To read this and following chapters, you’ll have to become a supporter on Patreon.

Read this chapter on Patreon

Any second

Kerry leaves the canvas to dry. It is already done. She turns the page and starts another. A woman this time. A mole on her cheek, just below her left eye. Sheets lifted tight around her shoulders.

the mattress dips when he sits

Tartan.

it’s nice her mother has finally found someone

someone she trusts

it’s nice to have her happy at last

A line of hair curls towards her mouth…

To read this chapter, please become a supporter on Patreon.

Read this chapter on Patreon

Follow me on Patreon

Images

She will outline the first image on canvas, stretching the proportions over the frame. The figure in the picture sleeps on cotton sheets. She plots his high pitched brow and balding pate. The beard splattered across his cheek gives the illusion of a smile, a hint in the shadow. Once the lines are set she mixes her pallet, the colours seeming to choose themselves. The form takes to paint so perfectly it will have her imagining this is what you wanted. She follows the arch of his nose, the pull of his skin where his face meets the pillow. The brush understands his lines better than she does. 

She can see him there, between the strokes. She can feel his history.

he is getting married

suited

booted

standing at the front of the church

looking back at the empty seat

a last ditch effort

inviting her to his wedding

as if it might shock her into feeling something she said she didn’t feel

his eyes flick to the open doorway as he takes his vows

he waits for her to burst through

but the doors remain closed

the seat remains empty

at night he blocks her from his mind 

not wishing to be unfaithful to the one he chose

in the morning he counts himself lucky

at breakfast he counts himself lucky

in the cafeteria he counts himself lucky

when he gets home he counts himself lucky

in the evening he counts himself lucky

lucky

lucky

lucky

keep counting

when he gets to a million 

he finds her on Facebook

a message?

a public post?

how do you get the ball rolling on something like this?

what happens if something does actually happen?

what happens next?

what happens to his kids?

does she have kids?

yes, she has kids

what happens to their kids?

what happens to their friends?

a life is not easy to unknit

he checks back in a week

a month

a week

he deletes his browsing history

a week

a month

a week

he finds blood

a week

waits for the results

a month

bad news

a year

things get worse

he deletes his account

the drugs aren’t helping

he searches for her on Google

he waits a week

a month

a week

he gives away his phone

they take him to hospital

it isn’t working

there is a hospice, they say 

it’s nice there

his wife drives

visits every day

she holds his hand to let him know she still loves him 

that the disease changes nothing

he watches the door

Follow me on Patreon

Light for the hopeful sigh

She will be shaking by the time she gets to the studio. 

She will have opened the envelope the moment she got to the car. Inside will be a small stack of forms and a plain black notebook. Your notebook. She will ignore the paperwork and spread the pages of the notebook on her lap.

A part of her will hate you for what you have done, in the same way that the child hates the magician. She looks at your drawings with wonder, desperate to know how the trick is done. What she sees there on the page is drawn without the filter of self-consciousness. They are rough and unfinished but perfect in simple HB. Page after page of faces drawn with such intimacy that she can feel the shudder of their eyes as they slip into REM, the fog of their breath as it dampens the paper. She stares at the pages, hating them with every second of her MFA, every penny spent funding it. There is no sense of formality from image to image, no illusion of continuity. You have conjured a new style for each portrait, without consideration of proper structure or style, each one matched to its subject - rough and dark for the heavy soul, light and supple for the hopeful sigh. Such an ordinary notebook. Plain, office quality paper at 70g per square meter, so thin you could see the picture on the next page bleeding through like stained glass, and yet you made it something holy.

At the studio she clears her work surfaces of every scrap of paper, every frame of its canvas and every pin from her inspiration board. She is done with it all now. She folds face after face, creasing the images along the ridge of her nose or touching forehead to chin, and carries them to the waste bins. 

Andrew’s cubicle is right next to them. He watches her from his workbench where he sits with a box of bent cutlery, fixing forks together with a rivet gun. 

You OK, he asks.

I’m fine, she says. 

Are you chucking all this?

I need space, she says, forcing the bin lid, crushing the pictures down underneath.

The bins aren’t being emptied until Friday, he says. And this is… quite a lot of stuff.

She looks down at the mess she has made. Thirty or forty frames. A dozen boxes of papers. The frame on top starts to slide and Andrew rushes over to help her steady the pile. She thanks him but leaves before the thing is properly set, letting him struggle with the slippage alone while she goes back to her cubicle. 

Only the paints and the stock of clean canvas remain. 

She takes out your notebook and lays it in the centre of the table. 

She will have to speak to Dinah. She needs to find out who you were and what drove you to produce work like this - so raw and open. It will be an awkward conversation. Hi, I stole this book of pictures from you. Now tell me all about who drew them. 

But right now all that will have to wait.

No. The book came to her for a reason. First the coin and now this. She is meant to do something with it. How else could she explain it? She has a sense that the universe has come tumbling into her lap, as though everything she has been waiting for is finally coming together.

It’s about time, she thinks.

Follow me on Patreon

Chronocoin

They will give her a printed record of the coin along with a written offer of purchase tucked in a white office envelope embossed with Cyan's logo. She lays it on the passenger seat and fingers its edges. The thing looks like a giant business card. 

Kerry Faber. 

Her phone bleeps and the display lights up.  

How'd it go? J 

Good question. She types a response and deletes it. She tries another set of words, but every combination she tries seems stunted, piling up in her mind like laundry. In the end she settles for: When are you home? and throws her phone on top of the envelope.

She slides her finger under the lip of the Cyan envelope, teasing the seal without breaking it. They had offered a lot in exchange for the coin. She could repay John for every penny and still have enough money left over to buy herself a studio of her own. She could set up a little gallery - not huge, but in an area where her art would get seen by all the right sort of people. 

Everything is possible when you know you have a future.

She checks her phone. John isn’t replying. She tries Dinah, lingering before she hits send. This time the response is instant. 

Just finishing up after a client, says Dinah, her voice sounding tinny over the car’s speakers. You wanna come over? I’ll be done soon.

Dinah’s flat is perched on the edge of the town centre. There is never anywhere to park. Kerry leaves the car on a side street just behind the main row of pubs and boutique pop-up shops and walks the rest of the way. Let us say it is humid as she makes her way there. That way we can have the air itself seem to stick to her, crawling beneath her clothes like thick, slow moving fingers. She can even stop in the doorway of a hairdresser to pull off her cardigan, if you like. Maybe a homeless man begging there whispers about revolution and conspiracy in that way the hopeful sometimes do and she smiles weakly to deflect his attention. Who knows? But little details like that make it feel more real, don’t you think?

Dinah buzzes her into the lobby over the intercom. In the lift, Kerry will check her reflection in the mirror gleam of the doors. Drizzle clings to her hair, limp and heavy. Other than that, there will be nothing about her that would stand out as different to the person she was when she left the house. She wears the same clothes. Her brain grinds beneath the same headache. And yet something has still changed. She stares at this distorted reflection in the lift doors, obese with opportunity, and tries to pin it down. Maybe it is the way she stands. Maybe it is the knowledge she has a different future. She has money now. She has a chance to make something of herself. Is that something you can see?

She tries speaking out her future name. Kerry Faber. The syllables clatter against the steel doors like knives in the cutlery drawer. Kerry Faber. Faber. She doesn’t know anyone called Faber. 

Dinah opens the heavy door to the apartment dressed in a neat grey blouse topped with a purple neck scarf. She leans against the frame.

Isaac is wanting to readjust the child maintenance again, she says.

Again? Kerry shakes off her coat. She pinches the fabric under her arms to separate the dampness of it from her skin.  

Oh yes, says Dinah, taking the coat and shutting the door behind her sister. Wants it increased another £50 a week. What happened to your nice coat?

This is a nice coat. 

The one with the sunrise.

This sort of weather just makes me sweat, mutters Kerry, ignoring her. Can I grab some deodorant? £50 a week sounds a lot. 

It is, says Dinah, pinching Kerry’s top between her fingers. You know, polyester isn’t going to help with the sweat.

It’s cotton.

Really?

Kerry groans. How are you a therapist? 

Deodorant's in the bathroom, says Dinah. Cupboard next to the sink.

Kerry finds it easily and gives herself a liberal spray to mask the shock of the morning. There are dried spots of toothpaste splattered across the bottom corner of the mirror and after she replaces the deodorant she picks at one with with her fingernail before washing her hands.

