SFFH: Article
I woke up to an empty wardrobe. It made no sense. The first thing
I noticed when I got out of bed was the fact that I didn’t have
on my paisley pattern pyjamas. I’ve always been a pyjama man.
To sleep naked in a bed is utterly abhorrent to me–to sleep in
a bed without sheets or quilts, well... I opened the wardrobe
and it was empty. I didn’t have a lover or wife who’d cleared
my wardrobe out. It wasn’t that. There was just an empty wardrobe.
Hangers at odd angles. I was stood naked in my bedroom. It freaked
me out that there was no fabric at all in my apartment, neither
curtains nor towels–there wasn’t even any carpet on the floor.
I was suddenly gripped by a total panic.
I looked out the bedroom window. I didn’t need to whip the curtains
open, they were gone already. I have a ground floor flat. The
street was empty. Then I noticed something so strange, I couldn’t
at first believe it. An old woman with a cane. I knew the woman.
I’d seen her in shops or on the arcade but never like this. She
was stark naked, hunched over her cane. Her face was made up as
usual, too much foundation and the rest of it. Her wrinkled flabby
nakedness rattled and wobbled. Long flat pendulous breasts. A
soft white trembling ring of fat round her midriff. Skinny behind
trailing sack of dead grey dimpled flesh, sparrow legs. Swollen
ankles and feet. You could see the lumbago in her big toes.
I realised my heart was thumping like mad in my chest. The phone
rang and I shouted out loud. It was my boss reminding me about
our meeting today. The Japanese representatives were on their
way. It was a very important meeting. He didn’t threaten me with
disciplinary action if I missed it, but he might as well. He made
his point really clear. I wasn’t to miss this meeting for love
nor money. I took a shower, a long shower. I just stood there
taking the hot sting. I turned up the shower to as high as I could
take it. Gritting my teeth. Then I turned it to icy cold.
Hoping that would wake me up from the obvious dream I was having.
My wardrobe was still empty once I’d dried myself. I was still
naked. There was only one thing for it. I took out my last ever pack of cigarettes. It had been six years since I’d last had
a smoke. I’d officially given up. In truth this wasn’t my last
ever pack of cigarettes. In that last six years, I’d bought maybe
twelve, thirteen packs of cigarettes and smoked the lot. It hurts
to admit you’ve fallen off the cancer wagon but that’s what happens
in real life. Nobody can be a good boy and just pack them in.
You really love cigarettes. You really have not only a serious
nicotine habit, you also have a serious suck habit. There were
three left in this latest pack. I took one out and lit up. It
tasted gorgeous. As usual.
I shaved my chin, combed my hair and brushed my teeth. I sprayed
deodorant under my arms. I even decided to spray deodorant under
my crotch. I stood there in the bathroom, looking at my podgy
reflection. I looked at my hairy chest. I looked at my fat gut.
I looked at my generally unfit body, my hairy legs naked at the
top naked at the knees. That’s what people were gonna see when
I finally left the house. How could I actually leave the house
naked like this? My cell phone bleeped a CrazyFrog-like jingle
(why did I download that ringtone?). The day was getting more
and more ironic. It was my boss. I lied and told my boss I was
on my way, told my boss I had my reports, told my boss I wouldn’t
let him down today. Told my boss that he could trust me. Told
my boss this would be our big day.
“The Japanese are gonna roast us alive if we get this wrong, Taylor!”
that’s the speech I had in my head as I reached for the deadlock.
That’s what my boss said before hanging up. I stood there with
my hand on the deadlock, unable to turn it and exit the apartment.
I looked at myself in the small mirror there by the front door.
I looked okay from the throat up, very presentable. How could
we fail to impress the financiers? I turned the door handle and
the gust of cold air swept across my naked flesh causing my nipples
and penis to tighten to sudden erection. I gasped and tried to
control my breathing. But I hyperventilated for a full minute
on the doorstep unable to cross the threshold.
A young neighbour raced past me glancing at her feminine gold
wristwatch, she also looked late for her commuter run. She had
her car keys in one hand and a small attaché case in the other.
