Spoiler
This is the first part of the story so forgive the [non] ending. There's a lot more to come, but I wanted some general reactions to it, because this is the first story I've written in over about nine months and need outside opinions. Be aware it is technically sci-fi because it's set in the near future. I figured it might get more views here.
dismantle the sun [1]
His therapy was enumeration.
The helpless nights, the humdrum days, the half-starved dog they called Lucky until a roadside bomb painted his hairy, panting body on to the side of an APC, the haircuts, the miserable, implacable heat, the hubris of the young, the humility of the battered, the hyperbole of the media, the unspeakable, the unquantifiable, the numbness, the longing, the four-letter word for a distant memory, the nagging doubt, the fertile fantasy. Home.
The war cost him: half an arm and a quarter of a leg, a year of his life, his father's watch, two friends, one commanding officer, innumerable packs of playing cards, sobriety, two teeth and a dog.
His mind turned everything into bullet points. His eyes gathered information like a quartermaster's supply list. Eighty-eight men on the plane. Twelve women. Four children. Six stewards. Eleven empty seats. No leg space. Flight time four hours twenty minutes.
Innumerable flight delays had forced him and sixty-odd other soldiers to buy their own tickets home. It was the type of gross incompetency from the government that he might expect from a new recruit. But there was no anger, not anymore.
He counted the clouds.
---
On the way back from the airport, they crossed the old bridge. The rest of the neighbourhood was shifting, morphing into modernity. The houses bright and shiny, the roads clean and smooth, the street lamps tall and glowing. Gone were the potholes, the graffiti, the imperfections. Except for the old bridge. It stood out like flotsam in a calm ocean. Muddy and black and coppery bricks in a suburb of sky-scraping apartment blocks and robotic upgrades. Even its old faithful partner, the train tracks underneath, were dismantled and replaced. In the night the new levitating machines ghosted through without a sound. Gone was the rattling, the night-time horns, the scattering of debris from the cracks in the wall. He saw all this in the brief seconds they crossed it. His family didn't blink. They had seen it transform slowly, imperceptibly. Changes staggered. For him it was as if they had ripped out his teeth while he was asleep and left him to lick the recesses.
The old bridge was home. When they were kids, it was a football stadium, the cup final, penalty shoot-outs and last-gasp winners. A ball, five mates, a hastily-drawn chalk goal, a brick wall of an old bridge, a road with no cars and imagination gave endless summer days of boyish competition. The crisp smack of leather on the brick wall. Grazed knees. Disputed fouls. Wayward shots that spooned way over the wall and into the wilderness of the train tracks. The long walk of shame for the boy responsible: past the wall, squeeze through the gap in the fence, semi-tumble down the steep bank, check for trains with eyes and ears, dart out, grab the ball and sprint back. A suitable punishment for delaying the game, for your own poor technique and for dispelling the fantasy and returning the game to nothing but brick walls and train tracks. For reminding the participants that they hadn't escaped the neighbourhood, not yet, and their only safe place from the tumult of home was dreaming of something more. For that, you got to gamble with your life.
As they grew, the bridge grew with them. It measured their height – the dichotomy between those who had to jump to see the trains, and those that balanced on the tips of their toes, was an important social yardstick. It was a meeting place, a rendezvous, a sit-down, a boxing ring, a battlefield. He smoked his first cigarette in a break between kick-ups, aged ten, spluttering and coughing like an old steam locomotive climbing a mountain. Four years later he was chucking empty beer cans over the wall, seeing who could throw the furthest. Sometimes they bought bottles just so they could see the satisfying explosion of glass.
He looked back as the car pulled away and wondered whether their names were still etched in the top-right brick. The graffiti and the burn marks were gone. He couldn't remember the last time he had seen kids kicking a ball about on a street. Too unsafe in the modern world. It was grass or nothing by the command of the council and by the enforcement of the new community police. Protected. Sanitised.
----
His wife pulled the car into the drive: “Here we are,” she said, smiling. “Home.”
On the TV, a young, blue-eyed, government spokesman: “We exist to make people's homes safe and happy. We are here to reinvigorate the spirit of the community. It's time for us to stop being scared of going out on our own streets.”
The kettle whistled.
They had a new cat. Sleek and black. It peered at him suspiciously and kept its distance, scouting him out.
His son disappeared without a word, slipped upstairs and closed the door to his room.
Last time he returned from tour they had a party. A long, bright banner. Extended family. Old friends. They drank beers and didn't mention the war. Loud music, kickaround in the garden, bowls of crisps, laughter. The last time he had talked to his wife he told her not to do it this time. It was odd, but he couldn't remember why.
A storm crackled in the distance.
“Home-made cuppa,” his wife said. “Bet you missed that.”
----
The robotic prosthetics made his skin itch. In the night he woke up and stared in horror at his new arm, scratching at the wound, He couldn't get used to the strange weight and its cool feel. It reminded him of the science-fiction stories he read as a kid. The doctor had explained there was no feasible way for the arm to take control over his brain, and had even stifled a giggle when he asked. But he saw little good in a limb that connected directly into his nervous system.
He laid awake until dawn, his wife snoozing softly. Awkwardly and slowly he went downstairs, still limping despite the new metal foot attached. He needed a cig but couldn't find a packet anywhere, so he left the house and headed for the cornershop. His wife had told him over last night's supper about a new one at the top of the street which filled your basket automatically. He avoided it, cutting down the alleyway and through the back streets, heading towards what he knew best. The old store where, as kids, they would steal anything they could. It was near the old bridge and he felt inexorably drawn toward it.
It was a dusty, frozen morning.
There was an odd bustle of young professionals. Briefcases, laptops, high heels clapping, aftershave in the wind, the rustle of newspapers. Excited chatter. He rounded the corner and the shop was no longer there. There was no chipped paint on the shop sign, or post-it notes advertisements in the window, or even old Bill Cochrane lingering by the door frame, cigarette in hand, ready to chase off the troublesome kids he recognised.
A café had taken its place, its outside plastered with chain logos. Not even independent. Two men in suits exited the place and he smelled the warm, smooth coffee from inside.
“--late yesterday thanks to the that selfish bastard who killed himself.”
“Another one? That's two in a month.”
“If I have to stand on the station for hours just one more time, I'll break that bridge mys--”
This town had never been a commuter area before. But then, he concluded, the new trains could travel three times as fast. Everywhere was commutable now. The changes were still astonishingly rapid, he thought. Last time he had been back, the town clung to its industrial past with obstinate pride. The discoloured trickle of a river, piped underground through the gut of the town centre, transporting fleets of litter in one end and out the other. Empty factories above. A forest of chimneys and red-brick relics. It was probably expensive suites and fitness gyms now.
He chased after the pair of suits in his desperation for a smoke. He watched their eyes pause on his arm.
“You couldn't spare us a cigarette, could you, lads?” he said loudly, hoping to mask the desperation in his voice.
The taller one shook his bearded head. “Those things kill.”
“There are worse ways.” His words heightened the awkwardness and the suits tried to pull away. “Wait – I overheard something about a suicide on the bridge.”
A nod. “Not the first one, neither. It's become every self-destructive's favourite jumping spot. Council's planning on tearing it down.”
Suit two gave a thin smile. “When they get around to it.”
“Anyway, we've got a levitating train to catch, mate.”
Eyes on the arm once more.
