Love in the Infinite
fiction
The Hewison apartment block was one of the few remaining ‘old builds’ in the City. It stood out from the city’s skyline like a rotting tooth in a wide, artificial smile. Most of its residents, bought out or moved on to the newer apartment complexes outside the City, would refer to it only as ‘The Tower’. It was in a state of near collapse and earmarked for demolition if not for one stubborn and immovable inconvenience: its last remaining resident.
The resident in question, one Mark Heath, was at that moment pacing the linoleum floor of his kitchen, and sitting across from him was his new wife. She had arrived earlier that morning, her arrival announced by the sounds of shuffling feet and muttered curses from the delivery-men who had carried her all the way up to the 30th floor (the elevator had broken some years ago). Mark had signed the delivery forms, tipped the men for their troubles and that was that.
And here she was. Sat across from him at the kitchen table in a white shift-dress, watching him pace and sweat. He turned away from her, stepping outside onto the balcony to smoke a cigarette, sliding the glass door behind him.
He had bought this apartment through an unforeseen loophole, months before the last few residents were moved on. Frankly, he liked the quiet of it all, up here on the top floor. The City council had tried to bribe him, then threaten him, occasionally shutting off his heating, sometimes his water. But he would not budge. And now he had someone to share his solitude with. He snuck another glance at her through the window. He had chosen her appearance carefully; auburn hair, height just shy of 5’2, with dark green eyes. Body slim and ‘curvy-but-not-too-curvy’, with porcelain-coloured skin. The voice had been the hardest to choose from. He settled for a warm Irish brogue, remembering that he had once had an aunt from Ireland of whom he had been fond. Her name? He was still toying with that. ‘Grace’ seemed nice, but a bit stuck-up. ‘Lara’? ‘Aoife’? He was sure he could think of something better.
Flicking his cigarette over the balcony, he opened the sliding door and stepped back into the kitchen. It was growing darker outside now, and the weather was turning crisp and autumnal. Shivering a little, he reached behind the table to turn on the electric radiator when he felt her eyes fixed on him. He realised then, that she had not spoken at all since arriving.
“Hi….hello?” he mumbled to her across the table. “Are you cold?”. She sat there, quiet and placid. A moment of remembrance came to him; she would need to be properly calibrated first. ‘Speak your reference number, user ID and fail-safe password’ was what the website had said. He picked up the stacks of paper on the counter, (amidst the letters from the council that threatened and cajoled him to give up his place in the apartment block), and found the documents to get her started.
Sitting closer to her now, he cleared his throat and spoke to her:
“Echo-1–9–9–3-M-H. LoverMan. Failsafe-AQUA-VITA”
Her eyes closed slowly. They reopened, this time bright and alive. Her lips parted into a warm smile. “Hello, Mark.”
He shuddered. This flicker of life in her made his skin begin to goosebump. There was desire in him, now that she was present. He wanted to reach out, to touch her. But he was afraid. She spoke again, her voice soft and lilting: “Are you alright, darling?” She reached out now and took his hand in hers. “You look worried.” Her skin was warm; he hadn’t thought that was possible. Not looking her in the eye, he replied.
“I don’t….I don’t know what to call you.”
She looked at him, puzzled, then let out a demure laugh. “Call me whatever you like, darling. I’m sure we’ll think of something.” More silence. “Shall we go into the lounge, darling? Maybe you’d be more comfortable there.” Taking his arm, she guided him into the front room. They sat together silently on the sagging, stained couch, her stroking his arm and looking up at him as if he was the only thing that mattered in this cold, dark apartment.
“Maybe..” he offered to her, “Maybe I can call you…Sally?” It was the only thing he could think of, a half-remembered memory of a girl who had lived across the street from him with the same name, half a lifetime ago. She smiled again, her eyes warm with contentment and good-humour. “I love it.”
She sat closer now, nestling into his chest. He had not been with a woman for a very long time, he realised (the last time he had paid for it and felt bitter about this still). Well, now he had someone. Someone who wanted him, who adored him. In a way, he had paid for this one too. But this was different. An investment. Someone who wouldn’t look down on him, someone who would hang on his every word, would love him without question. Without question, he thought. “Shall we……shall we go…” he felt his body begin to tremble. As if reading his thoughts, she stood up, taking him by the hand, and lead him to the bedroom.
