Blue Shifting by Eric Brown

Author:Eric Brown [Brown, Eric]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction, Short Fiction, collection, novella
Publisher: infinity plus
Published: 2012-12-21T00:00:00+00:00

Eye of the Beholder

Miller sat at his desk and stared through the window at the gentle contours of Hampstead Heath. He considered the fact of the city beyond, the teeming millions packed into so little space. There had been a time, not so long ago, when the population of the capital, the sheer press of humanity, had filled him with claustrophobia. He smiled to himself now at the irony of the notion.

He picked up his pen and completed the entry in his journal. "So I have no rational explanation for what is happening to me. It has crossed my mind more than once that I am going mad – or maybe that I am already mad."

He paused there, staring out at the playground that abutted the heath. Swings described precise arcs against a background of tarmac and daffodils. The roundabout turned slowly, as if moved by the wind.

"And yet," he wrote, "I cannot accept this. Madness is no explanation. What has befallen me is not, I am sure, the result of some unique mental aberration, some dysfunction on a neurological level. What is happening must have an external cause. It is the world out there that has gone mad, not me." He paused again, then added: "But isn't that what all madmen claim?"

He closed his journal. Beside him on the desk, the screen of his PC glowed a multi-coloured invitation to start work. He had two chapters of a children's novel to complete before the weekend, four days away. He told himself that he could do the five thousand words in a day. He would begin tomorrow, take today off. In six months he had completed three short novels – losing himself in the fantasy worlds of his creation as if in a desperate bid to deny what was happening out there in the real world.

Despite the dangers of venturing out during the daylight hours, Miller decided that this morning he would go for a walk. The alternative, to remain inside and either read or watch a film, reminding himself of the world as it had once been, did not appeal to him. He would only brood if he remained at home – at least outdoors, even though he would be surrounded by reminders of the phenomenon, he would be able to gain satisfaction from the catharsis of exercise.

He found his dark glasses and moved into the hall. From the umbrella stand by the door he pulled his white stick. He opened the door and stepped outside, met by the fragrance of roses. He left the house and moved carefully down the street, staring straight ahead and tapping his cane on the pavement before him. He would call in at the newsagents for a paper, the deli for rye bread and cheese, and then circle around to the heath and walk for a mile or two to give himself an appetite for lunch.

He kept to the centre of the pavement, moving slowly and continually steeling himself for the impact. The danger was not so much one of other people's bumping into him, but of his colliding into them.

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