My Falling Down House

by Jayne Joso

  I am aware also that the kerosene heater is used with greater frequency. Its smell is quite penetrating and a mild fog coils up the stairs. Despite being slightly unpleasant, the smell is welcome because it is familiar, and the gentle warmth is appreciated.

  I cannot vouch for this, cannot assess it well enough, but sense that I have begun to feel a little closer to myself, as though on the edge of myself, close to the entrance, about to knock at the door, it is hard to describe, but I feel less afraid and less suspicious. And it is somewhat disconcerting when you have lived in a state of perpetual anxiety, and for such a long time, to notice suddenly that you no longer feel that way. The irony! And noticing that I feel ‘something like myself’ alerts me to the truth of the matter: that if I am something like myself, I am in truth still some distance from myself, from him, some way away from Takeo. What anguish. First, moving out of myself, and then back to my self... And what is it anyway? ‘Self’? It is disarming to discover that it is so negotiable, malleable, so unstill. But this part, so to say, the recovery, the recovering, might be quite exciting. I try to take it that way. For it is in many ways a kind of metamorphosis. A rebuild. A refit. A cracking of a shell, the shedding of skin. It really could prove to be the case that I am still in development. No bad thing. Truly, the prototype of myself. Yet to emerge. When he comes, I hope he will have hair.

  I make the casual assumption that I might still return to my former self, or recover as an improved self, a better version, but I cannot be sure that this will be the case. Perhaps I will not. Perhaps I will only recover in part, some aspects, some percentage. Or perhaps it will be worse. Fragments. Patched up from junk.

  I have no idea what it is that I have been suffering from. I believe by now it might have been several things, one even contributing to the next. And perhaps some damage is left, something permanent, or perhaps some symptoms linger, traces, like scars. I speculate how I would like this to end. I consider the possibilities of the better self. An ‘other’ self. Versions, types.

  Takeo One: the prototype, the experimental version.

  Takeo Two: a sick man, in transition, awaiting refiguring, revisions, rectification. Fine tuning, some perfect distillation. I might be recast, so to speak, for certainly my body has undergone some considerable turmoil. It would be nice to think that something quite reasonable might result from all this discomfort. Then I would look back on it and not mind so much. The idea that Version Three might emerge from the ruins of my former self becomes more and more exciting.

  My cotton nest is coming undone. I had better lay still. I lie and watch a fragile light as it moves over surfaces whilst my face lies in shadow.

  I must try again to capitalise on the moments of greater lucidity. I think of them as tiny raindrops falling separately, then gathering in number, bouncing into other drops, and finding themselves compatible, joining up in greater and greater numbers until the moments can no longer be singled out, and eventually I picture a small sea of salient thought ripple to the shoreline. What a joy it will be if this will be the case.

  I feel the warm hand upon my head. I must have grown too animated. I am being cooed into a calmer state, and find I am helped now to sip tea from a bowl. Tea. A delight in itself. What happens? Never have I delighted in tea. Beer, yes, sake too, cold water also, never tea. New things happen to me. New sensations, appreciations. I feel happy as I drift once more into a deep and comforting sleep.

  SPRING

  1.

  It is really something, to sense the recovery of health, or even the possibility of this, and I realise now that never having truly experienced illness before, it follows that emerging from it is also new to me. I have been finding it a strange and curious process. At times I am sure my condition has not been good at all. First a brutalising hunger, and then illness, disease perhaps as its companion, and in such a state you become aware of yourself as little more than matter, as no more than sinew and bone, and at times less even than these. You no longer feel whole, your thoughts set to roaming, detaching, splitting both from themselves and also from you, as though you could no longer claim to hold any particular thought or view as your own, as though ideas simply travel through you and ‘you’ are merely a portal; as though there is nothing to you and therefore nothing for them to attach to, and so, you, you ... are what?

  When you are ill, you are less certain of things. That has been my own experience at least. Curiously, in some moments, I have found the uncertainty liberating, and have encountered thoughts I never had before. And this? It is a strange but brilliant high.

