Forget Yourself (33 page)

Eventually they came for us, dying men in rubber suits: a group of government zombies. But I can’t pretend they weren’t friendly, a message to my box and coming right to my door to bring me to the bus. They didn’t even notice my kitchen ceiling had collapsed, with a bathtub in the middle.

They gave us coffee from re-seal cups. Taken to safety were the buzzwords. We’re taking you to safety. You’re being taken to safety. Each new person on the bus, from city to town to hamlet. You’ll be taken to safety.

I had my own buzzwords: where is she? Where is she? Where is she? I only knew her first name and I wasn’t even certain where she was. She wasn’t on this bus, which snaked over litter-streets and past silent dead-eyed buildings. I looked through the caged glass, ignoring the jabber of the woman to my side. Waiting for her.

We slept right there in the seats. The bus never stopped. Well, only now and then when another rubber-suit man gargled and slumped and was then left by the roadside.

Then there she was: three bags and a suitcase. She got on the bus asking for Norna, looking for her pre-rendered face. I wanted to grab her and clutch her to me, but she hadn’t known any Loke, just a Norna, with flawless skin and a well-designed smile. She perched at the front where I could watch her once more.

It made me cry. She was so close. I sobbed gently, my head resting in my coat as I pretended to sleep. I sobbed until I slept for real.

I awoke when it was night, the bus moving and the road so dark, with a dozen heads bobbing about. I watched her hair, her head lolling to and fro. She was asleep. And I was happy. She was alive, and while she was alive I could know her. Or just watch her.

Ages passed and finally the bus stopped, a hiss of contentment. We’re here, they said, and I waited for ‘at safety’. Instead they told us to step down from the vehicle. There was a wall, a big endless yellow-grey wall, with the word ‘Hyboria’ plastered like an advert. One of the rubber-suit men had a speech.

He told us we were the last. He told us we were lucky. He said that we were the only ones. He said this was home now. He let us know this was our world.

And people shouted and sobbed and looked curious. They asked what it was, where it was, how long they’d be there for.

The questions weren’t answered. The rubber man went on. “You will,” he said, “need to forget the old world. For your own sanity. You mustn’t know you are the last.” He and the others were backing away, onto the bus. “You’ll forget; you’ll forget it all. You’d thank us for it if you could. You’ll be new people. You can start afresh. There’s nothing as bad as nostalgia. You’d thank us. You’d thank us.”

And I felt tired. I felt so tired.

“Sleep,” they said. “All of you, sleep, and we’ll bring you in when you’re good and when you’re ready.”

So I lay down and I got ready to sleep. I heard some of the others throwing themselves at the caged bus. I didn’t. I’d be with her. Nothing could make me forget her face. I was ready. Ready to join the new world. Ready to be reborn.

I woke up here.

And I was Blondee again.

I spent a while tidying up the area around my living-hole. I made a trench in the sand all around, and decorated the ground by the wall with shards of coloured plastic. There was no harm in leaving an imprint.

I licked mush from my fingers and planted the squidge-fruit seeds in the chalk-barren ground of my corner.

I was Blondee, and it wasn’t long before my visitor was back.

This time I stood up and saw a face.

I wasn’t surprised at who it was, I wasn’t surprised at all. They looked hungry, and tired, and so, so desperate. What did they want? What could they possibly want now? They looked, and turned, and left.

I wasn’t sure what to do, so I gave a little wave to the back which got smaller and smaller.

I dug the trench a little deeper, hollowed with my hands.

I am Loke, one of the lucky few. A new world, a new start, free of the burdens of Armageddon.

And I’m lucky, I won’t pretend otherwise. My guts stayed inside me, part of a tiny fraction of all the guts in the world—those not vomited up into sinks or onto carpets. The world had stopped, cars never left driveways, trains static in stations, milk souring then curdling then crusting in cappuccino machines. We were told we were lucky, over and over, though most of them didn’t believe it—the luckiest thing, one of the others said, would be to have no plague at all—to have loved ones alive and neighbours to smile at.

