No guns, no crime, nobody dies, well..
.
I just want to branch out..
John watched the maggot wriggle around on the floor. He had just noticed it. It moved about on the stained tiling, aimless, restless. He looked at it, at its blind heavings. He thought about last night, then stopped himself. It wasn’t good to think. His head hurt anyway. It hurt because of all the alcohol he had consumed the previous night, and it hurt because of the blow he had sustained. He touched his head gingerly, raising his hand tenderly to himself to test the bump. It was still sore. He wondered if he had concussion. Better not take an aspirin for the headache, he said to himself, just in case.
He looked down again and the maggot was gone. He looked about but he couldn’t see it anywhere. You had to keep your eye on things or they got away from you, he thought. That’s what happened with Anne, she got away from him. If he was honest with himself he had known it was going to happen. He just didn’t acknowledge it to himself. For a while before he could see, when he looked into her eyes, she was drifting away from him; she was going; her eyes where clouded, distant, unfocused when he looked into them. They were no longer eager for him as they had been when they first met. He had blown it, he knew he had blown it. Once a woman starts drifting away they just keep going; there’s nothing you can do about it; once you notice it’s started happening it’s too late.
He wondered where the maggot had come from. He’d never noticed one before. Perhaps it was a hallucination. A message. An omen. Perhaps.
When he first met Anne she looked at him in such a way that made him feel he was the most important person in the room. It was a new feeling. A delightful feeling. It made him want her company more and more. She gave him himself. But a self that was so much brighter, confident and desirable then the one he’d had before. And when she left she took it all away. When she went he went too. The one who could do things, say things, be things, went.
He knew she didn’t mean to destroy him. And it wasn’t really in her power to do that. But he gave it to her; he gave her that power. He invested her with everything he had and now the market had crashed.
Friends tried to cheer him up. They took him out, told him jokes, gave advice, introduced him to women. But they couldn’t take him out of himself.
There was that maggot again. It was curling around on the floor by his chair. It had sneaked up on him when he wasn’t looking; like so many things. He looked down at it, even though it made his head ache even harder, and he looked at it with a combination of disgust and tenderness. He was disgusted by its wriggling movements and its pellucid body, by its waxy skin and its black core. He felt tenderness at its vulnerability, its softness, its helplessness, its ugliness. He thought about stepping on it but he couldn’t decide what to do. It wriggled closer to his foot and he flinched away from it. He recoiled from its friendly proximity. It was like being cornered at a party by the person you least want to meet. That kept happening, he said to himself.
With Anne on his arm all the women had wanted him, now he was available they were indifferent. You can always have what you don’t need, he thought. Take loans, for instance, the bank will always give you loans when you have money, but if you don’t have money and you really need a loan they don’t want to know. It was the same with love. His account was too overdrawn and closed down. Frozen. It was frozen. He wondered if he smelled of desperation. Did he give off an aura of neediness that repelled people? You can always have what you don’t want.
His head was throbbing. Really throbbing. Really throbbing. He kept saying it to himself. Like a mantra. Really throbbing. It didn’t help. It didn’t make him feel better. It just concentrated his mind on the pain. His mind huddled itself around the pain like a wanderer around a campfire. People think campfires are there to provide heat but they’re really there to keep the demons at bay, to keep away the monsters that lurk in the darkness beyond its penumbra of safety.
How did I get like this? he said to himself. How? Why? Nobody answered. Not even himself. He looked down again and the maggot was gone. No trace. Not a sign. As if it had never been. Perhaps he had imagined it.
The telephone began to ring. It rattled his mind. It rang and rang, issuing summons after summons to get up and walk to the instrument, take it up and speak. But he couldn’t make that walk to the phone. He feared it as one might fear an instrument of torture. There was no point anymore in bothering with niceties like telephone conversations. He should have it disconnected. But they would probably do that themselves soon, if he didn’t pay the bill. We pay for the privilege of giving other people, often complete strangers with something to sell, the ability to intrude on our lives without a moment’s notice. Be there. Instantly. It stopped. Thank God, he thought. Thank God it’s stopped. He looked at his hands and they were shaking. Shaking. No reason. Just shaking.
He tried to remember what had happened last night. But it was difficult. It was hard to piece together. Like a shattered cup there were fragments missing. He couldn’t put it together the way it had been. It wasn’t possible anymore. Not now. Reality was forever lost in the past. And now there was only versions of it, their versions, his versions.
He remembered seeing Anne again. Looking happy. Looking so bloody happy, with that preppy bastard Daniel. Daniel looked smug. Anne looked happy. But Daniel always looked smug. He just looked extra smug now. Drink. It was a drink he needed, that he knew. A drink always promised to change things, make them better, but it didn’t, it just left things the way they were, only more so - more so.
After a few more drinks Anne just looked happier. Daniel looked even smugger. Anne and Daniel. Daniel and Anne. The smug couple. John wondered why he was there. Putting himself about. That was the idea. He was putting himself about. But nobody was talking to him. He’d taken an invisibility tablet. He didn’t appear on their social radar. He slipped through their sensors. Having slipped past their radar he could make a surprise attack. Nobody would be expecting him to do anything. Why should they? After all, he was just that man in the corner. That lonely man with his back to the wall to stop himself falling over.
