Henry
Morris is Fast Asleep, and Frank is Wide Awake
(Creative Writing Dissertation, written
by John Henry Towler)
The day that Frank
became an Administrator, he woke at the same time he always did, and he went to
work as he always had, and he came back in the same car, in the same clothes,
with the same hair and with the same smile. He drove down the same streets,
past the identical rows of white, single-floored houses with well-tended
gardens and low picket fences, with pasted walls and wide, open windows.
Glancing to his left and right caused the walls to fade before him, and he saw
Molly, Jennifer, Dan and James, Sarah, John, Hank and Sue; everyone enjoying
their early afternoon or returning from work. Their houses were ordered and
satisfying; not a single chair or table was out of place. Looking into the
homes of his neighbours, he could tell what people were eating for dinner, or
what they were watching on the television. A couple of people returned his
gaze, eyes meeting and shifting away, shifting over and over. There were a few
people out in the garden, taking out rubbish and taking in washing. Nothing
kept his gaze for longer than a moment: The lives of his neighbours were as
they should be.
He arrived home on time, as he always had. The
building was minimalist, as was its interior design: a single story house in no
way different from Jessica’s or Dan’s. Turning off the engine, he glanced in
the mirror and straightened his tie. He’d just left the car, and was walking to
his door, when he turned on the spot, stepped off the path, and crossed the
lawn to the letterbox, leaving shoeprints pressed into the otherwise perfect
grass. Opening the front flap, he took out a single letter, plain white and
with no address; but only his name. He trod back across the garden and pushed
through the front door. He strode through his living room with his shoes still
on, tossing his jacket over the back of his white cushioned armchair. His
lounge was set out as it should be: the seats were set apart from the walls,
around a glass coffee table, facing the television. There was nothing else in
the room, there didn’t need to be. The dining room was to his right as he made
his way into the kitchen, dark in the setting light. The kitchen itself was
pale, with marble tops, and shining floors, with white cloths and plates and
cups. The bedroom was in the centre of the house, just a single bed, big enough
for one.
He stopped in his kitchen. Looking to his left and
right through transparent walls, he could see Michael pouring a glass of water,
and Mark sitting down in his armchair with Jennifer and Dan. James had turned
on the television, and Frank would soon join him. Looking out of his kitchen
window, he admired his well-trimmed garden, his luscious green grass. The
fences were higher, and he’d painted them white to match the picket fence. He
stared for a moment longer, then drew his attention back to the letter,
slipping his finger through a hole in the gummed-down fold, the letter opening in
front of him. He read:
‘Dear Mr Henry Dylan Morris,
Under
section 13 of the State Contract, signed by Henry
Dylan Morris
(21st November, 2035), you are hereby called for civil duty by the
Council of Moderators and Administrators. This section states that, should we
evoke this right, you are contractually obliged to attend your nearest council
member meeting in order to be properly informed of your duties to the State.
Should you ignore this obligation, you will risk ejection from the Program.
Furthermore,
it is our duty to inform you of the nature of the State Program. On 21st
November 2035, you entered a contractual agreement to become a citizen of the
Cyber-State. You were randomly assigned an avatar, which in this case was Frank, and all memories and experiences of your
life previous to State Introduction were safely quarantined against malicious
activity. You will now receive these memories in an effort to-
As he read the letter, his smile waned. His eyes
flicked across the page, and a frown deepened across his brow. He started
again, re-reading lines in the hope that they would sink in. Words leapt out at
him; Program… Avatar… Contract…
Cyber-State, 2035, Henry, Frank. Henry’s face unravelled, and the letter
slipped from his hands. They dropped and unfolded at his side. He stood flaccid
and still, unable to twitch or tremble. His mouth dipped open, corners curved
like gliding crow’s wings. His back was slumped, his shoulders sagged. His eyes
were glossing over; he couldn’t see the room in front of him. Sounds diminished
into a single persistent ringing. His neighbours returning home in their cars,
and closing their front doors, did not snap him out of his incomprehension. His
joints were stiffening into a living rigor-mortis, but he couldn’t pay
attention anymore.
