0111011101101000011000010111010001110100011010
00011001010110011001110101011000110110101101101
001011100110110011101101111011010010110111001100
11101101111011011100111011101101000011000010111
0100011101000110100001100101011001100111010101
100011011010110110100101110011011001110110111101
101001011011100110011101101111011011100111011101
1010000110000101110100011101000110100001100101
01100110011101010110001101101011011010010111001
101100111011011110110100101101110011001110110111
10110111001110111011010000110000101110100011101
0001101000011001010110011001110101011000110110
101101101001011100110110011101101111011010010110
111001100111011011110110111001110111011010000110
0001011101000111010001101000011001010110011001
110101011000110110101101101001011100110110011101
101111011010010110111001100111011011110110111001
1101110110100001100001011101000111010001101000
01100101011001100111010101100011011010110110100
101110011011001110110111101101001011011100110011
10110111101101110011101110110100001100001011101
0001110100011010000110010101100110011101010110
001101101011011010010111001101100111011011110110
100101101110011001110110111101101110
And then everything goes white and I'm out of the tunnel.
Chapter Thirteen
I'm standing in an impossibly dense, thin street, with tarmac under my feet. Ahead of me there's a grubby tower block that may have been shiny once. On either side of me tattered shop fronts display postcards, newspapers, shoes, cameras, hats, sweets, sex toys, and rolls of fabric, but none of them looks open. I think it's nighttime here: The sky is hard to pick out but the light is artificial and I can see something black above me, although there are no stars, and there is no moon. All around me, broken neon signs crackle like acne scars. Two or three of them flicker in sexual colors: rouge, flush pink, powder white, but the rest of them just look like they may have last worked a long time ago. The space above the shop fronts is tangled with dim sodium lights, street signs, corrugated iron shutters, and windows of what seem like hundreds of apartments and stockrooms. There are signs everywhere, sticking out at right angles from the buildings like Post-it Notes in an old book. But I can't read them.
Can I move forwards in this space? Yes. I can take a step, and then another. I can see an alleyway off to my left: another impossibly thin space. At the end of the alley I can vaguely pick out what looks like a steel fence with barbed wire curled on the top of it. There are fire escapes everywhere: zigzags and spirals leading up and down tired brick walls. A blue light dances in an upstairs window: a television? So there is life here beyond me, although I don't feel particularly alive. I don't feel hot or cold, alive or dead, drunk or sober....I don't feel anything. It's actually pleasant, not feeling anything, although of course it doesn't directly feel "pleasant." It doesn't feel like anything. Have you ever not felt like anything? It's amazing. Perhaps I feel so calm because there are no people here. I've been in spaces like this before—Soho, Tokyo, New York—but there were always too many people shopping, camera-clicking, talking, running, walking, hoping, wanting. I get claustrophobic in big cities, overwhelmed by all that desire in one small place, all those people trying to suck things into themselves: sandwiches, cola, sushi, brand labels, goods, goods, goods. But there's no one here. There's a bus stop, but no buses; road signs but no traffic. I walk on, and I can actually hear the dull thud of my footsteps on the hard street. A turning on the right leads to a small square with a gurgling fountain in the middle of it. Here I see shadowy coffee shops with their tables and chairs crowding the dark pavements, and a couple of small city trees growing out of concrete blocks. I don't want to get lost, so I soon come back to the main street, unsure about what to do next. I turn around, everything jumbling in my vision.
Where do I go ? I think.
And then a woman's metallic voice informs me: You now have fourteen choices.
My image of the street in front of me is overlaid, suddenly, with a console image: something like a city plan on a computer screen in my mind. A few areas flash briefly in a kind of pale computer-blue color, like war zones on a map of the world. These are the choices, I understand. But...? I don't actually understand anything about what's going on. The nearest "choice," if that's what this means, is the third floor of a block right next to where I started. I walk a few paces and start climbing the zigzag fire escape, the rubber from the soles of my trainers hitting the metal with a hollow, clanging sound. Soon I come to a green door with peeling paint. I push the door and it opens inwards. What do I do now?
You now have one choice, says the disembodied voice.
I'm inside.
***
You now have one choice.
You ... I'm standing still on four bent legs and—oh shit—I'm trapped. All around me are thick, blurry plastic walls and I can't move. I can go forwards a bit, and backwards a bit; I know that, but I am still at the moment. Fuck. I can hardly breathe. I keep blinking because my vision doesn't feel right: Everything outside of my prison looks brown and warped, and there are reflections everywhere. And I'm hungry; a hunger of a sort I've never experienced before, from a place in my stomach that I don't recognize. Whatever I am, this is a kind of hell: This is a feeling you could have in a nightmare for only one or two seconds before you woke up screaming. I can't move. I can't turn around. My arms/legs/wings are pushed into the sides of my body. I think I have a tail but I can't move it. It's pinned down by something. And I think I'm probably going to die here, on my own, unable to move even my head. Come on, Ariel. You are still Ariel. Yes, Ariel plus ... What? Who am I? Into whose mind have I telepathed? I—or at least "we"; I'm having the same problem Mr. Y had—want to scratch. I want to eat: I know that's why I came into this box. There was something sweet and crumbly which I did eat, but not recently. But almost as much as that, I want to scratch. I love it when my sharp foot rubs against my ears, taking away the itch, and I'd give anything to be able to do that now (not that I understand the economy of hope). I've tried—in fact, I keep trying. Why can't I move? I, Ariel, can see the Perspex walls, but the other "I" doesn't know what's going on. This being—the other I—panicked, hours ago. She couldn't do what she always does in these situations, which is to try to run fast and look for somewhere dark and soft to hide. But it's hard to think of this being, this thing I am now part of, as "she." My fur ("My fur"? Well, that's how it seems) smells of fear now: a damp, sweet, biscuity smell. And I know this smell from the others, from the ones who return with teeth marks in their bodies.
