by Jayne Joso
I feel safe up here. And I will take things steadily, not push too hard, but let my body benefit from the fresh food left here and allow it time to nourish me and make me strong again. And it is clear that I must set to eating in a pattern, with some consistency. It is surely the lack of this which often torments my mind. My thoughts always rush on when I have eaten, too great a contrast with the long spells without any food at all. Inconsistency becomes the order of things. My mood soars only to plummet soon after and then I struggle again to dig my way out. So, if I can finally overcome these erratic eating sprees, that might be for the best. It is wonderful, finally I have true supplies.
I cannot sleep, I will go downstairs and set about filling the heater. How difficult can that be? It is only a heater after all. It cannot beat me.
Since the arrival of all the goods down there it is my hope that if I try to behave as other people do, normal people, people in houses, that if I mimic them, and the rhythms of ordinary daily life, then perhaps I will begin to feel a little more like them, indeed, appear, more like them. For that is the aim. To re-join the normal run of things. I shiver.
The steps creak as I press on them. My mind flitting again, here, there. Too much thinking and suddenly I don’t know what I am about or what I am doing. I cannot shake it. I came down here with a purpose, now it is lost. I touch my head, but it will not yield ... will not deliver whatever was my aim just now. At first there is the casual thought, it wanders in and settles as though it is nothing more than a polite visitor, but then it starts to fidget, to wander about, it makes itself too familiar, it behaves too roughly, and before long it’s out of control, spawning other thoughts, smashing about the place, challenging, rebelling, forcing things up and out, unsettling my world.
I take myself upstairs again unsure of what I had wanted, surely nothing important. But I grow so very cold. Activity, that is what is lacking! Before the storm I was busy with the prototypes and planning, since then there has been a great deal of disruption and I am yet to settle back to my happy routine. The work on the paper boxes had a good effect. Repeatedly I came up against the most ferocious problems, but it was truly a joy to fathom them out. My fingers quickly grew stiff and how they would ache after too much careful work, but this is the pain of the craftsman, for I am by now at least something of a craftsman. Surely? And so such pain is almost a pleasure to endure. I make it sound romantic? Well, so it is. So it is! And a man must be busy.
I did not check before but it occurs to me that I did not notice the thin paper prototypes anywhere downstairs. The bulk of the practice cardboard, yes, that was truly destroyed, but I did not see even the remains of the paper ones and their bamboo struts… I can’t remember exactly what else I threw out along with the tatami, the capacity of my short-term memory shifts still by extremes. But how have I not looked for the little paper houses before now? I remember at least that I was sorely upset by the damage to the coding and box material, so perhaps I did throw them out. Without a thought. Some automatic action. The failed precursors. I suppose it would not matter so much if that is what I have done, I am largely resigned to starting afresh. But even so ... it would have been useful to study them, even damaged. Oh it troubles me now, for this project has become so important to me. I suppose, secretly, I have always held the desire to make something, to create something, to make of my life something useful. A young guy cannot just endlessly wave his hair about expecting to be admired his whole life through. Nice as it is, there is a limit to such activity. Really, I had no idea how important my hair was, no idea at all. What a big part it has played in my sense of who I am, in my sense of what it is that matters. But it was such an easy thing, a manifestation and statement of youth. It took no effort and afforded me great attention from childhood to manhood. So easy. Much too easy. Well, it’s gone now, and my job has gone. The handsome salaryman. That time has gone. But what remains is my ambition. An ambition for life. For I believe (though current appearances may try to contradict), that my life is on my side. My aunt taught me that. Always to believe that life is on your side. I cannot say that I grappled with this idea in any deeply philosophical way, I did not. I was not a thinking guy. And I am glad of that. I simply took the words to my heart and treasured them. I knew my aunt’s words would be true. Enough, or too much sentiment will seep in and surely weaken me again.
