The Faceless
I had to leave. The atmosphere at home was radioactive. I could feel my flesh melt, and my hair fall out. I left at night with no money. I had the clothes on my skin, a raincoat, a lighter, a solitary cigarette, and for some reason, a note pad. My father told me to write it down, get it out of my head. Write it down. Write what down? Write the babble, the paranoia, the fear, the hatred of the capitalist system, the pain of falling in love with people who needed more than a sense of humor to form a relationship, write it down, and then forget about it. It didn’t work and yet I kept the notepad, empty and pure of thought.
Mother
was a good woman. I could not be her son. I could not live under the same roof.
I didn’t even know why I wanted to leave. I just felt a sense of doom whenever
I thought about growing old in the family home alone. Time was a robed hunter.
Time would find me and turn me into dust.
I
wandered down the street where I grew up. I past the Kebab house, where soldiers
and drunkards fought over women they would never marry. Along the blood stained
pavements.
I saw the car park, where
people listened to drum and base at four in the morning, through subwoofers
installed in their car boots. I saw the pet shop that sold coal, the car shop
window with over-priced bicycles, the club that took in drinkers and spewed out
drunks. I saw all the familiar spots I wandered as a kid, and it made me sick.
There
was a force driving me away from civilization. I wanted to hide in the
wilderness away from people. It was not a well thought out plan. It was the
only plan I could stomach. If I could find somewhere to lie down and rest I
might be able to come back.
The
town was surrounded by fields and hills, with forests and woods, and many
places left alone. I was swimming with choices, every direction led to more
abandoned land.
There
was a man living atop a hill in a tent. I was not afraid of him but I felt that
he wouldn’t want to be disturbed. I wasn’t the only one who needed to get away.
I
left the center of town. The noise of the cat screech karaoke faded to nothing.
The engines were less. The drunken shouts of noontime fools disappeared as I
reached the mansions on the edge of the country.
I
took a concrete lane under the bypass and on to farmer’s fields. These fields
were filled with green barley. The tips shone orange by the light of the road
lamps. There was no moon and clouds obscured the stars. It was only when I was
far away from the roads that I began to feel conscious of the dark.
The
silence of night constricted me like a snake. No wind, no animal rustlings,
just dead silence and coal-black night.
It
was peace, tainted by fear, but peace none the less. Now all I needed was a
place to sleep.
I
thought about curling up at the wayside. I thought better of it, for I was too
exposed. The night had a mid-October cool to it. I looked for a place off the
lane. I remembered an old pillbox I played in as a child. I walked round and
round the woods until my feet felt something solid under them. I was on the
roof. I felt my way round to the door. I went inside to an even deeper
darkness.
I
flicked the lighter on. It illuminated years of teenage graffiti. Most just
swear words and tags, some marks of devil worship. More sinister was a letter.
The letter was written in white paint. Written by a madman perhaps? A letter to
the wilderness. I burnt my hand on the lighter before I could read it.
There
were dry twigs and leaves on the floor. I piled them up and made a fire. I sat
watching the flames feeling the warmth and trying to slow down my mind. I
smoked my last cigarette.
I
must have sat there for an hour before I felt a huge surge of exhaustion sink
into my muscles. The fire was nearly out and I lay down to sleep. My mind
wouldn’t let me rest. I kept thinking of the millions, the millions of
malnourished minds, and the machine. I hoped the machine would fall down into
the slithering briars. I hoped it would be dragged into the mud and forgotten.
As I fell away from consciousness I saw moon light return to the sky outside
the door.
Something broke me out of
sleep. The moonlight was stronger. I looked towards the door and saw a
silhouette of a head. Fear flooded my heart and mind. I didn’t move because I
couldn’t. Whatever it was, blocked my escape. It stood still, darkness obscured
the face. I heard my own breathing. It was silent. It just stood there staring
at me through the dark.
“Fuck
off,” I said, whimpering with fear, “I am sleeping, find your own place.”
It didn’t reply. My voice changed the mood.
It came closer. I couldn’t move. It pressed its face into mine. I reached out
to push it off. I felt nothing but a smooth surface. It had no eyes, no nose,
mouth or ears. It was a smooth orb like a football. It crushed down on me and I
couldn’t get up. I couldn’t get out.
And that is what I imagined would happen if I left home without preparing first. I would leave. I wouldn’t rush into the hands of darkness. I would endure the radiation a little longer.
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