Nicole Kidman stars in: 'The Astronaut Dropped'

26 May 2008

64. My Turn Now

I couldn’t sleep.

“You can’t sleep, can you?”

“No! I can’t sleep! Who the hell are you anyway?”

“Sleeplessness.”

“Oh, right. Hi. Great! That’s all I need: another imaginary pain in the arse! Here’s an idea: sod off! Some of us are trying to sleep around here!”

“Yes, I’m imaginary alright! No getting away from that one! So, what are you thinking about?”

“Stupid question! We won’t get on too well if you don’t get smart! After all, you’re the only person paying attention. Who else is listening around here, if not you?”

“What are you thinking about?”

“If you must know – although I know you already know and you’re just trying to make sure that I stay awake! – then I’m thinking about being unable to sleep, about being alone, about the entire town knowing I’m crazy and that I see things, about the whole town knowing I’m easy, about being a stalker and about the fear I put in others and all because I was lost inside and tried to hold on to a myth of my own making, about my bloody interfering mum, about being a little girl in Flagstaff and how simple life was, about my brother (wherever he is!), Lizzie (wherever she is!), and about where I’m going to go from here, and about James and why I feel nothing towards him right now, when for so long I was feeling such intensity! Oh, and about Kidman – and how much I thought I loved her when all I loved was who I desperately want to be! And I’m thinking about the fact that I can’t sleep, when I feel so achingly tired! So desperately tired! Oh, did I mention that already? Anyway. That do for you?”

“Thanks. Listen. I’ll let go if you will.”

“Let go? Of what? Hey, you implying I’m touching myself? Now you listen, some girls do and some girls don’t! This girl don’t!”

“All that stuff you’re thinking about. I’ll let go if you will.”

My head was reverberating. I had that momentary disjointed feeling when you think that your mind has just slipped slightly out of your head – it happens just before you fall asleep. That slight inner slide of different properties. I felt it and something inside said "yes" to sleeplessness and we both let go together. Delicious and, because I was so tired, slightly painful too, like hands were roughly dragging me down into sleep.

Then a new disjointed feeling. At some point I woke up and looked around me at the dark shadows of the room. I was awake, and yet something made me feel that I wasn’t awake. There must have been a full moon outside as I could see the outline of things in the room. But something was different. All the shadows looked different – something about the perspective was odd. Also, my body felt different. Light. Unbound. Severed in some way. Disjointed in some way, yes. Then my hand moved to pull myself up to look around and I found that the bed wasn’t there. The quilt was draped over me but I was not lying on the surface of the bed. I shouted out, I know. The shout was loud and fuelled by sudden panic. It was instantly clear to me, although how it had happened was beyond me: I was floating above my bed, severed from the ground, disconnected from it completely.

As I panicked I found myself scrabbling in the air. But although I scrabbled, it didn’t change my position, I was still away from the ground. Then it struck me what had happened around me: there was no gravity. I was hovering as if in space. I was on the ground, in an old and dilapidated house, and yet I was off the ground as if in a space station or on a space walk. Then, a light. But not any light. It was that light that I knew so well now. It was outside of the window. The curtains were closed over so I couldn’t see the shape of the ghost of the dead astronaut but there was no mistaking that it was him.

There was a brief moment where I thought I should move towards him, not resist, let him come through, let him take me. Why not? What did I have to lose by not running, or to gain by running? It was all the same. Everything was the same. Like crashing my car and walking away. Like being ridiculed by an entire town and walking away. Like sleeping with a complete stranger and watching him walk away. And gradually feeling nothing towards it all. Just a great emptiness. And this entity wanted me more than anything else did. More than I wanted myself, or wanted to preserve myself. So, why shouldn’t he have me? You know you’re in trouble when the best the male sex can offer a girl is the ghost of a dead astronaut! Not only does he refuse to ever take his boots off in the house, but he won’t even remove his bloody helmet!

Then his light seemed to get fainter, as if he was moving away. But this was just temporary. The light then increased in size dramatically before the room shook with a great thud and a crack of glass that seemed to slice through my ears. Maybe it wasn’t the room that shook, maybe it was just me, my eardrums reverberating, my senses jolting, my nerves suddenly painfully alert. Just like had happened before, the astronaut must have thrown himself against the glass to try and get through. Judging from the sound, this time he must have succeeded more than before. I found myself still floating, but upright now; I could move in any direction I wanted but just not down to the ground, it seemed.

I had to get away. What kicked-in was a sense of self-preservation. Perhaps instinctive. Perhaps some deep-seated self-love that wanted expression - this seemed absurd to me, but who knows what exactly it is that kick-starts us to stay alive. As another great cracking and wrenching sound tore through the room and seemed to slice through my nerves in a long scything motion that made me feel both sick and sore, I found myself almost swimming through the air towards the main door to my suite of rooms. I grabbed things and pulled on them to give me leverage and direction, and kicked and waved my limbs to aid movement. I needed to get away. The astronaut was battering with so much force that it was clear that it wouldn’t be long before he finally smashed the window and its frame and found his way in.

I glided out of the main door and into the hallway, still amazed at being off the ground. If I looked outside, what would I see? Planets, stars at ground level, perhaps even the Earth in the distance, a space station moving in slowly to dock with the house’s front door? Maybe it wasn’t space that had fallen, maybe it was the house that had risen up into space, now orbiting the Earth like a satellite.

Now there was silence from my suite of rooms. No more sound of forceful banging. Down at the end of the hallway at the house’s front door, I could see a light moving around the door frame and surging like a short spike through the keyhole. He seemed to be following me. He seemed to know where I was. Then the door frame shook as a forceful thud bore down on it.

I grabbed the banister and began to make my way up the stairs. For some reason, as I past different landmarks, I saw images of Kidman at different places where she’d been. First, sitting on the stairs as the Smelly God and his smelly assistant worked. Then the small upstairs room where she was when I told her I’d found the key to the room in the basement – as I looked, outside the window the astronaut’s glowing figure floated by. The room where she’d got me ready to go into the neighbouring town to meet James – the astronaut’s gloved hand was held in a fist and momentarily beat against the glass. The room where we’d dressed-up and role-played – the figure there again, grabbing the frame of the window and shaking it to see if it would budge. The notion of having had these internal experiences sickened me and added to the absolute nausea inside of me, but also I felt an aching loss for the fact that the Imaginary Kidman wasn’t there. If only somebody was there to help me! Why did I have to be alone all the time? Always in the dark. Always within my own darkness. Always haunted by myself! Always alone in it all. And always fighting to survive against terrors, when the greatest terror was the thought that I might suddenly decide I didn’t want to survive anymore. The greatest terror was myself, that my own deep-seated weakness would overwhelm me, and all strength, all obstinacy, all the grim determination within the gloom, would crumble and float off into space like dust. But not yet. It hadn’t happened yet. There was still hope. Small, oh so small, so very, very small. But still glowing a little. Thankfully glowing.

Or was it taunting? Like the astronaut. Could be take me any time he wanted? Was he showing up this little hot coal of hope as being pointless? Could he crush it under his heavy boot whenever he wanted, and was he just biding his time? And did this ember have no intention of growing? Would it always stay this dim, and was this dimness a sign of dying and not a sign of life?

How can I know? How can the present ever answer these questions? The incomplete, tottering, insubstantial, flighty, short-sighted, ignorant present. But it was all I had and I had to protect it as best I could. No matter what it turned out to be. So I held fast to the little glow somewhere inside and frantically thought how I could get away.

The frantic thoughts had turned into frantic movements at some point. I looked around me and realized that I was on the upper floor of the house – the one with the doorway that I never wanted to enter, the one up a few steps that either led to a cupboard or another room that was higher than all the others. Across from it was a room that I had never looked at before and I hovered beside it, holding the doorframe and wondering at what lay inside. It was a large room with an enormous old brass bed inside. None of the other rooms had beds, they were all mostly empty. The bed itself seemed to glow. I wasn’t sure if it was with its own autonomous glow or if it was due to the figure of the astronaut that had appeared at the window to the room.

Somehow I could see him so clearly - clearer than ever before - this figure with the pitch-black visor, breathing slowly and painfully like a dying soul on a life-support machine, shining so strikingly. Almost beautifully, in some ways.

Bang! He threw his shape against the window, desperately trying to find a way in. Then, straight after, again he hurled himself against the window and an upper pane cracked with a sharp sizzle sound. As another thump rained down on it - from his hand, the front of his helmet, his knee, his shoulder - the window caved in and the frame buckled. Glass tumbled down on the floor and the sound was so stark that it was like harsh stings that made me wince. As the glass shattered on contact with the floor, there was another great thud. But this time not from the window. It was from somewhere else. Then I heard it again. Again not from the astronaut outside, but from the door to the mysterious upper room, or whatever it was. Then another thud, this time with another smash – this one was from the astronaut outside. As I glanced at him I saw the entire window disintegrate and his heavy, powerful presence floated through. Bang! Bang! More brutal thuds from the door at the top of the stairs. What was in there? And what was it that was trying to get out? Another astronaut?

I had to get away. No time to think. It had to be another journey back down the stairs. Grabbing hold of things as best I could, I moved back down the stairs, not sure where I was going, not sure where I could go. The occasional desperate look behind me told me that the astronaut was in pursuit. Then I heard the words again, rasping in a codified, transistorized manner – mechanical, and distant within the crackle and hiss that surrounded them: “It’s your turn. It’s your turn now.” Repeated over and over again, but with slightly more anxiety each time. My turn? Was it my turn to be stalked? Was this revenge for my stalking of Kidman? If so, I deserved it! And I deserved to flee with nowhere to go, and with nowhere to turn to!

