Roachville

As I leant back against the outside wall of my house, facing the garden that now looked more like a patch of dust, I tried to think of nothing for a while and failed. The sky was getting redder by the minute and the sun zapped shapeless clouds into nothingness. Vi and Bek had left me a mattress and a sleeping bag, a couple of chairs, a bottle of wine and a flawlessly rolled joint.

Vi had sent a text on the mobile bug, asking if I was okay and wanted company, but actually I needed to be alone. I had to figure out how to find Ely and sort out this mess. Satisfying blue smoke detached from the joint thanks to my perfectly functioning lungs and Ely’s lighter, which I’d found in my handbag earlier on. It was a simple small red plastic lighter but I held onto it as if it were made of ruby and gold.

I glanced sideways at the naga and sighed. However much I hated mobile phones, I wished I could send Ely a text, but that wasn’t even possible. I had found his locked mobile discarded on the floor in the squat. He must have taken it out of his jeans pocket when we were fooling around before everything went dark and now I had no way of getting in touch with him.

Kalaroo had explained that while he was accompanying Phuong and Mei to a secret location, Mulalloo had got stuck in the middle of a farmers’ demonstration on Gloucester Road. So nobody had come to pick up the naga. By the time Mulalloo was able to drive away, I had left my house and Kenneth Tann was destroying its contents in search of the naga.

The fact that Mulalloo hadn’t got here in time meant that I had been able to have my ‘experience’ with the naga. Things had happened in some sort of perfect chaotic synchronisation for a precise reason that afternoon. Kalaroo had also said that Kenneth Tann must have put somebody to wait for me and follow me to the squat in Conduit Road. Then Ely had stepped in and now he was gone somewhere, with Tann or one of his goons in pursuit. If my heart were made of stone I wouldn’t have cared one bit about the fact that Ely, a stranger a few days ago, was doing so much for me now. But instead, when I thought of his piercing eyes, I felt a fierce pang in the middle of my chest.

Kalaroo reckoned his brother would find Ely and whoever was after him and I should stay quiet and wait, but that wasn’t my plan.

I drank up the wine and put out the joint. I spun out as I got up and I clung to the wall to go back inside the house and plod up the broken stairs. ‘How can I find Ely then?’ I burrowed into Vi’s sleeping bag waiting for an answer from the naga.

After a while I thought I heard ‘Heaven and hell are in the filaments of black matter’.

‘Did you say that?’ I mumbled as sleep zoomed in on me. I tried to keep my eyes open a little longer, but it was no use. I didn’t get any answers that night.