In the half-light of the morning, he looked at her on the bed. She was sleeping, perhaps? He was unsure how it all worked. Her eyes were closed, and something that mimicked breathing made her chest slowly rise and fall. Their lovemaking that night had been everything he had hoped for, but there was something missing. He didn’t know what, but somehow he felt…..alone. They had held each other close in the dark that night, in wordless contemplation, and in that instant, he had felt, momentarily, at peace with himself. Then, all of a sudden, an emptiness that he could not fathom.
He had been told something like this might happen. The forums online were full of threads on ‘the uncanny valley’ and ‘Capgras delusions’, but he disregarded it as hearsay from sad, lonely men who had never experienced the company of a real woman before. But somehow, this felt different. Instead of fear, or resentment, or desire, he looked at this strange woman and felt….nothing.
A week passed, then two. They did not leave the apartment together, and he wanted it that way. They fell into a routine of sorts, with her rising early to sort through the apartment, mending and tidying as she went, preparing breakfast, sitting across the kitchen table from him gazing adoringly. He would rise later, having no job to go to (he had been laid off some months ago, relying now on dwindling savings) sit wordlessly across from her, mumble a few word of thanks after eating, then step outside onto the balcony for a cigarette.
He soon found himself annoyed by her presence, yet also somehow jealous. He had made it clear he did not want her to leave the apartment on her own, or even go out onto the balcony, in case anyone might see her. Not that anyone could, but in his paranoid mind there were peeping-toms and voyeurs everywhere, even up here on the top floor of a tower of empty apartments. When he did venture downwards, through the decaying innards of the tower block and into the streets below, for a moment he forgot she was even up there. Sitting, waiting for him, in amongst hundreds of empty, soundless corridors and stairwells. He began to take longer and longer trips away from the apartment, sometimes a few days, knowing that wherever he went, she would be waiting for him. Not judging, not angry, but patiently awaiting his return.
The first time he hit her, several months had passed. He hadn’t meant too. She had been singing that song. Some wordless, lilting tune that she always sang, which at first was charming, then later banal, then finally grating to the point that he couldn’t take it anymore.
She was passing by him in the hallway when it happened. Carrying out some trivial errand, humming that facile overture to herself as she went. He snapped at her finally:
“Will you stop! Stop that!”. She looked at him, for the first time, as if hurt. In fact, for a moment she almost looked human.
“I’m sorry, darling. Stop what?”
“That! That thing you keep singing! Stop it! Just go somewhere else if you’re going to do it!”
She reached out a hand to him. “I’m sorry, darling. I’ll stop if you want me to. What would you like me to do instead?”
“Just go somewhere else !!”
And with that, he shoved her. Not hard, he thought, but after all he was bigger than her. Perhaps her balance had been off, he thought later. She fell backwards, and he heard an audible thud as her head hit the wall behind her.
Her body went limp, and she was still. Her eyes stayed open, and her lips moved wordlessly, but she sat there in the dark of the apartment, him standing over her. He didn’t know what to do. He stood there mute, thinking that he had killed her. Not her, it. She, no, it wasn’t a real person. You can’t kill these things. They just stop working.
He walked slowly from the hallway over to his home computer in the living room, his mind in a daze. Opening the warranty file sent to him by the company, he looked for guidance on how to make things right. Notes on ‘Damage to the product may void the warranty’ ‘reset to factory settings’ ‘hard-reboots’ were all he found. All he wanted in this moment, was just to go back 10 minutes before it had all happened. Then, from the hallway, he heard a faint voice:
“Mark? Mark, where are you?”
Tentatively, he stepped across the living room and into the hallway, over to where her body still lay. Her voice sounded far away, as if trapped in her body. Her eyes were unfocused, and her hands were reaching out into the air, pathetically grasping at air.
“I’m….. I’m here.” He replied feebly. He reached out to her and felt her fingers close around his hand. They were cold, this time.