More mammoth thuds resounded through the house from above me, from behind where the astronaut glided towards me. Then I heard more battering coming from in front of me. From the front door again? I felt surrounded. Behind, above, in front. Everywhere, the presence of the astronaut moved towards me.

Was it perhaps then that I realized that I was struggling to breathe? My old nemesis of acute asthma had returned, but fully-formed, fully-present, without me being the least bit aware of it growing. It was all caught-up within a feeling of sickness and terror that had been with me since I had woken up. I could barely feel any air getting into my lungs. It was as if great hands were grappling for air but there was nothing to get a hold of but tiny pockets of barely usable air.

Then I found I was falling. So sharply and so quickly. Down to the ground I fell with a colossal and painful thump. My left knee and the side of my cheek hit off the hard wooden stairs beneath me. As I lay there, I expected to feel the astronaut’s hands on me. My muscles were tense like fists anticipating his grip. I could still hear his voice: “It’s your turn. It’s your turn now.” The intensity of the sound having increased to such a level that I wasn’t quite sure where he was. But also his proximity was masked by the banging sounds that seemed to surround me. Then I vomited. I think it was a mixture of unparalleled fear and the inability to breathe. I saw the sticky yellowy-grey flow of it dripping from one stair to the next before me. Gravity had returned and I tried to pull myself to my feet to continue my retreat. Another glance behind me and there was the astronaut a flight of stairs above me. But he was also on the ground, no longer airborne. It was an unusual image. I almost wanted to stare at him to see what this meant. But there was no time, in a second he began to run towards me purposefully. I was exhausted. There was little energy, or even life, left in my body. I could smell and taste my own vomit. I could feel my body so heavy all about me. I could sense the contracting of my lungs and every dying muscle fighting to preserve them. Terror was indistinguishable, mixed as it was with illness and nausea. And there were tears in my eyes. Another thing I hadn’t noticed before. But the tears were making it hard for me to see. Everything was blurry and my feet stumbled down the stairs with terrible slowness. The sound of great thumps rocked my ears, the sound of the astronaut’s feet hard on the wooden stairs, the sound of his words, the sound of my own rasping, all ghosted in and out of me as if I was disintegrating. As I moved, I knew I was Kidman. running from me. This was how it felt to be pursued by me. To be pursued by an empty and desperate soul, caught up in the death of a dying planet that knows and believes nothing, yet must hold onto something, anything, just to keep it from dying. Poor bitches! Her and me!

Was that a handle? Was that the handle to my suite of rooms? I pushed on it and moved through it and then I heard its familiar click behind me. The click of it locking. Securely locking. My hand gripped the lock tight, as if my hand would somehow re-enforce its steadfastness. But not for long. I sank to the ground. Darkness was complete around me, there in the corridor that leads to my three rooms. I still couldn't see, but I had security of sorts.

Bang! Again? So soon? Would there be no respite? Not even a minute, not even a few seconds? Could he already be at the window again, finishing what he’d started? No. This time the sound was within my own rooms, right inside my safety zone. I’m sure I gasped, and my head turned round – finding the last pocket of energy - as if I could see the sound and focus on it in the blackness. Where did safety lie now? No, it didn’t lie anywhere. It had always been a lie.

Another noise. This time the sound of furniture moving – a chair or table, probably in my main living area. I suddenly felt the fingers of darkness squeeze round my lungs, ejecting more air, entirely constricting my ability to breathe.

Then it happened. The events of the last few minutes had been so shocking and they had consumed my attention to such a degree that I was unaware of the asthma attack coming on. Like another intruder, it grabbed me, its hands on me, violent and ruthless. I was helpless, my hands, my legs, my torso, my mouth and eyes and throat wrestled it, right there on the floor beside the door. I couldn’t get to the lock of the door now, all hope of escape had been stifled irrevocably. The astronaut and his presence had me trapped. There was no escape. I had delayed this moment, but I couldn’t delay it anymore. As I gasped and grunted, as my whole system screeched for breath and my lungs rattled as they lashed out in every direction for dear and wonderful air - any air at all! - I vaguely heard other noises close beside me: fast-approaching footsteps, more furniture being rocked and struck, an approaching scent of some kind, a sound of fumbling, and the tangible feel of a physical frame closing in on me. A spark close to my face. A shadowy face looming close to me – cloaked more in the night than in flesh. Was I about to breathe for the last time as I saw this indistinct face? It felt that way. Somewhere inside I prepared myself for it. Then I heard the words:

“You silly moo-moo. You’ve really got to invest in a new lung!”

Perhaps more fatal than if it had been the astronaut before me by the light of that match, the realisation that it was my best friend Lizzie almost killed me with relief in an instant.

Then she said: “Hey, what’s that shiny astronaut thing outside? Is that some kind of prank?”

Astronaut? Outside? Lizzie had seen it! It was real! Real!

I think that the last thing I felt just before I passed-out was a warm tear easing its way down past the cold ones, relaxed, relieved, and tickling me with a hint of joy in its little stream.

Real! Real! What would Kidman say? Oh, what would she say?

End of Part Two

Want to read more? Read the whole story by clicking on the first blog called Prelude and start clicking forwards using the tabs above the title.

10:35 Posted in Part Two: Getting Some Answers | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this | Tags: haunted house, ghost story, horror story, astronaut, space, nicole kidman, journal

19 May 2008

63. The Loneliness of Lovelessness

Loneliness is that little bit of you that looks out at the world and sees a lack of connection; lovelessness is that bit of you that looks down into the heart of you and sees a lack of connection with the world in all that you are.

Is this what I’m experiencing right now? The loneliness of lovelessness?

I walked. My head empty, aside from images that flitted at the edges of my mind but never really made themselves present. Images of things that had happened. Over these months. Over the years. Flashing by like advertising hoardings. All peripheral. Nothing really felt, but all taken in and understood on some level. My head simply looking at the road ahead. Empty. Everything oh so peripheral. Now, I couldn’t even say what those images were, or rather, my mind won’t go there, it won’t seize any of them, it will only summarise for me in a curt and vague fashion.

If loneliness is apt to simper, then lovelessness screams. And here are my screams. What is this life of mine, my screams wonder? What has it been? What is it now? And where is it going? It all just seems like pockets of effort placed in so many different directions, all turning out to be useless, worthless. Every route has rejected me or I have rejected it. Only for me to turn round and find myself facing a route that seems even more alien, even more unlikely. Alongside it all, there’s the sense that everything is wrong. That I’m so far away from where I want to be. And that no direction takes me any closer. That I’m lost. That I’m in a maze. Impetuous feeling, or ill-considered impulses, all based upon some slight thing, or else some gaping nothing, driving me on to greater losses and a greater sense of loss. Those blasted billboards! Everywhere in life! Every route I take just another superficial advert, drawing me in, only for me to find that there’s nothing at the heart of them but deception and empty promises. Even the sense of loss inside of me seems lost. I don’t even know if I can trust how that feels! Although I know I can’t get rid of it. Maybe I’m not lost, maybe I’m found, maybe I’m right where I want to, right where I should be, but I just don’t know it! Sweet holy bejesus! What a head-fuck that would be! What a head-fuck it is! So I can’t even create paragraphs. That would imply structure. How do I structure my sense of loss? How does a maze look on paper, when you’re still stuck in it?

The great aching taunt of it all is that I know, deep down, in my very heart, that all I want is one thing. For someone to direct their love towards me and for me to direct mine back at them. I don’t want my headlights to see empty adverts that merely flash by; I want everything that I am to shine brightly on one soul that is eternally dazzled by me as I too am dazzled by it. For that one light to be indistinguishable from my light. And it’s all just light. And it’s all just love.

And if everyone else wants the same thing then why is it so hard to find? Oh, I know, others find it! You see them everywhere! The people that Kidman would look at and her entire face would shine because she saw some spark of hope in them. Not me! I’m not Kidman and I never will be! All I see is my loneliness of lovelessness staring back. And I’ve never before felt so much like a different species. The last of this kind. Here, but not really a part of anything that lies around me.

So I hurt and I’m frazzled. I’m endlessly cold. I wheeze and I feel distinctly and all-over sick. I’m an aberration. I’m a sore as much as I’m sore.

And yet I’m missing something. Some trick. But some trick that I can’t identify. There’s something I should know about love that I just can’t put my finger on. I sense it. But what is it? What is it?

I’m too sore to really think about it. I’ll just keep squirming for now and holding my stomach to stop it spinning, and trying hard not to throw-up. Trying not to allow my limbs to all disintegrate and fly away. I tell myself: try and stay together, body and soul! Try and stay together! Don’t disintegrate! Don’t detonate!

Want to read more? Read the whole story by clicking on the first blog called Prelude and start clicking forwards using the tabs above the title.

08:30 Posted in Part Two: Getting Some Answers | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this | Tags: haunted house, ghost story, horror story, astronaut, space, nicole kidman, journal

16 May 2008

62. A Rat Loose in the Corridors

I’m an accident. Lord, how I blunder around! I wonder sometimes what drives me. What is it that drives me into the disasters that populate my life?

