5

When my alarm rings the following morning at 6:00 a.m., it introduces me to the terrible fatigue that plagues me after so many days of poor sleep. On its first assault, my half-sleeping hand launches at it, and when it lands it abeys the wretched noise for ten minutes, before ringing again and inviting me to a more lucid alertness. I prop myself up slightly, see that the time is already ten minutes past my scheduled waking time, and painfully drag myself out of bed. I can barely feel my feet when they touch the ground, and it takes more than a few seconds of wavering balance to find any stability on their soles.

In my disdainful stupor, I find my way into the hallway. When I approach the storage closet door, I can see that it’s already open, and it takes a few moments of scanning the ravaged MREs on the floor to remember exactly how I sent myself to bed last night. The memory sends a jealous groan to my lips, a memory of that jolly youth who indulged so merrily in these spoils after so fruitful an escapade, whose greatest joy was found not in the food, but in the prospects of rest that he might find in the night that awaited him. Now, the night has passed, and I am not that much more rested for it. Leaning into the open packages, I find a small cereal bar that I decide will make my breakfast. With an action that resembles more of a gesture than an effort, I shift some of the packaging closer to the wall, insinuating a path at the side. I grumble through the rest of the hallway and into the bathroom.

Washing my face and brushing my teeth helps revitalise me for the short moment that the water touches my skin, but the instant my face settles, the tiredness resumes dominion over my body. The havoc it is wreaking on me is evident: the rounded, sunken eyes; the dry, slightly-parted lips; the expression of existential dread, seeping through every pore. I splash myself once more, with colder water this time. My face looks no different. I accept that the turmoil will simply have to be borne with determined fortitude until I return from work, when I can forgive myself my usual homework and catch up on some sleep. Lumbering my hand slowly up to turn off the tap, the ache in my muscles assures me that it’s much needed.

I carry my breakfast bar back into my bedroom, opening it along the way, leaving hardly any of it left uneaten by the time I reach my wardrobe. With a final bite, I toss the wrapper indifferently to the floor, too fatigued to worry about cleanliness at the moment. I simply want to finish work, sleep, and worry about normalcy when my mental strength reflects it. I produce the first clean thing I can find from the wardrobe and throw it on.

The commute to work is agreeable enough not to note, and I arrive on time at the Emplecix facility, where I find my way to the third floor. As I step out of the elevator, I happen upon my coworker Brandon, walking by, whose eyebrows are furrowed with pensive attention on a file he is holding before him. He tosses a quick glance to acknowledge the person leaving the elevator, and when he notices that it is me, he stops to look at me, lowering his file momentarily, and his lips spread into a smile.

‘Happy Monday Amon,’ he greets me. I cannot disregard the sincerity with which Brandon always speaks. He either mastered this particular expression at a young age, and can summon it on a whim, or he has never in his life been unhappy while greeting me.

I flash a smile in response, and Brandon’s face turns to concern.

‘Are you alright?’ he asks, ‘you look a bit tired.’

Ha! I laugh to myself, but my lips only reflect a quick twitch of joy. A bit. If only he knew…

Brandon’s concern spills into another second of silence, and I realise he expects more than just a muscular response.

‘Fine, yes… I mean, I’m a little bit tired, yes. Busy weekend.’

His expression lightens, and his lips grow back into a smile.

‘You doing your homework again?’ he says, flashing a grin.

I lower my head in faux concession, adding a humble smile to suit.

‘Well, keep it up anyway. You’re one of our best,’ and with a nod, he starts to slowly resume his walk. ‘See you,’ he adds, and I manage to slip in a nod before he turns around completely, face back in his file.

I make my own way down the corridor, the opposite way to Brandon, in the direction where the office containing all our desks is. The office is a large pale room, devoid of any decoration but the cubicles that furnish an efficient grid, filled with mumblings and murmurs that are yet to grow into the chaotic noise of the afternoon. I drag my inanimate limbs to my own desk amidst the orthogonal arrangement. Without any grace, I plummet into my chair.

Recollecting the scattered files and notes from my desk, I cannot help but be immediately reminded of my turbulent weekend, and my mind immediately dashes to the night before – the outcome of the second round of my experiment.

