Ventriloquists

by David Mathew

  ‘You didn’t. So you’re not mad.’

  ‘I think I am – but not for that. Cuz I saw the cunt’s head get cut in half. I fucking saw it. The glass chopped it in two in the back garden, right?’

  ‘…Yeah.’

  ‘So how comes his whole head’s here?’ Connors asked. ‘That doesn’t make a lick of sense, does it? Half of it was left on the grass.’

  ‘I guess so,’ said Bernadette.

  ‘I saw it!’

  ‘I don’t doubt you.’

  Connors paused. ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes, really, Chris. The question is, what does it mean?’

  ‘Or what do we mean?’ Connors replied.

  ‘Sorry? Mean to who?’

  ‘Exactly! Mean to who!’ His eyes lit up with a flare of excitement. ‘Who’s controlling us – right now? Have you thought of that? I think back to when we were in the village…’ He might have been talking to himself or to a counsellor; he wasn’t talking to Bernadette. ‘Very briefly – just for a few days there – I felt like I was on top of the world. Like I got to the end of something… I should’ve known better.’ Now he looked at Bernadette once more: back in the real world. His voice soft he said, ‘I’m a puppet. We all are.’

  Connors paused.

  ‘But I know one thing,’ he added. ‘Whoever’s in charge here, it’s someone with a small imagination for this stuff. He hasn’t thought it all through. It’s not consistent.’

  3.

  The group’s arrival was destined to be a transient pleasure. No more than an hour had passed since the culmination of the basketball game, and already Connors, Massimo and Bernadette were no more appealing than yesterday’s news. Did this mean it was over? That their struggle down the mountain had led only to this? This apathy, this lassitude…

  ‘It can’t be the end,’ Massimo reflected in a murmur, thereby spoiling a long (frightened) silence. But it felt like the end of something. There was no more fuel in the tank.

  During the preceding forty minutes, a few matters of note had occurred.

  First they’d been offered food, at a price. Any sense of goodwill or charity that they might have expected from the villagers as the result of their achievements had evidently been a non-starter from the off. They were not all-conquering heroes; in the eyes of this encampment, much to the singeing of their individual senses of pride, they were jack shit. They were nothing. A source of momentary curiosity, at best. And so they’d politely declined the sale; a little of the supplies remained. Their refusal to buy had been seen as an act of defiance.

  It was not a stance shared by Atchoo and the guides. They’d been ushered into what looked for all the world like a mechanic’s garage, complete with a rattling pull-down metal front door. From this building the aroma of meat and spices had crept out on the wind and crept up on their senses; it had smelled like an Indian restaurant, and some of the perfume lingered in the air. The sounds of revelry had been a further insult.

  When Atchoo had emerged from the garage, he’d boasted a broad, satisfied grin, and a gravy moustache that Bernadette had pointed out for him to wipe away. The smile had intensified. ‘I’m saving that bit for later,’ the boy had said.

  Connors had become angry at the boy’s remark – not only because of its glibness, but also because it was something that he himself had used to say to his own mother, when he was a boy. To Connors, the remark was a reminder of home – yet another reminder of home – and of the miles that separated there from here. He had swapped being treated like a king for being treated like a cunt. And he wanted to know why.

  ‘I want to speak to who’s running the show,’ Connors had instructed the boy.

  Connors, Massimo and Bernadette were sitting on a blue rock, near a deep-red pond. On the water’s surface swam a coterie of pink creatures that were made not of flesh and feathers but of concentrated overlaps of air. They swam upside-down, their splayed feet above the water (if it was water) and pedalling madly, their tubby torsos underneath, breathing like fish. The only time that their spectators saw their bodies was when they inverted in order to snap at some golfball-sized flying insects. Massimo loved them.

  ‘I could watch them all day,’ he announced.

  ‘I wonder what time it gets dark,’ said Bernadette, idly.

  ‘I’m not going anywhere until I’ve met the head honcho,’ said Connors.

  Bernadette was quick off the mark. ‘I wasn’t suggesting we go anywhere – I was just.’

