You Won't Believe It

‘I know what you’re thinking: here comes the disgusting anecdote about anal probing. Wrong! See, that’s just what the conspiracy theorists, storytellers, make up. But I was abducted for something far more understandable: they wanted to experiment on me, to study my existence.’

           ‘James, time’s already running short. We should -’

           ‘This is important! I’m telling you what you want to know; why I’m so messed up. Uh… you’ve made me forget where I was now… Oh yeah. After the aliens had taken me, they hooked me up to this machine in this sterile white room (they were tall? Did I mention that?) and used this machine to fire something down into my psyche: a white burning, which lodged in my mind; like an alien plant rooted in Earthly soil. It ran a sort of interference, absorbing my reason out of me, swelling with every piece it took away from me, until everything was loaded with a sublime oblivion. It’s weird, I can’t describe it except with other things you can’t have experienced. It felt as if the memories that incessantly pile upon your soul like grave dirt were being shovelled aside, and I was regressing, sleepily, through time, back to clean infancy.

           My reason was down, and truth became a reflex. A lifetime’s trivial details scrambled from my mind. After that they –‘

‘What were the details, James?’

‘Just little things. They’re not important to the story, and they’re boring. Even when I only think about them, I’m like, “C’mon, get on with it”.’

           ‘James, I’m your psychiatrist. I wouldn’t find them boring.’

           ‘… Well… if you want them. But it’ll just sound stupid if I say them out loud. It’s not the same as experience.’

‘Go on.’

‘… Impressing crescents on my palms with my nails, people who don’t go out, distant but closest to sister, argued with Dad Mum said nothing, blond and small, bony and resentful, growing up, purple blue, no-one, I.T. consultant, normal, twenty-two, aberrant, nothing, Claire, middling, male, low, nothing. Add infinity.’

           ‘Mm-hmm. And why do you think you chose these details?’

           ‘Chose? I don’t follow.’

           ‘Why are you telling me this? We both know it’s not true. This pretence of alien abduction is a means of self-analysis. Which shows you’re aware that you have a problem. But you’re not confronting it. Instead, you choose to fabricate these lies.’

           ‘You’re getting it all wrong! I didn’t choose any of this – it really happened. I’m telling you what you want to hear!’

           ‘What were you trying to say, James? You mentioned your Dad…’

           ‘It’s not about my Dad! Or my family, or my upbringing, or any of that! There’s no secret key behind the words that will open me up to you. It’s just a story – stop looking for things that aren’t there!’

           ‘…We’ll have a break, and continue this session in a bit.’

Joshua Spiller : 26 Nov 2009 19:06 |  Tags: Prose |  Comments (0) |  Report a problem