by Shane Carrow
I was sitting on the edge of the patio in the backyard. After school. Clipping my fingernails, watching them zip off into the grass below my feet. I made it to the ring finger on my left hand when suddenly I felt dizzy, as though I was going to vomit. I closed my eyes for a few moments. When I opened them I was lying in this room.
It was only for a few seconds. But it had been happening a lot. I’d be doing nothing out of the ordinary when suddenly... sickness, nausea, and I black out or close my eyes. Find myself suddenly in a different place, wearing filthy rags, in pain. Lying on a filthy mattress and staring at a concrete wall. A jail cell.
And I’m here now. And I can’t get back.
This isn’t good for him.
I talked to Aaron about it. I was in the bathroom, staring through flecks of dried toothpaste at my face in the mirror, looking myself in the eyes. Wondering what the fuck was going on in my brain. Aaron poked his head in through the door and said, “Hey, man, what’s going on?”
“Nothing,” I said. “I’m fine.” I tried to push the door shut on him, but he wedged his shoulder through and, with surprising strength, forced his way in.
I don’t care.
“Don’t lie to me,” he said firmly. “I know something’s wrong. You’ve been like this all day. Tell me.”
I sat down on the edge of the bathtub, wearily rubbing my temples. “All day, you say. ‘All day.’ It feels like I’ve been like this for a while. I can’t... I can’t remember when this didn’t keep happening to me. I can’t remember.”
“When what kept happening to you?” he asked, squatting down in front of me, putting a hand on my shoulder.
I do. You fail to realise the physical ramifications of this. It’s not just his mind and his spirit, Aaron, it’s his brain. The cells and the synapses. The longer we sustain this operation the more damage we do. He could…
“I keep having… flashes. I don’t know.” I looked around the bathroom, at the towels shoved into the rack, the soap floating in its own ooze in the shower, the stacks of toilet paper on top of the cistern. The window was open, and through the flywire I could hear the shouts and splashes of the neighbour’s kids playing in their pool. “I keep, just, having these... flashes. Flashes that I’m lying in a cell. Like a jail cell.”
Aaron stared at me for a moment. “Just visual flashes?” he asked worriedly.
I said I don’t care!
“I don’t know,” I said. “They only last a few seconds. I feel like if I tried to move, tried to walk around or touch something, I could. They just feel so... real. Jesus, man, I’m going crazy.”
“You’re not going crazy,” Aaron said, sounding uncertain. “You’re just getting stressed. Exams and all that, right? Shit, man, I feel like I’m about to lose it myself. There’s a lot of fucking pressure on us. But it’s just a few weeks. We just got to ride it out.”
And I said that I do! We have a moral duty, Aaron, an ethical duty! Your brother is no longer aware of his situation! That means he cannot consent! That means we no longer have any right to be tampering with his mental functions! He’s not even being tortured right now!
“I keep hearing voices, too,” I said. “Arguing voices.”
Aaron didn’t say anything.
“Maybe I should see a doctor.”
“No,” he said. “You don’t need to do that. Come on man, let’s go get something to eat.”
He is going to die. Do you understand that? They are going to keep on torturing him, and he is not going to speak, and because of that he is going to die. We can’t get him out of there. It’s impossible. In a few weeks or a few days he is going to be dead and there is not a fucking thing I can do about it except make it easier for him! He is my brother! My fucking brother! So you can keep the fuck out of this and do what you’re told, because it’s not your call to make!
And then... I don’t know what happened then. I was going to argue with Aaron. I had decided that I definitely had to see a doctor, or a psychiatrist or a psychologist, because something was most definitely fucked up in my head and no amount of “exam stress” could be causing the things that were happening to me.
And I was sure that I was going to leave that bathroom and walk down to my bedroom and pick up my phone and call one. But...
Memories of a party, some random Saturday night in the midst of high school. Drunken teenage girls throwing up in corners, empty bottles of Vodka Cruiser lying on the carpet, a laundry basin full of ice cubes and beer.
