Sickened

Even though it’s early, the sun is shining recklessly in the freezing winter air, teasingly hinting at a spring that’s still so far away. Everything looks hard and fresh, the concrete a mean grey, the grass a little too green with morning dew.

I know I’m getting closer to the city now because the number of people joining me grows with each step, all of us bustling along in the same direction, like worker bees filing back to the hive, marching together but completely alone.

The buildings are like closed, silent faces towering above, blocking out the sun, the windows huge staring eyes watching us enter the streets and alleys that divide them.

I'm in the thick of it now.

The sun doesn’t shine here anymore.

All backs straight, faces grim, stares focussed ahead.

Little by little the noise around me begins to change. I continue to make my way, pretending not to notice, thinking maybe there's something wrong with my hearing, maybe I'm just a little tired. The sounds thicken and dull, as though I’ve put earplugs in without realising it. I look from side to side to make sure there isn’t a squirrel on each of my shoulders stuffing cotton wool into my ears. Nope, didn’t think so.

I keep walking. The music from clothing stores fades away. People’s voices subside until they are no more. The beeping of cashier’s registers wanes, each beep shrinking until it sounds like a cartoon mouse in the corner squeaking at me from far away...and then all noise is gone.

Nothing.

No sound.

Not one peep from anything or anyone. I stop and look around. A few other people slow and for a second I think it has happened to them too, that perhaps a huge vacuum cleaner was just switched on at the city’s edge that has slowly sucked all the sound from the air. But they continue walking, after throwing me an odd look, and I realise I am the only one with this apparent hearing difficulty.

A noise begins to reach my ears. I start walking again and slowly but surely it gets louder. I’m trying to pinpoint the sound but it seems to be all around me, with no one definite source.

Then I start to feel ill, really ill. My stomach clenches and my throat seizes tight. I realise it is the sound – no, sounds for I notice now that there is more than one – that are making me sick. I look around and it doesn’t take long to figure out where the sound is coming from. They make it together. All of them. Alone it most likely wouldn’t be so horrifying, but united they march and prance and stampede all around me, beside me and past me. The din is incredible.

It is the sound of men in their suits that sickens me, as they swish past me in these city streets, in a hurry to get somewhere, desperate to exude importance. The flapping of their jackets between their arms and sides, like the wings of birds taking flight, the whooshing of their pants as the material crushes between their thighs, the slapping and clacking of their heeled, shiny polished shoes that announce their arrival behind me and are just loud enough to ensure I don’t fail to notice the magnitude of their significance as they pass me.

There is a grotesqueness to these sounds that makes me feel more than a little ill. It breeds queasiness in my stomach and leaves me feeling so faint, so lightheaded.

Moving in packs or even alone, they present a front; a grey, black and blue front. Like a lingering bruise on the face of a woman passing you on the street, faded in colour so you know it no longer hurts, but impossible for you to forget once you have seen it.

I make my way through their midst. We do not make physical contact and do not look each other in the eye. And yet even as I move among them in my isolated bubble, their sounds pollute the air around me, piercing holes in my bubble, allowing their smells of hair product and cologne and leather to flood in, making it harder and harder for me to breathe.

I can’t believe this is happening. Is no one else aware of what is going on? Am I the only one?

The sounds made by these men, the whooshing and swishing and clacking makes me want to regurgitate my breakfast, to heave and churn it out onto the pavement, to hear the chunks of chewed up toast and mouthfuls of coffee splat and splash on the floor.

The urge to do this becomes so strong I feel the bile rise in my throat. My eyes begin to tear. But I know it would make no difference. There would be no united façade of disgust at my rebellion against acceptable behaviour; at my vomit that would embody a personal assault on their cleanliness and tidiness, on the sterility of their existence. They would merely continue on their way, perhaps deigning to break their masks of über-worth for a few seconds to wrinkle their faces in repulsion, before very quickly resuming their previous cold-eyed expressions.

If I can just get inside a small space, I think, somewhere small and enclosed where I can lock myself in until they are all indoors, I will survive this. I begin to search madly for a place, any place, that I could escape to.

