The Weight of Souls

dark-tombed dead this whole week.

I cannot shift the words of the I-Ching from my head, they circle like hawks: The way that can be described is not the true way.

Something about this feels wrong and I would give a lot not to have to descend that staircase.

I think of my son, perhaps newborn. Not that. Never that.

It is time to go.

12 TRAPPED INSIDE THE CIRCLE

Instead of going to school I stood on Exhibition Road, leaned against the railings that hemmed the street and looked up at the flag above the building. It snapped in the wind but I couldn’t hear it over the road noise. My eyes followed the lines of columns that bordered the windows, down the smog-stained stonework, to the worn gold name above the huge doors.

I hadn’t been to the Science Museum since I was a kid. The website had said there were five floors and I had no idea which of them Justin might have headed for.

I shaded my eyes and peered at the windows, secretly hoping for some sort of sign. But there was nothing to see but sun glinting from darkened glass.

A stream of people poured from South Ken station and knocked my elbow as I glared at the printed map scrunched in my gloved hand.

Irritation forced speed into my pulse. There were too many people here, too many ways for the dead to disguise themselves. I had to get off the street. I shoved the map into my backpack and dodged through a gap in the crowd to run up the museum steps.

Then I paused. The shadows around the great doors seemed too dark, too cold. I licked my lips and strained my ears. The street sounds continued, noisy and normal. Shaking my head I ran in, towards the well-lit security checkpoint.

Time was getting tighter. Justin had to be here.

I queued behind a school group then handed my backpack to a guard whose smile was already looking strained.

“Got any sharp objects?” He raised his eyebrows at me.

“No.”

“Any of this?” He gestured to a laminated sheet showing a range of lethal weaponry.

“No.”

“Alright then.” He briefly lifted my cardigan from the top of my pack so he could see my purse, Oyster card, keys and can of drink. Then he handed my pack back to me. “Enjoy your visit.”

I stood by the information desk in the gaping entranceway. There were too many options. I was planted like a rock in a sandstorm, my feet unsure which way to turn. Should I take the lift? Start at the Garden and work my way up to the fifth floor? Maybe I ought to head straight on, past the ticket booth for the iMax? According to the map, that route would take me through an area dedicated to space travel and into a display about energy.

Above the ticket booth there hung a huge metal hoop. It was so big it reached the third floor. An electronic display inside its rim drew my eye. The little lights danced endlessly, trapped inside the circle, seeking a way out that they would never find. It spoke to me. I headed towards the glowing ring.

Beyond the light-filled ring I caught my breath. Ahead of me a space shuttle hung in a dark-shrouded room. People walked towards me in pairs but I ignored their irritated huffs, refusing to move and forcing them to part in order to pass me. It was dark in there, full of shadow. I took a step backwards; I didn’t have to go this way. There was no guarantee that Justin was on the other side.

But then his voice came back to me: “I was going to study engineering.”

If he was here, he would be in the Engineering section and that was on the other side of the cloying darkness. I straightened my shoulders and walked into the false night-time.

To get out in record time I planned to march through the exhibit, looking neither left, nor right, but then glimmering displays caught my eye. There were whirling representations of planets and stars, and engines from real shuttles. They looked like Dalek mutations but had propelled man into the vacuum of space and brought him safely home.

Awe filled me and instead of striding straight on, I faltered and my eyes flickered from plastic astronauts to their replica equipment. Then I saw a quote on the wall.

“An unseen force pressed me to the couch as if lead had been poured over me. Breathing became more difficult. The weight bearing down on us robbed us of the ability to speak. It ate all sound, leaving only wheezes and grunts.”

I stood reading and rereading it. “It ate all sound”. In my mind there was no doubt; astronaut Vasili Lazarev had experienced the Darkness.

Panting like a long distance runner I darted from the space exhibit and burst gratefully into the light of the Energy section.

I bent over until my breathing felt more normal then I straightened. A giant silver plane was suspended just ahead of me as if flying through the giant hall. My shoulders twitched before I managed to suppress the instinct to duck. Embarrassed, I pushed my hair back over my shoulders. The hall was bright, light, silver and white. The only dark patches were on the aged metal of machines from earlier centuries.

I adjusted my bag and walked forward. Shadows were not permitted in this realm of science.

This was more like it.

The hall was crowded, but my eyes moved, constantly seeking the missing ghost. I clenched my gloved fist as he failed to materialise.

In case I’d missed him I circled the energy section twice more, growing familiar with the locomotives, cars and planes surrounding me. He wasn’t there.

On the way towards the exit, shoulders sagging, I passed Stephenson’s Rocket and hesitated. The first of its kind, it looked utterly out of place in front of the shiny engines that had superceded it.

I took a tiny step forward. My hand lifted as if to touch the huge wooden wheels, but I couldn’t reach past the stand. Rocket was to look at, not to touch.

Without Rocket there would have been no Apollo. I shook my head and willed my feet to move, but they didn’t. The metal barrel of its body led my eye to the black chimney… and Justin dropped out of the bottom.

I gasped and relief almost knocked me to the floor. I had found him. Nervously I exhaled, if he ran off again I was in deep trouble. Somehow I had to keep him calm.

I watched in anxious silence as Justin stepped backwards out of Rocket, wiping his hands as though he’d been doing maintenance on the locomotive’s innards. He didn’t turn his head to acknowledge me, but he knew I was there. He froze and put one hand on a wheel that was almost as big as he was.

“Did you know Stephenson was basically uneducated?” His voice was loud in the hall. All the suspended technology invited a church-like silence but Justin’s voice boomed.

I blinked at his words and he carried on, still refusing to look at me.

“When he was seventeen he went to night school so he could read and write. He learned all about engines in the collieries and invented a safety lamp that would burn without exploding. Then this ‘educated’ scientist accused him of nicking his idea.”

I swallowed, unable to bridge the gap between us. “I didn’t know that.”