For sure, I know this is true.
I look at her, and I say, I’m sorry.
I say, I was at rock bottom, and I just wanted to forget who I was for a little bit. Working with your dad, it just made me feel good again, you know?
I say, But when I found out how you felt about him, I was in too deep to be able to tell you the truth.
I say, I shouldn’t have lied, I know that.
She’s quiet, just sitting there, looking at me.
I say, The funny thing is, I came out here wanting to forget who I was. But instead, you actually helped me find myself – in a weird kind of way.
So thanks for that, I say.
She carries on looking at me. Her face is a complete blank.
I can’t figure out what she’s thinking, and the silence is torture.
She picks up her keys and her phone, gets up from the stool.
She looks me dead in the eye and she says, Fuck you, Sean. Omae saitei da na, ningen no kuzu.
And I watch as she leaves, the sharp click of her heels stabbing my poor, soft, squidgy brain.
Bye, Akemi, I say, after the door closes.
And once again, I am alone.
S
IXTY
I knock on the door, one-two-three.
No answer.
I knock again, put my ear against the cold wood.
No sound.
A janitor clomps up the steps, and I point to the door and I say, Ta zai nali?
He looks at me and shrugs. Wo bu zhidao, he says, and carries on up the next flight of steps, dangling keys jangling.
I turn the knob, hear the latch click, feel the door giving in.
I walk down the hallway and into the living room, and it is even emptier than it was before. The brown leather sofa is gone, as is the giant print of the 101 and the light trails.
I go into the kitchen, it’s empty.
I go into the bedroom, it’s empty.
I go into the room where I watched Other Me reading his book at the desk in the light of a lamp. Those things too, they’re gone.
But the flat, it doesn’t feel empty, or cold. It just…
… is.
I raise my camera to my face, and I shoot.
As I walk down the street to the metro station, bag slung across my shoulder, I pass an old, beat-up electronics shop. In the dirt-smeared window there’s a stack of vintage square TVs, eight wide and eight high.
The middle TVs, they’re on. The screens, they’re flashing blue and red, on account of the police car in the shot, parked outside the double-helix building.
I stop to watch, drop my bag. The reporter, she’s talking emphatically, over-the-top gesturing with her hands. And although there’s no sound, I can tell from the animated look on her face that she’s reporting big news.
A little rectangle pops up in the top-right corner – footage from last night. It shows Charles, handcuffed and dishevelled – almost beyond recognition – being put into the back of a police car by a couple of cops.
Right before he gets into the car, he turns to stare right down the lens of the camera.
Eyes dead. Eyes cold.
I don’t know how, but he’s looking straight at me, looking straight into my eyes.
I pick up my bag, and I carry on walking.
S
