The Smiling Man
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The following is a short story I wrote a while ago. It was originally intended as a submission for an anthology on the theme of the uncomfortable nature of technology, but as I was writing it the story took me off topic on a slightly darker tangent so I never sent it off. Since it's sat in a folder ever since, I thought I'd submit it here instead. Not for the easily disturbed.
"The smiling man was an urban legend where I came from. He was said to have many faces. My own experience told me this was a lie. Each time I saw him, he looked the same. I've learned since that experiences lie too. My friend was there the day I met him. I never told her, but none of her descriptions matched the person I saw. Except one. The smiling man lives up to his name. The smiling man always smiles. And the smile is the biggest lie of all." - Exert from an interview with Patient Zero. Unknown date.
THE BUS RATTLES along the Charing Cross road, kicking up spray from the wet tarmac. A taxi follows, then another. Their drivers and passengers are an endless mass of indistinct faces, staring out into the evening through masks of disinterest. Beneath the glow of the street lighting, they could be anyone or no one. I watch from the curb beneath one such light. I ignore the rain as it patters on tin roofs, concrete floors and the sea of umbrellas that rushes past me. The crowds are heavy tonight. Endless streams of people dash from one awning to the next. Groups of teenagers gather under coats, screaming and laughing as they run alongside each other. The older pedestrians grunt in irritation as they barge against one another, weaving through the gaps as they present themselves on the way to anywhere but here.
He stands across the street. Sometimes he paces. Sometimes he pirouettes on the spot and paces the other way. There's an impressive fluidity to his movements. He doesn't stop and start. Each move flows into the next as if part of a routine. The crowds flow around him like water around a rock. His movements never alter their course. Whatever gesture he makes, however grand or sudden, the crowd responds and reacts without appearing to see him. Sometimes he touches them as they pass. Once I see him run his fingers through a woman's hair. They don't even slow down.
All the time he smiles. Often at me.
I've been watching his dance for half an hour when he invites me to join him. He waits until the traffic lights turn to green and the bus rumbles between us. I see him through the vehicle's windows as it passes, gesturing me to him with a curled finger. I nudge the lamppost with my shoulder to right myself and look for a way to cross. Now the traffic has started, it'll be a minute or two before all of the junctions stop again. Two cars go past. I see him smiling at me over their rain-speckled roofs. Then another bus comes. There are passengers standing on the lower deck on this one. I can't see through it. I use the opportunity to check the traffic to either side. The queues are constant towards Trafalgar Square one way and Shaftsbury Avenue the other. I can't see past that. By the time I look back, the bus is gone. So is the smiling man.
'YOU'RE BACK QUICK.'
She looks at me with a squint. She's high again. The—for want of a better word—restaurant is heaving. All of the other tables are full. She has a booth to herself. Her heavy eyeliner has smudged onto her pale cheeks. She looks like a goth, though not on purpose. She sips something thick through a straw from a sealed cardboard cup. A half-eaten burger sits on an open wrapper on the table. Her fries are poured out next to it. Two sachets of ketchup lay nearby. One of them looks to have been bled dry.
'I lost him.'
After waiting for so long, it's hard for me to admit. She knows that. She stares at me with her over-dilated pupils and gives me a slow nod of sympathy.
'Where?'
I give a thumb gesture along Cranbourn Street. She nods again, a little firmer this time.
'He'll be back.'
'Should I have waited?'
'He might not be back there.'
I know better than to ask more of her. Jen talks in riddles when she's straight. Stoned isn't worth the effort.
I glance towards the counter. The crowds are eight or nine deep. My stomach rumbles, but I don't want to wait. The food may be fast, but the queue to get some isn't. When I sit down next to her in the booth, she shoves her wrapper towards me and tells me to help myself to what's left of the fries. She picks up the burger and eats that herself, taking small bites and then staring at nothing while she chews each one for what seems like minutes at a time. I tear open the other ketchup sachet, cursing as the blasted thing spurts over the numb fingers of my left hand. I don't feel it. I haven't felt anything like it since Paris. I'm still conscious of it though.
She hands me a tissue without commenting. That's why I like Jen. I take it and wipe my hand clean in a couple of quick strokes. It's one of the few perks of my condition.
The fries are cold and dry, but they fill a gap. I'd rather something more, but the queue doesn't seem to have moved. It could have recycled itself twice over for all I know. They all look the same to me. I watch them, packed tight together. I see their bags and their phones. I see their suspicious expressions. I see an unused bin on one wall. I see an unattended satchel next to it.
