My Falling Down House

by Jayne Joso

  I will check them over more thoroughly when it is easier to see. I would like to get back to work on these as soon as possible. The mouse pedals the bicycle some more, and is truly overexcited. I take a breath. Really, this has lifted my spirit enormously, but I must keep myself steady. I take the candle, close the door, and leave the prototypes to rest.

  I put out the heater as I go for it is nicely warmed in here. I would like to lie down just now on this fresh new futon, pull the blankets close about me and sleep and sleep and sleep. But I cannot. Still, my poor body and that too new bed, we do not fit. I will climb the stairs and lay again in my kimono bed. I have made it my nest, and like a dog I turn and turn until I find the perfect spot, until I am warm and covered over, until my rough bones are cushioned against the floor. A man like a dog. But it suits me well enough.

  If I wake I will listen out for my friend downstairs. And something nice occurs to me just now. That if the shapeshifter finds the need, it might make use itself of the futon and the blankets. I hope it would. Perhaps I should have left a note down there. Can they read? Perhaps it will sense my presence in my usual place, and realising that I am perfectly content this way, will happily take up the fresh new bed without permission or enquiry. I hope so.

  Well, I still cannot truly answer for the arrival of all those new things. But since no one has come to make a claim on them, I see no reason why we shouldn’t make use of them.

  I have laid myself down, and suddenly I ache, every single part of me, and in a terrifying way. What is it? Pains shoot through my flesh and bones as though I am being spiked beneath some great machine or laid upon a bed of nails. My body is stiff, and in some involuntary action I have thrown off the robes, I cannot move, and there is no way to retrieve them. I am so cold. Stricken with something. I don’t know what this is... I have tried to call out, but there is no sound in me.

  There is snow outside the window, falling.

  7.

  There is a blanket over me. I do not recognise it. It is soft and light. But now, as I move, I find it heavy. I hold still as thoughts run ahead of me as though viewed on a screen. The screen is suddenly blank, it seems I have shut my eyes but I touch the lids and my eyes are open. It is my mind then that closes. I know that this has happened before, and when it does everything seems lost. You are presented with a very particular darkness, and plummet as though down a deep and empty shaft. And each time it happens you feel so very afraid. Of everything.

  It lifts momentarily, and I can’t measure how long the episodes last, but when they come I am so filled with terror that even the most fragmentary exposure feels like some protracted sentence. As though a criminal left in a cell without light or windows I wonder has it been moments this way or days?

  I try again to move. No good. I try to focus on a single easy thought. But now I cannot find words. Cannot find the right words. I feel them scatter, then they are gone altogether. I don’t know if I have lost them and perhaps later I will recover them or if they have left me altogether. More and more I feel words edge away from me, gaining confidence as they go. A troupe, travellers, a line across a sand horizon, and they look back but briefly over their shoulders to bid me goodbye. I can see them, in the distance, and how they chatter as they leave. I hope they come back soon.

  I lie here, a scraggy bird with broken wings. I move my lips as though to speak but nothing whatever can he beard. The house creaks, and so I am sure that still I have my hearing. I have the fear that this house will yet lose its might and tumble down on me. And truly, I could not call for help, I cannot speak at all. Perhaps it does not matter. In any case, this house seems to have survived so much already, it must remain.

  I can barely remember the last time I spoke with anyone. Not even who it might have been. And if someone was here I would not have anything important to say. Is that why the words have gathered themselves and taken themselves away? Perhaps sensing they’re not needed? What a sorry situation. Well, I do not have to care.

  I am glad of the blanket. I expect it was the shapeshifter that brought it here. It might have been Lightfoot, but my instincts tell me not. That he is light on his feet suggests merely that he is not easily heard, it tells you nothing of his character, and I see no reason to attribute him any great acts of care. He is a monk, of course. But so what? It does not make every kindness his. I’m not so naive to think that being a monk makes a man a good man. I am a good man, am I not? Or at least, not a bad man, or not a very bad man, and certainly not a man with bad intentions, and I am no monk. I am just an ordinary man. Very ordinary. That’s all.

