I’ve been here before.
This was not the question. The question was when.
“You need to be able to help yourself Adam.” She said from behind her desk. The sun in dirty steaks on the magnolia wall behind her. It had a coat of paint once, a very long time ago. Now it was discoloured and stained, though from what he didn’t know. His eye was drawn to it nonetheless. Her office.
Her office.
She was leaning back, arms folded, looking across the rim of her thin glasses towards him. She was a teacher, he the errant pupil. He felt as though he should offer some excuse, but he couldn’t remember getting there.
“How did I…” he began. The words failed him. His head was spinning. He felt as though he had been drinking.
He had.
He could taste it. On his tongue. In his throat.
It was on his shirt. Down the front there was a pale brown stain, about four inches long. He could smell it even as he sat there.
What was he doing meeting his physical therapist (or whatever the hell she was) after having drank? In this state.
She seemed to read this thoughts, and continued to look at him. Look through him.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t remember how I got here.”
“Here to this building? To this office? Or here to this point in your life?” A small curling up in the corner of her mouth, her thin lips pursing and creasing. Her arms still tight across her chest.
“Here. This office.”
“I’m guessing you got a taxi. You normally get a taxi. You then, I presume, walked here. On those.” She nodded her head down to below his waist, down to where she couldn’t see.
He followed her gaze down.
“I don’t…”
He had been on his chair. Yet now he was on her chair. Not his chair. He was wearing the prosthetics, yet they were altered in some way. They were older looking, in poorer condition. The metal parts were darker, rusted. There was some sort of organic substance on the surface, like algae. He touched one and recoiled. It felt cold, slimy.
“I walked here?”
She shrugged.
WHUMP
The wall behind her shook. A small crack appearing above her head.
“I don’t see how else you could have got here.”
WHUMP
Again. Another crack, whilst the original one deepened. The sunlight was making Adam feel queasy. It was too hot in here. Too stuffy. He looked up towards the windows. They were thin and set high in the wall. Impossible to see out. Reminded him of something. Somewhere he had been. Somewhere dark. Somewhere there was -
WHUMP
More cracks. Cobwebs.
She looked at him. He face was partly in shadow, although from what he didn’t know.
“I can’t help you if you can’t help yourself.” She repeated. Her voice was different. Cracking. Along with the wall behind her.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
She nodded past him. “I’ve tried all I can with you. I got you to walk. I got you to remember what joy could be had from life but you chose to push it to one side. It was too important for you that you cursed your ill fortune, instead of looking forward and getting on with things. I mean, what have you got to say to him?” Continuing to look past Adam.
Suddenly aware of a presence in the room that wasn’t him nor Doctor Iris Fleet (who, he thought, was progressively looking more like shit the longer he looked at her). Breathing behind him. Lightly. Almost fluttering.
WHUMP
Someone was talking behind the wall. Hushed voices. Soft cooing sounds. Excited chatter but undecipherable words. The office was quiet again. Iris was staring fixedly behind him. He didn’t know what was expected of him.
“Sorry doc,” he said. “I really don’t know what you mean.”
“Mike?” She smiled behind him.
I don’t want to turn around.
“Mike, tell him how good it gets.”
A hand on Adams shoulder.
“Great. It gets great. You know after.” The voice said. It sounded like something dragged up from the bottom of a well.
Iris fleet swung back and opened a desk drawer, taking out a white plastic container. Adam didn’t have to read the label. He knew what it was.
“Did you want these?” Iris said.
Paroxetine.
“No,” he he replied. “I don’t think I do.”
Something leaned in close behind him. “You do pal, you really do. If you take enough, you don’t half go for a ride. Do you wanna go? You can come on it with me. I mean, I’ve already been but I could do with another. Just one.”
A wave of foulness washed over Adam. The hand gripped his shoulder tighter. Ahead, Iris Fleet’s face was completely in shadow. Adam thought he could see something glistening within the darkness. He could see too many teeth. Her eyes were like old coins.
WHUMP
Cooing noises. The wall bulged in and plaster fell about behind the figure seated almost perpetually in shadow.
