I really don’t know.

For Katt

Cognitive Dissonance

Cell

Somewhat.

Phonecall

I sat back in my chair, and watched him tap his feet. Right, left, right, right, left, right, left, left, left, left. An uneven beat to music I couldn’t hear. Every time the door opened, he raised his head a few inches, scanning for whoever he was waiting for.  His stained smoker’s fingers joined in the percussive sound, a little pitter patter against the metal chair out of time even with his own feet. I wished I could hear his song, fill the gaps in his drumming. The tension of his expectation was nearly unbearable, a cheese wire stretched tight across the room. Others were beginning to notice, I could tell. The old lady on the other side of him had been staring intently into the middle distance, but now even she was focussed on his arrhythmic feet, tracing their motion was her tired eyes. He was looking at the door now, not trying to hide the interest, no sense now of that field of insolence that he had so studiously been projecting. Whatever this moment was, you could see the expectation changing him. He seemed to be coiling himself like a spring, preparing for motion, for movement. Then,  for an instant, his feet stopped and his fingers fell silent. A change of song, a different beat. The old lady and I caught each other staring at him, looking away in embarrassment. By the time I looked back, he was on his feet, making a bee line for the door. I glanced over, quickly trying to guess which of the new arrivals he was meeting, but he surprised me. Ducking through them, he headed through the door, and out into the night. Cursing myself, I  realised I’d been in the right place all along. My idle people-watching had distracted me from my true purpose. My reason for being here was sprinting down the street and out of my control. I jumped up, and fought my way through the crowd. I made it out to the street, and just managed to catch sight of him sprinting round a corner about a hundred yards down the street. He moved fast, much faster than I would have imagined. I took off in pursuit, abandoning the newspaper in my hand to the wind. The sound of music from the bar faded into silence behind me as I rounded the corner. I couldn’t see him, but kept going, letting the sound of running feet guide me. By the time I rounded the fourth corner though, they too had faded with nothing, and I paused to get my breath back. I stared around, and tried to get my bearings. I realised I was looking down a steep hill, leading far out of the city, a trail of street lights leading into the featureless night. I had no idea I was so close to the outskirts. The chase was pointless. There was no way of knowing where he’d gone. If he’d gone off the road, he could be anywhere. I’d never see him. I started walking back the way I’d come, resisting the urge to light a cigarette. Just as I reached into my pocket for my lighter, the shrill tone of a mobile phone ringing pierced the silence.

ooo

delany

thing

The Wait

hunt

Church

Phonecall

Memory lane.

Never Enough

Eyelikething. It looks a bit like an eye.

Hope not.

Trashed. For Saskia’s birthday card.

Thing.

Boo.

I look up, and glare at my reflection.

Evil.

The knowledge sears my delicate sensibilities. It burns away every fanciful image I once had of myself, every cheerful fantasy of the man I had hoped I was.

Bad.

The shame bites deeper. I smash my hands into the mirror; beat my head against the sink. Lose myself in a moment of aggression against myself, against my world. It doesn’t help. My hands ache, my eyes sting and the pain inside grows ever stronger.

Wrong.

I feel like I am seeing myself for the first time. My darkest fears have been realised. I am the man whose morals flit away in the night, leaving a hollow being, a shameful lie.

Easy.

That’s what scares me, what torments me most. This wasn’t some crime of passion; this wasn’t some cathartic release of powerful emotion. It was an empty gesture, a cold offence against nature. Defenceless, even to myself. I pour myself another mini-bar drink, and wonder into the bedroom. The television taunts me with its shrill joy, a vapid screaming pleasure meant for normal people. My mask was broken now. I had proven to one and all who I was, and I wept for the skin I had shed.

I stared blankly at the dull walls of the room. I finished the drink, my shaking hands almost missing the table as I replaced the cup. The booze was a failed attempting to knock myself out, use the alcohol to avoid the inevitable guilt-ridden insomnia. The nausea was too much though, my body needed little help to sicken with itself. I flicked the lights and the television off and lay down. The darkness and the silence compound my fractured brain. I start seeing what I did, moment by moment, awful freeze-frame by awful freeze frame, the theatre of my mind transforming my crime into my punishment over and over. For the glimpse of a second, it all starts to lose meaning, to become just objects moving against each other, adrift from any objective judgement. For a moment, I am nothing, what I did means nothing; I am adrift in an existential paradise. My pleasure brings fresh waves of guilt, and I find myself adrift in shame once more.

