Read Online Absolute Zero Cool by Declan Burke - Free Book Online

know.’
    ‘You need a promotion?’
    ‘It’s not just that. She says she’s not having any babies until she gets married. And she says she’s in no hurry, she’s only twenty-six.’
    ‘Women are having babies later these days, Billy. That’s natural.’
    ‘She’s thirty-one, man. She thinks she’s twenty-six, but she was twenty-six back when you wrote the first draft. And if she waits another five years, she could be getting into all sorts of complications.’
    ‘Shit.’
    ‘Yeah.’
    ‘Why don’t we just make her thirty-one?’ I say. ‘Get her clock ticking.’
    ‘And wipe five years off her life?’ He shakes his head. ‘What we could do,’ he says, ‘is just swap her pill for folic acid, like I said.’
    ‘I already told you, I’m not doing that.’
    ‘Why not?’
    ‘It’s immoral. I wouldn’t do it to Debs, I’m not doing it to Cassie.’
    ‘Hey, you look out for Deborah, I’ll look out for Cass.’
    ‘And getting her pregnant on the sly – that’s looking out for her?’
    ‘I’m trying to get a life going here, man. The means justify, y’know?’
    ‘Who am I talking to here?’ I say. ‘Billy or Karlsson?’
    ‘That’s fucking low,’ he says, stubbing out the smoke on the table. ‘That’s bang out of order.’
    ‘You tell Cassie about this conversation,’ I say, ‘and then ask her who she thinks is out of order.’
    He leans in, taking off his tinted shades. I try to ignore the eye socket, the sucked-out prune. ‘I only want what’s best for her,’ he says, straining to keep his tone civil.
    ‘She’s told you what’s best for her.’
    ‘Except she doesn’t have all the information,’ he says.
    ‘So why don’t you tell her?’
    ‘What – that she’s not real?’
    ‘You seem to be coping okay.’
    He stiffens, then slumps back in the chair. ‘You know what it is?’ he says, a sneer brewing. ‘I’m real enough, alright. But you don’t have the imagination to believe in Cassie.’
    ‘Maybe that’s your job,’ I say. ‘I mean, you’re the one who wanted to write the Cassie parts, right? How’s that working out for you?’
    He savours that like it’s fresh-cut lemon. ‘Smug bastard,’ he says, ‘aren’t you?’
    ‘I thought we were cutting out the swearing.’
    ‘If you’re not good enough to do this,’ he says, ‘just say so and stop wasting my time.’
    ‘I’m no Lawrence Durrell,’ I say, ‘but I’m good enough to write you.’
    He nods, then stands up. ‘Maybe I’ll go home and write a story about you,’ he says, ‘fuck around with your life. How’d you like them apples?’
    ‘I’ll rent a tux,’ I say. ‘Booker night is always black tie, isn’t it?’
     
     
    No Billy this morning. A pity, with the garden coming into full bloom now, the early morning sun lying across the lawn in fat yellow diagonal stripes.
    Oh well. Back to the grindstone . . .
     
     
    No Billy for three days running now. Maybe he isn’t coming back. Maybe he’s holed up in some garret, feverishly rewriting my life, consulting the story of Moses and Pharaoh for inspiration.
    Is this how God felt when Einstein started doodling in the Patents Office? No wonder He struck Hawking down.
     
    •
     
    In brief, the story of Prometheus is this: he stole fire from the gods, gave it to mankind, and was eternally tortured for his troubles. Thus he was the first great martyr to intercede with the gods on man’s behalf.
    This simplistic version of events allows us to bask in the vanity that has plagued the latter part of our miserable history. That a Titan should defy the gods on our behalf is in itself proof of our exalted status in the universe. At least, it does in that part of the universe administered by Titans and gods, although in doing so we ignore the inconvenient fact that man was merely a pawn in a deadly game being played by Prometheus and Zeus, and that the gift of fire was simply a spiteful aftershock in the wake of a cosmic civil war.
    A question or