  I drive myself insane this way. What goes on? First the fear that words desert me, that I will be left here an empty man, just a skin, paper thin on brittle bones, a mind entirely lost, no organised or intelligible thoughts to be found; and then, in a flash, I feel besieged by words that form themselves into thoughts that cause me nothing but trouble. Torment. Most of them nonsense.

  If I could calm myself, if I could eat well again. Have I been fed? I don’t remember. Perhaps by now I should keep note, yes, I should write it down since I clearly can’t recall. That’s the only way to have routine. I have checked beside me, but there’s no food and I can barely move. I’m afraid to sleep or even close my eyes too long for fear this terror will trap me in dreams once more. To alleviate this I have been staring, hard as I can. The eyes must not succumb to the downward motion of the lids or they will soon give in to the slip, slip into sleep, a terrifying sleep, and I cannot take more nightmares.

  The long staring causes muscle pain about the eyes. I bear it. But still I wish my bones did not feel this way, so heavy, as though in chains held to the ground. Truly, if all I can do just now is lie here then I will need to empty my head. In fact, rather than worrying myself that words are leaving me I must in fact encourage them to go! I must tip up my mind as though a water jug and empty it completely.

  If only I could stand again upon my head. I think that might help. But my limbs are dead weights. I cannot raise a hand. I was so proud of the planting. But again and again I have to push out these sorrowful thoughts.

  If I cannot empty my head as swiftly and efficiently as I would like, then perhaps if I allow the thoughts to become sufficiently trivial then they might simply trickle away.

  I think again of Lightfoot. It could be him that helps me with food and supplies. I know it. But I cannot bear the thought that it is him. I have seen how he parades about in his elegant robes, with his twinkly eyes, and his neatly shaven head, so handsome that way, and I, so ugly ... serene is truly how he is best described, so serene that I cannot stand him. Why should he have the sort of head that looks handsome when it is so closely shaven? Why should his forehead be so broad and tall as though to suggest to the world some great intelligence deep within, some inherent wisdom; some ferocious, though seemingly subtle, charisma? I am not sure that any of these things are appropriate traits for a monk to display. They seem manipulative, filled with vanity. I admit that my original reasons for disliking him were entirely irrational, but now it is clear that I should neither like nor admire the man. He’s a fake, an imposter, a phoney. It might even be the case that I am more naturally suited to his role.

  It seems no food is left here in the past long while.

  There is no one here.

  I can smell the snow in the air as it moves there outside.

  8.

  Finally, I have edged my way over to the top of the steps, I see the futon and the blankets. The futon still not slept upon. The heater, off. A breeze moves up here and with it the delicate scent again of fresh sweet snow. It tickles. My heart swells, a tear warms my cheek – I would snowboard and ski when I was younger. Living close to the mountains it was easy, and the older guys would laugh at the Tokyoites paying tons of cash to go there and do the same, strutting about in their cool shades and bright gear. But I wanted to be like them. I wanted to live in Tokyo and take those short breaks up in the mountains. I envied their image: so cool
, and the pace: the faster and faster living … I wanted urban life so much, I hungered for it, every single thing about it. And then I became them.

  Back in my hometown I always knew if the snow was coming from the scent in the air. My Tokyo co-workers laughed when I told them that I could sense and smell the snow, they found it pretentious, and thought me too much the ‘country boy’ just as Yumi’s father did. It doesn’t matter. I can smell snow when it comes, that’s all.

