by Michael Bray
They are releasing me tomorrow.
A washed up old man who they think is too ancient and broken to cause any problem for society. They are probably right, but the thought of being out there and responsible for myself scares me. I have never lived without some kind of supervision, and I don’t know quite what to expect. It’s ok though, because I know what I’m going to do. I’m going to go buy a good length of strong rope and use it to hang myself. I don’t fear my death, but I do worry about what comes after. Will I see the forgiving and smiling face of my innocent mother? Or will I join the two mask wearing gibbering monsters in hell? I suppose time will tell and whatever the outcome, I’m just glad it’s over. I stand by what I did and wouldn’t change a thing.
I have to go now as it’s getting late, and it’s almost time for me to go to sleep for the last time in this room that has become my home.
This book will remain my legacy, my confession of a boy trying to do the right thing who became a man shunned by society. I bid you farewell, and hope that in reading this you might at least understand.
Your friend,
James Michael Godswall.
THE LANGTON EFFECT
I wasn’t certain at first, but now I’m pretty convinced that the old guy at the homeless shelter is who I think he is. As impossible as it seems, I can’t help but buy into the fact that that scruffy old toothless hobo with the deformed cheek is me, or what I will become at least.
I have been working over there at the shelter for the last seven months, on community service for screwing over a drugstore. Don’t judge me, I get it. I’m a bad seed, one of those people shaped by society to be a degenerate fuckup. All of that, however is beside the point. I want to get back to talking about the old man.
He calls himself Langton, which freaked me out, because that was the name of my imaginary friend when I was a kid. Nobody knows about that, and although it could be a coincidence, I doubt it.
Although Langton has skin like old leather and tired, watery eyes which say they have had enough of living in this shitty world, I really can’t deny it.
He does kinda look like me, or how I might look after fifty years addicted to crack and moonshine.
Anyhow, this all started when I caught him staring at me, his cocky, half smug grin as familiar as the one I see in the mirror every day. I thought he might have had a cleft lip, or something else wrong with his face, as the left side of his face was sunk inwards, and his top lip overhung his bottom, making him slur as he spoke. Despite his appearance, I held his gaze, because at that point I was still trying to portray the bad ass, to make sure everyone knew I wasn’t to be messed with. But Langton didn’t seem in the least bit intimidated, and he waved me over. Now normally, I would tell a guy like this to go screw himself. I wasn’t there to help the homeless like Jason and the rest of the asshole staff who worked there. My presence was required by law, but that doesn’t mean I had to like it.
Anyway, I had intended to give the old man some verbal, just enough to maybe frighten him off and make sure he kept his nose out of my business, but before I could do anything, he held up a grubby hand and stopped me in my tracks.
“Save it Monty.” He said, watching me with that shit eating, knowing look on his face that I would grow to hate.
Now I’ll admit, I was freaked out. Nobody calls me Monty anymore. Not since I was a kid, and although I had never seen the old bum before, he knew, and it knocked the wind right out of me.
I forgot about trying to frighten him off then. In fact, I forgot about trying to be the big man altogether. Instead, I sat down opposite him, and as he began to talk, I listened, and the more he talked, the more convinced I became that I was in conversation with a version of myself from some alternate reality or something. The funny thing is that all the things he told me were things that only I could know.
He told me about things that would happen. Things that had already happened and he had no reason to know.
He was crafty with it too. He told me all about how his brother had been put into a Young Offenders Institute for taking part in a botched armed robbery of a pharmacy, and then had his sentence uplifted to murder when one of the other kids tried to touch him up and got himself beaten to death.
The story was familiar of course because it was my brother that had been institutionalised and my brother who had been convicted of murder, only my brother had tried to hold up a petrol station, not a pharmacy.
I was numb as he recounted experiences of my life as if they were his own, always making them just different enough to give the benefit of the doubt.
His father died of a stroke, mine of a brain tumour.
His mother had Parkinson’s disease and lived out the rest of her years in a nursing home; mine had just been diagnosed with the disease.
Days melted into weeks, but I could never find it in myself to outright ask him if my suspicions were true. I kept hoping that he would come out and say it, but it became the big old elephant in the room, the unspeakable conundrum, so we both skirted around it.
For as much as I wanted to, I knew I couldn’t mention it, not without sounding as crazy as he was, and that got me thinking if maybe that’s how I ended up like him, by being branded as crazy and starting on that slippery slope towards the warm embrace of smack, meth and cheap booze.
I knew I shouldn’t meddle, but I needed to know, and I asked him what happened to him, what went wrong in his life to make him become like he was. He gave me one of those looks, like he knew what I was asking, but wasn’t prepared to say it outright. It was like on those movies where the actors acknowledge the camera and give it a goofy look or a wink. We both knew what we were talking about, but we were in character, and went on with the lie.
The story of his life mirrored mine almost exactly, but by then I had grown accustomed to the weirdness and wanted to know what came later.
