I read through the text couple of times. I put the page back in its folder. I drained my vodka. I rubbed my eyes. I said Jesus. I poured another drink and slouched back into the sofa. The cat slid past, ignoring me completely. The fridge hummed. Everything else was rain on the windows and the night-time dramas of insects. Nothing made any kind of sense at all, or if it did, I was too tired and frazzled to see how. I closed my eyes and concentrated on the burn, swirl and chink of the vodka and on the simple sliding weights of breathing.
I woke up on the sofa in the middle of some vivid memory playback of my second meeting with Dr Randle.
“But it’s not–” I said out loud, and then stopped, recognising the dream for what it was.
While I’d been asleep, something had changed.
My groggy half-awake attention turned inwards like a brilliant sweeping searchlight and the sudden clarity of it shocked me. I saw the whole of my sixteen-week-old mind and my sixteen-week-old self perfectly, completely, vivid and obvious in every detail. I could even see the memory dream still playing in the back of my head, tape winding down, losing cohesion and forward momentum.
I pushed myself upright on the sofa. The sensation of clarity expanded. Everything in the room, all things and their spatial relationships, all colours, light, shades, textures, all space, all air pressure and all bouncing wave sounds became cutting-edge sharp, everything tuned to a hot brilliant focus. My wide-open skipping-around eyes found the vodka glass on my lap. I became transfixed. I lifted it as carefully and gently as I could, working hard not to affect events inside. The three ice cubes had melted into round-edged lozenges, each with its own complex puzzle of faultlines, ghost planes and fractures. Around each cube, the run-off water and the slightly thicker vodka curled together in miniature weather systems and storm fronts. I thought about fragile colour spirals of oil in water, about the sad rolling and dispersing of the galaxy, about cogwheel daisies on green grass driving the vast machinery of evolution, about a whirl of cream unwinding its spiral arms in a left-behind coffee cup and all this coming from somewhere all at once but not distracting; perfectly in line with the beautiful, almost traumatic actuality of substance, form, movement and light in the glass. It was breathtaking, too clear, too much. My eyes were hot and prickly, and I realised I was crying.
A movement unlocked my attention. I re-focused my eyes, looking past the vodka glass and into the static buzz of the TV. I stayed very still for a few seconds before lowering the glass to the floor, careful not to take my eyes off the screen. There was something distant and alive in the depths of the white noise–a living glide of thoughts swimming forward, a moving body of concepts and half felt images.
I moved slowly off the sofa and crawled across the floor towards the television, trying to see deeper into the vast depths of no-signal hiss behind the glass. I got nearer and the creature became aware of me. It picked up speed and powered out of sight, disappearing in a fast flick of movement below the bottom right corner of the screen.
I crawled closer, closer, closer, trying to pick out another glimpse or recollective flash of the thing deep in the vast distances of static, and then–
The screen threw itself forward with a screaming electric flash and the lights all died. The TV landed with a heavy glassy thud in the black and I scrambled backwards on balls of feet and heels of hands in animal panic. My shoulders hit the sofa and I clumsily reverse-clambered onto it, pulling my knees up off the floor until they were tucked under my chin, hands locked together around my shins. My body squeezed, desperate to run, but the dark, silence and panic locked me still, petrified in place. I tried for silent breaths but my breathing and my thinking were all ripped, chopped, torn-up, ragged. I couldn’t hear anything else and couldn’t see anything either. The room was pitch-black.
No.
Not totally pitch-black. The little green smoke detector light on the ceiling became my distant North Star. Gently releasing the most fragile light, it remade the edges of the bookcase and the magazine stand and the back of the upturned TV out of the darkness. I focused on this circle and on my breathing. With a little longer to adjust, even this thin polleny dusting of illumination would be enough to see by. And once I could see, and see the door, I’d be able to force my legs out of their deep-freeze and run.
