LIQUIDATOR

it’s 2am and i’m climbing through the window of a house in belgravia. i received the tip off from myself during an intense period of inner reflection last night

i saw a map of london

and a cocktail stick

(with a gourmet olive on the end)

falling into it

piercing the exact house

it doesn’t surprise me that the weapon is being held in such an exclusive enclave

i’d found the window left partly open around the back of the house. i climb through headfirst and land on a toilet on the other side. i rest my cheek on the porcelain for a moment to confirm that it’s of the highest quality

i’m not disappointed

i step out into a corridor that’s vibrating to the sound of a continuous hum. they don’t appear to have any kind of security system in place. i can’t even hear a dog, so i pocket the tranquiliser that’s ready in my hand

it doesn’t take me long to find the room. i follow the sound of the hum which becomes deafening as i approach the door at the end of the corridor with the bright white light coming from underneath

i try the handle but there’s something pushing against the door from the other side. i throw my weight against it over and over and eventually manage to make a gap wide enough to slip inside

the room is empty except for a swirling depthless vortex that takes up the entire floor. the infinite space rotates and changes colour millions of times per second while the sound, which is now deafening, abruptly switches from a hum to a screech to a heartbeat to a melodious chant and back again to a screech, getting louder with each cycle. the room is vibrating so much that everything distorts and bends in on itself

it doesn’t surprise me that the rich are in sole possession of such a weapon

the colours are so alluring that it takes everything not to dive straight in. instead i try to remind myself why i’m here. when i can’t remember, i inject the tranquiliser into my arm to recalibrate. my muscles turn to jelly and i collapse to the floor. when i’m completely numb, i recall that i planned to acquire the weapon to deploy it against the state apparatus and all forms of private property

after a blissful few hours, i regain the use of my limbs and get up on unsteady legs to begin the search for any inhabitants. i go upstairs. the stairs and upstairs landing are lined with terracotta pots holding huge tropical plants. in one of the bedrooms i find a couple lying on their backs on a king size bed without covers or sheets, fully dressed in the smart casual attire of hegemonic power. their heads are plugged into usb ports on either sides of the bed. they are quietly vibrating

there’s a child in the next room who’s also plugged in, but his eyes are open and he has a huge grin on his face. he’s holding up a toy train with both hands

i smash the terracotta pots against the wall. the sound doesn’t disturb them. they’re completely self-assured in the presence of the weapon

i go back downstairs and get to work. i spend hours trying to harness the weapon by grasping its edges, folding it, lifting it, or using psychic power to move it or shrink it or teleport it elsewhere, but it all comes to nothing. i end up almost getting sucked in several times

i start to feel pessimistic about the situation. i then conclude that the state and its high net worth custodians will only regenerate and self-replicate in ever more insidious forms following any action against them, no matter how successful or destructive

so instead i dive into the vortex, headfirst

when i wake up i’m lying on the king size bed. i’m wearing a beautiful tieless suit. it’s deluxe and so is my wife lying next to me. i unplug the usb cord from my head and go downstairs. it’s 6.55. i meditate for three minutes in the orangery and then execute a hundred yoga moves in rapid succession before catching a cab to the office. i spend the morning licking my laptop keyboard clean of every single speck of dust before applying my pristine fingers to it. just before lunch i murder my assistant when he dares to unzip at the urinal next to the one i’m using. i rest his bloodied corpse in one of the stalls and hope that when they find him they’ll conclude that he shit himself to death, giving me enough time to make good my escape to luxembourg city or dubai. i return to my office but half an hour later i’m arrested as i’m enjoying a ramen bowl at my desk. i’m happy as they drag me away. i own this place

i take a nap in the police van and when i wake up i’m lying on the king size bed again. my husband is lying next to me in his beautiful deluxe suit. i get up and execute a hundred yoga moves in rapid succession and then drink seven litres of pure, untreated mineral water which i vomit all over the interior of the cab on the way to the office. i call a brunch meeting on the roof to inform everyone that the managerial power i exercise over them extends beyond contractual obligations to bonds of fealty and indenture and that their blood is mine if i demand it. then we all light a fire on the roof that will inevitably spread to the lower floors, destroying our office and others in the building. afterwards i throw myself backwards from the roof and watch as the others all leap after me like baby birds following their mother