I thought the money had all been sorted, she says as she enters the kitchen. Was it because of Mum's 70th?

Apparently, it took us over the access threshold for this year, meaning he's going to reduce the payments by, I think, £135 this month?  

Dinah is sat at the breakfast bar, two mugs of black coffee arranged on coasters on its surface.

For two extra days with Jacob? 

Yup.

Arsehole. 

It’s Jacob I feel sorry for, trapped in the middle of this. 

I bet. But I suppose you just have to suck it up and go with it. 

Oh I'm not going to do it, says Dinah. It was one weekend. God, it's like he's deliberately trying to piss me off. You want something to eat? I made sandwiches, she says and touches the plate behind the mugs. Hummus and roasted veg. Thin sliced Italian ham. 

He can't just change arrangements like that, says Kerry. Completely unfair.

You know, I wouldn’t expect anything else. I really wouldn’t. This and the fuss over the Audi - it’s just par for the course.

You shouldn’t let him.

Well, what can I do?

Just refuse.

Dinah sighs. I know, she says. Perhaps I should go through legal again. Cut contact. 

Might be for the best.

She sits back in the chair and picks at the ham in front of her. I thought that things would be better once I was on my own again, she says. But it’s just added another layer of pressure to everything. And I just found out I’m a client down this week, so it’s not even as if I’m earning what he says I’m earning. I’m actually bringing in less than when we were together. 

Sorry to hear that, says Kerry, easing a strip of parma ham into her mouth with the tip of a finger.

Yeah well, says Dinah, waving a hand dismissively. I don't know, I’m fine. It doesn’t make that much difference. But it's just one more thing on top of everything with Isaac. Every conversation we have, we have to go over and over the same old things every single time. I just don’t want another shouting match every time I speak to him. I just want to be civil with each other but it's like arguing with a child. But I’ll be fine, you know. It’s just in the moment it all seems so, I don’t know, eugh!

Kerry lays down her crust. Dinah takes her hand and squeezes. Sorry, she says.

It’s fine.

Oh God, this is depressing, Look, come on. Talk to me. Take my mind off it. Tell why you’re pissed off.

I'm not pissed off, says Kerry.

You're not happy. 

I'm happy.

Really?

I’m happy enough.

Dinah refills her coffee cup from the pot. You weren’t happy at my party, she says.

I enjoyed your party.

I could tell, says Dinah. You were drunk out of your skull. I think you enjoyed it more than me.

I didn’t drink that much.

John had to practically carry you out.

Maybe a little bit.

Just be careful, says Dinah. 

About what?

Dinah shrugs.

You mean with John?

I just want you to be safe.

Kerry taps her sandwich against the plate. This again?

Dinah takes a bite of her sandwich.

I’m safe with John, says Kerry. What happened before was just an accident.

Didn’t seem like an accident, says Dinah, her mouth full.

It was. We talked about it. 

The memory of pain flashes in her mind, the back of her skull hitting the concrete, John standing over her already spurting a thousand slurred apologies as he helps her up. It was an accident. They talked about it after. 

People change when they get drunk, says Dinah.

He doesn’t drink anymore. I never even asked him. He just decided to do it for himself.

He’s a good guy then?

Yes, she says.

Dinah swallows her mouthful and folds her hands beneath her chin. You’re very forgiving, she says. But anyway, there’s still something going on. So come on. Spill. 

Spill.

Flowing from the rooftop

The food catches in her throat. Dinah gives her a gentle pat on the back to dislodge it. It takes a minute of coughing before she can speak. When she does, she asks: You know much about the FDF?

Dinah, shrugs. Enough to know I think it's a fucked up system, she says.

Kerry reaches into her bag and places the Cyan Inc. envelope on the table between them.

What’s this?

Open it, she says. It’s from the future. 

Dinah scoffs.

Seriously, says Kerry.

Dinah lays down the remains of her sandwich and picks up the envelope.

Dinah drops the remains of what she is eating and picks up the envelope, ripping open the seal. 

Oh shit, it’s not something about how you die, is it?

What? No. God, that’s so morbid. 

OK, says Dinah, spreading the contents flat on the tabletop. So what is this?

Chronocoin, says Kerry.

What, the money thing? 

Yeah.

Holy fuck, says Dinah, pointing to the figure printed on the paper. This is for you?

I still have to exchange it. They buy it off me.

And this is genuine? This isn’t some prank?

Nope.

My God, Kerry.

It’s from me, she says. From my future-self.

Wow. OK. That’s a good thing, isn’t it? At least it means you’re alive in the future. How far in the future are we talking about?

Don’t know. Look at the name.

Where is it?

There, she says, tapping the page.

Kerry Faber, says Dinah.

Yup.

OK.

In the future I’m Kerry Faber.

Shit.

Yup.

John Truman, says Dinah. And Kerry Faber.

Yup.

Does he know?

She shakes her head.

Dinah moves the plate away and reaches over to take Kerry’s hand. Saying it out loud has made it real. 

I’m sorry, says Kerry. You got a tissue?

Dinah leans over and grabs a box from the adjoining surface, knocking a pile of manilla folders that slip and slide across the table, up-ending the sandwich plate and scattering crumbs over the both of them.

Shit, sorry, says Dinah, using the tissue box to prop up the landslide. This is empty, anyway, she says. I’ll get a new one. Back in a sec. Don’t worry about the mess.

She scurries from the room, leaving Kerry to organise the table into some sort of order. 

Then she sees you, buried among the paperwork, printed onto paper never intended for photographs, the ink warping the surface. 

The girl who fell.

The picture is pinned to the front of a thick brown envelope with a paperclip. Your hair is shorter than it was when she saw you and pinned back at the sides so your face is clear for the camera. It’s the shot from your ID badge, the one you wore every day clipped to your uniform. But she doesn’t know this. All she sees are the same dull rims around your eyes that she saw that day as you lay broken, fixed on some unseen heaven in the sky.

Her handbag is still on my lap from when she brought out the Chronocoin receipt. Dinah can be heard padding back along the hallway. John would want her to ask about you - to find out why she has your picture. But that is what John would want. In the light of the morning’s revelations, she isn’t sure what future lies there now. Her hand is on the envelope before her mind is made up. Without thinking, she slips it into her open bag.

'Here,' Dinah says, back in the room. She holds out a cube of tissues, one lifted out of the box ready to take. Are you going to tell him, she asks. About the coin. About what it means?

Kerry clasps her bag shut over the envelope, cold shivering across her shoulders.

I don’t know, she says. What good would it do?

Follow me on Patreon

Forever and forever and forever

She will drive herself when she returns to the place where you died. No more waiting around to be picked up when the bodies start falling. This time she spots a space next to a black Mercedes and a red coupe and slips in between. She can hear John urging her on, excited about what might happen when she steps inside the building with its huge machines churning that data streaming back from the future, all the way back to her. Who would have thought it? He insisted she take the car, putting himself on public transport for the first time in years. He was giddy with opportunity, his thoughts flying high on pie in the sky. Her thoughts remained stuck on that rooftop.

You looked beautiful that day. My dress hugging your figure, the silken air casting ripples along the fabric as you fell. She imagines it now as she sits in the car looking up. She will fill in the gaps left by memory. Embellish it. Make it perfect in her mind’s eye. Her own Ophelia drifting down a river of mirrored glass and steel framed windows.

The finished piece can never be as good as how she imagined it. She thinks of separating the building from the scrubland, you from the glass, the glass from its reflection, the subject from the landscape. What she is really doing is separating the fall from the end. She wants to hold you there at that moment before death, always falling. Never ending.

Forever and forever and forever.

Her fingers twitch on the wheel. Maybe she should go right now, she will think. Head to the studio and set up a new canvas - spend the afternoon working on your echo. It could be fun, painting something other than herself. 

But she knows her own limits. She couldn’t capture you. She is still trapped inside her own skin, painting the same damn self portrait every time. She knows it is the bluntest of all narcissism. Shallow. Self obsessed. Art is meant to illuminate the world but she can’t escape her own reflection. She’s thought it many times before, cursing herself in the dark while John sleeps beside her. Only ever painting herself. Maybe your final image is bright enough then she might at least hide herself within its glare.

She starts the car and shifts the thing into gear but doesn’t go anywhere. She sits in the car park, engine running, on the edge of escape. But she doesn’t leave. 