There must be something in me that’s – what’s the right word? – lateral? angular? skewed? bevelled? lurching? Something that kinks every decision I make as it turns from thought to reality, so everything I try to shape comes out all crooked and bashed and basically unusable. Sometimes just subtly so. Other times my disasters feel grotesque in size, unwieldy obelisks in my arms.

As I walked towards the café, I was taken with all the movements of life around me, all unpredictable and surging, and all just that little bit ahead in time, compared with how I sensed time in my own head. So many different directions, so many speeds and inclinations, so many attitudes and stances – the look and feel of people can be so overwhelming when you’ve spent times away from them; they can seem so trapped in patterns, yet so forceful as they commit to those trapped little patterns. A woman pushed a buggy while her baby tried to throw things out onto the pavement, a boy looked at me and smiled as he floated across the road in a slow-mo manner, an old man paced the kerb waiting for something and when he saw me he pointed up at the sky and winked. Yep, they had some strange patterns in this town, and some strange inclinations! But what was my pattern? To me, it stuttered. It was a broken line, something of disparate colours, something started but without clear direction. To others? Who knows! Perhaps something lateral, angular, skewed, bevelled or lurching? Yeah, any of those would be just about right!

Maybe this had happened before, but when I entered the café I was momentarily the centre of attention. The café wasn’t very busy, so perhaps that was why I was conspicuous when I entered. One of the seats had Mrs Ormsley there with an older man and a small girl. I didn’t see her notice me, but what I did see was that her face looked downward and she looked slightly embarrassed. Was that something to do with me? Well, no reason for me to think that it was. Unless, of course, she knew about my night spent with James? Could she know? Surely he wouldn’t tell her? Why, in fact, would he tell anyone? I ordered from the counter and the waitress behind it – one I had seen several times before – seemed to be sniggering, and when not sniggering she seemed to have a rueful smile on her face. Yes, when other people moved, time seemed one step ahead of me. In this instance, there was a joke that I wasn’t aware of. “A nice pot of tea, is it?” the waitress said. “That should stop you from feeling spaced out!” Spaced out? Odd choice of words! But this is an odd town, odd customs prevail. Maybe this was just one of those things that they say around here!

I took a seat and waited for the tea to arrive. When it arrived, the woman still looked wry and said: “Shuttled it over as quickly as I could.” I thanked her but with a suspicious tone in my voice. At one point I momentarily caught Mrs Ormsley’s eye. I smiled; she smiled and then quickly averted her gaze, again looking uncomfortable. I found that I couldn’t get the thought out of my head that this had something to do with James. Maybe they all knew! Maybe someone had seen me go into his car!

But so what? What did it matter? Was that really any big deal? Even for a small town? I remember sighing, convinced that this was the reason and knowing that it was preposterous of them to be so childish about it! I didn’t feel affected by it in any other way other than to think them all to be small-minded.

“Oops!” The voice was loud across the café and came from the waitress. “I forgot to bring you milk! I’m such a space cadet!”

Her words were directed at me and had a kind of affected tone as if they were for everyone to hear. I glanced around at the others in the café. A man was clearly laughing and the man sitting with Mrs Ormsley looked round at me and smiled. Mrs Ormsley, however, looked even more uncertain.

Then I remembered the boy floating across the main street of the town: he was pretending to be an astronaut! The old man who pointed to the sky and winked: astronaut reference again! Spaced out! Space cadet! Shuttle!

That was why that bitch Ormsley looked so sheepish! She’d told people what I’d said that morning when I left her house – or else she’d told someone – and it had spread through the town! What had I said? Something about being fine in Mordan House if it wasn’t for the ghost of a dead astronaut? Now everyone in the town knew about the ghost of the dead astronaut and everyone would know it to be a delusion of mine – they would all know I was one of those people who have a stray rat in the corridors of their head and that they can’t seem to catch. Someone in need of medication to get rid of it. Rat poison. That’s what they’d say: “That Mordan House girl. Got a rat loose in her corridors. Needs rat poison from a rat doctor, if you ask me.”

Being known as the woman who shagged James after a drunken night-out I could deal with! This? I wasn’t so sure.

I decided to leave straightaway. The pattern of this town was laid-out around me and boxing me in with its judgments. Yes, they now knew my pattern also! The pattern of a mentally unstable woman. An astronaut shape. A dead astronaut at that! And what of James? Did he know before he slept with me? Did he think that it would be easy to sleep with the mentally unstable woman who would be looking for a floating astronaut above the bed as he got it on with her? Is that why he disappeared? Job done?

As I drove back to Mordan House, I felt the accident of me so starkly. I felt it in my fingertips, across my face and every part of me. I was so brittle and flawed, and every accident that comprised me, and that hovered - ready to break things just below the surface of me - filled my head as if every cell was adulterated and I could sense the crack within every one of them. It was then that I took a bend too wide and the car went over the grass verge at the side of the road and clipped a tree before I finally managed to bring it to a stop. All I did was get out, glance quickly at the scrunched headlight and bashed bumper at the front, lock the car doors and start to walk the rest of the way to Mordan House. My head empty of everything but the rat that I could see far off in the distance and that had left evidence of its scurrying practically everywhere inside of me.

Want to read more? Read the whole story by clicking on the first blog called Prelude and start clicking forwards using the tabs above the title.

13:40 Posted in Part Two: Getting Some Answers | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this | Tags: haunted house, ghost story, horror story, astronaut, space, nicole kidman, journal

13 May 2008

61. Lizzie Says Oestrogen Is Airborne

Lizzie says oestrogen is airborne. Then she follows up this statement with an explanation of the distaste this fills her with by writing an onomatopoeic word that contains around 25 consonants, about three vowels and a platoon of belligerent exclamation marks so long and angry-looking that they could probably successfully invade Russia, armed with nothing but one explosive-looking dot each. Yes, Lizzie would be pleased to know that her expression of emphasis has not been lost on me.

She announces this information to me in a letter. The first in a while actually.

But once again the postman turned-up, delivered his letters and disappeared again without me hearing a car engine or a hint on gravel! How does he do that? Pigeon post? If I’d heard him arrive I’d have asked him to take me to the neighbouring town so I could get my car. I’ve been here five days now and I’m getting a bit low on food. Well, wine! Well, wine and cheese biscuits actually! Well, okay, wine, cheese biscuits and toffee swirls! Things are really getting desperate here!

Anyway, Lizzie says that five of our friends have announced that they’re pregnant in just the last month. Whenever she writes the word ‘pregnant’ she puts it in italics – pregnant – it makes prenatal motherhood appear like some bug that’s doing the rounds, or some highly unsalubrious job somewhere beneath prostituting, toilet-cleaning and voluntary charity work. A couple of these pregnant friends - she says - were doing that naff waiting nonsense and mumbling about getting through the initial stages to the ‘safe period’ – Lizzie speculates that this makes no sense, that surely having your period is when you actually know it’s safe! Then – she says – these pregnant women would whitter on about how difficult it was ‘to keep it all quiet and only tell a handful of around 50-odd close family, friends and work colleagues’, while others – she said - just blurted it out ‘before the semen was even dry’, as she put it, and then they said that they shouldn’t really be saying anything, yet with no hint of regret just relish, and that they should really be waiting until the ‘safe period’ - even though they’d just copulated the night before, they said they just ‘felt different’, that they ‘just knew they were, well, you know …’. Lizzie says that she would complete the sentence for them. ‘Pregnant?’ Lizzie would ask, with a mixture of disgust and abhorrence. So, Lizzie says she needs to get away from the city just in order to avoid the high levels of oestrogen in the air – she says there’s a hormone monitor on Hope Street and it’s been in the red for weeks! Soon she’ll be in the sun again, I muse. The south of France, the south of Spain. Lizzie loves going south. Ask any man. In all this rambling, she fails to tell me which of our friends has fallen pregnant. Not that I’m bothered, but I would really, really, really like to have known, all the same. Dammit, I wish she’d told me who!

But that’s Lizzie for you. She does have a strange outlook on life and her place within it. She does have some strange ideas too. For example, her idea to save the rain forests consists of arguing for the creation of fake semen stains made of plastic for positioning on a woman’s tummy or across her breasts - she argues that this would save so much tissue paper that you’d barely be able to walk a few yards without bumping into a tree! When she first laid out this idea, I asked her what men were to do with their actual semen and she fell into such a trance that it was a full half-hour before she came round. And when she did all that came from her was a delicious smile and a long sigh. I shivered at the thought of the amount of tissue paper that would be required to clean-up her brain at that moment!

Lizzie, you’ll not be surprised to learn, has had her fair share of nights where passion eclipsed prudence and pregnancy was a strong possibility. Another of her ideas was to take the fluoride out of the water supply and replace it with whatever chemical was the key one contained in the ‘morning after’ pill. I pointed out that this would mean that nobody at all would fall pregnant, but this just made her fall into another reverie and it was at least another half-hour before she rejoined the land of tables, chairs and all that physical, actual stuff. I didn’t ask where she’d been. She hates kids. She says they smell.