In a little while. In a moment, he would be able to unclench his hands. He would be able to get his fingernails out of his palms. Yes he would. the He couldn’t remember what he’d said to them. It probably wasn’t anything very clever. He wasn’t capable of being clever any more. Everyone else can be clever, he said to himself. I’ll leave it up to you. You can be smart, in your smart suits, clever chatter, whimsical words, social graces, wiley smiles, feigned frankness. Yes. Oh yes. You can do all that, I’ll just be crude. That’s what he thought. How crude? It’s difficult to know how crude to be. It depends on the audience. How anatomical can one get? It depends. He couldn’t remember. He couldn’t remember what he’d said. He remembered what he’d done, and how Daniel had hit him. He touched his head. The bump was still there. It wasn’t an imaginary bump, not like the maggot.
Fights aren’t like the movies; they’re a lot shorter and they hurt a lot more. When he got angry John always thought of himself as a motion picture hero. But he didn’t have the muscles or the reflexes to go with it. Neither did Daniel, fortunately. Fights are ugly things. You can’t get around it. They’re not glamorous like the movies at all. And then there’s always shouting. All that shouting. John’s head throbbed some more just thinking about it. And then there are consequences. There are always consequences.
He couldn’t remember exactly what he’d said, or the order in which he’d said it. He thought it went something like this: drunk lonely man, John, staggers up to Anne at friends party and says: ‘What do you see in this bastard?’ in front of said bastard.
Anne looks astonished/pitifully at pitiful drunk and says, ‘Go away John, you’re drunk.’
Creep says, ‘Who do you think you’re talking to?’
John says, ‘Just go fuck yourself you stuck up smug git. I’m having a conversation with Anne.’
Anne says to Daniel, ‘I think we’d better go.’
Daniel says to John, ‘Don’t talk to me like that you pathetic little worm.’
Anne says, ‘Daniel, don’t,’ and puts her hand on his arm. John can’t stand the sight of her putting her hand on his arm, a mark of affection so undeserved.
‘Don’t do that,’ he says, pulling her arm away and towards himself.
‘Leave me alone,’ she says, glaring at him as if she hated him, as if she really didn’t love him.
‘Leave her alone,’ says Daniel, turning into Sir Galahad and pushing John away. It was then that John hit him, he thought, or it might have been a bit later.
When he hit him Daniel looked surprised. At first he looked surprised and then he looked angry. He lunged at John who attempted to dodge him but fell over in the process. As he fell he hit his head on something, it might have been the edge of a side table, whatever it was it hurt a lot.
John was getting up when Daniel hit him so he had to start getting up all over again. After that it got chaotic. But it was over before he knew it and it wasn’t long before he was being bundled into the street with instructions not to come back. He walked home slowly feeling resentful, nurturing feelings of injustice, the world was just so unfair. He knew he had made a fool of himself and it made him angry. He didn’t remember getting home but here he was.
He could hear laughter coming from somewhere. At first it was faint, but as he concentrated on it it seemed to get louder and louder. He looked around. There was nobody about but there was that maggot again. It was on the other side of the room now, rolling around and around on the floor, as if convulsed with laughter. John walked across the room to where it lay and as he approached the laughter seemed to get louder. The maggot was still rolling around. Then the laughter stopped as a voice said, ‘You’re such a sap. You break me up. You’re a prize idiot and you’re too stupid to know it.’
John looked around.
‘Over here dumbo,’ said the voice.
He looked down at the maggot.
‘Yeah here. Where do ya think.’
‘You?’
‘Yeah me. Don’t look so surprised.’
He couldn’t believe he was talking to a maggot.
‘You think I don’t know what goes on?’ it said. ‘I’ve been observing you. I know all about you. You ain’t got no secrets. We’re buddies.’
‘Buddies?’
‘Yeah. We both get looked down on by those sons-of-bitches out there. Any excuse and they’re on to us. Am I right?’
‘Aye, you’re right,’ said John, feeling conspicuous.
‘You can speak up, nobody’s eaves dropping,’ said the maggot.
‘I don’t know what to say.’
‘Don’t. I have some advice for you.’
‘You do?’
‘Yes, I do. Grow up. Stop beating up on yourself. If you don’t love yourself nobody’s going to love you - look at me.’
He looked at the pulsating creamy coloured maggot.
‘I may be just a blob to you but I know what’s what.’
‘What should I do?’
‘Come out of your chrysalis and fly my friend. You can do it. I know you can. Just have faith in yourself.’
‘Thanks Mr. Maggot.’
‘No problem. Glad to help,’ it said.
John was feeling better already. He thought he’d start by getting a glass of water for his parched throat. He turned to go to the kitchen and stepped on the maggot. Oh no! he thought, as he looked down at the gooey paste that had once been his friend. It never pays to give advice.
