The Janus Cycle

by Tej Turner

  I shook my head. “Rebelling isn’t being free,” I realised. “Purposefully going against the grain is still letting them affect you.”

  “But it’s the only thing I have left—”

  I looked at the sign she’d made on the wall with lipstick. Was this really the only future we had left?

  “I have to go,” I said, walking away. “I’m sorry but this just isn’t for me.”

  The distraught expression on her face was one I had to turn my back on because it pained me. Halann had, also, always been the emotional one.

  I wandered through the town aimlessly, looking for any signs of chaos. But everything had been structured into roads and buildings and cars and pathways. You couldn’t just walk in the direction you wanted to go anymore; you had to skirt your way around the lines and sectors society had created. Even the countryside was sectioned off into fields, farmlands, forests and fences. It was then that I realised that even Janus must have been organised for it to exist in the first place. It had never been pure chaos, it was just a piece of chaos we trapped in a box, but still, it was our chaos, and one day it imploded.

  My phone was ringing. I picked it out of my pocket and looked at the screen. I had thirty-six missed calls. All from him.

  I flipped it open and held it to my ear.

  “Are you there?” His voice brought butterflies to my stomach.

  “Hi,” I mumbled.

  “Where are you?” He sounded worried.

  “Fuck knows,” I replied. I scanned my surroundings for some landmarks but they were all blurred and distorted.

  “Why did you rip the bed sheets? Are you leaving me?”

  How could I explain? How could I put it into words for somebody like him?

  “Things are too organised. I went to Janus, but they’ve stolen it—”

  “That weird club you used to go to? How can someone steal a club?”

  “You don’t understand.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “No. Society keeps organising things and it’s really pissing me off.”

  “Okay… so it’s not something I’ve done then?”

  “It’s you as well. It’s your house.”

  “You don’t like my house? You always liked it before. You have your own room. I helped you decorate it.”

  “Everything there… everything you do… is so… organised. It’s the dishwasher… you put plates in and press a—”

  “You want me to get rid of the dishwasher?”

  “It’s not the dishwasher!”

  “You just said it was.”

  “No. Look, forget the dishwasher. The dishwasher is just a metaphor. I’ve had a really fucked up night. Some weirdo offered me these two pills, and I couldn’t decide so I—”

  “You’ve been taking pills again? You know how I feel about them.”

  “They aren’t normal pills. They’re—”

  My knees suddenly buckled and I fell to the ground.

  I woke to the feeling of soft sheets against my body and bright sunlight from the window blinding my eyes. I covered my face with my hands as my eyes adjusted and I noticed that my arm had been bandaged up.

  I could feel his eyes on me. He was sitting by the side of the bed. Had he been watching me sleep all this time?

  He looked at me nervously, as if he was afraid to say anything.

  “How did you find me?” I asked, sitting up with my back against the headboard.

  “Your mobile. I had to break a few rules at work but I managed to locate you.”

  I shook my head. So now they could locate us by our mobile phones? What was next?

  He passed me a glass of water and I drank it all in one go.

  “I got rid of the dishwasher,” he said. “So you don’t have to worry about it anymore.”

  He still didn’t get it, but he’d found me, brought me home, bandaged my arm, and watched me. No one had ever done so much for me before and it made me nervous.

  Home. This was my home.

  “I’m sorry,” I said between trembling lips as surges of guilt wracked my mind.

  He rose from his seat and made his way to the window to look outside. Then he turned back and his eyes were drawn to my bandaged arm.

  “I think you need counselling,” he said, turning back to the window. “I know a great one, he—”

  “Oh yeah. I bet he would love to organise me,” I said. “Tick some boxes. Then place me in a box. Give me some lovely tablets, and then ask me to pay for them. I’m okay, thanks.”

  “You’re not well.”

  “I’m fine.” I met his eyes as he turned back to me. Couldn’t he see in my eyes that I was still me? Still sane? A bit peculiar, maybe, but that would never change.

