Losses

Wilfred woke up one morning to a boiling sea of change. This was very disconcerting. He had recently entered the fifty second year of his life, and any damp feeling as he surfaced into the day left him feeling ashamed and inadequate. Even his night sweats disturbed him, perpetuating the anxiety from which they came.

He lay there for a moment before he checked his watch, phone and wallet. For good measure, he gently and unobtrusively patted the mattress around him. The numeracy of his age was often a myth, but occasionally he had a nauseating moment where the weight of those years collapsed against him and filled him with panic and yet more anxiety.

There was no relief. Never relief from the push, push, push of a stress he could not fathom, let alone address. He had dreamt of the most wonderful piss in his entire life and as he became more aware, he was right back at the age of nine and the three times he’d had dreams such as these. To dream of that blessed relief was to relieve one’s self in a perfect slumber that went very bad. The resulting shame of a bed-wetting incident was never something someone could dissuade themselves of. The stench of it was to be wafted through the corridors of a life. There were badges of honour and then there were these eternal scabs.

Reluctantly, he emerged from the bed and he looked back at the hump-backed duvet with dread and some degree of resentment. The latter was all on him. All of it was on him. That was the way of it. His part in the play of life was as one half of a beast of burden. He’d never worked out whether he was the front half or the back half. The one certainty he had was that the other half had failed to turn up. That helped explain the weight he felt pushing him into the muddy rut of life, and also the tragic feeling of absence that dragged itself against his labouring carcass like a cheese grater constructed of wicked shards of glass.

Padding to the loo he did all he could to project love upon the snoring figure under the duvet. He was far from perfect and so he could not expect her to be anything other than imperfect. Before he stepped into the bathroom there was a trumpet chorus from beneath the duvet. Not for the first time, he doubted whether anyone could sleep before the methane burst forth and certainly not during. The snoring ceased. The practicalities of inhaling the malodorous gases necessitated this. Surely she must be awake and aware for this to be the case? The jaded thought that followed this was that he’d probably never ask the question. One of many moments that had passed and in passing, he’d be the villain of the peace to now raise it. He always charted a course for a dead end where he was in the wrong. Turning back from that was becoming increasingly difficult.

His ablutions were swift and efficient. He averted his eyes from the mirror as he cleaned his teeth. He didn’t want his inner voice to challenge him with words such as what are you even doing here? You not we. He barely noticed this distinction, but he lived it. And he had no answer to those questions. He wasn’t even sure how he got here in the first place, and so leaving was an enigma that dwelt in a place beyond his knowing.

Returning to the bedroom, he dressed silently with the lights out. Taking a care as to which floorboards he placed his feet upon. Resentment broiling up as he considered the few alternative mornings where she awoke first and bowled around the bedroom like an errant pinball. The shock and awe of her presence creating strange trauma responses within him and a strangely dressed shame in his even wanting something like a lie-in.

Downstairs in the kitchen, he looked up at the ceiling, beyond which the sleeping form remained. He loved her. This was the purpose and motivation of his life. Without that, he had nothing. Without her, he was nothing. His posture and the beatific look on his face spoke of a love without question.

He began the very careful ritual of his breakfast. He drank water. This was a quiet option. Just as long as he didn’t open the tap too wide. Cereal was his food of choice. Fridge and cupboard doors were held until they caressed their closing positions. Wilfred was a house ninja. No eggshells would be crushed by this man, and very little would mark his passing. He did this because he cared. His caring whispered out into a sound deadened chamber in which no one would ever listen.

Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. If a man pisses into the wind and the wind directs that flow over his trouser leg, does this count? Equal and opposite speaks of win-lose. Yet the best outcomes in life are win-win. Poor Wilfred was carefully placing his sock-clad feet on a lose-lose hamster-wheel in the pursuit of a loving win-win that just was not possible.

An hour and a half later there was a cacophony of noise that announced the arrival of Lisa into the day. Wilfred winced at the punishment the bed and the floorboards received for the impertinence of greeting Lisa’s state of consciousness. He had never ceased to marvel at the brutality of her movements. Somehow, they did not accord with the woman he loved. He grit his teeth and tried to think happy thoughts as he worked on the spreadsheet before him. Still his bones jangled and his anxious teeth fizzed.

