The Unburied Man
and
The People Who Use Room Five
two horror novellas
Pablo D’Stair
Copyright © 2011 by Pablo D’Stair
(KUBOA)/SmashWords Edition
www.kuboapress.wordpress.com
It is the genuine hope of KUBOA to receive unfiltered feedback from readers regarding the works we produce. Whether your reaction to the work was positive, negative, or ambivalent, we would much appreciate your taking the time to send some remarks to us—these will be shared with the authors.
kuboacomments@gmail.com
The Unburied Man
I knew I had a fever even before I knew. I took a swallow of water while on a cigarette break and could tell.
Before getting back to work cleaning, I took two ibuprofen tablets, hoping this would keep whatever was the matter with me from getting worse. Even with the medicine, within the hour I was feeling achy in my legs and had a slight headache creeping in between my eyes. I decided I would end my day early.
I punched out without telling anyone, not that anyone would have objected. Then I sat at the table in maintenance department lounge, awhile, staring at the food in the vending machine before getting up, suddenly, touching at my arms, face, sides as I went to the door.
While I smoked another cigarette, I felt a twinge of heat roll in my gut. I got to the toilet just in time, defecated violently, the feces thin like urine.
***
On my way across the university campus to the bus stop, I heard Martin Birge call out to me. Martin was a friend of mine, a professor of film.
-How’s everything, Professor Pell? he asked, using the nickname he had assigned to me the day we had met. The nickname bothered me, but I never commented on it as he only used it on campus.
-I’m not feeling so well, Martin. I’m heading home, actually.
-You look fine, he told me, pointing as though he had caught me out on something. You’re well enough for Thursday, though?
-I’ll know on Thursday, I suppose, but I should be alright.
He gave the side of my arm a pat then said he had to hurry, as he was covering a lecture for a colleague. I nodded and my neck ached from it, too much for me to lift my head back up for several minutes.
***
The night passed very slowly.
I attempted to take a shower, but though I could tell from the steam in the air and that the tap was turned all the way to the left that the water was hot, it felt only lukewarm when I tested it.
Several times I had excruciating bowel movements. By the third, nothing but scentless air issued from me in long hisses.
I walked around my apartment naked. I could not get comfortable enough for sleep in the bed, on the sofa, on the floor.
In fact, I was not exactly tired. I was more antsy. I kept moving toward the front door, touching the doorknob as though I would turn it, either to leave or to see if there was somebody standing on the other side.
Television was worthless and I was unable to concentrate on any film. Even the ones I would often play just as pleasant background noise irritated me.
Water tasted awful, somehow. I tried to drink, but each time I sniffed the water I poured it would unsettle my stomach.
***
Work the next day started just fine, as at some point I had managed an hour or two of sleep. I didn’t remember having slept, though. While I emptied ashtrays, cleaned exterior windows, and removed some banners for the series of seminars that had ended the previous day, I was preoccupied with trying to remember drifting off, trying to remember where it was I had finally passed out.
By the time I took my first break, I was lethargic and became aggravatingly aware of my own body odor, which, even though I had not showered, seemed peculiarly intense to me. I avoided contact with groups of students and faculty even more than normal. I decided to clock out at midday.
I caught my reflection in the glass of a door as I was leaving, found that I looked very put together, my hair immaculate, my clothes normal, my face seemed keen, alert, even flirtatious.
***
In the supermarket a few blocks from my apartment building, I wandered the aisles, filling my cart with an assortment of items I had no particular use for. Some of them, though I understood my intense craving for them, did not find their purchase so peculiar, were things I had never bought before. I bought a can of shrimp flavored cat food, several different medications, some tubes of medicated cream, some pills, some port wine, a powder for killing winged insects, and three apples, though I only wanted the skins from those.
I came across each item almost by chance, holding them slyly to my nose and giving taps of inhalations, self-conscious that if another patron saw me sniffing the outside of a tube of vaginal itch cream or a bottle of homeopathic anti-stress pills they might suspect me of something. I felt hunted. I wanted no attention I could manage to avoid.
***
As soon as I was back inside my apartment, I set the plug to the kitchen sink drain. I undressed, fishing my cigarettes out of my pant pocket, lighting one and then another with the smoldering tip of the first, that one only half-way smoked down.
It felt like there was a rather thick film of sweat all over my back. It felt like an animal’s saliva, like dogs had lapping at me. I itched and when I scratched my skin was dry in circles here and there, flaking, then soft, tender to the touch, no longer discoloured, like it never had been.
In a yellow plastic bowl, I mashed up the items I had bought at the store. I took my time doing so, smoking through six more cigarettes and having a rest on the floor once or twice. I swallowed two handfuls of the pills I had bought, took a handful of the paste I had stirred, mashing it into my mouth, my fingers pushing it down my throat. Within twenty minutes, I vomited into the kitchen sink.
I ate four more handfuls of the paste throughout the evening and night. I vomited each time.
***
It was already well in to the afternoon when I woke up.
With no real sense of urgency, I called the university, left a message on the Maintenance Department voicemail explaining that I was ill and had overslept, apologizing, though it would not matter.
I also called Martin, just to let him know that I would still be joining he and a group of acquaintances for drinks that evening. I did not want him to come around the maintenance office asking for me, find I was ill and so assume I would not be in attendance.
