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the journey

i left it to the last minute and haven’t had time to edit it: there’s a guy sitting next to me biting his fingernails: i want to hit him, be sick or runaway.

my mixing of genres didnt work so i just took out all the fairytale stuff -it works better, though isn’t really a story:

The journey

Day 231 once upon a time

Little has changed; though slowly the constant damp of sweat all over me is becoming less irritating: maybe it’s because I’ve bitten my fingernails right down so I’m no longer creating further cuts for the sweat to burn in. The greyness of her skin is neither worse nor better though my fevered imagination keeps seeing a blush in those cheeks. Reality is skewed; maybe it’s not imagination playing but past and present overlapping. Every hillock in this road seems both like the first and the hundredth. I try to hold onto why I’m doing this.

Day 235
The driver has yellow sores all over his haunches from the hillocks. He wants to stop. We have been able to shift position, he has not. We give him the last little bit brandy, we need him to continue. Now there is sweat and insects.

Day 247
He’s always asleep. How can he sleep when the road is so hillocky and sweat blocks one’s nostrils. There is no one to talk to. What if I lose my sanity before we arrive?

Day 248
The air is sulphurous. The clouds are turretous. I think we’ve gone wrong: we’re lost.

Day 251
She is grey and damp. The addition of sweat to her greyness makes her seem more feeble, closer to death; more mortal. I want to touch her but I’m worried about infection. The lack of water is getting to us all. His skin is reacting badly: this kaleidoscopic show provides something to focus on. I hardly notice my own sweat anymore, even the insects have become an accepted part of my view, merging with the black dots floating in front of my eyes.

Day 252
This morning I woke up on my back. Nothing was moving. I was neither in the van nor on that never ending hillocky road. I put out my arm and grasped a hand, cold, clammy. It wasn’t her. I could just see the red tips of autumnal forest. His corpse was polished. There were forty perfectly round white penny shaped scars starring his torso. He had nothing with him. She was further off, where the grass was longer. I wept for our mortality.

Day 253
I spent the day lying in the grass. I saw a ladybird.

Day X
I don’t know how many days I lay in the grass but today I got up. I dug a hole. I lay next to her remembering how red used to move within her cheeks. I said goodbye.

Day X + 1
I put her in the hole. I got into the hole and lay down on top of her. Then I got out and left.

: 01 Nov 2007 13:41 |  Tags: 4 Icw Week |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem