The Book of Strange New Things(12)

‘Don’t fight it, just go with it,’ the mouth on the forehead advised. ‘It’s temporary.’

He was too frightened to speak. This was no hallucination. This was what happened to the universe when you were no longer able to hold it together. Atoms in clusters, rays of light, forming ephemeral shapes before moving on. His greatest fear, as he dissolved into the dark, was that he would never see other humans the same way again.





3


The grand adventure could surely wait


‘Man, man, man.’ A deep, rueful voice from the formless void. ‘That shit is one bad, bad motherf*cker.’

‘Mind your language, BG. We got a religious person here with us.’

‘Well, ain’t that a lick on the dick. Gimme a hand outta this coffin, man.’

A third voice: ‘Me too. Me first.’

‘You’ll regret it, children.’ (This said with sing-song condescension.) ‘But OK.’ And there was a rustling and a grunting and a gasping and a muttering of hard labour.

Peter opened his eyes, but was too nauseous to turn his head towards the voices. The ceilings and walls seemed to be convulsing; the lights yo-yo’d. It was as though the solid framework of the room had turned elastic, walls billowing, ceiling flailing around. He shut his eyes against the delirium, but that was worse: the convulsions continued inside his skull, as though his eyeballs were inflating like balloons, as though the pulpy insides of his face might, any moment, squirt out through his nostrils. He imagined he could feel his brain filling up with – or being drained of – some vile, caustic liquor.

From elsewhere in the cabin, the grunting and scuffling went on, accompanied by deranged laughter.

‘You know, it’s pretty entertaining,’ remarked the mocking, sober voice, removed from the other two, ‘watching you guys flopping around on the floor like a couple of sprayed bugs.’

‘Hey, no fair! Damn system should wake us all up at the same time. Then we’d see who’s most fit.’

‘Well . . . ’ (The superior voice again.) ‘Somebody has to be first, I guess. To make the coffee and check that everything’s working.’

‘So go check, Tuska, and leave me and BG to slug it out for second place.’

‘Suit yourselves.’ Footsteps. A door opening. ‘You think you’ll have privacy? Dream on, people. I can watch you squirming around on the surveillance cameras. Smile!’

The door clicked shut.

‘Thinks the sun shines out of his ass,’ muttered a voice from the floor.

‘That’s ’cause you’re always kissin’ it, man.’

Peter lay still, gathering his strength. Intuitively he understood that his body would settle back to normal in its own good time, and that there was nothing gained in trying to function too soon, unless you were the competitive type. The two men on the floor continued to grunt and giggle and heave themselves about, in defiance of the chemicals that had allowed them to survive the Jump.

‘You gonna be the first one standing or am I?’

‘I’m up already, bro . . . see?’

‘You’re so full of shit, man. That ain’t standing, that’s leaning. Let go the bench.’

Sound of a body falling to the floor; more laughter.

‘See you do better, bro . . . ’

‘Easy.’

Sound of another body falling to the floor; dopey hysterics.

‘Forgot how bad it was, man.’

‘Nothing a half dozen cans of Coke won’t fix.’

‘Fuck that, man. A line of coke and you’re talkin’.’

‘If you want more drugs after this, you must be dumber than I thought.’

‘Just stronger, bro, just stronger.’

And so it went on. The two men sparred with each other, expelling bravado into the atmosphere, biding for time, until they were both on their feet. They grunted and panted as they rummaged in plastic bags, mocked each other’s taste in clothing, put on shoes, tested their bipedalism by walking around. Peter lay in his crib, breathing shallowly, waiting for the room to stop moving. The ceiling had calmed down, at least.

‘Yo, bro.’

A large face loomed into his range of view. For a second, Peter couldn’t recognise it as human: it seemed to be attached to the neck upside-down, with eyebrows on the chin and a beard at the top. But no: it was human, of course it was human, just very different from his own. Dark brown skin, a shapeless nose, small ears, beautiful brown eyes tinged with red. Neck muscles that could raise and lower an elevator in a twenty-storey shaft. And those eyebrow-like things on the chin? A beard. Not a full, furry beard, but one of those finely-sculpted fashion statements you could buy from a fancy barber. Years ago, it must have looked like a neat line drawn with a black felt-tip marker, but the man was middle-aged now, and the beard was patchy and speckled with grey. Advancing baldness had left him with just a few knobs of frizz on his head.

‘Pleased to meet you,’ croaked Peter. ‘I’m Peter.’

‘BG, bro,’ said the black man, extending a hand. ‘You want I pull you outta there?’

‘I . . . I might prefer to lie here a bit longer.’

‘Don’t wait too long, bro,’ said BG, with a radiant white grin. ‘You shit your pants, and it’s a small ship.’