The short man was stood by the ambulance bay again, smoking a cigarette like every breath was screaming “fuck you” at the damp, grey autumn sky. His hair stuck up at all angles ‘cos of him scrubbing at it every few seconds. Suck it in, blast it out. Fuck you, world.
He looked at me after a little while.
“Fag?” he said. I shook my head.
“I really shouldn’t.” Nodded towards outpatients with a grimace.
He laughed, but turned it into a cough halfway through. Proper horrible bastard cough, the kind you see shuddering through a man’s T-shirt like its full of bugs. My mum coughs like that, sometimes.
“Seen you here before.” He said. I nodded, even though it wasn’t really a question. He grinned at that, spat his fag on the floor and lit up another one.
“Cancer” he said, poking his thumb towards his chest. “Right down to the fucken bone. Should’ve started these years ago.” He moaned out a little cloud of smoke and smoothed his hair back, like he’d just been screwing. I winced a bit.
“I’d best go see my mum” I said; started walking off. Then he put his hand on my arm. It was warm and felt a bit like touching a walnut shell. Hard but smooth, even where it’s wrinkly.
“Cancer,” he said, right in close to my ear, “if it don’t get your lungs it’ll get your bones, and if it can’t get your bones it’ll have your balls off.” I felt his breath on my ear like a moth fluttering round my head. “Right down to the fucken bone.” He muttered. “To the bone!” I pulled him off me and shoved him hard.
“Fuck off man.” I tried to keep the horror out of voice, but my throat closed around the last word and I squeaked like a teenager. Then I ran, and only the short man’s cough came after me, full of bugs and rot and the smell of autumn.
Showing posts with label death. Show all posts
Showing posts with label death. Show all posts
Tuesday, 8 December 2009
Loop
Richard is on the train again. There are six hundred and thirteen people on the train. Richard knows this. He has been here before.
He also knows how they die. He has seen it before. Twenty three times. This will be the twenty fourth time. Unless it has been more than that. Or less.
The train goes over points. The jolt snaps Richard out of his doze. Inside, Richard is screaming, but his body will not do as it is told. He has tried to tell himself it is all a dream. But it does not feel like a dream. In dreams, Richard knows, you wake up before you hit the floor.
Richard claws the sleep from his eyes and stands, biting back a yawn. He has been on the train for several hours. He clutches his small executive briefcase (brown patent leather with an eight digit combination lock) to his chest and begins his stumbling way down the carriageway towards the buffet car. Once at the buffet car he will stand and grimace at the prices. After much thought he will buy one cup of steaming brown water masquerading as coffee.
On his way, Richard passes an old man asleep in his chair. There is a thin trickle of drool pooling at the side of his open mouth. It has begun to spill over onto the sleeping man’s collar. His spectacles are askew. Richard almost hates the man for his innocence. Sometimes he tries to imagine the sleeping man’s dreams. There are sheep in the field that the train passes as Richard gets to the sleeping man. Richard envies the sheep, even in the October drizzle.
Richard has to pause here. Two girls go past him, holding hands like lovers. He can see bright red nails digging into pale flesh, a birth mark on the back of the shorter one’s neck. They pass close enough to smell. Richard imagines them kissing, swapping fugitive “I love you”s in the dark. Tangled limbs and the scent of sweat and glares from disapproving parents.
The third car is full of families. Many of them have young children. Richard tries to close his eyes and shut out the noise. It achieves nothing.
The coffee is overpriced and tasteless. There is a bitter sludge at the bottom of the cup that needs to be stirred in to make it vaguely drinkable. It reminds Richard of ovaltine. The briefcase makes it difficult to hold the coffee, so Richard shifts it to under his left arm. Inside Richard is sobbing.
The train pulls up to a small station, and a man in a green sports jacket slides past Richard. He grins at Richard as he gets off the train, then wiggles his fingers at him, showing six, then one, then three. Richard looks blank, then smiles nervously.
Soon the train is moving again, and so is Richard. He moves through the family carriage, hearing snatches of conversation
“…and you’ve got to understand, no one’s perfec-“
“…nothing for you here, I said, and didn’t he just look shocked…”
“-just moved away from home and looking for work.”
“I can’t wait to see you…”
that he wishes he couldn’t hear. Richard is in the hallway. He is nearly back to his seat. The train hits another set of points. Now Richards right hand and his right leg from the knee down are covered in scalding coffee substitute. He shrieks and drops the plastic cup. The remnants of the coffee make a shifting Rorschach test on the pale gray floor of the train. Richard reels, dropping his brown patent leather briefcase with the eight digit combination lock. His back slams into the emergency brake alarm.
