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Explode/Implode
By Dom Maitland
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There is a small explosive device trapped inside my skull. It is just beneath the crown of my head and if I were to press hard enough I would feel it, like I would feel a lump. I know how long it has been there and I remember how it got there.
I went into the street. I shouted.
It was starting to explode.
I tried to get someone to look at me, to examine it, but they
were scared, I could see the fear in their eyes, they knew that
I had this tiny metal trap inside my head, that they should stand
clear, before it exploded. I tried to tell people, I know now
that everyone has one.
Chris told me. I shuddered. I wanted to cry.
He said that we are all victims, shadows of our real selves, that
we all have this bomb inside of us and no one will share that
secret with anyone else. Nobody believes or trusts anyone; we
are all completely alone. I asked him if it was possible to break
it down, disintegrate it, he said that certain liquids in the
right amount would help to delay its effects, but it would be
a long and dangerous road. I didn't know what other roads there
were. Today the light from the sun bounced off the pavement, it
cut into me like a razor. I am still squinting. I am still close
to crying.
He stood in the road, and no one heard him when he screamed.
That's how I'll start it when I get round to it. My Opus.
All I want to do is diffuse the device, because sometimes I can
feel it pounding inside me, it wants to escape. But if it escapes
it will kill me, there is only one way out, through the top of
my head. Anyway, I'm out of liquid. Point of crisis. The bomb
reforms itself; it multiplies its connections, it has joined itself
to my brain. It is part organic and my body has incorporated it
into my system, I can't tell which of my thoughts belong to me
or the bomb. I suppose I'm scared, but as I say the liquid helps.
Chris looked a bit confused when I told him, but it's true. It
attacks in different ways. It warns you, it threatens you, you
have to remain guarded, but sometimes you can't help it. You just
can't, it starts to come out of you, and you try to stop it but
it grows and grows and then you can't back down, you have to stand
your ground and it's hurting, it's hurting so fucking much.
Then I get into trouble and I try to explain, I really do. No
one can hear me.
No. No. No, that's not right.
I speak a different language.
That's it.
Well, a sort of old language, an unfamiliar voice. A language
that is spoken in small groups, gathered round fires late at night,
a language filled with colour and longing, a sad tongue. It is
a voice that lived long ago and the liquid brings it back. It's
a side effect but a necessary one for diffusing the device. I
hate it, but it's necessary.
In some ways I should be grateful. I know who my allies and enemies
are in a moment. Nobody understands Chris except for me. It's
better that way. We have to be careful. They have no eyes, not
real eyes, they are filled with liquid, but they are made of glass
or plastic and if I look directly at them, it will set off the
device.
The evil ones are coming, there are bringing together an army
of wanderers, a ragged bunch of low life screw heads, their bombs
on the edge, waiting to explode at any moment. They don't care;
they do nothing to stop it, just stand and stare at us, the chosen
few; the hated few. We are the ones who are aware, the ones with
tears in our eyes and the anger of their dismissive voice still
ringing in our ears.
I walk into the liquid shop.
They keep it in a special place; it's too powerful to be sold
to naive minds. Time is running out.
I was a very sick boy. I stole a box of matches and hid them in
the drawer. I was sick and naughty and my father taught me a lesson
for being naughty and I ran away and that was naughty and awful
and sick. I hurt him.
He had a special sort of gun that he kept out of view and he put
it inside me and the bomb was fired into my body and went into
my brain and there it stayed.
He cried, my dad, he cried when it happened.
I suppose he didn't want to do it, but I had been very bad and
he said it was normal and all sick boys had to be treated this
way.
The bomb stayed and it grew, the more I thought about it the more
it grew and I had to run away before it came out of my mouth and
everyone knew what had happened.
I stood in the porch and I couldn't look at him, his gaze would
kill me. I could see he was one of them, it was my fault, and
I made him that way. I wish I could go back sometimes, I wish
I could explain, but I can't look.
Those were dark times, before I found out the truth, about the
bomb and what it would do to me if I didn't protect myself. Every
day is a nightmare. The liquid helps though.
I reach out for a few tubes, but my hands are weak.
Come on...
I hear someone coughing and I turn. A small wanderer with dark
eyes is sussing me; his eyes are empty though. He can't know,
too young.
He points he laughs. I keep my gaze on the tubes.
Chris is waiting outside. He hates waiting and time is precious.
He stops someone as they pass him, another dismissive face, and
another non-believer. He looks at them, straight in the eyes and
I can hear him say:
In the derelict warehouse of your memories, the charred remains
of hope and renewal are scattered like broken leaves on the lake
of your anguish. You are dying. You are a fool, a fool trapped
in a burning machine. The planet is corrupt and dying and you
are an accomplice in its murder. You may stand on the road, but
you never speak and each time you look behind you the storm clouds
are growing in number and are darkening by the hour.
You know the rest. The fool doesn't listen.
He walks on. No one listens.
Chris calls to me to hurry up. I reach into my pocket and pull
out the money needed to obtain the liquid.
'What's this?' he says. I will not look into his face. He is beneath
me.
'wharrayameanwazdiseh.' I tell him.
The fool is confused.
'isafugginforcunnsalaga yeah?' he looks blindly at me, another
set of empty eyes. 'cunyaseadat? Eh?' I point to the tubes; maybe
his eyes aren't switched on. It happens a lot.
'I'm sick of seeing your sort round here.' He spits.
'wasatmeaneh?' I say. I start to explain about the necessity of
the liquid, the nature of the bomb, but it's pointless. He looks
away, down the side of the shop, looking at some woman by the
magazines.
'I'm not going to say this again.' He says, stopping me in mid-flow.
'Get out!'
I try to explain, I try to say it as clearly as I can, and I try
to switch to the other tongue. 'Looch mate,' I clench my fists,
it helps.
'Plees I nees da liquid becozzofada bomb ya knows? I cun leevit tu long.'
'Listen, I have a license and I don't want to lose it, I could
get into a lot of trouble if I served drunks like you.' He looks
away again, 'yes madam?' he says to his accomplice, another cohort
in the mass ignorance.
I look up at him, trying to get his attention.
My hands gone numb, there is a blood vessel bursting through the
skin...
Oh shit no...
The switch has been flicked.
I can feel it. This is it. I know.
I want to hold onto the door, my head is gone. My legs feel dead.
Chris is shouting:
Why did you hit him?
The woman screams, maybe she knows it now.
Fortunately Chris was at a safe distance when I exploded.
I stood in the road, and I shouted. But no one helped.
The police closed off the surrounding area, nobody said anything.
It was the third explosion that week, they struggled to put my
head together, but they couldn't do it, it was beyond their knowledge.
Chris told me later they got really annoyed about their incompetence
and had to send for assistance. People gathered around and were
getting cross and nasty and asking the police why they were bothering
at all. Chris tried to explain what had happened, he was so brave.
He was my best friend, he really was.
Later they strapped me onto a white stretcher and brought me to
a cold bed in a white room, with plastic pipes stuck into my arms,
and injections, and white cloths, and pain.
I lost my tongue that was the worst of it, I found myself talking
the way the wanderers do and I couldn't look at a mirror. I hated
the way i sounded, I cried for the liquid, but they wouldn't help
me. They were all in on the plot. Soon we will be gone, no trace,
no memory, a forgotten people like so many others.
I screamed in the night and this woman put a needle in my arse.
'Did that hurt?' she asked me, rubbing it with cotton wool.
'I'm sorry.' I said to her.
Her face looked puzzled. 'What for?'
I was going to tell her how sick and naughty i was but I knew
it wouldn't make any difference.
