Time of Breath

by Paul Mannering

  The hum of the engine rose to a higher pitch and the car charged faster at the oncoming traffic in a re-enactment of those nature documentaries where a predator breaks cover in the climactic moment.

  “We are going to die,” I whispered. The pale woman passenger turned her head and raised an eyebrow.

  The taxi bounced over the curb, sliding sideways from one streetlight pole to the next. Startled noises rained down in a way the survivors of the Cat Storm of Kabutz remember all too well1.

  Drakeforth twisted the wheel, sending the taxi back into the street. We careened through a narrow gap between a dairy van and a truck carrying a load of ice. I screamed and had a sudden flashback to summer holidays in the back yard with Mum, Dad, and Ascott.

  The taxi roared into the next intersection before, like a duck taking flight, it settled into a smooth path in line with other traffic.

  After a few seconds to unclench, I started to breathe again. The interior of the taxi flickered with a green strobe light. Twisting in my seat, I stared out the rear window at a fast approaching police car.

  “Drakeforth, I think they want you to stop.”

  “Stop what?” he replied, swerving through the lanes of traffic.

  “Being you?” I suggested.

  “Ha!” Drakeforth barked. The traffic lights ahead of us changed and the traffic dutifully slowed to a halt. Drakeforth leaned on the horn and the car cleared its throat.

  I watched as two officers, a man and a woman, exited the vehicle behind us and approached the taxi, one on each side.

  “If anyone asks, you haven’t seen me,” Drakeforth announced.

  “Sure.” An hour ago, I had been in what the Godden corp­oration technicians described as a state of transition. Now all I wanted was a cup of tea and a nap.

  The male officer rapped on the driver’s window. Drakeforth lowered it and peered up at the green uniform, with its line of shiny brass buttons.

  “Good morning, sir,” the officer intoned.

  “Is it? I hadn’t noticed,” Drakeforth replied with a tone of mild surprise.

  “Indeed…” the officer took his time unclipping a leather holster on his belt and extracting a notebook and a pen. He then clicked the pen before carefully lifting the cover on the notebook, as if wary of what might leap out at him.

  “Well, goodbye then,” Drakeforth said, and closed the window. The traffic continued to wait in an orderly queue for the changing of the lights.

  I squinted through the window on the other side; the female officer peered back at me through the glass. I felt a sudden affinity with a museum exhibit.

  The first officer tapped on the driver’s window again. Drake­forth did a double take and opened the window.

  “I have the strangest sense of didgeridoo.”

  “Do you know why we stopped your vehicle, sir?” the officer asked, pen poised to take notes.

  “You didn’t. The lights changed. We stopped.”

  “I see, sir. Not quite the reason, sir. Do you know exactly how fast you were going?”

  “At which point?” Drakeforth replied. “Exactly?” he added after a moment for emphasis.

  The police officer rumbled and refocused his attention on the spot where the pen waited to write on the notebook page.

  “The suspect vehicle was witnessed travelling the wrong way down Perversas Street. During the duration of the traverse, the vehicle diverted from the traffic lane and entered the pedestrian zone of the sidewalk. Further to—”

  “You spelt pedestrian wrong,” Drakeforth said, interrupting the officer’s dictation and note-taking.

  “What?” The officer stopped writing and frowned.

  “P-E-D-E-S-T-R-A-I-N,” Drakeforth spelled out.

  “Pedes-train?” The officer frowned at the page.

  “Yes, from the Ancient Gherkin. Pedes, meaning to clump together, and train, meaning to annoy the caviar out of everyone else trying to use the sidewalk.”

  “I…believe the spelling, P-E-D-E-S-T-R-I-A-N, pedestrian, is correct, sir.”

  “Officer, a spelling error in their notes would be acceptable for most people. But for someone who clearly takes as much pride in all aspects of their work as you do, such a black mark is unforgivable.”

  The officer stared at the page of notes and then returned his concerned gaze to Drakeforth, who remained suitably solemn.

  With a deliberate neatness, the policeman eased the offending page from the notebook’s wire binding and crumpled it in one hand.

  “Perhaps I can take that for you?” Drakeforth offered. “We don’t want to have you write yourself up on a littering charge, now, do we?”

  “Uh, no. Thank you sir,” the policeman said, offering the crumpled piece of paper.

  “Now, what was it you wanted to ask me?” Drakeforth asked.

  The lights changed and the traffic moved forward. Drakeforth drove off, his head still inclined towards the officer in green.

  I settled back in my seat with a sigh. “You should probably take the next exit, less chance of being followed if you cut through the avocado district.”

  “They won’t follow us,” Drakeforth replied. “That clipper is still trying to work out what just happened. He’s got the sort of pride that will refuse to accept humiliation.”

  I covered a yawn with my hand. “I hope so, we don’t want to miss our flight.” Closing my eyes was all the encouragement sleep needed. I had a vague sensation of falling as I tilted sideways until my head rested on the silent woman’s shoulder. She firmly pushed me back onto an even keel and I found a comfortable spot with my head pressed against the window.

