THE N.E.E.D.
The Tachycardia Tower was the tallest building in all of Metaphoria, ninety-nine storeys of steel and glass that rose upward without hesitation or compassion. The windows were always clean. The sidewalk in front of it was made of gold. The revolving door let some people in and turned others away. Occasionally people inside the building would stand at the windows and look out, their faces blank and impossible to read. The building stood at the corner of Wealth and Acquisition, the very heart of the Never-Ever-Enough District, and was considered the most prestigious address in all of Metaphoria. It attracted the city’s wealthiest, most powerful people, prosperous and well-respected citizens who had lived here for years, if not decades, and who had acquired great influence, if rather miserable lives, by never questioning their motives.
Charlie didn’t know any of that. He just didn’t like the look of the building. Typically, he appreciated this form of architecture. He loved the unembellished lines of the glass-and-steel box. But there was something about this building that just didn’t sit right with him. It wasn’t only that the building felt cold, or how it conveyed aloofness as it looked down on all the other buildings surrounding it. To Charlie, the building felt untrustworthy, a feeling he’d never had about a building before. He couldn’t specifically say why he felt the building was untrustworthy, but the sensation was so strong that Charlie wondered if someone who spent their days working in such a place could have a heart to lose.
Charlie parked in the shadow of the Tachycardia Tower. He’d been surprised that his position as the sole detective of the Epiphany Detective Agency had come with a car. Shortly after returning to his original height, Charlie had discovered a set of car keys hanging to the right of the office door. He was even more surprised to learn they unlocked the apple-red Corvette parked in front of the building. It was with a teenaged glee that Charlie started the engine and drove, guided by some kind of instinct, directly to the N.E.E.D. From across the street he watched the revolving door of the Tachycardia Tower, hoping to see Twiggy. He left the car running. He gunned the engine several times, just to hear the horsepower. It was while he was doing this that Charlie realized the car was the physical manifestation of a mid-life crisis.
Charlie wanted to be in any other vehicle than this one, but Metaphoria wouldn’t comply. His car remained an apple-red 1984 Corvette. Slumping down in the driver’s seat Charlie watched people exit the building and tried not to listen too closely to the ticking, while trying to figure out how to proceed. Shirley had given Charlie only her husband’s nickname and not a physical description, so he didn’t know exactly who he was looking for until a man came through the revolving door whose arms were made of twigs. Eight sticks, twisted together, formed his arms. The sticks bent halfway down, making elbows. Ten tiny twigs served as fingers.
Twiggy raised his left stick and hailed a taxi. As soon as he got inside, the cab started giving off a pulsating red glow. This made it easy for Charlie to follow the car, although he quickly became disoriented by the way the city streets were laid out. Many of the intersections weren’t formed by two streets crossing but by a fork, where the road veered off in two directions. This made it difficult for Charlie to keep track of what direction he had headed in. The length of each block varied wildly, making it impossible to know how far they’d actually travelled. Charlie was already lost when the taxi hung a left onto a street that was a downward spiral.
The spiral street continued for some time. Just when Charlie lost hope that it would ever end, it did. They drove into a dark tunnel. Charlie turned on his lights. The tunnel also seemed to go on forever and, at the very moment that Charlie started to believe it would never end, he drove out of the tunnel and into bright afternoon sunlight. Blinking and confused, he continued following the taxi. They drove past a sign that announced what part of Metaphoria they were in.
The sign said
FORGOTTEN TOWN
Forget yourself in Forgotten Town!
Forgotten Town was not just abandoned but deconstructed. The foundations of buildings that were no longer standing were all that remained. There were no trees or parked cars or signs of human activity. Charlie hung back so the taxi he was following wouldn’t see him. He watched the cab stop in front of the only structure within view, a one-storey building made of cinder blocks. The windows were narrow and barred. The building was surrounded by a chain-link fence topped with barbed wire. A tall black iron gate in front of the entrance hung open.
