Art by John Wilkins
1.
His name was William, Shakespeare. His parents, Mr. and Mrs. William, had decided to name him Shakespeare so that he would appear on lists as the great poet and playwright. However, he thought it was tremendously silly so he always introduced himself as William. Luckily he was a schoolteacher, so people tended to call him Mr. William. Mr. William lived alone in an apartment situated in a building that seemed to have no beginning or end, and that building was accessed through an impossible labyrinth of alleyways. To reach the school he took the subway station, and all he had to do to reach the subway station was ride the elevator all the way down to the second basement. Sometimes it felt like living inside an unusually complex circuit board, but that was city life for you, and Mr. William had no qualms with city life.
‘The sounds of black helicopters flying overhead are the same to me as those of the seagulls by the ocean,’ he would often tell people when asked about the noise. ‘Relaxation. I love all of the sounds; they all come together to create an atmosphere that makes you feel like you’re in the midst of something important: The subway trains rushing by, the black and yellow cabs speeding through the twisting city streets, the laughter of schoolchildren as they leave the school courtyard, the yelling of sellers at the market, the heavy boats of armoured police, the giant stomping of robotic colossi – these are all part of the same rich tapestry that I wear as my protective blanket in this world. I’m safe in the sounds of the city, yes.’
He cherished the lights of the city as well. Be they neon, blinking or holographic, to Mr. William they were the undeniable reflections of the angels, heralding their coming. With the passing years, more and more lights of different types and styles appeared. Mr. William knew that humanity was coming closer and closer to the welcoming gates of heaven! That was what he knew without a doubt. One of the reasons why he knew this was that Scorlak had told him. Scorlak was a massive, floating, gelatinous purple being that only Mr. William could see and communicate with. Oh, Scorlak! How much you knew you knew you knew! Mr. William always had trouble reserving a seat on the subway for his friend Scorlak. Someone would always come along and sit there as if poor Scorlak was nothing but a gaseous ghost. Scorlak also enjoyed sitting in on some of Mr. William’s classes and would pass along any spare information that he thought might help the schoolchildren: What the finest vegetables on Venus were, where the best spots were to play marbles on Mars, which June bugs to watch out for on Jupiter, and so on. Scorlak was a very knowledgeable being indeed.
‘You know, I have a friend named Scorlak,’ Mr. William would say to us schoolchildren. ‘He’s sitting here right now, though you can’t see him. By some special circumstance only I can see our friend Scorlak. Perhaps it’s because he lives in a different plane of reality only accessible by the varying vibrations around us, and my Parkinson’s allows me to tap into this alternate vibration. Isn’t that a treat, boys and girls? Anyway, if you see me talking, and it seems like it’s only to myself, then I’m actually talking with our dear friend Scorlak.’
Yes, I remember Mr. William very fondly.
2.
My name is Terence Darling. I was one of the kids that Mr. William taught before he retired. Now I’m twenty-one years old and I live in a tall glass building that overlooks the city. The city looks like a cement hedge maze from up here, at least from what I can see through all of the clouds of dust. Black helicopters constantly fly by my apartment, which is one of the highest ones up. No matter what quality of curtains I buy, I can never entirely keep out the intense light of the helicopter spotlights. Why do they peek into our apartments? What is it that they’re looking for? Living in the city means dealing with any number of unanswered questions. While I enjoy living in the city as Mr. William does, unlike him I tend to question it. Why is it so hard to get around? Was this building made of glass solely for the sake of the helicopters? Sometimes I feel like the subject of a vast experiment. Sitting at the kitchen table for breakfast, I stare inquisitively at what I’ve set before me.
If I drink this orange juice, will it make me grow taller? If I take a bite of this cereal, will I shrink back down again?
‘Terence, you’re a very suspicious boy, aren’t you?’ is what Billie Angers, my closest friend, would say. ‘You’re kinda self-important as well. I mean, do you really think anyone would go through so much trouble just to know why you wake up in the morning? That’s too much like some old science fiction movie. But then again you watch a lot of those, don’t you? You silly, silly boy.’
