the mirror right now and the top of my head’s still intact, so I don’t know what you’re talking about.
Yet Joe was still holding the knife in one hand. He wasn’t done just yet. He raised the knife above his head and-
Started playing the five-finger knife game again. Lots of fun, isn’t it, X? Two can play at this game…
But as soon as Joe finished one round of the knife game, he suddenly found his hand slip so that the knife went straight through-
A bar of soap. With the taps running, I found myself washing my hands, rubbing the freshly sliced soap and enjoying the warm sensation of the water as I splashed it across my face.
Then Joe decided to get back to more pressing matters, picking up the knife and stabbing it into his chest.
No I didn’t. I picked up the knife, carried it back to the kitchen and decided to do some washing up. Yes, that’s exactly what I did…
Alright, I’m going to call for time-out here. This clearly isn’t working.
Excellent. Good time for a chapter break then.
21
I was back on the sofa, or at least, that’s what I thought, yet I wasn’t alone. There was someone sitting next to me, a presence that was both familiar and completely foreign at the same time. As I tried to turn my head to see who this person could be, I could only feel my body fighting back. My eyes would close or dart away and my neck would go stiff, rebounding back to its original position. I was unable to look at my neighbour in the face and could only catch a glimpse from the corner of my eye. Hints at pieces of clothing, of posture, of weight, but nothing facially. I couldn’t tell whether this mystery figure was male, or female. My hands and feet were locked down; I couldn’t even be sure I had hands or feet, or any physical presence whatsoever. I felt completely lost and yet at the same time, at home due to the familiar presence of the sofa. Around me, blackness, but with more stars than I could ever recall seeing during my previous space-walking escapade. One of them was growing larger and larger, merging with the others around it. Greater it grew, becoming a massive white light of overbearing intensity, expanding larger and faster and moving towards me with no means of escape, nowhere to go…
“Déjà vu?” echoed the mysterious voice of my neighbour.
“Excuse me?” I asked, paralysed, still unable to face him / her / it directly. The huge white light had disappeared for the time being…
“You must remember by now,” the mystery neighbour replied.
“I…” I paused. “The dream. This was the dream I had, wasn’t it?” I was slowly becoming more aware of my surroundings, namely the familiar piece of furniture my disembodied form had ensconced upon. “I dreamt I was on this sofa again… Except that dream had ended by now, hadn’t it?” I tried blinking hard and pinching myself as hard as possible hoping to awaken, yet I still couldn’t feel any stimulus from my own body.
“Welcome to sofa space,” said the neighbour.
“What? Where’s that?” I asked.
“Oh, now there’s a question…” the neighbour replied, snarkily. “I suppose you could think of it as the last bastion between the two planes of existence.”
“I don’t understand.” I said.
“There’s no need to,” said the neighbour. “Why not take advantage of the fact that your sub-conscious mind decided to recall an object of such plush composition? Just relax. Kick your feet up. Enjoy the view.”
Leg-rests had materialised from underneath me, but I couldn’t determine whether I had any limbs with which to rest.
As I looked around, I could identify more objects floating amongst the sea of darkness. There were more sofas. Many more sofas. And while I couldn’t make out any facial features, there were definitely human figures sitting on them, people of all shapes and sizes. They looked relaxed, contented, peaceful.
“Okay, now I definitely don’t understand.” I said.
“Well, you know what they say. Ignorance is bliss.”
A wooden sign floated past, bearing the words ‘Get your own personal sofa here – sit back, relax, and stay as long as you want, no cost involved.’
“This is crazy,” I said, dumbstruck. There were other objects floating past now… Space fridges ‘for all your zero-gravity zero-degrees celsius storage needs.’ Meanwhile, a permanently static-ridden space television bore the inscription ‘sorry, we don’t get a very good reception out here.’ There was even a space vacuum cleaner, which seemed to be labelled, rather self-defeatingly, as a ‘vacuum vacuum cleaner’ because ‘someone’s got to keep this vacuum clean.’ I desperately tried to pinch myself again. I wanted to wake up. This was too weird.
“Relax…” my mystery neighbour said, noticing my restlessness. A space kettle flew up close and I could hear someone pouring water from it. How exactly that should have been possible in space, even in the context of a dreamscape, I had no idea, but I wasn’t going to bother asking. I lay back, or, at least, tried to, as much as I could with my numb, barely registering body.
“It’s really comfortable, isn’t it?” The mystery neighbour added. “I love the way the sofa reclines all the way as you lie back. It’s beautiful, don’t you think?” I didn’t reply.
“You know, couch is actually the correct word, not sofa. The Yanks have it right for once,” the neighbour said. “The Brits will argue all they want, but the noun that originated to describe a piece of furniture of these specifications – that originated from the French word couche. So couch it is. Though to be honest, couch space doesn’t really have much of a ring to it.” The mystery neighbour took a sip.
“What are you drinking?” I asked.
“Oh, just a nice cup of tea.”
“Oh…”
“You sound surprised? Surprised that I’d lampoon British naming conventions yet indulge in the country’s most famous beverage? I take it you’re not a tea fan.”