Sleep never came, or if it did my dreams matched my thoughts so closely as to be indistinguishable. Certainly none of the hoped for refreshment and fresh perspective. Everything looked the same in the morning light. Just as broken as before. The view out of my window was grey and featureless, the city’s dingy atmosphere and the morning fog combining to give the exterior world an endless feel.

I checked out of the hotel. Paying my bill, tipping the help, I realised I was I playing a part. Slipping easily back into a role I hadn’t even realised I’d been playing my whole life. Interacting with people, being forced to hold my chipped mask back up to my face, I could hold off the gnawing emptiness I felt inside. Necessity forced me to fit back into my old mould, and maintain. I may not be still one of them, but I could pretend.

Once back on the road, the internalising reawakened, and I found it difficult to drive. My concentration flicked constantly between the road and my self-hatred. After a very close collision with a tiny hatchback, I forced myself to stop the car and have a walk. I needed to focus. I had a long way to travel, an enormously long way, and this wouldn’t do. I walked down the little high-street I’d parked on, and found a little newsagent. On a whim, I bought myself some cigarettes. I’d quit six months ago, but that seemed meaningless now. The person who quit, who was trying to change his life, get fitter, more productive, better, was long gone now. Leaning against my car, smoke idly drifting out of my nostrils and into the slow breeze, I tried to calm down. The nicotine helped, but what made the difference was picturing what would happen if I didn’t make it to my destination.

Back on the road, I turned my music up as loud as it could go, and that helped to. I was able to lose myself in the pulsating rhythms, let my mind slip easily into that easy, loose driving gear.

Wastey

Probabley fallout inspired, I guess.

ea1475

Fever Dreams

The last shot fired, and the battlefield fell silent.

Sullen smoke clung to the dark ground as the final fires burnt out.

I stared into the empty eyes of my dead comrades, lost in a nightmare dream.

I stood. The pain in my leg sheered into my fragile brain, but I fought it, and stood nonetheless.

Gasping from the fetid smell of death, I hunted movement with my eyes.

Had we won? Had we beaten back the incursion? Did it matter?

I let the pain in, began to fall, let myself fall.

He woke with a start, dripping with sweat, sticky on the sheets. Panting with the effort, he forces himself to rise, throws himself into the shower.

Under the scalding water, he feels reborn, if only for a moment. Stepping out, the weight of the world falls across his shoulders once more, the weight of the dream penning his mind in on all sides. Never a free moment, never a silent second.

Pulling on his discarded clothes, he watches the rain pound again the dirty glass blankly. The first cigarette of the day is accompanied by the ritual coughing and spluttering. A cup of coffee is procured, and he begins to plan the day ahead.

I remember the day the skies caught fire.

I remember the day the curtain of death fell across this land.

I remember the infant screams, the wretched calling for the damned.

I remember the first days of this god-awful war, when we found out who we really were.

I remember seeing the dead, and wishing to be among their number.

I remember the eyes, dead but for the rage, the pain.

I remember, I remember, I remember.

Gasping, he looks up from the table, spilt coffee dripping down. How long that time? Desperate, he searches for a clock, a watch. How much did he lose? His watch lies smashed, its time long told.

Shaking all over, he stands up. He finds the energy to walk, stepping slowly to the door. He thinks of the fresh air, the cool air, its soothing effects, and redoubles his efforts. Images flashing across his shattered mind, he reaches for the doorknob, his escape.

Almost falling through the wooden portal, he stumbles into the rain, onto the road. The falling water hides the sound of his heavy breathing. It fails to mask the sound of his body crumpling onto the concrete, his legs giving way, a sickening crunch as his knees impact.

I fight to stand again, to take a final glance.

The breaths scream down my scarred throat as I pull myself up.

Delusional for a moment, I imagine the smell of smokes and coffee, and I smile.

As I stare over the top of my grim foxhole, the smile burns away. I see the space where humanity used to be.

I begin my trek to anywhere, over the empty horizon were once a city stood.

I search for company, but only death and the dead are here.

I remember a dream of waking up.

Bad Times

Blarhg, last one, possibly

Sixth. this is going well!

fifth.

Fourth. Wow.

ang, my gods, a third.

Huzzah, part two