I poured out the remaining contents of a bottle of limeade, rinsed it thoroughly at the bathroom sink and did my best to dry the inside. At the kitchen sink, I used a spoon to scoop the vomit from the basin and transfer it into the bottle.
Thinking about it a little bit more, I realized I had better pour some of the vomit into a glass, which I left in the cabinet beneath the sink, tucked behind a bucket with various cleaners, some rubber gloves, and some old plastic bags in it.
I packed the bottle in a small duffle bag, covering it over with some random clothes I lifted form the hamper.
***
I ate a sandwich and drank some coffee at a café. The sky outside was oscillating between intense brightness and mild overcast. I watched it for awhile, wanting to gauge when the clouds would be blocking the sun for a little while before I left.
It had been weeks since I had been downtown during the day. The streets were relatively quiet. The only bothersome noises were from some work being done in a parking lot and the trash trucks moving along the street, stopping with gasps of their brakes, lifting and spilling the contents of dumpsters into them.
I went into a bookstore and lingered by the magazines for a few minutes. Then, with a great deal of focus, moved over to the shelf that displayed maps of the local and surrounding area.
I looked at maps for about an hour, then borrowed a pen and a slip of paper from one of the clerks. I wrote down the address of a small motel that was located very near a vast reserve of wilderness. The wilderness was hundreds of acres, thousands, I did not really verify. I saw it was a huge amount of wilderness that stretched well into the next state.
***
I took my time dressing, even doing up a tie, took up my duffle bag, then left to meet Martin at the bar we had agreed upon.
Martin and several other people were already there, Martin greeting me rather exuberantly, remarking on how I was dressed as he playfully dusted the lapel of my sport coat.
-Where are you off to? he asked, which I first thought was in reference to my appearance, but saw he was actually pointing at my bag.
-I needed to stop by the campus for something, I said with a shrug. I’d left this there.
We all drank for an hour or two, before I excused myself to the restroom, taking my duffle bag.
At the urinal, I found my urine was issuing thick and viscous, not so much that it hurt to void myself, but I had to use toilet paper to clean myself off after and the tips of my fingers that had come in contact with the urine stuck together as though they had been covered in tree sap.
I glanced around the bar to verify that Martin and the others were occupied, then exited through the rear door, stopping to give a cigarette to a drunk woman leaned against one of the public telephones.
***
The taxi driver was fine with my smoking. He didn’t even ask me to keep the window opened a bit, just lit one of his own small cigars and drove in silence.
I got comfortable, leaned to the corner, the side of my head leaned against the window glass. Between streetlights, I could see a complete reflection of my face, the smoke from my cigarette licking against its reflection.
As we got nearer the little motel, the roads had already become dead, two lanes lined with trees and the occasional houses, some of which looked unlived in for years.
I felt impatient, but remained still, listening to my breathing, letting saliva collect thick and plump in my mouth, swallowing it slowly, listening to it gurgle in my stomach.
While the taxi lulled at a railroad crossing, a train rolling past almost silently, just flatbeds with nothing on them, one or two cylindrical carrier cars, the driver asked me, a chuckle to the question, who I was meeting at this motel.
-What do you mean? I asked, stirring, sitting up straight.
-I’ve just heard things about this place. I figured there’s only one reason. I just wanted to know who was worth it.
I didn’t say anything, but let a smile, long and deep, cross my face, scratched my eye, the driver chuckling again into his cigar.
***
The first time I stopped walking, it was to lurch to the side, lean against a tree, and then roll my forehead back and forth over the bark which was soft, damp from the moisture in the air that became more pronounced the deeper I moved into the woods.
As I continued, my head drooped and I lost my footing several times. My eyes would not stay open past a sliver. I walked for hours, moving through cramps in my sides, my chest, my legs.
At one point, I felt my bowels loosen into my pants and my nose started running, only mucus but a taste in the back of my throat like it might being bleeding at any moment.
There were beautiful scents to each step I took, things I couldn’t think of names for but wanted to clothe myself in, fragrances that kept me moving, made me walk with my eyes closed, tumbling to the ground, crawling forward each time I did, not wanting to stop even while getting back to my feet.
***
About a quarter of the way across a stretch of damp field I slowed, catching my breath, stopped, then walked in short circles for a several minutes.
I touched my hand to the ground. The grass which was on the surface, the weeds and various dead growth, came up easily as I curled my fingers in to fists.
Filling my mouth with an amount of the slop of unearthed soil, I then sat, unzipping my duffle bag, removing the bottle of what I had regurgitated the previous night. I sat for an hour, eating handfuls of the ground, swallowing mouthfuls of my vomit.
I was waiting for the temperature to warm slightly. I felt no impatience, understanding it could take until sunrise, it could take longer.
I would test the air, holding my hand out. When I did, I saw that it shivered uncontrollably. In between each test, I would plunge my hands into the soil where I sat, blankly watching some movement to the clouds far in the distance, past the trees at the top of some hill.
At one point, I slowly lifted my head, aware I had fallen asleep. Two deer had wandered into the filed, both standing a few feet from me, one sniffing at the ground, teasing its nose at some clump of grass, the other looking in my direction but past me, behind me at something.
***
The soil came away easily. While I dug I felt numb, my movements wooden yet somehow quite fluid, clumsy but precise. I took a few more handfuls of the soil into my mouth as the hole got deeper.
The damp of the ground was peculiar, my hands delved again and again through the surface of a bleak puddle, pulling up the mud from underneath of it. By the time the hole was deep enough for me to lay in were I to curl up, it was as though it was a child’s wading pool.
