The Paper Eater

LIBERTY DAY 9 A.M.

I’m stiff all over. I must have slept, because it’s light outside. But I’m not in bed; I’m sitting at the craft table with the chess set laid out in front of me and Tiffany’s letter lying on the floor. I’m confused about how time has jumped – until I remember what I did. I swallowed Dr Pappadakis’s pills, all five of them. Not placebos after all, then. No wonder I feel groggy.

Groggy, and suddenly scared, remembering. Scared like I’ve never felt before, scared beyond anything I’ve known. I groan as I look out, because the porthole’s filling up with land, the skyline of Harbourville close enough to make out the Frooto Tower, the spiky rollercoasters of Attractionworld, the giant Ferris wheel and the sheer blind-windowed cliff of Head Office. Seagulls swarm around the porthole, their swooping cries like a chorus of taunts. If my mum, wearing her salamander dress, came and told me I wasn’t going to be electric-shocked into a fizzing human kebab, I’d believe her. But she doesn’t come, of course she doesn’t, and there’s no one here but John, asleep. Try to focus on the small things. The table. The bunk. Stegoman on the duvet cover. But my eyes slide back to the porthole. The land seems to yawn sideways. All the buildings – even Head Office, even the Makasoki bubble-domes in the distance – they’re all Pisa’d to the left. Only the grit-filled rainbows splintering above them are on an even keel. I buzz Garcia and he leads me to the mess for my last breakfast, where the other prisoners stand back to let me through. I guess I look like a bad omen. Grey man for the chop. I drink coffee. I can’t eat.

It’s a great day for the future of the world, according to Craig Devon, who’s on TV. The Corporation has already swept to victory across almost half of the United States. This could be the beginning of a new world order, he’s saying. America might get a new name, too: Liberty.

As this piece of news sinks in, a low ugly murmur runs through the mess – but what do I care? I won’t be there to see it. When I stand to leave, a couple of blokes come and slap me on the arm and murmur stuff like Goodbye, mate. I try to say something back, but there’s a big thing like a walnut lodged in my throat and I can’t see properly and I have to turn away.

– Apparently it’s the dawn of a new fucking era, I tell John when I’m back in the cabin. He’s sitting on his bunk, his legs dangling down, my letter in his hand.

– Gonna read it then? he says, flapping it at me. Cos I can’t.

I sigh at the blood-red writing, then glance across at the Tiffany rook. It’s probably not Art, but it’s a version of my daughter I can live with before I die. That’s got to count for something, hasn’t it? John thrusts the letter at me with its childish red script.

– It’s from my daughter, I tell him. The one who shopped me.

John blows out air from his cheeks.

– So what’s it say?

Life can’t get any worse, can it? But already, as I read the first line, I’m thinking, famous last words. Dear Dad, I am so sorry about everything. Mum and me and Geoff

– Grammar! I choke.

Mum and me and Geoff are so terribly regretful –

– Grammar! I shout it this time. Is that what I sent her to a good school for?

– Who’s Geoff, goes John.

– The fuckwit aromatherapist bollocks-talking stress man.

– Oh yeah, said John. I remember. The one your wife –

– Yeah, all right, I cut in. Misery slicing me in half.

John whistles.

– And is that it? Any more?

Only the icing on the cake.

– She’s signed it Your loving daughter, Tiffany. Huh! I shout. There’s so much rage in it, I’m almost propelled off the bed.

– Well, bugger me blind, says John.

– I’m going to chew it up, I tell him, feeling my lip wobble. My voice too. But as I pick up the letter to scrunch it into a bite-sized ball, something catches my eye. It’s another, smaller line of writing at the very bottom of the page.

P.S. Have you had a stool investigation recently?

My cue to go ballistic. First a grovelling, insincere apology for being the cause of my death sentence, then the news that my estranged family – with ex-wife’s new man in tow – are actually coming on board to watch me die. And then to cap it all, some out-of-order question about the state of my bowels. Within minutes I’ve buzzed and clanged and yelled my way on to the bridge.

– I’m not having them here, I tell Fishook, waving the letter at him. I refuse. I have rights, don’t I?

He’s standing at the wheel, his filthy cigar smoking in the ashtray. He still hasn’t even looked at me. He’s wearing clip-on shades over his glasses, although there’s precious little sun.

– Rights, Voyager? he chuckles. I’m afraid that as a leading light in the Sect, you sacrificed those long ago. In any case, he smiles, you’ll be surprised what a comfort it’ll be to have your nearest and dearest –

– They’re not my fucking nearest and dearest! If it weren’t for them, I wouldn’t be here now!

– You don’t have the choice, Voyager Kidd, he says, tilting his head towards me, his grin fixed. The sun-glasses are unnerving, like the huge, inscrutable eyes of an insect.

– Your ex-wife, her new husband and your daughter are coming aboard at 1400 hours. I’m sure that, like the rest of us, they’ll be wanting to give you a good send-off. There’s a lot to celebrate, Voyager. The news from America, Liberty Day on Atlantica…

He smiles again and you can see he’s looking forward to it.

– It’ll all be kicking off on the main deck at 1500. He pauses. – It’s going to be quite a fiesta, Voyager. There’s a lot of excitement around this event. A real community buzz.

Does this man have any idea what I’m going through?

– But this man Gwynneth’s married, this Geoff bloke – I hardly know him! He’s a so-called stress counsellor, with sissy curtains in his waiting room! He’s a jerk!

Fishook takes his hands off the wheel and, with a swift movement, lifts the flaps of his glasses so they stand out at right-angles. His flat blue eyes look me up and down.

– He may well be a jerk, Voyager, he says. But he’s also a customer. And what the customer wants…

He turns back to the wheel. My life has been a whirlpool shape, I’m thinking. Everything sucked down too quickly and suddenly to make sense. Now I know why John behaved the way he did, when he thought it was him, and joked about the Big Fry-Up: you don’t quite take it in. There’s a… distance on it. But now there isn’t, is there, and there’s this sick, sick dread sweeping over me and I’m feeling faint and helpless and wanting to cry. I don’t know what to say any more. I’m not in control of anything. Not even the guest-list for my final bash.

Fishook’s picked up his cigar again, and he’s puffing monstrous fumes as he steers.

– Look over there, Voyager Kidd, he goes, pointing with his fat roll of tobacco.

There before us is the long humped line of land, bristling with skyscrapers. And the gaping yawn of the estuary.

I clench my buttocks together. Fishook’s looking at his watch, and then at me, his head cocked thoughtfully.

– You have six hours left, he says softly. You are a human hourglass, Voyager Kidd. And your sand is running out.

Just kill me now.