  * * *

  1 In 936, according to the calendar of Nyk, Johann Kabutz (hailed as a brilliant scientist or a raving moon-bug, depending on who you ask) sought to determine the exact factors that would best define “raining cats and dogs”. While his results were inconclusive, the safety gear he developed for the animals he launched en-masse into the sky led him to invent the parachute.

  Chapter 4

  “Airports,” Drakeforth declared with his hands on his hips.

  I finished extracting my luggage from the trunk of the taxi while Drakeforth stood looking around.

  “I haven’t been on a zippelin since before Mum and Dad passed.”

  “And whose fault is that?” Drakeforth asked.

  I started explaining in detail how having a job, a mortgage, and all the myriad things that make life the grinding chore it is, left little time for zipping off to exotic locations on a whim. Drakeforth was already vanishing through the automatic doors that led into the terminal. My silent companion appeared to be listening, though, so I felt less stupid than usual.

  Loading the bags onto a trolley reminded me of why nobody enjoyed their time at airports. The cacolet-leather set had a large suitcase, two smaller suitcases and a carry on bag with little wheels and an extendable handle. Perfect for someone with four arms and a centre of gravity located around their ankles.

  The courtesy luggage trolley provided by airports is one of the great ironies of life. By definition, a courtesy is an act of kindness towards others. By example, an airport luggage trolley is an act of malicious rudeness bordering on aggravated assault.

  I placed the first of the suitcases on the trolley and then squeezed the smaller two in front of it. Reaching for the fourth meant the third fell off. Setting the fourth down, and repacking the third, I discovered that for some reason it now didn’t fit.

  I precariously balanced the fourth case in the basket near the bar handle and laid the second case flat. Placing the third on top of it, I eyed the set-up warily. Frictionless surfaces have long been sought for their range of uses in mechanical engineering. Researchers are looking in the wrong places though. They should simply look at suitcase materials.

  Moving carefull
y, I went to the back of the trolley and took hold of the handlebar. With the way ahead clear, I gave it a gentle push. The trolley didn’t move.

  I pushed harder until my feet were set on the concrete and my face glowed with strain. Without warning, the trolley released its stored energy and shot sideways.

  The luggage leapt in all directions as if still alive. I gathered the cases up, cast a baleful glare at the trolley and left it to snare its next victim.

  The air inside the terminal felt like it had been captured on some distant mountain vista, shipped here at great expense and then recycled until the musk of traveller’s frustration formed a shell around every molecule.

  The pale woman wandered ahead of me as I negotiated my way across the terminal’s endless carpet. As I trudged, I concluded that the only possible reason for making airport terminals so large was to give you the sense that you were already getting away from it all. The drawback was that it all included the check-in counter that shimmered like a mirage on the distant horizon.

  Reaching the shining desk, I unloaded my luggage.

  “Good morning, my name is Earnest. Thank you for choosing Zephyr Zippelins for your journey today.”

  “Crowfat,” I said absently as I handed my ticket and passport over to the man behind the counter.

  “I’m sorry?” Earnest’s visage glowed with his eagerness to deliver exceptional customer service.

  “Crowfat’s Dilection of Customer Relations. It’s a vocal style for interactions when working in the service industry. It is supposed to make you appear helpful and fully capable of adding some joy to the receiver’s day. In fact, it just makes you seem like an insufferable zygote.”

  “I’m not sure I—” Earnest’s teeth shone brighter than the polish­ed counter.

  I set the largest of my suitcases on the scales. The weighing machine didn’t whimper, so I took that as a good sign. “Dalm­atian Hyperbole concluded that Crowfat was in fact tone-deaf, so he wasn’t really the right person to be pioneering verbal communication techniques.”

  A slot in the counter purred and produced a coded luggage slip like a mottled tongue.

  “Vista Class, Modicum of Comfort, or Express Transit?” Earnest asked, doing a backflip into more familiar territory.

  “What’s the difference?” I slipped the adhesive luggage tag through the handle of the suitcase and lined up the two sticky sides perfectly. Pressing them together meant they were no longer aligned, and I worried that I would lose my luggage without ever knowing what had been packed for me.

  The suitcase slid onto a conveyor belt, and I repeated the process with the rest of my bags while Earnest explained the seating options.

  “Vista Class gives you access to the glorious sky view without having to leave your seat. Express Transit gives you speedy access to the aisle for off-boarding.”

  “Modicum of Comfort?”

  “That’s the middle seat.”

  “I’ll take the window please.”

  “Vista Class?”

  “Yes, the window seat.”

  “Vista Class.” Earnest said as if it were a secret handshake required to unlock the machine that printed my boarding pass.

  He handed over the freshly generated page and pointed west, “Gate seventy-nine.”

  My luggage had vanished through the wall, so I started the long hike past everyone else.

  I found Drakeforth trying on sunglasses at a stand that also sold newspapers, magazines, and apple core futures.

  “Where did you get the hat?” I asked.

  “I’ll pick it up on my trip to the Aardvark Archipelago.”

  “When did you go to the Aardvarks?”

  “Yes,” Drakeforth replied. He paid for the sunglasses using cash, which took some convincing and finished his spending spree by going short on a three-month future contract for pickled apple cores with a fifteen per cent margin.

