other writing

The hollow footfalls of shoppers echoing across the partially derelict shopping centre were broken suddenly by an odd sound coming from the ceiling.

Jamie Harris stopped to look up towards the mysterious thump, an odd chill creeping up the back of her neck. Other patrons continued shouldering their way past her, but she walked through this passage every day; this was not a regular occurence.

THUMP.

There it was again. It seemed closer this time. Jamie craned her neck to try and find the source.

THUMP.

There was no doubt about it, it was definitely getting closer. The people around her had slowed, some stopping as well, similarly transfixed by the loud thumps.

THUMP.

Jamie started backing away now, bumping into other people, she…

THUMP.

It was right above her now and she abruptly froze, remembering something she thought she heard one time on an episode of Blue Planet.

But there was only quiet now - not even a knocking of shoes on concrete. The last seconds of the tinkling theme song from a kids show rang out from an unused ride.

After a minute or so of inactivity, natural order resumed. Movement and relieved chatter drowned out the chiming of the ride.

But there was still one person watching, staring at that spot on the ceiling; Jamie still felt the cold chill on the back of her neck, increasingly suspicious that whatever was up there was still watching them.

Jamie’s phone buzzed in her pocket; a message from her manager.

‘Hey Jamie, its ok if your ill but youll need to tell me if you cant get in to work. Its been nearly an hour and your shift was supposed to start at 10. thx, Tom’

‘Shit’ she uttered ‘shit shit shit’ as she furried her phone back into her coat pocket and swung back towards the exit.

Except it wasn’t really the exit she had remembered.

Where once stood expansive glass doors, through which you could gaze out upon the bustling streets of Shepherds Bush, now gave a view of… nothing. Not even darkness, just an incomprehensible dawn of nothingness, like standing upon the edge of a vast precipice.

Jamie always imagined that, when the time came that she inevitably got herself into a dangerous situation, she would feel a need and determination to fight. But she just stood there trapped in her own mind, cascading into the abyssal void, covering her with a thick layer of choking ash. Within the ash, a realisation darted around her like salmon swimming upstream, but just as fast as they had arrived, they had disappeared under the claws of a bear.

Then, a ripple of shadow passed in front of the window. People around Jaime scattered all at once, shrieks resounding from the ground to the top floor. Some ran towards the windows, grasping at the handles, others would follow to pull them away from the brink of the darkness. Like a wave, people surged to every window and door in the hopes that they could find one that wasn’t suspended within a void. In the reflection of the glass doors Jamie could see a young boy crying, his mother consoling him.

Standing on the edge of the cliff I feel I can see through an eternity of seafoam dashed against the rocks below and down through their tight crevices. The wind pushes me to and fro, swaying into and against the violent embraces of the storm. Closing my eyes I can feel myself leaning further and further and further into the darkness and the depths below the boulders and the spiral fossils which lie beneath seem to graze my cheeks cutting just below the underside of my eye and the water it becomes warmer the salt stings my cheeks and i am falling further, past even the storm beaten underbelly of the rocks and through the stirring grit that lines the seafloor, cyclonic sand mixing into my eyes and my cuts and my mouth and i can feel myself swallowing more and more of the salt and the sea and the sand.

And then my eyes snap open and I am standing above the rocks, swaying precariously in the gale, salty air forcing open my lungs. I feel so miraculously alive, the churning of the sea mimicking the churning within my belly.

My hand reaches towards my cheek to assure myself of the transience of this dream - it comes away covered in a mixture of blood and sand. The sea convulses now, an urgent desperation crashing against sheer cliff-face, as if to shake off some horrific truth.

A shudder runs through me from my fingertips to my scalp, a serpent constricting its way around my neck. Fear bubbles up inside of my throat and escapes through my open mouth, blood and sea water rushing in to take its place.

I feel my shoulders picked up as a bird of prey would its targets, my chest unnaturally lurched forward, tumbling around in a whirlwind so out of my control I feel myself drowning I am filling up with water and I blink and open my eyes and I'm here again. Standing atop the ledge of the cliff. And falling and tumbling and standing stone still all at once, salt water pouring down my cheeks stinging at the cuts intermingling with the sand, bitter and painful and spilling out of my eye sockets grain by grain I feel the salt and the water I am fixated look over there at the horizon is that not beautiful is that not a wonderful sunset stained with blue and freckled with molluscs.

My hand recoils from the unconscious touch this is my stream of consciousness this is the pool that I bathe myself in. The salt pours from my fingertips as the spout of a kettle, spinning and whirling my salt scatters and breaks the earth I rip the grass from it's banks I tear the mussels from their pools I cannot create I cannot destroy I am unimaginably broken and yet also entirely hole stitched together by string and muck and clay baked in the sun I follow the orders of the one who puts words in my mouth I do their bidding. The salt nestles itself and embeds itself within the dirt and uproots all that once lived there and I can never retrieve it I have irreversibly removed the beauty I have stopped to burn the roses is this who I am now is this who i am?

