Naked
and curled foetal, the carpet pressing an itch into the unshaved skin of his
cheek and the smell of it drying his mouth, a world away from its Prussian blue
familiar reluctantly surrendered not yet half an hour ago, Brother Skunk poked
at an atom of silver foil with the blade of his pocket-knife, quietly praying
to his Uncle Jesus.
Skunk
(whispering): You know, at moments like this... when I’m when I’m lost when I
feel lost. I feel lost. I feel so lost. And I’ve had this, these feelings at
work. The anxiety has just been getting more and more... I feel it more... It
has to be okay. Oh Jesus I kind of wish my mum was still there. She has to be
okay. I don’t think, you know, I could... I could cut myself but it isn’t, if
it was what I had before then it isn’t enough now.
He
began to worry at the knots of adhesive smear dirtying the blade, a congelation
accrued cutting through the numberless parcel-tape miles sealing books in their
boxes, his only illumination provided by the gas-fire’s glowing blocks of
purple and orange heat.
Skunk:
And at work I, I have this repeated thought of taking this knife and putting it
through the palm of my hand. You know sometimes I have my hand just, I put it
flat, the palm up and I just look at the palm of my hand... and I have the
knife, you know, and I have this I don’t I mean, it’s not going to do any good
it’s not going to do any good but I have this feeling that I want to drive the
blade the point of the blade straight through, into the desk, right through,
and I don’t even know if it would hurt. I it hurts when I put the point on my
hand, in my palm and I put it in and just put some pressure on it and I can
feel the pain, but if I just drew it back and smashed it through... so that it
went right through, would I feel it then? Would that... Would... It’s not going
to, it’s just a distraction. This is my child. This is my child. And
ache1... She has to be okay, she has to be okay. I think, I feel it
that, you know, myself and ache1, and deleted name, and antler... I think if we can, if antler comes, if we can
do that, if it’s all okay... It, it’s unresolved and that’s why all this is
happening... and antler’s in there now... and when, when the baby comes it has
to be okay. Because with the baby, I want a resolution to the whole thing, I
you know I still I feel, the thing is... This is a a, it’s a point and
everything... There there’s there will be before and after, the point, and when
antler comes and we are, we have our family our unit... I don’t...
His
ankle began to boil in the room’s dry heat. Still talking, he rose to turn out
the fire and after shaking a little talcum across the ugly tumescence, climbed
into the bed’s welcome chill, naked in the last cold snap of winter or the
first of coming spring.
Skunk:
You know I, it’s, I’m in there working and, it just seems pointless and, you
know I, I can almost smell my mother’s armchair and hear her voice and she says
“You have to keep going” you know, you have to keep going, you have to keep
going but I apart from ache1 and our baby, I don’t, I don’t have to
keep going, the other stuff is not, I don’t need that, but I need this.
You know, what did Mum keep going for? She was kept going until, she kept going
until she had to be kept going, until she was kept going, she stopped, and
I don’t... This isn’t some, you know, what is it? It’s not something that...
When you get to the end, you know keep going for what? I I understand I know
keep going f-, for this resolution, the resolution and the family, my own
family and, in that whatever’s gone before, it’s almost sealing sealing that,
or putting a close on that and beginning something else, and hopefully this
time, I... It’s, trying to delete all the mistakes, and start again so that
what what what was before isn’t there, or it is there but it’s not, you
know... I want... I want this to be the start so that all, all the other stuff
that we’ve all, that’s happened to all of us is the past. Just now, it’s still
the present, we’re still going through it but I think, if this happens, we’re
we begin again we have a new a new... It’s a burning of the fields. We have to
keep going.
He
lay awake for hours.
