“This next activity is designed to show you that inexistence is not at all to be feared, reviled, or doused in any kind of superstition. Everyone return to your seats and set up in a circle once more, please.”
By the time The Old Man had gotten himself back on his feet, the circle was already made and The Girl had his seat saved beside her. He moaned a little, but then again, that might just have been indigestion.
“I’ll call on one participant to sit in the centre.”
Scores of hands burst into the air but The Therapist ignored them all.
“You,” she said, pointing at The Old Man.
“Oh, for Pete’s sake. I just sat down, can you not pick someone else? Let me at least catch my breath.”
“We can do this where you are.”
“Of course you can.”
The Therapist placed a small cap over The Old Man’s head. There were wires protruding on all sides that ran off to a computer, and the device that made it work was a small clicker which was held in The Therapist’s right hand.
“Existence, like purpose, is merely a delusion. You exist it is true. But the ‘you’ that is unique and aware, it does not. It is a by-product of consciousness. And therefore, in this exercise, we aim to show you that inexistence, or the act of dying, is nothing to be feared. That it, in fact, is nothing. Now sir,” she said, handing The Old Man a fairy tale, “if you would care to start reading out the text.”
The Old Man looked at her worryingly.
“It’s fine,” she said. “Trust me.”
“You better be right,” he said.
The Old Man Started to read the story.
“Once upon a time, there was a rainbow and a unicorn.”
Click.
“And both of them lived in a…….”
It took a second or two, but The Old Man’s words sounded softer and softer until he was out like a light – though his eyes were wide open. His head too, stayed where it was and his muscles remained intact. He still held onto the storybook in his hands, and his lungs continued to breathe unabated. His body behaved as if nothing at all were wrong.
“By sending a light stimulus to a particular part of the brain, we can turn off consciousness. Here, right now, though his body has not died, this gentleman has ceased to exist.”
The Therapist released the button. The Old Man wet his lips and cleared his throat. He looked like he’d just woken, or had a seizure.
“What happened?”
“You were reading,” said The Therapist, pointing to his last words. “Continue, please.”
The Old Man stared at the coloured pages.
“…a castle that was up on a hill.”
Click.
“And in that castle there was…”
“And again we can see that consciousness and the state of being – ‘I think therefore I am’ – it is not at all as wondrous as we picture it to be. It is not divine or mysterious. It is a mechanism. It is science. Inexistence is the opposite to that state of being. The state where he is now is no different to your deep sleep each night, and for any of you who have been anaesthetized, it is the very same state. And this state is entirely no different to death. Tell me, does he look scared?”
“No,” they all said.
“Does he look in pain?”
“No,” they said again.
“Then let’s ask him.”
She let go of the button again, and again The Old Man awoke, even though his eyes were already open and his body was already as if he were busy doing things.
“How do you feel?”
The Old Man looked at her oddly.
“Like I did a minute ago.”
“You don’t feel confused?”
“A little, but I get the feeling that these activities are a crock of…”
“Your consciousness was turned off.”
The Old Man was right to look worried.
“What do you mean turned off?”
He was already removing the head garment.
“Do you remember anything?”
“No, no I do not. What did you do to me?”
“Are you worried about what happened to your consciousness, or what happened to your body while you were gone?”
“Don’t be smart. What the hell did you do?”
“A signal was sent to your claustrum, a thin sheet of neurones at the centre of your brain. It was nothing serious; you have not been damaged in any way. It merely interfered with how the hemispheres in your brain communicate. You did, on the other hand, cease to consciously exist for a minute or two.”
“A minute?”
“Did it hurt?”
Everyone in the room was on the edge of their seats.
“Did what hurt?”
“Inexistence.”
“Nothing happened. I don’t know what you did, but I don’t remember a thing.”
“Do you hurt now?”
“No, I don’t hurt.”
“Did you see anything?”
“What?”
“When you were unconscious. Did you see anything?”
“I don’t know. No, I guess. No. No, I didn’t see anything.”
“Did you go anywhere?”
“No, I didn’t bloody go anywhere. I was right bloody here.”
“When you ceased to exist, were you aware?”
“Of what? This is the first I’m hearing of it.”
“Were you scared?”
“Of what? Nothing happened. You’re all bananas.”
“Are you scared now?”
“No, are you?”
It was not the response she was expecting.
“Of course not,” she said.
“You should be,” said The Old Man, though it went unnoticed.
“Ok, wonderful. Now, here in this room, we witnessed a man die. The part of death that we fear, the part – not of our bodies decaying, but of our thoughts and ourselves ceasing to be – we saw is nothing to be feared. It happens to us every night in our sleep. We die and we wake from our death every single day. We do not fear inexistence when lay on our pillows, just as now, we do not fear inexistence having seen it first-hand. Each of you will have a turn in the cap. We’ll go counter-clockwise.”
