The Living

by Anna Starobinets

  And then I’m going to set myself on fire. Then they’ll all see how a wonder-sunshine burns!

  And here’s another thing. If you exist, then, please, visit Cracker at least every now and again. He’s very lonely there in his chamber. He’s completely stopped moving. They say he fell into a coma and can’t see or hear anything anymore. But I’m sure he’ll be able to tell that you are sitting there with him.

  That I am sitting there with him.

  The Man with No Face

  cerberus: you distract him and i’ll grab him from behind

  ef: let’s try it the nice way first

  cerberus: pointless. but you give it a go if you fancy

  Very slowly, trying not to make any sudden movements, Ef moves up to the broken window and carefully raises his hand in greeting.

  cerberus: watch don’t frighten him

  ‘Happy Birthday, Matthew!’ Ef says.

  Matthew shudders and gingerly crawls off inside the shop window, crunching on shards of glass. The blood has already clotted on his hands and face – he probably cut himself when he broke the glass.

  They had found Matthew in district R 800, on the third floor of the Megalopolis shopping centre. It is one of those hideous abandoned malls which are listed in the ‘to be demolished’ column in the local office of Plan for a More Beautiful World, but still never get demolished because they’re located in uninhabited districts and no one gets round to it. When it comes down to it, Megalopolis is not spoiling anyone’s view, because no one, except crazy Matthew, comes out to R 800. At one time activists from the movement ‘Memorial’ wanted to turn shopping centres like this into museums of antiquity and run tours to them as part of the ‘Let’s Go for a Walk in First Layer’ initiative and show people what commerce looked like before socio. However, they didn’t manage to get even a single tour group together, so the project was shut down.

  …Matthew had taken a shine to one of the women’s clothes shops. Actually there had not been any clothes there for a long time, but naked mannequins pranced elegantly in the window. When Cerberus and Ef came across him, Matthew had adorned the brown plastic girls with swathes of costume jewellery evidently plundered from the neighbouring boutique. When he saw the planetmen he got nervous and tried to hide behind the mannequins, then started building something like a barricade, throwing the women’s bodies into a heap, but after a minute he had already calmed down and seemed to have entirely forgotten that anyone else was there.

  Now, as Ef gets closer, Matthew looks more perplexed than frightened.

  ‘Happy Birthday,’ Ef repeats. ‘We’ve come to congratulate you, Matthew.’

  ‘It’s my birthday?’ A dreamy expression appears on the old man’s face. ‘Have you brought me a present?’

  cerberus: looks like he’s almost conscious

  ef: yeah he’s responding well

  ‘Oh, of course we have a present for you, Matthew. You turned sixty today. It’s an important day.’

  ‘Sixty…’ Matthew repeats and then winks, first with one eye, then with the other. ‘Sixty. Sixty. Sixty. We strongly recommend.’

  ‘There you go. You even remember that you got a message… We’ve come to give you something very valuable. A new life.’

  ‘Men with mirrored faces,’ Matthew starts mumbling, ‘men without faces, men without voices… tremble for he is coming… thine twine swine…’ Suddenly, with unexpected deftness, he dashes off to one side towards a jagged hole in the window and quite nimbly jumps out of the shop into the atrium of the shopping centre.

  cerberus: going to have to flatten him after all

  ‘…Ye shall all be cast down! For you shall be cast out!’ Matthew breaks into an uneven old man’s trot and his bare feet leave brown bobbles of blood on the dusty floor. ‘For the Saviour died for our sins! His name is Zero! Zero! Died!’

  They catch up with him in three bounds, throw him face down on the floor and inject a tranquilliser into his neck. Matthew clicks out almost immediately. Cerberus pulls the handcuffs out of his inside pocket and then immediately chucks them down on the floor next to Matthew in irritation.

  cerberus: damn my contact glove has ripped

  He gawps at his hand. A hole has opened up in his right glove. Cerberus nods towards the handcuffs.

  cerberus: ef go on you do it. i can’t with bare skin

  ef: i don’t have any gloves myself. oh ok alright then

  Ef leans over Matthew, fusses about with the handcuffs and clicks them onto the old man’s wrists. Matthew’s hands are hot. Which is unpleasant. It somehow doesn’t tally with his immobility and the fringe of black under his nails.

