We were dotted randomly around the studio, each of us splayed out across whichever furniture we’d chosen to land on.
Trewin was at the computer, drilling through music. The centre of his forehead was blotchy with large bruises and one section of the wooden desktop was particularly dented. His fingers tapped the keyboard on one side of the desk while across the other side completely his other hand lifted and dragged and slapped against the desk a little wireless mouse which manipulated everything on the forty-inch screen that blocked out the bay window. His back and arms spanned the full width of the desk and at times he appeared to be sleeping, but still moving.
A bear with a streak of thick blood in its fur skulked between us all.
New James was a starfish on an antique chair. His right knee was draped over the armrest and his right arm spiked up in the air, perhaps indicating North. The rest of him poured over the rest of the chair, one third of him compact and secure, the other two low in mid air or piled against the floor.
He opened his mouth and sound came out. Perhaps at one time they were words, but all I heard was a low, amorphous and consonantless moan. It wasn’t pain. I don’t know what it was. It was the sound of floorboards resettling in an empty house.
The bear stopped, stood on its hind legs, roared a roar so loud and long that it became a mutually accepted background—a wholesale replacement of the reality to which we had previously consented—and bounded with heavy thuds over to where New James sat.
Ed was face down on top of the piano, his face mushed into the wood so his lips hung loosely from one side. One arm and one leg were like ivy grown over the naked front of the piano, and every now and then one index finger would tap a key with mechanical precision.
The bear ripped New James’ leg off and started to chew on it. Blood sprayed across the white carpet and cream coloured walls. Some even got me in the face. It was warm.
I was slumped into the sofa so that it was my shoulder blades that hooked into the seat. Otherwise I just lay there like processed stringed-cheese that had all been ripped apart.
Seryn had draped himself across one chandelier, among the cobwebs.
The bear ripped off both of New James’ arms and ate them too. His single-legged torso stayed in the one place, but now it leaked blood. His face was blank.
Then the bear, taking a great gouge from Trewin’s back on its way across the room, headed for the piano. It picked Ed up and threw him in the air before catching him with its teeth. The crunch of Ed’s ribcage was drowned out only by a quick blast of music from the speakers. The middle of the second verse of the eighth track of the new album, I think. New James leaked noise. Trewin grunted. Ed, his body moving like a rag-doll caught in the gears of a Victorian factory floor as the bear chewed on his body, summoned a squeak himself.
Trewin and New James both muttered something simultaneously.
Seryn fell from the chandelier.
I breathed out from my heavy lungs and managed a dead whistle. Eyes swivelled on me.
The bear threw Ed across the room from his mouth. Ed’s body hit the wall with a low thud, leaving blood and a few scraps of skin. This time on its way across the room the bear ripped hard with all his weight at Trewin’s shoulders so both arms came off, though the disembodied fingers continued tapping and working and clicking.
The bear picked up Trewin’s body and threw it out the window. After it had broken the glass, invisible behind the giant screen, I heard it murmur something before hitting the ground outside.
I struggled to swallow a little saliva before the bear turned on me; hunched on its shoulders, sharp, long, and bloody teeth bared, revving like a motorcycle before launching at me with its open mouth.
