Greyscale

The upward surge of the escalator exactly matches the downward nosedive of my morale. And I am in an express elevator. Through the glass, I gaze sightlessly at the grey expanse before me. Grey clouds crush down upon soaked a grey landscape. And industrial heaven. Or a natural nightmare. The inevitable scrawl etched in the wall says, 'Abandon all who enter here.' Dante had nothing on this guy. An impeccable sign fading quickly from sight screams a colourless DEAD.

I'm heading to the top floor, the lobby of the place. A place my tribe fears, but cannot escape. I got caught pulling a wheelie in my parking lot. A wheelie my mates would have laughed at. The dark uniformed policeman at my door told me, 'Sir, the security camera recorded some incriminating pictures of you yesterday. How do you plead?' I shrug and say, 'er... persuasively?'

His black glasses hide any hint of humour as he pushed a clipboard and a black stylus into my hand. 'You are guilty. Sentence is mandatory enrolment at DEAD. Please fill out the form and click accept at the bottom.' I wasn't given much choice.

The LED display rolls over from 299 to DEAD. This is where I get off. The doors spit me out into a artfully decorated lobby. The grainy black and white pictures show people doing things in an orderly, subdued manner. Like standing in queues. Or shuffling slowly along sidewalks. If it weren't for the ominous feel of the place, I'd laugh out loud.

A simple sign says Detox 0612: Eliminating Addictions & Disease. DEAD. The grey slab above me is the roof and I'm instinctively looking for the way up. There's fresh air there. But there's no way there, I know. The DEAD board voted to close off all access to the roof permanently last month after the latest high-profile suicide.

All the news channels covered it. 'We have Richard Chevron on the site live. Richard, what is happening there?' 'Hi Graeme, as you can see behind me, the master mason is mixing up the new micro-silicate cement for the plaster which will block the door you see. That door leads to the roof where just last Tuesday, a leather clad couple kissed for the last time and...' 'Thanks, Richard.'

I return to the silence of the present time and look at the two dark corridors leading off on both sides. Neither looks promising. Then, out of the darkness on my left, a chap rolls up me in a wheelchair and says slowly, morosely, 'three crashes.'

Some sort of code? Something happened to someone called Three? Without looking up, he points to his wheelchair. I gather that the background grey person whirring up to me was an ex-motorcyclist as well. Feeling slightly more human thanks to that. Then I realise that for the first time in my life, I've thought of myself as an ex-motorcyclist. I ask him where he'd crashed. He says, 'Bathroom.' Despite the gloom, I smile. He looks up, as if to catch the smile. Like you look up to catch that solitary ray of sunshine after months of endless overcast skies. Then he returns to staring at his feet.

Without a hint of movement, he turns around and starts back into the gloom he materialized from. I just make out the sign on the chair back. DEAD: This way please.

The eerie feeling of colourless illumination that follows you around settles in. Lights blink on for us. Switching silently off when we've passed. The walk down his airless, endless passage could lead anywhere. To a parallel universe. Or to a blank wall. Neither would be a surprise. It's a blank wall.

Which makes a faint grinding noise and slides neatly out of the way. A virtual screen hands in mid air, blinking '0212 Rearset. Welcome to DEAD. Addiction: Two wheels.'

I fill out the basic information, it scans my eyes to ensure I'm really me. Then the screen goes black. It offers me a parting repartee. Wheel free you, we assure you. By order.

What was that? Government issue humour? Then the room begins to darken and a machine-made hum starts to rise. The room goes inky black and the hum rises to a crescendo of sound. Then the lights switch back on. For the first time, I notice the racks and racks of machinery, wiring and dark screens arrayed from floor to ceiling. All with prominent DEAD logos. Wheelchair clears his throat and carefully asks, 'It says here you've had your motorcycle license for fifty-two years. But you have no tattoos and no scars...' He leaves it hanging. Right between a question and a statement. 'Don't spend that much time in bathrooms anymore.'

Life flashes in his glazed eyes for a moment. Almost as if I remind him of someone he knew. Someone who was him in another time. He looks at his feet and says, 'They're all jokers when they arrive, aren't they?' He hands me a set of dog tags and a plastic id card and points to the door. 'Follow instructions' Then he breaks into the bleak smile of the victorious captor, 'Soon you'll be human.'

A series of floating arrows leads me to a bed. I can't spot the light, but the bed seems to float in a sea of darkness. It's grey as well. A photo of this would be worth millions at an art exhibit. I lie back in bed, reaching unconsciously into my pants for the bike keys, eyes searching for a place to hang 'em up.