I then realise I’m not imagining what Billie’s saying, that she’s actually sitting across from me at the kitchen table. A sudden sense of déjà vu passes uncomfortably over me; I’m reminded of Mr. William’s good old friend Scorlak. Only I’m fairly certain that Billie is real. But how did she get in?
‘Someone let me into the building and your door was unlocked,’ she says. ‘You really should be more careful, Terence. What if I was an android?’ We had destroyed as many of the androids as we could but it always seemed like a handful more would spring up from time to time, like those invincible cockroaches that are supposed to survive us all. I had an inkling that the androids were building more androids somewhere in some forgotten factory. But I never had any problem with them to begin with. So what if they had all ended up as lazy thieves? That’s what we all are, anyway, deep inside.
‘I’m going to steal a sip of your orange juice, okay?’
I nod, but by then she’s already finished her gulp and has set the glass back onto the table. I quietly eat my cereal as she looks at me. Why is she looking at me?
‘Remember Scorlak?’ She asks with a huge grin on her face.
I nod, enjoying the reference to our childhoods. Who wouldn’t remember that invisible purple piece of intellectual Jell-O?
‘Turns out he actually exists,’ she says.
3.
Billie Angers had lived through a strange morning. She had woken up earlier than usual in order to get her high score recorded in the Space Invaders cabinet at the arcade, as she liked to return at the end of the day to see if anyone could beat it or not. After successfully inputting one of the highest scores she had ever achieved, she left the arcade and headed towards one of the city’s main streets. The more menacing of the police robots, grey turtles about the size of freight trucks, were rushing past like a herd of elephants; if Billie had stepped out into the street any sooner, she would’ve been one very unappetising pizza.
What was most odd to Billie was that it seemed to her that the robots were actually running away, rather than racing towards something. Rather than take her personal safety into account, Billie decided to head in the opposite direction to see just what exactly was going on back there.
‘There were a lot of stragglers,’ she says. ‘It seemed to me that pretty much anything human remained while all of the robots had scattered. Usually it’s the other way around. Anyway, it was a sectioned-off bit of road, a construction site. The workers in their big yellow hats were standing with the people and watching what everybody else was watching, which was – get this – a big purple gooey thing working a jackhammer. Remember what Mr. William used to say about vibrations? Well, I guess he was right. This giant purple thing was just minding its own business, working that jackhammer, completely oblivious of everyone staring at it. Eventually it looked up, though it’s hard to say how I knew it was looking up, and said “Oh” in this really, really purple voice, and as soon as he said that he stopped jackhammering and vanished. Gone. Kaput. My mind felt as mushy as that thing had looked. “Was that Scorlak?” I was thinking. “Did I just goddamn see goddamn Scorlak?” Everyone was either gasping or scratching their heads. I stared silently at the spot where he was before I broke down laughing. Tears were streaming down my eyes, I was laughing so hard. Is that the type of reaction I should’ve had? I mean, to everyone else it might’ve been something either completely bizarre or profound, but to me – I mean, we all know Mr. William and his “dear old friend”, right? How would you behave? I saw something that explained many of the mysteries in this world, in our infinite history, and I laughed at it.’
Billie Angers had laughed at Scorlak as we all had done when we were schoolchildren. I would’ve acted in the same way. It’s not as though we had disbelieved Mr. William, we just thought it was hilarious. Instead of some great grotesque monster, or skinny grey alien, it was bumbling purple goo that may or may not have been an impulsive liar. Beyond all of the sounds of the city, beyond all of the lights, we didn’t have any evil lurking in the shadows but instead something to be laughed at and enjoyed. There was something inherently lovable about Scorlak that impressed upon us as children.
‘When Mr. William finally dies,’ Billie Angers says, ‘do you think Scorlak will follow him into the grave? I mean, what would Scorlak do without Mr. William? I don’t think he’d ever be the same floating purple Jell-O again. Mr. William was what connected Scorlak to our world. He was what introduced that thing into our lives. But maybe Mr. William will live forever, like Shakespeare did. What do you think?’