Shudder (32 page)

* * * *

Dave Sleep

Dave sat with a cup of coffee and a cigarette in his easy chair by the window. It was a splendid winter morning. The sky was a phosphorescent horizontal white veil, seemingly mere feet above the cityscape. Two black crows perched on the naked branches of a poplar growing outside his apartment and looked at him with their beady eyes.

The interior ministry had paid for this flat, it was in a nice old-fashioned red brick high-rise, and was ten minutes away from the park.

“General Cohran,” Dave said to himself and grinned.
General Cohran, head of the interior ministry.
He dragged at his cigarette and let the smoke trickle out without any effort on his part.

Had he known how much effort to stay cool a cigarette saved, he would've started smoking years ago. His mind was now capable of focusing, without problems, into any direction he willed it to.

Too bad he had to smoke secretly, like a school kid, being a public figure and all.

Both apartments that flanked the one in which he sat and basked in his cool were also rented by the interior ministry, his bodyguards lived there. He had flatly refused to live in an official mansion in the government village on the outskirts of town. He wanted to be inside the city, to feel it, to taste it.

On his insistence, he and five more people down the line received weekly reports from all three national N.M.H. offices. The respective budgets of these offices were doubled. Now twelve people worked in the capital's N.M.H. and sixteen people in the two provincial ones.

From time to time Anton interpreted the data over coffees.

As a high-profile member of the national administration, Dave couldn't afford to go swinging anymore, or boozing.

Instead, he had to present, with Natalie's help, a persona built up from his military and law enforcement past. As a shining contrast to the corrupt evil bastards before him.

The thing is,
he told himself as he drained the last drops from the bottom of his cup, the thing is
, I don't even feel like whoring. I feel like settling down. I want to have someone dear to me sitting in this same room with me. Forever. Unbelievable
.

Unbelievable but true. For the past month, alone with himself in his apartment, Dave's thoughts turned more and more to fantasies concerning a spouse. A woman to love him, share a life with him, and possibly bear him children, although he didn't insist on that.

Perhaps being waited on by Natalie, being told how to dress and how to speak in public, her being the PR boss of the new government and all, was what contributed to his desire to have a woman around to tell him what to do.

“Natalie,” he said and smiled. He remembered their talk in the BYWAY café.

Funny, but now that the former rulers were shown to be obviously evil, the nation united in its hatred for them, suicides
had
dropped significantly. With them, the need for staged morale boosters fell as well.

A tiny solitary snowflake twirled through the opening in the window, gave his wrist a tiny wet kiss, and melted immediately.

Soon Christmas and New Year would come. Decorations already appeared in the malls and on the streets, and sugary medleys poured from radios all over town. Usually he would hole up at his home in such days, to wait out the assaults on his taste.

However, this time was different. He could take a vacation. Somewhere far away. He deserved it. Somewhere where it is warm, where he can swim in the sea.

He laughed out loud.
What sea? That's old thinking. No more swimming in the sea, for anyone. Isn't safe, with all the new organisms in it.

At least he could soak up some sun, swim in the hotel pool, read some books, and try some local food.

He remembered Indonesia. Why not? If they were going to put men on the moon, it must be an interesting place to see right now. Maybe he could swing it as a working vacation: meet his local counterpart, discuss this and that.

Dave got up and realized what he must do at that very moment, without losing more precious time.

At a slow run he returned to his bed.

His head sank into the pillow, which had already cooled, his mind stopped trying to maintain meaningful thoughts and surrendered to a pleasant fog of inarticulate relaxation. His eyes closed almost completely, making the visible world lose its outlines.

The soft, white light filtered unobtrusively through the curtains. The faraway hum of cars and pedestrians caressed his ears like a lullaby. Thinking of Indonesia, and then of a future wife, Dave played half-heartedly with himself for a few minutes before dozing off with one final relaxed “Gnyaaaggh.”

It was a lazy late Sunday morning.

Autumn 2011

ANTON: So, are you happy with this book?

AUTHOR: Quite, quite, not the reality shattering ultimate novel, but still satisfyingly entertaining, I'd say.

ANTON: The style is rather peculiar. Let's not mention the rhythm of the narrative.

AUTHOR: Let's not.

ANTON: How would you define the genre of this ghastly opuscule?

AUTHOR: Difficult question. Cynical naivism is one epithet that comes to mind. Cartoon existentialism would also be an apt enough description. Infantile adventure would be the best one I think.

ANTON: Infantile in what sense would that be?

AUTHOR: In every sense.

ANTON: Right...I note some residue from your nineteen-thirties fascination in certain places.

AUTHOR: Yes, it's abated to a large extent but there are still hints of American and British sleuths and vigilantes lurking here and there.

ANTON: Aha, I
thought
I noticed by the end a sort of brighter buccaneer appearing to save everyone's bacon. I was half-expecting him to have a sidekick who wants to give people da woiks wid his Betsy.

AUTHOR: Yes, but he consciously made himself like that you realize, an Injun albino turning himself into a dashing Celtic fictional hero. That's conscious identity construction, center and periphery, inclusion and exclusion, all that stuff. In the end, also done by a fictional hero. Now
that
is postmodernism.

ANTON: You're being a pretentious twat again, aren't you?

AUTHOR: No, no, certainly not. Not as such. I wouldn't say so.

ANTON: I'll take your word on that. About the chloroform…you realize, I hope, that what you use in your book is not the substance itself, but the urban myth concerning it?

AUTHOR: Yup. How was the trip anyway?

ANTON: As I said, quite vivid dreams. The bears were indeed very silly.

AUTHOR: The liver still okay?

ANTON: I think so. Anyway, time for the last question. Aren't you afraid that some people will take offense at the somewhat irreverent treatment of some serious contemporary topics?

AUTHOR: That would be just spatial and temporal provincialism from their side. I know they wouldn't mind if I touched in the same manner upon topics like WWII, WWI, the Spanish flu, the Spanish Inquisition, the Bubonic Plague, Stalin, Po
l Pot, and whatnot. If they get all fidgety and indignant when the topics are closer to home-- they can all just eat shit.

ANTON: With these stylistically appropriate and multilayered last words, it's time to finish this blitz interview. Thank you for answering my questions.

AUTHOR: Thank you for having me.

Harry F. Kane started reading at around age seven. At ten, he read T
he Lord of The Rings, Dune
, and
The Hitchhiker's Guide to The Galaxy
. At twelve, he read all the available Vonneguts, Orwells, and Bradburys. At thirteen, the headaches started. Now he's thirty and causing other people's headaches. You're very welcome.

Harry F. Kane and his family friendly alter ego, Ted Keller, are also the authors of:
Autumn Magic Playground Sky; Brain Storm; The Bad Ass Bible; Planetfall on Albaid; Sound of Distant Oceans, The Tree Between Worlds.

Visit him online at:

http://harrykane.livejournal.com/