The Ticking Heart Read online

  Charlie recognized the prisoner immediately. His name was Wolff Parkinson White, and he’d been in a committed relationship with Linda Penmore until she’d fallen in love with Charlie and married him. The last time he’d seen him, Wolff had tried to pick a fight. Charlie waited for him to look up. Wolff continued staring at the stains on the concrete floor. When Wolff did look up, he initially failed to recognize Charlie, as if his eyes were so accustomed to staring at the same piece of floor that they’d lost the ability to perceive anything new.

  ‘Charlie Waterfield! Not surprised to see you here.’ Wolff shuffled to his left, making room for Charlie on the cot. Charlie sat down and took his cigarettes from the inside pocket of his jacket. His fingers trembled as he fought with the packaging. The first cigarette he pulled out fell onto the floor. The second he passed to Wolff. The third he successfully lit. He passed his lighter to Wolff. Neither talked. The ash from Wolff’s cigarette turned to snow just before it hit the floor.

  ‘How long have you been in Metaphoria?’ Wolff asked.

  ‘About an hour.’

  ‘Wow. Well, don’t worry about panicking. Everybody panics when they first get here.’

  ‘I’ve already almost died because of shrinking. And I have a bomb in my chest where my heart should be.’

  ‘Welcome to Metaphoria!’

  ‘How long have you been here?’

  ‘I’m afraid I can’t answer that.’

  ‘I won’t judge.’

  ‘I wish I could tell you. I can’t even remember how long I’ve been sitting in this cell. Tell me – what did you arrive as?’

  ‘I’m not following you, Wolff.’

  ‘Everyone, when they arrive in Metaphoria, gets some sort of strange profession. Something they didn’t – something no one did, back home. Something more out of fiction than real life. What’s yours?’

  ‘A detective. I work for the Epiphany Detective Agency. I think it’s mine. As in, I am the Epiphany Detective Agency.’

  ‘Then I suppose you have some questions.’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Ask away, although I don’t think there’s much you don’t already know about me.’

  ‘I’m more interested in the guy who just visited you.’

  ‘Twiggy?’

  ‘Yeah. Him. Who is he to you?’

  ‘He’s my brother.’

  ‘I didn’t know you had a brother.’

  ‘I didn’t until I got here.’

  ‘Is he a good guy?’

  ‘No. Absolutely not.’

  ‘Do you know his wife?’

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘He has other wives?’

  ‘Two.’

  ‘Shirley Miller’s his third?’

  ‘Technically she’s his first, third, and fifth. They’ve been married three times and divorced twice. They’ve got one of those loves that runs hot and cold.’

  ‘Do you think he still loves her?’

  ‘That’s the thing about love, isn’t it? Even in Metaphoria there’s no indicator light that flashes green, no absolute way of knowing if someone’s got love in their heart for you or not.’

  ‘Wouldn’t that be nice.’

  ‘A dream.’

  ‘Is your brother a careful man? Would he be prone to lose something?’

  ‘The only thing he’s ever lost are his arms. And they grew back.’

  ‘Do you know anybody who’d want to steal your brother’s heart?’

  ‘I know he has a tendency to give it away.’

  ‘Anybody in particular?’

  ‘The name Kitty Packesel comes to mind. She’s a scientist. They’re working on some kind of secret project together. Twiggy wouldn’t tell me much about it except to say it’s called the Spero Machine.’

  ‘What’s it supposed to do?’

  ‘I don’t really know. Something to do with love.’

  ‘What doesn’t have to do with love in this town?’

  ‘Why do you think I stay in this cell?’

  ‘Anything else you can tell me about their relationship?’

  ‘They meet every Thursday at the Disappointment.’

  ‘The Disappointment?’

  ‘It’s a restaurant in the Seven Months Later District. Twiggy comes and visits me every Thursday, then meets her for dinner. They’ll just be sitting down for appetizers right now.’

  ‘I appreciate your candour, Wolff.’

