Pixel Juice

'I thought I told you two to get out.'

'What's this one, Uncle?'

'That one? Oh, now that's the Compass Bug.'

Once we got him started, you see, he just couldn't stop.

'The Compass Bug. It's a male. I've been looking for a female for years now. Want to breed them. I tell you, if you ever find one of them for me, my, would I be generous!'

And then he'd laugh out loud, as though we'd never catch anything that brilliant, not in a thousand years. So we'd look in the tank, at this hideous beetle. Must have been at least two inches long, coloured black and orange, with the black in the shape of a cross on its back.

'You find one of them,' he'd say, 'you'd never get lost, not ever. You'd be on the needle, my boys!'

So we'd ask why, but the lesson would be over for the day. Sometimes though, if we were lucky, if Eliot had brought in a good batch, Uncle Slippy would give us a candle bug of our own to keep, a tame one that is. He had a way about him, a secret way of making the bugs do what he wanted. That's how he made his living. He clipped the wings of the candle bugs, but that wasn't all, there was something he did to them that made them burst into flame only when you wanted them to.

Eliot and I would take this bug with us, and the money we'd earned. Usually we'd buy ciggies with the money. Then we'd go back into the field, and we'd use the tame candle bug to light a ciggie each. You had to hold them just so, between the forefinger and thumb, and squeeze, and then the fire would come out of their arse. And you could light a fag with them! That's what Slippy would sell them as: living cigarette lighters. He made a nice little profit out of them, and Eliot was always going on about the money we could make, if only we got to know the secret of taming the bugs ourselves.

'How do you think he does it, Scribble?' he would ask, sucking on his fag.

'Don't know.'

'I reckon it's something to do with them feathers.'

'What, the birds' feathers he keeps? Why's that?'

1 reckon they're Vurt feathers.'

'Vurt? No way. Not Vurt.'

'Got to be, I reckon. What do you reckon?'

'Don't know what I reckon. Not yet.'

We'd read a whole lot about these Vurt feathers in the papers, how they were supposed to be the best recording medium ever, even better than fractal cassettes. How music sounded more than alive on them, how they contained the best games of all time, how you could record all kinds of knowledge on them, knowledge that nobody yet knew about, even. There were loads of rumours about them. How you had to put them in your mouth, just to get the feathers to play back. So they said, anyway, the papers. I don't know, it all seemed a bit silly to my mind, but Eliot was always getting hooked on crazy rumours. Anything to get out of his head, and into some other kind of dream. He was growing up so quickly.

'But they have to be blue, don't they?' I'd ask him. 'Vurt feathers, I mean. That's what I read anyway. And Slippy ain't got any blue ones, not that I've ever seen.'

'Nah, they don't have to be blue.'

They don't?'

'Nah, that's just the legal ones.'

'You mean there's others?'

'Sure. Black ones, for instance- Don't tell me you've never heard of the black feathers.'

'No.'

'Black ones are the best. They're pirate copies. Illegal, like. Real snazzy. And Slippy's got loadsa black ones, hasn't he?'

'Sure, he's got loadsa black ones, doesn't mean they're Vurt feathers though. Vurt feathers aren't even on the market yet, not unless you've got a ton of cash anyway. And Slippy ain't got that kind of money, no way. Where's he gonna get a Vurt feather from? I reckon they're just normal feathers, like a blackbird's feathers for instance.'

'You reckon?'

'Yeah, that's what I reckon.'

'Well I think they're Vurt feathers, and I think that's how he gets to control the insects.'

We were just two kids with nothing better to do than lie in the long grass, smoking fags, listening to the candle bugs popping all around us, and playing with our very own tame candle bug, making its arse catch fire again and again until it was all used up. Just two kids talking about stuff we knew nothing about.

I guess I shouldn't have been that surprised at what happened next, knowing how Eliot's mind worked. And knowing how he didn't mind stealing things now and then, like comics and stuff, copies of the Game Cat magazine for instance, fags and stuff, or even, on one occasion, a pin-up of Interactive Madonna, just peeled it off the wall, rolled it up, walked out with it under his arm. But that was from shops, I never thought he'd nick things off his friends or his family.

So when he told me to meet up with him, about two weeks later, with the holidays nearly over and everything, I was expecting one last bug hunt before school started up again. I even turned up with the net and a jar. I guess I was right, in a way.

'You nicked it?' I said.

'Sure I did.'

Eliot had taken his shirt off. It sure was hot, that summer.

'Off your uncle?'