There were memories of ancient places, but he
couldn’t remember their names; mountains and buildings, forests and cities, but
they were so unclear. Sounds brushed against his ears. Things that once
belonged in the everyday came drifting to the surface; the leaves of trees, and
the flurry of an insect’s wings. Involuntary breaths escaped from him. His arms
rose and fell a little, as though to grasp at things; he shivered at the memory
of turning bible pages, at the wafer-thin paper with gold-gilded edges. Voices
purred in his mind, but it was the semblance of a voice, just a humming shadow
of sound that he recognised but couldn’t place. Explosive, subtle and vivid
colours splashed and faded, half-recalled. His face twitched into a ghost of a
smile; there and gone in a moment. But concrete memory eluded him. But he felt
odd, strange…
He was wrong; his hands were lumbering, his feet were
flat, he blinked too often, his teeth were straight. He was shorter, leaner and
healthy, and his hair wasn’t in his eyes. There was an elusive picture he could
not grasp, an appearance that he could not see. His eyes should be… His hair
mustn’t… He couldn’t remember. His hands shouldn’t… More than anything, he
wanted to remember his face. Urges swept across his body, little ticks and
tricks: he wanted to bite his lip, to crack his knuckles; but his habits were
stolen by a stranger that was himself. He clung to his name, held it to
himself, repeated it over and over like a creed; Frank, Frank, Frank Morris, Frank Dylan, Henry Morris, Henry, Frank,
Dylan, Henry- He stood like this until night fell, and the street outside
seemed very dark.
He became aware of an itch on his face. His joints
were rigid; they creaked as he moved to scratch his cheek. His knuckles shifted
in front of his eyes, and his sight fixed onto his hand. He turned it over and
over, feeling it but not recognising it at all. He began to look around the
room, moving from alien chair to foreign table. Corners cut from the
peripherals, doorways snatched from the darkness. He couldn’t make out the
walls – they dissolved in front of him, and all around he looked at neighbours
in brightly lit living rooms, watching televisions, eating and drinking. They
looked at their neighbours, plain looks of indifference straightening out their
faces. Their heads swivelled, eyes rattling from screen to wall to screen and
back again. Their gaze was ceaseless. A woman across the street turned on him,
eyes just below his face. Henry recoiled, and looked away. The wall was opaque
once more, but he could hear their necks grinding and eyes swivelling as they
invaded his home with disinterest, their attention dissecting him with ruthless
apathy.
There were memories of ancient places that he
couldn’t remember the names of; mountains and buildings, forests and cities,
but they were so unclear. Sounds brushed against his ears, and his body tensed
and locked into place. He screwed up his eyes, and things that once belonged in
the everyday came drifting to the surface; the leaves of trees, and the flurry
of an insect’s wings. Involuntary breaths escaped from him. His arms rose a
little, and fell, as though to grasp at things; he shivered at the memory of
turning bible pages, at the wafer-thin paper with gold-gilded edges. Voices
purred in his mind, but it was the semblance of a voice, just a humming shadow
of sound that he recognised but couldn’t place. Colours; explosive, subtle and
vivid colours splashed and half-recalled; but opening his eyes, he only saw
these white walls, and the grey street, and the green of grass that felt so
lifeless. Even his clothes were dull and black
Henry got up and trembled into the bathroom. In the
mirror, his features were simple. His face was a template, generated from an
algorithm, all smooth and no rough. He could not find himself in that face – He
could not see himself in these eyes. He could not even remember what he was
supposed to look like. He stumbled back into the lounge, and fell onto a chair.
What is this place? Henry asked of
himself, and the answer came in an unfamiliar voice: Home. Memories separated like oil and water, and he remembered these rooms; not like a past
life, but like a dream. This place was a dream,
please. But no; Frank lived here, and
Henry was Frank, and Frank was Henry. But Henry’s life did not exist anymore –
The world he knew, its history and culture, were obsolete. His family were
either faceless avatars, with lumbering hands and flat feet, and eyes that
blinked too much or too little, or they were long behind him in some forgotten
universe that might as well be dead.
He picked up the letter again and tried to read the
rest. His brain wouldn’t grapple with the main body of text – memories of
childhood kept flying in his face, and he’d remember for a moment the sound of
laughter, or the feel of sticky hands covered in orange juice. Words continued
to strike out at him, glaring in their singularity: Reintegrates, Informers,
the jargon skipped off the top of his head. Beneath the surface, his thoughts
were thick and tar-like. Nothing dissolved into lucidity. However, his eyes
picked up on the last paragraph, which read;
‘…The
Council of Moderators and Administrators has chosen to incorporate you into our
Department of Investigations, to aid in the detection and ejection of
anarchists from the State System. As such, you are to receive Administrative
Privileges to improve the likelihood of success. To receive these privileges,
please attend your nearest meeting of council members. Meeting locations will
be made known to you in the next 12 hours.
Welcome
to the Cyber State.
Yours,
The
Council of Moderators and Administrators
(C.o.M.A.)’
Henry’s breath
quickened. He tried to contain his fear, but the onset of panic dilated his
pupils, and his vision began to blur and spin. His eyes couldn’t focus, and his
eyelids flapped and fluttered. His stomach rocked, and he swayed like he was at
sea. The taste of nausea rinsed his mouth. He started to shake his head, from a
nervous tremor to a terrified scrambling attention that he could not trap. He
needed air, and jerked up from his seat. He tried not to look at his hands,
these hands, which felt clumsy and wrong. He looked at the wall, which melted
away and there were his neighbours, heads spinning and eyes watching. He
coughed and wretched. He forced himself to stare at the ceiling. Cramming his
lips together, he took deep powerful breaths through his nose. He was rigid,
jaw and neck bristling with strain. He palmed his way around the room, wincing
against cold walls. He fumbled with the light switch, which felt too sharp for
his fingers. He knocked a glass from the table, which splashed across the floor
and glittered at him. The noise startled him, and he clutched his coat.
Blinking as though to keep rain from his eyes, he looked down to his chest. The
sight of these hands, his hands, against his collar made him sick again; he
took a step towards the couch, and collapsed on it. His nostrils were full of
the smell of blood. He blacked out.
_______________________________________________________________________
Henry Morris is fast asleep, and Frank is wide
awake.
He can tell he’s awake because of
his senses. He can hear the running of the tap. Loud and violent, it’s blasting
droplets across the room. Those droplets are peppering his bare skin, and he’s
aware that he’s soaked to the bone. He lies in cold water; it’s icy and
aggressive against his body, and deep within his clothes. His wrists thump,
keeping time with his heart. His mouth is full of the taste of metal filings,
and it swills with thickness and fragility. His vision is blurred. The water is
grey. Nothing moves, and nothing is clear. He blinks sometimes; heavy blinks,
as though over sand. He can smell the water, strangely; unless it’s simply his
mind playing tricks. His nose twitches with copper. His thoughts roll from
sense to sense, coming to life with pangs and twitches, back and forth – not
like the tide, too jerky and timid. There’s a little part of his brain that
isn’t sentient, but exists. He brushes it; brushes past its many sections and
tools, its codes and functions, and there – He is asleep.
_______________________________________________________________________________
‘Can anyone do an English accent?’
‘What?’
‘An accent, an English accent. Come
on, you must know-
‘I’m American. Sorr-
‘I’m Australian. Can’t tell through
this computer-generated mess-
‘Like Latin.’
‘What?’
‘No one knew the Latin accent, cos
the language is dead-
‘Just shut up, please – is ANYONE
English?’
The crowd muttered and moaned, whined and sighed,
but Henry wasn’t listening. His head was resting against the back of his chair,
eyes glazed. He felt waterlogged. His mouth was slightly open, and his skin was
heavy on his face. His feelings hadn’t changed much since the previous night,
but this morning he’d at least been able to function. Ignoring the flurry of
activity around him, Henry had woken late, eaten late and gone to the mailbox
in his dressing gown. Other people were strolling out of houses, getting into
cars, heading off to work – Henry’s unusual schedule was registered, filed, but
ultimately ignored. No one spoke to him. Outside, he’d found a single letter –
no address, just his name. Opening it, Henry had skimmed over it with groggy,
cloudy eyes, until it gave him an address and a time. He’d left promptly, and
spent the entire walk staring at the pavement.
When he’d first arrived, he’d been greeted at the door
by his real name. He’d been led into a large room, crammed with rickety chairs
that crushed together. The only space that had been left was at the far-end of
the room, and Henry sat somewhere in the middle, waiting for others to arrive.
