They learn to take their chances, to take risks. One man, a guard in uniform, spends minutes staring calmly at a screen, tapping out a rhythm between forefinger and thumb knuckle, before he pauses. Circulation poor, hands cold and ankles swollen. The rhythm is compulsive, backgrounded, an outbreak of the stress in his chest, his kidneys, the pressure rising inside capillaries. If they could read his mind, they might understand the source of this anxiety, but the language of the body has its own intelligence. They study the text of skin and heart and blood and muscle.
Will he sense them there, if they disturb him?
The guard exhales, a near sigh controlled. He turns, one hand still tapping. In his twisted step they find a blister where the shoe has pushed its seam against him. His tread is heavier on that side, as though the foot wants to feel the discomfort. Of course the body wants to feel, to know it lives. Understanding this, they burst the blister.
He stumbles, the rhythm broken. Stands still, his eyes cast to the ceiling. Then the tapping stops.
They take charge of him. Feel his withdrawal as they fill the space in him like water. The pain travels through him, from the blister to the brain. One change cascades. Their disruption rattles through his systems, uncontainable chain reactions. A single alteration is much more complicated than they thought, and more dangerous.
He clears his throat. His finger resumes, without asking their permission. The rhythm subtly slowed. They let go.
As they slip from him, a young man passes on the platform, speaking in hushed tones into his phone. For a moment they might have lost the sense of words. But this is a language their body once knew. They recall the feel of it in his mouth, the shape of the muscle in the back of the throat. ‘Wǒ zhīdào, wǒ zhīdào,’ he mutters, defensive. The heat of the machine against his ear, and a woman’s voice. They feel his body respond to a name. His name. The sound of it in her voice, and a flush of warm belonging. Then he steps onto the train and it swings away. Her voice decays, and he changes. His limbs engaged in steadying. A motherless sigh. They slip out with the breath.
The transitions are becoming easier, even if control remains beyond them. They flip through bodies like pages, looking for lines they recognise, that leap of meaning. Each body speaks in its own cadence, with its own accent, in unique patterns of heat and energy and motion, desire and entanglement, attention and aversion and devotion. Each its own playground and prison. A boy asleep in sugar dreams, teenage limbs swinging from handrails; a man with a warm pie in a bag on his lap, the scent of it dancing in his stomach; a woman staring at a crossword, pen in the mouth, the taste of ink. Noise in headphones, and the rush of air from an open window. The flush of being drunk in the afternoon. Sour sweat. A ball under one big arm. Captive muscle bursting, humid breath. The spell of Deaf hands singing to each other. The bodies keep swinging open, and they search through, more deliberate than before. Looking for the open host, the safe harbour. All these people, losing their distinctions. It is a long time since they’ve caught a glimpse of him.
There are only so many people in this city. How long will it take to come into contact with all of them? They must find him again. They want to light out after him, to sink their teeth into his skin. The desire isn’t simple – isn’t fair, perhaps – but it’s undeniable.
And if they find him. If they get to him. What then?
They pause, abruptly nervous. It takes a moment to remember that they have no teeth of their own to sink. It’s this body that’s nervous, then. Her trousers too tight around the hips. They watch her set the feet with care as she steps from the train, no confidence in her balance, a strain to move, but urgent. She crosses the closed platform, rides the escalator into artificial light. Her tongue against the smooth back of one canine. A tunnel, and another escalator, and another tunnel. White tiles. A glimpse of sky through frames: door, carpark. Moving with a stream of others, gathering their panic as she pushes through the crowd. Sudden smell of coffee, bread. She hesitates, and glances behind her. They want to go back to the train. She’s already half turned that way, it isn’t far. They don’t want to hurt her, but she might just move if they try. They force her doors.
She doesn’t listen. They’ve already lost her, lost their concentration.
She keeps a firm grip on her case, stretches one leg, an ache at the back of the knee where they can settle, compensating, in a long nerve. Then they follow the attention in the hand. They feel the sweat against the vinyl of the little book she’s carrying between thumb and palm. She looks down at the cover. Dark blue, coat of arms, a ribbon and a nest of stars. She strides to a screen and pads at it, scans the passport. Sighs and joins a line. Stands behind a couple with two small children, one amok. As the child whines and stretches flat under the barrier she looks up and steps forward, craning her neck to see over the man in front of her.
They’ve lost the trains. But this is a crowded place. There’s still a possibility.
