Slick with sticky salt water, I\u2019m floating. I\u2019m floating in a blank space and then music begins to play.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Thick, piping synthesizers rising from silence over distant waves. I\u2019m starting to have thoughts. I\u2019m starting to have thoughts, again. I\u2019m Lianne, floating. Emerging from the past. I\u2019ve no will to move and in this the heavy water supports me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And after a time the music is joined by lights. Red, green, and pink fading in; painting the water, painting my skin. And when they\u2019re bright enough to indicate I should get out, I drop my heels and reach for the wall. Then the smooth synthetic handle. There it is. I cleave the pod like a car boot or perfectly sliced egg, then step onto the tiled floor. Leaving the whirring apparatus behind. There\u2019s clothes and a branded towel on the bench. Every item feels distinct. Not mine, like they\u2019re plucked from behind a stage curtain. But even in the daze of emergence, I know I have to use the showerhead in the corner to slough the salts from my body before I can use the towel. Before I pull the clothes over my head to become myself again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
–<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The logo\u2019s on the pod. The logo\u2019s on the towel. Infinity, the sideways 8, beneath the power symbol \u2013 the circle bisected at its apex by a brief straight line, which are in fact a one and zero. Binary. Something, nothing, infinity. I realise I lost more than stress and muscle tension in the pod. My hold on time is fizzy, and I feel lighter than I should. I\u2019m looking back over my shoulder at the open pod, lit now in a pink and periwinkle glow. Sad to depart from such a beautiful thing. The plum surrendering its stone. The light on the water is mesmeric. But the music\u2019s still playing, louder, really insisting now that it\u2019s time to move on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
–<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This business is small. They don\u2019t have enough corridor to get lost in. In the cramped cooldown corner a thirtysomething shimmies past me to the only hairdryer and mirror, leaving me the wicker table and chairs. I sit. Twin pints of water stand waiting. And there\u2019s nothing, really, in my head. I feel unfolded but new thoughts aren\u2019t forming. My glass flies up featherweight then feels heavier once I\u2019ve drained it. The other woman takes the opposite chair so I flee to the drier. Look into the mirror, looking for Lianne, as the drips fly from my sopping hair. There she is, waking up. Thank you, mirror.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Back in my chair, and just when I notice that the woman opposite is staring at me, pain shoots through me. It\u2019s the kind of pain you hope will pass quickly, and it\u2019s in my belly so I grab it. I press here and there in case there is gas I can displace, but that makes it worse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cEverything okay?\u201d asks the other woman, and I look up at her. I see cold eyes and pinched cheeks and complex makeup. I see black hair (not like mine \u2013 her\u2019s is dyed, and wavy). I see a net of scars and tattoos extruding from her smart sleeves. It\u2019s funny that she<\/em> was staring at me<\/em>. With me, there is far less to survey. I\u2019m all crumpled cotton.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019m not sure,\u201d I reply, which is stupid because I am<\/em> sure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s your first time coming here?\u201d This other woman, she\u2019s sitting really straight. And her questions don\u2019t exactly seem like questions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYes\u2026\u201d I manage. Then amid the pain, a flit of d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou might be acclimatising wrong,\u201d she says, calm to a point I dislike. \u201cConsider. You spent an hour cooking in the pod, and you\u2019ve just thrown a pint of fridgewater inside yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n I nod, letting her scold me, which I shouldn\u2019t. Boundaries matter. \u201cI did,\u201d I admit. \u201cStupid of me.\u201d I lean back a little and notice there is synth music here too, piping gently. Then another gurgling bolt of pain comes and I wince.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The other woman frowns and cups her chin. \u201cBabe. Come on. Good odds you\u2019ll survive.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cPlease don\u2019t call me babe.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI should have asked your name.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s Lianne.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSuits you. You\u2019re lucky. I was christened \u2018Angel\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOh, that\u2019s\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n She sips her water. Only sips. \u201cI\u2019d blame my dad for it, but I try to keep him out of my head. Anyway. I go by Angelina. And never Angela. It\u2019s all very fraught.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI get it. Lianne is just my English name.\u201d The notion comes to me like a once-lost memory. \u201cPeople can\u2019t pronounce my real name so I never share it. Is that too weird?