a man with a laptop

He tipped the bag of crisps up and as the crumbs dropped into his open mouth his rather empty mind was dragged back to consciousness from its food stupor, and his ears picked up the unsettling sound again. Puzzled he sat and listened intently, the Tv was prattling on about some plastic celebrity in the background and the sounds of teenagers could be heard from outside, other than that though he figured there shouldn't be any sounds, certainly not small unhappy sighs. He lived alone, he had a cat but he was fairly sure Roger had never made such a sound, frowning he turned off the sound of the Tv, the teenagers had moved on, and he listened again.

He could hear all the small sounds that make up the minutiae of life, there were distant sounds from outside of a small child crying, it was far off and accompanied by yelling from a woman he presumed to be the childs mother, he listened to the clicking of the small plastic maneki neko he had sat on the windowsill, he found the clicking annoying and resolved to throw it out. He analysed every tiny sound, his ears searching for that one very unsettling sigh.

He gave up decided must have been his imagination and went into the kitchen, He returned with a drink and went to turn up the Tv again. He sat down heavily and with a clear mind full of nothing at all, he began to relax again and chugged his drink down, and nearly choked. His spluttering and spitting of drink came with a curse and this time he looked round the room as well as listen, nothing, he turned off the Tv and was now determined to figure out this sound.
He faked relaxing, he theatrically raised his drink to his lips, he was sure it would happen again if he appeared to ignore it, and inside he crowed a little with delight as he heard the sigh. It was small, quiet, and close, it was deeply unhappy, it was also bloody annoying, he thought.
So there it was again and he looked around the room taking in every nook and cranny, it was a fairly simply decorated room, he wasn't big on home making, there was only him so it was more or less the required furniture and very little else. A few bike magazines, the odd book on fixing engines, a few consoles and some games strewn around, there didn't appear to be anywhere or anything that some small person could hide behind, and he could not find the source of what was annoying him with sad sounds.
He had a walk about, he checked the hallway, he even checked upstairs, there was no one here but him.
The sigh came again, this time he jumped up from the sofa and growled, at no one he could see, "I know theres someone here where are you?"
Obviously nothing happened, he wasn't sure what he had expected, maybe a small child suddenly emerging from behind the sofa, except the sofa had its back against the wall so that couldn't happen.
"I mean it you better show yourself" he said, his voice irate and he was now hoping he hadn't gone mad without realising it. This aint on he thought, bloke should be able to come home after work, eat stuff and veg out not chase sad sounds round the house worrying he had gone insane and he went to get a bottle from the fridge. he returned to his relaxing time and opened his beer.
"Well I'm sorry my unhappiness annoys you, but you would be unhappy too, stuck here with nothing to do other than watch you gorge yourself on crap, you do realise everything you have eaten is just poisoning your body dont you? and seriously beer? its not even five o clock! " the voice had gained somewhat in its volume and this had sounded as if some nagging woman sat right beside him and he spluttered beer and jumped up from the sofa cursing loudly.
His shouts of 'what the actual fuck' and 'show yourself right now' lead once again to nothing, remembering that the voice, annoying as it was, only came when he sat on the sofa quietly he contained his mood and sat down.

"Ok sorry," he gathered as much patience as he could and said "Please tell me who, or what, you are, and, " he paused again practicing his best control said "I will eat what the fuck I like" and waited.
"I'm sorry" the voice said and sighed again.
"That's ok, but where the fuck are you? why can't I see you? and how the fuck did you get into my house?"
After a moment there was a subdued reply
"Ok I don't have any answer how I got here, cause I don't know" another sigh was heard and the voice began again " I just woke up and here I am, been stuck here for days, and you are not nice to live with so please believe me when I say I do not want to be here any more than you want me here. I would be more than happy to leave you to your gross habits"
"What the fuck? How long have you been spying on me?" he bleated angrily.
"I am not spying on you! Like I said I didn't ask to be here! I do not want to be here and if I had a choice I would go home and indulge in my own gross habits but no! I am stuck here with you" her words started in defiance had now descended into crying.
His stomach fell as he heard the pathetic sobbing, he felt ridiculous, and irritated, that he now had to console some sad invisible woman.
"Are you a ghost?" he asked.
"A ghost? God I hope not! That would mean I had died! Fairly sure I haven't died, I don't feel dead! Although I don't know how I know that, as I don't appear to have a body any more" the voice cracked and gave way to more sobbing.
"Ok, ok, let's not get upset" he really couldn't handle the bloody crying, he thought and said "So where, I mean like whereabouts in the room, are you? I can't see you, are you invisble? You must be a ghost! Look try to think back, what happened before you decided to haunt my home?" he had settled into this now, it was becoming an intriguing mystery, his attention turned towards refreshment and he considered whether to get more food, but instead took a gulp of beer.

"Well, erm, I'm right behind you" came the voice quietly, the sobs has stopped and were just the odd gasp in her words now, she continued, "All I really remember is going to bed and watching youtube stuff, I must have drifted off, I usually do, then when I woke up and it was awful I couldn't move, I thought I was paralysed! and I was stuck behind your sofa, and that didn't make any sense! and you weren't here at that point, I didnt know where I was or what had happened. I could hear noises, think you must have been upstairs because I remember you coming in here and you weren't dressed!" the voice paused then muttered " I didn't know where to look" the her words had slipped into a self conscious mumble and if anyone could have seen her the bright red flush of her embarassment would surely have conveyed her guilt of where she had failed not to look.
"You saw my junk!" he exclaimed.
"Yes, erm, sorry, I, ermm, tried not to look, obviously" her tone revealed she had not tried too hard.
"But you did look though" he said smugly.
"Well, ermm, yes" came the quiet reply and he was enjoying the idea that he knew she was squirming even though he couldn't see her. His chest swelling in pride, he knew he looked good naked, and he found it funny that she was embarassed, he laughed, somehow the idea of having a ghost that squirmed at seeing him naked became the best thing that had happened that day.
"Did ya like what you saw?" he said without even waiting for a reply, he knew it would be a positive response. He could not resist his obvious pride in his body. He considered himself pretty fit, right now he was mentally flexing muscles, in front of a woman he could not see. His mind full of his achievements, revisiting his training. He worked out ferociously at his local gym and was a regular contender within the cage fighting world. He was lost in self revery, his thoughts on past winning fights and how he had nurtured and honed this body, and a flame burned in him, a rather self confident belief that he was irresistable to women, they all wanted his body and why not? it was sculptured to perfection! Reality didn't interfere with his thoughts, it certainly didn't point out that he was in fact slightly misguided, not only in his degree of attraction to women, but also his supposed strict regime that really hadn't seen him actually fight for over a year. He would never admit it but he had let himself go, he no longer visited the gym every night, he would justify it by using his 'I have to work as well' excuse. His self absorption in his body and its perfection, hadn't registered yet that the ghost woman hadn't answered him.
He frowned as he realised the expected compliment on his physique had not yet materialised and the voice said quietly
"Would you like me to be tactful or truthful?"
He continued to frown, he wasn't sure he liked this conversation now and said "Er both?"
There was quiet for a long feeling couple of minutes, the the voice, in a polite manner, said "I am sure that should I be the sort of person that was attracted to retired body builders it would be attractive"
He scowled.
"That's, not," he stuttered, not sure what he was trying to say. He wanted to say 'hey this body is amazing! peak of physical fitness! you should be melting at my feet!' Somehow it didn't seem to be a good thing to say and he was stumped.
"I'm sorry, it's just I am not the sort of woman who finds that sort of man attractive, men with muscles? ugh! it doesn't do anything for me"
"So what do you prefer? that 'new man' modern and all emotional" he sneered the words with obvious contempt he continued " all in touch with his feelings being sensitive, fucking pussys!" he half laughed in derision.
The silence felt overbearing and uncomfortable.
It was cut by the clipped words of the invisible woman.
"I prefer intelligent men"
For a few moments they sat sulking with each other, until it dawned on him that he was somehow having an argument with a woman he could not see. He felt slightly ridiculous and muttered something about 'bloody annoying ghosts' and drank some more beer.

