THIS WORLD | John Forth
In this world, Molly and Steve lived in a small suburb on the outskirts of a city that may have been named San Francisco, may have been named something else altogether.
Butterflies the size of small birds rested high on the boughs of the well-spaced oaks that flanked either side of the avenue. Dug into the kerbsides were metal rails along which bicycles without wheels carried morning commuters in the direction of the glass towers and spires just visible through the early morning haze. On the outskirts, a pollen storm created a great, spectral yellow wall that, later in the day, would collapse on the suburb, sending its fragrant clouds funnelling down the wide streets, giving the district an insubstantial appearance; the ghost of summer past.
The woman – her name was Molly, too, though she was different
from the Molly who lived in the single-story kit house on the opposite side of the road – stood patiently in the wide shade of an oak. From high above came a rustle of wings. If she had looked up at that moment she would have seen, through emerald leaves, a fluttering kaleidoscope of reds and greens and whites and yellows; but she did not. This Molly had seen wonders. She had travelled worlds barren, travelled worlds no different from her own save the smallest of things. The days of her gazing wide-eyed at every subtle change compared to
where she had came from were long gone.
Instead, she held her gaze on the front door of the house on the other side of the road; and, after a while, saw what she had come to see.
The door opened, and a woman emerged. She was like Molly – they all were, though some more than others – but perhaps a stone lighter. Her hair was fairer, too, and she carried herself confidently. Smoothing her grey business suit, she strode to the car in the driveway and climbed in. After a moment spent inspecting her make-up in the rear-view mirror, she started the
engine and reversed the car out onto the road.
Although confident that she was obscured by the shadow of the tree, Molly took a step back and pulled the collar of her overcoat – her ‘spy coat’ she liked to call it – up around her plump cheeks. If the woman – Molly, she was Molly too – saw her, recognised her, then things could get complicated. It had happened before. Molly didn’t care to think about those times. Sometimes they came back to her, though, in the fugue of travel, visions of her own face, screaming and bloody, in the taut, straining fabric between worlds.
She was in luck this time. The woman put the car into drive and set off down the road. Molly relaxed. She looked left, then right. A man swished
by on one of the mounted bicycles, eating a slice of toast as he went. When he was out of view, and the street was clear, Molly put her hands in her pockets and crossed the road.
The first few times she had done this her nerves had been so overwhelming that she’d thought she would break down completely, that she would
be found kicking and vomiting in the street and locked away for the rest of her life. These days murder came easily to her. It helped, she thought – fingering the cold, metal weight in her coat pocket – to think of Steve, of all the versions of Steve, as less than human. Her version had been less than a man, almost an animal, really. So what made this one any different?
He might be kind; a good man, a voice in the back of her head said.
No, she thought. Then, because the thought did not carry enough weight to anchor her conviction, she said the word aloud: “No.”
She was at the front door. The woman, her other self, had left it unlocked. Keeping her right hand in her pocket, she opened the door with her
left. The hallway was clean and tastefully decorated. Molly did not look at the pictures hanging on the wall. That was another mistake she had already made. One version of Steve had taken her by surprise while her attention had been held rapt by a photo of herself – or, to be specific another version of herself – with two beautiful children, smiling and laughing. Molly had never had children; had never been able. She’d had a close shave that time, and had taken a little longer with that version of Steve, enjoyed herself a little more...
At the end of the hallway a door opened onto the kitchen. A radio was playing a song she didn’t recognise. Faint sounds of movement came from within. Molly swallowed, allowed her hand to tighten on the grip of her revolver. Clearing her throat, she called out: “Honey? I’m home.”
Once this had been hard. Now she was cool, efficient. The blood ran slow in her veins. Steve appeared in the kitchen doorway, in trousers and an
open-necked shirt. He was freshly shaven, the sides of his firm jaw red with razor burn. His hair was different from her Steve, but he was the same size, the same build – powerful, big. In one hand he carried a mug with World’s Slobbiest Dad written on it.
He frowned. “Babe? What are you doing back already? Did you forget something? Why are you dressed like that?”
By the end of his second question, she was withdrawing the gun from her pocket. By his last, she was pointing the weapon at his chest. Steve grinned, blurted out a small laugh. He never took her seriously. He raised the mug. “Babe, what are you—“
A jolt travelled the length of Molly’s arm. The crack that filled the hallway may have been the sound of her bones breaking. She blinked. Where Steve had once held a mug, he now held only a handle. Coffee had splashed in a spreading stain across the front of his shirt. No, not coffee.
