After the change/One globe at a time

I saw the glint of black through thick swirls of snow. My chest tightened, and I ran towards the centre of the road. Feet padding over the soft layer of white, I knelt in the shrouded lane and flapped my hands over the black curve, brushing clumps of icy paste from it.

I stayed for a while in this position, nursing the black globe and turning it in my hands. The night was still around me, and fresh flakes settled on my scalp and shoulders. I had three now. I had three black globes, and as far as I knew, no-one else here had any.

I was still pawing at my gift when an angular figure separated from the heavy net of snow, clattering across my line of vision.

'Have you seen a child?'

I raised my head and stared at him. He looked cold and unkempt, and his sunken eyes froze imploringly on me. I clutched the globe closer to my jacket.

'Have you seen a small child, a girl? Please, she's missing - '

'No, I haven't.'

The man motioned to move towards me. I lifted my knees, spun on my heels, and darted away into the white curtain. I could hear him havering behind me as I crunched through the dotted flurry.

*

At home, I secured the locks and squeezed the wooden bars into their slots. The village streets were empty outside anyway, but the appearance of the man had thrown me. Squinting through the peephole, I thought I could make out his shape, still meandering through the thatched flakes. But I could also see many dark shapes twisting and blending behind the ripples of snow, and I had long since learned to be at peace with projections of the mind.

Shrugging my heavy jacket off, I crunched through to the living room, shaking blocks of snow from my boots. My two black globes took pride of place in the centre of the room, perched on the small table, cut from the gloom around them by their glinting beauty.

I stepped towards the table, new globe poised, and a woman fell into my left shoulder.

Jerking around, the black circle fell from my hands, and I caught the woman under her armpits. Folds of black hair caressed my palms and I pulled her up until her head was level with mine. Her face was clean and smooth, much cleaner than mine, but her eyes were frosted with a red glow.

'Have you been filling out your event-mood-thought record sheets?' She spat, clear and hollow.

'No,' I replied, propping her up again as her body buckled. Her forehead slumped into my shoulder, and I heard her voice, muffled against my jumper.

'Have you been filling out your event-mood-thought record sheets?'

'No.' I pulled her upright, and this time there were wisps of smoke sifting from her red eyes. With effort, I dragged her towards the cupboard at the far end of the room. Swinging the wooden door open, I heaved her inside, pushing the frames of four other people to the side as I tried to find room for her. In the relative darkness her eyes sparked bright red. As she banged against the back of the cupboard, she choked clipped sections of phrases, her voice slowing and descending in pitch.

'All that matters is.'

'Yes,' I muttered as I tugged a man out to make way for her.

'All that matters is that you try to be happy now.'

'Yes,' I said again, wedging the man back into the cupboard again and selecting a woman. I preferred the women to the men, to be honest. It always felt like the men were talking down to me. Stepping back, I surveyed the four bodies crushed in a line within the foosty container. They all seemed to be upright. Content, I pushed the cupboard doors shut. Then I pulled the woman I had retrieved by the legs over to a socket in the wall, and clipped a small adaptor into her ears. A quiet buzz swelled, and I left her to charge.

Hurrying back to the table, I inspected the dropped black globe. There seemed to be no marks or dents; pristine, endless dark depths washed between my hands. Breathing slower now, I lowered it onto the table beside its two companions, and knelt cross-legged to survey them.

Since the changes - and indeed, since everyone had left the village - they had appeared infrequently in the snow outside. There was always snow, now. 

I imagined they were appearing all over the world. I imagined in the cities, in the empty cities, there were great piles of black globes, glistening under a white coating. I imagined there were people in the world who had hundreds or thousands of them. Driven, resilient people. But I had three. I had three, and that was vital. It didn't matter how many other people had. I was my own person, and it was pointless to compare. 

The spill of moonlight outside bounced off them, harvesting a black/white sheen, and I thought then that they meant everything to me. Especially at this time, after all I had been through. I had to have something to cling to. They were gifts, and they had come to me for a reason. I had to have meaning in my life. If, throughout the span of my entire life, I had only had one, then all my meaning would be in that one black ball. I could build my meaning up this way, one globe at a time.