“Apparently not…” I said, slowly. “There’s another drink I’ve been craving for a while.”
“Ah. You’re a coffee person, aren’t you?”
“I guess I must be…” I muttered. “How do you know that?”
“Well, I was... once…” my neighbour replied, sounding oddly sad.
“You stopped?” I asked. There was no response. I sat and watched for a while as the congregation of sofas gradually span about. After a long time, my neighbour finally spoke again.
“Something changed…” I still couldn’t see this person or even tell which gender they were, but the one thing I was sure about was the regret in their voice.
“What do you mean?”
“When I drank the coffee, bad things started happening…” My neighbour’s words were crushing. I was starting to panic.
“Who are you?” I asked.
“That is a good question. Why don’t you find out?”
“What?”
“Look at me.”
“I can’t.” I tried to wriggle as much as I could, but I just couldn’t turn my body to face my neighbour.
“Yes, you can.”
“I’m trying…”
“You’ve always been able to. You’ve just never allowed yourself to.”
“No…”
“Look at me.”
I turned. There he was… the same jaw, the same eyes, the same hairline.
“Is Joe really the best name you could come up with?” he asked. I had no comeback remark. What could I possibly say to myself?
“I’m sorry,” the man said. “This hasn’t exactly been a very easy ride, has it?”
“Tell me about it…” I added. “I drove a man to suicide and let my friends abandon me.”
“A few thousand years ago I destroyed any and all hope of my friends returning to their families,” the man replied.
“I’d say that makes us a good match for each other,” I joked.
“Like one and the same…” called a familiar grumpy voice. It was Dom, floating past on another sofa. “You guys are both monsters, there’s no pride in any of that.”
“Of course there isn’t,” I answered.
“It wasn’t our fault,” added the other me.
“Wasn’t your fault?!” Dom shouted, mockingly. “Please. The only way it could be more your fault is if you drew up a massive sign saying ‘I’m a twat’ and stuck it to your forehead.”
“What does that even mean, Dom?” It was Chloe, lying down with her feet dangling in the air on yet another sofa. “Even in Joe’s weird psychotic limbo dream your insults don’t make any sense.”
“Well, I’m terribly sorry about that, Chloe.” Dom said with a huge amount of sarcasm. “So sorry that this is what the crazy person’s memory of us amounted to.”
“Maybe you should have tried to be a nicer person yourself, eh?” Chloe laughed.
“Good idea, maybe I’ll try and be nicer to him. Oh wait, we just left in an escape pod bound for Earth, never to return. Ooh, too bad,” Dom mocked.
“You say bound for Earth like you know that we’re heading there for sure…” it was Emma.
“Well excuse me for trying to inject a tiny little bit of optimism into the equation. If we had the signcode that kept getting mentioned in those transcripts…”
“Guys…” I interrupted the imaginary representations of my friends. “I’m sorry. I’m really, truly sorry for everything.”
“Don’t be.” Emma said, comfortingly. “It’s like he said, Joe. It’s not your fault.”
“Oh, don’t you start, ” Dom rubbed his forehead.
“But he is completely off his rockers, though,” Chloe added. “Thinks he’s writing a book.”
“What does that mean?” I asked, just as one final sofa slid into view.
“When I was younger, you used to read me bedtime stories,” Travis said. “Used to really get into them… animatedly. Practically lived them.”
“Life can be dull,” the other me said. “There are certain ways to pass the time.”
“But when you started to lose your mind, that’s when your imagination really started to run wild,” Travis began.
“You started coming up with all of these crazy ideas!” This was another voice. I looked around – floating in front of me now – wa
s Beardy. Beardy was talking.
“There was no stopping you,” Beardy said. “No stopping your rapid-fire mind, thinking you’d come up with the greatest story ever told.”
“Nothing else mattered… You threw away all our possessions,” Chloe said, despondently.
“And threatened anyone who would try to stop you,” Emma added.
“But that wasn’t me…” I cried.
“Then of course…” This voice was really muffled. “The freezing process was when all the interesting stuff really happened.” Wiggy had decided to join the discussion.
“It slowed down the psychosis to begin with, but it did something else to you right from the start,” Travis chipped in.
“All that book-loving imagination from your previous life… must’ve got siphoned off to some deeper nether-region of your consciousness,” Beardy said.
“In a sense, that part of your brain became a book,” Travis added.
“One that you are continually writing to, subconsciously, even right this very second, maybe even unaware you are doing it,” Wiggy replied.
“Damn… why’d you have to choose a book, you boring old-fashioned luddite,” Dom rolled his eyes.
“Sorry?” I didn’t know what to say.
“You could have made it a movie, or a video game or something. That would’ve been way more awesome,” Dom elaborated.
“I don’t agree,” Wiggy said. “Joe’s storytelling structure is perfectly suited for the medium.”
“The hell, Wiggy? You’re supposed to be an extension of my thoughts, not his… No, wait. We’re all extensions of his thoughts aren’t we. God damn it,” Dom growled.