Hell breaks loose and almost snaps my hand off. The dark solidified into an armour clad person solid who grabs the keys from me. Before I can decide where it's a machine or a person, he holds them up to his unseen eyes and mutters, 'Jap bike.' Without another word, or sound, he's gone. As are the keys. I am alone now.

Time passes.

A faint buzzing in the id card wakes my up. A flashing neon sign hangs in the darkness. 'Please proceed for Detox Stage I.' As I step towards it, it moves like the horizon, staying just ahead. I enter a maze of windowless, doorless grey corridors. I'm lost, but for the sign. Then, with the dramatic flair of an amusement park tunnel of horrors, lights flood the room I've entered. The impersonal photons fall on acres of painted metal. It feels like I'm alone at Guggenhiem's Art of the Motorcycle. This room has everything. A 3D, full-immersion tableau of motorcycle history. Adrenaline tucks in and rolls into my blood at full speed. Then a frail, bespectacled old man in a grey coat says, 'This is the last time you will see a motorcycle. You have ten minutes.' I ignore him.

The time ends almost with his words. He waves callously and the bikes fade back into the darkness. The old man and I are suspended in mid air, it would seem, in a grey circle of an uncomfortably small diameter. Then, hands come searing out of the dark and pin me into the cold grasp of a dentist's chair. The old man nods and I feel a burning tingle in my neck that spreads like fire into my whole body. His voice floats in the dark. 'That's auto adrenaline blocker. It inhibits adrenaline production by hurting you everytime your glands become active. Soon your body will forget how to make that most harmful of bodily chemicals.' I try to fight out of the chair, but I can't move. Not a finger, not a wiggle of a toe can I muster.

His assistant says, 'Don't bother, AAB takes some time to settle in. The paralysis will pass...' He takes a deep breath and repeats for the umpteenth time, 'Everytime you get excited, you'll burn all over. Like a thousand needles in your skin. Or a million insects having a gang war under your skin. It's not pretty. If you don't calm right down, you'll claw your flesh off your bones. Just like all motorcyclists should, if you ask me.'

Blood rushes to my temples. I can feel a familiar throb. And a new burning sensation follows it. The needles are beginning to prick. And the beetles sound angry. The angry buzzing in my ears is disorienting. The man's not bluffing.

Then I realise the reason for DEAD's hundred percent success record. There have been no escapes, no failures and no person ever admitted has left the building to return to two-wheeled sin. No one has even attempted it.

I'm led to the elevator without ceremony or haste. I step inside and floor literally drops from under me. We descend rapidly to the ground floor and in a minute, I'm back outside. Not that it makes any difference, it's as colourless, if better lit, than inside. The huge DEAD building rises sharply from my feet into the sky. It dwarfs me. And is somehow killing my spirit as well.

I spot a security guard and ask him, 'What's next.' He leans forward, takes a look at my tags and smiles, 'Go home.'

What? It's done? He shrugs, 'It's just the injection, plus the waiting. The rest of the building is a call centre, but they don't like to advertise that. The place is full with people who have two names, thirty-five accents, no brains and talk for a living.'

That's just what I needed, a cynic. But he decides to be helpful. I listen to him tell me where the bus stops are, where the metro stops and where I can get a free government issue Segway.

I'm walk to the bus stop when a orange spot burns a hole into my peripheral vision. I spot my bike, still standing in the lot. And notice that I'm scratching my forearm. Anticipation? The burning returns.

I walk towards it and the sensation amplifies. It makes me walk funny, but I'm not about to stop now.

Then, two guys walk into the parking lot with what looks like a giant hoover from the other side. The needles turn white hot as I tell myself that my intuition is wrong. They begin vaccuming up the parked bikes with nonchalant skill, moving steadily down the line to my tangerine dream. My nails are pulling up strips of my own skin when my bleeding, burning palm returns to its usual place on the throttle.

The hoover men are so close, I can hear them talking, 'So John, last night, on Bored Housewives, the brunette tells her neighbour that she got real excited last night. Non-sexually, goes without saying. Her husband called the cops and had her arrested. The plumber bailed her out...'

A sucking sensation fills up any sensory space my aching body leaves out and I feel the bike being prised out of my hands with unflinching, unyielding force. But I am not letting it go. Not today.

'Hey did you notice anything out of the ordinary today?, John?'
'Not a thing. Why?'