The Living Read Free

a slight kick to the face with his sharp-toed boot. The cleaner freezes and, not unclenching her plastic lips, makes a sultry ‘mmmmhhh’: that is how she has been programmed to react when touched.
    cerberus:
they’ve got decent beer in this place round the corner
    cerberus:
hear what i’m saying?
    cerberus:
ef!
    ‘They’ve got decent beer at that place on the corner with Harmony Avenue,’ Cerberus says out loud. ‘What, you offlineor something?’
    ef:
no sorry just got distracted. ok. let’s go to Harmony
    They turn left. Harmony Avenue is empty; the concretal sculpture – an enormous bronze-coloured palm – looks lonely, as if waiting for a handshake that it will never receive… Only half-mad Matthew, a tall, scrawny old man, is there, wandering around at the base of the concretion, shaking his little bell and crying determinedly: ‘He died for us! He died for our sins! Died for us!’
    cleo:
everything alright?
    ‘Do we have a violation here?’ Cerberus snaps at him. ‘Are we using certain words?’
    ‘Oh, he is the beginning and the end,’ Matthew howls. ‘And his name is… Zero! He died for us! He was burned in the sacred fire…!’
    cleo:
i get worried when you’re grey for ages
    ‘He died, died for us!’
    ‘Silence!’ barks Ef. ‘You’re lucky I want a beer. If not I’d have had you straight off to Correction!’
    ‘You, you blood-soaked hounds of hell! Acolytes of the devil! Men with mirror faces! Men without faces! Men without voices! Tremble, for he cometh! And his kingdom cometh! And his will will be done! Thus is thine twine swine! For you shall be cast down! And you shall be cast out! For he died for us! For he is the Saviour! And his name is…Zero…!’
    cleo:
maybe something’s up with your connection? i’m going to get tech support
    …The beer has a hint of iron about it. It’s either the beer itself or the mask that’s stuck to his nose and lips that gives the drink this metallic taste. Ef runs the tip of his tongue around the inside of his cheek. No, it’s not the mask. His cheek, smashed from the inside against his teeth, is bleeding, that’s what it is.
    Cerberus returns with a second mug of beer, falls heavily into the chair opposite, sucks up a third of his beer in one go and goes back to staring at him with the soft blank ovals of his mirror eyes. These eyes reflect Ef’s mirror eyes, which reflect those eyes which reflect… Ef starts to feel queasy, as if he were seasick; he lowers his head and looks into his glass. The foamy surface of the beer does not reflect anything.
    cerberus:
did he say anything, that zero, before he…
    Cerberus looks at the empty tables around them and moves closer just in case.
    … before he… you know… destroyed himself?
    ef:
listen i just want to be like everyone else
    cerberus:
what do you want ef?!
    ef:
me?:–) i want to sleep. but that zero, before he died he said ‘listen I want to be like everyone else
    cerberus:
don’t talk like that!!
    ‘Don’t talk like that, Ef!’ Cerberus has clearly got nervous. He is so nervous that even the measured buzzing that the chatterbox makes from his voice sounds a tone higher. ‘Don’t talk about death. There is no death.’ Cerberus nods pointedlyat the chatterbox under the table and points at his temple as if to say, ‘You idiot, everything’s being recorded.’
    ‘There was death for him,’ Ef says wearily. ‘For Zero. You know very well he was born without an incode. And yesterday he died. He blew up a wonder-sunshine and died. There will be no more “voids”, Cerberus. He won’t be continued – it’s been confirmed by all the population control centres. It wasn’t a pause. It was death.’
    cerberus:
the one thing i don’t get is how he could crush a wonder-sunshine in his HAND?? it’s not humanly possible… maybe he wasn’t a human at all?
    ef:
all biological signs suggest he was a humani think he just dug into it a bit before and twisted something… or it was