Nicola Barker - Darkmans

He shifted his feet (just to see if he could–

Yup… )

— and as he moved, still more water tipped out of the cubicle and on to the floor. He watched it surge, fascinated. Riding on the tiny wave he’d created were a series of small, black boats — little, dark canoes, vying with each other to win the race to the bathroom wall. He blinked–

Huh?

— not canoes but feathers. Black feathers. He peered down at his feet again–

Ah…

— and discovered that the plughole in the shower cubicle had actually become blocked by them–

Pen…

He made an idle scratching motion in the air with his hand–

Penna

— he smiled–

Feder—

He frowned–

Feather

— he shook his head–

Feather

— he shook his head again, dissatisfied. He idly prodded at the feathers with his toe, then he bent over, stiffly, and grabbed at them with his fingers.

Once the blockage was removed — at least partially — the water began to drain out. Beede crouched down and watched it disappear — grinning, delightedly, at the tiny whirlpool he’d created — still clutching the feathers tightly in his hand–

Wah-hoooooooo!

His head slowly rotated, round and around and around and around …

Wah-hoooooooo!

He found the suck, spin and glug of the water thoroughly absorbing. It was mesmerising. It was beautiful.

Once the water was gone–

Aw!

— he focussed in on the feathers again–

Penna

He began sorting them out, quite methodically, casting aside the smaller ones, before settling, finally, on the longest and strongest of the bunch. He inspected the tip of its quill with an expert eye–

Hmmn…

— then dabbed it, matter-of-factly, on to his tongue.

He grimaced.

It was a black feather–

Phleagh!

He grimaced again, as if disgusted by the taste of it, but then he stopped grimacing–

Phlegh?

Phleg?

Bhleg?

Bloec?

Blac?

Eh?!

Blac?

Blac?

— he peered down at his arms. They were covered in scratches. The scratches stung a little and they were still bleeding. ‘Blac…’ he murmured, frowning, then tipped the quill of the feather into a little stream of blood…

Hmmn

He shook his head–

Enque

Enke

Ink

He scowled, frustrated–

Blac

He shook his head–

Enke

He shook his head–

No…

Ruh…?

Eh?

He thought quietly for a while. Then–

Reudh?

Ruber?

Rood?

Rud ?

Red?

Red?

Blut-red?

Eh?

Blut?

He examined the blut on his arms. He inspected the blut… But every time the concept of the blut , the idea of the blut, was formalised into a proper form of words, he felt something hiccough , he felt something disconnecting, he felt a kind of…almost like a…a rupture…a sudden cutting-off, a terrible, maddening, frustrating cleft —a chink —between his understanding and his feeling, as if the idea and the emotion had been violently rent. He stood silently for a while — struck dumb, wavering slightly — on the brink of this deep abyss — this intellectual chasm .

He couldn’t cross it. Not yet. So he stopped trying and stepped jauntily out of the shower cubicle instead. He dropped the feather. He reached for a towel and wrapped it around him. He opened the bathroom door (no problem with the handle) and padded out into the kitchen.

Here the tiles were also soaking. His feet made a series of delightful slapping sounds against them–

Viet-waat-viet-waat-viet-waat…

Hah!

He stood and gazed around him. Things seemed different— very different — but he didn’t know what the differences were, and he wasn’t exactly sure how he might be expected to respond to them. He frowned, thoughtfully, his sharp, brown eyes consuming every detail.

All the furniture in the living-room had been shoved — and in some cases, thrown — against the three outer walls. It almost looked as if a small tornado had been at work there. The middle of the room was now completely empty. Beede appraised this new space, inquisitively. Then he smiled…Yes. Good . He liked this new space. It was a fine new space…

As a mark of his approval he paraded around in the space for a while; he swaggered about in it, he preened and he strutted — kicking up his legs, thrusting out his chest, tossing back his head, both hands resting jauntily on his hips.

During the course of this brief interlude his towel fell off. Beede hurriedly grabbed for something to replace it with, chancing upon the shirt he’d removed earlier (drawing it — with a sense of palpable satisfaction — from the heart of the surrounding chaos) and eagerly pulling it on, but the wrong way around; fastening the top button at the back of his neck so that now (from the front, at least) he exuded a pious — almost a priestly —aspect.

He promptly recommenced his theatrics, fully aware, as he pranced, that the cheeks of his arse were fluttering in and out of view as the wings of the shirt flapped cheekily around it. He quickly integrated this into his walk, winking and leering, shaking his hips, thrusting obscenely, the whole, lascivious spectacle culminating, finally, in an extravagant bow (also — by sheer coincidence — a shameless piece of mooning).

As he straightened up (plainly delighted by this brazen display) Beede’s head smacked into something–

Eh?!

He glanced skyward, frowning. Suspended directly above him (attached to the electrical cord from the broken light fitment by what looked like a tie or a dressing-gown belt) was the cat. The cat was strung up, tightly, by his neck, like a piece of game that’d been left out to hang.

Beede stood and gazed at the cat, fascinated. The cat wasn’t yet dead. He still showed some slight signs of consciousness. His mouth leered and drooled, his eyes blinked, whitely. His back leg twitched.

Beede pulled laboriously on his chin as he appraised the cat. He tapped his foot. He rolled his eyes. He mimed himself thinking, strenuously. Then he stood on his tip-toes and reached up, as if to try and free the unhappy creature, but he was too short to untie the knot, so he turned and peered around him, looking for some kind of physical support.

His eye finally alighted upon a chair (the chair from his desk) which was lying upside down on a messy pile of books. He marched over to inspect the chair. He bent over to pick it up, but as he bent he froze, glanced over his shoulder, grabbed a hold of his two shirt flaps, held them modestly together, and simpered, coyly.

Once he’d finished simpering (once he’d taken it about as far as it could possibly go — then still further) Beede casually released the flaps, stationed his two feet firmly apart and bent over, crudely, to seize the chair. But instead of lifting it effortlessly (as was only to be expected — it wasn’t a large chair, after all), Beede discovered himself signally unable to establish a firm grip.

It was almost as if the chair had been oiled. Every time he placed a hand on it the hand slid off — and at great speed, to boot. Yet rather than responding to this challenge sensibly — slowing down, perhaps, or inspecting the chair more closely (locating the source of the problem, even) — Beede reacted by launching ever more frenzied attacks on it — throwing himself at the chair with such haste and such violence that each time he made physical contact he flew on to the floor, with a crash: once, twice, five times, ten…