13 TO FEEL IS TO LIVE
13
TO FEEL IS TO LIVE
It comes at me in flashing snapshots.
Strobe lights, blazing through the darkness. The rapid thump of trance music – a furious and incessant heartbeat – shakes the room.
No. Not a room. An underground vault.
Perfectly circular, the depth of a tennis court. Pulsating with energy, dangerous and volatile. Fluorescent lights hang suspended from horizontal steel beams that run overhead, floating in the dark, spelling words that take my breath away. CHOOSE TO FEEL EVERYTHING – FREEDOM IS HERE – TO FEEL IS TO LIVE. And the rabbit, multiple rabbits, in neon pink, blue and yellow.
The vault is teeming with people. Characters I know, some I don’t. A heaving mass of bloody, distorted faces, painted and prosthetic, bruised and bandaged. All appear half dead in the blinking light. But these people are not dead.
They are well and truly alive. And they’re dancing.
Jumping, moving together as one, completely synchronised with the heavy bass – the relentless heartbeat of this underground world. Up and down, arms thrown into the air, a melee of twisted, turning shadows. The vibrations of the music move up through the floor and into my body. Dmm . Dmm . Dmm . Dmm . Dmm . With it, that rush, that thrill enters me, filling my every fibre, possessing me. I can hardly breathe. I feel… I feel …
Alive .
A hand touches my shoulder. Roadkill Man’s face flickers through the strobes. Good luck , he mouths. He points to the circular brick wall surrounding the vault, then pushes into the crowd until he disappears.
I see what he was pointing at.
Doors.
So many of them. Arched like entrances to small cells, repeating the entire way around the vault. Above each door, a single glowing word. They’re seemingly random, but something about each word makes my skin bristle awake.
GUN. GRIEF. FOREST. FIGHT. FIRE. AXE. GRAVEYARD. BUCKET.
More. On and on.
CLIFF. BOX. CHEAT. BULLY. KNIFE. HELICOPTER. brIDGE.
There must be at least thirty of them.
Directly opposite, a projection of a large digital clock shines on the wall, ticking backwards.
03:59… 03:58… 03:57…
A countdown. What is this place?
In the centre, people are congregating around another bar. Small and circular, a glowing neon island in the sea of chaos. I step into the throng of sweaty bodies, dodging thrashing and flailing limbs as I make my way towards it. Everything feels fast but looks slow. Like time has been altered and is stalling, juddering in unison with the throbbing beat. Half of reality in light, half in darkness, alternating so quickly that I no longer know which is real. The darkness, or the light.
Then I see her. Nisha . Behind the bar. Handing out drinks to the gathering swarm.
I push forwards, watching her as she works: wiping her forehead, cleaning spills, putting ice in plastic cups, taking payment with a card machine. She moves efficiently and automatically like she’s in a trance, always keeping her eyes on the ticking digits on the wall.
‘Nisha!’ I shout, but she doesn’t reply.
Part of me wonders if this is a good idea, if any of this is a good idea, but the doubt is drummed out of my head by the pounding beat. I’m drawn to her like a moth to a fluorescent flame, her image offering refuge among the mayhem – she threatened to stab you – a familiar anchor – she knows where you live – something I recognise, however vaguely, within the unknowable. ‘ Nisha! ’
She turns to me. Panic flashes across her face. ‘How do you know my—?’
‘It’s me!’ I shout, but she doesn’t recognise me as Skinhead Regan. I lean forwards over the bar. ‘It’s Eli. From the bus stop!’ Again, nothing. ‘I stole your—’
Her face changes. Now she remembers. She glances over her shoulder at the short man with a purple mohawk behind her, who’s busy serving a woman with tyre tracks across her wedding dress. She then looks back and taps her name badge warningly. It reads VIOLET.
She leans towards me, shouting into my ear over the noise. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’
‘Same as everyone else.’
‘Did you follow me?’
‘What? No.’
‘Then how did you—?’
‘I saw the sticker on your phone case. The rabbit.’
She glances back at her colleague again, then reaches down into a fridge beneath the bar. She brings out a Red Bull and begins to pour it into a plastic cup in front of me. ‘You shouldn’t be here,’ she says, not looking up.
‘I want to apologise. Properly.’ Her eyes remain focused on the drink. ‘And I wanted to know what this place is. Where am I, Nisha?’ She shoots me a threatening look, then taps her name badge again. Violet. ‘Where am I, Violet ?’ I repeat.
She doesn’t answer. Her eyes move back to the digital clock ticking down on the wall.
