Sparks

by David Quantick

  “This world was so ordinary,” said Duncan slowly, “that I could not remember if I had been there before or not. Any difference between our world and this one would be so minuscule as not to register. But that’s not the point.”

  “Yes it is,” said Jeff. “You’re supposed to be looking for God’s Perfect World, not God’s Ever So Slightly Different World.”

  “God is in the details,” said Duncan. “I read that. I couldn’t just go, oh well, I can’t be bothered checking this world, I’ll just put DONE THIS ONE in my book and move on. It’s not me.”

  “So what did you do?” said Sparks, wondering if he could order a gallon of Pernod from a waiter.

  “I did what I was supposed to,” said Duncan. “I went back.”

  “You didn’t do what you were supposed to properly, did you, though?” said Jeff. “You didn’t, for example, tell me that you’d cocked up and you were going back.”

  “Yes,” said Duncan. “But I didn’t want to get penalised.”

  “Why would you be penalised?” said Sparks. “I thought this was your job.”

  ”Never mind,” said Jeff.

  “I went back,” said Duncan. “Without per – without, um... And I did what I call the Duncan Test.”

  “Gosh,” said Sparks, “Why’s it called that?”

  Duncan looked at him.

  “Because I invented it.”

  “Sorry,” said Sparks. “What is the Duncan Test?”

  Duncan brightened. “Well,” he said. “Whenever I go back to a world where I’ve forgotten if I went there – which isn’t often, really – I ask myself, what was the defining characteristic of that world? And – and this is the brilliant part…”

  “You mean the stupid part,” said Jeff.

  “…the brilliant part is, I take something that represents, or just is, the defining characteristic of the world.”

  “Oh,” said Sparks, mightily confused.

  “In some cases, it’s representative, as I say,” said Duncan. “So if it’s a world where there’s no Italy, I take an Italian phrase book and talk Italian until I discover that people can’t understand me.”

  “Genius,” said Jeff in a voice that suggested he didn’t think anything of the kind.

  “And if there’s, say, no hats in a world, I’ll wear a hat until someone laughs at me, or arrests me, or ties me to the back of a cart and drags me through the…”

  “We get it,” said Jeff.

  “These are all negative things,” said Sparks. “What do you do when there’s a world where there’s things that aren’t in our world?”

  “Don’t ask,” said Jeff. “That hasn’t happened yet. But he’ll think of a way to cock it up.”

  “Anyway,” said Duncan, hurt. “In this case, the instance of this world, there was a negative thing, or so I thought I remembered. I could vaguely remember noticing an absence of this thing, so I packed it up and I took it with me. And that’s where the trouble started.”

  “How do you mean?” asked Sparks, contemplating a glass of wine on the next table and wondering if he could nick it.

  “It wasn’t my fault,” said Duncan. “I wouldn’t have shown it to him if he hadn’t told me his name.”

  “Who?” said Sparks. “What wouldn’t you have shown him?”

  “It was because his name was Joseph Kaye,” said Jeff, coldly. “Joseph Kaye is in some book Duncan read.”

  “Yes,” said Duncan, sounding upset. “And I thought it was really funny that the man in the book with the name was famous for being associated with the thing, so I thought it would be funny to show him the thing.”

  “What thing?” said Sparks.

  “The thing from the book,” said Duncan.

  He reached into his pocket and took out a matchbox.

  “I told him what it was called and everything,” he said. “And he got weird about it, so Jeff hit him. And that’s why it’s all gone wrong.”

  Sparks opened the matchbox. In it was a cockroach. A very large cockroach, about three inches in length, with a shiny back and long legs.

  Alison and Kaye were in the library.

  “There’s a book here with a man in it with the same name as you,” said Alison.

  Kaye looked up. He smiled and closed his eyes, in a quoting way. “‘Someone must have been telling lies about Joseph K, for without having done anything wrong he was arrested one fine morning’. That’s one. There’s another – ‘It was late evening when K. arrived. The village lay under deep snow.’ He’s called Joseph in that one too.”