i hit the pavement and wake up again, uninjured and lying in a single bed. i’m holding a toy train with both hands which i immediately discard. that’s kid’s stuff. i make myself a nourishing breakfast and sit completely still at the kitchen table staring at my hands until nanny comes to take me to school. i converse with her in perfect peruvian ribereño spanish and ask after her family in lima. when i get to school i tell my teachers that my annual income and capacity for abstract thought are already far in excess of theirs. then i tell my colleagues that no matter the heights they ascend to in (this little thing called) life, they will never attain the accelerated rates of capital accumulation that i already enjoy. after lunch (steamed vegetables – brain food), i’m summoned to the principal’s office and expelled. i call nanny and tell her to book a flight to tibet from where, after ten years of seclusion in a monastery, i will return with the readily deployable code for a machine learning e-trading platform that will render all other activities in life redundant. i close my eyes and visualise the completed code, slowly drifting off to sleep in the passenger seat of her car as she conveys me to heathrow

i wake up when the vortex spits me out through the doorway into the hall

i’m covered in some sticky substance

i feel great

i strip off my soaking clothes and go upstairs to lie down on the now empty king size bed. i lie there with the whole room humming and vibrating around me

i stay in the house for weeks or even months, i’m not sure, sustained by the hundreds of cans of baked beans stacked in the panic room i find behind the bedroom wall

i can’t resist the urge to go downstairs at least once every hour, day and night, to check on the weapon. every time i stick my head around the door i feel myself getting weaker, my body slowly degrading, my bones hollowing and blood thinning. the vortex is getting bigger and spreading up the walls. this makes me happy. after hours of observation i get to know its wakes and waves and the routine of the colours and shapes flashing around inside it as if they’re part of me

the vibrations have spread throughout the house and are so strong now that everything inside me feels like it’s completely dislodged. this only increases my feelings of psychic connection to the weapon

one evening the doorbell rings. months or years have passed. i can’t walk now so it takes me a long time to crawl down the stairs to answer it. i pull myself along the floor to the door and eventually summon the strength to lift my arm to release the bolt

there are two couples standing there, each holding a bottle of wine. they greet me with smiles and lean down to where i lie drooling on the floor. they place kisses on my rotting cheeks and pick up my hand to shake it. one of them says what has it been, three, four months? they walk through to the living room and i drag myself behind them. they open the bottles of wine and pour them out and say cheers. my glass falls out of my hand and spills on the floor as soon as it’s given to me. they pick individual baked beans from the open cans strewn across the coffee table and compliment the canapes. they address me as phillip, cassandra and little jonty in succession and ask my opinion on the recent commodities boom, where i plan to winter and what my favourite subject is at school. i’m lying on the floor drooling and bleeding and the room is vibrating so much that it keeps collapsing in sudden flashes, blurring and reducing everything to a tiny speck before regenerating again just as suddenly

one of them says that they’re tipsy already

i mumble that i’m dying

they finish off the beans and the bottles of wine and one of them says, phil, when’s dinner. he’s a cheeky one

i slowly raise my hand from the floor and beckon them to follow me. i manage to croak their names (which i have somehow divined) for the personal touch. felicia, david, jasmine, clarky. they follow behind me as i crawl from the living room and down the corridor. they carry on talking as we make slow progress towards the room. the vibrations become so violent that they’re holding on to the walls for support. they’re covering their ears and shouting over the noise

as we near the room, i turn around to check that they’re still following me. i notice that they’re already beginning to melt. it surprises me that they’ve started melting before we even reach the room. it happens slowly at first and then quickly, from the bottom up, immobilising them at the legs, then spreading to their torsos, necks and faces, until they’re only high net worth blobs on the floor

i collect the blobs

and push them down the corridor

and through the door

(which i can now open easily

despite my weakened state)

the vortex is swirling

at a hundred million rotations per second

i perceive each rotation individually

i push the blobs into the vortex

at just the right moment

and watch them float down

felicia, david, jasmine, clarky

they’re gristly

by Alex Aspden

Alex Aspden is a writer who currently lives and works in London.