Right Through You

It suddenly turned very cold this week, so here's a story about becoming very cold and possibly never warming up again.

Also, Uncertain Stories have a little Q&A with me about my story 'All Seasons Sweet'. I'm grateful to them for not using "Chaucer and Shakespeare are full of it" as a pull quote, and for tolerating my Omelas joke.

This week's daily stories

Monday

The world ended with an eight-week consultation period, which didn’t seem to make much difference. Representatives of the living were selected to sit in meetings with ancient gods and fundamental forces and (just showing its face for five minutes due to a packed schedule) the endless, yawning void. Their contributions were diligently minuted. Most of us were redeployed to other realities. Some of us came out of it quite well, on paper. And you can see why it happened, the way things were going. But still, the morale is gone.

Tuesday

The apprentice came back with tartan paint. Campbell, the tin said. It rolled on beautiful, sharp edges and dead straight. The next day we sent him for sky hooks, and I don't know how we ever worked without them. The day after, he handed Al a left-handed screwdriver, and when Al used it he said it just felt right. He almost had tears in his eyes. We should have left it there, while it was all harmless fun.

Wednesday

He told me he collected butterflies. I imagined a plastic tunnel in his garden with thick, hot air that made you sleepy. I imagined a little glass-fronted box where cocoons hung in rows, and us holding hands as something new emerged and unfurled its wings. I imagined delicate things that he protected, and he showed me drawers and drawers of death.

Thursday

They did free skull-measuring at work, booked out a meeting room for the day, got someone in with all the proper gear. They even sent out little graphics of your results for LinkedIn, really professional. I wasn’t too sure about it, to be honest, but it was really interesting. They said I’ve got an trustworthy brow, and trust has always been so important to me, so you can tell they know what they’re doing. And they said I’ve got a head for leadership. So I’d definitely recommend it.

Friday

but only when— and even if— before we saw— the day after— when she told me— only later did I— by then it was too— they should have known— it felt not sad but—

I shut my mouth, my book, my door, my eyes, and began at the beginning instead.

Saturday

She must have thrown the bouquet so far. It sailed over the guests’ heads, over the hedge, over the horizon. She laughed and flexed her bicep, and there was cheering and laughter. Later, it flew over the opposite wall, looking a little the worse for wear, and slammed into the side of the groom’s head as he was talking to her cousin. Everyone agreed that a thing like that had to mean good luck for the marriage.

Sunday

We sat and watched the paragliders circling above us, and I told her what my brother had told me, about how the geological fault that built the cliffs they sailed from was still moving the landscape today, and the paragliders were the only way to monitor the shifting ground. Halfway through I realised it was a lie, one of those soap bubble lies that survives until you touch it. But she believed it, just as I had, and I let her. So does that make me a liar?

I have been reading...

• Whale Fall by Elizabeth O'Connor, a beautiful little novel of bone-sharp vignettes that hurt the way life does.
• Necrosmologies by Anthony Cartwright, which explores alternative Midlands where industry is powered by dragons and leviathans and moon-rock. A strange book that's most affecting for its throughline of normality: whether fuelled by coal or creature, the machinery of capitalism devours workers much the same.

If you buy books linked to from Scattering, I may earn a commission from Bookshop.org, whose fees support independent bookshops.

This week's story: Right Through You

The cold had come to Austport. The people felt it in their feet and their fingers: a pale numbing, and a shying from touch. A chill in the summer sunshine, and seawater warm around their toes. Nobody prayed. The men who walked bare-chested along the waterfront could not imagine the cold creeping up their limbs toward their hearts; the women cursing broken fans in the offices pressed their fingers to their throats to cool them. It was impossible for anyone to believe the cold would take them, though everyone knew it would take some of them.

It took Jakob first. Jakob, who strode into the waves at dawn all year round, who waged snowball war with the kids in his t-shirt, who drank neat gin kept in the freezer. He sat by the pub fireplace as though the memory of a fire could warm him, in a jumper nobody had ever seen before. He had not been to the sea in four days. Even the pleasant breeze on the beach bit him too sharply. But he kept up with the gin, for now. His grandmother had told him it was warming.

It was just Jakob in the armchair, and Violet behind the bar: a quiet night, and those who were in enjoyed the summer air in the beer garden or on the street. "You should go out yourself," Violet told him. "Bask in the sun. It's warmer out than in at the moment."

"You think I'm cold blooded, like a lizard," Jakob said. "I'm not cold blooded. I'm just cold. The sun only warms your skin. The wind goes right through you."

Violet shrugged. She couldn't judge him for his strangeness, when she had a cup of tea clasped in her hands and an ice pack tucked down her top. "You're not shivering, at least," she said.

"You don't shiver with it," Jakob said. It had been two days, and already he was tired of them. Didn't they read? Didn't they listen to the radio? They hadn't a whisper of curiosity between them, not even the ones who kept asking him questions. Them least of all: they asked to show off what they thought they knew already. He pulled his coat tighter around him, and didn't think of himself last week, saying the mistake all these people make is trying to warm themselves, you have to let the body adjust.

The door clattered, and a man Jakob half-recognised came in from the beer garden, pink to the top of his bald head and glistening with sweat. The sheen of his skin and the wobble in his legs from the day's drink made him look half-melted, and Jakob's stiff limbs envied him. He went up to the bar and waved a banknote in greeting. "Two Doom Bar, love," he said.

While Violet busied herself with the glasses, he turned to Jakob. "All right, mate?" he said. "Cold dips finally caught up with you, have they?"

Jakob looked at him, and wished he could shiver. A person shivering looks ill, or in danger. Even this man, with the wide, gloating smile spilling onto his red face, would take pity on him if he was shivering. It would be awful to be pitiable, but better than being blamed. Jakob looked at him, and then back at his gin, and the frost growing across the glass like a fracture.

Violet had poured the beer and taken the money. She was fumbling in the till, trying to make change with ice-dulled fingers. The man frowned at her silently, and rubbed his own hands together. On his way out, he set one of the glasses on a table to put a hand on Jakob's shoulder. "Don't worry, pal," he said. "It won't kill you. It's just forever."