by Darren Dash
“It’s not that easy,” she says.
“Why?”
She shrugs. “People have jobs to focus on. You have to work hard to earn drone teeth. It wouldn’t pay to go round fighting animals all the time.”
I ask how she came to this city but she doesn’t understand the question. “I live here,” she says.
“You’ve always lived here?”
“Yes.”
“So you were born here?”
“Born?” She doesn’t know what it means.
“You grew up here?” I try. “You’ve lived here since you were a child?”
“I’m not a child,” she smiles.
“But you were once,” I chuckle.
She shakes her head. “How could I have been? Children are children, adults are adults.”
“Sure,” I say, “but children grow up to become adults.”
“Are you playing a joke on me?” she laughs.
She has no recollection of her childhood. She truly believes she’s been an adult her entire life. I ask how long that life has been but she can’t answer — she has no concept of months or years.
“What about your parents?” I press. “Your mother and father?” She doesn’t know what they are. “You’ve no family at all? You’re an orphan?” No, it goes further than that. She never had parents. Nobody here has. Families don’t exist. “So how were you born?” I ask again. “How do you reproduce?”
They’re alien terms to her. Could it be she’s mentally backwards, or could the people of this city truly be unaware of the laws of reproduction? My head says it must be the former, but in my gut I’m sure it’s the latter.
“Do you know what sex is?” I ask.
“Of course,” she giggles.
“Good,” I smile. “Well, sometimes, after a couple have sex, something magical happens…” I explain the facts of life to her, impregnation and fertilisation, all that stuff. She stares at me as if I’ve two heads.
“You believe that crazy tale?” she asks.
“It’s not a tale,” I growl. “It’s how living beings have offspring, the way life replenishes itself.”
“If you say so,” she smirks.
“How else can people reproduce?” I challenge her. “Where do they come from?”
“We don’t come from anywhere,” she says. “We just are. We live here. We’ve always lived here.”
“And always will live here?” I ask sceptically.
“No,” she says. “We only live until we die.”
So at least they know about death.
“Imagine a person growing in a woman’s stomach,” she giggles. “How would they fit?”
“They’re babies when they’re born,” I explain.
“Right,” she snorts. “And then they grow.” She spreads her hands and jiggles her fingers. “Like magic. Baby one day, child the next, adult the next.” She wags a finger at me. “You might fool some people with a story like that but not me.”
“No?” I snap. “Well, wait until you get up the duff, see what you think then.”
“Up the duff?” she enquires.
“Pregnant. When some guy shoots his load up you one dark night and –”
“No!” she gasps, covering my mouth with her hands. “Don’t say such things, even in fun.”
“What do you mean?” I grumble, swiping her hands away.
“This story of yours,” she says. “If you truly believe it and aren’t pulling my leg, then it’s dangerous. You must forget it, Newman.”
“What are you talking about?”
She takes my hands in hers and squeezes. “You must never ejaculate inside a woman,” she warns. “It’s deadly, the worst thing a man could do to one of us. I hear stories, the way you do, about men who do it to women when they’re asleep, but I’m sure they’re only wild tales told to scare the listeners. Sometimes it happens by accident, and that’s a tragedy, but a man who did it on purpose would be truly evil, and I don’t want to believe that evil exists in that way.”
“What do you mean?” I ask, alarmed by the depth of feeling in her voice. “What harm can a streak of sperm do?”
“I don’t know,” she tells me, “but I know this — if a man ejaculates inside a woman during sex, it means death. Death,” she hisses, almost crushing my hands as she squeezes.
Cheryl hasn’t eaten, so we traipse downstairs and order a meal from Franz. She has a full dinner, slices of drone stomach and breast, but I’m stuffed after my meal at Kipp’s, so I just have a snack, a few crisp fingers. I’m thirsty, so I ask for a glass of water. Cheryl orders a mug of sap.
“You can get it in mugs?” I ask.
