AND THE GHOST DANCES IN THE FLAMES
An extract from the novel: Memories of the Awakened Machine
Chapter One
Sai Kung Country Park, New Territories, Hong Kong
Summer. The 2040s
The noise of The Club was at their backs and the Old Coast Road ran before them. The worn track was a grey ribbon squeezed between inky sea and sloping, leaf-covered hills.
“You played well tonight, Sir.”
“I always do.”
She pinpointed not the faintest hint of modesty in his words.
The two kept pace with each other; footfalls matched step for step. Above them, the sky was cloudless–a black sheet dusted with a multitude of pinprick dots that, barely a decade back, the untamed light pollution would have dimmed to bashful insignificance. Not now. The galaxy churned overhead, restless and inexplicable. And lazily, a perfect half-moon sailed among the stars, its surface shaded by brushstrokes of cream and yellow.
“Why do they call you Old Big Nose?”
“Do you have to ask?”
She laughed, and even to her own ears, it was music.
“Where are you taking me?”
They took a few more steps before he replied. As they walked, the heel of her boot caught in a crack in the road, and she stumbled. In the dark, her cheeks flushed bright red at her momentary lack of grace–hearts on one cheek, diamonds on the other. He put out an arm; she grasped it with both hands, using the leverage gained to pull herself free.
“A little further along is one of those old barbecue areas. I stay there sometimes. No houses close. It’s peaceful.”
“I thought you were taking me home. To your home, I mean.” She had let go of his arm, and there was a distance of around a metre between them. She hoped he hadn’t registered the genesis of annoyance in her voice. “I thought you intended to–”
“I do.” There was no change in his tone, just the customary, lisping swirl of his words. “My home is wherever I lay my head. Tonight the stars are our ceiling. An audience to the music we will make.”
His words trailed off. The faint wind blowing in from the sea stole their already fading echo away. It was a sultry night and the wind, however slight, was welcome. To both of them.
“But what if someone comes by?” She had slowed her pace a touch; it was as if her subconscious was eager to clutch at any excuse to turn back. “And what about my pay? Sir.”
He stopped. She mirrored him. He didn’t turn to look at her, but under his dusky, bushy eyebrows, a pair of grey lenses swivelled in her direction. No, not grey. In the star and moonlit night, his eyes were colourless; old yet young, and tired and keen. There was a shadow painted across his cheek where the harsh descent of his nose obscured the moon’s soft radiance. She pursed her lips tight and waited for him to speak.
“No one will come. This time of night, nobody walks the road. You will be paid.”
“Thank you, Sir, and I understand, but I’ve never spent the night with a customer in the outdoors, and I’m–”
The man raised a hand to quieten her. “Too many questions. Too many worries. Look up at the sky.”
She followed the focus of his eyes as he tilted his face toward the heavens.
“What am I looking at?”
Now it was his turn to laugh. The sound was dry wood crackling on a bonfire. She looked at his face and noted how his chin protruded almost as far as his nose. The tangled crow’s nest of his hair had fallen across his brow and was now obscuring his eyes.
“The sky. You kids are all the same. No imagination. Look at it.” He raised his arm higher and pointed, and she thought the limb resembled the crooked branch of an ancient tree. “What do you see?”
“The stars. And the moon. That’s all there is.”
She felt her cheeks burn with colour as he laughed again.
“There’s more than that up there.” He halted, face still raised upwards. “What was your name again?”
“Belle.”
“Yes, yes, I remember. You told me already.” Gravel underscored the lilting lisp of his diction. “Damned old age. What was I talking about?”
She moved a half step closer to him. From afar, they would have appeared as two black specks, alone on a road leading to no place in particular.
“The stars, Sir. And the sky. And what it all means.”
“Yes, yes. More. So much more. It’s limitless, you know. Whatever happens here, down on the Earth, whatever has happened and will happen, up there is an unchanging eternity. Where dreams go to die and then get reborn.” His eyes were focused on one single star that appeared at that moment brighter than all the others. “You dig what I’m saying?”
“Yes, Sir, I think I do.”
And she did.
“Beautiful.” He lowered his head, and there was a smile on his lips. His mouth’s slack arch matched the lazy contours of his drawn-out enunciation. “And Belle,” he continued, with his transparent glass eyes now looking into, or even through, her own, “please don’t call me Sir.”
Despite herself, she realised she was smiling at him. He returned the gesture and extended his hand.
“Reuben. Reuben Zorilla.”
