Finally, he’s outside and they are gone, with his cigarettes.
He knew this was going to happen.
Bitches: why the hell did Emily always have to be friends with them?
He sighs and prepares himself for the trip back into the house in the dark. Then he hears giggling coming from the bushes on the front lawn. He smiles as he walks past the trees and flowers over to the big mulberry bush his mother is so proud of and he finds them hiding behind it. They burst out laughing when they see him.
It sounds so loud.
“You guys are comedic geniuses but please stop, you’ll wake my parents up and they’re not famous for their sense of humour,” says Jon.
“Sowwy,” says Emily but she doesn’t seem to mean it, mainly because she crosses her eyes and says it in a stupid way.
“Grow up, Emily. Let’s go to the park, it’s just down the road. We can smoke there. We can’t be too long,” says Jon and he hopes he doesn’t sound like a pussy.
Cigarettes are magical for Jon right now. He enjoys the taboo of smoking more than the actual act of smoking itself. The secret. The knowledge of doing something inherently wrong flowing through his blood, making it pump hot in his temples. The leaves crunch underfoot on the green suburban sidewalk, loudly so they step into the road. There is no one on Blakefield Avenue but them and the light from the stars; the black tar stretches away from them like an endless river. Jon does not know why but he wonders if every road is connected to every other road. Maybe if he touches it, someone, somewhere, in London, Paris, or New York will know he has touched it and they will touch it too.
They are by the park now and they hop over the low wall separating the park from the rest of the world and they walk over to the swings, simple things made from old tires, where the three of them, Jon, Emily, and her friend sit and swing slowly back and forth. Emily slowly unwraps the clear plastic, then the gold foil, and then takes three cigarettes out and gives them one each, keeping one for herself. She looks at Jon expectantly. He reaches into his pocket and grabs empty air. He has forgotten the lighter. Jon feels a cold bucket of fear and failure pour over him. Fucking typical Jon. Way to fuck it up.
“I think I’ve got one,” says Emily, seeing him patting his pockets furiously.
“Cool, I hoped someone else had otherwise we would’ve been fucked,” says Jon. Just being casual. Nonchalant. That’s all. He does this all the time. Sure. She takes out a cheap plastic lighter and passes it to him. Steam and smog from the industrial part of town where the coal fields and the tannery are throw a haze over the stars on the edge of the horizon and the cicadas just make noise. He lights his cigarette and inhales, the smoke filling his lungs. He does not cough. He’s ever-so-slightly proud of this. He goes out every night with girls to smoke—he does this all the time. He keeps telling himself that. He passes the lighter back to Emily and she and her silver-haired friend light up.
And then, silence.
“Call me rude but if I’m going to be giving you cigarettes, I’d like to at least know your name,” says Jon, forcing the words out. Saying things in front of the silver haired girl feels like jumping off a cliff.
“Do you usually go to the park with girls you don’t know to smoke cigarettes?”
Jon laughs and says, “All the time, you’re the third lot tonight.” She laughs back. Nice one, Jon.
“I’m Michelle,” Michelle says.
“Hello, Michelle, I’m Jon,” Jon says.
They shake hands, awkwardly. Jon isn’t sure why but shaking hands does seem like the right thing to do. You can’t hug someone you’ve just met to say hello to them. Do people do that? Jon doesn’t know.
“Michelle’s just moved here, she’s in my class,” says Emily.
“I see,” says Jon. Jon strokes an imaginary beard.
The girls giggle at this and then there’s another one of those moments of silence when the only sound is the swings creaking. Jon feels he is far too good at creating silence.
“What test are you writing tomorrow?” Emily asks.
“Maths,” says Jon.
“Don’t you mean, ‘math’? Thank God you aren’t writing English,” says Michelle.
“Whatever,” says Jon.
