Cogito, Ergo Sum

The door was locked. That was a good sign. 

James held up a ring of keys and peered over the top of his glasses. He took a moment to find the right one, picking through them carefully. Beside him, Carrie worried the skin around her thumbnail with her teeth. 

James found the key and slid it into the lock. It fit perfectly but he paused before he turned it. 

“Whatever we find in there,” he told her, “whatever state he’s in, just remember that we’re going to help him.”

Carrie nodded but didn’t look at him. “What do we do if he won’t come?”

“What we agreed to do in the car.”

“What if he doesn’t want to come with us?”

“Then we ask nicely.” She looked at him sharply. “Honestly, what’s got into you? He isn’t well, we’re here to help him. You weren’t this nervous before we left.”

She shifted uncomfortably. “I’ve just got a bad feeling. Like something’s watching us.” She looked uneasily around them. Though the front garden was un-mown, with the beginnings of dandelions growing through the cracks in the paving, care and pride shone though like a second photo under the first. The eaves were painted a bright white, the roses in bloom. A car sat squarely in the drive and a low brick wall ensconced it all, keeping the outside world at a comfortable distance. 

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Muttered James as he turned the key. He pushed the door and peered into the hall. “Hello?” 

“Jesus, what’s that smell?” Asked Carrie, following him in. “Dr Ford's not a smoker is he?”

“He didn’t used to be.”

The smell of smoke and stale drink permeated all. James threw back a curtain as he moved forward slowly. Air thick with ash trapped it mid flight making lazy moats in the air. Books were strewn, spilled drinks and dirty plates. A hand print of something marred the cream wallpaper. 

“Is he even-”

“Shut that goddamn door!”

Carrie whirled round as James jumped. Colin appeared from the other end of the hall, she thought it might have been from the kitchen, though she had only been there once and many years ago. They’d sat at his kitchen table and discussed her doctoral thesis. His wife had made them tea. 

“Colin?” Asked James. “We’ve come to see you.”

Colin didn’t appear to have heard him as he stumped past both of them and slammed the door shut himself. He locked, double locked and kicked it once for good measure. He turned to face them and for a moment his body was rigid in purpose before he deflated. He gave a huff that might have once been a chuckle. 

“Ah, not that it’ll do any good. Damage is already done, I can feel it. I feel it, do you hear me?” Carrie looked to James as Colin’s voice rose to a shout. He wasn’t looking at either of them but muttered as he walked back past them and to where he had been. After a beat James and Carrie followed. 

It was the kitchen after all. In the better light of the bay windows Colin was quite a sight. A dirty bathrobe over crumpled clothes and two days worth of a beard, he looked quite unkept. One shaking hand rummaged through a pocket until it came back with a bent cigarette. He shoved it between his teeth and turned to face them.

“Does anyone have a light?”

Neither James nor Carrie had the chance to answer before he snorted. He bent over the stove and with the click of a gas tap, lit the tip. With a gusty breath and a sigh of smoke he dragged out a chair. 

“To what do I owe the pleasure?”

They’d practiced this. James took the lead. “Colin, we haven’t heard from you since the funeral. You can’t disappear on us, not like this.”

“Oh, you’re such an expert. Did your wife die?”

James’ face was very cold and set into such lines Carrie thought it might be unyielding to the touch. “Just my sister.”

A fraught moment passed where neither man looked away. Colin broke it first. He slumped forward with his head in his hands. “Fuck. Fuck, I’m sorry. I thought it would be easier to be arse now but it still feels real. Everything still feels like my life, a shitty version of it but still mine. Ow, fuck!” He threw the cigarette on the floor and stamped it out with a slipper, the burn on his left hand from the dangling end in his mouth. “Still feels real.” He said, voice muffled, “Even that felt real.”

James unbent enough to take a chair across the table. After a moment of hesitation Carrie did the same. With Colin staring mournfully across the table at them it was hard not to feel a swell of pity that didn’t sit her memory of what this man should be. 

“Colin, do you want to come home with me?” James was back on script now and Carrie got ready to play her part. “Amy would love to have you and the kids all miss their Uncle. We can sort everything out.”

