Flautist's Green: Three
Days 5 and 6
Day 5:
I am forcing myself to write something in this journal. Yesterday remains a blur. I feel compelled to document. I lose moments in moments.
Alright, here we go.
Under a sky that is some dull color. On a bench that is also a dull shade of something. The arms of this bench are made of some cheap material. The seat of this bench supports elements of something I once knew as flesh.
Less than a week here, and everything in this town is muted: the sun, the voices, the breeze, the smell of the abandoned tin mines. It all feels like a muffled cough. A wheezing stifled burp. Excuse me.
You know what they say, “You can’t run away from yourself.”
Who the fuck is this “they” you’re talking about?
Who says that?
I don’t know what is expected of me here. I know that I need some productive way to span time, but I haven’t felt well enough to produce anything since I arrived.
I am sick even now. I think.
My skin is crawling. Armies of ants wage war between my shoulders. My head is drifting in slow circles. My brow is sweating. I am waiting for something to occur, something to motivate me to move a muscle. I am slouched; I stare at my arms as they dangle between my legs. I twitch a finger—it hurts.
It is not dread that hangs over me, but hereditary oppression.
The Balls of Damocles.
Sinister things are happening. I feel them as an extension of my isolation. This area is oppressive. It forces me down. It bends me with its false history—its haughty lords, hollow stones, and made-up language.
Is it my history?
Hereditary, meaning what in my mind? My father?
I don’t hate him. He drinks too much. He gets too high. He gets fucked up. Always has. He is 72 now. A broken neck from a tumble down the stairs, double cataracts. Hasn’t had a glass of water in 50 years.
It seems I have long lonely genes. Not good genes.
Not good! Long though. Too long.
I don’t want another 50 years. Hell, I’d check out today if I weren’t such a chicken shit. I’d smash my face into this bench—over and over, in front of everyone.
I keep thinking of the scissor scene in The Dead Zone or making a po-go stick out of a shotgun. Bounce bounce BOOF! Lights out.
Dad lived it too long.
He is not a bad guy, though. Not really. Volatile, they would call it. Changeable if I was trying to be kind.
Kind…
He broke my rib once. He kicked me right into the corner of a countertop.
He choked me out, too, but that was just lucky on his part. He got me in a sleeper when I was a teenager; I was out in a second. I wish I could choke myself out.
I wish I had gotten him in his sleep that night. Those stairs almost took care of him. There was also that twenty-seven grand.
God, my stomach hurts. My mind says drink, drink, drink.
Fuck it. I’ll get lunch. I’ve got these weird wooden tokens. More gross purple fish, I suppose. I’ll need three pints before I can eat anything.
Fucking pandos.
What is this town? Saint Just? What is going on here?
Feed me your lies, Saint Just. Feed me your greasy purple lies.
I’ll ask this guy if there is anywhere else to go.
Fuck this journal. Whinging, they would call it.
Oh, papa no! Boohoo!
fuck me!
Day 5 Night:
I run a personal diagnostic and check myself. I don’t feel sick.
I feel great, I guess. Better. I am back on the streets, it is dusk.
Back on this bench.
I lost hours. I was at Flautist’s Green again. I had five tokens this morning. Now I have four. I remember something like eating. I think I was the only one in there.
Ewan might have been there too. I can taste salty, warm beer. Fuck what happened.
No. Ewan was there!
He said, “Are you thirsty?”
He was behind the bar. He leaned over and kissed me.
I could feel his teeth with my tongue. They were round, sharp, and cool. I could smell his upper lip.
It smelled like roots, mint, and lemon balm.
He pulled back slowly, but there was a stab of wild caprice in the motion. He grinned at me and brushed a loose curl behind one of his pointy ears.
I dropped a wooden token into a cup.
I am resigned. I feel great
I feel…confused.
Just
Just…
I was sitting on the bench in the center of town. I was trying to remember how I ended up back there, and what really happened in the last couple of hours. I heard it.
