by Harry Parker
They came and took him away again and it was worse when he was gone. They needed to reopen and re-clean his wounds and she spent the time hoping nothing would go wrong. They’d signed consent forms and listened to the doctors’ explanations. She tried to understand their conversations but bent all her concentration on him – everything she had, to help him get better – and now she felt the helplessness of not being able to do anything.
She carried me through the corridors to the canteen even though she didn’t like being away. She threw her half-finished coffee in the bin and went back to wait for the doctors to update them.
We were back in the room with the lighthouse and the television was on and then her husband turned the lights off. I was on the bedside table and her eyes were open all night staring at me from the pillow. In the morning she dressed, picked me up and went back to him.
And then he woke up. He forced himself from sedation earlier than expected and they came and said he was conscious and took us to him.
I was on the trolley-table as they both stood over him and he looked back up at them.
‘I’m sorry, Mum,’ he said.
8
I was made in China, a genuine copy. The man who sold me didn’t want a place in the market so he sat in a backstreet, away from the crowds – his customers knew where to come. He didn’t sell very much: a few mobile phones; T-shirts, one with an American musician holding up two fingers above strange western script; a selection of batteries, loose in a box; and, hidden away, a pile of illegal magazines. The air was humid in the alleyway. A pool of stagnant water along the gutter attracted flies and thirsty dogs.
I was in a cardboard box beside the blue plastic crate he sat on.
Latif knew where to find the stallkeeper; his new friends had told him. He was nervous. He hadn’t handled this much money before and he fumbled the dollars awkwardly as he glanced over his shoulder at the people who passed in the bright district-centre bazaar. The stallkeeper inspected each note and nodded before he presented my box to Latif.
I was too big for Latif but the man only had me. Latif pulled my laces tight until my eyes met and the fabric creased up over his toes. He didn’t know how to tie my laces, so he knotted them and pushed the excess down beside his ankle. He removed my twin from the box and slid it onto his other foot. I was bright white and my reflective patches glinted in the alleyway.
He’d only ever worn sandals and I made his foot feel fire-hot as he walked back to the throng of people who pressed around the market. He was embarrassed by how strangely I flashed below his traditional trousers.
I was cotton and laminated plastic, rubber with foam, chunky and gleaming with black ticks on each flank. I was alien among a sea of worn leather sandals that shuffled between the stalls.
We walked out through the streets and jumped into the back of a truck. Men sat on benches down both sides with goods from the market; one had a goat that wriggled between his legs. We drove into the fields. The other men glanced down at me and then up at Latif’s young face. He shifted and looked away over the fields.
I was a badge, a uniform. I set Latif apart: a symbol of his choice.
At a crossroads the truck stopped and we jumped down. Latif paid the driver, then headed towards a village. My sole was soft and Latif grinned as he floated over the ground. And he started running and realised why his new friends had told him to spend his first earnings on me.
Latif stopped and scuffed me against the hard mud of the side of a ditch, trying to get me dirty so I looked battered and experienced – not how he felt but how he wished he did.
We walked into the village and down a track between high walls. Latif pushed at a red gate and we entered a compound. Chickens nodded around sacks of grain under a lean-to and a boy swept ash back into a fire pit.
A girl, sitting back on her ankles, spotted Latif and ran to greet him. She called him brother and grinned as she held his hand. He told her about the market and said he would take her one day soon when Father allowed it. He took a fig from his pocket and she smiled and bit into it then inspected me with surprise. She said with a full mouth how white we were and how strange we looked – how big on the end of his legs. She placed a grubby foot on top of me, and the other on my twin, and he walked straight-legged with her on us and they both laughed. He told her how comfortable I was and she laughed again and went back to a goat’s skin she was scraping dry.
He ducked through a doorway. He couldn’t untie his rushed knots so he levered me off and left me at the end of a row of burnished sandals.
Latif walked a few steps into the dark room. A man and woman stood at the back looking into a recess stacked with sacks and pots. She was explaining how many bags of rice and flour they had and how much more they would need. The man’s hand was on her shoulder and he nodded. He said he would ask his cousin if they could have some food but she looked at him and said how worried she was about adding to their debts this year. He muttered it would be fine and Latif would continue to help.
Then he turned and saw him and asked how the market was and if he had managed to sell the seeds. Latif greeted his father and poured tea from a pot in the centre of the room. He asked his mother if she needed more money for food. She smiled and said they were fine at the moment.
Latif sat cross-legged on a rug and drank the tea. His father walked over to step into his sandals and saw me. He picked me up and turned me over, running his dirt-lined fingers through the deep grooves of my tread and gel shock absorber. Latif watched him. His father placed me back on the floor and then looked at Latif before walking out into the compound. His mother had seen all this and looked away sadly.
That night, after his cousins and uncle had returned from the fields and his grandparents had walked the twenty yards across the compound from their room, they sat in a loose circle and dipped bread in soup.
