The Word Cloud

Some of the most loved stories that children read and forever remember involve a talking animal.

• Little Red Riding Hood
• The Three Little Pigs
• The Tortoise and the Hare
• Puss in Boots
• …and many more

to begin with -  LUCID WASN'T WRITTEN BY NIBS,
IT IS WRITTEN BY a young lad named SAM REES (15).  He's a bit shy and quiet, is popular in school and has only ever wanted to be a Writer - He's feeling drawn to screenplay and I've encouraged him to let me have a piece of his work to so show the clouders.

He would like to attend the London writers festival and his father is quite happy for him to.  But as he's so young I suggested to the organisers that I post some of his work and they can then decide if it's good enough.

I like his writing, but please feel free to let us know what you think. hahaha

LUCID

 

PART ONE

 

Bright lights flicker erratically around the room. Dance music blasts from the DJ's station. Teenagers and twentysomethings move in perfect unison to the beat. The room pulsates with the intensity of their ritual, becoming contorted in the wilderness of their carousing. It’s an epileptic’s torture; a claustrophobic’s nightmare; and my personal Hell. My name is Donald James Hurski, “Donnie” to those who bother to communicate with me. I have black hair and green eyes, and I’m of an average physique. But the only thing that’s average about me is my appearance.

   I’m sitting at the venue’s bar, cast in darkness. My usual position. This allows me to do what I do best: people watch. After all, what else is there to do? If you’re not one of them, all you can do is watch them. Not that I do want to be one of them. On the contrary, I detach myself from these sheeple willingly, a lifestyle choice which has rendered me relatively satisfied. Instead, I resort to surveying my environment stoically, analysing every little encounter, every little character in this grand tapestry. A professional may call me cynical, or asocial, or pessimistic, but I doubt any professional has the skill or patience to decipher the complex specimen that is me. I’m not tooting my own, I’m just a very… different individual. And, by the way, the glass isn’t half-empty or half-full. It’s both.

   I spy a mixed group of friends on the opposite side of the room, the herd being comprised of both male and female members. The girls give definition to the word “rowdy”, while the boys laugh along shrewdly, all part of their lengthy flirtation. My spider sense tells me that the platonic dynamic within this group will have dissipated by tomorrow morning.

   An all-female group has congregated near them. Clad in clothes that barely cover their skin, they’re all heavily drunk, falling over each other in their inebriation. Two of the more shameless of the girls lie on the floor next to their paralytic fallen comrade, laughing hysterically at their juvenile antics. The rest of the pack giggles along at an alarming decibel, spilling their assorted beverages in the process. Though I try to maintain an emotionless exterior, I can’t help but raise a single eyebrow in silent judgement.

   Next to the girls are four beefy boys, the school’s star football players. They’re chugging jugs of God-knows-what. It certainly isn’t a conventional brew. They’re revelling in their alcohol-infused camaraderie, laughs booming from their tree-trunk chests. The brutes are perhaps celebrating a team victory, content in the knowledge that they’ll be sharing many more in the future. They’d be brethren on the field for generations to come. Well, at least until graduation. As they near the bottoms of their jugs, they also survey the room, albeit with a primal lust, a carnivorous hunger for some of the female patrons. Obelisks of machismo, towers of masculinity. And not a brain cell between them. Pathetic.

   Well, this evening’s showcase fails to surprise. It’s the same old movie, the same predictable story, the same shallow extras.

   All of a sudden, Adam emerges breathlessly from the crowd, sweating profusely in a post-endorphin euphoria. Ah, good ol’ Adam. Tall, with sandy hair, tanned skin and strikingly blue eyes, his boyish handsomeness gives him much credence within his clique. The less liberal may call him a “pretty boy”. Popularity and confidence ooze from within him, polluting the atmosphere. In short, he and I could be antitheses.

   He places his moist hand on my shoulder. Great. He isn’t content with perpetually badgering me. Now he has to leave a sweat mark on my shirt, too.

   “Diggin’ the shindig?” he asks.

   “Yep”, I lie.

   “Feel free to dance, Donnie.”

   “Maybe later.”

   “Come on, man. It’s teeming with chicks in there.”

   “Well, then it sounds like you have your work cut out for you, Adam. Don’t let me stop you.”

   “I can’t argue with that logic. I’ll catch you later.”

   Adam gives me a double thumbs-up. His pestering duty fulfilled for now, he disappears back into the miasma of the party, parting with a simple yet forcible, “Enjoy.” More a direct order, less a friendly suggestion.

   I watch with disdain as he loses himself in the throng of dancers. The only thing missing from the mix is a red cape. Yes, Adam is quite the social superman. His modus operandi seems to be to indoctrinate the unpopulars, i.e. me, into the adolescent mainstream, one by one. He’s been doing it since elementary school, always trying to include everyone in schoolyard activities. Admirable, really. By this point, however, it’s morphed into an obsession. I doubt he even realises he’s doing it, that’s how deep the compulsion is. The genesis of his Conscription Act is still something of a mystery, but I have a theory. Living in the spotlight of popularity can take its toll on some, certainly on an internal basis. Because popularity brings with the constant demands of vain, shallow people. Perhaps Adam’s recruitment scheme makes him feel less like a hollow shell. Whatever the reason, it bugs me.

   I retrieve my can of tasteless non-alcoholic ale from the bar, the aptly named “Zero Ale”. Don’t get me wrong. I am partial to the occasional beer, but, here, I need to keep my wits about me. I could end up doing something I’ll regret. Like dancing. Or enjoying myself.

   I sip the ale with fatigued indifference, the bland swill serving only as the perfect metaphor for the night’s substance and my wholly disgruntled existence. I scan the room again clinically, hoping to edify my abhorrence. It’s like a cycle. I take a swig, I scan, I hate.

   I feel a tentative tap on my shoulder. I turn my head slowly to face the perpetrator. It’s the barman, this scruffy, acne-scarred bag of bones. He can’t be much older than me. I wonder what the Hell he could possibly want. He’s quivering in his boots, whatever it is, so it would probably be considerate of me to give him an easy time. This must be one of his first gigs.

   “Why don’t you get up there and enjoy yourself?” he asks shakily. As soon as he opens his mouth, I know exactly what’s coming. He’s just another dope who thinks it’s in his job description to encourage the “insecure teen”. It’s obvious he’s new, inexperienced, so I feel like I shouldn’t make a scene. It’s clearly taken a lot for him to muster the courage to engage me. But, yet, the prospect of knocking him on his ass is so juicy.

   “Don’t you know it’s the mating season?” he adds.

   Hmm, chauvinism is still abundant, I see, even in weeds like this. Still, an ambitious opening gambit. About now, he’s probably wondering how his first piece of bar wisdom will land. Well, I’m sorry, soldier, but you misfired.

   “Is that so?” I counter monotonically.

   “Cheer up, we’re in the City of Angels. Don’t be a stick in the mud.”

   A light-hearted comment, yes. A feverish attempt at humour. Yes, the “City of Angels”. Where gang violence is still an everyday occurrence, where poverty strikes thousands while the fat cats lounge in lavish Hollywood homes, where the Melting

 

Pot paradigm leads to prejudice and discrimination. So, Mr. Bartender, in the grand

scale of Los Angelian life, I’m a pretty loose stick in the mud. My face must suggest my irritation, because his face slowly drops. He knows the exchange has fallen flat. But why leave it there?

   “You all say the same thing”, I retort. “’Join in’, ‘enjoy yourself’, yadda, yadda. I’d much rather stay here and cogitate.”

   I realise he has no idea what “cogitate” means. I also realise I sound like an ass. I’m not normally like this. But how often do you truly get to give someone a piece of your mind?

   The bartender laughs half-heartedly. “Teenage angst”, he sighs and resumes his duties. A futile attempt to sever the conversation. He thinks I don’t want to be bothered. But now I’m riled. At least, that’s what I project. In reality, I’m excited at the prospect of venting my thoughts. I’ll never see this guy again. Why should I care what he thinks of me?

   “No, no, no”, I begin. He looks at me with anxious anticipation. Ha. Good. He’s right to be apprehensive. He’s about to get schooled in grade-A cynicism. I’m the master of that particular class. “Teenage angst is hating mommy and daddy because they won’t spare that extra buck. Teenage angst is feeling like the world owes you a favour. Teenage angst is a pointless but, unfortunately, biological imperative. It’s a giant delusion. And I’m not deluded. Look at them.” I gesture to the patrons of the club. “All of them are trying to flaunt their individuality to be like their popular cohorts. Life is full of sad ironies.”

   Wow. I didn’t expect him to be this taken aback. He looks like he’s been slapped in the face. My rhetoric isn’t that revolutionary, is it? There are a few moments of awkward silence as he attempts to formulate a reply, to no avail. He begins stuttering what resembles a response, but it’s unbearable to watch. He’s like a feeble little lamb. I’ll put him out of his misery.

   “Right, I’m out of here”, I say, bringing an end to the uncomfortable situation. I place the empty can of beer on the bar and walk away. As I do so, I swear I can hear a sigh of relief behind me.

   I navigate the labyrinth that is the dance floor. I must look entirely out of place. As I ponder this almost oxymoronic set piece, Adam comes out of nowhere and stops me in my tracks.

   “Leaving already, Donatello?” he queries.

   “Yeah, I should probably head home. Get a leg up on the midterms.”

   “When did you start caring about midterms?”

   I shrug nonchalantly. He’s referencing my ever-burgeoning interest in the educational system. Long ago, I came to understand its ultimate irrelevance in terms of... well, life. It has no standing. I am aware that this is arguably a biased verdict. After all, I have no goals, no career choice, nothing to aim for. I'm an unmotivated, unhappy teenager. But I'm not angsty. Never angsty. I'm a realist. And a realist knows that, unless they want to teach math, they'll never need to know algebra or quadratic equations. Unless they want to teach chemistry, they'll never need to know covalent bonding or the atomic structure of sodium chloride.  They're chunks of worthless knowledge. School does nothing to prepare us for the real world. Institutional bullying is the closest it comes.

   My silence paradoxically speaks volumes. Adam receives the message. I want to leave.

   "Well, better you than me, man," he says. "Be good and have a safe journey."

   He pats me on the arm and again wanders off merrily. I remain where I stand for a moment, the seed of an idea gestating in my mind. I'm sick of him. I'm sick of all of them. But I can't really affect them. I'm not the suicide type and going Columbine seems a tad too radical. So what can I do to get back at them? Minor or major, I don't care. I need to do something, leave here with some sense of victory. Okay, I know what to do.

   I head back to the bar. The bartender looks up at me again, dreading another encounter.

   "By the way," I say, "half the people here are underage."

The slightest hint of a smile forms on his face. He's familiar with my philosophy. He doesn't like it, and he doesn't like me. He knows exactly what I'm up to, that I'm trying to sabotage the party. An opportunity for him to reclaim some pride has presented itself.  He takes it with both hands. I probably should have tried another manoeuvre.

   "We're the liberal kind", he replies.

I shake my head defeated and make a swift exit. I can feel a triumphant grin burning into my back. Who was I kidding? You can't beat them. And I'm certainly not going to join them. What other option is there? Only one. I have to leave them. So, I suppose I do have one goal. I need to escape.

 

Ragged Cover Publishing is looking for two new writers of action adventure this year. They publish for the older teenager young adult. If you think you have what it takes, then why not contact them? Their area is older teenager young adult, require a book with at least a hundred thousand words, that has not been self published. You are advised to read at least one of their books to understand what they are looking for. Many are available on Google inside or chapters can be downloaded from their internet site  http://www.raggedcover.co.uk

Contact is via their websites 

 

Chapter 13

 

 

Arid. I held her face, I let my fingers rasp their way through her spiky hair. I so wanted to want her, to need her, to lust after her. Our mouths were dry when they met, my hands didn’t welcome her touch. At best I felt mild agitation. Was I just chasing the dragon? Pursuing that incredible emotional high – the excitement went two hearts meet?

 

We’d made love twice in the month following our meeting. Cognitively we felt the same. I wanted to be around her and she assured me she wanted to be near me. I wanted to feel the way I felt on that day when we really met, when we really made love and where we whispered our hopes and dreams and desires.

 

It had been like the last flare of a fire, of a sun where it ultimately collapses in on itself and dies. Had we just used up all of our emotions?

 

“Just tell me to fuck off,” we were sitting on the edge of her bed, each of us lost in our inner world – an inner world that screamed there is nothing left.

 

But we’d only just started. We’d only just met each other.

 

“No Barney, if you want to leave, just tell me,”

 

I stood up. I looked out the window. The sun was shining, the sky was blue. It was a lovely sunny day and yet the modern buildings and carefully crafted parks stood in stark contrast to what the world had intended.

 

“Why don’t we re-enact that first time when we…?”

 

“What, in Pilots world?”

 

“Why not? What’s to stop us?”

 

“Well I haven’t got my floppy bob,” she smiled, shaking her head to demonstrate.

 

“Couldn’t you stick one on?”

 

“I guess I could…”

 

“Is that a date?”

 

“What will you wear?”

 

“A gormless expression and the statutory social work attire?”

 

“Perfect – but no sandals, ok?”

 

I pulled a pained expression, “Ok.”

 

****

 

“You’re not getting this – I can’t feel. I know I love her…I know I loved her…it’s just that now there’s nothing…no stomach lurch…no heavy breathing…no stonking great hard-on…”

 

“Maybe that’s just a world that doesn’t exist now,” again the lovely Ralph was mentally caressing me, “What about friendship? What about companionship? Those are both expressions of love…”

 

“Companionship! Fuck Ralph, when I think of companionship I think of two elderly women whose idea of a good time is getting out a candle and half a pound of Lurpak every Christmas…”

 

“You…you’re not saying…?”

 

I grinned, “Look, I’m sorry, it’s the first image that jumped into my mind,”

 

“You bastard…that image will stay with me…you’re horrible,”

 

“Ok, how about…?”

 

“Stop you disgusting man. So, you and Chris are going to rekindle something that you had in a past life by dressing up…?”

 

“It does sound just a little bit shit when you put it that way…”

 

“What way? That’s what you’re doing, isn’t it?”

 

“Ralph, have I ever told you – you’re a soulless bastard?”

