Longhand Typing

“The Night Sun arrived on a Sunday. A fact many found to be a sign of divine intervention. Some felt it was fortuitous. I thought it was irrelevant.”

Chapter 1

Our Sundays, our time together was sacred. And that Sunday was ruined by the Night Sun’s arrival. Monday to Friday, he worked. Too tired to hang out those nights. Saturday, family night, he couldn’t get away from the children or spouse. And I’m not sure he would want to. Sundays were our only time to hang out like we were still in our twenties and drink, talk nonsense, reminisce. Remember that time? Do you think we should have done that thing? What ever happened to that person? That group who bullied us when he first moved to my school when we were sixteen?

“I don’t even want to think about them. They made my life miserable,” My Friend said. An uncomfortable look on their face goaded me into pressing for more. I had forced us to move to the smoking area to talk where the loud music of the band that played in the pub every Sunday was a dim, almost soothing annoyance, and not something to be shouted over. We sat side by side on a bench with no table. It was under the only heater outside and adjacent the door back into the pub, leading to a forced smile, nod or other form of acknowledgement to anyone who came out for a smoke. Or for quiet. A slow night meant we were spared the punishment of company. Our breath was still visible despite the heater’s best, pathetic effort. Grey concrete tiles of the walled-off area were interrupted by tables and a singular fake plant in the corner. Minimal effort for minimal effect.

“But you must, surely, sometimes, still think about them. I was only yesterday thinking of, what was his name? I don’t remember. He had a first name that sounded like a surname. Should I get us another round?” I turned to the unresponsive My Friend and saw they had a look. And a shake in their hands. The kind of things  that might prompt one to call an ambulance immediately. I waited for the punchline. The joke I didn’t understand to reveal itself. 

“My Friend?” I said. No response. They just looked straight ahead. They sat that way for what seemed like an eternity. I shook and prodded. Poked and Shouted. An eye and ear respectively. No response. Music still danced its way out from inside the pub. After a pinch on the cheek I was sure would earn me a box, I thought it might be best to actually call someone. Checking my phone, wonderfully fully charged, I began scrolling through my contacts to My Friend’s spouse. When the shaking statue beside me had a spasm in their leg, knocking over empty pint glasses we had placed on the ground, I stood up and took a few steps back, banging against the door. My Friend really did look like a statue, some art exhibit for the taste-disinclined.

“Hello? Fionn? Is everything alright? Is everything okay with My Friend?” The voice at the end of the phone sounded panicked. I only had My Friend’s spouse’s number for emergencies. I hadn’t ever needed to use it.

“Hey, yeah,” I paused, still not completely certain I wasn’t getting pranked. “Does My Friend have any medical thing I don’t know about? Because-” Before I could finish there was what I could best describe as a melodic explosion. An unwritten, unwrittable song’s entire structure and meaning condensed into a second, accurately conveyed, but utterly incomprehensible. Then a flash of light, circular and singular, in the sky. The Moon’s neighbour. Once, twice. Three times. Then nothing. Everything was quiet. My breathing heavy, like thick smoke in the cold air.

The music inside stopped. The hum of voices and beating of the bodhrán ceased and soon I could hear chattering from over the wall, outside the front of the pub. A bang and glass clinking brought my attention back to My Friend. They had fallen and were no longer shaking, were face down and moaning. I took a second to move in, wary of another spasm, averse to getting a black eye. My ears not quite ringing but the unwritten song lingered.

“Around the corner” My Friend said into the ground and glass their face lay in.

“What? You okay? You just started shaking, and there was…something. I don’t know what. You alright?” The sounds of people out front grew in number. My Friend was pushing themself off the ground, wiping glass off, and in some cases deeper into their cheek.”

“Around the corner, that homeless man you see in town. Gazo he prefers. He’s just around the corner and he goes by Gazo. He’s around the corner and…” My Friend trailed off, mumbled something, then spoke again with a clarity I had only seen in the mirror.

“He goes by Gazo. He is around the corner and in eight hours he will be able to read thoughts.

~

I was not a superstitious person. Never had been. So as much as I wanted to dismiss My Friend’s sudden claim of some sort of precognition, and I really wanted to, my mind kept drifting back to that sensation of hearing the melody. A feeling of understanding the unknowable. As we pushed through the crowd, my arm limply supporting My Friend at their insistence, I heard snippets of conversations of the crowd gathered in front of the pub. One woman with glasses expressed her dismay at the sound that rung out with the flash of light. Another person, a bald man in a tacky jacket was telling her he didn’t hear a thing. Two people were screaming something that seemed unrelated to any of it. An argument continued from before the strange light, I assumed.

“Over there, left left,” My Friend said.

“Home is that way,” I said, letting them go to gesture the opposite direction. They lost their footing, stumbled. Maybe they were as groggy as they claimed to be. I hoisted them up straight with real effort, sighed, and asked, “Which way? Over here?”

“Yeah, he’s that way. Left. Please. It’s not far. I just, I need to see him.” The crowd’s noise faded as we stumbled farther down the footpath, down the small town’s mainstreet. Past closed shops and newsagents, towards the alley My Friend guided us.