She took another abbreviated step closer to him. She let his hand grasp hers. It was old and rough; leather, well-used. Yet there was surprising strength in his grip.
They both turned on their heels and faced down the road. They resumed their walk, though now it was a journey made hand-in-hand.
“Can I help you carry those?” She was referring to the guitar case slung over his back, and the hiking backpack he had strapped to his front. Their weight didn’t appear to be slowing him down, and the way his fingers clasped her hand suggested he was stronger than he looked. Nevertheless, he certainly wasn’t a young man.
Reuben’s eyes stared along the road ahead. “No, my dear, that’s not necessary. The day I can’t carry my guitar on my back is the day I lay myself down and let the winds take me.”
They both laughed at that. His sandpaper chuckle danced with her own breathy exhalations. Their synchronous footsteps tapped out an echoing beat as they walked. It was almost melodious.
They disengaged hands–a necessity as the pair skirted either side of a crater in the road. How long that pockmark had resided there, neither knew. Such scars engraved upon the surface of the crumbling tarmac were commonplace this far north in the territory, with no one prepared, or even able, to fix them. Whether the holes and cracks were the result of accident, conflict, or merely time, was immaterial. Hazard successfully navigated, the man and the woman rejoined hands and continued their passage.
“What is it?”
Belle’s fingernails sank into Reuben's palms as soon as she saw it–and she knew how long and sharp those nails were. But the man did not disengage or even let loose the slightest cry of pain. He gripped her tighter. And she was thankful, for a sudden fear had silenced the dull clack of her boots, rendering her a statue, and so rooted was she to the old road that Reuben’s momentum took him away from her, their joined limbs becoming a straining rope, invisibly fraying.
“I don’t see it,” he said.
She thought he sounded annoyed.
“Up ahead. Just where the road bends out of sight. You must see it. It’s moving.”
She kept her voice low; it was little more than a hiss. With her feet firmly planted on the ground, she forced the man to stop.
“I don’t see it, my dear. Are you sure there’s something there?”
He gave her hand a tug; an attempt to prompt her into motion again. She pulled her arm away from him. He rubbed at the crescent indentations she had left in the flesh of his palm.
“Of course I am!”
The old man’s eyes widened. She knew he had finally seen it–a shadow much blacker than the night. It was coming their way. Slowly. And it was big. Not human. It moved with a rolling, swaying motion, a rhythm that mimicked the faint back and forth of the waves and their lapping of the nearby shore. But to Belle's dismay, a smile lit Reuben’s face. Why no concern? Regardless of the man’s apparent slack ease, she kept her attention focused on the approaching shape. Was it now travelling faster?
“Keep walking.”
He grabbed her hand again and pulled. She stumbled forward.
“Are you fucking crazy?”
Belle caught a flash of something in his eyes, a response to her outburst. The clear crystal irises gained colour. Was it green? Or Blue? She understood the exact shade didn’t matter; more of import was the emotion it portrayed–a visual cocktail of playfulness and impatience, though Belle couldn't decide which held more significant sway. And anyway, she was more concerned about the thing on the road. She heard her heels scrape the broken ground as he dragged her behind him.
“Nothing to fear,” he said. “I know what it is.”
Whether it was the melody knitting together his words or the simple reality that if she didn’t go with him, she would forgo her night’s payment, Belle relented and let Reuben lead her. She again came up beside him, her nails once more digging into his hand. He offered no sign of discomfort.
“Where…” she began, but his rough fingers squeezing her own stripped the embryonic question of words. The shadow had disappeared.
“It’s okay. Keep walking.”
Belle began counting their steps–anything to take her mind off the danger now hidden from sight–and the fact that it was hidden somehow made things worse. Her mother had told her tales of the Berberoka, a creature from the much-missed woman’s homeland of the Philippines. It was aquatic, and clearly a myth, but now, on a lonely road sheltered only by the hush of the night–and hand-in-hand with a stranger no less–Belle imagined the fishlike creature dragging itself up from the sea onto land and lurching and scraping its way along the tarmac until it found a poor soul upon which it could feast and satisfy at least a portion of its hunger. She had never visited the place of her mother’s birth; had never left Hong Kong, in fact. And, if she were honest with herself, would most likely never see that land. Through word of mouth, she knew the Philippine Archipelago was a territory still ripe with conflict, split by ideological and religious struggle and scarred by both natural disaster and the fallout of weapons that should never have come into being. Still, her mother’s words, her old tales, clustered in her head like a blossoming cancer. What if it knew her blood? Her ancestry? It could have come here just for her–the last gift of her heritage.
