If There Is A Future

Gerry Boland | Added 07 June 2010, 6:49 PM | 395 views | 9 comments

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If There Is A Future

He wakes in the early hours to a throbbing pain on the top of his middle finger. Under the rising glow of the long-life bulb of his bedside lamp, he examines the area of alarm. There is no redness, no swelling, no sign of any damage, yet the pain that he experiences is intense. In his private and intimate agony, he visualizes a virulent new virus that specializes in compressing large quantities of acute pain into small areas. He turns off the lamp and closes his eyes, hoping the pain will be gone by morning.

He wakes at six and switches on the lamp. Pop goes the long-life bulb he bought a week ago. He shuffles to the bathroom and turns on the shower. He is standing under the shower, his eyes closed, the hot water flowing, his hair foamed with shampoo, soap on his face and lather all over his body, when the temperature of the water does a neat u-turn to arctic. The immersion was on late into the night, so there should be enough hot water to clean a shift of Polish miners. He ups the temperature to ten, and the water responds with a perverse shift downwards. He is now in polar bear territory, so he steps out and slams the shower door shut. As he stands on the cold tiles, the burning sensation on the tip of his middle finger returns. Ninety-nine-point-nine percent of him is suffering from extreme cold, while this tiny part of his body is on fire.

He manages to dry himself, then dresses and goes downstairs and into the kitchen. The house is like the inside of a fridge. The water in the electric kettle is a solid block of ice. He lights one of the gas rings and runs some water from the cold tap into a small saucepan. He's afraid to switch on the kettle in case it's inadvisable to boil ice. How would he know about these things? He's a pampered creature who lives in first-world comfort. In the normal scheme of things, he doesn't need to know if it's safe to boil a kettle full of ice.

The gas ring seems to be working fine. He is content to jog on the spot and wait for the water in the saucepan to boil so he can make himself his daily bodum of strong coffee. He jogs over to the fridge. The door is stuck. The frosty morning, he decides, but then remembers that this is the last day of July. Why is his house so cold? Yesterday was the hottest day of the year. Last evening was positively balmy. He opens the back door and is met by a warm breeze. He goes back to the fridge and gives it an almighty yank. As the handle comes away in his hand, his attention is brought to the saucepan. There is a sound not unlike the clinking of ice emanating from the pot. Clever trick: the water has magicked itself into perfectly formed ice cubes. He thinks about the weirdos he interviewed in their mountain commune last month, and how they said he was in a precarious situation, that his arse was hanging out the proverbial window. He had a good laugh at their expense and wrote a piss-take of an article. He wonders what they would say if they saw him now.

He abandons any thoughts of breakfast, turns off the gas and leaves the kitchen. As he mounts the stairs to his study, he can hear the sound of the ice cubes knocking against each other in the saucepan. It sounds like they're having a party.

Surprisingly, the study is nice and warm. He closes the door behind him and walks over to his computer and switches it on. He googles 'acute throbbing pain on top of middle finger' and finds nothing that matches his condition. He googles 'reconfiguration of heated water into ice cubes' but before he checks out the few hits he decides to google 'communes of weirdos living in remote areas of the planet'. He gets over a million hits and under the pressure of a sudden and profound depression, he switches off the computer. As if to say 'I am in charge now', it continues running and proceeds to google a porn site. He's looking at the monitor, his hands are on top of his head and he's watching his computer playing with itself, or playing with him, or both.

Now it's googling the weirdos' website, the one up in the mountains, the one he took the piss out of. He didn't even know they had a website. It's sending them an email. It's typing out the message as he watches. The message reads: "Thought you might like to know everything is falling apart here. Sorry about the tone of the article, sorry I was such a skeptic. Any chance of a bed for life?"

He leaves the computer and goes to open the door. Why is he not surprised to find he's locked in? He walks to the window, opens it, climbs out and slides down the drainpipe. Fortunately, when he dressed earlier after the shower fiasco, he put his wallet in his pocket. In his wallet is a phone card he keeps for emergencies in case he loses his phone, or runs out of credit, or runs out of battery. That's the sort he is: organized, cautious, methodical, practical. There's a call card phone booth at the end of his street and he makes for it. Something about his walking feels strange. He looks down and discovers he's walking on sand. When he looks up, he's no longer on his street, but in the middle of a desert. He experiences a powerful urge to cry.

