The Apex Book of World SF Page 11

  From day one Jord Hendriks and his friends put him under siege. Paperclips, coins, biro springs, and ballpoint pens were fired at him in a game of finding out which part of the body to aim for to get the opening notes of Man in the Mirror. ‘You’re a dick, okay?’ Splinter said when the teacher had left the classroom. ‘Will you please stop now? It’s dangerous what you’re doing.’

  Whoops, that only made things worse. Splinter knew how fragile he was, and that paperclips and coins would probably cause no permanent damage. But accidents will happen and when Jord launched a biro that scratched his neck, he grassed on him.

  Big whoops. Suspensions aren’t forever. After some third-year kid acting on Jord’s instructions concocted a story to lure the shop teacher out of the classroom, Jord took Splinter under his arm and put him on the workbench. Splinter screamed. Not with pain—he didn’t have nerves—but to catch a teacher’s attention. He didn’t put up a struggle, because he knew that any wrong move would break him in two.

  ‘I’ve always wanted to be a glassblower, shitbag,’ Jord said, as he ignited the Bunsen burner. ‘Mirror, mirror on the wall, who in the land will have the crookedest dick of ’em all?’

  Three or four boys formed a cordon around them to keep the softies away. The rest of the class smirked or pretended not to notice. Me? I was glad it wasn’t me lying there.

  Jord stopped at Splinter’s left pinky. He heated the tip and squeezed it with a pair of pliers, so Splinter would never need another spoon to stir his tea. Then one of Jord’s mates sounded the alarm about Splinter having a welding accident and all that. Anyone who blabbed, we were told, would suffer the same fate, glass or no glass.

  I was convinced that Jord wouldn’t get away with this. But he did. Feel free to dismiss it as schoolyard law. We give each other hell and we cover each other’s backs—a matter of self-preservation. Bubbles of deceit and lies will burst sooner or later. But that’s too easy. Time has taught me that we live in a world full of Jord Hendrikses, a world that thrives on the destruction of its rare wonders and where people live under a blanket of smog, the stench of sameness.

  Why did I feel attracted to Splinter?

  He was the only person in my life who understood me. He was looking for a glimmer of happiness, which no-one was prepared to give him. And let’s face it, how could he ever discover himself when all he saw in his skin was the outside world reflected?

  ‘Dad says I should look for happiness within,’ Splinter once said to me, during one of the many afternoons in his room. ‘But then I’ll never find it, unless I smash myself to pieces. A glass cousin of mine threw himself off the roof to see if it was true, but the chimney sweep didn’t find anything of importance among the shards. So what am I supposed to do?’

  ‘Well, you gotta break some eggs to make an omelette.’ I grinned, but the joke failed to disguise the sadness in my voice.

  Splinter felt attracted to me because I was the only one who actually saw him when I looked at him and not myself. One time Mrs. Rozenberg rushed in, right before she was due at a reception. She placed Splinter in front of her, squinted into his face, tousled her hair until she was happy, and ran out again. People always looked ugly at Splinter, ’cause people happen to find themselves ugly in the mirror. Splinter took that personally. With me, it wasn’t there. If I looked ugly at him, he knew that I was in a rotten mood. If I laughed at him, he knew my laugh was meant for him.

  During Splinter’s first few months at school—between summer and Christmas—I hadn’t exchanged more than five words with him; no more than with any other of my classmates to be precise. If I had to take a leak during recess, I would go to the Boys room in the old part of the school to avoid any smart-ass remarks or frightened freshman. Around here, there were only echoes in the hallway. To get there you had to cross the foyer by the assistant principal’s office, where just before Christmas he had put up an enormous tree.

  That day a voice made me jump: ‘Err…could you give me a hand?’

  I looked around, didn’t see a thing.

  ‘Up here.’

  Then I saw. It was Splinter. They’d stripped him to his boxers, sprayed him with red paint, and put him up in the tree amongst the other balls.

  ‘Holy fuck,’ I said. ‘What happened to you?’

  ‘Jord Hendriks,’ he shrugged. Who else? ‘Worst thing is that the assistant principal has already walked by three times without noticing me.’

