The Unbound

BOTTICELLI VENUS

She finds herself in bed–mouth open–mid snore, and as she blinks awake she is thinking about what she will wear. Leaping out of bed she reaches for her jeans only to find herself already dressed and heading to the kitchen. As she turns on the tap for a glass of water she notices her coffee steaming on the sideboard–takes a sip, but the cup is empty. Feeling cheated she starts to make another one and before she has a chance to grind the beans she is draining this cup and wondering if a third is a good idea. She decides against it because a glance at the clock shows she’s running late and if she doesn’t leave right now she will miss the morning transit. So she grabs her jacket and leaves without brushing teeth or combing hair.

Outside in the streets the sun is already beating down and the morning smells stale. Dust motes on the outside pepper through the air and settle on dome surface. She tries to interpret the chatter from the surrounding bubbles–the constant low mummering sometimes–calm sometimes agitated, but she can’t get at the essence of it and time is pressing on–she thinks?

Even though it is March–it is terribly hot. To her left a conversation is about to happen, it’s a faltering and indistinct murmuring and the speakers are shadowy. Genuine conversation is an unusual event so she strains to listen. From what she hears she thinks that this one won’t take. Around her voices rise in anticipation and swiftly fall away. Nothing to get excited about, another failed attempt, and listen! the subtle hiss of time escaping–how stupid to get waylaid by such a mundane occurrence. She quickens her pace.

On her way to the transit stop the whispers grow coarse and clamorous–not unusual but usually loud for this time of the day. It makes her anxious–her left eye is twitching uncontrollably. To distract herself she gazes at the domed ceiling. Through the dust layer, shafts of sunlight glance off the spherical roof domes. It’s a beautiful sight, quite the gilded cage. A thought bubble materialises above her head–if she’s late her regular transit will have gone and she will have to plead for a place on the next one, which might mean performing some kind of disgusting menial or sexual act and the idea of this terrifies her. But as her introspection crystalises and as she tries with flailing hands to scatter her thought trail, she finds herself the end of her journey–no one has accosted her.

She is doubting her sanity but there is no time to think about it because she is out in the street running towards her practice depot and again here and here and all around, the voices intoning in shrill whining inflexion and she would like to stop to investigate, but as she’s late she doesn’t. She’s conjuring an excuse to give at the depot and walking through the automatic doors discovers herself midway through the mornings work and it’s time for a break.

She has no memory of the mornings work, but as its break time she decides to have another coffee and as she’s pouring it the dispenser asks her what she wants for lunch–this is strange, but she does want a sandwich with leaves and nut butters and carrying it back to her desk she is startled by a spectral presence.

In the droplet next to hers a body is pressing against the membrane wall, which is thin and stretchy and probably porous although she has never really tested it–there has never been a reason to. The air feels very still and her breathing has become shallow–but her heart is hammering in her ears. Urgent squeaking and rubbing noises emanate from this writhing, morphing corporeal mass at the intersection of the adjoining wall; it’s male?–a rash supposition perhaps–one never can be sure, but as time elapses, if indeed time does, she begins to form a clear picture of his face which presses so ardently and insistent through the tensile wall. His lips press and mouth garbled words, not quite a sentence not yet, but she feels as though one is ce3rtainly imminent. All around them humming from the adjoining cavities rises and reaches a fevered pitch. The globules stacked in a tight frail armature, quiver tense, like an agitated nest of bees. Her head swivels from the annunciators to the one initiating conversation.

It’s finally happening and she doesn’t know what to do. She remembers her sandwich, and here it is right in front of her–she takes a bite and chews. Some spittle settles at the corner of her lips as she turns the bread over and over in her mouth with her tongue– the liquid sounds of chewing drown out the voices. Should she take another bite or indulge this stranger? Conversation is so risky and the body reveals you even when you take no action. She turns her back on the him to swallow her mouthful, and when she turns around again they are at a bar drinking scum cocktails and slime chasers.

His is not an ugly face but not exactly handsome either–sensitive, hirsute–the eyes protrude earnestly, probably a good lover, which indeed he is–or at least that is her assessment in his bed where she wakes, and its dark–did she finish her sandwich? she can’t remember. Did he break through the bubble membrane or did she? Can’t remember–she feels good and relaxed though. By the time she slips from his bed and closes his door she has forgotten the entire encounter and clawing her way back through the gloop of his building–which, although very damp, has a bit of a sea view and was close to some grass, (which set off her allergies) there might have been something about another date–which she tries to remember as she staggers along the pathway sneezing.