  It feels so strange lying on my too-thin belly here, peering over the steps and down to the floor below. I had hoped to find the futon slept upon, the blankets left messily, a sure sign of a happy sleep and someone having woken hurriedly to go about their day. And perhaps I hoped to witness someone or something still there, maybe the shapeshifter deep in slumber. At some stages I am sure it has adopted some feline form, its slick and agile movements seem to suggest something like that, entering by that long slim window, resting on the shelf. And I thought it could relax more with the comfort of the futon, but it could be shy I suppose, or too polite? And perhaps they do not rest. Their lives ever shifting, maintaining a state of high alert, ready to shape-shift at a moment’s notice, to escape danger, to move swiftly in whatever task they have in mind. But truly, I feel so disappointed to see the pure white surface there, a bed not slept upon. I am so terribly lonely. I would so like to have a guest, no, I would LOVE to have a guest, a friend come to stay. Well, it seems I dragged myself over here, and for what? I grazed my belly on the way, and now I cannot get back and lack the strength even to turn myself over! If I could just ... turn over!

  I feel the framework of a memory, someone turning me, perhaps rolling me, onto my back, then losing consciousness, waking, finding that I lie upon my nest again. I am made to sip something.

  I am in a room inside a very large house, a new house, made of fresh pale wood. I can smell it. The sliding doors move and close in on me in a snap. I grow afraid. I feel myself pull back and they push open and wide again and the scene behind them changes. Summer. The doors open up to gardens. Gardens I have never seen. The sun beats down on me and warms my face. I am myself again. A self I recognise. My hair is thick and glossy, my skin is smooth and warm and brown as though I have been out in the sunlight for many days. My nose is shiny, it tickles. I am wearing a white robe, thin like paper, fine like silk. My heart beats at a happy rhythm, a contented mouse, the bicycle running well. It starts to rain and I am thrust inside again, the doors move in and out making a slapping sound as they meet. It startles me. The wheels run on alone.

  The frames of the doors are dark now, the house is an old house, it all closes in and I cannot fathom the dimensions. I am sitting at a desk trying to calculate the space I occupy, the space I need, the smallest space I could take up, for the sense I have is that I take up too much space, that I have no right to stay, that I cannot reason or negotiate this, and finally – that I have no right to occupy even this small area, that I have no right to occupy any space at all.

  9.

  Semi-conscious, I have found my head tilted towards a bowl of something warm and sating, I lay back again, and then I take some more, and each time my head has been supported by a hand that is not mine. And I have, at other times, felt my head caressed again and by the same hand. Sometimes I sensed a familiar smell, not the food this time, but something else entirely, the smell of another human being. I feel that I recognise their smell but cannot place it. I also know that this is not possible. No one knows me, or knows where I am. A tear slips across my cheek. Someone smooths it away. The scent comes again and is accompanied by a voice that makes a warm shushing sound, the kind that people make for babies when they wish gently to encourage them to sleep. It has a soothing effect. I cannot move, I cannot see anyone, but I sense it is a woman’s hand that touches my face. Or perhaps I simply wish it so.

  I must have slept or passed out again, I cannot tell. Perhaps it is overstating it to say that I am passing out, but that is how it feels. I re-emerge and each time it is a sweet reprieve from terrifying darkness. Then, too soon my weighty eyelids draw down on me and form the doors to some ancient fetid jail. I can remember at least that this has not always been the case. I am aware that I do not normally think about my eyelids nor any other part of me so often. I realise now that the body makes itself known most boldly when it is in distress. I am forgetting, of course, the case of vanity, for we also consider our bodies overmuch in moments such as those, but that might also be categorised as sickness. How could I worry so long and so deeply at the loss of my hair? A man does not die from this. He does not feel pain, and any discomfort really is minor, not much more than the chill of colder weather (for I am conscious of how much warmer my head was during the winter months when I had hair). Aside from all of this, Lightfoot even manages to make baldness a fine and handsome look. What a pitiable man I am, so long troubled by such a trivial happening. I have indulged this. We have no great need of hair; it is hardly like losing a limb or your eyes. And at times I might have dashed out my own eyes to dismiss the terror they have seen.

  That soothing sound comes again, and the hand upon my head. I wonder if I have been shouting out in pain, for at times the pain is at the level of insanity. I cannot tell if I call out. Still I cannot monitor myself in the normal, automatic way. I hear my voice and think it exists only in my head, but perhaps it is audible. If someone heard, it could unsettle them enormously. The ramblings of the mad.

