Apologies for my presence.
If you recall, we came home at just before the General Election, full of plans and excitedly anticipating the future. All scuppered, of course – the failure in some part down to personal inefficiencies; in other ways by the deceit of others. All of it, ultimately sending us in an entirely different direction – about which, more, another time. I know I always say that, but this time I mean it.
The third leg by which we failed to realise our dreams was that we both succumbed to disease, and spent a large part of August in delirium, which endures, through the mechanisms of long covey, to this day – the recovery much slower than it might have been, mainly because we have had to minister to it ourselves, from our infirmary in mother’s shed, with its multi-use sink-cum-toilet, and, well, interesting interior design and colour scheme. All my waste came back to me, in shades of mediocrity yellow.
So, whilst there, one day I slipped away. How to describe it? It wasn’t quite a familiar place, but I trusted it, as if somehow, I’d accessed it from a long tunnel created of my own aura. And once there, it wasn’t about me, I was just a sort of a witness. There were hundreds of eggs, and I think I was inside one of them, like we were all waiting in an incubator. It felt like a closed unit, indoor somehow, yet vast; but one where the defining boundaries were miles away. And there was no roof. We were safe in our eggs. They stood about two to three feet high, close to each other, but in no sort of pattern, and made secure by having been pressed slightly into the accepting, rubbery surface. Above us, a blue wind circulated, sweeping in and around us, with no sense of a prevailing direction.
I don’t know whether we eggs communicated with other as they say trees do. Perhaps we did, through our porous shells. But we all seemed to sense this benevolent force, presiding over the egg-station, authorising comings and goings from it. Too clerical to be a deity, but nevertheless of unimpeachable power and tenure, like Elton John’s lyricist, or Dmitry Medvedev.
They had no form, just presence, and they were benign, like a kind teacher – they had authority, but something about the way they went about their duties told you that it’d never be used capriciously. Like Mrs. Melville, really. And they were too busy with more important tasks to be required to descend to the granularity of having to do things like discipline us.
I can’t think of a good word for them – for what I experienced. A presence I suppose is best. Anyway, whatever it was, they were assisted by spirit attendees who rode the blue winds. You got the idea that they were only ever passing through; or attending despatch – none of them giving any sense of of having a right to a more permanent occupancy of the space. They came in and out of hearing as the winds took them this way and that, and we could only hear staccato snatches of their conversation with Presence; or perhaps because Presence was carrying out so many simultaneous conversations with all sorts of different spirits at once, that’s all they were – fragmented snippets; and such was their superior intellect and spirituality, it was sufficient to communicate all that needed to be shared between them. But there was one of them who seemed to be connected with me; as if I was his responsibility – a bit like that eighteenth century French aristo who wore one of those Pilgrim Hats with a buckle on the front, and looked after David Niven in that Emeric Pressburger film.
‘So, are you coming home?’ Presence asked.
I didn’t get the answer. I got the idea that my spirit sort of shrugged, and ‘Mmmhhd,’ as he flew away.
Next time he came by, he said, ‘Can I ask a question?’ He seemed to be building up to asking whether he could be transferred to another egg. I didn’t hear the reply, but it felt like they’d said something like, ‘Ask away, you’re at home.’
‘I’ve got a bit of a confession, actually,’ he said, then swept off again.
Around me, I sensed a change in the atmosphere. Then I realised that another spirit had blown very close on the wind, and it seemed to smother a nearby egg. Next thing, there’s a… was it a noise? It was more of a sensation, like a swallowing movement, as if an animal was being sucked into a gloopy swamp. For a moment I had vision, and I saw that the shell of the neighbouring egg, though smooth from a distance, was anything but when you looked closely. It was rough, like a pock-marked face. And amongst the gritty lumps and bumps of its surface, the spirit had found a tiny pin-prick opening, and though a great gaseous volume himself, entered the egg entirely, becoming one with it. A second later the egg, and my vision was gone.
My spirit returned, and said, ‘Yes. Remember all those years ago, when you’d selected me, for him?’
‘‘Of course,’ said Presence.
‘I couldn’t believe my luck,’ the spirit said, ‘He was such a perfect little chicken on the way. All shy and sweet; and so smart.’
Presence indicated that it remembered the moment very well.
‘And I said something very stupid,’ the spirit said.
I got the idea that Presence was nodding, smiling, trying to comfort him in a way.
‘You’ll remember, of course, but in my haste to impress, and to come back from the project enhanced; to prove to you that I was ready for more ambitious projects; I said to you, “Make my little chicken unlucky, I am ready for the challenge. Together, he and I can overcome anything.” It was wrong of me to have said that, I see that now.’
Presence smiled a sympathetic smile. I had the idea that it reached out to comfort my spirit, who was broken by his own confession. And I wondered whether it was trying to convince him that it was time to go home after all and rest before switching to a new shell.
He no longer whistled around on the wind. He was static, lying somewhere on the squashy floor beneath Presence, but away from the eggs, where he was left to come round in his own time.
‘I need to see this through,’ he said eventually, adjusting his hat. ‘I don’t suppose I can ask if that unlucky thing I said can be taken back, now?’
Presence declined, ‘Not once you’ve started, I’m afraid. Dem’s the rules.’ I imagine Presence with Mrs. Melville’s kind face, moving gently from side to side, to indicate, ‘No,’ in a kind way, but one that leaves no doubt of their decision.
‘I just feel so sorry for him,’ the spirit says.
And Presence said, ‘Don’t say that. Remember what happened last time? I don’t want to have to downgrade you again.’
Next thing, there’s this glooooop sensation, and I think that I am going to be sucked out into space and dispersed into tiny particles, like when you are eviscerated by the soundwaves of a bomb. We saw that once, me and Friend John. It shocks me into sitting bolt upright from my fevered sleep, and there I am in, intact, and with him alongside me still, in our hot, noxious, stinking cabin.
I think he’s probably just been to the sink, and that’s why I stirred. He’s sound asleep again now though, so I turn gently, and try to sleep myself, because I know how valuable these unconscious moments are. But the heat, and the smell, and that gloop noise. I don’t want to think about it, but it’s the only thing I can do.
There are many techniques for blocking out distractions when you need to sleep, whether they be noises, light, even thoughts eventually can be conquered, but no one, to my knowledge has ever come up with a way of blocking out stench. The only answer is to become so used to it, that you no longer notice it, and not even we, despite everything we have endured, are not at that stage yet. Not this level of fetid decay and fermented putrescence. No love, they haven’t.
Dickie White's Diary 