A hand shot out from behind Adam, the one not gripping his shoulder, and took firm hold of the pills. The other hand gripped tighter and pulled him up against his will. He was standing now, his legs shaking.
“Come on pal. I’ll bring the shit. You remember how it is. That bitch always tried to make us fucking walk. I could always walk, that was the thing. Only one arm though, just could never get a fucking grasp on the situation.” A laugh like a drain clearing, of dark clotted things sluicing down hidden tunnels. “Don’t worry though pal old pal. I’ve got a fucking grip now.” The hand gripped tighter and pulled Adam back from the desk and the grinning thing that sat behind it. “Some god or other gifted me back what I’d lost. They do that. If you ask for it. They give you what you’re missing. I know what you’re missing. I know what you want back." That drain again.
You’re fucking dead you died you’re dead. The phrase went round and round in Adam's head. His vision was swimming and the light outside the high windows began to fade. Mike. The rehabilitation class. The veteran.
“Turn around,” the voice gargled.
No way Mike you topped yourself. I heard about it. Too much trauma. You punched your ticket and took a single out of Livingtown, destination Deadville.
“Not to me you jackass.”
To Adam’s horror he realised that he had almost turned completely around to face the thing behind him. Thankfully he
it
ducked out of sight, into shadows where once there was light.
There was a door. Slightly ajar.
whump
A sound beyond it. Suddenly he wasn’t in the office of the dead woman.
You know she’s dead as well. She died of a heart attack one year into your therapy. That’s one of the reasons you stopped.
“That’s not right,” he said.
“Say that again?” Another caustic wave with each word.
“She isn’t dead.”
“Who, her? Dunno pal, would have been after my time. Although I never saw her here. Then again, she didn’t kill as many hajji pricks as I did. Didn’t stop the fuckers taking my arm though did it? My arm and my dignity and eventually my fucking life.
Adam was standing in the hallway.
WHUMP
Louder now. The door of Apartment Six was open slightly. The sound from within.
“Are you going to take these and join me in shitsburg or are you going inside? I ain’t got all day pal old pal. I’ve got places to be. I’ll go and look for that doctor. See if she’s as much of a killjoy in the great beyond as she was back in the good old days.”
Adam tried to stay standing. Would have quite easily toppled in fact, if it hadn’t been for the dead thing’s arm holding him tightly. His legs weren’t his own. He knew he wasn’t dreaming because in his dreams he could walk. In his dreams he wouldn’t feel the effects of that damned half bottle of whisky. The fucking drink always did for him. All he had to show was some self restraint.
“Self restraint isn’t all it cracked up to be pal. I lost all restraint and I’m all the better for it. Do you know what I did before I got the hell off the mortal fuckbus? I blew every penny I had on whores and coke. Then I went back home as the sun came up and swallowed every damn pill that bitch prescribed me. Best thing she ever did. I slid down the last fun slide I’ll ever slip slide down Addy boy. Now, I’m going to ask you one last time. What are you gonna do?”
The bottle of pills was shaken in front of him, the other hand loosening. He punched out a hand and gripped the doorframe. Bile rushed up again. The smell as much as the alcohol this time. He wished the dead thing behind him would take his cue and get the hell off the stage. It was his solo soon.
He vomited on the floor. He couldn’t help it. It was hot and dark, and splashed on the algae covered limbs.
“Eww, gross pal. Gross. I mean I’ve seen some shit in the Middle East but that was just gross.”
It shook the bottle again.
“Come on, it’s time.”
“Fuck you,” Adam managed between dry heaves. “I’m not taking the fucking pills.”
A sigh that rattled empty timbers.
“Suit yourself. In you fucking go then, she’s waiting.”
Before Adam could say or do anything, he was pushed violently forward, through the door of Apartment Six and straight into the room on the right, the inner door lying wide open. He caught himself on a piece of furniture and somehow managed to keep upright.
It didn’t take him long to process the scene in front of him. Suddenly it made so much sense. The talking, the cooing, the
WHUMP
There was Yana, and her boys. Back from the war.
Adam saw it all and opened his mouth, about to say something. Something that would pacify the situation and rationalise it all for him. Something that would make sense of it all.
Instead, he screamed.
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