The girls giggle at him. He inhales smoke again and still, he does not cough. Lately, Jon is becoming conscious of the fact that he goes through phases of wanting everyone to notice him. He would try and be funny when he wanted that to happen and then he would very quickly find himself wanting everyone to forget him and he would be quiet when he wanted that to happen instead.
“Aren’t you guys also writing tests?” asks Jon.
“No, we finished today, that’s why we’re out,” says Emily.
“That’s lucky,” says Jon.
They are quiet again and they all start to swing slowly. The world slows for one precious, stretched out moment and they hang in the air, legs out, leaning into gravity somewhere under the moonlight. For that one brief moment, it feels like anything is possible, that Jon can find a girl he likes, become a famous guitar player or a graphic designer (his second choice), anything, anything at all.
The possibilities are endless.
And now Jon finds Michelle strange and new and attractive and as he thinks that, he falls in love with her. Perhaps it is her laugh or her smile or something in her eyes. Whatever it is, Jon falls.
Jon decides in that very moment that he wants to spend the rest of his life with her. She has barely spoken more than a few words but there is something in the air, something about her, that makes Jon’s heart beat faster when he looks at her.
It’s a strange, weird love but it’s true.
“So you’re on holiday already?” Jon asks, his voice breaking a little. His heart makes the words fall like water from his mouth and they sound strange to him, like someone’s playing him a recording of his own voice.
“Yes. Well, no, we still have to go to school tomorrow but it’s not like we’ll be doing anything, just filling up the time.” says Michelle. She sighs and he worries that she can read minds or knows exactly what he’s like inside and how nervous he suddenly is.
“I wish I had tomorrow off, instead of this test. I’d stay home and smoke cigarettes and read comic books all day,” says Jon.
“You read comic books?” Michelle asks, stifling a laugh. Emily punches her arm again, and Michelle turns around and tells Emily to shush.
“Yes, I read comic books,” says Jon. He likes her. Maybe she likes comic books.
“I read comic books,” says Michelle, smiling at Jon through the cigarette. And then she winks at him.
Chapter 5
Now
A pack of razor blades, unopened.
Jon has finished his magic show at the club, to raucous applause. He didn’t see her during the performance but Emily is in the crowd, in some fancy cream bodice-hugging Victorian dress she no doubt has pilfered from a museum. He finishes puking into the toilet in the back room and pauses in the bathroom. The walls are covered in graffiti and thin and he can hear people discussing how he pulled off his tricks.
“It’s a series of lasers and Kerako® Tangi-Surfaces, the whole place is rigged with them and all he does is trigger them off a standard midi-controller he has sewn into the inside of his clothing. There’s obviously also some kind of hallucinogen in the drinks or pumped through the vents. Simple really,” says the disembodied voice.
Jon allows himself a smile. They have no idea just how simple it is. He comes out the side entrance, wearing a black shirt and jacket, blue denim jeans; different clothes so that less people will recognise him from the stage. Emily knows this is where he escapes from and runs up to him and hugs him because no matter how many times she sees his illusions, she’s still impressed every time. And she knows that what he has to feel to make it all work kills him a little inside, even if he won’t let on. Some part of her wonders how much of him is left to kill but she doesn’t say it. She never says it.
“
Hey, sexy lady.” One of the drunk patrons bumps into her, his lower face green with absinthe and his eyes wild from something else. She brushes him off with practiced ease.
“Don’t ignore me, bitch. You wouldn’t want to ignore me,” says the fat, filthy random. He comes back for more and now his hands are on her breasts while she’s trying to shove him away. He’s leering at her, ignoring Jon, who is at this very second standing right beside her.
Jon doesn’t mind what other people do to him. Other people are scum and he does his best to ignore them and let them happen to themselves. But now, someone is bothering Emily and Emily is one of the two people in the world who actually matter to him. For a moment, this dirty, drunk fool has broken something inside Jon and he doesn’t hold back. For someone who has trouble getting along with people or knowing how to interact with them, Jon knows a surprising amount about how their minds work and how to break them. He grabs the swaying drunk by the jacket and pulls him close, then grabs his wrist and twists it. Jon uses his other hand to grab the guy’s head and whips it back, whispering in his ear, “You should kill yourself.”
