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“LAUREN, LOOK AT IT!”

An electric storm illuminates the black sky in incandescent bursts, seeming to bruise it, tracing purple smudges in its wake. The lightning tears gashes into the night, producing within me magical fascination at first, which by fractions transforms into apocalyptic dread. The boundary between these states is in tatters: fascination and dread exist in eternal collaboration, hovering around entry points into my body, which is paralysed and my eyes are flooded.

On a train hurtling across a bridge that intersects a chasm below, towards a city that doesn’t exist, vulnerability is ramped up. The tin cage in which my body is held articulates the exposure to risk by virtue of ITS vulnerability. A machine magnetized by the multiple sources of stimulation, inside and out. Electricity seeking a passageway to multiply itself, a channel in which it’s current, like blood coursing through a pulmonary system, links up with and absorbs into its other/itself. The train clatters over the bridge, its motion echoed and amplified within the carriage by the acoustic possibilities of the limited space in which the sound careers chaotically, reverberating violently, this violence demonstrated by the escalating cacophony. Still traversing the narrow bridge, the train swerves to the left and the city that doesn’t exist shifts into view. Then lightning strikes the train and the train stops. This seizure is unceremonious. “IS THAT IT?” We must disembark. Find shelter for the night.

The security system is elaborate; a cassette deck constitutes the locking mechanism. The ‘correct’ cassette must be inserted. I select Julian Bradley music (to which R utters, “oh, Julian…” I resist the urge to pass comment, lapsing into a state of pure utility). The magnetic tape is torn and I know what to do – muscle memory articulates my hands and fingers – I place selotape across the exposed tape and plastic receptacle inside which the tapes’ axes are encased, thereby encasing, again, the entire unit. This is the secret: tape up everything. Reject the possibility of reconstruction. I live next-door with Luke Younger, I say: “You know that, right?” Everyone passive and distant as if emptied out: slumped. I have revealed myself to be, beneath it all, a real stranger.