“Of course,” she says. “Most people prefer to drink from the source but I’ve never liked having drones about while I’m eating. They give me the creeps.”
Cheryl works in a drone processing factory. She’s one of the people who melts them down and fashions them into candles. It’s not a great job, she tells me, but the pay’s good and it’s easy work, no hard physical labour. She used to make cars. The pay was better but the hours were lousy and she got sick of having to scrape droil out from under her fingernails when she got home every night.
“Droil?” I ask.
“Drone oil,” she says. “What do you think cars run on — fresh air?”
God bless those drones. Is there anything they can’t be used for?
I tread carefully around sexual matters – you don’t crack dirty jokes in the company of a woman who equates climax with death – but I’m fascinated by the concept of a city of people who engage in sex but know nothing about procreation. I get her talking about children, where they come from and how they survive. As she sees it, children are just small adults. They live in communes by themselves, in buildings called nurseries. They have little to do with big people and she doesn’t know where they work or what rules they live by.
“The young and old don’t live together?” I ask.
“No,” she says. “Why would they?”
“Where I come from,” I tell her, “people live in groups called families. Men and women marry and have kids. They make a home and –”
“What does marry mean?” she interrupts.
“It’s when a man and woman agree to live together and share everything and have sex only with each other for the rest of their lives.”
Her eyes go wide. “That’s awful,” she exclaims. “What a horrible idea. That’s almost as bad as prostitution. Being tied to one person for the whole of your life!”
“It’s pretty popular in my neck of the woods,” I assure her.
She purses her lips. “If you say so, I’ll believe you, but the thought of it leaves me cold.”
“You have sex with a lot of men, then?” I ask rather artlessly.
“No, Mr Smutty,” she pouts, “but I’m free to do so if I want. It’s my choice. I’m not bound to anyone.”
“What if you fall in love?” I ask. “You do have love here, don’t you?”
“Naturally,” she says. “I’ve been in love several times. I have sex with a man when I’m in love. Sometimes we share a room in a boarding house. We go for meals together and enjoy the company. Then, when we fall out of love, we say our farewells and go our own ways.”
I blink. “Just like that? No complications?”
“What’s complicated about it?” she says. “I fall in love, I fall out of love. It happens all the time, to everybody. But I’ve never heard of a person letting love turn their head to such a degree that they’ll to commit to a lifelong relation-ship.”
Cheryl sniggers at the thought of marriage. Franz, who’s passing our table, stops and smiles. “Having a good time?” he asks.
“An enlightening time,” Cheryl giggles, then tells Franz about my views on love and marriage.
He studies me owlishly and grimaces. “What a loathsome proposal. The last woman I fell in love with was a wretch of a being. She made my life a living hell. I put up with her because I was in love,
and a man is beyond the reach of reason when he’s in love, but the moment I snapped out of it –” He clicks his fingers. “– she was gone. I gave her a boot up the arse – pardon my language, Miss – and that was the end of her. I don’t know how I would have coped if I’d been shackled to her in the manner you suggest.” He frowns and goes about his rounds.
“What’s the longest you’ve been in love?” I ask Cheryl.
“How do you mean?” she replies.
“What’s the longest amount of time you’ve lived with a man? A week, a month, a year?” I’m hoping to catch her out – I still can’t believe these people have no concept of time – but she’s as blank-faced as ever.
“I’ve lived with men while I’ve been in love,” she says, “and split from them when the love ends.”
“But how many days have you lived with them?”
She shrugs. “I don’t know. Who counts such things?”
“How far into the past can you remember?” I ask.
She cocks her head. “Another bizarre question.”
“Come on,” I urge her, “tell me if you can. Do you remember what you did yesterday?”
“Of course,” she snorts.
“The day before?”
“Yes.”
“How many days back can you go? You worked for a car-manufacturing firm. How long ago was that? Ten days? Twenty? A hundred?”
“I don’t know,” she says.
“You never keep track of time?”
