Nicola Barker - Darkmans

Rosen says that indolence is one of the biggest obstacles for any serious student of this particular discipline. My fly is certainly indolent. It makes me doubt. It distracts me. I follow it around inside my mind. It wears me down. It exhausts me. This feeling is apparently familiar to the yogis. They have a special name for it. They refer to it as “Tamas”…’

Kane’s eye moved a little further down the page: ‘ I watched a real fly the other day,’ he read, ‘ rotating in a crazy circle underneath the light fitment in the kitchen (attracted — no doubt — by the bowl of dried dog food which Elen always insists on leaving out). It moved in a most hypnotic manner — two, maybe three circles in quick succession (just under a foot in diameter) then a dramatic drop. Two circles, three, then a drop. This “dance” went on for almost seven minutes, without pause. From what I could tell, there seemed to be no earthly point to it.

‘Elen once told me that we humans actually share some of the same DNA as a fly. She read it in a copy of the New Scientist which she found hanging around in the surgery (she said). We came from the same place, originally (she claimed), crawled from the same swamps. At first I thought this might just be yet another of her pointless fabrications, but increasingly I am convinced by it.

‘The fly inside my head is not an appealing proposition. It is an erratic fly. A dirty fly. A persistent fly. It pesters and molests me. But through practice I am learning to deal with it. Through practice, I am learning to embrace what horrifies me most about it. I now see, through practice, that in many ways I am the fly, that we have an identical energy…’

Kane grimaced. He turned to another page: ‘ …because if it can now be scientifically proven that water has a memory ,’ he read, ‘then why not the blood? Why not the bones and the hair and the muscles? My practice allows me to accept the idea that “I” am nothing more than a random accumulation of sense-impressions, hastily tied together like a bundle of firewood. I see that the whole world dwells within me, passes through me. I am a million voices, crying out, all at once…’

Kane turned several pages on: ‘ I always tried to ignore it (him) before. I forced it away, I pushed it aside (I just cut out, blanked out…), but my practice is gradually removing all those boundaries (slowly but surely — one at a time). Now there’s almost a conversation, a dialogue, what you might call “an exchange”, of sorts…The Witness seems to actively encourage this new “relationship”. It counsels me to embrace this…this…What is it? What do I call it? My fear? My punishment? My affliction? My cross? Does it matter? Does it even need a name?

‘Both Elen and Beede are determined to make me stop (of course). Elen, because she is obsessed by it (him) and how can she possibly hope to continue their degraded (degrading) flirtation while I stand close by and calmly apprehend?’

Kane frowned, pulled himself up into a sitting position and slowly re-read this last paragraph. He shook his head, perplexed.

‘ And Beede?’ he soon continued. ‘ Because it serves his “purpose” to keep the two of us apart. And she has bewitched him, of course. She has brought him to heel. She has “reached out”. She has invaded him. She has inhabited him in much the same way that “it” inhabits me. And how could she not? It’s such a convincing act, after all. Poor, sweet Elen! So quiet, so modest, so loyal, so sensible. And all in the face of such terrible adversity! How wonderfully accepting she is! How marvellously resigned! How infinitely patient and sympathetic and understanding!

‘(The whore playing the martyr? What a joke! What a travesty!)’

A small gap in the text followed, and then, ‘ Travesty: trans — over + vestire — to dress.

‘I still sometimes find myself using words which I can’t understand.’

Kane scratched his head. He turned over.

The following page was empty except for one short paragraph which’d subsequently been crossed out. Kane pulled the diary up closer to his face–

‘ But what if HE is the fly?’ Kane slowly deciphered. ‘ What if Elen pushed this thought on to a hook and then dropped it, like bait, inside my head? And what if I am feeding on the bait, gorging on it, without even realising what’s hidden within? What then? Will all hope be gone?’

Kane pulled away, confused. He turned several pages on: ‘… because it wasn’t fated ,’ he read, ‘ (I know that now), it isn’t meaningful. It’s just arbitrary. It’s pure coincidence. There were holes, gaps, rough edges, and this “energy” simply inhabited them for a while, clung on to them. But I am filling these holes with a different kind of energy now. I am filling these holes with light. I am letting go of all the chatter (citta). I am filing down the rough edges. I am becoming smooth. Discovering that the boy isn’t mine — that I am, in some senses, his — was a struggle at first, but increasingly I realise that it has made this entire process so much easier. I have not given in, no, but I feel myself giving up. I am finally floating free of all earthly ties. I am quietly rising above all the confusion, the anger. ‘Let it (him) find refuge elsewhere. Or let it stay. I no longer care.’

Kane’s eye ran down the page a way to a section of the text which had been written entirely in stark capitals: ‘ …I DO NOT HAVE AN AGENDA HERE! I DO NOT HAVE AN AGENDA! THEY ALL DO — EVEN THE BUILDER!!! BUT I DO NOT. THERE IS NO AGENDA. I AM SIMPLY THE CHANNEL, THE BODY, THE VESSEL…NO! NO!! STOP!!! CALM DOWN! MUST NOT LET THIS IDEA THAT THEY HAVE A PLAN, THAT THEY ARE PLANNING…MUST NOT LET THIS IDEA…NOT HELPFUL. MUSTN’T KEEP TURNING THIS WHOLE THING IN ON ITSELF — LOOKING FOR ORDER WHERE THERE IS NONE. CAN’T. MUST MEDITATE. BREATHE. MUST BREATHE. OR JUST…JUST RUN…JUST ESCAPE .’

Kane’s eye lifted to the paragraph directly above this section: ‘ Beede said the coffee was fine, even though I had poured five sachets of sugar into it. A test! HE FAILED! (Or was it just pity? Does he pity me? Is that how low we’ve sunk?) I explained about The Witness, the Pranayama, and he pretended that he knew nothing about it, even though I know he has a copy of the book on his table at home. Elen accuses me of paranoia, but these are important clues, surely?’

Kane turned several pages on, to one of the final entries:

‘…so very tired. If I can’t just blank it out ( NO! MUSTN’T SAY THAT — THAT’S NOT WHAT I’M DOING AT ALL! IT WAS HIM!!! HE MADE ME THINK THAT!) then the facts will just keep on piling up and eventually they’ll start to obliterate…No. Am confused. The past keeps on piling up. Yes. But that’s only normal, surely? Sometimes I wonder if I am the only one who sees it, if I am the only one who sees the same tree — the same old book, the same wall, the same piece of road — as thousands of eyes have seen it before, and who feels the weight, the terrible weight — the actual weight — of all this apprehension. As if I am the only one who feels history, who sees the storm of pure emotion raging away behind everything. The buzz and clash of the atom. This awful friction. This urge to truth. This urge to destruction. This urge to vengeance. Oh God! Where does it flow from? Why? For what?! And how much longer can I possibly be expected to hold it all back?’

Kane’s chin suddenly shot up as a vehicle pulled on to the road and drove along it, at speed. He watched through the back windscreen as it roared past, mounted the pavement and squealed to a sharp halt directly in front of Dory’s home. The vehicle in question was vaguely familiar to Kane — an extravagantly customised 4x4 Toyota Hi Lux. The driver’s door flew open and out sprang Harvey Broad–