Imbroglio

by Andrew McEwan

Delirium.

  The system dictated the use of sparrows’ nests as buttons. There was a sequence, which inherently he understood, but one with no logic behind it; a transference of alphabetical eggs. The ability to climb trees and shin drainpipes was essential, as was a knowledge of ornithology, as sparrows might to the amateur eye look much like blackbirds or thrushes.

  The danger was inherent, too. Greasy bark and loose brackets, myopia and uncomfortable shoes all contributed to the difficulty of egg fondling, not to mention the vagaries of the spuggy’s breeding season.

  So far he had managed A through W (although M was dropped and T suspiciously cuckoo-like), locating the nests without too much trouble, in hedgerows and among brambles, in treetops and on building sites. In each case an egg was switched from one to the next, A becoming B and so forth, resulting in Z egg in A nest. Only now he was stuck: no X.

  Stomach rumbling, he contemplated.

  How to push?

  There was the remote control and the elevator, the telephone and the cash register, buttons aplenty, one to zero, associated letters embossed or engraved. They came at him out of nowhere, big red buttons and cool blue buttons, green buttons and brown buttons, mother-of-pearl. How not to push? What else were buttons for? Holding trousers up? The threats, the abuse, the screaming were incidental. Going up or down? They simply confused him. He needed some control… a system, yes, it was in there somewhere, and he’d thought he’d found it. Only now this: no X.

  Like losing a dimension…

  A chromosome…

  Identity, oddly, only being known as Mr X. Not a real name; a fiction.

  Marks the spot. Saving that no spot is marked, there being no actual marker. So that was something else. No wonder he floundered. Loss of name, of place, of reality as he knew it. Couldn’t even spell ylophone.

  No wonder he had a headache.

  Little wonder she thought he was nuts.

  ‘Pistachio?’

  ‘Thanks. Any beer?’

  ‘Are you kidding?’ Looking around. ‘Maybe a sip of whiskey.’

  ‘Eh, no thanks.’

  ‘Suit yourself.’

  Single or double breasted, he wondered, in make-believe conversation with a tailor, admiring the fellow’s chalk lines.

  French?

  Windows?

  ‘Uh-oh…look out.’

  Exactly, through the glass…

  ‘Fifteen stitches. Proud of yourself?’

  What were any of them talking about?

  ‘First time?’

  Was everything a question?

  ‘Don’t worry; it’s not such a bad place. There are worse…there are worse…’ Fading away.

  ‘Ask what’s in the syringe. They hate that. They drop their shoulders and fold their lips and pretend like you’re five years old.’ A different voice, this. ‘They have every right to restrain your person. They term it permissible force.’

  He showed his bruises, buttons of irregular shape pressed into upper arms and lower abdomen, blue fading through brown and green to yellow, circuits beneath the flesh instructed to shut the fuck up and behave.

  But not all the buttons worked.

  Some were even pretend. Punch these buttons and no information was exchanged; no electricity, fluid, air or mechanical arm made any contribution to the kinetic energy of the world.

  Fake buttons.

  X.

  That bastard sparrow would die!

  Theoretically, in Y’s grave.

  W was its changeling. Thus X was saved, being W transmogrified.

  Bingo.

  He breathed a sigh of relief. Able to complete the sequence he did so, whistling like an ice-skater on water, pretending the temperature was ten below.

  Just don’t look down…

  It was all cartoon violence anyway, the slap round the chops with the chicken in the chilled food section, the poke in the eye in the coffee shop and the kick in the shins outside the old peoples’ home. None of it hurt. The expletives were random keyboard strikes. Even the policemen, in their strange hats, smiled – or were smiling, he couldn’t remember which. Or what they’d done with his bag.

  ‘SONS OF BITCHES!’ One way to attract attention. ‘YOU FUCKING CUNTS!’

  Go for it, boy. See the lights come on? Why not take a piss on the floor?

  Hang.

  He didn’t believe any of it anyway…

  They couldn’t do anything to him if they couldn’t reach him. And who was going to come in here and look? Who would risk that? Some benign psychiatric nurse?

  In your dreams, arsehole.

  ‘In your dreams.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The monsters come in your dreams.’

  ‘They do?’

  He was smirking.

  He smirked back.

  ‘Better get me to sleep then. Good night.’

 

  ‘Michael?’

  Mother…

  ‘Michael!’

  Father…

  Hadn’t seen either in years.

  ‘We’re going to take you home with us…’

  Wait a minute. Weren’t they dead?

  ‘We’ll take good care of you. You’ll see.’

  Buried. He remembered the funeral. He’d wanted to carve the casket; wanted a single casket, a cube, regular in shape; wanted…

  ‘What are you doing here?’ Conscious.

  ‘We’ve come to see you. To take you home.’

  ‘Home?’

  ‘You know.’

  ‘I do?’ It felt better now that he was asking the questions. ‘Tell me.’ And making the demands.

  They looked at each other, conversing in a language unheard, reading one another’s faces, silent and cold.

  ‘We’ve got ice-cream,’ said dad.

  ‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘I want a balloon.’

 

  Mania.

  They put him a dentist’s chair in a white room in a white smock under a white light with a white man who smiled genially, stainless steel in his white gloved hands. The chair had leather straps, but these were left unfastened; a sign of trust, or a threat; he couldn’t decide.

  ‘Just a check-up,’ said the white man nodding. ‘Open wide.’

  He closed his eyes, only to have them opened by a second white man in a white lab coat in a white room with white floor tiles. He too brandished stainless steel, crooked implements in his fingers he lifted from a tray held by a white nurse in a white uniform with white teeth and black shoes.

  ‘If you’re not going to co-operate…’

  ‘I’m co-operating!’

  He smiled now. ‘That’s better.’

  Nurse also, lips like lilos…

  Only he forgot to ask what was in the syringe.

  Substance X, he supposed.

  It housed new dimensions, a whole drug realm of unimagined strangeness. In a sense it gave him focus, like a third hand to stop the binoculars shaking. He could see clearly an immeasurable distance, the intervening flora and fauna benign, coloure softly, no harsh edges. A gentle cartoon world where death and corruption held only fascination. Nothing could harm him here. It wasn’t real. Violence in this world led only to amusement, the flattening and pronounced throbbing of limbs and exaggerated bruises.

  He was vexed by bunny rabbits…

  Beautiful women cooed in his ear and his tongue unrolled, splashing his shoes.

  He ran and was chased, whooping and yelling like a five-year-old, naked under the sun, diving in rivers and playing snap with fishes, ascending freezing mountainsides and enjoying cocoa with eagles.

  The endless summer rolled. But always on the horizon lurked a storm.

  Even from the highest peak it was difficult to gauge in detail, just a black swirling mass that grew in intensity as each day passed. It would come soon, spill inland like a tidal wave. He knew this, but didn’t quite believe these lazy mornings and
manic afternoons could end. After all, what danger might come is way? He’d shrug it off like an avalanche, thawing his limbs in a fire. He couldn’t die here. This was a gentle land of extremes.

  The storm was evil, he knew. It would tear him away.

  It had a voice he recognized though was unable to identify.

  It brooked no argument.

  ‘You’re in denial,’ the storm mouthed. ‘You’re ridiculous.’

  He didn’t reply.

  ‘You’re obsessing,’ they told him with some chagrin, voices raised over the din.

  ‘I’m obsessive,’ he replied, shouting.

  Their disgust was obvious. They mumbled something. But all he could here was the helicopter.

  Seventeen: Ward 9