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYes, it\u2019s ludicrous. How\u2019s the pain?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n I touch the sore spot to test it, but it\u2019s like prodding a zit. \u201cIt\u2019s still not great.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cGet some air. In fact, fuck it. I\u2019ll go with you,\u201d says Angel, who I know I should think of as \u2018Angelina\u2019 but somehow cannot. She leads me out past the reception, where the man who should be there is not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n –<\/p>\n\n\n\n We stand with our backs to a terraced hub of office units, all cased in girders, facing a canal which we follow into a quiet area the signs call New Islington. Round two bends we reach an urban village of little balconied residences spread across the water, interlinked by black iron bridges, brick walkways and benches, and short pointy fences painted white. I\u2019d call it heaven if not for the smell, and the deposits in the water: bikes, trolleys, traffic cones. But there are fish \u2013 scrappy schools of minors policed by their parents. I feel like I\u2019m watching another world through crystal. I feel something like love. But really I\u2019m sitting on a ledge in pain, with a strange Angel beside me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019ll pick up soon.\u201d I mumble. \u201cYou don\u2019t need to stay.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Angel flickers for a second, then says, \u201cI don\u2019t need to leave either.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n And I\u2019m following the fish again. I can almost recall the species. It must be rare for so many to survive in such bad conditions. Eventually I realise I should speak, so I ask Angel how often she uses the pods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou get the impression I\u2019m a regular?\u201d she asks. I frown and nod. \u201cWell, you\u2019re smart.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sadness washes over me, though I don\u2019t know why. Maybe it\u2019s knowing the woman beside me bears so many scars. Maybe it\u2019s the sight of the little fish drifting between bicycle spokes. \u201cWhy do you come?\u201d I ask, and she starts staring daggers at the ground.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s a long story. One that will affect you.\u201d She pauses. \u201cI\u2019ll leave if you don\u2019t want that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n I turn my face to the sky, which looks better than it should. Deep matte blue. And the clouds are the shape I like best. Maybe after my hour in the dark I\u2019ve returned with kinder eyes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019m serious,\u201d Angel says. \u201cI can bounce, right now.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cNo, stay. I want to hear your story.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n She nods. \u201cAlright.\u201d Her fingers are clutching the lip of our little ledge. This close, I can see her tension written on her. Painted thorns and lingering scratches. People are covered in clues, but without a cipher they\u2019re easy to misread. An Angel speaks\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n –<\/p>\n\n\n\n During my childhood, I felt like there was a rulebook for life, and my copy had been confiscated. I didn\u2019t understand how to join in games. I didn\u2019t know how to ask for the bathroom. Timings, wordings, poses, postures. I didn\u2019t know any of that. Nobody told me. In the end I learned how to pretend. In lieu of a shortcut to understanding everything, pretending would suffice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At home we never had one day consistent with the next, and it was pointless asking questions. Past a certain age visitors told me, as if trained, that I had my mother\u2019s mind and my father\u2019s genes. They also spoke about his willpower. He hit me for the smallest thing. He\u2019d invent new ways to do it. I didn\u2019t know why. Mum wouldn\u2019t stop him. People told me he\u2019d seen most of the world before I was born. People told me he was a genius, capable of anything. And yet I was told we were too poor for holidays or birthdays.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s true he was good with his words. They were like snares buried inside of mum. And his stare. When he fixed it on you, you wanted to run but couldn\u2019t. When he left, he shredded us on the way out. When mum lifted anchor people stopped saying I had her mind; by that point it was insensitive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But until he left it was never dull. It was all his show. He\u2019d bring in new people every week and transform them. He\u2019d close off half the house. Mum would vanish into her room for days at a time. But somehow he was hilarious. No straight answers, only games.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Is mummy having one of her funny spells? Is daddy playing one of his tricks?