  At present I have very few belongings in the normal sense, no relationships of any kind – due, in part perhaps, to my isolated state; and my thoughts are nothing special. So reduced, I become nothing, perhaps less. And yet, I find I do not really mind. I simply notice this, realise, observe it to be so.

  As regards my physical health, it is wonderful to find the limbs that have been so heavy for so long are now happy to be raised up from the floor at least by the smallest degree, and I have, in fact, just raised my right foot high enough to see! I had almost forgotten what my feet looked like!

  I have now just turned my ankle and made my foot move first one way and then the other in a vague half circular motion. It hurt a little when I stretched it out straight. A few happy tears come.

  I have not been able to pull myself up to look about. I still cannot easily raise my head, and though this bothers me, perhaps some improvement comes there quite soon also.

  But more than anything my mind is preoccupied by the identity of the one who tends to me. I hope above anything that this is not merely a phantom, that I truly am being fed, that I truly am recovering and that this current situation is not some dreadful imagined state conjured again by hunger and isolation, for I have already found this brutalising. If this were merely an elaborate symptom before some final stage of demise, then I would call on death to take me fast and not tease in this cruel way.

  It is partly the generous care and the sustenance I am receiving from this unknown party that causes me to question the truth of the situation. For why have I still not met with the hand that tilts my head towards the tea and the soup bowl, the hand that caresses my ugly damaged scalp, the hands that wash my thin blue body? Why would anyone help such a wretch? And so, have I conjured it all? Do I hallucinate my recovery? What hellish disease might that be?

  Uncertain again of what is real, distress returns quickly. When I was part of society I was sure of everything! I rarely questioned anything. What an idiot! Perhaps that is why I am in this predicament. But I was young and busy, busy and young. Oh, but I would so much like to be young again. Just like that again. I would do anything to feel sure of things once more. I don’t care about the contradiction. Feeling so troubled is surely not right for a man my age, and perhaps not right for a man of any age. Well, it won’t help to be sentimental. At least I am alive. And were it not for recent acts of kindness that might not be the case.

  I assume, since I cannot explain it otherwise, that this kindness is that of the shapeshifter. Must be. The shapeshifter taking human form. Certainly it takes on the female form. I base this on the lightness of touch and a human scent, a human scent that seems familiar, a natural, subtle, feminine smell. Not a perfume smell, something more delicate, something beautiful. But beyond that I can still only say that I have a sense of nothing more than the shadowy outline of a figure, the proportions of which seem reasonably consistent with a human being. And I feel relieved. It seems ungrateful to have a preference, but if the shapeshifter took some other form just now I think I would find it distressing, disarming at least, and my resilience has been tested enough. I would really rather not have to deal with anything that might be a shock or make me afraid.

  Perhaps I only imagine that the person is female, out of a desire to be cared for by a woman and not by a man, but why? I ought to be grateful for anyone at all taking the time and energy to bother about a man in such a foul state. But
you cannot hide your wishes and desires, not from yourself. It might well be Lightfoot who helps me, and though I resist this idea, a part of me feels that I have to entertain it as a possibility. Still, the scent does not lend that way, and the tread of the one who tends me, though it is soft, is really not as light as his. His is imperceptible. Almost.

  I can only hope that my situation is truly what it seems, that the worst is over, for I could not face these things again. Starvation is not my skill. I can neither submit nor overcome it. I cannot recommend it at all, and when I am fully recovered I will do everything I can to avoid it. And more than that, I will climb the highest peaks I know and call out from the top that living as I have is really not the way to go!

  But I should keep myself in check. What kind of man would shout from the hilltops of his own hardship and suffering? As if my suffering is worse than that of any other man. Always vanity. I hope my self-pity evaporates as quickly as possible and that it leaves no mark for I sense how easily a sense of bitterness might step in. A bitter heart would soon see the small mouse pedalling on nothing more than an old and rusty bicycle forever. Round and round, some terrible scratching sound and nothing but nothing in view. I had better remain vigilant, try to note how my mind shifts, and replace unpleasant thoughts with better ones.