When the hole got long enough, deeper, and the first slants of morning light crept over the hills in the distance, it began drizzling. As I climbed down into the hole, on my knees, I was submerged in water up to the top of my thighs. I began pulling in armfuls of the loosened earth. It sponged up the water and the water that was not sopped up rose more and more up me.
It got so that I could lay back. And while I did, I burrowed my left arm down beneath the ground. With my right arm, I pulled a large pile of the rank sludge over my face. It weighed a lot. I opened my mouth to let it fill me.
My right arm protruded from the dirt until the end, was awkward to squiggle down into the murk with the rest of me, but I managed it, soon enough, already feeling comfortable, already partway drifted into a cool sleep.
***
I was partially out of the ground when I found I could focus on what was happening. I had my face, part of a leg, one shoulder, and one hand through the muddy surface. A trickle of water slipped into my mouth, causing me to choke and when I choked I found that my throat was completely obstructed. For awhile I convulsed. My eyes felt solid, grinding together in my head.
I sat, my lower torso and one leg still submerged, and dug the mud and small rocks out of my mouth, out of my throat as far as my fingers would reach.
When I got myself unburdened, I walked a few wobbling steps, pitched forward, tried to retch, the inside of me feeling like crisp paper, like dirt baked solid to the point it would sheet and snap in the sun.
Hardened soil was jammed in my nose, my ears, I felt the weight of it inside of my clothing.
The ground was swampy. I tried to use the wet of this to get my hands clean, tried to use my wetted hands to clean my face.
It may have been hours that I was there, squatting, slapping myself, scratching at myself, shivering, trying to see properly.
***
The general sense of disorientation wore off after I started walking. It was like my head clearing in the shower after a hard sleep, waking badly with thoughts still half in a dream.
I realized I was out in the woods, exactly where I had buried myself. I did not know exactly where that was. I could remember the taxi to the motel, but the walk, the hours through the dark of the wilderness was a blur, just the memory of a sensation.
My clothing was ruined, soured through with the pulpy mess I had been buried in. The garments weighed me down and I was very conscious of the cold and wet of the cloth.
I followed what was as much of a path as could be expected, considering where I was. After what must have been another few hours, I came to a cleared walking path, the ground made smooth by hikers.
In any direction I saw nothing. There was moonlight, but the trees and growth and long empty fields that opened here and there soaked it up. It seemed even darker for the moon, somehow.
***
I kept to the side of the path up to a small house that was set a way into the woods. From what I could tell, there was a light on inside.
I waited behind a corroded tin shed set off from a larger tin shed, leaned against it. Offhand, I touched to my pockets as though there might be a cigarettes. I felt colder with every moment that passed, my movements stiffening.
I pressed my face to one of the unlit windows that looked in on a kitchen, dirtied dished piled next to the sink. The entranceway to the kitchen was wide enough that I could see some of the lit lounge room. I could tell from a clack of changing light against part of one wall that a television was on.
I was sitting on the ground, ducked next to a trash bin, my legs bent, arms curled around them, thinking to wait until morning, when a voice said Hello. I started, abruptly, striking my head against the wall. There was a young boy in pajamas standing there.
-Are you alight? he asked.
There was a plastic cup of milk in his hand that I snatched violently, lunging, knocking him down. After gasping down the drink, roughing my hands on the milk that had spilled, sucking my fingers, biting them while I did, I looked up. The boy was still on the ground, but relaxed, just watching me.
-My mom and dad aren’t home yet, he said.
-Alright, was all I could think to say in response.
***
The scent of the food cooking while I showered was overpowering, it made me feel weak, aroused, broken. The warmth of the water was the only thing that kept me from lurching, naked, down the stairs, devouring whatever it was, half cooked.
I heard the man knock on the door, open it, knew he was laying out clothing as he had told me he would.
They must have known to serve me incrementally. First a sandwich. Then some eggs. Then some soup. Only after that did they set more than one item out at a time.
I noticed the date on a digital clock, first not asking about it, but then felt I needed to verify.
-What day is it?
-Today is Thursday, the man said.
The twelfth, the woman said when I did not respond.
-Of? I swallowed another mouthful of wine as soon as the woman poured it.
-February, she said.
I nodded. It had been nearly two months I was in the ground.
-What’s your name? the little boy asked me after he touched his mother’s arm, asking could he pour me a bit more wine.
-Darius. I’m Darius Pell.
He poured a half glassful and I grabbed it, tilting it to my mouth.
-What’s your name, I asked, still swallowing. But he turned his face down, shy, moving back to his chair.
***
The man hardly spoke while we drove, which made me uneasy. I wanted to elaborate on the story I’d offered to explain my appearance, but he never brought it up and I would have felt bizarre broaching it, myself. He obviously knew it was a lie. Likely, he did not care. That or thought it was something sordid, wanted no intimate knowledge of it. As we got nearer the city, I stopped being concerned.
To break the silence at one point, I said Thank you to him, again. He nodded, took a deep breath, as though he was about to start in on some statement of length, but just said that he was glad to help, that he hoped I would be alright.
I regretted giving him my correct address, but was too fatigued to bother with lying, walking, anything. There was every chance my key would not work. There was every chance I no longer lived anywhere.
-I’d like to send you money, I said at a traffic light, three blocks from the apartment.