There were no parties during exam time. Everybody was busy studying. That can’t be what logically follows that conversation in the bathroom.
I don’t know. I’m confused. I can’t remember what’s been happening to me recently. I don’t have amnesia. My name is Matthew Michael King, my twin brother is Aaron Michael King, we go to Rossmoyne Senior High School and live with our father. Our mother died when we were toddlers. My girlfriend’s name is Emily… no, it isn’t. My girlfriend was Emily Kinsky. But I split up with her... days ago? Months ago?
Years ago?
And there are memories floating around in there that don’t belong at all. Vague, broken memories, like fragile bubbles. When I think about them too hard they disappear, and I catch only a dim outline of them. A container ship floating out on choppy horizon, grey sky above, a pair of little aluminium boats motoring out to it. The smell of a woman – familiar but strange. The overpowering roar of a helicopter hovering above me. The sensation of an automatic weapon in my hands, shuddering as I fire, absorbing the recoil into my shoulder.
I’ve never fired a gun in my life.
And there are horror images, too. Nightmare memories. Rotting, decaying faces staring in through a window from the darkness outside, the skin dripping away to reveal a grinning skull. A man shot in the head, holding a hostage I can’t make out, his blood and brains splattering backwards into the rain as a neat round hole appears in his forehead. Thin black tentacles snaking down from the sky, coming for me, my body rigid with terror.
And then this. The cell. The place that shouldn’t exist, but does.
I woke up here. I can’t remember what I was doing before that.
My body in this place is not my body, not my real body. It is broken and twisted. There are scars all over my skin, burns marks and cuts and gashes. The two furthest fingers on my left hand are gone, a blood-soaked bandage wrapped over where they were. When I touch my face, I feel more scars, more damaged tissue, more dried blood. When I touch my cheeks, I can feel scratchy stubble.
But it is my body. No matter how wretched and damaged, there is no mistaking your own body.
I’m in a lot of pain. And I’m scared. I’m scared because I shouldn’t be imagining these things, because it reveals that there is something terribly wrong with my brain. I thought I was lucky, whenever I saw kids with brain damage or cerebral palsy or whatever. I thought I was lucky that I’d made it through birth without any defects. I thought I was in the clear.
But I’m not. Nobody ever is. Something can always go wrong. You can be a healthy teenager and suddenly find your mind thrown into some fucked up schizophrenic world of terror.
I’m scared of that door. I’m scared that somebody might come through that door before this vision goes away, before I manage to get back to the real world, because even though I know this isn’t real it feels real and somebody here did this to me. Whoever put me in here, in this crazy mental world of mine, does not have my best interests at heart.
I found this old notebook underneath the mattress. I thought writing in it might help me calm down, might help me keep a grip on things.
My God. What am I doing? It doesn’t even exist. None of this exists.
September 28
Matt.
Matt. Wake up.
My eyelids flickered open, and I groaned internally. I was still lying on the mattress in the cell. My hand was still throbbing and my stomach still felt sick. I’d fallen asleep last night willing myself to think of the real world,
forcing myself to imagine my home and school and workplace, hoping that I’d snap out of this nightmare and wake up in my own bed.
Instead I was in the hallucinatory jail cell, being woken up by some strange voice in my head. Well, weirder things were happening.
“Who is this?” I murmured, still half-sleep.
It’s Aaron.
That woke me up.
“What do you mean?” I whispered.
No. Use your mind to talk. You know how.
“What’s going on?” I repeated. I could feel Aaron right there, a comforting presence, hovering around my mind. Was I unconscious on the floor of my bedroom? Was Aaron kneeling over me, trying to bring me back?
I’m sorry, he said. I’m really sorry, Matt. But I can’t take you back.
“What are you talking about?”
The cell. You’re stuck there. For now. A huge wave of sorrow and regret washed over me, and at first I thought they were my feelings – before realising they were coming from the voice. From Aaron.
“What? What the hell are you talking about?”
