0 
0 By Neil Hodge
How could anyone love him?
He looked in the mirror above the sink knowing the resultant reflection should scare him but reacting with complete indifference. He knew the person looking back at him only too well these days. Nothing shocked him. He didn’t think he had the ability to feel shock any longer.
A soulless gaunt face stared back at him. Ghostly hollow sunken eyes, ghastly pale sallow skin that looked as if it would break and fall away if anyone breathed near him let alone had the inclination to touch his cheek fondly.
Three weeks or so – maybe more, maybe less, he had forgotten – time was inconsequential – growth of facial hair was populating his face. Grey and patchy, making him look like a tramp. Greasy hair hung over his face, his previously coiffured style a thing of the past. It was hard looking at him now to believe how careful he was about his appearance. How important it was to him to look good no matter where he was. No-one would, or could even if they wanted to, run their fingers through his tangled mop of stinking hair. The overall effect was a look and aura of abject misery and sadness.
How could anyone love that?
The thing was he no longer cared. Bullshit. That wasn’t strictly true, he wanted to care, he had always cared too much, that was one of his problems, it was part of what had contributed to getting him to where he was currently. It was just now he had no energy or inclination to care. Just a constant overwhelming feeling that everything single thing no matter how small or immaterial was too much for him to deal with. Just making it from bed to bathroom was a major achievement. He realised he hated himself, despised what he had become. Looking at his hideous reflection it felt to him like his face itself a disease. He felt like in himself like he was a vile pestilence that cursed him and anyone he encountered wasting any chances he had of feeling human, feeling loved or meaningfully integrating with anyone else.
How could anyone love someone that didn’t feel?
He looked at the tablets in his hand before throwing them in his mouth and swallowing. Such a regular occurrence now that water was no longer a requirement. The extra effort it would have taken to get a glass and open the tap to fill it was too much of a battle anyway. As he swallowed, he was unsure what good they were doing him. He was afraid not to take them though. He was scared of how he could, or couldn’t, cope with life without them. It was perhaps the tablets that were the only thing stopping him from taking affirmative action to leave the planet. So, while he didn’t think the tablets were having a positive impact in any way, he knew that without them, he would more than likely have followed through on the thoughts that pervaded his every waking moment.
The only reason he didn’t do it now was down to the fact that while he was taking the medication, he felt like a zombie. He didn’t even have the motivation to do what he felt would ultimately release him from his pain. Was this really a better existence than waking every morning and fighting the urge to die?
Shuffling back through to the bedroom lighting a cigarette on the way he realised that even they didn’t give him any pleasure anymore. Reaching his bed, he perched on the end and stared into space, the cigarette burning away in his right hand, ash dropping onto the frankly odious duvet. Stubbing out what remained of the cigarette on a plate that had mould growing on some unidentifiable leftover he knew he was only delaying the inevitable. The very thought of dressing and leaving the house filled him with dread.
He always dreaded visits to his doctor as they meant leaving the relative safety and security of his bedroom.
Having to present himself in the open, where other people might lurk innocently attempting to converse with him was something he could not cope with. Leaving his bed and getting washed and dressed was sometimes his main, well, only, achievement of the day. Leaving the house, that was another matter entirely. It would take several attempts to open the front door, interspersing this with breaks on then couch where he would sit coming up with reasonable reasons he couldn’t go anywhere today, before taking a final deep breath and going for it.
When he saw his doctor, they exchanged half a dozen words if that, usually the same ones as on his previous visit. His arse hardly touching the chair before the script was in his hand and he was out the door again, trudging towards the chemist. Without really asking him anything the doctor would repeat a similar mantra on every visit. They would need to keep reviewing his medication to find an equilibrium. A happy medium if you like, one where the medication would allow him to live a normal life. Normal, what did that even mean anymore? His doctor had also referred him for counselling. Mind you that was 4 months ago though, or was it nearer 6? Time meant nothing to him. Anyway, he had heard nothing and had a complete lack of faith that anything would come of it..
Since he had been taking his medication he existed. That was as good as it got. Existence.
