XXVIII
Half expecting her every molecule to dissolve or be shattered like glass, The Young Cripple and T both prepared for the worst, with the young girl squeezing her eyes as tight as she could and her hands, clamped to her chest; while the boy set his radio to flight mode. They landed, though, on the other side of the door, without much kerfuffle. The girl rolled a bit and dusted up her knees, but it wasn’t quite nearly as dramatic as she had imagined.
“I thought you said that this was like being born?” said The Young Cripple bemused, wiping chunks of dirt and gravel from her knees. “I wish you had told me it was going to be that simple, I would’ve just walked.”
The boy’s radio hissed a little, and then the volume started to increase.
“It doesn’t normally happen like that,” he said. “It’s usually a lot more fun.”
“Yeah well, I think if people were watching, they would have thought we looked stupid, falling over like that and…”
“Do you feel that?” asked T.
The Young Cripple could have gone on forever, and had the boy not interrupted, she might have done just that. But he did, and the poke was enough for her to stop nattering away and to listen; with her ears, and with her body, which felt heavy now, as if she were carrying invisible weights over her shoulders, weights that dragged sadness and tears from the pits of her eyes, and from the well in her belly.
The Young Cripple felt her cheeks redden.
“What is this?” said T, as if he had discovered some furry slime under his sofa.
“I feel stupid,” she said.
As she spoke, the boy’s radio scanned through a hundred channels, tuning into her frequency. The static sounded like a busted engine, pissing steam, and spitting clumps of congealed oil. But in a second or two, there came the sound of coarse shouting, followed by tyrannical laughter.
“You disappoint me,” spoke the voice on the radio.
It was the girl’s father, and it was a moment that she remembered, not by the sound of his voice or by anything that he said, but by how she felt whilst being berated, and afterwards, for the whole time she was left alone. The way she felt then was the way she felt now, having stumbled like a buffoon through a perfectly ordinary doorway.
“Have you any idea how ridiculous you look?” shouted The Ringmaster, through the static of the boy’s radio.
It was like looking in a mirror – that memory, and now. Everything was the same, not a single atom was out of place. She even wore the same stupid expression. She felt in one hand, as being so infinitesimally small and yet, paradoxically, so incredulously heavy at the same moment. It felt as if shame were the principal force that had her shrinking into this near quantum-like mass of self-depreciation.
“You should be ashamed of yourself,” said The Ringmaster. “You’re a disgrace. An accident. An abomination. You are my only regret,” he said.
“Stop it,” screamed The Young Cripple.
The girl collapsed onto the ground, banging her already scratched knees. The pain, though, was kinder than the feeling of disgust that she had for herself, which shivered her skin far worse than the rasping wind. She clasped her hands to her ears but it no use. The worse she felt, the more perverse was the insult and derision that spilled from the radio.
“Please stop it. Stop. Please.”
As if he had been caught sleeping at the wheel, T panicked and flicked drastically through the channels, so fast that the static and hissing grew so loud that it sounded like a beach ball, as big as the Earth, being squeezed of all its air. The girl was curled so tight that in the dark as they were, she might be mistaken for a stone or a weirdly grown tree stump. The boy, though, feeling the intensity of her shame, struggled to control the frequency so that it didn’t return to that channel, and that memory.
It took some time, but he found a song, one about a boy, a rider, and a gun, and how terrible that boy felt from that day onwards when he’d just sought out to have himself some fun. The song sounded just as the girl felt, and by the end of it, when the boy had come to terms with what he had done, she felt not nearly as dirty and spoiled as she had only minutes before.
“I’m sorry,” said T. “It seems here on this planet, I can’t control my radio as much as I would elsewhere. I am really sorry you know. I feel really bad now.”
The two sat glum for a second. The boy felt horrible for having lost control, and pouring so much fuel on his new friend’s blaze of crappy emotions. And the more he thought about it, the worse he felt. The Young Cripple, though, felt as if she were waking on the other side of a coma or a fit. She stared ahead listlessly, feeling entirely spent, oblivious to the four sets of feet which hung above their heads.
“There’s a feeling here, on this planet, that isn’t right,” said T. “It isn’t good. We’d best to stay here as little as possible. God knows what would happen, should we get used to it.”
“To what?”
“Feeling this way. Feeling this…I dunno.”
“Sorry?”
“Yeah,” said T. “Sorry, it’s one way to put it. I’ve never hated myself before not like this, not for something so completely out of my hands.”
“I don’t feel any different,” said The Young Cripple. “I always feel this way; where I’m from anyway.”
The radio played the sounds of a studio audience sighing.
“Is fear all you ever felt?” asked T.
“I dunno,” said The Young Cripple, picking herself up, and brushing off the sand from her legs. “I was happy a few times as well I suppose.”
