From a lift with a defective neon-lit ceiling panel through twenty storeys
pre-cast in concrete, painted a range of pastel shades in the early 90s; where
the doors will jar themselves apart so you might shuffle across the carpet taking
a left and then two rights; opening the security door, tugging and playing the
stubborn lock to enter a darkened apartment which smells of tobacco and over-the-counter
remedies.
Falling partly clothed onto the unmade bed you want to sleep immediately,
before the daylight switches back on that part of the brain you can't control.
You think perhaps you should have extended your umbrella in the bathroom to
dry, rather than dropping it by your apartment door. You don't really heed the
possibility of it bringing bad luck, but who can afford the risk? Through the
plasterboard walls or floors or ceilings, or from some remote source piped or
transmitted by a peculiarity of fabric densities, or something more deliberate
and sinister, you can hear the muffled tones of a hushed voice. It sounds elderly,
like sand and dust; the words are not distinct, not emphatic, unlikely to be
a dialect you learned in school. The thought of your distant spell of education
lingers in the form of echo-tiled halls and oppressive peers as your breathing
follows a default pattern and the tension drains from your spine.
The bell is ringing and a crowd of people you don't quite recognise but acknowledge
as familiar (as though their features have been systematically exchanged), rush
past you and along with you as you accord with their motion. You each carry
a water-carrying vessel in shine-worn leather satchels, some strung across the
body, other swinging loosely from a wide arm reflecting the malevolent cheer
on the many faces. Passing between the abstracted structures around and then
out through the chain-link fences, the flock - each of them all the ages you
have ever been at once - is thronging ahead as you consider the landscape before
you. You are not aware of a horizon, more of a gradual blending of the visual
plain where things are so distant the undeveloped mind could not, or would not
dare, or would not care to venture its imagination. A memory of a museum excursion
is triggered in its place, drawing a continuum between Salvador Dali and JMW
Turner. Nothing lives out here, except the here that seems vital in its distinct
presence.
There is a sound, which catches your ear from a tangent while the warm breeze
drifts around your up-raised face. This tone is metronomic and insistent, perhaps
coming from close-by; high and resounding, like a freakish birdsong if that
bird were an irate parent or terror struck or both; as if its offspring had
become an unrecognisable monster. Turning away from the apparent distance and
the soft air, the flat, infinite dark (which you were unaware was at the edges
of your perception, and somehow behind it, like the border on an old-fashioned
photograph) collapses in and you rise back to a finite place.
The blind is hesitantly proposing a new day. You reach across clumsily to
press the button that is flashing on your answering machine on the dresser.
There is a scuttling click and then another in response. A voice morphed into
only high-tones, says your name in a questioning tone, asks if you're home because
the bell doesn't seem to be working, sighs, says please emphatically, sighs
in a way that begets a sob, pauses then calls your name again in a way which
comes from a very tender region and grabs you similarly; more sobbing is followed
by a jerking fizz sound and then three evenly spaced electronic blips.
You curse. The daytime contours of the room are visible in shades of red.
Pulling the blind's cord reveals a flat plane of light. The darkness had concealed
little in the way of colour variation in the room apart from the crimson roller
blind, which showed a faded face to the outside world, but looked sensuous and
inviting like a painted eyelid in the pale face of this room. You shuffle through
the doorway into the adjacent space, which is already lit due to it having no
curtains for the long windows. You turn the tap and smear glacially cold water
across your face and through your hair. You replace the door entry-phone on
its receiver. It falls off again and remains dangling on its coil. A drip of
water hangs pendulously from the back of the entry-phone, another from your
lower lip. You drag the back of your hand across your mouth and take milk from
the refrigerator. Having guzzled its remaining contents your replace it in the
refrigerator door and repeat the hand action to remove any traces of milk. The
air outside is tainted with the screaming of children in wild pandemonium.
You cross the room and sit in the high-backed wooden chair, which faces neither
the window nor the kitchenette. You feel aggressive frustration and loss, but
you cannot attribute it exclusively to having missed the impromptu rendezvous
or not having ventured towards the arid landscape like your former associates.
You know who the caller was, you have a wrinkled photograph in a drawer somewhere.
The tiredness you have felt for a very long time weighs on you now, interferes
with your affections, ruptures your memory. You think about going out. You think
about staying in.
*
It is dark inside and you are holding a cigarette between two fingers, watching
the smoke make baroque swirls as you wave the lit tip around. In a mirror you
can see a girl behind you on a high stool. She has a well-practised look of
amusement. Everybody around seems to know her and accept her presence with a
sideways smile. You wonder what would happen if you were to approach her, or
she to approach you. You think about the pair of you talking for hours, laughing
at silly things and sharing an unspoken bond. There might be pauses but they
would not be fraught with the breathless awkwardness that you so often feel.
Perhaps you would leave and go to your apartment or hers (no doubt it is in
your block, you wonder what a feminine touch could bring to these concrete cells)
or somewhere completely anonymous; somewhere soft and dimly lit. But it occurs
to you that you like the idea of going to your plain and uniform apartment,
bringing it warmth and tense mystery. Part of you wants something wild and disaffected:
maybe then you could find the deep connection you aspire to but so fear. You
know no ordinary person would feel endeared to you by your poverty of sensitivity,
no one would feel the sympathy you required. The angry frustration returns.
