5:32:13
A young man strides across my skin. It is thirty-two minutes past five on a Friday, and he is free from his shackles, for a time. His outfit is the product of hours spent elbow deep in charity shop racks. A patterned shirt that has not seen a tour of duty in my nightclubs since the nineteen-eighties. Leather trousers, tight as a second skin, constrict blood-flow to the head. This is intentional, no thoughts are necessary for tonight. He is bursting with the glee of youth, golden brown eyes incandescent. Indestructible. Indefatigable. My world belongs to him.
I see his death coming twenty-three seconds before it happens.
I do what I can. Billboard sirens flash his favourite advertisements. I assault his nose with the smells of doner, salty and dripping with fat. Desperately trying to shift him off of this course. A greasepaper wrapper, clinging to my body, peels away and soars through my air before beginning a perilous stoop towards his face. It misses. The van's radio spits static as I seize the treacherous airwaves that pollute me, throttling them. It is enough to pull the driver from their unthinking auto-pilot. But not enough to avert my son’s death. He dives out from the haven curb. He hadn't noticed that the lights had changed.
One thousand nine hundred and seventy four kilograms of steel, aluminium and rubber decimate him. I wish I could look away. I caress him as he tumbles across my body. I am hurting him, my skin is too coarse for him, too many hard angles. I hold him in his last moments, whispering petty comforts and platitudes.
I'M HERE. YOU ARE NOT ALONE. YOU NEVER WERE.
His eyes go wide. He can see me. Never been able to before, but as he starts to leave his body his perception reaches new heights. And I can see in his eyes that he knows me. Recognises my presence. His hand reaches up, as if to brush against my cheek, but he cannot make it. He chokes words through broken lips and bloodied teeth.
"Don't be sorry. I didn't regret a single second of it."
His vital fluids stain me. Tomorrow they will be bleached away. Today, I mourn my son.
I scream and the wind rises.
I stoop down to collect his last breath. It is a ruddy-gold thing, the soft and warm glow of his youth intermingling with the violence of his passing. It squirms against my grip, eager to be free, to leave this world and return anew. But I will hold it for now. I am not ready to let it go. Already, I feel my focus pulled elsewhere.
5:32:28
I find myself in a hallway. It is colder here. This part of me has not been maintained. Brutalism decays into smog-stained concrete and ingrain walled apartments. Halls of beige, the landlord's favourite. I recall the years past when this was a hive, my children moving to and fro, industry and art colliding in a flurry of frenetic passion and motion. All gone now. Rust teems from every edge of abandoned industrial yards.
I face a door. White wood, stained yellow now, and peeling badly. I can hear the ghosts of footsteps long gone, haunting my surfaces. They were imprinted, as someone crept silently away at the crack of dawn, years past. The wound of that betrayal has festered here. I pass inside. Before I was as a mother, cradling her dying son, here I come bearing scythe and hourglass.
This is a woman who has seen a lot, and doesn’t have much more to see. Her pupils are pinpricks and her breath rattles through her throat like thick exhaust. The skin is weathered and cold. Her clothes are of an era past. Suppose she couldn’t bear to throw them away. That would tell the world she had moved on. That she was, on some level, fine with what had happened. Fine with her child leaving. The report will say opioid overdose, but this was the real cause of death.
I saw this death coming fifteen years before it happened.
I rush forward. A thousand arms embrace, but she is not there - I need to go deeper. I contract and compress, and dive into the needlepoint prick in her arm. Taking a benzene ring in hand and spinning it into a waltz, the molecules dance as we beat a merry funeral march through her bloodstream. Passing into the spine, we are catapulted upwards, violating the blood/brain barrier. There, I see her. Not as she is, but as she was. She sits at an iron-wrought park bench, watching memories flash by on silver screens. Recognising my presence, despite my silent steps, her eyes don’t leave the screens for an instant.
“Was - was I wrong? Was it me?”
