As the Current Pulls the Fallen Under

by Daryl Sneath

  Sitting against the wall in the darkness she reached for her jeans and took a package of cigarettes from one of the front pockets. We sat there naked, smoking, taking long deep pulls, and I imagined myself emptying a full magazine onto a target at the end of one of the corridors with a blown-up picture of my own head stuck to the top. I wasn’t suicidal but there was no way this was going to be a onetime thing and I was angry at myself for succumbing. I was weak and I knew in my gut that I always would be. I’d never be the story of the man who overcomes.

  She was the one to break the silence. Always in control even when she wasn’t. ‘You were saying?’

  I looked at her. She continued.

  ‘You said, When we get out of here—you were going to tell me something.’

  I shook my head. ‘I don’t remember.’

  ‘How about this? When we get out of here I’m going to make you famous.’

  I snickered. ‘Really. How’s that?’

  She drew an invisible headline with her thumb and index finger. ‘Karl the Conjurer. People will pay to see what you can do.’

  ‘I don’t think so. People used to run from me.’

  ‘You can’t just go up to people and make their wallets disappear or cut them in half. It has to be controlled. There needs to be a stage. There needs to be a safe place for an audience to watch from. There needs to be an understanding.’

  ‘An understanding.’

  ‘Trust me. You’ll see.’

  ‘And what about you?’

  ‘What about me?’

  ‘You’ve got a plan to control what put me here. How will you control what put you here?’

  ‘To be clear my problem was virgins, not sex, and I think I’m done with them.’ She put her hands on my shoulders and straddled me. ‘Now that I have you.’

  And have me she did.

  ‘I’ll take care of everything,’ she said. ‘I’ll be Oz. I’ll be the ghost behind the ghosts.’

  She took me again and I knew in that instant that I was hers for as long as she wanted me to be. She was like this wild, lithe-looking cat staring me down and there was nothing I could do. I was trapped. Stuck. Nowhere to turn. You always, always have a choice, say the pundits of free will. Well, not me. Not this time. I was truly and utterly optionless. Frozen. Cock stiff.

  3 For the sake of providing metafictional backstory for VA and KK I’m including the opening chapter from Spectre with the express consent of the author who happens also to be the overseas overseer to this particular bionarrative keystone project. Take it as you will.

  From the Journal of Vector Sorn

  We were finished. This was it. The last time. We were in our final hours together. I could tell the moment she opened the door to greet me. I had had enough experience with the ends of things to recognize the imminence of one. There were no tangible warnings. No subtext in the way she spoke. She didn’t look at me or touch me in any particularly portentous way. There were no celestial omens. No apocalyptic images. No coincidental songs of reckoning in the background. I just knew. I don’t do forever, she said. A clear and tangible end had always been on the touchable horizon. That long shadow on the lawn. And now, here it was. I could feel it in my gut. I was filled with the same nervous fusion of fear and relief that knots my insides at the start of a race. Only this time I was holding the gun and it was up to me to pull the trigger.

  #305 36 WATER STREET, TERMINUS BUILDING: VANCOUVER, BC

  Slipping on an oversized Beatles t-shirt and nothing else, she padded across the room, slid the balcony door open, and stepped out. I followed. One last time.

  Leaning sideways against the rail she struck a match and held the head of her Romeo y Julieta in the flame while she puffed it to life. There was a breeze which took the smoke away like a spirit, and spring, as they say, was in the air.

  ‘I’d offer you one, but—’

  I didn’t know how the sentence ended but I nodded anyway.

  In the wicker chair I’d come to view as one of my spots in her home—as illogical as the notion of such possession is—I stretched out and crossed my bare feet, set my head into the plushly cushioned back, closed my eyes, inhaled deeply, and sighed. The full gesture—the feeling and the thought of it—said this: I am content. If there is nothing else there is this. And I feel fine.

  The REM song snuck into the moment and as I opened my eyes I found myself humming the chorus.

