Shards (8 page)

That did the trick!

His arm is a hell of a lot less
demanding about being scratched now. Even better, when he does
scratch, which he does, his nerves are much less enthusiastic about
doing the jig.

Blood pools on the cushion and
flows in little torrents into the cracks in between. The pain is
still incredible, but rather than messing up the sofa further, he
raises his injured foot over the back of the sofa and leans into
the corner. The carpet can be cleaned. He laughs a little with his
leg in the air. The temptation enters his mind to turn on the TV to
see if his new flesh and steel aerial would help with the
reception.

Of course, it won't.

He turns back to his itch.

He flexes his cold hand---his
dying hand, he corrects---while he rakes his nails in slow arcs along
his arm. If it wasn't for the skewer in his foot, he'd be able to
luxuriate in the sensation.

As he passes directly over the
ragged lump, he notices a subtle change. A new pain blossoms as he
touches it. The lump is weeping once more. That clear stuff mostly,
a little blood. But there's something different. It feels
harder.

Maybe it is a wrist bone?

He clenches his cold hand but
it continues to grow colder by the second. The blood covering his
wrist and forearm has caked. It's crimson-brown in the failing
light, sticky and irritating now. The warmth it once held is
gone.

He squints to examine the
condition of his hand, but the sunlight just isn't there. He'd get
up to turn on the light, but ... Skewers in the fleshy part of the
foot might help nerve sensitivities, but they suck when it comes to
walking.

The dried blood feels like a
coat of paint, stuck there for good, a scarlet bandage. He
scratches at it, ignoring for a moment the hard raised lump. It
does no good. The blood's there to stay.

Still scratching, still
sprawled over the sofa, he spies the bloody handprint on the coffee
table once more.

It's a nice handprint. Strong.
Virile, even.

He studies his scratched-up
forearm, the caked skin with hairs caught like bugs in tar. The
hand at the end of it is growing stiffer, colder.

He ceases his scratching and
prodding. He tunes into the silence. Concentration music.
Silence.

At last, he notices a second
lump, then a third, slowly pushing up through the skin.

Then his eyes come to rest on
the kitchen drawer near his foot, and all the utensils therein. The
knives, the scissors, the sharp and unfathomable things that belong
to a kitchen.

He looks from the utensils to
the handprint on the table to his own hand, and back again.

Sharp. Metal.

His hand. Dying. To be
reborn.

(His old hand to be shed? A
stumpy arm the trade-off?)

The bloody handprint. $239
overdue to the power company. Six elegant smears.

His hand. Dying.

Sharp. Metal.

He props himself up awkwardly,
still careful to keep his dripping foot elevated off the sofa
(carpet steam-cleaning from $39, same day service, gets all the
niggly stains out), as he rummages through the drawer once
more.

His fingers pass across the
razor edges of the scissors, a cleaver, and several knives, before
he decides. This time he retrieves two items---another skewer and the
cheese grater (barely used, only a hint of rust).

He flicks through the
reflexology book while doing his best to ignore the rising itch
from the new lumps.

(Scratch me! Scratch me!)

The page found, he memorises
the nerve point of the foot linked to his hand, his dying hand.

Before he does the deed a
second time, he tests the weight of the grater against his skin.
It's cold and prickly on the back of his hand, but not much colder
than the skin itself. He lightly runs the grater along his hand and
wrist, down to the newly formed lumps.

(SCRATCH ME!)

It feels good. The itch is
appeased for the moment.

He smiles and wonders what life
will be like with his magnificent new hand. "Lopsided" he says, and
then chuckles.

He listens to the silence in
the house as darkness completely takes hold. It's a good moment.
Dark. Quiet.

There's just the matter of a
stab to the foot and a little carving. Grating, to be precise. The
new hand needs room to grow.

He nods and closes his eyes,
and then begins the long task of scratching.

* * *

Stop

STOP.

The sign stood guardian to the
intersection of Wedgewood Road and Joondalup Drive. A busy arterial
feeding onto an even busier four-laner. This time of the morning,
the peak-hour traffic was near-suicidal.

