The Circle

“This sounds like a load of shit,” Carl grimaced, holding a cluster of loose wires away from him like diseased live snakes.

”I promise it will work,” Gunner yanked the wires off Carl and plugged them into a box on the dining table. He brushed his hair out of his eyes. “I watched him do it. It was incredible.”

”And, it’s like they all floated up…together? They flew.” Rachel bit the edge of her nail, gently enough so as not to damage the polish—she finally had a full, healthy jade-painted set after a long, arduous year of not biting them. She sat forward in her chair, one of five set around the table, circling Gunner and the large black box. 

Gunner nodded, “They told me it was like they floated out of their bodies and flew together. Like over the house and shit.”

”But, you saw it?” Carl asked.

”Look, shut up. I’m trying to focus and make sure I’ve got these the right way round. The dude only explained it once, and there‘re so many fucking wires. No way I’m paying a thousand bucks for him to explain it again and charge me another night.”

”A thousand bucks? You’re insane,” Labe, who had until that moment been slumped and quiet, suddenly sat upright. Taller than most, he was usually slouched, whether walking or sitting. It had caused his shoulders to round and his posture to bend. Originally Brandon, it didn’t take long after starting secondary college for his name to get shortened to ’Brand’, then ‘Label’, landing on ‘Labe’, minus an unfortunate three months of ‘Labia’ from Gunner.

”Not insane,”  Carl chuffed, “–rich.”

”We may be rich, but not that bloody rich.” Gunner’s sister, Elise, sat at the head of the table scrolling on her phone, only glancing up when it didn’t immediately load the next batch of posts in her social media feed. “Gun, mum and dad will freak when they find out.” 

Gunner ignored her comment. They all did. One thing they could all agree on: Gunner didn’t have consequences. Not when it came to his parents. 

“Gun, how long is this gonna take? We’re bored. Aren’t we Rach?” Elise looked up from her phone, wide-eyed and expectant at her best friend. 

“I dunno,” Rachel shrugged. As always, she was eager to please Elise, but found she was also eager to try out the weird box Gunner had arrived with. She’d been at their house to drop something off for Elise, and couldn’t believe her luck when Gunner burst through the door with his friends Labe and Carl, and announced he had a ‘game-changing, outer body AI machine that some tech-bro contact of his had let him borrow’. She now realised how misleading that was after his slip about the $1,000 borrowing fee and the reference to the dude.

”Guys, I think it’s done.” Gunner opened his arms as if to invite the world in for a hug.

”You think?” Elise eyed him over her phone.

”It’s done. Come on, come on. Tuck in your chairs, get closer, these wires don’t stretch. Labia, this is yours—“

”Fuckin’, Gunner…” The room whined.

”OK. Laaaabe, here’s yours. Put it on and tighten that strap thing. Rachel, yours. Elise. Carl. Watch out, it’s caught with mine. Let me just— Got it. Everyone got their hat thing on?”

They set the bulbous, metallic hats on their heads and adjusted the straps. Not dissimilar to small, metallic traffic cones with wires protruding from the top, they resembled punk wizards.

”Gun, we look fuckin’ ridic. Like, certifiable mental,” Carl moved to undo his strap as the other three sighed in agreement. “I’m taking this off.”

”It’s gonna work! And, if it doesn’t, you can all have a big fuckin’ belly laugh at poor Gunner for trying something new. OK?”

Rachel shrugged, and Carl put his cone hat back on. 

“I’m going to flip this switch, and it’ll be like a minute or something, and then it’ll happen.”

Elise placed her phone down.”What will happen?” 

“I don’t know. IT. Right, Three-two-one,” Gunner flicked a soundless switch, and a small green LED turned on.

For a moment, nothing happened, and two of the group opened their mouths to complain, but before they could make a sound, their ten combined eyes rolled back into their heads, and their mouths lay open and slack.

——————

Rachel wasn’t in the dining room anymore, and she wasn’t with her friends. She felt weightless and realised she was beside Carl in his dad’s car. It was night and he was driving. Alone. 

”Carl!” He didn’t react but swigged from a bottle of something and returned it between his legs. ”Carl!” It was no use, she was voiceless. And, apparently, invisible. 