About then, she notices that the wind is picking up, the voices are intoning theatrically edging up in pitch, and the foam mass is shuddering as it does when the wind blows–the wind always blows, she is sure about that. Hers is a smaller and safer droplet space at the centre of the foam. There it comes to her that they had agreed to go swimming and as she thinks of it, she finds herself in a red bikini clinging onto his hairy chest. The waves rise and fall, the water scares her and she can’t remember if she’s been home or the last time she ate or slept, but they are floating close to the top foam layer being cast and pitched around in the swell and she’s squealing–about to be engulfed by the mountainous deluge from a breaker–can’t possibly survive ….shut eyes tight!

but when she opens them again it is in his bubble, in his bed and they are rising and falling with sound of the wind which has picked up–and is exciting–their white faces luminescent in the gloom. They are terrified, a kind of wide eyed fear–is it fear? It’s always fear–their mouths gape–silent screaming-might be the end…?

Dawn again and she’s waking up in her own bed with no idea of how she got here, if ever she left and if the rest was a dream. She is certain only that she has agreed to meet him again for a third or is it fifth time and light is streaming through the roof dome, she turns over in the bed and finds him beside her asking where she has put his shorts.

She wants out–it’s too much, he’s been trying to win her over by being extra kind, by feeding her and offering gifts and tender caresses. She finds it disconcerting that he has a cast in one of his eyes that means the pupil slides off to the left and she can’t be sure of who or what he is looking at. She just doesn’t trust him and she breaks it off as gently as she can. There are tears and slamming doors and the voices rise and rise until the whole community is shouting hysterically and clothes are being thrown out of her bubble. Their high pitched voices are swallowed in the maelstrom. At last alone and in peace, she drifts into a deep sleep.

She wakes to the sound of bells ringing and she is whirling and posing in a beautiful white gown! A Botticelli Venus, beaming beatifically–eyelids lowered making solemn promises to have and to hold until death do them part. She can’t think why that might be significant but as she raises her eyes she finds herself scudding to shore on a wave speeding towards the revolving doors of the hospital with pain coursing through her nethers. A deep breath later and she is swept out on the backwash of departing tide through the same doors but carrying a new-born and he’s shepherding them to a cab. He is bringing them home but she doesn’t recognise the place–it is not her sanctuary.

People in the streets are running for cover and dark shapes swoop from the sky with menace. She has a feeling that she has been here before although he assures her that she’s hallucinating–postpartum blues–but who is he? who is this baby, how did they become the nucleus of her world? Sirens wail, and they are ducking low as they scramble for cover. If this is the future, it’s a joke.

An anxious clamour reverberates all through the foam as a gust sweeps in from the West, followed by another and another. Outside leaden droplets fall from the sky and scatter over the foam mass like automatic gunfire.

The new born wails, settling into a lusty cry which by afternoon becomes a roar dissolving into pitiful snivelling by evening time. All through the night he mimics the sirens outside. Watching him she is astonished at how quickly children grow up.

Persistent popping and the smack of heavy rain drive all three of them to crouch under the shuddering bed, trying to gauge the severity of their situation by the sounds of cataclysm outside. A sudden violent tremor shakes the foamy mass, and like butterflies on a window pane they cascade crashing into the transparent walls, still clinging together–feeling more potent as a family than as individuals, all petrified of being washed away in the flood or blown apart by the wind. And yet, they have become accustomed to their predicament–there is a certain black pleasure in expecting the worst.

In fact, it’s very exciting and they are peeling off their clothes again…but when she opens her eyes she’s clinging to the roof of the dome as far away from him as she can be, Her nails are digging into the membrane stretching it, pushing into it, striving for a break, but no breach comes and thus trapped she becomes enveloped in the cling of the walls. She is bound like an imago with one free eye, rolling erratically in alert surveillance, monitoring him as he gathers crowds around himself–his new connections–all these random others–colonising and spreading subversion. He’s the beleaguered spouse the wronged one, the winner, how did she ever trust him? Now he is pleading with her–explaining, imploring. But she can’t and won’t move, the world feels all wrong and although she is part of it she does not belong in it.

Alone and entombed in the membrane walls she watches as they age, multiply and as iterations of them come and go, each cycle of them more expeditious than the last, each generation blindly making the same mistakes as the last and always the murmuring growing at last, evermore feint. She watches, until the last day when there is nothing, no sound other than the fluttering of the scorched and ossified lashes of her free eye, blinking and straining to see the light flicker through the chinks between worlds and the endless whispering of the wind.

Unbound.info · BOTTACELLI VENUS

The Unbound

BIOGRAPHY

BOTTICELLI VENUS