Author Archives: chrisbuchananwrites

In Case of Dementia

by Chris Buchanan
Poetry, 2011

—

I’m the old man with dementia who
used to be an author.
I wrote this before all that happened. I was
terrified

that the books I’ve collected might
still be where they are, neglected,
stained with stale coffee by weary sons
too dry-eyed to read.

Carers now urge me to rhyme as
I did, as if I could, and loved ones
suffer,

pushing back their lives, putting up with
mine and their passive aggression
(as they know I would for them if
I could). Wishing I would die as

now they mouth ‘thanks’
to a carer, or a lover with a petrified smile,
trying to help. Let this do
for memories.

Venturous

by Chris Buchanan
Fantasy novella, 2013
You open your eyes and roll into an inn. Before the sun is up you hope to make reality of your dreams. The dragonslayer’s axe shines above. Is that what you wanted?

—

—

It begins the way it always begins. You push your shoulder against the hard wooden door of the inn and buckle under its weight. Your cheeks get hot and it makes you angry. You dare not spit.

You push harder until you feel the old iron hinges relent and swing away behind you. There is so much smoke and beer-froth and heat and thick, candle-burnt air that it gets into your eyes and makes them sting. Hoping that nobody inside has seen you, you rub your face against your small knuckles and breathe.

It’s muggy in this room and your head is swimming. You don’t remember how long you have walked. Perhaps you are just weary, or perhaps it’s the overpowering smell of rotten, spirit-soaked wood, but you struggle to remember why you came here.

You remember that a hero is in this place.

You remember that you want to travel.

You remember that you will face great danger, and this makes you smile.

Your arm is still sore. You open your eyes.

This is the first time you have set foot in a tavern. As you glance about, your back still facing the door, you hope that you don’t look as lost as you feel. The patrons who fill-out the hall are large, sweaty and long-haired. There are a lot of braids and knotted beards, and this seems strange to you, because you are from another place. Your hair is smooth and simple.

A woman’s skirt brushes your face and you look up, startled. She seems to notice, and clutches at the thick material as though you were a dog or a mouse getting caught up in her clothes. She shuffles away with a confused look that stays on her face until a young man hands her a tall cup of drink.

Now the innkeeper is looking at you from behind the bar at the back of the room. You have not known many grown-ups so you don’t trust your first impressions of them, but this man looks friendly. He has large blue eyes, a little too close together, and a layer of thin red hairs covering his arms and cheeks the way dust covers shelves. Making your way through the crowds, you decide it would be best to speak to him first.

He never takes his eyes off you as you approach. “Good evenin’… youngster,” he says, then frowns and looks uncomfortable. Maybe he is wondering if you are a boy or a girl. It might be hard to tell, since you are wearing a hood and coat. “I don’t recognise you,” he says, “but I know a tired traveller when I see one. What’s your name?”

You tell him. He nods.

“Are you alone?”

You nod back.

“Well then. We don’t normally have children in the inn, but that’s by the by. Welcome to the Bowman’s Bird.” He looks very upset, this man. He’s thinking about saying something and he’s probably going to say it. You look at him and wait quietly.

Finally he asks, “Where are you parents?” and you tell him that you don’t know. It’s strange, but right now you can’t remember their faces. You have come here without them.

“I see. Well, make yourself comfortable for now. Will you be staying the night?”

You admit that you don’t know that either. For a moment, you can’t think at all. Everything goes fuzzy.

“I’ll get you a drink,” the barman says, turning around. There is a kindness in his voice which seems too genuine for you to doubt him. His bar is neat and tidy, more so than the tables occupied by his customers. “My name’s Alferd,” he says. “I’ve be–”

“I’m looking for the hero who lives here,” you say, interrupting him by mistake.

Alferd turns around to look at you. He seems to relax in that moment, and he dips a small metal cup into a pail of milk. He puts it neatly on the bar in front of you and wipes the side facing away from you.

“You’re looking for Talmir Dragonkiller?” he says.

You smile. That sounds heroic, all right. “When was the last time you saw a dragon?” you ask Alferd.

“I never have, I’m happy to say. No-one has! And that’s all thanks to Talmir.”

You interrupt him again. “Where is Talmir?” You pause. “Please.”

Alferd smiles and pushes the milk toward you. You reach up and grip it and this makes him happy. “Upstairs,” he says, motioning with his eyes and a jerk of his chin. “On the balcony there. He’ll be the gentleman with the axe.”

You sip some of the milk and take it with you as you turn around to follow the man’s eyes. Above the floor of the inn is a long balcony with sturdy doors leading to four bedrooms, but there are a few tables up there too. Some of the townspeople seem to have pushed them all together to make one long table, at the head of which sits a muscular man. His brown beard is split down the middle and knotted in such a complicated way that it looks like it is tied behind his ears. By his side is a solid slab of steel: the cleanest, boldest steel you have ever seen and it shines particularly brightly at the points. A battle-axe. Its silvery light stands out against the browns, reds and blonds of every other object in the room, as though it does not belong. You have to wonder how heavy it is. Probably heavier than you.

Talmir is talking with friends when you reach him and they don’t notice you. Unsure how to get the great man’s attention, you just sip your milk and look at him. The axe is even shinier up close, and his beard is even sillier. You think that trimming and arranging it must take a lot of his time in the mornings.

The big men are excited, talking about a kidnapping that has taken place in town and the villainous bandits who are responsible. The dragon killer is nodding and frowning distantly. It is hard to make-out exactly what has happened, since they are all speaking at once and trying to be heard over one-another, but the word Princess is mentioned at least once. They have worked themselves into a fever, swinging tankards and swapping boasts about how strong they are, or how many heads they will cut off, which ranges from five (from the youngest and thinnest man) to a thousand (the second-youngest and most drunk). Talmir pretends to laugh. Finally he says, “Tomorrow, my friends,” and they calm down. It is obvious that they revere him.

