TAKING THE PLUNGE (2nd Instalment)

Written by Ann Farmer

~~~   ***   ~~~

Here is yesterday’s instalment. Today there’s more about those colleagues and we meet the mysterious Blue Eyes – read on …

~~~   ***   ~~~

He’d looked up as London approached, and nodded – not too quickly, which might have risked drawing attention – with an almost imperceptible flicker of his eyes to the left. 

London flicked his own gaze to the right, and saw a much younger male approaching; he seemed more confident, looking about him with slightly narrowed eyes and lips slightly pursed as though in disapproval of something. Not to be trusted, London thought. The first male stopped, bending down to adjust his footgear until the younger one passed; London edged forward and bent down to adjust his own footgear, first checking that the revolving camera on the wall high above their heads was pointing the other way.

 ‘New?’ he muttered, with a brief warning glance towards the younger colleague. The other nodded slightly, and with a casual gesture towards his chest – as though adjusting his exercisewear – murmured ‘Oxford – Diversity Oxford’. ‘London’, he murmured in response, ‘Democracy London’. Oxford straightened up as another male of roughly the same age approached. ‘Partner – Manchester,’ he mumbled. ‘Liberty Manchester.’ Manchester eyed him warily, nodded briefly and carried on walking.

London thought he detected a certain lack of partnership between the two. Some men lived together as couples – with official encouragement and all the benefits that came with it – but seemed to enjoy nothing more than a sizeable green discount for shared living space. No doubt they had to show a degree of affection for the benefit of the cameras, but some of them did not exactly look comfortable with their supposed romantic attachment. Like these two.

But he hadn’t seen Oxford or Manchester for a whole week now – again, according to the Napoleonic calendar – and was trying to fight down the terrible sense of foreboding he felt whenever someone disappeared. Since he had arrived in Liberty Tower he had never come so close to a colleague, and even though they had shared little more than a few muttered, disjointed sentences, those sentences had been very enlightening. And hopeful.

Best to leave it though – he knew better than to visit their apartment to see if anything was wrong. He was following this sad line of thought when, almost as a child of his imagination, there appeared before him the Blue-eyed One. That was what he called her in the privacy of his own mind, anyway. He had seen her once or twice since Oxford disappeared – and here she was again, the blue eyes still troubled, still downcast – and when he stopped right in front of her, careless of the camera, she looked up, her blue eyes dissolved in tears. 

When it came to the female cisgender, London had been far too well trained in the tenets of toxic masculinity to attempt anything beyond a nod; but instinctively he reached in his pocket for a sanitary wipe and held it out to her. With a slight gesture she declined the offer – but he thought he detected the shadow of a smile passing over her pale, oval face.

Recalling the rolling camera, he spoke as if to the ceiling, replacing the wipe in his pocket while mumbling, ‘London – Democracy London.’ He could not help looking at her face, although, calling to mind his sexuality training, he wondered if he had stared rather too long – it might count as sexual harassment. Instantly he dropped his gaze, waiting anxiously for her personal alarm to go off. But instead, he heard her mumble, ‘Essex – Equality Essex. But I prefer Moonbeam.’

 ‘So do I.’ He looked up quickly, wondering why she could not seem to hear his heart pounding. Or perhaps she could – which might explain that shadow of a smile playing around her lips again; he was sure of it this time.

She began to walk slowly around the Atrium, with a half-glance over her shoulder as he fell in behind her, striving to adjust his long stride to her much shorter pace. He became aware of a younger male walking in the opposite direction; adhering to mandatory social distancing, of course, but London saw him glance towards them – just a flicker, but just as well to be careful. And there was the healthnsafety camera to watch out for too, monitoring the speed of the walkers, ensuring that maximum benefit was gained from their perambulations – that they were not going too fast or too slow; that their breathing was not too fast or too shallow. Hopefully it wouldn’t detect the rapid rate of his own ventilation process.  

They passed the camera. ‘You OK?’ he asked, by now expert in the art of speaking without moving his lips.

 ‘Yes – I think so.’ She nodded almost imperceptibly, half-glancing at him over her shoulder, and once again his heart began to pound – good thing he was not strapped to his employment station!

He could not remember his own progenitors; but this, he thought, is how it must have been with them. And that night, her blue eyes lit his darkest, dreariest dreams, and her name echoed in his imagination – ‘Moonbeam’. 

But in the morning he was jolted into reality. Very soon, he slid into numb despair. Time to face facts. He had never known a male-female pairing in Liberty Tower. Marriage between male and female cisgenders had been unknown for as long as he could remember; according to the herstory sessions – and as the diversity announcements never ceased to remind them – unequal marriage had died out because it was inherently repressive. Marriage was only for same-gender pairings – with instant divorce, naturally – and since at the last count there were more than 1,000 genders, such marriages were not exactly common. Messages were out of the question, too – getting the pronouns right was a complete minefield.

A few years back there had been a whisper of a cisgender coupling, after a male and a female from the same floor had disappeared overnight; but there was no way of knowing for sure.  

Any such individuals would have to be very, very careful, he reckoned.

Back in his apartment, he reluctantly hooked himself up to his health monitor, devoutly hoping that his heart rate had gone down. If he delayed too long there’d be a lengthy healthnsafety intervention on his screen, preventing him from logging on, followed by a steep dip in the finances graph and the inevitable productivity inquiry.

Later that day, on his break, he walked around the Atrium a few times, exchanging a brief nod with a younger male he’d noticed a couple of times since Oxford disappeared, living on the same floor and probably in the same apartment. 

[Will London meet Moonbeam again? Find out in tomorrow’s instalment …]