The Young Cripple tried to think of a kind moment in her life where she was genuinely happy. She was sure that there was at least one hidden there, amidst all the mistakes, embarrassments, and let downs. But it must have been buried pretty deep because struggle as she did, she couldn’t dig past the first layer of humiliation that stained her thoughts. And as she thought of kindness, the boy followed her, tuning his radio to her frequency, but all he could muster in the constant spinning of his dials was the condescending sound of canned laughter.
“We should just go,” said T.
“Do you suppose they have food on this planet? I’m starving.”
“Well, if you’re hungry, then I suppose they do. It’s just; who they are exactly…I am not sure.”
As they entered under a giant wooden arch, The Young Cripple almost tripped over the letter ‘A’ which had fallen from the sign above, knocked loose by the constant swinging and struggling of a family who had been hanging by their necks since the wood in this arch was nothing but a seed, buried in dirt. Their mouths were gagged with dirt and bark, and their eyes bulged like biceps, with a look of constant surprise on their pale and suffering faces.
“Doesn’t look so bad,” said T, as they walked slowly down the main street, which was as wide as it was high, and tenfold in length.
The street was paved in crumbling and wobbling cobblestones and painted onto the first row of stones were the words: ‘No Thru Road’. The Young Cripple had to walk on the tips of her toes, just to keep her balance. As strange and eerie as this place seemed, she would never have managed a feat like this when she was alive, so that art of balancing alone was in itself, spectacular. And as such, even though she was petrified, still, she was having the time of her life – or death for that matter.
“Stay focused,” said T.
“I am,” replied the girl sternly, and then, “Jeez,” under her breath.
There were two buildings on the left-hand side: a bakery and a library, and on the right was a large hole with no perceivable end, and beside it, a brothel. And then at the end of the street, there was a building that, on its manicured lawn, had a sign that read, ‘End of the Omniverse’.
“Do you think it really is…the end?” asked The Young Cripple, as they stood on the edge of the grass.
She turned around to measure how far they’d come, and it was then that she saw the word ‘Heaven’ above the arch, and the ropes that were grinding away at t
he planks of wood where the fallen ‘A’ would have been. The girl whipped back around, her hand on her mouth as if she were about to vomit.
“Oh my god. Did you see?” she asked.
“Don’t look back. Just look at your feet or something.”
“But did you see, did you see?”
“Yes, yes I did,” said T, sounding shocked.
“It’s Heaven,” said The Young Cripple, in sheer disbelief.
“You didn’t see the…”
“We’re in Heaven. Oh my, God, it’s gonna be ok. We’re in Heaven. You know what this means?”
The radio’s dial spun left and right, rapidly.
“We can find your body, and we’ll be ok.”
“I’m not so sure. What do you know about Heaven?” asked T, conspicuous about any response the girl should give.
“Everything,” said The Young Cripple, ecstatic. “I know all there is to know. This is where good people come after they die.”
“Where are the people then? And if they all come here, how do they fit? Where do they go?”
The Young Cripple spun around. This universe - or Heaven as it were - consisted of four small buildings, including the one behind her. That, a great big hole, and nothing more.
“I always thought it would be bigger,” said The Young Cripple.
“In and out,” said T. “I promise.”
“Now who’s the scaredy cat? It’s ok,” she said, consolingly. “Few people know as much as I do about this place. We’re gonna be fine.”
They walked up a marble path of the building at the end of the street. It was then that The Young Cripple noticed that what had at first looked like well-manicured lawn, was, in fact, shard after shard of broken, green glass, shaped exactly like blades of grass. It looked like so much care had gone into something so particularly dangerous.
The neon sign above the doorway said that it was a hotel.
Its incessant buzzing sounded like a swarm of locusts.
“I guess we just knock then…” said the girl.
The girl wrapped her knuckles three times on the door. The first knock, there was no response over the sound of cartoons playing loudly on a television. The second knock was louder, almost a punch. This time, the television stopped. And she waited some time, hearing what sounded like a lighter being flicked over and over without any success, about a foot or so from the door. She waited a little more before knocking again.
“Goddamnit.”
The door swung open.
“What the hell do you want?”
It was an elderly man with long ragged hair that looked like the ends of a filthy mop. He had all of his teeth, but each one was positioned sideways so that the cigarette butts he collected needn’t be kept in his hands. His eyes looked mad. There was no other way to describe them. He had no eyelids, and his pupils moved about so freely that they looked like two mosquitos, trapped inside a burning bulb.
And finally to his attire. He was naked, except for an umbrella in one hand, and a shopping bag full of plungers, thumb tacks and sanitary pads in the other, which thankfully covered his private parts.
“Well,” said The Old Man belligerently. “What ya need? What ya want? Why ya here? Dunno? Fuck off? Go on…get!”
“We’re looking for something,” said The Young Cripple.
“What’s that? Looking? For something?”
“Yes,” replied the girl.
“Looking is for over there,” he said, pointing to the library. “Here’s for sleeping. Go away.”
The Old Man slammed the door shut.
“Now what?” asked The Young Cripple.
“My body has to be here.”
“What about the library?”
“Books.”
“And the bakery?”
“Bread.”
