The World's First Literary Fade-Out Ending
Stephen Moles
1.
Violence is not the answer, but it’s not a bad question.
The question I was asking by repeatedly banging my head against the wall last night was why? Why am I here? Thud. Why am I forced to drink myself to death? Thud. Why is no one speaking to me? Thud.
My only answer has come in the form of a huge lump on my forehead which is throbbing in time with the rest of my aching body. It is not the answer I was hoping for, but the message is clear: use the short amount of time you have left to accept the senselessness of life.
I spent most of last night in front of the TV, drinking beer and watching tennis. I don’t know which competition was being shown because the commentary wasn’t in English, but the tick-tock rhythm of the action, combined with the ugly grunting of the players, soon became a language in itself. The longer I watched, the more I felt I was sitting in on a conversation between two stubborn children.
‘Yes.’
‘No.’
‘Yes.’
‘No.’
‘Yes!’
‘No!’
As the beer numbed my brain, I could feel myself becoming increasingly wrapped up in the game. It started to feel as if an important question about my life would be answered by seeing either ‘yes’ or ‘no’ triumph. Deep down, however, I knew that important questions always begin with ‘why’, and that ‘yes’ and ‘no’ are not valid responses to that.
In my fight to the death to avoid playing the yes/no game, it was necessary to use my head.
Thud.
2.
It’s still light outside. I’m not sure whether it is morning or afternoon, but I’ve already started drinking. I’ve got to the stage now where hangovers are a thing of the past and a liquid breakfast is necessary in order to function.
When I opened my eyes earlier, I felt like a paper bag of brittle bones being ripped open by the sun. I could hear the piercing sound of paper tearing as I awoke. My bones spilled out onto the hard floor of a new day and broke into pieces. The rest of my waking hours will be spent putting them back together with alcohol before the same process begins again tomorrow.
I’ve almost finished my first beer of the day, and the strength to use my legs is returning. In order to get to the can, I was forced to drag myself along the floor, but now I’m feeling confident enough to attempt to stand and walk over to the window, where I will see, once my eyes have adjusted to the light, a view consisting of nothing but a brick wall. That wall, unlike the one I bashed my head against last night, is a symbol of hope. It would be the answer, not to a question, but to my prayers, if I could touch it with my ghostly hands. Every sip of alcohol, however, makes it harder to move and adds to the raging ocean of anguish separating me from the outside world.
The window is narrow and fitted with thick glass. If I could open it and fit my head through, I would use what little energy I have to cry out for help. If, with lupine howls of pain, I could alert the public to the existence of a dying boy, I would give vocal expression to my inner turmoil, but I know it’s not possible. The hours spent fruitlessly knocking on the reinforced pane in the hope of attracting the attention of a kind stranger who might be able to help me out of my hell have taught me that I am horribly alone in the world.
My daily trips to the window are a replacement for washing myself. By stepping in front of the purifying rays of light trickling in through the valve in the wall, I achieve the same feeling of refreshment that the average person gets from having water splashed on their face in the morning. The jets of cold light shock me into alertness and help to wash away the sweat from the previous night. It makes me feel better about the fact that I always wear the same clothes.
After bathing at the window, my next port of call is the toilet. My stay is usually protracted because of all the different body parts which need to be emptied of their contents. Although my bladder, bowels and stomach are all individual organs with separate functions, the stuff that comes out of them nowadays is surprisingly similar. I seem to be made of nothing but liquid.
The journey back to the armchair, stopping off briefly to pick up another drink, completes my daily tour of the estate. I will be required to repeat the actions of getting more alcohol and using the toilet at various points throughout the day, but until I reach a state of extreme inebriation in the evening, during which time my behaviour becomes erratic and violent, I can be relied upon to sit quietly in front of the TV, soaking up beer and sport like a filthy sponge.
3.
Why?
In the hope of finding answers, I keep going over that fateful 24-hour period before my life changed forever. I have no idea how long ago it was because time has become a swamp in which no precise units are distinguishable, but there remains a clear distinction in my otherwise muddled mind between then and now. I was ejaculated from a world with meaning and structure into the centre of a deflating bouncy castle. The walls closed in on me until I became a limp member wrapped in cold rubber.
I still don’t know what happened to Ken. I wouldn’t want him here now because he’d suffer even more than me, but not knowing whether he’s safe adds tremendously to my pain. To smell his breath, look into his eyes or run my fingers through his hair would reinstate a connection to the warm core of the world I left so long ago. I hope he escaped the fate that befell me and found someone to look after him.
He probably wouldn’t even recognise me now. Sometimes I can see myself reflected in the TV screen and it scares me to see how old and yellow I appear. The face staring forlornly through the moving images looks like that of the ghost of a Simpsons character drawn by a sick child.
Why did I buy an aquarium DVD that day? I’d always got all the entertainment and relaxation I needed from reading books, so there was absolutely no need for it.
Ken and I were out shopping in the town centre when we came across a market stall selling an unusual selection of items. The sight of glass beads and dream catchers being displayed alongside handcuffs and hunting knives struck me as peculiar. Along with the strange combination of physical features displayed by the man behind the stall, it should have been enough to scare me into walking straight past, but I found myself fascinated by all the contradictions he was offering. The fact that he had a tuft of hair on his forehead while being otherwise bald suggested he aged differently to other people. The unlikely marriage of a desperately sad pair of eyes with a sunshine smile made it seem like some part of his face was only there to get a visa.
‘Feel free to touch the items,’ he said, glowing from the nose down. ‘Give them a good fingering.’
‘It’s OK,’ I said. ‘I’m more of a visual person.’
‘Then I’ve got just the thing for you...’ He picked up a DVD with a picture of tropical fish on it and leaned over the stall in order to hold it up to my face. It was so close that I had to tilt my head back to view it properly.
The cover read: “TWO HOURS OF BEAUTIFULL FISHES SWIMMING IN A TANK – GUARANTEED TO RELAX.” I should have interpreted the spelling mistake and the homemade appearance of the packaging as a sign that the product would not deliver on its promise of relaxation. However, I was too dazzled by the peculiar effect the seller and his stall had on me to be able to reach any kind of rational judgement.
‘Only a fiver,’ he said, shaking the case violently.
‘Um...’
‘How much would real fish and a tank cost?’
‘More than a fiver, I suppose.’
‘Exactly. So you’ll take it?’
‘Um...’ The fragments of thought in my mind at that moment were like the items on the man’s stall in that they did not seem to fit together. So many unformed ideas were flying past my eyes like fine hairs swept by the wind from the head of an inventor that I was glad to have something firm to grab onto. I took the DVD with one hand and pulled a £5 note from my pocket with the other.
‘Ta very much,’ he said, snatching the money from me. Once he’d pocketed the cash, he looked me up and down with his mournful eyes and seemed about to ask a question.
‘Everything all right?’ I asked.
‘Is it a he or a she?’ he enquired, pointing between my legs.
‘Oh, it’s a he. His name’s Ken.’
‘Hello, Ken! What a beast!’
The man walked out from behind his stall to rub Ken’s head. We spent the next few minutes stroking and discussing my Kenneth as other people walked by and looked on disapprovingly. The conversation was good-natured and there was very little to suggest how nasty things would become when I saw him again the following day.
If only I had been pretending to be blind, like I usually did, he never would have offered me the DVD.
4.
I have been watching swimming on TV for the last hour or so and haven’t moved from the armchair. As the TV is stuck on the same channel it means I have to tolerate all the commentary being in a foreign language. From the names and flags displayed on the screen, however, I am able to deduce that the USA seems to be best at the sport.
Even though all the words of the various swimmers are dubbed over in Spanish, it’s clear that the athletes are incapable of speaking properly in their post-contest interviews. It strikes me as cruel that they are forced to face the cameras immediately after competing because they are clearly tired, breathless and unable to focus their thoughts. If my only appearances on TV were on occasions when panting and sweating took the place of smiling and talking, I would feel rather humiliated.
Perhaps that is why I feel so bad now – because I know that to whoever is watching me at the moment, I must appear as pathetic and useless as an out-of-breath swimmer trying to say something clever.
It’s easy to get lost in the basic rhythm of sport. In my mind, I’m synchronising with the motion of the swimmers as I watch their heads bob in and out of the water. The primitive beat of the sports drum creates a hypnotic pattern which transforms me into a clenching and unclenching fist that sweats beer over physical activity onto the filthy armrest of a chair. With the English language having been expelled from my life like air from a pair of inflatable armbands, I am forced to read poetry in the expressions of the swimmers who periodically surface from the water looking like dying fish.
There is absolutely nothing poetic about dying fish, which is precisely why I tried to get a refund on the aquarium DVD.
I had been sitting at home in front of the TV, much as I am now, only with a book in my hand instead of a beer, watching the repetitive actions of inarticulate beings moving around in a body of water. I thought the DVD would simply add to the ambience while I read, but what appeared on the screen was so far removed from what was advertised on the box that I was soon staring open-mouth, no doubt resembling one of the gilled creatures myself, at the shocking spectacle.
