Are we there yet?
Mariana Meireles Curado
I can see life tiptoeing around the room from the corner of my eye but I’m tucked in so tightly under the weighted duvet that I can’t even turn my head to look at her. Are you in the habit of holding your friends’ faces in your cupped hands, looking them in the eye and saying “it’s so good to see you?” Could give it a go if you’re not already. Best not to assume everyone else has someone else. And even if they do, you can’t really overdose on touch, can you? Sometimes I wake up and life is sitting on top of me, cross-legged on my stomach, chest moving sharply up and down as she sighs. Outside feels like -2 at Dante’s and no one can quite remember where they parked. It was M- something, I’m 90% sure, maybe 24. How much more self-flagellation is still left to do to atone for the original sin? Are we there yet? It is currently 10:44 AM GMT in London, UK. You are not “there” yet; there are 3 hours and 16 minutes remaining until 2:00 PM today, the search engine churns out. I think it catched my drift; the machine is getting more and more impressive by the day! It’ll be fucking your wife soon if you don’t start putting some serious effort into closing the orgasm gap. Beware though, you dip a man head first into the cauldron of shame and soon enough he'll start fantasising about extinction. Promise I will never say I told you so. The neighbour wouldn’t even mouth hello anymore - no smile or nod - I’ll see you on the other side! I got a whiff of someone’s breath and I could swear it smelt like sulphur. But what do I know? I can’t turn my head under the weighted duvet so all I do is stare at the ceiling. Sometimes I go all night, unblinking. 62 times I thought I could see spiders crawling across it and I’ve been thinking about it and to the question of how many owls I’d need to see in one day before I started suspecting something weird was going on, the answer is 4. Have the clocks in your house also started sounding louder? And I am almost certain that the colour Monday has changed too. I just wish the sensorial syndicate would at least operate on a stricter unanimous consensus basis. It’s no big deal, really, but the other thing is that under the duvet I also can’t move my feet. It’s fine for now but I worry they’ll go tingly from inertia and I won’t be able to walk. When a friend feels that way inclined, they stay for a couple of hours, stroking my hair and telling me all about what else is in the room. Anything lying beyond the reach of my vision’s periphery has become the line where the sky meets the sea. There are books piled everywhere and the plants look like they need– but they never finish the sentence. I don’t dwell on it too much but it sure is starting to feel a little bit like pity. Maybe in the end all there is left will be the memory of how we used to press the button that made the cars stop at the crossing. I used to love holding my breath until the red man turned green. Come to think of it, it could have been the drip drip drip that amounted to cerebral hypoxia. Symptoms include confusion, poor judgement, memory loss, difficulty speaking, seizures, death. Like all beginnings, it started with the word and the word was with God and the word was God. Then it all got fuzzy and I can’t help but admit that if I saw 3 owls on the same day I would probably think something eerie was afoot. This leaves me with no choice but to withdraw my previous statement and now the only thing I thought I knew for sure has also run away from me. The walls are screaming something to do with watercress not being in season but that’s not really how it works anymore; you can get anything delivered fast and if you pay for premium the peasant-on-a-bike will even do an interpretative dance of a poem of your choosing. 5 stars and a tip if he lets me film it. I’ll have to wait for the cat to drag someone back into the room to ask about the plants. I’m pretty sure what they need is watering, I really hope it’s not sunlight.
