Him

Him

“You cunt. Your’re fucking dead. Dead. Cunt. Dead. Next time you see me will be your fucking last. Yeah, run away. Cunt.” The screamed words echoed in the darkening space that lampposts invaded with orange-tinted light.

Sun shone around the gaps in his blackout-lined curtains; the corona illuminating the bedroom. He lifted his head from his mass of pillows and looked at the corona. It would be the last he would see, he was sure of it. He looked around his bedroom at the tangled mass of t-shirts, jockey-shorts and socks in the plastic boxes; the television and DVD player placed on their respective mini-tower on plastic boxes; the mountain bike besides the clothes wrack and the pile of books strewn next to his bed. His gaze lingered on the books, all bought through an obsessive compulsion. He’d lost count of the number of books he’d read, many many thousands. They’d given him more pleasure than any other thing in his life. He was proud of what he had read and bought. His collection, well mini-library, showed, to him, a sign of good taste; a thirst for learning too, albeit a meretricious and hollow thirst, if he was being honest, which, on this day, he knew he had to be. That was something he had to be today: honest, deadly honest.

The urge to coil up like a foetus inside his duvets and pillows surged through him as he thought about the acts of honesty he would perform before the evening. He wanted to go back to the warmth and comfort of his amniotic past. To go back and start again. To, to, to… It was a lie, he knew that. The warmth and security associated to the past. A trail of rose-tinted memories and feelings which time tampers with as they fade into the depths. The past is a foreign land as Hartley had said. It was also, he thought, a film projected onto a screen behind soundproof glass, which tints and obscures at will, only showing glimpses of what has been. It was gone. She was gone, the person he loved most and was in his blood. Nothing would change that.

Reflex actions kicked in and he walked to the kitchen to make a coffee and a pot of tea. The phrase ‘killing two birds with one stone’ came to him as he passed the sheet covered mirror at the end of his hallway, filled the kettle and switched it on. This he thought, was one of the reasons why he had to do it. He’d become conditioned by his inner voice to try and perform tasks as economically has possible, no wastage of time or actions. The contradiction of this impulse to the way he still acted in so many ways made him smile to himself. He’d said to himself and other people at times over the years that he was a pragmatist who tried to do things in a way which best suited his current need. For some of the important needs in life he's been as practical as rubber knife. He knew or felt that he could be practical about it, but he never had been. The question which bugged him about this lack was simple: why not? The answer also seemed simple to him too: fear.

He was afraid. He may have been born afraid, but he had no way of knowing that as he could never prove it. He’d certainly felt like he’d been afraid for his entire life so far, but he thought that there must have been periods when he wasn’t just because of the law of averages. However, fear was so familiar to him that it felt like a constant shadow illuminated from within. The kettle clicked and steam poured from its spout; he spooned a teaspoon full of freeze dried coffee into the mug, added the right level of milk and poured water up to an inch from the top. He then emptied the two used teabags from the pot into the sink and added two new ones before filling it up. He stirred in the residual of the coffee grains that floated on top of the mug a few times to make sure that it would be consistent and walked back towards his bedroom. He always left the coffee in the kitchen to cool for a while and then add more water once he’d taken a few sips. He was tempted to give into the sentimentalised thoughts of ‘it won’t change what happened to her, nothing could,’ but, he didn’t want to be sentimental. If he did think that way, he would not be able to go through with it. That cunt deserved it, pure and simple.

He’d got away with it for far too long. Sentimentalising would lead to the pushing in further of the stopper and not freeing of the genie; the black, hate-filled, self-pitying, angry essence that bottled itself up within him. The freeing would probably make his actions desperate and messy, he knew that or paralyse him to inaction as the tempest raged within. Paralysis had happened too many times in the past and when he next saw him he wanted the stopper to fly out and shatter the frame of this world. Paralysis wasn’t an option. Not this time.

He picked up his copy of Hemlock and After by Angus Wilson and settled back into his pillows the finish the final forty odd pages. Wilson’s prose sang to him as he read. He’d always been drawn to this style of writer since he’d started reading Waugh in his late teens and early twenties. It took him to a place where people lead golden lives-to him, anyway- and characters who were rich and textured, and more appealing to most of the people he had met during his adult life (he couldn’t remember many from his childhood) Hemlock, he thought, would be ideal for his purpose.

Poison made him think of lying in the suicide ward, white gowned with charcoal stains around his mouth. The pink livid scars he'd happily scored into his arms and body contrasting with the gown that covered his saved self. He didn’t want to use that method again. It would, ironically, be too certain. He knew that many people would say that this meant that he wasn’t really serious and that he didn’t really want to do it. Was that true? Today, he wanted to escape the futile reflection of his thoughts and feelings about the deed and just act, but their weight as they built up in mass daily and hourly over the last seven months was too much. Enough, though, enough. Once he faced him, looked into that hated gaze, he’d know for sure.

