Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER
She woke, head thick with the dreams of seven gin and tonics and four hours sleep, which could have been five hours if she hadn’t decided to binge watch Suits at one in the morning, rather than setting herself off to sleep before two a.m. when Netflix asked her if she was still there.
Sleep never came easily. She only ever slept well when there was another person in the house. This rarely happened. And when she did sleep, she couldn’t believe that she had slept, insomnia being such a conditioned way of life that when she did get more than the perfunctory four hours, she felt as if her insides were melting and her head was about to explode.
She told herself this was what life was all about. Wake. Be scared. Walk. Be scared. Go to work. Be scared. Relax. Be scared. Got to bed. Be scared.
There were the rituals. The rituals she needed to make herself partially comfortable in her uncomfortableness. Triple checking the locks. Turning off the lights. Ensuring the gas was turned off at the wall. Flicking every electrical switch to off, with the one exception of her beside lamp.
To solve the problem of being alone, an ageless, timeless problem from which she could not escape, she would imagine that another person was in the flat. Her guardian angel, her prince charming, her timeless defender, would be there to make sure of her safety and security. Once a month, on a Thursday, she would even allow herself to imagine this person sidling up to her on her flaccid single bed mattress, relishing in his warmth, pondering what it would feel like to go to bed with somebody, just for a change, knowing that this nightdream would only lead to disappointment. If she was in a particularly good mood, she would even let herself nightdream about George Michael, circa 1985, in his Choose Life t-shirt, Converse high tops and jeans shorts, dancing around the bedroom.
But no, she found herself waking in an empty bedroom, in an empty bed, her cotton nightly riding up around her waist, her cottontails stuck high into her arse crack and yesterday’s mascara running down her face, giving her the look of Alice Cooper, in drag, at 55 years of age.
Today was the day she was going to start her new life. Today was the day. ‘Just watch’, she told herself.
After her morning ablutions, washing the dripping mascara from her visage, stowing her Laura Ingalls nighty under her pillow and making sure last night’s underwear ended up in the washing machine, she regrouped and redressed.
Today was the day she was going to start her new life. ‘Today was the day. Just watch,’ she told herself.
She dressed with care. The girl at Kmart said that this active wear stuff was all the rage. She was not so sure. Pulling the patterned leggings on, she was reminded of what cottage cheese might look like if was placed in thick stockings. She struggled to entrap her ample chest in a sports bra, fighting with the eyes and hooks before she finally relented and did the daft thing up and stepped into the fucking contraption, pulling the constrictive band over her hips. A black cotton t-shirt went over the top. Done.
Grabbing her keys, she walked out the door.
The trees had started to show their leaves, as if they wanted to herald the start of summer as soon as possible but were having trouble getting out of the starting blocks.
She had waited for this moment. It had taken four months, but now the day had come. While she was waiting for this moment, she had found her body had morphed and changed. Her leg, injured in a fall, had frozen up. She now walked with a significant limp, which the doctor had said if she exercised, may relax and work normally again.
She stowed her keys down her bra and walked into the morning.
As she turned the first corner, she was approached by a man with a dog. The man, bearing all of the markings of an ex-con, all prison tatts and a missing tooth, was walking a small white dog. The dog’s green and red collar read, ‘I’m racist.’ She wanted to know what sort of beef the dog had against which race. Was it that the dog didn’t like middle aged, overweight, limping white women, or was it some other ethnicity that the dog could not tolerate?
Go out. Be scared. Retreat. Be scared.
She turned on her heel and returned to her flat.
Tomorrow would be the day. Just watch.