  ‘At what point did we understand – together – that where Atchoo led us was going to be significant? Connors wondered aloud.

  No one replied.‘We did, though, didn’t we? Don’t tell me it was only me,’ Connors persisted.

  Massimo shook his head.

  ‘It wasn’t just you,’ said Bernadette. ‘But I don’t remember why we thought anything.’ She puffed out air. ‘Actually I’m doubting my memory in general.’

  ‘Aren’t we all?’ Massimo muttered. ‘Christ I’m hungry.’

  ‘I wonder if you really are,’ Connors told him.

  ‘Am what? Hungry?’

  Connors shrugged. ‘Hungry. Here. You choose. We’re being played for cunts, Mass. Someone’s controlling the whole fucking shebang. You mark mine.’

  Circles.

  Circles of conversation. The same topic, loop after loop.

  ‘I’ve got a hunch.’ Connors stood up and stretched the muscles in his shoulderblades. ‘With enough concentration we could probably change the weather.’

  ‘I doubt that,’ said Massimo.

  ‘What do you mean?’ asked Bernadette.

  ‘We are sharing something. And we’re being controlled.’

  ‘You’ve already said that a few times,’ Massimo reminded him.

  ‘Well exactly. We’re not even capable of original thought!’ Connors waited; he leaned forward, collecting his thoughts. ‘When I first arrived here – on the land, I mean – I was warned about a tribe of cannibals that lived in the hills, right? Well I think – I think – these guys here are the sort I was being warned about… Do you feel safe here, Bernadette?’

  ‘Kind of.’

  ‘Me too. I feel drowsy. Why do you think that is? I mean, apart from the big walk we did. What if these cunts are the types I was supposed to stay away from in the first place? Might be something in the air, relaxing our minds. The truth is, I feel suspicious of feeling so comfortable, if that makes any sense whatsoever. So I’m all for moving on. Shake the cobwebs from between me ears, because I reckon…’ Connors sat up sharply; a joint snapped. ‘I reckon I can get us back home if we get back to the harbour town where I first came on land. We get a ship – somehow we get a ship.’

  ‘Wait a minute,’ said Massimo. ‘You mean you really think they’re cannibals here?’

  Connors shrugged. ‘All I know is, from the moment I saw Atchoo he reminded me of Elvis – the boy not the singer – and the moment I got to this village, or nearly, I started thinking about my approach towards Toenail Island… It felt like déjà vu.’

  ‘But why would they offer to sell us food if they intended to eat us? Wouldn’t they say: take off your clothes and hop into the pot?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’m not claiming to be a bloody expert on the subject. I could be wrong – completely – but if you’ve got a better plan I suggest you voice it pretty sharpish.’

  On the pond, the creatures made of air rubbed their webbed feet together to make noises that sounded like quacks.

  ‘Why don’t we hear what the head honcho has to say?’ Massimo suggested. ‘Let’s at least have a few more hours’ rest, eh? You’ve asked to see him, after all.’

  Connors nodded. ‘Okay, but then I’m off. If I’m right – if my gut instinct is right – we can get away before it gets dark.’

  ‘And if you’re wrong?’ asked Bernadette.
/>
  Connors smiled. ‘Then we’re casserole.’

  Massimo sniggered. ‘With carrots.’

  ‘And a big bastard turnip,’ said Bernadette, also bursting into a smile. ‘I wonder who’s the saltiest out of the three of us…’

  They started laughing – nervous laughter at first, which then became richer and more honest. It was a release from the grip of tension. They laughed about being eaten in a stew; about being skewered. And they wondered if the locals enjoyed brains.

  Then they saw Atchoo.

  The boy was walking towards them, alone. His expression was impossible to read, and he waited until he was a metre away from where they were sitting before he spoke.

  ‘Benny will see you now,’ was what he said.

  Connors frowned. ‘Who’s Benny?’ he asked the boy.

  ‘You asked to see who was running the show,’ the boy explained. ‘And he’ll see you now.’

  Massimo and Connors exchanged glances.