The bitter taste of the coffee went well with the buttery taste of the digestive. He had simple tastes, almost peasant like. This was probably due to a rather crude palate, he’d thought, but it could be down to just liking basic tastes. Although he loved eating, especially when he was younger, he’d preferred to spend his money on other things, books, DVDs, CDs and cycles. His current need for parsimony had come in handy in over last few months as it had helped him to shed weight and and spend more time running or cycling, using the dark matter inside to be better prepared for what he had to do.

He was obsessive about exercising. Actually, he was obsessive about many things; buying books, especially the works of authors he loved; films with his favourite actors or by his favourite directors, as his Woody Allen and Hitchcock collections confirmed. Once an idea about a book or a DVD had come to him, he’d had to get it. He’d had to have it now and not wait. He’d always had to have things now. Waiting was a torture.

Time was his enemy as it could snatch away his prize by some careless action of any of the people in the chain of him ordering it though Amazon, ebay or any of the other sites where he’d spent his way to some ersatz form of happiness during the past few years, and him receiving it through the letterbox. The wait had felt excruciating sometimes, pregnant as had been with the dread of loss. He was happy when his prizes arrived, but only for a few seconds or minutes. Once they were his and couldn’t be taken away, they’d been placed on shelves or chucked onto existing piles of new purchases waiting for his attention. At least they didn't end up like the tennis rackets, snooker cue and other one loved possessions from his youth that were smashed to pieces in frustration-filled rage at losing or just not getting his way.

Anticipation is often said to be the best moment, the perfect moment too as it is a time which doesn’t contain any stains of disappointment only possibly, the seeds of it. His anticipation was so high now the act could only be a disappointment, a shadow of what he desperately wanted to think and most importantly, feel as he did what that man deserved. It would be a shadow light by the flame of his rage and disgust. He remembered he first came across the Plato’s Theory of Forms whilst at university, or was it when he was reading Sophie’s World? Whichever it was, as he’d continued to exist and read more, listen more, watch more he couldn’t help but realise that, for him, he would always expect the Plato’s ideal and feel let down by what he actually experienced. This perpetual disappointment was not uniform; it was true, especially when it came to books films and music. It did apply to people and their affect on the world around them. People were a stain.

He should get things ready, set the ball in motion and shed the mossy thoughts that would slow him down.

They let you down by saying and showing one side and then delivering an impoverished other. Anger suffused disappointment ate at him when this happened. When he was younger, he wanted to understand why. As he aged and ricocheted his way through his life, he had made connections between the ideal and the actual,particularly when he’d read about structuralism and Saussure’s idea of the signifier and the signified, and the idea seemed to him to underpin all advertising with it’s promise of a fantastic life if only you brought that particular product. It was all the stuff of fantasy. It was also prevalent in books and particularly television programmes and films. It seemed to him that people liked to be deluded, to be presented with a version of life that had a certain verisimilitude, but also had a sprinkling of pixie dust/ fabulation which made it so attractive. Although he recognised this intellectually, it still didn’t stop him from lapping up all of the idealised characters and lifestyles presented to him through the screen or page. He was a sucker for the ‘will they won’t they’ relationships as it struck a chord with some need, or sense of relationships within him. He always rooted for the characters to finally get together and he always felt that extra sense of warmth and excitement when they did. He had never achieved that feeling with a woman, not when there was a chance of his liking of them becoming concrete, real. 

Returning to Wilson’s prose he tried to shake his thoughts away like mist dissipated by a strong breeze and concentrate on the characters and plot; a thought he didn’t want to dwell on as it would start a longing for the unread books on his bookshelves and the unwritten novels by his favourite writers that he hadn't got round to reading. Literature was his lifeblood. It had brought a world of people, places and events to him and animated the grey matter neglected by his school. He flamed for the world while sitting in a chair of lying on his bed. Still, being contrary was something that he had been the master of for most of his life.

His eye danced across the page without leaving a trace of what it saw in his mind. He’d lost his concentration. He put Wilson’s novel down next to him on his crumpled duvet and gauged the strength within him: a full-bass hum that vibrated events ahead. It was strong like the noise tracks make in anticipation of a high speed train that thunders past those kept safe by the level crossing barriers. He’d felt the strength many times before, but not with today's shakily-bridled intensity.