'I can't wait here,' I say finishing the fries.
'So where?' she asks. The burger is gone. She dabs at her mouth with a paper napkin.
'You tell me.'
Jen shakes her head. Her purple lipstick glistens when she smiles.
'You won't find him like that. He'll find you.'
'How did he find you?'
'That'd be telling.'
I stare down at my hands, resting on the table. The thumb of one strokes the thumb of the other. Only one of them feels anything. She places a hand on my wrist. She has purple nail polish. It's several days old and chipping.
'It could have been worse, remember?'
I don't answer that. Instead I look at the queue again, then at the door.
'Can we get out of here?'
'Sure,' she shrugs. 'You'll need to help me up.'
THE CROWDS BREAK around us this time. They're less graceful than they were with him, but they keep their distance. Viewed from above, we're an empty teardrop in a sea of apathy.
We walk as fast as she can manage. She's good with two crutches, but when I'm there she prefers to lean on me. I carry the other crutch under my less useful arm. I have to keep checking it's there. She hops alongside me. The doctors told her she needs to get used to the prosthetic. She never has. In a way you never do. You adjust to it. You work around it. You accept it. But it's never you. You can't trust it like you can the real thing. Once she had the legs of a supermodel. Once the crowds would have been wanting to get between them. She still has one of them. The crowds stay away from the other. I know she notices. What I don't know is whether she still cares.
'Fresh air,' she sighs. 'Every fucking time.'
I don't need to ask. Whatever she's taken is wearing off. The fresh air is clearing her head. The longer we're out, the soberer she'll get. The drugs take the edge off reality. They're hard to get. Paris changed things for everyone. Unusual spending attracts attention. She insists it's worth the risk. They make things okay for a while. I can only hope she's up to date on her pain meds too.
'Where do you want to go?' I ask.
In front of us, the crowds part. Rain spears the empty pavement.
'Somewhere dry,' she says, deadpan.
I glance at her but she isn't looking. She's focused on the ground where she aiming her crutch, hopping from one pavement slab to the next. Past her, the crowds hurry one way or the other in their determination to get to where they're going. Past them is a smile. I know that smile.
She staggers and swears when I stop. Several faces in the crowd appear to notice us for the first time, though they don't break their step. Soon they're moving around us again as if we're there and yet not there in equal measure.
'What the fuck did you do that for?' she asks.
I don't look at her. This time I stay focused on him. He's still smiling.
'Over there,' I say.
She swears again under her breath but doesn't argue. She turns to look past the crowd. At first I see her head moving from side to side until she spots him. Then I sense her relax. She turns back to me and grins.
'What are we waiting for?'
AFTER THE BUZZ and lights of Leicester square, Lisle Street is a sea of calm. There are still people around, though most hover near the run of Chinese restaurants that greet you as you emerge from Leicester Place. It quietens further still as we get closer to Wardour Street. The noise of Leicester Square calls to us along the narrow streets that link us every fifty metres or so, as if summoning us back into civilisation. By now I've forgotten what's on the other side of the walls that separate us from them. It doesn't surprise me that I don't care either.
The smiling man dances along in front of us. We've yet to catch up with him. As soon as we got close, he started his graceful walk. Sometimes he checks over his shoulder to see that we're still following. Otherwise he keeps on going. Walking behind him, I notice that no two steps he takes are alike. Each one is a feint. He moves like his whole body is made of elastic. His joints seem to bend in impossible directions. I write that off as an illusion caused by the way his clothes flap about him. He's wearing multiple layers, all of different colours and hues. Most are dark, though whether this is an effect of the rain or by design is hard to tell. I haven't yet got close enough to know for sure, but some of the garments look like expensive silk or velvet, embroidered with disturbing patterns that suggest impossible geometry or gruesome imagery, depending on where you look. However hard I stare, I can never find the same image twice, even if I look in the same place.
His hair is long and black, though streaked through with purple and white. In places it is spiked, whatever product he uses proving impervious to the weather, while the rest of it blows like fluttering streamers behind him. Coupled with his many scarves and tassels, and the tails of his long Victorian coat, he looks to me like a bird presenting his plumage to potential mates. Indeed, some of the scarfs bear peacock feather patterns among the less comforting designs.
