You are driving a respectable, worn around the edge little
minivan across the German Autobahn, 9pm. Daylight begins to fade, but is not
yet relieved of its post. A friend arrives in front of you; not swerving, not
lurching, but gliding perfectly along, buzzing about you like a house-fly.
It tells you to follow it, winking blue lights in your eyes.
It arcs off the road like a pure white skimmed pebble.
You stop beside the relentless flow of sparkling little cars,
calming the growl of the fat old engine you’ve been pumping all this time.
‘Hallo.’
‘Hallo.’
‘Passports?’
A smile, a check, and a passport, and you are asked to step
out of the vehicle. These are two young, plastic men dressed in blue. Their
tool belts are spiked and encircle them like little helpers holding hands. One
of the helpers you nickname ‘Mr. Gun.’
You stand between the two plastic men, feet together, arms
out to your side, face to the sky with eyes closed, as requested.
‘Left!’
You tentatively touch your left index finger to your nose.
‘Right!’
Your right index.
‘Left!’
Here we are again.
‘Left!’
You’re not getting caught out by that.
An uncomfortable assault and a torch is probed into your
eyes. Other empty pools of black approach you with the inspection of a judge,
not doctor.
They insist on water.
‘But I am dry.’ You say. ‘I cannot make it rain, no matter
how I dance.’
‘That is OK’ says one of the plastic men, ‘we will wait.’
You try once. They say they need only a drop or two. In the
desert, despite the heat, despite the dry, you force, prying from the scale of
an imagined large mirage, a single,
fearful teardrop.
You offer it to them like a wretch, caught up in the afterglow
fervour after a witnessed sacrifice. The rich men have slaughtered their goats,
the blood has been spilled and the temple is empty. Now here you are, a
syphilitic rat in your hands, bargaining with the Gods.
‘No. We need more.’
In your transport are your friends. They laugh. They give
you spirit; instruction. ‘Just relax.’ They say. You can relax, but one cannot
go swimming if one cannot find the sea. I take a glug from awkward crumpling
bottles. The plastic men, despite their frowns at your failure to provide, are impressed by your ability to drink very
large quantities of water in a very short period of time in order to provide a
urine sample in a roadside test for two fully armed German police officers, who
have already asked you ‘When is the last time you took x. Have you had any y.’,
truthfully answered by you, you little stereotype, you. But you are no
killer. You may be another foolish statistic, but not of that type.
Now, the jig. Minutes squeeze themselves in between one
another. Another seat can be made in the theatre for those little things to
catch a glimpse. ‘Excuse me,’ they say ‘We know the more of us we are, the more
we have to wait, but still: this, we all must see.’ You feel their stacked
gaze. Their glittering eyes still sparkle in the furthest distance: twinkling
headlights.
Jig, jig, jig.
A raindance.
You drink more water.
There is more silence.
More time.
‘OK’, you say.
Again the bush, beside a truck, watched over by an overly
airbrushed photograph, plucked from a magazine. You will it, hard. You will for
rain so hard you almost cause thunder, and dark clouds. Eventually, it spits.
It falters. Clouds appear, and you pack the glass with a thick punch. You are
happy to meet your accusers eyes, to place into their hands a warm and aromatic
little statement of your innocence.
‘Don’t drink it all at once.’ You say. They smile, and run back
to their little bug, scrambling in the back seat.
Your friends blow air with the other judge. Talking about
Reggae? They think they know us. They think they have our number. They think
they have your number, and know that
it is up. They can already see your luscious locks [sic] streaming behind them
through a rear window. Perhaps they will eat you for lunch, or wax their tacky
badges with your fat.
You watch, now. Your overseer sprinkles the ashes of your
anxiety over a pretty bingo board.
‘This line is for alcohol,’ he informs you. ‘this one for
THC Marijuana, this one for amphetamines, this one for opiates…this one is the
clear line. If you get this, you are OK.’
The strip is aligned vertically, the C line, your target, at
the top. You feel weak as he tests your strength.
You wait.
Everybody waits.
