Lorna, at the Heat Death of the Universe
0. The End
Lorna had long since forgotten about the extinction of the human race. She saw them destroy themselves multiple times over, only to crawl up from piles of radioactive debris and stagger on, build it all back, then find some new way of ruining it. The sun, oblivious, gradually heated up, evaporating all the water on the surface billions of years before expanding into a red giant and incinerating the planet and leaving behind a dead, blasted rock. Humanity had tried, but you can’t beat the sun. Even the sun couldn’t beat the sun.
Lorna watched all of this and then forgot all of it it in the unfathomable time that had passed afterwards. The universe expanded, celestial bodies moved around. She never saw any kind of other life, disappointingly, sorry Fermi. Just chemical reactions, exploding stars, the births of black holes. Orbits. Rocks. Rocks in orbits. Nothing. The business of space. All of it passed by. The concept of days didn’t make sense in the absence of both the Earth and the sun, so she had no measure of time.
She had her favourite planetary bodies, both new and vintage, preferred black holes, expectations for the ends of particular stars. Often she forgot about their existence before their stories concluded, and had to pick new ones. She got confused as to whether the new ones and the old ones were the same. She decided it didn’t matter, that favourites were favourites and there was nobody around to argue otherwise.
Once she watched a particular spot for a billion years (inasmuch as years could be gauged), and then did the same again to see what would happen. Things didn’t move as much the second time, maybe, or moved more, or moved quicker. It was hard to tell. Entropy had been increasing, gradually, forever, and she was getting near - relatively speaking - to the point where all the heat and energy in the universe had been evenly distributed. The end.
Would things stop?
Would she stop?
What does ‘stop’ mean?
It had probably been enough, right? There are only so many black holes.
She didn’t know exactly what would happen at the very end. The real end, the end of everything. She hoped she wouldn’t have to watch an unchanging, dead universe tick quietly into infinity. That would get very dull, she expected, eventually. She thought about how to end herself. She wasn’t entirely clear what she was, whether there was a self, which made that difficult. The best she could come up with was that she was some kind of free-floating consciousness, aware of itself, but untethered to any physical form. It - she? - could travel, or maybe she was a fixed point that the universe expanded and moved around. Maybe she had multiple perspectives at the same time. Maybe she was the universe. How did all of this happen in the first place? Can’t remember. Plenty of time for thinking, but no head to scratch. Ah well. She could just wait until the end and take it from there.
Maybe something interesting would happen.
Maybe it would start from the start again. Maybe she’d meet God.
Maybe she could wrap it up and head home.
1. 2025
The stranger knocked on the front door and his distorted image waved when Craig put his eye up to the peephole. Craig didn’t recognise him, and wondered if it was too late to pretend not to be home. He didn’t need this kind of hassle at whatever time it was, not on a Tuesday, not at his age.
“I’m not selling anything,” came the voice through the door. No, just looking for a direct debit, Craig thought to himself. Very bold, talking through the door like that, breaking some kind of social contract. Technically not selling anything, but after your money all the same. The school needs a roof, or the roof needs a school, or the school roof needs, I don’t know, more children under it. Nonsense. He started to walk away from the door.
“I know why your wife left in 1987.”
That stopped Craig in his tracks.
“Lorna,” said the stranger, through the door, a little more quietly.
Craig turned back and walked as quietly as he could to the door, trying to give the impression he had been waiting there the whole time. He opened it just a crack, perplexed, mouth slightly open, and stared at the stranger through the gap.
The visitor was younger than Craig by easily twenty years, but this still placed him somewhere in his mid-fifties. He clearly knew the impact of what he had said, probably planned for it, and was just patiently waiting for Craig to pull himself together and react.
“I think I found her.”
Craig did not manage to construct a response to this.
“Can I come in? My name is Geoffrey. I used to live next door.”
“You’re that child?” asked Craig, in a daze, trying to recall things he had half-listened to Lorna saying decades ago. She was a talker, and he couldn’t have been expected to take all of it in. The important stuff, sure, he remembered that, but not the comings and goings of every student within half a mile.
“I was nineteen,” said Geoffrey with a small smile, remembering the same time himself.
“Nineteen,” murmured Craig to himself as he opened the door more widely and stood out of the way. Geoffrey walked past him and turned just inside the hallway, looking around. He had never been inside the house before, and took a moment to compare the reality with what he remembered of his imagination. He had pictured flowers, books, photographs, signs of life, personality. The reality was bare walls painted not exactly white, and a carpet probably installed while Queen Victoria was in charge.
“You found her? What do you mean you found her? Why were you? Didn’t she?” said Craig, half-formed questions cascading out.
“We never actually met,” said Geoffrey, extending a hand. Craig took it and held it awkwardly, his brain too full to shake. Geoffrey retrieved it after a few seconds and Craig’s arm flopped back to his side.
“What do you mean you found her?” he said again.
“Weren’t you looking for her?”