The rooftop. You fell. You died. That moment is etched into her, carved in her chest, an emptiness in the shape of you. But now she is invited to step back across the same threshold you stopped her crossing when you fell. Did you do it intentionally? Was there some reason you wanted to keep her out - something so important it was worth sacrificing her life to spare you? Or was it merely a common, garden variety despair that led you to step out from the edge? 

Either way she is back here, watching you fall all over again.

They invited her back in. What is she to them? John was caught up in the idea of James McClain, the singer was catapulted to the top of the charts after a company that had, up until that moment, dealt mainly in insurance invested heavily in his collapsing record label. Now a pop phenomenon. Could the same thing be about to happen to her? She imagines herself at Sutheby’s, paddles springing up like wild grass. She knows it is a ridiculous image. She knows she is dreaming. But dreams are powerful things.

She draws in a deep breath, turns off the engine and steadies herself in the present. 

It is time to go in. She draws up all the confidence she can muster and opens the car door - slamming the thing into the Mercedes next to her.

Shit.

She climbs out to inspect the damage. A triangular dent. Very noticable. A crack where the paintwork has pulled away from the metal beneath. She pokes at the bodywork as though it might simply pop back into shape, but it sticks rigidly to its garish new position. 

Shit.

The car park is empty. No one is rushing over to accuse her of vandalism. She could just leave. But they will have cameras. Everything is on film these days. She scribbles down her contact details on the back of a receipt from the bottom of her bag and leaves it wedged beneath the windscreen wiper. 

Outside the glass doors of the Cyan building, the concrete has been scrubbed clean of your blood. She will pause a moment before going inside, remembering how much there was. It was unnatural. Far more than one body could ever hold.

A receptionist in a blue suit welcomes her inside with a well-practiced nod of the head.

I've got an appointment, she says. 11 AM, Kerry Kesser. 

A look of recognition flashes across the receptionist’s face. 

Oh, god, he says. Sorry, yes. You were here when that girl... Oh god, I’m so sorry. Are you OK?

I’m fine. Thanks.

You saw it all, didn’t you? How awful. I called the police, you know, he says. There’s not much we could do, of course, but the whole place came to a complete standstill. You know who she was?

She shakes her head. I thought she might have worked here, she says.

No, I don’t think so. They would have told us. No, she wasn’t one of ours, thank God. 

There is a look of pity on his face. Maybe they think that’s what you wanted: pity. Maybe that’s why they think you jumped. It’s OK. They don’t yet understand. But they will. 

After he signs her in, she waits on one of the ornate benches scattered throughout the lobby. She takes two paracetamol from a blister pack in anticipation of her oncoming hangover and swallows them dry.

Miss Kesser? 

A guy in his mid-thirties, dressed in a slim grey suit – a single button keeping it closed at the front. She stands. Miss Kesser, he says in confirmation. So good of you to come in - especially considering the unfortunate events that waylaid our previous appointment.

There is a eastern European edge to his accent.

My name is Dimitri, he says, offering his hand. I'm one of the account directors here at Cyan. I trust you found us alright today? 

Turkish? Could he be Turkish? No. Greek. Dimitri is a Greek name.

He invites her towards one of the doors in the back wall. So, we were meant to meet yesterday, yes?

Well, I made it here, but, well... 

Ah, yes, he says. We had to close for a few hours, I’m afraid. I’m sorry if you had a wasted trip.

No, it was fine, she says. 

He doesn’t know what she saw. He has no idea she was there.

They reach a door at the back of the lobby area and he holds it open for her. 

Just in here, please, he says. 

Inside is a windowless room painted the colour of coffee and cream. 

I won’t be a moment, he says and disappears. The door closes with a hermetic clip, dampening the sound inside the room in a way that makes her ears pop. 

There is a table with a screen and two chairs. Against one wall is a leather sofa. She looks at the sparse walls, wondering what is expected of her while she waits, though she doesn’t have to wait for long. The door opens again and the mellow sounds of the workplace are heard again. The gentleman in the grey suit is followed this time by a petite woman who introduces herself as Samantha, an associate account director. Whatever difference there was between her role and that of the man is not explained.

Well, she says. I am delighted to say that we are the bearers of good news today. Miss Kesser, you are aware that Cyan is FDF Recipient company, yes?'  

She nods.

And you are familiar with Chronocoin?

She nods again. Digital currency, she says. 

Good, says Samantha. Our job here at Cyan is to download it from the Future Data Flow and pass it on to its owner. Which, in this case, is you.

Me? 

Yes, she says without a flicker. 

The man gives her an excited rise of his eyebrows. 

You see, he says, it’s rather unusual for a private individual such as yourself to be named in a chronopacket. We normally get the name of a company or product that is meant for procurement. I think there’s only been a few hundred transactions of this nature in our company’s history, so we’re all rather excited to see what’s inside.

Inside?

Inside the coin, he says. 

With your permission, says Samantha, we'd like to try it today. 

Right. Yeah, I mean, sure. But I don’t really understand why this is happening. Like, who’s sending me money?

Well, he says, we won’t really find out the details until we get it open. It’s part of the timelock. It’s a security thing. Prevents fraud. 

How did you know it was for me?

It’s got your name on it, says Samantha. Along with contact details and a few other pieces of identifying information.

It’s really nothing to worry about, says Dimitri, his eyes on the screen. Nine times out of ten, it will have come from your future-self anyway. It seems a lot of people who come into money at some point later on in life like to send it back to the present to give themselves a helping hand when they need it most. Mortgage, business capital, that sort of thing. Are you in real estate or something? 

No. Well, we're looking to buy somewhere in the next year or so. You know, saving for a deposit, get our own place. 

Well that’s nice, says Samantha, as if she were expecting more. She clears her throat. Chronocoin tends to come through at opportune moments for people, she says. Maybe this is the boost that will get you on the housing ladder.

So, says Dimitri. Shall we?

He pushes a button on the terminal and flashes her a smile as a display slides up from the table. How does someone get their teeth so white like that? 

I don’t know if you already know, Samantha says, but each Chronocoin has a unique variable half life. That means it tends to decrease in value a little over time. We can exchange it for its Sterling value today, if you’re interested.

Yeah, says Kerry. I mean, maybe. I don’t know. This is just… just a bit too much at the minute. I need to get my head around it.

I completely understand, says Samantha. There’s no rush.

Dimitri leads her through the security process. They take a DNA swab from the inside of her cheek and compare it to the record embedded in the Chronocoin.

My DNA is in the code?

Right here, says Dimitri, pointing.

We just want to make sure everything's going where it's meant to be, adds Samantha. 

Dimitri’s hand hovers over the interface like a conductor unsure of the music. After a moment, Samantha lays a hand on his shoulder.

Dimitri?

He doesn’t respond.

Dimitri, she says with an uncomfortable laugh. Are we done?

Yes, he says.

Everything go through?

Yes! he says, shaking himself free from the screen, the smile returning to his face. It’s all good, he says. The coin’s open. Everything in perfect order. Congratulations, Miss Kesser. Er... Samantha, I think this is all ready for you to take over. If that’s OK.

Oh, she says with an edge of surprise in her voice. Yes, of course.

Dimitri stands up and backs towards the door. Samantha will see you through the rest of the formalities, he says. It was very nice meeting you, Miss Kesser.

You too.

He leaves the room and the door closes securely behind him, sealing them again from the sounds of the outside world.

OK, says Samantha, taking his place at the table. Just a couple more steps and then we’re all done. Here’s your data and over here… yes. Yes, we were right. There you go. Look here. The coin is from your future-self. 

She twists the screen towards Kerry, points to a twin set of digital DNA.

If you want, says Samantha, we can exchange it here and now for a currency of your choice. I can assure you our exchange rate is very competitive.

So this is me, asks Kerry, pointing at the screen.

Yes. This side is you today and this side is from the sender and you can see here how all data-points on the DNA line up. 

Right.

And it comes with the added bonus of knowing that you’re alive in the future. You’re practically immortal, Miss Kesser. Until you decide to send the coin, of course.

Seriously?

Well, it’s not exactly a guarantee. There’s a lot of things that could happen without actually killing you. But you’re still out there somewhere in the future sending this Chronocoin back to yourself now. Amazing, isn’t it? Look, I’ll print you off a copy of our offer for the coin and you can come back in your own time. It’s good for a week normally, though there can be some flexibility in the exchange rate over time. 

Does it say when I send it?

Hmmm?

The coin. I was wondering, you know, how long I have left.

