I

  had been awake for a while. This is after the third death, I’m

  talking about. In the hospital bed. Alone. Outside the window was

  blackness.

  There

  was a mirror on the far wall that I could see my likeness in when I

  straightened my back. I flicked the little switch in my hand and the

  lamp shone orange. It was not easy with my legs stretched out ahead

  of me in splints, but I righted myself and examined myself for the

  I-don’t-know-how-many-eth time, turning my head this way, then that

  way, to confirm that I looked different. The straight lines of my

  hair fell over my ears and some spindle–footed insect appeared to

  have left wrinkled footprints on my brow and around my eyes. I had

  not seen my reflection for many months, not since I had got my

  indentures. I struggled to understand if these changes had emerged

  through ageing, or because of the accident.

  Something

  had changed, that was certain. Not something I could find words to

  describe. As if my fingers had found something under a bed, but it

  was as if my hands did not have a language in common with my brain. I

  felt like I had been carrying a big sack containing all of my

  accumulated errors and misdeeds, and that someone had just now taken

  it from me saying that I’d carried it for long enough. I felt good.

  For the first time in a long time, someone had referred to me by my

  name.

  My

  brother had been there. In the mountain.

  I

  learned from a discarded newspaper at my bedside that I had been

  under the arse of the mountain for almost five hours before they had

  dragged me out.

  I

  recognised my name. There it was. Charlie. For the previous

  twenty-four moons, I learned to respond to G72 or sometimes Gafa 72.

  Gafa was what they called prisoners who were on

  first stint in prison or who were early into a long stint. It meant

  ‘caught,’ in the Jurckas cant. Guards derisively tossed the term

  about, mocking the criminal novices whose soft brains saw them

  blindly sacrifice their youth to eternity.

  The

  paper carried a number of small columns on the story, which all

  improvised on the same theme; no-one could believe I had survived.

  They

  were minded to leave us all there, I imagine. Could you blame them?

  Lowly miscreants that we were, no-one was likely to come claim our

  mangled remains. I was the spawn of the Useless Bastard, after all. I

  have no doubt that they only changed their minds when they figured

  that the precious binding chains and digging tools, all still

  perfectly ,

  were down here with us in our airless bedrooms.

  So

  there I was. Alive. Almost myself.

  I

  would be going back to prison soon. I knew this. Somewhere I sensed a

  hand trying to release a spigot to allow the disappointment to flow.

  Yet my mood stayed uphill. I figured perhaps they had given me some

  sort of stoopy for the pain, but it didn’t feel like any stoopy

  spell I had ever experienced. I could still feel pain in my legs and

  ,

  but I found that it disappeared when I began to count the square

  tiles fixed to the wall opposite the window.

  I

  slept for a while and when I woke up, the room was once again filled

  with clamouring business folk. Gravy drinkers. Waves of competing

  colognes crashed heavy against my receptors, and I covered up with my

  sleeve, which still had the familiar loamy moisture of the mountain.

  I somehow maintained my calm, despite the tumult of obnoxious

  privilege.

  When

  they saw I was awake, they redirected their enthusiasm towards me. My

  calmness seemed to slow them down, to lower their volume. They were

  all very positive, congratulating me on my survival. It was all

  friendly pats on the shoulder and ‘Well done Charlie’ and ‘Good

  for you.’ The word ‘gafa’ never passed anyone’s lips.

  Their

  eyes examined me. ‘This fellow murdered his brother’ – this was

  what they were thinking. This was how I thought. Maybe they were

  looking for some explanation in the way I folded my hands or in the

  way I rubbed my nose. I was under scrutiny, but I did not feel the

  need to react to it, as if someone had offered me a cup of chope and

  I, not wanting it, had politely refused. I smiled and returned their

  gaze with little effort.

  In

  my earlier days, the stares of these ledger readers would have

  provoked the impotent fury of the Useless Bastard. I could almost see

  myself, pointing my finger and trying to stand up on my broken legs,

  shouting oaths and wishing them never to prosper.

  Someone

  asked me if I wanted to do an interview. This was a big news story,

  and they would like a comment from me. I had visions of my previous

  me again pointing his finger and demanding a fortune of soldies if

  they wanted me to go along.

  ‘Sure,’

  I said, surprising myself. ‘What do you need me to say?’ The new

  me was very cooperative.