One by one, they’d all scurried into isolated seats and cast furtive glances.
The walls in this building did not fade, and yet still eyes had flitted without
rest. The various Avatars had arrived by the dozen, and Henry had recognised
the Jennifers and the Marks, the Sarahs and the Sues; The Johns, the Matthews,
the Samanthas, the Jessicas. He recognised them from his office, from his
street, from the day-to-day routine he’d mindlessly trodden until today. Soon,
people had stopped looking for solitary seats because there were none. Seats
were found, and heads pointed down – except to risk a look at your neighbour.
No one spoke. The sound of nervous breath had made the room seem cold. From the
front row, a figure rose, turning and scanning the crowd with a shrewd eye. He
stepped back, and cleared his throat.
‘Ladies and Gentlemen – welcome to the Council of
Moderators and Administrators’ initiates induction meeting. More importantly,
welcome to the Cyber State. Your last 24 hours have been quite eventful.’The
room shifted a little. The man was smiling. ‘My name is Isaac Pskovi, but you
might remember me as Dan. Taller than John, Blonder than Robert, possibly your
co-worker or neighbour. Then again, possibly not. There are somewhere in the vicinity
of a quarter-million Dans currently operating in the State System. So probably
not. My job today is to talk to you about what the Council really is, what we
do, and why we want you to become the newest members of our organisation. We
have many enemies - those that would seek to undo this state, those that would
create chaos were there was concord. We call them Anarchists. Let me explain
why they are your enemy, too…’
And that was how it’d started. Isaac had spoken for
an hour or two, and in that time he’d dissected the Council and all its
functions. He’d spoken of the three branches; investigative, corrective and
external; of how they detected anarchists, put right their wrongs, and how they
tried to understand the State for what it was. It was an old piece of software,
or, ‘an ancient program’, and there were many bugs and corruptions that they
had to fight against, sometimes created by the Anarchists themselves. He’d
explained that the Council had special tools with which it could fight this,
‘insurgency of chaos’, and that they maintained the ability to create
Moderators and Administrators – people who could access privileges and data
that put them at an advantage. He spoke of ‘reinformers’, of people who had to
rewrite parts of the system that were beyond repair due to glitches and hacks…
‘… And now, ladies and gentlemen, I must leave. I
was once much like you; however, now I hunt down hackers and Anarchists in
almost every waking moment in my life. They are growing stronger, better
organised and more ruthless. Please remain in this room for a while, and we’ll
update you with your Administrative privileges, so that you can join the
Council in making the State a safer place. Turn to your neighbours, ask their
names – I’m sure you have a lot to talk about.’ He dipped his head and, with a
gracious smile upon his face, excused himself. Once the door closed behind him,
the room shifted and stretched, people turned in their seats, and conversation
broke out in small clusters. Henry didn’t join in. Here he sat, head resting
against the back of the chair, remembering the morning and trying to understand
it all.
‘What
about you?’
Henry raised his eyebrows and sniffed, starting off
his train of thought, and his eyes swept across the Jennifer’s face beside him.
‘What
about me?’
‘Your
name!’ Henry told her. She perked up at once. ‘Henry! Haven’t heard a Henry
before… Where are you from?’ Henry started telling her that he had lived in a
small town somewhere north of London, but she interrupted him with a grin that
broke across her face like fire. ‘London… As in England?’ He nodded. She turned
to her neighbours and cried, ‘He’s English! Henry, here – he’s English!’ The
crowd turned to him, their combined focus laying across his brow like heavy
steel chains.
‘Do
an English accent! Fuckin Heinrich over here won’t shut up about it!’ The crowd
held its breath.
Henry opened his mouth. He stopped as air clutched
at him, and dried him out. He closed it. Heat spread from his collar across his
cheeks, his throat bobbing and jaw clenching. His eyebrows creased, and his
eyes twitched in their sockets. His thoughts raced through memories and
experiences he’d had, but none of them could help him. He tried imagining the
words in his mouth, but they were strange and rolling – the ‘t’s were hard, the
‘u’s were round, he slipped off the ‘o’s, and tripped on the ‘g’s. Sentences
like, ‘Say something? Like, my name is Henry?’, became hazardous, and he
stumbled over them, hands thrust out like a blind man, trying to feel the way,
to catch the path; but something grabbed his feet from underneath him, Henry
became his semantic enemy, and Frank’s tongue grappled with thick and heavy
mouthfuls. Henry opened his mouth, but nothing came out. He mumbled something
about being sorry, and stared at his hands, these hands, and remembered he was
not himself. The crowd grew very quiet, and one by one they sat back, staring
at their own hands, or the ground. The room became silent once more. People
waited until they were free to go. The room was thick with half-memories.
