Chapter 6: The Genie and the Departure Board

I had the impression I was entering a great assembly. A crowd of the most varied people – none of them showing the slightest interest in my arrival – were in motion through a well-lit medium-sized room with stands displaying products all the way up to the ceiling. To access the perfumes, whiskeys, and chocolates, a gallery ran around just under the ceiling, this too filled with people who could stand only in a bent posture, their heads and backs pressed against the ceiling. For me the atmosphere, while bright, was too stuffy and I turned to a woman beside me who wore a white blouse with a ServiceAir badge. ‘I asked about my twin?’

‘Yes,’ said the woman, ‘please go on.’

I probably would not have done as she said, but with a gesture she parted the crowd along a central aisle of polished white marble. ‘You’re the last. After you, nobody else may go in or out.’

‘Very sensible,’ I said, ‘but it’s already too full.’

I went on all the same.

I walked along a floor in which reflections of the many lights glittered, so that this might have been a fairy path but for the crowds jostling me and my sense that the route meant me harm. Sometimes I would feel the accidental touch of an elbow or even a stomach at my back. This intrusion was not unwelcome, it was warm, a connection with another person perhaps. Such fleeting hopes were immediately dispelled by the stern expression I found on each face I observed as a result of their contact with me.

Passing by W.H. Smiths, Wrights of Howth, Immotion, Sunglass Hut, Avoca, Guinness, Boots, Boss, JD Sports, Lacoste, Louis Vitton, Superdry, World of Whiskeys, Dior and Burberry I came to a wider space, where the ceiling was higher and no one had to stoop, even at the gallery level. There, despite having to tolerate being buffeted by the crowd I tried to gather myself. This proved difficult, because I was someone else. Someone called Gregor.

I was in an airport mall, of that I was sure.

What should I do now? My flight left at seven o'clock. To make it, I would have to hurry like a dervish; and I had put my painting down somewhere; and I didn't feel especially fresh; and I needed the bathroom. And even if I did make the flight, my dad would think me lazy. My dad, for whom the world consisted of people who were afraid to work. Artists especially. And, besides, in Gregor’s case would he be so very wrong? I disliked work, mainly because it obliged me to interact with other people and, what was worse, people with authority over me.

A large electronic board displayed its information as patterns of orange dots on a black background.

The information made for grim reading, until a banner started to roll along the bottom of the Departures board: Cyn, if you can see this, talk to the barista near Gate 11. Cyn, if you can see this, talk to the barista near Gate 11.

Gate 11. A short, descending travelator led to a hexagonal room with two gates, throngs of people and no café. I took the ascending travellator and looked around, disappointed.

Nearby was a U-shaped arrangement of couches, all made of grey plastic. One seat was available and I took it with relief. All this hurrying around the airport was tiring and I was sweaty. The people around me were of a type: late 20s or 30s, laptops, hoodies. They knew each other. The man beside me leaned forward, to address three of his colleagues on the other side of the U.

‘Suppose our universe to be inside a black hole. Then we know from Hawking-Bekenstein that the information in it is proportional to the surface area, as opposed to the volume. What’s more, if the surface were a hologram, then it would contain exactly the same information as we experience inside the black hole, but with one less dimension.’

‘Time,’ the woman opposite him said, ‘you’re talking about time.’

‘Or more exactly, timelessness.’

‘Hello, everyone.’ A cheerful-looking Neo came up the travelator from gates 11 and 12. ‘How’s the dream going? Well I hope.’

‘Is this is dream?’ said my neighbour, surprised. ‘Is it mine?’

Neo laughed. Once again, he was doing his Steve Jobs impression by wearing a black polo-neck and denim jeans, the latter held by a belt that was positioned a good three or four inches higher than was typical in Ireland. Despite the obvious signalling of his dress code, I found Neo to be comical rather than intellectual.

‘It’s hers,’ he gestured in my direction.

Everyone looked at me and the man at my side said, ‘I feel a bit sick.’

‘Don’t worry,’ I patted my neighbour on the shoulder. ‘If you’re right about the hologram, it doesn’t matter. You exist forever. Or more exactly, timelessly.’

Was I mocking these people? I wasn’t sure, but the man’s expression became cheerful at this thought.

‘Well Susie, is there anything I can get you?’ asked Neo.

Susie? Not Cyn? That sounded alien. Would my own dream-Neo have called me Susie?

‘A coffee would be welcome, an oat latte.’

