Brett McBean - Tales of Sin and Madness

I turn from the wall and wonder again if I should gaze out at the circle of life and see if it means me harm or kindness.

Or is that too cruel a game?

Yes, I decide, and again close my eyes and attempt to fade into sleep. Because surely, if I can achieve that, the next time I wake, it shall be morning and I shall be free at last.

Sleep comes, dreams come. I dream of an unborn baby, curled inside its mother, only the womb consists of thick heavy bars and instead of an umbilical cord, there’s a long needle which feeds blood and a milky substance and clear, salty water. The baby is sleeping, smiling, sucking its thumb and as I watch, the baby grows. It grows into a newborn, then a toddler, but it doesn’t stop there. I scream at the toddler to wake up, to break the bars down and leave the womb — it’s getting much too big for the womb — but it doesn’t heed my calls. It continues to grow, into a five-year-old, then ten, and I can see the womb stretching, bloating, and I scream, I cry, and yet the kid seems oblivious to the situation. It continues to suck its thumb and receive the blood and milk concoction. It grows more; teenager, young adult. The bars split. Then I hear the snapping of flesh and muscle, and when it reaches its thirties, it opens its eyes, turns, stares at me, smiles, and then there’s a wild explosion of guts and tissue and blood. I wake, screaming, sweating, heart thumping at a rapid rate. I cease screaming when I realise it was a dream, but my scream continues to echo long after I have stopped.

It’s still dark inside my room, and I’m convinced the night will never end, that something has gone wrong with the world. Maybe the night is stuck, unable to move forward for day to take its place. Or maybe God has fallen asleep at the wheel; or worse, died during the night.

I kick my legs onto the floor and walk the three paces to the bars. I have to look, need to look. I close my eyes, figure it has to be at least three. Three I could handle, only three hours then until, "Rise and shine, knuckleheads", and I could handle that, yes, that would be fine.

My eyes flutter open and, swallowing my fear, I gaze up at the pearly white clock and I feel my heart split in two. I shake my head. “No, no, it can’t be. It can’t be!”

The clock is teasing me, it’s toying with me; it has to be, because surely more than five minutes has passed since I last cast my red, bleary eyes upon its face. Its long hand has to have shifted more than five tiny minutes. I blink, thinking I have read it wrong, the shadows are misguiding my eyes, because I know it has to be five past three, not five past one, no, not that.

I look again, and now it’s four past. I scream. “Guards! Guards! The clock is broken! The clock is broken! Fix it, you bastards!”

I listen, nobody calls back. It’s dead quiet tonight.

“The clock’s not broken, you are.”

I flip around, my back straddling the bars and stare at the old man, standing like a dark, stinking statue near my cot. “How did you…?” I breathe, my lips forming a grimace. “How did you get in here?”

He tips more of the paper bag down his gullet. His smell is a solid mass of rottenness, watering my eyes and churning my gut. “You think you’re ready to leave?”

“Of course,” I say.

“Really?”

I nod.

“You think this place is ready to let you go?”

“I…” I don’t know, I hadn’t given it much thought, but I don’t say this. “It’s just a place.”

“Just a place,” the old man grumbles. “And this is just a paper bag.” He laughs, and it sends a cold wave of ice crawling up my back.

“I don’t…”

“Understand? Yes you do.”

“I just want to wake up and see the sun rising. I just want to leave this place. I deserve that much.”

“You want to wake?”

“Yes. But I’m not asleep. I need to sleep first.”

The old man grins, even though I can’t see him, I just know he is, I can feel his sly smile, and suddenly I’m lying back on my cot. I sit up and look around. I’m all alone, and darkness is like a claw that has gripped my room and will not let go.

I feel tears stain my cheeks and I won’t go to the clock and look, I can’t, my sanity won’t allow itself to be punched and kicked anymore.

Why won’t this night end? I cry inside and I leave my cot and stand by the window, looking up, feeling the hint of a breeze. Through the bars I see stars, then a cloud passes that resembles a dead, naked woman. I stand that way for a long time, thinking how, during the dark times, I would often stand this way and dream that the breeze was the breath of a curvy blonde, or a mysterious brunette; I would smell peach, or vanilla, or strawberry and I would imagine lips pressing down on mine. I would never picture a face, the idea was good enough, and I would be transported from this dungeon into a world full of possibilities, where cars were fast and women were ripe for the picking. My world, a world…

“That doesn’t exist,” says the old man.

My reverie breaks and I twirl around and yelp, “I thought you were gone?”

The old man is now slumped in one corner, paper bag sitting beside him, the sour smell of vomit now a most unwelcome addition to the mélange of putrid vapors.

“You’re full of shit and you know it,” the old man whose face is still covered by shadows croaks. “You still have the demon in you, you always will. I should know.”

“No… I…” I stumble, looking to the bars, wondering if they were already open, maybe I’m allowed to leave? But no, the bars are in place, and it’s still night, and why, oh why won’t the morning come already? “Are you my father?” I ask.

The old man nods. “Let me ask you — what’s waiting for you out there?”

“Plenty,” I say, the wall cold against my back.

My father gurgles. “Like?”

“Well…”

“You got no wife, no kids, and your mom doesn’t want anything to do with her rapist son.”

“Fuck you,” I spit, but the spit has no venom.

“But here, well, here you’ve got everything you need…”

“I hate it here,” I say, and that’s the truth, I do, I hate the routine, the suffocating boredom. I hate concrete and metal and plastic and numbers and the smell of blood, semen and sweat makes my head hurt and my spine crumple. “I just want the morning to come,” I tell my long-dead dad. “That’s all, I’m just waiting for the sun to shine and then I’ll be out of here.”

“Well, if that’s the case, then that’s easy.”

I swallow, taste hope. “What do you mean?”

The old man grips the bottle wrapped in paper and raises one raggedy arm. He releases his fingers and the bottle falls. With a sound like a baby’s scream, the bottle smashes to the cold floor, spreading red wine and glass.

I wait for a guard to come, but it doesn’t happen.

I turn to my dear father; of whom my memory consists of nothing more than the smell of alcohol and the size and power of his fist.

That, and the time I found him in the den one evening, slumped in his chair, something like red wine oozing from his wrists, staining the carpet below.

“There’s your way out,” my dad says, nodding his shadowy head to the floor.

I frown down at the small pond of wine and glass. “There’s nothing there.”

“I know, but you won’t listen. Still, if you want the morning to come, look harder.”

Yes, I want the morning to come, I think I tell him. That means I’m free, I can leave this construct of torture and step out into the free world.

But the night…

“Is there for the taking, if you want it. If you really want this pain to be over, then all you have to do is climb through the hole, jump down into the river, and float away.”