The door in front of them opened, and a woman
stepped out. She was a Mary, and her eyes cast themselves across the crowd,
raking them in. For a minute, she stood there – head turning, capturing their
movements and noises, every breath and every creak. She snorted.
‘So
you’re the next batch of recruits. I’d tell you my name, but it doesn’t really
matter. I’m just here to say you’re free to go. You’ll find more information in
your mailboxes. Please don’t waste time, just go and catch the fuckers, yeah?
Oh, and before you go,’ people paused, backs to her now, heads turning with
eyes full of trepidation, ‘It’s dangerous out there, so don’t fuck around.
These hackers have a head start on you, they have experience and numbers. They
know the battlefield, you don’t. You thought you were nice and cosy in suburbia
until a few hours ago. Just remember this; it wasn’t a week ago that the last
batch of recruits was in here, going through the motions. And you won’t be the
last.’
_______________________________________________________________________________
Henry Morris is fast asleep, and
Frank is wide awake.
He knows he is asleep because of
his senses. The sounds of intention, of computed automation, are faint but he
can hear nothing. His hands lie still, and are warm, but he can feel nothing.
His sight is dark, his eyes, closed. He sees nothing. His tongue remains behind
his teeth, tasting nothing. His nose does not move, and he smells nothing.
Henry Morris is fast asleep. He knows he is asleep, because he is not aware of
the fact that he is asleep. It is Frank who is awake. Henry lies very still,
and the only clue that he is alive is the gentle rising and falling of his
chest. If he were awake, and his eyes were open, he would be able to see the
error message blinking gently across his monitor; the stars and the numbers,
the letters and the symbols; clues to a murdered state of mind. He is asleep.
_______________________________________________________________________________
‘Henry Dylan Morris,
Upon
receiving this letter, you have officially become a member of the Council of
Moderators and Administrators. You have been granted access to your
Administrative privileges, and subsequently your Administrator’s toolkit. You
should find within a comprehensive list of programs to aid you in investigating
any and all anarchist activities in your area. Discretion is compulsory – any
and all breaches of public order will result in ejection from the State
Program.
Should
you require any assistance in utilising your toolkit, please read the ‘help’
page listed within.
Yours,
C.o.M.A.’
In
the first few days, Henry realised that he would never be able to use his
toolkit effectively. It was an intrusive thought; it burrowed into his mind
like an excited termite, legs flailing and carapace shining. It was clumsy –
when he worked out how to open it, the list of programs stuffed themselves into
his eyes, clogged his mouth and nose, crushed themselves into his ears and
pressed themselves into his hands. He spent days looking through nonsensical
programs, programs without names, programs that were blank; the few programs
that were functional were impossible to use. The ‘help’ page was nowhere to be
found. After two weeks, he’d learnt to use two programs: Data Extraction and
Memory Playback. With them, he’d sift through the lives of his targets and
suspects like a stack of snapshots, later to be thrown out.
He’d been out for several hours now; it was late,
and he was reaching the very fringes of the District, when he stopped. To his
right was a Sarah. She was sipping a glass of water, and chewing on a sandwich.
