KEEP PLANNING – Hera Blake

What’s that, officer? Oh, it’s recording now? Okay. Where do you want me to start? He was my boyfriend, yeah. Only a year. No they don’t know yet. Thank you, I appreciate it. We — sorry — a moment please. Thanks… Sorry, do you have any more? Thank you. Thank you. Sorry. Please. No sugar. Thank you. No, I can go now. Yes he bought it today. We were walking back from the park along that road that has all the charity shops on it. No. Towards the centre. Right, that’s what it’s called. Well we walked that way a lot because I love those places. Excuse me? What’s that supposed to mean? Right… Anyway, I notice he’s not beside me anymore, and when I turn around he’s back twenty paces, staring at it through the shopfront. No, I don’t remember. Yes, you’d think I would, but I didn’t think it would be important at the time — he just said he had to have it, and we were off again soon. Why would I try to stop him? No, I didn’t think it was particularly out of character, we both buy weird stuff. Say again. Is that necessary? Don’t you have photos of it? I guess that makes sense. Well at first I just thought it was a normal jacket. Something about the way the light caught the metal smoothed the whole thing out, you know? It was on a mannequin. No, I don’t think it was plugged in at the shop, I don’t think I even saw the cable. Do you need to hear about the rest of the walk? He had it in an old rolling suitcase they had going cheap, so no one would have seen us with it, per se. What? You’ll have to ask the shop, I didn’t spot any. Okay. Sure. The first thing he wanted to do was show it off to me. That was when I saw it wasn’t fabric. He was surprised I hadn’t realised before. Huh? Honestly, I thought it was cool — I mean, have you seen something like that before? Very art deco. Well I couldn’t tell by looking that they weren’t decorative. No, I didn’t consider that. Right. Perhaps, Officer, that is because you are a policeman? Oh! Thank you so much! No, no, no, not at all, it’s better it’s cooled off a bit. It's perfect. Where was I? Oh yes, he definitely knew — he said so, but only after he’d put it on and paraded around in front of me. Yes, at that point I would say I was concerned, yes, but, still, I certainly wasn’t expecting… you know? The plug was hooked around a detail on the hip. UK. Obviously it worked. Not in front of me. He plugged in whilst I ran to the kitchen. How would I do that? I didn’t know he was going to do it, and I couldn’t have stopped him even if I did. Not yet, no. Priming, I guess, or something. Yeah. Just standing there. I don’t know how long exactly, but suddenly it was just so clear to me that there had been no metaphor in anything he’d said, and I was scared. Like ice. Never. I wasn’t looking there — just at him. Oh, very much so. I knew that look. Seen it in cops, too, no offence. You as well. See? Your colleague knows what I mean. Didn’t say I didn’t understand it, did I? No, I’m ready. You know the parable of The Dexterous Butcher? It’s in the Zhuangzi. Well, one shouldn’t assume. What about animal dissections? Like at school? You must be a model officer, Officer. Okay. Sure. I can do that. It must have started around the chest. Spring-loaded or something. Beetle wings unfurled straight through his body. Yeah — a moan. You think you wouldn’t? Above the kidneys, and above the heart. Horizontally. Half a foot, maybe. Pardon? I count six so far. Two more vertically, at the shoulders. That’s eight. Fourteen — when the wings circled back around. Right. His head. A full three-sixty. You’re doing it again, Officer. Twenty, not twenty-two. No. You’ve included the arms. It was straight down the middle. You got it. That’s it. Then he fell out. I don’t know. Look, I was in shock. I called as soon as I could move again. I don’t think so. I’d be surprised, it was so quiet. Well, this is why you should read more — I’d say it made no noise because it met with no resistance, no? That’s — what? You’re kidding. No. Really? How do you fuck that up? Amazing. Fine. Fine. From where? Okay. First was this arcing sweep from front to back. Correct. Then two horizontally. The torso. Another two, up from the armpit. The arc completed. Silent. One more. A vertical bisection. Sorry, a cut down his middle, Officer. Got that? That better have worked now. Why the smirk? Now he’s doing it too. You know already. When they arrived? Well I thought that maybe I hadn’t been clear enough on the phone, because the ambulance was a tad optimistic. Yeah, he was nice. A little confused. You saw the photos. How should I know? An adulation of impermanence, perhaps? I don’t think you’d understand even if he explained it to you. Indeed. Well, that’s all? No, no complaints. Besides the obvious. Great. You really got forms for this now? You can look at those? Wonderful. I think so. Well, you know where to find me. Thanks. No no, it was lovely. Bye. Goodbye. And to you too. What? What did he say? Very funny. Tossers. Oh, actually, one last thing. You took it as evidence, right — is there any chance I'll get it back? Denouement A clerical record notes that the item in question was later requisitioned by a branch of the central government, whereupon it came to serve as a prototype for a line of devices much beloved amongst certain sections of the service.

*** Hera Blake is in London. She has in the past written a number of short stories, and collaborated with the video game studio Arbitrary Metric on the script of the forthcoming Roman Sands RE:Build. 7 August 2025