  I have been trying to muster the strength to haul myself as far as the window again, but still it is not quite possible, almost no strength in these arms, and though I managed to move my leg and turn my ankle, my body remains quite leaden. I have to wait.

  In winter the snow was helpful in dancing close to the window to show itself, but the buds on the trees are not quite as obliging. I must not miss the cherry blossom.

  2.

  I have decided on a plan. This body still refuses to do what bodies do, but my mind now makes a good amount of effort, and little by little the pathways in my head begin to lead somewhere, or perhaps my mind maps itself afresh! Re-mapping! I like that thought, but either way, I feel able to settle to a task, for I am going to outwit the shapeshifter, and I am going to see its face!

  If I can manage to gain the assistance of my limbs in this endeavour it will be to great advantage and so I try to encourage them. I test them at reasonable intervals, trying to raise or stretch or turn them, but just now they resist almost entirely. But I will not be beaten. I can see, I can hear, and I believe I am awake and alert now for longer stretches of time. So, somehow, it has to be possible!

  Unfortunately, my neck is still rather stiff and rarely willing to permit the movement of my head even from side to side. My arms won’t support me, but I am hoping that I might soon persuade them to help me lean up using my elbows. If I could gain that position it would help enormously. I have to meet the person who tends me, I do, for recently this person has also sung to me.

  When I first heard the gentle songs, a part of me wondered whether I was imagining them. Such reassuring, comforting tones. Then I wondered if it might be someone else? I have settled to thinking that it is far more likely that it is the same person. Has to be. And again I am certain this is a woman, for I cannot believe a man would sing so gently. Well, these are just details, but my thanks are long overdue, and I would like to know their name.

  3.

  No one comes. I’ve tried to maintain a state of readiness, concentrating my mind as much as possible, and though I feel quite sure that I have been alert at around the time of their usual visit (for the light outside suggests as much), it seems no one has come. Not today, not yesterday. Oh dear. I have offended them. I have shown not the slightest gratitude and now I am done for.

  I cannot imagine that I should ever show such care to anyone in my life, and certainly not without them being my family or closest ever friend, and yet someone or something has taken to feeding and washing a weak and hopeless man, indeed, to tending to the needs of a total stranger. Mopping up my sickness, and all manner of other unimaginable selfless care. I am so embarrassed. I am so humiliated by my situation. And now I am terrified of always being left alone, never being able to fend for myself, never able to re-join society or make something useful of myself. I weep so much and now my nest is sodden.

  Perhaps something has happened, perhaps they have also fallen ill. The shapeshifter has contracted something awful from my dull and diseased form. What wickedness am I capable of even when almost totally inert? What damage do I do? What thanks is that to someone who has given so much to you so freely? I am wretched, truly and unquestionably, wretched.

  And how could the kind one know that I have lacked the power to speak? It seems the least of it just now, but if only I had been able to utter a few words of gratitude, or written a brief note of thanks, heaven knows this place is full of paper. Well, if I have caused someone sickness by contagion or perhaps through overwork in caring for a terribly sick man, I suppose my brief words would seem meaningless. Would that I was truly well again and could help them in return.

  I howled just now into the sheets, wailing high and strong like a new-born. I wish it was so, and that I could return to the womb, start again.

  I grieve for the progress I was making, ready to try again to speak, to make contact with the stranger; a step, I thought, back into the world.

  4.

  Have I slept? Is this night still the same one, the next? I cannot measure. But I feel warm, rather, I feel warmed. It’s strange, and very comfortable, I am ‘comfortable’ in my skin, and just now I moved my neck and head with some ease. Movements in miniature as though I learn them anew, perfectly conscious of them, perfectly aware.

  There is something next to me and I delight in being able to manoeuvre well enough to check it out. A row of small black trays, and delicate foods within. They look so pretty. I smell pickled plum. There is water also. And now I realise there is a blanket over me again. A new one. And these sheets, if I am not mistaken, are also new, fresh at least. My stomach hurt just now from laughing! But what a relief! I thought I had been abandoned.