 

“Most days…”

 

****

 

That night, I lay in bed in despair – I should have been lying in bed in terror but my emotions just couldn’t be arsed. Despair was the best I had. What happens if I never feel properly again? What happens if I just drift along with everyone else in this loveless, hateless mediocre fucking pit for the rest of my life – this fucking endless life…

 

“Ralph…Ralph…wake up…” he hadn’t responded to the gentle nudge, so I was now shaking him vigorously.

 

“Barney…what the fuck…?”

 

“Ralph, you know how Pilots has been dismantled?”

 

He rubbed his face and peered at me through half-shut eyes, “Yeah…?”

 

“Is there any of it left? You know, the odd casket here and there for the purposes of research or something…?”

 

He rolled round and sat on the edge of his bed, “I just need to…” he nodded towards his en-suite.

 

“Sure, sure…go ahead…”

 

From behind the door I could hear running water combined with, “Oh,” and, “Aah,” punctuated with a, “Oh for fuck’s sake…”

 

Ralph came out, his face dripping water, looking significantly more awake, “This couldn’t wait?” he scowled as he dried his face on his duvet.

 

I felt like an eight year old child, if there was such a thing, “No, not really…” I looked at my feet.

 

“Ok…there are still bits of Pilots kicking about the place…What about Gordon and Frank? Aren’t they still kicking against the system?”

 

“I guess…” I just wanted to feel alive.

 

“I can see where you’re heading with this…you want to go off on some kind of jolly to make you feel alive while you’re still with Chris?”

 

“Yes…” that way it would all be a bit more bearable.

 

“Do we have to keep going over this…? Look at you – there’s still no sign of Barney – you honestly think that going back and experiencing God knows what will help you?”

 

“I could go back as an insect – you said yourself I’d found it exhilarating – surely that wouldn’t take away any more of Barney…? And anyway, I thought you said John was like Barney…?

 

“You’re the same person…sort of…an insect…? Can I think on that…? What I mean is, can I have some sleep and then, in the morning I’ll feel more able to tell you to fuck off…?” he smiled as he gently pushed my face.

 

****

 

“Gordon? Gordon…?”

 

His creased face appeared on the screen, “What?”

 

I felt agitated…I had a mental itch that I couldn’t quite… “Are you and Frank still running Mini-Pilots?”

 

“Barney…I’ve got a brilliant idea,”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“Fuck off – call me, meet me, write to me…but do it when I’m awake – Fuck off, there’s a good chap,”

 

“Not quite the response I was looking for, especially after all I’ve done for you…” I gave him just long enough to consider this – he needed enough time to reflect on the fact that he and I had been friends for years and that there must have been something that I’d done for him…but not enough time to realise there wasn’t.

 

“What?” more gentle now.

 

“I need something more than this. I need to live again…”

 

“What about Chris? I thought you were living again with her…?”

 

“I thought I was…but…”

 

“Dragonfly…”

 

“What?”

 

“Call me at a proper time and we’ll talk about it…but remember ‘Dragonfly’ – I know I’m going to wake up in the morning and think I’ve had a crazy dream about some lunatic phoning me in the middle of the night,”

 

His image vanished from the screen.

 

The sad thing about Gordon is that he thinks he’s being interesting. He thinks I’m going to lie back on my bed and wonder what he means by ‘Dragonfly’. Having experienced the delight of living the life of this majestic insect in the past, I know that he thinks zipping off every so often will do me the power of good and keep me rooted in the here and now…or something.

 

Just as I was dozing off I had a niggling doubt…maybe he’s developed something altogether more entertaining and called it ‘Project Dragonfly’…there again, this was Gordon we were talking about… he’d call any new idea of his ‘Project X’ or something equally nebulous…

 

Shit, this was useless; maybe I should try counting sheep. Were there any sheep? Were there any animals? There were definitely birds – I’d heard them and I was sure I’d seen them. That said, maybe birdsong was all part of the great government conspiracy to keep us quietly contented…

 

“Barney! Wake up you indolent bastard!”

 

I leapt out of bed and was half way to the door when Ralph said, “Where are your pyjama bottoms?”

 

Confused, I stopped and looked down to authenticate Ralph’s observation. Why, oh why does the male of the species wake up with his protuberance standing up and ready for action?

 

“I thought you said you didn’t feel anything?” eyebrows raised.

 

I grabbed my gaudy dressing gown from the back of the door and covered myself up, “You bastard…”

 

“Well, if you insist on waking me up in the middle of the night…”

 

I stomped off to the loo. For eons man has tried to get rid of his early morning unwanted hard-on and failed. I was just the most recent in this merry band – my bladder was bursting so I tried the old stand back from the bog and work out the exact arc required to…

 

“Oh shit…”

 

…and invariably pissed everywhere except the loo. I tried to stop it all mid flow with limited success…I made a mental note that must remember to wash my hands…I tried to bend it…God knows why – for years I’d tried to bend it and well, it doesn’t…the shower…I could piss in the shower and clean up the whole bathroom at the same time…I got in the shower, finally realised that the best way to get rid of the erect member was to go with it…to turn into the skid as it were…and then I thought of Colin. That did the job.

 

I was finding it difficult to remember him as he was and not as some corpse in a casket. I could remember events with him in them, but I couldn’t quite see his face. Maybe my mind hadn’t quite finished with the murder scene. As I finally finished the long-awaited piss, I remembered two things. Colin had looked contented…despite his wounds and the fact that most of his blood had gathered in the bottom of the casket, he’d almost looked happy. The other thing…I might be imagining it…he had been looking up to his right hand…the hand which I’m sure he’d have been holding the knife in.

 

He’d left us a clue. He’d wanted us to know that he’d killed himself. The best way he knew was to be looking at the knife. He must have thought that either one of us could have…should have deduced this from this one simple act.

 

Instead, in our panic we’d decided he’d been murdered…what if he’d left other clues? Na, that was just crazy thinking. I finished my shower, cleaned up the bathroom, put on my flowery bathrobe and joined Ralph on the sofa for a steamy coffee.

 

Ralph opened his mouth to speak but I intercepted him, “How did you work out that Colin had killed himself…? Try to think of everything,”

 

“I…er,” he’d clearly prepared himself for another conversation altogether, “I…we found the knife in his hand…er, it was held in such a way that it looked like the last thing he did was cut his own throat,”

 

“Do you remember anything else? Any more clues?” I had no idea what I was looking for.

 

“There was loads of blood – more blood than I’d ever seen – all contained in the casket…He was looking up at the hand with the knife in it…He looked kind of contented…almost happy…but that’s corpses for you…ever relaxed…What are you looking for Barney?”

 

I scratched my head and took a sip of coffee, “Nothing I guess…I don’t know…I just wanted more…the thing is, there isn’t any more, is there? That’s the problem with real death…it’s absolute. Any questions…anything we wanted to say to that person will be left unasked and unsaid…”

 

“What would you have said?”

 

I thought of all those adult offspring I’d seen at funerals cursing and wishing they could just have a little more time with their dead parent. They wished they’d had just a few more moments with their mum or, usually, their dad so they could have told him that they loved him. I was hit with that pang of regret. I guess with Colin though he must have known that he was special to me…

 

“Nothing…” I smiled into my drink, “Nothing…”

 

Ralph sat quietly for a few moments – possibly waiting for me to say some more on the topic of Colin.

 

“Are you ok?” he said quietly.

 

“Yeah…yeah,” I looked up at him with a forced grin.

 

“Great – I want to talk about your nocturnal visitation…” he must have seen the look of surprise on my face as he tempered his enthusiasm with, “…er, if that’s ok?”

 

I was obviously the emotional one in this relationship, “Yeah Ralph, that’s just dandy,”

 

“You sure?”

 

“Yes, I’m sure…”

 

“Ok…there are some caskets left over…I think you might have something with the going back as an insect thing…”

 

“You think…?” was he actually agreeing with me?

 

“Yeah – the times you’d zipped off as an insect before – your mood was always high – almost euphoric when you came back…”

 

“And I hadn’t lost any me-ness?”

 

“No…no, you were still a hundred percent Barney…just a bit more vital…I’m not sure if vital’s the word…you were more alive…”

 

“So you think this is a good idea?”

 

“What?”

 

“Me supplementing this life with little bits of something else to keep me going? Gordon thought that a dragonfly…”

 

“You’ve spoken to Gordon about this?”

 

“Sure…” alarmed at his defensiveness, “…is that ok?”

 

He paused then allowed himself a little snigger, “Yeah…yeah, of course it’s ok…I think I was a little jealous there…that’s all,”

 

“Really?”

 

“Yeah, really…you’ll do what you need to do,”

 

“So can we set me up for a little jaunt…?”

 

“Give me a couple of days,”

 

“Sure.”

 

****

 

“Maybe you weren’t being kick-ass enough,” I was lying next to Chris in her bed. She was still wearing her very authentic blond wig combined with a tight fitting t-shirt emblazoned with the simple instruction ‘FUCK’.

 

“Maybe you weren’t naïve and hapless enough…” she came back clearly hurt.

 

We’d failed in our little attempt to relive our past life. We’d set it up beautifully in her kitchen-lounge. She’d even feigned fatigue and had delivered the line, “…why don’t we just go back to my place and fuck?” so well.

 

She was gorgeous. She looked gorgeous. Even without the silly wig she was lovely. This was Chris…this was Jen and yet something was missing. Whatever was missing from her was equally missing from me.

 

“Fancy a game of Subutteo?” an attempt to lighten the fractious atmosphere.

 

She smiled and pulled off her wig, “I really do love you, Barney,”

 

We cuddled up. God, there was something there, but it wasn’t lustful or carnal in any way. It was companionship. It was love in its dotage. Fuck, this was the same way I felt about Ralph. No…that was wrong…I didn’t have sexual reminiscences about Ralph. I never once thought…

 

“I got a hard-on the other day!”

 

“So, what did you do with it?” still holding me tight.

 

“Well…nothing…I thought about Colin and…”

 

“Do you miss it all?” she interrupted.

 

“What?”

 

“That life – for you…those lives…?”

 

“Yes,” I didn’t have to think about it – I yearned for those lives.

 

“Me too…me too…”

 

“Had you done that kind of thing before?”

 

“What?”

 

“You know, gone back to retrieve folk…and got your jollies?”

 

“Several times…” she looked like she was struggling momentarily, “The thing is, I went back to do a job that could have been done in seconds…and yet…”

 

“Go on…”

 

“I’d managed to shroud it in mystery – so that I had time to explore – to feel…”

 

“You stayed longer so you could shag more men?”

 

“Not just men…” she laughed, “I actually went back as a man a few times…but it wasn’t just the sex…”

 

I knew that. I held her tightly to me.

 

“It was the sky…the trees…the wonderful chaos of it all. Not knowing what was over that next hill. I did a few extreme sports while I was there…” it sounded like she was describing a package tour to Turkey.

 

The thing was I knew what she meant – I just wished I’d gone a few more of the rides.  

 

“I’ve been talking to the lovely Ralph…”

 

“Oh yes?” she leant her head on her hand as she gently pulled herself away to look at me.

“There were times when I’d gone back as an insect…he said I’d come back more alive than I’d been…”

 

“So you’re planning to do that to supplement this life?” she sounded as flat as I felt.

 

I’d be entering into some contract with the Devil. I’d be addicted forever. What would happen if something came up that meant I couldn’t do it? I felt the lurch of loss as I saw my empty never-ending life spanning out before me.

 

“Yes…” quietly. It’s not as if I had an alternative.

 

****

 

It had been a life without judgement. A life without question or guilt. It had been a life without decision. As a dragonfly, I just was. Surely if I could have learned anything from this journey that would have been it? Not how to crave. Not how to lust and desire. Not how to kill without remorse…in that small insects brain I had learned something that I had found impossible as a human.

 

Self-acceptance.

 

“How was that?” Ralph was standing over me, concerned as ever.

 

My heart was still pounding at the absolute roller-coaster ride of it all. I had needed – I had taken. I had feared – I had fled. I had hungered – I had devoured. All with no thought, no anger, no malice, no love…

 

“Fantastic!” I breathed giddily.

 

“Tell me,” Ralph was helping me out of the casket, “all about it,”

 

My head was spinning…already that life, that wonderful exhilarating fucking thrill of a life was being relegated to a dreamlike memory.

 

“Compound eyes are a bit shit…” the first of many dream-destroying judgements.

 

“Are you ok?” Ralph looked worried now.

 

“I need to see Chris now.”

 

I arrived at her apartment half an hour later. I was still dazed from waking up from my wonderful slumber.

 

“Barney…what is it?” Chris supported me as I staggered through her door.

 

“Let’s go to bed…” I managed to whisper.

 

Naked now I pulled her to me. She held me so tight. So very tight. It was beautiful – so beautiful I wanted to cry. But I couldn’t.

 

“Do you want to…?” her hand found its way to my cock. Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

 

“No…” I smiled, “I don’t know what I expected – I thought somehow I could wrap up my feelings as a dragonfly and bring them here…I don’t even know what those feelings were…”

 

“It’s ok Barney, it’s ok – we’ll work this out…”

 

I closed my eyes tightly, “That’s just it – we won’t though – we’ll never get it back will we?”

 

“What, the life we had as John and Jen?” she let out a long sigh,  “No Barney – what we have is this – surely we can make this work – I love you…”

 

“I love you too – but now I don’t even know what that is…is it love, or is it the memory of love?”

 

She rolled away and lay on her back, “I don’t know – I just don’t know,”

 

After a time she embraced me again, “I know I want to be with you – I know I feel more content and comfortable in myself when you’re here – I know this feels right…”

 

“Even though I had no real notion of what I was under the water – as a dragonfly larvae I could eat other living creatures with no qualms whatsoever – I had no notion of what they were…only now I can look back with my human knowledge and know that I wreaked carnage in that world…”

 

“Why are you telling me this?”

 

“Without knowing what I was doing, I eventually came out of the water – I inflated my wings – I flew as freely in the air as I’d stalked under water…”

 

“Barney…?”