How did it go? I wonder. I close my eyes and try to imagine my neighbour for a moment. What is he doing now? Has he experienced any change?

I only entertain the thought for a moment. Just as quickly as they had come, I dismiss the musings. I decide that I will turn back to the work sitting on my desk before me, the work at hand. When I go to open my eyes, I acknowledge that it takes great determination to do so, and only after a mountainous effort, do I manage to pry a file open. How vexing, I think, my escapades have taken a toll on more than just my mind.

I pass the remainder of my day progressing through the work on my desk. With my mind so overtaken by fatigue, I decide that it will be best if I focus on the smaller tasks, the ones that don’t require so much intelligence and creativity, allowing the working day to pass relatively smoothly. I manage to maintain a rather stable attention, but in the moments when I waver in my focus, I am reminded of the underlying thought on which my real attention is fixed. This work is all but a temporary distraction from my real point of interest. I want so desperately to return home, and to see how my experiment has gone.

For the first time since beginning my employment with Emplecix, I leave before six—a whole ten minutes early. Though the menial trivialities helped somewhat to distract me, by the final hour of the workday, I could no longer think of anything but my neighbour. Though I continued to pretend to occupy myself with the work, I noticed on multiple occasions crass imprecisions in what I had done throughout the day—foolish, ignorant inaccuracies, which I had to spend a greater time rectifying than had taken to implement them to begin with. I needed to ultimately accept that in my current state of distraction, I would not be able to produce any more meaningful work. I spent the final hour of the day staring blankly into the wall of my cubicle, projecting my consciousness back to my apartment, where I would listen to the murmurs coming from the joining wall. What was he doing? I needed to know. I needed to know.

As I descend the same elevator that took me to my desk this morning, a pernicious thought occurs to me. It is a thought that I have never expected myself to imagine, and it surprises me doubly so as a result. When the elevator door slides open, I do not exit immediately, remaining stunned for a moment from the thought that came to me.

What if he’s dead?

There are no grounds in reason for such a thought. I know this. The machine subtly alters brain chemistry: it has no access to such destructive consequences. And yet, as the natural light seeps into the elevator door through the waxing crack between its doors, I am blinded by fear from such a possibility.

The feeling only persists for an instant, but in that miniscule interval I explore the terror that paralysed me so. It takes me a beat to recognise what the feeling really is. It’s doubt. I’ve begun to doubt my creation, my abilities. 

It is such a fresh sensation that it scathes my core like freezing water on an open wound. The moment I notice it for what it is, I reason with myself.

Doubt? Doubt is for cowards. Great minds do not doubt. Great minds push against the current, even if it should drown them. Great minds do not doubt…

Yet that summons to reason is not enough to reinspire motion in my limbs. The cooling paralysis reaches much deeper than I’d ever taught my words to venture, and now they cannot assuage the demon that has gripped those faculties which cognition cannot jolt.

It takes the closing of the elevator door to snap me out of my trance. My hand reflexively leaps from my side to stop it from shutting. The door notices its presence, and slides slowly back open.

The little motion of my arm helps me to regain lucidity, and I quickly hustle steps to bring me out of the Emplecix building. Those steps proceed to take me to my car, which inevitably delivers me to my apartment block. I take quick action from there to complete the walk up to the building itself. 

As I approach the main entrance and reach for my keys, I notice them slipping in my hand. Patting the tips of my fingers against each other, I find that I am sweating intensely, only now feeling the heat that is consuming my body. Why? I begin to ask myself, but stop the thought promptly, recognising I already know the answer to my question.

I enter the building and ascend the elevator, exiting on the eighth floor. As I step out into the corridor, I am once again left momentarily stunned.

There it is, I think to myself. I follow along with my eyes the sequence of doors, finding the eighth one there. He’s just behind that door. I begin walking down the corridor.

Though I cannot explain why, I can feel my steps becoming heavier as I near my neighbour’s apartment. This is it, the moment I have been waiting for all day, imagining it a million ways in my mind. Now that it has arrived, and it has become a physical, tangible reality, I find my body resisting me.

I must see, I think to myself, but the thought is feeble, fragile; I let it slip for a moment, and it breaks, leaving me with the reality before me. Why is it so difficult? I wonder. 