  Alison looked disappointed, as people do when they want to tell someone an interesting fact and it turns out the other person knew already. But she was secretly impressed.

  “No one ever wrote a book with somebody with my name in it,” she said, a look of impressed love in her eyes. “It must be odd.”

  “Come on,” said Kaye, “I want to show you something.”

  “‘As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect’,” said Jeff. He rolled his eyes.

  “What?” said Sparks.

  “That’s the line,” said Duncan. “Only I got confused with the other book. I thought Joseph K was in the book with the cockroach and he’s not, he’s in the one with the trial.”

  “That would be The Trial,” said Jeff, drier than year-old parchment.

  “I don’t understand,” said Sparks. “Even if it was the right book, there’s no cockroaches. You said insect. Not cockroach. They’re different.”

  Duncan smiled weakly. “A lot of people think it’s a cockroach,” he said.

  “A lot of people can’t read,” said Jeff.

  “Jeff tried to kill him,” said Duncan, suddenly.

  “Shut up,” said Jeff.

  “Well, you did,” Duncan said. “That’s why he can’t remember it properly. “

  “I told you to shut up,” said Jeff.

  Abruptly, he aimed the gun at Duncan’s head.

  Alison and Joseph were in the poetry section. Nearby, a librarian was stacking books. He gave Alison the strong impression that he knew Joseph, because he was eyeing his books nervously and at the same time shuffling towards a desk with a phone on it.

  “It’s all right,” said Joseph. “I’m much better now. And I’m not here to get books about… about other things.”

  The librarian smiled with an oceanic lack of conviction, but he stopped moving nearer to the phone, possibly because if he sidled up to it any nearer he would have been in the phone.

  Kaye pulled a small book off a shelf, which he showed to Alison.

  “The person who wrote the book about the man being arrested also wrote this,” he said. “And he wrote a poem about the same character. Only he made him into a cat.”

  “You’re a character in a poem?” said Alison, as though she had never suspected anything different.

  “Funny poem,” said Kaye. “I mean, comedy poem. Apparently he was miserable because he was ill, but then he got better and wrote lots of funny stuff.”

  Alison looked at the book of poems. Its title looked familiar.

  “Didn’t someone awful make this into a musical?” she said. Kaye looked uncomfortable. “And all the songs were about different cats in the book?”

  “Yes,” said Kaye. “It’s true.”

  He looked sombre, or at least like a man pretending to be sombre.

  “I have the same name as a funny cat in a musical,” he said.

  Alison kissed him. “I wouldn’t have it any other way,” she said.

  There was a cough. The librarian was standing behind them, phone in hand.

  “I’m calling the police!” he said.

  “Relax,” said Alison. “My boyfriend’s a pussycat when you get to know him’”

  But they left anyway.

  “Pussycat?” said Kaye later.

  A few minutes later, he sat up and said:

  “Boyfriend?”

  H
e sounded quite happy.

  “Are you going to shoot him?” said Sparks. He sounded nervous even to himself. To other people, he was sure, he sounded incontinent with terror.

  “Yes,” said Duncan after a few seconds. “Are you going to shoot me?”

  Jeff pulled the trigger. Duncan yelped like a cat and hurtled towards the floor. Then he got up.

  “Hang on, I’m not dead,” said Duncan.

  “No, there weren’t any bullets in the gun,” said Jeff. “Look, I took them out.”

  “What did you do that for?” said Duncan, as Jeff loaded the gun.

  “I was demonstrating how to shoot someone and for dramatic effect pretended to shoot you,” said Jeff.

  “I’m not happy,” said Duncan.

  “Maybe,” said Jeff, his breath a little tight, “if you spent less time showing cockroaches to people from worlds where they don’t have cockroaches on the grounds that they have the same name as someone in a book who turns into a cockroach – except they don’t because a) you got the book wrong and b) even if it was the right book, he doesn’t turn into a cockroach… maybe we wouldn’t have to persuade this idiot to shoot someone.”

  “No,” said Sparks. “I’m not going to shoot anyone. I don’t like guns, I don’t want to shoot anyone and I’m not going to.”

