A Different Body Experiences
A Different Universe
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Endlessly
subject to
re-interpretation
re-formation
re-interpretation
re-formation
Passage
We couldn't get away from the narrow passage, which was the main artery of the house. I suppose the designers would see it as the main artery, to us it ran through the centre; it squeezed it's way between rooms; crushed us as we reluctantly had to get to the bathroom; or impeded our rush of excitement. It pushed its narrowness into the space of the rooms too, wanting to edge off more and more, yet always wanting to be a tight fit so it could touch us as we moved passed. Me especially as I lurched slowly touching one wall then the opposing, and they did oppose, counting up their touches. Always relentlessly antagonistic, pushing forward to claim the space.
Other rooms opened out spaciously enough. Sometimes deep inside them, preoccupied with activity or avoiding, the passage was almost forgotten and faded but we knew really it held us as it held these rooms; held to ransom. Of course I'm not saying all had super-consciousness of this, that it lay like the layer of oil in a frying pan, always affecting living. That it didn't was only by personality where involvement was shallow or dint of repression, staying away from the character of our living and seeing only discrete entities whether they be inanimate objects, people or other living creatures. Though with these the repressed presence of passage types never accepted a difference between these and treated all with the same attempt at objective emotion.
I remember being in the bathroom which, obviously you will have understood by now, opened out (except it was too small to ‘open out') from the lifeline entry. Water overflowed the sink which was filled with face cloths, sleeves of a garment too, probably mine trying to find the plug, pull the plug, unable to turn the flushing taps. The bath was full with heavy and floating corpses of garments too, so no use trying to scoop out water in a wave to this. I shouted for someone to come (my mother?) as the water tippled over the sides, running quickly onto the small floor and creating immediately a shallow pool. This as quickly disappeared down the straight cracks edging the bath and the back wall where the sink was attached.
She turned off the taps. I said “It's gone.” I asked “Where's it gone?” She replied, “It's alright.”
I wanted to ask, to scream out at her calm, “But where is it. Surely it can't just be left, ignored like that?" but that would have been to inquire into what was beneath and she might not have told me or she might; I could not risk.
We walked back after this. I stumbled back, aware now and studying these narrow cracks, which got wider as I thought about them. Passages around the bathroom. Passages around and attaching everywhere, no escaping. The cupboard besides the sink unit in the kitchen had a gap of almost a quarter of a centimetre (Did anyone ever want to call it something other than a ‘sink?' It seemed so not up-beat; an idea not of contemporary design for the past sixty-odd years of the term 'contemporary'). I realised when she had dismissed the disappearance of the water in the bathroom so quickly, it wasn't because it caused her no difficulties, nor because she had a completely objective view but the consequences of discussing would have been too much. Now I saw that her constant reflections on the untidiness of the rooms, the kitchen in particular, and her usual passion for drying all wetness, hating splashes from the taps as if they were a malevolent force, was her dealing with, or being unable to deal with, the outcome of the same situation, i.e. gaps and passages.
Here I was now, caught in this gap. i thought I could get through, must get through, no choice. It seemed wide enough but then they often do. I reached for the mobile phone, my first time carrying one -- yes i know that's startling but some of us don't accept them even now -- however the pocket of my jacket holding it had stayed firmly on the other side of the jagged catch. Why not use my other hand, which i was almost as accurate with as the predominate one, to reach for it on that side. The reason twofold. The surface at the back of me wasn't straight. It wasn't a flat right angle but jutted out above the pocket and curved round so I was held, or my elbow was. The other reason, even without this, I wasn't sure this arm would be willing to reach back that far. There was some light though it was quite gloomy. I saw myself wearing a light mac and reaching out to roll a white cigarette towards my mouth, as I considered my situation and what to do next; if anything. Of course I had never smoked so along with not carrying cigarettes I'd have coughed and probably vomited down my jacket, which was a deep dark not light mac.
I couldn't stand. Well, that was my physical situation but it was also my physical position that I couldn't stand. Somewhere would have to take the weight of my body. I went to sit involuntarily. I went to sit but here it cut, so sharp was this section. I shuffled to find, to place my main weight to one side of this sharpness, not easily accomplished. My legs started to numb in the cold, at least I hoped they were, that somehow I was switching them down and not myself. I didn't usually disconnect like this, a figment, a parallel body always remained with, as consciousness.
I couldn't get the cigarette figure, with his light mac, no a casual jacket of thin cloth, out of my mind. He bent forward a little. To light his cigarette? Where had he got the lighter from or the cigarette, come to that? If he was trapped like me, then how could he reach? Ah it would be the inside of his jacket. That's it, not outer pocket but inside, warm, dry. I wouldn't mind a cigarette lighter or matches, perhaps the warmth of a cigarette adds to their comfort. Are cigarettes warm - cool, menthol, white but warm?
The chap had light hair, like my father and now I looked I saw him age and put on weight in the way some do in middle age. Perhaps that;s it, a stressful time so the past relives. He never wore a light coat or jacket though. Never? No, he hadn't ever had one like that. I'd seen pictures of him at the time I was born and a small child. I searched their wardrobe both now, as i waited and when i was a child; that small space of a room with smells so deep i wanted to tear at the wood, chew that sullenness.
I know psychologists, anyone would say I might have forgotten, been too young or not wanted to remember the coat but the figure which held my attention so, wasn't my or not only him. It changed shape too, became straight and narrow like the passage, perhaps from an advert, when they allowed adverts, or from a film. What's most puzzling is the cigarette. Perhaps he's just a figure to ease my mind, a figure how it would be played out in fiction. I see people turn, glance away. I recollect the glance as it turns away, revealing in that move.
So what was I to do, as i came back to myself i was tired. The sharpness of my position was acute yet the shadow of the place had taken over too. I didn't even bother with small efforts to move. Was this what separated those who survived from those who didn't, the continued attempts at movement to free themselves, to keep circulation of optimism and blood? I felt a warm trickle of urine down my thigh not lower down my leg, at least i don't think I did though my ankle seemed to speak from somewhere but then I'd often felt like this before. The urine was comforting not just the brief warmth, which would soon offer the opposite, even now cooled but contact with myself.
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A Different Body
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A Different Universe