Quantum Poppers (5 page)

The man said,
'sorry.'

John wanted to
laugh. What was he expecting? It had all started at work. What an exotic locale
for all this to kick off. It started at work and ended here, in the hotel room
from hell.

‘My kids
haven’t seen me for almost a year. Please, what happened?’

‘Sorry.’

The room was
dark and he sat on a chair in the far corner of the room. Bartley stood just
inside the door staring at the shape surrounded by the artificial glow from the
window. John picked up a cigarette from the ashtray beside him. It had been lit
minutes ago and burnt halfway down. Sitting with his head in his hands had
suddenly seemed a much better idea than smoking when this man entered. He took
a drag and thought back to that moment at work. The whole thing now seemed a
dream. Perhaps on some level it was, yet he had long passed the point of caring
either way. From work to here, via a glimpse of someone he still couldn’t
accept seeing, had been a hurried exchange. They apparently were not labeling
it a kidnap, but John knew no other word for what had happened to him.

He looked up
again through the darkened smoke.

‘Is there any
chance...’ he whispered.

‘Sorry.’

‘It was me.’

John closed his
eyes, took another drag of the cigarette, and put it back in the ashtray. This
was the first time, almost eleven months after his capture, that he had
admitted this to himself. Vague memories stood backdrop to one undeniable fact:
that it was him.

‘Sorry,’ he
heard.

 John opened
his eyes. ‘I got hypothesis and all kinds of crazy theories as to what happened
and I’m sure they’re not half as insane as the truth. Is there a chance I could
see outside, walk in the open air? Christ, even eat, shit, sleep without these
damn cameras on me? Just for five minutes?’

He stared
directly at the man, a sorry would follow shortly.

‘I’ll see what
I can do.’

 Tony’s
apartment always appeared worse to him than it would be when gazed upon by
others. The one rogue piece of cotton on the black carpet stared up at him like
a Grand Canyon torn into the floor; the banana peel he had just this second
placed on the arm of the sofa symbolised vast wastelands set to attract flies.
He thought that his ground floor semi-detached flat was clean for a single male
living alone but now that Emma was standing at his side these minor items shone
out like bio-degrading beacons of filth.

‘Pull up a
chair,’ he said as he quickly pocketed the banana skin and covered the cotton
strand, sealing the abyss with a trainer. He left the video game controller on
the floor. In this time of Repeat Others and thoughts of insanity, it was good
to know that some things never changed. Super Mario. Run, jump, and save the
princess. Pure simplicity.

The doorbell
had rung, and after narrowly missing an attack of the Goombas, he had hit the
pause button and answered it. Standing there was Emma. Her shoulder length hair
shimmered in the early afternoon breeze and around her the day swelled in
brightness as if she were the source of light radiating down his hallway and
not the sun spilling out of darkening clouds behind her. They hugged briefly
before heading into the lounge where they now stood, Tony with a banana skin in
his pocket and Emma glancing at his foot as if contemplating why he’d made that
sudden movement and what he was covering.

‘Still playing
this one?’ asked Emma whilst picking up the controller.

‘Don’t unpause
it. Mario’s in a very precarious position, if you’re not holding the
directional pad right when you’re unpausing he falls in the lava and the last
thirty-five minutes of my life will have been a waste.’

‘Just the last
thirty-five minutes?’

‘Very funny,’
Tony said and Emma put the controller down onto the coffee table.

‘Coffee?’ she
said as she got to her feet.

‘Thought you’d
never ask.’

She headed out
of the lounge and into the adjacent kitchen. Tony couldn’t see her but could
hear the clattering of mugs and cupboards opening. He picked up the controller,
unpaused the game and cleared the chasm.

‘What you been
up to today?’ he said, his eyes not leaving the screen.

‘Exciting
stuff, the dentist being the highlight.’

‘All ok?’

‘Yeah. Milk?’

‘Not today
thanks. Black and strong.’

‘He kept asking
me whether I was a mout beater,’ Emma called from the kitchen. Tony could hear
the kettle rumbling over the bleeping soundtrack of the game.

‘Who did?’ he
replied.

‘The dentist.
He kept asking: are you a mout beater, are you a mout beater? I didn’t know
what he was talking about. Are you a mout beater, do you beat tru your mout?
Did I mention he was Dutch? What else am I going to beat tru?’