A crunching sound like wheat on a grinding stone. A snort from wide nostrils, unseen. Belle turned to flee.
“Stupid girl!”
His arm held firm, and Belle half-stumbled. Only Reuben’s grip prevented her from falling face down on the ground. She bit down on her bottom lip, and it was all she could do not to curse at him. Was he so intent on keeping her for the night?
Reuben pulled her in front of him, one hand on each of her shoulders. It was a firm grip. She looked up, as she was shorter than him despite the heels of her boots. Her struggles had caused the thick red fibres of her hair to fall across her eyes, and those hairs were rusty crimson in the starlit night. They quickly sprung back; the wig was cheap nylon. She knew her shoulders were shaking, and she felt embarrassed–more so when she realised what the shape was.
“A cow?” A tart mix of relief and chagrin coloured her words.
Belle was correct. A cow. It was black and stood eyeballing the two of them as it chewed on a stringy bundle of weeds. One ear flicked away an invisible bug. Horns grew from each side of its head and curled aslant, the tips pointing towards the stars. A loose bag of skin hung from its neck like a deflated balloon, and a semi-eroded hump adorned its back. A mud-encrusted hoof pawed at the sparse vegetation beside the road.
Reuben laughed. The sound was not dissimilar to the jangling tunes he had conjured earlier in the night from the stage of The Club, though they had been courtesy of the strings of his guitar. He released her from his grip and gave her a playful shove between the shoulder blades. She stumbled forward and dug her toes into the ground to prevent collision with the animal. The abrupt stop engendered a loss of balance, and she fell into an untidy crouch. The red flush plastering her cheeks kindled to wildfire. Stationary on the road, the cow continued to chew. Before Belle could rise to her feet, the beast’s nostrils flared, and a blast of hot air hit her square in the face. The beast then turned its head away from her, looking toward the distant village. It ambled past them with a flick of its tail. And all the while, Reuben laughed his puckish laugh.
“Fuck you,” she said from her crouched position. Her legs were spread to the sides, crablike, as her hands readjusted the wig on her head. Reuben’s eyebrows were raised. Perhaps he was impressed by the way she had prevented herself from tumbling down fully, and the balance it had taken to angle her body in such a manner that she preserved her dignity despite the shortness of her black skirt. Possibly, he was simply enjoying the show. She looked down at the smooth cinnamon skin of her thighs extending between the flimsy black skirt and the fake black leather of her boots. She tugged at the hem to gift herself an inch more decency.
“Okay, okay. Sorry,” he said, though the chuckle still lived beneath his words. “Haven’t you ever seen a cow before?”
“I have,” she said, raising herself back to her full height. She straightened the creases freshly birthed in her white cotton blouse. “But not since I was young. I didn’t know there were any left around here. This close to the villages, I mean.”
Belle turned to follow the direction of Reuben’s eyes. They were watching the cow make its way down the slight decline of the hill–to the place where Reuben and Belle had reached their night’s agreement. It hugged the side of the road as if it were concerned about oncoming traffic. Both knew that would not be a hazard it would face. Another dismissive swish of the tail and the animal lumbered out of sight.
“That’s generally true, though the odd one turns up every now and then. Wasn’t always the case, of course. Before you were born, and before, and even after, all the troubles we’ve faced, you know, the drone attacks and all, and the blockades, and the general overreaching shitstorm the majority of the world got showered in, you couldn’t walk ten minutes along a country park track without making a bovine acquaintance like our plodding friend back there.”
Reuben stopped walking. He appeared to be pausing for breath. Belle realised she was looking at him with impatient eyes, and not because he had stopped; rather, she was, in spite of herself, willing him to continue. The lisp in his voice had become more pronounced as he talked, but in a lyrical way that was part music, part poetry. She felt herself become, if not spellbound, at least somewhat intrigued by the old man.
“You see,” he continued as he began walking again, “those cows were not the type you see, or would have seen, penned into fields and meadows and farms. Way back when–before even I came to these lands–the farmers had buffalo to work the soil. Water buffalo, I mean. Big hump-backed things, with forelegs like steel, and tempers you didn’t want to try. Even now, out on Lantau Island–if you dare brave that neglected ruin of a place–people say those beasts still walk in the wetlands. Used to be you could see them wandering onto the beaches there at sunset.”
