Running on Fumes Read online

  Contents

  I. THE LABYRINTH, II. THE BEAST, III. THE STRANGER, IV. THE LABYRINTH, V. THE LABYRINTH

  PART ONE

  Kilometre 0, Kilometre 0, Kilometre 0, Kilometre 0, Kilometre 0, Kilometre 0, Kilometre 0, Kilometre 0, Kilometre 28, Kilometre 85, Kilometre 135, Kilometre 532, Kilometre 559, Kilometre 623, Kilometre 803, Kilometre 866, Kilometre 875, Kilometre 1023, Kilometre 1126, Kilometre 1134, Kilometre 1136, Kilometre 1361, Kilometre 1452

  VI. THE MINOTAUR, VII. THE MINOTAUR, VIII. THE MINOTAUR

  PART TWO

  Kilometre 2053, Kilometre 2055, Kilometre 2058, Kilometre 2361, Kilometre 2363, Kilometre 2694, Kilometre 2812, Kilometre 2852, Kilometre 2915, Kilometre 3106, Kilometre 3112, Kilometre 3112, Kilometre 3112, Kilometre 3112, Kilometre 3114, Kilometre 3224, Kilometre 3429, Kilometre 3445, Kilometre 3594, Kilometre 3677, Kilometre 3679, Kilometre 3788, Kilometre 3793, Kilometre 3847, Kilometre 3921, Kilometre 3945, Kilometre 3945, Kilometre 3945, Kilometre 3945, Kilometre 3993, Kilometre 4025, Kilometre 4078, Kilometre 4085, Kilometre 4218, Kilometre 4232, Kilometre 4498, Kilometre 4535, Kilometre 4664, Kilometre 4668, Kilometre 4712, Kilometre 4728

  IX. ARIADNE’S THREAD

  PART THREE

  Kilometre 4728, Kilometre 4736, Kilometre 4736, Kilometre 4736

  TRANSLATOR’S NOTE, ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  For Jean-Noël Poliquin

  this is the story of a man

  who wants to see his father again

  of a labyrinth running in a straight line

  through changing scenery

  of abandoned houses

  roadside militias

  and dreary towns

  a story of exhaustion and solitude

  of confabulations, encounters, and alcohol

  the story of a car crash

  I. THE LABYRINTH

  A place greater than any single human existence. You might wander through it for years without ever treading the same soil. A place that escapes from the tyranny of touch and sight. Only growing fatigue gives you an indication of the road travelled. A place without landmarks, where the erasure of the outside world is stronger than any memory. Galleries, rooms, intersections; all of them built to confound your bearings. Each hallway is imperceptibly curved and the arc of every single one of these tangled walls follows the curvature of the earth. He who believes he is moving in a straight line is actually drawing great concentric circles. He who turns around cannot retrace his steps.

  II. THE BEAST

  In the centre of the labyrinth lives a beast. A beast whose patience strikes fear in the heart of mortals. A beast who waits for the end with the determination of those with nothing left to lose. His silhouette melts into the shadows of the landscape. His glare is more dazzling than a mirror. The surprise his appearance causes is the last spark of life he allows.

  III. THE STRANGER

  One day, at the doors of the labyrinth, a mercenary come from afar pretends to be made of the stuff of heroes. He is young with a radiant complexion. His eyes are black and his skin the colour of the sun.

  He declaims to those who wish to hear that he is preparing himself to enter the labyrinth and he intends to come out alive, his clothes stained with the blood of the beast. Like so many before him, he claims that he is able to outlive evil. To change the true fate of things.

  In one hand, he holds a bronze sword, in the other, a spool of red thread.

  IV. THE LABYRINTH

  The young mercenary steps into the labyrinth. He slowly advances through the narrow corridors closing in on him like blinders. Behind him, in endless meanderings, the thin red thread marks the road travelled so far, and the path home.

  Sometimes, the young warrior is startled. He has the impression he can hear someone or something advancing in a nearby hallway. Each time he stops, he holds his breath and scans the hallway around him. Nothing. Only the echo of his leather sandals against the claustrophobic walls.