Craig had to admit to himself that he hadn’t been, even in the immediate aftermath of her disappearance. She was a grown woman, she had packed a bag, taken all the cash that was lying visible. He had greeted the occurrence with a sense of acceptance. It made sense to him, the kind of thing she would do. Maybe even a little bit of relief, which was now flowering, years later, into guilt.
“I did at first,” he lied. “But she chose to leave. You’re not supposed to stop women doing what they want to do now. I made my peace with the whole affair.” He stumbled slightly over this last word and hoped Geoffrey hadn’t noticed.
“She’s alive anyway, you’ll be glad to hear.”
It had never occurred to Craig that she might not be, so he just nodded sagely at this. He realised he had been unconsciously picturing her living quietly alone, in a house identical to his own, in precisely the same routine as she had been.
“She wants to see you, immediately,” continued Geoffrey, inclining his head towards the still-open door. He realised at this that he had pushed too hard too fast when Craig’s eyes narrowed and looked him up and down, as if realising for the first time that this was just random stranger who had barged into his house making ludicrous claims.
“Hold on just a minute now,” said Craig. “You’ve given me what, a first name? Now you’re in my house? I’m going to have to ask you to step back outside the door again while we make sense of this.”
“Look,” said Geoffrey. “Didn’t she tell you my name? How would I know who she is, or where you live?”
“Why now? What do you want exactly? Put her on the phone.”
“She can’t talk on the phone,” said Geoffrey, and hastily added, “at the moment. I don’t have a phone. Right now.”
“Where is she?”
“Just next door.”
“In what, your old flat? Have you lived there this whole time? Has she? What do you mean you ‘found’ her. Why were you looking, of all people?”
“Come hear what she has to say.”
“Why doesn’t she come here herself?”
“Look, it’s a little bit complicated.”
“Explain it,” said Craig, folding his arms in a manner he hoped looked authoritative. He felt himself on high ground now, he could wait this out. It probably wasn’t even true, and then he could call the police and they would see how correct he had been.
Geoffrey hadn’t wanted it to come to this, but he knew he had one winning card left to play.
“Alright, have it your way,” he said, raising his hands in deference and turning to the door. He took one step, two steps, quietly praying, and then it happened.
“Wait.”
Geoffrey turned around and said nothing, not trusting himself to speak.
“She’s next door?” said Craig.
Geoffrey nodded.
“And she’s alive.”
“Yes.”
“And she wants to talk to me.”
Geoffrey said nothing in response to this and both men waited a beat.
“Let’s go then,” said Craig.
2. 1987
The hedge was far too tall to see over, so they collided as they emerged from either side at the same time. Lorna’s balance went from under her and she landed heavily sitting down, while the boy wheeled his arms around and took a few steps backwards, successfully righting himself. The contents of Lorna’s purse rolled out, down the kerb, onto the road.
“Oh blast, I’m sorry,” said the boy, regaining equilibrium and moving towards her, awkwardly grabbing things and stepping on banknotes until his hands were full and he realised he couldn’t pick up the purse without putting them all back down. He ended up looming over her with a handful of tissues, coins, receipts, boxes of things he couldn’t identify, while she sat on the ground looking up at him.
“I don’t think the keys are the one with the sore arse,” she said.
He put the things down fast, but carefully, and offered her a hand up. She took it, and dusted herself off while he re-gathered her things. She held the bag open for him to dump them in. “Nobody lives next door, were you in burgling the place? Find anything nice?”
He blushed at this and indicated backwards with his thumb. “No, no, I wouldn’t, of course, I live there, kind of.”
She thought he looked barely twenty, meaning she probably had at least ten years on him. He was dressed very neatly and very nondescript. If anyone asked she wouldn’t have come up with more than, you know, just wearing normal clothes, like a person does. He had a haircut, the kind you’d expect. Looked like he should have been wearing glasses, but wasn’t. The whole thing was mildly suspicious, in its own way.
“You kind of live there?” said Lorna, putting the purse back up over her shoulder.
“Well I, yeah, I kind of do,” he said. “Geoffrey.” He offered her a hand.
“Lorna,” she said, taking it. “I live just here, the other side of the accident site.”
“Are you ok?” he asked. “I wasn’t paying attention, this giant hedge, you can’t see around it.”
“I’m grand,” she replied. “If I have any injuries that develop as a result sure I’ll sue you then.”
His jaw opened a little bit at this and his eyes widened. Had nobody ever lightly made fun of him before? It was adorable, really. He was certainly asking for it.
“Now, there’s no need to, if you’re hurt, we can get, there’s a doctor,” he stammered, glancing back over his shoulder to his own place once or twice.
“I’m just messing with you,” said Lorna. “I’ve a doctor at home. You have one in there too? I’ve not seen anyone coming or going from that place, I figured someone was sitting on it for the land value, or there was a vampire. Both, maybe. Didn’t come up with any other options, to tell you the truth, so which is it?”
