The Information Junkie by Roderick Leyland Page A

facilitator?'
    Tom said, 'Try saying that after ten straight whiskies.'
    I said, 'I'm sorry, I'm getting very confused,' and the room began to turn as my head started to swim. Everybody began circling, all conversation became louder and louder:
    'Stop! Stop!! STOP!!!' I shouted.
    I closed my eyes to try to recover my senses.
    I thought my eyes had been closed for minutes but I'd only blinked and in that augenblick I had experienced an eternity. When I opened them I was still outside the flat : the literary party had taken place only in my mind. Ffion was motioning me in:
    'Go on, then,' she said.
     I turned round to say thankyou but she'd gone. And, of course, you've guessed it, buddies, haven't you? Yes, they were all there:
    There was Martin Amis, George Orwell, Thomas Hardy; Christopher Priest, Charles Dickens, Laurence Sterne; V. Woolf, L. Woolf, but no sign this time of the Big Bad Wolf. Yeah, they were there colouring the walls and stacked on the carpet. Hardback and softback; stiffback and paperback; stickleback and minnow; cloth and limp. Right back to the authors of Beowulf and Norse legend.
    I stood before the mirror above the fireplace, afraid I'd see the back of my head. I didn't. I saw myself straight on. Buddies, I looked in the mirror and I saw myself. And there was no express train ripping through the fireplace beneath, no bowler-hatted men dripping from the sky behind me, no molten clocks on the mantelpiece. I checked the mirror again and it was yours truly.
    So, this wasn't too unexpected. I tried to recap: the Cybernurse, Ffion and Martin were all figments, therefore I wouldn't expect them to be here. I couldn't, for the moment, explain how I'd got hold of Martin's Oldsmobile, nor how I'd got into my flat. But here I was certainly. Ah, things were looking up. That just left Belinda.
    I searched the wardrobes and chests of drawers but couldn't find any ladies' clothes. I went to the bathroom cabinet: there was no evidence of femalehood. There were no panty liners, there was no make-up, there were no unguents, there were no cottonbuds, none of those little things which said a woman had ever lived here.
    I stood at the entrance to my study. The PC was all set up. I went inside. Was that spare mouse mat still there? Were there sticky rings where Belinda had laid cups of coffee? I found it: if the mat had ever held cups it now showed no signs. So, how about the notes with the Xs and the Os? Could I find any of those? I searched, buddies, but you know the answer, don't you? I drew a big zero. No, no—I don't mean I drew it. I mean, there was nothing, I couldn't find anything. In short: I could find no evidence of the existence of Belinda.
    I tried to recap again to get it straight in my mind: Cybernurse was an obvious construct, a vulgar figment, a fantasy. Ffion was a fantasy too. Martin didn't exist; I think his car had existed, though I was becoming less certain. What did that leave? That left Belinda. And then it started.
    I began to feel cold. I started to shiver in that way you do on a hot day when you're very afraid; and my stomach was vibrating and churning over. I looked around at the walls which were painted a pale cream and they started to grow paler. I looked at my bookcases, looked at the carpets and everything started to become lighter—it was like a photograph un developing. The colours were paling and everything was turning white.
    Buddies: I was afraid. I had to sit down and let it happen. Eventually everything had gone back to white. And another odd thing happened. I was then on the ceiling of my flat looking down on myself, but the person I was looking down on wasn't me. There was no connection between the person looking down and the person sitting in the chair. I had become total objectivity. The person in the chair started to get thinner and thinner and older and older until all the flesh had wrinkled and maggots crawled through the eyes.
    Gradually all the flesh was stripped and there was