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n I think everyone eventually has to balance what \u2018normal\u2019 means inside and outside the family home. I\u2026 really struggled with that. And with when to leave. First I grew sick of caring for mum, then it was the entire shithole town. I wanted a passport. To be a rover like my dad. I\u2019d imagine myself studying under him, the genius, even if it meant being spanked again. At least that would be attention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But one phonecall killed that fantasy. It was a Thursday, and I was by the living room window. I recall hail striking the glass, then mum passing the handset. Calls were products of his whims, twice or thrice yearly, never with news. On that dreary day I was old enough, sad enough, desperate enough, to try and use the call for myself. I asked him to come back and rescue me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cDid it work?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Of course not. Dad never played his \u2018yes\u2019 or \u2018no\u2019 cards. To use a phrase he loved, \u2018there are so many ways of speaking\u2019. Which is true. It becomes scary to contemplate. Anyway. My asking spiralled to begging. He\u2019d won. Pushed me into screaming down the line. \u2018I can\u2019t do this.\u2019 \u2018I don\u2019t want to be me anymore.\u2019 \u2018I wish I was someone from far away \u2013 anywhere, the moon!\u2019. And that did something. \u2018You really want that?\u2019 he said, very quietly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We had this moment of silence and he slowed right down. I think I really had \u2013 if only for a moment \u2013 dammed his flow. When he spoke next he seemed to be choosing every word very carefully. He said that granting that wish would mean nonexistence. Not to see my name crossed out of the celestial registry, but for it to have never been etched there in the first place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I swallowed and I said that would be fine. Nonexistence. It sounds fine. I still believe so. But the next sound that came out of the phone\u2026 it didn\u2019t sound human. I recall the words \u2018washed away\u2019, and he kept calling me small. Tiny, mini, little. Like he was firing a shrink ray at me. And my last memory of that entire day is the disconnect tone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHow old were you?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Twelve.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSo you grew up fast. You had to.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yes… I tried. Not far into secondary school I was considering how to obliterate myself without dying. Would you call that grown up too?<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Pushing to extremes is interesting. It brings in a sort of pride, and there\u2019s always someone to cheer you on. And a false idea that you can get a thing \u2018out of your system\u2019 by doing it to death. But of course there is no \u2018system\u2019, and exploring desires only carves them into you. Riding the helter skelter down into hell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201c…what were you doing?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n I tried everything, eventually. Desire is a bottomless hole. Sex was my first resort. I started way too young. Actually, you don\u2019t want to know. You\u2019re sweet. You don\u2019t deserve this bucket over your head.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Over a course of\u2026 years\u2026 parts of me left and didn\u2019t come back. That\u2019s all I\u2019m telling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019m sorry.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Be sorry, be jealous, it doesn\u2019t matter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Next it was painting. Painting utter shit, but it led me to the edge of an exit. Only the moving hand and frozen eye left lingering in this world. And my family name drew in the \u2018scene\u2019. For fifteen minutes I was in. By the sixteenth, the self-identified \u2018freaks\u2019 had no room for me. Stupidly I\u2019d thought unorthodoxy was the point. And I\u2019d nearly lost sight of why I\u2019d started. The vanishing. A road to leaving this world without leaving.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And given that I was not merely playing at precarity like my freshly-scarce friends, I needed to work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Forget art. The office is the real domain of the freaks. And they nearly had me. Lumbering up the ladder where warmth can\u2019t follow. A rancid crust building around my organs. I felt that I was learning how my father operated. Using words as the engine to one\u2019s will. One thousand tiny games\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n We think work is the most normal thing of all. No it\u2019s not. That\u2019s the trick it plays. One day in the communal kitchen I blinked and the lark fell away. I remembered what I wanted and could not go back to the computers and emails. And the useless people. All these attachments I\u2019d built up were a spider web. Easily destroyed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So I began starving myself. If you can\u2019t sever stimulus, deny fuel. Boil down to the core system. No use of course. Hunger is pain. Pain is a stimulus. It\u2019s the intrusion of reality on the body. Never starve yourself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Next, something basic. Drugs and alcohol. No use. Reality comes back worse every time. Then it was sex again; I never said I was clever. Long nights sliding into the