I have ambitions. Box dwelling ambitions. Wonderful box dwellings, useful places of shelter for times when a person is ejected from society, or when the weather and nature challenge people in ways it’s hardly possible to conceive. With that in mind I must try to find the prototypes, the paper ones. You cannot simply abandon part of the process and, if nothing more, they will be impetus for improvement!
4.
A smell rises from the floor below. An aroma. Cooking, and not by me. And it rises from a dish that must surely be delicious. I take the steps with caution and pause at the bottom. Someone is here.
I need to think, and time to breathe. I have slipped into a shadow beneath the stairs. I make myself ridiculous. But whilst I accept that those who made the delivery of goods are most likely to be people with kind hearts who bear me no malice, it is just still possible that they do not know of my existence, and if I am discovered it could easily mean trouble. I have been happy to assume that these things were left here for my use, but why? They may well have been put here for someone else. Someone yet to arrive. That makes more sense. And are they here now? Just arrived! It could be that someone comes to stay here, and to facilitate this, provisions have been left in readiness. In preparation. And so, is it them I hear just now?
Sounds. There is certainly someone in the next room. What an idiot to have allowed myself to think of this place as mine. Always delusion. A sign of insanity? If nothing more, then a further sign of my being here too long.
I realise I still cannot readily gauge things well, cannot draw clear lines or markers, cannot reliably peg, divide, isolate, cannot know, the real from the phantom; but then at other times I have experienced great clarity of thought, I have been certain of things. Certain I was recovering. But was I right? Could my conviction about clear-sighted moments also be flawed? Are there simply degrees of hallucination, dreaming, imagining, wrong seeing? Perception might be something that is always negotiated, recalibrated; its provocations carefully noticed if you are able, moderated where necessary, where possible. Where possible…?
There is movement in the next room. My heart beats fast. Knowing the rightful person is here intensifies the fact that I have no right to be here at all. Vile perspiration hot on my skin. The salt from the sweat, in my eyes now. Outstaying my welcome? There was no welcome! You were not welcome to stay here! You had no right! I wipe my eyes. My legs tremble. What I am doing here?
Something just happened. Noises through there. Other noises. They are aware of my presence? They know I am near. I have sucked in my breath so tightly but this is a mistake for when I breathe out I will surely make some deadly sound, gagging for air.
I don’t know if I said those words aloud. I have put my hand over my mouth to prevent more. It is a strange sensation, as though the hand is not mine. As though I disassemble. Like a puppet, all sticks and cloth. Or perhaps the hand is really someone else’s. But there is no one by me. The hand is mine. Tears fall, they settle like glass drops upon my fingertips and slip around my hand. And now a greater sound comes. Scratching and dragging; and now creaking. The small window through there as it opens. I know that sound from before. I want to look, and my heart beats so fast as though it might implode. I never think of my heart, never perceive it to be a fist-shaped chunk of flesh inside my chest – but now I see it. But not as a fist. Not as a bodily organ. Just a small, thin and hungry mouse upon a bicycle, an old and rusty bicycle, and the mouse is pedalling as hard as it can, only just now it makes little progress. In my mind’s eye I see nothing more than a mouse. Come on, I say to it, keep going, I try to encourage it, but it seems so tired. Quite worn out. The soun
ds drift away. I hold still.
Now a scuffling sound. I keep myself still. And silence. I wait some time. Nothing more just now. I feel certain I am alone again. I tread carefully and push the door. No one. But the row of vegetables has been disturbed and there is a pot on the stove, tantalising steam rises.
I creak the window to check the sound again. There is no other way out of this room save for the one door and no one passed me. I cannot say for sure, but now I more fully sense it was the shapeshifter. It must have been. There was certainly no person in here. Whatever it was left through that window, and it would not readily admit a person, except perhaps a child, and this was surely not a child? It could have been an animal, but that does not explain the cooking. It has to have been the shapeshifter, taking on first the body and movements of an animal that might easily enter this place, then assuming human form once in here. But still I can say nothing with certainty.
