Hammerport

‘Alright, people, the blessing is over, let’s get on with it.’ The lecturer was a black smear upon the blazing plasma screen array behind her. Someone needed to turn the brilliance control down. The array displayed the lecture title ‘Equilibria?’ and a bullet point list of the slides to come.

The student prepared himself for a powernap of lecture duration: he leant forward, put one hand over his eyes and propped up a pen in his hand as if he were constantly poised to take notes. Beneath his pen lay the crude sketch of a nude woman. The image was passionless. He closed his eyes and entered darkness. His hangover was still with him, its fingers scratching and cleaving along synapses.

‘So we have spoken of the cycle of optimism and cynicism,’ the lecturer began. ‘When a society or culture is optimistic, it reaches out, explores its boundaries, pushes them constantly. The natural progression of this, of course, is to cast aside all rules and an optimistic civilisation will tend towards self-destruction and anarchy. During this period where rules are paid little more than lip-service, the arts and sciences leap forward. So – you pay for progress with societal disintegration.’ She rubbed her hands together in demonstration, pretending they were sticky and said, ‘People just don’t gel anymore. Independence is prized above everything else.’

The student opened his eyes and looked towards the lecturer, over the tired, wooden benches that filled the expanse of the lecture theatre. Around half the seats were vacant; he’d heard a suggestion that universities were having a harder time meeting their budgets due to a decline in numbers. Particularly in foreigners, a well-paying crowd.

On the screen, a swinging pendulum appeared.

‘But there is point when the citizens grow fearful of their own culture. They begin to crave order again, someone to tell people how to behave, someone to force them to roll along well-established grooves. Slowly, freedoms are offered up for sacrifice one by one, until the people are comfortable again. But this process is a pendulum, not a switch, and the culture swings too far in the other direction. It becomes cynical and harkens back to old-fashioned values. The way things used to be, which they never used to be.’

The pendulum slowed as it swept through the nadir of its arc.

He wondered if the lecturer prayed at morningten; the three ten’s were only really imposed on the students. Having missed so many lectures recently, he’d forgotten he liked the lecturer and what she had to say. There was always an element in her lectures that derided American culture, but subtle, easy to miss if you weren’t looking for it. Too much drinking and late-night sex – too many lectures missed. My God, what was he becoming?

‘Power is donated to the state until the state can take the remainder itself – and finally, the system controls the people instead of the other way around. Now the people are unhappy for a different reason, unable to express themselves, strapped to rules and regulations set by a special few. The pendulum finally starts heading back the other way; sometimes the extreme order will just burn itself out, but violent revolution can also do the job – often throwing the pendulum back into the embracing bosom of anarchy.’

The pendulum turned blood-red and then recoiled sharply from the right-side of the display as if kicked by an invisible foot. The lecturer should have added sound effects, the student thought, it would have been cooler. But Jesus, someone should turn the brightness down, it was hurting his eyes through the hangover haze.

‘And the cycle begins again. So – our question is, are we doomed to repeat this cycle of extremes again and again, or is this process swinging in shorter and shorter arcs, moving us towards a perfect equilibrium where liberty and order are carefully balanced?’

A perfect equilibrium. Could such a thing exist? Certainly the incumbent President resented individuality, but it had been going this way for a long time. The President wasn’t really to blame; he was just the manifestation of the people’s masochistic desire to be controlled and shepherded. The opportunity for the opportunistic had risen. The country needed something to counteract what was going on, an antidote, a neutralising agent. But what form could that agent take?

As the lecturer continued, someone passed the student a note from behind. He opened it, glancing behind to see the poet wink at him. The note said: ‘2nite same time/place. One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest.’ He smiled to himself. New friends.

He then spotted that his nude sketch could be improved if the woman were bound. He scribbled lines around her as if the woman was being restrained by white straps of fabric, something like bandages.

She took on more life, became more alluring, her inked edges teasing and bleeding desire in black blotches across his notebook. He felt movement in his jeans and brand new ideas invade his mind.

