Skin against skin

# 3

After I let her squirt a couple times more, we leave our little hide-out behind the statue. Only now I see a woman standing on the first floor of a house, hiding behind a messy curtain. We wave. The woman just keeps looking without even blinking. We go in the direction of the lane the man disappeared into. I'm kind of curious. I hadn't noticed that lane before.

And yet, with every step I take, my body shivers. Every look left or right unleashes clawing little beasts underneath my skin. No idea why. I am absolutely sure I've never been here.

"Something wrong, baby?" Carla looks at me worried. "No, honey." What else can I say? It will soon pass. But the feeling just gets worse and by the time we pass house number eight, it's as if someone switches off the main power. My muscles collapse and I fall to the ground. "Baby! What's happening?!" I'm still conscious, but can't speak one word. Sounds I try... no idea if someone can understand. I feel I am curling up into a little ball. I'm cramped up totally. My head spins and I disappear into myself.

Cold. Everything feels cold.

I want to go back. Back to the warmth. To earlier days.

To the dark. The dark, my safety.

Cold! Light! Hard light.

It all feels so dry. I don't hear any of my normal sounds.

I'm afraid. Alone. There is someone in the room, but I am alone. That I feel. I can only cry. Weep. Sob. Hysterical, sniffling, desperate.

Nobody hears me. Someone is coming towards me. But nobody's listening.

I don't see anything, just light. A haze of light. Shadows, ghosts, spectres. Fascinating, and very frightening.

I am alone. No one protects me.

I don't know anything, what am I doing here?! Help me! Help me!!

The baby cries, weeps, shouts, rages, cries again, minutes, hours on end.

The bleak and barren hospital room with its pallid white walls watches like a sheepish cow at the child. So what? Should I give you attention, tiny creature?

There were so many before you. After you will be so many more. Cry. You just cry. See if I care...

In the distance an echo of crying. Another one. Another left-behind something. Something they forgot to collect. Or refused to take with them. A child? A baby? Technically yes. Actually it's just a crying heap of meat.

In the beginning there was hope. This is just temporary. This isn't right. What is right, will happen in the end! Justice!

When exactly the turnaround took place, nobody knows. But that turnaround certainly marks the beginning. The start of the illness. Of the permanent feeling of being alond. Always alone. In everything one does. Until being alone becomes a natural state and it becomes hard or near impossible to admit others into one's life.

Bitterness, that's it. Realizing that you do not belong. That nobody wanted you. In any case not the person who mattered. There's no place in this world for you. Look, search, try to find your little spot. Try, you poor little creature. Do you know the word 'futile'??

Stop making a spectacle of yourself. Admit, lie down and die. Disappear. The way you should have disappeared.

The baby cries. Yes, he cries. And keeps crying. Until the end of his life.

And suddenly, there is light again. I recognize Carla's figure and face. The noises of the city and its grubby smell reach me again. And in one moment, a tantalizing warmth bubbles up in me. It's as if steam is gushing from my pores. Sweat is dripping from my brow into my eyes.

Carla opened up my clothes a little. Slowly, very slowly, the all-embracing sense of heat starts to wane and shapes into a somewhat odd seeming hand-in-glove feeling. It's as if I'm lying in front of a cosy fire place with gentle flames consoling me, underneath a fleece blanket, while it's snowing outside. My muscles give me back my control. Bit by bit I'm starting to feel better. Indescribable feeling. But completely positive. Like coming home from a 4 month journey... happy to see it all back. Happy to be there again.

"Come, get up, baby." Some spectators have gathered around. Not to help, of course, but to get a good look, so they can tell about it when they get home. They do ask me how I feel. I just wave and say "I'm ok, completely fine". Carla is supporting me. "That's not ok he baby. You should sit down." - "No, really, baby. I'm ok. It's over."

"Let's get to the car." Everything has turned to normal. But in one way or another, everything is different. Maybe, just to be safe, I will see a doctor when we get home. It's not long until we reach the parking garage. The blind man apparently did find his way home again. "I'll drive", Carla hastens to say. "Careful, he baby." She is learning how to drive, with me as her instructor. Blue L at the back. "Just take it easy", I tell her. But she's doing fine. I'm glad I don't have to focus on the road. The wheels are humming their way home. The scenery is a haze of colours, lines, past, present and future.

Come to Walsall and be happy...