Read The Book of Strange New Things for Free Online Page B

anything wrong, that’s all.’
    ‘If I die, please tell my – ’
    ‘You won’t die. Not with this stuff inside you. Just relax and think nice thoughts.’
    The cannula was in his vein; the IV drip was activated; the translucent substance moved into him. He thought he might vomit from the sheer ghastliness of it. They ought to have given him a sedative or something. He wondered if his three fellow travellers were braver than him. They were nestled in identical cribs, elsewhere in the building, but he couldn’t see them. He would meet them in a month from now, when he woke up.
    The woman who had administered the infusion stood calmly watching over him. Without warning – but how could there be any warning? – her lipsticked mouth started to drift to the left of her face, the lips travelling across the flesh of her cheek like a tiny red canoe. The mouth did not stop until it reached her forehead, where it came to rest above her eyebrows. Then her eyes, complete with eyelids and lashes, moved down towards her jawline, blinking normally as they relocated.
    ‘Don’t fight it, just go with it,’ the mouth on the forehead advised. ‘It’s temporary.’
    He was too frightened to speak. This was no hallucination. This was what happened to the universe when you were no longer able to hold it together. Atoms in clusters, rays of light, forming ephemeral shapes before moving on. His greatest fear, as he dissolved into the dark, was that he would never see other humans the same way again.

 
     
     
     
    3
    The grand adventure could surely wait
    ‘Man, man, man .’ A deep, rueful voice from the formless void. ‘That shit is one bad, bad motherfucker.’
    ‘Mind your language, BG. We got a religious person here with us.’
    ‘Well, ain’t that a lick on the dick. Gimme a hand outta this coffin, man.’
    A third voice: ‘Me too. Me first.’
    ‘You’ll regret it, children.’ (This said with sing-song condescension.) ‘But OK.’ And there was a rustling and a grunting and a gasping and a muttering of hard labour.
    Peter opened his eyes, but was too nauseous to turn his head towards the voices. The ceilings and walls seemed to be convulsing; the lights yo-yo’d. It was as though the solid framework of the room had turned elastic, walls billowing, ceiling flailing around. He shut his eyes against the delirium, but that was worse: the convulsions continued inside his skull, as though his eyeballs were inflating like balloons, as though the pulpy insides of his face might, any moment, squirt out through his nostrils. He imagined he could feel his brain filling up with – or being drained of – some vile, caustic liquor.
    From elsewhere in the cabin, the grunting and scuffling went on, accompanied by deranged laughter.
    ‘You know, it’s pretty entertaining,’ remarked the mocking, sober voice, removed from the other two, ‘watching you guys flopping around on the floor like a couple of sprayed bugs.’
    ‘Hey, no fair! Damn system should wake us all up at the same time. Then we’d see who’s most fit.’
    ‘Well . . . ’ (The superior voice again.) ‘Somebody has to be first, I guess. To make the coffee and check that everything’s working.’
    ‘So go check, Tuska, and leave me and BG to slug it out for second place.’
    ‘Suit yourselves.’ Footsteps. A door opening. ‘You think you’ll have privacy? Dream on, people. I can watch you squirming around on the surveillance cameras. Smile!’
    The door clicked shut.
    ‘Thinks the sun shines out of his ass,’ muttered a voice from the floor.
    ‘That’s ’cause you’re always kissin’ it, man.’
    Peter lay still, gathering his strength. Intuitively he understood that his body would settle back to normal in its own good time, and that there was nothing gained in trying to function too soon, unless you were the competitive type. The two men on the floor continued to grunt and giggle and heave themselves about, in defiance of the chemicals that had