It is now that one of the men bumps into you, and all at once they see you and fall quiet. Five of them stagger backwards, one trips over. You feel their eyes on your face and you wonder what you look like.

“They don’t normally allow children in the Bowman’s…” someone says quietly.

“Speak, child,” says Talmir, but he does not act or sound like a warrior. He is still and bored and unhappy, like a grandfather.

“I have come to see Talmir Dragonkiller,” you say.

“Well done. You’re seeing him now,” says Talmir, and there is laughter. “You aren’t from town. Why are you looking for me?”

It is hard to answer without either seeming stupid or lying. After a moment you just open your mouth and hope that it produces an answer. “I have heard that you are a hero,” you say. No-one laughs.

“Yes.” That’s all he says. The way he forms the word suggests that he has a lot more to say but he has decided not to.

“This man,” says a fellow in a coat of chain mail, slapping his hand on Talmir’s wide shoulder, “is the saviour and protector of the town!”

You nod to show respect.

“He was the last survivor of an expedition to slay the great dragon who threatened the land, ten years ago.”

“Yes,” says Talmir again.

“What say you, boys? Shall we tell the story, aye?”

At this, the men roar and laugh. Out of the corner of your eye you see Talmir whisper something, but only for a second. The man in the mail sits you down and spills a little of your milk.

But before they can begin, Alferd emerges through the crowd behind you and delivers a plate of fresh meat and fruit with a wink. You are grateful and hungry. This seems like a good inn. A good town. It’s nice.

And so you eat while the crowd tell Talmir’s story. Each man recites a verse and you are excited to hear such an epic story told by those people who are closest to the hero himself. His silence, as they speak, makes him seem grand and above you. Not rude, but above you. It is hard not to smile.

“Talmir the Bold was the champion of his village, far to the West,” says an older man with a wispy voice and grey tips to his moustache. A few eyes turn to him. Others still watch you with an assured grin. “His home was like ours: a town that was so far from the Royal Castle that it was only barely under the King’s rule, and very rarely saw anyone from the court. So, like us, his people were simple and fair.”

“And honest, and poor!” says a heavy man. There is loud laughter.

A young member of the group then speaks up and leans on the table. “One day Talmir is out hunting, as the task was often left to him, y’see. And as he spears his last beast of the day he hears the sound of thunder. Of course the thunder doesn’t bother a man like this, so he shrugs it off. But he realises there was no lightning. And then suddenly the thunder sounds again, louder, and again, louder, and the whole sky is suddenly dark as night!”

The tale is gripping you so much that you almost forget about the food you’ve been given. Without looking, you grab some of the meat and shove the whole piece into your mouth, chewing as fast as you can.

“It’s the dragon!” the young man says. “It has arrived from the Heavens in order to destroy us all!”

There is some mumbling around the table, and the greying man mutters, “It was not from the Heavens. Dragons are not from Heaven.”

“Well then it was from a mountain, or the pits of the Earth or a far off continent, or something…” says the other. “Anyway, it was a dragon. Talmir gathered eleven of his most trusted kinsmen, see, and he charged them to follow him into battle. They marched outside the village walls and screamed as one to get the dragon’s attention, then fought it with bow and sword, until it fled. He saved his village!”

“That’s amazing!” you start to say, but you are interrupted by the man in the chain mail.

“Talmir is too much of a hero to let it go, of course!” he says. “So he and his fellowship steeled themselves, packed supplies for a great journey, and set forth to hunt the beast. They follow the trail of flattened trees and burning grassland, and every time they catch up to the filth, it turns to attack them. Every time, they lose a man to its jaws. And every time, they cut a fresh wound through the animal’s scales. In the end, they are exhausted, having battled and withstood the dragon more than any group of warriors ever could, and they lose the rest of their men to wolves and murderers, and a witch. Talmir alone survives, and he slays all these foes by himself even as he keeps up the chase.”

“Finally he…” says a new speaker, a man with a blond beard, but the old man pipes up again.

“Finally, he and the dragon met once again, and found that they were both too fatigued to run any longer. The monster flew straight upwards, as high as the Sun itself, and them slammed its body right back down into the ground, hoping to land on Talmir and pulverise him.”

“But of course…” the man in mail is grinning very deeply and you smell his breath. “Talmir leaps out of the way just in time. He falls helplessly down the great crater that has formed in the ground, no-doubt thinking that he’ll die when he reaches the bottom.”

“And what did you do then, Talmir?” you ask

Talmir does not seem to hear the question, but after a moment of anticipation the blond man hammers the table with his fist and cries, “He grabs hold of its neck and slices it in two with his hunting axe!”

There is a cheer so loud that everyone down below looks up to see what the noise is about. A lot of them smile or even join in.

“Alferd the innkeeper found me,” Talmir finally says, quietly, “on his way back from a visit to a merchant caravan. He dressed my wounds and gave me water, and then he carried me down the path of the Red River, to this, his home town.”

The man in the mail coat asks what you think and you tell the truth. You enjoyed it very much. He is pleased and grasps your shoulder. As you finish your fruit and milk, the men slowly begin to calm down. Their conversation moves to small bragging, and then to mutterings about you, and finally to ordinary town chit-chat. Talmir says very little and does not look at you, so you just finish your meal. When you are done, you hurry downstairs with Alferd’s tray.

As you are climbing down you see him talking to a group of customers at a table in the corner. He has a jug of something, with which he fills their mugs, and they seem to share a joke as one of them kicks the thin skirting board at the bottom of the wall and scratches his shin. You decide to wait by the bar and leave the tray on it.

The bartender breaks away and returns to you almost immediately, and takes the tray gladly. You thank him and he smiles. “You must have travelled a long way, little ‘un,” he says. It makes you laugh out loud when he calls you that, and you worry that you have insulted him, but he just smiles back warmly.

“I think I have,” you say.

He doesn’t pry, but sits down on a stool he has behind the bar and looks at you. “We do have a spare room, little ‘un,” he says. “You can stay there as long as you need to.”

