The Terror[blist]

by C. Sean McGee

  For most people, that missing puzzle was filled with fear so their brain would imagine the worst outcome to heighten the grill of their paranoia. Like the child tucked firmly into their blankets, when the light is turned off, one piece of the puzzle is removed and for the child, that piece is filled with absolute fear that beneath their bed, scratching away at the under of their bums and backs, lies the most horrid creature imaginable, sniggering in the back of their thoughts as it lies in wait, hungering to ensnare them.

  Gavin had much of the same logic. His doctor said it was like a wire was shorting out and he was receiving too much of this and too much of that and when there was something he didn’t know, when in his mind he was imaging what that empty puzzle piece might be, his brain would misfire and provide him an overdose of nor-adrenaline and something as simple as misplacing his keys would be construed as being trapped beneath a collapsed building, unable to breath and unsure if help would ever come.

  And the drugs would make that better.

  Gavin flipped the lid off with his thumb. He saw it flick past his sight and land somewhere in the gutter beside him. He didn’t bother turning to see where that might be. His eyes were drawn upon the little circles inside the small cylinder and as he thought about his mother’s car exploding – not because he wanted it to, but because it would upset him if it did – he threw the container to his mouth and he let the small pills all roll over his tongue and barge their way down the back of his throat. He had to shake the bottle to get the last.

  He wondered then how long it would take for the drugs to work, now that he had consumed fifty of them. Would he feel better by the time he reached the corner? And would he be different then, not in how he thought, but in how others thought of him. Would he have to exclaim then, that he was different, that the drugs had taken effect? And how would he do it? Would he take a stance in line with all the others whose voices charade the ideals that made them feel so good as to always be able to look around, past or through him? And if the drugs came into effect, would they be able to see him?

  Gavin stumbled along the sidewalk with people parting the biblical tide as he approached. And they, the people on the street, they saw a manic beast, dressed in a man’s clothing. This beast was foaming at the mouth, hunched over and gripping at its stomach and grumbling and groaning in a conspicuous gurgle as he or it swayed from one side of the path to the other with the monster’s eyes, like its well intentions, clawing at the pavement and dragging his frail huddled mass in their direction.

  Gavin’s stomach was turning over on itself. He could feel horrid pains in his stomach as if his muscles were melting. He was dying, he knew it. He’d always imagined death being this silent and poetic closing scene where not a word was spoken but a single tear that shed from the girl that he loved and it carried down her cheek unto her chin where it morphed into her fraught expression and splashed upon hos bloodied lip.

  This was nothing like that. His bones were searing and it felt like someone was staggering along with him, gyring some imaginary handle that stuck out from his side – like a rotisserie - yanking and grinding his insides around and around so that the skin of his weakened soul came to a crisp and brown finish.

  “You don’t look good there buddy.”

  Gavin reach his hand out and grabbed their leg just to steady himself. He had no idea of what he was grabbing, whether it was a leg of some tall dark stranger or a heavy set post, plated into the earth. It was just a reaction when he heard the man speak.

  “Did you take something? I’m a friend, it’s ok, I’m here to help you.”

  The Tall Dark Stranger unclenched Gavin’s hand and took the empty bottle from it.

  “Relax. I’m gonna do something. It’s gonna feel like a real bastard version of New Year’s in your head, just for a minute or two. I’ll be quick. Just don’t bite off my finger.”

  The Tall Dark Stranger held Gavin in a headlock, keeping his body from contorting and swiveling out of control. With his left hand cusped around his chin, he could hold Gavin’s mouth open and stop him from biting down. With his right hand, he pushed two fingers deep into Gavin’s throat, all the way, till they slipped over the groove of his tongue and down into his esophagus.

  Gavin convulsed and The Tall dark Stranger tore away his fingers. He held Gavin steady while his stomach surged and he vomited, on the pavement by his feet, on his shoes and on a driver whose curiosity had him lower his window before he could comprehend what was about to happen.

