The Details

Details?

The weather forecast said rain upon the roofs of our houses and wind
upon our walls, neither of which will affect me in the slightest. I'm
lying on my belly, my arms by my sides with the palms facing upwards to
the white-washed tar-stained ceiling above. My right cheek is pressed
hard into the cheap grey carpet beneath me. Two inches from my nose,
the door to the dining room stands ajar and a light breeze is blowing
through it. I haven't moved for several hours; my eyes are trained upon
the tiny crevice between the door and the floor and the details
therein. My flatmates are not home, but they will soon return and in
the back of my mind I tell myself that this behaviour is not normal and
that I should have stood up long ago. But I cannot pull myself away
from the details. The paint on the door is pimpled and stained. The
shag of the carpet rises in random tufts that create a skyline across
the blackness of the gap between the door and the floor. The darkness
belies a depth that isn't real, but away from the context of door and
floor and the gap therein - in some other place - the darkness could be
infinite. It could be menacing, evil, homely or surreal. Eventually my
peripheral vision fades to another type of blackness and all I see is
the gap and there is neither a door nor a floor, just the space and
depth of a Universe in details. The Universe as it chooses to represent
itself at this one moment of time? as the gap between the door and the
floor in a flat whose roof is being rained upon and whose walls are
being blown upon. I should stand up.

The door-key manoeuvres into the lock, catches, releases, turns and
clicks and then the door swings open. Footsteps line up in the hall to
announce a change in the Universe as it chooses to represent itself to
me in the coming moments. I hear the keys slam into the table and a bag
hit the floor and I feel the vibrations of heavy boots coming through
the floorboards and into my cheek. But still the details remain. I
should stand. A heavy-set Cossack character walks by me, lifts the
phone from the receiver and begins to lash out at the pad of numbers,
pacing impatiently around the circular breakfast table and clicking his
fingers in time to his thoughts. A conversation begins about the
weather, then the language changes and I can't understand it, then he
talks about time and money and how they change the Universe as it is
represented to him. The phone slams back down again and he sits in
thought. His eyes scan the room and land upon my inert body on the
floor. I only sense this, content as I am with the gap between the door
and the floor and the details therein. I'd like to rise up, to speak to
him and to show him the details I've found. He's still thinking and his
eyes are still upon me and I wonder whether he is really thinking about
me or whether his eyes look straight through me to the cheap grey
carpet beneath.

I think I sleep and then awake again, for suddenly there are people
everywhere and I am swamped in a sea of legs and shoes and socks and
noise. Glasses are being raised and banged against each other and
lighters are being flicked on and off as smoke drifts quietly through
the deafening humdrum of the flat with the rain upon the roof and wind
upon the walls. Do these people not see me? Perhaps what I thought was
peculiar behaviour was in fact normal and sane. Perhaps people often
lie down on the carpet in order to look at the details, and perhaps
this is why they are leaving me to my own devices instead of
questioning me on my motives. Perhaps they've never seen the details.
And then a hand comes to rest upon the door handle for a second before
ripping my universe from its moorings and pulling away the gap between
door and floor. The pimpled paintwork and the skyline of ruffled cheap
grey carpet are pulled asunder and I am looking only at legs and shoes
and socks and noise. The door slams and suddenly the room is quiet.
Eyes turn upon me like towering and menacing demons as the unattended
cigarettes drop their ash like windblown snow upon the cheap grey
carpet. And nobody talks. In the silence the rain pounds upon the roof
and the wind smashes against the walls and the ash keeps falling. The
Universe has moved; I should stand up.