He paused again. Looked at her. And she knew what he was looking at: it was her eyes. She had easy features, with soft cheeks that were dark and smooth, like ripe plums. But her eyes were hard. Her mother had told her that. Hard like topaz, and just as shiny. She was aware it made her look inquisitive at best; at worst, searching and harsh. Belle blinked to moisten them; an attempt to soften them in the dimness of the night. The man sighed and continued.
“I digress. I have that tendency, ya’know. Anyhow, those wandering, big-horned bulls bred with the local cattle, leading to the birth of offspring much like our friend wandering off down the road all on his lonesome there. And then, even before life got flushed down the shitter–when there was still pressure in the pipes to flush, if you get my drift–the world changed, and the farmers struggled, and those buffalo, and cows, and the half-breed sons of bitches like our tail-flickin' road-partner, they were offered licence to wander free. And bar the odd road accident, back when those were still a thing, fuck yeah, they were everywhere in this part of the territory.”
“And then?”
He smiled. It was a smile that showed he thought he had won her back. Reuben held out his arm and bent the elbow to form a perfect right angle. She lay a hand on it, and they continued walking.
“And then, my dear Belle, they thrived for a while. Humanity was in chaos, and the lives of wandering cattle were of little importance. A drowning man ain’t gonna switch on a television to check the weather, you know what I mean.” He paused, demanding a halt in their conjoined steps. He looked at her from under bushy eyebrows. Another smile. “Though looking at you, you likely aren’t quite long enough in the tooth to remember such things as the weather forecast, my God no! Where was I? Oh yes. So, nobody bothered the cows. But then people found their feet again, and even if it bore no resemblance to that which had gone before, life did go on. The village back there, and other such places, and even the self-serving traders and technocrats on The Island and in the city proper, and the warlords and mob bosses on the other side of the border–they live an ordered existence, to a degree. A semblance of society. And when people get that, when they put down their roots again, well, they remember. Then they start going back to the old ways.”
Now it was Belle’s turn to halt step and bring about a pause in their passage. “So what does that have to do with the cows?”
Reuben laughed, a dragging xylophone of a sound. “Well, Miss Belle, when that happened, people began to look around again–properly see the world, ya’know? And they saw the cows going about their easy way, and the people remembered.”
“What did they remember?” She felt the question stick to her lips; she had painted them a light shade of peach.
“How goddam good beef tasted! And that’s why you don’t hardly see the bastards nowadays–rarer than rump steak!”
They rounded the bend in the road. Belle kept her eyes on the ground–a concerted attempt to avoid any more cracks or potholes. Her hand slid slowly down Reuben’s arm as they walked, and they were hand in hand again: the wild-haired old songster and the red-wigged bargirl. To anyone watching, they would have appeared a mismatched pair. But there was no soul in the vicinity. The village was now truly behind them, and the only light on the horizon was that cast by the moon and the stars. It was a shimmering, fragile light that danced on the gentle ripples of the seawater filling the bay.
A bellowing moan, like a rusted ship’s hull grinding against sea rocks, broke the near-silence. It rose in volume and pitch and then ceased with a suddenness so stark as to be tangible.
“Let’s turn around. Go back to the village.” Belle grasped Reuben’s hand so tight she felt his finger bones grind together.
“No. We’re not far off the camp. And that sound came from back down the road. Toward the village.”
Despite the easy steadiness of his words, Belle noted Reuben had quickened his pace. She matched him. There were wild things in the forest and bushes, she knew that, but she also knew from the volume and tenor of the sound that it had most likely been the cow–as if it had called out in pain. And then for the sound to stop so suddenly…
“Something got it. Something big. We shouldn’t be out here this late. It’s not safe. They usually take me back to their homes or one of the back sheds at The Club, not out here in the dark, not like this. Why? You’ll get us killed!”
A gust of wind tousled the red strands atop her head. Then the air was still again. The breezy interlude had emphasised the remoteness of the surroundings. She saw Reuben's lips move as he no doubt searched for the words to calm her nerves. Perhaps his, too?
“We’ll soon be there, and I’ll light a fire. Nothing will come close, I promise you that. And you can watch the stars dancing above the flames, and by the time only embers remain, the sun will be poking her head above the islands and rocks beyond the sea. Just in that direction.”
He waved his free hand toward the open water. Belle wasn’t looking. Her eyes were on the road, and also the bushes and trees to their left. She shifted her gaze. To the rocks falling away to their right. Toward the sea.
Belle stared at the slack ripples sketched by the moonlight on the water’s surface. She spoke.