The tides the tides the tides wash closer in and out the tides the tides they come further and closer inching tides up to my mouth now up to my nose in to my eyes and swelling in my sockets spitting out the foulness of my sight can I ever repay you can I ever repay you all I do is cycle and circle a hawk in a buzzards clothing reaching down pecking at my brine eyes all is pain all is salt and hurt and broken.

Tomorrow I will wake on a cliff.

I dig my fingers into the earth, feel his worms and ants rise up to meet my fingertips.

A breath of dark peat onto my belly. Dropped from a height it spreads across my chest

Faster and faster the earth churns. My grip tightens. I’m falling off of a terminally rotating planet. Panicking to keep my place within the soil.

Flowers sprout over all. Covered in hydrangea and violet the wind shakes soil petals maggots onto me. Writhing underneath my embedded fingernails.

Flowers wilt inside themselves. Dirt engorges the delicate buds.

Crossing to the dresser, my sullied form appears to me. A hulking mass of debris. I trace my muddied lips with a marked hand. I wonder upon the curved path.

I was at the work Christmas party, hosted at a bar renowned for it’s ‘no-holds-barred’ atmosphere. The night had gone on long, and we were all plied with thousands-worth of comped alcohol.

One of my co-workers tried to convince me that we had 'chemistry’ and that I should go home with him; I didn’t. I kept drinking. I kept drinking until I couldn’t see any familiar faces amongst the crowd.

I don’t know when, but I decided to get my things from the upstairs cloakroom and go home. They directed me to leave through a room I didn’t recognize. Next thing I remember, someone was on top of me, kissing and biting me. Looking back, he is only a dark figure. I think he was tall, had long hair, and was a lot older than me. But nothing is certain.

He was shoving his hands underneath my dress and tights and into me. I didn’t stop him from kissing me, but I kept pushing his hands away because he was hurting me. He would put them back again. I don’t remember how long it went on. I remember worrying about if any of my co-workers saw me. Then he started pulling me across the room towards the exit.

It was as we left the darkness that my first thankful moment of the night occurred. A rush of cold air hit me as I saw a co-worker trying to get back into the club. He seemed surprised, asking me if there were any of our co-workers left in there - I just shrugged.

Those few seconds brought me back into myself. Reality shifted as I looked at the man waiting for me at the end of the alleyway, and I realised that I do not know this person. This moment of soberness and clarity stopped me from getting hurt further, and I am so grateful for it.

I spoke to one of the performers taking a smoke break until the man left. After we were sure he was gone, I launched myself stumbling towards the tube station. I fell into a seat on the near-empty 4am westbound Piccadilly line and had a little cry.

Then one of my fellow passengers got up and asked if I was okay. I shook my head and started to share what had happened to me. His nods and soothing sentiments revealed the misconception that I’d been dumped, but I appreciated the kind ear anyway.

That was, until he grabbed my face and started kissing me. And I just froze. I don’t remember how long it went on for. The image of the connecting tube door that he manoeuvred me to stare at is burned across my mind like an after-image of the sun. A mixture of anger and frustration and disappointment silently roiled within me. But I still didn’t do anything.

The train made an unexpected stop, and he pulled away from my face. “I love you” he repeated. “You don’t know me” I mumbled, still unable to get myself to move.

An announcement that this was the end of the line echoed across the empty train. A station guard passed by the door to hurry us out of the train before it started back in the other direction. As I emerged from the carriage, the stranger's hands resting upon my hips, a second thankful moment of the night occurred. The guard must have noticed that I was struggling - he asked where I was going, if I needed to call someone. I nodded, and he led me to the furthest end of the platform.

I tried to explain to him that I didn’t need to call anyone, that I had been assaulted. His response was resembling “I know, It’s okay, this happens a lot. Get on the train - it’ll go back where you came and you can get off at the next stop. I hope you find your way from there.” and he bundled me into the frontmost carriage. Before I had an opportunity to full process what this man had done, the door had closed, and I was travelling again.

Those closing door opened the floodgates and I started bawling. I didn’t care who saw me, I didn’t care what people thought. I was crying from then until I got home at around 6am.

I am so glad that he could see that I was struggling and that he did what he did. I am still struck by the contrast of people's actions that night - the cruelty and the kindness. If that man hadn’t helped me then, I would have a much more dour view of humanity now.

And now I want to share my story. Like, I really want to. I don’t know why. Is it for pity? For understanding? For recognition? For someone to share in my righteous indignation? During lockdown this has been at the forefront of my mind. I recall that an unusually clear thought struck me on my way from the club to the tube station:

“At least I can know this isn’t my fault. At least I can’t doubt myself."

It’s strange how time changes things - I can’t say I always believe what I told myself then. When an experience lingers in your mind for so long, you analyse every part of it until it becomes easy to doubt what you once considered truth. This hasn’t been an isolated experience. I have had countless people I’ve considered 'friends’ touch me, coerce me, use me. Lovers have threatened and insulted me. I have allowed so much.

I know I didn’t deserve so many abuses from people I thought I trusted. I know I didn’t deserve this. I… Well, I think I know those things.

It’s getting harder to convince myself I know anything as time goes on.