 

“I’m sure I caught other creatures in flight – feeding my hunger. I mated – I mated just once,” I closed my eyes and smelled the air, “I chased the pheromones to find a mate – I didn’t worry about her prospects, her breeding, whether or not she had a good sense of humour…”

 

“Barney, what are you telling me?”

 

“What I’m saying is – it was just a ride – like being John was just a ride. All we have is this life. That’s it. That’s all…”

 

Chris held me for hours. We fell asleep entwined. I awoke to find her face inches from mine. I ran the backs of my fingers over her soft cheek. Could this ever be enough?

 

“Hi,” she smiled sleepily as I stroked her face.

“Hi,” I whispered.

 

“Are you ok?”

 

“No…no, I don’t know what to do…” too afraid to live…terrified to die.

 

“Have you seen much of Gordon after Colin died?”

 

“No…why?”

 

“I don’t know…he was close to both of you. Don’t you want to talk about him?”

 

I could feel myself struggling, “I know…I know he was my friend here – but I only knew him as George…you know, really knew him as George…that crazy, warm, compassionate man…there was only a ghost of that in Colin…That’s why he killed himself,”

 

“Why don’t you go and see Gordon?”

 

To see Gordon would to be reminded of something I found almost unbearable. It wasn’t just that though – I knew he’d collude with me in my ‘Colin left us clues’ fantasy. Before we knew it we’d be…

 

“You’re right…why not?” even if it was a waste of time talking to Gordon about all my stuff and nonsense – time was something I had plenty of.

 

****

 

“How have things been?” I’d decided not to drink the strange purple elixir from the Golden Jug– that was a bit of Barney I was more than happy to leave in the past – and had opted for something altogether more cider-like.

 

“With Brendan? With Frank? It’s been a fucking hoot…” Gordon smiled as he chinked his glass with mine.

 

“Ok, I’m not going to beat about the bush – are you still running Mini-Pilots?”

 

“Well, er… yeah, I guess – by that I mean we’ve still got the caskets – after all that happened folk have been a little reluctant…”

 

“Yeah, I can imagine…Listen, I’ve got this nagging thought…”

 

“Oh God…that’s all I need – one of your bloody nagging thoughts…”

 

I chose to ignore that caustic comment, “I think Colin left us some clues that we ignored…”

 

“Oh God…” Gordon grabbed his nearly full pint of mildly alcoholic beverage and downed it in one.

 

“No, hear me out…” I went on to tell him about the knife and the contented look on his face.

 

“I need another,” he said indicating his empty glass, “d’you want one?”

 

“Nah, I’m fine…” I watched as Gordon exchanged pleasantries with the barmaid-operative person, take his newly poured drink and then wander back to me.

 

“The wire…” he said as he sat down.

 

“What wire? What about it?”

 

“You remember we found the casket closed and we couldn’t open it?”

 

“Yeah…the wire had been burnt through by something…”

 

“Yes…a slow acting acid…I guess I’d decided it had been either accidentally spilled there or had been used deliberately by the powers that be to… I dunno…bugger things up…”

 

“How do you know it was slow acting?”

 

“Curiosity – I took a sample from the wire – well, when I say I took a sample from the wire, I had to break it down and work out what…”

 

“How slow is slow?”

 

“Well it took a little over eighteen minutes for it to burn through a piece of the same wire…”

 

“Which would have given Colin plenty of time…?”

 

“He’s Piloted somewhere, hasn’t he?”

 

“I think he has…why cut the wire though?”

 

“If that’s what he’s done then he would have known our caskets were a bit more primitive than, you know…”

 

“What does that mean, Gordon?”

 

“Well, our systems were reliant on having power at all times – if the power was cut there would be no way of locating where and when the Pilot was…”

 

“Are you telling me that when I was off wandering about in Colin’s head…if there’d been a power cut…if someone had tripped over the lead…?”

 

“But it didn’t happen, did it? We’re not talking about you though, are we? If Colin did this, he’s Piloted off somewhere and he’s completely untraceable…fucking genius!”

 

He sat back and stroked his hair, “Fucking genius…”

 

****

 

“Do you love me?” I was sitting next to a somewhat perplexed Chris on her sofa, holding her hands and sounding terribly intense.

 

“I…er…you know I do…I do,” it wasn’t quite the ringing endorsement I had been hoping for.

 

“What is it that you love…?”

 

“I don’t know…your mindless enthusiasm? Your childlike naivety? Subutteo finger?” she smiled, “That lurch I used to feel when I saw you as John – that same one I got when I saw you for the first time here…”

 

“No…no…what am I? What is that thing that you love? Is it the solid form that is me…that’s John…that’s Barney or is it…? I dunno, what is it?”

 

“Are you trying to get me to say it’s that little bunch of subatomic particles that float around in your head that claim to be your conscious mind?”

 

“Yes…yes, that would do it for me…”

 

“So…?”

 

“What would you say if I said Colin was still alive?”

 

“I’d say it was time for your special tablets and your afternoon nap…”

 

“Well…he isn’t…but he was…he lived again…he didn’t…”

 

“You make a very compelling argument…”

 

“Colin killed himself here in our space and our time…”

 

“Yes he did…”

 

“But before that he managed to bugger off to Pilot some sentient being before he died…”

 

“How? How do you know that?”

 

“We don’t know…but everything points to it…he covered his tracks…”

 

“How…?”

 

“Well, he killed himself for a start…and he burned through the power cable to his casket…”

 

“Which means…?”

 

“If you cut off the power supply to our caskets there is no way of tracing where that Pilot went. Colin has left…and he’s untraceable…isn’t that fantastic?”

 

“Is it? It means when he dies…when he died…he’d really be dead, gone forever…”

 

“But he would have lived! He’d have lived a real life…He would have laughed and cried…What’s more he wouldn’t have been driven by Novikov’s principle…”

 

She paused for thought for a second, “You’re right – if he had no link to here and now – then he could have done anything whether or not he had an effect on the future…because this future doesn’t have to be his future…with all the ties cut, he can live any life…”

 

“That’s it…Gordon reckons that this could still be one of his futures…he started talking about the Many-Worlds interpretation…”

 

“Of course…when he was tied to this future and this future only – Novikov’s principle would have applied…but now…with every change of course he takes Colin’ll create a new future…but we’re not talking about Colin, are we?”

 

“No…no we’re not…”

 

“Shit Barney, this is a huge ask…that’s if you’re saying what I think you’re saying?”

 

“Yes…I think I am…I know I have no right to ask…but Chris…come with me…”

 

“Fuck… I know the future here’s…at best grey…but it’s certain…it’s safe…and it’s indefinite…possibly infinite…who knows?”

 

“I know I have no right to ask you…”

 

“Fucking right! You’ve got no right – just because you’ve lost all sense of what this is…what this world, this life is…”

 

“I think I’ve been here long enough to work it out…it’s a cul-de-sac…an infinite cul-de-sac…”

 

She stood up. She motioned to say something, and then didn’t. She walked to the window. She gazed out on the world for an age until I joined her.

 

“We don’t even know if Colin went back in time…he could have gone into the future…”

 

“I hadn’t thought of that,” I conceded, “But if I were him…I think I’d have gone back to a point before we locked ourselves into this…”

 

“When would that be? Pre Iron Age? Pre Mendel? Pre Industrial Revolution? What…when?”

“I don’t know…”

 

“So you’re asking me to kill myself…and you have no notion as to where or when we’re going?”

 

“I should go…”

 

“No…don’t leave it like this…not like this…”

 

I stroked her face. She was so lovely, “I should talk this through with Ralph…don’t worry, I won’t do anything rash…”

 

“I’ll talk it through with the big hairy lummox,” she smiled indicating the room where her poor flatmate had to vanish every time I appeared, “He’s known me forever…he’ll help…”

 

I held her face and she held mine. I kissed her eyes then her mouth. We held each other so close.

 

****

 

“No, no, no…fucking no…” Ralph appeared to be taking this rather well I thought.

 

“All I want…”

 

“All you want…all you want is for me…me, your oldest friend to assist you in some convoluted suicide?”

 

“Yes…that’s what I’m asking…”

 

“I fucking knew it!” he spat, “I fucking knew if you hung about with these fucking arseholes…”

 

“It’s not those arseholes - it’s me – whatever me is…”

 

“Will you stop with the self-pitying, self-justifying shit? You know who you are – sure you can’t remember most of your life as Barney – but you know who you are – with all the time we’ve got this’ll just be a glitch – you’ll learn to be Barney again…”

 

“…And then we’ll just go round in this fucking great circle again?”

 

“I don’t know what to do…I want to help you…but do you know what that means?”

 

“It means helping your oldest friend to do what he needs to do…”

 

“It means losing you. Look around Barney, people don’t die here – Colin’s death will be news for centuries…we don’t do death…we don’t do grief…what will I do?”

 

I felt that horrible lurch. I loved him. I had no idea what to do. Following Colin’s example felt so right. I remembered the sense of relief, the sense of joy I felt for Colin when I realised what he’d done. I felt horribly sad for that light that had been taken out of my life. There was so much I wanted to ask him – he’d done what he’d needed to do. He must have been taking my feelings into account when he met up with me in the park. 

 

What if this was a mistake? There would be no going back. That was both the beauty and the terror of it. I would have no memory of any of this – of my life as Barney, of my life as John.

 

“What happens if you go back to some time or other with Chris, and you never find each other? This love…this whatever it is you have with her…do you honestly think that fate will lend a hand…?”

 

“You’re right – what a wonderful irony – the very fate that I’m hoping to avoid is the same fate that I’m relying on to bring us together…”

 

“That’s just fucking crazy…”

 

“But it’s not just that, is it Ralph? I want to live a proper life. The one I had was stolen…cut off before I could properly…”

 

“…What? Get into it? You were a third through your life and you were still living with your mum. What happens if you enter your next life with the same conservative residuals that you’ve got in this one…?”

 

“Don’t you mean the conservative residual I had? I’m different…” I laughed, “I’m certainly a bit more reckless…”

 

“Why don’t you ask Gordon to this? He’s got the equipment, the knowledge…I dare say he’s every bit as crazy as you…”

 

“You know why…”

 

“No…no I don’t…tell me…”

 

“I love you, you big tit,”

 

“But not enough to stay…?”

 

“No,”

 

“What about Chris – has she agreed to this?”

 

“No, she’s off having a chat with the big hairy behemoth…”

 

Ralph held up his hands, “Ok, ok…if I were to help you with this…what would you need me to do?”

 

“I guess I’d need you to be there to pull the plug…”

 

“…And to kill you…that shouldn’t be too much of a problem, you fucking arse…” he smiled.

 

“Is there a tablet…you know…something to ease the way?”

 

“Officially no – but – you know I can get my hands on anything…”

 

“It would have to be in Mini-Pilots – with proper Pilots I’d be traceable even after you’d pulled the plug…”

 

“…That and the fact that the authorities might have my arse – with the population gradually dripping away they wouldn’t be overjoyed at me helping you to…Untraceable suits me…”

 

“So you’ll do it?”

 

“I never had any fucking choice, did I?”

 

****

 

I was lying on my back in a casket looking at the scabby ceiling of Mini-Pilots. Chris lay in the casket next to me. We’d said all our good-byes. We’d hugged, we’d kissed, we’d promised undying love – we hadn’t managed another fuck though.

 

She’d struggled with the certainty of it all. She, like me, though had decided on the really living side of the coin. Together we’d chosen the time and the place. Together we’d put in the co-ordinates…

 

“Better to have lived one day as a tiger than a thousand years as a sheep…” were the last words I heard her say.

 

Ralph, as was his way, had taken control of the situation. Ultimately, he trusted only one person, and that was Ralph. He was to be the administrator of lethal drugs and the puller of the plug.

 

Gordon stood and watched. He’d been crying since we’d arrived. He hadn’t said anything coherent – he just kept on hugging me. He even hugged Chris.

 

Chris’s big hairy man leant against the wall as far away from the caskets as he could – it was like he wanted to be there and not there all at the same time.

 

Ralph leant over me, “Here’s the pill. It’ll take about ten minutes to act,” his tears fell on me as he stroked my face, “I’ll pull the plug after you’ve gone…”

 

Thankfully I resisted the ridiculous urge to shout, “Chocks away!” choosing instead to lie back and relax. I looked up at Ralph for the cue to take the pill. He nodded and closed the two caskets together.

 

The world went black as I felt my subatomic form fall into the abyss.

 

****

 

The Spring sun shone warmly on the pebbly beach of the lake. The waves caused from the wake of a passing cruiser licked the shore. The young boy fled in the opposite direction for fear of getting his new sandals wet. His mother sat on a blanket on the grass just off the beach enjoying the impromptu picnic they’d cobbled together.

 

“Typical!” she laughed as he ran towards her without looking back.

 

The small girl though stood resolutely as the water lapped her feet. She was there to skim stones and that’s exactly what she was going to do.

 

“She’ll look after him…she always does…” her friend smiled as she looked proudly on at her tomboy daughter.

 

The boy threw himself into his mothers lap and cuddled into her. She stroked his tousled mess of hair.

 

Eventually the girl came back and, without a word, took the boys hand and led him to the small jetty that reached into the water. She sat him down on the edge and took off his sandals and socks.

 

From where they were sitting, the young mothers watched as she directed him to dip his toes in the cold water. They laughed at the inevitable scream.

 

The girl had busied herself collecting the best stones to skim in a small flowery bag while he’d been snivelling on his mum’s knee. She emptied the stones just behind them – their little bums just touching as their feet dangled.

 

Skilfully she took stone after stone, skimming them anything up to ten times with a flick of her wrist.

 

He opted out of that particular competition, choosing instead to lob his rocks into the air – enjoying the silence of the arc before its passage was punctuated with a satisfying ‘bloop’ as it vanished into the water.

 

The girl put her hand gently on his back as he giggled at the sheer joy of it all. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Epilogue

 

She stands gazing out into the ocean. The precipitous cliff falls away just inches from her feet, the waves crashing angrily onto the rocks a hundred feet below. She feels no fear, simply the exhilaration of the leap that was yet to come. The cool sea air embraces her naked body. She inhales its welcome purity. She bathes in it. Without a care in the world, she dives into the abyss.