You tell him that you don’t have any gold coins, but he calmly tells you that you won’t need any. You thank him again.

“No need for that, either,” he says, and offers you another drink. You shake your head.

“How long have you known Talmir?” you ask.

Alferd pours some milk for himself as he answers. “Since he arrived,” he says. “He stays here. I had three rooms to rent before the dragon killer arrived. Now I have two rooms, and the honour and safety that only a hero’s presence can offer.”

You ask what Talmir is like.

“Like you see,” Alferd says, simply. “He’s grand and he’s quiet. Respectable.”

“Did he really save the land from the dragon?”

“The dragon’s skeleton is still out there to the North, where it cracked the Earth and made its last stand,” he says. The innkeeper’s eyes drop to the bar and he starts wiping at a stain you can’t see.

“He must be brave,” you say.

Alferd’s smile widens and he steps away from the bar, walks out into the middle of the inn. Pointing back up at the balcony, he tells you that your room will be the one right at the end. He says it is small, but then so are you, little’un. And you laugh politely. With a chuckle he wanders off toward a hand, waving at him from another table.

Upstairs you see Talmir shuffle back and forth in his chair. Nobody else seems to be watching him right now so he keeps shuffling for almost a minute. When he is tired of this, he gets up. He slowly wanders over to the window at the end of the balcony and then rests his head against the glass. Without thinking you jump up the stairs and go over to talk to him. There are little bits of bread in that beard of his, and his eyes seem larger now.

“Talmir, what happened next?” you ask.

He looks at you, frowning a little, the way an ordinary person would look at a piece of fruit in a market. “They have… embellished the story a bit,” he mutters. “What happened after that was that I recovered here, and I sat in that chair over there and told my story to the townsfolk. And then they told me I was their hero. A lot.”

“Yes,” you agree.

“And I said nothing, and they gave me food and a ceremonial axe to replace the old, blunted one I used to carry. They do not ask me to work.”

You move a little closer to hear him better, and ask, “When will you return to your village?”

After a long pause he sighs and says, “There are other wolves out there. There are other witches. And dragons, perhaps. My little friend, I cannot go home.” He sounds weary and has begun to slur his words.

“You have eleven new companions!” you tell him, looking at the others.

“Yes, but who’s to say that on the way back, I will be the one who survives, hm?”

You don’t have an answer, so the two of you just stare at each other for a while. Eventually he coughs.

“I have never used this axe,” he says. “I ran a long way, and I survived.”

You nod, but you feel strangely empty. “What about the kidnapped Princess?”

Talmir breathes through his nose and says, “There are knights in the kingdom, child. They can do the job better. And these men here will be sober tomorrow. I will not remind them of their boasting.”

“You’re… you’re not going to fight the bandits?”

Talmir doesn’t move at all and just says, “A hero can be any man, little one. Whichever man is left at the end of a journey. The only one who didn’t make the ultimate sacrifice.”

“Oh,” you reply.

The man who killed the dragon nods and closes his eyes. You slink away, climb down the stairs and pass the empty bar, forgetting all about the room you were offered. Hurrying away from this place you push the inn doors open again. They seem even heavier this time.

** ** Continue reading →

Alfred and the Flies

by Chris Buchanan
Short story, 2012
A young volunteer at a suicide hotline listens to an old hand.

—

There are always two Samaritans working, on four hour shifts. Depending on the time of day and circumstance, the two might spend this time hunched over in the two booths, occasionally looking through glass to nod and smile at each other but otherwise listening intently, or they might be on two comfortable armchairs, eating free biscuits and trying to make conversation.

Today is Wednesday afternoon. There aren’t many calls and neither of us feels like taking them. Stewart took the last one, but it only lasted a few minutes. Every time the phones ring, I wonder if this is a real call. A call where a person is about to violently commit suicide and needs somebody caring and brave to talk it out with them and save their life. But most of the calls are short and not very important.

I hear Stewart replace the old, white plastic receiver now, and waddle back to the armchairs. I finish chewing. “That,” he says, “was a gentleman asking me to tell him my height, as a masturbatory aid.” This is normal. Even I am no longer surprised or even amused by these calls. I just nod.

Stewart has been a Samaritan for a long time, long enough that there is little excitement or drama in it for him any more. His face is always slack, at peace, either satisfied with or indifferent to everything he witnesses, like a man at the end of a good meal. He has a permanent smile on one side of his mouth and slightly harsh blue eyes, as though he has no difficulty with anything he does, leaving at least half of his mental capacity free to reminisce. I hope I’m that way when I’m his age.

The sound of my swallowing the biscuit is loud in this deliberately silent, cozy room. Stewart doesn’t look at me or anything but I feel a little self-conscious, so I get a glass of water.

“Are you making tea?” he says.

“Just water.”

Stewart has gotten into his chair now, and he lets his back fall into it. “Very good,” he says, smiling to himself as if something very amusing has happened but he doesn’t want to share it. “Very good.” After a short silence he picks up one of the celebrity gossip magazines, opens it and gives a slight, almost cartoonish sneer. He gets bored of this and puts it back down.

After a moment he starts laughing and murmuring. He wants me to ask him why.

“What are you thinking about?” I’m friendly. Everyone here is.

He cleans his glasses against his cardigan, straightens the tie beneath and tilts himself towards me.

“Well,” he says, and I sense he’s preparing something. Choosing his words.

“Well. I knew a great man, once. A compassionate and thoughtful man. One who did his best, when it came to people. Alfred, his name.”

I’m drinking my water, but I put it down for a minute. “Oh?” I murmur. It’s always a bit awkward getting to know someone, especially in this room for some reason. We call it The Office. I fold my hands.

Stewart continues. “Alfred’s life brought him to a state where he was capable of viewing every living organism just the same as any other: as an individual. And one worth knowing. If he saw a dog turn its neck, he shared its wonder. When he saw a bird suddenly flapping into the air, he turned to see what was wrong, as if he were afraid. He was kind. I called it a higher plane of thought, but he didn’t like that. Great people always lie about their greatness, don’t they? I just sort-of trusted that he had a good reason for that. Because he didn’t like liars.”

