Improper Tense

Whenever I leave the house I am convinced people are staring at me. Is it my body? Is it the way my mop of hair falls around my face? Is it my clothes? The way my jacket is torn at almost every seam and my trouser legs have been taken up too far, so that when I sit down people across the way can see the tops of my socks? When I have a beard I feel the eyes of middle-aged people boring into me with their eyes. Do they think I am a criminal? I am, but then so are they. I know it looks scruffy and I give the impression of a caveman, but without facial hair I feel my face is too long, my jugular too exposed.

As I sit at the bus stop join the man next to me in taking an interest in a fat little sparrow, her feathers still puffed up for winter. I often sit outside and let the birds wander around me, I dream of one deciding to land on me. We all know the shtick about how great it would be to fly like a bird, must I explain it? Wings would be nice but there is still something magical about flying in a plane. I get up and buy a large chocolate-chip cookie, it is soft, even though it is well prior it’s ‘best before’ date. I persevere but half way through I put it in the rubbish bin, an expensive sacrifice of the world’s war economy. While Americans worry about their sub-prime mortgages I worry about whether I’ll be able to afford noodles, flavoured noodles, or if I find a dollar on the ground, tinned soup for my next meal. I will not eat until tomorrow though, that cookie cost me two meals.

I have an essay due but it is hard to concentrate on why political parties campaign the way they do. I feel like opening my bible to Exodus, chapter seven and continue reading about Moses leading the Hebrews from Egypt, but the guilt and stress of delaying my work prevents me. I got fifty-four percent on my last essay. I cried. I cried for an hour. It was the lowest mark I’ve received and it felt greatly unfair. Winston Churchill said that he enjoyed the company of pigs when he was depressed because they look you in the eye, whereas a dog looks up to you, a cat down. I could only find a cat and a dog. All they wanted was food.

Instead I turn music on. LOUD, like the oncoming judgement of the wrathful and jealous LORD in Sodom and Gomorrah. Screeching yelps of synthesisers manipulated to their limits and drums smashing the beat of the angel’s menacing tread.

‘TURN THIS LANDSCAPE UPSIDE DOWN, AND LET IT BURN TO THE GROUND...’

Nothing. The Armageddon builds in my heavy head, the dark clouds are rolling in on a forceful breeze and my stomach feels crushed, a million burning suns are exploding within my body, from the middle to the outer reaches of my anatomical solar system.

‘...I FOUND SOMETHING IN A LIGHTNING STORM, WITH HEAVY RAIN AND THUNDER LIKE MELTING STORM, YEAH...’

‘I can’t, I can’t, I just CANT!’

I reach to my head and scream until my lungs want to give in, tufts of curly brown hair appear in my hands and I release them. Floating to the ground they are soft, brown feathers, tranquil against my agonising yells. My soul itself is in pain and my being begins to collapse in on itself, my consciousness ripped into its own black hole, feeling and memory dissipating into the dark pocket.

I fall to the ground and stare into space. Motionless. Unaware of time and space around me. I am an improper tense, out of place and out of time.