 

The clues were always there and yet we chose to ignore them. In the mid-nineteenth century Darwin stood in the teeth of the gale that was religious doctrine. His barely heard voice screamed ‘Evolution’, the word that would change humankinds’ perspective on the world forever.

 

As years passed his word was accepted, but all too soon it was distorted by the clerics, the medics, the economists, the educationalists, the social engineers, the politicians – damn, even the philosophers.

 

Evolution was the answer, but no-one, simply no-one could remember the question. So the question evolved out of complacency and arrogance.

 

The question became, “How did we get here?”

 

The cold and hopeless conclusion was that we had arrived. There was nowhere else to go. We were at the peak, the apex the absolute pinnacle of evolution. We were, after all, in Gods’ image. Everything else around us was there to serve. Everything else was less evolved.

 

Everything else, though, was part of the real question, “Where are we going?”

 

By the beginning of the twentieth century the eugenicists had the answer. The middle class intellectuals were the peak of humanity. The indolent, pond scum that were the working classes were there because of poor breeding. It was time to stop them from reproducing. The world could do without them.

 

Hitler caught on to this wonderful zeitgeist, but he took it further. It was time to destroy the impure and the different. It was time to ethnically cleanse humanity. The world fought bitter battles to defeat this most inhuman of monsters. Who was he to say that blond and blue-eyed was the purest form of us?

 

The victory for the world in 1945 was a victory for all – from the richest to the poorest, for the whites and for the blacks, for the Chinese, the Japanese, the Asians, the Aborigines, for the able bodied for the disabled, for the sane and the mad, for the religiously devout and for the zealots.

 

Everybody won.

 

And yet.

 

And yet the scientists were dissatisfied. If the scientists were dissatisfied it wouldn’t be long until the politicians were dissatisfied and then the masses and then…

 

Gregor Mendel started it. He found that if he bred different types of pea plants with other types of pea plants he’d end up with the pea plants he wanted. This was manipulated evolution. Or was it?

 

Slightly over a hundred years later, the human genome was unravelled. Now we could see all the impurities in our species. The genetic diseases that caused imperfections could now be identified pre-birth. These flawed humans could be destroyed before they were born. A silent genocide. It was controlled evolution that allowed the survival of the fittest by eliminating the weakest.

 

But it wasn’t evolution, controlled or otherwise. In 1859 Charles Darwin told the world about evolution in his oft quoted tome, “On the origin of Species.” By the end of the twentieth century, science had stopped human evolution in its tracks.

 

And yet the clues were always there. We just chose to ignore them. And we were punished. Punished by a future of homogeneity, a future of mediocrity.

 

Down and down she plummets parallel to the cliff, her mane of brown hair rippling behind her. She shrieks at the sheer joy of the moment as, with a flick of her wrists and an arch in her back, her wings unfurl as she darts away from the cliff to skim the waves. Her fingers trail in the water before she soars up and up fuelled with the momentum of her fall.

 

Driven purely by her love of life, she laughs as her flight stalls allowing her to turn in mid air to plunge into the welcoming ocean below. Her gills activate, replacing her lungs as second eyelids protect her vulnerable eyes from the salt. She is as at one with the sea as she is with the air as she is with the land. The subtle webbing on her fingers and toes give her a gymnastic manoeuvrability under the water.

 

She has evolved.

 

While our ancestors stifled our growth through the abject terror of change and of difference, hers set her free with three simple words, “Let it be.”

 

Where we manufactured longevity through the destruction of viruses and bacteria, through fear and mistrust of our world, she gradually developed the lifespan of the giant redwood by adopting some of its finer attributes over time.

 

Where we could keep ourselves well through medicine and surgery, she developed the immune system that could match her environment, and a physiology that could replace broken limbs and organs.

 

We only had to wait.

 

Where we now live in sanitised corridors, fearful of any infection breaching our manmade defences, she can swim and fly and run, living wherever she chooses with a freedom of which we could only dream. 

 

Where our antecedents had chosen to live vicariously through computer games and simulations, through Pilots, through their chosen sports stars and through anyone who actually lived rather than tasting life for themselves, hers had simply lived.

 

“We’re being set up,” Frank concluded as the three of us clattered into his apartment.

 

I was still finding it difficult to put any words or thoughts together after seeing Colin’s carved up form. When he and I had co-hosted in George, death hadn’t mattered – if George had been killed it would have been ok, we could just go back and get a new one. He was properly dead though…

 

“What, the fact that he was found in one of our time-machines, with our DNA all over the place…?” Gordon’s eyes fell on me.

 

“I guess it’s my DNA on the casket,” I whispered.

 

“Who else knew about mini-pilots?” Frank barked.

 

“I think we’ve established that it’s my fault,” I held up my hands in resignation.

 

“No-one from me,” Gordon spoke flatly.

 

“Same,” Frank finished the little confessional.

 

“Ralph or Chris then?” Gordon started.

 

“I, I dunno – I’ve seen Chris’s ruthless side…”

 

“Maybe Ralph’s just more quietly efficient?” if I didn’t know any better, I’d say Frank was enjoying this.

 

“I don’t think so…” I stumbled.

 

“What do you know? You can’t even remember who you are!” Frank snapped at me.

 

“Whoa there,” Gordon jumped in, “the last thing we need to do here is fight amongst ourselves. What we need is a plan of action,”

 

“Do you honestly think I’d have lived with Ralph all these years in the knowledge that he was capable of this?” Ralph just didn’t look like a murderer.

 

“Who knows?” Frank growled, “For all we know…”

 

“For all we know Barney and Ralph lived together happily exchanging little bits of information in wonderful symbiosis…?” Gordon stood between us, facing up to Frank.

 

“So it’s Chris then?”

“I suppose…but killing someone in Pilots is different…” I began.

 

“How’s it different? She still killed a human being – a person who she’d…” Frank had nudged past Gordon again.

 

“Who she’d shagged? Who she loved?” my voice was raised now.

 

Gordon put his hand on my shoulder, “Doesn’t look good, does it mate?”

 

“No…no it doesn’t…you’re right…how long have we got?” I felt resigned.

 

“To do what? Cover her tracks? Dispose of the body? Hide the caskets? Relocate mini-pilots…”

 

“Look you greasy little shit,” I grabbed Frank by the shirt, “I’m trying to think of ways to get you two out of this…”

 

Once again Gordon dived in, “We’re in this up to the neck…there is no way out…”

 

I looked down at Frank – he looked scared – I pushed him away, “How would it be if I took all the blame – it’ll be my fingerprints they find on the casket…I could say it was just me…”

 

“That’s ridiculous – they know we’re involved…” Frank came back angrily again.

 

“What more do they want?” I spoke slowly, “They’ve got a body and a guy saying he did it…? If they wanted to scare us…if they wanted to fuck up the whole of mini-pilots…they’ve managed it…I’m handing myself in – I am, after all, the guy who’s nuts…”

 

I felt strangely calm as Gordon drove me back to my apartment. I decided I would go in, go to bed and then confess all to Ralph first thing. We’d left Frank back at his apartment since I’d punched him…and when the conversation deteriorates to that level…well…

 

“Is there anything…you know?” Gordon shook my hand in the car park.

 

“I don’t think so…will you guys be able to restart your little revolution again?”

 

“Yeah, we’ll just wait a couple of hundred years for the heat to die down…”

 

“What will they do with me?” bit late to ask really.

 

“Given your er, mental problems, they’ll probably keep you in the long stay part of the clinic…”

 

“Oh that’s not so bad…Dr Pope’ll keep me entertained.

 

“…pending…”

 

“Pending what?” I suddenly found it hard to breathe.

 

“Well that’s it, I guess. I don’t know – I don’t ever remember there being a murder. I don’t know what they’d do if…”

 

“Promise you’ll visit me…you know, while they’re deciding…”

 

Gordon pulled me to him, “Of course, of course…”

 

“And leave the greasy twat at home…” I grinned menacingly.

 

“I don’t think he’ll want to come…that’s a fine right hook you’ve got…” he jabbed the air.

 

“I feel sick about Colin…” I suddenly felt devastated thinking of him. What the fuck had they done to him? He wouldn’t have put up any fight…fucking bastards.

 

“Me too – it must be worse for you though – you were in his head for a while…”

 

“Yes…d’you know I don’t think I’ve ever felt closer to another person?” I hadn’t.

 

“Of course…what about the people who did it? What do we do about them?”

 

“Chris? Fuck, Gordon, I don’t know…I thought…I think I love…I don’t know…”

 

“Are you sure you want to do this?”

 

“Do I really have any choice? Those are my fingerprints…I’m tired, you know Gordon? I’m tired – I want out of this – to be honest I don’t care what happens to me…”

 

“Hey…come on…there are people who love you…” four out of ten for conviction, bless him.

 

“I know…I’m going up now – take care of yourself…and don’t forget to slap Frank everyday…he needs it…”

 

I walked into the semi-darkness of the flat. What the fuck was I doing? Did I really not care? I thought about Chris…fuck, if she had had anything to do with this…How could I have any feelings for her, after all she’d done…No, nothing mattered now. I lay fully clothed on my bed and waited for the first light of dawn.

 

****

 

“You did what?” it was hard to work out if Ralph was angry or just incredulous.

 

“I killed Colin…” I wasn’t sure how to behave in circumstances such as these, so I remained calm and factual. The cold-blooded killer. I guess if I’d been ranting and raving I could be the psychotic killer…?

 

“Why? What was your motive…?” Ralph was crying.

 

“I’m not sure…we started arguing about something and nothing…he said something about shagging my mum and I just flipped…”

 

“Where’d you get the knife?”

 

“I…er it was just lying on the shelf nearby – it was impulsive, you know…it was there…?”

 

“So where did you stab him…?”

 

“In the wrists and on the neck…”

 

“The wrists and neck?”

 

“He was kind of protecting himself with his hands…and I stabbed his wrists…”

 

Ralph closed his eyes, “Ok,” he opened them again, “I’m going to get you admitted to the clinic…I’m going to be so close to this fucking case…”

 

“Ok…”

 

“We’d just been talking about how it all worked. How it all came together. Why would you do this? In all the years I’ve known you…”

 

“Don’t…” I held up my hands, “Please don’t…”

 

****

 

“You tell me this man was your friend?” Dr Pope spoke quietly, her voice calm and steady.

 

“Yes…” she fucking knows.

 

“What would drive you to do such a thing…?”

 

“I’m not sure, maybe I still had residuals from my time as an insect – they kill without feeling – without judgement…” all the time I kept my tone flat.

 

“Tell me about your anger…”

 

“What do you want to know?”

 

“What had you been talking about?”

 

“My mother – he told me how he’d had sex with my mother…”

 

“But you said he was in a relationship with her…?” why is she pissing around, she knows?

 

“Yes…I couldn’t stand the thought of it. I loved her…it was me she loved…” yep, that was sounding proper crazy now.

 

Her composure wavered for just a second, “Er…tell me about…mini-pilots, is that what you called it?”

 

“I stole the technology…”

 

“How? It must have been difficult logistically moving those caskets…?”

 

“It was…Colin had a van…?” fuck.

 

“Really?”

 

“Yes…” I couldn’t actually recall ever seeing a van in this world.

 

“Thank you, that will be all,” she stood up and walked out.

 

I was back in my clinic room – or one that looked damned like it. I wondered how long it would be before I started to crack.

 

****

 

Days blended into more days. I hated the synthetic light. I had no idea how long I’d been in there. At least Gordon and Frank would be able to start up again – at least there was a future where someone was kicking against…

 

“Hi Barney…” Ralph smiled as he walked in – he shook my hand warmly with both of his.

 

He sat down next to me on the sofa, “How have you been?” he grinned in an over friendly manner.

 

“I…er fine…the food’s a bit…”

 

“Do you know what this is?” he grinned, slightly maniacally, as he pulled an object from his bag that looked not unlike the product of a cross between a remote control and a potato peeler.

 

“I, er…I can’t say I do…”

 

“I call it my sonic fucker…”

 

Before I could only imagine what he was going to do with me he started to walk around the room, “Watch…” he smiled, eyebrows arched.

 

There was a high-pitched, almost imperceptible whine as he held his gizmo up to the corner of the room next to bathroom. There was a small explosion as the bits of a previously invisible thing cascaded to the floor.

 

“Bugs! Don’t you just hate them?” he laughed as he wandered around the room systematically destroying all the listening devices.

 

“But won’t they…?” I tried to protest in amongst the chaos.

 

“You don’t need to worry about them…” with a flourish he turned the sonic fucker on the back wall.

 

The wall exploded dramatically. It was one-way glass – they’d been observing my every movement – the three men in white coats who were suddenly revealed scurried for the door at the back of their small room.

 

“Fucking voyeurs…” Ralph shouted after them in a most un-Ralphlike way.

 

Slowly he turned and sat down next to me again, “Ok Barney, there are no listening or video devices – there is me and there is you – talk,”

 

“I…er…”I was terrified, “What do you want me to talk about…?”

 

“Tell me again how you killed Colin,” hand on chin, looking terribly interested.

 

“I stabbed him…”

 

“On the wrists and the neck…”

 

“…more slashes really…”

 

“…slashes…hmmm?” he looked thoughtful.

 

“Slashes, yeah…”

 

“…and where did you stab him?”

 

“In, the…er…middle room?”

 

“And what did you do with the knife afterwards?”

 

“I must have thrown it away when I ran…”

 

“Ok Barney,” Ralph smiled warmly at me again, “Let me help you out here…First of all – you didn’t stab him in the middle room…did you?”

“I…Ralph…”

 

“All…and I mean all of the blood that was spilled from Colin was found either on him or in the bottom of the casket. What do you think that means?”

 

“He was stabbed in the casket…?”

 

“But he wasn’t stabbed, was he?”

 

“Well, more slashed…”

 

“…yes, slashed, but not by you…”

 

“What?”

 

“Colin killed himself…if you’d looked closer when you found him in the box you’d have seen the bloody, pun intended, murder weapon in his right hand…”

 

“Ralph, I really must protest,” Dr Pope pushed her way into the room with two men in black uniform in hot pursuit.

 

Ralph ignored her and instead looked at the men chasing her, “Will you get this fucking woman out of here?”

 

They duly dragged her off amid rants that she would complain to the government.

