Machine Of Death (44 page)

Afterwards, Isma gave Timothy an envelope.

“What’s this?”

“You’ll see.”

It was a birthday card. “Today’s not my birthday. We’ll be dead before I turn twenty-eight.”

“They didn’t have a special card for what I wanted to say.”

“The message?” He flipped the card open. “Happy 528. What is 528?”

“You’re always saying how many days we have left. I don’t think that’s a healthy way of looking at it. We have 528 hours. Or if you like, on the back page I’ve written how much time we have in
minutes.
”

“31680.”

“Sounds like a lot of time, doesn’t it.”

“I guess.” 

10080

“Now, now is when you call me, when I’ve got one week left.” Isma wanted to be angrier than she was. It was good to hear Paul’s voice. She’d missed his soothing baritone and his French-tinged accent. She had resigned herself to never hearing it again.

“I’m calling now. I wanted to before; I just couldn’t mount up the courage.”

“Lame excuse.”

“How have things been?”

Isma brushed aside his attempt at small talk. “Are we going to meet?”

“Wow, that’s very direct.”

“The ‘dying in a few days’ thing omits the need for bullshit.”

“I’m out of town right now.”

“Classic. Why do I bother?”

“I’ll be back next week Tuesday.”

“And after all this time, you think I’d want to spend my last night with you. You’re as arrogant as ever.”

“I’m sorry…I just…I booked a flight to come back then because I knew it was your last day. If you don’t want to see me…”

“You’re a bastard, you know. I should just tell you to fuck off. The sick thing is that, asshole that you are, I want to see you before I die.   Maybe just so I can stab you in the eye with a fork.”

“Take it easy.”

“Not my last day. I have plans. Not Monday either. I’ve promised that night to someone.”

“Someone?”

Isma laughed. “What? You thought I’d be a celibate nun pining over you ever since you left.”

“Isma, if I had stayed with you, do you really think we would have been happy? Every conversation was a fight. It would have kept going. I regret leaving all the time, but I think back and…”

“I won’t have this conversation on the phone. I refuse to. Sunday. Can you make it for Sunday?”

“I can.”

5760

Isma wasn’t as good a liar as she thought. Timothy knew immediately.He wasn’t sure whether it was her body language or inflection, but something told him. He wanted to call her on it, remind her about the “no lying” rule, but he didn’t.

She wasn’t looking at him. She, the big “eye contact” lady, wasn’t looking at him. “I know it’s last-minute, but Hanna and I have gotten to know each other much better than I would have expected. Maybe it’s because I never really knew either of my parents, but having an older woman friend—it just makes me feel something intangible. Comfort maybe, but it’s more than that.”

This part wasn’t a lie. Timothy had noticed at the last few meetings that Isma and Hanna had become as close as family. It was just the “I’ll be meeting Hanna tomorrow” part. 

“I hope you don’t mind,” Isma said.

“Of course I don’t.”

Why is she lying? Maybe she’s planning me a surprise?
he thought suddenly. He could see that. Hanna and Isma conspiring to create something that would make him laugh until it hurt. 

4320    

Nothing good could come of this, Timothy knew. Secretly following someone you were supposed to love and trust was always a stupid idea. It was like opening her diary. Whatever he read would be out of context and it would hurt no matter what it said. 

He should have just told her, “I know you’re lying, tell me the truth; no matter what it is.” He hadn’t because he knew it was something bad. In fact, he was pretty sure he knew exactly where she was headed.
You’re paranoid,
he told himself at first. Then he remembered the old joke: “Just because I’m paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get me.”

He followed her through the streets, one hundred yards behind her. He was ready to duck behind something if she turned. She didn’t. She was too focused on where she was going. It was too important to her.
If I walked right in front of her,
he thought,
she probably wouldn’t even notice me.

She turned into Oldham Street and he dashed forward so he wouldn’t lose her.

Why am I following her?
 he thought again.
I know where she’s going.
All pretense in his mind that he wasn’t sure was gone.
I know, but I’m heading after her anyway.

Isma turned into a café and Timothy crossed the street. He knew what he would see, but he crossed anyway. Unless…maybe it would be something else? There was always the possibility that he was exactly as paranoid and childish as she said. That’s why he’d followed in the end. Because there was a hairbreadth of a chance he was wrong.

He walked down the street until he was adjacent to the café. Isma was seated opposite a handsome, curly-haired man in a business suit. Timothy recognized him from the digital photos she had stored on her computer.

Timothy turned and walked away. 

1440

“What? You knew you were an ED when you decided to join the clergy?”

Julie’s total shock made Shamus laugh. “It was one of the main reasons I joined the church.”

“To make sure you go to heaven?”

“No, no, no.” That was what his father had thought, too.
Throwing what little life you have left away
, his father had accused. “Knowing I had very little time made me want to make a difference in the time I had.”

“I understand that,” Julie replied. “Since I started writing songs again I’ve been wishing more and more that I never stopped. It would’ve been nice to leave behind something that people could play in the future. Some sort of proof that I was alive.”

Shamus nodded. “Everyone wants to leave a legacy.”

The two of them were the first ones there. The basement of the church had been freezing when they arrived, but it was heating up. The church heaters wouldn’t be able to make the basement truly warm but that’s what the alcohol was for. 

Benito came next, smiling like an idiot. With the exuberance of a child he told them about a woman he had met.

“Does she know?” Shamus asked.

“No.”

“You should tell her. She deserves to know.”

“Would you stop being a reverend for five minutes and just be a guy?”

“I’m with you,” Julie said. “Better she never finds out.”

“She has lovely tits,” he boasted.

