The Insomniac's Tale

I Damn toe. Never get to sleep now. Should have gone for some ice. Too late, warm under the covers now, rub it some more. Ignore it, relax. Throb. Throb. Throb. Like counting sheep. Counting toes stubbed while getting into bed. Stumbling over reality. Great theory. Whose? Modern man, he said, lives and works and eats and breathes and sleeps no sleep within the artifice of language, the constructed etc. world etc. of mass media etc. global culture etc. Et cetera. Only encounters true reality when immediately aware of the physical. You forget about what’s on the TV when you drop hot coffee in your lap. Can’t read road signs if you’re sprawled on the pavement. What was his name again? Frenchman no doubt. They all sound the same, look the same. Must have been a klutz like me, whoever he was, always stubbing his toe when he climbed into bed, always stumbling over reality because he didn’t know where his limbs ended. The absent-minded professor. Academic. Dissertation: “An assessment of the deficiencies in gross and fine motor co-ordination prevalent among French literary theorists”. I should have carried on with the English studies. Anything but those bloody numbers. Statistics. Hypothesis: Professor X stumbled over reality because of inaccurate calculations in distance and proportion at the subject-object interface. Correlation between events in writers’ lives and the contents of their writing. Must be high; say 93% (r = 0.93). Hypothesis accepted. The guys at work would have fun with that one. Monday tomorrow – no work, still New Year’s break, holiday, holy days. All the revellers revelling and me in here with what’s-his-name. Lacan. Lacancan. Dancers without knickers. Dark side of Paris. Only if you’re conservative, a prude prune prude. The body beautiful, oh so limited. Even ugly. Limit. For freedom. Freedom ... Free-dom ... Great away ... far ... away … there ... Weightlessness. If I stop flying I still float. The city far below, green like the countryside: all in harmony. I am Superman; my red cape flutters in the tailwind, my muscle-bound body supple and calm. I am important, I have helped many people, this world depends on my strength. Where is my Lois Lane? Falling to the ground now. Dropping. Dropping. Panic. Helplessly falling to the ground where something awaits me, oblivion on impact, a huge mouth to swallow me, hard grey concrete spikes of teeth – Beads of sweat in a dark room panting. Steady on: just a dream, only a dream. Deep breaths, calm the heart down, slowly, slowly, back to sleep. Lois Lane. Where did that come from? A moment’s passion is the passing-bell of thought. Breathe. Breathe. No more flights of fancy ... flight … I am Superman. Why in a wheelchair? Can’t move my legs. My arms hang limp at my sides. I am Christopher Reeves and cannot breathe, I should be dead but am immortal, I was every man’s salvation but now I suffer as every man, life prolonged but dependent on a machine, unable even to sign autographs. Soon I will be dead. Am I not dead already? Here come my admirers, singing songs of comfort: “We’ll take a cup of kindness yet, for the sake of Aulde Lang Syne ...”. They hug and kiss, look over my shoulder, cannot see me. Here I am. Join with me, sing for me, celebrate with me. They cannot see me. II Yes, that’s it, I’ll think about my wife; my wife-to-be; my soon-to-be-met-wife-to-be. That might work, that might put me to sleep. Don’t take offence, wife-to-be, whoever you are, wherever you are. Would be a compliment to her, really, comforting this busy brain that will not rest. So where were we, Mrs James? I’m sure you won’t mind being called Mrs James, unless you’re one of those women who don’t want to subscribe, yes, good word, subscribe to a – patronising? No. Parsimonious? No. Very popular insult nowadays – patriarchal, yes, yes, patriarchal. Can’t see how it offends, it’s only a social convention. Then again, imagine the difficulties, having to change signatures, stationery, e-mail address, bank accounts. What if you forget to let the bank manager know? Arrive at the counter only to find they won’t let you withdraw any money. ATMs would be okay though. Thanks be for the anonymity of technology. All in the name of equality I suppose, do unto others and all that. Kant was your man for social equality morality neutrality. Back to the books. No good for the feminists