The Room
In that room I felt disconnected from the car crashes and the gun fights, and when I opened the can of beer, the smell of hops and barley stunted the anxiety. Finding grace in alcohol always backfired though, breaking my resolve and sending me to the heights of aggressiveness.
My dreams often turned to nightmares in that room, waking me up in the middle of the night, bathed in sweat, and surrendering to the darkness. Often, I felt spiders on my skin at night, crawling and designing webs while I was lost in a nightmarish episode.
The sun did shine in, beams of light and some warmth made me feel half alive in a grey, dusty, room. The speckles of dust were easily seen as they dropped onto the cotton sheet, and I felt them on my nose and an itch began to niggle. I couldn’t erase the feeling and the dust particles.
I slept long, and the days were rapidly passing by. When I was awake, I was ingrained in loneliness like it was a disease, an infection, a fever. I couldn’t find anything that would make the feeling dissipate. Breaking through the feeling of hopelessness was an insurmountable challenge, causing me to reflect on a dizzying past.
I made coffee, I looked out of the window, I saw love blossom as two rage fuelled teenagers kissed, and their blood red shoes and slogans made me think about music, the arts, the future. Those teenagers lit a fire in me, they had given me a dream to work upon. I then cut myself shaving, I cleaned myself up. I thought about the reason I shaved; I had no reason.
“The fragility of society was in full cycle, and I couldn’t shift myself to the door…”
I looked out the window again, observing the somewhat free. They didn’t look happy, as their days were filled with tasks, breakneck challenges, compromising situations while I sat looking a whirlpool on the TV set. That room, that dingy room was my only barrier against the freaks and the tenacious, and I knew I couldn’t depart the one room apartment.
It was those ghastly faces that kept me from the fresh air. People looked like they were frail, older than they were. And the fragility of society was in full cycle, and I couldn’t shift myself to the door, the wooden panel that would release me.
Thoughts spiralled out of control in my cluttered mind, hazardous thoughts that collided with many untouched memories.
And I stood there contemplating, agitated and minutes did pass, and I began to feel better. The room had turned me into a reckless wreck, changing my thought process, and it was like it was breathing.
Night appeared. I killed the darkness with artificial light. A light which altered the state of the room, and I felt safe in the radiance, rummaging through the drawers for photographs, pictures of the times shared with an old flame. The old flame was a girl who drank with me at the bar that we called the promised land, a house for the mad, a domain for the sinners.
I was a sinner. A man who mourned the death of his gracious personality. I knew I lost it all when my empire crumbled, when I had money, when I used my credentials to abstain from alcohol, and worked like a dog for my precious family who had become estranged.
Alone, so alone. Breaking at the seams, lashing the doors and walls with my fists of rage. I forgot how anger grew in me, bourgeoning like a missile ripping through foggy skies.
I couldn’t shrug off the anger, it began to consume me, taking me through snapshots, those days when I would pulverise my own skin, cutting deep to try and gain control of myself.
Self-control was a trait I didn’t have in my locker, and when I saw red, I could go on a rampage, severing myself from the light I worked for.
I observed the bottles of pills on the kitchen table. They stared at me, turning me into an obsessive fiend. They were prescribed to diffuse the bomb in my head, the ticking noise, the voices, the faces.
The rain hit the glass pane, a thunder storm was brewing, and I stood watching the clock. Time was elapsing slowly, it was midnight, and I could hear the foxes outside eating bones and scurrying.
As the night progressed, I could hear people talk, arguing even. The noise reverberated and I walked over to the window, prepared to see pushing and shoving.
I picked up my phone and had taken a photo of this couple arguing over drugs and life. After a few seconds, the man drew a gun and shot the girl in the abdomen.
That ordeal triggered my anxiety, and it pushed me to brink of a panic attack.
I saw the man scatter, with the woman’s handbag. She lay there like a defensive animal. Bleeding out, trapped in her own mind, as she began to lose her way.
Dialling 911 I contacted the police. They said they’d be 10 minutes, long enough.
The police came and wanted to look at the snapshot I had taken. Of course I obliged.
"’There’s nothing there.’’
‘’What?’’
I gazed at the picture on my phone. The cop was right, there was only concrete and streetlamps, no dead body.
‘’You’ve wasted police time and have you taken something?’’
‘’My normal medication. I suffer from mental health problems.’’
‘’Well, the picture has no significance.’’
I nodded at the cops and told them I’d be fine in my own head. I also told myself that I could have been an illusion, a trick.
They departed and I was left bewildered.
I stared out the window again. This time the girl who was stabbed waved in my direction, holding a sign conveying that I’m mad and hell awaits me.
There is a swirl of blackness around her, a little smoke, and the roads started to melt.
Was I in a nightmare or was I going mad? My shrink told me I must control my own thoughts, adhere to the joyous moments.
The woman was demonic, her beauty had withered, and the streetlight flickered above her.
Behind her was a billboard of me smiling with a suit on and drenched in glamour.
That was a future I could have had.
He films at murder and shows the cops the footage.