“I don’t know?”

  “Are you asking me?”

  “I uh…”

  “Listen, I thought you were up for this. I thought you were cool. Are you cool?”

  Isaac was definitely not cool.

  “Yeah,” he said as he nervously shrugged his shoulders.

  “Then what’s your problem?”

  Her face was shaped like a differential equation.

  “Do you like sex?”

  “Of course,” said Isaac.

  Though this was not the discussion he had ever imagined having, were he to ever look back at his life, it probably made a great deal of sense that he was having it.

  “And me?”

  “Do you like sex?” he asked, a little unsure.

  “No! Jesus. Me. Me. Do you like me? Do I turn you on?”

  “Oh…”

  And then, in that second, he forgot about the needling in his head and instead realised he was standing in front of a ridiculously beautiful woman who, like him, was naked and her body, in that second, he came to conclude was a wonder of dimension and geometry.

  “Ok good,” she said, watching him becoming aroused.

  And then just as she started to masturbate him – her eyes shut like before – that stupid feeling that he just couldn’t shake started working its way into the back of his head until it was the only thing he could think about was how wrong this was. And then just as quickly as he had become aroused, he went soft and flaccid in her hands.

  “Oh for fuck’s sake.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Isaac. “I’m just thinking about your son.”

  “Why?”

  “I just think maybe you should talk to someone. You could talk to me.”

  “I don’t wanna talk. I wanna fuck. This is my therapy.”

  “But this isn’t healthy.”

  “And this is? Making someone bring up shit that they’d rather forget? This is healthy? Who the fuck are you to judge?"

  “I’m not judging.”

  “That is literally what you’re doing. You’re making me feel like a piece of shit and you like some virtuous, noble, asshole.”

  “That’s not what I meant. It’s not what I intended.”

  “Yeah, but it’s what you did. Now, do you wanna fuck or not?”

  “Yeah but…”

  “Well then fuck me.”

  “Not like this.”

  “Like what?”

  “Sex is supposed to be about passion and love and…”

  “What the fuck are you on about?”

  “It’s supposed to mean something.”

  “Mean something? What are you sixteen? Who gives a fuck?"

  “I do. You should too. Don’t you?”

  “Who cares what it means to me? That’s my business. I sure as hell don’t care what it means to you. It’s sex. You said it yourself, the why doesn’t matter. It’s meaningless.”

  “Like I said, it seemed like you weren’t into it. And that’s what made it feel….I don’t know…weird.”

  “Not into it? I blew you for ten minutes. How is that not into it?”

  “It felt wrong,” he said.

  “Wrong how?”

  “I don’t know. It’s just… It felt like I was taking advantage of you. I mean, you had your eyes shut. You just put your…you know…”

  “My cunt?”

  “Your vagina,” he corrected.

  “Say it, Isaac.”

  “Say what?”

  “Cunt. Say it.”

  “No.”

  “Say it. Say cunt. Say it.”

  “No. It’s vulgar.”

  “My wet delicious cunt. Go on, say it. Tell me you wanna fuck my cunt. Tell me you wanna cum on my face. Say it. Fucking say it.”

  Her face was shaped like a prized fighter.

  “Look this is not what I had in mind.”

  “What did you have in mind, Isaac? Huh? Tell me, what the fuck did you have in mind?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Of course you don’t know. So then you make me feel like a piece of shit because I do? Is that it? It’s sex, Isaac. It’s dirty and it’s fun. It’s not a Get Well card; it doesn’t have to mean anything.”

  “I know that.”

  “Do you? Do you really? Well, then why is neither of us having any fun?”

  “It’s just…”

  “It’s just what, Isaac?”

  “Your vagina…in the air. It didn’t feel like I was about to have sex with someone who cared. It felt like….”

  “Say it.”

  He couldn’t.

  “You think I’m a whore, right? So what; a guy can fuck for whatever reason but a woman can’t? Is that it? She can only fuck for love or she’s what? A slut? A whore? Easy? Dirty? Which is it?”

  “That’s not what I said. You’re putting words in my mouth.”

  “So what? You can put your cock in mine but I can’t put words in yours? You’re so full of shit, Isaac. You have no right to judge me. You’re here for the exact same reason except you want to fuck a Disney princess whereas I wanna get fucked by a real man.”

  Her face was shaped like hazard lights.

  “You have no idea what it’s like,” she said. “You haven’t the slightest idea of what I’ve gone through – of what I have to go through every single fucking day.”

  “Then tell me.”

  “Tell you what?”

  “What happened?”

  “What happened? I don’t know what happened. That’s what fucking happened.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “Yeah? Well, now you know how I feel. I don’t get it. I don’t get anything.”

  “What happened to your boy?”

  “I don’t fucking know. Nobody does. He went to school and he didn’t come home. That’s all I know. That’s all anyone can fucking tell me. But have faith and pray. Have faith? What does that even mean?”

  “Like you said; when you watch a movie, you need faith.”

  “Life is not a fucking movie, Isaac. There is no plot. Here’s what life is. One day your son doesn’t come home and nobody knows why or where he is or what happened. I have to live with that every day.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Isaac.

