The Award
The room is octagonal and it is cavernous. In fact, to call it a room is probably a touch misleading on my part. It is, as I’ve mentioned, more of a cavern, but it — one assumes — is intentionally designed to fulfil some occupational function. Hence ‘room’. Scanning with my eyes the height of the room I can see that there are over a dozen floors which the room itself leads onto, the vertical distance between each floor strikes me as a conventional distance (take of that what you will), with each floor’s presence being signified by its own narrow balcony running around the large octagon in rings.
My feet rest on polished stone. I shuffle them ever so slightly and the stone squeaks in response. The walls are stone too, coloured in various tones of grey, seeping the lizard-like coldness only achieved by great expanses of rock. The ceiling of the room gradually curves upright into a sizeable hole from which the room’s primary source of light comes (is this technically a cavern, then?). The day outside looks white and milky. Bright but somewhat dull. Thanks to these unique light dynamics we — i.e. those of us inside this room — occupy, constitute, some sort of budget Caravaggio.
Including myself, there are only a handful of people in the room. The distance between us all seems unnaturally great. I pause momentarily and ask myself whether or not the distance only appears unnaturally great because of some disparity of magnitude between the minuteness of our individual persons and the enormity of the room. I decide though that it is not illusory, that we really are scattered sporadically across the room. This is despite the fact, oddly, that I can observe very minute visual and auditory details about the people here, details which shouldn’t be observable from this distance.
‘It will be the acoustics, surely.’ I say softly to myself, attempting to account for my newfound aural prowess.
A man draws my attention through his typing away at an old computer keyboard. He does so with a steady and continuous staccato. This manner in which he types gives off the impression that he is uncomfortable and unskilled with even this type of outdated technology, but I can’t be sure. Maybe he is just a slave to accuracy and a rescinder of time. His hair is short like himself. He is dressed in a cheap-fitting white shirt (I can tell by the awkwardly stiff collar), baby pink pullover, and jeans. As he leans back on his wheelie-chair I see his feet protrude from beneath the desk. He is wearing inexpensive navy espadrilles, and I note that a bottom portion of the shoe — around the heel — is nonexistent; his heels are bare.
Part of my initial observation is that this man has an underbite, but on further inspection I infer that it is more likely his inner indignation seeping out, caricature-like, into the contours of his face and his facial muscles. Through reading the little placard which sits just in front of his computer monitor I note that his name is ‘Mr. Nib Eggo’. Beneath his name is his title, his capacity here in this building, displayed, no doubt, to relay the message of legitimacy and importance — often, however, indicating the opposite, the converse of authority. It reads: ‘Procurator Mendacii et Terrae’.
My attention is diverted away from this bare-heeled office goblin by the sound of little twangs occurring elsewhere in the room. A young boy, dressed in a football shirt, football shorts, and football socks, plays keepie-uppies by himself. Each time he knocks his pink and black Sondico plastic football into the air the noise of contact reverberates all around. Again, the acoustics let the magnitude of the room be known. He is lithe and his body is taut, but rather than indicating strength his frame indicates the excellency of the early-pubescent metabolism. The boy’s gaze remains fixed on the forever fluctuating trajectory of his ball, but he speaks up, addressing an older man nearby, also in full footballing attire featuring the same pattern and colour scheme.
‘Dad?’
‘What?’
‘Aren’t bees amazing.’
‘Why?’
‘Think about it. Think how nice honey is.’
The boy pauses for a second to focus on his keepie-uppies. The ball falls onto his right thigh and is nudged back into the air, properly ready now, upon its eventual descent, for the activity of the eagerly primed right foot.
‘Honey is so nice. And it’s all made by bees. Think about all these little stupid insects flying around and making all that honey. We can’t make honey dad.’
‘Well where do you think sugar comes from then? That’s just as nice as honey isn’t it. It’s basically the same thing. Go on. Where does sugar come from?’ His father rejoins without the slightest whiff of any constructive pedagogy.
‘I don’t know.’
‘I’ll tell you where. It comes from a plant. Sugar cane.’
‘Oh.’
‘Yes. You can go on about bees all you like. But if you think it’s so “amazing” that a bee can make something sweet and tasty, just think how unimpressive they are compared to a plant.’
‘I suppose, dad’.
‘Andrew. Good to see you.’
