I try to collect my thoughts for the day. I close my eyes as the water runs over me, placing me in a meditative state. What the fuck did I need to do today? What did I forget to do yesterday? Come on, any useful information… Any at all, I’ll be content with anything. It’s no use, there’s nothing decipherable going on. I turn the water off in frustration and bitterness and sit at my desk. I dried and got dressed somewhere in between there, but I don’t remember doing so, I just sort of… appeared here.
Looking in my planner I smile. It’s neat. Organised. Perfect. Everything in place, where it needs to be… everything so sterile. As I stare into the screen my mind has a moment of clarity. A moment where everything halts and quietens. A moment of pure bliss.
“So, what’s up for today bud?”
“Nothing, shut up.”
“You sound bummed man, what’s up?”
“Shut up and piss off you fucking cretin.”
“I wouldn’t say such mean things buddy… Things might get ugly for you. You know what I can do.”
“I need to get a lot of work done today, no distractions.”
“Aww, but that’s no fun. C’mon, whatever it is, it can wait.”
“No, it can’t. You say that every day and look at the fuck all I have done in a week!”
“You’re allergic to your own flesh Andrew… there is another layer underneath this one… this one is fake.”
“I… is it really…?”
“Yes it is Andrew… but there is a way to get rid of it?”
“H…how..?”
“Grab the wire brush Andrew… it’s over in the Kitchen.”
“I need to get this work done first.”
“You’re writing scribbles… they mean nothing… this means something.”
After getting my work done I decide to listen to some music. I put on my headphones, blast the volume up high and close my eyes. I open them an hour or two later. 3pm. Time to watch some TV. But first I have to get all this dirt off my face. I don’t know how it got there but might as well get it off while I remember it. I go into the bathroom and cup my hands under the water, splashing it on my face, trying to avoid the mirror. Something brings my head up to look at it. A drip of blood falling into the basin.
I can’t even stare into the broken shards of my bathroom mirror.
“Your mother made you defective… she should be punished.”
“It worked for you father didn’t it?”
“Leave him out of this.”
“Miss him don’t you? Wonder where he went…”
“Don’t check Coogee beach anytime soon.”
“The water is getting cold… freeze some more CO2…”
“You’re slowly dying… what have you done with your life?”
I stop trying to respond to the voices and get the cut on my forehead all cleaned up. Once that is done, I twist the door knob locked, slide in the dead bolt, run the chain through the hole in the wall and padlock it up and shove a chair under the door so that the bathroom is thoroughly locked.
“God made us in his image… God is fucked up—“
“No… you’re broken.”
“I want to see you bleed.”
“I want to fuck you so hard you become my slave.”
“Stick the glass in your fucking neck you cow raping cunt of a---“
“You’re rotting away… make use of your time.”
The locks didn’t work this time either… My stomach won’t shut up though so I really should get to the shops and buy some food. I run and grab my wallet. $20. Good, I still have some money for food.
I grabbed my keys and my hoodie and walked out to my car. When I got to the kitchen I was stopped by a man, making himself some tea. “I’ve been poisoning your milk.”
“How? Who are you?”
“I have HIV. I have been injecting it into your milk. Don’t forget to buy the meatloaf.”
I walked out my front door and opened the car door. Great. The neighbours left their foetus in my passenger seat again. I take it and place it on their doorstep… again… they do this every day like clockwork. I filed a complaint with them but they told me to leave. I grabbed my groceries and tried to get back home without event. The rain was heavy on a certain patch of road.
“Any plans for tonight?”
“Not you again, fuck off!”
“If you don’t, I’ve got one.”
“Just go away please.”
“I’ll just take over then.”
“You know you can’t, so just go away, we are not going ANYWHERE tonight.”
“Bad luck is following… you can get good luck again if you listen to me.”
“Well… I have been having shit luck recently.”
“I know… trust me on this one… we can fix this together…”
I get home and put my groceries away, feeling really tired, I decided to just grab a pack of instant noodles and eat them raw before crashing and taking a nap.