 

Ralph smiled at me, “Barney, it’s me, Ralph…your friend…you didn’t kill Colin – say it,”

 

“I didn’t kill Colin…”

 

“Then why did you say you did?”

 

“I thought Chris had killed him – I’d only told two people about mini-pilots and I thought…well I thought it couldn’t be you…”

 

“What was his mood like when you saw him?”

 

“He was flat…down…sad…”

 

“Why, why do you think that was?” quietly, soothing.

 

“He loved my mum…he’d lived a life with her…he…”

 

“…couldn’t bear a life without her?”

 

“I wonder…”

 

“Barney, Colin killed himself – I think it was kind of symbolic for him that he did it in the casket – you know, that’s what brought him to this point – something like that…”

 

“Really?”

 

“We’re certain he killed himself – ultimately we can only guess at the whys of it all…”

 

“Ralph?”

“Barney?”

 

“Why all the explosions and destruction? What have you done with Dr Pope?”

 

“Our problem was that we were pulled in by Novokov’s principle…”

 

“Who’s we?”

 

“We – the government – thought that Pilots was the answer to everything…”

 

“The answer to what?”

 

“The boredom…the sameness…the homogeneity…you were right all along…this is all too safe…”

 

“What about Pilots then?”

 

“We’ve closed it down…”

 

“Why? I thought so many people got so much out of it…?”

 

“Too much…”

 

“Too much?”

 

“Barney, there’s hundreds of people like you. The thing is, a lot of them have taken their own lives. They’ve seen what life can be like and they can’t reconcile that to here and now,”

 

“And they forget…”

 

“Yes, they forget – they can’t remember their friends – their lives – their world – they just want to go back and keep going back…”

 

“And Dr Pope?”

 

“She was using pseudo science to keep it going – by pathologising the poor sods who’d used Pilots she was actually keeping Pilots in the clear…”

 

“She was saying we were sick – when it was Pilots all along?”

 

“Yeah,”

 

“Nasty cow…I never liked her…”

 

“Have you seen Colin?” Gordon’s face on the screen next to my bed looked terribly concerned.

 

“What? Gordon…do you know what time it is?” this was a trick question – I had no idea what the time was. I’d gone for the early night option following my particularly heavy conversation with Ralph.

 

“It’s about two…he was supposed to meet us for a drink last night…”

 

“Why wasn’t I invited?” I was so easily wounded.

 

“Er…I…Oh I don’t know…” he sounded a little vexed.

 

“Gordon…” I’d put on my special middle of the fucking night schoolmasters voice.

 

“We were going to talk about you with Frank…as it was…”

 

“You spent a whole evening on your own with Frank?”

 

“It wasn’t that bad…”

 

“Had he washed?”

 

“Barney! Colin’s missing – he never misses a night out at the Golden Jug – never…”

 

“Is he at home?”

 

“No…” that could have been met with so many levels of sarcasm – I was grateful for the straightforward reply.

 

“Where could he…”

 

“You were the last person to see him…” accusatory?

 

“Hey, now, come on…we met in the play park round the side of my apartment…Play park? Grown up swings and slides – who are they trying to kid?”

 

“He didn’t say where he was going?”

 

“No, I just assumed he…”

 

“What did you talk about?”

 

“I er…let’s think…he told me that you guys had kind of fallen out…”

 

“Fallen out?”

 

“Something like that – those weren’t his exact words – he told me that he’d decided never to do the co-hosting thing again…”

 

“That’s right – I don’t think you could call it an argument though…”

 

“Gordon – I’m not suggesting you’ve got anything to do with this…”

 

“With what?”

 

“His disappearance…”

 

“You’re saying he’s been disappeared?”

 

“Eh, no…I’m saying we don’t know where he is…you said he was missing,” I had no idea what I was nearly being accused of.

 

“What else?”

 

“What else, what?”

 

“What else did you talk about?” angry and a little desperate.

 

I told Gordon about Colin’s happy tales of his life with my mum, and how they’d lived a loving and fruitful life together…

 

“So he was happy when he left you?”

 

“Well no, no he wasn’t – he seemed pretty flat…”

 

“Fuck! I’ll meet you at the park…” with that his image vanished from my screen.

 

I had no idea what to do. Colin was a grown man… I wondered if I should wake Ralph – he’d have a sensible explanation. No, I couldn’t do that…Gordon was terrified of him – he’d never forgive me.

 

“Why here?” Gordon was sitting on the swing next to me, just as Colin had done only hours before.

 

“Two reasons – first of all, we’re only being monitored with video surveillance out here…”

 

“…and, since this is the last place I saw him…?”

 

“Exactly. Did anyone know you were meeting him here?”

 

“I er…” had I mentioned it to Ralph? Had I been monitored and followed? “I didn’t tell Ralph but they…” whoever the fuck they were, “…might have picked up that we were meeting in the park…”

 

“But what would they want with Colin?” Gordon looked blankly at the side of my building complex.

 

I felt a shiver go down my back. Weird, I wasn’t cold – more freaked out than anything. I was suddenly aware though that the temperature here and now in the middle of the night was about the same as it was during the day.

 

“Who would want him? Really, who would want to take this mild-mannered, quiet guy…?”

 

“It’s a shot across our bows!” Gordon exclaimed, “They’re scared of us…they’re warning us…”

 

“What…you really think that the powers that be would be bothered with a tiny band of minor subversives…”

 

“We’re not minor subversives…don’t you see? There are no other subversives – anyone rocking the boat would be seen as a major headache…”

 

“But why not take me? I seem to be the biggest pain in their collective arse…”

 

“You’ve got Ralph to speak up for you…it could have been me, or Frank…”

 

“Does Ralph know about mini-pilots?”

 

“I, shit, yes…yes he does…but I don’t think…surely you don’t think…”

 

“Come on Barney, he works for the fucking government…No matter what his loyalties are to you, sooner or later…”

 

He was right. Surely all those years ago when Ralph started to live with me there were ulterior motives bouncing all over the place. I needed him and he needed to keep an eye on me. We had become close friends – I still needed him – and, because he worked for the government, he had to keep throwing them some scraps. Perhaps Colin was one of these scraps?

 

“But we don’t even know if Colin’s missing yet…not for sure…”

 

“We have to assume they’ve got him…”

 

I thought about myself in a similar position. I’m sure I’d tell them everything if they employed dirty tactics like harsh questioning and threatening to ban me from the pub.

 

“What do you think he’ll tell them?”

 

“We have to assume he’ll spill everything. We need to get to mini-pilots now. I’ll call Frank on the way – we need to relocate…”

 

It felt hopeless as I looked at the passing city as the car trundled it’s way safely to our not-terribly-secret hideaway. I imagined the plot of ‘Bullitt’ with everyone adhering to the fucking Highway Code.

 

We met Frank outside. Sure enough the doors of our little travel-agents had been disturbed – they were still slightly ajar with a tiny sliver of light spilling into the street.

 

We stared helplessly at each other for a moment. It was Frank who burst into action. He opened the doors into what could laughingly be called the reception area. There was no sign of life as we walked towards the doors to the middle room of the complex. Gordon held up his hand – indicating we should stop and listen.

 

I could feel my heart pounding as I held my breath. Nothing, either there was nobody in there or they were very good at keeping quiet…I wasn’t made for this kind of thing.

 

Gordon opened the doors revealing nothing. There were the three plastic bucket seats; one had been toppled over. The door to the casket room was open. Whoever they were, they’d got through to the inner sanctum. To be fair it wasn’t exactly your Indiana Jones level of difficulty, all they’d had to do is walk through a couple of doors.

 

Both caskets were still there. One open and one closed.

 

“Who…?” I put my hand to my mouth. Goldilocks sprang to mind.

 

“Look,” Frank whispered pointing at the power lead connected to the closed casket. The wire had been corroded right through by some chemical that had been spilled on it.

 

“Should we…I mean can we open this up?” I tentatively pulled on the handle.

 

“I, er, it should be ok – we just need to get the power back to it…” Gordon pulled out a little pocket tool thing and set to work rejoining the two ends of the cable.

 

“Is there someone in there?” I turned to Frank who was standing open-mouthed watching his friend at work.

 

We both squinted at the translucent cover – it was hard to tell. Suddenly the light within flickered on.

 

“Open it,” Gordon hissed.

 

“Who me?” I was suddenly aware I was the guy with his fingers on the handle.

 

“Yes…” they spoke in unison.

 

I pulled the handle – there was a hiss as the lid came up. Colin was inside. He was clearly dead. His eyes were very slightly open and his lips were blue. His face was tilted slightly to the right. Both his wrists had been cut – as had his throat. All three cuts were deep – whoever had done this wasn’t taking any chances. A large amount of blood had pooled at the bottom of what was now his coffin.

 

“So, have there been any change since the last time?”

 

Even following my very recent sexual encounter, Dr Pope failed to fire any testostoronic synapses in my atrophied mind.

 

“No, not really – that said, some of my friends think that I’m behaving in a distinctly Barneyesque way…”

 

“Which friends?” she was like a praying mantis poised to devour it’s victim.

 

“I’m, er not at liberty to say…” I suddenly felt in a position of power. I had something she wanted…

 

“No matter, I can get that information from the sound and video feeds around your apartment,”

 

“Oh,” that told her. I still wasn’t going to tell her.

 

“What have you been up to since I last saw you?”

 

“What kind of therapy is this?”

 

“Does that matter?”

 

“Well, if it’s psychotherapy shouldn’t we be sitting in silence until my poor mind can take no more and I feel obliged to start spouting out any kind of…”

 

“It’s more about information gathering,”

 

“For you? For me? What?”

 

“Ultimately it’s for you…”

 

Why could I hear my mum saying, “This hurts me more than it hurts you,” whilst smacking my bare arse?

 

“For me?”

 

“Yes, of course, we want to help you reintegrate into society…”

 

“Two questions there,” I interrupted, “Who’s we?”

 

She opened her arms wide in some expansive gesture of family, of community of…God knows what, “We are the people of the clinic and of the Government – it suits us if you are a fully functioning member of society…”

 

“And secondly, what exactly is this society? Who does it serve? What does it do?”

 

She raised her eyebrows, “Two questions?”

 

“The others were sub-questions…”

 

“Society is this safe and caring world you have all around you. A world where all your needs are catered for – everyone has sufficient food, water, shelter – education is readily accessible to all as is healthcare – we have…” she oozed.

“Friends? Family? Relationships? Sexual-fucking-intercourse?”

 

Her eyes flashed momentarily – I knew I’d hit a nerve, “Pilots was a recognition that perhaps some of our more primal needs were not being met…”

 

“…so we’d go off and shag, fight, pillage, whatever elsewhere? Isn’t this taking the concept of ‘Not in my back garden’ to the extreme?”

 

“All these things have already happened. Individuals in Pilots fully feel and believe they have choice and self-determination – Novokov in his self-consistency principle…”

 

“I know, I know…he believes that we can’t do things in the past that would be inconsistent with the future…er, that’s already happened…or something…” I really thought I’d grasped this.

 

“Yes, yes, something like that. Where did you find all this out?”

 

“I can read,”

 

“Did Ralph tell you?”

 

“No,”

 

“Anyone else?”

 

“No…is this therapy?”

 

“No…as I said, this is mutually beneficial fact finding…”

 

“Mutually beneficial for who?”

 

“We can have you detained again…” not a terribly guarded threat.

 

“What because I’m a danger to myself? To others? Or is it just that I’m pissing you off? Why do you talk about ‘we’ detaining me? It’s you, isn’t it? I piss you off and you detain me – it really is that simple, isn’t it? Well, isn’t it?”

 

She sat back in her seat, “It’s tremendous to see you release some of your inner anger. From what I understand, Barney was terribly angry at society…this shows that you must be some way to reconnecting with the real you…”

 

“This is bollocks. On one hand you want me to blend into the big homogenised lump that humanity has become…on the other, you want me to show my anger and frustration…why would that be?”

 

“I want you to remember who you are – to be who you really are…”

 

“What happens when people get angry?”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“When people get angry they’re more likely to make mistakes. You thought that by firing me up you’d get me to spout out something I hadn’t planned to…”

 

“I’m sorry you feel like that…”

 

Brilliant, turn it back on the punter. Never take responsibility, “Me too,”

 

“I think we can call it a day there,” she got up to leave.

 

“Wasn’t that a little…short?”

 

“No, no,” she smiled brightly, “Let’s not get caught up in arbitrarily predefined things such as how long a session should be…”

 

“No, let’s not…”

 

****

 

“She makes my fucking skin crawl!” I barked at the ever-patient Ralph as, once again, I ranted about the creepy Dr Pope.

 

“I know she does…didn’t you have something terribly exciting to tell me?”

 

“I thought that Chris was a man – and she isn’t – she’s a woman…”

 

“I knew that,” calm as ever, watching the streets go by out of the car window.

 

“She looks different…but she’s the same…I just know she’s the same person…”

 

“Yes, yes…” Ralph smiled.

 

Once again I found myself using Ralph as my confidante, my best friend, my sounding board as I spewed all there was to know about what had happened in Chris’s apartment.

 

“Well that all sounds jolly lovely!” he smiled at me, with only a hint of irony, when I finished my story back in our flat. 

 

“But terribly fatalistic, don’t you think?”

 

Ralph smiled and looked into the middle distance.

 

“What is it?”

 

“Novokov isn’t the only kid in town – do you know that?”

 

“Well…er…I dunno, tell me,”

 

“With Novokov – everything’s so certain isn’t it?”

 

“I guess,”

 

“So tidy…”

 

“You don’t believe it do you?”

 

“Not one bit of it. It suits Pilots because to believe otherwise would lead to absolute chaos – as every person went back in time a new future would be created – and God only knows where they’d be when they got back…”

 

“So…”

 

“So, when you go back in time to find yourself located in some poor individual’s mind – you’ve been reduced to, I dunno, a handful of tachyons…”

 

“Tachyons? What like in Star Trek?”

 

“What?”

 

“No, nothing, you wouldn’t understand…”

 

“Tachyons are your sub atomic particles that can whiz about the place in all four dimensions…”

 

“Where time is the fourth…?”