I turn away from the churlishness of Football Dad and pivot my head in the direction of this new voice. The man the voice comes from is tall and knows my name. He carries the natural authority that Mr. Eggo, crudely clack-clacking away at his keyboard, lack-lacked. Though I can’t work out his name (as nothing on his person identifies him) he presents himself with a poise and posture, a sprezzatura if you like, which to me hints that I should know his name by intuitive introspection.
Just as Descartes argued that the God as a concept was naturally baked into us reasoning beings a priori, I feel as though the name of this tall man — perhaps God in his own realm by all rights — should be innately accessible to me even in my state of stupor, ignorance, and by this point, unease.
‘We’d heard from Mr. Eggo that you’d been a little demotivated lately.’ He says, smiling, interrupting my admittedly runaway train of thought.
He’s a diplomat if I’ve ever seen one, I can practically smell it on him. With this diplomatic proclivity in mind I infer that, in whatever prior conversations they’ve had, Mr. Eggo has described me not as “a little demotivated’ (that’s just the watered-down version) but more likely as a ‘massively disruptive force’ in what must be my working life.
‘Which is what makes the fact that you have won this award even more special.’ he finishes. The same smile. My unease shifts adroitly into angst.
Through utilising what could be described as a mental self-defence mechanism I disassociate from the conversation and return to thinking. It’s the contiguity of myself and Football Boy which spurs on the very next succession of thoughts. You know what they say about buses. I remember hearing someone once proclaim with enthusiastic vacuity and all the (totally baseless) self-absorption you could ever possibly need, that “life is a bit like a football match — it’s a game of two halves”.
When I heard this comment I found myself agreeing, but thankfully not for the same sophistic reasons as my interlocutor. Life is a game of two distinct halves, each with their own character, flavour, and potentiality, this is true enough. The thing is that most people don’t realise that the halves are played concurrently, simultaneously. The uninspired and impassioned. The thoughtful and animally uncritical. The body as temple and also as site of the deepest heresies imaginable. We are walking contradictions and that is fine, inherent, maybe. And here I am now, a quite literal walking and breathing example in favour of my point. For I am, apparently, both highly demotivated and yet, it seems, being visibly recognised for my efforts.
This diplomat, that is, the Award-Presenter, reaches behind himself and, with a movement which only makes sense because of how absurd everything else here is, deftly produces a gilded but flimsy silverware platter. On this platter there are several (four, to be precise) black, motionless Labrador puppies. Now, I am undoubtedly a novice when it comes to pastries and sweet treats, but I would put money on the fact that these puppies aren’t flesh and blood, but are in fact made principally of sponge bases, with some sort of dyed icing or marzipan exterior. If this is my award then my extreme deflation parallels my extreme confusion. I hate sugar.
‘We can tell you’re surprised, Andrew. But please, don’t feel in any way disconcerted. The board got together and the decision was unanimous. It’s all yours.’
‘No, no, it’s great. Thanks. Have you got a box or anything like that? Something to take it home in?’
‘Oh. You aren’t going to have a piece now?’
‘A piece?’
‘Yes, a piece’
‘What do you mean?’
‘A piece of the puppies’
‘Ah. So they are definitely edible then? I won’t lie, I wasn’t sure.’
‘Well they’re very much edible. It wouldn’t be much of an award otherwise.’ he says, before giving off a beaming toothy smile and salesman laugh.
I’m quietly relieved. At least, my thinking goes, if I slice into the confectionary dogs now then I can dish out a fair bit, offering some to this elusive ‘board’, to the Award-Presenter under the pretence of taking some home to his family (for how can a man like that fail to have a family), and to the sweet-toothed Football Boy (and his presumably equally sweet-toothed sugar cane-aficionado Football Dad) I’ll offer copious servings too. If the latter pair (who I’m yet to even converse with) ask why I’m offering them this offering, I’ll simply say that I overheard their conversation concerning sugar.
Once this is done, I’ll have pulled off something other than myself for a change. Namely, one of those rare two-fold victories; seeming magnanimous but also ridding myself of an object to which I have no kind — nor will ever possess any kind — of attachment. Brilliant.
‘I don’t suppose you have a knife on you then?’ I ask.
‘Yes yes, of course.’
I’m handed an old steak knife. Wooden handled and with the blade discoloured to the point of patina. Despite the efficiency, I’ve never liked slicing cake with a serrated instrument, always preferring a nice smooth blade with a decent handle on it. A blade you can really put your weight behind. A blade you can get behind. I like my blades like I like my politicians. Anyway, that isn’t what we’re working with here.
