ThisTown

The No-Life Man

THE NO-LIFE MAN

Alice leaning forward across the table. She’d perked up and now she wanted to know more.

“Why don’t we ask the doctors what they did?” asked Sam.

Willis shuffled sideways towards Nurse Pine as the twin doctors crammed themselves onto the other end of the bench. They wore identical dark green suits. If you glanced quickly you would have sworn you were seeing double.

“We tried to wake him up,” said Stitch.

“Did you succeed?” Fortuna asked.

“No,”

“You couldn’t wake him up at all?” asked Sam looking puzzled.

“We tried everything,” said Slice.

“Everything we knew,” said Stitch.

“And everything I knew too,” said Nurse Pine as if she knew more than either of them.

“Was there any breathing?” asked Sam.

“No.” The twin doctors said it together.

“Did his chest move up and down?” added Pike.

“No.”

There was a silence in the huge room.

Finally Sam said what everyone else was thinking, “Well, if he’s not moving, if he’s not even breathing, that can only mean one thing.”

“What thing?” asked Fortuna looking straight at him as if she was daring him to say it.

“No breath, means no life,” said Sam simply and shrugged his shoulders.

“No Life? How can someone have no life?” Pike laughed uneasily showing his brown teeth.

Alice was beginning to wonder too. She gave a puzzled look to Sam. Everyone had life, didn’t they? She knew that for certain. They’d all been there forever in Thistown. How could someone suddenly have no life? What was going on?

“You mean that he’s a No-Life Man?” asked Fortuna.

“A what?” asked Pike. This was already all getting beyond him.

“A No-Life Man.” Fortuna said it again. “That’s what it is, isn’t it?”

This sounded as strange to them as anything ever had. If you’d have said, trees with their roots in the air, or sky falling on your head, or birds that flew in the ground, it would have seemed equally bizarre. A No-Life Man? Nobody had ever heard of such a thing.

“That’s impossible,” said Alice finally, “How can you have no life?” She looked at Sam. He raised his eyebrows.

“Well, who is he?” said Pike hoping for something he could understand.

“Did you recognise him?” Sam asked.

“We’ve never seen him before,” said Willis.

“That’s doubly impossible!” shouted Pike, “There are twenty-three thousand, four hundred and six people in Thistown, they’re all on the town register and everybody knows everybody else! When Jonny Ridgewood fell over and knocked himself out on the ridge, three people had reported him missing before he even woke up! We know everyone in Thistown and where they live!””

“We obviously don’t.” purred Fortuna, “We don’t know this No-Life man for a start, do we?

“Well, where did he come from, then?” Pike wanted to know.

“Perhaps he dropped out of the sky.” suggested Alice with a grin.

Sam wasn’t amused. He prodded the table with his finger. “If there’s no life in the No-Life Man, then where has it gone?”

It was a good question and no-one knew the answer. They all looked at each other and shook their heads, except Alice.

“Well,” she said, “we know that things disappear in the Cornfields, don’t we? Can his life have gone to the Cornfields, do you think?”

No-one answered. It was possible.

“Things do disappear in the Cornfields.” said Sam, thinking about it. “But how did his life get out of his body?”

“Did anybody see his life leave him?” asked Alice.

All eyes in the room turned to Belle Fellows who was sitting quietly in a corner behind the witness bench. She shrank back. She didn’t like being questioned like this.

“Belle?” said Alice.

She stood up slowly. “No,” she said, “I didn’t see anything. It was very dark in Duster Alley. That’s why I fell over. He was just there on the ground, sort of full of no-life.” She sat down again.

“Did any of you see his life go?” Alice the nurse, the doctors and the detective on the witness bench.

“Go where?” asked Willis.

“I don’t know,” said Alice.

“What you mean like floating through the air?” said Nurse Pine.

“Maybe.”

They shook their heads. They hadn’t seen anything floating through the air, or anything leaving the No-Life Man’s body in any way at all.

“I wonder what it looked like.” said Alice.

“You mean,what did his life look like?” asked Fortuna with her head c****d to one side.

“Yes.” said Alice. “What colour was it? What shape was it?”

“What shape is his body?” Fortuna asked the doctors. “Is it the same shape as ours?”

Doctor Stitch pushed forward from the crowded bench, “Yes. From the body point of view the No-Life Man is perfectly normal.”

“He’s a dark olive,” said Nurse Pine. “I mean, that’s the colour of his skin.”

“So was his life dark olive too, do you think?” asked Alice.

“All we know is, it’s gone, his life has gone. Somewhere.” said Nurse Pine firmly. This was all getting too airy fairy for her.

“And what do you think will happen to him, now that his life has gone?” Sam suddenly asked.

“I imagine he will get stiff from no movement,” thought Slice.

“And possibly could start to rot after a while,” added Stitch. “No heartbeat you see, to pump round the blood and renew the body. And no breath either.....” He stopped and shrugged. “I don’t know. We’ve never seen No-Life before.”

“I think we should all go and have a look at him,” said Sam being businesslike. “Then at least we’ll all know what a No-Life Man looks like.”

“Is that an official proposal?” Pike wanted to know. “If it is, we must vote on it. Everybody who thinks we should go, raise their hands....”

But nobody had the time to vote, or even to think about it. Because at that moment there was a loud crash, the great wooden doors of the Town Hall burst open and Ronald Rasper stomped angrily in on his iron leg. He was furious and his black beard shook as he glared at the shocked Assembly Members sitting round their table. Behind him through the broken doors was a great crowd spread out over the Green.

Rasper pointed at the Assembly and roared, “We want the truth!”