Chapters (45)
- Title Page
- Copyright Page
- Contents
- Prologue
- 2046
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Twenty-Four
- Twenty-Five
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- Thirty-Two
- Thirty-Three
- Thirty-Four
- Thirty-Five
- Thirty-Six
- Thirty-Seven
- Thirty-Eight
- Thirty-Nine
- About the Author
Pull yourself together. Man up. Stop worrying. Don’t panic. Stop thinking bad things. Snap out of it. Calm down. Day after day of plummeting down into an abyss of self-pity. Steph was having an affair because he deserved it. He died because he has no worth. He is here to be punished. The self-pity mutates into self-loathing.
The two people next to him are the best in their fields of expertise. Consummate professionals who excel at what they do and make it look effortless in the process. He compares what he is to them. He takes his lack of worth and holds it stark and obvious against Safa and Harry, but that only serves to strengthen his self-perception. He is weak. He is haggard. Look at Harry. Be like Harry. Be like Safa. Snap out of it. Be a man.
His life around him changes without a flicker of reaction that he even sees it. The bathroom they share fills with objects. New towels in different colours. Different toothpastes and brushes. A mirror that he doesn’t look at. Razors for Safa. Scissors for Harry to trim his beard. A light over the mirror. Shampoos and conditioners in the shower. A toilet brush. Cleaning materials and products. Shelves. Rails. He doesn’t notice when the shower starts producing hot water and doesn’t notice the air of victory Malcolm and Konrad have at finally figuring out how to do it.
A rug on the floor in the communal room. Clothes draped on the back of the blue chairs. Books stacked on a low table. Boots, trainers and flip-flops outside their rooms in the corridor.
The three austere, sterile rooms become one austere, sterile room. Safa’s and Harry’s rooms gain rugs and clothes rails. They gain side units next to their beds on which rest more books, drinking glasses and battery-operated soft lights. Dimmer switches for the glaring lights appear on the walls. Shelving units filled with deodorants, hairbrushes, hairbands and personal objects that are gained over the days, weeks and months of their existence in the bunker.
Ben walks through it but sees none of it. His room remains as it was. Sterile and cold. Empty and austere. He has no worth so therefore he does not deserve any softness. His life becomes empty and meaningless.