They had all noticed me. I was too white for them not to. Latif felt defensive; the buying of me had created a distance from the family around him, and the comfortable silence that usually accompanied their meals was filled with judgement. Latif didn’t think he had changed but there was something about me, and his pride in me, that made him question it and he felt ashamed.
His cousin broke the silence and asked what would happen if Latif met the soldiers at work, adding that at least he’d be able to run away now. His mother was angry and sent them out. His smirking cousin and confused sister left.
His mother cried and asked why he wasted his money on infidel shoes, why he needed to do what he was doing. It was not their problem, they could ignore it. This was their world, this compound and their fields; they were happy and the soldiers hardly ever came here – why did he need to be part of it?
His father stilled her and said it was for the best and Latif was doing what he could for them – and making good money with the insurgents.
Latif felt upset and alone; maybe he was different now. He tried to pull me on but the knots he had tied made it difficult. His mother asked where he was going and told him he couldn’t, it was too late, but he ignored her and continued to struggle with my laces.
She came over and knelt in front of him and picked me up. She undid the knots and her tears fell onto me. Latif waited as she gently slipped me on his foot and tied my laces in a bow, slowly so he could see. She did the same on his other foot and then pleaded with him to stay. But we left the compound and walked out over the dark fields.
They were where he thought they might be, around a fire, and they shuffled to make room and said how great his shoes looked. We were in a ring of men illuminated by the yellow heat. Each one had shoes like me, poking from under their crossed legs.
*
We stayed with these men. We ran errands for them. We helped dig holes in roads that they carefully placed bombs in. Latif was the youngest but he started to feel more confident. He watched them make explosives and helped where he could. He was sent to market to buy more supplies. He spent hours standing guard while the other
men did things he wanted to be part of.
Sometimes he would shake with fear and we would run as fast as he could and I would grip around corners as we tore through a maze of paths to get away. Sometimes there would be a motorbike waiting and Latif would leap onto the back and grab hold of the rider. The rear wheel would kick out and we would drive off with a trail of dust behind us as the engine vibrated in a hot blur beside me.
It rained and the dust turned to mud. I was sodden and my cloth stained the brown of the earth. It was cold and wet for weeks and we all stayed in a compound and Latif was bored. Some of the men left for the mountains and he wished he could go with them.
We went back to his family and his sister ran over in excitement. Latif handed more money to his mother and his father was pleased with him. He helped with the harvest and watched the helicopters hammer over the fields and knew, when the harvest was in, he would try and destroy them again. His mother pleaded with him to stay but we left and went back to the men.
They lived as a group and moved most days; sometimes a family would take them in and they laughed and danced long into the night. Often Latif slept under the stars and was roused when the fire only glowed. He would take a weapon and watch over the men who slept. He shivered in the chill and stamped me down between yawns to keep himself awake.
When he took me off, Latif was careful not to loosen the bows his mother had tied for him. The men knelt together and prayed. Other times I was taken off and Latif would jump into the blue water of a river and wash and all the men splashed one another.
*
One night, they were agitated and a pickup truck came and took one of them away. The remaining men talked breathlessly. Latif learnt of the network of influence and power that spread through the fields around them, the connections that flowed across mountains and deserts from distant countries and cities that he’d never heard of. He marvelled at the complexity and secrecy of it, at the mythic names he’d only ever heard uttered. He couldn’t believe he was now part of it all.
Before dawn, while Latif stood guard, he heard a vehicle bouncing along the track and raised his weapon in readiness. It was the truck from the night before and he relaxed. The man had returned but another came with him.
He walked over to Latif. He had black leather boots with deep treads and a green vest filled with equipment hanging loosely from his shoulders. He wore a black turban. He did not smile and said he was Aktar. His accent was foreign.
Aktar told the men they would go north for the summer and they followed him. They carried the sacks of equipment that Aktar had brought and walked single file over fields that I had never trodden before.
They had to be careful; the enemy was moving into the area. They hid weapons and equipment in empty compounds and between tree roots. Aktar told Latif to memorise their locations but never speak of them.
They dug in bombs on roads at night and whenever storms whipped up the sand. They shielded their faces with turbans but sand still collected in their noses and ears and down in me, between Latif’s toes.
The men were nervous around Aktar. He said little and made them work hard. We often travelled at night and Latif slept without taking me off. There were times when Aktar’s radio crackled and we left with little warning and waited in the dark and nothing happened. We moved on through villages and spoke to the elders. Aktar told them what he wanted and looked them in the eyes and threatened them.
They blocked roads for whole days and stopped the passing traffic.
They prayed more often, and Latif took me off before kneeling next to Aktar and mouthing the words in unison with him.
Sometimes Aktar sent us off alone. We would stand near the soldiers’ base that had watchtowers at each corner and the flag that fluttered among tall antennas. When a line of men with weapons and helmets that shadowed their eyes filed out of the gate, or huge armoured vehicles swung up onto the road, we wandered away and Latif would send a text about a party on the mobile phone that Aktar had given him.