  ‘It’s not working!’ Cerberus jabs at the lift button. ‘We’re going to have to drag him ourselves.’

  They haul the limp body down the stairs. The old man is sticky with sweat and he gives off an overpowering, fermented smell of gone-off perfume.

  cerberus: he’s a heavy old sod

  ef: why’s he put on all this perfume?

  cerberus: he didn’t put on the perfume he drank it

  ef: perfume?!

  cerberus: yep… hey, what happened at the end of festival passions last night? did that virgin put out for everyone?

  They load Matthew into the truck; he quietly belches up a flowery stench.

  ef: dunno i was watching murderer

  my adverts: This world… My world in first layer… So beautiful, so full of variety, so full of life. Nature feeds it with fresh air and sunlight. Architects fill it with extraordinary buildings, landscape designers carve out breathtaking gardens…

  ef: turn off adverts

  INVALID REQUEST

  YOU CANNOT ‘TURN OFF ADVERTS’

  my adverts: Architects fill it with extraordinary buildings, landscape designers carve out breathtaking gardens, space designers take care to make the layout of the streets alluring and enchanting, artists strive to produce interesting colour patterns. And it’s all for me…

  ef: ban ‘my adverts’

  you cannot ‘ban my adverts’

  it looks like you are trying to do something slightly incorrect

  my adverts: …It’s all for me. Because I have always known how to value the beauty of the world and I never forget about the importance of first layer. I choose ‘Let’s Go for a Walk in First Layer’. I leave my house at least twice a week. I love my world. We love our world. We are the Living.

  Musical interlude:

  I’m going on another walk today,

  Down Harmony I’ll start to wend my way,

  I’ll stride along Consensus Boulevard,

  And I’ll forget that life was ever hard,

  Then I’ll take a left down Living Street,

  It feels so good to move my own two feet,

  I know there’ll be adventure in the air

  On Golden

  ‘…Golden, Golden, Go-o-o-lden Mean Square!’ Cerberus sings along cheerily.

  my adverts: Recommended by thousander Aelita!

  The best walking route in area R 514 of region EA

  8: Harmony Avenue – Consensus Boulevard – Living Street – Golden Mean Square.

  Let’s go for a walk in first layer!

  ‘I’m sick of these adverts. I get bombarded morning, noon and night,’ Ef grumbles, looking out the window of the van at the street.

  They are, as it happens, going across the utterly deserted Golden Mean Square, carving channels in the golden sand. The concretion of a fist rises up in the middle of the square. It’s like he is in the ring waiting for a rival the right size for him.

  cerberus: ah shut it it’s a good song and the route’s really nice

  cerberus: right we’re here let’s get him out

  cerberus: ef!

  ‘Ef!’ Cerberus’s chatterbox glugs excitedly.

  ef: sorry i must have drifted off for a second

  Ef has left a message for Cleo: ‘let’s go for a walk in first layer?’

  CAUTION! user Cleo is busy right
now, you might be disturbing them

  The Festival for Assisting Nature greets them from afar with sonorous salvoes of fireworks and as soon as they drive onto the premises a song comes on in second layer, ‘Listen to my pulse!’, the latest musical hit from Festival Passions.

  They unload Matthew; Cerberus sings along out of tune. He loves the festival and the sense of celebration. Matthew shakes his head, as if he is trying to force the loud noises out of it, and groans weakly. He has already come to, but he’s groggy, like a fly in summer, and he barely resists as they unload him.

  listen to my pulse baby

  listen to your pulse baby

  In the foyer of the Pause Zone the song comes across worse than outside, in snatches, and it sounds muffled. Matthew calms down. He even smiles when he sees a clown holding a bunch of balloons.