Oh, right, I see. No. No, we don’t know the point of origin, chronologically speaking, apart from it has to be from some point in your own lifetime.

Kerry points to something on the screen.

Who's this?

Er, that’s the name of the sender. That's you - your futureself. 

That’s not me, she says. 

Yes, that’s you. Biometrics all match up. The coin’s open. It’s all good, I promise. Let me just print you off our offer...

Wait, she says, tapping on the screen. That’s not me.

Samantha squints as she smiles. The DNA matches, she says.

Not the DNA. Look at the name. My name’s Kerry Kesser.

That’s what it says.

But here, she says, moving to the other side of the screen. This says Kerry Faber.

Huh, says Samantha, bottom lip strutting out like a diving board. Oh. Right. Well, I guess that’s your married name.

Samantha looks towards the door and back again. 

John’s last name is Truman, says Kerry. 

Samantha seems frozen.

Why does this say Faber?

Samantha smiles helplessly.

Do I marry someone called Faber?

Samantha will look again to the door but no one is coming to help her. 

I’m sorry, she will say, her smile straining at her cheeks as she moves towards the door. I’ll go get you a print-out of our offer so you can go think about it. 

Kerry’s headache pulses from the other side of the paracetamol.

But I’m with John, she says.

Follow me on Patreon

The building and the breaking

you stand

beside her

one foot lifts

leaning out from the edge

and then...

...and then she is awake and the dream dissolves like breath on a winter morning.

She is home. 

John is there beside her, like hot coals beneath the covers. He is deeply asleep, exhausted by his own effort. She remembers in flashes. Her body against his. His need for her. His tremor and the emptiness that followed. The closeness and the distance. The building and the breaking.

and yet

She was dreaming of you. 

It is his body but it is you. Then it is your body but it is him. Then all three of you until she can’t separate one from the other any more than she can part water from wine.

How strange to dream of the dead in this way, she will think, her head still heavy with alcohol. She throws off the cover and lets her skin cool in the liquid night.

Dawn bleeds across the sky. She will have planned to sleep through the morning because that is the sort of thing someone like her, someone like *the person she wants to be*, would do but now her whole body is churning. The bedsheets cling to her like unwanted attention. Sleep is a walled garden and there is no way she can climb back over. She is awake now and she will stay awake until her body collapses of exhaustion mid-way through the afternoon. 

John sleeps on peacefully. The rise and swell of his chest pulls at her like the tides. Hours at the pool have left him toned and fit and stronger than he knows. Sometimes he's too rough but it's just because he gets so excited. But she can’t think about that now. Her brain is working hard on something else. The cogs of her subconsciousness are spinning but whatever they are working on is still hid from her. She needs to paint. She needs her hand on the brush and her soul on the canvas. Nothing makes sense until it is on canvas. That's when she'll understand.

But until she gets back to the studio, it is hidden from her. 

She sits up in bed and the world continues to move like it’s at sea. It was inevitable you would find a way into her dreams, she will suppose. Maybe John was right. Maybe she should have spoken to Dinah at the party. She revises the night, searching for the perfect could-have-been moment to reach out for help. But she is still drunk and the memory of the evening is disjoined, the faces and the names of Dinah’s friends lost like smoke in the wind. She feels a wave of nausea rising and switches her attention elsewhere.

The night is dark as ink. There is nothing for her to look at.

There was a girl she knew from high school who was practically nocturnal. She would sit at the back of class, bleary eyed and dazed by sunlight, dark hair already greying by sixteen. Jane Something-Or-Other. She racks her memory for the last name. A few years after college, Jane took a job with a news firm, covering their night time feeds with a vigour unmatched by any day walker. Most journalists flake out after a month or two, unable to cope with the disruption to their circadian rhythm but Jane had stayed and thrived, finding her niche in nocturnal solitude. The feeds were full of her posts come morning. Jane… something. What was her last name? She switches on her phone, tenting it beneath the covers, and searches her friend list. It doesn’t take long. Crawford, Jane Crawford. Political posts, mostly. Lots of US stuff. Left leaning. Most of it links to the Washington Post. She reads one and her brain stumbles over every other word. She is still drunk. She switches to photos but there are only three: a profile picture in the style of a school yearbook, two more of family gatherings where she’d been tagged, the only proof of her existence beyond her articles.

She slips back to the newsfeed but it will only show her posts she is sure she has seen before, heavy with digital deja vu. She scrolls so fast it would give you vertigo.

You never got vertigo.

John begins to stir. She hides away her phone and slips from the covers before she disturbs him further.

She thinks of the years that knit her to John, binding them like fabric. The night they met. The morning after. The pokey little flat. The missed period. The excitement and the swelling.

The hospital ward.

The baby she never got to see. 

And now this. The magnolia blandness of the everyday.

The kitchen sways as she switches on the coffee machine. She pours herself something black and strong and finds somewhere to sit as the world tumbles towards sunlight.

Maybe she should welcome it. The steady march of the ordinary. Just the two of them. At least she knows he isn’t with her because he has to be. She hasn’t trapped him. He stays with her because he wants to. But, still, something hasn’t been right. What binds them has become loose. Maybe it is inevitable, she thinks. Not every relationship lasts. When the tapestry grows thin, curious hands can pull at the stray threads. Dinah and Isaac couldn’t hold themselves together. It was the right thing for them to part, she knows that. But even then, the fabric ends up torn. Dinah now is different from Dinah then. Not less - and in some ways stronger - but there are still frayed ends where Isaac used to be.

She thinks of John. His heat. His presence. She should be grateful. There is a beauty in things that have stood the test of time. Even damaged things. Every knock tells a story.

But sometimes staying where you are is harder. 

There is noise from the corridor. John shuffling his way to the bathroom. He goes inside without seeing her and she listens to the lift of the seat and splatter against the porcelaine. 

What a strong, virile young man, hisses the steady flow of piss.

She opens the cereal cupboard and pulls out the granola, closing the door just as he enters the room.

Hey, he says, smiling beneath his bed head. You’re up early.

I couldn’t sleep.

Can I, he asks, pointing to the cupboard.

Let me, she says, passing him a bowl.

He settles himself down to breakfast, setting everything on the table at right angles: the spoon perpendicular to the knife; the orange juice sat in the centre of an invisible square at the corner of his placement. She watches him fill the bowl, pour the milk and scoop the first mouthful, sending her a grin as he chews. His mind is still caught on last night, she will think. She may be in the kitchen - frumpy dressing gown pulled tight, ancient slippers on her feet - but to him she will always be naked on her back with her legs in the air, perpetually at the peak of pleasure.

He finishes his bowl and leaves it beside the sink for later. For her, no doubt. He places a hand on her waist and plants a kiss on her head. 

I’m going to the pool for an hour, he says. What’s your plan for today?

He is already heading back to the bedroom, not waiting for her answer. His fingers have left a dampness at her hip.

I’m meeting Dinah later, she calls out, regretting it immediately and placing a finger to her temple. Gonna help her nurse her hangover, she says, somewhat quieter. 

Are you gonna talk to her about yesterday?

I can’t see how it won’t come up, she admits.

That’s good, he says. I think that’s important. It will give you a chance to process. It’s important to process something like that, you know?

I know, she says. 

He comes back through, buttoning his shirt. So what about the rest of the day?

She turns to the sink and starts rinsing the bowls. Might pop by the studio in the afternoon, she says. I’ve got a canvas to finish. Clear up some of the old work. That sort of thing.

He nods. A slower nod than it needs to be. 

Go on, she says.

Huh?

You want to say something.

He chews carefully. She hitches herself up on the counter and covers her thighs with the dressing gown.

I’ve been thinking, he says. And I know this might not be the best timing but I was wondering if you’d had any thoughts about going back to Cyan.

The bank? I don’t know, she says with a shrug.

He raises his eyebrows in mock-disbelief. She pouts and rolls her eyes.

I don’t even know what it is, she says. It’s probably just some sales pitch for a new bank account or something.

Sales pitch? Kerry, they’re an FDF company. They’re not going to invite people in to ask them to open a bank account.

I’ll call them, she says. They can just tell me what it is over the phone.

But they could have just done that already, he says. Kerry, this has to be something big. 

Like what?

James McClane, he says. 

Who?

The singer.

OK.

Before the FDF he was a nobody. Now he’s got, what, three straight number ones? The future knew he had talent and they got in on the ground floor. Snapped him up before anyone else could.

I’m not a musician, she says.

No, but you’re an artist. And a damn good one.