It’s real! he shouted inside my head. Okay? The cell is real. It’s the other stuff that’s fake, all your memories of being at home and at school. I mean, no, they’re not fake. They happened, they were real. But they’re just memories. That’s all they are. I was manipulating your mind to make you think they were real. So you didn’t have to go through this. And now... it got out of hand. It got out of hand and it fucked you up and now you can’t tell the difference, you can’t tell that this is the real world. And I can’t even let you keep going into the fake world, thinking that it’s real, because I can’t do it myself and the fucking Endeavour won’t help me anymore. I’m sorry, Matt. I’m so, so sorry.
He was crying. The voice in my head was crying.
“You aren’t Aaron,” I said slowly. “You’re me. You’re my mind, talking to itself. Because I’m crazy.”
I could still hear the voice weeping. After a while it went away.
I’ve been looking at this book. It’s a journal of some kind. Filled with handwriting. My handwriting.
I can’t read it. I can write in the blank pages, but I can’t bear to look back over the other ones, at those dated entries, at that familiar cursive. Because it might turn out to be true. And I can’t let that happen.
I’d rather be insane than let this be the reality.
September 29
I had a long day and night of nightmares, of squashed dreams and crushed hopes. I’d lost count of the number of times I’d fallen asleep, dreamed about my home, about my school and my friends and my girlfriend, only to wake up and discover that it wasn’t real. That I was still here in this jail cell. Trapped in a hellish, psychotic world of falsity. Wondering what was happening to my real body, whether I was in a coma or asleep in my bed or tied up in a straightjacket in a padded cell.
Not long after I woke up, my cell door grated open. I was instantly scrambling backwards, huddling up in the corner, shaking and trembling and terrified of what was about to come through.
Soldiers. Two men in Army camouflage, rifles on their backs, immediately taking up positions by the door. A third man in full dress uniform, olive khaki, slouch hat strapped to his head, insignia on his shoulder suggesting he was some important officer. He had a bland face, like an office worker or politician, but there was a cold hard darkness in those eyes.
He stared at me for a long time, while I sat there wishing myself home as hard as I could. Eventually he said, “How are you doing it, Matthew?”
I didn’t say anything.
“I know you’ve figured out some trick,” he continued. “Meditation, zen, disassociation, whatever you want to call it. It’s very rare. I’ve heard of it, but I’ve never personally seen it done. But somehow you’ve figured out how to block out the pain.”
I stayed quiet. I had no idea what he was talking about.
Scraps of memory flashed through my mind: this man’s face on a poster. This man eating breakfast on a cottage patio at the edge of a lush garden. This man looming above me, in a dark cell, holding a multitool.
draeger general draeger
“It’s interesting, Matthew. I am impressed. But it’s unfortunate for your friends.” He turned and called out into the corridor: “Bring him in!”
Another soldier walked in, pushing forward a man wearing nothing but a pair of grey underwear. His hands were cuffed behind his back. His chest and face were a mass of welts and scars, and he was malnourished, his skin laid against his ribs. Blond hair was plastered sweatily across his forehead. He was gagged, but breathing heavily, trying to quell panic.
The soldier kicked the prisoner in the back of the kneecap, who dropped to his knees. Then he drew a handgun from a thigh holster, handed it to Draeger, saluted and left the cell.
I had a sudden flash of the prisoner’s face. Blond, smiling, cheerful. Sitting across the table from me shuffling a deck of cards. Walking slowly through a forest next to me, gripping an assault rifle and scanning the area. Reaching down to grab me, to haul me up into the bay of a cargo plane at dusk.
Draeger drew the handgun’s slide back and released it, relishing the clicking noise it made. The blond prisoner started breathing even heavier, hyperventilating, hysterical.
“Private Edward Rickenbacker of the former Australian Army,” the general said slowly. “Twenty-one years old. Born in Perth, Western Australia – just like you, Matthew.”