‘I see,’ Tony
said as Emma re-entered the room holding two mismatched mugs, one a simple
white, the other emblazoned with the badge of Selbyrne Town, a football team
going downhill as quickly as Tony’s current career prospects. She placed the
mug on the coffee table and sat with her own held in her hands.

‘Thanks,’ said
Tony and continued to play. ‘How’s Trev? All going well?’

‘Trev, I hate
that. Sounds like some kind of gardening implement. A Trev. He’s good. The lack
of things we have in common is gradually becoming an issue though. I’m going to
end up doing more things alone than I did before. I thought the point of being
a couple was that you got to share activities together.’

With his vision
locked to the screen and his mind locked to thoughts of whether or not to
discuss with Emma his recent visions he barely registered most of what she was
saying. It seemed as though their relationship built on mud was beginning to
crumble but Tony got the distinct impression this wasn’t too much of an issue
with her. Apparently a failing relationship was preferable to none.

‘Enough of
that; didn’t you want to discuss something with me?’

‘Pardon,’ said
Tony. He continued to play.

‘Last night
before you left. It sounded as though you wanted to discuss something but…’

She let the
statement hang as Tony paused the game, picked up his mug, and turned to her.

‘Something to
talk to you about? I’m not sure I really want to discuss it?’

‘You can talk
to me. Anything, I promise, I’m always available and will never judge. And it
must be important, you’ve paused your game.’

‘Could be,
could be. But this is something...undefinable,’ he finally said, landing on a
word he didn’t think fully described what was happening.

‘Undefinable? I
don’t know what you mean.’

‘I think it’s
best I don’t talk about it.’

‘Is it
something medical?’

‘Maybe.’

‘Go to the
doctors then, I’m sure whatever’s on your mind will be eased if a professional
tells you all is ok.’

‘I’m sure it
would, but this is something – more.’

‘Trust me, talk
to a doctor.’

‘I don’t think
paracetamols will help.’

‘The peace of
mind could be preferable to any drug.’

Emma placed her
mug down on the table as Tony returned to his the game. ‘I take it that means
this conversation is over?’

‘I’m just
working out how to upgrade what I’m going through to definable.’

‘And?’

At that moment
Mario ran head first into a bird-like creature and the two-dimensional sprite
collapsed, wilted to the floor.

‘That little
shit!’ Tony shouted.

‘Who?’

‘Super Mario.’

‘Super Mario is
a shit?’

‘Yes, Super
Mario is a shit. I only asked him to jump. Jump! It’s not as if you can do much
else.’

He flung the
controller down on to the table and sipped his drink.

‘Feeling better
now?’

‘Yes, but
things are staying undefinable a little longer. I promise I’ll discuss them
with you soon.’

The Cheeky Half
stood on a fag washed island of grass and empties between a vista of garages
and Chinese takeaways. The sign of a black bearded jolly-faced man watched over
its domain with a welcoming smile, as did the landlady - minus the beard.
Inside, the groups of underage drinkers (and part-time dealers) had been
replaced by an increasing amount of elderly clientele after the opening of a
local Bar-Moi. This Starbucks of pubs had promised a cheap drink-filled night
for under a fiver. These promises could not be fulfilled but the scantily clad
eighteen-year-old barmaids had been one reason for ‘da kids not to return. A
hardcore element had remained loyal however, sometimes close proximity was the
only factor in a local pub no matter how scantily clad the barmaids were, but
only just.

Simon raised a
bottle of blue liquid, held it up to the light and gazed through it. He looked
like a crazed scientist staring at his latest potion, expecting the concoction
to start bubbling over the side or shoot sparks out the top. He swirled it
around, squinting to make sure the bubbling potion didn’t contain debris of
living or dead creatures.

‘What the hell
is this stuff?’ he said, rotating it to check the drink under another light. It
seemed to glow green. Simon swished it around his mouth, swallowed it and then
spat a dollop of blue saliva into a pint glass of swirling viscous colours.

‘Tastes alright
to me,’ said Andy taking a sip of his own blue coloured alcohol and taking his
disgusted yet indifferent gaze off of the pint glass and began drinking again.

Simon took
another swig and once again looked at his glass as if it was about to melt or
begin emitting vapours from its murky depths. ‘But it’s blue,’ he said. ‘Surely
it ain’t natural to drink anything that's blue. Ain’t bleach and chlorine
blue?’ He put his drink down, spitting again into his ever-filling pint glass
and looked up at Andy.

‘I’m sure
chlorine is pink.’