  He knows he is travelling through a place where improbable meetings are bound to happen. But for now, the only movement that accompanies him is his shadow lengthening on the dusty ground.

  V. THE LABYRINTH

  The day is unravelling, the length of thread slowly unwinding and, with a last shudder, night falls like a curtain, a slowly fraying cord that finally gives way. Hidden by the cavernous obscurity of the labyrinth, the young mercenary sits, counting his every gesture. He is a hunter on the lookout: every time he turns his head he expects to see the beast charging at him from the darkness. But it is a night without glowing eyes, without the sound of hooves and heavy breath. A long night.

  PART ONE

  KILOMETRE 0

  It was early afternoon when everything stopped. Not a noise to be heard. A sudden darkness in the heart of the engine. My pupils dilated, attempting to pierce the darkness. I laid my tools on the oily ground and rolled out from under the truck.

  Voices echoed in the cavern that is the auto shop. Surprise. Jokes. Calling out half-assed solutions. Someone finally shouted to open the workshop door. Others agreed. The heavy pacing of work boots. Then the sound of a toolbox emptying on the floor. The metallic echo bounced against the ceiling, vibrated along the wall before finally landing on the ground.

  I hadn’t moved yet. Still leaning against the truck I’d been repairing. I dangled my hand in front of my face. I knew it was there, but I couldn’t see it. Normally, after a power outage, the generators coughed to life. But now, nothing.

  The door was jammed. A few of us made our way towards it slowly, scanning the darkness for landmarks to guide us among the disorder of disembowelled vehicles, pieces of machinery, and toolboxes. Several of us together managed to force the door open. It squealed on its rails as a grey and dreary light washed into the garage. We looked at each other. Our faces, our arms, our clothes were dirty. As always. We stood there for a moment, then went out one by one to see what had happened.

  Outside, not a sound except that of the rain. Even the insatiable rumbling of the refinery had stopped. Around us, not a single building seemed to have power. In front of each of them, we made out uniformed blue-clad silhouettes huddled together, scanning the darkened scenery, attempting to stay dry. Snug in the entrance of the garage, our team did much the same. Some tried to figure out if they could see anything outside. Others spoke of examining the fuse boxes. Most of us didn’t move. We waited. Two of my colleagues sat down on toolboxes and talked about what to do next. I felt at home under the cornice: I watched potholes fill with water as I smoked a cigarette.

  Farther off, foremen were coming and going between buildings. One of them finally came to tell us they were having issues with the backup power system. But the director had said to stay put. Shouldn’t last long. Silence was his only answer. He seemed to be waiting for a sign of agreement. Finally, we nodded our heads, so he pulled up the collar on his raincoat and left. A few moments later, three company vehicles rumbled past the garage.

  A colleague came near me and pointed towards the refinery’s bouquet of smokestacks. Through the drizzle, they looked like immense ionic columns, holding up the clouds. He asked me whether I noticed anything. I stared at him. He told me to look again. That we couldn’t see the flames usually shooting out the top of the flare stacks, day and night. I answered that we couldn’t see the gas flare because of the rain, that the flames were hidden from sight. He turned towards the others, but nobody cared enough to listen. We were all too busy awaiting our fate, the weight of our steel-toed boots nailing us to the ground.

  We suddenly heard the generator rumbling to life. Orange lights winked to life in front of the warehouses. An emergenc
y light turned on inside the garage. But it was still too dim to be able to count the silhouettes of cars left in the garage. I looked down at my hands, tracing the oil stains from my palms to my fingernails. No way we’d get back to work now.

  Another group of men was making its way towards the parking lot in front of the garage. Their clothes were drenched, making them seem like shambling scarecrows. We walked out into the rain and asked them if they knew what was going on. But they didn’t stop to answer. I shrugged. They’d tell us all to go home now, surely.

  We waited a while longer. Then we started up a little committee, asking questions, consulting each other, and soon enough we were talking about other things entirely. What a summer, eh? Everyone nodded. Endless warm days and clear nights, splintered by northern lights. Something never seen before, according to the newscasts anyway. I hadn’t seen much of any of it, really. I rarely looked up at the sky. Anyway, from town you couldn’t really see them. Because of the refinery’s lights.

