Futuredebt - 4 - The nearest light
I’m releasing a novel called Futuredebt across 2024, letting it go one chapter at a time. The first chapters are available for free, but you’ll need to join my Patreon to read later chapters.
Click here to go back and read from chapter one.
How long do you stay when you know it isn't going to last? The future has told Kerry the man she loves today will not be the one she marries in the future. Now she has to decide what she does with that knowledge. 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.
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.