  There is this strange slippage that seems to occur. One moment I am entirely sure of my ability to remain awake, the next I appear to have been in deep slumber, so deep that someone has managed to clean me up and change my nest as well as having delivered me a feast in miniature without my knowing. If I wasn’t so cheerful just now all of this would trouble me. But truly, this is such a relief.

  What a fool I was to so easily become forlorn and think the worst like that. But I suppose I am entirely dependent, and that is not an easy position to be in, particularly with a stranger. My mother would be most upset with me having accepted so much kindness when I have deserved none, given none; and furthermore would be furious that I have not even begun to offer thanks. Such shame. Well, as soon as I can put things right, I shall.

  No closer to witnessing this kind one, I find it disconcerting, it is as though my desire to see them renders them all the more elusive. Is it just coincidence that I do not see them? For it is certainly strange that so much activity occurred straight after my greatest period of clarity and alertness, and that during all this activity I have not once set eyes on them. Not felt a thing. It drugs me? Medicates me? Certainly. But why? Perhaps I exhausted myself with too much animated thought, perhaps I am not as aware as I believe. I had better take things steadily. I have to recover my strength and movement, there is so much to do: fresh planning, the prototypes, the boxes themselves, repairs, and I must check on Cello. It kills me to think of her stored away in a cupboard. I know this was to prevent me from playing, and I know that this meant that she was safe when the typhoon swept through, but still, it isn’t right. And where, oh where, is Cat? Does he come and go as he used to? Perhaps he has a new companion. I would not blame him. But if he would still visit at times I would like that.

  Lying beside this row of beautiful dishes I feel so indulged, as though I am someone special, and nothing but nothing could be further from the truth. But I will be so happy when I have the opportunity to thank the one who helps me, to introduce them
to Cat and to Cello...

  5.

  The shapeshifter is deeply committed to protecting its identity, for why else hasn’t it made itself known? There is never more than a trace image, and the only reasonable conclusion is that it evades me intentionally. Well, alright then. But why? Why?

  At semi-lucid moments I have definitely heard its tread, but I can’t identify it. I have glimpsed sometimes an outline, but nothing more. Perhaps temple staff, one of those who helped bring in the futon and the various provisions. But my instincts tell me not. Instincts. Listen to me! Instincts? It is a very long time since my mind felt quite so agile. The signals, until very recently, have felt entirely lost! As though I couldn’t access the right frequency, as though I was denied the means; as though I could not tune in ... to myself. Something not firing, something coming undone, the wiring, the self-wiring, a lack of re-wiring, of re-routing, of maintenance, or the signal box unmanned? Messages, questions, ideas, memories, perhaps all, all of them, thrown away, lost in the fetid landfill of the subconscious, in boxes, marked and unmarked, perhaps wrongly marked, mislaid, decomposing, then, suddenly, encountering stimulus, refiguring, re-animating, shooting back, finding a messenger, a trigger, an old one, a different one, creating new pathways, making the way back a way forward. I really do not know – But Cat is here! It has been some time, my friend! Nonchalant, he moves his head to raise his chin and looks at me. He stretches long. I envy his movements. The ease of them. He checks out the room, sniffing at this and that and then at the air. He takes in the window, clambers about. He moves towards the steps and heads back to the floor below. A gentle patter of paws.

  I can still only conclude for the moment, that if the caregiver eludes me so well, then it has to be a deliberate act. It might be a case of shyness, of humility, or even something more curious, and without knowing, perhaps I ought to remain respectful of this, curb my interest and leave it be. It’s none of my business. I am the recipient of the most tremendous kindness, it is the least I can do to act with some degree of sensitivity and respect towards my benefactor. In that case, they will no longer need to hide their face, for I will hide my eyes. I hear something. The shapeshifter comes! If I pull the sheet over my face that might be best, then my visitor can relax.