The film began with a series of grainy and shaky images of a messy living room as the camera was put into place in front of the tank, which suggested it was a recording made in someone’s home with cheap equipment. The poor quality of the camera and the camerawork was matched by that of the subject matter. The small number and limited range of fish on display completely failed to live up to the expectation created by the colourful pictures of tropical species on the front and back of the DVD case. There were four goldfish and several small black creatures that only vaguely resembled fish drifting lifelessly around the tank of mouldy water. It was no surprise to see how little interest they showed in swimming considering how cramped and dirty their home was. My suspicion that they were simply treading water while waiting for death seemed to be confirmed towards the end of the film by the sight of one goldfish sinking down to the bottom of the tank and no longer moving. I could at least see the others were alive by the occasional movements of their mouths and fins, but the poor creature lying on the stones gave no such signs of life.
I had paid £5 for a film of someone’s pet dying. While I was happy to have been educated about what happens to the body of a fish when it dies – I always thought it would float to the top of the water rather than sink – it did not make me any less angry about having made the purchase.
Ken didn’t seem bothered, but I decided to confront the market trader over the poor quality of the DVD he had sold me. I vowed to make the man who had taken me for a mug realise the error of his ways, even if it was the last thing I did.
Unfortunately, it was the last thing I did before my life effectively ended.
5.
This is the time of the day I like best: when the first few beers have calmed my nerves and a wave of tiredness washes over me.
The alcohol my body depends on has done its job by halting the feeling of rapid decay I experienced upon opening my eyes. In addition, it will shortly allow me to get the best quality sleep available to someone in this state. When I drift off in a few moments, I will not be a dizzy, sweating singularity, but a small scrap of blank paper folded into the shape of a living person. The universe will increase the firmness of my folds and maybe even gift me a dream.
I can feel the pieces of my shattered unconscious mind being gathered up by soft hands right now. I know the togetherness of my thoughts will be destroyed soon after, when the whole becomes a hole filled to breaking point with poison, but for now I am pleased to be able to bear the weight of life with more than just smashed atoms inside me.
The speed with which images rush out from the cracks in my mind while I am at my least inebriated shows how blind to the big screen of blood and stars I must be when I spend the night passed out on the floor. The nature of the images is also telling: the fact that I dream of the books and food that are sadly no longer part of my life seems to suggest I have retreated from stargazing to primitive wish-fulfilment. Sometimes, during my afternoon naps, I am tearing pages from imaginary books and stuffing them in my mouth to condense two birds with one stone.
Even the act of desiring a life without drink requires energy that only alcohol can provide. The quantity I need is at its lowest at this time of day but is continually increasing. Soon I won’t have time for any kind of sleep due to the constant need to keep my alcohol levels topped up.
My grip on the beer can is loosening and I’m powerless to stop it. In a few moments it will fall to the floor, but neither the spilling of the remaining drink nor the clattering of metal against the tiles will be enough to stop me falling asleep.
As my eyelids close, I will make a wish. I would like to open my eyes to a change of scenery – or complete blindness.
6.
I have no idea how long I was gone for, but it was probably a while because the light outside is beginning to fade and there is now horseracing on the TV. Whether it was one hour or one day, the fact that I’ve gone without alcohol for an extended period of time means I am gripped by panic and must find the energy to raise myself out of this chair as soon as possible in order to pick up another drink. My anxiety alone is not sufficient to propel me across the room – I must begin the slow process of persuading my weak muscles that they can carry me there and back one more time. I have to talk each required body part down from a ledge, assuring them that life is worth living because there is beer at the end of the tunnel.
As the energy to create fairy stories to keep my body interested in the world of the living is being searched for, I am sitting completely motionless in front of the TV watching images of horses and jockeys piling up in front of my eyes like colourful bricks.
It reminds me of how I used to ride Ken everywhere, and how hypocritical it seemed to me that the world opposed it so fiercely while tolerating the sport of horseracing. Ken is a huge Newfoundland dog and I am a diminutive man, so the size ratio is hardly any different to that of a jockey and a horse. I always thought that Ken’s heavy panting and high-pitched barking could only be interpreted as a sign of excitement at having me ride him since true discomfort would surely have been expressed by kicking me off his back. He is a very large and powerful animal, so even if the damage people imagined I was doing to his spine was real, I’m sure he still could have shaken me off if he wanted to.
In order to avoid the constant shouts of abuse from disapproving strangers, I found wearing dark glasses and carrying a white stick very effective. They would still stare as I passed them in the street – even more brazenly than before since they thought I couldn’t see – but, on the whole, people would let me continue freely due to their apprehension about challenging a disabled person. Also, the stick came in handy for whipping Ken when I wanted him to go faster.
The fact that I forgot my stick and glasses on the day we went to the market is something which will torment me until the day I die. Mercifully, I won’t have to wait long until my torment ends. Soon, all the physical and emotional pain I have ever felt will be nothing more than the dot of a question mark asking why.
I don’t know why I didn’t think to take the items with me, but I regretted it even before getting into town. With my body appearing to others to be in perfectly working order, there was no reason for them not to let me know how offensive the sight of it on a dog was to them.
‘You shouldn’t be doing that!’ shouted a red-faced woman from the other side of the road.
‘Why shouldn’t I?’
‘Look at how slow you’re going for starters. That poor creature can hardly move with you on top.’
‘That’s OK,’ I said. ‘I’m not in a hurry.’
An elderly man approached me and pointed to Ken with his walking stick.
‘Are you aware how bent that dog’s back is?’ he asked.
‘Yep,’ I said with a smile.
‘Well, aren’t you going to do anything about it?’
‘Yes. I might make some high-heeled boots for him to walk in so my feet are further off the ground, or I might just get him to pull me around in a box.’
‘I’m going to tell the RSPCA about you.’
‘But I’m not an animal and I’m fine anyway, thanks.’
That was the kind of harassment I had to put up with from complete strangers as I tried to go about my daily business. One of the only good things about my current situation is that I no longer have to put up with the aggression or ignorance of others because I live in complete isolation.
When I went to town the following day with Ken, I made sure I was armed with the necessary items to keep meddlesome strangers at bay. We went straight to the market and found the man who sold me the dodgy DVD in the same place with the same mismatched objects on offer.
‘Excuse me,’ I said, pulling the offending article from my bag. ‘I bought this yesterday and I’d like a refund now, please.’
‘A refund? Why’s that?’
‘Because I can’t stand seeing animals suffer.’
The man suddenly looked down at Ken with his melancholic eyes. I assumed this was because he was ashamed of having sold me such an inferior product, but he went on to claim that he didn’t understand what I was talking about.
‘One of the fish dies during the film!’ I said. ‘I could have put up with the crappy quality of everything else if there had been a fade-out before the death, but having to witness that was just too much.’
‘You are aware that the fish are not actors, aren’t you?’
‘Er, yes.’
‘The only script they follow is the script of life. Death is a part of that.’
‘Whatever. Can I have my money back?’
‘If you had a real tank in your house and one of the fish inside it naturally passed away, would you take it back to the shop demanding a refund? No, because it’s normal for them to die. If anything, you should be pleased to have experienced such a realistic portrayal of owning fish so cheaply.’
‘It was meant to be relaxing.’
‘So are real fish... and they also die.’
‘But this was a film,’ I said with an exasperated sigh. ‘Which means whoever edited it could have added in a nice fade-out ending before the death.’
The way the man smiled seemed to suggest he was happy arguing with me and had no intention of refunding my money. He straightened the objects on his stall as if lining up soldiers in preparation for a long battle.
‘So you think reality is something to be manipulated or even hidden, do you? If we can add a fade-out ending to it, why not an intermission or montage as well? Lives could be extended by playing them in slow motion and reincarnation could be achieved by showing action replays. Unfortunately, life is not something you can cut up and rearrange. It’s something you experience from beginning to end in its raw form. If you’re not happy with that, try asking nature for a refund instead of me.’
‘I bet I’m not the only person who has complained about this.’
‘As a matter of fact, you are.’
‘Then that’s probably because I’m the only one stupid enough to have bought one of your DVDs.’
‘On the contrary,’ he said with an infuriatingly superior tone. ‘I’ve sold many DVDs and I’ve had no complaints. You are certainly the first person to demand a refund because of the mortality of what’s on the screen.’
‘Are you going to give me my money back?’
‘You’ve watched the whole thing! You’ve witnessed real life and real death – surely that’s worth something?’
‘So you’re not going to give it back?’
‘No.’
‘Well, I’ll just have to come round there and get it myself. You stay there, Ken.’
I stomped around to the side of the stall and began throwing my weight around. While I may be lacking in the height department, I’ve always been able to assert myself physically when I’m angry enough. I grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and demanded a refund and an apology. He continued to smile and kept looking over his shoulder at a van which was reversing towards us.
‘Look at me! This is your last chance!’
He continued peering round at the van and grinning. I was moments away from slapping his face when I noticed he was wearing a money pouch around his waist. I diverted my free hand from its course towards his cheek and sent it instead to the cloth bag hanging between his legs, forcing it open violently. Reaching in and feeling around for cash, my hand also rubbed against something on the other side of the material which was shaped very much like an erect penis.
