General
One TORBEN’S IN THIS SWIVEL chair like some big cheese. Him in his security guard uniform. Him and his dangling keys and big black belt. His shiny boots, they’re propped on the console edge, and it’s like that console with its pushbuttons, its flashing lights, is his personal property. It’s like everything in this control room was put here just for him. He thinks he’s got things in hand, the big anchovy. Me, I’m duct-taped into one of the other chairs in this room. When you’re packaged like a piece of meat at an abattoir, time takes on flavours, and the present’s sour and rides your tongue hard. The past, well, it’s as bitter as dandelion salad. If I turn my head, I can just see the number four turbogenerator out in the turbine hall. They keep this power station so spotless you can eat off the floor and there’s something crazy about that. None of this is about choice. They have windows in this place. If I could twist in my chair, I’d see reflections of the roof lights in the orange paint of the turbine hall floor, little orange stars twinkling orange, shimmering orange. Even the doors have windows, so you can see into the corridor before you step through them. Can’t be too careful. And those turbogenerators, they’re huge the way God is huge. And they’re loud, so there are signs all over the place. Ear Protection Must Be Worn. The people who work here, all their words have capitals. Right now though, everything’s winding down. Those turbogenerators, all eight of them, they’re staggering to a big fat stop. Thirty, fifty, a hundred brakes are white hot. Steam is blasting through emergency vents, and this whole place shakes with thunder. All this, it’s called Emergency Load Shedding. I can’t move a finger. All I can think about right now is my underwear, if it’s clean. This is so embarrassing. Torben, that slimy cephalopod, he arranged everything. He set all this up. The first step to redemption, he’d told me once, is you have to die. I never thought all this would be so personal. So now, he’s sitting there with his compass, orienting himself in his chair. What’s important to him right now is figuring out which way to face, which way to position himself, north, south, east, west, to get the best karma. When he notices I’m conscious again, he pushes away from the console and rolls to where I’m sitting. Don’t worry about the pain, pal, he says, it’ll all go quickly. This is supposed to make me feel better. Torben understands the five elements and two energies of Feng Shui, so whatever happens, whatever happens, he says it’s for the best. He dug this book about Chinese Feng Shui out of the “Compostables” section of the dump. Apparently, everything has to do with the arrangement of the things around you. He had to fight off fifty seagulls for that book. You can’t be friends with a guy like that. When you’re buzzed out like I am, you get the chemically restrained Look. Words float through gelatin to a mouth that can hardly speak, to a tongue that’s turned into a canoe. You don’t get high when you’re like this, you leak away. Don’t worry about a thing, he told me when he hauled me in here. There are clouds gathering outside. Clouds the size of Greenland, but dark as coal. I know about these clouds the way I know about the terrible things that happen, the way I know about dreams, about memories, about how they hunt you down. There’s this sign on the door out to the turbine floor: Eye Protection Must Be Worn. Sure. I’m not worried about it though. When you’re in my condition you stay calm, calm as an oyster. They could rip your tonsils out with pliers, and you won’t mind. It turns out that you can get into any place in a security guard uniform. Even the control rooms of large power plants. And if you set off a fire alarm, then the place starts to shut itself down. And the only people left in the building? Security. So he’s sitting there with this book he salvaged from the compostables at the dump, The Family Health Guide. He’s hanging around just long enough to make sure everything will go according to plan. He’s chewing Nexiums, the purple pill for heartburn relief. Not that he has heartburn, but he’s nipping things in the bud. He says he could get heartburn at any moment. Acid reflux. Esophageal spasm. Pyrosis. You name it. You can’t be too careful. A siren goes off somewhere and emergency lights flicker on, and suddenly we’re glowing red, Torben and me. Did you know, he says over the roar of the emergency shutdown, that Crohn’s Disease was named after this guy, Burrill Crohn? Burrill Crohn can fuck himself for all I care. It’s an inflammation of the digestive tract. Torben looks up and smiles. Headache, diarrhea, nausea, abdominal pain. I’ve got all those, he says, then: you don’t suppose I’ve got Crohn’s disease do you? It’s the Nexiums, the side effects. Complications include pus-filled fistulas from the diseased bowel to the anus, he says and his eyes, they’re moistening at the prospect. Fistulas, he says eagerly, I can feel one forming right now! I’m praying he doesn’t want to show me. This whole thing, the fire alarm, the shut down, the emptying out, it all has to do with Retina Green. Right now, I can still remember things, despite the drugs. I can still remember everything….