Her television was on, and neon blues and sickly yellows lit up her placid
face, her creaseless skin. She was leant forward, eyes straight ahead, gazing
into where the television should be. She didn’t move, except to take a bite or
to drink. She didn’t look into her neighbour’s homes, and they didn’t look into
her own. Henry drew closer to the house, right up to the front wall, waiting
for her head to roll. Opening his folder on her, he found her data cache was
corrupted: No name, no age, no ethnicity, no past. No family. Nothing. He shook
his head in bewilderment, circling round to the back of the house whilst he
checked through it again. Nothing. He started up the Memory Playback, and began
to sift through her life like a-
Melanie was crying. He couldn’t
move, he was struck into stillness. They were in a bedroom, all reds and brown,
full of the warm colours of autumn. Paintings littered the floor space,
scattered across the bed and the walls like leaves from an auburn tree. Her
hair was falling around her, and she was sitting on the floor, face clutched in
her hands. She wore a beautiful polka-dot dress of red and black. She was
desperate – she cried tears of loss; long, rasping moans that clawed their way
into the pit of his chest. Coldness bloomed under his skin, flushing across the
crown of his head. His eyes consumed her; she had long, brown hair, pale skin
and beautiful, long hands. Henry pulled himself across the floor, hands
smearing on paint which splayed his fingers in green and orange and blue. He
made a path of purple palms on the floor, purple and brown and yellow, all
clutching at paper on the way to the bed, smearing across landscapes and
portraits. He drew himself almost face to face, his eyes round and full of
wonder. She dropped her hands into her lap, and Henry caught a fleeting glance
of high cheekbones, closed sunken eyes, and deep red lips. He reached his hand
forward to touch her skin, this mythical creature that couldn’t even belong in
dreams for being so strange. Her eyes opened- Henry
pulled himself free, falling back onto the grass and crying out. From the
house, Melanie turned and looked through the back wall. She stood and rushed to
the door. Heaving it open, she stared down at him with worry in her eyes. They
remained still for one unbroken moment, staring into each other’s faces.
‘Get inside. Quickly!’ she hissed.
Henry pushed himself off the floor, and stumbled into her back door. She pulled
him in and threw her gaze in a quick circle, scanning for eyes. The door slammed
shut behind her.
The
first thing Henry heard was the music. Somewhere, in the house, a tinkling
piano roll fluttered from room to room, playing off walls and through doorways.
He hadn’t even processed this information before his eyes began to register the
colour, the paintings and the pictures that hung from every wall. Some were
photos, and in them a mysterious girl with alien features stood, smiling on
beaches or in front of buildings of the most astonishing complexity, or with
other alien people with strange expressions and bizarre features; hooked noses,
dark skin, blemishes, scars, colourful hair and bright and brilliant clothes. A
sharp, sweet smell wrapped itself around his face, warmed his cheeks and
peppered his tongue, which salivated with immediate longing. He took several
steps into the house, discovering new things, new wonders to understand, and remember; he remembered the sleek gloss of piano keys as he lifted the veneered
mahogany lid, and stroked C sharp with tender softness, and he remembered the sound of turning pages as
he lifted with precious slowness a book with firm, leathery bindings that slid
across his dry fingertips and tumbled open. He remembered the smell of ginger biscuits, this warm and salacious
smell that pulled him, tugged him, guided and pushed him through room after
room of marvels and antiques, of history and memory. Behind him, Melanie crept
through her home, watching Henry touch her things and look at her paintings,
watching him follow his nose and his eyes, his ears, fingers and tongue.
When
she followed Henry into the kitchen, it was as Melanie; her hair was long, and
her hands seemed to brush at drawers and cupboards with slender fingers. Her
eyes spent longer than normal on things, seeming to etch out every line and
edge of the oven, the tray, his face. He must have been the very same; he
couldn’t stop himself from watching her, from looking at her, from memorising
every crease and blemish. Her eyes were green. She reached out her hand, and
took his own. She cast him a nervous glance, and then led him to the centre of
the house, where her bedroom was. He recognised this as the room he’d seen
before; the paintings were tidied into a corner. The photos in here were of her
family; two brothers, an elderly, balding man, and a woman with long, black
hair. The walls were painted in childhood memories; except for one rectangular
space, where a large, full-length mirror hung.
‘Do you want to see your face?’ She
spoke in an accent so alien to him, he couldn’t speak; he couldn’t place it –
but it was lyrical and rough and beautiful and awkward and honest. His back was
bowed, and his legs were weak. He nodded, small, tight nods of apprehension.
For a moment, nothing happened.
Henry
blinked into the mirror. One moment, Frank stood in front of him, indescribable
and featureless. The next, Henry found himself staring at someone familiar,
someone who he knew from the inside out, and yet he was so strange. He was taller by half a foot, over six in total, with hanging,
dark hair which dropped over a compressed face. It wasn’t round, so much as
square, with an angular jaw and large, thin lips. Thick stubble traced his
lower face, dark brown, forming a shadow. His eyebrows knotted together,
thicker and darker, with a flat nose that widened at the base. Large but narrow
eyes, frowning in comprehension, stared back at him. They were deepest blue.