They feel her fear. It’s in the blood pressure, the sweat in her shirt, and the way the body fidgets, leans and shuffles forward, cradling old hurts. The way one shoulder slumps under the weight of a bag. Around her, others, watching. The sounds of voices in the air, reverberations and overlaps, untranslatable noise. Like a mall, too many people. She looks up at signs, boards, numbers, clocks, faces. The heart an animal in the hollow of her throat. She’s making an escape. She moves, slings the bag onto a conveyor belt, waits and walks through a scanner. A guard nods her past and she collects the bag again, turning to change the favour; the shoulder pains her. Announcements, shops, more wide corridors. Then the sky, suddenly available. A horizon through high windows. A cement expanse with planes lined up alongside, and the little trucks that tend them. She looks at a sign; it says Departures.
They panic.
She walks faster. Running out of time.
If they leave, they might never find him. But she won’t stop for them. They slip into the first person coming the other way. Overdressed, hot in the coat. Skinny, hair tickling the neck, an itch in the back unsatisfied. They hesitate beneath a sign and shift their weight: one leg, then the other. Something about this body softens their terror; it’s calm, familiar. They surrender.
The person moves back and forth in the corridor. The hand moves to the coat pocket but it’s empty. They sink into a chair. They can’t leave the airport, can’t even scratch the place that wants to be scratched. It is, they are, too insubstantial. The body leans forward, and they remember a feeling they have had before. A longing to become invisible. To be both touched and safe, in a body and completely free of it. Just air.
It makes them restless.
They rise from the chair, an ache in the thighs from recent exercise. They feel safe in these limbs, in the muscle against the bones: not comfortable but known. They move a hand across the chin.
They close in on the body’s secret language. Any impulse transmitted into action is a nightmare of complexity, the limbs are light-years from the mind. And each body has its own encryptions. But they are learning.
They begin with the eyes. A test of their power. To read the sign: Departures, flight times, destinations. Choices.
The body ignores them, turns to the newsstand and moves along, glancing at the images, picking out magazines, replacing them. They scan the titles printed across galaxies: Gravitation. Exoplanets. Collider. A universe of frustration.
The eyes go dark.
The next thing they know is the scratch of skin on polyester, stockings against shaved legs, ticklish. The weight of breasts, the itch of breast-sweat underneath. A burn on the arm. The fingers reach and press the place. There’s sweetness in the feeling, warm against cold fingertips. She controls her posture, pauses at the newsstand, buys a cold tin of mints, presses her finger to the rim of the lid, the happy rap of a lacquered nail, and as she turns they notice the skinny person at the magazine rack, still standing there. She pauses to watch them for a moment. They are very still. Their ambiguity, perhaps, disturbs her. An urge to reach for them, to check they are breathing.
The skinny person inhales, spins on their feet, and faces her, a magazine held to their chest. She freezes, then smiles. The taste of lipstick. Looks them in the eye. And they look back, undaunted, clear of gaze. A look nothing can faze.
‘You right?’ they ask her.
They feel her pull back, confronted. She looks down at her pointed shoes and, seeing one foot turned slightly in, corrects it.
‘I’m sorry,’ she mutters. Hands brush at her sides.
‘Take a picture, lady.’ High eyebrow, playing with her.
The woman shivers, embarrassed. The figure pushes past her, drops the magazine on the rack, moves down the hall at a stride. Her eyes follow them, the way soon obscured by scaffold and white plasterboards.
She takes a seat, stretches out the slender legs. Clears her throat, touches the burn again, and picks up her phone. Holds it up, turns the camera, looks at herself as though in a mirror. A pretty face, Asian, makeup an immaculate mask. She looks into her own eyes, searching through it. Small movements of the eyes, the nose, the brow. It’s hard to determine the source. They swim up through her; they will make themselves known.
She takes a picture, then lets her face relax. Looks at the picture. Frowns. Deletes it. Opens the mirror-screen again. The image still disturbs her. She can’t look away.
They want to see her face. Are almost present in it.
Then a voice, loud. She grabs the straps of her bag and rises. Hurries forward through the people assembling. Her phone in one fist. They stop her, and she stands in line. To catch her breath, and then her flight.
As she hurries downstairs, she looks up at the plane’s body, sleek and flimsy, clutching her tickets in one hand. Do they see a familiar figure walking down the aerobridge, a shadow through blue glass? The sun’s behind him; he’s gone before she looks away.