The Folded Man by Matt Hill

as best he can. Divert the gaze and it’s easier to forget. A good time to concern yourself with things you might’ve missed.
    And on that screen the odd cars pass and people stutter along. Nothing untoward, in structure or in form. It’s easy to spot the odd moments, these days. Even with the recording going backwards, he can tell after so much practising; after all these years of staring and waiting. Because at this speed, six times standard playback, and even though it’s running backwards, it’s the lighting that talks. Because in 2018, in this time after postmen, your front gates rarely swing.
    The facts: if you see the lighting change, it’s your gates open. That’s when you pause. When nine times out of ten some smackhead comes up the path to buzz the doors and run their mouth. When you ask him to read the stickers and the warnings. When he turns and goes.
    But no, nothing.
    Just Colin. Colin. Colin. Colin. Like that.
    Colin, Colin – Colin. The dead stranger staring for always.
    Brian’s stomach tightens. He’s panicking and stoned. A real bad crowd, a right bad shower he’s met tonight. And you, Brian, looking at half a reflection in the monitor – you with this meat for legs with no sea in sight. This was you as well. Opportunities like getting off your wide, widening arse. Buttered you up, didn’t they – buttered you up and stuck a sharp one in you.
    Back home, here, panicking at the core of his world, safe behind the cameras and the deadbolts. And then, an idea:
    He has a way to survive this. A way through. The old way. The way he knows better than any other.
    He still has hair while there’s none on his head.
    Brian laughs. Brian gets the scissors out. He grabs a spare elastic band for tradition’s sake. A bit of spit to keep it neat.
    Brian has other hair. Brian undoes his belt.
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    Brian has the broken sleep of a troubled man. Never the calm of the just. But the bad night’ s sleeping you can get used to. Some dreams, you can’t.
    That same damn dream – the sweat and the sounds. Apples and worms; taut cables and cars. Post-its, post-its, poems. Half a man parked in a car by the lamp post.
    Setting off hard –
    And then a woman. A woman looking down from a watchtower. A watchtower in a nest of sharpline. A spotlight turned across a field.
    White out –
    The sea, then. The shore. The watchtower a lighthouse now, somebody shouting through a megaphone:
    You’re too close to the shore, Brian! Come back!
    Somebody rustling closer. Whispers and peace.
    Sitting on a knee, a knee by the sea, bobbing. Soft hands in curly hair. The same voice:
    You’re useless. Worthless. Wish you’d never bloody happened. A deviation. Aberration.
    Whispering, rocking gently.
    You’ve ruined everything. My little –
    White.
    Fade up to a city across the water. A skyline of old Mancunian towers, some buckled.
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    The morning comes and the speakers sing – the tannoy ringing in this carcass of a house.
    Ding dong.
    It’s still Monday.
    A visitor, sir, the tannoy says.
    Three times the tannoy says that, each a little slower than the last. It isn’t a dynamic system, though – nothing so flash. The messages are recorded; speakers are wired to the entry buttons and really you’ll only ever hear that one message.
    A visitor, sir.
    Brian with light through his lashes. A hand over rough stubble on his chin and fod.
    Ding. Dong.
    All.
    Days.
    The.
    Same.
    Brian swears and pulls the fallen blanket around him. Still wearing his smart trousers – still stained and scuffed with that moorland grit.
    He turns the monitors on for a look. The entrance cameras burn white – still set to IR. He switches this, prods at that. Mutters stuff.
    Then into the link microphone: Who’s there?
    Presently the man comes together on his screen. He has floppy hair and smashed-glass teeth – this bloke grinning up at the