Molly turned and, slipping the gun back into her pocket, walked quickly out of the door. From behind she heard a thump as Steve fell to his
knees. She did not look back. Instead she marched to the bottom of the garden path, turned her back on the distant skyscrapers, and walked towards the pale, shifting storm that was already beginning to advance past the city limits.
By the time it struck, she was long gone.
The trick – and really that’s all it was, there was no science involved – was to find somewhere quiet to work on her hate.
In her time, Molly had had plenty of chance to practice. How often had she lay awake at night, kept from sleep by whatever pain he had inflicted on her that evening, just staring at the ceiling and hating? To begin with, she hated the things he did, but not the man himself. He had been a good man once, and maybe was still. She made excuses for him – perhaps she had overcooked dinner; of course he was under pressure at work; well, maybe she had been a little too flirtatious with the bartender down at The Brass Tap. But, after a while, she came to realise that she was fooling herself. Whatever good had been in Steve was gone, crushed to naught by a tight and ever-clenching fist of meanness somewhere deep inside of his very being. He was a glass man, prone to shatter at the slightest touch; and the shards that radiated from him were sharp indeed.
As Steve’s goodness shrank, so Molly’s hatred grew. With every minor infraction and its attendant punishment, she began to withdraw from the
world. By the end, she was a ghost in her own house, a wraith, swirling around the angry rock at the heart of her existence. She felt like she was waiting for Steve to simply breath her in.
Only the fantasies, and the hate, kept her from disappearing completely.
One night, near the end, the two of them were sitting in the living room; Steve on his chair in front of the television, Molly bunched into
one corner of the two-seater sofa. He was watching an action movie, some direct-to-DVD thing where two men composed entirely of erectile tissue knocked lumps out of one another for ninety minutes until one of them went limp. Steve loved it. Now and then he emitted a grunting laugh, and glanced at Molly to check she was sharing his enjoyment. She, for her part, just peered at a space somewhere above the television, at the colours it played onto the wall and ceiling.
“Good movie,” Steve said.
Molly didn’t look at the screen. “Yes,” she said.
“You’re not even watching it, are you?”
“I am..”
“No. No, you’re not. You’re in a fucking world of your own again, aren’t you? A fucking world of your own...”
And so she was.
And in that world Steve lived a million lives and died a million deaths. For every blow he had every laid upon her, every profanity he had ever named her with, and every slight she had ever suffered, he paid tenfold. Fuelled by Molly’s rage, movie after movie of Steve’s life played out in her mind, each and every one of them coming to the same, vicious, abrupt close. Before long, the fantasies ran in Molly’s head every hour of every day, eclipsing all other thought, until eventually she found herself slipping, found herself in another place, another world, with another Steve ananother Molly. A Molly whom she would not allow to suffer the same indignities as she.
She made that world right. Her rage did not cease.
She made another world right, and still it
burned.
On and on and on, all the while hoping that one day she would be back in her own world, with her own Steve, so she could show him all the things she had learned while she was away.
One day...
On the edge of the suburbs Molly found a new housing development. The homes were unfinished, little more than clapboard shells. Pollen coloured the air yellow, made it hard to breath, but oh the scent!
She took shelter in one of the houses and lay very still in the centre of an empty room. Curling shapes of mustard dust crept in through the unglazed windows. Fingers clasped on her stomach, Molly closed her eyes and thought about Steve. About his fists, about his nasty mouth, about the expressionless way he used to look at her, as if he were regarding nothing more consequential than a fire hydrant, or a mailbox, or a traffic light.
In time, she found herself in another place, another world.
This world had skies the colour of perpetual dawn and holographic tableaus on every lawn and in every window, personalised reflections of the inhabitants of every house. It had tiny, pink creatures that scurried along the city’s pavements vacuuming up trash and detritus and leaving the streets looking as pristine as they must have appeared when freshly built. They had coloured satellites in the sky, an artificial moon so close to the earth that Molly thought she might be able to reach up and touch it.
This world had another Molly, another Steve.
She found them easily enough. It was never difficult. She knew them, after all.
And she waited, until Molly was gone and Steve was alone. Again, the door was unlocked, again she stepped in.
Again, she called out, summoning Steve to justice.