Before I even had time to register shock or disgust, the market trader wrenched my hand out of the pouch and attempted to prise away my fingers to get at the notes I was clutching. The sudden appearance of a determined look on his face coincided with the opening of the back doors of the van by its driver, who had scurried round after parking it.
‘Grrr!’
The seller yanked my hand so hard that I lost my balance and went flying. We both let go of the money, causing images of the Queen’s head to appear at random points in the air between us. Before a single royal cranium had time to touch the ground, mine crashed into one of the metal doors of the van with an almighty bang.
The last image I had in my mind before being knocked unconscious was of the man who had become sexually aroused while arguing about life and death staring at me from behind his tragicomic mask of a face with a look of profound satisfaction.
7.
Is the can of beer half-empty or half-full? The only thing that concerns me is that it is not a glass of water.
I am back in the armchair after having mustered the energy to pick up another drink. While it helped to decrease my anxiety, the beer has done nothing for my thirst. I am so used to the taste of it that it now resembles a completely flavourless liquid like water every time it passes over my tongue, but the result on the rest of my body is the complete opposite of H2O’s hydrating effect.
Drinking alcohol is, for me, like breathing air in that it has become an involuntary action I need to perform in order to survive. Also, while what I take into my body may contain liquid, it in no way takes the place of proper hydration. I am dying of thirst and drowning at the same time.
I have even gone to the extreme of drinking water out of the toilet in an attempt to quench my thirst in the past. Since the toilet here is never cleaned, it came as no surprise when it resulted each time in a huge amplification of my everyday queasiness. The nausea I felt from getting too close to the filthy bowl was a mere preview of the sick song that raced up the charts of my body like a shit single. It would be broadcast loudly to the world through my mouth and remain at volume 11 until my stomach had finished spinning at 45 rpm.
That’s how empty my glass has become.
I even tried washing my clothes in the toilet once. I knew that it wasn’t a good idea, but I was just so sick of the rotten aura surrounding my body that I had to do something. I peeled off the putrid layers and dipped them one by one into the murky water before wringing them out and draping them over the armchair to dry. I spent a whole day sitting in front of the TV completely naked, knowing that I was probably providing entertainment for the sick minds watching me. I didn’t want to provide an explicit show for the onlookers, but I had no choice.
Unsurprisingly, my clothes still retained the foul stench of dirt and sweat after being dipped in the lavatory. The only difference was that the smell of stale bog water had been added to the bouquet.
I try to keep myself and my surroundings as clean as possible but I am severely restricted in what I can do. The only source of water in this room is the toilet. If my body wasn’t so dependent on alcohol for fuel, I would strip off and pour cans of beer over my body to wash away some of the filth. It would result in further smelliness and an unpleasant stickiness, but it would be worth it for the feeling of having large amounts of liquid on the outside, rather than the inside, of my body for once.
It would be easy to let the empty cans pile up around me due to the fact that the precious energy expended on the act of clearing them away may later be required for an emergency trip to the toilet or to pick up an unopened can, but I still make the effort to keep the living space neat and tidy by putting my litter through the little round hole in the wall. While I hate to cooperate with those on the outside, I’m afraid that the daily deliveries of full beer cans will stop if I don’t follow the instruction communicated to me by a symbol on the wall of a hand inserting a can into a black circle.
I used to find the cans made excellent reading material, but there’s only so many times you can cast your eyes over an imploration to drink responsibly before all meaning is sucked from it. My love of literature led me to turn the nutritional information into a Dadaistic poem or the list of ingredients into the cast of a surreal play when I first arrived here. I was trying to bridge the gap between my old, literary life and my new, alcoholic one.
Before coming here, I was an avid reader and was lucky enough to have found a way to make a living from my favourite pastime. When I read a book I would record myself doing so out loud and make the recording available to the public online. Over the years, my name and voice became recognised and demand for my audiobooks grew until it seemed logical to charge a small fee in order to buy the time to make them more regularly. Prior to my arrival, sitting at home and reading was my full-time job. Every single day was an adventure. I could be transported to Soviet Russia by Mikhail Bulgakov or outer space by Douglas Adams.
Now, however, I am imprisoned in this tiny room after being taken here against my will by an unknown enemy and forced to drink nothing but alcohol and watch sport on TV every day until I die.
8.
When I first opened my eyes and saw where I was after being knocked unconscious by the market trader, questions beginning with ‘where’ and ‘how’ began bugging me like nuisance callers. I thought my mind’s answer phone message would be sufficient to stop them redialling – “Hello. I can’t speak to you right now because I don’t know where I am. I think I’m in hospital, which would mean I was brought here by ambulance. That’s all I know for now. When I find out more, I will phone you straight back. Thanks.” – but the questions kept calling until my ears were ringing loudly.
I hung on to the hospital theory for quite a while despite the lack of cleanliness and a bed in the room. In order to comfort myself with the belief that I was safe, I also ignored the fact that no one came to check on me and that I was unable to open the door.
The idea that I was possibly being looked after by health professionals was conclusively destroyed when a tray of beers was pushed through the hatch near the locked door. No hospital in the world gives its patients booze, I thought. After that, I knew I was back to square one in terms of understanding where I was and how I got there.
I resisted drinking the beer for as long as I could because I was worried it may have been tampered with in some way, but eventually my thirst and my desire to find some form of mental escape became too much and I cracked one open. By taking that first sip, I was playing right into the hands of my captors, effectively giving them my health and happiness in order to make room for poison. They gave me nothing else in the way of food or drink, so I really had no choice. Killing myself slowly was my only means of survival.
I never cared for beer when I was free. As a way of washing down an occasional pie or Scotch egg, it was enjoyable, but drinking it on its own gave me no pleasure. I was much more of a wine person, enjoying a few glasses of red every now and then, but never getting drunk. Since beginning to drink beer every day, I have experienced so many different feelings about it that the emotional upheaval alone has been enough to permanently break me. It has caused me to be suspicious, sick and violent while also helping bring about calmness, fullness of the stomach and relief from hangovers and withdrawal symptoms.
I have become a one-man band playing the greatest hits of an endangered species with my body, a yes/no man arguing with life seconds before the lifting of the final curtain.
For a while, I wondered if giving me a roof over my head, a TV and an endless supply of beer might have been a misguided attempt on someone’s part to offer me a life of luxury. Certainly it would be a dream come true for many people if they could get drunk and watch sport every day without having to worry about working again, but I can’t imagine anyone but a pure masochist wanting that given without food, a bed and running water, which means only a pure sadist would impose it.
Unfortunately, I don’t have any real friends or family members who would raise the alarm and alert the police to my disappearance. While the large number of people who enjoy my audiobooks will be sad to see the lack of new recordings, it is hardly enough to make anybody suspect I have been kidnapped. I don’t, therefore, have much hope of being rescued, although the fact that considerable work must have been involved in taking and keeping me prisoner like this means that behind it there is possibly a large criminal network which could be uncovered and brought down at some point by various means.
With the acceptance that my life story has become a piece of flash fiction about alcohol and survival, the phone lines to all but one question have been cut.
Why?
The presence of a CCTV camera in the top corner of the room, just above the TV, has caused me to consider the possibility that I am being held here as part of some sort of sick experiment. I had heard rumours in the past of people being held against their will and being forced to watch nothing but heterosexual porn to see if it would “cure” them of being gay. If that kind of thing goes on, why not experiments to see what happens to human guinea pigs when they only drink beer and watch sport? The fact that the TV set has been welded so as to prevent the channels being changed suggests everything about my environment is deliberate.
The only alternative I can think of is that this is someone’s way of punishing me for something I have done to them. I’ve pissed off so many people during the course of my life that there is certainly no shortage of ill-wishers to choose from in the search for suspects. The market trader would be top of the list because he was the last person I had contact with before waking up here. It wouldn’t surprise me if he and the van driver were in cahoots and the vehicle’s doors were being opened so I could be shoved inside and driven away to wherever I am now. The fact that I was knocked unconscious in the process may even have been deliberate as it would have made their job of transporting me a lot easier.
While the man who sold me the DVD seemed like an unpleasant character, I still can’t imagine him thinking that this kind of slow torture is an appropriate response to an argument over £5. The work involved in preparing this room beforehand and having the van driver lay in wait suggests the desire to entrap someone here arose long before our altercation took place.
How a desire like that could spontaneously arise in anyone is a mystery to me.
9.
I recently noticed that the hand pushing the beer cans into the room had varnished nails. It reminded me of a particular confrontation I had with a woman not long before coming here, even though I’ve annoyed countless members of the opposite sex over the years. I remember that woman, who was a waitress, having the same colour nails as the person delivering the alcohol because she tried to scratch my face with them after I got her sacked.
I had stopped off for a drink while out shopping with Ken one day. Having my dark glasses and white cane with me meant I was able to bring Ken into the cafe because everyone assumed he was a guide dog. Appearing to be blind meant I didn’t have to subject him to the same cruel treatment that most dog owners seem to think is acceptable by leaving him tied up outside feeling cold and abandoned. It also meant I was able to eye up the beautiful waitress as she bent over the tables, exposing parts of her thighs and breasts. Even if anyone saw my eyes pointing in her direction through the dark glasses, they would still assume I couldn’t see anything.