  I’d never really took much interest in Splinter, had always thought of him as a bit of a goofball. Now, semi-naked, I got my first proper look at him. His chest rose and fell smoothly with each breath. I’d never realized that he could breathe. I noticed the silver garland tied around his neck like a noose that would have strangled any other kid.

  ‘Hey, aren’t you the boy that has no shadow?’ Splinter asked with that peculiar, crystal voice of his.

  Lying, with all those Christmas lights, seemed pointless. ‘Yup, hullo.’

  ‘Cool! I saw that item on the Discovery Channel about you. I thought that theory about light-transmitting cells was totally awesome.’

  I didn’t say a word.

  ‘You’re famous, man. I mean, everybody’s talking about you. You wanna come over to my place sometime? My dad’s got an ultraviolet lamp. We could do experiments.’

  So I did have feelings: I pitied him, for his naiveté. Splinter just stared at me with those sparkling eyes and said: ‘Shit. You’re even more of a fuckup than me.’

  I looked at him dangling up in that tree and held my tongue.

  ‘Look, I need to take a leak,’ I said.

  ‘Would you…would you mind helping me down?’

  For a split second I hesitated, then grabbed a chair and pushed it toward the tree.

  ‘Careful,’ Splinter said, as I clambered up on the chair and pine-needles stuck in my arms. ‘Drop me and I’m dead.’

  He wrapped his arms around my neck. Although I should have been prepared, it still gave me goosebumps. The touch of something so far out, so alien, filled me with both revulsion and curiosity. He was unnaturally cold and didn’t weigh a thing. I didn’t even dare grab hold of him, scared he would crack. Splinter was sensitive about my reservations and said: ‘That’s it, I’ve got you. You can release me now.’

  So I did, and even now I come back to that moment, how casually he trusted me with his life, and without all the psycho-babble I put it down to the fact that he had no choice. But in these few seconds it took me to lift him from the tree and put him on the ground a tremor went through his glass body that made me so acutely aware of the fragility of life that it rattled me big-time. That’s when I understood just how precarious the things are that you take for granted. As soon as his feet touched the ground I got my hands off him as if I’d burned myself on a hot stove.

  ‘Wow, thanks man,’ he said and pulled the tinsel from his neck. ‘If I’d still been up there after the bell, they’d have serenaded me with Christmas carols. You’ve spared me the humiliation.’

  ‘Don’t mention it,’ I muttered, ill at ease. On a whim I added: ‘Good luck.’

  I was halfway down the corridor when I heard his xylophone footsteps coming after me. I turned around and saw Splinter, barefoot and with a bundle of clothes in his arms.

  ‘I just wanted to say if there’s anything I can do for you…I owe you one.’

  ‘That’s okay.’ I pushed open the swing doors to the Boys room. Just in time I realized that I’d almost let them slam into his face. So I waited and held the doors for him. I did it grudgingly. The guy got under my skin. He’d touched a nerve with those glass fingers of his, which had upset the normal state of affairs. I didn’t like it when the normal state of affairs got upset.

  ‘Could you turn on the tap for me?’ he asked with a twinkle. ‘I can’t put out any pressure with my hands.’

  I did as he asked. Splinter began to wipe the red paint off his face with tissues. It sounded like rubbing your wet finger across a window. While I was w
ashing my hands he looked curiously at the absence of my reflection in the mirror. I reckon he didn’t know whether to comment. Finally he took the plunge and asked: ‘How do you fix your hair?’

  After a moment’s hesitation I answered. ‘My mother. And if you tell anyone I’ll smash you with a baseball bat. There’s a reason I keep it short. Normally I wear a beanie. But fucking rules in this school…’

  ‘I hear you,’ he said. ‘Wanna hear something? My arms aren’t flexible enough to reach everywhere. I’m fourteen for fuck’s sake and my mom’s still washing me.’

  ‘Even your…’

  He shrugged, looking embarrassed.

  We stared at each other sheepishly and then burst out laughing. Right then we’d become friends. At our age you thought the depths of your own hell are the darkest; Splinter proved it could be worse. A little self-reflection ain’t a bad thing. Splinter was all reflection. Seeing him wash his face in front of the mirror made my head spin. A mirror in a mirror in a mirror, an optical illusion of infinity. That’s friendship. You give and you take, even if you have nothing to give.

