There is a terrible, terrible aching in the air. The glow of a screen has long past its prime but has hardly dimmed to let you forget it. Dust settles on your semi-dormant body, your mind traces each particle like a parasite gnawing away at your senses without the mercy to cut them off completely. The bed bug isn’t ready to cosy up between the crevices of your frontal cortex. Rather, it itches; sleep isn't its fate yet, so neither is it yours. But it is 3am and it is tragic how much your body refuses to commit to the rest of the world's slumber.
Chapter One:
To the left, the locksmith swirls the gin glass and mocks
Of course it doesn't work. Now you're sleepless and nameless.
Opening your eyes, you take in your surroundings. It is a dark night, but at the corner of the window looms the insistent glow of the moon. Think about the red/orange/red-orange/coquelicot moon that comes out rarely; think about how this is not one of those times. You are not even able to see the moon itself, just the light. It doesn’t even reach into the room, probably because it doesn’t care to; past the chipped wood and black mould on the windowsill there are rodent piles, the stench of suspicious excrements, crust between the polycotton, hallmarks of a hermit. Perhaps therein lies your name.
- "Polycotton?"
- “Hermit?”
- “What the hell is a coquelicot?”
I think you pronounce it with the same cadence as… “delicate,” but with an extra syllable.
- “That’s dumb. Nevermind.”
- “Okay, I’ll take that name then, please!”
Exactly.
It is not as though I revel in humiliation but you have indeed set the precedence for it. Would you prefer “loser”? “Goblin”? Indie band performing down by the Waterfront called “the Ick”? Slave scum of the slumbering world, “£11.44/ph pre tax”? Not even that, because the festering dopamine rat punctures holes into your curriculum vitae, and the only networking known to you is on the label of a downstairs Wi-Fi router. Nothing in this room suggests pennies in your pocket.
You are the Hermit, and there is nothing ill-suiting about that fact. You can take it, or you can leave it.
- “I still don’t think–”
- “This sounds like a personal issue projected onto me.”
- “Send me to sleep already, it'd be a mercy.”
The light almost averts its eyes, “not the hermit room! Moonmaiden have mercy! I should be the ray of light that sits on an untouched field of flowers! Like Marigolds! Peonies!” except the Moonmaiden cannot give mercy because she too is averting her eyes from this room. Terrible! May the rising sun rise faster! Tag team! Tag team! Double Dash!
There is no field for even us to retreat onto. Only smooth planes of neoprene and hard-shell plastic. It hums and unites you with the voices of many, but the touch of none. There are no marigolds and there are no peonies.
You are being ridiculous now.
Ending: All Things Pass
You express yearning for decadent, gaudy, furniture items to infect your room with utter privilege. Who isn’t on a Government benefit? This guy! Who is the Government? This guy!... Except, you are not, unfortunately. You are not an artisan or a magistrate or even a fan favourite fiend. Beyond the confines of this fabrication, you are the Hermit. But don't you just wish otherwise? Rocking up to Downing St. asking, "where do I put the suitcase?" and knowing you won't get your head immediately done in. What a fantasy. Nevertheless, you remain a hermit.
No.
You close your eyes and the vision becomes clear. A corrupt seabed bound by extraterrestrial influence. Sand in your crack. It itches but you have claws so, as you can imagine, it is a (kind of) awkward endeavour but you don’t quite know if it is any weirder to get a tool so your best bet, in your mind at least, is to walk in a really obtuse manner as to slowly shift the sand out.
Flustered cheeks at that long awaited Fumble notification?! No. A message from the Clamchat Team; it is a national holiday you have no one to enjoy it with. You are a hermit, doomed by circumstance, circumstance untouched by choice.
There may yet be a redemption. But closing your eyes and conjuring up the fantasy of shell and claw has, somehow, put you in a calm state. Your breathing begins to match the rhythm of those clicking claws. The moonlight passes through the waves almost like, but not quite, when you order that nice pink gin from Spoons and there’s a candy floss shimmer in the drink that swirls when you swirl the glass. Compliments to the ZYMURGORIUM, whatever that is.
