The Lanyard (6 page)

His idea of the straight line started to disintegrate, and he viewed it now like some almighty stained glass window he had once worshipped only for the pieces of glass to fall free and shatter until all that was left was the lead skeleton, poisonous and filled with grey, glowing gloom. He thrashed out either side and hurt his hands against trees become a hundred soldiers in a line with bayonets ready to jab. He could do it. He had made it so far already. If he didn't think on it. If he just focused on moving, keeping hold of that line as best he could and not giving up, pushing through each wave that tried to push back, that tired.

All at once he pierced the edge of a large clearing, a clearing whose edge was nothing but air. A break in the trees. Another pile of rocks in the middle, another cairn, before the next wave of forest came, like he was passing through the eye of the storm, as if the whole landscape wrapped itself into a maze and he was trapped inside. He rushed across, picking up speed to crash back into the forest, then out again, then in, until he found something else.

The last cairn he found was on the side of a small hill that peaked with a floppy grass haircut rather than a rocky spike. It was here, at the top of the hill, that he came across not just a pile of rocks but a girl, just standing there as if frozen, staring off towards where the sun would later fall, her hair twitching in the wind as it wound around her neck. Did she know he was there? She didn't seem to have heard him approach, and he dare not move now for fear of scaring her, wondering if she was the same girl from before.

By the back of her sneakers were two dead bees joined together that distracted him, wings useless and beaten back, albeit with that strange silver within them still, twisted veins visible that might be mined, the band of black on them as well, gold that would kill for a king, the stinger, the barb, the button of their souls undone, now consumed by the question in his head of whether the spikes at the end of their bodies, their stings, tore off when used. He was sure they did. So sure that her legs seemed to vanish from view, for a moment as he stood, as did the faint hairs on those legs, down where the tops of her socks turned to unwinding thread and then finished. Didn't the spike have a life of its own once it had torn, a heart? Didn't he? A life from his father, from his mother, filled with green toxins. Had he read that somewhere, or imagined? A heart for it, a heart for him, for them, that pumped poison, a lung that shrugged and puffed, and the pain he'd experienced of his arm burst into flame the one time he got stung?

Was this just another sign that told him all that he needed to know? That there were patterns in everything around him if he cared to look, as bees joined to bees might lead to his dream of cars joined to cars along the road, making chains. Animal chains. People chains. Chains of metal and rubber. Piles of rocks. The road out to the peaks that they had come, lined with death, as the sun in the side-mirror had seemed to catch his eye and dazzle, as it did now, even if it was darker than before.

He couldn't be sure if he made a noise, or if she could hear his thoughts, or feel his gaze lapping around her feet, but without a word she turned to face him stuck in thought. He looked up. She smiled. He looked back. Another pattern, like he felt he must have walked since the day he was born, like they all had. He suddenly felt like he was shaking, forced his gaze to return.

At this range her eyes gained the appearance of two drip pools surrounded by dragonfly wings that would flit and shimmer within her iris, elongated abdomens reflected in sapphire, and turned to face the centre, sparkling and shadowy all the way to the edge of the small ridge up to her skin that looked like a white sand beach and continued with just the odd dot here or there, a freckle, a rock, a break in the plains like a bell in the midst of a parade, which he could only manage to observe for a second before he had to stop again, cursing, before he forced his eyes to hold some of the way, to her neck, to her hair, to where it started to curl across below ears like a tangled nest of copper grass, long enough to reach her lips that were pink like lobster carapaces, ivory teeth capped into sharp dropping rocks, two slabs, like gravestones, a quarry for his thoughts fit to snap, and back to her neck, the same colour, the same construction. 

Perhaps he had not woken up earlier, drenched, because of something in his sleep, but something outside of it.

It was weird to think of it at this moment, some sort of tactic his brain had to keep him from fainting, but he got hold of the thought and inspected it. There was something outside the tent. Something walking around. He had heard it, he was sure, like his own heartbeat in sound but outside, a sudden experience that the forest was alive, that the clearing was alive, that the dying
campfire
jailed an angel that beat wings within. Was this growing up? Was it an understanding that there was life beyond, other people, outside of his father, his mother, and him. But what life? This life? Her. Was this something new, this idea that life had stalked the stage outside where he had slept. That life did not sleep like the rest of the world, that she didn't.

All he could manage was to point down to the small crop of rocks balanced near his feet that seemed to have brought him to her in a beautiful line, tying them together.

"Did you build those?" he said.

CHAPTER
SEVEN

They walked down from the top of the rocks where they had met into an area full of bare trees. The change to this wooden mortuary happened fast, as if they had passed into an area that had been blasted by bombs. Only the trees here were still standing, they just lacked leaves, which littered the ground instead, a mix of needles and wide maple-shapes, half-damp, half-baked, as if plucked for roasting under the sun, while the branches stuck in place despite the breeze, as if mourning their loss, unwilling to go on, as the wind rubbed their shoulders and told them it would pass, strong enough to stir circles on the floor that sometimes funnelled up to shoulder height and then fell back, an impossible swirl of twigs and bits of burnt paper.