The clean, and very modern, building, ran with precision. It also ran with extreme expense, it looked austere, almost bleak, though a very expensive looking bleak, from the outside. Its facade spoke of understated style, it was new looking, and had yet a totally uninspiring architecture. Designed to be modern and elegant it belonged to what was merely a group of buildings that looked as if the director of a film had said 'design a futuristic expensive, very small, city with no apparent purpose, make it look good but non descript,' and so the art guy had gone and blown the whole films budget on a sterile but perfectly plush rendition of a small city without life. This building contained offices but it blended so well with the other buildings that it in no way gave any clue that it housed several hundred professors.
The air conditioning hummed quietly and efficiently in the background, the stylish interior surrounded the men in costly comfort, their chairs resembled art pieces rather than a seating solution. Designed in the latest technology they were a marriage of the latest alloy and the latest fabric invented. With an interface interpreting the seated persons every movement, ergonomically intentioned the shape slid into view belonging more to the Tate Gallery rather than an office of university professors. The fabric responded to the seated persons temperature and moulded to his shape, the colour being vanta black meant the fabric of each chair seemed to suck in any surrounding light, adding to the already surreal lighting. The walls, with some manipulation of a sleek console would reveal data, charts, complicated looking science stuff.
The atmosphere in amongst all this lavish design and complicated techonology was filled with impatience. The splendid interior not only cut out any outside noise with its coverings and latest security design, and though the floor again covered in expensive cushioning designed to absorb everything; sound, dirt, items dropped, and sanitise at the same time. None of these efforts could have covered the proverbial pin drop. Though no one dropped one, as all concentration was on the man with the laptop and anxious look on his face.
He sat staring at the data, his forhead creased in stress, and he knew that inside he was panicking. He was surrounded by the most eminent professors in the whole fucking world he thought, and I wish the fuck this wasn't happening he hung head his head, as far as he could tell this had well and truly fucked up.
He cleared his throat, his brain trying to scramble together the words needed to convey the situation, without anyone realising his inner panic state, if he could keep it to his own internal general panic about the whole thing then he might just get through this. His deeper mind, the one he constantly tried to ignore, prodded his conscious mind with suggestions of swallowing enough morphine tablets to just fall asleep, forever. Someone else could run this shitshow.

"So what's the score then?" asked one of the faces.
He swallowed hard and just decided to go with it, to hell with the consequences.
"We have," he waited a second or two, "Erm, well, we have managed to come through the first stage" he said and kept staring fixedly at his laptop.
The order was jubilantly given to begin stage two, and arrangements made for a celebratory dinner at the onsite restaurant and champagne was demanded by all, except the man staring at his laptop. The merriment infused the group and one of the men left returning after ten minutes to inform the group that 'switch on stage two' was programmed for 'eight o clock sharp' and the room expanded with joy.
He kept his head down and kept staring at his laptop he didn't need to, the data would not change. He just did not want to see that look he knew would creep over their faces, he didn't want to see that evil eagerness that would shine in their eyes. He didnt want to, he really wished he couldn't but he could predict exactly what would happen next, the end of the world his deeper mind whispered.

"So you saying I am not intelligent then?" he sulked at the ghost woman.
"No, no, sorry. It's just me, please don't take offence, even when I am normal, as in not invisible, I am very much a loner, I don't go out much, I work a lot, and I am in fact quite anti -social"
"No shit sherlock" he muttered.
Then he felt bad and said "Why?"
"I, just, ermm, don't get on with , people, I have to work a lot" she mumbled and the room now held an uncomfortable silence. He muttered something about beer and went to the kitchen.
She sighed again, life had been difficult before, now it was hell, she thought glumly, and she wondered if she had been hitler or vlad the impaler in a former life. she began to cry again.
This is doing my head in he thought angrily, can't go sit on my own room cos theres a bloody ghost crying and whinging He grabbed his jacket and went out into the night hoping the pub and a few beers with his mates would make all this go away.

The same faces flushed red with their jubilance at their success had met at the arranged time, still congratulating each other and were joined by other faces who were clearly not professors but rather heads of state, also congratulated and expressed their hopes for stage two. All were now gathered deep underground, with them were others milling around doing important jobs in the background. The noises of machines and pipes and echoing of huge chambers surrounded the men, the complexity of cables and metal work, computers and white coated serious looking men staring at them were arranged in their hundreds, banks of control systems and men everywhere with fixed concentrated looks on their faces completed the organised chaos.
The countdown to stage two began and in the moment switches were switched and rumblings of a giant, metal, eternal snake shuddered almost imperceptibly into life and all were transfixed upon the huge, complex, metal circle that formed the outside of the huge pipe. The enormity of the space around them, filled with the workings of the of a machine invented by the worlds most intelligent men, and it dwarfed the professors, belittled the heads of state, as they stood congratulating themselves at a successful launch of stage two.