-It won’t be necessary. He said this slowly, a tone I understood and made no response to.
***
There were two sheets of paper filled with notes from Martin taped to the wall just inside my apartment door. I read them blankly, almost with amusement, not thinking clearly enough to feel anything but relief.
Since I had gone missing, he had been checking for me every day, not knowing if I was just on some leave, something personal, or if something was the matter. When he realized I was not around and had made no contact with anyone, not done anything about the apartment, he had taken care of rent, taken care of what bills he could when he checked on payments as a way of trying to find me.
Every new entry to the note emphasized that I should contact him. Some said he could help. One said he did not know whether or not to call the police. Another said he had.
I brushed my teeth, rinsed with antiseptic wash, brushed my teeth.
The refrigerator had been emptied, just basic foods, non-perishable, restocked.
I wanted to sleep. I stared at the bed, undressing, worried, as I had been during the night, to close my eyes.
***
I waited until midday, when I knew that Martin would be in his office, to call him. I did not feel nervous, just a bit tense, as I imagined it would be an excitable opening to the conversation. I just wanted to talk to him. I felt calm as the telephone rang, tranquil. I leaned forward against the kitchen counter, it cold against my naked skin.
-Martin, it’s Darius I said, keeping my voice flat.
There was a moment of pause, I imagined him shifting in his chair.
-Where are you? he said, not a whisper, not his normal speaking volume.
-I’m home.
-Stay there.
I wanted to chuckle, to say Of course I’ll stay here, but Martin was already continuing on that he was coming over.
-Are you alright? he asked. I could hear the snaps of his briefcase clicking shut.
-Martin, I’m fine. There’s nothing to worry about.
-Just stay there.
I was shaking my head, started to say I just want to thank you, but he repeated he would be right over and the line went dead.
It was odd, when I thought about it while making a sandwich, that he had hung up so quickly. But, I had said I was fine. I had sounded fine. I was fine.
I decided to dress in some lounging clothes, which I had to take out of the hamper. My laundry was something Martin had not attended to in my absence.
***
It was easier not to go into details, I had decided. Not until I had settled back in. I gave some vague explanation of having gotten involved with some woman, said it was complicated and apologized that I couldn’t explain it properly, just then.
We both drank while I talked, Martin’s brow furrowed deeply, he rubbed at it like he could not get it to smooth.
-You’re not in any trouble, are you? He looked at me pleadingly. It was rather moving.
I tried to return the look, to give it the proper reciprocation. I wanted to convey to him that I knew he would take on any burden I might give him, that if there was an opportunity for him to help I would let him.
-I’ll be able to explain myself better in just a few days. I have to get some things taken care of.
He was adamant that I was not to repay him a cent and that the subject never come up again. He had also taken the initiative, after my having been absent from work just two days in addition to the days I had left early, to speak to my supervisor, give some excuse of my illness necessitating a trip to an out of state clinic.
-I would have forged a doctor’s note, but it didn’t come to that, he said, finally breaking into a smile which drained into a sad laugh, his gaze breaking from my own grin.
***
I walked my apartment until I could not bear it, then put on a coat, walked outside to buy cigarettes.
It was colder than I had anticipated, but I wanted to walk. I bought two shot bottles of bourbon from a shop just about to close down for the night, then became lethargic, found some curb in a spot shielded from the wind to sit.
I was not about to wander off, bury myself again. I had no fear of that. Not that the situation was different now than it had been. I remembered every moment of the fever, every moment of the walk, all the reasons, the need, the lurid desire to do what I had done.
But I could not stir that desire, now. If I tried, I only returned to the memories, stones in my mind, no life to them, nothing to draw me along.
I felt like there was some point of logic missing and fumbled in my thinking for it. I wanted to want to intern myself, again. But now I could not. Something lacked. I did not quite remember how to go about it, gave up thinking about it.
I felt a bit sad, took drags of my cigarettes but not with enough force to take the smoke into my lungs.
***
After sleeping for a few hours, waking quite early, unable to pass out again, I felt more even. I made up my mind to take the next few days slowly, to schedule a visit to the university clinic before worrying about other doctors, to see how my head felt once I was back in to my pattern.
I dressed hurriedly, very unselfconsciously. Then it occurred to me how long I had been absent. As far as it went with me, I had only left work early two days ago, but the reality of the situation made me decide to groom myself a bit more than was my habit.
I lingered a long time in the shower, soaping myself over and over, blowing my nose, urinating into the drain at my feet. I removed my beard entirely, used just a slick of pomade and combed my hair straight back.
I had a cigarette with my coffee, not thinking to open the window. The day I saw looking down from the window was flat the way cold days always were, stiff, stale like air breathed in after a nosebleed.
***
I had expected my supervisor, some one of the cleaning staff, but the break room where the punch clock stood was empty.
I set my things in my locker, taking my cigarettes from my coat pocket as I put it to a hook. There were several pens at the base of the locker as well as a few coins, which for some reason amused me.
It was not until I was on my second cigarette break that any member of the staff approached me. Jasmine, who I knew from an old issue I had needed to resolve with payroll, approached me slowly, giving a little wave.
-She touched my shoulder. How are things with you, Darius?
-I’m feeling well, now. Thank you.
Martin, it occurred to me, had not told me exactly what I was allegedly in a clinic for. I tried to gauge from Jasmine’s tone, but she seemed to just let the matter drop.