“What happened to you back there? Did you hear the song? That sound? With the light?”

“I didn’t hear anything,” they said, “You were saying something about school and then I was on the floor, face in-” They touched their face, winced. It was speckled with shards of glass that glinted in the clinical, pale streetlights that recently replaced the intensely orange ones I had grown up around.

Turning the corner into the alley, what seemed like a pile of cardboard came into view. I was wary, still dazed and thinking of the song, concern for My Friend forced me to comply with their wishes. As we approached, one of the pieces of cardboard shifted slightly to reveal a worn, tired face. Beard as long as his hair, both stretched down and past his shoulders, as if in attempt to escape the head they called home. Wiry and mad. My Friend spoke as Gazo, cautiously, rose into a sitting position. He looked concerned and maybe a little angry. I assumed he was of too defeated disposition to attack, but I was guarded nonetheless. I gave My Friend a look, waiting. 

“Gazo? You’re Gazo.” It wasn’t a question, it was declarative. Somehow sounded like an order. I had never heard My Friend talk so. They were always so mild-mannered, stoic, but always couched in a warmth. It was never a mystery why I was the least popular of the two of us.

“Who’re you? Fuck off and let me sleep. I wanna sleep. Let me sleep.”

“Did you black out?” My Friend asked, sounding as earnest as when they talked to their daughter.

“I was blacked out until you came up shaking me. You run off? Why you back? Fuck off and let me sleep.” He turned back over and raised the cardboard back over his head. I shared a look with My Friend. In that moment I felt like I could read their mind, and they mine.

“Do you remember shaking?” I asked in a whisper, careful to respect Gazo’s want for a, no doubt, comfortable sleep.

“Vaguely? A bit?” They nodded towards the end of the alley and continued as we shuffled away, “I don’t know Fionn, all I know is that in eight hours, a bit less now, Gazo will be able to read minds. I know it as sure as I know my name is My Friend, that it’s Sunday and, I don’t know. I’m pretty fucking sure, that’s all I’m sure of. I know it’s going to happen.”

I stared at the glass in their cheek, unsure what to say. The song lingered. I tried to hum it, but the muscles didn’t exist. There was a certainty of its existence, a surety of its form, but none of it could be verbalised.

“Actually, I think I get it. I heard something. I can’t really describe it either Like a song, but not. I heard it just before that light in the sky. Did you see the light? When you were,” I mimed being asleep.

“I can’t focus, all I can think of is Gazo. Just under eight hours. Fuck.” He shouted the last word, startling me. A mumbled “Shut up” came from Gazo deeper in the alley. My Friend pushed my arm off their shoulder and leaned on the white pepple dash wall beside us. Muttering. 

I thought it best to leave them to it, work through whatever internal scrutiny they needed. I patted my pocket to grab my phone, check social media or livestreams for any discussion on the strange celestial phenomena. My pocket was empty. Shit. I must have dropped it during the lights and not realised.

“Here, My Friend, I dropped my phone back in the pub, I got to go grab that. We can get you back to yours after, it’s on the way.”

They shook their head, told me to go and that they would catch up. I lied, said I would grab it and text their spouse, them they were fine. My Friend seemed entirely unconcerned with anything I was saying.

On the way to grab my phone, which I was pretty sure would have been stolen by now, I was accosted by several rowdy drunks who pestered me about the light. It seems there was no one in town that didn’t see it. The few families that lived above their shops on the main street had come out onto the footpath in robes, nightgowns, and in one case, underwear to see what all the commotion in the street was.

I reached the pub and pushed through the crowd, still gathered. My phone was on the floor amidst the broken glass in the empty smoking area. Grabbing it, I opened up various tabs in the browser with different searches, and walked the short distance back to the alley. I was just partway through an article posted three minutes prior titled ‘Light in Sky Live Feed’ that had one update: Report of light in the sky seen globally, when I reached the entrance of the alley. I lingered before turning the corner. Listened. A whispered conversation. Leaned closer to the corner of the building my back was to, closed my eyes, tried to push the remnants of the song out of my head, failed. Decided I wouldn’t make out any of the conversation and backed up, entered a full pace walk so it looked like I had just arrived when I turned the corner, and announced myself to My Friend.

They were hunched over Gazo, who was now sat up. One pair of eyes locked with the other, the hushed conversation looked to be intense. As I got closer, My Friend held a finger to their mouth and shushed Gazo and raised up to face me.

“Everything okay? My phone wasn’t stolen, thankfully. No cracks, so that’s good. And there are articles online already. American, too, so it seems…” I trailed off. My Friend had a look that I knew meant they were about to ask something of me. I didn’t even ask, just sighed, put my head in my hand, and asked, “What is it?”

“Gazo is staying in yours tonight.” It was said with such confidence that I almost agreed without thinking. 

I muttered a nonresponse. Failing at being tactful, I said, “He is my fuck staying in mine.”

Never would I let a stranger I had never talked to stay in mine overnight. It wasn’t going to happen.