Tuesday, October 09, 2007

A MOMENT.


ThE MOMENT.

I had decided to leave myself behind. I had decided that I was no longer a viable option, but something always happened to stop me. A telephone call, the chance encounter of an old girlfriend. It was always difficult to decide when the time was right to escape from my life. This time, I decided to escape by car. I had seen another of my selves do this and never heard from him again: it didn't look that hard. I remember the day well, windy, droplets of rain fell onto the windscreen as I sat in the car, ready to drive off.
Then I was on the motorway, and then I was at the petrol station. I felt hungry so I bought myself a chicken sandwich. Normally these things give me a miniscule amount of pleasure, this time it felt dull.
I found a small slip road off the motorway. The road dipped and I could make out a stone farmhouse. I thought for a moment of using the drive, but it seemed too close to the farm. I didn't want the farmer to disturb me. I felt that would be very embarrassing.
So I drove on. I saw a lay by. The road was quiet and I felt at ease, so I stopped there. I got the black plastic bag from the boot and threw it into the bushes. Then I sat back in the driver's seat. I unwrapped a packet of camel cigarettes and began to smoke one, thinking of nothing in particular, just enjoying the unnatural taste of death and enhanced flavourings. I wanted to have that pleasure before driving towards my new life.
But, typical of my luck, another car drove up to stop behind mine, a blue Ford Fiesta. In it was an elderly couple. I could see them in my mirror eating sandwiches from a plastic box. How long would they be? They seemed to chew very slowly. They did not talk much however. I calculated perhaps ten minutes. Boredom.
Then I saw the man nod towards the bushes, and the woman adjusts her glasses to see a little better. They had spotted the black plastic bin liner. I watched the old man get out of his car and go to the bag, I watched him peer into it. Then with doddering steps the old man came towards my car. He tapped on my window. I felt myself turning crimson with embarrassment. What did he think of the contents? The contents of my old existence.
I tried to ignore him, gazing straight ahead intently, but I could sense his face peering through the glass at the side of the door at my profile, and hear his tapping again. The woman the appeared. I could hear her voice.”Is it his bag? Ask him, if it his bag. See if he knows who it belongs to”.The man opened the door. What a fool I was, I should have locked it!”Excuse me, but did you see that bin liner over there, is it yours?” said the man.”NO, NO, nothing to do with me”, I said”There's something very strange inside it”, said the man”it may be a bomb”, said the woman”do you have a mobile phone? So we can call the police please”, asked the man. I gave him my phone.
I stared ahead, trying to ignore them. Then I felt a sudden burst of resentment and despair within me and I started to weep, loud howling sobbing, my inner core finally releasing the years of contempt and anguish I had held inside for so long. They called the police- I have to say I resented that, after all, I was harming no-one other than myself: I loathe busy-bodies and I spent the best part of the following six months discussing the human condition with an psychiatrist, who smelt of cheese, too bad the cheese had turned blue. He looked like a piglet and I hated the way he would answer my questions with a question. I disliked him a great deal and made sure that anything I told him about my childhood and experiences of bestiality helped him think that I was becoming cured.
A few months later I found myself with a little money in my pocket and an abnormally cheerful mood: I had recently sold a painting and Battersea Park looked delightful as I was wondering quite what to do, it suddenly occurred to me: I should get myself a cat. If I had a cat, then I would not want for company: why, the cat could live in my studio, kept in a cage, it could not escape me if it wished to. And it would be sure to keep the mice away, for I would teach it to hunt and kill.
At Battersea Cats and Dogs home. I viewed many cats, so many unwanted cats, it made me miserable looking at them. I asked the girl for cat with a strange personality.”There is this one,” she said.”I see,” I said. The cat was medium in size, its grey fur was dazzling, an aristocrat of the cat world. It was missing one eye and had one bent ear. It also had an odd twitch and a stare that would equal medusas. The girl and myself discussed in length, the cat’s history, its background, its likes and dislikes. We also discussed how I might be able to obtain this cat. I filled out the various forms. I was told to expect a home visit, to see if I was a suitable candidate to adopt this cat, but I found myself falling into a daze, and I wandered out the rescue centre without a cat and a vague recollection that they were coming to visit me.
The day had turned sallow. Thoughts began to trouble my mind. Such thoughts! That the world was melting, consumerism was consuming us all, all politicians are evil scum. Teenagers with guns, where did they get them? Should I get myself a sniper rifle? Is it wrong to look at girls and think of strawberries and cream? Would anyone ever love me? And copulation with a handicapped girl would it be an experience? Would that girl develop an interesting erotic skill to compensate for her handicap? Becoming a fine lover of dark desires and weird positions? Or cultivate contortions that with patience and study would nurture her talents to glorify herself and the experience of others?
That I myself may become a victim of misfortune, or a depression, or an act of gross indecency, and that self-same crippled girl whom I had desired, and, in her deformity, regarded me so woefully, she offered her to me to give me consolation that she was the only type of female that could tolerate me, that other girls found me to repulsive, too disgusting and weird to have a relationship with.
Oh yes, indeed, the world was full of strange events like that.
Why, I had even encountered a couple living in my street and who had arrived home to find a bin liner, oozing blood in the middle of their living room floor. What purpose was there in that discovery? And inside the bag contained five severed toes! Why, it seriously disturbed them, they talked about it for days afterwards, they even mentioned it passing strangers. And the cleaning that had to be done to remove the blood from the Persian carpet, it was so tedious and expensive! All that trouble because of a bloodied bin liner!
I met them at the newsagents: they stood close together; the trauma had served to unite them in horror. They stood there in a dim silence - overtaken by a sullen mood, resenting a world that could so dishonour their living room floor. I asked them if they had reported the incident to the police, but they did not, I think, want to talk about it. "A terrible thing to happen!" I said, in what I hoped was a sympathetic manner.
In truth, however, I feel ill at ease with people and from then on and I am sure that the atmosphere that prevailed in the street where I live, became dark, uneasy, a callow silence on the pavements, as if we were all guilty, but unsure quite of what. The ladies who lived at number 13 and number 11 were forever gossiping in mumbles over their hedges and watching the, now notorious, front door of the bin liner house.
And after an event like that, you become fearful of black bin liners, you may become a statue, you might simply fade into the shadows, you may get hit by a bus, or die quietly in the middle of a dream about sex and chocolate éclairs or be kidnapped by Satanists for an orgy. There are many that take their lives in despair: it seems romantic but normally the lives of these suicides were merely trapped by petty conformities and misunderstandings; debts, chronic illnesses, the abuse of a parent, the bizarre effects of drugs. Truly, there was no glamour to their deaths.
I awoke from my thoughts to a rustling sound in the cupboard under my stairs, muffled and pitiful. I opened the door and watched the black bin liner wriggle. I picked up my baseball bat and smashed it down upon the bag. It screamed a muffled cry and became silent. I watched some red liquid ooze from the bottom of the bag. Then I went to my garden shed to get my shears. I had more toe digits to leave for my neighbours and number 13 was next on my list.

But what about the cat you may wonder. I decided it was not a good idea to receive a visit from the Battersea cats and dogs home and I called them to tell them that I was planning on leaving the country. I had decided to leave myself behind. I had decided that I was no longer a viable option. That this time, nothing was going to stop me.

The End

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