There was a tinkling noise in the corner, like a series of little bells. Turning my head, I saw that the women in the corner was sitting upright, rubbing her eyes. The tinkling noise flourished again; she pulled the charger out of her ear and addressed me.

'Hi, -. How are you today?'

She looked bright-eyed and inquisitive. Frowning, I turned back to the black orbs. 

'Have you been filling out your event-mood-'

'No!' I reached towards the left globe and patted it. When I had decided to stay - or, when most people had left - they had given me these five rechargables. In all honesty, they weren't much different from the real support I'd had, with their nicked soundbites. People had left me before. People would continue to leave. The important thing was to keep building up my own meaning. The important thing was to find my own centre.

'What are you looking at?' 

I ground the balls of my hands into my eye sockets. 'My globes.'

There was an extended pause then, and I saw the reflection of the thick snow in the black shapes.

'What have you lost?' She said.

My senses sparked. This was a new phrase. I couldn't remember the other four using it. Were there not boundaries?

'What do you mean?' I snapped. 'I haven't lost anything.'

I looked around to see her hands had lowered to the floor. Curls of hair fell over her forehead, and for a fleeting moment I thought she might be crawling towards me. My own hands seemed to tense up, and I clamped them over one of the globes again.

'Are you creating a likeness, or a surrogate?' She said, as her head slumped forward.

Confused, I pulled myself up and paced over to the corner. I prodded her on the shoulder, and when no response was forthcoming, I lifted her head by the chin. Her eyes were faint red; thin curls of smoke slid from them.

A surrogate? Grabbing at the charger, I clicked it back into her ear. There was a fizzing noise, and fuller plumes of smoke billowed from her face. Cursing, I kicked at the charger and traipsed back to the table. My head felt cloudy following the interaction, and I lay down beside the globes, pulling my jacket over to act as a pillow. I watched the snow spiralling in relentless waves as my consciousness slipped away.

I dreamt of a small girl sitting on the dark, snowy road, juggling three black globes.

*

The images accumulating behind my eyes were of people from my life before. On the border between sleep and wake, I fought this. But they always returned, as everything that is a part of you does.

I awoke with my mind flicking a whip-quick series of faces, and felt desperate. Shaking over to the hunched figure in the corner, I pulled at the charger and tugged at her hair. There was no response. Flinging the cupboard doors open, I heaved the four bodies out one at a time, sprawling their frames at jaunty angles over the floor.

Every part of me felt fevered and wired as I pulled the bodies over to the corner and tried the charger in every ear. I kept trying to reel in the present, to reel in mindfulness, but each split-second focus-pin would stretch and break under the weight of repeated images.

Four bodies in a row produced nothing more than sparked red eyes and coils of smoke, and as I scrabbled the charger into the fifth ear I could feel my bottom lip trembling. I wanted so desperately to be strong, and I wanted so desperately to find things to cling onto, in the right way...

'All that matters.'

The voice was neither male nor female; a rough staccato burst, devoid of emotion. The sharp sound of little bells drifted from the head in my hands. The eyes were still red, and I shook at the shoulders and stroked the hair back from the scalp.

'All that matters is that you try to be happy now.'

With that, the head swung to one side, and the eyes emitted little puffs of smoke. I kicked out at the limp frame. What use were these things? What use were these things if they wouldn't work?

Trudging over to the table, I sat in front of the black globes and willed the present back. I stared into the black sheen, freeing folds of livid thoughts onto the empty expanse of black. But there was nothing there. I felt nothing, and in time I was drawn again to the snowy window. Through the wall of flakes I thought there must have been a time when there was more than this.

Scooping the globes up in my arms, I raced out of the house. The snow was frantic today, moving in wild, erratic drifts, and I rushed towards the middle of the road. Stumbling to my knees, I dropped the globes into cushions of snow, flapping more layers over them until they were buried. I pressed my freezing hands into my forehead and looked up as a fine shape separated from the tumbling white net.

'Have you seen a child?'

Hurrying to my feet, I moved towards the man.

*