He guides us in silence, the flap and snap of his attire in the wind serving as the only aural proof of his existence. Even his footsteps are soundless on the block paving. Somewhere before the noise of Wardour Street, we find ourselves behind the Empire cinema. A single set of fire doors appears to be the only exit onto this narrow avenue and our guide pauses before them. He drapes himself across them, falling like a street mime as if in a theatrical faint until he catches himself upon their frame. Reclining at an angle now, he turns himself on his hands and feet, keeping his body straight until he is able to smile at us from between his raised arms. A simple flex of his fingertips is all it takes for him to flick himself upright. The doors open outwards as he does. Still watching us, he inclines his head towards them.
'I think he wants us to go in,' says Jen, extending her crutch to obey and leaving me, still supporting her, with no choice but to go along.
We stumble into the darkness of the cinema building. We're in some kind of corridor but there are no lights. The few from the street whose glow makes it through the doorway fail to light anything else. There's a kind of polished tile floor beneath our feet but I'm not sure how far it goes. I assume it runs the full width of the building. I can't see any doors off it, but there must be some somewhere. I can hear one of the active screens on the other side of the wall not far from us. It's muffled but there is lots of shouting and explosions, along with a fast but steady beat that I recognise as coming from my own heart. It quickens with each blast. My hand itches. I scratch it out of habit. I feel nothing.
The doors close once we're inside. Suddenly it's dark as night and the cinema noises sound lounder than ever. I can hear Jen breathing. It's calm but pained. The meds are wearing off too then. That's going to make this more interesting. Whatever this is.
It takes a while for my eyes to adjust. It's not completely dark. I can make out doorways now. There's a faint glow from between the cracks. I assume some of them lead off to other corridors. One or two might take us straight into one of the auditoriums. There's a box light above the doors we just came through. It's dull—I think the bulb is going—but it's light enough for me to see his smile. It's an angular thing, sharp and pointed. I'm not sure it's real. His whole face looks like a mask. He resembles a harlequin. He's painted a chalky white. His cheeks are flush with rouge. His lips are drawn on with careless strokes of red. His eyes are shadowed, like Jen's, but streaked where whatever pigment he used has fallen into the cracks and creases of his expression. His eyes are so dark I can't see them. There's no white there. There's no colour. Something glistens in those shadowed pools upon his face, but there are no features that I can see.
Even so, I know he's looking at me. He says nothing. He stands as still as I've ever seen him. His head is inclined to one side, his brow tilted towards me. He doesn't move. He waits. He watches.
'What now?' I ask.
It might sound like I'm impatient. I'm not. Now he's found us, this can take as long as it needs. But I don't like the quiet. He's not what I expected. I was told he could help us. I was told he could give us what we need.
He tilts his head the other way. I still can't see his eyes, but I sense he's looking me up and down. I'm sure I feel him linger on my arm. Somehow I just know. I always know when someone is staring. I'm about to call him on it when he moves. The move is a turn and a sway. He stretches his arms out like a child pretending to be an aeroplane. He doesn't make the noises. Part of me wishes he did. The silence of it is worse. He catches his three-quarter spin and corrects it, floating the other way. I realise then he's moving away from us. He steps away from the dull light and presses on along the corridor. I feel Jen pull at me and we begin to follow.
For a few moments I lose sight of him in the darkness. My eyes take their time to find him again. I find his outline a few metres ahead. His arms are at his side now. I can make out his silhouette walking and skipping in front of us. More than once I see him jump and spin in the air before landing as if it was just another step. His feet are soundless on the tiled floor. My boots make a heavy clump sound of rubber on ceramic. Jen's crutch has a metallic click. It alternates with the tap of her shoe and the occasional tap-drag of her other leg. From him there's nothing.
'Where's he taking us?' I whisper, leaning in towards Jen as I ask.
The smiling man stops in front of us before she has chance to answer. I wonder if he heard me when he turns around. Whether in answer or by coincidence, he inclines his head at us again and raises one arm out to the side. Through the gloom, I can make out another double doorway. A faint grey light bleeds through the cracks above and below the doors. It's not bright. Had we not stopped here, I might have walked past it without knowing. From some way behind us is another explosion as the movie we can hear steps up into another action sequence. My heart races.