The sign in front of it said
THE PRISON OF OPTIONAL INCARCERATION
NECESSARY TO TERMINATE OR LOWER
EXCESSIVE SHAME AND SELF-REPROACH
Charlie watched Twiggy go inside. The taxi pulled away. The building radiated the colour grey – everything within a thirty-metre radius, even the grass, even Twiggy as he approached the entrance, was drained of colour. Twiggy went inside. Charlie pulled into the parking lot. He gripped the steering wheel tightly. The sound of the ticking got louder. Charlie turned on the radio. He increased the volume, engaged the windshield wipers, and set the heater to the maximum setting. All of these things failed to drown out the sound of the ticking. Charlie waited ten more minutes, just to be sure he wouldn’t run into Twiggy, then he got out of the car and walked across the deserted parking lot. As he got closer to the Prison of Optional Incarceration Necessary to Terminate or Lower Excessive Shame and Self-Reproach, the colours of his clothes got duller. When he reached the entrance, his shoes were no longer brown and his tie was no longer green. Everything everywhere was varying shades of grey. Charlie tried the front door and, finding it unlocked, went inside.
The ceilings were so low that Charlie, who was not tall, had to lean forward to avoid striking them with the crown of his head. The walls were drywall but painted to look like cinder blocks. The absence of colour continued. The building consisted of one long hallway, which Charlie couldn’t see the end of. He walked down this hallway and came to several barred doors, all unlocked. Along both sides of this hallway, ten metres apart, were identical cells. Each cell held a prisoner. Each prisoner held the same position: they sat on the edge of their cots with their feet flat on the ground, their shoulders rounded and hunched, and their forearms flat against their upper thighs. They all stared at the floor. Not one of them looked up as Charlie walked past.
Twiggy came out of a cell about three hundred metres in front of Charlie. Charlie ducked into an empty cell and stared at the floor. He didn’t look up as Twiggy walked past. When Charlie could no longer hear Twiggy’s footsteps, he left that cell and walked to the one Twiggy had just left. The door slid open easily. The prisoner’s hair had been recently cut and his double-breasted jacket was well tailored, although both his haircut and suit were several years out of fashion.
Charlie recognized the prisoner immediately. His name was Wolff Parkinson White, and he’d been in a committed relationship with Linda Penmore until she’d fallen in love with Charlie and married him. The last time he’d seen him, Wolff had tried to pick a fight. Charlie waited for him to look up. Wolff continued staring at the stains on the concrete floor. When Wolff did look up, he initially failed to recognize Charlie, as if his eyes were so accustomed to staring at the same piece of floor that they’d lost the ability to perceive anything new.
‘Charlie Waterfield! Not surprised to see you here.’ Wolff shuffled to his left, making room for Charlie on the cot. Charlie sat down and took his cigarettes from the inside pocket of his jacket. His fingers trembled as he fought with the packaging. The first cigarette he pulled out fell onto the floor. The second he passed to Wolff. The third he successfully lit. He passed his lighter to Wolff. Neither talked. The ash from Wolff’s cigarette turned to snow just before it hit the floor.
‘How long have you been in Metaphoria?’ Wolff asked.
‘About an hour.’
‘Wow. Well, don’t worry about panicking. Everybody panics when they first get here.’
‘I’ve already almost died because of shrinking. And I have a bomb in my chest where my heart should be.’
‘Welcome to Metaphoria!’
‘How long have you been here?’
‘I’m afraid I can’t answer that.’
‘I won’t judge.’
‘I wish I could tell you. I can’t even remember how long I’ve been sitting in this cell. Tell me – what did you arrive as?’
‘I’m not following you, Wolff.’
‘Everyone, when they arrive in Metaphoria, gets some sort of strange profession. Something they didn’t – something no one did, back home. Something more out of fiction than real life. What’s yours?’
‘A detective. I work for the Epiphany Detective Agency. I think it’s mine. As in, I am the Epiphany Detective Agency.’
‘Then I suppose you have some questions.’
‘I do.’
‘Ask away, although I don’t think there’s much you don’t already know about me.’
‘I’m more interested in the guy who just visited you.’