  I

  ran my fingers on the tightly wound hem of the smock, while watching

  the simmering waves from the heater. I had never worn such a fine

  garment. It felt material, like it had once been the hide of some

  elegant, solitary fourlegger. I lamented my inability to stand. I

  would like to see the full effect in the mirror, rather than leaving

  it to fold under the shadow of my ass.

  The

  room was suddenly all tumult once again as the company folk from the

  previous day returned. They chattered among themselves as they

  wheeled me to the exit and into a waiting vehicle, a little omnibus

  with blacked-out windows.

  The

  conference would take place in the shining lobby of some cavernous

  building

  assumed it was the headquarters of JPD, but no-one confirmed. When

  they understood that I was cooperating with their requests, they

  stopped explaining things to me in simpleton’s speech. I noticed a

  small throng of visitors as I was conveyed through the glass doors,

  each wearing the navy jackets of the approved and ratified

  chroniclers.

  The

  main minder, the one with the broadest belt, was to make a statement.

  He would ask if there were questions. I was to stay quiet unless they

  asked me directly. Stick to what I know, they told me. Don’t talk

  about how the accident happened because you don’t know, I was told.

  No-one will know until the investigation is complete. I nodded, happy

  to cooperate.

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  People

  often talk about this conference these days. The details stayed warm,

  heated and reheated as if mixed together in an eternal stew. Before

  our exodus to the mountain, barely a week would pass without someone

  asking me about some aspect of this twenty-minute meeting. A student,

  some enthusiastic new adherent, even screevers from the estate, would

  tell me about how the earth tore that day.

  When

  I think of that day, I think of the pall of tare smoke. The

  chroniclers made their etchings on their laps, with their pipes

  perched in their mouth corners, their silver tubing running to the

  communal tare bins at the end of each row. We didn’t know much

  about tare in Jurckas. We only had time for the stoopy. You wouldn’t

  be doing any writing if you had taken a lungful of that.

  The

  broadbelt said his bit, careful to say exactly what he had written on

  the card in front of him, big-voiced despite his downward head. His

  chair was notably higher than my own, as if he couldn’t put himself

  on a lower pedestal than me, miserable shite that I was. When he

  asked if there were any questions, there was a delay before someone

  raised their finger to inquire if they could speak to the prisoner.

  ‘The

  prisoner?’ the broadbelt asked. ‘You mean Charlie?’ He looked

  across at me and curved an owner’s arm in my direction, stopping

  short before making contact with my back. ‘Yes, he can answer

  questions, but please understand that he has gone through a terrible

  ordeal. So we’ll just have one or two. He is very tired.’ He

  looked at the side of my head while he spoke, but I felt no pressure

  to return the look. I know that it seemed like a situation that would

  have your nerves sneemied into knots, but I was completely restful. I

  was counting, I’m sure. There was always a count going.

  ‘Can

  you tell us what happened Charlie?’ asked the jacket.

  I

  struggle to recall what I said next, but it has been called an

  oration. I struggle to recognise myself as the proselytiser here

  described.

  ‘Darkness

  yet lightness,’ I said, in an unfamiliar voice. I was losing the

  trombone’s slide of the Jurckas cant, its round edges now somehow

  whittled into jagged points. I had said so little in the previous two

  years that my voice didn’t know itself when called to duty again.

  ‘I’m

  sorry?’ asked the chronicler.

  ‘Never

  has a blind man seen so much.’ I suddenly increased my volume,

  finding the back walls of the space. Others, not part of the

  conference, going about their affairs in the lobby, slowed down, then

  stopped to listen.

  These

  words have been repeated back to me many times, and I am recopying

  them here from these repetitions, but I cannot imagine myself saying

  them. My recollection is that I was doing my honest best to do what

  had been asked of me. Still, I knew I was failing. The tensing of

  postures among my minders told me so.

  ‘Yes,

  well, as I told you,’ said the broadbelt, his hand now making

  contact with my shoulder, ‘he’s been through a terrible-’

  ‘The

  mountain moved. Don’t you see?’ I said.

  Puzzled

  heads turned to each other. Smiles were quickly smothered.

  ‘Can

  you tell us how the mountain came to move, as you put it?’ Another

  blue jacket asked.

  ‘There

  is no how. There is only is.’