I could see her body that had been pampered in many a gym in its
twenty years. She was a delight to the eye, no doubting about
it. I stuck my head out the door and watched her wiggle off down
the walkway to the stairs down which she disappeared.
That first step. It was very weird. I was expecting the black
tarmac of the walkway to feel really cold under my bare foot but
it wasn’t. It was like I had on my shoes and socks but I didn’t
physically have them on; I wasn’t physically dressed when I took
that long walk to the car. There was just not one single thing
about this crazy morning that was making sense. I had my car keys,
reports and sheets of figures in a small brown leather satchel
on my back.
Sat in the car, driving naked to work I nearly crashed three times.
I couldn’t concentrate on the simple task of getting to work.
Everyone was naked this morning. Mothers with their children.
Fathers with their work colleagues. Grannies, granddads. Policemen.
Doctors. Bus drivers. Lollipop ladies outside of school. The thought
of that meeting filled me with such utter dread. I simply couldn’t
drive to work. I couldn’t follow the route I knew like the back
of my hand. I stopped into a petrol station and hesitantly got
out of the car to make sure she was full of petrol. I needed something
to drink. I couldn’t even think straight.
The car was nearly empty. I filled it up while other naked customers
came and went. No one batted an eyelid. It was like the world
had woken up naked and nobody cared one jot.
“Hi, there,” said the young girl on the till. I looked directly
at her small pale nipples. The mole on her chest up there on the
left near her clavicle. I noticed she had a navel piercing. She
handed me my change and wished me a fond farewell. Maybe everybody
looks at her breasts like that. I didn’t even exist, she was already
serving the next naked person behind me as I exited the shop.
The meeting went well. The Japanese financiers were all sat there,
naked. It was strange how the nakedness of everyone around the
table made it easier to gauge reaction and alter the presentation
accordingly. It’s like today there would be no hidden agendas.
The Japanese were buoyant and the presentation was well received.
My naked boss gripped hold of me like I’d never known him to.
“We have done a good job, today, Ted,” my boss used my forename
for the first time since I came to work here later in the pub.
We all got drunk, the Japanese and our company. But that was last
night.
* * * * * * *
But eventually it was the next day. I woke up in a sheet-smear
of blood. It was worse than the day before. Yesterday’s nakedness
seemed like a luxury compared to today’s insanity. I lay in bed,
the mattress brown and metal smelling. I had been stripped back
another layer. But not just the skin. The bones too. Every nerve
was still firing. I could see the electrical impulses flowing
through the nervous system. I could see the blood pumping from
my heart. The way the lungs glowed when the air went in, the blood
warmed, and the cooling exhaust gases. My mind had split–I just
knew it. My mind had been broken by the stress of the previous
day and I had gone nuts.
I got out of bed. Stood in front of the bathroom mirror. I had
no bones. My brain sat there behind my eyes. I had no hair; no
eye lashes; no nose, just two holes; no lips or other cosmetic
details. My tongue lolled about in the softness of my mouth. The
muscles were all still there–I had never understood there were
so many muscles in the human face. Why would a man wake up without
his bones? It made no sense. Why was I still alive in such a deboned
state? What magic was afoot?
My boss understood it when I called in sick. He mentioned his
hangover, too. I just laughed when he laughed. It was easy as
that. He thanked me before hanging up, said he respected me as
a friend and a colleague. A tear ran down my face as I thanked
him. The salt of the tear stung as it flowed down the slender
muscles of my cheek, trickled down over my open, toothless mouth–the
nerves sat patiently in the bloody gums. I returned the handset
to its cradle with my gory ghost of a hand. I didn’t need to shave
today. I drank tea. I ate toast. There was suddenly a knock at
the door. My heart beat like a drum, not only could I feel it
but I could see it. Just down there between my own inflating/deflating
lungs. I could see the soft slow peristaltic mechanism of my intestines
and the quiver of my testicles through the pelvic membrane.
I had my hand on the front door handle. I could see someone stood
through the little bubble-glass window in the door, a bag over
their shoulder, a package of some sort in their hand. The person
on the other side of the door. Stared right at me as he knocked
again. He must have been wondering what the hell I was doing,
standing there with my skin all stripped off and my bones missing.