‘Twiggy?’
‘Yeah. Him. Who is he to you?’
‘He’s my brother.’
‘I didn’t know you had a brother.’
‘I didn’t until I got here.’
‘Is he a good guy?’
‘No. Absolutely not.’
‘Do you know his wife?’
‘Which one?’
‘He has other wives?’
‘Two.’
‘Shirley Miller’s his third?’
‘Technically she’s his first, third, and fifth. They’ve been married three times and divorced twice. They’ve got one of those loves that runs hot and cold.’
‘Do you think he still loves her?’
‘That’s the thing about love, isn’t it? Even in Metaphoria there’s no indicator light that flashes green, no absolute way of knowing if someone’s got love in their heart for you or not.’
‘Wouldn’t that be nice.’
‘A dream.’
‘Is your brother a careful man? Would he be prone to lose something?’
‘The only thing he’s ever lost are his arms. And they grew back.’
‘Do you know anybody who’d want to steal your brother’s heart?’
‘I know he has a tendency to give it away.’
‘Anybody in particular?’
‘The name Kitty Packesel comes to mind. She’s a scientist. They’re working on some kind of secret project together. Twiggy wouldn’t tell me much about it except to say it’s called the Spero Machine.’
‘What’s it supposed to do?’
‘I don’t really know. Something to do with love.’
‘What doesn’t have to do with love in this town?’
‘Why do you think I stay in this cell?’
‘Anything else you can tell me about their relationship?’
‘They meet every Thursday at the Disappointment.’
‘The Disappointment?’
‘It’s a restaurant in the Seven Months Later District. Twiggy comes and visits me every Thursday, then meets her for dinner. They’ll just be sitting down for appetizers right now.’
‘I appreciate your candour, Wolff.’
‘Well, it’s Metaphoria, Charlie. If you’re here, there’s gotta be some reason for it.’
‘Let’s hope so.’ The cell door swung open. Charlie stood. Then he paused. ‘What is this place anyway?’
‘Don’t think of it as a place but as an opportunity.’
‘To do what?’
‘Has anyone explained to you how to get out of Metaphoria?’
‘I was told I had to have an epiphany. That it was best to form it as a question, to try and find the purpose of the human heart.’
‘What if all that’s wrong? What if the secret to triggering a poof isn’t an epiphany at all? What if it isn’t about self-realization but punishment? Technically this is a prison, but there are no trials, judges, or convictions. There aren’t even locks or guards. Incarceration is entirely voluntarily. This whole building is an opportunity to do your time for whatever it is that you’ve done wrong.’
‘So you just sit here and wait for your poof to happen?’
‘Exactly.’
‘Now I understand the acronym.’
Charlie nodded as he left Wolff’s cell. Wolff looked back at the stains on the concrete floor. He didn’t look up as Charlie walked away.
Charlie had almost retraced his steps completely when he noticed the cell. He still thought this place was ludicrous, but something strange and powerful pulled him toward the empty cell. He stopped in front of the door. Unable to resist, Charlie gave it a gentle push. The door drifted open and he stepped inside.
The cot creaked as Charlie sat down. He rested his forearms on the tops of his legs. He looked down at the floor. He thought about Wanda and how he hadn’t used the walkie-talkie to call her. He thought about how unlikely it was that he was going to get his kids to karate. These things weighed heavily on his mind, then the cell door swung closed, causing a sudden metallic clang to ring out. It was at this moment that Charlie felt the heavy weight of his obligations, expectations, and responsibilities leave his body. He breathed deeply in. He noticed how shallow his breaths had been. He was unsure how long he had been breathing this way, perhaps years.
Since the P.O.I.N.T.L.E.S.S. had no guards or locks, the length of his sentence was entirely up to Charlie. The more years he imagined giving himself, the better he felt. It was as Charlie contemplated giving himself a life sentence, when he saw himself spending the rest of his life in this tiny, windowless cell, that every ounce of his remorse, guilt, and shame faded away and he decided that he would never, ever leave this cell.