The sun rising and fading beyond the window, far beyond, and because it was always raining I spent most of the summer underground.
One morning I was stunned by the force of repetition, I was cross-eyed, I’d come out in a rash, I kept scratching myself, perhaps I had psoriasis, or boredom-induced leprosy, something like that, and so I turned to a thing I’d downloaded. It was called FlytheEarth. Crazy pounding rock music. Then a demonstration – flying over countless towns. Deserts. Blue frozen wastes and raging tempest-driven seas. For a few days it quelled my wanderlust and mounting frustration. I stopped wanting to punch my hand through the screen. I kept flying, even while spewing out tedious information, order numbers, costs, likely dates of arrival I was flying over Death Valley, observing the variegated colours of the sand. From time to time, but quite regally, as if it was all so far beneath me, I would pause my flight and type—
And then I would launch myself skywards again.
I did it for weeks. Perhaps I did it a little too much. Eighteen hours a day drifting around above computer-generated images of the planet, sporadically interrupted by order requests might be bad for the brain. If it was better than reading about millionaires with plastic faces then it was still not exactly edifying. I woke each morning in my solitary bed, I reached for my phone and checked it for messages, and then the next thing I did, even before I made a cup of coffee or stuffed food into my belly, I just turned on the computer and ignited FlytheEarth again and off I went—
The pasty sun was sliding under the planet again, I was almost about to switch on the lamp, though I was mesmerised anyway, hardly needed it, I was absorbed by a vision of the Californian coast, I was coming in to hover by Monterey, imagining the waves moving slowly backward and forward, lulling me into a trance – beautiful I thought. I could have hovered there – I’d come to think of myself, inside the thing, hovering within it, not sitting beyond it in my dank little room – all day – most of the night – just the waves, in and out, like breathing, of course, the breathing of the planet, and the sound was so tranquil, as if someone was whispering to me, saying it was all alright, there was nothing to worry about. I imagined the froth dancing on the rocks, then dissolving bubble by bubble, curdling away into nothing… You are just a bubble, whispered the waves. You are dissolving even as you flutter. But it didn’t matter. I didn’t care if I dissolved entirely, into that beautiful view – I was happy to be dispersed across the sand, with the waves churning me into nothingness – I was so relaxed, I nearly fell off my chair—
The moonlight lapping at my feet. The tides turning. The planet circling and then perhaps I slept, perhaps I woke, I was sweating like anything. I was hot and then I got so cold I had to shift in my seat, blow into my hands. Then I coughed. Typed a few dozen emails. Coughed again. I had some autumn cold, it was clear. The damp was encroaching, everywhere I turned. And I had this buzzing in my ears, I was twitching, my wrists hurt already and I’d only just started – I was weak and I went straight to Arizona. Christ, there was nothing moving there, for miles around. Just desolate tracts of rock. I must have slept again, I don’t know, I was confused and sweating and then I somehow got myself to New York, I was flying among the skyscrapers, concrete blanks, one and then another – I saw the people with their phones stuck to their faces, and each of them blaring something to someone else, all these words, and then I saw the boats moving along the Hudson, I was there – plainly – and the place was breathing all around me – the thing was happening as I whirled among the buildings. I saw people in the offices, moving from cradle to open plan office to grave. I could see those jowly old guys, spooning chestnuts into paper cups, I could smell burnt sugar, all the way from Central Park—
I was dreaming, with my hands stretched out in front of me. I was tumbling upwards, everything inverted, as if I was ascending and would never stop, until I reached dark matter, wherever that was. I saw my breath turning to coloured smoke. I knew I had to get back to Oxford, somehow I turned, I went across the Atlantic, all the boats moving beneath me, I could barely see, and then I caught a glimpse of them – the green matted fields of England – I breathed a sigh of relief – I saw brilliant gold ahead of me. I swooped up the Thames as far as Wolvercote, I saw the dusk gathering on Port Meadow, a weir, rats scuffling by the water. The lock was almost deserted, a few canal boats tied up for the night. I saw the moss crawling up the walls. Cows churning through the mud. I heard someone deep below, drinking cider on the bank. Muttering to himself – I heard it all. Not much to say about the other things. Of course you can expect the sun to rise each morning. Nice flowers they are. And the bees, too. Of course. Best to walk there…
The mist was thick over the meadow, obscuring the winter lake where the floods had bubbled up through the soil. The geese with their heads in their feathers. Back and forth, I went five times up and down that river. It was just the mist and the lights reflecting on the water. I was like a moth, I couldn’t stop fluttering up and down.
I think I slept then, or somehow it all stopped. As if I had fallen towards the fields, I slept with the cows snuffling in the grass around me, with the man muttering his nonsense above my head. The image got fixed again, but I was sleeping in it – so I was lying on a satellite image, something like that – really I suppose I must have slept at my computer, I’d left the curtains open and so the early sun came in, briefly, like a searchlight. As soon as I awoke, I was in the air again – I saw the houses one by one, each one shining like gold, filled with treasure – down Abingdon Road, all the grimy little side-streets like arms pointing directions towards the lake and the railway tracks. I was going round and round, ricocheting off the clouds—
People moving on the streets. Bicycles massing over Folly Bridge. The gargoyles spluttering on the old roofs. And the grind of buses. I was at the College with the black vapour. A grand old college, a conglomeration of electrical towers, you could hear them crackling, and now and then sparks would fly out, red and orange and gold, like fireworks. A door was opening. A man emerged from a staircase, spitting out soot. I’d seen him before – I was quite certain. His chin in his scarf, unkempt hair, down to his collar. A battered suit, in cord. When he lifted his face I saw he was fine-boned, trashed and angry beyond measure. He was biting his lip, he looked as if he had been crying.
I was following him at a discreet distance, my pursuit entirely tactful, skirting the corners well behind him. He was hurrying as if he might be late. Then he turned – there was a sign – I was trying to read the words – MERCER—
I was summoned back – I couldn’t see—
All the next day, I was nowhere. I spent the whole day lying in my bed, rubbing my face on the pillow. Too stunned to move myself towards the desk. I would lift my head and think I must get up, soon, but then I’d let it fall down again. I kept thinking of that man with his room smoking like an industrial accident. At one level, I didn’t care. I had enough to think about. Why would I bother with him at all? But I kept thinking about him anyway. Why him? Of all the people wandering the streets. Why not the man muttering on the banks of the Isis? Why not anyone else at all?
The cord suit? His face? His long thin hands—