  I was sure this was the last time I’d ever be there—there with her, there this way—and despite the fear and anxiety, despite the extractable pit in my stomach, I felt completely relaxed. I couldn’t understand why and I can’t explain it now. The best I can do is to say it was like some kind of inner anarchical calm. A private pandemonium peace. With such a conflation of emotions there was no physical way to represent exactly how I was feeling. Tears, should they come, would not do and would be grossly misinterpreted. A tightly drawn mouth and furrowed brow would suggest anger, far too simple a conclusion for and far from what I actually felt. Laughter would be stupid as it too often is. To be clear it’s not that I thought about the physical expression of my feelings in that moment and how best to represent them—that sort of forced countenance is invariably transparent and void of meaning—but now that I’m writing about it I find myself ­contemplating such body language. Like why I sat there, for example—aware of what I took as an imminent end I wanted no part of—reclined in a wicker chair grinning like a kid waking up a month into summer.

  Maybe it was an unconscious acceptance of what I could not prevent or change. I don’t know. But what is equally as strange as my demeanour—or perhaps expected, if I really thought about it—is what I said to break the silence.

  ‘Do you have a zoo in this city? I feel like going to the zoo.’

  She puffed the cigar and looked at me like I’d just asked her if she’d ever thought about trying to find the end of a rainbow, or if she ever talked to god about heaven and how to get in, or if she believed in the possibility of true and everlasting love.

  ‘The zoo.’

  I nodded.

  ‘I will miss you, Vector Sorn.’

  ‘You know you don’t have to miss me at all. We could—’

  ‘We could what?’ She laughed but not condescendingly. ‘Get married? Have kids? Settle into the normal adult life?’

  Her eyes were bright and open, not narrow and judgemental.

  I wanted to say, Yeah, why not? What’s wrong with normal? but instead I opened my arms. She set the cigar between her teeth and lowered herself backwards into the wicker chair with me. I wrapped my arms around her and kissed her neck. She tilted her head to make it easier for me and puffed the cigar.

  I held her tightly (as though for comfort, as though for warmth—as though in fear, as though forever) and she let me.

  We spoke without looking at each other, the back of her head on my chest.

  I began. ‘We don’t have to do normal.’

  ‘What would we do?’

  ‘I don’t know. This. What’s wrong with this?’

  ‘This is part of a show. Without the show this is not this.’

  ‘It’s not always a show. We’re not on camera right now.’

  ‘No. But we were. And we will be. This is just an interlude.’

  ‘I can live with that.’

  ‘With what?’

  ‘What comes between—in fact it’s the perfect way to live.’

  ‘In interlude.’

  ‘In perpetual anticipation. What could be better?’

  ‘On infinite pause. What could be worse?’

  ‘To be in endless medias res—to never see the end. I’d take that.’

  ‘The middle of things are only the middle of things when they have a beginning and an end, Vector.’

  ‘Okay, but you can stop. You can choose to stop right in the mid
dle. So why don’t we do that. Why don’t we stop right now. Right here.’

  ‘Because that would just be a different end. Stopping is the same as ending.’

  ‘You know, you could just agree with me. You could just nod and say, “Yes, Vector, that would be nice.’

  She nodded. ‘Yes, Vector. That would be nice.”’

  She smoked her cigar and we said nothing for a while until she broke the silence. ‘But imagine sex without orgasm. Imagine a race that never ended. They would cease to be the things they are.’

  I nodded. ‘So if this, what we’re doing here, doesn’t end then it will just cease to be.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  She filled her mouth with smoke, held it, made an O of her lips, and blew the smoke out in a stream. Pushing herself from the chair, she padded over to the rail and, going on her toes, stretched her arms as high as she could over her head. The bottom of the shirt she had on—‘Life Goes On’ written across the back—lifted as she stretched, like she knew it would.

  She turned, threw the cigar down, gripped the rail behind her, and grinned. ‘Okay. Let’s go. We’ll sneak in somewhere and fuck among the animals.’

  ‘You’re joking.’

  She shook her head and I could see the excitement pulse in her eyes.