With all this focus on pregnancy it really is the worst letter I could have received from Lizzie. Her writing about pregnancy and her fears of it makes me think of pregnancy and my associations with it and my own thoughts of it. This is not a good thing - especially in my emotional state after spending the night with James. I’ve looked in the bins for condoms but I can’t see any. So did he use a condom? I don’t know. I’m pretty sure that we were ‘at it’ pretty vigorously but there’s no smell of burnt rubber in the room. Isn’t that a tell-tale sign? Actually, now I come to think of it, I seem to remember the smoke alarm going off at one point! Luckily I was on top when the alarm went off and my jiggling breasts created enough of a draft to make it stop beeping. Why am I making light of this? This is not funny at all! Perhaps it’s because my body doesn’t ‘feel different’ in a way that feels like pregnancy. Without Kidman I feel emptier, not fuller. This sense of difference is more of self-loathing and loss than being pregnanto.

Pregnanto! Lord, I see what Lizzie means! The thought if it is quite repulsive! But it’s only repulsive at the thought of such a thing coming from that one night with James. Yes, that’s what disgusts me. The thought of a baby in itself is extraordinary. It’s a clean thought. Something untouched and portentous. A little spark of hope. A spark that can renew everything it comes into contact with. And isn’t that the reality of hope? Doesn’t all hope have to grow out of horror or hardship? Isn’t horror always the context of hope? If so, then I hope Lizzie’s right and oestrogen is airborne, then we all have a chance to ingest what can lead to new life, and every hopeless horror can be contaminated and spoiled by purity. Yes, even this hopeless horror of a life that I inhabit and sully with every day that I live it! Even the life of a recovering stalker like me can be made pristine again!

But maybe it doesn’t have to be a baby growing inside that can give this sense of rejuvenation, of reincarnation within the same life. Maybe you can find another seed to grow. But when you don’t have a seed, where do you find one? If oestrogen is airborne, what else might be there, carried in the wind?

After thinking this, I went outside and started walking, breathing in deeply with every forthright step. It was a lovely day and the air was like honey. Before I knew it, I was half-way to the neighbouring town, so I decided to just keep on going. Eventually I got to my car, with a sense of real achievement. So that was what else was in the air! The seed of perseverance. Crisp and invigorating. As I stood beside my car, something similar to hope was there inside me. Well, that was perhaps one way that a seed of hope could come to be planted: by complete bloody accident! So all I needed was to have a life that was just one accident after another and everything would be alright! How reassuring!

Being starved of human company – even the proximity to human beings – for so many days left me thinking that I would visit one of the town’s cafes, just to watch the world go by and feel normal and social and worldly again. Maybe it was my new-found sense of something like hope that gave me the courage and inclination. Anyway, whatever it was, what happened next was, I suppose with hindsight, an accident waiting to happen.

Want to read more? Read the whole story by clicking on the first blog called Prelude and start clicking forwards using the tabs above the title.

10:49 Posted in Part Two: Getting Some Answers | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this | Tags: haunted house, ghost story, horror story, astronaut, space, nicole kidman, journal

11 May 2008

60. Breaking a Promise – Part Two

I shouldn’t be communicating with anyone at all - that was the promise I made to myself when I moved into this house. And it was a promise I made for my own good.

No technology meant no temptations. No TV and DVD player meant I couldn’t watch old Kidman movies or hear news of her. I couldn’t feed my obsession with information. No telephone meant I couldn’t make unwanted calls to her agent. Being out in the wilderness was to keep me away from the mainstream media and the general gossiping conversation which is the staple diet of cities. All would play their part in ensuring that I didn’t infringe my court order. If I infringed then the stakes for me would be high. Next court appearance would see me end up in jail.

Jail! I remember the words being said to me in court. I was amazed at the sound of them! For them to be directed at me! The shock! The shame! How had it all come to this? What had I been thinking? What had I been doing? How could I have sunk so low? How could it all have gone so wrong that I was on the verge of being locked away for the good of another? Who had I become?

The internet connection in Mordan House was a gamble though. A security blanket, of sorts, yes – like I said at the start of this blog, just in case I needed to find out what was going on in the outside world. But I was always worried about having it, lest I should exploit it by using it to try and contact her.

I haven’t though! Really I haven’t! This blog has been everything! Believe me!

Wasn’t it Lotte Lakeside who asked me in one of her comments on this blog why I hadn’t let my best friend Dizzy Lizzie email me? Why she had to go through the rigmarole of sending physical letters when I could send her an email address? You see, I couldn’t let Lizzie know I was connected to the internet! She would have worried. I’m not sure she would have trusted me to keep from contacting Kidman.

Kidman? Well, Nicole. She had always been Nicole to me before Mordan House. Only the Imaginary Kidman was called Kidman. But, really, Nicole had never existed. There was a space inside of me, a vacuum, and her shape seemed to fit it. What a deception for us both! No, she never fitted that empty space. I cajoled and kneaded the properties and the idea of Kidman into such a shape that it seemed to fit. I jammed it into the space as best I could. And it was Nicole Kidman – the real Nicole Kidman! – who suffered as a consequence. She felt the physical and emotional pain of my trying to make her fit the shape of my needs.

The real Nicole Kidman? Even as I type the words I wonder what I’m on about! I don’t know who the real Nicole Kidman is! She probably doesn’t know either! It’s not for any of us to know or even care! It’s all just illusions of identity, all just characters, all flat and at best colourful and dazzling, but still just images and all entirely meaningless. It’s like falling in love with a totem pole or an ancient statue of a mythological entity. It no more exists in our so-called real world as does the Cyclops, or Circe or the Sirens. In this myth of my own that I’m perhaps living, I’m not Penelope waiting for her husband to return from the wars, I’m Odysseus, bound for home and charting a path through a world of illusions! Most of my own making! How many of us are exactly that in our own lives!

How dark the ideas in me! What words are these? Whose voice? I don't recognise any of this. I don't recognise me! I used to. Before Philip. But that’s what’s happened by degrees. Everything inside has steadily been chilled and darkness has grown in me like tight, clambering, unstoppable ivy, its leaves black and icy.

It’s not all over for me though. Now there’s no more Kidman to keep me company, and I’m left with the bitter feel of what I’ve done and who I’ve been. Yet also with the bitter emptiness of self-realisation, and the hole inside seems greater than it has ever been before.

There are times when the wind encircles this house, its dark teeth eat away at the stone façade, gnawing the wooden window frames and the slate roof, making holes for itself to push through. Looking for a cold companion to huddle together with. Once inside, it scurries through the passageways, charges into empty rooms, tumbles noisily down stairs, in search of the personal history of this house.

Cold winds love personal history. Personal history is cold like itself. History is empty, as shallow as palimpsest, as fragile as a child’s cough. And this house is full of empty history more than most. What love has it ever known? What arms have welcomed it? What plans have been made with hope and joy within it? What kiss has ever warmed it? What new life has gladdened its walls, revitalised its shape and reminded it what it was like to be alive? None, none, none.

No Kidman and no progress, just the realisation of exactly how empty I’ve become. That’s all I have. As I think the words, a wind chills me and I hear its whoosh through my soul. What progress have I made in identifying if there’s any reality to this astronaut business? None, none, none. Still all just empty questions. Just a myth to push through, and hopefully defeat in my long journey home.

Here I am waiting in the cold of this house. James drove off without taking me back to my car in the neighbouring town. I’m stranded here. I could walk for about 4 hours to get to the town but I haven’t the energy. Or the inclination. I deserve to be here. Stuck. Land-locked. Waiting for life to visit me. Life never calls here though. That’s why the void of space dropped down and settled in and around this house where I am. There’s a funnel. Of emptiness. From space, all the way down to the ground where I am.

Maybe I’m not venturing, tenacious, purposeful Odysseus, after all. Maybe I am Penelope. Waiting. Just waiting. Ten years she waited. It’s not so long. Hell, I’ve been doing it all my life. Huh! And that bitch thought she had it bad! At least she had suitors! Mine screwed my best friend – okay, sure, she was imaginary – and then he buggered off in his 4x4 without a ‘cheerio’, a last tittie-cup as he pecked my cheek, a fried egg or even a potato scone! Jeez, they didn’t half do it differently back in those non-existent mythological days! I’m sure Penelope’s suitors would at least have waited around for a potato scone in the morning!

Want to read more? Read the whole story by clicking on the first blog called Prelude and start clicking forwards using the tabs above the title.

18:25 Posted in Part Two: Getting Some Answers | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this | Tags: haunted house, ghost story, horror story, astronaut, space, nicole kidman, journal

08 May 2008

59. Kidman’s Gift – Part Six

I sneaked out of the bed and away from him. After all, who was he? What did I know of him? He was a stranger, lying large and heavy and heaving with unknown life, right there beside me, and I had to get away from him.

My mouth was horribly dry and distasteful, my stomach queasy, and my head felt bruised inside. How much exactly did I drink? I had absolutely no idea!

But that was not the question that I really needed an answer to. That was not why I had to get out of bed. Yes, I needed to get away from this ‘James’ person, but I also had something else to do. I threw a dressing gown on and a pair of slippers and went out of my suite of rooms and into the main hallway of Mordan House. I looked everywhere, it seemed. Everywhere logical, at least. No sign. Then I glanced out of a window to the front of the house. There she was: close to the trees on the other side of the driveway. Kidman.

I walked over to her, my arms folded, not indignantly but self-consciously, only just holding together the great fragility I felt inside. Soon, I was standing behind her and she stayed with her back to me.

“How could you do that? Why did I let you do that? That was my moment. My moment to be me. And it became your moment. It shouldn’t have been your moment. How could you do it to me.”

