An Image of the Moment

by daniel gothard

world, as a sign of your inner weakness: this human is too puny to sleep, he is too guilty in his being to feel the comforts of the dream life.

  You look up again, ashamed of who you have become - your inner void of feeling or ambition is there and has been for a long, long time. And you are drenched in more shame, hearing your own voice describe the grubby wanking escapade - it had seemed so sexy at the time, in keeping with the underworld-erotica depicted in the film. But hearing yourself talking so casually about the invasion of that fantasy in front of a complete stranger has made you feel like a pervert; someone to be chased to the edge of a town and stoned to death like the unlucky 'winning' ticket holder in The Lottery, one of your favourite eye-books by Shirley Jackson.

  Suddenly the stranger's opinion matters to you, you care about what he might be thinking. You study his face for a few seconds to see whether you might be able to denote a sneer, some form of derision. You know everyone masturbates, and that you are the fool who made the recollected challenge to yourself in the certain knowledge that you had the better of a simple balloon. But results are rarely what you expect in this life. You know this now and you have always known this.

  You knew the balloon would be able to tell you about the film and the masturbation. You wanted the shame; the humiliation because some part of it all makes you feel completely alive.

  You put the glasses and the scarf back on. There is a faint glow around the rim that you did not notice before.

  'Fine. You have made a good case. You have made yourself admit your life is a mess. So, please do carry on,' you say to the balloon. You have made a conscious choice to exclude the stranger from all further conversational engagement. He has obviously placed himself in the role of silent-assistant and you will go along with that happily.

  As you sit and wait for something to happen, any residual shame or guilt you felt before is slowly replaced with a growing sense of excitement. Something will happen, you think, and what's more, you want it to happen.

  Smash in to me, you think, shouting in your head, experience and the way forward from here, just start now and smash in to me. You close your eyes and remember a rollercoaster ride when you were eight.

  'You will die in nine years time,' the balloon says.

  You take the glasses off again, with such a speed that you poke yourself in the corner of your right eye. You ignore the pain, stare at the stranger as if he is about to attack you and then you lean towards the balloon as if it is the most trustworthy confidante you will ever know. You whisper your thoughts. Your heart is racing.

  'Why would you say that? What are you saying? Dead for sure ... no ifs, ands or buts, in nine years time?' you say the words very carefully, looking in to the balloon's rubber-like skin, wanting to touch it, wondering if an older, ghost-like version of you would appear if you rammed your house-key in to it and burst the skin. You want; you need to connect with some part of yourself which seems tapped in to a vision of the future that you cannot yet see and which carries a curtailed shelf-life date for you. You tell yourself in a mental scream and panic, a Catherine Wheel of headwords, the balloon could be wrong or lying to get your cynical attention and hold on to it. You feel a blast-flash of courage in your cheeks that you have the information about the nine year death plan and from now on in any and every piece of information the balloon gives you will only help you avoid such an early death. You are only twenty-seven now. You won't even see forty according to your new inflated self - isn't life supposed to begin then?

  'You needed to know an important fact that makes you truly want to know everything before that fact. You know we all die. You feel scared hearing about your own death, anyone would, but you will have achieved so much by then,' the balloon says.

  The stranger twists his head side to side, up and down and re-positions his arm towards you. You suddenly have an almost unassailable urge to punch his face hard, fast, many times. You wonder whether the stranger would actually bleed and bruise, or would your fist merely pass through him as if he were paper-thin. Is he an appendage of you?

  You want a response from this human version of a blank slate. You are still not convinced on the theory he is not a sadistic interloper with incredible mimicry skills; some preternatural abilities to baffle victims in to believing the surreal is the reality you live within.

  'How do you know about the death ... how can you really know it's in nine years? You are a voice in a balloon. That is something ... that is enough on its own to try believing in. How can any person be expected to believe in everything that such a voice tells them. You would have to be guileless and open to any, to all impression from the world. You, balloon, know that is not you and the way you see things. Death and the knowledge of its coming is something no one can really know.'

  'You do know. You are this voice and you will see how things progress. Please put the glasses back on.'

  'At least say what causes the death.'

  You are scared. You do believe what you are being told, and now you are playing for time, for no particular reason - you cannot go anywhere, the train isn't moving and the doors are sealed. And the curiosity inside you has overwhelmed any indignity, frustration or fear. You also know you will be dead in the nine years. You knew you would die young the night before your eighth birthday; the day after you held your grandfather's hand in his hospital bed, two hours before he died. That was the moment the vivid colours and heightened senses of pre-death struck you and you had a dropping away of false beliefs in your stomach as your father took you to say goodbye to his father: the old man in the bed who looked asleep but would never wake up again.

  You imagined your grandfather released from his elderly, sickly body - something inside him that had building up, waiting its turn, suddenly allowed to be broken in to billions of stars; able to rise in to the universe - light-speed journeys to all quadrants - and discover the mysteries that the living can only ever guess at. You watched the old face - so still; his mouth in what seemed like a semi-smile - and thought of his endless journey. That was when you went to his side and rested your mouth next to his still warm ear and whispered that you would see him again soon.

  You know now, completely, the stranger is not an imposter. He still unnerves you, but he seems harmless. You have had dreams like this, many times - glimpses of this scene, but never clear or memorable enough to hold on to the next morning. You have seen this happen before - like muddled jigsaw pieces; a picture beginning to form, but with the annoyance of time slipping away - and you know it is all true, more than the sense of any faith you might have had. The dreams were easing you forward to this time. This is nothing surreal. This is how things must happen. You created the balloon - a build-up of all the unexpressed feelings and emotions throughout your existence; an unconscious, universal vocal-space - perhaps every human being has one; perhaps they are the closest any one gets to a soul. The balloon could be something physical that your grandfather was unable to form and you have been granted the opportunity to see and feel what others cannot. You will no longer deny yourself the chance to really see and really feel. You have almost waited too long.

  'You can't prevent the death. You know you are asking a question which, even with the answer given in return, will not be changed. You are listening to yourself telling you the things that will happen. You do understand that, yes?' the balloon's voice sounds tired of waiting for you to adjust to this new reality. You smile at the realisation that you are becoming resentful at your own procrastination.

  You put the glasses back on and tighten the scarf. You take a deep breath and nod at the stranger. He lifts the balloon higher and leans towards you.

  'You will see the future, not all of it is pleasant, there are a lot of events and changes from your here and now that might seem totally abhorrent and impossible. You must not look away. It is essential for you; those you hold most dear and especially your child that you carry away all the salient information
from this interlude. Do you understand?'

  You cannot see the stranger or the balloon now. The earlier, faint glow of the glasses rim has become a full-beam of light, like staring at the sun for too long.

  'Yes,' you reply, and nod your head to make certain the balloon and stranger trust you.

  A child? you think, what child? But you do not ask any more questions now. You sit very still and watch and listen.

  The first thing you see is your partner packing her suitcase - the large one with the wheels and the extendable handle that always makes you feel as if you are effete when you are put in charge of it; that you should be carrying it above the ground like a 'real' man. She looks calm, happy even - you realise with a gulp that you have not seen her look as happy for a long while. Her folding is precise; the way she lays the clothes is so orderly, as if she will need to have them in some uniformity for her destination. It gives you the first impression that she is getting ready for a holiday - that you are being given a cushioned beginning behind the glasses; that the balloon is letting you move in to the future with some hope. You watch your partner's face and remember how beautiful she is, and then you think of Scrooge: his past,