She slips down from the side and begins to load the dishwasher.

Look, he says, what happened when you were there was messed up. That girl. 

a heartbeat

It was horrible and I completely understand why you don’t want to go back there. 

the walls reverberate

But this is the future we are talking about. If they are inviting you in then it means they know you. They know who you could be.

the cupboard doors rattle on their hinges

You have to take this chance, he says.

darkness clouds the windows

She will take a breath and force the cupboard doors to stop shaking. Reality takes back its place from imagination and the morning returns filled with golden sunrises and blue skies and twittering little birdies on the window sil.

OK, she says. I’ll go back.

Excellent, he says, leaping to sweep her in his arms. This is gonna be something good, he says. This is going to change things, he says.

He has so much to say, you see, and she will look him in the eye with a smile on her face and hope kindled in her restless heart. Well, she will reply. Change is always a good thing.

Follow me on Patreon

The nearest light

When they get home, he will help her up the steps and through the door, guiding her stagger with that oh-so-helpful arm of his. Strong. Caring. What A Guy. Her head will swirl like the ocean as he lowers her to the sittee. It’s a long way down and she clings to the leather to save herself from falling.

I’ll get you water, he says.

She thinks of the way your arms danced in the thin autumn air, the smooth circles you traced, spiralling ever downward.

Her reflection will catch her eye in the glass of the window and she will pull herself from the sofa and swim closer, squinting to see through to the other side. The darkness pushes back against the glass. Opaque as concrete. All she can see is herself in the reflection. Fatter than she should be, she will note. Not that that matters. Not that it should ever matter. But it does matter, she will think, simultaneously shaking the thought from her head the moment she has it. Such thoughts don’t belong in the light, she will think. She is a strong, confident woman, comfortable in her own skin. 

liar

She slaps at the light switch until her reflection snaps out of existence and her eyes adjust to the darkness. Beyond the glass is a galaxy of city lights in soft focus. There could be a hundred windows out there looking back at her. A hundred lives she hasn’t lived. Families and lovers and the living dead peering out from their nine to five windows. Who knows how much they have seen through her glass. She fixes her vision on the nearest light giving whoever is behind the glass her most confident, composed and, dare she say even sexy, look. It takes a moment for the world to stop swimming. When it does, she finds herself staring at a streetlamp. 

John returns from the kitchen with her water and finds her giggling lightly to herself. 

It’s late, he says. You need to go to sleep.

She sips at the drink and presses a finger against the window to pick out the house opposite. You see that there, she burbles, knowing he will know the one she is talking about. That there is a nice house.

He takes the water from her flaccid grip and sets the cup on the side. His hands run themselves around her waist. 

We should live there, she sighs.

Three stories. Concrete driveway cracked like crème brulée. Even a garden, if you would believe it.

He leans himself against her. I think it’s probably a little out of our price range, he says, his chin on the top of her head. 

She sighs again: I know.

You see the garage at the back? We could set it up as a studio, he whispers in her ear. And that room up there, that’s where we could have our bedroom. The one with the stained glass window, the round one. 

I’d like that, she says. 

He kisses her cheek. You need a shower, he says and turns her from the window, taking her weight under the arm her leading her to the bathroom.

Bye bye house, she warbles, waving it goodbye.

In the bathroom he strips her, tugging the tights from her legs while she latches herself to the toilet seat. You have become multiplied in her mind, falling from the roof like confetti. Drifting like leaves in autumn. She reaches out a hand as though she could pluck you from the air and brings you in close against her chest, into the safety of her drunken heart, cradling you like a doll or child. You are cool to the touch. Ceramic. She drifts through smoke until she is standing with you at the edge, hand raised in greeting, one foot lifted, ready, tilting out into the void.

I don’t think we’ll ever really know, says John, rolling her back to her present. He is folding her tights over until they form a neat packet, laying them on the shelves by the sink.

What?

Why she fell, he says. You asked me why she fell. 

Oh, she says. I didn’t realise I said anything.

He will help her to the shower and wash her while she steadies herself against the tiles. The water will be warm. Suds will flow over her breasts, following the silver trails on her hips and slipping from her crotch and legs to cover her feet like morning snow. Then his soaping hands will slow and his fingers will trace out the lines of their stillborn futures across her belly, remembering the promise it once held. She pulls him closer, feels his shirt dampen from the spray, heavier and heavier until he peels it off and drops it, slapping, to the floor.

a kiss

Then he is naked and reaching for the controls. She holds him by the wrist to stop him.

It’s too hot, he says.

Leave it, she says, moving his hand across her hips to her belly and below, where she parts and the stream of water flows through her like history. She lets him play while she turns up the heat on the temperature control, her voice slurring over the hiss of water.

Her skin begins to burn.

Follow me on Patreon

Wide, wide borders

That evening, deep neon lines will score themselves into the twilight as they make their way through the maze of bars and urban bistros reclaimed from the old steelworks on the East Bridge side of the city. A gaggle of blue legged girls and their overeager chaperones cross the road ahead of them and the taxi has to slow to let them past. John’s eyes will linger a little too long on the girl in red heels. 

How was work, she asks.

He clears his throat, fixing his attention firmly inside the taxi. Worked through a backlog of accounts in the afternoon, he says. We’ve got to wait for Ranulf Plastics to send across the valuation of their stock inventory before we can confirm the preliminary valuations. Not a lot we can do to hurry it up. 

She will nod. He will suck at his lip. You sure you’re up for this, he asks.

Of course, she says.

Just after this morning…

Oh God, no, I’m fine. Honestly.

OK, he says. I imagine going out after that must feel like a bit of an anti-climax in comparison.

She is not impressed by his choice of phrase. I’m not sure I’d call it an anti-climax, she says.

No, he says, stumbling like the gazelle before the lion. No, I just mean, you know, the drama of it. It must be a bit of a come down. 

She doesn’t answer him. 

Let us imagine the city outside the taxi. Let us imagine it slick behind a drizzle of rain. Paths will mirror the light from shop windows and glittering refuse sacks will spill a coruscation of tin cans and plastic food containers into the gutter. It’s busy. The entire city is out tonight. The customer service economy had croaked its way through the pandemic, battle worn and weary and, if not for the FDF, the country would have been stuck with a decade of Netflix and takeaway. Haunted by the memory, the good citizens brave the weather to pack themselves into cavorting houses, brush themselves up against foreign bodies, selfie with strangers, posting it on every feed all at once because the unexamined life is not worth living.

The Forge is a gastro pub reclaimed from a row of social housing at the edge of the old industrial district, sitting between two vast corrugated structures of mouldering steel whose purpose has long since been forgotten. It is as good a place as any for this part of the story to take place. The taxi pulls up and Kerry levers herself out and totters to the shelter of the doorway, her grey jacket pulled up over her head, leaving John to pay the fare and extricate the small pile of presents from the back seat. What about her sunrise coat? Will she ever get that back? Would they send it or would she have to go and ask? Would they wash the bloodstains from it first? She shivers with the thought of having to do it herself. Her phone buzzes while she waits for him: a message from her sister asking for last minute supplies. 

They’re out of limes, she tells him. The entire pub, apparently. Dinah wants us to pick some up on the way in.

You think there’s a corner shop?

We're already here, she says. Let's just go in. You’ve got… You’ve got four presents.

Right.

We came with five, she hisses. She steps into the road, waving furiously, but the taxi turns into a side road and disappears. The rain soaks her again. Her hair is already ruined by the humidity.

Sorry, grimaces John, holding the door for her. God, look at that camera, he says, pointing above the door. The thing is a mash of wires, smashed beyond repair. Looks like someone had a good time doing that, he says.

Dinah has hired out the top floor and they have to walk through the crowded restaurant to get to the steps that lead upstairs. Couples sit at tables, groups of women cluster around the DJ booth, occasionally shuffling a foot or swaying a shoulder to the music, desperate to make the most of a night off without the kids. Kerry searches the app for a number to call the taxi company. John touches her arm.

Do you really want to do that as we go in? 

I do, she says then, correcting herself: No. You know what? Forget it. I’ll deal with it later. 

The upstairs room isn’t the private space they expected it to be. Several siloed groups hover at the edges, unconnected to Dinah’s celebration. Dinah herself is leaning against the bar to take the weight off her heels. 

You’re late, she says. I’m getting drinks. You want something?

It’s OK, says John. We’ll get this one.

