Pongo #58

Casenotes

it

is all smooth surfaces that's the first and the main thing you notice gritless grainless colours that blend without dramatic leaps chosen for their proximity to each other beige spills into white to buff into pale pale pistachio in the same way, the voices tightly reined speak to you in gently undulating inflection volume constant or close enough to upset only dogs and this one lady up the corridoor who on the hour waddles speedily down the hallway towards the lounge with her knickers round her ankles she smells of sweet tobacco as she passes she looks like a flasher penguin her face is a picture of zen they take her in arms and lead her back again knowing that she will be back in fifty nine minutes I suppose she knows that too since she comes so quietly with the orderlies though she doesn't know how to use the bathroom and if you try to speak to her to ask her not to do it again she either looks blankly at you gets irate at the mere insinuation or starts crying and snotting and slapping her own face because here everyone else is too polite to do it for her

they

have been forcing food down me whether I'm hungry or not like I'm an anorexic or something This pen is a safety pen only the tip of the ink ball is prominent I've been banned from anything that could possibly hurt me even though I'm blatantly not a self-harmer and no suspicious acronyms have been added to my chart to indicate they think I may be on the verge of it but I suspect they're covering all bases for someone my age no meds yet

I

have been folding a name over in two and two again like a street magician I work it out by reactions elimination luck a girl not someone I fancied and friend isn't quite it either but I wish she was here and the name was all I could give the doctors when they sat down with me each time the same questions as if it made a spot of difference when nothing else in this place the food the nutters nothing else changes why would I do anything different

she

must be someone

we

everybody needs someone right and maybe my brain knows something I don't maybe she's special or the one like in that film or the other the doctor

he

wants me to say something good but I don't know what good is right now and everybody's good is different for Annaket good is keeping down a mouthful of porridge and coming when called while Bretya's good is every time she passes internal exams without the doctor finding foreign objects packed inside her Gappren's personal good involves resisting fingering herself for longer spells at a time and Rurinee's good is measured in surrendering stones to the orderlies and saying over and over even if she doesn't believe it they are not real they do not talk they have no thoughts they cannot hurt me or exact revenge upon me for neglect they are not covered in invisible ink or hidden messages from my mum who died two years ago they are stones

me

like I say no pointy things nothing jagged nothing wieldable

so I've left out punctuation which points sharpens yanks these floppy words into neat bundles just in case something happens that can't be explained or justified I can't explain this right now

Andaw

The black-masked racer comes by with the parcel within hours. It looks heavy. He or she, whoever's inside the crash helmet, has been sweating a fair amount. After they have gone, I decide that I do not want to stay inside and wallow in my own reflection after all.

What will you do with your fifteen minutes, your big day?

I put on a coat which is gratifyingly big on me and set off for the shop.

I was never a frighteningly handsome man to begin with. My face was oval and my features neatly presented, but unremarkable. I was of medium height and build with a straight, shallow-flared nose and moderately full lips ' a detective's nightmare really, and the scourge of all photofit kits. I suppose the two features closest to being distinguishing were always my eyes (but then, aren't everybody's eyes stunning and delicate devices?) and maybe my gold hair, which really snags the sun. I was never breathtaking.

But context really is everything. Today, even though I am going to buy a magazine in which everybody looks like Pantheon candidates, I feel like an ice sculpture around which people gather, lowing appreciatively. For the first time in years, a child stops and asks me directions.

Sitting in the same café I sat in with Insa so many times before, I marvel at how every sense is somehow heightened. Touch, for example. If hot coffee spills on my hand, normally my synapses are so burnt out that it's a few seconds before I respond, if at all. Today I practically jig the cup on purpose to feel that delicious bite as the fresh-boiled mocha water jerks my wrist, hollers my blood.

Insa across from me now, freckled and sandy, her treacle toffee hair plugged into her mouth as she chews absently. Insa lapping froth from a cappuccino. Insa telling me how stupid, how fucking stupid Cadderine was being, all the while nursing a spark of fear.

I finish the penultimate supful of the cup, leaving the dregs in a paddling pool of dark liquid, and head across to buy my magazine. The shop is as dismal and uniform as ever. The owners know me, but usually busy themselves to avoid looking me in the face. I have never really held this against them, hence my continued patronage.

Today, they smile, pleasantly surprised by the human walking in at my usual time.

They want to know how the weather is; whether it is still raining like gunfire. They ask if there will be anything else.

By the time I've gone home, clicked AGREE and fulfilled the latest contractual obligation, she'll be none the wiser that I ever shook off my bear skin. There'll be no evidence that I was ever, even for a day, anything other than a bag of famous offal.

And maybe, just maybe, Cadderine will try to get better.

There we go. Front page. A colour close-up of the knife going in. Well at least I know now. She's most likely holed up in a top secret private ward under armed guard until I do my duty. Everyone is probably instructed to fire at the first glimpse of camera lens. Nobody is allowed to relax until I make her young again.

I pay, my money clinking into the shop-owner's hand for once, instead of clattering on the counter.

The contract is such a neat explanation. Nothing I can do ' bound by law, so suck it up. At the same time, it is a get-out clause. As in 'it's only money' or 'what will they do ' sue me?' Contracts are cold things that hurt and confuse and with whom people only fall in love for their money. I'm not afraid of being sued. The contract is in this case a mask for maybe, just maybe, doing the right thing.

I have said before that by nature I am none of the following: noble, stoic, a martyr, courageous, particularly honourable, scrupulous, immune to money. That stands. Right now, even more so than before donning the overtime mask, I am sorely tempted by everybody who walks by. Bartering may not even come into it. I could run out of my flat, slap the mask on an unsuspecting anonymite and be back inside within a click. I could keep all this agility, the fabulous absence of creak and ache in simple activities, this which was mine to begin with. I could look normal again.