I reach the door marked 808. I stand about two full paces away from it, staring at it, its dominant frame standing before me like a ruthless obelisk. I need only step towards it and knock, like I have so effortlessly done before. 

I close my eyes, and breath in—the breath is heavy, but offers me some respite. I imagine that once I open my eyes again, the image will appear different, more tame and tractable; but once I open them, the picture remains the same. I accept that I simply cannot bring myself to knock on the door, and I step away towards my own apartment. I curse myself as I walk farther and farther away from that which I had been imagining all day. It’s for cowards! But I cannot ignore that every distancing step soothes some of my nerves.

I recede back into my apartment with a shallow breath of relief. Why? I ask myself again, for the millionth time. It makes no sense, I know it, and yet unlike any other problem I’ve ever faced, I cannot even begin peeling away at the layers of the behemoth raging inside me, possessing all of my faculties and holding them out of my reach. Why am I so powerless? I think, and the mental utterance of that word, powerless, deals another blow which hits me so forcefully that it buckles my knees, and sends me sliding along the wall down to the floor. My hands cover my face, my eyes. In the darkness, I see the words.

The Powerless Coward.

They stand formidable, indestructible, intolerant of any other reality I might have ever known. I imagine them framed by a thick outline, forming a rectangle around the mass. In my own personal darkness, that devastating form stands before me, and I cannot even make myself approach it. It reminds me once again of the door, and I feel my breath fleeting from my lungs.

I sit there in that darkness for some moments, festering within the mixture of disappointment and sweat which has accumulated on my body over the course of the stressful day. With every passing minute, the intensity of my thoughts passes a little. Ultimately, I lower my hands from my face, let them plummet to my sides. I look at the wall of my hallway; I look through it, to the infinite distance. When I investigate my breath again, I realise that it has calmed down. Though I am still not fully recovered from the internal torment, I have returned to a state of greater control.

This is no way to be, I think to myself. I cannot submit so obsequiously to an unfounded fancy. I cannot…

I close my eyes in a prolonged blink. When I open them, I am determined.

I must continue to work, I decide.

I lift myself from my place on the floor, turning down the hallway. I walk towards my bedroom, stepping between the scraps of MREs that still lay disembowelled on the floor. In my bedroom, I find my desklamp, turning it on to illuminate the chamber. I briefly look at the machine I left there, its perfect black form exuding from the surface, but before long I look away. I decide that I will not occupy myself with even thinking about it for now, returning to it later with a clearer head, and instead find some other project to work on in the meantime. I walk over beside my desk, scanning the pillar of boxes to its left.

My eyes file through the vertical list of dates and titles from the bottom. Once they reach the top, they freeze. My gaze remains locked on the words marked on the front of the topmost container.

Living Cloth.

The memory of this particular project juts itself to the forefront of my mind, and the feelings of disappointment I had only just suppressed take a beat to rear their little heads. Once again, I close my eyes for a second, allowing myself to see reason. When they open, I look at the box again. 

I cannot cower so helplessly from my past failure, I think. True greatness faces adversity; climbs back from failure; transcends…

I produce a small collapsible stepping stool from under my desk and place it next to the pillar. I climb it with both feet, helping me to reach the box at the top. I bring the box down with both hands, careful to not let its weight slip through my grasp.

I alight the stool and turn towards my desk. Noticing that it is still cluttered from my previous engagement, I choose to ignore that option for the time being. I place the box on my bed instead, and lift its lid.

There it greets me. Lying upon a pile of miscellaneous parts I find the old project, derelict and discarded. Laying my eyes upon it again after such a long time fills me with a wave of nostalgic sentiment, and for a moment, through the disappointing hatred which shrouds the machine, I feel some new hope emerging at the sight of it.

I lift the device and hold it carefully in my hands, tentacles of wires flowing beneath it like a colourful jellyfish. I flatten my hands into two open palms to provide the machine a stable foundation to sit on top of.