though, people always mispronounce his name and then they’d rant about reclaiming the vagina. Can’t be Kant. The games we play. Still no rest for the wicked, no rest for the wicket as the advert goes when it’s summertime and that means cricket. Five-star allrounder, that day I bowled and batted like a champion, that day of days when I was eight years old ... dalliance of youth … these will not be forgotten years ... not ... forgotten ... forgotten … Colours and sounds, cricketers in orange on a green field under a black sky and hummmm of the crowd under floodlights. Atoms of energy. Moths circle and dive and loop like electrons round a nucleus. Smoky smell of grilled meat and nervous cigarettes. I am playing but the action is far away. My observations are delayed, my eyes are too slow to follow the ball, my feet move clumsily on the damp grass. This is important, I can sense it is, and I will soon have to play my part. I have waited for this responsibility; I thought I would be ready but I am not. The batsman swings hard – I hear the sound a moment later – the ball is soon a small white comet in the dark sky, reaching the apex of its flight with the stars. It drops. Bearing down on me. I cannot move; I do not need to; my hands lift slowly, slowly from my sides. I am going to drop it. The glorious dreamed-of schoolboy catch, and I am going to drop it. My hands feel the sting before the ball has arrived. I am going to drop it. III Too warm to sleep under the blanket, too cold for just a sheet. Always walking a fine line, can’t forget the boundaries and just enjoy a fine time, no lines. Lines everywhere, on all the maps especially. Geography and history to explain to our children why humankind is cracked like an eggshell smashed by a spoon. Split. Like those new dividers you get at the checkout tills in supermarkets so your groceries don’t end up in other people’s bags or on their credit cards. Militant. Says GET OUT OF MY SPACE without using letters. We should at least smile at the tills. Piles of shopping, miniature pyramids, mankind always building, huge pyramids, Great Wall of China, great wall of frozen peas on the counter … aluminium Babels … baked beans for cement ... tin can columns ... A huge corridor, a high ceiling, enormous silver arches guiding me along. I am looking straight ahead, I refuse to turn my head to see what it is that is so green on either side. A scuffling sound behind me. I do not turn around but I can see from above, yes, I can see from above that with each step the corridor is closed off behind me. I know that the green colouring is a forest, growing all around but held back by the pristine silver arches. They are spaced far apart, I could escape between them into the forest, but no, I want to see what is at the end of the corridor. I go on for hours. Nervous, hunching my shoulders, worried that there will be a woman waiting for me, afraid that I will have to talk to her. Perhaps she is watching me as I walk.  Eventually I see a door far off, and start to run towards it. There is a loud cracking sound above me and everything shudders. The ceiling starts to cave in, dropping frozen vegetables that smash as they hit the floor all around me. I am not going to make it to the door in time – IV Light off – there. Darkness. Quiet. Relax. Moments like these. The whole effort of threescore years and ten is not without its comforts. Might all have been so different for me though. Fame, fortune, all the good stuff, how do you get hold of that? Who decides? Sell your soul to the highest bidder. I will play Faust to any devil offering, just to avoid another today. Today, all days, today. Self-pity. Indulge: spilt coffee at lunchtime; sweaty armpits from a broken air-conditioner just as she walked in. Why just as she walked in? I deserve a fair chance. Plenty of guys with money or good looks or charm or wit. Why can’t the awkward moments with the sweaty armpits go to them? Sporting chance, the hunting game, all this imagery of capture and domination, don’t want that, all I want is a nice girl to love and to love me despite sweaty armpits. I bet she told all her friends about me after work. Girly get-togethers, giggling, drinking ... all men are bastards … not I, no, not me … it’s unfair ... not in my name … a fair chance … that’s all ... I’m fifteen years old and I’m sitting in a courtroom, waiting for the judge to come