As the group continued the exercise, watching each person read aloud and then vanished into nowhere; The Girl leant into The Old Man’s ear.
“I can get you to the eleventh floor,” she whispered.
The Old Man didn’t even blink.
“I’ll do fine by myself,” he said.
The activities in the centre of the circle continued. Guest after guest dived at their chance to wear the cap and experience nothingness. By the fourth or fifth, it was clear that there had been a shift in the paradigm. Where before there was apprehension and nervous onlooking, now there was deafening laughter and thunderous applause. They were like children having licked on the ends of a sugary spoon. Their fear was a thing of the past, yes, but now they seemed crazed and on the verge of hysteria, desperate and needy to experience death once more.
The Old Man stared at the guest who now sat in the chair. She was as inanimate as the chair itself. Though her blood still looked warm, and her skin had lost none of its colour, she didn’t seem as if she were real. Her chest rose and sunk like a real person, yes; and her body didn’t look artificial – she didn’t look as if she were held together with cables and wires. Still, though, there was something missing, and it was apparent in her eyes.
“No. I have to show you,” said The Girl, unable to let it rest. “You won’t get anywhere ‘round here on your own.”
“I’ll figure it out.”
As he spoke, the woman in the centre of the room woke from her stupor. The instant The Therapist let go of the control, the woman’s eyes came to life once more. She was a little dazed at first, hardly believing that anything had happened, but once she saw her colleagues cheering, smiling, and clapping aloud, she knew she had done something spectacular – though it was something sh
e would never recall. She blushed and though she couldn’t remember a thing, the looks of joy and ovation on everyone’s faces was proof enough that she had died, and that it did not hurt, and that she did not suffer; that, and that now, there was nothing at all to fear. And this, most of all, was cause for celebration.
“You need me,” said The Girl.
The Old Man didn’t like needing anyone or anything.
“I’ll just do what those last fools did.”
“It’s not that easy. Those people had it coming. Most of us do. You're new, though, they’ll give you time. If you try it, they’ll see through you. You don’t just pull the last straw, not when you have so many.”
“Right.”
It was never a good feeling, being shown up by a kid.
“Trust me,” she said.
“So be it. You tell me one thing then.”
“Anything.”
“What were you doing at that bar?”
“Sorry?”
Again her face dropped. It was as if she had the answer to all of life’s problems written on the round of her belly. Every question always led her to the same response. Though her words might have sufficed a credible lie, her actions did not.
“I don’t know about this,” said The Old Man. “Look at the state of you.”
“Please. I help you, you help me.”
“What do you want?”
Again, her attention dropped to her belly.
“I want to get out of here.”
The Old Man ignored the activity. He turned to The Girl and looked her long and hard in her eyes. It was the kind of stare that could crack a nut, or chip the paint off a man’s bravado.
“You sure?” he asked.
Any sane person might have said no.
“Yes,” she said. “I am.”
She was frightened, but she was also terribly excited.
XVII
“Help!”
“Help us.”
“Oh god.”
“My boy.”
“My girl.”
“My wife.”
“Speak to me.”
“Please, no. Don’t die, please. I love you, I love you, I love you.”
“Help us!”
“Someone fucking help us!”
“Don’t die. Don’t die. Please, please, please. Don’t die. Please don’t die.”
“Are they gone?”
“What do we do?”
“Are they gone?”
“Daddy!”
“What the hell is going on?”
“Everybody’s bleeding. Someone help us please.”
“Daddy! Daddy, get up.”
“Are they gone?”
“What’s wrong with daddy?”
“Are they fucking gone?”
XVIII
“What the hell is happening out there?”
The Administrator stood there with her hand pressed against the window, still staring at the little girl who only moments before had been smiling and waving, and who now lay bent, bloodied, and lifeless in her father’s arms.
“Get back from the window, Mam.”
“Who is shooting? Who the fuck is shooting?”
“I don’t know. I’m trying to find out.”
Tucked into the furthest corner of the office, The Aide cursed into a dozen phones, at first demanding, and then pleading for answers.
The crowd was still now. Their singing had stopped, and not one flag was hoisted in the air. They didn’t push or shove; they just lay there, pretending to be dead.
“We have to do something.”
“I’m on it,” said The Aide, before turning his attention back to one of his phones. “I don’t give a shit who did it. We don’t have time for that. Find someone – poor, black, whatever. Put their face on every TV and newspaper in the next 30 fucking seconds.”
There was a pause. It was just a second.
“I don’t give a fuck if they’re innocent or not,” screamed The Aide, “I need a gunman. Just find someone now.”