Crossing the Green Lawn was not the quickest way from dorm to the Second Building, but it was nicer than following the concreted route through the centre of the campus. Arts students seemed to have drawn the short straw in a way.

The university was originally a place for the arts, a college founded in the early 1900s by a few literary dreamers with too much spare cash but not a single published book to their names. The place couldn’t survive on the children of the upper class and their parents’ charitable contributions alone so, as sciences tended to attract a lot more investment – particularly as America descended into the atomic age – the college expanded its horizons. The later buildings, Eighth and beyond, had to be built beyond the original campus and now lay outside the ocean of green that was originally the campus boundary. Arts were hemmed in, trapped around the Hub.

The student envied the science gimp and his cohorts, walking everyday along fern-lined paths under the comforting shelter of a green canopy. He’d heard some of them complain that the route was muddy when the rains come around but, well, the grass is always greener on the other side.

He came upon his girlfriend on the periphery of the Lawn.

Perhaps he was still dosed up with remnants of Bliss but her clothes seemed to hug her body a little more, and was that a hint of cleavage? He took another look and clocked that it was all imagination; she was wearing just the usual, a staid, approved uniform for the modern student. So managed and planned. Nothing revealed. Pathetic, try again.

‘Oh, hi,’ she said, with a nervous smile. ‘I’ve been trying to call you, you know.’

‘Are you following me?’ he bellowed at her.

She recoiled as if hit. ‘What are you talking about? Don’t be like that, I was just going this way.’

‘You’re off to Fifth, I’m not an idiot. This is completely the wrong direction for you. Are you following me?’

‘I’m not following, don’t be so melo.’ She reached out to touch his arm as if it was the most natural thing to do, but he pulled away. Her face changed, exposing vulnerability, her skin now tired and sagging. The student realised: she’d been crying. ‘Why are you making a scene? Why-’

‘I told you I need space. Are you following me?’ He wanted to see if she’d cry again. Could he break down her control? Free her, just for a one fleeting moment?

She held still for a moment, battling her emotions. Her eyes wandered away, relaxed, and then came back. ‘Alright, I’m sorry, I was following you, but you wouldn’t answer my calls, you wouldn’t answer me and I called and I called but you-’

The student walked away, shouting behind him, ‘Leave me alone.’

‘We need to talk, please, we gotta talk about what’s going on here, I need to know.’

He stopped. Others continued to walk around them, carefully avoiding their poisonous bubble of reality yet taking the opportunity to observe troubled lovers fighting in public.

The student turned around to face his girlfriend and said, ‘Don’t ask me questions before I’m ready. You’ll get the wrong answers right now, because that’s all I have.’

She tensed, asking, ‘Are you seeing… someone else?’

‘Look, alright… lunch,’ he answered. ‘Meet me for lunch today and we’ll talk, over at Fifth Column.’ He could foresee himself suddenly becoming too busy to make the appointment.

He turned and left her again, heading deeper into the Lawn. She didn’t call out to him this time. The student was unsure whether this was because she had won a concession, or fearful that she had almost realised the worst-case scenario with her unanswered question. The scenario that she had hoped and prayed was not true.

The student smelt like shit and looked like it too. He knelt down a bit too quickly and had to put his hand out to stop himself from keeling over and making a scene.

All of the others up and down the corridor were already in prayer position, but also dressed, showered and deodorised for a day of lectures. Considering this moment was supposed to be more about keeping a healthy, personal relationship with God, he found it bizarre that a couple of the girls were dressed to impress in their prayer poses, as if this was the right place to hook up with a guy. Such are the belittled contradictions of human nature, he thought. The student’s girlfriend didn’t indulge in that sort of contradiction, of course, which is what had attracted him to her. But Bliss had broken that; now when he imagined his girlfriend, the words frigid and tiresome would bubble up from the abyss.

The student bowed his forwards and closed his eyes as the morningten jingle played over the dorm speakers. The recorded message began, ‘And now it is time to spend ten minutes thinking about your relationship with God. Remember, this is about you and Him. We all have doubts and fears and worries. This is your chance to keep things on an even keel, unburden yourself , avoid feeling ashamed of secrets that you’re not open with Him about. This is your morning ten. He is listening.’

