Notice for a stranger

I’m so sorry about your pets, but…

I still have doubts about what you told me - about how you were once someone else, but you put yourself into a spin dryer at the laundrette, and flattened yourself with the centrifuge, and then emerged, staggering back to your flat like a broken ironing board. You were medically dead but flexible, and with a personality. 

As time passed, you grew outwards into a more human shape, but not your old one. A different shape, a bit taller, a bit more glossy. You told me you never sought the advice of a doctor, even when you were unable to breathe because of your crushed lungs. You were not truly dead, you assured me, but just medically so. You told me that your soul was in a state of attendance. Waiting to grow back into something rapturous and dazzling.  

Your personality was golden, you assured me, to begin with. Almost like a prophet or some kind of national hero in those early days, when you did not breathe, or lick your lips. But then, as you gained a more expected shape, you became less charismatic. What were once grand convictions, now were pocked with doubt. The result was that you were capable of moments of great confidence, which would call the attention and wonderment of anyone you were near, but it would suddenly evaporate at the exact wrong moment. Climaxes became sorrowful. Great speeches turned to mumbled apologies and self-effacement.

You learned to live with it. You learned to not get yourself into situations that would end in disappointment. You said you did not plan to come to the village. You said you had just wanted to go to the pet shop, but then each time you arrived at a pet shop, you decided to keep walking until you arrived at the next one. At the next one, something would push you onwards. Always onwards towards the next pet shop.

Before long, you were in the mist. You were facing the figures in the mist, conversing with them, as they tried to turn you back. You told them the story of your time with flattened organs, and cheeks slumped over your eyes, and they relented, took care of you, watched over your journey. 

You had been here a year when I met you by chance at the bend in the road. We were crossing at the same moment, both in the same direction - away from the shop, towards the park, and as we crossed, we both heard a sound. We went to investigate the sound, which was coming from the bushes by the park side of the road.

We searched and kicked the scrub but soon concluded that the source of the sound, whatever it had been, was gone. It could have been a fox or a badger, you said. I told you you were probably right, even though it was a tiny bit of scrub and there was no possible way a badger or a fox was in there, ignoring all our kicks and racket.

With the noise gone, we started making small talk. I told you about my attempts to listen to only the breeze and shut out all other sounds. Then you began talking, and did not stop. After about ten minutes you had told me all about your flattening in the laundrette and all the subsequent events, and your emotions. I said I believed you, but I was really undecided. Something about you made it seem false or exaggerated. It didn’t matter though. Who cares?

I held your hands while you talked because you were shaking so much. At times you lost your rhythm but were desperately trying to get to the end of the story, so I held both your hands.

You welled up several times as you described how you passed those animals in the pet shops, and imagined a life with each and every one of them. You saw yourself in a blue living room, hanging out with a mouse. You saw a park and you were wearing a huge and delicious hat with your heartbreak-greyhound. You imagined several warm cats in a bungalow with you, all purring and getting fucked off with each other and the heat of the day. 

I held your hands and I watched you cry, and I loved you for a sweet moment, but I’m sorry -

I did not believe a word you were saying.