in. Sarah Smith is on the other side of the room, looking down at the floor. She’s in for it now. A door opens and Mrs Phelps the maths teacher comes in, wearing a long black robe and a curly white wig, carrying a gavel in her hand. “Sarah Smith. You have been accused of gross misjudgement in foolishly and immaturely falling for Grant Phillips, who is well known to be an arrogant and smug little brat inside a handsome, well-built frame. And he’s thick too. Has the jury reached its verdict?” “We have, your honour.” Why does my mother speak this line? Then suddenly Angelina Jolie, smooth, low-voiced, feline-bodied, full-lipped: “We find the defendant GUILTY.” Yes, come to me for your punishment, Sarah, you’ve been a bad girl, yes, look at me with those lusting eyes, yes, undress yourself and I too am naked and we kiss sweet and long and – wet –   V Trapped. That is my position, why I cannot sleep. It’s not the late-night coffee (oh sweet neurosis, how helpful you taste). No, it’s something else. Overwrought and underfree, overthought, wishing always, planning for the best possible future in this best of all possible worlds, ah, meilleur des mondes possibles, ou es-tu maintenant? And of course regrets about all the previous plans that have not seen fulfillment and never will of course. Of course. Inevitable. Trapped. I am trapped not by unfreedom of choice but by freedom of unchoice. I can do, I must do, it is demanded of me. What I wish to do. Be honest and open to all, from the shop assistant to the girlfriends I have only ever never really had. A small thing, my favourite brand of ice-cream is sold out, I wish to read a book but the canteen TV is on too loud. I must not complain, I may cause pain, I must not cause others pain. The greatest of sins: sublimation. Repression. The modern curse. Anger all pent up; soon it will burst. No release in jogging, complex theorems, masturbation. Tension. Pressure release exhausted, pressure absorber squeezed flat after so many times … so many times … mantra, calm me … so many times …so many times … Who is the woman crying here? Her eyes are all lymph, all inflammation, all distortion of pain. Why does she point at me? No, not I sir. Then who sir? “YOU!” her curdling uncontrolled voice screams, “YOU HAVE DONE THIS TO ME.” She is all anger, in her suffering she is Fury, her buckling spirit still kicks and writhes in throes of agony. This is not my creation. This is not me. I do not wish for this companion. I wish only to be alone. If this is Woman, I delight not in her. I turn and walk away, but there she sits in front of me again, clutching her arms over her stomach, bent double after sorrow’s sucker-punch. I turn again. She, again, there. Now she points at me. I am no murderer, never shake thy gory locks at me. Again I turn. Again she is there. She, only a victim, sitting quietly, shaking, wounded and paralysed despite her ferocity. She threatens me. In her cries is the undeniable demand of the loved one. Once loved, no longer. I am obliged. Guilty. Pain drives her to scare me into submission. I cower in a corner. I could not have acted otherwise. Leave me, leave me in the corner. VI Wartime. Images of war. How to make sense of it? Words not enough. The poet was, like those who read the poem, dead. Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon, all the lyrical soldiers, dead. Wartime. Civilians too, innocents in a terrible war, the war on terror, what does that mean? Malevolent violence in my mind. Imagining explosions, willing them, urging them, then realising the true horror of that wish. It’s wartime, it’s not Hollywood, but why do I see it so vividly? Why anticipate the oblivion? The noise, the light, the fire, the scattering. Maybe I want it to happen and be done with it. Part of my mind knows it lives in fear. Wants to get the violence out of the way. Catharsis. Longing to throw yourself off a cliff or a bridge or some high place. Leap into the void. Test your limits. Fly. Or thinking, if I get run over by a truck today, right now, today, that’s okay. In an instant, the huge burden gone. The responsibility, the achievement, the drive, the failure – all gone. Just a meeting with God … after life …after all … God … afterlife … welcome … Everyone below is saying what a loss, wasn’t he such a nice guy, yes, one of the best, those of us left behind will remember him. Women crying