‘Maybe.
Whatever this stuff is I’m sure it’s better for cleaning swimming pools than
dissolving my liver.’

‘Don’t taste
that bad,’ said Andy. ‘Alcohol is good, sugar is good,’ he sipped, ‘blue is
good.’

‘No, no. No
drink that glows in the dark can be good,’ Simon said as he cupped the bottle
in his hands trying to blank out the light, testing his glow in the dark
theory. ‘It's definitely going orange’, he muttered to himself.

‘So anyway,’
said Tony drinking from his lager. ‘It's all done.’

They were sat
on a raised section of the pub, partly due to the easily accessible quiz
machine and partly because it contained the only other group of people nearing
their age. A group of girls sat across the way, three of them with pints.
Noticing this Simon began shielding his bottle of blue stuff but kept his
saliva collection on show as if it was preferable to display over the alchopop.
He probably thought it made him look cool – all it did was make Tony want to
vomit over the crisp and nut covered carpet.

 ‘What's all
done?’ said Simon, once again spitting in his pint glass, now just force of
habit.

Tony took a sip
from his pint and leaned back in his chair with a successful and accomplished
grin on his face.

‘The game,’ he
said. ‘The kingdom is safe and the Princess is mine.’

‘Sounds like
you had a productive day,’ said Andy.

‘Didn’t you
hear? I saved the world - sounds productive to me.’ Tony took another, this
time exaggerated gulp of his drink, both in celebration of a successful day and
safe in the knowledge Simon was embarrassed by his pink-strawed blue fizzy
drink with an ape hanging from it. That and his usual pint glass of…but Tony
didn’t want to linger on that.

‘That why you
were late?’ said Simon.

‘Kind of. Emma
popped round.’

‘Ahh, I see.’

Mid sip, Tony
put his pint down and looked across at Simon. ‘What's that supposed to mean?’
he said.

‘Nothing,
nothing. Be late to meet us if it means spending more time with your little
girlfriend,’ Simon replied. ‘If I have to suffer through Andy's round selection
then I can at least get some gratification from winding you right up.’

‘Yeah yeah.
She's not my girlfriend,’ Tony said, playing it cool.

Andy now sipped
from his drink, finishing it off and placing it back down on the table. ‘Just
still friends?’ he asked.

‘Yes, that is
all we are and all we ever will be.’ Tony picked his pint up again. ‘Look, I
was about to celebrate the fact that I’d just saved the world and now you’ve
got me all depressed. I’m now going to have to drink heavily tonight for
completely different reasons.’ He downed over half his pint. ‘What you drinking
then?’

Simon waved his
half drank bottle of blue stuff at Tony. ‘It's really nice, you should try
some,’ he said.

‘Yep, it’s
good,’ Andy said in acknowledgement.

‘Think I’ll
stick to the pints for now,’ Tony said drinking once more from his own.

‘You don’t know
what you’re missing,’ said Andy.

‘Maybe later,’
said Tony.

Simon took
another sip from his drink with one eye on the girls next to him and once again
spat a little into his trusty pint glass.

‘Do you have to
do that?’ asked Andy.

‘Gotta put it
somewhere; be rude to spit it on the floor.’

‘Why spit at
all?’ Andy continued.

‘What are you
saying, does it annoy you?’ Simon said, one hand wrapped round the pint glass.

Andy looked
down at its contents and then quickly turned back to Simon. ‘Well, not annoy,’
he said. ‘But I am trying to enjoy a drink here. I don’t want to be constantly
reminded of the dregs of your last mouthful.’

‘Oh piss off,’
said Simon. He was about to spit into the glass one final time to annoy Andy
when his attention was grabbed by something else in the pub. ‘Look at that’, he
said.

Andy and Tony
both turned to witness the one thing that could put Simon off of his spitting
stride. What they saw was the most attractive girl to ever step foot inside The
Cheeky Half. With jacket and handbag tucked under her arm, she gracefully
walked up the stairs, her long red dress drifting over her legs, the movement
of her backside sending ripples all the way down to her feet. She had short
blonde hair, mascared blue eyes and a deep red lipstick that almost centred
attention to her stunning face. It would have if not for the delicate chain
that fell deep within her cleavage, arrowing towards the depths of her low cut
dress. She led a group of girls, each trying to reach the beauty of their
leader yet not quite matching it. They sat at a table across from Tony, each
with a drink colour coded with their dresses. They lit up their corner of the
pub with an exotic rainbow aroma of watermelon and cherry.