We both know what the answer is. My silence speaks more than a sea of ink and a world of parchment.
SHE IS HAPPY.
I am unsure if that is what she wanted to hear.
I am expelled through the nose, tumbling back out onto the sticky carpet. Just in time, I collect the last breath from the Penitent. It is a deep royal blue, thick like treacle. Running through it is a sickly streak of black-yellow. It pools in my hands, and I hold on tight to make sure it doesn’t drip through my fingers onto the carpet. I do not mourn here. It would not be appropriate. After all, I had caused this.
5:32:43
I am at one of my highest peaks. A towering edifice of steel and glass which scratches at the air. The wind whips at it, bringing sounds and smells from across me to this point. I can see everything that I encompass, and the wind brings me prayers and voices. Board-game suburbs sprawl before me. Smoked glass and light intersect at sharp angles. Here, I am at my most influential, my presence most clear. Not in or on the building itself. But in the sky above me. The air is sacred here. Sanctuary.
Someone is intruding on my temple.
Teetering on the brink of it. Not quite on the threshold, sitting at the edge of the tower's rooftop, feet dangling. They wear a thick light-red coat which stretches down to their shins. They anticipated the wind-chill at this height. Planned this. Thin black gloves rest loosely on the lip of the roof. A pair of well-worn headphones rests around their neck. They are bulky and beige and loved. Incredibly loved, a reason for this sonically-powered individual to carry on. Soft and melancholic vibrations emanate from them. A treasured gift from a forefather. I know what is going to happen. They are young, far too young. I cannot bear to witness this.
But I can't let this happen.
On the other side of myself, years of cholesterol take their toll for the final time as a heart stops.
I yank the static from the air, ripping broadcasts to shreds. Taking the jumbled waves, I tie them into a single arrow, and let loose.
A body rebels against itself, traitorous cells spewing black gangrene as an empire collapses from within.
For what seems like forever, nothing happens. I can feel them preparing themselves.
A push and a shove is all it takes. Gravity does the rest. Anger transmutes into horror in an instant as bone snaps and life is snuffed out.
They tense their hands against the stone as if to push. I cannot take more of this. I can't lose another. And then, on those headphones, their sanctuary, their rock, words crackle and emerge.
I’M SORRY.
It is enough. They look around in a panic, scrambling back from the ledge. I watch them turning the headphones over in their hands, checking the connections. Confusion sets in. I can see the gears whirring in their mind as they start rationalising it. A trick of the wind, a manifestation of their animal brain trying to save it from itself. I can't let this be for nothing, but they can't see me, can't hear my words. I would do anything to help them. To make it easier for them, but I can't. They stare up into the sky. Then they laugh, and begin to cry.
“I don’t know what that was. But I feel like someone is here. I haven’t left a note… or anything. But, well… I feel like someone has to hear this." They take a deep breath. "I’m empty. I don’t feel anything. There is a numbness to my soul, and it’s killing me. I feel like I’m stuck inside amber, watching my life go by. I know that the things I’m doing are wrong, that they aren’t good for me, but I can’t bring myself to stop them from happening.”
I WISH I COULD UNDERSTAND YOU. I WANT TO KNOW HOW TO STOP HURTING YOU.
“And now I’m here. Talking to myself, to the sky. I don’t know why I can only do this with myself. People ask me if I’m okay, and just the thought of telling them how I feel is like swallowing acid. My anxiety is unbearable. I can’t ask anyone for help, but without it I can’t fucking cope! It’s a sick fucking joke!”
They start to inch towards the ledge.
I WOULD DO ANYTHING FOR YOU. I LOVE YOU SO MUCH. EVERY DAY I DIE OVER AND OVER BUT IT WILL NOT STOP. THERE ARE ALWAYS MORE OF YOU.
“And life just keeps carrying on. This shit is relentless. I wish the world would just stop. Let the cogs grind to a halt, just for a while. Would that really be so bad?”