skin of an animal, thinking maybe I\u2019d missed something on my first spin around the pole. Disgusting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So, a final angle. Time for something wholesome. Vitamins and minerals. Friendship. An open heart. Finding meaning in simplicity and goodness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I wish I could say it worked. One year of trusting in common sense and the love within others combined every problem I\u2019d faced before. Lust, vanity, dependence, compromise, plus\u2026 an awakening to the horrid omnipresence of puppetry. Instrumentality; one player using another. Once you begin to notice it everywhere, all around you, you\u2019re poisoned, and you realise that intelligence is the poison, and we\u2019re ruled by it. So Lianne, just know, I\u2019m not trying to use you for that today, I promise it\u2019s not personal \u2013\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n –<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2026and I grip Angel\u2019s arm, just tight enough to halt her words.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou\u2019re being unfair to yourself.\u201d I\u2019m shocked at my own stridency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Angel\u2019s eyes fall on my hand. \u201cPardon you. I haven\u2019t finished.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n But I\u2019m not dropping it. It\u2019s my turn to be juvenile. \u201cYou were hurt in your childhood, but that doesn\u2019t mean you should drive yourself mad hunting for a magic cure.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cLianne\u2026\u201d she says softly. \u201cLet me go.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n And I comply. I just fold. It\u2019s embarrassing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHow\u2019s your stomach?\u201d she asks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201c…almost back to normal.\u201d Half true. The world seems sharper, like I\u2019ve put on new glasses. Is it a delayed benefit from the pod? Or is it because I\u2019ve been listening so closely to my new friend?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Angel stands. \u201cIt\u2019s cold. Look. I know a good caf\u00e9 nearby. Tag along?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n I nod and follow because she\u2019s already walking. Angel, I know, is probably still unwell. But it doesn\u2019t feel like she\u2019s going to push me into the canal. It\u2019s low odds, anyway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI just realised \u2013 I still haven\u2019t told you why I use the float centre,\u201d she notes, turning back to me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I had forgotten I asked. I\u2019m glad Angel reminded me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n –<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s a dim venue. Moody. We\u2019re left alone in a shadowy corner, leaning to hear each other over pulsing, receding music. Angel fills my view; frosted glass in hand. I\u2019m listening to her. I should be tougher. I should. She\u2019s so presumptuous. But she\u2019s talking, and I\u2019m listening. And it\u2019s strange how easily her words become my visions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n –<\/p>\n\n\n\n So you had it right. I wanted a magical cure with no side effects. And it was dead end after dead end. But if you knew you had even a slim sliver of a chance to end all pain, why would you ever stop? You might never know how close you got before walking away. And the longer you hunt, the wiser you get.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So by the time I first heard of sensory deprivation \u2013 and that it was something you could rent immediately rather than work toward over decades \u2013 I understood that it was what I wanted. Not existential struggle. Not death by kamikaze. Quietude. Nothing to remind the mind it is alive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In theory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In practice, there\u2019s still the water.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And all your aches. And your arms. Your legs. Hair and genitals and eyeballs \u2013 especially if the salt gets in them. And the pods themselves\u2026 you\u2019ll have noticed how easy it is to brush against the side. Drift once and it\u2019s a sure thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So you can get close to gone. Close to escaping your own stupid swirling ideas. And then, one little tap reminding you that you\u2019re chained to your body and trapped on the planet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And yet. I was old enough to accept \u2018good enough\u2019. With practice, my mind was staying quiet long after I left the pod. And with no pain or poison. Just travel, and the one-hour fee. I didn\u2019t get addicted, or do it to death. Eventually I felt ready to let it go. Like I was casting off the wounded little child inside of me. Bon voyage, little one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But one day, on what might well have been my final visit to the float centre, I left my pod to find a man in the cooldown corner, standing and staring at me. Me with my wet hair. Me, dazed, and calm, facing his piercing stare. He had all-white hair, long enough to tie back. Weathered but healthy, hands clasped behind his back, shirt smart but not tucked in. Suddenly it clicked, like I\u2019d been burying the answer, and like an idiot I just said it: \u201cDad.