The Registering

Tom draws a small warm breath, he can see for miles. Through the
super-sheen of the windscreen, if he strains a little, he can glimpse
something moving in the ocean. The fading stern of a ship, perhaps. Or
exhaustion-dust itching -- persistent -- on his retina.

His stare dips into the cliff-bottoms below him. He'd said to her back
then, down there in the bay, "If you were the ocean, then I'd play in
you, I'd roll in you. I'd splash you around, and when tired, I'd lap
you up with the tongues of my toes".

It is the evening. Tom stretches back into the driver's seat of his
car. He tries to be still. If anything will come, he thought, it will
be when all is still. And he can grasp at her memory, have her back,
let her in. How the end had meant the beginning of nothing.

Nothing is such a vexed term which is why it fills so many people.
Nothing has more substance than anything. It's heavier, more noble, and
more affected than something. Nothing appears in different guises,
different shrouds, a multitude of hideous laughing capes. Every day Tom
was so stuffed with nothing he found it difficult not to be sick.

I want you. But now I must plan a series of events to qualify and
confirm you are gone. I must hold still, and lock you somewhere in me.
Keep what I have of you, in the bit of me that loves and screams
quietly at the same time. I have lost you, my lovely. I think I am
losing myself.

The night-dawn shimmers on Tom's chrome dashboard. Below, the waves
crash louder and harder, his mind runs thicker, faster. Talking quietly
into his laptop, he adjusts the car's lycenolene roof like skin, it is
programmed to ensure Tom is kept at a perfect temperature.

He has lived in his car for just over a week. It has been exactly nine
days since he left work, no-one but Tom knows where Tom is. It has been
ten evenings since he found Leyla laying cold. Translucent.

Leyla, I didn't choose your end, where it was sodden dark. Where the
wetness was thick.

The blinking WAP infra-red light teases Tom in the dark. He is pleased
he can conduct this very private affair in private. Everything, he can
order everything online these days, even death consumerables.

He thought first how of long ago he and Leyla had met minds. Tom had
held a Net Masters course in Creative Writing, and she'd been his Web
pupil. Theoretically, they'd met fifteen years ago. But really, they'd
met just below, on the bay, fourteen years ago. He had been astounded
by her writing, the way her words slivered into his unconscious, only
to wake him at night. Or to incite want in his patchworked
dreams.

He thought of how he'd known her before he'd met her. He thought of how
she undid everything. Of how she taught him that all you can know is
nothing. And of how she was never attached to anything. Leyla reminded
him of a pastel shadow on water, here and gone, many times in a day.
"You can only be lumbered by your thoughts," Leyla had said.

Rain water slams hard on Tom's car roof. He is stilled by its rhythmic
crashing, its lack of concession. Tom is dry, but dripping with noise.
He is pleased to be in the company of sound, it is something that is
not nothing.

He begins to type, quickly, rampantly, as his thoughts fire his
fingers. www.net-informer.com, www.MP3.transporter.com,
www.flowerpowerpetals.co.uk.
www.hire-a-rector.com.,www.earthboxes.co.uk.

The longest-lost of Leyla's friends would know of how long she was
gone, and how she had gone. How he had found her laying in the bath,
darkened bar a couple of tea lights, and not breathing below the water.
But not of the unrepentants that fingered Tom's eyelids every time he
tried to sleep. Questions but not questions because they had no
answers.

Tom busily connected to Net-Informer -- he whispered the name into his
WAP screen. Net-Informer knew who everyone had known throughout their
lives. You wore a tag that checked every conversation. Net-Informer
knew where you went to school, your first and last love, your boss,
your brothers and sisters, your criminal record better than you did.
The only thing it didn't register was the end. Tom typed in details,
and clicked the 'no longer living' button.

Tom had thought of using a bespoke service, an all-in-one bonanza, but
he couldn't find the tunes he wanted, the right place, or the right
tone. He decided it was better to put together your own funeral,
complete with small touches, the type that sweetdreams.com just
couldn't deliver. He thought of what Leyla would like, what would melt
her ears.

They used to like dancing. Leyla had taught him the Salsa
energetically, and modern jazz-break. He decided on 'La Loco Digitales'
for a fanfare-like introduction. And Paul Weller, 'You Do Something to
Me', he used to play this to her on his guitar. Badly.

He decided on 'Swing Low, Sweet Chariot', he'd have this sung by a
young gospel jazz band. He ordered minimal flowers. One flower, a white
flower. And only a classic box, a earthen burnished oak case. The
ceremony would be near here. Near the sea. Where they'd met
face-to-face for the first time, down there in the bay.

A bleating voice booms and bounces off the car's all-round glass
window. "Please click here to confirm selection. One moment, please.
Transaction completed. Thank you for choosing to shop with us,
Tom."

He chose the same church where Leyla had been buried the day before
last. Driving forward, Tom let out a small warm breath.