His face was lopsided, his right eye hooded over just a little, the left corner
of his mouth raised up, almost in jest. Once the shock of his face had
subsided, he rolled his shoulders, flexed his arms, and found he was larger.
His stomach was no longer flat, pudgy but with the evidence of muscle
underneath. His biceps were also larger, almost pressing against his chest. His
hands splayed cross his shirt, poking and prodding. At last, after examining
himself in the mirror for what felt like hours, his attention was drawn to his
hands. They were exactly as he remembered; strangely delicate, fine and
precise. Doctor’s hands, his mother
had said. He turned them over and over.
Henry
looked at her.
‘How
have you done all-
Hands
descended onto his shoulders, and he was dragged out of the room with
indomitable force. Faces, before plain and bland, now cold and brooding,
flashed at him as he scrabbled against their fingers and arms.
‘Whoah, whoah, easy there. It’s
Hank, right? We’ve got you now, you’re safe! She ain’t gonna-
Henry
slowed himself. Already, he felt tight again, compressed into this false skin.
He rubbed at his eyes, pulled his hands through his hair, pushed at his
jawline, trying to find his face. He fought to find the mirror, just to see a
bit more of himself, to remember just a little longer. But the house was empty
again, and the walls were white and the chairs were simple. To his left and
right, the neighbours looked in, frowning with concern, still seated, still
illuminated with flashes of sickening green and nauseous yellows. The James
that had grabbed him was pulling his face closer, trying to look him in the
eye.
‘Hey,
Hank, hey, buddy, we’re here! You led us to her, good job-
‘I’m
not an anarchist! Please, I just wanted-
The
silence that followed filled his ears with a ringing, crackling static. There had
been no gunshot, no strike or impact – but she was gone. She was beautiful, and
she was gone.
‘Like
I was saying – well done. Looks like she’d been fucking around with the system
for years. We suspect that others will fall after this. They stick together,
these hackers. Don’t worry about your face, though – it was a glitch, it’ll
never happen again.’
_______________________________________________________________________________
Henry Morris is fast asleep, and
Frank is wide awake.
He can’t tell if he’s awake or
asleep because of his senses. He can’t hear the running of the tap. Loud and
violent, it’s blasting droplets across the room. His hands are warm whilst he
lies in cold water; it’s icy and aggressive against his body, and deep within
his clothes. His wrists thump, keeping time with his heart. His tongue remains
behind his teeth, tasting nothing. His mouth swills with thickness and
fragility. His vision is blurred. The water is grey, and his eyes are closed.
He sees nothing. Nothing moves, and nothing is clear. He can smell the water,
strangely; his nose does not move. His thoughts roll from sense to sense,
coming to life with pangs and twitches, back and forth. But he is neither
asleep nor awake, but in some place in between. His mind is buzzing and still,
because Frank is not dead and Henry Morris is not dead. The only clue that he
is alive is the gentle rising and falling of his chest, although not for long
now. Soon, he’ll have no blood left. The neighbours must have seen him by now.
Perhaps Michael or Dan is rushing over, or maybe Jennifer is at the door – but
probably not. They’ll be at their television screens, lit up in cruel, neon
glow. He wonders how long it takes before he’ll pass out, or if there’s
anything he should say.
_______________________________________________________________________
The day that Frank will stop being an Administrator, he’ll
wake at the same time he always did, and he’ll go to work as he always had, and
he’ll come back in the same car, in the same clothes, with the same hair and
the same smile. He’ll just have left the car, and will be walking to his door,
when he’ll continue into his home, closing the door behind him and taking off
his shiny black shoes. He’ll look out of the window at his immaculate garden,
and from the kitchen tap he’ll pour himself a glass of water. Michael, to his
left, will be doing the same. Mark across the road will be sitting back in his
armchair, with Jennifer and Dan. James will turn the television on, and Frank will
soon join him, and together, they’ll watch the television. They’ll do the same
for the rest of the evening until they go to bed.
All this time, Henry Morris is fast asleep, whilst
Frank is wide awake.