*
One day, when I was crossed over my twin, and the men sat in the shade with their backs against the wall of a compound, Aktar told Latif how well he was doing and Latif was pleased.
They were by a road they had blocked with an iron bar resting on oil drums. They had stopped a truck full of melons and talked to the driver. One of them knew the man and told him which route was safe and which to avoid and the truck moved off. They talked of women until Aktar told them to stop and they waited for the next traffic in silence.
Aktar stood first. Latif followed him and I was up on the raised road. A lone figure, a young man on a bike, wobbled through the mirages. He dismounted and pushed the bike towards us. Latif’s foot suddenly tensed in me when he saw it was his childhood friend, Faridun. He didn’t want to be recognised, to be reminded of his childhood or the compound with his mother.
Aktar stopped him with a wave of his hand. ‘Peace be upon you, young man,’ he said. ‘How are you?’
‘Peace be upon you. I am fine, praise to God,’ Faridun said, keeping his eyes low. ‘I am on my way home from Howshal Nalay, I have been to the market. I need to get back before dark,’ he said. He glanced up and saw Latif.
Latif’s toes curled down in me; he felt afraid for his friend. And he thought of the web of connections and honour that ran through the land around them. But he was scared of not telling Aktar – that was his duty now. We walked forward and I was on tiptoes as Latif whispered in his ear. ‘I know this man. His father is Kushan Hhan. He used to be an associate of my father. He is said to help the infidel and is working to reopen the school in the village—’
Aktar burst forward and pushed Faridun. He tangled with his bike and fell onto the road level with me. Aktar forced his weapon down against his lips. Faridun flinched in pain and then the barrel plunged into his mouth.
‘Is your father Kushan Hhan?’
Tears streamed from Faridun’s eyes and he retched around the weapon. He nodded. Latif watched his defiance, despite the barrel pressed impossibly deep inside him, and he was confused and ashamed.
‘Your father is working for the infidel. If he continues to do this against the will of God, I will cut off your sister’s head. Do you understand?’ Aktar said and jabbed down once more with a grunt and then stood away.
Faridun got up out of the dust and the sack he carried fell from his bicycle. Blood ran from a gash on his ankle. He looked from Aktar to Latif.
‘May God be with you, Latif,’ he said.
Latif felt sudden anger and stepped me forward, but Faridun calmly turned away and left us standing on the road.
The other men laughed at Faridun and thumped Latif on the back. Aktar stood to one side. ‘You were right to tell me, Latif. All must know their place. It is the will of God.’
*
After what he had done to Faridun, Latif couldn’t go home and I followed the black leather boots of Aktar more closely. We crossed the countryside and Latif felt tied to this man who was ruthless and fearless.
9
I lived in the soil. My spores existed everywhere in the decomposing vegetable matter of the baked earth.
Something happened that meant I was suddenly inside you: meant I travelled with the soil up and through your skin, breaching the physical barrier that was designed to keep the outside out. It was an instant that compromised you completely.
I was inside your leg, deep among flesh that was torn and churned. I lived there for a week and wanted to take root, but it wasn’t easy. Some of my spores were washed away with the dirt from your wounds, others were cut out with necrotic tissue, and some were destroyed by a barrage of your white blood cells.
I struggled to survive.
Except they missed a small haematoma that had formed around a collection of mud in your calf. It was an anaerobic environment I could flourish in and I started to take hold. Your blood was mixed with eight others’, so your immune response was weakened and couldn’t counter me; there were repeated as
saults on your body as anaesthetic knocked you again and again.
The balance changed. You degraded and I thrived. You became my host.
I spread out into the hypoxic and devitalised tissue of your leg. I made you feverish and feasted unseen on your insides, defeating you. I made you wish you’d never survived.
A sample of me was taken out and grown in a controlled environment. They identified me as a zygote fungus.
I was going to survive and you were not.
I was making you die, and when that happened I would die too. But I had no option, only oblivion. I had to persist and would consume you to do it.
10
My aperture was filled with stars. I changed the frequency of the photons that entered my vacuum tube so their signature was amplified as a noisy green image.
BA5799 shifted from one knee to the other. As he moved I wobbled on the mount that attached me to his helmet and the stars blurred as I failed to maintain resolution. He lifted a hand and slotted me into position. My green light reflected off the glassy bulge of his retina and his eyelashes flicked across the surface of my lens as he blinked.
The stars were replaced by a dark horizon and the ridges of a ploughed field. He scanned across it. The grey-green shapes of kneeling figures snaked forward into the distance, disappearing into a dark thicket.
Each figure held his weapon rested on a knee or in the crook of a shoulder and peered into the gloom, each one turned in the opposite direction to protect the single file. Their eyes glowed against pale skin.
Ahead there was the sound of coughing.
We waited. BA5799 looked out at the jumble of houses and brick walls flat in the middle distance. There was no movement. His knee ached and the straps of his day-sack pressed down through his body armour that encased him in damp heat. He was hot, but now that we had stopped he shivered.