by KUBOA
***
I prepare a bath, one that will help relax my rectal muscles and assist blood flow, a natural pacifier for the constant arse pain that’s plagued me since Maggie left. Afterwards I dress in the robe Maggie bought me for Christmas and lie on the bed.
Mounted to the foot-end of the bed is a mains powered Baldor 632E six-inch deluxe grinder that I purchased from a hardware store outlet in the city. It has two 152.4mm diameter base grinders, of which only one will be used, and weighs in at 48lbs. 152.4mm equals six inches, which equals six minutes of memory twine, if the doctor’s theory holds any truth. Revolutions per minute for the Baldor 632E is a maximum of 18000. At this setting, I stand to lose 10.800 minutes per 1 minute. In an hour that figure increases to 648.000 minutes, which is four hundred and fifty days of my life gone in just one hour.
The grinder is plugged into a timer, commonly used to switch your lights on and off when you’re not at home.
I tie the surplus twine left over from my visit with Dr Bracknell to a length of domestic string. Once the two ends are secure I attach the string end to the grinder with gaffer tape and gather up the slack.
By my watch, in two minutes the timer will start the grinder, and precisely one hour and thirty two minutes later it will turn itself off again.
I won’t have any recollection of my visits with Dr Bracknell, or my GP. The conversations about anal dilation and memory leakage will hold no relevance. The job I had, the blonde from the city, the mistakes I made – gone forever. So will be the knowledge of signing the divorce papers early that day and the note I included to Maggie telling her I never wanted to see her again, ever. All the pictures we have together, the address book written by her, the clothes and holiday photographs, I will never know they sit in a plastic refuge bag outside her parent’s home.
One minute and counting.
At the end of this, all that will remain is my life before Maggie and I met. The fresh start, untainted by bad memories.
When the grinder stops, and I’m conscious to the world around me again, all I will know of how I came to lose just over two years of my life will be in a note resting on my chest that says:
Cut the twine.
What you can’t remember, you don’t want to know.
Thirty seconds.
I breathe in. Hold tight the small nail scissors in my hand. In all my heart, I hope the theory of the hippocampus is true. This procedure has been thought out. The realisation of being on a bed with a 115-volt grinder pulling twine from your arsehole is going to be scary for anyone. But if the old doctor got it right, then no sooner has the thought registered in my mind, it should resign itself from memory forever.
A small portable television monitor wired up to a VCR, both set to another timer that starts exactly when the grinder stops. This will play camcorder footage of me explaining to myself how I ended up here, minus the sordid details, and any explanation of Maggie.
Ten seconds.
God granted me a reprieve. Don’t roll with the punches, He said. Don’t keep your chin up. Don’t ride out the storm. Start afresh, came His demand. Change paths. Make a new life!
A smile crawls over my face, and within calmness takes over. And the grinder’s motor begins to whirl.
The Hole