by Steve Haynes
I reluctantly follow an animated John and almost apoplectic with excitement Brian to the other side of the room. There is a vast glass cabinet, and behind it a tall gunmetal case, its doors shut. Next to this is a small coded lock. John produces a key from inside his shirt with much dramatic flourish. It’s very small, and attached to a piece of string around his neck.
‘There are two possible answers to your question, Brian. The first is that those abductees who get sent back are the lucky few. In other words, they, for whatever reason, are let go, while the rest are dissected or stuck inside the equivalent of rat cages. And the second, which could be just as true if not simultaneously true, is that those who are sent back have been dissected. Just in a way that they could never guess.’
He turns back and winks at me. ‘Too distracted by the memory of anal probes.’
John pushes the key into a tiny lock at the side of the cabinet. The glass door makes a nasty grinding sound as it’s slid back on runners. As he keys the code into the lock fixed to the gunmetal case he winks at Brian, who is now hopping from foot to foot as if he needs to pee. John pulls open the doors to reveal a dark interior lined with shelves. We peer in. Brian immediately stops hopping, and I can see why. There’s not much in there. Despite myself, even I’m a bit disappointed.
‘What’s that?’
‘It’s a specimen pot.’
‘What’s in it?’
John brings it very carefully out of the massive case. It looks like a tall jam jar with a plastic screw-top lid. There’s a small label running around its base. I imagine something like Strawberries; Back Garden; Jan ‘10.
‘Nothing,’ Brian says, sounding dejected rather than cheated. ‘It’s empty.’
John shakes his head, grins his tombstone teeth. ‘Not empty. Come closer, Brian. Look properly.’
Brian does as he’s told, eager to be proved wrong. He peers in at the empty jar, eyes screwed. They blink, big and distorted through the glass, finding me on the other side of it.
‘Right well, so the only non-replica thing you have in this entire museum – apart from the bloody photos – is a jam jar filled with what?’ I pretend to think, and then click my fingers. ‘Alien air from inside an alien spaceship? No, I know: an alien’s breath. Alien words!’
I’ve never seen such crap in my life. I’m aware that I’m spoiling things for Brian. I’m also aware that we’ve stumbled into a place that isn’t for kids, hence the green felt-tipped arrow. Maybe this is for the evening sessions, just like the bar upstairs. Or for keeping the madman in the basement. I really don’t want to get into shit (even though I think I definitely am now), because I really need the extra-curricular points that mentored reading gets me. John is beginning to look pissed off with me. But, I’m sorry, this is just ridiculous. Even Brian isn’t buying it, and he wants to.
‘Can you see anything, Brian?’ John asks. ‘Anything at all?’
‘No.’ Brian sounds morose. He starts fiddling with the jar’s lid.
‘Don’t open it!’ John bellows, practically snatching the jar out of Brian’s hands before recovering himself. He takes a deep breath; slides his palms down those horrible brown trousers.
‘Good grief,’ I mutter.
‘Look properly, Brian. Look closer, deeper. What can you see?’
‘I can see something! I can see something!’
‘No, you can’t, Bri.’ I’m no psychologist, but it doesn’t take a genius to work out what’s going on here.
‘I can see colours – it’s like a rainbow, a smoky rainbow!’
Despite myself, I look back at the jar. Nada.
‘Deeper, Brian, what’s behind the colours?’
Brian’s breath hitches, recovers, hitches again, longer this time – long enough for me to worry whether he’s suddenly forgotten how to breathe. He pushes the jam jar back towards John. His breath comes back in a fast rush. ‘It’s dark, I don’t like it.’ He shudders from head to toe, like a big spider’s just run across his face. ‘I don’t like it.’
John carefully places the jam jar back inside the gunmetal case. He looks pleased and concerned all at the same time – though significantly more pleased than concerned. ‘Yes, that’s not one of the better ones, sorry, Brian. We routinely alternate which one we have on display, and you got unlucky.’
‘How many empty jam jars do you have in your collection then?’
John cocks a mild eyebrow in my direction. ‘None. But we have one hundred and fifty two specimens.’