The morningten was a waste of his time. He already had a personal, physical relationship with God.

The science gimp from 10C started mumbling a prayer under his breath and the student exhaled noisily in retaliation. He found it strange that even though morningten was no longer important to him, he was still bothered by the ramblings of the idiot from 10C. They were like familiar yet indecipherable music from the earphones of a bad mannered neighbour on the bus. Only freak phrases would occasionally escape from the gimp’s vocal prayer like ‘hollowed night’ or ‘the page of fifty question-marks.’

Even though his god Bliss visited him personally from time to time, the student wondered whether Bliss was listening to his prayers during morningten. He did have doubts and worries, things he wanted to share. But Bliss never seemed to hang around long enough to listen.

So he screened out the gimp and his encroaching hangover and prayed to Bliss.

I am confused. I was brought up to understand that sex is always one misstep away from being a dirty, tawdry thing and should be saved for your wife. Many of my childhood friends feel the same. It is almost as if we hate the skin on our own bodies, fear what it is to give openly to another. I remember fearing it.

But after experiencing your lessons in love and sensation, I now look back at my past and see that I had been contaminated. Contaminated with the idea that body upon body is sin itself, no matter what the circumstances. I no longer want to turn the lights off when I shed my second skin, the clothes that cage us. And now I understand.

Clothing is how we are disciplined to understand that there are rules we should obey. From day one, we are told that being ourselves, is wrong. We are raised to order ourselves, to self-lobotomise. Fashion is our drug of choice, pretending that what we wear reveals our inner personality, when it is simply camouflage. Now you see me, now you don’t. Our true character is smudged, erased. And that’s why we hate sex, because we forget about the cage, becoming ourselves for a moment of passion. And we don’t like it anymore, we can’t even fuck, disgusted with the idea of releasing our emotions and ideas from their prisons so they can fly like a swarm of butterflies painting the air with colour and shadow.

I want everyone to wake up and see how close we could be. We are built for freedom. I don’t trust this missing-in-action God we worship every day. I think I even resent him.

So I have a strange urge… like I should be doing something about this… but I have no direction. I’ve started to hang out with a new crowd, people with noisy emotions, care-free, buzzing with ideas. Is this right? Is it enough? I’m putting my old friends behind me, maybe my parents too.

And there’s something else. Our relationship with God is meant to complement not supplant a relationship with a woman. But your love is so compulsive and engrossing, I find the thought of being with a woman… underwhelming. Your beautiful, elusive body dominates my mind. It seems wrong, somehow, to devote myself sexually to you Bliss, but I can’t help how I feel, you know? What should I do? Should I surrender to this desire or keep trying with my girlfriend? Or someone else? A… a guy? What?

Please, I beg you, I need help here. Tell me. Direct me. Guide me. Am I doing the right thing? Is this what you want me to do? Is it?

‘Thank you all for spending ten minutes with God. We’re all a little stronger for it. Lectures start in two hours, have a healthy breakfast and have a great day.’

The student heard the feet of his neighbours shuffle off the floor and retreat into their rooms. Doors slammed, locks turned. Bliss did not answer him.

Is it?

There was a tap on his shoulder. The student jerked his head upward to see the science gimp leaning over him.

‘Prayer’s done, dude, didn’t you catch?’

The cell poured into his dim awareness, dragging eddies of reality with it. It played the same banal tones over and over, begging him to pick up the call. Without opening his eyes, he stretched an arm towards its chimes and his fingers coalesced around its cool but greasy, used surface. Its buttons impressed themselves into his skin and he gripped it harder, almost in retaliation at its existence, its challenge to bring him back to consciousness.

He chased after the lingering afterglow of divine sex, to resurrect the erotic impulses that had drowned his veins and nerves the night before. The same charge and excitement pulsed within him and didn’t want to move for fear of spoiling it with the knowledge that the room was empty and that he was alone. He tightened his hold on the cell and its weak vibrations shuddered along his arm; he wanted to kill it, to come in it, he wanted to fill, he wanted to be filled, he wanted–

Futile. Not enough. It wouldn’t work. An ingredient was missing. Mornings after a visit from Bliss were full of potential that went unrealised. He relaxed his grip on the cell and it stopped whining at him.