It was for this reason that when she, Ken and I were the only ones in the cafe, the waitress made no attempt to be subtle when she took a £50 note from the till and put it in her handbag.
Obviously I couldn’t let the sight of a vulnerable young woman risking a career-wrecking criminal record to procure a little pocket money pass by without intervening...
‘Will you go out with me?’ I asked.
‘Sorry?’
‘Will you go out with me... on a date?’
‘Oh. I’ve got a husband, I’m afraid.’
‘Doesn’t bother me.’
The wavy lines that had appeared on her forehead made her look like an ECG graph showing how much her body set my heart racing. She tried to walk away, but I spoke again before she got far.
‘I think you should go out with me.’
‘Why?’ she asked.
‘Because if you don’t, I’ll tell your manager about the money you just stole.’
‘What?’
‘You heard me. I’m not really blind. I can see everything, including how good-looking you are.’ I thought that paying her a compliment would pretty much seal the deal, but she seemed strangely unimpressed. ‘Here comes your boss... this is your last chance.’
‘Drop dead!’
The girl left me with no choice but to inform her manager of the situation.
The tears that came rolling down her pink cheeks as I told her superior what had just happened were effectively an admission of guilt. She seemed too overcome by emotion to attempt to issue a denial or stop her manager going into her bag to recover the money.
‘You know I’m going to have to let you go because of this, don’t you?’ Her manager offered her a sad smile in place of a golden handshake.
‘But I need the money! I’ve got little mouths to feed. Please! I’m a single mum with no one to help me and...’
‘So you’re a liar as well as a thief!’ I interrupted.
‘What?’
‘You told me you had a husband just now. You just can’t trust some people! It’s times like these that I lose all faith in humanity.’
For some strange reason, the waitress decided to make a lunge at me. If it weren’t for the quick reflexes of her manager, who jumped in to hold her back, she would have succeeded in scratching my face with her bright pink nails. The enraged look on her face as she clawed at the air made her look extremely unattractive and I wondered what I’d ever seen in her.
I hopped on Ken’s back and left the cafe as quickly as possible in order to avoid being attacked by the emotionally unstable waitress. It wasn’t until later that I realised I had forgotten to pay for my cup of tea. It gave me an immense feeling of satisfaction to think that I had brought a thief to justice and got a free drink in the process.
Now I have an endless supply of free drinks and I fear it might be someone’s idea of just desserts.
10.
It’s now dark outside and the main light has come on in the room. I’d like to exist in total darkness so that I don’t feel constantly scrutinised by whoever is lurking on the other side of the camera, but the light comes on automatically and is hidden behind indestructible glass. Even if I could destroy it, I would still be illuminated by the TV, which I can’t live without now.
I have been almost completely “cured” of my desire to read. The raw energy of televised sport, breaking through the screen with its black and white fists, makes mincemeat of my tender side. The beer makes me suggestive and the games win me over with sweet nothings. Before I know it, I am a permanent member of Team Sport, fighting to the death against subtlety.
I’m actually just as addicted to watching sport on TV as I am to drinking alcohol. They both affect my mind and body in such a way as to make me think and act like a computer on the rocks. If a ball goes in the net and a can goes in the hole, I will be rewarded with my very own emotional response. If a man runs fast enough or drinks enough booze, a standard by which I can measure my life will be set.
Yes/no.
I’m waiting to see the sports contest that is so successful it defeats itself, but I know that it will never happen because as soon as a player or team is victorious they become the defending champion or champions and the grand narrative made up of ones and zeros is extended. Unlike life, sport never ends. It consumes a limitless supply of bodies as it snakes perversely through time and space. The players die and are replaced by other players. Those that get to see the head of sport are those that are eaten by it. The only fade-out it will offer is that of the sun’s light as it looms over you with its jaw dislocated and fangs bared in order to swallow you whole like an egg.
Now is the time when I drink for “pleasure”, by which I mean the withdrawal symptoms retreat and the beer is used primarily as a form of escapism. This is when the tides within and around me are at their most ferocious, causing me to stagger and sway like a shipwreck in a bottle, abandoned by sense. This is when I think about using my head as a wrecking ball against the walls of my prison. This is when escape and destruction knock with a shared set of knuckles on the moonlit ruins of my life.
Even in my most maniacal moments, I have managed to steer clear of the TV set, turning my rage instead against the walls or floor. I would like nothing more than to destroy the camera that is fixed on me 24 hours a day, but it is hard to reach and is protected by a metal cage. I will therefore spend most of the night punctuating in stone the empty words from the TV with punches and kicks that only serve to highlight my life sentence.
11.
I regularly fantasise about flushing myself down the toilet. I know I’m too big to fit, but every day I stare into the hole and my desperate mind transforms me into a tiny goldfish. The image seems appropriate because I drink like a fish and will probably die senselessly like the one on the DVD. The more sport I watch, the more I can feel my intellect diminishing, causing my mind to resemble that of an animal in an enclosed space with no ability to think outside the tank.
I remember being profoundly affected when I read Kafka’s Metamorphosis. I was struck by how horrific it was to see Gregor Samsa’s mind becoming more and more insect-like – I don’t see that my real life situation is any less horrific than the story of a man who is transformed, inside and out, into a giant beetle. The only difference is that I am becoming a giant fish.
I wish I wasn’t so drunk right now because all the talk of fish has made something potentially very important occur to me. It’s a thought I’d like to be able to make sense of...
There was a strange moment just before I purchased the DVD at the market when the man selling it spoke about ‘under-the-counter alternatives’.
‘What do you mean?’ I asked.
‘They’re like the fish DVD but a bit more hardcore.’
‘You mean porn?’
‘No, but some of them contain humans.’
‘What do the humans do?’
‘The same as the fish.’
‘They swim around in a tank of water?’
‘Sort of.’
I was extremely confused. I told him I would stick to the aquarium DVD as the other ones didn’t sound particularly relaxing.
It has occurred to me that when he said the humans in the other videos did the same as the fish, he might have meant that they spent their time trapped in a small space and died in front of a camera. What if all his DVDs were of caged animals dying? If he really had received no complaints, it would suggest there was an appetite for these kinds of twisted movies. If someone’s idea of relaxation is to watch a fish expire, there’s no reason to think that they wouldn’t get the same pleasure from a recording of a human being dying in captivity.
It is a shocking idea, yet it would make perfect sense if the market trader had me imprisoned here in order to film me dying like the poor goldfish on the DVD. The conditions in this room are as basic and restrictive as those in the tank. The camera will also capture my death. My final moments will probably be packaged and sold to sick fucks who get their kicks from seeing the gap between visiting a zoo and watching a snuff movie bridged.
Just as with the fish DVD, I would like this scenario to end with a fade-out in order to avoid the grotesque spectacle of death. While each individual may experience their own end as a fade-to-black moment, I actually agree with the market trader’s assertion that nothing so convenient can be found in the real world. When we see a fade-out in a film, it is a way of preserving all possibilities; when we hear one at the end of a song, it suggests the music continues into eternity. In each case, it is trickery. The only way to achieve something similar in real life is to die observing it. Death is a powerful special effect but it can only be used once.
Even if I killed myself, it would only be a fade-out ending for me. Everyone watching me would be presented with the Technicolor death scene they hoped and paid for. While I remain trapped here, I can think of no way to soften the focus of the wind that wants to see me off the edge of a cliff, no way to close the world’s eye to the messy cumshot at the end of my affair with life. I must accept that every fish has a head and a tail.
It won’t be long now until I black out from all the alcohol. Most of my days end with the darkness of the night bleeding into them like this. Unfortunately, the blackouts are not endings, but intermissions. The lights come on again and I am pushed by invisible hands to the front of the stage, where I act out the same scene of destruction for the world’s pleasure. One day, I will not rise again, but the lights will remain on in order to fry my body and serve it up as a proteinous meal for my understudy.
12.
As I open my eyes to the harsh light, I can hear the sound of paper tearing. My brittle bones have just spilled out onto the hard floor of new day and I now face the arduous task of putting myself back together again.
I’m not sure whether it is morning or afternoon, but it is most certainly time for a drink. While the only movement I seem capable of is involuntary shaking, I must somehow find it in myself to crawl across the cold floor and reach one of the cans of beer near the hatch.
Once I have managed that, I will hopefully feel strong enough to use my legs for a trip to the window. I may fall or be forced to rest on the way, but my eventual reward for making it to the valve in the wall will be a feeling of purification and awakening created by the jets of cold light hitting my face.
My routine will not be complete until I have visited to toilet. My stay there will no doubt be protracted because of all the different body parts which need to be emptied of their contents. A great deal of fluid will come out of my bladder, bowels and stomach. These days I seem to be made entirely out of different coloured liquids, which is surprising considering how dehydrated I feel.
The journey back to the armchair, stopping off briefly to pick up another drink, completes my daily tour of the estate. I will be required to repeat the actions of getting more alcohol and using the toilet at various points throughout the day, but until I reach a state of extreme inebriation in the evening, during which time my behaviour becomes erratic and physically destructive, I can be relied upon to sit quietly in front of the TV, soaking up beer and sport like a filthy sponge.
