Kleinzeit

Hero

Oh no, thought Kleinzeit when he saw Sister, this is too much. Even if I were well, which I’m probably not, even if I were young, which I no longer am, this is far too massive a challenge and it would be better not to respond to it. Even at arm-wrestling she could destroy me, how do I dare consider her thighs? He considered her thighs and felt panic rising in him. Offstage the pain was heard, like the distant horn in the Beethoven overture. Am I possibly a hero, Kleinzeit wondered, and poured himself a glass of orange squash.

Sister fingered his chart, noticed Thucydides and Ortega on the bedside locker. ‘Good morning, Mr Kleinzeit,’ she said. ‘How are you today?’

Kleinzeit was glad he was wearing adventurous pyjamas, glad Thucydides and Ortega were there. ‘Very well, thank you,’ he said. ‘How are you?’

‘Fine, thank you,’ said Sister. ‘Kleinzeit, does that mean something in German?’

‘Hero,’ said Kleinzeit.

‘I thought it must mean something,’ said Sister. Maybe you, said her eyes.

Good heavens, thought Kleinzeit, and I’m unemployed too.

‘I want some blood,’ said Sister, and sank her hypodermic into his arm. Kleinzeit abandoned himself to sensuality and let it flow.

‘Thank you,’ said Sister.

‘Any time,’ said Kleinzeit.

That’s it, he thought when she walked away with his blood, there’s no going back now. He sat on the edge of his bed and looked at the monitor beside the next bed. Little blips of light appeared successively from left to right on the screen; blip, blip, blip, blip, continuously they came on at the left, marched off at the right. Do they quickly run round inside the machine and come on again? wondered Kleinzeit.

‘Suspenseful, isn’t it?’ said the young man in the bed. ‘Can they go on? one wonders. Will they stop?’ He was very thin, very pale, looked as if he might flash into flame and be gone in a moment.

‘What have you got?’ said Kleinzeit.

‘Distended spectrum,’ said the imminently combustible. ‘If hendiadys sets in everything could go like …’ Here he did not snap his fingers, but hissed sharply.’… that,’ he said.

Kleinzeit clucked, shook his head.

‘What about you?’ said Flashpoint.

‘Not sick, actually,’ said Kleinzeit. ‘Here for tests, that sort of thing.’

‘You’re sick, all right,’ said Flashpoint. ‘Hypotenutic, you look to me. Touch of diapason, maybe. Do you pee in two streams?’

‘Well, when my underwear’s been twisted up all day, you know…’ said Kleinzeit.

‘Keep telling yourself that,’ said Flashpoint. ‘Never say die. I speak German, you know.’

‘Good for you,’ said Kleinzeit. ‘I don’t.’

Flashpoint hissed again. ‘No hard feelings,’ he said. ‘People are looking different lately, maybe you’ve noticed. The dummies must be changing.’

‘The dummies,’ said Kleinzeit. ‘Oh.’

‘First the dummies in the shop windows change,’ said Flashpoint, ‘then the people.’

‘I didn’t think anybody’d noticed that but me,’ said Kleinzeit. ‘God makes the dummies maybe. Man makes the people.’ He crossed his legs, kicking the flex that led to Flashpoint’s monitor. The plug came out of the wall, the last blip faded and went down in smoke, the screen went dark.

‘Oh God,’ said Flashpoint. ‘I’m gone.’

Kleinzeit plugged in the machine again. ‘You’re back,’ he said. Together they watched the blips moving across the screen. Terrible, thought Kleinzeit. If I had blips to watch all the time I’d want them to stop after a while. Blip, went his mind. Blip, blip, blip, blip. Stop it, said Kleinzeit. He lay back on his bed, the bed sighed.

Mine, said the bed. How long I’ve waited. You’re not like the others, it was never like this before.

In his mind Kleinzeit saw a corridor in the Underground.

Why? he said.

I’m just showing you, said his mind.

What? said Kleinzeit. No answer from his mind. In his body the distant horn sounded.

Our song, said the bed, and hugged him.

Back at his flat the bathroom mirror looked out and saw no face. Do I exist? said the mirror.

In Kleinzeit’s office on the sheet of yellow paper on his desk the man pushed the barrow full of rocks and felt the Bonzo toothpaste tube in his pocket. What kind of a Sisyphus deal is this? said the man. Why Bonzo?

In a music shop a glockenspiel dreamed of a corridor in the Underground.