She snaps her fingers in celebration. The best present is a wet one, she says. John resists cringing admirably. It’s a sambuca thing, she continues. Italian Tourist or something like that. A jug of it. Get four glasses.

Kerry will apologise for arriving late and Dinah will brush her off affectionately. Oh don’t be boring, she will say. I hadn’t even noticed. She takes hold of the tray the barman slides across the counter, sloshing the drinks as she lifts it to her chest. John reaches out to steady the thing, grabbing at its edge but Dinah tuts and moves the tray away from him.

No help needed, she tuts. Quite capable, thank you very much. Kerry my love, come come. Table’s this way.

I’ll be a minute, says Kerry. John touches her arm and nods for her to follow.

I’ve got this, he says. You go talk with Dinah.

It’s OK, she says as Dinah wafts her way through the crowd. I’ll stay with you. 

John orders the drinks.

I really think you should tell her, he says. Talk to her tonight.

It’s her party, she says. I’m not going to talk to her now.

She won’t mind. She’s your sister. And she’ll be a good person to talk to. 

She gets enough of other people’s problems at work.

She’s a therapist, he says. That’s her job. Come on, she’s your sister.

She groans and leans into him. I will, she promises. But not tonight, OK?

John hums his discontent and takes a sip from his pint. 

I don’t want you to tell her what happened at the bank, she says.

OK.

I mean it. I want to talk to her first.

I said OK. 

He plays with the rim of his glass and says, I just think you could have spoken to her this afternoon.

I was busy, she huffs and it takes a moment for him to break the sheet ice that has formed in the air between them.

OK, he shrugs and takes another sip but something is bothering her.

You don’t think I was busy, she says.

I didn’t say that.

But you thought it.

You’re changing the subject, he says. 

I was working, she says. Art is real work.

I know, he says, his words measured and deliberate. I just mean that… I think it’s good what you are doing and I want you to do it. 

She lets it drop and picks at the barmat along the top of the bar. Mixed beer sloshes in its gutters and she has to dry her hands on a napkin. John puts down his drink. 

Look, I just think you need to believe in yourself, he says. That’s why we got the studio.

There it is, she says, dropping the napkin on the bar.

What?

The studio.

No, that’s -

I can drop the studio, she cuts him off. I can set up the spare bedroom.

Oh for fuck’s sake, Kerry, please. We’ve spoken about this. We’re not doing that. It doesn’t work. You need that space. 

I don’t need it. Not like you need the office.

You do. You know you do. Oh my God, why are we even talking about this again?

The barman mixing Kerry’s drink finds new purpose in the crushing of sugar and mint leaves. 

Look, says John, quieter. This isn’t about the studio. This is about talking to Dinah. And she is right here now. So talk to her. 

Let’s not do this, she says.

I just think - 

- No.

Her drink arrives and John sets about paying while she stabs at the ice with the straw. Her sister is at the booth in the corner, pouring drinks into frosted glasses while her friends effervesce with stimulating and original conversation. She isn’t sure she has the energy to match their enthusiasm. She looks around the bar as if searching for an excuse to leave.

And then she sees you. The same high heels and green dress, staring back from across the room. The world leeches colour. Her heart stumbles in its beat. And you grow ever brighter. 

John nudges her arm. You OK? 

The woman she has seen will not be you. She will be blonde where you were brown, her arms swollen where yours were trim, and she will be laughing, leaning on the arm of a man too good for her, showing him the wide, wide borders of her personality. She will have her feet on the ground. 

But the dress will be the same.

John speaks again: Kerry?

She closes her eyes and allows the sound of the room to settle back into a form more closely resembling reality. Yeah, she says, laying a reassuring hand on his arm. I’m fine.

Follow me on Patreon

Like oil on silk

John drops her at the studio where she will sit herself down in front of yet another self portrait. Dark hair, shoulder length. Thin nose. Wide eyes. It will share all of its features with her and none of its soul. She picks up a pallet and refreshes her paints, her brush skipping between colours until she makes a blend almost, but not entirely, the shade she intends. She checks the colour against the flecks caught in her cuticles and picks up another pallet. She will spend another hour doing this before she begins: mixing, checking, failing, starting again. The flecks taunt her every time. 

Her fingernails are much like yours: gnawed down to nubs, edges raw and serrated like knives. Or, at least, they are how your nails used to be. They say fingernails continue to grow after you die but that isn’t exactly true. The flesh shrinks back, giving the appearance of growth, but the nail is as dead as the rest of you. 

The studio is a shared space at the back of the Central Gallery, bright and airy and accessed through a double fire door at the back of the Mormont Exhibition Space. This was the same place you used to peer into on your way to the Jeremy Bentham Room, gazing at the real-life working artists. It was a novelty. There were once a few dozen of them sharing that marvellous light from those vast overhead windows, but then there was Covid and Brexit and the FDF and for some unknown reason most of the other artists never came back. 

There’s six of them now who share the space, trying their best to justify its existence to the gallery management. Everyone there has to fight or, more commonly, increase their rent to keep the place going and each person who drops out makes it harder to manage for those left behind. Making art is not a lucrative business model. Grants have dried up and Etsy has become so competitive there’s few sellers who haven’t been bought out by foreign sweatshops, eager to pay for login details and a history of good reviews to give their mass produced reproductions a glossy veneer of credibility. You can make more money from selling your reputation than you can your art.

Each resident’s mess is separated from their neighbours’ by a row of upright display boards. These fragile partitions are all that divide the creeping degrees of chaos and they often buckle and tip from the strain. Every artist’s production history is crammed into those spaces. You can remember when they opened up the place to the public to give them a peek at these one-day masterpieces piled waist high. Unframed. Sick with potential. A woman in front of you in the queue baulked when she was told the asking price for a framed seaside. You remember how the artist’s face dropped, wishing you could reach in and tease out the years of practice and string them up like bunting to decorate the place.

Ikea has ruined us.

If it wasn’t for John, Kerry would already have given up the studio space. You’re lucky to have it, he will tell her every time she begins to lose heart. It will buoy her up, show her she is doing the right thing with her life. And he’s right, after all. She is lucky to have it. 

Look at her now, plastering away at her own face on the canvas.

Her phone is plugged into the socket next to the sink, sitting on top of a pile of rejected work, inches away from a watery grave. The bottom sheets of the pile are stained with splashes from the taps. The water pressure in this place is a joke, turned up to ensure there is always enough stored in the sprinkler system to douse any fire - so much so that you should never trust a man returning from the toilets without splatter marks across his front.

She works steadily for two hours and then drops her palette on the side and sets about cleaning her brushes, pulling on an old set of marigolds before filling the air with the scent of turpentine. 

She thinks of you as she swirls the brushes and turns the white spirit murky. Everything you had been wearing that morning seemed out of place. That beautiful sage green dress, a lace strip patterned like frost around the bust. Proper evening wear, apart from the shoes. Bare feet, just a pair of tan tights ripped around the toes. She only saw the details after you lay broken on the concrete bleeding rivers into the gravel soak-away around the building’s base but now she imagines them there as you fell. She has perfected her image of you, crystallizing the moment in the smoke of her memory. Mid-air. Falling forever.

I gave you that dress

remember?

The brushes are left to dry in a pewter flagon, arranged like a bouquet of flowers, bristles to the sky. She strips the gloves from her hands and begins washing the smell of white spirit from her skin. When her phone buzzes on top of the pile of papers next to the sink, she turns off the tap but the hand towel has disappeared again. She huffs in annoyance and jabs at the screen with her elbow, sending the phone sliding around on the paper like a hockey puck on ice. The papers slip and an avalanche of unfinished faces scatter across the floor, the phone swooping down after them until the power cable pulls taut and bungies the thing to safety an inch from the tiles.

She wipes her hands dry on her clothes but the buzzing cuts off before she can get control of the situation. A moment later and a message flicks onto the screen. It is her sister, fussing over final arrangements for tonight’s party. She has already begun drinking, judging by the state of some of her more incomprehensible autocorrect substitutions, several messages sent in quick succession. Kerry sets the phone back down on the side without replying and turns to look over the fallen pictures. Her own face stares up at her in various states of completion, shattered like glass. 

A voice scuttles in from the corner of her little space: You OK? 

A man scratches his fledgling beard, one arm hitched over the display board. He tips his scrappy white cap back up on his head and surveys the scene.

Everything just slipped, she says but this isn’t a lone occurrence. Again, she admits.

