by Emma Glass
The music changes to a trippy ripping beat, the strobe stays and I see teeth, white teeth and skulls, bopping and jittering. White knuckles of fists clenched around sticky glasses and sticky bodies and now I’m too hot and too wet and I’ve got to get out of here.
I go back out through the empty bar. The girl that was wiggling is now writhing against the bartender who has his head buried in her neck. Her friend is puking in the corner.
It All Catches Up to Me
All of my clothes go directly on the floor. I’m standing naked and freezing in the bedroom wondering if I should sleep on the sofa. But it’s too late now, I slide into bed next to you. I am shivering cold. I tuck myself around you. You are so warm. And with my arms held to your chest and my nose in the crook of your neck I am home. You are sleepy when you take my hand and press it to your lips. And I am fast asleep when you tell me this is the last time.
I Wait for Her Because Without Her I’m Going to Sink
My skin tightens in the salt water and sunshine. The water is blue, blue, blue, stretching out in front of me forever, an extension of the sky, they are the same thing. The only difference between sky and sea and sea and sky is the golden orb, a perfect bobbing orange. But if I swim towards the shore in the low rippling waves and then turn on to my back and stroke my arms against the silky surface, the dazzling sun is both above me and below me and it doesn’t really matter because I am floating floating floating. My sister grabs my hand and says come on! We’re going! I turn back again to the shore to see my mother lying on a beach towel on the yellow sand. The towel is enormous and blue-and-white-striped, my mother is tiny in a red swimsuit, her hair is permed and puffed out behind her like a little cloud. She is wearing sunglasses that reflect the sea. I wave and she waves back, a sunburnt arm, pink today, brown tomorrow, the tan lasting forever. I follow my sister as she dives under the waves, she is graceful and fast and soon catches up with my father.
He is happiest now.
In the water he is transformed, tanned, not tired, smiling, not shouting. He dunks his head under, rises and slicks back his hair. Let’s swim out further, girls, but keep close. I match my sister’s stroke, arms flying through the water. Father is farther, we follow, flinging our arms out, sending cuts across waves ripping. We splash, water is everywhere, in my eyes, in my mouth, I dive under and rise into the sun. I push the water and breath out of my nose, pinch my nostrils and wash away the snot and salt from my fingertips. I wipe my eyes and draw my hair back from my forehead. Father’s feet flip in and out of the water, I reach for them. My sister is laughing, joy and freedom pouring from her, swimming, singing, sun-tingling, she touches the shimmering rays of light on the water, she catches them in her cupped hands, little silver fishes, she throws them high into the sky. Diamonds shower us. We swim on. Into the blue. Deeper and deeper. Further. Following. Father signals us to swim under the wave about to break over us, we duck down, resurface, laughter sprinkles from our mouths, mingles with popping and zinging of dissolving sea foam. We duck down again for the next wave and the next and the next. When we rise the air feels cooler than before. The water is darker. The sun is still shining but it is higher now. Father is still smiling, still swimming, but the next wave that comes is bigger, he doesn’t dive fast enough, he gets caught in the crest. Arms flail and foam flies. The sea spits him back out, he splutters, he is shocked. My sister laughs.
We settle on the surface, treading through the troughs when they come, bobbing like seagulls, playing it cool. I look back at the shore, I can just make out the golden band of sand in the distance, a tiny speck that could be Mother, could be the salt fizzing my eyes, the glare of the sun, could just be a speck. I turn to my sister. But she is not there. I meet a wall of water.
Slammed. Slapped. There is no splash, the force is too great. I feel my muscles strain to hold on. But hold on, there is nothing to hold on to. I am under. My muscles strain, my bones are bolsters, tissue tightens to stay fixed to my skin. Pushed down and held under by the weight of the water and raging waves. I push back, arms thrashing, but I am held tightly and I’m tired, so tired. My lungs burn to breathe. I try to look up, to see the surface, but I’m so far down, there is not much light, there is dark water, heavy as cement. I shut my eyes. What can I do now? Behind my eyes there is darkness too. And specks. Hundreds of tiny specks. They are red, they could be my mother, on the sand, waving goodbye, waving goodbye. My battered arms wave back limply.