“Should I?” she responds with a fragile smile. “I used to make cars, now I make candles. Does it matter how many days there have been between the two?”
“It does to me,” I say.
“Ah, but you’re an oddball,” she laughs, scraping the end of my nose with one of her fingernails, and we leave the conversation there.
I walk Cheryl back to her room. She stands shyly in the doorway and smiles at me. “I’m glad I followed you but I can’t figure you out,” she says. “You’re like no one I’ve ever met.”
“All the girls say that,” I wink.
“I mean it,” she insists. “I think I might be falling in love with you but I’m not sure. Usually it only takes a couple of minutes to know I’m in love. With you…” She shakes her head.
“In love?” I mutter, thrown by her swiftness and blunt-ness.
“I think so,” she nods.
“Where I come from, people generally don’t fall in love that quickly,” I tell her. “And they certainly don’t announce it, even if they do.”
“Whyever not?” she asks, puzzled.
I laugh – I’ve no answer to that – and decide, as I have with so many other things in this city, to go with the norm. If love’s on the cards, fine, I’ll let it play out as it will, and just bear in mind that the cards are unique to this place.
“Do you think it’s a good or a bad thing to be unsure of your feelings?” I ask.
“I don’t know,” she sighs. “It’s scary. How am I supposed to act? Should I kiss you or shake your hand? Invite you to spend the night or slam the door in your face?”
I chuckle at her expression of consternation. “How about settling for a peck on the cheek?” I suggest. “Then you can sleep on it. Maybe things will be clearer in the morning.”
“That sounds like a good plan,” she smiles and brushes my cheek with her lips.
“Do you have a sleeping pill?” she asks as she pulls away. “Mine are in my old boarding house.”
“I don’t use pills,” I tell her.
“Then how do you get to sleep?” she asks.
“I just nod off.”
“How?” she persists.
I shrug. “I just close my eyes when I’m tired and drift off.”
“That’s it?” she asks incredulously. “You get weirder every time you open your mouth. Hold on, I might have a couple in my bag.” She roots through the handbag that she’s been carrying all evening and comes up with two small brown pills. “Ah, here we are. It always pays to have a couple set aside for emergencies.” She hands me one of the pills. “You can have it. I’ll fetch the rest of my supply tomorrow.”
“What does it do?” I ask.
“Sends you to sleep,” she says. “Everybody uses them. We’d be awake all night if we didn’t.”
“Are there side effects?” I ask but she doesn’t know what that means. “OK,” I say, kissing her cheek in return, “I’ll give it a go. Will I see you in the morning?”
“I’m not sure,” she says. “I go to work pretty early. You might not be up.”
“Well, if I’m not awake, give me a shout before you leave,” I tell her.
“Alright,” she says, and following one final puzzled glance at me, closes the door and retires for the night.
I stroll back to my room, studying the pill in my hand, smirking like a hyena. It doesn’t take the smooth-talking Newman Riplan long to adjust to things. Less than two days in this hell hole, where everything’s upside-down and round-about, and despite it all I’ve already picked up a girlfriend. That’s pulling power!
Opening the door to my room, I pop the pill in my mouth. I don’t know how long it will take to work but I’ll surely have time to shit in the sink – I’ve been holding one back for a while now – and wash my teeth. Although now that I think about it, I don’t have a toothbrush. I’ll have to look for one tomorrow, or will that turn out to be something else they don’t have here?
I’m heading for the sink, unbuttoning my shirt and figuring it would make more sense to brush my teeth with a finger before defecating, when my legs buckle. I lurch forward with a choked cry, fingers splaying, and everything goes black.
EIGHT
I’m back on the plane when my eyes open and the nice stewardess is leaning over me, concern in her expression. “Are you alright, Mr Riplan?” she says, touching my arm and smiling worriedly.
“What the fuck’s happening?” I yell, bolting upright, eyes bulging. Most of the nearby passengers are turned in my direction, checking me out, and they’re human, every one of them. No drones. “What’s happening?” I ask again, quietly this time.
