J. Ballard - High Rise

By contrast, Anthony Royal, high on the open roof three floors above, had never been more awake. Ready at last to join the sea-birds, he stood at the windows of his peat-house, looking out over the open plazas of the development project towards the distant mouth of the river. Washed by the recent rain, the morning air was clear but frozen, and the river flowed from the city like a stream of ice. For two days Royal had eaten nothing, but far from exhausting him the absence of food had stimulated every nerve and muscle in his body. The shrieking of the gulls filled the air, and seemed to tear at the exposed tissues of his brain. They rose from the elevator heads and balustrades in a continuous fountain, soared into the air to form an expanding vortex and dived down again towards the sculpture-garden.

Royal was certain now that they were calling for him. He had been deserted by the dogs-as soon as he freed them they had disappeared into the stairways and corridors below-and only the white alsatian remained. It sat at Royal's feet by the open windows, mesmerized by the movement of the birds. Its wounds had healed now, and its thick arctic coat was white again. Royal missed the stains, as he did the bloody hand-prints that Mrs Wilder had washed from his jacket.

The little food Royal had taken with him before sealing himself into the penthouse he had given to the dog, but already he felt himself beyond hunger. For three days he had seen no one, and was glad to have cut himself off from his wife and neighbours. Looking up at the whirling cloud of gulls, he knew that they were the true residents of the high-rise. Without realizing it at the time, he had designed the sculpture-garden for them alone.

Royal shivered in the cold air. He wore his safari-jacket, and the thin linen gave him no protection against the wind moving across the concrete roof. In the over-lit air the white fabric was grey by comparison with Royal's chalk-like skin. Barely able to control himself, and uncertain whether the scars of his accident had begun to reopen themselves, he stepped on to the terrace and walked across the roof.

The gulls sidled around him, rolling their heads and wiping their beaks against the concrete. The surface was streaked with blood. For the first time Royal saw that the ledges and balustrades were covered with these bloody notches, the symbols of a mysterious calligraphy.

Voices sounded in the distance, a murmur of women. In the central section of the observation deck, beyond the sculpture-garden, a group of women residents had gathered for some kind of public discussion.

Unsettled by this intrusion into his private landscape, and its reminder that he was not yet alone in the apartment building, Royal retreated behind the rear wall of the sculpture-garden. The voices moved around him, talking away informally as if this were the latest of many similar visits. Perhaps he had been asleep during their previous excursions, or with the cooler weather they had decided to move their meeting place further along the roof to the shelter of his penthouse.

The vortex of birds was breaking up. As Royal returned to the penthouse the spiral had begun to disintegrate. The gulls dived away across the face of the building far below. Urging the alsatian ahead of him, Royal emerged from behind the rear wall of the sculpture-garden. Two of the women were standing inside the penthouse, one of them with a hand on the callisthenics machine. What startled Royal was their casual stance, as if they were about to move into a vacation villa they had recently rented.

Royal retreated behind an elevator head. After being alone with the birds and the white alsatian for so long the sight of these human intruders unsettled him. He pulled the dog against his legs, deciding to wait in the sculpture-garden until the visiting party had left.

He pushed back the rear door of the garden, and walked between the painted geometric forms. Dozens of the gulls surrounded him, crowded together on the tiled floor. They followed Royal expectantly, almost as if they had been waiting for him to bring something to them.

His feet slipped on the wet tiles. Looking down, he found a piece of gristle attached to his shoe. Pulling it away, he leaned against one of the concrete sculptures, a waist-high sphere that had been painted bright carmine.

When he drew his hand away it was wet with blood. As the birds strutted ahead, clearing an open space for him, he saw that the whole interior of the play-garden was drenched with blood. The tiled floor was slick with bright mucilage.

The alsatian snuffled greedily, wolfing down a shred of flesh lying by the edge of the paddling pool. Appalled, Royal stared at the blood-spattered tiles, at his bright hands, at the white bones picked clean by the birds.

It was late afternoon when Wilder woke. Cold air moved through the empty room, flicking at a newspaper on the floor. The apartment was without shadows. Wilder listened to the wind moving down the ventilation shafts. The screaming of the gulls had ended, as if the birds had gone away for ever. Wilder sat on the floor in a corner of the living-room, an apex of this untenanted cube. Feeling the pressure of his back against the wall, he could almost believe that he was the first and last occupant of this apartment building.

He climbed to his feet and walked across the floor to the balcony. Far below, he could see the thousands of cars in the parking-lots, but they were screened from him by a faint mist, part of the corroborative detail of a world other than his own.

Sucking at the traces of animal fat that clung to his fingers, Wilder entered the kitchen. The cupboards and refrigerator were empty. He thought of the young woman and her warm body in the elevator beside the pool, wondering whether to go back to her. He remembered her stroking his chest and shoulders, and could feel the pressure of her hands on his skin.

Still sucking his fingers, and thinking of himself abandoned in this huge building, Wilder stepped out of the apartment. The corridor was silent, the cold air stirring the tags of refuse on the floor. He carried the cine-camera in his left hand, but he was no longer certain what its function was, or why he had kept it with him for so long.

The silver pistol, by contrast, he recognized immediately. He held it in his right hand, pointing it playfully at the open doorways, and half-hoping that someone would come out to join him in his game. The top floors of the building had been partially invaded by the sky. He saw white clouds through an elevator shaft, framed in the skylight of the stairwell as he climbed to the 40th floor.

Feinting with the pistol, Wilder darted across the elevator lobby of the 40th floor. There were no barricades here, and a recent attempt had been made at housekeeping. The garbage-sacks had been removed, the barricades dismantled, the lobby furniture re-installed. Someone had scrubbed the walls, clearing away all traces of the graffiti, duty rosters and elevator embarkation times.

Behind him, a door closed in the wind, cutting off a shaft of light. Enjoying this game with himself in the empty building, and certain that someone would soon turn up to play with him, Wilder dropped to one knee and levelled the pistol at an imaginary assailant. He darted down the corridor, kicked back the door and burst into the apartment.

The apartment was the largest he had seen in the building, far more spacious than any others on the upper floors. Like the lobby and corridor, the rooms had been carefully cleaned, the carpets re-laid, the curtains hung around the high windows. On the polished dining-room table stood two silver candlesticks.

Impressed by this sight, Wilder wandered around the gleaming table. In some confused way he felt that he had already been here, many years before he came to this empty building. The high ceiling and masculine furniture reminded him of a house he had visited as a small child. He wandered around the refurnished rooms, almost expecting to find his childhood toys, a cot and playpen laid out for his arrival.