PAH PAH PAH.
I heard that sound. Clear as a day.
Clear as day.
It wasn’t an auditory hallucination. I looked around. I don’t know what I was expecting. I don’t know if I was expecting anything. I perked up like a jackrabbit. It was an instinct.
I saw a child with legs too long for their torso, a head too big for their shoulders, and teeth too big for their face. How old are they when they look like that?
Three? Seven?
I don’t know, and thank fuck for that.
They were old enough to run after their father. Old enough to carry a wriggling worm in their little mitt.
Pah pah pah, they called out.
Their father was holding a rusty steel bucket. Stubby fingers wrapped around a thin handle. He was looking down along the hedge line. He was collecting worms coaxed out by the rain. The proud child rushes to their father’s knee, clutching a worm.
“E, geddon, tacker” was the man’s response.
The child sprinted, eyes downward to hunt out another worm. Pah was what they called their father.
This father was now looking directly at me. His eyes encountered mine keenly, and plain as I can make out, he said, “gwag n’ a gug”
I said, “What!” And he repeated himself as mumble-mouthed as before.
The child came running back and dropped another worm in the bucket. Now they both stared at me.
“E nutter hellup” said the child, and they laughed together.
I stood up and asked, “What are you looking at!”
These two fuckers started puckering their lips and mocking me—PAH PAH PAH. Both of them were laughing like Muttley.
Laughing right at me. I saw a few other people swagger over. The whole lot of them laughing and smiling at me—Rubbing their bellies, saying PAH PAH PAH….
Day 6:
A slap on the back roused me to consciousness. I was on a stool—five empty pint glasses, and Ewan at my side. On the bar top and under my chin was half a pie. Three purple fish heads are poking out of a dark brown crust. Ewan smiled at me. There was a shine all over his grey lips. His formal demeanor is still intact despite the messy mouth. His top hat mocked—it dangled impossibly. Sweaty curls framed a coy yet feral face.
“Are you still thirsty?” he said and slapped me on the back again.
I felt sharp fingers on the crown of my skull. They forced me to nod in agreement. Another pint is placed in front of me. A different hand, a hand I recognized as my own, grabbed the pint and raised it. I tasted metallic shocks, and bits of sediment collided into my gums. With my left hand, I grasped a fish head. The crust of the pie fell away in sloppy bits. The fish is consumed. A thin piping sound accompanied clomping.
Ewan dismounted his stool. He hitched his pants up, exposing hooves on hardwood. He began to dance. The floor beneath me shook, and the presence of a nearby crowd radiated through my nerves. Body odor and incense struggled for dominance against the pungent oily fish aroma.
wood clacked in rhythm. I see my left hand reach into my coat pocket—smeared fish pie falling to the floor. I pulled out another wooden token. I placed it into a cup.
I careened out of the bar and spun down to the stone walkway. I stared up at the face of the Green Man. It stared back from the sign.
It stared down at me. The leaves and sticks that twisted and branched to form his beard and hair rustled gently with an informed chuckle. His laurel brow furrowed slightly, shaming my now exposed naivety.
Day 6-Night:
It is whatever I think it is.
Too much drinking. You are faltering. Stop drinking at that bar. Wash yourself. Get cleaned up.
Go for a walk.
I am not hungover.
I feel great, in fact. Fit as a fiddle. Fit as a Flute. I should be hungover.
Write it all down.
Remember to write it all down.
Go to sleep. Go to sleep…..
Write it down before e nutter hellup
First thing in the morning.
Find answers.
Hooves are clomping along. Thud, thud, clack. Thud…
Pa, don’t let them get me!
“I won’t.”
I always enjoy your writing. You have such a distinct voice and unlike so many people recently claiming their POVs as “unreliable narrator,” I feel like you actually hit it on the head.
Intense writing Nathan. It caught me. Like a chill in my bedroom haunt. My house does this presence thing. Nice to meet you, Rob