The room was dark and they had talked for hours, she had a name; Sarah, and they were now friends, both having apologised for their less than friendly introduction.
"So you remember going to sleep, do you know how long ago that was? I mean it's the last memory you have of your normal life so I am just trying to work out when that was, must have been more than two days ago I reckon" he said.
"Yes, you're right, I think I have obviously been able to see the sun go up and down and yup I reckon all told it was four days ago I woke up here" she tried to keep the sarcasm out of her voice.
"So if you're dead, then we should look at stuff in the news from last four days, simple, we will see if any deaths are mentioned with your name and " he was cut off in mid-ramble by her protestations.
"I am not dead!"
"You must be! You're a ghost!" he insisted.
"No! I am not! If I was a ghost I would be able to move around or make wailing sounds! I would look thin and wispy! Seriously I am telling you I am not dead!" she shouted and if it had been possible she would have crossed her arms and scowled.
"But I don't see what the hell else you could be! There's only dead or alive!" he countered and then crossed his arms and scowled, because he could.
She sighed deeply.
"Ah for fucks sake stop with the sighing! Just fucking tell me what's on your mind I might be dumb to you but I can figure out some stuff you know!" he grumbled he had lost patience with the ghost in denial.
"Ok Im sorry but this is hell for me you know, anyway I have been thinking about it, there's not much else to do you know, but I am clearly here, fact one, I can talk think etc fact two, so I am clearly alive, fact three, but " she paused and this time her confidence was waning "but, I cannot be seen by you, and I cannot move, facts three and four" she finished sadly. She gathered herself and said "I am clearly consious and that equals being alive soooooo" she drew out the last word then went quiet.
"Sooooo?" he responded.
"Ok this is going to sound odd, but, I think, I have somehow," she sighed "I think, somehow, I have become your wall" she paused then mumbled "I think I am now your front room wall, the one behind your sofa"
He sat for a second, trying to get the words to make sense, and failed, he simply repeated her words.
"A wall?"
"Yes"
"A wall, in my living room, you're a wall" he shook his head, he expected her to laugh or proclaim him to be a fool, as if he would believe a woman can turn into a wall. He waited for her to jump out, show him some camcorder and loudly say smile you're on camera! as they would then laugh and he would become a youtube sensation for a moment before the world found another fool to laugh at.
The silence continued.
"Ok I can see that threw you, I will try and explain a little better, my view of your room never changes therefor I am stuck in this position. I cannot move any part of my body as it would appear I don't have a body. I cannot turn my head when you enter the room, I don't appear to have a head. I can only see straight ahead and I am clearly stuck behind your sofa, therefor I seem to have become the wall that stands behind your sofa" she said hopefully but deep down felt she still hadn't got the hang of this herself and was a little lost on explaining it to someone else.
He jumped up and turned around quickly, he stared at the wall. It made sense, sort of, in a strange way, of basically fitting with the facts; her voice did come from right behind his ear when sat on the sofa, if he left the room he no longer heard her. The problem his brain was having was the idea that somehow his wall had become a woman , that looked like a wall, but talked a lot and was unhappy, like a woman; he had an unhappy female wall, and he didnt know what to do about it.