  “And I won’t do that again,” I said, indicating my arm. “I promise. That was just an experiment—”

  “You did that as an experiment?” he asked, raising another puzzled eyebrow.

  “Look, I know a lot of the things I do and say are weird sometimes. But you have to trust me. I’m fine.”

  “Are you leaving me?”

  “No—” I sighed. “But things have to change.”

  He sat down and wrapped his arms around me. I placed my head against his shoulder and remembered what was so good about us. I always want to see deeper into things; I float so high to get a view I sometimes get my head stuck in the clouds. And society has buried him so deep into the ground that he’s lost his vision. We need each other: I’m the vision and he’s my anchor.

  “Oh… and get the dishwasher back,” I muttered into his ear. “It’s useful.”

  4

  Red Rivers

  Our lips parted for a moment. Just long enough for him to pull away, place his hands on my neck, and look into my face.

  “Where you from?” he asked, while I tried to remember how I ended up here. It was all a blur, a distorted sequence of events. The last memory I had was of dancing in the darkness with flashing lights around me, feeling the wet, sweaty skin of other people brushing against me as we bumped into each other in a drunken Friday night haze.

  I became aware of a pair of blue eyes staring at me between the shoulders of people. He was handsome. I checked behind me to make sure he wasn’t looking at anyone else but there was no one. He was really looking at me.

  I edged myself away from the guy who was grinding against me at the time. Eventually his hands left my hips and I danced my way through the crowd. As I got closer to him a perfect set of white teeth flashed a smile at me. We danced for a while. Face to face. He pulled me in closer and our lips met.

  The next thing I knew I was here. Sitting on his lap by a table in a dingy corner of the club.

  “That far away?” he asked. “Wow. What’s your name?”

  “Elaine,” I replied, as I flicked a grey cloud of dust from the end of my fag into the ashtray. When I turned back around I caught his eyes engrossed on my breasts.

  “Nigel,” he introduced himself.

  A brief silence as we smiled at each other. I reached into my handbag, drew out my tin, and began to roll another cigarette.

  “You’re on pills, aren’t you,” he said, knowingly.

  I blushed. “How’d you know?”

  “I probably have about ten years on you,” he said. “You think I can’t tell? How old are you, anyway?”

  I knew my game was up when I paused to think, but he was smiling mischievously and, for some reason, I found myself trusting him so I leaned over and whispered into his ear.

  “Seventeen.”

  He grinned and shook his head in mock disapproval.

  “Tell me, Elaine,” he said, his expression suddenly turning serious. “What are you doing seventy miles away from home, on pills, at seventeen?”

  That did get me thinking.

  He had a point – but what could I say to him? That ‘home’ to me is a dank, threadbare hovel where my mum splays herself on the couch, drinking herself to death and shouting abuse at me because I look too mu
ch like my sister, who died four years ago. Or should I tell him that I am out with two friends of mine who I got into a weird three-way sex affair with a while ago – until they decided they wanted to cut out the third party, cast me aside, and we are now trying the ‘friends’ thing. I took an E so that I could face this night with a smile.

  No – I didn’t want to tell him any of that. So instead I pushed the bad feelings away, giggled, leaned forward and kissed him. This diversion seemed to successfully distract him, and his lips felt nice.

  Then I pulled away and lit up my fag.

  “Want one?” I asked as I took a drag.

  “No,” he shook his head. “I don’t smoke.”

  I sat myself on his lap and he placed a warm hand on the flat of my stomach.

  “So,” he said, looking back up at my face. “Tell me about yourself. What do you do?”

  “College,” I replied.

  “Doing what?” he said, as his hand began to slowly move down lower.

  “Art,” I mumbled, pausing for a moment to remember. “Philosophy, and history.”

  “Intelligent then...” he commented.

  “Ha ha,” I giggled. “Not really.”

  His eyes suddenly cleared. “I am serious. There is something about you...”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.