Carrie jumped in. “I’ve spoken to the University. They understand, of course. You’ve been placed on compassionate leave so you don’t have to make any decisions right now…we want to help Dr Ford. All you have to do is come with us.”

Colin sat across the table and stared. Something like the ghost of a smile sat on his face, though too wan to be mistaken for the real thing. 

“I can’t.” He said eventually. “I can’t come with you-”

“This isn’t what Helen would want!” Said James hotly but Colin spoke over him.

“I can’t come with you because I think she’s finally letting me tell people.”

Carrie felt like she was teetering. James turned and looked at her and she saw there the same panic of somewhere abruptly and unexpectedly out of their depth. 

“I’ll explain.” Said Colin. “But you must promise to listen.” He got up and took two clean glasses from the shelf, and a third one from the sink. He dried it on his gown sleeve and set it in from of himself. The other two were placed squarely in front of each of them and, after a moment, filled to the brim with red wine. 

“Best bottles from now on. No point saving it for later.”

“Colin-”

“Dr Ford-”

“You promised to listen.” He reminded them and Carrie was thrown back to her undergraduate days. Her mouth shut and she nodded.

Beside her James did the same. 

Colin sat back down in his chair and took a long swig from hid glass. He topped it once more before taking a fortifying breath. “What I’m going to tell you is not pleasant and you will not believe me, but I promise it is true. Here we go.” He took a deep breath and leaned forward. “None of this is real.”

He leaned back and watched their faces. Carrie’s eye’s darted to James but his never left his brother-in-law’s unwashed face. 

“I mean it!” He said when neither of them spoke. “None of this is real! Not this, this, or this.” He began knocking things off the table. A plate, a vase of dried daffodils, a pair of reading glasses. He drained his wine and threw the glass over his shoulder. “Not even that.”

“You’re coming with us.” Said James firmly, rising form his chair. “We shouldn’t have left you alone so long.”

“You’ll want proof, I suppose?” He said peering up into James’ face. Before he received an answer he sprang from the chair and seized a knife from the counter. In a single swing he brought down on his own wrist.

James shouted in shock and Carrie’s hands were raised uselessly but Colin simply smiled at them again, that same tired smile. 

“You see? Will you listen now?” He dropped the knife carelessly to the floor and remained standing, no blood to be seen. After a moment he guided a shocked James back into his chair. “It’s not just that we’re not real- not real isn’t the right word for it, I think. Fictional. We’re fictional. Just marionettes in a story. But that’s not the worst of it.”

James was beyond speaking. “There’s more?” Asked Carrie hesitantly. 

Colin looked at her with the same pity she had felt for him early. “The worst part is the author. She’s always there, always watching. Sometimes I feel her and it’s like she moves my body for me, makes me say things I don’t want to. Sometimes I think she even shapes the thoughts in my head.”

The hairs on the back of Carrie’s neck were on end. “How can you tell?”

“When she’s here? Sometimes it’s like I think she’s trying to communicate. I don’t know if she’s trying to tell me something specific or if she just wants me to know she’s there. But I can aways tell. She’s here now, can you feel it?”

Carrie looked at him sat in front of him. She looked around the room and out the door to the hall. She looked at the ceiling, the four corners and then down at her own hands. “I can.” She said quietly. 

“She wasn’t here for a moment earlier and I thought she’d left, but she was just outside with you. Waiting to be let in. She came in with you.”

Carrie remembered the feeling of being watched and shivered. She tried to ignore the feeling of an extra set of eyes in the room, a pair of breathing lungs. 

James stood up abruptly. “You’re scaring her. Enough is enough, come with us or we’ll drag you out of here.”

“James…”

James whirled on her. “He’s sick, Carrie! Sick! Look at this.” He bent down and grabbed the knife from the floor. “It’s blunt, that’s why it didn’t cut-”

“I had it sharpened three days ago.” Colin broke in lightly.

James carried on, unhearing. “He’s delusional and you can’t make it worse by humouring him. He’s talking about some kind of god!”

“Not a god.” Said Colin. “Though I suppose to us the difference is academic. Just an author.”