  ‘Well, it’s Metaphoria, Charlie. If you’re here, there’s gotta be some reason for it.’

  ‘Let’s hope so.’ The cell door swung open. Charlie stood. Then he paused. ‘What is this place anyway?’

  ‘Don’t think of it as a place but as an opportunity.’

  ‘To do what?’

  ‘Has anyone explained to you how to get out of Metaphoria?’

  ‘I was told I had to have an epiphany. That it was best to form it as a question, to try and find the purpose of the human heart.’

  ‘What if all that’s wrong? What if the secret to triggering a poof isn’t an epiphany at all? What if it isn’t about self-realization but punishment? Technically this is a prison, but there are no trials, judges, or convictions. There aren’t even locks or guards. Incarceration is entirely voluntarily. This whole building is an opportunity to do your time for whatever it is that you’ve done wrong.’

  ‘So you just sit here and wait for your poof to happen?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Now I understand the acronym.’

  Charlie nodded as he left Wolff’s cell. Wolff looked back at the stains on the concrete floor. He didn’t look up as Charlie walked away.

  Charlie had almost retraced his steps completely when he noticed the cell. He still thought this place was ludicrous, but something strange and powerful pulled him toward the empty cell. He stopped in front of the door. Unable to resist, Charlie gave it a gentle push. The door drifted open and he stepped inside.

  The cot creaked as Charlie sat down. He rested his forearms on the tops of his legs. He looked down at the floor. He thought about Wanda and how he hadn’t used the walkie-talkie to call her. He thought about how unlikely it was that he was going to get his kids to karate. These things weighed heavily on his mind, then the cell door swung closed, causing a sudden metallic clang to ring out. It was at this moment that Charlie felt the heavy weight of his obligations, expectations, and responsibilities leave his body. He breathed deeply in. He noticed how shallow his breaths had been. He was unsure how long he had been breathing this way, perhaps years.

  Since the P.O.I.N.T.L.E.S.S. had no guards or locks, the length of his sentence was entirely up to Charlie. The more years he imagined giving himself, the better he felt. It was as Charlie contemplated giving himself a life sentence, when he saw himself spending the rest of his life in this tiny, windowless cell, that every ounce of his remorse, guilt, and shame faded away and he decided that he would never, ever leave this cell.

  6

  THE UNNAMED GHOST

  It was the air conditioner that saved Charlie Waterfield. The overwhelming silence created when the machine cycled off made the ticking in his ears insufferably loud. The ticking was so loud it became impossible for Charlie to think about anything else but the ticking, how each tick brought him a second closer to the moment when the bomb would explode, and that this moment, should he fail to find Twiggy’s heart, would come in less than twenty-four hours.

  Charlie wasn’t sure how long his sentence should be, but he knew twenty-four hours wasn’t nearly enough. He stood up and gave the door of his cell a gentle push. It swung open, easily. Charlie stepped into the hallway. He closed the cell door behind him. The moment it clanked shut, Charlie’s remorse, guilt, and shame returned. This being Metaphoria, the weight of these things made Charlie’s knees buckle. He staggered in the hallway.

  All the prisoners looked up as Charlie stumbled down the corridor. Embarrassed, he pretended he didn’t see them. He looked at his watch.

  The watch said:
/>   23 HR 19 MIN 57 SEC

  By the time Charlie got to his car, he stank of grief. The engine wouldn’t start. He turned the key again and again, but the motor did nothing but cough. He hit the steering wheel with the open palm of his hand. This felt good, so Charlie did it again. He did it several more times. Having spent his anger, Charlie closed his eyes. He took a deep breath, held it in his lungs, then let it out like water in a river. He continued doing this until a sad calm took the spot where the anger used to be. Then he turned the key and the car started on the first try.