  Turning away, she crossed her arms and looked over the rail, over Gastown, toward the harbour, where the silent ships moved like toys, where the sun came up every day and made the water shimmer, perilously beautiful. Like Eden itself.

  SILVER LIGHT

  Victor:

  Original Sin (Episode 10)

  EXT. GREATER VANCOUVER ZOO. LATE AFTERNOON.

  VICTOR and THE DIRECTOR hold hands as they approach the ticket booth. They both look happy. By all accounts, a couple in love.

  The DIRECTOR carries a small professional-grade video ­camera. As VICTOR purchases their tickets, the DIRECTOR fiddles with the camera’s settings.

  VICTOR

  Two please.

  TICKET VENDOR

  Just so you know we close in an hour.

  VICTOR looks at the DIRECTOR who is busy with her camera. He nods at the ticket window.

  VICTOR

  That’ll do.

  INT. VICTOR’s MIND. THREE YEARS LATER.

  The DIRECTOR is no longer the DIRECTOR. She is Valerie Argent Sorn. Val Sorn when she extends her hand to the literati, the press, all the members of the publishing house at the exclusive book-release party for Vector (no longer Victor) Sorn’s much-talked-about debut novel As the Current Pulls the Fallen Under. She is wearing a silver, backless, ankle-length dress and Cinderella sandals. Each of her tattoos, save the one on her lower back, is visible. The male faction, as she walks by, smiles knowingly and counts Vector Sorn among the luckiest of all men. The ladies whisper and count Valerie Argent among the luckiest of all women. Together they are the couple every other couple and every non-couple wants to be. In his reverie VICTOR is reminded of the way strangers used to look at Max and Rayn.

  The night goes on. Drinks and more drinks and smart conversation. At one point the publisher taps a mic and recites a meritorious speech about her latest literary discovery—Vector Sorn—whom she calls to the lectern, amidst the applause, where he opens a copy of the novel and begins to read a selection.

  After, there are duties—hands to shake, pictures to pose for, interviewer’s questions to answer—but during it all the only thing Vector can really think about is getting Valerie back to the hotel room where the two of them can fall into role and bring to life a scene from Vector’s fiction.

  EXT. GREATER VANCOUVER ZOO. LATE AFTERNOON.

  VICTOR and the DIRECTOR are outside the cougar exhibit. The animal notices them and—unafraid, perhaps sensing the possibility of food, curious at the very least—moves towards the bars that cage him.

  VICTOR watches the muscular pacing—the patience, the unblinking eyes fixed upon him—as the animal moves back and forth, the low rumble in its throat, all a declaration of doom were it not for the bars between them.

  Or, VICTOR imagines, maybe it’s an expression of envy. A plea. He hears the cougar’s anthropomorphic voice in his head: You don’t know what it’s like—to be caged—to have nowhere to run—could you imagine nowhere to run?—look at me—the atrophy—skin hangs where muscle used to be—I’m not meant to be weak—evolution made me one of the strong ones—but this cage, this cage has sapped all my strength for the sake of display—I don’t know how much longer I can go on—set me free—pick the lock—unlatch the cage door—there’s no one here—no one will see—no one will ever know it was you—I’ll make no noise—I’ll head straight for the bush—I’ll bother no one—please—make good on the moments you wish you had back—reach out a hand—don’t step away—you can save me—that’s something, isn’t it?—save me—set me free.

  VICTOR takes a step back.

  As though in an expression of disappointment, the cougar releases his gaze and pads away.

  DIRECTOR

  (offscreen)

  Victor. I’m waiting.

  VICTOR lifts his head and turns. Like an animal. He follows the whisper—coming at him on the air like a hushed god—dreamy, ethereal, careful, quiet, teasing, dangerous.

  He finds the DIRECTOR tucked away in a manmade faux-rock nook meant to look rocky and natural in its terracotta hardness. But there is nothing natural about it. Epigonic at best. Glaringly false in all its efforts to be real.