STOP.

Paul heeded the sign every day
on his morning drive to work. It was the first marker of his daily
drudgery. Every morning it was red and cheery in its way but always
there to regulate. To safeguard and protect. He'd often nod his
head to the STOP sign in those moments before a gap opened in the
traffic that he could exploit. He'd sometimes mutter "hi" when he
nodded, more to unrust his vocal chords than to greet the sign.

This morning, the sign appeared
sombre as he approached the line of cars at the intersection. The
red octagon appeared darker, sharper, more intense about stopping
the Wedgewood Road traffic. Ahead, a white Mitsubishi waited for
more than two minutes at the intersection before slipping free.
Paul noted the traffic gaps appear but the dark red of the STOP
sign held sway over car and driver. Not even the honking of the
three cars ahead of him could overcome the sign's thrall.

STOP means STOP. In bold white
letters. STOP.

As Paul crept forward, intent
on the flow of traffic, he kept glancing at his watch. The blue
Toyota that had pulled to the front of the queue in the
Mitsubishi's wake was halted for nearly three minutes. Again, the
gaps appeared as cars rumbled along Joondalup Drive. Again, the
driver delayed a fraction too long each time, caught in the red
glare of the STOP sign. The Toyota eventually escaped to a chorus
of car horns.

Within a dozen metres of the
sign, his pulse slowed and thickened. The "hi" and casual nod he'd
mentally rehearsed faltered as much as the driver's nerve up
ahead.

STOP. There was a message in
that. STOP.

He glanced at his watch again.
7.44 am. With a three minute average wait time to break onto
Joondalup Drive, two minutes to the freeway, and an unbroken
thirty-five minute run into the city, he'd timed his morning to
perfection.

Another car scraped into the
flow of traffic. Its entry onto Joondalup Drive was sluggish and a
minivan was forced to slow down to allow the car in.

"Hi," Paul muttered to the STOP
sign. Ritual was important, even if mistimed. His jaunty nod was
barely more than a twitch.

He looked up at the sign and
stopped. It was crimson, as though flushed with blood.

STOP. An eye with a white pupil
swimming in red. Its gaze, stern and uncompromising, anchored him
in his driver's seat. His legs were dead weights. Pins and needles
tingled along them. The sensation pulsed through his fingers, too,
as he gripped the wheel tighter.

He blinked. The tradie's ute
ahead of him had taken off. Brakes squealed as a passing sedan
nearly slammed into the ute. To Paul, the ute moved like a sliding
brick, seeming to lose momentum the further it pulled out onto
Joondalup Drive. A crash was barely avoided when the braking sedan
chopped into the inside lane, giving the ute a long horn blast as
it went past.

His turn now. A lull in traffic
loomed, enough for him to merge with seconds to spare. He tapped at
the accelerator, stuttered forward, and then pumped the brake. The
car rocked from the sudden halt. His heart rocked with the car,
filling his chest to bursting.

A horn blasted from behind. He
flinched at the sound, checked the rear-view mirror and saw an
Asian woman scowling over the top of her too-big steering wheel.
She blasted the horn, a staccato rumble from deep within the bowels
of her Landcruiser, to dispel any doubt as to who was in the
right.

Paul wrenched his gaze from
her, took a second to study his own flushed face, calm his pounding
heart, and then stared at the sign again.

It was just a sign. His sign:
STOP. Holding him in place.

It had grown darker. The shade
of congealed blood.

"Come on," Paul muttered at his
dashboard, "no more."

The Landcruiser blasted its
horn again. Another gap had opened in the traffic, but closed too
quickly for him to move. Even if he'd been on the ball, it was too
risky for him, too small a gap. Obviously, the woman behind him
disagreed.

His heart thudded harder than
before as the seconds ticked away. Cars and trucks thundered past.
Their colours blurred and swam. His life---friends and deals and
missed opportunities, the loves lost and gains never ventured---it
all passed before him like the traffic. Fleeting, all of it.
Moments of caution punctured by STOP signs.

Another car horn sounded from
behind, joined by the now-familiar boom of the Landcruiser.