  The Driver stopped his car and he got out, wiping his arm clean and shouting an abusive tirade at Gavin, whose mind had exploded and was outside of any reason whatsoever. He was, at this moment, a dying star, his protons escaping in all directions as his core surged outwards and there was nothing he could do and there was no way that he could defend himself, not from the likes of the oaf who was running at him now with his arms swinging, ready to beat down as Gavin – detached from his conscious settings – was not a man as other men are men, he was his stomach, convulsing and spitting out of his mouth. He was every muscle, wrenching and pulling and turning in all directions. He was not his thoughts. Not here, not now. He was awash in the tide of his expulsion.

  “I’m gonna fucking kill you” shouted The Driver.

  Gavin couldn’t see but beside him, The Driver had his hand raised to strike down on the back of his head. It wasn’t the rage of having been vomited on that disparaged The Driver, it having been vomited on in front of other people; in front of women who would hardly desire him and other men, whose pointing mockery would reduce him, without need for heated debate, to that of a lesser man.

  The Driver sought to strike down on the back of Gavin’s head but he was stopped, something catching his wrist and twisting and turning and then The Driver was on his back and he was weeping and desperately negotiating his way back into his car.

  The Driver gathered the remnants of his masculinity and drove away. He said nothing as he rushed to lock his doors and he fumbled away at the keys. He said nothing too, as the engine started and the cars behind him beeped and pressed him to go on ahead. But when there was good enough distance, when the reflection in his mirror was small enough to be outrun but large enough to be heard, he lowered his window and he stuck out his finger and shouted, like a hungry hungry hippo, expletive remarks, insults deriding the sick junkie and his tall dark villainous friend. And in that second, he found once again, the fount of his pride and he drove away, enraged and masculinized once again, thank god.

  When the bus pulled up, Gavin had stopped vomiting but he didn’t look well. The Bus Driver took one look at him and shook his head.

  “Do I look like a fucking ambulance?” he said.

  Gavin swayed back and forth but he was held up from falling to his knees by The Tall Dark Stranger by his side. He lifted his head and he could see The Bus Driver scrunching up his mouth like he was picking some dried beef from between his teeth except he wasn’t being mannerly, he was building a mouthful of spit to hurl at Gavin and The Tall Dark Stranger as he pushed on his handle and closed the doors.

  “Go back to your own country” shouted The Bus Driver as he stuck up his middle finger at the two men as the bus drove away.

  “Asshole” said Gavin.

  He didn’t so much say it as words did, drop from his tongue like a celebratory ribbon.

  “It’s ok” said The Tall Dark Stranger. “I’ll call a friend. She can come and pick us up. Do you have somewhere that you need to be?”

  Gavin shook his head. He had nowhere to go.

  “Good” said The Tall Dark Stranger, without a hint of conspiracy in his tone.

  When the car pulled up, Gavin’s vision was improving but not entirely. His mind was still clouded. His stomach felt pained and sore. He imagined that this was what exercise would be like and if that were true, what idiot would put themselves through such barberry?

  Gain sat in the back next to a beautiful girl whose hair was so incredibly straight. It amazed hi
m when he looked in her direction. There was not a fatigued line on her head whatsoever.

  “Hi, I’m المغرر, pleased to meet you.”

  She sounded so learned, her voice, aged and cultured so that it spoke like no girl he had ever heard before. But for the life of him, he would not be able to pronounce her name.

  “I’m Gavin” he said.

  He felt like an idiot.

  The rest of the ride, he said nothing. He would look in her direction and when he did, she would return his glance with a common smile and her eyes, they spoke like a philosopher’s tongue of a reason she had for every smirk and every contented smile.

  Gavin felt nervous.

  He had no idea what to say.

  So he looked away and then he looked back again and when she turned with her forgiving eyes and smiled at him, he quickly coiled his sight back to the head rest at his front and the nerves in his belly now were just as afflicting as the fire he had just expulsed.

  “Where are we going?” asked Gavin.

  The Beautiful Girl reached her hand over to his, sensing his concern.

  “Destiny” said The Tall Dark Stranger.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “What are these for exactly?”

  “They’re mood stabilizers. They’re supposed to iron out the creases in my head or something. I don’t know really. I wasn’t really listening. I didn’t think it mattered all that much.”

  “These are some serious drugs, they do some serious harm; could really fuck up your head. I think that matters, wouldn’t you?”

  The Tall Dark Stranger had turned and was looking through the gaps of the two front seats. He had the plastic container in his hands and its weak bond hardly fought back against the man’s crushing grasp, splintering the plastic into long shards.