I didn’t say anything. I was staring at the scene in disbelief.
kill him hurt him kill him
“6th Battalion, Royal Australia Regiment, regular infantry. Stationed at Lone Pine barracks in New South Wales. No overseas service. Was eventually reintegrated into a composite unit at Wagga Wagga, and dispatched to the Snowy Mountains in July as part of the federal government’s operation to secure an extra-terrestrial spacecraft.” The officer paused to look over at me, tapping the gun barrel against Rickenbacker’s head. “Then, in August, sent with two other regular infantry soldiers and two SAS commandos to Brisbane, to serve as your bodyguards while you functioned as a communication link between loyalist forces in Queensland and the spacecraft crash zone.”
“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” I managed to say.
Draeger stared me in the eye, and levelled the gun at Rickenbacker’s head. Rickenbacker started screaming through the rag in his mouth, a hideous muffled sound of terror. He was looking in my eyes too, begging with me, pleading.
“You have three seconds to tell me where the codebook is or I will kill him,” Draeger said flatly.
“This isn’t real!” I shouted. “This isn’t real, this isn’t happening, none of this is…”
Draeger squeezed the trigger. There was the crack of a gunshot, deafening inside the cell, and Rickenbacker’s body crumpled down onto the concrete floor. Blood began to pool around his head. I froze in mid-shout.
should have jumped him should have killed him you useless fucking asshole you just got him killed
General Draeger lowered the gun. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Matthew,” he said sharply, and he turned and walked out of the cell. The two guards moved forward, grabbed the body under the armpits and dragged it out, leaving a thick red trail of blood. The steel door swung shut, bolts were slammed back into place.
I stared numbly at the blood smeared across the floor, my ears still ringing. More memories of this man were darting across my mind like a strobe light. His face, always framed by an Army uniform, grinning or frowning or laughing. Standing on the sun-drenched deck of a ship, looking across the ocean at an island swathed in greenery. Standing ankle-deep in the snow, white flakes dusting his hair and shoulders, the mountains behind him blurring as a blizzard descended on us. Being dragged into the back of an Army truck on a rural road, while I peered down from a hidden vantage point. Private Rickenbacker. I remember him, floating in some amnesiac abyss like an actor against a green screen.
How do I remem
ber him?
How, in fact, could I have imagined what I just saw? I have never ever seen a man shot in the head. On television, in movies, yes. But the overpowering noise of the gun, the acrid smell, the way blood moves and oozes... none of it was how I expected. If my insane mind were to imagine this, that is not how it would play out.
But this can’t be real. It can’t.
I don’t want it to be.
September 30
I was sitting on the roof of the house, drinking a Coke. Not sure why. The sun had set somewhere over the suburban horizon to the west, and the last few traces of colour in the sky were melting away, leaving the clouds a light pink. The eastern sky was already dark. Out on the river, the last few pleasure boats were heading for shore. The skyscrapers were starting to light up.
People are dying because of this, Aaron.
It was a warm night. I was barefoot, wearing board shorts and a t-shirt. November? December? It felt like the first day of summer. A bat went flapping past, a dark shape hunting for insects.
What the fuck do you want me to do? Do you think I’m happy about this? What, exactly, do you fucking propose that we do?
Cicadas were chirping in the trees and bushes of the front yard. The neighbour’s cat was stalking through the rose bushes, staring at some hidden prey under Dad’s car.
We shouldn’t have started this again. We can stop it. Right now.
The moon was rising over the rooftops, clinging to the horizon, huge and yellow.
What the fuck good would that do? He doesn’t remember anything! He can’t give them any answers! He can’t stop this any more than we can!
I finished the last of the Coke, and dropped the can. It rolled slowly down the tiles and disappeared over the edge of the gutter.
It would salvage whatever is left of his mind. He is not insane – not yet – but he will be soon. If we end this now we can avoid causing any permanent damage to his brain.
It was a beautiful, serene night. It was warm and peaceful and happy and good. But it wasn’t real. I knew that it wasn’t real.