IMAGINE THIS

IMAGINE THIS. YOU’RE SWINGING with both hands from a power line. Not long ago, in fact, cities were crisscrossed with such lines. You couldn’t admire a sunset without peering through dark loops of cable.

Above you the sky was so solidly blue that infinite space seemed impossible. On that day the sky was like a lid on the world — and it wasn’t very high, either. If your hands hadn’t been gripping so tightly to the power line, you could have reached up and grazed it with the tips of your fingers.

Below — much further below than the sky was above — lay a field of grass. Short muddy grass that, at this distance, appeared more grey than green. Bald patches of dirt reminded you of when you’d pulled a handful of hair from your classmate’s scalp, and watched his jeers turn to tears. For a while you’d kept his hair, dead brown matter, in a chocolate box with certain other trophies. It was the only thing you’d ever done that kept you awake at night from guilt.

‘GO, FREAKS!’

This is what you hear, dimly, behind the deafening thud of your heart and the ominous crackling from inside your fists.

‘GET CLOSER TO EACH OTHER, FREAKS! FIGHT!’

Glancing down and to one side, you see rows of staring faces. Freckled cheeks, glinting braces, gapped teeth, jug ears. And — too late! — you recognise them as nothing but your classmates. Monstrous, and monstrously stupid kids, but not ringmasters or masterminders in any way. At this point you realise you’re in enormous danger.

Until now you’ve avoided looking along the wire, that scorching shining power line from which you’re hanging like a carcass in a butcher’s shop. Because just over six feet away is your best friend, and he’s not looking good. His face is deathly white, huge patches of sweat have blossomed in his cotton armpits, and his eyes — kind and brown in better circumstances — are unrecognisable. They’re animal eyes, lamb to the slaughter.

‘I can’t hold on!’ That’s what you hear, and you’ll continue to hear it for the rest of your life.

‘Drop!’ This is what you say, and later, in nightmares, you’ll find yourself saying it over and over again. ‘We have to drop!’ Even in the midst of terror, with the blade of the sky hanging over you, you remember what you’ve been told by your father, an electrical engineer who’s just opened his own lighting company. Yes, you’re cleverer than you look — and far, far cleverer than anyone has yet realised. Your shoulders are burning, piss is running down your legs, but even so you know about voltage, conductors, and the way electrical currents look for the shortest route to earth.

‘We can’t drop. We’ll break our necks.’ Luke is crying, his tears falling into nowhere. ‘The tree!’

He’s right, there is a tree, dangerously close to the power line. One long high branch extends sideways, looking like an outstretched arm, looking like a lifeline.

‘Don’t touch the tree!’ You shout it so loudly that it feels as if your eyeballs will rupture. But Luke is edging away from you, jerking his way hand over hand along the power line.

‘FRE-EE-EAKS!’ The kids below are screaming now, running in circles in animal panic. They may not know what’s going to happen, but they know they’ve gone too far.

‘Don’t touch the tree!’ You scream it again.

Luke reaches out

— and at that moment your sweaty hands lose their grip and you’re falling. You don’t hear Luke’s echoing scream, or the kids crying and caterwauling. The fall is the slowest, quietest time of your life. In fact after that you’ll never know true silence again. After the fall the world reveals itself to you in all its chaos, endlessly clamouring for your eyes and your ears: not something you’ve asked for, or could ever want.

THUD.

You hit the ground hard. So hard. Breath shoots from your lungs, while your friend crashes down like a felled tree not far away. You notice that there are leaves clutched in his blackened hands. His arms are charred as if he’s been laid on a grill. Dried mud spills like loose change from his pockets.

Fortunately, you can’t see his face.

What happens then? (No one has heard this story in such detail before; you’re struggling to describe the strangeness of the experience.)

Well, then you lay on the ground, listening to someone groan. It didn’t sound like a noise you’d ever make, but it probably came from you. Face down on the grass, taking what felt like your very last breath, you inhaled — heat. That’s what it felt like: breathing in heat. When you rolled onto your back, the sun had scorched the sky like toast. You could smell it burning, and an intense blackness showed through the blue.

Your palms were gouged across with deep scarlet grooves, your ears rang for two and a half weeks. Your best friend had fallen beside you, dead. For a long time you were unable to walk straight. Once you’d swayed your way back into everyday life, you were a changed person. You could hear the cries of the inarticulate, see the inanimate world writhing and crawling along its incredibly complex evolutionary path.

To sum up, you’d become incredible. You’d lost your best friend, but you’d gained the essence of the Incredible Gibby Lux.

AFTER THE STORY IS told, there’s a long collective intake of breath — and then applause all around.

Geoffrey says ‘Bravo!’ and then ‘Bravely done!’ He raises his polystyrene coffee cup in Gibby’s direction.