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n He spoke softer than in my memories, and less. He still smiled like the devil might. Still wouldn\u2019t hug me. He asked kind questions, he made loving promises\u2026 Days after, I realised they had all been chess moves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He can steer you. He does it very easily. He had me crying with snot trickling out my nose. And the eyes \u2013 I\u2019d forgotten how he fixes them on you. I told him about my wish to become nothing. And he asked if the pods were working for me, and at my first caveat he\u2019d pulled out a little brown card. Nigel and Sonia, Tunnel House. They have something better, he said. The address read \u2018Cleft\u2019 \u2013 suburbs clustered on a distant market town, long past use. Go down into their tank you\u2019ll never hit the edge, he promised. I don\u2019t remember how we concluded, but I remember turning back to find him gone. I tried every door. But he had vanished, and there were no staff present to question.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I had a shower thought the next day: that my dad owned the float centre, and had used a keycard to retreat somewhere unseen. I found the notion horrid and wrote it off as something I\u2019d dreamed rather than a possibility, which \u2013 unavoidably \u2013 it is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n –<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019ve closed my eyes now. I\u2019m deep inside Angel\u2019s story. This room is very dark and it\u2019s a cosy little corner we\u2019re nestled in. Her face and hands are all I really see when I peek through my lashes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n –<\/p>\n\n\n\n I hesitated for six months. Fearing something invisible. I changed to another float centre, more expensive, far from the city centre. In town and near home I found myself glancing into second storey windows. As if there were a blade or demon dangling above me. So for better or worse I looked out the little brown card.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I struck an indirect approach to Cleft. I parked at a train station miles away then walked pavements to another on a different line. Then took a two-carriage slugger to a proximal town. Selected a bus stop on a sealed-off strip of bungalows, and from there rode to one village south of Cleft. Then I skimmed lanes and footpaths into its outskirts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The whole place felt overgrown. Damp, and some parts only half-rebuilt as if sketched from memory. In the wealthy quarter the trees were old; tall enough to form a canopy blocking out the rain. A twisting march over strata of macadam and leaf-rot brought me to Tunnel House. On its once-lordly street, bins overflowed and the tallest homes were divided into zigzag flats. But my father\u2019s contacts had held onto theirs, it seemed. Four storeys and a basement, all under one name and number. 88, Tunnel House. I climbed five concrete steps to rap the door. Behind the flaking paint came a flapping sound and soon a sordid man revealed himself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cNigel,\u201d he said, gesturing to himself indifferently. Slippers, crusted dressing gown, ancient jeans. Long wispy leftovers for hair hung around a flaking crown. \u201cYou\u2019re Angel, no?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAngelina,\u201d I said. \u201cAnd is Sonia there with you?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cNot even slightly,\u201d Nigel said, then beckoned as he drew back into his dim front hall. The front door jammed until I wrestled with the nib. Nigel did not step in to help. The state of his carpet persuaded me not to add my own boots beneath a crooked coat rack from which I divined that Sonia existed \u2013 or that Nigel crossdressed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThis way,\u201d called his voice from somewhere below. I traced it to a door more lacklustre than the last. Nigel was waiting for me behind it, down a staircase in a floorboarded play-hall. He had darts. He had pinball. And there were apparatus I recognised from childhood but could not name. These were machines I\u2019d seen my father operating. My host was perched on the arm of a battered tuxedo sofa, arms folded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI had a call saying you\u2019d come, about floating, yes?\u201d He sounded exhausted with me. Already.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYes. Is there a charge?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cNever is, not here. You\u2019ve mistaken me for a business.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHappy days. Although\u2026 I don\u2019t see where the pods could be.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYes. You don\u2019t. What else do you not see?\u201d Nigel exhaled once through his nostrils, then loosed the solution without even letting me try. \u201cThe trapdoor. Far corner.