“Mark…….Mark, I can’t see you. Where are you? I’m worried about you, darling.”
He felt a knot of shame in his stomach. She sounded too real, too scared. This wasn’t right. He sat with her for what felt like hours until finally, she stopped talking. He didn’t know what to do after that. He left her there, and padded off to their bedroom, shutting the door behind him.
The next morning he woke, still scared to leave the bedroom. What if she was broken beyond repair? How would he explain it to the manafacturers? As he fretted and worried himself into a near fit of anxiety, the door to the bedroom opened.
“Rise and shine, darling! I hope I didn’t wake you.”
She stood there, with her warm smile and bright eyes, looking for the world as if nothing had happened. At first, he thought he was dreaming.
She sat softly on the bed next to him. “What would you like to do today, darling? Perhaps a visit to the stores? Or maybe we can just sit and talk?” He looked her up and down, looking for signs that would incriminate him from the night before. Did she remember? Was she bluffing? He caught himself: this is a machine, what reason would it have to trick you? Then he noticed something, small and insignificant, but enough to nick his conscience. The green in her left eye had muddied, only slightly, but when it caught the light, it lacked the lustre of its twin.
For months to come, this would act as a reminder, another reason for him to keep her locked in the apartment.
It was a year later, in fact their one year anniversary together. In the months that had passed, the council, determined to make him suffer for his obstinance, had permanently cut off the electricity, the heat and the water to the building. Candles now lined the apartment, amongst the gallon barrels of water and discarded food packaging.
The apartment was no longer a home, but a bunker. A king defending his castle. His Queen tried to make as neat a job of it as she could, but the damp and the cold had begun to decay the home as much as the mind of the man inside it.
Mark was, once again, smoking on the balcony, glaring at the new apartment blocks that sat across from his home. Big, ugly carbuncles of glass and steel, he decided. He was smart, keeping this all to himself, this tower. Taking drags of his cigarette, his mind turned to even more bitter thoughts. The last of his savings was spent, and he had nothing left to turn to. They couldn’t evict him, but he knew he couldn’t stay. But, this was all he had. He heard the glass door to the balcony slide open behind him. “Darling?” she sighed, resting her head on his shoulder. “I think you should come inside. You look so unhappy out here.”
He shrugged her off. “I told you never to come out here. They’ll see you.”
“I’m sorry darling. Who will see us?”
“Them.” He gestured to the other apartment blocks. “Perverts, peeping toms.” He looked at her, “Unless…..unless that’s what you want. You want people looking at you?” He grabbed her by the shoulders. “Do you come out here when I’m not around? Do you let them look at you? Do you like it?!!”
“Please, darling, I’m sorry” She looked scared, again. They weren’t supposed to look scared, he thought. “I’ll go back inside, I won’t do it again.”
He let go of her then, and she disappeared back into the apartment. He took one last look at the gleaming surfaces of the enemy apartments and stomped back inside. He had had enough of this, of the council and their scheming machinations, of the new apartments, of her. He needed to get out. He wrapped himself in another layer of damp, mildewed clothing, and headed to the door.
“Darling, where are you going?”
He did not answer her. He slammed the door behind him, only faintly hearing her final words: “I love you, darling.”
He stepped onto the landing, and down the nearest flight of steps. A shroud of silence covered the building, like a great mausoleum.As he paced through the gloom of the corridors, he wondered about leaving her up there, forever, like Rapunzel in her tower. Only in this story, her prince would never come.
The floor of the stairwell was damp, and somewhat soft underfoot. As he walked, he began to warm to the idea of leaving. He could start a new life, somewhere without other people, without her. It.
As he took his next step, the floor gave way. The cancer of decay that had taken hold in the building made its final advance, and the stairs collapsed from under him. He fell 20 floors, in the dark, his scream of outrage buried under the rubble and iron bars of the building’s skeleton. Mercifully, he died quickly.
And up, on the top floor of the tower, she waited. As the candles burned down, and the water turned foul, she sat there in the dark. After a while, she began to sing the tune she had buried in the back of her mind long ago. She was worried, but she knew he would be back soon. He loved her, after all. She was his wife. To have and to hold, till death do us part.
