The shower gel reads Feel alive

The shower gel reads Feel Alive

I’m dreaming. I’m walking on a sidewalk the sky is grey, and the air around me is bitterly cold. The pavement and the monolithic skyscrapers are all grey. Even my coat and clothes. I’m standing behind myself quietly observing and pondering the difference between existence and life. Is there one? More and more I find myself simply watching my existence play out before me. I have no more control over it than a couch potato watching their favourite sitcom. My consciousness has somehow faded out from the shell I call a body and has been reduced to a voyeur. A peeping Tom. My body is no longer mine, but it still looks and acts like me. One blink and I’m somewhere else, somewhere I don’t want to be. A place I told myself long ago I’d quit yet I still watch my walking corpse drag itself through its door day in and day out. 

The shower gel reads, Feel Alive. I stare at it while hot water spills onto my back. They must know how it is if they make a product that supposedly makes you feel alive. I’m back in my skin now, my hand feels like an ill-fitting glove as I watch droplets of water fall into the basin below my feet. I feel cold despite the heat. Am I alive or am I just existing? What does it take to Feel Alive? 

I enter my living room, on the wall is a long mirror. As I walk in I stop and tilt my head to see my reflection staring back at me Alive. The reflection is repeated many times, an infinite number of me’s are staring back all with the same blank gaze and pale skin. I look into the reflections until my own perception begins to warp, I feel a wave of gyration flow through me and it continues for a while, it's as if I am falling into the mirror and seeing all the different versions of me fly by the expression the same, blank. Now I’m in bed. The room like the night sky is dark, but unlike our sky, there isn’t a light. I stare into the darkness, at the ceiling my mind blank. After a while, I snap out of it, and I begin to ask myself Why am I here? What is real? Am I real?  “I don’t know,” I whisper to myself.

I’m on that same damn street again. Walking and walking until I come to an alley. There's what I think is a man sitting on the corner of the mouth of the alleyway, but it's hard to tell. I walk closer and look down and realise the thing is transparent. The outline seems like that of a man but I cannot see him. The transparent man begins to move, the outline of a head is looking directly at me, the being seems to be radiating freezing cold air making my breath turn into visible vapour. The being begins to raise what I assume is an arm. An arm that is trembling and beginning to fall down under its own weight. The wind moans, “help me”. Then the arm drops and the see-through man disappears fully. The hairs on my arms are prickling my mouth is agape, I stand there for a few moments in shock and disbelief. A bout of hysteria washes over me and I turn suddenly to see the usual hustle and bustle rushing past eyes forward (or down). I try to gather some attention, “Hey! Help. I think someone is hurt.” They all continue past unimpeded I try walking in front of one but she continues through me. I turn more frightened than ever. I look at my hand and it's no longer there. 

I ran home as fast as my legs could take me. Running through the crowds was easy because I just passed right through them. I got to the long silver snake that carries meat from one cold place to another. The conductor didn’t even ask me for a ticket, usually, they were more concerned by what their precious steel serpents consumed. I got back to my apartment covered in sticky sweat. I twisted the shower taps as hard as I could and threw myself down still in my clothes. I raised my right arm and tried to find my hand but it was gone, not even an outline. I poke at the air with my finger and feel nothing, even the water passes through, and then the phone rings. It’s much harder to walk in soaking clothes but the weight was oddly comforting, it made me feel real. As I squelched along like a wet astronaut I stop at my living room entrance, the room is upside down. I walk in slowly staring at where my ceiling used to be and where my front room now is. The furniture looks as if it was nailed down, none of it moved or swayed in any way. I look down and saw my light dangling upwards it too seeming unaffected by the change. The sound of the phone pierces through the uncanniness and I waddle over to it. I look straight up and there it is. I reach for it but it’s just a little too far out of my reach, my fingertips that were left only brushed the yellowed white plastic. I tried to jump but the clothes are weighing me down like cinderblocks around a corpse's ankles. After a couple more failed attempts, I begin to feel frustrated and began shouting, screaming and cursing. The phone will not stop ringing! After more jumping and cursing My upstairs or maybe downstairs neighbour began to stomp, “Shut up!” I turn to the spot where I thought they were and on instinct screamed back, “You shut up you old bag!” There was no response. I began to strip off my clothes until I was left in my soaked soaks and underpants, with the burden lifted I could now jump much higher and on the fourth attempt I manage to pull down the receiver, it dangles in the air above me and I can hear the voice on the other side. “Employee 9834200 why are you not present for work?” Bastards, quick to come after me but always so slow to answer, I wonder if they even know my name? “I’m not feeling well,” I say loudly.

“Speak up.” The crackly words were spoken in an uncomfortable authoritative tone, the type that says “I own you”. “I’m not feeling wel-”

“Hello? Is anyone there?” 