\u201d He pointed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There it was, in a square outline and a varnished handle glinting under Nigel\u2019s cheap tungsten bulbs. There was no chance I\u2019d have noticed it if not directed, but why bother retorting? I approached the trapdoor circuitously, asserting my ability to set the pace. Self-defense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s down there,\u201d he said, turning his head to follow me like a haunted suit of armour. \u201cNo pods, just one big pool. Salty enough that you\u2019ll float, and huge. I can\u2019t promise clean. I can promise reasonably <\/em>clean. And I can only promise safe<\/em> if you don\u2019t lose sight of the ladder.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSight? What sight?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI was speaking figuratively.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWill you open up if I shout? And how long\u2019s the session \u2013 an hour?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201c…Yeah.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYeah to what?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYour question.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cDon\u2019t be a dick.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201c…Don\u2019t be a bitch.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hard to know how to deal with men like this, isn\u2019t it? The kind who always want to escalate. I opted to spit on his grubby floor. \u201cThere were two<\/em> questions.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nigel flashed teeth cleaner than any part of him. For a quarter-second they outshone the bulbs. \u201cJust testing. If you want out the hole, shout. I\u2019ll hear. Door opens, light comes in, you climb out. But I\u2019m sure you\u2019ll ace your spell in the deep. Dad speaks well of you. The hour, Angel, is yours.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now that he was orating, I picked up Nigel\u2019s accent. Northumbrian. An old strain of it, or a mongrel blend. \u201cThat\u2019s it?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThat\u2019s it. It all led to this, Angel.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAngelina is better.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI hope she is.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cNo thanks to you, and your generation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Rather than answer, Nigel began to pick a nail. Theatre. Perched like a ragged lord on his sofa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I moved closer to him. \u201cI want to ask something about my dad.\u201d No echo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cLet\u2019s just do one question,\u201d Nigel offered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cFine. How many children does he have?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n That made Nigel tilt his head, so that his skullet straggles dangled. \u201cDear miss, I\u2019ll tell you this. Your father and I, we do everything through proxies.\u201d He blinked. Even smiled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I insisted. \u201cHow many do you think<\/em> he has?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe agreed one question.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cCome on. Don\u2019t be a bitch.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nigel almost smiled. He drew up his legs to balance on the sofa arm in yogi posture. Chewing on his thumb, he answered. \u201cIt\u2019s either dozens, or it\u2019s just you. That\u2019s my punt. Happy?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cPeachy sunshine and yellow roses.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The exhaustion returned. He rose and began a slow pace up the room. \u201cGood. Now. You, please, go trapdoor. Open. Down. Me close trapdoor. You, float.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019ll need privacy to undress.\u201d I had taken this as a given, but could see my host was no giver. \u201cAnd I\u2019ll need to trust you not to steal my clothes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMiss. I\u2019m not a pervert. Like you, I am a renunciate. An old\u2026 psychonaut<\/em>, circling lost innocence.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n I brushed off the babble. \u201cHm. When was your wife last down here, Nigel? \u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nigel stopped to splay ten sunburned fingers. No ring. \u201cSonia is my half-cousin. A good woman, currently out shopping. And if it matters to you\u2026\u201d he sighed, \u201c….she exists. It is vital<\/em> to attach oneself only to things which exist.\u201d He proceeded to a corner of the play-hall and turned to face it, like a naughty boy. And did not speak again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cDoes \u2018innocence\u2019 exist?\u201d I called out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But as I mentioned, he did not speak again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So I bent and pulled the trapdoor\u2019s half-moon handle to reveal, reaching out through blackness, the upper rungs of a dark iron ladder. Lukewarm air rose from the open pit. And this felt like an arrival. I shed my clothes hastily and descended. A square of faint light hung above me until I was very far down, near the water, and then with no sound it was shut from above.