Kleinzeit

Lay-By

Blip blip blip blip, went Kleinzeit. The curtains were drawn, Sister sat by his bed in her Sister uniform, looking at his face.

Under the bed Death sat humming to itself while it cleaned its fingernails. I never do get them really clean, it said. It’s a filthy job I’ve got but what’s the use of complaining. All the same I think I’d rather have been Youth or Spring or any number of things rather than what I am. Not Youth, maybe. That’s a little wet and you’d hardly get to know people before they’ve moved on. Spring’s pretty much the same and it’s a lady’s job besides. Action would be nice to be, I should think.

Elsewhere Action lay in his cell smoking and looking up at the ceiling. What a career, he said. I’ve spent more time in the nick than anywhere else. Why couldn’t I have been Death or something like that. Steady work, security.

Spring, wrapped up in a quilt in a freezing bedsitter, found her fingers too stiff for sewing, left off trying to mend her gauzy working clothes. She gazed into the unlit fire, picked up the newspaper, read about the gasmen’s strike.

Youth, slogging through a ditch, heard the bloodhounds baying on his trail, sobbed and slogged on.

Hospital had no complaints. Hospital, having breakfasted, lit a cigar, puffed out big clouds of smoke. Ahhh! sighed Hospital. Ummmh! Everybody up! Drink tea.

Everybody upped, drank tea. Kleinzeit opened his eyes, saw Sister. She kissed him. He saw the monitor screen. ‘Shit,’ he said. ‘Blipping again. What happened?’

‘I found you on the floor when I came back from shopping,’ said Sister. ‘So I thought we might as well go on duty together.’

‘Ah!’ said Kleinzeit. ‘I was trying to read what was in the yellow paper.’ He reached weakly under the bed. You there? he said.

Here, there, everywhere, said Death. Like Puck.

Why must you be so artful, said Kleinzeit. Why can’t you stand up and fight like a man or at least like a chimp, instead of trying on all those tricks.

I wasn’t trying on any tricks, said Death. I give you my word.

That’s precisely what you did, said Kleinzeit. You gave me your word and out went the lights. Dr Bashan’s last remarks popped into his mind, his promise that if the lights went out again he’d wake up minus hypotenuse, asymptotes and stretto. Kleinzeit felt himself all over, couldn’t feel anything missing. ‘Have they operated on me or anything?’ he said to Sister.

‘No,’ said Sister. ‘It was a hyperacceleration of the stretto, and Dr Pink wants you to settle down before he decides what to do.’

‘Dr Pink’s back!’ said Kleinzeit. ‘Where’s Bashan?’

‘Off racing his yacht somewhere,’ said Sister.

Kleinzeit sighed, drank his tea. Things were looking up a little. Not that there was much in it between Pink and Bashan, but at least Pink hadn’t bullied him as a boy and then forgotten him.

‘I brought your things,’ said Sister. ‘They’re in your locker. And Thucydides.’

‘Thank you,’ said Kleinzeit. ‘And I’m in my adventurous pyjamas. For the big adventure.’

Sister shrugged. ‘You never know,’ she said. ‘If you’re not dead yet you may go on living for a while.’

‘I’ll give it a try,’ said Kleinzeit. ‘Bring some yellow paper and Japanese pens tonight, will you.’

Sister went off duty, the nurse came round with the medicine trolley. ‘Three 2-Nup, two Zonk, three Angle-Flex, three Fly-Ova, one Lay-By,’ she said.

‘I’m the darling of the National Health,’ said Kleinzeit. ‘What’s happened to the Greenlite?’

‘Dr Pink’s put you on Lay-By instead.’

‘That’s life,’ said Kleinzeit. ‘From Greenlite to Lay-By.’ He sighed, swallowed all the tablets. The nurse had pushed back the curtains. Raj was on his left, Schwarzgang on his right.

‘Neighbours again,’ said Schwarzgang.

‘Who’s gone?’ said Kleinzeit.

‘McDougal.’

‘Discharged?’

‘No.’

McDougal, thought Kleinzeit. I never even spoke to him. What was he, I wonder. Yellow paper? Rizla? Backs of envelopes?

Redbeard was still there on the other side of Schwarzgang. Kleinzeit nodded to him. Redbeard nodded back, looking at him through the funfair of Schwarzgang’s machinery. They ought to light the old man up at night, thought Kleinzeit. Then it occurred to him that he too might suddenly find Hospital growing on him like a mechanical man-eating vine. Already two thin tendrils bound him to the monitor. Would Redbeard and Schwarzgang ever break loose from their tubes and pipes and fittings, he wondered. He looked up and down the rows of beds. Drogue too, he noticed, now had scaffolding all over him like an unfinished building. Damprise, he of the funereal connexions, also sported sundry rigging. If the flies don’t come to the web the web comes to the flies, thought Kleinzeit. But of course all of them had come to the web, hadn’t they. Hospital had sat there waiting as one by one they had buzzed into its silky strands and stuck there.

‘Well?’ said Redbeard. ‘What’s new?’

‘You see what’s new,’ said Kleinzeit. ‘Here I am. Blip blip blip blip.’

‘You didn’t really try,’ said Redbeard.

‘Bloody hell!’ said Kleinzeit. ‘That’s not fair. I went out of here like Prong Studman in a prison-break film. They’d never have brought me back if my chimpanzee friend hadn’t played his usual tricks. They almost didn’t bring me back alive.’

‘You’re protesting too much,’ said Redbeard.

‘It’s easy for you to talk,’ said Kleinzeit. ‘I don’t see you making a break for it.’

‘I’m finished, all washed up,’ said Redbeard. ‘You aren’t, and you’re letting the side down.’

‘Cobblers,’ said Kleinzeit, feeling proud and guilty at the same time. ‘What do you want me to do? What can I do more than what I’m doing?’

Redbeard stared at him, said nothing.

Remember, said Hospital.

Ah! said Kleinzeit. He’d forgotten about that.

You see, said Hospital. You’ve forgotten.

I think I was going to try to remember just before that empty-glove feeling hit me, said Kleinzeit. Anyhow, whose side are you on? Aren’t you going to eat me up the way you’ve eaten up all the others? What’s so special about me?

I’ve taken time with you, said Hospital. I’ve taken pains with you, you might say.

You might say, said Kleinzeit.

But your understanding is still not very strong, said Hospital. Nothing is special about you. Nothing is special about everybody. That’s Nothing’s business, eh?

Don’t be clever, said Kleinzeit.

Not clever, said Hospital. Never clever. Am always simply what I am. An example to you, yes?

How? said Kleinzeit.

What are you? said Hospital.

I don’t know, said Kleinzeit.

Be that, said Hospital. Be I-Don’t-Know.

HOW? yelled Kleinzeit.

BY REMEMBERING YOURSELF, roared Hospital.

WHICH WAY IS THRACE? screamed Kleinzeit.

WHY ME? Find it, said Hospital. Because you can.