Old limbs, bones like brittle wood. The rustling of old skin. Peeling off in waves. Ivory ivy. Dark matter.
Something didn’t add up. The date was wrong. Sitting up in bed with the early afternoon sun casting long golden fingers across his bedcovers. Iris had visited the day before. She had entered like a whirlwind as she normally did, condescendingly chided him and instructed him to go outside. Which he had. He was sure he had. The memory of it wasn’t clear in his head. It seemed to have merged with the previous nights dream.
Animals in the deep green. Silent movement.
He was being hunted.
That hadn’t happened. Or it had, but not like that. He had gone to the park. He remembered the heat.
Snap.
He dropped the invitation on his lap. It was faded. Old. Discoloured. It was the correct invitation.
10 Year Anniversary Retrospective
You are cordially invited to
The Raschold Gallery
To enjoy and absorb the works of celebrated artist Trent d’Marcan
On the 13th August 20[XX]
Ten years to the day since Mr d’Marcan crossed over.
We hope to see you there.
L Raschold and [space for second name]
The sound came from beyond his closed bedroom door. At least, he thought it did.
There, was that it again? His own shallow breathing paused as he held his breath. Traffic sounds from out the window and beyond drifted through the empty and stagnant air of his room. It smelled of him, of his body sweat. The room needed aired. Everything needed washed, including him. Yet he didn’t mind. He was aware of it, and had come to accept that it was part of who he was now. He took some comfort in it. It made him think of his physicality, and brought to mind the physical manifestation of his ego. He exuded this funk, this acrid aroma, and without him here, it would not be either. Therefore he existed, so that was fine. Without someone to talk to most days, he sometimes feared that he had ceased to be
snap
He picked up the invitation again and read it over. Then again. This was the thirteenth, he was sure of it. If he had his phone to hand he could check it but hadn’t seen it since
snap
some point in the past. Iris. His doctor. She had been here that day. The day which could and by rights should have been yesterday, only it wasn’t. Time was always fuzzy in the past. Things merged together. Events that you thought transpired only yesterday - like the doctor’s visit, like his adventure in the park - could have taken place months before.
Years before.
Adam swung himself out of bed and reached for the prosthetics, pulling them on and clipping them in place. He had no intention in attending the retrospective in his chair. He would not spend the entirety of the time there looking up at his peers who already thought him far beneath them, renouncing his art for the sake of commercial illustration. An admission of defeat. He wasn’t even a commercial illustrator any more. He was a nothing.
So why was he going?
Because. Because she asked him to, and he’d been working on using his prosthetics again. Building up strength. Going for walk after walk after
no you haven’t
a buzzing in his head now. He had gotten up too fast. He paused before standing, letting himself breathe. Inhale. Exhale. In. Out. The stale air in to his lungs and back out once more. Better.
Taking hold of the rail beside his bed, he was about to pull himself to his feet.
Not your feet man, these are fake feets.
The thought came out of nowhere. Not his own. A bizarre affectation on the timbre. It made him laugh, the sound of which cut through the silence of his flat. Too loud. It made him start. Something had underpinned it. Right at the last. His face flushed and his testicles contracted in so quickly it hurt. A snapping sound.
old bones
Beyond his bedroom door.
“Hello?” He said loudly, feigning confidence he no longer felt. He hadn’t imagined the noise earlier. He thought he had, but here it was again.
snap
Louder.
“Fuck this,” Adam breathed and pulled himself upright, walking jerkily over to the door that he hadn’t recalled shutting the night before. The practice he had been putting in on his prosthetics had been paying off, and once he had shrugged off the effects of sleep in the few short steps across the room, he already felt more sure walking on them. The sensation was one he could never have believed he would get used to, but then again, this wasn’t the only thing he had to get used to, and these were still a step forward in the right direction.
He smiled to himself as he pushed the door open. A rare glimpse of sun. The pun had been completely unintentional, but if you couldn’t had the occasional joke at your own expense, then you may as well hang your legs up for good and never get out of bed.
