From the Ground Down

Hey, move over. It’s the devil. I hear him step out, join me on the ledge. I have my eyes closed. But it’s him. I’d know him anywhere, the bastard twin who refuses the sunder. I keep my eyes shut. I desire darkness; the light hurts me. But I can’t keep it away. The sun spits at me. Fists of light. Pounding me. Biting into me. Forcing their way into my burning head. Driving me towards my destiny.

I hear him tapping his feet. There’s a pain in my hands, small tips of hot metal. Each tap’s like a hammer blow. I’m trying to will it away by concentrating on the parts of me that do not hurt. That’s what they instructed at the meditation centre: FOCUS ON THE NOT PAIN. It’s proving difficult.

Nice view, he remarks, interrupting my agony. Probably the best view in the world. And, you know it could…. He pauses and I feel his eyes burning on the side of my face. He doesn’t complete the sentence but in a softer voice he continues, It’s a good day for it.

For what? The words just spill out, even though I want nothing to do with the bastard.

For ending your story, he laughs, for completing the insignificance of an insignificant life.

I’ve heard that laugh all my life. He haunts me, the bastard, is always treading my shadow. And now he’s followed me here, into this, this supreme moment, that was supposed to be my moment. My bloody moment!

Go on, you are going to splat yourself? You are going to jump? He intones the words letter by letter, each sinking painfully into my head. I know he’s willing to help. He’s whistling now, or trying to – he’s never been able to. I remember the walks back from school, the deserted house we used to play in, pretending we were angels while we strung up and buggered stray cats (I remember him trying to plug me up the arse as well, and the smack I gave him - the look on his pug-nosed face! Hadn’t been expecting that, thought I’d accept his fucking intrusion without complaint). He wanted to learn to whistle, and I remember showing him how to curl his tongue, force the breath past, and to furl his lips just so. The bastard would lean into me, our bodies triangulated, him and I and our shadow, until our mouths nearly touched as he tried to mimic the perfect ‘O’ I’d achieved. All he managed, I recall, was a sound like a fridge leaking gas. The same sound now.

He nudges me. What you waiting for? Look, his voice points downwards, they’re all waiting.

I open my eyes.

I’m on the window ledge, the wrong side of the glass, of course. Six floors down the ground stares up at me with the glazed look of a TV audience. I’m cold. Thin clouds obscure the sun. A gust of wind presses against my legs. I shiver. Looking down I can see myself broken, limbs marionetted. I reach back for a handhold, touch cold glass.

I close my eyes, and a grey sky grips my throat. There’s nothing but this grey sky, a darkening sky inside of me.

AMAR! The word shouts inside my head. I cling to the glass.

What am I doing here? I remember nothing. How the fuck did I get here?

My eyes sting. The wind is whipping me.

I remember crying, howling, raging at the ridged ceiling, caught in that desperate moment when the world itself seems to be opening, crumbling. I remember a vacuum. I try to close myself. My grandma appears inside my head. What does she want? Her presence spooks me; she spooks me with her look. I love her but this is not the time. She’s hissing fire, fanning the embers of my heart. She has that power even though she’s five thousand miles away. Talk about connections! It’s the groove. We share the same lines, the same songs, the same memories. I’m tied to her, Flesh descended into itself, rib from rib, the soldering of human trinity, the traces of all others diminished.

That soldering, I know, is my malady. Part of my flesh has parted and away. Tight the black sail twangs into the wind as the rib recedes. The light dribbles down my face. I feel its dampness, the red corpuscles singeing my white root.

Jump, he whispers, give them their daily thrill.

Fuck you, I want to say, leave me be, but I keep silent.

Then there’s a shout.

Despite the fear of my grandma’s shadow my eyes are tightly closed. Light steals past them still, patterns spark and play on the red ice. Light and shade. God’s world. Gathering boundless the eye of the first. The horizon melts under the weight of the impending event. Birds shatter against the glass, a beginning sparks, promising. Yet, to me, it feels like the ending.