 

“Lovely, yes. This is where it all gets potentially confusing. Have you ever heard of Schrodinger’s cat?”

 

“Yes – didn’t he…?” I could feel myself immediately trailing off.

 

“Do you know?”

 

“Pppppfff!”

 

“I’ll take that as a no – Schrodinger made up a situation where a cat was put in a box with, say, a vial of poison,”

 

“Ok – not a real cat…?”

 

“You’re right, a theoretical cat – in this box is a radioactive something or other which randomly emits radioactive particles…”

 

“Soooo…?”

 

“So, if this radioactive thingy fires off a radioactive particle – this will activate a mechanism which will cause a big hammer to hit the vial of poison which in turn kills the cat…”

“But that’s random – so it might not fire off a radioactive particle and the cat might be ok?”

 

“Perfect…that’s exactly it. The box is closed and the experimenter can’t see inside – so, given the random chance of the radioactive particle being emitted, from the experimenter’s perspective the cat is both alive and dead…”

 

“You what…?”

 

“It doesn’t actually become one or the other until the box is opened and it’s observed…”

 

“So you’re saying that, inside this box, the cat is both alive and dead…?” me lost? Absolutely.

 

“No, it is one or the other – this experiment was a kind of metaphor for quantum physics…”

 

“La, la, la, la…la, la, la…”

 

“As far as science is concerned, something doesn’t exist until it’s observed…” tetchy(on).

 

“No, I think I’ve got this – as far as the scientist knows, that cat is either in one state – alive – or another – dead – he doesn’t know until he looks at it?”

 

“That’s it. The same goes for subatomic particles…”

 

“Which grow up into atomic particles…which grow up into us…or anything…?”

 

“Yes – subatomic particles can exist in many forms…”

 

“Oh God…”

 

“No, stay with me here…do you want to live in a fatalistic universe?”

 

“No…”

 

“Well listen then…let’s go back…imagine that the cat is the particle…”

 

“Yes – particle, cat…got it…”

 

“It can be in two states – alive or dead…?”

 

“Cool, got that,” I’m fucking Albert Einstein, me…

 

“So if it’s alive…it can’t be dead…”

 

“Could it be ill?”

 

“Shut up. If it’s alive, it can’t be dead, ok?”

 

“Fine,”

 

“Back in your day, a guy called Everett said that these two events were decoherent…they cannot exist together…”

 

“Sure…I’m happy with that…”

 

“Here’s the leap – when you observe the cat in its living state you become entangled with that reality…”

 

“Entangled?”

 

“Yes – entangled – so you then exist with that reality…”

 

“Ok…”

 

“Everett argued the case for a many-world interpretation of reality…”

 

“What the fuck…?” I’m now Albert Grimsdale…

 

“Any and all states that can exist do exist – so, with the cat, by observing it dead…you enter that world where the cat is dead – equally, there is a world where you opened the box and found the cat to be alive – these two things can’t coexist so you’re split into different universes…”

 

“But that means there could be zillions of universes and dimensions whatever you want to call them…”

 

“Possibly and probably…”

 

“So anywhere where there is a chance for something to happen that may physically contradict another…you say the universe splits?”

 

“He called it his ‘Many-Worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics’,”

 

“No shit…”

 

“I like it more than Novokov…it’s less restrictive, don’t you think?”

 

“But with Pilots, we appear to come back here and nothing’s changed…”

 

“Yeah, it’s almost like we’re locked in somehow…”

 

“Because we’re linked to this future…er possibly?”

 

“Yes…yes…that would explain why we keep coming back…”

 

“So everyone’s right? Isn’t science wonderful?”

“Well, yes…Novokov is right as long as we’re linked to this future…”

 

“Fancy a coffee? My head hurts…”

 

We sat in silence while we stared absently into our drinks.

 

“Ok…here’s the final word…”

 

Ralph looked up and smiled, “The final word?”

 

“Yes,” definite.

 

“Ok, go on then…”

 

“When we go back to float about in other people’s heads we’re linked to now by something…?”

 

“Yes…it’s a kind of bio/ tachyon mix…”

 

“Don’t start!” I wagged my finger.

 

“Sorry…” comedically chastised.

 

“So as long as we’re linked to now, Novokov is right and the point up until now is down to fate…and then your multi-world theory takes over again…”

 

“Unless of course we’re being Piloted by our future selves…?” he always had to have the last word.

 

“So, even though we’re tied into this fatalistic…er…thing…there is still hope that chance and variation and deviation and change are out there somewhere?”

 

“Yes…yes, that about covers it…”

 

She was standing looking out of the window at the back of the room. She didn’t turn around as I came in.

 

The big guy squeezed my shoulder, “I’ll be in my room if…”

 

Chris raised her hand as she continued to look out on the world.

 

The window filled the back of the room – I could easily have stood next to her without touching.

 

“How’s it going?” I almost whispered as my shoulder just brushed hers.

 

The world outside continued in its contrived way – empty, barren, clean and hollow.

 

She appeared to stop breathing. A precursor to speech? After a few seconds she just let it go.

 

“Chris?” I looked at her. She was slight, a few inches shorter than me, her head was shaved…

 

I put my hand on her shoulder. Her right hand came up to meet mine, but still she continued to look out of the window.

 

I could see she wore no makeup – her dark eyes appeared large on her thin face.

 

She wore light, almost cream, trousers and a grey shirt.

 

Androgynous was obviously the dress code in government.

 

“Chris?” I tried again.

 

She turned to face me, she placed her hand flat on my chest, “Barney…” her voice cracked.

 

“Why don’t we sit down?” I whispered, turning to fully appreciate the large retro sofa that was remarkably similar to mine. Marvellous, even originality was homogenous.

 

“Why are you here?” she managed to say.

 

I ignored the question, “I thought that hairy guy was you…I was just getting my head around love conquering all…”

 

“Is that what this is?” she intercepted.

 

“Let’s see… heart pounding, a sheen of sweat forming all over my body, short rapid breaths, I’d bet anything that my pupils have dilated to their max, a feeling of ludicrous yet unfounded optimism…”

 

“That’s lust…”

 

“Don’t flatter yourself,” I grinned, “The last time I felt this nauseous I had gastroenteritis…”

 

She reached out and squeezed my hands.

 

“Who’s the big hairy guy?”

 

“Alan? We’ve lived together for as long as I can remember,”

 

“Is he you’re…”

 

“No…we worked together for a bit…no…we’re well and truly mates…and anyway…”

 

“…people don’t do that kind of thing in this day and age…?”

 

She laughed, “No…no we don’t…”

 

“So what happened?”

 

She looked up at the ceiling.

 

“Are we being…?” I was all too aware of this surveillance for our own good society that we lived in.

 

“No…Alan’s put it on a loop of what we did yesterday…”

 

“Why would you do that?”

 

“I’m not sure…well, I guess…”

 

I held her face and kissed her gently on the mouth.

 

“Have my pupils dilated?”

 

She put her fingers to her lips, she looked deep in thought as she struggled to remember something that had lain dormant for centuries, “Yes, yes they have…” she smiled a beautiful and open smile.

 

“Yours have – you know – just in case you were wondering…”

 

Her eyes danced around my face, “This is intolerable!” suddenly sharp and angry, she got up and returned to her position staring out of the window.

 

“Intolerable?” I placed my hand on the nape of her neck, my fingers gently caressing the soft spikiness of her hair.

 

“There’s no place for this…don’t you see?”

 

“What? What don’t I see?”

“We’ve evolved…we’ve moved away from those primal urges…”

 

“What’s this then? What am I feeling? What are you feeling?”

 

“It’s just some remnant of our past physiology – something that was sparked when we went into Pilots,”

 

“Something that was sparked? Are you really telling me that when you were given this mission – whatever it was - you didn’t have some sense of ‘This is great – I can do what I want away from the prying eyes of…’?”

 

Once again she gazed out of the window, her fingers lightly touching the glass that separated her from the outside world. Absently her hand covered her mouth and then found its way around to the back of her head as she comforted herself with that gentle rasp of her fingers on the stubble there.

 

“If I’m honest…if I’m truly honest…”

 

“What…? If you’re truly honest…?” I could see the inner turmoil.

 

“I wanted the same as you…” her body appeared to relax once she’d allowed this terrible truth to squeeze its way out.

 

“And what’s that?” Gently coaxing and cajoling, it felt like I was holding something incredibly fragile in my hand…a butterfly that had been frozen in liquid nitrogen…compelling but brittle beyond belief.

 

“I wanted…” it was like she was no longer talking to me as she looked around her apartment for an answer, “I wanted life – I wanted to live…” she let out a tiny cry as both hands shot up to her face.

 

“What? What is it?”

 

“I took things that weren’t mine to take. I persuaded myself that there was a scientific basis for everything I was doing…”

 

“Tell me…”

 

“I used Jen…I’d told myself that because of Novikov’s self-consistency principle I wouldn’t be able to do anything that hadn’t already happened…”

 

“I’m not sure I’m familiar with…”

 

“Novikov was the first person to argue that, with any kind of time travel, the probability of an event occurring that isn’t consistent with the future is zero…”

 

“So…so…what does that mean?”

 

“I guess what it means is we’ve convinced ourselves that we can go back in time, borrow other people’s lives, and generally do what the fuck we want with them because whatever we do has already happened – physics wouldn’t allow us to change the future…”

 

“So you could use Jen’s body as some kind of sexual bouncy castle safe in the knowledge that this had all already happened…?”

 

“Well yeah…that’s pretty much it…”

 

“Isn’t that all horribly fatalistic? Or even at best fucking convenient…?”

 

“Yes, yes it is…that’s really the premise behind Pilots,”

 

“What the fuck? So, you’re saying that people go back in time – they live a life that belongs to someone else in the belief that they are sentient independent and self determined critters when all the time that life has already happened and there’s no way of altering that…?”

 

I stormed around the apartment in some vague attempt to find the absolute meaning of life on a shelf, a sofa, in the kitchen…

 

“No…no, no, no that can’t be right. Look at us! We’re humans the pinnacle of evolution – we’ve got more potential neural connections in out brains than there are grains of sand on the beach…and here you are saying that that all means fuck all – that we are all being pulled along by some inevitable fucking master plan that’s been laid out for us…?”

 

“Yes…yes, that’s it,”

 

“So when you came back to collect me…you did it safe in the knowledge that it had already happened?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“So you hedonistically launched into Jen’s life, getting shagged up the arse and God knows what else, happy that science wouldn’t allow it to happen if…”

 

“Can I just say that anal sex is fucking horrible?”

 

“I didn’t like to say...” I allowed myself a reflective grin in amongst my diatribe, “…do you see what I’m saying?”

 

“Yes…it sounds horrible but it’s true…yes,”

 

“What about now?”

 

“What do you mean ‘What about now?’?”

 

“I mean, can I just do what the fuck I want now safe in the knowledge that what will be will be? Good old science will look after me, my conscience, my criminal record because it’s preordained…?”

“That’s different…”

 

“How? How is now different from back in the day, back in nineteen fucking canteen where we feel we can romp about the place…”

 

“Because we are their future…”

 

“But surely in the great continuum – we’re our present, somebody’s future and somebody’s past…How do we know we’re not being Piloted by some future us…?”

 

“I guess we don’t really know…”

 

“Why doesn’t Pilots go into the future? Surely it would be just as easy to go forward as it is backwards? I mean, we go forward when we come back…don’t we?”

 

“As I recall – we didn’t want to look to the future partly because we didn’t know what was there. If we go too far into the future, there may be no humans to put ourselves in… I don’t think that was the main reason though. There were concerns about the deterministic nature of it all – that if we knew our future we’d become complacent and docile…just waiting for the inevitable…”

 

“Not much different from now then?”

 

“No…not much…hold me…”

 

I wrapped my arms around her small form, pulling her into my well-nourished body.

 

“So you’re saying we can’t do this whatever this may be? Why?”

 

“I’m not sure what I’m saying…” she looked confused, “I think I’m saying is that this is different from what we started with John and Jen…”

 

“You talk about them as if they were different people from us…?”

 

“Weren’t they?”

 

It was my turn to disengage, “Fuck, I dunno? If it was all preordained then what the fuck do I know? I can’t say – I can’t remember my now me, all I have is John – from what I’ve heard from other folk there are a lot of similarities between John and me…if we can’t change the future, why would that be?”

 

“I don’t know – I guess it’s because there’s a lot of leeway before you start changing the future…?”

 

“No, that can’t be true, I’d guess that even the most miniscule change in the past would evolve into huge changes in the distant future…”

 

“You’re right…you’re right – scratch that. That would have been convenient though, don’t you think?”

 

Round and round in circles we went. Each of us looking for a get out clause – something that would rescue us from this horrible sense of inevitability.

 

“I suppose a fuck’s out of the question?” to Hell with science and all its ludicrous complications. Chris and I were both feeling feelings, if it was meant to be, it was meant to be – what could we do about it? It wasn’t as if I was invading Poland…

 

“I think that might be acceptable…it’s been a while though…”

 

“Yeah, I guess anything longer than a thousand years could be considered a while…”

 

And there was that lovely smile kiss thing we did – as John, as George and now as Barney…There was more to this, but at the moment I couldn’t give a flying fuck – I was merely responding to the demands of the more primitive parts of my brain – what could I do?

 

This was the third time we’d done this and, once again, it was different. My body felt naive and hypersensitive. Even with all my accumulated knowledge…my accumulated knowledge that now felt abstract and academic…this was new to me. We were discovering each other for the first time. We both came alarmingly quickly.

 

“You know, when I was John I had a method to prevent this happening…”

 

“What?” Chris snuggled into me.

 

“This er, premature fruition…as it were…”

 

“Didn’t you enjoy it?” Hurt or just exploring the facts?

 

“No, I mean yes, it was delicious – you’re delicious – but when I was John I’d think of scary looking made up women to prevent…you know…”

 

“Why? What’s the purpose of that?”

 

“I, er…I dunno – to keep things going longer – so that we’d both get the most out of…”

 

“So thinking about these scary women…?”

 

“Yes?”

 

“Did you like doing that?”

 

“Well, not like exactly…it’s more like…” what in the name of God was I talking about? Why did I do this? I knew full well why I’d done it in the past…but why would I do it now when we were inventing ourselves?

