“I’m not drinking.” Adam said, his voice cut dead by the surrounding green as it pushed in stubbornly from all sides.
Devil’s Ivy hung low above and before him and he brushed it away, moving the chair stubbornly over old roots that lay tangled and knitted underneath. Perspiration ran down his face and neck, his short sleeved shirt clinging to him, soaked through. The air was heavy and humid, completely still. He didn’t recognise this place and stopped pushing the rims of the wheels momentarily, his arms and hands aching along with the front of his head, his brains swollen and pushing against the insides of his skull. He felt stupid and drunk, except he had been right, he wasn’t drinking. Hadn’t been. Not that day. Not since the evening before when he had consumed the last of the beer. He had ordered more along with his regular groceries for the following days delivery but that was tomorrow. It hadn’t arrived yet. He was already having palpitations at the thought of going without, but he thought he could probably cope.
Brushing more of the greenery from his face, he tried to move forward, yet didn’t know in which direction he was going, where he was trying to go. He had no recollection of how he had arrived here.
Dark, and green. Ivy in various guises hung from invisible boughs above him. The walls on either side were covered and thick with it, giving him no hint as to what lay beyond. Ahead of him ran a narrow dark path, with little light filtering down from above. When he strained to look behind he saw nothing, his eyes losing focus.
Beyond the green came the sounds of civilisations. Dozens of voices, all talking at once, the words indistinct. A continuous, monotonous buzzing. He couldn’t make any of it out, nor could he settle on which direction it was coming from. If he could do that, that might be the way to go.
He thought back. Tried to remember.
“No?” Iris said, making a show of putting on her coat, having discarded it over the back of one of the two large living room armchairs that had long since seen better days, well before Adam had picked them up in the second hand small ads.
“Not today anyway.”
“You weren’t drinking last time I saw you.”
“I’m not drinking now.”
“So all those empty bottles by your front door are just for sh -”
“Look, Doctor. Iris. I can’t say how much I have appreciated you over the past few years, but you’ve caught me on a not great day. We all have them and -”
Park, go for some air. You’ll make yourself feel better. Go to the park and go to the exhibition tomorrow. You owe yourself.
“I don’t owe myself anything.”
Something rustled in response, just behind and to his left, the reams of ivy gesticulating, controlled by some unseen hand.
Adam turned and thrust his arm out, into the tangled mass, and attempted to brush some away. He was in the park, making good on his promise. It was overgrown, the unfathomable hot weather on top of the relentless rain the previous week. The undergrowth had run amok, and he was currently delving through the results of that growth in combination with an under staffed, under funded and over stretched council.
The Park was two square kilometres, and was a maze of paved paths and iron fences behind which grew various trees, bushes, shrubs and the various weeds that always strove to wrest domination from the intentionally cultivated flora. On the far side, the side that reached out towards the Flats, it opened slightly, with larger grass areas and even a couple of tennis courts (the nets long since taken and destroyed, the chain link fencing around the periphery of the courts rusted and torn away). The end closest to Adam’s brownstone was almost labyrinthian, even when it was well maintained.
No one went in to the Park. It had an air to it.
Adam had only been in once, not long after he had moved in to his apartment. It had been a tentative exploration, as it always was when moving somewhere new and trying to get your bearings. He was also trying to improve his prosthetics stamina and technique, and thought seeing as how it was directly opposite his building, he could do a lot worse than having a short walk through the twisting pathways. He had regretted it not long after entering, quickly becoming disorientated when he lost sight of the entrance gate. The Park itself was pleasant enough, with a lot of it’s features dating back to the Victorian era, particularly in the design of it’s iron railings, and lamp posts that looked as though they had once held candle-lit lanterns, before being gas lit, and now electricity. The feeling that he had when walking stilted around the periphery of the paths (too unsure to actually go in to the centre, worried as he was about becoming disorientated), was strange and unnerving. There hadn’t been anyone else that he had encountered the entire time he had been in there (an hour tops), and the stillness had begun to get to him. That could be the reason he had not deigned to go out again since. As far as he was concerned, it was a suitable excuse.
Yet here he was now.
His finger tips touched something cold beneath the untamed green mass. Something that seemed to flake and come away in his touch. He withdrew his arm and held his fingers to his face, rubbing his thumb and forefinger together, watching as the brown rust stained his fingers.
