Page 22 of All That Has Flown Beyond
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Kaiyo lay in bed and thought about taking a shower.
He could see each step unfurling before him. How he would have to make all his muscles move to drag himself out of bed. How he would have to get up, undress, walk to the bathroom. How he would have to turn the water on and wait for it to heat. How he would have to step under the spray, wash his hair, his body, his soul. How he would somehow have to find the will to get out of the warmth again. How he would have to dry himself, dress himself, have his reflection waiting for him behind the mist on the mirror. How his hair would be wet and chill the nape of his neck.
That last detail got stuck in his mind. How that would feel, that dripping wetness. Theinconvenienceof it. On top of everything else, it seemed utterly unimaginable to deal with.
Each imagined step weighed him down. It was a series of fragments to make an impossible whole.
Suddenly, the rest of his life stretched out before him, a series of impossible steps. Step after step in action after action after action. How he would have to get up every single morning and go to class and complete his projects. How he would have to think about what he wanted to do with his life. How he would have to find a job and work and make money. How he would have to go to the grocery store and cook and eat. How he would have to talk to people and build bridges and live with the fear that they would break. Every day he would have to exist. There would be no respite from himself.
Existing was a series of exhausting steps. His head filled with the thought of having another emotion, of having to contend with his morality, with his conscience, with having to have a sense of purpose.
He couldn’t breathe. Everything was so unimaginably exhausting. The nothingness around him was almost better. The absence of feeling, of motivation, of self.
He closed his eyes, and for the very first time, the thought of just stopping, stopping it all once and for all, entered his mind with shape and substance.
He would do it, he thought. He would do it…if suicide weren’t another intolerable series of steps.
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There was a banging inside Kaiyo’s head.
No. Not inside his head.
The door was banging. Someone was banging on the door.
He let it rattle. It existed in another world.
“Kaiyo? Kaiyo, are you there?” The voice cut right through the lamina between dimensions.
It was his mom. God, it was his mom.
Kaiyo sat up. He closed his eyes as the world spun around him. He felt sick.
He stumbled to his feet and looked down at himself. He couldn’t remember the last time he had changed his clothes. They hung limply on his body. Shame rose like tar through him. It travelled slowly, failing to reach every part of him. He stared at it for a while, tracking the viscous emotion until the banging started again.
He opened the door. His mom had materialized from the noise. Now, there was just silence.
“Oh, God,” the silence said. Kaiyo’s mom wrapped her arms around his skeleton. Her hold was loose, as if she were afraid holding any tighter would break him.
The urge to cry ripped through Kaiyo, but it dissolved just as quickly. The sadness existed in a place so empty it was an echo of itself, getting distorted until it became unintelligible.
Kaiyo was pushed back gently. His mom’s face twisted as she took in his apartment, her hand coming up to cover her nose. Kaiyo turned to look at the kitchen. The food he had left to melt sagged on the table. He could see some of the plastic holding clumps of grey prawns. It must have smelt, Kaiyo realized, but he couldn’t tell. He’d lived with the unpleasant scent so long that he’d grown used to it.
Kaiyo was sat down on the couch. It swallowed him in chunks until he couldn’t move. All he could do was watch his mom as she opened the windows and then searched through the kitchen cupboards until she found what she was looking for.
She took out a collection of cleaning supplies. She put on a pair of rubber gloves and got to work. She threw out the food and folded the open cardboard grocery boxes he’d left on the floor. She cleaned the counters, the table, the fridge. She went into his bedroom and made a noise.
Kaiyo wanted to help. He wanted to get up. He wished she would leave. She was waking up parts of him he didn’t want alive.
He closed his eyes.
Time passed like it always did these days. Blindly and without meaning.
“Come on, let’s get you into the shower,” his mom’s voice said. Kaiyo opened his eyes as he was pulled up. He was guided towards the bathroom. Suddenly, anger burned through him.
“I’m not a child!” he growled. His mother looked at him.