“An author who controls everything and everyone in your life?” James asked, voice getting louder. His hands were trembling. “I’m sorry Helen died, you know I am, but this isn’t normal! Grief is doing this to you not some author you’ve made up in your mind.”

“She’s real.”

“How do you even know she’s a she?”

“I just feel it, I feel her. She’s here now, if you would just calm down you could feel her too.”

“Calm down? Calm down? Fine. If she’s real why doesn’t she talk? Just talk clear as day, hmm?”

Colin shook his head. “I don’t think that’s how it works. She seems the silent type, there’s a fair bit of interpretation involved.”

James raked a hand though his hair, “Jesus Christ.”

“Fine. One test. One test and if I’m wrong I’ll come with you.”

James looked at him with narrowed eyes. “I’m not feeding into this.”

“One simple task and if it turns out I’m wrong I’ll just leave.” Colin said coaxingly. Carrie’s eyes were wide as they darted between the two men.

A muscle in James’ face twitched. “One test?”

“And I’ll come willingly.”

“Fine.”

Colin straightened and looked seriously. “James. Raise your right arm above your head.”

“That’s it?”

Colin nodded. “That’s it.”

James took a deep breath and tried to keep himself in check. He raised his arm straight up. “Now can we please go? I’ve done your test, you’re clearly having some kind of breakdown…what?”

Carrie was staring at him, faith in her too wide eyes. Colin just looked sympathetic which was somehow worse.

“Your right arm.” Colin repeated. 

“James,” Carrie whispered. “That’s your left.”

James looked at his arm, straight up in the air. His right arm hung by his side. “I’ll just- I just have to, urgh!” He grunted as he struggled to raise his arm. The muscles in his neck were taught but his right arm remained as motionless as if it were one of the table legs. He could not more life it than he could bend his knee forward. It was separate to him. 

“James, James, relax.” Said Colin. 

James felt the control he thought he had over the situation slip as he panicked. “Why can’t I lift my arm?” He asked, frantic. 

“The author.” Carrie breathed. 

“This is how she communicates.” Said Colin. “You need to relax.”

Slowly and consciously, James forced himself to relax. His left arm still up he took a deep breath. “Now what?” No sooner had he asked than his knees began to bend. Down on one knee and then two until he touched the ground with his left hand. Slowly, he once more regained his feet. “I didn’t mean to do that.” He said dumbly. “That wasn’t me.”

“It was her.”

James stumbled to his chair and collapsed into it. “I don’t understand. I don’t want to know this. Why did you tell us?” He looked accusingly at Colin. “Why did you have to tell us?”

“Because I could. I’ve been here all week going mad by myself. I had to tell someone.”

“Why can you tell us now?” Asked Carried, leaning forward intently. 

Once more Colin looked so unbearably sad. “You won’t like the answer.”

“I don’t like any of this.” Said James quietly. 

“I couldn’t tell you before now because she wouldn’t let me. I think this is her way of…saying goodbye. Of letting us say goodbye.”

“What, you mean…” Carried trailed off looking sick. 

“Every story has to have an ending.”

“But what will happen to us?” Asked Carrie, her voice high. “If she finishes the story, if she stops writing what happens to us?

“I don’t know.” Said Colin. “I imagine we just stop being. I don’t know what happens next. In that way nothing has changed at all.”

“Why is this happening?

James was shaking his head. “I don’t understand. Why is she doing this?”

“Can’t we ask her to carry on? Just keep going?

“Jesus, what the fuck-”

“I don’t want to die!”

Colin reached across the table and took her hand. When she calmed enough to take a breath he took James’s. “You’re not going to die, Carrie. Not really. Because you’re not alive. This isn’t life, this is puppetry.”

“What happens if she gets bored? What happens if she runs out of ideas…what if there’s a goddamned word limit?”

“But what if she just stops mid sentence? If she created us she must love us, right? She wouldn’t just kill something she loves. Right?”

Colin squeezed their hands. “Don’t be scared. We’ll face it together. Whatever she is I’m sure she’ll give us to the end of the senten