Filthy, droppings littered straw came to him as he thought back to the time when the pet rabbits he and his siblings shared had became ill and the kindest thing was for them to be put out of their misery. Tears had been hot on his cheeks and flowed freely. The knot in his stomach was part the feeling of loss and part guilt over the neglect he had shown towards them which meant that they’d die at the hands of their next door neighbour, Harry, who said he’d take care of it. The tears were a sign of his sorrow at the neglect he had shown that had brought Sandy, Penelope and Benny to their pitiful state but also a salve to the post fact, avoidable, guilt festering within him. The guilt process would remain a constant presence within him, like a port wine birthmark on the inside. 

He’d been marked as a nuisance from his very first week as secondary school, a legacy, no doubt, passed on by the ‘concerned’ teachers in his junior school. He was a pain; he’d known that even then. He could talk the hind legs off of a donkey, horse, giraffe, elephant and any of its other quadruped brothers who’d happen to be in the vicinity when he was in full flow. The words were connected to volcano of energy inside, the lava spewed out in a stream, often chaotically. His unfiltered chat and silence his teachers his teachers insisted upon - mostly to his angry annoyance and sometimes bewilderment - were not compatible, like a 99 with an uncooked sausage instead of a flake. Funnily enough, he’d probably have gobbled that down when he was in full flow, chomping down the bites of vanilla ice cream and pig’s foreskin without any thought.

The need to talk was still there, especially when it was a subject that interested him or he knew enough about to make his contribution to the discussion worthwhile. Giving the thoughts he had about what he’d seen, read, heard or experienced was what truly made him fell alive. He buzzed with them. Vibrated. The high he felt when reading about Freud, deconstruction, abstract expressionism and other ideas exceeded the high he had felt when he spent most weekends fucked out of his mind on ecstasy, speed, cocaine or very occasionally LSD. He’d taken drugs to fulfil the role he’d given himself within his group of friends as the hard man who would not lose control, no matter what amount of narcotics he’d taken. He had to take more than his friends to prove that he was superior to them in some way, as he was not as cool, relaxed or at ease with other people. He’d also, he knew, taken them to block out the pain, guilt and fear he’d felt since his her death. It worked too, for a few precious hours. But, they didn’t last. What they left behind was an even deeper pit of bleakness where his fears could fester and grow.

Sound filled the living room as the DVD player automatically played the tracks on his red Sony mp3 player. Cate Le Bon’s Me Oh My began to play as he walked back out of the room to pour himself another cup of tea. The hall was filled with light. His bikes were organised against the wall, waiting to be taken out and used. They would be again, he hoped, but not by him. He’d never really used them anyway. They were, like most of the things he had bought, objects of obsession; things that he had to get at the time because he thought he wanted and needed them. The desire he’d felt for them was so strong that he was a man possessed. He certainly couldn’t feel at peace until they were his. The hope would begin with each new purchase and would expire as the item was listened to, watched or read and then realisation, soon followed by disappointment would return and the gradual slide into that person he was.

The tea tasted good, of the way life should have been. He loved to drink pot after pot when he’d gone alone to visit his nan. She refused to use tea bags and the ritual of adding the mild and using the strainer help over the cup became part of the peace of the visits. She’d told him time and time again to lay the strainer on the rim of the cup – never a mug – but he would play the pouring-without-spilling game whenever she in her bedroom or in the lounge secretly drinking her glasses of sherry and pretending that everything was fine. Pretending worked for many people; ignoring the unwanted and heading for the wished for or desperately needed. The early morning cup of tea was best, given after spending the night in the spare bedroom and having the space to himself. The time was jarring, but the sound of Classic FM coming from his granddad’s stereo system in the lounge and the orange-tainted street light that beamed through the kitchen window and along the hall into the single bed he’d sleep in made the energy coiled inside vibrate peaceably. Peace would be his again soon.

Orange-tainted street light formed the frame of his curtains now. Day had passed and the evening was here. Thinking, he now saw, was done. Over with. He opened the bottom draw of his bedside cabinet and pulled out the old and faded Tesco’s carrier bag. Holding the handles, it unfurled itself and he widened his arms to look at what lay at the bottom. It still had the stain of her blood on it, he knew, he bore the scars of that. The handle felt cold and familiar.

Naked he walked out into his hallway and stopped. The orange-tinted frame from his bedroom was replicated by the curtained window running most of the hallway's length. He turned and looked at the lilac sheet hanging from the wall, covering what he must now face. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Took a few more. The stopper, he had to release the stopper. Piercing blue eyes and pale freckled skin stained by fear filled his vision. The stopper was out, his world in pieces around him.

Four calm strides and one sweeping arm movement and he was there, staring fully at him.