'You Are Not Here' - a short story by Adam Carlton

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In my faded recollection, Kafka began his famous story by stating that Joseph K. must have done something wrong. Me too, I suppose, as I am similarly befuddled as to why I am here, in an all mod cons apartment as surely imagined by someone who has never seen one.

Still, I lack for nothing; I am surrounded by furnished sentience.

But you are not here.

Nor anyone else.

I remember once reading a female columnist who wrote for The Times newspaper. She was reminiscing about her husband, who had died, and her recollection was the very physical desire she had always felt for him. 

Even if she walked out into the garden and he was doing something mundane, weeding or planting vegetables, she would look at him and a kind of excitement would rise in her throat and she could imagine him strolling across, pulling her clothes off, making love to her on the lawn, there and then in the viscid heat of the moment.

The dense texture of daily life, suffused with sexual desire. That for her was the core of their enduring bond. 

I remember reading another author saying that when a man is away from home, perhaps travelling in hotels or in the army, sleeping alone in a cold, desolate, lonely place, his thoughts turn to all the women he has ever slept with. 

As someone who has spent plenty of nights away from home, travelling in faraway places, I can testify that one enumerates them, tries options, revels in stark physicality, immerses oneself in that woman who was dear to you in her nakedness with unbounded pleasure and no inhibitions - in your memory.

French author Michel Houellebecq tells us that when we talk to an attractive woman in a professional or business context, it’s civilised: polite, friendly and engaged. Yet if the woman is attractive that urgent thought recurs: what it would be like to be in bed with her; how would her restrained politeness melt? Offering no resistance, there would be flesh and passion and no boundaries - in your imagination.

And so my thoughts turn to you.

I remember once we went to the movies. We sat in a row perhaps halfway towards the screen. Before the main feature, while they were still showing the adverts, I placed my hand on your knee. Holding my breath, I ran my palm up, crumpling your dress before it, feeling your warmth beneath my fingers.

How long would you tolerate such covert insertion? How would you respond with so much oversight from surrounding rows? We sat, frozen, until the main feature finally wrenched my attention away.

So now I reflect on what I should do. I am indeed alone here, reflecting forlornly on all the women I have ever slept with. I imagine what it would be like to have you here with me: I have only to ask.

You could be here.

I have only to tell them stories; I have only to give their systems information - my recollections - and by a process of iteration, of trial and error, we could recreate a living, breathing, thoroughly-interacting facsimile of you. Thus I am tempted.

In truth you always were a model in my head.

And perhaps you would surprise me and that would be a joy and almost the entire purpose of your existence, I think.

And perhaps you would look at me with unfeigned affection and unrestrained desire?  

And perhaps you would feel an overpowering need to move closer to me and that we should remove our clothes and lie together - to see how close we could get, and we could press ourselves against each other: our lips, our hands, our breasts, our legs.

And perhaps, quite literally, become one flesh. 

I pause and reflect on the ethics of the thing, always knowing where this is ending up. 

‘Wouldn't that be the entire point of life?’