Timeout

Lost in time. Alone. I sat and gazed at the white, clinical walls. The air smelt of nothing; of disinfectant, sterile. I had only the leaking tap for company: drip, drip, drip… The extractor fan hums its disapproval at my presence.

I didn’t care. I shouldn’t be there, of course not, but I had every right to be. My phone buzzes, the outside world pulls, ignored. The dripping increases in volume.

The knots in my stomach lessened to a constant rate as my breathing calms. I tried hard to think of nothing, to restrain my recalcitrant thoughts as they pulled like furious stallions, determined not to be expelled from my mind.

Slowly, my thoughts gave in. I focused on the space around me, the small cuboid enclosing me in its soft, dull whiteness, the now comforting drip, drip, drip and the hum.

The I stood up, turned the handle and emerged into the world. I was no longer thinking of her.

***

Taxi

The driver wasn’t looking at us. He didn’t need to. The words flung like grenades across the back of the car were foreign to him, but their meaning was clear: his two passengers (or at least one of them) would rather be anywhere right now than in a taxi with each other.

The car echoes with their accusatory tones as the volume rises. The driver looks determinedly at the road ahead of him, blanking out the eerily melodic verbal battle behind him. He knows when his attention is inadvisable.

The daughter falls quiet and stares staunchly out of the window; the traffic whizzed past mercilessly. The sudden quiet posed the uncertain suggestion that it was, perhaps, over now. Then the words were launched again; the mother had merely been temporarily trumped, and had regained enough of her bearings to launch a new assault. Neither were about to give up.

The driver sighs inwardly. This is going to be one of those jobs…

***

Daydreams

The warm water ran across my skin, splashing gently on its path guided by gravity. I wondered whether my life could be that simple, guided by some invisible force in one direction, no need for decisions, painless… I shook some water out of my eyes and reached for the shampoo.

I wished I could stop thinking, just press a pause button on my brain and follow the actions of day to day life without always pondering, hesitating, questioning every word, every decision both past and present. Despite my best attempts, half-formed thoughts always forced themselves past the mental barricades; they taunted me, mocking my weakness – if I allowed my own mind to control me so, what chance did I stand against the rest of the world? The whisper of the falling water and the familiar scent of the shampoo sent me further into my trance. In a world, somewhere, the second hands of clocks ticked, pushing time steadily forwards; but not here.

Water and foamy bubbles splashed around the plughole, then was swallowed by the empty blackness beyond the shiny metal cover. A strand of hair swirled with it; I watched, mesmerised. My mind was still whirring in its ceaseless computations.

Why do the same topics keep coming back into my mind?!

***

Midnight

11:59, the glowing display read. I was restless still. My eyes drooped with fatigue but sleep refused to come. There was too much worry upon my heart.

00:00, and I was not sleeping. Broken reels of film played themselves around my head, some images real, some imaginary, some messages important, some meaningless. My throat felt dry, my duvet too hot. I was equally tired and uncomfortable, both in body and in mind.

It was far too loud for midnight. Cars whizzed down the street below the window; murmuring voices were still drifting up the stairs, past my solidly closed bedroom door, stopping me from dropping off into the abyss, which I simultaneously longed for and dreaded. I forced my eyes closed.

It felt like a long time (though for the lack of a ticking, mechanical clock in my room, I could not tell either way), but finally, I drifted into uneasy sleep.