A violent something slammed into the far end of the sofa shunting everything sideways with a hard, wrenching pressure lurch. I barrelled right, digging my fingers deep into the soft fabric arm, trying to resist the travelling momentum taking me tumbling over the side and managing it, just. Rocking myself hard back into my seat, I kept one hand gripped tight on the arm and the other stretched out across the sofa back, elbows locked and braced, wedging myself deep and tight in the corner. No thoughts–my thinking like a pile of smashed glass and my breathing so fast the darkness started to swarm. An impulse came to run at the wall and hope to hit the door or at least near the door and fumble for it, but I couldn’t break the panic locking my legs. Bang–another hit directly behind and under me, much harder, like a slow-motion car crash and the back end of the sofa thrown up and coming toppling forward, sending me sprawling off into empty space and then the carpet and the floor came up at me and it–broke.
The idea of the floor, the carpet, the concept, feel, shape of the words in my head all broke apart on impact with a splash of sensations and textures and pattern memories and letters and phonetic sounds spraying out from my splashdown. I went under, deep, carried by the force of my fall and without the thought or image or any recollection of oxygen or breathing at all.
I came up coughing, gasping for air, the idea of air. A vague physical memory of the actuality of the floor survived but now I was bobbing and floating and trying to tread water in the idea of the floor, in fluid liquid concept, in its endless cold rolling waves of association and history.
Everything dark and black except for the faint green of the North Star. No more outlines, no edging of the bookcase or back of the upturned TV, just me treading water alone in the middle of this vast and fundamental conceptual form; concept as environment, with its own characteristic depths and swells, moving and shifting and altering with time and perspective the way all words and ideas and concepts do. No no no. I tried to shake that mode of being, to force the idea back behind the physical, force my body to find and accept the hard reality of the floor as an entity of sand and stones and cement, hard physical atoms with no words or ideas or attachments, but my mind could only find the words, ideas, signs and attachments for these things, never anything solid at all, and my body couldn’t act without my mind’s instruction. I screwed down my eyes again, trying to will myself back to the familiar world of solids and space. But even the vague body-memory of hard ground had gone, my legs kicking in insubstantial watery black. The world, my mind, the way these connected, whatever the root of the perception shift, I didn’t have control of it, and I couldn’t undo what had happened. But I had to get away. The deep deep liquid black below my feet, the creature in the TV and the violence that threw me here, I had to get out, now, regardless of how everything reviewed and re-focused itself. I looked up at the North Star, used it to guess-navigate where the living room door should be and began swimming hard in that direction.
I didn’t get far.
Something huge rushed fast in the water under my body, pulling me in a mini whirlpool twist of unravelling thought drag in its wake. The thing from the static. Jesus. I kicked faster, scrabbling against liquid, trying to pull up a solid thought of dry land in my mind. But I could only beat out splashes and scatter sprays of mind fragments. Then another undertow and I’m pulled and buffeted, the thing passing under again and I’m knocked and rolled and ducked under by a fierce ripping after-wake.
Coming up for air and coughing out: shark. The word coming in a tangle-breathed shudder and then me screaming: help. Shark. Help me. Me screaming: oh God oh God oh God and kicking and thrashing and thrashing and screaming. And then, somehow, tumbling from the back of my desperat
e spark-spraying thought train, a memory of something–Eric Sanderson’s emergency envelope and the Ryan Mitchell Mantra pinned to the notice board in the kitchen. I fought to remember the text on those sheets of paper. Exam results? The colour history of rooms?
“Blue and black and grey and yellow,” I shouted the words out, grasping, shock-stripped of any thinking or logic. I shouted and kicked against the water, grabbing in the dark. “Blue and black and grey and yellow. Blue and–” Something rushed upwards from below and smashed hard against my hip and side, throwing me up and backwards out of the water in a lift of spray, my mouth opening like a scream but my airways crushed and winded and only a sucking nothing coming through my throat. I came down hard in a splash of disassociating fragments.