  ‘It’s my birthday,’ Matthew tells the clown. ‘Is that a present?’ He nods at the balloons.

  The clown leaps up and spins round on one leg, tweaks his own squeaky red nose, nods happily and holds out the balloons. Matthew tries to take the string in his hand; the handcuffs clink quietly. He freezes, staring at the clown in surprise, as if he is trying to tell by the sound what is stopping him accepting the present.

  mo-o-ove to the rhythm

  of our pulse

  The clown winks a painted eye at the planetmen.

  ‘Compulsory,’ Ef whispers with his mirrored lips. Cerberus nods irritatedly. The clown hunches over and pulls his head down into his shoulders, miming horror. Behind this exaggerated, jokey fear, there is, it seems, real fear hiding in the corner of his multi-coloured eyes. He had not spotted the compulsory. He had not noticed the handcuffs. A good professional should always notice things like that.

  Meanwhile Matthew is starting to get seriously nervous. It would seem that he has finally remembered how he got here and why. He is about to dart off towards the exit, but Cerberus and Ef take him by the arms and grip from both sides.

  mo-o-ove to the rhythm

  ‘Hounds of hell!’ Matthew screeches. ‘Men with mirror faces! Men without faces…!’

  The pre-pausers, clustering excitedly around Souvenir Photos and Everything’s Going to Be Alright, start to look around. Quickly scratching the mirrored masks of the planetmen with his gaze and clarifying something for himself, the clown screws his painted face into a grimace of pain. He starts to weep loudly and squirts out two little fountains of artificial tears. Matthew breaks off in the middle of his sentence and looks pityingly at the clown. He stops crying, flashes his white teeth in a smile, gives his hooter nose another squeeze, hands the balloons to Ef and takes a sweet out of his pocket. He takes off the rustling wrapper. Matthew holds his breath as he watches him.

  ‘Let’s have a little vitamin!’ the clown announces solemnly. Matthew obediently opens his mouth wide and the clown puts an opalescent black sweet on his tongue. Then he bows and, as if showing Matthew what to do, marches cheerfully off to the far end of the foyer, towards the entrance to the Zone. Once there he waves to Matthew.

  listen to my pulse listen to my pulse

  ‘Don’t go in there, multi-coloured man,’ Matthew whispers, looking at the clown in fascination. ‘Don’t go in there, your paint will get washed off in there…’

  I know one thing

  there’ll be a Darling

  listen to my pulse listen to my pulse listen to my

  pulse listen to my pulse listen to my pulse

  There’s something strange going on with the sound – it suddenly comes blaring on at full power. An invisible orchestra strikes up with a subtle electronic tremble, the anonymous singer pushes her screechy mantra from her throat in multiple spasms. Cerberus snarls and nods along obediently, Ef rummages through ‘services’ on the festival settings, hoping to switch off the soundtrack (an error has occurred: you are probably trying to do something slightly incorrect), Matthew writhes about, going limp in their hands. The prepausers who have crowded together in the foyer look around – some resentfully, some happily – and automatically drum out the rhythm with their feet. The ones that were talking out loud break into shouts, trying hard to yell over the noise of the deep layers.

  my pulse listen to my pulse listen to my…

  At last the music is turned off. The conversations die down. Only a young-looking pre-pauser, who has got all dressed up especially for the occasion, done up head to toe in ‘feeling lucky’ glad rags, is blaring away to the whole Pause Zone like a deaf-mute and flashing his greasy little eyes.

  ‘…I never needed any accompaniment, it always worked like clockwork for me, I tell you I’ve sired a fair few Darlings here in my time…!’