Violence is not the answer, but it’s not a bad question.
The question I was asking by repeatedly banging my head against the wall last night was why? Why am I here? Thud. Why am I forced to drink myself to death? Thud. Why is no one speaking to me? Thud.
My only answer has come in the form of a huge lump on my forehead which is throbbing in time with the rest of my aching body. It is not the answer I was hoping for, but the message is clear: use the short amount of time you have left to accept the senselessness of life.
I spent most of last night in front of the TV, drinking beer and watching tennis. I don’t know which competition was being shown because the commentary wasn’t in English, but the tick-tock rhythm of the action, combined with the ugly grunting of the players, soon became a language in itself. The longer I watched, the more I felt I was sitting in on a conversation between two stubborn children.
‘Yes.’
‘No.’
‘Yes.’
‘No.’
‘Yes!’
‘No!’
As the beer numbed my brain, I could feel myself becoming increasingly wrapped up in the game. It started to feel as if an important question about my life would be answered by seeing either ‘yes’ or ‘no’ triumph. Deep down, however, I knew that important questions always begin with ‘why’, and that ‘yes’ and ‘no’ are not valid responses to that.
In my fight to the death to avoid playing the yes/no game, it was necessary to use my head.
Thud.
2.
It’s still light outside. I’m not sure whether it is morning or afternoon, but I’ve already started drinking. I’ve got to the stage now where hangovers are a thing of the past and a liquid breakfast is necessary in order to function.
When I opened my eyes earlier, I felt like a paper bag of brittle bones being ripped open by the sun. I could hear the piercing sound of paper tearing as I awoke. My bones spilled out onto the hard floor of a new day and broke into pieces. The rest of my waking hours will be spent putting them back together with alcohol before the same process begins again tomorrow.
I’ve almost finished my first beer of the day, and the strength to use my legs is returning. In order to get to the can, I was forced to drag myself along the floor, but now I’m feeling confident enough to attempt to stand and walk over to the window, where I will see, once my eyes have adjusted to the light, a view consisting of nothing but a brick wall. That wall, unlike the one I bashed my head against last night, is a symbol of hope. It would be the answer, not to a question, but to my prayers, if I could touch it with my ghostly hands. Every sip of alcohol, however, makes it harder to move and adds to the raging ocean of anguish separating me from the outside world.
The window is narrow and fitted with thick glass. If I could open it and fit my head through, I would use what little energy I have to cry out for help. If, with lupine howls of pain, I could alert the public to the existence of a dying boy, I would give vocal expression to my inner turmoil, but I know it’s not possible. The hours spent fruitlessly knocking on the reinforced pane in the hope of attracting the attention of a kind stranger who might be able to help me out of my hell have taught me that I am horribly alone in the world.
My daily trips to the window are a replacement for washing myself. By stepping in front of the purifying rays of light trickling in through the valve in the wall, I achieve the same feeling of refreshment that the average person gets from having water splashed on their face in the morning. The jets of cold light shock me into alertness and help to wash away the sweat from the previous night. It makes me feel better about the fact that I always wear the same clothes.
After bathing at the window, my next port of call is the toilet. My stay is usually protracted because of all the different body parts which need to be emptied of their contents. Although my bladder, bowels and stomach are all individual organs with separate functions, the stuff that comes out of them nowadays is surprisingly similar. I seem to be made of nothing but liquid.
The journey back to the armchair, stopping off briefly to pick up another drink, completes my daily tour of the estate. I will be required to repeat the actions of getting more alcohol and using the toilet at various points throughout the day, but until I reach a state of extreme inebriation in the evening, during which time my behaviour becomes erratic and violent, I can be relied upon to sit quietly in front of the TV, soaking up beer and sport like a filthy sponge.
3.
Why?
In the hope of finding answers, I keep going over that fateful 24-hour period before my life changed forever. I have no idea how long ago it was because time has become a swamp in which no precise units are distinguishable, but there remains a clear distinction in my otherwise muddled mind between then and now. I was ejaculated from a world with meaning and structure into the centre of a deflating bouncy castle. The walls closed in on me until I became a limp member wrapped in cold rubber.
I still don’t know what happened to Ken. I wouldn’t want him here now because he’d suffer even more than me, but not knowing whether he’s safe adds tremendously to my pain. To smell his breath, look into his eyes or run my fingers through his hair would reinstate a connection to the warm core of the world I left so long ago. I hope he escaped the fate that befell me and found someone to look after him.
He probably wouldn’t even recognise me now. Sometimes I can see myself reflected in the TV screen and it scares me to see how old and yellow I appear. The face staring forlornly through the moving images looks like that of the ghost of a Simpsons character drawn by a sick child.
Why did I buy an aquarium DVD that day? I’d always got all the entertainment and relaxation I needed from reading books, so there was absolutely no need for it.
Ken and I were out shopping in the town centre when we came across a market stall selling an unusual selection of items. The sight of glass beads and dream catchers being displayed alongside handcuffs and hunting knives struck me as peculiar. Along with the strange combination of physical features displayed by the man behind the stall, it should have been enough to scare me into walking straight past, but I found myself fascinated by all the contradictions he was offering. The fact that he had a tuft of hair on his forehead while being otherwise bald suggested he aged differently to other people. The unlikely marriage of a desperately sad pair of eyes with a sunshine smile made it seem like some part of his face was only there to get a visa.
‘Feel free to touch the items,’ he said, glowing from the nose down. ‘Give them a good fingering.’
‘It’s OK,’ I said. ‘I’m more of a visual person.’
‘Then I’ve got just the thing for you...’ He picked up a DVD with a picture of tropical fish on it and leaned over the stall in order to hold it up to my face. It was so close that I had to tilt my head back to view it properly.
The cover read: “TWO HOURS OF BEAUTIFULL FISHES SWIMMING IN A TANK – GUARANTEED TO RELAX.” I should have interpreted the spelling mistake and the homemade appearance of the packaging as a sign that the product would not deliver on its promise of relaxation. However, I was too dazzled by the peculiar effect the seller and his stall had on me to be able to reach any kind of rational judgement.
‘Only a fiver,’ he said, shaking the case violently.
‘Um...’
‘How much would real fish and a tank cost?’
‘More than a fiver, I suppose.’
‘Exactly. So you’ll take it?’
‘Um...’ The fragments of thought in my mind at that moment were like the items on the man’s stall in that they did not seem to fit together. So many unformed ideas were flying past my eyes like fine hairs swept by the wind from the head of an inventor that I was glad to have something firm to grab onto. I took the DVD with one hand and pulled a £5 note from my pocket with the other.
‘Ta very much,’ he said, snatching the money from me. Once he’d pocketed the cash, he looked me up and down with his mournful eyes and seemed about to ask a question.
‘Everything all right?’ I asked.
‘Is it a he or a she?’ he enquired, pointing between my legs.
‘Oh, it’s a he. His name’s Ken.’
‘Hello, Ken! What a beast!’
The man walked out from behind his stall to rub Ken’s head. We spent the next few minutes stroking and discussing my Kenneth as other people walked by and looked on disapprovingly. The conversation was good-natured and there was very little to suggest how nasty things would become when I saw him again the following day.
If only I had been pretending to be blind, like I usually did, he never would have offered me the DVD.
4.
I have been watching swimming on TV for the last hour or so and haven’t moved from the armchair. As the TV is stuck on the same channel it means I have to tolerate all the commentary being in a foreign language. From the names and flags displayed on the screen, however, I am able to deduce that the USA seems to be best at the sport.
Even though all the words of the various swimmers are dubbed over in Spanish, it’s clear that the athletes are incapable of speaking properly in their post-contest interviews. It strikes me as cruel that they are forced to face the cameras immediately after competing because they are clearly tired, breathless and unable to focus their thoughts. If my only appearances on TV were on occasions when panting and sweating took the place of smiling and talking, I would feel rather humiliated.
Perhaps that is why I feel so bad now – because I know that to whoever is watching me at the moment, I must appear as pathetic and useless as an out-of-breath swimmer trying to say something clever.
It’s easy to get lost in the basic rhythm of sport. In my mind, I’m synchronising with the motion of the swimmers as I watch their heads bob in and out of the water. The primitive beat of the sports drum creates a hypnotic pattern which transforms me into a clenching and unclenching fist that sweats beer over physical activity onto the filthy armrest of a chair. With the English language having been expelled from my life like air from a pair of inflatable armbands, I am forced to read poetry in the expressions of the swimmers who periodically surface from the water looking like dying fish.
There is absolutely nothing poetic about dying fish, which is precisely why I tried to get a refund on the aquarium DVD.
I had been sitting at home in front of the TV, much as I am now, only with a book in my hand instead of a beer, watching the repetitive actions of inarticulate beings moving around in a body of water. I thought the DVD would simply add to the ambience while I read, but what appeared on the screen was so far removed from what was advertised on the box that I was soon staring open-mouth, no doubt resembling one of the gilled creatures myself, at the shocking spectacle.