  As he drove away, Charlie looked at the P.O.I.N.T.L.E.S.S. in his rear-view mirror. The look was filled with longing. He drove at a leisurely pace, ignoring the honks of the drivers behind him, choosing streets randomly, based on whether or not he liked the buildings on them. Charlie didn’t try to find his way to the Disappointment. He considered that an impossible task. He made a firm decision to spend the next twenty-three hours and nineteen minutes driving the streets of Metaphoria. Something inside his heart said this would be a good way to go, even though he didn’t exactly know where his heart was. It was at this point that a ghost materialized in the passenger seat.

  Exactly what this was the ghost of, Charlie couldn’t tell. The Ghost was certainly handsome. His jaw was square. His features were symmetrical. His hair was black and thick and floated above his head as if he were underwater. The only unappealing thing about the Ghost was the chains that encircled his waist and chest and bound his hands behind his back, which must have made sitting in the passenger seat extremely uncomfortable. The chains were thick and heavy, although they gave off an orange glow and a sickly sweet smell of rotting oranges.

  ‘Do you know who I am?’ The Ghost’s voice was deep and resonant and as pretty as his face. Charlie noticed how the Ghost’s transparency increased and decreased with his breathing, and that even though his hands were tied uncomfortably behind his back, his expression held a calm openness. But Charlie was unable to identify what he was the ghost of. Knowing from experience how vitally important it is to know which ghost is haunting you, Charlie become anxious.

  ‘Can you tell me?’

  ‘That’s not the way it works here.’

  ‘What’s the point of that?’

  ‘In this instance it will be more powerful if you figure it out for yourself.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You’ll just have to trust me.’

  ‘You don’t know, do you?’

  ‘You will just have to trust me.’

  ‘Do you not know what ghost you are?’

  ‘Of course I do!’ The Ghost became angry. This somehow made him more handsome. ‘How is your wife faring with the divorce?’

  ‘I don’t want to talk about that.’

  The Ghost rattled his chains. Although he was strikingly handsome and completely incapacitated by the heavy chains that encircled his body, the gesture terrified Charlie.

  ‘It’s been hard on both of us.’

  ‘Tell the truth!’

  ‘It’s a difficult time.’

  ‘The truth!’

  ‘She’s doing … good.’

  ‘All things considered, she’s doing quite well, isn’t she?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘You’re the one who’s having a hard time moving on. Is that right?’

  ‘I guess.’

  ‘You’re still hoping to get back together with her, aren’t you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Do not lie to me!’

  ‘I’m not!’

  ‘Can it be? Do you not even realize it?’

  ‘Realize what? What am I not realizing?’

  ‘Do you even want to get back home?’

  ‘Of course I do!’

  ‘Then stop hiding in your hope!’

  ‘I don’t even feel like I have any hope at all!’

  ‘Do you really not see it? That wanting, hoping, to rekindle your marriage is nothing but burrowing your head in emotional topsoil? Creating a fallout shelter and stocking it with enough loneliness and hurt and shame to outlast the emotional Armageddon? You are coddling your sorrow and grief, Charlie Waterfield! Why? Because it’s safer! As long as you’re hoping to get back together with your wife, as long as you’re recovering from your divorce, you will never have to make yourself emotionally vulnerable. You will never have to love again.

  ‘Is it safer? Of course it is. But the consequences, besides the fact that you are living without love, wasting your hope on something that will never happen and would be unsustainable if it ever were to chance into existence, is that you have turned your life into a waiting room.

  ‘Is that really what you want?’

  ‘Are you the ghost of the love I have for my wife?’

  ‘Oh, Charlie. Still using the present tense? Are you really that bad off?’ The look of great frustration on the Unnamed Ghost’s face melted to compassion. ‘Let me give you a hint. Stop right now!’

  Slightly enchanted by the Unnamed Ghost, Charlie did as it demanded. He slammed on the brakes. The car jerked to a sudden stop. Looking to his left, Charlie discovered he had stopped in front of the Disappointment. When he looked back to his right, the Unnamed Ghost was gone.