This story sounds rehearsed, I think, but I narrow my eyes, showing that I’m paying attention. He nods once more and carries on.

“One day he was at home and he saw a fly on his window. Its tiny legs, each one as thin as a human hair (you know how small they are) flicking back and forth as its body just stood there on the glass. Like an anchor with… snakes tied to it. It’s perfectly alert, this fly, but it has nowhere to go. The fly has come into Alfred’s house, seen the window and thought ‘Ah! This is the way out!’ Because he can’t see the glass, you see.”

I laugh a little. “Yeah,” I say. “I get it.” And Stewart laughs back, approvingly.

“Alfred saw the fly there. And in his wisdom and intelligence he understood why it couldn’t escape. And of course he could not allow the creature to suffer this way. So he scooped it up with a little tumbler and a paperback and he let it out of the door. Problem solved. The only trouble is that later (this was summer, by the way) there was another fly on the window. Again, he moved it away with his tumbler, which he had to sterilise again, and released it to his garden. But later on, when he got back from his dinner he saw three more flies.

“He chastised himself, of course. How could he have relaxed and eaten when three souls were struggling for their lives, confused out of their tiny minds, in his home? You see, to him, the flies were no less valuable than people. The only difference between them and us, as he saw it, was intelligence. And you don’t let somebody suffer for an hour, trapped and confused in what they perceive as an impossible maze, just because they’re too stupid not to know what glass is. Do you?”

I don’t know if Stewart wants me to agree with him or question him, so I just tilt my head and let him finish his story.

“So Alfred stood around the window for a bit, helping the flies get back to their lives. When he was finished he locked the door, obviously, and he went to my house next door, to see if there were any flies there. And there were, so he asked if he could come in to get rid of them. And this went on, every day, until he disappeared. And he probably spent the rest of his life staring at glass, concentrating with his eyes all screwed up like yours are now, quickly tapping his little cup against the windows, over and over again, and walking over to the door.”

I don’t know what to say. I can’t help feeling like I’m being patronised, but I have no idea how. I begin to hope the phone will ring again. It doesn’t. Stewart keeps looking at me, waiting for my reaction.

“What happened to him?” I ask.

“I don’t know. He disappeared. He’s probably died by now.”

“Oh,” I say. “I’m sorry.”

“I didn’t know him very well. I just thought he was fascinating.”

There is so little to do in this little room, I think. I could nod, which wouldn’t satisfy him. I could look at the phone booths, which would be rude. I could get another glass of water, perhaps? Something occurs to me and he seems to see the recognition on my face. He smiles widely this time.

“Is there a hidden meaning in that story for me?” I ask. “Did Alfred volunteer at the Samaritans?”

Stewart raises his eyebrows for a second and looks for the magazine. After a second he answers. “No. Not at all.”

“Oh. I thought you meant… because of what we do here. Helping people.”

“Did you?” He sounds a little bit annoyed now. “If you go around thinking the people we talk to on the phone are comparable to flies, then you’re in the wrong job, believe you me.”

“I’ll make you a cup of tea.”

“Very good. One sugar, no milk.”

I get up and make it. As I return to The Office, I see that Stewart has answered another phone call. From the sound of his replies and his tone, I guess that the conversation might go on for a while. He’s asking serious questions, you know. I leave his tea by his side, to which he mouths a ‘thank you’, and take my seat again.

And immediately there is a familiar sound, one that makes my head dart upwards. A fly’s buzz.

It zig-zags through the open door to our empty little hallway, makes a couple of circles around the room, and then hits the window hard. There is that sudden THOCK sound that I always think is somehow too loud. An animal so small and delicate as a fly can’t make a noise like that. The whole animal is the size of a crumb, made in miniature out of thin, barely-glued-together black wire that crunches if you touch it, like sugar-glass, and those wings look like a good wind could rip them in half. But when this tiny crisp of a creature collides with a window, you get this dull, heavy note.

Something that size, I think, can’t make a THOCK. It sounds like a cricket ball hitting clay.

Our window is thick, wavy and heavy, so that it lets in natural light but keeps our little office secretive. The fly just sits there for a moment, dead still, then crawls about, looking for a way through. I look around for a glass or a dry tea cup, but I don’t get up. The room strikes me again, and I notice how artificial it is, in an odd way. The chairs are very nice, very soft. The place is spotless, not that I’ve ever seen anyone cleaning, and that biscuit tin is always full somehow. But the top half of the room is just old white walls, almost completely covered by notices and letters and lists of rules and important information, and warnings and requests and timetables. They’re messy.

Stewart must have heard the fly’s buzzing and he must have noticed the coincidence. He probably smiled, but he doesn’t turn away from his phone call to smile at you or anything like that. He seems to be engrossed, which is odd for him. Maybe this is a serious call. A real call.

I haven’t had any of those yet.

Caravaggio after the death of Ranuccio Tomassoni

by Chris Buchanan
Poetry, 2010

—

A reward for the head of the killer!
The head we can’t see in the black
of the scene. The perfectly honest expression
which is not our focus.

Michelangelo Merisi,
of Porto Ecole, formerly of Malta and Naples
and Rome, and Caravaggio,
has black hair lit by the yellow-white fingers
he thrusts his head at.

But that’s all we can see. Black hair,
black suit, crumpled and dirtied
like nails holding rotten fruits.

A dagger and sword, unlicensed
but blessed by a friend of a friend of a patron.
He runs from a tennis court.

‘Humility conquers pride’
says the sword on the still-moving
right leg. The leg is a master’s but it’s black,
never draped in red cloth like his perfectly human
dying virgin.

The most famous painter in Rome, and a good
duellist, flees the sordid scene at night, the streetlamp
bathing the fallen man and the hot spit still on his body.
The spit still on the monster’s lips
is invisible, for now.

A reward for the hero who slays this sinner
and takes him from this dark world into paradise.