00:22… 00:21… 00:20…
‘Listen!’ I shout, trying to keep her attention. ‘I really am sorry. I stole your phone because I wanted to feel guilt. I’m sorry you were the victim of that. But you need to understand. I want to feel again. And for some reason your phone – or the universe – brought me here.’
Suddenly she turns, slamming her hand down on top of mine. ‘Stop.’ She leans her face right into mine and puts her mouth right next to my ear. ‘I don’t want to hear your little sob story, OK? I’m not interested. If you insist on being here, you have to promise me – don’t tell anyone what happened. No one can know it was you who took my phone. OK?’
‘OK, but—’ She pushes her weight down on to my hand. ‘Ow. Jesus. OK. I promise.’
‘You don’t know me. We’ve never met.’
Fine . ‘Fine by me.’
She lets go of my hand and holds up the plastic cup. ‘That’ll be five pounds.’
I don’t take it. ‘What happens in those rooms, Violet?’
Before she can answer, the music suddenly stops. With it, the bodies around me do the same and a deathly stillness falls. The strobe lighting ceases, leaving only the fluorescent glow of the rabbits above.
I turn to the clock. Everyone does.
00:00
A voice booms out from a speaker in the ceiling. It’s deep and crackling and sounds like it’s been distorted by a computer.
‘ The world is dying . It is removing our ability to know what it is to be human . You have each arrived at this place for your own reasons . Some of you are tired . Others detached . Desensitised . Bored . Empty . Numb . Whatever it may be, all of you know there is something missing . But here, you can choose to live . To feel again . To experience life in all its fullness – every part of it . And so, welcome to TraumaLand . It is time for you to choose your story .’
There’s a sudden pushing around me. People begin to split off, darting in all directions, colliding with each other as they rush through the half-light. They stop only when they arrive at one of the doors.
I turn to Nisha. ‘Go on,’ she says.
I trace my eyes over the doors, each word bright through the darkness, queues of people forming outside them.
GUN is the most popular. Followed by AXE. And then brIDGE.
I glimpse a door that no one is waiting beside. HAMMER.
I give Nisha one last glance – her arms folded, frowning at me – then make my way towards it.
I stop and stare at it for a moment. Dark wood, black bolts, arched at the top. On the wall alongside the door is a card machine with a small plaque beneath that reads:
￡10 PER MINUTE. MAX FIVE MINUTES. USE THE KEYPAD TO CHOOSE HOW LONG YOU WOULD LIKE YOUR STORY TO BE. THEN TAP YOUR CARD.
￡10 pounds per minute? No shit Casimir gave me the cranberry juice for free. I deserved the whole carton.
I turn to see the person to my right, outside the door labelled FIRE, eagerly pressing the up button on the keypad. Two minutes, three minutes, four minutes, five .
Fifty quid for a full story?
The voice booms out again, echoing across the vault. ‘ Your selection will be locked in ten seconds .’
Fuck. The screen is set to one minute. I quickly press the up button until I reach three and tap my card. It beeps affirmatively.
Payment approved.
The door swings open and I step inside another brick room. This one is tiny. No bigger than the fridge the chef locked me in at work. It’s actually more a cell, which is right up my street, but something feels a little… I don’t know. Disconcerting . Unsettled . Odd . A single light bulb hangs from the roof.
The room is empty, save for something on the floor. A pair of goggles.
They’re like the ones I used to wear to swimming lessons, only the strap is thicker and the Perspex lenses are completely black. Connected to the rubber strap are two wires, each with a white pad at the end, the size of those cotton things Mum uses to remove her make up.
They have words written on them.
One says: ATTACH TO FOREHEAD.
The other says: ATTACH TO BASE OF SKULL.
On the sides of the rubber strap are two earbuds.
I stare at the device for a moment. It looks like something from a sci-fi film, but not. It looks almost home-made.
The vault behind me goes quiet and I look back to see the door is closing. As it shuts completely, I hear the clunk of bolts slotting into place. I’m locked in.
Only three minutes. How could anything possibly change in three minutes?
I position myself dead centre, right in the middle of the room where the goggles were, and – please God let this work – pull them over my head and stick the pads into place. It takes me a moment to figure out how to get the earbuds in. When I do, the silence is so deafening, I forget to breathe.
Just as I inhale, bright white words flash in front of me through the darkness.
YOU HAVE CHOSEN HAMMER. YOU ARE NOW AMY. HELLO, AMY. YOUR STORY WILL START IN 3… 2… 1…
The world shifts in front of my eyes. I’m no longer in my own body. My own reality. I am a voyeur inside someone else’s.
The story begins.