“Ah, no,” said Geoffrey. “It’s just me at the moment. There’s a few flats but I’m the only one in any of them. Nobody can afford rent these days and all that.”
“You can though,” she said mischievously. She really shouldn’t have too much fun making him uncomfortable, can’t have the neighbour thinking you’re bullying him. You’ve only met him in the last minute or two. He may never have seen a girl before. This could be his first human contact. A lost tribe of awkward Englishmen, protecting cups of tea with bows and arrows. Time to mention the other half and make him a little more comfortable. “My husband Craig is a GP, so we’re not too badly off. I said I had a doctor at home, didn’t I? I’m just on a grocery run. Have to stock up on salmon and fancy yoghurts, you know.”
“Ah, yes, good,” said Geoffrey. “If you’ll excuse me, I was also just on my way out when we, you know, met.” He lifted up a notebook, as if this emphasised his point somehow.
“Fair enough,” said Lorna. “Looks like we were going in opposite directions alright.”
Geoffrey gave an exaggerated laugh that dropped into an extended silence that stretched into the afternoon.
“Right so,” said Lorna, giving him a pat on the shoulder as she walked past him. “I’ll see you around, you must come over for a cup of tea.”
“Ah!,” he said, noncommittally, and she glanced back over her shoulder for a second and squinted at him on her way to the supermarket.
She thought about him while picking up vegetables. I hope I didn’t make a terrible impression. Shouldn’t instantly make fun of people like that, it’s not his fault he’s English. He’s very young, wonder what he does to be living there. Must be a student or something. Rich parents. We’ll have him over for that cup of tea and quiz him. Getting knocked down was the most interesting thing to have happened in months.
She got home and dropped her shopping bag on the kitchen table. No sign of Craig. His hours were long, unpredictable. She suspected half the time he was out he was just sitting in his surgery, reading. She put her groceries into the fridge, wondering if she’d immediately divulged too much to the young neighbour she’d run into for the first time. What was that thing about the yoghurts? He hadn’t actually given away anything other than his first name, she realised. That and he owned a notebook, and had probably made eye contact with another person fewer than eight times in his life.
That’s what you get for talking about yourself too much.
–
She didn’t deliberately lurk around the hedge, and she didn’t needlessly leave the house a few times a day to pick up one extra grocery item she had maybe forgotten, but circumstances did put her in Geoffrey’s path a few more times in the weeks after that.
The second time they met, they saw each other from a few metres away and Lorna made an obvious crack about running into each other, which appeared to go directly over his head and led him to be anxious that he missed something important. Lorna appeased him by talking a little too fast while he buttoned up his jacket and then opened it again after instantly getting too warm. She touched his shoulder as they parted and he looked directly at her hand while she did it.
She walked off thinking perhaps she had gone too far, but also that she had done absolutely nothing.
–
The next time she saw him she asked what he did.
“Ah, it’s kind of hard to explain,” he replied, glancing over her shoulder. Nobody was nearby.
“Well, haven’t you given me the most mysterious and intriguing answer possible,” she said.
“I’m just house-sitting, I suppose,” he said, gesturing in the direction of where he lived.
“For who?”
“Don’t really know, I just get some money to keep the place occupied.”
“How did you find the place?”
“Ehm,” he squirmed a little, clearly not used to actually being asked direct questions, and certainly not on this topic. “I’m not allowed to say.”
Lorna shook her head.
“If you’re trying to keep a secret,” she said, “you’re going to have to learn how to dodge a question. Are you a spy?”
“Ah! Haha,” he said, laughing genuinely but sharply, abruptly, almost as an expression of relief. “No, no. Not a spy. Not looking at anyone. Just dusting and running water through the pipes if it’s cold out.”
“See, that’s boring.” Said Lorna. “More of that and I’d stop talking to you entirely.” The obvious look of worry on his face made her laugh. “Don’t worry, you still owe me a cup of tea.”
“We could go to a cafe,” he said, before catching himself being too bold and adding on, “at some point, if you like. For a cup of tea. You can bring your husband.” This had gone a little further than intended, like he had invited her to a prison visitation room.
“Ah he’ll be off listening to hearts and telling everyone to quit smoking,” she said. “He’s never about in the afternoons. Cafe sounds grand.”
“Ok!,” he said and then didn’t follow up.
Lorna felt him teetering on the very edge of his social abilities and decided not to push it any further, just smiling.
He glanced down at her hand as she started to move, but she was too aware of how much he’d noticed being touched last time to do it again. She looked back after she passed and noticed him lightly brushing himself on the shoulder. He started to turn his head so she straightened quickly up and continued forward, trying to come up with a place to go, having not actually left the house with a purpose in mind.