  Half an hour later, while we had begun collecting our things in the half-light, one of the company vans started to make the rounds of the petroleum complex’s infrastructure. On its roof, loudspeakers repeated a message. I couldn’t make out the whole of it, but its meaning was clear enough. The electrical grid was down. Production would be interrupted for a few hours. Everything would be back on track as soon as possible. Tomorrow, at the latest. For now, we could all go home.

  In the parking lot, about a hundred of us climbed into cars, the same small smile on our lips. The smile that schoolchildren wear when they’re told news of a snowstorm on the way.

  KILOMETRE 0

  I cut the engine and pulled on the handbrake. The rain had stopped. Getting out of the car, I slowly unfolded, like a pair of rusted pliers. Around me, furrows of mud made their way between the mobile homes. I was glad that my work day had ended early, but I was returning home exhausted, my feet heavy, mired. The screen door slammed behind me. I left tracks on the floor that led to an almost empty refrigerator, from which I grabbed a beer before collapsing into the depths of the sofa. Another day.

  On the corner of the table, the alarm clock stood guard over the geological weight of my eyelids. Fourteen thirty-two. I listened to the sounds around me. The refrigerator’s muted rumble wandered the room. I stretched my arm towards the light switch. Everything was still working. Good. Too bad. My eyes slowly shut, my mouth opened as if I was about to reveal a secret, then my neck lost focus.

  My eyelids slipped open. My beer had remained anchored between my thighs. Taking a long swig I told myself that if I stared at the ceiling long enough a pattern would appear. Sometimes, I could perceive the movements of whoever had applied the plaster, and damp spots were revealed. Cracks became rivers, roads, hundreds of paths like arteries and veins that nourished the drywall. I was also able to distinguish forests, lakes, and the small rectangles of houses. Each time, it was like seeing the same roadmap.

  The sky opened and sun streamed into the room, scratching and tumbling onto the yellowing paper of the company calendar, on the brown walls and floors, the soiled white of my arms. I got up and walked to the window, reminding myself once again to turn the calendar’s pages. I hadn’t touched it in nine months. I should probably replace it. Outside, the whole city like a messy construction site. Everything being built. Everything produced. The population kept growing, but workers left as soon as their contracts were done. Except for a rare few who sometimes decided to stay as if nothing existed outside this oil-producing city. Some days, when the wind blew, you could hear the rumbling of trucks, the clacking of backhoes, and the bellowing of the dinosaur refineries. But on this afternoon, nothing.

  KILOMETRE 0

  Twenty seventeen. Already. True to form, the alarm clock reminded me I would be working tomorrow. And the day after. Ten hours a day, seven days a week. I took a pot out of the sink, filled it with water, and placed it on the stove. Waiting to toss pasta into the boiling water, I watched for some time the small bubbles growing on the metallic bottom of the pot. Sweat on grey skin.

  The sun refused to go down. A yellow washed-out light stretched endlessly over neighbouring rooftops, drying the humid ground. Here, even after rain, everything remained dry and lifeless. Each passing car raised a cloud of rust. A kingdom of dust.

  These were the longest days of the year. It was dark four, maybe five hours a night. And the nights were long and sticky. Without sky or dreams.

  The pasta was ready. I sat down at the table thinking that I would likely need to catch up on the work left unfinished today. Then I leaned over my plate, poured tomato sauce over the pasta, and ate in silence.

  I looked around me, at this place I inhabited like a ghost. One mobile home among so many. Behind the front door, cases of empties formed a pyramid. My clothes were strewn across the floor. Dirty dishes turned molehills into mountains on the kitchen counter. And then there was that hole in the wall, a few months old, perfect copy of my knuckles.

  I opened the refrigerator again, but nothing inspired me. The alarm clock claimed it was twenty forty-three. The phone wasn’t ringing and I was out of beer. I tossed the rest of my meal into the cat’s dish. It would be a change from birds that knocked themselves unconscious on the trailer’s windows. I placed my plate on the pile of dishes and made my way to the bathroom.

