Oblivion/Deep Fried
By: Raven Laddish (Photo: Kyle Chong)
My shoes sloshed through the puddles that drowned the street. I lurched forward against
the cruel, relentless wind. My surroundings became fluid. Melding into a slurry of grey around me. And I wondered. Who would I be if I never returned to this godforsaken place? This place where I must everyday come home in the pouring rain. And depart again the next morning. Fighting my battle against these wretched conditions. What if we boarded an aeroplane that would take us across the sea? Leaving this home behind forever to seek the comfort of the tropics. We would leave behind everything we knew and expressed our pseudo love for. Then, would I be reborn?
I reached the house, willing my exhausted muscles to keep me upright for just a moment longer while I unlocked the gate and lugged my pitiful being over the door step. I made my way up to the second door that taunted me, calculated my every move and dared me to come closer. A melancholy air fell over me, as some omnipresent feeling of safety generally associated with my home dissipated in fluid motion. My would-be sanctuary lay beyond. I sought the customary warmth of my home, the torrid yellow lights that would embrace my being and liberate me from merciless outside world.
I fell over the doorstep. No warmth met my body. The air was chilly and unmoving. The lack of any disturbance in the house was unsettling, frightening me to my very core. Where was the dreadful music that my ears were subjected to the moment the door was ajar? Where was the glaring warmth that invariably emanated from the vents? Shocking my icy limbs and frosting every window with drops of condensation. And where were you, twirling around the house awaiting my return? Awaiting the stories of my day and the complaints of the harshness of my journey.
I shivered, making my way down the hall. Some melancholy din emanated from the rear of my home. Drip. Drip. I tensed and spun, my eyes meeting the the kitchen faucet whose knob was turned tightly to the right. Off. I made my way cautiously down the dim hall. The door to the bathroom was unlatched, a strip of golden light met my sodden toes as I hauled it open.
A hand clawed and twisted at my gut when my eyes met the figure in the tub. Your figure. You lay half submerged in the jet black water. My body reacted for me. My legs rearing into action. Pushing me over the edge of the tub. I stood over you. My arms took a life of their own as they grabbed at for your shoulders. They froze in mid air, centimetres from your bare chest. Calculating. My head met the feeling you get when you repeat a word to the point that it is unrecognisable. Stinging at your tongue. Your face was foreign to my mind, unfamiliar. But I knew without a doubt that it was you. I wondered who I would be if I did nothing. Told no one. Forgot about checking for any signs of the spark within that kept you alive, and instead joined you in the ebony pool. The blackness of our bodies melding together into one as we waited for hours, days, weeks. To be found. Who would I be? Forgotten?
I pushed my arm further toward you. Where my fingers met your shoulder, you began instantly to crumble into ash. Falling into the water which splashed at my calves. A riptide in the infinite blackness of the water. I grabbed you by the underarms and tugged. Soon I was covered in the sparkless embers of your being. I looked down at my hands. Eyes burning. I reached below the surface of the water and found your hand. I gripped it.
Immediately I felt a tug. Not at my arm, but at my chest, my legs, my neck. Pulling me down below. I sank. My vision could not penetrate the darkness. And suddenly I was not falling through water, but musty air. The dank lifelessness around me forced my eyes to blink back the stinging water that stung them. I landed in a heap. Winded.
I looked around from my position on the ground. I was lying on a mountainous heap of ash. I shoved my eyes closed against the harsh brightness of the rays of foreign light that bounced off the stark whiteness of my ghastly pallid skin. A panic set in as I realised that this was not me. Not my body.
I prayed for the anguish to be over. Desperately propping myself, head spinning, onto my wrists, trying to make some fragment of sense of my surroundings. But none came. I felt my arms begin to buckle underneath me. My skin was raw from the landing and it burned when I hit the ashy ground. A plume of black dust erupted from my low fall. I lay there, eyes clenched shut, searching for the power to force myself up again. My mouth tasted of metal and my nose stung as the ash hit my lungs. A trembling. The sooty ground seemed to become fluid, swallowing my being whole. I fought the ash that impeded my body, my mouth filled with the filth as I clawed and kicked helplessly. My energy ran out. I fell limp again. My chest refusing to rise with my breath under the weight of the substance above me. I rasped in more soot. Helpless. I let my body fall limp beneath the burden. I wondered who I would be if I left myself to die here. No struggle, just acceptance. Would I be any less guilty?
No. This was not who I was. You had taught me better than that. You. You who had shown me that I am invincible, impervious to the ammunition ceaselessly fired at me all my life. You who had dragged me down. Down. Into this godforsaken place. You. I clenched my fists. A fire erupted around me. Inside me. I felt the dust begin to slide from around me. I wiped the soot from my eyes and blinked. I was glowing. The air felt light. I looked down and saw the ashy floor sink from beneath me
I looked up and saw nothing. No asylum, or refuge at all. I was surrounded by this oblivion. And here I remain. I am no longer scraping, rasping, dying at the bottom. Nor do I see the swirling drainpipe above me. A glowing beacon to mark my return to the real world. This is my world. No omnipotent hand seeks to raise me from the chamber where I remain. Where I shall remain until I gently return, one with the dust. And nevermore will any force but death be strong enough to pull me back below. I shall remain. Content. At home, with Oblivion.