Again.
Again.
In this world, Molly and Steve lived in a small suburb on the outskirts of a city that may have been named San Francisco, may have been named something else altogether.
Butterflies the size of small birds rested high on the boughs of the well-spaced oaks that flanked either side of the avenue. Dug into the kerbsides were metal rails along which bicycles without wheels carried morning commuters in the direction of the glass towers and spires just visible through the early morning haze. On the outskirts, a pollen storm created a great, spectral yellow wall that, later in the day, would collapse on the suburb, sending its fragrant clouds funnelling down the wide streets, giving the district an insubstantial appearance; the ghost of summer past.
The woman – her name was Molly, too, though she was different
from the Molly who lived in the single-story kit house on the opposite side of the road – stood patiently in the wide shade of an oak. From high above came a rustle of wings. If she had looked up at that moment she would have seen, through emerald leaves, a fluttering kaleidoscope of reds and greens and whites and yellows; but she did not. This Molly had seen wonders. She had travelled worlds barren, travelled worlds no different from her own save the smallest of things. The days of her gazing wide-eyed at every subtle change compared to
where she had came from were long gone.
Instead, she held her gaze on the front door of the house on the other side of the road; and, after a while, saw what she had come to see.
The door opened, and a woman emerged. She was like Molly – they all were, though some more than others – but perhaps a stone lighter. Her hair was fairer, too, and she carried herself confidently. Smoothing her grey business suit, she strode to the car in the driveway and climbed in. After a moment spent inspecting her make-up in the rear-view mirror, she started the
engine and reversed the car out onto the road.
Although confident that she was obscured by the shadow of the tree, Molly took a step back and pulled the collar of her overcoat – her ‘spy coat’ she liked to call it – up around her plump cheeks. If the woman – Molly, she was Molly too – saw her, recognised her, then things could get complicated. It had happened before. Molly didn’t care to think about those times. Sometimes they came back to her, though, in the fugue of travel, visions of her own face, screaming and bloody, in the taut, straining fabric between worlds.
She was in luck this time. The woman put the car into drive and set off down the road. Molly relaxed. She looked left, then right. A man swished
by on one of the mounted bicycles, eating a slice of toast as he went. When he was out of view, and the street was clear, Molly put her hands in her pockets and crossed the road.
The first few times she had done this her nerves had been so overwhelming that she’d thought she would break down completely, that she would
be found kicking and vomiting in the street and locked away for the rest of her life. These days murder came easily to her. It helped, she thought – fingering the cold, metal weight in her coat pocket – to think of Steve, of all the versions of Steve, as less than human. Her version had been less than a man, almost an animal, really. So what made this one any different?
He might be kind; a good man, a voice in the back of her head said.
No, she thought. Then, because the thought did not carry enough weight to anchor her conviction, she said the word aloud: “No.”
She was at the front door. The woman, her other self, had left it unlocked. Keeping her right hand in her pocket, she opened the door with her
left. The hallway was clean and tastefully decorated. Molly did not look at the pictures hanging on the wall. That was another mistake she had already made. One version of Steve had taken her by surprise while her attention had been held rapt by a photo of herself – or, to be specific another version of herself – with two beautiful children, smiling and laughing. Molly had never had children; had never been able. She’d had a close shave that time, and had taken a little longer with that version of Steve, enjoyed herself a little more...
At the end of the hallway a door opened onto the kitchen. A radio was playing a song she didn’t recognise. Faint sounds of movement came from within. Molly swallowed, allowed her hand to tighten on the grip of her revolver. Clearing her throat, she called out: “Honey? I’m home.”
Once this had been hard. Now she was cool, efficient. The blood ran slow in her veins. Steve appeared in the kitchen doorway, in trousers and an
open-necked shirt. He was freshly shaven, the sides of his firm jaw red with razor burn. His hair was different from her Steve, but he was the same size, the same build – powerful, big. In one hand he carried a mug with World’s Slobbiest Dad written on it.
He frowned. “Babe? What are you doing back already? Did you forget something? Why are you dressed like that?”
By the end of his second question, she was withdrawing the gun from her pocket. By his last, she was pointing the weapon at his chest. Steve grinned, blurted out a small laugh. He never took her seriously. He raised the mug. “Babe, what are you—“
A jolt travelled the length of Molly’s arm. The crack that filled the hallway may have been the sound of her bones breaking. She blinked. Where Steve had once held a mug, he now held only a handle. Coffee had splashed in a spreading stain across the front of his shirt. No, not coffee.