Zoom out. Maintain third person. For God's sake, Ariel, you are not a mouse. But I am. I know how to groom my fur. I have been pregnant a number of times (I don't think she can count, but I can. I'm not sure if she has language, but I have. I can count things in memories perhaps she doesn't even know she has). I remember the aching feeling of giving birth, like pushing on a new bruise. I know I am going to die here, but surely I can't know what death is? Only elephants understand death.... Where did I read that? I've got no idea how long I've been here, but I want to get out. Let me out! I try to scream but all I hear is the fast breath of the mouse, her heart beating instead of mine.
What do I do now? I know how to make myself calm in these situations. I've stood on crowded tube trains and in lifts thinking Not long now, and Breathe. But my consciousness has merged with this one and I know, because she knows, that this is danger; that it is imperative to escape now. But we can't move. Shit, shit, shit. How do I get out of here? Where's all the information Mr. Y said he saw on the edges of his vision? As I think that, something like a computer desktop snaps into focus. Now I can see what the mouse sees—a vast chamber warped by the plastic and browned by its tint (although she doesn't understand that, and believes she i
s somewhere she has never been before because even the scent is different in this plastic box)—but with an overlay: a console on which I can make choices. It's hard to describe what this looks like, since I have no idea how it works. It feels like a computer desktop but everything on it is unfamiliar. I don't know how to navigate it. But it does seem that when I call for it, it will come. And presumably it will get me out of here.
In the top right-hand corner of my vision is a blue square that twinkles when I look (think?) at it. The rest of the "screen" is layered with small milky squares, each one very faintly showing a landscape I don't recognize. It's like a hundred science documentaries playing on the same screen. What are these images? As I glance over each one it becomes momentarily brighter, like a link on the Internet, and I realize (I don't know how) that I can choose to jump into one of them: presumably to perform what Lumas termed Pedesis. But I don't want to do that. I need to get out of here—out of the Troposphere—and re-lease the mouse from her trap. I look over the milky images again. One of them intrigues me more than the others: The landscape seems extraterrestrial. But—oh no—the moment my thoughts rest on it and I think This looks interesting something begins to happen. I'm blurring—that's the only verb I can think of—out of this reality and into another one. I think Stop! I didn't mean it! But it's too late.
At least I'm not trapped anymore.
Now my paws pad over a cold, hard surface. I feel my back end sway as my paws touch the ground top-right; back-left; top-left; back-right. I have a tail that I can move! This seems both familiar and unfamiliar to me: something I've always had; something I once had a long time ago. The pale concrete below me (and I feel myself putting my own word on that, concrete) is ice-cube (ditto) cold, and I walk faster on it because of that. But I am warm enough. I have only just left my nest and the memory of so much fur, and the smell of my family (I'm translating as I go, here, and "family" is the closest I can get to this memory sense of togetherness and connectedness) soothes me like hot syrup (ditto). I am a mouse again (I think). But I am free.
There's something between my back legs: familiar to this mouse but not to me. It feels odd, like my tail, but while my tail is like an extra limb, this new thing feels powered-up like a clitoris, but there's more of it, and it extends from my stomach to somewhere outside of me. It tingles now as hot liquid comes out of it and hits the concrete. And I'm thinking that this will keep others away, and I've always done it because of this. My fur twitches with abstract nouns, an untranslatable, nonhuman sense of pride, property, future planning, and a constant, musky desire for violence—my claws in the backs of my small, pale rivals, ripping their flesh—and sex. Perhaps that's what I live for most of all: the way my brain trembles and softens as this clitoris-like cock moves in and out of the warm, tight hole in another being, and the feeling of oozing sweetness that eventually spreads in my stomach, back, legs, and throat, so sweet that I fall over, clutching her, she, whoever. I have desires—perhaps that's all I am—but I don't seem to dwell on them. My mind isn't equivalent to I want, I want. It's more like I've got, I've got. Only one thing is bothering me, as I wander around this space, with its bins on wheels that are bigger than me. Where is she? One down. One missing. One gone. I might not be able to count but I can certainly subtract. It's not fucking good.