  “All right,” said Jeff. “I didn’t want to do it this way.”

  He stopped.

  “You didn’t want to do it this way what?” said Sparks.

  Jeff said nothing. He looked at Duncan.

  “Oh yes,” said Duncan. “Time to tell him about the girl.”

  “What girl?” said Sparks.

  Jeff continued to say nothing.

  “No,” said Sparks. “No.”

  Without thinking, he put the gun in his pocket.

  “Yes,” said Jeff. “Oh yes indeed.”

  Jeff and Duncan took Sparks to a fish and chip shop.

  “What girl?” repeated Sparks. He had a pretty good idea what girl, but the urge that makes us dig at red bumpy spots on our faces was making him ask.

  Jeff said nothing. Duncan said, “Three plaice and chips please,” to the large ginger boy behind the counter.

  “Don’t give him plaice,” said Jeff. “Get him some cheaper fish. Or those bits of batter.”

  “Two plaice and chips and those bits of batter,” said Duncan to the large ginger boy.

  They sat down and drank filmy cups of tea. Jeff took Sparks’ bread.

  “What girl?” said Sparks once more.

  “Yours,” said Jeff, and Sparks’ heart turned into oil and seeped down into his stomach.

  “Well, not specifically yours,” said Duncan. “I mean, technically you’ve never met her.”

  “On the other hand, you have,” said Jeff. “On this world, you went out with… with Alison until you were killed by a bus.”

  “A bus?” said Sparks. “But I like buses.”

  “You don’t have to dislike buses to be killed by one,” said Jeff, his already disdainful voice topped up with contempt. “You just have to have too much beer and walk in front of one.”

  Sparks suddenly remembered a flash of something involving beer, darkness and red honking.

  “It missed me,” he said. “I was going to cross but I saw a woman who I thought might be a supermodel and it missed me.”

  “There it did,” Jeff said. “Here it didn’t.”

  “It was a 29,” said Duncan.

  “You wait all day for a bus to come,” said Jeff, “and when it does, it knocks you to the ground and kills you.”

  “Shut up,” said Sparks, who found his own death unamusing.

  “So at the time of this fatal crash, you were still with Angela…” said Duncan.

  “Alison,” said Jeff.

  “Alison, sorry,” said Duncan. “She was very upset.”

  “That is, she was still in love with you at this point where you died,” Jeff said. “That is, you hadn’t cocked up your relationship with the only woman who ever cared for you, and so…”

  Sparks lunged at Jeff. Chips went everywhere. Customers turned round from their plaice and bits of batter.

  “It’s all right,” said Duncan to the customers, who, embarrassed at being addressed by such a strange-looking man, turned away again.

  “I did not cock up my relationship,” said Sparks.

  “Yeah, you did,” said Jeff. “That’s why she left you. That’s why you’ve been doing this searching the universe crap.”

  “I think it’s very romantic,” said Duncan.

  “Dear God,” said Jeff. He addressed Sparks again. “We’ve done research. She left you. We don’t know why and we don’t care.”

  “We weren’t talking,” said Sparks. “She said I wasn’t serious about anything. She said all I wanted to do was go to the pub and watch videos. She said at my age that was a bit sad.”

  “Boo hoo,” said Jeff.

  “She left you because you watched videos?” said Duncan.

  “Not quite,” said Sparks. “I think she wanted more from us being together.”

  “She loved you and you didn’t love her,” said Jeff. “The end. She saw you as the waster you really are. The inner dick.”

  “Leave me alone,” said Sparks, realising as he said it that leaving him alone was the one thing Jeff and Duncan weren’t ever going to do. “Leave her alone,” he added quietly.

  “We can’t,” said Jeff. “She’s in mortal danger.”

  “Not…” said Duncan.

  “She is in mortal danger,” Jeff said again. “This is what this is all about. This is why you are here. This is why we chose you, out of all the people in the universe. Even though I would rather have used one of my own shoes, you are the one.”

  Duncan opened his mouth. Jeff glowered at him.