  We spent our time talking and watching TV in our rooms or fishing on the canal. In many ways Splinter and I were completely different. He had ideas, he had interests, he had dreams—everything I had not. His greatest interest was the sea and his greatest dream was to become a captain in the navy. That’s how I got to know Splinter: unworldly, naïve, full of ideas and fantasies.

  Sad thing was that we both knew his dreams would never come true. I often wondered how he could remain in such a positive attitude with his condition. Death was just a door away for a nine-pound boy made of mirrored glass. He was born a victim. ‘And that was a Caesarean,’ he told me. ‘Imagine the bloodbath if there’d been contractions. I would have exploded in my mom’s birth canal.’

  He often speculated about his death, no matter how much it brought me down. ‘It’s a miracle that I’ve even made it this far,’ he said. ‘I mean, my cousin tripped on the doorstep when he was eleven and fell to pieces, and another was caught by the wind when she was four and splattered against a tree. I’m the longest-living mirror boy in the family. The chances of me graduating are slim to none.’

  ‘No surprise, with your choice of friends,’ I said. ‘I heard that Jord’s planning to dump you in the bottle bank.’

  He gave me the glass finger and I pretended to whack him; you know how these things go.

  Mr. and Mrs. Rozenberg were overly protective. They wouldn’t allow Splinter to do anything besides reading and fishing. His mom made him go about in hand-knitted clothes: triple jumpers, beanies, scarves, mittens, anything soft. His dad insisted on taking him to school every morning, even after a sleepover at my place. It really bummed him out.

  ‘It’s okay, Dad, we can walk. The way Mom’s wrapped me up I’d survive the Niagara Falls.’

  But Mr. Rozenberg wouldn’t budge. ‘Far too dangerous,’ he said. ‘Especially with that road by the tennis courts. You know what happened to Uncle Henk.’

  ‘I’m not allowed to do anything,’ Splinter said when the car pulled up outside school, his shoulders hanging. ‘And he’s right, I can’t do anything. A little arm wrestling will crush me. I’ll never be able to join the navy.’

  Jack-assing was out of the question, quoting Ms Rozenberg. I thought she spoiled the fun. I mean, Splinter wanted so much. Why deny such a one the rare moments that make life worth living?

  So when I’d spent the afternoon racing along a country lane in a go-kart borrowed off our neighbors (they were on holiday and technically speaking hadn’t given me permission, but not refused it either) and he timidly asked if he could have a go, I couldn’t refuse. I ran home to fetch rope and cushions. I tied his hands to the wheel, his legs to the frame and his torso to the seat, so that he couldn’t blow it and tumble out. Everywhere his body touched the kart I stuffed cushions.

  Splinter stepped on it and off he went. His body jerked about like a dummy. For an instant I was afraid I’d made the biggest mistake of my life, that he’d be catapulted out of the kart and shatter into a million crystals. But it held. His screaming laughter rang out above the throbbing petrol engine and over the fields.

  It was a moment I’ll never forget. Splinter was ecstatic, and you know what? I got tears in my eyes. Call me a sissy, I don’t give a fuck. For the first time in my life I felt something other than indifference going through my veins. It felt like I’d done something that mattered. I might not know what I looked like, but I’d given somebody a spark of happiness. Whenever I think back on Splinter, this is how I see him: tied up in his kart and covered in cushions, his face illuminated by a watery spring sun reflecting off the visor of his helmet. He was one of a kind, trust me. He even had it in him to blow up the sun.

  Finally, he got back, and I was applauding like a madman. ‘Wow, Schumacher! You were fucking faster than the speed of light, you freak!’

  When I yanked the helmet off his head he threw me a dazed smile. ‘That was by far the sickest thing I’ve ever done.’

  ‘You did it!’

  ‘Yeah, only it didn’t go all right,’ he said calmly.

  ‘What’s that, man, you—’

  ‘Seriously. Have a look at my neck, something’s not quite right.’

  Suddenly I got scared. I did as he asked. Initially everything seemed fine; then I saw. Just above his collarbone and the neck of his T-shirt. A tiny star.

  ‘Fuck.’

  ‘It was a pebble, I think. I heard it bounce off.’ He frowned and turned his head from left to right as if he’d pulled a muscle. Then we heard a crack. His eyes widened and my heart sank. The star had gotten bigger and small veins had appeared in the glass.