It has been both benign and illusive, for I would have expected to notice patterns emerging even without much conscious effort. Most things are creatures of habit, and routine comes no matter how hard you resist. Perhaps that begins to happen just now. For isn’t there an overlap between my suspicions of the shapeshifter’s presence and the arrival of food? Savoury dishes that I cannot easily identify but which always offer up the most appetising smell? It seems there may be some crossover. Pure hypothesis for the moment for the incidents with the food are surely too few to draw conclusions from: the first was ramen which I know perfectly well, but at other times the food has been far more rich and spicy. Is it possible that the same being brought a very common dish and at other times more exotic food? Could be. It is also true that though the ramen was placed down here and seems less obviously to have been brought for me, the tastier food was most definitely positioned close by upstairs while I slept and can surely only have been left for me. What to make of it? Was the ramen intended for someone else? No one arrived and complained, and yet the empty bowl was removed. I can’t find good answers, but my interest is piqued. And so, what next? I am drawn to the stove, but the food doesn’t seem quite ready and I’ve disturbed things here. Did I frighten the shapeshifter? I have too often felt a paralysing fear since my exit from society. I can’t bear to think I have induced fear in someone else, but I can’t fix this just now. I’ll turn off the stove for safety and leave the ingredients where they lie. If I withdraw, the shapeshifter might return. I will leave the window as I found it. And there is nothing more to be done in here. I must deal with the heater and search for the prototypes. Although, better not to do that right now, the sound might keep my friend away. I should go quietly upstairs and busy myself there. Or simply rest and make no sounds, then it can return and feel unchallenged. I will check again and see if it has been here when night falls. Darkness eases things, collapses the space, renders it neutral. And I like the quiet of the dark. Without limits. Space without walls.
5.
I have tried to spy on the visitor, but still I have not seen a soul. And the activity inside the kitchen has been cleared right away. Up and down the steps I have travelled numerous times and over some days by now, but nothing. I begin to wonder, in slender lucid moments whether the shapeshifter is in fact invisible, for never do I see it! Or does it drug me? There is again the residue of something that has crossed my palate, and still I cannot name it. I sleep so long, and it makes no sense to me. Close to drunkenness, my head heavy, thoughts in some altered state. And then there is the matter of my belly, warm and full. Can a man be so exhausted just from eating? And it seems, I have been eating ... eating and eating. Dishes arrive and are removed. But I see no one. How to explain this?
And despite good food and rest my limbs feel heavy, weighted down. At times they shake, or tingle, or else there is a loss of sensation. Several times I have fallen down the stairs. I have passed out, then found myself stricken – a kind of demented confusion. Nothing seems to cure me. It has really been a very long time by now, hasn’t it? Since I entered this place? And also some good while since the planting?
And there are other strange happenings here. I notice the warmth rising from downstairs. I go downstairs to turn off the heater for safety only to find this already done. I cannot lift the kerosene canister to top it up, but this also happens without me. I notice the gauge, half full, then full. The life around me takes on an automatic quality. I eat and rest, but ultimately I question less. What use? What need? Nothing bad happens. I take the steps back upstairs, curl into a ball and sleep. I think of Cello. I have not seen Cat. I descend again. Heat on or off. And then return once more to my kimono bed.
In a moment of stillness, I try to settle and accept the time it takes to get well. And though I do not see the shapeshifter, in some half-conscious state I sometimes sense its presence and have grown to feel quite comfortable with this, and its clever, almost silent activities, its agile moves, its ability to morph into whatever shapes it makes and remove itself in just the nick of time.
By now it no longer unnerves me to find things altered or moved about, the leaving of meals and the removal of empty dishes. If I hear the shapeshifter’s sound it is always one that is withdrawing, fading, and I, again, halfway to sleeping. The visitor, it seems, aware of my rhythms; and I, untroubled by theirs.