The grey light is just enough to cast highlights on his white face. It settles on raised ridges like snow upon a mountain pass. The shadowed crevices are all the darker for it; his smile all the more sinister. It's several seconds before he reaches for the door. He grabs some unseen handle and pulls it open. When the light spills out of the room beyond, it softens his features. It paints him in monochrome, robbing his plumage of the effect of its colour. He looks instead to have stepped out of a silent movie; a jester from a farce, or something far worse. One hand holds the door open. With the other, he gives a flourish that describes an arc around him before crossing his body and ending in a deep bow. His thin fingers finish up pointing into the room.
Jen is the first to react. Her crutch clicks on the floor and she pulls me towards the open doorway. Together we step into a cinema auditorium. There are no lights in the room, save for the projector. It casts a dancing pattern of static upon the giant screen. By its glow I can see that the room is empty. I count perhaps twenty rows of seats climbing upwards towards the rear wall. The doorway has brought us into a clearance between the front row and the screen. The seats follow a gentle curve on one side.
The clearance isn't empty. My eyes are drawn to a row of hospital beds set out in the centre. There are five in total. What surprises me more than the fact they are there, however, is that the two furthest away are occupied. The patients are cast in shadow, but I can see the shape of them beneath the blankets. They do not move as we come in. Banks of equipment sit on free-standing racks around them. Some appear to be monitors. Ever changing graphs and lines draw their patterns upon dark screens next to numbers that blink and change from one second to the next. By the empty beds the graphs are flat. There are other items too. Ventilators wheeze and hiss. Intravenous drip bags hang from chrome stands. There are tubes and cylinders and cables all around the beds. Against the wall beneath the screen are a number of temporary shelves. Several are loaded with boxes branded with medical symbols that I recognise—crosses and the rod of Asclepius—and others that I don't. Mechanical symbols. Cogs. Pneumatic arms. Electrical warnings. Hazard markings.
I turn to Jen. She's looking at the beds. Her pale face seems as white as the smiling man's in the grey light. I can read nothing in her expression. I lean on her a little, just enough for her to feel my arm against hers where she holds onto me. She squeezes back but says nothing.
I look behind me. The door we came through is closed. The smiling man is gone. I look back at the beds to see him gliding between them. He seems to check the equipment as he passes. I assume from his inaction at each station that nothing appears to be amiss. He stops by one of the empty beds and faces us. He places his fingertips on the smooth blanket and watches.
Once again, Jen is the first to move. She leads us towards the bed and pauses at the foot of it. When we get there, the cinema screen flickers. As I watch, the static disappears and a line of text appears upon it.
'There will be a cost?' I read.
I look at the smiling man. He's staring at me. He hasn't stopped staring. He nods once.
'I figured there'd be a cost,' I say. 'I have money. I can pay.'
The smiling man keeps staring. The cinema screen flickers to static again. A few moments later, the static disappears and the text comes back.
'I know there will be a cost,' I say, trying to match the smiling man's stare. 'Whatever it is, I'll pay it.'
Jen gives my arm a gentle squeeze. I go to place my hand over hers but stop myself. I let the weight of it fall back limp to my side. The spare crutch slips a little. I pull my arm tight to my side to catch it.
The smiling man gives another nod and gestures towards the bed. I look at Jen. She lets go of my arm and places a reassuring hand on my chest.
'You first,' she says, not looking at me.
She takes her other crutch from me and shifts her weight onto it. A few metallic clicks later and she's standing on her own again. At last she looks at me. Her eyes are glistening a little more than usual, but I don't comment. Beneath them, she manages to make her purple lips smile.
'Go on,' she says. 'It's going to be fine now.'
I shrug off my wet jacket and put it on the floor beneath the bed. I hate seeing my arm. This evening, however, I force myself to look down at it. The straps start just above my bicep, tucked beneath my T-shirt. I eschewed the shoulder straps. I found them too restrictive. This one is tight, but it reminds me it's there. The start of the limb is hidden beneath a gauze sleeve. After that, it's a dull, off-white plastic. The hand forms a permanent grip, as if reaching for a cup handle. The few times I've tried to use it for that, I've ended up in a mess. Using it for anything else is clumsy. I hate it, and the hate is physical. It bunches the muscles in my torso. It turns my cheeks red. It takes an effort of will to force it down.
The smiling man taps the bed again. I pull off my T-shirt one-handed. It's about the only thing I've perfected since the bomb went off.
