Shaun Whiteside - Sorry

She gives up.

Your lips touch her ear and you whisper:

“It wasn’t me.”

She opens her eyes wide. And there’s the look, and there’s the understanding.

Now.

You drive the nail through the bone of her forehead. It takes you four more blows than the hands did, before the nail pierces the back of her head and enters the wall. She twitches, her twitch becomes a quiver, then she hangs still. Bright blood trickles from the ear you whispered into; a dark thread of blood emerges from the wound in her forehead and wanders between her eyes over the base of her nose and her cheek. You wait and study the elegance with which the thread of blood moves over her face. Before it reaches the insulating tape, you pull it from her mouth. Spittle seeps over her lips and mixes with the blood. Her right eye closes, as if it’s weary. You open it again, it stays open. You follow her frozen gaze. It’s fine, you don’t have to correct anything, everything is right.

IN THE DARKNESS of your thoughts I would like to be a light.

I have no idea who wrote that. I just remember the piece of paper that was pinned up on the kitchen wall one day.

In the darkness of your thoughts …

I want someone to come out of the forest with a flashlight and aim the beam at my face. Being seen can be so important. It doesn’t matter by whom. I’m disappearing into myself more and more.

It’s the day after. My hand rests on the cold metal of the fender. I listen as if my fingertips could hear the vibrations. I need more time, I’m not yet able to open the trunk. Perhaps another hundred kilometers, maybe a thousand.

… I would like to be a light.

I get in and start the engine. If someone should ever follow my journey, he’ll get lost in its incoherence. I’m moving through Germany like a lab rat in a maze. I lurch and every step is uncertain. I step sideways, turn in circles. But whatever I do, I don’t stand still. Standing still is out of the question. Sixteen hours are bundled together into sixteen minutes when you travel aimlessly. The boundaries of your own perception start to fray, and everything seems meaningless. Even sleep loses its significance. I wish there were a light in the darkness of my thoughts. But there is no light. So I’m left with nothing but my thoughts.

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