Loaf by Christopher McCarthy

Loaf

    Throw open and kick-stumble the door shut. Struggle. Jostle the deadlock and twiddle the chain. Struggle. Quick button the little twisty lock in the handle. Sink down, butt against the door, slowly, slowly to the floor.

    It’s an empty little one-bedroom. But the furniture is gone – not that there was much, the few foldup chairs, the TV, floor matt, everything. The whole kitchen is cleared out. The walls, all white, white, white, but still the mattress sans bed sheets, and still the empty floor... ‘if all the works of Joseph Conrad are written on raw salmon and wrapped around your head, as the salmon starts to cook, starts to pinken from brain waves, tales of being at sea will show up like grill marks.>>>’

    Face in hands, desire sleep. Free thought. Up for days, and now want only to sleep. Up for four days, head pounding, thoughts reeling, throat killing, reeling some more, mind seizing up, caught up in a net, cooking brain, and all going down from here. Strangle up. Every breath is a newfangled, mad-driving thought… ‘what is that?>>>’  

    There is a gurgling black cube on the floor. Be silent now… ‘There it goes again!>>>’

    Reach for the door. No, don’t dare escape. Gurgling, pulsing, grinding, whining, screaming, a cube vibrating… ‘it’s heralding the mad mechanisations of body munching, feed you to the fishes frenzy polar vortex.>>>’

    Cower… ‘It stopped. Maybe it will just go away.>>>’ Listen in agony. Watch. The cube lets out a puff of steam. It starts up again. Cower even lower on the floor.

    Sense time winding backwards, slowly, circle-semi in the counter-clockwise direction, winding back, back, back, back. Shake. Time is winding back, back, back. Shake uncontrollably.

    Totter over, ear to veneer, feel the vibrations of the cube across the floor… ‘Virgin Mother of Christ! Hallucinations! All of it. Dream mountain dream. White walls, white tundra, white trucks, white grotto, white sky, white sheets, sheets of snow, nowhere to go, all in your mind, wait. White, white, white clouds, clouds in the sky, weather station, drool stream, wifi, data entry, power supply.>>>’

    Press up on elbows, knees, up… ‘It pulses in robot speak! Hear its invective of zeros and ones!>>>

    All thoughts come to a standstill. An exultant sense of self-preservation, of escaping danger, fills the whole of the moment. Enter calm. Predict nothing. Analyze nothingness. Plan non-existence. The past is a blank slate and time winds counter-clockwise, circle-semi, and always in irregular intervals. Chisel away doubts… ‘there can be no questions left if the mind is nothing but nothingness.>>>’

    It is a moment of total relief and spontaneous, purely animal joy. Make peace with the nothing, the black cube, who now shares this one-bedroom. Drop. Joy-slip.

All reprieve is followed by an inevitable, horrific relapse into raving insanity… ‘A child again! A child again! You will revert into a nitwit baby, cooing, goob goob murmuring, feckless, hairless skin bag, shrinking, melting clock stop, drain down an animal meat soul central viaduct.>>>’

    Weep. Tears sting. Notice emptiness. Raise legs. Stand… “steam clouds the sunlight of the mind.>>>’

    The cube is the only other presence, moving and breathing, apart from a face of tears. Hear the intimate inviting words. Each whining gurgle from the machine is a low, guttural HILARY BOOK. HILARY BOOK. A pause follows… ‘HILARY BOOK. HILARY BOOK? What are you saying? HILARY BOOK. HILARY BOOK?>>>’

    Pulse. Listen to the mechanical HILARY BOOK. HILARY BOOK.

    Persevere to the completely unfamiliar. Reach the peak of exhaustion, the climax unannounced and unprecedented. Drop into a trance. Dark electronic music plays in the background. A strange and terrible sensation creeps across skin. Hear distant music. But what makes it all the more tormentingly painful is the idea, more a sensation than a perception, the sense that tiny voices make these sounds—that HILARY BOOK. HILARY BOOK. HILARY BOOK. HILARY BOOK. HILARY BOOK. HILARY BOOK. HILARY BOOK is whirling at a dizzying speed now, getting faster and faster, while the voices, simultaneously become smaller and smaller. Hear it drilled into the core of the mind at the volume of a whisper. Twenty, or perhaps thirty matryoshka dolls separating top from bottom, and with each separation a new, littler voice adds itself to the medley. Clutch head in hands. A direct unmediated, sensation, a deluge, drowning in an ocean of sound, touching every nerve before the most tormenting sensation of all: a little boy singing a far away melody in another dimension, HILARY BOOK. HILARY BOOK. 

    Shiver. Feel cold now. Fever break. Rest the weight of the body on both elbows. Crawl towards the cube humming in the centre of the room. The walls darken and wisp again with flashing nightlight across white. This unnatural pulsing light flows and flows, midnight bloodletting.

    Crawl nearer the cube. Forearms pass over some disgusting black snake. Hear the blood-draining hum. See the faint, and yet inviting, orange glow. The cube is warm. It breathes warmth into the cold dark room. Circle around the cube. Drift off to the sound of  its lullaby. Sleep.

    Time moves forward. There is pounding. There is drumming, banging, and the jangling of chains…

    “Open the door, you’ve left the chain on, Gear!”
    
    The pounding continues…

    “Gear I know you’re there! The door isn’t bolted. Let me in.”

    Rise up slow. Push up from floor elbows, arms, and knees. Rise. Flick lights. Smell alluvial wetland armpits. Twiddle the chain free. Taste ash in mouth. Open door grog…

    “Hi Catriona, what would you like?”

    “My stuff. Brought you a coffee.”

    Mainline caffeine. Get warm now. Waken. Enter sun: natural light on white. Play attentive. Focus on dialogue…

    “Poor Gear. You didn’t think you’d still be living here after Terry got back from Calcutta did you?”

    Look perplexed. Make comprehending statements. Show keys.

    “But there’s nothing, nothing of yours here.”

    “My breadmaker. Fresh bread! Unplug it. There’s butter in the fridge.”

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Bio: Christopher McCarthy is an associate member of the League of Canadian Poets. He lives in Iqaluit, Nunavut with his wife Stefanie.