You know what will happen, but still there is a part of you
that wonders from the facts – the part that continues to look down known empty
roads. This is the part that checks the tickets twice, then three times, in
case those first two touches were mere perceptive assaults of the imagination;
water displaced by an invisible finger.
This part thinks that you will fail. This is it, now. You
are banged up like a chicken. Big Mary, grasshopper to your wallflower, watches
you sleep. An unknown judgement from an unknown tongue. They have the proof
that you’ve been spiking poppies, sinking ships, burning down greenhouses and
drowning your inner-child, all before tackling the rapids. ‘It’s a full house,’
you imagine them saying, ‘you are the most fucked up person we’ve ever had, and
we’re going to have to glue all of your skin together to restrain you, then
peel it off with a machine when we drag you to the…’
Oh no, hang on. No - it’s negative. You’re clear. Again, you
knew you were.
Plastic taps and shuffles, quickly. Brows furrow and faces
fall. The feet do not encroach now, and the bobbling heads do not tower above
yours. The legs lean at an angle, and a casually outstretched hand offers you a
package.
‘Your passports and license.’
‘Thanks.’ You say. They do not return it, but instead about
face and slide, simultaneously, back into their floating little nipper.
--
Somewhere, deep in the Austrian mountains through which you
have just driven, you imagine there is a laboratory, thick and gleaming with
steel and chrome. The vaults in which the white-coats work stretch up for
hundreds of metres, closed off from heaven.
‘Sir!’
The assistant runs across the sterile floor to the bald,
bespectacled man. Footsteps echo above and around like displaced dust, his
jacket flows out behind him; cold, resistant air.
‘Sir!’
A red biro teeters from end to tip and rattles as it hits
the floor. The assistant, breathing deeply, stops still. The bald man turns,
his wet, beady eyes fixed on the boy.
‘What is it,
Alexander? Why must you consistently
distract me from my work?’
‘Sir,’ the assistant splutters through rushing gusts of
breath ‘they’ve found a match. The General says the project is to continue
immediately.’
The bald man’s shoulders relax, a hint of a smile at the
corner of his mouth. His eyes turn wetter still. A single tear. He tries to
hold it in, but cannot.
‘…after all these years.’
The bald man turns from his assistant, and opens a small
control panel. There’s a boop beep beep, and soon a loud hiss of steam. Upon
one wall, the clouds from giant pneumatic pistons condensate in mid air, some
rising up to coat the inside of the mountain, the strength of steel still
giving way to rock and tightly packed earth as it nears the top. A little water drips down the unfathomable distance,
and the bald man raises his face to it, refreshed and cleansed by the cool
drops.
A brushed, silver panel struggles to shift its weight. The
laboratory shudders. Some of the little bodies run and hide, but the bald man stays,
the thunder under his feet rising up through his body to stimulate his powerful
brain. Perhaps twenty seconds, and the sound of riot stops. The echoes can be
heard from here, spreading out like ripples on water. Above and outside of the
mountain, birds burst into flight.
A squeak of shoes of wet floor, and a tap and a splash of
well cobbled soles. A hard faced woman in a black suit steps across the
laboratory to the bald man, not a glance for his assistant.
‘Here it is, Professor.’ She says.
A dirty liquid in a little plastic cup.
‘Is this all they could manage?’ the bald man says.
The steam clears, and the three little people stand before a
wall, not of bricks, but of bodies. Perfectly suspended - each in his own amber
- the long haired, preciously pale little urchins line up in rows and columns.
A scanner hovers, flown on little blades, and begins to check the status of the
artefacts. The information flows downstream. The lights rush to attention. The
numbers on the screen rise and rise. The signal is green. The woman in black
leaves the room without looking back. The bald man and his assistant must crane
their necks to take in the wealth of flesh they now have to play with. The
picture stretches out to infinity.
‘I have never…’ gasps Alexander.
‘I have.’ Says the bald man with a smile.
Behind the two agog, resting against against one wall of the
laboratory, there lies a rusty bass guitar.
‘Go and get an amplifier, Alexander,’ the bald man says, ‘The
mountains shall shake tonight.’