  The gentle shushing plays on. It feels like the edges of waves and they lap over me. I feel drawn to notice the sound, to give in and quiet myself.

  Quiet.

  Slow, slow.

  Quiet.

  A hand upon my head.

  Though I had pushed against the sense of containment and limitation imposed by time, I notice the rising sun, the night as it falls and I find comfort in them now. I place them in my mind alongside the small activity that happens here and feel I can begin to measure out stretches of time and become aware of myself beside it. It seems to allow me a place, it makes me exist as though I am in relation to it, as though an aspect of a plan, a scheme, a point on a grid, and it gives me a sense that I am real, for when you are too long alone and away from the world you slip into wondering, between moments – sometimes just ‘flashes’ – of clarity, whether you exist at all. To dissuade yourself of thoughts as terrifying as this, you have to find a way of placing yourself in this world; and time, however ugly, however filthy to the touch, and odorous, is useful in this.

  In the last days, I have noted things in greater detail and held them in my mind, and I believe I have done this for longer and longer periods. It is hard to be certain, but I notice a shift. It seems that at the same time each morning my head is carefully lifted and I am eased awake – and I have been caused to wonder if I would wake at all were it not for this gentle encouragement. When I am woken I feel a clean, damp cloth moved with care about my face. I cannot express just how tenderly this is done, but when it is over I feel as though my skin is new. It is a fresh and alive kind of feeling as though I am a turtle hatching into the world, the shell that very moment broken through.

  The stickiness about my eyes, which lasted such a very long time and must have been an infection, has now quite gone. The surrounding eye muscles no longer ache and that is also a relief. I am given water once my head is raised. I lap like a kitten, and though someone must see this I have the sense that no one sees, and so am quite at ease. I am given food, in small amounts, of various kinds, always soft and easy to take. And in between each careful action, again and again my head is held or stroked or covered by a cloth. I imagine the cloth is placed there for warmth, to keep off the worst of the winter chill, and it works quite well. I have a rich feeling of gladness at those moments, and once I have finished eating I drift easily back, often now, to a gentler kind of sleep.

  At other times I become aware that I am being washed more thoroughly. I notice this especially when it is the turn of my feet because they tickle.
The rest of my body seems not to respond in any normal way to touch, in fact I barely notice any sensation, but I suppose whilst being cared for this is a preferable state. And I cannot express how much I appreciate being clean. Really, you can only know what a luxury this can truly be when you have lain in your own sweat and grime for days and nights too long to count. If you add on whatever vile elements a body must emit when it is deeply sick, you might half imagine that it is the most cherishable state to find your body clean once more. It restores a modicum of self-worth, of pride, and it removes you from a darker place.

  And so, with some degree of regularity, I find myself turned onto my side, then to the centre again of my nest and laid on my back, and then after some moments rolled to the other side. This seems to take place on two occasions. In the first case it is to wash me, and in the second it is to change the cloth beneath me. By now I no longer rest upon the robes but on some layering of cotton sheets. They lack the warmth of the silk, but it’s no good to sacrifice fine robes just to make a bed for a sick man. I am gently patted dry, wrapped in a cotton robe, and finally covered over with blankets. There is even the hint just recently of some minor communication, and I am aware of myself emitting a kind of mellow grunting sound, sometimes with the intention of expressing that I am content and grateful, and at other times in a somewhat weak grumble (though I certainly do not mean to complain), but as though to indicate that an extra blanket would be welcome just now. I don’t know why, but I am unable to speak in a way that I wish, in a way that is normal. Nicer words sometimes form in my mind but I fear there is a disconnection still; and I also fear I may cry out or ramble when I have not granted words permission. But I do not know for sure if this occurs, I simply sense an imprint, a shadow, so to speak, of words uttered that I did not intend. But I am guessing that I have not truly caused offence, for the one who tends me returns and makes no complaint of me.