His grin was wide, too wide. ‘A coffee? You can have anything you like. Any experience you like. Sex? Would you like your fantasies to come true?’

‘They already have while awake. A coffee please.’

‘How about meeting a celebrity? Other than me, I mean? Isn’t there someone you’d be thrilled to meet?’ He was beaming and seemed pleased with the reverential looks from the people seated around me.

I told myself again that this was a dream and that such a shallow and vapid version of the supposed tech genius might just be my own creation. Surely, the real Neo could not fail to see how I disdainful I was of his offer?

‘Just that coffee, thanks.’

Were we in a fairy tale, where the genie was obliged to honour his offer of a wish? It felt like it. Neo offered me a hundred other experiences and to looks of astonishment on the faces of those nearby, I declined every scenario and stubbornly asserted my desire for a coffee.

At last, crestfallen and diminished, Neo gestured down towards Gate 11. This time as I descended the travelator, I first inhaled the aroma of ground coffee beans and then saw a booth and a woman behind the counter with long, curly dark hair tied back in a bun.

‘Oat latte?’ she smiled, recognising me as I took a stool.

‘Please.’

When my twin held up the jug of oat milk to the frothing machine, the sound it created masked her words. ‘Cyn, I need to communicate with you in your realm. Help me find a way out of my prison.’

‘How?’

‘Do something that lets in the light while you are awake. Painting even. They have me trapped and it’s killing me. Which means they are lobotomising you. You’ll just be a husk without me.’

I felt this to be true and I felt a sense of shame. It was me, after all, who had brought this upon us. ‘Lets in the light?’

The barista nodded earnestly, her dark eyes fixed on mine. ‘When humans are awake they live as though in a labyrinth full of shadows. Only when orgasmic, or using your imaginations, do you let the light in.’

‘I’ll try. I don’t usually remember my dreams though.’

‘Coffee,’ she placed the mug in front of me. ‘And me. Coffee. Me. Coffee. Me. Inhale.’

I drew the aroma deep into my head.

‘You have your coffee,’ Neo was at my elbow, ‘now let’s go back up and enjoy some free shopping.’

The scornful look of the barista would have caused even the most narcissistic person to feel themselves to be judged and found wanting. As I left, she mouthed, ‘coffee. Me.’

***

La Catedral Studios, where I painted, were on Usher’s Quay, about twenty minutes by bike from our flat. It was a bike ride that I associated with the feeling of happiness. Sure, wasn’t I approaching the place in which I most exercised my imagination? That alone would be a joy. The fact that the other artists who had studios there were good people also caused my body to pedal towards it like a magnet drawn towards its opposite pole. I’d go so far as to say the other artists were my family. With Mum dead, Dad an uncivil and selfish shark – think Heathcliff without the redeeming love for Cathy – and my brother in Australia, then the people with whom I most shared my life were Daniel and these artists. For the first time since going to court, I felt happy.

Inside, I ensured the double lock was on then carried my bike up the narrow stairs to an alcove where it was stored until my return journey. First, before visiting my studio, I watered the plants and pulled away some dead and dying leaves. Rent here was surprisingly low, thanks to the fact that the owner was an artist herself and enjoyed having a community of artists around her. The rent was lower still if you took up a project in the building on behalf of everyone, such as improving the insulation of the rooms. I’d offered to introduce indoor plants and flowers to as many rooms as they’d thrive in and not only did this mean I had a reduced rent for my studio, tending the plants was a pleasure in itself. Mind you, it meant that nearly an hour passed before I was ready to start work. And even then I needed a coffee.

Coffee.

Something touched my mind. A memory so elusive that I couldn’t be sure it was there. Only when the scent of the ground coffee beans reinforced that feeling did I grasp it. An inner Cyn! A Cyn who wanted to talk to me. I felt tearful for myself. My poor, lonely, emasculated self. My diabolical self. A part of me that was withering like an unwatered plant.

Leaving the coffee I ran from the shared kitchen area down the aisle between studios until I reached my alcove. There I looked around for something I could use… Picking up my large sketchpad I rummaged among crayons and found a dark green. Then what? I felt it urgent that I help my inner self. A mix of shame and horror was driving that urgency.

With closed eyes I drew a mark, the top of a circle. A noose followed. Yes, but that was too simple. I had to loosen up more. Relax my thoughts. A river. A dam. The river refusing to be checked. No, still not loose enough. And there! There it was. The back of a large bus, driving away from me. And where the number of the bus route usually glowed in orange were the words, Stop Neo.