Free At the Edge of the Game by Gareth Power Page A

overheated bus. Feel like gravity has doubled. I
close my eyes, try to tune out the noise and the jabbing of the seat back into
my vertebrae. Red flashing of passing police chopper penetrates my retinas. I
open my eyes but already the aircraft is gone. I can only hear it now. Hot
breeze hits my face, gusting through the window ajar. White-painted bars run
across to prevent one from falling out, to smash on the hard black pavement
below. The end of the day, the sun now below the horizon, the hot, violet,
dusty afterglow its last vestige before true night. The city lights are truly
as nothing compared to the emerging galaxies above. They shine through the thin
veil of high-altitude wisps, seem almost radiatively intense enough to burn
them away themselves; an illusion, of course. Beside this old leather couch is
a table on which I have my Oceanus wine. I take a sip. It does not taste like
wine at all – more like the taste of fresh bread. I take another sip. Now it
tastes of aniseed, but has the scent of pipe tobacco. Sour, blue smoke is
rising out of it. I take the glass into the kitchen, empty it into the sink. I
check the label on the bottle –
     
    OCEANUS
    From the
vineyards of Queen Gerana
     
    I try to
remember where we got this bottle, but it will not come to mind. I cannot
remember pouring it; nor can I remember what I was doing before I sat on the
couch. I return to the living room. There is no couch, no table. We’ve never
had a leather couch.
    Fear stirs in
me. I need to sit down. I go to the dinner table by the balcony doors, sit
down, hold my head in my hands. In the building across the street, lights are
coming on in the windows. People are arriving home from their jobs. Where do
they all work, out in the expanses of the Far City and beyond? My consciousness
is a burning light, but my selfness is a floating wisp that eludes every
attempt to grasp it. Do I have to work? Do I have a job somewhere in the Far
City? Perhaps I commute to the Near City every day, or even to the Cylinder.
How would one go about doing that? Maybe I have a car.
    I call for Helen,
but she’s not here, not anywhere.
    I wake up on the
floor, emerging from a euphoric hallucination, the details of which are gone as
soon as I open my eyes. I lost consciousness in an attack of intense panic. My
body is cold, quaking. I’ve hit my forehead against something. I push myself across
the floor and sit against the wall, watching the room take shape again around
me. Minutes go by as things solidify. Finally I feel strong enough to stand. I
push myself out onto the balcony to get some fresh air. This, like the wine, or
whatever it was, carries the scent of cinnamon, blown from the unlit, sloping
scrublands of the African Wall.
    I could jump
over the railing, right here and now. Call the bluff of the universe. One
moment - then resolution.
    The floor jolts.
I look around. The bus is moving, swerving through lights, stopping at my stop,
close to the Avatan main gate.
    Christ, here we
go again. Another five days of this.
    I disembark into
the sharp coldness of this clear blue day. An improvement on Friday anyway.
This is the sort of weather they have in the winter in civilised countries.
Wonder if it’s weather that gives nations their character. Scandinavian
countries: Predictable, orderly winters suitable for enjoyable activities such
as skiing, but requiring forward planning to survive. Ireland: Chaotic,
changeable, uncomfortable winters when no matter what you do, it’s going to be
crap.
    Through the
mailroom double doors.
    ‘Morning,’ I
say, aiming for cheerfulness.
    Len is back.
Neither he nor Al answer my greeting.
    Candy looks
serious. ‘George. Over here.’
    I take off my
coat and go over to her cublcle.
    ‘We got a call
from PeopleFirst this morning about you.’
    ‘Yes?’
    ‘They got your
time card on Saturday. They say you franked it.’
    ‘Ah, yeah.’
    ‘Why did you
frank it?’
    ‘Al told me to.’
    ‘Right, well
that’s