Paul flinched. He hit the
accelerator and the car leapt forward into the stream of
vehicles/memories flashing before his eyes.

A different horn blasted once,
twice, much louder and coming from the side. He didn't see the
bullbar expanding to fill his driver's side window. Instead, his
eyes were still fixed on the STOP sign. His forward progress
couldn't get him past its red face. The sign blazoned its white
letters S T O P into his mind, its scarlet background filling his
consciousness.

He didn't stop, though; he sped
forward, heedless of the sign's warning, heedless of his instincts,
and closed his eyes at the last, shutting STOP out of his thoughts
for one fleeting moment.

For the first time in his life,
he abandoned the comfort of the signs, his sign, STOP, and took a
chance.

The bullbar slammed into his
door, into Paul, but the sign had lost its sway.

STOP means STOP, but for the
first time in his life, and the last, Paul chose not to.

* * *

Postcard from Paris (A Reply)

Dearest Chrissie,

Thank you for your postcard
from Paris. I never imagined you could do that at the Louvre!
Backpacking must be such a wonderful adventure. I'm glad you've
found such good friends in Peta and Ulrik. Especially Ulrik, it
seems.

I've framed your card, together
with the ones from Amsterdam and Stockholm, and that picture of you
I've always loved. You remember, the one where you're in the red
hotpants? It's on the wall right now, one big collage of you
staring at me, just above the picture of your parents and Nate.

I was heartbroken when I
couldn't come up with the money to join you. Six months without you
is gonna be hard. I've been missing you terribly and it's only been
six weeks. You make me ache. Uni life has been even more demanding
since you left and they cut back my hours at work, so it looks like
I won't be able to join you at all.

However, I've enclosed little
pieces of home so you'll always remember me. Yeah, I know you said
you've "fallen in love" with Ulrik (and thanks for breaking the
news via postcard, by the way) but I'll forgive you for that lapse.
It's holiday romance gone to your head, that's all. You'll see that
when you get home and the daily routine of life wraps its claws
around you once more.

I'm sure of it.

I'll always be here.

The enclosed little green pouch
is sand from where we strolled along Cottesloe beach. You remember?
The night we met. The night we made love under the stars. You said
it was the most romantic night of your life. At least, that's what
you told me. What do you tell Ulrik? I bet he can't even speak
English properly. His words probably come out like some retarded
ABBA wannabe. No doubt it gets you hot, though. You were always
into that exotic stuff.

Well, I can give you exotic---the
red pouch is a surprise. I took it from Nate. Your little bro was a
tad surprised when I did, but I thought you'd want a piece of your
family or two, to remind you of your roots. What does he need two
ears for anyway?

I hope you like what's in the
black pouch. You and Ulrik should learn from it. Your parents were
only too glad to offer help, particularly after I'd spent all those
hours with them. It was kind of them to allow me to send you their
wedding rings. Damn things were stuck on their fingers after so
many years, but as you'll see, I found a way around that problem.
Relationships are solemn things, Chrissie. Your parents know a good
relationship is give and take and share and share alike. There's
commitment---and there's sacrifice.

The rest of your Mum and Dad
are here with me now. Nate too. We're all here, waiting for you to
come home.

Come home soon. I think we can
still make it, you and I. I can't say the same about your folks.
You'd better hurry.

I love you, forever and
always.

Marcus.

PS. I don't know if you've used
my mittens yet, but Angelica, my tarantula, has been missing for a
while. They were her favourite hiding spot. Enjoy the rest of your
holiday.

* * *

Song of the Infernal Machine

The machine dominated the
warehouse. It was a vast collection of black titanium boxes and
cylinders flooding the space with an insidious hum. Between
towering tanks, bunches of steel tubes criss-crossed in a
labyrinthine tangle. Every so often, steam hissed into the stuffy
air. The contents, hidden behind the polished case, buzzed with
electricity. Sometimes, muffled noises---clawing, scratching,
moaning---escaped from behind the metal plates.

Life pulsed from the abyssal
bowels of the machine.