RuKsaK

The phone call left me with head full of soupy fog, weighty and brain fatigued. It was the sucker punch to all that flying and it left me reeling. I’d never felt so clammy – a sweat coated me thinly without dripping off, like cold plastic. I felt sick. The wallpaper was vibrating at about a million miles and hour and I reached out a hand to stop it. It wasn’t moving after all, at least. But, my hand and the wallpaper were identical in temperature. Only the texture of my hand and the wall were different. I could feel no pulse, no dampness on me. It disturbed me to think my hand could be the same as the wall, just a little softer. Otherwise the same substance – me and the wall. The fucker gave me a headache. I could only break from the wall by finding a part warmer, colder, drier or wetter than my hand. Until I found that I knew we were trapped together. Me and the wall were the same damn thing.

I’m not sure how long I searched the wall with my palm, but I didn’t breakaway. When I woke up I was in that mugginess that doesn’t know where the dreams are. It’s in that moment that we know nothing, but bewilderment. Mine was intense and seemed to last for hours – maybe it did.
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So, which reality was I left with? I must have imagined the phone call in my tiredness, because what she said couldn’t have been true. It was ridiculous. It hadn’t been like a dream though. In my dreams I never feel anything – the plastic of the phone, my arse creasing into the sofa, fingers kneading my eyebrows – all that had been a part of it. I lay there feeling battered from the inside for a few minutes before looking for the phone.

It was right next to me. It’s one of those remote jobs which is supposed to be more convenient, but I can never follow to the source of its clever ring if it’s not on the hook and the batteries die in about an hour of being free from its cradle. I even hated that the instructions used words like ‘cradle’, ‘freedom’ and ‘maximum’. Words which took more than piss as advertising words do. Anyway, the ugly thing was right next to me and it was dead. That meant I had spoken to the woman, or someone. I hadn’t used the phone and it had fattened its batteries for the four weeks I was away in its none-too-pretty ‘cradle’, but now it was out of power.

I sat up and looked around, feeling discomfort with the choice of one of two realities – the phone call or my life. The phone had to be the false one. At least I thought so, until I turned and saw the frame which had held three photos of my daughter. This frame should be called a ‘cradle’ with my daughter’s face at three different angles, lilting different smiles – smiles which poured out from cartoon fun, tickles and soft cuddles. However, the phone stepped up in the reality stakes very fast as I saw the photos had gone.

Now I was as awake as I had been tired. I started rifling the flat for what I could find. I needed this mad bitch to call again. She had said she would. I had to find something before she did.
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Here is Who? - part 3.

Monday, September 05, 2005

Who? - part 2