‘What are they?’ Most of Brian’s enthusiasm is back, but his face is still grey and I can see a few beads of clammy sweat on his forehead.
John beams. He takes his time closing the case and then the glass cabinet, dropping the key back inside his shirt before fixing us both with an earnestly sincere gaze. ‘Souls.’
‘Cooool.’
‘Oh please.’
‘Souls of people who have been sent back. Not their own souls obviously.’
‘Obviously.’
He’s ignoring me completely now, and addressing only Brian. ‘Other people’s.’
‘Aliens give the people who go back other people’s souls?’ Brian frowns, confused. ‘What, as presents?’
John shrugs. ‘Maybe, who knows? But I doubt it. More likely as an experiment.’ He sighs, purses his lips. ‘I’ve been studying the idea of the soul ever since we were given our first specimen – this was a few years back. A young Italian guy called Alfredo was abducted from his bedroom and gone for two months. When he came back, he had someone else’s soul.’
‘In a jam jar?’ I scowl.
‘In his hands,’ John scowls back. ‘And when he brought it to us, it was in a Tupperware.’
I try not to laugh, but I don’t try very hard.
‘He believed that the aliens had taken his soul and given him someone else’s to hold.’
‘How did he know?’
John smiles at Brian. ‘He saw it happen. Most people who come back remember little if anything of their experiences – and what they don’t remember their mind invents. I doubt any abductor needs to memory wipe or implant false ones, because the subconscious will wipe itself clean of any and all horrors, and then make up its own shortfall with little grey men, flashing lights, tractor beams and rectal probes.’ He winks at me. ‘And who believes that old crap? If you’re interested, Brian, there are some fantastic books of personal accounts in the shop.’
Brian dismisses this last suggestion out of habit. ‘Why did he give it to you?’
John shrugs. ‘He didn’t want it.’
‘Why not?’
‘It wasn’t his.’
Brian starts gingerly poking at his own chest. He leans conspiratorially towards John. ‘Where does it live?’
‘The soul is located behind the nose just beneath the eyes.’
‘God!’ I’m bored rigid now. ‘There is no such thing as a soul – same way there’s no such thing as a bloody alien! This is stupid.’
John turns to look at me, and there’s something in his eyes that suddenly makes me acutely aware of just how isolated we are here. No one knows where we’ve gone.
‘What is the soul? Esoterically, it’s always associated with life, and life with breath. The Latin spiritus, to mean breath; Greek psyche, to breathe or blow; the Sanskrit word prana, which is taken to mean the universal life force, literally means breath. If you’re dead, you don’t breathe. Spirit – respiratory, get it? It’s got bugger all to do with that at all.’
John is staring off into space now. Glancing at a still engrossed Brian, I decide it’s easier just to wait this freak ride out.
‘The Chinese qi has it, I think. Energy flow. In Islamic Sufism, there is a low, base soul and a higher soul, and humans spend their lives tempering that primitive soul, trying to achieve higher knowledge through the teachings of th
e Qur’an. But they too, buy into the energy idea. What happens to the soul at death? What did Sir Isaac Newton say?’
He’s looking at me. It’s probably quicker just to answer. ‘Energy doesn’t disappear, it only changes form.’
He grins those tombstone teeth. Seems I’m forgiven. ‘Exactly! Energy is transferred but never lost. Same theory applies to ghosts. Ghosts and souls. Like a magnet, right? A magnetic field can only be seen by its physical effects on other things. Otherwise it’s invisible; is seen to be doing nothing at all, not even existing. Do you understand?’
I think about shaking my head, but I can’t be bothered – it might invite an even longer-winded, more dizzying explanation of life, the universe and every bonkers theory in between. Brian, who I’d be willing to bet understood nothing after the behind the nose and beneath the eyes bit, is nodding furiously.
‘Radiation and microwave field theory, EMF, all of that. Auras, rays, vibrations. Even dark energy: the negative energy of empty space. All of it! The soul! And when the human body dies, the base Devil soul is cast off to be recycled and reused, while the Ruh ascends.’ He winks at me, very pleased with himself. ‘21 grams.’