The device—the living cloth—is a collection of one hundred bulbs, arranged compactly next to one another in a ten-by-ten grid. Each bulb is supported by a cup that holds it, combined with a small motor beneath each cup which allows the bulb to spin in every direction, showing every point on its face. The bulbs themselves are small pictures of multicoloured fabric, which cover a full gradient of colours across their miniscule surfaces. The concept of the device was simple: by spinning each bulb to face a specific vertical direction, treat each spinning ball like a pixel on a graphic display, allowing for living, moving images to be shown on a screen made of purely analogue components, giving the impression of a piece of fabric which transforms in shape and form—a living cloth. Though this particular prototype has quite a low resolution, I had plans of making even larger displays, allowing the showing of complete images and motion pictures in the future. 

Reminiscing the pleasant imaginings, I give the surface of the bulbs a gentle caress. As I travel into the memories of its creation, I grow happier with the same hope which inspired me to begin the project in the first place. I recall the planning, the blueprints, the design of the first bulb and the gleeful moment when I first got it spinning. I journey so far into the exact thoughts which filled my head so many years ago, that I feel as if I am working on it right at this moment, and the idea occurs to me to plug the machine in and see it work. The instant I imagine acting on that thought, however, I am once more filled with bitter displeasure, and the hatred for the project immediately returns.

First, it was the friction. The friction from the bulbs situated so close to one another caused a buildup of static electricity, which, once accumulated, caused the device to short-circuit, disabling it at once. I was able to mitigate the issue somewhat—changing fabrics, even increasing the distance between the bulbs to gaps which became too visible to permit in what was meant to be a seamless display—but ultimately I could not allow for anything longer than a quick three second show at the higher speeds. Then, it was the scaling. Although I was able to produce a working graphic at a smaller scale, however short it might have been, the amount of wires and electronics required to support those measly one hundred bulbs was immense for such a small creation, and would not allow any scaling to larger screen resolutions. I racked my head for ways in which I could reduce the circuitry behind the display, but simply nothing would work—the motors were as big as they were, and I couldn’t make smaller ones. I had to settle for the minute, one hundred bulb screen, and although that had given me the purest joy at the beginning of the project, for my greater ambitions it was simply not enough.

What ultimately made me give up on the project, however, was not the technical limitations, which were feeling insurmountable, but rather the miasma of fatigue that lingered around it, into which I had to willingly place myself whenever I wanted to continue to work on it. The constant trial and error which led to absolutely no results or illuminations of any kind dug me deeper and deeper into a pit of helplessness. After a while, I had found myself so far down that pit, that I could no longer see light when I looked up. Everything had become dark; every thought I had was burdened with the project, every joy I found tainted by the looming failure of the dysfunctional living cloth.

And yet the only thing I could ever imagine doing was digging yet deeper into that hole. It was all I had ever known how do to: when a project presents itself as difficult, even impossible, face it without fear, without limitation on your brilliance; and when you push far enough beyond the boundary of recorded thought, you will reach the light. But on this particular project, I waded so deeply beyond that boundary, and found nothing but darkness. I was lost and consumed by the void that surrounded me, and felt further eviscerated by every moment I spent inside it. And yet, all I ever thought to do was venture further into it. Ultimately I would find that light—I believed it.

In the end, it wasn’t even my own decision to abandon the project. I did not make a conscious choice to give up on the impossible task. Rather, something great and time-consuming came up at work, and it was so demanding that it finally managed to distract my unary focus from the living cloth. I allowed myself to work further and further on that work, even continuing to attend to it when I got home, which is not something I typically do, ensuring that my personal and work inventions remain separate. The living cloth and the challenge it presented me always existed somewhere in the back of my mind of course, but over time, its impression on me faded, and through enough willful conviction I was able to tell myself that my work project was simply too important to dedicate anything other than my undivided attention. It was through this prolonged denial that I allowed the thought of the living cloth to fade into the recesses of my mind, never permitting myself to face it directly. Once that work project was done, another came and took its place; and after enough time, I was even able to begin working on my own personal inventions to fill that void, though the darkness I found myself in never quite faded from around me.

I defocus my downcast eyes from the machine in my hands and move to replace it back in the box. As I am moving it down, prepared to put it back on top of the plumes of electrical wires, I notice that amidst the bramble of electronics there is a protruding piece of cardboard. Shifting the clutter slightly away from it, I see that it is the corner of a cardboard box, one I don’t remember putting there. Intrigued, I choose to leave the failed prototype on my bed, and begin untangling the box from the bottom of the larger container.

