fear of a blank planet

fear of a blank planet

"He's not responding. William? William? William I need you to look at me. Can you hear me? Make a little movement if you can. Just so we know you're still with us. Come on. William? We'll have to move him back, give him 2mg lorazepam and 3mg haloperidol..."

Rats. White rats. [and bones and ghosts and]

Don't forget to close the door on your way

out.

Oh god oh god oh no oh god there's blood everywhere and he's

Got freckles like cinnamon dust and he tastes like strawberry chapstick and the way he says he likes how I dress sounds more like I wanna-


Thousands of people were caught up in the harrowing events of July 9th and its effects were felt even further afield as businesses failed and families gathered to mourn their lost ones. Putting back together the pieces of their lives and livelihoods will be a long and arduous process, and a particularly painful one. From New York City, Kate Bolduan repo-


Now

William gagged, straining uncomfortably against the jumbled fabrics that weighted down his body as though they had lead sewn into the seams. Drool slid down the side of his cheeks and collected on the stiff bed sheets in a gammy puddle. A couple of fingers inched over the blanket's scratchy hem, nails trimmed down too short, cuticles complaining.

There were raindrops glooping along the window like strings of liquid metal, or alien fingertips inching towards the rim... the sun had festered in the far left corner and coagulated into a messy splodge of yellow red paint behind a thin veil of haze. He squinted, trying to focus, but the light hurt his eyes.

Time had sped up. And -down. And it burst forward in little gasps and clicks, and sometimes suspended and didn't move at all and the whole planet got stuck in space like cosmic deep vein thrombosis, a massive celestial cyst, clotting ecliptic arteries. And he swallowed minutes and seconds fell like rain and hours hustled in all sorts of directions like a plague of white rats.

There were phantoms and messages in bits of paper, little words he'd notice that seemed to leap out at him, like know what's going on and time is just around the corner in commercials and magazine articles... like they were meant for him to hear and him only. There were people. Real people, and otherthings, that were transparent, that no one else could see, and sometimes pinpoints of lights that burst and popped or trailed through the room and reminded him of paranormal photos and specks people gawped at and claimed with wide-eyed vehemence were orbs and spirits.

No one believed him... when he said it, when he would tremble and choke out spurts of sentences that didn't make any sense, ramming his finger at invisible effluences and hissing that there were ghosts meandering the finelines between here and... he wasn't sure where... They'd say, their faces long and drawn out with pity, it's in your head son, you're hallucinating, you're having a psychotic episode... and they'd repeat his name, William, you're having an episode William, you're seeing things William, so he wouldn't forget it. Maybe, maybe he was, maybe... but he couldn't...

He couldn't understand how something could be so tangible and real and feel so, so right, right there in his chest, that overwhelming inner certainty centred around that indefinable spot beneath his breastbone, and then, then he'd doubt so intensely what he saw and felt, despite the unshakeable knowledge that it was real, god, it had to be... and not knowing, and knowing and not...

How does that make you feel, William?

Sometimes he woke up and couldn't remember where he was, why he was there, why he wasn't in his bed at home being punched in the stomach by his younger brother, why there wasn't the smell of toast wafting up from the kitchen, why Mom wasn't yelling that they were going to be late for school. Why the walls were bare and white instead of littered thick with posters of bands and movies and superheroes and video games, where his CD collection had gone, why his comics weren't stacked in teetering boxes by the foot of his bed.

Lids heavy, William tried to shift about, change position; his thighs were cramping and wasted muscle aching, but his system was sluggish and fusty and bones felt like they were calcified, made out of limestone. The medication...

The meds were horrible [and necessary] so he was told- I really think you should be taking them when he protested that he didn't like how they made him feel as though he wasn't really there, as though he was in this imaginary bubble that resembled Billy but was only ever an outline and that he was only acting out words and actions as though reading from a script, how his emotions turned into stew and slop and gunk, and that he wanted to try and get through the rough spots on nothing but his own steam. It felt more genuine that way... perhaps.

And they would look at him and sigh and say sorry, but you're a very ill young man right now.

And then sometimes he'd plunge into that black black pit again and cling to the medication as though it could rescue him like some chemical messiah. They helped him sleep, at least, at least until the morning, but the hallucinations were oppressive and unrelenting, and somehow the meds never quite chased them all away.


Last Month

William perched in an awkward declination on the edge of his bed, watching the floor and the way that the tiny fragments caught the light and reflected it in a myriad of miserable shards. Visits were difficult for him, and his parents, and he hated how they stared at him now, like he was this thing, this anomaly, all wrong and... not their Billy.

They didn't recognise him anymore... It was ok; he understood... he just didn't like seeing it leaking from their eyes, stifling the air until he could barely breathe for strangulation by anguish.

Mostly he was quiet, but sometimes he tried to talk, and he'd apologise, though he often forgot what for. It never turned out well. He thought he might just stop talking altogether, and sometimes he did, but then the doctors would throw a fuss and increase his dosage.

"I'm- I'm sorry, I-... Mom?

Can we go to Pizza Hut?

For tea? I can take us there,

I'll show you, I...

Mom?

I can...

don't cry..."



Last year

There was someone screaming on the television. They weren't on screen, the camera jerking around in fits and spasms, whoever was behind it unsure where to settle, but Billy could hear them. Screaming. The picture flickered like it was having a seizure and cut back to the studio, but the anchors were still glued to screens that couldn't be seen by the viewer. Horror had settled on their faces. The woman had her mouth covered with both hands. The co-anchor was half out of his seat.

Billy's head oscillated. His legs lost all their strength. That couldn't have... it... he didn't just... he didn't...

"Hey man, are you ok?" Nathan's voice cut across the cloying, lumpy buzz that had filled Billy's ears, making him jump, head snapping around. "You were taking a while to... Oh- .. oh, Jesus..."