Ensconced in his cubicle, a soothing cup of Ceylon tea steaming on the desk, he checked the news websites to see if the accident at the train station had made the local section. As expected, the article was only a couple of hundred words long. The authorities were blaming the incident on 'dumb–walking'. The journalist had linked the death to some recently published statistics about the number of road accidents in which mobile phone use was considered a contributory factor, along with a call for greater awareness among the general public of the risks of using mobile phones when on the move. There was no mention of the altercation with the pink–haired girl.
The whole thing didn't sit right with him, but he pushed it out of mind and focused on his work.
At precisely six–thirty, he removed the marinated lamb from the refrigerator and browned it in a skillet with the onions. Once this step was complete, he combined it with olives, chickpeas, dried apricots and raisins, along with a mixture of chilli, cumin seeds and cinnamon, before slow cooking in vegetable stock for two hours.
While the stew heated through, he went to his bedroom mantelpiece and lit the incense in front of the picture of his wife. He rang the bell, clapping once before his prayer, and twice after. The ritual was more of a coping mechanism than a religious belief. It was just what he did to get by each day.
He worked out for an hour to fight off the silence of the house, then took a shower, emerging just in time to take the stew off the heat and let the meat rest while he steamed some vegetables.
The nine o'clock news featured a six car pileup on the M25 North. Police were investigating reports the lorry driver responsible had been using a mobile phone while in control of the vehicle. Smart phones, dumb people, he thought, bitterly.
The driver that killed his wife had died in the collision. The police had held the driver criminally responsible, but in the light of his death, nothing had gone to court. The insurance people had paid up based on the police report. It hadn't mentioned anything about a phone. At the back of his mind, James couldn't help but wonder. Not that it made any difference now. Lauren was gone.
He watched a ten o'clock comedy program to kill the emptiness, then rolled into his bed, ready to do it all again from the beginning.
The pink haired girl wasn't at the station for the next couple of days. Not that this was unusual. Most mornings they boarded the same train, but the station was crowded and sometimes he didn't see her for a couple of weeks. In all honesty, it was a relief she wasn't there. Things would have been awkward, and he didn't want there to be a thing hanging in the air every time he saw her. It would all blow–over in a couple of weeks, and they'd go back to being two people living parallel lives. There was no need for him to even think about her.
Smartphone spotting became a little way to squash free time. He was determined not to let it become an obsession, but he couldn't help noticing them in a way he'd never done before. What struck him most was the sheer number of phones he saw every day. It was by no means unusual for people to have two. A lot of people had a work mobile and a personal mobile, and kids often had more than one, though he suspected the second ones were old units repurposed as games devices and music players. There was also an immense variety of devices and accessories in the market. Oversized earphones and giant fat–ass screens seemed to be the popular. What he didn't see was any more of was the scaled black phones with the barbed wire headphones. He even Googled for phone catalogues and images to find the brand, yet he couldn't get them anywhere. There were simply too many types of phone. It wasn't so much a needle in a haystack as a phone in an immense stack of phones.
By the third morning he'd put it out of his mind. It was raining, so the train was crammed to Third—World levels with people sitting in the luggage racks, yet clutching his satchel he forced his way down the aisle. He hadn't seen Pink or Finance–bro since the day of the accident. He figured the sociopath in the suit was probably rearranging a freezer full of prostitute heads or drowning kittens in a sack. He didn’t care what Finance–bro was doing with himself, but Pink's absence worried him. He didn't need to talk to her about what happened. All he needed to do was see her, and make sure she was okay. For some reason he felt like she was in danger.
Squeezing through the swaying seaweed of people, he moved through the doors and into the next carriage. Still no sign of her. It was possible she was catching an earlier train in an active effort to avoid seeing him. The thought made him feel strangely lonely. The train was silent, most of the passengers buried in their phones, lines of glowing screens casting a pale blue glow on their faces as the train lights flickered in the tunnel. Nearly all of them had a camera on the back, facing out into the carriage. Maybe it was the heat of the train, but he began to feel queasy under the glare of the lenses.
Blue sparks flashed in the darkness and the train shuddered, the carriage briefly falling into darkness as they passed over a set of points. He felt the shift of gravity, the bodies pressed around him abruptly opening into space sending him toppling towards the window. Arm reached high, he braced himself against the luggage rack nearly falling on top of a bleached–blonde schoolgirl with a micro skirt and oversized necktie. Over the rim of her smartphone she glowered at him.
He was about to apologise when he noticed the black alligator skin case. Those phones were creepy. That was the first time he really felt it. The thing sat in her hands like some kind of huge black slug, its tendrils stretching up into her ears. No, he thought, not a slug. A wasp nest.
He tried to swallow with a dry mouth. «Sorry," he attempted a smile.
The girl raised an eyebrow. «It's alright.»
«Cool phone," he offered. Suspicion flashed across her face. She probably thought he was a paedophile. «I was thinking of getting one for my daughter's birthday. Do you know where I can get one of those?»
It was a pathetic lie. He could tell she didn't believe him. Palpably, a tiny pulse throbbed in his neck. His shirt collar felt tight. And yet he couldn't take his eyes off the phone. It was almost as if he could feel it staring back at him, the camera lens forming a single eye in the middle of its head.
Then suddenly his blood ran cold.
It blinked.
He staggered back, crashing into a copy of the Financial Times. The paper collapsed on impact, crumpling in on itself as he fell into the lap of a red–faced man.
«Bloody idiot! Look where you're going.»
The girl with the phone was glaring at him, her face slack, her eyes dead. From her ear a single drop of dark red blood rolled down into her shirt collar. In his head the image of the wasp nest formed again. He could feel it clamping around his chest, choking him. Jerking to his feet, he pushed his way down the aisle, slowly at first, but then elbowing people out of his way. Oily sweat gushed out of his pores. His stomach was turning over.
Around him, passengers shuffled towards the exit, clearing space. With a flash, the train burst out into the light of the first stop. He was aware of the bodies flowing around him as people maneuvered out onto the platform. Darting after them, he jumped down, parting the crowd of people waiting to board.
Clutching his bag tight against his chest, he leaned against the wall of the platform, then slowly slid down into a ball. He clamped his eyes shut. It wasn't possible. There was no way that was real. His body trembled with a febrile shock. He grasped the satchel ever more tightly, rolling on his heels, trying to soothe the panic.