The film began with a series of grainy and shaky images of a messy living room as the camera was put into place in front of the tank, which suggested it was a recording made in someone’s home with cheap equipment. The poor quality of the camera and the camerawork was matched by that of the subject matter. The small number and limited range of fish on display completely failed to live up to the expectation created by the colourful pictures of tropical species on the front and back of the DVD case. There were four goldfish and several small black creatures that only vaguely resembled fish drifting lifelessly around the tank of mouldy water. It was no surprise to see how little interest they showed in swimming considering how cramped and dirty their home was. My suspicion that they were simply treading water while waiting for death seemed to be confirmed towards the end of the film by the sight of one goldfish sinking down to the bottom of the tank and no longer moving. I could at least see the others were alive by the occasional movements of their mouths and fins, but the poor creature lying on the stones gave no such signs of life.
I had paid £5 for a film of someone’s pet dying. While I was happy to have been educated about what happens to the body of a fish when it dies – I always thought it would float to the top of the water rather than sink – it did not make me any less angry about having made the purchase.
Ken didn’t seem bothered, but I decided to confront the market trader over the poor quality of the DVD he had sold me. I vowed to make the man who had taken me for a mug realise the error of his ways, even if it was the last thing I did.
Unfortunately, it was the last thing I did before my life effectively ended.
5.
This is the time of the day I like best: when the first few beers have calmed my nerves and a wave of tiredness washes over me.
The alcohol my body depends on has done its job by halting the feeling of rapid decay I experienced upon opening my eyes. In addition, it will shortly allow me to get the best quality sleep available to someone in this state. When I drift off in a few moments, I will not be a dizzy, sweating singularity, but a small scrap of blank paper folded into the shape of a living person. The universe will increase the firmness of my folds and maybe even gift me a dream.
I can feel the pieces of my shattered unconscious mind being gathered up by soft hands right now. I know the togetherness of my thoughts will be destroyed soon after, when the whole becomes a hole filled to breaking point with poison, but for now I am pleased to be able to bear the weight of life with more than just smashed atoms inside me.
The speed with which images rush out from the cracks in my mind while I am at my least inebriated shows how blind to the big screen of blood and stars I must be when I spend the night passed out on the floor. The nature of the images is also telling: the fact that I dream of the books and food that are sadly no longer part of my life seems to suggest I have retreated from stargazing to primitive wish-fulfilment. Sometimes, during my afternoon naps, I am tearing pages from imaginary books and stuffing them in my mouth to condense two birds with one stone.
Even the act of desiring a life without drink requires energy that only alcohol can provide. The quantity I need is at its lowest at this time of day but is continually increasing. Soon I won’t have time for any kind of sleep due to the constant need to keep my alcohol levels topped up.
My grip on the beer can is loosening and I’m powerless to stop it. In a few moments it will fall to the floor, but neither the spilling of the remaining drink nor the clattering of metal against the tiles will be enough to stop me falling asleep.
As my eyelids close, I will make a wish. I would like to open my eyes to a change of scenery – or complete blindness.
6.
I have no idea how long I was gone for, but it was probably a while because the light outside is beginning to fade and there is now horseracing on the TV. Whether it was one hour or one day, the fact that I’ve gone without alcohol for an extended period of time means I am gripped by panic and must find the energy to raise myself out of this chair as soon as possible in order to pick up another drink. My anxiety alone is not sufficient to propel me across the room – I must begin the slow process of persuading my weak muscles that they can carry me there and back one more time. I have to talk each required body part down from a ledge, assuring them that life is worth living because there is beer at the end of the tunnel.
As the energy to create fairy stories to keep my body interested in the world of the living is being searched for, I am sitting completely motionless in front of the TV watching images of horses and jockeys piling up in front of my eyes like colourful bricks.
It reminds me of how I used to ride Ken everywhere, and how hypocritical it seemed to me that the world opposed it so fiercely while tolerating the sport of horseracing. Ken is a huge Newfoundland dog and I am a diminutive man, so the size ratio is hardly any different to that of a jockey and a horse. I always thought that Ken’s heavy panting and high-pitched barking could only be interpreted as a sign of excitement at having me ride him since true discomfort would surely have been expressed by kicking me off his back. He is a very large and powerful animal, so even if the damage people imagined I was doing to his spine was real, I’m sure he still could have shaken me off if he wanted to.
In order to avoid the constant shouts of abuse from disapproving strangers, I found wearing dark glasses and carrying a white stick very effective. They would still stare as I passed them in the street – even more brazenly than before since they thought I couldn’t see – but, on the whole, people would let me continue freely due to their apprehension about challenging a disabled person. Also, the stick came in handy for whipping Ken when I wanted him to go faster.
The fact that I forgot my stick and glasses on the day we went to the market is something which will torment me until the day I die. Mercifully, I won’t have to wait long until my torment ends. Soon, all the physical and emotional pain I have ever felt will be nothing more than the dot of a question mark asking why.
I don’t know why I didn’t think to take the items with me, but I regretted it even before getting into town. With my body appearing to others to be in perfectly working order, there was no reason for them not to let me know how offensive the sight of it on a dog was to them.
‘You shouldn’t be doing that!’ shouted a red-faced woman from the other side of the road.
‘Why shouldn’t I?’
‘Look at how slow you’re going for starters. That poor creature can hardly move with you on top.’
‘That’s OK,’ I said. ‘I’m not in a hurry.’
An elderly man approached me and pointed to Ken with his walking stick.
‘Are you aware how bent that dog’s back is?’ he asked.
‘Yep,’ I said with a smile.
‘Well, aren’t you going to do anything about it?’
‘Yes. I might make some high-heeled boots for him to walk in so my feet are further off the ground, or I might just get him to pull me around in a box.’
‘I’m going to tell the RSPCA about you.’
‘But I’m not an animal and I’m fine anyway, thanks.’
That was the kind of harassment I had to put up with from complete strangers as I tried to go about my daily business. One of the only good things about my current situation is that I no longer have to put up with the aggression or ignorance of others because I live in complete isolation.
When I went to town the following day with Ken, I made sure I was armed with the necessary items to keep meddlesome strangers at bay. We went straight to the market and found the man who sold me the dodgy DVD in the same place with the same mismatched objects on offer.
‘Excuse me,’ I said, pulling the offending article from my bag. ‘I bought this yesterday and I’d like a refund now, please.’
‘A refund? Why’s that?’
‘Because I can’t stand seeing animals suffer.’
The man suddenly looked down at Ken with his melancholic eyes. I assumed this was because he was ashamed of having sold me such an inferior product, but he went on to claim that he didn’t understand what I was talking about.
‘One of the fish dies during the film!’ I said. ‘I could have put up with the crappy quality of everything else if there had been a fade-out before the death, but having to witness that was just too much.’
‘You are aware that the fish are not actors, aren’t you?’
‘Er, yes.’
‘The only script they follow is the script of life. Death is a part of that.’
‘Whatever. Can I have my money back?’
‘If you had a real tank in your house and one of the fish inside it naturally passed away, would you take it back to the shop demanding a refund? No, because it’s normal for them to die. If anything, you should be pleased to have experienced such a realistic portrayal of owning fish so cheaply.’
‘It was meant to be relaxing.’
‘So are real fish... and they also die.’
‘But this was a film,’ I said with an exasperated sigh. ‘Which means whoever edited it could have added in a nice fade-out ending before the death.’
The way the man smiled seemed to suggest he was happy arguing with me and had no intention of refunding my money. He straightened the objects on his stall as if lining up soldiers in preparation for a long battle.
‘So you think reality is something to be manipulated or even hidden, do you? If we can add a fade-out ending to it, why not an intermission or montage as well? Lives could be extended by playing them in slow motion and reincarnation could be achieved by showing action replays. Unfortunately, life is not something you can cut up and rearrange. It’s something you experience from beginning to end in its raw form. If you’re not happy with that, try asking nature for a refund instead of me.’
‘I bet I’m not the only person who has complained about this.’
‘As a matter of fact, you are.’
‘Then that’s probably because I’m the only one stupid enough to have bought one of your DVDs.’
‘On the contrary,’ he said with an infuriatingly superior tone. ‘I’ve sold many DVDs and I’ve had no complaints. You are certainly the first person to demand a refund because of the mortality of what’s on the screen.’
‘Are you going to give me my money back?’
‘You’ve watched the whole thing! You’ve witnessed real life and real death – surely that’s worth something?’
‘So you’re not going to give it back?’
‘No.’
‘Well, I’ll just have to come round there and get it myself. You stay there, Ken.’
I stomped around to the side of the stall and began throwing my weight around. While I may be lacking in the height department, I’ve always been able to assert myself physically when I’m angry enough. I grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and demanded a refund and an apology. He continued to smile and kept looking over his shoulder at a van which was reversing towards us.
‘Look at me! This is your last chance!’
He continued peering round at the van and grinning. I was moments away from slapping his face when I noticed he was wearing a money pouch around his waist. I diverted my free hand from its course towards his cheek and sent it instead to the cloth bag hanging between his legs, forcing it open violently. Reaching in and feeling around for cash, my hand also rubbed against something on the other side of the material which was shaped very much like an erect penis.