As they passed through, the boy fought the urge to stop and stare at the limbs, to see if they were alive. These trees were too thin for their trunks to contain any deep knots, any eyes, there was no point in slowing down, no way to check if any of them were awake, alert, dozing, or dead, no eyelids to pluck between the thumb and finger and pull, daring the pupil to shrink in the light, to twitch.

The girl got ahead of him as he battled himself, her feet cracked and spat on the ground as she walked, each step a small shot that echoed around his head and bounced back off the sky and piled one on top of the next, whipping around his ears as she span on the spot to beckon for him to keep up, a grin on her face, her hair spinning out in a circle behind her and down, heavy with metallic strands, and she leaned back as if pulled by it, as if such dazzling colour could not come without weight. And maybe that was right. For even trees had to let go of their prettiest leaves at the end of the season, sometimes.

"Keep up. You're too slow!" she turned and continued on.

"Where are we going?"

"Nowhere," she said without pause.

"Then--"

"Come on!"

They soon reached the edge of another dip, and ahead countless trees appeared like the strands of a carpet flushing out in front of them, below.

"I always wanted to run down through these woods," she said.

She held out her hand and waited for him to take it. He walked past her to the edge and looked down at all the trees, trying to picture the two of them, twisting through those many places where there'd be so little space for them to pass. Maybe that was the point. He thought of the bees on the ground, helpless, pathetic... Had they died fighting, or... something else. He blurted a reply. It was more of a question to himself than to her, but still it came -- a sign of weakness. "We could try..."

"Ah come on, what happened to just holding a girl's hand and taking her places?"

"I don't know."

"You're younger than me, aren't you?"

"No," he said, though he sensed he was.

"Then?"

"I'll do it."

He reached out for her but she shook her head, moved around to the other side and held her right hand to him, the same one she had offered before. He touched her fingers. A tingle ran all the way up his arm the moment he made the connection. Her hands were quite small with long fingers, and nails part-polished and shaped into claws, deep white cuticles, the sort his father used to encourage him to cultivate, pushing at the skin around the nails after he bathed. She looked at him. He looked ahead and tried to control his breathing, plotting a route that he could carry, noting the stumps that came out of the carpet of fallen leaves below them, noting the narrow parts.

He pushed off and began to jog down the slope. She took a place just off the side. She laughed at first and then stopped as he gathered speed. The forest bounced as he went, turning down to the left when he saw a small hollow, around and then between two of the trees so they could burst into the clearing as the ground flattened, forcing her to fall in behind him, stressing the grip she had on him as his hand slipped back.

"Go faster," she said. "Faster!"

He began to run at full speed. He felt his arm go taut and then slack as he accelerated. A pain in his leg he ignored. His backpack began to bounce on his back, picturing all his possessions tumbling in turmoil, thrown in a twin tub. She let out a cry of delight. It punctured the air.

There was a stream at the bottom of the next dip, half-hidden in its channel by depth and overhanging grass, widening as they approached like some demonic fault in the ground. He knew that she wanted to leap across with him, even though it was fast becoming too wide to make in one step. He knew he did too. He didn't let up, eyeballing some rocks in the water that he might use as they approached. There was little time now. And, instead, he decided he would just plunge into the black water and push off. How deep could it be? She would tell him to stop if she didn't want him to, wouldn't she?

She didn't say a word.

He lost contact with the bank just behind a large tuft of grass that had flopped down over the edge like a long-necked animal desperate to drink. His foot plunged into the stream; he felt the resistance right away, the soddening suck as the air was pushed out of his socks and the fabric clung tight around him, heavy like lead. He didn't let it slow him, found the gravelled bottom, and used his momentum to push the other foot forward and up the side, keeping his other leg dry, though the splash tried to claw at him. She followed. His arm went slack for an instant and then pull returned, followed by a burst of joy; her weight seemed to be restraining him, and he felt he might stumble, vision fading at the sides and he regained an obsessive focus on getting out of the water. It only lasted a split second, the length of an unbroken stride, driving into the ground ahead. He never heard a second splash, as if the girl managed to clear the stream in one go. And he wondered was she that much taller, or more athletic.

The way ahead was free of trees, the ground firm although muddy, just a slight cottony slip as he ran at it, nothing in comparison to crossing the stream. The pull on his arm lessened and the girl returned close to his right side. He could almost see her in his peripheral vision, he could hear her breath, exalted, ecstatic, deep. He could feel it, full of her taste.

They got to the top of the next slope and she pulled on his arm to stop. She was out of breath. She let go and put her hands on her knees, bending over to try and scoop air with her tongue like a cat at water. He was out of breath too. But not in the same way, more like a dog than a cat, his tongue tasting the breeze, ears up, giddy thoughts in his head.