She glanced at the speedometer, which was increasing and was already well above 100km/h. The road in front was dark, and there were no street lights, so she couldn’t be sure if she knew where they were or not. Trees and bushes whooshed past, and she could hear the engine whirring in the wrong gear. 

This is too fast. We’ll crash. Rachel thought.

The car jolted, and something solid went under the wheels. Rachel didn’t feel the impact, but she could see the car jump and Carl’s muscles adjust. “Fuck!” he called out and braked hard, causing the tires to squeal and the car to screech to a jarring stop. 

Is this real? 

Carl gripped the steering wheel and stared ahead at the road, taking in deep lungfuls of air. His eyes darted to the rear-view mirror, then to the bottle between his legs. 

Rachel peered back and saw a dark shape lying in the road, reddened by the car’s lights. 

She didn’t feel the car as it accelerated and left her behind.

——————

A room she didn’t recognise. It smelled of gym socks and wet towels, but outside the enormous room-spanning window, palm trees were dancing to a tropical breeze. She was in a living area with two matching doors. Bedrooms. The sounds of someone having sex came through one of them, and, not wanting to disturb, she opted for the other, hoping to find one of her friends.

Anyone but Carl. 

If the others were out there, exploring whatever this world was, she was ready to find them and talk about what she’d witnessed in Carl’s dad’s car.

There was no sound coming from the other door, and she opened it just as quietly. Inside was a gentle, rhythmic grunt, accompanied by rustling sheets and a squeaking mattress.

Lit only by the moonlight, it was hard to make out who was in the room, but as she walked further in, she could see Labe’s face. His lips were pressed together, and he was thrusting at the body of a woman who appeared to be asleep. Her head lay to the side and lolled with each thrust.

Rachel gasped and vanished.

——————

There was a door. It was white, and the name “Gunner” was printed across it in letters that felt juvenile. They were faded, and one had a peeling dinosaur sticker on it. Rachel checked up and down the corridor before opening the door, desperate to find at least Gunner inside. 

He was there, sitting on his bed, his back facing her. The relief that flooded through her was so immediate tears sprung in her eyes.

”Gunner, you’re here. Thank God. Have you seen the same things I’ve—“. He did not turn around. He couldn’t hear her: not her voice, nor the sound of her step as she approached him.

It wasn’t until she was much closer, just over his left shoulder, that she noticed what he was doing with his right hand. 

“Oh! Gunner, I’m sorry—“ Before she turned away to give him some privacy, and the world disappeared once again, she noticed the photograph he had in his hand: Gunner and Labe together, their arms around each other’s shoulders, smiling at the camera. 

——————

The lights in the new room were harsh and cold. A woman in a white coat and another in nurse’s scrubs stood beside Elise, who was sitting on a clinical bed.

”Can you confirm you’ve understood everything?” the woman in white asked in a soothing, and monotonous rehearsed empathy. “Do you understand the full consequences of this procedure and what you’re doing today?” 

Elise nodded, “I do. I just want this to be over. We want this to be over. Don’t we, Carl?”

Rachel hadn’t seen Carl, sitting on a stool behind the nurse. He was staring at a spot on the floor and looked up at his name. He stretched a meek smile at the women before they all turned away.

“OK. Lie back, and we’ll start the procedure.”

——————

”Whoa, that was so cool!” 

“Did you feel it?” 

“Yeah!”

Rachel was back in the dining room. Her mouth felt dry and her throat sore.

Her friends: Elise, Gunner, Carl, and Labe were whirring, jabbering about their shared experience.

She sat blinking and inspecting her jade fingernails as if there might be evidence of what she’d experienced underneath them. They looked the same, but different. Like the room; it too was the same, but different. It felt a little darker, a little cooler, as if a cloud had passed in front of the sun. And the friends around the circle had darkened and cooled with it. 

“Rach! You haven’t said anything. Did you love it? You look weird. Were you flying? Did you see the house too?” The questions fired at her like a machine gun. 

Their faces turned in at her, expectant.

”Yeah,” she muttered. “It was great.”