I woke up in complete darkness. Thinking I slept through the whole day I reach for my watch. Only 6pm… I guess that will happen in winter. I waddled like I was hung over, banging into every wall along the way to the living room, I turned on the television, wiped the tears it was emitting, swept the broken glass off the remote, put in a DVD and sat and watched a mind-numbing movie. I went to the kitchen, grabbed a Whiskey and Coke, sat down and watched my movie, adamant that maybe I needed a friend or two, being as insanely lonely as I was. I got a surprise phone call about two thirds through my movie.
“Hello?”
“Head to the Southeast Hedgley Grove Park.”
I hung up the phone.”
“We should go now before it gets too late.”
I don’t question it and head for my car again, thinking that if nothing else, I will at least get some social interaction out of it.
I decided to stop off at a local fast food chain drive-through and pick up something to eat before I go. At this rate cooking my own food today was out of the question again so fast food it is. I don’t know how this $50 note got in my wallet after buying all my food but I was hungry and it was there so, I didn’t ask questions. As I waited behind another car in the drive through, a man got out of the back seat of the vehicle and grabbed a brick, and flung it right at my windscreen, I ducked and braced myself for a crash but it just bounced off. I guess it was made out of rubber or something akin to that. I grabbed my burger and soda and whatnot and began to eat. I put my earbuds in and blasted music again to muffle the burgers screaming and pleading, before driving off, scooping all the mealworms out of my drink and sipping it as I drove the half hour trip to the park. I woke up and the park’s lights were out. It was 3am according to my car’s dashboard. I groggily prop myself up and look for my phone. It is not where I left it. There is a knock at the driver’s seat window, I jump violently. A woman signals me to roll down my window, I comply. “So you the one who called me?” She asks, I stare dazed and groggy still.
“Um, sorry, there must have been a mistake.”
“You match the description, brown hair, kinda lanky, look the right height and this is the right car.”
“Who are you again?”
“Do it.”
I jerk up, like I had just woken from a nap, the look on the woman’s face has changed, she looks concerned, I feel something in my hand, a gun.
“You know you want to.”
I try to fight off the voice but my arm moves on its own, striking the woman’s jaw. She’s out cold.
“Drag her over there or I’ll kill you to.”
I comply. I drag her over to an already dug grave, realizing this is where all the hours I lost had gone, a huge hole out in the forested outskirts of the park.
“Do it. Come on… this is what’ll make you happy.”
“LEAVE ME ALONE!” I clutch my head, I try to ignore him. I don’t want to comply anymore, I don’t want to just go with everything. I want my lucidity back, I want my body and my life back.
“Do it you fucking pussy! Cut this bitches head off! Make her choke so hard she queefs blood!”
The gun in my hand has changed to a knife, from one second to the next, I don’t even remember the blackout. Did I even switch that time?
“Fuck off! Get the fuck away from me!”
“You need this! You need me! Do it! It’s the only way to make the sounds stop.”
“Go mount a cactus you miserable bastard!”
The woman stirs and wakes up, after a few seconds she makes a realization about her situation and screams. “Please…. Help me!”
“Shut up bitch!” We both yell simultaneously… a pause…
I wipe the blood off the knife and hide it in the glove compartment, under my overdue rent notice and the balled up papers that once held the records of the old me. I ignore the mouse trap in the glove compartment that hits my fingers, I ignore the blood dripping from the roof onto me, I ignore all of it because the voices have gone away. I get home, park my car in the drive and barely get to my bed before I pass out, crashing from the stress, the act, and the euphoria afterwards. This day has been the usual but now it was silent. No-one yelling at me, no voices, nothing dangerous or threatening surrounding me. Everything was finally quiet. I used the few minutes of sobriety I had wisely. Just clearing my head, organising what I saw today in the category of real and not real, before falling into a deep sleep.
The next day starts the same. I wake up, in a mood ill fitted for the mood I went to sleep in. Well, I say sleep, I really mean passed out by hey, tomato, tomato right?