Before I even had time to register shock or disgust, the market trader wrenched my hand out of the pouch and attempted to prise away my fingers to get at the notes I was clutching. The sudden appearance of a determined look on his face coincided with the opening of the back doors of the van by its driver, who had scurried round after parking it.
‘Grrr!’
The seller yanked my hand so hard that I lost my balance and went flying. We both let go of the money, causing images of the Queen’s head to appear at random points in the air between us. Before a single royal cranium had time to touch the ground, mine crashed into one of the metal doors of the van with an almighty bang.
The last image I had in my mind before being knocked unconscious was of the man who had become sexually aroused while arguing about life and death staring at me from behind his tragicomic mask of a face with a look of profound satisfaction.
7.
Is the can of beer half-empty or half-full? The only thing that concerns me is that it is not a glass of water.
I am back in the armchair after having mustered the energy to pick up another drink. While it helped to decrease my anxiety, the beer has done nothing for my thirst. I am so used to the taste of it that it now resembles a completely flavourless liquid like water every time it passes over my tongue, but the result on the rest of my body is the complete opposite of H2O’s hydrating effect.
Drinking alcohol is, for me, like breathing air in that it has become an involuntary action I need to perform in order to survive. Also, while what I take into my body may contain liquid, it in no way takes the place of proper hydration. I am dying of thirst and drowning at the same time.
I have even gone to the extreme of drinking water out of the toilet in an attempt to quench my thirst in the past. Since the toilet here is never cleaned, it came as no surprise when it resulted each time in a huge amplification of my everyday queasiness. The nausea I felt from getting too close to the filthy bowl was a mere preview of the sick song that raced up the charts of my body like a shit single. It would be broadcast loudly to the world through my mouth and remain at volume 11 until my stomach had finished spinning at 45 rpm.
That’s how empty my glass has become.
I even tried washing my clothes in the toilet once. I knew that it wasn’t a good idea, but I was just so sick of the rotten aura surrounding my body that I had to do something. I peeled off the putrid layers and dipped them one by one into the murky water before wringing them out and draping them over the armchair to dry. I spent a whole day sitting in front of the TV completely naked, knowing that I was probably providing entertainment for the sick minds watching me. I didn’t want to provide an explicit show for the onlookers, but I had no choice.
Unsurprisingly, my clothes still retained the foul stench of dirt and sweat after being dipped in the lavatory. The only difference was that the smell of stale bog water had been added to the bouquet.
I try to keep myself and my surroundings as clean as possible but I am severely restricted in what I can do. The only source of water in this room is the toilet. If my body wasn’t so dependent on alcohol for fuel, I would strip off and pour cans of beer over my body to wash away some of the filth. It would result in further smelliness and an unpleasant stickiness, but it would be worth it for the feeling of having large amounts of liquid on the outside, rather than the inside, of my body for once.
It would be easy to let the empty cans pile up around me due to the fact that the precious energy expended on the act of clearing them away may later be required for an emergency trip to the toilet or to pick up an unopened can, but I still make the effort to keep the living space neat and tidy by putting my litter through the little round hole in the wall. While I hate to cooperate with those on the outside, I’m afraid that the daily deliveries of full beer cans will stop if I don’t follow the instruction communicated to me by a symbol on the wall of a hand inserting a can into a black circle.
I used to find the cans made excellent reading material, but there’s only so many times you can cast your eyes over an imploration to drink responsibly before all meaning is sucked from it. My love of literature led me to turn the nutritional information into a Dadaistic poem or the list of ingredients into the cast of a surreal play when I first arrived here. I was trying to bridge the gap between my old, literary life and my new, alcoholic one.
Before coming here, I was an avid reader and was lucky enough to have found a way to make a living from my favourite pastime. When I read a book I would record myself doing so out loud and make the recording available to the public online. Over the years, my name and voice became recognised and demand for my audiobooks grew until it seemed logical to charge a small fee in order to buy the time to make them more regularly. Prior to my arrival, sitting at home and reading was my full-time job. Every single day was an adventure. I could be transported to Soviet Russia by Mikhail Bulgakov or outer space by Douglas Adams.
Now, however, I am imprisoned in this tiny room after being taken here against my will by an unknown enemy and forced to drink nothing but alcohol and watch sport on TV every day until I die.
8.
When I first opened my eyes and saw where I was after being knocked unconscious by the market trader, questions beginning with ‘where’ and ‘how’ began bugging me like nuisance callers. I thought my mind’s answer phone message would be sufficient to stop them redialling – “Hello. I can’t speak to you right now because I don’t know where I am. I think I’m in hospital, which would mean I was brought here by ambulance. That’s all I know for now. When I find out more, I will phone you straight back. Thanks.” – but the questions kept calling until my ears were ringing loudly.
I hung on to the hospital theory for quite a while despite the lack of cleanliness and a bed in the room. In order to comfort myself with the belief that I was safe, I also ignored the fact that no one came to check on me and that I was unable to open the door.
The idea that I was possibly being looked after by health professionals was conclusively destroyed when a tray of beers was pushed through the hatch near the locked door. No hospital in the world gives its patients booze, I thought. After that, I knew I was back to square one in terms of understanding where I was and how I got there.
I resisted drinking the beer for as long as I could because I was worried it may have been tampered with in some way, but eventually my thirst and my desire to find some form of mental escape became too much and I cracked one open. By taking that first sip, I was playing right into the hands of my captors, effectively giving them my health and happiness in order to make room for poison. They gave me nothing else in the way of food or drink, so I really had no choice. Killing myself slowly was my only means of survival.
I never cared for beer when I was free. As a way of washing down an occasional pie or Scotch egg, it was enjoyable, but drinking it on its own gave me no pleasure. I was much more of a wine person, enjoying a few glasses of red every now and then, but never getting drunk. Since beginning to drink beer every day, I have experienced so many different feelings about it that the emotional upheaval alone has been enough to permanently break me. It has caused me to be suspicious, sick and violent while also helping bring about calmness, fullness of the stomach and relief from hangovers and withdrawal symptoms.
I have become a one-man band playing the greatest hits of an endangered species with my body, a yes/no man arguing with life seconds before the lifting of the final curtain.
For a while, I wondered if giving me a roof over my head, a TV and an endless supply of beer might have been a misguided attempt on someone’s part to offer me a life of luxury. Certainly it would be a dream come true for many people if they could get drunk and watch sport every day without having to worry about working again, but I can’t imagine anyone but a pure masochist wanting that given without food, a bed and running water, which means only a pure sadist would impose it.
Unfortunately, I don’t have any real friends or family members who would raise the alarm and alert the police to my disappearance. While the large number of people who enjoy my audiobooks will be sad to see the lack of new recordings, it is hardly enough to make anybody suspect I have been kidnapped. I don’t, therefore, have much hope of being rescued, although the fact that considerable work must have been involved in taking and keeping me prisoner like this means that behind it there is possibly a large criminal network which could be uncovered and brought down at some point by various means.
With the acceptance that my life story has become a piece of flash fiction about alcohol and survival, the phone lines to all but one question have been cut.
Why?
The presence of a CCTV camera in the top corner of the room, just above the TV, has caused me to consider the possibility that I am being held here as part of some sort of sick experiment. I had heard rumours in the past of people being held against their will and being forced to watch nothing but heterosexual porn to see if it would “cure” them of being gay. If that kind of thing goes on, why not experiments to see what happens to human guinea pigs when they only drink beer and watch sport? The fact that the TV set has been welded so as to prevent the channels being changed suggests everything about my environment is deliberate.
The only alternative I can think of is that this is someone’s way of punishing me for something I have done to them. I’ve pissed off so many people during the course of my life that there is certainly no shortage of ill-wishers to choose from in the search for suspects. The market trader would be top of the list because he was the last person I had contact with before waking up here. It wouldn’t surprise me if he and the van driver were in cahoots and the vehicle’s doors were being opened so I could be shoved inside and driven away to wherever I am now. The fact that I was knocked unconscious in the process may even have been deliberate as it would have made their job of transporting me a lot easier.
While the man who sold me the DVD seemed like an unpleasant character, I still can’t imagine him thinking that this kind of slow torture is an appropriate response to an argument over £5. The work involved in preparing this room beforehand and having the van driver lay in wait suggests the desire to entrap someone here arose long before our altercation took place.
How a desire like that could spontaneously arise in anyone is a mystery to me.
9.
I recently noticed that the hand pushing the beer cans into the room had varnished nails. It reminded me of a particular confrontation I had with a woman not long before coming here, even though I’ve annoyed countless members of the opposite sex over the years. I remember that woman, who was a waitress, having the same colour nails as the person delivering the alcohol because she tried to scratch my face with them after I got her sacked.
I had stopped off for a drink while out shopping with Ken one day. Having my dark glasses and white cane with me meant I was able to bring Ken into the cafe because everyone assumed he was a guide dog. Appearing to be blind meant I didn’t have to subject him to the same cruel treatment that most dog owners seem to think is acceptable by leaving him tied up outside feeling cold and abandoned. It also meant I was able to eye up the beautiful waitress as she bent over the tables, exposing parts of her thighs and breasts. Even if anyone saw my eyes pointing in her direction through the dark glasses, they would still assume I couldn’t see anything.