The door to the shapeshifter’s room remains closed, but I leave it that way. I am full of contradiction. I want to find the shapeshifter, to see it, to introduce myself perhaps, and yet, while all is well, and still I am rather weak, I see the sense in letting it be. Am I a fool? But I know what anxiety is caused when you fear you might not be alone, or are about to be found out, that trouble might come, and so I will endeavour to let it alone, as though I am here, but quite as though I am not here. That a certain atmosphere of calm prevails. Lightfoot does not have a monopoly on serenity. He can make that temple and gardens as tranquil as he likes, but wait and see if I cannot achieve the same in here.
6.
The house sways and moans, still smarting from the typhoon. I might have been swallowed by a whale the sounds it makes, and around me, waves of darkness. Sometimes the noises soften, and House seems to murmur, satisfied, as though she too has eaten something warm.
Well, I have missed my work a very great deal, and though I fear the loss of the paper prototypes, it is time to know, time to see if I might find them. If they are anywhere, they are in a room downstairs.
As I enter each space, I am made to feel a stranger here. I become the trespasser once more. It is darker than I expected, I don’t seem to know this space. The dimensions were not these, were they? It must be right, it was always like this, I suppose, or I confuse this room just now with another?
This door creaks so fearfully, you might expect the ceiling to fall in. Straw and clay fragments give way. I had better go about my search with great care.
Moving, as I have, between just a few particular spaces I have mostly felt that I am in a much smaller house (though I know full well that it is large), and it seems that in doing so I have reduced the place to a size and atmosphere that has suited me rather well. The rooms I have occupied have been my friends, and these other rooms seem alien to me. Mere acquaintances, and we are yet to know one another in any useful sense. Naturally I have entered these other rooms at least once before in order to check what was there and to be certain I was alone, but I have generally withdrawn again. What would be the point in spreading myself out? I am just one man. I need to wash and eat, to rest and work. And I have come to think it is just an extravagance to take up more space than is necessary.
In a room by myself, I might only be temporarily alone – for it’s as though someone might join me at any moment – but in moving from room to room to room there is clear evidence that there is no one here but me. Not a good feeling for such a protracted length of time. Better that I focus on the task, mindful of the fragile timbers here. The ground has experienced some minor quakes lately, but so far House only rumbles and growls.
I check
another room now. This so utterly dark, a solid darkness, and my eyes grown tired, I had better bring a candle.
I return, and my eyes settle now upon a canopy of fine white lines, the candlelight catching them, a map, a weaving, of linked edges; and pale, quivering panes of frost-like paper. The prototypes. They’re here…
It is fair to say my heart is dancing. The small mouse has stepped off the bicycle. The wheels spin by themselves awhile, the mouse takes a bow.
I must be careful with the candle, and for once I wish that time would play a useful part and that daylight would come that I might see them much more clearly. I did not leave them here. I check back inside my mind, I don’t recall this move. I stored the boxes away, and Cello, and much later, after the typhoon, I know and can remember that I moved the tatami and only the tatami outside. But I did not move these.
They seem to have been arranged. They have been given a kind of creative ordering, a scheme has been imposed. It’s not my work. Placed so carefully like this, the little prototypes have the appearance of something most impressive, perhaps a sculpture. What a thing. By candlelight, the panes are lit in places, and the light then runs along the edges, as though a continuous outline. No, I did not do this. I did not arrange them in this clever way. Not even for a moment would I entertain the idea that this is something I had assembled in my sleep or in some fitful moment when I have been unwell, perhaps out of my mind from hunger. Not at all. I would know if this was my work. It belongs to someone else.
The mouse pirouettes just now as though he is accomplished in ballet. I have put my hand to my chest to calm him or quickly he will find himself completely tired out.
What a wonderful thing. The precursors presented here in all their glory. What resilience they have shown. And how cool they look. Someone saved these little works of mine and then arranged them so. An act of care. I am baffled that they were not considered rubbish. Well, they are found. They are found, and soon the new work can begin.
