Day One (Prologue - Our Hero Is Unwell - Home Is A Castle)

[wulfboy.livejournal.com]

Drum

A drum. Red and green plastic. Round, with the dull, sick look that plastic gets when dust is allowed to merge with it's surface. All one piece. A snare, or at least a facsimile of one. The sort of present that gets given by absentee fathers and the younger variety of uncle who has no kids of his own. The Four-In-The-Morning-Wake-Up-Call, when given to someone with poor impulse control.

Bam-bam-bam-bam.

Bam-bam-bam-bam.

Bam-

Wedged right up on top of the wardrobe in the corner, it's quiet right now. There's nobody here to make noise, even if they could reach the drum, even if they wanted to. The hiss and the pop of the gas-fire punctuate the absence. Fuzzy, out-of-focus, colourized shapes shiver and warp around the television, giving off unreal dream-light, some mute pantomime. Out-of-focus, fuzzy, voiceless. The curtains are tacked to the window frame, thick enough to prevent anything from the world penetrating. Maybe if you opened the curtains and the window on the other side you might hear the city.

* * *

My first "Have a good Christmas" prompted an immediate attack of vertigo. I muttered something in response, and as the line died I went into "Away" on autopilot. An overcast, shitty December Monday. A hangover or a migraine - one can slip into the other without any notice these days - began to gently unfold itself across the front of my face. Bam. Bam. Bam. Bam. Yellow tinge to the flickering over-head lights. I stood up and snapped my headset. "Call me Debbie", pro-tem Team Leader, looked askance at me as I stood up but I just mouthed "toilet" and turned on my heel. The key to dealing with the "Call me Debbie"'s of the world is controlled eye-contact and a firm tone of voice. She doesn't listen to what anyone else is saying anyway, except when she suspects someone is trying to make her look ignorant. Not that she needs help.

I walked down the floor, surrounded by fellow workers, their merry chatter turned into a grinding, random sound overlaid with whistling. I turned into the toilets with some relief, my right-eye already spasming in time with the pumping of my blood. All the light here is artificial, but at least in the toilets it doesn't flicker the way it does on the floor. I looked at myself in the mirrors over the sinks. One hand was massaging my temple in a melodramatic, circular movement, but I soon put a stop to that. I splashed a little water on my face and ran some more over my wrists, tried a few breathing exercises - deeply in through my nose, slowly out through the mouth. The usual.

I wasn't alone. There was someone else in here with me, which is not a common occurrence. For some reason the rest of the men on the floor walk the other way, to the other toilets, even if the trip takes twice as long. I heard the rustle of paper. I stared at my face, trying to work out if I was pale or not. Listened to my dull pain. Bam-bam. Bam-bam. Bam-bam.

I nodded at myself in the mirror (I nodded back), stepped casually into the far cubicle, and splashed the contents of my guts onto the porcelain. The other fellow left while I was busily throwing up, probably scandalized by my inconsiderate behaviour. "Respect your co-worker" it says on the awareness posters. We have it drummed into us through induction, and every third buzz meeting. We're just one big family, and as it gets closer to Christmas that gets more and more obvious. When I'd finished being sick, I locked the cubicle door. Flushed. Sat down. These toilets are the quietest place in the entire building, and I spend as much time here as possible. I'm sort of hoping that this will prompt my employers not to renew my contract in January. I'll miss the peace and quiet in here, though, when I go. I closed my eyes and decided that, migraine or hangover, I was going home. Time to start lying. Eye contact and a firm tone.

(Later)

I sat with my eyes shut all the way home, listening to rain beating pointlessly against the window, and smelling all the varieties of staleness that flavour such trips. It was already getting dark by the time I turned into my street with a red-and-green plastic-bag from the shop on the corner. Scarf and hat serving their usual purpose of becoming uncomfortably wet and heavy. Despite the rain, one of the kids from upstairs (probably) was sat on the step as I walked quickly down the road. I could just about make him out in the thickening gloom, and for a moment wondered if he might actually be a dwarf. That happened once. But he scarpered as soon as he saw me, scampering in a way no adult moves, dwarf or otherwise. He might have been crying, or talking to himself, or something equally mad. I don't understand anyone under the age of twenty, and I never have.

I let myself in and immediately discovered that my upstairs-neighbours were home. They're the source of the three-or-four delightful kiddies that lurk around the place. I've no idea how their little family is arranged, or even which kid belongs to which alleged parent. One of them at least I'm fairly sure has been inherited from a previous (now long since absent) partner. Two more of said kids - boy and girl - were sat on the stairs holding hands and looking through the bannisters at me as I came in. They watched me the whole time I was sorting my keys out and letting myself into my "apartment". I don't know if they blinked once. One of them made a little noise in the throat and shuffled closer to the other one at the sound of something being used as a projectile back in their flat. I locked the door behind me.

I'm not a big fan of domestic arguments myself, and I've never understood why they have to be enjoyed at the sort of volume that shivers window-panes and stuns bats. My upstairs-neighbours usually have a row on a Friday, then again on a Sunday, but they delight in scattering them through the week at random, just to keep in practice. Pounding away at each other's self esteem for an hour seems to be some sort of fore-play for them. Shortly after Eastenders, one or the other would most likely start beating someone. Their dull, repetive tune would continue to be hammered out until around midnight, when if I was lucky one of them would storm out and if I was unlucky they'd "make up" for a little bit.

I sat on my bed and did a quick mental check of my finances in an attempt to convince myself I could afford a trip out tonight. I badly wanted to take my headache out for a while, and avoid Monday-night-in-with-the-morons.

No chance.

It's the first of the month, and I'm wiped out already.

"Merry fucking Christmas" I said to nobody in particular.