He strained his eyes to peer at the phone and grimaced, sighing. It carried the picture of the student’s girlfriend with George Washington leering over her shoulder from Mt. Rushmore, like a flirtatious suitor sniffing her shoulder, ready to take his place if he decided to stand down and resign. Underneath her image, words stated: 3 missed calls. He didn’t know if he could go on seeing her, not with Bliss teaching him so much about the importance of sex. Sex was key, key to everything.

Turning towards the wall next to the bed, he threw the cell away. It clattered against something before falling onto the floor. The cold, simple noises of the collision reverberated around his head, shaking dust out of synapses and blowing cobwebs from neurons. The student moaned with the discovery that he had a hangover.

He glanced up at the clock on the wall.

Look at the time!

He leapt off the bed and regretted it instantly – his head was in no mood for sudden movements. It felt bloated and infected, like he needed to pop the pressure out of it. Never again. No more alcohol. He meant it this time.

He staggered towards the door, desperate to make it out before the clock’s hands swept out 7 o’clock. He knew he’d be the last out to prepare for the morningten prayer, but at least he’d be present.

The student tore the door open, snapping the chain he’d forgotten to unhook first. The harsh, electric light of the corridor drowned out his vision and filled his head with hangover love.

His arm thrust out through Bliss into the dark, casting a gnarled hand into the void. The student wanted to touch Bliss, penetrate, scratch. But Bliss was his ruler, never providing surface for him to taste or caress, tantalising him with ghosts of sensation that played across his body, luring him towards climax.

Erotic waves cascaded through his flesh and his muscles danced with their sexual resonance. His rational mind disengaged and he was left with primal impulses, an animal in the wild. He cried out, desperate to touch something and his outstretched arm brushed the wall beside the bed. Ingrain wallpaper, cold, bumpy and lifeless. It wasn’t what his skin had sought, but it was sufficient.

His shriek reached fever pitch and his voice gave out, a supernova collapsing in on itself. A soundless, raw orgasm blasted through his groin.

White ejaculate hung in mid-air, its jet suspended within the blue smoke of Bliss. It bubbled and boiled, hissing as it vaporised.

The smoke retreated from his body, dressing itself in the white strip Bliss had discarded to the floor during the student’s sleep. The strip coiled around the whirling cobalt blueness loosely, hanging like a short, slinky spring. The strip resumed its gentle, orbital motion and Bliss retreated into the far corner of the dorm.

‘I want to touch…’ the student whispered, voice cracking as he turned onto his side through pain. Every muscle throbbed with agony, like his body had been ripped apart then slammed back together. ‘Let me… touch…’

He extended a hand towards Bliss, but Bliss seemed to shrink away in response.

‘What do you… want…’ he croaked. ‘What is it… I have to do…?’

Bliss’ body pulsated and quivered, straining gently against the white coil.

The student sat up, groaning with each movement. He was still dressed, save for his zipper that Bliss had prised open. He tucked himself back in and zipped up, then leaned forwards into his hands. Sweat blossomed and joined into rivulets beneath his clothes, drawing cold lines across his skin.

He stared at the carpet and evoked shapes out of its indistinct form. This darkness, with just Bliss and he together, was more real than the richest colours in the world. But the light washed these moments away, leaving him with nothing but the desolate loneliness, abandoned in the void that was other people. Sartre was right.

‘I love you, you know that… you know?’ he said, the carpet still ensnaring his gaze.

He sensed Bliss move and looked up; Bliss was gone.

‘You always leave,’ he said, shuddering at the thought of normality returning to haunt him. He could see the corridor light spilling beneath the door, staining his private darkness.

He lay down again, the evening’s alcohol still travelling his veins. He let it rock him back to sleep, back to the empty, dreamless slumber that Bliss had rescued him from.

Kasia looked upward, the bed pressing against her back and Douglas pressing against her front. Noontime sunshine leaked through a gap in the curtains, dappling the undulating sheets. She wanted to reach out and pull them shut, to hide what she was doing.

