‘I also have to stop off at my cousins house,’ Christine told us from the drivers seat.
I smiled as politely as I could, but I wasn’t smiling on the inside.
‘She lives a little out of the way but it shouldn’t take that long,’ she explained.
‘How long’s “not that long?’” I wondered.
Christine smiled at the inquisitive child in the back of her car. ‘Just a few hours.’
My jaw nearly hit the floor. When she said a long trip I was thinking an hour max, three hours just wasn’t going to do.
I looked across the backseat to see if the other passengers were as outraged as me. Sat in a line, with me on the right, was my brother and Christine’s son Rob, they were watching the road and seemed oblivious to the fact that we were going to be on it for a very long time. I thought about nudging them to tell them, maybe they hadn’t heard, but a desire overcame me and my concentration shifted.
Sniff Sniff.
The urge was starting again and this time it wasn’t just a passing sensation. It was burrowing into my mind and taking away my focus.
Sniff Sniff.
I tried to get it right.
Sniff Sniff Sniff.
Three didn’t seem right. I tried for four, but that wasn’t satisfying the urge either.
‘Do you kids want to listen to some music?’ Christine called from the front seat.
‘Yes,’ I shouted back quickly, eager to drown out the noise of my sniffing.
She switched on the radio and turned it up.
Sniff Sniff.
Exhalation was working. I tried some quick intakes of breath but the urge persisted and wasn’t going away. It felt like an itch that needed to be scratched, except an itch can be left untouched and is easy to ignore. This was certainly not easy to ignore.
Sniff Sniff-if-if-if-if.
I finished, breathless. What was wrong with me? I looked across to see that Rob and Graham had engaged in conversation and weren’t paying attention to me. I did my best to exclude myself from any questions that might lure me into their dialogue. In the drivers seat Christine seemed out of earshot, the music sure to drown out my sniffing, but she was looking at me oddly.
I decided to let it out -- or rather suck it in -- and I snorted until the top of my nose hurt. Finishing off with some small sniffs. The radio was then turned down and I looked up, worried.
‘You coming down with a cold, David?’ Christine asked.
I nodded and smiled. Was that really it? Did a cold really feel like this? I had almost forgotten how it felt to have a cold or how it felt when you needed to blow your nose, there was certainly some sort of urge but that was surely down to the feeling that loose phlegm was trickling down your nose and looking for an exit. What else could it be? It had to be a cold, I had probably caught something.
Sniff-Snort-Sniff.
The urge came again and this time it didn’t seem to want to leave no matter how hard I tried. I received another odd look from Christine, who, unlike the pair by my side, wasn’t blessed with the ignorance of youth and had a nicotine addiction -- that she wasn’t going to relieve in a car full of children -- and a very stressful morning to deal with.
Half an hour into the journey the radio had cut from one song to another and in the silence she heard me sniffing. ‘Stop that,’ she said, her eyes beaming at me through the rear-view mirror.
I suddenly became very aware of what I was doing. I had spoken to my brother and Rob since getting into the car, talking about how excited we were to visit the safari park and studying a leaflet from the park (our interest quickly changed from animals to rides when we saw the adjoined amusement park) but my attention was quickly diverted back to the sniffing as I tried my best to get it right.
No matter how hard I tried I just couldn’t do it. I increased the volume, I increased the quantity and I even ran through a chain of inhalations, exhalations (both quick and extended), grunts and snorts. Nothing was making it go away and the knowledge that I was in a confined space with people who were seemingly annoyed by it was making me even more anxious. The more anxious I got the worse it became.
I tried to hold it in whilst constantly asking for the time. I knew that I would be okay once we got to the park and I could leave the car. In the open air I could drift away from the group and sniff as much as I wanted.
‘David, can you please stop that?’ Christine asked again an hour into the trip.
I looked at her blankly. Could I stop it? I thought I had been stopping it. I didn’t even know what it was but I was doing my best to avoid doing it. It must have just slipped out.
‘That’s a nasty habit you have there,’ she said to me.
That was it, a habit. I’d heard of people having nasty habits, maybe this was just one of those. Some people smoked, that was a nasty habit, my parents didn’t smoke but they did tell me that although people had the choice they couldn’t help it. I had the choice to sniff or not but I also couldn’t help it. Was this my smoking? How many other people sniffed? A lot of people smoked, did a lot of people sniff as well?
Christine smokes. Maybe I can ask her later.
When we stopped at Christine’s cousin’s house I opened the back door of the car and flew out. The tension had been building and the desperation to reach our destination increased with every minute.
‘Stretch your legs,’ Christine said, looking somewhat surprised that I was already out of the car, ‘I’ll be back in a minute.’ She headed down a long driveway and disappeared into the house.
In the back of the car Graham and Rob were rereading the leaflet, pointing in excitement at the pictures of rides whilst hurriedly skimming through any mention of animals.
In the fresh air, with no one around, I could sniff all I wanted, but I no longer felt the need to do so. I reeled off a few almost complimentary rounds of snorts and sniffs, but the urge had passed. Climbing back into the car I momentarily pondered this odd occurrence before I finally became enthralled with the leaflets, joining in on a conversation that I had previously tried to steer away from.
When the car started moving again the anxiety, and the urge to sniff, came back. I pushed it to the back of my mind and let the tension increase. I couldn’t help release the odd disguised sniff every now and again but I wanted to make a noise. I wanted to shake my head. I wanted to scream.
When we arrived at the park and drove onto a gravelled car-park, I hopped out of the car and shifted away from the group.
‘You’re eager,’ Christine noted.
I smiled, edging away from the others as they left the car. The further away I was the more noise I could make and after skipping some distance ahead of them I finally released some of the tension with a succession of loud grunts.
They hadn’t heard me but a ticket collector did and he flashed me an odd look before giving me the obligatory smile and wink.
At some point the anticipation faded and the excitement of the event took over. I didn’t feel the need to sniff when I was inside the park and I rejoined the conversation on the long journey back home, reminiscing about the rides.
Synopsis:
The Line, the Itch and the Rabbit Hole is the memoir of David Jester: a child with Tourette’s Syndrome, a young teenager with depression and an adolescent addicted to drugs and alcohol.
A humorous autobiography charting 11 difficult years, beginning with his first tic aged 7 and spanning an adolescence of addiction, illness and self destruction. A dark and funny memoir that chronicles a wide range of difficult experiences including Tourette's Syndrome, Borderline Personality Disorder, Dystonia, drugs (dealing and using) suicide attempts and a stay in a psychiatric hospital.
Buy @ Amazon.com
Buy @ Amazon.co.uk
Also, keep your eyes peeled for the next chapter in the Forever After saga. A new novella, following the exploits of Michael and friends, will be released in February 2013!
, Forever After (a dark and funny fantasy novel)
Forever After (a dark and funny fantasy novel) Page 20
