Jeff Noon: Vurt

"I'm in trouble with Miss Hobart now." He paused between sniffs. "It's all got to be accounted for, you know? She'll want a full report. That's a lot of work, and I blame you entirely. She almost woke up then. Do you know the consequences of Miss Hobart waking up? Before the right time? Do you? If she should stop dreaming? Why, it's unthinkable. We'd all be out of a job. Including you, Mr Scribble…"

He looked up at me. "Sir… are you crying…?"

I don't know what I was doing. Only that my back was killing me. I felt weak, and the room was swaying slightly.

"Here… can I…" Sniffing General was rising from his desk, clutching a paper tissue. I don't know what I looked like but the General stopped in his tracks before he even got close.

"My god… you've been cut… let me…"

"That's alright, General. I'd like to see the Cat, please."

"Straight away, sir."

I started to collapse.

But the office door was open now.

The Game Cat waiting there to greet me.

The fool's card is pinned to the wall in front of me. The silver feather replaced in the Cat's cabinet.

There are one thousand things in this room, and I am just one of them; living amongst objects and gifts. Writing all this up on an antique word processor; some desperate swap for some desperate feather.

The Cat's over in his armchair, drinking his wine, working on next week's issue. He likes to write with pen and ink; the future with the past.

I'm forty-one now. I feel about twenty-five or so. Look it, too. Living in Vurt really slows down the rote of change. God knows how old the Game Cat is. He looks a youthful fifty.

Twenty years.

Twenty years gone by, since Mandy first stepped out of that all-night Vurt-U-Want. Do they still have those places? I don't keep up with life. Real life. Sure, the Cat tells me stories now and again. How Des and Twinkle share a house somewhere. With the kid. That's right Des was pregnant when she came out of the Yellow. About five hours pregnant. Game Cat claims that the kid is mine, spawned halfway between Vurt and real; when Desdemona was inside Cinders that time, and we were making love, unprotected, on a Catholic bed. I don't know if that's possible. I don't know what is, and what isn't possible. The Cat says that it's a first; impregnating one woman, whilst making love to another. He reckons that's not bad going for some guy who wasn't very good with women.

I don't know.

Das Uber dog is getting old by now, as dogmen will; he's very high up in the music industry, in partnership with Dingo Tush. Bridget doesn't seem to feature. The Cat can find no traces. She's out there, somewhere, waiting to happen. Cinders and Barnie have split. I don't know where the chef is. Cinders would be too old now for starring in porno feathers, so I don't get to see her. Maybe I should find out where she is, what she's doing. The Cat took me down a few times, through door number five. We'd spend a few hours just wandering around, unseen, underhanded, looking for stories. The Cat loves it. I don't know… it didn't appeal somehow, all those candid shots, made me feel like a ghost.

Sometimes I ask the Sniffing General for a door access; a blue or a black. There's this new actress just coming up. Her feather name is Blush. She's twenty years old, very good at what she does, full of Vurt. Blush is a natural. She looks a lot like Desdemona, a little like me. She's going to be famous.

I don't know. I just don't know.

I go through door three sometimes, to the Pink world. Just to get rid of some feelings. So does the Game Cat. He visits the ones involving boys and sailors. Maybe I should've realised years ago. He doesn't bother me. Treats me like a brother.

Maybe he knows by now; I'll always be waiting.

I wonder sometimes why he keeps me here. Sure, I help out with the mag, writing reviews sometimes, copying his style. I suppose he's teaching me something.

What else?

No clues about Karli Dog. I like to think that she roamed the streets for years, running with the pack, and then died in action. That's a good story.

And sometimes, just sometimes…

I find myself riding some blue or black door, and this woman comes up to me, riding the same feather. She has the most beautiful eyes, and a dragon tattoo on her left, upper arm. We play for a while, working the game together like experts, always winning, never losing. She's thirty-nine years old. I'm twenty-five. It doesn't happen that often. I suppose it must get to her, the widening gap of age.

Cat tells me that she's got a new man now, down on the real world. That's okay. I can handle that.

Her wounds have healed; so have mine.

I guess I always loved Desdemona more than she loved me. That's why her staying here would have been a betrayal, a betrayal of life.

What else?

The Crash Riders feather got made eventually. It was a hard Yellow, and the money comes in useful, kind of, just to bribe the General now and again, into letting me pass through doorways I shouldn't.

It was the Cat who persuaded me to write down these memories. I don't know what to call it yet. Certainly not Crash Drivers. I might just call it after my name, or after what I am. What I have become.

Maybe you're reading it now.

Or maybe you're playing the feather.

Or maybe you're in the feather, thinking that you're reading the novel, with no way of knowing…

No matter.

The game is over soon. Just one more moment…

And then it's gone.

.. a young boy takes a feather out of his mouth.