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A TINY DISTORTED face bearing an expression of incredulity is staring up at me from my coffee table between fragments of ruptured metal, carbon fibre, fiddly screws and mangled plastic. The pieces between the pieces of a thing, once broken, cannot be put back together. You might manage to reassemble all the bits — if you can find them — and stick them together. You might even do it so well that no one would notice that the thing had ever been broken. But no matter how good you are with your hands, you can never repair a moment by gluing the spaces between the pieces. A moment is irreparable; you cannot mend Time. A couple of months ago, a chain of events began to uncoil for which I have no explanation. The strange thing is, vivid though the experience seemed while I was living it, looking back on it now I cannot accept that any of it really happened. And yet, the evidence that it did is all over my coffee table, begging not to be ignored. I work as a consultant for an insurance company, training self-employed agents to run their businesses more efficiently. It’s a new position and I’m just getting used to the rare ‘perk’ of an afternoon spent as a road warrior, instead of as a desk slave toiling at a flickering monitor. In my spare time, I collect classic British comics from the 1960s and 1970s: Beano, Dandy, Topper, Beezer and Whizzer & Chips. As hobbies go, I thought it was a harmless waste of my time. But I was on my way to a client out west one day when I discovered a new shop on the Terrace. ‘Other Worlds’ was sandwiched between liquidated butchers’ shops and foggy launderettes. FANZINES COMICS FANTASTIC POSTERS SCIENCE FICTION GAMES, the silver lettering on its window shouted breathlessly. It was the ‘comics’ that caught my eye; I’m always on the look-out for rare issues to add to my small but valuable collection, and decided it might be worth browsing. ‘Science fiction’ should have been my clue that the interior of Other Worlds would not live up to the exterior’s promise. The broad and optimistic window with its vainglorious silver lettering was just a front for a converted shoe shop full of Star Trek comics, amateurish horror magazines and a dusty cabinet bristling with dungeons and dragons junk. I was about to leave when, in one corner by the door, a lonely, dented box on an otherwise bare shelf caught my eye. I began to study the brightly coloured packaging without really knowing why I was doing it. It was some kind of toy, that much was apparent; sealed in the customary cardboard carton with transparent plastic window. Up close, it looked like a three-dimensional model of Betty Boop. She was wearing a shiny black dress with a slit up one side, exaggerated because her left leg was placed coquettishly in front of the other to reveal a frilly garter. Her disproportionately large oval eyes dominated a peculiarly flat face with swollen brows and her head was crowned with a glossy excuse for hair: a solid black mass of stylised plastic curls. With my eyes I scaled those shapely but obviously unreal legs, back to her face. Her expression was one of sensual surprise, her lips slightly parted. There was a gap between them that seemed to reach back into the darkness of her workings. She was an obvious and perhaps even insulting caricature of a woman, yet I found her intriguingly charming. Most of the text on the box was in Japanese characters but, on the strip of cardboard above the transparent plastic revealing the full length of the doll, the economically bold Engrish read: NANO DOLL. Made in Japan, it continued underneath. Miniaturised. Batteries not supplied. © Bonsai Nanomechanics, Japan. SPECIAL EXCITING TOY. ALL MOVING PARTS. BIGGEST SINCE DIGITAL. NO VALVES! BEST SO FAR. FULL DETAIL. No valves? Best so far. Well, they had me convinced. I was sold on her. Thirty-five pounds seemed a bit steep for a toy, but the plastic with which I paid for it seemed appropriately artificial and I consoled myself with a mental reminder of all the commission I was now earning. It had occurred to me that the Nano Doll might be a suitably light-hearted surprise for my girlfriend, Laura. An unusual gift may just be the thing to cheer her up, I thought. She and I hadn’t really been on speaking terms recently and our sex life, it seemed, had moved out and gone to live in a retirement home in Bournemouth. I travelled home from Other Worlds carrying the Nano Doll so she faced me in the box. The other faces on the underground were as sullen and predatory as always; clouded by doubt and mistrust. Hurtling along on that underground train in the afternoon rush hour, my whole life reduced itself to a senseless carousel ride. We have failed, it seems. There really is no hope for us any more; for peace, beauty, for a life spent in anything resembling harmony. All for nothing. The heart of England is diseased. The train rattled on and on towards doom as my backside cramped itself on the seat, but when I looked down at the doll’s face she was still looking comically surprised. *
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