I said the words in a slow and measured manner. The emotion in my voice was restrained. The words were conceived and executed so as to get an answer, not a response.

But Kidman responded and answered in a way I had not anticipated. She spun round so quick that I found myself stepping back. Her voice had that sing-song quality that it took on from time to time, jovial, but laced with sparks that could ignite at any moment. In her eyes, something demonic smouldered.

“Well, what exactly could I do? When I entered the room, there it was, extended like a pirate’s plank – he wanted action, and action was what he needed from you. But you weren’t exactly going to give it to him, Steph, were you? No man wants to be screwed as if he’s in a Walt Doesn’t film …"

“Doesn’t? Oh, yes. Disney.” Disney. This threw me. She’d mentioned this to me when she first appeared. As a homage to the Scots using ‘disnae’ to say ‘doesn’t’, she would refer to Walt Disney as Walt Doesn’t. It put me on the back-foot though, and I felt my mind was racing to catch-up with what she was saying.

“… and did I feel like a hungry shark as I circled below that plank waiting for food! Here’s what we did in bed, Steph. Listen, you’ll like this. I started off by giving him a minky, but it went a bit wrong and he ended up with sneek all over his polty. Should have used the Hepelpfaft technique! Then we did the Auntie’s Hoover. Oh, oddly he likes a bit of General Lee on his face – never sure of that in a man! Also – now, this will interest you – he liked giving my schubin a right good dose of milp by using his linny-loo on the bossa-mobleys! You might want to remember that, but keep your bossa-mobleys pretty tight or the wenf goes everywhere! Jeez, show me a woman who doesn’t despise getting a  face full of wenf! Then we finished up doing the Poor Man’s Tractor! One of my personal favourites! You should thank me for it. I gave him a good time.”

To my mind, she just didn’t seem to stop. Endless descriptions of her sexual exploits with my man. I felt as if I was somewhere, but I wasn’t sure where. Birds flew overhead and the trees swayed behind Kidman, and I wasn’t sure where they ended and I began.

“… Oh, of course, you do understand that he’ll never date you, don’t you.”

I looked at her quizzically. I didn’t understand.

“Oh, Steph! You had sex with him straight away! Okay you were drunk, but he’ll not want anything to do with you. He shouldn’t have had sex with you, really. Not in your condition. But I don’t see you complaining. But as a strategy to win a man over, it’s about as appealing as a face full of wenf!”

She was right. It was all ridiculous. What had I done? How was any of this a foundation for a relationship? And I felt love for him too. Actual love.  But what would he feel for me now? Actual contempt and disgust.

I said it again, this time though I wanted a reaction: “How could you do this to me?”

Yes, I felt it was all Kidman’s fault. All I could feel was my own position. My own shame and my own uncertainty, and her role in it all. I looked at her. I know my face was pathetic. Full of self-pity. Full of empty scratching, clawing for help from someone, anyone. No, not anyone. Clawing for help from Kidman. As, it seemed, I had been doing for so long. So long.

But Kidman’s face was different. Physically, she loomed larger and her face was piercing: her eyes, her nose, her eyebrows, they seemed to be leaning towards me with sharpness and a sense of intent.

“How could I do it to you?” she asked.

There was something she was intent on saying. I could feel it rising to the surface. What was it? Whatever it was, it was coming. And I think it had always been there. These words, just under the surface of her. What were they? I could vaguely remember something. Something about Kidman. What was it? What were the words? What did she want to know? A bird swooped by and a branch dived down in the wind. Which was me? The bird? The branch? This empty thing standing here before the looming presence of Kidman?

Then she asked it: “How could you stand outside my house everyday for months?”

House? House? Yes, there had been a house. Sometime. Somewhere. I seemed to remember a house. Whose house was it?

"How could you stand there, day after day? How could you follow my car? How could you follow every step I made? How could you send those letters? How could you send those emails? How could you terrify me? How could you terrify my family? Even when we travelled to another country, you would still be there! How could you be so crazy? How could you let yourself get so damned crazy?”

Yes, I was remembering some of this. I could see me standing outside of a house. Was that Kidman’s house? And flights. I remembered those. And I think I remembered the driving too.

“How could you make my life a misery? Why did I have to get lawyers involved? Why did I have to get a restraining order? Why did I have to stand up in court and tell them how you scared me? Why did you scare me? Why would you do that?”

The answer came before I’d even thought if what I was saying was true. “I was sick. I was unhappy. I thought you could help. I got help eventually. From a doctor. I’m much better now. Much better. All of that is … not even a memory, quite, now.”

Yes, my words were all true. But the truth came from some deep place inside that I wasn’t aware of. Memories were speaking without me being able to quite see them.

“Yes,” I said quietly. “I’m much better now.”

And I found myself starting to walk away, in the direction of the Clansman, still hugging my sides, my face looking at the ground, my mind making great turns but as if turning on a pinhead. The last thing I saw though was Kidman’s face, the anger and venom in it, the indignation, the horror that she felt towards me. I could walk away, but that wasn’t the same as getting away.

“Well, good for you! Good for you! Am I better? Will I ever be better? How do I recover from being stalked by someone like you? Yes, Stephanie Fey, stalked! You stalked someone who doesn’t exist! It was just a flattened image of a person – just an illusion – and you followed me and haunted me and demanded that I be what I can never be, what I don’t want to be! An idea of a person! I’m not responsible for that idea! It’s just bits of a person joined together. Because I sleep under a quilt, does that make me a quilt? Am I not still a complex, multi-faceted human being? The world doesn’t want me to be real! People can barely handle reality within the people they know and love! They don’t want it from their stars! And then you pursue me demanding that I be what you’ve created! Because you, in your sickness, need me to be it! If you want an ideal, Stephanie Fey, you be it! Accept responsibility for your own dreams and your own inadequacies! And leave me and my family alone! Leave my life alone! Accept you don’t know it, you’ll never know it, and you’ll never be a part of it! Because it only exists for me! Do you hear me, you sick, untitled bitch? Do you? Get your own life! Get your own name!”

Did I hear her? I certainly heard something. It was a car. James’s car. And it was leaving. Kidman was right. I stopped to watch him leave and then I turned away to continue walking, trying to get away from Kidman. Or perhaps from myself. Who knows!

“I’m asking if you hear me? When will people like you ever hear?”

I heard and I saw. Yes, there had been a house and me standing outside of it. That was after Philip. I wasn’t quite myself then. I wasn’t right. I knew I wasn’t right. I needed a friend. I needed someone strong to help me through it. Someone who had been through so much and come out the other side. Someone who was like a goddess. Not me. I couldn’t be that for myself. But Kidman, I thought, could be it for me. Yes, there had been a house, and a car, and journeys overseas, letters, emails, a court appearance and a restraint order. No, I hadn’t quite been myself. Had I really done all of that? Did I really plague her like that? Was that really me?

I knew what was behind me. Kidman, like some furious banshee. Fiery hair blowing in the wind and her dress billowing around her. Hair like snakes and eyes like dark pits. Breasts pushed forward, indomitable and untouchable. Face set like something permanently carved in marble and protected by curators. An idea pursuing me. An idea that didn’t exist. A sprite. A nymph, a brownie. A delusion. A myth, most certainly. But one of my own design. Kidman’s haunting of me was just my own haunting of myself. Huh! Clever line! Clever notion! But it didn’t make it go away!

“Stop.”

Kidman again. But her voice was suddenly different. Not hollering and filled with frustration and rage. So I did stop. And I looked round at her. She was calm now. Still billowing, but the face was softer. I yearned for it, even as I knew it was just a mixture of a basic human template with make-up and graphics and marketing and technical wizardry and popular mythology, giving it that power and allure. Oh,  and money-spinning entrepreneurialism, of course. Huh! Mustn’t forget that!

She said: “Just remember this. When you finally come to face your demons – and maybe you will now – you don’t just do it inside, in a nebulous, vague way: one part of you questioning another part of you, like bits of cloud trying to interrogate and influence other bits of cloud.  You do it with everything that you are. Changing yourself doesn’t just happen on the inside - it’s a real, physical act! Not ethereal. Not just some inner exercise carried out in the darkness of your own mind and emotions. Real! It takes place all around you, and with everything that you are!”

This was to be the last glimpse. I felt sure of that. The last glimpse of Kidman. And it was of her giving a little kindness. Some wisdom. Advice. Like a goddess. You know goddesses, those things that don’t exist but that we all crave for! And I turned away from the beautiful concept who was like a goddess but who wasn’t really a goddess at all.

“Oh, Steph! Sorry, one last thing!” I turned back and looked once more at that face and that body of elegance and poise. For a second, there was that mischievous quality about her that I had come to know here at Mordan House.“I forgot to say that you’re mother asked me to say ‘hello’!” And she laughed, if not cackled, as she turned away. For my part, my face fell, my scowl returned and I looked after her suspiciously - in fact, long after the sound of her laughter had disappeared.

In the distance I could see Mordan House. Just me and it now – that was all there was. Yet it was so totally me, this house. Rooted to the earth. Stuck there. Empty of all ambition other than to feel differently about myself and my life. And these feelings were chilled by cold winds that found so many ways of getting inside. And all taking place within a home that had never ever been a home. And haunted by a dead presence that was intent on dragging the last embers of my life into extinguishing space. Yes, it had been a long time since I’d thought of killing myself. But, I suppose, deep inside, it had never really gone away. It had been hovering above me all the time.

