Eventually (the doctor would not be proud of me), I give up.

I spend the next few hours tramping round various small galleries in a distant section of the bridge, some distance from my usual haunts. The galleries are dark and musty, and the attendants look surprised that anybody should come to view the exhibits. Nothing satisfies me; the works all look tired and spent; paintings washed out, sculptures deflated. Worse than the poor execution, though, is the downright unhealthy preoccupation with distortions of the human form which all the artists appear to share. The sculptors have twisted it into a bizarre resemblance of the structures of the bridge itself; thighs become caissons, torsos either caissons or structural tubes, and arms and legs stressed girders; section of bodies are constructed from riveted iron painted bridge red; tubular girders become limbs, merging into grotesque conglomerations of metal and flesh like tumorous miscegenistic eruptions of cell and grain. The paintings exhibit much the same preoccupations; one shows the bridge as a line of misshapen dwarfs standing in sewage or blood, arms linked, another depicts a single tubular formation, but with meandering blue veins picked out beneath the ochre surface, and small trickles of blood coming from each rivet hole.

Beneath this part of the bridge is one of the small islands which support every third section.

These islands are regular only in their approximate size and spacing; otherwise they vary in shape and use. Some are riddled with old mine workings and underground caverns, others almost covered in the decaying concrete slabs and circular pits of what look like old gun emplacements. Some support ruined buildings, either old pit-head works or long-crumbled factories. Most have a small harbour or marina at one end, and a few are quite without any sign of human habitation or construction at all - mere lumps of green, covered in grass and scrub and green seawrack.

They share a mystery though, and that is simply how they come to be here in the first place. They look natural, but together, seen in all their linear regularity, the islands betray themselves with a pattern, an unnatural order that makes them even stranger than the bridge they intermittently support.

I toss a coin out of the window on the tram home; it goes glittering away, heading for the sea, not an island. A couple of other passengers throw coins too, and I have a brief, absurd vision of the waters below eventually being filled with thrown coins, the whole firth silting up with the monetary debris of spent wishes, surrounding the hollow metal bones of the bridge with a solid desert of coin.

In my apartment again, before going to bed, I watch the man in the hospital bed for a while, staring at his grey and grainy image so hard and for so long that I almost mesmerise myself with that blank, still image. Rooted in the evening darkness, eyes fixed, I seem to be looking not at a phosphorescing screen of glass, but a bright metal plate; an engraving lined and stamped on a shining, large-grained slab of steel.

I wait for the phone to ring.

I wait for the flight of planes to return.

Then a nurse appears; the same nurse, complete with metal tray. The spell is broken, the illusion of the screen as plate, fractured.

The nurse readies the syrings, swabs the man's arm. I shiver, as though that alcohol, that spirit, chilled me; chilled all my flesh.

Quickly, I switch off.

Four

It wiz this majishin that geez this thing, cald it a familyar soay did an it sits on ma showdder and gose jibber fukin jibber oll bludy day it gose. I cany stand the dam thing but am stuk with it I supose an it wi me to, cumty think ov it. The majishin sed it woold help me; sed it woold tel me things, which it duz alright, but I thaught he ment sum usefyull things no a lode a shite oil day. He wiz trying tay bribe me becose he thaught I wiz goantae kill him, whitch I wiz, an he sed if I didnae hed give us this reely intirestin an usefyull familyar tay keep watch at niyht an giv us oll that advyce an that. So I sed fairnuf pal, lets see whit it can dae then, so he gose tay this shelph an gets this wee box an puts sum stuf intae it an ses sum o thae wurds an that (I wiz watchin him, ken, in case he tryd enythin, had ma sord at his throate in case he tryd tae turn me intae sumthin wee an nastie, but he didnae). Insted he brings oot this funny wee thing like a cat or a munkey, aw cuverd in blak fur wi a pear aw wee blak wings on its bak an cros-eyes, an he stiks it on ma showdder an ses 'Thare you go my boy,' an I wiz a bit leery ken, cos it wiz an ugly wee bugir an sittin gie cloase tae ma heid, but a stil had ma sord at the majishin's throte, so I lookd at this skely-eyed thing an sed 'whare's this auld bugir's gold then?' an it sed 'in the old trunk behind the screan, but its a majik trunk; it looks empty, but yoo can feel the gold and itill becum visibil when you take it out' Majishin just aboot had a fit soay did; I maid him go an get the gold, an it was true whit the familyar had sed so I asked it whit I shoold do now an it sed 'kill this auld bugir for a start off, heeze a triky custimur.' So I kilt the majishin but the fukin thing's nevir sed enythin usefyull ever since, just blethers oil day long.

' ... of course, according to the preceptive rules of the New Symbology, as characterised in the Grande Cabale, the tower signifies retreat, the limitation of contact with the real world; philosophical extrospection. In short, nothing to do with the literally infantile preoccupation with phallic symbolism I mentioned earlier. Indeed , except within the most morally constipated of societies, when people want to dream about sex, they dream about sex. Actually the combination of the cards La Mine and La Tour in the minor game is considered particularly important and the significance of the tower over the pit does have a sexual resonance for predictive purposes which the simple combination of retreat and the fear of failure would not appear immediately to imply, but -'

See whit I meen? Drive ye daft, so it woold. I cany get the wee basturd aff ma showldur niythir on account of its got these claws inside me, biride in ma flesh so they are. Their no soar untill I try takin the thing aff, but soar enuoph then alright. Canny even stab it or bash it with a rok on acount of its ded adjile an starts screemin an bawlin fit tae raze the deid an jookin and jumpin aboot and me triing tay bash it or stik ma dirk doon its throate but tay no avale.

Enyway, Ive dun alright sinse it took up with me, so maybay its lucky after oll. I wrekin it disney wurk right without a majishin around, but that's tuff; Im a sordsman no a bleading wizerd after oll. Enyway, like I say, Ive dun alright sinse it took up with me an its taut me a load a new wurds an that, so am a bit mair ejucatit these days ken. Aw aye, I forgot to mencion that if I try takin it aff ma sholder or if a dinny feed it itill tolk ded loud oil nihgt an keep me awake, so seein it disnae eet mutch an its been luky fir me I just leeve it thare now an we get on as wel as can be excpected. Wish it didnae shite doon ma bak thow.

'Interesting point actually; I mean I'm sure you won't have noticed it, being so single-minded - well, almost single-celled if the truth were told - but in the lands below the situation is quite the reverse of the arrangements at this rarefied altitude (have you noticed you're out of breath? No, probably not). There, in the Elysian pastures of this quintessentially verdant locale, the women command, and the men remain the size of babies all their lives.'

Its jibbering agen, an hears me just aboot at the tap o this fukin big towur, ma sord curverd in blud, soar arm whare wun o them gards cot me at the gate erlyier an am lost in this maze with oll these wee rooms an am wurryin aboot that fyre I started farthur doon coz I can smel the smoake an Id rather no be roseted alive thankyou very mutch, an the dam things bletherin away as useyull. Ill nevir catch that old kween at this rate, an her with her majik powirs an oll to. Anuthir o them gards cum at me but I kilt him nae bothir an jumpt ower him, stil lookin fur the way up an switherin whitch way tae go.