An hour or so after this, Lisa stormed into the kitchen on a mission that could not accord with the time she’d taken to get ready and be in this room. She accelerated through the door and disturbed Wilfred as he talked to a colleague about a complex matter that needed to be figured out, bottomed and closed as a matter of urgency. Lisa’s sheer physicality was distracting even before she slammed the tap open to a boisterous stream, filled a kettle that roared like a jet engine as it heated the water, and rigorously threatened cupboard doors and drawers with deconstruction in a hunt for an elusive and very likely non-existent item. 

As she left the kitchen, a shaking and drooling Wilfred surveyed the dirty protest Lisa had created, and nursed yet another episode of PTSD. Two rooms down, she began a phone conversation that did not require a phone. The window panes shook in their frames and Wilfred’s eyes were no longer able to focus. 

And so the cycle of domestic bliss continued, as it had for any number of years prior to this. And was destined to continue for ever more. Life however has a habit of putting a stick in the spokes of the wheel. Or sticking its foot out to trip the proceedings up. Life can never be accused of being boring, and if ever someone utters such an accusation, life will severely fuck them up, and make no mistake. Tempting providence is grievously suicidal.

The stick in the wheel of Wilfred’s life was Lisa. This was very unfortunate indeed. Especially as, as far as Wilfred was concerned, Lisa was his life. There was a circle of sorts here. A snake eating its own tail. An assortment of interesting trinkets at a festival that get bought and then put in a draw to be forgotten. So often, what presents itself is not the point. You can draw as many circles as you like with the efforts of your life, but if the person you’re drawing them for doesn’t give a shit, then you are in the first analysis an idiot, and so by the final analysis you are a foolish wreckage of something that used to be a human being.

This hungry serpent would have been bad enough. To co-exist with someone who does not care is a sad and lonely existence, but at least there is still a flame of humanity to warm yourself by. Lisa’s flame had been hidden away a long time ago. This was not a simple case of her not caring. She’d gone way beyond caring well before she ever met Wilfred. Lisa had made of herself a spider and those around her were flies. She despised people so much, all she heard was the annoying buzz of their existence, and she longed to entrap them in the web of her lies and manipulate them around and around until they could no longer move, or speak or do anything whatsoever to encroach upon her. And then she would feed. Only she fed throughout. Ever hurt. Every humiliation. Every infliction of pain. That was her reason for being, to take life-force, and it was highly addictive. 

For now, Wilfred would do. She sat and observed him and wondered at his blunt stupidity. Not once did he get, see or wonder at the game she played with him. All she had to do was say a few words that contained a shadow of a promise and his eyes would enlarge and he would pant like a faithful dog. Lisa hated dogs. The feeling was not mutual. Dogs are not capable of hate. No creature other than humans are. Dogs amplify and return love and that is all they are capable of. Few beings are as close to perfection in this respect as dogs are. We will not talk of cats. That is a story for another time. 

If only Lisa had considered Wilfred in the same way she did dogs. That would have gone far better for him. If only there had been an obvious physical difference between them that would have made their dysfunctional union apparent. But this was not so. They were on the face of it a couple. A couple of people. And so they lumbered through life unnoticed and unremarked. 

Besides, who looks out for one human feeding upon another? Vampires don’t exist, and parasites are tiny and wee. They are not five foot seven, bold as brass, and prone to bouts of intense cross-stitching. 

Monsters don’t exist.

We’re supposed to grow out of that notion, having lived with the monster under our bed throughout our childhood. So when the monster lays in bed with her back to Wilfred night after night, he projects her with all the love he can muster and makes of her his wife. Every twitch of her mouth is a smile. Every moment she is in his presence carries with it a loving meaning. Wilfred constantly scans for love and squeezes love out of every pore imaginable. He is as totally invested in Lisa as it is possible to be.

Why?

The Gap.

Lisa was a promise of something more, and never anything other than that. She used the bait of the promise and hooked Wilfred. He’s been chasing the promise ever since. The chase is not linear. It is cyclical. There is a familiarity in it for both of them. A comfort, almost. He is Jack Spratt and he is getting leaner all the time. Her waist line expands as she takes from him again and again. This is a hypnotically parasitic merry-go-round and Wilfred doesn’t want to get off. Even when he sees it for what it is. Even when he feels the pain so acutely he can no longer see straight, his body thrums with the trauma, and there’s an accusatory roar in his ears that goads him into breaking free of this tyranny.