Once I release it, I inspect the box in my hands, looking for a label of some sort to identify what it could be, but I find none. Fuelled by amplified curiosity, I place the box on a free spot on my bed and open it up. 

The first thing that catches my eye when I unfold the two flaps at the box’s top is a vibrant, bright green tennis ball. The moment I see it, I remember. Back when I was in school, for a short, almost insignificant amount of time, I played tennis. It was not necessarily a pleasant experience—I never felt much attraction to sport, and my time playing tennis didn’t do much to help that. It wasn’t really anything to reminisce about, and I wouldn’t have paid much care myself, but the ephemeral interest made a huge impression on my mother, and it might be considered the only thing I ever did which she actively engaged herself in. She continually pushed me to keep playing, and once I stopped, she kept telling me that I should try picking it up again, that I might like it if I commit myself to it. I was nevertheless never swayed, and after some more time she gave up, but evidently she never forgot. The box was a small collection of mementoes she compiled and gave to me before I left. Regardless of any shortages in passion which she might have had for me, she was certainly always sentimental.

I remove the ball from the box and place it on my bed, revealing some other objects inside. The first one that jumps out is a small, printed picture. I pick it up to give it a closer look.

The picture is one of my mother and me from when I was still a baby. It’s printed on standard stock paper rather than typical glossy paper, losing much of the quality of the original image, not only fading over time but also becoming crumpled through spending so much of its life in the box. 

I am able to flatten it out enough to see myself in a stroller with my mother standing behind me. I am very little in the picture, not planning to develop memory for a few years to come. And what a shame: I am looking just beyond the camera, and my mother is smiling broadly. If I could remember, I would know who took the photo.

Did I ever even ask? I wonder. I must have. Surely…

But that too I cannot remember. Distant, abandoned musings wander into my mind like old relatives, seating themselves awkwardly next to me to ask me questions. Who was he? What was he like? What could the world have been like if he had stayed? 

Why did he leave?

A sudden wave of pain strikes me from within, propagating from its initial point and spreading in goosebumps all over my body. I realise I can no longer look at the picture, dropping it back into the box. When the falling paper touches its contents, the box itself becomes haunted, and I resign looking at its insides any more deeply. I move the box aside, shifting it to the end of the bed with all the other clutter I put down, and place myself languidly in the space left behind. I lean with my neck on the adjacent wall, sliding down into a half-lying position on the sheets. My eyes rest on the wall of black boxes, now missing a singular point in the corner, disrupting its uniformity.

Patting somewhat aimlessly the bedsheets next to me, my hand finds the tennis ball I had placed there upon first opening the box. I pick it up, holding it before my face to look at it. As I inspect its fuzzy green surface, a sudden warmth slips under my skin.

My eyes look again to the wall of boxes, then quickly at the ball once more. In a sudden, inexplicable urge, I throw the ball against the wall of boxes. It hits them, rattling their slightly unstable surface enough to make a hollow sound, then bounces back in my direction, where I catch it with a quick stretch to the side.

The sudden exhilaration of needing to move so quickly to catch the ball inspires something within me, and without a second thought, I throw the ball again. I throw it harder this time, making a louder sound, but improving the return trajectory so that I don’t have to strain myself as much to catch it this time. After less than a second, I throw it again. I decide to throw it higher, expecting that to give a better bounce still; and indeed, it comes back even more pleasantly than before.

In a sequence of actions that become purely reflexive, I develop a sort of game with myself, in which I wish to perfect the path of the ball to create the most seamless, effortless catch. After only a few more throws, I find a rhythm that approaches that. The ball leaves, travels to the other side, then gently returns to my hands without the slightest quarrel. It is as if the ball acquires sentience, and my throws emulate a sort of dialogue, a pleasant agreement between myself and the green orb to exercise each other in this way. I throw the ball, and the ball comes back to me. That is our symbiosis.