  “You don’t need this rubbish. You’re not sick” he said.

  “Then what’s wrong with me?” asked Gavin.

  “Nothing. There’s nothing wrong with you Gavin. You’re healthy and deranged, just like everybody else.”

  “He said I was depressed. My mum thinks I’m crazy. My dad says I’m lazy and riding his coat tail. My brother says I’m like a child, not retarded, just that I never grew up, that I don’t take any of this seriously.”

  “Your brother is an idiot. Children and adults are peeled from the same fruit, it’s just the adult’s effect is worsened through age. The child is light and fanciful, his good and even his foul intentions are honest, sweet and springing. The adult is heavy and guiling; he will bottle your tears with his good intentions and when you thirst for remorse, will sell you salvation with a bitter, salted sting. The child is like the grape juice. His passing is in all occasions and will leave you only with the sting of buoyant youth on the cracks of your aging lips whereas the man, he is a bitter heavy wine, too much of his company and your stomach will turn, he will lead you into a begging attrition and he’ll mark you with an oasis of droughted and prolonged suffering. And worse yet, he’ll call that a good time.”

  Gavin stared out the window and watched the rows of houses zipping past and marveled at the graffiti tagged all over their walls. On the houses it was understandable that a couple of kids could climb up a wall and hang on for dear life as they sprayed roughly with their other hand. But one building had him in awe. It was maybe twenty stories. Its roof disappeared off into the low hanging fog and drizzle. And there was not a ladder or a holding of any kind for anyone to climb up to the heights that they had. In the furthest regions, up by the forming of clouds, were letters that were as strange as the words that he could not read, but that wasn’t as important as how those markings got there in the first place.

  “Do think anyone died tagging those walls?”

  They all looked to their left, following Gavin’s trance. Most were as still as he. Maybe they hadn’t paid much consideration before. Maybe they just didn’t know.

  “Would you understand their meaning better, if they had?” asked The Tall Dark Stranger.

  “I dunno. I don’t think it’s that important what they say.”

  “Is it something you would like to do?”

  “It’d be nice to be heard, you know?”

  “You know a baby’s first cry, when it’s born?” said The Tall Dark Stranger.

  They all nodded.

  “Everyone gets so relieved and they start to cry and you’ll never seem them really, as happy as they can be, outside of that moment. Not really happy, you know, like a string being wound from happiness and sadness that gets wound so it’s perfectly in tune. Anyway, the baby, it doesn’t really say anything. It just cries, but never in its life will it ever be as clear in its message as it was that moment. Cause its voice, its cry, its song, whatever; it was dressed against life and death.”

  “I want that” said Gavin.

  “You want to speak to the backdrop of death?”

  “I don’t wanna say anything. I’m not smart like that. I just wanna scream or shout or something. And I wanna be heard.”

  “I felt that once” said The Beautiful Girl. “My father, before he died, he apologised. It felt like you just described. He’d said it a thousand times before it’s just, knowing he was about to die, I guess it sounded more like I wanted it to hear.”

  “Why was he sorry” asked Gavin.

  “I can only imagine” said The Beautiful Girl.

  “And do you?’

  “What? Imagine? No. It would serve me no wellness to turn a thousand stones in search of an old man’s curse. If it was something that I had been a part of but for the headache of age, I cannot remember but unto which, under a spell of irony, I somehow found through my excoriating curiosity, what favour would an old forgotten apology serve me then? If in what I found - what truth I might have forgotten or never known – if that needless thing of which had him speak had my heart bleeding for an apology, what good could come from hearing one spoken in my own voice as my mind tried to form a memory? I would never be able to hear the apology as it was meant to be; shackled to the post of an old man’s deathbed. So no. I don’t imagine. But his apology was beautiful. It weighed as much as the hurt he must have done.”

  “And what would you say?” asked The Tall Dark Stranger.

  He was looking at Gavin unblinkingly through the mirror in his lowered visor.

  “I dunno. Stop; maybe.”

  “Stop what?”

  “Everything. I dunno. Everything that people do.”

  “People don’t do anything, not anymore” said The Beautiful Girl.

  “What do you mean?” asked Gavin.

