Filaria - Brent Hayward [105]
“Who?”
“A friend. He was part of a search party, ironically. Looking for a young girl who had vanished. He set out in our car, three days ago. There’s been no sign of him since. And now I suppose I’ll be added to the list of missing people.”
Tran so Phengh looked over her shoulder, where a sudden greenish flare in the distant hall had flickered, leaving red patches fluttering before his eyes. As he tried to rub these away, the lights immediately overhead sputtered and crackled and there was more remote, thunderous rumbling.
“Listen,” he said, when the tremor had passed, “before you go, may I ask you a few quick questions?”
“Questions?”
“Yeah. I want to know . . . Do you think we’re all lost? I mean, does anyone know where they are, in life?” Even as the words fell from his lips, they surprised Tran so; he hadn’t been planning on steering the conversation to any topics metaphysical, no matter how ill-conceived or simple. He put his hand over his mouth and held it there, as if to stop further outbursts from escaping. He hoped Reena might look upon what he’d said in an amused light, but neither of them smiled. To attempt recovery, he stammered through his fingers, “I’m, uh, I’m sorry to hear about your friend . . .”
He found himself wanting to mention his lost son, and his dying wife, but there was no reason to burden this already sad woman with more gloomy news. He cautiously took his hand from his mouth and heard himself say: “To get down here I had to step into a tiny chamber, hardly bigger than my body . . . Just prior to this, I’d spent some time in another small confine, and was reluctant to enter.”
Reena appeared to be growing increasingly suspicious of Tran so. He could not blame her. Wanting earnestly to dispel her notions, to be trusted by her, he continued:
“I had been assured that coming down here would bring me a few steps closer to fulfilling my quest. If I rode inside this strange device . . . Where I come from, in Hoffmann City, we believe that a giant tube, which some people, I’ve learnt, call a lift, or an elevator, accesses the god of all gods. This device I entered travels inside the tube.” He wiped his palms on his pants and took a deep breath. “I think I might have been drugged, or infected. Once inside the device, I whispered my intentions to the walls and we began to move. For the longest time after there was silence. I thought about girls, to be blunt. I thought about Sandra, and about my wife, Minnie sue. The chamber, by this point, had begun to emit the scent of things growing in wet places, at the very cusp of decay. I was in there for a long time. Eventually, I curled on the floor and tried to sleep. Just as I was beginning to think I had trapped myself yet again, that I would never emerge alive from this chamber, it came to a complete stop.”
Tran so still felt anxious. Why this anecdote was so important to relate he was not sure, yet it would make a huge difference, he knew, if he could tell the whole story to Reena.
But Reena, meanwhile, was looking downright wary by this point. What if she walked away? Tran so could not be sure what he might do in that case. Making a motion with both hands, meant to indicate that the point was coming (though he himself was not convinced), he said, “This tiny elevating chamber did not open. I was not at my destination. There was no way to leave that I could see. I tried to get out at first, to force my way out, pushing downwards against the floor, pushing at the walls with my elbows, knees, and feet. Soon I gave up. I curled there, waiting.”
Reena said, “Let me pass. I want to find my — ”
“Wait. Listen.” Tran so took another deep breath, braced himself to catch the woman, should she try to run. “I was preparing to sleep — I was so exhausted — when there came a light rapping on the outside wall. At first I thought I was dreaming but the knock was repeated. It came from a tiny window above my head that I had previously regarded but had not been able to open. Looking up, I saw an old, old man outside, with