Michael Moorcock: The Black Corridor

The television screen jumped from one scene to another. Fires and riots. Riots and fires.

James Henry turned to his wives. 'Did I say anything objectionable?'

In unison they shook their heads.

He glared again at Uncle Sidney. 'There you are!'

'Okay. All right.' Uncle Sidney looked away.

'I proved I didn't say anything,' said James Henry insistently.

'Fair enough.'

They're my witnesses!' He pointed back at his wives. They told you.'

'Sure.'

'What do you mean—"sure"?'

'I meant I believe you. I'm sorry. I must have misheard you.'

James Henry relaxed and smiled. 'You might apologise, then.

To all of us, I should have thought.'

'I apologise to all of you,' Uncle Sidney said. 'All of you.'

Ryan watched from the doorway and he was frowning. He looked at Uncle Sidney. He looked at James Henry. He looked at Ida and Felicity. He looked at Fred Masterson. Then he looked at the television screen.

It was not so different. It was frightening. Nothing seemed real.

Or perhaps it was that nothing seemed any more real than anything else.

He went towards the television with the intention of switching it off. Then he paused. He was overwhelmed with the feeling that if he turned the switch not just the television picture would fade, but also the scene in the room. He shuddered.

Mr Ryan shuddered, full of fear and hopelessness. Full of depression. Full of doubt.

It had been a bad day.

The day was really something of an historic day, he thought.

Today marked the turning point in his country's history—perhaps the world's history.

Perhaps it was the beginning of a new Dark Age.

He came to a decision and reached forward to switch off...

Seated in his little cabin, the television flickering gently in front of him, the foreign voices speaking their lines, Ryan falls, against his will, into a doze.

Surely he knew, when he sat down, when he selected a film in an alien language, that this would be the result. Perhaps he did but would not acknowledge the thought.

Ryan, a man tormented by nightmares during his official hours of sleep, who rises every morning with the indefinable despair of a man who has dreamed of horrors he cannot even remember— Ryan is desperate for rest.

Through the caverns of his brain pound the sounds of heart and blood, the drums of life. He hears them dimly at first.

*

Ryan is standing in the ballroom.

The dance floor has a dull shine.

The lights in the candelabra are low.

They give off a bluish light.

Black streamers decorate the walls.

There are masks suspended at eye level on them.

The masks show human faces.

K

E

E

P

GOING

P

E

E

K

The spaceship is on course for Munich. Travelling at just below the speed of light.

The spaceship is on course for Munich.

I KNOW THAT I DES...

... DES SCIENCES—HISTOIRE DES SCIENCES—HISTOIRE DES SCIENCES...

IT IS TRUE, HOWEVER

I AM WILLING TO TELL

WHOEVER WISHES TO KNOW

(there is no need to tell—there is no one to tell—it does not matter...)

K

E

E

P

GOING

P

E

E

K

WHICH WAY?

*

In the ballroom the masks show human faces. Faces distorted by anger, lust and greed.

Suddenly one of the masks shows his wife Josephine, her face ferociously distorted. There is his youngest child, Alexander. His mouth is open, his eyes are blank. Alexander—a drooling idiot.

The couples are circling to the chanting music. It grows slower and slower and they revolve slower and slower. They are dressed in dark clothes. They have the firm and well-defined faces of the practical, self-interested, well-fed middle classes. They are people of substance.

Their eyes are masked by the round sun-glasses. The long closed windows at the end of the room look out into blackness. The music gets slower, the men and women revolve more slowly, so slowly they barely move at all.

The music almost stops.

There is a slow beating of a drum.

The music is heard more loudly. It is like a psalm sung by a chorus of monks. It is a funeral dirge, the song sung when a man is about to be buried.

The drums beat louder, the music quickens.

A high screaming note comes in and holds steady through the dirge.

The drum beats faster, the music quickens.

The high screams grow louder.

The dancers bunch in the middle of the room, staring towards the window through their round, black, covered eyes. They begin to talk quietly among themselves. They are discussing something and looking at the window.

*

ON THE NIGHT OF THE FAIR THERE WAS AN ACCIDENT.

Q: WHAT WAS THE EXACT NATURE OF THE CATASTROPHE?

ON THE NIGHT OF THE MARINOS AN ACCIDENT

Q: WHAT WAS THE EXACT NATURE OF THE CATASTROPHE?

ON A NIGHT IN MAY AN ACCIDENT

Q: WHAT WAS THE EXACT NATURE OF THE CATASTROPHE?

ON AND ON MAY ACCIDENT

Q: WHAT WAS THE EXACT NATURE OF THE CATASTROPHE?

ONE MAY ACCIDENT

Q: WHAT WAS THE EXACT NATURE OF THE CATASTROPHE?

ONE MAY ACCEPT

Q: WHAT WAS THE EXACT NATURE OF THE CATASTROPHE?

ONE MACE IT

Q: WHAT WAS THE EXACT NATURE OF THE CATASTROPHE?

ONE ACED

Q: WHAT WAS THE EXACT NATURE OF THE CATASTROPHE?

ONE A

Q: WHAT WAS THE EXACT NATURE OF THE CATASTROPHE?

ONE

Q: WHAT WAS THE EXACT NATURE OF THE CATASTROPHE?

WON

Q: WHAT WAS THE EXACT NATURE OF THE CATASTROPHE?

WIN

Q: WHAT WAS THE EXACT NATURE OF THE CATASTROPHE?

IN

Q: WHAT WAS THE EXACT NATURE OF THE CATASTROPHE?

N

Q: WHAT WAS THE EXACT NATURE OF THE CATASTROPHE?

NO ANSWER AVAILABLE

NO ANSWER AVAILABLE

NO ANSWER AVAILABLE

END OF SESSION. PLEASE CLEAR ALL PREVIOUS JUNK AND RESET IF REQUIRED.

*

They are still looking at the window.

Ryan finds himself and his wife and their two children standing in front of the window. His arm is around Josephine on one side and his other arm spans the shoulders of the two boys on the other.

The crowd is talking about them. Ryan feels fear for his wife and children. The crowd talks more angrily, looks at Ryan and his family.

The scream behind the music is louder, the singing more urgent, the drum beats faster, faster, faster.

*

THE SPACESHIP IS ON COURSE FOR MUNICH.

ON COURSE TRAVELLING AT JUST BELOW THE

SPEED OF LIGHT.

THE SPACESHIP IS ON COURSE FOR MUNICH.

*

CONDITION STEADY

CONDITION STEADY

CONDITION STEADY

The light flashes on and off as if trying to warn him of something rather than to reassure him. He frowns at the big sign. Is there something wrong with the hibernating personnel. Something he has not noticed? Something the instruments have not registered?

*

And Ryan awakes sweating in his red, inflatable chair and stares blindly at the minute, flat figures on the television screen.

His body is limp and his mouth is dry.

He licks his lips and sighs aloud.

Then he sets his mouth in a firm line, switches off the set and leaves the room.

His feet echo along the passageway. He reaches a cubicle containing a long white bed. He straps himself on and is massaged.

When he is finished his body aches and his mind is still not clear.

It is now time for Ryan to eat. He returns to his room and gets food. He eats and he tastes nothing.

When he has finished he raises the cover over the porthole screen in his room and looks out through the simulated window into the vastness of space.

For a second he feels that he sees a dark figure out there in the void. He clears his vision rapidly and stares out at the stars.