I begin to shout, “I said I am-” 

“There must be a problem with the connection. If you can hear me 9834200, come in ASAP.”

The line goes dead. I am standing there still staring at the receiver dumbfounded. He couldn't hear me. I shake it off and thought about my mother I have to call her, she can help me. I jumped with my finger outstretched hitting each number one leap at a time. The first time it went to voicemail, desperate and on the verge of tears I tried again… and she answered. “Hello?” 

“Mum it’s me, I need your help!” 

“Hello is anybody there?” 

“Mum, it's me, Carl, can’t you hear me neither?”

“Carl? Is that you?”

A reassured smile creeps along my face, I’m not alone! 

“Mum, somethings wrong my hand is gone! I saw a ghost he must have done this to me infected me or something. And… And I just don’t know what to believe anymore I must be going mad! Please say something, come over, do something!” By the end of my sentence, I began to break down and cry.

“Carl? Where you gone?”

My heart sank, my chest began to hurt my throat became blocked, and I feel sick. More than ever I wish I was only a viewer again. I lower my head in defeat, it feels like I’m shutting down. “I love you, mum.” The words crawled out of my throat.

“Love you too, I gotta go, Carl, I’m working lates. Bye.”

She hung up. I am truly alone. I went to wipe my eyes when I noticed there were no tears… Or eyes. I run to my mirror and the reflection horrifies me. My face is gone. All of it. It’s a gaping hole. I lift my left hand and right stump and try to touch it, but I couldn’t feel anything my hand goes right through the transparent crater. If my face were still there it would not be the usual blank lifeless gaze but one of utter terror and melancholy. I turn and run in fear for my bedroom I barge through the door, slam it and collapse onto my bed in the foetal position and begin to cry tearlessly.  

I awake in bitter darkness. For a moment I thought I was blind and ran to my curtains and threw them open, the dim streetlamps are a pleasant sight. Although they’re faint the warm light reflects well off my grey curtains and for a moment I feel sweet nothing, I feel safe. The distant woosh of cars and the hum of the wind are euphonious. The cold finally starts to sweep in and I shuddered. I look at my reflection in the window and see my door through my missing face. I creep towards the door and slowly peel it open, my apartment had changed yet again. The hallway is now sideways, the front door is above me and impossible to reach. The only room I could get to now is the living room and I can see it too had moved by 90 degrees. I shudder and steadily push the door closed as silently as possible. I lay awake until dawn. 

All through the night I watched my left foot slowly fade from existence. I didn’t really care, I just looked unmoving as the foot of my bed became visible through my own foot. When it finally vanished I thought of the man in the street, the man I was slowly becoming. It both worried me and comforted me, that I would end up like him but at the same time, I am not alone. I wondered how many people had this happened to? How many were disappearing now? Maybe when the world forgets you it swallows you? I laughed a little, maybe I’m just crazy, maybe this is all in my head. No one else has seemed to notice. When the pale sunlight began to shine I went into autopilot.

 I get dressed and ready for work. I open my door and saw everything was upside down again. I hop on the bumpy ceiling and clamber out of my front door when I got outside the tall brutalist building which contained my home, I look up at the sun and stare at it, I don’t know why maybe I am hoping it will explode. I blink now I’m in the belly of the train staring at the sun from its window, another blink and I am on that familiar sidewalk. I hobble and hop along until I arrive at that alley again, the spot is still empty. I bring myself against the dusty red-bricked wall and place my back against it and squat down, I want something to mark the place, maybe leave a beacon for someone else or hope that one of these busy drones finally notices something amiss. Or maybe I just want to leave my own mark out of spite. I find some type of flat sharp stone, I hold it in my left hand and shimmy upwards using my back as support. I lean my right shoulder against the bricks and draw an outline of the man that was sitting there alone and invisible. I scratched the floor making lines for his legs too. When I was done I write on the wall above it, There was someone here. Feeling faint I slowly drift down onto the floor. My body fits the outlines almost perfectly. I began to grow fainter and fainter and my body begins to follow suit, I am finally fading away. The stone drops from my hand because there is no longer one left to hold it. The odd thing is I feel happy for once. It’s all over, I can finally rest. No one looks at me as I dissipate. Not even a side glance. The world keeps on turning, the sun didn’t explode but I bet work will be calling me soon. The other man must have felt the same. Maybe there are others out there that share my fate, but I will never hear from them, they’ve either already disappeared or are unable to be seen in the first place. I am not alone, in my fate, but I am alone in my death. I wonder if anyone will see the outline. How could they when they can only look forward or down? We are doomed.    

When I opened my eyes I could see myself. An infinite number of myself. We are all looking at the one that's outside the one in control. He had turned his head to the side and was staring straight at us. We did the same. I used to think. Now I just do what I’m told. I watch a stranger in my skin living life for me. Reality no longer means anything. My life is no longer my own. I now only exist.