We talked about some upcoming event for the theatre department. I told her to put me down for overtime if there was any. She begged a cigarette before she left.
***
I woke from an unsettling dream and lay there, my eyes open, no different than still being asleep dreaming.
I was very cold from having kicked the bedcovers away, the windows in the bedroom especially permeably. There were shadows breathing on the far wall from the air pushing through the glass stirring the thin curtain.
I could remember being buried.
For the first little bit, I felt as though I was thinking about my dream of being held in a closed fist of dirt, wet in some spots, soggy, dense and solid, dry as bones of dead birds on the roadside in others. Then I knew it was not the dream, not some fanciful exaggeration of the unsettling feeling from my sleep.
I was not unsettled, now. I spent the night awake, thinking about the days and days and days in the ground, the sensation of knowing it was raining four feet above me, knowing I was sinking inches at a time in the damp. Insects had moved through me, laying eggs which birthed, new insects slathering their way through the earth away from me.
While I dressed in the morning, I looked at my reflection disfigured by the steam of the shower. I felt peculiar, lonely somehow, away.
***
Martin caught up to me as I was leaving work. He apologized for not having found me the previous day, wanted to make it up to me by taking me out for drinks. I said I’d meet him later in the evening.
In my apartment, I took off my clothes, left the windows open, standing at one to have a cigarette, knowing any of the people in the building across might see me.
I returned from the night out with Martin later than I had thought to. I had planned to toss off some excuse of feeling odd, but the night turned out to be enjoyable. Martin had invited me to his place, but I declined the invitation.
I poured myself coffee after I unclothed, again, lifting the cup too quickly, spilling some to the floor. While I was to my hands and knees cleaning, I remembered I had poured some of my vomit into a glass, left it beneath the sink. The stuff was hardened now, it reeked when I moved it out from under the plastic bags covering it.
I chipped at it with a fork until a good amount was powder, took this in my palm, inhaled and then licked the flat of my tongue over my hand. I shivered and gagged. Then I patted my wet fingers into the powder still in the glass, let them get covered, sucked on them, cringing, feeling the warmth of bile rising, writhing out of me, dragging the swallowed powder with it.
***
My physical at the campus clinic verified I had a pulse, was slightly overweight, had no obvious infectious diseases, and was human. I asked the question about being human humorously and the doctor chuckled, nodding as though he had not really paid much attention to the remark.
I met Martin for lunch, afterward. He asked me why I had decided to have the examination, surprised I hadn’t mentioned it before.
I explained it was spur of the moment, that I had been feeling a bit gloomy, wanted to make sure it was nothing physiological.
When I mentioned the name of the doctor who had attended to me, he nodded, called the man by his first name, said Good.
-Why don’t you enroll in classes instead of just sitting in on lectures? Martin asked while we were having a drink, waiting to see a late showing of Von Trier’s Element Of Crime. It would be paid for, wouldn’t it?
-What do you mean? I replied, absently, pretending to be looking at something across the street.
He did not respond for some time. When I turned to look, he seemed apologetic. I wondered what the expression on my face was.
***
Sometime in the night, I woke with a violent headache and cramps. When I stood, I stumbled, was too dizzy to stand, again.
I crawled to the toilet, first thinking I needed to vomit, then felt a damp heat in my gut. I breathed in sharply and deeply over and over after I defecated.
I went to my knees, my head over the bowl, inhaling. The feces was soupy, what solid there was to it dispersed throughout the water.
Taking an amount of the soiled water in my palm, I touched at it with my tongue, then lapped, then cupped both hands, brought mouthful after mouthful, swallowing eagerly, once or twice coughing from going too fast.
My dizziness had somewhat subsided by the next morning. I dressed unsteadily, my eyes watery, only halfway opened.
My telephone rang while I made myself some toast, drank some coffee, but I let it go to the machine.
The bus ride to the university felt long because I kept nodding off, slipping into banal dreams, detailed dreams, waking from each with a snort to find I was perspiring, my throat chalk dry.
***
An itch that had troubled me all morning turned out to be roughness and discoloration to the skin under my left armpit, above my top rib. Two days previous, there had been a bruise there, before that, some other discomfort.
As I scratched the irritated skin, the rash got worse, skin flecking away, pinheads of blood showing in the dry. I used some lotion one of the other cleaning staff left on the counter space of our bathroom.
By the time I was punching out, that side of my body felt chilly, tingling like it had fallen asleep.
Martin was in his office. I could hear him talking with a somebody, so I had a cigarette outside, watched some students doing exercises on one of the athletic fields.
Martin came out of the building ten minutes later, making a Tsking sound at me, shaking his head. I gave him the finger.
-What if you get caught, there? he asked, pointing to one of the signs that stated it was a violation to smoke within ten of feet of the building.
-Who’s going to catch me? You?
He shrugged, wiggling his fingers so that I would pass a cigarette to him. I made him light it before we started walking. He chuckled, telling me to carry his bag.
***
I was watching a videocassette, eating some soup, and realized I had not stopped for cigarettes. I was reluctant to go out, now that it was well into the night, because I would have to walk several blocks to find a store that would be open. I put on my coat, touching my pant pockets as though I might find cigarettes in them, rolling my eyes at the gesture.
I smoked for an hour, walking around, finishing more than half of one of the three packs I had purchased.
Halfway up the stairwell to my apartment, I started to cough severely enough that I had to lean against the railing.
