Until it’s Gone

It starts at the railway station with the cathedral high glass ceilings, wide marble concourse and constantly updating digital destination boards. A silence so abrupt I freeze like a rock in a zen garden, people tracing wave like tracks around me. They blur and zoom. The silence robs them of their humanity and they become meaningless orange blobs. 

One looms closer, features coalescing. A woman, her hazy lips moving, her head tilted to the side. She looks worried. Then something, like a distant train, no, a distant underwater burble of sound. Her words are indistinct, like next door’s TV. Her hand reaches for my shoulder.

The bubble bursts and sound roars back: the echoing announcements, the footsteps, the conversations, the ring tones, the creak and whine of departing trains.

‘Are you alright, madam?’

She’s staff, her blue uniform and name badge, Katie Parr, Customer Service.

‘Sorry,’ I say, shaking off my fuzziness. ‘Rough day at the office.’

Actually, it’s a rough day heaped upon more rough days, adding up to a mountain of rough years.

***

Next, it’s dark outside. I’m the only one left in the office. But I’m the boss, right? If I don’t squeeze something out of our dwindling income, the staff, who leave on the dot because they’re not paid to care, won’t get their annual pay rises. 

I heated up my favourite late night comfort food: pea and mint soup. Takeaway and in a cardboard tub but always delicious. Then I got distracted. It’s lukewarm when I take a sip. I roll a silky cool blob around my mouth and get nothing, even when I swallow. I examine the floating peas and dark flecks of mint. There should be something. I lean down and take a deep sniff. Nothing. I fish a single pea out, split it between my teeth, and chew. Soft and squishy, with a rough skin but no taste.

Christ, do I have Covid? 

The kitchen has a bag of freshly ground coffee, so I take a deep sniff. Usually, the smell brings warmth and intoxicating expectation. I breathe in so hard I make myself dizzy. Not a single molecule of scent stimulates my nostrils. 

But later the Covid test comes back negative.

***

I’d forgotten the last two events when I’m slumped on my couch, theoretically binge watching, but my mind is flickering over the latest staff complaint. I don’t work hard enough. I don’t pay them any attention. I’m being fiscally irresponsible. I should spend more time in the office. They neither know nor care how hard I work. Unlike them, I spend every waking moment strategising, problem solving and trying to improve things.

My cat is curled up on my lap, purring gently. At least she loves me in the least complicated way. I stroke her, expecting warm, fluffy fur. Instead, there’s numbness, no feedback, no sense of pressure, zero sensation. 

I realise my back, in an unhealthy curl, has lost its ache. I wiggle from side to side but can’t feel the rough weave of the couch. Panic swirls like a gathering tornado. I lurch upright and slam my feet onto the floor. It’s a double case of numbing pins and needles. I don’t think I can even stand. I pinch myself and slap my face. No texture of skin, no sensation of pain. 

Is it a stroke? Am I dying?

***

I’m delivering the annual report standing before a glowing screen filled with graphs detailing income in a basement auditorium. I’ve been dreading this. As expected, the trustees look unimpressed. They’re frustrating because this is the only time of year they care about our financial situation. 

All the same, I’m only paying the presentation half my attention. My medical tests came back clear, so they have referred me to a psychologist. She’s leaning towards a stress diagnosis. It’s probably a default. 

I finish talking about the budget and look to the chair. She’s glaring at me and I’m about to ask if she has any comment when the room goes dark.

‘Oh, probably a power failure,’ I say and get silence. I grope towards the lectern and my fingertips bump into the satin smooth wood. Then I pat across papers until I find my phone. ‘Just a moment.’ 

I click it on. There’s no glowing screen.

‘What are you doing?’ the chair asks, and she sounds close.

‘Isn’t it a power failure?’ I say but with less confidence.

‘What are you talking about? The lights are all on.’

Nauseous fear coils up from the pit of my stomach. This can’t be, can it?

‘Did it really not go dark?’

A susurration fills the hall. Somebody takes my arm and leads me off the stage, murmuring soothing words I don’t have the bandwidth to hear. Meeting adjourned.

***

I’m lying inside one of those sensory deprivation tanks. My shrink’s idea. She’s done hypnosis and cognitive behavioural therapy and dug into my past and my present. I resisted. 

So here I am, lying in pitch blackness in a tank of saline water set to body temperature, my ears blocked so there’s no sound. It’s like floating in the void.

‘Your body has been talking to you, but you haven’t been listening,’ my psychologist had said. ‘Maybe you should try shutting everything down. Let go of everything and work out what you need.’ 

Woo woo bullshit, but absolute peace and quiet, mental and physical rest is appealing. 

Only the quiet amplifies my thoughts. The lack of stimulation erases all distractions. I see and hear my tormentors, nitpicking, backstabbing and wearing me down with a drip, drip, drip of criticism. 

I can’t keep going. I want to bang on the tank to get out. But I can’t move. It isn’t the tank, or the hard work, the constant meddling and the overwhelming hours that’s getting in my way. 

If I believed in what I was doing it would be a joyful challenge, not a life-threatening drain. This isn’t the life I want. No matter what comes next, this job has to go. 

The revelation fills my chest with warmth that radiates to the tips of my fingers and toes. A triumphant trumpet chord wells up, and light explodes in the tank like a supernova as tears of relief flood down the side of my face.