And then–
And then it was raining, a heavy downpour of letters, words, images, snatches of events, faces, places–a forest, a late-night city–the sea around me mixing in and confusing with so much falling everything else. And me lost in there somewhere and everywhere in it all, sinking away, diffusing, losing all mind and thoughts and consciousness.
I opened my eyes. Wet, new light dribbled under the curtains–morning arriving, bringing the solid world back into focus with it. I found myself inside the lower part of the living room bookcase, the upper part having broken apart and collapsed, leaving me avalanched in books and splintered wood. I coughed and winced out a hiss. Cracked rib. A minor bookslide happened as I slowly and painfully manoeuvred myself up into a twisted sitting position. The TV face-down on the carpet at the end of its stretched-out flex, the sofa up-ended. Things were broken and thrown and chipped and smashed but they were there. Solid, physical things. Things in a room made of bricks on a planet made of rocks and water. Silent truthful matter.
When I pulled together the strength, I hauled myself out of the debris and up onto my feet, swayed, steadied. The words came back without my looking for them: Dr Randle can neither help nor protect you.
I limped into the kitchen and started taking the First Eric Sanderson’s letters out of the cupboard.
7
The Crypto-Zoology of Purely Conceptual Sharks, Dictaphone Defence Systems and Light Bulb Code Cracking in Selected Letters from the First Eric Sanderson
(Received: 22nd September)
Letter #2
Dear Eric,
I used to know so many things. The things I learned, the ways I learned to see and the things I believed possible, I think they might amaze you. Mostly now, all I have are splinters. Remains of things I was quick enough to write down and preserve; fragments which seem to be increasingly incomplete and confusing to me now.
This is what I know, what at the middle of me I feel is true: all the lost research, the journeys, the dangerous choices, I did it all for a girl called Clio Aames. I loved her, Eric. So much. And she died. I only get the general senses of things and they pass so quickly, like childhood smells touching you and then being gone on the breeze. But. But but but. It feels strange to be writing this down–I think I believed I could change what happened, undo it, prevent it, save her life somehow after she was already gone. Of course I couldn’t. Dead is dead is dead is dead. If you are reading this then I’m dead too and you’ll shortly be fighting for your own life.
Eric, I am so sorry.
There’s so much I’ve lost, so much that’s been eaten all away from the insides of my head, but I’ve worked hard to squirrel away enough to help you. I don’t have any answers, I’m almost as empty as you must be now, but I do have a few tools and a little knowledge. Some weapons and some fragments. The rest is up to you. You always have a choice.
I’m so forgetful. The creature will find something I’ve missed because it never stops looking and its senses are very sharp. It will find a way to get me and in time it will come looking for you. The waters are almost up to the bedroom window now. I can’t keep all the balls in the air. I can’t stay in this shark cage forever.
The animal hunting you is a Ludovician. It is an example of one of the many species of purely conceptual fish which swim in the flows of human interaction and the tides of cause and effect. This may sound like madness, but it isn’t. Life is tenacious and determined. The streams, currents and rivers of human knowledge, experience and communication which have grown throughout our short history are now a vast, rich and bountiful environment. Why should we expect these flows to be sterile?
Life will always find a way. Just look at you and me and see the truth in it.
I don’t know exactly how the thought fish came to be in the world, but in the wide, warm pools of society and culture, millions of words and ideas and concepts are constantly evolving. It doesn’t seem too implausible that one of them elevated itself above its single cellular cousins in much the same way we did. The Selfish Meme?
The Ludovician is a predator, a shark. It feeds on human memories and the intrinsic sense of self. Ludovicians are solitary, fiercely territorial and methodical hunters. A Ludovician might select an individual human being as its prey animal and pursue and feed on that individual over the course of years, until that victim’s memory and identity have been completely consumed. Sometimes, the target’s body survives this ordeal and may go on to live a second twilight life after the original self and memories have been taken. In time, such a person may establish a ‘bolt-on’ identity of their own, but the Ludovician will eventually catch the scent of this and return to complete its kill.