I think about asking him if he’s ever weighed his collection of jam jars, but again, I can’t be arsed. What started out as a diversion and a good deed is now growing very old very fast.
‘So, to answer your long ago question, Brian, I don’t think that abductors need to dissect the physical much anymore. But the soul! That’s much more of a challenge. And you know, a lot of my specimens are like the one you touched, Brian. Dark, bad, not very nice. I think the abductors are dissecting the human soul. Separating good bits from bad. Getting rid of the bad souls entirely. Seeing what happens when the soul is separated from the host. Seeing what happens when that soul is sent back with someone else – someone whose own soul is no longer in residence. See? It’s fascinating.’
I think he’s barking mad.
‘God of the Gaps.’
My head is hurting again. ‘What?’
‘God is confined to the gaps in scientific knowledge and discovery. The abductors want to crush him completely. Want him gone.’
‘Right well, this is fascinating stuff.’ I grab hold of a reluctant Brian. ‘But we have to get going now. The bus’ll be waiting.’
John looks suddenly crestfallen. ‘Okay, sorry, I’ve gone on a bit, haven’t I? I tend to do that. Look, wait five minutes, I’ve got one last thing to show you – just one.’ He grins at Brian. ‘It’s another replica, but it’s a doozy. Wait ‘till you see.’
I take one look at Brian and know I can’t refuse. We start walking towards the back of the room, and when John turns back to me, he’s got his earnest face back on.
‘You know, the incidences of soul-stealing or soulectomies, as I like to call them, are very well documented. I know you think I’m barking mad, but they are.’ He shrugs. I hate that shrug.
We come to a door. Hilariously, it is accompanied by a very Star Trek panel of buttons, and when John presses one, the door slides inside the wall with an even more hilarious whoosh.
‘Cool!’
Inside is all white. After the dimmer fluorescents of the museum, it takes a while to adjust. The room’s dimensions are relatively small, and the walls look soft, like in a padded cell. I momentarily wonder whether we’ve stumbled into the local loony bin, can’t think why. There are no windows, and no other door that I can see, only low, white shelves and weird contraptions that look like familiar things and then don’t. At the room’s centre is a high, white bed. It looks like one of those toning tables you get in posh gyms.
John spreads his arms wide ahead of his masterpiece. ‘It’s a replica interior of an experimental lab on board a UFO. Obviously, it’s not quite to spec. It’s an approximation of dozens of accounts, though all remarkably similar.’ He pats the bed’s head end, where a pair of white, torsion-controlled manacles is dangling. ‘Want a go, Brian?’
‘Yeah!’
Up he scrambles, wriggling about, prodding this and that, eyes a-goggle before stretching out, slipping his hands inside the manacles, and mock-sobbing, ‘Don’t take my soul!’, while John indulgently chuckles and winks at me like we’re Brian’s mum and dad.
‘Right, come on now, you’ve had your fun.’ I’m not sure which of them I’m talking to, but Brian’s wrists are beginning to look pretty constricted the way he’s bouncing around.
To his credit, John immediately unfastens Brian and helps him down. ‘You want a go?’
‘No, I bloody don’t.’
‘Aw c’mon, Daisy,’ Brian wheedles.
‘Miss Daisy,’ I say. God, I can’t believe he made me say it.
John even takes my refusal in good humour. That shrug comes again. ‘Alright then, time to go.’
We start walking back to the door.
‘Do you want to write in the guest book?’
‘No!’
‘But everyone writes in the guest book,’ John frowns. ‘Just your name. You don’t need to write your full address if you don’t want to.’ He winks. ‘‘Case I’m a mad stalker.’ He rolls his eyes at Brian in what I’m guessing is his impression of a mad stalker. ‘And a few comments about what you liked and didn’t like et cetera.’
‘Who has a guest book for a bloody museum?’ But it’s already been thrust under my nose, and for the sake of peace, I do it. So does Brian, but his enthusiastic comments scribbling has me almost pulling my hair out in frustration. ‘Come on, Brian!’