You sink into the pillow. Gin on a lonely night with a Kdrama on your laptop. It burns through the fabric and the fan screeches but you are floating on bubbles. Gin…
Ending: If I Lie Down
A soft chirp, “you didn’t listen to me, Mitty. I longed so hard to know you but, well… When I showed up to the bar, you were already two Coronas in. Something deeply torments you but, oh! You never wanted to share yourself with me. What was I to do?”
A pained moan, “they kept saying you’re a good-for-nought, Mitty. They were itching at the starting barrier, it was almost a bloodlust. It was there that I lost faith in my ability to help you. I had to let you go, for your own good.”
“Goodbye… forever.”
The image of the unnamed crustacean sinks into the seabed, you are still sleepless and she is still nameless.
Without a name, the image of her ceases. You feel a pit in your stomach, knowing there was an opportunity to lay your troubles to rest or, at the very least, divest yourself of half the burden. There could’ve been a discussion over a cigarette behind the club, laughter, a tender peck on her nape as she dials for a taxi. Better yet, in the years after cohabiting a small apartment, wedding bells and a little hand print. If you could just remember her name and tell her you were sorry. But, somehow, not a thought regarding your transgressions towards her passes your mind.
Ending: Beware the Man
The contours of each painted grain on your walls is all too visible. At least, that's what you had hoped. Truthfully, you are only halfway to that point and a threshold has yet to be crossed. Albert claws at the entrance, “let me in!” he says, but the metal contorts into a mocking face of privilege. “Every path I take leads me to the same converging point! Let me through!” Nothing. Until then, you remain in a stasis. The itching doesn't stop and you are too aware of your physical discomfort. You yearn for a release from the struggle.
You turn to look for your phone but darkness still permeates the room. Your fingertips brush against the bedside table. It hits a breadcrumb, then an unlit tealight candle, then an alkaline battery with no more juice in it, then a ballpoint given to you by a Union Rep, then a second ballpoint given to you at a Jobseekers’ Conference, then a ballpoint given to you by a delivery man who forgot to take it back so it’s a bit chewed up.
Finally, you find your phone on the opposite edge of the table. Flashbang as you turn it on. Eyes still squinting, you navigate to:
You are halfway through the video, listening intensely, occasionally turning your phone on to watch the video itself. This, for once, proves useless in lulling you back to sleep
That sudden, "Eureka," moment hits you like a bad driver on the highway. Not just a bad driver but a really bad driver, the kind where you wonder, "surely, he must've, like, bribed the people at the Auto to give him a car, and a license, and a car that honks really loudly."
It occurs to you that waking up late will only make you awake further into the night. It seems most logical to push yourself to the brink of exhaustion so that you are able to grant yourself the mercy of sleep much sooner into the evening. It is fool proof and you need caffeine to fuel your endeavours.
You navigate with only the touch of peeled wallpaper until you reach your destination. Your eyes have since adjusted to faintly make out each distinguishable plane, but you maintain recognition of each step you take towards the next room. Five steps towards the door that leads outside. Turn right. Another five steps forward to reach the bathroom door at the end of the upstairs landing. You stumble through the door. It’s a small enough room to hold you snug, like an embrace from an old friend - the ones where your only closure with them resides in your mind as pure hypotheticals.
You wince. It is a cold and ruthless light, notwithstanding its welcome to the moths surrounding it, who have been clinging to the ceiling for a few hours at this point, simply waiting for that light to turn on. They say moths are looking for darkness on the other side of the light. How unreasonable is it when moths are nocturnal and must navigate the night sky? The moon dominates in a fixed position, so to follow the moon is to follow a straight path. “So why is the moon I’m following in this little room? And why does it no longer lead me in the right direction?”
What do you see?
Are you saying that just because you read the word, ‘moth’?
It is in your nature that you notice everything is wrong. You are awake only when the rest of the world sleeps and you have fluttered towards the wrong moon. The imposter moon. The false moon. The bad actor. On this moon, there is no scrap of metal surveying the surface, nor a view of its nearest neighbour. In this moment, the moon’s lie reflects your lie, and all you can see are lies. If you were simply a moth, you would be transfixed by the idol but you are a moth and something else. You won’t follow the blind path this time, but the moon beckons for other reasons. You are a revolutionary.