God’s Wife

by Chris Buchanan
Poetry, 2010

—

I was God’s wife. Not the pillar of salt. God’s.
Our Heaven was good, just didn’t last very long.
He spent all his time in His Garden,
didn’t talk to me much after the wedding.
Then He made another woman, brown and beige,
really little, but in my own image,
but little. He waved unknowable fruit at her, teasing.
‘Nooo, you can’t have this one. This one’s for meee.’
I hear He has a train set now
or something, and He flooded the little people? I dunno.
It’s possible He even killed their first born.
I hear He has their witches stoned?
And He fathered a kid with another of the beggars
or something. I didn’t look back.

Isn’t This Worth Fighting For? ENLIST NOW

by Chris Buchanan
Poetry, 2010

—

We fight for Bayer Heroin,
unsubtle assassins with knives tied to rifles.
For duty.
We fight for King and Kaiser,
for homes and lovers, real or imagined,
for sweet milky Weetabix warmed in a tin
and brothers, alliances we’ve steeled between us
for good.
We fight for the Internet access
the minister promised to keep us connected,
to keep us alive and listening to Lily Allen
here, where even Geri Halliwell now fears to tread.
Sometimes we just like it. Drumbeats tied to violence.
We fight.
Circumstance, conquest, convictions,
feathers or leaders, posters or sons.
For Hannah or London
or some other capital
we care for.

Henri Rousseau’s Safari Park

by Chris Buchanan
Poetry, 2010

—

We visited Henri Rousseau’s safari park when the wars
were done. The place was overgrown, left
in such a hurry.

The leaves we could see in that little clearing were choking,
splattered into wet root husks and mud,
turning deep and greasy as they bent into heaps,
churning the rain into thick, dark colour.

No animals were still in sight but the really frightened ones
with the biggest teeth.

The branches were thinner there, beyond that sole glass
window that stood there, constrained to its case
but rattling in the winds,
where the ticket office had been.

The park must have been beautiful in the moment,
when the bombs were cracking the city around it,
after the gift shop and before the peace time.

When we finally arrived, it was too late.
The zookeeper had moved on, left this stark storm behind him.
Europe was safe for one more generation.
We got in our car, wiped our glasses and left.

The Wasp on the Window

by Chris Buchanan
Poetry, 2010

he beats flaps of film,
no more than shed flakes of skin to Him,
more advanced,
He who wonders at his easy flight
and brushes breadcrumbs from fat lips.

He backs away,
as if that tiny blunted point of abdomen
could wound
this other, with eyes larger than his being,
eyes in subtle, soft, insidious colours.

The bastard takes mysteries for granted, guttering
loud, slow nonsense over sputtering.
Helpless scrabbling on invisible surface,
reflective, while he watches perfect.
he waits

and watches the fuck,
legs moving like tools to prime,
mechanical
lifts to lift him away
if He tries to crush his fragile shell.

If He tries then weak venom strikes, spikes,
spills his mind and fills his pike.
he moves in faster planes, HE flies!
He cannot fly! HE can fly, HE will FLY!
HE’LL kill!

A move is made and he backs back a bit
to the strange safety of confounding surface, flits
into air
unsweetened by jam and sweat and mammal.
he escapes, transgressing transfixing panel.

Tomorrow it will play out again.
He dares to take his air
and offer His sandwich.
Tomorrow HE’LL win!
He’s more scared of him than he is of HIM.

To the good-looking girl on the train, drinking Gordon’s and singing along to Edith Piaf

by Chris Buchanan
Poetry, 2010

—

No? You honestly have no regrets?
No, I guess you’d have no use for them.
You look near-perfect to me, well except
for maybe your singing, and even then
you do it stylishly. Everything paid
and sipped from tiny bottles, like your gin.
Yesterday’s losses loudly swept away,
your fleeting doubts banished with ‘no’ again.

I wish I felt the same about regrets.
I wish I’d stopped the trolley-bloke, just now,
and a had a drink myself, to just forget
like you with your rien. Perfect and proud.
But next time, love, I shan’t just let him go
with such a simple, sorry answer, ‘No’.

This Grand Forever

by Chris Buchanan
Short story (2013)
A handsome man strolls through the perfectly-preserved city of Paris. But good looks are deceiving nowadays and they certainly don’t come cheap.

—

“It is good to see you again, Monsieur!” said the watchmaker, smiling the emotionless but reassuring smile of the successful career salesman. The look told Robert that although both of them knew the sentiment was for show, there was no game being played. No sales pitch, no clever platitudes. Just veneer. The watches at Armand’s were good enough to sell themselves and the customers were wealthy enough to be greeted politely.

There was a look in the man’s eyes, though, even now. Like everyone did, he had stopped short when Robert entered the building and stared for just a moment.

He was used to it by now. Something about him, everything about him, looked wonderful. His face was large and rugged enough to quietly intimidate, but then it was smooth, easy and blue-eyed enough to ensure that nobody noticed. His hair naturally fell into loose, deep-blond waves that held their shape at all times, and his pale grey suit and open-collared shirt fit him as well as his skin.

And for some silly reason, seeing a handsome guy around just seemed to make people happy. Even those who seemed more jealous than pleased, like the watchmaker did now, automatically lightened their mood.
Armand, who held his own boyish, sleek features with an odd stoop, turned away from his client and retrieved a gold and bronze wristwatch from under the counter.

“Oh, wow,” said Robert, and this made the watchmaker’s smile much wider.

“I told you it would not disappoint, ah?”

“Well, you know, I believed you! But that really is something.”

As he carefully took the watch and turned it around to admire the tiny etched hallmark at the centre of the velvet-fold where the two metals blended together, Robert breathed an easy breath.

Of course, all of his breaths were easy.

“I have been hand-making these watches for sixty years, you know.”

“Time well spent, evidently,” Robert added, still admiring the fold.

“Always, Monsieur.”