This is the moment in the story when he should wake up from the unsettling dream to discover a scantily clad female reflexologist working on his little toe. But he is not waking up because he is not asleep. For a man that had all the answers up to yesterday, he is in a pitiful state today. He lies down on the sand and curls up into the foetal position. He may get sunstroke, but that, he decides, is the least of his worries. As sleep comes, he is aware that the throbbing at the top of his middle finger has stopped.

In his dream, he is walking down the street towards a phone booth. He has a phone card in his hand. When he reaches the booth, he opens the door, takes the phone off the hook, inserts the card, dials a number. Smoke pours out of the phone and his card pops out of the slot, singed. He has no money so he goes to the nearest ATM, where the same thing happens to his bankcard. As he walks away from the ATM, a friend he hasn't seen in a long time comes up to him, his open hand extended towards him. It's Jack. He is very glad to see him. Jack was always such a cool guy. He clasps his hand in his. Something terrible happens to Jack. His entire body contorts. He quivers and shakes and falls awkwardly, horribly, to the ground. He seems to have electrocuted his cool friend Jack. Everything goes quiet and still. Jack's face has turned grey. A doctor is tending to him. A crowd of onlookers stand around and stare at Jack and at him. Their expressions are intense, ugly, threatening. It is at this point in the dream that he wakes up and opens his eyes.

He is no longer in the desert. For a while he doesn't know where he is. There is something unfamiliar yet simultaneously, and curiously, familiar about the sensations he is feeling: warmth, protection, love. His face is turned inwards and it is dark; dark yet warm and reassuringly cosy. He never wants to leave where he is. A soft hand gently caresses his head. It picks up his hand and kisses the tip of each finger. He feels a playful closing of teeth around the tip of his middle finger. He knows now that this is his mother. He has been given a fresh start. This is the point where he really does wake up.

He is lying on the grass in his front garden. There is thick smoke pouring out of his study window and a deafening sound of ice cubes banging against each other in his saucepan in the kitchen. The clinking of the ice cubes and the thick smoke convince him that he must leave at once for the commune. He must join their tribe or whatever communal structure they abide by. They will be his friends now. They are the future.

His future.

If he has a future.

If there is a future.

As he walks towards his car, he becomes aware of a numbness in his middle finger. He brings it to his face and studies it. His fingers are as soft as a baby's fingers, though they are the size of an adult's. He can see quite clearly the marks of his mother's teeth on his middle finger. He opens the door of the car and gets in and starts the engine. As he drives away from his house, he realises for the first time today that he is not alone.

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Comments

If There is a Future! – tanya – 07 June 2010, 7:34 PM

Very Kafkaesque story, Gerry! Excellent descriptions and nice use of the senses. :thumbs:

Gerry Boland – 07 June 2010, 8:33 PM

Thank you Tanya, and well done on your own recently posted story which I enjoyed reading.
Gerry

stani – 08 June 2010, 3:01 PM

thought provoking!

Future – Esmerelda – 09 July 2010, 4:19 PM

Gerry, what a wonderful story. Congratulations.

Lauretta

wow – Jay1995 – 12 July 2010, 4:32 PM

i am totally confused, but very good story…

is there A future – muscles – 12 July 2010, 8:44 PM

I love this Gerry, very different and totally absorbing. Are you going to continue with what happens to him in the commune, thats if ….. he gets there!!

Margaret

future – Threeleafshamrock – 14 July 2010, 9:09 PM

Great stuff, thoroughly enjoyed, congrats

Totally confusing - or am I missing something? – scouser – 04 August 2010, 1:41 PM

Interesting and clever use of description. This is good writing, but I can find no sense of a progressive storyline.
Then again, maybe I just don't understand?
I guess I am simply old fashioned in that I like my stories to have a beginning, a middle and an end - and I dislike the use of (my opinion) "and then he woke up" way of ending, or punctuating, a story.
But, I have read some of your other stuff and enjoyed it immensely.

Regards. Harry

Seaview – 11 August 2010, 12:44 PM

Congratulations Gerry. This is intriguing. It felt rather surreal. This is a series of dreamscapes and the main character slips from one to the other without knowing what is real, or in fact if any of it is. The reader experiences this confusion with him. I'm wondering if he's tried to commit suicide and his mother's spirit awakens him by biting his finger (the pain he felt at the beginning) or, because of all the references to heat, if is home is on fire and she saves him by waking him up?

Edited 09 September 2010

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