Still coughing, almost doubled over, I began up the stairs, again. I felt my feet touch on three more steps before taking an awkward stumble, having tensed my leg as though I thought it was about to step up, again, when in fact I had come to a landing.
I had to touch at my face to verify my eyes were open. I could not see. My ears hummed. I put my arms straight out, finding the wall with my palm.
It was only a few moments before my vision returned, a pop, everything visible, again. There was an odd lag before my mind processed what I was looking at, though, the same as when things had gone blank.
***
My claim of needing as detailed a workup as possible for a new job may not have been necessary. The attendants who drew blood and swabbed me for various cultures did so without fuss. The doctor overseeing everything seemed quite offhand, assured me that of course they would run tests for everything. I still laid emphasis to the point over and over that it was important to be thorough.
I had already made an appointment for x-rays at an office that specialized in that, but wondered if the hospital would have been more state-of-the-art.
I was woozy for much of the afternoon. I stopped several times for small bites to eat. I watched a movie that I largely ignored, could not recall anything specific from when I tried.
I had left the windows to my apartment open, so there was a damp area of carpet from the rain that had fallen off and on all day. I undressed and stood on the damp spot, enjoying the shush of water up over my toes. I walked in place while I smoked a cigarette.
The lights in the apartment were off, so I felt around on the floor for the remote control, turned the television on and stood by the window on the sopping wet carpet a few hours, watching nothing in particular.
***
I soaked in the bath for awhile, eventually falling asleep.
When I woke up, I just lay there, while. Then I stood and stayed still, listening to the slight sounds of the water around my ankles.
It was odd to find it morning when I opened the bathroom door.
Sometime while I slept I had defecated. There were streaks of foul water down over my feet, a trail of stain from the bathroom tile across the carpet to the kitchen tile.
It was difficult to think of what I wanted to eat, but I was very hungry. I started the oven, then noticed what time it was, shut the oven off, and settled for a few slices of bread.
If I hadn’t thought to check for cigarettes, I would have walked out of the apartment naked, still filthy around my shins, my ankles, my feet.
I put on the same clothing as the previous day, not bothering to clean myself off, as it would not make a difference with socks on, shoes on, pants on.
Outside it was cold from the rain. I didn’t want to walk out into the air until it was warmer.
I missed the bus, so took a taxicab to the university. The driver had to nudge me awake when we arrived. Or at least had to jostle me. I didn’t really feel like I had closed my eyes.
***
I hardly paid attention while my x-rays were explained to me, I just did my best to change facial expression, now and again.
There was nothing abnormal at all reported.
I asked if it was still evident where I had broken my arm a few years ago and the doctors face lit up. He pointed out the old wound, then pointed to other x-rays, tapping each with a pen, indicating what still showed of various other injuries. It was like he was showing a card trick.
I telephoned Martin from a bar that evening, already drunk. He showed up, tossing as paperback copy of The Little Girl Who Lived Down The Lane at me.
-It was pure chance I found it, he said, real triumph on his face. Is that the edition?
I smiled when I saw the book. It was not exactly the edition I had mentioned, but very close, so I told him it was.
-Where did you find it?
-At a friend’s apartment. They had this and another edition.
-Do I need to return it?
He didn’t answer, busy placing a drink order.
I wound up spending the night at his apartment. We had breakfast at a little coffee shop. Then he dropped me at the University.
***
The entire day at work I had felt fine. But as I climbed the stairwell of my apartment building, I felt sapped, as though a yawn I took had drained every ounce of energy from me.
I sat on the steps, resting my head against the wall, letting my legs flop out, my feet tingled numb in my shoes.
A few people passed me. I smiled at them. One of them, my neighbor from three doors over, asked me if I was locked out.
I blinked.
-No. I’m just catching my breath.
She sat down. I managed to scoot, to sit up a little bit straighter.
-Have you met that awful man who moved in at the end of the hall? She said it in a whisper, but in a tone certain that if had I met the man, I hated him as well.
-Sure. I think so. I shrugged. I saw him taking some boxes in and out.
-I think he hits that woman who comes over. But I can’t tell.
-I nodded. I’ve not met her.
-She seems nice, but always so afraid of him.
I stayed on the steps for most of the evening. It was after midnight by the time I got into my apartment.
I brushed my teeth.
I had not emptied the bathtub since the previous nights use. A scum of my waste hardened to the basin at the edge of the water. A few spots of deep discoloration drifted here and there, an inch or so beneath the water’s surface.
***
I woke abruptly with a headache. My body was tense. I immediately started stretching, bending, shaking my arms, cracking my knuckles, shifting my head side to side, clapping my hands.
It was not yet four in the morning.
All day at work, I bobbed where I stood, swayed, rubbed my hands fiercely on my thighs.
At lunch with Martin, he asked me what I was on, genuinely concerned.
I laughed, saying I couldn’t understand for the life of me why I was so hyper. Even while I sat, I tensed my legs, feeling the back of my bent knees kiss against themselves, go limp against the booth. It was hard to swallow. Most of the bites I took of my sandwich I wound up chewing down to thin paste before downing with a bit of coffee.
I was very focused while I buffed areas of the floor, dusted railings, mopped a spill in a lecture hall.
That night, I weaved around my apartment, throwing punches, moving my fingers to countertops like I was trilling on a piano, giggling while I did. It was amusing, how I sounded when trying to imitate an instrument sound.