You can't bear to look at the mirror anymore so you turn to face the other
side, and realise someone is watching you. A woman is smiling broadly, almost
giggling. You wonder if she saw you looking in the mirror at the girl behind
you. She is large and dressed in shining cloth. Her skin shines also. But she
is not looking at you at all; she is looking beyond you, and nowhere, and it
is then that you notice the man who is leaning forward whispering to her and
causing the mirth she struggles to hide. He straightens up and looks towards
you and the woman looks up at his face, no longer smiling. You wonder if she
feels rejected. It strikes you his stance has become more intimidating. You
look away quickly, but not before his likeness is petrified in you mind, like
a statue of a general on horseback, his arm raised to direct the advance. You
think of him as Neptune, or Julius Caesar. Anxiety shortens your breath and
you want to turn and look again. Your eyes capitulate first followed by your
neck, twisting fraction by fraction to reveal the woman looking distractedly
towards the darkened corner of the room, mouthing the words to rock anthem emanating
from the jukebox there. The man is now further behind preparing to break at
the pool table. His chest rises and falls with concentration, his muscles tighten
and his chin lowers over the cue. He gives a deeply resonant but gentle laugh
to a comment from another player whose words are lost in the background along
with his appearance above his unbuttoned collar.
But the man has stopped preparing the shot and is looking at you. Now he is
about to rise to his full stature, the already tense muscles making him walk
towards you. He hands the cue to the other player and his fingers flex. His
dark evocative eyes flash at you, and you are aware of how neat his hair is
and of how his long eyelashes curl. In embarrassment and terror you spin from
your stool, almost falling and tripping on your coat. You tumble through the
door and scuttle down the gloomy access passages to the concealment of the wasteland
beyond. Amongst the long grass you feel secure and anonymous, and here in the
darkness tears come to your eyes.
You want to be a good person, a giving person. You want to dry tears and mend
hurts. But you find that you don't believe in anything. Your influence on the
world and that of the world on you are mutually unremarkable.
*
Today you couldn't avoid venturing into the street in daylight, so you hold
your coat around you like a shield, despite the oppressive brightness and humidity,
with your hands thrust into your pockets. You find the activity that is taking
place almost assaulting. People are pushing you from behind and glancing off
you as they pass from in front, as if oblivious to your presence. There is noise
from all directions, traffic, music, a thousand different voices calling, chatting,
laughing. An argument is proceeding somewhere around, raised voices spitting
unfinished sentences simultaneously. A man sits astride a folding stool and
plays a large drum and another stands alongside nodding. Here and there people
are in crowds, looking around at everything else rather than each other. You
can smell papaya and yams and fish and chicken - uncooked, sweet and sour, southern
fried - giddy and unbearable in the feverish heat. Teenage girls compete for
attention, then run laughing wildly to the security of their throngs when overly
keen males show serious intention of pursuit. You are forced into a crush of
people going in all directions where the pavement is blocked by people at a
bus stop. A slick of molten ice cream is prevented from reaching the gutter
by the myriad pairs of feet trampling through. Children are rushing about playing
games between the pavements.
At this point you can barely remember which side of the crowd you entered
and which you should exit, so much has the pressure on all sides spun you around.
But somehow the feverish, thronging proliferation of life all around brings
forth an outrageous euphoria in you, and as you are thrust out off the pavement
you realise you're hands are no longer punched into your enfolding overcoat.
Instead your arms and coat are wide open, and you are smiling broadly. You begin
a laugh that starts from behind your lungs and spreads through your entire body,
uncontrollable and deeply satisfying. The people passing look at your unorthodox
appearance uneasily, stood in the street and cackling. But you are oblivious
to the individuals now, as the combined impulse of everyone around saturates
you. You walk forwards and that becomes a trot and then a run, all the way down
the street laughing with arms wide between the frequently obstructed traffic,
drivers clouting horns ineffectually.
*
Tonight is a special night. You are amongst hundreds of young people in their
brightest clothes, with their make-up liberated in perspiration, dancing and
screaming and aroused. It is dark and hot and loud. The heat rising to the ceiling
is everyone's energy together and it feels to you like a movement, a society
without dogma, an uncanonized religion. You press you way forwards to where
the people are dancing most vigorously. Their bodies flail and writhe, their
muscles flex and thrash. Perspiration is airborne and mutual. This communion
pervades all their actions and they become like one organism.
You smile with satisfaction but do not participate. You walk steadily towards
the exit, revealed by a corridor of cooler, more breathable air. At your departure
two eager adolescents are allowed to enter, and they rush into the arena. You
casually cross the empty sodium-lit street, pleasantly occupied with your new-found
tranquillity and inner calm. You choose not to notice the girl from the mirror
walking towards you on the opposite side. You feel as though the distraction
could annihilate everything. From a building nearby you can hear violent crashes
and cries of agony or rapture, and it does not make you break step.
You are fortunate and find a taxi in an adjacent street whose driver is willing
to take you to your home. He drives steadily and the diesel engine makes little
noise. You lie sideways on the back seat and watch the street lamps pass overhead
rhythmically in man-made constellations. You feel the drift to one side and
another as the cab is piloted through a traffic intersection. You feel the warm
sensation of a gentle breeze and lift your face towards it. Carrying your leather
satchel you join the beckoning group and strike out towards a landscape that
has no horizon.