Something moved ahead. Furtively, careful not to be seen. Darting across his vision from one side of the green to the other. A sudden blast of warm and slightly sweet smelling air. Then silence and stillness again.
He inhaled slowly, catching his breath, and pushed his chair forward, needing all his energy to push over the tangled leaves and roots underneath. He presumed - or rather hoped - that he was heading in the direction of his apartment building, and out of the park that way. What he didn’t want to do was end up at the wrong end, particularly near The Flats. Once or twice he thought he heard raised voices from somewhere nearby. Young, full of arrogance and thinly veiled threat. The sounds of a gathering, alcohol probably involved. That thought only succeeded in making him thirsty for some of his own however, and he pushed it out of his mind. When was that grocery order coming? Tomorrow? Had he said tomorrow?
If he made it home. This was a stupid idea. He was hot, covered in his own perspiration, and tired. At once he felt disgusted with himself. He should be fitter than this. Had been fitter than this. All his life. Even after… Particularly after. His grit and determination, encouraged by Dr Fleet, to rehabilitate himself, to make himself into something stronger than before, despite being more disadvantaged before. There were gym classes for those in his position. He hadn’t gone to them, not straight away, not with others there, but he had hired his own personal trainer at no small expense. Once he had gained confidence an strength, then he had joined the classes. Yet he hadn’t stuck at them. Everyone else there was defeated, negative, going through the motions. They didn’t have his lust, his tenacity, for improving their lot.
There was Mike, who was about ten years older than Adam. Lost his arm in an industrial accident that had also claimed his will to live. A beaten man, he had gone week on week and done nothing to help himself. He would scowl and he would complain. He would complain the routines were too fast, too slow, too easy, too challenging. He would put no effort in to what he was asked, and do nothing between classes to improve himself, and so he would continue to moan. Adam had asked him once if he was doing okay, making sure that the underlying question, and offer, was more than inferred, but etched into the air between them. Mike had snorted and said the only thing he needed from Adam was a noose.
It came as no surprise to Adam that less than a month alter, Mike had stopped showing up to classes. A few weeks after that and Adam had thought he’d seen his name in the obituaries. That should have made him feel sad for the man, a little empathy. The old old Adam would have had it by the bucket load. Yet he surprised himself by feeling nothing but a little anger. Anger because Mike had given up. Mike had taken the easier way out rather than put the work in, reclaim what little of himself he had thought he had lost. Mike who lived through a horrendous accident that tried - and failed - to claim his life. Mike who still had the support of his family. Mike who just decided to throw it all away. Adam knew what he had done. The obituary had said suddenly, at home and that was all it needed to say.
Improving his lot. That’s what Adam always said. He had Amber, he had Violet. He had the support of a good doctor and private trainer. He could afford to take some time out of work, so there wasn’t that stress, as his last commission was going through another round of reprints thanks to the popularity of the paperback edition of the book whose cover it adorned. A book so successful that people wanted to buy prints, just prints, of it’s cover without the typography cluttering it up. No words over that beautiful artwork that he spent a goddamn aeon producing. Only to have some inexperienced designer shove 40 point Impact over the front, trying to latch on to whatever modern typographic trend was doing the rounds at the time and completely fucking over the piece that Adam had laboured over. It was par for the course. He knew that. Every goddamn time. Numerous concept proofs, then working proofs. Hours and hours of research, of reading whatever shit prose he had to illustrate cover to cover over and over again. That blessed sign off and the final work over to the repro house. Only to look upon the finished article months later and find that some absolute cretin had cropped it, recoloured part of it, then took a dump on top of it. A dump with serifs.
It wasn’t even a good typeface. Which somehow made it all worse.