And that was Kidman’s gift to me. I knew now that she wasn’t anything that concurred with my mental image of her. And, for the first time since my life had started to go horribly wrong, I could see my life – including all the things I’d tried to hide. It ached. Every bit of it. It was horrible! What a horrible life! It was so horrible I couldn’t even arouse any tears for it! And it was all so lonely! Especially without Kidman in it! How would I survive without the image of her? All I could do was fly overhead beating my wings, and rustle my leaves as another cold breeze moved me, and wonder who I am and where the hell I was.

Want to read more? Read the whole story by clicking on the first blog called Prelude and start clicking forwards using the tabs above the title.

21:10 Posted in Part Two: Getting Some Answers | Permalink | Comments (2) | Email this | Tags: haunted house, ghost story, horror story, astronaut, space, nicole kidman, journal

06 May 2008

58. Kidman’s Gift – Part Five

I don’t know when, but at some point I’m sure that a white light ghosted by on the other side of the window behind me.

Who does it seek out, this dead, dropped presence? And what does it want from what it seeks? Do other similar dead presences haunt this world, haunting the night skies above our heads? When we’re not fully aware of this world and when our senses are dulled? That sheen of light that we sense behind us as we walk in the dark – is it a streetlight, a headlight, a light from a window? Or is it a dead aura, a hanging presence in the sky above, just glimpsed between those buildings, momentarily glimpsed between those trees, vaguely detected far off in the distance just to one side of that church’s steeple? And there, on the opposite side of the sky from where the sun is setting, suspended above that roof? Or there, just above that hill? Could that be a human form, shining white, but with a black face that reveals no form, no detail, no soul? And why does it just hang there? Is it looking at you? Could it be looking at you? What does it want? Is it moving? Did it move just then?

As I sat there on the floor, I could see such dead apparitions all across the world, everywhere drawn to emptiness. Smelling it out and hanging above it in the night, staring coldly and blankly, and drawing it all into itself. The cash machine mugging with its vicious threats and its drawn weapons. The gang consuming pills and booze on the street as they watch with avarice the women walking by. The man sitting in his flat, hands rung-out and brow tight, staring at the names of all the people who have wronged him. The bombers pulling their ingredients together in-between prayers to the elevated image of their own reflected hatred. The family friend manipulating language and action to sexually destroy another’s soul. The one car speeding through its second red light, the one driver intent on suicide, empty of any thought for others: “I am all that matters,” he thinks, “I am all that matters”. The woman thinking of that moment and that day and how to fill them up, how to enact something physical within them, while the future lies dead at her feet, and while everything inside echoes dull and hollow. The buying and selling and hoarding, the buying and selling and returning and exchanging, the buying and selling and throwing away and buying again. The knowledge of things, of bits, of stuff, of nonsense. The gun. The invasion. The rhetoric. The locked door. The overflowing bin. The acerbic lie. The empty fatness and the empty thinness. The empty muscle. The empty face. The dead hands. All of it. All of it the dead ghost-men hang over and feast on, ingesting ever more deadness.

What do they want, these dead, dropped presences? What we all want. Approval for how empty and lifeless we all are.

At some point it became morning. Morning! Delicious morning! The universe saw a spark and it blew on it. James lay asleep on my bed like an empty cave, and I lay there beside him. Round my room I felt that there were bits of me scattered everywhere, but everything looked the same. Of course! Of course it all looked the same! The bits of me wouldn’t be there: the dead, dropped presences would have eaten them up in the night. Somewhere up in space, in the bleak void, parts of my soul floated in their natural and lifeless home, finally having found the approval they craved.

Want to read more? Read the whole story by clicking on the first blog called Prelude and start clicking forwards using the tabs above the title.

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05 May 2008

57. Kidman's Gift - Part Four

Where was Kidman?

Where was she, in amongst the time it took to drive to Mordan House and within the endless beck and call of conversation between me and James, and the sweep of stuff and nonsense that moved so quickly by the car windows? Where was she as we arrived at the house and I found James walking me to the front door? Where was the sound of her feet under the crunch-crunch of our two pairs of feet on the gravel? What space and time did we leave for her to enter the house before we closed the door behind us, and, if time and space enough were left there, then did she use them effectively? And if she did indeed follow us in, then where was she as we moved into my suite of rooms? Did she sneak in there too as that door was closed behind us also? Where was she when he kissed me? Where was she when I let him? Where was she when I kissed him back? Where was she when every pore of my skin opened for the sunlight of another’s touch? Where was she when two forces, unique and separate, succumbed to the allure of dropping weapons, removing armour, and allowing all the particles of each other to get mixed-up forever, never to form quite the same two individual people again once they had finally regrouped? Where was her red hair when my red hair so completely nourished the needs of a man’s mouth and governed the movements of his fingers? Yes, where was Kidman? To each other we were both made of just water and mouths, drinking with amazement at each other’s generosity, all the while a hot desert lay around us spurring us on with its threats of drought. But where was my own giver of liquid, my refreshment, my sustenance? Kidman. Where was her body when my body felt a lightning conductor of hardness electrifying it, a dichotomy in amongst all the subtleties and softness? Where was she when my muscles flinched, creating another hardness, but this one of resistance, and where was she when I realised that my sudden tension indicated that I needed a breather?

I was aware of myself pulling away from James and the bed, and frivolously pressing down my hair as I stumbled for the door of the bathroom, but I don’t remember seeing Kidman. Yet I felt her to be somewhere, but I just couldn’t quite see her. Where was she?

I closed the bathroom door and gripped the wash-hand basin tightly, breathing hard as I looked into the mirror above it and into my own face. At the very least, it bore some startling similarities to the face I held in my mind’s eye. But so markedly different in some respects too: my face looked so loose upon my bones, like an ill-fitting rubber mask containing great ghost-holes of eyes, haunted caverns with the most pathetic pool of dirty water way down there at the bottom and making the tiniest plash as pebbles from the outside world struck it. The adornments of hair and make-up, of preened eyebrows, of curled lashes, of purged pores, gave me a bandaged look, as if underneath there was some debilitating condition.

Then there was another face beside mine in the reflection of the mirror. This one wasn’t bandaged for life. This one was perfect.

“So, you like my present?” she asked.

I hesitated to answer and I hesitated to look her in the eye. I didn’t know how to answer. She reached out and stroked my hair gently and spoke ever so soothingly. I felt myself consoled by the touch and I relaxed, feeling all of a sudden secure.

“What are you going to do when you get back in there? He’s waiting for you. Waiting to take you. To have you, Steph. Yes, that’s right, to have you! So what are you going to do?”

I didn’t know what answer she was looking for, but also I didn’t know what answer to give. I knew though what she was asking me. She knew why I’d stepped into the bathroom: to compose myself, to focus, to try and be sure of this, to know with what attitude I should approach it all.

Still gentle, still caressing, she continued: “Are you going to remove your clothes or have them removed? Have you not even decided that yet? No? Tell me, you worthless, untitled piece of nothing. What are you going to do?”

My eyes opened wide but I didn’t look at her, although my senses were instantly sharpened to her presence. Worthless? Nothing?

“I’ll tell you what you’re going to do, shall I? You’ll start to remove your clothes but you’ll be hesitant, you’ll go part of the way – maybe the top of your dress – but then you’ll go all hesitant again and you’ll stop and look down at the ground. You’ll be inert – just a little useless! – and you’ll need him to finish off removing them, as you sigh and shiver. And as he takes them off – feigning sensitivity, forcing himself to be slow! – you’ll still avoid his gaze, and your eyes will dart around, nibbling at the edges of his body, yet eating and tasting nothing. You won’t even sip at the experience, you’ll hold back and every taste will just be an imagined taste from very, very far away. At one point though, you’ll look up at him plaintively, looking for reassurance. He’ll smile and perhaps kiss you gently, but you’ll know what he’ll be thinking, don’t you? You useless, untitled piece of nothing!”

I gasped and flinched and Kidman tugged sharply at my hair. I winced. There was a knock on the bathroom door and an enquiry as to whether everything was alright. “Yes, lover! Everything’s fine! I’ll be back out shortly. Go and make yourself comfortable.” Not my voice, I thought. Kidman’s voice! I stared into her face, my mouth wide open, and I saw her start to move towards the door. I should be the one moving towards the door! Me! But it was her!

She turned back to me and looked hard into my face. Her eyebrows were raised and her eyes were sharp and fierce – every muscle of her face was poised like the body of a tiger. I shrank back a little and felt myself shrinking in her presence.

“No man wants what you have to offer! No man wants it! Not ever! He doesn’t want your insecure shivering, your doe-eyed flinching, your uncertainty, your insipid coy glances, your jagged and pathetic girlish touches, your unlearned ways, your disgusting hesitancy, your pathetic faltering little sounds - so cheap and sad and infantile - your fumbling, your should-I shouldn’t-I stop-and-start meekness! Your hiding away, your crouched, tucked-in, sheepish sexuality. It makes a man sick! Sick, I tell you! Your head all cocked and bashful, and your eyes all sad and timid and recoiling – cowering! - and your hands all loose and weak and insubstantial and without conviction. Useless hands, useless folded-up body, and eyes that should be gouged out of any real woman! Men lie for you! They lie! Every glance, every movement, every word! All lies! And they despise you for your nature! They despise you for making their bodies and minds have to lie so! Let me say it again: no man wants what you have to offer, you useless untitled piece of nothing!”