Should he have kept going, pulling her along? Maybe. What if they went faster and faster and faster? Hadn't he learned they would begin to lift from the earth, become birds, become planes, the air lifting them over the treetops, become little dots of felt until the stream they had crossed wound around as it widened, a vein in the arm of the world. He thought of the loop of string through the small hole in the hilt of his pocket knife that he sometimes attached to his wrist. He saw in the mirror of his mind the girl in place of that knife, tethered to him as they flew, hands become like knotted thread. And he could see that string shadowed beneath them, only the shadow was not black like their cut-out silhouettes. The shadow was white. A brilliant white. Bright like the inside of a lightbulb, hurting his eyes until he had to open them.

"Thanks," she said.

"It's ok."

"Good. Sorry about the hand thing."

"Huh?"

"Not taking your right hand."

"Oh."

"Yeah, I just can't see so good out of this side."

"You can't?"

"Actually, I can't see at all."

She pointed up to her face but he couldn't see any difference. Not until he forced himself to look at her left eye and saw that the colour was more yellow, the texture clouded, and he wondered for a moment if she had seen it too, that ocean of blue light in the sky... Ten seconds or so, that's all it took. Or was it something else?

He asked her what happened. She said, "Pass." Then, "My pa told me I caught something when I was young."

"I'm sorry," he said.

"It's 'k. I don't mind talking about it."

"What's it like?"

"What's what?"

"To not see out of one side."

"Oh -- not so bad, close your left eye and try."

He turned away and did it, casting his view all around the trees in a circle, all the way back to the rise beneath the area where they had met, and down again the other side, the trees, the grass made of leaves, the ever-swirling wind.

"It's kind of the same," he said.

"Yeah, it is."

"I just see a lot of my nose," he turned around. "A bit like being in a cave, looking out. You know?"

"Right. Funny thing is, if you kept it up you'd get used to it. The nose, I mean. I don't even see it anymore, only if I try and look that way. You know, if someone doesn't listen to my instructions, and insists on wandering into my blind spot."

"I won't."

She laughed. "I didn't mean you."

"Right."

"Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to sell it as a flawless way of being, or anything. I guess with anything like that it's never as bad as you think."

"Yeah... I once sprained my ankle and thought it was the end of the world. But it wasn't so bad. It got better."

"This won't though."

"I didn't mean like--"

"I'm just messing with you."

"Oh."

"You're very kinda serious, aren't you?" She pretended to slap him on the shoulder but missed. "Dang... Depth perception."

He wasn't sure if this was deliberate or not. He stepped back regardless, he recoiled, as if she had hit him. She laughed.

"Uh... ok?" he said.

"No. I could totally sock you one, if I wanted. But I won't."

"That's good, I guess."

"I mean it's not that hard to figure out what is close to you and what isn't, you know, once you get used to it, and if you can't, well I guess you deserve to walk into things."

"I guess you do."

"So go on, close yours again and try and get me." She started to sway around on the spot like a fighter. "I'm pretty fast."

"Only if you close yours."

"What good will that do?"

"".

"You don't believe me?"

"No, I mean the other eye."

"But -- you know I won't be able to see anything, right."

"Just do it, ok."

"So you can try and hit me?"

"Something else."

"Oh?" she squinted at him and then smiled. "Well, only if you
promise
you're not going to whack me in the nose."

"I promise."

"Alright."

She straightened up and closed both of her eyes.

"No," he said. "Not like that. Keep the other one open, the left one."

"Why?"

"Just do it, please..."

"This is messed up... I don't think I've ever done this."

"Just try."

He stared at the sky past her while he waited. She grabbed onto the top of her jeans with her hands as if this would help focus, and then she turned straight onto him and closed her good eye only, leaving her other eyelid flickering for a moment before it stayed open.

He stepped towards her, trying not to make a sound or move too fast so that she would sense he was near. He stared into the bad eye, looking at it in stages as if it held the secret of the universe somewhere within the varied layers of detail he had already admired in the other, moving his attention from the outside to the middle, from where her skin wept pink at the corner, small dots on her skin, through her eyelashes, onto the white glass, following a couple of threads that he wished he could loop around his fingers and keep, towards the boundary of the iris, the coral mass, and on to the drop, the deep hole in the centre, the shaft that bored into her brain, into her soul.

Pressure built.

He wanted to stop. But he forced himself to take it all in until something strange happened, until he no longer felt the urge to glance anywhere else, and he felt himself tipping forward, leaning towards her, as if bound.

"What are you doing?" she said, shuffling in place.

He didn't reply, too seized on the black hole at the centre of the green galaxy that span around it, as if a million billion stars were in orbit, as if a million billion lives, and on each fleck a million experiences, of love, and life, and spirit. He wanted to stare this way forever. But why? He realised he would have to stop. Her eye had begun to flicker around, and her eyelids twitched some more like she really wanted to blink. And then the questions would really come. Why had he asked her to do this, what had he to gain.