I am dizzy and I am dying.
The specks become bigger, they bleed into each other, until the specks become drops and the drops become pools and the pools become lakes and the lakes become seas until all I can see is darkness.
A sharp pinch pulls at the skin on my shoulder, pulls me out of the water. The pinch is painful, I touch the fingers that pull the flesh from the blade of bone, I grip the wrist, wringing the wet skin. The arm is my sister’s saving me from drowning, I surface to the sound of my father screaming.
I wake up with the pain of the pinch still present. I gasp at the feel of the cold flesh still in my grasp. My fingers are hooked around a wrist of brittle bones, skin so thin it is there and it is not there, I touch the bone, so cold it numbs my fingertips, and I lose the grip, the wrist belongs to no arm and no one.
But someone. There is someone.
I open my eyes, looking for him, the anger approaching my lips even though I know he is not there, the bed is empty. He is long gone.
But there is someone.
Milky light seeps through the slats of the blinds. My eyes are blurry, still full of sleep and specks and seawater. I can’t see. But I can feel. I sense someone next to the bed, standing over me, sense the silence about to be broken, the mouth falling open, the breath bubbling, boiling, coiling up through slackened lungs, sacs unused and clogged with dust, a wheezing whistle tipping the air. I listen for the breath but I only hear my own, shallow from the night of sea swimming, slowing now, stopped up with fear. If someone is there, why don’t they speak, why don’t they breathe? Am I imagining the cold fleshy fingers, the pinch that lingers?
I am too scared to look so I thrust out my arm, spread my fingers into the empty air, dashing away the demon that isn’t there. The emptiness is a chasm that I cannot consider right now. I reach for sleep. And sleep comes in waves, I let them wash over me, with each one I reach out for hands to hold, my father pulling me back into the water, my sister pulling me out. I stretch my fingers to feel theirs but they drift away, they drift away, as they have drifted away.
I Didn’t Drown
This time when I wake, the light in the room is brighter, the day is older. The image imprinted in my mind is the blue-and-white-striped towel from my dream, draped across my vision like a flag. This is a stock image. This is how I know I was dreaming. The towel in real life is small, flimsy, flutters in the breeze blowing up sand, spreading sprinkles everywhere, sand landing in unwanted places. My sister and I had matching towels, bright red, blue and yellow, a primary beach scene, a sun, a sea, a bucket and spade, wrapping round and round and round us when our bodies were small, the softness of the towel tickling sun-kissed areas, chafing chapped sandy bottoms. But as we grew, they did not, we sat on them for as long as we could. And then they became towels for hair dyeing at home. My mother’s soft brown perm became woven with white. She would sigh loudly with each sighting of new silver streak. And every few weeks she would stand at the bathroom sink, staring in the mirror, dolloping dye on to her head, piling her hair high, scooping and swirling her hair up foamy and creamy. She’d call out to me for the towel to be passed, I’d press it on her shoulders, she was a whipped-cream queen.
A catalogue of her dyeing. The towels were marked with the colours of her years. At first, dark chocolate, milk chocolate, redder to mahogany, mouse brown, BLONDE. Washed out by white, she admitted defeat. Blonde at her age? The time came to be gracefully grey. We called it silver. The hair stripped of its thickness by the chemical fix. Thin on top, threadbare like the ancient
towels. But not dead yet. The towels live on, a third life in the rags hanging in my father’s shed.
I can smell the oil on the rags. I can see my father sitting in the car, he says pass me the rag, Laura, I can’t see a bloody thing. And he wipes the windscreen vigorously, the rag is thrown into my lap, soaked in condensation. He is hunched, leaning close to the wheel, eyes squinting and fixed to the road. Worry rolls over his face, skin withering. Headlamps of oncoming cars flash and wash his face in stark white light, highlighting the creases so deep where the worry beds down and keeps his eyes tightly open at night. Lack of sleep leaks from him. His body is low and slow, every move made smaller and smaller as he shrinks into endless days. We ride side by side somewhere, his endless day, my endless night, our exhausted breath fogging up the windows until we can’t see each other any more and we can’t see anything in front of us.