He grins one of those insider smiles that is more awkward than intimate. It gives the impression that here is the sort of person who creates sculptures of pop icons in classical poses, equipped with outlandishly oversized genitalia and he will be more than happy to show them to you. 

Let me give you a hand, he says.

No, Andrew, please don’t, she says. I’m fine, honestly. But could you… She lifts a finger to point at where his fingers crush the articles she has pinned to the partition for inspiration. 

Oh. Right. Sorry, he says, smoothing down the clipping. She lifts up a pile of papers and rests them back up to the side then sits cross legged on the floor to collect the rest. He stands there, watching.

You know, he says, when you’re done here I was thinking of going out to grab a bite to eat if you’re up for it.

For a moment she stumbles over her response, knowing she has to navigate herself away from the unintended undertone in his suggestion. The two of them are among the youngest artists renting spaces at the studio and they are awkwardly aware that the rest of the residents think of them as artistic breeding stock to secure the next generation of little dreamers. Even dragging John along to the studio was not able to dispel the illusion of rumours in her mind.

He recognises her hesitation.

It would be me, you, Janet, Gerard and I think Tom said he was up for it, he says, setting out the boundaries in order to quash any scandal in his invitation. A little studio social, he says.

She neatens the corners of her papers in her lap, but the sizes are different and they don’t line up. Thanks, she says. But my sister has this thing tonight. It’s a divorce party. I’ve got to pick up a few things beforehand, so… Maybe another night?

OK, he says and points to the easel where her picture sits drying. Is this new, he asks.

Same old, same old, she says, pulling herself up and dumping her gathered faces on the countertop. She flicks through a few, evaluating which to keep and which to toss into the abyss. They’re mostly impressionist in texture, the same Yuko Saeki pout and hardline brush strokes in every one. She tries to assemble them back into chronological order but the timeline is untraceable.

I like the, er… colours, he says, pointing to the painting. His fumble is obvious and he knows it. So does she. Another self-portrait indistinguishable from the others and they both know it. He stuffs his hands into his pockets and tries to change the subject. 

How’s John?

He’s good.

Good, he says. 

He glances back at the painting and she swears she sees him wince. She sits on the floor and gathers in another set of faces.

Well, he says. If you’re OK here then I’m gonna go back. Give me a call if you change your mind about tonight.

He pauses a second and sucks air through his teeth, raises his eyebrows in a departing acknowledgement of the awkwardness of the whole affair and sets off wandering back to his partition. She waits until she hears him routing in his scrap box before she gets up, leaving the remaining pictures on the floor. 

Resigned, she cuts her newest canvas from the frame and begins to roll it up, knowing full well that the oils will set like glue if it dries like this, preventing it from being unrolled without damaging the picture inside. The canvas becomes a hollow tube through which she can see the practice pieces scattered on the floor. She tests its rigidity by tapping it against her palm and seals it with a length of string. There is a place for it among the rest. Years of work, stacked like the dead sea scrolls in a specially made shelving unit. She sighs and slots the canvas in alongside the rest.

How long do you stay when you know it isn't going to last? This is the decision Kerry has to face when a message broadcast back across time inadvertently reveals that the man she loves today will not be the one she marries in the future. Meanwhile, at the other end of society, Fi finds herself struggling with a world that seems to be working against her, pushing her into the heart of a revolution plotting to bring the system crashing to its knees. Futuredebt is a story of free will, self-determination and how small acts of kindness can be a catalyst for change.

Follow me on Patreon

This is the end and a beginning

I am not there when you die, being dead myself, but this is how I imagine it happens. 

You will be on the roof of the Cyan Incorporated building, standing on one of those brutalist steel beams that pokes out from the concrete like bones from skin. Everyone else will have left, scattering like leaves in the wind. You will be up there alone, aside from me. But I don’t count. I am already dead by this point.

But that’s not important. You know this isn't my story. I think you understand that now.

You stare down at the car park a hundred feet below. There’s enough air between you and the concrete to make it terminal so you won’t have to worry about surviving with broken bones to spend the rest of your life in a wheelchair or in some hospice like the one you worked at before. If you step forward, it all ends. But if you step forward, you know in a really weird way that it also begins. This is stupid and oxymoronic and you know all that but you are in that sort of mood where it doesn’t matter. Besides, your mood doesn’t change the world. The only thing that matters is what you do. 

You are almost ready.

What you need now is a witness.

There’s one person down there, crossing the car park towards the main entrance. They are important. You don’t know who they are but they are important. The rest of this story is their story. But you don’t know anything about her yet.

You wait for her to look up.

When she does, I like to think you smile.

Maybe you don't.

Either way, she sees you right there - crystallised on that rooftop.

And that is when you step out.

The air is too thin to hold you. Your dress will flail like a failed parachute and your hair will be whipped to a medusa-like frenzy, your reflection mirrored in the building’s glass as you tumble side by side like lovers. 

Afterwards, though not long afterwards, the woman who saw you fall will cover the mash of your head with her coat. It will be a nice coat. A Danny Mansmith original. The sort of thing you might have stood coveting in shop windows. Every stitch is a different shade, all the colours of sunrise. She will stand by your body, watching your blood creep into the fabric, changing colour as it dries. Crimson. Carmine. The dull darkness of sepia.

Seeing something like that can stain you.

Like wine on silk.

The employees from the bank will keep their distance, hovering by the glass doors like flies, making phone calls and shepherding clients away without letting on about what just landed on their doorstep. When the police arrive, they will pass a blanket to the woman who saw you fall and lead her away to a safe distance. 

They do not return the coat.

One of them might hand her a coffee.

Let us imagine this officer is young and beautiful. Tall. Or we could imagine she is a little short. I don't mind. Maybe should could be a touch androgenous. Maybe her uniform is so fresh it looks like it’s still to be washed. 

Maybe this is her first day.

Maybe she keeps her outfit clean to prove herself worthy.

Maybe she just loves her job.

It doesn't matter. The officer is not important.

The woman who saw you fall takes a sip. The coffee is white and watery and unpleasantly cool. 

The officer asks if she can get home on her own.

The woman says she is waiting to be picked up.

Someone on their way?

She thinks so. Her phone is dead so she doesn’t know how long he will be.

Who’s dead?

My phone’s dead. The battery. Went while I was talking to him. 

Right.

I’m just going to wait until he gets here or he won’t know what’s going on.

The other officers will put up a white tent around your body. Two officers stand at opposite corners to hold the thing down as the wind attacks against the tarpaulin.

The woman takes another reluctant sip from the cup, wondering if she has to drink the entire thing for the sake of politeness.

I thought there’d be press, she says, swallowing hard. Photographers or something.

The officer’s expression changes. Creases appear around her eyes. It’s probably not a good idea to talk to the press, she says. Having your name connected to a traumatic experience like this in the papers. It wouldn’t be nice. 

The woman who saw you fall nods and brushes the windswept hair from her eyes.

And it would be sensationalised, the officer continues. Tends to happen with suicides. All romance and tragedy. Your boss might get a bit funny about it as well.

My boss?

You work at Cyan, right? It is a bank, isn’t it? One of those FDF things? Messages from the future and all that.

I don’t know, says the woman. I think so. 

You don’t work for them?

No.

Oh, sorry. I just assumed you worked here.

No, she says. They invited me in.

Now it will be the officer’s turn to be surprised. Invited in? To an FDF company?

The woman who saw you fall will nod.

Impressive, mutters the officer. Even so, best be careful who we talk to, you know?

They stand there for an awkward moment until the officer makes an excuse to head over to her colleagues who are still struggling with the white tarpaulin writhing against them. The woman will watch. As she watched you fall. She will stand there and wait because she has nothing else to do. If her phone was working, she could call a taxi and be done with it. She knows what her sister would say: no point hanging around waiting for a man to come and rescue you. Fuck him, she would say. Don’t let a man define you. You’re strong enough to stand on your own two feet. Big strong girl. Independent woman. All grown up. Rah rah rah.

She could go inside the bank and ask them to order a taxi but the glass entrance has taken on another meaning now. That’s the place where you died. That’s where the blood pooled in impossible quantities, the gravel around the building’s edge saturated with it. The thought of crossing that threshold doesn’t carry the same delight for her as it had before. Yesterday she will have been giddy about it. People get so excited by the FDF. Having it reach out to her directly must have been intoxicating; the future noticing her, little old her, up to her elbows in paints and canvas, seeing something in her that the rest of the world couldn’t or wouldn’t see. It will have stirred a hope that somewhere out there in the vast landscape of all that time-yet-to-come there was someone who felt she was worth something. You can imagine how John will have encouraged her.