She tried to hold Douglas close, but he resisted, preferring to prop himself up on his hands as if on the starting blocks of a race. Ready to sprint away.

‘When will you leave her? When? Ohhh.’

Douglas was taking care of something else, staring at the wall above her. ‘Mood, Kass sweetheart darling angel, don’t droop my mood.’ He panted hot, garlic breath all over her face yet kept staring ahead as if he was having sex with the wall.

Metal scraped her side. ‘Couldn’t you have taken off the ring? I feel like she’s in bed with us. Ohhh.’ She shuddered. Mother said she shouldn’t have come to England.

A voice said, ‘Excuse me, darlings. Um, hello?’

Kasia screamed. Douglas whimpered as his mood drooped and his arms crumbled, his chest tumbling into hers. She grabbed him to shield her nudity from the probing eyes of the stranger – a spindly man wearing a black leotard was sitting on the opposite side of the room. He was perspiring as if fresh from a workout.

‘Out! Get out!’ Kasia shouted at the leotard man.

‘Ow Kass sweetheart angel, that’s my ear your shouting into. And you’re strangling me, if you don’t mind,’ Douglas said. Kasia did not relent.

‘Yes, sorry for interrupting, I just wanted to check if you two knew exactly what you were doing,’ said the camp, cheerful stranger.

‘Get out!’ Kasia screamed again. Douglas fought against his temporary imprisonment in her arms, but he was no match for her fight-or-flight response.

The stranger clicked his fingers and vanished.

‘He’s gone!’

Kasia released Douglas. He turned around, a little dazed, and asked, ‘Who was he? Who was there?’

‘Oh I’m still here,’ a voice echoed. The stranger then re-appeared sitting down again. ‘I’m the Man Upstairs.’

Kasia disappeared under the sheets with a squeak, just peering out over the top, trying to reach out sideways for her clothes. Unfortunately, they had been scattered far and wide. It was just Douglas and the sheets for now.

Douglas took it in his stride. ‘The what was that? The Upright Man? That’s a fictional character.’

‘Oh it’s a euphemism, dear.’ He clapped his hands, grinning. ‘I’m the Big Cheese. The Writer of All Things.’ He seemed like he was itching to burst into a dance routine any second. Not in our hotel room, begged Kasia.

‘You’re a writer from upstairs?’

He clicked his fingers and reappeared in the bed beside Kasia. Two gleaming rows of teeth two inches from her face said, ‘Call me Lordie!’

Kasia screamed again and the stranger transported back to the chair.

Douglas scratched his head. ‘Oh! You’re like, what, God? Prove it.’

Lordie seemed disappointed with that question, his mood also drooped. ‘Look, peo-ple, I just wanted to check whether you guys really knew what you were doing here. I mean, this is a sin, right? Tell me I’m wrong, go on, tell me.’

Kasia was staying put and staying silent. The sheets felt too thin and transparent.

Douglas said, ‘Well, it’s all perfectly natural, you know. What goes between a man and a woman is the most natural, beautiful thing in the world.’ He turned around to face Kasia and smiled, patting her head. What is this? I am a pet?

‘Yes,’ said Lordie, ‘that’s very, very interesting. But you belong, of course, to another?’

Douglas held out his hand, his wedding band having mysteriously disappeared. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, this is au naturale. This is love you see here, my friend.’ He patted Kasia again, but wasn’t looking at her this time and smacked her nose. ‘I am a free agent. Nothing to see here.’

Lordie creased up, emitting a staccato burst of giggles, animated as if tickled by some unseen force. ‘You, Mr. Douglas, sir, are what we call in the trade a jokester! Oh you are so silly!’ He clapped, but with his whole arms as if flapping hard enough to fly.

Kasia said, ‘Douglas, you idiot. He’s God. He can see everything.’

Lordie jumped out of his chair and thrust out a finger, pointing at Kasia. ‘Bingo! Oooh, she’s good! You’re marvellous, darling!’ He relaxed a little and continued, ‘Bon-jour? Of course I can see everything. Every time you meet in this, frankly, filthy room, I’m sitting over here watching. Waiting for you to, well, finish your business.’