–
The next time, he waved first. This represented progress. Progress towards what, Lorna neglected to specify to herself. She would invite him over, introduce him to Craig, he could be impressed by Craig’s thoughts on the pancreas, they could have a plate of biscuits out. Sugar cubes in a small bowl that remain untouched by everyone. Craig could ask what he does, Geoffrey could get all flustered, Lorna could jump in, ah, he’s just house-sitting next door. For the owners, like, who else would it be? Running the pipes, flushing the loo. Craig would think this made perfect sense, he could lean back, glance out the window at a sky that is in no way darkening, and suggest maybe it was time to call it a day before it gets too late.
His wave dropped off and he nodded as he walked by without speaking. Social battery still depleted, she surmised.
–
Nine days passed in which nothing happened.
“Would you like to go to a cafe?” he asked. Lorna was stunned, she didn’t think he had it in him. Not only initiating a conversation, but what could only be described as an escalation. She had to agree with this, she realised, or he would never speak to her again. He would move out and possibly emigrate. He was outside the airlock right now asking for a helmet.
“Sure why not,” she said.
They walked side by side out to the main road, not so much having a conversation but seeing things and pointing them out to each other.
“That shop’s closed down,” said Lorna. “And the Chinese restaurant is onto its third name this year.”
“They fixed the glass on the bus stop,” said Geoffrey. Passing time, they were already going to the same place, looking at each other while they walked would be too intimate too early. Lorna had no idea what to expect.
They arrived at the coffee shop and both requested an identical cup of breakfast tea. Lorna hastily added a pastry that she didn’t want to her order, as if to keep the universe from being too perfectly balanced. They sat down opposite each other on a small circular table, both sipped their tea, found it too hot and put it down synchronously. They were then faced with just each other.
“How’s the house?” asked Lorna.
“Oh, it’s fine,” he replied, touching his cup lightly with his fingertips and judging it too early to pick up again. “How’s Craig?”
“Oh yeah, he says hello,” said Lorna, by default more than anything else.
“You’ve been talking to him about,” Geoffrey paused, decided the correct word didn’t exist, but the sentence remained unfinished, “this?”
“Ah of course I haven’t,” she said. “He wouldn’t listen anyway. I could tell him my teenage neighbour and I were off to a hotel room for the weekend and I’d see the top of his head nod over a book.”
Geoffrey sipped his tea at this, glancing left and right for something to focus on.
“Don’t think we’ve made eye contact since Harold Macmillan. Sometimes you’d wish for a bomb attack or some big accident just to make things interesting, you know? To have a big, obvious subject in front of you to talk about. Where’s the IRA when you need them?”
That was probably a bit far, in terms of confessing things, she thought. Geoffrey nodded, and she could see him psychically willing his tea to cool down so he could occupy himself for a precious few seconds. She decided to swerve the car a little.
“You getting bored turning the taps on and off all day?”
“Well. Yes. I kind of am. That’s why I wanted to talk to you, actually. You have to promise, though, not to tell anyone about this.”
“Done,” she said, instantly.
“Not a soul,” he said. “Not even your husband.”
“Not even my what?” said Lorna.
“Craig,” said Geoffrey, missing the joke completely. Lorna let it go.
“Not even him,” she said. “He probably wouldn’t even take it seriously.”
“Why did you marry him?” he said, abruptly. He started back-pedalling a little at the look on her face. “You seem, I don’t know, bored more than anything else.”
“Is this what you wanted to talk to me about?” she asked.
“No. No of course not. It’s your business. You seem like…” he trailed off into an impossible number of possibilities.
“I was young and he asked, I suppose.”
Geoffrey nodded, looking somehow wise, momentarily. Then it passed.
“You have to tell me what we’re here for,” said Lorna.
Geoffrey took a sip of tea, Lorna picked up the pastry, turned it around to face the other direction, and put it back down. She waited for him to continue. There was no way this build up could match her expectations.
“There are six flats in the building,” he said. “There’s one, number six, that I’m not allowed into.”
Maybe it could.
Lorna repressed fourteen sentences that were vying to immediately burst out, and calmly replied. “Go on.”
“I don’t understand my job. I just have to live in the flat closest to number six, number five, that is, as you might expect, and phone a number if I feel weird. They are paying me for this.”
“Feel weird how?”
“They didn’t tell me,” he said. “They said I would know if I felt it.”
“Have you felt it?”
“I don’t know.”
“How did you get the job?”
Geoffrey scanned the surroundings again, Lorna wondered who it was he kept thinking was watching him. He finally deemed his tea cool enough to take a sip. Lorna had forgotten that the coffee shop existed.
“I was about to go to Oxford,” he said. “When my dad told me that some associates of his might have a job for me.”
“Your dad is some kind of big cheese?”
“He kind of is, I think. His associates certainly are. I have no idea what any of them do, or even what he does, really. This is why I feel like I can talk about this, at least a little bit. I don’t have any secrets to spill. I have no idea what is going on, and have nobody to talk to about it.”
“I’m going to steer this conversation in a minute back to the flat you’re not allowed into,” said Lorna, to an acknowledging nod, “but if your dad is a medium sized Stilton, and you’re about to go to Oxford to study…”
“Politics,” he said.