In bed, I writhed, humming, wincing my eyes shut hard for sleep, opening them with sharp tilts of my chin upward.
***
I let the doctor go point by point through the results of my tests, but after the initial remarks that everything was fine, I didn’t care very much.
There were a few numbers I might want to keep my eye on, I was told, but they were numbers everybody might want to keep an eye on. A particular test did show that I had a mild case of something. He prescribed a liquid medication for it, but remarked that it was nothing at all worth bothering with if I didn’t feel like it.
I related all of this to Martin, who agreed that the doctor seemed a bit odd. But Martin looked at me strangely, letting me talk without saying much, himself.
What’s the matter? I finally shot at him, interrupting myself.
He was just concerned at all of the testing I was having done.
-Is it something about that woman you were involved with?
He had a lost look on his face, but one of deep, sincere, concern.
-Woman?
-When you were gone those two month, he said, but seemed unsure of himself.
I shook my head, smiling, waving off anything having to do with my disappearance. I told Martin something about my mother’s family’s medical history. I told him something about a dead cousin.
***
My scalp had been aching. It felt bruised when I touched it. Every inch of skin touched by hair, anyplace on my body, felt sore, raw, plump, squirming.
I bought a decent pair of scissors and a package of cheap shaving razors on my way home from purchasing bourbon and cigarettes.
In my bathroom, I began removing my hair. First, whatever I could cut with the scissors, the hair from my head, the longer growth of my beard, my pubic hair. Then, I used the razors to remove the remainder of my beard, the remainder of my pubic hair, the hair from my arms, the hair from my legs.
I had run out of working razors, but still had the rest of the hair on my head to remove, my eyebrow, the hair on my lower back. I felt well enough, though, so decided I could leave all that alone.
What hair hadn’t fallen into the sink basin, I swept up, dumped in, ran water into, padded into a wet mash.
For the rest of the night, I drank bourbon to wash down the handfuls of hair I forced myself to swallow.
The next morning, not having to be at work, I slept in. I watched television until well into the evening. Then I slept, waking the late the following day, dressing for work almost with my eyes closed.
***
Over the course of three days, I lost more than thirty pounds. I had to start dressing in clothes I had kept stored, things I hadn’t been able to fit in for more than three years.
The weight seemed to come away evenly, not leaving me grotesque looking. Dressed in fitted clothes, I could not even notice the difference, though several people around the university made happy comments to me. Martin only mentioned it in passing. I assumed the disappearance of most of my hair the previous week made it difficult for people who knew me to process this new alteration.
I could press in on the skin between my ribs so much that it looked like the bones were wrapped around a hollow, a loosely closed hand around nothing.
On the bus home from work, one evening, I stared at one of the advertisements, wondering why it was written in some other language. But as I stared, the awareness that the words were in English and that I knew what the were crept over me.
It felt pleasant, like I had figured something out, deciphered the words from a garble.
***
I attended one of Martin’s lectures, at his request. It was completely enthralling, about a film maker I had never heard of.
I lingered in the back of the lecture room while students, colleagues, and some visitors all took turns chatting with him, shaking his hand. At one point he caught my eye, shrugging. I started to make a gesture that I was going for a smoke, but his head had already turned.
-Are you famous or something, Martin? I snuck up on him, shoving his shoulder when he exited the building, twenty minutes later.
Motioning that we should keep walking, he said he had not expected such an enthusiastic reception.
-Giovanna apparently got the word around, he said, chuckling and explaining that the lecture had been a sort of warm up for some talks he was giving in anticipation of an upcoming book on this filmmaker being published.
-I squinted. A book that you wrote?
Genuinely nonchalant, he told me it was just the culmination of a thread of his research, nothing that he had intended to make a book out of.
I congratulated him nonetheless. He just insisted that it had fallen in his lap, shrugged, admitted he did enjoy the reception he had just received.
When I got back to my apartment, I entered the bathroom. I had covered the mess in the bathtub with layers plastic wrap and three blankets I had doused in perfume, added more perfume to every other day or so. I had rigged it so that a corner could be raised for me to urinate into, defecate into, drool into.
I lifted the corner, put one hand into the stagnant murk, held it there an hour, closed the flap, then licked my fingers, palm, forearm clean.
***
The man who installed new locks on my door called two times to change his arrival time. When he arrived, he seemed tired, complaining about things that had happened to him that day, like his coming out was a nuisance. It took him an hour to complete the work.
The new locks seemed heavier, intimidating. There were three locks requiring keys and two bolts, which I could shut from inside.
I went to get a few copies of the keys made. I shouldn’t have bothered, as I had no intention of giving copies to anybody. The only good that would come of the keys was that if Martin mentioned the locks, I could pretend to have forgotten about it, have a spare handy for him.
I didn’t need to give him a working key, I thought. But he would want to try it, of course. It was an irritation there seemed no way around.
***
Rummaging through the boxes of my thinner clothes, I found a certain suit. It fit a bit loose, but made me comfortable.
I set the suit, an undershirt, a button down shirt, a pair of socks, and some worn out shoes on the tile of the kitchen then urinated on them.
I drank coffee, water, bourbon, then urinated on the clothing, again. I then took the wetted clothes down to the washing machine. It occurred to me that the suit might come out ruined, but it didn’t matter.
I did a short wash without soap, dried the clothes, then returned to my apartment where I waited until I was able to urinate on them, again.
