chapter eleven

Kay's father is in a bad way.

Reinforced Glass

From the point of view of the dimensions of light the crystal lattice is neither dark nor pale; it is a sphere where colour is meaningless. Sucking the focus from the glass the disc is immeasurable but somehow sensed; flat, grey. A swarm of jet coalesce into a vertical path, hardening and intersecting horizontals. Reflections now obliterate the glass according to the deliberate imperfections of manufacture; but at the same time the blue definition of the circle appears, and with it the comfort of perceived space.

Within a white grub burrows ceaselessly into the equally white mattress of a wall. It is the patient, a term so appropriate that it has shed its meaning; the patient who rocks his white jacket against the colourless fabric of the air. His life and crimes are recorded digitally, brought freshly into the ward by each visitor like a daily dose of refreshing venom, carbonising his veins, making ash of his neurons, powdering the desiccated material of his brain.

Twice a day he is inspected and his sanitary needs addressed. There is a tube inserted directly into his bladder, but waterproof padding is taped about him to contain other waste. When removed it is always clean, and yet within seconds he evacuates upon the changing mat. The psychiatrists insist he has no sense of external stimulus, and yet it is only the removal of the diaper that prompts the outflow. The nurses feel nothing by profession; they have experienced much worse, and they know he cannot be doing it consciously, it is automatic, not an intended action. It signifies nothing.

Kevin has forgotten his name, his nationality, his aspirations. He breathes, he rocks and twice a day he excretes. He excretes his crimes and his sense of self. He excretes life. He excretes his memories. He excretes guilt and innocence; this is amoral shit. This is not just shit. This is not unjust shit. He excretes tiny ephemeral molecules of Kay. The victims all passed this way years ago, but she can never leave until he himself dissolves in the flames and his ashes float upon the convection currents from incineration to the same place without dimension that only light inhabits.

Kevin thinks of nothing, and in detail that means he thinks of his place on that convection current. He rocks through the falling of the light and the night and the creeping dawn. He rocks with a regularity which stops the clocks; even age fails here. He has already embraced the rising mote of breathless air. He cannot feel, but he feels only the searing heat which strips the bones as he falls.