“You had an accident,” the stewardess informs me. “You choked on a nut. You coughed it up before it could do any serious damage but then you went into a coma.”
“We’ve been worried sick,” the woman next to me – Jennifer’s mother – says. “You didn’t seem to be breathing. I had to send Jennifer to sit in another seat, she was so scared.”
“How much time has passed?” I ask, touching the glass of the window pane, touching myself, the seat, the stewardess, making sure we’re all real.
“Five or six minutes,” the stewardess says. She wipes sweat from my forehead with a napkin. “You gave us quite a scare. We thought we were going to lose you.”
“That’s nothing like what I thought,” I chuckle weakly. “If I told you what’s been going through my mind while I was…”
I fall into silent contemplation. Was that all it was? A dream? Of course. It had to be. I knew that, deep down. I accepted it at face value while I was there, since it was the easiest thing to do, but I never really believed it was an actual city. It couldn’t have been. No place on Earth could function the way that dream city did.
“I’ve got a monster of a headache,” I say, caressing my throbbing temples.
“Don’t worry,” the stewardess says. “I’ll get you some aspirin. I’d advise you to lie back and rest until we touch down. We don’t have much further to go. There’ll be a doctor waiting to examine you. Everything’s going to be alright.”
“Yes,” I smile. “Things will be fine. Oh,” I add as she starts to leave, “don’t bother with the aspirin.”
“What about your headache?” she asks.
I wave her concern away. “I don’t mind, proves I’m back home again.” She pulls an uncomprehending face, then carries on up the aisle. I lie back, beaming, and relish the discomfort of real world pain.
Casablanca! Those mad, glorio
us jokers have packed me off to Casablanca. It’s a place I would never have thought of visiting. Like everybody else in the world, I’ve seen countless clips of the old Bogie movie over the years, but it wasn’t even shot here – they filmed everything on a set back in those days – so why would I be interested in swinging by? But that randomness is what makes this such a perfect destination. If they’d sent me to New York or Dubai, I’d quickly be able to put a vacation plan together, but I’ve no idea what to expect when I leave the airport, which makes it the perfect mystery destination.
I wave away the questions of the doctor who was brought to the lounge to give me the once-over. “I’m fine,” I tell him. “I blacked out, that’s all. Everything’s back to normal, honest.”
He’s reluctant to let me go without a thorough examination but he can’t force me to submit to a probe, so eventually he sighs, gives me his number and tells me to get in touch if I develop any worrying symptoms.
I find a note from Hughie and Battles in my passport as I’m lining up to go through Immigration. Aren’t we the most cunning of foxes! it exclaims. Hope you like the waters. Give the ghost of Ingrid Bergman one from us. Ring when you get back and tell us all about it.
I also find a wad of Moroccan notes stuffed into a jacket pocket.
“Those beautiful sons of bitches,” I mutter and head for the exit once my passport has been stamped.
A taxi – a proper one, with glass windows – transports me into the heart of the famous but unknown city. After a quick online search during the drive in, I book into a luxury hotel and take one of the best rooms in the house. It’s going to cost a small fortune but we only live once, right? After what I’ve been through these past few days – mere minutes in real time, but try convincing my brain of that – I deserve some pampering.
I lock myself into my room, almost forgetting to tip the bellboy, and hasten to the mini bar. “Come to Poppa,” I chortle, downing the first tiny bottle I can get my hands on. The taste is enough to elevate me to the ranks of the angels. No more sap for this troubleshooter. I’m back on terra firma, and from this day forth I’ll take nothing for granted. I’m going to wring the most out of life. No more killing myself with work. At least two holidays a year, a minimum of two weeks each. No more cheap sex with hookers — I’ll find a good woman and settle down into what I used to mockingly call the humdrum life. We’ll have kids, a gaggle of them. And I’m going to wear two watches wherever I go and remind myself daily to be grateful for time and glass and street names and…