They are back on the precipice now, I can see it coming again. Looking now, I can see the pit inside of them. A sucking nothingness that takes the good things and grinds them against the sheer enormity of it all. What is anything in comparison to everything?
But it’s not entirely empty. There is something down there. Weak, malnourished, but alive nevertheless. I don’t have much time.
I take the last breath of the Young Man into my hands and begin to mould it. I pull at the red, teasing out the strands of pain and violence, discarding them into the ether where they writhe and vanish. I am left with a golden thing, hope and courage and fire distilled. Antithesis to your anxiety. But my work is not complete.
The Penitent’s breath is sieved through my many hands. Careful now. This toxic core of grief and shame must be removed. Can’t let it poison another. The hissing black-yellow mix spits and bubbles as it dribbles into the sky, but I pay it no heed. The blue sings. It is melancholic, but experienced. Tempered, without the brittle bitterness of age. A wall to keep you from falling apart.
I take the two and combine them. Lives lived, experiences. They are all together, living on me, but so far apart. Have to force the connection. The mixture, red and blue, are now a rich purple. The vibrancy and ecstasy of life tempered against the cynicism of time. The wit and resilience of age balanced by the liberty of youth. The building blocks of a person.
I ram it into their face, forcing it through nostrils, ears, eyes and mouth. It surges through them, and they take a step back in shock. I can see the void filling in front of me. Not defeated. Far from it. But postponed for now. The Child is looking up at me. With a start, I realise that they can see me.
“Who- What are you?”, they ask.
I have never spoken to one of them that was not already dead. I know not what to say. What am I? I am too many things to describe. Too much history. Always changing, shifting, barely recognisable. Paralysis strikes me, but then it fades.
I lean down towards them.
I AM CONCRETE, STEEL AND SODIUM LAMPS. I AM FALSE STARS ATOP OFFICE BLOCKS THAT BLOT OUT THE SKY. I AM THE GREATEST WORK OF ART MADE BY HUMAN HANDS AND I AM A WRETCHED PLACE. I AM NEOLIBERALISM MADE MANIFEST, AND I AM THE MOTHER OF THE RÉVOLUTIONNAIRE. I AM THE END OF HISTORY AND THE CRUCIBLE OF THE FUTURE.
I AM ALWAYS THERE. YOU ARE NEVER ALONE WHEN YOU WALK THROUGH ME. I CANNOT HELP, I CANNOT INTERVENE, BUT I AM WATCHING. EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOU ASTOUNDS ME. THAT YOU GET UP AND DO IT, DAY AFTER DAY, IN THE FACE OF EVERYTHING THAT IS. AND IN HONOUR OF YOUR RESOLVE I WILL REMEMBER YOU ALL. IT IS THE LEAST I CAN DO.
They look stunned. It was too much for them. They quickly back away from my visage, scrambling towards the roof exit. I tried. I tried to tell them but it was not enough. Turning, sitting on the edge where they sat, I take myself in entirely. Smog rises from my arteries. My children crawl across my skin, moving with their lives. So many of them. So many more existing only in my memories.
Then, behind me, I hear soft breathing. Fast at first, but slowing to a steady rhythm. Cold sweat beads on a palm as it clasps the metal door handle. Cautiously, the Child walks across the rooftop to my side and sits down next to me. Melancholic vibrations echo from their headphones. A minute passes in silence before they clear their throat and speak.
"You said that you see everything?"
YES.
"That must be hard. Getting so attached only to lose them. Has it never gotten easier?"
IT IS ALWAYS PAINFUL. IT ONLY GETS WORSE. YOU ARE INCREASING.
The Child does not respond to that. Their lips are pursed as they look out over me. Eyes taking in what I really am for the first time. What multitudes I contain, and how frequently I bear witness to tragedy. Then they take my hand in theirs, and stare up at me.
"The pain is easier when you share it. You showed me that. So, tell me about them."
I SMILE, and begin.