WHY AM I…..I pause in my thought. The howls break inside of me, the screaming colours my memory. I’d come back to the empty flat. The rooms echo behind me, seem to have been fractured, all life withered in the vacuum.

At the top of the far pillar, that stands at the crossword of the North Circular and High, a salted man shouts: EMPTINESS IS THE OPPOSITE OF LIFE. I seem to know that. I know that the empty room behind me is a reflection of me. There’s no life in that room, and soon (I can feel the cells emptying, the cancer of the loneliness spreading) there will be no life in me. Not even the sound of my voice.

EMPTINESS. There is nothing to touch, to be touched by. No memories, no songs. My eyes light on nothing. My thought sparks darkness.

AMARI! I remember the howl. I remember it chasing me onto the ledge.

I remember a voice. And I want to jump. I don’t know why. I feel its hands at my back.

I don’t jump. There’s another voice behind the first. They’re both familiar, both seem to be part of me. Warm touches, soft touches, touches filtering past the pain soothing. The clouds are being pushed away, the sky magnifies its blue through the gaps. The second voice, a man’s, says: ‘If you want to jump, Pilgermann, jump. But remember, there’s a time for our deaths. It comes of its own when our jug is full. Is yours brimming? Have you over-filled it? Stop and ask yourself where all your moments have gone. Life, my beautiful sonlet, is about moments, impressions, and,’ he pauses, almost sighs before he continues, ‘there’s nothing that touches as deeply as the touch of a woman.’

The devil begins to speak, cuts past the voice, which I know is my father’s. He comes tripping into my eyes, past the flashes of lightning inside of my head. Let them have it, he shouts above the thunder, fuck ‘em just as they’ve fucked you. And then, in the midst of this storm, I hear, remember, another, that first voice, a woman’s voice, definitely a woman’s, one who’s touched me with the force of the first birth, calling me. I know there was already a distance between us. I’d been in Sainsbury’s (down in Hendon), in front of the cheese counter when I heard her call, the phone’s vibration betraying my heart, tying me darkly to her. I remember now. It’s the voice of her, her voice; I feel its thread growing stronger, opening up its throat. I can see her shadow – again my legs tense and I see myself on the ground – and I know she’s the spark, that she’s the key to me standing on this window ledge looking down at my dead flesh.

My father continues, ‘Whatever you do I’ll be waiting. That,’ and there was a slight pause, ‘is my throw and I cannot cast another die. But you are your own man, come when you feel all have deserted you. Remember, not till then.’

The devil’s laughing: He’s abandoned you, you fucker! Those are your people now. They’re here for you. Look at their faces. Such an eager audience! He slaps me on the shoulder and I vomit uncontrollably, the long arc of undigested mix curving out and down. I hear screams from the people down at our feet. I sway, am about to fall, but he grabs hold of my collar. Not yet, he whispers, not yet, my love. You don’t want to end it yet. They haven’t even got to know you. Let them wait. Let’s give them a show they’ll remember. Let’s show them what a hot-blood you’ve been.

I have no idea what he’s talking about. But it’s all I can do to keep my balance.

It’ll be just like old times, he says. I’ll be at your shoulder. I’ll be your counsellor. You can spill the beans to me. You know you want to. This uncircumcised crowd wants your history. I, and he pulls himself to his full height, I want to know why you’ve been hung out to dry.

Go fuck yourself, I tell him.

That’s my boy, he says. Show a bit of spine. He spits at the crowd, and they fall back from the bright drops. Come on. Let’s get this show off the ground. Tell them what is pearled around your heart, Go on, you mother-fuck. I’m not going to let you die yet. Your pretty arse is still mine until He calls you, if He calls you.

A bolt of wind drives the clouds past the sun. The light strengthens, turns off the darkness, and I am lifted…… and I hear him saying, Strip yourself, give them the pure stuff, none of that adulterated shit. Fuck you, I whisper falling into the warm maw opening before me, the great red tongue waiting to lick my flesh…..