  ‘Freeze,’ I said as I began to untie the ropes with trembling hands. I choked back panic, cursing myself. What was I thinking? I should never have let him have a go on that thing. But Splinter disagreed and took my hand, forcing me to look him in the eyes. He wouldn’t have missed it for the world, he said, and would be eternally grateful, no matter what.

  I rushed him to the ER. The attending doctor didn’t know glass, so after a phone call he summoned us to his car. I thought he was taking us to the Amphia hospital. Instead we pulled up in front of Auto Glass.

  ‘Sweet Jesus on a stick,’ the mechanic said at the sight of Splinter. ‘We’ve had someone come in with a glass mannequin before, but they were turned away.’

  The operation was done in no time, although I was shitting bricks as I watched the mechanic’s rough hands seal the star-shaped crack. He polished Splinter’s neck with something that sounded like a dentist’s drill. The man did a first rate job: it didn’t leave a trace. When the mechanic broached the issue of money, Splinter explained that he wasn’t entitled to any healthcare insurance and that his parents would kill him if they found out what happened.

  The mechanic shrugged and said: ‘Oh, bloody hell.’ In fact I believe he was genuinely touched. ‘You spend your whole life waiting for a chance to resuscitate someone and save a life. And then you come along.’

  ‘Don’t even think about a heart massage,’ Splinter said.

  That evening we ate at my place. ‘The two of you are having a little too much fun for my taste,’ Mom said as she was serving dinner. Splinter and I looked at each other and bit our lips. He’d promised to carve me up if I told anyone where he’d been repaired; that indignity was just too great. We’d been plagued by erratic laughter all afternoon. My parents were cool with it, just glad that I wasn’t a complete sociopath.

  ‘Say, Splinter,’ Dad said, ‘what do you want to be when you grow up?’

  ‘A mirror,’ I said before Splinter had a chance to open his mouth.

  ‘Look!’ Mom said. ‘You don’t joke about that. You ought to know.’

  ‘Oh, but he’s right you know,’ Splinter said innocently. ‘Sounds cool to me, hanging in a department store, nicely framed. Any other job and I’ll break anyway.’

  I sang: ‘Auto Glass repair, A
uto Glass replace…’

  We roared with laughter. Mom shook her head and said: ‘Hopeless. Sometimes I just don’t get the two of you.’

  No, she didn’t get the two of us. The reason is simple, and that’s something that parents just don’t understand. When Jord Hendriks & Co take the piss out of you, it’s a drag. When the world treats you like a sickness, it’s embarrassing. But when your parents treat you like you’re made of glass, it leaves permanent damage. Splinter and I needed each other. We needed to take the piss out of each other, to have a good laugh at ourselves. If you weren’t laughing, you’d be crying.

  That spring Splinter got miserable. I don’t know if the go-kart incident had anything to do with it or whether it was just puberty. The sudden change caught me off-guard. He’d always been upbeat. Overnight, his eyes glazed over. Sometimes I worried that he might follow in the footsteps of that cousin of his, the one who’d gone to look for happiness within.

  ‘What’s the point of it all?’ he said, as we were lying by the canal; me with my hands locked behind my head, my elbows up in the air; he with his arms half-stretched alongside his body as he couldn’t bend them any further. I knew what Splinter meant: everything. The murmuring water, the dragonflies, the brilliant sunshine. He meant life.

  We’d played Ghost Ship for a while; me the ghost, he the ship. It was a game we’d sometimes do. Splinter would undress and lie down in the canal. In the reflecting water he was virtually invisible. I would stand beside an old fisherman who’d nodded off and stare into space. Splinter would then tug at the bait to wake him. First he would see his reflection in the water, then me, then not me in the water. He thought he was seeing a ghost. Next thing I would point like a zombie at the canal, as Splinter rose from the water and hauled himself ashore, groaning The Grudge-style.

  The fishermen would always run off screaming. It’s the way to get hold of rods or bait.

  ‘My grandpa took me to the sea once,’ Splinter said. ‘My parents went nuts when they found out. I never stayed at grandpa’s again. But you know, I had the time of my life. That’s what they didn’t get. We stayed until after sunset to see the sun sink into the sea. Did you know that the sun actually sinks into the sea? I’d kill to see that again.’