It's not Lisa’s tyranny. Not really. She’s just as much a victim. Or she was. That’s the conundrum. The puzzle dripping with fresh blood. How can she still be a victim, if she’s victimising Wilfred? All Wilfred can see is the brokenness of Lisa, and his heart goes out to her and as it leaves his body she grabs a hold of it and squeezes it until the blood oozes out. She doesn’t feed on the blood itself, she’s interested in far better than that. It’s Wilfred’s life-energy that she hungers for. She’s addicted to it. She eschewed life long ago. Hates it with a vengeance. Her revenge is to take the life of the one person she professes to love. She has no other loves, not even herself. She talks a good game, but her real game is a twisted dance of death.

Wilfred knows. His instincts scream out to him, and the pain he experiences cannot be ignored. But Lisa issues forth a siren call, raises arms criss-crossed with self-inflicted wounds and beseeches Wilfred to save her once more.

Fix me!

Help me!

Who could ignore a damsel in distress? Especially a bloodied and broken damsel with the promise of new growth. The potential to flourish in the soil of nurturing love.

Wilfred goes again and again, and Lisa only ever takes. She has only ever taken, whilst weaving an illusory narrative of a better life that lies beyond the veil of Wilfred’s short-comings and inadequacies. 

And come what may, Wilfred is who he is. He gives all he can. This is all he knows. He follows the example of his folks and his grandparents. They were together through thick and thin. Together forever. He stays the course. There is no alternative. It’s what you do if you love someone. What else is there? Life without the woman you love is no life at all.

Wilfred’s denial of the reality that lies before him. That lies in the bed beside him. That is his complicity in the loss of everything. He trudges through this casual meatgrinder of incremental domestic abuse refusing to believe that Lisa would do this to him. That anyone is capable of such cold brutality.

He had a son once. Still does. But his son won’t see him anymore. He ceased his fortnightly visits because he felt angry and confused. Wilfred cautioned him again and again. Challenging his boy. Pointing out that there was no cause for anger against his old man. Wilfred was half right. But the other half was what did the damage. That half wondered why Wilfred presided over an unjust and chaotic state of affairs that left his son hurt and angry. That half wanted Wilfred to fix it so there was still a childhood to be had.

Wilfred was blinded by love that could never be love as his son limped away in a hurt and confused state. Lisa never lifted a finger. But she was still there. Constant in her presence and dominion over Wilfred and his life. Wilfred mistook this for her being there for him when his presence was only ever a convenience. 

Lisa’s all about immediacy. If she can see it, touch it or taste it, then that is all to the good. It’s a wonder that she has the wherewithal to plan a meal and buy the ingredients, such is her urge for instant gratification. No past. No future. Nothing else matters. She barely noted the passing of Wilfred’s son other than with a muted celebration of another encumbrance removed.

Wilfred battled on. Befuddled by his son’s exile. He laboured with the question of his wrong-doing and fought with his indignation at the injustice of it all, pushing himself further from the prospect of a safe harbour. All the while Lisa smiled and licked her lips, feeding on the misery she so easily generated from her presence alone.

And so it went. A gentle tumble-dryer of abuse that drew the very essence of Wilfred from him with every roll of the drum. He kept going with it. Less and less likely to break out through the glass door of the fantasy he was trapped in, as his strength and wherewithal dissipated. Mistakenly blaming himself for his inadequacies and flaws. Never once questioning anything else, let alone the succubus who was beyond reproach.

The few times he’d spoken out. The moments he’d wondered what was going so wrong. He’d been met with a conviction that could not be turned to one side. Lisa had reared up before him, her scales shimmering in the half light, and she’d snorted fire from her flared nostrils. Wilfred had wilted in the shadow of her heat, and now he lay deflated and broken.

Soon, she would do the one thing Wilfred never thought possible. She’d leave. He had found a broken woman at the side of the road and he’d reached out and helped her to her feet. 

She’d promised him the world. 

She then took the world from him.

As he lays at the side of the road and watches her saunter away with the confidence and swagger of a predator, he doesn’t understand what he is seeing. All he sees is loss. He thinks he’s losing her, but he never knew her. She wasn’t there. She was never there. He’s seeing the reflection of his loss. A dread emptiness. He’s lost everything. She has taken everything that it is possible to take from him, and no one is going to offer him a hand and help him up. There’s nothing to offer a hand to. He is paper thin and receding further as she abandons him. The breeze sighs a lament and he is gone.

Lisa doesn’t look back. Immediacy is all. She settles by the roadside a little further up, musses her hair and sits down in a position that is just so. She takes a moment, but just a moment. Her next victim will be passing by shortly. She never has to wait long. Never has to do much of anything. Seduction’s another lie. They come willingly and they give of themselves freely. Why wouldn’t she drink deeply of the flies that land on her web?