  7

  A RAISED CURSIVE FONT

  The Disappointment was just west of Unrealistic and Expectation, quite close to the offices of the Epiphany Detective Agency. Charlie put the Corvette keys in his pocket and went inside. The restaurant was large and the interior design was so minimalist that Charlie worried a slight tilt in the earth would send him sliding down the polished marble floors and granite tabletops, with nothing to hold on to. There were more than fifty tables. They were all set for two. Every table was occupied by a couple.

  None of the couples held hands. Few looked each other in the eye. Nobody was enjoying themselves. All the couples sat across from each other, arguing in their own unique way. Some yelled at each other. At other tables, one partner struggled to hold back tears while the other attempted to convey something complicated and hurtful. But by far the saddest couples, as far as Charlie was concerned, were the ones who weren’t saying anything to each other, the candles flickering in front of them as they silently stared at entrees that had already turned cold.

  Charlie took a seat at the bar. It did not take long to spot Twiggy. Sitting at a table near the window, Twiggy’s sticks flew wildly about as he attempted to articulate something, but Charlie couldn’t figure out what. He assumed that the woman sitting across from Twiggy was Kitty, since she had a tail. Kitty’s neutral expression held the impenetrable confidence of a locked safe, but her tail beat the floor with a building intensity that cresendoed as she tossed her drink in Twiggy’s face.

  Several drops of apple-red margarita slid down Twiggy’s cheek, and he pushed these into his mouth with the longest twig on his right hand. His smile was disturbing. It failed to convey compassion or empathy or even a small amount of affection. Twiggy threw money on the table. The bills landed on the white linen tablecloth like geese on a pond. Kitty and Twiggy stood up. Twiggy left the restaurant and Kitty came to the bar. She took the seat beside Charlie.

  ‘Is he watching me?’ Kitty nodded toward the long mirror that hung above the bar. Twiggy was reflected in it. He stood on the sidewalk, looking in. A small purple flame rose from Twiggy’s chest.

  ‘He seems to be watching us.’

  ‘Is his chest on fire?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What colour are the flames?’

  ‘There’s only one flame.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘What colour is it?’

  ‘Mauve?’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Why is it good?’

  ‘His dignity burns purple. It’ll be gone soon.’

  Charlie looked back into the mirror. Twiggy remained perfectly still as the purple flame got smaller and smaller. When it disappeared, Twiggy put his twigs in his pockets and walked away.

  �
�He seems pretty sad for a man without a heart,’ Charlie said.

  ‘He’s as sad about losing me as he would be about his second-favourite watch.’

  ‘I don’t think we’ve been introduced.’

  ‘I know who you are and who you’re working for, Mr. Waterfield. I know that she’s charged you to find Twiggy’s heart. I also know what she’s done to you.’ Kitty opened her hand and pressed it flat against Charlie’s chest. She kept it there for three ticks longer than she needed to.

  ‘You seem to know a lot about Shirley Miller’s business.’

  ‘We have a common interest.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘Her husband’s heart.’

  ‘A friend of mine thought you might already have it.’

  ‘Unfortunately, no. Twiggy’s name has not been written upon me. Check if you want to.’

  Kitty turned her back to Charlie. She lifted the bottom of her shirt and swished her tail out of the way. Written on her skin, straddling her backbone, was a list of seventeen names, all in the same raised cursive font. Kitty undid her bra strap, ensuring that no names would be concealed.

  ‘What are these?’

  ‘You don’t know? How long have you been here?’

  ‘In Metaphoria?’ Charlie looked at his watch. ‘Two hours fifteen minutes.’

  ‘You’re having quite a day.’

  ‘I’m trying not to panic.’

  ‘It’s okay. Everybody panics here.’

  ‘Even you?’

  ‘Especially me.’

  ‘And the names?’

  ‘In Metaphoria, the name of every person you become intimate with appears in a raised cursive font on your back. The last name on the list is the most recent and always sits in the very same place, just above the small of your back. When a new name appears, the rest of the list shifts upward like text written on a typewriter, the font size changing to accommodate the length.’

  ‘That must lead to some awkward moments.’

  ‘That’s not the hard part.’