“Of course. Why do you need a job? Are you secretly hard up for money?”
“No, we have money. We don’t use the term out loud, but we do basically have a butler. My dad has framed photos of himself shaking hands with five successive prime ministers, and one of himself standing a few people down from the Queen in a lineup of some kind.”
“Did the Queen do it?” asked Lorna.
“Excuse me?”
Lorna moved on. “Why are you doing this thing then, if you don’t need money?”
“I get the impression it’s like a fancy form of military service. Like being a reservist. I’m earning credibility in some way. Possibly on behalf of my dad.”
“But you don’t know in what.”
“I don’t. I’m here for a year and I’m only allowed to leave the place for one hour every day. I usually walk to the park and try write poetry. Nonsense, really, you know. Nothing special.”
“That sounds a lot like a prison sentence, honestly,” said Lorna.
“Prisoners have people to talk to,” said Geoffrey, returning to his tea. Lorna thought about how hard it would be to strike up any kind of human relationship with only an hour a day out of solitary. She was basically free all the time and still hadn’t managed to do it.
“So not to downplay your crippling social isolation and tour of duty on the family internment camp, but you said there’s a flat that you’re not allowed into. This is the building next door to mine? There’s a mystery room? What’s in it?”
“Well, obviously I don’t know.”
“Is it locked?”
“It is.”
“Have you tried to jiggle with the lock or, I don’t know, slip a coat hanger through a gap. You might be able to do something with a credit card.”
“Well, I have the key.”
“Ah for fuck’s sake Geoffrey,” she said, causing him to go a little red. “Would you just have a look inside? What if it’s radioactive or something? I feel weird boss, all my skin melted off.”
“Well, I’m not allowed,” he said with a polite shrug.
“How would they know? How are you not dead of curiosity? I’m at the end of my rope and I found out about it a minute and a half ago.”
“I just can’t.”
“I see what you’ve done now,” she said, finally picking up the pastry and shoving in a mouthful, nodding, pointing at him. “I see your game.” Mumbling, mouth full. He looked at her with curiosity, wide open eyes.
“Maybe you didn’t do it consciously, but you know what you did. Some part of your brain planned this. You bump into me, realise I’m some loudmouth with nothing better to do, and you know that I won’t be able to resist this, you know I will talk you into it, eventually. ‘Oh there’s a secret mystery room that’s locked and I have the key, whatever should I do, Lorna, please give me advice’.”
He smiled a little in spite of himself.
“And here I was thinking you were, well, never mind,” said Lorna. He blinked at this but let her continue. “So have I convinced you? Or do we have to actually go through the dance of being worn down, presenting logical arguments, elbowing you in the ribs? You can do it after three weeks of me badgering you or you can do it right now and save all that time. Because I will badger you like you can’t imagine.”
He bit the inside of his cheek, found out.
“Alright let’s do it now.”
3. 2025
They paused at the door of number six.
“She’s in there?” asked Craig.
“She is,” said Geoffrey. “But first I want you to know what happened.”
Craig ignored him and rattled the handle. It didn’t budge, so he thumped his shoulder into it without really getting much force, showing his age. The door remained indifferent as he banged it with his fist and shouted her name.
“Lorna!”
“I said I have to tell you a few things,” said Geoffrey again.
“I don’t care about your things, open the door.”
“I have the key, but you need to know what’s in there.”
“What have you done?” asked Craig, turning to him. “Have you murdered her or something?” He fumbled in his pocket and took out his phone.
“It won’t work,” said Geoffrey.
Craig scrolled through various screens, no data, no mobile signal. He held the phone slightly higher up, as if trying to move it into a different part of some invisible spectrum. It did not help.
“There’s some kind of trick going on here,” said Craig, “and I don’t like it one bit.”
“The first time I went into this room it was with her,” said Geoffrey. “I didn’t know what was in there. Or what would happen.”
Craig stood silently, still fiddling with his phone. He was resigned to letting Geoffrey say his piece before getting to whatever the point might be, but he wasn’t about to be seen paying attention to it.
“My job was just to live there,” he said, gesturing behind him at the door to the adjacent flat, number five. “And to tell the company if I felt weird.”
“What on Earth do you mean?” said Craig, glancing up briefly.
“See, that’s what I thought. How do you know if you feel weird? I feel weird seven times a day. I imagine you feel weird right now,” he chuckled to himself. Craig said nothing.
“I told her about this flat, and of course she immediately made me show it to her. It was so obvious to her. I had spent, what was it then, months? Months just creeping around next door, trying not to wonder what was in it, but she was just direct. Let’s go in and look, she didn’t even think of anything else.”
Craig repressed a smile, couldn’t have this idiot think they were engaging in some kind of shared nostalgia.
“Anyway, we went in there and I immediately felt weird. It was so clear. She did too, and we looked at each other. I knew I had to call the company, they had made such a big deal about it, so I told her we had to leave, had to go straight away, but it had already started with her.”
