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Authors: Ian McDonald
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hot, unclean excitement at the image of Marcus’s face smashing the curved glass of the monitor into cubes and crumbs. He fled the computer suite. He fled the university and everything to do with it. He hid for three days behind his artless posters and CDs and scraps of unsuccessful projects. Then he could no longer bear to look at the face of his anger and went to ask forgiveness. There was one light in the darkened, murmuring computer suite.
“Marcus.
“Marcus, I’m sorry. I just sometimes go kind of mad, you know?
“I’ve come to apologize, Marcus.
“Say something Marcus, don’t make me feel worse than I do now.
“Marcus? You okay?
“Marcus!”
The figure on the floor, lit blue by the light of the screen, lay supine, head tilted back, repeatedly slamming the rear of its skull against the cigarette-burned floor tiles. Arms and legs thrashed, the body convulsed epileptically. Tears of blood trickled from each eye, down the cheeks, onto the floor.
“Christ, Marcus!” Ethan Ring came around the desk to touch, to help, to do something, anything, anything. And the thing in the blue screen reached out and smashed him against the wall.
O NCE, WHEN ETHAN RING was a boy, he had given himself a severe electric shock playing with an old television.
Once Ethan Ring caught some mutant strain of influenza that sent his temperature to 103 and hallucinated he was climbing the concrete and glass face of an infinite office block, up and up and up and up and up.
Once, Nikki Ring’s old Vauxhall Nova with Ethan-at-seven in the backseat had been sideswiped at a dark country crossing by something that did not stop and it had been spun three times around before Ethan Ring came to looking at a billboard proclaiming “All Have Sinned and Fallen Short of the Glory of God.”
Once, Ethan Ring, walking merrily mellow back to his flat, had been set upon by two young white men in designer sportswear who headbutted him, kicked him in the small of the back, and relieved him of eighty ecus and a take-away curry.
The thing in the screen was all those. The thing in the screen was more. It was shock. Toxic karmic physical spiritual emotional culture techno socio cold turkey pure total utter: shock.
His heart skipped and misfired. His breath fluttered. His head screamed migraine at him. His hands, his arms, his legs, would not obey him but thrashed spastically. Urgent nausea pressed at the base of his gullet. He opened his eyes. The thing in the screen leapt out of his peripheral vision and slammed his brain against the inside of his skull. He waited forever hiding inside his skull until proprioception told him his body would now do what he told it. Eyes closed, he groped across the floor. He swore at his hands stop shaking, stop fucking shaking. His eyes flickered at the touch of soft, spasming flesh. No. No. Medusa’s sister, basilisk’s brother. To look upon their faces was to die. Fingers climbed the desk leg, crossed the desktop, found the off switch, and pushed it. Almost, he opened his eyes. Almost. Marcus could have printed out a hardcopy. Fingers felt their way to the printer, delved into its nooks and crevices. Nothing. He opened his eyes. The disk. The fracter disk. He ejected it from the drive. It burned his hand like an ingot of white iron. Taking the elevator to the front door was eternal torment.
“If you boys spent as much time on your projects as you did in the Union bar…” admonished the doorman, well used to student excess.
“An ambulance!” Ethan Ring screamed. “Call a fucking ambulance!”
The last of the ten Sefirot was enthroned.
Keter: the Void. Annihilation.
T HERE IS TO BE a Fire Ceremony tonight at Temple Twenty-four. All are welcome, Priest Tsunoda tells us. He is a small, vigorous man of great charm and charisma; a retired cram-school teacher in Beloved Schoolmaster tradition of Bette Davis, Robert Donat, Robin Williams. The stories that roost around this isolated cluster of three Temples
“Marcus.
“Marcus, I’m sorry. I just sometimes go kind of mad, you know?
“I’ve come to apologize, Marcus.
“Say something Marcus, don’t make me feel worse than I do now.
“Marcus? You okay?
“Marcus!”
The figure on the floor, lit blue by the light of the screen, lay supine, head tilted back, repeatedly slamming the rear of its skull against the cigarette-burned floor tiles. Arms and legs thrashed, the body convulsed epileptically. Tears of blood trickled from each eye, down the cheeks, onto the floor.
“Christ, Marcus!” Ethan Ring came around the desk to touch, to help, to do something, anything, anything. And the thing in the blue screen reached out and smashed him against the wall.
O NCE, WHEN ETHAN RING was a boy, he had given himself a severe electric shock playing with an old television.
Once Ethan Ring caught some mutant strain of influenza that sent his temperature to 103 and hallucinated he was climbing the concrete and glass face of an infinite office block, up and up and up and up and up.
Once, Nikki Ring’s old Vauxhall Nova with Ethan-at-seven in the backseat had been sideswiped at a dark country crossing by something that did not stop and it had been spun three times around before Ethan Ring came to looking at a billboard proclaiming “All Have Sinned and Fallen Short of the Glory of God.”
Once, Ethan Ring, walking merrily mellow back to his flat, had been set upon by two young white men in designer sportswear who headbutted him, kicked him in the small of the back, and relieved him of eighty ecus and a take-away curry.
The thing in the screen was all those. The thing in the screen was more. It was shock. Toxic karmic physical spiritual emotional culture techno socio cold turkey pure total utter: shock.
His heart skipped and misfired. His breath fluttered. His head screamed migraine at him. His hands, his arms, his legs, would not obey him but thrashed spastically. Urgent nausea pressed at the base of his gullet. He opened his eyes. The thing in the screen leapt out of his peripheral vision and slammed his brain against the inside of his skull. He waited forever hiding inside his skull until proprioception told him his body would now do what he told it. Eyes closed, he groped across the floor. He swore at his hands stop shaking, stop fucking shaking. His eyes flickered at the touch of soft, spasming flesh. No. No. Medusa’s sister, basilisk’s brother. To look upon their faces was to die. Fingers climbed the desk leg, crossed the desktop, found the off switch, and pushed it. Almost, he opened his eyes. Almost. Marcus could have printed out a hardcopy. Fingers felt their way to the printer, delved into its nooks and crevices. Nothing. He opened his eyes. The disk. The fracter disk. He ejected it from the drive. It burned his hand like an ingot of white iron. Taking the elevator to the front door was eternal torment.
“If you boys spent as much time on your projects as you did in the Union bar…” admonished the doorman, well used to student excess.
“An ambulance!” Ethan Ring screamed. “Call a fucking ambulance!”
The last of the ten Sefirot was enthroned.
Keter: the Void. Annihilation.
T HERE IS TO BE a Fire Ceremony tonight at Temple Twenty-four. All are welcome, Priest Tsunoda tells us. He is a small, vigorous man of great charm and charisma; a retired cram-school teacher in Beloved Schoolmaster tradition of Bette Davis, Robert Donat, Robin Williams. The stories that roost around this isolated cluster of three Temples
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