So Dark, Up Above
The best thing I felt when I was asked what to feel was the sensation of falling rain drops falling on the back of my neck and then rolling, like little streams, towards the crack of my arse where, after a while, they made my arse wet, especially the hole, so that it felt as though I’d shit myself, a wet shit obviously, and a cold wet shit at that.
After a few days of that they locked me up and beat me endlessly, or so it seemed, for daring to shit myself even though I explained, over and over, how it wasn’t shit but rather the amassed puddle of rain water that had run from my neck and down to my arse and, through the washing over of the dirt on my back, came to bear the appearance of shitty brown water so it could, granted, seem as though I’d shit myself.
The beating stopped and I was allowed to go free.
But the outside world is cruel. And wet. The rain water, it terrified me and so I spent the next few years indoors, felching, if that’s the right word, off my mother and sipping endless bowls of soup through plastic, curly straws. I lost pounds and pounds and soon my own mother didn’t recognise me. Although, of course, she did. It was just something she said. An expression, she called it, a figure of speech. It’s me mum, I’d say every morning when she brought in my soupy, gruelly breakfast. I know son, she’d say, I know.
She had no tears, my mother, and wept nothing at all as I relayed to her my predicament at the hands of the evil fellows who carried me from my bed that night, subjected me to the rain water falls and then claimed I’d shit myself, wet shit, even though I hadn’t.
She stayed calm and collected. Her face a stone image of her face. Sometimes it cracked though, into a kind of smile. Grimace, as she called it.
Some years later, after I’d got over being skinny and gone back to being fat, I spotted, out on the street, bold as brass, one of the evil fellows who had taken glee from the fact of subjecting me to all that rain water and shitting myself bollocks.
But I was too fat to give chase. Mother, I said when I returned home later that day, we need to go back to the soup and straws.
But now, now that I am relatively at peace and calm over the fact of my predicament, I can, at last, enjoy the rain once more and sometimes I lean from my window, easing my head out, catching drops on the back of my neck but this time preventing their descent with the too tight towel I have already wrapped around my now slightly more slender neck.
After a few days of that they locked me up and beat me endlessly, or so it seemed, for daring to shit myself even though I explained, over and over, how it wasn’t shit but rather the amassed puddle of rain water that had run from my neck and down to my arse and, through the washing over of the dirt on my back, came to bear the appearance of shitty brown water so it could, granted, seem as though I’d shit myself.
The beating stopped and I was allowed to go free.
But the outside world is cruel. And wet. The rain water, it terrified me and so I spent the next few years indoors, felching, if that’s the right word, off my mother and sipping endless bowls of soup through plastic, curly straws. I lost pounds and pounds and soon my own mother didn’t recognise me. Although, of course, she did. It was just something she said. An expression, she called it, a figure of speech. It’s me mum, I’d say every morning when she brought in my soupy, gruelly breakfast. I know son, she’d say, I know.
She had no tears, my mother, and wept nothing at all as I relayed to her my predicament at the hands of the evil fellows who carried me from my bed that night, subjected me to the rain water falls and then claimed I’d shit myself, wet shit, even though I hadn’t.
She stayed calm and collected. Her face a stone image of her face. Sometimes it cracked though, into a kind of smile. Grimace, as she called it.
Some years later, after I’d got over being skinny and gone back to being fat, I spotted, out on the street, bold as brass, one of the evil fellows who had taken glee from the fact of subjecting me to all that rain water and shitting myself bollocks.
But I was too fat to give chase. Mother, I said when I returned home later that day, we need to go back to the soup and straws.
But now, now that I am relatively at peace and calm over the fact of my predicament, I can, at last, enjoy the rain once more and sometimes I lean from my window, easing my head out, catching drops on the back of my neck but this time preventing their descent with the too tight towel I have already wrapped around my now slightly more slender neck.
posted by Paul Saxton at 4:13 PM
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