Craig continued to say nothing, but by now was properly listening, hooked.
“I didn’t know what it was then,” continued Geoffrey. “And I left her behind. The door closed behind me and I ran across to there to call the number they had made me memorise. Someone picked up and I don’t remember what I said, something stupid like, ‘it’s happening’, or ‘I went in’. Then I threw up on the floor. I dropped down to my knees and I was shaking and sweating and I thought of Lorna once more and then I was just gone. I almost felt like I was floating outside, watching myself die. I never saw her again after that day.”
Craig squinted. “You never saw her again? That was decades ago. Why have you brought me here now?”
“She’s still in there,” said Geoffrey.
“Still in there? You said she’s not dead, she’s been in this dingy flat for forty years? But you nearly died after going in there for half a minute? None of this makes any sense.” Craig was starting to get angry again, his initial acceptance of the story starting to evaporate, his phone still lacking signal.
“She’s been in there a lot longer than that,” said Geoffrey, cryptically.
Craig grabbed the handle and shook it again, and again it was futile.
“I think you can help her,” said Geoffrey. “That’s why I brought you here. I’m going to give you the key. Today is special.”
“I don’t understand what’s happening,” said Craig. “You’ve known she’s been in this room for forty years, presuming I believe that in the first place, which, let’s leave that for the time being, but you’ve come back only now? Why today? Where have you been? What is this bloody flat?”
“I hate when people do this as well, and believe me, they did it to me, but it’s very hard to explain. Once you’ve gone in I will answer any questions you have. You have to help her and it has to be today.”
Craig slipped his phone out again. No signal. He glanced, subtly, he thought, in the direction of the stairs.
“You can go,” said Geoffrey. “I won’t stop you. I don’t know what will be here when you get back.”
“What’s in there?”
Geoffrey took out a key and held it out. Craig swiped it out of his hand and turned to the door.
4. 1987
Two men arrived. They were dressed in suits, slightly dishevelled from urgency, one was carrying a bag which clanked with metal and glass. They marched wordlessly up the stairs, past the doors of every other unused flat, and arrived at the top landing.
Geoffrey was lurking worriedly in the door frame to their left, flat number five; to their right was flat number six . The door to number five was wide open, a puddle of vomit on the ground next to an overturned chair. The door to number six was closed.
One of the men took out his own key, opened the door and went in. It swung shut behind him. The other man stared at Geoffrey during this, but said nothing. A minute passed. Two minutes. Geoffrey began to shake. There were sounds from inside number six, rustling, thumping, some kind of loud crash. Urgent footsteps. Silence.
The first man emerged again, and shook his head. He threw the bag on the ground in front of himself in resignation. It was half open and Geoffrey tried to lift his head up high enough to see inside.
“It’s too late,” he said. “She must have gone beyond her own life. Off to meet the monks.”
“Is there still a chance to pull her back?” asked the other.
“I tried the box, tried the injection,” replied the first, flapping a gesture towards the half-open bag. “No change. She’s seeing it all now.”
“You tried to just pick her up?”
“Yeah. Rooted. You can’t see it but it seems to be quick.”
“Did you feel it?”
“I don’t think so. They said you’d know.”
“What’s happening?” asked Geoffrey, his innate desire to not be noticed overcome by his worry for Lorna. The men both turned to him and he shrunk back into the adjacent flat.
“Who,” said the man who had gone into the room, “the fuck is in there?”
“It’s my neighbour,” replied Geoffrey.
“You are in serious trouble,” said the other. “Do you know how long we waited for this? How long we might wait for the next one? Do you know who we have to tell? And you’re bringing girls back? To this house? Today? How did you know?”
“I didn’t know. I don’t know,” said Geoffrey. “What happened to her?”
“They don’t tell you house sitters anything, do they?”
“They didn’t tell me what I’m supposed to be doing here.”
“Your girlfriend is in there now until she disintegrates, yeah? She can’t tell us anything about it, and now the place basically turns itself off again. You have wasted, I don’t know, years.”
“Decades”, said the other man.
“More than that,” continued the first. “I don’t think your dad is important enough to shield you from quite this level of fuck up.”
“Disintegrates?” said Geoffrey quietly.
“Not exactly big picture is he?”
The two men stood looking around, now completely lacking purpose. One zipped up the bag and slung it over his shoulder, but made no movement to leave.
“The phone,” said Geoffrey, inexplicably.
“The what?”
The phone in the number five rang. Everyone’s heads swivelled towards it, then back to Geoffrey, like they were watching a tiny sliver of a tennis match. One of the men walked slowly in to answer it, never breaking his gaze off Geoffrey as he moved.
“He was in there too,” said the other, while a hushed telephone conversation went on beside them. Then to Geoffrey: “How long did you stay? How far did you go?”
“I don’t understand,” said Geoffrey.
The man on the phone mumbled something urgent, hung up, said fuck, and raked his fingers through his hair.