I’m sorry if I’m putting this too bluntly.
I know what you must be thinking and you don’t have to believe any of this if you don’t want to, but the Ludovician is out there and in time it will find you. Learn the Ryan Mitchell text I sent you. If nothing else, do it to humour me; an old and crazy coat hanging in your wardrobe. I’m afraid that in time you will see for yourself that what I am telling you is the truth.
With regret and also hope,
The First Eric Sanderson
(Received: 24th September)
Letter #3
Dear Eric,
The Ryan Mitchell text is a very limited form of conceptual camouflage. The longer you exist in the world, the less effective it will be. It’s important then that you learn to protect yourself on a more permanent basis. There are several short-term and several long-term ways to achieve this. The non-divergent conceptual loop is the quickest and the most secure, so it is the best place to start.
This parcel should contain:
x 4 Dictaphones with continuous playback and AC adaptors
x 4 pre-recorded Dictaphone tapes
x 4 8-metre extension cables
x 1 four-way plug adapter
x 16 AA batteries in case of power failure or outdoor use
Function: The function of this equipment is to generate a non-divergent conceptual loop. That is, a stream circle, a flow of pure and singular association moving around the Dictaphones in order. From one to two. From two to three. From three to four. From four back to one. The resulting current is strong and clean enough to push otherwise incoming flows (of cause and effect, degrees of separation etc.) around the defined space, rather than allowing them through or into it, thus creating an area of isolation. To the best of my knowledge, no Ludovician, or any conceptual fish, has ever breached a non-divergent conceptual loop. In essence, it will function as a shark cage.
Instructions: Insert tapes into Dictaphones. Place Dictaphones in each corner of your room or at the edges of whatever space you are aiming to define. Rig up each Dictaphone with an AC adaptor if possible. Ensure each Dictaphone is set to continuous play. Begin playback on all Dictaphones. Protection is only provided within the area described by the layout of the Dictaphones.
Further notes, explanations & information in the eventuality of equipment damage: Each of the four Dictaphone tapes provided has been recorded by a different person. An individual making a recording of this type does not have to be speaking necessarily, they can simply go about their daily business with the Dictaphone recording in their poc
ket for a few hours. The longer the recording, the more the person is clarified in sound and the more secure your loop. Now–and this is complicated, Eric, so read it back until you’re sure you have it exactly right, you may have to attempt your own replacement tapes one day–the person who records tape one must forward three blank Dictaphone tapes and their own recorded tape to the person who is to record tape two. The person who records tape two must then forward their own tape, tape one and the two remaining blank tapes to the person who will record tape three. And so on. All four recorded tapes must then be sent back to person one. At no time must any of the people involved in the recording listen to any of the tapes. Apart from this single interaction, the four people must not know each other at all, otherwise branching or cross-streaming could occur and a whirlpool loop collapse would quickly follow. Obviously, you must have no contact with any of the four participants for the same reason. Obviously again, this is almost impossible. Hence the importance of maintaining the provided equipment.
With regret and also hope,
The First Eric Sanderson
(Received: 25th September)
Letter #4
Dear Eric,
Some other things which provide good camouflage in the waterways:
Other People’s Letters/Post: Perhaps the most useful of everyday items when it comes to confusing and tangling and knotting and muddying the conceptual flows of the world. Resonant items can be effectively camouflaged by submerging them in a large box filled with post. Or just a heap of post. The more different people the post belongs to, the more effective the camouflage. This system works because a letter acts as a physical embodiment of a communicative flow. Even the briefest letter channels and underpins a strong and definite stream of intended interaction. An item or even a person, like you, submerged in other people’s post will exist at the centre of a confusing multi-stream spaghetti junction of tangled flows. To a Ludovician or other conceptual fish, the result will be hundreds of crossing currents with different originators and recipients. The resonant item is obscured, becoming only one of many possible stream destinations, and any thought fish trying to move towards it is likely to be confused, disorientated and misdirected.