I must have looked like some bad horror story title Flayed But Living. He put the edge of his blood-stained hand to the door and used
it to shadow his flesh-stripped face so he could look in.
I pulled open the door.
“Sorry, sir. I thought…” the facial muscles of the bloody abomination
contracted into a tense smile. The postman handed over the blood-smeared
package. He offered me his pad to sign. I signed. He thanked me
curtly. He left. I closed the door. I took the package to the
kitchen and sat there looking at it. My liver quivered softly.
A bubble of gas crawled through my guts. It was about the size
of a skull, this package. I knew it would contain a skull. I suspected
it would be my skull. I picked up the package with my wispy threads of muscle
and nerve fibre–I no longer had fingernails, there was nowhere
to attach them. It was very strange to be able to pick up things
like this without the support of finger bones, wrists and forearm
bones, elbows. Where was the structure coming from? I put the
box down and looked at it some more. I certainly wasn’t going to open that. No one wants to see their own skull.
I spent the day in front of the TV and it was the same all over.
No matter which channel I selected, everyone was stripped back
to the muscle, nerves and organs. I had fallen into some Twilight Zone of mental shearing, that much was obvious. I was sure I was still
asleep. Maybe I didn’t even wake up yet, maybe I still had to
go through that hideous trial by fire, that meeting with the Japanese
financiers. That was an option.
I decided to just wait it out and started to drink. A few beers
from a six-pack served me well. What was I to do? Just carry on
as if nothing had happened? Pretend that everything was normal?
Anatomical illustration aside, there was nothing wrong with me.
Postmen still came to the door. Bosses still rang me up to congratulate
me. I suddenly realised I hadn’t blinked since I’d been drinking.
I tried to blink but nothing happened. This was a shocking development.
I had pinned my hopes on the fact that I was just tired (hallucinating
these crazy effects). I had hoped to get better if I rested my
stupid head and returned to work tomorrow. Drinking the beers.
Watching the ogres give the normal daily news. The skin-stripped
stars of Friends, Neighbours and Emmerdale went through their tedious scripts.
Everything was fine. I totally, totally, got used to this situation.
Such that, by eight o’clock, I was on my way down to my local
pub. I didn’t recognise anybody though I was recognised by some
who shouted out, “Taylor!” holding up a gory hand. I smiled to
those who knew me. The barmaid greeted me as she usually did by
asking, “The usual, Ted?” You could tell it was the barmaid because
she still had her breasts but they were more like yellow globules
of fat and muscle held together with a ruby red spider web topped
with a glistening pink teat. If I’d have felt compelled, I could
have reached forward as she hand-pulled the pint of real ale and
thrust my fingers into her pelvic cavity. It would have been that
easy. I could see how all her muscles worked, it was a fairly
strenuous job, being a real-ale-pub barmaid. She was fairly well
endowed in the bicep and forearm department it was my shame to
notice.
I took my pint of real ale over to a secluded corner by the open
fire and watched the football while I got deep into my drunken
stupor. I couldn’t bear being with those pub buddies of mine,
I gave them a wide berth and they seemed to understand I wanted
to be alone. They were playing their usual game of cards anyway,
so they wouldn’t miss me until they’d run out of people to fleece.
Tonight I needed to be alone with my thoughts and my real ale.
A trip to the loo seemed to invite a stranger to my secluded corner.
She was a woman all right, big pelvis. Heavy breasts. Thick calves.
I stood there, my hands still dripping (I couldn’t bear to subject
my raw nerves to the heat of the hand dryer). I girded my loins
and decided to return to my table even though all my instincts
were telling me to run, run, run straight out of this pub and never return. Get on a bus, coach,
train and never come back to this crazy town. I didn’t even think
about taking the short walk back to my apartment to pick up the
car. I just wanted out of there.
“Did you get my package?” she asked as I stood there at my table,
afraid to resume my seat opposite her. She knew I had received
it. It had been signed for after all. “You didn’t open it?”
“Why would I open it?” I was like a frightened animal caught in
the headlights.
“Weren’t you even curious?” she sipped her half of dry cider.
“I knew what it was.”
“Your head?” she was mocking me.
“My skull.”