“Ian,” said the other. “He knows something. He was in there too”
“That was, you know,” said the man Geoffrey now knew as Ian, tilting his head towards Geoffrey. “We all go back.”
“And him?”
“Bring him. Before it starts. Before it properly starts.”
“It starts quick.”
“Then let’s go quick, Dave.”
“What about her?”
“What about her? She stays. She’s gone beyond, there’s nothing we can do. Stuck to the ground, head in the clouds. We post a new tenant. A better tenant,” he said with a pointed look at Geoffrey, “and we go back to waiting.”
“What a fucking waste,” said Ian. “If he knew the bonus we were onto. In our fucking lifetime, and then this. Christ. Pick him up. At least he’s not stuck to the floor.”
“What’s happened to her?” asked Geoffrey. “What’s happened to me?”
“Doesn’t matter what’s happened to you, we’re going to put you in a room and someone will drain your blood, cut you to pieces and run tests until they know how to write your genome by hand. Your dad is pissed. Everyone above him in the food chain is pissed.”
“Why are you not starting the car?” he replied. “I’m waiting. I’m not doing anything. I’m just fine. Aren’t you?”
The men looked at each other.
Geoffrey shook his head and opened his eyes again. One of the men moved to grab his arm and he sidestepped it without realising.
“She’s gone beyond her own life,” said Geoffrey quietly to himself, with a glance to the door of number six.
“It’s happening, let’s get the fuck out of here.”
Both of them grabbed him at the same time but he barely noticed. They hustled him onto the landing and started to go down the stairs.
“I never learned your name,” said Geoffrey. It was unclear who he was talking to, or about. “I’m sorry you were let go.”
The two men holding him glanced at each other behind Geoffrey’s head.
“He’s sorry about it,” said Ian.
“This company doesn’t let people go,” said Dave, the other.
“What if he’s lying? Trying to get out of it?”
“He’s pretty fucking out of it already.”
“It’s only been minutes, he can’t be more than a couple of days ahead.”
“Passed the test,” mumbled Geoffrey to himself.
“I don’t like this,” said Ian. “We take him back and what, we know too much? Maybe I’ll take my chances.”
“You’ll get found. Of course you’ll get found.”
“I’ll get found if I walk up to the front door and say, here I am, boss.”
“What have we done wrong?”
“They knew what I know,” said Geoffrey, in the direction of the stairs. “It’s justified.”
“No, not one bit,” said Dave, and let go of Geoffrey’s arm.
Ian let go of Geoffrey’s other arm and both watched him, saying nothing, as he sat down on the floor and looked at his hands. He examined each finger, and shook them in front of his eyes.
“Am I old?” he said to nobody in particular.
Suddenly he jumped up to his feet, causing his would-be captors to burst into poses implying they were about to take serious action, but neither of them moved as Geoffrey walked to the door of number six and stopped in front of it. He knocked softly and went in.
A minute passed. Two.
“Should we…?” said one of the men.
Geoffrey came back out.
“We can go now,” he said. “I know enough. I’ll come back later.”
5. 2025
Flat number six was in complete darkness, the only source of light was from the landing when the door was opened. It was all one room, rectangular, no alcoves or hidden spaces, completely bare of furniture. Craig strode in with purpose and paused to let his eyes adjust for a second. He was strangely disappointed. There was nothing at all. Almost nothing.
There was a human shape in the corner. He looked swiftly back over at Geoffrey, who smiled.
“We came in here forty years ago,” he said, not crossing the threshold. “We weren’t even having an affair, you know, if that’s what you thought. We had a cup of tea, once. She had a pastry that she didn’t even want.”
Craig took gentle steps forward.
“Lorna?” he said quietly. He still didn’t quite believe it. His eyes were letting in more light now and he could see something was not right with the shape. Her legs thickened at the bottom, like tree trunks growing into the ground, and her arms were reaching up and touching the ceiling. They had stretched out to three or four times their natural length, and the fingers in turn had separated into dozens, hundreds, splayed out and merged into the ceiling the same way her feet had into the ground. The colour of her clothes and skin were indistinguishable, greyish green, covered in little indentations like the outside of a seashell.
She was facing away from him.
“Are you feeling it yet?” asked Geoffrey.
“What have you done to her?” asked Craig.
“You did this to her.”
“What are you talking about, I haven’t seen her in forty years.”
“And did you notice? Did your life change all that much?”
Craig walked slightly closer to the shape, stopped within arms’ reach, but hesitated to reach out to it. It could be anyone. It could be fake. It could be Lorna.
“I came in here and saw the rest of my life,” said Geoffrey. “That’s what it does. I was nineteen, I had plenty of life left. I saw most of it. It moves slowly, almost like an echo at the beginning, you see a few seconds ahead, then a few minutes, and then it moves fast. You have to get out before you get to the end. Lorna got to the end.”
Craig saw the door close and turned quickly around, but it was still open.