I repeated this process seven times.
I met Martin and some of his friends. We drove into the city for drinks. It was two in the morning when I got home.
The suit wasn’t ruined. A little bit of ironing and it looked well enough. I could detect enough of my scent on it, but it was not rank enough that passersby would notice.
***
My workday dragged. I wasn’t agitated, just felt that I should be out. When I exited any building to have a cigarette or walk to another, it was difficult to return to the corridors, lecture halls, cafeterias.
A co-worker patted me on the back, asking me how I was.
-I’m well, I told him.
-You had some sort of trouble awhile back, I hear? I’ve been away with family. My daughter moved to Belgium.
I shrugged, repeated I was well. I wondered if it was sad, his child being away, but didn’t ask.
Before leaving work, I closed myself in a toilet stall. I removed my clothes, folding them on the seat.
I drooled onto my chest, thin saliva that formed, tasting sour. I rubbed the saliva around as I drooled more, soaking my genitals, the crease of my buttocks, my legs, my shoulders, my arms, the soles of my feet. I cupped my hands, letting a thicker mound of the stuff collect, slathered it over my face, through the rough of what hair was on my head.
I was annoyed to find I had walked past the bus stop. I started to turn around, but then didn’t want to.
***
Soaking in my bathtub, by now the water a tepid sludge, the consistency of oatmeal, I thought about a story a friend had once written. I recalled the title was Hours To A Waiting Dog or Hours Spent By Lonely Dogs.
I submerged my head, brought it back up three times. I lowered my chin through the surface of the mess, opened my mouth, fiddled my tongue to make plinking splashes.
The telephone ringing gave me an excuse to get out. I let it go to the machine, knowing it would be Martin. I closed the blankets and plastic over the tub, emptied a bottle of perfume I had bought the previous day, recoiling from the reek of it.
-I picked up as Martin was leaving a message. I’m here. I was in the bath. How are you?
He was out, I could tell from the noise.
-You need to meet me at The Pheasant, he said, his voice raised.
-I talked loud, too. When? Why?
He talked over me, adding it was imperative I get there. Someone wanted to meet me, he kept saying, drunk. I told him I wouldn’t be able to make it for at least an hour.
-You’ll be here in an hour, you said?
It was difficult to make out what he was saying. I more or less shouted Yes. The line had gone silent.
***
I left The Pheasant at one-thirty in the morning, Martin heading home with some other friend. He made me promise I would call the woman he had summoned me down to meet. She had left before I arrived, leaving a contact number. I smiled, gave an affirmative gesture.
Even through the alcohol on my breath and the cigarettes I was smoking I could smell myself, the odors from my bathtub saturated my skin, breathing out from my pores. I could smell the stale of urine impregnated in the fabric of my clothes.
I urinated again, while I walked. And after walking another two hours, not paying any attention to where I was going, I had a thin bowel movement in my pants.
I walked the entire night. The air was cold with a mild humidity to it. There was no wind. Everything felt stagnant, weak, drooping over.
Having found myself miles from my apartment, I called a taxi. I returned home an hour before I was to leave for work,
I lay in my bathtub for fifteen minutes, slobbered all over myself to clean the slop that clung to me when I got out.
I dressed and though it irritated me to do so, I gave myself a spray of perfume before leaving.
I cupped my hands around my face during the bus ride. I pulled at my collar, leaned forward, breathing in.
***
I spent nearly every night for two weeks walking. Sometimes, I would have to first attend some event with Martin, once I passed out in the evening, woke too late to bother with walking, but for the most part I walked every night.
I felt fatigued each day, but no one remarked on it. In my encounters with people, I held up well enough. What sleep I did get, ten minutes here and there on the bus, in the break room, in the bathtub, was exactly as much as I needed to function.
Returning from a cigarette break, I first took conscious notice of the man, though I recalled having seen him the previous week a few times, in line at a store, out at a café while I walked. He was gaunt, and because he was shorter than me his thinness made him seem tiny. He was walking in short circles, looking through the window I was looking out of. Staring at me. Even as he moved in circles, he kept his eyes fixed on me. It was hard to tell if he knew I noticed him, or if he cared.
Walking to the bus, I saw him again, noting his face, the odd bump of his nose. I noticed his rough, almost bald head when he took off his hat to scratch his scalp then suck on his fingers.
***
I stayed in, curled on the floor, watching a film on television. I turned the volume down, just fixated on the mouths of people speaking, because when I could hear them, it grew frustrating to muddle through what they were saying, by the time I grasped one thing something else had been said and I became disoriented.
I fell asleep on the floor of the bathroom after getting out of the tub. I had just looked at myself in the mirror, vomited a speck of moist paste, dropped to my knees, my side, not even closing up the plastic and blanket.
When I woke up, I took a lot of short breaths, sticking out my belly and pulling it in forcefully.
I crawled from the bathroom to the area just outside the front door, cheek to the carpet, listening to the shush of moving feet in the corridor. The movement was nice, I shivered from listening, got goosebumps, a flutter in my stomach, and with one foot I scuffed the carpet, clenching and unclenching my toes.
The sound of walking stopped, but there was still somebody there. Unable to stop smiling, I crept up to the peephole, breathing in giggles, putting my tongue to the door while looking at the warped image of the man who had been following me. He was rubbing his eyes. He rubbed them and rubbed them.
Download this book for your ebook reader.
(Pages 1-42 show above.)