  “That’s all anyone says. I’m sorry. That and, let go and you have to move on. There is no moving on. Do you know what it’s like to not have an end to a story? Constantly obsessing over what could have happened and whether or not he’s alive or dead or if he’s hurt somewhere, crying and alone. It’s fucking hell. My mind is hell. I’m stuck here. I can’t move on.”

  They stood there for another minute, staring each other in the eyes. They both looked exhausted and defeated. Neither had another syllable left in them. They just stood there staring at each other, their naked bodies looking and feeling like soiled and tattered garments. It was a quiet minute.

  “Look, we’ve all got our demons,” said Beth. “And we all deal with those demons the best way we see fit. We all need something to distract us. You have your painting, right? It stops you thinking about the things that scare the shit out of you. It stops you thinking about the future. Yeah, well I have this. It stops me from thinking about the past. It stops me from thinking full stop. I need that.”

  Neither had ever been as naked as they were now. The tone, though, had changed. It was neither sexual nor awkward. If their naked bodies were a colour, it would be burnt umber; it they were a sound, it would be the silence that followed a landslide.

  “You should go,” said Beth.

  There was no arguing that point.

  “I’m sorry,” said Isaac.

  “Stop it.”

  “No, I mean it. I’m sorry things are the way they are. Life can be cruel and unfair.”

  “Is that it?”

  “I’m sorry I made it worse,” said Isaac.

  His face was shaped like a mirror.

  “What is wrong with you?”

  “I don’t know,” said Isaac.

  “This was the only peace I had,” she said. “Now I don’t even have that. You’ve ruined this for me; you realise that?”

  “I’m sorry,” said Isaac.

  It was all he could say.

  Track 27 (Yellow)

  “Dad.”

  The little boy was standing in the doorway quietly calling for help.

  “Dad,” he said again, his face already turning a greyish blue.

  He didn’t scream or shout or make any kind of fuss whatsoever. If he knew how serious it was he might have, but he didn’t, and so when he woke up choking for air, he calmly pulled himself out of bed and shuffled through the dark hallway to his daddy’s room and with the best of his efforts, he asked for help – he even forgot that he was afraid of the dark.

  “Dad,” he said once more.

  On the third Graham jumped out of bed, hearing his son wheezing and fighting for breath. It sounded like he was siphoning air through a pinhole. The young boy didn’t panic, though, and neither did his father.

  “You’re ok, son,” he said as if the problem were a splinter or a knot in a shoelace that wouldn’t come undone. “Let’s go to the kitchen, shall we?”

  His every instinct was to sprint as fast as he could, running with the boy in his arms or dragging him behind him. He knew, though, if he showed any sign of panic or worry, the boy would panic himself and quickly, the situation would spiral out of their capable hands. He had to pretend everything was fine even though it most certainly wasn’t.

  “Grab a seat, buddy,” he said, his back to the boy, rummaging through the medicine cabinet for small vials of adrenaline.

  He tried not to curse as his fingers stumbled about, eventually knocking over the box with the vials inside, letting two roll off the shelf and smash on the kitchen floor. Instead, he took slow and steady breaths - the opposite of his son - focusing only on what he had to do: crack the vial, extract the adrenaline, assemble the nebuliser, and then rush to the dying boy.

  “Breathe,” he shouted, finally his worry allowed be ordained.

  He pushed the mask over the boy’s face and he cradled him in his arms. The young boy heaved as much as he could, gripping his father’s thumb with the entire of his hand and staring into his beaming eyes, like a sailor, clinging to his shipwrecked vessel as its battered and beaten and washed up on the shore.

  “You’re fine, son,” said Graham, again sounding as if there had been a reason to worry.

  The adrenaline worked quickly and in only a few sharp breaths, the boy’s throat started to open once more. Each breath was less dire and less severe until within a minute or so, still, with the mask over his face, peace returned to his eyes and the young boy quietly and quickly drifted back off to sleep.

  “For fuck’s sake,” said Graham, looking at the clock. “Three eighteen again.”

  He sat there for an hour with the boy in his arms, watching him as he slept. He hardly looked like he had been in a battle for his life. His little eyelids flickered and his little hand still gripped around his father’s thumb. His breathing, though, was normal and the colour had returned to his face.

  “Hey,” said Mary, rubbing her eyes and yawning ad she shuffled into the kitchen. “What are you doing up?”

  It was then that she saw Nathan.

  “I didn’t hear a fucking thing,” she said, rushing to the boy’s side, her eyes wide awake now, gently stroking her son’s long and messy hair. “I’m so sorry bubs,” she said, kissing the top of his head. “Was it bad?”

  “No worse than the others,” said Graham.

  “This is fucked,” she said. “I didn’t hear a thing. I only woke up cause of the light. I feel horrible.”

  “It’s fine. He’s good now. It’s ok.”

  “How long have you been here?”

  “About an hour or so.”

  “Why didn’t you say anything?”

  “I didn’t want to wake you.”

  “Jesus, Graham.”

  “The worst of it was over in a minute.”