  “Well, you look at the world we live in today. With this new technology, nobody is committed to anything anymore, not even to themselves. It’s like mankind is emancipated from itself, you know. And now with computers and this stupid digital fucking world, people are emancipated from their own conscious selves. Like with computers, people create an external self that they can consciously gauge and manipulate, mainly because they can’t work within their own. That’s why we have computers you know. Our own irrationality of our own selves had our fears inspire the development of a more logical an accessible version of ourselves. And now, with this digital world that is built around everyone’s new conscious selves, people don’t actually live anymore. As long as they are absorbed in their aborted consciousness, they don’t actually do anything. And everything is fleeting and momentary. Their beliefs, their grievances, their loves, their friendships, everything. The technology is so fast now that if you want something, you click a button and you receive it. So, you can almost get something at the exact second you desire it. Where is the work ethic? Where is the just reward, you know? Where I’m from, when you desire something, it becomes a treasure or some kind of a destination but you have to lay every brick along that path yourself and it takes time, no matter what the desire. It could be a new car, it could be a new CD, it could be fresh water or some salt, to lather on a bloodied carcass to keep the meat from spoiling, whatever. But you had to
work to earn your treasure and when you get it, when you reach your destination, your feet might be sore but your mind will be light and you’ll have accumulated no greater interest than the satisfaction of accomplishment. First deserve, then desire. But now, with these technologies, these people, they desire and they receive and if what they get is not even remotely close to their repugnant tastes then they are so quick to just abandon it and desire again and they act like they never wanted it in the first place. And it’s not just the things they consume; it’s the things they so call believe. They like this and they like that not for the arduous giving of their selves, but for the immediate reward and title that would come from having liked this or having liked that and they will call this activism, the passing of notes when one billions fools are folding their own and none of them opened and none of them are read, they just passed from hand to hand. They call themselves more humane because they observe life through a fractured lens on these social networks and through these news programs. I was in a car accident once, man years ago, on a highway not far from here. My car slid on some oil and hit against a wall. I think I slid across three or four lanes. I can’t remember too much. I do remember though the feeling that something was about to hit my car. I didn’t feel scared. My mind I guess knew what was happening and it gave me an overdose of endorphin so I felt completely relaxed. Everything washed out of my mind. Every thought and every fear. That’s what happens before you’re about to die, you find peace. And so a truck travelling behind be smashed into my car and sent it flying into three more in front of me who had stopped to help. Now the crash wasn’t so much as bad as having to see through the bonnet which was wrapped around my waist, the hours of traffic passing by my car at a snail’s pace, with their windows down, their mouths agape and their cellular phones filming my tragedy. I guess it gave them a glimpse of their own mortality. You know something interesting though?”

  Gavin shook his head, he didn’t know.

  “That section of road was renowned for accidents. My crash, as serious as it was, was just a passing incident, another tally of predictability. Interesting enough though, there was this sign, just beside where my car came to rest, untouched by the accident mind you, and it read ‘I Can’t Believe It’s Not Chicken – Next Exit’. I remember seeing that giant billboard. It was on a kind of slant because the car was on its side and my head was trapped between the handbrake and what was once a tachometer. Anyway, I had to squint, because of the blood that kept spilling from a cut in my head into my eye. But I remember thinking, ‘what is it?’ you know, if it’s not chicken. Anyway, when the fire rescue finally got me from the wreckage and put me in the ambulance, they were doing all this work pumping on my chest and shoving tubes down my nose and into my stomach but remember, clear as day, when we passed the next exit, there was a crappy little restaurant sitting on a hill at the off ramp and it was packed, cars beeping their horns and lining up all the way back onto the highway. And I wonder, if I hadn’t of crashed my car, whether all those people would have known about that place or not. It’s the only way you can get people’s attention these days, pour some oil on the road, cause a pileup and everyone will be trolling pat your message. Accidents, the news, whatever. People watch so that they can peer into another person’s sadness or tragedy so they can feel empathetic for a moment and then look at their children or their friends or their lovers with adoring and fragile eyes and remember why it is that they loved them to begin with. People get content so easy and just forget the things that it takes tragedy to remember. Life and love should always be treated as if it might wane, as if tomorrow it might never lie beside you again. You know, the only time that people think that way?”