Why would I need to open a skull-sized box that felt like it weighed
about the same as a skull, give or take some packing foam. I knew
it was my skull. Of course she knew that, she’d sent it me.
“What are you?” it had come the time to ask.
“I’m getting old is what I am.”
I sat down opposite her finally. It was wrong to continue this
intimate conversation like this.
“You sense the seriousness but you have no idea of the implications…”
she was starting her spiel. And I knew it would be a tedious spiel.
I knew I would end up falling asleep before she’d got to the punch
line. I knew I had to do something to stop her boring me to tears.
“Have we met before?” was all I could manage. It worked, mind.
Her spiel was cut short. She sat there looking at me, her facial
muscles adopted the shape of a gawp. She looked away briefly,
to her left, she licked where her lips used to be.
I took a drink of my real ale, awaiting her next move. We chatted
about unimportant things. Well into the night. I wouldn’t say
we were getting to know each other but I was definitely avoiding
the issue quite professionally. In all truth, I didn’t wanna know
what the link between us was. She’d been looking at the clock
a lot as midnight approached. I thought, ‘Oh, holy lord, this
is gonna be one of those corny reveal-the-truth-at-midnight-pieces-of-crap
you can pick up and read in so many books and magazines of supposedly-haunted
fiction.’
Midnight struck and she prepared herself to spiel. I could see
the skin-stripped body language. The quickening of her heartbeat.
The quivering of her lungs. I had never seen such physical reality
as this. One could literally read her emotion state like a book.
“Am I dead?” I asked her on the third strike of midnight. I couldn’t
wait any longer. I had to know the truth.
She instantly relaxed then. She finally saw what had been causing
me so much tension and trepidation. “You’re more alive than you’ve
ever been,” she held out her hand. The nerves and muscles seemed
to peel back and evaporate, leaving in their trembling wake vectors.
That was the best way to put it. We understand vectors to be a
mathematical construct, a direction in space. But this woman was
folding back the foreskin of time and space to reveal a body made
of vectors, windows to other parts of the connected universe.
As I looked up and down the outstretched hand, I could see people
and times and places from all periods of history. I knew she was
offering me a trinket from a purely mind-blowing jewellery box.
“We are the guardians of the fabric of reality,” she said to her
drink, “We control how the world, how the universe works. One
of us per planet. I have been following your progress over the
last few years and think the time has come for your initiation.”
She looked up at me, drink in her hand. She gulped it back one,
two, three draining the glass.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” the landlord announced, in a jovial, husky
voice, “It’s time to kick you all out. Finish your drinks and
be on your way.” He turned off the TV. The jukebox, too.
Those present in the pub drained their glasses and moved to leave,
bellowed their ‘Goodnight’s.
“I am getting old for this game, Ted. I need to pass on to higher
realms. It’s become too hard for me to ‘keep it together,’” she
thrust her hand out at me. It was so alluring to see into all
those possible lives sparkling in her living vectors, shifting
from past to future, able to literally pull on the strings of
reality. What a burden. The people who depend on you. The pain
and hunger and sorrow and joy. How could one human possibly be
able to balance all that? Maybe there was no emotional duty. Maybe
life was all about structure and physical laws. Maybe human feelings
didn’t come in to it. Man was living in the ultimate dream of
denial. That was it.
I chuckled to myself and reached out to her hand. Was I really
ready to take on this enormous role? How do you come to terms
with this sort of power? My hand hovered near hers, our fingertips
nearly touching. I expected a brief spark of electricity to bridge
the gap between our fingertips. The moment was so pregnant with
potential. If I’d have had sweat glands, it would have been pouring
down my face, sweat would have been pouring all down my body,
soaking into my clothes, if I’d have been dressed. I knew that
if I touched her there’d be no going back, I’d be like here, like
them. How many other interconnected worlds could there be?
“Oh, for Pete’s sake…” she reached out and took my hand.
Mike Philbin is the man behind the surrealist writing entity Hertzan
Chimera. Mike is the editor of the
Chimeraworld anthology (now in its fifth year). In 2008,
Silverthought Press of New York will release his two new novels
Bukkakeworld and
Planet of the Owls.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this story may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any informational storage or retrieval system without express written permission from the author.
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