  The person he is talking to makes ‘scary’ eyes, the young-looking pre-pauser looks around and shuts up embarrassed. Total silence reigns – both in second layer and in first, as if something thick and sticky has been poured into his ears from inside and out. Matthew concentrates on sucking his sweet, he’s not shouting and jerking about anymore, and Cerberus and Ef sit him down on the colourful sofa. The old man immerses himself in studying the design.

  user clown wants to become your friend on socio

  add him as a friend? yes no

  Ef turns round. The clown is standing at the opposite end of the foyer in the company of another four men with faces painted like him and is waving both hands at him joyously. The rest are studying him with strange, playful smiles; one, in a jester’s hat with little bells on it, is giggling. Only now does Ef realise that he is still holding the clown’s present. A planetman in a mirror mask with balloons… That’s a laugh.

  Like in ancient times. No one could laugh at the king’s guards except the king’s jesters.

  cerberus: don’t pay any attention to those freaks

  ef: ok

  The jesters keep the Living jolly, so He doesn’t get bored. They cheer Him up in all sorts of ways – even laughing at His own power.

  reminder: user clown wants to become your friend in socio

  add him to friends?

  yes no

  The clown’s face is twisted in a grimace of disappointment. Two fountains of artificial tears soak the foyer.

  user clown really wants to become your friend on socio you and clown have 1 mutual friend on socio: cleo add clown as a friend?

  yes_no

  hooray! you and clown are now friends

  Silence bursts in his ears like popping bubbles. The music turns on again in second layer – quiet and subtle, without words. Info-fest is launched in third layer. For those poor creatures that can’t hold third layer, the message is repeated in first layer through a loudspeaker. It turns on with a crackle and a cough, as if someone had cracked open a nut with their teeth and then choked on it.

  ‘Dear guests and friends of guests! The festival administration is pleased to welcome you to the Pause Zone. There are thirty minutes remaining until the next Pause. We would like to draw your attention to the refreshments on offer: coffee, tea, hot and cold drinks and snacks. If you are in need of entertainment, one of our festival clowns is sure to lift your spirits with their fun tricks. If you are feeling sad or experiencing any distress, please ask one of the clowns about tranqvitamins…’

  clown: ef thanks for friending me

  ‘…Dear guests! We would like to remind you that our pavilion offers a Souvenir Photos service. Your festival snaps from today will be transferred to your cell in the Renaissance Global Databank along with any other keepsakes; you can pick them up when you turn eight and have access to your cell.’

  ef: no worries

  clown: i’ve always dreamed of being friends with a planetman

  ‘…Dear guests! We would like to remind you that our pavilion offers an Everything’s Going to Be Alright service. If you have any unfinished business – if you have forgotten to tell someone something or to give them something, or if you have not had time to take your pet to the local Available Shelter, or if you would like to write something right now for your bank depo
sit cell, or anything else – don’t worry. Our managers will accept your requests, take into account your wishes and tie up all your loose ends. Everything’s going to be alright!’

  ‘I want to pass on a message,’ Matthew says.

  clown: listen sorry i screwed up there with your compulsory. i didn’t realise at first what was going on… are you going to make a complaint about me?

  ef: not if you do me a favour

  clown: no probs what do you need?

  ‘I’ve got a message. I have to pass on a message. My message.’ Matthew rocks from side to side.

  ‘Dear guests! We would like to remind you that the same hygiene code applies in the Pause Zone as in the Reproduction Zone. Before the Pause guests are obliged to take a disinfecting shower. The shower booths are exactly the same as those in the Reproduction Zone, so we hope that there will be no difficulties.’

  ef: i want to see cleo

  clown: she’s right here on chat! she’s ‘busy’

  ef: not on chat. in person. in first layer

  clown: what have i got to do with it?

  ef: you work together, at the festival. she’s a manager. you must know where she is

  clown: yeah, i know

  ef: show me

  clown: but… have you agreed to meet? she really is busy right now

  ef: are you going to do me a favour or what?!

  clown: hey don’t stress out. do you want a little tranqvit?

  ‘…A set of towels and a bathrobe will be provided for you as you enter the showers, which are situated immediately inside the entrance to the Pause Zone. We would like to express our heartfelt gratitude for the assistance you are giving to nature. There is no death!’

  ef: i’m filing a complaint

  clown: hang on. The seventh everything’s going to