But for me it was a fresh start, a new beginning, a chance to be with the woman I loved. But who was she? Who was she?

The book doesn’t exist here, my world within the trench. Would Pilsner put the book back? He had always believed in it—not the memories, he believed in the power of it to bring people together.

People don’t need words to bring them together.

I always thought he was stupid.

I’m not one person.

And the outside—well, it’s not one place, how can it be?

Everything in the book is as true as everything else, I suppose, but it’s irrelevant. She said nothing was true, but nothing is not true, here under my blue tarpaulin.

I told you love is all I have left. And that’s true. But I have no-one left to love, no bones or shit, so I have no choice but to love everything.

Grotesque and humiliating.

It spills from me like blood. It’s killing me, but I don’t mind.

Tomorrow I will wake up someone new. The same damp earth will be under the same toes; the same fingers will clutch the same food and bring it to the same lips.

But someone else will taste it.

The same eyes with someone else’s vision.

The same brain with someone else’s thoughts.

There were no sirens. When I think of war I think of sirens, screaming to shut the windows, screaming to hide in the basement, or under a table. But there weren’t any sirens. We didn’t need them, but a little part of me felt cheated.

It was an odd thing to be thinking about, as my husband and I were making fuck for the last time, curled together under the gaze of the wet stone woman. Perhaps I wanted it to be more dramatic, love-making to the shrill shriek of the world’s end. It wasn’t even spectacular: there weren’t any fireworks or head-rush dizzy pleasure. I didn’t even climax.

Afterwards he lay on me, cold and clammy and panting, and I thought of the hundreds of young men marching down the high street. I thought about their firm bodies beneath their uniforms, the perfect-round pecs of the enemy.

He kissed me, and I was grateful to have my thoughts interrupted. He lay, his clammy sweaty-bulk on top of me, kissing my lips then my neck. He loved me, he said, so I said it in return. I did love him, but there was so much to think about. Was I the only one? Had everyone shuttered their windows just to head indoors and make love to their partners, their minds empty of the war?

There was an explosion somewhere else. I waited for screams or fire-sirens, but nothing came. No commotion, no attention, nothing at all. Then there were more, pointless echoes of the first, a rain of meaningless noise. Still the husband lay there, as if he was shielding me from the dull horror, something he had never bothered to do when the newspapers were ranting with panicked faith.

He was asleep. Each breath was deep and even. Outside there was a double-bang, two bombs bursting side-by-side. I hoped the window wouldn’t shatter, spraying us with a rain of glass. But the bombs were far away.

I had imagined this moment. For months before the war. I imagined feeling terror, of sheltering bravely, of crying noble tears. But I didn’t want to cry. I wanted to feel something about what was happening, some kind of rage, some kind of loss, but I was too calm. Things were changing, that was all. Routes planned, borders redrawn, religious icons painted. They were changing now and they’d change again, and why feel sad for something that wasn’t permanent?

Fucking shit. Utter wanking shit. Existentialist nonsense. I should have cared, and I wanted to, but I couldn’t. We can’t help our minds, I told myself. We can’t help our minds. My husband Thorgeir snorted and pressed his hipbone into me.

We lay for hours.

There was a crash downstairs. A door flung from hinges. There were voices. More than voices, there was chanting. “We’re the defence league, defence league, defence league, we’re the defence league, de- fence—league!”

There were footsteps up the stairs, heavy boots on our new carpet, and they burst in. They gripped my husband by the neck and flung him away from me, his limp cock flapping uselessly. One of them lay on top of me, as my husband had done, and giggled. He stank of cheap lager. They carried on their chant, de and fence and league, and when the lager-stench was lifted from me I saw my husband was gone. Get up, they screeched—get up and come with us. I lay there, looking at the rose on the ceiling, until they gripped my elbows and hoisted me to my feet. They grasped at me, all over, until one shouted that there wasn’t time, so they grasped my blonde hair and dragged me downstairs instead.