  “Here.” He handed me a hat and dark glasses similar to his own, and yet not so similar that we might be mistaken for a couple, for which I was grateful.

  “You want me to wear this?”

  “No, I want you to take care of it. Feed and clothe it. See it is educated and stays out of trouble with the law.”

  I put the hat on my head.

  Drakeforth continued, “Only to one day, leave you and go out on its own to join a fringe cult of astronomers.”

  “Astronomers are not a fringe cult,” I said, checking my look with the dark glasses in the stall mirror.

  “Tell that to the people who believe that the curvature of the planet is an illusion.”

  “Are we in disguise? I mean, I’m not sure we are notorious enough to require disguising.”

  “Notoriety notwithstanding, Pudding, we are dressing appro­priately for our culture. We shall arrive in Pathia, the locals will see us wearing our hats, dark glasses and perplexed expressions. Thus, they will know we are tourists and avoid us.”

  “Like those venomous caterpillars that are brightly coloured to warn predators that they aren’t good eating?”

  “Pudding, does it ever bother you that your perspective on the world is entirely limited by what you believe?”

  “Nope,” I cocked my hat at a jaunty angle and we started walking again through the cavernous terminal. “We have to get to gate seventy-nine.”

  Drakeforth gave an implied shrug.

  “No rush, they won’t leave without us.”

  “Why? Do you have the keys or something?”

  Drakeforth nodded.

  “Noteworthy sarcasm, Pudding.”

  “Gate twelve…” I commented as we passed a sign. “Gate twelve? How many days’ walk do you think it is to gate seventy-nine?”

  “There was a time when I, that is, Arthur, walked all day, every day,” Drakeforth mused.

  “Now you just talk all day, every day?” I felt I was getting the hang of sarcasm.

  “Imagine I am patting you on the head and saying, who’s a good girl?”

  “Is she coming with us?” I asked.

  “Who?”

  “That woman who has been following me around all morning.”

  “Well that certainly narrows it down. Is she wearing some kind of tag? Hello, My Name Is: The Woman Following Pudding Around All Morning?”

  “I’m serious, Drakeforth. I’m having the oddest kind of day.”

  “Well, you are uniquely qualified to determine the oddness quotient of a given day.”

  I looked around as we walked. The pale woman with black hair had vanished.

  “Seventy-nine,” Drakeforth announced as we reached the next gate sign.

  “Really? You’re sure it’s not forty-six with the sign turned upside down and… the number four scratched up a bit?”

  “Time and space do not follow the same rules in airport terminals as they do in other time-space continuums.”

  I raised an eyebrow so high that if my face had been a flagpole, it would have proudly flown as the banner for cynicism.

  “Why do you think these terminals are always so bandicooting large?” Drakeforth asked.

  My immediate response was vetoed by an executive order from my rational mind to actually consider the question. “Well… I… I mean they have lots of zippelins to load people on to.”

  “Zippelins, Pudding? Zippelins take off and land vertically. They are gleaming, cone-tipped cylinders of shiny metal. When the wings are folded in, they can be parked next to each other close enough to hold a human hair between them.”

  “Yes, but they need space for the luggage transfer and to manage the flow of people.”

  “Do you have any idea how luggage is transferred from the check-in counter to the baggage carousel at your destination?”

  “Of course I do! It’s a system of conveyor belts and luggage handlers. You see them drivin
g those little trucks about with the trailers all loaded up with bags.”

  Drakeforth gave one of his shark’s-tooth smiles.

  “Are you certain?”

  “Yes?” I mentally rolled my eyes at my own foolishness.

  “You put your luggage on one of those weighing machines, yes?”

  “Yes.” Like the elastic band on a cheap pair of knee-high stockings, I could see defeat coming and just kept on sliding down into rumpled discomfort.

  “It went on the conveyor belt thing and vanished through a hole in the wall?”

  “Yes.” I sighed. Drakeforth was infuriating in the way he drew out explanations. The only thing that made it worse was the explanations were utterly ludicrous and yet, somehow plausible.

  “You never see your luggage again, until it appears through another hole in the wall in some other time and space.”

  “Perhaps I could come back when you have finished explaining and be impressed?”

  “No, Pudding. This is important. The truth of it is that no one knows where your luggage goes. Airport terminals have a strange effect on the quantum state of matter and energy. Time and space don’t like to talk about it.”

  “So why are the terminals so large?”

  “Because the larger the terminal is, the less likely you are to lose your luggage. It has been theorised that the null-space of a terminal void allows for the extrapolation of all the possible outcomes of every single state of matter.”1

  “Then why aren’t there suitcases drifting around everywhere? They should be popping in and out of existence all around us.”

  “No one can explain why, Pudding. Simply put, you don’t have to believe the Universe is a cat to know nature abhors a vacuum cleaner.”

  “How is that putting it simply?”

  Drakeforth had abandoned the conversation for the boarding gate. I joined the queue behind him, a sense of unease crinkling the skin between my shoulder blades.

  I scanned the code on my boarding pass and walked through the door, the strange sensation of transience that rippled through me probably was just nerves.