  The DIRECTOR is half-leaning, half-sitting on an edge, her back against the contoured pane of glass set into the fake rock meant for clandestine cougar-gazing, her belt undone, the button of her jeans open, the zipper halfway down.

  She sees him and slowly undoes her zipper the rest of the way, slips a hand behind the veil of silver silk. VICTOR glances over his shoulder. They are alone. He looks at the DIRECTOR and watches the prelude. On her whispered command he moves in, kneels as though in prayer. The back of her head pressed against the glass, she closes her eyes. The red eye of the camera she set up in the opposite corner above them blinks. She pulls him up and with the smell of wild earth around them, the pornographic smack of skin on skin and their own breathing are the only sounds in the air. They come together and as he descends—his breathing heavy and slowing, his mouth loose against her neck—VICTOR opens his eyes to see the cougar stretched out in voyeuristic respite only inches away, separated by nothing but the pane of glass between them. Their eyes lock. There is no sense at all of impending doom. There is no appeal in the animal’s surveillance. No judgement. No entreaty in its stillness. And VICTOR finds himself contemplating the notions of freedom and of loss. The two things, he figures, in a moment of post-coital clarity, that we, the ones who cage for the sake of preservation, are most afraid of.

  INT. #305 36 WATER STREET, TERMINUS BUILDING: VANCOUVER, BC. EVENING.

  The door opens and in walks the DIRECTOR whose face (as always in Silver Light) we never see, followed by VICTOR. The DIRECTOR dumps her keys on the table and VICTOR runs a finger along the tabletop as he walks by. To anyone watching, they look like a married couple coming home, a couple who is either just coming out of an argument or comfortable being together in silence. Or both.

  VICTOR sighs, falls into his spot on the couch in the living room, and puts his feet up. He takes up a magazine and begins flipping the pages with no apparent purpose. We sense the DIRECTOR entering. As always during the story segment she is off-screen. She hands VICTOR a glass and they clink an unspoken toast.

  Music plays in the background. Ron Sexsmith. The DIRECTOR has always been a fan. She likes the name. Sexsmith. Like an occupation. Like, in part, what she considers herself to be.

  VICTOR looks at the DIRECTOR, at the camera.

  VICTOR

  This is it then.

  The DIRECTOR stands from her chair and comes into full view for the f
irst time in the history of Silver Light. She sits beside VICTOR, removes her thick-rimmed glasses, and nods. She is a woman who never cries but the feeling is that she might now. There is something in her face that suggests an uncharacteristic but honest sadness. She is as beautiful as her audience had always suspected.

  VICTOR sighs again and reaches for the backpack he carries with him always. He pulls out the journal: not his own, from which he sometimes reads, but Rayn’s. The audience will recognize the journal as hers. It is a leatherbound volume. An image the DIRECTOR has featured in previous episodes. She has done her filmic best to create dramatic anticipation with respect to what VICTOR may reveal when he reads from Rayn’s journal for the very first time in his life.

  VICTOR turns the journal in his hands, touching it like a recently unearthed artefact: an ancient tome that may well hold all the answers. Or none.

  The DIRECTOR watches him.

  DIRECTOR

  Are you ready?

  VICTOR nods, opens the journal, and begins reading.

  VICTOR

  June 21. Paddle the Heron was yesterday. Went solo for the first time. God was I fast. Even beat dad. In the boat he and mom bought me for my fourteenth birthday. I’ve never really known sadness so it’s difficult for me to compare, but I can’t imagine ever feeling happier than I do now.

  VICTOR nods, shakes his head. Like the DIRECTOR he is someone who never cries but there is the sense that in these moments to come he might.

  VICTOR

  I don’t know. I don’t know if I can do this. I don’t know if I should.

  DIRECTOR

  She would want you to.

  From anyone else, such a presumptuous claim would incense VICTOR. Who the fuck are you to say she would want me to? But instead he believes the DIRECTOR. Like she has some access to truth and understanding otherwise reserved for an unfathomable futuristic replacement species whose omniscience is far greater than any god’s.