 

“Why can’t you just be?”

 

I remembered my chats about being an insect and the simplicity of it all. Insects just are. They don’t question what it is to be an insect. They don’t judge themselves for their behaviour. Could life really be that simple?

 

“You’re right…let’s just be…” I closed my eyes with a wonderful contentment I hadn’t felt in…

 

“Jesus Christ!!”

 

“What is it?” Chris was clearly alarmed at my outburst.

 

“What time is it?”

 

“I don’t know – nearly two…”

 

“I’ve got my appointment with Dr Pope in half an hour…” romantically, I leapt from the bed and started to put my clothes on, “…and I’ve got to catch up with Ralph…he’s got my security bangle thing…and then he’s got to take me there…oh fuck…?”

 

Chris’s eyes sparkled as she lay there laughing at me, “You know Barney, for a rebel you’re terribly conformist…”

 

I hopped out of the door putting my shoe on, “I love you Chris, we have to see each other again…”

 

She kissed me on my cheek, “Yes Barney, you’ve definitely got something there…”

 

“Please be in Ralph, please be in Ralph…” I murmured as my car went at exactly the right speed back to my apartment.

 

“Ralph, you’re here,” I panted histrionically as I fell in the door.

 

He was sitting quietly reading his PDA. He looked up, mildly surprised, “Where else would I be?”

 

“I, er…I need the bangle – I’ve got to see Dr Pope... Can you come with me?”

 

“Yes, thanks Barney, I’m fine, how are you…?”

 

I laughed back at him, “I’ve got so much to tell you – but we have to go now!”

This was fucking weird, but I was beginning to get the hang of it.

 

“Well?” Gordon asked expectantly. He, Frank and I were sitting next to the caskets enjoying the acrid taste and the pungent aroma of his coffee.

 

I looked from Gordon to Frank, then back to Gordon. Where should I start?

 

“First of all, you’re going to have to revise your belief that Colin here is prepared to receive visitors…”

 

“How do you mean?” Gordon was first to the question with Frank close behind.

 

“Think nature – nurture…”

 

I was met with blank gazes so I carried on, “He may have believed in his heart of hearts that the folk visiting him in his head were from here and now – but there’s a whole world, led by psychiatry, that says ‘Voices in your head that don’t belong to you clearly means you’re nuts’,”

 

“But surely he must know he’s right?” Frank was having difficulty with the notion that his little plan had fallen on its arse.

 

“Come on Frank! You must know that when there are enough folk telling you you’re wrong, or you’re mad, you begin to believe them…it’s all about conformity…”

 

It was my turn to shut up. We weren’t conformists. We were anything but.

 

I told them how Colin had screamed when I’d first entered his head…and then I told them everything else; it just cascaded out in a whole ‘what I did on my holidays’ kind of a way.

 

“So you’ve got her name?” Gordon enthused.

 

“Yes…but only a first name…”

 

“That should be enough for Ralph to find out the rest, don’t you think?” I could tell Frank wanted to be supportive, but it was clear he shared my doubts.

 

“Hmmm…listen, I have to go – I want to see Ralph. Could you get Colin to contact me when he finishes up here?”

 

“Of course, anything,” I think Frank was beginning to warm to me.

 

****

 

“Chris you say?” Ralph looked thoughtful.

 

“Yeah – sorry I’ve only got the first name…”

“That should be enough…I’ve a feeling I know who that is…” he smiled enigmatically.

 

“How will you…?”

 

“I’ll have to go into, er, work – I’ll have to see them face to face – I won’t be taking any chances,”

 

“Are you going to be ok?”

 

He gave me the slightest glimpse of a smile and said, “Yeah, I should be ok…”

 

I watched as Ralph left the flat. Even now I doubted him. I’d given him, possibly, the identity of a government agent who was using the system to live a little. The conservative powers that be were most unlikely to see this type of behaviour in a favourable light.

 

It was mid-afternoon and I was knackered. Piloting, albeit for a short time, was exhausting. Manfully, I took to my bed. I was so close…so close. So close to what? Finding the only woman I’ve ever felt this way about? What if she isn’t all she seems? What if I’m a shallow bastard and looks are everything? Maybe it’s not just me – maybe that’s how we all choose our mates – we just pretend it’s otherwise because that would be shallow. No, that’s how we get to know folk in the first place – we’re attracted to them – then we move onto the more emotional and cerebral phase. I’d fancied hundreds of women in my time – I’d only ever felt that connection with Jen…er, Chris…

 

I was woken up by the interminable ringing of that bloody thing next to my bed. No matter how long I tried to hang onto sleep, it just kept on ringing…

 

“What?” I barked, poking the screen.

 

“Hi, er, Barney, it’s me, Colin… George… I was wondering if we could meet up…?”

 

“I…er…what?” then as it gradually came back to me, “Colin! George!! It would be great…where do you want to meet?”

 

“There’s a children’s play park just around the corner from you – no-one ever goes there, I’ll meet you there if that’s ok?”

 

“Sure…when?”

 

“How does now sound?”

 

“Perfect, I’m on my way…”

 

I sat in the sunlight on one of the swings – it was amazing – nobody, absolutely nobody was around. I breathed in deeply. The air outside was astonishingly similar to that inside – processed and fucking homogenised – I’m sure it was good for me.

 

“Colin? Hi…” I stretched out my hand and wobbled on the swing at the same time.

 

The shortish, roundish completely bald Colin to my hand in both of his and shook it warmly, “Barney – it’s a pleasure…”

 

He sat on the swing next to mine, “You know,” he smiled, “if I hadn’t just been in a life where I’d grown up with swings, I’d have no idea what to do with this,”

 

“No…but there again, we haven’t got any children – there haven’t been any children for hundreds of years…”

 

“…and that’s why all the swings and stuff are adult sized – of course…”

 

“Colin?”

 

“Yes Barney?”

 

“Are you ok? I mean do you remember who you are and what this place is?”

 

“I’m fine…I’m fine…I remember everything from being George – fuck, that was some roller coaster ride…!”

 

“Did you get any visitors after I’d left?”

 

“No, thankfully…” he looked down at his feet, “You know Barney, for most of George’s life I really thought I was mad – I don’t think co-hosting’s a good idea…”

 

“But you don’t feel any amnesia – I mean, this is all familiar to you?”

 

“Yes, yes it is…If I’m honest though, I just feel incredibly sad…”

 

“Sad? Why?”

 

Without looking up he sighed a big sigh, “I just feel I’ve lost someone really close to me…I’ll get over it…”

 

“No, tell me, what do you mean? Did you meet up with Jen again? Did you see my mum? What happened?”

 

“The Jen you knew left shortly after you died…”

 

“What? How do you know?”

 

“I tried talking to her – she genuinely had no idea who I was or who you were…”

 

“So she…the real Jen…must have spent all that time bound and gagged at the back of her mind?”

 

“Yeah, she must have – from what I could make out she knew nothing about that particularly dark period of her life…”

“So this Chris who I’m looking for – as well as coming back to get me – chose to use Jen’s life as some kind of theme park?”

 

“Well, yeah, I guess…”

 

“So Jen…the real Jen…has no idea what happened to her over those months?”

 

“No…”

 

“Fucking Hell – that’s outrageous!” I was fuming.

 

“That’s not what I wanted to talk to you about though…” Quietly and firmly.

 

“It’s not?” It fucking should be.

 

“No, after all this had died down I went back to see your mum…”

 

“You did?”

 

“She really was beautiful…”

 

The skin prickled on the back of my neck, “She was? Yes, she was…”

 

Colin smiled a sad smile and told me how she and he had started going out together. How he’d eventually moved in, and how they enjoyed a beautiful, normal, life. I laughed as he recalled the first time he saw her. I’d taken scant notice of him in the refectory that day – I only had eyes for her. Seemingly he’d felt exactly the same way. They lived and loved right up until he died in his late eighties.

 

I was crying unashamedly – so was he – we both remembered how beautiful and wonderful life could really be.

 

“That’s really all I wanted to tell you,” he sniffed, “I told Frank and Gordon that I couldn’t do that again,”

 

“No…no, I understand,” I felt so happy and sad all at the same time. I was delighted to hear that mum hadn’t been alone for the rest of her life. On top of that though, I was overjoyed to know that it had been with this lovely, warm and affectionate man.

 

 “Barney, I think I know why you kept going back for more…”

 

“Yeah, I know, but you said you’re not…”

 

“No – I don’t think I can…I mean, I don’t want to…”

 

“Colin, are you ok? Is there anything I can do?”

 

“No…nothing I can think of…” after all he’d told me about his wonderful life with my mum he sounded so flat.

 

“You realise you’ve given me more here than I had ever hoped for? I mean – fuck – to hear that mum had had this life – this life with someone like you – Colin, I can’t thank you enough…”

 

“Sure,” he flashed me a quick smile, “It was fantastic – you know how to get in touch with me…”

 

He stretched out his hand for me to shake it. I hopped off the swing and gave him a full life-depends-on-it hug.

 

Wow! Wow! I hadn’t expected that. I watched his lonely, slightly hunched figure walk off and out of sight.

 

****

 

I had a definite swing in my step when I walked back into the apartment. I was met with Ralph and a squintish smile dancing around his lips.

 

“You first,” he nodded seeing my ludicrously happy gait.

 

I spilled everything Colin had told me.

 

“Hmmm…you know something Barney?” he was nibbling his bottom lip.

 

“No, tell me…”

 

“This living thing might have something to it…”

 

“You know Ralph, you could be right…”

 

“Far be it for me to lower the happy ambience…”

 

“Oh, you didn’t find out anything?”

 

“Indeed I did – here’s the name and address of the person of your dreams…”

 

“What really?” I felt like a kid on Christmas Eve, I was so excited. I held the piece of paper with her name and address in front of me as if I could somehow will myself there.

 

“Really, be careful what you wish for…” were the words I hardly heard as I sped out of the door.  

 

I jumped in the car and spoke the address. It thundered into life. The journey time, it told me, would be just over half an hour. Fuck, can’t this thing go any faster? I looked around frantically for a button that said ‘Go Faster’ but it didn’t exist.

 

“Go faster,” I shouted.

 

The car proceeded to torture me with a long boring tale about how it travelled at the optimum speed for my safety, the safety of pedestrians and the safety of the environment.

 

It obviously hadn’t fully taken into account my safety since when it finally finished its monotonous diatribe I was quite ready to kill myself.

 

The door was opened by a tall, dark curly-haired, bearded man.

 

“Chris?”

 

 My mind did cartwheels as I tried to come to terms with it all.

 

We – as in the bit of us that exists as consciousness are subatomic particles. As such it stands to reason that we must, in essence, be asexual. OK, ok, come on John… this was looking good on paper, but did I really believe it?

 

There was this guy at school, Paul, who, if the circumstances had been different may have been the object of my desire. When I was talking to him in the sixth form common room he’d repeatedly undo and redo my school tie. I really liked the attention. It would have been one easy step to…

 

But we didn’t. I got my jollies from women. They looked lovely with their feminine faces and womanly ways… But what was that? What was a feminine face? Surely there was a continuum somewhere of the masculine through to the feminine appearance? There were men who appeared on the feminine side and there were women who appeared on the…

 

What about the Ladycocks of Bangboy??? If I was completely honest I wouldn’t have minded doing a few rounds with any of them. But that was because they looked feminine – they were supposed to look like girls.

 

Nature or nurture?

 

I don’t fucking know. I remember mum ensured that I played with dolls when I was little – I had some vague recollection of slipping into a frock when I was eight…

 

What about internet porn and what I got up to in the privacy of my own computer pornworld?

 

Does love truly transcend all?

 

That fucking beard would have to go though…

 

“Chris? No, she’s through here,” the big hairy man smiled as he guided me through to the lounge.  

 

xxxxwarning adult themes and that kind of stuff - don't read this bit if you're mary woodhouse... er...whitehouse xxxxx

Pilots - the rest of chapter 10

 

“Technically, I think you could call this stalking,” George whispered somewhere back in my, er his, head.

 

“Technically I think you’ll find that after I’m long gone, it’ll be you and you’re body picking up any tab for crimes of harassment if we get caught,”

 

“Perhaps I should be taking a little more control here then…”

 

“There again?”

 

“Ok, but don’t do anything really stupid – remember, I have to live this life after you’ve buggered off again…”

 

We were nonchalantly sitting on a small brick wall on the corner of Jen’s street. We had no idea whether or not she was in her flat. We hadn’t come prepared – we weren’t sitting at a bus-stop, we weren’t reading a newspaper, or a book – George didn’t have a mobile phone that we could pretend to be on for hours…

 

“What about neighbourhood watch?” I whispered.

 

“What about them?” slightly anxious.

 

“This is curtain twitchin’ country if I’m not mistaken…”

 

“Hmm? And your point is?”

 

“We can’t just sit here all night…”

 

“It’s you that’s sitting here…”

 

“Hmm – you’re right – fair point, well made,”

 

“Why don’t you go and knock on her door?”

 

“And say what exactly? No, I need to get a boiler suit from somewhere…”

 

“What? What are you going to do with a boiler suit?”

 

“Well, I thought we could knock on the door and be generic workman talking about a general utilities problem…”

 

“That’s shit – that really is shit…”

 

“I’ve seen it in loads of cop shows – the bad guy gains access to the home of the unsuspecting and vulnerable…”

 

“For fuck’s sake – that isn’t going to work – she’s some kind of agent from the future – she just isn’t going to fall for something quite so…”

 

“Stupid?” I offered.

 

“I didn’t like to say…”

 

A light went on in her flat. It was getting dark and Mrs Do The Right Thing of twenty-seven Acacia Avenue was poised over her phone ready to report the strange man sitting on her wall.

 

I got up and started walking towards Jen’s flat.

 

“What are you doing? What’s the plan?”

 

“I’m going to tell her who I am…”

 

“You’re what…Are you insane? Hey I kinda liked saying that about someone else, I’ll try that again – are you insane?”

 

“Listen George, I don’t know how long I’ve got – just let me do this…”

 

Silence.

 

“George? George, are you still there?” Panicked.

 

“Where else would I be? I was just thinking – ok – do this, but if things start to go tits up, I’m taking over – ok?”

 

“Sure, sure…that’s fine…”

 

To any other person wandering the earth the idea of an ex-lover knocking on their door dressed as…er…someone else would be somewhat disconcerting. Surely though, to Jen, or whoever she was, this would be run of the mill…well, not exactly run of the mill…perhaps more run of the…

 

“Hello?” her eyes peered around the corner of the front door in response to my jaunty knock. The chain was firmly in place.

 

“Hi Jen, it’s me…”

 

She rubbed her eyes as if this might help her to work out who the middle aged guy was standing at her door, “Who’s me?”

 

“John – er – Barney – you know me, er intimately…”

 

“I don’t know any John or Barney,” she moved to shut the door.

 

“You asked me to fuck you up the arse on our first date!” I hissed through the rapidly decreasing crack in the door.

 

She paused.

 

“Ok, wait there a second…”

 

She vanished for a moment, then came back and undid the chain. The door swung open, “In you come,” she half-smiled.

 

I took one step over the doorway and was met with a comedy clang. My legs gave way as everything went black.

 

*****

 

I awoke to find myself at the back of George’s mind. We were tied to a kitchen chair – well, more taped – and gagged.

 

“Let me take control again – I need to talk to her…”

 

George made a few unsuccessful attempts to reply but, given the gag, his words came out in snottery grunts. Finally he yielded and gave me control of the mother ship again so that he could tell me what was on his mind.

 

“Yes of course, let’s give you control again – I mean, you really slipped under her radar there, didn’t you? I didn’t think you’d be stupid enough to tell her who you were…Even the boiler suit would have been better than this…Did she really ask for anal sex…?”

 

I’d seen a lot of movies where the protagonist had been rendered impotent with the use of tape and a chair. Quite frankly, I didn’t believe it. So, while George was rambling on I took matters into my own hands and went for the jumping about wriggle approach. This was met with limited success in that I, we, George fell over and smacked our collective head off the bottom of the table.

 

“You really are a fucking cock, aren’t you?” I wasn’t sure if that voice had come from my own internal dialogue or George as he wittered on in the background.

 

Things were made only slightly worse when Jen used the frying pan that she’d presumably utilised earlier in our interaction to smack me on the elbow.

 

“Jesus Christ!” we were certainly in agreement there.

 

I looked at Jen. She was still beautiful, but she’d taken on a more sinister persona as she stalked around me looking for a protruding bit of George to practice her very accomplished forehand on.

 

“Tell me, Barney, John and…?”

 

“Gmmmf!” I said helpfully.

 

“…and Gumf…what exactly are you up to?”

 

“Mmmf…uuummm…ffffff…” I rolled my eyes for effect.

 

Jen wandered around her kitchen for a second and returned brandishing a knife with what looked like a four-inch blade.

 

“Fuck!” George barked silently.

 

She grabbed George’s hair and pushed his head forward aggressively. Shit, were we just going to be executed back to our own time? I was suddenly aware that death no longer held the fear that it had for me. Sure, a stab to the back of the head was going to hurt more than a little – but we could be back again, buggering about in no time…

 

I felt the point of the knife in the nape of my neck. I closed my eyes tight and awaited the inevitable. With a flick of her wrist, the knife sliced through the tea towel she’d used to gag us – she pulled it away with a magicians’ flourish.

 

“Talk – who’s this?”

 

“George, he’s…” my mouth felt sticky and dry.

 

“Unimportant…”

 

I winced at her callousness.

 

“Jen, I…”

 

“Stop. All I need to know is how you got back here. It wasn’t through Pilots, was it?” she stroked her hair back from her face.

 

This was ludicrous – in spite of my somewhat precarious predicament, one look at her and my heart was pounding. My face flushed and my mouth moved involuntarily. Even in George’s body I felt horny as Hell. Lust or love? Lust or love? It was hard to tell.

 

“Just talk…” was that a flash in her eyes? A smile playing around her lips?

 

I thought about George. He was handsome in the same way that mum was pretty. He looked young for his years – he’d obviously preserved himself well in his miniature rainforest. Certainly on the Dawson – Cluney scale (Where Dawson is Les Dawson and Cluny is of the George variety) George scored somewhere between an eight and a nine. As John, I guess I was a five and as Barney…fuck, as Barney I didn’t feel like a sexual creature at all.

 

“Fucking talk!” George prompted from somewhere.

 

“Jen, I…er…” my mouth felt out of my control.

 

“Talk – let’s just start with something simple shall we…? What are you doing here?”

 

Again I looked at her – she was still in control but less distant and austere. What had happened in the hospital? We’d kissed. It had been the most wonderful experience of my life.

 

I started to cry.

 

“C’mon Barney, it’s ok…it’ll be ok,” George whispered.

 

I cried harder – uncontrollably.

 

“I told you about my Subutteo finger,” I wailed.

 

Thankfully I had – with all this pissing about with time, there was I chance I hadn’t…

 

“Sshh John,” she knelt down beside me and stroked my face, “It’ll be ok – everything’s going to be ok…”

 

I was struck with how pathetic I was. Even in someone else’s body I was ridiculous. I cried more and more – I just wanted my mum.

 

“Hey, hey, c’mon now…” Jen was suddenly cutting me loose, her eyes had welled up too.

 

Once she’d finally cut all the ties I lay face down and cried with my face buried in my arms. I didn’t want anyone to look at me or touch me. I didn’t want this – any of it – this life or my other one.

 

“Barney, it’s ok…” George coaxed quietly, “She’s untied us – I can overpower her and…”

 

“Don’t you fucking dare!” I bellowed, “Don’t you fucking touch her…”

 

Jen jumped back, alarmed at my outburst.

 

I pulled myself to my feet – I felt useless, “Don’t touch her…” I whispered.

 

“Ok, ok Barney – this is yours…” I could feel George backing away further.

 

I gave Jen an awkward smile. I felt limp.

           

Jen stared into my eyes. I could concern in hers. Her head was tilted slightly as she returned my cock-eyed grin.

 

“Oh John,” she reached out and held my face with her right hand. I grasped her wrist and pushed my cheek onto her palm.

 

My breath was still shuddering from the tears.

 

She stepped forward and pulled me to her. I held her tightly as nuzzled her hair. I felt her hands on my back – her fingers digging into me. I pulled away and held her face in my hands.

 

“Oh God…” she frowned at me.

 

“Oh God…what?”

 

“Oh God…this…” she stood up on her tip-toes and kissed me gently on the corner of my mouth. I was suddenly aware that George was taller than me.

 

I kissed her hair and pulled her into me again.

 

She led me over to her sofa and we sat down staring at each other. She leant over and kissed my neck. I gently pulled her hair – turning her face to mine. We kissed so gently, our lips and tongues just brushing and caressing. She pulled my hair, firmer now, and with some urgency she forced her tongue deep into my mouth. I kissed her cheeks and worked my way down to her neck – nibbling softly as she gasped.

 

She pulled my face back up to meet hers and bombarded me with small kisses. Her hand reached down and rubbed my thigh – her nails tracing a line to my…

 

I grabbed her wrist, “No…I…this isn’t just….”

 

“I know…I know,” she placed my hand on her chest – I could feel her heart thudding underneath.

 

“Good God!” I laughed.

 

“Let’s go to bed…”

 

“Doesn’t this break your rule…?”

“Well,” she shrugged, “Technically no, you’re in a different body…”

 

“Don’t mind me…” was George panting?

 

“Haven’t you got some meditation you could be doing…?” I whispered.

 

“What?” she looked at me quizzically.

 

“Well, technically this is a threesome…er,”

 

“Really, I’m off, I’m out of here – just tell me if you had a nice time…” with that, George vanished

 

We undressed gazing at each other. I was scrutinizing me too. George was a fine specimen in most ways.

 

We dived under her duvet giggling like idiots. Her hand wandered between my legs as we kissed. She cupped my balls and gently ran her fingernail up the length of my erect cock.

 

I kissed her neck and gently pushed my index finger into her.

 

“You’re soaking,” I grinned.

 

“No shit – can’t imagine why,” she laughed as she pulled my foreskin right back.

 

“Mmmmmmmaaaaarrrrggggghhhh!” I groaned with the delight of her touch, “I have to kiss you…”

 

I dived between her legs and opened my mouth wide over her cunt. She was still shaved and I bathed in her rapture as she squealed and arched as my tongue found it’s way around her lips. I squeezed her arse and pushed my tongue deeper into her…

 

“Give me that cock…” she moaned so softly as she leant over and took me in her mouth. I pulled her hair as pushed myself up to meet her. She gently worked her tongue all around my knob.

 

“Stop! I can’t concentrate if you do that…” I yelped.

 

“But it’s soooo nice,” she grinned back at me.

 

I found her clit with my tongue, sucked it, and began to gently circle it.

 

“Aaaaahhh – you bastard!” she laughed, “That’s too fucking good…where’d you learn to do that?”

 

“I had a pretty good – albeit directive – tutor,” I smiled as I resurfaced.

 

“Don’t stop on my account,” she pulled my hair gently as she rose to meet my mouth.

 

This was gorgeous. This was what it was all about. I wet my finger and softly rubbed her hard clit as she licked and sucked my balls.

 

“No, no, no… this is no good – I want to be inside you…”

 

“There’s a happy coincidence,” we smile-kissed as she climbed on top of me, easing my cock into her.

 

“Oh my God…” I threw my head back into the pillows as she began to ride me.

 

She came down to meet me and we smothered each other in kisses – inhaling this wonderful moment in time.

 

“Do you like this…?” she grinned fiendishly as she clenched her cunt around my cock.

 

“Do I? Do I? I’m not sure if I could sustain too much of that though…”

 

“Don’t worry…just let yourself go…”

 

“Can you come like this though?” ever the gentleman.

 

“Oh yes, all I have to do is this…” she pushed herself down onto me, rubbing her clit against the base of my cock, “…and that…fuck…should do the job…”

 

“Oh my…fucking Hell Jen…” I grabbed her arse as I thrust harder and faster into her.

 

I had just the most fleeting dalliance with my Russian Peasant farmers before Jen stared at me and whispered, “I’m coming…mmmmyaaahh…oh fuck…oh…”

 

I thought it would be rude not to join her in what was clearly quite an enjoyable experience and exploded, erupted and ejaculated inside her.

 

She collapsed on top of me, laying her head on my chest, kissing the hair that hadn’t previously been there.

 

“That was rather nice,” she whispered as she circled my nipple with her index finger.

 

“Yes…yes…it was…”

 

“Yes…yes…it was…”

 

“Jen, I…”

 

“I know, I know…sshh now…”

 

“I want to know who you really are…”

 

“You can’t John…”

 

“It’s Barney…my name’s Barney…”

 

“Why do you have to spoil this? Can’t you just accept this as a…as a holiday romance?”

 

“No…no I bloody can’t…don’t you see…it’s you I love – no matter who I’m wrapped up in – no matter who you’re wrapped up in – I love you…”

 

“You don’t know me – you’ve no idea who I am or what I do…” she rolled off and lay next to me as we both stared at the ceiling.

 

“Don’t you get it? This is you. I’m the same guy – Barney or John – we’re the same,”

 

“No…no…that’s not right. I came back here to do a job – I’m doing it – then I’ll go back…that’s it – we’ve got separate lives,”

 

“It doesn’t have to be that way…”

 

“It can’t be any other way,”

 

“Why not? Why can’t we have a shot at living happily ever after?”

 

“You’ve seen the future John…Barney…fuck…this kind of thing doesn’t happen,”

 

“What, what are you talking about?”

 

“People don’t do this – there’s no need – there’s no…impulse…”

 

I thought about that for a moment. She was right – I hadn’t met many women there but…she was right…Instead of playing through my usual sexual fantasies there’d been nothing. That was quite understandable with Dr Pope the androgynous beast – but what about the girl in the bar? What about freedom fighter woman? I’d have normally entertained a little something about them. But there had been nothing. Oh shit. Maybe future Jen and me could meet up and hang out together. We could go and watch the H-Surfers together…

 

“Fuck – you’re right – there’s nothing. No wonder I kept on coming back. I must have been looking for something…”

 

“Sex?”

 

“No…no… I was looking for this…this whatever it is you and I have at this very moment,”

 

“When you boil it all down – it’s sex – isn’t it? Feelings come and go…don’t they…”

 

“You don’t believe that, do you? Sure, when you got here you fucked everything that moved…you got your jollies – but that wasn’t it…was it?”

 

“I’m not sure…”

 

 

“Come on Jen. You tried everything – some of it good some of it bad – you’re like me – you just want to experience life. You’re just doing it under another guise. You pretend to be working for the authorities – whoever they may be – and yet all you’re doing is the same as me – you just want to live!”

 

“I’m not like you – you’re some poor guy who became ill because a desire to be someone else…you’ve lost yourself. You don’t know who you are or what you want…”

 

“Jesus Jen, you’re just not being honest with yourself. What’s there in the future? I’ll tell you – a whole population too scared to live and fucking terrified to die. A whole world full of people suffering from Subutteo finger. It’s nothing…fuck it, I’m getting up.”

 

We both got dressed in silence.

 

I got to the kitchen first, “D’you want a drink?” I grunted.

 

“Yeah, tea please…” she whispered sadly.

 

I stood at the kitchen counter and said, “Tea please,”

 

When nothing happened, I raised my voice, “Tea please,”

 

Again nothing happened – I began to jump about, “Where’s my synthetic nutritionally balanced fucking tea? I know you’re in there somewhere you bastard! Give me my fucking tea or…”

 

“It’s in the cupboard…”

 

“I know it’s in the cupboard…I was making a point…”

 

“What point were you making?” still quietly.

 

“That here...here in your very kitchen I have the right to make a cup of tea where I’ll be at risk of burning myself – I’ll be at risk of drinking a nutritionally unbalanced drink – fuck, I could even use milk that’s slightly off if I wanted to…”

 

“You could…” she smiled

 

“I could even do it in the nude, whilst fondling your lovely bazonkas, thus putting us both horrifically at risk…”

 

“My name’s Chris…”

 

“Wha…?”

 

And with that I was gone.