The Administrator couldn’t take her eyes off the young girl. Only one of her bows remained, and even with all that blood, it still sparkled. She couldn’t bear to look at the girl’s father, though; it was bad enough having to listen to him whimper. He, and all the other mothers and fathers, who leant over their dead children, completely syphoned of their courage and strength and reduced to shock and disbelief.
“We have to help them.”
“I know. This doesn’t look good.”
He said that from the back corner of the room.
“It’s gonna look like we did this,” he said.
“What?”
“They’re gonna think that we did it. It’s a coup. The whole damn thing was staged. They kill their own and make it look like we did it. That’s it, sayonara, it’s all over now.”
“Their own? What the hell is wrong with you? They’re people. They’re children. They are fucking children. There is no left or bloody right. This is not about what anyone believes or not. What about any of this is ideal?”
“Mam, wait.”
He was still crouched in his corner, but now he was white as a ghost.
“What is it?” she asked, incapable of more.
“All the centres…” he said, incapable of saying more.
The Administrator looked up at the sky. Smoke was now billowing, not just from overturned cars, but from each of the Wellness Centres around the city.
“We lost them?”
“What do you mean we lost them?”
He clung to his dozen phones listening to what little information anyone knew.
“They took everything.”
“Who are they?”
“They stripped the places bare.”
“Who are they?”
“They took them all.”
“Who? Where?”
“Oh fuck me. They zip tied everyone – bags on their heads.”
“Who are they goddamnit?”
The Aide turned back to his phone.
“Are you sure?” he asked, someone on the other end.
“What? What is it?”
“They sent them off in buses, Mam.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
“Are they alive?”
“I don’t know.”
“Where the hell are they?”
“I don’t fucking know. That’s what I’m tryna find out.”
The Administrator’s heart felt like it was about to beat its way through her chest. Her stomach twisted and churned. She felt like she had swallowed some poison and her body was slowly convulsing. Her legs shook and her arms felt like two dead weights. She felt loose and idle inside her own body as if she had disconnected from her skin – just a passenger inside a rotting piece of meat.
“What’s happening?” she said, turning back to the hell below her window. She felt vapid. Her every nerve and sense had been abolished. And it was now that she was courageous enough to look at all the crying mothers and fathers; weeping and apologising as they rocked their dead children back and forth in their arms – the only thing they knew how to do. And then her attention once again drew on The Orator. Their eyes met with vacant solidarity, but quickly, his drew into a veil of suspicion.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
The Aide ignored her. He wrestled each phone and strangled every last bit of information from each of his sources.
“Mam,” he said.
But she couldn’t break her stare.
“Mam.”
Her eyes were stained with as much blood as The Orator’s hands.
“There’s still one.”
“What?”
“There’s still one centre.”
“Which?”
He paused for a second; ad for that second, there was no whimpering or pleas for help. There was no fire in the sky, and the roads outside were not littered with bones and debris. For the length of an entire second, there was hope.
The Aide hung up the phone.
“Goodreach,” he said. “It’s the only one left.”
“Send the police. Send the army. Get them on the phone. Evacuate that facility now.”
“Mam,”
“We have to evacuate that centre.”
“Mam, it’s too late. They’re already there.”
XIX
Before the activities had finished, there was a knock on the door. The Therapist apologised and attended to the disruption. As she spoke, the guests - like abandoned children - began playing with the equipment, doing cruel and demeaning acts to whoever wore the cap. Their faces were full of happiness and harmless perversion, while The Therapist looked sick, and on the verge of passing out.
“How many centres?” she asked.
“Seven,” replied The Concierge.
They both stayed silent for some time. For them, it may have felt like seconds, but for The Old Man, who was watching them like a hawk, it seemed like forever. They both wore the same look. It was one of sheer helplessness. It was one of retreat and surrender. The both looked as if their will and fortitude had leaked away, along with the colour in their faces and their ability to stop their hands from trembling.
“What are they doing? What do they want?”
“No idea. They took them all in buses, that’s all we know.”
“Is it the government?”
“Who knows? They were armed to the teeth. They had machine guns and grenades.”
“Was anyone hurt?”
“Not that we know of. This can’t be good, though.”
“No shit.”
“Well, do we run? What do we do?”
“Who else knows?”
“Now? Just me, you, and then The Doorman. He’s on his way up to the penthouse, though. If we’re gonna do something, it has to be now.”
The only thing The Therapist felt like doing was vomiting. Her legs felt heavier than cinder blocks and her mind was like a vacuum, tearing apart her every plan, atom by atom. It took a breath or two before she could compose herself.
“We’ll sneak out. We just leave - pretend everything’s normal. Get out the front door, and run.”
“What about the guests?” asked The Concierge, always the model employee.
London When it Rains Page 10