“Ge’off, go do some fucking card tricks and leave me and the lady alone!” yells the punter. Jon keeps whispering and the whispering gets faster and faster in the man’s ear.
“I will, but before I do, I need you to remember to kill yourself. Seriously. Kill yourself. Later on, when this is over, you’ll be wondering what I hoped to accomplish by telling you this. What I wanted to accomplish is this: I want you to really, seriously consider killing yourself. And every time you stop yourself and think that it’s silly, when you’re seriously asking yourself, ‘Why the hell would I want to kill myself?’ I want you to ask yourself. ‘Why not?’ I want the thought to slowly sneak its way back into your mind when you try to sleep tonight. Note that I said try. Because you won’t be able to. The idea of killing yourself will slowly become more and more real until it becomes not an idea but an inevitability. And if you don’t kill yourself tonight by some small miracle, then when you wake up, as you’re making breakfast and nursing your hangover, replaying the night’s events in your mind, the idea of taking a steak knife to your own throat will pop-up. You can pretend it won’t, but we both know it will, just because I’m saying it, just because you’re thinking of it right now. Right now. Tomorrow morning. Every night and every morning until you end your miserable, pathetic existence. A man becomes his thoughts and these are now yours. I give them to you. Now run away.”
The punter’s eyes glass over and he struggles, trying to get away from Jon. Jon lets go and lets him fall to the floor. He knows he shouldn’t have done that but the post-performance rush messes with his head. He needs to calm down. He needs more Sadness. He pushes through the circle that’s gathered around him and grabs Emily by the hand to take her with him.
“I can take care of myself, Jon,” says Emily and she whips her hand out of his.
“A simple thank you will suffice,” says Jon. Sometimes he understands everything and sometimes, he understands nothing.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” says Emily.
“I didn’t realise you were into drunk assholes these days, Emily.”
“Is he really going to kill himself? Can you make him do that?”
“I don’t know. Maybe,” says Jon. “He deserved it.”
“For what? For touching my boobs? You’re going to make a man kill himself for touching my fucking boobs?”
“Oh no! Someone’s going to die! Considering everyone who’s died, do you really think that guy matters, Emily? Do you really and honestly care?” Emily pointedly ignores him. There’s no reasoning with him when he’s like this. He walks off into the night. Emily doesn’t go after him. She knows where he’ll be later on. On her front doorstep. Begging for another hit of Sadness.
Sure enough, like clockwork, when she gets home, he’s already there, in the marbled archway, waiting for her.
“Go home to Michelle,” says Emily.
“I can’t yet, I just need a little—” says Jon.
“No, you don’t Jon. You don’t need anything, least of all more Sadness. It’s messing with you. You’ve always been quiet and sarcastic but now you’re quiet and sarcastic and mean. I used to feel sorry for you,” says Emily.
“I know. I’m sorry, Emily. Please. I can change,” says Jon. She can’t tell if he’s making fun of her when he says, “I can change,” as dramatically as he does. But of course, she lets him in again and he falls again and like every other time, he takes part of her with him.
Later, when he’s leaving, he thinks for a moment that she doesn’t even charge him for the Sadness anymore. He forgets to pay, a lot. He forgets a lot of things, a lot. He struggles, trying to feel bad for the situation he’s put her in but can’t. He’s walking down the stairs and then everything goes black. The memory gap stretches from outside Emily’s apartment to when he’s back on the steam train, wearing headphones plugged into the train’s music box without any sound playing through them, just to stop people from trying to talk to him, just in case anyone tries. He knows silence is best afterwards. There are always one or two people who take too much from him and he always finds them at performances like that one. The fight with the drunk and Emily also drained him. The train stops at a red light and a neighbourhood Peace Patrol carriage stops next to the train. He doesn’t look, even when the mechanical horse flares exhaust fumes out of its nostrils.