He felt no emotion whatsoever though – no anger, no happiness, no rage, no joy. Nothing gave him pleasure. At least before he felt something. Was feeling nothing at all a better way to live? Was it preferable to all the negative thoughts and feelings? At least there had been some up days. Now, despite being a huge music fan, he hadn’t listened to anything for weeks now. On the occasion he switched the TV on, it would have been as well being the test card for all of the attention he paid. As for reading, getting past a title of a book would be progress. Was that an even keel? Was that living?
In years gone by if he had been in the chemist waiting for them to make up his script, he would have a thousand thoughts buzzing in his overactive brain. Now though, standing there waiting felt like a lifetime. It was as if someone had come along and wiped his brain, hit delete and emptied the trash bin. Nothing went through his mind, like he was powered down and no pictures were playing.
Nothing registered as he looked at the posters on the wall, all the letters blending into coloured smudges. Hurry the fuck up, he thought, pulling his collar up and the brim of his newsboy cap down as far as he could to cover his face. God forbid he should see anyone he knew. Having to talk to someone. A fate surely worse than death. He once had a large circle of friends. But they had all stopped calling some time ago. Occasional pals dropped off the radar first. His close friends had continued to call regularly, on the phone and popping round to see him. But now even they had disappeared one by one. It killed him inside that he had shut them all out but the same time it was an immense relief not to have to make the effort to speak.
How could anyone love someone that wouldn’t – couldn’t – talk to them?
Eventually hearing his name, he dragged his body over to the counter mumbling his address when asked and quickly, well as quickly as he could muster, turned and left. Conscious that he should probably eat, even though he didn’t really feel inclined, he ducked into the grocers next door. He had been off work for so long he was no longer getting paid; his overdraft was maxed out and he was now battering his credit card with no thought for the consequences. He’d already purchased several unnecessary items in a vain attempt to make him feel something, but when they were delivered, he hadn’t even opened the packaging.
He knew how skint he was but unconsciously dropped several items into a basket, not really knowing what he was buying or whether they had any nutritional value or would even constitute a meal, healthy or otherwise, but ultimately not caring. He was going through the motions, much of what he bought would remain unopened or go off before he even considered attempting to eat anything.
How could anyone love him when he had no money or income, and couldn’t even feed himself properly?
He paid for his random items reaching the door to exit just as someone else was entering. With eyes down he walked past trying, as was his current want, to remain as invisible as he could. Unfortunately, he knew exactly who had just walked past him though. Immediately the panic rose in his chest, a crushing feeling that made it almost impossible to breathe. This was reason enough for him to want to blank her out. But the panic wasn’t because he was afraid of her, it wasn’t due to being on bad terms and needing to avoid her. it was entirely the opposite.
She was someone very special to him. Or at least she had been. Someone who he would dearly have loved to spend time with had the circumstances been different. Someone he cared about so much that he couldn’t speak to them for fear of fear itself. Despite his unsightly appearance, she had recognised him immediately, and stopped in her tracks calling after him. He pretended not to hear and walked on increasing his pace. As he briskly walked towards home he heard her call again, but the sound was more distant, thankfully, he thought, she hadn’t chased after him.
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Reaching the comparative safety of home, he had tears in his eyes remembering the simpler times when they had first met. Seemingly endless summer were spent days playing in her back garden when they were ten years old, vowing to each other that one day they would get married. They drew pictures of charming cottages with thatched roofs and chickens in the garden. One day they would live there together. In the pictures they drew there was always a family standing hand in hand outside with broad beaming smiles on their faces. Mum, Dad and one, two, three… no, four kids all standing in a row. Memories…
He couldn’t bear it any longer, dumping his shopping in the hall he slammed the bedroom door.
How could anyone…oh…fuck it, love is over-rated anyway. You fall in love; you get your heart broken and the cycle of life continues.
Fuck it all. He pulled the sheets over his head, shutting the world outside once again.
_
Inspired by:
Malcolm Middleton – A Happy Medium
Reproduced with permission, originally posted here: thegingerquiff.com
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