  Water streamed down my body, but I was no cleaner than before. I needed to scrub my arms, my hands, my nails with a brush and abrasive soap to remove oil and grease stains. I got out of the shower and dried myself with a bunched-up towel, still humid from the night before. In the bedroom, I found a pair of jeans and a slightly creased shirt. I dressed in a hurry, took a bit of money out of my stash, counted my cigarettes, avoided the mirror, and left.

  KILOMETRE 0

  It would be midnight soon enough. Folds of light hung from streetlights even though darkness had not yet fully conquered the day. On the other side of the street, the bar’s neon flickered. The music as well, the same as every other night. I smoked a cigarette, apart from the rest. A few others, lurking in the entrance’s shadows, spoke loudly and staggered, gesturing wildly. Admittedly, I showed off a little too, leaning against a metal post, a few involuntary dance steps of my own. I dug my hands in my pockets, hoping beyond hope to make some unexpected discovery. But nothing. Not a penny forgotten in the fabric. Only the usual burdens. I turned around and started for home, followed by the sound of my untied boots dragging on the asphalt. Behind me, someone yelled my name, but I didn’t turn around. To avoid conversations I didn’t feel up to, I always told everyone I was half deaf. By now it was probably true. With years of the racket of pneumatic tools and the steel clang of hammer against metal behind me, of silence only a muted, heavy buzzing remained.

  My body knew the path to follow, like a blind dog. Around me, the town slept. Fitfully.

  I passed a few workers, dressed in company colours. They began their day when mine ended. Here, there was no time. No, it was more like there were many streams of it. The refinery ran twenty-four hours a day. Each man had his shift. When you went to bed, others were getting up, and like dreams that nobody remembers we crossed paths without seeing each other.

  They would be told to go back home. The linear constellation of lights that climbed the tall smokestacks marking the horizon were dark. The grid was still down. At the bar, that was all anybody wanted to talk about. Would we be working tomorrow or not? I heard the emergency teams hadn’t solved the problem yet. One of my colleagues said that he had seen on the news that a bunch of similar events were happening across the country. That a number of hydroelectric dams were failing. That reservoir levels were becoming critical and some places hadn’t had power for a few days now. Some of the other guys, more worried, said they thought it was caused by a series of terrorist attacks meant to overthrow the government. Supposedly there’d been riots in the streets of large East Coast cities. Incidents in strategic locations.
The country’s nuclear arsenal on high alert.

  On my end, I had no idea what was happening. The streetlights were still on, unblinking, like faraway stars that meant nothing to me. If there had been an attack this afternoon at the refinery, there would have been an explosion, something. A pipeline would have been severed. A reservoir would have burst. I would know.

  And, to be honest, I wouldn’t care less. Every day was the same. Nothing changed.

  At the corner of my street, the toothless craw of one of my company’s construction sites. I stopped before it. I examined the concrete framework, steel beams, scaffolding. It looked like a whale run aground, torn asunder by the passage of days and the hunger of nights.

  KILOMETRE 0

  Back home, I sat down on the front steps, sighing away all the beers I drank. I called the cat, whistling, but he didn’t come. He never came. I always left the window to the living room half-open. That way, we didn’t need to take care of one another. We crossed paths, sometimes, that was all. And it was enough. I hate cats.

  I looked at my car, dormant, a pile of metal chewed by rust and time. Its body was a skin worn thin by dirt roads, salt laid on snowy highways, and the boiling sun of summer. I love old cars. They’re easy to repair. When something breaks it can be fixed, one way or another. The engine never dies. A strategic error that car manufacturers no longer make. Supernatural engines. As I played with my keys, the light of streetlamps reflected on the moving pieces of metal. The jangling made me think of the noise of church bells ringing in the distance, far away, from another century.

  I missed my first days in this place. We arrived in the middle of winter, completely broke, half in love, half at each other’s throats. After months down South, drinking and driving around, we’d managed to find work within two days. She found it in some bar, and me at the refinery. And then months passed without our being able to distinguish one day from the next; making money during the day to pay back our debts, making love at night, amid the glow of cigarettes.