Days 208 to 215

Day 208. I awake sweaty and confused. I stare around a dimly lit room. A tap is running in a basin and above it a first aid cupboard is open with much of its contents tipped onto a side table. There are framed photos of iconic Hollywood stars by the door and the bookcase is filled with science books with titles that mean little to me. It is hard to move my head but as I turn my eyes to my left I see a small occasional table which has white power all over it, silver foil and other paraphernalia. I am struggling to make sense of it all when my hand reaches out for Charlie and suddenly an involuntary shiver makes me stare at the powder and the question forms in my head. What is an occasional table when it is not being a table?

Day 209. Things are beginning to make sense. I believe that in my despair I created a cocktail of drugs to escape my head. The visions that I have experienced are clearly led by the room I am in. The running sink took to me to start of fresh water. The first aid cupboard the NHS. The Hollywood photographs brought Marilyn to my head and one of the books ‘The Future of Lancing Spapullars in a Non Diversive Sub Crefters Manufacturing World’ is obvious. But what would have led my to such a fall and how long have I been out of it. Come on brain, think.

Day 210. I opened the window and the sight that greeted me suggests that I may have been out of it for decades. The building next to me is a total wilderness, in disrepair and collapsed. Posters on the glass suggest a major catastrophe with ‘last few days’ posters all over the windows. I fall back onto the bed and my mind begins to race. How did I survive the fallout? Slowly sense begins to take over as I realise that my body, whilst thinner, is not emaciated. I must have been out for days not years. I look to the window again and realise that what I took for a wildnerness is in fact an old branch of Blockbusters.

Day 211. I found a tin of beans in the kitchen and managed to open them using the point of a knife. Why is beyond me as there was a tin opener in the same draw. I seem to make life harder than it should be some days. I ate the beans cold as some form of punishment which once again made life harder than it need be. The weather is clement. It makes it easier to cope with when it has a name. I stepped towards the door and an icy blast of wind hit me in the face as I pulled it open. I shall call the wind ‘little sh*t pete’

Day 212. I love the palindromic days the best. They offer such hope. I step out onto the pavement. The icy wind cuts through me. I recognise the street scene. I have been here before. The shiver that runs through me is not the cold but the sense of foreboding. I am back on the island.

Day 213. The day is the bus I used to catch to school as a child. Memories of childhood overwhelm me as I walk down to the beach. The sun is rippling the water and exciting its surface, caressing it with a light touch. As I glance along the sand I see, oh god, a cadaver. Its arms folded across it looks almost at ease. I run towards it and lift it up before slipping my arms into the sleeves. Oh, wait a minute, it’s cardigan not cadaver.

Day 214. It fits me quite beautifully. As I turn I see a hat further along the beach. It is rather dapper I think. A thought which causes me to pause. Where from my brain did the word ‘dapper’ suddenly come from? And cause and pause? How does my brain pick which word to use and where on earth did ‘cadaver’ come from? I pick up the hat and my eye catches a label inside the brim.

Day 215. I do not recognise the hat and but as I look at it I see, beyond it, a pair of shoes and trousers by the shoreline. I stumble towards them realising as I move that the shoes I am wearing are worn and hurting. I try on the shoes by the waters edge and they fit like a glove. A weird expression given I have had gloves that were too big and too small however these shoes seem to know my feet. I glance at the label and fall back onto the sand – it is my name embroidered on the fabric.