‘Ugh,’ said Kasia, letting her lips emerge over the top of the sheet. ‘That’s… that’s horrible.’

‘But if you cats are knapsack happy with what you’re doing, please just continue. Keep up the good work, people. You happy?’

‘Yes!’ shouted Kasia before Douglas could get them into any more trouble.

‘Okay, darlings, carry on. Just pretend I’m not here.’ He returned to the chair, adopting a pretentious pensive pose. Then he started humming.

Douglas asked, ‘You’re just going to… sit there?’

Lordie did not respond, playing with the melody he was humming.

Kasia looked at her watch on the bedside cabinet. Lunch hour was almost up. This usually wasn’t an issue, due to Douglas’ skilful ability to cram lovemaking into an action-packed 38 seconds.

‘I’ve lost the mood,’ said Douglas, coughing.

Kasia stared at Douglas and then at Lordie. ‘Me too. Not really in the mood now.’

‘Oh for shame! Don’t let little old me, put you off,’ Lordie said. ‘I’m always here, whether you see me or not, darlings.’ His jovial smile revealed an edge of menace as he leaned forwards towards them. ‘I’m always here.’

That was when Kasia knew that she would never, ever have sex again.

‘Hmm, something is a-bothering me now, buzzin’ around in my head like a hornet’s nest.’ Earl stood up. ‘So off you go and make, well, everything… but you tie your hands like you say, promising not to get involved. Things are set in motion because that’s all they needed, like, a gentle push.’

He hesitated; he didn’t like to challenge God, but God seemed to be doing his best to actively encourage this sort of behaviour. ‘And so, well, there ain’t no evidence of your existence. That rule you mentioned – Occam’s razor – it then says you don’t exist.’

God was unperturbed. ‘Occam’s razor is a logical device, Earl. It means don’t assume any more than you have to. I don’t need to explain the choices of your life with an assumption that the number of cookies you’ve consumed since birth totals 732, but it’s true, nonetheless. Occam’s razor doesn’t dispute truth. It keeps things simple, melts things down to the bare necessities.’

‘Will you stop with the cookies?’ Earl was tired of the cookie metaphor, but couldn’t ignore the count. ‘732 cookies? Are you sure? Can I demand a recount?’ He pinched his side, checking for fat. There was plenty there.

‘Fact and logic never disagree,’ God replied, ‘but sometimes they won’t see eye to eye. Anyway, you should ask yourself the real hard question, here, Earl. Why would I bother putting in obvious evidence of my existence before you good people have reached your peak? That, pardon my language, would pretty much screw things up.’

The hornets were in a frenzy. Earl was moments away from the question, the one that had been sizzling away like a barbecue steak ever since God had made his first appearance. ‘So you’re no believer of divine intervention?’

‘Absolutely not. Intervention would be an almighty mistake. And the Almighty does not make mistakes. Did you ever see the end of Quantum Leap? Dean Stockwell was really good in that show like he always is. Spoiler alert, Earl. It was revealed that Sam was leaping around in time fixing God’s mistakes. Can you believe that? Holy son of moley, I make mistakes?’

‘Well, sir, pardon me for saying, but what we have right here in this shed is intervention.’

God pulled down his NY Mets cap, as if about to catch a little shuteye. ‘You’re catching on fast, kid.’

The question came out, reckless and uninhibited. ‘Why, sir, are you here talkin’ to me?’

The rod between his legs, hard and firm, poked the sheets. He opened his eyes, and saw the electric lines of the clock display. They told him it was 3AM.

‘Bollocks.’ Mr. Alpha couldn’t believe he’d made it to sleep only to have a nightmare break his slumber. Three hours left before the old man would be up and about, doing his morning meditation.