Responding with a polite and warm glance, Robert tried his watch on. He went about this with sincere care, making sure to lower the piece without bending any of the uniform, half-inch hairs on his wrist backwards or turning them askew. This done, and the clasp sealed, he ran the edge of a finger across the curve of the face. It would stay this grand forever.

“It’s wonderful. Merci beaucoup.”

Armand relaxed then, waiting for the conversation to end, though neither was in any hurry. The payment had been dealt with upfront, days ago, when the gentleman had placed his order. And you only had to look at the man to see that he meant business.

“I am sure I will see it on your wrist again someday!”

“I’m just on vacation,” Robert answered happily, but the other man was not boasting. Workmanship like this meant a lot more than a souvenir. It was designed to be with him for as long as his arm. “Thanks a lot, really,” he repeated, shaking the salesman’s hand and strolling through the empty, sleek-looking shop and into the evening sunlight of the Marais.

The air was still fresh even though the day was coming to an end. He wasn’t too warm in his light suit, or too uncomfortable in his soft, carved-leather shoes, or too worried or too tired. In fact he was starting to forget what it felt like to be too much of anything. Paris was just always nice. So he walked.

It was an amusing coincidence that one of the world’s oldest cities was so full of youth. Nobody he met displayed a wrinkle, everyone was neatly turned-out, and they held themselves as if it were impossible to be any other way. It was as though hardship was a concept that had never become fashionable here. Most of all, he noticed how much they all looked like him. Like him, but not quite as good. Except for the occasional passer-by who even he had to stop and stare at, no-one quite matched him.

This smug feeling stayed with Robert only for a moment, before he realised how strange and silly his thoughts sounded to him, and he laughed. A pretty girl in a lovely yellow hat noticed him laughing at himself and reflexively smiled back at him, as if sharing the joke.

His hands in his pockets but his head high, he strolled past an antique lamp-post with its original black iron finish painstakingly reinforced with an invisible weave of Cilrex, ensuring that it would remain undamaged by weather or collision for as long as the neighbourhood wanted it. The thing must have been there for centuries, he reasoned, and it would be around longer still, considering the city’s dedicated effort for preservation. He checked his watch.

It had already been fifteen minutes since he had picked it up. That was one thing about Paris, or about this trip in general: the time really flew. With no weight in his legs, no particular plans in his head beyond getting back to his hotel, and nothing remotely ugly meeting his eyes, it was just hard to count the seconds.

Ducking into a side-street to make what he hoped was a short-cut, Robert quickly found himself in a cute little square of pale oblong paving stones. Every other one had become an impromptu canvas for a street artist, covered with everything from challenging abstracts to recreated Renaissance masterpieces, and all of them were exquisite. At the moment only one man was working, putting the finishing touches to The Girl With a Pearl Earring. It would be impolite not to say anything, so Robert admired it for a long moment and gave a heart-felt ‘bravo’.

Of course, the artist was happy to hear it. And of course, he was gracious. A moment later he returned to his details.

Robert looked at his watch again. God, it would be dark soon. He felt as though he had wandered to the top floor of the world’s most lovely museum and now could barely bring himself to find the exit. With a little more spring in his step he headed along a new route made of smaller and smaller side-streets, almost unsure of his direction, and found himself among more homely boutiques and little cafés. Outside a post office he saw what looked like an old woman. He was almost taken aback, having forgotten that Paris was home to anyone over forty, but she saw him too and seemed pleased to be noticed. She had a crooked nose. In times gone by, you might have called it charming.

Of course, she might not have been as old as she looked. He might have been older than her, even. Nobody really talked about actual age these days. It seemed irrelevant.

Brushing the thought away from his mind, he carried on gliding through the streets, between pair after pair of those adorable lamp-posts, standing guard on either side of every road, all of them clean and straight, strong and storied.

They quickly brought him to the bank of the Seine, the same way he had come this morning, and Robert was glad to have quickened his return. For the rest of the walk his view was caught between the natural grandeur of the river and the statues and structure of Tuileries garden. The road was quiet and gentle too, with only the occasional car swishing by and only a handful of people on either side. The Tower guided him then, and the rest of the walk was a pleasure.

When he saw the tan, carved walls of the hotel, his home for the week, he glanced again at the watch. Again he was surprised by how long it had been since last time; how many minutes had come along and then gotten away from him. But it wasn’t very important. The restaurant and bar were open at all times, and he wasn’t hungry anyway.

Of course, he was never hungry. Nobody in the developed world had been hungry for a good sixty years, now. Eating was just something you did for nostalgia or irony. Or comfort.

Old habits were hard to shake off.

Of course.

He had spent most of his life in an artificial body. When they were new he had certainly not been able to afford one, but in time the technology became commonplace, and then there were the protests and the riots. There came a point when allowing people to live and die in their birth bodies became either ridiculous or barbaric, depending on who you talked to. They were given away by almost all Western governments in early childhood now, and then replaced or custom-built at regular intervals. Government issue models were far from perfect, obviously. There were still debates on the news about that.

But what did they expect to be given for free? Their brains rested easily in hardened skulls, connected to sensory apparatus which worked better than nature’s own, and carried about by limbs and trunks which would last forever, with proper maintenance. Those with no jobs or no sense wore the models with asymmetrical features and knobbled knees, or short legs and shrunken skin. Somebody had to. That’s just economics. Everywhere couldn’t be Paris, could it?

“Welcome back, Monsieur,” said a pretty concierge, distracting him. She had deep red hair and skin like cream-caramel. At first she seemed too good-looking to be working in service, even at the best hotel in the city, but then Robert noticed the malformed thumb on her left hand. That explained it: a factory imperfection.

Every now and again you saw somebody who seemed way too pretty for their job and then you wondered what their deal was, until you saw the missing piece or damaged skin or badly-programmed ‘allergy’. It was a trade-off.

“Nice to be back,” he replied absently. That gentle, innocent and assured smile of his made her crease her forehead for him.

“And how was your day?”

