The womb
PC Karen Carpenter left the police station less than half an hour after she had arrived. She downed her usual instant coffee, black; just yesterday a younger colleague had brought a French press and grinder into the station for everyone to use, but this morning, instant seemed like the way to go. Exiting the ring road towards Ludminster, she listened to the local BBC radio station as she headed north out of town, past the formal gardens, past the ruined Roman fort, past the dairies recently acquired by a German conglomerate. As usual in the last hour of the morning show, the “guess the year” quiz was underway. The first two tracks played by the DJ were “Oops, I Did It Again” and “Sexbomb”. That meant the year was 2000, Karen surmised.
This also happened to be the birth year of Gary, the young man that Karen was on her way to perform a welfare check on. She’d seen but never met him, years ago, when her son Tom was in the same high school as him; Tom knew him peripherally, but the two were several years apart and hadn’t been friends. She tried to recall what she’d heard about Gary’s parents once from an acquaintance who had lived on the same lane as them, but couldn’t remember any of the details. She could picture Gary’s face, his gangly walk, from the few times she had passed him in the schoolyard when dropping Tom off. The last time she had noticed him anywhere - and the only time since he left high school - was at a county fête in what must have been 2019. That was the year the fête had to close early due to a sudden torrential rainstorm which flooded parts of the showground, making the dog agility and falconry displays impossible… she remembered seeing Gary from across the field as they all trudged through the mud to the exit gate. He had always seemed sheltered, she thought, but really she knew nothing about him at all.
Eleanor, one of the women who volunteered at the café in the Methodist church, had called Karen to express concern about Gary’s wellbeing after being alerted to the video by one of her daughters. Karen was inclined to take the whole thing with a pinch of salt - she felt there was a good chance that the video was some kind of hoax (maybe Eleanor’s daughter was in on it too?), a social media stunt or maybe even an art project. But she knew that Eleanor, with her serious Scottish nature, had good intentions and wouldn’t have called her on a whim. Hopefully Gary would be OK, and she could call by the café later that afternoon to put Eleanor’s mind at ease. They could have a good laugh about it all. Karen turned the radio off and pulled up in front of Gary’s registered address, a 19th-century brick farmhouse on the western edge of the village. She knocked. No-one came to the door.
Gary had livestreamed the video three days earlier, but it had taken that time for it to be noticed and start to circulate among young people in the area, which it did primarily on account of its bizarreness - as if no-one really believed or could make sense of the content - rather than because anyone really knew Gary. He had had a couple of friends during his school years, but none were still in the area; one was at college in Gloucester, in the final year of training to be a P.E. teacher, the other worked in a pet supplies store in Bristol. Karen wasn’t sure that there were any others.
She tried the landline again, expecting the same result as when she’d called from the station earlier that morning. She could hear it ringing inside; no-one picked up. The curtains weren’t drawn, so Karen pressed her face to the window - the living room looked normal, but all the lights were off. There was no car in the driveway, but Karen didn’t know whether Gary’s family had ever owned one; the property gave the impression of being uninhabited. She decided there were good enough grounds to try to break the door down. After giving it four goes, she was just about to call Zbig - who was 15 minutes away attending to an elderly lady who’d been scammed - for help when, on the fifth attempt, she succeeded, and the red-painted wooden door gave way. Stepping over a small pile of mail, Karen entered the hallway and called out “Hello? Gary? Are you here? Are you alright?” No answer came. She pressed the light switch, and the light came on, which somehow reassured her; at least it meant the electrics were working. Right now her best hope was that Gary was missing, or absent in some explicable way; after all, she couldn’t be sure that the video had even been filmed at the property. Maybe, if it were a hoax, he would jump out at her; maybe she was being filmed right now.
Then, opening the living room door and peering inside, she saw some industrial tubing on the floor that she hadn’t been able to see from through the window, and she knew in the pit of her stomach.
She called Zbig.
___
In the eight-minute video, Gary explained - with a strange, halting self-confidence - that since the death of his last surviving family member, an aunt who passed away at the end of 2021, he no longer wanted to live. But he didn’t want to die either. As Eleanor’s daughter watched it on her phone in her bedroom, she could tell that Gary - who she’d last seen about eighteen months ago - had got even stranger during the pandemic. Her brother used to talk to him occasionally, so she knew him to say ‘hi’ to, but there was a desperation and manic certainty - a sense of detachment from reality - to him that she didn’t recognise. That’s why she showed her mum as soon as Kate sent her the video.
Gary tells his viewers - 46 at the current count - how he used part of his inheritance to buy some kind of commercial flotation tank. He films the IV system he’s set up, which really doesn’t look like it’s going to work. The house is dark and dilapidated, with junk all over the floor, but he’s so enthusiastic talking about this. He explains how everything will run off a generator and he won’t need to eat or drink; how the fluid inside the pod will be kept at or just above human body temperature; how tubes connected to his genitals and anus will allow him to safely excrete. Everything has been ordered from the internet and jury-rigged together; his retirement from the world - his regression - is due. Hooked up to the IV line, breathing mask in place, and with all tubes attached, he steps inside the artificial womb - which looks like nothing of the sort - and lowers himself down, a small amount of whatever substitute he is using for amniotic fluid spilling over the side as he does so. He activates the computer program he has written to control the system by voice command, and closes the lid.
___
By the time PC Starczynski arrived, Karen was on the floor crying. Of course Gary was psychotic, of course it had gone wrong. She’d managed to get the lid of the pod open but couldn’t tell if he’d suffocated or drowned; forensics would have to sort it all out. Perhaps it was sepsis, hypothermia or even an overdose; there were two empty tranquiliser packets on the ground. It really did look like he’d done this all by himself without any outside help, though of course anyone who had aided him could probably be prosecuted for not intervening or calling a doctor. He should have been sectioned1. Maybe he’d read something online or watched some videos that had given him this idea; maybe those people could be held liable, but probably not. Kneeling on the cold kitchen floor, she couldn’t bring herself to take a second look at the pale body. It was so young.
___
Zbig and Karen go and sit in her patrol car for half an hour and talk as they wait for more officers to arrive. They’ve worked together for six years, ever since Karen joined the force after the end of her first marriage, but he’s never seen her like this. Once the forensics team gets there and cordons everything off, they drive back to the station, one behind the other. Zbigniew makes them both some coffee with the French press. At her desk, Karen calls her father, who lives alone in a cottage in the east of the county. He’s outside gardening, but hears the telephone and comes in.
“Dad, I love you, you know.”