Mr. Alpha rubbed his eyes, disbelieving how much of an idiot he had been in the dream. The execution of Morgana’s parents had taken their toll, but he was no fucking crybaby. He had earned some more respect from Mr. Omega, having carried out his duty, no matter how dark it might be. Clothmen ruled their emotions, trusting belief as their rock. The orders of the Saints were clean and pure. The execution was without sin and he remained unsoiled, in the employ of The-God-To-Be.

No matter where this road took him, he was not going to abandon its course. A throat slit in the countryside. Distraught parents deceived into suicide. Morgana was not going down without a fight. Even if it took them ten years to hunt the tart down, he’d be there, every step of the way. Two bullets in the head, darling. Two bullets blessed with Cloth love for you.

He could make out a couple of hand prints on the window and, between them, another greasy smudge. The kind of smudge that a head might make. Had he actually got out of bed? He could see the crane from the bed; it still stood there, proud and unwavering, loaded with threat and menace. No fog.

Then he noticed the tip of the crane’s jib was broken. The last section of the crawlway dangled, swaying in the breeze, like something had spilled from its structure.

He reached for his jacket beside the bed and pulled out a small, shiny emerald green diary. He flicked through the pages quickly, wanting to check if he had imagined the last entry as well. It hadn’t been there when he’d recovered the diary from the Bolts’ house. Perhaps he had just imagined it. It would be better if he had. It would all be better.

As he reached the page he was looking for, he considered the crane’s purpose. It was unclear what it was trying to build. So far, there were only foundations, the dim, fragmented outlines of something sinister and alien that didn’t fit with the surrounding urbanwork. This was progress. This is what we make.

Mr. Omega emitted nasal snorts like a jammed machine gun. How comfortable he sounded in his sleep, his dream universe consistent yet incomplete. It lacked knowledge. The last entry of the diary, dated after the death of the Bolts, was just legible enough in the grim light from the alarm clock.

Tricked the Cloth into killing Mum and Dad. The handle turns.

‘What in fuck’s name do you think you’re doing?’ shouted Mr. Omega behind him, a gale overpowering his voice.

Mr. Alpha lay prostrate on the mesh, peering over the edge into the emptiness below. The fog had consumed everything. He glanced behind. Mr. Omega, his tie flapping like a yellow streamer, clambered through the jib towards him, red with rage. No surprise.

Turning back to the sea of fog, he felt its emptiness touch him. He sought a glimmer of understanding or perhaps hope that past events had some design, some just purpose. Doubt had poisoned him. Sin had stained him. The Saints knew what they were doing, didn’t they?

‘Do the Saints know what they’re doing?’ he said. He flipped over to see Mr. Omega grimacing down upon him, perched on the upper ridges of the jib.

‘Do the Saints know what they’re doing? Did you say that? Did you actually fucking say that?’ The old man shook his head in disbelief. ‘I ought to trade you in, right now, right bloody now. You could’ve got me killed pulling this stupid stunt, coming out here alone. Fuck you, Mr. Alpha. Fuck you.’

Tears emerged from Mr. Alpha’s eyes, slipping down his temples. He blinked at Mr. Omega but then let his head loll to one side. ‘We executed the parents of the chosen…’

‘Oh, fuck, boy.’ He blew out hard as a harsh, biting wind whipped them both, whistling and taunting. ‘Morgana is a fucked-up loser, she’s no Clothman. Her parents just can’t be afforded the same status.’

‘That means nothing.’ Mr. Alpha tried to focus on where the hotel should be, but saw only fog. ‘Whose fault is it that Morgana has fallen? Her parents who gave her life? Or the Cloth that taught and raised her?’

‘Are you thinking about your own parents?’

Mr. Alpha wasn’t stupid. ‘Of course not, Mr. Omega. I’m a Clothman, through and through. But we respect the parents of the adopted. They’re about the only characters that we do give a damn about. It feels like sin. We should never have to take them out. Only… only if there’s no other way.’

‘That’s the key, you bloody cockhead. It’s Morgana’s own fault. She made her parents a target. I didn’t want to harm them any more than you did.’ Mr. Omega sounded uncomfortable with his own honesty and hesitated before carrying on. ‘But we had no choice.’