Molly turned and, slipping the gun back into her pocket, walked quickly out of the door. From behind she heard a thump as Steve fell to his
knees. She did not look back. Instead she marched to the bottom of the garden path, turned her back on the distant skyscrapers, and walked towards the pale, shifting storm that was already beginning to advance past the city limits.
By the time it struck, she was long gone.
The trick – and really that’s all it was, there was no science involved – was to find somewhere quiet to work on her hate.
In her time, Molly had had plenty of chance to practice. How often had she lay awake at night, kept from sleep by whatever pain he had inflicted on her that evening, just staring at the ceiling and hating? To begin with, she hated the things he did, but not the man himself. He had been a good man once, and maybe was still. She made excuses for him – perhaps she had overcooked dinner; of course he was under pressure at work; well, maybe she had been a little too flirtatious with the bartender down at The Brass Tap. But, after a while, she came to realise that she was fooling herself. Whatever good had been in Steve was gone, crushed to naught by a tight and ever-clenching fist of meanness somewhere deep inside of his very being. He was a glass man, prone to shatter at the slightest touch; and the shards that radiated from him were sharp indeed.
As Steve’s goodness shrank, so Molly’s hatred grew. With every minor infraction and its attendant punishment, she began to withdraw from the
world. By the end, she was a ghost in her own house, a wraith, swirling around the angry rock at the heart of her existence. She felt like she was waiting for Steve to simply breath her in.
Only the fantasies, and the hate, kept her from disappearing completely.
One night, near the end, the two of them were sitting in the living room; Steve on his chair in front of the television, Molly bunched into
one corner of the two-seater sofa. He was watching an action movie, some direct-to-DVD thing where two men composed entirely of erectile tissue knocked lumps out of one another for ninety minutes until one of them went limp. Steve loved it. Now and then he emitted a grunting laugh, and glanced at Molly to check she was sharing his enjoyment. She, for her part, just peered at a space somewhere above the television, at the colours it played onto the wall and ceiling.
“Good movie,” Steve said.
Molly didn’t look at the screen. “Yes,” she said.
“You’re not even watching it, are you?”
“I am..”
“No. No, you’re not. You’re in a fucking world of your own again, aren’t you? A fucking world of your own...”
And so she was.
And in that world Steve lived a million lives and died a million deaths. For every blow he had every laid upon her, every profanity he had ever named her with, and every slight she had ever suffered, he paid tenfold. Fuelled by Molly’s rage, movie after movie of Steve’s life played out in her mind, each and every one of them coming to the same, vicious, abrupt close. Before long, the fantasies ran in Molly’s head every hour of every day, eclipsing all other thought, until eventually she found herself slipping, found herself in another place, another world, with another Steve ananother Molly. A Molly whom she would not allow to suffer the same indignities as she.
She made that world right. Her rage did not cease.
She made another world right, and still it
burned.
On and on and on, all the while hoping that one day she would be back in her own world, with her own Steve, so she could show him all the things she had learned while she was away.
One day...
On the edge of the suburbs Molly found a new housing development. The homes were unfinished, little more than clapboard shells. Pollen coloured the air yellow, made it hard to breath, but oh the scent!
She took shelter in one of the houses and lay very still in the centre of an empty room. Curling shapes of mustard dust crept in through the unglazed windows. Fingers clasped on her stomach, Molly closed her eyes and thought about Steve. About his fists, about his nasty mouth, about the expressionless way he used to look at her, as if he were regarding nothing more consequential than a fire hydrant, or a mailbox, or a traffic light.
In time, she found herself in another place, another world.
This world had skies the colour of perpetual dawn and holographic tableaus on every lawn and in every window, personalised reflections of the inhabitants of every house. It had tiny, pink creatures that scurried along the city’s pavements vacuuming up trash and detritus and leaving the streets looking as pristine as they must have appeared when freshly built. They had coloured satellites in the sky, an artificial moon so close to the earth that Molly thought she might be able to reach up and touch it.
This world had another Molly, another Steve.
She found them easily enough. It was never difficult. She knew them, after all.
And she waited, until Molly was gone and Steve was alone. Again, the door was unlocked, again she stepped in.
Again, she called out, summoning Steve to justice.
Again.
Again.