“Has it started?” asked Geoffrey. “Did you see something? I was supposed to tell someone when it started. I didn’t know what it was, obviously, they said I would know. I knew. Do you know? There are people out there who would pay incomprehensible amounts of money come in here when it happens. You’re actually very lucky.”
Craig backed away from the figure in the corner and took a step towards the door before dropping to one knee.
“I was nineteen,” Geoffrey said again. “You’re not. Are you nearly done? Why didn’t you look for her? She was ten yards away for decades. You went back to work. You bought sandwiches and watched cricket. Watched the television.”
Craig stood up again and lifted one foot, and then the other, like he was under a heavy gravitational pull.
“Look at you. Stumbling towards the door. You didn’t even try to look at her face,” said Geoffrey.
Craig was on two feet now, but unsteady. He took another step and crashed down onto his hands and knees. He looked up at Geoffrey, pleading now, his anger and arrogance winnowed down to pure fear.
“I learned a lot when I came in here,” said Geoffrey. “Enough to take over. This is my flat now.”
“Let me out you crazy fucking,” Craig trailed off.
“Do you know what the opportunity cost is for using it on you? It’s not coming back during my life, and certainly not during yours. Elizabeth the First gave a Duchy to the company to come into this room for fifteen minutes. While it was fallow I came here once a year to look at her face. I stood outside your house every time. You saw me once or twice, you had no idea. You were never great at paying attention.”
Craig was breathing heavily now. He was struggling to raise his head.
“Lorna went beyond her own life span. We have a book, hundreds of years old, from the precursor to the precursor to the current company. Bunch of monks, they presumed God was involved in this somehow. They may have been right. It had very nice pictures. Limbs reaching to the heavens, people merged with each other. Half a dozen people in here, all in one shape. We can’t read much of it but they didn’t like looking at faces either, they made a point of not drawing any. You couldn’t capture it anyway. I look at her face but I haven’t seen Lorna since the door closed behind me that first day. I think for a while people came here to deliberately stay through it. They didn’t know they could leave. Or they did, but thought if they didn’t they would meet God.”
Craig was visibly trying to lift his hands and feet off the ground now, but was unable to do so.
“I’ve got a retirement party set up for tonight,” said Geoffrey. “I’m done. I’m handing this over. You’ll have to retire on your own.”
Craig looked up at him and tried to speak.
“Never even invited me to lunch,” said Geoffrey, closing the door.
6. 1987
“Lorna, we have to leave,” said Geoffrey, freely saying her name now. She flapped her hand back at him in a hang on, hang on gesture and took another couple of steps into the flat. It was completely bare, no furniture, no windows. A perfect square of wooden floor and white walls. Lorna noticed there were no electrical sockets, no light fixtures. The ceiling was so blandly similar to the floor that it would be difficult to tell which way was up in the absence of gravity.
“Lorna I have to call them. You have no idea what a big deal this is.”
“Go on,” she said. “Call away. I just want to see what will happen.”
She heard a few other voices behind her and didn’t turn around.
“They got here fast,” she said.
“What are you talking about?” asked Geoffrey. “Nobody is here yet.”
Lorna turned around, she thought. She was still facing the way she had walked in but could see behind herself. Geoffrey had left and there were other, indistinct figures walking around the room now. They were keeping their distance from her and talking, talking.
“Where have you gone, Geoffrey?” she said.
“I’m here, I’m here,” he replied from nowhere in particular, as she blinked her eyes excruciatingly slowly. “I have to call them, you have to leave with me. We’re not supposed to be in here”
Everyone was gone. People flashed into existence and then out again.
Lorna left the room. She went down the stairs and out past the hedge, brushing the leaves with her hand as she sat down on the edge of her own bed, upstairs. Craig was looking at himself in the mirror. She asked him something and he didn’t reply. They were eating. She couldn’t concentrate on his face, only catching the side of his jaw moving, his shoulder, the top of his head as it left the room. Their clothes changed, it was day and night at the same time. The windows opened, they closed, furniture wound slowly around, like it was circling a drain. Craig was looking at himself in the mirror. Lorna tried to see herself but either she or the mirror kept moving unpredictably, so she looked at her hands. They were out of focus, also in constant motion. Craig was looking at himself in the mirror.
She tried to say his name but came out with a deep bass sound that frightened her. Craig looked up, his face was briefly clear but looked incorrect somehow, he nodded in acknowledgement and then went back to the mirror. There was a book shimmering on the side of the bed. There was food on the table but she couldn’t reach it, she couldn’t tell if she was thirsty or not.
She looked at her hands again and they moved more slowly.
Craig was looking at himself in the mirror.
Craig was gone.
She tried to say his name again, but couldn’t see her hands.
His things were gone.
Lorna was looking at herself in the mirror. She couldn’t see her face but she felt like gravity was getting stronger and stronger. This could be the end or this could not be the end. What does that mean? Was there a voice? Were there noises? Didn’t matter.
She was faced with the first real moment of choice in her life, and made it for herself.