'Yeah, right out of his bedroom. I went round, asking if he wanted anything from the shops. He said he'd make a list, and while he was doing that, while his back was turned, I just nicked the first feather I could find.'

'Bloody hell! Let's have a look, then.'

'Careful with it.'

Eliot handed me the feather, the black feather. I held it by the tip, as though it was alive, or something, like it was dangerous. I spun it around, and the warmth of the sun seemed to catch in the flights, glittering.

'You see the way it sparkles?' Eliot asked. 'The colours? The pink bits?'

'Yeah.'

'It's not just black, you see. It's got stuff added to it.'

'Just colours, is all. Just a tiny bit of pink in it, is all. What does that mean, pink in it?'

'Don't know. But that's where the knowledge is, in the colours. Didn't you read that?'

'Yeah, I read that. Doesn't mean it's a Vurt feather, though.'

'Only one way to find out.'

'What? You mean…?'

'Let's do it.'

'Put it in our mouths? No way!'

'You scared, is that it? Scared of a feather?'

'That's not it, no.'

'What is it then?'

'You shouldn't have nicked it. Slippy will kill you.'

'So let's do it then, before he finds out.'

'OK, but you do it. You do it on your own. I'll just watch you doing it.'

'No. You're not supposed to do Vurt on your own. Didn't you read that?'

'Yeah. Yeah, I read that. Don't do it on your own.'

'So?'

'You reckon this will tell us how to tame candle bugs?'

'That's it, Scribble.'

'OK. But you first, then.'

'No, you first.'

'Why me first?'

'Because I'll do it, and then you won't do it.'

'How do I know you won't do the same?'

'Because I want to do it. Do you understand?'

'I understand.'

'Good. Give it here, then.'

So I give the feather back to Eliot. He tells me to open my mouth, which I do. Wider, he says. I open wider, wide as I can, just to get it over with. And he takes the feather, and he lays it against my lip, and it touches my tongue.

And all around the candle bugs are going wild. And the sun, the sun is beating down, like I can taste the sun on my tongue, and the tall grass is filled with wanting. And for a tiny second I think, Thank God, it's just a blackbird's feather after all, and then the sun bursts into flame, almost burns itself out.

Sudden.

And I slide away, sideways and down…

It's night. Somewhere in the world, it's night. I wake up in my bed. I can hear my mum and dad shouting at each other from downstairs. Maybe I should go and visit my sister's room. Desdemona doesn't mind if I wake her up sometimes, just to talk the night away, especially when Mum and Dad are arguing. So I get up. For some reason I must have gone to bed with all my clothes on, but it doesn't bother me. Then there's a knocking at my bedroom door. I say to come in, thinking it must be Desdemona, but it's Eliot who comes in. He says, come on, Scribble, we've got to find them bugs now, they must be living in your house. I think, of course, of course they are. We planned this earlier, this bug hunt, I must have forgotten until now. So we go downstairs, real quiet. I can't hear any shouting any more, only my captured breath, Eliot's whispered instructions, the slow chime of a clock. We get to the kitchen. It's dark, I want to put on the light, Eliot says no, we use the torch. He's brought a torch with him. I've got the net in one hand, the jar in the other. I can't remember when I picked them up. In the kitchen, tiny scrabblings can be heard, like ice cracking say, or gravel moving. It's coming from the sink. There's a pile of dirty dishes in there. Eliot tells me to get ready, he's going to switch on the torch. I stand poised with the net raised. The light, when it comes, seems as bright as the sun, and it dazzles me. And the sudden rush of a thousand pieces of orange, as the beetles scatter for darkness. I'm scared. Eliot yells at me to strike, so I bring down the net, just bring it down indiscriminately, crashing into the pots. What a noise it makes. But a slow noise, a coloured blue noise. Did you get one? Eliot asks. I say, Yes, I got one. I hold the net closed around the Compass Bug, as Eliot brings the jar over. We transfer it, seal the jar. It's done. The house has not stirred to our noise. What now? I say. Come on, Eliot replies, back to your room. Once there, sitting on the bed, we examine the beetle in its jar. It's beautiful. So orange, and the black cross on its hard casing. We did good, didn't we, Eliot? Yeah, Scribble, real good. He's sitting on my bed, his shirt off, then he lies down, so I can put my hand on his chest. It's hard, all bone. I stroke him gently and he lets me. He smiles. I let my hand move tenderly towards his belt buckle. He was proud of that buckle, it's in the shape of a twisted snake. I start to unwind it…