It was one of his best pieces. A glorious De Chirico inspired piece, echoing Dada and early Surrealism, surmising the entire book in one frozen, dreamlike motif. The subconscious and raw processes refined and expanded with effortless skill. He often thought that it was his best work, and grudged the fact that it was a commissioned piece. He didn’t even earn much from the standalone print royalties, but their existence (and the demand for them) sated him somewhat. He had hidden a surprising amount of detail in there as well. Detail that could only been seen with close and repeated examination. Far off cities rendered via a slight flick of his wrist. Constellations unknown hidden behind layers of cloud in a sky littered with strange creatures that circled and coalesced in unusual patterns and whorls. Beneath all that, was a river spanned by a bridge that contained whole forests and mountains. Foreign fins and strange and terrible heads broke the surface of the water. Water that was nearly completely transparent, revealing immense bloated bodies and twisted forms that writhed and wrapped themselves around impossible shapes and confusing geometry. Within all that, almost completely hidden from view was something even Adam didn’t realise was there. From the underside of the bridge, hidden in shadow and spiralling down towards the river bed, was something…
More movement ahead. Something quick and dark. Low and small. Liquid charcoal. There and gone.
A fragment of sky. The suggestion and no more. A break in the knotted and tangled green above. An expanse of azure, endless ocean. A fragment of bone. A geometric canine.
He had gone too far in the wrong direction.
Sure enough, the path opened and he took in the sight of the courts before him. The path bisecting and going left and right now, the way forward barred by rusted chain link, entwined with green. Sharp and malicious intent coursed through the air. The sun blazed overhead now, nothing to impede it and he felt it burning against his skin. The temperature was still rising. Judging by the sun it was past midday but not by much. The sun was beyond it’s zenith and beginning it’s descent. Before it touched the horizon, it would continue to scorch.
If he went left he would end up at The Flats. He knew that, could see the path arcing around the court to the far end, ending spruptxly at a twisted turnstile that looked as though it had last grudgingly admitted a rampaging beast.
Right?
He looked, sweat running from his forehead into his eyes. He rubbed them with the back of his hand, instantly regretting it, the dirt and grime that had accumulated from his foray in the recent and indeterminable
infinite
amount of time now transferred and scratching against his retina.
The path seemed to be overgrown, whatever lay beyond it unreachable. Ferns crossed with long tendrils of bramble, nettles bursting out the seams. The drone of horse flys, the bloated and sluggish bodies of blowflies glimpsed above browning leaves.
That was not the way to go. He looked back to his left and started suddenly. Before the barriers stood a group of figures, nearly indistinguishable beyond the old fence that split them into menacing segments of shadow. They hadn’t gone through the turnstile, for he would have heard the animalistic shrieks of protestation as it turned. Either side of the turnstile, more fence, from what he could see unbroken. Yet obviously not, completely. They had come from somewhere lest they had just melted from the gloom like sentient mist.
His heart did a stupid canter in his chest, drunkenly skipping beats and doubling others.
The only way to go was back, the way he had come. He turned as quickly as his limbs and chair could allow him. For the first time in a long time, this new Adam - this inferior version of himself - cursed openly at his lack of discipline. He had lost his way. He should be able to walk out. He didn’t need the fucking chair, and yet here he was, bound to it, as the earth itself began to eat the wheels. The path here was loose, his turning unsettling the surface even further. He wasn’t able to turn fast enough and his breath hitched, his skin tighter, stretched over too much flesh. Too much bone. His eyes stung and the buzzing in his ears increased. Until it was all he could hear.
They were moving behind him.
He pushed himself forward, the wheels not finding purchase, not at first. He shifted his weight, leaving back and pushing harder with his arms. The tendons in his neck felt pulled to high tension. Now he leaned forward as he pushed all at once harder.
Grip. Forward momentum.
He couldn’t be seen to panic. That would exacerbate matters. Wild animals. If the prey was panicked or weakened, they would move in. And quickly.
He wasn’t going to let himself become prey.
Pushing steadily now. Rhythmically. The path clearer here, more solid, even though there were more roots and leaves underneath. They were providing more of a purchase and he was able to roll his wheels with relative ease. He was able to pick up speed, and subsequently found himself putting distance between him and the courts. The Flats.
And whatever was following him.
He neared another junction and took the right hand path, but not before turning and catching a glimpse. Far back in the green. Figures. Faces indiscernible beneath low hoods and yet also, he could see movement there. A constant shifting of shapes. Of small bodies. They made no motion to follow him and were content to watch, albeit with unseen eyes. Nevertheless the fed those eyes on him, burning hotter than the sun that no longer had any bearing on where he sat.
“Follow the path Adam,” he said low to himself, his breath still coming in ragged starts.
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