The door swung open slowly, revealing a living room that was at best dimly lit. Weak jaundiced light filtered through the thin drapes that he had only partially closed properly. Hard shards of sunlight picked out motes of dust in the air like tiny constellations. He stood in the doorway, and took in what he could, his eyes adjusting to the pockets of gloom, visible if he avoided the sunlight. The room was as he remembered, in the same state of disarray, a few items of clothing scattered across the sofa and over the backs of the chairs over at the table. He could see the outline of his phone on the carpet beside the table but couldn’t recall when it had fallen there, dimly remembering a time in the past but knew that he must have fetched it up and used it since then.
He scanned the rest of the room, his eyes darting across the rest of his meagre furnishings, pausing when he saw something kneeling beside the slim bookcase that shared the corner with the door. His guts urned over once and he opened his mouth to utter forth a warning, yet before a sound could leave his throat his eyes had adjusted enough to see that was was merely his second wheelchair, the lighter collapsable one that he had barely used since he purchased it. It was his intention to take it with him on longer outings if his prosthetics tired him to the extent he found movement difficult. The foldable chair could be easily carried under one arm and he was to have a specially designed backpack that would take the legs and would fit easily over the back of the chair should he need it. He didn’t think he had used it once and he knew without seeing that it would be covered in a not insubstantial layer of dust and grime. It would have no doubt seized up and he wouldn’t be able to easily unfold it even if he wished to. He walked towards it, his gait still improving with every stride. Satisfied that the noises had been nothing more than his imagination, or the remnants from his latest dream, he took it to him and went to the couch, sitting down slowly and with a little discomfort. He doubted he would be able to rise again without a considerable increase in effort, seeing as the couch was lower and softer than his bed.
He opened the chair, or at least, tried to. His suspicions were correct. It had properly seized shut.
“Blasted thing”, he muttered, jamming his hands into the metal frame and pulling them apart as best as he could. He wished to take it with him. Backup. He had been getting a bit of his strength back, and bit of his balance, yet he still had a long way to go. He didn’t wish to turn up at the exhibition and not have it with him, relying solely on his prosthetics over the course of a few hours. Yes, ideally, that’s what he would want, but he had been too long off them. Too long relying on nothing but his chair. He had been neglecting himself.
Pushing out with his hands again, he could feel his cheeks flushing red. Partly with exertion, partly with the frustration that was building within him. Mainly it was the embarrassment. He was sitting alone in his loving room, the blinds up yet askew, the curtains drawn haphazardly. Detritus littered the sofa upon which he sat and the flor. Old clothes, tissues, a couple of wine bottles, beer bottles, cans. The place stank. Here he sat, the once promising artist Adam Campion. The successful illustrator, Adam Campion. Adam Campion, family man. Husband to a living wife, father to a bright and beautiful daughter. Owner of a large house in an exclusive part of the country. Connections with bestselling authors and musicians. People of influence who asked for him by name. Yet it wasn’t any of those Adams that sat trying in vain to open a stupid bloody chair. It was this Adam. This new Adam that had emerged from that damn cocoon. It was this Adam that existed now and he had to make do with him. The embarrassment of him. If that wife or beautiful daughter could see him now. If they could picture him, all the way from France, what would they think he was doing? What had Amber told Violet? What did she think of her father? Did they still think of him as an illustrator? As a successful man? Neither knew that he had relinquished the house, that he had been forced to move in to this decrepit apartment block. He had skimped on rent, but the one thing he hadn’t skimped on was his payments to Amber for Violet. Even they would have to stop soon though. The money was nearly gone, what little he had saved. Then someone would come looking for it, bound by law such as he was to keep those payments up, payments that had been based on his income and expenditure after the divorce. Payments that were now so unrealistic for him that he may as well just plug any figure out the air, he would never meet it.
Embarrassment. Exuding from him in waves now. He wouldn’t be able to afford to send money for his daughter.
He couldn’t even open this fucking chair.
An epiphany. This was the wrong Adam. He was the wrong Adam.
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