Where to look? Gibby fixes his eyes on his trainers. There’s a small dark smudge on the outside panel of his left shoe that wasn’t there when he started speaking, presumably caused by being so tightly twined around the leg of his chair. No one else says anything until he looks up, and this is like the opening of starter gates. Queries, comments, sympathy, horror, all rushing on through.

Mirabelle says, ‘So, was it because you couldn’t walk straight for a while that people started calling you Giddy?’

Savage says, ‘I would have beaten the crap out of those kids.’

Raven says, ‘I hear things too! Like, I can’t stop hearing the Windows Start-Up sound in my head, even though it doesn’t exist any more.’

Lace bites her lip and says, ‘Oh Gibby, you’ve never told me the last part. The noise, the chaos. So that’s what happens when you look —?’

Bright says, ‘Holy shit.’

(And Geoffrey adds, to Bright alone, ‘Yes, exactly.’ Bright, shamefaced: ‘I guess I was wrong.’ Geoffrey, pleasantly: ‘Admitting error is the first step to being right.’ Gibby, looking at them both: ‘Wrong about what?’)

‘Gibby, I wish I’d known,’ says Lace quietly. ‘Couldn’t you have told me?’

‘I thought about it.’ He pauses. ‘But I didn’t want you to think I was crazy. I might have ended up — here.’

Everyone laughs at this, and Lace squeezes his hand so hard it cracks, and Geoffrey takes a long slurp of his coffee before suggesting that a curse can be a blessing. ‘A truism, of course. But, as distressing as your episodes are, perhaps they’re also an intrinsic part of your inventions?’

Gibby forces himself to think about the swaying, disorienting moments. The world tilting on a different axis, so he has a clear view of the gaps in its surface, and what might be needed to fill those gaps. He gives a small reluctant nod.

‘You’re an inventor?’ Mirabelle grows rosy with respect. ‘Like Einstein?’

Savage rolls his eyes. ‘If you consider the theory of relativity an invention.’

‘You, too?’ Raven leans towards Gibby, in a kindred-spiritish way. ‘Sometimes I think up new things in dreams, especially if it’s a full moon.’

Geoffrey ignores all this. He’s looking at Gibby with a satisfied expression, as if he’s been mushroom hunting and has stumbled over a large patch of chanterelles. ‘Excellent! Now, if we can work out how to get rid of your anticipatory fear, I do believe the episodes may become less severe.’ He slurps from an empty cup, looks momentarily disappointed, and goes to the hotplate for a refill.

Bright slides across the room, carrying his chair with him. ‘Mind if I park here?’ He’s speaking to both of them, his green eyes flicking between Gibby and Lace. ‘I’m really sorry.’ He ducks his head. Is he apologising for his previously offhand attitude to Gibby, or the fact that Mud-Pie Luke had been electrocuted before Gibby’s eyes?

But Geoffrey’s back, stepping into the circle with a fresh cup of stale coffee. ‘Before we finish, a quick visit to the Summary Tree.’

‘Summery?’ echo the Twins, looking at the window running with rain.

‘Tree?’ Bright looks less than enthused. ‘I thought you hated the great outdoors.’

Again Geoffrey displays selective deafness. Opening a cupboard, he rolls out a tall cardboard cone mounted on a trolley. ‘Damn,’ he mutters, gathering up some trailing twigs. ‘We seem to have lost some branches in transit.’ Turning his back on the balding tree, he hands out messily torn scraps of paper. ‘I’d like you to write one word, or a few, to sum up how you’re feeling.’

‘How we’re feeling In General, or how we feel Right Now?’ asks Mirabelle, like a bright A student.

‘Don’t analyse!’ Geoffrey sweeps away her question with a grand wave of his arm and a small splash of coffee. ‘Just gut-summarise.’

‘Let’s get this over with.’ But clearly Bright is determined to make amends for something: he bends his head and scribbles with alacrity.

Having already got pleasing results, Geoffrey seems keen to end today’s session. He darts about the room, gathering up the papery confidences, urging the group not to think too much. Soon the Summary Tree is hung about with paper-twists, fastened rather ineptly with wool pulled from Geoffrey’s pocket. ‘Feel free to read! It’s all anonymous! Part of the private cathartic process.’ He leaves the room with his stained jacket flying behind him.

But how anonymous can it be with only eight people in the room, and each able to be matched to their handwriting? In the two minutes left before lunch, it’s ascertained that:

Savage is hungry, the Twins are full of empathy (for each other, of course, but presumably today especially for Gibby). The Swede is ‘apprehensive-and-gloomy’, while Raven has written ‘Personally Inspired’.

Only Lace has written nothing — or at least, has given Geoffrey nothing, cramming her paper and pen into her bag. But Bright hasn’t shied away from summing himself up in bold black capitals. ARROGANT. Although Gibby heartily agrees with this self-appraisal, he isn’t sure why today’s revelations have prompted this response.

As for Gibby, his twist of paper has been tied at the top of the tree like a Christmas star. It simply reads: Relief.