Krishna came in next and commented on how when he went, this is how he wanted his last night to be. “None of that New Age stuff Nqobile did. Just some friends and some laughs.”

“And booze,” Benito piped in. “The booze is important.”

Hanna came in next and the mood changed instantly. Her pallid face screamed that something was wrong. “Have any of you seen Timothy the last two days?”

“No. Why?”

“He was meant to meet Isma yesterday. He didn’t show.”

Shamus clutched the crucifix dangling around his neck. “Something bad must have happened. Did you call the police?”

“Two days have to go by before you can report someone missing. And by then…he’ll be dead.”

They asked Raymond and Annabel when they arrived, but they hadn’t seen or heard from Timothy either. Isma arrived at nine and she looked worn down. Looking at the seven of them sitting there, the last flicker of hope she had harbored faded.   

“Maybe he was in an accident?” Shamus wondered.

“No,” Isma said. “He decided not to come. Him not coming yesterday, I understand. But I still thought he would come today…”

“Don’t think like that,” Shamus insisted. “If Timothy could be here, he would be.”

“No.” Isma hadn’t admitted it even to Hanna. She had just told Hanna he was missing, not the reason she suspected he had left. “I did something, I did something that hurt him. I don’t know how he found out, but he did. That’s the only explanation. He’s somewhere alone and hurt because of me.”

“You really shouldn’t blame yourself.” Hanna cut in.

“I saw Paul,” Isma admitted, and the admission made her tongue feel like it was rotting. It was a chore to get the words out but she forced them out. She told them and she felt the self-righteous ones (Shamus, Raymond, Annabel) judging her.

Hanna took her side. “You were with Paul for years. Of course you saw him. You’re dying tomorrow. If Timothy was angry he should have faced you, not run off like a coward.” 

Isma just shook her head and nothing anyone said could make her feel better. Benito suggested she try and make the best of it, but she replied “I just want to leave. I’m going to go home and have an early night.”

Hanna put her arms around Isma. “You shouldn’t let him make you feel like this on your last night. Stay and we’ll cheer you up.”

“No,” she said, forcefully. “I’m going.” 

She said her goodbyes to the ED group and none of the goodbyes were what she had imagined. They all felt flat, even with Hanna. Hanna was crying but Isma’s eyes were dry. “How did this happen?” Isma asked Hanna before she left. “I’ve only known him three months. I shouldn’t feel this. One week ago, if you told me this would happen, I wouldn’t have thought it would affect me.”

“Should I walk you home?” Hanna asked.

“No. Thanks, but I’d rather be by myself.” She stepped out into the rain.   

When Timothy got to the church, only Shamus was still there, putting things away. He told Timothy that Isma had already left, so Timothy drove to her apartment. What would he say when he got there? He had no idea. A part of him wanted to confront her about Paul and ask for specifics. Why did she lie? Did she sleep with him? Did she still love him? Another part of him just wanted to be with her and not to bring up Paul in any way whatsoever.

The traffic was dense, which was unexpected for a Sunday. The cars moved at a crawl. Timothy wondered where everybody was going to or coming from. Yesterday he’d been driving out, no particular destination in mind, just getting far far away. He’d planned to go to another city, to get a hotel room, a lot of alcohol, a thousand-a-night escort and whatever else he needed to make sure his last day was perfect even without Isma. That had been the theory. In practice, he’d felt miserable and had not been able to stop thinking about her. 

So here he was, driving to apologize? Grovel? Scream at her? Well, something. “I’ve got one day left and I want to spend it with you,” he whispered to himself. “That’s real romantic. Who could say no to that?”

Timothy turned round the corner to Isma’s apartment block and he saw the fire. The top three floors of Isma’s building were ablaze. Timothy looked down at his watch. 00:27. Half past midnight.

“No,” he breathed as the realization hit him.

This was it. This was how it was going to happen. Isma was in her apartment right now trapped and she would die in there, if she wasn’t already dead. If he went into the building to try and save her, he would die too. That was the prediction. This was how it was going to happen. 

The Death Machine had always been right but that was because everyone had always known too little information. Even EDs. But this time, Timothy knew everything. This was how it would happen. There wouldn’t be two fires. This was the only one. All he needed to do to survive was to stand by and watch. That’s how simple it would be to prove the Machine wrong. All he needed to do was do nothing. It’s not like he could save her anyway.

Timothy stopped his car just outside the building. He heard screaming from within.

He stared up at the billowing flames and looked at the window he knew to be hers. She was in there, pinned under something or unable to run for some other reason. She must be so scared because she knew this was the end. She was in there, about to die. Waiting to die. Alone.

Timothy got out of his car and ran toward the fire at a full sprint.

Story by Daliso Chaponda

Illustration by Dylan Meconis

THE
CITY
IS
BEAUTIFUL
AT
NIGHT
. Long after the sun goes down, when the last rays have left the horizon scorched and aching, the buildings show their true shapes, silhouettes against the black with lights that twinkle orange and red. These are not the buildings, not anymore—rather, they’re the buildings’ ideas of themselves, the barest sketches. The burned-in after-image of a skyline put to bed.

With the fall of dusk, things simultaneously expand and contract. The streets open up, and familiar drivers can run them like rabbits in a warren, every turn practiced a thousand times and unimpeded by hesitant outsiders. It’s a delicate dance. The people thin out, and suddenly the extra interactions—the vacant smiles and nods that mean nothing—are stripped out as well, and every meeting becomes one of significance. You see only who you want to see, and if you see someone else, it’s because you wanted to see them and just didn’t know it. Or they wanted to see you.