“It’s time for a new life,” they said, “you’ll be helping heal the sick.”

So that was it. We’d be guinea-pigs, lab rats, hamster-test-subjects: just like the papers had warned. Don’t worry, lager-breath whispered, you won’t even know it’s happening. You’ll be in your own little world.

I still didn’t feel anything. Nothing at all.

I am a wife and the world fell to war.

Dramatic isn’t it? But it wasn’t, it really wasn’t. It was quiet and grey. Numb, that’s the word, it was numb. There weren’t any heroes, nor any villains, not really. There might have been explosions but I never saw them. There were kisses on carpets, sweat over formaldehyde-soaked sterility, but after that there was waiting. It wasn’t even exciting as they took my mind, and it was near-normal to wake up in here. Experiments, poisons in the food, poison to end it all.

Without knowing who or where we were we’d never resist: we could be watched. And I couldn’t answer why me, they picked our house, number 67, and perhaps there were more, mini-worlds up and down the land, each filled with experiments. Maybe we were the only ones. And forget the drama of romance, the last thing I saw of my husband was his flaccid prick wobbling away. And he farted as they took him.

I woke up here.

It rains. Thunder over the blue tarpaulin.

I’m lying down now, staring at the ripples and waves of rain on plastic.

The mud is in my hair.

Water flows down into the hole, over my fingers, over my arm.

My eyes prickle with tears, tears of relief.

I enjoy the feeling of them welling in my eyes, flooding over my face.

These are the last sensations I will have.

Tomorrow they will belong to someone else.

The rain is falling heavier, the tarp beats like a dream.

The three of us waited at the ferry-port: Lamia, Callidi and myself. Lamia cheered us up—remember, we’re following our thoughtless husbands on a great adventure. Eventually a smart black car arrived and some men in suits stepped out. They asked us our names and then asked to see our identification. We gave both willingly, though we were tired and, I may hazard, each a little frightened at this undertaking. Then men sent to greet us did little to alleviate our concerns: they did not smile, nor make any attempts at reassurance. I told myself that perhaps this was simply the manner of their professional capacity. In reality I was cold and rather hungry.

We were directed into the car. It was large, warm and with plenty of snacks, and so our spirits were indeed soothed. Lamia opened up a bottle of complimentary liquor and poured it into the glasses provided. She called a toast: to our adventure. Callidi and I repeated her words with less vigour.

We drove for many hours. Having endured an extremely lengthy journey and then eaten, the three of us eventually drifted to sleep. As I drifted off it struck me as somewhat odd that the men in suits hadn’t said a single word to one another—not once. I confess that I slept heavily.

We each awoke when the car reached a halt. The men opened the doors and we found ourselves outside a plain white building surrounded by a thick forest. It had been newly-built and seemed of little expense. Lamia loudly asked them if this is what we had paid for. It was a fair question—after all, this experiment was costing each of us a considerable sum. The response of the man she had asked absolutely shocked me.

He took hold of her arm and slapped her across the face. Lamia burst into tears. As did Callidi. He told her that he did that because she simply would not remember. He went on to inform us that we were in absolutely no danger in his presence, but he was tired of ‘all these rich cunts lording it over us when their own lives are so fucking shitty they’d rather forget them’, and that if we were to speak out of turn we would receive a slap.

I was Merope, clumsy and unwomanly. I was talked into handing over my memories at the other side of the world.

Perhaps if I had been blessed with something of a backbone I would have mustered the energy necessary to saying no. No to Lamia, no to my husband. Instead Lamia, Callidi and I were led into the unassuming white building and gruffly informed of what we already knew and now had no control over. Our minds would be wiped clean and we would start afresh. When it all became too much we would be removed, informed of how we did, and given our precious results.