‘Cheers.’ I say.
The tray of Labradors is placed onto a flat waist-height surface nearby by the Award-Presenter and I take the knife towards the neck of one of the puppies. I figure it’s the thinnest point and as such the best point at which to demarcate two chunks (head and torso) of one of the cakes, which I can then portion into more manageable slices. As I go to do so one of the puppies turns towards me, its head adjusts ever so slightly in my direction and it lets out a nasally whine, eyes still glued together by the inadequacies of the newly born.
I’m stunned. Even in this ridiculous context I find myself faced with a situation markedly reality-distorting. What if I had realised but a moment later, that the award, the award I’m expected to eat, to share with others, is not the semblance of four young dogs, but rather a concrete reality. Not a multiplicity of sponges with icing toppings, but a sacrificial offering for some yet to be established idol.
What disgusts me about myself is that for a moment I remain hovering over the sacrificial pooch, steak knife in hand. Whether it’s cowardice, sycophancy towards the Award-Presenter, or some sort of bloodlust, I don’t know. Eventually realising this is not the way to proceed I place the platter back down and turn to the Award-Presenter.
‘I can’t eat that.’
‘Why?’
‘It’s real. They’re alive, aren’t they? For fuck sake.’ The sentence ends with me addressing only myself.
‘Well… if by ‘real’ you mean ‘edible’, nourishing, then yes, of course they’re real.’
‘I don’t want it — I can’t eat that. Them.’
‘You don’t want the award?’
‘Not if it involves me eating live animals.’
‘Well what if they were dead?’
‘Fuck me. Sorry. I don’t mean to swear, but, I can’t tell if this is some sort of elaborate joke. Is it?’
‘It isn’t a joke, Andrew. You’ve won this award. We all voted on it.’ That same hollow smile follows.
‘I can’t.’
‘Can’t what?’
‘Can’t anything. Can’t eat. Can’t accept. I can’t take it home, because I can’t look after four growing dogs. You’ll have to award the award to someone else. I’m sorry.’ Usually I’d kick myself for using the word ‘award’ twice in one sentence but at the moment I don’t care about little narcissistic indulgences like that.
‘We can’t Andrew.’
‘Well I’m not sure what to suggest then.’
‘Look Andrew the committee can’t vote again for an alternative recipient. You’re officially the winner for this year. The titular award is yours, and the physical award is, I suppose legally, your possession too.’
‘Alright. What if I were to take it. What if I were to take it and then, say, lose it? What if it was lost?’ I plead, trying to unsnarl myself from is both a violent and now, apparently, bureaucratic nightmare.
The look on the Award-Presenter’s face at the prospect of taking this award only to feign my eventual, inevitable, dispossession, contains none of the faux-warmth it contained up until this point. It’s the anathema of all amicability. His look alone convinces time to halt its unrelenting trundle.
The glare is one we are all familiar with. It might, for example, begin with some activity which is extraneous to work, yet nevertheless with some work colleague. You don’t loathe this person but you don’t care for them greatly either. And whilst familiarity doesn’t breed contempt, it certainly breeds the illusion of fraternity. This illusion — which might have been breeding like rabbits — in conjunction with, say, some intoxicants (pheromonal, or more liquid form), sets off a chain reaction.
A bit more familiarity. A bit more of an intriguing conversation. A few more intoxicants (pick your poison). You know the score. Of course you do. The score is well known. This continues up until the point at which you dismantle the Russian doll and reveal a little modicum of your true inner self. Politics (yawn), an attempt at risqué (but honest) humour, a comment on the food “here” (even though you’ve never tried it, and never will), some graffiti in the bathroom, this act of revealing is not limited to only a few forms.
A teeny weeny portal into the substantive fabric of your being appears before this colleague. And ho! They don’t like the peep show they’ve found themselves the audience of, no no not at all, they aren’t enjoying what they see one bit. That’s when you get to see it. The glare. The glare which lets you know that you’ve overstepped some mark, some arbitrary mark which exists in the eyes of this person, this person who, for the briefest of moments, you considered capable of sustaining some form of bond; something which, maybe, one day, in one of a myriad of potential futures, could be crowned with friendship, even crowned with love. That’s the glare I now receive from the Award-Presenter.