“Great. Just a little shopping, you know. Saw the sights I guess. It’s just nice to relax.”

“Oui. You are in the right place. Would you like to stop for a drink at La Lucien, or return to your room?”

Robert mulled it over while she waited, then laughed in slight embarrassment. “Well I guess I could go for a drink!” he said as if he were being cheeky, and she chuckled with him as she led him to the bar.

“Champagne, sir?”

“Ah, sure,” he offered in reply. “Please. I’ll take the bottle upstairs myself.”

The girl poured him a glass of their best from an old, odd-looking bottle and left both of them on the bar. She stood attentively, impassively watching ahead while he sipped.

The fine wine fell over highly responsive sensors on his tongue and the roof of his mouth, which looked just like taste buds but ran a little better, a little more agreeably. The reflexive sigh he gave was coded-in just for habit; without any purpose at all, a reflex whose evolutionary purpose had long-since died away. It was one of the ‘kinks’ that the manufacturers had unanimously agreed to keep. People still slept, because it was nice to sleep together. The good models didn’t snore, or yawn, or get bad breath or any gross thing like that. Bathing was still possible but toilets were unnecessary. People still had two eyes and two hands, and the consensus among technicians seemed to be that this was how it would stay.

Body-design had reached its peak. This was as good as they would ever get. Robert, right here in this bar, drinking his complimentary champagne while the girl with the weird thumb waited, was as good as it would get.

He finished the glass quickly and nodded a goodbye to her. It would have been insulting to tip, he figured. Would have made her feel ugly.

It was a short walk over an antique Persian carpet past the front desk and to the elevator, but a strikingly bald man in his thirties with undamaged Nubian features and striking cheek bones – a manager perhaps? – stopped him.

“A letter for you, Monsieur,” the man said in a flawlessly old-French accent. Robert stopped looking at him.
In the gentleman’s hand was a fancy paper envelope. It was the only way they could reach him now. He had disconnected his call number before he set off from home and while in Paris he had made a point of only using systems with a new, anonymous username.

Smiling a reassuring smile beneath his gently down-turned eyes, Robert reached out his free hand to take the letter with a simple ‘thanks’. Holding it casually between thumb and forefinger, he strolled over to the elevator and looked deep in thought while he waited a long moment for the carriage.

He was inside and pressing for his suite at the top floor before the doors were half-way open. The car responded right away and he was at his floor in less than ten seconds.

In that time, without really being aware of what he was doing, he thumbed-open the envelope, stopped breathing, and read. The glow of the interior lights and the softening touch of the velvet-lined walls gave an amber sheen to the paper. He had to squint.

URGENT

From the offices of Warburton, Llewellyn and Mamet

Dear Mr Ross,

Further to our correspondence on April 5th, April 9th and April 12th, we write with strongest urgency to follow-up the issue of outstanding debt. As we informed you following the first two successful instalments on March 25th and March 29th, your account(s) have declined payment without explanation.

Please contact the company’s private debt-collection agency (contact info is repeated overleaf) immediately to ensure an amicable resolution. Failure to do this may result in repossession of your body and / or legal action if agreed funds cannot be transferred within five days of time of writing.

Signed in absence— John Warburton, chief executive

DO NOT IGNORE THIS LETTER

Robert didn’t actually read the whole thing. It was too hard to look. He saw the word ‘urgent’ and skimmed the rest. He was certain he had seen ‘payment’ in there somewhere, and a bunch of dates for when he should have been in touch with them. And he thought he saw ‘legal action’ and ‘failure’ too. Most painful of all, the most paralysing piece of this horror, the cruellest blow, were the words ‘five days’.

Well.

Fuck.

But all right. At least it wasn’t from the bailiffs. Or worse.

But fuck. Jesus fuck.

Already? They hadn’t even waited until his vacation was over?

In the space of a few seconds he went from feigned-outrage to complete terror, to wild imagination, to meek attempts to calm himself, to wilful ignorance, to resignation. It was a cycle he was familiar with.

They were onto him. It was all over. In five days.

The letter had found its way safely back inside its envelope and now Robert was at the door to his room, shoving his cool blue eyes toward the retinal scanner and muttering at it to hurry up. He fidgeted and ground his teeth while the door took an eternity to recognise him and slide open.

He would have sweated, but this body didn’t sweat. He would have shaken and cried and felt his cheeks burn and redden in shame and blind panic, but his body didn’t do those things either. It seemed only to casually observe the door and give it a studious, thoughtful expression, before athletically jogging inside.

Now that he had holidayed for a few days, he barely noticed the majesty of the suite. It was large but designed to be cosy, with sloping sofas and antique book-cases hugging its many corners and soft drapes covering or framing everything in simple but imaginative ways. The bed was an enormous, impossibly comfortable geometric puzzle of velvet and silk in various subtly-mixing shades of amber. The whole place looked best at dawn and twilight and then spent the rest of the time keeping just the right amount of light inside so that it barely changed.

It was nice just looking at it, Robert thought as he set down the champagne in an ice-bucket. It made him forget about his troubles.

Made him forget about the vast amounts of money he had all but robbed. The stupidity of what he had done, just to spend a week in Paris. The ridiculous loan application. How he had closed his eyes and tried to sing to quieten his mind when he had clicked ‘confirm’. People would laugh so hard their backups would kick in to save their embarrassment. It would make every news outlet, when it was all said and done. When somebody walked in here and asked him what he had done and how he thought he was going to get away with it. And what the hell was wrong with him, and did he even know how much trouble he was in? In five days.

It was six-fifteen now. How long did he have left, in hours? Less than a hundred before it all came crashing down? Before every one of his credits bounced and he would have a tailor, a travel agent, an artisan watchmaker and of course a palatial hotel to contend with, as well as the world’s most exclusive body-manufacturer?

And he just knew he wouldn’t enjoy one more second of his stay. It was over. His old ways had set in.

