Black Chalk

Thought one. These walks of mine, I’m sure they were my idea. They must have been, yes? But when I read my words again I wonder if I have really been so insistent about them. Because the following (point five) has occurred to me – while I have been out walking, my visitor has been in here with her eyes on my story, her fingers on my keyboard. (Thought two. But I remember wanting to build the walks into my routine. I do remember that, don’t I?)

Thought three. I’m not saying dishonesty worms its way through this tale. Even if the words are not all my own, I have read and reread this story and everything rings true. But I am left with some questions.

Have I filled in the gaps myself for the sake of the story, or has someone else done this for me?

Who are you and what do you want?

And finally, what have you done to my story?

XXIX(ii) I am out of breath. My purchase swings in its plastic bag – I have been casting off its packaging as I run to my neighbouring block. Earlier I took note of the height and colour of the building and I find it soon after passing the tattoo parlour whose sign reads Cappuccino & Tattoo. I don’t even pause to take a deep breath, I slide my hand glissando down the intercom’s buttons. An impatient voice answers, ‘Whaddya want?’ Before I even offer an excuse, someone else has buzzed me in. I run up the stairs, fingers crossed, and pause in silent prayer before pushing the door at the top. And it opens.

The sun is fierce and no one is up here. I run across to the white picket fence and impatiently pull the binoculars out of the bag. I lift them to my eyes and start fumbling with the focus.

My breakfasting neighbour didn’t appear on his fire escape today. I wanted to shout across the street, My visitor, does she have blonde hair or dark hair?

And now, the image sharp enough, I try to peer into every corner of my apartment. I can see no one. I am thinking about my dream, the one I had the night before my writer’s block began. A woman somewhere crowded, Emilia or Dee?

Sweat drips from my brow, stings my eyes. I lower the binoculars, dry my face with my shirt. Blonde hair or dark?

And then, when I look up again, the door to my apartment, distant and made ghostly by the dark reflections in the window, opens slowly.

XXX

XXX Jack cast off his shroud of doom with a great flourish and the others sat back in their seats. They cradled their drinks and began to laugh about other things.

Chad was quiet, only half listening to the words spinning around him. His hangover had deadened any will to speak but his mind was wandering, at first drifting in one direction and then taking a sharp turn in another.

Dee was saying something about Jack keeping his filthy hands off her soul.

And then Jack was laughing about the cartoon that had recently appeared in the Pitt Pendulum. Jack said you could tell from the way they had drawn the hair that it had to be Mark. It was called ‘Home on Derange’. He’d heard there were more in the pipeline.

Chad closed his eyes. His thoughts were strange distortions as if he were seeing them through Jack’s crystal ball, the light bending and everything stretching then shrinking away.

When he opened his eyes he saw a television parading silent pictures above the bar. The stern faces of generals, a lurching camera chasing flashes in the dark of a distant night. Weapons from the skies in the Persian Gulf, Baghdad being bombed by the Coalition.

And that’s when, very suddenly, Chad’s mind lit up with an idea. Yes, it was time for a change. It was time for the Game to become less random, for the consequences to become more personal. If you could take careful aim at another player’s weaknesses, his or her innermost fears, then this would bring a whole new dimension to the Game.

He was about to excitedly reveal the idea, it felt very important, but Jolyon had shushed everyone and was pointing to the silent television. There was a headline displayed at the bottom of the screen. The United States had issued a twenty-four-hour ultimatum for Iraq to begin withdrawals from Kuwait. In the absence of any such withdrawal, war would begin on the ground.

Jolyon’s chair screeched as he pushed himself back from the table. ‘When was it the Berlin Wall fell?’ he said, squinting as he performed a calculation in his head. ‘Well, we had something close to peace for just over a year,’ he said, and then he took a long drink from his glass.

And now it felt wrong for Chad to say anything about the Game. Anyway, perhaps it would be better to keep the idea to himself for now, he thought. And better still, perhaps he should speak to Jolyon first. Jolyon would know how to talk everyone around.

And then, next time they played, they could call for a vote. An exciting change. An interesting new chapter.

XXXI

XXXI(i) Her head moves slowly into my hermit’s hole. After a moment her body follows. She pauses again, her back to the window.