Every word seemed spat out at me, rapidly and venomously, and with every word she uttered something inside lowered and contracted more and more. I folded-up. I hid away.

Kidman walked purposefully out of the bathroom door and headed in the direction of my bed and James. I followed her slowly, watching as her shape swirled along the corridor, all fire and bluster and drama.

I passed an umbrella, all in shade and all idle on the floor of the corridor. There was a shadow above me that stretched across the ceiling, shaped something like a kitchen bin. At the end of the corridor was the main door to my suite of rooms, locked and bleak and with nothing to do. There was a an old scented candle on a unit, round like a ball. They reminded me of Philip’s words saying that I was just a ball, and I should just let other people bounce me!

As I entered my main room and its subdued lighting, I saw shadows on the wall that moved like dying animals that were eating each other alive. It was all violence and purpose, and I heard their brutal cries, shamelessly gorging, and almost filled with anger and agony. My stomach knotted and I felt sick.

I found myself sitting down on the floor underneath the window-sill. I folded my legs tightly into me, draughts descending on me from every direction, and I found myself starting to cry quietly to myself. So many things flashed through my head, so many past hurts, so much damage and so much endless and congested aching that has never found a way out – all turning round and round like different coloured clothes in a washing machine, the groaning engine of its turning matching my own groans. All the while, Kidman fucked the man I loved. And all I could do was sit in the room, as their shadows and shouts taunted me, and cry over and over again, and without any sign of an end, in any moment or any day to come.

I don’t know when, but at some point I’m sure that a white light ghosted by on the other side of the window behind me.

Want to read more? Read the whole story by clicking on the first blog called Prelude and start clicking forwards using the tabs above the title.

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01 May 2008

56. Kidman’s Gift – Part Three

The ‘battle’ started with, of all things, a handshake.

Now, on the surface, this would seem so formal as to be irritating to any woman who was encountering the man who sends her pretty wild, as James does to me. But, under the circumstances – remembering my stupidity when he’d visited Mordan House, and remembering how offended he’d been – a handshake was almost a romantic gesture. Certainly, to the outside viewer, it would definitely have appeared peacemaking, even if they couldn’t buy into all the romance malarkey!

The image of James was swimming slightly in my vision, floating on a gentle sea, so much so that I couldn’t quite focus on him. Alcohol was deadening every nerve ending, making them all jarred and unsure of themselves. I could imagine them squabbling for ‘first rights’ on what reality actually meant and what it looked like. And there was me, in the middle of it all, just wanting some little thing that I could be sure of and my senses and intellect were giving me nothing!

There were words spoken between us, yet I can’t remember any of them. The words didn’t seem important – it seemed more important that words were being exchanged and how they were being exchanged: kindly, sensitively, and in a conciliatory fashion. James was a blur of darkness and light: darkly tumbling hair and white skin gently rocking in my vision as he spoke. Yet one thing that I couldn’t deny was the sense that was beyond what my corrupted body was able to detect, and that was that I felt something warm from him. There was something right up against me, close and familiar, in his words and presence.

I recall little droplets of words. Something about getting home. Something about my car. Something about alcohol. Then a look in his eye – a split-second of look, and one of the few that my mind was able to capture, process and hold onto. I’m not sure what it said, but it was focused and complete like a ball. There was something in it that I liked, but, at the same time, made me shiver slightly.

Then I was walking and I think there was a flutter of hand on my arm as we walked towards his car. James was going to give me a lift back to Mordan House. I’d be in his car. I’d be in his company. He’d be in my house.

I’m sure that I glanced behind me at some point to see if I could see Kidman. Was there a hint of her dress somewhere in the distance, in the dark, ghosting our steps? I can’t be sure that this was the case.

Did I feel her presence though? That unmistakeable essence of Kidman, that fire, that bravura, that steeliness, that gentleness? Yes. Completely. All the time.

Want to read more? Read the whole story by clicking on the first blog called Prelude and start clicking forwards using the tabs above the title.

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30 April 2008

55. Kidman’s Gift – Part Two

The noise of the bar bombarded me as we entered the main door. After so much quiet living in Mordan House for nearly four months, after the silence of the town library, even the genteel rise and fall of voices in any of the town’s cafes, a bar full of people and music felt like being dropped from a helicopter into a war zone.

Voices scrambled around as if for dear life, and struggled with each other in noise-to-noise combat. It was a colossal war of sound and I almost held my ears at every aural explosion that sounded around me. Kidman just smiled, wiggled as she walked and bounced on her heels slightly as we pushed our way through the people and towards the bar. It was then that I realised how terrified I was, how much I wanted to turn tail and run, taking the consequences for desertion; willing to face the firing squad rather than endure this.

So, what kept me there? Kidman’s hand. Her hand was holding mine and guiding me through the people – if not for this, I’d have been in a corner of the bar already, knees tucked-up, body shaking, thumb in mouth, and with, probably, the distinct scent of urine emanating from a leak in the lady cupboard. Kidman, man, Kidman! She was getting me through this, as best she could. And I was holding on, as if she were a rifle or a shield, or a locket containing the hair of a loved one.

We reached the bar and Kidman nudged me to get the barmaid’s attention. Kidman looked at my face and I saw her recognise the fear that was there. She grinned falsely, but as a different kind of nudge to get me to smile, even if I didn’t feel a smile anywhere inside me. So I did. It felt horrible, like lobbing a grenade into the crowd.

Before I even had the chance to try and get the barmaid’s attention I heard her voice and looked up with surprise. She was looking at me. She saw me! I was curiously amazed at being noticed, at my absolute visibility in such a place of visual violence, and I swallowed and tried to remember how to speak.

Kidman said: “Bourbon. And water. A stiff double too, so hit me.”

“Uh, one double bourbon and water, please.” Bourbon? Where did that come from? When had I last been in the States and ordered Bourbon? “Or whiskey, I should say. And a glass of red wine.”

I did it! What a sigh came out of me, but what a jangle was still going on at the same time! Shell-shock is a terrible thing: one minute you’re all laughter and confidence, then some totally thoughtless prick slams down a paperclip and you’re suddenly behind the sofa playing with your bottom-lip! Yes, the barmaid cocked her head slightly when I mentioned the bourbon, and there was a degree of choosing of wine and whiskey to do that I rattled through without much thought, but aside from that she treated me as if I was normal. Nor-mal! How the hell could I be normal? I was ordering two drinks when there was only one me! What was I to say if challenged? “Oh, it’s for my Imaginary Kidman. Oh, don’t you have one? Everyone should have an Imaginary Kidman. Mine’s the latest model, complete with back-chat, ENP, and lifelike hair and nails! Better get on eBay then, huh!” But she was unlikely to ask; the bar was too busy for her to notice that there was one me and two drinks. Strange, I know, but I felt I had to order this presence a drink – it was the only way I could get through this night. Without my Kidman, I couldn’t do any of this. I was a part of it all, all this Kidman stuff, enthralled by it, but I could see its absurd, frightening shape at the same time!

We found a table - two people leaving just as we walked by them. I sat down, feeling suddenly secure to have a chair beneath me. So many things in life act as chairs, yet, when it comes down to it, you can’t beat having a real chair! In a sense, I sat on my chair as I sat beside my other chair, Kidman.
The bar was typical of the drinking dens that you find in Scotland, especially outside of the cities: it was all old wood on the floor, ceiling and walls; low, beamed ceilings; lots of little corners where you can tuck yourself away; little lamps emitting a reddish light that cast warm shadows everywhere; candles here and there, flickering in conversation with each other just like normal paying customers; and full of all different kinds of people in different kinds of dress, and all appearing unselfconscious and relaxed and boisterous. Funny kind of war zone, I realised. The chaos of war, but with the euphoria of a war just ended.

Kidman was still buzzing. Her head swayed from side to side and she looked at everything, smiling and laughing endlessly – taking it all in as if every little thing was a sip of whiskey to her senses. Her buzz began to give-off an electrical glow as a group of musicians, huddled on small chairs in some corner of the bar, began to play traditional Scottish music. The music skipped through the crowds, and bodies began to sway as the notes danced around them. Kidman began to tap her foot and shoogle little bits of her in a gliding, rhythmic manner. Yes, my elemental creature was in her element!

After a while, I started to stop seeing things through my own eyes and my own disposition, and started to see through Kidman’s eyes. What she was looking at was all the little glimmers of hope that existed in the world, that people ordinarily don't notice when endlessly bombarded by the dark and destructive bombs of this world, those that exploded around us and inside of us, in this midnight world of ours. She looked with glee through all the darknesses piled high and spread wide, as if seeing bits of humanness everywhere – admittedly small, but bright in themselves and filled with potential.

Across from us, through wall upon wall of hollering bodies, we could just make out a man and woman sitting close and looking at each other, then kissing tentatively but then with avarice, everything uncertain but guided by a great red helium balloon inside that rose up and pushed to get out. Ordinarily such a display as this would disgust and annoy me, but through Kidman’s eyes it seemed like a spark of hope. Sure, it might turn out to be nothing but sex between them, but, for those moments, there was a chance to flower, the possibility that something might grow that would give this blistered world a chance.

Kidman watched them and nudged me, saying: “Always remember that hope starts from the smallest glimmer of light, a spark even, and what you try to do in life is slowly but surely create a fire out of it. To hell with the darkness and to hell with how much of it there is!” Then she turned and looked at me: “Hope, I think, is a little like going down on a man: once you see even the tiniest spark, blow on it gently!”