Mr. Alpha turned to face his partner again. ‘Exactly, mate. Exactly right. She gave us no choice.’ Either the cold or his nerves made his teeth chatter . ‘Y-you haven’t seen her diary. You don’t know what she wrote. A little green book. A fucking little green book.’ The wind burrowing into his eyes had inflamed them, he kept having to blink.

‘What do you mean?’ Mr. Omega said, perturbed. ‘What diary?’

The mesh suddenly gave way with a clink and Mr. Alpha found himself flying through the air. Mr. Omega’s hands reached out but disappeared into the heavens, obscured by the fog.

For several seconds, the free fall felt peaceful. He couldn’t see anything save the ambient glow of the fog around him. Alone and without anything to feed his senses. A natural isolation tank.

His back smashed against the ground as a rusty post drove through his groin.

Shock blinded him to the pain at first. He stared in horror at the post that had impaled him. It thrust upwards between his legs, smeared in blood and loose flesh. Out of desperation, he grabbed it, thinking he could pull himself up. His hands slipped and rubbed across its wet and sticky exterior, unable to gain purchase.

His mouth quivered, trying to birth a scream.

Mr. Bolt took the tablet from Mr. Omega’s gloved hand and placed it on his tongue like the body of Christ. A defeated expression crossed his face as he swallowed and his weary eyes fell away from the Clothmen.

Mr. Bolt shifted backwards and lay down beside his wife. He clasped her hand and whispered something; she whispered something back. Her eyes were closed but a contented smile remained on her face. Mr. Bolt shut his eyes too, wetness glinting beneath the eyelashes.

Mr. Omega dragged up a chair and sat beside Morgana’s parents, watching them.

Through the window, Mr. Alpha saw nothing but a few Clothmen wandering down the windy roadside, eating grease-drenched chips out of a basket of paper, laughing and jostling, playing their roles. Beneath the glossy veneer lay the knowledge of what was really happening. Part of him almost hoped for Morgana to make an entrance and rescue her parents. They didn’t deserve this.

With Morgana pressing in on his thoughts again, he pulled out his handgun for comfort. If she turned up, he’d shoot her down. No games with ropes this time. Shoot her down, good and dead.

‘Put that away,’ Mr. Omega whispered. ‘Show some bloody respect.’

The old man was right. Mr. Alpha slid the gun back into its holster.

He watched Mr. Omega, safe that he could stare at him from the window without raising the old bastard’s hackles. Mr. Omega’s sat motionless, dedicated and dutiful, observing the Bolts. Mr. Alpha wanted to know what was going on inside that brain of his; he let nothing slip. He knew that Mr. Omega had doubts as well, but demonstrated remarkable control over them.

Mr. Alpha approached the bed to peer at the two still forms lying there.

There were a few black marks etched into the wooden footboard that he didn’t remember seeing earlier. The marks moved; it was a shadow, crawling up onto the bottom of the bed. The shadow then drifted across its expanse until it blotted out Morgana’s parents. It was the shadow of a hand.

He turned to see if, somehow, his hand or another’s was obscuring the light from the bulb in the ceiling. Nothing. He looked back at the bed and the shadow was gone. A trick of the light, perhaps. Perhaps.

Mr. Omega reached over to check their pulses and nodded solemnly to himself. ‘They’re gone,’ he said.

‘Really?’

‘Yes. Certain.’

Mr. Alpha took up position beside the body of Mr. Bolt while Mr. Omega leant over Mrs. Bolt.

Mr. Omega blessed Morgana’s parents. ‘Belief is rock.’

‘Truth is ghost,’ Mr. Alpha concluded.

Mr. Omega took out a manilla envelope from the depths of his grey jacket. The envelope contained the suicide note and he laid it on the dressing table against the wall.

‘I can’t believe we did this,’ said Mr. Alpha, unable to leave the bedside. He felt worse than he did during the build-up to the quarantine. His stomach was doing somersaults and his thoughts were disjointed, derailed. ‘I can’t believe this.’

Mr. Omega came over to him, without even the slightest hint of reproach and put an arm on his shoulder.

‘Mr. Alpha,’ he said. ‘One for the road, I think.’