  “If you qualify anything else I say, I’m going to deck you,” he said. “We’re supposed to be convincing him, not ushering in a climate of debate.”

  “Sorry,” said Duncan.

  “What are you supposed to be convincing me of?” said Sparks. “Why is Alison in mortal danger?”

  “You mean how is she in mortal danger,” said Jeff.

  “No, why is she will do as well,” said Duncan.

  Jeff gave Duncan a murderous look.

  “I’m just aiming for clarity,” said Duncan.

  Jeff turned back to Sparks. Sparks had, however, gone.

  “He’s gone,” said Duncan, ten minutes later. “And he’s still got the gun.”

  “I know,” said Jeff.

  “Sorry,” Duncan said. “Only you haven’t said anything for ten minutes and I felt I ought to break the silence.”

  “I’m thinking things through,” said Jeff. “This might work in our favour.”

  “Because we’re always telling him what to do and if he sees for himself he’ll come to his own conclusions?” said Duncan.

  “Yes,” said Jeff. “That’s exactly what I meant. What are you doing?”

  “Nothing,” said Duncan, but he didn’t sound like he meant it.

  “You’re patting your pockets,” said Jeff.

  “No I’m not,” said Duncan brightly, as if he had convinced himself of something, or rather nothing.

  Sparks ran down the road, which was one he recognised. It led to another, smaller road, which in his world contained a large internet cafe. If the internet cafe was there, and it took normal money, he would be all right. And judging by the pennies he saw lying on the pavement and the few coins in beggars’ cups, this world used the same money as Sparks’ world, so all he had to do was arrive at the internet cafe and hope it was an internet cafe and not, say, a meeting point for cannibalistic elms. (Sparks also had a notion that this world was the same as his in every way but one, but this notion was floating around the back of his mind, just above his teeth, as yet – as it were – unopened).

  Sparks stopped running. He was outside the internet cafe. Its prices were cheap and corresponded to the coi
ns in his pocket. All he had to do was walk in, pick a computer, find the Random Life Generator, and head for home. He walked into the cafe, picked a computer and sat down. Then he stared at the computer for several seconds. Instead of going onto the Random Life Generator, he went on to a search engine. Then he typed in Alison’s name.

  I don’t trust Jeff and Duncan, some unconscious part of Sparks’ brain noted, because they are thin and evil, well, Jeff is. But I am worried about Alison and more worried that she has done something silly.

  At least, that was how the supposedly smart part of Sparks’ brain justified not escaping when he could.

  After half an hour and all his change, Sparks had found several references to Alison on the internet. Some were useless – CDs she had written reviews of on shopping sites when tipsy round at Sparks’s – but some were alarmingly revealing. She was, for example, mentioned in a newsletter welcoming her to a new job about three weeks ago. She had sold some personal items on an auction site (this made Sparks partly sad, as they had been gifts from him, or a version of him, and partly vexed because some of them were quite cool, and he could have bought them). More pertinently, Alison was listed on a social network site, and while she had not left any contact details, lots of other people had.

  Sparks went to the site. He typed Alison’s name into the LOG IN space. Then he stared at the space for PASSWORD and thought for a few seconds. He had no idea what Alison’s password was. After a moment’s embarrassment at his vanity, and a few more moments’ feeling bad about being intrusive, Sparks typed in SPARKS. He tapped RETURN, and was welcomed onto the site.

  Sparks immediately wrote to her contacts. It said:

  Hi!

  This is Alison. I have just moved, but I keep getting post to my old address. I can’t remember if you have my new address. Sorry to be a pain, but could you let me know what address you do have for me, and, if necessary, I will amend this.

  Sparks looked at the email. He took out all the commas, put in a load of exclamation marks, and sent it. Then he went for a bar of chocolate.

  When Sparks came back from his bar of chocolate, he went online again and checked his messages. He had five. Two of them denied having ever heard of Alison, one of them wanted to know why she had changed her email address, one claimed to remember her from school as a freckled blonde with enormous glasses, but the last said: