Forget Yourself (14 page)

cadunk cadunk.

The wooden board came loose and rattled against its neighbours. My anger built, spreading from my stomach to my lungs, down my arms and my legs till toes and fingertips trembled.

The door swung open, swaying on one hinge. Two eyes stared coldly. There he was.

“What do you want?” He was black-lined by the doorway.

“I want to talk.”

“No you don’t.”

“What does that mean? Talk to me,” I shouted.

“I mean.” He spoke the two monotone words as though they were the beginning and end of his sentence. He spoke again, his voice faster, “You aren’t interested in talking, Blondee.”

I opened my mouth to speak before being silenced, overridden by the torrent of quick, flat, lifeless words.

“Blondee, you’re interested in what you can get for yourself. You’re interested in how you perceive yourself, who you are, what you are. You’re interested in how others perceive you, in who they see you are, who they think you are. You’re not interested in talking: you’re not interested in thinking. You’re just trying to make an identity for yourself, trying to build a person out of the lump of flesh and hair which landed here. It’s exactly the same as all the others. There’s nothing left but you, because you’re trying to build a whole new person, and if that doesn’t take the whole of someone’s time, the whole of someone’s mind, then I don’t know what does.

“Of course everyone here needs an opinion on that, someone to test that experiment on. Someone to judge their achievement. So they get their little lovers and spend all their time impressing them. They try to impress them with this whole person they’ve built. But it’s pointless, neither is paying attention, neither is listening because really all they can hear is themselves. Each person trying to impress the other simply so they can impress themselves. Eventually it fails because no-one is really listening to anyone and they get angry, or frustrated, or bored, and the only time the other person then exists is as a nuisance they need to get rid of. And so they do. They get rid of each other and continue their experiment, searching for a whole new person to be a judge of it and start the whole fucking process over again.

“Actually, I know I said a moment ago that you’re the same as everyone else in the world, but that’s not true, is it? Most people just need the one person to size them up. But you need two. Your project must be so big, so great to need two separate people examine the creation that is Blondee—”

“Will you stop, just for one moment.”

“Why?”

“Just give me a moment.”

“No. And I know what people have said about me. It’s not your business, it’s not theirs, but I chose not to have a partner. I don’t want to work on building a person.”

“What happened with Frederick?”

“It doesn’t mean I don’t want to fuck. But I don’t need anyone to tell me how much they love me, when really they’re asking if
you
love them, if you love what they’ve made of themselves, out of nothing. I suppose you’ve said it, right? To both of them? Let—”

And I started walking away, but he continued in his monotone voice, and the walk became a run, until his dirty metallic opinions were far behind me, at the other end of the world, far away where he could chew on them, where he could gnaw on them crumbling his teeth and shattering his jaw, his skull caving in and body snapping and folding in on itself and folding and folding until there was nothing left.

I stopped as I reached our hut. I heard Burberry inside—she must have left the casino after me—loudly singing to herself, la-la notes without words, and I had never wanted to hold her so much, to hold her and kiss her neck, hold her and kiss her neck and say I love you.

WE WERE PICKING THE RATIONS TOGETHER
. It was one of my favourite activities. For the first time since talking with Pilsner I felt at ease.

“What do you think of this?” she asked, fuzz-furred peaches cradled by fingers. I smiled and nodded. She was choosing food, I furniture. I picked my way through large flat slabs of black plastic, large flat slabs of grey plastic, and small red foam disks. I felt at ease, easy enough to talk to her.

“I went to Pilsner’s.”

I fingered through sheets of foil. I couldn’t see her behind me but I pictured her face, puzzled, maybe annoyed. Lines building around her eyes.

“You did?”

“I did.”

“What happened?”

I paused over some small wooden blocks. There was a lot to choose from this week.

What happened? I didn’t want to go over it, not what he said. I had spent the past few days limb-locked with Burberry and collapsed into Frederick, my mind picking up each word of Pilsner’s. With Burberry’s breath over my forehead I knew he was wrong. With Frederick’s skin I knew he was a bitter old man.

“He’s a bitter old man,” I answered, turning to face her.“Hmm, I’m guessing it didn’t go too well then,” she uttered, holding up bananas. “I’ve not had these in a while—do you mind?”

“No. And no.”

“So he’s got a thing for Frederick but his cock was too limp to do anything about it. It’s not your problem. It’s not even Frederick’s. What about these?” She held two brown furry fruits. I’d never seen them before.

“What are they?” I took them in my hands, feeling them tickle my palms. I brought my nostrils to the fuzz-covered surface and sniffed. They smelt sweet, an old woman’s corpse rotting alone in a hut.

“You’ve not had them before? They’re good. They’re good, I used to have them with Tanned.” Her voice trailed. I handed the fruit back to her.

“Do you still miss Tanned?” Of course she did. They had been together countless rations and had only been broken for two or three.

“I do.” Her voice was soft. I stroked her arm.

A few moments drifted before we both turned and resumed picking and sorting and prodding and choosing. ‘These?’ she would ask and I would nod. ‘This?’ she would ask and I’d smile. I picked my way through the scraps of furniture but nothing was suitable. Soon she had her bags of food and I was stuck, unable to choose anything.

“Can I help you, madame?” Burberry asked.

“Can I help you madam?” is a phrase used to demonstrate concern and offer assistance.

“I suppose, sure.”

“What about this?” she picked up three planks of sand-blonde wood.

“There’s nowhere in the hut for them to go,” I answered.

“They can go outside.”

I nodded. I’d never placed anything outside. I thought of flagpoles and faceless empires. Names carved onto globes and tiny paintbrushes colouring the world the same shade.

This was the first time I had been unable to pick or choose rations, unable to claim any item as my own. She picked up the bags and placed one in my hand, gently brushing my cheek with her mouth and running a hand over my breast.

“I love you,” she said.

“I love you.”

The day ran by, it was rainy and so Burberry fell tired, stretching herself over the foam of the bed and letting her eyelids flutter. The boards we had collected were on the floor. I kissed and ran my hands over her, listening to her moans grow softer and softer, until they faded from her throat.

“I’m going out to see Frederick,” I whispered. She half-opened her eyes.

“Okay.”

“I’ll be back tomorrow.”

“Okay.” The words petered and vanished before they left her lips. Her breath fell into even rhythms. I looked around for a bag.

“So what is it you want to show me, Frederick?”

He grinned, his eyebrows furrowed, a mischief I had never noticed before. He wouldn’t speak, and so I jabbed at him with my fingers, each prod making him giggle.

There was nothing unusual about the chlorine pool. It was placid as ever, incapable of life but beautiful all the same. He wandered away.

“I don’t see anything,” I shouted after him. He knelt down a little distance from me, but when I stepped toward him he motioned me to stay. I lowered myself to the ground, bringing my face to the sky. The sun glowered fiercely, angry, furious at the fact that it must die, that it must leave us and cast us into night. The pale orange light the hot-tempered angered-red sun threw over us looked like urine, or gold.

I had seen gold once, in Pilsner’s grasping hands as he wandered from the rations cube clutching his prize. I hadn’t been in the world long and I treasured the sight—I had shared in the gift, having been able to look at it. Perhaps Frederick had seen it—it must have still been somewhere in Pilsner’s hut, saved, hidden away. Ration after ration the image slowly faded from my mind and even the exact colour of gold left me, but right then I imagined it was the same as the sky.

“Will you be long?” I called. He gave no answer and I prodded at the water, circle-waves dancing around my finger, the gigantic epicentre.

“All right—all right, Blondee, you can come over.”

Knees creaked and up I went. As I approached I could see he was surrounded. He was surrounded by a pubic mass of the tiny-trees, a mass of shrubs red-leaved, green-leaved. In front of him they spread, out and out, hundreds of the little trees gently swaying. It was a forest. Had I had that sight before? I had never thought about it. We were two giants once again, stood over the tree-tops and watching the hefty green-and-brown mass. They would be filled with birds, they would be crawling with insects, snakes hanging from branches which delicately filtered the sunlight.

He had made a forest.

“It’s so far from the city”, I said.

He smiled and told me that it would be okay.

“I went to Pilsner’s,” I said at last.

“I knew you would. I knew he wouldn’t like it.”

“He didn’t.”

“I know.”

The leaves changed with the sky. The breeze died and they stood, silent and sturdy. At one time the whole world had been forests, I knew that much. Even where we stood, within the four walls in which we had been reborn, there had been an endless mass of trees even here. There were birds. I only had a single memory of them, and of course it was hollow: there weren’t birds in our world. We could be in the middle of a city; we could be in the middle of an ocean. We were at the centre of a huge forest, all that is left of the outside, pristine, untouched, virgin and old.

Keep your place in the world.

It was early, it was page 2. I couldn’t be sure what my place was—triangle hut or circle or pool or courtyard. Frederick knew the quote and said that he was an artist. He said it made sense, and that the ones who didn’t keep their place had no sense of self, they had no centre and then, well, there were enough examples of that, there really were.

In his hut, in the dark, by his snores, I lay awake. Who was I? I was Blondee, and I had my own way of seeing the world, which no-one else could copy, or steal. Who was I? I was Blondee, with two lovers. I was Blondee, no occupation, no job, with enough time to sneak and wander and watch. But I didn’t have a place, or purpose. I saw Ketamine, her spider-writing, her new task of feeding us all.

I don’t remember when I fell asleep, but I did so telling myself who I was, doing my best to hide from the possibility that I’d never find an answer.

THE STONE WOMAN WAS SMALL
. What had happened? She had been life-sized before. Now she was shrunken; the size of a hand. In fact, there she was, in a hand, clutched by clumsy fingers. Chewed nails. The skin was thick and rough.