  Beneath a Storm of Voices

  1.

  The storm broke in Yasser’s face - an electrical discharge spearing beams of pain directly into his skin, his eyes; a din like competing engines, revving in his ears. All in all, a sickening ordeal. And one which convinced Yasser that at this very moment he was suffering a stroke.

  Attempting to stay calm while his body shook, he watched visions unfold in his brain. He saw his home streets; he saw houses, shops, the B&B place up the hill. But nothing was static. The roads writhed and curled, like snakes – mating or fighting. The air was as red as surgery; homes flickered and expired in a kaleidoscope of colour and destruction. His mother and father, swimming for their lives in molten pavement, chased Yasser’s computer as it bobbed in swirls and eddies of liquid steel. A bus dissolved in the heat, spreading its solution of wet upholstery and screaming passengers on a hellbound journey through Bury Park.

  And then he heard his own voice.

  This isn’t home, it said.

  Another voice – also his own but from a different source from the first – agreed with some passion.

  This isn’t home, the second voice said. You’re a long way from home.

  In the following few seconds, a host of alternative Yassers, a scrum of serial selves, weighed into the debate, all offering the same advice – that this was not Yasser’s home – all thirteen, fourteen, fifteen or sixteen of the loudmouths.

  Then whose home was it?

  Where am I? Yasser asked the back of his head. He remembered a darkness from which he had failed to escape; the confines of the house… And Maggie, behind him; a betrayal…

  Yasser opened his eyes – or his eyes opened, whether he wanted them to or not – and the first thing he noticed was the vision of his home town, compressed and condensed, on mystery wings climbing a sky the colour of aubergine pulp. Luton was flying away from where he lay, from where he’d woken up; such was the despondency that he experienced at this moment that Yasser sat up quickly, to a throb of pain in his temples, and he breathed a denial as his home life thudded into the distance, on wings so colossal that every flap made the ground beneath his legs vibrate.

  ‘No,’ he whispered.

  Luton was gone. Bedfordshire was gone. Mum and Dad (almost certainly) were gone too… A glance around told Yasser that he was alone; there was nothing to see but the contours of the land, miles and miles of blue earth and red plants. Not even an indication as to the right direction in which to start walking. At the very edges of what he could see, the pale cloudless sky curved down, giving Yasser the impression that he was under a dome of some sort, a bowl or a fishtank.

  He stood up. Assessed the damage. No breaks, pains or aches; a little tightening in the chest, a minimal difficulty in breathing, as if he’d been on a gentle run. Nothing serious.

  ‘Hello!’ he shouted.

  His word did not echo and his word was not answered. Alone. Confusingly alone. Was he the only one who had made it across? What had happened to Shyleen? To Chris? To Maggie?

  Maggie had sprayed something in Yasser’s face; something that had robbed him of his senses.

  Why?

  Yasser wanted to believe, despite every scrap of evidence to the contrary, that Maggie had tried to help him. She had sprayed him with loopy juice, true (this couldn’t be refuted), but she had done so in order to facilitate his passing to this oddball countryside on the other side. As ever, she’d had her reasons (Yasser wished, now and always, that the woman was better able to discuss her reasons with him beforehand), and she’d got what she’d wanted. He’d arrived. And now what?

  As he walked, he answered. He held a wet finger up to test the breeze; there was nothing shifting, however, and so the choice could only be arbitrary. Sure that what he’d seen was his hometown being carried skyward on the vast wings of an angel, Yasser remembered Chris’s bloodied head. And Benny. Benny, who had done the damage to the same.

  Where was Benny now?

  To select the direction in which he’d walk, Yasser eeny-meeny-miney-mo’d, hoping all the while that the angel’s wings of which Chris had been so proud would bring him better luck than they had to their owner.

  As Yasser set out, the temperature was lukewarm and his clothes were comfortable. Although he might have maimed a living creature for the chance of a hot shower, he knew that the transition might have been worse. Indeed, under other circumstances (dramatically other circumstances), the conditions would have been perfect for a leisurely stroll.

  2.