This could be your moment, he will have told her, swallowing hard on a kale and blueberry shake or some such nonsense. You’ve got to go find out what they want, he will say. 

It will set her thinking. Maybe they want her artwork. Maybe this could be the first sale that would lead her on to bigger and brighter things. Maybe someone out there in the future wants to invest early, before the rest of the world gets to know just how good she is. By the time he drops her off on his way to work she will be giddy with imagined futures.

But you stopped her from going inside. You broke the link between that and this. You became an ellipsis and now she can’t shake it, that moment when your body leaned out too far from the edge and gravity began to take hold. Her attention coagulates around it, slowing it, stretching it out until the moment lasts forever, hanging there suspended outside of time. She could paint you like that, pinched between life and death, the beginning and the end. You are there forever, looking back at her. She tries to look away but gravity catches up with her imagination and you spill from the rooftop like water. 

Why was there no one there to stop you?

She doesn’t go inside and order a taxi. Instead, she stays where she is and draws the blanket up around her shoulders to muffle a shiver. She’s cold. Or the shock from seeing you fall is making her cold. One or the other. 

A woman in a flowered headscarf stands over by the road that loops around the outside of the estate, staring in at the spectacle with the white tent, a lead straining in her hand, the dog hidden somewhere behind the little hedge. Behind her a blue Citroen estate will be humped roughly up onto the curb, a telephoto lens pointing out of its passenger window. Maybe the press is taking an interest after all. 

The lens flashes in the sunlight and the woman who saw you fall hides her face, thinking of the officer’s warning. Maybe it’s an overreaction but nobody wants to gamble when the dice are loaded. The house always wins.

By now it is time for them to move your body. A van the colour of brandy wine backs up towards the tent, the discord of its reversing alarm diluted in the wind so it comes in uneven waves. The words John Heath & Sons Funeral Home are printed on its side in tasteful, practical lettering but the high curb and ornamental grass bank restrict its access to the tent and they have to leave a gap between the openings like two mouths parting to kiss. 

There was no scream when you fell.

She will find it difficult to think of you as being truly dead, though she doesn’t recall ever meeting you before today, doesn’t know your name, barely saw your face for a second before you fell. But the imagination abhors a vacuum. When you fall, she imagines you growing bigger, stretching out to fill the sky above her. When they bring you out - bagged, tagged and strapped to a trolly - you seem so much smaller, as though the impact has shrunk you down to more manageable proportions, packaged away within the body bag like a Ross Mueck miniature wrapped and ready for sale. But some part of you still feels alive within the bag. Maybe it is the soul, she will think. Maybe you are just asleep. Maybe the movement of the trolly will stir you as though you were being shaken gently from a dream. She will imagine your fingers twitching, reaching out, slowly at first as though heavy with sleep and then faster until they become frantic like a pianist playing at full tilt, your nails straining at the thick plastic slick with condensation. 

Some part of us stays on, even if others have to imagine it.

Her name is called over the white noise of the wind and it brings her back to reality. A man is striding across the car park: white shirt, plain blue tie, suit jacket flapping around his trim waist like a little cape.

This will be John.

Kerry, he says, a look of concern carving itself into his features. You OK?

His face will be pale but his cheeks will be flushed ruddy. He has rushed to get there. He will be the sort of man who hates to be late, even for the unexpected. As he approaches, she will ready herself for his arms to open and draw her in and make everything better. But where is the fun in that? Let’s have a little tension. Instead, let us have him just stand there with his hands plunged into his trouser pockets, puffing out his cheeks like the image of the western wind. 

You didn’t pick up, he will say.

She holds up the husk of her phone. No battery, she says.

She steps closer to him, prompting him, pinching his collar between her thumb and forefinger. She will mean it to be affectionate, but she rolls the fabric like someone rolling fresh orzo: tired, the novelty lost before the meal is complete. 

You see? Much better.

I want to go, she says.

OK, he says. Do you need to speak to anyone or can we just go now?

We can just go, she says.

The undertaker’s doors clang shut. The woman who saw you fall and her man who came to get her cross the car park together, an arm’s reach from each other. They have to stand back and wait while the vehicle drives out in front of them to join the main road. When it gets there, the photographer’s car stutters to life and follows behind and in a moment they are both lost in traffic.

We’re this way, says the man, nodding to a path that runs around the side of the Cyan building.

Before she leaves, she takes the blanket from her shoulders and drops it on the bonnet of a police car near the tent, trying not to look for signs of blood leaking from beneath the white tarpaulin. The man lays a hand on the small of her back and she can feel him craning to see inside. 

John, she says. Don’t.

Did you find out what they wanted?

The police?

The bank.

No. It all happened before I went inside. I’ll call them tomorrow. I’m not going in now. 

You don’t want to put them off, he says, pouting his lips playfully and nudging her in the right direction.

Someone died John, she says. 

He grunts his disapproval but leaves it there.

He has parked the car in the next unit along, outside the Careforce Insurance building, squeezed in between an Audi and a huge four-by-four. She slides in the passenger side and pulls the door shut. It doesn’t catch. She pushes it open and tries again. It will click into place the second time.

You want to talk about it, he will ask, slotting in beside her. We could go somewhere, get a drink, sit down. High street’s not far...

She gives him her best icy stare and his words will patter to a stop, damp like washing left on the line overnight. Yeah, he croaks. OK.

They sit staring through the glass doors of the insurance offices to the lobby beyond. He starts to talk again, saying every helpful thing that comes into his head, clattering his empathy like knives in the cutlery drawer. 

I don’t want to talk about it, she says.  

The grey shard of the Cyan building glitters briefly in the wing mirror. Somewhere between heaven and earth there must have been a point where your heart pulsed for the final time. She scans its length, searching for the right moment.

(ba-dum)

The future did nothing to stop you. Not even when you landed on its doorstep. 

She presses her forehead against the glass and lets the cold spread across her skin. John is counting to ten, patiently waiting to speak. He is swollen with good intentions.

Eight.

Nine. 

Ten.

It wasn’t your fault, he says.

(ba-dum)

Give it time.

His hand is on her leg. Rough skin catches at her tights like Velcro. 

(ba-dum)

For a moment she is there on the rooftop with you, pulling you back from the edge.

But that is not real. She was not there on the rooftop with you. There was no one to pull you back from the edge.

She blinks and is back in the car. 

She was the wrong side of the barrier, she says.

Maybe she was drunk, he shrugs.

no

you weren’t drunk

She was looking straight at me. Like, right at me. She knew where she was. She knew what she was doing. She hadn’t been drinking. 

OK, he says. 

She waved at me. 

(ba-dum)

Just a small wave. Like this, you know? 

She imitates your gesture, her fingertips fanning the air.

(ba-dum)

That’s weird, he says.

I know. The thing is...

(ba-dum)

...nevermind.

Go on, he says. Because he has to.

I waved back, she says. I waved like when you see someone on the street. 

He nods, frowning, and traces patterns on the back of her hand in invisible henna. 

She realises he is waiting for her to finish so they can leave. He has things to do, you see. He is a busy man. Coming back here to pick her up less than an hour after he dropped her off wasn’t part of the plan. Any disruption, no matter how justified, is an inconvenience we all have to suffer.But he is a good man. When the world steps out of line he will grit his teeth and grins and bear it. 

She loves him for it, she tells herself. The sense that he knows where he is going. He has momentum. It draws her along. She will tell herself that sometimes she just forgets to appreciate it. And she should appreciate it. It’s easy to see the bad in the ones we love most. We are closer to them. We see them under a macro lens. Every imperfection becomes a mountain top. Sometimes at home, under the harsher glare of artificial lighting, his skin turns translucent, weak and fleshy like undercooked fish. 

She shrugs the thought away.

He looks better in the daylight, she tells herself, lifting a hand to tickle the almost-stubble on his cheek.

It wasn’t your fault, he says again, the cool mint of his breath frosting the back of her hand. 

I know, she says. It was just strange.

Of course, he says. But it’s OK now. It’s over.

The sun slips behind the clouds again and the glitter of the Cyan building in the wing mirror fades to the darkened shades of oil on water.

The thing is, she says, when I saw her there…

Her words fade.

Go on, he says.

She takes a deep breath before she speaks.

I think she was waiting for me.