It was for this reason that when she, Ken and I were the only ones in the cafe, the waitress made no attempt to be subtle when she took a £50 note from the till and put it in her handbag.
Obviously I couldn’t let the sight of a vulnerable young woman risking a career-wrecking criminal record to procure a little pocket money pass by without intervening...
‘Will you go out with me?’ I asked.
‘Sorry?’
‘Will you go out with me... on a date?’
‘Oh. I’ve got a husband, I’m afraid.’
‘Doesn’t bother me.’
The wavy lines that had appeared on her forehead made her look like an ECG graph showing how much her body set my heart racing. She tried to walk away, but I spoke again before she got far.
‘I think you should go out with me.’
‘Why?’ she asked.
‘Because if you don’t, I’ll tell your manager about the money you just stole.’
‘What?’
‘You heard me. I’m not really blind. I can see everything, including how good-looking you are.’ I thought that paying her a compliment would pretty much seal the deal, but she seemed strangely unimpressed. ‘Here comes your boss... this is your last chance.’
‘Drop dead!’
The girl left me with no choice but to inform her manager of the situation.
The tears that came rolling down her pink cheeks as I told her superior what had just happened were effectively an admission of guilt. She seemed too overcome by emotion to attempt to issue a denial or stop her manager going into her bag to recover the money.
‘You know I’m going to have to let you go because of this, don’t you?’ Her manager offered her a sad smile in place of a golden handshake.
‘But I need the money! I’ve got little mouths to feed. Please! I’m a single mum with no one to help me and...’
‘So you’re a liar as well as a thief!’ I interrupted.
‘What?’
‘You told me you had a husband just now. You just can’t trust some people! It’s times like these that I lose all faith in humanity.’
For some strange reason, the waitress decided to make a lunge at me. If it weren’t for the quick reflexes of her manager, who jumped in to hold her back, she would have succeeded in scratching my face with her bright pink nails. The enraged look on her face as she clawed at the air made her look extremely unattractive and I wondered what I’d ever seen in her.
I hopped on Ken’s back and left the cafe as quickly as possible in order to avoid being attacked by the emotionally unstable waitress. It wasn’t until later that I realised I had forgotten to pay for my cup of tea. It gave me an immense feeling of satisfaction to think that I had brought a thief to justice and got a free drink in the process.
Now I have an endless supply of free drinks and I fear it might be someone’s idea of just desserts.
10.
It’s now dark outside and the main light has come on in the room. I’d like to exist in total darkness so that I don’t feel constantly scrutinised by whoever is lurking on the other side of the camera, but the light comes on automatically and is hidden behind indestructible glass. Even if I could destroy it, I would still be illuminated by the TV, which I can’t live without now.
I have been almost completely “cured” of my desire to read. The raw energy of televised sport, breaking through the screen with its black and white fists, makes mincemeat of my tender side. The beer makes me suggestive and the games win me over with sweet nothings. Before I know it, I am a permanent member of Team Sport, fighting to the death against subtlety.
I’m actually just as addicted to watching sport on TV as I am to drinking alcohol. They both affect my mind and body in such a way as to make me think and act like a computer on the rocks. If a ball goes in the net and a can goes in the hole, I will be rewarded with my very own emotional response. If a man runs fast enough or drinks enough booze, a standard by which I can measure my life will be set.
Yes/no.
I’m waiting to see the sports contest that is so successful it defeats itself, but I know that it will never happen because as soon as a player or team is victorious they become the defending champion or champions and the grand narrative made up of ones and zeros is extended. Unlike life, sport never ends. It consumes a limitless supply of bodies as it snakes perversely through time and space. The players die and are replaced by other players. Those that get to see the head of sport are those that are eaten by it. The only fade-out it will offer is that of the sun’s light as it looms over you with its jaw dislocated and fangs bared in order to swallow you whole like an egg.
Now is the time when I drink for “pleasure”, by which I mean the withdrawal symptoms retreat and the beer is used primarily as a form of escapism. This is when the tides within and around me are at their most ferocious, causing me to stagger and sway like a shipwreck in a bottle, abandoned by sense. This is when I think about using my head as a wrecking ball against the walls of my prison. This is when escape and destruction knock with a shared set of knuckles on the moonlit ruins of my life.
Even in my most maniacal moments, I have managed to steer clear of the TV set, turning my rage instead against the walls or floor. I would like nothing more than to destroy the camera that is fixed on me 24 hours a day, but it is hard to reach and is protected by a metal cage. I will therefore spend most of the night punctuating in stone the empty words from the TV with punches and kicks that only serve to highlight my life sentence.
11.
I regularly fantasise about flushing myself down the toilet. I know I’m too big to fit, but every day I stare into the hole and my desperate mind transforms me into a tiny goldfish. The image seems appropriate because I drink like a fish and will probably die senselessly like the one on the DVD. The more sport I watch, the more I can feel my intellect diminishing, causing my mind to resemble that of an animal in an enclosed space with no ability to think outside the tank.
I remember being profoundly affected when I read Kafka’s Metamorphosis. I was struck by how horrific it was to see Gregor Samsa’s mind becoming more and more insect-like – I don’t see that my real life situation is any less horrific than the story of a man who is transformed, inside and out, into a giant beetle. The only difference is that I am becoming a giant fish.
I wish I wasn’t so drunk right now because all the talk of fish has made something potentially very important occur to me. It’s a thought I’d like to be able to make sense of...
There was a strange moment just before I purchased the DVD at the market when the man selling it spoke about ‘under-the-counter alternatives’.
‘What do you mean?’ I asked.
‘They’re like the fish DVD but a bit more hardcore.’
‘You mean porn?’
‘No, but some of them contain humans.’
‘What do the humans do?’
‘The same as the fish.’
‘They swim around in a tank of water?’
‘Sort of.’
I was extremely confused. I told him I would stick to the aquarium DVD as the other ones didn’t sound particularly relaxing.
It has occurred to me that when he said the humans in the other videos did the same as the fish, he might have meant that they spent their time trapped in a small space and died in front of a camera. What if all his DVDs were of caged animals dying? If he really had received no complaints, it would suggest there was an appetite for these kinds of twisted movies. If someone’s idea of relaxation is to watch a fish expire, there’s no reason to think that they wouldn’t get the same pleasure from a recording of a human being dying in captivity.
It is a shocking idea, yet it would make perfect sense if the market trader had me imprisoned here in order to film me dying like the poor goldfish on the DVD. The conditions in this room are as basic and restrictive as those in the tank. The camera will also capture my death. My final moments will probably be packaged and sold to sick fucks who get their kicks from seeing the gap between visiting a zoo and watching a snuff movie bridged.
Just as with the fish DVD, I would like this scenario to end with a fade-out in order to avoid the grotesque spectacle of death. While each individual may experience their own end as a fade-to-black moment, I actually agree with the market trader’s assertion that nothing so convenient can be found in the real world. When we see a fade-out in a film, it is a way of preserving all possibilities; when we hear one at the end of a song, it suggests the music continues into eternity. In each case, it is trickery. The only way to achieve something similar in real life is to die observing it. Death is a powerful special effect but it can only be used once.
Even if I killed myself, it would only be a fade-out ending for me. Everyone watching me would be presented with the Technicolor death scene they hoped and paid for. While I remain trapped here, I can think of no way to soften the focus of the wind that wants to see me off the edge of a cliff, no way to close the world’s eye to the messy cumshot at the end of my affair with life. I must accept that every fish has a head and a tail.
It won’t be long now until I black out from all the alcohol. Most of my days end with the darkness of the night bleeding into them like this. Unfortunately, the blackouts are not endings, but intermissions. The lights come on again and I am pushed by invisible hands to the front of the stage, where I act out the same scene of destruction for the world’s pleasure. One day, I will not rise again, but the lights will remain on in order to fry my body and serve it up as a proteinous meal for my understudy.
12.
As I open my eyes to the harsh light, I can hear the sound of paper tearing. My brittle bones have just spilled out onto the hard floor of new day and I now face the arduous task of putting myself back together again.
I’m not sure whether it is morning or afternoon, but it is most certainly time for a drink. While the only movement I seem capable of is involuntary shaking, I must somehow find it in myself to crawl across the cold floor and reach one of the cans of beer near the hatch.
Once I have managed that, I will hopefully feel strong enough to use my legs for a trip to the window. I may fall or be forced to rest on the way, but my eventual reward for making it to the valve in the wall will be a feeling of purification and awakening created by the jets of cold light hitting my face.
My routine will not be complete until I have visited to toilet. My stay there will no doubt be protracted because of all the different body parts which need to be emptied of their contents. A great deal of fluid will come out of my bladder, bowels and stomach. These days I seem to be made entirely out of different coloured liquids, which is surprising considering how dehydrated I feel.
The journey back to the armchair, stopping off briefly to pick up another drink, completes my daily tour of the estate. I will be required to repeat the actions of getting more alcohol and using the toilet at various points throughout the day, but until I reach a state of extreme inebriation in the evening, during which time my behaviour becomes erratic and physically destructive, I can be relied upon to sit quietly in front of the TV, soaking up beer and sport like a filthy sponge.
