Horror
By andy
- 612 reads
There's a pair of eyes you don't want to see in a man without going
up to him and taking him tenderly by the hand.
You want to say 'Hey don't worry. Everything thing is going to be
alright' but there's no way you're going to be able to bring yourself
to.
Last week he was going through one of those golden patches, when
everything breathes and has a good clear space around it. Walking about
like Judy Garland before the booze seeped in.
He went and bought Christmas crackers, insisting that Anna and him wear
the hats and tell the jokes even though it was mid July and all they
were eating was a toasted cheese and ham sandwich, coleslaw, baked
beans and a bit of a side salad.
He bought pets incessantly.
He wrote 'Fuck me' on a piece of orange peel which he hid in his mouth
while they were at his parents, flashing it at her whenever nobody else
was looking.
He tried to pee in the bowl from the edge of the bathroom.
He held the baby in his arms, swaying to Marvin Gaye with a feeling of
gentle euphoria.
And so he sits there on the chair where it happened, where the baby
squeezed out, and attends to the nappy. And there, there in amongst the
sticky greyish brown excrement of the baby is a neat white corner. It's
a piece of paper. A wholly digested piece of paper. Wrapped up
enclosing a message. How peculiar.
'Anna I can still see your thumb prints on my shoulders like tiny
meteor strikes. The colour of your flesh sits just behind my eyelids.
When I run my hands through my hair I can feel your juices sliding
across my fingers. And I rub my hands over my face. Pushing the skin up
over my cheekbones'.
It's an intense kind of letter. Not a thing you expect to find in a
nappy.
And it isn't his writing.
He keeps quiet. Doesn't bring it up. Sure he's not going to run off and
buy any more crackers in a hurry but he'll dwell on this one for a
while before he gives it some air.
And so he sits there again some days later, looking a little creased
around the eyes, baby's bottom needing a few wipes applied to it.
Oh look - there - another white corner peeping out from the malodorous
caa-caa.
'Anna. I am aching all over. I have marks on my body that I have still
not managed to see. My skin is becoming transparent with this continual
bodily friction. Organs pump feverishly. I can see steam I swear it.
This is ridiculous. It's beyond what I ever imagined my senses could
deal with. I never realised extremity could go this far'.
That's not his writing either.
Now that's tough.
The eyes are going by now. And the pets are asking each other where the
good times have gone. He's pissing all over the place, leaning up
against the cistern and heaving like a lung. He's going to have to deal
with this. Going to have to bring things to a head.
Him on that chair, the birth chair, four days on.
Not so fast with that nappy. Stop tearing at it. Look at your hands.
They're covered. Jesus - surely not photos. No, no... not photos.
Maybe that's going a little bit too far.
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