The lovely modern office held only one sad man, and he stared at his laptop, again. Stage one had been succesful, no one had asked to see the data, though they trusted him to take care of it all, if there was any anomalies he was the man who had to sort them out, and they just sat around drinking hundred year old whiskey telling each other how benevolent they were, and surely they had a duty to improve the world, improve the fabric of the reality that made this world. They were the only ones intelligent enough to deal with the responsiblity of changing the world. They saw no problem with what they were doing,they thought it was their purpose in life, and he knew they were playing god, they were blinded by their progress into new areas and the world would suffer changes but those that got caught up in the changes were seen as necessary victuals, part of the process, simply a piece of data to be factored in.
He hung his head, the weight of what they had done was becoming too much for him, he knew he would not live to see stage three; he planned on taking his life before the results of stage two came in.
The results of stage one had been bad enough, but the media cover up was enormous, and not entirely succesful, luckily spin doctors and public relations people had seen to it that those who had suffered the side effects were labelled loonies and laughed at, their pitiful bleating about the 'mandela effect'~ a wonderful name conjured up by the best cover up artists of them all; the government; you can always rely on them to control the situation, think of a way of ridiculing the victims and so the world laughed as youtube filled with people recounting their own personal 'mandela effects', Somehow it was seen as amusing and no one saw how convenient it now was for the powers that be to stage any incident they want, to doctor the past any way they want, and when anyone argues they are ridiculed with accusations of being a 'mandela sufferer' when no one could trust their memory they couldn't argue, but stage one had disrupted the fabric of reality and now it was a difficult job controlling the disintegration whilst still pressing ahead with stage two.
Much more worryingly a number of people had gone missing according to the data, and he felt a lump swell in his throat and a pain deep in his gut, he hadn't seen his daughter in the four days since stage one had been completed. He hoped to god she wasn't one of those pieces of data, his thoughts had spiralled because of the pain of thinking his child was dead,his brain listed her name under 'missing young female adult,last seen at home four days ago. It was only him who would see her as anything other than another statistic, she was just a number on a list, he stared at his laptop his eyes red and his face exhausted, he would take the morphine tonight he decided.

"It was weird! Really weird!" said the woman.
"When did it happen?" the man asked.
"About eight o clock, I know it was, I had just watched xfactor and it happened!" the woman was clearly agitated.
The police officer tried to be patient and attempting to take notes he asked her to continue.
"There was a flash! like in the sky" she pointed upwards "just for a moment, I swear I wasn't long, I went outside to look what it was and nothing else happened, I couldn't see anything so I came back in and our Jamies gone! he was right there " she gestured towards a messy room "watching telly and now he's gone! and I have to get him bathed and bed it's school tomorrow you know" she said crossly and it was obvious she expected the policeman to instantly produce 'our Jamie' and she could scold 'our Jamie' and send him to bed.
The police officer asked questions, wrote notes and promised to do what they could to find 'our Jamie' He knew that this was not a promise that could be kept, the night had been a strange one and with a bad feeling deep in his gut he knew this was going to be a long and difficult night; this was the tenth call they had this evening, all of them missing people, all of them began just after eight o clock and it was constant, soon as he attended one house he was instructed to attend another and he would be damned if he knew what was going on, but he knew one thing; people dont just dissappear.

The building that held the offices was imposing and antiseptic, it looked devoid of life, he was outside it now and he had never liked it , he felt it looked oppressing. He walked a short distance and now knelt on the ground, he had with him his laptop and a gun. He had decided morphine was too risky; it might not do the job and he did not want to survive, and he wanted it over with quickly, the gun seemed to be the only answer. He looked around one last time, at the buildings he had spent his last five years working in, obsessively working. He hadn't seen the outside world in all that time, as they had everything needed here on site. It had many impressive buildings, shops, restaurants, homes, even a hotel' to the outside world it looked like some self contained city. His thoughts were deep in depression and could only look at the sanitised tiny self contained city and taking it all in he could only think of how it seemed innocuous to the rest of the world, just a place of learning, of experiments, with a metal, death, snake underground he mused darkly. He would save the world, he had no choice; he had to save the world, there was only him that could or would, do it_ He had decided that earlier; he would save the world, then kill himself. He felt the cold of the ground under his knees and shivered as the still night air, crisp and cold, entered deep into his bones. Still knelt, with his laptop on the ground beside him, he readied the gun. He wanted it all to go smoothly, he looked up the Shiva statue and muttered you will not win then he leaned over and tapping on his laptop he executed a command that literally pulled the killswitch on the whole of stage two, on the whole of everything, he then placed the gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger.
The sirens loudly proclaimed to the men that were now running frantically around, shouting, that the world largest particle collider had suddenly stopped working.

sometimes, all it takes to save the world, is a man with a laptop.

images and writing by Velveteen 2018