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Ten Letters, Unsent by Cameron Brockmann |
§
§ Søren buys a handful of dumplings from the old Hakka woman, her wooden trolley stationed outside his building. She repeats the same four truncated syllables every day like a mantra, “Si’ dolla’. M’goi.” The dumplings are his other morning constant, the one solid supplement to a breakfast of caffeine and nervous energy. The old woman’s speech patterns have started to influence his own, the healthy disrespect of non‑native speakers breaking an unfamiliar tongue down to its component parts. Language that is all function, no emotion, much like the city itself. He didn’t realise it starting, and worries now that it will be impossible to eradicate. That he will continue to cut the endings off things – words, ideas – without being able to stop. That when he returns home the round Scandinavian vowels will catch in his throat. §
§ There is a limit beyond which the human mind cannot make sense of large numbers. Søren is grateful for the crush of people that sweep him along in the underground station every morning: a collective autopilot that allows him to move without thinking. A plural that becomes a singularity because of its sheer size and volume. Travelling under the water instead of across its surface alters his sense of direction, speeding through the tunnels, the frozen blast of over-conditioned air reminding him of home. Søren closes his eyes, the sideways motion of the train dissolving the people around him into streams of zeroes and ones. Twice a day it seems everyone in the city simply stands up and changes location, like a giant game of musical chairs, the choreography honed to razor sharp perfection. Several million people fooled into thinking that constant motion means moving forwards, not simply going around in circles. §
§ Today the endings of Søren’s words and thoughts are rushing back. The hurry of the city passes him by. At the end of the street he turns left for the local ferry instead of right for the subway. The crush of people isn’t nearly as overwhelming under the wide arc of the sky. The deck moves slowly beneath his feet, and the speed of Søren’s breath changes, the daily subway trip already crossing a line in his mind from quotidian reality to something only half remembered and slightly surreal. §
§ The boom gate lowering on the quay has the same effect as someone pressing the shutter on a camera, triggering the eyes of the passengers. Most of them find seats inside, falling asleep almost immediately even though the journey is only a short one. Søren has always been envious of this ability to induce sleep as easily as throwing a switch. He finds it difficult to divide his life into discrete parts labelled ‘awake’ and ‘asleep’; it simply feels like a greyness that is sometimes brighter, sometimes darker. He moves through each day as if moving through something solid, the end of the day like the beginning, the beginning of the day like the one before it. Standing on the deck, the city floats towards him in a haze of salt spray, its outlines dissolving in the heat. Søren blames the humidity for his lack of sleep but the thick, damp air is not the only reason the past weeks have felt like walking through a field of concrete dreams. §
§ For the last ten minutes of the ferry trip Søren thinks about nothing except the colour of the water. The more he stares at the glassy surface, the more it feels as if the boat is standing still, anchor dropped, the city washing towards him in a continual ebb and flow. The solid ground, as his feet touch it again, almost feels like a mistake, and he winds his way from the harbour, up and down the familiar contours of the city. More people live on this tiny rock than in the whole of the country he used to call home. There are more people in his apartment building than in the town where he was born. Is it any wonder he found it so hard to keep track of the one person he knew? §
§ A ray of sunlight slips between two buildings, raising Søren’s head. It takes him a good thirty seconds to realise his trouser pocket is vibrating. He presses the green button with his thumb and an infinite number of electrons bounce off a satellite and resolve themselves into the voice of his boss. Søren replies in half sentences. “Morning. Yes. No, I took. No. The ferry. No, well, it was a nice morning and so I thought. Yes, I. Look, no, I’m almost. I’m three minutes. Uh huh. Yes. No, I realise it’s important, yes. Yes. I appreciate. No. I. Like I said, three minutes.” §
§ Søren hardly musters the energy for this conversation, no longer sure why he came here in the first place and certain now that there is nothing keeping him here. He came halfway across the globe, swinging down from the Arctic Circle to the Tropic of Cancer, but his world has shrunk, possibilities closing in on themselves like a square of paper fallen victim to an intricate origami design. He thinks about telling his boss that he took the ferry because moments of enlightenment are fairly thin on the ground in 7am meetings about brand identity. He thinks about disconnecting. §
§ Søren has lost track of how long it is since he last saw Javier, since the moment of forgetfulness that became an accidental farewell. Now the accumulation of days since that night fold together, suddenly airless, like the panels of a collapsed accordion. He exhales. “Oh look, I really don’t give a fuck about the Britman Project.” For a second his resolve wavers. White noise falls over his ears like rain. “I said, I really think we’re in luck with the Britman Project. Yes. No, I’m walking through the doors now.” §
§ Søren winks at the stone dragon playing with its ball before leaning against its smooth back and striking up a cigarette. He sees his reflection in the double doors of the building, sees his reflection everywhere throughout the city, his shadow slipping around corners behind him, the glass façades of the skyscrapers throwing back a continual cubist portrait, his body angled into odd disjunctions. The skyline’s appetite is voracious, a desire not satisfied at sixty stories, seventy stories, eighty. The island reminds him of the icebergs back home. He worries that it will suddenly invert one day: the part above water grown too heavy to maintain equilibrium. He watches the morning glare bleach the city white and, when he finishes his smoke, only just resists the urge to throw his phone in the bin along with the butt. §
§ At precisely 5pm, the earliest time in months, Søren is going to trace these steps in reverse. Back out the door, back down the street, and back out of the city one last time. Zeno’s arrow moving backwards through a series of discrete points: the main road, the subway, the apartment, and – caught up in the continuum of motion – the express train, the airport, the departure gate. He will board the plane with the taste of glue on his tongue, one letter finally sent amid a collection of false starts. By the time his resignation lands on his boss’s desk in the morning he’ll be landing on the other side of the world.
*** |
The morning feels unproductive even before it has begun. Søren rises at six, black hair tousled, eyes blurred. The cigarette packet lies crumpled and empty next to the bed; espresso stains the morning news. Back home, black coffee and cigarettes were a form of patriotism, especially for someone who could never stomach the dried fish that greeted him from his family’s kitchen table every morning. Here among the vertiginous humidity, coffee feels necessary but poisonous. The lift rattles him down thirty eight floors, a full minute of queasiness before he hits the ground. Stepping out of the building is like stepping into a different world, suddenly horizontal instead of vertical.