He told me about how he had been shunned by his family, and had spent his early twenties going in and out of prisons for petty offences. It was then that his mood changed. He didn’t seem quite so keen to talk, and I had to threaten to have him tossed from the shelter and go hungry. He must have known I would do it, because he told me.
“I killed some people.” He said as he slurped down his soup.
My heart was racing, but I needed to know. I needed to know what was going to happen.
I asked him how many, and for what felt like hours, he didn’t speak, he simply looked at me, sucking his deformed jaw as he breathed. I waited, and eventually he answered.
“A lot.”
He didn’t say anymore, and in truth, that was enough. Without saying another word, I stood and left. He didn’t try to stop me. At that point, I didn’t care about anything other than making sure I changed what I was to become, no matter what.
The burden of knowledge made any sensible thoughts impossible, and I started to micro analyse every decision in my life, desperate to do something to avoid becoming Langton. The ironic thing is that now it has reached the point where I’m afraid to do anything but sit here in my shitty apartment with the curtains closed and think about everything that I have learned. I have also started to do certain things that I tell myself will rid the bad Juju brought on by the combination of Langton and my brain, which I’m pretty sure is sick now.
I convinced myself that I have to turn the light switch on and off fifty seven times before I enter or leave the room, or it will set me on my way to becoming like Langton. Or I have to take a step back for every five I take forwards, or, you guessed it, it will somehow set me on the first step towards becoming Langton. To only eat foods that are green or yellow, or it will… well you get the picture.
I had to kill the cat from the apartment next door because it walked from right to left across my window ledge instead of left to right. There was no pleasure in it, and I made sure I washed it thoroughly before I threw it out of the window into the street. (Cold tap on, cold off, hot on, hot off, cold on, Just to make sure I don’t catc
h the Juju)
It’s all gotten out of hand, and it’s now to the point when I’m too afraid to even leave the apartment. I know that if I touch the door handle, it will set off a microscopic chain of events that will lead to my future fifty years from now as that deformed, broken old murderer, and I don’t want that.
Everyone in my life has always called me a loser, they always said I would never amount to anything, and I’ll be damned if I’m about to prove them right.
Langton had all of his fingernails I think.
I peeled three of mine off to make sure we weren’t the same.
If it rains I have to only walk backwards around the apartment until the sun comes out.
It sounds odd to you, I know, but it’s something I have to do.
One thing that is a worry, is that I ran out of food a couple of weeks ago, and my stomach almost continuously reminds me that I’m hungry, but I tell it to be quiet. If I eat the wrong thing, I could set things in motion that will lead me to you know where.
It’s a strange feeling, knowing that the door is unlocked but I’m still a prisoner, but the doorknob can only be turned right, as to turn it left would surely mean I would go out, and then anything could happen.
Butterfly effect? Try the Langton Effect! Ha!
If I have learned anything as I sit here and waste away, it’s that the human mind is far more powerful than people give it credit for. Take this situation for example.
I know I’m hungry.
I know I need food.
I know that if I go outside, I can get food.
But this stupid fucking brain of mine overrides all of that, and tells me that if I want to avoid becoming like Langton, then I have to stay where I am and not risk doing anything to set things in motion.
It’s funny, because I always wanted to know the future, about how things might pan out further down the line. I always believed that I would get on track, that I would put my life straight and make a difference. But all of that was before, and right now I would give anything to go back and never have to meet that crazy old bastard.
At least the isolation has given me time to think, and I’m pretty sure that now, at last, I finally get it.
Screwing around with light switches, killing cats and making sure I count the spots on the curtains before I go to sleep won’t stop me from becoming like him. Not really.
There is only one way to be sure, and I must be right because my brain, for once isn’t objecting.
The pistol in my hand is the last symbol of my gang days. Something which seems like it was not only another lifetime, but one lived by someone else. I always thought I would be scared of death, but after everything that I have been through, it has to be better than lying here on the floor, a pathetic, emaciated shell of a man who is afraid to do anything in case it sets in motion that chain of events that I’m desperate to avoid. My hands were surprisingly steady as I loaded the weapon, and its weight feels reassuring in my hand. (Now that I think about it, maybe Langton was missing a couple of fingernails). It’s almost over now anyway, and as I wedge that oily barrel up behind my front teeth, I wonder if when I pull the trigger, it will also mean that Langton would never have existed. I believe in science, they call that a paradox. I’ll leave these notes for whoever finds me. I want to be cremated, and for them to play The End by The Doors at my funeral. I might also ask another favour of whoever finds and reads these notes, and that is for them to head down to the homeless shelter on Maple, and look for a guy with brown hair, a cleft lip and grey eyes who wears a brown trench coat and answers to the name of Langton. I’m pretty sure you won’t find him, and I hope that’s true, because if he’s there then it either means I was wrong, or this suicide is about to fail.
That is a sobering thought, and I need to end this now before I allow myself to think about it too much.
