The duvet covers are wet; they feel like heavy string tying me into bed. Hot, sticky wetness. My limbs refuse to work together, and for the moment I am paralyzed, like a startled animal, waiting for the death blow. There is an electrical creature shouting at me from somewhere inside my room, from inside my own bedroom; this is shameless.
“Fuck off.” I admonish. I can’t move, and I can’t locate the noise.
Thick, wet headache.
I put my head back down momentarily, and bang; I find something harder than a pillow. The noise stops abruptly, and the room sinks into silence. Walking the fine line between intense noise and intense soundlessness, I am forced to remember what I’m doing here, and that it’s morning. Like a blast of cold air into a thick fog, I remember my yesterday, and my day before that. The pain in my head and the presence of this ‘other’ in my room cause me to focus. Focus on what?
I’m going to vomit.
I experience the sudden rush of fear rising up inside my stomach, the one that I always get when I realize that I’m about to be sick somewhere I shouldn’t, like in bed, or across my floor. I manage to swallow, but it leaves me with a sour taste in my mouth. I know what it is that I have just hit my head on, and the knowledge hangs hard in my chest.
I gingerly lift the remains of my sweat-soaked pillow, and investigate the inevitable: a cheap plastic alarm clock, silent and stopped. My alarm clock doubles up as an old fashioned tape recorder; I reach forward, as I’ve become accustomed to doing and press hard on the ‘play’ button. The cheap plastic parts whir into action, and the machine begins to emit a rusty purr. Like a cat. The purr of the machine becomes louder, and indistinguishable from the cat’s purring. There is a seamless transition from machine to animal. I draw a sharp breath, and fumble with the ‘stop’ button, before abruptly pushing the clock away. A shiver trickles down from the hairs at the very top of my neck, just behind my ears, all the way into the dent at the base of my back. I close my eyes, but the purring doesn’t stop.
I can still taste a trace of acid in my throat. I listen to the continuous humming and it echoes inside me; it reminds me of the sweat-soaked bed upon which I am now sitting upright. The sound seems more familiar to me than my own heart beat. At once nostalgic and repugnant. It breaks into my sleep, and I awake to find it lying beneath my head, etched onto tape. It talks to me. By this I don’t mean that I grow to understand what it means, but that I begin to make out the words in the animal’s low rumbling. I begin to hear it speak.
“Fuck off.” I at once repeat, louder, unsure of myself. I stopped believing that I was going mad four days ago.
“Quieten yourself.” Comes the gentle response.
I look down at my feet, and vomit.
“Fuck off.” I admonish. I can’t move, and I can’t locate the noise.
Thick, wet headache.
I put my head back down momentarily, and bang; I find something harder than a pillow. The noise stops abruptly, and the room sinks into silence. Walking the fine line between intense noise and intense soundlessness, I am forced to remember what I’m doing here, and that it’s morning. Like a blast of cold air into a thick fog, I remember my yesterday, and my day before that. The pain in my head and the presence of this ‘other’ in my room cause me to focus. Focus on what?
I’m going to vomit.
I experience the sudden rush of fear rising up inside my stomach, the one that I always get when I realize that I’m about to be sick somewhere I shouldn’t, like in bed, or across my floor. I manage to swallow, but it leaves me with a sour taste in my mouth. I know what it is that I have just hit my head on, and the knowledge hangs hard in my chest.
I gingerly lift the remains of my sweat-soaked pillow, and investigate the inevitable: a cheap plastic alarm clock, silent and stopped. My alarm clock doubles up as an old fashioned tape recorder; I reach forward, as I’ve become accustomed to doing and press hard on the ‘play’ button. The cheap plastic parts whir into action, and the machine begins to emit a rusty purr. Like a cat. The purr of the machine becomes louder, and indistinguishable from the cat’s purring. There is a seamless transition from machine to animal. I draw a sharp breath, and fumble with the ‘stop’ button, before abruptly pushing the clock away. A shiver trickles down from the hairs at the very top of my neck, just behind my ears, all the way into the dent at the base of my back. I close my eyes, but the purring doesn’t stop.
I can still taste a trace of acid in my throat. I listen to the continuous humming and it echoes inside me; it reminds me of the sweat-soaked bed upon which I am now sitting upright. The sound seems more familiar to me than my own heart beat. At once nostalgic and repugnant. It breaks into my sleep, and I awake to find it lying beneath my head, etched onto tape. It talks to me. By this I don’t mean that I grow to understand what it means, but that I begin to make out the words in the animal’s low rumbling. I begin to hear it speak.
“Fuck off.” I at once repeat, louder, unsure of myself. I stopped believing that I was going mad four days ago.
“Quieten yourself.” Comes the gentle response.
I look down at my feet, and vomit.
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