“And the…”
“You don’t wanna know.”
“So here then,” said The Young Cripple, taking a deep, needless breath.
The Young Cripple knocked. Again, the television muted, and again a lighter was flicked maybe hundred times or more; and then, as expected, The Old Man opened the door. He had no words this time, and the shopping bag was on the floor by the front counter. The Young Cripple covered her eyes, trying to either stare at The Old Man’s radish like toes, or at his face that, with all its bumps and lines, looked like an unfinished road; and whose mouth twisted and contorted in apparent preparation for what looked like a kiss, or more likely, a barrage of insult and abuse.
The girl did her best to avoid looking at his body which was like a thin and worn clump of play doh, stretched into the shape of a man, by a bored and angry child. He had no nipples and no genitals; just weird coloured lumps and what looked like nail marks and impressions, where all his parts had apparently been crudely stuck together.
The Old Man gave a particular kind of look.
“Room please,” said The Young Cripple swiftly.
“Name.”
“I, uh…”
The Old Man looked at his book.
“No, no booking here. No booking, no room.”
“I don’t have a booking. I didn’t know I was coming. But you’re the only hotel here so it thought…”
“We’re all booked,” replied The Old Man grumbling.
“But the sign there behind you says infinite rooms.”
There was a sign, and it did, in fact, read, ‘Infinite Rooms’.
“Yeah, and we have infinite guests. Not plus one. All booked.”
“Please, sir, can I spend some time on your sofa here then?”
There was a seat in the corner that may or may not have been a sofa.
“I promise I won’t be much bother,” she said.
“You’ve no umbrella,” said The Old Man grunting. “Stupid kids. How do you expect to keep safe from the sun, huh? You’ll burn. You’ll get cancer too. There won’t be any ice-cream you know? Not unless you’ve eaten your dinner. And the rain. Jesus. Flaming kids just don’t bloody care anymore,” he said in a low huff, as he shuffled back to the front counter. Once there, he slouched back in his seat and returned to the television, casually lathering his arms and legs, and his oddly shaped body in foul smelling sun protector.
The Young Cripple sat on the sofa for a while, watching The Old Man one second, and the television set the next. Aside from the incessant application of thick, yellow sunscreen, The Old Man hadn’t moved an inch. He didn’t even twitch or blink for that matter. He just stared right at the screen, as if nothing else in the omniverse existed. And between him and the television, there was a red door which had been left ajar.
“Just go,” whispered T. “He won’t know.”
“No,” said The Young Cripple. “What if he catches us?”
“What if he doesn’t? What if it all goes perfectly well? What if he doesn’t notice? Or what if he does; and he doesn’t give a crap? And what if we just spend the rest of eternity here, on this blasted sofa, smelling that wretched cream?”
He made a compelling, hushed argument.
The Young Cripple slid off the sofa, legs first, as if she were a slug, or a slinky, moving inch by inch until her body slumped onto the floor. There, she crawled on her belly along the floor, expecting at any second, The Old Man to catch her, and drown her in a rotten sink full of that disgusting cream.
She could feel him standing over her and salivating, even though he hadn’t once moved in his chair. She could hear too, in her imagination, the sound of his grubby tongue, licking the back of his front teeth, and then swallowing what fetid discharge was picked off.
“It’s ok,” said T. “We’re nearly through. You doing it.”
That wasn’t enough. That wouldn’t do. The girl was scared to death, and some cheap consolidation wouldn’t change a thing. The only thing worse than imagining what The Old Man would do to her if he had a minute alone was thinking about what was actually behind the door.
They were right under the television now, and an inch from the door.
There was nothing- nothing at all - for the girl to hide behind. Completely exposed, The Young Cripple looked firstly to her left, where The Old Man was now pouring the thick cream into his ears, eyes, and nose. Then she looked ahead, where a strange blue Light spilled from a crack in the door. It looked for a second as if someone had knocked over some exotic drink. And as she watched in strange wonder as the blue Light ran like water down the side of a street until it touched her fingertips, when immediately, as if spooked, the Light vanished.
The Young Cripple flinched.
“No turning back,” said T.
“Shut up,” said the girl, turning down the volume dial.
Behind her, on the sofa, there was another version of herself, the one that instead chose to wait, and hadn’t the courage to brave her fears. Staring at her, The Young Cripple could now see how terrified she looked, and she finally came to realize how terrifically overcome with fright she got, whenever she was sitting still.
“Keep moving,” she thought. “Fear is not real.”
The Light on the radio was flicking wildly as if the boy was shouting.
“You can do this,” she said to herself.
The Young Crippled crawled on her knees and wedged her hand in the crack in the door. She took one more look at The Old Man, and at herself, who had her fingers crossed and was wishing her all the luck in the world. The Young Cripple smiled. She had never felt this bold before in her life. She could accomplish anything. And as she moved to open the door, it opened for her, knocking her off balance and sending her pummelling to the ground.
Bleeding from a cut in her chin, The Young Cripple lost consciousness.