So with that sad thought I drag my sorry ass out of bed.
I have never felt so empty. I should be thin from barely eating, from working shifts without stopping for a drink, for grabbing a bite, a literal bite. The uneaten food still finds a way to punish me. I stretch my tired arms and legs, I grab the layer of fat that still sits around my empty belly. I squeeze it and breathe in and I look in the mirror and say to myself I look thin like this and then let go of my gut and watch the wobble and say maybe this is why you don’t love me any more?
I will never know because I will not ask you.
I walk into the kitchen and fill a glass of water and drink it down. The floor is sticky from the spilled soup and I set to scrubbing it in my pyjamas. My empty stomach is the soundtrack to my chores. The rumbling grumbling echoes over the sound of sweeping, swiping dust from surfaces, drumming away as I scratch at the grit and grime on the kitchen counter. I puff up pillows and fold clothes. Your clothes and mine. Everything together now for the last time. When I put your socks in the washing basket, I say out loud I will not miss this. The things I will not miss make a bigger list than things I will. I will miss your arms. I will miss the warmth of your body in the bed. There is a little soft patch of skin on the back of your neck that I like to touch. I will miss that. I will miss the lick you give your lips before you speak but I won’t miss the words that follow and fall out of that wry wet mouth.
I take my pyjamas off, now sweaty and soaked with soap suds. As the top goes over my head I get a whiff of the dusty plastic vacuum smell. I dress in leggings and a sports bra. I put on your favourite T-shirt which is creased and dirty but still feels forbidden. I brush my greasy hair into a ponytail which doesn’t need pins to stay in place. This run should be easier with nothing inside me. I should be light as air. I should be fucking floating.
I Fear
Galloping manic. Heart pounding, hair flying, my feet slam the path, reverberations travel through my bones, up and rumbling in my ears, the vibrations make my back teeth shake and knock together, I try to keep my tongue out of the way. This is the way to run. Skeleton quaking, lungs bursting, everything everything everything hurting. Each step is a stamp, an essential connection with concrete, crushing that empty feeling. I am here. Solid, steadily moving through the world. I can be alone. I can be a force. I don’t need half-love, half-life, half is not enough. I can be whole with nothing. I came from nothing. I came from nowhere. I can be anywhere now, without. Here I am without. But here I am. Flying.
My thoughts unravel like ribbons as I rush through the trees. They are long and are tied to the tips of my fingers, they blow in the breeze, I air them out. I am careful not to let them catch on twigs and leaves. They stream out, all colours and rippling noise, and then I let them go. I untie the pain and sadness, I scatter it amongst the fallen leaves and dirt. I push myself to keep going, to move the muscles, to blow out the air that was breath before and is used up and no good any more. I push, push, push to move and think and function, the collapse will have to come later.
Afternoon sunlight saturates the canopy of leaves, spreading like sacred water, golden and green, pouring on to the path. The light lifts me, I move faster. The air is cool and fresh on my face. The trees and shrubs blur into mossy green messes, the golden light is glittering on crusted bronze and brown leaves. I let myself smile a little as I skip over stones, branches brushing my hair and –
A cry rises, I am surprised by the sound, it emerges, bursts from my own gaping mouth. Slam, sickening whack, crack. My head rolls forward with force. Searing pain and shock makes me stop.
Thwack.
I am hit.
I am hurt.
A brick. A hammer. A dagger.
Dazed. Head lolling forward. Rolling around, heavy, barely hanging on to my weak neck.
The air behind me is disturbed, I feel it spreading, I feel it pressing in. I will my wobbly legs to run on. I shuffle along the path. Crack. WHACK. Scrappy scraping nail through skin through skull dragging drawing open I am shrieking, screaming, running for my life, scrabbling my way through the brush screaming, eyes streaming. I feel the air ripping open above me behind me I see the enormous shadow of splayed wings the thing is following me flying, swooping down snatching at my hair, reaching deep with claws, beak breaking skin, driving down digging for bone. I snatch breaths between screams hoping someone hears. Wings thrash behind me, I see black-feathered blurs. Another spear of pain dragging across my scalp, I flip my head back and forth to fight it off. Running don’t stumble it’ll go for your eyes. I bring my clenched fists up close to my face. Please, someone. Barking breaks through my hoarse shrieking, I see a dog up ahead and I run towards it, I rush out into a clearing, a woman is coming to me with her arms open. She commands her dog: ‘SCOUT!’ she shouts. He is barking, raging, hind legs bent he is ready to bounce, bound up the tree trunk. The woman has worked her arm around my shoulders, she is shhhing and soothing me and I am cowering. The crow settles on a high branch. He is watching me. He is fucking huge. I point to it. The woman is dismayed.