Even I'm shocked at the idea that a mouse would swear until I realize that these are my thoughts merged with his: his feelings in my language. I should be trying to get out, but the feeling of being here, being him, is almost addictive. Everything about him is charged. Even his/my whiskers vibrate with electricity and anticipation, like live wires coming out of my face. He's moving now, so much lighter on his feet than I ever can be on mine, and it's like being on a fairground ride. We move over the concrete towards the other bin and I know where I'm going but at the same time I don't know, and every movement is a surprise. It's like being the driver and the passenger all at once. And there's something so sure about these movements, and the sensation I'm now feeling: the sensation of biting into a stale piece of bread, marinated in rain—a piece of bread I recognize as being stale because I threw it out, but which now seems delicious: a savory taste, like Marmite on toast.
But I do have to get out of here. This mouse is fine, but the other one isn't. She's in a trap I set and I have to get her out of it. I think Console! like I'm playing Space Invaders or starring in an SF film and yes, the thing appears, filming over my vision. I plan to ignore the milky images but then two things happen at once: In the vision behind the console—the mouse's vision—I see an orange blur, like a smear of marmalade; and in the console I see one square in which the image displayed is not like an alien landscape, one square in which there's a gray mouse sitting by a bin wheel eating bread. That's me. Something is looking at me.
Now it all becomes confusing. My mouse has seen the orange cat and it's as if we've both had an injection of icy cold water and gone onto high alert. It's fear, but a kind of fear I'm not used to. Death, death, death is coming. Fuck. My whole insides have turned to this icy mush and I have to run; I have to hide.... But hang on. The icy water is solidifying. I'm freezing into place. I know (some level of knowing that I haven't experienced before) that I have to keep still now. And I, Ariel, want to just get out of here but some instinct I didn't know I had—some mouse-instinct mapped onto my own—sees that there's also a doorway (gray, official) hovering over the cat. It makes me focus on the milky square with the statue-mouse in it, the square belonging to the cat, who is looking at the frozen sugar-mouse, whose terror I can feel in the tiny trembling in my own/our own body, and I think Switch! Switch!
And now I'm blurring again, into something bigger. My tail now feels lighter, and I flick it around as I crouch here, crazy with anticipation, my thin tongue licking my sharp teeth. This is going to be fucking fun, and I'm not even sure I can wait before I pounce. I move my bottom around in a repeating arc, balancing myself. Now? No. Wait. Need the right moment, totally the right moment. I've done this thousands of times before, and I could never, ever get bored with it. I don't plan my attacks in any detail but when I remember them they are like bloody ballets, with me as the director, poking the dancer with my paw, making the food dance, making it pirouette on broken legs, because I like food that moves. I do eat that brown shit in the plastic bowl but I don't enjoy it: It tastes like death. I only eat it to survive because half the time I have to wear a fucking bell that scares the food away. But I can take the bell off if I work long enough at it, picking away with my precise claws. So I have no bell and now there's food in front of me. I anticipate the way the warm blood-gravy-liquid will taste in my mouth once I've torn the furry coating off this thing shaking in front of me, trying to appear still. I remember the taste.... Oh God. Oh yuck. It's like hot Bovril mixed with iron tablets and rust. And now I'm thinking that must be disgusting really, but the synapses (or whatever) in my mind and the cat's mind are now jumping up and down like kids in a junior debating society. After a couple of seconds I'm almost convinced that blood is delicious after all, but whatever is left of me that is human and vegetarian thinks, No! I can feel this thought blending with the cat's thoughts and so, when the mouse decides this is the moment to leg it under the bin, I hesitate. And my cat-mind does a diving backflip, just for a second, but it's enough to fuck everything up. There's a voice in my mind telling me not to do it. I don't understand this. I don't have concepts like Why? in my language. This is like a headache, some memory of a white room and a table and being held down by my neck as something sharp jabbed into me. Well, no one's holding me down now.
Fuck off, passenger.
No.
You're like a flea inside my head.
Well ... Maybe you're right. Why save the piece of food, anyway? What is "saving"? Nothing makes sense.... Ariel: You are not a fucking cat. You were that mouse. You remembered your nest. But I'm not a mouse, either. And now I want to taste its blood.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
&n
bsp; A buzz in my head I don't recognize. A chemical stronger than fear.
I'm moving forwards slowly now. The food has moved under the bin. New strategy. Not Game Over. I crouch and my back is a perfect curve: one shoulder slightly higher than the other, my left paw in front of my right. I'm going to crunch your skull, and I don't care how long I have to dance with you first. I'm ... You've gone. Where are you? Where's my fucking food...?
The mouse has gone. He's safe. My mind now has a celebration party and a funeral going on in the same room.
Console. Now I really have to get out of here. The thing comes up in my vision again, jerking as my hitchhiker consciousness bobs up and down with the cat, padding towards the wall, and then—wow—jumping up onto it. God, I liked that. But I have to get out of here. I've saved one mouse but there's still one more to release. I glance around at the desktop space again, ignoring the milky images in the center. The only thing left is the blue object/image, and so I direct my thoughts at it. Quit now? says the female voice I recognize from before. Yes, I think. Yes, yes, yes... A door appears in front of me and I am me again, twisting the knob and walking through on two heavy legs, with no tail. But I don't recognize this place. I seem to be in a long corridor with gray carpet and beige walls. Oh shit. Where's the fire escape? How do I get out?