ThEraPeutIc SKIn JobS #8

This was written in 1999, and you can tell that because of how pleased I was with myself for the 'karmaceutical' line. But who hasn't ever had a dream about John Lennon writing Flash comics? Isn't that a universal?

ThEraPeutIc SKIn JobS: Number Eight

Too Early In The Fucking Morning

9:30 a.m. – Waking Up

    Waking up with a hangover of Babylonian proportions, I instantly roll over and grasp for oblivion once more. It’s too early in the morning for this. It feels like a mediocre international rugby team has played a rough and ready game in my head, and churned up memories and theories with their filthy boots. My mouth tastes like a yak’s codpiece and there's something sticky on my fingers. Things could be worse.

    Sleep remains an elusive quality, and I’m forced to sit up in bed and face the day. Yawning softly, Kristine wakes beside me and smiles.

    “Did you sleep well?” she asks with genuine, unconditional concern.

    “No,” I croak, clearing my throat and gobbing out the open window before continuing. “I don’t even remember arriving home.”

    “What do you remember?” she asks, arching her back in a highly suggestive manner.

    I concentrate and access my memories. They’re opaque, clouded with karmaceutical overindulgence, and hours appear to be missing.

    “No, it’s a complete blank,” I admit. “I remember the band started playing ‘All You Need Is Love’ and talking to the Queen, but that’s it.”

    “Really? You don’t remember telling Liz to… ‘suck your love pump’?”

    “I said that?” I ask as Kristine rolls out of the bed and gathers up her clothes off the floor. “What did she say?”

    “Better you don’t know,” smiles Kristine, squeezing into a plain black dress. “Breakfast?”

    “Soon,” I mumble, hiding back under the covers. The Ultimate New Years Eve was one hell of a party, and the best affairs always need a considerable recovery period.

    “No time for that!” yells Kristine at a needlessly loud volume. “We’ve got things to do!”

    “Don’t be ridiculous,” I snort in mock indignation. “We never have much to do. It’s our reason for being.”

    Kristine stands by the doorway into the hall, one delicate hand resting on the handle. “Boy, you really don’t remember much, do you?”

    “What are you talking about?” I asked, inwardly ashamed to be showing such weakness in the face of my one, true love, but letting it fucking happen anyway. “Did something happen?”

    “Something did happen,” nods Kristine enthusiastically. “Something wonderful.”

     wait patiently for her to continue, but her infuriating habit of keeping me in suspense comes again to the fore, blinding me with it’s smugness. “Well?” I finally offer, the tension unbearable and untenable.

    Kristine’s smile shifts in strange directions as she refuses to tell me the score. “Ah. That’s for me to know and for you to find out..”

    Groaning extravagantly, I roll out of bed and make my way to the window, basking in the bright pure sunlight. Morning dew still glistens on the grass lawn, moist and settling.

    “It’s a whole new world,” whispers Kristine in my ear. “Are you ready to explore it, Dr. Skin?”

    I turn to her with a concerned frown. “After breakfast, of course.”

    Kristine frowns back, but her natural exuberance still shines through. “Of course.”

    Well. That’s all right, then.

10:69 a.m. – Tea On The Lawn

    Having showered in blue champagne and dressed in only the most tasteful clothes, I join Kristine at the table in the middle of this ridiculously green lawn. I help myself to a cup of tea as a small transistor radio crackles into life and starts blaring the score in the cricket at Lords. Australia have started their run chase, needing 307 to win, and have opted to send in Arnold Schwarzenegger as their opening batsman. I listen just long enough to hear that Arnold has shot the English captain in the head and stolen his hat before switching the radio off in disgust. It’s just not cricket.

    Kristine, seated opposite me on the other side of the table, shrugs in sympathy and returns to her crossword, erasing and correcting answers as quickly as the clues shuffle themselves around on the page. It’s all too much, and the tiny flying saucers buzzing around my head only add to my indignation.

    Being thoroughly bloody foolish, I cram all negative feelings deep inside and let them stew in the juices of my skull. There, they join all the distaste and hate built from an extraordinary lifetime of guns, beer and woman. One day I’ll use this bottomless pit of bile, but not today. It’s too damn hot.

    “It’s too damn hot,” I complain to Kristine, who looks up from her puzzle and grimaces.

    “Shut up,” she snaps. “Nobody is interested in your complaints. Nobody cares.”

    “I didn’t ask for sympathy,” I retort. “Why do folks always assume I care what they think?”

    “What are you talking about?”

    “I don’t even know anymore,” I answer, smashing my head down on the table. Its painful enough for distraction and a mindless assault on the temple of my body feels right. It feels correct.


2:31 p.m. – Relaxation Of The Damned

    I’ve forced my hangover to retreat with a concentrated program of liquids, fresh air and drugs, but the slightest hint of a headache buzzes through my head, ready to open up at the slightest provocation. I’m not about to hurry along any such eventualities, so I retire to my study.

