Kitchen
I’d like your help. I’m trying something out; as I’ve said before, I want to tell a story, not just recount some events, so I’m using a style here that I hope will serve a particular purpose - convey more than just “what happened”.
I don’t want to be too explicit about what I’m trying to achieve, but I’d really like to hear your reactions, so please leave a comment. I’m not crowdsourcing, I’m just wondering how this comes across.
The first part was posted earlier as “Quiet” but I’ve re-posted it as it leads into the second half.
Hungry, hungry. Fridge.
Thea’s popped to the shop for milk, so no tea just yet but I could do with a nibble. What’ve we got?
Salami.
Not the choicest cut, something from the corner shop in a clingy pack, but still better than pretty much anything on the NHS menu. You’re coming with me.
This salami likes its orderly existence in the pack and is reluctant to leave. Pick-pick-pick, eventually I wriggle a fingernail under it, peel it off its neighbour, look at it for a second and shove it inelegantly into my mouth. Poke-poke-poke, in you go.
Salty and greasy as a trawler’s winch, but tremendously satisfying. I should make a sandwich! Put it on a plate and everything; presentation is key. The plates are in this cupboard down here, below the chopping board…somewhere…the plates, every plate we have, are all stacked conically at the back of the cupboard, right under my little workspace. I bend down until my face is nearly in the salami pack and grope towards the Ikea tower of Hanoi. Here we are…come on. You, there, small plate under the saucers. I can feel its edge but can’t get my greasy finger under it no matter how much I push, lever and growl. Meanwhile the salami’s gently unfurling in my mouth. Wiggle, shove, nothing, the stack of plates denies access. I insert a brief sanity-preservation pause; take a breath and the slick, lithe salami sucks itself into my airway.
-uck.
Stand. Breathe. A little slow-puncture stream of air leaks under the salami gasket and trickles into my lungs. I cough once and all my breath pops out in a single chunk. The salami tightens its grip. I turn to the sink, repeatedly trying to cough with empty lungs; just chest contractions really. It hurts. Gaping over the sink, drool pouring out of my mouth, I reach in and pull on the salami. It tears, part of it comes away but the piece sealing my windpipe only shifts. I feel it flutter, letting me heave in a single creaking breath, which I immediately cough back out. I’m starting to shake.
It’s so quiet. I’d like to sit down. I can’t breathe, at all. I’d like to sit down.
Not far away, there’s a wooden chair, one of four around the table; I’ll go over there. Slow, careful, each step just a few inches. Shaking, more and more. So quiet.
I can’t move any more. The chair’s right there, just over there.
It’s so quiet.
I’d like to sit down.
-
What?
Ah.
I’m on the floor.
It’s cool, I mean it’s not cool, I mean, like, thermally. Slate. Yes, cool. I’ve never been on the floor before, not this floor anyway. Yeah, so…there’s a chunk of salami on the tiles. Over there, look. On the slate. And there’s a sagging rope, clear saliva, from my mouth across to the salami. Big thick plasticky fucking rope, you could hang Christmas lights off it.
I can’t say I like it here, much, but I reckon if I try to move then things’ll get far worse. Bad things will happen. Shaky things, spasmy things. But I can’t say I like it here, much, on my side, looking at this spit rope, so I’ll just roll away from it. Over here. Mmm, nice. I feel the saliva tether stretch and snap onto the side of my face, so I’ve just spat in my own ear, which is unusual. There’s the ceiling, look. Up there.
I’m squashed against a kitchen unit. I wriggle a bit - I was right about the shakes and that - until I’m a bit more comfortable, a bit less uncomfortable.
I’m on the floor.
I’d like to sit down. I was going to sit down, what happened with that? Hey Steve, I heard you were going to sit down, how’s that going?
Well, you know. Best intentions.
The chair was there. I was looking at it. I was standing still…I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t move, that’s right, and then I couldn’t see. What’s the opposite of dissolve? Coalesce? Precipitate? That’s what it did, this white mist, it didn’t descend, it opposite-dissolved out of the air, and then I couldn’t see. And now I’m on the floor.
I stopped breathing, and moving, and seeing, and then, something. I must have fallen over. On the floor, here, but I was going over there - lifting my head, I can just see past my toes. There’s the chair I wanted to sit down on. I wanted to sit down and relax, but it’s way out of reach now. I put my head back down on the floor.
Some discomfort now, creeeeping in. Pain, yes, ow, my arse and my right elbow. Shut up, yes, I do know the difference, thank you.
Years and years ago I chipped a tiny piece of bone in my elbow. Can’t remember how, though. I wonder what I was doing? Probably fell off my bike. That’s what you do when you’re a kid, isn’t it? You fall off your bike. I’ve been falling off my bike all my life. You could feel the little loose, hard lump under the skin, like a piece of gravel. Normally it didn’t hurt, but I couldn’t lean on it for years. Then it disappeared. Dissolved? Moved? Re-attached itself? I have no idea. Feels like I might have done it again. Huh.
If I’d made it to the chair and sat down I would have died. Just relax, watch the white mist opposite-dissolve, and sleep. Easy, quiet.
I’ll stop there; any more would constitute a spoiler. Please tell me what you think.