I lie down. I don't bother lifting the blankets. I don't take off the rest of my clothes. I even leave my boots on. The smiling man doesn't seem to care. Already he's tinkering with the equipment near the bed. He puts pads on my chest that are hooked up to one of the consoles. I see one of the smaller screens flicker as the flat line develops peaks that jump up in time with my heartbeat. The numbers start to change too. He slips a mask over my mouth and nose. It's clear plastic but it soon fogs up with my breath. I hear another explosion from the other auditorium. It's quiet in here but I'm still conscious of it. The lines on the monitors spike for a few seconds, then return to normal.
He straps me to the bed. I'm less comfortable with this, but I reason that it must be necessary. Whatever surgeries are involved, I'm sure they're intricate and could do without me moving. I stare up at the dark ceiling while he tightens the one across my chest. Last of all, he produces a needle. The liquid it's loaded with is thin and clear. Several drops of it spurt out when he tests the syringe. I feel a sharp pinch as he pushes it into my shoulder. The last thing I remember is Jen looking at me from the end of the bed.
'It's going to be fine now. It's all going to be fine.'
I CAN'T TELL if the ceiling is grey. It looks grey, but that could be the light. I don't like how it moves. It's a dull light, not helped by my blurred vision. I try to wipe my eyes, but nothing happens. I feel the pull of the straps across my arms. I blink a few times and look down. No, not down. I'm lying down. Across then. I look at my bare chest, rising and falling in the low light. A trail of cables leads from the pads that are stuck to it to something behind me. Screens, I think. I can't see from here and I ache too much to want to check.
The light is coming from another screen. I remember now. I'm in a cinema. If I squint, I can just about make out the rows of seats somewhere beyond my feet. When I tilt my head back I can see it. My perspective is odd. It doesn't look like a real rectangle from here. And all that dancing static is making my head swim.
There's someone else in here. I can't see them, but I can hear them. Several someones. More than one anyway. I wasn't here alone. There was a man. And a girl. Jen. Jen was here. I wonder where she is. I try to move but the straps are too tight.
'Jen.'
I'm not sure she'd have heard that. I'm not sure I did. My mouth is so dry. I try and make some saliva to wet it. There's another light now though. It's round and yellow. It flashes in my eyes so I can't see anything else. I hear a voice. It's a man, I think. Maybe there's another man too. It's too bright. I turn my head to the side. There's another bed next to me. There's someone in it. Whoever it is has a pale face and dark eyes. They're lying very still. Perhaps they're asleep. I blink a few times to try and clear my vision. There are spots on my retinas now from the light. The image around them is clearer, but the spots still obscure it. I wait for them to fade until I can see purple lips.
There she is.
'Jen.'
I heard it this time. I heard my own voice.
'Easy, buddy.' That's not my voice. 'Over here. This one's still alive.'
I feel the light-bearer press his fingers against my neck. They're warm. His silhouette stands over me. He looks down at me, then at the monitors.
'Over here,' he says again. I don't recognise his voice.
Footsteps.
'Get the straps off him.'
I don't recognise that voice either.
'Jen,' I say, but they're blocking my view of her now. There's another one in the way. He has a uniform of some sort. It's black, I think.
'Try to stay still, sir,' says the uniformed man.
'What the hell happened here?' asks the other man in a low voice. He's not talking to me. I don't even know if he's talking to the uniformed man.
I feel the straps loosen. One or both of the men—I'm not sure—drag them away. I put my hands on the bed and try to push myself up. I can feel the sheets beneath my fingers. Before I have purchase, one of the men puts his hand on my shoulder and encourages me to stay down.
I can feel the sheets beneath my fingers.
'Don't rush, buddy,' says the light-bearer. 'Help is on the way. We'll get you checked over.'
I can feel the sheets beneath my fingers.
I lift my right hand and hold it in front of me. It blocks the light a little. It's in silhouette but I can see it. I flex the fingers. I can still feel the sheets. I lift my other hand. It comes up faster than I expected. I realise I'd readied myself for a dull weight that isn't there. For a moment I assume my prosthetic has been taken off, but another hand blocks the light. I turn it over. I flex the fingers. The movement is a little awkward but it's there. I flex them again.
'Oh, my...' I hear one of the men say. I think it's the uniformed man. He steps away from the bed.
'What? Oh...' says the light-bearer.
He steps away too. As he moves, he changes the angle of his torch. He shines it on my hands. I recognise them both. My right hand is as I've always known it. It's my useful hand. Those are my fingers. The left has purple nail polish. It's several days old and chipping.
I don't remember how long I scream for. Perhaps I'm still screaming.