The Height of the Scream by Ramsey Campbell

Author:Ramsey Campbell [Campbell, Ramsey]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2015-11-05T16:00:00+00:00

Litter

I used to walk through the market at night.

I mean the new construction of plastic and tiles and glass, where the old street market used to be. I work at Radio Brichester—producing the folk-song programme, among other shows—and it's handy, late at night when the last bus has gone, to cut through the market and take a taxi from Central Station. I used to do so often, even though I grew to dislike the route.

Why? There were several reasons, some of them banal. Perhaps I should describe the market. It's two storeys high, cloven by a cross of avenues. Avenues—they're corridors, to be less pretentious, but that's the name the city council has given them. Each corridor is walled by two levels of shop fronts, largely plate glass and plastic signs, and at the crossroads in the centre escalators carry you up to the balcony level.

If my description sounds dull and featureless then I've succeeded. Even in the afternoon, during its crowded hours, the place is leaden with anonymity. Some people visit the shops, of course, but the mass use the market as a thoroughfare: hurrying through, their minds dulled by muzak, occasionally halting to gaze at televisions gagged by windows. Unlike the street market, a bewildering, deafening and dazzling maze which might infuriate you but could never leave you unmoved, this new development offers the mind no purchase. It most resembles a colossal supermarket, but that hardly explains why I began to find it disturbing.

The market was deadening: that was the first thing I noticed. Since I'd always been working late when I used the shortcut, it seemed unremarkable that I could traverse the market without a single thought occurring in my brain. Obviously, I was exhausted. But one night I knew I wasn't exhausted: I'd compared in passing the melody of an English ballad with that of an Indian folk-song, and at once a whole programme had begun to take shape in my mind. I came out of Radio Brichester juggling with ideas. Enjoying myself, I entered the market—and it was as if an old grey dishcloth had been pulled over my head: I couldn't think or perceive, only struggle. Not until I emerged could I function properly, and by then half my ideas had suffocated.

Well, I blamed the market. I wasn't sure what was wrong, but I was convinced it wasn't wrong with me. So, making an effort (and it was fairly strenuous) I set out to notice things. After a while I discovered that there was a feeling—or less a feeling than an aching lack of any personality at all—about the centre of the place, near the escalators, which were surrounded by several hefty pillars, as much for decoration as for support. They were carved with cogs and levers and more abstract symbols, the work of one of our local artists. At night the metal and rubber of the escalators chafed, and the machinery trumpeted and groaned. With its jungle sounds and its deliberately primitive carvings,

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