I smiled, blushed slightly and turned away. Then I heard her say mischievously: “I know I always do!”

What happened next happened incrementally. Like a surfer being carried ever-faster and ever-higher by a swell that rises gradually as it moves towards the shore. On the surface, I seemed the same, but as little events gathered themselves together around me, I felt them having an effect on me, lifting me up and carrying me along. I went from being in a place where I knew no-one and where I was on the outside of things to being gathered into the fold of all that was going on in that bar. People came over to talk to me, these people then mentioned “the American girl from Mordan House” to other people and they then came over. Soon there were drinks being bought for me and I was paraded to different quarters of the bar to meet all manner of people. At what point I started to be up and dancing with everyone as the fiddle and harp played exuberantly I don’t know! But it happened!

And, somewhere behind me, Kidman’s drink sat on a table untouched. In fact, I lost sight of her completely after a while, even though I occasionally would crane my neck to see if I could still see her presence in amongst all the people.

It was wonderful! A permanent smile was on my face and it eternally billowed into laughter. It was the most wonderful evening I’d had in such a long time – even before Mordan House and the dead astronaut I found it hard to remember a night like this, especially since everything that happened with Philip.

Not sure at all what time it was when I left the pub. Not sure what prompted me to leave either – although I’m pretty sure that it was round about time for the pub to close. Not sure how much I’d had to drink, but it was a considerable amount of wine and whiskey. Not sure of anything much that was said or done within that last hour either! But, what I do remember was a face that I saw as I stumbled out of the bar.

He was talking to someone at the other side of the street and he saw me almost instantly, his eyes suddenly fixing on me with recognition. I think I whispered the word “James!” out loud. No sooner had I uttered it than he walked towards me.

I’d thought the war was over and that there had been a glorious victory celebrated by me in amongst a downpour of hope-sparks. Perhaps it had all been a skirmish followed by a Pyrrhic victory, and the real battle was just about to begin.

Want to read more? Read the whole story by clicking on the first blog called Prelude and start clicking forwards using the tabs above the title.

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23 April 2008

54. Kidman’s Gift – Part One

“Darling, I’m home!” I called.

Okay, that was a lie. No way I said that when I got back from the library that evening, my head still spinning with thoughts of a new way forward in my investigations. I’m pretty sure that what I actually said was: “I’m back! Where the hell are you? I’ve got some serious shit to lay on you!”

“Is that you?” called Kidman. “My best pal? My only true friend? The one I can’t do without? The one who knows me better than anyone? The one who will stand by me forever? My very own untitled darling? Can it really be you?”

Okay, that too was a lie. No freakin’ way Kidman greeted me like that! Not in this lifetime! I think what she actually said was: “Stephanie Small-Tits? Is that you? Untitled Titties? Are you home? Let me just put my glasses on. Ah, yes, it’s you, Small-Tits, it’s you! Oh yes, I recognise your puny puppies now!”

I was dismissive. “I’ve got stuff to tell you! They have a medium in town! I saw it on the notice-board of the library! Someone who can communicate with the dead! If we were to –”

“Do you want your present now?”

“Present? Oh, yes, my present. Of course. I didn’t like to ask …”

That’s another lie, right there! I’d forgotten, to be honest. My head had been so filled with thoughts of using a medium to communicate with the dead presence in Mordan House that I’d forgotten all about the fact that Kidman had said that she was going to give me a gift of some kind when I got back.

“Didn’t like to ask? What does that mean? Always ask! ‘Where’s my freakin’ pressie?’ that’s what you say! Is that too tricky for you? Need a training course?”

“That’s grand advice, Kidman. Thank you.” I was doing dismissive exceptionally well. You know, I very nearly didn’t type that last line, I was going to throw it away almost as soon as I’d become aware of it in my head! You may, in fact, have heard the initial pre-throwing-out scrunch!

“It’s upstairs! I’ve got everything ready!”

“Upstairs? Uh, where’s the visible ‘Am I Looking Stupid Today?’ tattoo? Upstairs is where most of the haunting stuff goes on! And you want me to amble up there when the sun’s starting to set? Oh, yeah! Let’s see how fast I can amble! Kidman? Thickman, if you ask me! You got poor grades, sweetheart, so go flunk yourself!”

That’s right, reader, lie from beginning to end! Here’s what I really said: “Oh, okay.” Yep. Both barrels. That’s what I gave her.

She took me upstairs to a room that Kidman said had the best lighting. Inside, there was a chair surrounded by a small table covered in make-up, an ironed and ready-to-wear dress plus accessories, and another table with those implements of the trade that women use regularly to preen and prune.

“We’re going to get you glammed-up! We’re going to aim for somewhere in around the hot, foxy, tasty, scrumptious, ‘lady cupboard’ me now, knock-out gorgeous end of the scale of feminine appearance! Somewhere just shy of ‘hooker’ but nowhere near Lyndsay Lohan look-a-like! Then we’re going into town – in fact, going out on the town, I should say – to get your man! Or a different man! The days of women being picky are long gone! There’s a storm, we’re a ship, and, hell, there’s a freakin’ port! And you, Step Fey, are the coxswain!”

There was no persuading her to drop this plan. I could tell from the full embellishment of her ENP! I said nothing and found myself being marshalled into a chair, then my body being pulled about and scraped and seasoned and varnished and various things applied to me in a variety of places.

“Like the way things are shaping up, do you? Like my little pressie to you?” she said as she finally worked on my make-up. I grunted in the affirmative. That was all. Merely grunted.

But here’s what I was really thinking: “No, no, no! Don’t do this to me! I can’t possibly do this! No, no, no! Make like a sheep, Kidman, and get to flock! That’s a nice dress, but get naked and frock off! Make like dust and go fleck yourself!”

You got me again. That was all a complete lie. It was all a lot more complicated than that. Dreadful dread and exciting excitement mixed with nervous nervousness, in amongst the most awfully awful fearful fear you could imagine imagining! And that was just the start of starters!

Soon we were ready to go and I thanked her for her such a thoughtful present, yet quietly and uncertainly. But that was just the start of the gift that Kidman had in mind.

Want to read more? Read the whole story by clicking on the first blog called Prelude and start clicking forwards using the tabs above the title.

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22 April 2008

53. Kidman’s Gift - Prelude

I dreamt that I was in a space-craft last night. Floating alone and with the distant world as my only company.

I looked out of the porthole for solace and in hope that I might see something that might distract me from my own sense of isolation, and from my own numbing, reverberating presence. And there it was. Just hanging there, in the distance, and appearing to stare at me as I stared out. The image of an astronaut.

I grew fearful. I felt vulnerable. Then suddenly the craft began to shake violently from side to side. I held on as tightly as I could and I managed to look back out of the window to find that the image of the astronaut was still there; eerily still, fixed in space, while my craft was buffeted uncontrollably. Then I lost my grip and found myself weightless and unable to control my movement – I put my hands over my head to protect myself and I tucked my legs up to my body. Then, in amongst the shaking of the craft, there was banging, and I could see the image of the astronaut hammering a fist repeatedly at the glass of the porthole. The glass soon shattered and the small pieces of glass floated-off, oh so slowly, as the craft continued to shake. I felt myself come up against a hard surface and I grabbed at it and found I was able to steady myself again. All the while, the astronaut was clambering through the porthole. My fear was rising, deliriously rising. In seconds, the image of the astronaut was hovering before me. Unexpectedly, the violent shaking ceased but there was a dullness in the craft now of depleted lights and dimming energy. I watched as the astronaut raised its hands to its visor and slowly began to lift it.

It was the anguished gurgling sound that I heard first, and then the blueness of skin on a face that was convulsing. A human face, but shaking as if rabid, its tongue ugly and distended, its eyes bulging and pained. The whole head trembling in spasms as if being asphyxiated. All the while, a foul, dreadful gurgling sound came from the mouth and filled the space-craft.

I screamed. I know I did. And I’m sure I woke up screaming too. The face inside the helmet was unmistakeable. It was Kidman’s face.

I know that I have to tell you what’s been happening over the last couple of days. This dream confirms it. As I sit here, typing away on my laptop, I can hear a slow and insistent knocking on the door of my suite of rooms. That’s Kidman also. She’s demanding that I tell you all about her gift. And, if she was paying attention to what I’m typing, she’d understand that that’s exactly what I’m doing. Just in my own way, that’s all.

Tomorrow I’ll tell you about her gift. I’ll tell you all of it.

It seems like she believes me. The knocking has stopped.

Want to read more? Read the whole story by clicking on the first blog called Prelude and start clicking forwards using the tabs above the title.

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17 April 2008

52. A Little More than Lift-Off

Eighteen astronauts have died on space missions of one kind or another. Well, 18 that we know about! Another 11 have died as part of training exercises and 70 ground personnel.

In the library I looked at their faces and found it impossible to think that any one of them could be haunting me. It’s curious to me that most of them have died either trying to leave this planet or trying to get back to it. seven on space shuttle Challenger in 1986 when they had just left the ground, and another 7 on space shuttle Columbia in 2003, just minutes before landing. Three Russian cosmonauts from Soyuz 11 died of asphyxiation during re-entry. How many have actually died in space? None.

There have been, I’ve found out, countless r