‘I thought you were being murdered,’ she says.
I thought I was being murdered.
‘You’re bleeding.’ She looks at the blood I have dripped on her shoulder. I put my hand to my head. My hair is wet, my hand is red.
‘Oh, I’m so sorry.’ I step a little way from her but I’m shaking, she grasps my arm.
‘It’s okay, come with me, I’ll help you back to the canal.’
The black crow sits, waiting, watching, feathers glistening in the lowering light. I can’t make out its eyes, but I feel it watching me. Every bit of it is shining.
Scout gives a final growl and follows us. The woman holds my arm firmly until we reach the cobbled path.
‘Thank you,’ I say, snivelling, wiping my wet face with the back of my hand.
‘No problem, you’re sure you’ll be okay?’
‘Yes, thanks again.’ I turn towards home, she stands and waits and watches me a little way.
Every step I take is slow and scared. I keep my hand pressed to the wound, my bloody wet hair dries quickly and sticks to my skin. I sob all the way. People go by with curious and pitying eyes. No one stops, but I’m glad, I won’t be able to get the words out.
The sun is setting, a big round yellow egg yolk, forked open and flowing, the last of the sunlight running into the murky canal, darkness dissolving the day. The signal of my start. I want to start again. What has happened? What is happening? Ghastly ghostly darkness flocking in on black wings.
If I told you, you would laugh.
Who gets attacked by a crow?
This would only happen to Laura.
I shiver and shake my way home and into the shower, power up the heat and pressure. My head stings as the water hits, rushing down, pinkish.
I comb my wet hair and wait for the steam on the mirror to disappear. My reflection is misted, faded. I am not there, I am not here. The mist in the mirror drifts. The bathroom is full of fog, I feel the fullness and could there be someone else? I am truly spooked, goose-pimpled full of fear from creepy water-logged dreams, the we
t slithering arm on my shoulder, the murderous crow.
I pull the towel tightly around me, I wipe the mirror, my skin squeaks as I streak the glass. My face, my sad face, is not mine but some other person’s. Drawn and grey. My lip curls up, a rasping gasp of horror escapes from me, I whip around and face the face but the face is just fog flurrying. I open the door and it escapes. The mirror clears and I tilt my head to see the wound, I part my hair, my scalp is scored in places, the skin is red and raw with scratches. Bleeding begins again but it is insignificant. Leaning over the basin, I begin to feel pain in my stomach, a gurgling pain, an empty belly, gassy and growling.
I feel stupid, I feel shitty, I feel starving. I stalk to the kitchen shaking myself off. And I put the kettle on to boil eggs.
I Function
I feel better with a belly full of milky tea and eggs. When I remembered we were breadless, I softened the hard edge of anger sticking in my throat with furry, slowly moulding raspberries and thick yoghurt.
My head is tender, my brain feels like tenderised beefsteak simmering in juices. I take pain killers and wear my hair loose. I find myself standing outside the hospital and wonder how I got here. My backpack has a clean uniform, clean socks and snacks inside. I brought a book to read on my break. I am partly impressed and partly terrified at my ability to function, to pull myself together, to remain present and to present myself. I am half an hour early.
We will all be here early tonight. We all want to know. Poor Danny, what has happened to you? He has been with us so long, he has made us all little-bit mothers, little-bit fathers. And when I peer inside the doctor’s office and see Wilf sitting at Dr Lucas’s desk with his head in his hands, I know for sure and my heart stings. He is surrounded by papers and stacks of notes, blood results and scan reports, meaning what now? Numbers adding up to exactly nothing.