It is at this point in the night that the fatigue I had felt so formidably in the morning creeps its way back into mind. Though it has no rush to overcome my limbs, it soothes my mind enough to deprive it of any thought, and I become so wholly engrossed in the tossing activity despite its grotesque pointlessness. Should I have my faculties the way I typically do, I would immediately see that, and cease such detestable idleness; but my contact with reason is simply too far removed now, and I lay on a floating desert island, where only the ball and I exist, and this is our world. In that world, a certain thought begins to materialise, though I cannot exactly identify what it is. I would like to attract my mind to it, to formulate it more clearly, but I do not have the strength. I can only perceive it at a distance, like watching something in peripheral vision. After noticing it for a few moments, it occurs to me that it is a thought unlike any I have ever handled before, and I begin to consider whether it is even a thought at all.

I catch the bouncing ball, and just as I am about to mindlessly throw it again, a noise finally manages to break me out of my trance. I am initially too disassociated to recognise what it is, but fortunately after a moment of waiting, I hear it again. It’s coming from the door to my apartment. Someone is knocking.

With an incremental amount of difficulty, I succeed in lifting myself from my bed, placing the ball aside as I get to my feet. I amble to the door without even beginning to consider who my visitor might be; I am simply too detached. I amicably open the door, to find that it is none other than my neighbour Jake, wearing a plain yet stern expression.

Taking a greater look at him, I notice that his overall appearance is quite unlike what I am used to seeing of him from the past two days. His white top, though not at all different from his other one, is perfectly clean, appearing to be completely new. He is no longer wearing cargo shorts, instead choosing a pair of tracksuit bottoms, also apparently fresh from the store. The only point of his attire which is not completely pristine are his socks, though they are not at all dirty, simply old and worn, and his rubber slippers, which too can be seen to have carried him a few paces at least.

‘Good evening,’ I say.

‘I have come to request that you stop your terrible racket,’ he responds, without even a moment of propriety or preamble.

My mind, not attuned to even the most obvious inferences, scrambles to understand what he means.

‘Racket?’ I ask.

‘I do not know what exactly it is you are doing, but there is this terrible thumping sound coming from your apartment.’

Guided by the hand, I connect the dots.

‘Ah,’ I say, ‘the tennis ball.’

For the first time after showing his face at my door, Jake’s look of passive sternness fades, replaced by one of confusion.

‘I’m throwing a tennis ball against some of the boxes on the wall,’ I explain, answering his mute question.

Jake’s eyes fall and he shakes his head in exasperated resoluteness.

‘Whatever it is, please stop,’ he says. ‘The noise is annoying. I’m trying to work.’

Only then do I realise how seemingly ridiculous what I am trying to explain is, my prior distaste at evident idleness catching up with me.

‘Yes,’ I say, almost stammering, ‘of course. I’ll stop. I apologise for the disturbance.’

‘Thank you,’ Jake says plainly. ‘Have a good evening.’

Without waiting for my response, he begins walking back to his own apartment.

‘You too,’ I hurry to force in, for a response of only a mild gesture of his hand in acknowledgment. Once he walks out of my line of sight, I step back into my apartment, closing the door before me.

As I begin to slowly find my way back to my bedroom, I process the encounter I had just experienced. Should I have my usual mental capacity, I would arrive at the obvious conclusion immediately, but now I have to ponder.

‘The noise?’ I say aloud to myself, allowing the words to bounce around my empty head for some time. Jake complaining about the noise?

And then, in a miraculous symphony of realisation, it clicks. From my head to my toes a vibrant ecstasy propagates in thrilling goosebumps, and my weakness from fatigue is replaced by a weakness from admiration. In a blink, my tiredness disappears, and I am as lucid as a monster struck by terrible lightning. I begin laughing hysterically, the quick succession of breaths possessing every muscle in my body. After a second, my knees buckle, and I fall to the floor in delirious laughter.

‘It worked!’ I shout to myself. ‘It worked! The machine—it worked!’

As I tumble to the floor, I only then notice that throughout the whole evening, I hadn’t heard but a single peep from my neighbour. Still laughing, I roll onto my back, staring into the ceiling, boundless from my infinite gaiety. Overwhelmed, I close my eyes, trying to reel back a level of exultation I have never yet felt consume my being.

‘It worked,’ I mutter, trying to calm my breaths down to a sensible level.

‘It worked. My greatest creation yet—it worked.’

My heart settles from the teeming excitement, and I fall into a fathomless sleep on my hallway floor.

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