Lochlan Bloom - Dust - Sandstorms

The Wave

Read the first chapter now…

In the end, who can say whether it was a coincidence or not. The story, if you call it that, starts with μ but where it leads and what it all adds up to is another matter. There are apparent links, sure, but do they amount to anything important? Do the various events and connections, described in such detail, form part of a bigger picture? You could waste a lifetime poring over these sorts of questions, burying your nose in a book, looking for some underlying structure, but these questions are never for the story to answer and, in any case, there are far better ways to spend your time than sitting around reading a novel.

μ had just opened the front door of his flat and there it was, lying directly in front of him. It struck him as unusual straight away. There was never normally post for him, some bills perhaps, the occasional piece of junk mail, but even that was less now that he had moved flats.

He turned the envelope over, feeling its weight. The heavy duty manila suggested its contents might be in some way valuable. His name was written on the front in thick black marker pen. Brightly coloured stamps and postmarks crowded the front – wavy lines of red ink. One mark looked like it read: ‘Brasil’ and another: ‘Airmail’. μ didn’t know anyone in Brazil.

He opened the inner door, that led to his flat, as he pulled at the thick glue that held the flap of the envelope shut. Inside lay a sheaf of typed sheets. Names and descriptions of locations were interspersed with clips of dialogue, as if someone had been following people, noting down their actions. It made no sense. Had some confidential dossier been sent to him by mistake? He looked more closely.

No, it appeared to be some sort of film script. He didn’t read these sorts of things and he struggled to grasp the layout. Most of each page was white space, broken only by small regular clumps of text floating in the centre. Why had it been sent to him?

He leafed quickly through. Page after page was covered in light grey type with a font reminiscent of old-fashioned manual typewriters. He ran his finger over one of the pages but it was smooth and appeared to have been printed rather than hand typed. Who would send him this? He checked the envelope again; it definitely looked like one of the stamps read ‘Brasil’. There was no letter of explanation enclosed.

He threw his bag on the couch and placed the script on the table, orbiting around it. The flat took up half of an old draughty building that had been half-heartedly renovated in order to rent out. The landlord was never there and his flatmates weren’t back by then so he had the place to himself.

He flicked through the first few pages. What a disappointment! Twelve pages in and it was clear that this was no ‘ Catcher in the Rye’. Instead there was a confused story about a character named Ddunsel, who seemed to be the main suspect in a case involving several abductions, child molestation and murder. In several places graphic descriptions of his crimes were included. He seemed to be some sort of all-powerful psychopath. The action jumped around at random and the dialogue was uniformly poor. Who had sent him this drivel?

The few sections that contained anything approaching a decent plot were ill thought out and μ felt a dislike for the writing. There was no narrative line, only a haphazard collection of scenes, and it was obviously written by someone with little love of language. Despite this there was an undeniable intention behind the writing and, distantly, some form of malevolent intelligence.

He was reading a section that described the rape and murder of a young boy by Ddunsel when the sound of the front door distracted him. They would all be returning for dinner. μ put the manuscript down and then, on impulse, covered it with a magazine in case they should ask him some question about what it was or where it came from. It was true he had nothing to hide, but still the tone of some of the passages and the disturbing content about child murder were not what he wanted them to think he usually read.

He was sharing the house with foreigners. They entered, talking amongst themselves, and threw a nod in μ’s direction. He nodded back and they busied themselves preparing their evening meal. There were only three others that actually lived there – Georgi, Ivan and Catarina – but often their friends would come around in the evenings and as many as ten or twelve of them would sit in the shared space eating and talking seriously.

μ had just moved into this place and he was sure his problems were well behind him. It was a lot better than the flat where he had stayed before and now he had settled in he found it hard to believe that he had been in that old house for so long.

“All those people living on top of each other, rubbing against each other every day,” he thought. “It’s just as well that I moved out and found this new room.”

The foreigners had funny, dark features but they kept themselves to themselves and were always pleasant. They had an unusual musky smell about them but were quite tidy which made living there that bit easier. He had had no problems with them and would almost have said he liked it there.

The arrival of the script seemed purposefully designed to disrupt his peace of mind. What a shitty present to receive. What kind of spiteful bastard had sent him this? From the little he had read it did not seem to have been written for simple entertainment .

It was possible that it had been sent by some person quite separate from the original author but somehow that seemed unlikely. The writing and subsequent delivery of the package appeared the result of some invisible intellect tangling with a dark, not quite realizable issue. It sent a shiver down his spine.

Georgi, Ivan and Catarina always arrived home at about the same time and prepared a meal in the same communal way, laughing and joking amongst themselves. In their own language they spoke too fast for μ to understand and he would normally just wait until someone addressed him directly or else nod along, pretending he got the gist of what they were saying. When they spoke directly to μ it was in broken, stuttering sentences and μ sensed that he was the one holding them up, even though as foreigners they should really master the language. He tried to imagine what it would be like to be from their country and speak that earthy, dirty language. To be able to walk down the street there and understand what everyone was saying.

It was only the three of them this evening and μ felt relief that there wouldn’t be a huge crowd for dinner. If truth be told μ had something of a crush on Catarina. She was light and elfin with eyes that seemed to permanently flicker with laughter. When, sometimes, μ tried to laugh along to a joke, Georgi and Ivan always gave a look that somehow suggested he was faking it but something about Catarina made him believe she was sharing a true part of her spirit with him.

They cleared the table and μ slipped the script up to his room, unseen behind a magazine. When he returned the food was ready and he helped set out the dishes of fried meat they had prepared. It was good heavy food, fatty and simple, the sort of fare that would fill you up. μ ate in silence preoccupied by the script and who could have sent it to him.

Throughout the course of the dinner Catarina, Georgi and Ivan talked loudly about a rising political figure in their homeland, occasionally stopping to enlighten μ on a particular point or ask his opinion on topics he knew nothing about. As they drank, Georgi became more and more high-spirited, edging closer and closer to Catarina and putting his hands around her as he spoke. μ wasn’t sure he could finish everything on his plate.