Colin has responded.
Well, nobody or even noboddy can say Me, I'm Slime doesn't live up to his name. How many things can you get wrong in one post, Slimy? Simon's name isn't questionable, and it isn't spelled like that either. I'll tell you how we can resolve this crap if you've got the balls for it. Come and see me in my office at London University Press and I'll prove I exist however you need me to prove it. That's if you ever leave your computer and get out of the house. Maybe you don't like anyone to see your face because you think they're all laughing at you. Let's put you out of your misery. They are.
I am, but partly at how Colin is aggravating the situation. Perhaps I sound less than amused, because the man at the adjacent terminal passes me the plump joint from which he has just taken a generous drag. He doesn't exhale while I risk a polite puff – I don't know how potent the contents may be, but I suspect very – and then, grinning with the silent effort that turns his fat face paler, he gestures me to have another. I don't until he breathes out, giving me the opportunity to return the joint to him. The effects seem pleasantly mellow, and I'm happy to back up Colin's response.
I'll second that. Let us know when you'll be visiting the office and I'll make sure I'm there as well so you can see we're two entirely different people. If you don't accept we'll know you don't believe what you've been saying. I rather hope for your sake that you don't, but then there's no reason for you to carry on saying it, is there?
I might go through the message and double every consonant, but the notion feels less like a joke than a threat of losing control. I post the message and check my email again, but Natalie hasn't answered. The hot puffy dimness is growing oppressive, and I'm unnecessarily aware of the flicker of the screens, a pulsation that appears to be swelling my neighbour's whitened face. I log out of my Frugonet account and hurry to the counter.
I'm uncomfortably conscious of the shortness of the man behind it. I have to rid myself of an impression that he's balancing on stilts to bring his face on a level with mine. 'Anything else now?' he says.
'Just the session.'
'Five euros.'
I have only sterling and dollars in cash. He raises his eyebrows, which appear to tug his expression blank, and lets me see the effort required to push a credit card reader across the counter. I insert my Visa in the slot and type my pin number, though I can barely distinguish the request for it, never mind the keys. I have to crouch to be sure of the next message, as if the faint flimsy letters are pulling me down to them. AUTHORIZATION DENIED.
'Sorry, wrong number,' I say, feeling like an operator in an old and irrelevantly suspenseful film. 'One toke too many, eh?' When the small man contains his amusement, if any, I duck closer to the luminous green keys and pause after pressing each of mine. By the time I poke ENTER I could fancy that the task has taken so long I've forgotten how it began. There's no doubt how it ends, however. AUTHORIZATION DENIED.
'Third time lucky,' I declare and spend a moment, unless it's much longer, in recalling how I chose the number. It's SL – it's 1912. I thought of mixing up the digits to make it less obvious to thieves, but I'm attached to it. 'That's what it is,' I assure anyone who needs telling, though surely I didn't pronounce the digits aloud or even mouth them. I pinch my lips shut with my free hand as I type the number once again, so slowly that my fingers seem to be growing too unwieldy to find the right keys. I press CANCEL, because I'm suddenly nervous of having mistyped, and intone the digits inside the hollow of my skull as I jab each key. I'm convinced they were accurate this time, and I press ENTER before any doubts can dissuade me. PLEASE WAIT, the scrawny screen advises, and lingers over rearranging and multiplying the scraps of charred material with which it composes words. AUTHORIZATION DENIED. RETAILER RETAIN CARD.
I'm reaching to snatch the card out of the slot when the man takes hold of the machine with a disproportionately large hand and plants it under the counter. I mustn't panic – mustn't grab him and lob him across the room. I dig in my pocket and slap my passport on the counter. 'I can sign instead. This is who I am. That proves it's my card.'
As I straighten up to take my shadow off the passport my photograph appears to stir like an image on a miniature monitor, but he scarcely glances at it. 'It needs your number. Everyone must have a number now.'
'People like us shouldn't go along with that kind of corporate global shit.' This hardly even earns me a stare, and so I try saying 'Anyway, you have to return my card. That's what the message said.'
He might be staring at an especially dull film. 'I must retain. I can read English.'
'All right, I read it wrong,' I say and wonder if I did. I thrust my swollen sweaty hands into my trousers pockets and drag out handfuls of sterling and dollars. 'I'll pay you and you can give me my card,' I tell him. 'Which do you want? How much?'
'No use. We are in the euro.'
'Where can I change these, then? Can I next door? I'm in the Dwarf Hotel. Dwaas, I mean. Dwaas.'
After a pause that he clearly intends to be eloquent he says 'They will not do it.'
'Where, then? Or where's the nearest hole in the wall?'
'You want a hole.' He mimes inspiration and says 'You want to rob?'
'Your English isn't what you thought it was after all.' Surely I don't say this aloud, but I don't care either way. 'An ATM,' I translate. 'A cash dispenser.'
'Go out and left and left again.'
'I'll be back before you know it,' I say before swooping back to retrieve my passport. 'Nearly,' I remark, even if it sounds like an accusation. Is the card reader casting some kind of intermittent light on him? His dim face looks unsteady on its bones, and I do my best to laugh as I hurry out of the café.
The canal ripples as if it's displaying a graph of its own sounds. I find this easier to cope with than the notion that the wavering of the inverted houses is about to spread to their counterparts alongside the water. I trip over cobblestones in my haste to dodge into an alley on the left. Reflections of the ripples pluck at the walls, but they can't be stretching the passage as I put on speed towards the bright street full of people at the far end. However gelatinous the walls and the flagstones underfoot look, it's the fault of the quivering dimness, which also encourages my shadow to prance more than its owner. The alley isn't lengthening, nor is it growing narrower, and it certainly can't squeeze me between the bricks. 'This is a laugh,' I announce and demonstrate until the clamour of my jollity forces the walls to make room. I tone it down as passers-by stare in my direction, although their scrutiny helps persuade me that I'm advancing. As I emerge from the alley at last I peer back to indicate that somebody else must have been making the row. I'm just an ordinary tourist bound for the cash machine at which three men as unremarkable as me are queuing beside a canal.
I take out my debit card once I've joined them and repeat my identification number a few times in my head. It's 1413, which is NM. I hold it in my mind as we shuffle forward to the metal keyboard, which keeps rippling and subsiding, or at least the light from the canal does. By the time the last man strolls away three more have lined up behind me. I slip the card in and type the number despite the hindrance of my frozen fingers. My current account is in debit by almost a hundred pounds.
It won't be as soon as I transfer some money from the deposit account, and I instruct the machine to show me that balance. A wave of light passes across the screen but doesn't blot out the figure: over ten thousand pounds. An object so small it shouldn't be distracting – an insect or a twig from one of the trees by the canal – has landed on the screen. I stoop and blow a pale breath at it, and then I flick it before attempting to dislodge it with a fingernail. Even scratching at the glass doesn't budge it, however. It isn't a twig or an insect. It's a minus sign.