Read Online The Folded Man by Matt Hill - Free Book Online

cotton mills. Not proud of the chimneys, of Lowry or the waterwheels. The canals and the pigeons –
    We have technologies to stop these atrocities, the men on stage say. And they’re getting better all the time.
    Noah nudges Brian. Noah yawns. Noah passes Brian his notepad.
    Need a slash, the page says. Don’t be swanning off.
    Brian’s neck won’t stop itching from all the eyes.
    And Noah does one. Brian hears him jog up the central aisle. Out through the double-doors already.
    On the stage, a man says, Terrorism is changing. Civil war is coming.
    Brian doesn’t know about that –
    Brian takes the pad from Noah’s empty seat. Reads that page. Reads other pages. Notes and notes, bulleted lists with bits underlined twice. Sort of methodical, despite the messy writing. Like Noah’s bunker. Like Noah’s plans.
    The words from the stage blur. The men on stage turn featureless. The words fade out and away. Brian reads on, the notes screaming in figures and projections. And Brian wonders what they’re for. Why they’re needed when this tape’s turning slowly under his seat.
    Brian takes the biro. Brian writes –
    Boredom bores boring bores bored.
    He looks up once, gathering thoughts, a man on the stage babbling on, the pen moving to his mouth –
    Then:
    A touch. Burning synapses.
    Somebody tapping Brian’s shoulder.
    Brian jumps. Wonders just what the hell’s going on.
    A piece of folded paper comes over his collar. He hears the whispers, quiet whispers in these shadows at the foot of the stage.
    A quiet voice. Slightly effeminate.
    Don’t turn round –
    I said, don’ t. Don’t turn around, Brian. Don’t look at me. Don’t act like I’m talking to you –
    What?
    Somebody wants to see you.
    Â Â What? says Brian. What?
    Read the note.
    Brian and this sick feeling. That same sick feeling.
    Interval, the note says. Thick ink, a marker pen or something. Go for your piss and your cigarette and we’ll find you.
    Brian folds the paper back up. Stuffs his pocket with it. Says, What’s going on?
    See you in a bit, says the voice. Just wait for the bell.
    On the stage, the voices singing those old executive songs. Solutions for problems the world doesn’t even have.
    Â 
    The bell doesn’t come. Brian’s already left the conference. He struggled up the auditorium central aisle while so many eyes turned, saw him, and looked away. The atrium, lobby, foyer, however you want to spin it, it’s cooler than back in there. There’s a breeze from twin air-con units – the strong and silent types.
    Brian wheels through, his chair squeaking a bit. Nobody really about. Pair of bouncers by the entrance doors, running their mouths. They quieten on seeing him, like most do. They ask where he’s off to.
    Brian holds up his baccy tin. Ears still roaring. Wishing he were home, thinking of straws and white lines on glass. Wondering where Noah got to, actually.
    The bouncers smile and hold the doors for him. These gentlemen and this gentleman. Duty-bound by sympathy – some kind of pity for the sort of man who can’t open doors for himself. Or at least bound by Noah’s bribe.
    His cig break, in truth a cig with a bit of weed, feels like a reward for his efforts. There’s a funny sort of near-silence outside, the quiet with the bright stars. The floodlights are off, see, so he can look to bright constellations you won’t see back home. To stars you miss in the city. And all about him, in the car park, are the vans and cars, the vans with family names up their flanks. Names with the dates local businesses were born. The bastards who own them back inside; all these bastards in one room. Over to the west, he can see the glow of Beetham Memorial.
    And all this out here, with this cig with a little bit of weed in it, as wind runs over distant cars, distant wheels ploughing gravel. Wondering what the hell