  “None of these other people,” he said, casting his head around the eclectic range of people in the room. “Drew my attention. But you did. You have something which they don’t.”

  I could have melted in his eyes, as he turned back to me, but his words made me feel uncomfortable. I don’t like compliments. They embarrass me.

  “I need the loo,” I said, as I got up from his lap. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

  I walked through the busy dance floor and a few dark corridors filled with people, towards the nearest bathroom. This club was some kind of hangout for clichés of teenagers dressed in black. There were a few hippy types and other eccentrics scattered around, but wannabe-goths seemed to have the run of the place. The only person who really stood out was a young man who was dressed plainly, in jeans and a grey hoodie that covered most of his face. He was just standing by a doorway – an observer watching the events around him without any inclination to involve himself, almost as if he was waiting for something.

  “Do you know a girl called Frelia?” he asked me.

  I shook my head and swiftly walked away.

  I reached the bathroom and, after I had finished doing my business, I got out of the cubicle to wash my hands. There was a girl with strawberry-blonde hair at the sink; she was wearing a tight blue dress that attracted my wandering eyes to the curves of her body. I then swiftly realised that she could see me in the mirror and turned my gaze back to the sink.

  “I know you,” she said. “You’re Elaine.”

  “Yes...” I replied. The fact she knew my name made me feel defensive; it made me wonder what she had heard about me. “Sorry, but I don’t know who you are.”

  “Oh, me?” she shrugged. “I’m Fran… sorry... just, I’ve heard of you.”

  “Oh, and what did you hear?” I asked, forcing myself to smile.

  “Nothing really,” she said, as she moved to the hand dryer. “I just know people who know you, that’s all.”

  The sound of the hand dryer saved me from a few moments of more awkward conversation as I finished washing my hands. When I turned around again she was gone.

  There were too many amphetamines pumping through my veins for me to have the patience to hold my hands under the dryer so I just rubbed my dripping hands on my jeans. I gazed into the mirror in front of me for a moment and sighed as I saw only the same familiar features. The E was giving me a temporary glow of happiness but the only thing it had changed was making my eyelids swell and my pupils huge. I shook my head. Once a boy called David used to tell me I was beautiful, but I am not. I am not even plain. Plain can be good; it is like a blank canvas you can make of what you want.

  But I am not plain. My face is crudely sculpted. My cheekbones are high and swollen and I always have dark shadows beneath my eyes.

  I suddenly remembered myself and realised that this was not the time for such thoughts – I was in a club for goodness sake! I practiced a smile in front of the mirror but it faltered. I hate my smile.

  I noticed a movement out of the corner of my eye and looked in the mirror to see Charlene walking into the bathroom.

  “Are you okay?” she asked. She looked a bit concerned. “I’ve been looking for you.”

  “Did you see a girl when you came in?” I asked.

  She turned around. “What girl?”

  “Ginger hair,” I said. “Bit taller than me.”

  “Don’t think so,” she shook her head. “Why, what’s wrong?”

  “She was just weird,” I shrugged. “That’s all.”

  Charlene was the girl I came here with. Our friendship has become tenuous recently because we got into a three-way relationship with a guy called Greg, which lasted a few weeks. She and Greg cut me out.

  She stood herself at the mirror and began to coat her lips with red lipstick. “We were a bit worried. You disappeared with some guy....”

  I looked at her reflection. She is pretty. I don’t blame Greg for choosing her over me. I should have known that the three of us sleeping together wouldn’t last. I don’t think Charlene is even bisexual, I think she just did it because Greg was into it.

  “He’s called Nigel,” I replied. “Don’t worry, he’s nice.”

  She gave me a warm smile that was missing the layer of ice that had grown between us recently. I knew why: now that I had a guy interested in me I posed less of a threat to her having Greg to herself.

  “Can I bring him back tonight?” I asked.