The Peace Patrol carriage seems to be the last excessive machine on Earth. The Peace Ambassadors don’t have to deal with technology rations like the rest of the populace and so only they can make something as garish as this: a steel, ornate carriage, filled to the brim with the latest tech and weaponry, capable of carrying up to six fully armed Ambassadors inside and a richly and intricately carved, armour-plated exterior. Then there was the horse. The mechanical horse that pulled the carriage, also loaded with weapons, was its own entity, verging on having independent thought but still subservient to the driver of the carriage.
Jon does his best to continue not looking and instead focuses on the giant shifting flashboard across the street. Sensing that his eyes have remained fixed on the image for more than three seconds, the flashboard sends the sound directly into his ears.
“Are you or someone you know sad? Upset? Report them today to the United Government for re-inspiration! Win cool prizes!”
There’s a boiling pot of paranoia in the pit of his stomach. That slow, heavy weight he always has when he leaves the house, when he’s in the open and he’s carrying something, even if it’s just one vial of Sadness. He feels vulnerable. He knows if they stop him or the train, they’ll search everyone and give all of them a hard time.
He just wants to get home without trouble. That’s all he’s ever wanted. To ignore the rest of the world, enjoy the Sadness, eat and sleep and be with Michelle. If they give him a hard time, they’ll search him. And if they search him, they’ll find Sadness on him and then, there’ll be hell to pay.
He tries desperately to remember if this has happened before, if maybe he’s really just back in bed with Michelle and this is all some immersive illusion of his own design. His mind plays tricks on him, maybe this is one of them. Please let this not be real. The Peace Ambassadors would love the fact that he was on Sadness. They’d howl as they beat him. The passenger window of the patrol carriage comes down smoothly, slowly, electrically and Jon can’t help himself: he looks. It must be nice not to have technology rations. Even though there’s no music playing on the steam train’s music box, he feels the urge to turn it down. One of the bastards in the carriage waves at him and Jon’s blood turns to ice water.
The Peace Ambassador asks the train driver to open up the train doors over a loudspeaker and the train driver, being a responsible citizen, does. It’s not like he can do much about it; they could, if they wanted to, just disable the train remotely. The small vial of Saudade that Emily gave him as he left her apartment burns in his pocket. It’
s all he can think of. He can try and hide it but they’ll probably radar/DNA sweep the train and find it and his DNA is all over it and they’re so close now, he can’t risk just throwing it out the window, they’ll have a camera on him. His only hope is that they don’t bother searching him. One of the Peace Ambassadors is waiting by the carriage while the other one is inside. The one outside is staring right at Jon or at least that’s what it feels like; Jon can’t tell because of his bulletproof smiley face mask, created to hide their identities. It reminds him of the old Nirvana logo. Maybe someone at the club ratted him out, maybe Steve, the half-ent or one of the poor kids in Tru-Sights™. Maybe Barnston, that top-hatted bastard. The government pays good money for information. Maybe he’s going to be sent back to the camp where they cut your tattoos off. He can hear heavy footsteps coming down the hallway outside. The door to his cabin opens and groans under the weight forcing it back.
“Good evening, sir! We’d like to scan your arm and check your briefcase if that’s ok with you.” The mechanical voice box crackles around the Peace Ambassador’s neck as he speaks, giving the speaker a Stephen Hawking accent, disguising his voice like the brutally simple smiley mask disguises his face.
“Go right ahead, sir,” says Jon, standing up and stepping away from the briefcase.
Smiling, Shit Eating Grin, as Jon decides to name him, politely tells him what he’s going to do and even makes it feel like he has a choice in the matter. He knows there’s nothing on his record, he’s managed to avoid getting caught for anything too serious over the years and there’s nothing but sandwiches in the suitcase, but if they search him, they’ll find the Saudade and that’ll mean trouble. Big trouble.
Intentional Dissonance Page 4