Signals

I always made sure to knock, which might seem strange, but...

Originally in Untitled: Voices - Issue 1, Vol. 2, 11.2020

I always made sure to knock, which might seem strange, but the last time I barged in unannounced I caught him jacking off at the desk by the door, not just jacking off but coming as I saw him, moaning as jets of the stuff spattered across the keyboard. He never even jacked off to me, it was always some random chiselled man getting his hole gaped on the monitor, and at the time all I could think to say was — You’re not very discrete, voice tinny in my ears. And he grinned like I’d cracked a joke with his thing still cradled in his palm even though I was being serious, telling me I knew very well he needed it to let off steam, that it helped him work, and the blood had rushed to my face despite myself. So now I knocked.

When he finally called out I stepped inside with his food, holding the microwaved plate (something with vegetables, for his vitamins) so long my fingers were burning. He was sat in half-dark by his contraption that tangled across the floor, a techno-chandelier bristling with wires and copper plates and diodes of uncertain function, spindly dongles that reached towards the ceiling. The foil taped across the windows — to block interfering signals, he’d told me — let through only slits of sunlight that played across the metal.

He turned around when the door shut and said, You’re here! And I nodded and smiled as though I was doing him a favour, even though I was always here. Set it down on the desk, he said, Just set it down. I stepped over his zip-tied wires and other detritus to the computers on his desk. He never got around to wiping away any of his gunk on the screen, it was covered in an uneven layer of semen and whatever that half-concealed the site he’d been browsing, little boxes filled with more porn. The whole room had settled into familiar stench since I’d given up cleaning, old dishes and smoke and newspaper and the coppery, acidic electronics he pulled apart and jumbled together to construct his beacon, which is what he called his project instead of a transmitter or a receiver (even though he was trying to transmit, to receive) because he saw it in his dreams always and knew the name couldn’t only suggest putrefying wire and current, it had to be something more hopeful, a monument — that was the word he used, and when I finally had to laugh at the absurdity of it all he lunged at me, tried to sink his teeth into my arm until I fought him off. Then he’d cried fat, boyish tears, telling me I was the only thing he loved more in the world than the project before him, that hearing me laugh tore his heart in two, and of course I understood. Well enough to mask myself.

Now he’d gotten up, stood behind me. This is actually perfect timing. Mumbling into my ear so that I felt his breath, smelled unbrushed teeth. I need you, he said, I think it’s ready.

I turned slowly to face him, his rheumy eyes, and I said No, you don’t, you always think it is but it ends up being too early. Remember? Putting one hand gently on his shoulder and feeling him tense up.

He shook his head and said he’d figured it out, I’ve improved the wiring on the — and he began talking about currents and amplifiers and encryption for eventual communication, but it was all techno-babble, thoughts that chased and looped around. He never mentioned the aliens but they weighed on every word. And I nodded and nodded as he spoke, feeling familiar dread in my stomach, hoping for a reprieve, the realisation the something still needed tinkering with, but then he grabbed my arm and set me down by the contraption. Put it on, he said, The setup hasn’t changed. Speaking with focus.

It was a headpiece, a crudely made thing held together with screws and twisted bits of metal that tingled disconcertingly with current when I lowered it onto my scalp. But that might just have been my imagination.

It should be amplifying our signals properly now, he said, speaking faster, They’re hovering close by, and if we manage to tap into their — and while he fiddled with the controls and ran to the computer (to the lukewarm food, untouched) I stared at the hulking mass, months of his work congealed into a monster that I’d started seeing in my own dreams as well. It lingered in the corners of my mind, present but too far to touch. He was in those dreams too, younger, unwithered, running hands through jewelled hair, showing teeth. And in my dreams I listened to him talk in ways he never did anymore, never realising why I wasn’t ecstatic until the contraption surfaced and tore me awake onto the living room sofa. Night after night. And the bits of him that now only existed in memory would float around a while longer, tease me as they vanished, and I’d feel hate as deep as the hatred he’d developed for most things outside. He insisted on sleeping by his machine despite the stench, and most nights I could hear the faint, rhythmic tic-ing of his chair on hardwood, imagined his hand rising and falling in electronic glow but never hearing him moan, and I’d continue to hate.

Now the contraption hummed and flickered with light. My legs were already sore from sitting cross-legged. He put his metal cap on as well, attended dials and displays, mumbled thoughts he tried to explain but I could never decipher — I still didn’t even know what was meant to happen, a sound or a voice or some presence in our heads, maybe just an electric shock strong enough to knock both of us out, terminate us.

Is it working? I asked.

And then again when he didn’t hear, Is it working?

One hand had wandered up to his face and was tugging nervously at his eyebrow, which was as familiar to me as everything else, while the machine hummed and gave nothing but heat. It’s still not right, he said finally, not right.

For a moment he sat broken. My hand hovered, I wanted to touch him. Then he looked up at me with the clarity he used to have, the him I saw in my dreams, the light from the taped window slicing his body into parts, giving me eyes that carried a world I couldn’t see.

I want to reach them, he said. I want to reach them so badly.

I know, I said quietly. You’ve tried so much.

He stared at the beacon, inert. We’ll manage, he said, I’ll get it to work and you’ll finally be able to understand, and I cracked a smile and said that Yes, we will, I will, and I wanted to believe it so badly I was shaking, I wanted him to grab hold of my hand and take me to him, escape with him. But he just stood up, slipped away, there were adjustments he needed to make, a kind of feedback loop that might’ve — and I nodded, I nodded and said I should probably let him get on with things, and he said that Yes, he needed to concentrate, to clear his head. I stood up slowly, watched him approach the desk, the cold meal. Waiting until I’d left.