  The

  sound of pens scratching on parchment.

  ‘What

  will you do now?’ someone asked. One of the passers-by, not one of

  the chroniclers.

  ‘It

  is not for me to say. But, know this - I saw things. I will explain.

  To all with ears to listen.’

  ‘I

  think we’ll leave it there folks. Thank you very much for coming

  out.’ The broadbelt’s hand was now firmly on my shoulder and he

  led me away from the conference, up the stairs, the dull clamour of

  blue jacket voices growing ever fainter.

  I

  noticed how he was holding his breath as we passed the two security

  guards at the top of the stairs. When we arrived at our destination,

  a grey meeting chamber with dark, smoke-dimmed walls of glass, three

  of the other minders were there, sleeves rolled to the elbows.

  ‘Where

  are we putting this creature anyway?’ said the broadbelt.

  ‘What’s

  that?’ said one of the others, his fat purple cravat loose around

  his neck. ‘I thought we were keeping him around for a bit?’

  ‘The

  meeting? Did it not go well?’ asked another, his curly hair still

  visible under its drenching of product.

  ‘No,

  it didn’t, Kippie,’ said the broadbelt. ‘The hoker puts on that

  he’s found religion!’ Now he shouted.

  ‘Easy,

  Strassi,’ said Kippie, his black eyes giving me an appeaser’s

  look. I was a murderer, after all. He would do well to be careful.

  The

  broadbelt, Strassi, finally took a breath.

  ‘Okay.

  We’re not going to be able to use him. He won’t say what we need

  him to say. We’ll have to send him back to Gangad, or wherever he’s

  going. Sooner than we thought.’

  ‘And

  the whole story?’ said the other one, curly-head.

  ‘I

  know, I know,’ said broadbelt, before turning towards me, ‘It

  could have been great for you, Charlie,’ he said. ‘A bit of

  freedom, for a while anyway.’ His disdain increased as he spoke, as

  if he had tasted something new and did not like it.

  ‘You

  could have enjoyed it for a while longer, you know? If you didn’t

  start in with all that cultish chat.’ He looked away, as if nervous

  he had gone too far, and sunk fingers into the cushioning of an

  arm’s-reach chair.

  ‘It

  is in your gift to do what you want with me.’ My voice found some

  of its old trombone slide again.

  ‘We

  had planned to keep you out for a few weeks,’ said curly.

  ‘We

  do not know why the mountain moved,’ I said. ‘You think you will

  know, but you are wrong.’

  They

  threw a look at each other, a look which said, ‘we’ll have a good

  laugh about this later.’ Then there was a knock at the door.

  ‘Sorry

  to interrupt fellows, but I wonder if I could have a quick word?’

  It was an older man, wearing a dark yellow blazer with a long-tailed

  cut that looked out-of-date, even to me. He stepped in confident,

  with an arm outstretched towards me. I noticed a stiffening among the

  executives.

  ‘Charlie,

  is it?’ he asked, his eyes on mine. ‘I enjoyed your showing just

  now very much. My name is Gracey’.

  I

  accepted his hand. ‘Nice to meet you.’

  He

  wandered around behind and took hold of the handles on my rolling

  chair.

  ‘I

  apologise for my rudeness, but would you mind sitting outside for

  just a moment while I consult with my colleagues? I promise we’ll

  have a chance to get to know each other afterwards.’

  ‘Of

  course,’ I said, happy to help out. He wheeled me out the door,

  then over to the railing, which looked down to the grand reception

  hall below.

  I

  liked him from the start.

  I

  clasped my fingers together and looked down to the activity in the

  lobby. I listened to the click and squeak of leather brogues. I

  observed the high-paced coming-and-going and tried to understand the

  reasons for so many journeys. I watched a cap-wearing cleaner at the

  main door running a mop without cease over wet footprints as soon as

  they appeared. Was that all he did? Was this job any worse

  my indentures?

  The

  makings of everything I saw – the floor, the doors, the railing I

  held in my hands – all had their beginnings in some underground

  cavern or in some dull, damp forest. Now look at it, I thought, all

  polished and cajoled to make it fit to exist alongside us. I put my

  sleeve to my nose, longing for the dank smell of the mountain, but it

  was no longer there.

  I

  had counted beyond four hundred by the time Gracey called me back

  into the room.