Suddenly he wanted to sweat. His old model sweated all the damn time! It was one of the many reasons it had been so affordable. He wanted to howl like a mangy dog in its death throes. He wanted to curl up and choke in sheer panic, gasp for air and hyperventilate until his ears popped and his heart threatened arrest. Anything that would let him stop thinking about the next five days.

But he just stood there: the most handsome mannequin in the most knockout suit, standing in the middle of a billion-dollar furniture showroom and looking at its watch.

Why couldn’t they have just let him alone for another day?

Well. At least until now, this had been a good day.

Just once, a good day. He hadn’t thought about the money today, or about who he used to be. Not once since he slept last night. He had enjoyed it.

Maybe he ought to get some sleep now, he wondered. He could make himself sleep if he wished it, and this model certainly wouldn’t give him bad dreams. He would wake up eight hours later, completely refreshed and relaxed.

But that would be another eight hours gone, right there. How many times does eight hours go into five days?
“If only that letter could have arrived in the morning,” he said to himself. Robert’s new voice was smooth and deep, but pleasant and tinged with a self-deprecating humour. Just hearing the words aloud slowed his mind for a few seconds.

“Every time I start to get up,” he almost whispered, “something has to knock me down.”

As profound and heartfelt as the words came out, courtesy of the finest voice box money could buy, tuned to a specially-tweaked variant of the ideal Californian speech template, Robert didn’t believe them.

Warburton, Llewellyn and Mamet weren’t screwing him over. They weren’t being rude, interrupting him, harassing their social better. They were just asking for their money. They didn’t owe him another few days.

Nobody was knocking him down. He just forgot that down is where he was.

Beauty was for those who had earned it. Immortality on the other hand was for all registered U.S. citizens, even screwed-up, pathetic crooks like Robert Ross. He knew that and he respected it, but he just kinda wished it was the other way around. He had lived a long, long time now in a broken-down fat guy’s body, with a bad back, bad teeth and track marks from the morphine addiction he had given himself and finally had removed ten years back. And the memories of all the other shameful shit he had done, just to get through the days. It had been a long time working as a parking attendant and part-time pill dealer in Des Moines, which is all he’d managed in his long stretch on the Earth. He didn’t want to do it any more. He wanted a fucking ending. It was enough. And now that he had been someone better for a little while, the thought of going back was intolerable.

There would be a long stay in prison soon, and then there would be an infinity after he got out, but before both of those he would have to face somebody or other – a debt-collector maybe, or a detective, and then a judge, even some of the people he knew – and explain all of this. And look them in the eye and sweat. And before that there would be a moment where they got his brain back to his old body and re-installed it, and he’d have to look at himself again.

Robert carefully straightened his cuffs and ran his pre-manicured fingertips across his chin and down his tough, long neck. With another sigh he dropped his head a touch and leaned down to the bedside cabinet. In the top drawer was a cheap, ugly, loud pistol. He had brought it and stashed it here without ever really letting himself acknowledge the fact that he had always planned to use it. This was it, though, any minute now. Time to get it done. The five days would simply not happen, not like this. The hour of his death had arrived so much faster than he thought, and maybe that was the letter’s fault or maybe it was his own. Definitely his own. It was his own mess and always had been. It was what he had earned.

But right now it hardly seemed worthwhile beating himself up over the whole thing. He ran a firm hand through his hair and felt it slink back to place. That was a nice feeling. It almost felt like the afternoon again.

He moved toward the glass door to the balcony, then stopped and placed the letter on the cabinet. The door slid open at his approach and he stepped outside, breathing fresh, cool air.

Of course, the view was great.

It was just starting to get dark and Paris was subtly making its nightly transformation. The screens came out at night, always blinking into existence when your back was turned and then advertising tourist spots or prestigious companies, or just displaying artworks on the side of every building and the corner of every street. Warm, natural-looking lights bathed everything in sight with comfortably-familiar painting and sculpture, and works of commerce. Frame by frame the city dropped from white and silver to black and gold.

The Eiffel Tower, which Robert’s room was situated to face, was not yet lit. For a little while he considered waiting for it, but not for long. He had seen the Tower by night a few times now.

Glancing back to the room, looking for some comfort or distraction, he caught sight of his reflection in the glass panel wall separating the balcony.

He looked so good.

How many people could say they looked this good, he wondered? Even for a week? Most celebrities, most vid-actors, would stare with envy at this sight. He looked like a secret agent or something with this gun in his hand, on his way to save the world or whatever.

How many people could just turn around and casually remember that they looked like this?

Robert could, right then.

That new watch of his would never be as new again, and it would never look quite as good as it did on him. It would never match anybody’s hair and skin tones as wonderfully as it did his.

He’d had that.

The corpse he would leave tonight, the one that would bare his name at the hospital and then the police station, that would smile reassuringly next to his face in the newsfeeds tonight, that would always, in some way, be his –

The corpse would be beautiful.

He had thought about jumping, several times, but he always changed his mind. As grand and attention-grabbing as such a thing would surely be, it would have been far too risky. Bodies were tough and easily repairable. He needed to damage the only part of himself that he had been born with. And, God, he was scared.

Robert turned back to his city rooftop view and opened his mouth, shoving the gun’s barrel up against his skull and frowning awkwardly.

Before he was ready, he fired. The body dropped to the floor.

And Robert couldn’t concentrate but he thought he saw a blue box flash in front of his eyes, obscuring everything, panicking him. Something about a report and some numbers. Something about damaged nervous processors and a temporary shut down and emergency call-out. It was gone a moment later.

The next thing he saw was a cheap, white-painted ceiling. There were faded and peeled spots all along and replacement wood panels to cover damage and stains. He could move but his back hurt like hell and all he could see were the tops of Formica tables and a few clunky old screens and sensors, mostly with mains-connection wires and flat displays. A hospital ward or a workshop floor, he couldn’t tell, but it wasn’t built for luxury.

He tried as hard as he could to relax and pretend it wasn’t happening, but he knew it was a waste of time. The steady, rhythmic beeping of a stem monitor was driving him crazy.