  “How was he?”

  “How is he ever? A bloody trooper.”

  “He’s so strong. It’s not fair that he should have to go through this.”

  “I know. It’s that thing, you know. There’s nobody you can punch. You just feel so bloody useless. A father is supposed to be able to protect his kids. And instead, all you can do is bloody pray.”

  “I know what you mean,” said Mary. “I feel so guilty when he’s like this. I gave him this; my shitty DNA.”

  “Our shitty DNA,” said Graham.

  Track 28 (Red)

  At nine o’clock both scientists were outside the administration building waiting for the commotion to die down before their meeting with The Rector. The fire burning in the payroll office was sending plumes of black smoke out the main entrance where the two men stood.

  “So you think this is serious?” asked Isaac.

  “Honestly, I have no idea anymore.”

  “I’m not in the right headspace for a lecture.”

  There were lots of little protests being staged all over the campus; classrooms being gutted, cars being turned upside down, and debates being met with scathing abuse. The worst protest of all, though, was happening in both of their heads.

  “Late night?”

  The last image Isaac had of Beth was of her face as he dressed and then slipped away – uncomfortably – out of the room. It was shaped like a broken vase, and his, though he could only imagine, like a cowardly white flag.

  It didn’t take much to see past his poorly finished façade. Were he a dog, his ears would be folded backward and his tail squared firmly between his legs. He wore shame like a feathered hat.

  “Not really,” he said.

  That was a lie. He’d spent the whole night crying and painting; managing to fall asleep only just before sun up, and that alone was because he had run out of paint.

  “I need to get away,” said Graham.

  “Sabbatical?”

  “Whatever; paid, unpaid, I don’t care. I just need to be somewhere else – not here.”

  “Where would you go? Mountains? The ocean? The snow?”

  “Home,” said Graham. “I need to be home.”

  “I know what you mean.”

  “No, it’s not that,” said Graham. “I’m old.”

  “You’re not old.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “I am.”

  “Ah, you’re only as old as you feel.”

  Poor lad had no idea how close he was to a punch in the face.

  “I feel older than I am,” said Graham.

  “Really?”

  “I’m halfway through a life,” he said. “And I’ve done fuck all with it.”

  “Half-way, no. There’s folks no living into their late nineties and beyond. Hell, by the time you’re in your sixties and seventies, you’ll be able to update your cells with a pill.”

  “I let myself go,” he said. “We all did. It’s what we do. Then, before you know it, you’re old, and it’s too late to change anything.”

  “It’s never too late to change.”

  “Look at me.”

  He wobbled as he spoke – like poorly made jelly.

  “You’re not too bad.”

  “You know I remembered something the other day; from when Isabelle was a pup. Thing is, it wasn’t a memory of Isabelle crawling, it was what I was thinking when I should have been just watching her. I remembered a thought and the experience of having that thought, and not the experience of watching my girl discover life.”

  “I don’t get ya.”

  “How much of my life has been wasted thinking? How much did I miss out on because I was stupidly worrying about all the wrong things? That, you can’t change,” he said. “That, you can’t get back.”

  The door behind them opened. A dozen clerical staff burst through the front doors screaming and crying.

  “Hey fellas.”

  Coming out of the building, too, was Ewen, a professor of Microbiology. He carried a smile on his face that was as bright as the flames that crackled behind him and was just as smug as the tennis racket he held in one hand and the folder full of photocopied journal articles he held in the other.

  “Did you hear?” he said as if everything he was about to say was bound to be gossip by the time he got round to saying it.

  “Yeah I saw it,” said Graham.

  The Girl’s murder had been on the front page of every newspaper and on the tips of every tongue. A veritable whodunit. Was it the mother whose star was about to fade? Was it the father whose abuse, in turn, would come into light? Or was it the older brother who had always longed to be in her shoes?

  “Published again,” said Ewen.

  He was already waving the article in the air.

  “That’s six for the year,” he said. “But who’s counting?”

  He carried that file everywhere he went; the file and the damn racket. He’d probably never seen a tennis ball before in his life. There was proper etiquette for putting up with professors like this; one that neither Isaac nor Graham had neither the will nor the patience to follow.

  “Morning, Ewen,” said Graham, his words as vacuous as he could make them without being so obvious as to how he actually felt.

  Some folks, though, were impervious to the truth.

  “So how is the trial going?” he said, knowing damn well that all the rumours were true.

  “It’s fine,” said Graham, when clearly it wasn’t.

  “You know if you ever need help.”

  “We’re fine.”

  “Doesn’t have to be in the lab,” said Ewen, illiterate to hints. “Not sure if the word has gotten around yet, it probably has, but I’ve had my hands in a fair few posters. I’ve a real knack for positioning.”

  That he did. He was an artist, one could say, at positioning himself near enough to the work of others to warrant – more often out of pity – his name added onto a long list of others that had contributed in one way or another to scores of scientific papers. In neither, though, was his name worth any more than the ink it took to spell it.

  “Or I can review your abstract if you like; you know, for grammar and whatnot.”

  One of the windows above smashed open and glass rained down beside them.