John gives me one last, long and hopeful look. ‘Are you sure you don’t want a go?’
‘C’mon, Miss Daisy, do it! It’s fun!’
I can’t bear refusing any longer. Not because I care much anymore about making Brian happy, but because it seems like the path of least resistance, and I’m so worried about being in the shit now it’s not funny. ‘Fine, let’s get this over with.’
I stomp back to the bed, realising that my stomps make no echo. Maybe that’s to do with the loony bin walls.
‘D’you need a hand?’
I shake John off. His hands are cold and a bit clammy. I quickly realise that I do probably need a hand though, as the bed is ridiculously high. Halfway through an undignified clamber, I feel hands pushing at my arse. The boost gets me onto the bed, and when I turn back to have a go at John, I realise that it was Brian instead. Maybe he’s been taking tips from Jeff.
The bed feels weird – not in a bad way, in fact, in quite a good way. It’s soft enough to make me feel like I’m sinking, but when I look down I’ve barely made a dent in its surface. It’s incredibly comfy. Maybe John should get out of the basement museum game and design beds for a living instead. I also feel impossibly high, as if I’m twenty feet off the ground when I know that I’m only about three. I feel like the princess and the pea. Minus the pea, obviously.
‘Try the manacles, Miss Daisy!’
God. I dutifully slip my wrists through the plastic loops. Immediately they pull tight, startling me into a yelp. It doesn’t hurt though; doesn’t even pinch. Much.
John and Brian are looking at me like gleeful children.
‘D’you like it, d’you like it?’ Brian yips. ‘It’s amazing, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, very cool. Can I get off now?’
John’s still grinning, but it’s a bit calculating now – a bit too over-excitedly expectant. My older brother used to look at me like that, right before something landed on my head, or the other one jumped out of a cupboard at me, wearing a sheet. Oh yes, I definitely have another one of those inklings, just like in the lift and in the corridor after it. Something is about to happen. Another ALIEN ATTACK!! special. And I’ve volunteered to manacle myself to a replica alien bed, instead of bloody leaving while I had the chance.
‘Want to see something even cooler, Brian?’
‘Let me off, J
ohn. Get me out of these things!’ I hear another of those Star Trek whooshes, and then two white bands of what look like plastic poke up from the end of the bed and curl around my ankles. This time Brian doesn’t laugh – I think even for him, this is a step too far. Which scares me even more than suddenly finding myself shackled and spread-eagled in a fake experimental UFO lab, in a hidden away basement museum, in a fake alien ‘adventure experience’, in an old warehouse under the Station Bridge. I suddenly feel very, very claustrophobic.
John comes up alongside me. He grins his tombstone teeth. I absurdly notice that his eyes are strange. One is bright blue, the other almost black, its pupil dilated. Like David Bowie. ‘Not as bad as you expected, is it?’
‘No, it’s – it’s alright. Can you let me up now though, John? Please.’
He slowly, regretfully, shakes his head side to side. ‘Sorry, no, Miss Daisy. Soon, but not yet.’
He disappears from my side, and I crane my neck around to see where’s he’s gone. The manacles wind deeper into my wrists as I do it. Brian is looking at me: wide, white eyes in a whiter face. John is humming to himself, moving up and down the white shelving, looking for something. I think of all those horrible contraptions and consider screaming. For a moment, I actually think I have, until I realise that it came from far away. Maybe the lift again. Any one of a dozen corridors. I close my mouth. The back of my throat is stinging and my eyes are starting to blur.
‘John, what are you doing? What are you doing?’ My voice sounds like someone else’s; I don’t recognise it at all.
He comes back. In one hand is a white coil of tubing; in the other, a jam jar. He really is barking mad. He’s trying to copy the aliens. He thinks he can steal my soul. God, this is awful. And then I think of those eyes, those tombstone teeth. The ghastly brown trousers, the lab coat. His self-deprecating smile. ‘Just trying to look the part.’ I remember something else – something I said this time – about hiding in plain sight. And then I stop thinking altogether.