It only takes a few seconds before I spot it – what looks like a tiny door, the size of a child – and I know this is the place that will save me. I rush over to it, bumping and jostling people on the way, mumbling apologies but not getting any response.

I reach the door and find it is covered in black velvet, so plush, so new and clean-looking. What is a door like this doing on a main city street, I wonder. I have no idea. I have even less of an idea as to what could be beyond it.

As the bile rises in my throat I realise I don’t care and I push it open. It is dark inside, but I can see the inside is also lined in velvet, red this time. I climb in and close the door behind me. The sounds disappear instantly.

Total silence.

Well no, not total silence, there is the sound of velvet but if you know what velvet sounds like you will know also that it is a sound of softness and comfort, like the sighing and snoring of a kitten as it sleeps.

The door has led me into a small room, a space bigger than the door itself, which is a relief as the door was a tight fit, me not being child-size and all, but aside from one large cushion and the velvet lining, there is nothing else I can describe.

It is silent. Not one sound penetrates the room’s interior. I lie down against the cushion, in this red velvet room. I begin to breathe more deeply and the feelings of sickness dissipate. And so I calm myself, and I try to pretend the swishing and whooshing and clacking didn’t make part of me want to die.

...

One single moment

There was a time I honestly thought I would shatter into a million little pieces. A moment so sudden and unexpected that I didn’t see it coming, like crossing train tracks and not checking for oncoming trains, looking up and seeing the lights in my eyes just before impact, realising far too late that oblivion is upon me.

It was late at night and we were in bed. Our breathing had slowed and the intensity of our heartbeats, so fast and hard just before, quietened bit by bit. You lay behind me, my body folded into yours so perfectly, as though our two shapes were created with each other in mind.

After a while I know you thought I was asleep. I wasn’t. I was only pretending. I couldn’t sleep, couldn’t stop my mind running around thinking about you. The curve of muscle between your neck and shoulder, the line your collar bones made that I loved to trace with my fingers, the way your skin always had a hint of tan despite it being winter and the insane softness of it – softer than a man’s skin should be, making me insecure about my own.

I don’t know why I pretended to sleep. It was as though I believed that if you thought I was asleep things would be different between us. It’s something I would do often, lie in bed and go through the motions of pretending to fall asleep next to you. I know you thought I was sleeping. It isn’t just that I’m an expert sleep-faker, it’s that I know you would never have done what you did, had you known I was awake.

We lay there entwined and you moved slightly, lifting yourself up a little. I didn’t move. You didn’t make a sound at first and I wondered what you were doing. I realised then that I could feel your eyes on me. You were watching me sleep. My breath caught in my throat and I had to focus on continuing to breathe deeply. Lightly your fingers touched my shoulder, ran up and down the side of my throat. So lightly I almost didn’t feel it at first. You stroked my skin so gently I was terrified you would feel how fast my heart was beating, thumping against the side of my neck. I was so frightened that you would feel it and stop touching me.

But you didn’t. You leaned forward and whispered “I think you’re gorgeous” and I could feel the words as well as hear them, they made little shapes in the air and collided with back of my neck, each one tingling more than the last, landing on my skin and resting there, slowly burning into the surface, leaving warmth behind like day old sunburn. Then you kissed me on the back of my neck and shoulder, so softly I thought I was dreaming and each kiss sent small shocks through my bloodstream, again and again and again.

I wanted to cry. I thought my heart would explode. I felt like at that point in time I wasn’t really there anymore, that I had shattered into a million pieces, like a mirror dropped from high in the air, tiny shards flickering and scattering the light, as though someone had opened a bottle of glitter and thrown it up into the air. I thought I would die right then. But I didn’t. You lay back down, kissed my neck one more time, and then I listened as you fell asleep. Your breathing became heavy and slow, your body twitching a little every now and then as you fell into deep sleep.

I lay there for a little while longer, calming myself, coming back into my own body and realising I was still there, in bed with you. The moment was gone, it became a memory so fast that it seemed as though it had never happened and I had dreamed the whole thing.

You never kissed me like that again. You never said words like that to me again. I have never felt like that since and I’m not sure if I ever will.

…