  “I’ll check with Greg, but I don’t see why not,” Charlene shrugged as she placed the lipstick back in her handbag.

  When I was walking back into the main bar there was a girl in a blue dress talking to Nigel. It was too dark for me to know for sure but she looked a bit like that weird girl I met in the toilets. I quickened my pace towards the table but missed her by a few moments and she walked away, soon disappearing into the dancing crowd.

  He smiled at me and placed an arm around my shoulder.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  I opened my mouth to ask him what that girl wanted with him when I suddenly felt really hot. Heat rose in my chest – it felt like my insides burning up, melting, yet the air around my skin went incredibly cold.

  “Elaine!” he yelled, grabbing me by the shoulders and shaking me. I tried to hold my head up, but the waves of intense sensations coursing through my body were too much and my neck rolled back.

  “Sorry...” I mumbled. “It’s just hot... and I...”

  “Wait there,” he said, rushing over to the bar. “I’ll get you some water. I’ll be right back!”

  I placed my back against the wall and tried to catch my breath. I could feel the thudding of my heartbeat hammering against my chest and my shirt was coated in sweat. Eventually a hand guided a cold glass of water to my lips and I gulped it down. It tasted like heaven.

  “Feeling better now?” he asked, when I opened my eyes. I sat myself back up, feeling alert and awake again.

  I nodded. “Thanks... sorry about that.”

  He shook his head and placed a hand on my shoulder. “It’s okay. Just make sure you drink water. Ecstasy dehydrates you.”

  I rested my head against his shoulder. I had only known this guy for a short amount of time but I already felt so comfortable around him, and just then he had shown me that he cared. He was gorgeous as well. God knows what he saw in me.

  “Why did you do this?” he asked as his fingers lingered on the pattern of white lines on my wrist. With time the lacerations had faded from their fleshy pink to a faint white, but they were still visible. I usually wear something with sleeves to cover them up but it was too hot in this place.

&nb
sp; “They’re my Puberty Marks,” I replied.

  “Puberty Marks?” he repeated, quizzically.

  “Yes: they are like birthmarks, but people tend to get these ones during puberty,” I said. I had never really done anything of real value in my life but I was proud of the fact that I had given up that habit. “It’s rude to ask a girl about her Puberty Marks, you know.”

  “I can see a lot of pain in you,” he said, clasping my hand between his own. “And I want to help. I can’t explain it, Elaine, but I feel really drawn to you... I’m sorry if I am being a bit heavy. I’ve only just met you but I want you to be my girlfriend.”

  He turned away, like he had said too much.

  “It’s okay,” I said. “I feel the same.”

  Greg and Charlene joined our table and the rest of the night was a blur of drinks, listening to music, chatting, and resting back in Nigel’s arms. Later on, though, there was some kind of fight on the other side of the club and the atmosphere soured. We didn’t stay long enough to find out what had happened and decided to make a hasty exit. We caught a taxi back to Greg’s place and he and Charlene soon went to bed, leaving Nigel and me in the living room.

  We rested on the couch for a while in silence and I closed my eyes, feeling the pills wearing off. I was coming down.

  Eventually I opened them again and realised that Nigel was playing with his phone. It looked like he was texting someone.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  He quickly put his phone away and smiled at me. “Oh, nothing. You look tired. Do you want to go to bed?”

  I nodded my head, yawning. “Hold on a moment.”

  I got up and made my way up the stairs towards the bathroom. I felt clammy and sweaty from the night out so I stripped off and hopped into the shower, quickly cleaning myself. I didn’t want to leave my new boyfriend waiting for too long but I didn’t want to get into bed with him all sweaty and smelly.

  I dried myself off, went to the sink, and brushed away the stale taste of a night out of my mouth with a line of toothpaste.

  Just as I was rinsing my mouth out I heard the doorbell go.

  Who could that be? I wondered. Greg and Charlene were both asleep and I certainly couldn’t remember them inviting anyone else over.