    Sitting in my faithful and frayed leather chair, I balance a ballpoint pen on the end of my finger and ponder my next move. I’ve always considered a total lack of planning one of my more admirable assets, but I can’t help but wish for an indication of what direction my life should be headed in.

    It's no use, and I resort to browsing through some of the books lining the walls of this tiny study. But none of them take my fancy either and I try transcendental meditation. It’s never worked before, but it might hold the boredom at bay for a minute or two.

    And wouldn’t you know it? I’m just getting into the swing of things, just about to find the path to temporary bliss when a sharp scouse voice cuts through my concentration.

    “Aw, what the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

    “You should know,” I mutter, opening my eyes and turning to the phantom sitting on my desk. “You showed me how to do it. Remember, Lennon? ’67?”

    “I know that,” says Lennon indignantly. “I want to know what the fuck you’re doing it for. It doesn’t work. It never worked.”

    “That’s an awfully cynical attitude to be taking at this hour of the day.”

    “Easy for you to say,” snarls Lennon, a spectral sneer on his ghost face. “You trying being dead for twenty years. See how optimistic you feel.”
    
    “No thanks. What do you want?”

    “I had me a new theory.”

    “Do tell.”

    Lennon inadvertently starts floating around the room as he explains his latest idea. “Right. What I was thinking is that we place too much importance on our physical location. We shouldn’t really, because it doesn’t exist. There is no such thing as a permanent location. We sit on a planet spinning bloody fast, zipping bloody fast around a sun that powers a solar system careering bloody fast through a galaxy that moves at a bloody fast rate through a universe that, by all accounts, is expanding at a bloody fast speed. We don’t exist in the same space for more than the briefest of instants. So where is here?”

    “This is hardly an original thought,” I complain. “What’s your point?”

    “My point is, maybe time moves at the same rate. Maybe time is constantly ripping through our lives at an incredible speed, and all we need to do is match that acceleration rate and we’ll have full access to anywhere and anytime. All it takes is speed. All we need is velocity.”

    Y’know something, John?” I ask casually. “You were wasted in the music industry. You should’ve spent your life writing ‘Flash’ comics.”

    Lennon shrugs as he fades away again. “Yeah, well. At least I’d still be alive.”

9:99 p.m. – Getting Out

    “Shiiiiiiiiiiiit,” I hiss through gritted teeth as the headache that’s been building all day finally crosses the line into pure agony. I smash my fists against my temple and cry at the injustice of it all.

    Kristine returns from the bathroom and finds me lying on the bedroom floor, curled up in the original position. “Jakob?” she asks tenderly. “What’s the matter?”

    “I’m sick,” I mutter under my breath.

    She kneels down beside me, rubbing my back and whispering sordid, soothing words in my ear. It doesn’t work and I push her away. “Please, “ I beg. “Don’t. I’m sick”

    “So you said,” she says, sitting on the bed and adopting the concerned matron gambit. “How are you sick?”

    “I’m sick of it all,” I growl, fully aware of every word I say, even though I cannot predict what I’m going to utter next. “I’m sick of this life. I’m sick of ethics. I’m sick of snappy one-liners. I’m sick of collaboration. I’m sick of this year. I’m sick of celebration. I’m sick of the weather. I’m sick of cohesive narrative. I’m sick of the pressure. I’m sick of explanations. I’m sick of money. I’m sick of food. I’m sick of negativity. I’m sick of being obtuse. I’m sick of you. I’m sick of me.”

    “Is that all?” asks Kristine patiently.

    “I think so,” I answer truthfully.

    “Then why don’t you do something about it?” she says with a subtle wink.

    And with that wink the pain vanishes, replaced by the clear purity of a way out of this mess. It’s so obvious. “I’m getting out.”

    “You do that,” smiles Kristine.

    And without looking back, I’m on my feet, running towards the window into the rest of the world. The instant before I make contact I make a mockery of cohesive reality by convincing myself there’s no glass in the frame. By the time I’m leaping through, existence has taken me up on the challenge and disposed of any life-threatening glass and I soar through the empty frame, landing on my feet and running across the open lawn without hesitation.

    The moon is hidden beyond thick cloud, and it’s pitch black as I sprint across the lawn and hurl myself into the woods surrounding the estate. Branches claw at my body, leaves slap my open face and roots treacherously grab at my feet, but I keep running at full speed, somehow staying upright.

    The tightness in my chest subtly suggests that I’m running beyond my body’s ability, so I shut down all input/output signals between my body and my brain. The sensation of oblivion becomes clear as I no longer register any physical stimulus, but freed of such constraints my mind blossoms in new directions, forced to find stimulus in nothing.

    And then, independent of optical accompaniment, a pinprick of utter white light shines through the darkness of nothingness, illuminating my very soul. With a strange gasp, reality unfolds like a flower before me, showing signs and wonders. Wonders and signs.

    Seizing this new mode of existence with full exuberance, I find myself waking up. Waking up to new possibilities, new realms. Waking up to a new way of thinking, a new way of being, new sights. Waking up to a brave new world. Waking up to this.

    Waking up.

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