Code

A man was snatched from the roadside
by four men in a black car.
Blindfolded and gagged, he was driven
through city streets. There were sounds
beyond his captors’ breathing: the buses’
knackered hydraulics, the gloat of sirens,
cathedral bells.

*

Pulled from the car, he was marched
over concrete, then up steep
Piranesian staircases. Eventually, his blindfold
and gag were removed and he was asked,
Where are you?

I am here, he thought, then looked around the room:
no furniture, no windows, walls painted brown,
scruffy floorboards. One scientist
had a gold watch and a front tooth to match.

I’m in the vault of a bank, he said.

*

He is home now, sitting in his garden,
smoking. Above the elm, the sky
is an open atlas, revealing
the chartered nooks of far-flung galaxies.
He thinks back to the brown room – a back room
of an opera house (as it turned out to be).

When released, he had caught
the opening notes of the Dies Irae
and the scientists’ whispers:

...in conclusion, it’s impossible
to comprehend place until the external
has been viewed in its entirety

universe could be packed
into a tree’s trunk

latter’s markings are certainly similar
to a planet’s concentric rings, of course
just a hunch, but still

what do you fancy for lunch?...

His stomach rumbles; the sound
is reassuring. He grinds his cigarette
into an old wormhole. At least, he hopes
it’s old. Too late now. Drilling starts up
in the neighbourhood: an electric work-tool
or a woodpecker’s illiterate Morse.

Janette Stowell