‘Lose it? Just “lose” an award like this? Do you have any idea what it is that you’re insinuating?’ he says with indignation, bringing me back from my stupor but also being generous enough to let me wallow in the moment of inelegance. A transitionary period.
My feet begin to hurt so I look down at them. The sensation is like pins and needles at first, but eventually my toes begin to ache at the ends at what feels like the level of bone. A sharper pain, an intensified version of before, then starts to emanate from my heels. Despite my ever developing discomfort, my thoughts turn back to Mr. Eggo’s heels and how his espadrilles left them exposed.
I look over at him now, again employing my ability to observe minute details anywhere in the room, and I notice that his heels are pulsing. Each faint cadenced throb generating bursts of pink hues, discolouring the air. La feet en rose. I recuperate from what I’m observing and remember I haven’t replied to the Award-Presenter. I don’t reply. Instead, I begin to levitate.
I watch my feet gradually leave the surface of the chamber and the dread, much like all the other distressing sentiments I’ve recently gone through, settles snugly in. A white noise of increasing pitch and volume assails my hearing organs. But this sound isn’t king here, not by default anyway. This hissing and crackling fights with Mr. Eggo’s typing, which, too, is becoming ever more furious — presumably as a result of my suggestion to lose the award.
With such vigour are his dinky wee fingers smashing into his keyboard that individual keys — and subsequently entire chunks of hardware — break off and pepper the floor. I watch as his fingernails and fingertips bloody and turn to pulp in their unrelenting assault now not even limited solely to the keyboard, but rather on all the desktop stationery. Pens crack and ink spurts into the air, the wood itself eventually splits and snaps.
I’m even higher now, I’d say about six feet, easily, in fact, it’s got to be closer to eight. The white noise is now so insanely pitched I’m not even sure I can hear it. Though it borders on the level of dog whistle its presence is never diminished. The Award-Presenter has already exploded, covering me — even at this remarkable height — with a gory film. What was once a man is spread across the surface of the floor, prompting the four puppies to stir from their stupor. They sniff with enthusiasm at an atmosphere so caked in blood and residue that it’s practically drinkable, they then drag themselves as best they can onto their unruly limbs, move oafishly towards the most condensed areas of human paste, and begin to lick with audible contentment. Despite what must be his death, the final brutal question from the Award-Presenter continues to resound around the room.
‘LOSE IT…?’
‘LOSE IT….?’
‘LOSE IT?…’
I can’t interpret anything. There’s no noteworthy sensory input entering my delicate ears now, despite at the same time feeling as though I’m deafened. My vision starts to go too. Everything becomes mosaic around me and then shatters and then reforms and shatters. Reforms, shatters, reforms, shatters.
I must be twenty feet in the air by now and the pain in my feet, being the only constant, is welcomed as a neural anchor. A perpetual fact of biology to remind me of my own continuation. The crystalline shattering stops for a second. I blink rapidly but with strength and weight and close my mouth which has probably been open for some time. I then re-open my mouth just enough to continue a quick series of staggered and shallow breaths.
Managing to look down, I, amongst the dogs and entrails, train my attention onto Footballing Dad. His skin is tinted so red that I think he too must be caked in the carnage, but his football kit remains spotless. It is in fact just his skin tone. He’s looking up at me from what must be a physically impossible angle for someone with human vertebrae. His mouth foams acidic spittle and I can see the (now torrents) of corrosive bile peel away the soft tissue of his lips. In a world mounted by Romanticism I would describe it as his ‘rage exhibited’. But it isn’t that world, so I’ll shut up. With his lymph nodes swollen to such a degree that I witness two burst on the left of his neck he bellows:
‘What did the Scotsman say the Polish composer did just before Christmas!’
I am once more stunned into silence so he completes the punchline for me, his eyes turning to liquid metal and pouring down his already scalding cheeks.
‘He went Chopin!’
I come to. The train carriage is still rattling on and I still haven’t placed my hand on her thigh, though it is remarkably close. The sudden thrust into this new (waking) atmosphere gives me the overriding urge to clear my throat. To dust off some internal cobwebs. I try to do this but I actually just end up coughing several times. They are loud hacking coughs and I say sorry and I know she is partially disgusted by these coughs and I also know that my apology has brought more attention to the coughing being a notable, disgust-inducing event and not some minor, casual clearing of the throat. It makes me annoyed I ever coughed. And that I ever said sorry.