  Shyleen awoke bruised and angry. She tried to leaf through her nightmares, to get to the end of the chapter faster (she didn’t care about the denouement): but the nightmares refused to flutter away. She was made to endure them, paralysed as she was by a nauseous shock.

  Something pushed repeatedly against her face. The pressure was not unbearable but it was strange. It was like the first time that she had woken up in her boyfriend’s bed (the boyfriend of whom Yasser knew nothing). The boyfriend’s cat, accustomed to sleeping on the other pillow, had chosen to sleep on Shyleen’s face instead, in an act of territorial defiance. Not a hostile act exactly, more an unconfusable statement that there was already a female in the boyfriend’s life, and that Shyleen would be well advised to respect the fact.

  The difference was that the cat had not stood up and sat down on her head in a repeated fashion. The pounding that Shyleen was currently accepting was metronomically regular, as if…

  Shyleen tittered.

  …as if obeying the rhythms of penetrative lovemaking; as if some dick were fucking her head, quite literally. As if her head had become her vagina or something.

  Shyleen tittered again. It did not occur to her to be frightened of the darkness; if anything, the black wall was a welcoming non-sight. The presence of darkness implied that she need not move: she could lie still and let him finish poking her brains out… So this was what they meant by a head fuck!

  Apart from the nameless boyfriend, no other memory insisted on being noticed. Her skull was being pounded; all the neurological stuffing had been knocked out of it. And because of this, Shyleen was free to drift… and to let the currents dictate which way.

  Might as well enjoy it, she reasoned. So numb were her fingertips (and so heavy her arms) that when she touched her breasts, it felt like someone else – an invisible demon lover – was in charge of the massage. Said lover stroked her skin, igniting sparks on the surface that buried down into the flesh; her nipples glowed softly, like the eyes of a nocturnal prowler. The demon lover (he, she or it) made her nipples burn hotter and brighter; they now resembled two distant bonfires on two hills, an image as absurd as it was arresting.

  Understanding that her mind was playing tricks with her – confusing her signals, shuffling the information – did not panic Shyleen. On the contrary, it felt good to be so lost, so topsy turvy; it felt like abandonment… and she wo
ndered how her pussy would seem, given such emotional weather.

  When she touched the outer lips, her vision began to clear; the darkness faded to dove-grey, and as soon as she withdrew her fingers, the darkness clamped back over her head, with a working-bell clang that scared her… Never one to need much of an excuse to masturbate at the best of times, Shyleen took herself in hand now, dipping her first two fingers as deep as she could reach.

  It was like winding up a battery-powered torch (she thought of the house, she thought of Benny). The more she exercised her interior, the healthier her eyesight grew. She saw fields of grey (apparently the crop was ash); she saw blackbirds, conversing with uncle eagles, grandfather buzzards… She remembered the weed that she’d smoked with Chris (she remembered Chris), and while wondering if the visions were its result, she also wondered if the man having sex with her was Chris himself. Up till now it hadn’t occurred to her to give her paramour a name – or a face, come to think of it.

  Why couldn’t she see him? All she could see – the ash-fields, the chattering birds – was as clear as a key in a pool of water. The light was good; the temperature warm (no sensory distractions)… Now the birds turned to watch her watching them; and her brain being fogged both by weed and by anaesthetic (not to mention the mind drugs of fear and orgasm), Shyleen imagined an overarching, all-seeing observer, who watched them all, woman and birds.

  Watching.

  Voice.

  I have a voice, Shyleen recalled, somewhat adaze.

  Watching. Something was watching.

  Shyleen tried to move – and tried to speak. The birds hopped closer to her, a few of them squawking, their tiny feet kicking up puffs of ash.

  Go away! Horrible pecky birds!

  Suddenly Shyleen imagined herself to be a worm. She was food for these birds, she understood – or rather, for one bird, the early bird who catches the –

  NO!

  As her mind shrieked the refusal, the body flailed and her fingers slipped free of her cleft.

  The vision left her. A familiar face – brown-skinned and topped with a pelt of short black hair – was everything in her sight.