There are wet leaves on the track, the last traces of summer. The train jerks sideways. The sleeping man’s head collides with the window, leaving a vivid red spider web in the glass. The two girls in the rear carriage hold onto each other as the train jack knifes and flips. One man has his skull crushed by his own laptop. There are screams and crying and through it all Richard can only focus on the pain in his hand where the heat of the bitter overpriced coffee has raised little white blisters.
“Shit.” Whispers Richard. Then his head collides with the wall again and everything is mercifully empty.
Richard is on the train again.
He also knows how they die. He has seen it before. Twenty three times. This will be the twenty fourth time. Unless it has been more than that. Or less.
The train goes over points. The jolt snaps Richard out of his doze. Inside, Richard is screaming, but his body will not do as it is told. He has tried to tell himself it is all a dream. But it does not feel like a dream. In dreams, Richard knows, you wake up before you hit the floor.
Richard claws the sleep from his eyes and stands, biting back a yawn. He has been on the train for several hours. He clutches his small executive briefcase (brown patent leather with an eight digit combination lock) to his chest and begins his stumbling way down the carriageway towards the buffet car. Once at the buffet car he will stand and grimace at the prices. After much thought he will buy one cup of steaming brown water masquerading as coffee.
On his way, Richard passes an old man asleep in his chair. There is a thin trickle of drool pooling at the side of his open mouth. It has begun to spill over onto the sleeping man’s collar. His spectacles are askew. Richard almost hates the man for his innocence. Sometimes he tries to imagine the sleeping man’s dreams. There are sheep in the field that the train passes as Richard gets to the sleeping man. Richard envies the sheep, even in the October drizzle.
Richard has to pause here. Two girls go past him, holding hands like lovers. He can see bright red nails digging into pale flesh, a birth mark on the back of the shorter one’s neck. They pass close enough to smell. Richard imagines them kissing, swapping fugitive “I love you”s in the dark. Tangled limbs and the scent of sweat and glares from disapproving parents.
The third car is full of families. Many of them have young children. Richard tries to close his eyes and shut out the noise. It achieves nothing.
The coffee is overpriced and tasteless. There is a bitter sludge at the bottom of the cup that needs to be stirred in to make it vaguely drinkable. It reminds Richard of ovaltine. The briefcase makes it difficult to hold the coffee, so Richard shifts it to under his left arm. Inside Richard is sobbing.
The train pulls up to a small station, and a man in a green sports jacket slides past Richard. He grins at Richard as he gets off the train, then wiggles his fingers at him, showing six, then one, then three. Richard looks blank, then smiles nervously.
Soon the train is moving again, and so is Richard. He moves through the family carriage, hearing snatches of conversation
“…and you’ve got to understand, no one’s perfec-“
“…nothing for you here, I said, and didn’t he just look shocked…”
“-just moved away from home and looking for work.”
“I can’t wait to see you…”
that he wishes he couldn’t hear. Richard is in the hallway. He is nearly back to his seat. The train hits another set of points. Now Richards right hand and his right leg from the knee down are covered in scalding coffee substitute. He shrieks and drops the plastic cup. The remnants of the coffee make a shifting Rorschach test on the pale gray floor of the train. Richard reels, dropping his brown patent leather briefcase with the eight digit combination lock. His back slams into the emergency brake alarm.
There are wet leaves on the track, the last traces of summer. The train jerks sideways. The sleeping man’s head collides with the window, leaving a vivid red spider web in the glass. The two girls in the rear carriage hold onto each other as the train jack knifes and flips. One man has his skull crushed by his own laptop. There are screams and crying and through it all Richard can only focus on the pain in his hand where the heat of the bitter overpriced coffee has raised little white blisters.
“Shit.” Whispers Richard. Then his head collides with the wall again and everything is mercifully empty.
Richard is on the train again.
Dream
I wake from a strange dream. In it I have created a seven foot wide fried egg out of emulsion based paint.
“It’s a lot smaller than the real thing” I keep trying to tell people. Most won’t listen.
I am still in the box. It is white, and if my mind has not yet left me, a perfect cube. It is neither cold nor uncomfortable yet it makes me feel both.
Every so often a slot opens in the featureless white wall. I either eat from it, or defecate into it, depending on the height of the slot. Once I am done with my business the slot closes. It is a rectangle of change within a fixed world. I used to scream into it, but it seems a little pointless now.
Some time ago I tried to measure the angles in my container. I used hair from my head to form triangles. Totally pointless exercise as I have no protractor and my hair has a natural wave to it. I think I may have cried.
If I had the egg of my dreams I could at least form some sort of idea of the size of my cell. I can’t even remember how tall I am. I think I was moderately tall, but I do not know what that even means. It takes me four strides to pace from one corner to the other. This is useless information.
I sleep at intermittent intervals.
This time I dream of the sea. That happens a lot now. Sometimes there are seals or birds. I much prefer the seals because the birds make me think of myself, trapped in my box.
I do not know when I was put in this box, but I know that my beard has grown a lot. No one is concerned that I might hang myself with my hair. There is nothing in my box to hang myself from.
For a short time I became convinced that there were iron filings all over the walls of my box. There are not. In a way this was even more disappointing.
When I wake again, curled on the floor, I have decided to escape. There seems to be no door, and no one comes when I shout, but I have a plan.
The wall slot opens and I eat. I need my strength. I count seconds like this;
-one iron filing
-two iron filing
-three iron filing
until the hatch closes. Thirty iron filings after I move away from the wall it hisses shut. I assume it is run off some kind of sensor.
I wait a further six hundred iron filings, then three hundred more then I begin to wretch. I curl over my stomach and make choking sounds, feigning violent spasms. I clutch at my head and stumble from wall to wall. Soon the lower slot slides open. I stick my head inside and start making the appropriate noises.
The slot is small but I am desperate and undernourished, so it takes surprisingly little effort to force my shoulders into the little metal capsule, and it is almost easy to curve my back and pull my legs down onto my chest. I look like an Incan mummy.
I believe I have around twenty seconds before the hatch closes. I pray to the birds and the seals that it will be enough. No one comes running. Nothing happens. The hatch closes.
Now I am in a lightless metal coffin that stinks of disinfectant and my own filth. I am cramped and it is difficult to breathe. The metal around me is cold, getting colder. For a moment I almost wish I was back in my box. Then the world moves.
My breath is gone, ripped from my suddenly aching lungs in a burst of crystals. They shine like stars against the cold black. And then I suddenly know how the birds feel.
When the earth is viewed from above, it is a lot smaller than the real thing.
“It’s a lot smaller than the real thing” I keep trying to tell people. Most won’t listen.
I am still in the box. It is white, and if my mind has not yet left me, a perfect cube. It is neither cold nor uncomfortable yet it makes me feel both.
Every so often a slot opens in the featureless white wall. I either eat from it, or defecate into it, depending on the height of the slot. Once I am done with my business the slot closes. It is a rectangle of change within a fixed world. I used to scream into it, but it seems a little pointless now.
Some time ago I tried to measure the angles in my container. I used hair from my head to form triangles. Totally pointless exercise as I have no protractor and my hair has a natural wave to it. I think I may have cried.
If I had the egg of my dreams I could at least form some sort of idea of the size of my cell. I can’t even remember how tall I am. I think I was moderately tall, but I do not know what that even means. It takes me four strides to pace from one corner to the other. This is useless information.
I sleep at intermittent intervals.
This time I dream of the sea. That happens a lot now. Sometimes there are seals or birds. I much prefer the seals because the birds make me think of myself, trapped in my box.
I do not know when I was put in this box, but I know that my beard has grown a lot. No one is concerned that I might hang myself with my hair. There is nothing in my box to hang myself from.
For a short time I became convinced that there were iron filings all over the walls of my box. There are not. In a way this was even more disappointing.
When I wake again, curled on the floor, I have decided to escape. There seems to be no door, and no one comes when I shout, but I have a plan.
The wall slot opens and I eat. I need my strength. I count seconds like this;
-one iron filing
-two iron filing
-three iron filing
until the hatch closes. Thirty iron filings after I move away from the wall it hisses shut. I assume it is run off some kind of sensor.
I wait a further six hundred iron filings, then three hundred more then I begin to wretch. I curl over my stomach and make choking sounds, feigning violent spasms. I clutch at my head and stumble from wall to wall. Soon the lower slot slides open. I stick my head inside and start making the appropriate noises.
The slot is small but I am desperate and undernourished, so it takes surprisingly little effort to force my shoulders into the little metal capsule, and it is almost easy to curve my back and pull my legs down onto my chest. I look like an Incan mummy.
I believe I have around twenty seconds before the hatch closes. I pray to the birds and the seals that it will be enough. No one comes running. Nothing happens. The hatch closes.
Now I am in a lightless metal coffin that stinks of disinfectant and my own filth. I am cramped and it is difficult to breathe. The metal around me is cold, getting colder. For a moment I almost wish I was back in my box. Then the world moves.
My breath is gone, ripped from my suddenly aching lungs in a burst of crystals. They shine like stars against the cold black. And then I suddenly know how the birds feel.
When the earth is viewed from above, it is a lot smaller than the real thing.
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