over my empty body. One in particular, face hidden behind blonde hair that hangs down to her black dress, sheds more tears than the others, lingers at my grave – is it my grave? – after the funeral. She remembers, so sadly, so sweetly, our love, wondering what our children would have looked like. Blonde hair and black dress. Tears shed for me; do not weep for me. Weep when I am gone, but do not forget me. I am forgotten. VII Yes, she does like me. Kissed me goodnight. On the cheek. For a second. But her lips have stayed there since, her perfume – every cliche is true, I don’t care, she likes me, she kissed me goodnight on the cheek, every cliche is true! Sarah Smith, stand back. No more shadows of the past, daily wraiths to taunt me, fears about the impossible unrealised pygmalions of the future. Here is a woman, Woman herself, declaring: I am beautiful. I am with you. Beautiful with you, beautiful for you. For me. Shine … with friendship  … a companion … I glow  … warmth … I sparkle … wit … I shimmer … laughter … Music. Simply music. No sight. Now, slowly, no sound. Silence. Not empty. Full of silence. Here I am in silence. Am I at all? I am not, I am all things, all things are full, all things settle into silence. Nor darkness nor light. Somewhere, somewhere with all things, she is there, somewhere here, with me, in silence, full of she. VIII That’s the difference, I see it now, between a labyrinth and a maze.    A maze is composed of false starts and dead ends. It confounds at every turn: it asks, it taunts, to be overcome. To beat the maze you have to employ wit, or stubbornly plough through the hedges. Break down walls if necessary. Whatever happens, stick at it. Patience, guts, all the motivational self-help stuff. But a labyrinth, ah, a labyrinth, though it turns in on itself and away from itself, though it leads you back and around and behind, yet it leads you. There is only one path, and this takes you where you are going – not necessarily where you want to go – always, inevitably, to the centre. Not a whirlpool, drawing you in, sucking you down. There is no malice. Danger, certainly, but no malice. Nor a question of agency, free will: you choose, after all, to enter the labyrinth. You even choose which labyrinth to enter. The Greeks had it wrong, she said. You don’t need a piece of magic string. There is no beast awaiting you. But, Jason, I am not Medea; you no Theseus; I, now Ariadne, leaving and not to be left behind again. That’s just like her. From what I know of her. I hardly know her; that’s the tragedy. Just like her to turn life into art, to make a story real. For me, stories are only stories. For her, they are true. No matter. She is gone. No doubt her reasons for leaving are fair, yes, valid, entirely fair – no doubt. Just like the reasons for every other false start and dead end in my unpromising career at Life & Associates. A capital letter word, this overloaded overloading thing called Life. Its vagueness, its all-encompassing wholeness. Don’t try and understand this – thing, she said. There’s a divinity that shapes our ends. I thought she meant Life, of course, and smirked. A divinity. I’m no atheist, but no pantheist either: God is not an energy field, or a tree, or a colour. He is outside the system, not to be understood. But I’m inside the system, in the middle of it. Stuck in the damn thing. No more words. Escape the system ... system … numbers and words … no pattern … pattern …                         There are three benches. One bench faces the sea, on the promenade, behind railings, over concrete walls, beyond rocks and foul litter. The sea. Another bench is on the grass, in the shade; a dark figure lies nearby. A homeless man? The other bench is bright in the sunlight, looking across the park and the road at blocks of flats and dirty shops. Mountains, hills peek from behind the buildings, the sky drowns blue in noise of cars. I move from bench to bench. I am a part of each. Fitness freaks, pram pushers, seagulls whirl past and around me. For the first time I do not hate the city. It does not steal the sunlight from the mountains or the sea.     Sunlight, benches. No. No. Here, darkness, blankets. Awake again. Bells. Bells on New Year’s Eve. The cycle complete. What did the poet say? Ring out, ring out, ring in. Ring out, ring in, ring in.

 

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