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One can only begin flotation trusting you will be undisturbed. That you will float. That your thoughts will slacken. That your muscles and gut will comply. That time will dilate. It\u2019s a lot of faith to hand over all at once. So I took my time on the ladder\u2019s final rungs as my toes, ankles and the rest pierced the still waters, and kept gripping until I found the bottom; something organic, not quite mud. And wading out three paces waist-deep, no sign of a wall. No way to glean the water\u2019s colour. No wish to taste it. No smell to speak of. No telling how this place was made.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I had every reason to turn and haul myself back up and away, before I lost the ladder. But\u2026 to go back to what? I did not like the world. I still do not like the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I let my feet leave that curious benthic floor and rise level. Tilted back my chin so the water would hold me. All around: blackness, which sometimes in the pods you will see spinning or punctuated with colours. No scent nor skim of a barrier. I encountered a brief fear that one animal or more might be sharing the water, but soon found the idea amusing; picturing a doggy-paddling giraffe. Staring into nothing and not thinking of my father, nor craving any high, nor wishing for the company of a friend or lover, old faces came to me unbidden but I did not recognise them, and they left me. <\/p>\n\n\n\n A sense of drift arrived in time, perhaps false, perhaps a spiral, but the idea of a current pleased me more \u2013 as if this were not a pool but an underground river carrying me along its course with little to no meander between high halite walls and a curved cavern ceiling. This fantasy soothed me and I fell into a daydream where the flow brought me, after years, out to open waters, never-mapped, and then following days on tepid, aimless waves I woke to sudden friction. I rolled and ragdolled on bleached shingle, slapped by sunshine, washing up on calcium sands \u2013 a dispopulous, terminal beach where distant karsts punched into peacock blue skies. And my father was there, atop a ridiculous bamboo chair, and you were there too, Lianne, my friend from afar. You were there, sitting at ease on a mint green polka dot picnic blanket, chewing wild fruit as the surf delivered me to you. We compared our black hair, our dissimilar skin. Identical hands. But it was a dream. It was<\/em> a dream. Because when you pulled me ashore I saw you looking down on me and I saw my father\u2019s face too. His cruel, apelike face. <\/p>\n\n\n\n This visage triggered an inarguable stillness, as the atmosphere twisted from tropical to clinical, and I felt myself responding with nothing but indifference to a pair of hands, choking me, and my hands choking another. Jaws closing on my calf, and my own teeth cleaving something like half-baked dough filled with steaming juices, and in the dream I shut my eyes as impossible memories streamed in, some patently false and others hauntingly familiar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Our tiny feet in red sandals barrelling down a corridor to chase a floating balloon. How did it know to turn the corners? Then a waterfall whose thunder I observe from a remote precipice, while also watching another me from outside myself, and I see myself vanishing into the crowds on a gleaming subway platform. And I\u2019m lying in inch-high lawn-grass turning wild, and feel I am in another country, too old or tired to move, and it begins to rain, indefinitely, until there are ponds below and pinprick stars overhead. Someone else was exhausted. Now I am exhausted. We are floating, in a blank space, and I don\u2019t think we have words anymore. Don\u2019t have words anymore. Don\u2019t have them, and hear thick synthesisers piping in a gentle sequence of cherry waves. I\u2019m starting to have thoughts again. I\u2019m emerging from the past. I\u2019ve no compulsion to move and in this the water supports me. Pushes me to its surface, like my mother.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then lights, fading in. That means it\u2019s been an hour. All the lines painted on my body have been washed away. When I stop floating, I reach for the rocky wall and find a smooth synthetic handle. There it is. And I open the pod like a car boot smoothly sliding or a perfectly sliced egg or a plum conceding its stone. Opening to a dark tiled room with a bench facing me and a shower in the corner. And behind me, the whirring, marvelous apparatus powering the pod. There\u2019s clothes and a towel waiting. But even in the daze of my emergence, I know I must first use the showerhead to slough all the salts off my body. Before I use the towel. Before I pull the clothes over my head to become myself again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n –<\/p>\n\n\n\n From seclusion in our cosy corner, and a life that I never understood, I awaken to a halo of glowing dark surrounding someone I have only just met and do not know, and the face I stare into is like a breaking mirror, and her hands are dust, passing away from this world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Angus Stewart writes strange stories and essays that have found home in publications including Necksnap, Big Other, and Typebar. He hails from Dundee, lives in Stockport, and ran the Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast for five years.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n
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