Load the gun, unload the gun, load the gun, unload the gun, load the gun, unload the gun, load the gun, unload the gun.
Load the gun.
THE TRIAL OF EDWYN GREER
The man restrained to the table was slender, his features sharp as he watched his captors with cold defiance. The windowless room was colder still, stainless steel walls lined with a host of control panels displaying thousands of calculations per second. The machines were connected to the man’s arms and chest, monitoring and feeding information to the plethora of scientists in attendance.
One such scientist approached the restrained man, watching him as he stood poised with his pen and clipboard.
“Subject 27431 is under restraint and appears calm. Please state your name for the official record.”
The restrained man sneered at his captor, and then flashed a wide grin.
“You know well enough my name.”
The scientist looked over his shoulder, and his superior nodded from behind the seven inch bulletproof glass. The scientist turned back to the subject and spoke loudly enough for the overhead audio recorder to pick up clearly.
“The subject’s name is Edwyn Greer. Caucasian male, five feet eight inches tall, one hundred and twenty pounds. Life age is unknown. Estimated body age thirty to forty years. Subject has been with host for approximately two hundred years, and fusion is at ninety seven point three percent. As per the United Governments’ Agreement, Mr Greer is to undergo the Longborough Removal Procedure in order to stand trial for his crimes to humanity.”
The scientist approached the restrained man, and looked at him as one might look at an animal which he found slightly amusing.
“Do you have anything to add, Mr Greer?”
Greer was silent, and stared in defiance at the scientist.
“For the official record, the subject has declined to comment. With the authorisation of Sir Jonathan Longborough, Dr. Alfred Moran and the Signed Warrant of the United Governments, with the grace of God I am about to begin the first ever Longborough Removal, on this day which will go down in history. September 4th, 2022.”
The scientist walked to one of the control panels, and set his clipboard down. He took a deep breath, and flicked his eyes to his watching superiors.
“With the panel’s permission and the permission of the governments and leaders of the world watching live, I will begin the procedure.”
The scientist waited, as his superiors behind the bulletproof screen awaited the confirmation of the World’s Governments, who were watching via linkup from their various countries. A full minute passed in silence, and then the scientists superior and inventor of the procedure, Sir Jonathan Longborough turned to the window and flicked on the intercom.
“Authority granted. Proceed with the procedure.”
The scientist nodded, and then took a deep breath.
“May God be with us.” He said, and activated the system.
The huge, intricate machine suspended above the restrained man whirled into life, its multiple arms designed for the most intricate of surgical work. Greer struggled against his restraints, but was unable to move as the mask was lowered over his face and the highly potent anaesthetic was pumped into his lungs. He began to lose consciousness as the titanic machine above his head readied to operate. Perhaps sensing the danger, the parasite which was bonded to him tried to force its host to stay awake, but it was no good, and Edwyn Greer was unconscious before the first cut was made.
He awoke in a brightly lit room, and was almost immediately aware of the pain deep in his stomach, followed by the tight, maddening itch of the scar which extended down the full length of his rib cage. His senses were overwhelmed, and he leaned over the side of the bed and vomited a huge gout of blood.
“Just relax, don’t try to fight it.”
The voice came from a large speaker high in the wall of the windowless room. Before he could examine it further, another wave of nausea swept through him, and he vomited again, adding to the already ejected puddle of claret by his bedside.
“Help me.” He moaned, unable to deal with the sensory overload. “What have you done to me?�
�� He shouted as he wiped the blood from his chin. He tried to stand, but the room began to spin, his sense of balance deceiving him as to which way was up or down. He fell from the bed, landing hard on the floor and losing consciousness.
The second time he awoke, he was a little less overwhelmed. It seemed that someone had cleaned up the mess he had made, and he was more aware of his surroundings, and the fact that he was now tied to the bed which he had fallen out of before. His chest and stomach still hurt, and his head throbbed with a painful migraine. He looked around the room, trying to piece together where he was.
White walls, no furniture aside from the bed which he was tied to. In the corner was a security camera which was trained on the bed and below that a round speaker embedded in the wall.
His head felt like a lead weight, and he let it fall back to the single pillow as he closed his eyes. The door opened, and a man walked in. Greer recognised him as one of the scientists who had been watching from behind the window. He was carrying a folding chair, which he set up at the foot of the bed. He sat down and folded his hands over his lap.
“Good morning Mr Greer. My name is Jonathan Longborough.”
Greer said nothing, and closed his eyes as he tried to ignore the pain which raged through his body.
“Mr Greer, it would be in your interest to listen to what I have to say. I will only say it once.”
Greer opened his eyes and lifted his head to look at his visitor.
He was an older man, perhaps in his sixties. His skin was smooth and unlined, and his head bald. He wore a goatee beard which was white apart from a few stubborn black flecks, and he watched Greer with blue eyes which although were serious, were not unkind. There was a palpable air of authority about him, a magnetism which even intrigued Greer enough to listen to what he has to say.