Ending: Quand on n’a pas ce que l’on aime, il faut aimer ce que l’on a—
The fantasy fades and you are simply you again.
It is you, definitively. You say so with such confidence. When the rest of the world paid no mind to the pipe, however, a Frenchman, against the tide, proclaimed, “this is not a pipe.” Where is the little Frenchman on your shoulder, wondering, “is this really you?”
Maybe you have already internalised the image of you as your truest self. Maybe, against the natural order, you allowed those around you to look after your image, nurture it for so long, that it stands to be a hyperbole you now have the duty to maintain, rather than grow from. Stuck in your propagation.
You tire, finally.
Ending: This Englishwoman
Chapter Two:
To the right, the landlord gnashes at your stray socks
Your foot retreats back onto the last step of stairs after making first contact with the cold ceramic tiling of the ground floor. You carefully, with a firm grip on the railing, dispatch one leg to retrieve one slipper. You shift it closer to you and carefully balance onto it with both feet. It is a perilous task to then retrieve the second slipper, for you have already let go of the railing. Eventually, though, you make it. Both feet have now donned the appropriate armour against the kitchen tiling. Your bold stride dispels the chill from the air.
You turn the corner and there it is, a twisted amalgamation of everything known to you. Its tendrils curiously wipe the countertop; you can feel it humoured by the crumb infested toaster, crumb infested bread box, crumb infested laundry basket. You can tell it has shifted its gaze onto you and you panic wondering just how many eyes it may have. One to see through your skin, two to see through your flesh, three to see through your bones.
Four to see into every facet of your soul.
And you are crumb infested.
The creature murmurs in an unknown tongue. It is up to you to reach out and decipher it.
No, you do it.
No, you do it.
Neither am I.
Ending: A Word to Husbands
You have made up your mind and brace yourself.
You have made up your mind and brace yourself.
You have made up your mind and brace yourself.
Somehow, you get the feeling the creature doesn’t understand you. And neither do the French.
Somehow, you get the feeling the creature doesn’t understand you. And neither do the Spanish.
Somehow, you get the feeling the creature doesn’t understand you. And neither do the made up people.
Wouldn’t you like to know, crumb boy? You look back on your time in Year 10 English Literature, back to when Macbeth toiled and troubled, or something to that effect. You remember being in the second set, probably carving into your pink rubber something hilarious like an appendage while the teacher is snoring against the backdrop of a BBC performance of the play. Fast forward to Year 11, you are outside of the sports hall with your friends exchanging flashcards because why the hell is this not an open-book exam. Your memory fails you half of the time but loose paraphrasing and the skills to waffle earn you… eh, a 5.
It will have to do.
- “(Okay, so crumbs are a metaphor…)”
- "(Nevermind)"
- “(Okay, so crumbs is imagery…)”
- “(Okay, so crumbs are… a pathetic fallacy?...)”
- “(Something, something, iambic pentameter…)”
You’re… Almost there.
Yes it is.
The creature blinks with its left eye, to wipe away the dust. Then, suddenly, out of the blue, without warning, to everyone's surprise, "oh my gosh, it did that!" the creature blinks with its right eye, also to wipe away the dust... the creature does not understand that blinking with both eyes, at the same time, is possible. Maybe it isn't a very smart creature, perhaps a representation of something familiar, something human-shaped, something that likes to talk back against narrative dissonance and something that likes to click buttons. The truth of the matter is that this creature may not be discerned by anything other than its own likeness.
I... must protect my own peace and not rip you into pieces.
What do you mean?
I have a boyfriend.
Ending: The Fly
... As expected, the light turns on and it seems as though the creature has disappeared. In reality, the creature was inside of you all along.
How do you like your coffee?
The sun peaks over the parallel houses and finally waves its morning greetings at you. Brew in hand, you feel kinda awesome.
Ending: Love and Java
Ending: The Germ